Fallout Equestria: S.T.A.L.K.E.R

by aegishailstorm

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Derpy Hooves, Violence, Crossover, Zebra, Death, Human, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Original Character
Length: 259858

Most fear that which they cannot comprehend, whereas a Stalker must figure out a way to make a career out of it.

No one was prepared for the second Chernobyl disaster.

The first one was already bad enough, scaring and poisoning the land with no possibility of future habitation. The second one was infinitely worse. In an instant, the ancient Ukrainian forests and decaying Soviet apartment blocks were made into something wholly other. Local wildlife was twisted and mutated beyond recognition, none residing within the Exclusion Zone at the time survived. A new unseen force moved throughout the landscape, twisting reality on a whim. And still, there are those either brave, stupid, or desperate enough to travel into this forsaken place. Their ideologies vary greatly, some seek to understand the Zone. Others seek to destroy it in order to protect the outside world. And others seek simply to profit off of it.

Regardless of their goals, they all go by the same broad term.

Stalkers.

One such Stalker, a man by the name of Nikolai, suddenly finds himself thrown into an entirely different kind of Zone. One that you cannot escape from, and with a completely different set of hazards than the one he is used to.

The Equestrian Wasteland.

Published 2022-12-28 03:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2025-02-08 16:41:04 UTC

Chapter 2: Shotgun Boogie

Chapter 2: Shotgun Boogie

Nikolai's radio had somehow crackled to life in spite of the fact that he had turned it off just a few minutes ago. Under normal circumstances he'd enjoy the background music that it provided. However, it was certainty not helping now. He did his best to ignore it, and hopped that the others didn't mind it.

"Listen, friend, I don't know what you want. But if you just took a few minutes to think this over, I think you would realize that a gunfight here would not be... How do you say, 'very healthy' for you." Nikolai reasoned.

"Shut up and put your weapons down!" The pony screamed, his speech muddled by the shotgun in his mouth. Nikolai found it's placement ingenious.

"The buck we will!" One of the ponies beside the cart responded.

Nikolai kept his attention directed towards the one trying to rob them. After a moment of thought he decided to try his hand at negotiation.

"I was just walking, minding my business. I do not bargain with Xуліган unless they have a good reason to be doing what they are doing. Please find your self another line of work which is less likely to result in your body springing unwanted leaks."

The pony frowned, and the shotgun moved slightly. There was a loud 'thump' and a volley of pellets crashed into the asphalt beside Nikolai, causing him to jump away. Luckily, his cheap electronic hearing protection saved his hearing. It sounded roughly equal to a twelve gauge. He wasn't going to let him empty the other tube.

Nikolai raised his AK 101 and took the safety off.

"Next time I won't miss-"

There was a suppressed crack, and an FMJ round flew through the equines head and out the back with a sharp, wet crackle. He dropped to the ground, and the shotgun fell with him in a horrific scene of blood and gore. Nikolai turned back to the caravan, who appeared unfazed by what had just happened. He calmly raised the selector lever back to 'safe' and cleared his throat.

"I am sorry for that, does this happen to you often?”

Another pony stepped out from behind the rest. From the creature’s stature and voice, Nikolai took her to be a female. "No, no it doesn't. But thanks' for the assistance. The Redtrotters usually keep this section of Route 52 clear." She had a midwestern American accent. Wholly unexpected by The Stalker who, only just moments ago, had been screamed at in Russian. Nikolai blinked under his mask. He was eying the dead body across the road.

"Who are these Redtrotters you speak of?"

The female creature laughed . "Ah, ya don't look like you're from around here."

Nikolai nodded in affirmation. ”Da, that is true. I hail from a place which I… Assume is quite far from here. But back again, to my question, who are they?"

"Oh, just a mercenary group that runs these parts. Shouldn't give ya any trouble as long as you don't act like him." The mare pointed to the corpse on the other side of the road. Nikolai nodded.

"Seems sound enough. But tell me, have you ever heard the proverb, 'trust but verify'?" She shook her head.

"No, but that does sound like good advice."

Nikolai slung his rifle over his shoulder and headed over to the body. "Eyin' somthin' over there?" The lead stallion asked him.

"Yes I am." He replied.

"Well good for you. We've got deliveries to make all the way out in Hoofington, won't keep you any longer." The pony pulling the cart waved, and they were off. Nikolai waved back to them.

"Be seeing you!" There was no response.

“Hoofington! What an ingenious pun! It's quite fitting. Now, what do we have here?" He reached down and picked up the shotgun. It's grip and trigger assembly were like nothing he'd ever seen before. Rather than curving slightly like a typical double barrel shotgun grip, this one made a 90 degree angle turn off to the right side of the weapon, with a massive trigger and trigger guard. Given that the pony had held it in his mouth, he could put two and two together easily enough.

"Pretty impressive for something that doesn't have hands." Nikolai murmured. He broke the action open and popped the unspent round in his pocket without thinking. As for the spent one, he pulled it from the action and examined it. It was twelve gauge, sure enough. But what he didn't recognize was the manufacturer.

"Ironshod."

He shrugged it off, but took it anyway. He unzipped his rucksack and stuck the shotgun inside it. It was in fairly poor condition, but it might still prove useful down the line. As for the other stuff, he found five shiny bottlecaps, a half dozen more shotgun shells on a bandolier, and a hammer. All of which he stuffed into his pack, figuring they'd be of some use or potential worth later. Nikolai didn't worry about the weight of his pack hindering his movement yet, he'd dealt with more than twice this weight in his pack before. After that he backed away and looked on towards the city.

"That place looks weirdly inviting. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more information there." He looked down the road for the caravan, but found no sign of them.

"Oh well, I was hopping to ask them about a few things. But I suppose it's nothing I cannot figure out on my own." He looked up at the overcast sky, which hadn't changed since he arrived. "Eh... With time?" He shook his head and began making his way down the highway.

"Halt! Who goes there!?"

Nikolai had made it about 1 kilometer from where he had encountered the bandit and caravan when he came across another sign of life. The voice seemed to come from an overpass about 10 meters above him. He could see the improvised wall which surrounded the city. In the distance, he could see more equine shapes moving around.

"Hello there, are you those Redtrotters that those merchants mentioned?" He looked around, and began to slowly sidestep towards the cover of a rusted over car which was laying parallel to the overpass.

"Yes... Who's asking?" The voice called back, sounding slightly annoyed. Nikolai finally made it to the car and crouched down behind what he took to be the engine block.

"I am searching for answers. I was hoping that this Salt Cube city of yours might provide some." He brought his rifle up to a low ready and scanned the area.

"Do you have a pass?" Nikolai groaned out of sudden exasperation. "No, no I do not. I was not aware I needed one."

"Then why are you hiding?" The voice asked.

"Usually when this sort of thing happens to me, it's the prelude to an ambush. I have no quarrel with you, whoever you are. I will not make any trouble for you if you allow me to pass. " He heard rustling, and something that sounded like the racking of a shotgun. He kept his gun up, ready for the worst.

Then the voice called back. "Ugh, fine! This is the second time today that this has happened. But you sound plenty trustworthy, I'll toss a pass down to you. " He saw something fall from the overpass. It looked like a cowbell. He left his cover and rushed over to the object, he picked it up and looked it over. It was indeed a cow bell, only the part that made it ring had been removed and the outside had been spray-painted red. He took it and held it up.

"Thank you for the assistance my friends!" He cried, waving up at the overpass.

"We aren't your friends, now go before we change our minds!" Nikolai grimaced and hurried off towards the city.

The highway continued southwards, away from the city, Nikolai took the off ramp towards the wall of scrap metal and old cars which surrounded the city's entrance, the entrance itself was a simple barricade made from sandbags. Nikolai held up the pass, and one of the armored guard ponies nodded, waving him though with a hoof. He wasn't the only one seeking entrance into the city. There was a whole line of carts and ponies waiting for their chance to enter the little safe haven of civilization. He came to a little guard shack, there sat a pony typing away at a resister, he looked up at Nikolai and his eyes widened. Nikolai noticed that this one looked a little different. A horn protruded from the top of it's head. " A unicorn, fascinating!" He slung his AK 101 over his shoulder and walked off into the city. The unicorn sighed and went back to his work.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Nikolai looked around. As he crossed the border into the city, he heard his PDA beep. He pulled it out and swapped it to the map function. Back on Earth it used a combination of GPS data and online maps to paint a clear picture of the region around the user. Obviously, he wasn't going to be getting an internet connection here and he seriously doubted that the GPS would work either. However, the integral compass could still mark points relative to the distance between the last. He clicked on the mark on the map and named it, "Salt Cube City."

"So, what's your business here in Salt Cube City?" A voice asked below him. Nikolai shut his PDA off and stuffed it back into his pocket. Then looked down and found himself staring at yet another armored pony, a unicorn, just like the last one.

"What's your business in Salt Cube city?" Another asked behind a visor. Nikolai shrugged.

"I don't really know, I suppose I'm looking for…answers?”

"To what kind of questions?" The guard pressed.

Nikolai to him the honest truth." Where am I, how did I get here, and why is everything in such a state of disrepair?"

"Well, you've just entered Salt Cube City-" Nikolai interrupted the guard as he kicked a rock with his boot.

"Yes! Yes! I know that, but where!? Where is this City located?" The guard raised a hoof, "I'm gonna take a guess and say that you're not from around here. You're in Equestria, and the reason everything looks so post-apocalyptic is because it is! About two centuries ago, there was a giant war that wiped out most of ponykind. This city is actually a lot better off then most, the only megaspell that hit this place was absorbed by the salt cube over in the dome. That place is heavily irradiated, I'd stay away from it if I was you." The guard took a second look at Nikolai, "although judging by the way you're dressed I'd reckon that that probably isn't much of a concern for you."

"You see, I do not like the cancer. And radiation poisoning is not very fun." Nikolai chuckled as he rubbed his forehead. The guard pointed down the road.

"There's a trading hub just down the road, biggest one for miles around. Look for the tent marked 'Absolutely Everything'. They oughta have what you need."

Nikolai gave him a thumbs up and continued down the road. Leaving the pony wondering what the figure the creature had just made with his appendage meant.

"This place is fascinating!" Nikolai muttered as he walked deeper into the city. To either side of him were rows upon rows of abandoned shops, most were boarded up. And he figured that they were all picked clean anyway. He was in the mood for some music, but ironically, when he tuned through the channels, all he found was static.

"Blyat! So now you do not want to work? Oh but of course you have no trouble making things awkward when I'm being robbed! Stupid thing, if you were a rabid cобака I would have no trouble beating you senseless with a broomstick!"

Chapter 3: Absolutely Something

Chapter 3: Absolutely Something

After a brisk walk through the downtown portion of Salt Cube City, Nikolai finally came to what he assumed was the open air market that the guard had told him about on the way in.

All manner of shops littered the square, but he noticed that four skyscrapers at the center of the city were still standing and intact. Something Nikolai found odd, considering that the majority of the buildings in the region were either collapsed wrecks or in utter shambles and, from his assumption, uninhabitable.

"I don't want to set the world on fire!" A voice cried in a musical tone. Nikolai jumped and reached for his sidearm. He turned and came face to face with a flying metal sphere, it's front was comprised of a grate and it was covered in metal spikes, with a pair of odd mechanical wings sticking out of either side of it.

"Oh, it is just a flying radio transmitter.” He mulled over his assessment for a very short time before expressing his amazement.

“Fascinating! I don't really see why one would build one, but it is amazing nonetheless." He walked up to it and tapped it with a gloved finger. "But how does it fly?"

"Magical levitation." A mechanical voice said behind him. Nikolai turned and found himself face to face with an robotic approximation of a pony face. It took him a few moments to realize that he was staring at a set of power armor. As he looked the being over, his eyes drifted to the various weapon emplacements on it's sides.

"Wow,” He smiled beneath his mask, his amazement growing more by the minute. ”Is that thing comfortable? I know someone who owns an exoskeleton, and they say it's a pain to get in and out of!”

"Well... Yes, it is. You look new here. And you probably are, given that you're asking how a Sprite-Bot flies." The armored mare replied. I'm what they call a Steel Ranger. I'm here buying munitions for my unit."

Nikolai nodded as if he understood. "Ah, I see. My name is Nikolai."

"Knight Scorch Mark, and please don't ask me how I got that name."

Nikolai’s smile never left him. "Alright, I can understand that. Can you help me find a place?" He could hear the armor's servos hum.

"Where?"

"The guard at the gates called it, ' Absolutely Everything'." The pony turned around and pointed with her hoof.

"Down the road and to the left. It's a tent with an insignia of three bubbles, or... Circles, you can't miss it." Nikolai nodded in agreement,
" Дякуємо за допомогу." The armored being looked back up at Nikolai.

"What did you just say?"

"That mean's 'thanks for the help' in my native language." He responded. Scorch Mark nodded back, " Alright. What do I know? I hope ya find what you're looking for." Nikolai nodded and walked off with a wave.

The rest of the market was fairly busy, dozens of ponies were bartering over everything from blankets to what he took to be more of those oddly shaped firearms. He noticed ponies glancing uncomfortably at him. Only fair, he supposed, given that he was new to this place and they'd likely never seen anything like him before. A few minutes later he found the tent the Steel Ranger had pointed him towards.

" Ah, все добре! Everything's good!" He clapped his hands and headed inside.

"Absolutely Everything."

Well, he'd heard that slogan from to many traders too many times for it to be a surprise. But this place did indeed look like it had... Well, everything. On one side, a set of bladed weapons and guns lined the wall, several other tables at the center held boxes of ammunition alongside various odds and ends. His eye drifted to a pile of paperback books with a horse- no, pony skull on it's cover. It was labeled, 'The Wasteland Survival Guide. By Ditzy Do.' He shook his Geiger counter, and determined that it was fine to remove his mask, he pulled it off and set it to rest on a sling around his neck, he ran his gloves though his sweaty hair and took another swig from his water canteen.

" Ah, that looks like it might have some answers. Hello?"

"Hey Derpy!" A female voice called. "We've got us a new customer!" He looked over, and found a yellow unicorn mare fumbling with what he assumed was a set of crude armor. He could hear the clopping of hooves off to the side. A... Thing, poked it's head out of a back room of the tent.

"Zombie." That was the word that came to Nikolai's mind, he had encountered them a few times during his travels in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. They usually fell into two categories, those mutated by the high levels of radiation. Or those driven insane and corrupted by the mysterious physic fields that permeated a few regions of The Zone. The same ones that created the Monolith, at least as far as he knew. He hadn't the slightest as to what had created this creature. He realized that it had wings, although they were in taters. They were doing about as well as the rest of her body. Her mane had almost completely fallen out, and one of her eyes curled upwards in a disturbing fashion.

"Hewlo!" She exclaimed, her voice rasp and barely legible. She coughed a bit in the process. Her rotting face curled up in a beaming smile, and her left eye shot away from him awkwardly. The unicorn trotted up alongside her.

"I take it this is the, 'Derpy' that you were calling for?" Nikolai did his best to speak politely, though given the scene unfolding in front of him. That was becoming increasingly difficult. Part of him wanted to scream and run, another part of him wanted to unsling his rifle and put that thing out of it's misery. And another, smaller part of him wanted to burst out into laughter.

"It's ok. She doesn't bite. She's not like most other Ghouls." The once-pegasus trotted forward and gave his leg a squishy hug. He groaned as his Geiger counter let out a few more clicks.

"So, how did this happen?" He gestured to all of her.

"Oh you see, Ditzy wasn't always like this, 200 years ago, she was once a normal pegasus. But she happened to be flying a little too close to Cloudsdale when the megaspells hit. Her delivery cart was knocked out of the sky. And the Balefire radiation turned her into this. And she's lived life as an immortal ghoul ever since."

"Oh Babushka! You have had to live in this shithole for 200 years!? I pity you little one." She gave him another slightly radioactive hug. He could hear her squeak out which sounded a bit like, 'it's ok.' But he couldn't really tell. He looked over at the unicorn. She gave a smug grin and shrugged.

"Also, you said Balefire radiation. What is that? Is it like ionizing radiation? Earlier my Geiger counter was making weird noises. "The unicorn looked over at the device on his hip.

"Ah, we call them rad meters. And to answer your question mister..."

"Nikolai, my name is Nikolai." He reached down, offering up a handshake. She brought her right hoof up and shook it.

"Thrifty Goldenhoof. Balefire radiation is not the same as ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation comes from little rouge electrons and unstable atomic isotopes being emitted off stuff like uranium. Balefire radiation is similar, except that it's the result of dark magic. Balefire radiation is necrotic and far more likely to result in mutations. It glows either green or blue in concentrated amounts. It's the kind that's rendered most of Equestria a toxic wasteland."

"Ah, that explains why my counter was making such strange noises. It was picking up a different form of radiation! Sidorovich actually sold me something quality for once!" He threw his arms up in celebration.

"Anyhow, I am looking for more answers then that." Derpy smiled, and Thrifty levitated a copy of the 'Wasteland survival guide.' Off the table. "First copy's free. It should have all the answer's you need. Anything else, feel free to ask either Ditzy here or me." Nikolai stared wide eyed at the magical field.

"How the- How did you do that?"

The unicorn rolled her eyes as she dropped the copy in his hands." Do what? Float the book over too you? Magic! Don't tell me you've never seen it before?"

Nikolai shook his head. "No, that is the stuff of fairy tales where I come from." Nikolai recalled the gravitational anomaly from a few hours ago. And realized that what he had said wasn't entirely true. He decided to change the topic.

"Wait, Derpy, Ditzy? You wrote this?" The ghoul nodded. Then another thought hit Nikolai, "I hope I'm not offending you, but would you mind telling me why it is you cannot talk?"

"Her tongue was cut out by slavers a few decades back.” Thrifty smiled over at the ghoul.

Nikolai sighed. "I would apologize again, but at this rate. I thing I would be here all day if I heard everything you have to say." Derpy smiled.

"It's ok. She get's that a lot.” Thrifty said with a grimace." Nikolai held up the book, anyway, thank you very much, I am going to find some place to read this." He turned to walk out of the tent, when he suddenly heard Thrifty ask: "Do you have some place to be? You look like you're in a hurry.”

The Stalker scratched the back of his head.

"No, I don't think I do. Would you like me to tell you my story?"

"Well, not right now when we're open. But maybe later, there's a bench over there if you would like to read the guide I just gave you. Or..." She gestured to the stuff around her.

"Is there anything you'd like to buy?"

Nikolai thought about it, ”Eh, not now. Maybe when I know more I will want to acquire something here. He slumped down on the bench and opened up the booklet. After reading the brief foreword he looked through the table of contents.

"That chapter on guns sounds interesting. But I think I will start on that chapter about environmental hazards. It sounds more important.” He flipped to it and began to read.

"Ah!"

Nikolai shook himself awake and sat up, saving himself from an undignified fall to the ground. He still had the guide lying in his lap, open to the page he was on when he had dozed off. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around. Derpy and Thrifty- Well, mostly Thrifty, were conversing with some other ponies about buying a set of leather armor. Why equines would ever choose to wear the skin of a dead animal was beyond him. He took another swig from his canteen and checked his watch.

"I've been asleep about an hour and a half. " He took another swig from his canteen and pulled out his PDA. " This place must be in a different time zone. Oh well, that is no problem for me." He recalled that he had seen something important in the pages he had read. He quickly flipped though them and found what he was after.

"... In that case, you should probably boil the water with a little bit of Rad-X or Rad-away. You can find it in these little packets..."

"Medicine that entirely cures radiation poisoning! Now this is something worth fussing over!" Nikolai slipped the book into his pocket along with his PDA and got in line.

Chapter 4: With A Grain of Salt

Chapter 4: With A Grain of Salt

"So, what is it Nikolai? Did you find something that interests you?" He rested his left hand on the table which Thrifty Goldenhoof was standing behind.

"Yes I have. Do you by any chance have any of the RadSafe or Rad-away that this booklet depicts?" He looked over, and saw Derpy grab something off a nearby table and trotted over to Nikolai. Thrifty turned back to him.

"Well, it looks like we do. "Nikolai smiled. " That is fantastic, I'd like to buy some." He reached into his wallet and pulled out 200 rubles. Thrifty looked at the old Soviet money and frowned.

"What are these? Is this some kind of paper banknote?" Nikolai rubbed one of his eyes.

"Nyet, these are rubles. Wait, or would prefer Ukrainian гривеник?" He fumbled around in his wallet a bit more and tossed a few coins onto the table. She shook her head.

"Eh... Sorry Nikolai, we do business with bottlecaps around here. I'd reckon you can sell that currency for the worth of the metal or paper if you want. If not, you can have your money back." He sighed and placed the bills and coins back into the wallet and stuffed back into a side pocket in his rucksack.

"Bottlecaps, you said?" He took a knee and fully unzipped his backpack. After fumbling around inside it for a few moments, his hand emerged with the 5 bottlecaps he had taken off the dead bandit earlier.

"Will these do?" Thrifty eyed them closely and nodded. " Yep, those will do. You'll need more money than that if you want to buy yourself some Rad X." Nikolai rubbed the temples of his head." This is a trading post, right? Would you perhaps be willing to take anything I have in my rucksack for the medicine?" She thought about it, and chuckled. " Of course, what do you have to offer?" Nikolai looked around his pack, and then pulled out the double barreled shotgun.

"I found this. How much would you be willing to pay for it?" She furrowed her brow and levitated it away from him. She opened the breach and looked inside.

"So, how much would you be willing to offer me for the shotgun?" Thrifty was silent for a few moments, and then responded with. " Twenty caps. That would be enough for four packets of Rad away, or two packets of Rad X." Nikolai thought about it for a moment. "What if I threw in the ammunition? He pulled the shotgun shells he had salvaged from his pockets and set them on the table.

"I'll give ya one cap a piece. Nothing more." He sighed, alright, that sounds like a fair deal. She reached into a compartment in the desk and pulled out 27 bottlecaps. Nikolai took them and counted to make sure he had received the specified amount.

"You know, you could have gotten more money for that stuff if you'd sold it to some other merchant." A stallion said behind him.

"блін! Why didn't I think of this before! Of course, different people- creatures would want different things more or less. That was how it was in the Zone. This place is no different!" Thrifty nodded. "You're right, this place is called 'Absolutely Everything'. But if you want to buy or sell specific things, I would recommend that you check out some of the other stores." Nikolai smiled. " Can I have some of the Rad X?" He placed 10 caps on the table, and she gave him a packet of Rad X.

"Alright, thank you for the help. I suppose I'll be going now." He began to zip up his pack when Thrifty stopped him.

"What's that?" Nikolai reached back into the pack and pulled out the vibrant floral dress he had found back in the old cottage.

"It's... Stunning!" The mare squealed, even Derpy managed one of her weird smiles. Nikolai looked down at it and frowned. " This thing? That's what interests you?"

"Well, not me." Thrifty replied, " But I know that there's a mare over the way at the Bullet Gallopers. She's looking for a wedding dress, and I think she'll be willing to pay a hefty amount for that." Nikolai pumped his fist. " Yes! I knew it would be useful eventually! Thank you Derpy and Thrifty, I will return eventually. " He bid them farewell and left the tent, re donning his gas mask as he did.

"So... Bullet Gallopers, ти де?" He looked around, and finally found a tent with a rifle round painted onto a sign above it, he knocked on the table, and a mare came trotting up.

"Yes, how can I help you?"

He unslung his rucksack and dropped it on the table. "Da, you actually can. You see, a friend told me that there was a mare here who was looking for a wedding dress. Where might I be able to find her?"

The mare smiled warmly. "I'm her, who told you?"

"Thrifty Goldenhoof over at Absolutely Everything. Would you like to see it?" She nodded, and put her hooves up on the table. "Alright, here it is." He reached in and pulled out the dress.

"Well, it certainty is a lot better than anything else I've come across. I'll take it. Here, thank you mister-"

"Nikolai." She levitated a cloth sack onto the table. "There, 200 caps even. Does that sound good to you?" He thought about it, he had an opportunity to make even more money. And as much as he wanted to be generous and say the dress was free of charge. He doubted it was worth it.

"How about a little more? 220 caps perhaps?"

She sighed and levitated more caps into the sack. " There, 220 caps. Can I have my dress now?" He laughed and nodded, giving the folded piece of cloth to her, he took the sack of money and stuffed it into his pack. That brought his total to 237.

" Hey, while you're here. Is there anything that catches your eye?" He looked over the various boxes of ammunition. 9x19, .38, .38 special, .45 ACP, 44 magnum. 5.56, 12 and 20 gauge. And, a variety equine designed firearms.

Nikolai wasn't quite desperate enough to attempt using one of those contraptions yet. So he waved it off, " No. I am alright, I've got one of my own." He brandished his AK 101.

The mare squinted at his rifle, " Cool. It's not a design I'm familiar with. It looks like something the griffons would come up with. "

"Griffons, are you referring to bird-lion hybrids?"

She nodded, albeit looking at him somewhat incredulously. " What else would I be referring to?"

He shook his head, " Nikolai you stupid Дебил! Of course there's griffons. Next someone will be telling me that there are also Dragons!"

The mare looked up at Nikolai with a blank expression, "Oh, Celestia help me. It looks like you've got yourself a copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide there. I'd recommend reading it a couple times before going out into the Wasteland and getting yourself killed by something you didn't see coming. "

"Ok. I will be sure to do that. But dragons, really? That is amazing." He eyed the boxes of 5.56 behind her, "would you mind hand- giving me one of those? I'd like to check something. I promise I won't run off with it." She levitated the metal ammunition crate over to Nikolai and pried the top off. Nikolai reached into one of his magazine pouches and slipped a single 5.56 NATO round out of the magazine. He then reached into the box and took a single bullet from it. Carefully, he held them side by side, checking the cartridge sizes and projectile diameters.

"Xвала Господу! Thank God! They're the same!" He put the round back in the box, and slid his own back into the magazine.

"Is that what you were worried about?
Compatibility?"

Nikolai nodded, "Yep. Well ma'am. I bid you good luck with your marriage."

"And you, safe travels." She replied. Nikolai slung his rifle back over his shoulder and began walking east, towards the closest of the large towers.

As he passed by an alleyway, he heard a shady voice ask," Hey, buddy? How much for the gun?" A scrappy stallion emerged from the dark. Nikolai looked back at the rifle that was slung around his shoulder.

"I am sorry, buy it is not for sale."

"I wasn't askin', how about 20 caps?" He laughed, "For- You must be joking. Look, I do not want trouble. Ok?"

"50."

"Nyet!" He watched as the pony unsheathed a knife from a scabbard on his chest and held it in his mouth.

"What are you doing?" It would take time to unsling the rifle, so Nikolai's gloved hand hovered over the holster of his Makarov pistol. Confident in his ability to draw and hit the creature before he could close the distance.

"Hey! What's going on?" It was the voice of the guard he had met at the city gates. Nikolai could hear three sets of hooves. He turned with his hand on his sidearm. He was on the verge of drawing it. He turned, back up towards a wall. He didn't want to get outflanked.

"There was a pony trying to rob me of my rifle. What kind of fool does that?"

"That fool, is my nephew." He turned and came face to face with a white unicorn. And 2 guards, one of which was the guard which he had met earlier.

"That might be the case. But it does not change the fact that he tried to rob me." The unicorn shook his head. " My name is Mr. White. I am the leader of the White Apples mercenary group. We control the city.

"I was under impression that the Red Trotters controlled this place. " We share it. They mostly stick to the outskirts, dealing with feral ghouls and raiders. My guards and mercenaries control downtown."

Nikolai nodded, " Well. If you see your nephew, could you tell him to find another line of work? One less likely to put unwanted holes in his body?"

Mr. White sighed, " I apologize. He's going through his rebellious phase right now. It's a good thing that you didn't kill him. Otherwise my forces would have chased you right out of the city. Tell me, are you up for some work?" Nikolai shrugged, and discreetly pulled back the hammer on his pistol.

"What kind of work? And are you paying?"

"I'll tell you once we get inside, and yes. Of course I'll pay you."

He relaxed his grip on the gun. "Lead the way." The ponies led him into the nearest standing skyscraper.

The guards led him up 14 flights of stairs, through a metal door, past a row of old cubicles, and finally, into an office. "What is it that you want me to do?" The stallion held up a hoof as the 2 guards took up positions by the door.

"Sit."

Nikolai took a seat in a surprisingly comfortable chair ahead of the desk. Which had various documents and maps strewn about.

"The mission is simple. There is a Cottage on the outskirts of the city. Hidden within it is a safe, I would like you to retrieve the contents of the safe. That should be easy for you, hold on. I'll show you it on a map. He brought out a map of the city and pointed to a location on the northern side.

"Is it ok if I take your map?" Mr. White laughed. " No, there's a cartography station down in the square, you can pick one up there. Or, if you happen to have one of those fancy PipBucks I could have my secretary download a copy to it. Nikolai pulled out his PDA. "Would this work?" Mr. White looked at the device and frowned. "I have not idea. I've never seen anything like it. I think it might work." Nikolai nodded.

"Let me see that." He tore the map from Mr. White's grasp and examined it studiously. " I was just there!"

"Then you'll have no problem completing the task-"

"I tried to force it, but the thing wouldn't open."

Mr. White slid a box of bobby pins across the table." Then you better figure it out." Nikolai groaned and took the box, stuffing it into a coat pocket.

"Is that all?"

"Yes, come back here when you're done. We'll discuss payment then."

He facepalmed, " Alright, but it better be a good sum. And I will hold you to your deal." He stood up and shook the stallion's hoof. But as he was leaving he heard one of the guards murmur to him.

" I'd take his words with a grain of salt. Salt, that’d be his first name, has a tendency to... Not tell the whole truth of the matter to his clients. You might find yourself in the middle of a bit more than you can handle."

"I'm fairly certain I could deal with whatever it is when the time comes. Also, I haven't ate in a while. And I only got in a quick nap. Do you mind if I stay in one of the old cubicles before heading out?"

The guard nodded. "Sure, just don't make a mess of things."

Chapter 5: Honest Work

Chapter 5: Honest Work

Nikolai awoke to the crack of lighting and the the bands of rain lashing against the glass of the skyscraper. He cracked his back, stood up, swung his arms around, and began packing up his sleeping bag.

"You finished?" Mr. White's voice asked in the background.

"Da-I mean yes, yes I am. I'll go get your thing now." He scratched his head and headed down the stairs. Paint was crumbling off the walls, and the carpet on the floors between stair flights was... well used. To say the least.

At last, he opened the door and entered into the lobby space at ground level. Behind the desk sat a unicorn stallion. He wore a peculiar device around his hoof. It looked somewhat like an old computer monitor bolted to whatever the rest of that gizmo was.

"Hello sir, your boss told me that you might be able to assist me with updating my digital map." The pony looked up, clearly surprised by Nikolai's appearance. " Oh, yeah! He told me you'd be coming down. What do you need help with?"

Nikolai drew his PDA from his pocket and placed it on the desk. He pressed a button on it's side, booting it up. After a half second, a dark screen appeared, and on it two orange dots. One marked, 'start' and the other marked, 'Salt Cube city'. The pony stared at the device in slight bewilderment.

"Where did you find this?"

Nikolai chuckled. "My friend. I did not find it, I bought it, it's practically a requirement where I'm from. Along with a gun and a Geiger counter.”

"Doesn't sound any different than this place. The tech is like nothing I've ever seen. There's no noticeable trace of a spell matrix. But this little tab here looks like it might just fit a hard drive. Here, let me try." He pressed a few buttons on the device attached to his leg, and then pulled a drive out of the side. He took Nikolai's PDA in a levitation field and inserted the drive, a few moments later. He removed it.

"There, try starting it up now. " Nikolai pressed the button again, opening the digital map. This time, in addition to the locations, it also provided him with a complete topographical map.

"This is great. Thanks' for the assistance. What is that thing, by the way?"

"Oh, this?" The stallion pointed to the device on his foreleg. " It's a PipBuck. Old pre war Stable Tech stuff. I wasn't born in one, never even seen one. But they are pretty useful. I saw one at a trading post one day, and I bought it right then and there. Free advice, never pass up on a good deal at one of those markets. " Nikolai nodded.

"I already never do. " He waved the pony goodbye and left the building. He was heading north again. Back towards Route 52 and the cottage. As he passed through the market square, he redonned his mask. Giving it a tug to make sure the seal was tight.

"I really do have to read some more of that book. Stable Tech? PipBucks?" He shook his head and set his mind on the journey ahead.

"...The sun can't hide forever!-"

Nikolai turned the knob on his radio so fast he worried that the cold war relic would fall apart. He had taken to absent mindedly searching for something to listen to other than the sound of the sound of the wind across the desolate and empty farmland. The rows of unsown fields and agricultural equipment spoke to the lands past. He tuned the knop on his radio one more time.

"To the town of Applelosa came a stranger one fine day..."

Nikolai scowled. " Why? Who thought to try to counterfeit genius of Country Music legend Marty Robbins? Ah blyat! Is better than whatever the other channels have on." He came to the roadsign where he had first met those merchants. And the bandit, whose body was still lying there. Being snacked on by a...

"Что это такое!?" Nikolai reached for his sidearm, he cross drew it using his non dominant hand, pointing it at the creature. It looked like an overgrown... housefly?

"Nyet! That isn't right, you must be abomination that Derpy told me about!"

The bloated flying thing hissed at him. Nikolai shot once, and the creature exploded in a shower of putrid gore. It's gut's shimmered with a rainbow colored liquid. Nikolai decided to ignore it, he turned left. And, with just the slightest bit of concern headed for the cottage.

"Alright, it should be... there!" He visually cross referenced the map on his PDA with that of the terrain, and a few seconds later. He had found it.

He quickly made his way the quarter mile from the gravel road to the cottage. He looked inside, and found the carpet that the safe was hidden under. He set his pack and rifle down on the floor and pulled out the pack of bobby pins.

"Как мне- Think Stalker! I can do this!"

Nikolai racked his brain again and again, trying to remember how to pick a lock. Had it not been made of high carbon steel. He would've just blown it clean off with a bullet or a grenade. But he needed the contents of the safe intact. He snatched his bayonet, jammed it in the lower half of the safe, and stuck a bobby pin in the top half. Looking closer, he spotted a row of locking pins within the plug.

"Oh, this shouldn't be that hard." It was at this point that his radio crackled with static again. It was picking up a station from home.

"Hello Stalkers! As always, this is Zone FM. Broadcasting from the Cordon, this one goes out to a few of our Yankee friends! I bring you, Quarantine!"

Nikolai was greeted to the sound of galloping hooves, followed by a steady guitar beat.

" Went to the grocery store...

After the stampede...

People fight for toilet paper like the UFC..."

He couldn't help but laugh as he slowly but steadily knocked each of the tumbler's out of battery with the bobby pin. The lock began to rattle with effort. He was getting close. But something was wrong, the opening chorus of galloping horse hadn't stopped, even partway through the song.

"Oh Blyat! There must be someone here!" He dropped the pin and slid the combat knife back into it's scabbard. With a struggle he threw his rucksack back onto his back and re-slung his rifle. He brought the gun up to low ready and snuck over to the hole in the wall. He tried to turn his radio off to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, he could hear hoof beats coming from the back of the structure.

"Hey guys, I think there's someone in there. I just heard music." One voice said.

"It could just be another sprite-bot. Damn things nearly scared me out of my hooves a few days ago."

"Quiet! Do you want to come away from this with more caps, or holes than you started with?" Nikolai smirked behind his GP-5 gas mask.

" These do not sound like professional Gopniks. No four legged бандит is gonna nab me!" He checked the action. And crawled up behind the kitchen counter, which looked like the only solid thing left in the house. He heard one set of hooves trot around to the front door. Nikolai raised his rifle up to his shoulder and put his sights right on the frame about halfway down. The first thing he saw come around the door was a rifle barrel.

"I could negotiate with them. But then I would be risking becoming a hostage!"

By the time the thought had already passed his mind, he was halfway through the motion of pulling the trigger on his AK 101. The round sailed through the door and struck the target on the other side with a squishing noise. There was a scream, and gunfire erupted from around back, tearing holes in the far wall near, the rear door. He chased the sound of galloping away from the door with 3 more shots from the AK. He heard the scream fall silent.

"дурак! Иди к черту! Go to hell!"Nikolai shouted.

He shuffled out in an awkward squatting position. By complete accident, he turned the knob of his radio with his elbow. Bandit Radio was on. And it was playing at max volume. The gunfire continued, although it had slowed in intensity, he could hear the familiar sound of weapons being reloaded, and he took this as his chance to strike. He snuck out through the front door, making sure that there was nothing waiting around the corner to ambush him.

"There-"

The second pony didn't get to finish what she was saying, 2 more rifle rounds flew through her. He could see 2 more, halfway in the process of entering the cottage though the back door. Probably trying to outflank him. Nikolai came around the side of the building and dropped one with a 3 round burst to his neck. He could now see that there were at least four more, and they had all fled to the far side of the building near what looked sort of like an old outhouse. He pressed forward, knowing that if he didn't keep up the momentum they would kill him without a second thought.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

While the suppressor on the end of his rifle may have masked the sound of the gunshot, the sonic crack of the round was still audible. Another one fell, letting off one errant shot from it's shotgun as the mare fell to the ground. Nikolai got of one more round before he heard his trigger break on empty. He hadn't swapped magazines since his firefight with the Monolith the day prior.

"Go go, get it!" Nikolai heard a male voice cry out.

He let his AK fall onto it's sling, he cross-drew his Makarov with his left hand, and swiftly wounded one of the 3 remaining attackers in a leg. He heard hooves clamor around the far side of the house, then come up behind him.

" дурак- Oh blyat!" He bunny hopped out of the way of a spear wielded by a mare with an insane look in her eyes. He could almost pity her.

That is, if she wasn't trying to run him though. Nikolai ran out from his cover behind the cottage wall, and made for the backside of the structure. He saw more muzzle flashes, and felt something smack him in the stomach. He didn't have time to think about it. He stumbled back into the cottage and peaked out behind the door frame. He looked through the collapsed portion of the house. And waited for the mare with the spear to pass by. He put a bullet right through her right ear. Then whipped back around, just in time to see the last 2 flee in panic.

"Da. That would be the smart move."

Nikolai reached into a pouch and reloaded his AK 101. Stuffing the empty magazine into an improvised dump pouch. He did the same with his Makarov. And, just as things quieted down, so did Bandit Radio.

"Дякую! Thank you! Zone FM, for musical assistance." He praised the device on his chest rig.

The Stalker's eyes drifted to the tear in his vest. The ballistic plate had stopped the round, and that was all that mattered. He could fix the tear at a later date. With the gunfight over, he went back to trying to pick the lock on the safe.

After about 2 minutes, he had finally gotten the last tumbler out of battery. Nikolai slid his knife clockwise, and the safe door popped open. Nikolai inspected the contents inside. Within he found one loaded revolver, a box of .38 Special ammunition. A gas mask that looked like it was designed for an equine, and a sealed bag. He unloaded the revolver and placed the items into the lesser pouch in his rucksack. With all that done, he closed the safe, and began to examine the bodies around the house. They had much better stuff on them than the bandit that had tried to rob him the first time around.

"Now, what would most valuable thing here?"

He looked them over. It was a bit saddening to him that he had had to kill them. But if he hadn't they likely would have done far worse things to him had they captured him.

It was obvious that he should take the bottlecaps that they had on them. Between the 5 bodies he scrounged up 72 bottle caps.

"That brings it to 309 in total." He patted the side of his pack.

"Що ще? What else?" Nikolai walked out to the back porch.

A piece of black metal caught his eye. Even in it's equine form. He could recognize a good quality rifle. Though the design was foreign to him. Trigger and grip assembly aside, it looked a bit like a slimmer AR- 180. Just with a modified charging handle and a stock which, if he were to attempt shouldering. Would put the sights just above his head. It was clear designed for pony use.

"Ah, blyat... How do you fold this- Huzah!" With some fiddling, he was able to drop the magazine and collapse the stock. He racked the charging handle and sent a 5.56 caliber round tumbling to the ground. He picked it up and looked it over.

"Extra ammunition."

He found spare magazine's for the carbine in a bandolier. Which he stuffed into his pack along with the firearm. As far as weapons go, there was nothing that looked like it was worth taking among the other bodies. The 10 MM pistol had taken one of his shots to it's slide and rendered it unusable. And the 20 gauge bolt action shotgun had a rusted barrel and was too large to stick in his pack. All edged and blunt weapons were the same. He took magazines and ammunition. As well as a set of binoculars, a deck of odd playing cards, and a few other odds and ends that were small enough to take without hindering himself too much. With everything of value that he could take with him packed up. Nikolai set off back towards Salt Cube city.

"Why am I helping that Mr. White? ты дурак!" He facepalmed as he left the gravel road and set off back down Route 52.

"I need to find myself a purpose after I deliver this stuff. I have all this money and nothing to spend it on." Nikolai continued to mutter to himself all the way to Downtown Salt Cube City.

"Hello again Nikolai!" Thrifty Goldenhoof's voice called out. Nikolai waved to the mare as she passed him by. She was the only face that appeared welcoming to him. All the other's eyed him with the same mixture of concern, curiosity, and even slight animosity. He ignored them, and continued on into the White Apple's tower.

" Did the map work out for you?" The secretary at the front asked him.

"Da. It worked well. I thank you for your assistance. " The stallion smiled. " No problem... Friend?" Nikolai gave him a thumbs up. And left for the many flights of stairs.

"Made it back alive, that's a shocker."

The guard standing post at Mr. White's office sounded jaded. Bored was more like it. Nikolai removed his mask and headed past the rows dilapidated cubicles, and into the office.

" My courier has returned. And with the stuff, I hope?" Nikolai set his rucksack down on the table between himself and his 'employer.'

"Yes, I have. Now, I ask only one thing, how much will you pay me for what I am about to give you?" Mr. White furrowed his fuzzy brow and pulled a cigar from the a cabinet within the desk. He threw his back legs up onto the table and lit the cigar with a match. Nikolai chuckled.

"Little horse smoking. This, this is comedy. " Nikolai left his personal opinion that the smoke smelled like a burning tire doused in vinegar in his head.

" I'll tell ya when I see it." Nikolai groaned and withdrew the things which he had collected from the safe from his pack and set it onto the table.

"There." Mr. White merely glanced over most of it, but stopped to look at the sealed package. He picked it up, and sliced it open with a knife that had been laying on the desk. Contained within it was set of papers. Nikolai glanced over at it. The document stack was titled;

"The C.A.R.E Project: Addendum #4, Balefire Warheads."

Well, he didn't know what the acronym 'C.A.R.E' referred to. But he recognized the words "Balefire", "Warhead" and the bold red letters which were stamped on over the back of the document:

"Top Secret."

Nikolai could put two and two together.

"Are those instructions on how to acquire a nuclear bomb?" Mr. White didn't look up from the papers.

"Oh ye- Take your shit and leave. Now!" The all white stallion was turning red with anger. Given the way the guards outside were looking at him. He figured that if if he didn't do as told they would drag him out of here.

"What about my pay?" Nikolai watched as Mr. White's hoof reached across the desk. He realized that he was reaching for the revolver which Nikolai had acquired.

"Blyat! You dishonest-" Nikolai snatched the papers out of his hoof and whacked Mr. White in the muzzle whilst punching him at the same time. The document tore, Nikolai let it fall from his hand. He grabbed his pack, stuffed the revolver into a side pocket, and dashed out of the room.

"Stop him!" Mr. White shouted behind him.

Nikolai bounded over the two armored guards. He could hear shotguns being racked. He quickly unslung his AK 101. He looked over at the stairwell, but it was blocked off. He ducked behind a support pillar and prepared to fight his way out, when he accidently backed into the guard from before.

"Hey, it's you. What did I tell you about Mr. Salt? You better get out of here before he has you thrown from the top of the building. Nikolai winced, but he had noticed that there was an elevator, just a short sprint away. "Eh, I may have punched him." The guard groaned. "You should really get the buck out of here."

"Da, thanks!" He bounded from his hiding spot to the metal doors, with effort, he was able to pry them apart.

"I really should have looked for an alternate escape route!" Nikolai cried. He heard hooves galloping in his direction. He was about to step out, when he realized that the elevator was way down at the bottom. He crossed himself, and jumped out into the shaft. Grabbing a greased cable like a firefighter. He descended all the way to the bottom in just under nine seconds. He jumped off into a pile of rusted rubble at the bottom, stopping only to redon his gas mask, he pried the doors at the bottom apart and took off out of the lobby and into the street. He could hear hooves clamoring around inside. Nikolai made for the market.

"Nikolai, what's the rush?" Thrifty asked as Nikolai barged into the tent. "White's goons are after me."

"Oh no, what happened?"

"I think he was trying to build a bomb. A big bomb, Balefire- You say? he refused to pay me. I punched him, took this, and ran. " She groaned and shook her head.

"Derpy's already on the way back to New Appleosa. You wouldn't be able to catch up even if you had wings yourself. You're gonna have to hide. But there's no place that you can hide in the city that trumped up stallion's mercenaries can't reach. Except..." She picked up 2 packets of Rad-away.

"Have you seen the Glow?" Nikolai scratched his head. " The what?"

"The Giant metal dome on the eastern side of the city? It's heavy with Balefire radiation and infested with feral ghouls. Hence the glow. Given your appearance, it should make a good hiding spot. But still, you might need these if you're going to hide in there. They're free of charge, just this once." Nikolai nodded frantically, and stuffed the packet's into his pocket.

"Thank you Thrifty, I shall return. "

He tipped his raincoat hood and sprinted out with his rifle in hand, after leaving the market place he pulled out his PDA and examined the map of the city. He followed the winding streets until he passed by a road sign with a crude radiation symbol painted onto it. The surrounding buildings began to look more and more decimated the closer he got to his destination. The
'Dome' was now fully in sight. On the far side, the roof of the massive stadium- like structure was a hole, an eerie green glow emanated from the entire building. As he got within half a kilometer, his Geiger counter began to make those weird wave-like noises he had heard outside of the city. He lifted his mask slightly, took two swigs of Vodka followed by a little bit of water. He knew he wouldn't be able to lift his mask again once he got inside. And he needed to stay as cheerful as possible.

"It's just like the Zone!" He said, laughing cheerfully with a measure of discomfort. He threw his arms out to greet the irradiated ruin.

Chapter 6: The Foals of Balefire

Chapter 6: The Foals of Balefire

"There's somethin' happining here...

And what it is ain't exactly clear....

There's a man with a gun over there, tellin' me I've got to beware..."

Nikolai's radio played in the background as he reached the entrance of The Dome. The glow was clearly getting stronger, as was the reading on his Geiger counter. There were no doors to the structure, rather, there was a massive tunnel that probably led through right to the center. Branching off on either sides were hallways which led to more hallways. He decided to head into the first one he found. Luckily, the doors which had once blocked access had been torn off.

"This place reminds me a bit of the Jupiter tunnel on route to southern Pripyat. That was the farthest north I ever went in the zone. Thought it was too dangerous."

Nikolai could only laugh at that prospect now. Given where he was.

After a while, he came to a map of the complex. He looked around, and saw that he was near the medical ward. In this particular part of the building, the radiation count was slightly lower than the rest. And the green glow which engulfed much of the building wasn't present. Still, he could see why no one ever came here. But, that may be a good thing. Because the supplies in the ward would most likely have remained unlooted.

"Alright, this place seems salvageable."

His Geiger counter seemed to think otherwise. Nikolai began to think that he should have drank more when he still had the chance. Oh well, it was too late now. He took a look at his watch, and found that night time was approaching.

"Once I get to the ward I should read more of Wasteland Survival guide. Perhaps it might have something on this place? "

Nikolai murmured to himself as he passed by something suspiciously resembled an equine skeleton. And further more, he found dried blood caking the walls nearby. But with no other information, he just pressed on. There was no natural light this far in. Only the faint green glow and a glint coming off the overhead fluorescent lights. He had taken to holding his AK with one hand and his flashlight with another.

"Blyat! What was that?" He turned his head to the sound of something clattering to the ground.

Nikolai shinned his flashlight around, but found nothing. He barely even touched the ground on the way to the ward. The external sliding glass doors had long since been destroyed. But even so, the radiation levels seemed to be lower within. Surrounding him was a myriad of rusted and faded medical equipment. He sat down on a gurney and snatched a roll of duct tape from his rucksack. He mounted his flashlight to the side of his rifle, fumbling with it to make sure it was secure. He also noticed something else. A dovetail-picatinny rail mount for an optic. And, an optic to fit it. That being an old PSO-2M 4 times magnification scope. It was useless now, being that he didn't have any immediate way to zero it.

" Oh Блин." He grunted as he took a look down at his Geiger counter.

The radiation count hadn't reached lethal levels yet, not even close. But it was irking him. Luckily, he thought he had found the perfect place to 'refresh'. The old X ray room. It had to have been lead lined. He made his way over to the grey metal box on the other side of the room, forced the door open, then shut it behind him.

Click click. Click. Beep...

" Y... Bсе добре! And... everything's good!" He rubbed his forehead. He could feel the perspiration that had built up beneath the mask. He pulled his mask off and reached into his pack. Extracting a packet of Rad-away. He, he tore the top of the packet and downed it without a second though. Immediately, he began to feel better.

"It taste like stale oranges! Nyet, this will not do." Nikolai threw the packet to the ground and pulled out a bottle of Vodka.

"Salud! Or whatever it is Italian people say when trying to memorize tourists!" He raised the bottle up above his head and took a long swing of it.

As soon as the alcohol had settled in his stomach, he began to hear scratching noises coming from down the hall. He fumbled to put his things back in his pack and redon his mask. He slapped himself on the forehead to retain focus.

"Eh? Хто там?" Nikolai took up his AK 101 and advanced out of the medical ward. Just in time to watch an equine corpse shamble out from behind a pile of rubble.

"Zombie? Nyet, nyet, is Ghoul."

He stopped for a moment to stare at it. It's mane had fallen out, and it's fur had turned a sickly green. Alongside that, parts of the pony had fallen away entirely, giving Nikolai a good view of it's innards. And, it's eyes glowed the same green as the environment around him. He stared at it, not knowing what to thing of it. It looked back at him, and began to drag itself forward. Baring it's teeth and lowing it's head.

"Идиот! You look like batch of Babushka's Borsch gone wrong!" He walked up to it and smacked it over the head with the stock of his rifle. It growled, and pounced at him. It was more like a stumble. He put one bullet right between it's eyes. And it slumped to the ground, dead. More dead than it was before, at least.

"Da, you don't think I've seen your kind before? " He slurred. Kicking the corpse, the Vodka had just started to take effect.

"Some of us have feelings, you know!" Nikolai swiveled his head around. And came face to face with another ghoul. However, this one wore a crude robe with saddlebags, a fire axe sat in a scabbard by her side.

"Eh? Oh, yes, yes. You must be friend. Привет, name is Nikolai."

The creature stared blankly at him. " We don't usually get visitors. What are you doing here?" Nikolai coughed behind his mask.

"I am hiding- from... Dishonest employer. You know how it is, right?" He emphasized the last portion. The creature gave him a crocked scowl. " You shouldn't be here." But then, as she looked him over, her glowing eyes widened.

"That symbol on your shoulder." Nikolai looked over at it. It was the symbol for radiation. It was what identified the majority of Stalkers back in the Zone. And clearly, it also meant something here.

"Da, what about it?" She turned her shoulder. Revealing the same insignia which had been stitched on.

"Welcome to the Dome, Mr..." Nikolai looked around skeptically. Then back at the suddenly enthusiastic ghoul.

"Nikolai, I would presume that you would like me to follow you?"

"Well... Yes. My name is Peach Blossom." Nikolai, not having anything better to do decided to go with her. Still somewhat suffering from the effects of Vodka.

The mare led Nikolai back down the hallway's he had come from. As they went along, she asked him a few questions. Obviously, most would expect that a slightly drunken Stalker and a ghoul wouldn't have a lot to chat about. They would be wrong.

"What are you supposed to be?" The walking, talking corpse asked him.

"I am a human. I come from far away land. As for my clothing, I am what they call a Stalker. I... How do I summarize this quickly? I go into dangerous places and look for valuable things." She nodded.

"You just described most of Equestia's post war population. " Nikolai shrugged.

"But, I am not from around here, yes?" He chuckled. The ghoul beckoned him out of the inside of the building and back into the main tunnel which led into the core of the building. Then, something odd began to happen. His anomaly detector began to beep furiously. At the same time, a blue glow joined the green one around Nikolai.

"What's over there?"

"The salt cube which this place is named after. The glow is a result of the radiation it absorbed when the megaspell hit this place. You should really stay away from it."

The center of the dome was as vast as an American football stadium. Just without the rows of seats. At it's center was a massive cube of well... Salt. His Geiger counter really did not like this place. However, the beeping from his anomaly detector piqued his interest. He thought back to the artefact sitting within the lead lined container in his pack.

"Fascinating." He followed her into the wide open space. Surrounding the strange obelisk of salt were a few tents. As well as dozens more ghouls, most clad in the same style of robes as the mare he was following. They looked at Nikolai with expressions that ranged from indifference to worry.

"Emm... Привет?" He waved to them. Peach Blossom looked up at him with renewed skepticism.

"What does that mean?"

"It means hello in my native language." She nodded, as if implying that she understood.

Peach led him into one of the tents, this one, like all the others, was faded yellow, and marked by 3 pink butterflies. "I've seen the logo before. On medical equipment in one of the merchants shops. What does it mean?"

"I think I'll let him give the explanation. " A ghoul wearing a lab coat and a pair of glasses was fumbling over a stack of papers.

"What is it-" His eyes widened when he saw Nikolai.

"Oh, so we're turning this hell hole into a hotel are we? Just letting whoever inside!" Nikolai cleared his throat.

"Sir, this is Nikolai, he came here intentionally." Nikolai looked down.

"You look like good friend of mine, Professor Sakharov. Как дела?" Nikolai stuck out a gloved hand. The ghoul furrowed what was left of his eyebrows. " Yeah, he tends to do that." Peach Blossom muttered. The ghoul doctor chuckled.

"My name is Sand Box. You do seem like an eccentric fellow."

"Well, at least he's not like our last visitor. You remember that little filly... Puppysmiles, right?" Nikolai felt as though he was being left out of something. But decided not to question it.

"So anyway. Why did you bring me here?" Peach chuckled.

"The insignia on your shoulder. You belong to the Foals of Balefire, do you not?" Nikolai shook his head.

"No, but just out of curiosity. What is that?"

"The Foals of Balefire?" Sand Box said.

" Oh, it's just a collection of Ghouls that have fervent obsession with Balefire Radiation. And not an unwarranted one either. You see, because of our nature. Radiation is actually beneficial to us Ghouls. Being that it's what created us." Nikolai nodded.

"I suppose it makes sense." Nikolai responded with a shrug. In truth, it didn't make sense, and his mind was too muddled with alcohol to care.

"Radiation insignia, Because that is what all Stalkers are united by. I bear no relation to your Foals of Balefire. Now, if you mind, I really must get out of here before I turn into human Shashlik and perish of radiation poisoning."

"Ok, if you really must go..." Nikolai's gaze shifted past them and over a glowing object on a table.

"That wouldn't happen to be piece of Salt Cube from over there, would it?" He cracked his neck and checked the time on his watch. Then looked through the massive hole in the Dome's roof. His first whole day in this place was drawing to a close.

"Yes. And it's not for sale." Sand Box insisted. Nikolai turned his radio back on.

"Ok, be seeing you! He waved to both of them, and left the tent. Then made a bee line for the Salt Cube. His anomaly detector beeping faster and faster.

" Hello Stalkers, This is Zone FM. Up next, we have DJ Blyatman with... Well, a hardbass song which he ironically named Stalker." Nikolai laughed insanely as he approached the salt cube. He ran up to it, and, driving his knife into the side, broke off a small piece of the anomalous material.

"Oi blyat! Hot potato!" He yelped as he tossed the specimen into his last leaded container.

He had heard stories of the Liquidators who had gone up onto the roof of the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant to clear off radioactive material during the first disaster. How they were given just 45 seconds to complete their task before getting off the roof as fast as they possibly could. Nikolai felt a bit like that.

"What are you doing!?" A ghoul cried. Nikolai twitched.

" I don't know. I shall be borrowing the glowing rock for a while. Give back maybe, maybe never." He turned and bolted for the exit.

"That doesn't make any sense!" The ghoul retorted. But Nikolai was gone. He only had one goal now, to get as far away from the radioactive hellhole that was the Dome as quickly as possible.

It wasn't long before Nikolai had reached the end of the tunnel that led out of the core of the dome. As soon as he was clear of the worst of the radioactive fallout. He tore off his mask and vomited. Radiation poisoning is not fun. He would've been fine given his gear. He just got a little too close to that giant radioactive pillar.

"Oi blyat! Ah, is fun, is fun." He said with a morbid chuckle.

Nikolai wiped the vomit off of his face and downed another packet of Rad-away.

"Uh... what did I accomplish here?" He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "So much for my hiding place."

Nikolai could see that the sky was darkening. So he swiftly found himself an abandoned pharmacy to bed down in for the night. Making sure there was nothing in there which wanted to eat him first. He barricaded a door behind himself and lit a small fire. He took off his mask and gloves and held his hands close to the fire, once he had warmed up he pulled out an MRE and peeled the top off.

The contents consisted of, Beans, buckwheat, crackers, chocolate and something that resembles meat. After his day, it looked like a feast. Nikolai smiled and began to eat. At the same time, he reopened his copy of the Wasteland Survival guide and began to read.

Chapter 8: Eye In The Sky

Chapter 8: Eye In The Sky

Nikolai stared blankly at the massive creature in front of him. A few words came to the Stalker's mind. The most prominent one of them all was, 'Phseudo Giant.' Back in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, he had once come across a massive creature of similar stature. It had vaguely resembled a bear, and he had watched from a distance as the mutant slaughtered a group of three well armed bandits in just a few seconds. It was only brought down through the combined use of rocket propelled grenades, armor piercing ammunition, and PKM machine guns. Things which Nikolai did not have on him. And so, this circles back around to the problem which now presented him. The monster skulking about on the other side of the runway.

"I should... Go. Da, is good idea." He whispered to himself, creeping back around one of the hangers.

As soon as Nikolai was behind cover, he peaked out to watch it. Off to the side, he could see another form moving. Which, after a quick glance through his new rifle scope. Was determined to be a feral ghoul. He watched as the mutant canine creature charged across the runway and tore it apart, throwing limps in the air like they were toothpicks. And, he assumed that the creature probably intended to use them as such when it was done feeding on the ghoul. Nikolai was about to turn away and search for an alternate route out of the airfield.

"Eh, perhaps I will cut hole in other side fence and circle around?"

He was about to make a break for it when all of a sudden, something odd happened. A hole opened up in the clouds. It was small, but just enough for the sunlight to cast shadows across the northern side of the airfield. The creature turned away from it's meal and looked up into the sky.

" Wow, Tse krasyvo." He murmured.

Nikolai hadn't seen any blue sky his whole time in the Equestrian wasteland. It was majestic. However, said beauty was ruined when a bolt of red energy arced down from above and struck the creature in the head. The beam seared the creatures flesh off, it roared. And more bolts of energy flew to meet it. The flurry of red bolts tore the creature apart and set it ablaze, sending it crumpling to the ground in a blackened smoking mess.

"What's going on here?" He watched as four metallic figures descended from the hole in the clouds. Upon a closer examination through his rifle scope, he realized that they were in fact suits of power armor. Just like the one that he had seen back in Salt Cube City, only these ones that these ones were slimmer, more aerodynamic. And they all possessed wings and jagged bladed tails.

"Now that, that is amazing." He watched as the power armor clad pegasi- well, he guessed they were pegasi. Flew around the creature, likely circling to ensure that it was dead. They landed, and trotted about.

"Eh, what do I do?" Nikolai asked himself, he didn't know anything about these new ponies. But he figured that, judging by the armor and weapons they were packing, that it would be best if he left them alone. He turned and began to sneak away. Made his way back around the hangers. Once he had gotten one closest to the front gates, he reeled out from behind another hanger to observe the creatures. But just as he did, one of them turned and stared in his direction.

Rather than act oblivious, Nikolai decided to greet them, "привет! I must say, you did very fine job at dispatching the monster over there!" They just continued to stare blankly at him, then one by one, they all shot up into the air.

"Pegasus Enclave! Drop you weapon!" Nikolai took this statement about as well as one would think.

"Nyet, nyet!" He quickly turned and ran.

He heard the whoosh of metallic wings close behind him. He began to look for cover, an old jeep was the only thing substantial around. He took cover behind the engine block just as a volley of red beams came crashing down all around him.

"Can we talk about this?" Nikolai shouted as he peaked out from behind the jeep.

"Sure we can. What the hell are you!? " Another mechanical voice called out.

"Nyet, I ask question! But if you must know- I am Stalker. Why do you shoot at me with the lasers?" Actually, he was fairly they were plasma bolts and not lasers.

"The contents of this base are now Enclave property. Leave immediately."

"Out of cover? Ha, дебил!" He cried, giving a middle finger. Scanning the area around him for any sign of the pegasi. He didn't know why they had been so quick to peg him as a hostile and start shooting. Up until know, the only ponies to react to his presence like this were the handful of bandits he had come across.

" I don't want anything in this godforsaken place. I was just on my way out." He looked up, the pegasi had taken up perches along the roofs of a hanger about 100 meters down from him. They were all easy shots with his AK 101. But he doubted that the ammunition he was using would go through the power armor that they were sporting. And between them, they looked as though they had enough firepower between themselves to make a T 72 tank blush.

"You don't look like you're from around here!" He heard the mechanical voice call out.

"Da, I am from far away land. I come in seek of treasures and adventure. Sound corny. I know, but I have great success so far. At cost of only small radiation poisoning!" He couldn't hear anything. Only the whistling of the wind and the creaking of the rusty barbed wire fence.

"They must be talking! Radios perhaps? Encypted? Closed comms? This I must test." Nikolai thought to himself. Scratching his mask clad chin in frustration. He reached down into his vest and fiddled around with the frequency knop.

As he flipped through the airwaves and assortment of available channels, he suddenly caught part of what was clearly a conversation. He swiftly clicked back to it.

" What do we do with him? Command ain't pickin' up." He heard a female voice asked demandingly.

"Well, we could let him go. Be honest what's some pushover Wastelander gonna do to us? We'll be in and out of this place in
5 minutes anyway." A male voice responded.

"Don't go soft, we've already got our hooves full dealing with Dashites. And besides, have you seen those Steel Rangers? No? Well rookie, this isn't the place for it." Another male voice resounded over the others.

"Official policy is that surface contact is to be avoided at all costs." A third male voice said.

Nikolai grinned smugly to himself, they had no idea that they were being listened in on. Their banter reminded him of Ukrainian Army guards along the Exclusion Zone border. Except those guys were a lot more lenient with letting Stalkers 'slip' out of their grasp.

" I usually don't say it, but that armor looks pretty cool. I wonder if they have any human shaped suits? I've always wanted to try an Exoskeleton out!"

"What- do you have a radio over there? How did you get access to this frequency!?" One of the voiced asked sternly. This was met with sounds of laughter on Nikolai's end.

" Oi blyat! I was held down respond button by accident!" His thoughts filled with sudden regret.

"Ok, whoever you are, you're under summary arrest for listening in on secure military communications!" The first voice chided with a callous grunt. Nikolai sunk his eyebrows and began to silently work a way out of his predicament.

"Hey, while I'm on the line. Could you tell me where I could get a set of that armor? It looks spectacular! " No response came though, he ducked under the jeep and got a better look at his adversaries though his scope.

"Wait, where did the other one- oh Nikolai you дурак!" He quickly rolled out from the underside of the jeep and made a break for the nearest piece of cover.

"I refuse to be outflanked!" He tossed his rifle's selector lever down to full auto and rounded a corner. Just above him, at a 30 degree angle from the ground, was one of the pegasi. He turned and ran back around, sprinting all the way to the next hanger.

It was exactly at this time that he accidentally knocked the knop on his radio, and as if on que. Bandit Radio once began to play through the speaker.

"Now? Whatever!"

He reached into a belt loop and pulled out his only flashbang grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it behind him haphazardly, he heard it detonate, the flash briefly silhouetted him, and he was soon fired upon again, the bolts of energy kicked up gravel all around him, and he felt a warming sensation as one flew right by his head. Nikolai rushed across open ground towards a brick building on the south eastern side of the runway, he broke a hole in a window and dove in. The Stalker could hear metallic wings flapping outside, followed by metallic galloping. Nikolai quickly knocked a desk over, then ran over to the wooden door and kicked it.

"Ah-" He stumbled back, fighting to keep his balance.

"Inside, it swings in from outside." He groaned, reslinging his rifle.

Nikolai turned the door knop and peeked out. Sticking his rifle out along with his head to make sure he had cover, he quickly glanced the other way, just as he was about to make a break for the entrance. One of the pegasi came plodding into what looked like a the front lobby. Nikolai quickly ducked back behind the door.

"What will it be, hide or fight?" He asked himself. He heard a metal creak down the hall.

"Blyat!" He pounced out and activated the flashlight which he had tapped to the side of his rifle, at the same time, he opened fire, the flurry of copper jacketed projectiles perforated the suit of power armor. Sending shrapnel and sparks flying off in all directions. He kept he kept his front rotated towards the pegasus, presenting the toughest part of his armor to the target. The suit of power armor responded with bolts of energy from the weapons mounted under it's wings. Luckily, Nikolai was able to weave out of the way and dive into another room on the other side of the hallway. He slammed the door shut and dragged a heavy bookshelf against it, the creatures tail blade ripped though the door, but didn't knock it down.

"Blin, what now- haha!" He quickly unslung and unzipped his pack. He pulled out an RGD-5 high explosive concussion grenade. Quickly he threw the bookcase aside, and the door was torn off it's hinges. Nikolai and the pegasus stood face to face. He got a good look at it's glowing yellow eyes. Before it could react, Nikolai pulled the pin and dropped the explosive at it's hooves. He ran out the front door as fast as he could, just as he entered the lobby, he heard the grenade detonate. But he couldn't know for sure whether or not it had worked.

"This will make good story back at camp." He muttered between pants. He could feel cold bile forming in his throat from all the running. Not a big deal, but the mask made it a bit unpleasant.

"What camp?" Just as he was about to climb through a hole in the barbed wire on the base's perimeter. He heard the whoosh of metallic wings behind him. He felt the searing heat as a bolt of energy passed right under his arm. A split second later, he felt something strike him in the back, followed by a deep thump noise. Followed by the clicking of his anomaly detector.

Nikolai just ignored it and kept running. He slowed from a sprint to a brisk jog all the way back to the highway. He dove under a wrecked car and prayed that the pegasus would leave. He tore off his mask and coughed, spiting the bile onto the ground.

Ten minutes went by without Nikolai hearing any wing flaps. Slowly, he crawled out from underneath his rusted out hiding spot. He unslung his rucksack to grab a drink of water, when he saw the black splotch where the bolt of energy had hit him. He noticed that something within his pack was glowing purple. He took another look at the direction the bolt had hit him, then reached into his pack and pulled out one of the lead lined containers. The glow was coming from it. He pulled the container out from his pack and shook it, the air around the container shimmered like pavement on a hot summer day.

"Gravitational manipulation. This is... Awesome!" He coughed and put the container back into his pack. He unscrewed his canteen and took a long gulp of water.

"Oh! What was I thinking getting!? I'm in no shape to be getting into unnecessary gunfights." He facepalmed, and downed an Ibuprofen tablet. Then got back up and looked at his watch.

"I'm doing well on time. I should find a place up the road to rest and rearm." He got up from his spot with a groan, wiped the fog from the lenses of his mask, and resumed his trip north.

It was another 45 minutes before Nikolai had come across something resembling civilization. This came in the form of an a dilapidated roadside motel just off the main road. A wall made from old cars ringed the place, and Nikolai could see sentries in the makeshift guard towers. He noticed the red hoofprint mark on a road sign, and decided to get out the cowbell 'pass' which he had been given.

"Hello friends!" Nikolai waved the bell above his head. He could practically see the guards rolling their eyes.

"What the hell are you?" A unicorn wearing leather pauldons and brandishing a spear asked sternly.

"Someone in need of rest and rearmament." Nikolai replied. Tugging on his rifle sling and gritting his teeth. "I won't be any trouble, I've my fill of it today already."

"Sure looks like it." A pony wearing a baseball cap and armor the looked to be fashioned from steel and football pads. Nikolai looked down at himself, he was covered in dirt and grime from his fights with the Mutant Crocodiles and the armored pegasi. He looked over at an inviting campfire in the middle of what was a parking lot. Then over at trading post which had been set up in the front office, then over to the bar.

"Da, this will be fine."

Chapter 9: Flashpoint

Chapter 9: Flashpoint

Nikolai sat once again by the eerie glow of a campfire. This time, he was surrounded by complete strangers. He had just finished eating lunch-dinner. Using a half dozen caps, he had bought enough 5.56 to top off all of his rifle magazines. Quite a bargin. Though, he didn't know what he would do once he ran out of 9x18 for his Makarov. He had managed to sell off the .38 revolver from before, as well as a few odds and ends that were taking up valuable space and weight in his rucksack.

"So, tell us Nikolai, what's your story?" One of the ponies who was warming his hooves by the campfire asked.

"Well, would you like to hear about the mutant crocodiles or the pegasi with power armor?" A few of them gasped when he mentioned the pegasi.

"Are you sure they were pegasi?" A mare wearing a helmet with a visor comprised of ballistic glass asked concernedly. Nikolai nodded, judging by the reaction he had gotten from them. He assumed that it was a sore subject. But regardless, he pressed further.

"Well, spill the beans!" He demanded, a stallion on the other side of the campfire looked at his can of beans with a confused expression on his face. Nikolai groaned.

"Relax." Another one of them answered, " Not all of us are morons. If what you're saying is true. Then you are both very lucky, and very unlucky."

"How so?" He responded.

"You ran into a group called the Enclave. No one here really knows what they want, where they come from, or how many there are. But seeing them is a rare sight in the Wasteland. More so seeing them up close and living to tell the tale. They use extremely powerful weaponry that ponies on the ground could only dream of. I've never seen them myself, but I do know someone who has." Nikolai chuckled. He thought about mentioning the fact that he had gotten into a fight with them, and gotten out alive. But he decided against it. Hysteria is a powerful tool. Especially when it came to armored flying death machines. Instead, he decided to get up and go over to the bar, which appeared to have been constructed from the leftovers of a hardware store.

"Want anything pal?" The mare behind the counter asked him. Nikolai shook his head balanced his head on his gloved fist.

"Nyet."

"Hey, I got a glimpse of that Redtrotter pass you showed the guards at the gates. You from Salt Cube City?"

"I suppose you could say that." He replied, siding up on the bar stool.

"That's a pretty nice rifle you've got. Where'd ya get it?"

"Eh... Rifle I got from military surplus depot, scope I found while scavenging." The mare smiled. " It's been a while since I saw a rifle like that. Most ponies I see are walking around with old civilian stuff, bolt action rifles, shotguns, carbines or the occasional autoloading pistol or revolver. Most in pretty bad shape."

"Aye, is less challenge for rest of us, no?" He asked the bartender.

"You've got a pretty heavy accent mister. Were are you from?"

"Eh, very far from here. Yes, very, very far. You know what, I will have a shot of whiskey." The mare smiled and poured the Stalker a glass of something called 'Wild Pegasus'.

"Heh. Haha!" Nikolai coughed, wiping his mouth.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Eh, I'd really like to wave the fee, but I'm running a business here. It'll be one cap." Nikolai reached into his rucksack and pulled out a single bottle cap. He slammed it down on the table, then took a gulp from his canteen.

"Do you have any clean water? I'd like to fill up my canteen."

" Just past my bar off to the left, there's a tap. The water comes from an underground reservoir, it's unirradiated. A little bit murky, but it is unirradiated. Nikolai sighed in relief.

"I thank you for your assistance." He got up with a groan and walked out of sight.

"Alright, I think this is it." He knelt down by a spigot leading into the ground. He twisted the knop, then brought up his Geiger counter and waved it past the water.

"Huzah! ты правда!" Nikolai clasped his hands together out of success. He quickly proceeded to fill his canteen with the clean-looking water. He dropped a chlorine tablet into the water to kill any parasites which might have been living with, and stuffed it back into his rucksack. He did the same with his backup water bottle. Nikolai let both of them sit for a minute before taking a drink. His rucksack now weighed a comfortable 19 or so kilograms. Excluding the rest of his kit, his rifle and sidearm.

"Alright, just need to mark this place..." He pulled out his PDA and swapped to the 'map' function. He scrolled out until he found familiar terrain. Then marked his current location for a later date, and then stuffed the device away.

"Now I must find place to sleep for night." Nikolai cracked his neck. He went back around to the bar.

"Do you know good place to sleep for night? Preferably a place without radiation, or monsters, or unpleasant neighbors?" She sighed and shook her head.

"Well, I hope you weren't hanging your hopes on this dump. We're all booked up."

"Do you have a manger in the back by any chance?" Nikolai joked with a chuckle.

"No, no we don't." The bartender responded bluntly, "Look, you seem like a decent fellow. But... Policy is policy. You're welcome to come back once a spot opens up though."

"Do you know any other place?" Nikolai crossed his arms and gave a grim smile.

"Well... The only other large settlement near hear is Dodge City, and that's a near 20 mile walk in the dark.

Nikolai looked down at his watch, and then up at the sky.

"Ah, well... I don't mind a little darkness. Good concealment." The mare by the bar laughed as she lit a lamp which hung above the bar.

"You're joking, right?" Nikolai groaned.

"Nyet, I am not joking." He reached into his rucksack and proceeded to devour a pair of granola bars and beef jerky strips. The stalker was still hungry, especially after an entire day of eating nothing but the occasional snack to keep himself from passing out. But, nonetheless, he was determined to push forward. Rest could wait, money couldn't.

But then again, that didn't matter if you were self-employed. He redonned his GP-5 gas mask, waved to the bartender, and began walking north again along Highway 52.

An hour an a half later...

"The moon went hiddin'

the star's quit shinin'

rain was drivin', thunder lightin'..."

Nikolai's radio played faint tune as he walked along the dark highway. Distant sounds of industrial decay and gunfire echoed across the landscape, he was too scared to activate his improvised rifle light for fear that it might attract unwanted attention. He had seen firsthand what happened when that happened. A fellow Stalker had made the mistake back on Earth, he was tired, and he wanted to get back to base quickly. It proved quickly fatal for him. He wasn't two hundred meters from Nikolai when the woods around him lit up with gunfire, from 4 different directions! No, he would go by moonlight until he was safe. A road sign up ahead proved promising.

"Dodge City, 16 miles." Nikolai would've jumped for joy, but this was hardly a cause for celebration. He made a turn westward off the main road and continued along down a 2 lane road. About half a mile down the road, he began to see glimpses of orange light in the distance.

"що це? What is that?" Nikolai now had to choose between finding safe shelter for the night, and investigating the strange light.

He choose the later. Nikolai crept down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road, closer to the source of the light. Awkwardly shuffling forward at half height, he brought his rifle up in front of himself, the drain branched off towards the direction of the light after about 20 meters, he propped the AK 101 up on a berm and activated the optic's illuminator.

At a distance of about 300 meters away, his ability to figure this out was to almost entirely to the manual rangefinder down below the scopes crosshairs. It based itself off the average height of a human, 1.7 meters. And gradually went out all the way to 500 meters. In spite of the fact that Nikolai couldn't possibly hope to hold his rifle steady for a precise shot at that range, it was good to know that the option was there. He realized that the glow was coming from a campfire, and it was occupied. Eight ponies stood guard around a pair of caged wagons. Within said wagons were half a dozen more ponies... Captives perhaps?

"Da, this may present problem. But is neither time nor place for fight." He shimmied back to the main road, slightly concerned that the encampment he had seen might be an issue later on. As for now, he just turned his radio off and kept going forward.

After walking another half mile, he came to another crumbling, rusty roadsign, this one read: "Welcome to Withers Pass!"

In front of him stood a collection of scorched wood sided houses. Beyond them, the road continued through a forest of leafless snags and foreboding metal power line towers which ran parallel to the town on it's western side. The wind whistled through the valley, causing a little overturned tricycle next to him to rattle. In the distance, he could hear more creaking.

"Oh... SO scary." He muttered begrudgingly.

Nikolai was in no mood for the environment to play tricks on him. Quickly, he searched for a place to sleep. He found what is was looking for in a house which, while burned, was mostly intact. He jiggled the the door handle. But found it locked.

"How is this still locked after, what was it that they told me, 200 years? Blin these ponies knew what they were doing! After the incident at the Sunrise Airbase, he wasn't going to attempt kicking in any doors. Instead, he just looked around the house until he found a shattered window, and climbed in that way. As soon as he was inside, he activated his improvised rifle light and began to look around. Directly ahead of him was what looked to be a kitchen, with the skeleton of 2 ponies within.

"Ah, poor fellows. But, I am not here to mourn." Nikolai muttered, he went through the entire structure, the living room, the bathroom, and both of the bedrooms.

"Da, this is space fit for king!" He exclaimed as he shone his light over the king sized bed of the master bedroom. Quickly, he got to work shoving some pieces of furniture up against the window's and door. Once he was secure, took off his boot's mask, and rucksack, placing them by his side, and fell sound asleep in the scorched bed.

Approximately nine hours later...

"Ai! That went by fast! Oph!" Nikolai groaned as he sat up the bed and looked around the place he had decided to fall asleep. He reeked of burned cotton sheets. But he couldn't complain, it was his first real 'bed' in 4 days. Quickly, he redonned his boots, used the abandoned bathroom. Even though the plumbing had probably long since been damaged beyond repair. The bowl itself was still intact. After that, Nikolai made himself another MRE breakfast, fastened his mask back on his head, and headed outside.

"Da, это красиво." He muttered, taking a good look at his surroundings.

"What was place called? It was... Withers Pass! Yes, that was it." Nikolai took a look up and down the road which ran east to West though the town. The town, in spite of it's scenic location, could hardly be considered a town. Most of the houses were little more than scorched piles of rubble. The house which he had slept in was the most intact around, and even then, in the daylight he could see that it was half collapsed.

" Ah, whatever. Is not problem." He was especially interested in a few of the structures that were still standing. Towards the other side of the valley stood 2 buildings, one was a small dinner, and the other was an abandoned gun shop. Nikolai was particularly interested in the later one.

He calmly trekked towards the structure with his rifle at a low ready. The small rectangular building was built of brick, with a glass front, which was mostly shattered and a strange flag that he had seen before back in Salt Cube City. It flapped lazily in the morning crosswind. As well as familiar faded yellow flag which hung on a sperate pole, a coiled rattlesnake with the words, "Don't Trot On Me." Plastered across it in bold black font.

Stepping into the shop through the destroyed door. He saw nothing of interest at first, the skeleton on the ground was completely bare of anything useful, and at a first glance, there was nothing left inside but a handful of rusty shell casings and some faded and torn magazines. Although one thing caught his eye, a newspaper. He read the headline.

"Equestria to Make Superweapon Breakthrough: 'The War Will Be Over Soon!' say's Ministry of Peace."

He looked back out at the dusty highway, and the ruins of the town. "And how did that work out I wonder?"

Nikolai walked back behind the counter and began to scan the shelves for anything valuable.

"Ah, finally... It's- A box of .380. Darn!" Nikolai fumbled over his newfound treasure curiously. It was a sturdy cardboard box with the company logo of Iornshod firearms on the side as well as the content specifications. He broke the seal and found 2 dozen cartridges wrapped in wax paper. It was then when he realized just how similar they appeared to the 9x18 used by his Makarov, he wondered if might be able to find a barrel that he could use to replace the 9MM bore one in his sidearm. Unfortunately, it seemed as though there was nothing of the sort to be found here. He stuffed the box into his coat pocket.

"Blin. Well, the day is still young, I must set off for Dodge City. He left the ancient gun store though the front door and set off back down the road.

Nikolai walked until he had hit the edge of the valley, here. Just a quarter mile past the gun store, a small dirt road ran parallel to the mountain range, In the distance, he saw the distinct forms of ponies approaching him, and they were tugging carts behind them. Nikolai took a knee and looked through his scope to get a better look at them.

"Blyat! It's the ponies from last night! And they're still hauling the cages full of captives. Hmm... Maybe I should ask them about it?" Intrigued, he stood on the side of the road and waited for them to pass by.

"Hey, outta the way 'fore I put a bullet in ya!" Nikolai groaned and stepped out onto the road. One of the ponies shouted. Nikolai could see them clearly now, some of them were covered in dirt and grime, a few had spikey manes. And all were armed and had crazed looks on their faces.

"Nyet, nyet... Those are not just captives. Hey!" He shouted, waving them down, a unicorn in the back of the column turned back to him with an annoyed look on his face.

"What the fuck is your problem!?"They pony responded. Nikolai was on the verge of laughing, a part of him wasn't used to the thought of such harmless looking creatures using profanity.

"What is cage for?" He asked them.

"Caps! Sweet caps!" Nikolai facepalmed, he knew what that meant, they intended to sell their captives. This couldn't stand, his mind drifted to the fully loaded magazines in his vest pouches and rifle. And though back to the glowing chunk of deadly salt in his rucksack. A plan began to form in his mind.

"Ok, be seeing you!" He cried out, waving to the band of raiders with intentful ignorance.

He would be seeing them again. Though the scope on his rifle, that is.

Nikolai trailed the convoy to the other side of the valley, keeping close to the convoy, but not close enough to be heard nor obviously spotted.

The dirt road merged back with the regular road that led out of the western side of the valley at a bottleneck. Power cables swung overhead across the pass. The enormous electrical pylons on either side of the pass were a perfect place for an ambush. The presence of a few small rock outcroppings made it even better. Nikolai crept up to this place, then pulled the lead container which held the piece of the 'glow'. He set it off to the side, and posted up on one of the outcroppings with his AK 101.

Nikolai watched as the convoy entered into the bottleneck, then, taking aim at the first one from a range of just 90 meters, he put the red crosshair arc of his scope right onto the head of the first pony, and pulled the trigger.

"Pst!" The lead raider dropped dead in a pool of blood. He quickly moved to the next.

"Pst! Pst!" 2 more raiders dropped dead, the remaining 5 galloped for cover, some took up positions behind their wagons, whilst the other's made for rock outcroppings on the other side of the road. One of Nikolai's bullets found the front leg of another, sending the raider tumbling behind the cart, and a shrill scream of pain up into the sky. Bullets began to fly back at him, he heard sonic cracks, followed by impacts lower down the hill. That meant they hadn't zeroed in on him yet.

He turned his rifle to the outcroppings and found the a pony wearing improvised leather armor and wielding a submachine gun which he manipulated using his forehooves. Nikolai squeezed off 2 more shots, and the pony went down. At the same time, fire from behind the carts ceased.

"They're reloading." Nikolai thought to himself. Quickly, he got up from behind the rock and began to move towards the convoy, he swapped from his scope to his iron sights. He saw a bit of fur poke it's way out from behind cover. Nikolai flipped the selector lever on his rifle up to full auto and let a 3 round burst fly.

The fur retreated, more rounds flew back at him, the ponies behind the rocks had reloaded. Nikolai felt a round smack him in the stomach, making a loud crack as it shattered against his armor. He nearly doubled over, but he kept going, now consumed with adrenaline. One of the ponies, a unicorn, leapt out from behind cover and began shooting at him with 2 pistols at once which it had levitated above itself. He snapped to this new threat and gunned the new creature down. Putting 6 more rounds of 5.56 full metal jackets into it. He was now about 20 meters away. He ran parallel to the carts and came up behind them. A pony turned a shotgun to him, and a load of buckshot flew past him on his right side and rattled against the end cart. The ponies within the cage screamed out in terror.

"Bagh! Haha! HAHAA!" An insane laugh rose up from the first cart, Nikolai turned his gun towards the noise, one of the with a spiked mane charged at him with a spear. Nikolai brought him down with 5 round burst of chaotic gunfire. Too caught up in the moment to count shots, Nikolai quickly grabbed a new magazine from a pouch, and slung the other out with a flick of the charging handle, he franticly locked it into place, and raised the gun up, just then, the remaining 2 ponies ran out from behind cover, likely trying to retreat from what was clearly a losing battle. One of them took potshots at Nikolai with a carbine, and another tossed something towards Nikolai with it's magic. Nikolai both of them down with 2 more well placed shots though his scope. He brought his gun up away from the cage corner and ran as a blast rocked the first cart.

Nikolai was breathing heavily, he hastily looked around to insure that there were no more hostiles before letting his rifle fall to chest. He made a circle around the wagons, insuring that there were no raiders remaining.

A great cheer rose up from a few of the ponies, this was silenced by cries of pain from a few others who had caught stray rounds.

"Oi blyat! That was a poor choice!" Nikolai chuckled nervously, then looked to the ponies in the carts.

"Alright, if I free you, do you promise not to attack me?" He put his hands on his belt. They all franticly nodded.

"Oh, yes, yes, please help us! Some of us are hurt real bad!" One of them cried, this one was a mare. Nikolai grimaced beneath his mask and went around to the back, the lock was a flimsy piece of rusted metal by his standards. He took his rifle, aimed right at the keyhole, and blew it apart. He was immediately faced with a pony that was white and possessed black stripes.

"A zebra?" He looked down at the creatures leg wound. "Yes! I am a zebra! Now quick, fetch us some healing potions before we bleed out!" Nikolai scratched his head, "Healing potions! No, do not be silly, this is not video game. " He unslung his rucksack and pulled a spare tourniquet from it.

"Give me your fore leg." Nikolai reached out, and placed the tourniquet onto the highest point of his leg, then tightened the thing down until the flow of blood was just a trickle. Nikolai threw him a pack of gauze. He saw that 3 other's had also sustained wounds, the others had huddled around the wounded, attempting to keep their spirits up.

"What do these healing potions look like!?" He shouted, he was met with a flurry of responses. None helpful, he turned back to the zebra.

"Purple liquid in glasses, you shall know it when you see it-" Nikolai began to rummage through the dead raiders, and found 2 of the vials. Which he gently handed to the wounded.

The Stalker watched in awe as they drank them down, and their wounds began to close up on their own. Flesh and fur reappearing as though it had never been lost in the first place. He didn't find any for the third though. He had to resort to tying a strip of leather around the back leg of a stallion that had caught a pistol round meant for him. A few bandages later and they were all stable and good to walk.

"I cannot thank you enough, stranger." The zebra said to him in earnest. Nikolai nodded.

"What is name?"

" Flashpoint. My name, is Flashpoint."

Chapter 10: Midday Train

Chapter 10: Midday Train

It was still early in the morning, too early even for lunch. But there Nikolai was, chatting with a Zebra whose life he had just saved. Following his well executed ambush of the slaver convoy, he went back and picked up the glowing hunk of anomalous salt which he had been determined to use against the convoy, but had left behind on account of the fact that he simply could not get close enough. It now sat back in his rucksack, along with a few boxes of 9X19 parabellum ammunition and sawn off shotgun which he had picked up. As well as a single 'healing potion' , which he had taken off the bandits and saved for himself. He was curious as to the range of it's healing effects. And decided to store it away for later.

As for the the other captives, they had fled off to god knows where. Stopping only to thank Nikolai. The Zebra had scavenged some things from the dead raiders. A 9 mm sub-gun with a single full magazine and a set of crudely made leather armor. He also took a butchers knife. Sticking it in a makeshift scabbard. Nikolai didn't object, another gun to watch his back was welcome.

"So, where do you come from Stranger ?" The Zebra asked, eating from a tin of 'preserved hay'. A food item which Nikolai found less than pleasant. Given that it was made for horses and other equine-like creatures. And he was a human.

"A... far off land. The Ukraine. What of you?" Nikolai replied, the Zebra hung his head, " I would prefer not to speak of it. It is a sore subject."

"I insist." Nikolai asked as he pulled his rifles magazine from its well and ejected the round. Snatching it from the ground and sticking it back in the magazine. He removed the rifles dust cover and pulled the spring assembly out. He proceeded to examine the surprisingly clean and unworn interior. He wanted to give the suppressor and barrel a look, but that could wait. He slapped his rifle back together and set it next to himself.

"Is leg good enough to walk on?" The Zebra nodded.

"Yes, yes it is. And please, call me Flashpoint." Nikolai smiled and redonned his GP-5 gas mask. He grabbed his sack and rifle, slinging onto his back and gripping the other one tightly.

"Ходімо!Let's go!" Nikolai waved for the zebra to join him. Flashpoint did so with a slight limp. The bullet which had stuck him had grazed a bone. He held his weapon by his neck. Nikolai tried to imagine himself running around with a rifle in his mouth. But the thought seemed to absurd to his mind. But in a world like this one, with everyone more or less similarly disadvantaged, he could see that it wasn't that bad for them. The pair bid a silent goodbye to the lifeless corpses of the convoy, and began the walk west towards Dodge city.

"I have a question, if you do not mind answering it? Nikolai shrugged. Questions were a normal thing for him.

"Da?"

"Why did you chose to go after that Slaver convoy? Nikolai stopped and looked down at Flashpoint.

"Because I was curious. When I saw that they were in the wrong, I decided to go after them. That was a huge risk, and I will say, it will not happen again. You see, I do not like having the additional holes in my body. Is very bad for health." The zebra nodded quietly.

"I understand." Nikolai grunted, and reached for his radio. Miraculously, he found that Zone FM was still somehow in range of it's meekly little antenna. He turned the receiver knop, and was met with the intro to 'Sharp Dressed Man.'

"What is that noise?" Flashpoint muttered, poking at Nikolai's vest with a hoof. "Is music, good music." The zebra shifted from side to side.

"Acquired taste." He added. "But, I will keep it on, because I am in good mood."

At only an hour and a half into his day, Nikolai had already accomplished quite a bit. He had freed captives from being sold into slavery, learned a bit about Equestrian culture, and made a new friend. Things were going pretty well.

After about half an hour of walking along the highway though the pass, the pair finally emerged on the other side of the mountain range, and found themselves looking out at the outer city limits of Dodge City. In a way, it resembled a town in the American Mid-west. Small suburbs surrounded more industrious city streets, all of which let to the town hall. With it's clock tower which overshadowed all the other buildings. To the north stood the tallest buildings in town, although these paled in comparison to the ones he had encountered in Salt Cube city. These were 3 to 4 stories tall at the most. And, To the west, a line of rails stretched from horizon to horizon.

They walked down the highway towards the entrance, but as they did, Nikolai spotted a group of ponies in the distance who wore armor that was strangely familiar.

"Halt." Nikolai raised his hand and crouched down. He peered at the assortment of ponies at the front gates of Dodge city. He could see clearly the White Apple insignia painted on their shoulder pads.

"What is it?" He pointed to the group of mercenaries.

"Follow me, and don't draw any attention to yourself. I know those guys." Nikolai began to move faster, but not quite to the point of what would be considered jogging or running. Flashpoint did the same. Trailing behind Nikolai with a confused expression on his face.

"Why are you running?"

"I didn't leave off with them on the best terms." The 2 speed walked along a side road parallel to Dodge city until they came to a little roadside veterinary clinic. Long since abandoned and pillaged of everything valuable, but still standing. They shuffled inside, and Nikolai took a seat on one of the tables and looked over at Flashpoint.

"What happened exactly?"

"I would rather not speak of it now. We must find way around those mercs!" Nikolai peeked though the dusty blind. "We could gun them down. " The Zebra shook his head.

"No, that would not work, to much open ground, plus there's no telling what the guards in town may thing once you start shooting. They may just think you're a raider and open fire." Nikolai ran his gloved fingers across the surface of the table, kicking up dust.

"We'll take the long way around town and come in though the train station." Flashpoint stared blankly at the wall. "I've been here before, it won't work." Nikolai swore he could see the Zebra shutter. He grunted though his mask and pointed out the window.

"Either or, I pick or. "Flashpoint responded. Nikolai nodded in agreement.

"Da, what you just said. We go!" He led the way out the back door of clinic, and back onto the road. Even without the aid of his scope, he could still see that they had not yet spotted him.

It took about 20 minutes of walking, but the pair finally made it to the other side of Dodge city, They proceeded parallel to the rail line until they stood on the corroded wood deck of the train station. With not a soul in sight. A tumbleweed blew across the tracks. And Nikolai scratched his head.

"Where is everyone? This place looked packed from the hills."

"I told you so." Nikolai's eyes widened. He raised his gun and sprinted around the building, As soon a he rounded the terminal corner he was met with a half dozen gun barrels pointed at his face. And another dozen past him, at Flashpoint.

"Now what in tarnation are y'all tryin' to do?" The voice was gravely, but calm. A unicorn stallion wearing a sheriffs hat and a rusty badge pinned to a makeshift ballistic vest emerged from the crowd. Keeping the gun barrel of his revolver trained on the Stalker. Nikolai held up his hands slowly.

"Please do not shoot us! I am friend, this is Flashpoint. Do not shoot, please." He had quickly realized that the weapon that the sheriff carried was a 44. magnum. A round that, whilst not capable of penetrating his body armor, could still cause a lot of pain, and severely damage a limb if it struck one.

"What are ya?"

"You should believe this, I am a human. Hoo-man.Вы понимаете?" He gestured for them to lower their guns. They kept them up. An earth pony pointed his left hoof at Flashpoint.

"Why are ya travelin' with stipes?" Nikolai scrunched his face for a moment, then came to the realization that he was talking about Flashpoint.

"Da, I found Zebra friend up in Wither's pass." His radio crackled back to life.

"Клянусь, Владим, если ты еще раз потеряешь пистолет-!" One voice yelled.

"But I did- Where's the growling coming from!?"

The crackle of gunfire echoed over the radio, followed by the frantic noise of a violin and accordion and the growling of some horrible radiation spawn tearing at brick.

"I am sorry, it is always like this." He fiddled with his radio. And a haughty jazz tune began to play in it's place. A couple of the armed ponies stifled back fits of laughter.

"Da, go on and laugh, is funny." He laughed crazily. The pony with the badge raised his hoof.

"Please sir, what are ya doin' tryin' to sneak into my town with a Zebra?"

"We are not trying to cause the trouble. We just need a place to rest up. We're on the run from some really bad people." The sheriff sighed, and ordered the other's to lower their weapons. They did, albeit reluctantly.

"Alright, you can stay. It's just that we ain't exactly used to visitors taking the back entrance of our town." Nikolai sighed, and removed his mask.

"Your town? How- Surely there must be more than one way in and out of this place."

"Yes, there is." The Sheriff replied, "Just usually the only folks that come from that direction are raiders. And I ain't gonna have them roughin' up the townsfolk. Come with me. " He waved them along.

"Name's Sheriff Brick Brandy." He didn't ask for theirs.

The sheriff escorted them down main street. Everything was stylized in a western fashion. Saloons made up for almost half the establishments there. A few other's were boarded up. Rotting away from age.

"I'm used to harsh responses. But it is like they had a vendetta against you." Nikolai whispered into Flashpoint's ear. He hung his head solemnly.

"Zebra's aren't exactly popular around these parts." He responded as a tin can crunched under his boots. Nikolai nodded. "Because of the bombs?" He nodded. Stepping in a puddle. Nikolai's Geiger counter let off a brief chirp, then went silent again.

"What was that?" Nikolai asked the Sheriff. He shrugged. " Don't know, water on the outskirts of town has been irradiated for some time now. But everypony we've hired to try and fix it has gone missing. Heh, they're probably another set of bone in the dirt by now!"

Nikolai took a look up at the grey permanently overcast sky. Then down at the deplorable condition of the streets, and the relatively well maintained shops and saloons. He led them into the town square. The sheriff pointed his gun up in the air with his magic for the second time, and pulled the trigger. Nikolai was getting a bit worried about the lawman-stallions? Lack of muzzle discipline. He wasn't one to talk, Stalkers weren't exactly known for their safety. Errant rounds and the occasional discharge uncomfortably close to a comrades foot were just occupational hazards. But you never went out of your way to do that on purpose unless you were either drunk off your rocker, or simply an idiot.

"Listen here folks! I don't know how many times I have to remind you, Zebra's ain't fair game. No shooting at our guests!" They all franticly nodded their heads and moved on.

"Well, that's it. I ain't responsible for what happens to ya now. Obey the rules. Go on, do your things." Brick Brandy trotted off without saying another word.

Nikolai looked up, and found a set of words carved into a wall and highlighted with a bright array of spray paint.

-You loot, we shoot

-No intentional killing or maiming

-No bounty hunting in public

-Listen to the sheriff

He couldn't help but laugh at them. Like this crowd would ever listen to something like this. A distant gunshot confirmed his thoughts. "We should get moving." Nikolai waved Flashpoint along. Who kept close behind.

They turned off main street, after a little while, and found themselves in a courtyard. Lining either side of a wilted garden were rows of caged ponies. Filthy and in poor spirits. Armed guards trotted back and forth, eyeing Nikolai and his zebra companion closely. Almost like they thought that Flashpoint would turn into a hellhound and devour them at any moment.

"Relax. Nothing is going to bite you!" Nikolai said with a laugh. slapping his knee as he passed them. From there, the pair headed to the northern side of town. Past the glamorous townhall and it's clocktower. And right by a radio station and improvised hospital. They were approached by an scrawny earth pony stallion.

"Um, hello! Are you the mercenaries that Brick Brandy hired to get rid of our radigator problem?" Flashpoint looked around concernedly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The radigators in the sewers under our town. We've been trying to get them out for weeks. But as the sheriff has already told ya, they've all disappeared." Nikolai shook his head.

"That sounds fun." The stalker said sarcastically, hefting his weapon.

"It does not." The Zebra added hastily.

"Well, I guess we'll have to keep waiting. " The stallion muttered. Nikolai frowned.

"Yes, you shall." He responded. He looked back the way they came. And was not surprised when he spotted the White Apples mercenaries from before. They were talking with a mare about Nikolai. Then, they turned and spotted him.

"Blyat, go!" He took off running down the street with Flashpoint close behind.

"Get away from me! бандит!" He shouted, taking his rifle off safe as he ran. He could hear shouting, but no gunfire. Yet.

"Hey, get back here!" One of them cried, he heard the crack of a 20 gauge shotgun shell being let off into the air. Nikolai hastily gave him the finger. As he and the zebra ducked around a corner. Nikolai pointed to a manhole cover.

"There!" He waved Flashpoint over, " Help me open it." Nikolai donned his GP-5, and pried off the cast iron cover. He quickly shinned his rifle light down into the sewer. He could see the bottom not 4 meters away. He unslung his rucksack and gently lowered it down, then climbed in with Flashpoint just as the mercenaries turned the corner. He slammed the manhole cover shut. And his boots hit the ground after a short decent on a ladder. He picked up his sack and reslung it.

"Well, I don't thing they're going to be following us." Flashpoint muttered with a groan. Nikolai's Geiger counter began to slowly click with activity again.

"Ah, how I missed you!" Nikolai said with begrudging sarcasm as he shinned his rifle down the tunnel.

Chapter 11: Get Out Of Dodge

Chapter 11: Get Out Of Dodge

"Oww, Oh blin!" Nikolai fumbled around in the darkness with only his flashlight to guide him. He could hear Flashpoint grumbling to himself.

"This is your fault." The Zebra muttered. Nikolai's Geiger counter began to tick away, quickly, he fumbled around in his rucksack, and then tossed the equine gas mask to Flashpoint.

"Put this on, unless you like glowing, bone aches, or cancer." He swiftly did as told. Nikolai turned and shinned his light down the tunnel. It was just barely tall enough for him to stand up in. The tunnel led down to a fork after about 30 meters in either direction. And the ground underneath felt mushy. Nikolai tried not to think about what he might be stepping in.

"Should we wait for them to go away up above, or find a different way out?" Flashpoint asked him. Nikolai shook his head.

"I have been in situation like this before. We pop up, and they'll be waiting with their guns. We go around." He gestured back into the tunnel.

"Don't worry, I've got plenty of charge left in the rifle light. And even then, I brought a spare penlight, and some chemlights." Nikolai had heard the term before, but he wasn't about to call them glow sticks in front of Flashpoint.

"That is... ok by me." He responded, sounding dubious. Nikolai ignored him this time and pressed forward.

The sewers were dark, aside from Nikolai's gun light and the faint glow of balefire radiation by their feet. The properties of the stuff still bewildered him. It wasn't like regular radiation at all. More like a cartoonish version of the stuff. Barrels with warning labels oozing green sludge and what not. He laughed at the though.

"If only." Flashpoint heard him, and turned his head.

"What?"

"Nevermind."

"Ok..." All of a sudden, Flashpoint buckled up into the air, rearing like a frightened horse.

"What is it!?" Nikolai chided quietly.

"There is something in these tunnels." He responded. Nikolai quickly shinned his light behind them, and found nothing out of the ordinary.

"Da, I understand." He shifted his up from semi to fully automatic.

"Take some steps forward." Nikolai slowly moved forward. And then off to the side, onto a little concrete platform. All of a sudden, a huge green and black form burst up from the mud. Apparently mad that Nikolai had stepped on what looked like a tail.

"Ah blyat, die монстр!" He screamed, firing wildly at the thing whilst backing up, forcing Flashpoint back down the tunnel. The thing let out a deflated hiss, and collapsed, dead at his feet. He chuckled with uncertainty.

"That was a radagator." Flashpoint murmured. " Just a youngling."

"Where are the adults?" He was interrupted by an impeccably timed roar. He could've laughed, had it not been terrifying. The roar echoed down the tunnel. And another one echoed back in response.

"Train your gun behind us, I'll go ahead!" Nikolai broke into a sprint though the muck and Balefire residue. Almost slipping and falling in the process. But, he stayed up. After a few moments of moving forward, they came to an intersection. On the ground lay the decaying corpses of 2 armed ponies. Likely those who had previously been sent down into the Sewers to investigate. The bite marks and broken bones made it well apparent as to what had happened. A pair of radigators stormed down the corridor to his front. Teeth bared and oozing with greed sludge. Nikolai raised his gun and pulled the trigger 2 times in quick succession, then turned his gun to the other and sent it's head flying.

"Run!" He heard more gunfire behind him. Flashpoint had engaged another radiator. They moved forward at a brisk pace, almost back to back. Nikolai swapped magazines and brought his rifle back up. Hastily stuffing the half empty one into a leather drop pouch. After about a hundred yards they came to an maintenance shaft opening alongside what appeared to be support pillars squaring a central open space. Pilled in the corner's were set's of glowing green eggs.

"It's a nest." Nikolai murmured. Followed up by Flashpoint's cry of, " Why yes! It most certainty is!" From the roof sat about a dozen bat-like creatures.

"Bloodwings." Flashpoint informed the Stalker.

"Flying mutant-" He raised is gun and raked the ceiling, the sonic crack of full powder FMJ 5.56 by 45 ammunition echoed off the walls. The suppressor was effective in wide open spaces. But, in the confined space of a sewer, it only served to blanket the flash and the initial 'bang' of the gunpowder sending the action back and the bullet down the barrel. The creatures fell to the ground in one big bloody pile. Off to his left side, Nikolai noticed a door. Then, off to his right, another radigator.

"Blyat cyka!"Nikolai shouted obscenities' at the creature, pulling out his Makarov and emptying and entire magazine into the it's body. He stuffed it back into it's holster and backed up against the left wall.

"Do you have anything that can get that door open? its look's rusted shut!" Flashpoint gave the handle a tug, and it creaked open.

"What was that?" He replied with a cough. Nikolai shuffled into the corridor, Flashpoint jumped in behind him, another radigator lunging at him as the door slammed shut. As soon as the door was closed, the beeping of his Geiger counter lessened greatly. After a little ways of walking, they came to another door, this one led back up to the surface.

"Ah!!" Flashpoint gasped in relief as he tore off his mask and stuffed it into a pouch. He winced slightly on the radiation sores on his hooves, but said nothing. Nikolai on the other hand, moved calmly, he set he mask in a pouch by his side and downed a 1/3 pack of Rad-away. He paused and looked at Flashpoint, who looked back up at Nikolai in bewilderment.

"What is it. Would you perhaps like some as well?" Flashpoint shook his head. " No, It's just that I still have not gotten past the sight of your strange face." Nikolai laughed.

"Is not first time I have heard that little дурачок." He laughed again, then redonned his mask.

"Why do you insist on wearing that thing everywhere?"

"My GP 5? Force of habit, perhaps." He shrugged as he checked his rifle's magazine. Flashpoint watched in mild amazement as Nikolai looked into the magazine, gazing down at the rounds within, then shook it and responded with.

"About half. I am going to half to repack my magazines soon." He stuffed the magazine into one of his pouches and pulled another one from a pouch on his rucksack. He let his rifle fall on it's sling. Pulling out his pistol, he flipped the magazine release on the bottom of the grip and extracted the spent magazine. He reached for his last spare magazine on his belt, and loaded into the gun before dropping the slide release with his thumb and sliding it back into it's holster.

"Do you by any chance have any military-"

"Nyet, I do not. Action movies and YouTube. That is all. Guns are a rare commodity where I come from. Shooting ranges even rarer. Though there was hunting in abundance." He opened the door and came up with his gun raised. Fresh dry air blew into the tunnel, confirming that they were indeed back on the surface. The pair now found themselves in the hall of an ornate government building.

"Dodge City Town Hall." They made their way out the front doors, and found themselves confronted by half a dozen White Apple mercenaries. Who were slow to react, Nikolai took up a position behind a column. Flashpoint hid inside.

"Calm down, we just want to talk." He hear a voice call out from the park in front of the building.

"Fetch the sheriff! We shall speak then!" Flashpoint called out.

"Save your barkin' sonny, I'm already here!" The voice of Brick Brandy responded. "Bounty huntin' is just part of life in the Wasteland. I don't have any quarrel you or the White Apples. Just surrender and come on out and I give you ma word they won't start shootin'." Nikolai shook his head and groaned. Why did things like this always happen to him on the final stretch of the a journey? He was hungry, filthy, and needed some place to get back in fighting shape. Plus, some alcohol couldn't hurt.

"My apologies, but that is not good enough! I have information about this town. It is life or death. Tell the mercenaries to leave, and I will give it to you and help solve the problem."

"What is it?" The sheriff responded auspiciously. Nikolai could hear scattered hoofsteps ahead of him. They were repositioning. He looked back through the stained windows of the courthouse, and silently motioned for Flashpoint to push up to the pillar just parallel of him. So that an infill from the front side of the building would be completely impossible. Unless you had a tank, or one of those fancy Ballistic Shields.

"Listen, I'll put my gun down, and ya can tell me."

"No need, I will tell you it from here."

"Alright then, what is it?"

"I know where all your hired guns went, and I know what's iradiating the groundwater. You have a mutant infestation under the town. Some grenades and thermite should fix it. Now, let us go!" Nikolai waited anxiously.

"Alright, fine by me. You can go. Lower your guns!" The sheriff let off another round from his .44 Magnum. Nikolai took this to mean that he had something to say.

"I said, lower your guns- whoop!" Nikolai whipped out from behind the pillar and caught one of the White Apple's in the act of tackling the Sheriff.

"Get off of him durak!" Nikolai pointed his gun at the mercenaries, who, having just lowered their weapons, hastily obliged.

"Now listen here." By now a crowd had begun to gather around them. Some of the residents totting firearms of their own. Unsure of what to make of the unfolding situation.

"Don't just stand there, help me out!" A half dozen ponies pushed their way through the crowd, wearing badges on leather vests and dusters.

"Now mare's and Gentlecolts." The sheriff exclaimed, getting back onto his hooves. "I say we have ourselves a good old fashioned public forum and figure out just what we ought to do with these ruffians." Nikolai raised an eyebrow.

"Who do you imply?"

"You, your Zebra companion, and them." The sheriff pointed over at the mercenaries.

"Us? We, are innocent. We have done nothing wrong. I personally freed Flashpoint and some other's from the grasp of a group of Slavers. Should that alone not be a testament to my good character?"

"It's true!" A voice from the back of the crowd called. Flashpoint silently nodded his head.

"It is true. Although, I cannot attest to what Nikolai was up to before I met him." Nikolai growled.

"Listen here, your boss was trying to get his hand-hooves on plans for one of those Balefire bombs. Plus, I really, really did not like him." The mercenaries shrugged. "Don't care, we still have to bring you in."

"Well, ya ain't gonna be doin' it here. I reckon we ought to make an exception for these to? Does anyone object?" The White Apple's looked more confused then angry. But Nikolai was ok with it.

"Alright then, that'll be all folks. " He turned and looked up at Nikolai, " You're free to either enjoy what our town has to offer, or leave."

"Do you have any taverns in town?"

"Pick one. Drink's are on me. That's a one time offer."

A good few hours later, Nikolai stumbled out the front door of a saloon on main street, he had downed a glass and a half of whiskey... Which, whilst not enough to cause total impairment. Still made his brain just a little bit fuzzy. On top of that, he had also gorged himself on all manner of preserved food from the bar. And restocked all of his ammunition, it was fairly easy to con some houghty merchant out of a few boxes of the stuff. Subpar, but still better than nothing, and in good shape too. He groaned as he slumped back on a rocking chair on the front porch.

"Ah, I think I should stay here for a while. I am tired of running for my life." He looked over and spotted some figures moving towards him down the road. It was the White Apple's from before. And, judging by their muddled shouting, they wanted something to do with him.

What he wanted to say was: "Wha- what is it?" It came out as; "Ва-что это!?" With an added drunken slur. The mercenaries didn't seem amused at all.

"Oh, fuck it." He heard one of the mercenaries say with a grunt. " The sheriff isn't looking, let's get him!"

"Blyat! Flashpoint, we are doing the leavings!" The Zebra hastily lumbered out of the saloon, tugging his belongings behind him. Usually, Nikolai would describe the Zebra's movements as 'graceful'.

This was definitely not the case here. He looked like he could barely stand on all fours.

"Eh, hehe!" Nikolai exclaimed. "How about some cheery music for the occasion, eh?" He fumbled with his radio, intending to put on Zone FM. What he got instead was another Equestrian broadcast.

"Hello there folks, this is DJ Pon3, your voice in the Wasteland, bringing you the truth no matter-" He twisted the knop, and the airwaves were filled with the sound of a twangy Ukranian folk song.

"What the hell, why'd you switch it!?" Nikolai dove over the fence and ran into an alleyway, a White Apple appeared in front of him. So close he nearly ran into the suppressor on the end of the Stalker's rifle. Nikolai sent him sprawling to the ground with the butt end of his gun. And then rounded another corner and ran down a side street, joined by Flashpoint. Being that both weren't exactly at their best. Neither noticed that they were being fired upon by the mercenaries until a bullet clipped Flashpoint's mane.

"Blyat ty трус!"

Nikolai cursed at the top of his lungs. He whipped his gun around and began letting off errant rounds in the 'general' direction of his pursuers. Flashpoint did the same. Though, his sub-gun ran dry after a few bursts. And he didn't bother to reload. Bystander's either fled in terror or dove for cover, a few drew their own guns. But by the time they could get any information as to the developing situation, Nikolai had already sprinted into a tavern and scrunched up in the corner behind hard cover.

"Where should we go?" His zebra companion asked him. Flashpoint's face was full of both terror and confusion. Nikolai realized that he was counting on him to get him out of Dodge City.

"Take the side exit, over there." Nikolai whispered, pointing to a door in the wall just past the bar. They discretely made their way through the crowd, but as they stepped into the street, they caught the eye of one of the mecranaries. Who raised his gun to fire on them, but what happened next was something that would stay with Nikolai for the rest of his life.

The Mercenary looked fairly average, a unicorn stallion clad in body armor and wearing a bandana. As he floated up his gun, a rifle caliber carbine, by the look of things. It was Nikolai's body and gun just compulsively snapped to his location. He swore he could see a laser pointing just under his opponent's horn. His scopes crosshairs went right where he needed them to. The next thing he knew, the Mercenary was dead on the ground a good 25 meters away. And Nikolai had safely made his way into and out of the town's gun shop, back onto main street. And was now though the front gates of Dodge City and back out into the Wasteland. He was, and his vision had blurred again from exhaustion. He could taste stomach acid, and his head was pounding.

"Are you alright?" Flashpoint asked as he watched with intent.

"Da." Nikolai muttered as he hastily unpacked an IFAK and jammed a stimpack in his arm. " Is fine. Is all fine." As the pain subsided, he checked his compass. "Very well then, north it is."

Chapter 12: Splendidly Abandoned

Chapter 12: Splendidly Abandoned

The two Wastelanders walked in silence away from Dodge City. Nikolai kept glancing at his PDA. "The map shows that we are coming up on a place called Old Olneigh. Do you know anything of that place?" Flashpoint froze.
"Must we travel there?"

"Da. It is either that or the White Apples. And I like my body without several dozen additional holes in it." Flashpoint shook his head.

"No, that is not something that could possibly occur in this place that much. It's just that it's right next to Splendid Valley. Home of most of Equestria's illustrious toxic waste dumps, as well as a significant colony of hellhounds and all other manner of terrible things. Even Steel Rangers avoid it. Because most things that venture there, never return."

"It sounds like anywhere else in this hellhole of a world!" He exclaimed. Up in the distance, about a half kilometer away, he spotted something noteworthy. Blocking the road ahead of them was an old military checkpoint.

"But this place, I am telling you Nikolai. Is worth avoiding. The things there are... Wrong."

"How so?"

"Tell me, do you know what Taint is?"

"Nyet, я не знаю что это такое." Nikolai replied calmly. "I'll take that meant you don't know? Oh well, you've got to be one of the most oblivious people that I have met."

"Так так так... You cannot blame me for something that I did not know anything about!" The zebra sighed. "So goes the world we live in. Taint, is essentially leftover magical residue. The 'impurities' if you will. It takes the form of a sizzling multicolored sludge. It's fairly uncommon, but when you do stumble upon the damned stuff, it's usually within barrels or storage tanks. You can also find it pooling in small ponds. And surrounded by all sorts of disgusting mutated wildlife. Spawn of Tartarus. " Nikolai nodded in agreement.

"Da, I actually think I ran across one of those creatures a few days ago. It was this nasty flying thing. Munching on a dead bandit."

"That sounds disgusting. It's best to steer clear of them. They aren't worth the ammunition they take to kill. And their corpse's are poisoned." They walked in silence from there up until the Military Checkpoint.

"I would say we are far enough from Dodge City to be able to rest without worry. You take watch, I want to look through this place." Flashpoint shrugged apathetically. Nikolai was practically jittery with excitement.

"What has you so worked up?" The zebra asked curiously. "Looting-I mean... Scavenging, is my favorite part of my job."

"I wasn't aware you worked for anyone. Who?" Nikolai laughed.

" What do you mean? I am self employed. I take odd jobs for whoever is in need of my services. As you already know, my last employer tried to murder me when I had a disagreement with him."

"You punched him in the face. Right?"

"Da. I did. Now quiet. I wish to revel."

"You cannot be serious." Nikolai walked searched around, he walked past a sandbag barricade and threw aside dusty camouflage netting that obscured the checkpoints interior.

"You see, Flashpoint. Soldiers, convicts in particular, do not fare well when put in a 'retreat' situation. They tend to drop their things and run, as is the case with this place. Within a makeshift rest spot was a handful of tables, with rusty folding chairs all around them. As well as several crates of various sizes scattered about. Spewn out across them was all manner of valuable objects. From cans of preserved vegetables to firearm parts. Muzzle devices, foregrips, flashlights, handguards, pistol grips, as well as stocks, sights, barrels, and even a gas block or two. That wasn't even counting the handful of guns that were still in working order.

"These do not look Equestrian issue. Flashpoint responded. Nikolai threw a tarp off of a table, revealing a stash of first aid supplies as well as the painted insignia of a yellow talon.

"Griffons, I would suppose?"

"It looks like it." Nikolai clapped his hands together. "This, this is wonderful."

All told, Nikolai was in there, maybe half an hour. By the time he was through, his backpack weighed an additional 10 kilograms, and he was in the best mood he had been in all day.

"Are you through in there?" Flashpoint called.

"Almost, he checked by a bedroll, and found something that intruded him greatly. A Ironshod firearm's concealed carry pistol in .380 ACP. The gun itself was not in well enough condition to take. Given that the frame had cracked and withered from centuries of neglect. But, the important thing was that the barrel was still in good condition, he tore the slide away with a screwdriver and carefully removed the barrel. He had plans for it.

" It is getting late Nikolai, I would rather not make a snack for a hellhound!" Nikolai stuffed the barrel away in a separate pouch in his rucksack.

"I found something for you ungrateful zebra." He revealed what was in his left hand to Flashpoint. It was a brand new sub-machine gun. Roughly similar to what he was carrying, except for the polymer frame, picatinny rails, softer trigger, and tritium iron sights which had been made larger for convenience. A flashlight hung off the side of one of the rails, alongside a massive angled foregrip for ease of operation.

"For you. It is about time that you get rid of that ancient misshapen piece of trash. They are the same gun. It is just that this one is better." Flashpoint smiled. " Why thank you." Nikolai nodded in affirmation.

"You are welcome. Now, let us continue!"

The darkening of the cloudscape above him signified the coming of night. Whilst not quite as dark as his journey from Salt Cube City. It still had him wishing that he had bought himself a set of Night Vision, or found one at the Military Checkpoint. But it was no matter anyway, given that there wasn't really much natural light to work with anyway. And, as always, turning on the flashlight was too dangerous. As it would very obviously give away his position. And anything within a several kilometers would be able to see him with ease. So, just like before, they walked in darkness and in silence. After a while, the range of hills and low mountains in the distance came into focus. Revealing what Nikolai believed to be Splendid Valley and Old Olneigh.

"I cannot stress how bad of an idea this is Nikolai. You should NOT do this if you value your life." He was rebuffed with an insane laugh. "Do not humor me, I know what I want. Danger aside, I have faced much worse that what you have told me about."

"And besides, that is what everyone tells me! Have some cheer!" He laughed again. And was suddenly interrupted by the crack of a rifle round whizzing far over their heads. "Blyat! Давай, давай!"

About half an hour of walking later, and a few instances of stumbling across equally startled 'wildlife' in the dark, they finally made it to the quaint little suburb of 'Whinny Meadows." A small settlement just outside of Splendid Valley and part of the greater Old Olneigh area.

Roar!

Nikolai jumped at the sound of the inhuman screech." Ghoul!" Flashpoint brought his sub-gun up to meet the creature's path. But a bullet whizzed through it's rotting skull, and it fell dead in a heap at their feet. The two dashed over to a house, Nikolai kicked the door open and darted inside.

"I though you said that there were no bandits out this close to Splendid Valley?" He asked callously. "There shouldn't be, no sane pony would-these have to be raiders. They heard another scream from outside, followed by a string of curses and several more gunshots. Nikolai brought his gun up and set himself against an exposed metal support beam. within the house. He moved his thumb across his throat, and Flashpoint seemed to get the message.

"They must be the one's that were chasing us earlier? Or... What if they're more of the Slavers from Withers Pass?" He muttered to himself. The string of curses outside was silenced by another gunshot. An equine figure stepped within his field of view, but, before the trigger broke, the figure was torn to shreds by a flying ghoul. He had only encountered pegasi once before, in the airbase he had visited two days ago. This one was just like the armored 'Enclave' Pegasi he had been ambushed by. Only instead of power armor and a bad sense of humor, this one was a rotting, flying corpse. It wailed and screeched as it died in a barrage of gunfire. Followed by a roar in the distance one that sounded even louder the loud bangs of the the obviously poorly maintained and unsuppressed rifles and shotguns being used outside.

"Unless... Those ponies were after me!" Flashpoint froze, and facehoofed. Something that looked like a bad idea to Nikolai, considering all the awful things they had spent the better part of the day walking through, mud, mutant guts, and of course a not so healthy dose of ground laden balefire radiation. But he didn't seem to mind.

"You led them to us! You are almost as bad as my former captors!" He cried. Nikolai groaned unpleasantly and hefted his rifle.

" Теперь что ты- The door is right there. You can go if you want. Besides, I saved a bunch of your friends way back there."

"They would've traded me for a dozen bottle caps or a hot meal any day of the week! Do you honestly think they would value the life of some random zebra who they don not even know!? You should see the way some of them treat their foals!" Nikolai sighed, and waved it off. "If it is any consolation, you are a pretty good shot, and regardless of whatever suspicions you have about this place, you must put them aside. Did you not tell me that?"

Flashpoint smiled. " Why, indeed I did." Off to his side, he heard a window shatter follow by the grunt of Nikolai landing and slipping on broken glass outside.

"Blyat-hellhound hellhound hellhound!" They ran for the skyline of Old Olneigh.

If the lack of bullet holes in the rusty signs outside of the city weren't a dead give away as to what was wrong with the city, other than the usual post apocalyptic ruins, then the eerie silence was a metaphorical blast of buckshot to the face.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" Flashpoint whispered. Nikolai shushed him. Off to their side was a parking lot, just outside of an abandoned strip mall. Roaming in between the wrecked cars was a hellhound. It seemed to be interested in a mannequin in one of the store fronts, and as such hadn't noticed either of them yet.

"That's odd. Usually they act pretty oblivious of inanimate objects. Of course, until today I have never seen one this close up."

"This is what you call close up? We must be over a hundred meters away. Let me tell you, I once had this creature called a chimera jump me while I was delivering a package for an employer. The damn thing jumped at me from 10 meters away and barreled past me faster than I could react. Thank god it missed. I dumped half a magazine of ammunition into it and scared it off. But I never took that route again. This, is nothing." They began to hear more growls and ruffling noises, a half dozen more hellhounds rambled into the parking lot, and dumped a mutilated corpse at the grimy paws of the others, than began to feast.

"Ugh. A fellow Stalker once joked that perhaps if these monsters had better eating habits, they might 'get along with us better'. Of course, he had just consumed a large amount of hard drugs and completely out of his mind." He snickered in remembrance.

"Question, now that we're here... What are we supposed to do? You dragged me here, what is it about this o-cursed place that interests you so much?"

"Money. "

"So what do you want to do? Find and old bank and loot its vault?"

"Nope, too heavy. I am after technology. Information. Information, where I am from, can mean the difference between a person in need of urgent care living or dying. Or winning of losing an entire war. And, because this place is considered off limits for nearly everyone else because of the dangers that inhabit this place. I can be certain-" He momentarily stopped and ducked inside a department store. A roaming hellhound trudged past, it's red eyes casting a glow over the abandoned and desecrated store shelves. Like a feral spotlight. They waited until it was beyond earshot.

"I am certain that this place is overflowing with valuable items. I have a cap empire to build."

"If you wish to build a 'empire', then why do you insist on shooting everyone you come upon?" Nikolai rolled his eyes under his mask. And translated that by by waving his gloved hand around his earlobe to signify that it was crazy.

"Nyet, not everyone. I am actually quite amicable. I just have a hard time agreeing with those who try to kill me on sight."

"High vocabulary for a gun for hire." Flashpoint responded lightly. Nikolai gave him the finger, then motioned for him to leave his hiding spot and go along with him. They walked down the store isles, disturbing a few radroaches in the process. Flashpoint leaned into some of the shelves with his mouth almost watering.

"Don't bother, this stuff looks like it would kill you faster than the monsters outside would." Nikolai picked up a rusty can of tomato soup and waved his Geiger counter over it.

"My parents grew up in a village that was down river from a nuclear power plant. They knew a thing or two about this stuff." Flashpoint angrily tossed the cans he had gathered back down. They hit the linoleum floor with a loud 'clang!'

"What the hell are you doing?" Nikolai sneered. Almost jumping at the noise. "Those hellhounds out there will kill both of us if we keep that up. Lets work in silence, yes?" Flashpoint hurriedly nodded.

"There must be a safe behind the counter here, I would like to check it. You can go take stock of the back halls. Зрозумів?Got that?"

"Why is it that- Nevermind." He hung his head and trotted off to survey any possible valuables. Nikolai smiled. "Self employment is wonderful." He walked down the dark and dusty isle to the pharmacy. He slid over the counter and almost impaled himself on a set of brand new hypodermic needles. He crept around until he found the cash register and safe. But then thought it over.

"Unless this happens to be a pile of gold. I'm not taking it after what they said about my rubles back in Salt Cube City!" He broke the lock with the butt end of his bayonet, and was taken off guard when he actually found what seemed to be genuine gold coins within it. Alongside slips of paper that looked like a phesdo version of the American dollar. With various equine figures displayed about them. He sighed, pocketing some of the gold and turning to the assortment of medical items on the shelves. Mostly common medicines, more or less what you would find back on Earth. But, piled up alongside them were an assortment of various magical concoctions. Most too fragile to take with him, but a few were in sturdy containers, he had now acquired himself a half dozen of the 'healing potions' which he had utilized back in Wither's Pass as well as more Rad-away. Only these were contained within small polymer bottles rather than the dirty glass ones he had previously seen. After stuffing the items into his rucksack, he hobbled over to the back rooms and began searching for Flashpoint.

"Nikolai!" The voice sounded desperate, he jogged down the hall and rounded a corner, there he saw what Flashpoint was fussing over. It was the corpse of a pony, long dead, but, heavily mutilated. Taint, the magical poison seeped off the bones.

"Blyat! This does not look like the work of a hellhound. We should keep going. God knows where the thing that did this is now." They decided to leave out a back entrance. Outside, they saw more skeletons.

"This is deeply unsettling." Flashpoint murmured. "In all my years of captivity, I had never seen this many corpses."

"Ah, this is nothing." Nikolai chuckled lightly. "The damned things that haunt the underground of the Zone's abandoned labs concoct horror's far worse than this!" He regretted his words in a near instant.

There is a certain creek that people sometimes find themselves up without a paddle. When Nikolai was caught off guard by a hellhound youngling on the far side of the lot, he suddenly found himself up that very creek. He raised his rifle and panic sprayed until it died. This, was a very, very bad idea. The death screech let out by it alerted what was likely every hellhound for blocks around. The roars echoed off the buildings around them.

" Run. Post office, up there. " An eerie calmness settled over his voice, he knew what was coming. The two took off running. They sprinted across the road and into a brick post office. Dodging right past the rows of chairs and bolting up the staircase. Nikolai broke a rusty door knob off its hinges with the stock of his rifle, and then shut the door inside. One of the creatures had broken into a full charge, and was trying to go though a solid brick wall with it's skull. Nikolai grabbed Flashpoints submachine gun and canted it over the window frame, he sprayed until he heard the body collapse. Only to find 2 more patrolling the street in front.

"I have a road flare. And it's near pitch black outside. If I light it and throw it over there, it might give us time to reposition."

"I'm sorry, why do you have a road flare?"

"Молчи и смотри! Shut up and look!" He cracked the top, leaned out the window, and threw it as far down the road as he could. It landed about 10 meters away. "Go!" They bolted back down the staircase and out another backdoor. They crossed the street again and continued to head northwest through the city. Passing many ruined buildings with locked doors and blown out windows which they could have easily stopped in and looted. The only problem is that they were all ringed by hellhounds, and the occasional glowing ghoul. Nikolai wanted none of that. And Flashpoint was absolutely speechless through it all.

"This place has not lived up to my expectations. " Nikolai told him suddenly as they climbed to the roof of a 6 story building using a rickety fire escape in the dark. They climbed to the top and looked out over the city skylines.

"I do hope you are joking?"

"Nyet. Not scary enough. Ominous yes, but not comparable to Pripyat." He gave his rifle a tap to make sure the illuminator was active. Then peered through it and surveyed the streets and intersections below.

"Monsters, more monsters... Wait, what is that over there?" He pointed to a cluster of glowing craters on the western side of the city. "Let me see." Flashpont demanded. The stalker reluctantly canted the rifle over, allowing Flashpoint to peer through the low magnification optic.

"Wow, I can see how you are such a good shot now. " He said, sounding genuinely impressed at the hunk of soviet era glass and carbon steel mounted to the side of his rifle. "Those look to be balefire craters. Remember the stuff we trudged through on our way through those sewers back in Dodge City?"

"Боже мій! Do I ever! By the way, the fur around your hooves is starting to fall out. " He looked down in surprise, lifting his hooves and examining them.

"You really should treat those." He pointed to them. "I have a surplus Rad-away if you would like it. Please, I implore you, that really does not look healthy."

"Just like your drinking problem is unhealthy?" Nikolai facepalmed. "I do not have a drinking problem! all Slavic folk come with naturally higher tolerance for the stuff. I just prefer Vodka."

"Yes, you've made that quite apparent." Nikolai reached into his rucksack to take out one of the spare packets, and was into he process of handing it to Flashpoint when they suddenly heard a screeching noise.

"Bloodwings." Nikolai ran over to the rooftop access door and tried to force it open. The damned thing had been fused shut by the flash of heat and radiation that had washed over the city. It would've taken a pallet of C-4 to knock it down. So instead Nikolai whipped around and, with almost pin point accuracy, put a round through the creature's wing. It fell to the ground, screaming and wailing in pain.

"Hello, Flashpoint... Are you alright-" It was a sound he hadn't heard in quite some time, the sound of a jet engine whining up. He looked southward and up at about a 30 degree angle, up in the sky... Just barely visible, was the shape of a power armor clad pegasus. Seemingly ignorant of Nikolai and his Zebra companion. It was frozen in place, it it seemed to be almost floating atop a cloud, with just the whine of a pair of jet engines keeping it afloat, observing it's surroundings.

"Blyat! They must have followed me!" He kicked a loose brick off the roof. A growl rose up from below. "Agh!" He snapped to Flashpoint's cry of panic. "Nikolai, something grabbed me!"

"I can see that!" A green magical aurora had enveloped the Zebra, and was now dragging him off the rooftop.

"Help!"

Nikolai shrugged and threw up his hands. "Дурню, що ти хочеш, щоб я зробив!? Idiot, what do you want me to do!?" He yelled, peering over the roof's parapet.

"What is doing this? Blyat, show yourself coward!" He exclaimed.

Flashpoint continued screaming as he was dragged around a corner and out of sight. The sound of his sub-gun letting off a burst echoed down the street. Nikolai's radio began to play 'Bandit Radio' again. He let of a string of profanity filled gibberish off over the airwaves. Then turned to find that the Enclave pegasus which had been quietly observing at a distance was now moving in.

"Ah, I am sorry Flashpoint!" He snatched onto a gutter and began to side down. The the rusty metal bruising his arms and legs even through his jacket and NBC pants. About 10 meters from the ground, the pipe snapped just above him. Sending him crashing to the ground.

"Oww!!!" He fell into a pile of rubble, hearing a loud crack in his leg as he did. He painfully crawled behind a ways behind a large chunk of rebar laden concrete, and clumsily downed a painkiller, followed by a healing potion in his trembling hands.

"Nikolai ty Идиот." He laughed gimly, feeling around to make sure nothing was broken. " Need a real doctor." He winced, and began to limp down the alleyway. He pulled out his PDA, and scrolled through the map of Old Olneigh.

"Incomplete would be good word to describe this. It does look like there is a hospital nearby." His limping stopped as the effect of the drugs began to take hold. He was soon walking normally, albeit slightly dazed and dehydrated. A half kilometer of agony later, and he was in the front parking lot of the hospital. He wheezed through his mask.

"Still not scary enough. A bolt of lightning cracked across the sky in the distance. Illuminating the entire lot. Including the shadows of some hellhounds down the road brawling with one another. And another being attacked by a weird flying plant looking creature. He decided it would be best to let them kill each other.

"This is so unbelievably stupid."

"You could say that again." He jumped at the sudden remark behind his back, the suppressor on the end of his gun brushed up against the metal mesh speaker of one of those 'Sprite-Bot' things.

"How did you sneak up on- ow!"

"Your left leg appears broken. A hairline fracture, perhaps?"

"I would not know, I think it is worse. " Nikolai responded harshly. "I took enough painkillers to sedate a tiger. And a healing potion to wash them down. And why would you care anyhow? "

"You need a magical splint to set the bone and heal it. Whatever you do, don't go-" The robot's transmission was cut off at the most inconvenient point, it shuttered and fell to the ground.

"You useless heap of scrap!" He kicked it with his good leg. But regretted it when when he lost his balance and fell to the ground. He looked at the hospital as though it was a goldmine. "That was probably something important!"

"Better than nothing. I just might find one of those magic splints the flying metal bug thing was talking about!" He got back up to his feet and, pausing only to dust himself off and avoid the gaze of a hellhound.

Nikolai speedily limped his way into the hospital's lobby. Everything was quiet now except for the eerie noise of wind and the distant cries of mutants.

"Heh, This place still has not met expectations. But, has all good parts of abandoned city, radiation, mutants, free stuff, toxic waste, and ruins, lots of ruins! " He wore a crooked smile on his face one of delirious insanity which would soon pass.

"Crack!" His boots met shattered glass, causing him to shutter and wobble.

Chapter 13: 'For Worse'

Chapter 13: 'For Worse'

"Far from Home, far from home. Cold and tired and all alone."

-From 500 Miles Away From Home

Nikolai was alone. He was in pain. And he was being hunted by cosmic-like horrors. He couldn't be happier, he could not possibly be happier in the face of his predicament. He limped past the front desk and began searching his way through the various clinics and offices. But, as he walked deeper and deeper into the structure, he began to notice that his Geiger counter had begun to tick again.

"That is not big issue." Nikolai murmured. He activated his weapon light and pied around a corner. There, scattered among the rubble, were the skeletal remains of dozens of ponies. Which wouldn't have been an eye catcher had he not noticed the fact that they all had cracked pelvic bones. Nikolai took a knee and scrambled about. He noticed trace amounts of a rainbowish liquid pooling underneath. His anomaly detector began to beep.

"Huh? That must be taint. Looks like crappy melted snowcone." He took a step back.

"What could have done this?" He examined them again. Then took at step back. He wavered over them, and examined the rest of the room.

"Blyat! These look old. Whatever abomination did this is probably in the dirt now." He sighed, and rested his arms on the sling of his rifle. There was nothing else around. And, he still had a broken leg. He needed to find a way to mend it quickly. Or he wouldn't make it out of this city alive. He liked being alive. And, more to that, he had an obligation to try and find his friend. He left the room and continued down the hallway. Listening to the faint howling of monsters and irradiated head winds outside. He passed some moldy posters on the way. Some cheery looking pegasus mare with the same mark on her flank as the medical kits and tents he had seen several times. The caption above was almost entirely faded away. But he could just make out something about 'doing better'. And war and peace. He almost laughed at the irony.

"Теперь, где?" He muttered under his breath. He checked a few more clinics, but couldn't find what he was after. Those magical splints still eluded him.

"Perhaps I will find them in the surgical section?" He wandered back around to the front office, and took a look at the building layout. A cursory examination revealed that the ER was the next floor up, just right off of a flight of stairs. Though, there was a pharmacy right by the front counter. Though he didn't think it would be stocking what he was after. Limping as quickly as he could, he made his way to the stairwell, broke the door open, and began to ascend.

As he reached the top of the stairwell and poked out into the hallway, he began to hear faint squishing and sloshing sounds. They seemed to be coming from all around him. They echoed through the second floor.

"They're in the walls..." Nikolai's mind thought. He shoved the thought away. Thinking like that would drive him mad. He walked along. Up ahead were more skeletons clad in decayed medical garb. A few radroaches scurried off of them when Nikolai drew closer. More cracked pelvic bones. Something was off about this place. He walked for a ways down the hallway, lit only by his flashlight, smears of taint on the walls. And the occasional sparking overhead light fixture.

"Here it should be." He poked his head through into a room, rows of stretchers lined the walls. A terminal sat attached to a nearby wall. It flickered, casting an eerie greenish-blue light across the rows of bloodied stretchers and curtains. He heard something sloshing in the back of the room. He poked his rifle light around a table. His radio crackled, playing a usually faint cheerful song which, under any other circumstances would have lightened anyone's mood. But in this situation

"...You make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed, sing like a bird, dizzy in my head, spin like a record..."

In the corner was a pony. With slick tarnished and dirty yellow fur.

Nikolai chuckled with uncertainty. " Hello?" It turned it's head. It had a somewhat innocent look on it's face, a patched smile, with blood red eyes that shimmered with a rainbowish light. It stared at him, no making a sound. And then, all hell broke loose.

In a flash, the creature opened it's face. Literally. Revealing a tentacle filled mouth full of razor sharp misshapen teeth. It let out an eldritch screech. And hurled itself at him like an octopus. Except far more unsettling. From all over it's body, more mutated limbs emerged, swirling in a mass of poisoned flesh almost as tall as him.

Nikolai screamed. His legs and arms felt like Jell-O, and, all of a sudden, his broken leg didn't seem to bother him that much. He limped backwards.

"BLYAT BLYAT BLYAT!!!" He sprayed bullets wildly at the abomination. Stitching it from midsection to whatever must have constituted it's head. It wailed, knocking over rusty medical equipment. He dashed out of the room. Quickly pulling out another stim pack and jamming it into his arm. Side effects be damned. His vision cleared, and the pain went away.

The Stalker ran down to the end of the hallway, then turned around and shakily snapped his AK 101 to the doorway. He froze when he saw the thing's putrid tentacle reach out from behind the doorway, it pulled itself out into the hallway, crumbling debris and broken glass under its body. From the bullet holes wheezed a swirling cloud of yellowish gas. He watched as it crumbled in him path. Practically deflating in the process. He sighed. But, as soon as the creature dropped. Nikolai heard movement in the vents above him, and when those tentacles burst through the sheet metal, Nikolai took off running so fast he would probably have made the Olympics.

He just kept setting new records. It would have been awesome if the thing chasing him wasn't so terrifying. He ran back into the stairwell and sprayed down the hallway until the second creature was dead, it's corpse fell over the other. The air around the surgical room was thick with that yellow gas the creatures had emitted, and Nikolai was grateful for his GP-5 gas mask. He dodged back into the stairwell, and then proceeded down the opposite end of the hallway. He quickly made his way back into the ER, and, only after checking to insure that there were no more mutants inside, began looking around. Tragically, there were none to be found. He thought for some more time.

"Ambulances!"

He limped his way forward. Even military issue stimulant injections can only nullify the downside of having a broken leg for so much time. In the meantime, he was left to listen for the rattling and movement of more of those 'Hospital Horror's', and think of his zebra friend Flashpoint. And how he might track him down once he got out of this forsaken place.

After a ways, he came to a fork in the hallway. He turned right, and headed down a stairwell to the emergency vehicle reception station. He moved faster now. As he reached the midway point, he gazed out over the parking lot and out out towards the road, and the assortment of buildings beyond.

"Never will I ever say that a place like this is not scary. As soon as I get through this-" He whipped around and was met with another one of the snarling creatures at the top of the staircase, he let off a burst of rifle fire and it clattered to the ground, rolling and sloshing down the stairs. It left disgusting stains of rainbow colored blood as he backed away down the stairs. He limped past a freight elevator, and toward the garages and emergency entrances where the rusting ambulance fleet sat. Nikolai noticed another one out in the parking lot, not 10 meters from where he was, various medical supplies were spilled out over the ground. As well as a destroyed stretcher, and a shambling ghoul. Which he promptly executed before going to look through the mess.

"большой! спасибо мир! Good! Thank you world!" Lying in a tipped over medical box was exactly 3 of the splints. Excited, he greedily snatched them up and hobbled back to the garage. Not even bothering with checking for monsters, he snapped the splint around his broken leg. And reclined backwards from joy. A pale yellow magic enveloped the wound, he could practically the feel bruises going away and bones reasserting themselves-then fusing back together.

It was the highlight moment of his day.

Nikolai sat completely still for about 5 minutes, then experimented with moving around. He gave it another 5 minutes, and sat up, using a concrete pillar for support. He stumbled around, but was able to easily regain his footing.

"Heh, now this, this is a treasure worth killing over!" He was grinning madly. He went back to rummaging through the ambulances. Not being the most patient lockpicker, he opted to mostly just knock them off with his bayonet or crowbar. Once his joyous rampage and looting session had concluded. The Stalker had acquired himself enough medical supplies to qualify him as the combat medic for an entire platoon of soldiers. As well as a few other things which he would definitely be taking with him. But, needless to say, he wouldn't be needing to make any more 'medical' stops in the near future. He pulled out his PDA and began to think over his next move.

"I've got to figure out how to get out of this god forsaken city (Still not as bad as Pripyat) and find my friend. I suppose that will start with me retracing my steps..." He clutched his head in pain at the thought of going through that place and contending with those unsettling abominations again. But, there was a significant number of hellhounds in between him and where he needed to get. In a twist of sick irony, the damned creatures avoided the place. And, he been unfortunate enough to find out why. But fortunate enough to gun it down before it could do any real harm to him. Alongside 2 of its friends.

"It is like Alien from the movies!" He exclaimed, trying to cheer himself up. He found a place where the radiation levels were minimal, then sat himself down and ate half a pack of croutons and a shot of Vodka. Then sighed, redonned his mask, and walked back into the hospital.

The next 4 minutes consisted entirely of Nikolai chaotically running and gunning and screaming in confusion and running some more though the dilapidated ruins of Old Olneigh hospital, until he was back out on the other side and into the dreary and dark street.

"One of many great capitalist virtues!" Nikolai muttered to himself. " I choose when I do stupid shit! Not lazy statesman! And, I can relax afterwards knowing that I earned it!" He walked back to the spot where he had fallen from the fire escape earlier.

The Stalker searched around the ground level for another building to climb up. It was like his body was reminded of the fact that he was still young enough to run and gun his way through a mutant filled hospital, dodge hellhounds, and still be able to scale an 8 story stairwell, and still have the energy to kill another ghoul with a crowbar to the back of the head. Without someone else to watch over, he could go full Slavic redneck as hard and as long as he wanted. Nikolai stepped out into an apartment and looked out over the city through shattered glass. Panting, he reclined back on a dusty rocking chair. It creaked under his weight. Being meant for a pony half his size. Though, at this point he had lost almost all semblance of respect. No one would probably ever be where he was right then and there. And he deserved to sit down and take a nap.

"Nap. Nyet, Nikolai! It may be almost past midnight- but you must not-" He blacked out in the chair, his rifle and rucksack slinking off to the side.

"Oh, huh? Gah!" He stumbled out of his napping spot and checked his watch. Five hours wasted, he had to get going. Nikolai rubbed the sleep from his eyes, drank a half liter of water, relived himself off the edge of the building. Repacked his magazines with the ammunition he had gathered in Dodge city and the military checkpoint. And began making his way north, further into the Old Olneigh and the mysterious green glows coming from Splendid Valley. He fumbled down the staircase, and quickly crossed the empty street below, taking shelter by some rubble, he pulled out his PDA and examined the topographical map.

"Ok, I am looking for something with magic green aura." He cursed under his breath and clasped his hands together. Then it occurred to him.

"Balefire craters! как тупо! How stupid!" He began heading west, towards the warhead craters. He passed by an old military convoy of armored vehicles with paint jobs that looked like someone had thrown an unfinished art abstract art museum at them. It was deeply out of character for their location. But, Nikolai theorized that their may have been some merit to their 'camouflage' back when they were operational. He spotted a the shape of a hellhound moving around in a trash heap just beyond them. So he decided to stay clear. He walked up on an on ramp and then began moving northwest towards the rest of Splendid Valley along a decrepit raised highway.

"Cейчас это..." As he came within 400 meters of the balefire craters, his Geiger counter and Anomaly detectors began to beep at the same time once more. Keeping in mind that it wasn't regular radiation. Off the northern side of the highway what he assumed was Splendid Valley proper. With rolling hills on either side, a strip of rocky ground extended roughly a kilometer and a half from one side to the other. The valley floor was postmarked with holes and caves, a pale yellow-reddish glow emanated from a few of them.

"More taint. A lot of taint. I mean, dear lord... Where did all this stuff come from? There must be lakes of the stuff down there!" He saw figures moving out in the darkness, more hellhounds. Occasionally, he'd catch sight of an anomalous plant growth coming up out of the ground. Just like the ones he had seen out in front of the hospital. About a kilometer outside of Old Olneigh, he caught sight of something that made him shutter.

There was another Balefire crater off in the distance towards the center of the valley. It seemed to have created a sinkhole. Suspended within and about said sinkhole was what looked like some sort of fortified military base. But, that wasn't what caught the Stalker's eyes.

"Are those... Unicorns with wings?" He took a look at the structure though his rifle scope, and counted a half dozen of the strange creatures. They were a mix of the colors green, purple and blue. They glowed with an eerie light as they flew from perch to perch, like guard sentinels. He watched as one fired a bolt of green energy at something. Though he couldn't see what it was from this distance.

"Huh, could it have been those things that took Flashpoint?" He watched as three more flew in from the west. All Green. He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard wings flapping behind him. It was almost like he could sense the creature as it flew over him. Nikolai hit the deck and hit under a rusted out pickup truck. It was a violent shade of purple, and as it passed overhead, he heard a voice call to him.

"DO NOT BE AFRAID. FOLLOW OUR GODDESS. JOIN IN UNITY."

He shook his head in frustration, and realized that the voice was all in his head. The damn things could communicate telepathically. Disturbing, but nothing he hadn't come across before. Himself and other Stalker's skirmishes with Monolith cultists back in the Zone had given him a steadfast respect for the damage that telepathy could do to an unprepared or weak minded person.

However, this was like a mental audio recording on loop. The strange creatures had not, in fact, discovered Nikolai. But were rather telepathically broadcasting their message for all to hear.

"Боже милий. Dear god. Please tell me that Flashpoint was not carried into that place by those things." He kicked a bit of rubble off the raised highway and cursed.

"Blyat! I am going to have to go in there after all!" He extracted the magazine from his rifle, and carefully examined the steel cased Full Copper Jacketed 5.56 rounds within.

He shook his head in dismay, and went to his backpack for some robust steel cored brass cased ammunition. Though he doubted it would be much help against the horrors of the valley below. Alongside this, he still had a few nasty surprises waiting in his rucksack in case he really got into trouble.

"First Salt Cube City, then Glow, then Marshes, then Sunrise Military base, then Dodge city, then Hospital, and now this! Nuclear war is-a terrible!"

But alas, as much as he wanted to believe that this was the worst this Wasteland had to throw at him. He subconsciously knew that there was probably something worse out there. But little did he know he was about to meet one of those things in person.

Chapter 14: 'For Better'

Chapter 14: 'For Better'

"Alright, alright."

Nikolai stared down at the decrepit installation and grimaced as he crept along the raised highway and began to search for a way off. He needed to make his way down into the valley below without getting spotted and turned to dust by one of those strange hybrid creatures. From there, he'd have to make his way through the radioactive crater and into the collapsed installation. And even then, there was no solid chance that his companion was even in there. Nikolai could gun his way through the whole place only to find that he had wasted his time. And then be killed anyhow. No, he'd have to be smart about this.

"Now hold on, those creatures fly circles around that compound. If I make a move... Nyet. That wouldn't work." He thought over his options. The best he could come up with in the moment was, grab a piece of rusty sheet metal and use that as a camouflage screen all the way to the front doors.

So that was exactly what he did.

Nikolai had once heard the story of a pair of United States Marines outsmarting an AI targeting system by putting a box over themselves and giggling the whole way to the robot. So he decided to try something similar. He went back to the overturned wreck he had hid himself under, and pried away a section with his gloved hands.

"This should be adequate enough." Nikolai hefted the piece of vehicle siding over his head. Squatting low to the ground, he shimmied his way across the raised highway. Going from wreck to wreck, he did his best to act like a piece of debris. He paused about a quarter of a kilometer from the off ramp.

"Blyat!" Nikolai cursed to himself.
He heard the whoosh of wings over his head, and planked out against the concrete guard barrier in the middle of the road. As it passed, the creature's green glow cast shadows across the abandoned highway. Then, as soon as it had come, it was gone. And Nikolai was alone again. He continued to creep low to the ground with his rifle off safe, and the rusty piece of scrap over his back, so that any overhead passing glance would reveal only a piece of sheet metal, and not the jumpy Stalker underneath. He winced. His muscles were beginning to ache, Nikolai quickened his pace, and within 10 minutes he was at the offramp that wound it's way down the hill and towards the compound.

The only problem was that the offramp was missing. it had been torn off, lay in ruins on the valley floor some 3 stories below. All of a sudden it occurred to him that the railing along the past 400 meters had been melted. Nikolai realized that this had all been the result of a close-in Balefire bomb which had detonated near, but not directly on the complex he was attempting to raid. It was more of an icing on the cake- bit of information. Nothing prudent, or any additional hazard to worry about. But the glowing crater was quite apparent.

"Blin, I will need to find anther way down to valley. Let me see..."

He reached into his rucksack and fished around. He was searching for a good length of paracord and a few carabiners, and ended up with astray carabiner, and some paracord. But not enough to get him down safely. But, he refused to give up. And Nikolai refused to find an alternate route. And so, after throwing his camouflage scrap to the ground. He clung on to a piece of Rebar, and using what little paracord he had, He swung his way down another 15 feet and dropped the other 10 taking his rope with him.

"Oi! I really should stop doing this!" Nikolai cried, his recent injuries coming back to mind. He pulled himself back up to his feet, repacked his rope, dusted himself off, and got back to creeping up on the compound. He planned to head along the drainage ditch. Nikolai crept up to it, and peered in, then immediately recoiled in disgust. A shimmering oilsh slick had settled at the bottom. Which made his Geiger counter and Anomaly Detector click in proximity.

"Nyet, how about rocks on far side?"

Judiciously, he crept the ditch over to the field of boulders which potmarked the valley. From there, it was another 20 minutes to what he assumed was once the front gate. All that remained of it was a smashed concrete barricade and the scorched foundation of what he assumed was once a guard shack.

Woosh! Fwoof!

He glanced around in suspicion, quickly, he ducked into the ruins and covered himself with the scrap metal. through a little crack, he watched as a blue form materialized out of thin air. Just like a bloodsucker. It was another mutant, he watched as it trotted around for a few moments, zapped a radroach with a bolt of magic, and then turned and flew off in the opposite direction.

"Blyat! That was close!" He watched as the glowing winged unicorn disappeared from sight in a flash of magic.

"Invisibility, perhaps? It is like bloodsucker, just more happy looking." He smiled, it was a grim smile. But a smile nonetheless, he waited another 2 minutes, and then began to continue making his way down towards the compound. As he went, he walked past horrid scenes of destruction. Mutated and bulbus corpses burnt to a crisp and rotted on the side of the road in toxic puddles. Destroyed military and mining vehicles dotted the landscape, covered with bleached white equine skeletons told stories that he didn't want to listen to. Whatever had happened in this valley, it was catastrophic.

He would occasionally stop to duck and cover from the creatures overhead, not just the weird telepathic hybrids either. But by strange forms of flora and fauna. Nikolai panicked and almost blew his cover and started shooting when a weird looking bird plant hybrid that glowed with a myriad of colors flew in and landed not 20 meters away from him. Startling the Stalker who was used to shooting hostile flora on sight, but he just stood very still, until the mutant half flew-half ran away and out of sight. He looked around, the sky was a much brighter shade of grey. Which meant that it was daytime above the clouds.

"...I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two

Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you

And now I'm lost, too late to pray...

Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway..."

His radio spun back to life. He quickly rushed and shut it back off. Hopping that it hadn't given him away.

"Not now, blin! Please, not now!" Now that he was much closer to the compound, he ducked down in between some rocks, and, with the scrap over him and his rucksack rolled off to the side, began to survey it's defenses.

"Ay, nyet!" As he looked from side to side through his four times magnification rifle scope, he began to grow more and more restless. The massive concrete fortress had partially collapsed into a sinkhole over it's centuries of neglect. There were only two plausible ways which he could get into this place. And both were equally dangerous. One involved him going through the main entrance, a set of blast doors guarded by almost a dozen of winged unicorn mutants at any one time, he assumed that either they were into choreography, or they were part of a hive-mind. In the case of the later if he was to be caught by one of them, they would all know where he is.

The second option was that he attempt over to the structure via one of the ragged wooden bridges that led to it. These fragile looking structures sat several stories over the massive pit above which the facility was partially suspended. The pit itself glowed with the same eerie green light as the sewers below dodge city, and the Dome back in Salt Cube. He could attempt to cross it, but even with his equipment and a likely very unhealthy amount of RadSafe and Rad-away, he doubted that it was possible in his current state.

"Ah, сейчас есть один..." Nikolai muttered to himself as he shifted his rifle over, and caught sight of a small metal maintenance door about thirty meters off from the main entrance, that was looked to be out of sight from the mutants, and not permeated with green clouds or rainbowish sludge. The only problem would be getting there, and even then, there's no telling where it could lead. But still, these creatures had taken his friend, and he had gone to far to come back now.

"Alright, I need a distraction. He looked over to his right, and off in the distance, about two hundred meters past the main gate, was a small hellhound, just minding it's own business and pawing at the ground in it's typical demonic fashion. He took the range with his illuminated reticle, and set the rifle's smallest crosshair onto it's side. He crouched down, steadied himself and his breath, and fired.

The creature roared in pain, Nikolai could hear it from almost half a kilometer away. It flew into a blind rage and charged at the alicorn's guarding the facility. They flew as a group to meet it, he jumped out from his hiding spot and, with the piece of scrap metal dragging behind him, madly dashed to the side door. He noticed an intact keypad right next to it, but ignored it. The slavic stalker knew that the chances of being able to hack into it was less likely than the odds that he would win the fight against all the mutants that would show up to try and kill him if it was rigged up to some sort of alarm.

"я великий дебил!" He quickly felt around the rusty door, and found a handle with no lock. He pulled on it, then pushed, and was met only with the creak of defunct hinge. It was rusted shut, he cursed again and pulled out his crowbar. And, after a few tries managed to pry it open. Experimentally, he tapped the door open with a boot.

"Hello?" He asked. No response was given. But, if any positive was to be found, no alarm rang. He poked his rifle inside and shinned his weapon light, it reflected off a metal support beam on the far side of the room. Nikolai poked his head in and looked around curiously, the glanced back outside. The glowing hybrids were still contending with the hellhound, and judging by the sound of magical blasts and eldritch roars. They seemed to be having a difficult time putting it down.

"Whatever, all the better for me." Nikolai mumbled to himself.

He slid the door shut, and the whole world went dark, with the exception of his flashlight. He cracked a glow stick, shook it, then dropped it on the ground by the door for when he had to leave. If he would be able to leave, that is. The stick cast an eerie blue light across the walls. He was at the end of a long hallway, with an intersection up ahead about 10 meters. The air was thick with dust. And strange noises echoed down the corridor as rusty pipes creaked.

"Da, this place is plenty scary. Oh well, I am here for reason."

He uttered a quick prayer in his head and crossed himself. "This is very poor choice, but I will go ahead with cheer for the sake of my friend." He raised his gun, and slowly began his advance into the structure.

As he drew deeper into the complex, Nikolai began to worry. A gunfight with any kind of mutant in such and environment could be incredibly high pitched and brutal. The last thing that he wanted was to round a corner and have his muzzle brush up against the muzzle of a hybrid or some other creature.

Crack! Screech!

Nikolai came out into a larger room, with various office cubicles lining the structure, and looked up out of a shattered skylight fifteen meters above him. With bathrooms off to one side, and a sign above read "R&D". The whole place was trashed, and his anomaly detector clicked intermittently. He noticed the dull rainbow smears on some of the concrete walls and elegant carpeting, as well as a few blood stains. And the metal doors between the office space and the rest of the building looked to have been torn off their hinges. Spread out on the floor under the archway that led towards Research and Development was a massive banner with a picture of a purple unicorn mare in a lab coat exclaiming;

"The Ministry of Arcane Sciences believes in you!" Right next to it, quite coincidentally, was the skeleton of a unicorn in a lab coat. He looked around, then looked back at the skeleton and grinned.

"Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair!" Nikolai exclaimed jeeringly.

He began to search through the cubicles, hopping to find something of value that would exclaim what this place and it's purpose was. Finally, Nikolai found a terminal that had not been damaged beyond repair, this one flashed orange with the words, 'Full System Lockdown in place'." Plastered over the monitor. He inquired further, and began making his way up a stairwell to a second floor. This led to another door, which he was able to breach with some difficulty. The one on the floor below had been ripped off it's hinges long ago. But the one on the second floor seemed to have been left intact.

Carpet turned to Linoleum and tiling as Nikolai crossed the room's threshold. This one seemed to have been a half laboratory, half supervisor room of some kind. Shattered beakers and test tubes lay scattered across the countertops and floor. And more skeletons dotted the floor, one of them looked to be a security guard, his sidearms still clutched in his jawbone. Which had been cracked in half by whatever had swept through here. Arrows on the walls pointed deeper into the facility. But something that struck him as odd about these one's was that they were still lit up. In fact, the entire room was lit up. At least the overhead fluorescent lights that were still intact were on. Which struck Nikolai as odd.

"Why would a place like this still have power?"

< DO NOT BE AFRAID, UNITY WILL NOT HARM YOU- JOIN US AND YOU WILL BE MADE PERFECT!>

"будь ти проклятий! Damn you!"

He fumed to himself. Taking up a position behind a countertop, he watched though murky glass as the purple outline of a hybrid shot by over the destroyed skylight. Casting long shadows across the floor of the office. It was the same flavor of generic telepathic propaganda that he had heard back on the highway. Although he was amiss as to what, 'join' could refer to. He waited a few moments, then brought his rifle back up and proceeded across the floor and towards the next exit, this one was much easier to get through. A shatterproof sliding glass door with steel reinforcing beams. He cracked the glass around the handle with his crowbar, and then pried the entire locking mechanism away with brute force. He glanced one direction, then the other, he entered the room, and found it empty. On the far side of this room was a set of blast doors, marked with the insignia of a yellow diamond. Of to the side, he spotted what looked like an isolation room. With equine hazmat suits lining racks outside along with an airlock. Within was a comfy looking room with a bed in the center. Off to the side, was a barrel leaking rainbow colored liquid that made both his anomaly detector and Geiger counter click as he drew closer to the glass. It's side bore the same insignia as the blast doors.

"Taint."

Nikolai muttered to himself, tapping the ground with a foot. This place, Maripony, must have been a testing ground of sorts. But what it was used for was still a mystery to him. What could a group of ponies possibly want with such a dangerous substance? He had been told that it was some kind of industrial waste, but from what? There were no documents to explain what had been going on here in sight, he couldn't access the terminals and computer system even if he wanted to, and he wasn't about to go in that isolation chamber and try to use deductive reasoning as to what had happened in there.

<WHO DARE INTRUDE ON OUR DOMAIN!?> An overpowering voice shouted in his mind. He winced.

"That did not sound like automated message!"

<THOU UNKNOWN CHARACTER!> A mild migraine swept over him, and his vision went fuzzy.

"Is like Brain Scorcher!" He swiftly downed a pair of ibuprofen tablets, followed by some water, and vodka wash it all down. His mood brightened as his senses dulled and the pain from the telepathic trauma went away.

"This is concerning. What am I to do here?" He asked himself. The Stalker took an knee and began to wonder if whatever was speaking to him in his head could also hear him speak back in return, like a sort of telepathic bridge.

"Hello, how do you do!?"He thought to himself. There was a pause, and then...

<WHY DOST THOU INTRUDE ON THIS FACILITY!?>

"Well, I am looking for a companion of mine. And, might I ask what this facility is, and what you are?" He got up, and drew closer to the blast doors.

<OUR BEING IS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION, BUT SEEK, AND YOU MAY FIND.>

Nikolai scratched his head. "What kind of conundrum is that? You must give details." No response was given by the eldritch voice. He walked up to the blast doors, the terminal by them reacted to his presence, and they slowly slid apart. From here on out, the floor below his boots was now concrete. This room was far larger than any of the prior ones, it was a solid 25 meters from floor to ceiling, and at least ten times that across. Nikolai found himself standing on a raised deck, about 5 metes up. In the center of the room was a series of massive storage vats. As a handful of what looked like some kind of stasis chamber. Each one bore the same symbol as the door, only these ones bore a secondary one, a purple star. He spotted 2 more hybrids, a blue one and a green one, sitting up in the metal rafters like sentinel birds. Scattered about the room was an assortment of barrels, just like the one he had seen in the isolation chamber, only these ones weren't punctured. And, a myriad of scaffolding and platforms hung suspended above the vats, a few were collapsed.

The Stalker scanned the room over, and spotted Flashpoint in the distance, strung up like a pig carcass. He looked to be alive, albeit in poor shape. His armor was missing, and his weapons were no where to be seen.

And then he saw it.

Half drained out of one of the vats of taint was an abomination. A melted pile of flesh, fur, and heads which sported hollow eyes. It looked as though it someone had melted a half dozen ponies like ice cream and then tried to mold them back together. Just the sight of it made him gag. His anomaly detector began to tick faster.

<YOU ARE PERSISTANT, WE WILL GIVE YOU THAT.> The being in the center of the room sloshed from side to side.

<THERE IS NO NEED TO BE AFRAID, IF WE WISHED YOU DEAD, YOU WOULD HAVE PERISHED LONG AGO.>

"Yes, yes." Nikolai thought to himself, he crept further into the room and ducked behind some metal crates. He began to weave and make his way around them with the intention of getting to Flashpoint and then getting him out of this place. As snuck around, he suddenly heard a grinding noise, and all the crates around him were ingulfed in a magical green field, then were swept away. Nikolai turned, and looked straight into the hollow eyes of the abomination. In unison, the hybrids flew down and landed on either side of the vat, there was a flash of light, and 4 more hybrids appeared in a semi circle around the vat.

"Well? You would do well to address our Goddess!" The lead purple hybrid spoke. Nikolai sneered at the remark. He was tempted to raise his rifle and rake the crowd with bullets right then and there. But he knew that it would be futile in the strongest sense of the word. An entire squad of men in exoskeletons bearing RPG's wouldn't be able to stop these creature, and he knew it.

"Greet's, umm... Ma'am? Thing? Anyhow, I have no quarrel with you. I simply need you to release that zebra over there from captivity and back into my possession, and I shall be on my way."

<AND WHY SHOULD I GIVE YOU THE STRIPED MONSTER?> The mutant puddle asked.

"Because, you stole him off a rooftop when he had done nothing to deserve it. He is my friend. And I wish to have him back safely." Flashpoint seemed to awake from a comma on the far side of the room, he turned and looked over at Nikolai. His eyes full of terror and bewilderment at the sight in front of him.

<HIS EXISTENCE IS A THREAT TO US! THE UNITY CANNOT ACCEPT SUCH INSOLENCE WITHIN OUR DOMAIN, YOU SEEM LIKE TO HAVE AN AURA OF WISDOM ABOUT YOU, STRANGE CREATURE, IF YOU LEAVE NOW YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. BUT THIS ONE WE WISH TO KEEP!>

"To speak of wisdom, you would be wise to do as we say. All six hybrids stated in unison.

Nikolai raised his left hand up in a calming motion, "I apologize, I have never gotten this far speaking with eldritch beings before. Might ask what you are?"

The voice in his head boomed. Nikolai nodded.

"Ok, might you have some connection to this Taint substance?"

"It is our life blood. The Goddess was the first, and we followed. We wish only to spread that perfection to the rest of pony kind." Nikolai arched an eyebrow.

"They sort of sound like Monolith. All doomsday cult and perfection like. Plus, they came from a magical toxic mutagenic substance that makes my Anomaly detector unhappy to no end." He scratched his neck under his hood.

"You seem unlike any-"

<MAGIC, ON A BEING SUCH AS YOU? WHAT ARE THESE STRANGE TALISMANS WHICH YOU CARRY WITH YOU!?> Nikolai nodded again, and shifted his stance.

"You mean my Artifacts? They are anomalous objects of great power. My kind seeks them out for our own benefit at great risk."

"It would be a shame to allow a Zebra to go free, but, if you wish. You may trade him to US for your, 'artifacts'. Otherwise, your opportunity to leave is fast closing." The lead alicorn repeated. Nikolai wasn't all that impressed.

"They are mine. And that Zebra is a friend of mine and has been a great companion, you all shall be granted no quarter." Nikolai grimaced as soon as the words left his mouth. He hopped that whatever rational mind was in control of these creatures would not be offended by his remark.

<AN ALTERNATE PROPOSAL, WE PURIFY THIS ZEBRA IN IMPELLED METAMORPHISIS POTION, AND WE BLAST YOU TO CINDERS!>

Nikolai laughed uncomfortably. He realized that his options, were dwindling, so, reluctantly, he unzipped his rucksack, and took from it the lead container which held the anomalous salt he had taken from the pillar back in Salt Cube city. But as he did, he saw the alicorns horn light up in an aggressive manner.

"Agh! I should have known better than to trust a monster!" He pulled the hunk of glowing salt from it's container, and hurled it at the six alicorns. It met their magical blasts in mid air, halting and absorbing them. it struck the ground and shattered, creating a wall of blue energy which sent the creatures tumbling back and forced the Goddess to retreat. The magic and his habitual need to fidget with things knocked his radio back on.

"You've got me running going out of my mind

you've got me thinking that I'm wasting my time

Don't bring me down..

I'll tell tell you once more before I get off the phone

Don't bring me down..."

His Geiger counters' ticking turned to a violent screech. Nikolai dove for cover, then and broke into a dead sprint towards Flashpoint, who was tossing and turning. Nikolai drew his knife, and examined his restraints.

"What are you doing here!?" Flashpoint cried. Nikolai jabbed an accusing finger at the zebra's fuzzy chest as he transitioned to his crowbar and broke his restraints.

"Saving your sorry flank from horrors beyond comprehension!" He proclaimed. A wave of delirious nausea seemed to sweep over Flashpoint, causing the zebra to shutter. "Flashpoint... Your eyes are glowing."

"WHAT!?"

<YOU FOOLS SHALL DIE WHERE YOU STAND>

A purple glow enveloped the vat where the goddess lay, and a glowing purple tentacle of magic shot out, Nikolai turned to jump out of the way. But something odd happened. It froze. Nikolai felt something pulse in his rucksack. He drew the gravitational Artifact, pulling it out of it's container, he waved it at the approaching mutants, who shied away. One of them threw a crate at him with it's magic, but it seemed to bounce of some kind of invisible field.

"Ого! Зрештою, це має користь! Wow! it has a use after all!" He turned back to Flashpoint.

"Can you walk?"

"Err...Yes." The Zebra slid down from his restraints, brought a hoof forward, wobbled, and then collapsed. Nikolai grunted.

"Blyat! Climb on!" The Zebra slumped forward onto Nikolai's back, who stumbled from the weight of carrying a Zebra, he turned to find the blast doors leading directly out of the room wide open. Guarded by an alicorn.

"HALT!" They cried. Nikolai disregarded them and put a burst of M855 into an unsuspecting one, who limped away, surprised by her wound.

"GRAH!" Using his momentum, he crashed into the one guarding the way out. Throwing it aside. In spite of their magical prowess and size, they were surprisingly vulnerable to attacks up close. He ran and ran and ran. Like he had so many times before. Only this time he was carrying his best friend.

Nikolai mind grew cloudy with adrenaline, his body was working on overtime. He was soaked in sweat, and his mask was making it hard to breath clearly. He ran the 500 meters back to the overpass in record time and collapsed by a truck wreck. Just as the final note of the song ended. He let his friend slide off his back, as his head rocked back, and he found himself staring up at the sky. He tore off his mask and coughed, he could taste metal.

"Ack! I... Told... You I could do it!" He glanced over at the zebra and kicked him with his right boot.

"Hey! Don't give up on me!" The zebra turned his head and looked over.

"I'm not! I'm just... Tired is all."

"Good to hear-" Nikolai blacked out from exhaustion. The Artifact rolled out of his hand. Flashpoint rolled over and stuffed it back into the leaded container, than bit into a pack of Rad-away from Nikolai's rucksack. The zerba turned back and stared at his friend, biting back tears.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." He muttered, his voice choked full of fatigue and euphoric joy as he collapsed alongside The Stalker.

Chapter 15: Words Overdue

Chapter 15: Words Overdue

"Oh, ohhh... Owww..." Speckles of light filled Nikolai's vision, he slowly put his hands on his forehead and groaned in pain.

"Am I dead?" He muttered to himself. He felt something brush up against his shoulder.

"You're awake!" He opened his eyes the rest of the way, the Stalker's entire body ached. He turned his head over, and was met with the matted fur of Flashpoint's face. The Zebra backed away, and examined him carefully. As Nikolai's eyes adjusted, he realized that he was no longer underneath the overpass. Instead, he was staring up at the crumbling wooden framework of a cabin. And laying on a a rough wooden bedframe which, while not by any means soft. Was still much of an improvement over hard, cold concrete.

"Wha-where am I?" The Zebra took another step towards him and smiled earnestly. " I half carried, half dragged you here once the alicorn patrols subsided."

"Who-" He rubbed his head as his vision spun. "How long have I been out?"

"According to your watch, give or take two full days. I woke up about 6 hours after you collapsed, and carried you along the open valley floor in the middle of the night until I came to this abandoned shack. I broke the window with a rock and let myself in. We've been here ever since." Nikolai reached towards his belt.

"Where's my-"

"Right over there."
His AK 101, PM Makarov, rucksack, and boots sat neatly tucked against the wall beside him. A lantern flickered on a table near the door, casting an orangish glow across the room. The Zebra opened up Nikolai's canteen and passed it to him.

"Go on, you need it."

Nikolai took the canteen in his hands, and, after sitting up with difficulty, took a few sips. He bit his cracked lips, then set it down in his lap and looked back at the Zebra. Who hung his head, and mumbled something to himself.

"You... You saved me." Flashpoint finally stuttered. "I thought I was going to die in there! And then you went through all of that, you were nearly vaporized- just to save me, why?"

"I am new to this world. I have no companions. One man can only do so much. I needed another friends. Stalker's creed, we look after each other." Flashpoint sniffled back a tear, and the expression expression grew brighter.

"Well, thank you. I will never forget it."

"You are very much welcome-" Flashpoint pulled him into a hug and stared up at him with his eyes full of tears. Nikolai smiled back and patted him on the head. "There there, it's alright. There is no reason to cry." He sighed, and took another look back at Flashpoint.

"Your eyes are glowing." The Zebra pushed himself away from Nikolai and stumbled onto his hind legs.

"Oh, oh- Yes! That! I tried taking some Rad-away, and it got rid of it, but I cannot risk taking any more without overdosing. It does not seem detrimental, so I suppose I am stuck with it. I cannot complain, with the amount of radiation I absorbed in my time there, I am lucky to still be alive." Nikolai smiled, and shifted halfway off the bed.

"As am I. Do not worry about holding favors, it was all my pleasure."

Nikolai caught a whiff of the air, and nearly gagged. "Oi! We smell awful!"

Flashpoint raised an eyebrow in inquiry." I didn't notice anything." Nikolai frowned, and glanced around.

"It is probably because you are used to it from living in this place. I smell worse than my babushka's свиней!" He unstrapped his vest and unzipped his jacket. " Do you know of any place where I might be able to get a warm shower. Or, even just a cold one? Because this is terrible even for me." He redonned his jacket and vest, and slid back into his boots.

"Good luck getting that here." Flashpoint mumbled, his voice going flat with sarcasm. Which took Nikolai by suprise.

"Blin, was that sarcasm? From you? I must be hallucinating. This cannot be that good."

The Zebra raised an eyebrow, and stepped closer to Nikolai.

"How so?" The Stalker clenched his head with the palms of his hands.

"It is never this good. How did I even get out of there alive? Never before in all my time in this line of work have I had to do such things. And how did you wake up and carry me to this place? Ai ai ai..." The Zebra's smirk turned back into a smile.

"Maybe it's just luck. We'll never know." Flashpoint put a reassuring hoof on Nikolai's knee. "Well, what now?" The Zebra stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of him.

"Let's just focus on getting you out of bed first, ok?" Nikolai laughed.

"Bed, no my companion. This is mansion fit for king compared to where I have been staying the last few days." He laughed again. "Tell me, do I have any Vodka left in my rucksack?" Flashpoint checked inside.

"In fact, yes. You do have some left. But you really shouldn't be drinking-" Without saying another word, Nikolai unwrapped his last bottle, and took a swig from it. Coughing and laughing as he did. He screwed the cap back on and put it away, then stood up and promptly fell flat on his face.

"Oi, Nyet!" He groaned, rolling himself over and sitting up with some difficulty, rubbing his bruised face.

"I told you so." Flashpoint grumbled, crossing his hooves in disapproval as Nikolai pushed himself up to his feet.

"Woah." He wobbled and extended his arms. Trying to balance out, but after a few seconds. The weariness went away, and he began to walk again. "Heh, oh!" He gagged, and sighed.

"Please don't throw up." The Zebra insisted, putting a hoof on his leg and ushering him to sit back down.

"It's just stress. It's just stress. Oh blyat, my vision's going orange."

He sat back down and took another sip of water from his canteen.

" Wait it out, wait it out. Take some time to rest, I think you deserve it." He reached over and pulled his radio from his vest pocket, switching it on and turning up the volume. An energetic male voice came through voice came crackling through the static.

"Hello, this is DJ-Pon3, your voice in the Wasteland... Bringing you the truth, no matter how much it hurts. We've been getting reports coming out of central Equestria that our mystery Stable Dweller and their compatriots are alive and well in Talon Company-" The transmission cut out, and was replaced by Zone FM.

"Hello Stalkers! That was quite the emission, huh? Anyway, to celebrate the temporary recapture of the truck graveyard from Monolith forces... We've got you something special, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Stay safe comrades!" The first notes of the song began to play out. Nikolai turned to Flashpoint.

"I recognize that voice, I've heard it before." Flashpoint mumbled." But it's been so long since I've been around a working radio that I could use of my own accord... That's it!" Nikolai raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Who is this, DJ pony?"

"I do not know." Flashpoint admitted. " And I don't know who that, 'Stable Dweller' is either." Nikolai chuckled, and pulled his gloves back on over his hands.

"I am sure it is nothing that will concern us. This is big world, and people are very little. We may never see them, or hear about them ever again." Flashpoint nodded in agreement. Nikolai paused, and came up with his next question.

"But 'Stable Dweller', sounds more like a title than a name. I would not know, because names are not like that where I am from. But even so, could you potentially elaborate?" The Zebra nodded, and pulled up a rickety chair to sit on. Nikolai turned the volume of his radio down a little bit.

"I do not know all of the story, and you may have heard some of it... But-" Nikolai reached into his rucksack, and fumbled around in it, he pushed his way past MRE's, spare munitions, survival gear, sleeping bag, Vodka, IFAK, extra canteens and, 'literary entertainment', until he had found what he was after. The Wasteland Survival Guide.

"Let's see... Stables, Stables, Stables... Ah! I found it!" He furrowed his brow, and began to read away.

"Stables are massive underground bunkers designed by the Prewar company, 'Stable Tech', to shield Equestria's population in the event of an all out Balefire war with Zebrica..."

It only took Nikolai about a minute and a half to finish the section. There wasn't actually all that much on these, 'Stables'. It just talked about their history and the dangers that might arise out of them. It didn't list anything specific, nor did it provide any maps. Because of course, the author of a widely read piece of informative literature wouldn't want anyone knowing where all their treasures were. But Ditzy, or Derpy, or whatever her name was seemed like a nice pegasus pony-ghoul thing. He doubted she would intentionally try to scam people for anything.

But then again, he had seen it happen before. He decided to take the guide with a grain of salt, he folded it up and stashed it into his rucksack. Then turned back to Flashpoint. But before that, he first fished around in his pocket for his PDA. Opening it up, he zoomed out, until he found his current position.

"Is that an electronic map?" Nikolai nodded. "Yes it is. Like I said before, where I come from these kinds of things are common place." Flashpoint smiled. "Sounds nice." Nikolai sighed, and picked up his rifle, extracting the magazine, switching the weapon off safe, ejecting and catching the round in the chamber, then switching it back to safe and pointing it away from him and Flashpoint and removing the dust cover.

"I wish it was." Flashpoint raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, it's not nice?"

"Our world is very big place. You see, I grew up in grew up in ok small town on outskirts of capital city Kyiv. But I had to go into city for school, and for things not present in local convenience store. I learned very, very fast that world is dangerous place. I had a grandfather that fought in great Second World War, assisting the Soviet army in retaking countryside from Germans. He told my father, 'Xлопчик, the world is dangerous place. Nature can be bad, but people can be much worse. However, we can also be better. It just depends.' My father conveyed that to me after he went to help liquidate Chernobyl after the first disaster."

"He sounds like a wise man. "Nikolai smiled back at the little Zebra. "Da, but he also taught me how to make Vodka from raw potatoes, and how to loot fountains for spare change. " His smile expanded into another laugh. And Flashpoint grinned along with him.

"How about your family? If you still have any, that is?" His friend hung his head. "My mother perished giving birth to me. And my father-well, I do not know where he is. I have not seen him in over a year, and that was on a factory floor in Fillydelphia." Nikolai sighed, and beckoned Flashpoint to sit closer. The Zebra scrunched up his muzzle, and wiped his hooves on the rickety floorboards.

" It is really no worry. That is just the way things are in Equestria now, trust me. That was the least of my problems before you came across me." Nikolai nodded his head as he removed the spring and the AK 101's bolt, breaking out his cleaning kit from the side of his rucksack, he began to brush away the dirt and grime within.

"Do you perhaps have any stories to pass the time with?" Nikolai shook his head. "None that you would like to hear right now, but I do have a joke."

"What is it?" Nikolai took his hands away from his rifle to scratch his chin with a miniature screwdriver.

"What do Politicians and Atoms have in common?" The Zebra cocked his head to one side, his ears perking up as he thought about it.

"I don't know, tell me."

"They make up everything! And they cannot help it!" Nikolai slapped his knee and burst out laughing. Flashpoint laughed in unison with the Stalker, although somewhat awkwardly. It seemed to brighten his mood nonetheless.

"That was funny, would you like to hear one of mine?" Nikolai took his eyes off his rifle. "Sure."

"So... A Ghoul, a Raider, and a Pegasus walk into a bar. The Ghoul turns to the barkeep and asks her, 'hey... I'm gonna need all the dirty water you've got." His face puffed up with joy. Nikolai scratched his head.

"That was not funny. You should stick to being informative. But good try, perhaps again later?" Flashpoint chuckled, and walked over to Nikolai's rucksack.

"Did you by any chance recover my armor and weapons?"

"No, I did not."

Flashpoint sighed. " Well, that is a shame. But I'm sure we will find you a new set." Nikolai put the cleaning kit away, and began to snap the rifle back together.

"Well, that's enough of that. Everything seems to be in order, so I suppose that we must be leaving now. After all, I did say that I had a cap empire to build, did I not?"

"Thinking of maybe going out and hunting down one of those Stables?" Nikolai shrugged. "If we come across one, then yes, perhaps. Otherwise we'll just keep on going north. There's nothing else for us here. " With that, the Stalker deactivated his PDA, and stuffed it back into a pouch on his belt. Flashpoint stood upright, and looked up at Nikolai.

"Well, I'm ready when you are."

Chapter 16: On The Road Again

Chapter 16: On The Road Again

"Снова в дороге...Я просто не могу дождаться, чтобы снова отправиться в путь! On the Road Again, I just can't wait to get on the road again!"

Nikolai went along singing a poorly adapted version of Willie Nelson's, 'On The Road Again.' As he and his Zebra companion, Flashpoint. Made their way northward and away from the horror's of Splendid Valley in hopes of finding... Well, they weren't sure what they were looking for. Just something better than what they had just been through would be prefreble.

"Nikolai, would you so do me the service so as to cease making that infernal noise?" Nikolai gave a passing shrug.

"Nyet, is good to be alive. Besides, we are out of Splendid Valley." He halted, and pointed to the rocky hills now kilometers behind them. With no large natural formations within a days walking distance of them. They had nothing but to follow the neglected highway until they came to a similarly neglected town. It was tough going, but Nikolai was scarcely happier. His stomach was full, and, for all that he had been through the past few days. He was left with just a few bruises. Pony healing technology- no, magic, was astounding to him. And he secretly found it a bit of an annoyance that he couldn't figure out what made it all work so he could sell it himself.

"We have still got hellhounds to worry about. And Raider- and who knows what else! Stop singing!"

Nikolai glanced around. Aside from a few trees, rocks, and the occasional ruined barn or homestead off in the distance, there was no place from which an ambush could possibly arise. Which was a good thing, except for the fact that it counted as a double edged sword. On one hand, Nikolai was, at his core, lazy. He preferred a straight and wide road to trying to bushwack his way across unknown territory. Plus, any hostile force trying to sneak up on himself and Flashpoint would have an incredibly difficult time doing so. More than enough for them to dive into a ditch or make a break for the hills. But then again, wide open areas meant wide sightlines. And while he doubted the average bandit or raider pony kept their weapons or their own mental fortitude in good enough shape to be able to hit anything past a dozen or so meters. As was the case with the bandits in his own world. However, he also knew never to underestimate them. Even if they were psychopaths' with broken guns and corroded blades- they were still armed, and still very, very much dangerous. Who knows? They could've broken into some armory or simply had more discipline than the average Wastelander.

"I can just look at myself. " Nikolai thought to himself, unslinging his rifle from over his shoulder and tapping the illumination feature on his scope off to save a bit of battery.

"What, did you see something?" Flashpoint asked Nikolai, growing uncertain. The Stalker responded with a quick shake of his head.

"No, no. I am just lost in thought." Flashpoint nudged his leg with a hoof.

"Well keep your eyes open. I know it might be hard to see stuff under that mask, but we both need to be on the lookout. Those alicorn's might be following us." Nikolai chuckled grimly.

"Ok, first of all, it is not all that hard to see out of these things. You get used to it after a while. And second- if those суки were still after us, they would have probably blown us both to ashes by now. They seemed pretty angry at me for even entering into their presence. And lord only knows what they were planning on doing with you!" Flashpoint shuttered, and rolled his still slightly glowing eyes.

"I don't even remember any of it. I was drifting in and out of consciousness the whole time I was being held captive in that accursed place."

"I'd hardly call that captivity. Those creatures had you strung up like a carcass!"

"Yes, and it feels good to be back on all fours again." Flashpoint responded, stretching his forelegs with a small smile on his face.

"So, here is the plan. We are going to walk until we find a civilized town." He stifled back a laugh." Hah! Civilized! In this place, my friend. I have taken to understand that here, 'civilized', means they won't shoot you on sight. Far from what it is in my world. But then again, it isn't really all that much better there." Flashpoint simply nodded in understanding, and the two continued down the desolate road in silence.

After about 3 hours of ceaseless walking, Flashpoint finally spoke up." You know, those clouds off in the distance look angry. We should find a place to stay in case it starts raining."

" Really?" Nikolai was answered with a distant groan of thunder. " Evidently, yes. As a proud Eastern European, I can say with certainty that I am no stranger to bad weather. I lived through a small storm my first day here. Though, you're right. Those clouds look worse than usual. Have I told you about the Psy Storms and Emissions from my home?"

"No, I don't think have." Flashpoint responded. Nikolai paused for a moment as he recollected his past experiences.

"Imagine a thunderstorm, but instead of rain, you have waves of psychic energy, mysterious forces, and radiation that can drive you insane and flay you to a husk with too much exposure." The zebra furrowed his brow.

"The tone in your voice makes it sound like there's more to it all." Nikolai nodded, and pulled his PDA from his pocket.

"Back home, this was much more than just a map. It also provided weather alerts, a camera, digital notepad, and, a bulletin place where people could shell out work to others in exchange for money."

"And yes, that includes bounty hunting. Though, I was never crazy enough to take up a task like that. I am greedy, but I draw the line at trying to track down strangers who I have no affiliation to. But, I have no problem with putting terrible people in the ground, by which I mean, true monsters. But if they just happen to anger wrong mob boss, but are nice person. Then nyet, find someone else to do your dirty work. Because I have better things to risk my life for. "

"Like what?"

"Well... Vodka for one. Pickles for another."

"How about that glowing rock that you used to fend off those alicorns?" Thunder rumbled in the distance, closer than last time.

"The artifact?"

"...Yes? If that's what you call it."

"My friend, I just occurred to me that I have not told you much of my own world. I told you about Psy Storms and what not. But you must know, all these terrible things only apply to a very small portion of my planet. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. "

"What is it excluded for?" Flashpoint mussed. Nikolai gestured to his mask, and then to the Geiger counter which hung on his belt. "

It used to be Nuclear power plant which provided electricity to most of Northern Ukraine. First time around. Soviet incompetency and arrogance caused lot of damage and radioactive fallout. Bad, but still avoidable. It was only decade or so ago that everything went ary. I can't really explain it, but it was like reality itself within 20 or so kilometers of Plant just... Went blyat crazy! All sorts of mutants and monsters and other awful things started showing up. None friendly in the slightest. Patches of ground, just random places in the zone, became impassible as a result of these things that we call, anomalies. "

"What's so dangerous about them?" Flashpoint asked, now intrigued.

"Really anything. Random spouts of flame, glowing corrosive puddles, bursts of electricity. Inverted Gravity, Distortion of space and time... Completely unpredictable and fun! Do not forget the nice Psy Storms and Emissions from the Power Plant itself. And, of course, all the bandits and crazy violent cultists that worship the Zone like it's holy ground for no apparent reason. The military cordoned the whole place off, but some... Like me, sneak in! I myself went to try and strike it rich, needed to help pay for College and all that stuff." Flashpoint's eyes went wide, and he sighed, and coughed.

"It sounds terrible. But, since I've seen what those artifacts can do. I can partially understand why you and other's would want them so much." Nikolai nodded. "Da, is cool. Only problem is, they originate either after Emissions, or in concentrated clusters of anomalous activity. And, they can take the form of anything!" Flashpoint glanced back at the sky before turning back to Nikolai and urging him to continue his story.

"Anything?"

"Er... Yes, I once heard that some Бідний хлопець found a chunk of bread that burst into flames whenever anyone touched it! But it never disintegrated, it just stayed the same, some moron threw it in radioactive waste pit near Rookie Village right outside of Sidorovich's bunker, and now they just use it to train new Stalkers. Makes for good laugh before they get thrown out into hell. "

As he ended off his sentence, something cracked behind them, followed by a flash of bright light. Instinctively, Nikolai dove for the ditch on the side of the road, and Flashpoint froze in place.

"What was that?" He pulled himself out of the dirt, and stood up. His eyes moved from Flashpoint, to the hills that marked Splendid Valley. The sky boomed an instant later.

"Lighting, I was right. There's a storm on the way." Another bolt followed. This one was a shimmering green. A cold wind began to blow across the road, scattering it with dust. Nikolai's Geiger counter began to tick.

"Radstorm, at that!" The thunder rolled again a few seconds later.

"That was about 30 seconds out! That storm is about 10 kilometers out from us. We've gotta find some cover!" Another bolt of lighting arced across the sky.

"Where? We're out in the open!" Flashpoint called out to him.

Nikolai pointed off the western side of the road. "There's nothing around! The closest small town is another half hour walk from here!"

"Half hour walk is fifteen minute run! Can you make it?"

"There's a gas station half that distance! But from here, it doesn't look to be in best shape!"

"It's better than nothing! Let's go!" Flashpoint called back. Nikolai unslung his rifle and took it in his right hand, the two broke into a dead sprint as the storm grew behind them.

After what ended up being an eight minute dead sprint, the two arrived at the tattered ruins of an old gas station. The fuel pumps outside were rusted away, the paint was peeling, and the windows had been shattered by bullets. The store inside was dark. Nikolai activated his weapon mounted flashlight, and the pair stepped inside.

"Hello?" Nikolai shinned his light around and stepped further in, inspecting the ravaged, dusty isles as he did. Outside, the first drops of rain were beginning to fall.

"Found a skeleton." Flashpoint replied dully, far since jaded to the sight of dead bodies. Nikolai looked over, the pony wore a baseball cap with a cheesy picture of a sky blue pegasus mare with a rainbow mane. Funny, he hadn't actually yet seen what a pegasus looked like without all that armor. Except for the kindly ghoul mare he had met back in Salt Cube city. But she was, in his defense, much too shriveled and... Incomplete to still be counted as a regular pegasus.

"That appears to be Rainbow Dash. The head mare of the so called, 'ministry of Awesome.' Part of the Equestrian government from before the war. A stunt performer, I think. But I don't know all that much more than that about her."

"Not alive anymore, I take it?"

"You are correct. No one's seen or heard from her in two hundred years. She might be just another pile of bones in the rubble of a bombed out building somewhere, or she might just be a ghoul. No one knows."

"Ah, well... I do not know her. And I have better ways to spend life then chasing ghosts-" A flash of thunder and lighting outside interrupted him. He could see wisps of green mixed in with it. Balefire radiation which the clouds had soaked up, and were now bringing along for the metaphorical ride.

"Is the weather here always like this?"

"Since as long as me, my parents, and my parents parents have known... Yes. Maybe even longer." Nikolai sighed and shook his head. "Oh well... Makes for pretty scene, da?"

"Yes, that I can agree with you on. Even if it is dangerous." A wave of sheet lighting arced across the sky. Lighting up the landscape in front of the gas station all the way to the horizon.

"I've actually had to camp out in weather like this before. But key word there is, 'like' only thing this bad is emissions. Or maybe EF 5 tornado on Oklahoma prairie!" Flashpoint's ears perked up, as he and Nikolai sat down on a bench at the far end of the isles. Just 5 meters from the carnage unfolding outside. In the distance, up in the clouds, between bolts of lighting, he swore he could just barely make out the silhouette of an armored pegasus. Just like the one he had seen watching him back in Old Olneigh.

"Oh blyat! Did you see that!?" Nikolai pointed up, Flashpoint furrowed his brow.

"No, are you sure you aren't seeing things?" The Stalker shook his head, and when he blinked, the shadow in the sky was gone. He had heard stories of Stalkers that had gone insane after they had left the Zone back home, permanently traumatized by the things they had seen there. Other's, strangely enough. Claimed they enjoyed the carnage, and returned time and time again with a massive smile on their face. He never really understood it. But in truth, he himself tended to lean towards the later end of the spectrum. The Zone, no matter how terrifying and complex, was still much more interesting than boring life in a former Soviet Apartment block that hasn't been renovated since the 1970s, if that. Going to work every day on some factory line, or some other menial task. Nikolai had it better than most, he had merely come to the zone to pay for college, but he was just one of many hopping to strike it rich in a place that, for lack of a better word, flat out hated humans- and any other living thing that wasn't an irradiated, mutated, mind controlled husk.

"There it is again!" Flashpoint shook his head.

"No, there I don't see anything." Nikolai tore open a packet of hardtack Saltine Crackers." Want one?" The Zebra tilted his head up.

"What? Oh, sure. Thanks." He took the crackers from Nikolai and began to ravenously devour them. Nikolai smiled, " Don't go so fast. You'll hurt yourself. When's the last time you ate a proper meal?" Flashpoint stared back at him.

"Dodge City. But that was interrupted when those mercenaries showed up." Nikolai raised his rifle, and peered through it's scope, staring out into the darkness of the still early morning.

"When do you think it'll stop?"

"It's hard to say out here. Sometimes its a few minutes, other times, these storms can go on for day's on end." Another line of sheet lighting rolled across the horizon.

"You know," Flashpoint started," I've been told by other's the Equestria wasn't always like this." This statement resulted in an uproar from Nikolai. Who snarkily replied with;

"Oh really, that is so difficult to tell." Flashpoint rolled his glowing eyes.

"No, I'm being serious. I've heard from other's that Equestria used to be a paradise, fields of green grass and flowers, lush forests, and clear skies as far as your eye could see. Ponies and all creatures lived happily. Believe it or not, I've actually been told that the pegasi controlled the weather and build cites in the sky made out of clouds!" Nikolai laughed again.

"Sounds like nice place. I wish I could have visited there instead of this земля лайна.Land of shit." He pulled out his copy of the 'Wasteland Survival Guide', and began to read again from where he had left off.

"Small Guns: And Where To Find Them." The Chapter Title announced.

"Why would not use proper nomenclature? Is good to show people that you know a lot about what you are talking about. But then again, I can understand the need for simple words when your average pony in this place is more concerned with getting their next meal than reading complicated weapon manuals." All at once, it was like a switch was flipped in the sky. And the rain and lighting stopped. Nikolai cautiously stepped out towards the window and tapped the ground with his Geiger counter.

"It is dispersing. Lets go. There's nothing of any worth here." Flashpoint began to turn away, but then paused, and snatched the cap off the salespony's skull.

"I rather like it." Flashpoint touted, wrestling with it's straps to get it to fit on his head.

"It suits you." Nikolai whispered, waving him along. The two continued towards the town that Nikolai had spotted.

Nikolai and Flashpoint had been about 200 meters from the main street of town, when they began taking sporadic fire from a couple of unknowns firing from windows and defilades across the town front. The two ducked down into a drainage ditch. Nikolai rummaged around in his rucksack, then sighed and simply pulled out a hunting knife, handing it to Flashpoint, who reluctantly took it in his jaws.

"If anything comes down here other than me, stab them until they stop moving." He fumbled around in one of the pouches in his pantlegs, and pulled out a little pocket mirror, which he used to survey the town without having to expose any more than the tips of his fingers.

"We come in peace!" He called out, " We are just passing through!" A bullet wizzed by overhead. Nikolai flipped his rifle's safety selector lever down one position to fully automatic.

"That sounded painful. We should circle back behind town rather that charge into pointless death, let us follow this ditch and see where it leads. Full on attack is bad idea since I am only one with gun." Flashpoint silently nodded in agreement, and the two headed out.

"Agh! Wha-" As they left the ditch and began to advance across the dry river bed underneath the bridge, they were spotted by a unicorn stallion who had just been shooting at them just a moment ago, but for some inexplicable reason had stopped to go and relive himself right in the middle of a combat zone, as soon as he spotted them, he went for his gun. Nikolai raised his rifle and fired off two rounds, which stuck his opponent in the chest, sending him tumbling to the ground in a bloody mess.

"You'll pay for that!" A voice called from up above them. Nikolai didn't bother to find where the string of angry and insane curses was coming from. He was too busy trying to get himself and Flashpoint to safety. He heard more cracks behind him. Praying that these ponies were just as bad a shot as the others. Luckily for him, they were. He made it up the opposite embankment and up again the eastward stone exterior wall of the nearest house.

"Alright, new plan. I'm going to see if I can get you a-" Before he could finish his sentence, a raider galloped out right in front of them, just a few meters away, Nikolai aimed down his iron sights and accurately fired off two rounds into his side, piercing through the pony's pitiful street sign armor and laying him out on the ground, bleeding out and screaming in pain. Nikolai walked over, ignoring the raider whom he had just shot. And pulled his bulky autoloading pistol from his jaw. He fiddled around with it until he found the magazine ejection button, then hit it, inspected the number of rounds left in the magazine, then reinserted it and handed it to Flashpoint. Who gladly took it over the knife he had been given by Nikolai.

"Eight rounds. Make them count." He fished into the raider's pouch and pulled a second, fully loaded magazine. Then realizing that his friend would need a place to store said spare magazine. And considering he could now hear hoof steps from the other side of the structure, he didn't want to waste time.

"Stay here. I will be back in a moment." Nikolai swapped magazines on his AK 101, then whipped around the corner and instantly began taking fire from the raiders in the street.

"You're insane!" Flashpoint called out to Nikolai. But he went unheard among the booming of gunfire. And so, he was left to wait there, clutching his gun while his friend made an effort to 'clear out' the village. Nikolai bolted out around the corner and blindly dumped half of his magazine in an effort to keep the heads of the raiders down. It worked out, just not in the way he had intended. In their fury to murder the person who had just killed two of their friends, 3 more of the idiots had rushed into the fatal funnel in between the two ruined houses. And the ponies behind them, similarly enraged, wildly fired down the corridor with no regard for those in front of them. The end result was three more corpses, and one slightly humored Stalker.

"Hey, hey. Wait just one moment!" Nikolai took cover behind the northern side of the building.

"Are you by any chance from Salt Cube City!?" The continued sporadic gunfire told him that either they didn't care, or that they had something to say but would rather tell it to his rotting corpse then him right then and there. He sprinted past the next building and out it the street, catching two more raiders off guard. They didn't even have the chance to turn their submachine guns before Nikolai ended them with shots to their thorax and heads. He ran to the other side of the street and began to advance down along the road. Examining houses as he went along, but not going into them. Clearing them out would take too much time. Rather, he went running and gunning from cover to cover until the small town was silent. And all that was left was a dozen bloody equine raider bodies. And one extremely stratified Stalker.

"It is almost funny, you fired off hundreds of rounds of ammunition to try and kill me and my friend all because you wanted my things. And now, you have paid ultimate price. And all for the cost of just one magazine of my own 5.56!" Flashpoint slowly crept out, and examined the devastation with a look of admiration for his friend.

"Back to your own self?" Nikolai nodded.

"Yes, I think I am. Now get over here, let us put these raiders' trinkets to good use."

Chapter 17: Lesson Hard Learned

Chapter 17: Lesson Hard Learned

"Grenades."

"What?"

"Yes, grenades. Here is one, here is another. Oh, how much joy some simple explosive devices can bring a man when he has been stuck with nothing but his rifle and pistol for days!" Flashpoint rolled his eyes, and directed a hint of annoyance towards his overly enthusiastic traveling companion.

"All of the stuff here, and you instantly make a move on- actually, nevermind. It makes perfect sense." Nikolai held up his spoils. Three grey, apple shaped grenades. Of the items left on the dozen or so dead raiders, he valued these simple items the most. Carefully, he stuffed them into pouches on his belt.

"I personally can not stand the idea of carrying around little bombs which could blow me up at any moment." Nikolai let out a laugh as he went back to fishing his way through the bodies. "Suit yourself." A sudden explosion knocked Nikolai off his feet.

"Blyat!" He scrambled up and ran for the cover of a burnt out car. He hurriedly began to look his body over for puncture wounds. And was relived to find none. Flashpoint scrambled behind the car alongside him.

"What was that!?" The two heard a clicking noise, and a grenade rolled past the car and into a nearby crater in the road. Without time to think, Nikolai jumped one way, and Flashpoint jumped the other. As he stumbled out in the open, he felt something strike his 2:00. A bullet had ricocheted off the armor plates in his vest and shattered, resulting in a shower of sparks. Apparently, the village had not been as empty as he had thought. Working quickly, he retreated to another line of cover just by the bridge on the southern side of town. And began searching for muzzle flashes. A series of sharp pistol shots echoed down the road. He spotted the flashes coming from the downstairs window of a house about 30 meters away. Another shot boomed out, wizzing past his cover. He quickly glanced around for Flashpoint, and then motioned for him to run to the burned out cover. Flashpoint franticly shook his head, gesturing to building down the road where the gunfire was coming from. Nikolai grumbled to himself and raised his rifle over the sandbags and rusted out cars to blindly fire off a few rounds in the general direction of the house.

" Flashpoint, cover me!"

"What!?" Nikolai ran out of cover and rushed up the street, pulling his fire selector up to full auto as he did.

"Nikolai, you-" A bullet flew past Flashpoint, who ducked back into cover and began to complain to himself. "I think I will just let him do his thing."

Nikolai let out quick bursts as he advanced, putting accurate fire though the window of the building. Once he was within 5 meters, he fetched a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and threw it inside. As the explosion blew the window frames off the house and kicked up dust, he swiftly ran around back and kicked in the back door of the house. Knocking it off it's rusty
hinges and sending it tumbling across the dusty floorboards.

"Here is Nikolai!" The Stalker cried vehemently, getting swept up in the action. He cleared the home's living room, and advanced into the front room. Just beside the front door, lay the wounded raider. Nikolai pulled the trigger and was met with a an empty 'click!', he dropped his rifle and reached for his sidearm just as the heavily wounded Griffon brought his revolver up.

"Bang!"

Flashpoint's ears perked up, that last gunshot hadn't been from one of Nikolai's weapons. Quickly, he began to gallop towards the house. Shaking his head in disbelief. An instant latter, the sound of two .380 ACP rounds fired in quick succession echoed down the road. And the front door of the structure fell apart, Nikolai stumbled out of the building, falling to his knees as he reached the front porch.

"Nikolai!" Flashpoint cried, galloping towards his friend. Nikolai turned, and looked at his left arm. There, an inch above his elbow, blood slowly trickled down his jacket. He cupped a gloved hand around it and groaned.

"Agh, the little пацюк hit me!" He grumbled to himself, reaching into his vest, he aggressively pulled out a tourniquet with his right hand and began to fasten it over his left, once it was secured firmly, he pulled up his sleeve to inspect the damage.

"Какого черта! Does it look bad?" Flashpoint looked closer, and grinned.

"If you fell off a seesaw, then yes. That raider grazed hit you alright, but it was on the very edge of your arm, the bullet went right in and out. Where's your first aid kit?" Nikolai fished around on his belt, and handed the small pack to Flashpoint, who opened it up and fished out a roll of bandages, a dressing, and one of the purple healing potions Nikolai had acquired earlier. He uncorked it with his teeth and then poured a little bit onto the wound, then, with Nikolai's assistance, applied the gauze and laced the bandage around his arm twice, before tying in up.

"Alright! That looks good to go. Good idea with the healing potion. I almost forgot I had those! I can feel it getting better already. I will keep it on for a few hours, and then unwrap it and check on it later." Flashpoint nodded in agreement.

"That was a close call, maybe we should stop rummaging though these corpses while we can and just get on our way?"

"20 minutes, I want some time to calm down after that. My body is still in shock. I can't feel a thing." He reached into his rucksack and took a swig of water from his canteen. "Also, remind me to pick up some more clean water in next town. Do you want any?" Flashpoint looked uncomfortable by the proposition.

"It's ok. Zebras can go longer than most species without it. Besides, I didn't just get shot! And you're sweating like a hellhound. You need to replace that with something. Go on, keep drinking." Nikolai sat there for a few moments, and then begrudgingly stood back up.

"Alright, sobbing time is over. Back to looting and pillaging." He said with a sigh, cradling his arm.

All in all, after the ambush, Nikolai and Flashpoint had amassed themselves a fine collection of what, by 1st world standards, would have amounted to nigh unrepairable trash. But in the Wasteland, one would be hard pressed to find so much spare ammunition just lying around. Nikolai ended up walking away from the small town with 4 shiny new apple shaped grenades. Not counting the one he had already used. Alongside that, he had scrounged up enough low end steel cartridge full metal jacket to restock an entire magazine. He had managed to find Flashpoint a set of rough leather armor, a small sack, and several spare magazines for his pistol, which in of itself now possessed a crude sling which Nikolai had fashioned out of an old belt.

"It is a shame that we could not find your old submachine gun. It was a beauty."

"But we did come away with about two dozen more caps than we had started with!" Nikolai sarcastically clapped his hands, wincing in pain from the still closing hole in his arm.

"Yes, and we should leave before more raiders show up." The two readied their things and struck out back on the highway, still headed north.

After about an hour of walking, when the town they had just left from was but a speck of outcropped ruins in the distance, Nikolai went and decided to try his luck at finding something to listen to on his radio.

"Nikolai, what did I say about keeping your music down!?" The stalker begrudgingly shook his head.

"Nyet. Katyusha is wartime classic. I refuse to turn it down." He crossed his arms and looked the other way. Flashpoint smiled, "No, no. There's nothing wrong with the music, it's just loud." Nikolai sighed, and finally turned it down.

"Might I ask a you a question?"

"Sure...?" Flashpoint replied. "What do you know about, 'Sprite-Bots'?" Flashpoint raised and eyebrow. "The little flying robots with radios that broadcast things?"

"Da."

"What about them?"

"Where did they come from- and, who or what controls them?" Flashpoint sighed, and shook his head. "I do not know Nikolai. But they have been here a very long time, and they will continue that way. They do not do any harm. So no one as far as I know actually hates them and wants them gone. Quite the opposite, actually. They enjoy the music they play from time to time."

"Have any of them spoken to you?" Flashpoint paused. "No, never. Is there something more to this?" Nikolai shook his head. "Oh, nyet. I'm sure it's nothing." The zebra bit his lip and nodded. "Alright, you're very peculiar."

"I actually think that I am very normal. Just not for this world." His laugh cut through the accordion and Dorma.

Give or take another 10 minutes of walking later. And Nikolai spotted something else of interest in the distance.

"Hey, hey!" Nikolai pointed to an array of crumbling buildings of in the distance and chuckled." We're coming up to a new city." About 5 minutes later, they passed a bullet hole riddled road sign which read;

"Welcome to Whiskey Springs!"

This name caught the Stalkers eye. Just the prospect of what such a place might entail almost made him drool in his mask. His supply of vodka was almost completely gone. And, a few glasses of Whiskey would be warm present to himself after all the chaos of the past few days.

"Hold up." Nikolai raised his fist in the air, and motioned to the road. He knelt down by Flashpoint and pointed off into the distance.

"See that dirty section? Look closer." He held up his rifle scope for Flashpoint to look through.

"Out there, those blinking lights in the rubble? Those are explosives. I just know it. And those open windows? Oh... They have the sniper written all over them!" Flashpoint sighed, and slung his gun over his shoulder.

"That means another detour, right?" Nikolai laughed, and set his gloved hand on the zebra's shoulder. "My friend, you already know me too well! Of course! Do I look like I attract punishment?" Flashpoint laughed back uncomfortably.

"Yes, it actually does. There's a ton of holes in your vest." Nikolai waved it off. " Ah, is made for it. Come, this sign here says that there is water sewage treatment plant down there. Davay, off we go."

"What could you possibly want with a broken down water treatment plant?" Nikolai wiggled one of his almost empty canteens in the air before stuffing it back into his rucksack.

"I usually carry around 2 liters of water with me at any one time, enough for about 2 days of average Gopnik stuff. Looting, shooting, running, eating. Well, I've had to share one with you for the past 2 days, and I have not refilled them since Dodge City."

"Oh alright. Let's go then." The two turned west off the main highway, and headed towards the water treatment plant on the far side of Whiskey Springs.

From observation alone, the city's infrastructure seemed to be in line with what Nikolai had seen previously. It was a mix of the architecture from Dodge City and Old Olneigh, though with no buildings quite as tall as the ones he had seen back in Salt Cube.

"Oh blin, how many times must I teach lesson!?" Nikolai called out, frantically switching his gun off safe and raising it to engage the minuscule creature ahead of him. Flashpoint eyed the monster with curiously.

"Nikolai, that one is smaller than normal-" Before the zebra could finish his sentence, Nikolai brought the butt of his gun down on the creature's head, crushing its skull and scattering glowing green blood all over the cracked road.

"Eww." Flashpoint shrank back, waving his gun over the corpse. Nikolai went to swing again. But realized his quarry was dead. He smiled under his mask and wiped the remains off his rifle stock by sweeping it across the ground, and then cleaning the rest off with his boot.

" Over there, another one!" Flashpoint shifted his gaze to a decent sized bloatfly minding its own about 5 meters away from them. Nikolai unstrapped his crowbar from his rucksack and knocked the horrid thing out of the air, splattering it all over the coarse dirt below. The stalker laughed, and then walked back to the road. And pointed at the body.

"I hate these things. But at least they are squishy. Toxic, but squishy. You should not go near body."

"Oh don't worry, I've seen my fair share of bloatflies and other such mutants. I know quite well what they can do to a pony."
"Well..." Flashpoint breathed out as Nikolai stuffed his crowbar back into his rucksack, and looked around.

"That felt good. But those things had to have come from somewhere, come on. Let us get to that water treatment plant and see what is going on."

"I've got a bad feeling about this." Flashpoint murmured. Nikolai let out another hushed laugh.

"Oh really!? Well I just fought my way through a valley of horrors, and some really angry colorful horses, and that mutated abomination!" He pointed back at the hemorrhaging corpses of the small radigator and bloatfly.

"Is, fine, is fine!" He assured Flashpoint.

"Trust is everything! Like I said before, I kill few of these things before I meet you. Is not big deal!" He waved his friend along. As the sky began to darken again.

By about what Nikolai believed to be Equestrian noon, the two had finally made it to the front gates of the old Water Treatment Facility. It was a good kilometer and a half outside the city itself, with an open expanse of dead hilly prairie land between it and the city limits. The winding gravel road which led up to the plant and it's constituent reservoir. All of which was behind a barbed wire fence and a gate similar to the one Nikolai had encountered at the airbase. The rusting sign outside read: "Whiskey Regional Water Treatment & Processing Facility."

Or at least, that's what Nikolai and Flashpoint guessed it must have been back before nuclear fire swept over Equestria. The fence, or what remained of it, was in tatters. Any and all semblance of a, 'guard shack' or front gate appeared to have long since been demolished. About a hundred meters past the gate was the Treatment Plant.

"Alright, we will start at the northwestern side of the plant and make our way to the other side, look for any sort of administrative or storage buildings..."

"Nikolai."

"Take an empty canteen and fill it up with any water that isn't murky or glowing. Preferably water stored in bottles or canteens. We can filter and purify it later-"

"Nikolai! Get down!"

"What?" The two ducked down at Flashpoint's request. Nikolai glanced around, and spotted the thing that had worried Flashpoint. A swarm of bloatflies buzzed around the dead corpse of something not 50 meters away from them. There had to have been at least a dozen of the putrid things.

"I can smell them from here!" He exclaimed. Nikolai waved him back. " They aren't in our way, it is best to not waste bullets." Flashpoint looked closer at the body the flies were circling.

"Nikolai, that looks like a griffon." The stalker peered at the dead thing though his PSO scope and nodded slowly.

"Yes, I would say that it does." Now hurry, before they're finished eating!"

"Do they eat everything, bones and all? Or do they just leave it?" Nikolai asked Flashpoint, who spoke back to him as they quickly shuffled their way up the road. "No, but there are creatures out here that will."

"Give me some examples."

"Well..." Nikolai spotted something glowing in the dirt ahead of them.

"That is definitely a landmine. Hold on, I have idea." He fumbled around in his belt until he found the satchel full of nuts and bolts he used to manually detect anomalies. Taking a washer, he crouched down and gave it his best toss. The little piece of metal flew through the air until, about 10 meters away, it struck roughly within the vicinity of the glowing object. He turned to run, but to his surprise, nothing happened.

"Perhaps it is dud?" The Stalker asked with a shrug. Flashpoint shook his head, and reached into his leather satchel for something.

"Here." He passed Nikolai a rusted shovel head with his maw. "You shouldn't do that, you could get the tetanus. Is very painful." Flashpoint grunted. " I probably already have it. Go on, throw it." Disregarding Flashpoints indifference for his own health, Nikolai took the shovel head in his hands and hurled it at the glowing thing in the dirt. This time, there was a beep. And a grenade sized explosion threw dirt in the pair's faces.

"You were right, is bomb. Bomb means defenses, and defenses mean something worth defending. Cap empire, what did I say?"

"Let's go, I am thirsty."

"For blood or water?" Nikolai chuckled, " I am always thirsty for water, blood, it depends." He waved Flashpoint along and continued up the gravel road into the plant. Now more warry then before. He switched his rifle back to safe and sharpened his gaze, watching the facility for any possible glint of a threat.

The ground below Nikolai's boots turned from gravel to concrete. And he began to examine his surroundings. Off to his right, an open area about twice the size of an American football field divided his position behind some rusted over trucks from the a series of 2 story administrative and engineering buildings. Off to his left at about half that distance, was the water purification vats. Massive holes in the ground with canals that ran from one to the other. For as far as the eye could see. The structures themselves were surprisingly intact for 200 years of water and weather corrosion. Nikolai could scarcely even make out the handful of bullet holes that potmarked a few of the buildings. But otherwise, the structures seemed mostly intact.

"Let's get to looking." Nikolai turned and headed off towards the vats. Flashpoint went with him.

The Stalker had no words for the water he found in the treatment vats. They were all an even 80 or so meters or so across, and open to the elements with the exception of some rusting railing around them. Nikolai stared down into the murky water and gave a disapproving head shake. His Geiger counter beeped softly to inform him of what he already knew.

"This whole place smells awful. It's like something has been rotting in this pond since the war." Nikolai motioned to the water.

"That's probably because something has. It is sewage processing, remember?" The zebra rolled his eyes and scrunched up his muzzle to try and avoid the smell.

"Well, this was big waste. Come, let us see if we cannot find something in those buildings over there." Flashpoint sighed, and began to follow his friend as the two walked away from the reservoir. As they left its proximity, Nikolai began to hear a faint buzzing noise coming from behind him. The further he walked, the louder it got. The noise got louder, and louder, until, finally, Nikolai came to the conclusion that he should investigate.

What he saw next would taint his perception of house flies forever. From the water emerged a massive bloatfly, the size of a small hot air balloon. And, if that alone wasn't enough, the whole thing began to shimmer with the glow of balefire.

"Oh BLYAT!" The entire creature's abdomen contorted, and a glow of glowing rainbowish plasma flew from it and splattered on the ground just a few meters in front of Nikolai, whose gaze was now fixed on the disgusting abomination which had surfaced and was now very likely looking for its next meal. It's thousands of pale camera like eyes stared down at Nikolai as it hovered over the vat, its wings sounding like a helicopter in perpetual startup.

"УМРИ, СУКА!"

He screamed, frantically reaching into his belt and pulling out one of his brand new grenades. Using his still aching left arm, he pulled the pin and threw his best curveball at the massive rotting mutant. Coincidentally, the motion of reaching and snatching up the little explosive device also knocked the activation knob on Nikolai's radio on just right. So that cheerful noise of Bandit Radio accompanied Nikolai in his feeling of dread as the grenade fell short of the creature, rolling harmlessly underneath it. The being let out an eldritch shriek of what was probably annoyance, and began to slowly hover towards Nikolai and Flashpoint.

Flashpoint stomped his forehooves in protest. "You just made it made mad!" Nikolai's eyes widened as he slowly began to raise his gun.

"Get ready to run. We are not done with this place yet." Just as Nikolai reached into his pocket for another grenade, the bloatfly was suddenly engulfed in a ball of blinding red fire, followed by a shockwave which blew dust and gravel up into the Stalker's face.

"Halt!" A female voice shouted. Nikolai's brain pegged it as being faintly familiar. He glanced around, and spotted the reflection of light off of something resembling a metallic pony.

"Exoskeleton! Who is this, and what do you want!?" He was met with silence. He activated his flashlight and highlighted the figure of a quadrupedal suit of power armor.

"Steel Ranger?" The Stalker inquired. The figure stepped closer. Nikolai began to worry. He looked over and Flashpoint and whispered.

"If you see wings, run, do whatever you have to get away." The being in power armor halted at his notion, and turned its side to Nikolai, revealing a various assortment of heavy armaments, including a smoking launcher tube for something that looked quite a bit like an RPG. But thank God... No wings, Metallic or otherwise.

"Charming." The being muttered in a dull voice. " I'd recognize you anywhere, Nikolai." The mare slowly removed her helmet, revealing the face of a strange, mare with a coat the color of volcanic ash.

"Did you forget me already? It's me, Scorch Mark! Knight Scorch Mark? We met in Salt Cube City, remember?" Nikolai jogged his memory by rubbing his forehead, and then squinting harder at the mare.

"Oh, yes. You are her! The robot pony!" A small smile formed on the face of the gruff looking mare.

"You look fine, but holy Goddesses above! Those legs of yours seem more capable then when I first saw you! You sir, are a long way from Salt Cube City."

"How far exactly?"

"75 or so odd miles. And we just met a week ago. Amazing, you made it much farther than me or any of my constituents bet you would." Nikolai laughed uncomfortably and pulled his hood down. " I took a little detour through Splendid Valley. It was... What is good phrase for it? Batshit insane! But-" He patted Flashpoint on the head, which elicited an awkward frown from the zebra.

"I did rescue him from a Slave convoy. We are still getting used to one another. But he is not that bad."

"All the choices in the wasteland, and you chose to befriend a zebra?" The mare scratched her chin with an armored hoof. The shrugged. " You're new to the wasteland, so I won't hold it against you." She shot a glare of suspicion at Flashpoint. Who grumbled something to himself and looked the other way, avoiding the Ranger's gaze. Nikolai stared down at the Steel Ranger.

"So... Have you by any chance happened to come into contact with any clean, preferably bottled drinkable water recently?" Scorch Mark raised her left eyebrow and chuckled.

" Have you checked... I don't know anywhere else in this damn Water Treatment Plant!? There are old vending machines everywhere! I'm not the boss of you! If you want water, you can go and look for it yourself. Don't worry about not finding any, because trust me. You will find some!" Nikolai took a step back, and redonned his hood.

"Ok... Quick question though, would you like to-"

"Oh of course you'd like the fucking Steel Ranger to accompany you!!!" She said, her voice full of bitterness. "Sure, I'll come with, and I won't even charge you for my services!"

"Could it perhaps be out of the goodness of your heart?" The mare donned her helmet, and began to walk away without saying anything else.

"Nikolai, you did not tell me that you met a Steel Ranger." The Stalker chuckled. "Oh, well I did not think it was worth mentioning her. Surely you cannot expect me to tell you every single thing about my time here?" Flashpoint's expression grew more stern.

"You cannot trust her. Steel Rangers value one thing above all, technology. So much so that they will even sacrifice other creatures to get to it. And that is just the organized groups I have can remember. There are hundreds, if not thousands of rouge Ranger's all over the place, most just as cruel and indifferent as any other raider or bandit. Just with the added danger of power armor and military training. You met this mare once in a heavily guarded marketplace, do not trust her out in the open Wasteland." Nikolai switched the fire selector on his rifle back to safe and let it sag on its sling, he put his hands in his pant pockets and sighed.

"She hasn't killed us yet, yes? You just heard her say that she is not interested in money."

"If that pamphlet you have- the, "Wasteland Survival Guide", has information on the postwar world, see if it has anything on 'The Ministry of Wartime Technology and their Steel Ranger Program. They have been around since before the world ended. But... As far as you or I am concerned, they have since shifted priorities. These ponies are dangerous, and they hold a hateful grudge over Zebra's more than most, I urge you to be warry of her."

"I can almost see in her eyes that there is good in her. She saved our lives from that massive bug after all."

"I hope you are right. Otherwise, it will be a hard lesson learned for the both of us." The two walked off towards the other buildings on the plant grounds. Still in search of water, although now almost sure that they would be able to find enough to restock their canteens so they could set back out on the road.

Chapter 18: Long Way To Go

Chapter 18: Long Way To Go

Nikolai and Flashpoint made their way across the expanse of bare concrete that separated them from the various support structures that constituted the minority of the Whiskey Springs Water Treatment Plant. They walked below an overhang, dodging hanging bits of florescent lighting tube and rebar as they went along. The two through a pair of smashed glass doors. They were greeted by the reflection of ambient light from their Steel Ranger escorts helmet visor. She waved a hoof at them and began to walk further down the hallway. Before uttering a single phrase.

"Have at it Nikolai, I don't have any need for it myself." He glanced down the hallway.

Past a rusty drinking fountain, was a set of vending machines. Contained within, was a wide selection of a strange sparking beverage labeled as "Sparkle Cola". Nikolai looked at the ancient soda with a degree of intrigue. But didn't stop to try and pry the machines open. Rather, he continued on down past the bones of long dead ponies until he came to what appeared to be a break room. Inside, was a water cooler, the liquid within was only mildly irradiated. But it wasn't quite what Nikolai was looking for. That was when he threw open the cabinets and behind one very angry radroach, was roughly twenty liters of clean, unirradiated drinking water.

"Blin, Flashpoint! I found it! Come and see!"

"Nikolai!?" The zebra's voice called in excited surprise. "Why did you walk past this stuff!?" Nikolai paused, and walked back out into the ruined hallway.

"What has you so worked up?" He asked, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and stepping further back the way he came in. Flashpoint was trying to break his way into one of the machines.

"It's Sparkle Cola!" Nikolai raised a curious eyebrow behind his mask.

"Yes, that is very apparent. But why are you so interested in it?" The Stalker walked forward, until he was by Flashpoint's side. Nikolai unslung his rifle and swung it through the glass barrier, sending shards flying everywhere and exposing the glass containers within to almost jittery Flashpoint's hooves. He instantly began to shovel glass after glass into his saddlebags, carefully organizing each one in between other loose items for safekeeping.

"Whoa, whoa, what is big rush? Is just weird looking orange soda. Probably warm, and irradiated, and... Well, it might not be rotten. Because of airtight bottle and machine seal, but still. That is nasty."

"Easy for you to say." Flashpoint murmured, preoccupied with his current endeavor. "I can't remember the last time I had something sweet. These things almost taste like real carrots!"

"You've never had real carrots?" Nikolai asked suspiciously.

"Fresh fruits and vegetables are worth their weight in caps and bullets in the Wasteland. Although rumor has it, the Pegasi- wherever they went off too, can grow them up in the clouds and on the peaks of mountains!" Scorch Mark's mechanical voice echoed down the hallway. Before immediately adding;

"HEY! Did you morons find that water I told you about!?"

"Da, yes! We did, can you please stay little longer?" Nikolai shouted back. He heard the clanking of metallic hooves, followed by:

"Oh FUCK YOU!" And a downtrodden, "Fine. It's not like I have anything better to do."

The Stalker got the feeling that the Steel Ranger was rolling her eyes as she said that. Nikolai left Flashpoint to sort his newfound treasures out while he went to look for Scorch Mark. He found her just down the hallway, halfway through disassembling a computer terminal with more precision than any exosuit user he had ever met.

"Is there any reason in particular why you are so interested in that thing?" The terminal beeped and sparked, then, down the hallway, he heard what sounded like a metal grate sliding open down the hall.

"Protectipony activated. Die. Zebra scum!" And the noise of heavy metallic footsteps echoing down the corridor.

"Hey, I'll bet you 5 caps that you can't kill that thing." Nikolai peaked out into the hallway. "Flashpoint, take cover!"

"What!?" The zebra cried back, still in the process of stuffing himself with carrot flavored Sparkle Cola. Nikolai turned back towards the robot pony, watched as a bay door on either side of it opened up. Each revealing a set of gun barrels and a feedlink of ammunition.

"Zebra detected." The voice within it chirped, a mechanical arm chambered a round within both weapons. Flashpoint noticed this clear and present threat to his life and scurried for the building's exit.

"Cyka что вы наделали!?" The Stalker exclaimed angrily. He hastily dropped the pin on a grenade and tossed it down the hallway towards the mechanized monstrosity. The ensuing blast not only destroyed the robot sentry, but also caused its power core and munitions to cook off, resulting in sent heated pressure wave down the hallway which kicked up dust and debris, cracking the door frame Nikolai was standing behind in the process.

"Well I'll be a radroaches ass." Scorch Mark said with an exaggerated chuckle. She reached into a nearby puddle of rubble, and fished out 5 dusty metal bottle caps. She opened the claws on her Power Armor's hooves and extended it to Nikolai.

"Expected something more entertaining, but, you earned it." The Stalker took the little trinkets, wide eyed, he responded with a simple affirmative grunt.

"Hey, you!" Flashpoint's angry voice called out.

Nikolai stepped back out into the corridor after a quick glance in both directions. He was met with a very unhappy Zebra. He stomped right past Nikolai and marched right up to the Steel Ranger. tapping her right in the center of her chestplate. She stood firm, looking down at him, but not reacting.

"Don't think that just because you have that armor you can mess around with others like that like it's nothing. Some of us actually enjoy-" He turned to Nikolai, who wavered his hand in the air and pointed back at Flashpoint.

"-Actually prefer being alive!" He murmured harshly. The Steel Ranger laughed. " Nothing happened, and your weird friend here made 5 caps. Pretty good if you ask me. And besides, you look intact. " Nikolai stepped in between the two bickering Equines.

"Listen, I see no reason why you should not become friends. You might like each other, but... Is for another time, I find that if I wait, I lose opportunity. Follow me, Flashpoint. Let us fill up the canteens and get back off on our journey to..." Nikolai paused for a moment.

"Somewhere! Da, somewhere sounds nice. Is much better than nowhere! Unless you are the introverted, then, is very nice. " He gave an awkward thumbs up. An expression which did nothing but confuse the both of them.

"Well? We can do the walking and talking!" Nikolai waved at both of them, beckoning them to the stash of clean water he had found. Still intact, even after the explosion in the hallway. The Stalker checked the water for any impurities, and, when he found none, began to carefully refill the several canteens in his possession. Any spare clean, sealed, and unused container was filled to the brim. Flashpoint did the same thing with his. Although, Nikolai noticed that he seemed to be more interested in the 'Sparkle Cola' he had procured a moment earlier than actual clean water.

" What should we do with the rest?" Flashpoint asked Nikolai, without saying another word, the Stalker removed his mask, waved it back and forth in the air for a few moments, then pulled back his hood, exposing his bare head. He leaned over, took a 1 liter bottle of water, and poured it over his head, drying it off after a few moments with a jacket sleeve. He looked back at Flashpoint, who seemed almost aghast at what he was doing.

"What?" He asked cheerfully. " Is getting stuffy in mask, and besides, I haven't had a shower in... Let me think. Two weeks now, is least I can do with water I cannot take." Scorch Mark shifted slightly, then answered with an overtly sarcastic;

"Only two weeks mister Wastelander? You sure you didn't just pop out of a Stable or some secluded mansion bunker somewhere?"

The Steel Ranger drew closer, almost as if trying to determine if the patched holes in his jacket and dirt on his boots were real. Flashpoint looked almost sick at the action. But Nikolai just ignored the both of them, redonning his jacket hood and mask in silence. From there, the three wasted no time whatsoever leaving the building and heading off towards the lakeside. A body of water only slightly less contaminated than what Nikolai had seen back in Dodge City, but not as bad as the 'stuff' he had encountered in the water wells around Splendid Valley.

"I'll accompany you into town, but no further. Got that?" Nikolai checked his watch. And began to walk away absentmindedly down the hill towards the barbed wire perimeter fence and Whiskey Springs. The others followed behind him.

"Hey, what did I say about the walking and talking?" The Stalker blurted out as he stepped out onto the road he had previously followed to the Treatment Plant.

"Well, what's on your mind?" Flashpoint asked him. Nikolai pointed up towards the cloud layer.

"Earlier, you were talking about how those winged ponies- the pegasi, can grow things up in the clouds, how does that work? And earlier still, you said that they had entire cites up in the clouds? Did you mean-"

"No one knows what the hell it means because no one's ever gone up there to see it. The only things you'd ever be able to find out about it is stuff from old, prewar archives and, if you're lucky, a Dashite." Nikolai halted, and held up his left hand.

"A who and what?"

"Ex Enclave members, fugitives, outlaws, ect." Scorch Mark responded. Trotting up and ahead of Nikolai. " For some reason or another, they left the cover of those clouds up there. And decided to live life on the surface. I've only ever met one. And he said it was the worst decision he had ever made. "Nikolai chuckled. "Well, if I could fly and was given a choice between this and cloud paradise kingdom. Well... Is not big choice." He laughed again to the discomfort of both Flashpoint and their Steel Ranger escort. Nikolai noticed this, and stopped.

"But it is not like they would even take me. I sort of..."

"He got into a gunfight with them." Flashpoint answered quickly. "I wasn't there to see it. But he definitely seems sure of it." The Ranger slowly turned her head back to Nikolai, who nodded.

"Yes, it is true. But I was at that airfield first! I did nothing wrong." He crossed his arms. "Self defense. And self preservation."

"How did you get away?" Scorch Mark asked him, just as they passed by a corroded sign that signified the city limits, and a dump of old vehicles.

"Running. I shot a few times, and ran."

"And... They didn't give chase, they just let you go?"

"Da, exactly." He could almost feel the uncertainty radiating off of Scorch Mark. She was thinking that something wasn't right. " They could be watching you, right now. What other reason would they have for letting you go but to spy on you?"

"Eh... Incompetency?" The Stalker suggested, tapping the trigger guard of his rifle as they entered into the city proper. They were immediately greeted by an assortment of armed guards carrying a mixture of shotguns and pistols and wearing surprisingly uniform grey armor adorned with a green 4 leaf clover emblem.

"You! Steel Ranger! What brings you here? And why do you have a Zebra and a..." The off putting pink and white unicorn examined Nikolai curiously.

"What are you?" Nikolai set his hands in his pockets. "I should find a nametag and write; Pryvet, my name Is Nikolai, I am a Human. I am friend. And, in big red font: PLEASE NO SHOOT AT ME! Emphasis on the 'No' part." This statement seemed to get the point across to the guard, and he and his dozen associates stepped aside to let the 3 pass. Most appearing to try and hold in their fear at the sight of Scorch Mark.

"You aren't gonna be any trouble now, are ya?" The guard asked again.

"Nope." Nikolai uttered. "No trouble to be found."

"Hold on, before we leave," Flashpoint stopped one of the guards." Would it be ok if I asked you where you got those sets of armor? They look much nicer than what I am wearing right now. " A couple of the adjacent ponies laughed.

"Well they ain't for sale. We found them at an old Ministry of Wartime Technology facility that's about a day's walk north of here. There's still stuff there, if you care to try your luck, but it's right along a pretty well traveled route, so you might have company." Nikolai gave them a thumbs up, and continued along in silence.

"So... This is where I leave you." Scorch Mark uttered, stopping just 100 meters past the checkpoint.

"Are you sure? We could use the company." Nikolai asked. Flashpoint kicked him in the boot. The Ranger turned around.

"I have a package to deliver to somepony in town. It's a private affair. You'd be better off not trying to follow me."

"Yes, but... Are you sure?" Nikolai asked again. The Ranger let out a sigh. "Yes, Nikolai. I am. Perhaps our paths 'll cross someday. But for now, I have to go. My fellow Ranger's need me." With that she turned around, and began heading west. Her armored hooves kicking up dust ask she disappeared down the street.

"She never even once thought to ask you why your eyes were glowing." The Stalker muttered.

"So, what do you want to do now?" Flashpoint asked his friend. Nikolai cracked his knuckles, and then his neck.

"Let's go and see if we can find a marketplace to see if we can sell off some of the things that we have found on our journey. I would also like to acquire some more 5.56 by 45 ammunition for my gun. Another 100 rounds should suffice." Nikolai checked the magazine in his rifle, raddling it around a bit before inserting it into his AK 101. He then the various pouches around his plate carrier while still walking. He couldn't replace his rifle magazines or buy new ones here, but he could keep the ones he already had in good order and well fed. He looked around at the various Wastelanders eyeing him with suspicion. He went to approach one.

"Hello, my name is Nikolai. Can you please tell me where I can find-"

"Keep following the road, you'll find it soon enough Nikolai. " A passing red and yellow earthpony responded awkwardly.

"Thank you for calling me by name!" He shouted back, waving to the stallion, who hurried away without saying anything. The Stalker shrugged. " Is nice to meet polite folks. Even if they are scared spineless."

The two made their way through the ruined portion of town until they came to what few buildings seemed actually intact. That being the center of town and everything northward of it. They walked past several more uniformed town guard. A few of which nodded to Nikolai, but otherwise, none attempted to approach him. They stepped into the town square, and began to look around the assortment of improvised shops and old storefronts.

"Whiskey Hotel, quite creative." Nikolai grumbled, gesturing to the tallest building around, an old fashioned 6 story hotel with a barely functioning lit up sign out front. Right off to it's side and past a handful of stumbling, intoxicated, and heavily armed ponies was an open half tent with a painted sign out in front of it with the base silhouette of a pistol painted on it and above, the words, " Guns And Ammo." And below, in smaller font, the words, " No refunds".

"Well that isn't concerning." Flashpoint said with a smile, turning to Nikolai, who walked up to one of the two salesponies and began to glance over the piles of assorted ammunition, organized into old produce containers and arranged on tables and on the floor. He walked over to a stack of brass cased full metal jacket 5.56, and turned to ask the shady looking salesponies how much it was per round.

"Our fella's raided an old Survivalist's stache just on the other side of town for the shotgun shells and .308's. Everything else came from some very generous, hehem... 'Bulk donations'. We're selling per the pound. Ten caps here and now and you can take however much you can carry stranger." The Stalker paused, then reached into his rucksack and set ten bottle caps on the table of the two salesponies, then proceeded to shovel an armful of 5.56 into the loose corners of his rucksack. Drawing a few chuckles from the nearby customers.

"Easy there partner, what do you need that much ammo for? You planning to kill every raider in the Wasteland or something?" He turned around, and was met with a strange stallion covered in brown drab robes. A set of googles covered his eyes, and a torn cowboy hat adorned his head, the only uncovered part of his body was a pair of bushy brown ears which perked up out of his long, bulky coat.

" Well... No, just some of them friend." Nikolai answered. The masked stallion shook his head and flicked his ears. " Planning on going out into the Wasteland, huh? You're one of them explorin' types, you look the part, alright. That's a pretty nice rifle you've got there." Nikolai chuckled, and raised his gun up from it's sling. The stallion took a closer look, and then pulled back some drapes on his side, revealing a carbine and a revolver mounted on opposing sides of him. A battle saddle, if Nikolai remembered correctly.

"Is not for sale, if that is what you are asking."

"Heh, no, no. I wasn't. I have my own. " There was an awkward pause, and, as Nikolai had learned, if a person didn't walk away after the first 5 seconds of conversation, or start shooting. Then they probably wanted more conversation. Nikolai knelt down and reached out with his gloved left hand.

"Please to meet you, my name is Nikolai. What is yours?" The cloaked stallion reached out with his right hoof and shook it.

"Hello there. It's nice to meet you, I suppose. You know, you're the first creature in this town who hasn't shied away from conversation."

"Hey, pal! Either buy somethin' or get lost!" The salespony shouted from behind the counter. The stallion simply tipped his hat, and calmly began to walk away. Nikolai turned to say something to defend the stranger, but when he turned around, he saw the stallion, trotting about in the middle of the street, a wagon passed by, and, when it was gone, the pony was nowhere to be seen.

"Чекай, чекай... що? Wait, wait... What?" The Stalker scratched his head in confusion. He looked around again, the stallion was nowhere to be found. He considered trying to see if he could get a technician at the in town clinic to examine him. But quickly decided that it wasn't worth the money. And he doubted they were worth anything anyhow. They'd probably just prescribe him some psychedelic drugs that would make him end up as pile of hellhound food on the side of the road.

"Oh well, now... Where the blyat is Flashpoint?" He zipped and buttoned up his rucksack, and left the Guns and Ammo shack with very little on his mind. He headed across the street to the closest bar he could find. Just inside, was Flashpoint, attempting to mix a shot of Whiskey with Sparkle Cola.

"Nyet!" Nikolai cried, pulling him away from it. "Is bad idea!" He looked at the Barkeep. A rather surprised unicorn mare, who furrowed her brow at him.

"He already paid for it." Nikolai sighed, shook his fist in disapproval.

"Blin, fine. This one drink, and then you meet me outside. I want to get going. Although..." He glanced past the barkeep at the shelf of alcohol.

"Do you have any Vodka?" The mare stared back at him. "Indeed we do."

"Can I take a... Bottle to go?"

The mare levitated a twelve ounce bottle off the shelf, and passed it to Nikolai. "Here, nopony else seems to have any interest in it. It's just sat here the past... I don't even know how long. But it ain't like it'll ever go bad. " A few patrons laughed, and raised their glasses as well as a creature with hooves could. The Stalker stood up, took the bottle from the mare's magical embrace, stuffed into a paper bag, and then stuffed that into a padded section of his rucksack.

"Thank you." He turned to his friend, "будь ласка, please be fast." The Zebra turned back to stare at the strange concoction on the table. Quickly, Nikolai reached for his friends gun and took it from him.

"No drinking and shooting at same time."

"But you do that all the time!" Flashpoint protested. The Stalker simply shook his head, and walked out. "You can have gun back when you leave." The Stalker sat down on a bench outside and tapped the corroded wooden boards on it's backrest until Flashpoint eventually stepped out of the bar 15 minutes later.

"We have been in this market place for almost an hour man, and this is what you've done with you time? Just what were you doing in there? I heard shouting." The Stalker asked his friend."

"I would rather not talk about it." Flashpoint grumbled, winking at his friend. "Can I have my gun back now?"

"Sure." The Zebra took it in his hooves, and slung the sling back around his neck, racking the action. "Never take this from me again."

"Alright, alright. Not that you have a problem with that, since you seem to keep losing them so often." The Zebra tried to come up with a counter, but simply replied with;

"Yeah, you are right."

After they had gotten everything sorted out in town, and Nikolai had made back the money he spent on ammunition through selling what he had salvaged from his raid on the raider village. The two set off North of the town, on the outskirts, they came to the range of hills on the far side of town. Nikolai was first to scale them, and stopped at it's crest.

"Hey, Flashpoint!"

"What?" His friend asked. Nikolai waved to his companion. " Come and see." The Zebra trotted up the crest, and stood by his friend.

"It sure is a lot to take in, right Nikolai?"

Ahead of the two Wastelanders, lay the vast expanse of the Desolate Equestrian heartland. The highway that stretched through town faded off into the distance, with the hulking wrecks of hundreds old cars lining the sides like a scene out a war movie. They could see everything for hundreds of kilometers around in every direction. The distant peaks of barren mountains, the crests of rotting cityscapes and power pylons in dozens of different locations all around, a massive white spire stretched up above the clouds off to the Northeast. And, in the center of it all, a massive mountain range whose peeks just barely scraped the cloud layer. A thick pink haze covered a faint outcropping of ruins atop a solitary mountain which stood front and center off the entire scene.

"That, is Canterlot. Equestria's pre apocalyptic capital." Flashpoint said. He looked up and over at Nikolai, who slowly removed his mask and muttered.

"Holy mother of God. This... This is something else. We are done! Done! Finished! Screwed!" He swore something under his breath, and stomped his boot. Before calmly breathing out, redonning his mask, letting his rifle fall on it's sling, checking his PDA and his watch, and finally saying to his Zebra companion.

"Well... I do not know where we are going друг. But we have a long way to go." Nikolai sighed, and stretched his legs out, kicking corroded asphalt underfoot.

"And a short time to get there. Well... Is not really true, but is fun to pretend, yes?" Flashpoint just laughed, and raised his right hoof.

"I will never understand you. Will I?"

"Here, have the music for your troubles my friend. " Nikolai's radio began to faintly play 'Bandit Radio' again as the two walked off down the road in a cheerful demeanor. The Stalker silently wishing he had a camera to capture the moment.

Chapter 19: A Short Time To Get There

Chapter 19: A Short Time To Get There

In the early hours of the afternoon, Nikolai and Flashpoint once again found themselves walking along a barren stretch of four lane highway. That spanned from nowhere to.... Well, also nowhere.

"I got an idea you stupid blin, let us play the 'I' spy!" Nikolai shouted. He whipped around and pointed off in the distance at a random destroyed skyscraper. He stopped walking, and shifted his gaze off into the barren expanse of what must have once been grassland to point at a dead tree about half a kilometer off the main road.

"I spy with my bloodshot eye, an ecological calamity! Oh wait-" He raised up both of his arms. "Ты дурак! Everything is dead! The soil, the trees, the sky, that mutant rat with four eyes which I just turned into roadkill." Nikolai wiped the putrid bloodstain off his boot. Flashpoint rolled his eyes.

" I'm glad you're so enthusiastic about our situation. But don't you think we should have spent some more time back in Whiskey Springs to rest and recuperate?" The Stalker shook his head. "Nyet!"

"But why? My hooves were just starting to stop hurting." The Stalker turned and looked down into Flashpoints glowing eyes.

"You soaked up so much of that magic radiation and God knows what else back in Splendid Valley that I wouldn't be surprised if people started calling you a ghoul. " The damaged skyscraper that Nikolai had been pointing to in the distance collapsed as he said that. Followed by a faint crashing noise about 45 seconds later.

"Speaking of which, don't you think it is little odd that we have come across so many living creatures?" The Zebra looked perplexed by this statement.

"What do you mean?"

"I did not have the much time to count, but it seemed like Whiskey Springs had hundreds of ponies inhabiting it. And Dodge City before that at least as many. Yet, it seems like the only ones I come across on the road either want to kill me or are just terrible people in general. I am not best judge of character... But I see a pattern here." Flashpoint chuckled and trotted up to Nikolai's side.

"I actually agree with you. But that's because they would rather take it from creatures that have things than look for it themselves." The Stalker smiled under his mask and hefted his AK 101.

"I get bored quickly. And I like money. There is good reason for me doing what I am doing."

With a snap of his fingers Nikolai reached back to his vest mounted radio and began to fiddle with the knob, scrolling through wave after wave of earsplitting static and white noise.

"Hey, how does that radio of yours work anyway? I was never really taught stuff like that as a foal."

"Hah! When you have half family in Soviet military and half family work either in potato field or automotive factory- You get pretty good idea at stuff like that. Is cheaper to repair things than buy new thing. Radio wave, or signals, is invisible bursts of electricity- Like radiation. Which a radio, a sensor can pick up. That is essential explanation. If you are asking how it can pick up a signal from a world away... Well... I do not know, and I am almost scared to try to take it apart to find out."

In truth, Nikolai did know how to properly disassemble and put his portable radio back together. but how it was able to pick up signals, specifically-' Zone FM'. Which played everything from air raid sirens to American Country music to Russian Hard bass and Ukrainian folk music to Upbeat synthwave music. It also served as a sort of podcast for Stalkers to teach other Stalkers about the Zone and warn outsiders. But Nikolai never really cared much for that. He was more into the, 'copious amounts of alcohol to stave off radiation poisoning crowd'. But all of that aside, he truly didn't know what made his interdimensional radio tick. Especially when one went and considered that the signals seemingly originating from Equestria seemed to have difficulty making their way through unless he was near a large city or a radio tower. Meanwhile, his practically a smartphone PDA was relegated to the menial task of a digital notebook and primitive mapping system.

"Forget I asked." Flashpoint muttered quickly, kicking a rock with his left hoof. " And forget that spying game. There's nothing interesting out here. Everything is just shades of brown and grey. "

"Like the Ukraine in Winter, but in summer... Well, is like fantasy tale... Like Florida. Minus crackheads and subsequent crackhead alligators." Flashpoint didn't seem to get the joke. And Nikolai didn't feel like explaining it to him.

"Anyway... Let us try the radio. There is nothing here to worry about. And that thunderstorm from earlier is gone. We still have a few hours until night. And we will probably be on this road several days." As he switched his radio back to Zone FM, a new song began to drift through its speakers.

"Six days one the road ya know Imma gonna make it home tonight!"

"Blyat!" Nikolai shouted. "Is not helpful!" Nikolai shifted his rifle and checked his map. While he was preoccupied, he heard Flashpoint say, " I like it." Nikolai checked his radio.

"Dave Dudley. Good stuff, but I am not anywhere near home." The Stalker set his hands in his coat pockets and began to fiddle with some of the odds and ends inside. "I've never had a real home." The Zebra's voice trailed off. His ears drooping.

"Oh really? You are feeling sad for yourself now?" Nikolai inquired. " You know, home is whatever and whenever you make it. You could just define it as a place that a vampire cannot get into."

"What's a vampire?" Flashpoint asked. Nikolai waved the question away. "Oh, never mind, let us just enjoy the radio. We can save the talking for tonight." Nikolai turned the volume dial up a few notches. And let the sounds of steel guitar drift off into the grey sky.

The distant crackle of gunfire broke the silence about two hours later. Far off in the distance, Nikolai and Flashpoint could just barely make out muzzle flashes and the blurry silhouettes of ponies moving and falling. Nikolai fumbled around for his binoculars, and calmly took a knee in the center of the road, right by a cracked concrete divider, he toyed with the magnifier until it was all the was out to 8 times magnification, adjusting the focus, he was just barely able to make out the distant altercation, about a kilometer away. Beyond the range of Nikolai's shoddy marksmanship skills, but also far enough away to not pose any serious threat to his or Flashpoint's life.

"Perhaps we should investigate?" Nikolai inquired. " Just getting a little closer wouldn't hurt. Plus, it would mean early pickings of the loot!"

"You of all should know that would be a bad idea. I say, we let them fight it out, and then, when the shooting stops. Then we go in their and sift through their bodies." Nikolai nodded in agreement. "Your plan is better. We shall wait them out."

The fight went on for the next 30 odd seconds, and then ceased abruptly, followed by screaming, and, finally, silence. Five minutes passed, and then five more. And when it became clear that the victors would not be returning to the scene. Nikolai And Flashpoint began to move up. A few minutes later, as they came within a hundred or so meters, they began to hear resumed screams.

"Blyat, what now!?" Nikolai thought to himself, he held up his right hand in a fist, and motioned for Flashpoint to head to the ditch on the opposite side of the road.

"Try and flank around." He shouted out. Pointing forward, towards the wagon wreckage ahead. Flashpoint nodded, and scurried off down the left side of the highway, Nikolai meanwhile, continued moving up the right. He transitioned his rifle off safe, pulling down to semi auto, keeping one eye down the iron sights, and another at the environment.

"Hello!" The Stalker called out out. " If you're there, call out to me!"

"Help! Please help me!" The shrieks' sounded female. Nikolai glanced around at the dozen or so bodies, he walked over to the side of the highway, and kicked over a tarp, raising his rifle and resting his finger on the trigger,

"Please no more! Don't hurt me!"

It was a young unicorn mare with a formerly yellowish coat that was covered in dirt and blood. The lacerations on her hooves and neck told him that she hadn't exactly been taking the best care of herself. The hypodermic needle marks on her right shoulder and partially torn black leggings weren't a very good sign either. She was shivering and cradling the tarp over herself as if trying to hide something . Her eyes were wide with terror. Nikolai glanced around at the dead bodies. Something didn't seem right about this situation.

"I am sorry if I startled you ma'am! I just heard screams down the road and came to investigate, I do not mean you any harm."

"Nikolai!" Flashpoint's voice shouted from across the road. The Zebra emerged from behind a rusted out car wreck with his gun held low.

"You look awful, what happened here?" Nikolai took his left hand off his gun and began to remove the tarp. The mare pulled it away in an angry fit.

"Don't touch me!" Her voice sounded more depressed than angry. The Stalker backed away and slowly raised his gloved hand. "Ok, ok. But I cannot help you then. Please ma'am, you do not look well." Slowly but hesitantly, the mare began to remove the tarp. Flashpoint watched her intently for anything that might even resemble a weapon.

"There, you happy asshole?" The mare asked ,her voice shaky voice filled with irritation, she threw off the tarp, and instantly crossed her legs and balled up.

"Now now, that is no way to talk to a good Samaritan. Now bend over." The mare's eyes went wide with shock. "No, not a chance!" The Stalker raised his hands in protest. And Flashpoint chuckled.

"No, not at all ma'am, there's a deep cut across your back. I'd just need to sterilize and bandage it. It would take all of 30 seconds, I promise you, and here-" Nikolai reached into a side pocket on his rucksack and pulled out an emergency foil blanket, he unwrapped it and tossed it to the mare, who eyed it suspiciously.

"This is your idea of a blanket?" Nikolai took a knee and edged closer.

"It will capture body heat and warm you up faster, trust me. I am professional. Do you like the eh... Sparkle Cola?" The mare shook her head slightly. Nikolai wagged a finger in Flashpoint's direction, and the Zebra unbuckled his saddlebags and fished out a bottle of Sparkle Cola, Nikolai twisted it open and set it at the hooves of the mare.

Flashpoint just smiled and watched his friend work, "Professional, hah!"

"Go on then, just try not to move to much." The mare had already begun to drink away. Nikolai pulled out his IFAK, and drew a Gauze square and a roll of bandages from it. He poured a little Vodka on the dressing, and then began to wrap the mare's wounds. By the time she was finished with the drink, so was Nikolai with his impromptu first aid. The mare paused, and slowly backed away from the Stalker. Who pulled off his mask and gave a warm smile to the mare. "It is ok." He said.

"Get your bearings, and then you can tell us. Oh, and that reminds me. Flashpoint, start taking stuff off these dead hoodlums, caps, ammunition, gun parts, food, clean water, cool stuff. The usual." His friend rolled his eyes and walked away to begin pillaging.

"Glad to see you're having such a fun time with my friends." The mare murmured quietly, Nikolai head the statement, but ignored it.

"You're wondering what happened, right? I was traveling here with a couple other mares and two stallions, we were headed to Whiskey Springs. When we were ambushed by raiders. They killed every pony except for me, who they... Well..." Her voice trailed off, and she began to tear up again. Before finally simply saying. " They raped me." Flashpoint glanced up from a bodies saddlebags and turned to listen in. "I played dead, and they just left after a while, laughing as they did. And... then-" She stifled back a tear.

" And then you showed up." The Stalker sighed, " Oh boy. This places things in quite the pickle." The mare's gaze shifted from Nikolai to Flashpoint. Nikolai pointed at his friend, and then beckoned over to the far side of the road. He looked back down at the mare. "Stay here, please." She curled the foil blanket over herself and whimpered. The Stalker led his friend away and crouched down and whispered into his ear.

"Well? What do you think? We cannot leave her here, she will die. But, on the other hand... Have you taken a good look at her? I'm sorry, do not take wrong way. But I do not want a some crazy victim minded drug addict stripper travelling with us! No, not alright! And I don't want to tie her up and carry her back to Whiskey Springs either. And we cannot give her a gun!" Flashpoint sighed.

"She never said she was a stripper... But that's not the point! She clearly isn't in good shape, and we just need to get her to the nearest settlement. Then we can leave her and never worry again. But right now, she doesn't even look like she can walk!" Nikolai facepalmed, and walked back over to the mare.

"Where is nearest settlement North of here?" He asked her, pulling out his PDA. The mare hung her head.

" I don't... Um... Maybe Green Meadows? But that's an almost half day walk from here. What are you planning on doing with me anyway?" The Stalker groaned. " Look, I've talked it over with my friend, Flashpoint over there." The Zebra gave the both of them a shy wave, and then went back to rummaging through the battlefield.

"Look, we do not mean you any harm. It was not part of plan, but we can escort you to Town, and then we will leave, and you will never have to speak to us again. It is least we can do for all this free stuff." The mare looked surprisingly unfazed by the statement.

"You and that Zebra with the glowing eyes? Hah! I think don't think so!" Nikolai shrugged. " The lady had spoken, have fun with the monsters! Or... You could come with us, have a hot meal tonight, and protection at no cost to you self whatsoever. I never asked you, but what is your name?"

"It's Amber, Amber Reins. And, thank you for everything." Nikolai smiled, and redonned his mask. " You can keep the blanket, I have plenty anyway. Her expression changed to a smile, and she stumbled to all fours.

"Can you walk? If not, then I'm sure Flashpoint over there would love some company." The Zebra waved again. And the mare's facial expressions faded back into discomfort. "Um... That's alright, I don't feel that bad." She said, trying to mask the pain coming from her cuts and bruises.

"Just stay right here, and when we're done, we will leave and find place to camp for night. You said you knew those dead ponies." Her ears perked up. "Oh yes, yes! I didn't know then that well. So... You know... I'll just get my things." Nikolai rolled his neck, and nodded.

All in all, Nikolai and Flashpoint were actually able to salvage quite a bit from the wrecked wagon, aside from a some magic bandages and a single healing potion, they had also found several spare magazines for Flashpoint's pistol, another 15 caps, and a slightly tarnished .357 Magnum revolver with an ivory grip which Nikolai took for himself. The grip was designed and fashioned for a pony, sure. But he insisted on keeping it. A big bore revolver was still a big bore revolver. Amber collected a few items in a leather bag, though none of which Nikolai was able to get a good look at, and enthusiastically came along with the others.

Nikolai, Flashpoint, and their new tag along, Amber Reins, walked for another whole two hours until Nikolai had found a bit of raised ground with dead tree stags spread about that he could set up his tent. It was small, but, but it made up for it in practicality, it was waterproof, windproof, and not too difficult to set up. And, seeing that tent pitching was not one of any of the 3's strong suits, Nikolai was grateful to have it.

"Alright now, we need fire. Flashpoint, watch her while I'm gone. " The Zebra grunted softly in agreement, Nikolai drew his small folding camp axe from the bottom of his rucksack and laughed at him. "I am going to go and get the firewood. If you need anything-" He glanced over at 'Ms. Reins'. Who smirked back at him in a nervous manner. He laughed again and twirled the hatchet around.

"... Feel free to scream incoherently! Da, yes, good?" He handed Flashpoint his backup mini maglight and left the two equines with the words, " Do not waste battery." As Nikolai's footsteps faded off into the dark shadows of the late afternoon, Flashpoint and Amber were left sitting alone on the cold, rocky ground.

"Well... This is awkward." Flashpoint thought to himself, peaking glances over at Amber.

"So... This Nikolai, how long have you known him?" She finally asked, breaking the silence.

" A few days ago, he just showed up out of nowhere and rescued me from a Slaver caravan. By which I mean, he killed all the guards, and then freed me. And now... Here I am." The mare giggled a bit.

"Alright, here's a personal question. " She motioned towards Flashpoint's face.

"How'd you get those glowing green pearls?" She asked smugly. Her hoof brushed up against his fur. Flashpoint smiled, and pulled himself away.

"Oh, well... You see, it all started two days ago when-" The faint sound of Titanium Blade meeting 200 year old dead tree echoed through the campground. Followed by the even fainter sounds of Bandit Radio. It was getting darker and darker. Amber laughed, and Flashpoint awkwardly laughed along with her. Eventually, Nikolai's rifle light turned back towards camp, and he came out of the shadows with an armful of branches and a sack full of logs right behind him. He arranged them in a triangular pattern, and then sparked some dead grass with a match and funneled it underneath. He sat on his rucksack, probably not the best thing to sit on next to a campfire given it's contents. But he was working with what he had. He had chosen this spot because of it's denseness of what used to be foliage. All of which served to obscure most of the firelight from view of the road. Nikolai reached out into his rucksack, and pulled out 2 more ration packs. He was starting to run low. He pealed back the airtight resealable packaging and began to heat it up by holding them just over the fire one at a time, slowly pour bits of water into portions of them and stirring them with the 'clean' blade of his knife.

"Alright, what's for dinner-" Amber paused midsentence when Nikolai set a small plate of salami, citric oatmeal, and stale buckwheat down in front of her. Flashpoint immediately began to devour his portion, Nikolai took it slightly slower. And their mare companion simply prodded at the meal, before 'gracefully' biting into it face first.

"Heh, someone was hungry."

"What is this... It's very, um... Salty!" She exclaimed, Nikolai chuckled, and fumbled with the lid of a small thermos.

"Is traditional Slavic dish, but made to last forever! Meat, grain, and of course... Pickle!" He removed his gloves and pulled a dark green cucumber out of the canister. "Go on, try it." He broke it into three pieces, " I have to conserve them, I don't know when I'll find more!" He said, laughing and snickering to himself.

"How's your friend in the way of sanity?" Amber asked slyly, tapping Flashpoint on the shoulder, the Zebra shifted his tail from side to side, causing the fire to waver a little bit.

"Well, in my professional opinion, I think that the mask he goes around wearing all the time doesn't let enough air through. And he's constantly in a state of delirium!" The Stalker over in the corner crossed his arms. "I do not like the cancer. Is that really so hard to understand?"

"Say's the creature that carries around a glowing ball of radioactive death in his rucksack." Flashpoint countered. Nikolai facepalmed and finished his meal.

"I should have threatened to not feed you. Then you perhaps you would have been more considerate. I am going off to bed, I made the improvise tent for you. And no," He turned to Amber, "I am not letting you sleep with me. Go with Flashpoint, trust me, he sleeps like a clobbered goat. Adorable, and funny looking. " Nikolai said that last big through gritted teeth.
The Stalker crawled into his lean to, and took one last look out at the dark expanse of Wasteland that lay in all directions. Scattered across the land, he noticed dozens of glowing green patches in the darkness.

"Balefire Bomb craters. Not every bomb hit its mark on the last day. There are entire swaths of the heartland that you can't even pass through without getting sick, or outright dropping dead after a few minutes. But of course, you look fine... Mister I don't like cancer!" Nikolai almost gave her the finger, but restrained himself.

"Goodnight friends, is very beautiful death glow. I love you all very much. Now go the blyat to sleep! Big day tomorrow! Death and more death and so on! Blyat I hate this!"

With that, Nikolai almost instantly blacked out and dozed off. Leaving Flashpoint and Amber on their own as the two tried to figure out the least awkward way to fall asleep next to one another.

"Ah... Oh, Golden Wheat Fields. You take me back..."

A smile crept over Nikolai's face as he fantasized about being back in his hometown in Central Ukraine. Going mushroom and apple picking with his family, hunting with his dad, watching TV, partying with collage friends... He was happy. When, like a Bazooka through a window pane, his sleep was shattered by the sound of nervous laughter, followed by kissing. An it took him a moment to realize where it was coming from. But when he did, he couldn't have been madder.

Nikolai's eyes snapped open, for an instant, he just lay there sore in his bed roll, his gloved hand on the grip of his rifle. He didn't felt exhausted, he checked his watch for the unwelcome surprise that he had woken up in the early morning. With just 7 hours of sleep in between the previous night and now, he was in no whatsoever mood to contend with this.

After listening for another 20 or so seconds he decided to get up and do something about it, he snatched up his mask, and stepped out of his tent and walked past the smoldering campfire to Flashpoint and Amber's tent. He heard Flashpoint giggle. And he actually sounded happy for a moment. A passing thought crossed Nikolai's mind that, perhaps he should just go back to bed, throw a pillow over his head, and just let them...'Hug' it out. But, as he turned to walk away, he heard Flashpoint utter a halted cry of;

"Wha- AH!" Nikolai rushed over and threw the tent flap open, drawing his sidearm as he did.

"What happened!?" As the gloomy figures shifted up out of the foil blankets, Nikolai realized that Amber was holding Flashpoint's gun to his head.

"It's a shame, I can't believe you. I just can't. You know, you all put on such a convincing act. I actually enjoyed my time with you all. Especially you, Flashy." She grinned at Flashpoint, who wore an expression comprised of both distress and bewilderment on his face. Nikolai kept his gun at low ready.

"Blin, I was right!" He cried. " I told you she was bad news! Even after you insisted I befriend and help her. But I never thought she'd go to the lengths of lying about rape and then trying to seduce my only friend in this world! There is a special place in hell for people like you leeching cyka!"

"I wasn't lying... I-I Modified the truth."

Nikolai's facial expression turned to deadpan sarcasm. He had no patience for this, this mare was as good as dead. He grimaced, and began to pull back the hammer of his Makarov.

"Defend yourself with words-redeem yourself, and maybe, MAYBE, I won't shoot you right this instant!"

Chapter 20: Redeeming Truth

Chapter 20: Redeeming Truth

Nikolai couldn't decide what it was he was feeling, more disappointed, or madder then a bloatfly in a sterile room. He had trusted this mare, and she had betrayed that trust. He took her in, took care of her, gave her two sets of ears that would hear out her plight. And she betrayed that trust.

"Well, it all started when I was just a little filly-" Nikolai grunted, and steadied his shaking trigger hand.

"Blyat no! Tell me what made you do this!? What do you want!?" Amber Reins let out coy chuckle, and caressed Flashpoints chin with her hoof.

"Oh, I just want all the caps you have. No biggie!" Nikolai shook his head. "That is not going to happen little lady. Drop that gun right now and I will not kill you outright!" The Zebra let out a short whimper.

"Uh... Nikolai, do you mind?" The Stalker gritted his teeth. "I have not even had the breakfast yet! So? Give me sob story!" He ordered, the Makarov's iron sights came to rest just below the unicorn mare's sparkling horn.

"Ok, you want the fucking truth?" She asked demandingly. " You want it? Well, here it is; I'm a raider, but not the kind that burns down villages. I'm bait, my gang leaves me on the side of the road for too quick to trust- do gooder ponies to stop by and try to help me, they lead me around. Or I lead them around for a bit, maybe seduce a few of them, and just when they start to trust me, my gang ambushes them and takes their stuff. It's worked more times than I can count!" Nikolai was speechless, it took him a second to find something back on Earth he could compare it too. But it didn't take any longer that. Carjackings and hitchhikers, for one.

"Where is rest of Gang!?" He demanded; his hand began to tremble again.

"You saw most of them yesterday." Amber responded. "Dead, just another pile of bones by the side of the road."

"Where is rest of them? Do not lie!" The mare scrunched up her muzzle and turned her head towards Flashpoints. "I don't know where they went! I waited there for hours, but they never showed up-"

"Crack!"

A .380 caliber slug tore through the mare's ear, and she hit the ground, Flashpoint tore his gun away from her magical grasp, And Nikolai rushed up and pressed a boot over her neck.

"You little- I watched that battle from afar! But whatever, I do not need to explain to you cyka! I am simple Stalker, I am not executioner. You will come with us, understand? Flashpoint, get me some rope, and disassemble this tent. Try and turn into sled, big enough for this pain in ass." He rolled the mare over, she was in shock, cradling the left side of her head. The bulled had just chipped a bit of flesh off the side. But it still hurt a great deal. It didn't matter to him. Nikolai wasn't going to waste any more medical supplies, or bullets on this sorry mare. She didn't deserve either.

"C-can I-I-I at least ha-have something to eat?" Amber asked in her best pitiful voice, her eyes welling up with tears to complete the look, she pawed empty air with her hooves and Flashpoint tied her down to the improvised aluminum sled.

"Save it. Be grateful the good lord above gave me strength to spare you. Another creature may not have been so kind. I will drop you at nearest town, you can lie to them and get all food you want there!" She turned to Flashpoint, and reached out towards him.

"Please honey? I'm sorry-"

"You had your chance, you had two chances, Nikolai is right. We don't have the resources to give you the care you need and want. Go scam somepony else, but just know, and I'm really trying to be sincere here, your luck just might take a turn for the worse if you do."

Nikolai ate a meager breakfast comprised of a few protein bars and reheated leftovers from the night before and a quarter canteen worth of water. He kicked apart the smoldering campfire and spread the ashes to make sure no one could follow them. Flashpoint just sat watch over Amber Reins. Mumbling to himself, and racking the action of his weapon over, and over again. About 20 minutes later, when Nikolai was done packing up his things and making the site look like it had never been settled in before, he tapped his friend on the shoulder and motioned for him to come along. Nikolai had hitched up two separate carabiners to the restraining sled so they could both share the weight. But Flashpoint insisted that one of them should stay mobile, and since Nikolai had the bigger gun. Flashpoint insisted that it be him.

"Alright, let us get going, if we start now, we should be there by mid-day, and that will give us plenty of time to find place to dump her, get more food, and... Hopefully reserve nice hotel room? I am not complaining but am getting sort of tired of sleep on ground or in ruin."

"Fair enough Nikolai, that's a good idea." Flashpoint responded, ignoring the angry shouting from their captive.

"Quiet! Or I'll stick a sock in your mouth!" Nikolai ordered, readjusting his rucksacks straps. The trio came back into sight of the main highway after a while.

"I do have something that will make feel better." The Stalker insisted, the anger disappearing from his voice. He turned the dial on his radio, and Bandit Radio began to play at a low volume.

The Stalker stared far out down the desolate road. "Da, will be accordion and Guitar all way to Green Medows! Too bad for you if you do not like it." Amber let out an anguished sigh, and relaxed her body.

" Alright!" Nikolai exclaimed, " Let's do this!" He turned the radio dial a bit, and a new song began to play.

"Well, I was at this bar on the interstate one night when a guy with this bird walked in..."

The two walked alone and in silence for about two hours before, finally, Amber began to complain. First it was little things, she whined that she was thirsty, then she wanted whiskey. Neither request was granted by Nikolai. But, when she started begging to go and use the bathroom, he couldn't turn it down, stepping off to the side of the highway, Flashpoint untied her from the sled.

"Go behind that downed telephone pole, we won't watch."

"And if I run?" The mare asked them. Nikolai laughed. " Then you become food for a monster or loot for a raider, now go, and come right back here." While the mare shuffled her way behind the ancient telephone pole, Nikolai and Flashpoint began to talk with one another.

"What should we do with her?"

"It's like I said." Nikolai responded. " Take her to town."

"But how do we know they won't just hang her or shoot her once they find out what she's done?" Nikolai scoffed and folded his arms. "All the more power to them." Amber came trotting back up and lay belly up on the sled.

"Could I stretch my legs?" Nikolai laughed. " You must have gone crazy. Nyet! You can walk free when we are in town." The mare rolled back over, and Flashpoint took the opportunity to tie her back down.

"That's a shame, I haven't been free in a long time." Nikolai laughed, and unslung his rifle. He took a knee right by Amber and stared into her eyes.

"Really? Please. Stop lying to us. It will not make your situation any better, be honest with us. Please, it will make your life all the better." Amber laughed back.

"Yeah, sure, it'll take it from shitty to mild hellhole. " Nikolai motioned for Flashpoint to start dragging her again. The Stalker's radio croaked, and a new song came through the static.

"Had a couple beers with one of my friends, told 'em just how our story ends... Did all I could to try 'n make it work, but ya drug mah heart through the Alabama dirt..."

"Hey hey, what can I say? I could just lie say it's all ok. Oh, oh... What can I do? Been goin' through hell gettin' over you.... But it don't hurt... It don't hurt like it used to..."

A smile formed on Flashpoint's face. " I like it Nikolai." Amber Reins scoffed.

"The looser in this song sounds so pathetic. Like an earthpony trying to drown his sorrows in Whiskey." Nikolai turned his head and looked down at Amber.

"He's singing about the... Eh... Metaphorical ups and downs of life. Is very popular topic for music where I am from. Go on and listen for a while, you may learn some things from it will change your life." The unicorn laughed and swore something under her breath. Then, she fell simply fell silent again.

Another hour passed, and then another, until, finally, they turned off the main road and followed a winding road west for about a kilometer until they came to a large valley, potmarked with dead trees and patches of stale brown grass sprouting from windswept farmlands. All leading directly up to what was once probably a quaint little village. But was now a walled in, rusting shadow occupied by armed sentries. As Nikolai and Flashpoint entered the valley and began to make their way towards the exterior settlement wall, Nikolai instructed Flashpoint to stay behind them. The last thing Nikolai wanted was for some trigger-happy sniper to see a Zebra towing a wounded mare and get the wrong idea about it.

"Hello!" He shouted, letting his rifle fall on its sling and waving to the visible guards. "We come in peace!"

"What are you?" One of them shouted. " A friend! We have someone!" The 3 guardsponies glanced into the sled and froze when they saw who was inside it.

"You!?" Amber looked up at them, and blushed. "Hello there. Long time?" The stallion let out a harsh grunt.

"The Sheriff's not gon' be happy to see you back here. Come on in."

"Well I'll be a radrats ass!" A voice shouted from the far side of the settlement. A grey earthpony stallion wearing a black` cowbow hat and a set of patchwork armor with a rusty badge and a scratched-up drum fed shotgun with an improvised stock made from melted coat hangers.

"Sheriff Fieldtrotter, at your service sir. I see you brought this little thing back here." He walked right past Flashpoint and gazed down at Amber. "Did you find her like this?"

"No, actually, we found her in worse condition. She was shivering by the side of the road, me and my friend here, took her in and let her stay with us. When I awoke the next morning, she was holding a gun to my friend's head and demanding caps. I stopped her, as you can see." The sheriff examined the gunshot wound to Amber's ear and nodded slowly.

"Yep. That sounds just 'bout right. She made a stallion fall for her the last time she came through her, haven't seen him since."

"I didn't have the heart to kill her, or leave her to die, so I strapped her to this sled and had my friend help me bring her here." The sheriff looked back at the masked face of Nikolai, and then at Flashpoint, who squinted to try and hide his glowing eyes.

"You know what- I ain't even gonna ask. You did good bringin' her here. Deputy!" One of the guards slowly trotted up to the Sheriff's side. "Remove her restraints." He looked back at Nikolai.

"If you'd like me to, that is. You caught her, it's your call stranger." Nikolai's eyes turned back to Amber. He scratched his chin. Flashpoint took a step towards Nikolai and gestured to the unicorn mare.

"Nikolai, she did try to murder me. And it's clear these ponies have a bone to pick with her as well. She sounds like she deserves whatever is coming for her." The Stalker sighed and took a knee by Amber, he looked back at the Sheriff.

"What will you do with her if we leave her with you?"

"Well... What would you have use do?" There was an uncomfortable length of silence as the Stalker thought it over. He hated this mare for trying to kill his best friend. But, on the other hand, the more he looked in her eyes. The more he saw the worry. She seemed to be genuinely terrified. As disgusted as Nikolai was with her, he still believed that she could make things better. And he had just the right punishment to redeem her.

"Tell me, do you have a schoolhouse in need of an assistant?" The Sheriff raised an eyebrow.

"You can't be serious- A pony like her- She give out party favors, not test grades." Nikolai chuckled. "Then perhaps, is good time for learning, yes?" He looked over at Amber. " What say you and be honest. It's either that, or a cell if these ponies are nice, if not, then as soon as we leave, they'll take you to the gallows." The mare's eyes were filled with uncertainty.

" That's a good idea." Sheriff Fieldtrotter responded. " We'll keep her overnight. First thing in the morning, we'll have her start on a probationary period." The deputies stood the mare up, and walked her away. The sheriff stood by Nikolai and noddled slowly.

"Sir, I don't know what made you do what you just did, and I don't even know ya. But for all our sakes, I sure hope this works out well. Welcome to Green Meadows. There isn't much greenery, but you're welcome to stay here as long as you'd like." Nikolai nodded, and looked around at the crowd of gathering ponies. As he looked through the crowd. He caught sight of an equine figure... Dressed in drab brown robes as well as a cowboy hat, a set of dark goggles, and a cowl which masked it's face. It was the same pony he had met back in Whiskey Springs. The figure seemed to notice Nikolai, and gave a small nod of approval. The Stalker went to rub his eyes, but when he was finished, the figure was nowhere to be seen. Something was off.

"Nikolai, by the way, you never told me, what is a, Good Samaritan anyway?" The Stalker turned and looked down at his Zebra companion.

"It is a long story, but, let me just say that what we have done, would qualify us both as one."

Chapter 21: Stalker, Stalked

Chapter 21: Stalker, Stalked

Nikolai and Flashpoint sat around a bar table on rickety stools. Nikolai held a mason jar filled with vodka in his left hand, his right was fiddling with the controls of his PDA.

The Stalker hit a tab on his map, scrolling back along his previous route. "Blin, I hope we did right thing!" Flashpoint raised an eyebrow, and reached over the table to take a sip from his sparkle cola.

"Still haggling over Amber? She isn't our problem any more. You said it yourself. We were... Good Samaritans." Nikolai's eyes drooped.

"Heh, haha! You are right! Ah, conscience fulfilled!" The Stalker poured a bit more Vodka into his jar and took a long swig from it. Followed up by an Ibuprofen and a bit of water. The two laughed in unison.

"You said that that stuff tastes like carrots? Well, could be worse flavor! Just like could be worse place I could have landed in Equestria!" Only Nikolai laughed that time around. Flashpoint was busy scanning the Saloon floor. Inspecting each pony from hoof to mane.

"Wha- What are you lookin' at?" A drunken stallion sneered. Nikolai waved his hand, ushering him to stay where he was.

"Please, sir. My friend is only curious." The stranger's eyes went cross, and he made a poorly thought out attempt to stand up.

"Whas tha supposed to mean!?" He demanded, his voice slurring, a bartender walked up to the stallion, and the two slowly trotted outside. Nikolai smiled, and pointed back over at Flashpoint, who had just about finished his warm soda. "Is good hospitality, eh? But is bad idea to stick your nose where it doesn't belong. I personally, approve of it. Is good thing to be curious, but again, is also bad thing to be dead. Very bad thing." The Zebra rolled his glowing eyes.

"Do you think those glowing eyes of yours will fade?" Nikolai asked him. Flashpoint shrugged. " I don't know. But it doesn't hurt, I don't get headaches. It's as you say, 'cool'. Right?" The Stalker grinned and finished his Vodka. "Da, is like permanent headlamp!"

"Speaking of headlamps. Or, at least, armor in general. Remember what those mercenaries to you back in Whiskey Springs? That old military base they spoke of-The way they were kitted out, but I would be surprised if there is anything left there but death. But, we have nothing better to do, and, if we start a few hours before nightfall, we should be able to find it by sunup."

Flashpoint rolled his eyes and grinned back at Nikolai.

"I think you meant to say, pitch black to light grey." They both laughed. They laughed so loudly that the ponies at the next table over covered their ears and winced in disgust. Nikolai glanced over at them, and then kept laughing.

Following an awkward conversation with a barkeep about table manners in which Nikolai actually had the moral high ground for once, the two Wastelanders reemerged onto the towns one and old street.

" You know, I am running rather low on MRE's, perhaps we should look around for a trading post. I mean, a settlement this large this close to a big road? There are sure to be caravans that pass through here all the time on the way to Whiskey Springs and Salt Cube city." The Stalker heard a radio that wasn't crackle to life. The voice on it sounded vaguely familiar, but Nikolai wasn't too good at keeping track of passing things like that.

"Hey there folks, It's DJ-Pony, your voice in the wasteland, bringing you the truth no matter how much it hurts..." The Stalker was about to wave the staticky broadcast away and walk off in search of food, when the voice over the radio mentioned something about Splendid Valley. The Stalker pushed his way to the front of the crowd and looked around.

"What did radio person say?" He demanded, glancing around.

An earth pony mare answered him with, "Oh, a zebra and a pony cleared out a gang of raiders that were blocking the route into Splendid Valley. But it ain't like anyone would ever wanna go there! That'd be a damn death wish!" A murmur of agreement rose up among the crowd as they all went their separate ways. Nikolai removed his mask and smirked back at Flashpoint.

"I'm pretty sure she was talking about us!" He whispered to his friend, who chuckled uncomfortably. " But how did they find out? We were the only people around for kilometers in any direction!" The Stalker furrowed his brow and redonned his mask. " Blyat! No one ever tells me anything! I do not want to be famous! I could use fame to get free stuff, sure. But would leave big bounty over head! Me no want!" Flashpoint tapped his friend on the leg.

"Nikolai, ponies are staring at you. Perhaps we should go find that food you were talking about?" There was a long pause, Nikolai stared off into the distance, his eyes seemingly trying to focus on something in the clouds. All of a sudden, he shook his head and clasped his gloved hands together. "Da, is good idea. Come, we go. "

It wasn't long before the mildly intoxicated Nikolai found what he was looking for. Right in between the jail, and an old sealed off bunker entrance was the towns one and only General store. Nikolai stepped onto the single story brick buildings wooden deck and turned to Flashpoint.

"Alright, be on lookout for anything non-perishable, and with high calorie count, preferably fatty, and protein rich. "

For some unexplainable reason, the overwhelming majority of what the Stalker was able to dig up on the shelves was an obscene amount of canned corn. When he asked the store clerk, the only answer she was able to give him was that... Over two hundred years ago, when the bombs had first fallen, the town residents had two options for dealing with their crops, either let them die in the nuclear winter, or can and dry preserve everything they could. Which led to an overabundance of popcorn within the town. The residents attempted to set up a greenhouse so they could continue growing, but without the sun, they've had little success. Nikolai thanked the clerk, and ended up walking away with some hardtack crackers and deer jerky. Which, strangely enough, the clerk claimed used to be sentient. Nikolai didn't care, venison was venison, and he was hungry. The Stalker also snatched up a can of corn, and a can of dry black beans which he could stick in a thermos with some water and rehydrate as he walked. The sum total came to just 11 caps, he paid the fee, and met back up with Flashpoint, who had somehow figured out a way to amuse himself with a bowl of popcorn for 10 minutes straight.

"You'll regret that later." Nikolai told him. Flashpoint stepped away from him and glanced around at the townsfolk. Who met his glowing gaze with passing indifference.

"Popcorn and Sparkle Cola. I'm living my best life with you Nikolai. The Stalker furrowed his eyebrows and set his hand on the Zebra's barded shoulder, Flashpoint noticed the gesture, and smiled.

"Should we say goodbye to our...' Mutual Acquaintance' before we leave?" They both laughed. " Nope."

"Do you want to take up the Sheriff's offer and take a nap in one of those hotel rooms above the saloon before we leave?" Flashpoint smirked. "You almost read my mind." The pair laughed, and walked back off towards the saloon.

"Agh! Oh... Ow..." Nikolai sat upright in bed. He barely remembered what had happened over the past couple of hours. He glanced over at a pile of pillows in the corner of the room. There lay Flashpoint, still wearing his armor and saddlebags. Nikolai slipped off the side of the bed, and and rolled his neck. The Stalker stuffed his gas mask into a coat pocket, and then redonned his ballistic vest, belt, and boots. He looked at his watch as he stretched.

"Oh... I've been asleep for 3 hours. I feel much better now. Hey, lazy creature. Awake!" He gently kicked his friend in the stomach, and backed away.

"W-what now?" Nikolai took a knee and tapped Flashpoint on the ear. "Hey, friend? Wake up! Is time to go!"

The Zebra's eyes rolled back, and he let out a groan, " Oh... Just 5 more minutes, please!" The Stalker shook his head in refusal.

"Nyet, you get up now!" He pulled his friend onto all fours." Come, we go raid abandoned base for your sake." Flashpoint coughed into his hoof and whisked his tail around. Nikolai held his head high, and motioned towards the door. "Alright! Off we go, and you know what? Is nothing really wrong with this place, may come back here in future. But, right now, we go!"

Two left the saloon in high spirits, Flashpoint took a second to wave goodbye to a sour Amber Reins from the other side of iron bars, he still silently hoped she would find a way to turn her life around.

Once Nikolai and Flashpoint had said farewell to what few residents they had spoken with previously, they left Grassy Meadows and made their way back onto the main road. They'd wasted quite a significant portion of their day just being lazy around town, and they would have to work fast if they were to find this 'base'. Nikolai was personally unsure of the idea of going to such a place. His only other experience with old Equestrian military bases had ended in nothing short of disaster and him barely escaping with his life from a... Flock? Of heavily armed and armored Enclave pegasi. The thought gave him an idea for a joke that he had to share with his friend.

"Hey, Flashpoint? I have funny joke for you." The Zebra's eyes were transfixed ahead of him, and his ears were on an alert swivel. "Hm?" He muttered absent-mindedly.

"What do you call a pegasus kill squad? To be specific, what do you say when one is after you?" Flashpoint raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

"Sure, go on ahead. You have my ear." Nikolai grinned.

"Well, that's one flocking angry murder!" The Stalker held his chest and began to laugh. Flashpoint continued walking alongside him in complete confusion. "I don't understand, what's so funny about what you just said?"

"Wings, flocks? A murder is another name for a flock of crows. A bird species I've seen quite a bit of on account of the fact that, as I said before. Everything is dead!" He pointed back to the northern horizon. Flashpoint was about to facehoof.

"Yes... That's... What a wasteland is. It's... A waste." Nikolai continued to laugh. " Oh, oh! Is all dead except for good Slavic sense of humor! Haha!" Flashpoint rolled his eyes, and stopped paying close attention, allowing Nikolai to laugh to his only mildly intoxicated hearts content.

As the shadows of the afternoon grew longer, Nikolai and his zebra companion drew further along the defunct highway. Using the faint pink glow of Canterlot as their compass. Nikolai stopped laughing after some time, and the two fell silent with the exception of Nikolai's radio. Which played an eerie six string guitar rendition of a Ukrainian folk song as they walked along the dusty road.

About an hour later, Nikolai spotted what he was able to easily identify as old power pylons and railroad tracks leading off somewhere into the wastes. Nestled off to the side of the highway right where the terrain evened back out into open ground. About a hundred meters ahead of him, was a rusty sign filled with bullet holes. But that wasn't caught Nikolai's eye in the scene. No, that honor went to the rusty tracked armored personnel carrier lying of to the right side of the highway just parallel to the sign.

"Yeah, I think we are in right place. I see structures off to northwest, we get off main road here at let's see... Green Valley? Blyat! What is with naming convention in this place!? Any creativ- I just ate my own words, didn't I?" Flashpoint nodded slowly.

"Yes Nikolai, you did." The Stalker hung his head and smile awkwardly under his mask.

The pair walked right up to the front gates, as usual, just a single guard bar that had long since been smashed to cinders. Being that this base was less than a half kilometer off a very well-traveled highway. Well, that was what the ponies at the saloon had claimed, in truth, Nikolai hadn't seen any more ponies on the road then he had when he was walking along Route 52 a week or so prior. He was worried that the base would be occupied by raiders, or some other group who wouldn't be too keen on him rummaging through it. It was smaller in overall territory when compared to the airbase he had visited. With no apparent airfields, however, this was made up for by the massive, fortress like structures that took up vast swaths of land within the base's flimsy barbed wire perimeter. There was no apparent live around with the exception of a few skeletons of what must have once been guards, based on the fact that they wore similar uniforms to the skeletons he had encountered at the last military base.

"Alright, let us prioritize. We most certainly are not the first to scavenge and sack this place. We are here to get you a proper suit of armor. And, maybe, a better gun. More to point, I am curious." Flashpoint looked at him strangely.

"Curious about what?" Nikolai laughed. " Flashpoint, I am simple Stalker, I see things that make big boom. I want that thing." Flashpoint scoffed. " Of course, you do." Nikolai stopped to gaze up at the two massive steel doors that led into the largest building on the compound.

"I don't thing we're going to open these any time soon." Flashpoint murmured. Nikolai, meanwhile, was busy searching for another exit, and he found one in the form of a pair of much smaller double doors that led into the structure, the concrete and brick exterior reminded Nikolai a bit of a public school house. Just with far less windows. And far, far more ominous. As soon as Nikolai entered the structure, he was immediately greeted by the concerning sight of uniformed skeletal remains, and, strangely enough, some weird turret shaped device on the ceiling a few meters ahead of them with the twisted barrel of what must have once been a machine gun sticking out of it. Nikolai looked at the holes in the skeleton, and then back at the gun barrel.

"Well, that is one simple mystery solved." Flashpoint stood warily behind the doorway. "Nikolai, we should tread with caution, that is the remains of an automated turret system. They were specifically designed to target Zebras. Especially when you consider the Ministry of Wartime Technology flag just below the old Equestrian one outside." Nikolai chuckled.

"I keep hear so much about Ministry, must have been very important. Well... Not important enough to survive magic nuclear holocaust! Hah! But those Pink pony posters are sort of creepy. Come, watch back." Nikolai raised his rifle and took it off safe.
" They we will be brief; we will find the armory. We will acquire you a suit of armor, and then we will leave this forsaken place." Nikolai waved Flashpoint into the building, and the two rounded a corner around 10 meters down the hallway, and spotted another destroyed turret, they moved up past a conference room, and immediately came to another break in the hallway. Nikolai switched his flashlight on and began searching around for things of value. Strangely enough, there was no one here. The skeletons still had their weapons and equipment, and more to the point. The filing cabinets and tables seemed mostly unavenged. If this base had been sacked before, then whoever had been through here had done a lousy job of it. Nikolai rounded another corner as he advanced through the structures administrative branch, and ended up brushing the suppressor on the end of his rifle up against a lone ghoul, which he immediately dispatched. And, which immediately set off some kind of overhead alarm.

"Flashpoint, what is that?"

"Base security... I'm surprised it's still working after all this time, be on the lookout. " Nikolai could hear a metallic whirling down the hallway across from where he was, he peaked out behind a corner. And was instantly met with a live, functioning turret which spun to his presence and began to fire off sporadic bursts of... Well, he didn't particularly care what caliber it was in the moment. Just that it was loud, and, per what the voice over the automated intercom was saying;
"Die, zebra scum."
That it wanted to kill him and his friend.

"How did those mercenaries not set these things off!?" He shouted to his friend, who winced in pain as the gunshots echoed down the hallway. " The must have gone in some different way! You didn't ask for specifics!" Nikolai groaned, and drew a grenade from a pouch, he pulled the pin, and, and tossed it down the corridor. One loud bang and a cloud of dust later, and all that was left was a burning, sparking husk. Nikolai brought his gun up, and advanced towards it with Flashpoint behind him. After a way, the two came to a ramp which brought them below the surface, there they found a circular steel vault door roughly twice as tall as Nikolai in all parameters, a wheel lock with a code box right in its center.

"This must be armory." Flashpoint looked concerned. " Are you sure? It doesn't look like anyone's been down here since... Well, forever." Nikolai tapped the door.

"Hm..." The Stalker tapped it again and felt around it's edges. "How do I open this thing? Looks like it could headbutt tank, and tank could cry. Hmm..." He gave the locking wheel a tug, when it didn't budge, he turned his attention back to the code panel. Computers were never his strong suit. He kicked the door with his boot and looked over at Flashpoint.

"There must be code to open. It's got to be somewhere around here. " We have to go back-" Nikolai sighed as Flashpoint casually reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a crusty old manila file folder, and then reached in and pulled out a document with the words, "Armory door maintenance written over it."

"You cannot be serious. Is that-" Flashpoint repeated his nod. " Yes it is. I found it while you were busy 'booping' that ghoul with your rifle." Nikolai clasped his hands together. "Alright... Let's get to it then, what does paper say?"

It took the two Wastelander's nearly half an hour of toying around and rage induced 'hacking' before they were able to get the door to slide open, and when it finally did, it put a massive smile on the Stalker's face, and a gag on Flashpoint's from the stale, unfiltered air.

"Gold coins!?" He exclaimed, rushing into the room and scooping dozens up out of a wooden crate. "Yep, they used to be used as currency before the war. Now it's just dead weight." Nikolai facepalmed and sighed. "I suppose you're right. " He pocketed two and left the rest there. The space within the armory was miniscule compared to the rest of the structure. Roughly a dozen by a dozen meters. And, to both Nikolai and Flashpoints annoyance, most of the weapon racks were empty, with those that weren't having firearms either too big, or too uninteresting for Nikolai to want and take with him. Over in the corner, was a bulky, pony shaped object. While Nikolai looked around for spare munitions as well as any interesting odds and ends, Flashpoint went over and examined the object in the corner which had first caught his eye, he instantly lit up with gratification.

"Nikolai, I think I found what you were looking for. Flashpoint dragged the item out, and Nikolai glanced closely at it. It was a suit of black and grey pony shaped barding, with cutouts for a tail and lightweight armored plates which covered the chest, shoulders, haunches, and upper forelegs of the wearer. On top of all of this, the suit came with a built-in mini battle saddle to allow for ease up use when operating conventional pony firearms, it wasn't as big as the other full-sized ones in the armory. But it would allow for Flashpoint to be able to operate a pistol or submachine gun while keeping his mouth free, and, perhaps the best part of it all, the suit came with a helmet with built in eye protection and a mount for a gas mask, which while it did fit Flashpoint, was too uncomfortable for him to wear for a duration of time without potentially causing him more harm than good.

"That thing looks awesome, go on ahead! Try it on!" Nikolai insisted, waving at the suit. He took a step outside the armory for a moment, and when he came back, his friend's dirty raider armor was lying on the ground, and Flashpoint was struggling back to his hooves.

"Well? Do you like it?" The zebra asked him. Nikolai removed his mask, and examined it with an exaggerated;

"Hm... Da. Is good." Flashpoint rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on Flashpoint! You look awesome!" The Zebra smiled, "Glad you like it... it's a bit... Ugh" He tugged his tail. "... Tight fitting, but I can feel it loosening up. You all done here?" Nikolai nodded.

"You have got built in battle saddle now. Perhaps would be good idea if you took pick from guns here?" He walked over to one of the racks, and held out what resembled an early M16 with wooden furniture. Flashpoint shook his head.

"No, I'm good." Nikolai groaned and picked up a similar looking rifle with black polymer furniture. " How about this one? Takes 5.56? We could share bullets? No, blyat! Ok..." He rushed to the far rack and came back with a drum fed, semi-automatic shotgun with iron sights that glowed a faint red in the dark room.

"How about this one!? Chambered in twelve gauge, labelled as,' Riot shotgun'? It looks pretty cool. I know if I was pony, I would definitely want one of these for personal collection!" The Zebra simply shook his head. Nikolai bit back a curse.

"Fine, have your way! Blyat! If only I could take this stuff with me, it all looks so cool! And that is not word I use lightly! I overstocked on ammunition back in Whiskey Springs. I have no room for this stuff. I couldn't fit it all even I had empty rucksack! Please Flashpoint, for your friend?" The Zebra let out a shaky breath and groaned.

"I had no idea you were such a gun nut, but you're the one who insisted we stay light. I'll tell you this, I will take this open bolt 9 MM submachine gun right here," Flashpoint picked another gun off the table with his teeth.

"And use this alongside my pistol, like you said, ammo interchangeability? You're right, all this stuff does look like it would pack quite a hoof load of power. But it's just too much for me. Besides, this little submachine gun is Iornshod surplus. There's a ton of spare magazines for me out there." Nikolai nodded, and helped his friend strap his guns to either side of his body and set up the trigger. All Nikolai left with was some caps from generic brand soda bottles and a half magazine worth of light armor piercing ammunition. This side adventure had been all about make his friend stronger and safer, not him. But, as they exited out the way they came, they suddenly heard voices just outside, the two took cover and listened in.

"Hey, boss, you sure you saw those punks that nabbed Amber head this way?" A growl echoed down the hallway, "I'm sure of it."

"What should we do if we find them?" Another grunt followed.

"Mr. Salt wants the one with the mask, if you find anypony else, kill them. I wanna make them pay for taking Amber from us." Nikolai and Flashpoint looked at one another.

"Should we ambush them?" Flashpoint asked. Nikolai shook his head and answered with a soft, " No. Let's try and find a way around them, they do not know we are in here. We can get away, and they will be no wiser." Nikolai peaked out, they sky was darkening again. Night would soon fall, and, given the fact that the only night vision he had seen a pony use had been an Enclave pegasus or Steel Ranger spotting him at close range. Other than that, it was flashlights and torches. His only concern was that his friends glowing eyes might give them both away. While Nikolai was busy trying to figure out how to sneak past the raiders, a series of screams quickly echoed outside, and when Nikolai and Flashpoint peeked outside, there were no raiders to be found. There were hoofprints in the grounds, sure, put it was like they had just... Vanished.

"Well, that isn't creepy at all." Nikolai muttered, tapping Flashpoint on the shoulder. "Let's get out of here before whatever did that comes back!" The two looked at each other, and then made a mad dash for the gates.

"There they are, a voice cried a few moments later, Flashpoint hear a bullet wizz past him and hit the dirt just a few paces away. They turned to find 8 raiders, coming at them from behind in a semi-circle. They carried raider weapons and wore crude armor, but they seemed cleaner than usual, and more organized, judging by the way they were slowly advancing on Nikolai and Flashpoint from about 80 meters away, Nikolai took cover behind an old guard shack and brought his scope up to his gas mask to return fire. But, as he got ready to pull the trigger, there was a soft crack from behind them, and the lead raider fell dead, right on his face. The rest continued, unfazed by this.

"Woosh!" Another one fell dead. They kept moving forward. Out of the corner of his eye, Flashpoint spotted a dark figure moving about within the base's perimeter, gallop and almost floating from abandoned vehicle to abandoned vehicle. Something darted upward into the air, and another raider fell dead with a hole through his chest.

"Should we... Get out of here?" Flashpoint asked Nikolai, his voice full of both concern and terror. The Stalker snickered, and then his eyes went wide. " I saw something in sky. It must be Enclave, we should go while we have chance. Nikolai pulled Flashpoint up to all fours and stood up himself to begin to run. Just as he turned to point his gun back at the remaining raiders, a cloaked figure appeared seemingly out of nowhere, Nikolai blinked, and watched as the raiders froze in fear less then 10 meters from where he was hiding. The Stalker watched as the raiders turned and ran off. The hooded figure turned to Nikolai, who slowly raised his gun.

"What are you?" He asked, his voice calm, but firm. As the creature approached him, Flashpoint began to grit his teeth. Nikolai looked closer, and he began to connect the dots.

"I recognize you. We walked back in Whiskey Springs, what are you? What do you want with us!?" The being remained silent, it glanced around, and finally came back to stare at Nikolai. It's entire body was covered by drab brown cloaks, and its eyes were masked by a pair of dark goggles. Not even the tail or its ears were visible. Finally, it stopped just 4 meters from Nikolai, pausing to cast a glance over at Flashpoint, who chuckled uncomfortably.

Finally, the being raised up its hoof, and pulled off its hat. Revealing a glint of very dark greenish mane. Nikolai kept his gun raised as a measure of caution. The pony calmly removed his head cloak. Revealing a pair of bushy grey ears, followed by the rest of his mane, finally, the pony removed his goggles and cowl. Revealing a pair of softly glowing yellow slit eyes and a fanged mouth which gazed at Nikolai curiously. The Stalker's worry was beginning to fade into intrigue. Finally, the being let the cloak on his back slip off, revealing a pair of leathery wings which shifted at the creature took a step forward.

"Hold it!" Nikolai demanded. " Just what the blyat are you- Why are you stalking us!? You do not stalk Stalker, never!" A smile crept across the creature's fanged mouth.

"Nikolai, this is going to sound crazy. But that... Is a bat pony." The Stalker's eyes went wide.

"Like a vampire?"

"Like a what?" The bat pony asked with enthusiasm, extending his wings and baring his fangs. Nikolai and Flashpoint screamed.

Chapter 22: Murky Motives

Chapter 22: Murky Motives

"Ahh!!!"

"What!? What is it!?" The creature exclaimed, mouth wide open and fangs shinning in the darkness. Nikolai raised his hands defensively.

"Do not.... Do that! Please? Будь ласка? Por Favor? I ask nicely?" He shuddered with discomfort, and lowered his hands back into his pockets. The bat-thing shifted, and his eyes sulked to Nikolai's concern. "I apologize for scaring you-" Flashpoint had taken to hiding behind Nikolai's legs, trembling with his mouth hovering over the trigger of his gun. The creature's facial expression grew confused.

"What is it?" The being repeated, shifting his wings and refolding them. "I mean you know harm, really. I saw you were in danger, and decided to intervene, that's all." Nikolai shook his head.

"Oh really, you were that shadowy aberration jumping around, killing raiders? Is lot of ponies in Wasteland, are you the same one that spoke to me in Whiskey-" The being nodded, and took a step forward. Nikolai took two steps back, and Flashpoint bolted back three.

"You're a Therstral!? Be gone, Nightspawn!" Flashpoint's terror turned to ferocity. Nikolai had never heard him speak like that, not since they had first met. Something was wrong with this picture. In that The Stalker was currently thinking about whether or not this thing, this, "Bat Pony", would even show up on one.

"Are you sure? Because I will go if you want me to. I didn't want anything from you. I don't even want pity, I will just go. I've done my deed, and I will leave now if you wish." The creature began to spread his wings, Nikolai's gloved hand shot out.

"Wait, wait! Do not go! Please, my friend and I were only startled, I am curious. I have never seen anything like you before, please, and I like strange things. We find safer place to talk, davay, follow me." Nikolai turned away, and Flashpoint stood there, barded hooves planted in the dirt.

"Nikolai, you cannot trust him. He-"

"He what? He saved us. He means nothing ill, I am sure of it." Flashpoint rolled his faintly glowing eyes, which twitched.

"That's what you said about Amber Reins. Nikolai, be sure of your decision, and- Don't take your eyes off his!" Nikolai whirled back around, and kept his hands firmly gripped around his rifle, which he kept at a low ready.

"Flashpoint, why the hostility?" The bat pony asked, setting a grey hoof on his covered chest. "Is it because of the stories, well... That I can understand. Like I said before, I will leave if you like, and you will never see me again. And that is a promise, you know why, I am sure." Nikolai raised an eyebrow, and his worry and intrigued turned back into to a mild form of anger.

"Flashpoint," He asked, not shifting his gaze from the fanged stallion for a moment. "What does he mean by that?" The Stalker's voice was full of both firmness, and light humor. As if he was asking for the punchline to a joke he didn't get.

"Nikolai..." Flashpoint breathed out a sigh. "They drink blood, they're sanguivores. Nikolai's pupils widened in genuine surprise. " Vampire, I knew it! I- Blyat, I forgot, do I have garlic in food supply? I am pretty sure I do. Am I going to have to chase down and drive steak through heart? Ugh... I regret meeting already!" The bat pony's eyes widened in shock.

"What!? No, no! I don't- I love garlic, and... What's a vampire?" Nikolai groaned.

"I am begin to think we have varying legends. I was about to ask if you were from Romania!" The Stalker laughed, which elicited nothing but strange looks from both Flashpoint and the Bat Pony.

"No...? You didn't get that? I was right! Huzah!" He interrupted his own applause, and pointed back at the bat pony. Who managed a slight grin.

"But, I do drink blood. Not- Pony blood, just, anything I can get my hooves on. It's my main source of nutrition, I won't apologize for what I am. And again, I will leave if you want."

"Nikolai," Flashpoint urged again. " We really shouldn't do this, you don't even know this Thestral! You saw what he did to those Raiders, he wants to use us as food, nothing else! We shouldn't go with him!" Nikolai chuckled uncomfortably.

"He's kind of cute, actually. Sir, what is name and what do you want with us?" The bat nodded, closing and opening his eyes as he did.

"My name is Willow. You're Nikolai, and the zebra you're traveling with is named Flashpoint. I know, I've been following you." The Stalker rolled his eyes. "That is... Odd. Now, what do you want with us Willow? Food!?" Willow shook his head.

"Oh, stars above, No! This might sound crazy, but I'm looking for someone to travel with. I wear the disguise because not many ponies wanna hire bats, somehow, they can stomach raiders and ghouls and cannibals', but as soon as a bat pony offer's their services as a night guard, or a caravan scout. Ponies get all jumpy, I wonder why?" Willow flexed his mouth, revealing his fangs again.

"I wonder why." Flashpoint grumbled, "You, since you haven't killed us yet, would you mind if I spoke to my friend in private for a moment? I know you can probably hear us from a quarter mile away, but feel free to ignore us." The bat pony smiled and nodded again.

"It's ok, this isn't my first rodeo." Nikolai arched an eyebrow, and shifted his rifle's position on his chest. " Does that term mean something else here, or-"

"I don't know what it means back on Earth." Flashpoint responded, "But yes, most likely." Nikolai looked back over at the bat pony, he was still standing upright right where he was. "I won't go anywhere." He told them, his eyes reflecting the light from Nikolai's rifle mounted Flashlight and casting eerie moving shadows across the ground in between the two. Nikolai ushered Flashpoint a ways away, keeping an eye on Willow as he did.

"So... Can we keep him?" Nikolai asked, Flashpoint rolled his eyes. " Why do you treat all strangers like stray dogs begging for food? Is it more of that, 'Good Samaritan' thing?" The Stalker nodded.

"I am simple man, I see cute thing that can fly and looks like that... I want make friend, probationary period first. If he tries to bite you, I will put quick end to him, no questions asked. Besides, you think this is partnership? Hah! No, I am leader. And I think I am quite a good one! Besides, he's creepy. And that intrigues me, and, more than that-" He pointed to the set of leathery wings.

"He can fly! Is first talking- flying thing I have met that does not want to shoot me on sight! And best of all, he asked us if he could come along! I am getting fans! Help build cap empire! Is no harm, he can come with us. Final answer." Nikolai crossed his arms. Flashpoint simply sighed, and waved his hoof.

"Fine. I can't argue with you. But if he takes a bite out of your throat-"

"I will let you shoot him for me. I promise." The two walked back to the batpony, who was still patiently minding his own under the pale moonlight glowing through the clouds, faintly lighting up the otherwise pitch black wasteland.

"I heard ever word you said about me, and I understand. Bat ponies are not cannibals. Not most of us, anyway. Please," He extended his hoof. "It's an honor." Nikolai laughed, and crouched down to give Willow's hoof a shake.

"You must be sensory deprived if you think I act honorably. And, do you have a last name?" He asked. The bat pony nodded, and smiled with another toothy grin.

"Lamp, my last name is Lamp. Not to be rude but- Do you want me to spell it out? I've met ponies who-"

"Mr. Lamp, do you vaporize in sunlight?" The bat pony raised an eyebrow. "... No? I-" He turned to Flashpoint, and whispered, "I understand that your friend isn't from around here, but is he really like this all the time? I've seen it that way since I started watching you two. The Zebra shrugged, and kept eye contact with Willow. Nikolai slowly raised his hand.

"What is it?" The two others asked, one after the other.

"Is Thestral just another name for bat pon-"

"Yes!" The Stalker facepalmed, and switched his weapon light off. "Whatever, more I know, eh? Anyway, back to real life. We are in middle of nowhere, and is too late to set up camp!" Willow chuckled, and redonned the majority of his cloak, cowboy hat included.

"C'mon, I've got an abandoned farm that's about a mile northwest of here, we'll be safe there." Nikolai began to raise his hand again in anger, but just groaned instead.

"Use kilometers instead, please! I know Imperial system, but is rusty." Flashpoint simply shook his head and sighed.

"Oh whatever! Please," Nikolai pulled the charging handle of his AK 101 back just a little bit, ensuring that there was a round seated in the chamber as a distraction.

"Lead the way to this farmhouse of yours. I am always happy to make new friend!"

The bat pony grinned, and began to lead them westward, past the Military Base and the rusting Power Pylons. They crossed over a set of neglected railroad tracks and then followed a gravel road for a few hundred meters, passing by picket fences with chipped and faded white paint. Past old Sandbag checkpoints and rusting pickup trucks and milk vans. Out in the middle of a field a ways away, Nikolai spotted a crashed multi rotor helicopter. Surrounded in a small pond of glowing Taint, with leaking yellow barrels that he could just barely make out in the darkness.

The whole time, the batpony didn't speak a word. They passed an old radio tower, now long past it's use date judging by the rusting signal dishes. The group walked past a few other dilapidated homesteads, all dark and empty, and the occasional shattered lamp post and downed telephone lines which occasionally sparked or flicked that reminded Nikolai of Withers Pass. That night he had spent alone out in the Wasteland just less then a week ago when he had first met and rescued Flashpoint. As the Stalker walked along in the darkness to the beat of his companions hoofsteps, his mind began to drift.

"God, now that I think about it. This may have been the most eventful week and a half of my life so far. And... Only week in a half? Blyat, this is all- Not even The Exclusion Zone had this much to offer...."

After about a half hour, Willow Lamps led Nikolai and Flashpoint along this simple farm road for a ways, and the turned northwards and led them to a crumbling farmhouse with a small barn out back. He led the two up stairs to the front door, and then knocked twice, when only silence came, he drew a key from a lanyard around his neck and opened the door. Stepping aside to allow Nikolai and Flashpoint in.

"What is this place?" Nikolai asked as Willow lit a candle lamp that cast shadows across the old farm houses front room and parts of it's kitchen. The bat pony quickly hurried back to the door and, after peering around outside, slammed it shut and bolted two separate locks before twisting the key one more time and locking the handle.

"My home, for now. It's a sort of... Bat pony hideout, a safehouse." He walked into the kitchen and unlocked the rotary lock on the fridge, revealing dozens of filled IV bags of blood, alongside regular dried food, and a surprising amount of dehydrated mangos.

"Well, we're here now, too late to turn back." The Stalker nodded, and patted his friend on the shoulder. The bat pony reached for an IV bag, but then shook his head and reached for a jar of dehydrated fruit instead. He removed his hat and set it on the arm rest of an old chair. Nikolai and Flashpoint took seats on opposite sides of an adjacent couch.

"So... Tell me about yourselves. I'm curious, Nikolai, you called yourself a human, but I've never seen and other, 'humans' around, where did you come from, would you mind telling me?"

" Come from a world called Earth, my home country is called, 'Ukraine'. I show up here about a week and a half ago, and I... Well... I will just say that I have big adventure that all culminate in me walking through that door. You saw me in Whiskey Springs after all, but, I must ask a question of you as well, a few, in fact."

"Sure, go on?" The bat pony responded, taking a bite out of a slice of dehydrated mango and grinning at Nikolai as he removed his barding. Revealing a suppressed carbine with a folding with a slim scope mounted along it's top, all draped in Black so that if a normal person were to loose it at night, they would likely never find it until sun-up. And a magazine so small The Stalker presumed that it couldn't possibly be rifle caliber.

"Eh.. How is scope eyebox at night? The bat pony grinned at him, and unslung his own rifle. " I never need a flashlight, and... it's only capable of around two times magnification. With my eyes, looking through it at night almost the same as looking through it in the daytime." Nikolai nodded. "My PSO optic right here is pretty good, comes with built in illumination, and range finder out to 500 meters, makes long range shots easy. Magnifies target four times. But enough comparing scopes." Nikolai removed his mask and lowered his hood, he wiped his mouth and took a short sip from one of his canteens.

" You have wings, that I can see. Have you ever been above the clouds here and seen those infamous cloud cities full of Pegasi that I keep hearing stories about? If so, what are they like?" The bat pony furrowed his eyebrows and sighed.

"No, I never have, I got curious and poked my head up above the clouds once, when I was just a foal. I saw the clear blue sky above, but nothing else just, a blanket of clouds for as far as I could see. And even then, I've seen what the Enclave is capable of, I would want nothing to do with them even if they were to approach me. "

"They do have really cool armor though. You must admit, not even the Steel Ranger's that I have met are that stylish." Both Willows and Nikolai laughed.

"I completely understand that, " Willow answered back, " Hey, if I ever find a working set, you'd better believe I'll ditch what I'm wearing now for it in a heartbeat. Though it would have to one of the versions without armored wing slots." The Thestral flexed his bat wings and gave them a gentle flap, kicking up dust between the rickety floorboards.

"Next question, "

"No Nikolai, there's no way he'll ever take you on a ride!" Flashpoint grumbled. The Stalker shrugged.

"That was not what I was going to ask. I ask question, do you sleep upside down?" The bat pony grinned at him. "No, not often, but I can. Wanna see?" Nikolai stood up, and even Flashpoint looked up from tinkering with his armored legs.

"Go for it! I am curious. Wait- do you, can you show up in pictures?" Willow laughed again as he searched for a low hanging beam by the staircase near the front door to hang from.

"... Yes? At least, I think I can. I wouldn't know because I've never had my picture taken before. But I can see myself in the mirror just fine! Anyway, as requested-" The bat pony exclaimed in his best, showman like voice, he swooped up into the rafters and then rolled upside down, but just before he began to plummet, his tail wrapped around a wooded beam, and he hung there in place, cocooning himself in his leathery wings and grinning wildly down at Nikolai and Flashpoint. The Stalker couldn't help but applaud his new companion. Nothing he had ever seen at any local circus had ever even come close to what he had just seen.

"Can you juggle upside down?" The bat pony snarked, and flexed his jaw, then let go of the rafter and landed on all fours some 6 meters below, right in front of Nikolai.

"Unfortunately, no. There aren't exactly many ponies left who know simple tricks like that. But it would be fun to learn, are either of you two hungry, I'm sure I could find something-" Nikolai raised his left hand.

"Please, Mr. Lamp, you've been a good host to us. My friend and I are tired, and would like place to stay for night, how about up there?" He pointed up the staircase towards a set of what must have been bedrooms.

"Sure, they're all unoccupied, a bit dusty. But they're much nicer than most anything else you'll find out there. Sleep tight, I won't bite!" Nikolai facepalmed.

"Seriously?"

"I'm only joking, go on! I'll catch you guys something to eat by morning!"

" I take it you're nocturnal as well?" The Bat pony simply hoofed Nikolai and Flashpoint a lantern, rushed them up the creaking stairs, and then blew out the lamps downstairs. Nikolai turned to Flashpoint and smiled awkwardly.

"It's the best we can do. Much better than dirt, right? Nikolai opened each bedroom, the Stalker stared at his friend eyes, which glowed just enough to cast a pale light on the rest of his face.

"You can have lamp," He looked in at the beds, they were missing most sheets, except some thin patched blankets, not as nice as the place in Withers Pass, or that chair in Splendid Valley- but, it would do. He shut the door and flipped the locking hinge into place, set his rucksack and boots down on the side of the bed, removed his armor and set it right by the nightstand, gripped his rifle with the safety on as always, and dozed off to the sound of the wind rustling the branches of the dead oak tree outside his rooms one boarded up window, and Flashpoint snoring in the other room.

This time around, Nikolai's dreams were back to the usual. No more reminiscing of summer back in his parents village, nope. This time around, he running, he was running back down the road that led him away from Willow Lamps farmstead. He was being chased by a figure in the sky. And then 3 figures, and then 10. Enclave pegasi, he glanced behind him, and saw the farmhouse in flames. He looked ahead, a glowing green alicorn landed in his path and ignited her horn. An incoherent myriad of shouting voices echoed through his head as the Pegasi engaged the alicorn in a flurry of laser and plasma fire. The Stalker jumped a fence and took off running through a field. One of those spirte bot things hovered past him, and he could almost swear that the camera lenses was following him. He saw flashes of a massive white spire that stretched up far beyond the clouds. As armored pegasus descended on him with it's barbed tail lashing down at him, a massive green flash suddenly filled his entire vision, the ghoulish face of faces on his journey flashed by, and then, black.

"Oh blyat!! Flashpoint!?" Nikolai's eyes snapped open, cold sweat ran down his face and pool across his back, he was panting, gasping. He took his rifle off safe and swung it around towards the doorway in a shaking fury. Standing in the doorway, was Willow, with a bowl filled with something that smelled vaguely of oatmeal.

"Woah! Friendly, friendly!" The bat pony set the bowl down on the floor with his fangs. "I was just... Making breakfast. I came up here to give it to you, if you're hungry, that is?" Nikolai laughed, and lowered his rifle.

"I'm so sorry Willow. I just..." He quickly ran up to the window and peered through the boards. He breathed as sigh of relief, and turned back to the bat pony who had gotten close to bringing him breakfast in bed. As well as a confused Flashpoint, who stormed in bare backed with his gun in his mouth.

"Nikolai!" He cried, glancing past Willow, eyeing him with contempt.

"I'm fine, Flashpoint. The Stalker answered, sitting back down on the bed, he reached down and picked up the bowl of porridge.

"Thank you, he said, nodding."

"I didn't know what else you'd like so... I caught a radhog last night, it's cooking on the stove downstairs if you want some. "

"Did you drink it's blood?" Willow rolled his slit eyes, which looked... Strange to say the least.

"Yes, I did. But only after I dumped a quarter pack of Rad-away into it. It just isn't the same." Nikolai laughed, and stirred the plastic fork in his food. He lifted some out of the bowl at took a bite.

"Da, it is... Not great, not terrible. Thank you, Willow. Is not every day I find hospitable wasteland friend. I am beginning to like you." The bat pony smiled, and nodded.

"Nikolai, are we... Going to leave?" The Stalker looked up from his food, and finished his bite.

"We will, just wait until I am done. Put armor back on, and then go downstairs and see if you can find some breakfast of your own," He looked back Flashpoint at Willow. " Can he-"

"Of course.. Uh- What's mine is yours! Just... Stay away from the AB positive blood, it's my favorite! Anything else is free game, including the radhog once it's done. Just... Don't take too much, I still have to ration things out." Nikolai wasn't going to mention to him that he had AB positive blood running through his veins, and he hoped that he wouldn't force the Stalker to put down his new friend. But that was but a faint possibility. And Nikolai was becoming fast friends with their local-so far friendly sanguivore.

"Well, since you're both awake now, come! I've got more stuff to talk about, it gets lonely at night after all!" The Stalker redonned most of his gear and led the other two down towards the pleasant smell of cooking mutated pork coming from the kitchen.

After about 20 minutes of waiting around and assisting in it's preparation, Nikolai finally sat down to his... Technically, second breakfast. It was his first time witnessing Willow consume blood. He took a bit from an IV bag, and dripped it into a chipped coffee mug, then slowly sip it, dipping his fangs in in a fashion that most would actually consider quite adorable.

"A passing thought, have you ever seen a Pipbuck before?" Nikolai looked up from his plate.

"Yes, I have. I saw one on a Desk Clerk back in Salt Cube City. Primitive, from what I saw, but, it's a start as far as personal computers go. All infrastructure to make new ones must be gone, right?" The bat pony shrugged.

"There's quite a few old Stables- Not to mention still unlooted Stable Tec facilities where you can acquire one. And they're more than just a computer. They're made with magic, they can levitate around and organize things in your rucksack for you, administer drugs and medical supplies almost automatically, and, some rare models can even give you a neural heads up holographic display and a visual scope, and others can turn you invisible for short periods of time. Plus, they have a built in Rad Counter, and digital map that tracks your location in relation to the surrounding terrain, they also come with short and long range radios." Nikolai tugged the Geiger counter and Anomaly detector on his belt, and drew his PDA from his coat pocket, and tapped the signal tower on his radio.

" Everything but the kitchen sink, da?" Nikolai said with a chuckle, turning it on and scrolling around on it's map.

"I've traveled almost a hundred kilometers in just the past couple of days alone!? Oi! That must be why legs constantly feel like jelly, could also be radiation, or Vodka... Anyway! Back to you Willow, you probably want one, yes?" The Bat pony nodded.

"Yep, they're compatible with any and all equine species, as far as I know." He pointed over at Flashpoint, "Zebra's included." The Stalker chuckled, and took the last forkful of shredded pork from his plate, and let out a faint burp, followed by, "Sorry, and thank you."

"It looks painful to wear." Nikolai responded. "A giant hunk metal on wrist? No thanks." Nikolai licked his plate clean to the disgust of Flashpoint and the amusement of Willow.

"Nothing goes to waste." He responded, slipping his mask back on, slinging his rucksack back onto his back. Nikolai kicked back right alongside the front door and waited patiently. He messed with his radio, and a dark jazzy rendition of, "16 Tons" Began to echo through the first floor of the building as Willow filled his saddle bags with dried fruit and full IV bags, and snagged a few miscellaneous items from around the house that he wouldn't disclose to Flashpoint, and then met up with Nikolai at the front door.

"Ready?"

"Where are we going?" The bat pony asked Nikolai.

"Canterlot, I suppose. I see glowing thing on mountain, I want to go there. Is dangerous, so what? My curiosity stands." The Thestral's slit eyes went wide with both surprise and concern.

"Oh, well... I've heard worst plans. We'll need some things first. We oughta head out and get looking." Willows locked the front door, and, after redonning his own barding, set off along with Flashpoint and Nikolai along the dusty road that led back to the main highway as a morning crosswind blew tumbleweeds across the gravely dirt road.

"...So if ya see me commin' better step aside, a lotta men didn't and a lotta men died, one fist of iron 'n another of steel, if the left one don't get ya then the right one will...

You load sixteen tons, whaddya get!? Another day older and deeper in debt..."

Chapter 23: Harken

Chapter 23: Harken

Click... Click... Click Click... Click...

"In the corner of my mind... Stands a jukebox... "

Nikolai's Geiger counter ticked away to the almost identical beat of his radio. The newly christened 'trios' rambling had just happened to take them past an old industrial waste and balefire dump truck depot. Nikolai, being the insane, apocalypse- artificial disaster obsessed Slav he was, couldn't help but stop to take a look around.

"Nikolai, don't kick that." Flashpoint grumbled from the safety of the main road, some 25 meters away.

"Click... Click.... Beep! Beep! Beep!" The Stalker's enthusiastic laugh was muffled by his mask. "I was curious to see what would be like if I kick barrel over- Opp!" Nikolai bounded out of the way as the barrel of glowing green liquid tipped over, cracking open and spilling out onto the ground, forming a nice little sizzling puddle of death.

" Yeah... Is not kompot worthy. We go!" Willow Lamp the Bat Pony, their newest companion, rolled his slit eyes and chuckled uncomfortably. He was both quickly gaining and loosing respect for the Stalker. On one hoof, he seemed to be more death defying than your average feral ghoul. On the other, he was reckless at times. And approached most situations with diplomacy when another pony would have simply started shooting. It wasn't an impossible thought to stomach. And, according to the man in question himself, had worked many times before. Usually to greatly varying degrees of success. He was a strange character. And the Thestral admired that, it made him feel a bit more welcome alongside a zebra who had shown nothing short of impatient contempt for himself.

"Is boring, worth less than Splendid Valley! Nothing but useless cancer! Make bones hurt, da? Anyway, Willow. You said to me that we need things for trip to glowing city-thing on mountainside?" You said that, and you've been quiet since farmhouse. And that was... Let me check- Two hours ago. So please, tell me, because this simple pile of glowing stuff is just not interesting enough. Is not even single monster-" He turned around, and knocked a bloatfly out of mid air with his balled, gloved fist.

"... No more monsters. So... What?"

"Well, you've read that hoofty-dandy Wasteland Survival Guide book, right?" The Stalker nodded, waving the group away from the noxious dumpsite, and back towards the main road.

"Hazmat suits, preferably airtight power armor, healing potions, Med-X, or... And did I mention a Gas Analyzer?" The Stalker wagged his finger in the stale and dry air.

"Ok...I have some healing potion left- not a lot, just a bit. I have none of this; 'Med-X', you speak of though. Power armor sounds cool, so does rest of stuff. One problem! Look where we are!? I have gas mask and filter designed for pony face... But that is it! Nothing for magic poison which melts people! I have no magic armor! I am simple Stalker, I have magic rock! No magic armor!" Flashpoint gritted his teeth, and Willow continued with his gaze of elegant concern.

"But... I know what Gas Analyzer is. We just need to find one. I know how to use one, and even here, but not be big difference." Flashpoint raised his hoof.

"I'm sorry if I'm missing out on something important here, but what is a Gas Analyzer?" Nikolai laughed, and slapped his knee while still upright.

"Heh! Is like Geiger counter- But for air! Measures what is in air, and how much of it in handy term, PPM, or Parts Per Million. Very useful thing. Unfortunately, I do not have one. Waste dump back there may have had one, but was pretty close to road. Did you see radiation trefoil painted on rocks? The Foals of Balefire have passed through there. I am not complaining. Is good for them! But means, is probably all looted. Best chance would be chemical lab, or factory in abandoned city."

Flashpoint and Willow looked at each other, and then out at the wasteland. Towards the horizon, and the potmarked patches of crumbling and rotting skyscrapers and distant ruins.

Nikolai groaned. "I understand, where would we begin? Willow, do you perhaps have insight? Where could we find chemical lab?"

"We should try looking in and around one of the old Ministry of Arcane Sciences or Ministry of Peace buildings. They're the most likely to have something like that. I know of one that should be just a few hours walk from here." The bat pony looked up at Nikolai, who in turn was looking back down at him and scratching his chin.

"Why are you staring at me?" Willow asked him. Nikolai glanced back over at the stallion's fangs, and then down to his suppressed carbine.

"If I were to give you grenades, or rocket launcher, if we find- Could you be like talking fighter jet? Seeing Pegasus Enclave give me idea. Thank them when see them, preferably with words first, then grenade, and then cacophonous profanity!" Flashpoint winced, and shook his head.

"No, no no! Nikolai- We can't just give him your supply of grenades and tell him to act like- Are you crazy- Nevermind what I just said. You are crazy!" The Stalker raised his mask and made a mocking expression at Flashpoint.

"I see concern, but more then that! I see possibility for total battlefield supremacy while I grow cap empire! Think, firepower dropped from above, " He paused to crouch by Willow, and tussled his mane, rubbing it as though he were a puppy.

"-By this adorable specimen of a living being!" Willow chuckled. "I wouldn't go that far, I'm more-" Nikolai stood back up and grunted.

"Adorable, take or leave. Please do not leave us. You have no choice. Except fact that you said you are with us by choice, da?"

"Does he use 'da', and 'yes' interchangeably?"

"Yes!" Both Nikolai and Flashpoint shouted, almost startling Willow, whose sensitive ears twitched slightly. "Is part of culture! I talk how I want, you talk how you want! Is free wasteland!" The bat pony let out a displeased squeak under his breath.

"Oh? Have something to say now, batty?" Willow furrowed his eyebrows and looked over at Flashpoint.

"That nickname's growing on me, I think I'll keep it. And yes, " He chirped again. " That was native bat pony, I'm a bit rusty. But we always resort to it when we get angry, or annoyed. Which doesn't happen often."

"I find it both greatly humorous, and somewhat intriguing? I don't suppose you could teach me such a thing?" Willow shrugged and ruffled his wings.

"There wouldn't really be- That'd be funny! A non-bat pony that can speak batish!" The Stalker scratched his head through his mask and hood. "Batish? Is language name? Serious?" Willow laughed again.

"No, it's called Thestral." Flashpoint grumbled something to himself under his breath.

"Whatever, how do you say... I'm drunk and I don't wanna go home? Or, more importantly- 'run'! Or hello?" Willow smiled. "I'll teach you later today, right now... There's a roundabout westbound exit a few miles north of here that leads to some old ruins that I've flown over before. There's a Ministry of Arcane Science facility there- They might have what we're after."

"Well, davay... lead the way мій крилатий дру. My winged friend. By land, please. I can no fly."

"So... What is name of new city we go to?"

"I don't actually know... I've flown over it plenty of times on my way north and back. But I never stopped."

"To clarify, you saw ruins, and you never got curious?" Willow rolled his eyes.

"Nikolai, all I ever see are ruins, what's a couple more rotting skyscrapers in the middle of a desert?" The Stalker waved his hand across the ground.

"I would not say desert, more like... Dry tundra. Dry, radioactive tundra." Out of the corner of his eye, Nikolai caught sight of a grey figure dashing up into the clouds. He simply dismissed it, seeing that he didn't want his friends to think that he was any more crazy than he already was.

And hour passed, and then another, and then another. Off to the West, Nikolai spotted a cluster of ruins that seemed to be just off the highway. With an off ramp leading directly towards them and away from the main road.

"So... What does this facility look like?" Nikolai pressed. "Like Hospital, like fortification? Like run down apartment- Blyat, what do I talk about? Everything here is run down!"

"It looks a bit like a... Well, I'll know it when I see it. There's a giant cracked purple star emblem on it's roof, you can't miss it." The Stalker shrugged.

"Big Star, eh? I see thing like that in Splendid Valley. Is connection?" Willow shook his head.

"I've never flown over there before, so... Yes, perhaps? Why are you asking me?" Nikolai shrugged, and set his hands in his pockets.
"I went through there with friend, yes? Is was very painful and spooky. So I wonder if have connection to other thing?"

"If it's just more alicorns, I want nothing to do with it!" Flashpoint insisted with a shudder. Nikolai waved his hand and chuckled.

"Ah, come on! Is no big problem! Sure, is sort of creepy. No lie. But, telepathy is fun! Think-talk, Haha!" He paused for a moment, and then waved his arms up and around at the sky.

"Now, what would be really bad would be Enclave! Is strange name, by the way. But I am no judge. They have cool armor, but they are... Do you say? A pain in ass. Go around act like government, police! But have no authority, see rule of law here!? Nyet! Is none! None! They are bunch of fools in cool armor that just happen to live above clouds!" Flashpoint nodded in agreement, but Willow looked like he had something to say.

"Nikolai, just some mutual advice, but you shouldn't underestimate what they're capable of. " The Stalker roared with laughter.

"I tell like I see. And I did see, I saw right into one of their glowing orange visors! And I saw ignorance and a sense of blind superiority. Terror by style, what else can I say?" He tapped the rusted sign along the road that must have once displayed some extravagant city name. But was now just a blank piece of greenish scrap. He brought his foot up, and knocked it over, kicking up a small cloud of dust as it crashed to the ground. Out of boredom, the Stalker fetched his set of binoculars from his rucksack and scanned the city scape as they walked on maximum magnification.

"Blin, I think I see it!" Nikolai held the binoculars up to Willows face and gestured towards what he was looking at. The bat pony nodded, and pushed his hand away from his own face.

"That's looks like it!" Nikolai waved on ahead. " We take main road. I no want run into raider, monster, landmine.... you know drill, friends!"

The trio walked along to the sound of Nikolai's chatter overwhelming even the music playing on his radio. An old Folk Song about European Tribal warriors of old that even the Stalker himself could barely understand, it sounded a bit Scottish. The drums and choir were pleasing though. To took about another hour or so of walking for the 3 to make it into the city limits. The whole thing seemed to have been built around the building they were after. Even from a a distance, Nikolai had been able to tell that the largest buildings were nothing but rotting, destroyed hulks. Faded and cracked billboards lined the skyline alongside water towers and power lines, the cities suburban district was minuscule, a half dozen old cottages and homes with mismanaged and dead lawns, and charged piles of ash as they drew closer in the city. The Stalker noticed that all the damage seemed to be focused around the northern side. The skyscrapers here were no more than great husks of twisted concrete and corroded metal that swayed in the wind from time to time.

"This is the Dead Zone, Desolation Wilderness." Willow told them.

"Why, because everything is dead?" Nikolai turned to Flashpoint and pointed at his own head. "See? I was right! You no second guess me!" Willow shrugged. "Correct... But it's more than that, before the Zebra's- sorry Flashpoint." The Zebra grumbled and eyed the ruined scenery on the other side of the road.

"This swath of land before the war, to the best of my knowledge, was filled with population centers, mining, tech, farming-What have you. Mostly centered around the war effort. You saw Whiskey Springs, right? Places like that practically popped up overnight. But, after the bombs fell, well.... It all became a literal ghost town. The water is to irradiated to drink here, the buildings and infrastructure are too shattered to host anything other than small campsites, there's no food, nothing to support life here. It's worthless, those massive rusting spires are just a part of life in the Wasteland. There's dozens of city centers all over the place that shared the same fate."

"Sound fun!" The Stalker insisted. Extending his rifle out away from him and shaking it. "I already have hall pass!" This statement resulted in looks of confusion and concern from both Willow and Flashpoint. The Stalker groaned and hung his head.

"Ai, is funny! No? Blin, oh, drown out my sorrows Whiskey River!" Nikolai jeered.

It took another half hour, but the trio had been able to find the Ministry building with little difficulty. Just as Willow had predicted, there wasn't a soul to be found. But not like Splendid Valley, which was shrouded in an Unsettling Feeling, this place just felt... Empty. Like an amplified version of the Wasteland itself. Callous, and deeply impersonal. Nikolai was perhaps the only one of the three to be able to find beauty in it. The Stalker had an unquenchable morbid curiosity with things such as this, and he wished to go to Canterlot for just that reason, alongside his primary reason of wanting to strike it rich. That's why he needed this Gas Analyzer-thing. That, and it was another opportunity for him to loot and pillage mystical and advanced magical technology and items, a hobby and pastime he was quickly becoming more adept at each day, the contents of his rucksack attested to that.

"Well, here we are! What now?" The trio stood in the center of a massive half circle of windowed- hospital like 3 story buildings adorned by a massive purple star emblem and the words.

"Welcome to The Ministry Of the Arcane Sciences!" The Stalker looked around at the cracked windows and scorch marks on the walls, all on the northern side of the structure.

"It must be well built if it survived the blast that turned those other high-rises to molten slag." Nikolai murmured, tapping his Geiger counter, followed by his radio. "He glanced up at the corroded dishes on the rooftop of the building.

"Some kind of magical shielding perhaps?" Willow nodded. "Alicorns and unicorns can do it, so why not scale it up for a building?" The Stalker shifted his view and looked up at the cracked and dirty glass observatory-like dome that adored the very peak of the structure.

"Eh, make plenty sense here. Come, we find way in!" The Stalker waved his friends up and over to the main entrance. They were greeted by an unavenged skeleton in a lab coat cradled in the hooves of a dead pony wearing a guards barding.
"I see no bullet holes, and look old." Nikolai informed the others, poking at the skeletons with a gloved finger.

"Radiation poisoning, perhaps? Willow shrugged, " Everyone on guard. We may not be the first ones here today." The Stalker glanced around. "I see no shell casings, or signs of pillaging." He took his rifle off safe, " But is better safe then sorry. Especially with money, girls, house, books, cross street..."

"We get it Nikolai." Flashpoint responded. The Stalker took up his rifle, and the group entered the structure through a conveniently open window. The three entered the building, and were pleasantly surprised to discover that a few flickering overhead lights were still somewhat operable. Meaning that they wouldn't have to be wholly lead by the Glow of Nikolai's duct tape mounted rifle light. The front office rooms and wide open internal space reminded Nikolai of the Old Olneigh Hospital and the Facility in Splendid Valley. Just with a glaring lack of magical creatures and alicorns with mind-melting abilities. But this structure, according to Willow Lamp, was operated by the same organization. So he was wary nonetheless. Still, it wasn't any more intimidating than the other ruins he had gone through. The structure was quite large on it's inside, with branching side corridors that led to countless other neglected rooms, usually behind locked doors and barely functioning computer terminals. To the Stalker's surprise, as well as Willows, the inside of the structure was surprisingly intact and undamaged, in spite of it's openness and proximity to whatever Balefire blast had leveled the rest of the adjacent city. Other than some cracked ceilings, peeling paint, and flickering lightbulbs of course. It was almost pleasant. What worried Nikolai was the lack of skeletons. They were everywhere in the Wasteland, and, except for a few here and there, they were absent from the lower floor of the Facility.

"I don't like this Nikolai. Not for one instance." Flashpoint murmured to him. The Stalker waved his worries away, and jogged over to an adjacent break room, swinging it's creaky metallic door aside. And reemerging moments later with a barely legible calendar.

"Is probably because they were on break when bombs fell. Good, 'poof'! You understand this?" He didn't even give the others an opportunity to respond.

"Nyet! Is nothing here but dust and... Hopefully what I am after! I will not second guess danger, but I will not be deterred by few bones either. Make good soup!" Flashpoint raised his right eyebrow, and even Willow's eyes went wide at this statement. "Of course... Hehe, just not so old, and no radiation, and no pony." This strange statement led Nikolai's mind down a strange train of thought over the next 10 or so minutes of how pony might taste. A train that he wasn't going to share with neither Flashpoint nor Willow. They already questioned his sanity enough. The team made it up a halted and rusty escalator to a second floor, the headed down a westbound hallway and came to a section with safety glass lining either side. Bellow them, on either side, was a massive laboratory, with airlocks leading out of it several stories below.

"Well, there's our Gas Analyzer. Plenty well away at analyzing, might I add." Sure enough, there was the gas analyzer they were after, in the midst of some tables loaded down with various scientific instruments. It was sitting right in the middle of a glowing green cloud of noxious fog that floated low to the ground, surrounded by hibernating ghouls. Both Equines looked over at Nikolai.

"You're up. We'll be waiting out here." The Stalker glanced down through and groaned. "Why me?" They both looked at him with something almost resembling bewilderment. Willow pointed down at the central area of the room, towards what seemed to be the source of the glowing cloud.

"Blyat! Alright, Willow, wait here, Flashpoint. You with me. I need help get in." Willow stopped Nikolai, and tossed him a plastic packet which the Stalker clumsily caught, almost having to dive for it.
"It's Rad-X, you're familiar with is, right? Down the whole thing just before you go in there, you'll thank me later."

Nikolai backtracked his way around the facility until they came to the shut emergency doors that would lead to the airlock which would allow him access to contaminated laboratory, he peeled open the packet, downed it's orange-tasting contents, and then assured that his mask was properly fixed to his head.

"Mind give me eh... Hoof for move door? "Nikolai handed Flashpoint his crowbar, and together, the two peeled away the first layer of airlock. Immediately, Nikolai's Geiger counter began to tick. And, to his amusement, within the airlock, he found 3 fully intact looking pony-shaped chemical suits.

"Well, that is insane luck!" Nikolai cried, grasping one of the suit's sleeves. Flashpoint shook his head.

"No way Nikolai, these are too bulky to take with us, and I'm not wearing something that color out in the Wasteland. Feel them, do you think those are ballistic rated?" The Stalker's enthusiasm faded.

"Give me back my crowbar and wait around the corner, if monster comes out, you shoot. If glowing cloud comes out, run away, if I come out, cheer, and if all three thing show up? Blin, just figure out. Here, take one of these suits to safe place around corner, I want experiment with later!" Nikolai shooed his friend away, and got to work trying to open the door.

"Ah haha! I did it." Nikolai chuckled in satisfaction as the final layer of airlock door snapped open, causing whatever shimming green fog that had been pooling along the floor of the laboratory to spill out past Nikolai, until he was knee deep in it. His Geiger counter clicked and ticked and beeped and crackled like he was back at the Dome in Salt Cube City.

"Ah, this harken back too good old day, week ago!" The Stalker's eyes scanned the room. He spotted his quarry almost instantly, just 20 meters away, sitting atop a table, sitting on it, was a strange glowing sphere. Nikolai turned his incessant radio down, which played a faint synthwave tune of, "He Was A Good Stalker" That Nikolai was actually beginning to enjoy. But he would also much prefer that the rotting, glowing monsters around him stay unconscious. The Stalker warily crept past the lab coat clad bodies towards the gas analyzer and the weird, glowing thing. As he advanced, he noticed something on a nearby table, an active, albeit flickering terminal, and a clipboard with bits of corroded paper on it, The Stalker hurried over to get a better look at it. Neglecting the terminal, He picked up the clipboard and began to read.

"The Ministry's got us cranking out these damn balefire eggs so fast, it was only a matter of time till one showed up with a defect. These things are to precious at this point to just waste, or destroy. We've gotta get the spell fixed, for all our sakes..."

Nikolai scratched his neck through his hood. He looked up at the raised sealed catwalk, and waved at Willow. Who waved back, and then shrugged, and pointed down and over at the gas analyzer. Nikolai nodded twice, and began to make his way over. Eyeing the glowing, cracked yellow glassy sphere on the table nearby and shinning green liquid that must have been the Balefire the memo spoke of. Nikolai didn't know what the whole, 'Egg' part meant, he'd have to ask Willow once he got what he had come for. The Stalker swept over the table and, very carefully disconnected the Gas Analyzer from it's mounting brackets and held it in his hands, gazing over it's pixelated, calculator like screen and reddish housing. The unit itself looked somewhat like a strange radio receiver. Nikolai gently stuffed it into a side pocket on his rucksack, and, without any second thoughts on anything in the room, began to hastily make his way back out past the ruined laboratory equipment and 'sleeping' ghouls. It was only when he heard the terminal behind him spark and crack that he stumbled and accidentally kicked on of the ghouls in the chest.

"Gruggh?" The creatures expression didn't sound hostile, but Nikolai knew that wouldn't last. As he crept back towards the doors, he heard the sounds of hoofs clanking and bodies moving.

"What happened? Where-" Nikolai wasn't going to entertain whatever thing he had just awoken.

"Grah!" Something snarled from the other side of the room, and the Stalker abandoned all stealth and simply sprinted for the door, pulling it shut with a pained grunt, just in time for the sound of muffled fighting and screaming to fill the lab behind him.

"Did you get it?" Flashpoint asked inquisitively. The Zebra stallion asked, trotting around the corner with the containment suits helmet clumsily fitted around his own head and barely sealed around the neck pieces of his armor. The Stalker held up the Gas Analyzer with triumph.

"I got it! Is mine now! No take!" Flashpoint stifled back a laugh. "Good job! Do you feel ok?" Nikolai laughed back. "Radiation does not hurt bad as used to. Build immunity, maybe?" Flashpoint shrugged his shoulders and sarcastically answered responded with;

"Or, you know... It could have been the Thestral's Rad-X. Who knows, right?" As Nikolai left the airlock room, his boots spreading and dissipating the last remnants of the glowing balefire cloud as he and his friend tread out into the hallway and were greeted by a hurried and deeply troubled Willow Lamp.

"They're here!" He whispered through his teeth.

"Who!?" Nikolai demanded.

"The Enclave, I heard wings outside, a lot of wings. And they definitely aren't from alicorns. I don't know who else they could be, and I'm not going out there by myself to check." The Stalker stamped his boot on the floor and gripped his rifle with affirmative vigor.

"I knew it! I wasn't crazy after all!" Nikolai raised his hands and shook his fists at the ceiling in celebration. Laughing as he went with a mixture of mad glee and genuine contempt.

Chapter 25: Zealous Guests

Chapter 25: Zealous Guests

"Ohoho! Come out come out!" Nikolai demanded, waving his rifle around at the various burnt and rusting racks of tattered clothing. His rifle light scattered after just a dozen or so meters in the dust filled air. He heard the tap of a hoof against linoleum flooring as something scrambled around.

"What do you think?" He whispered to Willow. The bat pony frowned and put his hoof to his muzzle.

"Shh!" Another rack turned over, and a crash echoed, deeper in the store than before. Nikolai shinned his light back and forth.

"Blyat! Hey! Strange creature, please come out here!" The Stalker shouted, Willow simply gave up trying to order Nikolai around. "He's done this before... Right?" Willow thought to himself.

"Look, if you are the Enclave, or alicorn... Please tell! I will leave alone! Honest!" The only reply Nikolai got back was the echo of his own, distorted voice.

The Stalker turned back to his friends, "If someone is out there, then they no answer, this is issue, yes?" Willow and Flashpoint both rose to nod. Willow's ears perked up, and he let loose an ear piecing screech that made Flashpoint recoil in horror.

"Echolocation, good idea!" Nikolai responded, attempting to ease Flashpoint's annoyance. "Did you find anything?"

"No." Willow responded. " I didn't- Well, I did- It's hard to explain but, you know how you were saying you were saying that you kept spotting shapes in the sky out of the corner of your eye? It was like that, whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be getting closer." Nikolai shrugged, and kept his rifle trained on the store's interior. He wagged a finger back at Willow.

"Come over here!" He whispered. Willow smiled and quietly trotted over, Nikolai looked past him, and over at Flashpoint.

" Well? Давай!" Flashpoint scrambled over to Nikolai's right side, Willow moved over to his left. Nikolai brought his non dominant hand back down towards his rifle as he heard something else, followed by silence. Or, at least, what he thought was silence. Willow's ears perked back up and swiveled, like an alert guard dog hearing a coyote out in a field.

"I heard a male voice say, 'Stop stumbling! You'll give us away!' What do you make of that, Nikolai?" The Stalker took a knee.

"Oh? What I think? Well... Is clearly not alicorn. Or at least, alicorn дерьмо at hiding! I no want get into new gunfight with invisible monster today! We hunker down, or go? Vote! I feel generous, I vote stay and make new friend."

"I vote stay," Flashpoint replied." But only because Nikolai will probably need someone to drag him out after his negotiations inevitably break down and devolve into another one sided gunfight against some nightmare-like creature." Nikolai chuckled. "Thank you for believing in me!" He shouted back. "You have the very realistic expectations! Da! Is good!" He tapped the countertop with his fist in celebration.

"I'll go wherever you go Nikolai. I wouldn't leave now even if you asked me to." The Stalker laughed again. "Why would I ever ask that? Friend is friend! And good friend, help friend out of bad situation, not encourage make worse!" Flashpoint almost rolled his eyes at the irony of that statement coming from the mouth his crazy human friend. But he could understand what Nikolai meant by that.

"Alright, great! Now... Who volunteer go over there and kick stuff until something comes out!?" Willow's slit eyes went wide as the Stalker laughed madly and began to advance into the building. Flashpoint clumsily jumped the countertop and followed close behind.

"This is insane-" Willow stopped himself, and bounded forward without saying anything else. "Nikolai won't hear it. It'll go in through one ear and out the other." The bat pony cracked a smile and donned his hood as he crept behind Nikolai and Flashpoint, flapping his wings softly so that he barely made any contact with the floor.

Nikolai sprinted deeper into the store, taking the slightly discolored walkway down the clothing department up towards the escalators and the jewelry section. The scorched skeletons of ponies adorned the ground and walls. It was a pitiful sight, but nothing Nikolai had never seen before. He paid them no mind, instead setting his sights on the shattered and burnt decorative glass containers which held various bits of shiny jewelry. The Stalker stopped just a meter shy of them.

"It's... Beautiful!" He turned back, and spotted Flashpoint in the dusty darkness, taking cover behind a pillar, and Willow, further back. Little more than a dark shape which made a soft, 'whoosh' noise as he glided across the floor.

"Nikolai! You can't seriously be looting now!" The Stalker didn't even hear what his zebra had said. He had already taken to pillaging. Snatching up chainlets made from precious gemstones and gold rings like they were candy, all before remembering that you can't eat rocks. And, wasteland commodities were ranked by usefulness in value, not beauty. A bottle of clean water was worth more than a dozen gold bars when it came down to it. Still, he found himself fascinated by it. What fascinated him even more was a locked steel safe below the countertop which had been engraved with the emblem of an eye and a Dimond. It looked fairly durable, and he was instantly fascinated by what it held within.

"Come on!" He pulled the bobby pins he had acquired all the way back in Salt Cube City from his coat pocket under his armor, and began to fiddle with the lock while Willow appeared behind him, and examined the lock from behind Nikolai's shoulder. He nonchalantly looked over at a skeleton slumped over a desk, his glowing eyes drifted to the keychain on it's tattered belt.

"Nikolai. Here." He yanked the keychain off with his mouth and hoofed it over to Nikolai, who took it, and swapped out his pins for the half dozen keys on the chain. Trying them one after the other until he finally found one that worked. He opened the safe, and found a 9 MM subcompact pistol within, which he handed to Willow. However, alongside some worthless documents which were smeared beyond recognition, was a thick plastic case with a pendant within. The rock in its center looked to be tourmaline, which glowed softly as Nikolai moved its container around.

"Hey! Flashpoint! Come over here!" Willow shouted. Flashpoint, hearing his name called for something other than fire support, or a rushed advance, came sliding around the corner, crowding up around the other two to try and get a better look at the encased necklace Nikolai was holding in his gloved hands.

"Well? You're our resident Zebra." Willow insisted. "What is it?" Flashpoint groaned, and rolled his tired eyes.

"Like I would know what that is! It's a glowing necklace- Which, if anything, is probably Nikolai's specialty! He's always poking glowing things!" The Stalker, now sandwiched in between two bickering stallions, couldn't help but stand up, rising above them until he was squatting at about half his full height, allowing him to see just a little over eye to eye with his friends.

"Is glowing! Is probably magic! Make sense, yes? But I am stranger here also, yes? Eh, need help figure out what it does. Neither of you know?"

"You could take it out and put it on." Willow suggested. "It was probably locked up beside a loaded gun for a reason, it's got to have at least some semblance of use after all? Think about it."

"No! Nikolai, don't listen to him! Maybe we could find somepony who would be able to... elaborate on just what that is. " The Stalker nodded in agreement, adding it to his collection of odds and ends in his rucksack. "Maybe later! Who know? Could be interesting. Invisibility! That would be fun! Or- Or flight!" He looked over at Willow and grabbed one of his leathery wings. Causing the bat pony to twitch.

"A flying Nikolai. Now that would be something." The both of them froze for an instant as they imagined a winged Nikolai. Or worse, a levitating one. It was almost to absurd to fathom.

"Ah, is probably something boring! Oh well, I wait until later-" Not ten meters ahead of him, over by a wrecked changing booth, something blue crackled and shimmered in the air for just an instant, and the pattering of strange hoofsteps over a dusty floor which momentarily outlined an equine figure.

"Ghost?" Nikolai asked. "You did say this entire stretch of Wasteland is uninhabited. Magic and zombies exist, why not ghosts? Hey! Blin, sorry if strike nerve but- Are you supernatural creature, mister invisible pony!?" The Stalker looked around and swayed his rifle light from side to side. He noticed something off, a bump in a rack of burnt clothes.

"Willow, corner him. I have plan!" The bat pony facehoofed, but managed to keep his composure. "You know what Nikolai? Alright, I believe you wholeheartedly, I'll sneak around behind that rack. Flashpoint-" He eyed the Zebra over Nikolai's shoulder.

"Watch us." Flashpoint nodded, although he didn't seem all that happy taking commands from Willow. Who, in turn, found Flashpoint a bit of a hassle to put up with. Though the two just had the same end goal in mind. Keeping themselves, and Nikolai, alive. The Stalker's radio beeped and chirped with staticky guitar as he left the jewelry section, Willow swept away and out of sight, and the Stalker advanced across the floor in as professional a manner as he could. Taking up the best professional soldier stance he could muster.

"Hello? Who is there? Please, only want make new friend. Honest!" Something shuffled, tugging on the singed and rusted metal coat hangers, all of a sudden, something shot out from under the rack, a large dark shape with took Nikolai by surprise.

"Ah! Blyat!" The Stalker panicked, darting backwards and firing several frantic shots into the floor in front of him, one struck home, and the... Whatever it was, practically exploded in a rotten bloody slurry that stained Nikolai's boots as he tread over them and towards the changing booth. The sonic cracks from the rifle rounds still resonating through the buildings massive interior as he did so.

"Just mutant rat! Is not what I am after." The Stalker told himself.

With no better plan in the moment, he sneaking and creeping towards the coat hangers and charred clothing. Once he was within arms reach, he suddenly cried one insane phrase;

"Я обіймаю! I hug!" Before diving into the rack, swinging the butt of his rifle wildly as his body made contact with something big and heavy in the mass of clothes, sending it crashing to the floor, Stalker and all.

"Nikolai! Willow shouted, Flashpoint left his cover and swung his submachine gun towards the scene unfolding.

"What are you! Answer me! I know you can speak!" He took hold of what seemed like thin air, shaking if furiously and shouting enthusiastic and less than sober obscenities' in his native tongue.

"Ah! Get off me!" The invisible thing cried in an accent that sounded almost South African, but not quite. "Nyet!" Nikolai shouted, wrestling with the being that felt like an angry leather jacket mixed with a bathrobe. His gloved hand came into contact something that felt an awful lot like a weapon, and he gripped it tightly and pulled it away from him, smacking whoever it was away from him and batting the upper half of the thing with his elbow, he was about to crossdraw his knife and begin bayoneting whatever it was until it decloaked. When, it did it for him. Revealing a masked figure in a dark red robe with plates of ornate armor covering vital areas. The creatures mask obscured his eyes under a set of pale blue lenses. And the weapon Nikolai had noticed on his side was a strange carbine speckled with white and black.

"What are you cyka? Tell me!"

"No, get off me right this instant... Please?" He added after a few moments of silence and struggling. "Nikolai! What the- Wha- Nikolai!" The Stalker pied a glance up at Willow, noticing a blue shimmer in the air behind the Thestral before even he did.

"What!?" He shouted. "We need to go, now!" The Stalker looked back down at his quarry. "Hello new friend! Goodbye new friend! Is fun, yes? We meet again soon? Will be fun!" He patted the seemly furious, though still very confused being on his robed head, and took off back towards the jewelry section.

"Who was that!?" A confused Flashpoint asked as the trio briskly sprinted out of the store and into the rainstorm outside. They took off towards the cover of the destroyed store and building fronts. Though the long deformed and melted trellises and toppled overhands did little to shield them from the rain. About 30 seconds after they had left the building, Nikolai turned to Willow and began to ask why exactly it was he had insisted on leaving so fast.

"Because Nikolai... I recognized those colors! That was a Zebra cultist!" There time and no place to stop, so the three just kept up their pace westward as best the could, until they were able to find refuge in a still mostly undamaged post office on an intersection corner. Nikolai swept aside the remainder of the shattered window panes, and they hurried on inside. All soaking wet from the rain and panting from the dead sprint across the destroyed cityscape.

"Ohoho! Please explain what just happen? Willow?" The batpony removed his hood and cowl and swayed from side to side, shaking the water off, Flashpoint wiped his helmet visor clean and took a seat on the dirty floors.

"Zebra cultists?" He sounded both bewildered and enthusiastic. "Other zebras? Oh no..."

"Please fill in, is much confused." The Stalker crouched down, peering out at the puddles in the intersection's many potholes. "Well... They're exactly what the name entails." Willow responded. "Zebra's that have a religious fanaticism towards... Something, it's beyond me. But, I have seen them before, their gilded red robes, their magical weapons. They're a strange bunch, even to me. If I had known that it was one of them sneaking around in the back of that store, I would have told you about it Nikolai, I'm sorry." The Stalker laughed, and slapped his knee.

"Hah! I would have gone anyway, da? Plus, if was really zebra- I would like to meet Flashpoints kin. And yours as well! I am like tourist in this place!"

"You're more than a tourist, you're a menace." Flashpoint said softly, removing his helmet and readjusting some of the padding within. Centuries of neglect to the military surplus had rendered it in less than optimal condition for combat. But the armor plates were still better protection than any of the second hoof raider armor that Flashpoint had been stuck with wearing up until then. Nikolai caught what he said and halted his own conversation with Willow to respond to his zebra companion.

Yes, but I am menace to all the right things." His left hand came to rest on the PSO scope mount of his AK 101 as he sat down on an old waiting bench deeper within the destroyed building. His boots swinging back and forth and kicked up glass shards and rubble, eventually coming to brush up against one of Flashpoint's legs. The Zebra smiled and shifted slightly until he was sitting right by Nikolai's side.

"So... Where is our fearless leader ordering we march next?" Willow joked. The Stalker removed his mask and his hoof and tapped his boots on the floor with vigor.

"I do not know! We cannot go back way we came, so... Idea is this! We spend night here in post office! Then we take highway west, out of city, and then double back. Hopefully, we will end up back on highway. Or, we could keep follow new highway, it might be safer than big highway. Less scenic, yes. But hopefully safer, or at least, less traveled. It doesn't look like anyone had been here in long time, right? Then maybe road will be similar!"

Flashpoint stood up and trotted over to the window again, peering out at the destroyed buildings and frowning. "They could still be out there, we should get moving again." Nikolai stood up in turn. "Are you sure? Really, is no big issue."

"Yes! I'm almost sure! I have no interest in meeting my kin. It's been years since I've seen another Zebra! Let me rephrase-" The bat pony rolled his eyes and smirked.

"You'd rather not meet them at gun point?" Flashpoint nodded hurriedly. "Yes! Just like how- Nevermind." He went back to aimlessly staring out the window.

"I personally, would enjoy speak with zebra! Flashpoint make good friend, they make friend as well. Yes? Is good idea! Trust me! When has idea backfired? No answer, please." He waved his in the air. "Well? Rain looks like it has subsided again. Should we leave? Or stay here for night? You know what- I have no patience, there is plenty place to set down. Post office give bad memories from childhood! We go!" He twirled his index finger in the air, and then began walking back towards the broken windows, passing Flashlight and staring forward, off to the sides, and above up at the skyline and the clouds before he motioned for his friends to come out and follow behind him.

"We have little while before night falls again. We see if we can find abandoned house on West side of city that is not too destroyed, and sleep, ok?" This response seemed to make both Flashpoint and Willow happy and that was all that mattered to Nikolai at the moment.

" There's a long black train... comin' down the line..."

Nikolai's radio played an ominous piece of neoclassical country music as the trio made their way on out of the ruined cityscape, and out into the mostly flattened and burnt suburbs around it. For the most part, it seemed as though a wildfire had swept through the place. The fire damage only offset by years and years of water and weather damage. Even so, it wasn't 10 minutes before Nikolai spotted a decent sized, and hopefully unoccupied- Partially destroyed house on a hilltop that they could bed down in.

"Alright... Final stretch, and then we all get food and sleep, da?" Nikolai actively worked to hold his gun up as the made their way along the ancient torn up residential streets, about a half a kilometer outside the city, when they were passing in and around a cluster of partially collapsed single story duplexes, they suddenly heard something that made Willow stop them in an instant.

"They've found us." The bat pony whispered. Nikolai poked his head out from behind the wall, and stared out an an empty lot. A gust of cold wind blew across the overgrown back patio of the home.

"Hello! Friend? We are friend! Pryvet! How do you do!?" He waved enthusiastically at what seemed like empty air. In an instant, the whole field lit up in a series of mellow flashes of blueish light. Revealing a single cloaked figure. In the rubble of a collapsed house a ways away, another blue light shimmered, and a half dozen more cloaked beings appeared, the air... For lack of a better word, molted. All of them were silent, except for the one up front.

"Greetings strangers, you have something which belongs to us." Willow crept back behind Nikolai, out of sight. And Flashpoint backed away with him.

Nikolai said the only thing he could thing of in the moment.

"Oh, привіт! Hello! Name is Nikolai! I am friend, yes? Is nice to meet you!"

Chapter 26: Don't Start What You Can't Finish

Chapter 26: Don't Start What You Can't Finish

"What? No... I can assure you, I have not stolen anything from you. Please, I come out, we no shoot? Make friend?" The Stalker waved at the Zebra cultists.

"Who- What are you?" One of them stuttered. " Nikolai waved again. "This is sign of good will! No shoot please?" He could hear some whispering among them.

"He attacked me just a short while ago! He's dangerous! And he's hiding one of us!" Nikolai couldn't tell what they said after that, they all remained still. Unnatural for beings that were arguing with one another in such a passionate manner. There was no pacing, no shouting, no glances quick head twists. He could tell their voices all carried meaning behind them. A bit like a church pastor.

"Nikolai. Remember what I said." Willow whispered. He had redonned his hood, and covered his leathery bat wings. Making sure that anything which could tip someone off to his true nature was obscured and out of sight.

"This is bad idea." Flashpoint nodded in agreement with Willow.

"Eh... What do you want exactly?" Nikolai asked, holding his gun up with one hand while eyeing the hooded zebras.

"Please. No want fight, you seem like agreeable folk, da?" He waved at the semicircle of zebras again.

An eerie silence swept over the whole crowd, until finally, the lead zebra removed his hood. Revealing a face like Flashpoint's, just with a few more years and scars. And eyes that didn't glow but were full of earnest concern. The zebra stallion raised his right hoof and gestured towards the wall which Nikolai was taking cover behind.

"Please, step forward. If you speak the truth, then you shall not be harmed" Nikolai glanced back at his friends and gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up. Then safetied his rifle and let it fall on it's sling.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai!" He stepped out and waved to the crowd. "What is yours?" A flurry of murmurs rose up from the rest of the zebras.

"I come from place far far away from here. Is nice place! Much nicer than this! But... Wasteland has charm of own, yes?" The Stalker scratched his chin, and took a knee to shake the Zebra's hoof. To his surprise, the Zebra pulled back and frowned.

"What are you doing?" Nikolai kept his gloved hand extended." Is called handshake, or... I suppose, hoofshake for you? Please, is sign of greeting. Surely you cannot be that disconnect from rest of world?" The lead zebra looked at his compatriots.

"Yes- Sorry, it is just that we are... Unaccustomed to seeing such..." The Stalker laughed, and smiled under his mask. "You are strange to be sure." The zebra continued. "But it is not you we hold interest in, but your companion. You are traveling with a zebra, correct?" Nikolai hesitated, but nodded anyway.

"Yes, I am. He is good friend, I save him from cage in caravan about week and a half ago. We make fast friend!" He held up his hand and turned to wave to his companions.

"I also befriend nice b-regular pony, sorry- But he is just a little bit shy. Давай! Come!" He exclaimed. Willow poked his hooded head out first, with Flashpoint close behind him. The zebra smiled uncomfortably, all while Willow stared on ahead in silence.

"Well?" Another hooded figure asked. "Show yourselves, come out." The two stallions trotted out.

"That is Flashpoint, and that is Willow." Nikolai told them. Both friend. Like I said, Willow is shy pony, would be best if not ask him to show self. Ask favor." Willow wasn't a shy pony, Nikolai just wanted to keep his friend safe, and if that meant hiding his nocturnal friend's true nature from some religious cultists pointing guns at him, then so be it. Flashpoint swallowed, and uncomfortably looked around at the strange zebra's. Removing his helmet flashing a smile at them.

"Um... Hello? I'm Flashpoint. What's your name?" He asked, trying not to sound as scared as he was. He had never actually met another zebra, with the exception of his parents, whom he had barely known.

"Flashpoint." The lead zebra repeated. Slowly nodding his head as the words left his mouth, as if he was subconsciously approving of it. His head snapped to Willow. "Willow. A peculiar name, where did you get it?" An awkward silence rose over the group. Lasting for about half a minute, before Nikolai finally cut in with. "Please, he means no harm. Is just simple pony is all. No need to harass. If you would like to ask questions, please, ask me! Go on."

"There will be plenty of time for that later." The strange zebra raised his right hoof and redonned his cloak. "You seem trustworthy, and but attempt to harm one of us. And it will be the last thing you do." He turned to Flashpoint as he snapped his visor back in place. The eyes glowed an eerie blue. "There may be potential in you yet. Follow us." Flashpoint looked around at the strange zebras, and then up at Nikolai as the group began to move. There was a burst of light, and several of the zebra's disappeared from sight. All of a sudden, the lead zebra halted in place, and snapped around to stare at the group.

He glared at them with a firm expression of contempt. "Do you serve the stars?" He inquired, his tone growing dire.

"What?" Nikolai furrowed his eyebrows and glanced down at him. "I do not know what you are talking about. It must be religious thing, yes? Please, you talk about later. Right now... Has been tiring day. Would like rest-you too, I am sure?" The Zebra stood motionless.

"Oh well... I suppose that obliviousness is better than a 'yes'. Continue along if you wish." Nikolai nodded, and unslung his rifle.

"Da, I do indeed wish!" The Stalker turned to look over at his friends. Willow's face was obscured by his hood and sunglasses, and Flashpoint seemed to be just slightly worried, hanging his head as he walked, like something had disappointed him and he now had no choice but to accept it. The zebra in the lead nodded slowly, but said nothing.

The 3 zebras that still remained visible slowed down and took up positions on either side of Willow and Flashpoint. Nikolai noticed this, and took a step on ahead, almost brushing up against the robe of the lead zebra.

"Would it be alright if we walk side by side?" The zebra didn't respond, so Nikolai took this as an invitation to do so. Gripping his rifle with his right hand, he took a place beside the zebra's leader. He wanted to get his name, but he'd have to bide his time if he wanted it.

"If you do not give me name," Nikolai began, "Then I will give you the nickname, yes? Ok?" The zebra still didn't reply to the enthusiastic Stalker.

" Quiet? No... Spooky? Nyet... Guild? Because of gilded robe? Da... I like, will make good use until you tell me actual name. I apologize if inconvenience you."

"Not at all." The zebra replied in the same, strange pattern of voice as before. "Call me whatever you wish." This took the Stalker by surprise, he wasn't expecting this cultist to be so forthcoming and accepting. Nikolai simply guessed that he had a high degree of patience. Either that, or it was simple humility. Or, that this zebra thought himself above a simple Wastelander or Stalker. But wasn't willing to outright say it. After all that conversation, the group fell entirely silent for the three or so kilometer odd trek to the zebra's hideout. They made their way up and out of the low lying residential neighborhoods and through the few destroyed mansions clustered atop the hill. They continued along until they had arrived at a building that was somewhat smaller than the rest, but at the very highest point on the hilltop. Overlooking the glassed city ruins beneath it like a sort of crumbling citadel. The only thing out of place was that there was no obvious entrance, the structure looked like a collapsed wreck from the outside.

"Is it inside, mister Guild?" Nikolai asked the zebra beside him. The zebra slowly turned his head, and nodded.

"Follow me, all the three of you, and don't stray too far behind. Nikolai walked up to one of the exterior walls, with Flashpoint and Willow behind him, Guild directly ahead of him. The zebra set a hoof on the walk and closed his eyes. He laid a robed armored hoof on the wall. As it made contact with the chipped plaster, something odd happened. The portion of the wall he had touched began to glow with a pale blue light, and an armored doorway appeared where once there had been only a wall.

"Tell nothing of this." Guild informed Nikolai and the rest. The Stalker set his hands in his coat pockets and nodded in understanding.

"No worry, is no big issue. Is pretty cool, in fact." The zebra seemed disinterested in his statement, and walked on inside, only after muttering a phrase to someone else inside in a dialect that Nikolai couldn't recognize. It sounded south African. But... It wasn't any language he could recognize, just little bits and pieces that sounded vaguely familiar. Though, he wasn't a linguist. But he was still pretty sure of himself.

"Wow." Flashpoint said under his breath, crossing the threshold into the buildings interior was much, much larger than it appeared to be on the outside. Red draperies hung from the ceiling, massive curtains that glowed with engraved sigils alongside wood fed braziers. The internal space was at least a half hectare in size, if not more. With ceilings large enough to fit a small forest under, all leading down towards a massive arena with a dirt floor in the center. As soon as they were through the entrance, the entrance to the outside disappeared.

"What is this?" Nikolai asked in genuine surprise.

"This... Is a Zebrican temple, outsider. Welcome." A voice responded from among the crowd of gathering hooded zebras gathering around the trio. One of them walked right through the crowd, and slowly removed his hood, revealing a young face like Flashpoints, just with less scars and blue eyes rather than brown ones. Eyes that didn't glow. He bowed first to Nikolai, and then to the zebra who had escorted them.

"Elder." The new zebra whispered. "Sorcerer." The other zebra replied, nodding slowly in affirmation.

"Are you happy Nikolai? Willow asked him. The Stalker laughed, and nonchalantly patted Willow on the very top of his hood.

"Yes, I am. Is much fascinating." He looked over at the new zebra, and attempted his best bow in return.

"Please, you say you are sorcerer? What is name? I am curious." The zebra seemed hesitant. But, he responded with,

"Mystic. My given name is Mystic, what about you?" The Stalker pulled his mask off and lowered his hood. "Name is Nikolai. please to meet you. So, sorcery, I am curious, how does work? You teach?" Mystic seemed as though he was going to respond, when all of a sudden he noticed Flashpoint standing behind Nikolai.

"Greetings, kin, what is your name?" All 20 or so eyes in the room suddenly snapped to the zebra in the blue and black armor. The sorcerer looked from Nikolai, to Flashpoint, then over to Willow, who had fallen dead silent, and finally, back to Flashpoint.

"Flashpoint." A roar of applause rose up from among the crowd. Out of place, given their demeanor. It filled Flashpoint, a Zebra who had been neglected his entire life by various captors and Wastelanders, a sense of immutable joy. But also, an immovable sense of dread. These were strange religious cultists that, as far as he knew, shared nothing in common with him but his stripes, and very likely, suspicion of Thestrals.

"Please, tell us." Mystic asked Flashpoint. "How did you come to be with these Wastelanders?"

"I'd held captive by Slavers, and- While they were on their way to Dodge city, the caravan I was in was ambushed-" Flashpoint raised his hoof and pointed over at Nikolai.

"By him, he saved my life and the life of the others. Not only once, but twice." The sorcerer's gaze shifted to the hooded figure.

"And him?"

"In a way." Flashpoint responded, his voice tinging with resentment. The zebra whom Mystic had called, 'Elder', approached Nikolai with lowered brows. "Is this true?"

"Yes! Of course it is! Flashpoint is great friend! Get into little bit of trouble, but, I help! Is simple as that. Yes?" This statement elicited a small smile from the zebra. "Yes... I suppose it is. We humbly welcome you into our residence, no harm shall come to you while you remain within these walls." Nikolai chuckled, and slung his rifle over his shoulder. "Good! Good! I was worried this was going to be one of those evil psychotic cu-" He stopped himself, and replied with a double thumbs up. These zebras, in spite of their strange demeanor and appearance, were offering hospitality. Something Nikolai wasn't known to turn down without very good reason. And so far, in spite of Willows vocal concerns, the invisibility, and the strange question asked by the Elder. They did seem to be holding true to their word,

"Do you serve the stars?" He mind was swimming with a quite a few questions. Some of which he was more afraid to ask than others. But, on the other hand, this all fascinated him. Plus, after witnessing the alicorns from Splendid Valley cloak and decloak to such a blatant tactical advantage, he almost felt jealous.

"We would like to speak with Flashpoint in private." The Elder told them. Flashpoint chuckled nervously. "Why?"

"We would simply like to know more about you." The tone of his voice told Nikolai that there was more to this. "You will not hurt him, yes? No-" He made a stabbing motion with his hand. The zebra shook his head.

"He is one of us, why ever would we do such a thing?"

"Is no problem, go on and borrow him for little while." The Stalker looked back at Flashpoint. "Nikolai?"

"Ah do not worry! Will be fine! Probably, we talk at dinner, yes? I want to find out more about the sorcery thing." Willow rolled his eyes under his dark glasses and giggled.

"Oh supreme wizard Nikolai! Please, enlighten us!" He continued laughing, and was joined by Nikolai and Flashpoint. The zebras around them seemed just a tad bit confused. "I eh... Digress." Nikolai said to them. "Flashpoint, enjoy your time, I will go with Mystic. And Willow, eh... I do not know, just no get in trouble, you can follow me if you want."

"Eh..." The hidden bat pony took one look around at the curious zebras. " I'll... Go with you. Yeah!" He stood up and took a place by Nikolai's side. After a little more conversation, the two groups parted for the afternoon.

The crowd of zebras either dispersed and went off to do their own things, or followed Flashpoint. Mystic led Nikolai over to the left hand side of the visible interior. Nikolai and Willow were led down a set of ornate stairs into a large underground chamber with walls made from tree bark. They passed a few more hooded and robed zebras on the way, who gave only looks of suspicion to Nikolai and Willow.

"Welcome to my abode. Apologies for the mess but- I haven't much time to clean up." Nikolai chuckled upon seeing the room. It was modest compared to the one they had just left. A tent was pitched in the corner made from strange animal hides that Nikolai couldn't quite identify. A myriad of shelves and notches lined the walls, filled to the brim with all manner of books, scrolls, strange items, and flasks of liquid- A few of which even glowed. In the center of the room, stood a large metal cauldron. The entire room smelled strongly of pinewood, copper, and turmeric for some reason.

"Wow! " The Stalker exclaimed. "Now this is something! I've seen talking ponies, magic radiation, griffons, all sorts of monsters, pegasi, power armor, alicorns, and a weird eldritch thing in a vat! But this... How do you say? Takes the cake! Well... Not whole cake, but definitely slice!"

"Is that a good thing, I apologize, I'm not familiar with many pony mannerisms. I am our resident Alchemist." The Stalker continued laughing.

"I am not pony. But, my right here friend is." Willow sat down on a floor cushion and looked around the room. Staring for quite a while at the sorcerers skull collection. Nikolai walked over to the cauldron and peered inside.

"What kind of potions do you usually brew? I am curious." The sorcerer looked at him. "That is a closely kept secret, I apologize. But- If you would like- I can tell you about our religion.

"Yes." Nikolai responded. "What is that whole, 'serve the stars thing' about? Are you scared of the night time? The sky?" The Zebra breathed a heavy sigh, and took a seat by the cauldron on another floor pillow. "Please, sit. I have a story to tell you." The Stalker unslung his rucksack, and took a seat cross-legged beside the cauldron. The Stalker turned down his radio, which at this point had been practically relegated to playing music all the time. Nikolai made a mental note to check the batteries later on.

"You see, it all began over a millennia ago... In the homeland of Zebrica..."

Moment's turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Nikolai sat and listened intently. The zebra spun a variety of tales. Starting back where it all began, he told him about an ancient cataclysm called, 'The Eternal Night'. That tore apart zebra kind. The Stalker couldn't understand it, but then again. Maybe it meant something here. He hadn't seen a single star since he had first shown up. It all sounded a bit to much like a cartoon he had watched when he was younger to himself. If there were a collective council of modern religions on Earth, they would probably look down on Zebras like either a concerned parent, or a group of humans discovering aliens for the first time. It was odd, to be sure. But it was much more... Active, in a way, though... The thought of the Pope wielding healing potions and an invisibility cloak was petty funny to him.

"Fascinating." Was the only reply he could think of in the moment. "It is truly intuiting. And... In all fairness, totally understandable."

"Now let me ask a you a question Nikolai. Why did you attack one of our operatives, and who were you running from when you came across them." The Stalker furrowed his brow and looked over at Willow, he turned back to the intrepid sorcerer.

"The Enclave, what do you know about them?" The Sorcerer scoffed. "Not much, unfortunately, I fear they're just as mysterious as you may find us to be. They utilize ancient armor and weapons from the Old World, they maintain fleets of flying craft. They live above the clouds. And every single one can fly. Worry not, we are at odds with them, whatever it was they targeted you for. Worry not, this is a safe haven. They will never find you here." Nikolai laughed.

"It is much appreciated. Hey, do you know what is happening with Flashpoint?" The Stalker glanced behind himself, towards the entrance. " It has been while. What is going on?"

"Why-" Mystic responded. "He is being introduced to Zebra culture, and hopefully, by day's end... One of us." The Stalker facepalmed and groaned. "Blin! I never gave you permission to stick him in cult! You better not be like Monolith!" With another frustrated grunt, the Stalker took up his rucksack and his rifle, and briskly walked off towards the structures main chamber.

"Monolith, Zebra- Cults! Of course! Who could I have been so... Ok, fair point, fair point. I am not really good with these things. Still, I hope they haven't hurt him!" The Stalker thought to himself as he paced himself back up the grand staircase with a confused Willow trailing behind.

"Nikolai, where are you going?"

"To get my dear friend back!" He exclaimed, shaking his hands in the air. Nikolai whipped around, and stomped his way across the chamber in the direction he had seen the zebra's depart off in. A couple Zebras turned their heads from whatever they had happened to have been doing at that very moment to watch Nikolai as he searched for his friend.

"Not again... I could not have lost him again!" The Stalker rubbed his temples. He really, really wanted to befriend these Zebra's, they would make good allies. And probably good friends, as well. Well... They would have, just like the Unity. If what Mystic had told him was true, he'd have at least as large a problem as them. And he silently prayed that would be the case.

"Flashpoint?" He asked out again.

"Nikolai!" The Stalker ran to the voice, and found him, sitting by a brazier with several other zebras, his blue and black armor, as well as his gun and saddlebags had been neatly set aside. " What is it? What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing whatsoever Nikolai, they just pulled me aside to talk to me. They'd like me to join their sect of the Zebrican Remnant... The only thing is, I'd have to stay here."

"Are you actually considering this?"

"No. Of course not... It's just a little interesting is all." The Stalker breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"There's just one issue." Flashpoint stood up and turned around.

His feeling of was instantly swept away by a encroaching crowd of Zebra's, among them the Elder from before, and a new one, who's robes glowed in a bluish shimmer, this one carried with him a strange staff, almost like that of an Earthly shepherds. It's arc was adorned with strange feathers, and... Just to tie the whole thing together, a canine-like skull at it's peak.

"Greetings, I was not present when you first entered, I am this Sect's Shaman. You see, Flashpoint is a Zebra, he is one of us. And he will be treated as such, this is a sanctuary. He's been apart from his kin for so long... He must learn our ways if he is to be a true Zebra." The Stalker began to grit his teeth. "Hah! Flashpoint is friend of mine! You no take him."

"How dare you disrespect our wa-" The lead Zebra was silenced by a raised hoof from another Zebra, it was Mystic.

"What?" The Stalker asked, genuinely confused at the sudden change in tone of voice. He didn't see it as that big of an issue, he just wanted his friend back.

"Apologies, Nikolai. I understand you are confused, but... Flashpoint is a Zebra, and... It is, in a way, our formal policy that we take in all non-defectors. Your friend must remain with us. You can still return to see him and speak with him from time to time, if you wish." The Stalker shook his head and lowered his brow. "Nyet, is not good enough. I have just met you, you will not take my friend from me." Nikolai's worried gaze shifted to Flashpoint.

"I just said it was intriguing," Flashpoint spoke to the Zebra Shaman, "I never said that I wished to join you. I am glad to have met you... But my place is with Nikolai and Willow."

"This cannot stand." The Shaman said coldly. "You would choose a cloaked pony and a strange two legged beast-" Nikolai huffed and crossed his arms.

"Over your own kind?" Flashpoint's faintly green and yellowish tinted eyes flashed with a nod of his head.

"It might not look like it, but you cannot judge them- Well... Him," Flashpoint gestured towards Nikolai. "By appearance alone. He has done more for me at his own cost than any other creature in the Wasteland in my living memory." A few of the Zebras began to whisper amongst themselves.

"Silence, Night comes, and we must retire. First come morning, we shall settle this by ritual combat." The Stalker cracked his knuckles. "Are you sure... Could we not just go? What was talk about Hospitality earlier?" The Zebrican Shaman sighed under his hood.

"We allow you to remain here for the night. And... We will allow you, an outsider, to represent Flashpoint." The Stalker nodded, and looked back over at a weary and uncertain Flashpoint. "Nikolai- You cannot be serious, have you seen-" The Stalker clapped his hands together. "Yes... I have, is no big issue. Is just couple of bullies, da? I beat. Is no big issue, I say! No worry self. " He opened his rucksack, and pulled his sleeping back from it. He turned to the Shaman and the Elder.

"I hope you do not mind if my friends and I sleep here by fire tonight? Will be no bother, promise." The Elder looked to be on the edge of rolling his eyes. "Yes, yes. You can sleep here if you wish. Please, allow us to retire in peace." The Zebra crowd dispersed in a flurry of white, black, marron, and gold.

"Fun bunch." Nikolai told his companions as he reclined back on his rucksack like a makeshift pillow and removed his gloves. He unholstered his Makarov and began to fiddle with the slide, ejecting the magazine loaded with .380 ACP first.

"Good day, yes? Please, summarize! Who would like food?" The sound of happy laughter and MRE's being pried open filled the room.

About 9 hours later, Nikolai rolled out of his bag and stumbled to his feet. "Hey, Flashpoint! Willow! Is big day, wake up!" The Stalker shook his friends awake.

"Breakfast will wait! We must do the... Eh, fight first."

"You mean, you're fighting. And we get to watch you get mauled by religious zealots?" Nikolai nodded. "Yes, pretty much. I am sort of regret, what if they use crazy magic? Well... I am practical Ukrainian man! Shake off the worry, and be happy!" Nikolai turned his radio on, and picked up his rifle.

" Ready already? I am impressed Nikolai." Mystic's voice echoed out across the chamber. "Now, pack up your things and follow me." Nikolai pointed over at the miniature colosseum-like pit towards the far center of the massive room. Nikolai packed his own things, and then assisted his friends. The trio hiked to the far side of the building and down a staircase, where Mystic stopped at a gate, Nikolai gazed out at the dirt arena. It was oval shaped, taking up about a third of the available space within the structure.

"There are some rules to this. You will obey them, just as your combatant shall." The Stalker nodded, slipping his gloves back on.

"Is no issue. What are they?"

"No firearms, no energy weapons, no explosives. You will fight with these." The Sorcerer hoofed over a tribal spear, tipped on the end with a fine obsidian point. The shaft was short by human standards, just a meter in length from the tip to the end. The Stalker set his AK 101 down by Flashpoint alongside his Makarov, Rucksack, and grenades. Making sure to be especially careful with the later.

"Look after my things! No loose, understand?" Mystic laughed. "Your things will be safe, we are not thieves." Nikolai noticed the enthusiasm in his voice, and smiled.

"Good luck out there Nikolai, do us a favor and come back in one piece." Willow told The Stalker. "Thank you." Flashpoint added. "And... Good luck, you'll probably need it."

"Ah... No need luck!" The Stalker exclaimed. "Only need Vodka, is true Slavic Elixir! Never fail!" The Stalker fumbled around in his rucksack, and pulled out a bottle. He unscrewed the cap, and took a long swig. In an instant, his face puckered into a big grin. "I'll be back." He told his friends in a sarcastic monotone voice. Picking up the spear and twirling it around, nearly dropping it in the process.

"He's insane." Flashpoint murmured.

"Yep." Willow agreed, the two stallions picked up Nikolai's things and brought them up above group, they took a seat on some rugs on the far left side of the arena, facing northeast. As the Stalker treaded out into the arena, he fumbled with his radio, much to the continued confusion of the two dozen or so zebra's in the stands watching him. Finally, the head Shaman appeared in the arena.

"Very well then! This... What are you?"

"I am a human." Nikolai whispered to him.

"This human has graciously accepted to fight on his companion's behalf." A pair of Zebra's appeared on either side of Flashpoint, standing dead silent as Willow tried not to look over.

"This is madness..." Flashpoint thought to himself. Meanwhile, down below him, Nikolai let out an almost insane laugh as the Shaman turned around and trotted out of the arena.

"Begin." The Elder exclaimed. Nikolai bended his knees and brought his spear up.

"Hello?" The gate was open, but nothing emerged from it. He knew exactly what was happening.

"давай! Come on!" The form of a single robed zebra materialized about 10 meters ahead of him, wielding a spear just like his own. His facial expression was one of ferocity. Nikolai laughed, and spun the knop on his radio.

"What is he doing?" Mystic asked himself. "His life is in danger, and he reaches for a device on his vest? It is not a weapon, that must be a radio! But... Why now?" A few moments later, the earsplitting noise of accordions and guitar filled the room.

"Bandit Radio, cyka!" The Stalker cried vigorously, gripping his weapon and laughing madly.

"Cheeki Breeki!"

The entire crowd leaned in. Flashpoint face hoofed and hung his head. The Stalker raised his spear like a bayonet and charged towards his opponent. The suddenness of it all took the Simple Zebra Initiate off guard. And, for a moment, the robed zebra just stood there in surprise. But only for an instant, the Zebra doubled back, and threw his spear. Nikolai halted, nearly stumbling over himself.

"Hah, you are poor- Blyat!" He looked down at his lower left leg, and the spear tip protruding from it's side, had it been thrown any harder it would have broken skin.

"What-!" As Nikolai stared down at his leg, the Zebra drew another spear, and tossed it at Nikolai. He tried to duck away, but it struck home and impaled itself in his other leg.

"Agh!!" He screamed. "What the hell!? Ти маленький безбожний шматочок гнилої смугастої сорочки! You little ungodly piece of rotten striped shit !"

Nikolai just stood there in place screaming. The whole scene was so absurd, that a few of the zebras in the stands had to stomp on their own hooves to keep from bursting out laughing. Here was this random two legged menace fighting for his zebra friend, tipsy off Vodka while blasting circus music and screaming at the spears lodged in his legs like he had just stubbed his toe. He winced and wobbled around, swatting at them and screaming more. This was so odd that once again, his opponent paused to look at him in sheer confusion. Probably wondering if his enemy was just flat out clinically insane.

"Oho!"

The Stalker exclaimed, tearing out both spears, throwing one to the far side of the arena, while raising the other two above his head and advancing on his adversary, who drew a 3rd spear, and charged at him.

"Haha!" Nikolai exclaimed again, using his long arms to parry the zebra's blade. It was at this point that an idea donned on him. He ripped the spear out of his opponents hooves and smacked him with the blunt end of the obsidian blade. The zebra began to shimmer with blue light, and disappeared from sight.

"Lazy Cyka!" He pounced, just as he had back in the department store. He glanced behind him, just in time to spot a second zebra advancing on him, a bit unaware that the Stalker had just spotted him.

"Oh my- I don't believe it." Willow thought to himself. " Go Nikolai! Go!" The drunken Stalker didn't turn for one moment to pay attention to his friends. He grappled with the invisible mass, picking the zebra up like a large dog and tossing him over towards the other zebra, so that the 2nd one impaled the first with his spear. The first decloaked and stumbled up, but not before Nikolai marched up and sucker punched him in the face, kicking the other one in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him as he went.

"I no like you anymore!" He punched them again, and again rushing over to grab another spear as Bandit Radio echoed through the arena, Nikolai flipped his opponent off, and began to cane one of his opponents over the back. The other Zebra tackled him and drew another, smaller spear. Nikolai snatched it by the handle and forced the grip of it back into his opponents face. Chackling as it bruised his snout. But he wasn't done yet. He brought his elbow up, and landed right on the first zebra's side, he heard something snap as he once more lifted him up, and threw him a short distance. They both stumbled back to their hooves and tried to flank Nikolai from alternate sides, a move which ended in two boot shaped bruises on each of their faces, this went back in forth for a few more minutes, until both Zebra's were sprawled out on the floor, groaning and moaning in pain and on the edge of blacking out.

"Eh? Eh! Say яблуко вільніше! Скажи це! Say it!!!!" His insane laughter overtook the music on his radio.

"Stop!" The Zebra Shaman's voice ordered. "It is finished! You get your way." Nikolai reached under each Zebra's hoof, and shook it as the final notes of the upbeat Stalker folk song concluded.

"Good game! Good fight! You did well friend! Actually, not friend, me no like!" The Stalker turned, flipped them both off, and left the arena through the opposite gate to the sound of cheering from two good friends, and a few Zebras.

"Nikolai- You actually did it!" Willow exclaimed, patting him on the leg, the crowd cleared a path for Nikolai, who took a knee by Flashpoint.

"You did it. You did it!" The Zebra exclaimed, caught up in the excitement of the moment. "We celebrate with the breakfast now!" The Stalker stood back up, and then fell forward onto his face. Flashpoint and Willow caught him by either arm, and sat him down.

"He'll be up in a moment. He's drawn to his food almost as much as his caps." Willow told the mildly concerned zebras behind and all around him.

Unbeknownst to all, the small bit of blood that the Stalker had lost when the 2nd spear impaled his right leg, had been noticed by Willow. As soon as he had smelled AB Positive blood, his eyes had widened behind his glasses, and he had to actively pay attention to his wings and fangs. Though, he didn't know it belonged to Nikolai yet, as far as he knew, it had come from one of the Zebra's his friend had clobbered. And now, the smell was gone, but regardless. He had almost blown his cover. And he had more pressing things to attend to.

Like the now awake and wholly present Nikolai, who was still insisting on drinking before medical care, much to the dismay of everyone else there but himself, he had already refurnished himself with his guns and his rucksack. He was a strange sight to behold.

Chapter 27: Desolation Wilderness

Chapter 27: Desolation Wilderness

"Nikolai... What are you doing?" Flashpoint asked the drowsy Stalker. Nikolai sighed, and sat up against his rucksack. He had awoken only minutes earlier to the feeling of rough deep crimson red carpet below him, and the flickering warmth of a brazier against his back.

"Hmm..." The Stalker replied blankly as he fiddled with the buttons on either side of his personal digital assistant.

"Looking at things." He slowly raised his head from the PDA and it's glowing map to take a glance back at his friends. "What in particular?" Flashpoint clarified, Nikolai held out the digital map, scrolling outwards until Flashpoint was given a full view over the Stalker's traveled route.

"It is map of where I've been. About week and a half ago I updated map in Salt Cube city. Before, it was just orange grid with dots for geotagged locations and names that I gave them, now... Look! If almost full topographic map! I make progress, yes?"

"Nikolai? I… Don’t follow." A still veiled and cloaked Willow Lamp trotted over from his cushiony spot on the far side of the brazier and took a look at the screen. As Nikolai scrolled around, the bat pony gradually became more and more amused. "Hmm... Hmm!" The Stalker chuckled, he readjusted his seat and kicked one leg up over the other.

"You do look comfortable." Mystic trotted up to trotted up to him, his gilded robes swaying lazily as he made his way up to the trio and looked for a place to sit, doing his best to keep a calm composure as he did. It was then when a festering question arose within Nikolai, one which he just had to have answered as soon as possible.

"Um, why does it seem like every cult I meet only wear robes? And not just any robes, but always ornate and decorated robes! " He jabbed a finger of accusation at Mystic.

"It is a part of Our Tradition, it dates back beyond my own time. As for those others whom you've met? I can’t speak for them." The Stalker laughed, and reached into his rucksack for a canteen, setting his PDA down right beside himself and turning it off as discretely as possible. Unfortunately, the characteristic 'beep beep', that is always made upon shutdown tipped Mystic off, and Nikolai soon found himself crowded by a very curious eyed zebra Sorcerer. The Stalker unscrewed his canteen and took a long swig of lukewarm water.

"Oh... Think nothing of it! Is cool aesthetic! Very... Ominous and foreboding." The Stalker snatched up his PDA and turned it back on. "You are curious, yes?" Nikolai's radio crackled with static, followed by the same thickly accented Slavic voice, and the reassuring words of;

"You listen to Zone FM! Best radio station this side of Pripyat!" And the faint playing of, ' Everybody Wants to Rule the World.' Through working order speakers.

The Stalker reclined back on his sack, and began fixing himself another hardy MRE breakfast all while dealing with the trio of inquisitive equine creatures that had formed around his PDA. "Does not work off of magic." He told them, "Though, last pony I show to seemed to think that, do you know why?" Mystic shook his head.

"No, unfortunately I do not. Technology is... Not my field of expertise. I brew potions, not computers and spell matrixes." Nikolai smiled, and scrolled over the route he had traveled over the past couple of days.

"All those dozens of kilometers sure do go by quick when you have someone to talk to, yes?" Flashpoint laughed. "They sure do Nikolai."

"You can eat with us if you would like." Mystic told them. "You've more than proven yourself, I can bring some here if you so desire." Nikolai laughed. "I do indeed... So desire, please. It would make my morning." The Sorcerers left eyebrow curled upwards. "How would a meal construct your-" Nikolai held his right hand up.

"It is expression! Play on words! Is no big deal, please, I am much hungry." Flashpoint turned and looked over at Mystic. "Could you get some for me as well?" Mystic nodded, and trotted off.

"Food for the victors." Nikolai proclaimed to them, his voice flaring with enthusiasm as the words left his mouth.

"In meantime, check your guns... And... Eh- Want story? If too distract, I no tell."

Willow, who had just taken to disassembling his minute carbine, practically shot up from his disassembled weapon to hear what his friend had to say. Flashpoint, though a bit preoccupied, did the same after a few seconds.

"Alright, which one would you like to hear? The one about Luxemburg, where school friend and I got drunk on alcoholic chocolate or the one about Romania- I save details for later?"

"Who?" The zebra and batpony both asked him. This statement, absurd as it may have been... Put Nikolai in an even better mood. He couldn't help but laugh as he pulled off his rifle's dust cover, extracting the magazine and racking the bolt twice immediately after, clearing the chambered round of 5.56, which he stuffed into his coat pocket for later. With a click of the button on the back of the rifle, he removed the spring and the bolt, and gave the barrel rifling a quick inspection before snapping everything back together as quickly as he had broken it down.

"Oh... I no tell you about rest of Earth, yes? Well... You are in for big treat! Well... Story about big treat at least."

Following their half an hour of obligatory storytelling, Nikolai had both of his equine friends veritably starry eyed and cross legged on the ground in front of him. Listening to every word in slightly broken and accented English that he had to say to them, giggling from time to time like foals right up to the point Mystic arrived with a basket of food.

"It sounds as though you're enjoying your time here." The cloaked zebra observed. The Stalker nodded. "Da, it is. Little strange, to be sure. But, it is nice to feel somewhat safe in a place. Oh... Who do I kid? Is always safe with me around! Nothing bad ever happen! Is just funny lie people tell!" Flashpoint rolled his eyes.

"Sure." Willow replied bluntly, rolling his eyes under his glasses.

"Would it be alright if I sat and ate with you?" Nikolai waved him down with left index finger. "Not in the slightest, please, you sit. Is no problem." Nikolai was enthusiastic as could be, whatever it was smelled good. Ever so slightly better than the preserved meals he'd been eating for the past few weeks, first in the Exclusion Zone, then in the Equestrian Wasteland. Though... It didn't quite compare to the ra0dhog that Willow had served him the day before. He was still surprised it had tasted as good as it had. It wasn't actually quite as bad as he'd imagined. Nikolai had eaten cooked mutants before, though none quite as good as regular, unirradiated meat. That would be a constant regardless of where he went. Though, Willow's did taste better than most.

"Hmm... Is pretty good on the Slav scale of cooking." Nikolai wavered his hand as he finished devouring the flavored corpse of some strange creature.

"You really wolfed that down!" Willow said with a laugh. Nikolai smiled, and set his plate and napkin off to the side, licking the outside of his mouth clean. "Mmm... Дякую. Thank you. I hope it is not a bother, but we have to leave." He slung his rifle over his back, cracked his knuckles, and was beginning to edge up to full height when Mystic stopped him.

"Are you sure?" He asked Nikolai. "The Wasteland is a terrible place that saps the life from everything that exists within it. You are welcome to remain with us for as long as you need." Nikolai tapped his PDA one more time before standing all the way up.

"Thank you for assistance. Was much fun! Even if leg still sore from fight!" He flinched slightly and rubbed the spots on his legs where the pair of obsidian dueling spears had drawn just a little bit of blood. The Stalker's borderline copious consumption of Vodka, along with some clean bandages and a good breakfast did a fair share at mediating it. But, the slight ache was still present. Especially now that his adrenaline had faded.

"Our door is always open." Mystic informed him. "I will put in a word with our Guardians to not shoot you on sight." The Stalker smiled, and nodded his head. He knew that he would likely never return, but it was a fun thought."

"Since you were so intrepid earlier. I do not suppose that I could give you an actual spell book, but, if you would be willing to accept one more gift-" The Zebra reached into his gilded robes and pulled out a little tattered pamphlet. It was perhaps half the size of the Wasteland Survival Guide he had been given back in Salt Cube City, and at least as yellowed.

"A Foals First Guide to Sorcery. You're not a unicorn, and you posses no innate magical talent as far as I have seen. But, I thought that perhaps you might enjoy it. It may even help you on your journey." The Stalker nodded again, and moved to carefully stuff the gift into one of his rucksack's deeper pockets. That was something he was looking forward to reading.

"Дякую. Thank you."

About 20 minutes later...

A brisk departure from the Zebrican Remnant Sect compound which Nikolai, Flashpoint, and Willow Lamp presided in the night before paved the way for the rest of the day. They were once again on the open road. As they walked ever so progressively more northward, and the sight of the crumbling buildings which surrounded the Ministry of Arcane Sciences Chemical Laboratory which Nikolai had ever so chaotically braved to find a Gas Analyzer they'd need for their excursion into the ruins of Canterlot, The Stalker couldn't help but pause for a moment and gaze back at what had been their stomping grounds the last two days.

"Nikolai?" Willow called back at the wayward Stalker, trying to get his attention. “Keep up!"

"Da, is all fine. I will be there in moment." The Stalker replied, unslinging his AK 101 and dropping it into both hands as he turned to briskly jog back towards his friends to the dull crackle of a deep rough guitar tune filtering in through his radio's speaker.

"You seem off." Flashpoint said with mellowness in his voice as Nikolai took up a place in between the two equines. "So, where are we going next?" Willow asked. "There's a lot of wild territory between Whiskey Springs and Canterlot, most of it's just like the ruins we just passed through. Most of it's just the same irradiated desert, you'll see a farm or small community on occasion, but nothing like Old Olneigh or Salt Cube City."

"I want most direct route to Canterlot nothing else, hold on, we stop by rusted truck up ahead. Is only couple hundred meters. Is no place for anything to hide, sure. We seem to be alone! But, you can never be sure! Would be safer hiding anyhow." As they approached the overturned 18 wheeler lying on the eastern side of the road in uneasy silence, Nikolai was swiftly drawn to the peeling Sparkle Cola logo emblazed across the trailer's side. The Stalker pumped his fist in excitement and rushed to the overturned truck.

"Careful Nikolai!" Willow warned. "Something might be home!" The Stalker was just five meters from the truck cabin when a garbled snarl began to emanate from within. The maroon red paint on the front of the vehicle seemed like it had been flash boiled away. An almost sure result of the Balefire bombardment that had consumed the city behind them. A few seconds later, a coarse, rotting foreleg poked up from behind one of the side doors.

"Hello?" He asked. " Is there anything in there that does not want to eat me? I just check." The growling lulled for a moment, and then continued.

"Ok, I no care any more." He switched his rifle from safe to semi auto, took aim at the truck door, and threw it aside with a heave, putting two shots into the feral ghoul's head, splattering putrid irradiated blood and grey matter all over the back all over the roof and drivers side door.

"Ah... Is much pleasant! Maybe make stew later, no?"

Flashpoint fought back the sudden urge to vomit, and Willow took a few steps back as the two witnessed as their friend, uncaring of the putrid gore around him, began to rummage around the interior cabin of the truck, prying open glove the glove compartment and dashboard cabinets with some persuasion from his hatchet.

"Well?" He asked them. "Do not just stand there, help out! Pull back of trailer open, see what is in there." Nikolai took a knee away from the truck cabin to take a few gulps of water from one of his canteens. "Is fun! Sure I could have stayed in town, or in Zebra place, would have been safer, more secure. I wouldn't have pack weighing me down all day." The sounds of fevered excitement filled the air, followed by the rustling of glass and the stomping of hooves on sheet metal floors.

"What is it?"

"Nikolai!" Willow's voice resonated. The Stalker stood up and jogged around the back of overturned vehicle, and was met with several crates of Sparkle Cola, most still unopened."

"There's got to be at least thirty unopened bottles of it in here!" Flashpoint added gleefully. Nikolai fought back the urge to facepalm.

"You shouted my name over carrot juice?"

"No," Willow responded. "Well, he did. But I shouted your name over all these bottle caps." Nikolai raised an eyebrow out of skepticism under his mask. "You did not take any for yourself?" He asked his follow up question as though it was an opportunity long gone for Willow.

"Do not worry, is no problem! You take some, I take some, Flashpoint, you want as well? You take compensation in the Sparkle Cola stuff, I get caps... Still find it strange currency but- It is what it is." The Stalker walked right past his friends and began digging into the various overturned crates.

All in all, the spoils gained from the overturned pickup truck totaled four full, unbroken-albeit slightly lukewarm bottles of Sparkle Cola, and exactly ninety caps for Nikolai, most he had to pry away from shattered bottle tops in the most ungraceful and awkward display of showmanship he had involved himself in since he had first arrived in Equestria. But, it had paid off. Forty five minutes later and now they were back out on the road, a steady crosswind blowing bits of dust and gravel across the already barely present cracked asphalt.

"If only I had a truck, no... A tank! That would make travel so much easier." Nikolai wondered, letting his mind wander for the time being.

"Willow, I have question about thing I see on PDA map, it had strange name, would you mind clarifying it for me?" Nikolai broke the silence between them. The bat pony, who had been staring at something off in the distance, snapped his head to answer his friends question.

"What's bothering you?"

"You see, whole time I am here, I see just one or two tree that actually looks little bit alive. But-" The bat pony cocked his head. "But what?"

"There is a massive swath of wilderness a day or so northwest of us, it's labeled as, 'The Everfree Forest.' But, everything else here is dead. Could you explain that to me?" Flashpoint and Willow looked at one another, and then looked back at Nikolai.

"Please don't tell me you're thinking of going in there." Willow mused. "Nikolai," Flashpoint added. "If Splendid Valley and Canterlot weren't already dangerous enough for you-" The Stalker raised his hand and laughed obnoxiously.

"Now you have my interest, please tell me about this forest. What is it that makes you so warry and- Why does it still exist. If you have even seen it, that is. I do not pay too much mind to crazy local myths. I need actual advice, not drunken ramblings. Drunken Ramblings are how unwary Stalkers get themselves blown apart by a gravitational anomaly, melted by a puddle of glowing acid, or- Eaten by a bloodsucker." Willow smiled uncomfortably. "No, no! Not like you Willow, this thing not make good friend at all. It make better bullet filled corpse." The Stalker clapped his hands together.

"Well?" He asked again. "What is it about this place that is so dangerous? Please, tell me."

"Where do I begin?" Willow asked him, sounding nearly accusatory. “Where do you want me to begin?”

"Wherever you think is best." Nikolai folded his arms across his vest and listened into his friends lecture.

Chapter 28: Galivanting in The Moonlight

Chapter 28: Galivanting in The Moonlight

The distinct silhouettes of three figures walked in unison down the quiet highway. Hooves and a set of boot prints marked their northbound direction of travel as even more so than the paltry shadows which were barely present under the overcast skies above them. Nikolai, having turned a profit already today, was in high spirits. And now, as they gradually grew ever closer to the glowing monolith in the distance that marked the remains of Canterlot. A deathtrap in the eyes of Willow and Flashpoint, but a sparkling goldmine in the eyes of their resident Stalker.

"You were telling me about this 'Everfree forest'. Go on, please. I implore you."

"Yes, yes!" Willow butted in. "Have you ever seen a green tree before Nikolai? A normal tree? Leaves, live wood, the whole thing?" The Stalker's eyebrow curved downwards, and pied a glance at his Thestral friend. The statement could have been taken as a joke, a mere exaggeration. But Willow sounded dead serious in his tone of voice. And as far as physical evidence went, the distinct lack of anything green that wasn't glowing or dead and bone dry enough to give an Earthly Fire Marshal a seizure.

"You... Cannot be serious. Of course I have seen a real tree before. I walked right past one just... Two week ago? I am starting to loose track. But truly, on Earth, Europe- That is, trees are a thing you cannot easily avoid. They are everywhere, Pine, Oak... Aspen, Birch. Why do you ask me this?"

"Forget normal, the Everfree Forest is different. Now you have keep in mind that I've never actually traveled within it's borders, only flown over it from time to time. And even then, there's still a big risk inherent in that."

"What is it?" The Stalker resisted the urge to facepalm. "Quit dance around question, tell me blin! I want to know! Spill beans! Wait... Not actual beans, please. Tell truth, I mean." Willow rolled his eyes. "Alright... The Everfree forest is a place of unstable, wild magic. One of the last remaining bits of the Old World. Over the centuries it has remained mostly unchanged... " Nikolai was tempted to respond, but he bid his tongue until Willow was finished.

"Like I said, I've never landed within it's boundaries, but it goes on for some distance. Its at least an hours flight across, and even then. Only a fool would go directly through it. Like I said, it's wild and uncharted. Green and lush and untouched, sure. But don't let the pretty sights fool you. It is home to some very, very old magic. I've only heard stories, none of this is first hoof. The weather is erratic at least, and seemingly intentionally hostile at most. Almost everything in there wants to kill you one way or another."

"Flashpoint." Nikolai turned to his zebra companion." Do you have anything to add?"

"Nothing that Willow has not already told you. I do recall a tale of a mutant chicken that could turn you to stone just by staring at you." Nikolai smiled under his mask. "Ah, no problem! Is easy fix with Vodka. Also... Strange thing to say... But, I need more Vodka. Where could I acquire some?"

"Did you really just ask me where you could find some Vodka after you told me to stop drinking 3 days ago?"

"Da, I did. Slavs have prerequisite tolerance to intoxicating beverages of all kinds!"

"Oh really?" Flashpoint asked him. "Then why are you always stumbling around... Slurring your words?" The Stalker set his gloved hands back in his pockets. "Wards off radiation poisoning!" Flashpoint rolled his eyes. It was an uncommon sight for anyone who had been around the usually literal zebra.

"Sure, and bullets taste like candy." The Stalker wagged his index finger. "Do not use the sarcasm with me. It eh... No work like that." Willow readjusted his battle saddle, and looked down the highway.

"Flashpoint," The Stalker tugged on his vest, and turned down the radio. "Yes Nikolai?" A gust of wind blew a cloud of dust between the two of them. "Where do ponies get their names from? And zebras? You are Flashpoint, Willow Lamp is Willow Lamp, please elaborate!"

"Well-" Nikolai put his fiends thought to an abrupt halt with a slowly raised clenched fist. "Hold, there is something off... Take cover behind electrical pole, I need get binoculars." He took a knee and squinted his eyes.

"Are you looking at the abandoned town out there?" Nikolai remained silent for a few seconds. "No, is Wasteland playing trick on poor Nikolai, or... Is that a castle? No, I do not mean Canterlot. The regular, small, not glowing one just up road."

The Wasteland was not trying to trick Nikolai, he was indeed looking directly at a ruined castle some two kilometers away off in the distance. On a slight rise just above a town which intersected his current route. His PDA had failed to mention it, only the town below. The name, ' Frontier's Keep'. Should have alerted him, but, he never thought any more of it. The Stalker, now crouched comfortably in a drainage ditch, examined the map on his PDA.

"Ok... So, I wanted direct route to Canterlot, but- That is not possible at moment. But, but! I did find route that would get us back to main road faster than cross country hike. "

"Let me guess..." Willow deadpanned, "It's through the Everfree Forest?" Nikolai nodded feverously. "Why yes it is. We are a ways away from Canterlot... And besides, I survive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone! I venture past and into Red Forest! How bad could this 'Everfree forest' be? There! I got you! I go through more scary stuff then you!"

"I wouldn't know..." Willow responded enthusiastically. "I once had tea with a three headed radroach." The Stalker wheezed through his mask.

"Ohoho! Someone feels snarky! I swear, I will find more insane thing! Just wait! I just need think through all the epic tales I have had!" For all of his talk, all Nikolai could think about in the moment was how painful radiation poisoning felt. And how unpleasant throwing up buckwheat was. As his friends fell silent among one another, this agonizing collection of thoughts followed him all the way to the outskirts of town, lost in his thoughts, Nikolai had scarcely thought to notice the myriad of equine figures moving to and froe across their direct front. Not until Willow kicked him in the leg. And, when that gathered his attention, the crackle of small arms fire some 400 meters away certainty did. The softer cracks and loud 'thumping' noises told the Stalker that he was being engaged with an assortment of pistol calibers. This was occasional punctuated by the much louder and sharper crack of a rifle round. Thirty seconds passed, and then a minute. The crackle of gunfire and the distinct noise of bullets flying in their direction remained. But, so far, none had hit their mark. In fact, none had struck anywhere near the three. Meaning that either whomever was shooting at them wasn't actually trying to hit them, or... They were just really bad shots.

Based on his fairly recent 'past' experiences, Nikolai decided to dwell on the latter. He took knee and rested his rifle on the edge of the drainage ditch. After just a few moments of searching through his four times magnification rifle optic and it's faintly glowing red chevrons, and had been able to identify at least 4 ponies clad in roughshod armor, more fled in and out his field of view as he watched. Muzzle flashes from a few of the foremost buildings along the road. Which, as Nikolai observed, let straight through the town's center. Intersecting another road which ran Northwest to Southeast. The Stalker laughed and ducked back into the ditch.

"I believe I have identified big problem with Wasteland!" Willow raised and eyebrow as his left ear twitch from another gunshot.

"Do tell!" The Thestral responded hastily, peaking out of the ditch and raising his carbine as he did.

"It has come to my... Personal attention!" He gritted his teeth." That there are exactly three ways to traverse Wasteland, across country, where you risk starvation, dehydration, irradiation, bad weather, or feral wildlife. Along big highway, like Route 52! Where you risk all other things, but added bonus of roving caravans and occasional slavers! And, worse still- Along smaller roads, through towns- Where you get all of the things- Maybe less chance of no food. But instead, get wonderful Raiders that can see you from kilometers away! And... Big cities! Weather problem less of problem, but you get all sorts of- Well, Flashpoint, do you recall Splendid Valley? I make good point, yes?" The zebra shivered, and smiled at the ground.

"Thank you for stating the obvious oh so clearly Nikolai!" Willow said, his voice blossoming with sudden enthusiasm. "So, what's the plan for getting past this place? You do have a plan... Right?" The Stalker had taken to studying the landscape and scattered ruins to the west of Frontier's Keep. The more he watched it, the more he took notice of the occasional bits of dirt getting thrown up into the air. Which he took to be either small creatures stumbling into land mines, or the place where the majority of the Raiders shots were landing. Either way, it was out of the question.

"Nyet. That is several hundred meter dash across open ground. Is better to be safe then sorry!" He turned back to the town, and examined it again, this time through his binoculars. "Hmmm..."

"What is it?" Flashpoint asked, taking a step closer. The Stalker's head snapped back to Willow. "You have the night vision, yes?" The bat pony hesitated, and nodded, ruffling his snout. "Yes, I do. We should wait until Nightfall, and then we'll sneak right past them."

"One thing!" The Stalker exclaimed in a hushed whisper. "I want to check out that castle up there. I never get chance to visit proper, medieval castle before! Always either cheesy hotel or small ancient ruins, couple rocks in field! But this? This is something worth time! We go there, then detour through Everfree Forest, and then... Canterlot!" The Stalker lowered his head, and prepared for the long wait until nightfall. It was a shame, but... There was nothing else he could do. Trying to back up would expose them, trying to move forward would definitely expose them to direct gunfire coming from the town. Nikolai didn't like waiting in one place for long periods of time, and nightfall was still another couple of hours away. The thought of the raiders in town flanking around them and tossing grenades into the trench flashed in his mind as the sweat that had permeated on the shirt beneath his jacket all day finally began to dry, sending little shivers across his chest as he clumsily laid back in the ditch, slinging his rucksack off to one side as he did to better hide himself.

"There must be better option." He slowly raised his rifle back up over the berm, pointing it eastwards across the road, as he surveyed the landscape, he noticed a ruined barn about a half of a kilometer away. And a set of windmills just beyond it. They stood a better chance if they could make it over there without catching any stray rounds.

About half an hour into their wait, long after the gunfire had stopped, Nikolai tapped both Flashpoint and Willow on the shoulder, and beckoned them to move in closer so they could hear his whisper.

"Listen!" He said to them. "I have done a lot of thinking, and... I have come up with pre plan to actual plan! Now... Is just a little bit more risk involved. But, I am sick of sitting in hole! I have rifle, they are bad shot... Look!" He directed them towards the decaying barn.

"Yes? What about it?"

"If we make break for it... And we make it, then we will be in much better spot. Is no question. Besides, they have stopped shooting at us. And I have not seen any ponies of any sort in past two minutes." Flashpoint raised left his eyebrow. "A changing of the guard perhaps?"

"Давай! Either way, we have an opening! Let's go. This will be at long, straight dash. Do not stop for anything, yes?" The Stalker unscrewed the cap of his last bottle of Vodka, and took a short swig, he clasped his hands together, threw his rucksack back on, and took hold of his rifle.

"Alright, you go right after me, yes?" He pied one last look over his shoulder, and then, in one fell motion, scrambled up over the berm and bolted across the street to the drainage ditch on the other side. When no report of gunfire followed. He ushered his friends to get up and keep going.

The Stalker jumped up over the berm on the far side of the road and took off across open ground. Swinging his rifle from side to side in both hands, he focused himself on one thing and one thing only, making it to the other side. He was a good runner. It wasn't a foreign action to him, far from it in fact. Running, moving fast. It was just another part of a Stalker's life. Be it from a mutant who had just jumped you in the woods while you were 'taking care of business, chasing a three eyed squirrel that just took your coin pouch, or simply bolting across an open field to avoid the most unsavory addition of additional holes to one's body. It was hard to tell from his own perspective, but... Nikolai guessed that he was now at the halfway point.

In reality, he wasn't halfway, he was almost there. He just hadn't realized it because of the adrenaline running through his body. He very nearly almost dove into the old desecrated barn once he had reached it. He turned his head to realize that his friends were still at least a hundred meters behind him.

"Hurry, hurry!" He thought to himself, waving at them furiously and pointing toward the barn interior. A tense silence fell over the landscape as the two equines staggered into the barn, digging their hooves into the barn dirt to keep themselves from tripping over themselves.

"What took so long?" He tapped the temple of his forehead and crossed his arms.

" Flashpoint and I had to weave ourselves around some mines! You're lucky you didn't step on any!" The Stalker sighed. "Well, is too late to go back then! Look around, at least we are safe until Nightfall! Then... We go to castle up on hill!" Flashpoint smiled awkwardly.

"You cannot possibly still be thinking of going up there, right?"

"Am just curious! Is first time in Equestria after all, I still want to see the sights! Besides, those чудові хуліган Delightful fools must be protecting or after something! And, if it is valuable, I want it more than them!"

Exactly four hours had passed since Nikolai and his friends first made it into the dilapidated barn, now... It was beginning to get dark outside, and through his illuminated optic, he examined the fire-lit townscape. There wasn't an electrical light to be seen.

"Alright, Willow? Is time. Can you lead us? I would but... I cannot see in the dark."

The bat pony grinned as his eyes flickered like glow sticks in the near pitch blackness of the barn interior. The trio gathered their composure and set out across the moonlit field, for Nikolai to resent the moons presence was a certain first for him. Usually, it was comforting. A little bit of ominous blue and greyish light that poked through the clouds and highlighted potential dangers. If not that then it was simply a sight to behold all in of itself. But, tonight. It served only to outline the Stalker and his two Equine companions. One of which bore leathery wings and glided at what looked to be just centimeters off the ground. At the very least, Willow was able to lead them across the open field and onto a farm road that led towards the eastern side of the town. Moving as quickly as possible with an effort to keep noise to a minimum, The group jumped a stone boundary fence and began heading northwards along it. At just 100 meters from the towns edge, right near the crossroad, Nikolai took a sudden knee and surveyed the patchwork of barricades along the road. Moving his glowing triangular crosshair from silhouette to silhouette, and resting the handguard of his rifle on a bended knee to follow them for a few moments each to try to gaze their intentions.

While some ponies or other sentient creatures might think that it's downright suicidal to draw so close to an armed and illuminated force in the broad moonlight, even without it's full presence. A trained mind would know better. The bright lights within the town and the dark exterior, combined with a poor line of sight meant that Nikolai and his friends were almost perfectly obscured. To the raiders in town, nothing seemed amiss, and the sighting of the Stalker early was simply dismissed, with no effort made to go after him whatsoever.

"Alright, it all good, go!" He ordered in a hushed whisper, the three briskly made their way to the opposite road that ran northwest to southeast, and crossed it with only a minor stumble due to a loosely tied boot string on left foot snagging on a crack in the road. Something he remedied as soon as they were safe behind a dead cherry tree in the front yard of a dilapidated single story Victorian home.

"See? What did I tell you?" The Stalker asked his friends. "Worked perfectly!" After a quick break to catch his breath and relax his nerves behind the homestead they had stopped at through the judicial use of a mouthful of saltine crackers.

"You finished?" Willow asked him with curiosity as he and Flashpoint waited by a torn picket fence. "We should go! I heard voices next door!" The Thestral's words seemed to go unheard, and Nikolai continued on at his own pace. Crinkling up the packet and carefully lodging it into the coat pocket under his vest.

"Are you seriously still considering the castle? The other side of the highway is right there! We could probably make it to the outer limits of the Everfree by morning if we tried!" Nikolai shook his head, and beckoned for his friends to follow him with his dominant hand gripping the pistol grip of his AK 101 as he did. He waited until they were right behind him, and, as soon as they were both fully present, took off at a brisk pace towards the castle on the low hilltop.

Willow's ears snapped upwards.

"Fwoosh!" The sound of what sounded like a firework interrupted their slow jogging-like approach. The Stalker froze in his tracks, and turned to his companions. He had a sneaking suspicion as to what he had just heard.

"What was that?" Flashpoint asked him. "Wait for it..." Nikolai counted down with the fingers on his left hand. "Wait, stay still- Blin! I know what that is! Press yourself against the ground!" Flashpoint arched an eyebrow in the darkness. "Why?" All of a sudden, something shot up from within the castle, drifting out towards the town, in a burst of brilliant light, it ignited in mid air. Turning night into day and casting long shadows across the open stony field. One slightly terrified Ukrainian Stalker and two Equestrians not withstanding. Angry shouting from behind them devolved into bursts of gunfire.

"Blay-" Willow raised his hoof in front of of Nikolai's mask. "They aren't shooting at us! Look!" The Stalker moved his head from his planked out position in the cold dirt to turn his gaze back and forth between the town and the castle. A few bolts of red energy arched down from the castles array of parapets.

"Energy weapons?" Flashpoint edged closer. "Could it be the Enclave?"

"Nyet, I do not think so but- I have been wrong. Come on! We crawl, then we find out once they stop shooting! Whoever it is could need help! For pay!" Willow almost facehoofed at the statement. "Look where we are! How can you possibly be thinking of caps at a time like this!?"

"Why, of course! Plus... We might make new friend! Is always good thing! Давай!! We go! Quick! Before the raiders realize we aren't one of them!" His radio crackled to life again. Spouting the opening notes to 'Night Shift' as they resumed their short 'walk' towards the castle with renewed vigor. Led by Nikolai, who aggressively marched ahead of them, death gripping his rifle as the trip briskly made their way up the bombed out hill and down along the main road towards the castle.

"Halt!" A mechanical voice cried out. The crack of a rifle round over their heads told Nikolai that it might be prudent to try to heed the strangers advice.

"What!?" Nikolai shouted back.

"Who is this? Who is in there? Tell me, please! Sorry for sudden appearance! I uh... This may seem like odd question at this time and hour, but could you let me tour castle?" The sound of heavy metal hoof steps resounded from beyond the gates, and the glare of a Steel Rangers helmet shown through, Nikolai glanced downwards and spotted a pair of belt fed light machine guns on either side of of the suit. Both pointed at him and his compatriots.

"Who the fuck are you?" The voice demanded. "What are you doing here? How did you get past our sharpshooters?" The Stalker waved his right hand in a gesture of peace.

"Hello Ranger! Name is Nikolai! This is Flashpoint and that... is Willow! Sorry for late night stop, but I saw castle from road, and I got curious! I already make good name for self with you! I am friend, promise!"

The voice spoke again. Whoever was behind it sounded annoyed and surprised all at once. "You've got a lotta nerve just walkin' up to a Ranger outpost in the middle of the Night that's getting besieged by raiders. Do yourself a favor and get lost. We won't shoot you, we promise." The Ranger turned away and trotted back into the darkness of the castle courtyard.

"So... What now Nikolai?" Willow asked him. "Please don't tell me you're thinking of trying to sneak in there." Nikolai snickered, and waved his proposition away. "Of course not! I am not that crazy! I wouldn't dream of it! But hold on, hold on!" Nikolai stopped them before they could take a step back. He whirled around and flipped the Rangers off with his free hand.

"And now, we run! Quickly!" He ushered them away, giggling madly in the darkness as he once more beckoned his friends northwest, away from the disappointment of Frontier's Keep and towards whatever the Everfree Forest held in store. Nikolai could only hope that it would provided him with a bit of respite from the Wasteland. But either way, he was just looking forward to seeing a green tree again. Even if it did end up talking. In which case the Stalker would either befriend it, or swiftly acquire a new set of undried firewood. As the coarse dirt and gravel underfoot turned back into asphalt, the Stalker wished he could let his mind wander. But, he kept himself fully awake, lest he trip over some other abomination, or his own friends in the moonlight.

Chapter 29: The Trees Are Moving

Chapter 29: The Trees Are Moving

"Nikolai?"

"Yes Willow, I see them."

Following their ever so brisk departure from the failed endeavor that had been the town of Fortunes Keep, Nikolai had decided to make for the Everfree Forest in the hopes that it would be less dangerous and less time consuming to take a shorter route through the uncharted magical wilderness rather than take a longer cross country route back to the main highway. Three hours had passed since Nikolai had raised a middle finger to the Steel Ranger at the front gates of a repurposed castle. Three hours of more uncomfortable silence between the three. The sight of a few shambling equine shapes had broken that silence, and turned it to wariness.

"Who are they?"

"Ghouls, to be certain. But... They do not look feral. Ragged, yes. But not feral, their movements are too decisive."

"We should steer clear of them." Flashpoint informed him. " We don't know for sure, and the sun still isn't up yet." Willow shrugged. "Well... They don't like dangerous, and I can't see any obvious weapons from this distance. No blades, large protrusions, or gun barrels to be seen. Wait-" Nikolai and Willow both stopped. Flashpoint's eyes wandered from The Stalker to the Thestral.

"What is it? I don't have an illuminated scope, and I don't have Willow's eyesight either. What is it?"

"... Nevermind- Wait!" Nikolai held out a steady clenched fist, beckoning his friends to stop as he took a knee.

"What is it?" The Stalker hurried over to a row of rusted cars which had crashed into an embankment on the eastern side of the road. "They have escort." Flashpoint edged closer to him, and Willow followed. " What kind of an escort?" Nikolai looked again. And finally, after a few moment, Willow answered with, "The Raider-Mercenary kind. Though, I can't make out any distinguishing markings. Three, four ponies with... I cannot make out profile in darkness, one with obvious gun on saddle, one with obvious edged weapon. And, one with... I cannot tell from here. It is dark, and... Everfree forest is not much further. Get past raiders, get past magic forest, get past rest of Wasteland, get more Vodka... Boom! Canterlot!" He imitated a midair explosion with his fingers.

"Well," Flashpoint continued. "We better find a way around them or we're.... As you put it- Boom." Nikolai dismissed his statement, "Ah... Just need little bit of Slavic charm is all!"

"What do you mean by- And... He's walking away without taking our advice again." Flashpoint facehoofed as his friend enthusiastically marched his way off towards the ghouls.

The crowd of three ponies and six ghouls marched along the road headed southbound. Thee earth ponies, one charged with moving the cart, another with a shotgun, the other with a spear, and a unicorn. All male. They had decidedly taken up a contract in escorting a group of zealous ghouls. Untrusting as they might have been of them. They claimed they had 'no need for mortal possessions' And were paying handsomely for safe transit through a desolate and historically unpopulated section of the Wasteland. Word of Raider activity at the last trading post some 6 hours walk behind them meant that they'd have to travel without torch or lamplight for the time being. Leaving only the asphalt and moonlight to guide them. They'd be blind, sure. But so would the raiders. It was a solid plan-however the last thing any of them had expected was for a tall figure to appear out of nowhere, followed by the blinding glare of The Stalker's rifle mounted weapon light.

"Hey... Who are you!?"

"Stop right there! Don't come any closer!"

"Huh?" A ghoul called.

"Oh, hello! Name is Nikolai! I am try to make friend, yes?" The bright glare of his light subsided, revealing Nikolai's masked and hooded bipedal form to the caravan. "Who- What are you!?" The lead earth pony demanded. "Name is Nikolai, I am human! I come with other friends, I am try to get to Everfree forest before sunrise. How do you do? What is names?"

"How can we trust you? How do we know you aren't hiding a bunch of Raiders back behind you?"

"No, no! Only friends! I take it you are not Raiders then?"

"Wha- No, of course not!" The lead pony spat again, one of the ghouls trotted up past him, Nikolai kept still, unsure of what to do, though, given the creatures calm and seemingly measured approach. The Stalker could tell that she wasn't hostile.

"Hello Nikolai, you're an odd one." The ghoul bore neither a horn nor wings. And wore a simple brown coat, abounding with pockets. Her voice was raspy, as though she was fighting a cold, but her tone of voice hinted at curiosity rather than contempt or anger. Nikolai took a knee to bring himself down to eye level, lowering his gun in the process. As he did,
a flash from his light let to him catching sight of the large Radiation trefoil sigil painted in white across the ghouls cloak shoulder. The distinct calling card of the foals of Balefire. As the mare approached him, she caught sight of the Loner Insignia on his shoulder, and the two paused in place.

" A fellow Foal of Balefire?" Her tone brightened with enthusiasm. The Stalker laughed, and shook his head. "No, no! Is different group! But... I suppose you could call me friend! I come from place far, far from here! And.. I am trying to get to Everfree forest. Eh... How are you?"

"Oh, just splendid!" She exclaimed, tapping her hooves on the asphalt in what he took to be celebration. At this, the other ghouls began to trot up ahead of the convoy... Taking quick interest in Nikolai, who greeted them with more uncertain chuckles. "Ohoho! Hello! I.. Eh... Thank you for attention but- I need to go! Make new friends, yes?" They all nodded in almost robotic unison.

"Hey... Pal," One of the mercenaries spoke up. "Are you going to keep holding us up? Or are you going to go on your merry fucking way?" The ghoul held up her hoof.

"Now now." She said, " Perhaps we could do Nikolai here a favor and take him to the Everfree forest." The Stalker raised an eyebrow. "This... Isn't a trick? You have not even seen my face yet- And I have two friends back there. Are you sure? I... Just want make new friend. But, ok!" The Mercenary in lead rolled his eyes. " Oh, whatever. As long as you pay us a bit extra. And no crazy detours, to the outer limits of the forest edge, and that's it! No amount of caps will convince me to go any further."

"Alright." The ghoul replied, turning and smiling as the two forms of Willow and Flashpoint came up behind the Stalker. "Nikolai... I hesitate to ask but- What did you do? But why are all these ghouls smiling at you, and-" Nikolai held up his gloved hand in a gesture for Flashpoint to stop.

"Don't worry! I told you! I make new friend, and... They even offer to give free ride to Everfree by cart!" He turned back to the ghoul. "This is Flashpoint and... Hooded guy is named Willow." The Stalker rose back to his full height and gestured to each of his very confused friends.

"There's no need to worry, we won't shun a zebra, or anypony else. There is no need to hide. But you may if you wish to."

The lead mercenary rolled his eyes again, "Yeah yeah, whatever. Just cause us any trouble. Now, are you gonna help us turn the wagon around?"

The sudden apathy and discomfort which the leader had begun to exhibit towards Nikolai and his two friends seemed to not extend two his two associates. And they soon struck up a conversation with The Stalker, throughout it, they seemed to be nothing if not open about their journey. A 'pilgrimage' as they described it, to a supposed safe haven for ghouls down south in a place named, 'Salt Cube City'. Nikolai wisely withheld the fact that he had taken a chunk of said magic radioactive salt cube with him. But, was otherwise happy to share details about the Glow with his new friends. As the Night went on, and the moon rose higher the faint and foreboding treeline and crags of the Everfree forest came ever more into view. As the moon once more disappeared beyond the cloud layer, and the Waste grew dimmer in the early, early morning, the caravan finally reached it's destination. At about a kilometer from the forest, the pavement underhoof turned to dirt. A broken and rusted road sign half covered in graffiti was the only telltale sign of what was to come.

"Everfree Wilderness boundary marker, magical Perils ahead: Proceed at own Risk!" The Stalker took humorous note of the sign, while Flashpoint, Willow, and even a few of the Caravan occupants seemed to worry at it.

"Yeah..." The burly earth pony whole was hauling the cart began. "Mah reading skills ain't the goodest, but there's no way in hell that I'm going in there." The Stalker dismounted from the cart and rolled his shoulder blades, resulting in an audible crackle. As he cheerfully walked up and examined the sign beneath a defunct telephone pole.

"Well, Willow, Flashpoint! We are here. The mythical forest that you told me so much about!"

He drew his PDA, and examined the digital map again. "Fast way between two places is straight Should help with time! We go! слідуй за мною! follow me!" He paused himself, and turned back to the ghouls. "Thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it." The Stalker tapped his boot against the ground.

"Ma'am, what is your name?" The mares dull, yellowed, and slightly glowing eyes widened. "Gosh, it's been a while. Let me think... Rose... Rose Mary!" The Stalker laughed, "You should make better work of remembering who you are. Who knows? Perhaps it could still have use?" He laughed again, gave Rose Mary a thumbs up, and began walking off.

"Good luck on journey!" He called back. "You too Nikolai!" The ghouls resonated in unison. Flashpoint shuddered. "That's a... Bit odd, wouldn't you say so?" The Stalker shrugged. "Nyet. Seems perfectly fine."

"You were the one who was perfectly at ease around a hovel of cultists yesterday." Willow pointed out, bounding ahead just a little ways until he was standing parallel with Nikolai.

"That was different." Flashpoint grumbled to himself. "I was surrounded by friendly-"

"Creepy, is a better word for it." Willow responded as the dark, lush green boundary of the Everfree grew ever closer. "And I'm a Thestral! If anything, I would be the one to give you the meaning of the word." He lowered his cowl just enough to stick his little fangs off in a show of mock force, cracking a little grin as he did.

As the Stalker approached the misty treeline, a flurry of memories passed through his mind. His brain harkened back to the moments before he had been transported to the Equestrian Wasteland, walking through the anomalous Ukrainian Forests of the Exclusion Zone, sitting around a campfire and sharing stories with fellow Stalkers, running from the bloodsucker, getting ambushed by Monolith in the Truck Cemetery. In a way, the Everfree, even just beyond it's borders, seemed to emit a strange feeling of uneasiness and mystery. It was that same old feeling of foreboding that he had felt when he had first crossed into the Zone.

"Well, we're here. Officially here."

"Nikolai... Are you sure about this?" Willow asked, "I mean, there's still time to turn back, maybe we could just follow along the edge of the forest? W-we don't actually have to go in there!" The bat pony stammered suddenly. Nikolai raised his left index finger, and pointed off into the depths of the woodland.

"It has been like two week since I see actual normal looking green thing! We go! Onward!" The Stalker furrowed his brow, and, like the true Stalker he was, took one great big boot stride into the woodland, setting it down on the soft grass with as much preplanned grandeur as he could possibly amass. He took another step, bringing his full self into the foggy wild of the Everfree. He took his rifle off safe, and snapped his neck back around to look at Willow and Flashpoint, who seemed all the more hesitant to follow in Nikolai's footsteps. It was Flashpoint who tapped on his green tail and nudged him forward.

"Wow." The Stalker removed his mask and took a deep breath.

"Ohoho!" Oh... That smells good! The morning dew on the trees! How is this place still like this? I don't see anything to be scared about, both my Geiger counter and Anomaly detector read nothing out of ordinary. And... Let's see- Neither does Gas Analyzer! Is like paradise!" He held back the almost overwhelming desire to hug a live tree. Instead, he set his rucksack off to one side, and simply fell back onto the cool dirt and opting to lay down for a few moments in the wet grass.

"Ah... Is like I am back on Babushkas farm in early summer morning! Sunrise, Kompot, apples, help out in field... Spend time down by creek, try and skip rocks across... Laugh about no school..." He breathed a sigh of relief as Flashpoint and Willow both stared down at him in confusion. " Hey, Nikolai?" Flashpoint asked him. "Didn't you say this route was supposed to... Um... Save time?"

"Ah, take time and enjoy Flashpoint! Tell me, when is next time you will get chance to see and touch actual green grass? Is momentous occasion! Be careful, this forest brings back feelings of time in other foggy forest I traveled in. Is peaceful now but- I have strange feeling in stomach."

"Probably because you haven't eaten in over half a day."

His zebra companion replied humorously. "Fine!" The Stalker sat back up and threw his arms up in sarcasm as he snatched up his rucksack. "I suppose I will eat because I need to keep functioning! And... Other stuff! Big early breakfast, and then we go off through forest- And... Do stuff. According to map! That turn in the road back there... If we were to go straight north, could cut up to full day and a half off of travel time! Is excellent idea! Plus, look at scenery! I get to eat pleasant breakfast on giant root of lush green mossy tree!" He quickly glanced around and added.

"In really, really creepy forest! Blyat! Magic ruined fun again!"

He neglected to even think twice about the absurdity of the situation. He figured that he was past the normal instances of 'creepy'. Given the things he had witnessed in the brief period of his life that he had spent making his way through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and the Equestrian Wasteland. Within 10 minutes, he had finished his brisk meal, the same MRE assortment of prepackaged rations as always, he crumbled and stuffed his trash into his rucksack, and once more beckoned Willow and Flashpoint to follow him.

Willow, having taken a long look at the environment ahead of then, went ask his friend something out of the ordinary.

"Nikolai? Can I lead this time?"

The Stalker turned his head as he pulled his jacket up over his mouth and nose like a primitive ski mask and stuffing his GP-5 gas mask back into it's pouch accordingly.

"Why?" Nikolai cracked his knuckles and hefted his rifle, rolling his thumb back over the flashlight which he had duct tapped to the AK 101's left side. "Well, take a look. It's the same as with Fortune's Keep. Only, instead of night time, there's fog and a thick tree canopy. I'd be able to discern Danger faster and further away then you ever could out here." He raised his glasses, baring his catlike glowing eyes for all to see.

"Alright!" Nikolai clasped his hands together, "Lead way! This should only take about half day, then... Straight shot to Canterlot!" Willow took his place, and the group was off again. Bushwhacking like Nikolai was back in the woodland of Northern Ukraine. The Stalker made an effort to tread as carefully as possible, taking slow, determined steps that left only shallow footsteps, if any at all in the lush grass. Every once and a while, at intervals varying from seconds to minutes, he would begin spouting random bits of wisdom and information. Most, if not all of which, both equines committed to memory as fast as they possibly could.

"Take a look out behind you every while, memorize way in. Just in case we need to backtrack."

While Willow may have flown over the Forest before, Nikolai was the only one among them with any sort of woodland related knowledge. And all the while, the trio was on edge. Superstitions and longstanding myths of the wild magical danger which the Everfree contained still lingered in all minds but Nikolai's. Though skeptical and worried himself, he liked to have a full account of something before he took it to heart.

"Trust, but verify." The proverb went.

Any chance of the later half of that statement was crushed the instant they came to a small clearing with a little stream, and were met with a distinctly agressive low growling from the bushes on the far side. From within them came a strange, doglike creature with glowing green eyes, not abnormal for the Wasteland. But what was odd, and glaringly stood out, was the fact that it seemed to be made entirely of tree bark and twigs. Wasting no time, the aberration made a mad dash for the creek. The Stalker snapped out of his blissful state and opened fire on the creature, dumping six whole shots into it before it collapsed in a heap of wood on the ground, the green glow fading from it's eyes soon afterwards.

"що на землі? What on Earth? The Stalker mumbled. "Willow?" His voice grew more attentive. "What was that thing? Wood dog?"

"No... A Timberwolf. " He clarified. "In the most literal sense of the name." Flashpoint added. "I've got a bad feeling about all of this Nikolai. There's a reason why no one-" Time seemed to stop around The Stalker as he took his finger off the trigger of his gun and slowly moved to set his deadpan expression on the Zerba.

"What?"

"You never say stuff like that! Is bad luck, you not know? Well, I teach now! I not really believe in luck... But I have plenty of experience!" He patted his friend on the head, leaning over as he did. For a moment, his mind found it partly absurd that these two little creatures could be capable of being anything more than glorified petting zoo exhibits, but... Here they were regardless, reasoning back and forth with him and carrying weapons, armor, and ideas of their own. That part of him wondered weather such company could keep him safe the same way a group of similarly armed humans could. He just found it a bit hard to put faith in something so small. But then again, he put his faith into bullets all the time.

"You might actually be right about that Nikolai." The Stalker grinned wildly as he judiciously redonned his mask. "Why of course I am."

"No, no... The other thing. Bad luck, and all that-" The Stalker whipped around and wildly surveyed the treeline back and forth, stepping right up to the bank of the shallow creek as he did.

"Give me your empty canteens, I can fill them up while you're watching my back." The Stalker unzipped his rucksack and passed him his, Willow did the same.

"We cannot stay here long. Is dangerous, something could have heard crack of gunshot. From here, we are silent. Anything makes noise in forest, we shoot- Ok?"

Ten minutes passed after the fact with nothing to note. With his rifle raised at a passive-aggressive low ready in case another wooden wolf decided to pick a fight with him. The Stalker's Geiger counter never read odd, though, his anomaly detector did beep, but only for a brief moment from time to time, the ticking would grow louder, and then fade off as if some invisible force was rushing back and forth past him, playing the same tricks on his devices that the state of the still foggy forest was on the imaginations of his friends. He was still a bit shaken up- If a Stalker like him could even be so after the things he had witnessed in Splendid Valley. All of a sudden, a noise sounded from deep in the forest, like bird cry, but deeper, and more distorted.

"Is that... A dragon?"

"It could be." Willow responded. "Let's keep on going, I'd say our chance to relax has long passed." Nikolai tucked his rifle's stock under his shoulder as he tapped a finger on his mask's filter.

"Shh."

The Thestral gave his compact battle saddle-stock hybrid a tug, nudging his carbine around as he did, and gesturing ahead. "There is a clearing just up ahead, and... It's occupied."

"By what? The Stalker asked in a hushed whisper. "Bodies, and ruined carts- A lot of them. Let's get closer." Flashpoint galloped up to Nikolai and Willow, until he was almost back to back with them. The three made their way forwards through the thick underbrush. As they walked by a particularly thick grove of trees, Nikolai almost swore he saw something blue and black move in the canopy, almost snake like. Either way, it had passed by too fast for him to get any good look at it, despite Flashpoint also seeing it. They kept on ahead, taking cover behind some tree trunks to examine the scene ahead of them.

"Well... That's horrifying." Willow murmured bluntly.

It was a wagon train, or at least, whatever was left of one. Crushed wheels and axels lay strew across the ground, torn to splinters. Rubber wheels and chunks of metal lay strew about the meadow, a little trail down the center being the only indication that civilization had carved it's way through the forest some long, long time ago. The half dozen wagons themselves had been strewn about the clearing, broken and torn. With splatters of dried blood and strange stains here and there that didn't look natural. Both smashed skeletons and heavily decayed corpses lay torn apart all around. At least 15 of them, from initial observations alone, and perhaps most concerning of all was the torn cages, bullet casings, and and defunct firearms lain about, most still in the grasp of the pony who had been using it in their last moments.

"Господи вище..." The Stalker reached down and cautiously pried a pistol from a skull that looked to have been cracked in half. Examining it, he found the magazine release, which gave with some effort, and then racking the slide, revealing an rusted 9 millimeter cartridge jammed in the action, with a firm rack, it came loose and rattled out onto the dirt.

"Caught right in middle of action. Judging by cages and... Mediocre state of armor and weapons, I would assume that this is old Slaver Caravan, perhaps they got lost?" Willow shook his head.

"A caravan this size? Check this out." The Thestral guided his friend over to a broken metal lockbox which had broken off a wagon when it had been overturned, he reached for a piece of yellowed paper, and unfolded it.

"A map of their route. Still think they were lost? They were after something deeper in the forest. But, it seems like the forest got to them first." The Stalker picked up what papers still remained from the lockbox, inviting Willow to take the map while hoarding the rest for himself.

"There's something moving in the trees again!" Flashpoint called back to his friends. The Stalker and Thestral halted their rummaging through the caravans neglected goods and took up a central spot in the center of the meadow.

"Shh... Get behind wagon! Don't do any-"

Nikolai had seen a lot in his life, but... When a modest oak about 40 meters away uprooted itself, and began maneuvering forwards on it's larger roots, he was almost certain that he had somehow taken some very, very dicey drugs without knowing. But more than likely it was just the same life that he had grown accustomed to in the past two weeks.

Willow crept right up to the corner of The Stalker's hood and said in a hushed, almost angry whisper; "That tree is walking around. Nikolai- That fu-" He pushed Willow away and ducked out.

"Flashpoint!" He waved at the Zebra. "Flashpoint! Over here!" The zebra turned his head, and caught sight of the uprooted tree.

"What the-" Something crept over a wagon on the far side of the clearing. A mass of tangled black vines with bluish thorns that twitched and snapped as they swarmed across the ground like an overturned tub of snakes.

"Ah-!" One of them shot forwards and just barely missed Flashpoints leg. The Zebra buckled upwards and turned his submachine gun on the vine, tearing it to shreds with a panicked five round burst of shoddy ammunition. He landed on all fours and bolted over to Nikolai, who unpinned and tossed an apple shaped grenade right into the middle of the pile of twisting vines, ushering his friends to take off running an instant before the explosive went off, sending glowing slime every which way.

"We go! I think I know what kill Slavers!"

The sound of shallow hoofsteps galloping towards them quickly resounded in the form of an equine shaped abomination that looked like it had been pulled out of a petri dish. Hardly paying attention the Stalker dipped down under his scope, and, not wasting any time to line up his iron sights, dumped half a magazine into the creatures right side, sending it splattering to the ground in a disgusting heap of what looked like fungal spores the size of ping pong balls that drifted away on the cool breeze like terrifying dandelions.

"And now we run!" Another set of hostile vines unfurled itself from a nearby tree, and then another.

Nikolai was already gone, back to his favorite, and perhaps most essential past time next to basic human functions- food, water, sleep, shelter, reason, Vodka, and so on and so forth. Not any of those, but the one which had kept generations of his ancestors from being bear food.

Running.

The Stalker and his two companions wisely made the decision to have 'none of it'. And take off in a mad, hardly coordinated dash through the woods as fast as their own respective legs could carry them. Their frantic dead sprint took them about a full kilometer before Nikolai brought them all to an abrupt, wheezing stop.

"Do you still think it was worth the time we're 'saving' going through this forsaken place, and instead using it to fight off whatever those things were?"

Something moved off to their left, and then their right. The almost petrifying noise of rustling leaves filled the narrow animal trail they were on. Another tree, this one about 50 meters east distant, swarmed with more thorny vines. And, off to the west. A large, cougar like thing with a barbed tail and bat wings seemed to have taken a sudden interest in them.

Nikolai reached into a pouch on his vest and swapped magazines, "Leave it! We go, stop for nothing." The giant cat thing bounded up into the air with it's claws outstretched, the only meal it got was a mouthful of copper jacketed 5.56 rounds directed at it's upper thorax, followed by a burst of submachine gun fire from Flashpoint for good measure, and an execution shot from Willow's carbine.

Nikolai's radio crackled to life again, static ridden, but, it was broadcasting from the same Zone FM that he seemed to be perpetually tuned into. At the same time, his PDA beeped. Something he didn't realize at the moment, being that he was too busy running from the flurry of aberrations intending to make him and his friends into a human-equine salad.

"What now Nikolai?" Flashpoint shouted as a tree came in between them.

"We go until we find the other side! Is shortcut!" He paused to catch his breath. "Remember! Is not that far! Dangerous, not far!"

Another thorny bramble reached down from a tree, making a grab for Nikolai. But the Stalker was just a little bit quicker, he, in his infinite wisdom, decided to grab the carnivorous vine, ripping it down from the tree like a wild python and tearing it in apart with his knife in a blind rage, taking it to the ground and wrestling with it, repeatedly stabbing at it and pounding it into the dirt until it stopped moving. The Stalker arose and wiped the green and blue pulp from his gloves and pants.

"What? I had enough." The Stalker took off again at a slight jog, prompting Willow and Flashpoint to hurry after him.

"Note to self, consult Wasteland Survival guide next time! This was less than ideal!"

About ten minutes later, the persistent sounds of things in the trees, along with the ever present growling coming from the bushes, which receded almost as fast as it had appeared.

"You know," Nikolai began. "Back in the Zone, a mutant's body parts and pelts could be sold for quite a profit to the right people. Crazy Ecologists, I never really got it but- They did pay well. The only problem was that in the zone, almost the whole food chain was turned up on it's head. And humans were at the very bottom. The only good thing?" He flexed his left hand, raising his rifle with his trigger hand as he did, "Guns, and alcohol. Two things that I have, that those creatures do not."

Willow laughed enthusiastically. "Clearly you've never seen a Hellhound wield a shotgun before. The Stalker's eyes widened.

"Those things can use tools? You can't be serious." Willow chuckled uncomfortably, shifting his hood a bit to itch a spot on his neck. As he shifted his head off to one side and raised his right leg to rub up against it, he spotted Nikolai's hands, and an idea popped into his mind.

"Hey, Nikolai. I know this might sound... Odd, but would you mind scratching behind my right ear? Just down my neck, it's just been bugging me the past 5 minutes, and I can't stand it any longer." The Stalker slowly swiveled his head to take a look at the bat pony, though his face was obscured by his mask. Willow was almost certain that he was contemplating laughing. What he wasn't expecting was for him to walk on over and oblige his request.

"Ohh..." The Thestral's left ear drooped. "That feels much better-" His hand tugged on Willow's dark green mane, pulling at the roots. The suddenness of the feeling caught him unprepared. "Oww! What was that!?" The bat pony yelped, and pulled himself away from Nikolai's hand

. The Stalker held out his gloved palm to reveal a blue thorn.

"You had this lodged in your mane, it was scraping up against fur. Any deeper and you might have had великий проблема. Big problem." He brushed Willow's mane aside and examined the same spot. "Well... It looks fine-" A loud roar echoed through the forest, shaking trees and causing birds and all manner of other strange flying creatures to bolt off into the sky. Some strangely falling to the ground as soon as they had taken flight, a few more turned to stone.

"Welcome to jungle!" Nikolai murmured sarcastically, letting Willow resume his place at the head of the group. Another roar resonated through the forest, this one quite a bit closer. It came from right behind them.

"And that..." Willow said, trying very hard not to loose any measure of calm which he still had left. "Is a dragon. And from the sounds of it, it's heading right for us!" Nikolai's pace quickened again as a massive shadow swept overhead.

"I am starting to dislike this place again."

"Avoid that blue flower!"

"Why!?" The Stalker shouted.

"That's Killing Joke, it will quite literally use practical jokes to try and kill you!" Nikolai decided that the potential money he could make from such a thing wouldn't be worth dying to an overtly sarcastic plant, so he steered clear of it. Just as quickly as the draconic shadow had appeared above them, it disappeared. The trio kept on sprinting until Nikolai was fuming with pain, and his mouth tasted like bile. Eventually, the ground underfoot turned from grass, back into coarse and lifeless dirt. He couldn't take it anymore, and almost fell flat on his face when he went to take a knee, tearing off his mask and setting the palms of his gloved hands in the dirt, spitting and cursing under his breath.

"Ну це була марна трата часу та боєприпасів!" He breathed a heavy sigh as the suppressor on the end of his rifle brushed up against the cold ground. "Nikolai? Nikolai! Are you ok?" The Stalker coughed again. "Yes, I am fine. Just fine, that was a complete waste of time and bullets, I need a drink- And were are we?"

He felt Flashpoint's hoof on his shoulder, "Look up Nikolai, your shortcut worked." The Stalker wiped the bile from his mouth with his jacket sleeve and smiled grimly.

"Sorry, I've never run for that long, that was what? Seven, maybe eight kilometers?"

Willow shrugged. "I don't know, but it worked. Take a look."

The Stalker shifted his gaze up from the ground. The vibrant myriad of green shades that had made up the boundaries of the Everfree were now gone. Ahead of him lay nothing but the dull browns of the Wasteland. Off in the distance, he could see what looked like wooden power line poles, and a road. The ground directly ahead of him sloped down a bit, and then up gradually. The rotting skyscrapers that had potmarked the horizon for the entire past week were gone, replaced by rolling hills and thousands upon thousands of burnt tree stags. What few ruins lay here and there seemed much more humble, radio towers, small brick and wooden buildings, rusted out cars. It was much more rural, even compared to the open plains that he had just gone through. The empty sound of wind was all that remained. Off to the north west was a modestly sized town, just barely visible among the atmospheric interference.

But most important of all to Nikolai, was the cluster of towering mountains off to the north. And the Monolithic castle ruins atop it, still surrounded in the pinkish haze which made it shine like a lighthouse floodlamp in a storm. And now, thanks to their shortcut, even closer than before.

"Yes, it did work! I was right! And it only took two full magazines and a bit of temporary discomfort! It was actually more pleasant then Splendid Valley!" His PDA beeped again, but this time, he actually noticed it, and pulled it out to examine it's map.

"I think I know where that caravan we found back in forest was going. There was a Stable out there. One of those giant bunkers I have heard so much about, remember? Oh well, is too late now. I no go back in there for anything. We go, this is poor spot to rest." And, just like that, he was up again as his radio played a faint upbeat tune called, "Bringing Back the Sunshine."

He found it's tone of enthusiasm fitting, given what had just happened, and what he still had ahead of him before he could reach Canterlot, and, hopefully, be able to solely declare himself:

"Nikolai, Supreme Cap Emperor of The Equestrian Wasteland!"

Though, if need be, he would also settle for a lifetime supply of good, tasty food, and a nice little farm with his friends. But either way, he intended to make his almost Napoleonic Dreams of Grandeur a reality, he'd just have to work a little harder to achieve them.

Chapter 30: Destiny Made Manifest

Chapter 30: Destiny Made Manifest

"It won't be much longer until we are upon Canterlot itself, what shall we do then?"

That was a question still far out of Nikolai's mind.

The Central part of the Equestrian Wasteland was much, much more lively than the 'heartland'. That Nikolai and company had spent the last week traveling through. All in all, Nikolai had counted them up, and realized that he had been in the Wasteland for all of just under two weeks now. And now, he was in the final stretch, Canterlot was in sight. Soon, he thought. He would be rolling in piles of caps, a humble lord over the Wasteland. A buzzing, metallic sphere about a hundred meters distant grappled him from his fantasizing and threw him back into real life.

"Hold on- What is- Blya... No way!" He pointed at the sprite-bot as it slowly wound it's way across the road. Willow raised an eyebrow. "That's a sprite-bot, you've never seen one before? What's the history here?" Nikolai itched a spot on his arm through his coat sleeve and hefted his rifle.

"I have not seen one since Splendid Valley." Flashpoint raised an eyebrow and winced. "Was this before or after I was foalnapped by you-know-who and left to rot in the what I am fairly certain was the most dangerous location with the most dangerous creatures in the entire Wasteland?"

Almost as if reacting to his statement, the robotic entity spun around in mid air, and locked it's center of mass right on Nikolai and his two companions, directing it's massive speaker right at them, before turning right around and buzzing away as though nothing had happened. The issue with this was that nothing had happened. And robots weren't usually known for reaching to passing comments made from a distance of, and a volume at, that it would have been just out of earshot for Nikolai and most other humans. Creatures not particularly well known for having a natural acclimation to picking up quaint sounds from a distance.

"Blin, it heard you, and then flew away!" The Stalker cried, gesturing from Flashpoint to the robot in a dramatic fashion, waving his hands about like he was in a grandiose foreign play." I just want to check out flying radio thing!"

"Why? There's things of value in them, sure." Willow began. "But, it's nothing immediately useful. They are armed though." Nikolai's fingers danced across the gas block of his rifle in a dismissive manner, "What kind of armament? Is this... Delivery drone with a Glock situation? Or is this the kind of thing that would take missile to put down? Surely it cannot be the latter, right?"

"I've never seen the insides of a functioning sprite-bot before Nikolai." The batpony informed him. "Only little bits and pieces from rusted out carapaces or from seeing them in action. They might not look like much, but I've seen them use Plasma weapons able to burn a radroach to cinders. And that steel casing is tougher than it looks. It's just that they..."

Nikolai pressed his friend for more information. "Yes?"

"Well they aren't known for acting, at all! They buzz around, and they play music. They're supposed to be a funny nuisance, nothing more! Attacks are few and far between, and attacks on ponies are almost unheard of."

"Are they unheard of because they do not happen?" Nikolai asked him. "Or are they unheard of because... No one is ever left behind to tell story?" Willow stifled, "Either way, they're nothing more than a pleasant oddity as it stands."

"I have never seen one of them stand on anything! What is this, 'standing sprite-bot' you talk about? Is like Robot I see back in Whiskey Springs? Look like pony perhaps?" The batpony rolled his almost slit pupils.

"That wasn't what I-Whatever!" The bat pony gave up, resorting to a series of under-the-breath mumbles. Nikolai reached back into his rucksack, and took long series of gulps from another canteen.

"Out here, it is a constant drive to survive. We agree, yes? Only people that have it good are the ghouls... And they are walking corpses!" Nikolai checked his digital map again, and refocused his gaze back on the road ahead. "Not enough bullets, not enough food, not enough water..." His voice grew rougher.

"Not enough Vodka!

He stopped in the middle of the road for a brief moment, just long enough to snatch up his last bottle of Vodka from home. All of 8 ounces remained, and he intended to save it for some big occasion. Which meant that, until he found himself a new way to satisfy his craving, he would be left in a perpetual state of tipsy grumpiness. Overridden only partially by his almost unquenchable thirst to keep himself entertained. He turned up the volume on his radio. Allowing an only marginally staticky tune to filter through.

"Well you're ride a black tornado 'cross the wester sky, rope an ol' blue northern and milk it till it's dry... Bulldog the Mississippi, and pin it's ears down flat... Long before you take this cowboy's hat..."

It was by random chance that Nikolai bumped the radio knob right off Zone FM. After a few moments of loud static, the Stalker took hold of the knob, and slowly went to readjust it, but, as the dial passed back over the static, something came through the airways.

"Hello!? This-" The message cut out for a few moments. Then, after about 15 seconds, seemingly ended with the words,

"-The Prairie City Lumber Mill! Please I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to hold-" A monotone beep resounded over the channel. And about a minute later, the message repeated, cutting out in the middle just as the previous transmission had.

Nikolai cracked his knuckles and rolled his aching neck. "Is destress signal, Willow, where is this Prairie City?" The bat pony galloped up to his friend, the look of worry he had on his face presented Nikolai with a feeling of only mild concern.

"Nikolai... There's no telling how old that signal is. And if it's broadcasting this freely- Then I can tell you for certain that trying to follow it is a bad idea. I've heard dozens of distress calls like that before. One time, up north... I heard one while recovering in a safe house. I got curious and decided to check it out." The Stalker paused for a moment to retie his boot string.

"Go on."

"So anyhow, I fly off in the late afternoon, and... When I get there a few hours later, who do I find but a group of very lost Stable Dwellers? Duking it out with a gang of bandits that had repurposed an old prewar radio tower as bait to draw ignorant ponies in. It was a shame, but I left as soon as there was a null in the fighting. I've flown past Prairie City before, it's a few hours northwest of here. I never thought it was worth stopping at. But... If you think it might be worth checking out- We're all ears, right Flashpoint?" The Batpony nudged the tired zebra on the shoulder.

"Huh? Oh... Yes! Of course!" Nikolai readjusted the lower strap on his two point rifle sling. "Oh, how can you be tired? Was long day... Sure... I mean, we have not slept since Zebra Cultist place. But I am sure we can get just a little closer to this Prairie City. If those ponies there have been waiting for God knows- How long! " He rested his hands on the worn magazine pouches of his vest.

"Then we-I mean, they can wait longer. Ohh...." The Stalker clutched his head for a moment, wincing in pain under his mask. "Hey, are you ok?" Flashpoint bumped his leg. Nikolai let out an enthusiastic laugh. "Why of course! I am excellent! Why would I not be?" He reached into his rucksack, stumbling along in an effort to multitask and continue making progress towards his objective, all while he took a pair of Ibuprofen tablets and washed them down with a long gulp of water from his reserve canteen. As he pulled his mask up above his brow line, both of his companions were presented with a long look at Nikolai's red, poorly shaven face, his bloodshot eyes, and his cracked lips. As he downed the tablets, a small smile overtook his face.

"Oh... Why are you staring at me? You two look just as bad!" The Stalker let forth another laugh as he redonned his mask, pulling it back down by it's dusty olive green filter.

"Is fine! Is fine! No worry! You see, Vodka work like magic for me. I just go to fast over past few days, is not bother. No no, not like time in Zone." He gestured to a cluster of roughshod brick and plaster buildings off in the distance with his right index finger.

"Willow- You said that it is about a half day's walk from here, yes? Well... Even if we started now, we would probably get there by nightfall. And human- And I am guess pony body as well- Can only go so long without proper allotment of sleep before- Boom." He raised his right palm and swung it towards the ground in an effort to convey a complete biological blackout.

"We could use rest- And, hey!" He pointed off towards a worn highway sign in the distance. Nikolai jogged up to it and examined the sign.

"Let us see... Oh! Grocery Store/Farmers Market: 1.5 Miles, just at next exit!" He would have jumped with excitement if not for the pain medication which was still settling in his stomach.

Nikolai waved his friends down, gesturing feverously to the sign. "Our fortunes took turn for better! I need more food, I need more water, I need more Vodka! Is perfect place! Come on, come on! Davay!"

A lonely tarnished grocery bag blew across the cracked asphalt from one little parking lot to another, lodging itself under the deflated and decaying wheel of a rusted out pickup truck. Beyond that stood a modest small warehouse made from grey bricks, outside, a single lamp atop a highline pole flickered incoherently, the same way it always had for over two hundred and twenty years. Against the ancient ruins, it might not have been much, but if anything. It was a testament to how much it's creators had put into it to keep it running. Even if they might not have planned to go over two centuries without changing the bulb, it was still an impressive feat nonetheless. Especially to Nikolai from a distance, and even more to the seemingly mesmerized mutant moth that was resting on the pole just beneath it.

"Pest." The Stalker mumbled.

Nikolai slowly upholstered his sidearm, letting his rifle fall upon its sling, he took a knee, unsaftied the pistol, and put one round clear through the soccer ball sized abomination., scattering its putrid remains across the ground in a mess that the Stalker and his two friends were glad to steer clear of. He reholstered his gun and took up his rifle, casually strolling up onto the sidewalk and crossing the parking lot with little care given to the various little radroaches that scurried away from his boots as he made his way to the store front, Nikolai brought his rifle up took stock of the interior with his mounted flashlight.

"It looks clear!" He shouted back to his friends, taking a step inside past the smashed grass doors and metal frames. Judging by the graffiti and burned out barrel fires, they weren't the first ones to pass through here. Though, judging by the lack of hoofprints, and the pervasive dust, it definitely seemed like no one had been through here in a while.

"Willow, Flashpoint." He waved his friends over. "Ok, here is plan. We clear out store first, and then we begin looking for valuables. I no want get shot in back, da?"

The Stalker beckoned Flashpoint to watch his back, all while Willow insisted that he explore the far side of the supermarket. It wasn't the largest one that Nikolai had ever seen, but it was still relatively large. Built out of what looked like an old warehouse, it was at least 10 meters from the smooth concrete floor to the roof. Nikolai supposed that it once had a name, but the sign outside had been burn and shot and graffitied and torn to bits and strewn all about the parking lot. As they went isle by isle, Nikolai finally got a chance alone with Flashpoint to get to ask him some questions that had been rattling about his head since they had left Fortunes Keep.

"So Flashpoint, I asked you a little while ago where you got your name from, or did I? Anyhow... Where did it come from?" The Zebra shrugged as he swung his submachine gun around a corner and advanced towards the bathrooms.

"That's an... Interesting question. I will tell you and Willow right after we're done with this." He quickly turned away in disgust.

"Do you still have that chemical suit helmet from the Laboratory?"

"Why yes... I do Nikolai, it's been taking up quite a bit of space in my saddlebags. Seeing that it doesn't exactly offer much protection against bullets, I don't see all that much of a point in it now. Or at least... Not until we reach Canterlot."

"I would rather you both acquired full chemical suits. But it is no matter, we will figure out way!" After another store isle, He patted his friend on the back, and turned back around.

"Willow!" There was a brief moment of silence as the rafters above creaked. "Yes?" The Thestral's voice echoed back.

"All good!" He exclaimed, cupping his hands around his mask. "Nothing but a few more bugs!"

"I found some stuff, and some other stuff!" Willow Lamp's voice responded.

"What!?"

"Come here!"

Nikolai and Flashpoint hurried their way across the store, right across the central path that led right from the front doors, through the checkout lanes, and all the way to the back. Wide isles presided over either side. Stacked with two to three levels of shelves each. Alongside little the little stalls outside, the produce bins inside, and the refrigerator section, it was a pretty nice establishment. Even if time had not been kind to it. Nikolai rounded a corner on the northbound side of the store, and came face to face with Willow and the sight he had been so insistent that Nikolai come and see. What he had been led to turned out to be a single skeleton clad in a mixture of professionally made and makeshift barding, and a pair of strange syringes which, after some examination, turned out to be empty bits of Med-X, and a shattered Stim pack, an item which he had previously foregone, but was now seriously considering looking more in to. The skeleton seemed to have been picked clean by the various critters which resided within the confines of the building. Complete with a prewar Equestrian Army Issued helmet which Flashpoint began to immediately gravitate towards.

"Nikolai, over here!" Willow waved his friend over to a nearby concrete support pillar. Crudely etched into it was a strange date which he didn't recognize. Willow however, did recognize it.

"This is dated to the Winter just after the Last Day. I'd wager that that poor mare over there got stuck inside and died of Radiation poisoning."

Nikolai shrugged. "Oh well. Flashpoint, how does that helmet fit?"

Flashpoint turned around and adjusted it with a forehoof. "Pretty good Nikolai, it's a little rough around the edges, and almost all of the padding has been worn away. But it's still much better protection than nothing." Nikolai nodded in agreement. "Well, let us get to looting. I see that we have walked past quite a few consumable items that I would not at all mind taking-" Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something odd, it was a utility closet with a heavily damaged terminal nearby that drew The Stalker right up to it.

"Nikolai? What is it?"

"You two go on and look through the stuff here, see how much edible stuff you can find. I am going to try and crack this door lock." Willow looked perplexed. "You? Hacking?" Nikolai laughed. " This thing is dead. But yes... Hacking, in a way." After experimentally tapping the giant keyboard, he reached behind him and drew his crowbar from his rucksack.

"Ok, ok. We'll go look." Willow told him, "Won't we Flashpoint?" The zebra mumbled something under his breath, and the two equines walked away. Leaving Nikolai alone with the rusty utility door and defunct terminal.

With Nikolai preoccupied with trying to break down a door, Willow and Flashpoint finally had a moment alone to talk with one another, as the two progressively made their way down the isles, it was Willow who began the conversation with a rather blunt question just as the Zebra reached down towards a bottom to snatch up a can of preserved dried apples.

"Flashpoint, why do you still seem to hate me after all this time?"

The Zebra pulled his head away from the shelf, banging his head on the upper shelf in the process, he jolted his head up and swiveled around to face Willow, who bore a look of discerning inquiry on his face. Flashpoint managed a small smile and then quickly resumed looking for more food. Willow galloped down the isle and snatched two sealed containers of salty crackers off an upper shelf, Flashpoint trotted over to him and looked over the Bat Pony's shoulder.

"What do you mean?" He asked in return. "I don't hate you."

Willow laughed, and fumbled with his rucksack as he entered the next isle and began to sweep what few cans and boxes of food that still remained on the shelves into his saddlebags, repeating the process in rushed silence until both of the tough canvas bags under each dark leathery wing of his were noticeably heavier, he turned and, grabbing a seemingly airtight and untarnished bag of flower, passed it to Flashpoint, staring back at him with the same curious gaze as before. "I find that a bit hard to believe Flashpoint, be honest with me. Just what is it?"

Flashpoint's right ear twitched, and his tail whisked around in a nervous manner. Willow caught onto this and took a step closer, finally, his ears flattened against his head, and his eyes lowered. "Fine, you want to know?"

"It's because of these?" Willow innocently bared his fangs, ruffling his bat wings as he did. "Just what's so bad about it? Nikolai thinks they're cool. It's a part of what I am, that's all. I've never wanted to hurt either of you two-" Flashpoint raised his right hoof.

"Stop- trying to make excuses. Nikolai is an alien from another world. If you want to know, then fine! Zebra's associate most nocturnal creatures as being the spawn of Nightmare moon. Even if I don't, I still can't shake the feeling that you're going to try and hurt either me or Nikolai... Plus, you eat ponies!" Willow's curious gaze faded into a sympathetic smile.

"Ok..." The Thestral answered uncomfortably, sounding a bit bewildered. " But have I done anything wrong to you? I drink blood from time to time, sure. But that's just a part of being a bat pony. We're sangivores. Like I said before, we don't burn in the sunlight. And I'm certainly not allergic to Garlic, I can see my own reflection in the mirror just fine. I have bitten ponies before in self defense, but they never grew fangs!" Willow drew closer to him, and Flashpoint took a step back.

"How do I know if I can really trust you? We just met you a few days ago." The Zebra eyed Willow Lamp's fangs with suspicion. To his surprise, the bat pony laughed cheerfully.

"I wanted to make some new friends and gain a few more interesting traveling companions. Is that really too much to ask? I know a few other bat ponies, but we're few and far between. Not counting my parents... I've perhaps only seen 7 or 8 in my whole life. I'm sorry if I worry you from time to time, I just hope ya know that I don't mean it."

This statement, though it took a little thinking on Flashpoint's part, eventually returned a smile to his face. "Ok- Oh!" The Threstral, to his complete surprise, rushed up and enveloped the armored zebra in the same manner that he had done to Nikolai after his rescue in Splendid Valley. Though the feeling of leathery, barbed wings on his mane felt odd. He didn't particularly care, given the fact that they no longer seemed to hold any malice.

"I know us bat ponies aren't particularly well liked in the Wasteland on account of our diets. I'm glad you and Nikolai took me in." Flashpoint's smile grew a bit larger, and he wrapped his forelegs back around Willow.

"It is no problem. Why, it was really Nikolai who's responsible for it!" The two of them sat there laughing with one another and, after a few minutes, resumed scavenging.

"After all the insane things in the Wasteland," Flashpoint added. "I still think it's almost laughable that we, of all the ponies, of all the creatures in Equestria... Would have the opportunity to make friends with an alien from another planet."

"Something-" Willow looked back at Flashpoint, his voice filling with sarcasm, "Tells me Nikolai thinks the same way."

The pair had returned with saddlebags filled with old preserved goods. Everything from peaches and kidney beans to hardtack crackers. They arrived to the sight of a wide open door, and Nikolai, who was vigorously refilling his canteens with water from a few five gallon drums tucked away in the back and laughing to himself.

"Two hundred years! Hah!" He exclaimed.

"Don't worry, I already checked! It's all good, no toxins, no radiation! Here, I even found spare canteen for each of us." He handed them each a one liter water bottle. Flashpoint stood at the threshold to the room. "Thanks Nikolai, but our canteens are already full."

"I also found something else!" The Stalker got up from his reclined position just enough to reach for a wooden crate, within was five intact bottles of Vodka.

"I can't take all of them but- I can take two of them!" He gestured over to his other side and held up another bottle, this one was a half of the way empty already. "It should go without saying that I feel much better now, I could fight an alicorn! With a musket, is not that hard, right!?"

"Ok, ok!" Flashpoint insisted," Pack up the Spirits. "And... We'll show you what we found, ok?" Nikolai wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve. "Ok, ok. Is not problem, really. Go on, I am curious."

All in all, their, 'haul' turned out to be quite substantial for an old supermarket after generations of passing scavengers and looters. Now, as heavy rain fell outside, and gusts of mud filled wind made the rafters above them creak and groan, The Stalker and his two amicable equine companions sat around a burning oil drum, fueled by dead boards and the occasional old browned and yellowed newspaper that Nikolai would toss into the low flames only after he had read through it atop a delightful lawn chair that he had found in the back of the store.

"Well, we get a half a day off again, does anyone have any ways to pass the time?" He raised his index finger.

"Flashpoint! Tell me where your name came from! Blin, spill the beans! No, that is not literal! But please, do enlighten us. He spun the power knob on his radio until no more music came through it, and the only noise which remained was the crackling of the fire and the rain pounding against the leaky roof above.

"Well... Are you ready?"

"I-I said spill them!" Nikolai stomped his boots and slapped his knee, laughing and slurring his words as he did. The bottle of Vodka in his hands was now exactly three quarters of the way empty. And he couldn't have possibly have felt better about it.

"Ok. I don't remember much of my childhood, my mother died early on, like I told a while back, but my family was always on the run from belligerent ponies. Usually Slavers, once we had left Fillydelphia. I have been in and out of captivity all my life. So funny story actually, I was... Fairly uncoordinated as a foal. However odd it may seem to you. So much so that, after volunteering to try my hoof at bomb making, I tripped, knocked over a tray of 'ingredients' into another captive's work, it..." He winced.

"-Exploded in a blinding flash of magical light that left a half dozen raiders blinded and leveled half of the building I was in. I didn't mean it at the time, why... I was still too young to understand what was going on... Most of this isn't even from memory. It was what other's told me as I got older in life. After a few more of these, 'events'. Ponies began to call me Flashpoint, and.. As I grew older, and more coordinated. I got better, and better at building explosives. Particularly the incendiary variety."

Nikolai nodded in calm understanding as he downed a spoon of simmering hot pea soup.

"Well, that wasn't that hard, was it? So you wear your moniker of destruction as badge of honor? Good for you Flashpoint!"

He looked over at Willow, who was much preoccupied delving his way into a small IV bag of deep red blood. Nikolai couldn't help but yawn, he had gone over a day's worth now without so much as a single hour of sleep longer than he normally did. Considering that the profession of being a Stalker oftentimes took much more out of a person than it ever gave back. His eyelids only grew heavier as he methodically repacked each of his magazines, and even assisted his friends in repacking theirs. Even an inexperienced human could load a magazine several times faster than an experienced pony. One of the many, many advantages of being a human in an almost all equine world.

"Oh," he spread his bedroll out on the floor beside the fire and set up his rucksack as a sort of makeshift pillow. "Wake me up in... About ten to twelve hours. Unless monster shows up. Or Gopniks intent on robbing us blind. In that case- Hide me in safe spot and let me keep sleeping. If Enclave shows up-"

"We get it Nikolai," Flashpoint said. "We'll let you get your sleep."

Nikolai shook his head. "No, tell me so that I can get the chance to punch one of them just like I did with alicorn." He didn't really mean this, of course. While he definitely felt that he had earned the right to drop-kick an Enclave Pegasus in the most fantastical way possible, the reasonable part of him still understood just how bad of an idea that would be. Towards the Unity and 'Grand Pegasus Enclave' alike, he had adopted a shoot and flee strategy that so far, had seemed to work almost flawlessly.

"Ohoho- op!" Clutching his rifle in both hands, he curled up onto the bedroll and passed out, soon beginning to snore in a manner not all that unlike a hellhound.

"I think I'll catch some sleep as well, "Willow told Flashpoint. "We'll sleep in shifts, if you don't mind guarding us all by your lonesome." Flashpoint shrugged, and stood up, leaving his saddlebags with Nikolai. As he turned around, he noticed that Willow was gone.

"Up here!" Flashpoint looked up, and spotted his friend, hanging from a rafter by his green prehensile tail.

"How can you sleep like that!?" Willow's laugh echoed through the whole of the store. "How can you not? Enjoy your guard shift!" Just like that, both The Stalker and the Thestral were out. Leaving Flashpoint to tend to the flickering fire. The Zebra tilled the flames with a fireplace poker. He could have taken up one of the derelict newspapers lying on the floor, but he decided against it.

Nikolai found himself standing on a busy street in a small town, surrounded by a combination of modern suburban homes and thatch houses, ponies and ponified items took the place of humans. Little farmer stall, and even an ice cream cart or two. Blue skies stretched from horizon to horizon, with not a single cloud in sight, in the distance, he spotted Canterlot as it had been before the Last Day. After a few moments of standing in place, a row of armored vehicles that looked as though they had come straight out of a World War Two documentary came speeding around the corner, they stopped right beside him, and out from the second truck in the convoy stepped a mare stepped an orange Earth Pony mare with a blonde mane, she wore a Stetson hat and a drab olive green uniform. All around her swarmed Steel Rangers, though these didn't look like the Rangers he had seen in his time. Though, these Rangers seemed different than the ones he had met. For one, their armor seemed much newer and better maintained. As birds chirped overhead, the mare and her Ranger Guards walked right past Nikolai and into a literal tree house.

"Ponyville Library." He read. "Looks delightful... I remember this from somewhere. It is probably just firewood now!" He roared with laughter.

"Ma'am?" One of the Rangers asked the orange mare. "I just have to ask, why here of all places?"

"It's where it all started. Where else?" She responded in a heavy midwestern accent. The dream faded, but not before a resounding gunshot tore Nikolai from his sleep and sent him scrambling for his rifle.

"Cyka Blya- What happened!?"

"Sorry! Willow's voice cried. "Flashpoint was up all night playing security guard and..." Nikolai stood up to full height and looked about, the deformed corpse of a ghoul right by the bathroom stood a as a testament to The Stalker's present debacle.

"I told you to check the bathrooms, but you didn't." Nikolai yawned. " Breakfast first. And then... We set out for this, 'Prairie City.' And speaking of bathroom!" The Stalker rushed off away from the group in an almost blind panic, much to the amusement of his two equine companions.

After a spartan breakfast consisting of what amounted to just a few hundred calories, Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint set off back down the road. As of the past few minutes, they had been stuck listening to their Stalker companions awful tipsy country karaoke. Willow personally thought it was so bad that he would scare away every radroach and bloatsprite within a kilometer radius, and Flashpoint was about to commit to the firm, firm belief that it wasn't fit for the ears of raiders.

"On road again... I just can't wait to get on road again.."

"Nikolai!" Flashpoint whined. "Stop, please." The Stalker sighed, and hefted his rifle. "Willow," He took a knee, and pulled out his PDA. "Where is Prairie city? I no want get lost." He held the topographic map out for Willow to see.

"It's right there- Move the map up... There! Right in between those two sets of hills. It runs the length of the valley." Nikolai checked his PDA battery, and then asked Willow a question he thought important.

"Hey Willow, can alicorns get drunk?" The batpony cracked a snicker. "I don't know Nikolai, but if I ever see it happen, I'll be sure to go to you first!" The veil of enthusiasm which presided over the Stalker and Thestral was soon found to be contagious to the resident grumpy zebra as well, and the sound of laughter quickly overtook the faint sounds of Nikolai's radio in the early morning Equestrian Wasteland.

About half an hour later...

"So, does anyone have a plan of what we're going to do when we get there?" Flashpoint stopped his friends all of a sudden. "I mean, we don't even know what we're going to find? What do we do if it turns out to be the Enclave? Or some rouge Steel Rangers? Or 50 Raiders? Or an alicorn? Nikolai, I doubt you still have enough grenades left for something like that."

"He is right... I only have... Two, three left?"

"You lost track of the number of the grenades you're carrying on you?" Willow asked with warry suspicion. Nikolai shrugged.

"Well, yes. I did. Is that issue? I can just recount on the way there." He fiddled around with the myriad of pouches on his vest, and then examined his rucksack.

"I have two. But... I have plenty of ammunition, and half a dozen loaded magazines for rifle, two magazines for pistol. All 55 Grain full metal jackets." He pressed the magazine release paddle on his rifle and examined the ammunition within.

"All good, I had hoped to find myself more armor piecing munitions, but I suppose I will have to make do for now. Maybe I will find more at Prairie City. Come on, let us see if we cannot find broadcast from yesterday. " The Stalker clicked through the channels on his radio, and after about a minute he came across it again. The same haunting, repeating, looped message. He listened to it a few more times, and then decided to play something else, however... After the keen realization that 'Equestrian' music wasn't really for him, he opted to continue listening to the same mantra of Zone FM. All the way to Prairie City.

As the morning gradually turned into midday, Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint finally arrived on the outer limits of their destination and quickly moved to take up a position atop a boulder as far out of sight as was possible. Some 150 meters away from the welcome sign. Sure enough, just as Willow had pointed out, the town was located right in the middle of a small, narrow valley. With the road they were following leading past various dilapidated shops and residential buildings that were clustered along the length of the valley. The Stalker was quick to identify and point out the Lumber Mill on the far side of town, with it's massive piles of unhewn logs stacked around dirt pathways leading to various saw stations, all powered by an assortment of either now defunct generators, or a water wheel on the northeastward side of town. Beyond that still, was a bridge that led across a modestly sized river. Strewn about the landscape was all manner of ancient tree stags. All with an appropriate added post apocalyptic flare of course.

"It must have been a cozy place to live before the glowing snow started falling, eh?" The Stalker bumped his bat pony companions shoulder as he examined it through his binoculars.

"All that industry in such a small place," Willow responded. "I couldn't stand it, I prefer quiet. Something this place, judging from it's current state, hardly did and hardly would provide."

Flashpoint tapped the boulder below Nikolai. "Are you sure this is a fight worth taking Nikolai? We don't know who sent that distress call, or when it was sent. Those ponies could be decaying skeletons at this point." The Stalker simply dismissed this notion with little more than a passing wave of his hand.

Nikolai was able to pick out at least two dozen raiders in the whole of the town itself, wandering in and about the town as though it was a sort of massive base camp for them. It didn't take long for Nikolai to notice the many desecrated corpses which had been hung from buildings and tree limps alike. Trash littered the street more than any other inhabited location he had encountered before. Everything from bullet casings and stacks of preserved food containers, to skeletons, to drugs and even little bits of fecal matter which were prominent enough to be noticed from his current position. It was a disgusting sight to behold. More towards the Saw Mill, things seemed to be slightly more organized. His gaze moved up to the two unicorns which presided in makeshift parapets at the top of the highest mill. Both touted some form of long gun, affixed to the parapets on swivel mounts. In the mill grounds below trod another half dozen or so raiders. Most were bare of any form of actual protection, though a few sported bits and pieces of makeshift armor, with a few wearing full sets. Off all the ponies on the ground, the majority were actually unicorns for once, with a few earth ponies strewn about. Only about one in every 2 or three of the raiders seemed to carry an actual firearm. Still, that help Nikolai and his companions to odds of at least 8 to one. And they didn't have the home field advantage.

But... They did have two legs up on the raiders: The ever useful element of surprise, Nikolai in his whole, and a bat pony to whom sneaking about was practically first nature.

"Alright." Nikolai stuffed his binoculars away and took up his AK 101.

"Willow." He pied a glance back a the batpony, who had long since redonned his hood. "Do you see those two snipers up in the tower? Rifle scope on mine only has maximum range of 400 meters. Nothing beyond that-" He practically facepalmed as he recalled his rifle irons ranging feature. A full plan began to form in his mind.

"Alright, Flashpoint?" Nikolai glanced over his shoulder at the town, and then pulled out his PDA and began explain his course of action to his friends. "... I need you to make way down hill, try to avoid patrols, here. Take grenade." He handed one of the apple shaped explosive devices to Flashpoint.

"Here is how it will go. Willow, I want you to sneak around other side of town. Set yourself up on hill over there." He pointed to a hill about 500 meters away, just over the valley on the opposite ridgeline. "Get behind tree, and watch the dude in tower, when you see one on right side drop. You shoot. And kill other one, da? Anyhow. Flashpoint. Get down there, and... Eh... Try to lure as many of them into small space as possible. Then, use grenade and boom! While they are preoccupied with explosion.... Willow will begin execute ponies around sawmill. I... Will charge in and help out Flashpoint. Got it? I try and make simple as possible!" He unscrewed his bottle of Vodka from the previous day, and was about to down the last of it, when another idea came to his mind.

"Well? Go on!" Nikolai ushered them away.

His mind was drawn to the little bits of Styrofoam in his rucksack, and then to the remaining bottles of Vodka he had taken possession of the prior day. He watched from a distance as his friends made their way to their respective places. He was still surprised at their willingness to follow his orders, but he wasn't going to question it at a time like this. Nikolai took hold of the iron sights atop his rifle, and fumbled with them until they were ranged to about 800 meters, raising them nearly an inch above their normal resting spot atop the receiver. He stood up, steadied himself, and with a deep breath, pulled the trigger.

"Crack!"

The round left the end of the rifle's suppressor, and arced it's way to the target. A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. Nikolai took a look through his scope, and realized that both snipers were still there. He could visualize Willow across the valley, cursing in his own Thestral way about how his Rampant Alcoholism threw The Stalker's aim off. Though the blame was hardly on Nikolai. It was a shot aimed at something a little larger than a watermelon from almost half a mile away. The Stalker took a knee, and, after memorizing the exact spot where his target was through repeatedly lowering and raising his gun, steadied himself again. He fired twice, to his surprise, when he looked back at through his scope, he could see the tumbled over corpse of his quarry, lying dead in his parapet. An instant later, the other fell dead with a bullet to the back of her head.

"Well, I was right about that!" He murmured, shifting his rifle irons back down to their regular 100 meter position. He resumed working on making three Molotov Cocktails as he absent-mindedly watched Flashpoint sneak closer to the Raider's position and begin tossing rocks at passing ponies until one of them stomped over to investigate. The Stalker stuffed his makeshift bombs into his cavernous pant pockets and crawled back up to the edge of the boulder, moving his scopes glowing triangular crosshair from Raider to Raider, all of a sudden, one of them spotted Flashpoint and began to angrily make his way towards the Zebra with a drawn Machete clutched in his maw. Flashpoint began shouting obscenities at him while backing away into a single story wooden shack. More Raiders joined in, and by the time Flashpoint had darted into the building, a total of five others had crowded the inside along with him, with more still circling the building.

"Why did I agree to this- Ah!"

Flashpoint frantically scrambled away from a blade meant right for his armored collar. Now surrounded by wild screaming bloodthirsty Raiders on all sides, Flashpoint unpinned the grenade Nikolai had given him and tossed it into a corner. Gunning down the one raider blocking the entrance and galloping outside as those inside began to panic. Moments later, a concussive, fragmentation filled blast blew a hole in the side northeastern side of the one room building. Taking four raiders with it, and leaving at least ten more in a fit of rage as the whole town now set its violent eyes on Flashpoint, who gunned down a unicorn wielding a spear at close range, only to take a twenty gauge shotgun blast to his side, sending him fleeing in a panic as the Raider who had shot him met a swift end in the form of a bullet to the back of his head from Willow's carbine. The bat pony calmly moved from one target to another, focusing exclusively on the few who carried firearms.

"One... Two... Three..."

As if things couldn't get any worse for the quickly dwindling number of Raiders in the town, Nikolai came charging down the hill with a roaring battle cry of;

"Cheeki Breeki!" And the sound of Bandit Radio being played at max volume.

He followed up his initial charge with several bursts of automatic fire which downed a pair of raiders who had attempted to pelt him with submachine gun fire from the blacksmith shop across the street.

Bullets flew past and stuck the dirt and landscape all around him, though not a single one found their mark. The Stalker slowed to a determined advance, taking single shots at any raiders still remaining in the street. As he reached the bottom of the valley and the ground underfoot turned from dirt to packed gravel, he spotted Flashpoint, who was desperately trying to reload his submachine gun while pinned down behind paltry cover. The expression on his face didn't change in the slightest even when he spotted Nikolai.

"I am sorry if am am late! I did a thing- їсти свинцеву суку!!!"

Nikolai ran up to a raider in the middle of fumbling with his jammed pistol over the head with the butt of his rifle, right before stabbing him with his own hatchet.

"You're playing music now!? " Flashpoint cried, spraying an unlucky earth pony who passed within his field of view while brandishing a sawn off pump action shotgun.

"Yes! Now follow me!"

More sonic cracks echoed through the valley. Willow was putting his rifle to work on Prairie City's northern side. All while Nikolai and Flashpoint advanced from the southwest down the rows of disheveled buildings which lined their respective side of the town's main road. Nikolai swapped magazines and sprinted across the street. He dumped ten rounds into a raider sporting leather armor and wearing a much larger skull atop his head as some form of sick decoration, sending him and his rebar bayonet ended rifle toppling over. The Stalker pulled a Molotov Cocktail from his pant leg, lit it with the glowing tip of his suppressor, and tossed it right into a trio of unicorns who were in the midst of reading their own grenades. Sending a massive fireball up over the town's now long defunct General Store.

"Oww!"

Flashpoint clutched his shoulder from a sudden ache and limped on ahead in pain. The .357 Magnum round which had struck him hadn't penetrated his armor, but would be sure to leave a painful bruise. Right now, he simply shrugged it and the twenty gauge which had struck him off and kept fighting.

The duo fought their way through the town to the Lumber Mill on the far end, where they were rejoined by Flashpoint.

"Hey, how much ammo do you two still have?" Willow demanded. Nikolai swapped magazines again, returning his now second spent magazine to it's respective pouch and rocking a new magazine into place a second later, ridding the charging back and forth with his left index finger immediately afterwards.

"I've gone though three of my six." Flashpoint replied. "Two magazines, I have five left, no need worry." Willow whipped around and put an angry stallion with a revolver on his rump with three shots.

"I've eaten through about a quarter of my ammunition."

Willow reached under his robes, revealing his concealed Twelve Gauge autoloading shotgun. It looked a bit like a scaled down Spas 12 with it's heat shield. Bandit Radio finished it's third course, and a lull in the music led up to a new song.

"Slav King."

Willow managed a pained laugh. "That sounds like someone we know!" Nikolai raised his rifle above his head like a caveman and let forth a booming drunken laugh as they made their way past another dead raider and halted right behind another pile of rotting logs.

"Hey... Over there!" Another voice shouted. A pair of shotgun blasts in quick succession sent a hailstorm of splinters raining down on the three.

"Oh, you like that huh!?" Another shotgun blast boomed. Nikolai ducked out along the southeastern side of the log pile and spotted another pony, a fierce looking unicorn adorned with a welding mask and covered in sheet steel armor. On either side, he wore a pair of drum fed shotguns.

"Is boss fight, huh? Me no care- OH BLYAT!" He scrambled back as another pair of shotgun blasts tore chunks of rotten wood off the timbers.

"You're dead assholes! I'm gon' fuckin' rip you to pieces!" Nikolai winced, and readied another Molotov Cocktail.

"Blin, I think he think he sounds serious. Boom!" He ran around the other side of the pile and tossed the bottle onto the unicorns back, though it did send him into a brief scrambling panic, his armor took most of it relatively easily.

"What the- Oh!"

Without a second though to his own safety, Nikolai dumped half a magazine of 5.56 directly into the Raider Chiefs face. This barrage tore the welding mask asunder and sent him toppling to the ground in a flaming, smoking, bloodied mess. But not before two pellets of twelve gauge buckshot caught Nikolai right in his right leg, a few inches below his kneecap. Sending him into a fury that made him say things that would make his mother gasp. As he scrambled back around and pulled a tourniquet around his leg, cranking the windless until no more blood left the wound.

"Cyka- At least I got him, right!?" Nikolai exclaimed, his eyes darting around under his mask, searching for danger like a cornered bear.

The Stalker's veins were filled with adrenaline so much so to the point that he could barely even feel the pain that came from his leg, he raised the pant leg and examined it. "Ah... That's nice. They went right through!" Flashpoint guided him to the ground as Willow kept lookout. "Here, let me help you out." He pulled out a roll of magical gauze and began to wrap the Stalker's leg, asking him questions in an attempt to get his mind off the injury. Which served to do nothing but make things worse.

"Nikolai? Nikolai? Calm down-"

"What the hell Flashpoint?" He stammered, cursing under his breath as the Zebra finished his course of aid. "Where do you think that radio signal came from?"

"I... Do not know." The distant sound of galloping hooves in retreat signaled the end of the fighting, and the end of the song. The Stalker removed his mask and wiped his sweat beaded brow.

"Ohohoho! How about that mill building over there with radio dish on top, bullet hole filled walls, and barricaded windows?" He stood up, death clenching his rifle so much so that he could feel the warm polymer through his leather gloves. "Come, to the victors go the spoils... But first, I need to check something." Willow and Flashpoint looked at each other as the Stalker walked off, lighting and tossing his last Molotov in a fit of measured rage at an already desecrated and long since wrecked tractor.

"Hello!? Is anyone here!?" He stepped over a body from a pony neither he nor his friends had shot. Judging by his stance, she had been trying to flee when he had been gunned down when she had attempted to flee. Her clothing and light leather armor, while still tarnished and torn, was much better kept than any of the raiders outside. A 10 Millimeter autoloading pistol lay by her side alongside a dozen or so spent casings and two empty magazines.

"Was this who sent the call? No... It could not have been, the voice was male."

The door was wide open, long since having been torn off it's hinges, with his rifle raised, up to high ready, he began to search around. Once a home for the loggers, it had long since been seemingly repurposed as a hold of supplies and, judging by the sandbags and corpses, a makeshift fortress. The Stalker activated his rifle light and did his best to aggressively limp down the hallway. As he passed a once master bedroom, he heard a noise that sounded like a little squeak. It was faint, but he was certain that he had heard it.

"Hello? He called out, "Is someone there!? I am friend! Please, you no shoot!"

The Stalker came to a hole in the wall, and ducked into the room, sweeping his muzzle around it at equine level. His eyes were drawn to a pile of crates along the far side of of the room. The Stalker wandered between it and the small radio set on the far side of it.

"Hello?" No answer came, but he swore that he could hear movement coming from something under the crates. In one move, Nikolai bounded forward and tore them away, raising his rifle and knocking the rest of the obstruction away with the suppressor on the end of his barrel. He was met with the barrel of a lever action shotgun pointed right back at him. He could have pulled the trigger right there, but he paused. There lay three earth ponies mare, a stallion, and an young filly. All looked to be in terrible shape, and all wore barding just like the dead pony outside the entrance.

"W-What in Celestia's name are you!? The stallion stammered, his voice muddled by the grip of the shotgun which was seated firmly in his mouth.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai!? Are you the ponies that sent call over radio!? I help! Please no shoot?" The mare fainted on the spot, and the little filly, a brown earth pony who wore a tattered, equally brown cloak stared up at him with eyes filled with wonder.

"Uh... Sir? You're on fire." Nikolai raised an eyebrow, and turned his head just in time to notice the little bits of flame slowly making their way up his left sleeve.

"Ah!" He dropped his rifle on his sling and smacked his arm until the flames died out. "Wait- You heard our distress call?" Nikolai smiled. "Da- I mean, yes! You sound like you need help, so I come help?" The stallion's wild eyes remained fixed on Nikolai as he hesitantly lowered his shotgun.

"Oh- Thank ya! Ya came a little late though- " The Stallion stopped himself as he went to worry over the mare. The filly poked her mother, who slowly reawake and got back to her seated position. She clutched her filly as she trembled with fear and tears welled in her wide eyes. Nikolai took a knee.

"Well, I am here now. Can you all walk? What are your names?" The stallion cleared his throat. "Um, I- Am Winding Sprocket, This is my wife, Painted Flowers, and that there is our l-little b-bundle of joy, Umm..."

"Potato Sack!" The foal answered, tugging at her cloak. Nikolai chuckled and removed his mask. "It is nice to meet you, I am sorry I could not get here sooner. Were there more of you?"

"Yep." The mare answered with a hopeless sigh. "There were ten of us, and then that gang of raiders found us and chased us cross-country for 5 miles until we ended up here. We heard the commotion outside and thought it was just them fighting amongst themselves until you walked in- Um, how can we repay you? We don't have much, but-" Nikolai's smile grew wider.

"It is alright, do not worry. I was right, and that is enough. You do not need to give me anything, I will take my fill from outside." Winding Sprocket arched an eyebrow on his dirty face.

"Right about what?" Willow trotted in at that exact moment, hood down and battish features out and about for the whole world to see. The Painted Flower probably would have fainted right then and there had it not been for Winding, who held her upright.

"Oh... Hello there!" He grinned and waved a friendly hoof in their direction. Potato sack waved back. "Hi there!" Willow smiled awkwardly.

"Please do not... Freak out, this is Willow Lamp! He is a good friend!" Willow's facial expression grew to exhibit a mild degree of concern.

"Should we show them Flashpoint?" Just to add insult to injury, the clopping of hooves just down the hallway led to Flashpoint's rushed introduction to the terrified family. "Someone called for me?" He asked about.

Nikolai turned back to the family with a guilty face. "Please don't panic and start shooting!"

"Oh, and Nikolai- " Flashpoint began, paying no mind to the trio of confused, terrified, starving, and broken ponies sitting on the floor. "There is a very familiar looking sprite-bot hovering outside. And it isn't playing music. Do you want to go and check it out or-"

"In a moment." He responded calmly, turning back to the family and reaching out to pat the mare and stallion on the back as a gesture of reassured safety, receiving a sudden hug from the filly in the process An act which he returned in kind.

"We need to take care of these ponies first. Just... Put robot on hold, ok?" Flashpoint smiled at the ponies, and walked out. Nikolai looked back at the poor family.

"Alright... Let's see... What do you need-"

"Nikolai!" Flashpoint called out. "It's started moving!"

"Blin." He redonned his mask, took up his rifle, and began to walk away. "Willow, please watch them. I... Uh, I believe we might have a problem outside." The Stalker rushed outside in a hurry, and nearly ran face first into the giant mobile radio, stopping less than a meter from it's giant metal grid speaker.

"What is it? Hey... Flashpoint! " He turned to his zebra companion. "I need time alone with robot thing." Flashpoint shrugged and trotted back inside.

"Well?" Nikolai slung his rifle, and set his hands in his pockets. "Are you going to say something? Hey! Start talking. Please? I do not have the time for this. " He checked his watch, and tapped his left foot in an impatient manner.

"Blyat! Are you just going to hover there!? Hello? Robot man?" A series of earsplitting melodic beeps answered his question.

"Fine! What do you want!?" The Stalker pleaded with it. He was answered only with silence.

"Look, I am not going until I get a response out of you... You... Hmm... Perplexing hunk of floating steel!" To his surprise, a voice actually answered back this time around.

"Then you would be waiting here a for a very long time." A deep baritone voice replied. The Stalker would have shaken his head in disbelief, but at the present time he didn't particularly feel a deep need to exaggerate his actions. "It's you! From Old Olneigh! You said a little bit, and left me to die! There is some disgusting shit in that place man!"

"Well..." The robotic voice responded. "I had nothing to do with that, I am quite busy, and Old Oneigh's environment isn't the most accommodating to sprite-bots. Call me Watcher." Nikolai snickered, but held his posture.

"Watcher? If anything, you are almost as deserving of the nickname of Stalker as I am. Why are you following me?"

"Following you? Oh... I'm not following you Nikolai, I'm just watching you." Nikolai murmured a curse in Ukrainian under his breath and wagged an accusing index finger at the robot. "Stop lying to me, you are not doing any favors. Please tell me why." The voice laughed.

"Well... In the whole Equestrian Wasteland, how often does someone get the opportunity to get to talk with an alien from another world-" Nikolai held up his left hand in a halting gesture, something that he doubted that the robot paid any attention to.

" How did you figure that out? Ohhh... Nevermind, don't answer that. Well if by alien, you mean that I am not from around here, then yes. Of course. Now what do you want? Or are you just trying to be creepy?"

"No... But I figured your exploits were worth a look, it looks like your destiny is being made manifest already, and judging by your actions today, it certainly seems like an odd one." Nikolai arched an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean? All of this destruction was simply a matter of prudent curiosity, with only a small bit of malice and a large amount of greed added to it!"

"Check the main sawmill building." The voice responded, ignoring his question. "Those raiders left some intact Stimpacks and healing potions in there. Judging by your warpath, I'd say you could probably put them to good use. " With that, the robot turned around, and began hovering off in the opposite direction, out of the Lumber Mill and away from Prairie city in as nonchalant a manner as possible.

"Hey! Strange Watching person! Thank you for the assistance!" He waved goodbye to the sprite-bot, and was answered only with the faint playing of an incoherent song as the thing drifted down the road.

"Who was that?" Flashpoint asked him. Nikolai removed his mask, looked over at his Zebra friend and answered. " An actual Stalker. Crazy robot man, his manners aside, I do not really like him. But, he did point me in direction of some very hard to come by medical supplies in main Saw Mill. So I suppose it was a net positive but still, is it cool? Yes. Do I want that thing following us any more than I want the Enclave or Unity following us? No. Not at all." He walked back inside and took another knee besides Willow, who was hoofing out emergency blankets and bits of food and water to Winding Sprocket, Painted Flowers, and Potato Sack.

" Do not worry about that." He told them, "Can you walk? You are probably almost jumping to after hiding there for so long, yes? Well... Flashpoint? How do you feel about taking care of them while I bring Willow with me in turn?" The Thestral uttered a laugh and turned to greet his friend.

"I was just getting to know them, I you don't mind, but I'd like to stay here with them a bit longer." Nikolai smiled under his mask as he turned to view the family he and his friends had spent the past 20 minutes rescuing. The fatigue of prolonged combat was once more beginning to set in, something that he figured he'd distract himself from with a healthy dose of 'virtuous' pillaging from ponies that really didn't need the things that he now wanted any more.

"Cap Emperor, huh?" The Zebra asked him. Nikolai laughed, and nodded in triumphant agreement. "Well, it doesn't seem so far off now... And we even save a few ponies in the process! How cool is that!? Oh, if only Babushka and дідусь could see me now! I am certain they would be proud."

"Yep." Flashpoint responded. "I'm sure they would."

Chapter 31: Ties

Chapter 31: Ties

Twenty Four hours later...

Nikolai led the six equines down the road at a low, steady pace. Off in the distance- but growing ever so steadily closer, Canterlot glowed like an eerie toxic lighthouse beacon. It was a constant measurement of The Stalker's progress towards his end goal. First up on his itinerary was to create a proper itinerary of a route to Canterlot, a to do list. Something that he was determined to accomplish as soon as they made it to their next semi-civilized town or settlement. He had taken to calling the little filly they had come across, that being Potato Sack by the Ukrainian equal of her name. Much to the amusement of her parents.

"мішок, or 'Mishok'."

Something that he was quick to explain his traveling companions all the same. He found it humorous, if even a bit cheesy, something that he did not mind. Their first night out and away from Prairie City had been spent almost entirely underneath a surprisingly clean defunct highway overpass. Unsurprisingly, the family didn't mind it after what they had been through. Just hours earlier they had buried their daughter at the top of the ridge overlooking Prairie City with Nikolai's given condolences. Death was natural, and for a Stalker used to watching people get dismembered in revolting, mind breaking, Lovecraftian ways, it was almost a peaceful respite. He hadn't known the mare. But he waited for the family to finish before taking them northeast.

"You know..." Nikolai began. "I would really to be able to hook radio up to PDA. It would be delightful to know be able to switch channels through means other than spinning knob or imputing frequency through buttons."

This wisecrack elicited a slight reprimand from Willow: "Nikolai, I don't even have the luxury of buttons. I don't have any technology- Spell bound or otherwise, to mention. You're the only in the group with any of the sort."

The Thestral laughed at his own quip, and was met with a laugh of pure consignment from his Stalker companion. Nikolai knew all too well that he would have to find the both of his friends radios at some point. Hand/hoof signals and slurred shouting could only get a trio headed by a burgeoning Wasteland Cap Mafia moss so far.

"I don' believe that I've asked, but how do you three get along so well?"

"Well," The Stalker began, "That is... Fantastic question. Is matter of chance, loyalty perhaps? I make friend easy!"

This statement elicited nods of affirmation of his companions. "Well, he's certainly right about that." Flashpoint began. "He has what most of the ponies that I have met lacked, as silly as it might seem... Compassion." The Stalker laughed under his mask.

The Stalker held himself back for a brief moment so as to be able to give his Zebra friend an affirmative pat on the head. "Why than you for words of praise. But- It really is not that difficult. You just behave with manners, not hard! Hard for folks that shoot at me, and eat ponies for fun, but civilized... Even normal ponies, is not really any trouble. But remember, you must always be courteous with whoever you meet. You can decide whether to walk away, run away, or start shooting after fact." Winding Sprocket drew a heartening sigh.

"You are mighty smart sir-" Nikolai laughed. "Eh... Not really, I just retain knowledge, and wisdom... Ok. Not great, but ok." He waved his hand, and drew his attention towards a length of equine strewn carts making their way down the road towards him.

Painted Flowers decided to speak this time, "It looks like a caravan. It's not a town, but it would be better than the wild for my husband and my Filly." Winding returned his mare's statement with a vehement nod. "Only if they can, I'd rather not get our hopes up. What's the point?" Nikolai halted the group and turned to the family.

"You can decide to go wherever you want, and my companions and I will direct you. We make for Canterlot, yes. But we... And I, am more than happy to assist your return to a safe place. Wherever that may be for you. Please, I tell you absolute truth here, I am weighed down both by the weight of the items which I took from those dead raiders, and that of your an my own friends safety." Flashpoint's face twisted into a crooked smile on acknowledged awkwardness as the group started up their path towards the caravan. It seemed large from a distance, and was sure to have something worth participating in awaiting the Stalker and his companions.

After about two minutes of walking, Nikolai beckoned the others to stay where they were and tasked Willow with the job of watching the family. Following that, he began to approach the convoy with a brisk sense of urgency in his steps- minding very well the fact that for all they knew he was just another strange abominable mutant who desired to eat them, rob them, or eat them and then rob them. He had taken Flashpoint and Winding Sprocket with him, hoping that those in the caravan might see equines traveling with him and be put at ease. And it actually seemed to work. They struck up a conversation in a semi cordial manner, and quickly took to the Stalker's delightful mannerisms.

"Hey, is all good!" Nikolai cried, waving to Willow, who brought Painted Flowers and Potato Sack over to him.

"Are these the ponies you said you wanted us to take in?" The mother and daughter of the family seemed slightly off put by this sudden statement, but remained silent and allowed Nikolai and the unicorn he was speaking with to continue to talk back and forth.

"Yes. They are." The Stalker glanced around, examining the 5 wagon strong caravan. Only half a dozen guards were present, alongside seven merchants in bulky garb and rucksacks that brimmed with odds and ends. As if they had tried to take as much as they could carry with them. They were mostly silent through the deliberation, except for a few whispers back and forth about caps and...'other things'.

"Well," They unicorn merchant finally concluded. "I'm sorry, but we can't take them. We're overburdened as it is but- There is a little town named Garden. It's... Just a little too close to Canterlot for comfort. Most traders, us included... Don't like making rounds anywhere within 10 miles of Mount Canterhorn as a matter of safety." Nikolai preformed an exaggerated shrug, and debated with himself internally as to whether or not to tell these wandering merchants of his journey to Canterlot.

"And this Garden?" He continued pressuring them. "Where is it? Did you come from there?'

"No, no. We just happen to know about it, don't worry." The unicorn reassured the Stalker. "It's safe, and hopefully..." He pied a glance over at Potato Sack. "Age appropriate." A few of the guards and a merchant or two snickered.

"Yes but- Where is it?"

"Follow this road you're on right now until you see the billboard at the intersection with the old army checkpoint- make a left northwards and keep going. It's about five miles out from there, nestled at the base of some hills. The road past that is all Canterlot territory. Pink Cloud in the water and everything. I've never seen it personally, but there's an old steel bridge that runs over a river, turning northbound on it will take you... As far as I know, straight to the ruins of Canterlot itself. Going straight ahead or south will inevitably lead in you butting up against the Big 52. If you were going the other way, I'd say that you should try Hope. But given that it's close to Ponyville, it's probably teeming with Raiders." Nikolai raised his right eyebrow below his mask.

"How did you come into contact with this information?"

"I'm a traveling merchant?" The unicorn replied awkwardly. "I... Travel a lot? Though I've got to say, in all my days in this profession I've never, ever seen a creature that looks like you." Nikolai nodded his head affirmatively.

"Yes, that is...I can see that. I noticed it a while ago."

"Take care then." The unicorn replied. "Or... Would you like to look through our wares and see what we have on offer? It's a bit risky setting up shop out in the open but, if you've got the caps-" Nikolai had already taken to browsing though their wares, reaching under tarps and slowly examining each in the caravan with warranted suspicion.

"See anything you like?" Nikolai took hold of the second tarp in the row, an action which seemed to particularly worry the merchant who presided over it.

"It's quite alright-" It was too late, he had thrown the tarp off. And the secret was right out in the open.

A grimy set of power armor, still fully intact and laying on its side. It was surrounded on all sides by other metal crates, so that a passing glance at the cart would have revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The guard watched Nikolai with stern eyes, his muzzle drawing ever closer to the pistol he kept holstered on his chest. Pony 'sidearm' holsters were usually affixed to either the shoulder or the chest for ease of access.

"That isn't for sale." The merchant replied. Nikolai held up a hand, and pulled himself up onto the cart. "Oh, is no problem. I no-"

"Is that a genuine suit of Power Armor?" Flashpoint asked, trotting up. "It's a shame, even if I had a set for myself, I wouldn't know where to start with fixing it. Much less repairing it." Nikolai rocked his head back in forth. "Do not worry, I no want armor for myself. And it would not suit either of my companions. " The Stalker reached underneath the armor and tugged on something, his hand came out with a shiny and seemingly barely used multitool.

"How much for this thing?" By now, the familial trio of ponies they had been escorting took notice of what their Stalker guardian was doing, and peeked into the cart for a look.

"Wow, is it real?" Winding Sprocket asked the merchant. Who seemed aghast at his question. "Wha-Bagh! Of course it's real!"

"I... Don't suppose you could tell by the name, but I'm more than an earth pony with a loving family. And if not for them, I'd ask you for a job."

In the meantime, the Stalker pressed onwards. He desired to have the multitool more so than anything else on the wagon, but he didn't want to make it seem like that, lest he find himself scammed into paying more than the item was worth. He had an important reason for acquiring a multitool. Obviously, the first matter was one of convenience. He needed a better way to open cans, alongside a flathead screwdriver which he could use for various things, a more compact knife, and a set of pliers for the obvious purpose of doing what a screwdriver could not, and what a set of tweezers was too weak and two for. He could have paid with caps, but he resolved to find a better way.

"Perhaps we can barter. Will this suffice?" He drew a modestly maintained Iornshod Firearms 12 gauge double barrel shotgun he had taken from a raider, alongside 4 shells, from the recesses of his pack. He opened the action, and snapped it back into place. It's minute 6 inch barrel made it woefully useless with anything other than dense buckshot or slugs past a 15 or so meters, but, contrary to popular belief, a shotgun was still a firearm. And one would be foolish to underestimate one even at range.

The Merchant took a look at it, and nodded in affirmation. "Yes, that ought to suffice." Nikolai set the weapon and handful of shells he had gathered for it on the wagon, and pocketed the multitool in turn.

"Thank you."

Nikolai added as he turned back to his friends, all of whom had decidedly gotten bored at staring at a suit of old power armor, and instead went off on their own ways and began to look through the other carts. Both Willow and Flashpoint turned up empty. With the exception of several dozen new shiny bottlecaps in either of their packs. Tearing though the remains of Prairie city had paid off. With this final purchase, Nikolai was assuredly ready to move on. The two parties bid each other safe travels, and Nikolai continued on his northeast bound journey to Canterlot. A place which, judging by the directions given by those in the Caravan, was closer than Nikolai had anticipated. He wasn't the best 'geusstimate' of distance with regards to converting Miles to Kilometers, but even he could tell that it wouldn't be long before he was standing at the gates of the Grand Glowing City on a mountaintop that had been in the backdrop for so much of his journey.

"So..." Winding Sprocket began. "You've been with my family and I for the better part of a day, why don't you us about yourself? It's a long way to that town of Garden- And I'd be more than happy to return your curiosity with some stories of my own life. Perhaps you'd like to hear about how I met the most wonderful mare in the world?" At this, Painted Flowers trotted up besides Winding and nuzzled up against his fuzzy neck, a gesture which he returned in kind.

"Your family does certainly seem to be a healthy one, very well. You see, I come from place far, far away from here. Now, before I tell any more. You must promise not to tell anyone."

"Ummm... Alright, I figure I oughta owe that to you. Go on..."

Nikolai drew on to tell the wondering family in whole about who he was, where he was from, and what his intentions were for his expedition across the Wasteland. Up until the Army checkpoint, Nikolai reveled them with descriptions of his past life. His need to pay for higher education, his journey into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and subsequent early days 'learning the ropes' from veritable living legends, and the chaotic fight which led to his sudden and painful arrival in Equestria. Obviously, there was a lot he still didn't know about that. Anomalies, and the Zone back home were a strange thing. While he did know the base workings of most, the science and reason behind them, if there was any to be known at all... Was as much speculative as it was visual fact. After that, he gave a brief description of his journey up until Prairie City. He saw no harm in it, and sought to build as much trustworthiness as was possible in the time it would take them to reach their destination. While he did tell them about his escapade through Old Olneigh, he didn't dare mention The Enclave, The Unity, or heaven forbid, the damned abomination which had called itself The Goddess. He figured that would be a little too much detail for the already shaken and traumatized ponies. Seeing that they had lost a daughter and a sibling only the day before. Nikolai was dramatic, not insensible. But that didn't stop him from telling them about the Water Treatment Plant outside Whiskey Springs, The Glow, The Everfree Forest, or even The Stalker's passing 'run in' with a hellhound. Though he realized that the more gory details of even those examples may be a little worrying to the family. Insane ponies with shovels and machetes didn't really stack up all that well against Lovecraftian abominations that would make a seasoned Spetsnaz Officer wide eyed with terror. He himself wasn't the least bit shaken by it. He supposed that he had just grown desensitized to it.

"Wow, and in two weeks?" Winding exclaimed. "From that Salt Cube City down south to all the way here? In two weeks? If you weren't standing here before me right now Nikolai, I'd tell the mad stallion who spun that kind of tall tale to take his lying flank somewhere else!"

Nikolai nodded and smiled at the praise, and adjusted the filter placement on his mask a moment after. Wearing a GP 5 for long periods of time wasn't straining once you were used to it, but it did put a little extra strain on ones neck,, but he didn't mind. It was just something that once more, Nikolai had grown immensely accustomed to. His equipment was subpar by the standards of modern militaries, but it was still more than adequate for seeing him through the harder parts of the Wasteland. As they passed the derelict wrecks of light military vehicles which had stripped clean of any remaining things of value by Generations of passing scavengers, and he began to see large, square concrete structures in the distance, his mind grew to recall the skylines of his last visited cities, but also the skyline of Pripyat. The abandoned city just outside of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. A place he had never had the opportunity to visit, but had seen enough photos and enough tales of to know that it was no place for a Loner like him. Entire Platoons of heavily armed mercenaries and military groups had gone into the place, only to return either not at all, or in much lesser numbers. In the city of the dead, nothing good ever happened. Unless by chance you were a mutant, or you were an insane cultist who sported a Monolith Emblem on their uniform.

"Garden... Is that it?" He drew his PDA and examined the digital map, with Winding Sprocket, Willow, and Flashpoint alike crowding around him, and Painted Flowers failing to keep Potato Sack from galloping over to see what all the others were so invested in.

"It's about five kilometers north of where we are, seeing that checkpoint was back there- Yes? That does not look like a town, that looks like a small city. That Caravan guide failed to mention that. It is no matter, of course. Surely we that we will find that it is safe refuge for your family."

"And if it isn't?" Painted Flowers asked, finally letting Potato Sack go to stare in wonder at the electronic screen. Something she had never before seen, the closest form of media being that of a few old picture books and flip books. Moving pictures, especially anything digital, were unheard of by the little filly, and her mother soon found it exponentially difficult to keep her from looking over the glowing orange digital map and it's myriad of digital icons and topographic lines. She couldn't get away from it until Nikolai turned it off and stuffed it back into his gear.

"Why... That is simply map. Is no big deal. Just more convenient than paper. Power has yet to become any major issue. So I will continue to use it. It is no matter for any of you. Please, I would rather we get there sooner than later." He rose from his crouched position and beckoned the group to continue making their way towards Garden. Marked and guided by both the road, and the distant apartment blocks and hills that stood in between Nikolai and Mount Canterhorn. And, subsequently... Canterlot. Now that he was getting even closer to it, it was on his mind all the more

"What should I look for? How will I scale mountain? Is there pathway? What kinds of monsters or creatures might preside in there?" The Stalker scarcely had the time to contemplate these things while he trod over ancient asphalt and kept his eyes and ears open for the slightest notion that they might be under attack by any sort of thing. Sentient or otherwise. His radio played a calming and steady tune with an upright tone to it. He turned up the volume on his radio, and received a positive response from the whole of his group. So he decided to keep the knob right where it was. Steel guitar was exactly what the Stalker needed to retain his euphoric, almost giddy feeling.

" 'Cause I know you... And you know me... And we both know where this is gonna lead... You want me to say that I want ya to stay... So you should probably leave..."

While the songs lyrics spoke to something tiring, the beat and heart behind the voice singing it kept Nikolai and his friends hooked. The weight behind the lyrics almost seemed to fit to the tone of his situation. Matching with the motion of his advance towards the city of Garden almost perfectly. So much so that he resolved to record and replay the song. Much to the joy of all he was with.

"You know," He began. "From what I have seen so far in my life, there are two inconspicuous things which can easily bring people together. Food- And music. Not any music, but music with weight... The kind that tells a story."

Painted Flowers seemed almost moved by The Stalker's words, and approached him with a suggestion of her own:

"Nikolai, have you ever heard of the Radio host DJ Pon3? From what I've heard, it's the only radio station in the Wasteland that doesn't run some kind of propaganda or ulterior motive outside of good will. You have a radio, you should give them a chance. You might like it." The reaction Painted Flowers got was nothing like what she expected. Rather than a concurrence by Nikolai, she got a vivacious, booming laugh.

"DJ Pon3? The truth fellow I hear on radio? No, no. He says good things, yes- But the music he plays is... for lack of better word; Childish! I cannot stand it blin! Perhaps I meet in person someday and I give proper talking to about musical tastes!" He stomped the ground.

"Sorry." He hastily apologized.

"I am very passionate about music, you must know. I never considered making it myself, but I do listen to it often. It is just as said a moment earlier. It is a respite in world of blandness. It is like ground black pepper on Omelet, hearty music cannot do anything but help after a hard day." He walked on in silence for a moment before briskly spinning about and proclaiming to the group that nothing would ever be bland with him around. For he intended to convey as much Slavic joy and comradery as was possible. A statement which all but Flashpoint failed to grasp in any meaningful sense. And even then, all The Stalker got from his striped friend was a quick smile and a:

"Yes, of course Nikolai. We're all thankful for that."

Though behind his back, they had all come to a mutual understanding that he was, if not a full blown mad man, then at least deserving of the moniker of, 'off his damn rocker'. Had Nikolai not been too busy humming along to the song on his radio, he probably would have had some fierce words of either rebuttal or partial understanding. He thought himself normal. But normal according to himself, not what others thought ought to be normal. Though, his own normal mostly coincided with the base normal of the rest of the world. It was a Slavic sort of normal, one which was overwhelmingly prominent in Northern Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe. From Poland to Russia and Siberia, and Latvia down to Ukraine and Romania. In spite of minor cultural and even language differences, most mannerisms and even parts of life remained the same. After all, it wasn't just the regional commonality, it was also due to the failed Soviet Union which had occupied the majority of the Eurasian continent for the better part of a century. But he also brought with him little bits of American culture from the time he had paid the United States a visit, and fell in love with it. If his distinctly Earthly presence about him was not yet enough, then he also brought with him a conglomerate unique mindsets which had grown to dominate the Exclusion Zone. One that, like the Eastern and Western Hemispheres of the planet he had left, were as similar as they were different.

Notably, as always. Was the distinct lack of humans. Something that, outside of convenience matters, he really didn't mind. He was an adaptive man, and all of his new friends more than compensated for it. They overcompensated, if anything. The fact that he was speaking with small equines half his size, or fighting them never slipped his mind.

About two hours passed from the Checkpoint to the outskirts of Garden. All in all, four from the time they had left the Caravan. It passed briskly. Nikolai was in a great deal of hurry now. But he had scarcely failed to take in the sights in the process. All of which was somewhat overshadowed given that he would soon be in Equestria's former and supposedly great capital itself. As the asphalt of the highway grew into the marked asphalt of a strangely utilitarian looking city with an blatantly garish amount of faded billboards and pealing advertisements for Sparkle Cola and the best parts of 'Canterlot high life', he couldn't help but believe that he and his companions might be just a slight bit underprepared for such a grand undertaking. And not least of all The Wasteland Survival Guide had seemed wholly inadequate for such a grand undertaking. Offering only sparse information on what the interior of the city might be like. Putting it out of his mind to instead focus on bringing the full measure of senses to bear within an eerily quiet city. The Caravan guide had called it a town. But if anything, that was a drastic downplay. It would be like calling Dubai or London or New York villages. They may have once been, but they were exponentially more than that.

"Does anyone else hear growling?" As almost if by instinct, all three Stallions, and Painted Flowers, circled themselves around Potato Sack, who herself seemed just as interested in defending herself as her parents.

It was the hallmark sound of a feral canine. Not a hellhound, but a semi normal mutated dog. A series of sounds that The Stalker was well acquainted with. Not only from his time in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but also his home town. There was a different mentality about dogs in his part of the world. A chained dog or wild one out on the street usually signaled danger, and thus encouraged avoidance and fear. Not that much of the latter was ever given. He knew enough about actual wolves to know that they wouldn't actively go and harass humans out of anything less than extreme hunger. But the mutants he had come across from time to time were different. It was something about the Zone's very presence that made them fiercer than most any other canine, so much so that they would very likely tear a well built Pit Bull to pieces if given the chance.

The howling kept on for about 20 seconds as the group edged their way down the road, Willow finally decided to figure it out himself. Five seconds at an elevation of about 50 meters was all that he needed. A pack of mutated dogs was swarming about the edge of some great makeshift wall. He flew back down to the surface and reported his findings to Nikolai after touching down in a swift hurry. Not a moment later, the sound of pitched canine shrieks echoed off the apartment walls nearby, followed by the notable sound of six pitched rifle shots in quick succession. Nikolai could was actually able to tell. He had grown so acclimated to hearing pistol and shotgun fire, that the pitched fire from several rifles at once actually seemed to blur into one for him.

"What was that?" Winding asked, wheeling his shotgun about and gazing at the apartments suspiciously. Nikolai laughed, and took his rifle off of it's safety. "Who was that? Better question. You hear no whistling noise? They no shoot at us. Make sense, yes? Trust me... I learn about this stuff from experience!" As they came around the side of one of the apartment buildings, a remaining dog still bent on its desire for a warm blood filled feast came bolting around the side of the building, running parallel to the Stalker as the whole of his group opened fire in a bid to stop it before it got any closer. They succeeded much, much better than Nikolai had anticipated. Given that they had collectively burned through over 20 rounds of ammunition trying to dispose of the vile thing. The Stalker swapped magazines, almost regretting his decision to open fire had he not remembered a time only a month prior when he had come upon a body torn to smithereens by phesdo dogs.

"Hallo!"

A grand voice called from off in the distance. "Welcome to Garden!" And then it came into sight. Garden proper. Surrounding a row of apartment buildings was a wall. And beyond that... Was a dense grove of dead trees. But, that wasn't the oddest thing, the strange part was the glowing thing that was flying around it.

"What is that?" The Stalker pressured Willow, the bat pony shrugged. He was just as perplexed, he had seen a lot, to be sure. All those in Nikolai's company had, though there were things foreign to even them. Winding Sprocket had never so much as seen an alicorn before. He and his family had lived in a relatively well guarded and decent sized community prior to the attack which had forced them from their home. And they hadn't really ever seen anything scarier than a limping feral ghoul. Which, in all seriousness, didn't really stack up against Steel Rangers, pegasi wearing power armor, teleporting Unity Alicorns, Glowing Salt Pillars, Hellhounds or other such delightful attributes of the Wasteland.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai! No shoot please!" The voice returned his statement with, "Ok! Only if the feeling is mutual!" A figure bearing green armor characteristic of what he had seen in the old military ruins across the Wasteland popped up over the wall and waved them in from a distance. "Well," The Stalker began. "They haven't started shooting at us. Good?"

"There isn't a gate in sight, that's a pretty big wall though." Willow replied, tussling his bat wings below his cloak.

"Well, let us go on inside and see." As soon as they passed through the wide open hole in the wall that marked the highway, they were greeted by a sudden booming of motion all around them. The inside of Garden was nothing like the scarce and sparse exterior. It was little more than a thriving, functioning trading post. They were approached by a older looking pinkish unicorn mare with a wooden peg for a foreleg and a rough smile spread out across her muzzle.

"Hello there. I saw what you did from the wall, apologies but we don't get many visitors. Oh but it's alright, go on. You're welcome here as long as you don't cause any trouble." Nikolai arched an eyebrow below his mask. He had seen creatures with missing limps before, even humans. But a pony with a peg leg? It was a new and unwelcome sight.

"Oh, and who's this cute little filly?" The mare trotted up to Potato Sack and ruffled her mane in a flurry of exchanged giggles.

"Oh, I'm Potato Sack!" The little foal tugged on her cloak.

The pink mare's smile remained unchanged. "I can't say it's any stranger than the things I've heard in my day. Oh... Enjoy your time here Potato Sack. If y'all are hungry, we've got free food for the foals. Though, I wouldn't suggest you go on trying to drink the groundwater. Canterlot and the Balefire bombs that landed in 'n around here have made it plum near unbearable." She laughed in a way that couldn't help but make Nikolai smile. Off from their right side, another unicorn, this one bearing light blue fur and a greyish mane approached them. The green armor and a pair of G3-esque rifles mounted on a battlesaddle directed Nikolai to believe that he was the one who had waved to them from the massive makeshift wall.

"Hey, you're those folks from the road, ain't ya? Oh, you wouldn't happen to be mercenaries for hire? We could use some more guards for day and night shift alike. How are you holdin' up?" The final statement was directed to the humble looking old mare. Who tugged at the leather pistol holster on her chest. "I'm fine, just greeting the new folks. Where'd you come from?" Nikolai contemplated the question for a moment, and then simple answered:

"South." There was a great deal of truth in the statement, plus, it was little more than an informal meeting. He didn't need to launch into a whole life story.

"Um, listen ma'am." Winding Sprocket pushed his way past Nikolai, who sidestepped just a moment too late to be stuck by Winding's fuzzy head. "My mare and I are looking for a place to stay, we'd go with Nikolai here but he says he's off to Canterlot." Nikolai facepalmed his mask's filter.

"No tell people, remember?" He murmured, staying just under earshot.

"Oh, well...." The mare trailed off, her smile turning uncertain. "If you're looking for advice... You won't really find any here. Try them folks over in Zebratown or those poor foals in Glyphmark. I can offer some advice, good luck. And... You should probably stock up on as much Med-X, healing potions, and Stimpacks as you can carry. We're a bit sparse on inventory but, you should be able to find all you need here." Nikolai nodded.

"Alright, thank you for help. What is your name Miss...?"

"Knitted Troubles." I do knit, just not often. Mostly leather armor and coats. As you could tell, there's no shortage of hide or old salvage to snag up and mesh together out here. "That's Scraped Edges." The unicorn tipped his helmet.

"Combat armor from an wrecked military convoy. The old Ironshod factory ain't too far from here, that's where I picked up this here IF 64. He tugged his rifles. Nikolai arched an eyebrow at the design.

"Do you mind if I take look at it? I no break, promise."

"Hmm... Alright." The Stallion struck the magazine paddle of one of the guns and picked the loaded steel box of 5.56 off the dirt, then racked the massive paddle of a strange charging handle and picked up the 5.56 round with his magic, enveloping it in a cold silvery aura. He unslung the weapon from his battle saddle and levitated it up to The Stalker. Who snatched it up by it's bizarre trigger array.

"And you pull trigger with tongue? Oh, that must hurt." He fiddled with the assembly, and realized that it could swivel to either the left or right side depending on preference. The stock, if it could even be called that, was a strange wooden gimble that drew down to a pony's shoulder. The whole thing looked a little absurd up close, the barrel couldn't have even been more than 30 centimeters in length. He handed it back to Scraped Edges, who rearmed it in a hurry, slipping it back into his battle saddle with his magic once again.

"Odd, but I can see how it would be more convenient. Still, I would take mine any day of week." He took up his AK 101 and held it out for the stallion to examine.

"Wow, it looks a bit like a griffon rifle. What with that weird trigger and all. Iornshod, Colt and Filly, Griffinstone Mechanics..." Nikolai laughed, and set his hands in his pockets.

"It is ok, you can save me tangent. Winding, you wanted to tell them something?"

"Yes, yes. My family was attacked by Raiders south of here, and... We're looking for a new place to settle down. I heard that were short of guards. I'd be up for the job if it means safe harbor for my wife and filly."

"Sure, sure, of course!. It's just me and my brothers at this point. We need the help. By all means, there's plenty of old apartments or little homes nestled in here and there. You can start picking one out if you like, free of charge. They're far from the nicest residences in the Wasteland... But there is no rent for residents." Winding Sprocket looked overtly satisfied. But something inside of him told him to examine Garden further before excepting such an offer. He turned to talk with Nikolai, only to find he had already gone off the various rows and little pop up shops to search of something useful to add to his variety of purposeful odds and ends. Mostly, he was searching for additional healing potions and Med-X. The Stalker figured that, having expended the majority of his medical supplies from Earth, he would have to stock up on as much as possible.

"Nikolai! Nikolai!"

"Huh? Winding? What is it?" The earth pony tapped the asphalt with a forehoof. "I'm seriously considering Garden... At least for the time. I won't have just anyplace for my family, I need to make sure they're as safe and well fed as they could possibly be." Nikolai nodded in agreement as he picked up a rifle magazine from one of the tables, and then subsequently set it back down and motioned for Winding to follow him.

"What do you think?" The Stalker shrugged. "I don't really know, I like this place. It is not the best, but that Knitted Troubles looks and acts fine enough. I would take you with us if you could... But I cannot imagine that you would want to go through Canterlot." Winding Sprocket shook his head. "No, no. Of course not. Not a chance! Thank you for helping us out this far Nikolai... It really means a lot to us." Nikolai laughed, and wavered his right index finger at him.

"I am not leaving yet! Do not worry! Oi! Willow!" The Batpony spun about and stood upright at his friend's request. "Yes Nikolai?"

"Look for things that could help us on trip. Ammunition. Healing potions, Stimpacks, Med-X, any of that stuff. Also... If you find 5.56... Tell me." Willow went off into the marketplace, which just left Flashpoint.

"If you don't need any more help Nikolai, I'd like to go and help Winding and his family find a place to call home. Er... I will be over on the south eastern side of Garden if you need me." With the two stallions having gone in opposite directions, Nikolai was left to browse the selection of traders at and around the main road that led through the city. He stared up and about at the apartment blocks, and chuckled.

"It is just like Zaporizhzhia on rainy afternoon. It even smells like coal smoke... So much for Garden I suppose." He returned to the traders to continue his browsing spree.

"Hmm... Hmhm!" Willow hummed in affirmation as he completed a transaction between himself, and a meek unicorn who had been in the process of sweeping the humble cracked concrete flooring of the sidewalk she and her few companions had set up on. Market stalls and tents bearing goods had sprung up all about the sidewalks, playgrounds, and formerly grassy knolls. Though most were empty, and bare of anything valuable. This was such an oddity to Willow Lamp that he couldn't help but ask the mare, who was just 2/3rds his size, why it was.

"Oh, you know..." She replied solemnly. "Some alicorns flew overhead a few days ago and scared out most of them. Most of those tents have been empty for years... Canterlot Pink Cloud soaks into everything... Ponies tell stories, those stories become rumors, next thing you know... Your prosperous trading settlement loses most of it's customers to ones down south. Not to mention all the awful things that come out of hiding once the sun goes down. You'd think you were just ghost stories if you hadn't seen them with your own eyes. We have it bad, yes... But those ponies over in Zebratown and Glyphmark have it even worse. Willow shrugged, and made a mental note to remind Nikolai of it.

"Well, thank you for the healing potions." He held them up, and then slung the back around his neck.

"Y-you're welcome..." She replied, her voice trailing off as she resumed sweeping the floor that didn't look like it needed any more sweeping.

Willow held up the leather pouch filled with four of the little bottles of shimmering purple liquid. He smiled beneath his hood, and trotted off, having felt just a little better than before, he was now in search of something to add to his own collection of items. And he decided that some new shotgun shells would suit him just finely.

Nikolai meanwhile, had taken to browsing for ammunition. But, on account of a turned about and crudely written sign that had led him down an alleyway which had subsequently led to him almost taking a broken glass bottle to his leg as he hurried past what must have been a hole in the wall tavern, he inevitably ended up looking through something a bit more unique. As he quickly discovered, Stimpacks, Med-X, RadAway, Rad-x...Or RadSafe as it was also known as. And of course healing potions, which were just the tip of the iceberg. The Stalker found himself intrigued by the myriad of strange magical supplements. Dash, Buck, Rage, and Mint-als. All of which he held a warry predisposition towards, figuring that an additional bottle of Vodka and some Radaway was more than enough to see him through anything. He knew better than to take strange anomalous substances which could hold a danger of addiction. Though, he did splurge on Med-X. Nikolai held no phobia towards needles, so long as he knew they were well kept and hygienic. Any that he had left him the first time he had to use an ai-2 medkit to both stave off radiation poisoning, and keep him going as he ran from monsters and Emissions.

"Alright!" Just as he was beginning to make his way back towards the main road, he happened back by the gun shop he had passed by when he had fist arrived in Garden. Nothing out of the ordinary, or even noteworthy... Except for the white talon painted on the side of the canvas, and the fact that he had spotted something which made the destructive part of his brain tingle with joy. He nonchalantly marched himself over to the table and waved at one of the ponies behind the counter.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai! I... Uh... I could not help but notice that back there. Is that some sort of light machine gun?" The pony in question trotted back over to some metal crates and picked up the item in question with his magic.

"Yes... It's a Colt and Filly 16 with a heavier barrel, a bipod, and... Drum magazines. Each holds sixty rounds of 5.56... Does it interest you?" Nikolai tisked. "Hm... Sure! But not machine gun, no... I want one of those magazines." He held up his own rifle. "I am not gunsmith... But- I could probably make that-" He extracted the magazine from his rifle and pointed at the well.

"...Fit and feed in this. Please and thank you. How much?" The unicorn looked Nikolai up and down. And after a moment, fully resolved that Nikolai was in need of it.

"Forty caps." The Stalker began. "Eighty," The unicorn behind the counter replied.

"Just give us sixty, that should do." A Griffon stepped out from behind the tent flap, snagging up the magazine and setting it on the table in front of Nikolai. Who fished out the appropriate number of bottlecaps, and exchanged them in earnest.

"Pleasure doing business with you sir." Nikolai extended his hand, and awkwardly shook the griffons talon.

"Hey..." The Stalker began. "You are griffon ma'am? I have questions. If you not in business of charging money for answers, could I sit over there with you and talk?" The Griffon shrugged.

"Eh, whatever. I don't have much to do anyhow. Half the ponies here are too broke or too scared to buy what we're selling."

"You are selling firearms and ammunition. In this world, how could it be scary? Is it because of the talons?" The Griffon's beak curled up into a smile. "Yes, in a way... It's complicated."

"That sounds like nonsense," He murmured, hurriedly adding, " Please just tell me. I am interested..." His voice trailed off as he spotted Painted Flowers out of the corner of his eye." Eh- Tell quickly. Friend tell me I have to watch his family. I no turn down job."

"Is he paying you?" The Stalker boomed with laughter. "Hah! I wish! No, it is really not an issue."

All the while, Flashpoint and Winding Sprocket were busy searching along the level suburban outskirts of the settlement for any viable homesteads. Winding insisted that he didn't need all that much, considering that he intended to search for some other place if possible. But he still wanted his family to have a steady roof over their head for the time being. Nikolai would have described it as searching through the downtrodden part of Cleveland, except in Cleveland, you didn't have to deal with mutant dogs. Just the occasional unsavory degenerate or drug addict shouting at you from the sidewalk. Or by chance, limp-wrist firing a pistol with modifications of questionable legality at you while again, crying bloody murder for no apparent reason. They took to a little subdivision about 200 meters off the road. It was a short distance, but well enough away from population that the two stallions resolved to scout out their building of choice; a single story red brick house based in between the apartments of downtown Garden, and the raised highways leading up over the hills towards Canterlot in the northeast.

"That one looks nice enough. The roof is all intact, there's no paint peeling. The front deck looks whole. And, except for a few broken windows... It's all nice and good." Winding trotted up to the front door, balancing his shotgun on his left hoof as he went.

20 minutes later...

Willow would have gone back to look for Nikolai, but the meek little mare's boss: a saury, odd mannered middle aged earth pony mare who seemed to worry at even the prospect of somepony else seeing her face, told the bat pony stallion about a den of mutant dogs in a nearby parking garage. Nikolai had seen her eyes, and determined that she was neither a bat pony nor ghoul, and certainly not a unicorn. The cloak and hood combination seemed to be the universal wasteland constant of the words, 'leave me alone'. And it was a feeling he felt much obliged to respect. He wasn't Nikolai, prying and intending to know every little bit of every little thing. He needed some extra money. And he figured that his bipedal philanthropic Stalker friend wouldn't object to such a proposition. He had taken search and destroy jobs before. And for a pony who could fly at a rate that could rival a pegasus in power armor, he warry, but far from worried about the danger. What he was more concerned about was the strange mare returning her side of the deal. Even if he repeated it to her verbatim, she might just turn away and pretend it never happened. So he had to bring back proof. He figured, disturbing as it might have been, some torn limbs and claws might serve as adequate compensation.

"I'll fly up, scan the levels, take the mutants in mid air with my carbine, and be back to Nikolai in 20 minutes with 50 new shiny caps to my name. It doesn't sound that hard. No, no Willow. That's not the way to approach this, caution... Remember? You aren't new to this." He put his thoughts out of his mind, and crept around a corner to unfurl his leathery wings, out of sight and out of mind of the flurry of armed and paranoid ponies below. Sticking to the taller buildings in the area, he made his way to the parking garage, marked on all four sides with a massive 3 painted in peeling reflective white paint. The sides of the building itself were covered in decayed plants. A gesture which Willow figured to be a homage to the city's name of Garden. Making almost no noise, he rose in elevation to a height of about 25 meters along the stairwell on the southeastern side of the concrete structure. He turned left and slowly made his way along the concrete guard blocks at the edge of the garage until he heard the almost thundering noise of pack animals fighting and prancing about inside the structure. He shifted his course upwards by about another meter and spotted three of the creatures fighting over the torn carcass of a fourth.

"Fifty caps? For four dogs? This isn't right. There needs to be more two it than this." He took aim with his gun, stabilized his movement in midair, and then briskly brought his rifle scope up to his slit yellow eyes and put four canine bodies to rest on the concrete in the span of three seconds. Nikolai would have been proud. But it was nothing odd, or even difficult for a stallion who had been doing such things his whole life. The bat pony waited and listened patiently for a moment. Through his eyes, the dark recesses of the garage's 3rd floor were all but lit up with massive stadium lights. Everything that moved, he noticed. More to that, he could smell the dead, rancid carcasses of the mutants he had just shot, and the gunpowder smoke drifting from the suppressor on the end of his rifle. All of which burned in his extremely sensitive nose. Thestrals held a myriad of distinct advantages above even the average pony in terms of the 5 senses, even more so than a human. Their wings weren't as attuned to high altitude flying or acceleration as a pegasus, but they certainly could turn fast, and be as quiet as they wanted to, when they wanted to.

Unfortunately, none of that seemed to help Willow when a Glowing Bloodwing. It swooped right down from one of the rusting metal pipes overhead and took a slash at his backside, lodging it's fangs in the leather padding on his back. Which, for an abomination almost half his size, was fairly worrying.

"Get off of me!" The being pulsed with greenish light and screeched violently. Willow screeched back, which seemed to only encourage the thing. He whirled around in mid air and struck the creature with his right hoof, knocking it off his back. The Balefire being emitted by it made the fur on the back of his neck stand up. And he felt faint. He landed, drew his shotgun, and smeared radioactive bat goop all over the wreck of an ancient rusting car. The boom from the weapon resonated up and down the structure, and just a moment later, two more Bloodwings flew to meet and greet him. Both of which he put down with his rifle. He turned, bounded up into the air, and flew for the ledge. About halfway in between him and the open sky, another, massive Bloodwing. This one nearly his size, dropped from the ceiling and knocked him off balance. The two creatures fell together in a heap. Willow quite literally flew into a rage, striking the thing over the head with the butt of his shotgun until it stopped moving. Without any more time to react, Willow scrambled up and made a mad gallop for a destroyed section of the guard wall. This time, it was a feral ghoul which snagged him, and tackled him just inches from the edge. The snarling thing clawed and tore at his armored and padded underbelly.

"Get. Off of me!" He gave the zombie esque creature a fierce uppercut. It was joined by another mutant dog, who snapped and lashed at his face as he struggled to hold both back. He raised his rifle and fired the last shot in the magazine into the ghoul's sternum. Putrid blood and gore exited both sides, covering him in even more filth. He whipped around and blew the feral dogs leg off. Just in time for three more to show up and begin slashing the cloth and leather around his hind legs to pieces. One tore off a chunk of his tail, and he clenched his teeth in agony's. One finally found a vulnerable spot and came off of him smeared in the Thestrals blood.

"You asshole!" He fumed, drawing himself into a pinprick eyed fury. In a rush of adrenaline, he rolled off the ledge, caught the breeze with his wings, and glided down onto the next level of the parking garage. He found himself landing right on the broken glass covered hood of a dilapidated sports utility vehicle. He watched as another canine figure dashed off the floor above and plummeted to its death in a bloodthirsty rage. The Thestral coughed and exhaled raggedly.

"I want more caps for this." Willow thought to himself, coming to understand Nikolai's frustrations with irate clarity. Just as he slipped his body off the hood of the car and reached for a healing potion from his rucksack, another ghoul, a feral cat of immeasurable ferocity, came storming out of the underside of a nearby truck with a flurry of terrifying mutant kittens and began mauling him once more. The purplish vial fell from his grasp and cracked on the floor, knocked away by one of the felines.

"That's it, no caps! He struck the magazine release on his carbine and reached for a new magazine. When all at once he heard a chittering noise, and found an oversized radscorpion skittering across the garage floor from the ramp, and directly towards him. Baring it's fangs and snapping it's massive claws. He turned to open his wings and fly off, when all of a sudden, he heard automatic suppressed rifle fire from behind him, moving up the ramp and drawing progressively closer to him, until a 5.56 caliber projectile tore the scorpion's tail right off. Followed by two more shots which put it down for the count. Up from the first floor came Nikolai, swapping magazine while crying obscenities' at the corpses of his mutant victims.

"Ohoho! Must have been Zoo Party! Ey! Willow!" The Thestral groaned in pain as the feral cats scampered off. The Stalker spun his head around and darted over to Willow's side.

"Can you stand?"

"Oww..."

"Can you fly? Blyat! The sun is going down soon, and those things will be all over us if we do not go!" The scent of Vodka on the Stalker's jacket practically reminded Willow of home. The Bat pony hovered off, but stopped Nikolai all of a sudden.

"Help me grab some mutant body parts... I need them for something." That was something the Stalker was oddly well prepared to hear, along with: "My wing's sprained." After some rushed slicing and dicing, the two shambled their way back to Garden. Oddly undisturbed by the mutants around them.

"Look who the Wasteland dragged in!" Flashpoint's warm, dirtied smile was the first thing to greet the Stalker and his bat pony companion back to Garden. Followed by a satisfied looking Winding Sprocket, and an equally enthusiastic Potato Sack and Painted Flowers.

"I... Take it you found house?" Winding nodded. "Oh, you bet-" The earth pony shifted his gaze to Willow, who quickly landed and folded his wings under his torn cloak.

"Ouch, are you alright?"

"Ah, I'm fine." Willow lamp murmured, wincing as the words passed his fangs. Nikolai shook his head. "No, no you are not. Come, I will see that you are taken care of over there my friend! No worry!"

"I need to collect my payment first."

"From what?"

"I'll tell you inside." He began trotting away towards what seemed to be an improvised clinic. The Stalker quickly whispered something into Flashpoint's ear as he passed by, and the Zebra went off back towards the market.

"So, tell me... What is it?" The bat pony kept himself from flinching as Nikolai cleaned the wound, and injected a bit of penicillin in his foreleg, before wrapping his shoulder with the cleanest bandages he had with him, including a few magical ones. He wasn't quite sure how prominent rabies was in Equestria, but he figured a magic healing potion and some comfort would be more than ample substitutes for any proper vaccination. Even now, Willow's ailment couldn't help but bother Nikolai, who was still recovering from the shotgun pellets he took to the leg back in Prairie City.

"I took a small search and destroy job for fifty caps. Those limps you an I are carrying around in our packs are the proof that I made good on it."

"Want me to leave you here to rest on cement with little blanket, or do you want to come with me and get your payment? I not kid you Willow, you will come along with me."

"It's done." Willow chirped, Nikolai opened up his old temperature controlled hunting pouch from his time in the Exclusion Zone and poured the items out onto the table. "Is this proof enough?" The poor little unicorn behind the counter looked as though she was about to faint, when her hooded boss arrived and answered.

"Yes, yes it is." And set a small pouch of bottlecaps on the table, before taking the limps in the strangest fashion, and trotting off.

"I am so, so sorry for inconvenience." Nikolai apologized. "My friend here, he said you guys want proof he did thing. So I provide proof alongside him." Nikolai gaze the mare a double thumbs up, and walked back towards the main road. Nikolai spotted Flashpoint approaching.

"Hey, Willow close your eyes." It was an odd request, but he did as asked, and when he opened them, there was Flashpoint, offering him a crossbow.

"A crossbow... Um, alright."

"It's even quieter than your rifle, and besides, Nikolai promised he'd split the cost. Not withstanding the half dozen bolts for the weapon. The stallion behind the counter said you could use rebar in a pinch."

"He is not lying. I do same thing back in Primary School. Come, I make something, and tell you story.... Have you heard of Talon Company? What a creative name! They are all literally just Griffons! How funny is that!?" He swiftly glanced about to insure that no one was listening in. If someone had, then they didn't seem to care.

"What do you say? We spend night here, at Winding Sprocket's new place... And then we set out for Canterlot in the morning? If we start before sun comes up, then we should be there in time to have the whole day to ourselves."

"Alright." Willow replied.

As Nikolai sat around a freshly stoked fireplace, hammering and peening out the little bits of the drum magazine he had acquired earlier, and his two friends lay on a half destroyed and stained set of couch cushions, The Stalker suddenly arrived at a stark and blunt realization. He snagged a little notepad from a side pocket of his rucksack, unfolded it along with a small pen, and began fiddling around with all the thoughts in his head, to his own shock, and it finally set in that he had been in Equestria for two whole weeks.

Two weeks, most people, even most Stalkers, didn't accomplish the things he had done in a lifetime.

"Blayt... Only two? Ohoho... I need drink. This world is going by too fast." He set the notepad down besides his new drum magazine, and took swigs of Vodka until he fell asleep in his chair. Snoring just softly enough so as to not be able to wake his exhausted friends. He could only imagine the kind of nap he would take after Canterlot...

Chapter 32: The Big Rock Candy Mountain

Chapter 32: The Big Rock Candy Mountain

Sure, Nikolai could have spent more time right where he was. Perhaps he could have taken time to recover from his multiple gunshot wounds to his arms and legs that still itched like a flaky cactus from time to time. Perhaps he could have found a way to clean himself up. He finally removed his jacket and undershirt to reveal that he was absolutely caked in filth. But he had already decided that nothing like that would ever dissuade him from his daily goal. The thing he had been making his way across the Wasteland for since he had first left Salt Cube City. Whether he knew it or not back then.

Canterlot.

After a filling breakfast which thankfully didn't lead to any sort of food poisoning, and a hurried series of goodbyes with Winding Sprocket and his family, Nikolai and his companions were ready to leave town. And leave town they did. They made their way out of Garden and headed Northeast, over the raised highway that led over the hills just before Mount Canterhorn. The closer and closer they drew to the city on a mountaintop, the more the roads became clogged with the hulking wrecks of ancient vehicles whom had tried in vain to escape the bombardment of dark magic that had consumed the city. About an hour into the day, the scaled a boulder speckled hill above a collapsed tunnel that led to the bridge over the now empty Canterhorn river.

As they drew closer, the true size of mount Canterhorn finally reared it terrible beauty. At well over two kilometers in height, it was the largest thing around from horizon to horizon. The massive swirling maelstrom of Pink Cloud pulsed from time to time with bursts of light and what Nikolai could only describe as pink lightning. Every time a titanic bolt of dark magical energy arced about the cloud, thunder followed soon after. Even after the Radstorm, and the Emissions in the Zone, it was something to behold. And he intended to take it all in for what it was worth. Regardless of the terrified opinions of the ponies around him, and the very vocal concerns of his two friends. Regardless, both of them were in full support of their bipedal friend.

"Nikolai, I'm hesitant to ask, but what exactly is the plan for when we get there?"

"We shall debate that when gates of city are in sight. Do not worry!" Flashpoint chuckled uncomfortably at Nikolai's reply, and scratched behind his head.

"Ok... Willow? How about you?" His question was returned with an answer in the form of an absentminded chirp.

The bat pony seemed almost entranced by the sight of Canterlot. In all truth, Willow was, he had flow across the Equestrian Wasteland with the city as a backdrop for over a decade since he had left his den. But never once had he actually even contemplated the act of trying to visit it. Even the mere proposal of it sounded insane to him. But he had learned that with Nikolai, that word could very quickly become warped. Any sense of conventional planning was quickly lost below The Stalker's fiercely optimistic outlook on the world. All of which seemed to be brought on by little more than his persistent good mood, and rampant alcohol consumption, the inner workings of which seemed to allude everyone around him except him. It wasn't a large issue to him, of course. But, 'large' under that matter of context takes on on a different meaning when a man is standing face to face with a mountain riddled with biohazards, radiation, magical weather, and God only knows how many monsters. Yet, all Nikolai could think about as they crossed the massive 6 lane bridge across the now barely present Canterhorn river, was money.

But money is only money. On it's own, it might be gold, or paper, or cloth, or a bottlecap. But it on it's own, it is not the root source of happiness. It's a physical good, sure. But... It can be used to 'acquire' items to ease the burden on ones life. And that was exactly what the Stalker in question intended to do.

"But what should-"

"Willow, Flashpoint?" The two stallions looked up and over their shoulders at their friend. " Yes?" They both answered. Nikolai fumbled with the tower on his radio, and spun it on.

"I wonder what the battery life on this thing is? It hasn't died yet. And I have put it through hell. Radiation, beatings, fire, rain. It is load of nonsense. But... It still works. Is miracle of science- What else can I say?"

"Maybe you could try and take it apart?" Willow inquired. "I mean, if it's worked for this long and this far from any strong signals... Then it's gotta be something special, right?"

The Stalker laughed as his fumbling with the knop struck home, and he was awarded with the haunting sound of an old song, barely legible through his radio speaker and filled with static. One that seemed far to fitting for his predicament. It resounded with the name of, 'Big Rock Candy Mountain'. It took a minute or two to realize the irony of it, but when he did. The Stalker couldn't help but roar with laughter. It's a small wonder why:

One evening as the sun went down..

And the Jungle fire was burning...

Down the track came a Hobo Hikin'...

And he said "boys I'm not turnin'...

I'm heading for a land that's far away besides the crystal fountains...

So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains..."

The song described a veritable rural paradise. In stark contrast to the mountain ahead of them; toxic irradiated ruin filled with all manner of horrors, twisted beyond recognition by the necromantic Pink Cloud chemical weapon which struck the city. It now stands as a glowing landmark, visible for miles around. A cold reminder that some places are best left forgotten. Except when it came to certain profit bent Stalkers of course. Nikolai drew his PDA once they were across the bridge, and examined his map. All of a sudden, he felt a tug at his jacket. He turned to see Willow and Flashpoint slowly backing away from him.

"Nikolai... Look." Flashpoint tapped on his leg and pointed at something. He glanced up from his device, and was met with a handful of pinkish wisps that hung in mid air. At the same time, his Anomaly detector began to tick, slowly... But, as he stepped closer to the aberration, it whined ever so louder. The patches of Balefire Radiation the trio had had to avoid on the way to the base of the mountain from Garden made his Geiger counter drone in it's typical fashion. But a softly wailing Anomaly detector indicated that they were closer than they anticipated.

"It's mesmerizing, isn't it?" Willow asked his two friends. Nikolai shook his head. "That, is just errant wisp of Pink Cloud. We have not seen anything yet." He waved them back over, and invited them to examine the screen of his PDA.

"We are right near place called Zebratown. Flashpoint, may seem strange- but do you know anything about it? Seeing that you are a Zebra?" Flashpoint curled his brow. "No... I'm not familiar with it." Willow butted in.

"Ah, ah! But it wouldn't take a Zebra to assume that Zebratown has something to do with Zebras!"

"Ok.. So it would thus be safe to assume that it will be something like the Zebras we met a few days ago? All spooky and mystical with cool cloaks? That sounds entertaining." There was a pause in his talking, before he resumed with, "Flashpoint, what is your thoughts?"

"Nikolai- I just told you, I... Don't know." He shrugged." I was raised in an almost constant state of captivity and fleeing. How could I know? Perhaps your map has more information?" Nikolai hung his head, and let slip a fit of temper.

"Is not that kind of map damnit! What? Do you think I have internet connection or something? Blyat! Is miracle it works the way it does already! I would kill for one of those fancy shmancy three dimension full color maps with the ability to call in air strikes! Air strike...." The Stalker trailed off.

"Well, I suppose we have Willow for that, no? But just think about it- Remember Enclave? Or Steel Rangers? Imagine missiles and artillery falling from sky- whenever you need! No price tag! How cool would that be!? Well... We can keep dreaming, no?" He raised his mask and took a swig of Vodka out of enthusiastic spite. The Stalker returned the bottle to his rucksack and stared up at the towering mountain and it's myriad of toxic waterfalls, sparkling and crackling with more of that same entrancing pinkish lighting.

"It is about a kilometer up this road.. And, it lies directly below Canterlot- That cannot be right, no-no... We go straight to Canterlot. We cannot bare to waste any time." The Stalker gazed out across the unsown ruins of what once would have been verdant farmland, but was now little more than flooded rows of toxic liquid.

After a little while, the sounds of the roaring waterfall of Canterlot began to make themselves known, stained with the same pinkish oil slick-like substance that polluted the river and farmland they had just passed by

"It is some thing to behold. I will give it that much, where I am from... Mountains are a rare sight. We have Caucasus and Carpathian Mountains to Southeast, and Alps to the Far West. I have seen a few waterfalls in my life. But this... this is something else! Blyat! My detector really does not like this place already!"

"Which one of them? It's getting hard to keep track." Willow quipped. Nikolai laughed, and discreetly flipped him off behind his back. All of a sudden, Willow shot up into the air, almost as if reacting to the Stalkers gesture. But he wasn't, the little Thestral had spotted something odd off in the distance.

"What is it!?" Nikolai shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. The bat pony swiveled his head around for a few moments, and then set himself back down where he had taken off.

"It's flooded." He told them.

"Flooded? How?" Flashpoint asked him. Willow shrugged, and motioned towards the pulsating magical waterfall in the distance.

"I'd wager that waterfall and it's constituents had something to do with it." The Stalker shook his head in defiance.

"No, no. I don't think either of you can swim, and I have had too many bad experiences in Swamps fighting mutants and avoid toxic puddles to put up with that! I would rather we put up with toxic air than toxic floodwaters. Plus, it is already balls-off freezing cold out here! Do you seriously think that is good idea- Oi Blyat get down!" He snagged his friends and tossed them into a ditch before diving into the thankfully dry ditch himself. An instant later, an alicorn flew overhead, headed right for Zebratown. Which, now closer than before, seemed to be more of a small city than anything else. Either way, the Stalker wanted no part in it. He had his mind on, 'higher things'.

"I wonder what they were doing?" Flashpoint asked his friends as Nikolai helped him back out of the ditch, and dusted his back off for him.

"Is beyond me. And, if alicorns are here. Is best not to bother them. Come, we go to Canterlot proper, and not nonsense zebra look-alike." He once more took up his PDA and examined the topographic map of the local terrain around him.

"Is nothing else of notoriety... And, provide for us that we don't go and try to poke those alicorns on their, 'all important mission of bullshit'- we should be in the clear."

Flashpoint rolled his eyes at the little bit of irony. "Should be? Oh, I suppose it is better than won't be. Unless that 'won't' in question were to apply to us getting out and away from trouble rather than into. But I don't suppose it will make any difference for us in the end."

"I can fly, and... Nikolai," Willow humored him, "You are the best non winged get-out-of-trouble troublemaker that I have ever met. And you can still play the sarcastic type while doing it."

"I thank you for high praise! Maybe I will make you assistant to the assistant regional warlord once I become Cap Emperor of the Wasteland!"

"Assistant to the assistant regional warlord?" The bat pony questioned him. "I take it Flashpoint will eventually be your assistant then?" Nikolai facepalmed and shook his head.

"I don't know! Ok? I work out! These things take time, you know?" Willow once more went on and rolled his slit yellow eyes, cracking a discrete smirk as he did.

About twenty minutes of walking later, and the ground and cracked asphalt under their feet and hooves had begun to take off at a slight incline. Then, a slightly shaper one. Until they were all forced to contend with a long 30 degree climb up hill until the ground eventually began to level out again. It was official, they were on Mount Canterhorn. Nikolai checked his watch, and came to the conclusion that they had just enough time for a brisk snack before it was too late to do so.

With some fumbling, The Stalker took a ravenous hold of a loose protein bar in his pack while his friends helped themselves to some interesting tasting canned fruit from the supermarket two days prior.

"I would suggest you savor it. You no eat up there. Is... How do you say, detrimental for health?" Flashpoint raised an eyebrow.

"And strolling through a magical biohazard isn't? I don't follow Nikolai." The Stalker spun his finger about in the air, motioning for them to get up.

"Hand signals... Do you ponies and such have hoof signals? I never really think too deep about it. Please, we make conversation filler on way to city of opportunity!" He waved the slightly belligerent zebra and, 'supportive' bat pony along as he began to continue onwards at an increased pace.

"So... What kinds of monsters do you reckon we'll find up there?"

"I do not really know." Nikolai responded." I read bit of Wasteland Survival Guide before we left Garden."

"Ghouls? I plead that it won't be like Splendid Valley." Flashpoint shuttered.

"Hopefully not." Nikolai replied cheerfully. "Though... I would say, you probably should put on that chemical suit helmet now. It looked like it had built in filters. Common sense would tell any sane person that, when venturing into such an environment- It would be best if you had no exposed skin. Willow?" The Bat pony took up a strange painters mask and a set of goggles.

"All good... But... I have my doubts. Isn't Pink Cloud supposed to melt and decay everything it touches?"

"Like sulfuric acid... I suppose. Or Fruit Punch Anomaly back in Zone. Is no issue! He reached into his rucksack once more, and booted up the Gas Analyzer, extending a little wand from it as he did.

"Our protective equipment is more than adequate provided we do not venture into area with too high concentration. Basically, mentality go like this: Faint pink or no pink, good! Modest pink... Eh, start to worry! Look like foggy morning... Start run away. Thick cannot see hand- hoof in front of face... Eh, you probably screwed. So... Let us make like drunk houseguest and not overstay welcome! Like Splendid Valley! God, I hated that place. Hey, maybe we meet new Eldritch thing to befriend here, no?"

"That Goddess thing wasn't a friend, she tried to kill me, Nikolai!" Flashpoint commented. "Eh... Aggressive friendship?" Nikolai looked up from the Gas Analyzer that he was busy trying to pin to his utility belt, right beside his Makarov holster on his right hip. All of a sudden, it started to whine.

"N-Nikolai?" Willow asked in a hushed tone, sounding rushed and impatient as the words left his mouth. "There uh- There's a- A ghoul up ahead." Nikolai glanced up from his belt, and was greeted with the delightfully horrifying sight of a little ghoul, sitting on the side of the road and coloring some sort of image on a piece of paper. As typical of a ghoul, it's mane and tail had all but fallen out. And, it was filled with holes. But that wasn't the weird thing about it. A ghoul, even a young looking, somewhat self aware seeming ghoul was uncommon. But nothing that Nikolai hadn't yet seen. What was particularly disturbing about this one, and very likely the thing keeping Willow and Flashpoint behind Nikolai and away from the creature, was the wisps of Pink Cloud emanating from the holes in it's body. Every single one, it was like a putrid flesh balloon leaking poison gas.

The Stalker watched the ghoul for about a minute. He just stood there, watching as she elegantly colored in a piece of yellowed paper with an array of crayons she kept beside herself.

"What do we do?" Flashpoint asked him. "That thing is emitting Pink Cloud!" Nikolai put his finger to his masks filter.

"That thing looks to be Canterlot Ghoul. It eh... Emits Pink Cloud." Willow slowly reached for his Crossbow, but Nikolai slapped it away.

"Don't shoot her yet!"

"Why not?" Willow asked him, "And how can you tell it's a she?"

"Jaw line?" He responded. "I have been here two weeks now. I would think that I know how to tell mare and stallion apart."

"Ok... But what happens when it decides to shuffle over here and turn us into blood pudding?" Willow demanded.

"It does not look like she even notices us. Perhaps she is def?" Flashpoint was decidedly curious, something he probably shouldn't have been, as almost immediately afterwards, Nikolai had dropped his rifle to low ready, and began slowly edging his way up to the filly, until he was just 3 meters from her. Right at the edge of the Pink Cloud that flowed from her body like a leaky tap.

The Stalker planted his boots firmly on the ground and waved timidly. "Um... Hello! Name is Nikolai! I am please to meet you! What is your name?"

No response.

"Um... Excuse me ma'am! Name is Nikolai-"

There are times in a persons life where one regrets having ever introduced ones self to another person. Usually, on account of the now present obligation to address that person in whatever mental capacity they themselves are in at the time. Other times, they could moody, or apathetic, or violent, or to more bluntly put it, they might be complete assholes. Other times, they might simply not be interested in a conversation. This was definitely not the case with the little toxic filly Nikolai had just met.

"Hiii! She replied in a high pitched, hollow voice. "I am SO sorry, but I wanted to get this drawing of mine finished! I didn't see you there! My name is Spring Blossom! It's nice to meet you Mister Nikolai!" Nikolai looked back at his friends, who seemed just a little bit concerned.

"Is nice to meet you Spring! What are you drawing?"

"Mommy says I can't be near regular ponies." She replied. "She says I might hurt them." Nikolai dramatically shrugged, resulting in a little giggle from the filly.

"Oh- Oh! Is ok! I can see it from here! Is really good! Where did you come from?" Spring Blossom had gone back to her drawing, Nikolai patiently waited for another 30 seconds, and then repeated his question.

"What? Oh... I'm sorry! Mommy says I have trouble staying focused. Ummmm... Up there!" She threw an absent minded hoof up in the direction of Canterlot.

"Cool! How old are you, and where is your mother?"

"Oh... My mommy is dead!" She replied cheerfully, going back to her drawing once more.

"I am sorry little one."

"Oh, don't be! I don't like being all mopey dopey! I have a new mommy! She lives in Canterlot and she's just like me! Oh... It seems like she's been with me since forever!!" Nikolai smiled under his mask, and gave her a double thumbs up.

"Fantastic! I will... Leave you be for time being! Goodbye!"

"Byeeee! She replied, her rotten face twisting into a blooming smile, before returning to her drawing.

"Well, that was horrifying." Willow whispered. "Nikolai shrugged again. "What are you going to do about it? At least she seems happy and not like evil tortured soul! Eh... Glowing greenish eyes mixed with all shades of pink and grey look sort of cool. Come! We go to big city to make rich!"

"I do not know what we else might encounter in there, but... It will have to get through wall of grenades and bullets to get to us!" He pumped his fist in mock enthusiasm as the group rounded the the edge of the mountain pass they were on, and came face to face with the massive crumbling walls of Canterlot and the swirling Pink Clouds around them. It was at that moment that Nikolai noticed something that seemed vastly out of place.

A massive unicorn horn, stick up out of the middle of the city, with a faint adjoining pair of mock wings.

"Ohoho..." Nikolai's mouth almost fell open below his mask as all three of his detectors began to tick at once. The parts per million rating on his Gas Analyzer was still far under the safe limit, and there seemed to be little, if any radiation that would be worth worrying about.

"To hell with second thoughts! Let's go!"

Nikolai waved them forward, taking the lead as he marched ahead with his rifle in his hand. At the very edge of Pink Cloud, he suddenly halted, realizing that his friends were still several dozen meters behind him. Probably still mindful of the fact that the both of them wished to stay whole and unmelted.

"Fine, fine." He drew the small sampling wand from the gas analyzer and waved it through the faint wisps of Pink Cloud. The reading came back at just being a mere 10 parts per million. Nothing more that an a mild inconvenience, though, if it were to grow any higher, there might've been a problem had he and his companions not been wearing what they were wearing.

"Is fine! Is fine! He responded. "

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Flashpoint galloped up to him, and Willow followed soon after.

"Count to three?" The Stalker roared with laughter.

"Cyka Blyat!" Nikolai plunged into the Cloud, and Flashpoint dove in after him. Willow, not wanting to leave his friends hanging, followed along with him. Their body shapes leaving impressions in the cloud just outside the city gates as lighting and thunder boomed overhead.

They were here.

Bigger on the inside, truly rang true for Canterlot. Far above them, grey clouds and pink mist fused to create strange weather patterns, below, Pink Cloud pooled in every low and confined place. In the the corners of alleyways, beneath collapsed buildings, in storm gutters and runoff drains. The ground itself was covered in only a thin shroud of the stuff, which Nikolai's boots knocked and waved aside as he trod down the ancient cobblestone road. All around them, the devastation wrought by the Cloud was apparent. Buildings had been stripped of paint, alongside most of their exterior materials. The substance soaked through and into everything. Nikolai heard the distant noise of a building collapsing. It was like the entire city was falling apart at the seams. All of that marble looked to be much, much past it's expiration date.

"All of this damage-it was caused just by the Pink Cloud?" Nikolai and his two friends walked on, amazed by what they were witnessing.

In truth, none of them had ever seen anything quite like it. There really was no other place, either in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, or the Equestrian Wasteland, that could quite compare to it. Lampposts, their glass shattered, seemed to have been almost frozen in time. Little orbs or blue and green light danced about them, as if some magical force was still trying to maintain what had been destroyed long, long before Nikolai's time. With the massive, albeit sort of creepy decaying horn and wings off towards the city center, and the crumbling gilded towers of the Castle beyond that, the entire city brought with it a cold, dangerous, ominous beauty. Not 20 meters past the city walls, the sickening remains of the the Cataclysm that had taken place here finally made themselves known.

Twisted, rotted and melted pink bones lay strewn everywhere Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint looked. Sometimes accumulating in piles along the corners of walls. The dead plants and the black trunks of trees still stood in mostly upright positions, all looking like they had been submerged in stomach acid for the past two centuries.

"Is nothing to worry about." Nikolai assured them, "Bones are just bones, they cannot hurt you. But, I guarantee the other things here probably can. Let us hurry up and not push our luck." With that, they continued to push forward.

Nikolai had correctly assumed that they were on main street. It was what ran right from the city gates, up to the Castle in the distance. It was massive, and, in spite of the fact that it had clearly not been designed for automobiles. It was still almost 80 meters across, easily enough to fit a four lane highway. And the trio was making their way right down the middle of it. Where the Pink Cloud seemed the thinnest.

"I wonder what that thing was. I mean, seriously. I get that you are proud of alicorn and all that- But, do you really need to show it off by erecting giant what do you even call that- Urban Art? Blin... I... I am on the fence about this one."

"I..." Flashpoint squinted his eyes. "I actually like it. It's... Fascinating. It would have been amazing to visit this place before The Bombs fell. It's a real shame."

"I agree with you Flashpoint." Nikolai replied. "You know, Chernobyl disaster ruined huge swath of beautiful forest. Boom! Just like that, unusable for next millennium." Lightning arced across the sky, and an eerie, almost song-like wind blew through the city, ruffling Nikolai's jacket hood as he opened his PDA and zoomed in on Canterlot.

"Alright, here is game plan. We need to try and find designated map of city. Then, we pick out spot with highest potential value- We loot, and we run away! Capisce- I I am not Italian, and- Neither are you, is fancy word for 'understand'. So... Do you understand me?"

"Yes, yes. We get you Nikolai."

"We shall try finding map of city over by the giant decaying horn thing. Does it sound weird when I say it like that? Because I am certain it must."

"No. It doesn't Nikolai." Willow assured him. "It's all in your head."

"I have done and seen a lot, I think I know when it is, and is not in head. Does-"

"-Anyone else hear that noise?" The Thestral tilted his head back and forth, and then, pinned his ears back and winced. Nikolai rushed over to him and set a gloved hand on his back.

"What is it? What's happening?" An instant later, Flashpoint pinned his ears back and almost dropped to the ground. All of a sudden, Nikolai's anomaly detector began to scream and whine. Out of the darkness, a sprite-bot hovered down the road, pulsing waves of white and pinkish energy. It's speakers resonated with white noise, as it lumbered closer, the music on the Stalker's own radio crackled and distorted itself. At about 25 meters, a sudden wave of nausea washed over the Stalker, and his head began to thump with pain. He hadn't felt like this since he had been transported to Equestria. Or since he had accidentally wandered through Controller territory in the Zone, at least. The damned thing was emitting some form of psychic energy.

"Ahh!!" He screamed in rage and took his rifle off safe.

"W-What is it!?" Flashpoint shouted. "Sprite-bot!" Nikolai shouted, he raised his rifle, took aim at the corroded speaker system, and and fired four shots into it. All four rounds passed through the rusted speaker system, and, with a crackle, the sprite -bot sparked and began a decent to the ground. Willow drew his shotgun and fired off a disrupter round that tore the machine's spell matrix asunder, and it crashed to the ground in a loud metallic crunch.

"What was that!?" Willow stumbled back onto all fours with Flashpoints help, and Nikolai rubbed his temples under his mask.

"Cognito hazardous signals. Brain scorching stuff. I cannot stand it. But that thing..." Nikolai walked up to the destroyed sprite-bot and gave it a heavy kick with his boot, jeering at it as he did.

"We should get going. Willow! Your ears are the most sensitive, you are now living deadly noise detector!" He waved them along, and continued as though nothing had just happened.

As they made their way down the road and ever so closer, they began to grow ever more weary. Between the horrid sights around them, the toxic atmosphere, and the magical aberrations. It was almost as bad as traveling through the center of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Each passing restaurant front or store brought with the paranoid shifting of gunsights from the trios weapons, and the sporadic flicker of Nikolai's rifle light as he switched it on and off.

Finally, after about 15 minutes, The Stalker and his companions arrived at the edge of some Grandiose Park, with the massive Horn and Wings rising up out of the ground directly ahead of them. Past it was a field strewn with blackened grass and skeletal trees. Off in the northwest was Canterlot Castle itself. In all its long past, now irradiated glory.

"Yada, yada, something, something, one small step for man-"

Flashpoint gestured him over, "Nikolai, I found something." He pointed to a corroded plaque which had been mounted to a piece of formerly white marble. It read;

"The Celestian Monument: Dedicated to One Thousand Years of peaceful and harmonious rule by my dear sister." Nikolai gazed up at the hideous crumbling remains of the Monument.

"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair. It lasted a millennium, a millennium! That just puts things into perspective, does it not?" Nikolai turned to his friends.

"It lasted a thousand years, maybe even more. But, it all ended in two hours. Over what? I may never know. But one thing is too be sure- This has been the greatest-" Flashpoint broke Nikolai's spell of 'speechifying'.

"Hey... Look over here. We've found a map of the city!" Nikolai was led over to a concessions cart, and was awarded with a literal laminated placemat with a map of the city, complete with street and location names.

"Odd... But, map is map! Let us see, we are here." He pointe to the massive white outcropping on the map. "Castle is over there... School for Gifted Unicorns is that way, courthouse over in that direction... And... Oh! There is place called Ministry Walk! Right over there! Across field of death! He folded the ancient map up and stuffed it in the gas mask pouch atop his ballistic vest, then furrowed his brow as he spotted the the small lake of pink cloud tainted water and the small river that snaked through the park and off towards the western side of the city, right off the edge of the mountain.

Nikolai was about to walk away from the concession stand, when he suddenly heard growling. He turned about, and there it was, the damned thing was just standing there, staring back at Nikolai with dead eyes in a puddle of irradiated corrosive Pink Cloud, it was pony-like in appearance only. Pony-like. It shuttered and twitched when it saw him, growling and moaning. Nikolai froze for a brief moment. This thing didn't seem at all like Spring Blossom. It was a proper Canterlot Ghoul.

The Stalker addressed his friends in a firm, soft tone of voice. "Back away... Slowly-" His voice turned dire, "Cyka blyat! Run!" His Gas Analyzer, reading a firm 80 parts per million now, seemed to concur with him that running away would be a fantastic idea.

He turned around and began made dead bolt for the other side of the pavilion, almost tripping over a partially dissolved skeleton, and right to the edge of the dead grass, where he was quickly overtaken by his two companions. Nikolai swiveled around and took a knee, resting his rifle on his right knee, he swapped fire modes from semi to fully automatic and leveled the rifle's red optic chevron on the creatures head.

"Crack! Crack! Crack!" The rounds left vapor trails in the Pink Cloud as they flew through the air.

He fired off three shots in quick succession, all struck home on the stumbling creature, one even tore through it's left eye. But still, it kept shambling forwards towards Nikolai and his companions, now, only about 100 meters off. Nikolai raised his gun again, took a shaky heavy breath through his masks filter, and pulled the trigger two more times. The Canterlot Ghoul stumbled, but then, something odd happened. He watched as the pink cloud around the creature shimmered and worked to repair a portion of the flesh Nikolai's rifle rounds had blown away. Another round struck it dead center. This time, from Willow's Carbine. The shot tore off a portion of the monsters face. And, with one more shot from Nikolai's rifle, it's skull was a shattered mess of jelly esque pieces, and it's mostly headless body was left to wander about aimlessly. The Stalker struck the magazine release paddle with his left thumb and let the magazine fall into his hand, he gave it a quick shake, and determined that it was about half empty, so he stuffed it into a pouch on his vest and replaced it with a fresh one.

"Willow!" He stood up and ran over to his companions, waving the bat pony down in particular. "What kind of ghoul can take five shots of armor piercing ammunition to head and keep trying to kill you? That... Was something else. Another unicorn Canterlot ghoul shambled out of the shadows on the other side of the park, right where they had just been.

"Which Ministry should we-"

"We will hide first, then we will go on and pick place to loot. Yes?" Willow's eyes beamed with sudden light under his goggles.

"I find it hilarious that you can be in a place like this, and still only think about money." The Stalker pulled back the bolt back his rifle as the trio set themselves down behind a dead, claw-like tree and examined the round inside.

"I wonder if that drum magazine would run... I know it will fit, but will it cycle? Oh... I will find out soon! Up first, Ministry of Wartime Technology. I visit place of Arcane Sciences, I do not want to visit another. Is perfectly fine by me." Willow and Flashpoint looked at one another, then back at Nikolai's masked face, and nodded in unilateral agreement.

"Wartime Technology, then Peace, Then... Best for Last, Awesome!" He struggled to his feet and began to make his way across the large expanse of melted and blackened flora towards Ministry Walk with renewed determination.

Another bolt of lightning arced out across the sky as Nikolai and his friends finally made it to Ministry Walk, on the Mountainside half of the park sat a road, and beyond it, six buildings. Each appeared slightly different from one another. Strike that, vastly different. The sidewalk and road alike were dotted with hundreds of skeletons, all frozen in various poses like something right out of the volcanic ruins of Pompeii back on Earth Nikolai ran up to the front doors of the building, and was caught off guard when an alicorn swooped overhead and landed on a nearby building. Followed soon after by two more.

"Willow! Flashpoint! Down! Alicorns!" He barked, pointed over at the glowing mutants which were headed towards the Castle.

"What are they doing here?" Flashpoint stuttered. "I- How!?" Nikolai tried to calm him, "We need to get indoors and out of the open! I do not know! And I do not want to and ask them either!" He waved his friends over and onto a side street, dodging a patch of thicker pink cloud and taking up a position atop a dumpster.

"Look, they cannot be following us. They must be after something else, I say that we let them have their way with whatever it is they want. We will simply have to be a bit sneakier than before, is no issue, really!"

"You say that a lot."

"Is no issue." Nikolai repeated. "Now... Ministry of Wartime Technology." He took a peek out of the side street, and watched as an alicorn flew right on over the building.

"Ah..." He clasped his hands together and turned back to his friends. "No Ministry of Wartime Technology. But! Ministry of Arcane Sciences is right next door! Maybe we could find something worth a few thousand caps in there! Preferably something to deal with monsters here!"

"I though we just debated this out in the park. Do you recall the last two MoAS facilities we've been to?"

"Yes... I saved you in both. Is fun! Is fun! Come on, quick, before the Cloud thickens and whatever is moaning and gurgling on the next street over decides to come over here and try to grab bite of us foreigners! Quick!" He led his friends back up to the threshold of the side street and the greater road ahead of them, and canted his rifle up against the northward wall, looking towards the far side of the park and the direction that the alicorns had flown off in.

"The Ministry of Arcane Sciences is about a hundred meters South of our location, past Ministry of Pease. Make a break for the front doors. I will cover you and be right behind you. Do not stop for anything, understand guys? Now go!" He commanded them, waving his hand down the road. With his gaze fixed on the road, Nikolai listened as his friends brisk hoofsteps faded into the background. He threw a rushed glance back behind him, then peeked a gaze up at the swirl of blue and greenish orbs of light that floated about the smashed lamp post above him.

His eyes were then drawn to the form of another stumbling broadcaster off in the distance, it seemed to be headed away from him, so he didn't worry. He backed up, knocking aside a bleached purple skeleton that was half fused into the concrete, and took off across the street at a hurried jog, he could feel the Pink Cloud vapors rush past his jacket as he sped up. He didn't stop until he was back within sight of his friends.

He bolted up the the double doors and took a look at the adjacent security terminal, prying the corroded hoof of a skeleton off of it with a hefty amount of effort.

All of a sudden, the sudden fuzzy white noise returned, he dropped the foreleg out of confusion and took up his rifle out of a readiness to flee back across the street as another wave of painful nausea washed over him. He pied a glance down and noticed the little arcs of pinkish magic that were being emitted by a device on the dead unicorns leg.

It was a PipBuck. Wasting no time on account of the swarming headache, he gave the thing a firm kick, tearing the leg bones from the rest of the body. He drew his hatchet and gutted the device with a blow right though the screen.

"What was that?"

"Corrupted radio signals." Nikolai answered Willow's question. "Be on the lookout for any broadcasting devices. Unless you want your brain to turn to jelly, he picked the strange device up and looked it over. Most of the circuitry and the now exposed, 'Spell Matrix' was now little more than corroded bits and pieces of scrap and wire.

"Worth it?" Flashpoint raised a hoof. "I'll take it if you don't want it-" Nikolai stuffed it into his rucksack after brushing the rest of the magically corrupted bone off, he set his hatchet back in it's sheath, and gave double paned bulletproof glass a firm kick, it caved in, and a flood of Pink Cloud rushed inside the structure. Nikolai reached for the door handle, and opened the door like normal.

"It was unlocked the whole time, who knew?" Willow cried. Nikolai rolled his eyes. Though they couldn't see it under his masks lenses.

The front room of the structure consisted of a massive set of arcing staircases that ran up along either side of the room, with metal doors leading off to either side, and directly ahead of them. Before that, was a reception desk. Propaganda posters and promotional material lined the walls. Other than peeled pain and faded colors, and the distinct lack of indoor lighting, it seemed almost pristine compared to the rest of the city. Little bits of Pink cloud strained the lower bits of carpet, but it was nothing like the street outside. The Stalker walked up and over to the terminal, and was relived to find neither a skeleton or a ghoul behind it. The ventilation systems 4 stories overhead occasionally emitted stray pink wisps, but other than that, his Gas Analyzer read a mere 1.9 parts per million by the time he was at the staircase.

"Let us see... Oh!" He swiveled the terminal about towards his confused friends, and began addressing them in a singsong voice.

"Someone forgot to lock it in their hurry to get away from Chemical weapon!" He moved the damaged swivel chair aside.

"Do you know how to use one of those things?" Willow asked him.

"Do you? There... That was what I thought." Nikolai replied with a ere of definitive confidence.

"Oh... We have a video! Security footage... And... It seems old. Oh... It has been a while since I have used a proper digital device, let us see! Come!" He waved his friends over, and... With some fiddling, managed to figure out how to access the ancient footage.

"Alright, those cameras out there in the street might be shattered, but any footage that was on them was probably sent to this device, and given it is still intact- It should be able to show us the final moments of those cameras." Nikolai informed his friends.

File Log: Last Recorded Motion Incident...

"C'mon! We have to go!" The footage depicted a much nicer looking version of the room that Nikolai was now standing from the upper left corner.

"Yeah- Yeah- I know! I'm almost done!" A mare by the desk cried, snagging a stack of strange glass orbs.

"That shield above the city won't hold for long! Hurry! Before they close the Stable Doors for good!" The mare finished whatever it apparently was she was doing and took off out the door along with a cluster of other ponies. Two seconds later, a massive shadow blacked out the building exterior.

Nikolai swapped cameras to an exterior view, hundreds of ponies crowded the streets, soldiers, construction workers, emergency personnel, and regular ponies. Mares, stallions, little colts and fillies. The camera panned up reveal a massive soap-bubble like field of magical energy that swirled above the city, stretching from visible horizon to visible horizon. Missiles struck the shield intermittently, snuffing themselves out in brilliant arcs of blue, white, and green like stones thrown into a pond.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a massive cloud of pink smoke appeared, and began to cascade through the city like a giant pyroclastic flow of dark magic. Ponies panicked, and Nikolai noticed that the mare and stallion in jumpsuits from before were nowhere to be seen.

It had to have been one of the most disturbing things Nikolai had ever watched. The Cloud consumed everything it touched. Pegasi frantically took to the sky to try and outrun it, but, with the magical shield enveloping the city, and the large skyline, there was no place to go. Most ponies fled in the opposite direction, some stood still, probably frozen in terror. Others simply embraced one another and awaited the inevitable. Then, the Cloud struck the camera, and everything went to black.

Even for a slightly jaded and thick skinned Stalker like Nikolai, he couldn't help but feel a little sick in his stomach. He recalled his Grandfather's stories of how the exposed core of Chernobyl Reactor Number 4 had made the air around the plant glow blue with ionizing radiation on the night of the first disaster. He was seen what happened to those unlucky enough to be caught out in an emission in the aftermath of the second.

He couldn't quite relate to Magical Nuclear Apocalypse, but this, this struck too close to home, he looked about on the terminal, and found something that resembled a memory box, he took the magical tape recorder and stuffed it into his rucksack.

"I think this is worth taking. For their sake." Willow and Flashpoint solemnly nodded in agreement, Nikolai looked through the desk, knocking off locks with the butt of his rifle. Finally, he found something useful.

"Check this out!" He set his treasure on the table. " Terminal Maintenance and Repair for Dummies." He stuffed it into a side pocket of his rucksack.

"Reading material for later." He began looking about the remainder of the lobby for anything of worth. Other than a few scattered bits of uniforms, there was nothing in there worth taking. He pointed up at a poster which depicted Twilight Sparkle in a lab coat, and gave her the finger.

"This idiot... No better than Soviet Scientists. Have I told you that Eastern Europe back on earth has some of the most dangerous toxic sites in the world? Because of those дурні ідіоти. Shitbrained Idiots. If you make a mess, you at least owe it to home owner to clean it up for them. But no! They just screw stuff up and leave their trash for next people! How inconsiderate!" He shook his fist in anger.

"Shame on you purple lady! You deserve it!"

"Six Ministries, six mares. All that history stuff isn't really my wheelhouse." Willow informed him, ruffling his bat wings as his eyes glowed in the dim light of the building interior. The stairs seemed stable enough, so, with Nikolai at the groups vanguard, they dove into the structures depths.

Dark, cold, and stuffy. Four words that fit perfectly into the interiors description. An interior map of the building revealed a fairly simplistic floor layout. A dozen or so office rooms, with the remainder dedicated to research facilities, along with a massive grand hall and a tremendous library. Corroded and barely distinguishable oil paintings hung on either side of the hallway. He rounded the corner, and spotted his first bit of quarry, some sort of energy rifle, just laying on the ground in an adjoining laboratory. Nikolai slid the failed airlock aside, and took a knee besides it, carefully scooping it up and examining it. It had a large boxy design, with a strange stock and a massive trigger that looked more like the lever on the business end of a staple gun than anything fit for combat.

"This is... Awesome!" He looked about the room.

"Check the remainder of the laboratory-" All of a sudden, an alarm sounded, and the overhead lights began to flash red, a moment later, the strangest thing happened. A voice resounded through the room, and a metallic owl appeared in mid air. Nikolai nearly jumped out of his boots and scrambled for his gun.

"Прокляті хулігани!" He raised his rifle and nearly overrid the selector lever as he swapped from safe to full auto.

"Sir! Sir! Please! There is no need for violence!" The metallic owl croaked. The voice sounded calm and mature, but Nikolai knew better than to trust a talking metal owl.

" What do you think you are doing stealing from this place?"

"Is not steal." Nikolai replied, gesturing his head towards a nearby laboratory island table. His two friends snuck behind it. "Everyone here is dead! I am simply putting this to new use mister Owl Person!"

"My name is Woodsworth." The machine told him. "Twilight Sparkle's junior, junior, junior assistant." Nikolai cautiously lowered his rifle.

"Look sir." The Stalker replied in a firm tone. "We- I really mean no trouble." Willow peaked out over the table, and the owl turned to face him.

"A Thestral! What a surprise! And... Who is the other one?" The pair of stallions guiltily trotted out from behind the table.

"I'm Willow, this is Flashpoint." Nikolai snapped his finger, and waved the owls attention back over to him. The last thing he wanted was for the owl to believe that his zebra friend was some kind of threat, and for him to turn some sort of automated defense system on them.

"Sir. Please," Nikolai pleaded with the owl. "We have come here to strike it rich. We mean no harm, it is clear you do not need any of this stuff, yes?"

"Airborne Magical Contaminates Detected." Woodsworth's voice resounded. Nikolai scratched his neck through his coat hood.

"Eh... That was us. I was unaware the front door was unlocked. Sorry!"

"It's no matter- Really." The voice resounded, sounding apologetic. Sanitation protocols have already initialized. Please exit quickly this time around. Or would you rather I teleport you out?"

"Teleport?" Nikolai's eyes lit up behind his mask.

"Teleport!?" Flashpoint exclaimed, flinching and recoiling backwards.

"Well, how far could you teleport us?" Nikolai cupped his hand over Willow's mask. "Sorry sir, but- We have no intention to leave. The things in this place are far to valuable."

"What of the Zebra spy?" Nikolai facepalmed. "He is not a spy. Look, 20 minutes, in and out. Quick adventure of scavenging. And then we go, yes?"

"Um..." The Robotic owl sounded hesitant. "Sure, I suppose but please- don't cause too much damage. And, if you need any help-" Nikolai held out the strange rifle.

"What is this thing?"

"Oh! It's a Plasma Rifle. It channels magical energy stored in one of those cells over there to... Well, melt stuff!" Nikolai stared at it as though it was a gold mine.

"I hate Canterlot less now."

He took it up on it's sling, and with some effort he managed to fold the stock over and strap it to the side of his rucksack. It was another 2 kilograms, sure. But it was worth it. The half dozen energy cells he found for it would, according to the diagram, last for at least 80 to a hundred shots each. It's ergonomics were odd. But his mind was set on putting it to use in the near future. He turned to discover that Flashpoint had found himself a strange new item. It was black metal rod, about a third of a meter in length, he stuck a button on it's side, and it expanded outwards to twice it's size. The far tip flickered with arcs of reddish energy.

"A magical energy lance, awesome!" Nikolai clapped in praise.

Scavenging in the Equestrian Wasteland was a bit like looking through a box full of assorted Lego building blocks for the once piece that you actually need. There is a lot of 'low quality' common items that you can find essentially anywhere. Slightly more uncommon bits, but... The one or two little pieces that really have the potential to change something and make it greater than the sum of it's parts. Well... For those, you need to be in the right place, at the right time. And Nikolai just hit the nigh veritable goldmine of one. Having emptied the laboratory of anything worthwhile, Nikolai spread out the internal map, and began to examine the building layout. On the bottom floor was a location labeled 'Alpha Technologies'. The rest was blacked out.

"Hm... I wonder what's down there?"

"It would be wise if you did not journey down there sir. The defense turrets with most certainly tear you asunder if you do." Nikolai shrugged. "Ok... How about Spell Crafting? It is just below us according to the map."

"None of us have horns." Willow pointed out, "What would be the point?"

"I am sure there is something down there we can use. " Nikolai pointed out. "Maybe we find cool spellcasting device that lets us levitate things on our own, or teleport! Or shoot death beams! Or instantly heal even lost limbs? Speaking of which-" He passed a healing potion to both of his friends.

"Drink it all, God only knows what that Pink Cloud does to bodies- so do it quickly."

The metallic owl disappeared, leaving Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint alone in the laboratory. They grabbed everything useful and everything that looked useful, and made their way downstairs and into the 'Spell Crafting' branch of the building. Nikolai and his two companions practically tore the place apart as fast as they could. Most of it was beyond his understanding.

Something that had particularly taken him off guard was the presence of an unfinished Megaspell. No bigger than a basketball, though very likely capable of atomizing a few city blocks if it was ever completed and detonated. He wanted to take it, but decided against it. Not only was it emitting some pretty hefty levels of errant magical energy, but it could not have possibly been stable or small enough to fit into one of Nikolai's lead lined containers. Though, the report log alongside it hinted at the possibility that there might be different types of Megaspells. God only knew what this one was.

Becoming swiftly disinterested in the Spell Crafting Department, he ushered his companions to leave. When out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a safe. A bit of hacking and a firm fist to it's roof led to Nikolai backing away in concern.

It was another PipBuck, but, as he prepared to make a break for the exit, he realized that he felt fine. He walked up to it an illuminated the screen with his rifle light.

"It's safe. Hm... And, it looks intact as well. Cool." He took it and stuffed it into his rucksack, which, between the ammo, his bare essentials, his other stuff, the leaded containers, magazines, and scavenged odds and ends, was quickly reaching it's maximum capacity. He would have to watch his weight carefully. All this stuff meant nothing if he couldn't get it down the mountain.

"Anyhow!"

"Nikolai... Check these out." Willow set a pair of items on the table.

"StealthBucks."

"Hmm... Take them." Nikolai told his friend. "They may have a use beyond odd name!" Nikolai led his trio back down the maze of hallways back towards the front doors. They reentered to find that, to their own surprise, a pair of fixed doors, and a Parts Per Million air toxicity rating of 0.15."

"That Robo man- owl thing said that we have contaminated this place. "Perhaps it has some sort of NBC air filtration? Either way, that has probably decayed over time. This damn stuff melts everything."

"Speaking of that, 'damned stuff'. We're about to go back out into it! Yippie!" Willow exclaimed, ensuring that the seal on his mask was tight and that all of his fur and mane was covered by heavy barding. Flashpoint, between his light blue and grey guard armor, and chemical helmet, was ready all the same.

"We will make mad dash for front doors of Ministry of Wartime Technology, ok? Is great idea! Trust me! We can do this!"

Willow and his striped friend both knew exactly what they were going to do.

His enthusiasm was a shinning light in the miasma of Pink Cloud that surrounded him. All the same as his weapon light. If he was secretly angry, or displeased. Then he didn't show it. They didn't understand it, but, one thing was for sure. When Nikolai threw those doors open and dove out into the toxic storm and the corroded ruins with his gun raised and his rifle light blaring, the two stallions were right behind him. They tore Northward up the street until the glass structure of the Ministry of Technology came into full sight. More pink lightning arced overhead and thunder boomed. When the shadow of an alicorn appeared overhead, he didn't slow for a moment. All of a sudden, another wave of nausea hit him, and then another.

<MORTAL, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!? THIS PLACE IS NO FOR YOU! BEGONE!>

The Stalker ignored the telepathic voice and dashed up the skeleton strewn steps to the Ministry, he threw open the doors and entered the massive interior foyer. All too late, he realized the pile of skeletons inside. Each one bore a corrupted PipBuck.

"What the fuck!?" Nikolai screamed, wincing in pain as the wave of necrotic psychic energy washed over him. He heard something hum behind him.

Struggling to keep his balance and mental faculties, he reached over into his rucksack and dug through it until he had set his hands on the leaded container that held his Gravitational Artifact. It pulsed with unnatural light from within. And And an irritable wail echoed through the entire foyer. All of a sudden, the psychic noise dimmed, and Nikolai pulled his friends to their hooves while they were already in the motion of galloping towards the far side of the room. They ran past the receptionists desk to the massive elegant doors on the other side. His Artifact pulsed with Energy once more, and the pain began to return. Just as the static hum seemed like it was about to overtake them, he burst through the doors, and tore into a new room. Though his pounding head and chest, he scarcely had the time to realize that he was looking at a set of fortifications. Turrets, barricades, armored walls, and gun nests.

"Move! The Stalker and his friends struggled over to the left hand side of the massive, shopping mall like building and took cover behind a support pillar underneath a mezzanine. Just in the nick of time, as a red beam of energy shot across the room from one of the turrets and seared a hole into the pillar.

"Who's there!? Come out!" A deep, ragged voice cried.

"Is someone there!? This better not be some preplanned asshole recording! You don't sound as nice as the owl thing from the Ministry of Arcane Sciences!"

"What!? You- You can talk? Come out! Don't do anything stupid and we won't shoot you!" Nikolai glanced around the other side of the pillar, and then awkwardly walked out into the open.

"Who is this?" He asked curiously, giving a homely wave with his non dominant left hand.

"I could say the same thing." The Canterlot Ghoul Guard stepped out from behind his concrete barricade, and Nikolai's eyes grew wide once again, and he swiftly hid the Artifact in his coat pocket from the mutated and decaying stallions deep glowing green eyes.

"Whoa-hoho!" Nikolai clasped his hands together. "Hello!" He noticed that his Gas analyzer's rating had dropped to almost fully clean air.

"Who- What are you?" The Canterlot Ghoul asked, shifting his battle saddle with uncertainty.

Now this was a bit of irony. Nikolai knew exactly who and what he was looking at. At the very least, he didn't seem to be producing Pink Cloud. On the other hand, the Ghoul seemed to be nothing if not very, very concerned about the strange bipedal, gun-toting, armor wearing creature standing before him. Not to mention the very odd fact that the he was hiding two ponies from the Ghoul's own gaze, and also- And this was perhaps the most bizarre part of it all, seemingly unfazed after having run through a veritable minefield of broadcasters.

"Identify yourself!" The Ghoul demanded, sounding slightly bewildered.

"Hello!" Nikolai waved once more. "Name is Nikolai! I am friend, yes? Please no shoot. We go through lot of stuff to get here."

"He's selling us short." Willow thought to himself. "He's selling us short... To a Canterlot Ghoul. Wow... What a day. I wouldn't be surprised if I met the former Princesses of Equestria right here and now-" Willow received a sudden tap on his shoulder, and was greeted with a faded poster adorned with Celestia's portrait and the words:

"For Peace and Harmony." Witten above it.

"Ha- Ha." Willow deadpanned.

Nikolai and the Canterlot Ghoul stood on opposite ends of the barricade. Not 20 meters away from one another, and seemingly unknowing of how to proceed.

"Well, I tell you my name, may I please know yours?"

"You're wearing a mask... Those broadcasters... The Pink Cloud, the alicorns- How the hell are you not dead?" Nikolai began to stroll closer.

"That's far enough." The Ghoul warned him. "Look, I do not want to hurt you. It is all alright, please."

"Hey, quick question. If my friends come out of hiding, do you promise not to shoot them?"

"Um- Friends- Sure... Nikolai." With his eyes still locked on the Ghoul, he motioned for his companions to come and join him.

"Hello." Flashpoint greeted the Ghoul. "Hi there." Willow rasped, trying to sound upbeat.

"Flashpoint and Willow Lamp." He informed the Guard. "Now... Your name?"

"Blunted Stone. Provided you lot keep your guns down... I suppose there's no harm in letting some breathers in." The brightest points of glowing light in the ghouls eyes shifted back to Nikolai as though he was staring at a ghost. As the trio began to walk forward, more ghouls trotted out from behind the barricades, all staring at Nikolai with odd and uncertain looks.

For being surrounded by a swarm of such usually terrifying creatures, Nikolai was abnormally calm. Willow and Flashpoint just did their best to keep calm. Flashpoint removed his helmet, but Willow kept his hood on. And Nikolai still wore the same GP-5 mask he wore everywhere. The crowd whispered among themselves as Nikolai trekked across the floor. Their gaze was akin to a group of villagers watching someone come back from the dead.

"A zebra..." One of them whispered. "What is that thing? It doesn't look like any mutant that I've ever seen." Another murmured.

Nikolai snaked his way along the ground floor of the building. After about 45 seconds of walking, he and his companions were out of the edge of the Atrium and onto a high ceiling office, and from there, they headed straight to a place which had been designated as the, 'Artistic Commons'. All of a sudden, the ceiling became much, much lower, though it was still just as wide open along the horizontal plane. At just about 3 and a half meters up, enough for the giddy Stalker to tap the plaster with the tips of his fingers if he jumped straight up in the air. It was like a giant collage art studio. The end of the room widened up into a massive gear shaped door. A massive 1 sat emblazed across it.

At least it was well lit. Nikolai still doubted he'd feel comfortable removing his mask. He noticed that the room was filled with a sort of music. A pair of Canterlot Ghouls were playing a harp and a thing that looked like a glass harmonica over in the corner. It was an eerie, peaceful sort of noise. Though Nikolai wasn't particularly into it. Willow and Flashpoint, in contrast, seemed almost soothed by it. Neither had heard anything quite like it.

"So..." He waved at a random ghoul in the crowd. "Do you... Have a leader?" None of them said a word, the room remained silent except for that haunting orchestral noise in the corner.

Finally, a stallion trotted up. His laboratory coat fused right into his putrid back, his horn was almost hollowed out, yet it still sparked with magic. And his leg, well... A PipBuck was fused right into it. There was no telling where the ghoul ended and the accursed device began. As unseemly as it might have sounded, none of the trio felt the least bit disgusted. Life in dangerous places tends to bring with it a certain desensitizing aspect to it. People will adapt, regardless of the calamity, and, if not acclimate, then at least learn to work around the new obstacles in their path. Which meant that they weren't the least bit surprised at any of the Canterlot Ghouls- at least, Nikolai wasn't. The others just did their best to try an obscure it.

"A Breather? Wow... I... I don't believe it."

"Breather? Yes, I suppose that would be accurate description! Hello friends! Name is Nikolai!" The Doctor held up his hoof.

"I'm sure you have, oh screw it- How are you not dead!?" Nikolai scratched his head.

"I do not follow. Oh- Ohoho!" He gave them a hearty laugh. "Well, funny story actually- I wander up mountain-" He paused.

"Do you want short version or long version?" The ghoul returned his question with an empty, soulless expression on his fetid face.

"Well, Nikolai. We have nothing but time here. So go on ahead and give us the long version. Make yourself as comfortable as you can. We... Never have breathers here. Much less... Whatever it is you are. First, answer me a question. How did you past those broadcasters- And... How are you and your friends not dead right now?" Nikolai looked about, and he noticed that most of the ghouls wore one alongside their PipBuck, again, similarly fused to their bodies.

"Eh... Luck? Skill? Faith in God? Magic Rock? Gun? I do not know." He shrugged dramatically. "I come here to loot city! Make tons of money in process... Eh, I was unaware someone was living here in Ministry of War Tech stuff! You've got a pretty nice pad here! My friends and I were not looking for you, if that is what you wanted to hear!"

"Yes- But still, these things can make an alicorn go insane. And yet you seem fine." Willow slowly removed his mask and hood, revealing his Thestral face. Which, when contrasted against the Canterlot Ghouls, seemed suddenly mundane. It was so odd and unsettling that it almost canceled itself out. Nikolai was amused when he had first encountered a pony some two weeks ago. If this had been the first thing he had seen, he probably would have started shooting without trying to start a conversation.

After all, he had just been caught in an Emission. A weather phenomena that left behind things not so unlike the ones he had seen in Canterlot. This Ghoul he was now talking to would not have looked at all out of place on a Duty Live Leak video from Pripyat as it was gunned down by some steel faced soldier wearing a powered exosuit and slinging around an automatic shotgun.

But lucky for him and his friends. The ghouls all seemed to be somewhat reserved around them. They even seemed timid. Though, oddly enough, they gravitated towards Nikolai. Not like the Followers of Balefire had, but more like students in a Primary School classroom as he told them about his entire adventure. Diving into all the details and holding nothing back as Willow and Flashpoint stood among the crowd of ghouls, looking manifestly out of place.

"You have been through a lot to get here. I'm not going to disparage the things you've done. And, by the sound of it, you're about as fond of alicorns and the Unity as we are. Dare I say even more so since none of us have ever actually seen the 'Goddess' herself. Like guard up front said, you're free to stay here as long as you don't do anything stupid. And don't expect price cuts on anything you might want to buy down in the marketplace. It takes a lot of effort to run one in a place like this. Otherwise... Welcome to Stable City? It's been a while since we've seen anyone.." The Ghoul gestured to all of him.

"I have a few questions of my own about this place. Please, tell me everything you know about Canterlot. Including why an alicorn just chased me across the street, or why there are alicorns here at all... Or why I hear all of them mumbling insanely."

"I'll tell you downstairs."

"Wait... Pink Cloud pools in low places." Willow pointed out. "If you are all wearing PipBucks then, the Pink Cloud down there must be far above lethal levels, right Nikolai?" The Stalker nodded. "The logic makes sense." For the first time in a long while, the Canterlot Ghoul cracked a smile.

"Don't worry, the air's clean in here and down there. It doesn't really matter to us. Like I said, we don't get guests or tourists here. It's just more convenient to be able to actually see where you're going. Consider it a blessing, there aren't many here these days." With that, the ghoul doctor left him. All of a sudden, a question popped into Nikolai's head, and he ran for the doctor. Neglecting to try and tap on his shoulder.

"Yes?" He asked Nikolai, his torn ears perking up. "What is it?"

"I told you I am a Stalker... I told you what I do for a living. I am curious, would it be possible to find such a thing in Canterlot?"

"You're asking the wrong walking hunk of rotting meat Nikolai. I don't get out much. And I doubt any of my compatriots that do will be keen on talking to you. Even if you are supposedly an alien from a different dimension. You're a friend to ghouls, and an enemy of the Unity. That's all we need to know. I don't care what your goal was coming here. Just mind your own business and don't go around pestering us. And by the way, free advice? Pink Cloud distorts an alicorns connection to their hive mind. Some of them have been wandering around Canterlot for decades without any direction." Nikolai wanted to say something that would probably turn the good doctor feral, but he abstained from it after he heard the bit of helpful information about the alicorns.

"What's on your mind?" Willow asked him as they made their way down into the belly of Stable City. The first thing that caught Nikolai was a water fountain. He had been told that if it was better if he didn't questions, but he couldn't help and ask a passing stranger about it. A ghoulified earth pony mare.

"Excuse me, but... Is the water clean here?" She smiled humbly. "Yes, it is. Believe it or not our Water Talisman still functions normally." Nikolai stepped up to the fountain and pressed the activation panel. Just like she had told him, it worked. Clean water, in the Canterlot Ruins.

"Now this is the real prize. Too bad we cannot take it with us." He unpacked every single empty water container he had on him, and refilled them to the brim. He wasn't going to miss an opportunity like this, and neither were Willow and Flashpoint. He finally removed his mask and lowered his hood, not wanting to touch his face with his possibly Pink Cloud covered hands, he bent over and washed his face, asking Flashpoint to help him towel it off.

"I wonder if the showers work here..." Was his next thought. The idea of a hot shower after over two weeks of trekking and hacking through the thicket of a wasteland. He thought he deserved it, even if it would only be a minute long and cost him 100 caps. He would still do it. He turned back to the mare.

"Question... Are the showers similarly unpolluted?"

One evidently well deserved, almost scalding hot shower later...

Evidently, it did. The trio took turns showering. And, luckily, none of the ghouls seemed to care. They didn't need water, and it wasn't like there was a line for it either. Nikolai hadn't realized quite how nasty things had gotten after almost a month of virtually no personal hygiene. Everything was caked in crystalized sweat and grime and stunk to high heaven. Oddly enough, Willow and Flashpoint didn't smell as bad. In spite of the fact that they had been in Equestria their whole lives. And Flashpoint had never even had an actual shower, he claimed the experience was... 'astounding'. With Nikolai, it lasted all of 3 minutes. With the others, it took about 15 minutes, Nikolai was patient with them. He figured they deserved this little bit of calm before going back outside into pink hell. He dressed himself back up in his full kit and waited for his companions to do the same. It seemed like the hot water had finally washed the dirt left by years of neglect on Flashpoint's hooves, leaving just a few imprints. The trio was clean, warm, and happy. And for a moment, nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for the occasional passing ghoul with their faded grey, pink, and purpled patchwork of fur, skin, holes, and soulless looking green eyes.

"See? I told you this place would be worth it! Come! Let us see if we cannot find anything of value in that market." They left the bathrooms and headed straight for the atrium, now a thriving marketplace surrounded on all sides by curved grey metal walls. Though, there wasn't a food vendor in sight. And scarcely anything medical-related. His eyes were drawn to something that would always have caught his eye, and would have probably made a Redneck black out from euphoric happiness. A storefront labeled: "Caliber's Guns and Ammo." Nikolai opened the door and stepped inside. It took him a moment, but he realized it was being run by a little earth pony colt. "

"Hello?" Nikolai asked him. "My name is Nikolai... I should mention, I like the store name. Creative title."

"Thanks," The Colt mumbled. "It's also my name." Nikolai looked the small creature up and down. It took a moment for his mind to come to the conclusion that he was probably born back in the time of his forefathers. To put it simply, it was a grumpy mature man in a mutated child's body.

"Well isn't this a surprise? An alien, a bat pony, and a zebra! What do you what?"

"Well..." Nikolai browsed the racks behind the little colt. Pistols, rifles, magazine fed shotguns, a rocket launcher, a few magical energy weapons, a belt fed machine gun, a minigun, and... Strangely enough, a massive bolt action fifty caliber rifle with a scope so large it could probably see into the future, and fitted with a muzzle break large enough to insure that everyone in two kilometer radius would your first shot though it.

"Well..."

"Well what? Are you going to buy anything?" Nikolai eyed a modern esque AR 15 style platform, silently cursing the fact that his rifle didn't have an optical mount. From there, his eyes snapped to the indistinguishable front half of what could only have been an AK style rifle.

"Can I check that out?"

"This? It's an old Zebra Infantry Rifle, come to think of it it looks similar to that gun you've got slung across your chest."

"Kalashnikov Model 101. Chambered for 5.56 by 45, and... Adorned with a few addition of my own. I don't need a bunch of different guns." He held the two up side by side.

"Similar receivers... Though this Zebra one? It looks more like a Chinese reproduction. It has angled edges and everything." Flashpoint trotted up and snagged it off the table.

"Public enemy number one." Caliber scoffed. "Now, are you going to buy anything?"

"Do you have any 12 Gauge Spell Matrix Disruption Shells?" Willow asked him, his slit pupils dilating as he drew closer to the ghoul.

"I do... But.. I can't sell you any. You'd have to look elsewhere."

"Can't, or won't?" Willow cocked his head off to one side and raised an eyebrow. The Canterlot Ghoul behind the counter scoffed.

"I can't, you see, all of my ammo is stored in an ammo vendor. And I can't get the damned thing to work." Nikolai winced, and rocked his head back and forth. "Well, I don't how to help you. I am a mechanic... Just not that kind of mechanic. I don't do vending machines."

"Vending machines, haven't you ever seen an ammo vendor- Well, I suppose it is a vending machine in the conventional sense. You press a button, you stick in some money, and it spits out ammunition."

"That is pretty cool!" Nikolai blurted out, "Is it you invention or..."

"Oh, they're all over the place. Even in pompous Canterlot." Nikolai nodded again. "Wow... I either haven't seen any yet along my route, or I did- and I just didn't know what it was. I am all good on ammunition anyway. No worry. But hey! Cool! Is once and a lifetime chance to visit place like this. And, I got a few souvenirs.

"Oh really?" Caliber asked, " Do tell."

"Well, my friends and I have come into the possession of a few magic energy weapons- You probably saw the one strapped to my rucksack, yes? Eh... Stealth thing, and... He reached into his rucksack, and pulled out the PipBuck from the Ministry of Arcane Sciences.

"This thing! I'm not a pony, but I'm sure one of my friends could use it, I also found this." He pulled out the smashed broadcaster- PipBuck, and laid it out in all it's hatchet torn glory.

"Don't tell me, your doing?" Nikolai nodded slowly once more. The Canterlot Ghoul shrugged back. "PipBucks aren't my thing. Go ask someone else. I sell guns and ammo. Not Spell Matrixes. Nikolai gathered his things.

"Ok," Nikolai tapped the counter twice to signal goodbye. "Farewell Mister Caliber. It was nice meeting you."

"Yeah, yeah. Nice meeting you to I suppose. It's nice to meet someone that knows their guns." Nikolai nodded one last time in Calibers direction, and stepped back out into the marketplace.

"Alright... PipBucks... Where can I find that? Who am talking to? I'm holding one, everyone here but me and my friends has one seared into their damn flesh!" He mumbled to himself and tapped his head against his fist.

"Maintenance! They must have something for fixing these things! Maybe if I go down there, I will find just what I need to turn this into new useable toy for friends! Plus... Automatic targeting. Built in tracker, radio, it gives me and PDA run for my money!" He made his way over to the closest ghoul and asked them where he might find PipBuck maintenance, he would rather he learn to do it himself, and perhaps he could get a brief overview. But right now, he just needed to get it functioning again.

PipBuck maintenance, as it turns out, was a very intuitive process that was almost as complicated to Nikolai as reassembling an I-phone. Though, if anything. Those PipBucks certainly seemed like they were built to last. Nikolai's hatchet through the screen had been due more to centuries of corrosion than anything else. The Canterlot Ghoul unicorn attending to their needs demanded only a few dozen caps for his services. And helping a creature like Nikolai was certainly a break out of his usually mundane tasks which he preformed each day, every day since before Nikolai's great grandparents had been born.

Something that The Stalker still hadn't asked any of the ghouls was for a telling of how things were back in ancient Equestria. He was curious, he had seen so many things, but he wanted to hear it all first hand. Of course, he knew he and his companions couldn't stay much longer. However intriguing and fascinating it's immortal residents might be, or however comforting and delightful the hot showers were, one still had to be reminded of the fact that it was a city of the dead. Outside it's mostly airtight reinforced glass exterior was nothing but death for any normal biological being. It just didn't make sense, after such a long trip. It seemed less than right that he should leave after just 3 hours in Stable City, the one place in Canterlot he had found which he thus far enjoyed. But the Sun was beginning to set, and he had to get going before the darkness of nighttime made the hell outside five times worse.

As he strolled back through the marketplace, quietly debating his choice amongst himself while his friends lay curled up asleep on a padded bench, he suddenly came upon the solution to his problem. Or rather, his solution arrived right in front of him as he walked through the door of a store labeled: "Optics, scopes, and surveillance equipment."

That solution, came right in the form of a strange set of what was obviously a night vision monocular. Or, it had the shape of it. The truth was much stranger. Closer inspection revealed that it's outward facing lens was comprised of dozens of little hexagonal screens, all were a faint, faint shade of orange and yellow. It reminded The Stalker a bit of the helmet visor on suit of Enclave Power Armor. His staring seemed to invoke an impromptu conversation with the ghoul mare behind the counter. It dawned on Nikolai that, being the center of the Equestrian ministries, almost everything here was either in short supply everywhere else, in some sort of prototype stage, or one of a kind.

"Memories?" She asked, tapping a glass sphere on her side of the table. Nikolai chuckled, and looked up at her, stifling his nose.

"Oh? Yes, yes. But also, this looks like an Enclave Helmet visor."

"Enclave helmet? What are you talking about? That was a little co-op project between the Ministry of Wartime Tech and The Ministry of Awesome in their effort to create power armor for pegasi. That thing'll make you see in the dark pretty damn well. You deal in bottlecaps, right? You can check for yourself, it works like a charm. Of course, I don't have much use for it these days." The ghoul smiled awkwardly at her surroundings.

"Yes, I suppose so." Nikolai replied slowly. He tapped his boot against the ground. "Three hundred... Would you take a smashed PipBuck and 250 Bottle Caps?" The mare contemplated it.

"That's basically junk for me. Anything useful?" Nikolai thought of the piece of strange jewelry resting inside his rucksack.

"No.. I don't know what that is... How about... A can of freeze dried cookies?"

"Ghouls don't need food." She replied. Nikolai looked down into his rucksack at it's wide gallery of contents. "Well how about... I am out of ideas." He returned the cookies to his pack, and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. All the constant physical strain he was enduring finally seemed to be catching up with him now that he was just beginning to relax. To his surprise, the mare lit up with joy at something she spotted.

"What was that?" She asked him.

"Oh? That?" He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a small sketch book which he must have taken from the supermarket in a drunken frenzy. "Is book with blank pages. Do you want it?"

"We're always short on paper you see- And my stepdaughter Spring Blossom-"

"Spring Blossom? Makes Pink Cloud? Hard time paying attention? Likes drawing? That one? I met her outside Canterlot a little while ago, has she returned?"

"No... Not yet, but I'm sure she will. She's still much older than you, she knows all the safest routes into and out of the city. The alicorns won't touch her."

"You have been a fantastic parent, she seems to be doing great!" If Canterlot Ghouls could blush, Nikolai was certain the mare in front of him would be doing so.

"She told me she's glad she has a mother she can hug without hurting... I can see why." He set the Sketchbook down on the table.

"I'll give the sketchbook in exchange for the night vision device, and carrying container."

"Deal." Nikolai replied, almost forgetting that toxic ghouls tend to make poor hand-shaking partners. He turned around, and was about to leave. When a thought popped into his mind, and he decided to express it.

"Tell your daughter I said hello, and that she is good artist and has wonderful mother!" The mare smiled and waved goodbye. "I'll be sure to Nikolai." He had one more question to ask.

"By the way, what is that glass orb you have right there?" She levitated the murky sphere up with her pinkish magic.

"Oh this? It's a memory orb. You're not a unicorn, so... I suppose it's not any use to you. It's... Hard to explain- But it can copy down memories and allow you to experience and live through them whenever you want. They're scattered all over the place, little bits of the past and what not." It sounded fascinating, but it meant nothing to Nikolai if he couldn't use it.

The Stalker left the marketplace, jogged up the stairs, and headed for the bench his friends were resting on. He arrived to find themselves snuggled up asleep besides one another like a pair of fluffy pillows. Each unaware of the others presence. Nikolai took a seat besides them, being careful not to wake them up. He reached over with a bare hand and gently patted them on the head.

"It is adorable." Nikolai thought to himself, "I cannot think of any other word. Though, I can also imagine scene that will unfold when they wake up. Oh well, I am last one awake again. I suppose..." Nikolai yawned. "I suppose I should figure out how to work this thing." The mare had given him a pony sized head harness for the monocular, which, though some shots of Vodka, and a bit of Slavic ingenuity, Nikolai was able to get the head harness properly sized for going over the top of his mask, and the eyepiece working like a charm.

Well, one thing was certain. It worked. He stood up and went to look for the darkest room in the Stable he could find, then lowered it over his head. He decided that the clarity was somewhere in between Generation one and two. And that it worked off of some magical light amplification technology rather than the fiber optics earthy tech used. This was smaller and more compact. The other had better clarity. But, the other also wasn't here. And it cost a fortune. This was worth an emotionally charged sketchbook.

It was a clear win and a huge new addition to his own capabilities in the Stalker's eyes, which, upon returning to his still snoring friends, blacked out right alongside them. Just as Willow and Flashpoint awoke and stumbled off of one another. The Stalker slowly sat himself up with his restless head hung low.

"Oi... Pillow. Come back here." He mumbled, his arms going limp on either side as he slumped back.

"Is he calling me a pillow?" Flashpoint turned to his grey friend. The Thestral's pupils shifted back towards Flashpoint. "No, I'm pretty sure he's calling me a pillow."

"Blyat! I'm tired- You woke me up!" Nikolai slapped his knee. He cursed under his breath, rose to his full high and cracked his neck. "Alright, let's go."

They finally had a chance to put all of their new weapons and equipment to use. Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint made their way back to the edge of Stable City. A few ghouls had been nice enough to deactivate the broadcasters in the foyer just long enough for Nikolai and his companions to get across to the glass doors and check their equipment as they Stalkers Gas Analyzer once more began to read out low readings of the pink substance outside. It was dark outside. Though, between the overcast skies above and the already thick Pink Cloud that hung over the city, the lighting really didn't change all that much. The only thing was that now there were absolutely no shadows.

"Alright." Nikolai told his friends. "We will go out the way we came in. Straight back through park, and towards main city gate. Yes?" No murmur of complaint rose up from either stallion as Nikolai barked out the last bits of his plan.

"I would rather not put it on now." Flashpoint spoke about the PipBuck. "I'd rather not have it fused to my leg."

"Alright, got it? Get it? Good. We go!" The Stalker adjusted the headstraps on the bug eyed night vision device, and slipped it down over his left eye. Willow's eyes furrowed under his goggles as he covered his wings with his cloak. Nikolai shifted the straps of his rucksack. And, with heavy sigh though his mask filter, pulled the door open and stepped out into the Pink Cloud.

With all of his protective equipment, it was really no different than stepping into a bank of heavy fog. He and his friends made their way back down the front steps of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and out into the street. The Stalkers Gas Analyzer read 38 parts per million. It was getting worse. He quickly looked both ways, and shepherded his friends across the street and away from Ministry Walk in the almost pitch darkness. The strange night vision device illuminated everything within the field of view of his left eye in a lime-like light. Something he hadn't noticed about the monocular earlier was that it also outlined visible shapes, including those which were distinctly pony shaped.

Willow led Flashpoint towards the far side of the park, past the lake of Pink Cloud, while Nikolai remained behind by a dead stag and provided cover. That was another thing that the PipBuck would help with. Radio communications. Two way, radio communications. On any frequency his radio could access, except Zone FM oddly enough. That was Nikolai exclusive as far as he could tell.

The silhouettes of 4 alicorns swooped over the ministry, and one of them ate a bolt of green energy from below. Probably those Canterlot Ghouls waring with them over control of the literal city of the damned. All of a sudden. another alicorn came up and arced right past the Celestian Monument. It was nothing out of the ordinary looking, and Nikolai made a break for his companions, now some 150 meters away, about halfway across the skeletal field of death, he suddently watched his shadow flash before him. His friends began to point and gesture up and away from him. He turned about, and was greeted with the horrifying sight of an emerald alicorn, hovering just over the Pink Cloud lake, not 20 meters away. It had teleported right beside him.

It spoke, Nikolai could see the little wisps of pink cloud in his right eye as they floated up from the lake and warped around the alicorns shield.

"Shit!" Nikolai thought to himself, he took off running.

The voice of the alicorn boomed. It sounded exactly like the Goddess back in Splendid Valley. The Stalker could only imagine what was going though Flashpoint's mind. He had no mind to listen to anything the perverted excuse of a creature had to say to him. He dove behind a crashed Sky Wagon and whipped his rifle around to open fire on the creature who was leisurely floating just a meter off the ground, as if it had all the time in the world to reach him an instant later he disengaged.

"My rifle is useless against that thing! But, maybe this isn't!" He unstrapped his strange Equine made Plasma rifle and brought it to bear against the alicorn. But then wisely decided that it wasn't worth it, and rather decided that trying to lose it would be better. He ran to his friends and practically shoved them in his bid to get away from the creature.

The alicorns voice spoke once more. Nikolai gave her the finger, but, as the alicorn drifted through a particularly dense patch of Cloud, she suddenly stopped, landed, shook her head, and wandered away like nothing had happened.

"What just happened!?" Willow asked Nikolai as The Stalker finally caught up with his companions.

" Pink Cloud makes them go crazy! Useful? I think so! Blin, let's hurry up!" As they passed the Celestian Monument, they were met with a screeching notice from above, high in the exposed frame of the top of the horn, something was moving. Nikolai hardly had time to react as it unfurled it's massive torn wings and began to leave it's resting place. They ran past the Monument and back onto main street. The city gates were less than a kilometer away. Nikolai shifted his gaze upwards, and his night vision highlighted the horrid form of a small dragon. It swooped down from the top of the Monument and began to make it's way directly towards the Stalker.

"Bakery!" Nikolai ordered, the trio jumped over a cluster of skeletons and barged into an old two story bakery. The dragon crashed against the street behind him as they made their way in between overturned and shattered dinning tables. A Canterlot Ghoul wearing a bakers outfit shambled out from behind the counter. The others darted away from it, but Nikolai had other plans. He unslung his brand new Plasma rifle as the denser level of Pink Cloud within the structure made his Geiger tick alongside his Gas Analyzer. Which now read 50 parts per million.

"Cyka!" Cried, he raised the energy weapon when the monster was just meters from him, and pulled up on the strange trigger.

"Fwosh!" A bolt of ice cream cone shaped violent green energy left the emitter on the end of the weapon and cascaded into the mutant. He watched as it practically burned the top half of the ghoul away, turning it to little more than glowing ash as his night vision lit up from the flash.

"Damn! This is awesome!" He held the gun in his hands like he was staring at a goldmine. He looked outside and noticed the 'small' elephant sized dragon shambling towards.

"Let's go!" Willow called to him as he and Flashpoint bolted up the stairs to the bakery's second floor. The Stalker left his violent trance and backed up towards the stairs. Fired off a burst of green plasma at the abomination trying to break through the Bakery's exterior wall, and it recoiled back out into the street as the magic from the shot splashed out across it's scales. Nikolai scarcely had time to process what was happening as he dashed up the stairs, tore the roof access door off it's hinges with a club from the stock of his AK 101, and scrambled out onto the red shingles.

"Come on," He panted, "It's gone for now."

What followed was perhaps the most James Bond thing he had ever done in his entire life. Half an hour of nonstop jumping from roof to roof. Until they were at he westernmost edge of the city. Not 50 meters beyond, sat the corroded observation deck that had once served to provided visitors with a clear view all the way to the horizon. They scaled back down onto ground level through the use of a balcony which creaked and groaned as Nikolai helped Flashpoint to the ground.

"Alright, let us keep going south."

The Stalkers blood ran cold, and he began to run. The two alicorns which were chasing them were subsequently tackled by the same dragon from earlier.

"What the fuck!?" Nikolai turned his AK 101 on the dragon and squeezed off several shots as he stumbled back. Willow and Flashpoint opened fire as well, the bat pony opened his leathery wings and pulled his friend back. That just left Nikolai out in the open. The Stalker made a mad dash southeastward. But the dragon spotted him, he was helpless as a wave of deep pink fire struck the ground only meters from him, searing and glassing the cobblestones. He kept running, thinking nothing of it. He made a break for Willow and Flashpoint as bolts of alicorn magic landed behind him.

So, when his friends shouted at him that the ground ahead of him had given way, it was too late. Another breath of the dragons fire knocked him off balance, and send him careening into the inky pink darkness below.

Every single detector he had screamed and flashed red as the air around him turned to almost solid Pink Cloud. A quarter second and 12 meters later, he hit the ground in a shriek of muffled pain as the Cloud swirled around him. He realized that he couldn't see the rest of his body, and began to panic. His Gas Analyzer crackled and fizzled. Spitting out readings that would have made the city above look like a sterile hospital room. Everything hurt, and his vision blurred. He shifted, and winced in pain. It was almost too much to bare, and he nearly blacked out from the pain. Every bone on side must have been broken, and, from what it felt like, he probably had a concussion as well.

"Oh..." He moaned, trying to sit up. He sat there in the dense patch of fog. Seconds felt like minutes as he tried to move his hand. And realized it was still there. He slung his arm over, and ended up on his stomach as his eyes watered from the pain of his dislocated shoulder.

"Ah!" Nikolai cried as searing hot pain arced up and down his body. His night vision device was no use down here. But he couldn't move his arm enough to snag it anyhow. The Pink was everywhere. He couldn't even tell where he was. But he also realized something else.

He wasn't melting.

Sure, The Stalker was in sheer pain from the three story fall. But he wasn't melting. He heard a hum behind him. And realized that it was coming from his Artifact. The thing had shown a capacity to ward off magic and even stop it in it's tracks back in Splendid Valley. It seemed the Cloud down here was thick enough to the point where it was having the same effect, even through the leaded container.

"Wo-Oh!" He patted around as gently as he could, and came to the grip of his rifle, he moved his hand forward until he felt his thumb right over the flashlight he had duct taped to the side of his rifle. He pressed the activation button, and was awarded with a torch-like beacon in his right hand. He moved it away, and his eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness around him. He cautiously moved his arm though a fit of searing hot pain, and the Pink moved with it. It was like he was in a swimming pool of the stuff.

He looked off to his side and spotted something odd at an angle. He crawled forward, and reached out at it. It was a pentagonal rock. The Pink Cloud seemed almost solid around it.

"Well, I'm all to shit anyway, what have I to loose?" He snatched it with his left hand. Instantly, the rock... For lack of a better word, ignited like a Pink flame. And Nikolai began to feel a strange feeling course through his arm. Almost like the bones were rearranging themselves back into place, and the bruises were healing. He gripped it in the palm of his hand, and it continued.

"What the hell?" He murmured. His anomaly detector whined.

"It's... It's an Artifact! Down here... Fascinating." He hesitantly removed his glove, and held the stone in his callused bare hand. Wisps of bright pink arced from about it, and he suddenly realized that the pain from his broken ribs was gone. Five more seconds later, and he realized that his legs no longer hurt. He struggled, and stood up. Staring down at the strange rock in utter astonishment.

"What kind of sorcery is this?" He wondered. All of a sudden, the rock started to ache in his hands. And he dropped it in a panic and redonned his glove as a sore-like imprint appeared on it. He reached down and picked it up again. Practically cradling it in amazement. All of a sudden, he heard a muffled crash behind him, and the dark form of the dragon from earlier broke through the hole in the cavern. It's massive wings blew away the wall to wall pink, and Nikolai could see now that he was standing in the middle of an once grand subway station.

His radio crackled back to life with the sound of Bandit Radio as he pocketed the stone, he could barely hear the cords as his head pounded with fury. His eyes were now bloodshot with rage as the wall of adrenaline hit him, Nikolai cracked his fists. He felt like he could take on the world twice over. Aggressively, he stashed the stone into his coat pocket.

"Cheeki Breeki!"

He unslung his rifle, swapped to his drum magazine, and opened fire with a blood curdling laugh. A wall of armor piercing rounds stuck the creature as it charged The insane Stalker. Any sense of self preservation had left him. It was like the only thing he wanted in the world was to end this dragons life. It swiped at him with it's claws, but he was out of reach. He dumped 20 rounds into it's thorax. Causing the creature to spring all sorts of little bodily leaks.

Nikolai bolted around it and, pulling out his knife, dashed up it's back. It roared and thrashed in annoyance as he jabbed the searing hot suppressor into it's head and held down on the trigger. Sending hunks of scale and flesh every which way. The monster shot into the air, blowing away great clouds of Pink Cloud as it headed for the surface. Nikolai hung onto it's horns, trying wildly to stab out the damned things eyes with his combat knife, it barrel rolled and dove back towards the city. Willow and Flashpoint were nowhere to be seen. They probably thought he was dead. Then he spotted them wandering along the cliff-edge of the city, and waved to them. They didn't see, to didn't notice him right away, however, they did notice the massive mutated dragon heading right for them. He pulled hard on the wounded monsters horns, and it went into a downward spiral right off the edge of Canterlot and into the valley below. Passing his motionless friends as they watched his actions in complete shock. Nikolai reached back and yanked hard on a wing, pulling the dragon away from one of the smaller Pink Cloud laden waterfalls.

The bloodthirsty Stalker and the dragon careened towards the ground. Though realization that he was thousands of meters off the ground didn't occur to him. He snagged his Plasma rifle and burned two holes in the exoskeleton of the dragons right wing, and then his left. It turned the monster into a veritable torpedo that Nikolai had no idea how to stop.

"Nikolai!? Nikolai!" A voice shouted from above. He swiveled his head away from the monster and spotted Willow's glowing yellow eyes diving right beside it.

"Grab onto me!"

The Stalker dug the tips of his gloves into the monsters corroded scales and drew a grenade. He unpinned it and stuffed it right into the monsters nostril. Then, to Willow's complete disbelief, the Stalker bounded away from the Monsters back. Willow swooped over and grabbed him with his forelegs as the dragon dove in an uncontrollable spiral and hit the ground moments later in a massive fiery explosion.

"Put me down!" Nikolai demanded. Then he saw that he was still well above the ground, and followed it up with, "Don't put me down! Do not put me down!" Stuggling to hold onto him, the batish equine shakily wound himself down to the ground, and set Nikolai down right beside him, the Stalker dropped to his knees and kissed the ground with reverence.

"Willow! It's good to see you again!" He looked up, but the bat pony was gone. About a minute later, he returned with Flashpoint, who removed his helmet as soon as all four hooves were on the ground and stared at Nikolai.

"Oh, I am so happy you are not dead. You are not going to believe what I found down there-" The still adrenaline filled Stalker was met with a crashing hug that almost knocked him over.

"I-We thought you were dead!" Flashpoint and Willow sobbed, "Never do something like that again!" Nikolai tore his mask off and looked into the tear stained faces of his friends and wrapped them in both arms. Nearly smothering them in the process while he ruffled their manes and curled his mouth into a giant, pained grin.

As the Stalker embraced his friends right there on the poisoned dirt below Mount Canterhorn, a new song began to play through his radio's speaker:

"Here's to us happily and never after all

ain't gonna waste one more night missin' wantin' you back

no I ain't gonna cry another tear in this glass

you didn't waste any time findin' somebody new

so I ain't gonna waste another drop of whiskey on you."

They were done with Canterlot. And, for the first time in a while, Nikolai felt like a burden had just been lifted off his chest. Or perhaps that was just the adrenaline burning off and being replaced with a flood of endorphins. Of course, he still had problems. The sunrise above the clouds would soon come, and The Stalker still had his loot to sort though. Most mysterious of all perhaps, was that magical stone which had healed his broken bones under Canterlot.

But none of that mattered now. He and his friends were safe, and alive. And that was all he cared for at the moment.

Chapter 33: In Your Own Shoes

Chapter 33: In Your Own Shoes

Time for the Stalker to speak his mind...

What a bizarre thing I've found myself enraptured in. Over the past few months of my life, I have experienced more of it then most humans experience in a lifetime. I have seen things and done things that most civil governments would hide from the common people behind a vault of conspiracy, only after killing the creator and throwing away the key after the fact, just like the man who built the Kremlin back east.

My name is Nikolai.

I suppose, really- that I am just a normal Ukrainian man who simply needed some extra money to pay for college. I had no idea what I was getting into. Terrifying as this all been, it is also astounding-and, even world shattering. Occasionally, it is has even been what some might call beautiful. For the better part of this... Strange experience, I have not been alone. My companions have been nothing short of Godsends. And I am certain that I could never ask for better ones, or even think of them if I tried. This... Wasteland that I now preside may be foreign to me. The culture, the environment, the creatures, the food, even the air smells different. But at the same time, I suppose that some things never change, regardless of where you are. Please forgive my poor lack of any better expression. But this is the most least, perfect place for me... That is a complicated thing to explain and elaborate on. So I suppose I should show you, rather than tell you.

**

The Stalker ached all over. He saw only blackness. It took him a moment to realize that he was unconscious. Even in whatever fantasy this was, it still hurt. His mind swarmed with nightmares.

But, they weren't nightmares. They were memories. Vivid, lucid memories. His ears wined, and his hands shook uncontrollably. He touched his brow and found it laced with sweat. The blackness smelt of cold dirt and iron. It was like the Truck Graveyard all over again. He felt like his whole body had been slow boiled over a low flame in the worst possible way.

The scenes from Canterlot replayed over and over and over again in his mind. He couldn't get it out of his head. He hadn't had the time to stop and realize how many times over his life and the lives of his friends could have ended. The kilometer high fall while hanging onto that mutant dragon for dear life reminded him just how fast things could spiral out of his control. The alicorn reminded him of just how outmatched he was. It's booming voice still rang in it's mind, he could almost feel the energy of its presence as it floated across the ground towards him. He was just one man. One human man. And aside from two small equines, it was him against the entire Wasteland. It was almost too much for one Stalker to fathom. He simply couldn't. He was just one man after all. One Stalker. He wasn't a savior. He was a philanthropist who just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. He had a rock solid goal to build off of. He just didn't know his next step.

His eyes snapped open, flooding his vision with grey light. He was staring up and out of his little hovel at the moody grey skies above. In the meanwhile, his radio seemed to awaken along with him, adding a bit of strange ambience to the drizzly morning.

"Just take those 'ol records off the shelf..

I said I'll listen to 'em by myself..."

The Stalker pushed himself up and looked around the little rocky overhang he had made his temporary campsite. He felt something squirm beneath his left arm. It took him a moment to realize that the thing under his arm was a leathery bat wing. A batish wing which was attached to Willow Lamp. On the opposite side Flashpoint lay about half a meter from him. His right side up against the dirt right, mumbling to himself as he snored softly. The Stalker groped around for the ground and pushed himself until he was sitting upright. He looked down at his hands and rolled his thumbs over his palms- his gums and teeth felt loose, like they had sunken ever so slightly out of place.

"Ah... Oh..." Nikolai picked his mask up off of his chest and donned it, then picked up his rifle as his arms tinged with little bits of what felt like static electricity. He stumbled to his feet, and almost lost his footing in the process.

"What happened last night? Oh... Canterlot... Yes, yes. Oh... I need to use "bathroom" tree." The Stalker stumbled out into the open, found a tree about ten meters away, did his business, threw up, laughed, and then stumbled back to the rocky overhang where he reclined back up against his rucksack for a good thirty seconds. Nikolai removed his mask again and pinched the temples of his forehead, then unscrewed the cap on one of his canteens and drank until the dryness in his throat was gone.

"Stew... Beef stew."

He constructed a little fire with some torn newspapers and pre dried scorched tree twigs. As his radio switched songs, he removed a quarter liter can of Beef Stew from his rucksack, then set it atop a little makeshift spit. He drew a can of fruit salad and set it off to the side for later. He wasn't talking to himself, the only thing that he could anyone could take notice of would be the crackling of the low cooking fire. He noticed Willow's nose twitch, and, almost as if by clockwork, both of his friends eyes fluttered open, and he was greeted with the earnest and refreshed faces of two curious equines and hungry equines.

"I was always first one to pass out." Nikolai explained. "So... I figured I would take time to make you breakfast as consolation. We have preserved apricots, scrambled rehydrated eggs with bacon bits, black pepper, and rosemary- And... Beef Stew. Who wants what?"

"I'll take the Apricots, ugh." Willow wasn't disgusted, he was groggy-his ribs ached and his stomach rumbled and moaned for any bit of nutrition they could take in.

"If you guys want some, I will be happy to share!" Nikolai added. Willow reached into his saddle bags and opened up a little frigid pouch which held an IV bag filled with blood. He looked up from his hemoglobin filled breakfast, and got the feeling that Flashpoint wasn't keen on him finishing it while the zebra ate his own food in awkward, disconcert silence.

"I'll eat outside if it makes you more comfortable."

Nikolai smiled. "There is no reason to. By all means, please Willow. You can sit here and finish that IV bag of life juice. I do not care either way. Hey, Flashpoint!" His striped friend snapped his head over to look up at Nikolai.

"Yes?"

"Do you have anything against Willow consuming that in here?" He gestured to the intravenous bag with the whole of a gloved hand. "What kind of a question is that? Of course not. May I have some of that beef stew? It smells amazing." Nikolai nodded and lowered his eyebrows. "Of course." He Stalker sat up with a groan and unscrewed the cap of a bottle of Vodka.

"To Canterlot, fun... Maybe so, maybe no?" Flashpoint rolled his eyes and exhaled heavily." I think we're all glad it's gone. Still, I'm glad you found me Nikolai."

The zebra lowered his muzzle and began to dig into his meal. Nikolai let him have the stew in it's entirety, leaving him with just the scrambled eggs that tasted more like salty Styrofoam than anything else. Willow opened the little valve on the bag and sunk his fangs into it. The Stalker couldn't help but stare in intrigue just a little bit. He discovered that his attention always found itself returning to his rehydrated and reheated breakfast. He really was hungry. Running and gunning through a dark magic filled city tends to do that.

The Stalker crawled to the threshold of their hiding hole and looked out at the Wasteland, about 3 kilometers to their direct south, the ominous Pink Clouds and anomalous weather patterns that plagued the once grand city swirled about the mountainside all the same. Nikolai knew that it had been worth it, he gazed back and looked past his friends at the energy rifle that sat alongside the wall.

"So..." He inquired, turning around and taking a seat in the dirt by the waning fire. "What should we do next?" Willow brought his head away from his IV bag and locked eyes with Nikolai, licking his fangs clean of blood as he did. He whisked his tail around behind him and shifted his wings around.

"North." He said. "Let's go north. Anywhere but back the way we came, I know a few Thestral safe houses that string their way all the way to the coast and up to Manehatten."

"Manehatten?" The Stalker booted up his PDA and scrolled out and about on it's map until he found the coastline. Then, up the highway until he came to a peninsula that vaguely resembled New York City back on Earth.

"What is so special about that place? Is big city, yes. But I do not like big cities. War torn or otherwise. Make for poor scenery- Make for better sniper spot."

"Don't we know it." Flashpoint squirmed over towards Willow until they were sitting side by side. Nikolai reached for his magical energy rifle.

"I am tempted to get out my multitool and try to take this apart. I wonder what makes it tick and glow like that?" He mused quietly.

Willow heard the statement shot out his hooves in swift protest to Nikolai's idea. He himself wasn't familiar with magical energy weapons. But the little nocturnal creature was certain that it would end in disaster. A scorch mark or two if they were lucky, a nearly literal grenade to the face if they weren't. He knew Nikolai was fairly good at fiddling and disassembling things, but he wasn't quite ready to take his chances with one of the few skills he knew he couldn't trust his friend with.

"Oh no you don't! We are taking that thing to a-" The Stalker raised his hand and gestured back towards his friend.

"What? Licensed professional?" Nikolai said mockingly. "Maybe Enclave know how to fix this! Perhaps we will go back to Garden and see what they think of our new treasures? I agree, I do not want to break new toy now that I think about it, besides," He turned the weapon over and clasped it firmly, looking right down the odd canted iron sights which had been designed for equine use. Luckily, being a creature with opposable thumbs and 5 digits on each appendage meant that the odd sights or weapon construction was no big issue. Its power far outweighed the inconvenience that came with manipulating it.

"When do you guys want to set out?" Nikolai changed the subject. "I feel like steam boiled dirt!" He exclaimed grandly, "But... Is not best place to stay for too long, so... half hour and then we leave?"

"Half an hour?" Willow Lamp moaned. " My wings are sore... My everything is sore. Even after the healing potions." Flashpoint looked around awkwardly. "It could be worse. Have you ever been in so much pain you couldn't stand up?"

"Yes." His companions answered in unison.

"When Thestrals and bared from blood for long periods of time," Willow explained, "The results aren't exactly pretty." Nikolai smirked.

"When we Slavs are bared from Vodka, result is not pretty whatsoever." He laughed heartedly as he parroted Willow and stood up to lick his reusable plastic plate clean.

"Forty five minutes." He told them finally. "And then we pack up and go."

It was a long and slightly uncomfortable three quarters of an hour waiting for his friends to slowly and deliberately finish their meals. The Stalker knew for a fact that it was because they were burnt out. Their major goal had been accomplished. And now they were aimless. They didn't have any more drive. Nikolai had been the one at the wheel for the past two weeks. More than either of them had had for the better part of their lives. Survival had just been survival. Nikolai had given them a purpose.

"Have either of you two ever seen a working car?" Nikolai blurted suddenly, trying to excite the moment.

"I am certain we have had this conversation before Nikolai-" The Stalker raised his gloved right index finger and placed it up against Flashpoint's muzzle.

"I do not recall it then!" He snapped.

"Hey, next question- Flashpoint, when are you going to try on that PipBuck?" The Zebra blinked for a moment before he recalled what Willow was asking him about.

"Well we weren't able to try it on back there, maybe once we find a town or some settlement I'll strap it on and try to work it. But we can't risk it out here in the open." The trio passed by a row of destroyed vehicles which had driven off the road and crashed into a drainage ditch. Nikolai looked ahead at a rusting and half collapsed elevated road sign indicating various northbound locations. About a hundred meters past that, a partially melted and redish Steel Rangers helmet sat on a roadside guard rail. It's previous owner nowhere to be found. It's history, or reason for being there was lost to time. Wind blew little loose bits of gravel and dust across the highway. It reminded Nikolai a little bit of the 'Highway of Death' from earth. Nothing had been spared by fallout generated by the last day. Construction vehicles, busses, cars, trucks, and a dozen other types of vehicles lay strewn about in varying levels of disrepair and ancient neglect. Overhead, corroded metal pylons with dangling wires creaked and moaned in the dry winds.

"Alright." Flashpoint began. "Next question, how do we set up that PipBuck?"

"We shall attempt to figure that out when we get to someplace safe. Now is not the time or the place to figure that out. Is all quiet, Willow. Do you hear anything other than the wind?"

"Nope." The bat pony replied, tussling his wings and shifting his carbine around.

"Good. Now... Where is next town? That sign back there gave us two choices. Either we walk for two more hours to town of Cottage, or we turn northwest bound at next off ramp and walk for the next two days until we get to Cloudsdayle." Willow's face lit up, and not in a good way.

"No, no, no. We are not going to Cloudsdayle. That 'Cottage' town couldn't possibly be as bad as Cloudsdayle." Nikolai checked his PDA.

"There is an old coal fired power plant east of us. Do you want to check it out?" Willow shook his head. "Hypocampus Energy? That's fine by me. I've flown over it before, and it would a good start to making it to the coast-it's probably been looted though, it wouldn't be worth much."

"Have you ever seen the ocean?" Flashpoint asked his fanged friend. Willow nodded. "Yes, I have. And it's not like the pictures in magazines or books or old brochures. It's one giant stew of empty, poisoned death. But the good news it that most of the towns on the coast are unoccupied or sparsely populated by ponies who usually aren't too hostile. If we can make it to one of the highways that runs north-south or south-north, then it should lead us right to Manehatten without any issue."

"You know," Nikolai pointed out, "It would be a lot easier if we all had radios. Half of fighting isn't actually fighting after all, yes? We need bullets and what not, but- We also need food, water, comforts, our only supply chain is what we can carry and take with us." He reached into his rucksack while still in motion and pulled out his brand new night vision device. It was odd, to be sure. But it had worked. He couldn't even imagine how ridiculous he must have looked wearing it though. It probably made him look even more unsettling. He still wished he could have gotten himself his own set of power armor. But suits that were designed to fit a creature that never existed here might just be short supply. It was nothing more than a farcical dream that he liked to contemplate from time to time.

But then again, more than a few 'farcical' things had turned out to be true in the two weeks. Too many things for him to name off the top of his head. He compulsively went to check his watch as his boots splashed their way through a muddy puddle. The Stalker began to wonder what his friends were thinking.

He had tried to envision it once or twice before-trying to place himself into the hooves of some creature half his size was an interesting distraction that presented itself as being distinct among his handful of other options while either on the move though a location that didn't recall one's unwavering attention to their surroundings or some sort of conscious expertise at something.

"I would probably miss being tall and doing things with my hands." Nikolai though to himself, trying to convince himself that he was more confident on that particular topic than he really cared to admit.

Back to that other note... Nikolai did consider the consumption of alcoholic beverages to be a sort of conscious, beneficial action. But he wasn't drinking at this time. And the highway ahead of them did still necessitate a bit of attention, both to the actions of his friends and the terrain underfoot. The last thing he wanted was to stupidly trip and fall into some random puddle or to ignorantly bump up against some disgruntled automobile wreck in his passive mental meandering.

The Stalker scratched his chin and then stuffed his gloved hands into his pant pockets, running the five digits on his right hand past his leather Makarov holster as he did. He noticed that the little brass star on it's side had begun to corrode a bit. It wasn't essential to the rest of his tool belt-or even his sidearms holster for that matter. But he'd hate for something that he had kept ahold of since before he entered The Zone to fall apart now. He resolved that he would find a way to repair and restore it. He pulled his mask up and away from his mouth took a breath of the cool, dry, arid environment beyond its filter.

"It smells like rest of Wasteland." He lowered his mask again and chuckled.

Flashpoints wild striped mane drooped over the edges of his helmet and into his field of view and were met with a patient measure of displeasure from the zebra. His armor was scratched and dirty from his only week or so of owning it, but it was far from 'falling apart'. In fact, it was the nicest set of clothing he had ever worn in his life. The miasma of fleeing from captivity and being captive throughout his whole life meant that more often than not the only thing he had to wear was the dirty, grimy fur on his back. All the muck and strange smelling things that turned the alabaster white portions of his coat to a dull, speckled brown and orange.

He hadn't even begun to think about his fur until Nikolai had come along. Before that it was the same cycle of sleep, work, eat, repeat. And just from the way he looked two weeks prior, it was clear which two of those three things he had been deprived of.

"It could always be worse." Flashpoint reminded himself. And he was right, vanity meant nothing if you were trampled to death because you were to sick or malnourished to move.

"I could be in Fillydelphia working in one of those damned factories for Red Eye." His next thought was about all the other captives Nikolai had inevitably freed. In spite of his better nature telling him that they were probably dead or recaptured by now, he couldn't help but think of them.

They had all shunned him, for the most part. Zebra's weren't exactly a species the rest of the Wasteland looked down on with much kindness. Most didn't even want to sit by him on those rickety transportation wagons. He hadn't cared at the time of course, it had meant nothing to him. The only time it did was when those prejudices were taken out on him in the form of beatings or theft.

Flashpoint's dim and dark thoughts turned to a spontaneous wave of gratefulness for his own freedom. As he rewound his memory forward, he came to the time when he had shared a tent with that yellow unicorn, Amber Reins. "I wonder what she's been up to since I last saw her? No Flashpoint- She tried to kill you, what does it matter?" He shook his head in frustration. That slutty mare had tried to kill him over some caps. He probably could have beat her in a fight... had she not surprised him.

His mind skipped ahead to the humorous and ironic way that Nikolai had dealt with Amber, and his distraught sigh curled up into a small grin. It wasn't usual for him for his mood to be swinging every which way, but since he had met Nikolai again at the bottom of Mount Canterhorn, something had snapped in his mind. It felt exactly like this for the zebra when he had been saved from Maripony, or when he had made up with Willow in that market isle.

It was a feeling of rising euphoric good that he couldn't shake off. All the coldness of his life was being supplanted by these little bits of hope he was getting from these strangers he had just recently met. Flashpoint curled his tail up and down at caught a good look at his face from a little bit of reflective car door that hadn't rusted into near non existence.

His mind drifted to the curious thought of Nikolai's world. Earth. The Stalker had told him all kinds of things about it, but he had never tried to envision what it was like in depth. He didn't really know where to begin thinking of it. A thousand thoughts and opinions unfounded on any substantial evidence beyond the human right in front of him danced in his headspace. Some things sounded like they made sense to him, like functioning cars or running water or cities or even green grass, clean air, and blue skies with plenty of food for all. Other human traits, like drinking or a family he could conceive well enough. But there were still things that bothered him. Some question he knew he might never get a good answer to. His guess might as well be as good as Nikolai's.

Right after this, his mind dove into his experience with those zebra cultists. The events of Nikolai's duel still resounded sharply in his mind. The thought of the Stalker running around in what amounted to an almost psychopathic state- Laughing and screaming about those spears brought as much humor to Flashpoint as any of his other recent memories.

"We're getting closer. There are plenty of other little small towns around here. Do not worry. We should be able to stop and rest soon once we are in Cottage." Nikolai's barking voice knocked Flashpoint from his trance.

"Flashpoint! Keep up!" Nikolai called out again. He made a brisk gallop up to Willow's side and looked over at the Thestral, who returned his gaze with a patient slant from his slit, feline-like eyes. It was a strange thing, befriending a creature you thought was your mortal enemy. But Willow was nothing like the stories he had heard. If anything, he was more alike than he was dissimilar. Nikolai knew it, and the stout little zebra knew it as well.

"I wonder what he's thinking about?" Flashpoint's mind resumed its state of contemplative vigilance.

Willow trotted along at the same pace as Flashpoint, noting the Zebra's uncanny smile. He didn't feel all that bad himself, Canterlot had done a number on his wings. Carrying and supporting Nikolai and Flashpoint meant that they were just about as sore as they could get. He had carried heavy loads before while flying-yes. But never a human being who weighed upwards of 250 pounds with all his equipment. He did not mind taking care of his good companions, but it sure did take a toll on him.

He ruffled his wings and curled his face up into an awkward smile. "Hey Flashpoint... What do you need?" The bat pony asked him.

"Oh, nothing at all." His companion replied. "We're getting close, aren't we?" Willow's ear twitched and swiveled towards Nikolai, who was now back in the throes of singing. 'The Man from Waco' in a strange string of broken English as he carried his rifle in one hand, it's sling dangling beside him and swaying lazily in the wind.

"I've used a PipBuck before." Willow told Flashpoint as his hoof kicked a little rock and his the folds of his cloak shifted with his movement. "I can hear things that neither of you can right now. There's... No need for me to have one. Plus, I'd rather not walk around with that giant piece of metal strapped to my forehoof." Flashpoint returned this statement with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, that is more for me then, I suppose." Flashpoint touted, trying to sound humble. Willow, was thinking about blood again. He was almost out of the supply he had taken with him from the safehouse. He truly hoped that this new town they were headed for would have a way for him to resupply. Otherwise he'd be in deep trouble. Like he had told his friends before, a Thestral deprived of nutrition wasn't a pretty sight, and one that he did not want his friends to see. He had resolved his quarrel with Flashpoint, and Nikolai seemed to think highly of him. But that might change if things got too extreme. He wasn't hungry as things stood. His 'meal' this morning had ensured that would be taken care of for the next few days... Hopefully.

"Hey, guys." Willow chirped. "Do you think we could go out of our way and grab some extra IV bags?" Nikolai stopped in midstep and turned around to stare at him.

"Why?" The Stalker asked hurriedly, "Are you running low? Are you out?"

"No-No!" He stammered, curling his ears back nervously. "It's... The flavor, you know? And it's gotten a bit stale... You know?" Nikolai chuckled, "Alright, is fine then? You no need help with this?" Willow returned the question with a fast nod. It went against his better judgement, but Nikolai and Flashpoint couldn't find out.

After some more time well spent walking and talking to one another, the two equines and one human left the freeway and headed northeastward towards Cottage, which was only about a hundred meters off the main road. Nikolai routed them rightwards, and they passed through a hole in a chain link fence and onto the parking lot beside a modestly sized caved in diner.

"Ah, this reminds me of another story..." Nikolai shook his right index finger as the trio squeezed into the structure though a very inconspicuous hole in the wall. The Stalker shinned his weapon light around some of the darker corners, minding the strange and occasionally obscene or morbid graffiti as he passed by it. He took a look out of a few of the windows, then led his friends to what must have been a staff break room at some point, he kicked in the door while standing off to the side, and made sure to stuff an old folding chair up against the hinge once they were inside the dusty room to ensure no...' undesirables' could simply walk in.

This method just didn't sit well with the Stalker, so what he did instead, and rather prudently at that, was to post Willow in the dinning area just beyond the kitchen and countertop, the bat pony calmly noted the unicorn skeleton with it's skull tipped into a dusty plate, and began his little run of impromptu guard work.

"I can't wait to find out how Flashpoint enjoys wearing that thing on his foreleg." He smiled to himself and laughed a bit as his hypersensitive ears picked up the noises of a mutated rat rummaging around some old dumpsters an odd 80 meters from the diner entrance, all the way across the street.

"Like you were saying?" Flashpoint inquired. Nikolai snapped his fingers as he withdrew the PipBuck from Flashpoint's saddlebags.

"Ah! Yes... One time I visit place just like this! Only not half collapsed and- You know, it was actually functioning. Nice place. But... Other topic! And... I forget that as well. Blyat!" The Stalker removed his mask and took a knee while he strapped the PipBuck onto his friend's leg with only minor difficulty, as he fastened it on, an uncomfortable memory swarmed in and out of his mind, a memory which almost made him shudder. But it held nothing of any sort of importance to the task at hoof, so he ignored it.

"Alright, now..." He opened the devices manual and then began to read, only to place it back in its respective pocket in Flashpoint's saddle bag half second later.

"What are you doing?" The zebra pied a glance back at Nikolai and raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

"Oh... I no need manual. Please, I figure this out the same way I learn to drive car." He unscrewed the cap of one of his bottles of Vodka and took a brisk swig.

"With charm and... Lot of trial and error." He gestured at the device as reassuringly as he could. "Hey, I... I will tell you in advance Flashpoint. We may be here a while." He burped, then opened the nearby door and shouted;

"Hey Willow! Look around this place for something useful!" His order was replied to with a strange bat pony chirp of what must have been resigned glee in place of annoyance, along with the flapping of leathery wings. Nikolai turned back to the PipBuck.

"Alright, so what now?" Flashpoint mused, tapping it against the group experimentally. Nikolai began reaching for various knops and buttons, and turned and fidgeted with them until the screen began to glow a passive green color and several rows of code ran their way up and down the screen. Flashpoint arched an eyebrow at this, but Nikolai pumped his fist with enthusiasm.

"I did it! Huzah!" The zebra rolled his eyes as he removed his helmet and made for his pack. "Because you read the portion about its activation Nikolai. I saw it as well. Let us read the manual, it will save us a great deal of time." Nikolai shook his head, and returned to trying to fumble with the PipBuck, Flashpoint jerked his leg away from his gloved hand.

"Please read this Nikolai... I will admit that I can neither read nor write as well as you can. But I can tell when something is certainly, doubtlessly wrong-" Nikolai took ahold of Flashpoint's leg again, the zebra let it go limp, allowing Nikolai full access to the PipBuck. He shown his rifle light over the stained pages of the PipBuck pamphlet, and after another minute of toying with the display, the screen flickered, and an highlighted green hued display of Flashpoint's body appeared on the screen, alongside a dozen other tabs and symbols that represented things Nikolai could only guess at.

"Back to manual, I guess." He grumbled in a dramatized tone.

About twenty minutes into his deep dive into the wonders of Equestrian Spell matrixes and The Stalker was about ready to add another hole to the wall of the diner through the 'judicial' use of his right fist.

"Health bars? Saddlebag organization? Well... I mean- It sounds like video game, but-" He cracked his knuckles and looked into his friends eyes. "It is cool. Provided it actually works. Provided- That technician back in Stable City-" Nikolai downed another swig of Vodka and licked the remainder from his lips. Flashpoint simply nodded, and stood up onto all fours.

All the while, Willow Lamp was busy fishing around the diner for anything of value. It just so happened that he managed to hear some unfamiliar voices while he was walking by the shattered front glass door.

Determined to provide himself with clarity, the Thestral swooped out of a broken window on the south side of the diner and perched himself on a parapet along the upper section of its collapsed roof. Directly across the street was a small strip mall, and beyond that the modestly sized suburb of bungalow style homes and decayed thatch-roof cottages which made up the town of Cottage, his eyes dilated on a a wagon which looked like it had been assembled from the lower half of an old automobile. Beyond, he spotted four creatures, three ponies and one griffon. They all wore rough and patchwork armor and carried rifles. A sudden crack rang out from their direction and he darted down and out of sight. His sensitive nose picked up the smell of gunfire and pony 'stench' coming from the northeast.

"Let's see who these folks are, shall we?" Willow murmured to himself as he spread his wings and arched the front half of his body in preparation for his upcoming dive while his deep green tail blew in the wind.

He glided back down to the ground and landed softly behind an old dumpster, a clear 150 meters from the strangers who were currently looking away from Willow's position. Raising his carbine to what constituted a 'low ready', he scanned the strip mall for any additional ponies. His right eye picked up some movement in the dark spaces of one of the destroyed shops near the cart. Willow shifted his head, and coolly identified the marking on the side of it with pinpoint accuracy.

A White Apple. It seemed that Nikolai's old quarrel had come back to bite his friends.

Chapter 34: Dark and Dusty, Painted on The Sky

Chapter 34: Dark and Dusty, Painted on The Sky

"Nikolai."

Willow tapped on the door of the break room once more. "Nikolai?" He broke a few specks of old paint off the metal door as he knocked again. The door swung open, and Flashpoint stepped out.

"Nikolai's using the bathroom. Something he ate this morning didn't agree with him-" Willow shook his head, "There are creatures flying the White Apple Emblem right down the road. They're looking for something. That cannot be a coincidence." Flashpoint stepped out into the diner hallway and glanced both ways in the dimly lit hallway.

"Where did Nikolai go?" Willow's ears swiveled to the sounds of something outside Flashpoint's perspective, after listening for a moment, he snaked his tongue across his fangs. His look of manifest concern was parroted in Flashpoint's green tinted eyes. The zebra pushed his way past Willow with a feeling of fleeting concern in his gut, and trotted towards the kitchen.

After twenty seconds- at time period which felt like an eternity for the zebra, Flashpoint's head swung back to answer Willow's query.

"He told me he would only be gone for a moment. I should have known better!"

Willow sighed and swore below his breath, flaring his wings and removing the old, worn safety from his carbine as he crept up to one of the windows and peeked outside at the dusty, cracked asphalt and the Mercenaries beyond the parking lot.

"Go look for him then!" Willow ordered.

Flashpoint scampered around and turned back down the hallway towards the bathrooms, his hoofsteps made little imprints in the dust and creaked floorboards as he turned another corner and knocked on the rotted doorframe with a little rocking motion of his right hoof.

"Nikolai?" He inquired. No answer came. He went back around into the kitchen and back towards the little food unloading dock at the back of the restaurant.

"Nikolai?" No answer came. He galloped back inside, and finally resolved to attempt using his PipBuck to try and contact him. He curiously spun one of the knobs, and the device answered him with a soft droning chirp, followed by the diagram of a generic Equestrian equines body.

"Alright, I can't find Nikolai and neither can Willow. He can't have gone far-And I do not know how make contact with him. Maybe this 'Eyes Forward Sparkle' thing could find him for me-" The words had scarcely finished leaving his mouth when the clear and angry voice of The Stalker provided him with a strong reprimand through the PipBuck's speaker.

"I am on roof Flashpoint! Please get up here!"

"Yes, I know you can hear me..." Nikolai's voice continued. "I left room, overheard conversation, and then went to find better spot to find де хулігани. Where the hoodlums are. Is nothing to be worried about. Though, I am a bit-Hello Willow!"

The call ended and Flashpoint raced out behind the diner and clumsily scaled a ladder that ran up to the collapsed portion of the roof. His PipBuck clanked and clattered against the rusty ladder the whole way up in the most annoying and nerve racking fashion possible. He hoped what the device offered in subtle and active benefits was more than what it took away-his meager stealth capabilities, and just a smidge of comfort as far as the amount of weight atop his foreleg went.

Atop the roof of the structure, the broken shingles and plaster had formed a sort of makeshift parapet for Nikolai to take cover in. He noticed Flashpoint and gestured for him to come closer with his left hand. The zebra warily edged his way around the intact portion of the roof and up to Nikolai's off hand side. Willow was on his right, too preoccupied with watching the movement of the White Apples to acknowledge his friend with anything more than an ear flick in his general direction. Nikolai swiveled his head around and smiled below his mask.

"Flashpoint, how does that new PipBuck feel?" Flashpoint tipped his head to one side. "Oh- It feels...It is nothing. Honestly." He grinned uncomfortably. Nikolai shot him a half absent thumbs up.

"Fantastic, watch our rear in case we need to run away fast- Fast and dignified, not like headless mutant chicken. You understand expression, yes? Now," He wagged a finger over at the ladder he had just ascended. "Go on, Willow took first watch, you take second. I promise next time I will take watch."

Flashpoint turned and made his way back towards the southwestern side of the diners rooftop all while Nikolai quietly watched as the mercenaries loudly and methodically made their way around the strip mall through his rifle scope. The stark contrast of the glowing red chevron against the shades of grey, black, and brown that made up his target area made for an easy time picking points of aim.

"Hey, Willow." Nikolai turned to Willow and pointed at the batish creature with his left index finger. "There are five of them, yes?"

"I counted seven while I was behind the dumpster a few minutes ago." Willow replied. Nikolai nodded and went back to his rifle optic. He could have opted for his binoculars instead, but he scarcely knew when the street might erupt in a storm of two way gunfire, so he went for a lethal monocular in its place. The Stalker's hand lay steady on his weapons grip as he balanced the handguard against the edge of the crumbling parapet.

"What do you want to do Nikolai?" Willow asked him.

"Wait a moment, they may very well pass." He replied. "Then we do not have to waste any bullets. And we can tail them. Who knows? They may lead us to something of value. And then we can take that valuable stuff while they look other way and run off! Is like the Robin Hood, yes?" The thestrals left eye shifted towards Nikolai.

"What?" Nikolai inquired.

The Stalker shook his head and directed Willow's attention back towards the White Apples. As Willow had pointed out, there were certainly more than five. Together, they marked a total of ten mercenaries. Nikolai shifted his leg and itched the portion of his arm where he had been shot back in Whiskey Springs, the magic of Equestrian medical capabilities meant that all that remained of the wound now was a small red imprint and the occasional phantom pain and uncomfortable itch.

"Oh, I never tell you about Robin Hood? Old folk tale. I tell you later." His rifle muzzle tracked the little caravan of mercenaries as they made their way closer to the Stalkers position. An instant later and Willow could clearly pick up their small talk. Willows hypersensitive ears and eyes could make out every little detail about his quarry. As it was, it would have been so easy for him and his two compatriots to put an end to those ten mercenaries in just a few moments. But like Nikolai had insisted, they had to wait for a sign of hostility. They were now just 40 meters away, Nikolai and Willow ducked down below the parapet just a little bit, and Flashpoint followed right after.

"What can you hear?" Nikolai demanded in a hushed tone. "What are they talking about? Us? Some sort of bounty? What is it?"

"They're looking for something. They won't say what." Nikolai shook his head. "Alright, we will wait for them to pass, and then we will move across the street and-" He opened up his PDA. "Go to local high school, ok? Is not that big deal! Hopefully should not be that difficult!" They watched with steeled patience as the convoy methodically made it's way down the street towards them until it stopped, just twenty five meters shy of the parking lot.

"Nikolai, we're being outflanked-" Flashpoint called out across the rooftop. The Stalker looked back at the White Apples and set his scopes crosshair on the first burly pony. Then calmly took the safety off of his rifle, shifting the selector lever to 'semi auto'. He breathed in, and then out.

"Duck!" Willow barked all of a sudden. " A sharp whistling rumble gave Nikolai all the auditory que he needed to tackle his friends and dive into the collapsed portion of the building, sending all three of them chaotically plummeting through a layer of decaying sheetrock and onto the torn floorboards and ruined carpet below to the result of much groaning and moaning on their part.

"What was that!?" Flashpoint cried, holding himself down against the floor in a well deserved panic. A moment later, a thunderous explosion rocked the exterior of the diner, followed by another, and another in quick succession. The repeated shockwaves sent a gust of wind and shrapnel through the destroyed windows, scattering broken glass across the diner even more prominently than before. Both Willow and Flashpoints ears rang and hissed with pain. A yellowed jukebox split down the middle.

"Mortars!" Nikolai exclaimed, his voice barely legible as gunfire erupted outside and the walls and residual windows of the diner's northeastern side began to come apart.

"Mortars!?" Willow repeated, fighting to keep his ears from flattening against the sides of his head. Nikolai glanced up, and ducked down as a mortar struck about ten odd yards away. The Stalker pounded on both of his companions back, and gestured for them to maneuver back behind the diner kitchen counter as gunfire tore up the booths around the front door and sent splinters flying every which way.

Then, all of a sudden, it all stopped. And a split moment later a blood curling scream rang out, followed by the sound of metal meeting asphalt and the tearing of flesh.

"Raiders?" Flashpoint inquired, his voice bordering on shouting.

Willow tapped the side of his head, and got only ringing as his friends motioned and waved at him. His hyper tuned senses had been overwhelmed, and it would be a short time before they recovered. Nikolai made this out, and nodded in understanding as he shook the broken class and bits of wood from his coat and ballistic vest.

Nikolai pulled his friends up from their hiding spot and sprinted over to the back door, he slowly pushed it open and glanced outside with his pistol drawn up by his chest in a compressed low ready. Flashpoint rushed to poke his head outside while Willow watched their rear.

"All good?" The thestral queried, tilting his cloaked head to try and get a better view. Nikolai tapped him on the shoulder with his right hand and gestured forward with a salutary thumbs up to affirm his question. Outside, an ancient pickup truck had been turned to confetti by the mortar strikes, additional craters dotted the ground all around them. The trio had whoever had fired those shells to thank for being such a bad shot. The three dashed around the back of the diner and peeked out into the street.

The road outside was an utter mess. The small caravan of White Apple Mercenaries which had been encroaching on their position atop the diner only moments earlier had been torn asunder by the mortars. Disemboweled and desecrated bodies lay strewn across the road. Some were too damaged to even properly identify as that of a pony or a griffon, back towards the highway, a billboard advertising Sparkle Cola had been blown off its supports and lay across a portion of the road.

"No time to loot or mourn aggressive strangers." Nikolai told his friends while in motion. " We go! And hopefully do best to not end up like that, yes?" He gave another hand signal, and they began to sprint and gallop along the sidewalk of the main street of Cottage towards the local high school, past and away from the wrecked strip mall and into the aged and abandoned but still mostly intact northern section of the town.

The town was quiet. Too quiet, as corny or perhaps stereotypical as that may sound, it was nothing if not the truth. While abandon structures and downs devoid of sentient life were extremely common in the Wasteland, it was certainly uncommon to receive indirect fire from mortars, and then for it all to fall quiet as if nothing of the sort had ever occurred.

Nikolai's working hypothesis was that it must have been the Enclave. But he hadn't seen or heard a thing from them since the MoAS laboratory a while ago. But he knew their preference for energy weapons and didn't think they would want to use such a loud and inordinacy way to dispatch their foes. Willow had identified Pegasus Enclave units before they were within visual range once before, he had the capacity to. The Unity made an odd thing to direct blame towards. And more likely then not, if they could hear the Enclave, coming, then the Steel Rangers or any such contemporary force would have stood out like a sore hoof.

That left raiders or some other mercenary group. Perhaps those White Apples had stepped into another organizations operational boundaries and had paid the price for it. But that bombardment had been clearly aimed at the diner, not a little wagon and a half dozen odd mercenaries from Southern Equestria. That left Nikolai without any clear and obvious offenders to point his gloved finger at.

The high school itself seemed a strange sight to Nikolai, he hadn't yet gained much of any sort of knowledge as to the state of the Equestrian education system. He saw himself as a businessman, an adventurer, and... Perhaps even a bit of a scholar ...His own somewhat lacking skills in that last department not withstanding. First and foremost he sought some sort of way to expand the depths of his coffers.

The structure of Cottage High had been left remarkably intact by the damaging forces of time. If anything, those who had constructed it certainly seemed to have had a talent for their work. The high school itself was located at the end of a T intersection of the town, about a half kilometer south of the diner. It was a low red brick and plaster structure with large floor to ceiling windows that ran alongside it's cafeteria. Beyond it lay a small blacktop yard, playground, and beyond that- A set of bleachers along what looked a bit like one's average high school football field.

Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint stormed across the dead lawns and unhewn, dead tree branches that dotted the property. The windows of the exterior of the building seemed all torn up and scattered every which way- But an odd number of them had been boarded up or barricaded somehow. Though perhaps not now, it may have at sometime in the past served as a makeshift fortification. The bullet holes conclusive to small arms and automatic weapon fire seemed to lend a bit of credence to that theory. With their bat pony companion still slightly dazed and def, and Flashpoint not having the time to stop and try to work out the detection system on his PipBuck, they were left to make their way into the building without knowing if there was anyone home- So to speak.

"Go, go!" Nikolai broke a few of the rotted bits of plywood barricade away from the windows and ushered his friends inside before taking one last look at the intersection and the diner down the road- Then to the faint silhouette of the smashed wagon and dead bodies, and scampered inside. His boots crushed a little pile of .22 rimfire cartridges as he dropped down into the classroom and surveyed the makeshift barricades which had been made out of the old school desks. The dry blood and swept aside broken glass were tell tail signs of what had gone on here.

Nikolai gestured towards Willow Lamps right ear "Can you hear anything yet?" The thestral shook his head.

"I'm regaining it. I can feel it fading. But I'm blind in one of my six senses for now." Nikolai groaned, and pressed forward into the hallways and towards the cafeteria, but then started back towards the classroom they were in.

"Well?" Flashpoint asked him. "What do you guys want to do now?" Flashpoint shifted his body just enough to the point where he could look past Nikolai and out into the world beyond the window frame.

"We should leave. We need to get out here. I truly do wish to be able to work out all the little odds and ends of my new PipBuck. But we cannot remain here Nikolai. Whoever just tried to blow us up may very well try again... And... Perhaps that may very well be them..." His voice trailed off in an ungainly sort of way. Nikolai turned and swiftly noticed why.

"Raiders." He said in a low, firm manner. The expression below his mask almost blank. It wasn't flush with horror. Just a bit surprised. If a conveyance of his emotions to the rest of the world could be referred to as, 'a bit'. He was not mad, nor was he terrified. He was in an almost obscene state of mind for the situation. And he quickly resolved to create a way to deal with the large 'congregation' of bloodthirsting psychopaths' about three hundred meters distant.

The fact of the matter was, was that neither of the three had properly identified them as being any sort of raider. From as distance, even through binoculars, it was difficult to pin anything down. Nikolai couldn't make out the total number of them, but at leas they seemed to have stopped at the ruins of the diner. Willow could have provided them with greater information in exchange for little effort on his part. But it would be a few more minutes before anything like that would be possible. As it stood, they had two routes they could go about handling this:

They could lie in wait for any raiders making their way down the road and attempt to ambush them, or, as an alternative. They could withdraw, circle around Cottage, and be back on the open highway within the hour.

And completely exposed to mortar fire. This was unacceptable, and not in some pompous sort of way. The Stalker was deeply troubled. But, if there was anything to be made into his, he had the know-how and the equipment to make his way out of this. He wasn't just some unlucky Wastelander.

"Flashpoint. I need to to remain behind." The Stalker pied another glance out of the Window then ducked back inside. "Stay beside Willow and help him recover. Figure out the base workings of that PipBuck. He tapped a button on his radio, which resounded in a little beep.

"You see my frequency, this one here? Memorize it. Tune into it and wait for my instructions. I am going to look for a way past this blockade. I will return in half an hour. If not, then you and Willow must wait here until nightfall. Willow can see in the dark, and so can I with device I find in Canterlot. Those hooligans outside very likely cannot. The moon is not going to be full tonight. Use that to your advantage. If they move before then, make a break for it. Do your best to not draw any fire... And hold onto this." He palmed his Energy Rifle off to Flashpoint.

"It is obvious to find location of shooter. Use it sparingly- Actually- Give it back." He snagged it out of the bewildered zebra's hooves.

"New plan. I am going to find those mortars- And turn them into melted slag. Remember, we only have so much ammunition. You and I must do best to stay out of sight. Please." He gave them an earnest nod, and dipped out of the room and began to make his way past the cafeteria and towards the gymnasium. Meanwhile, Flashpoint remained behind with Willow. The two stallions watched him leave, and then turned to one another. Neither said any words. They didn't have any to exchange.

Nikolai had once again found himself alone on some grand exploit to dig him and his companions out of trouble. A quick swig of Vodka and a prudent demeanor had been the groundwork for it nigh every single time. And it was what he would do this time as well. His companions were crucial to him more than anything else. But one was wounded and the other didn't have the tools necessary to accomplish what needed to be done. And so he was alone. The Stalker winded his way through the hallways of the building, past the locker room, and out onto the blacktop behind the structure. Nikolai swung his head both ways, then took off eastwards.

"Kalinka, kalinka, kalinka..."

Nikolai hummed a little tune to himself, he couldn't afford to keep his radio on it's usual location at Zone FM. He made his way about fifty yards before disappearing into a dead and crumbly brush line which lead down into a creek bed that ran northeast along the limits of Cottage. He moved slowly and methodically, trying his best to seem like a natural part of the environment. His dirty and dust covered worn green jacket blended in almost perfectly against the dull and dry creek bed. Water had very likely not flown through her for a long, long time, the shaped river stones along it's bottom had been almost wholly covered in a layer of coarse, unfertile dust from the surrounding wilderness.

"This looks a bit like Ukrainian countryside. " Nikolai thought to himself. "Make everything green, make creek flow, make sky blue. Would not be that hard, please God?" Humorously and unglamorously, no response came to The Stalker, he made his way past the local fire station and, from a distance, spotted the first of his quarry, a flash of yellow and orange fur through the dead stags along the creek. He took a methodical knee along the bank and leveled his rifle at the sudden splash of colors. Up on a rise in between two homes, was a line of a half dozen armed ponies of a disgruntled demeanor. Each and every one of them bore some sort of ramshackle armor.

"That is odd. Raiders do not usually move in such a methodical manner." He raised the edge of his rifle scope to his eye and spied out the group. They weren't heading in his direction, and the dead foliage and distance from them meant that getting discovered would be of little issue to him. Nikolai picked himself up and continued, he pulled his rifle's magazine from it's well and examined it before reinserting it a moment later. Full metal jackets, again. And after his mid air battle with a canterlot dragon a day or so prior, he didn't have ammunition enough left do take on dozens upon dozens of violent attackers and win. He either needed a quick and decisive victory, a bloodless one, or a speedy withdrawal.

He continued making his way along the creek, and eventually came to a little stone bridge which led it's way atop the creek. The Stalker took ahold of the crumbling edges of it and pulled himself up and onto the east bound road out of Cottage, he looked both ways, and then back down into the creek bed and under the bridge. He very nearly jumped at the sight of an old skeleton, and then began to try to calculation out the location of the mortars in his head.

"Let us see... Velocity of mortar... Speed of sound, noise to impact..." He opened up his PDA and scrolled around it until he figured out how large Cottage was. This, in total, took him about 15 minutes. He had been after an engineering degree when he had left for The Exclusion Zone all those months ago. It was a set of fairly simple algebraic equations that he would normally not give any care for. But, since he had the know-how in his metaphorical toolbox, he thought that it would be prudent to use it. He checked his watch and sighed as he pushed himself up to his feet. He nearly jumped out of his boots when he heard;

"Don't move! Don't move!"

Nikolai ducked back under the bridge, and then heard a gunshot, followed by the rattling of something, and the sound of laughter along with fading hoofsteps westward. The Stalker waited a moment with his rifle aimed up and out of the creek and towards the road as the shadows around him gradually shifted. Finally, he struck the contact button on his radio and began to relay his findings back to his friends.

"Flashpoint?" He took his left index finger off the radio and waited.

"Nikolai? We can hear you." The Stalker furrowed his brow. "Willow is ok? Ears better?" His question was met with momentary static.

"Nikolai?" It was Flashpoint's voice. The mute chirp in the background told Nikolai that Willow was still there, and given by it's affirmative tone, he had heard Nikolai's voice loud and clear. Which meant that his hearing was back. Though, The Stalker still needed to directly confirm that face to face.

"I believe I have figured out where those mortars were. Remain where you are, and, the next time I call you, be ready to move to the bridge on the eastern side of town. Get there as quickly as possible." He had to admit, he was a slight bit nervous at the prospect of open, unsecured two way radio communications. He removed his index finger from the radio transmitter and swore quietly. He didn't want anyone listening in on him, but he had no means to encrypt his messages, so he would just settle for the tried and true method of broadcasting, then moving and waiting for a while, then broadcasting again. It wasn't perfect. But on the off chance someone out there could hear his every word, then at least they wouldn't be able to find him with any ease.

Rest assured, that Nikolai had enough to worry about without a guided missile dropping on his head. He pounced up onto the cracked road and picked up an old soup tarnished aluminum can with a bullet hole square through the middle of it. He set it down and chuckled.

"Target practice. Ok... These are definitely not usual raiders. Otherwise they very likely would have shot each other for fun!" He jogged across the street and took a knee by a little stone outcropping that had been potmarked with graffiti, he looked both ways, and spotted the patrol from earlier. A hundred meters away, but looking away from him. He crouched down behind a low spot on the other side of the rock. His gun barrel tracked the strangers movements in such a way that he could have opened fire and ended each and every one of them before they could manipulate the trigger with their mouth. Nikolai checked his watch, which resounded at just past midday. It would be at least four hours before it would begin to get darker. And he didn't have the patience to sit around and do nothing for that amount of time.

"I'll just follow them back to their camp! Then... I'll disable those mortars. Not difficult at all!" He exclaimed it in a hushed whisper, and the crosswind made sure that no soul but him ever heard those words.

And so, Nikolai followed them. He made his way down the little embankment away from the bridge, then crept through a hole in a chain-link fence and followed the small assembly of equines like something out of a spy novel. They made a turn northwards about a hundred and fifty meters into Cottage, and Nikolai sprinted across the road, just narrowly avoiding an overhead griffon patrol. It was just one of the miraculous bird-cat hybrid things, but Nikolai couldn't deal with them whilst they were airborne-lest he draw more unwanted attention.

He jumped onto the low balcony of a bungalow and then gently broke into a home in the typical fashion of a burglar. He swung his rifle around at high ready in a quick survey of the room, then took a seat upon one of the old couches, away from the window of course. He removed his mask just a bit and then took a gulp of water to quench his thirst, followed by a quick examination of the minute and hour hands of his watch.

"I need to get back to stalking that patrol." He thought, he picked his gun up off of his lap and dashed out onto the back porch of the structure. He hopped a small picket fence and kept his modest level of momentum going. He dodged and weaved around the trunks of a few hardly standing oak trees and came back around to the main street of town, he spotted the Diner down the street, then quickly ducked back in between homes and doubled back. Every little sound or rattling noise, every creak and crack from any number of things made his hear jump up into his throat.

"Now... Where would- Oh blya-"He pulled himself back up into the shadows at the sight of a tent flap.

He had found their camp, whoever it was that 'they' were. They had turned the town square into a makeshift camp. Dozens of ponies and griffons alike prowled the set of ramshackle tents, a few carts, some loaded with cages and others filled to the brim with all manner of supplies- food, water, and ammunition. The Stalker lustfully eyes a pallet of 5.56, and resolved that he needed to find some more cartridges. He swapped to his drum magazine and climbed inside of another bungalow.

"Oh, get down!" Something tugged on his rucksack. The Stalker instinctively tugged away, and way greeted with the odd, decayed face of a ghoul wearing a chipped steel helmet adorned with a faded pink and yellow cross, and a set of tattered olive green fatigues. The stallion gripped an ancient double barreled shotgun in his hooves and cast a wicked grin at Nikolai, who warily brought his rifle away from the window and over at the ghoul.

"Quiet!" He insisted, "You'll give us away!" The voice was gravelly, but full of spirit. Nikolai's mind drew him to the first question he could think of:

"Just how long have you been waiting here?"

"Daw' gon' N' I dunno!?" The ghoul replied, almost incoherently. Nikolai arched an eyebrow below his mask lenses and looked away. "Ok... Follow own advice, stranger. Stay quiet."

It took Nikolai a moment to realize the pair of batish wings along the creatures sides. He didn't have time to worry. The unexpected introduction had drawn the attention of some of the belligerents outside, and eyes were now being drawn to Nikolai's hiding place. He snuck out the front door in an inconspicuous manner just as the first pony, an earth pony mare with a speckled grey and brown back and a scar across her right eye, was greeted with a flurry of buckshot and a gust of fire and smoke which drew a good third of the camp to the precipice of that window.

...And away from their mortars. The Stalker darted across the street as gunfire tore up the bungalow he had been in, he very nearly ran right through the angry crowd without drawing a single eye. These were definitely not raiders. That was assured. But they were certainly not friendly either. They were out rightly hostile. In a foolish move that could have cost him quite a bit, he very narrowly managed to make it back into the safety of the abandoned buildings on the other side of the town square.

"Flashpoint?" He tapped the transmitter portion of his radio. "There are at least 60 or 70 of them. Hmm..." The sound of his breathing though his mask reverberated over the airwaves. "Perhaps eighty! Beware... And... Do not worry." He looked up for a moment, then crawled his way beneath a house deck and continued his conversation.

"I stumble into ghoul who start shoot at strangers, I not even learn name. He is probably dead now-Oh, Willow. He was a bat pony ghoul, I did not get good look. But if we have chance at later time, I just thought you would like to know about it."

"A thestral ghoul... That ain't unheard of. It's no big deal. Tell me if you spot him again." Nikolai took his index finger off the radio and began to move around until he was directly beyond the little courthouse in the middle of the desecrated town square. Nikolai swung his head every which way. But he couldn't find any mortars. He dashed across the street and came to a halt behind a cart.

"Blin, they must have moved them somewhere. But where?" The sound of hooves against asphalt led to him jolting away from the corner, he reached out and tried to snatch whoever had just approached him, he ended up grabbing the muzzle of a small unicorn, he cupped one gloved hand over the stallion's muzzle, and the over under his right foreleg, keeping him restrained just enough so that his hind legs couldn't kick Nikolai in the shins. Nikolai responded by dragging him back away into an abandon house and pinning the stranger to the ground, he unsheathed his knife and began to interrogate him in a strange, strange manner.

"Hello friend!" He whispered. "Tell me you name and where those mortars came from. Also, tell me where they are. And do not lie, otherwise I will stiffly rebuke you!" The stallion's eyes welled with a mixture of confusion and terror.

"Huh-What are you- What-Who-What are you!? Hel-"Nikolai cupped his hand back over the stallions muzzle. "Shut up please. Now, I know you are lying. But I am very nice person-We make good friends, yes? Stop squirming and tell me cyka!"

"Um-I-I don't know anything!" He screamed, his voice muffled by the Stalker's hand. "You are probably lying, so I call nonsense. Is not good to be untruthful, you know?" Nikolai laughed a bit and slapped the unicorn on the shoulder, being sure to snatch away the little revolver which had been hidden in a shoulder holster as he did.

"Why do you want to know anyway!?"

"Because you tried to blow me up!" Nikolai remarked sharply.

"Because you White Apples were trying to-"The Stalker facepalmed, and pointed to the patch on his shoulder. "Blyat, you idiot! I am not White Apple, what the hell? Do you have rock salt in place of brain? What do bunch of Raiders want with random person-Or, White Apple mercenaries?"

"Why should I-"Nikolai groaned." Answer it. Answer question." He lowered his knife, but still kept it close at hand. He had just met this pony. And on account of the circumstances did not wish to give him much of any kind of quarter. At least not until he gave Nikolai his name and a thoroughfare explanation of the situation from his perspective.

"This is the home of our longest living familial relative. We travel back and forth between Cottage and any number of our hunting camps in search of supplies. We meet back here every month or so. Watcha doing here anyway?" Something dawned on Nikolai.

"This relative of yours, he would not happen to be a thestral ghoul now, would he?" The unicorn raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, how do ya know that?" Nikolai groaned. "I met him five minutes ago. I thought you were trying to kill him!" All of a sudden the expression on the unicorns face turned nearly upside down.

"No kidding? Do you mean this was some sorta misunderstanding-Could you put me down and give me mah gun back?" Nikolai snorted a laugh. "No. I am in bad position. If I let you go and you are lying to me, you could have them tear half of town apart looking for me. If I do not, then they might try to kill me. Even if you are telling truth, who is to say that they would not be mad any way? And cages on back of carts- Griffons? Explain that!"

"Well, we've got a few mercs to keep things under wraps 'n do our less pleasant work. And the cages are for prey and captives." Nikolai thought to himself for a long while, he had to consider his options quickly. Finally, he resolved to allow the stallion to leave, with him in tow- Then stopped him again as he changed his mind.

"We will wait here for next four hours. Find something to make conversation about. The Stalker ordered the stallion to take another seat.

"Why?" Nikolai arched an eyebrow below his mask. "I do not have to tell you. Just wait here and you will not be hurt. So... What is name?"

Four long hours later...

"Hey! Nikolai! You aren't dead, are you?" The Stalker's radio crackled to life and he jumped up off of the old stool he had fallen asleep on. He sputtered and sat up. His eyes and mouth were dry. He wasn't used to sleeping with his mask on for so long. He raised it above his mouth and took a breath of cool, dusty air, then lowered it again. He stumbled to his feet and snatched his radio out of its respective pouch on his vest for the first time in a long while. He turned to where he had left the stallion, and found that he was gone. After cursing for a brief moment, he responded to his friends call.

"Yes! I'm alive! Willow? Are you good!? Blin, do not make joke like that-" He gazed out of a window, and donned his night vision headset, with the flick of a switch his whole world lit up in a pale greenish blue light, potmarked with translucent hexagons. He scaled out of the build onto the dead lawn behind it, and spotted the unicorn from earlier eagerly leading a few of his armed compatriots around. Probably looking for The Stalker, who had since left his napping spot. He raised his AK 101 and scaled over a rusty chain link fence as he began to make his way back to the creek. He took a moment to duck down beneath an ancient playset and radio Flashpoint.

"Guys. Get going, creek bed behind the school."

As flickering torchlight illuminated the street across from him, he spun his head around and stumbled down into the creek about a hundred meters north of the bridge. As the dust behind him settled he took off at a low, crouch-walk back towards the school to meet up with Willow and Flashpoint, taking to crawling in some places or just flat out staying still to avoid the prying gaze of the armed strangers. At about the fire station, he spotted the glint of Willow's pupils, highlighted by the grainy image presented to him by his optics. He took a knee, and the bat pony replied with a friendly chirp.

"Hello Willow." He waved to the murky figure in the darkness.

"Hey, Nikolai." Willow's voice replied from behind him. The Stalker looked back over his shoulder, and found Willow and Flashpoint standing behind him. He then turned, and looked back at who he thought was Willow. Then, he looked back at Willow. Then, once more, at the strange creature whom he'd pegged as Willow through his night vision.

"Wait-If you are Willow, then who the hell is that?"

"Gah!" He raised his night vision device out of the way and activated his weapon light, illuminating fully the bat pony ghoul whom he'd met four hours prior. He heard Flashpoint backing away behind him.

"Is ok! Is ok! This is new friend I make!" The thestral ghoul stretched his decayed face into an awkward smile in the harsh white light of Nikolai's rifle light.

"Hello 'der! Mah names-a Whirly Hills! How do ya do!?" Nikolai furrowed his brow and lowered his night vision again.

"Not too bad. Hey, are those your relatives up in that camp?" Whirly laughed a bit and flared his torn leathery wings. "Well yes dey are, 'd ya wanna meet dem!?" Nikolai quickly shook his head. "No thank you Whirly, we will be going on our way- Um.... Thank you for offer though!" Nikolai didn't even bother to ask him why he had fired upon them in the firs place. The trio pushed their way past Whirly Hills with as much rapidity as was possible, the ghoul waved at them, and disappeared into the shadows.

"We're not going back to the school, are we?" Flashpoint asked him. Nikolai shook his head, the filter of his mask highlighted by the distant glow of Canterlot.

"No. We are going east. across country. PDA says that there is another town about ten kilometers off from that little stone bridge. If we start now, we can make it there by daybreak, if we can do that, then we can make it to the Canterhorn mountain range by sunset tomorrow. Willow and I can both see in the dark. Stay close behind, Flashpoint."

Nikolai had no intention of staying behind in Cottage any longer, a feeling in his gut told him that nothing good would come out of trying to negotiate with the ponies and griffons who had nearly blown him to pieces just hours earlier. He needed to put as much distance between them and him as was possible, and fast.

With that, the Stalker and his two equine friends made their way out of the dry creek bed and into the foreboding dry wilderness ahead of them. At a distance of about a half kilometer, when the camp and torch fires of Cottage were little more than flickers against the pitch blackness of the Equestrian Wasteland, Nikolai was finally able to turn his radio on again, serenading the trio with Zone FM. Much to the contempt of both Willow and Flashpoint, who could hardly stand to hear Nikolai karaoke; "Take Me Home, Country Roads" in a broken Slavic accent without at least some measure of patience.

Then, it suddenly dawned on his that he had never given the unicorn from the town square back his revolver. It was too late now, and frankly, he just didn't care. He took it out, and examined it. A modest and tarnished .38. Usually a thing he would bypass, but he was stuck with it now.

"Hey, Willow? Want new gun?" The bat pony looked up at Nikolai, a bit surprised. "Um-Sure. Can I ask why you're giving me it?"

"Because I stole it from those ponies back at that camp and I do not want to give it back. Little bit of penance for making you go def for all that time. Here, now take it. I insist."

Chapter 35: Hypersomnia

Chapter 35: Hypersomnia

Thump, thump, thump, thump...

The faint sound of boots and hooves making their way over arid topsoil and gravel were canceled out by the faint noise emanating from Nikolai's radio.

"Have you ever been anyplace humid? Either of you?" Two equine heads shook in a resounding 'no'. The Equestrian Wasteland was devoid of anything of the sort. The one atmospheric constant across the whole of the continent was an ever present dryness.

With the exception of a few small locations and the Everfree forest, it was always the same, the only thing that ever wavered was the temperature. But even that wasn't much of an issue during most of the year. The perpetually overcast sky made sure of that. Ahead, a vast row of slender objects paved the horizon. Thousands and thousands of blackened trees, burned and cauterized by the massive forest fires that had raged in the days and weeks following the day the bombs had fallen.

It was an imposing sight, especially through the pale optics of The Stalkers night vision device. Nikolai raised his head set and checked his watch under a shielded flashlight.

"We have about six hours until daybreak. We can keep walking until we intersect road. Ok?" Willow and Flashpoint returned his question with a pair of obvious nods cast in his direction. Nikolai glanced at his watch one more time, then set his hands in his pockets and began whistling a muffled tune beneath his mask.

Hours passed, and then hours more. The vast expanse of blacken trunks came closer and closer until, at last, at last, the trio immersed themselves wholly in the mass of ominous charcoal. Most of the fallen logs had their tops pointed distinctly north, away from Cantertlot. That spoke for itself.

He could vaguely picture the sheer terror that would have come with it. It was like those videos of Mount Saint Helens over in America exploding, or the great Australian wildfires. The green flashes, the heat and thermal radiation-gamma rays or what constituted it in a magical sense. Then, the gust of searing hot wind, traveling at hundreds of kilometers per hour, gale force winds ripping up everything that wasn't already fused to the ground. Then, the massive wall of flames that had whisked in and out of his dreams all this time. It was one thing to learn about this stuff from a book, a classroom lecture, or a video online.

It was another thing entirely to experience it. Or to travel through the area after the fact. Even in the Zone, green was everywhere. Here, the only green present was the occasional sparks of balefire which flickered inside of the odd twisted and blackened trunk. Off on the horizon, thunder boomed. And a sudden flash of dry lightening lit up the whole world. A cold wind and a gradual whitening of the sky from almost black to a sort of silvery grey signaled the coming of the dawn. Nikolai's trigger finger danced across the cold surface of his rifles receiver, and he had to make a conscious thought to not continue toying with the safety.

More thunder boomed. He was uneasy. Another bolt of lightening and a wind which made Willow's cloak and his the loose folds of his own jacket ruffle and dance came after. He itched his neck through his hood and maneuvered around a patch of granite boulders as the first few water droplets from the incoming storm laid themselves to rest on his worn greenish coat. The speakers of his radio rang with sudden loudness. It was picking up bits of interference from the storm.

We need to find a road." Nikolai ordered his companions. "Unless you two would rather we walk through mud all the way to next town. Both of you might be able to attest to importance of this thing called dry ground." The sky began to cry in the wake of his words. The air turned misty as they picked up their pace northeastwards, and the stench of burnt wood and coarse dirt with a faint bit of copper from the little pockets of leftover balefire magic.

Kilometers, away another bolt of lighting struck the ground-Some ancient skyscraper. Then the world went black again, and thunder boomed soon after. Nikolai's boots began to make drawn out prints in the dirt. The faint sound of a pair of gunshots off to the south were hardly and cause for concern. More lightning arced across the sky, and Willow made out the snaking path of an old gravel road leading east to west. Fallen and standing alike, they were beginning to find more and more upright snags, most of them on the north sides of hills. Nikolai and his compatriots passed an old campsite, nothing of use to be found-of course. Everything was either burnt or melted to some degree or another.

In the ten minutes it took the trio to reach the top of the next hill and find the gravel road Willow had seen, it was very nearly pouring. He could smell his breath when he exhaled against his masks filter. He hadn't eaten since the day prior, and it was beginning to show. Nikolai could feel the black rings beginning to form under his eyes. The Stalker hurried up a few paces, and his friends followed suit.

"Something bothering you?" Willow inquired.

"No-no!" Nikolai replied, angling his head downwards to meet the thestral face to face.

"I am daydreaming-Is really no big dead-deal!" His vocal cords lurched. He had spent so much time in his head that he had very nearly forgotten how to carry on a normal conversation.

"Working so hard like a soldier-Can't afford a thing on tv...Good God-We gonna rock down to electric avenue..." Nikolai's eyes shot wide open.

"Blin-Nevermind! You enjoy the 80's music and no talk anymore, yes?" More thunder boomed in the distance, Nikolai passed a collection of boulders, one littered with the bones of some kind of snake. The ground ahead of them turned to a slight incline, The Stalker marched his friends up to the embankment just below the summit, and took an eastward right. By now the thunderstorm had darkened the sky to the point of it's pre dawn state-Nikolai redonned his night vision, frowning slightly as the little droplets of rain blurred out portions of the bug eyed optics. Another bolt of white lightning struck the ground nearer to the mountains, and Willow ceased hovering-He didn't want his friends to see him charred by a flash of skyborne energy any more than he wanted to experience it himself, and his swaying tail signaled his discomfort with traveling in a storm. Not to even mention the worry in the back of his head that had to do with his consistent thinking about his next meal. Not too big of an issue for Nikolai or even Flashpoint, but Willow was a unique case.

He didn't have the luxury of eating preserved meals. The only things he could consume for genuine nutrition needed to be walking about and unirradiated.

"Cheer up friends!" Nikolai exclaimed, staring down at his PDA midstep, "We will be in sight of a cluster of solid structures within hour, is good thing-Yes? Only couple kilometer... Maybe less-Until we are out of rain!" He ran a gloved finger across the screen of his PDA.

"Flashpoint!" He barked, "Check PipBuck. As soon as we get indoors and warm-first we sleep, then we work out little complexities of that... Thing."

Nikolai kicked a rock underfoot, the dirt speckled gravel had turned to a gray and brown slurry by now- A slurry that Nikolai's pant legs were coated in up to almost knee level, he slid his mask up over his nose to take a short swig of water from a canteen, the water inside had made it's way here all the way from Canterlot, but it still tasted new. Those water Talismans were really something. If it was going to just be him and two small equines against the whole world, then at least he'd have some magic to level the odds. If he could find his own Water Talisman, then he'd loose his dependence on external, potentially contaminated sources. Not to mention it would be exponentially more convenient. This left him wondering if there was some sort of magic device which could create food in an instant-The thought of infinite borscht left him shouting obscenities at himself.

The storm kept up through their whole trek-And they were all thoroughly drenched by the time they reached the outskirts of the next town. There was no sign to be found-given that they were on an informal gravel road. And frankly, Nikolai didn't care. He just wanted someplace to get out of the rain. He had walked through more than his fair share of thunderstorms before. And he had quietly grown to resent them more and more and more. The sparse bit of music from earlier had cut out, leaving only bits of occasional static. The Stalker had supposed that Flashpoint's PipBuck had access to FM radio, but not the station he was looking for. Zone FM was one of a kind, it seemed. It was confined to his radio and his radio only it was his only tie back to earth, and he wasn't going to dare to attempt to disassemble it.

This town-whatever it used to be called, marked the rough halfway point between the proper start of the Canterhorn mountain range and Cottage. Nikolai was confident that if they could rest here they could make it to the mountains by weeks end. From there, it would be a winding road through a dozen different cliffside highways and carved tunnels to the far side-From there he didn't know how long it would take him to reach the coast. They passed an old used car lot, and Willow's shining yellow eyes glinted off the last bits of paint on the hoods and bumpers.

It was standard practice by now that Nikolai would seek shelter in the first building he saw, not only would it get him out of the elements, but it would also hide him from any prying eyes if done with either stealth or rapidity depending on the situation. In this case, neither really held true. Unless, of course, someone or something out there had a thermal sight- Or the Enclave was out looking for him again. Unlikely, given they didn't know the slightest about him.

Nikolai knew people and ponies included could hold grudges for a very long time. He wasn't above it himself, but just like an idiot getting onto the wrong side of Duty or the Ukrainian Army back in The Zone, it was something he would rather avoid from here on out. Even with his brand new Energy Rifle and night vision, which when combined with Willow's incredibly attuned senses and Flashpoint's PipBuck put him on equal level with the Enclave-At least as far as the ability to see one another in the dark went, which meant that he could now move at night to his hearts content.

Nikolai crept up to the exterior wall just beyond the doorway, and gave the rusted handle a little tap with the tip of his rifle's suppressor. He wasn't met with any noise but another crash of thunder and lightning. He walked up to the door and gave the handle a firm tug. He was met with the crackle of iron oxide against a corroded lock. A more naïve person would have considered a lock pick. But Nikolai simply took his crowbar and knocked it right out of place, sending it tumbling to the floor on the opposite end.

"Nikolai, I'm hesitant to ask, but have you ever actually picked a lock before?" The Stalker nodded quietly, and threw the door open with a whining creak from the corroded hinges.

"Yes-A few times. You do not grow up where I do without learning trick or two-for fun, of course. Not survival, just for joyride in teachers car." The Stalker hawked up a laugh and paced inside, parting for a brief moment to allow Willow and Flashpoint to pass him by, they made their way into the lobby and past a a little office- the place where they finally stopped to rest. Nikolai cleared out an ancient skeleton and tipped aside the set of cubicles to make an impromptu bed frame. He removed his mask and the hood of his coat, followed immediately after by his rucksack and vest. Both of which he set off to the side to dry along with his jacket. Nikolai reclined back against the wall and wiped the sweat and muck off of his forehead as he neatly and gently set his night vision device back into it's padded pouch.

"Alright..." Nikolai groaned. "Let us see what remains of rations-If we have too little-Willow, I task you with discerning something edible." He took a swig from a bottle of Vodka. "Calories are calories, irregardless of where they come from. Not quite homemade pickles or bread loaves with potato salad-But it will have to do."

"I think I saw a vending machine in the hallway, wanna go check with me?" Willow questioned Nikolai. The Stalker groaned and pulled himself up to his feet and rubbed his roughly shaven face.

"Sure, I could go for bag of ancient potato chips." He picked up his AK 101 and sauntered out into the hallway, leaving Flashpoint alone in the dark room with the creaking ceiling, mildew stench, and the rattling of the storm against the shattered window frame. He removed his helmet and peered into the faintly glowing screen of his PipBuck.

"Ohoho!" Nikolai clasped his hands together with gusto as he laid his eyes came to rest on the sight of the old vending machine, only for that same enthusiasm to be replaced with an arched eyebrow and an disappointed:

"...What the hell is that?" What sat before him was the oddest collection of, 'healthy' snacks he had ever seen.

"Fried carrot chips... Ok." He shrugged-and, not wanting to pay a thing to the damned ancient machine, simply broke the glass with the butt of his rifle, dusting the glass off right after. Nikolai fished around inside, until his hand came to rest on a bag of pretzels. He snapped it open and bit into one. It was stale-to be sure, but it was edible. He had soon finished the entire bag, and returned with an armful filled with about a half dozen appetizing looking bags for his ravenous zebra companion.

The two devoured their ancient stale meals with delight. Willow didn't eat a thing though, he claimed he wasn't hungry. As much of a lie as he knew that to be. The thestral simply gave his friends a smile, took his hood off, and curled up in the darkest corner of the room. Even he was tired after the past day and a half of hard marching and evading. That was the best description he could come up with. Though personally, he thought that marching was too proper of a term to define it. The sharp-nearly glow-like glimmer in his eyes was gone in a moment as he drifted off to sleep to dream about... Whatever it was bat ponies dream about.

"Blood lakes, perhaps?" Nikolai mused. He was far to 'out of it' himself to ask any more questions, his mind and consciousness was away in an instant.

His own dreams were simply a blur. No longer was there any sort of clear, nigh prophetic structure to them. All that was left was a series of repeating, flashing glances of the past couple of weeks. Little bits of regrets and guilt- Worries, fun- Mistakes. He wondered about the zebras, all hidden away under that mansion. The strange ghoulish doctor that had woken up back at the chemical laboratory. He had nearly forgotten Potato Sack's family! Amber Reins was a strange sight he was sure would never leave his mind- Nor Flashpoint's either.

And most strangely of all, he thought about The Unity-That Goddess thing. All cooped up, seething with sentience in that swirling vat of death. What was it's life like? This naturally led him to wondering about the nature of this world before their massive nuclear-No, not nuclear, balefire holocausts.

Most intriguing of all was his thoughts about the Enclave. That group of power armor clad ponies who behaved with impressive coordination and discipline who had descended from the skies only to stumble upon him twice by now. If the stories he had heard of magical and industrious cities in the sky were true-Those small groups of what were either scouts or hit squads may very well only be the tip of a potentially very large spear. The best Nikolai knew he could do was stay off of their radar. Something he had to admit-was not very good at. More thunder boomed outside, and the image in his head turned to a thunderstorm in spring. He was standing in one of the potato fields just outside his grandmother's village. The crack of an old rifle he hadn't heard in ages punctuated the thunder and rolling winds.

"Пишайся хлопчик! Make me proud boy!" His grandfathers voice shouted. Nikolai sat up in his makeshift cot. He looked around, and his eyes met the glow of Flashpoint's PipBuck.

"Willow's already awake. This thing says that you have asleep for 9 hours." His friend gestured to the digital time display on his screen. Nikolai extended both of his arms out to full wingspan and stretched back and forth for a few moments before standing up with a sore grunt.

"Oh... Pain hitting now, pain hitting now-" He fumbled around in his rucksack for a drink of water and some ibuprofen to go along with it.

"No more pain." He breathed a rushed sigh of relief. Willow poked his head in through the door and got a good look at Nikolai.

"Let me guess? You're hung over? You had at least a third of that bottle last night-not to mention everything on the walk over those hills. You've gotta be miserable Nikolai." The Stalker coughed down a heckled laugh.

"Me? Hung over? Do you recall supermarket? Or were you too busy become 'buddy old pal' with Flashpoint to notice?" Nikolai's English had just taken a strange and sudden dive off the deep end of a metaphorical pool- He noticed darkness beginning to creep up around the corners of his eyes, and in an instant, he was lying flat on his back- Asleep again.

"Oh blyat!" Nikolai rolled up and out of his cot again. This time to the giggles and hushed entertainment of his companions. He wasn't the type to disparage something like that-So he laughed along with them until they were looking at him strangely. The rain had stopped by now, and the thunderclouds had been replaced with the the monotonous grey wall as before. Uniform clouds upon uniform clouds. Regardless of their original intention, they were nigh creepy to stare at for long periods of time. Nikolai pried debris away from the window and looked out at the abandoned town.

"Let us get going. Come on-" He checked his watch, and rubbed his brow.

"I slept through whole day!?" Flashpoint and Willow turned to one another, and then back to Nikolai. Flashpoint held his PipBuck up to his face and stared into the screen, and then back at Nikolai. "We took turns scouting out the rest of the town while you were out- There were a few ghouls and radroaches here and there, but nothing too serious." Willow butted in for a moment.

"I looted the local gas station. We've got more snacks-but nothing too solid. The 'farmers market' was a mess." Nikolai rubbed his neck, it ached. "You passed out from fatigue, I've seen it happen to ponies all the time." The thestral admitted. "Though I don't know why it happened to you-and at this time." Nikolai breathed out a heavy sigh.

"Ah, no worry! Am fine now!" He boasted, pounded his chest as he did. Willow smiled politely and took a seat across from Nikolai. "I don't even believe it was radiation-I have never smelled a location that was quite that bad."

"I have." Flashpoint chimed in, his voice bordering on regret. "That wasn't all that bad compared to having to share a cage or...or a pen with three other stinking equines."

Nikolai busted out in another laugh, moving momentarily to clench his gut. "I can make assumption-But I also happen to know that horse crap does not smell half as bad as human crap. I save story for later- After all, I am certain that you would want to hear about my trip to bathroom in Bulgarian subway, yes?" Nikolai sat up again and scrambled for his canteen. He snatched up his belt and upholstered his Makarov out of habit, fiddling with the hammer for a few moments before running the belt through the loops on his pant legs. He wish he had had the time to wash his clothes back in Canterlot, but wasn't the kind to mind. He changed into one of his spare shirts, then donned his jacket and ballistic vest, followed then after by his boots. He buckled his rucksack to his back and stood upright, slinging his AK over his shoulder by it's sling as he did.

"Oh! By the way! Nikolai-" The Stalker ignored Flashpoint's attempt to rekindle the conversation and walked out the door without saying anything. In spite of having just slept a near consecutive 20 hours, he felt fine- More than fine, in fact. Aside from being a bit hungry and thirsty, he felt fantastic. The Stalker pulled his mask up and over his shaggy head and rough shaven face, exhaling lightly once it was secured in place to make sure the seal was perfect.

It was a compulsive habit left over from his time in The Exclusion Zone, the air outside was perfectly safe to breathe. But it just felt more... Normal. Filtered air was still filtered air, it wasn't paranoia, it was logic. And it was as much a part of The Stalker as any other piece of his equipment. Nikolai checked his PDA once more before they opened the front door and left their temporary residence.

The town square and main street was as creepy as ever. Rusting windchimes and rattled eerily in the distance along with radio antennas and bits of windswept fabric from umbrella's and banners. It wasn't quiet, far from it. It was simply empty.

"Nikolai, by the way-" The Stalker's head snapped to meet Willow's eyes. "Yes what is it?" His boots crumbled a piece of sheet metal underfoot. The feeling was somewhat pleasant-like popping bubble wrap.

"We found some bit's and pieces of equipment set up around an old communication dish about a 10 minute walk just out of town." Willow told him, "I figured you'd want to know about it before we went and looted it for ourselves. Some of the boxes have Enclave insignia on them-And it looks old."

"Alright-Next question." Nikolai held up his left index finger. "Have you gone through local liquor store yet? Because if you have not then I insist that we stop there first."

"Hammer in a nail... Stackin' them bales..."

Nikolai pried the lock off the local liquor store, and made a beeline for a shelf of 100 proof vodka, his eyes laid their amused and fevering gaze on the collection of bottles like they were the most valuable thing in the world. He tool two of the nicest looking bottles, stuffed them into the padded case towards the center of his rucksack that he had built specifically for this purpose, and geotagged the store's location with his PDA. As the device once more opened up to its orangish display, it began to sink into Nikolai just how far he had traveled in the past few weeks. He might as well have walked from Paris, through the French countryside, up and over the Alps, and clear into Italy with the distance he had gone. Farther that he had ever gone in his life. Had he have been any less fit his legs might as well have just turned to jelly. If not from bullets, then from the sheer physical exertion that came with trekking upwards of 10 to 20 kilometers per day. It reminded him from an old quote from an American movie, though he couldn't quite remember it's point of origin:

"After the first thousand miles a man gets limber on his feet."

Now, while Nikolai might have remembered the quote, he didn't quite think he had 'met it's mark' just yet. As his legs were still sore almost every time he stood up from a makeshift campsite to begin a new day.

The device in question that Willow had seen and the accompanying pieces of Enclave property were blatantly out in the open. It's as if whomever had abandoned it there had decided to do so in the most obvious fashion possible.

"It could be trap... I do not know know about this. It is on top of hill, in open. Perfect place to get shot in head." It was on the outskirts of town. Just beyond a small series of defoliated orchards and farmland. Nikolai examined the peek of the hill though his rifle scope, it's red chevron marking off various ranges all the way out to several hundred. There were no obvious sniper nests or trip wires to be seen. The clouds were as ordinary and uniform as always. The ground leading up to the post was hard- too hard for any planting of mines to have been done recently. The farmhouse nearby had been cauterized and charred fairly recently-given that Flashpoint claimed he could still smell the charcoal scent on the burnt wood.

"How recent?" Nikolai walked up behind his companion and took a knee beside him. "I don't know." Flashpoint replied, turning to Willow, who shook his head. "It could be a day old or it could be a year old. Like Flashpoint said, we don't know." He set his hands on his belt and looked away for a moment, then back up at the hill top and the radio dish up at the top.

"Ohoho..." He wagged his finger and tamped his left boot against the dirt. Then he looked back over at his friends and asked the obvious question, "How did you get up there first time around?"

"Well..." Willow's right ear twitched and folded backwards in the typical way of an equine. "I flew up there. Right up and right back down once I saw what it was." Nikolai shrugged and exhaled softly against his masks' lenses.

"Ok. No worry, we just... Go up side of hill- Run, run up side of hill." He changed his mind, "Perhaps we can race? I would say steaks-stakes!" He corrected himself. "Are fairly high. Prize is on top of hill, provided original owner not show up. Sound good? Willow? Flashpoint? This not race against each other-This is race against death-Yes?" Nikolai took the safety off his rifle.

"Race against death-But try to make it fun! Ready? Go!" He tapped Flashpoint on the shoulder and began to sprint up the hill as fast as his two legs could carry him, an instant later he heard the clamor of hooves against dirt and the pitter-patter of a pair of leathery wings, he ducked past a dead bush and jumped into a gully- narrowly avoiding slipping on a patch of slippery dead moss in the process. Nikolai didn't exactly know why he was risking his health like this when he wasn't presently getting shot at. He supposed that he just wanted to have a bit of fun. Off to his left, he heard a brisk 'whoosh' as Willow shot past him. Nikolai scrambled back up to his feet and speed hiked his way to the peek.

The scattered dead trees broke out into a flat hilltop with scattered boulders here and there. Far beyond it to the northeast lay the edge of the Canterhorn Range, and beyond it a clear shot via a series of expressways to the coastline. Willow was waiting for him at the top, and he almost ran straight into Flashpoint as the two made it to the summit at the same time. Nikolai laughed, and Flashpoint laughed back. Nikolai turned around and scanned the boxes and dish array. He glanced up at the clouds one more time, then got to work examining the containers and devices which had been left behind.

"This stuff looks old-There are bits of rust beginning to form on some of these containers, but nothing on the dish." Nikolai walked up to it and examined it. An expanding stand, sturdy and elegant design, and modern looking feed horn.

"I don't know how to work this. He traced the receiving cable to something that resembled a lockbox- or better yet, a laptop. Nikolai jogged up to it and pried the thing open, revealing a screen akin to a 90's TV display. It didn't activate upon opening. But the little tingling of electrical current along the exposed wires in it's underside made him presume that it was still powered and intact enough to manifest a display on it's screen. It's inner workings were a mystery to him-Not to mention that he had never seen a design quite like this.

Well... Not in the Equestrian Wasteland anyhow. Laptops were commonplace back on Earth. Even in the Exclusion Zone.

"I cannot afford to take this thing with me- We are going to be here for a while. Flashpoint!" He unslung his rucksack and passed the scrappy zebra his crowbar.

"Get those containers open. Willow! Do you know how to use this thing?" The thestral shook his head.

"You've got this picture in your head of me being some kind of spell matrix-tech wizard, Nikolai. I'm not. But... I do know how to-" Nikolai held down a large button with the painting of a power plug emblazoned atop it, and the device whined online with a blue glow. Nikolai's curious gaze turned itself upwards in a big grin-and turned into a frown just as fast when he saw that a password was required. And he couldn't just bash his way into it this time either- He needed to think- or take it with him. And he truly didn't believe that it was worth the kilograms.

"We cannot take with us. Caps to weight ratio not worth it. Flashpoint! Willow! Any potential password suggestions?"

"Try: Enclave." Willow suggested. "Or pegasus! Or..."

"Magic pseudo shadow government? Melt you from sky and laugh-Use mutant as target practice- Too serious about jokes over secure communications?" Nikolai was beginning to rant. Evidently The Stalker still had quite a bone to pick with those flying power armor clad equines.

"Feather?" Flashpoint asked.

"Preening! Try preening!" Willow added quickly. Nikolai's gloved fingers pounded away at the keyboard, and the device logged into the account, displaying a pale Enclave logo and a set of file folders. The only colors present on the screen were blue, black, and white. Not much room for artistic creativity when your primary goal is military practicality. Nikolai fiddled around with the clunky equine attuned computer mouse and managed to open one of the folders.

"Atmospheric tests." Was the label displayed at the top of the screen, alongside a half dozen datasheets Nikolai couldn't understand. He tabbed out and opened the next folder. This one was encrypted. He let it be for the time, and tried the others. While he hacked and keyboard pounded his way through the devices digital realm, his compatriots methodically combed over the contents of the containers which were the easiest to open. Within they found energy cells, spare parts, some varied medical items, and a portable spell matrix powered respirator that fit perfectly over Willow's muzzle. No weapons or power armor unfortunately, but that was to be expected.

"Hey-Nikolai! What's that over there?"

The Stalker glanced up from the screen and noticed a flash of prismatic light in the gulch on the opposite side of the hill. Nikolai furrowed his brow and walked away from the device long enough to peer off into the edge of the ravine. It wasn't too deep, about two household stories. Was was particularly interesting was the plane which had crashed within it and split apart in the process.

"Willow! You had whole day in my unconscious absence to explore, why did you not mention that to me?" He facepalmed. "Ok, Willow-Guard this thing. Flashpoint you get to come with me. This thing needs to be investigated."

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime-" Nikolai patted both shins in quick succession. "Never mind-You are coming with me, Flashpoint-You get to stay behind. I would rather take both of you, if it is any consolation." The Stalker walked off and waved the bat pony down the eastward side of the hill with him. With his two compatriots temporarily gone, Willow decided to have a look at the computer for himself. With some trial and error, he too was able to figure out how to use it. He moved the cursor to the file Nikolai had skipped over, he struck the 'enter' key a few times.

"Password incorrect. Password incorrect." He was beginning to grow frustrated with it. So he stuck the enter key a few more times.

"Password incorrect: You are you attempting to access a restricted file: Enter valid identification or device shutdown will occur." The words spelled themselves out on the bottom of the screen in dramatic fashion.

"1.2.3.4." The file opened. All those years in captivity hadn't made Flashpoint the best reader. He could barely read street signs. Let alone paragraphs or entire books. In spite of his typically calm and measured manner of speech, he would likely fail a grade school level vocabulary exam. But what he could garner from from this was almost enough to make his stomach turn. The file detailed an examination of the wreckage of the plane about a half kilometer down the hill. And needless to say it swiftly became clear to him why the Enclave research outpost had been situated so far away from it.

Nikolai and Willow made their way down the rocky side of the hillside, forcing Nikolai to crouch lower and lower to the ground as the ground beneath his boots grew ever so gradually steeper, eventually forcing him into a partial glissade towards the bottom. He rose up to full height and looked across the ravine at the plane wreck.

"What's making it glow like that?" Willow asked him. "Nikolai furrowed his brow. "I think it might be Taint. What do you think it is?"

"I agree. It's probably Taint." Willow hovered over to the edge of the ravine and looked down into it, the aircraft had split in two upon crash landing, and the forward half of it was lodged in the bottom of the gulch.

"Willow-Think you can fly down there?" The thestral's slip pupils went from Nikolai, to the plane cockpit, and then back again. In the meanwhile Nikolai contemplated his potential side of the task-crossing the ravine. He remembered his rappelling gear stuffed away in his rucksack and realized that descending into the gulch was something he was much better suited to at the moment.

"Nevermind-nevermind. Willow, fly on across to aft section." Nikolai ran some paracord and carabiners around a well planted boulder and cruised to the bottom in just 15 seconds of clumsy mountaineering skills. As soon as his boots touched the ground his Geiger counter began to emit a droning noise-a telltale sign of ambient Balefire radiation. Not a great oddity to him- But what drew him in was the soft whine of his Anomaly detector. He advanced across the murky and dwindling creek, speckled with bits of multi colored liquid that warmed the air around itself- He activated his rifle light and shined it through the cracked and shattered bits of the cockpits windshield. A dark shape lay slumped over the controls, Nikolai crawled up onto the torn nose of the craft and peered inside. He flinched and changed his posture once he felt the aluminum shell buckle and give way under his weight. He moved around towards the copilot side door, reached up, and gave it a hard twist and a tug.

Rust and corrosion fell away from the door and it swung open. Almost instantly a shallow growl rose up from somewhere within the craft. A ghoul with vibrant red and purple eyes pulled itself up towards The Stalker's shadow. Needless to say it didn't make it half the distance. It's torn guard uniform signaled something of potential importance deeper within the wreck. Nikolai crawled inside.

His radio crackled to life, it was Flashpoint.

"Nikolai! Can you hear me?" The Stalker tapped the transmit button on his radio and leaned into the microphone. "Yes, I can. What is it?"

"That plane was transporting Taint. And-"

"Hey Nikolai!" Willow's cried from far above. "Find anything yet?" His friend's voice asked impatiently. The Stalker backed up out of the door, dodging a corpse and black blood stains in the process.

"Two-three bodies now, and a lot of blood!"

"And something else! But the rest of the file is re-da-redacted!" He enunciated the final portion of his sentence. It was only after Nikolai had fully emerged from within the fuselage in the craft that he began to realize the glowing red mist that had begun to rise off the gulch floor. It was hardly even past his bootline, but it felt warm against his pant legs. The mist floated up towards the plane's fuselage, and the corpse of the pilot began to stir.

"Grugh?" A crackling, bent-out-of-shape voice asked.

"Yes?" Nikolai inquired, backing up away from the wreckage.

"Hugh-Ow..." The voice was obviously male, but it was so...Distorted to the point that even that wasn't immediately clear.

"Yes?" Nikolai repeated. He slowly backed up away from the plane and began to scale the rock wall back up the surface when he saw something within the craft move-Just before he heard a terrified shriek, and whimpering moments after that faded out of earshot as he came up over the top of the cliff. By then his arms were sore and he didn't particularly feel like climbing back down, he unlooped his paracord from the boulder and looped and coiled it back into his pack.

"Willow! Find anything on your side?" The Stalker called out, squinting to get a better look as his friend.

"Scattered barrels of Taint! And... Nikolai, this thing's been leaking fuel for a long time! I don't really wanna hang around here for too much longer." Nikolai tapped his radio;

"Flashpoint, are there any bridges I can use to cross gap nearby?"

"Yes there is Nikolai, about... I'm not a good judge of distance, but it's north." And thus, Nikolai went northwards. A five minute walk was all that was needed to make it to the eastern side of the gulch. He broke into a light, paced jog and finally came upon the wreckage.

"I'd go look inside, but... Eh... You've got the full face mask-You go look in there." Nikolai nodded slowly and ruffled his hood.

"Not big fan of Taint, yes? Do me favor and go look in gulch-I think there is ghoul who I woke up by accident. Non feral kind of ghoul, будь ласка please. Do it quick. I have seen flamethrower before, jet fuel no different. Sticks like grape jelly... Eh-Not quite as tasty though-Spicy maybe?" He laughed to himself and walked over to the sheered off section of the craft.

"Nikolai, one more thing..." Nikolai realized that Flashpoint had stopped himself by a winged skeleton wearing the remains of a tattered hazmat suit. Neither said a word about it.

"You're gonna need to go deeper." A yellow barrel in near pristine shape aside from the tear in it's side leaked a steady stream of rainbowish liquid down the floor of the craft and over the edge of the cliff in a tiny mutagenic waterfall that had burned little holes into the framework and floor. A delightful little canal of death that Nikolai had no problem avoiding as he boarded the wreck and began to look around inside. He had been inside of helicopter wrecks before in his life, as well as plenty of airplanes-Mostly flying around Europe on odd jobs for a variety of different employers. Not to mention the short time he spent visiting America. He broke open a a lockbox and found three AR pattern automatic carbines and a bandolier of ammunition to go along with each of them. He only saw one thing wrong, though there were four whole loaded magazines for each weapon-They were all twenty rounders. He damned the 'paratrooper' design and its painful wire stocks before casually taking two of the bandoliers for himself. He didn't figure that either of his friends would want a rifle-He turned his eyes away from the locker, then growled to himself in frustration and grabbed one just so he wouldn't end up kicking himself over it later on.

Now with two rifles slung over either shoulder and one in hand, he edged his way deeper into the craft. The whole tail section along with one of the wings had managed to not split away upon crash landing.

"Let's see... Blin, there really is nothing useful in here. Enclave must have cleaned it out." Nikolai thought to himself. "But then... Why would they leave these rifles behind? No-I would say pegasus skeleton outside is close as they got." He clasped his lips together and itched the back of his neck. The main payload, it seemed-Was the waste, but there was something further back in the craft. It was a translucent cage, like a zoo enclosure.

"..Or like ballistic glass containers that Ecologists use to shuttle around mutants." The glass had been shattered in several places. Nikolai swapped his rifle's fire selector to full auto. He peered in through one of the large cracks in the glass, shinning a light independent of his rifle's mounted flashlight through the hole. A pulsating dark figure lurked just beyond the glass, the ray from his flashlight glanced off of something gelatinous, and The Stalker took a step backwards. If whatever was behind that glass could shatter said glass, it would likely also have no trouble chewing or mauling it's way through the hull-Or Nikolai, for that matter.

In all his 'all mighty wisdom'. Nikolai decided to rap on the glass out of some less than innocent curiosity.

"Привіт? Хто там?" He backed up. and a massive dark mass smashed itself against the edge of the enclosure, ruining it wholesale. The whole plane rocked back and forth as the glass gave way.

Nikolai pounced back and shielded himself with a piece of a metal crate as the enclosure quite literally exploded. He stumbled back up against the wall and rushed back to the entrance. Beyond the enclose stood the horribly bloated figure of what...Looked like a pony, except for the fact that it had been modified with cybernetics and stood at nearly Nikolai's height and seemed awfully murderous.

The abomination barely had the time to pull itself from it's place of captivity before a storm of suppressed gunfire tore up the southern side of the wreck, sending tumbling to one side in a roar of pain. Nikolai raised his rifle and sent a five round burst into it's center of mass-This sent the thing into a fit of anger, and it charged Nikolai-crashing through barrels of Taint in the process. Nikolai reached for his Plasma Rifle and sent a bolt of emerald green magical energy careening into the cargo hold, the splashback of plasma sent arcs of magic through the whole of the framework, setting the jet fuel and Taint ablaze.

"Nikolai, I'd say I work here is done! C'mon!" Willow tugged on his shoulder. But The Stalker had spotted something odd in the moments before the creature had gone up in flames, and he wanted to investigate- he looked over at Willow, then back at the flaming wreckage.

"Willow- Is there a pair of eyes back in there?" Willow's black pupils widened. "There is!" Without another word Nikolai bolted into the wreckage just as bits of the exterior were beginning to melt away. He made his way though the black smoke and heat, all the way to the destroyed enclosure, there, huddled up in the very, very back of the cargo hold, was a pony. Pale grey and white eyes, a tarnished and dirty white mane, and tail, and a white fur coat that sparkled with little dried bits of Taint, she seemed almost completely oblivious to what was going on around her, she bore no mark on her flank-It was like she was completely devoid of any unique character whatsoever. However odd she may have been, she certainly didn't reject Nikolai's offer to save her from the blaze. The Stalker emerged from the wreck with wisps of the tips of his jacket singed, cradling the mare in his arms.

"Look who I found!" He insisted! Showing her off to Willow.

"And you're sure that isn't also a mutant?" His voice was muffled by the respirator he had found in the supply crate earlier, a small price when it came to keeping the caustic fumes of burning Taint and jet fuel out of his lungs.

"Just look at her!" Nikolai held her out ecstatically. "Is she not precious?" The Thestral rolled his eyes under his goggles.

"Yeah, yeah, I suppose she is-Now let's get out of here before this wreck adds another crater to the Wasteland." Nikolai and Willow broke into a dead sprint away from the wreck as it burned to a metallic crisp. The stream of burning jet fuel and Taint set the strange red mist in the bottom of the canyon ablaze, resulting in a loud boom and a flash that must have been visible for kilometers around, let alone the hundred meters from ground zero that Nikolai had been.

"Wait... Didn't-wasn't-Holy shit! Willow!" He pulled the mare closer to himself and gestured down the hill.

"What now?" The bat pony inquired. " I may have left ghoul at bottom of gulch. Please go and grab him." Willow Lamp face hoofed and flew back down the hill while Nikolai struggled to the top with the mare on his back-trying to keep her from nibbling on his AK 101's suppressor-much to the amusement and bewilderment of Flashpoint.

Chapter 37: Thundering Hooves

Chapter 37: Thundering Hooves

It goes without saying that those cannibals complied with the Stalker's demands and let them leave in peace after that. Nikolai neither felt like, nor actively tried to push for conversation regarding what had happened. There now existed an unspoken writ between the three of them that they would never mention it again. Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint had said enough to one another during the event.

It takes a special kind of person to forgive so quickly, to say things that need to be said without words. Odd as it may seem, those three fellows had exactly that specialty. Nikolai was no 'drama queen'. He wasn't some pathetic fat assed oligarch who sat on his bum in his private super mansion all day long, no, he wasn't. But he was aiming for that super mansion... It's just that he'd have to work for that mansion. And work for him came in the form of what he was doing at the moment-Treasure hunting in 'exotic' locations.

Now came the other half of the issue, the one he couldn't overcome through a heart to heart. If The Stalker had at all tried to keep the existence of that strange shard of pink cloud formed artifact, than it was out in the open now. He carried with him a veritable panacea to all ailments he could think of. He knew that this thing was capable of saving a life, that made it one of the most valuable things on his person. It was a possession he guarded jealously-And he never wanted to exhibit it in public ever again.

Three days had passed since they had left their previous stop-Determined to keep plodding on forward. They were now nearing the coastal portion of the Smokey Mountains. And yes, Nikolai did have his fair share of mad theories about what they would come across. Given that the past 'collection' of places their presence had paid homage to in the form of a visit. Nikolai would not have been surprised in the slightest if they had come up to the 'Smokey' mountains to literally find them choked full with smoke. But like an inferno in the searing Australian Outback or a mountain range spanning conflagration in California, they would have been able to see it from veritable leagues away- Or kilometers. Preferably kilometers for Nikolai.

As the days went by, the trio exchanged bits of treasured humor in between long spans of silence. There was simply not that much to talk about. And now that Eggshell was gone, having left their presence with a seemingly good hearted and sane ghoul. The Stalker hated the thought of having to rid himself of that seemingly helpless equine, but he simply could not afford to feed out of a few small portable packs her alongside two other hungering mouths. It was very nearly refreshing having to do without that child of a pony. But, as with Willow, Nikolai was determined to show and to pay it as little mind as possible. Laughter, he thought. Was the best way to resolve this. Even if it sometimes led to him being mistaken for a raider. They were swiftly approaching the coastline, and Nikolai was excited at the prospect of seeing a real large body of water for once. The thought of beachgoing in a post apocalyptic Wasteland was simply too powerful for his better instincts to dissuade him. Nikolai was a man that suffered in the moment so that he would be able to have comfort in the future. But he preferred to bring that metaphorical future to himself, rather than simply awaiting it.

Nikolai was taking the easy route though the Smokey's. He was well and done with mountain ranges and their persistent manifestation of danger. Up until now, they had avoided urban centers of all kinds. In the same likeness as mountains, they were wrought with danger. Those concrete jungles were cesspools of all the worst kinds of death and destruction. Not only were they pilferated with balefire magic, they were hives of mutants and violence. And almost always never worth delving into in Nikolai's opinion-on account of their atrocious cost to reward ratio.

"Let's find some power armor for you," could easily turn into: "I was shot by some drunken bandit in a skyscraper wielding a gun that's older than you."

The story now falls back to Nikolai's perspective, forming the typical scene of him and his friends marching their way though a dust bowled forest of brown-black skeletons and scattered ruined buildings. Nikolai kicked a rock and finally broke the spell of silence.

"Do any-Have either of you two found any sets of... Around medium size pliers? I need to know."

His eyes shifted lazily in between his two friends, and the dead oak tree that had been courteously chain sawed and removed from the road by someone who came down this road before them. Flashpoint fumbled for his saddle bags, and interrupting their progress in the middle of the road. "Well?" Nikolai asked him again, extending his hands in a mock plea towards the zebra, who fumbled and bumbled until his pliers were in his muzzles grasp. A hand lurched down and snatched it away from him for a moment before handing it back and pumping a fist.

"Success." Nikolai responded flatly. He passed a thumb over the plier tips and stuffed it back into Flashpoints pack for him. In the absence of what he had just been doing, the Stalker coughed and put his fist to the tip of his olive green mask filter. His breath felt a bit warm. Warmer than usual.

"Hm. Hm!" He exclaimed, he took a whiff in though his nose and frowned at the little metal grate ahead of his mouth. He threw off his hoof and peeled back his mask to examine the little pits of perspiration that dotted the interior. It smelled like wet fabric. He turned his mask around and stared into the filter channel, running a gloved finger across the little bumpy inlet as he did, feeling the decades old chemical resistant paint chip as he did.

"What is it now?" Flashpoint asked for the second time in five minutes.

"My mask filter-It is on last legs. I need to find find a new one." He wiped musky sweat off his brow and coughed again. He knew that certain models of filter for his particular mask sometimes contained asbestos up until a certain date-when it was swapped for something less... Cancerous.

"When was the cut off date? 1970-72? 1980?" The Stalker couldn't remember. They passed a road sign that read; "Hooffield Regional Park."

"Regional Park?" Flashpoint's eyebrow arched upwards sharply.

"Regional Park. It means more dead stuff and more walking, answer is no. He beckoned Flashpoint to check the map on his PipBuck.

"There is an old sheriff's station about a kilometer due east of here. Let us go."

They did not in fact go to the sheriff's station. Willow's prying eyes were kind enough to inform his friends of the presence of a rather angry looking pair of ponies armed with shotguns that were taking potshots at the derelict lamp shop across the street. He observed it for a few moments, then determined that they really didn't need to get into that kind of unnecessary trouble. In place of the sheriff station, they settled for the old regional guard depot that was nestled along the east side of a little valley just beyond the sheriff's station. They took the long way around the south side of the sheriff station, passing along a dry river bed which emptied out in to a fetid, stinking lake riddled with razor sharp mutated cattails that Nikolai swore he could see leaning towards the bank to try and get to the equines and human strolling lazily along the shore. This concerned Flashpoint so much that he ended up vehemently insisting that they stick to ground that ran parallel to the lake instead of the shore. They came up over a rise and were greeted by the ominous sight of a small town, nestled in a valley that was surrounded by legions of long dead deciduous trees, though which drifted banks of eerie grey fog.

To their right stood a semi elegant sign with the illustrious words: "Murkycrest Garrison" Splayed across it in faded yellow letters. Nikolai folded his arms and chuckled triumphantly.

"There it is." He jabbed a finger at the guardhouse and barbed wire topped fences of the small military base across from them, "Come on, I do not want to wait-Let's go-Go-Go!"

He grabbed his rifle from under it's handguard and began to stumble and bumble his way down the slope, sending rocks and gravel flying every which way in the process. Willow and Flashpoint followed close behind, half sliding down on their flanks for about 40 seconds before they came to a stop at the bottom, putting the town ahead of them in full view as the fog from the brown-orange-red mountains around poured in on all sides. Nikolai wound his way down the two lane highway into town, they were greeted by several homes, a post office, and a bar. It reminded the Stalker a bit of Wither's pass. The fog slowly creeping down into the valley gave it a nice 'mist' vibe. The air around them seemed to cool to their presence, and Nikolai saw his breath leave his mouth in little puffs. He checked his Geiger counter, and then his PDA. He was the slightest bit jealous of Flashpoint's PipBuck.

"Do you wanna reconnoiter it before we head in? We could camp outside for the night, that fog looks like it's gonna be coming in all sorts of thick." The Stalker took a peek at his watch and shook his head. "This is important-we can fight our way through the dark if need be. With or without night vision, in this case." He patted his gas mask pouch.

"This, takes priority."

"Nikolai," Willow replied mildly. "Thick fog can mess with a thestrals sense of echolocation." Nikolai rested his elbows on the butt of his rifle. "Fair point, yes. But Flashpoint has PipBuck, and if it is half as reliable as my Geiger counter or sense of direction- We will be fine! Is not so big deal, yes?" Before either equine could reply he quickly added. "And do not think that just because I am rushing us that I have not learned from all other times!"

As it turns out Nikolai's sense of direction wasn't quite as acute as he had made it out to be. He led the team in circles as the fog turned into a veritable grey soup around them. This led them into an feed and pet supply store, notably devoid of anything feed-Or pet related. The three split off and spent the next 5 minutes murdering radroaches though the timeless technique of stomping. Nikolai had selected the structure on account of it's location, it was right on the edge of town-and because of it's all glass exterior. Which, while yellowed and stained and fairly dusted with age, was still very much translucent.

Night fell, and the world once more turned to pitch blackness. A little tiny camp stove fire graced the interior of their campsite of choice, Nikolai and his compatriots sat huddled up together in between a pair of old cars. They ate their usual spartan dinner and bedded down using some stolen cushions from a couch in the break room, forming a set of easy going-and easy on the back, cots to bed down on for the night. All of a sudden, Nikolai felt the 'call of nature' and rushed off to relieve himself.

"Oh... Sweet mother mercy!" He cried, ducking behind a tree in the parking lot outside. He knew the actual bathroom might have been safer-But certainly not cleaner. He had learned his lesson in the field of Wasteland bathrooms a long time ago. In the eerie quiet of the late, late afternoon, Nikolai stared out into the silvery blanket of mist around him. As he looked up and out at the fog. Suddenly a flash of sharp red light cut through the mist-and then another. And then, another. He blinked and tried to focus his eyes.

"Am I seeing things?" His mind asked, defying his eyes. He rubbed his eyes and blinked. No more flashes came. He shrugged it off and walked back inside, saying nothing of what he had just seen to his half asleep friends. He was asleep in the bed of an antique pickup in an instant.

The following morning the fog had thinned out just a little bit-and by that Nikolai realized that it has simply drifted away rather than burning off like it usually did back on earth. As they left their little hidey-hole and headed up and over the hill and towards the gate of Murkycrest, Nikolai realized that the fog had simply retreated on call with with dawn, and was now slowly scurrying it's way back through adjoining passes and valleys and gullies to haunt them again.

Murkycrest looked more or less the same as it did across the way. A set of low concrete and olive paint speckled wooden structures with an asphalt parade ground, and a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, and a simple guardhouse with a worn out wooden boom adorned with a stop sign gate that served as the only visible entryway into the base. It was small-Much smaller than Sunrise Valley. But Nikolai could not afford to care about that. He brought his gun up into a relaxed position and ducked around the gate.

"What now?" The two voices at his sides inquired, looking out at their surroundings, Nikolai met their question with a dry humored expression strewn across his face. "Pull apart and scavenge anything of value that is small enough to take with us. Not-Necessarily in that order." He shooed Willow and Flashpoint off to his right to check out some shipping container stacks, he paused for a moment and stared up at the 15 meter tall radio tower in the middle of the base, he set his hands on his belt and nodded slowly.

"Da... I have good feeling about this." He walked over to the dorms, his mind distant-half engrossed in those flashes he had seen in the dark last night. They looked an awful lot like something he had seen a while ago. But as he pounded and mashed away at the reinforced door and eventually gave up and just threw a brick through the window and climbed in instead, he couldn't really put any of his fingers on it.

"Forty millimeter filter..." He began to mumble jargon about gas mask filters as he scrounged through the gear lockers and storage boxes. He threw a mothballed canvas sheet off a box and was rewarded with a sound metal crate adorned with a Peace Ministry logo and found the details regarding the contents on a handy sticker posted on it's side. He pumped a fist in success and tried to pry off the crate top. It wouldn't budge. He rolled his shoulders and slid his pack off onto the ground.

"Hard way, huh? Oh-Ok!" He grimaced, stuffing his crowbar in the little crack between the container and it's lid, a bit like a giant can opener, he pounded it into place, and then kicked it with all his might. The metal buckled. He kicked it again. It tore a hole in the old steel, sending specks of paint flying off. Inside was a care package. The instructional materials within seemed to explain that it was supposed to be distributed to civilians in the event of a megaspell or chemical attack. Included within this was dozens upon dozens of black masks in pouches, with intact filters. He held in his applause as he picked up one of the masks and examined it, comparing it's filter design and threading with his own GP 5.

He lined up the filter with the mask thread. "Moment of truth!" It was stiff, but he got the black, shiny filter to fit onto his mask. He slipped it over his head and inhaled curiously. "Perfect, just... Perfect." He slumped back against the wall, removed his mask, and began to delve into a bottle of Vodka to celebrate.

"Ohohoho... I wonder if Flashpoint and Willow are having same luck as me? I would hope." Nikolai heard a voice call from outside, it was weird and jumbled, and he thought it was just the alcohol doing it's thing. Than he heard it again, and again, and again:

“Vivacity! Vivacity! Are you here? Please, give me an answer!” The voice cried. It was undeniably female, one he doesn't recognize at that. It sounded desperate.

Nikolai arched an eyebrow sharply as he pulls himself off one of the ancient cots, pulling his mask on over his face. "That... Does not sound like Willow or Flashpoint." He held down the transmitter on his radio to ask his PipBuck wearing friend, "Hey, Flashpoint... Are you there?"

"Yes?" The zebra's calm voice replied. "Did you hear that? The voice?"

"No-But Willow did, his ears snapped around just a moment ago." Nikolai paused for a moment, and then held down the transmitter button again. "Do you know anyone named-" Willow's voice butted in, "No I don't, you've got a stranger on your hoove-hands." Groaning as he stood up, he walked over to the door and set a gloved hand on it, his bootsteps making the floor creak in the process. Half an instant later and he had remembered that he hadn't actually come in through the door-that was still locked. He took up his rifle in one hand and sauntered out of the broken window, pausing to look both ways before turning his way into the little alley in between the barracks and some other mobile home esque structure. The voice continued to call out with a faint metallic undertone in their speech. It sounded clearer as he moved further down the alley and he presumed- the source. “Vivacity! Vivacity! Vivacity!” It seemed like that voice would never end.

The Stalker paused and ducked in behind some crates, his head swiveled from side to side- Trying to figure out where the voice was coming from, he held his rifle at a low ready and glanced out. Though the fog off to his direct front, two glimmering yellow-orange eyes protrude from the mist, and his blood ran cold. Not 20 meters ahead of him, the sharp and distinct figure of a winged power armor clad equine with a jarring barbed tail that remained motionless just off the ground, its wing beats sending tendrils of mist fleeing away with every single flap. The figure had it's side turned to him at the moment. It turned body in his general direction, it's visor giving off an oddly alluring yellow glow in the midst of the fog with the curved and angular mask obscuring the rest of it's face. Added up, the facts were unmistakable.

"Enclave! Enclave!" The voice in his head screamed, the gemstone tips of energy weapons adorning the pegasi's sides crackled to life and sent a pair of evil-looking energy bolts down the alley and over Nikolai's head.

"Blya-!" He threw himself against the wall of the adjacent building and took off down the alley as another pair of magical bolts flew past him. "Those red beams... I-Holy-That was what I saw last night! I wasn't hallucinating!" He would have been happier if he hadn't been right, he ran back around to the shattered window of the barracks building and scrambled back inside, flattening himself against the dusty ground and crawling to the nearest support pillar, panting heavily all the while.

"How did-How did they find me!?" He brought the muzzle of his rifle up and scanned the windows along the northwest wall, the barrage of magical bolts ceased in an instant. This little respite gave him time to collect his thoughts. "How many more of them were out there? Did they have the whole base surrounded? Was that one pegasus alone? Who had she been calling for?"

"Think, think!" He kept his rifle directed at the wall, and reached down into his leftmost vest pouch for his radio, he was about to contact his friends, when the craziest idea dawned on him. He swapped channels to the secure one that had drawn so much animosity the first time he had accidentally met the Enclave. Bad as this could turn out, his tipsy mind He murmured under his breath as he held down the transmitter button and whispered: "Hello? Hello?" Nothing. So he tried something a bit more specific; "No shoot, no shoot! I have done nothing to you!"

He put his hand to his forehead and groaned, wondering why he had just done that-He hardly had time to finish the motion before a response came back through the speaker.

[ “Who the- wait, who...you can talk?” ]

The Stalker grew giddy. "Yes!" He mouthed to himself. "Yes, I can talk. Look-I am not this Vivacity fellow you look for. Please no kill." A sigh came through the airwaves.

[ “I suppose I can rule out any of my theories regarding your presence here. What are you? I don't recognize your appearance. Are there more of you here?” ]

Nikolai paused and took his hand off the radio. That was reassuring, this mare did not know that Willow and Flashpoint were here. The Stalker deadpanned at the wall and replied with, "Look. Save yourself trouble and go away, please? I ask nicely. I no want the 'trouble', you see."

[ “Go away? You fucking... Actually, have you seen a pegasus in this facility in a white hazmat suit? She has purplish blue fur and a pale blue-green mane?” ] That must have been 'Vivacity', Nikolai gave an honest reply.

"No, no I have not." Nikolai scratched his chin, wondering how to respond. The radio went quiet. "Enclave lady-" The Stalker sighed and muttered something in Ukrainian. "Did she just... Hang up on me?" The Stalker began to move back towards the far end of the barracks, as he approched the window at the far end of the structure, the voice of the Enclave pegasus returned.

[ “Oh, uh, yeah, I'm here, I was just taking some time here to process what the fuck just happened.” ]

"What do you mean?" He inquired nonchalantly as he carefully opened a window and shimmied through it. "You shoot at me, I run away. And now we have talk over radio?"

[ “Look I...I don't want to fucking kill you, you were just unknown to me; you could have shot, tortured, raped me, or worse.” ] Nikolai didn't reply.

[ “Ugh, look, I'm not going to shoot you now that I know you aren't hostile!” ] The voice added quickly.

In the meantime, he set himself back down on solid ground just outside the barracks, he looks both ways to make sure the pavilion was clear of any power armor clad faces-then bolted across to the vehicle depot on the other side. "Where did..." He scanned the fog through his PSO rifle optic. Every fiber of his being was telling him to radio Willow and Flashpoint-to leave without any more conflict. Nikolai thought he recognized that particular pattern of armor that she was wearing, but those magical rifles were designs he hadn't seen before. Though they didn't look like they did anything special when compared to a more contemporary looking laser rifle.

"Blin-Where did she go!?" He muttered.

The Stalker cautiously maneuvered out of cover and towards a rusted red shipping container, a sudden noise nearly made him jump- he did- if only in time to watch as what must have been one extremely confused radroach scurry away, he looked about suspiciously with his gun raised, scanning the foggy lot with growing paranoia. Nikolai knew knew he needed to begin making his way back towards the south side of the base, where he was certain he would find Willow and Flashpoint.

[ “I can hear you talking from my position. Stay quiet. I'm behind a grey green container. Lower your firearm.” ] Nikolai took a step backwards, and then another-Out of the corner of his came the contorted shadow of a pony, he backed up against something hard and metallic.

[ “I won't fire at you, I promise.” ] The mare's voice said mildly. "Promise?" He queried loudly.

"I promise-" The voice halted, and without any warning the metal thing behind him moved. He didn't have time to face the pegasus before she spoke “...Make sure to keep a good eye on everything around you. Thank the skies you bumped into me and not some raider scum.”

Up-close, the mares power armor was in full view. There weren't enough armor plates to protect her body; her abdominal region, neck, rear, and parts of her legs were only covered by a jet black bodysuit. It looked more like some sort of combat armor than an actual power armor, although it seemed to make up for it in mobility- she had already moved back a few meters away from him. The underside of her wings and and her mane.. oddly enough, were the only part of her body exposed to the elements, revealing peach feathers and an equally peach colored mane, worn and speckled with dirt. Which... Was certainly odd, Nikolai would mention it later.

"That armor... Oh-It-I remember!" The voice in his head exclaimed suddenly. "The Ministry of Arcane Sciences Lab! Right before I ran into those Zebras...Oh-Oh blyat." Nikolai looked at her again, "Was she there? Has she seen me before?" The gloved fingers of his left hand firmly grasped ahold of his rifle. His eyes meandered down to pry a grimace at the enormous barbed tail on the suit that looked like it could make a Bowie Knife blush, between that and those shimmering red gemstones on the tips of those rifles-At this distance. Nikolai would be hard pressed to win a fight without coming away from some nasty wounds-if even at all. But this mare didn't seem to want to fight... Yet.

“You stood on two legs instead of four, and you have...claws. You also have an accent I haven't heard before. Not even from the other wasties.” She mused, her tailblade lowered.

"You backed into me as well!" He declared, inching his rifle away from the mare's center-of-mass and towards the dirt at her hooves. The mare cocked her head off to one side. "You almost walked right past me, I was hiding behind that crate, she gestured to the grey metal box off to her side.

"For all good sake, it was an accident!" He drawled, jabbing an accusing finger out at her. "Enclave-I can't believe it-Oh... Yes, yes I can! You have been following me, haven't you!?"

“What-I initially thought you were some sort of abomination sent out to track me down and kill me. Now, can we start focusing around us instead of igniting a worthless argument that obviously won't get us anywhere?” She huffed.

A brief wave of irony swept over Nikolai. "To track you down? I thought you were tracking me down!" He jabbed the remaining four fingers of his left hand at her. "And abomination? Hah!"

“That's not important." She replied. "What is important is that we keep our voices down before we lure a gang of raiders or some wasteland abominations to us, and I'm not looking forward to a firefight today.” The Stalker pointed over at the scorch marks on the barrack walls. "Too late for that, eh?" He laughed.

"Hm, the only thing abominable here is Willow's bad breath." He murmured to himself. "How I know I can-You know what fair point, you no shoot at me and I not shoot at you, ok? Sorry about... Eh, odd introduction." He lowered his left hand and rested it on his belt. The mare lowered her magical rifles as The Stalker lowered his. "Name is Nikolai!" He exclaimed pridefully, pounding his ballistic vest with a clenched fist.

She nods, understanding his dogma. “Fair point. I'm....Corporal Aurora. That's what all you need to know about me.” Nikolai nodded and itched his leg though his pants. "Need to know? Really?"

"Ok, how about this; I know you are Enclave, I know you are secretive-And I can tell you have a peach colored mane and feathers!" He squinted at her only distinguishing features while she continued talking, "I'm assuming you are here to scavenge pre-war tech.”

"No...I am just here to find new filter for mask. I did-Right before you showed up."

“I'm surprised you aren't looking for anymore else here. Pre-war military facilities and depots are big treasures waiting to be opened so these places are very valuable. Hell, we are only a few miles east from the slave capital.” she looked around them, like she was searching for something that wasn't really there. “So be sure to keep a careful eye when you're near Fillydelphia.”

Miles? Where I am from we use Kilometers." He held back a quaint smile. "Also-Um... Fillidelphia is southeast. You must have come here when the fog was at it's thickest-Once it clears you should be able to see the glow and smokestacks off in distance." His time talking with members of the Ukrainian Army gave him more than enough confidence to bet that her maps or navigation might have been off. But he decided to hold back any insults regarding that, it was an understandable mistake-if a bit odd for a pegasus wearing fancy looking power armor.

“I came here on purpose." She replied flatly, "And with an assignment to complete.”

"To find Vivacity?" He guessed. "You were shouting her name earlier, I heard voice before I heard your wing beats."

“Yeah." Aurora continued on, "She's an important scientist who disappeared after her research team was attacked. She's one of the six who hasn't been found and I'm assigned to find and take her back.”

Nikolai considered what the mare just told her, on one hand... This pegasus didn't seem like she was about to kill him, if he left now and took off and didn't look back. He might be able to lose her in the fog. But, on the other, Nikolai felt that this Corporal Aurora's of Vivacity- as an 'important scientist' and the way he had heard her calling her name led him to believe that there may have been more to this story than she let on.

“It's too dangerous and too conspicuous to send out a whole squad which is why they picked me for the mission. Have you searched everything here?” Nikolai looked her up and down. He couldn't see the face of the mare under that armor, but the armor alone probably counted for more than a fair share of his mental assessment.

"Most of it," He informed her. "Including the town in the valley." (Nikolai hadn't actually searched the town down in Murkycrest valley, he had been too busy trying to lead his friends through the pitch thick fog.)

“Then it's safe to say she wasn't here.” The corporal looked over her shoulder again. Nikolai took a step back and twisted the knob atop his radio back to Flashpoint's frequency. "Guys," He glanced back up at the power armor clad face of Aurora. "You are never going to believe who I found."

Corporal Aurora unfurled her wings, eyeing him from behind her visor. “Who are you talking to? Friends of yours?”

"He is." Willow's voice answered from above them. A hooded face stared down at them from the roof of the shipping container, with glowing yellow eyes obscured by sunglasses and leathery wings masked by canvas cloth. Nikolai gestured upwards, and the thestral darted out of sight. "I apologize, he is not fond of pegasi-Is long story."

The mare caught herself in the motion of swaying and held herself upright, Aurora quickly glanced up but was only able to catch a glimpse of a thestral bolting out of sight, she jabbed her right wing up at the top of the shipping container “As long as he doesn't plan on attacking me.”

"Ohoho..." Nikolai thought to himself, "I have a zebra friend who didn't like my new bat pony compatriot... And now that same bat pony doesn't like the pegasus-Go figure!" Aurora took a step away from Nikolai and looked around.

"Is there anyone else here with you?"

"There is, why do you want to know?" Off to their right, Flashpoint trotted out of mist, adorned in his usual set of sky blue and grey military police armor. "Well Nikolai-" His green eyes met Aurora's visor, and the zebra fell silent and pulled a cloth over his PipBuck. It was too late, Aurora's visor locked with the zebra for an instant before returning to Nikolai “Why so I know they're on your side. Most wasties I've come across ran away or wanted to get a piece of my power armor. So, have you found what you're looking for?”

"I have."

The Enclave mare shifted her wings uneasily. “Okay. Let's get a move on. Since there's nothing left of interest here it's time for us to take our leave.” She flapped her wings once, and lifted herself up off the ground, blowing dust in Nikolai's face and rippling the folds of his hood. "I'm all by myself out here... can I join your little group?” Aurora's voice amplifier expressed the desire to the Stalker pretty clearly. Nikolai glanced over at Flashpoint, who was vigorously shaking his head by now. Nikolai turned back to glance at Aurora, taking a partial knee, bringing himself down to eye level with her-and offered out his right hand.

"How about... Yes!" He prayed he wasn't making the wrong choice, but that armor could give him a great leg up in a fight. "Since we are not going to kill each other, we must be friends-Yes!? Come, we celebrate!"

She stared at what looked to her to be a weird look paw for a few seconds until Nikolai's gesture clicked in her mind. Aurora reached out and grabbed his hand and shook it “Of course. Friends. Celebrations are for later.” She let go of his hand so quickly Nikolai would later joke to himself that had she not let go, she probably would have taken his hand with her.

The Stalker clasped his hands together and laughed. But Willow was nowhere do be seen, and Flashpoint looked like he was about to either faint, or throw a grenade at Aurora. "Flashpoint!" The Stalker barked, snapping his fingers. "Get over here and greet our new companion!"

"Давай, не соромся! Come on, don't be shy!"

The Zebra looked from Nikolai, to the intimating Enclave pegasus, and then back again. "Nikolai trusts her... And he was right about Willow and Cirro and Eggshell..." He thought to himself. But The Stalker had been wrong before. Flashpoint approached Aurora coolly, trying to persuade his mind into being cautiously optimistic.

“Don't worry, I won't bite nor fire at you.” She tried to reassure him. He stopped about 6 paces shy of Aurora, gazing into those glowing orange eyes. The only other time he had stared into those eyes he had been moments from being potentially atomized. The thought of Nikolai telling him that there were ordinary ponies under that armor flew threw his mind, but he had a hard time seeing past it when it was right there in front of him.

"I wasn't really worried about you biting me. I'm... Flashpoint." The Stalker wasn't fully satisfied with his friends out of character meek introduction. "Go on, shake her hoof!" Nikolai insisted. The Zebra held himself upright and sighed.

"Dude," Flashpoint's ears shot back to Nikolai. "If we are going to be traveling with her than you are going to have to talk with her!" Flashpoint's face resounded with defiance, and his ears pinned themselves back. He raised his right forehoof and tried to smile genuinely. "Nice to..." He forced the words out with Nikolai staring at him. "Meet you."

She nodded before taking his hoof for a hoofshake. “Aurora.” Flashpoint pulled himself back. Nikolai's fingers danced across the top of his rifle's receiver as he collected his thoughts together. "We need to find some way to disguise you Aurora."

"That armor is huge magnet for trouble and hoodlums, is like waving a giant road flare over your head in the dark!" Nikolai checked his watch.

“Mm? A disguise? What for?” She posed seemingly confused with a sudden need of disguise . “This power armor is the only thing I have that's close to clothing, and my means of protection. I... Honestly feel vulnerable without it. ” Nikolai laughed cordially, he hadn't expected such a personal reply-Though he supposed it could be a façade.

"I had no thoughts about you discarding your armor!" Nikolai replied cheerfully. "A canvas sheet-or an old rain tarp perhaps should do the trick! Anything to make you look less..." He motioned to all of her. "Like that." Aurora looked down at her armored forehooves and agree with the Stalker.

“That.. was actually what I had in mind.” She admitted. "Mh, and how come you have not yet done so? Whatever, is no need to debate-Come, we go to find something to suit you." He waved her along and began to turn away when she gave him a quick and simple reply: "Lead the way, I got your back covered.”

With Flashpoint watching her closely all the while, and Willow watching from some hidden perch in the fog, surveilling Aurora's behavior and waiting for the right time to pop out, he led her over towards the vehicle depot. Using his begrudgingly alright sewing skills, he fashioned a semi decent hooded smock-poncho thing for Aurora all while she stood by, stiff as an oak tree. He took a step to admire his handiwork.

"Go on, try it on over your armor." He urged her on with enthusiasm. Aurora threw the cloak on over herself, leveling her mane underneath the hood, and draping it across her wings and flanks, Nikolai helped her unfurl the rest so it obscured her tail as well. "We shall need to find some kind of scarf to hide your visor, but other than that-you look..."

"Awesome, you look awesome!" He exclaimed, Flashpoint rolled his eyes. "He says that every time he sees something he likes."

“Your enthusiasm is a welcome change.” Aurora replied patiently.

It didn't completely cover the armor, but it was enough to differentiate her from the other Enclave and to give others a pause at the sight of her. “Not bad.” She told him, trotting back and forth as she tried to shift her wings into a comfortable resting position beneath the cloak, and shifted her tailblade in a fashion that reminded Flashpoint of a rad scorpion.

“At the very least, I can still use my tailblade." Nikolai framed Aurora in his hands like a photographer trying to visualize a scene. "Mh, if we run into problems you can just throw the cloak off."

She snorted and added, “I wouldn't mind if it happened to land on someone's face.” The Stalker checked his watch again. Nikolai turned back to Aurora. "Shall we?" He dramatically gestured out the garage door with both hands.

"Lead the way."

And so, they left Murkycrest garrison, bound eastwards by Nikolai's will. With Aurora behind Nikolai and Flashpoint just off to her side. Willow was out there somewhere, too. But he still hadn't revealed himself. Scarcely had they left the confines of the barbed wire fence which cordoned the garrison off from the rest of the world when Nikolai began to lose himself in his own thoughts again, his mind swarmed with questions that he wanted to ask their new companion once they made camp in a few hours.

The day sped by, and neither Flashpoint nor Nikolai had managed to get much out of the Corporal, she'd been notably distant while they were in motion, she kept looking off into the sky or scanning the horizon like something was watching her. She also rarely ever spoke aside for a few passing comments, one time, they passed a skeletal remains a pony, long passed but Nikolai could hear her whisper to herself. “No feathers nor bones belonging to wings. They don't have anything around them. I wonder if they died peacefully.”

Distant really wasn't the right word anyhow-Alert, would be a better way of putting it-Even when the Stalker halted them a dilapidated cabin and christened it their campsite for the night, she didn't seem to ease up while Nikolai and Flashpoint went through their usual evening routine. At a point, while Flashpoint finished setting up his own little sleeping bag, Nikolai watched Aurora closely as he gathered up some firewood. As soon as she had done 'her part', she had simply trotted outside the cabin and sat down to look out over the road they had come in on-Her face still remained a mystery behind that unsettling insectoid visage. He dropped the armful of dry wood and strolled lazily towards Aurora, stopping just past an old oak log that looked like it had been there for centuries.

He removed his mask and looked out at the desolate landscape, the faint sound of music from his radio gave him away before he spoke. "You have been awfully distant this past while Aurora, why?"

Her head snapped about for a moment to gaze over her shoulder at Nikolai. “We only just met." She replied dully. "And even if you want to be friends with me, it's clear that your other friends don't." The Stalker laughed at his own pain and groaned. "Mind if I sit down?"

She snorted. “Yeah, I don't mind you sitting with me.” The Stalker shuffled up to her and sat down with his knees kicked up as Aurora returned her gaze to the sky, which was swiftly tossing and turning from steel grey to a sort of purple-black.

"Look, I don't know where you're from-But pegasi aren't a common sight on the surface-And there's a reason behind that; The rest of us are up there beyond the cloud cover. We're taught that the wasteland is a dangerous place. It's not easy to trust everyone here even when I'm willing to look past the claim everyone down here are savages who'd tear our wings and eat us.” The Stalker laughed heartedly. "I think the 'eat us' part applies to everyone-Not just pegasi." He took a pause.

"I have been told as much by my compatriots, Aurora-I have waited far to long to ask you this question but... Are there really cities above the clouds?"

He got an answer in no time at all. “There are, and there's many of them. Neighvarro, New Cloudsdale, Thunderhead, Typhoonopolis, Columnbus, Cyclonus, Stormshear, Stratus, Archnimbus, Vapor-Springs, Snowmist, Verrskies, Stratusburg; there's a fuckton of cloud cities out there. Hell, from what I heard Typhoonopolis is in an overseas territory far from Equestria on the other side of the Lunar Sea.” Nikolai gave a whistle of approval.

"Wow...That, is impressive-No, astounding."

He gestured to himself. "I come from the...Eh, North of Ukraine...Is-A long way from here.

“Never heard of that. But then again, a lot was lost and forgotten when the Megaspells annihilated Equestria with magical fire when Roam decided they were done letting us exist. There is a big world out there that has to be discovered.” Nikolai waved the reply away. "Oh, is not in Equestria-Is father, much farther. Weather is similar-Worse-Depending on season-We have green stuff! Trees and grass and raspberry bushes and flowers-Mushrooms. The people there are like me, same accent, same Cyrillic language, same... Everything. I love it." He stopped himself there.

"I want to hear more about life your life 'up there', tell me everything." But he stood up before she could get another word out. "I am going to grab some refreshments, wait here."

"But when I get back want to hear more about life your life 'up there', tell me everything." But he stood up before she could get another word out. "I am going to grab some refreshments, wait here." He jabbed a thumb back at the cabin, picked up his firewood, and walked off-Returning a moment later with a bottle of Vodka.

"Opah!" He exclaimed, the guitar over his radio began to strum away the opening notes of an acoustic guitar and steel guitar song, it was cool and ominous-breaking the silence almost perfectly as the deep baritone bass notes echoed off their surroundings like they were in some kind of American Spaghetti Western. Behind them, Flashpoint was pulling the firewood into a round ring with old newspaper as kindling- And setting portions of it aside for later in the night.

" Please, continue." He pushed himself up with his gloved hands and unscrewed the cap on the vodka bottle. He stared at it for a moment, then capped it again and set it off to his side without drinking a drop for a moment-only to pick it back up a brief moment later. Aurora gestured up and down with her head in a way that didn't quite look like a nod. "I'm not a magic tourist pamphlet."

"Then... Try to confirm what I already think I know, ok?" She nodded. "You can manipulate clouds, yes? Walk on them and everything? Fold and mold them like plaster?" She nodded, and her mane swayed in the wind. "Yeah, we can-But I'm not going to fly up and grab a piece of cloud cover to show you-If that's what you were hopping for." The Stalker shrugged like it didn't matter too much, but under his mask Nikolai was grinning ear to ear.

"How about your system of government-Your society?" She shifted her armored hooves for a moment. "It's a military council." Nikolai raised a hand out of question, just like he was back in school. "So... A junta?" She didn't seem to want to answer that question, and The Stalker moved on to the next inquiry. It would not take a collage professor to accurately gauge her answer.

"Civil service is mandatory." She finally explained. "But only a few of us ever see the surface-And fewer still get the chance to actually speak with someone from down here." Nikolai gesticulated, urging her on. "Anything else? How about yourself, Aurora?" She shrugged back, rolling her shoulders in a manner foreign to Nikolai, her armored tail swept up little particles of dirt behind her. "Why?" She asked him bluntly.

"Because I am curious-You know.... Aurora, we are not out to 'get you'. I will not vouch for whatever 'surfacers' or 'savages' you have met before me and Flashpoint and Willow, but I promise-We are different. Give us a chance, we may surprise you." He grunted heartily and stood himself up. "Are you hungry?"

"No. We were instructed... Not to consume anything on the surface." Nikolai walked off, and returned with a lukewarm can of tomato-basil soup. She stared at the can. "Maybe just a little bit."

"Full, warm, and unopened." Nikolai informed her. Nikolai couldn't tell what she may be thinking nor her expression behind the helmet, but she was staring at that can-And the Stalker, like a pile of shiny caps had landed in front of her. "No fire needed, I use these things called 'pocket warmers'. They work miracles. Do you need help opening can? I would rather you not spill a drop."

“No. I know another way to open that tin can.” After taking the can from Nikolai, she punctured the corner edge of the lid with the tip of her tailblade and pushed it outwards, the lid came off with a metallic pop. With another rapid click, her mask slid back into her visor, revealing a relaxed peach colored muzzle underneath. She took the can in her hooves and drank it down like it was a bottle of water, to Nikolai's amusement.

"You really were hungry." Nikolai beamed. Aurora didn't reply immediately, opting to gulp down her food before speaking. “I did not eat for several hours, not to mention I've traveled for a few miles fucking exhausted up to my mind.” Her voice amplifier was gone with her mask, and in it's place was the sound of a manifestly out of character young female that bordered on teenagerish.

"You are welcome." He nodded again. "Now... How long have you been down here?"

She set down the now empty can, and turned eyes back on the clouds above “Been here for probably fifteen or twenty four days now... I've lost track counting. The lack of sunlight's been difficult for me.” The Stalker rolled back his jacket sleeve, revealing his only slightly grimy quartz officer's watch. "That has never been problem for me, rain, snow, radioactive rain-This will function, this has been in family for quite some time."

Aurora examined the watch with her gaze “That's nice. It's good to keep an article of someone else with you. And if there's anything worse than loneliness is losing it. You had good ties with him?”

The Stalker chuckled happily, "Oh... You bet I did. Grandfather and mother, too."

“My father was a former soldier honorably discharged after a mutant abomination burned most of his face and leaving a permanent scar. I had a good upbringing with him and mom and rarely, if ever, any heated argument although they tried discouraging me from enlisting into the military.” The expression on her face was solemn.

"Mm, my grandfather was only member of family to fight in war of any kind. Decades and decades-almost a century ago. Although," He elbowed his rifle. "I suppose I am sort of waging my own little one."

That caught her interest. “Waging your own little one?”

"In a way-I need money, I am saving up so I can get better education... This, what I am doing right now-Is just another job. " He cast a glance back at Flashpoint, then turned back to Aurora. "Is just a-less than ordinary career choice. Plus-Who doesn't like money?" She shrugged her wings in response, and Nikolai folded his arms across one another in triumph." Case in point."

"Hey-Nikolai? What do you want?" Flashpoint asked from over his shoulder. "Anything that will make me die and-preferably something that tastes good enough to not throw up."

"I'm not you! I shot a squirrel on the way here!"

"Mutant!?"

"Yes?" The zebra replied skeptically.

"How many eyes and-was it glowing?" Aurora inquired incredulously.

"One, and no, it wasn't glowing."

"Alright, sprinkle some salt and pepper on it and stick it on spit."

"This isn't a restaurant! Come over and help me!" Flashpoint protested. Nikolai stood up and drew his hunting knife, he sprinkled a little bit of vodka on his gloved hand and rubbed his blade down with it before gutting the mutant, skinning it, and cleaning it right in front of Aurora.

"Please-go on. Tell me, have you met anyone else friendly down here?"

“Only a small few but only because I stayed far from them. The rest were mostly bandits who probably wanted to take my power armor off my corpse.”

“Don't ask me. I wasn't the one who made this.” Nikolai slapped his knee. "Sorry-I'm just saying, you've got that bright pink mane out there where everyone can see it. I just found it odd."

She shook her head “Me and my friends would often go to a bar back in the city but we often headed there to hangout and talk about random shit. Not to mention I don't want some asshole to catch me while under the influence. That is not how my life ends.” Nikolai pulled his mask off by the filter, and draped his hood down around his neck, revealing his head, face and all to the Enclave mare. "Good thinking Aurora. But we Slavs have natural tolerance for the stuff." He unscrewed the cap and took a short swig of it.

She glared at him, particularly at his face, studying every little facet of it. “Your eyes are small.”

"At least they are not size of apples." He retorted, downing another swig. She chuckled. "What?" He clamored." I am being serious! It-I have been here for like-a whole month now!"

“Equine eyes are actually bigger than apples.” He rolled his own eyes. "I ask so many biology questions to Flashpoint and Willow-They get fed up after days and days. But I cannot help myself, I must."

Finally, she finally smiled for the first time since they first met, this one expressing amusement. “I would too if I wasn't hanging around with eggheads.”

Nikolai returned the smile. "Trust me, Flashpoint and Willow are far from eggheads. In a good way... I don't suppose you'd be up for removing that visor? I've shown you my face-Is only fair that I would see yours."

That put her to a pause, she considered his words. Then finally took hold of her helmet-visor with one of her wings, and raised it. Her face was the same shade of peach as her, and her eyes were a violent hue of pink. She looked young, young and... Innocent. It didn't look like the face of a hardened soldier, but Nikolai supposed that he was just setting his expectations too high.

"Nice to meet you Aurora, formally." He said kindly. "That is your name, right?"

"Yes, that's my name?" She replied.

"Do you have a first name, or is this a 'last name' sort of basis?" He gesticulated a twirling motion with his gloved hands in between sips of Vodka, than stood up and paced back towards the cabin. He turned to glance back at the pegasus, who smiled back again in kind.

“Borealis is my last name. And-If you're wondering-you can call me either. I don't mind." Nikolai's mind wandered when it heard her name. "Aurora Borealis... Clever name for pegasus, I would like to see one of those Auroras some day-the eh, the meteorological phenomena-I mean." He meandered past Flashpoint again and fetched something out of his pack, he returned with a browned paper pamphlet about as thick as an average comic book.

"Oh... This one is a treat, The Wasteland Survival Guide." He began to narrate. "By Ditzy Doo. She is this sweet pegasus ghoul-I met her myself a while ago, she just gives these out to anyone who asks. 'first copy free'. Of course, this one is mine."

He turned to glance back at the pegasus... What is going on in her head?

"Anything and everything you need to know about life here. Trust me-It was fun read-You-You do know how to read, yes?"

She frowned “You take me for a wastie? Of course I know how to read. I certainly didn't go to the Academy to be illiterate.” her residual glare would immediately soften, realizing what she had said, and looked away from Nikolai-Feeling almost ashamed of herself. “Sorry.”

"Is ok. Flashpoint looks like needs help with campfire. I go help him, you go on and skim through it." A beep resounded from within the Stalker's PDA. She took the book from him, taking a look at the cover before flipping on the first page “By the way, we need someone to look over the camp, and there's only just the three of us.”

The Stalker glanced around, feeling relaxed. "Do not worry. We are safe. Take a look around, perfect sightlines everywhere, an isolated structure out of the way-And us. Is no problem, truly."

She shrugged “I'd still take precautions. Go help your friend.”

"Very well, Flashpoint!?" He walked off behind Aurora, leaving her alone with the book. It only took a moment-But Nikolai sparked a flame like it was second nature to him, and it wasn't long before the smell of cooking mutant squirrel was drifting through the site...And past Aurora's nostrils. The Corporal was new to the concept of eating meat, probably even disgusted her a little bit, but the smell had an appetizing taste to her nose. It convinced her to turn her head and see what was being cooked. She glanced back to see the blackening corpse of a mutant squirrel, skewered on a makeshift spit over the fire, with Nikolai turning it every once and a while. The two huddled close to the fire with their mess tins in hand and hoof, only slightly disturbed-She returned to reading the Wasteland Survival Guide.

"She doesn't like meat." Flashpoint murmured. "More for us, right?" Nikolai laughed. " Only because she has not tried it. Ponies are omnivores." Flashpoint tore a chunk of meat off a bone and grinned wildly up at his friend. "More for us." The Stalker replied, burping as he contently reached for his salt shaker. He looked off to his right, and noticed Aurora at the edge of the firelight's boundary, he looked over his left shoulder and noticed a pair of familiar batish eyes staring at him from the dark.
"Hey Aurora, come over and join us. давай come on!" He waved her over.

"Are you sure?" Nikolai smiled, and waved again. "You better believe I am." His PDA beeped twice-The same brisk electronic chirp that he had heard more times than he could count, he ignored it for now-still trying to keep it out of sight of Aurora.

"Alright..." Nikolai cracked his knuckles. Aurora got up and went over to join Nikolai and Flashpoint, “Enjoying yourselves?” She murmured, turning her head from the zebra to the human, and then back again. "Yes, yes we are. Enjoying yourself?"

“I don't know if I can call it 'enjoying', but that survival guide is incredibly well-written and provides a lot of good tips for scavenging, interacting with pre-war technology, and among other things.” While Aurora had her head turned towards The Stalker and the campfire, that same pair of glowing batish eyes crept up behind her and took a seat beside her on the old log, all without her noticing.

"It is! I personally enjoyed the segment on armor and environmental hazards. Though..." He caught sight of Willow and kept up his best 'poker face'. "I could not help but be mesmerized by segment on bat ponies."

“I haven't encountered any ghouls but the book has details about them. I don't know how long this Ditzy Doo has been one but she lived long enough to accumulate a lot of knowledge to write this book. I admire her.” Finally, the bat pony decided to make her presence known. "You wanna tell her, Nikolai?" Willow chirped.

She turned to look at Willow. Aurora was surprisingly calm when she spoke to him “How long have you been sitting there?” The thestral turned his slit, glowing eyes on Aurora and smiled, firelight unintentional illuminated his fangs. "Since before your compliment about Ditzy, Aurora." His wings ruffled beneath his cloak.

Her gaze briefly moved to his fangs before focusing back to his face. “I see, good for you to join in.”

"Likewise, you... Don't seem to have any bad intent towards my friends, so I'd like to formally introduce myself. Willow Lamp, resident thestral." He turned his fuzzy grey face towards Nikolai, who sighed and resigned himself to telling the Corporal what Willow wanted her to know. "A few days ago, we lost a member of our group. Cirro Wisp, we only ever knew him for two days-Not even a full forty eight hours. He was a ghoul... A pegasus ghoul."

She kept a neutral expression at her face when she heard the news. “You have my sympathies. What happened to him?” Nikolai tapped his earlobe. "One moment, he was standing in doorway... The next moment-He was everywhere." He and his friends fell silent for a while before Nikolai began to talk again. She frowned, gazing down at the ground below her. “A fatal headshot; from what you described, it must've been an instantaneous death...and a messy one too.” she raised a hoof and proceeded to scratch her head. “By the skies...”

"What is past is past." The Stalker remarked quietly. He then pointed to the radiation trefoil insignia on his left shoulder.
"He was far from the first ghoul I met." She fell silent again, and her ears perked up and awaited his explanation.

"This symbol, you are familiar with it? Radiation? Danger? Well... It means something else to me. I am a Stalker-"

“Stalker? You stalk for a living?” He couldn't tell if she was joking or not-most likely not, by the estranged expression on her face. "No-No! Stalker is acronym, it is also noun-Colloquial term for those like me where I come from. I travel into dangerous places to try and turn profit. But-Strangely, since I have arrived here I have been greeted warmly by almost every ghoul I have come across."

“Lucky you then.” She said, sounding a bit jealous that this bipedal creature in front of her was better at communicating with the undead than she was. "He is telling the truth. Flashpoint began. "Nikolai here is-"

"Like a celebrity-For ghouls. It sounds odd, and-We don't really understand why. He simply gets along with them well."

"Almost every sane-And nonferal ghoul, mind you... Including those in Canterlot... But that, is a story for another time."

She rolled her eyes in a sarcastic manner. “Well isn't that a huge blessing?” Nikolai pulled his gloves off and held them close to the flames. "It is, and I am not complaining. Let us change subject, what is on agenda for tomorrow?" She cocked her head off to one side, sending her mane tumbling over in the process.

She looked at him again with confused eyes. “Well this is certainly a change of pace for me. All I ever did since coming down here is walk, kill some assholes, head to certain locations then leave when my interest isn't there, eat, travel some more, bunker down in some abandoned home, wake up; repeat.”

"Funny-That is exactly what I do most days! Just...Without the killing-usually. Best fight is one you don't get into, after all." This drew smiles from both Flashpoint, and-Though he hated to admit it, Willow as well. It was at this point that Flashpoint simply couldn't ignore the incessant beeping from his PipBuck any longer, frustrated to almost no end, he stood up in a rage and glared down at his PipBuck.

"Well?" Nikolai pressured him. "Spill beans!"

Aurora pulled her wings away from Flashpoint. "Is there anyplace where you're going?” Flashpoint motioned for Nikolai to come over and take a look at what was on his screen. He looked up at Aurora and grinned.

"Yes, now there is!"

"Really..." She edged closer to Flashpoint, she barbed tail swaying against the dirt behind her. "Where?"

"Have you ever heard of someplace called-'Single Pegasus Project'?" There was intrigue in her eyes when he asked her that question, “Yeah, I know what that is. Why do you ask?” Her eyes went wide with amazement.

“Wait a fucking minute, there's an SPP tower that's just sitting abandoned? Now this is getting interesting.”

Willow pressed closer to Aurora. Nikolai pointed at the corporal. "Abandoned and-Partially damaged, Aurora, what is it?"

Then came his answer, “From what I learned, SPP, or Single Pegasus Project, was a project developed by the Ministry of Awesome during the height of the Great War to control Equestria's weather to help the pegasi participate in the war effort; now they help with farming above the clouds which is only made possible thanks to the towers. There's fifty of them.“

"Fourty nine, if Flashpoint's map is right." Willow chimed in.

"Well, it is settled then. Tomorrow, we will go and investigate this thing." The Stalker decidedly wanted to pull some more from Aurora before they turned. "Aurora, any thoughts?"

“I don't know what the tower looks like from the inside, and we have to be careful. Anything very important to us tends to have high security so keep a keen eye once we're inside. I'm curious though what's your reason is go to such a place. I'm guessing you're planning to scavenge for tech there?” Nikolai scratched his head for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. "That-Is exactly what we are going to do." The Stalker stood up and licked his mess tin clean. "Now, Willow-You are on nighttime guard duty, feel free to make yourself whatever you want-And take what is left from mutant squirrel. Flashpoint and I will be going off to bed."

“I'll help him out.” Aurora reached for her helmet. Nikolai smiled. "You can if you want-But when you do decide to sleep, stay away from Flashpoint. Sorry, personal policy. One time was enough, I won't have 'it' happen in again." Flashpoint nodded quickly. “I don't know what you are referring to. I wasn't planning to sleep next to him anyway.” She snapped her visor into place, replacing her mellow eyes with the fierce glow of her eyepieces. “I was not planning to sleep next to him.” The Stalker held his hands out defensively. "Was only precaution." They didn't want another Amber Reins. He picked up his rifle, and his pack.

"Alright, we go! We shall reconnoiter in morning! Goodnight Aurora, goodnight Willow." The two nodded, and turned away from the waning fire to face the Wasteland. Nikolai looked back at his new companion one more time, and stepped into the abandoned cabin.

It was too late to thing of anything else, and he was too tired, the last words to float through his semi conscious brain were approximately this: "White hazmat suit... Pegasus-Chemical laboratory-Crap!"

Chapter 38: Jagged Halos

Chapter 38: Jagged Halos

The horizon grew brighter, and from the final crescents of blackness emerged the restive form of Corporal Aurora. She and Willow had voluntarily exchanged shifts keeping their sleeping compatriots safe from harm. The thestral in question was standing alone by the smoldering coals of the previous nights cooking fire, his tussled grey ears swiveled back to the sound of Aurora's hoofsteps and the clicking sound emitted by her mechanical barbed tail. She stopped just shy of the little rise he was standing on and scanned the horizon.

"Hey Corporal, you're an early riser? I didn't peg you as one. Nikolai ain't even up yet."

Aurora had only gotten about two hours of sleep- She spent most of her time practically hounding Willow, not for information, in fact the two had hardly said a word to each other during the whole night. They lolled about in a 20 meter odd radius around the cabin-Nothing came of it, of course. Which is why after the fourth rotation Willow quit and took to a state of semi hibernation by the remains of the fire until Aurora had decided to get her meager self allocated amount of rest.

The armored pegasus shifted her head slightly, and edged closer to Willow. “Last I slept for too long I woke up to a hive of radroaches crawling over me.”

Willow laughed, and then narrowed his brow. "Wait-Seriously?"

She nodded “It turned out the house I picked was home to a whole colony of them. Ever since then, I've always kept my ears perked up-even when I'm sleeping.” Willow cringed, he never liked bugs, radroaches in particular-The parking garage back in Garden had morphed that dislike into a quiet loathing for the things.

"I've never done something quite so dumb-But Nikolai told me he once slept out by a Balefire crater. And... Now that I think about it, I've slept in the midst of raiders."

“That could have ended badly for him if he didn't take Radaway. Seeing his skin isn't all chewed up like raw cooked meat tells me he at least took some precaution?”

Willow laughed. "Well, yeah-He... Probably did, though that's not half as bad as some of the other stuff we've been through since he met me-"

A faint moaning sound emanated from within the cabin, followed by a loud 'clunk!' and the sound of boots over rickety floorboards. Nikolai appeared at the collapsed doorway a moment later and stretched his arms out as if to embrace the whole world. "Ah, still no sun! I do not know why I continue hoping. Did you two get any sleep last night?"

She turned around and looked at Nikolai, whatever expression she had to offer him covered by her helmet. “Barely, but I'm used to it by now." Nikolai shook his head in disapproval.

"That is not best idea." He chimed as he blinked and rubbed the sleep from his eyes and ran his gloved hands through his hair. "People function best with the sleep, you see. Otherwise bad things begin to happen."

“You'd be hard pressed to make me sleep after my last half baked attempt had me waking up to a colony of radroaches mistaking me for a corpse.” Nikolai's right eyebrow drew itself sharply upwards, and then he laughed heartily.

"And you would be hard pressed to find a thing that fatigue and determination could not push you too do, please, will you have breakfast with us?"

She sighed softly, “Yeah, I wasn't going to say no to that.”

"Great, because I have cold rations left over from yesterday-And another mutant squirrel-At least, according to Willow. He does the hunting at night-When creatures think it is safe to venture out of holes, he proves them wrong and.... Feeds us in the process."

“I'll take anything you provide for breakfast..." She insisted. "Well, except for meat, I'm still not used to their taste and my teeth aren't made for that fucking type of diet.”

"Is not Buffet, I am sorry to say-But it should keep us alive. Baked Pinto beans?"

“That was never in my mind- And yes, that would be fine." Her face glowered with a neutral expression.

And so that sat down around the meekly rekindled fire and ate breakfast, Nikolai's mind seemed to have crowned and gilded over the fact that Aurora was an Enclave Soldier, now to him- power armor aside she looked like just another tag along equine guest of his eating with his friends. Nikolai tore a piece of near charred mutant squirrel off his spit and chewed it vigorously. "Aurora, how did you and Willow get along last night?"

“Pretty fine, although we barely had any conversation aside the one we had shortly before you returned to the waking world. I appreciate that he took over my guard duty to allow me to get two hours of sleep.” Nikolai nodded and patted Willow on his back, right between his batish wings, which curled and folded inwards at his touch. Willow's ear twitched, and he sat himself upwards. Nikolai licked his mess tin clean again and washed it down with a less than healthy amount of water before packing everything away into hit rucksack.

"That visor of yours-Does it have built in night vision?"

“It does. I have only used it three times, including at the Depot yesterday. With the amount of cloud cover above, I'm surprised the Surface isn't shrouded in total darkness.” She raised her visor and ate the pinto beans directly from the can, the corners of her peachy muzzle puckered slightly at the taste. Nikolai had used what stale pepper, salt, and dehydrated sugar he had left from the night prior to fashion a sort of rudimentary baked beans.

While Aurora's muzzle was practically stuffed into the can, Nikolai continued to espouse his story, "That was not even half as dark as it gets-Shortly after I arrived here I had the misfortune of experiencing night here under a new moon-So dark I could not see hand in front of face!"

Aurora made sure to swallow her food before speaking up, her gaze moving from the can of beans Nikolai's dirty face. “There was one night I recalled that it was unusually so dark our Major had to suspend all operations. All we did that night was gather in the common room at the table, talk, and play board games aside from eating dinner and going to bed.”

"Ah, well-" Nikolai replied. "I have found that it is actually best to do most of traveling at night-Especially in dangerous places. Most mutants stay far off of beaten tracks and-Well your usual bands of degenerates do not possess night vision-As long as you have good sense of direction and don't start randomly shooting or, ignite flashlight or torch-Then you are fine. The only reason I do not do it is because I am usually too tired to do so."

“You still have to be careful; darkness can either be your ally or an enemy." She mused." Not all muties hide during the night. Hell, I heard some of them flourish in the dark. I'm surprised that the hoof-full of marauders that do, even have the mental faculties to understand the dangers of tangling with stuff like that.” Nikolai smiled. "Well if you live in anyplace long enough you start to pick up how it functions, no?"

"Sound knowledge all around?"

“Well...now that I think about it, I often spend my days here out alone, and I sometimes travel during the night when there's no place to crash in.” She set her attention back onto her food and resumed eating.

"Then you should pace yourself. Check maps, make a plan; Ok, I start out here, and I will make it to 'this, this, and that spot today, and then end here at this place' plan to get there early, ensure is safe, set camp, and do not leave cover once it gets dark."

The empty tin can crumbled in Aurora's grasp. " I do... But I've never had to use them. I don't lead, Nikolai, I follow orders." She emphasized that last bit rather sharply.

"Some people used to consider me to be Loner-'rouge element'-But I have better word for it-Self employed." He laughed at his own comment.

"So far out of reach..." Aurora muttered, tossing her can away and watching as it rolled down the gradual dirt incline towards the highway before coming to a stop against a cobblestone.

"What was that?" Nikolai's voice tinged with satire.

“Nothing. Thanks for the pinto beans. Tell me when we're leaving.” She lowered her visor and trotted off towards another part of the camp-she had barely made it 5 meters before Nikolai exclaimed- "Ok!" Enthusiastically. "Willow-Flashpoint, grab your things, and let us get move on! We were never here!" She wheeled about, wanting to say something expletive, but she restrained herself and kept quiet. She trotted back inside to pick up what few things she had with her.

The four began to head eastbound along the semi paved road, as the mountains that held Murkycrest Garrison and the cabin that had sheltered them through the night, it wasn't long before a slim, thin, and very tall spire began to come into view out of the haze on the horizon, it's top all jagged and twisted off-Visible even at a distance.

"Do you see that spire? That is our destination. You do not even need map to notice it, blin it is tallest thing for kilometers around!"

No reply came from any of Nikolai's compatriots right away-So naturally the fuzzy peach colored mare in power armor beside him thought that he must have been talking to her; “It was hard to pick out of the haze last night. And speaking of haze... If you can quench my curiosity, why do you want to go there?” Nikolai hadn't been talking directly to her, he'd been addressing all three equines present as well as well as himself-he was given a lecture, in a manner of speaking.

Nikolai rubbed the bridge of his nose through his mask and looked up ahead at Willow. Nikolai didn't mind being in any particular 'place in line' when it came to traveling. Flashpoint always made for interesting back and forth conversation-And Willow always had a way of making him laugh out of the corner of his mouth with his odd thestral mannerisms. But whenever they were out on the open road it was always up to Willow to scout ahead-Which more than once had led to hours on end of witty bantering back and forth between Flashpoint and Nikolai. The two had found that they had an awful lot in common. Aurora, meanwhile, seemed to be permanently locked into a state of quiet solemnness. But the trio had only just met her-And so far, The Stalker wanted to imagine that they were getting along pretty well. Granted... he- seemed to say that of almost everyone he met. But the cloaked power armor clad pegasus trotting beside him did seem, at the very least, to be invested and vitally interested in his little group, even if she did seem distant most of the time. But this was the opposite-She was almost too observant. But Nikolai didn't mind.

"Surely you did not expect me to see giant spire and not want to pay visit? Is curiosity at it's finest. I have learned that if it looks interesting from distance, it is usually pretty interesting up close as well. And-From it being interesting up close, and-Obviously artificial in nature-I can deduce that there is probably something of value inside!"

“Well, you should show some constraint with your curiosity. It might someday lead you somewhere else and into a situation where even your profession can't help you. It's just a piece of advice I hope you''ll use to keep yourself safe.” But Nikolai didn't mind, at least she seemed to show concern for her traveling companions.

"I appreciate it Aurora, I truly do. But it is nothing I did not already know. Do you know what the best kind of fight is?" Her head shifted her head and ruffled her wings-And The Stalker knew with almost absolute certainty that the expression below her visor was one of confusion. So he answered his own question for her.

"The one you do not have to fight in first place! I am businessman, first and foremost-Not a soldier! And getting shot at is bad for business. This place, you see-Is like place I come from, in that- If you are patient, and wise, and... You know-Lucky. Then it will pay off! And you do not need to be some kind of all crazy-kooky no fun grumpy loser to do it-I... Was not referring to you, by the way."

"Nikolai!" Willow called over to his friend. "The direct front around the tower looks devoid of life so far." Nikolai brought his binoculars up to his eyes and scanned the lower portion of the titanic ruins. "Mm, we will stop about kilometer away from the base of the tower. Willow can scout ahead from there."

"That sounds like a good plan, what then?" Aurora asked him. But Nikolai had already began to walk away. Aurora groaned in frustration and trotted after him, her brown cloak flapping in the wind behind her.

"Nikolai!? What then?"

"We profit!" The Stalker replied assuredly. "We find cool stuff, and we profit. Is simple... On paper."

"Is just that-the.... Paper is one thing that I neglected to bring!" He laughed dryly and hung his head for mock dramatic effect, a invisible frown decorated the inside of his mask at the same time.

A tree cracked, and an errant mutated beetle crunched below Flashpoints boots. They stopped at a little rocky rise and bunched up behind it, ahead of them stood the looming presence of the SPP Tower. Willow and Nikolai made one last scan of the perimeter before the little thestral bolted off in it's direction. As the Stalker watched his friend disappear though the dust and haze in his optics, he couldn't help but notice that something felt... Off about the air here. It wasn't radioactive or toxic. His Geiger counter was still reading out normal levels of thaumaturgic Balefire background radiation, and his anomaly detector was silent. But the air still felt different-The wind had changed directions, now blowing directly into his face as opposed to from the east.

"Do you feel that, Aurora?"

"Feel what?"

"The wind, the air. It's different, isn't it?" Aurora shifted her armored wings uneasily from side to side while Nikolai took a strained seat up against a downed oak stag. "I've been near SPP Towers before. They effect the environment around them. It's odd that we haven't encountered any rise in humidity-"

"Willow's back." Flashpoint informed them. Nikolai pushed himself back to his feet and waved cordially. "What is story?" He asked Willow.

"I stopped a ways off from the actual entrance- A thing you can't see from here is that the west side's got skyscraper sided chunk out of it. Another thing-There's nothing threatening around the entrance-just-An awful lot of fog."

"Is it poisonous?"

"I would have noticed if it had been." Willow gestured to his nostrils. "It's humid, really humid. Not nearly as much as the Everfree but-Close... Another thing. I smelled living plants."

"Living plants... Down here?" Aurora murmured to herself, turning away from the bat pony. "Yes, living plants I ain't lying. He looked over at Nikolai. "These weren't Garden plants. And they weren't like the ones in the Everfree Forest either." Aurora's head swiveled about between the two halves of the duologue, confusion and exclusion sent red hot waves of silent worry through her mind. She didn't know what they were talking about-But she was determined not to let it show. She had a face to keep up and that was what she was going to do. So, she simply nodded and gave a quiet; "Mhm." To Nikolai.

"Mutated though, I presume?"

"Probably." Willow answered. "But for now it looks safe to move in closer." Nikolai turned and tapped on Flashpoint's shoulder, the zebra having been preoccupied scrolling through the tabs of his PipBuck-like a human teenager growing glued their first digital phone.

"Is, eh-Time to go." Flashpoint's striped ears perked up, and he quickly brought himself to all fours as the others were already beginning to leave the vicinity of that rock.

The ground beneath them grew softer and less rocky as they neared the base of the collapsed tower. 'Tower' didn't really do it justice. It had to have been one of the largest structures that they had come across in their travels. It put the ornate towers of Canterlot and the skyscrapers of Salt Cube City to shame. All around the tower lay a debris field that stretched out for at least a half kilometer in every direction. According to the map and-limited data from Flashpoint's civilian PipBuck and Aurora, there should have been a ground-observation structure. A structure which had been crushed by the Tower's fall from grace.

"Blin, guys-Do you know what I just realized?" Nikolai stopped his compatriots about a hundred meters shy of the base of the tower, just past the loose ground based perimeter fence and right at the edge of the mysterious fog bank.

"What?" They all replied, almost in sync with one another. Nikolai froze for a moment and looked down at his boots, then back into the fog. "Eh-Nevermind, I Forgot! Stay close and- try not to wander off, yes? Be on the lookout for anything that looks expensive, magical, or anything that glows and sparks! Давай! Ми йдемо! Come on, let's go!"

"And I did say close behind! I don't want something snatching you guys up."

The halted at the base of the tower, and immediately the Stalker ran into an issue. There weren't any visible ground level doors. It made sense, given that this thing was supposed to be floating upwards of a kilometer in the sky. They paralleled their way along the metal superstructure for a brief 5 minutes until they came to a 10 by 4 meter tall crack which had been formed by it's fall from the heavens. The Stalker had a hard time believing that all of this had been levitating all those thousands of meters above sea level, but he had seen and heard enough in his time here to know that it was absolutely the truth. Something which Aurora confirmed.

"We haven't run into any defenses yet." The peach colored mare commented. Nikolai, who was peering inside the gapping hole in the side of the structure, looked back to cast a weird gaze upon her. "Defenses? Look at this place. May I need to remind you that this thing used to float?"

"You don't." She retorted dryly. "But we should proceed carefully, we don't know what could be inside there. Not to mention that we might not be the only ones here." But Nikolai wasn't listening, he had already ventured a few paces into the interior. "Woah, bla... It is cooler on the inside! Nikolai took a step backwards and nearly slipped on something slick and fuzzy underfoot. He spun around and shifted his rifle to meet whatever this new thing was, only to nearly obliterate a large carpet of rich green moss. He held himself for a moment, and then slowly began to chuckle.

"Are you ok?" Flashpoint galloped inside to the scene of Nikolai cracking up laughing. "I-I almost shoot moss! Hah!"

"You almost shot a pile of-" Aurora stopped when she saw the moss. "Is that..."

"Real plant life? Yes. The surface is not as barren and dry as you may have been led to believe-Provided you look in the right places. It really is not too difficult. Not that-Moss, has much use to it."

"Hm." Aurora nodded her head. "Interesting. I'll have to report this to my superiors."

"Eh-To speak of your... Superiors-Mind walking and talking with me?" Nikolai lowered his rifle and waved her along.

"Not at all."

Willow took the lead now, with Flashpoint in tow. Nikolai activated his rifle mounted light and-Aurora's shimmering orange visor told the story for her. The Stalker didn't want to reveal his own night vision device, especially what with it's strikingly similar appearance to Aurora's visor. He didn't want her getting the wrong idea, and he knew how much the Enclave coveted magical technology. Showing her Flashpoint's PipBuck and his own PDA was already treading a very fine line, and Nikolai didn't want to test how much further he could push it.

"You superiors, your compatriots-" Nikolai began. "Your commanding officer-The Enclave! Are they looking for you?"

"I don't know." She tilted her head as they came to what looked like a real hallway. "A better question would be if they're searching for this place. Given how large it is-and the fact that is a Single Pegasus Project Tower, I'm sure that they know it exists but-This is the first time I've seen or heard of it, granted I'm only a Corporal. And if they've been looking for me for as long as I’ve been down here on the surface then they probably don't know where I am."

"No tracking devices implanted on you or your armor?" She shook her head. "Not that I know of, Nikolai. But I'm neither a technician nor a scientist."

"Hey Nikolai, come check this out!" Up ahead and around a corner, Willow was staring up at at something. It was a breach in the ceiling. The Stalker jogged over and shined his rifle light through the hole. The beam of photons disappeared into a pale cloud of fog stories above. Further ahead was another massive gash in the hallway. Aurora trotted to the edge and looked out. It was an almost unexplainable sight-Fog and cloud stretching up into what seemed like infinity. She had to admit, she'd certainly never seen anything like this ever before.

"Wow."

"Wow indeed," Willow replied. "These things look like they're mostly hollow on the inside. But better judgement tells me that that wasn't meant for anypony to fly through."

"What do you think it's purpose was?" Aurora asked the thestral. Willow shrugged. "I don't know. And I probably never will." Flashpoint kept back from the hole, but Nikolai walked right up to the edge and peered out."

"Cool." He said, his voice full of amazement which faded after only a few seconds. "Anyway, moving on on. We have much walking ahead of us. The Stalker shifted his weapon mounted light back into the hallway and backed away from the edge of the hole. "Let's go." He repeated. Aurora and Willow moved back away from the edge.

As they made their way through the bland metal corridor they had begun to realize something, this whole place was... Barren. Barren and strictly utilitarian. Another thing which they had realized was that they were in a maintenance hallway, which explained the odd amount of exposed pipes and wiring and the lack of any proper doorways. The four figures made their way down the quiet hallway, occasionally interrupted by a creaking pipe or some strange mechanical noise off in the distance. None of the lights were on, but at least the air was nice and cool. And, according to the two ponies in the group who weren't wearing respirators, smelled and felt quite a bit better than the air outside did.

After about 15 minutes of walking, they came to what resembled an enormous aircraft hanger, big enough to comfortably fit a fleet of jet airliners inside of. Up until now the interior infrastructure of the tower had seemed mostly intact, but the whole of this hanger was in utter waste, with jagged hunks of metal sticking up from the floor in random places, the sound of dripping water from the ceiling some 20 to 30 meters above was the only thing making any noise. Nikolai stepped out onto hanger floor and realized that it had been jarred upwards at about a 10 degree angle-in some places the incline grew even steeper, steeper, but far from insurmountable.

"Now this is some real sci fi shit!" The Stalker cried, throwing his hands up and shaking them in the air.

Littered about were the remains of a few ruined 'Vertibucks', Which Aurora was instantly drawn to. She spread her wings and half flew, half galloped over to one and peered into the empty cockpit. Nikolai followed behind at a brisk jog.

"Woah! Where is thunder?" He exclaimed. As if on call, Aurora's magically enhanced mechanical ears snapped to his comment and she almost lost her balance as she whirled around, her battle saddle moments from activation. The Stalker saw the glow of the shaped tips and sidestepped while still in motion. "Oh! Sorry about scare and-Thank you for not shooting me."

Aurora laughed uncomfortably. "Yeah-You're welcome, think it's operational?" The Stalker roared with jovial laughter before replying with a deadpan;

"No. I think is past expiration date." Nikolai's radio began to play the opening notes of an acoustic guitar song titled, "The Ferris Wheel of Pripyat". The opening notes came out a little louder than Nikolai intended, reverberating off the ceiling and far walls of the hanger. The Stalker rushed to turn it down but, if something was out there it would have heard it by now. Still, Nikolai didn't feel the sense of unease he normally felt in a place like this. It wasn't making his self proclaimed "Stalker Sense" tingle, so to speak.

"It would be cool to be able to operate one, but I would not even begin to know how to repair it. And restore it to working order... Just-Leave it be. I do not see anything of value on the exterior and you are not going to force it open through any means you currently have available. Let me-" He unfastened his small crowbar from it's seat within his pack."-Have a go."

He felt around for the little crack on the side of the craft that signified it's sliding door, jammed the tip of the bar inside, and pushed it open with one great heave. There was a crackle and metallic screech as the rusty door was forced open. Nikolai peered inside. "Nothing-Well... I mean, unless you see anything of use, Aurora?" Nikolai gestured to the interior. She took a good look inside for a while.

"I... Don't." She sounded resigned.

"Let us continue making our way to the center, then. There will be no easy pickings here. If nothing of worth comes from the center-or-Core... Of this place-Then we will return here and give it a more in-and-out picking over, ok?" The Stalker said all these things while he was already in motion, snaking his way across the enormous hanger floor towards the large doors on the adjacent side of the wall to the maintenance route they had trod in through. But Nikolai stopped about ten meters short of the metal doors. There wasn't an ordinary lock, keypad, or access terminal- Well, there was a terminal. There was a terminal screen, with a... Well-There wasn't a real keyboard. In it's place, there was a miasma of grey/white cloud which had been morphed into the shape of a terminal keyboard. The Stalker stuffed his hands into his pant pockets, and poked the 'terminal' experimentally. Nothing happened. He took a swing at it with a clenched fist, and it went straight through like it wasn't even there. Not a single wisp of cloud left the terminal.

"Ohoho!" He clasped his hands together and turned to face his friends. "Aurora? Please assist me, this is ridiculous." The Enclave mare rolled her eyes below her helmet and trotted up to the terminal, she raised an armored forehoof to begin to type, when suddenly-She stopped.

"What is it?"

"I-Don't know the password." She admitted. Nikolai groaned. "Then try using whatever sort of 'access' level crap you have on you! See if that works out because we will not be stopped by a some magic-ass cloud computer! I insist upon it!" Aurora put her forehooves on the 'keyboard' and typed in something which she spread her wings to keep from Nikolai's prying eyes. She finished, and took a step back from the cloud terminal. The display above it shimmered green, and the doors slid open. "Well, that was certainly easier than I thought it would be." The armored mare said those words with an enlightened tone in her voice.

"What brain quack came up with that thing?" The Stalker demanded satirically. Aurora shrugged. "I don't know, but... We use them all the time. They're good at keeping Enclave secrets out of Wasti-I mean, out of surface dweller hooves."

"Give me enough time and I will find a way to break into anything, ask Flashpoint."

"He's been right about that." Flashpoint replied. "So far-"

"-He's been right on technicalities." Willow added.

Nikolai raised a clenched fist and slowly extended his middle finger. "Technicalities... Sure! Sure! Let us say that me saving your lives is technical! Blin, this is no time to debate this-We do it over bean and rehydrated potato soup later! Aurora... I have something else I must confide in you. Is important."

"What? What is it?" Nikolai looked over his shoulder at Willow and Flashpoint. "Willow, take point about five meters ahead of us. Flashpoint, er-hang back, please. I need to discuss something with Aurora." The Stalker waited for his friends to take a healthy distance between himself and them.

"Who is this friend you are looking for again, um-Wait-Sorry, her name is Vivacity, yes? You said that she was wearing a white hazmat suit? Does this model of suit you are referring to have an orange visor?" Aurora stopped in her tracks.

"Yes... It does? Why, why? Nikolai, have you seen it before? Where?" Her metal ears perked up and her barbed tail twitched. Nikolai had stuck a nerve in just the right way. He had said something that she wanted to hear, and he still had questions that needed answering.

"Ok, but first of all-I need you to promise me that you will not spill any of this to your friends back home. It was long, long way from here... Way off by old Ministry chemical laboratory."

"You-You did? You really did? Did you get a good look at-"

"No, I did not. Whoever it was fled once their compatriots began to fire on us. And I began to shoot back. Plasma burns are bad for business, you know. So I shoot, and I run. And I run some more until I lose them. I do not know what happened to them."

"Are you sure?" Aurora pressured The Stalker. Nikolai shook his head. "It is beyond me, I am sorry."

"When was this?"

"About... Three weeks ago, perhaps?" Aurora turned away from him. "And you fired upon them?" The Stalker shrugged. "What else was I supposed to do? Your compatriots up there in the clouds shoot at everything that isn't one of them! Even you shot at me when we first met! It is just something I have come to expect." He said, trying to douse the fire he had started in telling the mare that he had engaged her coworkers-He certainly wasn't planning on telling her that most of the shots had connected with their targets. She was smart enough to make that inference on her own. " I do not believe that pony was the one you are seeking, I am fairly certain that I heard a stallion speaking." Aurora said nothing. But down the hall was the entrance to two sets of elevator doors, and off to the right of, a set of emergency exit stairs that climbed up too many flights to count. The Stalker went to jab his crowbar into the elevator door, and then quickly changed his mind. That elevator probably wasn't working anyhow.

"So... I guess we're taking the stairs?" Willow asked dryly. The Stalker unslung his pack and crouched down to retrieve a bottle of Vodka from within, he pulled his mask up by the filter and took a long swig.

"Ohoho!" He clasped his hands together. "Now, now we can scale it." He grabbed the door by the metal crease along it's edge, and yanked it back. The door hissed open with a loud creak, and pegasus skeleton tumbled out. Aurora took a step back and gasped.

"They must've gotten trapped in here." Willow proposed. "I don't see any broken bones or bullet holes anywhere." Nikolai stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Aurora?" The mare was mumbling to herself again.

"Aurora!" He repeated, his voice a bit louder and clearer than before.

"They must have died all alone..." She whispered under her mechanical breath. Nikolai walked over to Aurora and took a knee beside her. "You did not know them, Aurora. Do not worry, now, come on. We still have things to do." Nikolai wasn't the best at comforting others. But he needed to get Aurora's mind off the old winged skeleton and back onto the task at hand-Or... At hoof, in her case. Nikolai asked Willow to check his map, and the thestral informed them that their next stop up from where they currently were would be the sensor array about a third up the tower.

A whole third of the way up the tower. Forty five flights of stairs in that gosh awful humidity, it was like walking uphill through a riverside swamp. They were all nearly drenched in sweat and panting like dogs by the time they reached their first destination. The Stalker exhaled a heavy sigh of relief as he doubled over and clenched his knees, swearing under his breath. Ahead of them was a wide steel door rimmed with black and yellow stripes and, emblazoned on the doors, was the black emblem of a lightning bolt emerging from a cloud with a pair of outstretched cartoonish wings on either side.

"The emblem of The Ministry of Awesome." Aurora told them. "They ran clandestine operations and developed all sorts of secretive projects. I'm believe they even created the first iterations of the power armor I'm wearing right now. And... They built the S.P.P Towers over 200 years ago, they helped create the cloud layer over the Wasteland." The Stalker took a good look at this door, another cloud-based terminal stood in their way.

Aurora 'worked her magic' on the terminal once more, or at least she tried to. This time the door refused to grant her access, and the door was much too sturdy for any of them to break through. Even the energy weapons Aurora had mounted to her battle saddle might not have been enough to breach the door. They didn't have the time to sit around and try to figure out how to access it, and so they consigned the secrets of the sensor array to time and continued on to the Tower Core.

The Tower corridors were large and ominous, but utilitarian at the same time. It was like they had been created by someone almost as an afterthought. Someone had built this place with the intention it being left alone to run itself once it was completed, not to even begin to mention the obscene amount of security cameras all over the place." Aurora had mentioned "Clandestine operations" but I cannot help but wonder if any of these things are still functional. I would highly doubt it-but-I am not an electrical... Spell engineer person. I am not stupid, but I do not know how these things work, yes?"

"I know what you mean." Aurora comforted him. "Spell matrixes are a little too complicated for me, it's unfortunate. I wish I could understand them better."

It took another 10 minutes of accession, but the four were eventually able to reach the core of the structure. They opened the door which led from the emergency stairwell to the interior and were met by a gust of cool wind that wreaked havoc on Aurora's mane. She didn't seem to care. And then Nikolai's ordinarily dormant anomaly detector suddenly began to beep.

The ceiling had been completely overtaken and swarmed with what The Stalker could only describe as a miniature version of a storm system. Grey waves of clouds with faints sounds of thunder and the occasional rumble and flash of lightning. "Ohoho... Now this is cool!"

"I've never seen anything like it." Flashpoint eyed the cloud covered ceiling with suspicion.

"Aurora? What do you make of this?" Willow asked their resident pegasus. Aurora unfurled her wings and lifted up just off the floor, enough to touch the clouds.

"I've never really seen anything like this either. The SPP Towers were designed to control the weather. But the control systems of this one must have been damaged when it crashed to the ground."

Outside of that the hallways took the appearance of what Nikolai could only assume a starship looked like. A long abandoned, lost in space starship that is. Clean, grey metal with a hexagonal design pattern. He could reach up with a stray hand and poke the aberrant cloud formation with an index finger if wanted, but right now both hands were preoccupied in set positions on his rifle, and they weren't going to move anytime soon. Ahead was another door, this one was guarded by yet more security cameras and a long since past expiration date automated magic laser turret.

"Aurora, Willow? Can you try and detach that thing from the ceiling? I want to see if I can take that emitter with us." The two winged equines looked at each other, then hovered up to the turret. Willow circled the defunct weapon once, then looked back at Nikolai and shook his head. "I don't think we'll be doing much of anything with this. It's heavy and-It's spent all this time in this environment. It's worthless."

"I agree." Aurora added quickly. Nikolai liked magical energy weapons, the one hidden away in his rucksack told the whole story behind that, but he didn't quite yet know how they worked and-he was a bit scared to try and find out on his own. The Stalker jabbed a finger back at himself. "Then get down, we still need to come away from this place with something."

Willow glided down and took a spot beside Flashpoint, Aurora tried to do the same, but one of her hind legs caught a miniature cloud formation, and the mane on the top of her head stood up from a sudden release of static electricity from the cloud. This must have caught the Corporal off guard, because she jerked herself away and bucked the cloud with her hind leg. This sent the cloud formation careening into the ceiling, off which it promptly deflected and ricocheted back down the hall.

"Sorry! Accident!" Aurora spouted. Nikolai began to laugh. "You sent that thing flying like a блядь ping pong ball! Don't apologize, that was awesome!" A net of miniature lightening bolts crisscrossed the ceiling, and the Stalker's anomaly detector beeped a little louder.

"Davay, folks. Whatever we are after must be through this door. Help me get it open"

It was a jungle. It was a literal jungle, what lay on the other side was cold, humid, and overgrown with plants that ran up all sides like some sort of isolated paradise. The control room was nothing short of fascinating-Not to mention that it looked nothing like what any of them had expected. Whatever made this Tower tick had turned it into it's own little self contained ecosystem. Ahead, a soft blue glow cut through the fog, which twisted and contorted to the groups presence as if it was alive. Nikolai put a finger to his mask filter and urged them to be quiet, he reached into the pouch on his belt and fully withdrew his detector, which was now emitting a steady pitched alarm tone. He slowly brought up a clenched fist, a silent plea to his compatriots to stop and allow him to venture forward alone. Aurora didn't seem to get the message, how could she? She didn't know human hand signals like Willow and Flashpoint did. And so, when Nikolai moved forward, she moved forward a few paces behind him.

"Where are you... Where are you!?" His detector continued to beep louder as he moved further into the room, until at last, he came to something, a cylindrical metal pillar that had an enormous crack running right down the middle. A bolt of violent blue and white electricity shot from it but missed him.

"Oh right-I... Eh, I almost forgot." He fumbled about in a side pocket and withdrew a little iron bolt. He kissed it 'good luck' through his mask and gently tossed it in the direction the bolt of electricity had come from. Nothing happened. He suddenly felt very stupid tossing hunks of iron into a magic cloud teeming with equally magical and unstable weather patterns. He toddled forward a few more meters, his anomaly detector was flashing orange, and the little radar screen showed the anomalous item as being directly on top of him.

With a relaxed knee, Nikolai got down and began to wave his detector over the debris on the floor. He unsheathed his crowbar and began to sift though the rubble. When all of a sudden, the beeping struck a steady tone. He set the detector aside and dug through the metal and assorted office plant biomass on his own. His gloved hand fell upon something cool and smooth. He wiggled his hand under it and picked it up to see what it was.

What he found in his hand had to have been the largest blue sapphire he had every put his hand on, encased in a latticework of golden metal. He picked up his anomaly detector and held it up to the gemstone. Sure enough, this was it.

"Blya... I think I just found the Hope Dimond!" He looked it over, unsure of what to think about it and all the while oblivious to the fact that a certain power armor clad pegasus was standing right beside him until she spoke in a hushed tone.

"What is it?"

Nikolai looked over his shoulder at Aurora. "I don't know-But... I swear I have seen something that looks like this before."

He threw open his pack and fumbled around inside of it until he came to 'A Foals First Guide to Sorcery'. The book that a Zebra Sorcerer had so graciously gifted to him a while ago. He opened it up and carefully flipped through the yellowed pages until he came to a segment on Talismans.

"Blue rock..." He trailed off. "I don't believe it. This is-eh... hehe... This is a Water Talisman, apparently. That was-Unexpected but... Um... Not unwelcome. Far from it, this-this is awesome! This solves so, so many problems."

Aurora crowded around the blue gemstone with more than a healthy dose of intrigue, “I'm going to assume the purpose of Water Talismans is to provide clean water, not create a whole ecosystem. Now I'm wondering how this is even possible.”

"Yes. That... Is it's purpose, an infinite amount of clean water, mind you. These Towers-They were supposed to be able to mess with the weather, yes? Produce clouds? Whatever sent this place plummeting to the ground and-whatever left that gash in the side of it probably messed with it's internal workings. I would not be surprised it if started to snow in here right now-"

"Hey, Nikolai!?" Flashpoint's voice thundered from across the room. "It's snowing over here by one of the terminals!"

"Speak of the Devil." The Stalker deadpanned. "I've seen a load of weird stuff today... I'm not going to question this... Place, as long as there isn't anything waiting to pop out of a corner and attack us." Nikolai pointed over at the entrance, and then at the spiraling clouds above.

"If anything here wanted to attack us, it would have done it by now. I do not believe we have much to fear from monsters in this place, Aurora." He unzipped his rucksack and searched for something to store the Water Talisman in, he was running out of space in the precious few leaded containers he had, so he settled on an old T-shirt. It was far from ideal but, it would have to work for now, he wrapped it up like a baked potato and gently set it in the last available spot.

"Whatever caused all of this," He pointed up at the cloud obscured ceiling. "Is what we should be worrying about."

She frowned below her visor. “Well... You got what you were after, let's get out of here before we find out about it the hard way." The Stalker slung his pack back onto his back and got it settled in among his ballistic vest. He rolled back his tarnished jacket sleeve and checked the shiny officer's watch underneath. "Mm, the day is still young. Let us see if we cannot crack that terminal and see if we cannot figure out what happened to this place in all it’s…eh..." He waved his hands all around, "Weirdness.”

"Nikolai?" Flashpoint exclaimed from across the room. "I waved my PipBuck over this terminal and it turned itself on, should that happen-"

"I don't know that Flashpoint!" He spat. "Ask Aurora." The mare shook her armored head, signaling that she wanted no part in this spontaneous argument. Nikolai rambled on over to the terminal and examined it. Thankfully this one didn't also use a cloud interface.

"You would probably have to hack into that thing." Aurora apprised Nikolai, gesturing to the blinking blue light on the screen. Nikolai shook his head.

"Flashpoint? That PipBuck on your foreleg, it has space to store the-eh... Holotape blackbox things?"

"Yes...? Nikolai where are you goin-" Nikolai reached for his crowbar and began to pry open the back of the terminal. He motioned for Flashpoint to step up beside himself as he reached into the boxy magical device and withdrew something that looked like a VHS tape from a science fiction movie. "Go on, let us see it."

While all this was going on, an inactive terminal over suddenly sprang to life, showing a crude digital diagram of the Tower in it's original configuration, the words, "Warning: Talisman Matrix Incomplete: Unstable Weather Patterns Detected" flashed over the screen.

"Crap on a stick..." The Stalker swore under his breath in Ukrainian.

"What does it mean by unstable weather patterns?" Willow asked Nikolai. Who shook his head and pointed at the screen.

"I do not know, and I do not want to find out! Come on, let us vacate the premises immediately! We have overstayed welcome!"

Aurora glared at murderously below her visor, "I knew this place was bad news from the start. Now it's about to engulfed in a literal shitstorm!" She turned tail to run, "Stop wasting time and lets get out of here!"

And then the air conditioning broke. No, that isn't a metaphor, the temperature immediately shot up by another 20 degrees Celsius, bathing the four in a wave of sudden blanket head. They clamored out of the control center and found themselves in a freezing rainstorm in the hallway. They didn't have time to figure out what was going on, that would have to wait until they were back on solid ground. They bolted down the corridor and made a sharp turn as Willow paused momentarily to help Flashpoint up after the confused zebra had slipped and fallen on a patch of ice that had formed in his path.

Crack! They heard something off in the distance that sounded like thunder, the wind inside the corridor was picking up- And they all felt the metal buckle and squeal underfoot and underhoof. Everything was coming unwound all at once. And they were caught right at ground zero of one of the most dangerous prewar ruins in all of Equestria.

In a frenzy they descended all forty five flights of stairs in only 10 minutes. More lapping rain poured down all around them. For lack of any better analogy, it was like the weather was chasing them. The air around them was practically alive, and it resented their presence there. They barged out into the dilapidated Vertibuck hanger and found it in absolute pandemonium, portions of it were radiating with parched heat, others with tropical humidity and wetness, others still with snow. To Nikolai's own merit, at least he didn't stop to gawk at any of it-even when for a moment when a hailstorm's the size of fists began to rain down in the tunnel they had came in through.

"What now?" The Stalker almost had to grab Aurora and pull her away.

"Hanger! Descend! Давай!!" He waved them along across the cavernous hanger space as the ground beneath them rumbled and buckled, sending debris careening down from the ceiling. They bobbed and weaved around hunks of metal and ruined Vertibucks until they arrived at the drop-off which dropped of in a full 20 meters to the surface.

"Blyat! The Stalker cursed, mumbling to himself in crooked Ukrainian all the while. "Aurora-Willow!" I need your guys' help getting down there!"

"I thought you told me you never wanted to fly agai-"

Nikolai paused Willow, and then jabbed an accusing finger at the thestral. "We can have this discussion later, come on! Take Flashpoint! Aurora and I will follow!" Without a second thought, Willow wrapped his legs around his friend and whisked the zebra out of the hanger.

"What do you want me to do?" Aurora urged Nikolai. The Stalker thrust his thumb back at himself. "I need you to do to me what Willow just did with Flashpoint, have you ever done this before?" The Stalker queried, taking a step forward to look out at the drop ahead of him. It was nothing like Canterlot but it would certainly not make for a pretty impact should he slip or should Aurora lose her grip on him.

"N-no!" Aurora stuttered over the roar of the. "I wasn't trained for this!" She took a step back away from the edge, her wings and tail shifting back and forth with all manner of uncertainly.

"Wing it then!" Nikolai ordered. "Please!?"

Aurora fell silent. Nikolai shook his head and groaned in frustration. She shot him a look of mild malcontent “Are you kidding me? This is absolutely risky for a lot of reasons and I've already mentioned one of them, and while my power armor's got an integrated talisman to reduce armor weight, I'm not sure if it applies to carrying others. We'll fall under our combined weight!”

"Blin-I need to fix this or neither of us are going to make it out of here! Think Nikolai, think! What can you say to this pegasus to convince her that flying you to safety is a good idea? For goodness' sake- think fast!"

The Stalker took a knee in front of Aurora. "Aurora." He began calmly, he removed his mask and pulled his hood down until it was back around his neck. "Aurora! Have some some faith in your own ability! You say you are a soldier, act like it! Please! I am trusting you on the condition that you trust me and my plan." He reached out and set a hand on the mare's shoulder pauldron." Her expression was indeterminable behind her mask and visor, but after a few moments her mask slid away from her muzzle, revealing what looked to Nikolai like a genuine smile. "Ok Nikolai, let's do it." Her grin grew wild. “Then get ready to fly like a bird, you damn monkey.”

Aurora lifted off, and then reached down and picked Nikolai up from under his arms, his rifle dangling on it's sling all the while. She curled gently curled her mechanical tail around his left leg as a support measure, and left the hanger threshold with The Stalker laughing wildly all the while But as the two descended towards the ground in a less than controlled manner, with The Stalker looking like an oversized green puppy all the while.

The wind made the power armor clad mare wobble and shake like a windsock as she tried to land. But she did it, and she had gone quite a bit further than The Stalker had believed she could, they found themselves at the edge of the tower debris field, with Willow nearby, and Flashpoint just beyond him. They had stopped in place, and were shouting something at Nikolai and Aurora. The cacophony of the storm and the lapping rain made it impossible to hear what they were saying. Nikolai thrust a finger at them, and then pointed at his earlobe. Flashpoint jabbed a hoof up towards the sky, almost like a mock solute. Only it wasn't.

"What was that all about!?" Aurora shouted at Nikolai. The two looked back over their necks at the tower, and particularly at the clouds above the tower, and broke off into full tilt gallops in pursuit of Nikolai. Far above, The Towers magic had begun to weave the clouds together into a spinning hook shaped cloud formation that tore towards the ground at breakneck speed, gathering strength from the air around it as the little hook evolved into an enormous funnel cloud, pulling bus sized chunks of metal off the ground before it ever touched the dirt.

"Oh shit! Oh shit oh shit oh shit!!!"

Nikolai heard the roar behind him and didn't dare stop to look back, even as the earth began to shake and rumble so much it was hard to keep going straight. He had to keep running. There was a tornado behind him and he knew it. Somewhere ahead, he saw the land roll and dip down sharply. Tornadoes were so rare in Ukraine they might as well have been considered the stuff of legends. But he had watched enough TV and heard enough stories from American Stalkers to know how to 'properly' flee from one and hopefully not die in the process.

"Over there!" He herded Aurora, who didn't seem to need to hear his order twice, down the embankment. He looked off in dismay at Flashpoint and Willow, his blood ran cold. Towering above them was an enormous spinning cloud, almost as large as the SPP Tower. A thought suddenly came to into his mind and he scrambled for his radio to contact Flashpoint through his PipBuck.

"Hey! Flashpoint!" Nikolai bellowed into his radio, pulling his mask up over his face so that his friend could speak clearer. "Find a low spot in the ground and hunker down! Is just wind! DO IT!" The Stalker watched from a distance as the two disappeared between a cluster of freestanding boulders as the tornado licked their heels. The Stalker crawled down to the bottom of the embankment, right beside Aurora, covered his head with his arms, pushed himself up against the dirt, and waited for the roar above them to stop. A hunk of jagged metal the size of a pickup truck flew overhead and landed somewhere out of sight, a dead tree collapsed on top of their hiding spot. It was so loud he could barely hear himself think. He lay there, clutching his rifle and silently praying that his friends would be alright.

Then, somewhere in all of this chaos, everything went quiet. Nikolai heard a whimper come from behind him. It was short, and for a moment he thought he had imagined it. But then he heard it again. Nikolai looked over at Aurora.

"Not now, not like this. Not now not like this." She pleaded with herself. "Not-Not like this. Not alone, not alone. I'm not finished!"

The Stalker was beginning to reach out, when all of a sudden Aurora turned around and buried her armored head in his coat. Nikolai cupped his head down ruffled the top of her mane. "You no die here today if I can help it!" But the storm was too loud, she couldn't hear him.

As astounding as it was, he had been right. There was a pony under that armor, more... Specifically-There was a person under that armor. And she was scared sick that she was going to die here in this hole beside a strange looking creature she barely knew. Seconds passed on his watch, then minutes-the roar grew more and more distant, until it seemed like it had stopped altogether. "Is it over? Is it over?" Aurora repeated, her body still pressed up against the dirt.

Nikolai crawled up out of the embankment and poked his head up over the berm to get a better look at the destruction caused by tornado. It had cut a kilometer wide swath of destruction across the Wasteland, trees, blackened or otherwise had been uprooted and smashed to splinters-and the earth looked as if someone had taken a plow to the surrounding landscape. He suddenly found himself awash in a beam of sunlight that faded just as quickly as it had arrived. He scanned the debris field under the shadow of the now wrecked almost beyond recognition SPP Tower. With the immediate danger gone, his next concern was his friends.

He pressed down on his radio's talk button and uttered one word: "Flashpoint." And just like that, a scruffy stripped figure perked up from behind a boulder a few hundred meters away. He looked back at the Corporal and and patted the dirt beside himself. "Come on. Is safe now!" But she didn't move. The Stalker scrambled back down to Aurora's side, sending bits of loose dirt and gravel flying as his boots dug into the embankment.

"Hey, Aurora. It is up there safe now, come on." She shook herself out of her trance, and then lifted herself off the ground and poked her head out of the embankment, looking around cautiously. She let out a sigh before flying out of her and Nikolai's hiding spot “Thank the skies. It's interesting to read and learn about tornadoes and what they're capable of but to see an actual one at that distance? Fucking crazy.”

"I was expecting something to happen, but blayt... Not that! But-There is first time for everything, yes? What do you say we go greet our compatriots?" Flashpoint and Willow waved at them, and Nikolai and Aurora waved back as the Stalker's radio resumed it's normal Zone FM programing.

"If I'm ever gonna make it on them streets of gold, I've gotta quit livin' on a dead end road..."

“Of course. Let's not keep them waiting.”

"You absolute psychopath," Willow began, starting towards the Stalker. "What the hell was that?" Nikolai pulled his mask back off and looked down at his friend with a smile of pure acknowledged stupidity. "Just another day in the office!"

Feeling he may have underestimated the situation, Aurora looked at him like he was crazy before letting out a deep sigh and shrugging with her wings “Bat, you have one hell of a friend.”

“Damn right I do.” He touted proudly. Willow bounded up to Nikolai, and the two pounded one another on the back. "I can't believe we made it through that."

Nikolai took a knee and did his best to gently set Willow down on all fours. "Well we did," He pointed off towards the thin lines of tarnished grey asphalt that crisscrossed the eastern horizon. He let out a laugh and a nod of satisfaction.

"Today was big success! Now let's get going before someone notices what happened here, yes?" He clasped his hands and pointed his right index finger northward.

"Already? After that?" Aurora cocked her head.

Nikolai's index finger remained resolute. "Yes, 'after that'. Unless you have a magic taxi that you can summon out of ether, then we will be walking to our place of evening rest."

Aurora pied a look back at the remains of the Tower. “Our stunt would definitely bring some curious raiders in if they aren't freaking out seeing 'vortex-shaped clouds' for the first time in their life.”

“They are not the ones I am concerned about, Aurora-" Nikolai rested a hand on he grip of his rifle as it dangled on it's sling. "It is your ‘Constituents’. That worry me.”

She was first silent for a few seconds as she realized what he meant, she inhaled uneasily through her teeth. “Right, let's get out of here before they see us.”

“Let’s make for-Hey, Flashpoint?” He pointed down at the device buckled to his friend’s foreleg. “Pick some place from your Pipbuck map that we rest up at for the night. Preferably far from here, yes?”

Flashpoint took a glance down at his PipBuck, fiddling with the knobs and contending with its soft droning until he stopped on something.

“There's a small town, it’s about a three hour walk north-northeast of here, but with terrain like this we should be able to make it there before it gets dark with time to spare.” Nikolai nodded, and Willow followed suit a moment after, having seen The Stalker give his approval.

That “town” as it turns out, had ended up being a modestly sized trailer park. Even PipBuck maps can be wrong from time to time.

After an airborne flyover by Aurora, and a quick survey by Nikolai Flashpoint while Willow watched their backs they had determined that they were alone. The distinct lack of gory perverted raider décor and the lack of cages and hoof prints would have likely been enough for Nikolai to call it quits normally, but Aurora had given his mind the mental jog it needed to remember to check the cluster of rusty and decrepit mobile homes and out buildings anyway.

Compared to the SPP Tower they had fled from only hours earlier there was nothing of any value to be found, save for still unopened bottles of Sparkle Cola, along an ancient shotgun and a box of shotgun shells. All locked in a safe under a bed that was stubborn to give way to the wrath of Nikolai’s crowbar. This wall done while the skeletons of a pair of earth ponies stared on with accusing soulless expressions. Meanwhile Willow had discovered that the metal fire ring out back behind the trailer would make for a good fire- the giant packs of bug infested charcoal and firewood that Flashpoint had found in an adjacent home were only a bonus on top of it all. Now, they sat around the fire in half relaxed quiet, with Aurora sitting so close to the fire a strong wind could have turned him into a human spot fire and Nikolai bumbling about at the lights edge, his gloves stuffed into his back pockets and the ornate Water Talisman changing hands frequently as he carefully palmed it from one hand to the other.

“Will you quit pacing back and forth and join us?” Willow asked impatiently. “You’re gonna make the radroaches, and us dizzy watching you.”

Nikolai stopped his pace, and turned his head to look over at his friends. His ragged face took on an anxious look. “I risk all our life and limb for this magic rock, and yet-I cannot figure out how this проклята магічна штука damned magical contraption works!”

Aurora looked at Nikolai. Although she had been looking at the skies earlier, her eyes filled with calmness for the first time since morning. “I don't know how that stuff works. Maybe you put the talisman in a container filled with water? Perhaps the mere contact alone would clean it.”

“Perhaps it would-but this thing is supposed to create an infinite amount of clean, drinkable water.” He suddenly scrunched his brow. “I need to go answer ‘the call of nature’ behind trailer, I’ll be right back.” Nikolai jogged off around the trailer.

Trickle. Trickle. Fwoom!

“Nikolai? What was that?” Willow shouted. Aurora stood up. The gemstone tips of her magical energy weapons began to glow and she turned tail to face the trailer. A moment later, The Stalker emerged from behind the trailer, holding the Talisman in one hand, shimmering with a faint blue light, and soaking wet.

“I swear to god that I don’t know how I did this.”

Aurora lowered her rifles when she saw the Stalker in one piece.... well, fine, but soaking wet. “Skies damn it, Nikolai, I thought you'd caught yourself in a fucking explosion.”

“I appreciate your concern Aurora.” Nikolai said, looking aloof. He looked down at the wet splatters on his vest, pants, and coat. “ But I think I managed to get this thing to work.”

Willow rolled his eyes, he had been half ready to tackle Aurora at the sight of those magical weapons flaring to life. But he managed to convince himself that it wasn’t a big deal. “That’s become a normal occurrence with him.”

“What has?” The wet Stalker spat breathily. “Finding cool shit? Well-I-eh… suppose that I have gone about figuring out how it works a bit recklessly….”

“But I am safe and you are safe and I have not been vaporized by either this thing or her,” He cast a mild look towards Aurora. “Yet-So let’s go scrape together some dinner rations. And perhaps have our first decent glass of water since Canterlot?”

"Since Canterlot?" Aurora inquired in disbelief. Willow stopped himself from facehoofing.

"Since Canterlot." The Stalker repeated slowly, pointing at the imprint in the dirt where Aurora had been a moment ago. "Sit back down, I'm finally going tell you that story. Well, me and... I suppose Willow and Flashpoint can chip in as well. It’s quite a long one.” With the day at a close, they took their seats, and Nikolai began amidst the sounds of eating and the crackling of the fire.

Chapter 39: That Old Place

Chapter 39: That Old Place

48 Hours later...

Crack! Crack! Fzt!

Two beams of pink energy wizzed by over their heads, followed by an insane laugh. From behind the scorched wagon Nikolai could hear the raider with battle saddle that held a magic energy rifle on either side again gallop closer, firing indiscriminately in the general direction of the Stalker and his companions. He raised his gun up over the wagon and shot back blindly, hoping to score a lucky hit. A sudden flash of light later, and the barrage of magical weapons fire halted in its tracks. He poked his head up out of cover and spotted the black and grey form of Aurora, the ruby red gemstone tips of her own magical rifles were sizzling from pitched usage.

"Ohohoho!" He gave the pegasus a thumbs up. "Nice shot Aurora!"

He stood up to full height and studied the ruins of the formerly raider infested gas station. Four pony bodies littered the ground, potmarked with a mix of bullet holes and plasma burns.

"It seems we got 'em all." She replied, her voice welling with accomplishment. "But let's not count ourselves out of the clouds yet, all that noise might end up drawing in more of them."

"We move fast then," He walked over to the pair of energy rifles adorning the battle saddle of the raider Aurora had just melted and heaved the corpse onto it's side. "You want them?"

The pegasus trotted up to the remains and began to remove the rifles from their mountings. "Hm," She inspected their mounting brackets.

"Willow, perhaps you'd like them?"

The bat pony gave her a fanged grin and shook his head. "No, no thanks Aurora. Those look awfully heavy and," He bumped the suppressed carbine on his side. "I've already got this."

The pegasus glanced back at her own rifles. "Mine are more powerful and in better condition than these ones. I don't need them either. They'd just be dead weight. "

Nikolai was meters away by now, prowling through the interior of the station and examining the body of a dead unicorn which had been splayed out over the store counter, he wrestled a submachine gun from the it's mouth and stripped the magazine for ammunition. "Let us change subject, why is that battle saddle even here in first place?"

Willow trotted past Aurora and stopped at the threshold of the shattered glass door to the station. "Raiders'll scrounge and steal gear from wherever they can. There's no telling where it came from."

"Well this better not become habit for them." Nikolai pocketed the rounds from the submachine gun and checked the amount of ammunition left in his rifles magazine. "In whole time here, I have seen three, maybe four raiders with battle saddles." He counted them off on his right hand. "Certainly never with magical... laser guns! Blayt, I don't care what they are really called. Sorry Aurora."

"Aren't you still holding onto that one from Canterlot?" Flashpoint commented mildly.

Nikolai scoffed and widened his eyes. "Hell yes I hold onto 'one from Canterlot'! That shit is freaking cool! I may not know how it works but- melting monsters is pretty fun!"

After a few minutes of silence Aurora raised her voice. "I could... Help you with that? There's some spare magical charge packs on this battle saddle." Nikolai scratched his head as he looked over the counter, finding nothing, he pulled a little satchel of caps from the barding of the dead raider, then looked back at Aurora.

"Strip all the caps and useful ammunition from the bodies. Aurora, strip the magical power cells from that battle saddle- I would love to take you up on that offer." He emerged from the darkness and spun his left index finger about in mid air.

"Давай!" There was an awkward pause among the tree equines before Nikolai cupped his hands around his filter and shouted, "Let's go!"

All in all, Aurora had managed to scrounge up about a dozen Spark Batteries, the very things that Nikolai had-up until now, been simply referring to as "Magical power cells". It had been an enormous facepalm moment for The Stalker as he thought of all the little devices and terminals and even turrets he had passed by, not realizing the treasures could have possessed. What was even worse was the fact that he vaguely recalled having seen more than a fair share of the things just lying about in the open early on in his travels-all the more to grief about. He thought that he must have skipped over that section in the Wasteland Survival Guide, or perhaps he had just forgotten about it after all the commotion he had been through.

But that wasn't all Aurora had found, laying cover down in the dirt was a grimy book. At first glance it looked like another piece of putrid garbage, but something about it caught her eye, and she snatched up and stuffed it into a cloak pocket. Nikolai and the others were already a good twenty meters from the gas station parking lot when Aurora bounded up to them.

Carrying both of the energy rifles, both hastily thrown across her back on canvas slings.

"Blya... Aurora! So you did want them! That is the spirit, huh guys!?" Willow and Flashpoint laughed uncomfortably.

“I don't wanna leave this tech laying around in the open to be picked up by another raider." She delineated. "Even if can't exactly use them since my power armor can only accommodate one pair.”

As they resumed their pace northwards, Nikolai smiled below his mask and murmured something about a 'scavenging gateway drug'. To Willow, who bit his tongue with his own fangs to hold in the welling of laughter.

Off in the distance, the four spotted a small metal sphere in the process of crossing the road. Aurora flared her wings and watched as the object crossed the road. “Sprite-Bot up ahead, not sure if it’s armed. Proceed with caution.”

Nikolai raised his rifle and peered through the scope. "I don't believe it, це знову робота-жук."

"In ponish please?" Willow and Aurora asked simultaneously. Nikolai gesticulated off in the general direction of the sprite-bot.

"Blin, its just another one of those robot bug sprite-bot things! They eh... Play fancy schmancy music and make the occasional big propaganda speeches." He lowered his gun just as Aurora raised both of hers.

"I'm pretty sure they're armed, but they typically won't open fire unless you either shoot them first or they start malfunctioning."

"Oh, you mean like the one that almost fried our brains in Canterlot?" Willow remarked, his voice tinging with dry sarcasm. Nikolai rested his hands on his belt and turned to nod at Willow.

"Almost!"

The Stalker rolled his shoulders and looked back over at Aurora. "Sure, one in Canterlot may have tried to fry our brain-BUT! And this is a very big but!" He beelined for the robot's path without saying another word.

Nikolai ran and ran and ran until he was almost out of earshot. The trio watched in confusion and slight horror as Nikolai jumped up and down, screaming and pleading like a near madman with the sprite-bot for a few moments. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped, and waved his friends over.

The look on Aurora's scrunched muzzle was all that was needed to gauge her newfound impression of The Stalker. A suicidal idiot monkey. When he had spoken about all his adventures in the Equestrian Wasteland two days ago, Aurora was impressed he survived this long. Perhaps he was gifted with a great amount of luck? Or maybe he was more competent at his "career" then he had let on.

"Folks!" The Stalker exclaimed, patting the sprite bot over its top.

"I would like you all to meet Watcher! This guy... He is big creep!" The sprite-bot was quiet for a moment, and then-suddenly, a mechanical voice erupted from within.

"Hello, everyone. It seems that I've become quite popular."

Ok, so maybe he did sort of know what he was doing.

Aurora lowered her rifles, she was at a loss for words. This was the first time she had heard a sprite-bot espousing anything other than tinny prewar music or half-baked "unity" propaganda from Slavers. “Watcher? Are they... a friend of yours?”

"Well no but actually yes but... Ok, I am at a loss. " He hung his head dramatically. "This creep seems to have taken a liking to me, last time I saw him he said that I was and I quote "interesting". God only knows who is on other side of radio."

Aurora smirked. "Well to be fair, you are the only one of your kind in Equestria."

"That I know of!" The Stalker joked uncomfortably.

"The wacky anomalous bullshit that brought me here may have taken others with it. Who knows?" He turned to the sprite-bot and pointed directly into the speaker grate on it's front.

Flashpoint shot him a dangerous look and an arched eyebrow. And Nikolai quickly followed up with; “Is only conjecture! Only conjecture! I will tell you the complete story to you, Watcher. Blin, I don't even know who you are!"

"It's ok." The mechanical voice replied slowly. "We all have our secrets."

"Ok..." Willow mulled about. "Who are you? You know who we are-"

The sprite-bot beeped and whizzed for a moment before responding to them with, "Look, I don't have much time left before I loose the connection, if you're really that curious..." The broadcast cut out for a moment, and for a few brief seconds Nikolai was a bit annoyed that 'Watcher' had left them on a cliffhanger.

"Hey, спостерігач! Watcher! Finish sentence!" He snapped his fingers.

"...Head to Tenpony Tower, there may be somepony there who can help..." The mechanical voice cut out, replaced by another jarring piece of instrumental music.

"Well," Aurora murmured. "That was abrupt.

"We're not really about to start taking orders from a sprite-bot?" Willow asked Nikolai. Who shook his head and pointed off at the bot as it meandered over a rise and out of sight. "Nyet, but this 'Tenpony Tower', it is in Manehatten. We are already going to Manehatten, so why not add one more stop to list?"

"Nikolai," Willow began again, "The Manehatten ruins are enormous, trust me, I've been there before. We could spend weeks crawling our way through that city and still never find what we're looking for, except..."

"Except what?" Nikolai cocked his head. "Except for this 'Tenpony Tower' place?" Willow nodded. Nikolai waved the comment off, replying with: "It must be called a tower for a reason, right? How hard could it possibly be to spot?"

Nikolai had a point, but then again, Willow was the only one among their whole group who had even seen Tenpony Tower before, albeit from a distance. So at the very least they had his word to go off of, not just that of a flying radio. But this still left most of them with a whole heap of concerns. As far as Nikolai saw it, they hadn't come across any friendly settlements or towns on the eastern side of the Canterhorn mountains. None of the creatures here had ever seen or even heard of a human before, certainly they wouldn't shoot at him on sight if they were half decent and willing to give him a chance. Most were.

Aurora, Willow, and Flashpoint were a different matter altogether. Admittedly, Nikolai had befriended some of the most 'unique' species in the Wasteland. Pegasi, Thestrals, and Zebras were all rare sights. With Nikolai by their side they were sure to draw unwanted attention. Lots of unwanted attention. There was only so much they could hide behind long cloaks and hoods.

The Manehatten ruins were still a few days walk. Off in the east, an immense strip of asphalt ran from north to south. A superhighway, punctuated with the remains of ancient traffic. The distant crackling of gunfire and mutant calls were the only telltale signs that they weren't alone out here. Everywhere they looked now they could see the remains of old towns and communities, most decayed and wrecked beyond recognition. Homes, storefronts, low office buildings and warehouses dotted their sightlines. Once or twice, they tried to shift their path towards the ruins, only to be quickly deterred by sporadic and brief encounters with mutation wildlife or the occasional ghoul.

It was Aurora's curiosity that broke the silence; "Have you ever stayed in any settlements for any length of time?" She croaked quietly.

Nikolai stepped over a downed streetlight and kicked a brick. "Never more than a couple of days. Ask me something else."

"Ah," She continued, "I was just thinking about how impressive it is that you've managed to gain access to all the places you've visited with so little difficulty. Usually most wastie- Wastelanders aren't so welcoming, their instincts usually tell them to shoot anything that they don't understand."

“Ah…” He ran a hand along the length of his rifle and checked his watch. “All this 'usually' talk, It is all in how you present yourself, Aurora. That is how I got you all to come with me in the first place!" It sounded odd to Aurora that Nikolai was able to get past ponies just by making brief conversation with them. But she decided not to press the issue.

“Have you seen other pegasi before you met me? Other than the Enclave?”

“Other pegasi? Aside from Cirro? Not really. Of course I have come across Enclave folks before- But I have never properly ‘met’ any of them like I have with you." He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if Aurora was still there.

"Well, I'm certain you won't find many other pegasi down here. Do you know why that is?" The Stalker halted in his tracks.

"Yes, yes I do. You folks try to come down here and try to police the Wasteland, it is a whole conundrum. Spare me the explanation and do not try to debate this with me, it is plain and simple truth. Ask me about something else, будь ласка. Please. I like to getting to know my friends better, I like money. I like vodka, I love eating. But I never have really been a man who talks politics." Nikolai was eager to get to know his compatriots more whenever the chance offered itself. And he had long since found that it made for a fantastic way to pass the time.

"Ok," Aurora answered with an upbeat chipper. "Have you ever found anything interesting for sale before? In town, I mean."

Nikolai contemplated the question for a short moment, "Yes, I have. I have seen cool stuff being peddled by trading caravans too. Most of it useless to me." He wiggled his fingers. "But there were a few things that I harbor great, great interest in."

Aurora nodded in his direction, signaling for him to continue. "Go on?"

"Healing potions, and what not. Any magical remedies that I can get my hands on. Where I come from there is nothing of the sort-Except for, perhaps, Vodka. But the likes of Rad-away? It is practically miracle panacea!" He scratched the back of his head. "Ammunition, of course. Little things to repair my vest from time to time, curiosities."

"Nikolai's hardly a thrifty shopper." Flashpoint chuckled. The Stalker raised his right hand.

"Guilty as-" He paused, contemplating his choice of words. "-As a man who has committed no wrong! I like to think I am a cool dude, I like cool shit! You cannot blame me for that, yes?"

Willow hocked a laugh so loud it scared a bird off it's roost on a rotting telephone pole. "You're a fun bunch to hang out around, you know that, right?" The bat pony spat happily.

"Flashpoint!" Nikolai called. "PipBuck? давай, come on, let us see how much further we have to go."

Flashpoint's ears curled back antagonistically. "We will get there when we get there!"

The Stalker made a pouting motion with his arms. "Ohoho... That is not good answer! Give me a better one!"

Hours more went by like this. All the while the sun grew lower and lower on the horizon above the cloud cover. They talked and talked and talked, speaking all the while more like old friends then people who had only just met each other a few days or weeks prior, and that was just how Nikolai liked it. From time to time, he would find himself overwhelmed with a feeling that was difficult to explain; He was his own man, his own employer. His work day began whenever he and his compatriots felt like it, but with that freedom came the burden of responsibility. The Stalker was, for lack of a better word, a hobo. A heavily armed vagrant who roamed from place to place and was partly in charge of keeping his companions, and himself, alive and as healthy as possible.

Sunset, its as if a set of enormous window shutters were thrown over the world for half of every day. Paired with the cloudcover, it was almost obscene how dark it could get. Nikolai had finally decided to begin using the night vision device he had acquired back in Canterlot again. The way he figured it, Aurora had seen plenty of advanced magical and conventional technology amongst the trio, and she either didn't seem to care, didn't think it was a big deal, or was trying to keep quiet about it. If anything she had been taken slightly aback by it all. And still they had more to hide. She may have known about the water talisman, it had proved to be a godsend to the group, but it was just one amongst several other 'artifacts' and quirky magical objects that Nikolai had accumulated during his travels.

Some, he had yet to test out. Some, he was a bit worried to test out.

"There, you see that?" He pointed to the parking lot beyond the entrance of a ruined three story building. The spray painted and mutilated sign by the road read: "Featherstown Pharmaceuticals."

"See what?" Flashpoint inquired. Nikolai pointed to the dark figures stretched out on the asphalt. "Bodies, they look like they have been killed recently. Whoever killed them must still be in the area." Aurora turned off at a left angle and squinted closer at the bodies.

"This armor looks a bit like raider barding, and are you sure it wasn't something that killed them?" She asked incredulously.

Nikolai shook his head once and pointed to the small, jagged holes in one of the corpses. " Bullet holes, well placed ones at that. Check it out," He took a knee besides one of the bodies, a grey unicorn whose horn cracked and sparked with yellow magic when The Stalker prodded it with the barrel of his gun. "That is fresh blood, Aurora." He said grimly. "Willow?" The thestral creeped up to the body and looked it over.

"No coagulation, no bloating, the radroaches haven't even gotten to the body yet." His muzzle twitched and wrinkled behind his cowl "I can smell gunpowder, and the blood is still warm."

"You think they're still around?" Aurora asked rapidly. "Maybe they're inside?"

"Hah, you think they are inside this 'establishment'? This, place of pharmacutical wonders, yes?" His choice of words may have aroused sarcasm, but his tone of voice made it seem like he was dead set on investigating the interior. "They were all shot in the back..." Nikolai began to side step back away from the sightlines into the dark pharmacy.

"Fleeing?" Flashpoint cocked his head and stared at the storefront.

"It sure looks like it. I can sense something moving in there." Willow responded.

"Nikolai, what are you think?"

The Stalker shooed the group away from the parking lot, and then turned and began to wave and gesticulate to them, his motions barely visible in the blackness. "Ok, Flashpoint?" The zebra's eyes widened at the mention of his voice. "You will be behind me, Willow, you are going to take up spot behind Aurora. So... We will close in around entrance in big, wide arc, stop on either side of it, and then swing on inside and-Eh... How should I say this? Ah, investigate!"

Willow looked back at the building, and then at Nikolai, and then back again to the building. "We should try a more subtle approach, I'm certain there's a back entrance to that place-"

"Is fantastic idea-We shall do your thing instead of my thing Willow!" The Stalker roared authoritatively, a little sliver of moonlight glinted off his night vision device.

Aurora nodded and smiled under her mask at the mention of the thestral's idea.

"Alright-Eh-Aurora," The Stalker took a knee and began to point. "Willow and you will take the south side of structure, Flashpoint and I will take north side. Call us over the radio if you find anything, ok?"

They split off into two teams, each scouring the perimeter of the pharmacy until they came to a loading dock around the back. The Stalker looked on at the rusted garage door that blocked their view of the interior with mild apprehension as he pressed on the second frequency preset button on his radio and was about to begin to press the talk button when Aurora and Willow both came into sight from around a wrecked semi truck. A bit of overhead wiring from a telephone pole sparked and crackled with blue light, showering them with a few sparks.

"Well it looks like you beat us!” Aurora trill as she and Willow regrouped with Nikolai and Flashpoint. She turned her head and looked at the door. “Now how do we get that open?”

Nikolai put an index finger to the tip of his mask filter then walked up to the garage door, palming his crowbar threateningly. He took a look at it, then at the locked door beside it. He paused for a moment and knocked on them experimentally.

"Nikolai-What-are-you-doing?" Aurora spat. "We doing need the tribe of raiders in there to know we're here!" Her warning went unheeded by The Stalker.

Nikolai looked back at the trio of equines standing behind him. He hefted his crowbar, stepped back, and then swung the steel hook through the corroded aluminum with a loud crash. Flashpoint looked like this was part of the plan, while Willow bit his lip and tried to keep from cracking up laughing.

"Oh, here they come!" Aurora sang sarcastically, shaking her head.

"Mm, one moment," He left the crowbar hanging in hole he had just punched in the door. The Stalker fumbled over his pack and withdrew a bottle of Vodka in a paper bag. He took a long swig, gasping in satisfaction as he finished wiping his mouth, he set the bottle aside, grabbed his crowbar, and began to viciously sheer off sections of the door until there was enough give for him to kick it in. He peered inside for a brief moment, and then raised his rifle in his right hand, and the Vodka bottle in his left. He burped under his mask and then whispered quietly. "Is clear- давай, ми йдемо туди! Come on, we go there!" He climbed through the entrance he had fashioned himself.

"Does this happen often?" Aurora felt exasperated.

Willow patted her on the shoulder as he stepped forward. "Yep."

The mare looked over at him. "You're serious?"

"Yup." Flashpoint added.

Aurora's voice fell flat. "I believe you guys wholeheartedly."

The loading dock was dusty and decrepit-Overhead lights and pieces of the ceiling hang haphazardly over their heads. Something was creaking down the hall, a destroyed pipe that led to a sink in a break room. Ahead was a corridor that led to another door, with a set of mothballed lab coats and changing lockers arrayed along the side. Further in from the loading dock the main hallway expanded out into a storage room just ahead of the counter, with a staircase leading up towards old offices.

Compared to the semi urbanscape outside the interior had a distinct lack of profane raider graffiti, and, while the interior did appear to have been ransacked at some point in the past, with few things of any value actually left on the shelves. The one thing that did actually appear to have been left untouched was a locked vault in the back corner of the pharmacy. A freezer for items which had likely long since passed their expiration date.

There was a keypad on the wall beside the vault door, and a keyhole in the actual door beside it. Nikolai was far from an expert locksmith, he hardly knew anything on the subject, but he had seen enough doors in his day to know that this one in particular more than likely used some kind of deadbolt.

Aurora's eyes watching vigilantly for foreign movements in the room behind her visor, hopeful that no hostiles would walk into them breaking into their territory. “Don't know if the radiation prevented all those medicines from expiring like it did with the food.” Nikolai deadpanned around to face Aurora and threw his arms up.

"I don't know what kind of horse crap textbooks you have been reading, but radiation does not act as a food preservative." He pointed back at the vault door. "Oh, and-eh... this thing..." He scratched his head through his hood and his mask. "I... Eh-This may be a little much for my skills with crowbar, or with bottle. I have bobby pins, but I would not really know where to even begin with getting this open."

She shrugged her shoulders. “I think you need a password, but if you'd like I can wish you luck in trying to guess it."

He wagged his finger. "Tsk, tsk... Perhaps some careless fellow left his back in one of those lab coats or... Lockers?"

“Perhaps. Go and check, I'll look around and see if this place is clear." Aurora bounced off up the stairs.

"Ok, Flashpoint? You and Willow go check out those lockers. If there is anything of any note or value left, take it. If you figure out what the code to that door is-" He raised his mask and took another gulp of Vodka. "Oh, then you tell me and you wait, yes? Yes." He wiped his mouth and turned towards the counter. "I will check out isles. Remember, those bodies are still fresh. Whoever or whatever did that is all too likely still in this place, ok. That's all, відпусти нас! Let us go!"

Having gone their separate ways, Nikolai now had before him the delightful task of vigorously scouring the isles for the thing that had killed the raiders outside, and the shelves for anything of medicinal value. On this, he fell flat, if what was left at the back of the store had been minute, then then there was next to nothing here. He glared down the isle, casually looking out into the parking lot. He took a few more steps forward, and all of a sudden, metallic hoofsteps reverberated off of the linoleum.

Upstairs, Aurora had been scouring through a desk when her EFS suddenly lit up with two blinking red dots, and she promptly filled the airwaves with profanity. "Nikolai? Nikolai! You've got movement up ahead and to your left. Nikolai? Fucking answer me, damnit!"

The Stalker crouched down along the edge of the isle and thumbed his radio. "I can tell, shh..." He shushed her over the airwaves as he snuck closer and closer to the store entrance, where the sound of hoofsteps was progessively growing louder and louder. All at once, he bounced up to full height and spun around to face whatever was toddling down the other isle.

"Die, intruder. Have a-nice-day." The protectipony's mechanical voice exclaimed happily.

"Ah!" Nikolai shrieked angrily, hardly thinking, he raised his bottle and hucked it at the robot before turning to run as the gun barrels on it's haunches sent a pair of bullets careening into the wall where his head had been a second ago.

Nikolai scrambled back into the opposite isle and began to back up while firing wildly into the shelving, hoping to score a lucky hit. When he suddenly came up with an endearing idea. He would outflank the bot, but how?

"The vertical way, of course!" His mind spat out. His system already flooded with ethynol, he scaled the shelving until he was directly above his quarry. Then, with all the might he could muster, he threw himself down onto the bot and knocked it to the floor. It's gun barrels sang once more, and bullets raked the ceiling as it's metal legs flailed helplessly against The Stalker."

This must be what American cowboy feels like. Nikolai's mind resounded. He pressed his rifle up against the bot as he jeered; "Cheeki breeki!"

He fired a shot into its glass sensor dome. The bullet tore through the internal spell matrix and sent shards of glass flying back at Nikolai, the concussive blast of the suppressed shot at such close range left a scorch mark on the bots hull.

At the same time, Aurora stormed down the stairs and ignited her magical energy rifles, slagging the bot behind Nikolai and turning it's center of mass into a glowing puddle of metal. Aurora climbed up over the counter, nearly snagging her long cloak in the process.

"Nikolai?" She called out. "Are you alright?"

The Stalker picked himself up and dusted his pant legs off. "Da. You see that?" He pointed down at the bot. "I was like true American cowboy! Nikolai, ти дурень you fool!" He looked about, admiring his work. "Did you see anything else? Hear anything else?"

"I think you mean, see anything else. No, I didn't-And don't worry about about the others, I already radioed them." Nikolai pointed off past Aurora at the two recognizable silhouette cantering down the hallway behind the counter towards them.

He clapped his hands and pointed at her. "I have always wanted to wrestle a robot!"

She shook her head “You're an oddball you know that? Actually, nevermind. We should meet up with the others, it's better if we stick together. Safety in numbers.”

"Call me what you like." Nikolai told the enclave mare. "I said this before, I will say it again: I like think I am a pretty cool dude, and I like cool dude shit!" He belched and coughed into his fist. "Excuse me." He strolled past her.

She followed right behind him “So, found anything worth taking here?”

"Nyet, all gone-Except a few sealed packages of pain medication and minor antibiotics. All the magical potions and what not are gone."

“Sitting abandoned for years and without any restock this place is going to run out of its medical necessities, we're glad we got the last remaining unspoiled medications.” She took a step backwards and cracked a sparkle cola bottle underhoof.

Amidst the chaos, Flashpoint had managed to stumble across a key which fit the vault lock perfectly. Nikolai spun it in place, and then pulled the door back and flashed his weapon light into the dim room.

"Huh...Ah! You're not getting any more out of me!" An egalitarian voice spat.

"Not this again." Willow chirped quietly.

Nikolai raised his night vision visor and shined his gun light at a squirming figure in the back of the room. The light glinted off a pair of big green eyes. It was a unicorn-He looked the creature up and down and took note of what appeared to be a set of up-armored business wear and a grimy old fedora with a pair of goggles to boot.

"Calm down, we're not going to hurt you." Aurora dolled, turning to Nikolai. "Pretty snazzy for a Wastelander, don't you think?" Nikolai smirked under his mask.

"Da-Pretty snazzy, now who are you and why are you in here?" Nikolai kept his rifle trained on the unicorn." That door looks like it was locked from the outside, how long have you been in here?" The stallion fumbled and dragged himself up to all fours. The Stalker noticed a pump action shotgun hanging from a sling on his side and a bandolier of shells, but decided against inquiring about it. Lucky for him and the others, the stallion was more than happy to share his story to a group of polite strangers.

"Why, I am a courier, a mailpony.... to the simple-minded." The unicorn clarified.

Flashpoint, who had been noticeably quiet since the debacle with the bots, finally spoke up: "You're a courier? From where?"

The fellow he was speaking to seemed a bit irritated when Flashpoint asked that, which was odd because he hadn't even questioned Nikolai's appearance yet- But he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of Flashpoint.

"Friendship City... " He said slowly, "It's up by Manehatten, why do you ask?"

Nikolai stepped past Flashpoint, lowering his rifle and watching as the unicorn suddenly realized that he was the only one among them who wasn't standing on all fours. His masked face tilted down and looked the stranger right in the eyes.

"Hello friend!" He said in a loud, blunt voice, "Name is Nikolai, what is yours?" Before the courier could give a response The Stalker added. "What coincidence, yes? We are traveling to same place, please, dust yourself up and come with us."

The Vodka was doing it's job, just as usual.

"Er..." Nikolai didn't let the stallion start. "If you desire safe travel," Nikolai told him, "Come with us, guide us to Manehatten, and we will keep you safe-yes?"

He thought about it for a moment, and then finally extended a foreleg, seeming to understand that Nikolai looked pretty intimidating, and that, judging by the imposing AK 101 that had itself firmly seated in his 'strange talons', and the company he had with him, he would make for a fine escort. And the unicorn in question was headed to Manehatten anyway, he had nothing to lose by simply letting them follow along with him.

"The name's Paper Plate, I would be pleased to have you with me." Nikolai leaned over and shook it, making Paper feel small.

And then they ate. And then they slept. They slept for a good nine hours. Until they were inevitably awoken by Willow and Aurora, who insisted they got going.

And so they went. They went a-ways, through the devastated countryside and increasingly frequent megaspell torn urbanscapes, keeping off the highway so as to avoid what Paper had told them would more than likely be slaver and tribal checkpoints meant to catch loaded caravans traveling either south from the Manehatten ruins, or north, from the many still mostly pristine military bases, all prime targets for scavengers.

A day passed, and then another, and then, a few hours.

"Flashpoint, Aurora, keep up!"

Nikolai waved them along enthusiastically, bounding up the hill with newfound enthusiasm. The four equines dolled on behind him at a meager pace, except for Willow and Paper. Both of whom knew what would be found when they reached the summit. The air already felt different, and the wind was blowing in from the east, kicking dust off the top of the hill.

Panting lightly, Nikolai stepped over an ancient blackened tree trunk and finally reached the top. And what he saw quite literally took his breath away. Stretching out into the horizon were the colossal ruins of a massive city, far to the northeast, was an enormous statue rising up from an island in the water. To almost his direct front, still kilometers off, were the towering ruins of a bridge, torn apart in places as if a giant had taken a sledgehammer to it in anger, only to forget to finish the job in precious few portions. Noxious clouds of yellow-green-brown fog rose up from the river that ran between the mainland and the island that was home to Manehatten proper.

The rotting, destroyed hulks of high-rise skyscrapers, many tipped onto their sides like dominos, blocking lanes upon lanes of blackened and scorched traffic below littered entire scene. His Geiger counter let out a few ticks as a sudden gust of wind blew dirt and radiation strewn ash up the slope towards him. Closer to him, maybe just a hundred odd meters down the slope sat the collapsed and torn remains of sprawling suburbs, flattened atop one another like fenceposts after a strong wind. Far off, a mutant cry broke the eerie silence Nikolai had found himself in.

This place was real. He was standing above it all, looking out at it. In all his travels across the Wasteland, he had never seen such... Sheer destruction. A city that, for all intents and purposes, reminded him of New York and Manhattan back on earth in such a state of absolute collapse and abandonment. And still, he knew inside that this place... Wasn't abandoned. It was teeming with raiders, slavers, scavengers, ghouls, and very likely far worse things. A dead city that was still very much alive on the inside. And, across the bay, barely visible through the morning haze, was a perfectly intact skyscraper with what looked like raised rail lines running past it.

"That must be Tenpony Tower."

Nikolai murmured, he felt a measure of anxiousness leave his body, he turned to congratulate Paper, but the unicorn was nowhere to be found. He had left among the commotion preceding their accent to overlook. An odd move for an odd, odd pony. But Nikolai hadn't gotten to know him like he had Aurora, so he didn't really mind.

"Wow, just like old times, huh Nikolai?"

"Da, товариш. Yes, my Friend."

Flashpoint came up behind Nikolai and took his place beside The Stalker. Willow and Aurora took spots to the left and right of Nikolai and looked out at cataclysmic ruins of Manehatten in the dead quiet of the early morning. As luck would have it, a break in the clouds had formed high above them, big enough to allow a little ray of sunshine to creep through and light up the four of them like a great big aerial spotlight.

The date was approximately one month to the day when Nikolai had first dusted himself off on the outskirts of Salt Cube City. And he still had a long way to go.

Chapter 40: The Mane Mistake

Chapter 40: The Mane Mistake

No one had forced Nikolai, Willow, Flashpoint, or Aurora to come here. To this irradiated labyrinthian maze of rotting skyscrapers, superhighways, and elevated rail lines. They had all gone of their own accord. Nikolai was many things, but he was no dictator.

His friends were free to leave, or go at their discretion. There was just one big, little thing- that word, friend- they'd stay by his side. Even if they didn't always see eye to eye both literally, and metaphorically. They'd stay with him. they had given each other a reason to keep on going, even if Nikolai wasn't necessarily the ideal picture perfect representation of a leader.

To The Stalker, this was all very foreign to him. Ukraine, or even most of Eastern Europe for that matter had nothing that could even begin to rival Manehatten. It was certainly a far cry from the little abandoned farming villages and towns Nikolai was accustomed to. Both in the context of his old life, and his travels through the Equestrian Wasteland. His brain swarmed with a thousand 'get rich quick' fantasies of him coming across some kind of ancient forgotten technology somewhere in this city.

Somewhere off in the distance, an old grandfather clock was still sounding off from time to time after 200 years. Nikolai's Geiger counter clicked intermittently as he scaled a pile of rubble, nearly tripping on a cluster of shattered roofing tiles.

"You know," He began. "These places... They always seem to be smaller at a distance. But you come up close and-Blay..." Nikolai rested his hands on his belt. "How are... Eh-" He tapped his boot, looking northeast. He scratched the back of his head through his hood and his mask, then sighed regrettably. He hopped down from the debris pile, stepping on a faded and partially blackened billboard of a unicorn with a bottle of Sparkle-Cola.

"What's the story?" Flashpoint asked quickly as Nikolai strolled past him and started back towards the path down towards the bridge.

"Do you have a plan?" Aurora pressed him, her cloak danced in the breeze amongst the radioactive dust.

"Sparkle Cola, " He started, beginning to vent his thoughts, "I do not recall ever telling any of you this, but I love carrots. I really, really fucking love carrots. Fresh carrots, chopped carrots, pickled carrots, carrot cake..." He gesticulated obsessively with his hands.

"We get it Nikolai." Willow chortled. "You like pickles."

Nikolai's left index finger shot up, and he gestured to the Sparkle Cola billboard. "You know what I don't like? Sparkle Cola. It may taste like carrots to you ponies. But it tastes like туалетна вода toilet water to me! And it's radioactive too! It's worse for you than energy drinks that those 'couch potatoes' drink back home!"

"But you drink, excessively." Aurora's mechanical voice inquired.

"You're on the tipsy side of drunk at least half of every day." Willow added.

"Bylat! Not all the time! And from I have seen I am somehow the most functional person in hundred kilometer radius!" He stepped over a rusty mailbox. " And that is-both a giant disappointment and a giant relief."

"Most functional per-Hey... What about us?" Aurora asked aloofly.

"Yeah, what about us?" Flashpoint joined in. Nikolai absently nodded his head and shook his fists. "Forget I said that! Let us circle back to the 'big picture problem', how do we get across that gap in the bridge?"

A ruined warehouse momentarily came between the group and the view of the remains of the bridge. "We could always see if there are any boats or ferries on this side of the harbor." Willow proposed. "There's plenty of docks, I'd be surprised if there wasn't. Like always, Aurora and I could just try and fly across. But then we'd have to leave you behind, and you," He flapped his leathery wings and patted Nikolai on the shoulder, "Are pretty much the reason we're all here in the first place. Now what do you think we should do?" Nikolai corralled them all past an industrial crane.

"Willow, go on and see if we cannot find safe passage across the remains of the bridge." A signal from Tenpony Tower was beginning to pick up again on Nikolai's radio. "The rest of us will watch you. Be quick, please!" He gave Willow a thumbs up and shooed him off. But it wasn't long at all before he had returned bearing bad, bad news.

"Nothing. We can't cross. A bridge is supposed to connect stuff, right? Well you see-there is no bridge. And-I think I saw ponies in power armor moving around on the ruins in the center of the channel. It was hard for me to pick them out at distance but-they looked like Steel Rangers."

"Yes, blin-I know that! " The Stalker threw his arms up. "Shell dreams, yes? Well then... We will take the long way around." He slumped against a brick wall. "Steel Rangers, huh? Do you think they are the nervous, paranoid, shoot on sight type? Or did they look like the kind of folks who might offer us a boat ride to Manehatten? Do not get me wrong I-I like Bucklyn, it's just... Kind of boring here! I want to do what I came here for! Willow?"

The bat pony's ears perked up just a little more. "Yes?"

"How about that-eh... Friendship City place? By the giant statue in the harbor? Do you think they could spare a boat?"

"Nikolai," Aurora said, "I don't want to board a boat full of strangers, especially this close to a Steel Ranger base." The Stalker laughed heartily.

"Aurora, I have met these 'Steel Rangers', they are easy to befriend."

"I find that difficult to believe."

"I am being serious! It just takes some Vodka and a good attitude!"

It was mostly the good attitude.

"-But you might want to hide that Power Armor beneath that cloak though, I do not want to pick a fight with them-anyone, really. But them especially!"

"That motion I second." She admitted begrudgingly, twiddling her forehooves as Nikolai paced back and forth, shuffling his feet and tapping the butt stock of his rifle with growing impatience. He knew almost nothing about Manehatten, but he knew quite a bit about Manhatten. And if this city was as similar as its name, landmarks, and geography led on, then he believed that he may have finally arrived at a way to make it across the river.

"Willow, does Manehatten have any underground train tunnels? Are there any subways? Metro stations?"

"Yes... Why do you-" Willow paused and looked over at Aurora, he could see her metallic ear braces flattening beneath her cloak.

"No, no, no no no." She shook her head. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Nikolai inquired. "It would save us at least a day of traveling upriver across the ruins."

"I'd just-rather not." She replied plainly, ruffling her wings beneath her cloak uncomfortably, Nikolai knew there was more to her story.

"Aurora, I don't have time for games like this-tell me, truly. Because all of our other options are pretty shitty..."

The group found themselves standing at the rusted gates of a ruined metro station stairway. Nikolai shined his rifle light down into the darkness experimentally.

"...And this one looks slightly less shitty, no?"

"I-Suppose not." She replied glumly.

"Great!" He clasped his hands together.

Nikolai pulled the remains of the gates aside and peeked down into the darkness. Experimentally, he picked up a brick and threw it down the stairs, it collided with the concrete thirty meters down and shattered into a dozen pieces at the edge of the light. He waited a moment, and, after hearing no roars or groans, he ushered his compatriots down the steps and into the station, stepping over dozens and dozens of skeletons until they had reached station floor, Nikolai donned his night vision device and turned it on, instantly flooding the darkness in his eyes with clarity.

A cracked terminal bearing a lockdown order stood in their path, glowing alone in the blackness.

The concrete floor was strewn with debris from the half domed ceiling some two stories above them. Scattered about were even more skeletons, most weighed down by large quantities of luggage. One of the trains was still in its terminal; several cars had been knocked off the track, but the other was missing. A mystery lost to time, and one that Nikolai didn't really care about. Not as much as he cared about all the bottles of Sparkle-Cola and bottlecaps strewn about. He was happy to let Flashpoint and Willow take possession of the Sparkle-Cola bottles, the loose bottlecaps were all his. Strangely, Aurora didn't really want anything to do with any of it, she spent most of her time in the station milling about, peaking into random suitcases and occasionally stopping to take a look at the old rotting propaganda posters on the walls. One in particular seemed to have caught her attention, it was a recruitment poster for the Steel Rangers, right beside one for the Sky Guard and The Ministry of Awesome.

While her eyes were transfixed on the poster, Nikolai found himself sauntering over from his bottle cap scavenger hunt to talk with Aurora a bit more.

The Stalker's bootsteps weren't enough to draw her attention, but his comment certainly was.

"Bring back any memories?"

Her ears perked up and she turned her head to look back at him. "Oh, no I was just looking." Nikolai folded his arms.

"What caught your attention?"

"I dunno," She replied blandly. "The power armor, I guess? Pre Enclave history was never really my thing." She sounded bored, or at the very least was trying hard to sound disinterested. Off behind them a gunshot rang out, it was Flashpoint, putting down a feral ghoul.

"You sound bored." Nikolai offered. "We are in the ruins of massive city, about to travel through metro tunnel to get to mysterious tower."

"I don't really share the same enthusiasm that you do, Nikolai. Pegasi were born to soar, I don't like having a roof over my head-Being underground, I mean. It... Makes me uncomfortable."

"That's funny, when I first met Willow he told me how he didn't like wide open spaces. Now here you are: Exact opposite!" He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"It makes me curious from time to time, wishing I was there when it happened-and then being able to come back and see it now-It’s impossible but it is always fun to think about, no?”

Aurora's voice rose a pitch. "Yeah, yeah, it is." Nikolai could almost feel her smile coming from below her visor, he had broken her boredom.

"You know, it is better you learn lessons from your past rather then invoking the consequences of doing the same stupid thing twice."

"I know better than to make the same screwups my ancestors did." She sneered in return Nikolai raised his left hand and ushered for her to calm down.

"Aurora, don't take it personally, please." He laughed and rested a hand on his belt. "Is still sound advice, yes? давай товариш, come on, friend. Let's get going." Nikolai called out to the others and waved them over with his rifle light before herding them down and onto the tracks.

It wasn't long before Nikolai realized that he may have made a mistake, partway through the tunnel, he came across a bit of water dripping from a pipe in the ceiling. This water ran down the tracks to a low point where it had begun to pool, turning into a miniature noxious underground pond that forced them to shimmy along the very edges of the tunnel. A hundred meters beyond that, debris forced them to take a maintenance tunnel which led into an overflow tunnel meant for additional car traffic, it wasn't much, four lanes: two going in either direction, all backed up.

The path was clear for hoof-and foot traffic. The fact that they could all see in the dark was a major advantage. Not only did it make navigation a whole heck of a lot easier, but anyone or anything trying to sneak up on them would be met with a nasty surprise.

Every step forward racked their nerves, Aurora and Flashpoint half thought that at they might be swarmed by hundreds of ghouls at any moment but-nothing of the sort happened. Up ahead, was what looked like the source of the traffic was beginning to come into view.

A subterranean military checkpoint, something glinted and glimmered in just beyond it in midair.

Crack! Fzap!

The army patrol bot hit the asphalt and crumpled with a quiet echo. Aurora's magical energy rifles had melted a fairly substantial hole in the bots lightly armored shell. They walked on through the checkpoint sandbags, eying it with caution. What none of them had realized was that, waiting on the other side was a pretty substantial reward: The remains of a squad of Equestrian Army personnel, clad in combat armor and armed with assault carbines.

He got down onto his knees and began to scrounge up all the bullets within arms reach. He looked up and his heart stopped. Leaning up against the decaying sandbags just a meter away was a substantial metal lockbox with the Ministry of Wartime Technology's logo splayed out across its front.

"What do you think's in it?" Willow and Aurora asked him while Flashpoint mulled about quietly behind them.

"More ammunition, for some kind of weird weird magic gun?" He fetched his crowbar and, completely ignoring the complicated looking lock, ripped the top off the box and withdrew one of the items.

A long, cylindrical, weighted metal tube. A rocket. The Stalker looked at crate it had come from and immediately connected the dots.

It was an anti tank missile he was looking at. A whole box of anti tank missiles. Five of them, each with glistening red tips that showed up darkly through his visor.

"Are those what I think they are?" Aurora asked him with a measure of disbelief.

"Yes, yes! It is!" But where is the launcher?"

"The launcher? Nikolai do you even know how to-" Nikolai stopped Willow's tirade cold in its tracks.

"Ah, that doesn't matter! You not worry about this, ok? Ok."

"Do you know how to use it!?" Aurora blurted out. Nikolai shook his hand and pointed at the box, "Eh-Yes, no, maybe so? I like things that go 'boom!' these missiles go 'boom!', use some deductive reasoning Aurora. These things are freaking cool! They must be more powerful than RPG! Launcher can wait! These are useful..."

"But my god are they freaking cool!"

He turned to scrounge up two of the missiles, stuffing them into the webbing on his pack and urging Flashpoint to take the same. The zebra, understandably concerned, only took one. The carbines were all in varying states of disrepair, and Nikolai didn't think that any of them would be getting much use of of them, so he just stripped the weapons for any and all parts that looked semi-serviceable, and passed them off to Willow on account of his own pack already being loaded down with over twenty five kilograms of stuff. That was already doing a number on his back as it stood, and he didn't need all that unusable junk weighing him down. Not now. The group left the checkpoint and continued making their way towards Manehatten.

Flashpoint slipped in something, that 'thing' turned out to be the sinew-strewn bones of what must have once been a sewer rat. He smeared it off against one of the cars, unmoved by the disgusting sight or feeling. He struck an unshattered window by accident and set the car alarm off. Something began to shake and rattle beneath the car, squealing and squelching until, at last, an intact two headed rat the size of a house cat crawled out from beneath the car and rushed the nearest thing, which happened to be Aurora's right leg.

"Ah!" The mare screamed. She lowered her rifle and turned the rat into a pile of ash, her ears spun around wildly.

"Fuck! I-I knew we shouldn't have gone this way!" Aurora's wings flared in distress.

Nikolai hurriedly gestured for her to calm down. "Sh, shh! Aurora, blin-be quiet. Do you hear that?" Off behind them, something creaked, then another thing creaked. A tire popped with a crack. And then they heard it, squeals and moans and the pitter pattering of hundreds upon hundreds of little tiny paws against asphalt.

"Blay-we need to go!" He turned tail from the sound and began to bolt through the darkness. Behind him he could hear the sound of three sets of hoofbeats, and an uncountable amount of rodent paws.

"What if it's collapsed?" Aurora shouted desperately. "What if it's caved in and we'll die down here to those things..."

Nikolai only caught snippets of what she was saying. He was too busy running, even though his equine friends soon overtook him.

The Stalker didn't recall how much time passed between the first rat sighting and their eventual escape through the tunnel, but by the time the time they finally came to the end of the tunnel, time was the least important thing on their minds. Nikolai and his compatriots were finally able to leave the tunnel and greet the ruins of Manehattan proper.

Millions upon millions of tonnes of melted and twisted concrete, steel, and glass surrounded them on all sides, climbing far up into the sky, the tops of some of the largest ruins were obscured by grey-yellow fog. The debris clogged streets seemed to go on forever in every direction. Nikolai walked out ahead of them and looked down the street, then over at the monorail and myriad of raised highways above them.

He exhaled heavily through his mask and looked back at his compatriots, he turned his radio's receiver volume down as a song struck a chord.

"Let's go."

He looked back at the ruins and waved them onwards. Even after two hundred years, pockets of Balefire and spontaneous dark magic still remained deep in the ruins. That was apparent from the start. But all at once, the world devolved into chaos. In the distance, the pops and crackle of automatic gunfire was drawing closer. Something even louder and deeper resounded amidst it all, a grenade-and then, dozens more in quick succession.

"That's a grenade launcher." Willow informed them, beginning to trot quicker. "We need to move."

A ghoul feral poked its head out of one of the ruins and the Thestral put a well aimed shot in between its hollow yellowed eyes. More followed, another swarm of mutants, this one above ground, was beginning to pick up speed behind them. Over a collapsed concrete wall, an explosion tore up a portion of the herd. Aurora recognized the ominous clank of power armor moving quickly.

"Left on that intersection!" Nikolai barked, shooing them past about fifty undetonated fragmentation mines that beeped and detonated far behind them as they broke into a run. Nikolai ducked underneath a long dead corpse that had been hung from a warped telephone pole.

They bobbed and weaved through the ruins until they came to a massive office building that looked like it had been burnt to a crisp and then thrown onto its side. Nikolai took a brief knee to catch his breath and get a drink of water.

At some point they were ambushed by a floating metal sphere with a plasma emitter and a flamethrower attached to long metal arms that Aurora smashed with her tail, stopping it before it could turn to fire on them. Manehatten was turning out to be nearly as bad as Canterlot. They climbed up a slight incline and pulled themselves out of the rubble on the other side, where they were met by mutated hamsters that Nikolai fed two bullets to as they slid down.

"Something feels warm-warm and-Oh." Flashpoint jumped out from behind a hunk of concrete as he-and his PipBuck both noticed the length of glowing green rebar sticking up from it.

Half a block down and they were attacked by two raiders armed with spears fashioned from fire escape bars and pistols.

"Woahoho!" Nikolai announced. "Hello strangers! We are just passing through, you not shoot, yes?"

"Waste 'em!" One spat. Before they could reach their triggers Aurora and Willow turned them into piles of ash.

Radroaches jumped from a second story window and tried to sink their pincers into Nikolai, who knocked them aside with the butt of his rifle and stumbled back against a melted car and nearly slipped on the cooled steel and aluminum puddles on the ground. They darted through an alley and into the next street over as a spider the size of a lawn chair snarled at their heels, Aurora was beginning to run a little low on Spark-Packs.

On the next street, they watched a pitched battle between a Steel Ranger and a radigator work out in the Ranger's favor. The Ranger started towards the rubble they were hiding behind but was attacked from above by a griffon with bladed wings. They used the roar of minigun fire to make it past the power armor clad pony and through a series of makeshift abandoned fortifications until they came to the metal support beams of a monorail line. More mutated creatures, this time a few feral two headed ungodly dog-cat hybrids burst from all around, circling until Nikolai scared them off with automatic rifle fire, emptying his magazine into what must have been the horde's overconfident alpha.

A dazzling green topped the buildings, glowing like the distant megaspell craters Nikolai had seen from afar just a little while before he had met Willow. As they went on the devastation around them grew even more severe, no skeletons of skyscrapers remained, only great heaps of black, melted rubble. They climbed up a small heap of debris into the shell of an old high-rise condo that had collapsed on its side and then been partially folding inwards by the megaspell's heat and pressure wave.

Nikolai's Geiger counter was beginning to tick again, louder and louder. Nikolai clambered out of the window and found himself in the middle of a wide open field, completely free of any and all debris or vegetation. Nikolai began to stroll forward-and suddenly his Geiger counter spiked with a sudden warning.

"Nikolai!" Willow shouted, only meters behind him. "Get back!"

The Stalker took a step forward and the ground crunched underfoot. He looked off in the distance and noticed a great, big hole in the ground.

He was standing on ground zero.

The heat of the blast had been so intense here that it had turned the ground to glass. Glass that hummed with dark magic and glowed with an eerie internal prism of light.

"Blayt... Cool!"

He reached for his anomaly detector and found it beeping more than usual. He skimmed over the detector screen and saw something on its very periphery. He looked about but there was nothing there, he looked about again and-there was nothing there.

"Run!" Willow shouted at the top of his lungs.

The blip on The Stalker's detector grew bigger and bigger until it abruptly vanished. Nikolai raised his rifle and began to slowly back up, retracting his steps through the blast zone. Far above, a streak of passing green and yellow lit up the battlefield like a flare. The earth began to tremble. In a panic Nikolai slipped and nearly faceplanted into the irradiated glass. About a hundred meters away something burst from the ground and let out an ear splitting roar. Nikolai jumped to his feet in time to spot the commuter bus sized glowing alligator barreling towards him.

His brain went over a hundred different outcomes in under half a second. If he stood still like a hapless idiot he'd be crushed or ripped in half. If he turned to run he'd be snatched up and swallowed whole.

"Perhaps Willow or Aurora could carry me away? No, no! They would take too long!" He racked his brain for a solution while his left hand racked the charging handle of his rifle.

"Wait... That thing-came from a dip in the ground! A tunnel! With glass ceiling!" He unpinned a grenade and hucked it at the creature, but it landed high and detonated against its upper hind leg, doing little more than putting it in an even worse mood. It snapped at The Stalker with jaws big enough to swallow a forklift. He turned and ran, but the gator seemed to be having a much easier time traversing the slick terrain than he was. Worse still there was no place to hide that he could get too before the giant radigator got to him with his back turned.

He threw his rifle back over his shoulder and fired a burst as the monster tossed a slab of glass over his head. The Stalker knew he couldn't keep this up for long, so he arrived at a new strategy. Nikolai overrode his mammalian instinct to flee and barreled towards the abomination, when it came within twenty five meters he made a hard forty five degree turn to his left and let the monster pass him.

And pass him it did, right onto the two fragmentation grenades he had dropped over his shoulder. It didn't exactly rip the dirt open but-it did cause enough damage to make the gator trip and stumble in confusion. Which bought him just enough time to pull one of the missiles from the exterior of his pack. With his rifle in one hand and his missile in the other he ran for the building where Willow, Flashpoint, and Aurora were hiding.

He very nearly collapsed when he reached his friends, who caught him when he nearly collapsed.

"Я думаю... що ми неправильно повернули." Nikolai mumbled under his breath.

"Huh?" The three equines asked, a bit taken back.

"Ponish, please?" Aurora whispered softly.

"I think... We made... A really, really, wrong turn!" He cried, coughing to himself as he dusted himself off.

"I think you need a fucking doctor." Nikolai coughed and laughed again.

"No," He looked back over his shoulder. "I not need a fucking doctor. I not even need regular doctor! He unslung his pack and withdrew a good bottle of vodka as he pulled back his mask and spit blood on the concrete." What I need," He took up a shot glass of Rad-away from Willow and toasted it with a string of profanity.

"They didn't really teach this in basic but I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to be mixing Vodka with Rad-away?" Nikolai finished the contents of the little plastic cup with a quarter bottle of 130 Proof Vodka.

"Is fine! Is fine! Now, here is plan," He looked around frantically.

"Willow. Go find me a landmine."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." The Stalker repeated. "Go find me a landmine, one still usable condition! Go, go!" He peered through his rifle scope and watched as the gator angrily stomped back and forth, looking for the little bipedal creature that had caused it so much grief.

Willow soon returned with the landmine perilously clutched in his forelegs. Nikolai unwrapped a roll of duct-tape and carefully affixed the mine to the side of the missile.

"You're crazy." Aurora said in disbelief.

"Call me what you want but-" He extended a nagging index finger. "My plans usually work out!"

"Why are you doing this anyway? We could leave right now!"

Nikolai slipped back out of the window and onto Ground Zero. He clapped his hands together a few times, trying to provoke the radigator again. The beast noticed him and opened its maw wide, The Stalker closed the distance and threw the missile into its mouth. As soon as the mine's trigger struck the mutant's tongue it detonated, ripped its skull right down the middle and sent a shower of glowing flesh in every direction.

"Ew..." Nikolai wiped the glowing guts off of his jacket and ballistic vest with only a little bit of disgust.

"Hey Willow!?" He called back to the ruins at the top of his lungs.

"How much do giant radigator hides go for?"

Aurora's face turned green under her visor.

Nikolai was a bit sour at the prospect of not being able to use the creature's corpse for anything but-perhaps that was for the better.

About a half hour later, for the first time in their short time in this once-a-city, they came across a group of ponies who didn't immediately begin shooting at them. These were prospectors, scavengers sent out from Tenpony Tower that were more than happy to lead them to within sight of the tower, and without questioning what Nikolai was- probably because he was following behind his compatriots at a safe distance, just out of earshot. He waited amidst the rubble for the scavengers to leave, and then sprung out and rejoined his friends.

They all caught wind of it at once, the sound of three pairs of heavy metal hoofsteps heading towards them. Over a pile of rubble came three Steel Rangers.

"Those-uh... Those are-" Aurora stuttered.

"Be quiet!" Nikolai snapped.

"Hey, you there!" One of them called. Nikolai pretended to mess with his watch, then, when the Rangers were about ten meters away, he looked up at them.

"Hello! Nice to meet you!" The Stalker answered them cheerfully, offering a curt wave of his left hand. "We are just passing through, is no problem, yes?"

"Walking on two legs..." The Ranger repeated to himself.

"Yes?" Nikolai asked again.

"You're not causing any trouble?" The Ranger asked gravely.

"This whole city is trouble, how do I know you're not causing any?"

"We're Steel Rangers-"

"Yes, yes." Nikolai interrupted him. "I have come across you folks before, and all times we get along great!" He nodded affirmatively. "Is big city and-shit happens. Have a nice day! We are going now!" He waved to them and herded his companions past the gaze of their visors.

"I could've shot them-I-" Nikolai cut Aurora off. "I try to stay on everyone's good side, I am no saint-but I try." He looked back over his shoulder and pointed at the departing Rangers. "Manehatten is big, and we don't need them and their friends after us." He coughed into his fist.

"Come on, the front gate is right over there."

Compared to the rest of the city, Tenpony Tower stood out like a sore thumb. And... It was only now that Nikolai realized that something was very, very wrong. Massive metal walls ringed what was once the entrance, and The Stalker could see that, through slits in the wall, they were being followed by gun barrels.

"This looks like bad idea." Aurora, said, pleading with Nikolai.

"This is a bad idea." Flashpoint added.

"It's the beginning of a morbid and violent joke if they don't cooperate." Willow mused, baring his fangs playfully. Flashpoint shot him a weird look.

"Blyat, I don't care. Let me do the talking. I want answers and that robot thing told us to come here."

"Hey, that's far enough." The stallion behind the armored slit barked. "We don't just let anyone waltz in from off the street." Nikolai raised his hands defensively.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai," The Stalker looked back at his compatriots and found them staring daggers back at him. He gave them a thumbs up that he hoped would be interpreted as being reassuring.

"I am here to do eh-stuff!"

"What kind of stuff?" The stallion inquired suspiciously. Nikolai rubbed his temples and began to gesticulate.

"Look man, a freaky robot with wings told me to come here a few days ago! I'm lost, and I need answers! You let me through, I find answers, yes?"

The guards behind the gate were dead silent.

"You," He pointed both index fingers at the gate. "Let me and my compatriots in, yes? We not cause any trouble! We are all... How you say, well behaved? It will be no problem, no problem at all.

"Sure, the entry fee is two hundred caps."

Nikolai shrugged. "Some kind of cover charge? Really, we not cause any trouble, we not even stay for long! We just look around, ask for some help, and leave! Is simple! Is really, really simple."

"Fine, one-eighty." The guard offered.

The Stalker furrowed his brow beneath his mask. "Sixty." He replied.

"You're trying to go lower? What are you, some kind of cheapscape?" The guard inquired dubiously.

"Look-I was told by a Sprite Bot to come here, I came a long way-like-a really fucking long way."

"How long is 'a long way?'" Another voice asked from behind the fortification.

"All the way from Salt Cube City." A silence fell over the gate guards. Nikolai could have sworn that he heard one or two. 'Holy shit's" from the other side of the barrier.

"You don't got any any zombies with you?" The guard asked with a more relaxed demeanor.

"Nyet-Nope." Nikolai grunted with finality. He rested his hands in his pockets and whistled the opening notes to 'Bandit Radio'.

"Forty caps for all four of you." Nikolai and his compatriots all pitched in ten caps, and he passed them through the slit in the gate, which opened immediately afterwards.

"Hold on," Three guards with battle saddles that sported pairs of semi automatic shotguns stopped them about ten meters shy of the entrance. The Stallion, a unicorn, pointed to Nikolai's AK 101.

"What, let me guess, 'No guns inside'?"

"Oh, you can bring your guns inside, you just can't take the ammunition. You'll have to leave it here with us. Don't worry, we won't touch it, it'll be safe here until you decide to leave."

This made Nikolai grossly unhappy. It made Willow, Aurora, and Flashpoint decidedly nervous. Willow actually looked like he was beginning to second guess this whole debacle. That thestral looked about ready to go full fanged redneck.

"How are we supposed to know that there isn't anyone in there who would try to rob us or-foalnap us?" Aurora tilted her head, expecting a swift answer.

"Trust me me when I say, ma'am." The guard replied, "That Tenpony is the safest place in Manehatten outside of Friendship City out in the harbor."

"But!" Nikolai raised his left index finger abruptly. "Is it safer if everyone is a victim all the time?" The guard sighed.

"Look-I don't like it but the of the ponies up there are a bit gunshy. Most have never even shot one before. You sound honest and-well, to be honest I don't really know what you are Nikolai. You can keep your ammunition-but for the love of Celestia would you mind hoofing over any grenades or high explosives you might have? We had an accident a few weeks back and... We're still cleaning up the aftermath on the eighth floor. Just behave, alright?"

"No problem." The guard looked over Nikolai's shoulder and noticed the missiles strapped to his pack. "You're gonna have to turn those over as well.

"I had three of these," Nikolai admitted as he passed them over. "A little over a half of an hour ago."

"What did you do with it?"

"He..." Aurora choose her words carefully. "...Fed it to a giant radigator." A few of the guards stared up at The Stalker with incredulous expressions written across their faces.

"Yes, yes I did! And I wanted to make boots out of its hide-Oh-Uh..." He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a hoof sized tooth that glimmered with residual Balefire.

"Woah," The head guard said with a smack of his lips. "Don't see that every day. Check that out guys." Nikolai theatrically swung it around and held it like an assassins' dagger by the root.

"We saw y'all come down the street. Most folks walk the monorail system-it's much safer than the surface. It's a rarity to see someone come stumbling out of those ruins in one piece-much less with a zebra and company in tow. Welcome to Tenpony Nikolai, enjoy your time." Nikolai clasped his hands together, nodded in affirmation, and strolled on through the massive armored double doors.

"What just happened?" Aurora asked Nikolai accusingly.

"I used my Ukranian Charm to get us into Tenpony Tower, Odd... I'm not used to preferential treatment-Ah-Anyway... Now we just need to figure out who this 'help' character is-Start looking, Aurora, stay with me."

"Why?"

"Because," He leaned in close and whispered into her right ear: "Call it a wild guess but I don't think that Your "Grand Pegasus Enclave" Is too popular around here." He thrust at a thumb over in the direction of a wild eyed stallion wearing a set of leather barding who was ranting about, "flying metal ponies from hell". While security guards watched on in disapproval.

"I'm not stupid-I can look after my-"

"Aurora you are staying with me. I don't want you to melt some poor shopkeepers face off just because you started a panic! Sound advice... This is final, da?"

"Da." She replied sassily.

"Flashpoint?" He inquired through his radio. "We meet up again on ground floor in one hour, ok?" He looked about, found more than a few sets of eyes on himself.

"So..." He tapped his boot on the linoleum floor underfoot. "Stairs or-elevator?"

"Elevator, I'm getting tired of stairs."

Nikolai checked his watch and found that they still had plenty of time, "Elevator it is."

The Stalker and his compatriots were wholly unprepared for Tenpony Tower. Nikolai didn't quite know what it was that he was expecting to here, an army of mercenaries, a branch of Steel Rangers, and so on. But he found himself amidst what must have passed for 'high class' ponies. Folks who turned their muzzles upright and flat out refused to talk to Aurora when she tried to ask one for information. Her ragged cloak over her power armor, and it's ungainly form underneath did little to help this. Nikolai was a slightly different story. The ponies he passed stared at him as he walked by, whispering to themselves and stepping out of his way whenever he got close. Like a plague victim.

If they were were annoyed and revolted by Aurora, then they were downright intimidated by Nikolai's size and stride.

He never did like high society, with all it's pomp and snobiness. It was rare in the region of Ukraine he had come from to find someone that fit the bill. It was rare in Ukraine in general. There were exceptions to the rule of course, Sidorovich- the arms dealer who had sold Nikolai a modest portion of his equipment on the outskirts of The Exclusion Zone, was pretty well off and set for life. There were more honest and... legal ways of making money, yes. But that was the exception from what Nikolai had seen.

Nikolai didn't hate money, if anything, he loved it. He loved the convenience it bought and the power that came with it. Currency was this... thing that everyone collectively agreed had value. Most of the time you could simply throw it at someone until they gave you what it was you wanted. If not for this, Bottlecaps would have been considered 'dead weight' by Nikolai, and he would have never begun to hoard them. He loved the convenience and the power that money brought with it-walking over clean floors and breathing clean air that didn't smell like rust, mildew, and death. But he couldn't stand the haughty attitudes and the fanciful nonsense.

"What kind of person walks around with their nose tipped up? No one wants to see your boggers!"

Nikolai was at loss of where to begin. He supposed that the market would have what he was looking for, a place like this was bound to have somepony with a shtick for robotics after all, so he decided that he'd start there. But this place was even more labyrinthian than the halls of The Ministry Buildings in Canterlot. With even fewer signs. For an ancient hotel this place more resembled a maze meant to trap it's occupants within it's walls forever.

The two strolled by a restaurant. "I'm... hungry." Aurora admitted passively, "How about you?"

Truth be told Nikolai hadn't eaten anywhere 'nice' in months. But one look at the food they were serving and The Stalker realized it would be cheaper (And more appealing) to just shoot his own game, prepare it the way he liked, and save the middleman.

He didn't much like the prospect of his food being origami-folded into the shape of a duck anyway. Though it certainly would make for a pretty funny story to tell later on. But right now, Nikolai had to settle for the contents of his own pack. He didn't want to sacrifice price for convenience at the moment.

The two turned off into a shop with a neon sign in the shape of a wrench and a gear outside, a bell rang over the door interior and they were immediately greeted by a friendly call of;

"Welcome to The Gearbox! What can I do for you..."

The voice trailed off as the unicorn stallion who emerged from behind the counter spotted the two of them, his eyes went wide with apprehension as he looked past Aurora's hooded form and up at Nikolai, who stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked back at the unicorn through the hollow, translucent lenses of his mask.

"Hello!" The Stalker exclaimed in heavily accented English.

"Hi." Aurora's ears drooped a bit, the overhead lighting reflected off the lenses of her visor.

Nikolai raised his right hand and gave him a little wave. "This is robotics shop, yes?"

The unicorn fainted, and Aurora rushed forward to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Oh shit."

Nikolai looked around, then quickly hurried to the shop door, closed it, and then flipped the sign hanging in the window from open to closed.

When the unicorn came to he found himself lying haphazardly on a chair. He rocked back and forth and rolled his eyes open.

"Ow..." The unicorn mumbled. "I must've hit my head... Oh dear."

Nikolai stood in the corner with one leg kicked back against the wall, eating a two hundred year old chocolate bar. His radio crackled with static, and he reached down with one gloved hand to turn the FM receiver off. He took another bite, chewing with his mouth open before turning to the unicorn giving him a toothy smile.

"You did." Nikolai crumpled up the chocolate bar's cellophane wrapper and tossed it into a trash can near the entrance. "And it was your own fault."

"Sorry it's just-" The unicorn slumped off the chair and stood erect on all fours. "I've never seen anypony-anycreature of your... Stature? You look like nothing I've ever seen before."

"Good for you!" Nikolai clapped mockingly and rested his chin on a fist.

"My name is Nikolai, my compatriot, over.... there," He circled a finger around in the air until it came to rest in the direction of the hooded figure that was surveying the shop and its odd combination of Victorian architecture and retro futuristic mechanical and spell-bound components and devices that whirled and hummed and sometimes chirped with sudden nerve jarring beeps.

"Aurora, say hello!"

"Hello." She said blandly, not turning away from the shelves.

"She warms up to people really fast, please believe me."

"No I don't." Aurora deadpanned.

"Yes you do!" Nikolai quipped, checking his watch again.

"So strange..." The stallion murmured to himself.

"Everyone who comes into your shop wants something, yes? What do you know about Sprite-Bots?" The stallion stifled his nose a bit as he pranced back around towards the countertop. Aurora stopped him, she turned her head to one side so that he couldn't see her visor and he looked back at Nikolai with protest plastered across his face.

"Please, stay and hear us out. This is important. Surely more important than whatever it was you were up to when we walked in here." The stallion's protest turned to skepticism.

"Sure... I can... Hear you out." He almost had to sound out the syllables of the words. This pony was either really uncomfortable, really hesitant to help Nikolai, surprised by the randomness of his question and his incursion into his store a half hour before his shift ended, or some mix of all of them. The Stalker couldn't care less, he just wanted answers.

Nikolai clasped his hands together. "Fantastic! What is your name?"

"Chrome Bullion."

"Alright, Chrome. Let us get down to business. I have just asked you about-" Chrome's silvery ears perked up and he trotted back towards Nikolai.

"Sprite-Bots?"

"Yes! Spill the beans!"

"Well, Sprite-Bots are, simply put..." The stallion picked his words carefully. "Little more than radio broadcasters built into a flying carapace. They were designed by one of the great Equestrian Governmental Ministries before The Great War, they have a magical energy weapon built into their hull for self defense... Am I missing anything?"

"Have you ever seen one being used as a form of two-way communication?" Nikolai pressed him, taking his foot off the store wall and standing upright. Aurora paced back and forth a few meters distant, the metal hooves of her armor making soft click-clack noises as they moved across the floor, connected to an increasingly impatient mare.

Chrome nodded grimly in the meanwhile, "No..." His voice sounded off, like he was hiding something. But that may have just been stress. Which, if that was the case, then Nikolai could have a little laugh to himself later on about giving a fairy-tale unicorn a panic attack. The thought put a smile on his face. In the meanwhile Mister Bullion had begun to back away from Nikolai, right towards a curtained off section just away from the display floor.

Not particularly in the business of respecting privacy in the moment, Nikolai walked right past Chrome, slid back the curtain, and found a half dozen robots in varying states of disrepair. Half of them were models he had fought before, and a couple more he didn't recognize. But one stood out among them, a Sprite-Bot with a rebar spear where the weapon node normally would have been.

Nikolai jabbed a finger at Chrome. "I'm not going to judge you for trying to hide this-but I called your bullshit. Do you have anything more you would like to tell me?"

"I already told you everything I know about them." Chrome winced and shrugged his shoulders. Nikolai stepped around a tool bench and brought his fist down on it.

"Dude, just tell us!" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "What is this-some kind of state secret? The freaking-Those things have talked to me twice!Twice! You've got to have some kind of theory or explanation that is more rock solid than what me and my compatriots have come up with, yes?"

A polite hoof knocked against the store door, Aurora walked off the display floor and opened it. Willow and Flashpoint stepped in, bickering over the price of the banana tart cake Flashpoint was stuffing himself with. Aurora had wisely radioed them in the background of Nikolai's 'interrogation'.

"Are they with you?" Chrome asked Nikolai, who snapped his fingers and pointed back at Chrome.

"Yes-Hah! Don't try to deflect the question! Tell me!" Nikolai roared.

"Well, a few months ago this Sprite-Bot came into my possession. Ruined through it may seem it is still very much functional. The transmitter and receiver spell matrixes, at least- Then-Can you move? I'd like to show you something." Nikolai stepped aside and let Chrome walk right up to the robot's carapace. The unicorn lit his horn, and pried away a segment of the bot's armor.

"I discovered a backdoor within it's systems that would allow a pony to overtake their operating system allowing them to use the bot for their own purposes. Including manipulation of its weapon and audio-visual system."

"Do you mean there's cameras in those things!?" Willow spat, sounding offended.

"Well-Yes." Chrome replied hesitantly. "It could be watching us at this very moment for all we know."

"Who could be watching us?" Aurora finally jumped in. "The Enclave?" At that word Chrome's eyes went wide and his ears curled back.

"Woah miss, I wouldn't go about using the 'E' word so casually here!" The unicorn chuckled nervously and Aurora turned to talk with Willow about something.

"So you can access the systems of these things and talk to people with them, da-yes? Is it possible to trace the location of the broadcast to a concrete source?"

"Is this about those Red Eye broadcasts? Because no offense Nikolai but as..." Chrome chose his words carefully. "Strange and... and imposing as you are, I don't think you and your little band of weirdos would stand much of a chance against an army of savage raiders and slavers."

This gave Nikolai pause, and he laughed heartily as he shook his head.

"No, no! Not at all! Have you heard any broadcasts from someone named Watcher?"

"No, and I've never heard Red Eye use an alias like that either. Are you sure that was the name you heard?"

"Yes!" Nikolai pounded the table again. He jabbed at the Sprite-Bot's speaker with emphasis. "I did! My compatriots all heard it too! I myself have heard it more than once, and it told me to come here!"

"It told you to come... Here? To Tenpony?" Chrome asked incredulously. "To do... What? Speak with me? Do you listen to every random robot out in the Wasteland that gives you directions?" Nikolai scratched the back of his head.

"The transmission cut off before whoever on the other side could tell me." An ere of silence swept over the room, Nikolai was surprised that he had gotten this far but-He sort of wished that he had thought this through a little more.

"I don't care. I need answers."

"To what else?" Chrome asked him. "I'm being honest with you, I don't know who this 'Watcher' is."

A fifth set of hoofsteps entered the room. It was a young stallion, not much older than Aurora. A pegasus.

"Hey, Chrome... What's all the commotion-" He froze when he saw Aurora, she turned around and looked him directly in his eyes. He mouthed a silent scream when he saw her, then bolted past Flashpoint and out the door. Nikolai began to bound towards him but was too late to stop him.

"Shit!" Aurora cursed.

"He saw you, didn't he?" Aurora hung her head and nodded.

"Yeah, he did."

Nikolai rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Blyat." He let out a sigh and turned to Chrome. "Who was that?"

"My assistant."

"...Is a pegasus." Aurora finished his sentence. "Who is probably on his way back here with a half dozen armed guards-Nikolai, we need to leave."

Flashpoint glanced out the window and returned with a worried expression on his face. "They're here! Everyone hide!"

Willow melted into the nearest shadow, Flashpoint scurried under a couch, Aurora bounded up onto a shelf and hid amongst a stack of covered bins, leaving Nikolai and Chrome alone on the display floor. The Stalker didn't unsling his rifle, but he did unbuckle the leather strap atop his holster. A moment later five guards clad in riot police uniforms stormed into the store, each carrying a lever action shotgun. The head stallion carried a 10 millimeter pistol.

"These the troublemakers?" One of them asked a figure outside of the store. The pegasus from earlier.

"Ohoho!" Nikolai outstretched his arms to greet the guards. "Nice to meet you! There are no troublemakers here, is all good. Now, how can I help you folks?"

The head guard scanned the room with hostile eyes. "We had someone say they spotted a pony in power armor in here. That's against Tower Law. They'll either need to be removed or surrender their armor. Have you seen them?" It was almost like he was talking past Nikolai.

"Sorry, I believe your associate..." Nikolai stared daggers over at the pegasus by the door. "Is mistaken. Look at me, now... Look at him, yes?" The Stalker was starting to gesticulate again.

"Dude, I must have freaked the absolute fucking shit out of him! He's quivering in his hooves! And what did I do wrong besides consorting with this... Respectable business... Man-Stallion?" He patted Chrome on the back, and the unicorn shivered a bit, staying dead silent. Not a peep came from any of the other three equines hiding in the room. Which left just Nikolai to do the talking. The guards gawked at him, seeming a bit confused. Nearly a minute passed before he heard the guard open his mouth again.

"The words of strangers means nothing here," The guard countered. "I'd like to hear it from Chrome Bullion myself."

"Sure." Nikolai replied calmly, nudging Chrome's left rib with a boot heel. "Tell them how I come in here, looking to be an honest customer and hear stories!"

"I-Eh... Yes! Yes! Nikolai came in here asking for my help-I was a bit... Surprised, but I did what I could." Chrome grinned uncomfortably and tried to put on his best, 'innocent' face. Nikolai's internal smile turned to a deadpan frown as his mind ran circles around the fact that Chrome was a horrible liar.

But the guard believed him. Really, truly, terrible timing. Because at that moment, Aurora's mechanical tail bolted and sent a box tumbling to the ground. One of the guards snapped her head in the direction of the shelf and saw Aurora's glowing visor and her bladed tail.

"Over-Over there!" She shouted frantically, the stallion raised his shotgun and fired a blast at Aurora that buried itself in the brick wall behind her, the armored pegasus bounced up like a startled cat and scrambled off the shelf in a hurry. The hood of Aurora's cloak flew off as she flared her wings in surprise.

The Stalker hadn't reacted fast enough when the mare had fired the first time, he wouldn't let her take a second shot no matter who she was.

In a flash Nikolai unholstered his pistol and fired four shots at the mare. Sometime during the third shot he saw two shotguns belonging to two separate officers discharge. And with the suddenness of gunfire beginning to fade momentarily he began to realize that he had felt something hit his vest, just above his radio. He patted around with his off hand but couldn't feel a dent. The Stalker palmed the gun into one hand and began to back up, watching without saying a word as the mare he had shot dropped her weapon and staggered out of the store, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind her. The other guards watched in stunned silence. And off in the corner Aurora was rallying Willow and Flashpoint. Chrome was gone.

"Live ammo-you son of a bi-" Nikolai recognized the 10 MM in the muzzle of the other guard, and the lethal intent in his eyes. Before the guard could say another word the Stalker emptied the rest of the magazine into him until the grey slide of his Makarov locked back on empty. All of the rounds had struck at a downward angle and had all either grazed the stallions neck or ended up in his shoulders. He tried to step forward but collapsed face first onto the floor, the pistol fell from his muzzle and fell a short distance to his left side. The remaining guards looked at Nikolai, who was in the process of reloading his Makarov, and galloped out of the store in a panic. Leaving only the smell of gunpowder hanging in the air, and the screams of wounded ponies out in the hall, and the moans and quiet sobs of the one on the floor in front of the towering human. The Stalker holstered his sidearm and unslung his rifle.

"Ah!" Chrome yelped in horror. "You-You."

"Self defense!" Nikolai rebuked the unicorn's tone. "He and his compatriots were trying to kill my company and blyat that hurts!" He shook his vest, and something fell from it. He leaned over to pick it up, and grumbled with unhappiness at what he saw.

"Rubber slug-It's nonlethal-of course it's non leath-Cyka blyat!" He looked over at Chrome, then back at the struggling stallion.

"Why?" The guard croaked weakly.

"You tried to shoot my friend-what the hell did you think I was going to do-just let you stand there and "give her the business!?" I was minding my own business here, I did not even hurt a single fly! It's your fault!" He looked over at Chrome, and pointed at a window nearly the far side of the room, past the display floor.

"Does that lead outside?" Chrome was too busy grabbing his first aid kit from underneath the countertop to reply. The Stalker snapped his fingers and Chrome's ears perked up. They were still ringing and pounding from the gunfire.

"Hey, dude! Does that lead outside!?" He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted in his direction with emphasis.

"Y-y-yes it... does?" Chrome stepped out of Nikolai's way as The Stalker ran over to the window with his crowbar in hand, and began to examine it for weak spots.

"Nikolai? What are you doing?" Aurora asked dangerously.

"Making alternate escape route! We've done it many times, and we can do it again! Come on! Come on! Let's go!" He heftied his crowbar in two hands and swung it against the glass like a hammer. It bounced off so hard it nearly flew out of his hands.

"Ok, ok. How about the smart route?" He chipped away at the seal along the window pane until there was enough space for him to wiggle his crowbar underneath it. He curled his fingers and wrenched down on it like a car jack. The pane finally gave way and cracked into a hundred pieces. Nikolai slowly turned to face Chrome.

"This window is insured, right? Because I'm... Not paying for it."

"Um-I mean-Technically it is?" That word, "Technically", was enough for The Stalker. He donned and tightened his mask, and kicked out the fractured pane. Cold, dry wind swept into the store, and Nikolai could see the streets far below, and the vast ruins just across from them.

"Hey! Aurora! Willow! Do you guys have enough in you to make it to the gates?" The two ponies looked at each other, and then back at The Stalker with a look that screamed 'doubtful'.

"Blyat! Ok, ok-can you at least take Flashpoint? If you can take him I might be able to scramble my way down the side."

Willow grappled over his friend with all four hooves and hoovered over to the edge of the window.

"That friend of yours sure is putting a lot of trust in that thestral." Chrome commented, Nikolai hooked his climbing rope around something resembling a kitchen island and raced to the window, Aurora came up last, just behind him.

"Nikolai," Aurora said, trying to sound reassuring." As soon as Flashpoint's safe we'll be back for you, ok?" He took one final swig of vodka to drown out his fear.

"Hey! Chrome! Tell them we left through a vent or a secret passage or something-" The door of the store flew inwards and two mares in M.O.A.S combat armor barged into the room, armed with automatic rifles. With his back to the fifteen-something story drop he swapped his rifle's safety selector to full auto and, wielding it in one hand, sprayed half of the magazine in the direction of the guards. One fell and another dove for cover. Nikolai dropped his rifle onto its sling and jumped out of the window.

Nikolai caught himself against the wall of the tower before he could fall more than half a floor. He looked up and saw the iron-grey rumbling far above him, off in the distance he could see the glow of Ground Zero. He dug the soles of his boots into the concrete as a gust of wind howled past him.

Screech!

"What was that noise?" Nikolai murmured to himself. He glanced around, and then up and down. Nothing. Though the dust he could see Flashpoint's black and white body slowly descending to street level. His breath warmed the interior of his mask, he could smell his own breath-nasty as it was. His head was pounding. Nikolai murmured a prayer under his breath and slacked his rope a little. He kicked off from the ledge and landed a story below.

At the edge of his peripheral vision he saw something flash green in one of the windows. And the next moment something hit him in the back.

"Oh!" Nikolai howled and shivered from the blinding pain. It felt like someone had driven a dozen ice cold needles into his left shoulder.

He glanced behind him and saw something that looked downright weird. He couldn't really figure out what it was, until it had already begun to circle back around towards him. A giant bird. Glowing a vibrant yellow green and wings that crackled with green fire. Then Nikolai remembered an illustration from The Wasteland Survival Guide.

"A Balefire Phoenix! Shit!" It hit him again, this time in the head. Its fiery talons tore at his side, burying themselves deep into the aramid sheets and titanium plates before bounding away and circling in for another attack.

"Cyka! I'm not sitting here and taking this!"

He slackened his rope and swung out and down to move towards the next floor. The Phoenix struck him in the right leg with a gust of its wings, sending tendrils of fire out across his pant leg. The Stalker flailed around like a madman to put it out as his Geiger counter beeped wildly. He turned his rifle on the creature and emptied the rest of the magazine towards the horizon. A bullet struck its wing but it just kept on coming. Nikolai waited until he was close enough to touch its beak, and then bounded out away from Tenpony tower.

The Phoenix overshot him and came within a meter of the tower a floor below. Nikolai swung forward with all his might and plowed into the glowing mutant, he grabbed it by the neck-but severely underestimated its wing power. It tore him right off his climbing rope and soared off towards the clouds. The funny thing was that-Nikolai didn't feel the least bit concerned for his own safety in the moment.

His vision tunneled, focused only on the stupid glowing face of the monster that had ruined his day. It gained altitude, and Nikolai jerked its wings off to one side and climbed atop the creature, riding it like a horse. A very small, very angry, very radioactive horse. The Balefire Phoenix spun out of control towards the roof of the tower. The Stalker's expression filled with fury as he spun the Phoenix at a sharp angle, right into one of the upper floor windows.

"Cheeki breeki-!"

Life in Tenpony Tower was fairly mundane for the little gray and blue unicorn. She trotted across the floor of her suite and she... heard something abrupt that sounded downright weird.

"горіти в пеклі ти проклятий мутант!"

Crash!

Something smashed through the window behind her and the sound of fighting filled the room. She turned around and couldn't believe her eyes.

The Balefire Phoenix flopped about on the floor. Its wings singed the carpet with every flap. Nikolai lay overtop it with his hands cupped around its neck, screaming bloody murder in Ukrainian as he pounded its head into the ground. The bird squawked and screeched and tore at his vest with its mutated talons.

Nikolai punched it in between the eyes, cracking its beak right down the middle. He reached for his knife and brought it down on the Phoenix's head, it went still, and a moment later a blinding flash filled the room, and the abomination turned to ash, leaving behind a few shimmering feathers. Heart pounding, The Stalker looked up at the pony in front of him. He stomped out the fire slowly creeping across the carpet and dropped to his knees, exhausted.

"Hello friend!" He slumped forward and passed out beside the ash pile in a smoking heap.

Homage had no words.

Chapter 41: All I Know

Chapter 41: All I Know

Humming, something in the room was humming. But what? A vacuum cleaner-a ceiling fan? Nikolai couldn't tell. He wasn't wearing his mask anymore, as evidenced by the smell of dirt, smoke, gunpowder and warm bedding. The smoke didn't smell like burning charcoal or wood-it smelled like burning polymer and clothing.

"Ugheheh-Hoho!" Nikolai coughed and pulled his head up.

"Who-what? How?" A voice exclaimed beside him. Female, but just out of sight. He felt a pillow against his head, a head which hammered with pain from a headache caused by any number of injuries sustained during what felt like a blur in his memory.

"Wow, heh... I really don't get out much." The voice whispered nervously.

Nikolai bounced up to full height in one, big motion. He flexed; his joints felt rubbery. His breath and his lips tasted all dry and salty. He looked down at his gloves and found them in tatters. The leather and aramid add-ons had been burned away, down to raw skin in places. He guessed that he looked pretty nasty. The Stalker patted himself up and down until his right hand grasped his pistol. Nothing was missing. Not that he could see, not that he could notice. He coughed again and spotted the little grey and blue unicorn a little ways away.

"That look," The Stalker began, motioning to his own face, then to hers. "The one on your face, I get that a lot." He coughed into his fist.

"Oh, eugh... Oh!" He nearly doubled over from the cough and lunged forward to grab the desk. Instead his hand caught itself in a magical glow that halted his momentum mid fall.

"I'm no doctor, but you don't look healthy." Nikolai coughed into his armpit, he could taste metal. He had bit his lip by accident, and he reeked of copper.

"Oh, my life is one big joyride." He said morbidly. "How could I not, not look healthy?"

His own words gave him pause. Where was his rucksack? Was everything still there? After all those aerial acrobatics? Nikolai patted his radio with dismay: Part of the casing had melted off near the antenna in neat little talon marks. No time to worry about that right now. He needed Rad-away, and he needed it now.

Radiation, regardless of the form it took-ionizing or magical... It always had a kind of warmth to it. Not a good, comforting warmth. It was sickly, irritating. It got into everything whether you wanted it or not. Like the bloodletting of old, it was no better than poison. Hell, it was poison.

"You know," The Stalker trilled as he bit open the packet and sucked down the gel inside. "I once heard this story about a dude who was stuck in a subway train for like-30 hours, and all he had to eat was a bunch of mayo packets. Goodness gracious." Nikolai felt much better now. He growled and grunted and at last, smiled at the little grey unicorn.

"You have a nice view of the city. Sorry about the window."

"Thanks... Nikolai, apology accepted." She said emphatically, "I'm Homage-Nice to meet you."

The Stalker's toothy smile widened and he scratched his neck, "Nice to meet you too, do you know a eh... Easier way off of this tower?" His face went sour. "Flashpoint, Willow! Aurora! My friends!"

Homage’s face went from curious to concerned. She swayed, and her tail whisked from side to side. Nervous, but not fearful like Chrome. Nikolai had a feeling that he knew word for word the talk he was about to have to give this lone equine tens of stories up in a hotel suite that looked like something straight out of Kyiv's finest establishments.

"Friends-I've-You know," He nonchalantly gestured over towards what remained of the window. "I've got friends. I said told them I would be right behind them... God, how long have I been out?" He stared dumbfounded down at his watch and answered his own question.

"Seven hours!?" The Stalker protested. "Seven? Blin..." He turned to look at Homage. "Wait... You-You just left me here?"

"Well-I-Is it fair to say you looked peaceful?" Nikolai shook his head. "This is not the time Homage, be quiet!" He played with the knob atop his radio, searching for Flashpoint's signal. When he arrived at their agreed-upon frequency, nothing.

The Stalker left his radio on and sighed. He looked past Homage, at the exit and further out into the hall. "Where are we?" He asked solemnly.

"Tenpony...Tower?" She replied slowly. "Was that supposed to be a rhetorical question?"

"No, no-" He complained. "Where in Tenpony Tower am I?"

"My private suite."

"Evidently it's not so private anymore." Nikolai joked. "Though, I have given you some new ventilation, yes?"

Homage chuckled awkwardly at his banter, "So... What were you doing before you came through my window?" Nikolai lolled about and rubbed his eyes, sore, like the rest of his body.

"Wrestling with that bird. In the air, you?" The Stalker's attention turned away from Homage. Where was his rifle? It wasn't with him. Had he dropped it? He hadn't. He could have sworn that it was still on-body when he broke through the glass.

"I was-"

"My rifle, where is it?" He interrupted her suddenly, thinking out loud.

"Your rifle?"

Nikolai looked about, then at his feet. Lying near to the bed was his AK 101. Looking, as always, a little worse for wear. The polymer handguard was scratched and burnt in a few places, the barrel was black around the suppressor clamp and the bolt was slightly blued from the constant cycling of thousands of rounds of less than pristine ammunition. The duct tape that held a flashlight pinned close to the handguard was peeled and worn in most places. The only thing that seemed almost brand new was, strangely enough, the scope. That old Soviet hunk of steel and glass could probably have been used as a bludgeon all on its own, and still have retained its zero.

Nikolai picked the rifle up and cradled it in his hands. He removed the safety and pulled the bolt back to the rear to examine the chamber. Empty.

He reached for one of the pockets on his vest and pulled another well worn polymer magazine from within. Empty. He reached for another one, but stopped before it had fully left its pouch. He could feel the plastic tip of the follower where the copper tip of a bullet was supposed to be. How much ammunition had he used?

The Stalker set his pack down on its side and began to rummage and rummage through it. It took Homage dramatically clearing her throat for Nikolai to realize that what he was doing might have been misinterpreted as being just the slightest bit inconsiderate towards the poor mare standing a little ways away, or whatever sap had been in charge of making these sheets and doing the laundry.

"I had several hundred rounds of 5.56 ammunition in my rucksack, the last time I checked it. And now I have-" His hand clutched a heavy peeled carboard box and the wax paper within. "Truly, I was wrong."

"Nikolai can you... Um... Not, reload your magazines on my bed? I need a place to sleep and I would rather not smother myself in gun oil and soot." Nikolai smiled and trailed Homage out of her bedroom.

Floor to ceiling windows and marble floors with sparse bits of carpeting ran the length of the corridor up towards a set of mezzanines in a great room a little ways from the bedroom. The draft was gone now, replaced by the smell of lemons and warm air. Homage trotted on ahead, and Nikolai hobbled behind her, half contemplating using his rifle as a crutch.

"How did you get all this... Space? Are you head honcho or... something? Blin, this is nicer than the buildings on Ministry Row in Canterlot!" Homage eyed him funny.

"No, no! Not at all."

"Then how did you get all of this? Inheritance? I mean-It certainly seems like it belongs to you. I have been stumbling through these halls for the better part of ten minutes, I have yet to see anyone! Come on lady! Spill the beans!"

The little unicorn looked him up and down with a warranted degree of skepticism befitting the strange creature that beat a Balefire Phoenix to death before her eyes.

"Can you keep a secret?" She asked him.

"It depends on the secret. If you have a space ship in the basement-then... No. If you have warehouse with lifetime supply of pickles-then sure! Provided I get exclusive access!" Homage felt as if she had just sneezed too hard. Nikolai had been given a test-and he didn't just fail it, he left the building before it even started.

"So?"

"Maybe some other time."

The Stalker grinned, he could almost smell her hesitation, or maybe that was just his bad breath again. His stomach rumbled.

Homage watched as he stuffed himself full with preserved cake-brick. She smiled at him. "Well if it's any consolation I won't charge you for it." Nikolai looked up from his meal, the light from above illuminated the black rings below his eyes. He rubbed his face and blinked. "The last pony who sat me down for a meal was serving pony- a cannibal."

"Serving... Pony?" Nikolai nodded and pushed the plate away from himself. "Yes- But I suppose that it's rude to talk about that kind of stuff at the table." He looked down at his crumb filled lap, then back up at Homage. "Do you live here alone? Its been quiet. Like, really, really quiet." He motioned down the hallway. Lightning crackled outside.

"Yes, I do. I like it up here."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm an entertainer."

"I... I'm a Stalker. I Look through garbage for cool shit. Usually that cool shit glows and does cool stuff. Magical artifacts."

Nikolai didn't give the unicorn his life story, he really mostly just apologized for the window-though he swore it was pure coincidence and insisted that he would not pay repair costs. Homage didn't care, she was still enamored by the sheer randomness of his arrival. She trotted off, leaving the hungry Stalker to finish the food that she had given him.

"Mpfh, this is perfect. Perfect." He looked up: Gone.

He thought he had heard hoofsteps earlier, evidently he hadn't imagined them. His face had been in the plate the whole time.

"Hey, lady! Homage?" He sat upright and stood up. "Where did you run off to? Hey! Hey! Lady!" He clapped. Nothing.

"She abandoned me." He thought while he nodded to himself affirmatively. "Hide and seek? Or maybe she went off to use the restroom? No, blin. That wouldn't make sense-who spends twenty minutes in the..." Nikolai stopped his train of thought and walked off.

Stairs, more stairs. And a fountain! Nikolai found himself in another portion of the tower. He poked the water fixture with his Geiger counter. Unirradiated, safe as the water from the talisman in his rucksack. He gazed beyond the fountain. A pair of double doors with the words and a sign above them that read: Twilight Sparkle Athenaeum.

"Nyet. Not a chance, whenever her name pops up, bullshit follows." He looked up, at the top of the mezzanine just beyond the fountain was a another set of double doors. A sign above the doors declared:

M.A.S. Emergency Broadcast Station

Authorized Unicorns Only

"Huh, an entertainer?" He started up the mezzanine, contemplating a dozen different little scenarios in his mind.

"Broadcast in Progress." A glowing sign told him.

Broadcast? Broadcasting what? Nikolai had passed through the doors of the broadcast station and come upon a recording studio. He had never actually been in one before-he was a listener of music; Many of his fellow humans, Flashpoint, and, most recently, Aurora, had informed him of his less than pleasant ability to sing terrible renditions of well composed music. In a manner which they sarcastically dubbed to be no better than the telepathic-psychic molestation of a mind reading alicorn.

But this wasn't like any recording studio he had ever seen before. Screens, buttons and dials everywhere. The FM frequency of a channel was listed over one screen. Nikolai spun on his radio and tuned it past his usual channels. Something stopped him, if only for a brief moment. His eyes went wide, he swallowed hard.

Camera feeds, footage. Not from within the building, not even from around the city. From across the entire continent. Hundreds of locations flashed by on a dozen video screens. Cities, old military bases, random spots in the middle of nowhere. Not grainy either, high, high resolution, live time video feed. He saw Salt Cube city, Whiskey Springs, Desolation Wilderness, that one place with the castle, Garden, so many other places that he had passed through. Many more that he hadn't.

This wasn't a broadcasting station at all. It was a surveillance hub.

He noticed sprite-bots through a couple of the screens. He walked over and set his hands on the desk. Was this what Watcher had meant to tell him about?

He returned to his radio knob, it found itself at a station that Nikolai had heard only a few times before.

"Hello Wastelanders! This Is DJ Pon3: Bringing you the truth no matter how hard it hurts..." The voice went on. But it went on in two places, on his radio, and in the studio, right beside him. The Stalker began to connect the dots in his head. The robots, the cameras, the convenient timing. It all made sense.

He set his right hand on his sidearm and turned around, there, standing behind a microphone, not ten meters away from him. Was Homage. But it wasn't her voice. This one sounded older, and male. The little unicorn's eyes locked with The Stalker, her voice trailed off.

Nikolai had found the culprit. He had found Watcher.

The two of them stood across from one another, neither speaking a word for what seemed like half an eternity, until Nikolai broke the quiet.

"The hell I went through to get here." He cursed under his breath. "You've got some explaining to do. I see now, why you were not so forthcoming with the exact details of your profession. I'm not mad, I just want to know, why? Why have you been following me-watching me? Don't lie, don't make me play twenty questions with you."

Homage looked up at Nikolai. She didn't seem scared, she didn't act guilty. She just looked... Confused. Really, really confused.

"Nikolai- Don't..." She stepped away from the microphone and cocked her head.

"You don't what, huh?"

"I don't know what you're talking about! Yes, yes I'm DJ Pon3-But I've never heard of anyone named Watcher."

"Тоді поясніть це! Поясніть камери! Поясніть розмовних роботів-ботів!Then explain this! Explain the cameras! Explain the talking robots!" Nikolai demanded. "The pony in the mechanics shop told me that they could be piloted via a remote source! I come here and I see all of this." His brow drew low, he had to think.

"I have been through hell over the past month. I am so, so far from home. And this robot comes along, with a voice that tells me that someone has been watching me-me and my friends. I walk hundreds of miles, fight-run from horrors beyond my own simple minded comprehension, and when I finally make it here: Contempt and empty threats."

He pointed at the myriad of screens behind himself, accusing her.

"I want money. I want something, anything valuable as compensation for the act of coincidental horseshit that brought me here!" He was fuming now. "God, fate, luck. There must have been a reason. After all that, it could not have been a scam..." His fury melted away into despair. "What if it was a scam? No, no. It can't be!"

And so his despair in the moment, once fury, turned to curiosity. He had done more in last few months of his life, than he had in the decades before it. From the moment he had snuck past the military guards and stepped over the border into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, to the moment when he had stepped through the doors of the broadcast center. There was a reason, maybe it was just one big wild adventure.

"Or maybe it is all just one big test." Nikolai blurted out. "Maybe I am the next Strelok? Maybe I drank too much for my own good today? Perhaps I have had too much cake?" He looked at Homage again and smiled, his hand eased off of his pistol. He walked around towards one of the desks and slumped over a chair.

"Go on!" He encouraged her, "Tell me your side of the story! Spare no details, Homage!" The little unicorn flinched and gave him a strained smile.

"This emergency broadcasting station," She started. "Was built by the Ministry of Arcane Sciences with input from the Ministry of Morale, before the Great War they were involved in more than a few widescale projects which revolved around mass surveillance of Equestrian citizens."

"Big Brother." Nikolai summarized with a wag of his finger. "The only one who has any fun is the хуліган doing the spying." His finger made its way over to Homage.

"A what?" She asked.

"A hoodlum!" Nikolai threw his hands up in the air. "A psychopath! A degenerate tyrant! A control freak-menace to civilization!"

"Well, I'd like to think I'm doing good with it. You've heard DJ Pon3 on the radio before, right? I'm trying to help."

Nikolai shrugged. "I have stumbled across your programing a few times-and folks talk about you like you're some kind of celebrity." He tapped a boot against the floor. "Is that microphone still recording?"

"Nope."

"Good. Your programing sucks." Homage pulled herself back, her ears flattened against her mane.

"Let me clarify: your selection of songs is... Painful to the ears. Good lord, it's like listening to a commercial for toy dolls. You all sound... So, so innocent-Ponies in general. You make threats-even when you are stabbing someone to death-committing atrocities! Your voice, your appearances all throw me off."

Homage laughed at the criticisms. "Well, lucky me you're not the one in charge of this station." She shifted her eyes coyly. "I am." The jaunty notes of Bandit Radio filtered in through the speaker of Nikolai's radio, drifting across the room until it stuck Homage's ears.

"She might be telling the truth, she might not be."

"I really wish I could help you Nikolai..." The DJ admitted. "As sudden and- bizarre and-unexpected as your appearance was, you're not too bad. You're not exactly a paragon of good either and-To be honest, you're not like any pony or-creature that I've ever met or seen or heard of before."

"My friends." His stomach tied itself up into a dozen little knots. How could he have neglected to remember? It was like this, it was always like this. No matter how hard he tried to stick with them, he kept getting separated from them. He was a Loner after all. The worn, sooty patches sewn onto the shoulders of his jacket, those little radiation trefoils, proclaimed that.

"Your friends?" Homages voice rose. "You've got friends? More creatures like you? Out there?" She stood up to all fours and trotted towards Nikolai. The Stalker stood up to meet her.

"Yes-No! A pegasus, a zebra, and a bat pony."

"And you." She added. "You guys must never run out of things to talk about."

Nikolai deadpanned. He was usually the only conversation starter amongst them. Things that he liked to talk about (and there were more than a few things) were usually discussed over and over and over again between him and the trio of equines that went around with him that he would sometimes have to resort to the karaoke which his compatriots thought was the devil's voice incarnate. And then, a crazy, crazy, crazy idea wove itself in Nikolai's mind. An idea which he couldn't help but propose to Homage.

"How would like to pack up the radio act and come travel with me and my friends? I'm a pretty good cook; I can make almost anything look appetizing."

Homages face went a little pale, her eyes went wide. She had been beyond the walls of Tenpony Tower before, she had lived beyond them. There was a reason why she was living here now. This was one of the few bastions of civilization left on the surface. It certainly wasn't perfect but-but she would never leave it again if she could help it. Plus, she was expecting company soon... And Nikolai's appearance had been a freak accident!

"Word has it there was a shootout a few floors down yesterday, three guards were wounded-one is near death. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Nikolai cracked a grin. "No, no I wouldn't."

"They said the shooter disappeared without a trace." Homage quipped. "Gone, without a trace. Investigators found casings leading up to a broken window. They're claiming it was some sort of piece of pre war technology, what do you think it was?”

"Aliens. Ghosts." He surmised, trying to hold back the sarcasm in his voice. "Magic-anything could happen out there in the Wasteland, maybe one of those things found its way in here,oooo....shpoooky." He wiggled his fingers in Homages direction.

"I guess he has Celestia to thank that the Tower PD are as bad at their jobs as they are."

Nikolai arrived at another question: "Do you know any place where I could make a fortune easily?"

And it was here, in this statement, that Homage found a way that she could easily rid herself of the weird thing that had crashed through her window. She asked if she could examine the screens behind Nikolai, he sidestepped and let her trot by. She lit her horn, and a screen flickered and spun past a half dozen more scenes until it came to something, someplace, that Nikolai had never seen before.

The view was coming from within the trunk of an old tree just off of a two land road. A little ways away was a ruined billboard, a little further from that. Homage's horn whirled, and the vast grey, black, and green splotch in the distance came into focus.

It was a city, smaller that Manehatten, bigger than Salt Cube. Ruined, wrecked. Residences, factories, radar arrays. At the center of it all was a cluster of buildings which rose above the rest. Bathed in the green glow of Balefire Radiation. Amidst it all, a single black obelisk rose up from the earth, rising above the clouds.

"Hoofington. I've never been that far south myself.”

"How far is it?"

"If you're walking?" She questioned. "A few weeks if you don't run into any trouble. Though from what I can gather, these days it's closer to a month and a half. It's right up against the border with Zebrica. You're traveling with a zebra, right?" Nikolai rolled his when he heard her comment.

"I don't understand how you people can come up with all of these names for places. Where I come from-it's originality! Most of the time. But I can guarantee that you'll never hear about a place named 'Humansland' or 'Footington' or, 'Hairhatten'!" Homage looked at him incredulously.

"See how weird and-eh... What's the word-Uncanny? Yes! Uncanny! See how uncanny that sounds? Exactly! But I digress, Homage. Hypothetically, if I wanted to go there-to take a complete whirl-around turn from this place and head back south, what rewards would await me. Pray tell, do you have any specifics?"

Homage gave him a funny look of, "What do I look like to you; A Laboratory Technician? A historian?" She was neither. "Prewar technology, magical artifacts." The little unicorn surmised. "Not without trouble, of course. Even I can't see everything. The Core-the center of Hoofington is one of those places. But based off of the stories I've heard from ponies who've tried to venture into it, and I do mean try-there haven’t been a y survivors.”

"I understand what you're meaning to say. But lady, I've seen some shit. I've seen a lot of shit in the last month alone. I don't care, I really don't. I want money. I want a great big pile of it that I can lounge on. I want money that I can use to make more money with."

The Stalker contemplated his next words. What would Willow, Aurora, Flashpoint, what would they think of this new plan? There was nothing for them in Manehatten, nothing in easy or practical reach. But this new place: Hoofington, as dangerous as it sounded, held a promise of real reward.

"Is there any way that I can hurry things along?"

"There's a functioning armored train line about 25 miles southwest of Bucklyn."The tickets are costly, but from what I've heard they get the job done good enough. And they should be able to take you all the way past Fillydelphia and the Canterhorn Mountains. When do you wanna leave?"

"Soon! Please!" The voice in her head pleaded.

"Why, I'll leave as soon as I've have another nap on that awesome looking couch down by the fountain." Homage realized that Nikolai might not be so quick to want to leave for the outside world so soon. The Stalker looked at her, then again at the screen, then back at the doorway.

"Yeah, um... Sure! Sure! Yeah, you can do that!"

Drip-drop-drip-drop.

Rain droplets rolled off of his coat, he was standing outside of a coffee shop. Old Soviet style block apartment buildings ringed either side, a bus rolled away from the curb. The smell of wet dirt and coffee overwhelmed The Stalker's nostrils. It made his stomach rumble: He hadn't had real, fresh, full strength coffee in a long, long time. He stepped off the sidewalk and pushed his way inside. It was busy, about two dozen people sitting at tables, another few waiting in line. No one paid him any attention. He waited in line. He looked over at the wall. There was clock, and a calendar.

A tube tv over in the corner was playing a news broadcast. A dull, soulless looking woman rambled in Ukrainian about the weather against a plain ocean blue background. Nikolai hardly paid it any mind, except for one little thing.

Pripyat.

The word stuck out of the broadcast like a sore thumb. Nikolai turned to the man near the television. "Can you turn that up?" He asked him. The old man laughed.

"Why bother at all with the news? Young man, can you just look outside? The local news could say that it will rain Vodka tomorrow, and no one would care."

"Local?" Nikolai asked him. The Stalker paced back and forth, gesticulating as he went. "What do you mean by that?"

"Are you new to town, a new worker at the Power Station?" Nikolai looked at the old man strangely. No matter how hard he focused he couldn't quite get the old man's face to come into clear view. "Yes, Chernobyl. It powers this whole region. I work there myself, you know, a few decades ago none of this was here..."

"I... Have to go." Nikolai turned to leave.

"Ok," The man replied with a laugh. "Anatoly Dyatlov, welcome to your new life, new comer-" Nikolai shuttered and the world melted away. The people around him faded like ghosts, everything aged, his Geiger counter ticked. A strong wind blew dust into the coffee shop.

A dying memory, that was what that was.

Something rumbled and crashed outside. Something was coming. In a flash of bright electrical light, Nikolai's vision went dark, and then bright again, and his eyes shot open. He felt like he had fallen back into the couch.

"Ah! A bad dream, that was all that was." Nikolai didn't feel hungry. With waning vigor He stumbled down the hall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His radio was beeping, his PDA too. Perhaps it was his friends?

"Homage! Homage!" He called down the hall. No voice met his response, he turned back to look at the fountain. There was something there, a box. He jogged back to it. There, he found a note taped against the side:

"To Stalker,

I'm on errands. Don't go looking for me. I've left you some food, and a map that will take you out of the tower without being spotted it security, it will lead you onto the monorail line out of the city.

P.S,
I wasn't sure how to spell your name, but I wish you the best of luck in making it back to your friends.

-DJ Pon3

Nikolai ripped the letter off of the box. He folded it up, and stuffed into a jacked pocket, carefully seating it amongst half a dozen other trinkets.

**

Drip-drop. Drip-drop.

Rain struck the eyepieces of The Stalker's mask. He stood in the middle of the tracks, staring west. A silent white tear of lighting hit one of the ruined skyscrapers behind him. A short burst of gunfire rang out somewhere below him. He gazed at Tenpony Tower, now only a little ways behind him. He fiddled with his radio, looking for a certain channel.

Kzhk! Kzhk!

"Друзі мої, my friends. I'm still alive! And I'm coming for you."

He swapped channels again and looked back up at Tenpony Tower one last time.

"Thank you." He murmured under his breath. It felt epic, it felt grand, but there was no one there. Nikolai turned and walked off down the tracks.

Chapter 42: Gambler

Chapter 42: Gambler

A crystal clear broadcast filtered through a private frequency.

<"Is this thing recording? Hey... Aurora, may you-can you... help me out? What's that, it is? Ok. Hey Nikolai! We've reacquired most of our heavy weapons. Carrots... What was it you said about them? You remember, don't you? Come and find us.">

[Message repeats]

Neigh Jersey was only marginally less miserable than Manehatten.

Pouring rain, the heavens had opened up at dusk. The sound of heavy footsteps across gravel filled the evening air amidst the flash of a stalk of lightning somewhere off the coast. He looked both ways, then ran across the gravel, splashing grimy water against his pants. He raised his rifle and flagged the open wall of the decaying half built brick warehouse in his path. Another flash of lightning filled the sky, thunder came a second later.

Something bounded out from his peripheral vision.

"Drop that rifle or I'll shoot you dead!"

Nikolai ducked behind a rusted out excavator and a covered pallet of cinder blocks. Too bright out for his night vision device, too dark to make out shifting figures in the shadows of a warehouse thirty meters southeast distant.

They might not have heard him through the muffle of his mask, they might have ignored him. Maybe they didn't care.

Something barked and screeched somewhere in the direction he had come from. Too far from him. It was moving away.

With his eyes and ears open, The Stalker fished out his night vision device and scanned the warehouse and used its focus feature to edge his way across the darkness. A set of glittering slit eyes stared back. Eyes that weren't attached to the body of a mutant. He smiled when he saw the figure look at him and pull off its hood and its cowl to reveal the goofy fanged grin underneath. Nikolai bobbed and weaved out and around old construction equipment.

"Me and my escapades, eh?" Nikolai remarked to the sniffling grey thestral as the two clasped hoof and hand and shook firmly, the pony bounded up onto his hind legs to reach Nikolai's chest height, where The Stalker wouldn't have to bend down to reach him.

Willow felt... Nostalgic, maybe a little surprised? Here his friend was, walking in from a cold storm like he had left for only a few minutes. "You've been missin' for four days! Did your radio get busted in the fall or something?" Nikolai peeled off his gas mask and rolled down his soaking wet coat hood once he was under cover.
"I did not fall from that tower!"
"Then where have you been? Taking the scenic route through the Manehatten Ruins? Don't tell me you went back for the hide of that giant radigator, did you?"

Nikolai could hear the crackle and pop of low flames deeper inside of the building. Willow nudged Nikolai's right knee and whinnied. "C'mon," He raised his voice. "Hey, guys, guess who's back!?"

"I wonder who?" Aurora's voice echoed down the hallway, filled to the brim with light sarcasm and a pair of chuckles.

"Didn't you have a hat at one point?" Nikolai asked the shrewd pony trotting beside him.

"I've still got it, just don't need it." Willow responded quickly. "I stand out enough. I sure like the look and feel of it-but those things draw attention-And I... Really didn't want any, what with the company I've got; Aurora and... Y'know, Flashpoint."

They had made it to their indoor campsite. Flashpoint and a power armor clad Aurora exchanged warm hellos and snarky remarks with Nikolai. He sat down and rolled his rucksack off of his back, then did the same with his vest and his coat. He scanned the ground for loose glass or nails, and pulled off his boots to set them alongside the edge of the fire. Interest dissipated away from him while he peeled off his socks and snatched a fresh pair from his pack. Well... Not fresh per say, but it was certainly dry.

"I'm gonna go back outside and keep watch." Willow whispered to the group. He fluttered his leathery wings and ducked back into the shadows.

"Do you still have the water talisman? Our canteens were getting a little sparse and playing guessing games with rad counter-"

Nikolai groped around in his stuff until he found the little device they had taken from the SPP tower. He fiddled with it, and a near instant later the pot sitting by the fire was full to the brim. The three equines breathed a collective sigh of relief. That was water taken care of again. Unfortunately the guide to spells and the Wasteland Survival Guide sitting at the bottom of Nikolai's meager belongings didn't say anything on the topic of magical food generators. Except for a little segment on "earth pony magic".

They didn't have any unicorns with them-they didn't have any earth ponies with them either. Flashpoint, while he did know a fair share about improvised explosives- he sure didn't know how to make a potato appear out of nothing. That left the old fashioned hole-punching method.

Bang! Crack!

The old fashioned, long range hole punching method. Hunter gathering-hunter scavenging.

A suppressed rifle shot rang off the buildings outside and reverberated into their interior campsite. Willow's rifle. They had all probably heard its report a hundred times by now. He had either shot a marauder creeping up on them, or a mutant that was soon to be in their bellies. The industrial park they had taken shelter in was rife with food on four legs. But Nikolai wanted rest, and he collapsed lopsided against a brick wall in the time it had taken Willow to return that looked like a large groundhog and was almost entirely devoid of balefire mutation.

Aurora shooed away in disgust when she saw that the bat pony's muzzle and fangs were matted dark red with fresh blood.

In Nikolai's absence, Willow had sort of taken the other two ponies under his wing, which led to an awkward situation in which the zebra/bat duo, having grown accustomed to The Stalker's weird pseudo leadership, were left to make decisions as a group. And Aurora, in her inexperience and dread, found herself going along with almost everything they said. She had arrived on the surface a long while before Nikolai came here, but where he seemed to thrive, Aurora found herself invariably looking to two Wastelanders she had barely known for more than a few weeks. She had a goal: She wanted to find her lost friend, she wanted to do good. Willow and Flashpoint were aimless, not to say that they were bad creatures, no-the exact opposite. But they would have ended up as drifters if they hadn't been drawn to Nikolai's bizarreness.

Nikolai had a goal too: He wanted money. He wanted lots of money. He wanted to use that money to make even more money.

Aurora had dared to try meat a few times since she had joined up with them. She liked it, she tolerated it, at least. What she could not tolerate quite so easily was Willow's sanguivorous hunger. He devoured his meals like a wild animal. To the mare raised up in the clouds that still creeped her out. His charm sort of made up for it. Kind of. Nikolai was loud, Flashpoint was polite and quiet when Nikolai wasn't around. Willow had some clever wit in him though...

Aurora shut her thoughts up and tore at a segment of boiled flesh, cursing herself for being so hungry.

**

Something thundered in the distance. The storm had passed.

Out of the dead forest and scattered rural homes lay a thin line of rail which stretched off in either direction. A beep from his PDA and Flashpoint's PipBuck told him they were within a few kilometers of a place called Troton.

Another play on words, The Stalker imagined.

Flashpoint cantered ahead and stopped in the middle of the tracks. His tail twitched, he sniffled.

"Flashpoint, what do you know about trains?" Nikolai pressed him. The zebra knew nothing about trains. It wasn't really on his big list of priorities in life.

"Nothing." He replied honestly, turning to Willow with inquiry written across his scared face. "You?"

"Nothing."

Aurora jumped in ahead of Nikolai, trying to act like the voice of reason. "Are you asking if he's ever seen a train before or are you asking if he knows how one works?"

Nikolai stood idly by with his back to a dead oak tree a little ways off the tracks. He smiled under his mask like he was watching a circus. All of this played out without him saying a word until finally he pushed himself away from the trunk.

"Ah, forget it. Which one of you can figure out if a big fast moving metal object with a lot of living things inside of it has passed through an area recently?" The three equines stopped and looked up at him. "It was my fault, I should have clarified." He began to gesticulate furtively with his hands.

"You see-after the bullshit at Tenpony Tower, I don't really want to pay toll fees or entry fees or god forbid what else, I don't think any of you want to either. So here is what will happen; We will wait for a train to come down the tracks, we will wait behind a tree, and then-we will jump onto the train and climb inside! As long as we stay hidden we should be fine. We will ride the rust-bucket as far south as possible, then, we will jump off once it begins to slow down!"

"What about sentries?" Aurora asked him. "What if we're spotted when we try to board it?"

Nikolai cleared his throat and paced across the tracks. "We'll just have to be sneaky then, yes?"

"And how do you plan on doing that?" The pegasus pressed him. Nikolai paced away from the tracks.

"Wait and see, wait and see. We will hide in the little rut alongside the tracks, below their line of sight. We will wait until night time, when their visibility is poor. Assuming, of course, that they don't have the same night vision capabilities that we do,"

"We'll be able to get onto the train without them ever getting the chance to notice." Flashpoint finished his sentence, his ears drooped a little.

"How are we supposed to know if one will ever show up?" Nikolai took a knee beside one of the rail ties. He pulled one his gloves off and swabbed the track with an index finger, holding it up for the others to examine. He began to exposit.

"You could never do this in Ukraine, not in the wet season at least. Not ever, really. Travel by rail is popular in Europe, where I am from. Too much traffic. But, when I traveled to America, that was not the case. Most over there prefer to go around using automobiles; cars. And so, outside of a few, well traveled lines used for cargo transportation, most rail lines will lie dormant for long periods of time. Dust will accumulate on the tracks without ever being blown away. This track is nearly clean, it has been used recently."

"So what?" Aurora prodded him anxiously.

Nikolai withdrew his PDA and showed them the map, pointing to Manehatten, then to Troton.

"This," He kicked one of the tracks with a boot. "This rail line has been used very recently. Perhaps even as recent as a few hours ago. Whoever went down those tracks will eventually have to come back." The Stalker pounded his right fist into his left palm. "And then, we strike. And hitch a free ride all the way down south to who-knows where, and then,"

"And then what?" The three pressed him collectively.

They weren't going to believe the answer.

**

Thump thump thump

Hours had passed, they had made themselves a little cold camp just inside of the tree line, within view of the rails. The sky grew darker. Nikolai checked his watch: It was dusk. Something was coming down the northern portion of the tracks. He peered through his rifle scope, squinting with clenched teeth. Through the black fog he was able to make out the glowing head lights and smoke stack of the train, it looked old, even from here.

"Stay low and get ready!"

Nikolai and the three equines crawled on their bellies until they were almost up against the tracks. The lights at the head of the train grew brighter, Nikolai tried to focus his eyes past them. Up atop the train he could see protrusions that looked like gun barrels. He wanted to stay below the elevation of those. Nikolai and the others reached up, and, as the train rolled by, they caught ahold of one of the exterior door brackets and, without slowing pace, Nikolai and Aurora pried the door open and pulled themselves inside, Willow and Flashpoint followed a moment later.

"Never boarded a train before," Willow remarked. "I didn't think it'd be that easy."

"It shouldn't be." Nikolai replied. They waited an instant. The Stalker pushed deeper into the car. Nothing, there was nothing there. Crates, metal boxes, pallets of... Stuff. But no living things. They made a little cold camp inside of the cart, using flat-topped crates and their own meager sheets as bedding.

Nikolai and Flashpoint were asleep, again. The Stalker's radio would pang with garbled static or something from that Zone FM station from time to time, each time roused Nikolai from his sleep, and each time he grew just a little more irate. Willow sat at the threshold of the open door, staring out into the inky blackness, dusk had turned to night hours ago. Through his slit pupils and yellow eyes he could see everything. A chirp of echolocation revealed creatures, ruined buildings, tree husks, and more nothingness. He could smell everything within a hundred meters of the tracks. He could hear the voices of ponies in the other compartments and cars of the train, muffled and murky, but not hostile. A belt of ammunition rattled around somewhere in the distance.

Aurora's heavy hoofsteps stopped behind him, his ears twitched.

"What are you thinking about?" Aurora whispered to him. Willow didn't take his eyes off the darkness, his tail twitched: A sign for Aurora to go on and take a seat beside himself. The hexagonal orange lenses of her helmet reflected the glint of Willows eyes.

"Something." He finally replied. "We walked quite a ways from that warehouse, jumped onto a moving train-"

"And?" Aurora waved her hoof, signaling him to continue.

"And Nikolai hasn't told us why yet. This train is headed south. Judging by its size it might be going as far south as Charlottesfilly, past Baltimare and Savanneigh, maybe even out to the edge of the Badlands."

"I've never rode a train before." Aurora watched Willows face contort with amusement. His leathery wings shuffled off his cloak as he moved a little closer to the doors threshold. "There aren't any in those cloud cities? Figures." They both laughed, quietly. It lasted a moment, then Willow's face grew serious.

"It's... Bumpy." She resolved. "But still, think about it... Where are we going? Nikolai got us on this train... Where do you think it leads? More importantly, where does Nikolai think he's taking us?"

"Hoofington." The Stalker stirred, coughing into his fist and picking up his rifle he strolled over to Willow and made a space for himself in between the two ponies, he pulled himself forward with the palms of his hands and slung his feet out into the open.

"Hoofington?" The word struck him like a sack of errant potatoes. "That's about as far south as somepony can get without crossing into Zebrica."

"Da, yes, yes I am. But I am not after just any portion of it." Nikolai answered him. A sliver of moonlight poked out from the clouds, highlighting the three in a pale silver glow while Flashpoint snoozed off behind them. Nikolai looked over the edge of the car and noticed that they were crossing a bridge. He looked up at the triangular steel cross beams which held the bridge together.

"The Core."

"The what?" Aurora mused, ever the skeptic.

"The Core, is... Well-at the core of the city. It's shrouded in this sort of... Green glow, and from what I have heard, it's an absolute deathtrap. But, but! Since it is so hard to get into, and so dangerous-everything in there is ripe for the picking."

"And how exactly do you know all of this?" Willow posed, "The last time-" He laughed morbidly and turned to face Nikolai. "The last two times that you wanted to go someplace abnormally dangerous (Canterlot and Manehatten) We all very, very nearly met our end-And what did we come away with?"

"Stuff! Cool stuff!" Nikolai insisted, jabbing the plasma carbine folded away in his rucksack; thinking of his strange bug-eyed night vision device and that little mysterious shimmering pink crystal locked away in a lead lined container.

Or the information he was about to share with his compatriots.

"DJ-Pon3 told me." Willow's docile slit eyes went wide with apprehension, he sniffed the air, trying to determine if Nikolai was lying based upon his scent: He was not. Nikolai noticed the skepticism and cracked a grin.

"Yes, that DJ. I met her! Yes, DJ-Pon3 is female, don't spill the beans to anyone-eh? Anyhow-"

"Who the hay is DJ-Pon3?" The pegasus' wings moved beneath her cloak.

She had never really been one for the radio, she had never heard any foreign transmissions on the surface during here time here. When she had found that Nikolai was an avid listener of the channel from his homeland, "Zone FM" she hadn't quite known what to think of it. She thought that the music was a sign of poor noise discipline. However, she found it charming to listen to something besides military propaganda. Some of the songs she even liked. And of course, The Stalker had been sure to talk down on Equestrian music on more than one occasion.

"A radio personality, the news... and music. You know," Nikolai offered, waving his explanation away." The lady who gave me all the answers I needed, including some information on Hoofington! And its center! Military installations, research laboratories, spooky stuff."

"I can't help but think that you're underselling it."

Nikolai was honest with them: "Friends, if I'm underselling it then that's only because I don't know too much about it-but! That is soon to change, yes?"

"Hoofington..." Aurora tapped a hoof on the floor. "Thunderhead is nearby."

"Thunderhead?" The Stalker inquired.

"Yes, Thunderhead. It's an Enclave city, there's a skyport there, if I remember correctly. I've never been there before."

"A sky port?"

"It's a giant dockyard for pegasus cloudships and aerial craft. This one is a military installation, but if I recall they're fairly lenient with their policies on trade with surface dwellers, at least compared to the rest of the G.P.E."

"If that is the case, do you want to make a stop?"

Aurora stared blankly though her visor at Nikolai, and suddenly seemed to jolt awake. "What-Yes-I mean, no! No. Thanks- I mean, no. No. Let's keep our distance."

"Why?"

She thought long about a good answer she could give them, the best one she could provide was Nikolai's ungainly appearance. Which made The Stalker chortle with laughter.

Nikolai's legs swung back and forth. He scooted himself back away from the edge and grabbed his rifle. He pried the dust cover off of his AK 101, then extracted the magazine and pulled the charging handle to the rear to eject the round of ammunition still in the chamber. Just like he had done a hundred times before. The dust cover came off easily, and the bolt underneath, which had been shiny and almost brand new when he had acquired it. Now it was more of a tarnished tin color, with bits of rust toned browning around the extractor and gas tube.

The rifle still worked fine, in spite of the thousands of rounds he had fired through it with only the most basic of cleanings from time to time. It still shot true, and was just as accurate as the day he had first tested it. He glanced down the barrel, cleared his throat, and unscrewed the rifle's suppressor from its mounting bracket on the muzzle. After a bit of inspection he set it aside, and began to search for his cleaning kit which he had placed somewhere in his pack.

The hours drifted on. They nibbled on rations, and Nikolai found himself drinking until he was fully jovial and enthusiastic, and all too willing to brag about his mediocre 'fotbol' skills back on earth.

The hours passed by quickly. Nikolai had done his best to the working mechanisms of his rifle, The Stalker was grateful that it was built like a tank. He backed himself into a corner and fell back asleep. When he awoke, only Aurora was awake. Willow was hanging from a tie in the ceiling with his wings curled up around him, and Flashpoint looked half delirious. In the little space of the train car, there wasn't much room to do anything but sit around and wait. Sleeping seemed to pass the hours whenever they ran out of things to talk about. The next day Willow announced to the group that the eastern slopes of The Smokey Mountains were coming into view. Great banks of fog drifted over the range only to peter out upon reaching the valley.

On the second day when Nikolai was busy running through his morning stretches in an attempt to stave off the soreness in his legs he found his PDA beeping with life: They had traveled almost 350 kilometers. About two or so weeks of travel by foot completed in just shy of two days. According to the updated map on his PDA he was at roughly the same latitude as Canterlot. This gave him hope, based on the map data and information Homage had provided him with he could expect to reach the religion east of Salt Cube City by tomorrow, the badlands within the next two days, and Hoofington before the end of the week.

Compared to his normal traveling routine all this downtime was almost boring. He flipped through his journal entries and determined that he had to at least be halfway into his second month here in Equestria, if not more. He was losing track of time, the days were so fast paced that they all seemed to almost blend together. How he managed to stay on a sustainable sleep schedule was something that only his subconscious seemed to know.

He looked in a pocket mirror at his dirt and sweat stained face and determined that he needed a shave, and a haircut. He gave himself the best he could with his knife, not wanting to contaminate the medical shears in his pack or waste the supplies that would be needed to re-sterilize them for their intended use after the fact. The three equines watched in belayed amusement as he ran through the motions of trimming his growing facial hair as far to the skin as possible, and bringing the hair on his head to just about forehead level, he did the same with his ears, and the back of his head. He dumped the shavings off the side of the train car and celebrated with more vodka, cold from its time in the back of the train. He gave Aurora vivid descriptions about some of the things he had seen while on his own, in turn she answered sporadic questions about her life in the Enclave, though she either avoided or redirected many of them.

She asked a few in return, mostly about her lost friend, Vivacity. Of course, the chance of finding her in the vastness of the Equestrian Wasteland was slim but-that didn't matter to Corporal Aurora Borealis. Nikolai also asked her why she went by Aurora, rather than Borealis. She claimed that she just liked her first name better, and that was that.

The Stalker spent most of Day Three pacing back and forth with his artifacts, trying to determine how to use them better and better. He wanted to give the crystalized pink cloud he had found in Canterlot a name, every anomalous Artifact from The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone had a colorful name attached to it which denoted either its use, or its appearance. It only made sense that he give the ones he had found during his time here names as well.

"Cottonburn." He decided. He would call the magical pink crystal that could heal, to his knowledge, almost anything, Cottonburn.

On the third night, Nikolai again found himself again studying The Wasteland Survival Guide and "A Foals First Guide To Sorcery" all the while wondering who else was on the train besides himself and his compatriots.

He set his first pamphlet down and began to toy with his .380 ACP Makarov pistol. The ammunition it used was slightly smaller and less powerful than nine millimeter, and at the same time more uncommon. A short detour through the scorched and blasted ruins of Naval Station Neighfolk on his way to his friends had yielded plenty of useless parabellum cartridges, some still in its original packaging. But he none of the caliber he was searching for. He had a magazine and a half of ammunition remaining for his sidearm, and he promised himself that he would take as much of the lower caliber round as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

His plasma carbine sat folding in a canvas pouch on the left side of his rucksack, unused- but still wanted- With only a tiny quantity of ammunition space allotted to it. It was too impractical for normal gunfights, it seemed to work wonders against tough to kill mutants and ghouls that didn't feel pain, and thus required precise hits with actual firearms to bring down. With plasma weapons though, it only took one or two hits to bring down a medium sized, unarmored, fleshy target. Even with Aurora's help he was still hesitant to try and take it apart. That was probably for the better.

Willow and Aurora were sitting guard again, neither of them said sparsely a word to the other. Aurora's ears had been drooping for a while now, a bit of body language which Nikolai had long since learned meant that a pony was at ease. She looked up into the sky and her ears shot up. She pulled her hood over her head and drooped it low over her visor, backing away from the entrance. Nikolai watched her for a moment as he slowly stood upright and walked on over to the threshold. He peeked out, and up just far enough to be able to see what was must have been bothering her.

He fetched his binoculars from his plate carrier and looked up into the cloud cover.

"Damn." He pulled the binocular lenses away from his eyes. "Oh no, no, nyet. Nope. Oh-ckya! Why now?" He cursed. The shapes high above them looked mortally familiar. Living beings, obviously. Too small and too agile to be griffons or, heaven forbid, dragons. They didn't glow or twinkle like alicorns did: They were pegasi, no doubt about it.

Nikolai had spotted two of them, flying in formation at the edge of the cloud layer about a half kilometer off the trajectory of the train. They weren't directly paralleling the trains course, but they had intersected the tracks several minutes ago. They flew for a little while until they were almost at the edge of Nikolai's field of view, then they turned back and intersected the train's path, this time buzzing a little lower, they must have only been a couple of hundred meters off the ground. And The Stalker could see that they were bulked up in sleek, black armor with side mounted weapon hardpoints and barbed tails. There were only two of them, of course there have been more, waiting above the clouds or perhaps amidst the rubble of one of the adjacent low, boulder speckled hilltops on either side of the tracks.

Nikolai, Willow, and Flashpoint noticeably freaked out. That was of course to be expected. But Aurora-for actually being a member of the Enclave, seemed almost as distressed as they were.

"They're only scouts." She observed. "They don't look like they have any heavy weapons with them- They were probably flying a patrol and spotted us through the clouds."

"Surely by that you mean they spotted the train through the clouds, yes?" Nikolai asked her gravely, she flexed her wings and perked her head up.

"Nikolai I know what you're thinking and no, she isn't ratting us out." Nikolai crossed his arms and shook his head. "Hey-Wait a moment, I never said that. You know that I believe you both whole-heartedly, I just want an explanation. Because I have not seen a single member of The Enclave in over a month. Beyond you, of course. But you're cool. So that does not count." The Stalker gesticulated to the whole of Aurora. He shifted an index finger up, towards the cart's ceiling.

"They are probably not so cool, yes? If they see us, and they see weapons, they will shoot, yes? And I do not want to get into a gunfight aboard a moving train! As badass as that sounds, I am..." He tried to think of a quick excuse.

"Not in the mood! Yes, yes. I am not in the mood, I am sure no one here wants to get shot by a plasma rifle, so..." Nikolai was beginning to gesticulate with his fists instead of his hands, the three little equines sitting around him got the gist of what he was trying to say.

And so they sat and watched, they watched as the little swarm of pegasi far above them disappeared above the clouds for a little while, and returned later with a third pegasus in tow. Nikolai and Aurora watched them with sporadic interest between quiet talk amongst themselves. For a while Nikolai wondered if he might be able to catch onto any stray radio chatter they were letting out amongst themselves, but he didn't try out of sober worry that they might be able to trace it back to him, ending in a repeat of that incident at the airbase where he had just barely managed to escape with his life.

A half hour passed when Willow heard a sudden commotion arise in one of the cars closest to the train's engine. Then he heard the creak of one of the armored machine gun turrets spinning around.

Thump! Thump! Crack! Crack!

One of the turrets fired off a burst, Nikolai watched the barrels recoil backwards. The pegasi stopped for a moment, then two of them spun around and dove towards the turret. The armored heavy machine gun emplacement atop the train barked with more automatic fire. When the pegasi came within about 100 meters a flash of red light lit up the sky and four simultaneous red bolts of magical energy struck the roof of the train car. Willow could hear even more commotion from the forward cars as additional machine gun batteries turned skywards and trained themselves on the two flies, who wheeled back around and strafed the train with more laser fire.

The turret that had initially opened fire exploded into flames after taking six bolts of energy through its ceiling. The armor plating melted away under the heat of sustained fire. Shouting and commotion filled the air.

"Shit, shit shit shit." Aurora complained to herself. "What were they thinking?" Nikolai scanned the sky through his binoculars and frowned.

"They're coming back around." The Stalker turned to Willow and Flashpoint, then to Aurora. "Lay low to the cart, flat on belly! Pile your shit on top of yourself and be quiet, ok? Ok."

Nikolai crept towards the entrance and peered up at the pegasi through the glass of rifle optic. An unguided rocket launched itself from somewhere close to the trains engine and struck one of the diving pegasi, sending them tumbling to the ground in a plume of smoke. More red bolts streaked down from the sky: Nikolai heard more screams, and more silence.

He waited, waited for one of those pegasi up there to try and turn its munitions on him and his compatriots. At the altitude they were strafing the train, he knew that he wouldn't miss with his rifle. But he went unnoticed, and the car he and the others were in chugged along, untouched. An explosion rocked one of the cars behind him. And then, finally, silence. Without the commotion Nikolai was able to fully observe the sounds of the foreign sets of wings, growing further and further away until he couldn't hear them any longer.

In hindsight Nikolai recalled that his rifle wouldn't have done much to stop the armored pegasi anyhow.

"I think they're gone." Aurora informed the others.

"They weren't here for us," Flashpoint coughed a little. "Those turrets-"

"Forget Hoofington." Aurora pleaded. "Let's get off as soon as this thing slows down." Nikolai checked his watch and sighed with disapproval.

"They're gone, I can tell." Willow defended Nikolai. "Give it another day, we've been here for over three already. Look how far we've made it. We'll be in sight of Hoofington soon, then we can get off. How does that sound to you Nikolai?"

The Stalker nodded, and gesticulated down towards the smoking cars ahead of them. His pale face cracked a grin.

"Good idea. Sound idea. We can talk more about it once we're off of this train. From there, we will book it to the nearest settlement, ok?"

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The sound of wheels and axles breaking and sparking against rusted tracks filled the car and roused Nikolai from his slumber. He threw open the door and was greeted with a gust of hot, dry, savannah air. The smell of old metal and dead grass filled his nostrils as he fitted his mask over his head and strapped on his rucksack. Willow was already awake.

"Ain't that Hoofington?" He asked him, placing her hoof over the collection of spires off in the distance. Nikolai frowned.

The Stalker strained his eyes and spotted the glow in the distance, and, after investigating it through his rifle optic, Nikolai spotted a titanic jet black tower which stretched up beyond the cloud layer. He cracked a smile.

"Yes, yes! It is. We must have come upon it last night, pack your things-" He turned to the two sleeping equines in the back of the train car.

"Aurora! Flashpoint, blin-Wake up!" He clapped twice. "We have reached our destination!" With a flex of his left hand he withdrew his PDA and examined the map. He looked down at it, and then up at the ruins slowly coming into view through the haze.

"Breakfast?" Aurora queried groggily. Nikolai shook his head, "We will eat once we are on solid ground again. Pack up your stuff. We'll disembark in five minutes."

Flashpoint stirred and groaned in the darkness, but shot upright when he noticed that Nikolai was staring at him.

"Rough night?" Willow joked sympathetically. Not too rough." The Zebra slumped back and blinked the sleep out of his greenish-yellow eyes.

**

"Hagh! Opf!"

Nikolai grunted as his boots struck the ground on the side of the tracks, he landed with one palm against the ground and nearly lost his balance. Flashpoint landed beside him, Willow and Aurora glided in behind them. Nikolai spun his head around and watched as the final cars of the train flew by down the tracks.

"We didn't forget anything, did we?" Nikolai asked around, they had everything- minus the alcohol and food they had taken with them five days ago.

Nikolai led them southwestwards to a wooded area, about a hundred meters from the tracks. They made a little fire and ate their first hot-albeit meager meal since Neigh Jersey. After a while, Nikolai stepped away from the group and walked until he came to a break in the trees where he could clearly make out the Hoofington skyline. It was equal parts eyesore and beauty. Glowing ruins, that vast black spire, brackish rivers, industrial and military facilities, ringed in brown grasslands that stretched from horizon to horizon. Was it dead, or alive? He couldn't quite tell. He checked his PDA: The city limits were thirteen kilometers south-southwest.

He checked his watch and grinned. This was the last peace and quiet they were going to get before they dove into Hoofington proper. By midday they would probably be knee-deep in trouble. He could hear bursts of gunfire in the distance. A ways off, but still there. Nearly indecipherable, but still there. Kilometers off, but still there. An unearthly howl pierced the calm.

He heard a tree branch crack behind him. His friends were calling. The Stalker closed his eyes, rubbed his temples, and walked back towards the little cooking fire.

"Willow."

"Nikolai." The bat pony announced himself from the peek of a treetop, wearing his wide brimmed oak desperado hat atop his hood.

"Ready to leave?" The Stalker made a circle in the air with an index finger.

"Eyup."

"Where are we going?"

Nikolai stared dryly at the thestral through the opaque eyepieces of his mask and folded his arms. He badly wanted to respond with some sort of snappy joke that would make the cat-eyed grey and green furball up in the tree tumble to the ground in a fit of laughter. He really did. But he didn't. And couldn't for the life of himself figure out why.

Chapter 43: Roadside Picnic

Chapter 43: Roadside Picnic

Inside of the hour Nikolai and his compatriots were out of camp, and were now making their way across the low grasslands outside of Hoofington. After a while the grass thinned out, and they once more began to see signs of civilization. An oil derrick or a radio tower, or a telephone pole here, a little ruined building there. An enormous six lane highway snaked its way across the barren landscape towards the city, he could see more roads off in the distance, to the far west and far east. though it was too hazy to make them out well. From time to time, they would come across skeletons-or even decayed corpses. All potmarked with visible signs of physical altercations-usually gunshot wounds.

Something Nikolai noticed almost right away, typical of the roads leading into big cityscape ruins in this world, was the enormous traffic jams. The others didn't really care. They knew what cars were, they'd all seen vehicles before. But even to Aurora, who came from the closest thing to civilization, was estranged to the idea of civilian owned transportation for recreational purposes. She was a pegasus though, and if everyone in your own little corner of the world can fly and walk on clouds at a whim, then it really wouldn't make sense to have automobiles, or... Anything like them.

The Stalker's errant sing-along to that song that plays in very single zero gravity scene in every single space movie ever, "The Blue Danube" in accented, slightly broken English broke the pitch silence. The others didn't really pay him much attention.

They passed by the cavernous ruins of an old wind turbine: Its formerly white hull turned a dull shade of brownish red, with only pockets of original paint remaining along its non windswept side. The entire top half of the turbine had been ripped off and burned away, and its blades were scattered across the surrounding prairie. The music ended.

Nikolai stood in the middle of the group, Willow and Flashpoint stood behind him. Aurora walked in front, her tail blade brushed the ground with each wide stride forward.

All was quiet for a moment. They had turned onto an overgrown dirt road headed towards a chain link fence barrier that ran the length of their direct front from east to west.

Nikolai snapped his fingers inquisitively. "Would you guys like to hear a joke?"

"Shoot." Willow's voice radiated from behind him.

"Ok, so-It goes like this: A Stalker got lost in the woods. So he started wandering around shouting: "Any body?! Help! Can anyone hear me!?... Help!" Suddenly someone taps him on the shoulder... He turns around and sees this really big, scary creature! The creature says mournfully: Why the hell are you shouting? So The Stalker replies; "Ah... I got lost. Thought someone might hear me."

"Well I've heard you. Do you feel better?"

Aurora snorted with laughter. Infectious laughter that quickly spread to the others until they were all giggling like idiots.

"Oh-hah! That was a good one Nikolai." Flashpoint trotted forwards and cordially bumped up against Nikolai's left leg. The Stalker gently kicked him away and pointed off towards chain link fence in the distance.

"Hey, hey-What's that thing?" Nikolai pointed off at a little buzzing blip in the distance. Willow lowered his brow and his neck.

"A bloat sprite?"

"Let's keep walking."

"Ok..." Aurora enunciated to herself as Nikolai took the lead. "What are you going to do now?"

The Stalker beckoned for her to stay quiet.

At thirty meters the demented sack of buzzing flesh noticed him, and began to hover in his direction. Nikolai reached into the side pouch of his rucksack, withdrew his plasma carbine, took it off of 'safe', and turned the bloat sprite to ash with a single blast. He turned around to look at his friends for a moment, then, back to the glowing remains on the ground. He smiled: That was just what he needed to remedy his boredom. None of the equine trio asked any second questions as he stuffed his carbine back into its pouch. They walked through a broken segment of the fence, Nikolai stopped for a moment to examine a corroded radiation trefoil sign which had been nailed to a wooden post long ago.

The others had already traveled a fair distance beyond the fence line-they looked back at Nikolai in confusion as he ran up behind them, waving his arms.

"Guys! Stop! Stop what you're doing, blin."

Flashpoint took a step forward into a puddle and the rad counter lit up on his PipBuck, Nikolai's Geiger counter lit up too, with that same 'wavy' sound that was indicative of Balefire. Flashpoint pulled his fetlock away from the puddle as a glowing multicolored liquid seeped from the ground beneath the puddle.

"Blyat!" Nikolai announced muffled over the sound of panting in his mask. "I guess we aren't going this way after all!" Aurora's mask slid down over her face and she bounded into the air, hovering about a meter off the ground.

"What was that all about?"

Nikolai waved the wand of his Geiger counter across the ground near his feet, then dug a little hole in the ground with the steel toed tip of his right boot, revealing the tip-top of a rusty barrel.

"We're in the middle of toxic dumping ground; that shit seeping out of the earth is taint!"

Something groaned. In the distance stood a row of dump trucks, the ghouls out there were all the convincing they needed, the four of them backtracked out past the perimeter of the chain link fence and continued on a parallel path until it ended and the dead grassland began again. They stopped for a quick snack underneath an ancient power pylon, then continued west until they found a dirt road which took them to a larger, paved one. Here the grassland gave way to barren ground.

He began to see more buildings, burnt out, charred, flattened. They walked through the remains of a quaint little town. Mutant rats scurried around in the collapsed post office, a rad scorpion walked across main street and paid them no mind. All the while they kept their eyes on those black towers at the center of Hoofington. About thirty minutes later they found the route which led onto the main highway. A blank, dusty expanse of open road which was an all but straight shot into the city. A few moments later they spotted a sign which marked the city limits, marred by the ruins of an old shot up caravan nearby.

Willow hung back with Flashpoint, after a moment of walking in silence he suddenly turned to his friend and asked him: "How far do you reckon we are to that settlement Nikolai keeps going about?"

The Stalker examined his PDA map and spotted the town of Flankfurt on the road towards Hoofington. Only about four kilometers down the road from where they were.

"Hold it-wait- everyone off the road. Now." He shooed them into a ditch and scoped out motley of ponies in the distance. Wagons, wooden and metal alike, some built out of old cars or truck beds. At least a half dozen, and at least three times as many ponies to boot. Nikolai could clearly make out a minimum of a half dozen long guns spread across them, likely more out of sight.

"Are they friendly?" Flashpoint squinted his eyes and tried to focus on the figures three hundred meters away.

"They certainly look like it. Not like raiders, I mean." Aurora informed them.

"Let's go ask them." They all looked at each other, and climbed out of the ditch.

"Cover your face and your tail, Flashpoint." Willow told his friend. "I'm willing to bet that tensions are still pretty sour this close to the old frontlines."

"Too late," Aurora whispered to him. "Don't say a word-let Nikolai do the talking."

"Why?" Flashpoint asked her, eyes full of heavy skepticism. It took his mind a few moments for all the wheels to stop turning. "Ah, that's why."

"Hello! Name is Nikolai!" Nikolai gave the caravan guards a curt wave. The guards didn't notice him at first, but when they did, Aurora, Willow, and Flashpoint could see the usual mish-mash of emotions that followed one of Nikolai's "Introductions" swell up amongst them. Curiosity, worry, suspicion.

"What are you?" Was a fairly common question that arose. He would go up to them, and ask them if he could travel with them. They reluctantly agreed, and Nikolai would usher out his compatriots. All masked and hooded and cloaked. They, all except Nikolai, remained quiet as they walked with the caravan. Nikolai learned that they were headed for someplace called "The Megamart". Which gave him hope: The Stalker was looking for a little scrap of actual civilization to rearm at. He also desperately craved information, and answers- something that seemed to be in short supply at the moment.

He paced up beside one of the guards, a unicorn mare armed with a single shot rifle.

"Hey." He began.

"Hey." The mare droned gruffly. "Do you need something?"

"Yes, my compatriots and I are new to Hoofington, can you give me a quick rundown of the situation here?"

"The situation?" She retorted, sounding a bit dumbfounded at his question, "Is fucked."

Nikolai shook his head. "That isn't good enough. Can you tell me any places where raider gangs or-generally unsavory creatures tend to congregate?" He gesticulated in hand motions that were alien to the guard, but she gave him a good answer:

"Stay away from the old Hoofball Stadium, it's run by a nasty bunch that calls themselves "The Reapers". They're the biggest group of raider's you'd have to worry about." The Stalker kept on listening intently.

"O'course, you've got a bunch of other ones, The Pecos run things further out northeast, you've got Slavers every-which way, and-Ah recokon ah can't speak for you but-The raiders here ain't like the one's you've seen anywhere else- they're caused by this 'sease, y'see. Turns a ponies eyes all yellow and white, make 'em crave blood 'n what not. Nasty stuff."

The Stalker nodded, jotting the information down in his mind for later.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"That's 'bout all, pal. You look 'ike you've been through 'ell an back. You don't need mah know-how. Ask the fellows at the Megamart, they'll help you better. You'll be looking for a group called "The Finders" They run the joint."

They walked in unnerving silence through the throes of raider territory. Off in the distance Nikolai heard explosions and gunfire-but he never saw it. This wasn't Manehatten, here the violence was still there, but it was spread out. Like a proper warzone. They passed through more abandoned military checkpoints, Nikolai spotted a few ponies headed the other direction, away from Hoofington, here and there. The guards, the ponies, driving the carts, and those few riding in them eyed the strangers with warranted suspicion. Nikolai and his three friends kept back, away from any drama that might ensue towards the front of the caravan.

The wagon ground to a halt all of a sudden. There was a commotion towards the front as somepony in heavy leather barding hurried out and shot at the middle of the road. Something exploded, and the group kept on going.

"Mines," The guard informed him. "Raider's 'll stick 'em all over the place just to spite us." The caravan started up again.

"One last thing, watch out for blanks, and-for the love of Celestia... If end up on the strech of road northwest of here that leads up to Manehatten, if you happen to come across a segment with skeletons and bones piled high on either side-don't touch the wreckage." Nikolai nodded. "I wasn't planning on going that way anyhow."

They passed through the remains of old suburbs, flattened and blackened. Blocked roads filled with rubble, collapsed overpasses, and more urban sprawl. Here, up close, Nikolai and the others got their first good look at Hoofington, specifically its Core. The buildings of The Core were unlike anything The Stalker had ever seen before. Black, angular spires which stretched up from the island they sat on into the clouds. Some ended in jagged, broken off husks while others sat toppled over onto one another. The island was ringed in a vast wall and a wide river of green fluids and multicolored contaminants from centuries of neglect. The whole Core glowed with an eerie green light that pulsed and shifted from time to time.

Nikolai walked besides the guards with his rifle at a low ready. The builds around them began to look more brutalist, more industrial. To their east lay more barren ground and dead trees. Up ahead, just beyond an overpass was an enormous square building ringed in a berm of dirt, concrete barriers, ruined vehicles, carts, wagons, and a hundred other things. The Stalker's eyes were drawn to the armored turrets which sat atop these berms. Giant anti aircraft auto cannon barrels like the ones Nikolai had sometimes seen on Ukrainian Army IFV's on the outskirts of The Zone of Alienation. Their barrels swept back in forth, scanning for anything that might try to show the structure beyond the berm the slightest bit of trouble.

A giant neon sign glowed nearby, reading "Megamart" And just below that, in red paint, "Finders Keepers".

They were here.

They came up to a small traffic jam of carts and ponies looking to get into the berm, a half dozen bored looking armed guards stood around the entrance, taking caps from ponies as they stopped momentarily. Nikolai and the others broke away from the caravan they had become a part of and got into the line on their own.

"Entrance fee," A unicorn mare who had the same fur color and pattern as Nikolai's pants told them before they crossed the threshold. "Five caps each. If you don't wanna pay, pick a direction and start walking." It must have taken her a hot minute to notice the tall, bipedal thing standing amongst the three cloaked equines, because when she did she backed away in visible surprise. A break in the monotony of her daily routine.

"I-Uh... Um..." She stuttered warily. "I eh-I'm... Not... Sure I can... let you inside?"

The Stalker raised his left hand again in a show of peace and spoke softly, "Ohohoho! Ah, lady. You not worry, I'm not in the business of causing trouble for anyone. I like money, I understand this is some sort of trading hub." He pointed back and forth at himself and the building beyond the berm with both index fingers. "Is all good, yes? I give you caps. You let me and my comrades in, yes? Ok?"

"Eh-I'm going to need a little more than that." She replied.

"How about a joke?" Nikolai asked her.

"Sure. I could go for a laugh. Price doubles if I don't find it funny though." Nikolai contemplated the offer, he was saving his good jokes for later-he couldn't waste them now. So he made the mare at the gate another offer.

"How about a shot of Vodka?"

"Sure- I'll cut it down to four caps for you." He fished out an old mess tin and a bottle of spirits and poured the camouflage mare a bit. She swallowed it down and grinned at him. Nikolai already had the caps in hand, and passed them over to her.

"Have fun." She chuckled. Nikolai waved to her as he passed by.

"Why do you always have to barter at every gate?" Flashpoint asked casually. Nikolai put his hand on his gut.

"Because I, am frugal! I thought this was well established. I need to save my savings for... Stuff."

"You mean more vodka and pickles?" Willow joked with a bounce of his wings under his cloak. Nikolai gave him a thumbs up and an obscured middle finger to boot.

"Hey-Love of salt is universal-don't deny it, friends." Nikolai told them. Aurora looked up at the open front of the building as they walked inside. A far cry from the clean and orderly grocery stores she had know up in the clouds, and the little marketplaces and shops out in the Wasteland. This place-with its size, its volume-it was something else. At least a dozen or so odd meters to the ceiling, and at least a hundred meters by a hundred meters each side on either end.

At least four times the size of any supermarket Nikolai had ever seen in The Wasteland-this place almost put Walmart to shame. Most of the old shelving and isles had been cleared away to make room for much larger individual shops. Willow halted for a moment, and jabbed Nikolai in the thigh as he pointed up at something.

There, mounted to the ceiling, was a enormous lone automated turret. It was larger than any weapons emplacement Nikolai had ever seen before. It must been the size of a T-72 main battle tanks' turret. With a cannon that Nikolai was fairly certain he could fit his arm into if he had a ladder.

"Gun" Was the name the locals gave to it. Meaning it was probably still operational.

"Wow." Willow grinned up at the piece of machinery as they walked by it. "I'd hate to be in here if that thing ever fired."

Nikolai slung his rifle over his shoulder and rested his hands on his belt. "Ho-Could you imagine the muzzle flash? Blya... Say goodbye to your hearing! And the thing you were shooting at! Good grief, what were they thinking!?" Nikolai stood under it and stared up at the barrel, contemplating something.

"It's still awesome. I wouldn't mind using it." Nikolai rolled back his coat arm and checked his watch while still in motion.

"Well-I can't say I've seen you around here before, anything specific you're looking for?" A grey earth pony stallion in a leather coat laden with a dozen separate mass pouches and a brown cap with a pair of welding goggles which hung around his neck. Nikolai scratched his neck and rolled his shoulders.

"Radiation treatment, plenty of it. Ammunition, maps, and information. I go by Nikolai, nice to meet you."

"Leather Back." They awkwardly shook hand and hoof. The earth pony turned around and looked deeper into the store. "If it's questions you've got then I'd suggest that you and find Bottlecap. She runs the place." The Stalker noticed the hulking armored form of a Steel Ranger a short distance to the right of Leather.

"I overheard the lady at the gate call you folks "The Finders". I eh... I suppose you guys are in the business of looking for cool stuff in the rubble?"

"Pretty much." Leather replied. "Anything useful or valuable we either keep for ourselves..."

"Or bring right back here to try and turn a profit." A mare ahead of them finished his sentence. Lemon yellow fur and a blue mane with a blue vest and a nametag that read; 'Hello, My name is Bottlecap, your Megamart Manager.'

"You're in the business of making money?" Nikolai asked her, sounding very "up front" with his tone of voice.

"Yes. Yes we are." She replied confidently. "I certainly haven't seen you around here before, or anything that looks remotely like you. You new to Hoofington?"

"I am. I need things, I need money. You have both." She laughed. "Aren't you straight to the point? You and your, I'm assuming those are your friends, you all look like you've been to Tartarus and back."

"Something like that." Willow pulled back his shades to reveal his glowing eyes and his slit pupils. Bottlecaps perked up and looked at him in what must have been amusement. "I haven't seen too many thestrals down here, you guys show up on my doorstep even less than pegasi do." Aurora tried hard not to stir her wings under her cloak.

"By the way, is it true that bat ponies drink blood?" Willow started to answer Bottlecaps question but Nikolai very quickly and very wisely cut him off.

"Anyway! I need help putting together a sort of shopping list-provided you overheard my conversation with Leather-"

"I did. Firearms and weapons are that way, medical supplies are that way, and if you're looking for information well-just ask me. For a price, of course. Information is as much of a commodity as bullets or armor. What are you looking for? Locations of valuables, old stashes of equipment, tips for dealing with raiders or ghouls or mutants? Good things to eat? A copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide?"

"No more free replies, a shame." Nikolai thought to himself.

"Do you have any map data of the Core?" The Stalker blurted out. "Spell matrix based map data? Like, the kind you could plug into a PipBuck?" Bottlecap had by now already spotted the metal device strapped to one of Flashpoint's forelegs.

"You've got a Stable Dweller with you?"

Flashpoint cocked his head. "No. I found it... At the top of a mountain." Of course, he didn't specify which mountain.

"I found it." Nikolai corrected jovially. "And then that nice Canterlot ghoul technician fixed it up for you."

Flashpoint pulled back his hood enough for Bottlecap to see the stripes on his nose. She quickly rushed up to him and urged him to pull his hood back up. "Woah, woah. I wouldn't go doing that here. Maybe that's ok further up north but down here ponies are still pretty salty about The Great War. The old frontlines are only a couple of miles from here." Bottlecap took a step away from them and looked at the four all together, then up at Nikolai, then over at Aurora.

"Let me guess, you're probably an alicorn." Aurora huffed quietly and didn't say a word. Her barbed tail curled up under canvas cloak and bulged slightly.

"She's not, I can assure you. Otherwise... Ok, this is a long story but if she was an alicorn we probably would not be having this conversation right now." Bottlecap looked between them all and smiled. "Well, I'm not going to keep you any longer, I've got other customers to attend to. I hope you find what you're looking for and-if you do... Please come back!"

Nikolai stepped out in front of the trio of ponies and began pointing to different vendors and shops.

"Alright, Willow, Flashpoint. You guys sift through the clinic. If you find anything that we could use... Buy it, make an offer on it. Bargain until you have the best price. If you can't, or if you need help. Come get me, ok? Aurora. You are on rations. Get us as much food as possible, at least four or five days worth. I am not picky, really-No Stalker is picky. But can you get things that all of us can eat? No preserved hay, alright?"

"Alright. And what'll you be looking for?"

Nikolai rested his hands on the old magazine pouches on his vest "Bullets, ammunition. Just a bit, and hopefully some information."

Nikolai turned and started towards the firearms vendor. An older stallion wearing a battle saddle with an AR pattern looking carbine on either side greeted him.

"Hey there Stranger, what can I do you for?"

Nikolai pointed at one of the olive green ammo cans on the table behind him. I need five-five six by forty five. Armor piercing rounds, preferably overpressure."

"Well howdy-do. You sound like you know what you're talking about." The stallion floated one of the cans behind himself over to Nikolai. The Stalker pointed at the can, "Would it be alright if I examined it?"

"Sure, go right on ahead." Nikolai pried the top off the can and found a stack of old carboard boxes with red markings inside. He popped one open and took a single cartridge out of it. He rapped an index finger atop its sharp black tip, and palmed it back and forth.

"Steel cored? Tungsten tipped?"

"Yup, loaded with extra powder too. Is the barrel in that Gryphon rifle you've got there ratted for it?" Nikolai unslung his AK, withdrew the magazine, took the safety off, ejected the round in the chamber, and held it out for the unicorn to take a look at.

"Huh, this doesn't look like any rifle I've ever seen before." He spotted the serial number and the manufacturer's logo on the side and frowned at the strange Cyrillic lettering.

"Kalashnikov Concern." Nikolai translated politely, "It's not for sale."

"Interesting." The unicorn murmured. "It looks vaguely like a Zebrican rifle, but-the controls, the trigger, the magazine release, the stock... It looks more like something a griffon would use." Nikolai flexed his hands and removed his mask.

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I am not a griffon." His pale, whiskery, odd looking face was proof enough of that.

"I can tell, dontcha worry sonny. I've been around a fair bit. Those and any other munitions are yours at asking price, but I can't help but be a little curious. What do you need overpressure rounds for?"

"I'm going to the core, and I figured I should treat myself, hey-what's that? That pistol over there?" The unicorn brought it over to him. "It's griffonian, it takes nine millimeter. Its sat here for months and no pony's bothered to ask about it." Nikolai held his hand out and the unicorn passed it to him. It looked like a Swiss P226, only fitted with old, worn wooden grips instead of a polymer one. Nikolai pulled his own sidearm and pointed them both up at the ceiling, inspecting their sights.

"Can I dry fire it?"

"Sure you can. Most customers don't even bother to ask me that." Nikolai thanked the merchant, and, only after removing the magazine and ejecting the chambered round in his Makarov, pulled the trigger on both.

Click! Click!

The one on the griffon pistol felt smother, almost jagged. The one on the old hunk of Soviet steel just felt like a sponge. And its sights were only rudimentary. Nikolai had once heard a story about a police man who had gotten high off of amphetamines' and used an old PM pistol to bludgeon a boar to death.

"Maybe later," He resolved. "Do you have any grenades?"

"Sure, plenty."

Nikolai considered his next few words carefully. "What do you have in the way of shotgun shells? Twelve gauge?"

"You don't look like you've got a shotgun on you."

"I'm asking for my friend over there in the clinic. Do you have any of those, fancy-shmancy magical pulse shells that can take out a robot's electronics?" He glanced over and saw a Steel Ranger staring at him. Gawking, was more like it. "I like you guys, I wasn't talking about you anyway, friend. Don't worry about a thing."

"Friend?" The stallion asked him in a low whisper, leaning in close. "Be careful with who you call friend, word has it those Hoofington Rangers are even pissier than the local Enclave Garrison over at the Skyport. At least their leaders are."

"I'll take that under advisement but, blin-I like making friends. I get along great with almost everyone I meet. The key, you see-is relatability."

"I saw you talking with Bottlecap earlier, sounded like you two had stuff in common."

"Well, I just met her but we both like money. And we both like using money to make more money. The Finders-I take it you are one as well? Honest business? You are all-right as far as I am concerned."

"Don't suppose you'd be up for joining us?"

Nikolai shook his head: "I am a loner, you see. A Stalker-Let me put it like this, I look at something, something, that no one else will touch, and I try to figure out how to make money out of it. I want money, you see. And I have the know-how to make it." The bearded stallion chuckled and nodded.

"Truth be told I never really believed that, 'money doesn't buy happiness' crap either."

"I know, right?" Nikolai replied amicably as he reloaded and holstered his Makarov. "It's insane-how can you be happy if you don't have the means to live a happy, good, fulfilling life? By being a victim and complaining? No! You are your own man, you make a life for yourself. But never shy away from any good opportunities when they come up." He scratched his chin.

"Trust but verify, goes the proverb, right?"

"Exactly. Thanks for the small talk..." The Stalker surmised that the stallion was looking for a name.

"Nikolai. Just Nikolai."

"Nikolai, that'll be four hundred and eighty one caps." Nikolai tapped his knuckle to his lip. "Ah, eh-hold that thought, I need to convene with my compatriots. I will be right back, don't sell any of this stuff, ok?" He briskly walked over to the clinic and spotted the remains of an old blackboard with various remedies to Wasteland ailments advertised on it for assorted amounts of caps. Inside he spotted Willow, hoofing over a dozen caps for a pack of hemoglobin and an IV drip line that he was definitely going to discard as soon as he left this place. Flashpoint exchanged money and odds and ends that he had collected in exchange for four packets of Rad-away. He wondered how things were going for Aurora, he hopped she had found something sweet for him to get at later. The Stalker felt as if he could kill for a piece of freeze dried chocolate.

"Have you guys found everything?"

"We've found plenty in the way of Rad-away and healing potions, but this places' stock is fairly limited. And until the next band of Finders comes in from their scavenging run this is all they have available. Which apparently won't be any time soon given the stuff about Raiders we overhead near the old checkout isles. Did you find the ammo you were searching for?"

"Plenty, but it's on the expensive side."

"And information? That map?"

"I'm certain they've got the know-how to provide me with that. It'd just cost a bit."

"Everything costs a pretty cap here." A stallion wearing bloody surgical rags stepped out from behind a curtain. "We're downright desperate for stuff. Hope goes for about as much as clean water and bullets these days."

Nikolai snapped his fingers and his eyes widened. He had an idea.

"Clean water?" He asked the pony." How much?"

"Well... It really depends-but it's more valuable than most other things. Last I say it was something... Oh, I can't quite remember but it's worth a lot. So much so that oftentimes our scavengers will prioritize it over food and healing supplies. Twenty, thirty, right now it's around forty caps per gallon."

It was there, in those words, that Nikolai determined how he was going to make his money to pay for the things he would need for the expedition into the Core. Water was valuable here, valuable as gold. It was probably worth even more than gold. Because a creature didn't necessarily need gold to keep it functioning. To keep it alive, but water did that. Water was the lifeblood that kept the living things of this world living.

And he had a talisman in his backpack that could create a nigh infinite amount of water out of thin air.

A thin smile spread across his face as he took his friends out of the clinic, towards Aurora, and back out into the open air. "Мої друзі, my friends. I have here, an answer to our debacle! Water is precious here, and I have a device which can make it out of nothing, all we need are some clean containers and an easy way to transport it and we will have all the caps we need in no time at all, truly, this is ingenious, yes?"

"That's a fantastic idea," Willow agreed. "But how do we do it discretely? Wouldn't we draw some eyes if we just-came out from behind the Megamart with a bunch of pails and jugs of water?"

"We are going go and find an office supply store, find a ton of those massive water casks, and a trolley, and we are going to roll that shit all the way back to this place and sell it for a ton of caps. Then we will have all the money we need! And we can progress to the next phase of the plan."

"What's that?"

The trio turned back into the Megamart and very nearly ran straight into Aurora.

"Did you find some food?"

"I did. But it's expensive."

"Money is no object."

"That's a funny thing to say, a few minutes ago you were telling us all to be frugal."

Nikolai waved Aurora's comment off, "That was before I came up with this idea, come! Come! Come!" He ushered them away from the building, gesturing behind himself with a thumb. "Let's go make some caps."

**

"No, it is not dangerous-it's a valid, respectful source of income. How could that be dangerous?"

Another gust of dry wind blew past Nikolai, warm and sickly. To the others it reeked of decay and rust. But all Nikolai could smell was opportunity. He pulled his PDA away from his face and looked up at the partially collapsed department store ahead of them. It's name was lost to time, but The Stalker was almost certain it had what he needed. They crossed the open two lane road across from the store's parking lot and stopped behind the remains of a destroyed fire engine. Nikolai surveyed the store front through his optic, and signaled for his compatriots to move up to the far side of the lot.

"Hei-hei!" A voice arose from near the checkout lane, "Haha!" It sounded like a weird mix of shrieks and giggles coming from the checkout lane.

"Let's be careful." Aurora stopped beside him. "That laughter sounds funny."

"Maybe they just have a positive outlook on life?"

"Nikolai, Aurora means that whoever's in there is probably being disingenuous. They're either laughing for no reason, or they know we're out here and they're tryin' to lure us in. What do you think?"

"Hey, who's there!?"

"Hei-hei-hohohoh!" The voice continued to laugh. Nikolai looked at the glass store front.

Too open.

He looked over the loading dock a little ways off to the left. That might work. He took a quick peek through his night vision device and spotted no one within the direct interior.

"Cover me, if something moves-shoots, whatever... " He made a finger gun, "Ka-put." He tagged Flashpoint on the shoulder and ran to the entrance. The metal garage door had long since fallen into into disrepair, so all Nikolai just strolled inside. He heard the sound of sick laughter, certainly. But he also heard something else; squelching, tearing, chewing.

"Що тут відбувається. What is going on here?"

He sprinted forwards and stopped at what looked like an old salad bar. The noises were coming from behind it, and they were shifting from side to side. He heard hooves scraping on the ground and vaulted over the bar with his rifle raised.

Blood and bodily fluids were everywhere, sitting in between two scraggly looking ponies was the desecrated and discombobulated body of a third, covered in bite and tear marks. The ponies around the corpse looked up at The Stalker with feral, yellowed eyes. The one on the right twitched and laughed again.

"Frien-'ome o 'oin 's?" The other one gargled, her mouth filled with pony flesh. Nikolai's eyes furrowed under his mask, he stood there for a moment until one reached for a rebar spear, then, he fired two shots. And two bodies hit the floor. Aurora flew in through the entrance and nearly threw up beneath her mask.

"The only two foreign life signs on My E.F.S. just disappeared-Sweet Celestia were ere they-"

"-Eating that poor fellow?" The Stalker finished her sentence coolly. "They were. Were, not anymore." He looked past her and clapped. "Hey! Willow! Flashpoint! Come on in!" He waved to the two ponies parked outside with their gun barrels facing into the store. "Let's get to work!"

His pace slowed a bit once his compatriots had traveled deeper into the office supply store, at the edge of earshot. Aurora sighed and looked over at Nikolai.

"That was reckless." She rebuked him.

Her voice turned to defeat. "Nikolai, I don't want to die."

Nikolai looked down at her, and pulled back his mask just enough to smile at her.

"I know, no one wants to die, you do not need to worry about this, yes? Your friend-What was her name? Vivacity, right? I don't know if you'll ever find her but I'm confident that, if she is still alive, you will. Pegasi are rare down here under the clouds, you have told me this. And I have seen the proof with my own eyes. The only few I've seen have been ghouls or Enclave soldiers, I've told you this before. Don't worry about it." He took a knee and pointed over at the delivery segment of the store.

"Why don't you try and find us one of those push-trollies, I will go help Willow and Flashpoint gather up the rest of the stuff." Nikolai turned and began to walk off into the depth of the store, when he suddenly heard Aurora ask warmly:

"Hey...that scene over there didn't entirely kill my appetite, when's lunch?"

"Ohohoh!" Nikolai's laughter boomed over the old appliances and furniture. "Oh, that must be earned, yes!? Come on! Go get that trolley!"

Nikolai followed his compatriots away from the storefront and into a back storage room that was a plethora of eighteen liter plastic water jugs lining freestanding metal shelves. He grabbed the ones off the top shelves while Willow and Flashpoint took the ones down low. All in all they came to understand that they would be able to fit and haul along about six in total, meaning that they would only be able to return with so much. But their supply of water was infinite, at the front of the store Nikolai inspected the containers, filled them all to the brim, and capped them.

"We'll be bogged down by it, it'll take time to skirt around the rubble."

"We'll do this quickly then. It's only a kilometer to the Megamart, then we're home free."

"Shouldn't we have done this a bit closer to the Megamart then?" Nikolai facepalmed at the realization as the cart rolled and bumped and skirted across the corroded asphalt. "Well, I'm not going to dump it all out now, that would be wasteful. We'll suffer through this-and, Flashpoint. We will take your advice the next time we do something like this, ok?"

The walk back home was more chaotic than they had anticipated, between keeping all of the jugs in place and actually moving several hundred kilos of water across some of the most raider infested territory in Hoofington with what amounted to a glorifies shopping cart, they were all on edge, and all exhausted when the turrets of Megamart came back into view. The Stalker paid the entrance fee. They were crossing the parking lot, choked with carts and resting caravans, when all of a sudden Nikolai heard a mare's voice somewhere in the crowd of ponies call out;

"Hey, I know you!"

He turned with his rifle dangling on its sling around his chest. Who could possibly have recognized him? Obviously any number of people, he wasn't the most inconspicuous- and anyone who had met him for any length of time would almost certainly remember his appearance, if not his personality and his demeanor. Nikolai wasn't quite so interested in long conversations of morality, and in all bluntness he didn't expect everyone in the world to stoop to or rise to his level. But he had learned early on in life that relatability was the easiest way to befriend anyone.

An all yellow-bronze unicorn stood a little ways away from him.

"You said you'd return, but you never came back. Don’t know what I expected. I thought you were dead."

It took Nikolai a moment to realize who he was talking to, but once he did it came back to him, clear as day.

"Thrifty. Oh, hey! Thrifty Goldenhoof! What's up? How are you?" The mare trotted back and forth. "Oh, I'm alright. Ditzy's alright as well. Things were pretty hectic in Salt Cube City for a few days after you had left. Salt's goons were patrolling the street, but none of them had the gall to go near The Glow. Eventually he gave up on finding you, more like he just... Stopped caring."

Willow bounded in between The Stalker and the unicorn. "Ditzy? Like-Derpy, Ditzy? The pegasus ghoul who can't speak? The owner and founder of Absolutely Everything?" Nikolai nodded. "Yes, I... Eh-I met her, she was the first ghoul I ever saw, a strange thing-to be sure. But she was plenty friendly and she even gave me that copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide."

"Did I miss something?" Aurora stepped up beside Willow. The bat pony turned and shook his head. "Nope." They looked over at Flashpoint.

"Don't look at me," The zebra protested. "I've never seen that mare before in my life." Nikolai rubbed his temples through the bridge of his gas mask. "Are you here on business, or something?"

"Yep." Thrifty replied curtly. A couple of travelers going the other way recommended that I go to Paradise or Flank instead-but all those slave traders-"

"Creep you out? Disgust you?" Aurora suggested. "Horrify me? That would be a good way to put it."

"Yes. So... I'm here instead. What brings you here?"

"A boat-load, well... Cart-load of clean, unirradiated, purified water. It's worth more than gold here."

"I'll leave you to it then." The Stalker watched as she waved goodbye and disappeared amongst the carts and wagons in the parking lot. They maneuvered their way through the groups of traders and scavengers and bounty hunters and normal ponies who filled the store's interior until they came across Bottlecap again. She hadn't quite expected them to return so quickly, but, now that they were here, she could see what it was they had been doing. And a small smile broke across her face.

"Ten caps a bottles worth, forty five bottles worth in one of those jugs..." Nikolai did the math in his head. "Four hundred and fifty caps per jug. I have six in total... Two thousand, seven hundred caps. Please and thank you."

"Where did you get this all?" She remarked.

"That's a secret. One that I'm not willing to sell." He told her finally. The mare with the name tag shrugged and went into a back room, only to return with more bottlecaps in a few sacks than Nikolai, or any of the others had ever seen before.

"I know you all are going to stick all these right back into the economy as soon as I pass these over to you. And it's not every day I find that somepony's wheeled in enough water to keep a half dozen ponies alive for a week in one sitting. Water talisman's might be a dime a dozen in some places up north, but down here-well... I'll tell you this, you'll be more likely to trip over a zebra invisibility cloak or-a functioning artillery piece, especially with the Rangers hoarding all of them."

"If you're about to ask me if I would be willing to take double payment for requisitioning a few of those-"

"Oh Goddesses no!" Bottlecap laughed grimly. "I might as well tell you to try and swim across the river into The Core!"

"Good, because I was not planning on it. Now," He clasped his hands together. "I eh-I'm going to eh... Hop to it, ok? Ok."

He really wished that there was some way to lump-sum the value of all those caps together into something that was a little easier to carry around because, contrary to what certain people might believe, several thousand little metal chips can add up rather quickly if a person isn't careful with what they're doing.

Though those caps, Nikolai went directly to the firearms section of the store and bought the ammunition, and the handgun that he was searching for. It was a shame (not really) That he had to "decommission" one of the only two firearms he had from earth, but it was, in the most earnest of respects, a hunk of soviet steel with a trigger that felt like the choke of a five decade old chainsaw that took a caliber which was all but nonexistent. The weird griffon made P226 clone was a much better use of his money, he sawed the strange looking over sized trigger guard off and bent the remainder into place until it felt useable. He bought two magazines for it, ten rounds each, and just barely managed to squeeze his new pistol into the holster of his Makarov. He set his old PM pistol and its magazines into an absent and neglected pouch in his rucksack, loaded, with no round in the chamber.

Nikolai methodically inspected all of his rifle magazines, including the ones which he had DIY'd with a combination of hand tools, know-how, references, and 5.56 caliber magazines taken from other rifles. No springs loose, no structural damage. He checked his AK 101 again, field stripping it and checking the various components over and over until he was sure that nothing was broken. Nothing was. He packed the ammunition into his rucksack and the few magazines which were empty. Partway through this The Stalker went over to Flashpoint and asked if he could exchange the zebra's submachine gun for a carbine. Flashpoint agreed, reluctantly. And Nikolai returned a little while later with a rifle that vaguely resembled an ar-15 with a wooden stock. Flashpoint had of course, turned down Nikolai's proposal to bestow upon himself a grenade launcher which was sitting on one of the counters.

Nikolai sold his last remaining missile. He didn't have a launcher for it, those were either too uncommon, or-in this place, too expensive. It was a glorified spear-suicide weapon that was unlikely to work as well as it had in Manehatten. It pained him to do it, but he found a Hoofington Steel Ranger knight who paid him thirty five caps for it, and that was that.

He looked into getting himself some armor to compliment his vest and the miasma of steel and titanium plates held within it, but couldn't find anything that would fit him. Go figure, everything here was meant to fit a pony. He would find another way to upgrade his personal defenses.

Food: Well, Aurora had never been much of a cook. But in her careful observations of the things which Nikolai prepared for them almost every night. Speaking of which it only now just hit her, Nikolai was the only one amongst them who seemed to do any real cooking. She was grateful for that, his culinary skills, alien as they seemed to her, weren't actually the worst thing she had ever seen or tasted. Granted, that was only once she had gotten over her phobia of eating meat. And she was glad she had, in all earnest. His preparation was a grade above the rations she had been issued before she went off in search of her friend. Beans, potatoes, old dried apples and oranges, and other vegetables would make a good supplement to any game that The Stalker, or Willow would manage to shoot.

Information, that was the last thing that Nikolai sought out. It should have come first, but the bedazzlement of things that went boom and food both filled his mind before he went after maps. And maps he found, through PipBuck interface spell lattices he was able to acquire an almost full and mostly up to date map of the immediate region surrounding Hoofington. Ramshackle settlements, hazards, and post apocalyptic landmarks alike. The only spot that remained unfilled on the map was The Core. The only map he had of that was the prewar roadwork layout that he already had on his PDA.

They didn't feel like staying for very long in the Exchange, though Bottlecap assured them that if they continued to drag in mass amounts of valuable material that they would be welcome there. They didn't exactly intend to become Finders, but the paltry gate fee they were charged was offset with ease by the degree by which they could turn a profit here. And turn a profit they could.

Dark crept over the horizon, and before long it was night. The four set out in the darkness towards... something. Megamart security; the few armed guards which patrolled the parking lot and store interior watched them leave as if they were just another group of shoppers.

It was almost midnight, and the glowing skyline of Hoofington's core grew ever closer. Up ahead, Nikolai spotted a little mess of hill, and a bridge. A large, industrial looking bridge that led towards vast scorched concrete walls. Beyond that, further-much further to the southwest stood a titanic dam.

"You know," Nikolai piped up all of a sudden.

"What?" Aurora asked him.

"Forgive me if I'm wrong but-If I recall correctly, the Wasteland Survival Guide said to avoid Hoofington's Core at all costs. Then again... It also said to avoid Canterlot and Splendid Valley at all costs." He laughed at the thought, Flashpoint didn't laugh quite so much.

"I wish we'd have followed its advice!" Flashpoint complained behind them as they went off the main road. Hoofington was close now. So close that they could hear the incorporeal hum of god-knows-what out there beyond the glowing toxic rivers and the walls of the island. They weren't ready to try and make it to the Core, not yet. They still had preparations to make. They were only here to see it up close. And it was grand.

"Ah, you see, then we would not have had such-eh... Enriching life experiences. Besides, this will be different! I promise! I have-eh, blyat. How do you say this? Ah! Yes-yes, a verbal affidavit from one of The Wasteland's most respected figures!"

His voice echoed out into the darkness. There was quiet for a while, as he and the others found a log to sit on, up against a large boulder. Nikolai pulled out his PDA and passed it around to the others so they could see the map for themselves.

"How about dinner? Or, is it breakfast? Goodness, it's so late." You know we've gone about twenty or twenty five kilometers today? My feet aren't sore at all, how about you guys?"

"Yep."

"I met ponies above the clouds that couldn't even fly for a whole mile without getting tired," Aurora threw off her cloak and stretched her wings. "And here we are, hard charging across an entire continent like the world's coming to an end all over again."

Nikolai patted her on the back. "Hey, how about a song?"

The mare under his hand stopped and turned to look up at him. "You're joking."

"I am not. Come on! When was the last time we've listened to some music outside? A week? It's been a week-goodness... I've lost track of time."

"Aurora," Willow proposed. "If you don't get those rations out of your pack in under thirty seconds Flashpoint and I'll vote yes on letting Nikolai sing us a song." The power armor clad mare froze, and then began to scramble through her saddle bags. As Nikolai coughed a bit. And began to warm up his singing voice.

The Stalker dialed up his radio and found the station he was looking for. But they had overstayed their welcome for the night.

A warm wind blew by. Something growled and hissed behind them. Four tight knit glowing eyes. Nikolai rocked his sidearm from its holster and fired a single shot into the blackness. Something hit the ground, a brass casing bounced off a cobblestone. And all was quiet.

Chapter 44: Hazard

Chapter 44: Hazard

"For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisors make victory sure."
Proverbs 11:14

Before magical hellfire rained down across the sunny plains, glistening mountaintops, magical forests, and bustling cities of the world and sounded the death bell for tens, if not hundreds of millions of sentient creatures, the political climate of Equestria was something of a bizarre tinderbox. Lapsing faith in one, perhaps a few particular ponies led to the decentralization of economic and military power.

Perhaps in any other world, in any other timeline this could have, this should have worked out for the better. But it did not. Colorful little equines who more often then not acted on emotion than reason or a reasonable desire for peace and prosperity. In the end it all came down to a few prideful creatures: Zebras, dragons, ponies alike, that pushed things to a breaking point at the wrong place, and at the wrong time. They made paradise into hell. They were given every opportunity to thrive, to live in peace and harmony with one another. But absolute power corrupts absolutely, when that happens good intentions can become warped into something unrecognizable. There is an impossibly fine line between pure, venomous evil, and what is reasonable for a civilization to do to prevent its extinction.

A discovery of a new physical or quantum mechanic can be used as either the means or the justification to kill countless. A new spell or a doctrine can do the same thing, with fewer or greater limitations. None of that mattered so much any more.

Of course this would be ironic to any outsider looking inwards from the outside. But to Nikolai, to all the ponies that lived atop the moldy ruins of long lost generations, it was all very real. It was just life. They didn't necessarily understand it, they didn’t have the time to understand it, but it was life, and it was undeniably real.

**

The first signs that they were approaching the old frontlines came when they spotted a row of unarmored, open topped trucks filled with crates and metal boxes on route to... Somewhere. In less than a half a kilometer the road had gone from mostly stable patchwork asphalt to a crater filled mess. Somewhere off to their far side an old plane sat nose down in the dirt.

"Hey, Nikolai-are those trees?" The Stalker strained his eyes on Aurora's behalf as they shimmied down into a little embankment.

"No, those are artillery pieces."

They skidded into a pile of rusting brass casings, around them sat the smashed remains of three field guns, their gutted barrels stretched skywards. A skeleton littered the ground here or there, clothing decaying on the ground around them, along with armor and rigging that was shredded beyond use. They kept going.

"Why are we headed this way?" Aurora asked him, keeping up pace with Nikolai.

"Well, we're here for a eh... a reason."

"What reason is that?" They started down a small imprint in the terrain that turned to a trench after a hundred meters.

"It's a warzone, an abandoned one. Full of cool stuff. Stuff that we could use that I refuse to pay for.” Nikolai told his compatriots, picking up pace. "The fighting has been over for a long time. But the weapons and all the other cool shit should still be here!”

"And if somepony else got to it before us?" Willow pried. Nikolai stopped, and led them past more skeletons and more craters. All of a sudden the earthworks branched out into separate, cruder side passages. Finally they stepped out of the trenches.

Out ahead of them lay what Nikolai thought the French-German border must have looked at the end of The First World War. Out past rows of rusting barbed wire lay more and more craters, ruined buildings turned to rubble, and bodies. Not bodies, skeletons. Corroding, rotting skeletons. Hundreds, thousands of them lay across the length of scorched land between where they stood and the enemy lines, which must have been less than a kilometer away at their closest. Spread out in sporadic pockets across the landscape were the remains of armored vehicles; tanks, mobile howitzers, armored troop transports. They also saw the ruined hulks of robots and automatons that had met their end centuries earlier. The grey and black forms of Equestrian weapons stuck barrel or buttstock up out of the mud beside the glimmering silhouettes of enchanted zebra weaponry.

Far, far south, towards the Zebrican lines, were craters. Vast gashes in the earth that burned and glowed with a sickly green. The telltale scaring of Balefire bombs. About a half kilometer away was what Nikolai thought was a downed plane. It was only after some quick investigation through his rifle scope that he realized that it was really the body of a long dead dragon.

"Now this, this is something." He turned to Aurora and saw her mouth hanging open.

"This is it." She whispered under her breath, her wings flaring a bit in distress. "This is where it ended. Somewhere beyond those hills is Zebrica."

The Stalker turned to Flashpoint, who was eyeing the scene in front of himself, eyed it with morbid curiosity. Nikolai took a knee and pointed off at the distant craters. "I don't suppose you guys would be up for visiting another country today, eh? I hope you brought your passports."

"Something doesn't feel right." Willow bounded up into the air and hovered a few meters off the ground. "It's too quiet."

"Is it the good kind of quiet or the bad kind of quiet?" Nikolai reached up and poked at one of the thestral's hooves.

"I don't know, it's just quiet." Nikolai turned and looked back out across the battlefield. He had seen conflict before, yes. Plenty of it. But he wasn't a soldier, he had never actually been to war. Of course The Exclusion Zone and The Wasteland were fair comparisons but-he had never come across a battle with thousands or tens of thousands of combatants on either side in any one place. Even if they were only colorful, dogmatic, magical equines.

"Time is ticking, and god only knows what kind of stuff prowls these place at night time. Start hunting, we will work our way up through this trench system-and then head out across no mans land-"

"Don't you mean No Pony's Land?"

He thought Aurora was only joking with him, she wasn't. But The Stalker didn't say anything about it, they wound their way up past a boxy tracked thing that looked like a cold war era anti aircraft battery- only... Upon closer inspection, they realized that the gun barrels weren't barrels at all, but rather emitters with large, razor sharp tips on their ends. Aurora deduced that they were some kind of beam weapon, long neglected, and past unusable.

Nikolai kept having to remind himself that that this, as much as it looked like something a fellow might see on the news or on some war documentary, this wasn't the remains of a human conflict. There were things here, weapons, devices, which defied normal understanding. He found bolt action rifles beside automated magical turrets, and advanced optical targeting systems and smashed computer displays besides discarded pens and quills.

"Anything in particular we should be searching for?" Willow floated back down to the ground.

"Exotic weapons. Explosives. Remember those fellows back at the Megamart? How they were talking up the Core? I'm not entirely convinced what we have on us will be enough to keep us alive in there. Here, look at this." He patted the frontal hull plate of a medium tank in a hull-down position, with only its turret visible from the surface, partly buried in the mud.

"What happens if we run into something like this?" His next set of words flowed naturally.

"We run away!" He surmised loudly. "We run away, because that is how you stay alive. I am not an infantryman like... These unfortunate fellows around us. I, am a Stalker! And a businessman! We stack caps, not bodies, yes? Work smarter, not harder." He stepped away from the tank. Aurora ran a hoof along the side, examining the Equestrian flag painted against it.

"Do you think it still works?"

"Doubtful." Flashpoint replied, but Nikolai waved the comment away. He was already busy crawling up onto the turret ring, using the main gun as support while he shimmied up towards the commanders hatch. With a jolt from his crowbar the hatch came unstuck and he threw it open and shined a light down into it.

"Hey, Flashpoint. Hold this fine gentleman for me, will you?" Nikolai reached down into the hull and pulled the skeleton of the tank commander out of it's resting spot.

"Anything?" Nikolai made his way down into the cramped, interior and came up a few seconds later.

"I just remembered that I don't know shit about tanks, it's a shame-but... I doubt that anyone could get this thing running again. Oh well, it was worth a try. Let's keep on going."

Nikolai looked out across the frontlines as they trekked westwards. He was thinking... Contemplating something. Nothing philosophical; his eyes studied the carnage for anything useful. Granted there was plenty of useful stuff to be found out there. But he was searching for something specific. The problem was that he had no idea what that specific thing was.

A ways out, perhaps just a hundred meters from the trenches, on the side of a cratered road near a pair of two story bombed out brick buildings sat a collection of bodies. But they weren't just any kind of body. They bore uniforms and armor that Nikolai had never seen before. They were clustered behind the sleek remains of what must have been an infantry fighting vehicle.

"What is it?" Willow asked him.

"Do you hear anything?" The Stalker crouched behind a splintered oak tree.

"No. Nothing."

"Do you smell anything off? Sense anything?"

"Nope."

"I make break for those buildings over there. I want what is on those bodies. You guys cover for me, yes?"

"Um..." Aurora stared blankly at her E.F.S. and began giving out orders to Flashpoint, who galloped a short ways down the trench and stopped near an old light machine gun nest they had passed a little while ago. Nikolai looked both ways, then ahead, then up at the sky, and finally, back at his destination. He exhaled heavily though the filter of his mask, and took off in a sprint.

Nikolai's rifle rocked from side to side in his grasp. He stepped past a lump in the road and something began to:

Beep. Beep. Beep!

Bang!

A proximity mine detonated behind The Stalker. Dirt, shrapnel, and a pressure wave jetted up into the air behind him. He kept running, another mine beeped and detonated off to his right, but he was already too far out for it to end in any damage. He bounded and landed off the road near the first bombed out brick building, a few meters off from the wreck.

"Hey, Nikolai!?" Aurora called out, her voice full of grateful surprise. "Are you wounded?" Her voice lost meaning as a burst of red beams singed The Stalker's coat, and an olive green insectoid drone hovered out from the second ruin, weapons dangling from limbs along its underside just ready to try and fry The Stalker. Nikolai raised his rifle to fire on it but-just then, it lost interest. It's targeting diode stared right at him, and ignored him.

"It doesn't know what I am! It doesn't see me as a hostile!" His mind cried success. He raised his rifle and fired at the drones unarmored, exposed underbelly. It crumbled to the ground in a smoldering heap.

"Nikolai?" Aurora's voice finally cut through the commotion. "Are you ok?"

The Stalker froze in mid step and cocked his head towards Aurora. "What kind of debil makes landmines that tell you that you're whenever you get close to them? It's a nice curtesy but-really... it makes for a poor weapon, don't you think? It defeats the whole purpose of a landmine."

He stepped over the drone's carcass and knelt down besides the discarded equipment and skeletons bearing his reward. He fumbled with his tools and quickly got to work unfastening the straps of a set of combat armor. He held it up by its shoulder pieces. It was fairly hefty for its size, he banged on it with a clenched fist, it felt solid enough. The skeleton it belonged to bore a helmet identical to the one Flashpoint wore. Was it aramid? Kevlar? Metal? Some kind of enchanted plastic? He couldn't quite tell.

A body a little ways away from the one he was ransacking had clearly met a less unfortunate sort of fate, with several bullet holes stitched across it's skeletal frame and a big glossy dent in the armor near where a heart once was. Nikolai knew that last bit because he had, unfortunately grown fairly familiar with what the innards of a pony looked like over the past few weeks. He dug his hand into the armor, feeling only slightly disrespectful and jokingly hoping that the soul of the poor sap who had met his or her end here didn't mind. He examined the name plate on the side of the armor but the paint was too flaked to make out any of the lettering. He wiped it away, and looked back at his compatriots who were all now clustered out along a twenty meter length of trench, waiting for Nikolai to finish whatever it was he was doing. He finished strapping the bits of old armor to the back of his rucksack and waved them over. Willow grabbed Flashpoint and glided him over the mined road.

"What now?" They skidded in behind the wreck of the armored personnel carrier.

"You know those fancy-schmancy zebra rifles? I want one of them." Nikolai pointed off to their left, where they had come from, then traced the distant glow of the balefire craters with a finger. "They stand out besides everything else! They're just sitting there. Waiting to be taken! It's a goldmine that's just sitting out in a field!"

"So what... You're just going to run out there and get them?" Flashpoint asked incredulously.

While Nikolai conveyed his plan, Aurora soared up and perched herself atop one of the highest points on the bombed out building, near a smashed-in window sill facing south.

Nikolai turned to Willow, "Unless you want to fly out there and grab it for me, then... Yes." The bat pony's ears perked up when he heard his name, and he nodded curtly.

"Sure, just eh... Tell me which one you want me to snatch." The Stalker rubbed his face through his mask and rested his rifle against the side of old armored vehicle. He peered through rifle optic, set it on something at the edge of its ranging chevron, and held it up to Willow's right eye.

"That one, right there." He pointed to a conspicuous looking one in between two shredded trees about two hundred meters away.

"Can you get to it?"

"Well provided nothing shoots me out of the sky, sure!" He remarked lightly. The thestral removed his cloak and darted off into the shadows. About ten seconds later Willow appeared back in Nikolai's field of view, flying low to the ground. He stopped and skidded to a halt near the zebra rifle, then turned and waved to the others, pointing to his find. The Stalker waved a thumbs-up above his head and motioned for him to dig it out of the ground and bring it back.

Bang! Pop!

Something burst and crackled in the distance, and all of a sudden Willow dropped to the ground.

"Oh-crap! Crap! Blayt!" Nikolai cursed and examined his friend through his rifle optic. He looked unharmed. So what happened? He watched for a few more moments. Willow was alive, but he sure looked concerned about something. He didn't have a radio and, well... They couldn't risk trying to call out to him from almost a quarter kilometer away. This all concluded with the realization that Nikolai would have to go there and bring him back on his own.

"Aurora?"

"Yeah?"

"Stay here with Flashpoint." He took a swig of vodka, then stuffed the bottle away and unstrapped and unslung his rucksack, setting it to rest up against a freestanding chimney inside of the second brick building. He fumbled with the contents of his pack, and retrieved The Cottonburn Artifact's lead lined container and affixed it to his thick leather belt.

"In case things go sideways, I have a backup plan... for my backup plan."

He gave the magazine of his rifle a firm tug, set his eyes on the grey-green-brown thing that constituted his friend, and stepped out from behind the chimney, advancing down the dirt road. At around halfway the road devolved into a mess of crater-ponds filled with fetid water. A ghoul squealed and reeled in one of them, Nikolai put a bullet through its head and kept on going. His pace quickened: He didn't want to exhaust himself if he had to turn and run back to the others with his compatriot over his shoulder.

"Hey, Willow? Willow!" He scrambled around a crater and squat-walked over his his friend. "Are you ok?" The bat pony looked up and him and pulled him to the ground.

"Shh..." He jabbed a hoof over at a horizontal crater a few meters away. There, at the threshold of the hold was what Nikolai could only describe as a miniature tank. Topped with...

Fwoosh!

-A flamethrower.

K-thunk!

And a grenade launcher.

Nikolai grabbed Willow under his forelegs and began to turn to run. When he suddenly realized that he had almost forgotten the Zebra rifle. There is lay, caked in a mud cask.

"Blin, does it still function? It's in rough shape-ah Babuska, help me!"

He watched as the tracked abomination's launcher whirled and sent an explosive round high over The Stalker's head. Willow pulled his sawn off shotgun from his chest bandolier and fired a spell matrix disruption shell without taking the time to aim. The shell went low and fizzled out in the dirt.

The tracked machine kept on getting closer. Nikolai brought up his AK 101 in one arm and fired two shots until his rifle jammed. He didn't have time to clear it, so he dropped Willow and dove for the zebra rifle. The thought of it not working didn't cross his mind. He pointed the barrel at the little rover and pulled what he assumed was the trigger. An azure muzzle flash left the barrel, and an enchanted slug melted struck the flamethrower assembly. The bot rumbled and came to a halt.

The two looked at one another, then at the bot.

"Let's split before those grenades start cookin' off."

"Da, yes, agreed!"

Back at the bombed out buildings Flashpoint and Aurora watched all of this unfold at a distance. They waved their friends on as the two trudged back to the ruins.

"Did you get what went out there for?" Flashpoint pressed his friend, who replied with a dazed blink and a jab of a wing.

"Take a look, at what Nikolai's got on him."

He held his AK in one hand and the zebra gun in the other. Aurora marveled at it with what must have been stars in her eyes. They all clustered around The Stalker as he set his rifle down beside his rucksack and began to fondle over the strange looking rifle he had just pulled out of the dirt. It looked like a sort of weirdly elongated AK, almost like a Dragunov marksman rifle-but with a shorter gas system and a strange stock and grip. Everything-except for maybe the trigger, the scope, and the barrel were all covered in black and white stripes. Nikolai peered through the glass of the optic and found a giant crack running right down the middle-and a fuzzy field of view. All of the nitrogen gas inside of the scope had leaked out long ago, making it all but useless. It made sense that two hundred years in the ruins of No Man's Land wouldn't be too kind to any firearm. Much less the work of art Nikolai was now holding in his hands.

"Does it still work?" Aurora pried. Nikolai sat back against his rucksack and stuffed Cottonburn back into it. "Oh, is it operational, you ask?" He wheezed. "Does it function-Blya it melted a hole in the side of a robot! This thing! And it did it quietly."

"Amazing." She whispered, drawing closer. Nikolai flipped the the rifle around in his hands, showing it off, feeling a little proud of himself. He felt the same way he did all those years ago when he had first picked up a shotgun, when he had found his AK 101 back on earth, when he had found his plasma carbine in Canterlot. The Stalker glanced down the iron sights, which glowed ever so slightly. He scrapped some of the muck off of the action and trigger mechanism, then fumbled with the center of the gun until his hand fell upon a paddle which turned out to be the magazine release. With a firm tug, it came loose and was able to examine the contents inside. Normal looking ammunition. Copper jacketed Five-five six by forty five. He pulled back the rifle's unmistakably familiar action and looked into the breach.

"My god, look at this! It's almost pristine after all this time."

The interior of the barrel and the bolt were laden with shards of glowing crystals and alien-esque runes. He stuffed the magazine back into the gun and began to look around for something that he could shape into a sling. He ended up taking one off of an old rifle laying up against one of the skeletons. He looped one side around the hand-hoof guard thing, and the other around what must have been the stock, finishing it off with two very stubborn looking knots. He scrapped as much mud and grime away from the action as he could manage with the blunt side of his knife and slung it over his shoulder alongside his rucksack. His friends watched the whole debacle unfold as he heaved and pulled and nearly lost his balance in trying to fit all that weight on his back. His muscles and shoulders and spine didn't seem to mind after all he had been through.

"I wish we could take more of this stuff, but eh.." There was a pause in his voice.

"I am not being superfluous!" The Stalker insisted, "I'm being practical. I can carry all of this stuff with me-so I will. Once we get back to Megamart I'll determine what to do with what, ok? Ok."

"Are you sure?" Flashpoint asked him. "I haven't seen this much firepower since that armory outside of Whiskey Springs."

"Grab a bandolier off of one of the dead bodies then." Nikolai insisted, "And as many magazines as you can carry."

They began to backtrack towards the old Equestrian lines by taking the dirt road that they were already on back over the hills and into Hoofington. Now partway through they found an old collapsed bunk tent. Burned and scorched by a magical missile strike and looted long before the group ever arrived there.

Just beyond some telephone poles a little further away from the collapsed tents stood an overturned armored supply truck. Nikolai shined his weapon light underneath, half expecting something to try and jump out at him, he saw nothing. He moved to the next truck, which had once been filled with crates of rations, now long since expired or looted. He found a few depleted spark packs... And a large lockbox which looked liked it had seen other opportunistic passerby's. Nikolai climbed up into the truck bed and looked at it for a few moments, then fished out his crowbar and heaved the top off.

"Well, what is it?" The others pried. Nikolai dug through the interior and pulled a dust collection of sealed letters from within.

"It's mail."

"What kind of mail is it?" The Stalker figured that whoever these letters were addressed to had long since passed-so he picked up the first one he could find, ripped open the top, unfolded the little paper within, one topped with a stamp of a white winged unicorn and a few rolling hills, and began to read it to himself. There was a listed address, and what must have been a zip code, and then it began:

//

My Dear Sweet Rock,

Oh, it's been so long since our last correspondence! We all miss you back at home, the pumpkin vines in the backyard are coming in great! And the local jam shop just isn't quite the same without you. Victory and I finally gave into the demands from the local Coltscout group to take them spelunking-we're leaving for the old mines tomorrow. Anyhow, we all hope you're ~~staying safe~~ giving those zebra's hell! And we really hope that you'll be able to go on leave soon!

P.S, I finished paying off the house and I hope you like those pictures I took for you!

Love, Honey Crisp

//

There was a photo attached to it. A green-yellow earth pony mare in a hard hat with a little lantern by her side. Nikolai chuckled, and rubbed his forehead through his mask.

"Goodness gracious." He felt around the bottom of the and pulled out another photo of something he really didn't want to see.

"Eugh! Ah! What the fuck man? That's nasty!"

He tossed 'less than modest' photo back into the pile of letter and looked back at the letter he held in his hand. He felt a bit conflicted. There must have been dozens, hundreds of other bits of war mail just like this here. He didn't want to read through all of them, but he didn't just want to leave this little bit of history where it was. He couldn't take it all, that would be pointless. So he took the letter and he took the photo that was in his hands and he stuffed it into a coat pocket. He sealed the box and buried it in the little rut beneath the truck he had found it atop. The little bit of the past he had come across would remain preserved and lost forever.

"Nikolai, come check this out!"

The Stalker moved away from the truck and followed the sound of Aurora's voice. He paced into a raised command structure and found a great big pile of surplus clothing. No armor, but-amidst it was several sets of large military saddle bags. Forest green and nearly brand new. They were more space-efficient than they ones they currently wore, and they were much larger. Not too large, just right. They unbuckled and undid their old packs and donned the new ones almost as quickly as they had come across them. Aurora took the mainstay of their rations, Flashpoint and Willow dealt with random scrap, medical supplies, and explosives. Nikolai held onto anything unique, and most of the group's ammunition. He explained it like this: There were no unicorns amongst them, if push came to shove-which it always did-he could move and manipulate his weapons faster and make more accurate shots than anything that stood on four legs and didn't have opposable thumbs ever could. It was almost like cheating. If winning the biological lottery could be considered cheating in another world.

As for their small fortune, they divided their caps up amongst each other for the sake of convenience. They had no easy way of actually hanging onto thousands of little tiny chips of metal- and in all honesty The Stalker wished their was some safe place they could stash it all. But they were always on the move, so that wasn't an option. They carried their entire livelihood on their backs.

They took a short break about a half a kilometer from the trench lines to eat a small snack before going north again, away from the ancient battlefield. Curtesy of Nikolai's PDA map they had already agreed on the route they would take back into to the Megamart. It was through an old military district that would take them up and onto a raised highway, then back down through some ruins, and-finally west-northwest to the edge of raider territory where the marketplace stood.

"Do any of you fellows know how to swim?" The Stalker looked about.

"Nope." Flashpoint shook his head. "I never had a need for it."

"There aren't many swimming pools up in the clouds." Aurora curled her wings beneath her cloak. She kept up pace with Nikolai as they neared a turn off on flat ground that would bring them into a bit of wrecked suburban sprawl.

"But I suppose I could if I tried." Nikolai fidgeted with his AK 101's charging handle and kicked up dirt near Willow.

"Well?"

"Well what? I asked you a question-do you know how to swim?" Willow laughed. "Yep. I learned a long time ago when I was still with my den. Underground aquifers and what not. But it's been about a decade."

Nikolai thought long and hard about his next question. "Cows."

"Excuse me?" Aurora must have looked surprised when that word came out of Nikolai's mouth.

"Ok, you have all seen brahmin, yes? Well a cow..." He was gesticulating in the air now, formulating the rough shape of a bovine with his hands and fingers. The others watched with amusement.

"A cow is a brahmin that hasn't been given the ugly duckling treatment by radiation! It has fur! And one head! And blayt, it tastes like heaven if you prepare it right."

"Nikolai we all know what a cow is. I've only ever seen then in picture books,"

"Same here." The zebra and the bat pony repeated in unison behind them. Aurora pulled her visor away and looked at The Stalker with eyes that read: "We need to talk." But in a funny sort of way.

"Nikolai, Stalker." She started with a heavy tone of sarcasm, rolling her head back and forth as she went. "Of all the things that we could be talking about right now. All of the things, any number of them. The Hoofington Core, Enclave history, The Great War, those sentient trees that you claimed you saw in The Everfree Forest. You buffoon! Please, I beg of you... Ask me about anything but cows and brahmin! Or any other livestock for that matter." She was panting now, the poor pegasus was sympathetic, yes. But ranting was not her strong suit.

"How about a joke?" Nikolai offered. She frowned and retreated back under her visor and mask. "I'm all dad joked out for today."

"Impossible!" Nikolai pointed up at the clouds, mimicking Plato. "How about a counter-rant?"

"Shoot."

"A picnic."

"What?" They all uttered in surprise.

"A picnic, the remains of one. That was what this place is. Suppose you are an ant. An ordinary, normal ant. Not the mutated variety. Say you are this ant, and you watch as a group of fellows pull up to your little patch of grass in this metal machine, they do their thing, eat their stuff, maybe they change some engine parts-and then... A big fire comes out of nowhere, and torches them. You emerge from your little hole in the ground or- maybe you come from the depths of the forest. You look over the blackened ruins. You see apple cores, bread crumbs, bits of aluminum, kitchen knives. Of course, you don't know what these things are. How could you? You are certain, certain that these things are valuable, that they must be important. But they are only the leftovers of what once was. A boneyard, a graveyard, if you will. Only, if you are lucky-or... Perhaps unlucky, you will find a ghost or an apparition to tell you about the time before this fire. In a sense, this world, this Wasteland... Is like the remains of a picnic. And we are the ants left to pick through the rubble and figure out how to make something of it."

Aurora stopped again. She turned and looked up at The Stalker.

"That's...deep and...thought provoking."

"No, no," Willow burbled suddenly. "She's a pegasus. They all live above the clouds! She wouldn't be an ant, she'd be a wasp! Because of that barbed tail!"

Nikolai turned and looked back at the thestral through the lenses of his mask. "Willow, if she's a wasp then you're a fluffy mosquito. And so we are right back where we began, only now... We are talking about parasites instead of useful creatures. It's funny, is it not? See. I knew how to make you laugh, even if you did not want it."

**

Raiders. They were everywhere. They didn't know that for sure of course but-there were few well traveled routes on this side of "The Hoof", that being-well traveled by ponies and creatures who still retained some thing resembling civility. They looked like little ants from far away; little silhouettes which moved and congregated erratically and occasionally pounced upon one another. The sound of gunfire in the distance was a non-stop constant.

All at once Nikolai noticed that something was wrong. It stopped, the gunfire stopped. And in the distance he and the others heard a single, earsplitting growl. That's odd, normally growls aren't earsplittingly painful to hear. Howls can be, screams and screeches-depending on the creature can be incredibly painful, and even dangerous to one's eardrum-but this was a proper growl, and it made the hair on the back of their necks stand up. It wasn't a growl like you might hear out of any other monster in the Wasteland-or The Exclusion Zone or... Any old horror film. It was raspy, hollow. It sounded like a mountain lion that was trying to sound intimating while choking on a beaver. It was unpleasant, jarring-and... Really a bit disgusting.

Willow was the first to snap out of it, he kicked Nikolai in the shin and almost made The Stalker tumble over. He held his hoof up to his maw and pointed at something in the middle of the road.

A stone statue of a unicorn with it's muzzle pointed right up into the clouds, with a face that was contorting into something resembling fear.

"Huh." Nikolai whispered to the others. "Now why is there a statue in the middle of the road? Guys, what do you think?"

"It's just a statue." Aurora said plainly. "What's so scary about? It's not like it's going to come to life and jump at us." Nikolai stared at the statue, biting his dry lower lip. "There is a statue in the middle of the road. Out here, without any graffiti. Without any weathering. With an appearance like that? I don't buy it and you all should not either."

A cloud of dust rolled across the road and Willow spotted a cluster of ponies about a hundred meters away, moving across the road. They were scraggly, worn and looked about ready to snap. One of the ponies, one armed with a pump action shotgun. Suddenly stopped and swung his gun around. The four put their fingers, hooves, and teeth on their triggers and took aim.

Scree!

The pony fired, but not at Nikolai. The stallion fired a shot into the dust cloud, and then another. The other ponies with him opened fire, and then- Snap!

Willow's ears recoiled back.

Something lunged itself from the side of the road and ripped the stallion apart.

"Reaper, Reaper!" Everyone around him frenzied and scattered. But that didn't seem to dissuade the creature. It flew from pony to pony, tearing whoever it made contact with limb from limb. Nikolai and Willow got a close up look at the thing through their scopes.

"Is that a pegasus?" Aurora poked The Stalker with a forehoof. Willow and Nikolai shook their heads simultaneously and beckoned her to stay quiet.

What was going after the ponies ahead of them was anything but... it sure looked like a pegasus, if you didn't stare for too long. It was all white, with a long serpents tail, big leathery wings, big glowing yellow eyes, and a scaly carapace that rattled and crackled and shifted with every lightning fast movement. One mare shot the creature point blank in the face, but the round flattened against its scales and bounced away.

The yelling and gunfire was replaced by desperate screaming. The mare with the revolver made the mistake of looking the abomination directly in the eye. There was a flash and a crackle, and she turned to stone.

"Cyka... bylat! Ми не йдемо цим шляхом! We are not taking that path!" Nikolai looked back at his compatriots and announced; "Well friends-we're uh... We're going a different way. Let's put as much distance between that thing and us as possible."

A spider-bot fired a burst of pink magical energy at a radroach, turning it to dust. It turned, and a crowbar sent it crashing to the ground in a heap of scrap. Nikolai sheathed it against his pack and waved his compatriots onwards.

They didn't see them at first, they heard them. They heard one, to be specific. As they skylined over a hilltop and came to a short, wide valley that was choked full of ruins, with more roads running off into the city on the far side. He could see a billboard near an old fire station that bragged about Sparkle Cola, another one that promised military enlistment bonuses. It's probably sounding like this portion of the city was chocked full of urban sprawl but it all relatively spread out. Up ahead was a field of dead grass, a lake of golden brown, but every single blade stood erect, they looked almost frozen in time. And there, near to where the had stopped was a cluster of ponies. They didn't look like raiders and-based upon the lack of cages or bomb collars, they weren't slavers either. But they all certainly looked miserable.

Nikolai cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, "Hallo!"

"Hello, who's there? Oh my..." A mellow reply from one of the ponies, seeming not-to-concerned by the sight of the weird bipedal thing that had suddenly shown up amidst them. Nikolai stumbled down the hillside ahead of his compatriots. Flashpoint and Willow followed, Aurora came down last. It was only once they were all out in the open that Nikolai realized that they weren't looking at a group of ponies, they were looking at zebras. All of whom were now staring expectantly at Nikolai and his compatriots.

"Hello, name is Nikolai." For perhaps the first time in his history with coming across random groups of travelers, he saw a welling of genuine fear amongst them. But it didn't quite make any sense. He looked over his shoulder in case there was anything behind them. No, nothing. They must have been referring to him.

"Please, please, friends. I mean no ill-neither do my compatriots. We're just passing through." That didn't seem to help, so Nikolai did the next reasonable thing. He yanked Flashpoint up off the ground and set him down at the forefront of the group.

He fazed off the shock of being picked up and set down by Nikolai so suddenly and looked around at the strange zebras.

"Um... Hello?" He looked about at them, swishing his tail from side to side. "Is something wrong?" Evidently something was wrong but they only seemed interested in clarifying that through pointing a half dozen carbine barrels at Flashpoint and backing up, very slowly.

"Strangers," One of the zebras asked aloud, "How much do you know about this Remnant here?"

"Eh?" Flashpoint cocked his head and wrinkled his muzzle. "Remnants? What are you talking about and why are your stripes red? Did I miss something?" Willow cantered up to his friend and pointed at the cluster of zebras a few meters away from them.

"Flashpoint, they're separatists. They think that you're here to kill them." Flashpoint's green-brown eyes flew from Willow, to the zebras, and then back and forth again. Until Nikolai suddenly guffawed and snapped his fingers, pointing at the red-striped equines ahead of them.

"Blin-we're not here to kill you! Goodness gracious, that's asinine! Look, you know our names-That's Aurora, by the way." He pointed back in the general direction of the hooded figure now standing defensively at his side. "She is also not here to kill you! Put your guns down and introduce yourselves."

"You're a Foal of Balefire?" The eldest pointed at the radiation trefoil insignia on Nikolai's coat sleeve. The zebras lowered their weapons.

"I get along great with them." The Stalker offered.

It wasn't a complete answer, or even an answer at all, but it seemed to suffice: for someone who had just pounced out of the brushwork, he was completely defying their first impressions of him.

"Cetus," The older female zebra told him. "It is nice to meet a friendly face. I apologize if the others are not as forthcoming." Willow plodded forward and glanced at the necks of a few of the zebras. Nikolai noticed them, and the funny thought of him "browsing for his next meal" popped into his head. Of course that wasn't what the bat pony was thinking about at all. Flashpoint noticed the sores as well.

"Bomb collars? Those sores look recent." Cetus nodded solemnly. Nikolai took his hands from his pockets and set them back on his rifle. "Cetus, we need to get going. Now. My compatriots and I almost had a run-in with some raiders a kilometer or two west of here. They were wiped out by something they called "A Reaper".

"What did this Reaper look like?" Cetus asked him.

"White, glowing eyes, scaly, bat wings." Nikolai listed off all of the defining features he could recall. The surprise of the zebras knew no end.

"Then you are very, very lucky he did not notice you. That was Gorgon. He can turn you to stone if you look him right in the eye."

Nikolai blinked and tapped his rifle's handguard. "I noticed. I'm glad we're in agreement, now I would love to get back to Megamart before sundown, it's a trading post that is maybe a two or three hour walk from here, how does that sound to you?"

"That sounds like a great idea," Cetus smiled at him. "Lead the way."

They smelled the change in the air before it fell from the sky. It was getting colder, wetter. Before they reached the valley it was drizzling, by the time they reached the valley it was borderline storming. The whole time, Nikolai's Geiger counter let out soft welling beep after soft welling beep. The ground flattened out near-to the valley.

Screaming, shouting. There was more of it up ahead. The Stalker sprinted ahead of the group to a point where the road gave way to patchwork dirt and grass and stopped besides an old wagon, he fished out his binoculars and scanned the forefront of the valley. He looked about, adjusted the lenses, and finally lowered them. They were unnecessary. He looked, he looked some more. A pony trotted out of the ruins of an old homestead. This pony, a blue unicorn, began to trot about, Nikolai watched her leave the fence line and start towards the field.

"Should I say something?" He asked himself, deciding that he would. She wasn't armed-and she wore nothing but a bulky green overcoat.

"Hey!" Nikolai called to her.

The mare noticed him, stared blankly for a while, and began to walk towards him. Nikolai's Geiger counter stopped cold, it went silent. Which was something that almost never happened out in the wild. Not this far from settled areas. There was always some degree of ambient background balefire radiation to make the counter tick. But now there was none-it had just gone dead silent. Could the battery have gone out? No. Those things were meant to last for decades. Had it been broken? No, that didn't make sense. It had been working only moments ago. Was it suddenly overloaded? No, Geiger counters displayed the maximum rated dose-count when they overloaded, they didn't just stop working.

She reached the blades of abnormally uniform upright golden grass and began to push her way through them, all of a sudden she slumped towards the ground and began to cough and wheeze. Nikolai picked himself up out of his hiding spot and stood upright, looking at her. His eyes furrowed as he took a quick step forwards. "Don't come any closer! Go back-"

The air didn't look right.

She began to melt. Melt, like a living popsicle left out in the sun for too long. But there was nothing there, there was no pink cloud, no nothing. His Geiger counter and gas analyzer were dead quiet. She just began to melt. She wailed and flailed around on the ground, crawling towards Nikolai as sores and raw spots enveloped her whole body. Nikolai's anomaly detector began to emit beeps, beeps which turned into whines. He retrieved it and stared at the screen in shock.

"Help! Please! Agh! Help..." The mare's voice twisted and faded.

Nikolai didn't move forward any further, he took a knee and began to shimmy back towards the group. Aurora trotted forward but The Stalker held her back with an open palm.

"Stay here." She looked at him like he had just committed a cardinal sin, but once she saw, and her mind processed what was happing in front of her she didn't need his advice at all. It was almost too much to bare, she nearly threw up inside of her helmet.

Nikolai held the screen of his detector upright, pointing its broad little antenna in the direction of the valley and the blue unicorn. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. The array on the detectors screen flashed and burbled with a field of pulsating green, from just a meter away at its closest all the way out to its maximum range, probably even further than that. He wheeled around like a turret. There were splotches behind them as well. They had wandered into the edge of a vast field of Enervation.

"Everyone freeze!"

"Stop! Do not move a muscle! Enervation!" Unfortunately "Enervation" seemed to be the straw that broke the camels back, the zebras fled off into the ruins in the opposite direction. Even Cetus. Now, it was just Willow, Flashpoint, Aurora, Nikolai, and one horribly disfigured unicorn still clinging to life some twenty five meters away.

"Willow?" His friend teetered over to him. "Can you go see if you can find those zebras and make sure they're not trying to flank us or something? Just in case? If they want to go some other way then don't try to convince them to come back, I don't want to wait for them." The bat pony nodded knowingly and took off, leaving the others behind.

"We need to find him a radio." Nikolai told the others as the bat pony disappeared behind him. "We really need to find him a radio." The Stalker looked back at the Enervation field.

"Unnavigable, undetectable, highly lethal." The ponies at The Megamart had said. The late and final revisionist pages of The Wasteland Survival guide said the same thing. Well, undetectable until now. Nikolai held in his left hand a device which gave them a path through the field of magical energy. A convoluted path, but it was a path.

How did Enervation work? Was it fluid, or-was it some sort of stationary magic? Could the field change form all on its own? The Stalker had answers to none of these questions.

"Flashpoint, take... Eh, two steps forward, and then run as fast as you can to me. I want both of you to back right up against me, as close as you can. Go!" They bunched up behind him. Willow arrived a moment later, and Nikolai repeated the instructions.

"Alright, everyone move forwards-slowly." They creeped forward as one until Nikolai ordered them to stop, the beeping on his anomaly detector dimmed a bit.

Willow looked up at Nikolai and rolled his eyes. "At this rate we'll be here all night." The Stalker turned to see the zebras watching them from the ruins, giving him his very own unwanted audience.

"Nikolai!" Cetus' voice faded out of earshot as they traversed their way deeper into the field, the zebras left and disappeared from view. Nikolai began to see evidence of other things that had tried, unsuccessfully, to navigate it. He saw skeletons, not only of ponies but also of other wild animals. A few he didn't recognize. The bones were all charred and bleached a dull grey, like a fire had passed over them. But there were no signs of a fire, not even an old one. After a minute they reached the body of the now almost lifeless unicorn, they were only a pace away from the blue unicorn.

"Hey! Are you dead?"

"Kul-meh..." The thing resembling a unicorn rasped. Nikolai stopped Willow from raising his shotgun, and instead reached into his pack and withdrew Cottonburn. He uncased it from its lead lined container and held the pink, glowing hunk of crystalized dark magic in his hands.

"Here, hold this!" He then gently passed it to the mare, rolling it gently through the upright blades of dead grass and towards her left forehoof. As soon as it touched the last remaining follicles of fur around her hoof it began to work. The pink magic hummed and crackled across her body, rewinding and reconnecting and restructuring things. It seemed to stop around her right hindquarter. They waited, and waited some more. And the mare lapsed out of consciousness. A flare of indigo magic hissed and crackled until she looked almost brand new.

"Is she dead?" Flashpoint asked him. Nikolai examined the body of the mare very closely. The 'melting' had stopped and almost completely reversed itself.

"Get me a long stick."

"How long?" Aurora asked him, Nikolai pointed to the mare on the ground a little ways away. He looked around: No sticks to be found. He tied a length of climbing line to his knife and-

"Nikolai watch where you throw that-" He sent it right through the mare's jacket, he gave it a tug and hauled her body all the way up to the tips of his boots, retrieved his blade, his rope and Cottonburn and dusted his hands off.

"Hey, friend? Stranger? Are you alive?" He gave her a gentle kick and knelt down to check for a pulse. It was there alright, steady and resting. But she was still unconscious. That pink cloud artifact really could work miracles.

"Well Nikolai, since you saved her you volunteered to carry her." The Stalker looked at her, then down at the detector he was still holding in one hand, then finally his shoulder blades reminded him of the weight he already carried on his back.

"Fine." He threw the mare over his shoulder. The seventy something kilogram mare. He almost fell flat on his back when he attempted it.

"No. No-your packs are all mostly empty. I've got all of the heaviest stuff. No, Aurora-Flashpoint, drape her over your backs, drag her if you have to."

The next two hours weren't nearly so interesting. It looked like a game of hopscotch where the squares were visible only to Nikolai through that little screen on his detector. They never saw what was trying to kill them, never heard it, never smelled it. The field of arrow-straight blades of dead grass was dead quiet, nearly peaceful. It was a little time capsule that not one soul would ever willing go through if they knew what was waiting for them once they got inside. The deeper they got into the field the worse the density of lethal magic got, there were portions where they just had to sprint or gallop as fast as they could and come to a dead stop on a dime again and again and again, before the Enervation had any time to effect them. There seemed to be a little grace period before it began to effect biological life, and they exploited it to its fullest. Now they were less than ten meters from the end of the Enervation field, it was beginning to thin out.

"Huh? Ah!" The mare that was being carried by Flashpoint and Aurora squirmed on their backs, they set her down and let her cough and shiver, they all clustered around her and watched as her eyes fluttered back over and she sat up.

"What happened? W-hy can't I feel my legs?" She stared up at them with big, pitiful eyes.

"Ohohoho!" Nikolai pumped his fist and clasped his hands together. "I did it! Hah! Success, I say! She's not dead! Wait-you can't feel your legs?"

"No-No... They must've fallen asleep."

"Fallen asleep?" Nikolai pulled his mask off of his face. The rain had stopped by now, his hood fell down around his neck and the unicorn got a good look at the person who'd saved her. "What are you? Oh, I-whatever-Who are you? Where am I, how did I get here?"

"You walked into a patch Enervation and started melting, my compatriots and I saved you. You're welcome."

"Why?" She croaked. "Why'd you save me?"

Aurora started to say something but Willow got his words out first: "Because we going that way and you weren't dead yet."

"How did-" She coughed into her hood and Aurora held her upright. "How did you make out alive?" Aurora looked at Nikolai, who stuffed his detector back onto his belt.

"Luck, I suppose. A lot of luck, and I do mean, a lot of luck." It was a lie, but The Stalker said it so convincingly that the mare had no trouble believing him.

"You should try gambling then, you'd probably win big." She smiled at him.

Nikolai smiled back. "I'm Nikolai, the mare next to-" The unicorn turned and looked at Aurora's face, or rather, she turned and looked right into her emotionless visor. She had never seen power armor before in her life, and that included the particularly menacing pattern that the Enclave used.

Aurora, whose armored hoof had just made contact with one of the mares coat legs, suddenly came to a grave realization. The mare tried to remove her jacket, and she winced as it caught ahold of something. That thing was her skin. Part of the jacket had fused with her flesh when it had been melted by the Enervation, and that was something which the Cottonburn Artifact couldn't remedy. She shrugged off and managed a smile: "At least I'm alive."

"At least you're alive." Aurora's mechanical voice filtered through her mask. The unicorn looked around at the three equines and one human. Her green eyes wandered from Nikolai's pale face to Flashpoint's stripes, to Willow's catlike pupil's and the big bushy ears that poked up through his deep green mane. She had already gotten a look at Aurora's visor.

"A monster, a bat pony, a zebra, and a robot." She chuckled softly. "It gets crazier every day." Without another word Nikolai stomped over to her, picked her up, and set her on all fours. She wobbled, Aurora held onto her until she found her balance. Nikolai kneeled and wiped the dirt off of her jacket.

“Oh I may wander but when I do, bum bum bum bum, I will never be far from you, you’re in my blood and you will always be… Sweet Ukrania, you run deep in me."

Nikolai turned down the volume on his radio and gestured to the mare's body. “See, up you go, good as new!” She wobbled around like a newborn on her legs. “How?”

“Magic!” Nikolai announced, “It was magic! There, have all of your questions been answered? Probably not! But you’re not dead, eh? Now let’s get going before night sets in and all the creepy crawlies show up." Nikolai pulled his mask back up over his head, looking back at the unicorn through the lenses of his mask. The mare swallowed and coughed.

"Do you have any water?"

Nikolai fumbled with the side pouch of his rucksack and grabbed a canteen. "Waterfall it miss, but please. Tell me your name first."

"Cobalt Wrench." Nikolai nodded and passed the canteen over into her magical grasp. She took a short sip and looked up at Nikolai with an expression on her face that asked if she could have some more, The Stalker motioned for her to tip it back, and she graciously did, finishing the canteen with a gasp of relief.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Nikolai said loudly, snatching his canteen back. Not rudely, just loudly. Cobalt looked over at Aurora, then over at Flashpoint.

"You're a zebra."

"Yep." Flashpoint said quickly.

"With a PipBuck." Flashpoint shifted the blocky device strapped to his foreleg. "What about it?"

They had started to walk again, Flashpoint easily overtook the unicorn, but slowed down when she saw that she was limping along at the end of the line. Then, to his surprise, she rolled up one of her coat leg and exposed her own PipBuck to the open air. Flashpoint's eyes went wide with curiosity, and he took a few steps closer and craned his neck past Cobalt's muzzle to get a good look at the screen.

"Where did you get it?" He asked her.

"For my tenth birthday," She said jauntily. "I worked on an irrigation system back home. How about you?" It didn't take Flashpoint very long to connect the dots. It turns out that Nikolai had already beaten him to that conclusion. He swung his head over his shoulder on que. "What was that I heard? Your tenth birthday? Cobalt, you came from a Stable?" Willow and Aurora looked back, and Flashpoint pointed to the PipBuck strapped to her foreleg. She laughed sheepishly and curled her head away from Flashpoint.

"Really?" Flashpoint asked her.

"Yeah, really." She pulled her coat leg all the way back.

"Which one?"

"I don't know."

"What kinda Stable Dweller can't remember the Stable they came from?" Willow asked incredulously. "Tell me honestly, are you lying to us?" Flashpoint kept pace besides Cobalt, whose eyes went wide when she heard Willow's words.

"I'm being honest, really."

"You look, what? Willow, tell me how old you think she is." Nikolai asked the bat pony beside him, who sniffed the air and stared at Cobalt for an uncomfortably long amount of time, "She can't be any older than twenty, maybe twenty one years old."

"So young. Ponies live their whole lives in those Stables, right? How can you not remember it?"

"I mean-I can, little bits of it, I mean. I don't remember it entirely. I remember what I did, I remember the last meal I ate there, I... Um... I can remember the way the hallways looked. But I can't remember The Overmare's name or it's number."

"Do you remember where it was?"

"Near Baltimare, the last few days have been... A daze. I was wandering, I-discarded my old uniform for this jacket I found in a cabin not too far from it."

"What were you doing out on the surface?"

"Taking soil samples... I think."

"You think?" Willow pressed her. "Don't you think that you're an awful long way from. Cobalt, I hate to break it to you but Baltimare is a weeks trot that-a-way, how did you even get out here?"

"I... Don't remember."

"How did you stumble into that Enervation field?"

"I don't remember."

"How did you make it nearly a hundred kilometers-sorry, fifty, sixty something miles from your home, unarmed, and only just now stumbled into trouble?"

"I don't know! Ok?"

"Are you being truthful?" Nikolai slowed his pace until he was right beside her.

"Yes! I am! I don't know how I got there or what I was doing there! That Enervation must've messed with my mind..." Her voice trailed off as the possibility of her having sustained brain damage sunk in, she slowed, and trotted along with Flashpoint in silence.

"Hey, don't worry about it." He bumped her on the shoulder. "There's a doctor in Megamart who might have an answer for what happened to you."

Cobalt managed a smile. "Thanks."

Flashpoint smiled back and gestured to his own PipBuck."Canterlot, a ghoul fixed it up for me."

"A what?"

"Goodness gracious!" Nikolai cried, "You've got a lot to learn! Tell me you have not lost your ability to read, you can read, right?"

"Yes." Cobalt snorted with a little chuckle. "I can, my memory isn't that foggy."

"Then I've got a book to give you once we get to where we're going. Until then, why don't you tell us what you remember about your life in your stable?"

**

"Why'd you send her to me? I'm not a brain surgeon. What's that? You pulled her out of an Enervation field? She was in there how long? Good Goddesses."
-Bonesaw, Megamart doctor for hire

Nikolai picked a gun up off the body of a dead raider, let Flashpoint show her how to use it, gave her a copy of The Wasteland Survival guide, and sent her on her way. She certainly had some interesting things to tell them, but they were burdened down as it was-and they couldn't have a unicorn with faulty memory traveling with them, so Nikolai went with the tried and true method of leaving her with Thrifty Goldenhoof and bidding her goodbye. It was a bit strange seeing her leave, they had barely gotten to know her, but they figured that she would be better off in Salt Cube City, in a relatively safe community where she could find relatively stable employment then out in the Wasteland with her saviors.

The Stalker stood out in the old parking lot, looking at the ponies clustered under open canvas flaps and around fires. He heard the faint creak of one of the turrets on the wall, he checked his watch and headed back inside. The others were busy trading in their items for more caps. A stern faced griffon in leather armor marveled at the zebra rifle on The Stalker's back, and offered to buy it off him. Six hundred caps: It was worth more than that, he was sure of it. Bottlecap wound her way through the few customers that remained until she stood behind The Stalker, who had found himself back at the weapons merchant in the store, debating over what to do with the marvel of magical engineering.

"It sounds like you've been busy." The salespony commented. Nikolai turned slowly with his hands pressed against the table. "Finding everything to your liking her in the Hoof?" Nikolai laughed and ran his hands through his oily hair.

"Yeah, I am. By the way,"

"Yes?"

"Did a group of zebras come through here earlier, led by this one lady named Cetus?"

"Nope-I don't have the time to learn every customers name but I think I'd remember a bunch of zebras, why? Are they looking for you? What'd you do to them? Or did they do something to you?"

"No-They just ran off at the edge of an Enervation field, I haven't seen them since about, eh... Four hours ago. They were escaped slaves. This place runs twenty four seven, yes?" He got a curt nod in return.

"I can't really help you with that, you should hope they didn't end up in Flank or Brimstone Falls or Paradise." Bottlecap changed the subject.

"That rifle, I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me where you found it?"

Nikolai held it upright by the magazine well, letting her get a good look at it. "Information is valuable, like you said. I'll trade you a secret for a secret." He took a knee and whispered something into her right ear, she arched an eyebrow and laughed, then frowned at him. "You're serious? That's what you wanted to know?"

"Yes. Now do you want to know where I found this? It was the old frontlines of your ancient war with the zebras. There's so much stuff there, just lying around."

"Most of it's just too worn out to use." She replied." Two hundred years of wind, rain, mud, and radiation tends to reek havoc on stuff any way you slice it. It's surprising that the one you found still works. I wouldn't sell it if I were you, those things are worth their fair share of caps. I'm no weapons expert, but looking at that think I'd say it's worth as much as a minigun in pristine condition, maybe even more. Look around, how many other enchanted guns do you see? None. You want my honest answer? Trade in that plasma carbine you've got and keep the zebra rifle for yourself." It was a conundrum, to be sure. He felt a little attached to both of the guns.

"Tell me," He asked the gunsmith. "Could I trade it in for something else?" He looked across at something, something that caught his eye.

"How about that?"

"Good, thank you for your time. He trekked on over to the armorer, a unicorn stallion who was just about to close up shop for the night when he saw Nikolai making a beeline for him.

"Can I use your workbench for something?"

A bit of dust rolled across the ground in the cool night air. Quiet, except for the ever-present distant crackle of gunfire and the smoldering coals of barrel fires in the lot out in front of the Megamart. Out stepped Nikolai, jolly as could be.

"Where have you been..." Flashpoint's voice trailed off when he saw his friend in the firelight. New armor plates covered The Stalker's upper legs and shoulders, his vest had been patched up where it had been torn before, and in his hands, he held a break action grenade launcher with a skeletonized stock, a faintly glowing ring-ladder sight, and a sleek black polymer body.

"Eh? Eh? Pretty cool, right? I took a load off, sold all the stuff I've been hoarding for a while, and bought myself this-it took a little bit to make the adjustments and it's still a little stiff around the joints, but I think I look fucking awesome!"

"A knight in shining armor." Willow commented with a laugh from out of the shadows.

"It actually feels great. Some leather straps and, well I barely notice the difference in weight. I don't know who manufactured this armor but, they did a good job. And for something that can stop rifle rounds-ohoho!" He pounded his fist against one of his shoulder plates. It didn't actually protect his shoulder, just his upper arm. The area the plates covered was miniscule compared to Willow's exaggeration, he just wanted a bit more protection. He had made some modifications to his belt as well, adding a few more pouches and two large ones for something that he planned on doing when he had more time and patience. He took a seat by a fire and began fiddling with his new launcher, he set it aside along with his AK 101, and pulled out his PDA instead.

beep beep beep.

It booted up, and he began to look over its glowing map, studying the layout of the Hoofington downtown and one particular military base. "More questions, fewer answers." He muttered to himself. "How many things happened today, what did I spend my time doing? How close am I to making it into the Core?"

"Nikolai?" Aurora's shook him out of his train of thought. He lowered his digital assistant and looked over at his friend with a mild expression across his face.

"What is it Aurora?"

The pegasus took a seat beside him. "We've been through quite a bit, I can trust you to keep a secret... right?" He raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going with this?"

She pulled back her hood and removed her helmet.

"Nikolai," Her ears drooped a bit. "This could cost me my life. Promise you won't tell anyone."

"Alright Aurora, I promise." He looked over his shoulder and made sure that no one was listening in on the exchange. "What is it?"

She took a deep breath, and whispered:

"I'm not really Corporal Aurora Borealis."

Chapter 45: The Bridge of Death

Chapter 45: The Bridge of Death

"I'm not really Corporal Aurora Borealis."

The pegasus sitting before Nikolai had opened up a can of worms that she couldn't hope to close, there was no going back now. She looked up at the sky, sighed, then looked back over at The Stalker in the waning light of the barrel fire. "Do you want to continue this tomo-"

"Please, Aurora. I'd like to hear it now, take as much time as you need. I am in no rush." He folded his hands and gestured to her with earnest.

"Alright." She shifted her wings about. “Has it ever crossed to my mind as to why I dodge so many of your questions about my life? When I give you vague answers or simply telling you I can't tell you? Why The Enclave one only send one lone corporal to look for somepony who they consider valuable instead of a proper rescue squad? It's not because those personnel are needed anywhere else, that's for sure. Have you ever wondered why I try so hard to avoid my skyborn kind every time we face them?"

Nikolai scooted a little closer and motioned for her to keep talking.

"The truth is, I've been lying at your face this whole time, Nikolai. I’m not Corporal Aurora Borealis. Aurora Borealis is the name of the Officer who sent me down here with a squad of forward scouts. Aurora Borealis is actually a pretty common name in The Enclave. It was the perfect pseudonym. No one down here questioned it much, so I stuck with it. The real truth behind my identity is that I'm just another enlisted pegasus with no real importance to the war machine and no political connections." She paused again.

"My real name is Thunder Light; rank Private. And a murderer. And Windy Vivacity? The mare that I claim I've been looking for all this time? She isn't important either, she isn't worth one bit to the higher-ups of the G.P.E. who looked down at my city and call it a backwater rookery infested by a massive swirling cod of Dashite pests. She was just a medical student who got herself twisted up in some project to make some of the irradiated farmland around Horseshoe bay arable. She wanted to make it into a controlled agricultural district that both Wastelanders and pegasi alike could like safely in. But the Enclave doesn't tend to tolerate opinions like that too much. I can't speak for any other city or pegasus settlement but we Cloudhaven pegasi were taught to value the teachings of the old world, we once had a Councilmare named Open Skies who tried to advocate for relief efforts to the surface-and the Enclave sent a few companies of soldiers and a fleet of cloudships to put down what they dubbed a "Dashite Uprising". They installed a military junta headed by the most piss-ant colonel you've ever seen. He'd abuse his power to the extreme; Arrests without reason, fake trials, anyone who he suspected of being unfaithful to The Enclave. I've watched ponies I'd know all my life be trotted or flown away by soldiers never to be seen again. They shut down the city's library because-according to them-the literature stored there promoted rebellion. They limited the amount of food that could be brought into the city-they manufactured starvation. Most of the young pegasi enlisted into the military to try and get away from it all... All the good that did." She looked down at the ground, then up at Nikolai, studying his face and trying to gauge what his reaction would be.

Nikolai crossed and uncrossed his legs, then pointed at the pegasus sitting across from him through his folded hands. "Can you keep going? I-eh... I kind of want to hear about that whole murderer thing. Give me the backstory to that, please." Thunder continued, Nikolai could hear venom in her voice. Not the malicious kind, the regretful-vengeful sort.

"Evidently it seems like justice and the "Rule of Law" only really applied to pegasi dead loyal to the Enclave, which-the ponies of Cloudhaven were, or-tried to be. But the damage was done and they couldn't care less about us. I didn't care for most of my youth. I was in a circle of friends who loved to spend time with me at the local bar regardless. I grew up with Windy Vivacity, and we stayed friends right up until she disappeared. We clung together throughout life, we played together, attended school and university together. I pushed her to pursue medicine and... I guess she got into biology somewhere along the way- she's my best friend, I'd never abandon her. She went off and joined some military survey team-and then Colonel fuck-off decided that she was some kind of threat-and sent her entire team down to the surface on a mission made up to make them disappear. She did the same with some of my other friends as well: Star Seeker, Ash Dawn, and Star Seeker's sister Marigold Locks... The list goes on. I don't know why the Colonel went after them-maybe out of spite... I still don't know. But as the disappearances went on and on and on, all he seemed to do was want to spite me. He wanted me to go and curl up in some corner and cry to my parents. But, like the stupid teen I was, I enlisted."

Nikolai hadn't really been wholly sure what he was going to hear, but he hadn't heard the whole of her story yet. She kept going.

"It didn't take all too long for me to realize that there were more than a fair share of Enclave apologists among my fellow enlistees. There was this one mare named Acolyte who everyone thought was a bit of a loony bitch-she'd go around parroting every new propaganda poster that she saw like it was gospel. Even the outsiders from beyond Cloudhaven found her gibbering annoying. But that's neither here nor there. There was this Private First Class who went by Vapor Springs, she'd been moved-more like exiled to Stratus Military Base after she'd accidentally killed someone during a botched surgery. She was friendly, she was even bold enough to give me some actual survival training when our NCO's favored their own kind over us and neglected to provide actual training that'd keep us alive on the battlefield, from what I've seen you're a better fighter than almost anyone in my squad was."

Here Nikolai chuckled a bit, patting his own knee. "Aurora-I mean, Thunder. I you might not know this but-I have no formal military training. It may look like I do, but to become as proficient as I am now-It took a lot of instruction from a lot of gracious strangers, and a lot of... How shall I say? Learning on the Job?" He motioned for her to go on with her story.

"I hate every single bit of my existence for lying to my parents, but I didn't enlist to move to Thunderhead City, where ponies like me are a bit more tolerated. I enlisted so I could come down here and find Vivacity. If Borealis knew what I was up to he'd've had me thrown into a cell, and I knew that my chances of convincing anypony to go along with my idea was slim to none. One pony, Shadowfall, got wind of my plan and volunteered to help me. She went out of her way because she admired my will to want to try and save a friend who's likely dead. I graduated. But when the time came I barely been taught how to use my power armor-but they let me graduate anyway, they needed new soldier, I guess. Time went by, eventually we were sent out on a reconnaissance mission beneath the clouds. The squad I'd been assigned to was filled with strangers. Strangers... And Shadow. I don't know if it was coincidence or spite but she'd ended up with me and I, being a private, couldn't do anything about it. Our unit departed from the cloud layer and flew for a couple of hours, all the while the little bits and pieces of their real mission began to slip through the cracks. Shadow and I came up with an escape plan: I'd kill the rest of the squad while their backs were turned, and then I'd injure Shadow to make it seem like she was just barely able to escape my murderous rampage. That way, she could return to the skies-and, perhaps even be honorably discharged and sent back home." Aurora lowered her head and shut her eyes.

"We made a slight miscalculation and, she paid the price. Her injuries were too severe. She didn't... She didn't want to die... I made sure to take my time burying her. When it was all said and done I flew off into the Wasteland without a sense of direction. I've looked all over for Vivacity. I expected to meet other pegasi down here, ponies I could relate to. Perhaps even a few of my old friends or-maybe my neighbors. But that wasn't the case, I explored every single facet of the ruins around Horseshoe bay but I still couldn't find her. I gave up and just focused on searching for Vivacity, my search took me northwards, into the Smokey mountains, where I found you and Flashpoint and Willow. My plan to leave the cloudcover was a success, now I'm down here, but it wasn't without sacrifice-Innocent or otherwise the ponies I came down here with are dead. I killed them for my own personal goal. So what now?"

Nikolai scratched his whiskery chin, then stood up and sat down beside Thunder, whose eyes had grown sullen and dim after telling her friend the truth. "Thunder, whether you believe yourself to be irredeemable or not, I really do not care. I think you did the right thing-A fellow, he makes his own life what it is, yes? There can be fortune or moments of misfortune, yes. But it is all still up to you, fate ties into it there... Somewhere, but that is not so important. What you did, you did. Now that you look back on your past actions... Well, tell me, are you familiar with the expression: Hindsight is twenty-twenty?"

"I think I've heard it somewhere before, why?"

"It means that you always criticize your past experiences without properly recalling why you made the choices you made. I am not a gambling man, but I would be willing to bet to you that you are looking back at the past thinking of all the ways you could have done better, yes? Learn from the past, because once you've done something, done anything, you can never take it back. I say that you aren't a murderer, what you did was self defense, and what happened to Shadow was an accident. You both knew the risk, it's best not to beat yourself up over it. And Windy Vivacity? If I could find Flashpoint in Splendid Valley, then I am certain that you, a creature who can fly-will have no problem hunting her down." Thunder turned her head to look Nikolai in the eyes.

"That was... Wow. Thank you Nikolai. Thank you for believing me."

"Well what did you expect? You've been with us for over a month, and you've done more in that time to prove your trustworthiness than some people back in my homeland would do in a year." Thunder reached under the lining of her power armor and passed a small piece of torn paper to Nikolai. He turned it over and glanced over it. There wasn't much to look at. The Stalker looked at the photograph, then glanced back up at Thunder.

"That's you? And the pony beside you is?"

"Vivacity." Thunder clarified. "That's us out in front of the library in Cloudhaven." Nikolai pulled off his gloves and ran and ran a thumb over the image.

"I have not seen too many photographs in my time here, and this-are those clouds in the background, you're standing on clouds in this image?" He passed it back to her.

"Yep." She answered quickly. "We took that just a few hours before the Enclave began to liquidate it." Nikolai picked up his rifle and his grenade launcher and inspected the chambers of both. He turned his radio back on and the ferries wheel of Pripyat came filtering through the static. Nikolai curled his fingers around his launcher and reached for a water canteen, he took a gulp, then looked back over at Thunder and asked:

"What about Willow and Flashpoint?"

"What about them?"

"Are you going to tell them your real name or, should I? Would you like me to?"

"They're asleep already." Thunder pointed over at the barrel fire nearest to them, two equines lay curled up under thin blankets besides one another. One zebra and one thestral.

"We'll be leaving at first light, as soon as the sky begins to brighten, which should be about...eh, eight or nine hours from now." Thunder stood up and nodded. "Alright then, 'night Nikolai."

"Goodnight Thunder."

Nikolai propped himself up against his rucksack with his hand on his pistol, his eyelids went heavy-and his consciousness faded. His vision was black for a long, long time until-like a lightswitch bursting in a dark basement, his vision was filled with a flury of green and blue and shifting alabaster white light. Up past his brow he heard something.

Tick Tick Tick-Tock Click.

It was a clock, it was another manual clock, it's second and minute hands counting away. Nikolai looked around, he was dreaming but...he couldn't tell if he was dreaming. He looked up from a bar table. That same bar table that he had... Where had he seen this place before? The Pripyat Palace of Culture? No, he had only seen it in photos. He had never been to Pripyat. Seen it, yes. But he had never set foot within the city limits. That poisoned city was a kilometer too far for him. He looked around at the other customers in the room. Grey and brown dress suits, old workman's clothes, a baking smock. A family pushing a baby stroller past the front door. The Stalker looked off to the right and the world dropped off at the concrete wall. It dropped off into the cavernous ruins of a city street filled with vast, brutal, metal towers filled with green light.

"Приходь до мене. Come to me." Something spoke through the ruins.

Nikolai stood up from the seat at the bar and strolled to where a wall was supposed to be. He took one step too far, and stepped out into the city on the other side. His Geiger counter clicked, things moved in the shadows just out of view. Things were watching him, but nothing intended to harm him, nothing-not the robots or the shadows came close enough for him to get a clear enough picture.

"Приходь до мене. Come to me." The voice spoke again, booming this time. He looked up and saw a massive black tower ahead of him. Something within, something around him felt far too familiar. Had he been here before? It felt like it, it felt familiar. But it was alien. It wasn't a dream, and it wasn't really a nightmare either. What was this place? He couldn't tell but it felt familiar. He knew where this was, he was sure of it. He wandered about but everything kept looking alien.

And then Nikolai woke up. The hours had gone by in an instant, time seems to work differently when you sleep.

**

"You've never had the chance to operate heavy machinery before?"

Through an early morning fog bank strode Nikolai, with Willow, Flashpoint, and Thunder behind him. Up and over a little rise, through a patch of dead trees, past a farmhouse crawling with rad scorpions, past two wandering feral raiders. None of whom they tried to pick a fight with, they only avoided them. The fog was particularly thick this morning and anything that would have any desire to want to sneak up on them would be wholeheartedly disappointed in what they would find.

"So, Nikolai?" A question and the flap of Willow's leathery wings broke the quiet amongst them.

"What?"

"What? What were you and Aurora talking about last night?" Flashpoint finished Willow's sentence.

Nikolai slowed his pace until Flashpoint was right up beside him. "Aurora's name isn't Aurora, it's- "

"-Thunder Light." Willow finished her sentence. "I overheard you two talking back and forth last night, super hearing. What else can I say? It's one of the upsides of having these giant ears." The zebra blew through his nostrils and gave Thunder a quirky side eye.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. I didn't know if I could trust you guys-even after all we've been through. I've been thinking about telling you the truth for the last couple of days and-well last night I finally decided to tell Nikolai."

"She's got a not so pleasant history with the Enclave, some folks wanted her dead. She ran away to look for her friend, and now, here she is. And aren't we all glad about that?" Thunder smiled below her mask.

"Yeah, I am. I have to be honest with you all, my life on the surface has actually been better and safer in some ways then up in the clouds. Especially since I met all of you. I can read whatever I want, we can go wherever we please... Plus some of the jokes that Nikolai tells would get him thrown into prison up there."

"So it was like my homeland before 1991, yes?" They all looked at him in confusion; Nikolai realized that he would have to explain what he meant by that, which meant trying to explain The Soviet Union and it's system of totalitarian puppet states. They knew some things about his life back on Earth, even of his life before he had traveled to the Zone of Alienation, and he had talked about or briefly mentioned historical events from his own world. They knew about human religion, they knew that humans were omnivorous, they knew that the quality of life was much greater in most of Nikolai's world then their own, there were other things of course that went without saying. For everything that was foreign or abnormal to one party or another it wasn't like Equestria was a completely new circumstance for The Stalker. A lot of what was here existed on earth. Including his second language, which he was ever grateful for.

They passed over an interchange and a set of tracks potmarked with minecarts in various states of disrepair, Nikolai nearly tripped over an old skeleton. He checked his PDA: They were getting closer to their destination. And still his compatriots were looking at him with accusatory curiosity. He supposed he really would have to explain the 20th century to these three little colorful talking equines. The ground underfoot turned to gravel, and then to patchwork asphalt, and then wound up on an overpass which had crumbled away in places. They could see the Hoofington Stadium off in the distance, though they would never go there. They passed under a collapse metal power pylon. and maneuvered around old downed power lines which still crackled and sparked every once and a while. The passed an armor clad skeleton which had been strung up in a sickly looking oak tree. Another one which had been crucified to a road sign. Nikolai started into his story-the abridged version (For now). His world history and, even his national history was rusty and fuzzy, so he tried to do his best by telling them what he did know and comparing it with his life in the present day, and mixing that with laughter here and there. He had just about gotten to trying to explain the Iron Curtain when he heard an electronic click.

"There's a radroach up ahead." Flashpoint informed them.

"I can smell it," Willow began, "How can you see it?" The zebra held up his PipBuck, letting his friend get a look at the Eyes Forward Sparkle Display. "Cobalt taught me a little bit about how to use my PipBuck, now it's more than just a radio and a map."

"What else can it do?" Nikolai pried. Flashpoint fiddled with the dials on it's side and held it up for Nikolai to see.

"Holy shit is that-"

"A list of everything I'm wearing and everything in my saddlebags? Yep. It even lists item weight, quantity, and nutritional value."

"What do you think would happen if I strapped it onto my arm?"

"It'd malfunction? Maybe... Shock you? Explode?" Thunder suggested nonchalantly. Nikolai fished out his own PDA and shook it vigorously in one hand. "This thing does none of those things. Anyone can use this. Anyone, as long as you can manipulate the buttons. Which all of you can. But none of you will."

"Why not?"

"Because it's mine and it's dear to me and it doesn't use a spell matrix and-blyat, guys-do I have to spell it out for you in the dirt with the heel of my right boot? This," He held up his PDA and wagged it like a wad of paper money. "Is not communal. There are certain things that we keep to ourselves, hm?" He motioned over at Thunder.

"For different reasons."

"Speaking of secrets," Thunder quipped. "Nikolai, have you ever wondered how your radio can pick up signals from another dimension or plane of existence of wherever you came from." A silence came over the group as Nikolai radio crackled and the the broadcast man on the other side was giving a short lecture on anomalies, which promptly faded and shifted tone back into hard bass, that weird blending of Slavic culture, hip-hop, and dubstep that Stalker's like Nikolai craved by the digital bushel. It was fun, it was stupid, and it was human. Which mend that it wouldn't be filled with obscure species puns... Usually. Certainly some was better and some was worse. But that wasn't quite what was on Nikolai's mind. His mind was now drawn to the inner workings of his radio. He knew how his PDA worked, he knew how his rifle worked. He... Sort of knew how his night vision device worked. But his radio? He had never questioned it, not once. Pray tell he was a bit terrified of breaking it if he ever tried. He settled against the idea, and that was that.

They broke away from the road and found their way past an old fire station, then across a flat bit of ground marked by the remains of another outlying Hoofington area town. A few streets, a few pop and art deco buildings, then farmland beyond that.

To their left was a patchwork of enervation, but the town itself was empty except for a few pockets here and there. All in the most bizarre of places, completely at random. If that strange life sapping energy was a weapon then it's deployment made no sense, if it was the result of an accident or disaster, then it was spread out in the strangest ways. Ways that defied wind patterns or ordinary physics. Dust storms blew, earth moved, but the enervation remained. It was magic, it was anomalous, so that made sense in a way. Nikolai had determined months ago that the magic here wasn't magic at all. Magic, was indeterminable, but here there had been a whole government organization dedicated to what it called the, "Arcane Sciences." Sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes confusing, oftentimes terrifying when uncontrolled. But at least it seemed to operate off of some sort of cosmic principal that wasn't wholly a mystery.

Nikolai supposed The Zone of Alienation was the same way back on earth, just... Another kind of magic, waiting to be uncovered. They passed by the town, through a field partition made of glowing eucalyptus trees, and the telltale form of a black and grey flight control tower about a kilometer away.

"Miramare Airbase." Nikolai announced as they walked across the open field towards the derelict military complex. It was a small base, unlike the massive naval facility Nikolai had gone through about two weeks ago up in Manehatten. An airfield, a few hangers and support buildings, and one giant big black brick of a structure that looked like it had survived a nuclear blast. In a way, it had. Down the runway, about a kilometer away, sat a great big nicely sized glowing red crater that sparkled with green particles that Nikolai could see from where he stood.

"What makes this place special?" Willow asked to the point.

"Tell me," Nikolai started as they strolled past a concreter road block. "Do you know what usually happens to places like this?"

"I feel like I don't have the answer." Thunder said matter of factly."What's your take on it?"

"Two things happen to high value places like this, I've noticed. Either they are quickly ransacked by opportunists looking to make a quick buck or establish some sort of hideout, or... Every single sentient being with half an ounce of a sense of self preservation avoids it for dear life. Most Wastelanders don't have Geiger counters." They walked past an industrial cargo wagon with a bed loaded down with four nondescript metal drums covered in peeled warning labels that glowed with a prismatic rainbowish light.

"So they come here, they see their friends mutate and decay and die, and they avoid it. But we, well... We are uniquely privileged, yes? Besides, we aren't going anywhere near to that. We are leaving the entire southwestern half of the base alone, we are looking for the motor pool. The place where they keep all of their vehicles, the garages-essentially."

"Why's that?" Flashpoint cocked his head. Nikolai laughed jubilantly in turn and clasped his hands together dramatically.

"I'm car shopping." He announced earnestly. "Looking for a box of metal on wheels that can take us places."

"How can you be so sure that you won't just find rusted out hulks and useless pieces of scrap?" Thunder inquired with validity. "It's been likely two hundred years since any of them ran. That's a long time, and... Well, unlike trains I doubt anyone down here on the surface has the knowledge and skills to keep one of them running."

"How about the Enclave?" Willow suggested. Thunder shot him a dirty look. "They could, by why would they want to? We can all fly, we have Vertibucks and sky carriages, why would they ever invest anything into maintaining something that costs them their one big advantage?"

"Hobbyists?" Nikolai asked with a wave of his hand past a length of chain link fence. "I'm certain there must have been some fellows who had some sort of interest in pre war transportation."

"I've told you all before," Their resident pegasus said neutrally, "But the Enclave is strained for resources... And pony power. Even the largest cities above the clouds only have a couple thousand pegasi in any one place, no where near pre Great War numbers. Not to mention that almost everything up there is made out of clouds. Every home, every 'street' every amphitheater, every floor. Most foals go years before they stand on anything that isn't white and fluffy, to park anything on the cloud layer requires special spell work that's in short supply due to the lack of unicorns to easily cast spells up there. What magic of that sort that does exist all goes to the military." Nikolai signaled to his friend that he understood her explanation as they paced across the lot towards the first few hangers near the runway.

"So no automobile hobbyists. I am still not entirely convinced. Someone somewhere on this continent must currently possess a working vehicle. I don't know who, but I am sure someone does. In my time in this world I have seen flying machines, robots, working elevators, working magical computers, and armored trains. There must be something that can run under its own power with four wheels and a suspension that I can use." He paused to catch his breath amidst his rant.

"Now is an air base the best place to look for such a machine?" He said quickly. "I am not sure! But we will find out for all our sakes, yes? How will we power this thing? Great question that none of you have asked!" He pointed fingers at the three equines amidst himself. "But we will also figure that out. We will burn that metaphorical bridge when we arrive there."

"Where even is-" Nikolai stopped Thunder's question cold. "I got my information from Finders scouts who have visited the area within the last seventy two hours. From what I heard they never came within twenty meters of the base perimeter."

"Did they have a measuring tape with them?" Willow cracked.

"I'm eyeballing it as we go Willow, don't worry. I have total confidence that we will find what I am looking for." Nikolai looked up at the remains of the air control tower about a hundred meters distant, then jogged the width of the runway with his compatriots in tow. The hills on the other side of the complex weren't hills at all, but rather fortified hanger-bunkers that had been built from concrete, and then piled over with dirt which had grown assorted amounts of sickly and dead looking flora over the last two centuries, of course the slopes facing the crater were all scorched and lifeless. They scanned the perimeter thresholds of the structures and their strewn apart metal doors as they traveled past them, towards an older collapsed brick building and the motely uniform concrete garages near-to them.

"That's the motor pool up ahead," Nikolai highlighted the structure.

"Why's it called a motor pool?" Flashpoint asked him.

"Because it is a place where people pool vehicles... Together... In one spot. A pool is a congregation of something, motor-well, guess for yourself." They passed a few skeletons in tarnished military fatigues and paced up to the set of garages they were looking for. Nikolai and the others rolled back the door and stepped on inside.

Shulmp.

A gas mask clad pegasus skeleton tumbled out of the way.

"That's reassuring." Thunder remarked, decidedly creeped out. It looked like the place had been abandoned right in the middle of a busy day. Lighting still flickered in the back of the building. Nikolai unslung his plasma carbine and turned a radroach to dust in a blinding flash of green magic. A ghoul came at them from behind one of the old vehicles and Nikolai melted it's skull apart with another flash. Flashpoint and Willow went opposite directions, clearing the length of the garage. The Stalker ran up to a metal beam and flipped a switch, illuminating the entire interior with dim harsh white light.

Having made sure that there were no other life forms in the building, thus making internal security a non issue, they finally got a chance to examine their quarry: There were a few vehicles inside, little civilian one and two seaters, a transport truck, an armored personnel carrier, a couple of armored cars, and something that vaguely resembled a vintage hotrod geared up for war.

"Let's see, let's see... Let. Us. See..." Nikolai mumbled, pacing besides the old vehicles, he walked to the back of the garage and pulled a dusty canvas tarp off of something the size of a small bus. Six wheels, sloping armored sides, mesh panels, mucky windows with armored panels, a miniature tank turret armed with a light machine gun.

"Hohoho!" Thunder hovered up to Nikolai's face and gave him a look of, "are you serious?"

"Yes, I am serious. Let's see if it starts up."

"That's what counts all, right?" Willow snarked from up in the rafters. Nikolai pried open one of the hatches and took a look at the dashboard, he looked at the wheels, then the undercarriage, and finally, with a little poking around, the engine.

"This isn't what I'm looking for." He wagged his finger and hopped down off the roof, landing with his fist up against the concrete. He paced forwards and tossed a canvas tarp off of a second vehicle. Underneath was an old armored pickup truck painted over with deep green, sandstone red, and black-brown camouflage patches.

"What's this now?" He ran a gloved hand across the hood, and glanced back into the bed. Empty, but intact. He crawled underneath, and came out the other side with a grin under his mask.

"It's what inside that counts." The Stalker replied to Willow's earlier comment as he heaved open the hood and took a look down at the engine block.

"Great mother of..." He ran his hands through his hood and exhaled. "Hey! Thunder, come here, does this thing look intact to you?"

"Don't ask me Nikolai, you're supposed to be the engineer here. It just looks like a bunch of metal and plastic to me." Nikolai pulled his mask off and stuffed it into a pouch on his vest.

"Let's see if it starts up, yes?" He pulled the driver side door open and climbed inside, trying to make himself at home in the tight compartment which had obviously not been designed for a creature of his stature. He wiped dust off the dash and dials, and set his hands on the strange feeling steering wheel.

"Let us see... Gas, gears, brakes... Keys? Blyat-where is the-Ah!" He picked a brass key up off of the dashboard and jiggled it around in the ignition.

Crackle! Pop! Fwoosh! Kzk.

Something sparked and glowed under the hood of the truck, sending Flashpoint tumbling away in a frenzy. Nikolai jumped out of the side and carefully lowered the hood. He looked up and out at his clearly distressed friends and lifted his hands.

"Don't worry! Don't worry! I can fix this! I know how to-Well..." He pulled his mask back on over his head and threw the hood and engine cover up into the air. A giant puff of hot aquamarine soot flew up out of the block. And he gave it a curious look.

"How the fuck am I going fix this thing?"

He looked up from the engine block away and fanned the smoke out of his eyesight, he pointed off into the corner of the room. "Thunder? Would you be a dear and get grab that fire extinguisher? The one marked 'Co2?' yes, yes that one. Does it still work after two centuries? I don't know, but let us find out, yes? дякую. Thank you." He smothered the magical burst of energy in frigid carbon dioxide, set the extinguisher canister off to the side, and began to rummage through the engine block looking for the source of the burst.

"Are you sure that didn't cause it too much damage?" Flashpoint inquired.

"I have worked around machinery before, I have family who works and worked in industry. And that's not just counter take your son to work days. They aren't really too difficult to understand once you get a few basic principals written down into your brain. Of course, the bigger the machine the... Eh... You get the point, yes?"

He traced the engine down to the only reasonable section of the engine where a spontaneous fire could have occurred, that being the battery, when it suddenly and subtly dawned on The Stalker that there was no fuel line running into the engine block. That was strange, he certainly could have recalled seeing a gas or a diesel fuel tank cover further back on the truck, near the bed. When he glanced back there, nothing of the sort was found. It couldn't have been fueled anywhere else, he had looked all over the truck. It was obviously a North American sort of design. He looked down and found scotch marks over the battery, and it wasn't just any battery: It was a spark pack. As in, the kind of spark park that contained those magical crystals. The kind of crystals which were used as focusing devices and power supplies for energy weapons, including the plasma carbine he had tucked away in his rucksack.

"What is it?" Willow poked up from behind him.

"It's a spark pack. Aurora-I mean, Thunder. Sorry, I'm still getting used to the name. But you recognize this, yes?" She nodded. Nikolai reached down and pulled the spark pack from the engine block.

"Well, I believe its safe to say that this thing is beyond useable. It is past its expiration date, yes? I don't want my new truck exploding on the side of the road. So, here is what will happen: Willow, Flashpoint? You two are going to have the delightful task of searching the rest of this base for something that looks like this," He held up the smoking magic battery for them both to see. "And when you do find it, bring it back here. Ok? Ok."

"So where do I fit in in your plan?" Thunder pressed him. Nikolai gently set the battery down and crossed his arms. "You have got power armor and wings, and I have know-how. This eh... this shitbox still needs some work done on it before it is roadworthy. Luckily we don't need to pay to use the things here, not in money, just in time. I will finish assessing the damage and wear from the past two centuries, and then we will take all those tools from the back of the shop and start tinkering until we fix it!" He pointed at the garage door.

"Willow, you're in charge. Find me a giant spark pack, I will radio you if I find one in any of these vehicles. Take anything valuable you can get your hooves on. Stay out of trouble. And, if you see anyone who looks like they possess belligerent intentions, ka-put!" The Stalker clasped his hands together and shooed his friends away. "Get out of there and come back here when you're done, ok? Flashpoint, please don't get separated." His friends nodded and gave him a pair of affectionate solutes, then trotted off out the door with their assignment in mind.

"What about us?" Thunder's mask slid down to reveal a face steeped in confusion. Nikolai whipped his left hand like a broom across a tool bench, sending dust and grime flying. He snagged a crowbar off of a nearby rack and tossed it to Thunder, who caught it in her mechanical tail, wrapping the blade around the center of the bar in an instant.

"We're going to start looking for other issues with this vehicle." He broke a lock off of a cabinet beside the tool bench and bludgeoned a mutant spider which had grown to the size of a small grapefruit to death. He fished through a stack of old books, and came across one with a deep green cover and the insignia of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. He bashed it against the bench, wiped the dust off the cover, and flipped to the table of contents as he paced back to the armored truck.

"We will learn as we go along, it can't be too dissimilar from what I am familiar with, yes?"

**

Flashpoint paced quickly besides Willow as the two made their way up to the nearest hanger, a hearty fortification whose blast doors had been graciously thrown open for some unknown reason (Maybe the scorched plane a dozen meters from its threshold had something to do with that) minutes before the megaspell had struck the runway. They glanced around it, but there was no use in searching for valuable items out of fortified areas here. No one had presumably been here in years or even decades, and anything from before the war would have been torched by the magical firestorm which blew through here. Even armored vehicles and armored wagons weren't spared. They trotted inside without saying anything to one another and began to search about.

It was funny, in a way. When Nikolai was with them, when they were all together they talked incessantly-non stop. All the time. Very rarely would they have nothing to say to each other. Nikolai was always being Nikolai, Thunder came from a hyper advanced society that lived in the clouds, Willow had been a scout and a courier before he began to stalk his now dear, dear friends. And Flashpoint had been recaptured and forced back into unwilling servitude for the upteenth time in his miserable life. They weren't exactly lacking in the topic department. But that was when they were all together. Flashpoint alone wasn't the most talkative. He never was, he never had been. Willow was like that as well; friendly and chipper, but only when it was coerced out of him by the presence of a large group of other sentient beings. Peer pressure, more than anything. That or he'd eventually get too lonely from spending too much time away from his "pack". Otherwise, they were quiet as a pair of church-bound mice unless they needed to say something of importance.

They searched the interior of the hanger in similar silence, until Willow broke it when he bounced over and around an old wrecked single helicopter that looked like a miniature vertibuck.

"Find it?"

"Nope." Flashpoint waved the comment away. "How about you?"

"Nope. Just rusted metal and radroaches. They moved onto the next hanger, and then the next; it was the same story over and over again. Not particularly seeing this as an acceptable reason to stop they kept looking. They walked northwest a little ways past the motor pool and the faint sounds of what must have been carefully managed chaos coming from inside. Were they confident in Nikolai's abilities to restore an up armored military vehicle that looked like it came straight out of Elvis' personal collection? Perhaps. And that was a very wide and very vague perhaps at that. Nikolai knew more about that sort of stuff than anyone amongst themselves, potentially anyone in the entire Hoofington area.

Flashpoint stepped over the rotor blade of a veribuck which had crashed onto the runway long ago and peered inside: Nothing of value but some old submachine guns-Ironshod Firearms Model 44's, Willow heartfully pointed out. And damaged beyond use, the thestral squeezed inside while Flashpoint kept watch outside. A grey fuzzy head with a deep green mane and snarky yellow-black cat eyes poked up from the wreckage about a minute later and shook its head: Unsuccessful, again. That battery back in the garage had looked intact enough, they just needed to look harder. Out in the open was no good. They passed a portion of the runway where the earth and the asphalt had given way to now exposed underground tunnels. Experimenting like that was just a bit too reckless for the zebra who valued his and his friends own lives a little too much. That was an exaggeration, that was impossible, and unfair towards a group of strange fellows who at present time were being led around by an overly friendly two legged pale alien monkey thing with a propensity to try and make friends or deals or partnerships or... Really try to do every concealable reasonable thing to get the strange creatures around him to like him.

Willow and Flashpoint crossed the runway and began to poke around one of the support buildings adjacent to the large black structure that took up a vast majority of the eastern side of the airbase. It was standard Equestrian military construction-though most of the southern half was leveled and the rest was in a pretty significant state of disrepair. They climbed up into the rubble and paused for an instant.

Flashpoint held down on the transmitter button of his PipBuck's radio.

"Hey, Nikolai?"

"What is it?" The Stalker's voice crackled in reply, sounding not-all-too preoccupied and disinterested.

"Is there any place in particular that you'd like us to search?" There was a moment of silence over the airwaves.

"Check the large black structure that we saw when we passed the bases perimeter. I was looking forward to going through that myself-but-"

Kthunk! Zap!

The sound of magical tension and something fizzling and exploding cleared the PipBuck's receiver.

"What happened?" Flashpoint asked, a bit worried.

"Don't worry about it. Just keep searching, some of these components have proven to be a bit more-agh!" Nikolai shouted, and the feed cut off for a moment, before The Stalker's voice came back through, filled with venom.

"Finicky." He drawled. The transmission cut out. Willow trotted up to his friend took a gander down at the hunk of metal, glass, and spell matrixes clasped to his forehoof.

"I don't suppose that thing comes with a spark pack locater built in?" The thestral attempted to joke, to no avail, of course. It wasn't like him. He rustled his wings under his cloak and directed them further into the support structure. Again, more radroaches-occasional ones at least. But no larger mutants and no ghouls and... No apparent signs or recent tampering. They maneuvered through the building, past signs of old death and decay, until Willow decided to turn back around and head to the largest building on the grounds.

The structure itself stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the dull browns and greys of the rest of the Wasteland and airbase. Sleek, modern, with a jet black exterior that made it look like a high tech massive brick parked in the middle of nowhere. There were a few blacked out windows here and there, all looking intact and unshattered. But the majority of the exterior was solid. There were a few entrances spread around the first floor, all locked. But easily accessed by anyone who had the slightest know-how on how to use a lockpick. And Willow was in the aforementioned know-how. They pushed their way inside and were met by a motley of long disabled security systems, though not nearly as many as the other facilities they had visited in the last few months. At least, for the first hallway or two. Something that truly struck them as odd was the fact that the interior lighting was still on. Everywhere else on Miramare was dark except for the motor pool, and that had to have been running off some sort of independent power supply which had been dormant for the last two hundred years. Another thing-most of the side rooms were strewn with debris, but the hallways were, for the most part, all still intact.

Flashpoint took a look at the clock on his PipBuck: Well past midday, almost evening. Had they really been here that long?

They swept through the next room, and the next. The interior was made up of bland, colorless concrete walls covered either in spotty plaster or propaganda posters. They shuffled into an old bunk room, a few old bags and discarded pieces of clothing, but nothing else of interest. Flashpoint spotted what looked like the main staircase just beyond the cafeteria and began to move forward. Willow nickered at him.

"Flashpoint, hey! Something ain't right. I can smell it, somepony's been here recently. The debris back there had been cleared out by someone."

"Can you tell anything else about them?"

"No, it's been awhile. Maybe a day or two. There's no hoof scuffs on the floor." Flashpoint nodded and radioed back to Nikolai.

"Yes, what is it? Battery? Have you found my battery?"

"Willow's picked up on somepony's scent. Someone's been here in the last couple of days, all the debris in the hallways here has been cleared out and the electric lighting is on-only the emergency lights, but none of the other buildings we checked out have power." There was static for a moment.

"Keep looking Flashpoint. We need that battery."

"By the way," Flashpoint replied, "How far are you into fixing up the rest of that truck?"

"I just got started!" The Stalker answered coarsely.

"Taking things apart, moving things, rearranging stuff and revitalizing-get back to work blin! I do my part, you do yours! Davay! Go on!"

The feed cut off. Nikolai had come off abnormally crass, but he had an awful lot on his hands. And magically powered vehicles tended to be just the slightest bit finicky when it came to maintenance and upkeep. Flashpoint looked ahead, at the empty cafeteria. His ears darted to the sound of Willow cantering up the stairs.

"Let's check the next floor up. Maybe we'll have better luck up there." The bat pony chirped in a low tone.

As it turned out his words were right. The second floor connected to an adjacent segment of the building which led them down another flight of stairs which led them into a pilot locker room. Mostly filled with junk, mostly looted-all the lockers and any trance of weaponry was gone. But one thing remained. A radio, not too unlike Nikolai's in appearance, only with dials and buttons designed for equine use, sat up against one of the metal storage boxes on the far side of the room. Willow took it, he would have to find another time to figure out how to use it. But now, provided it actually worked, he now had a radio. That was a win in of itself. If only there had been a vehicle grade spark pack to go along with it, they would have been able to leave right then and there. They went deeper into the structure, oblivious to the dark figures flapping by outside.

"We should check the armory next." Willow's ears flattened and he turned to look gravely at Flashpoint. "I heard a voice, there's someone about fifty paces up ahead.

"Really?" Flashpoint cocked his head in return. "What are they saying?"

"They're talking about how bad their rations are... Rations. Huh." He sniffed the air.

"I smell feathers and traces of cloud. Those are pegasi."

"Pegasi? Do you think Thunder is-"

"No." Willow's head twitched in a nod of disagreement. "Nikolai would have called us, and I know her scent." His leathery wings curled up and out of his cloak.

"Let's backtrack." They turned to leave, and got to the end of the hallway before Flashpoint started hearing the voice as well.
The lone blip showed up on his PipBuck as green, then yellow as it drew closer.

"Stop looking at that thing, let's go." Willow pulled Flashpoint away from the dot on his device as they started to backtrack their way out of the building.

**

Back at the garage about ten minutes later Nikolai was having an absolutely delightful time trying to bring the armored vehicle before himself back up to working order. It was... distressing, if anything, having to do it alone. Him and Thunder had spent the last twenty minutes rummaging through every single vehicle in the building, looking for compatible parts and, hopefully, a magical battery like the one that had almost exploded the first time Nikolai had tried to pop the hood on the truck. So far, he had come up empty. The actual vehicle itself wasn't even in too bad of a shape to function, it just needed something to power it.

Nikolai heard the tell-tale rattle of a mechanized scorpion tail as a sign that his pink and peach fur colored friend was nearby. His head was down in the engine block, patching things up with one hand while reading the owners manual in the other with an absent minded wandering eye that flew from page to page to page without all too much care as to what was on them.

"Hey, Thunder!?" He shouted over the sound of his radio playing in its vest pouch.

"What?"

"Can you give me one of the power cells for your Novasurge rifle?"

"Um... What do you need it for?"

"I'm going to try and jump start this thing."

"You're being serious?" She huffed aloofly.

"Yes." Nikolai had an idea. He wasn't certain if it'd work, but... There was a chance it might. And he was curious. And impatient. And a whole host of other things, not to mention the fact that Willow and Flashpoint hadn't checked in. It wasn't as if they needed to but it would be nice for The Stalker to know the status of whatever it was they were doing. That didn't matter right now. Thunder fished a spare cartridge out of the mounting pocket on her power armor and Nikolai took it, and snapped it into place where the much larger battery was supposed to sit he messed with the electrodes and-

Fzap!

The sudden torrent of white light from the headlights nearly blinded the poor pegasus through her visor. Nikolai clasped his hands together and cheered up at nothing. Quickly, he made his way around to the drivers side door to start the engine.

"Do you know what this thing needs? It needs a turret." Nikolai inquired to Thunder as he jammed the little hunk of metal into the dashboard, spun it, and listened with delight as the engine roared to life... For a moment. It died with a sputter, and the spark pack, with a crackle. Nikolai cursed and pounded the bizarre equine steering wheel with the palm of his left hand.

"Ok, this may take a while." He groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. He was going to have to check the other vehicles again. Not for functionality, but for a battery because he simply couldn't wait.

**

Willow and Flashpoint moved on down the stairs of the large black structure, but somewhere along the way they turned west instead of southeast and were now headed deeper into the building. It wasn't necessarily their fault, even with a PipBuck. All the hallways looked the same. Once they passed the cafeteria Flashpoint saw the first red dot on his device. There were ponies here, to be sure. But what did they want? Were they armed? Were they wearing power armor? Did one of them have an RPG? Willow couldn't tell through his senses and the otherworldly nature of the spell matrix in the PipBuck could only determine individual intention, not appearance and armaments.

The two plodded deeper into the building, passing a small check-in terminal before going through a door or two and finally ending up at the staircase which wound up to the air traffic control tower. Here they didn't find a lock, but, rather, a keypad. An old dusty keypad with a terminal. That was a shame, neither of them were good when it came to hacking.

Hoofsteps. There were hoofsteps down the hall. Just one set of hoofsteps but hoofsteps nonetheless. Somepony was coming. Willow and Flashpoint bounded away from the keyboard and hid in an adjacent corridor while a red pegasus stallion with a lemon yellow mane and a grey-black uniform jacket with a black cap adorned with an Enclave insignia. A magical energy pistol hung on a shoulder holster, Willow tracked his movements carefully as he typed in the passcode and sauntered on in. The thestral flew into a silent frenzy behind him, just barely missing the door closing but catching the code through his keen eyes.

He stamped out the code: Error. Could he have misremembered it? His memory was pretty good.

"Let me try." Flashpoint offered, Willow jauntily stepped out of the way. "We really shouldn't be doing this? What if we're discovered?"

Willow trained his gun down the hallway at the intersection. "Then you and I'll put bullets in pegasi until Nikolai and Thunder show up and pull us out of trouble."

"Do you think Thunder would actually turn against her own kin-"

[Error: Zebra_Signature_Detected_Access_Prohibited]

Shit.

The terminal screen flashed with a red light, and Willow's keen ears heard something click inside of a door.

[Notifying Base Security: Please remain where you are.]

The thestral tore out the alarm system and disconnected the wiring that ran to other alarms down the hall in the process.

"Let me try again." Willow pounded the code back into the now poorly functioning terminal. It beeped and flashed green. The door swung open and the two bolted inside and up the stairs to the control center. Willow bounded up the steps past Flashpoint without making a sound. There was a short sound of struggle. And when Flashpoint finished making his way up to the top, the pegasus was sleeping soundly in the corner.

"He won't remember a thing." Willow grinned, proud of his work. They stared out over the airfield. Radar dishes up on the hill behind them, the runway below them, and the hangers and Wasteland beyond that. They could see the main highway from up here. Willow spotted the sleek black form of an armored pegasus off in the distance within the boundaries of Miramare obviously not Thunder. They had to work quickly. If they were spotted they might very well have an entire squad or platoon sized element of pegasi armed with energy weapons that they would have to fend off. And none of them wanted to push their luck that much.

"Nikolai?"

"What is it?"

"The Enclave is here. In the building. There's at least three of them in there, and another one circling the field outside.

"Outside?" Nikolai inquired dangerously. "Where are you?"

"The air traffic control tower." Flashpoint replied, "Why? Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all. Hurry up, find the battery, and get back. If we are lucky then they might just be passing through here." Flashpoint's eyebrows furrowed even though he couldn't see The Stalker. His tail whisked across the floor and his rifle shifted about on its mount.

"One of them knew the code, and he wasn't wearing any armor. So either they sent cannon fodder down here, or they think it's safe enough on this base to go around indoors without any protection."

"You can figure it out later, find that battery!" The transmission ended and the tower began to rumble, just a little bit.

"Battery found." Willow's said ecstatically, hauling the modestly sized magical brick out from one of the control terminals. He disconnected the wiring, and the terminals went dark. He crammed it into his saddlebags and adjusted their straps to make up for the new weight on his right side.

"Let me take it." Flashpoint insisted. "I've got more room." Willow sighed and passed the battery to Flashpoint. Willow turned and, with some difficulty, removed the power cartridge from the Enclave soldiers sidearm, just to make sure that he couldn't follow them and shoot them in the back. They hurried down the stairs, and flung the door open. Something

"Can't believe I've got to be the one to go and check on him, hey-what fucked up the terminal-" The mare on the other side collided head first with Willow.

"Hey, what the-agh-" She froze, staring at Nikolai

The bat pony and the zebra behind him froze as well. Her eyes were wide with surprise as she realized that Willow was most definitely not who she had been sent to check on. She was better equipped then her unconscious compatriot up in the tower. A ballistic vest and shoulder plates-and a headset. Before she could make a move towards the laser carbine by her side Willow plowed his left forehoof into her muzzle. She doubled back, still unable to contemplate what was happening. She raised her carbine and fired off a shot in a daze. The beam went high, searing the ceiling with angry red magic that left the barrel in almost dead silence. Willow blinked and, Flashpoint fired two shots from his own rifle. Both shots hit the mare center mass, and she went down. Her armor had caught both rounds but the energy transfer to her torso had been enough to knock her on her hindquarters, and out cold. With no damage beyond a seriously bruised scapula.

Now everything was coming to life. The energy rifle wouldn't have drawn any attention but the two shots from Flashpoint's AR pattern rifle, indoors, certainly was. Four, five, six red blips appeared on the display of his PipBuck. Willow rubbed the brim of his muzzle where he had collided with the pegasus.

"We should leave."

"Good idea." Flashpoint looked over his shoulder. The two galloped back down the hallway towards the stairwell they had come up.

"There they are!"

Fzth! Crack! Crack! Crack!

A short burst of energy rifle fire from another Enclave soldier in light armor was silenced by ten rounds of poorly aimed 5.56 from Flashpoint's rifle. Nikolai had been right the other day, this was a certain upgrade to his old submachine gun. The two raced past the casualties and left the building.

Zap!

"Ow! Dof!" A bolt of pink magic sent Flashpoint face planting into the asphalt. It had struck him in the helmet, leaving a smoking scar. Willow helped him up and turned to face the pegasus who was pursing them.

Bang! A shot from his suppressed carbine sent their pursuer tumbling to the ground. Flashpoint checked his PipBuck: They were in the clear for now.

They bounded across the airfield towards the tarmac on the far side of the runway, past the hangers. It took them another half hour to get back to the garage, trying their hardest not to let pegasi pin down their exact route. Two bolts of red magic arced over their heads from within the motor pool, before Thunder realized that she was actually shooting at her friends. She stopped and sheepishly let the two cross through the threshold into the garage, apologizing as they went by.

"I heard the gunfire from here. What happened? Flashpoint, what's with the eh... New helmet scar?"

"He got shot in the head by Enclave air infantry." Willow clarified on his friends behalf. Nikolai gave his friends a sharp look. "Really? Holy shit. Flashpoint, how do you feel?"

"Great for a stallion who just got shot in the head." The zebra smiled lightly. Nikolai crossed his arms and nodded.

"Well great. Come on back and I'll show you what me and Thunder have been up to. By the way-did you find that-" Willow fished the magical battery out of his bag and presented it to Nikolai. Who snatched it away and cradled it jealously.

"Hohoho! Nice work! Now... Now..." He led them around to the truck, really more of a gloried armored jeep with a large bed, and began to run them through what he had done to their new set of wheels. He had done his best to screw with the large clunky spell matrix inside of the engine block using the limited knowledge the old guide book and his own brain contained. It wasn't perfect. But it was Wasteland perfect. The fact that this truck had also been essentially entombed inside closed doors partly made that possible. Nikolai carefully inserted the battery into the engine block, reconnected the power line, carefully closed the armored hood, and climbed up into the cabin, flipped the key, and was greeted with the rough hum-whine of the engine. Purring like an electro thaumutic kitten. Perfect.

"Now, to see if it will run." He pulled it out of park and into drive, then tapped on the gas pedal.

Screech!

The truck bounded forward in a sudden, sensitive jolt that rattled The Stalker. He slammed on the break pedal an instant before he collided with the thick steel of the garage door.

"Wow." Aurora muttered, slightly beyond belief. She and that talking monkey had actually brought that old heap of scrap back to life. It was a sight to behold. Nikolai shut the truck off and pointed over at the IFV beside them. "I need some help getting the twenty millimeter cannon up here. There is a chain winch pulley system that runs along the roof. I will dismount the cannon, you guys haul it over over see these brackets? Clearly this truck was already designed for such a procedure.

"What about ammunition?" Flashpoint inquired.

"Ammunition-shit. You're right... I can't believe I didn't think about that. Nevermind then. We'll just roll out just like this."

"Going where?"

"Across the expressway towards Chapel, that little village centered around the church near the bridge crossing we will be taking into the Core." They all looked at him with a mirage of confusion. Nikolai sidestepped and began to walk towards the door. He swung it open again and stepped outside into the open air with a measure of caution. He glanced around: Nothing. Wait, what was that sound?

All of a sudden, as the last slivers of iron grey light vanished over the western horizon, a vertibuck broke the cloud layer and began to make its descent into Miramare airspace. And then another. And then two pegasi clad in actual power armor. Several hundred meters off one of the vertibucks landed, leaving a few dark figures behind before landing behind the large black command building. The other vertibuck took up a hover just above the control tower a good thirty meters off the ground, and stayed put.

"блін, це не добре. Damn, that's not good." He watched them a little longer, and, when one of the vertibirds made a sudden veer towards the motor pool, he slammed the door closed and stepped back inside.

"Well," He announced to his compatriots. "We've got company, my friends. There is a whole swarm of those fellows out there. So here is what's going to happen: We'll stay put! Give it maybe a half hour and we will take a look outside."

"And if they're still there?"

"Then we have the materials to make it through a sort of... How do I put it? Stealthy siege? Of course if that doesn't work we could always try pulling a Luke and Bo-You know what never mind, eh... none of you would get that joke." He waved his own comment off.

"So we're just sitting here and waiting for them to find us?" Thunder asked rapidly, wings rustling in discontent. Nikolai nodded his head, unslung his grenade launcher, cracked the breach open, slid a shell in, and slammed it shut. He took aim at the far wall, and danced his fingers across the trigger guard.

"If they do come in here... Then we fling those garage doors open and I pop a forty millimeter kinetic fragmentation grenade in their ass. We will fight like there is no tomorrow; we get in that truck and drive south by southwest until we either annihilate the enemy force in a rolling gun battle, or we outrun them and then turn and make a beeline on the highway running east until we pass the sports arena and make it into Chapel, is good plan... Yes?"

"Is that truck of yours vertibuck proof?" Willow remarked sarcastically, flexing her mechanical tail out of habit. "It's a valid question: I've seen those things tear buildings in half like they were nothing.

"I suggest that we consider the latter of our two options, it gives us the greatest likelihood of not ending up as scorch marks on the pavement." They all murmured in agreement, and so resolved to wait for a little while longer before making their escape.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. Thirty minutes passed altogether. Willow got the opportunity to show Nikolai the radio he had taken from the base. The flap of metal wings faded in and out and in and out again, periodically. Finally Nikolai went on with his tried and true trick of poking a pocket mirror out of the side door and using it to scan the tarmac and the sky above. The vertibuck which had been jealously guarding the air traffic control tower had now landed. Nikolai pulled himself back inside.

"Alright, I think they're gone. Gone or not paying attention. Let's go!" He, Willow, and Thunder darted outside and swung the garage doors open with a loud rattle. Nikolai circled back around to the drivers side door of the armored pickup and swung it open. "Everyone in! Flashpoint, you're up front. Willow, Aurora, get in the back. You are our anti aircraft until we come up with something better!" The armored pegasus and her fanged friend scrambled into the back, Flashpoint cozied in, and Nikolai set his hands on the wheel.

Nikolai set his AK in his lap, he pulled back the charging handle halfway to examine the chamber: Brass glinted back at him. He set his grenade launched between the seat and the window, which he rolled down. The glass looked like it was rated to take a beating, but probably not from magical energy rifles. At least not for long.

"Alright, roadtrip time!" He pounded the dash, the capacitor dial read 'full'. Without another thought he put it in drive, adjusted his side mirrors, and eased onto the gas pedal. He contemplated strapping on his seatbelt but decided that if they needed to get out in a hurry, at least while still on the grounds of Miramare, it might be a death sentence. He pulled out of the garage and onto the patchy tarmac, trying to remain warry of both the Enclave beyond the runway, and his own jerry rigged repairs, Nikolai steered them in an around the wreckage on the tarmac, when Willow heard the distant rotors of a vertibuck.

Eight Enclave soldiers, four in combat armor and four in power armor that looked not too dissimilar from what Thunder was wearing came up over the top of the control tower, climbing fast. It took Willow and Thunder a minute to realize what they were doing.

"Speed up Nikolai! They're going in for a strafing run!" Nikolai rammed his foot against the accelerator and armored truck surged forward, just as a shower of violent red bolts of magic showered down from the heavens all around them, Aurora ducked low as they shot past the truck in a steep glide, laser fire speckled the roof and hood, Nikolai swerved, and the rounds missed and struck a ruined fuel tanker propped up against one of the hangers.

They were in the thick of it now.

"We-we're not dead!" Flashpoint cried.

"Well don't just sit there like a potato!" Nikolai said sternly. "Get ready to return fire!" They sped out onto the cratered runway and struck a pothole, rattling the cab.

"Woah!" He heard Willow call out. "Simmer down!" His suppressed rifle barked fire and metal up into the air as the pegasi flew past in another barrage, by now the vertibuck had noticed them, and the ball mounted laser Gatling gun on the bottom of the craft threw dozens of beams in their wake, turning pavement to slag as they sped towards the hangers and support buildings near the end of the runway.

Fwoosh! Flap! The pegasi came around for a third barrage, and one clad in power armor caught a volley of bolts from Thunder's Novasurge rifles, causing them to break off. They regrouped while still in motion, and Nikolai heard Willow his in pain as a bolt stuck him in the haunches. Flashpoint popped out of the passenger side window and started taking shots with his own rifle. The report sent gunsmoke and muzzle flash back into the cab, along with a healthy dose of tinnitus. One of the pegasi in combat armor flew down low towards the ground and showered the drivers side door in laser fire as they made their way across the adjacent parking lot and into the parking lot. Nikolai veered into him and the stallion just barely managed to get out of the way in time, loosing little more than his dignity as Willow peppered him with a few rounds from his carbine.

Tsew! Tsew!

More pink bolts flew down from the heavens, two more pegasi, one in a heavier variety of power armor, the other in normal ballistic kit, his or her face obscured by a grey cowl and sunglasses. A bolt struck the window and Nikolai instinctively veered away, going over collapsed fence.

"Nikolai! We've got a problem!"

"What!?"

"We have a problem."

" I know we have a problem!" He shouted back, not taking his eyes off the commotion in front of him.

As the final slivers of grey light disappeared in the western horizon, something crested the hanger-hill fortifications on the far side of Miramare. Thunder's heart sunk clear down into her stomach when she saw the sight of a cloudship corvette looming over the horizon, then, it broadside turned to them.

"N-Nikolai!"

The Stalker glanced into the mirror and his eyes shot wide open. Truth be told he wanted to rub his eyes and ask himself if he was imagining what he was seeing. he poked his head out of the window and looked back at warship swerving as he went. The vessel truly looked like a half breed between an ocean going ship and something out of Star Wars. Sleek, hexagonal black plating covered its exterior. The helm of the vessel held what must have been the bridge, and-rather than traditional thrusters the vessel seemed to be keeping itself along with massive hardpoints across the ship's underside that generated gusts of cloud as it hoovered in place. The thing had to have been a good twenty or thirty meters from end to end, at least two or three times the size of the Veribuck's they had seen earner. Gun emplacements jutted out from every side, and the ones on the starboard side, to Willow and Thunder's horror, seemed to be spinning around to face the armored truck.

"Shit!" Nikolai pounded the wheel and veered around the burned out hulk of a tank next to the roadblock at the edge of the parking lot. A pegasus came down right in front of them, blocking the entrance. A bolt of green plasma melted the left headlight off, another bolt zipped right past the window. He'd had enough. The Stalker transitioned the steering wheel to his right hand, taking up his grenade launcher with his left. He stuck it out of the window, leveling it at the pegasus in power armor as it darted away, trying to circle around them. Nikolai peered absently down the leaf sights of the launcher as the target was highlighted by a glowing floating reticle. He tracked the creature's flight path, and pulled the trigger.

Thump! The grenade exited the barrel so fast Willow could barely track it. Twenty meters off to their left the enchanted proximity detonation spell built into the launcher worked its magic, and it detonated in midair with a heavenly bang that rocked the truck, the overpressure wave and shrapnel ripped an armored wing off the pegasus and sent them crashing to the ground in a heap of scrap and smoke.

"Woo hoo!" Nikolai cried out in success.

"Yee-haw chucklefucks!" He heard Willow jeer as they passed the demolished guardhouse at the edge of Miramare and flew down the road doing fifty five miles an hour in a thirty zone. They rounded a hill and passed out of visual range of the cloudship.

"Sweet Babuska!" Nikolai laughed uneasily. "You weren't joking Thunder!" He heard his feathered friend sigh in contentment behind his head. He looked over at Flashpoint, who was gripping the edges of his seat with his hooves with a face full of shock.

"I can't believe this is happening." He whispered to himself, trying not to crack a goofy smile of terror. Nikolai eased up on the gas and swerved off the road for a moment as it turned to fractured asphalt and old, irradiated traffic congestion.

"I will pull off once I find someplace safe," his anomaly detector clicked as they sped past an enervation field. He chuckled, patting the wheel some more and looking past the windshield up at the darkening sky, looking for signs that the Enclave was giving chase. He saw nothing. The sun above the clouds disappeared above the horizon, and about fifteen minutes later he pulled off onto an old farm road and a field of long dead pumpkin vines. Thunder scrambled out of the bed and retracted her mask, gaging into the earth. Willow hopped out and rubbed the thermal burn on his back. Nikolai buckled on his night bug eyed night vision device and used Cottonburn to heal the damage caused by the shot his friend had taken to the back. Thunder threw up.

"You're motion sick. I made to many tight turns, sorry." Nikolai apologized with brevity. Thunder coughed and smiled up at Nikolai. "I'm all good, don't worry." The Stalker slid open the breach of his launcher and let gravity drop the warm casing into the dirt underfoot.

Willow was hungry, Flashpoint trailed him around to the other side of the vehicle. Probably looking to get something to eat considering neither had eaten anything since before mid day. Thunder leaned back against the side of the truck and studied the burn marks left by the Enclave troopers. She sighed, and finally looked up at Nikolai and managed a smile.

"Thank you for getting me out of there alive Nikolai." The Stalker heard a certain sadness in her voice, and rubbed the bridge of his nose through the rubberized polymer of his mask.

"Don't worry too much about it Thunder." He glanced through the open windows of the truck at his friends on the other side. One sucking down hemoglobin from an old military IV bag, the other eating a pack of dried apples. Nikolai activated his night vision device and the world lit up.

"Flashpoint." He said aloud. "You're changing seats with Thunder. I need someone up here with me who has night vision capabilities; I don't want to drive by headlights out here. It would be too risky. Not much riskier than what we just did back there. Anyway, you understand. Ok? Ok." He clasped his hands together and, as if on command, he and his compatriots piled back into the truck and took off going southeast, past the town they had passed on the way into Miramare and out onto the highway which would take them past around Hoofington.

It hadn't quite occurred to Nikolai just how troublesome navigating the road system around a major Equestrian prewar city would be. The bombs on the last day had fallen much too quickly for any substantial mass evacuations to occur, but that didn't change the face that hundreds of thousands, indeed probably millions of carts and carriages and cars and trucks and all sorts of things had been left to decay on the roads with no one to clear them away, leading to an interesting circulate that forced Nikolai into driving near to the road shoulder and being extra vigilant. The hum of the trucks magickly powered engine was quiet compared to a gasoline or diesel vehicle. Off in the distance, and in the rear bed especially, the team heard the crackle of gunfire and the cries and howls of uncountable mutants and creatures that called the ruins home. There was a time when Nikolai had to gun it and plow through a pack of feral two headed cats when they tried to surround the vehicle. An oversized radscorpion and its family forced Nikolai to take an exit up onto a shady overpass that he didn't want to take. It went on like this for about a third of the night. They drove non stop for about five hours, until at last the ground under the tires turned from patchy overgrown asphalt to dust strewn gravel, and finally to barren dirt. The sight of distant church steeple came into view, overshadowed in the distance by the grandiose glowing spires of The Core. They were here.

Nikolai, Willow, Flashpoint, and Thunder had only visited two places in the whole Hoof that could be even remotely considered to be what any normal soul would call, "Civilized." Megamart was one, this was the other. And Chapel was nothing like Megamart. Far from being a trade hub with big walls, around the clock armed guards, and gun emplacements that covered every possible ground based approach vector that made the idea to of trying to raid it downright laughable, Chapel was downright quaint. There were no walls, only scattered remains of picket fencing that might have once looked aesthetically pleasing but offered no protection. It was near the main road, and literally right down the street from the bridge that led into the Hoofington Core.

The village was centered around, per its name, a chapel. A stereotypical Anglo Americana esque non denominational chapel, white steeple and all. Around the chapel was a few small wood sided houses and one or two ramshackle shacks that had seen better days. Nikolai hopped out of the truck with his AK 101 at low ready. He scanned the exterior of Chapel. No one was outside, though, in the windows of the chapel, firelight flickered softly, candles, he guessed. And he could see light in a few of the other homes.

Should he go and knock? Ask them for a place to stay? They might be welcoming enough. And The Stalker could certain pay for a night's lodging, but then again-this close to The Core of Hoofington, and with Nikolai and the others geared up the way they were there the residents might very well just take potshots at them as soon as they close. But Nikolai guessed that this isolated community probably didn't possess night vision capabilities, just as it also didn't seem to possess night shift guards. Nikolai and his compatriots looked too well kept to be taken as raiders at face value alone, he hoped. If they were asleep they might not even notice him until he crawled through a window or knocked on the front door. They were in a well lit structure surrounded by pitch blackness. If someone was outside, they could see all the goings-on inside. But not vice versa.

Nikolai climbed back into the cab of his truck and drove it down into a high thicket about fifty meters north of Chapel, that would hide it from prying eyes until they were either turned away by the residents, or, hopefully, until morning when they would set off across that bridge just down the road into The Hoofington Core.

"Willow, Thunder?" He began to instruct his friends carefully. "Wait here, I do not want to scare whoever comes to the door out of letting us stay for the night." Both of his winged friends looked at one another and nodded understandably.

A pegasus in Enclave power armor, with its glowing visor-eyes and insectoid body, and Willow with his similarly glowing eyes, fangs, and devilsh leathery wings that were the stuff of nightmares to anyone who didn't know him. Flashpoint may have been a zebra but hopefully that wouldn't matter. Nikolai was perhaps, from a broader perspective, the strangest looking one amongst them but he had charm that Willow and Thunder simply didn't. He could always send Flashpoint to the door and remain just out of sight, ready to react if things went south. The Stalker went with that plan.

The two trudged across the dirt and cobblestone and patchy brown grass towards the collection of buildings. Nikolai left his grenade launcher and his rucksack in the truck, (Which he had locked, being the holder of the sole key) but kept his AK 101 slung at low ready with his right hand on the pistol grip and his index finger inside of the trigger guard in case anything arose. They passed the picket fencing and strolled past a few buildings, hearing nothing but quiet from inside. They beelined right for the Chapel proper, and Nikolai stood off to the side and quietly motioned for Flashpoint to knock on the door.

"Tap, tap." He whispered, jabbing a thumb at the old mahogany. Flashpoint smiled in the dark, and gave the door three short little raps with the tip of his left forehoof. They waited for a few seconds.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. A set of hooves advanced towards the door, and Flashpoint stepped back as it swung open, and the smell of burning candle wicker met his nose.

"Hello?" A black unicorn stallion with a white mane asked kindly, looking about confused, and... Strangely unconcerned about the weapons on Flashpoint's side. The zebra waved curtly through a half raise of his right hoof. The stallion standing in the threshold met his eyes.

"Are you lost?" The unicorn inquired. Flashpoint put on his best smile and got straight to the point, lying on the fly. "Hey. No, I'm not. I was passing by, and... I saw lights in the distance and I figure since there were no raiders around that I'd check it out. I'm looking for a place to stay, just for the night. My name is Flashpoint."

"Tell him we can pay him!" Nikolai whispered loudly from around the side of the Chapel.

"Flashpoint... You're... not alone?" The unicorn inquired neutrally.

"No." Flashpoint admitted, standing stiff. "I've got one friend waiting somewhere off in the dark, and a few more at the edge of your village. We need a place to hole up for the night and-like my friend said, we can pay you." At this the unicorn chuckled a bit and stood off to the side.

"Well... Celestia welcomes all, Flashpoint. Come right on in. My name is Priest, you are welcome to stay as long as you would like, free of charge."

"Priest..." Flashpoint thought to himself. Nikolai was thinking the same thing, ironic coincidence that a fellow named Priest was in a Chapel. Nikolai stepped out from beside the building and radioed to Thunder and Willow that the coast was clear. They all filed inside, and Priest's magic shut the door behind them.

"We have our own supplies, we don't want to burden you." Nikolai informed their new host. Priest smiled again and nodded in return.

"Very well."

Thunder looked around at the pews through her visor. "Nikolai, something doesn't seem right here," She bumped up against him. Nikolai shook his head and pulled off his mask.

"Don't worry, Willow will be on guard duty through the night." He spread his sleeping bag across one of the pews.

"Get some rest. You'll need it." They were out in an instant.

Like a lightbulb cutting out abruptly during a rolling blackout Nikolai's dream-nightmare scale in his mind seemed to be slightly defective. The content of his dreams seemed to have nothing to do with his life experiences, or otherwise-they were almost exact parodies. With him watching himself in the third person, going about business. He recalled having read something about "dream walking" during his time here but-he didn't quite recall where he had heard it.

The contents of the particular dream he had today nearly perfectly mirrored those of the previous night. Like an instructional guide mixed with a static painting. Though tragically cryptic. When the brain lacks information it tends to rely on imagination to fill the gap. And Nikolai was fantasizing about what he might find on the other side of that supermassive concrete wall.

**

Daylight came. The sky was once again filled with an iron-grey glow and Nikolai and the others found themselves invited to a communal breakfast of old preserved foods which had been heated either in a Dutch oven or over a large cast iron stovetop. If cold the food might have tasted stale, but as it was it... actually wasn't quite so bad.

Nikolai and his compatriots offered to pay for the meal but Priest refused any sort of payment. Not bottlecaps, not anything. Charity, he claimed. For all those under the princesses' watch. Charity: What a bizarre thing in a world where an armed group could so easily take advantage of such a thing. Except for the dozen or so foals armed with a motely of improvised spears and old Ironshod autoloading pistols that they had, guess what, taken from the outskirts of the old frontlines only a few kilometers southeast of them. They were a part of a little group they called the, 'Crusaders'. And they all wore the same colorful patch of a foal's silhouette either on their ragtag clothing or on the backside of a cape. From what Nikolai understood they were all orphans, something which made Thunder's heart melt with sympathy. That power armor clad pegasus soldier quickly won them over with stories of what the world above the clouds was like. They tugged at her wings with eyes full of curiosity-though they all avoided her mechanical tail with its razor sharp metal scorpion barb on the end.

Cetus was here. Cetus, that mare who had chosen to go separate ways with The Stalker and his gang rather then try to navigate through an enervation field. Not shortly after they had been attacked by a hellhound and scattered to the winds. For what Cetus knew she was the only one left alive from her group. That was all, and... Quite frankly there wasn't anything Nikolai and his compatriots could do for her. Nikolai and Willow were left amidst themselves, until Priest came by and Nikolai decided to break out his bible and start asking the unicorn questions about his own profession and his own religion. That left Willow, awkwardly waiting until it was time to leave.

The truth about thestrals out in the Wasteland is that they were among the rarest kind of pony you could see. Seeing one or two at a distance was highly uncommon unless you knew where to look. Meeting one was even rarer, and something like what had happened to Nikolai; with Willow befriending him, let alone traveling with him was a once in a lifetime experience that the vast majority of Equestrian Wastelanders would never experience. When a pony would come into contact with a bat pony they often wouldn't even know what they were. Earth ponies, they'd assume. Thestrals usually wore heavy barding and hoods and cowls and all manner of eye coverings to mask themselves. Because believe it or not, most weren't too keen on letting what most saw as a blood sucking night crawler into their towns and camps. A pony could meet a dozen undercover bat ponies in their life and never know it. Only other thestrals could detect other thestrals hidden that well. In reality, bat ponies were all almost universally the kindest and most empathetic ponies out there, and they never attacked other ponies for food if they could help it. It was a shame, Willow thought, that he hadn't met any other ones since he had began traveling with Nikolai and Flashpoint. But that was neither here nor there.

Service at Chapel wasn't much of any service at all. It was recognizable yet completely foreign to Nikolai. Now that breakfast was over, and they were singing a soft chorus in the front few rows of the church, The Stalker realized the uncomfortable truth about the town. The ponies here were sick. They were hurting. One even looked like he had raider disease, and The Stalker had to hold himself back from marching the fellow around back and turning him to sanitized ash with his plasma carbine before he could bite anyone. But he knew better, and hoped that the poor stallion would leave this place before something like that happened. What else was a chapel at the end of the world supposed to be but a place where people could try and find some shred of hope? The Stalker had spoken with Priest for about fifteen minutes about the similarities and differences between Christianity and whatever it was Priest was doing.

They worshipped Celestia and Luna, the immortal alicorns-natural, not the biohazardous hivemind freaks of nature Nikolai had had run-ins with in the past, who had benevolently ruled over Equestria in the prewar. Vanished without a trace, though apparently Priest didn't seem to think so. He thought of them as Goddesses, Nikolai knew better. But he had never met them so he couldn't tell. Maybe they just like what Priest depicted them as, or maybe they were fakes who ruled through manipulation, maybe they were just immortal and super powerful, but not omniscient. Nikolai hadn't really told Priest very much about Jesus. He recited some things from the New Testaments' Sermon On the Mount, a bit Mathews, a bit of Luke, and some stuff from Proverbs and a few of the Ten Commandments for good measure. Priest seemed pretty impressed, and even asked if he could copy down some of what Nikolai had quoted to use in his own sermons. It might have been a different religion but that didn't change the fact that most of what was in The Bible would be considered sound advice and sound knowledge to anyone whether they believed in the good book or not. They bid Priest a curt goodbye, and wished the Crusaders and Cetus the best of luck, as much as wishing counted in The Wasteland, and drove off down the road towards the bridge that led into Hoofington.

"Wait, is that..." Nikolai eased into the brakes and rolled down the window. It was the stallion with the raider disease from earlier. He had disappeared about ten minutes before Nikolai and the others had left. And now he was about a quarter of the way across the bridge.

Flash! A violent red beam arced out from the top of the concrete wall and vaporized him, leaving a cloud of glowing ash which blew into the contaminated river below. None of the four said anything. Some other pony might have been concerned about the fact that that stallion might have very well just ended his own life. But Nikolai and the others were much more concerned about what had done the ending. That plasma lance.

Since the wall hadn't started trying to death ray them quite yet The Stalker made the guess that they were either outside of its range, beyond its sensors, or beyond its preprogramed zone of influence. The Core of Hoofington was built a bit like a medieval castle in that way, and these bridges and the damns further up the river were just immovable drawbridges. Nikolai scanned the wall with his binoculars, picking out defensive hardpoints and marking them on a mental map.

"If only we had a drone." Nikolai murmured sarcastically, pointing at the bridge and wall and the wide open gates just below. Yes. For some reason the gates, the only realistic way anyone could make it into the city were, at least in the case of this particular segment of the wall, wide open. But that was a false flag. As Nikolai assumed that anyone who got close enough to see what was on the other side would find that it would be the last thing they would ever see. But none of them had a heavily armored multi ton truck piloted by a bipedal drunk.

Nikolai reached into his rucksack and washed the weird aftertaste of breakfast down with a quarter bottle of vodka.

"Windows up and everyone inside!"

"What's the plan?" Thunder inquired strategically. Nikolai set his hands on the wheel and slammed the door shut once Willow and Thunder had forced themselves into the backseat. He wiggled about, trying to get comfortable in all his gear. His shoulder plates forced him to nearly sit in the fetal position.

"We bum rush the gate. meaning we drive straight at it. Thunder, Flashpoint? Has your E.F.S detected any mines on the bridge?" The pegasus' metal ears twitched, and she shrugged.

"I hadn't thought of that." She admitted. "None, by the looks of it." As she said that she shed her cloak that Nikolai had fashioned for her way back in Murkycrest.

"Probably won't need this once we get to the other side." She admitted. She had grown a little attached to it, though it made taking off more difficult, and here, now, that was unacceptable. She shoved it up against the glove box and settled in, hooves pressed up to the door.

"Ok-ready!?" He looked around as he slid the truck out of idle and pulled back onto the road, lining himself up with the open entrance to the Hoofington Core, a quarter kilometer distant. He wrapped his arm over his seat and looked around at everyone through the lenses of his mask. His friends all returned his gaze with nods.

"Ready." Willow spoke for the three of them.

Cheeki breeki!"

He gunned the engine and stomped the pedal into the floor. The truck shot forward, picking up speed as it approached the bridge. They crossed the threshold. The world outside sped by. Nikolai's eyes were focused dead ahead: The speedometer read sixty five miles per hour. For a moment, nothing happened. It was like whatever force that was in control of the Core's defenses were simply too stunned to react. They were about halfway across the bridge when the world turned bright as the sun. Hundreds of bolts of magical energy rang down from the top of the wall, and a pair of automated turrets on the far end of the bridge lit up the truck in a shower of red beams, melting the armor and siding. A missile struck the bridge behind them, Thunder caught a glimpse of several dozens of... pegasi?

Not pegasi, pegasi drones. Robots.

Robots with Novasurge rifles.

Nikolai swerved and veered but there were too many of them. One pair of bolts surged through the passenger side window and singed Flashpoint's muzzle. The zebra pulled himself back into his chair, not quite comprehending what had just happened. Thunder returned fire through the shattered window and slaged one of the drones.

Boom!

An explosion rocked the back of the truck. A missile had struck the bed, sheering off the tailgate.

Boom!

The front right tire popped and melted and met a violent end. Nikolai held fast, the others had no time to react as the wall loomed over them, the entrance to The Core was right there.

And then they hit the perimeter force field.

Chapter 7: Over Hill And Dale

Chapter 7: Over Hill And Dale

Nikolai was standing on a sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood. It looked like a typical American subdivision. But something was off. Strange equine creatures littered the streets. Going about life in the same fashion as humans. Some pushed carts with little foals along. Others chatted about life, one was throwing a sack of trash into a bin nearby, stange flags flew from the side of a few of the homes. He tried to call out to them. But got no response, it was as if they simply weren't aware of his presence. He looked off to his left, and saw the towering skyscrapers of a city.

"I would figure I am due explanation." He mused. But just as the words had left his mouth he began to hear a sound which he was all too familiar with.

It was the haunting drone of an air raid siren. All at once, the creatures in the street began to panic. Nikolai was completely bewildered as to what was happening. He himself was confused. But, just 30 seconds later. He got his answer. He spotted something flying over head. It flew towards the city, fading out of sight in an instant. He got a chilling feeling that he should turn away. Before he could make any other moves, a bright flash of light erupted from the city. Alongside a noise louder than anything he had ever heard.

"Oh God."

He whispered shakily, the flash subsided just enough for him to get a look at the enormous mushroom cloud blossoming from where the city had once stood. He could feel the heat and wind from the blast rush against his clothing, and, an instant later, the shockwave hit him. Knocking him off his feet, the shockwave was followed by a massive rolling wall of green flame.

" Где я! Where am I!?" Nikolai cried, stumbling to his feet from out of his sleeping bag. Everything from the past 2 days came flooding back into his mind. It was only a dream, just a dream. But was it?

He looked around and shrugged. A copy of the Wasteland Survival guide fell to the ground, he had falling asleep. It was only a dream, just a dream. But was it? He looked around and shrugged. The iritating pain of a hangover headache rocked the Stalkers brain.

"This is not problem! Tsar Bomba still bigger!" He touted.

But there was no one to hear him. He took another swig from his canteen, it was getting empty. He swished it around in his mouth. And spit the stale taste of vomit, MRE and morning out of his mouth. After that, he ate the remainder of the MRE, 'took care of business' behind a pile of rubble. Then geared up and headed out just 15 minutes after waking up. After taking another look at the digital map on his PDA. He determined that he should head north, out of Salt Cube city. After angering Mr. Salt, and fleeing from the Glow. He had no reason to be there. He didn't know where he was going. His plan was to travel northwards up the highway until he came to some new settlement. And which point he would possibly have an opportunity to replenish his supplies.

About an hour later, past the road sign from before. He came another one. It was made of wood, but it was still intact enough to let him read what the sign said.

'Salt Marshes Regional Park.'

There was a gravel parking lot, a small guard shack, and a few wrecked cars, none of which had anything useful within them. The location, as this sign said, was a salt lake. The water appeared to be only a few inches deep. But the clicking from his Geiger counter informed him that it would be best not to go wading. It was just off the highway, and he wasn't in a rush anyway.

"Ah, this reminds me of Dead Sea. Good place for make Pickles. " Nikolai resounded with vigor. He looked over the lake, and sat down on the gravel rise, just by the shore. As he sat down, he noticed that a a veil of fog was beginning to creep over the lake, as if on que with his presence.

Nikolai looked to a car which had been half flipped over, it was lying in the salt water. The word's, " Danger watch water." Had been hastily spray painted onto it. The body of yet a pony leaning up against the vehicles gave warrant to it's claims. It appeared to be quite old. Being that the lower half of the corpse seemed to have been chewed on by something and then dissolved away in the water.

"Huh, what happened down there?" He got up to investigate, and as he reached the water's edge, the fog closed in around him. Then, he saw a pair of glowing green eyes in the fog. Just below the water. And then another pair, and another. He counted 5 in all. As they drew closer, he was able to make out the rest of their bodies.

"Mutant crocodiles? Nyet, not a chance-" He swiftly jumped away from a set of giant seething teeth.

The creatures were all at least twice his size or larger. And he didn't want to waste ammunition on anything but the most dangerous targets. So he fled. He had managed to just make it up the gravel bank and back to the parking lot when he was faced head on with another mutant crocodile. This one was at least 4 times his size, and it's entire body pulsed with Balefire Radiation. He swiftly raised his AK 101 up and put 2 shots into it's right leg. It roared and charged at him. He walked backwards, being sure to keep his cool this time around. He fired into it's head straight on in a 3 round burst of suppressed automatic fire. But it only seemed to anger the creature more, the only result being the loss of a few scales. He needed to think smarter.

"Blyat, what was that about crocodiles? Ah, yes! That spot on their brain!" Nikolai drew his knife and scrambled up onto one of the nearby cars.

He waited for the creature to pounce, and then jumped onto it's back and drove the blade in between it's eyes. It collapsed on the spot. The glow faded from it's bodies. And, a moment later, the mutant creatures turned on one another. Nikolai didn't want to wait around for them to realize he was still there. And took off running.

Nikolai only stopped when he could no longer hear the sounds of the creatures fighting. He stopped for a breather. Pulling out his canteen, he took a sparse gulp. After spending a whole day and a half without refilling it. It was getting low. He had last had the opportunity back in Salt Cube city. And now, he needed a place to top off. To his northeast, there was a distant mountain range, and to his west stretched a combination of desolate plains and rolling hills. Surely, he was getting close to some settlement. He pulled out his PDA and began to look.

" A, De Там!" He had spotted an abnormality on his map. Just up ahead was what looked like an airfield of some kind. Which hopefully would allow him to replenish his food and water. Beyond that lay another sizeable city, and an old town. Alongside a river crossing.

About an hour and a half later, he stood an off shoot from the main highway. This one led west to a small valley, within it lay an air field. Surrounded by a barbed wire fence and lined with guard towers at roughly 150 meter intervals. A massive runway ran the length of the base, alongside half a dozen massive hangers, and various support structures. From a cursory glance, it appeared to be abandoned. As he drew closer, he spotted a road sign. ' Sunrise Valley Air force Base'. Nikolai made sure to mark the location on his map. As he drew close to the gates, he began to hear something odd.

"Is that fifle and drum?" The Stalker scratched his head in confusion.

It seemed greatly out of place. Then, it all made sense. Hovering just off the ground along the runway was one of the robots he had encountered in Salt Cube city. A, 'sprite-bot'. With antennas and mechanical wings sticking out of it. Nikolai laughed. He headed towards the closest hanger. It's doors were already wide open. And it didn't look any different from an aircraft hanger back on earth. But that wasn't what he was interested in. Within the hanger were the wrecks of several strange craft. They possessed an insect like appearance, alongside a rotor on either side and one on the back. Likely meaning they were similar in nature to the American Osprey from Earth. But these appeared to sport heavier armor and pylons for weapons.

"This would be fascinating... If I knew anything about aircraft." He pulled off his mask for better visibility. There really wasn't any reason to wear it, he had just kept it on out of habit. Outside of a slightly higher background count, there was no reason to wear it for now.

"Da, good fresh air. It smells of rust and motor oil. " Nikolai muttered to himself as he picked over the contents of the hanger. Alongside the old aircraft and mechanical components, pony skeletons in mechanic barding littered the ground. A few of them wore armored vests and sported sidearms, like a more uniform version of the White Apples he had encountered back in Salt Cube City. Unfortunately, he didn't have the space in his rucksack to stash the weapons. But he was able to fit a small pouch of gold coins which one of them had by their side. They all appeared to carry either 9 or 10 MM caliber pistols. With a few of them carrying small carbines or PDW's. These larger weapons were mounted to Battle saddles. Devices designed to allow the mounting of larger weapons to a pony's side for ease of use. He had read about them in the Wasteland Survival Guide.

"Blin, these thing's look valuable! To bad I can't take them with me." He walked up a flight of rusted stairs to an office overlooking the rest of the hanger. Filing cabinets lined either side of the sheet metal walls. At the center of it all was a desk, the plaque on it read 'Colonel Splendid.'

"Not so Splendid now, eh?" He laughed and slapped the desk, that was when he noticed the computer terminal, still intact. Curious, he walked over to the other side and poked at it.

"Heh, I didn't have much luck with other one. Maybe this time? " Nikolai cracked his knuckles and went to work. This time around, it was as simple as pressing the start button and waiting for it to boot up. He glanced up on the branding on the side of the computer. What looked like a partial version of the New Mexico state flag, as well as the words:

"Stable Tech? Well, their logo is spelled, 'Stable Tec'. What secrets are you hiding?"

Nikolai soon had access to the device. Whilst it didn't have a mouse, he was still able to use it. He was now presented with several file choices.

" Old Olneigh Energy Weapons facility."

"Splendid Valley Rock Farms Manifest."

" Reveille at 0800 Hours and Guard shift rotation."

"Sky Guard joint sorties Report."

Of all of these, the 'Energy weapons part interested him the most. He dragged the manual guide ball to the file and clicked on it.

"Command tells me that we're overdue for a shipment of new fangled energy weapons. Damn things are supposed to be able to use glowing crystals as ammunition. They're supposed to work like sorta like a unicorn horn. Those folks from the sky guard can't wait to get their hooves on them. Oh well, good for them I suppose. "

"End Entry." Nikolai nodded silently.

" This, this is interesting. I heard stories of laser space guns and what not being used by the Monolith. I may have to check out this, 'Old Olneigh' place for myself." He said to himself out loud. He had already lost interest in the other files on the terminal. And had begun to rummage though the desks drawers. He found a couple of multi colored crystals, all dull. Nikolai assumed that these were the crystals that the log talked about. Except that they were now dull. But even now, they might fetch some value. He stuffed them into a pant leg pocket for later. The rest of the place offered nothing of value. Except a cool beret, and a magazine titled, ' Equestrian Army Today'. Which he stuffed into his rucksack. As he was descending down the steps, he heard groaning. And then hooves galloping on concrete. It was another ghoul. This one wore a mechanics uniform. It snarled at him as it closed the distance.

"Blyat, Оставь меня!" He raised his rifle and shot it once.

The impact of the 5.56 FMJ round tore off pieces of the creatures head and exposing it's putrid brain. It kept up. And so he shot it again, this time, it's corpse skidded to a stop on the ground. He headed down, and left the hanger. As he walked back onto the runway, he began to look for other points of interest on the base grounds. And he found one, an old open air shooting range located behind the hangers.

"Finally, a place to zero my scope!" Nikolai was ecstatic, the only problem with it was that all the targets were ranged using yards, not meters. Regardless, it would still work. He drew the optic from his rucksack and snapped onto the side mount on the left side of the rifle. He took the rifle off safe, and looked to the first distance that he wanted to set the optic to, 150 meters. That wouldn't compromise his accuracy up close, but it would also allow him to 'reach' out further without having to use the iron sights.

"Crack!" He set his rifle on some sandbags and fired once, setting the reticle right on the dead center of the target. His shot went leftwards a ways. He calmly adjusted the sight and fired again. This time, his shot landed upwards a little bit. He adjusted the optic a little bit more. And, on the 3rd shot, the round sailed right through the center of the target.

"Yра! Yра! Huzzah! Huzzah! It works!" His celebration was short lived, as he began to hear a ferocious growling coming from one of the hangers. And if he could hear it from all the way on the other side of the compound, it was sure to be dangerous. He swapped to a new magazine, stuffing the other one back into it's pouch. And, after redonning his GP 5 gas mask, went to investigate.

"де тебе?" He murmured, looking around.

On the far side of the runway. About 200-odd meters away, was a massive canine-like creature. About the size of a polar bear. It wore a crude vest make from rags, it was behaving in a feral manner, and even from the distance he was at, he could see that it's eyes glowed red. It didn't appear to have noticed him yet. This was a problem. A very big problem.

Chapter 24: Spur to Confusion

Chapter 24: Spur to Confusion

Nikolai was stumped for the moment, as was Willow, as was Flashpoint. The dark and dreading Synthwave coming from the Stalker's Radio wasn't much of an encouragement either. Although, it did set the atmosphere.

"We don't even know if those are Enclave pegasi." Flashpoint countered. "What if it's just some scavenging griffons or Dashites flying on by?" Nikolai facepalmed.

"Well, I no hear them I busy suffer for This thing!" He held up the gas analyzer. "Is was very fun! Much painful." The Stalker set his hands in his pockets.

"I am kidding, of course. Now! How do want to draw straws to go outside? Because is to crazy even for me." Willow, you are sneaky. You attempt, yes." The batpony sighed, and readjusted the straps on his battle saddle.

"Fine Nikolai, you and Flashpoint head up onto the second floor-" The Stalker held up his left hand and chuckled.

"Oh, you think you go without me? Hah! I said you investigate, I follow for support. We are friends, remember? No question. Let us go and see who is up there." He turned to Flashpoint.

"You are backup, follow at distance behind me." Nikolai swapped magazines to one loaded with Steel Core Ammunition and chuckled softly, spinning his radio off as he did. But then deciding against it, and switching it back on. If he was going to get into a potentially unwinnable gunfight, then he at least wanted some nice and delightful music to soundtrack it.

"Nikolai, what are you doing!?" Flashpoint demanded. The Stalker drew a gloved finger to the tip of his mask's filter, then waved forward.

"Sh! Wait and see Flashpoint, this is good idea, I swear!" The Zebra murmured something under his breath as the trio stopped just a few meters from the grandiose front doors of the structure.

"It's louder here." Willow told them. "There's gotta be at least 4 of them, maybe more." The Stalker gripped his AK 101 and laughed.

"Blyat, awesome! I am feel bit of bloodlust! These things drive me insane! Nightmare, follow me. I cannot stand!" Willow glanced back at Flashpoint and motioned his slit eyes in Nikolai's direction. Flashpoint shook his head, though he understood what the Bat pony must have been hinting at. Their Stalker friend was insane, and he was once more pointing it out. As Flashpoint went back to his own thoughts, Nikolai's radio began to blare with static, and, after a few taps of the frequency knop, something peculiar began to filter thought.

"Make this as fast. It shouldn't be that difficult, command said this location is empty."

"They've been wrong before, be on your guard."

These two separate voices intrigued Nikolai, who turned it up, and listened intentively. Willow's right ear snapped to the Stalker's radio. "Who is that?" He asked him. Nikolai brought his finger back up to his masks filter, tapping it twice, before gesturing for them to back up and away from him.

"Anything with a spell matrix?" The voice over the radio asked. "Yep." A second, gravelly voice replied with a firm grunt. Nikolai turned his radio's volume up a bit more, and looked back at his friends.

"Чоловіки, я вважаю, що щойно відкрив комунікації Enclave! I was right after all! No other group I meet have flying ponies with radio, or power armor! Not even Steel Rangers, to my own knowledge!" Willow nodded in agreement.

"We've gotta be cautious about this then- Nikolai? Nikolai!" The Stalker had crept off out of sight midsentence. Nikolai considered this a personal affair, and he intended to treat it as such and figure out just what these armored pegasi wanted.

"This who damn place is nothing but melted slag, so how is this one Ministry building still standing?"

"Best guess? Magical shielding. Intel says this place handled Balefire weapons before the war." Nikolai rolled his eyes at that statement.

"Could they trace me?" Nikolai asked himself. He thought about responding to them out of the blue, but then he recalled what that had resulted in last time. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get away so easily this time if he was discovered, plus, he had his two companion's who'd be caught completely off guard if the Enclave decided to rush in guns blazing.

"Ah, I got it! I pretend I am force of godlike power! They get scare, and fly away in terror! Da, sound like good idea!" Nikolai crept out into a room with windows the bordered the courtyard of the facility, he judiciously snuck over to the window and peered out through the mothballed curtains.

"Where are you, where are you?" Nikolai's eyes drew themselves upwards, towards the end of the road leading up to the facility, about 100 meters away, and flying at least 10 or so meters off the cracked asphalt, was 4 armored pegasi. But these didn't look like the ones he had encountered back at Sunrise Valley Airbase. For one, they seemed to be wearing armor that was much lighter and compact then those he had come across before.

"Hm..."

Nikolai brought his rifle up, resting it's stock on his shoulder and pressing the eyecup of it's PSO rifle scope up close to his eye to get a better look at the group. He noticed that first three had manes were exposed, bright arcs of color that stood out against the grey sky even from this distance. The armor seemed much less robotic overall. It was like a thick bodysuit with bits of armor plate plastered over it, Their helmets seemed to bear some similarity though, and the weapons under either wing looked like more compact versions of the energy weapons the others had used. They were definitely Enclave. The fourth one was different. Rather than an exoskeleton, this pegasus wore what looked like a bulky white hazmat suit with an orange visor.

"They came prepared. I could probably take them, but I do not need extra fight for now. Last resort Nikolai, last resort. " The Stalker reminded himself, cracking his knuckles, he proned out on the floor and listened to the chatter though his radio.

"You sure this place is empty?" A fourth voice asked, slightly muffled. "That must be the one in white." Nikolai murmured.

"This is a quick recovery mission, nothing more. We break in, search the place, retrieve our quota, and get out." Nikolai couldn't have that, his friends were in here. He had to divert these pegasi somehow before they discovered him... And potentially called reinforcements.

And so, with his hands tied, the Stalker did the only reasonable thing he thought to do in the instant. He activated his radio's transmitter on the same frequency as the receiver, and uttered an ominous, slightly sarcastic;

"Ooooo...."

Through the radio, repeating it a second time an instant later, just to be sure the group outside got the message.

"Which one of you did that?" A series of confused murmurs came through the radio's speaker. "Where is it coming from then?" Nikolai chuckled, and instantly regretted it.

"Who laughed!? Who the fuck was that!? It wasn't any of you, so who was it?" The Stalker bit his lip and swiftly answered back with.

"Eh... Is nobody- I mean nopony, go away please now friend! Is all good, over and out!" Nikolai swore under his breath, this was shaping up to be a repeat of Sunrise Valley from his perspective. For all his grievances, the Stalker wanted no part in another run and gun fight against magical creatures that both outnumbered, outgunned, and outpaced him in nearly every aspect. His only present advantage was that of radio communications, and surprise. These strangers from above the clouds didn't know where he was, and Nikolai intended to keep it that way unless he absolutely needed to start shooting. At which point, he'd go from zero to a metaphorical hundred and wouldn't stop fighting until he and his friends were safely out of harm.... And he'd blown through his emergency supply of Vodka.

"To hell with this, change frequencies." They did, and Nikolai followed them to the next. "Whoever you are, you're messing with a secure military transmission. Cease it immediately or you will be terminated." The Stalker laughed, and shifted his rifle. Getting another good look at the pegasi as the lead two grew closer and higher, whilst the 3rd armored one stayed back with the one in the containment suit.

"They're guarding that one, I bet if I could kidnap him. It would make good explanation! Plus, new flying friend, maybe? Hah! Nikolai, you must be on your best for this!"

The Stalker reached into his rucksack, and pulled out a bottle of Vodka, he uncapped it and took a single, short swig. Then redonned his mask, and waited until the pegasi left his immediate field of view. He quickly and clumsily scrambled out of the window. But as he did, he heard a crashing noise behind him, followed by;

"Nikolai, what are you doing!? They'll see you! Get back in here before-"

"Nyet! Is fine! I am very stealthy!" Willow tapped Nikolai on his shoulder. "Then stop yelling bud, please, for all our sakes. Come on back inside, we'll find another way out."

"Hey, back there! What was that?" A voice called out over his radio. His blood ran cold as the line echoed through his speaker.

"Nikolai... Who is that?" Two black shapes appeared almost out of nowhere from right above them. Without another word, Nikolai pounced back through the broken window and took off out of the room with Willow flying low right behind him, the two skidded right past Flashpoint, and then stopped and took cover behind some crates. Nikolai turned down his radio.

"What did you do?" Flashpoint asked his voice full of bewilderment.

"I make no excuse, please-quiet. I must speak with Enclave." He pulled the radio from his vest and held it up to his mouth, pulling his mask up just enough to be able to speak clearly though it.

"Hello? This is Enclave, structure is already clear. No need to come in, is all handle."

"Think they bought it?" Flashpoint asked Nikolai. The Stalker shrugged. "I do not no, I am simple Stalker, you see. Not impressionist. I can do pretty good Scottish accent though!" Willow looked at him in confusion.

"Who? What's Scottish?" Nikolai breathed out a heavy sigh. "Nevermind."

"What!?" The voice shouted back through the radio, "Who is this? What's your designation!?" The Stalker facepalmed, and then compulsively answered with a resounding and gallant "Bacon!" There was silence, followed by what worryingly sounded like a sonic boom, and a massive crash on the northern side of the building.

"Hey! What is going on?"

"Are you from another branch?" Another voice asked over the radio.

"Eh... Yes. Please, no ask question." A scoff filled the airwaves.

"We can settle it when we get inside. We're all after the same thing." Nikolai's radio clicked and beeped, and the opening notes of, "Come and Get Your Love." Began to play over both end of the channel. Nikolai heard heavy metallic hoofsteps down the corridor from which he had come.

"That ain't right, be on guard." Nikolai's radio cut to static.

"Blyat!" He stuffed his radio back into it's pouch and drew a grenade from another. He turned and looked at Flashpoint and Willow.

"I throw, we run, da? Good?"

"I'm starting to regret having met you." Willow grumbled. Flashpoint just chuckled. "Get used to it. He's like this all the time."

Willow pulled his cloak back up over his head, obscuring his entire face except for his faintly glowing slit eyes. "What!? Trying to get everyone killed in horrible ways? Those aren't just raiders, that's the Enclave!" Nikolai bid them both do be quiet, and then motioned for them to make a move for an office about 10 meters down the adjoining hallway.

"Hold on, if we're really gonna do this," Willow insisted, "You'll need a distraction." With that, the bat pony shrank away into the deep shadows in the far corner of the room, darting off and away. Leaving a confused Nikolai to fend for himself. The Stalker ducked up from behind his concealment, and was instantly greeted with the orange glare of a power armor visor. This was a new pegasus, clad in armor much bulkier than the others, almost like- but not the same as what he had previously seen back in Sunrise Valley. For a brief instant, the two simply stared at one another. Seemly unsure of what do to. Nikolai assumed that this one had simply heard a call for backup. They didn't know what he looked like.

Well, now they did. Nikolai panicked, and ducked down just as a arcs of laser light began to pulse over his head. Burning holes into the wall behind him. He pulled his grenades pin, and tossed it, he heard it ricochet off the ceiling, and then hit the floor below, and explode in an earsplitting crack of dust and fire, Nikolai was off with the grenades pressure wave, taking advantage of the dust filled corridor to make himself a quick getaway to the confused and angry shouting of the pegasi behind him.

"Drop your weapon! I'm gonna kill you! Asshole! And, the ever affectionate, 'Ground Humping Surfacer', were among the insults and commands hurled at the Stalker and his zebra companion as they fled door a corridor along the buildings southeastern wing. Nikolai kicked in a door after a few tries, and then rushed in, and smashed the reinforced windows with a combination of crowbar and rifle stock-work. Picking the armored Zebra up with both arms and practically tossing him through the window before jumping out on his own. It was then when Nikolai's radio crackled back to life, playing a song so fitting that not even Nikolai himself could have picked better if he had been given the opportunity.

" ...Swing as hard as hard as you can sing... It'll still mean nothing..."

"Where did Willow go?" He asked Flashpoint. "He said he had, 'distraction'. Where is distraction?" Flashpoint stomped his hoof into the dirt.

"Shoulda seen it coming, it had to happen sometime... But you went 'n brought a knife to an all out gunfight..."

"I knew it, that little night stalking star loving creep abandoned us!" A crashing noise echoed from within the building, followed by a painful sounding scream of pain and shock. The Stalker's grenade had worked. At least, it had hopefully incapacitated one or more of the lightly armored pegasi. The more heavily armored one he knew, would still be after them. And to add insult to injury, they began to take pulse laser fire from the escort guard across the courtyard. A red beam struck Nikolai in his chest, burning and charring away aramid layer and green cotton, and warming the armored plates and his chest underneath ever so slightly. Causing the Stalker to take cover behind a rusted out car with steel siding. He frantically patted out the flames and scowled under his mask.

"Blayt make friends! No want hospitality? Fine! I shoot!"

Nikokai raised his rifle, kneeling down and canting his gun off to the side, he peered through the scopes glowing reticle, sighted his target in at about 110 meters, set it's upper chevron on the brim of the Enclave pegasi's helmeted head. And pulled the trigger twice just as it turned to get a better shot. Two loud puffs of gunsmoke left the end of the AK 101's suppressor, followed by two sonic cracks and the sound of brass hitting the pavement. The pegasus dropped like a sack of potatoes. The first shot had found an unarmored spot in the pegasi's lower shoulder, and the second struck home right above the visor, splintering it and knocking them to the ground and out of sight. Nikolai turned his gun on the pony in the hazmat suit, but shook his head, and instead turned his attention to the front entrance of the building.

"Flashpoint, watch the sky above us, da? No want sneak up!" Flashpoint nodded, and canted his submachine gun up at a 70 degree angle, positioning himself by a hunk of concrete rubble in such a way so as to avoid direct fire from above. Nikolai kept his gun up, and pulled back to his friend.

"You know!?" Nikolai shouted at him, "It would be much simple if we had radio for all three of us!" He turned his rifle on the armored pegasi getting his bearings on the stone steps just 50 or so meters away. He took aim down his rifles iron sights, and fired off 5 shots in quick succession, directed around the pony's neck and head region. The steel cored rounds bounced off, and shattered in a bright shower of sparks and shrapnel. This did nothing but scratch the armor plates, and cause the pony to redirect his attention towards Nikolai. Who peeked up through his optic and took another shot at the orange visor. Getting the same effect as last time.

"Blin! Is practically M855! What do you want with me!?" Nikolai swore out loud and flipped off the armored, who turned, charged a weapon and fired off a bolt of blue energy which sent Nikolai scurrying back away from his cover as it melted and burned away.

"Hey, I have joke! Please, hold! The pegasus is directing directed energy weapon directly at me! Blyat! Good?" A volley of red laser beams fizzled against the piece of rubble Flashpoint had taken cover behind, Nikolai drew his weapon away, and sprinted over to Flashpoint, taking a knee to take a few shots at a second, lightly armored pegasus, who went tumbling away.

"See, I am good at fight! Even if they cheat with magic laser and-" Another bolt of plasma seared itself against the concrete, deforming and melting exposed rebar in the process. Nikolai drew another grenade, and began to advance closer to his intended target. Shouting back at Flashpoint, " need to take down this fellow before we can get out of here, otherwise, we'll be meat soup on the asphalt!"

All of a sudden, he caught a glimpse of a dark shape on the roof. A quiet whine echoed across the courtyard.

"Willow?" His mind asked.

The loud boom of a short barreled 12 gauge shotgun followed after. Striking the armored pony on the steps right in between the wings, arcs of lightning shot across the armors surface, and the suit stumbled and collapsed in a loud, 'thump!' The figure disappeared off the rooftop. And a few moments later, Willow Lamp walked up behind Flashpoint and tapped him on the shoulder.

"How- What's wrong with you!?" The Zebra shouted, almost being tempted to lower his gun to muzzle height with his Thestral companion.

"Helping you and Nikolai out of a bind, again! EMP Shotgun shells, curtesy of Iornshod firearms. Hey, Nikolai!"

"Willow! " The Stalker let his grenade fly in spite of an already downed target, sprinting back to the debris pile as it detonated, flipping the already paralyzed suit of power armor on it's side. In the distance, two sonic cracks echoed out across the landscape, and 4 additional armored equine forms left the cover of the cloud layer, heading directly for the Ministry building, and, very likely, Nikolai and his friends. And then, almost simultaneously a pair of glowing green figures rose from the ground in the opposite direction and flew to meet them.

"Explain on road! I no want get caught in between alicorn and Enlcave! Would be very painful!" With no other introductory elements needed or wanted by any of the 3 for either faction. They all took off at full sprint, rounding the far side of the Ministry grounds and taking off town a wrecked and desolate city side street, after running and galloping for about 10 minutes, they decided to take shelter in the charred ruins of a department store. They settled right in behind some collapsed concrete pillars near the checkout section.

"Oh... Long short day, da?" Nikolai asked his friends. They both nodded in agreement. Flashpoint wiped the dust and concrete splinters from his armor.

"Here, have some Vodka for troubles." Nikolai offered Willow his bottle of Vodka.

"No thanks, I don't drink." Willow responded. Nikolai rolled his eyes.

"Blin, ok... Suit self!" He reclined back behind an dusty countertop, and removed his mask. "I enjoy fight! It was painful!" Nikolai cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck. Chuckling he took another swig of his drink, followed by a swig of water from his canteen. The Stalker reached into his rucksack and fished around until he held piece of stale bread in his left hand.

"Ah, I feast!" He stared over at his wearied friends. Willow looked well, but Flashpoint seemed exhausted. Even though he was trying to hide it. The Stalker sighed, and broke his bread loaf in two.

"Please, you want? You need?" He waved the bread in the air. Flashpoint shook his head. "No thanks, I'm not hungry." He rolled over onto his side and shut his eyes with a pained sigh. Nikolai's eyes shifted to Willow, who smiled awkwardly.

"What do you-" The Stalker adjusted his tone of voice." What is it? Please, tell me."

"Nikolai." The batpony sighed. " You were the reason those pegasi found us in the first place."

"Da? So what? Is no issue! We get away, and they..." Nikolai glanced up and over the counter.

"They no follow! Listen, only sound of light rainstorm outside! This is good, yes?" Willow sighed, and crept closer to Nikolai, baring his fangs.

"It's not the Enclave I'm worried about!" He said in a hushed whisper. Nikolai finished a third of the loaf, and washed it down with a bit of Vodka.

"What do you mean? What is it? Did you hear something else? Is it those alicorns we saw? Ghouls, perhaps? Look at where we are, would be no surprise, yes? Besides, be happy! We are one step closer to getting to Canterlot!"

"Nikolai, I've gotta ask you, don't you think others have tried?"

"Yes, other ponies! I am not pony! I am not magic creature! I am Nikolai an- Oh, blayt! you're right! I did hear something! What is that?" The Stalker quickly redonned his mask, and scanned the empty overturned shelves and burnt clothing racks behind him with his rifle light. The beam cast shadows across the linoleum floor as it cut through the dust. Sure enough, Nikolai had head a noise in the back of the store, just beneath the second floor's first floor overlook. His rifle reflected off of something as it darted around.

"Invisible alicorn!?" Nikolai kicked Flashpoint awake. "Hello!? Pst! Wake up!" Flashpoint shot upright, his ears on a swivel.

"What do you mean? What- What alicorn?"

"Watch our back. Hey, who is out there!? Speak!" Willow rolled his eyes.

"Nikolai doesn't know how to be quiet, does he? At least his charm makes up for it." The batpony thought to himself with a lighthearted chuckle as he uncovered his carbine and Nikolai braced his gun against the edge of the countertop.

Chapter 36: Hammering Fists, Spilled Blood

Chapter 36: Spilled Milk, Spilled Blood

Wisdom is supreme, therefore get wisdom.

-Proverbs 4:7

It would not take a brilliant mastermind to see that Nikolai- well, in the most literal sense was one of the most obvious and glaring sights in the whole of the Equestrian Wasteland, an ease to pick out of any crowd. His upright bipedal figure, odd mannerisms, and incredibly distinguishable voice made any possibility of becoming a 'grey man' wholly moot. Wastelanders were used to seeing and cooperating with all sorts of weird creatures, so first introductions were never a big issue. Better they ask for his assistance, his name and a conversation, or quietly keep their distance than flee in terror. Of course, this didn't really matter when you're in the middle of nowhere and haven't seen a single soul besides your handful of trusted companions in the last day.

Nikolai had swarmed the ghoul with questions from the moment he seemed coherent enough to talk. His answers were simple and mostly straightforward. His name was Cirro Wisp-Named after a kind of cloud. though his wings looked far too damaged to bring him any further than a few meters. He had been transporting MoAS 'supplies' from Hoofington down south to one of their facilities in Manehatten when a bright flash had filled the cockpit window, the plane lost power moments later, and the last thing he had remembered seeing as flames and the incoming ground-then waking up and noticing Nikolai creeping past him. The strange mare he had found in the back of the plane wreck was silent aside from a few innocent squeaks and noises that sound like they came directly from a two year old foal in the body of a twenty five year old mare.

She was a bit smaller than most of the other mares he had met. And her fur, mane, tail, and eyes were all the same shade of dull white, almost glossy in places. Speckled with little stains of red, yellow, green, and a half dozen other colors that seemed to glow in shadows-whenever the mare walked around for too long on her own it would seemingly begin to bother her, and she would roll around and itch herself all over. This continued until Nikolai gave her a bath in a muddy, partially irradiated creek and a half pack of that awful tasting orange liquid to remove any Balefire leftovers. Besides that, he wasn't quite sure how the little mare had survived back there all that time, or how the other thing caged behind that glorified zoo glass hadn't murdered and eaten her. She didn't speak, so Nikolai decided to think of a name for the oddball equine.

"Alabast?" Willow proposed. "Like alabaster, only shortened?"

"You would have her nicknamed Allie then?" Flashpoint mused to his friend. This gave Nikolai a smile and a boost of enthusiasm. They had been walking since Nikolai woken up, and they were now very nearly at the base of the Canterhorn Mountains.

"Real original," Cirro remarked in a mild New England accent that made would've turned heads back in the Exclusion Zone. He was actually from Manehatten, and was worried (As sick as a ghoul could be) about what he would find. He was downtrodden just from overhearing Willow and Nikolai chatting. Neither had the heart to tell him that it was very likely a giant toxic crater by now, although everyone in the trio suspected he already knew that. The massive mountain range came closer and closer, the four equines and one Stalker would pass by several dilapidated mountain homes, all with signs of recent inhabitants. None still present beyond the odd mole rad or rad roach, of course. Flashpoint even claimed he had seen a glowing two headed fox on an adjacent hill. A claim Nikolai was able to substantiate via his binoculars. Though Willow Flashpoint insisted that it wasn't worth checking out.

Odd as it may have been, it was just another mutant. And Nikolai was too busy to investigate.

It was an odd thing for him to say, he didn't particularly like having to be responsible for what amounted to a herd of little mini horses, one of which didn't even have a heartbeat anymore. What a strange turn his life had taken since he had departed from home and made for The Exclusion Zone. Every time it came to mind his brain made it sound like it had been some grand journey from his home town to the edge of the Zone, in reality it was a 45 minute long ride in a crappy van with strings of rust running down the sides. Public transportation would never have let him on with all his equipment. He might have been able to get away with saying he was going camping, but the pistol, glaringly obvious Geiger counter, ballistic vest, and gas mask bag would have all been dead giveaways. If he was caught, getting kicked off a random public bus was the best thing he could hope for-god forbid the authorities got involved.

The next thing on Nikolai's mind was food. He remembered clearly the smell of his mother and grandmothers kitchen as he helped gather the flour and break up the eggs for blinchiki, a sort of thin Slavic pancake that worked wonders when slathered with strawberry jam, cream cheese, or both, and then rolled up into a breakfast burrito. This naturally led him to garner an idea for the name for the little speechless and half mindless equine Nikolai had found:

"Eggshell." He made the suggestion to his friends. And that was that. Cirro didn't seem to object, truth be told after the first set of question he hadn't said a word. Nikiolai supposed he would be in quite a bit of shock as well to wake up as an undead version of yourself with a strange creature peering down at you. The Stalker checked his watch and his PDA more than once ever couple of minutes. It was like his mind kept wanting excitement, and there was none to be found. He wasn't talking about a gunfight or an ambush, heavens no. He wanted something that would stoke his adventurous spirit and break up the monotony of walking. Walking up a steep hill, to be precise. Something only a masochist would ever actually enjoy.

"Eggshell it is." Willow responded, moving to steer the little pale mare away from the guardrail. It was a bit like trying to shepherd a sheep around.

"Cirro, you were transporting her," Nikolai or Flashpoint would ask the distant ghoul, "Who is she and why is she like this?" No response other than, "I don't remember." After a while it turned to shrugs, and then no reply at all. Nikolai was beginning to think he was hiding something. But he said nothing about it. The Stalker was beginning to quietly hate the silence.

"How about radio? Something to break up boredom? Drinking game is right out at moment." Rocky crags sprouted up from the hills in their midst, twisting up into mountains as they walked along the road, passing roadsigns for truck stops and gas stations. They reminded Nikolai that it had been a while since he had gone number one, and he tore off the road and made for a stag that he could do his business behind. Willow and Flashpoint took turns watching Cirro and Eggshell while the uncanny echoes of the song, 'Спокойной ночи' goodnight played over the Stalker's radio and Cirro looked around the parking lot and ruined station in a daze. This was all still very new to him. He may have been a ghoul, but Nikolai had a near three week start on him as far as knowledge of the Wasteland went.

"Hey Willow!?"

"Yeah Nikolai!?"

"You have flown past this Filly-delphia funny horse pun place before, da?" The Stalker asked as he stepped out from behind the building, still in the process of buckling up his belt and fixing his holster.

"Would not happen to be in our way, would it?" Nikolai asked curtly. He walked over to the thestral and let him examine the map on his PDA for a few moments, Willow's slit eyes darted across the orange displays on the screen and then back to Nikolai. "No, never. That'd be suicide. It's about halfway in between the Canterhorn Mountains and the coast- But it's miles and miles to the south-Unless we get really badly turned around on that absolute maze of East Coast highways then at most the closest we'll ever get to seeing that damned fortress city is a couple of glowing orange silhouettes billowing smoke at the edge of the horizon. We're safe. But we'll be passing through Red Eyes territory. His gangs and raider bands control some pretty big swaths of land on that side of the mountains."

"Ok. Then why does PDA say it is 20 kilometers that way?" Nikolai stood up from beside his friend and exhaled a worried breath of skepticism.

"I already take great stride to avoid Unity, I take great stride to avoid White Apples, I take great stride to avoid Enclave-I do not need third-blin, four problem on back." He pinched his fingers together as though he were an angry chef criticizing a meal.

"It isn't. Where did you get that map?" The bat pony flexed his jaw, the orange light of the PDA glinting off the whites of his fangs as he did.

"Salt Cube City?" Nikolai responded. He reached into his rucksack for some water-Which Willow happily accepted. Two minutes of rest later and they were back on the road again. It was no surprise to Nikolai that ponies could walk for so long without growing tired, they were meant for a life of standing up after all. Back in Ukraine it was a common sight to see horses or cows sleeping standing up. Nikolai and his friends would laugh at it some times while they were walking home from school. His siblings and he once tried this fad they had heard about called 'cow tipping' that ended in a very angry farmer shaking his fist at them as the group of young Slav's ran giggling and laughing into the thicket. It had something to do with the muscles in their legs. Nikolai raised his mask and drank in the dry mountain air. It was less stale then the air down towards sea level, but it still smelled a little wrong. There was that smell of death and age that just didn't exist back home. It rained constantly in The Zone, even in the summertime. Everything was always green in spite of the radiation and constant derailment of the laws of physics.

"Hey, Willow-Everyone here. Have you ever seen a train car levitate right off of tracks like it was possessed?" Flashpoint drooped his head and stared at Nikolai in confusion, Cirro raised up one of his fetid hooves. "I have, it was in a rail yard once. But it wasn't doing it on it's own."

"Unicorns?"

"Yeah, unicorns. How'd ya guess?"

"I am not new to this place. Willow, how about you?"

"I saw an alicorn toss a train car through a fire station once, does that count?" Nikolai facepalmed and rubbed his temples through his mask. Up ahead came their first obstacle. The remains of an old landslide had decimated the highway, which had now begun to wrap up around one of the mountainsides, with an almost sheer cliff dropping off to a valley floor some 100 plus meters below. A tangled mess of old cars, crumbling asphalt and guardrail, and dead pine trees lay strewn across the road in an impassible blockade.

"Flashpoint, check your map."

"For another way around?" Nikolai turned left and shifted his eyes down to get a glimpse at the Zebra's PipBuck. "No-For something interesting that we can see while we are up here. I am not the best with elevation, but I am certain there must be something up here to make it all worth it."

"We are not driving anywhere," Nikolai pointed up to an alternate pass which strung itself up and over the mountain, running alongside the bare dirt and rock like a glorified goat path. "It will not take us much longer, and it will spare us having to spend night here." Willow flew off in the direction Nikolai was recommending to check it out for himself for a few moments, then returned with a worried look across his face.

"That path looks well traveled-And there's some awfully deep tire tread marks as well. I'd say someone's probably used it within the last two days."

Just then Nikolai kicked a piece of loose asphalt out of boredom, and nearly jumped right out of his clothes when he noticed the sensor prongs of a landmine underneath- He kept his composure and slowly backed away, Flashpoint and Willow noticed it and did the same, beckoning Cirro away from it as well.

"Hey where did Eggshell go-" The ghoul's reddish eyes went wide and his meager wing remains shifted about, trying to seat themselves on his back in a well fitting position. All six pairs of eyes were now on Eggshell, who was innocently sniffing the ground around the mine without a care in the world.

"I understand not being able to talk-But how can you be that oblivious?" Nikolai ducked down to his knees and patted his thighs ecstatically.

"Here Eggshell, come here!" Her ears twirled around to the sound of Nikolai's voice.

"Coo? Eee?" She inquired. Then, to everyone's distain, she gently fished the mine up out of the hole and began to bring it towards Nikolai in her mouth.

"No. Sudden. Movements." The Stalker told his compatriots. That seemingly lobotomized mare was now bringing him an active land mine, he backed up, and his friends all followed suit. Cirro was probably the most worried, and Nikolai guessed that he if he were still alive he would likely have been sweating buckets while he watched this unfold. Eggshell meanwhile, trotted up to Nikolai and gleefully set it down at his feet, she slumped back on her haunches with her tail wagging and her grey-white eyes staring up at Nikolai as if awaiting her next set of instructions. In his infinite wisdom, Nikolai took the mine in shaking hands and threw it as hard as he could over the guard rail and into the ravine below-where it detonated with a murderous crash that sent echoes off the surrounding mountainsides. He dusted the chipped green paint off his hands and turned to face his compatriots with an emotionless masked face, he glanced back and began to notice more sensor prongs sticking up out of the remnants of the landslide, all packed loosely into the dirt, just waiting for some unfortunate soul to trip and stumble into one.

"So, mountain pass-Or landside full of landmines? You guys decide!" Nikolai chided them merrily. It wouldn't a scholar or a master tactician to figure out which route they ended up taking. While the route up the side of the mountain may have been safer on account of the terrain underfoot and underhoof, that wouldn't be the case for long. Dead rows of pine stags and coarse windswept dirt soon turned to jagged granite, then about a kilometer from the highway the beleaguered group came upon the first small patches of snow. It wasn't really a surprise to Nikolai that they would come across snow up here, he just didn't think it would happen this fast. Come to think of it, since the sun had 'risen' on the horizon today they had gone about 15 kilometers. All the walking and talking just blurred together after a while. Come to think of it, it all had. Getting up in the morning, eating, walking 15 to 20 kilometers and occasionally having to stop to rest or to avoid a passing creature or a band of raiders. Dangerous as it was it was really just busy work. It was life for Willow, Flashpoint, even Cirro and Eggshell. This was their reality, their world. To Nikolai, it was his office.

But if all of his experiences in the Equestrian Wasteland could be explained that way, then at least he had some friendly coworkers. The rad meter on Flashpoint's PipBuck and Nikolai's own Geiger counter spiked softly from time to time-The snow up here had to have come from someplace after all. The ash of ruined cities dusted the peaks of these mountains like an apocalyptic cake frosting. His radio played the a quiet acoustic guitar tune as they walked along the path at a slight incline towards and over the pass, Flashpoint and Willow could see their breath now-It was growing colder quickly. Not a problem for Nikolai given his current choice of garment- But he worried for Eggshell, who seemed completely moot to the very concept of frostbite. Up here, the air was thinner, and their path was uphill, making every step more difficult. For a while he even removed his mask just so he could keep breathing the same way he had before. The air up here felt cleaner than the air down in the valley, and he knew that they would find respite within the next few hours-This pass would take them to the more or less 2/3rd point of their expedition across the Canterhorn Mountain Range.

"You think there's anything or anyone that lives up here?" Flashpoint tossed the question out into the conversation for any of them to answer.

"Mutants, probably. There is not much food up here, so I cannot see that as being the case. Maybe something lives in one of the caves around here? A bear? A Cougar? A dragon perhaps?" Nikolai wiggled his fingers to keep the blood flowing and looked around at the snow banks and rocky crags. With the sky above darkening, Nikolai realized that he would have to find a place to spend the night, the air around them was growing colder and colder, and they weren't even halfway through the pass yet. As the sky grew darker and miniscule rays of moonlight began to sparingly poke their way through the clouds.

Something pinged off of Flashpoint's PipBuck. A red dot about 100 meters distant, right on the very edge of it's EFS feature. Willow's ears perked up and swiveled southwards, Flashpoint's, Eggshells, and finally Cirro's followed suit a moment later.

"Sounds like a big cat." Cirro proclaimed anxiously, taking a few steps back as Nikolai scanned the snow banks and rocky crags. The growling-hissing noise grew more noticeable, though no one except Nikolai knew what it meant. He had spent enough time watching alley cats fight in the streets of Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia to know that something was about to pounce out of the snow bank-He spotted a glint of blue light off a feline pupil just in time to bring his rifle up and empty half the magazine, the air around him swelled with the acrid smell of fire and gunpowder. He heard a bank of snow and ice begin to crunch and crack above them.

"Scatter! Run for the end of the pass!" Things escalated so fast that forwardmost parts of the avalanche he had started were already at his boot heels by the time he had broken into a dead sprint through the frozen mud and muck. The noise behind him grew deeper and louder, until it sounded like a freight train was bearing down on them. Nikolai's weapon light bored a glowing tunnel through the darkness, and twenty seconds later they were out of the area of effect-And all looked like they had just emerged from a powdered sugar factory in the wake of nuclear war. The Stalker patted himself down and vigorously rubbed his hands together for warmth.

"I would say that went pretty well!" As the frigid cloud began to thin out, Nikolai realized that most of his compatriots were nowhere to be found.

"Flashpoint? Hey! Eggshell!?" A dumbfounded looking white face poked itself up and out of a snow drift just a few meters off to Nikolai's right. The Stalker ignored her for a moment and called out for his zebra friend. He hollered and stomped around and kicked snow underfoot until he spotted a pair of yellowed eyes and black stripes contrasting against a sparkling white background.

"That was wild!" Cirro commented. "Just like the snowstorms the weather ponies used to pull through my town!" Nikolai's right eyebrow curled up and set his hands on his belt. The Stalker's breath curled up and out of his warm body as frost began to form on the tips of his jacket hood.

"Let's find someplace out of elements. Being tired and falling asleep is fun-Being tired and miserable from cold and hunger-Eh... Not so much! Yes?" He took a knee and pounded Flashpoint on the back. His friend smiled weakly and tried unsuccessfully to return the gesture. Nikolai circled an index finger in midair and pointed eastwards.

"Let's go." He flexed his dry lips and took the lead. His hurried demeanor was part enthusiasm and part drive to get out of the snow as fast as possible. He was plains Slav. Not a mountain Slav.

As they came down from the crest of the pass the snow began to quickly thin out, the pass widened out into a large gully. Nikolai gestured for them to close in on a grove of dead pine trees. They settled in, made camp in the pitch black darkness, and were asleep in a moment before they could even start a fire. They all woke up shivering and miserable-Except Cirro, of course. No dreams, no nightmares. They ate their breakfast cold while Nikolai fooled around with his PDA and tried to work out the way back to the highway.

"Ok. We are kilometer from main road. This is good, yes?" He tapped his watch, and turned back to Flashpoint, then looked over at Willow and slipped his mask on over his head. His zebra friend hacked and coughed. Nikolai noticed the little dark wisps around his friend's ears immediately as being the first early onset symptoms of frostbite. He needed to lead his group to a warmer elevation as quickly as possible. Zebra's naturally had thinner hides meant to ward off heatstroke on the dry savanna grasslands of their home continent to the far south. Nikolai had heard a little bit about it from the Zebra cultists he had met a while back, and African Safari was all he could think about as he and his group winded their way down the east side of the pass back to the highway. The snow turned to a slogging muck, and then a miasma of crumbling granite- before finally turning to firm dirt, and then, at last-solid asphalt. Nikolai redonned his gas mask and stopped to pant and curse the muscles he puled in his legs. He counted his blessings, surveyed the path ahead, and fell into a lazy walking pace beside Flashpoint, who coughed from time to time and chatted sparsely back and forth with Willow.

"I do not know about you, but I love having a full stomach." Nikolai commented. "Willow, you know... I still remember that pork-thing you served me when I first met you." The thestral silently cursed his own hunger. He hadn't had a drop of blood for days now, and he was beginning to feel the shock from it, though he didn't want Nikolai or Flashpoint worrying about him any more than they already did. Cirro examined one of the holes in his side.

"Call it a hunch but I don't think I'm gonna be needing lunch." Nikolai laughed childishly at the rhyme. "Yes, yes. Eating is fun. But I would say that being immortal is probably pretty cool too, yes?"

"I've been awake for two days now, and I haven't felt a single hunger pain. I haven't felt any pain either. I drank some murky water earlier that was making your rad counter-"

"Geiger counter." Nikolai corrected, the road was beginning to slope down again, into a river valley dotted with little dilapidated farmhouses and lines of dead trees. Took a knee in the center of the road and looked around. "This all looks fairly pleasant." He turned back to his compatriots and whispered: "Be on guard, we will walk on side of road from here on out."

Yet as they crossed the valley, no raiders or monsters rose from the ditches or structures, no snipers made a move to pick them off, and no mines threatened to permanently sever their legs from the rest of their bodies. They walked in silence, even Eggshell seemed to be in a lull, her ears were poised directly ahead of her in their usual resting position.

"These mountains used to be beautiful." Cirro remarked. Nikolai pointed at the ash crested peaks. "It is a different kind of beauty now. You must adapt Cirro, as I did back in my own world. Otherwise, you will not make it very far. But what does that matter!?" The valley was beginning to narrow in again for the final crest over the Canterhorn mountain. Just this one more pass and they'd be home free for the coast. So of course the resident Stalker had to go and shoot himself in the foot. His attempt at caution failed, hard.

*Crack!* A bullet from an unseen source zipped through Cirro's nice, and the ghoul stood there in shock for a moment, another shot stuck him in the shoulder. The ghoul stumbled in a daze, before Nikolai scooped the walking corpse up in his arms and jumped into a ditch that wouldn't offer them much of any protection unless they squeezed right up against the dirt. Willow and Flashpoint both turned their guns on the sniper, hidden partially by a rocky crag about 150 meters away from them up on a crest. A beeping noise ran up and down the drainage ditch.

"Other ditch! Other ditch!" Nikolai cried, he rolled out of the hole in the ground just as a series of mines threw plumes of dirt up into the air.

"Hey, quit it-Will ya!?" A voice shouted. "You'll get yourselves killed! Everypony! Stop. Shooting!" The voice demanded again. Dirty unicorn mare clad in a jumbled mess of homemade metal armor, a pump action shotgun lay slung around her neck on a sling, and she wore an ammunition bandolier that looked almost brand new. Nikolai turned his gun on her, panting heavily. Flashpoint, Willow, Cirro all looked around, completely bewildered as to why their foes had stopped shooting so quickly. Nikolai stepped forward to greet the stranger, his heart rate shot up. Willow could hear it in his ears. It made the primal part of his brain furious. But he kept his emotions and hunger from boiling over, he bit his own lip and sighed shakily.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai!" The Stalker offered his name, keeping the muzzle of his gun just inches off the mare as he gripped it in one hand, and used the other to gesticulate to the stranger with the shotgun that they meant no harm. It was a lie, of course. The Stalker was certain that Cirro would have some pretty strong feelings when it came to Nikolai trying to make peace all of a sudden.

Nikolai did not want to make concessions with this random thug who had just gone soft on them, but ammunition cost money, and friends were irreplaceable. He was after money, not body bags. If this random pony wanted to call off an ambush to talk with him, that was completely fine by him.

"Who are you?"

"Achromatic Reins." Nikolai scratched his chin and glared back at Flashpoint then turned back to Achromatic, "You wouldn't happen to be related to a unicorn named Amber Reins, would you?" Flashpoint asked her. The mare toyed with the dirt underhoof. "Amber?" The mare asked Flashpoint. "You know her?"

"Know her!?" Nikolai exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "She abused my kindness and then tried to kill him. Is she your sister... Your daughter?" Achromatic furrowed her brow and paced around them, Nikolai turned to meet her her every time, his eyes focused on that shotgun. Willow's ears darted from direction to direction. They weren't alone. He could sense-And smell, warm bodies in the fields around them, as far out as the treeline. Achromatic was clearly being generous in coming forward and offering to stop shooting first.

"Look," Nikolai changed the subject. "We do not mean you any ill-Our ghoul friend will pull through. If you leave us be, we will go away in peace! No more shoot!"

"Honest mistake." She said quickly. "Some of my band aren't quite as welcoming as I am. A few of the meaner ones are right out of Filly." Achromatic lowered her head and trotted forwards towards Flashpoint. Nikolai stepped in between him and her and crossed his arms. "Do you mean Fillydelphia?" The Stalker urged Achromatic to answer his question.

"Whatdaya-Ah..." She smiled wickedly." I understand-It's just that we's was a lil' hard pressed for some new farmhooves. Pony's gotta do what a pony's gotta do." Nikolai shrugged. "Ok... So, can we go? And you no try shoot us in back?" Throughout the conversation, Nikolai's stance had eased into a posture not unlike a bored Ukrainian GI guarding some remote supply depot. He cradled his rifle in his arms like a little puppy, shifting his feet back and forth and whistling to himself in the meantime.

"No, no!" You look tired! Come stay with us! We're just down the road! It'd be no problem!" Nikolai was evidentially skeptical. His mind raced as he weighed his two options. They could walk away right now and risk being shot in the back, or they could go with Achromatic and follow her side by side. Whist the former was far from a good idea, it seemed to Nikolai that it was their best shot-pun not intended, at a peaceful resolution. Flashpoint was left to try and keep Eggshell and Cirro under control as best as he could, Cirro still couldn't believe he had been shot twice in normally lethal spots and didn't feel a thing, and Eggshell was whining from the loud noise, she wasn't accustomed to hearing gunfire.

"Are you guys ok with this?" Willow looked distant, and Flashpoint turned his eyes on him and gave Nikolai his best strained look. Cirro looked a bit out of it, Nikolai walked over and edged his left index finger towards him until the ghoul reacted.

"Yeah! Yeah! I'm just fine! Don't worry Nikolai, these folks sound like they've got their stuff in order-let's hear them out." The Stalker stuffed his hands in his pockets and waved everyone forward. "Ok, I suppose we can go on this little 'side quest'! Davay, we go!" They were off and away as quickly as they had arrived.

The air was all quiet as they forded the final mountain highway pass and came to the eastern crest of The Canterhorn Mountains. To Nikolai, it was like a drearier version of the Carpathians in wintertime. Shades of grey and brown and sickly yellow everywhere. Winding roads snaked their way through the wilderness like little dead snakes, devoid of any life. Power plants stood beside the decaying hulks of shattered skyscrapers and seemingly endless towns that stretched out all the way to the far horizon.

To their southwest, the pink glow of Canterlot was still barely visible through the haze, along with dozens-nigh, hundreds of other craters across the landscape. Ever present was that magically wound overcast sky. Nikolai fixed the brow of his coat hood. He had still somehow managed to outpace every single pony there. Which was odd, because he really hadn't tried too.

"This place is brown. Like rest of Wasteland. Just with more stuff to break up brown, seriously-I go through Everfree forest like last week. Absolute хаос chaos, let me tell you! But! Nice and clean and green!" The members of Achomatic's entourage drew up facial expressions consistent with both amusement among some, apathy among others, inquiry with some, and silent terror among a few. Achromatic pushed her way through the crowd of bloodshot eyed, disgruntled thugs.

They were led down the other side of the mountain, Achromatic gestured to a raised freeway on ramp about a kilometer away. No one chatted with anyone else, and besides a small mutated mole, no commotion arose on their way to Achomatic's not so humbled walled in ranch compound. Nikolai spotted the plume of smoke and the guard towers long before he saw the actual compound. It was the biggest structure around, with it's front gates facing westwards. And low walls that fenced in multiple sad looking pastures teeming with long dead grass.

"Is quite impressive operation you have here." Nikolai told Achomatic, who grunted in agreement. "Built it all up from the ground up, glad ya like it... I guess." Nikolai studied the walls, and caught a stomach rumble from Willow.

"Hungry?" He asked the thestral, spinning back around on one heel so fast he startled one of the tried earth ponies who'd been with their 'guide'. "How so? Do you need b-"Willow stuttered suddenly, tugging the portions of his cloak around his wings.

"Breakfest!" He replied loudly. "No thanks Nikolai, I already ate, I'm not hungry, don't you go worrying about me-You take care of yourself first-You're bigger, I'm sure you need more calories." The Stalker laughed heartedly and tugged on the belt loops of his pants. "Hoho! I not fat, I not overweight! I dig potato in summer for cry out loud!" He dramatically threw his hands up in the air and shook his fists at the heavens, then laughed cordially at the thought. A unicorn off to his right twitched, and Nikolai ushered Eggshell closer to himself as they approached the front gates of Achomatic's ranch.

"Willow? Flashpoint? Cirro? Try not to lag behind." Nikolai's radio played out the opening tunes of, "Rocky Mountain High". To no reaction from anyone around him, as they passed the gates, they were met by about a dozen burly and unsavory looking earth ponies milling about in cattle runs, a few of them were shuffling about with cages in various stages of disrepair hooked up to carts made from the bodies of wrecked cars.

"Want a snack? We've got plenty to eat." Achromatic insisted. Nikolai waved the inquiry away.

"So Nikolai? You're the leader of your little group?" The Stalker thought about it for a moment. He kicked up a bit of reddish dust as he whistled along to the tune coming from his radio. "Da- I mean yes, I am. Why would you need to ask this? I thought it was apparent. My mother never pegged me as natural leader, but I take on role anyhow!"

"Hmm-Well, I reckon then we've gotta get you all situated and the like up in the big house. Follow me- I've got someone who might like to meet you. Nikolai tossed his rifle into his right hand and rolled his shoulders to readjust the straps of his rucksack.

The Stalker thought back to the 'grey man' talk he had had in his head the other day, he most certainly did not blend in with the average resident of this world. Though none of the ponies who had led them to this random farm seemed to care. None of them had bothered to ask. It was like they just thought he was some kind of mutant. Which to be fair, was a common occurrence upon first contact. It seemed to him that there were now only two ways ponies would react to him on first sight. Well, more like four. One, he would be pegged as a monster or some kind of belligerent, or perhaps an easy victim and be attacked on sight, two, ponies would flee in terror. Three, he would be greeted with nonchalant neutrality, or, his favorite one: He would be perceived as the 'hero of the day' or a fellow comrade in arms. The Stalker slung his rifle on his shoulder.

"Wait Achomatic, everyone?" He gestured to his friends. "Stay together, no go missing. Find safe spot outside ranch house and wait for me." He crept up to Willow and added quietly, "If you hear the eh... Gunfire, you are free to go all 'crazy horse murder machine', yes?" He gave the thestral a firm thumbs up and a pat on the head.

The house was a low, single story brick structure with a tarnished tile roof. A non discrete unicorn with a long gun sat atop it, smoking a cigarette. It struck Nikolai just how similar the stallion looked to the one he had shot back in Grass Valley. They passed through gate in a high fence topped with barbed wire. He looked off in the distance, east, across one of the pastures. He noticed a half dozen downtrodden ponies being led behind a red barn by a pair of fellows that seemed to fit the profile of 'raider' better than almost anyone else here. The ground here was moist in places. He lifted his boot out of curiosity to examine the sole, and noticed the red-yellow puss-like goop dripping from it. Saying nothing, he wiped it off on an overturned tractor wheel and kept walking. Achromatic seemed to give no fret to any of it. Though Nikolai noticed that she was more up and alert than she had been out on the open road.

Then off to their right a shrill scream of terror rose up for a split second before it was silenced by a loud 'thud' noise. It made the hairs on the back of The Stalker's neck stand up and his knees stiffen. But he said nothing. Nikolai kept on walking. This group of fellows out here on this ranch seemed a bit more brutal than those in the other settlements he had passed through to be sure. But given that they had abruptly stopped shooting at them and even allowed them to accompany them to what Nikolai presumed was their homestead. He desired to at least hear them out. The same was he had done back in Salt Cube City with it's glorified mafia, the same way he had done with the Zebra Zealots, the same way he had talked though things with Willow and then The ghouls in Canterlot. He was good at this in spite of his accent and loud demeanor. Even though every fiber in his being was screaming that this place looked like a wild west version of a World War 2 concentration camp.

He could do this. He could turn this into a good thing, he only needed to try, and these little equines would listen to him. Or it would devolve into a shout match. Either way, he would get some kind of decent response. Once he was behind closed doors with Achromatic and her associates, he could strike up a real conversation and pressure her for whatever information he needed. They passed through the threshold of the house and turned into the dinning room, there, at the end of a long table, with stools arrayed along either side- The wall paper seemed to be in surprisingly good shape, a far cry from the carpet underfoot which held dozens of stains.

"Is nice place you have." The Stalker commented. Achromatic took a seat ahead of Nikolai and motioned for him to sit down as well, he examined his chair for a moment, then took a seat and examined the table space around himself. Achromatic stomped her right hind hoof against the floor twice, and two mares hurried out, one with platters of food, and the other with various bottles of alcohol. Nikolai heard a gunshot outside, and one of the 'servant' mares quickly rushed to close the window shutters. Nikolai examined the meal, prodding it with a fork.

"Is something wrong?" Nikolai laughed, and removed his mask. Drinking in for the first time the dusty acrid smell of the place.

"Yes, do you have any salt?" Nikolai rapped his knuckles on the table.
"Yes, I do." Achromatic beamed at him. The Stalker moved to grab the salt shaker while his host began to ask him questions, Nikolai folded his hands and tapped his foot along to the music rising up from his radio.

"What are ya? Because ya sure aren't a pony." The Stalker cleared his throat. "I am a... Well, look at me."

"Some kind of mutant monkey then? Because you look like a monkey." Nikolai's brow curled downwards, and snatched away the salt shaker.

"And you look like a horse!" The drunken gunman in his mind shouted. Thankfully none of those words left Nikolai's mouth. He rested his head on the palm of his right hand and tapped his foot. "Human, I am a human. And no! Do not say 'ho-man' I have heard enough of that crap to last whole lifetime!" Achromatic snickered.

"I might be the only one in this whole operation with any kind of phonics skills. Some ol' stallion taught me how to read 'n right just fine." Nikolai's eyes crisscrossed the room, examining every facet of it. The walls were arrayed with old china cabinets-All lacking china, of course. "What happened to him?"

"He's dead. Radsnake tore him in half." Nikolai held up a gloved hand. "Hold on, back up! Rad-Snake? You're telling me there is big mutant rattlesnake out there as well? Add to list!" He made the mock motion of checking something off on an imaginary clipboard.

"Can I-May I kick my feet up on other chair?" Achromatic scowled, then grinned smugly. "Why the hell not? We're the only ones here. You've got better manners than any-fucking one else here." She laughed obcenely. "So you're a human? Not some kinda mutant? What the hell were you doing passing over the Canterhorn Mountains? That's some of the most dangerous ground this side of the Everfree forest." Nikolai poked again at the meal the mare sitting across from him had provided him with, she had already taken several bites of hers, and she seemed to be enjoying it.

"You broken? I'll ask you again, whatcha doing out here?" Nikolai twiddled his thumbs, and he gave her an honest response. "I want to become cap emperor of whole Wasteland!" At this declaration he stood upright and aggressively pointed up at the ceiling. Reins fell silent, and her face became difficult to read.

"You've got big ambitions then, huh?" Nikolai nodded vitally. Achromatic didn't add anything more. "Where'd you meet Amber?" She changed the subject. Nikolai scooted closer to the table. "A little ways outside of eh... Whiskey Springs, have you ever been there?" She shrugged. "Eh, once. Never much liked it. Though I did meet this bartending stallion who invited me up to his ro-" Nikolai held up both hands and urged her to stop. "I no need detail! I get it, we move on, yes?" She laughed deviously as she finished her main course and moved onto the 'appetizer'. It was only then that she realized Nikolai hadn't taken a single bite of his food.

"Is something wrong with it? I'll take it if you don't want it." Nikolai examined it again. "Sorry, I did not mean to portray self as rude or-ungrateful, but what is this?" Nikolai began to slowly disect it, and came to a little piece of white fluff. His eyes darted from Achromatic to the plate and back again. "No seriously what the month old pelmeni is this?"

"Oh..." Her voice trailed off, remaining cheerful. "That right there, is Blank." Nikolai's right eyebrow curled upwards. "Blank? What exactly is it?" She nearly choked on her meal. "You don't know what a blank is!? You're traveling with one! All white? Dumber than a rock?" Nikolai stared at the pile of meat.

"You... You are being serious? That-That right there," He gestured to his 'meal' again. "That is chopped up and grilled pony?" His eyes widened, he could hardly believe it, The SOB in front of him... Was a genuine cannibal.

"That thing you just ate-Was that also pony?" Her sunken, bloodshot eyes cajoled him warmly in spite of the situation. "Yes, of course! Gotta get our food from someplace-and there ain't a grain to be found for miles-Why not? It's really an underappreciated taste- so full of nutrients too!" Nikolai's hands dropped down from the table, hovering just above the release buckle of his Makarov.

"That is...interesting-" He paused, he had never actually met a cannibal of any kind, and he would have been happy to keep it that way. Cannibalism was a thing from horror movies and old grandparents tales, it was nigh unheard of in the Exclusion Zone." Back to Blanks, tell me more about them." His stomach was beginning to churn with worry, but he wanted to get more information out of Achromatic first before he did anything.

"Blanks? They're like base model ponies, I don't know where the hell they came from." Nikolai had formed a crude hypothesis in his mind that he was determined to have an explanation for. "Why do you eat your fellow ponies? How would you feel if somepony-"

At this she threw her empty plate against the wall, shattering it. "You might as well get used to it because I'm not gonna let you leave.... You know... I've never had bat pony before, and Zebra! What an exotic flavor!" Nikolai jumped up from his seat and balled his fists. The servant standing by the dining room entrance watched as Nikolai hurled himself up over the table and right into Achromatic, holding her up by her shirt collar. "You piece of crap, you think you eat my friends!? What is wrong with you!?" The mares horn flared alight, but before she could make another move Nikolai socked her in the muzzle as hard as he could and pinned her up against the wall. He jabbed a finger at her. "Is that why you act so friendly!? Because you thought we would make easier prey you осел?" He dropped her on the floor and cracked his knuckles.

"You see Eggshell and think; 'ohoh! Vegas buffet!' You are sick! I no care if you starve, you not betray fellow folks trust like that!" It was then that a surprising reaction arose from Achromatic. "Go on then! Kill me! I was just trying to feed my friends. Wouldn't you do the same?" Nikolai shook his head and threatened her with his fist once more.

"Not like this!" He sneered. "Not like this! Now listen close, we are going to walk out there, make sure my compatriots are ok! Then, you will free other ponies and creatures here! Then, you will pay me 500 caps in reparations for dragging me here!"

"What? You're gonna rob me now?" Achromatic mused. Nikolai exhaled heavily and redonned his mask with one hand while holding her down with the other. "No, is reparations. You will give it voluntarily. And then, you and your group of fiends can go and kick rocks."

"And what if I don't?" Nikolai snatched up the mares shotgun and checked the chamber for a loaded shell. "Then... Hmm... How about I offer those degenerates out there you to eat!? No, no. Too cruel-I not like you, you see. I have better idea..." He took his hands off of Achromatic and held her hostage with her own gun.

"And what the fuck? Just tell me and be done with it."

"Is your whole family like this? You know... Quick lesson was all I need to turn Amber's life around." She rolled her eyes, "Fuckin' softie-" Nikolai facepalmed. "Watch language miss! Please, I try to help you out, yes? We make deal now that tables are turned?" Achromatic was a brave and violent mare, but even she was susceptible to buckshot from a meter away. If Nikolai truly desired to kill her, she'd have been mincemeat by now.

"What do you want?"

"For you to make a better life for yourself. You already have respect of your-Eh... Thugs, so why not teach them to be positive force in world?" She snickered and crossed her forehooves. "No thanks, I ain't no softie goodie four hooves. "Here is idea, instead of eat random ponies-You offer services to them to protect them and escort them- Make bunch of caps-Then boom! All the healthy food... Whatever that is like out here, you want! Good idea! Yes? Plus... Make allies and dependable customers in process!"

"You sound just like Mr. Salt, you know that-Right?"

"Yes-But I no give out magic bombs for free." Achromatic stumbled back up to her hooves and touched her muzzle, grunting in pain from the bruise Nikolai had left on it. "Why couldn't we just take their money and enslave them, wise ass?"

"Because that does not get you reliable customers!" He made a finger gun in her direction. "Look, you do not really have choice here-" The two were interrupted by the sounds of inconsistent hoofsteps and vulgar shouting outside on the porch. A second later a fetid forehoof poked itself inside.

"Hey Nikolai-" Cirros eyes went wild at the eloquently prepared equine remains on the table, they flickered and fluttered rapidly. "Hey Nikolai-" He began again. The pegaus ghoul would never be able to finish his sentence.

*Boom!*

One moment, the chipper cadaver was standing in the doorway and the next-his head was a mess on the walls, ceiling, and floor. The .30 Caliber round had spared nothing. The Stalker stood there for a moment in complete silence. The ghoul was gone... Just like that. Achromatic's servant was gone now.

"You want meal to feed friends with?" Nikolai said coldly, "Go on." His legs felt like rubber, he slumped backwards into Achromatic's seat. It was like the world had gone silent. Except for his damned radio, which had begun to play Bandit Radio. The Stalker found a loose Vodka bottle in his rucksack and downed a whole third of it, wiping his dry lips with his jacket sleeve. "Ah, Achromatic, Cirro!" He proclaimed loudly, setting the bottle down.

"You did not even know one another, you could have been friends! Pally pals! But no! Asshole sniper outside have to ruin occasion!" He muttered a quick prayer under his breath and stuffed the bottle back into his pack, he stood up, and began to walk away. He realized that he was still carrying Achromatic's shotgun. He turned back to look at the mare one last time.

"One star!" He shouted at her, raising his middle finger. "For killing friend and eating potential friends, cyka!" He edged his way around Cirro's lifeless body and stomped out onto the front porch, he unslung his rifle nearly overrode the safety selector. There was no more time left for anger or melancholy, those would come later. Right now, he needed to get to his friends and get them as far away from this place as possible.

"Willow!? Flashpoint!? Eggshell!?" He got no response in turn. He turned and looked up at the rooftop. His arms and legs passively throbbed from days of walking, he found an improvise staircase and climbed his way up to the ranch house's roof. The pony top finished his cigarettes and turned tail just in time to get a good look down the barrel of Nikolai's rifle, and the coppery sheen of the 5.56 round within.

"Sh..." Nikolai hushed him. "I need to borrow perch for moment, you no mind-I take it?" Nikolai paused for a moment, then crawled on his hands and knees over to the parapet. "Who shot that ghoul? Did you see? Did you do it?"

"Wait-Who are you?"

"A tipsy Slav with a gun." Nikolai replied, "I am borrowing this spot. You may have it," Nikolai tore the stallion's rifle away in one fell swoop, "And this, when I am done." The pony was admirably angered, but at the very least he seemed to understand that any attempt to retrieve his weapon would be met with a bullet to the head and a very bad day. Nikolai restrained him, and went back to scanning the ranch for any sign of his friends.

Willow was nearing his breaking point. He had gone for days without any nutrition. His bone dry fangs craved any equine blood he could sink his fangs into. He and Flashpoint had led Eggshell into a small barn adjacent of one of the cow runs near the ranch entrance. Cirro had ventured out to check on Nikolai not four minutes earlier, they had heard gunfire less than a minute later. Willow winced in pain again as little beads of sweat ran down his furry face. Thestral hunger was not like the starvation of a regular pony, being deprived of nutrition for any other creature is painful, to be sure, but it's a whole different level with bat ponies. They depend on the blood of others to keep themselves alive, he could feel the life slowly beginning to leave his body, and Flashpoint-and even Eggshell noticed it.

"Are you ok? Willow?" Flashpoint cast a worried look over his friend's shoulder. "No-Yes! I'm fine!" He growled, his wings twitched and spasmed slightly. He shut his eyes and did his best not to quiver. "Where is Nikolai? Where's Cirro? What are they up to? Are they alright?" He tried to distract himself the way he had done only once before in his life. The supersonic crack of a suppressed gunshot broke the silence and his ears snapped to the instantly recognizable sound of his Stalker friend's rifle. Two more shots followed quickly after, and the squelching noise of his worn boots as they dashed their way through the muck outside and into the barn were almost enough to bring tears to Willow's eyes.

"Nikolai." He croaked. Flashpoint smiled grimly at his friend as he galloped up to him and asked him about Achromatic, then about Cirro Wisp.

"He-" The Stalker spotted the silhouette of a pony standing in the doorway at the opposite end of the barn. He heard a bang and saw a flash as he brought up his rifle up and swept the general area of the silhouette with bullets, sending it tumbling over. Just above the radiation trefoil patch on his left arm, he felt something wet and warm trickle down his sleeve. Nikolai's adrenaline had shot through the roof after he had consumed all that Vodka back up in the ranch house. The wound had opened up a portion of his old .44 scar that he had received back in Whiskey Springs.

"Ow." He said absentmindedly, staring down at the little bits of red coating his jacket arm as he dropped his gun on it's sling and began to quickly apply a tourniquet.

"Oh no..."

The scent his Willow's senses like a storm. AB Positive Blood, it was the most wonderful thing he had ever smelled his whole life. He eyed Nikolai with envy as the bat pony's self control drained from his body. "How dare he keep it from me!" He thought. He stood up and bared his fangs suddenly, hissing at Nikolai as his wings snapped outwards.

"Willow? Nikolai glanced at his friend, he looked down at his wound, then back at the glinting white fangs of his batish friend. Willow's eyes shrunk to pinpricks as the awful realization sank through Nikolai's skull.

"AB Positive Blood..." Willow bolted for The Stalker so fast that all he could do was drop to the ground in the hopes that that Willow would miss his target and end up careening into the dirt behind him, the leathery wings came within millimeters of Nikolai's head. "Oh shit!" He scrambled up to his feet and tried to run when the full force of a full grown stallion smashed into his back, knocking him off balance and sending them both hurdling to the ground, Flashpoint's expression turned to one of sudden rage, and he swarmed over Nikolai, trying to pull his friend off.

Willow hissed at Flashpoint as Nikolai held onto Willow's head with both hands to keep him from sinking his fangs into his neck. The barbs on his wings tore at Nikolai's jacket like little grappling hooks as the wounded Stalker. He grabbed ahold of the trigger of Willow's shotgun and fired off a round just centimeters from his right ear, Willow screeched in pain and doubled back.

"Let's go!" The Stalker shouted at Flashpoint and Eggshell, scrambling to his feet while Willow writhed on the ground, it wouldn't be long before the poor desperate bat pony came to his senses. The trio bolted for the barn entrance, and were met with an armed mob of two dozen ponies, all looking every bit as furious as Achromatic had been. And, speaking of Achromatic-She was in the crowd as well, carrying a pistol in her maw. As the mob advanced on them, Nikolai swapped the fire selector level all the way down to full auto, and Flashpoint raised the guns on his battle saddle while Eggshell simply went and cowered behind the biggest friendly creature there, which just happened to be Nikolai.

All of a sudden the atmosphere in the barn grew dead silent, Flashpoint had felt little bits of wind blowing through the cavernous space before, but now it felt like it had just dropped a whole ten degrees Celsius in temperature. It may have been the result of blood loss, but Nikolai could swear that he could watch the shadows growing longer, reaching out over every surface like a mass of inky tentacles that consumed the environment around them. Out of the darkness a figure rose above the crowd, the crests of two leathery wings complimenting a pair of piecing yellow eyes glowing with ravenous hunger, the feline pupils were trained exclusively on Nikolai, completely ignoring the crowd and the body of the sentry beside him.

"Is that..." Shocked murmurs bubbled up from the crowd, and they all collectively backed away, one of them, a younger stallion, threw himself on the ground and began to whimper. Someone grabbed him by his leather armor and pulled him back into the crowd. This group of jaded cannibals' had gone from a witch lynching mob to a flock of scared sheep, The thestral curled downwards in a deadly arch towards Nikolai. The Stalker bended his knees and raised a pair of open hands in a wrestling stance. In half the time it took for him to blink the shadowy figure of his friend was at his arm, he sunk his fangs into Nikolai's forearm.

"Agh!" Nikolai almost collapsed from the pain. He didn't know what he could do. Willow was right there, wetting his fangs in pure ecstasy. Nikolai struck his friend across the chin, which only seemed to make his predatory instinct kick in all the more. What else could he do? He couldn't shoot his friend, he couldn't let anyone else shoot him either. He had only known Willow for a few weeks, but yet-He almost couldn't imagine life without him. The thestral would all too likely unashamedly and enthusiastically murder anyone who got in his way. Nikolai remembered his winged friends odd behavior over the past half week. He knew enough about Willow to know that he was a tough nut to crack, he would not have snapped simply from the smell of Nikolai's blood, or would he?

All these thoughts sprinted through Nikolai's mind in the span of a half second, Nikolai threw down his rucksack and dove for the floor, he shook off his right handed glove as Willow hissed and snarled in violent joy. Nikolai fumbled around in his backpack until he came to the thing he was after, a hefty lead lined and sealed cylinder. He opened the top, and, not thinking, pried it out and swung it across his torso and into his left arm with all the force he could muster, just above Willow's muzzle.

The necromantic crystal sparkled and hummed patiently with magic. The little rock froze in place less than a millimeter from the Stalker's bare skin. The harsh pink glow caused the shadows in the room to retreat and arc up towards the heavens. Flashpoint backed up with Eggshell in tow as every single pony there watched with amazement. Nikolai's body went into shock for a moment, whether from blood loss or from the magical crystal he couldn't tell. His Anomaly detector spiked and beeped. Nikolai's vision wandered and blurred.

He snapped to attention at the sound of a sudden spike in the volume of a song that had been playing on his radio, slowly swelling with emotion and volume;

"He spoke to me with a voice so sweet, I thought I heard the shuffle of an angel's feet...

he called my name and my heart stood still,

when he said 'John go do my will'...."

Nikolai's mind snapped back into focus, he looked over and saw the crystal, sitting on the ground beside him, and Willow, blood dripping from his fangs. The Stalker picked his head up off the ground, everything sounded compressed in his head. Willow's face was... Difficult to look at. "Willow?" . He waited two seconds that felt like a whole minute. "Willow?" He asked again grabbing the Pink Cloud crystal with his left hand.

"Willow...?"

Willow couldn't answer, he couldn't even bring himself to look at Nikolai, or Flashpoint or anyone else. He dropped eyes and began to sob uncontrollably. He wanted to crawl into a corner of some cave somewhere and die.

Then, he felt something on his side, he gulped and swallowed and gagged, something heavy was pressing down on his mane. It pulled him foreword, and he didn't fight it. Tears ran down his face in little, pitiful rivulets. He couldn't stop them, he couldn't. He sat there, curled up in the fetal position. He didn't to dare move or look up. After an eternity, he finally worked up the courage to crack open one of this eyelids to get a look at whatever it was.

And there he saw Nikolai's face, smiling at him weakly. The bat pony shut his eyes again, Nikolai wiped Willow's tears as more came to take their place.

"It's ok Willow, I forgive you." Willow didn't answer. And Nikolai didn't ask him for one, he just pulled his nocturnal friend in closer and tucked his narrow equine face up against his dirty plate carrier. "It's ok. It's ok." He repeated over and over again as Flashpoint joined in.

"I've got you."

"We've got you. Don't worry."

Chapter 1: Nyet, Wasteland is Fine

Chapter 1: Nyet, Wasteland is Fine

Click.

Click click.

Click.

"Ah, the sound of a Geiger counter ticking away. We are all familiar with it, are we not? The unnerving monotone beep that informs you of a danger you cannot see. Radiation. And yet that stuff could almost considered a respite compared to the crap I've got to deal with on a daily basis..." Nikolai spoke bitterly to the others around the waning campfire.

"Aye, I think we all understand that."

A man who went by the nickname 'Irish' responded cheerfully. People called him that because he was from Northern Ireland, simple as that. No greater explanation needed. He was one of the many others in The Zone that went by an alias. The reason for this was simple, to ensure that the authorities couldn't track him if tried to go back to the outside world. Even if it was just a simple alias, it worked wonders. He, like so many others, had come to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the hope that he could strike it rich.

Like so many others.

The truth is, most would be luck to simply break even within the Zone of Alienation. If the business of hunting for treasure and fortunes here could be equated to anything. It would be the drug business, and they, the Stalkers, were at the very bottom. The metaphorical coca farmers. Their work was hard, and their lives usually brutal and short. But they went on with it nonetheless.

"Are you... attempting to make philosophical conversation?" A man in a faded green containment suit asked, his voice muffled by the air filtration system in his helmet.

"No, I am simply stating something which I believe we can all understand in one way or another." Nikolai responded with an ambivalent huff.

"Oh well, save me some Phesdodog chops will you? I've got to take a piss, I'll be back in a moment." A man dressed in black and blue armor grumbled. He got up and hobbled into the bushes.

"Fifty Rubles says something happens to him." Another man in camouflaged ski gear betted, reaching into a pocket. The man in the containment suit facepalmed his opaque visor.

"You should not talk like that about your allies. Who knows, one day he might end up saving your life." In total, there were six people clustered around the campfire.

Emphasis on, 'were'. As it turns out, the guy who had made the bet was right after all. A few seconds after the man in the blue and black armor had disappeared into the bushes, those around the fire heard the shriek of a bloodsucker. They all looked at one another, " Ah believe ah oughta get going!" Irish said with a worried laugh, he and two other Stalkers quickly gathered their things and took off in the opposite direction-that being southwards, away from the danger.

The man in the hazmat suit stood up. "Nikolai, is it? Would you mind escorting me out of this place before that thing over there decides to come and take a bite out of me-"

He was interrupted when a two and a half meter tall bipedal creature with a mouth akin to that of an octopus and glowing eyes from an otherworldly nightmare dashed out of the forest and knocked him over and began to slash and claw at him. Nikolai was wise enough to get up and start running. He re-donned his GP-5 gas mask as he ran.

"Hey, are you alright back there!?" He shouted, the only response he got was two gunshots from what sounded like a handgun of some kind, the shots sounded much too “shallow” to have come from a rifle or a shotgun. But they all sounded the same at a distance.

"I'm going to presume not." Nikolai unslung his AK 101, a Kalashnikov pattern rifle chambered in 5.56 by 45 NATO, and looked around while still on the move. The 'Bloodsucker' that had killed the other two people didn't seem to be following him. That was good. Not for the people that had been left by the campfire, he meant good for himself. Bloodsuckers were dangerous, but they weren't too smart. Cancerous mutations had a tendency to do that to creatures.

Nikolai had gotten away from the campsite, and was now heading north again, towards the old vehicle graveyard. When the first Chernobyl disaster had occurred, all emergency and military vehicles used during the containment process had to be abandoned on account of the high level of radiation they were exposed to, and now emitted liberally.

As he neared the graveyard, he suddenly ground to a halt. He had noticed that the road ahead didn't quite...' look right’. He reached into a coat pocket and drew a steel bolt from within, palming it, Nikolai gently tossed it in the direction of the aberration. To his expectation, an invisible force caught the bolt a little ways from the ground and bounced it away in a violent quiver. The patch of ground was home to a gravitational anomaly. A low power one, judging by the distance which the bolt was repelled backwards. But, an anomaly nonetheless, Nikolai had heard far too many stories of people being torn apart by these gravitational aberrations to try and get around it. He reached for his belt and pulled out a small device which looked like a radar screen connected to the side of a dosimeter. He raised it up, and sure enough, the field of anomalies was bigger than he had anticipated. The detectors screen showed a patchwork of green splotches ahead of him. Green highlights on the screen denoted anomalous activity.

"Thank goodness those damned scientists created these things. Otherwise, the Stalking business would have ground to a halt a long time ago!"

His voice echoed among the trees to either side of the road. But thankfully, nothing responded. Using the device, he found his way around the field. But as he reached the trashed barbed wire fence that lined the graveyard. Another dot appeared on his detector, this one glowed purple. That meant there was an Artefact in the area. The veritable lifeblood of Stalkers. He crawled around on his knees until he spotted something glowing in the grass. He reached out and knapped it up, placing it into a lead lined container for later. Nikolai headed into the graveyard as stealthily as possible. He crouched down behind a rusting BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle and tuned his radio until something came through.

"Hello there Stalkers, this is Zone FM. Broadcasting from the Cordon. I'd hate to interrupt our usual program, but it seems as though we've got an emission happening a bit sooner than we expected. If I were any of you, I'd take shelter!" The signal cut out. And a half second later, his PDA beeped.

'Emission: Take Shelter'

Nikolai cursed under his breath. "Damnit! I wasn't paying attention." He rose up and peeked over the row of rusting trucks. About 200 meters away was an old concrete guard shack. Nikolai took one more look around, and bolted. But as he ran he heard a cry that nearly made him jump out of his shoes.

"Монолит!"

A loud voice called out in gruff Russian. Nikolai quickly dove behind an old bus to find the source, but the orange glow quickly growing in the sky told him that he didn't have time for it. He got up and looked around, his head on a swivel.

There, behind a rusting fire truck he spotted a person dressed in a whitish-grey exosuit. He heard gunshots, although they weren't coming from the person within his field of view. Roughly ten meters past him were another four Monolith soldiers dressed in similar gear. He took aim through the murky glass of a bus window and fired off two rounds, both struck the man center mass, but the man returned fire, almost unfazed by the hits. Nikolai brought his rifle up a bit more and shot him in the face, the 5.56 caliber round broke through his visor and sent him sprawling in a bloody mess. There were more gunshots from the others across the way, Nikolai heard sonic cracks and whistles as they flew by. He flipped the safety lever on the side of his rifle to full auto and sprayed the general area where the fire was coming from, another Monolith soldier fell, and Nikolai made a break for the shack.

All of a sudden, his anomaly detector began to emit a sharp tone, and the screen flashed red.

"Oi Blyat!"

Nikolai screamed as a wall of black anomalous energy crashed into him. Sending his sanity tumbling. The world seemed to shift between two and three dimensions while everything spun. And then, all at once, the spinning stopped. But that was replaced with an insatiable headache. The world was still out of focus. But he had already begun to notice everything seemed to be... Different. He clenched his forehead out of nausea.

"Ah…I need to sit down.”

Nikolai took a knee and reached into his combat webbing. With some difficulty, he pulled out an IFAK, an emergency first aid kit. From this, he extracted pair of Ibuprofen tablets and downed them both with a swig of water from his canteen. He reclined back slightly and let the drug take effect. About a minute later, his head cleared.

"The miracle of modern medicine. Thank god." He slipped his mask back over his face and stood up. "This isn't the graveyard. What happened?" And then it hit him. "The anomaly! I've heard stories of people being teleported randomly by them. Even a few that went into them and just... Disappeared. Oh, oh no. Wait, but that's impossible…”

He was going to say that the anomaly couldn't have thrown him into some other dimension. But then he realized that next to nothing was known about how the Zone worked. People only knew how it behaved. Which was more than enough. But this didn't look like any part of the zone he had ever seen. His Geiger counter was still beeping, but it sounded different. It was more of a droning noise. Rather than the scattered clicking he was used to. Nikolai wasn't going to dismiss it, but considering that it was infrequent, he decided to focus on more pressing issues. Mainly, the fact that he had no idea where he was. He pulled his PDA from his belt and opened up the digital map. On it was a single icon, his current location. The terrain around him was uncharted and blank.

"Is that a structure?" He pulled out a set of binoculars. "It looks like one. Hopefully it shall have some answers."

The structure he had come across appeared to be what was once a cottage. surrounded by dead snags. It was surprisingly intact, albeit missing a portion of it's roof. It was surrounded by a little picket fence, which Nikolai sidestepped.

"What happened to this place?"

He walked around it until he found an entrance, the door was wide open. It looked as though the hinge had been knocked clean off. He brought his rifle up and scanned the interior. The living room, kitchen, and bedroom were small, but nothing he hadn't seen in Eastern Europe before. The reading on his Geiger counter actually went down. He tried checking the contents of a few of the kitchen cabinets. But found that they were all empty. He tried checking around the living room again. And this time, he found what looked like an old computer monitor with a clunky keyboard attached to it. He tried booting it up, but he wasn't able to get anywhere with it. However, he did find luck with something else. Under a carpet he found a trap door which led to a locked safe.

"Alright, how do I get this open?”

He unslung his rucksack and began to search through it, but found nothing useful. And he didn't want to waste a bullet trying to crack a safe with unknown contents. So he just folded the mildewed carpet back over it and hoped that there wasn't anything out there that was after whatever was in there. Nikolai scrambled back onto his knees.

"What else is there that I can check out?" His eyes drifted to some dusty pictures on the wall.

"Ah, what have we here, family photos-“ Nikolai nearly jumped out of his boots when his radio crackled back to life with a staticky signal.

"Hello again Stalkers! We're getting some reports of Monolith forces moving through the Old Truck Graveyard, I'd stay away from there if I was you."

He breathed out a heavy sigh, and his breath slightly fogged up the mask's eye glass."Damnit, Дебіл, не треба так людей лякати! Moron, you shouldn't scare people like that!" Nikolai cursed in Ukrainian.

The voice happily replied with a chirp of, " Up next, we have a fan favorite, Bandit Radio!" He smiled and turned up the volume a notch. Then went back to the photograph, he carefully took it down and dusted it off. It was black and white, but he could still see what was on it.

"What is this, small horses wearing clothes? Is this some person's idea of a joke?"

He set it down on the floor and went back into the bedroom. He opened the closet and found something odd. A dress, but not just any dress, it looked to be the same one the mini horse in the photo was wearing.

"Well, this is just confusing. Surely there more to this." He packed the dress into his rucksack. It looked like it had some value to it. After all, the 'S' in Stalker stood for Scavenger. With his curiosity piqued, he left the cottage and headed out northwest down a gravel road.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, he came to a sign, riddled with bullet holes. He could make out a big '52' which had been printed on it. Below that sign was another one, this one faced southwest; " Salt Cube City limits."

"Ah, I see. Is this going to be like Salt Lake City?”

He said it with a laugh. But as he looked further south, his laugh grew more and more uncomfortable. A kilometer or two off in the distance, he could see a collection of rotting skyscrapers, some looked like they were on the brink of collapse. As well as many smaller buildings, off to the east, a massive dome glowed with an eerie blue and green light.

"Like what you see?" A voice asked behind him.

Nikolai would have jumped, but he managed to keep his composer. He turned off the radio and turned too face whoever was there.

It was one of those miniature horses the tip his head was at shin level with Nikolai. A pony, perhaps? Yes, he'd go with that name. It had yellow fur and a ragged blue mane. It was wearing what he took to be some kind of improvised armor. A leather jacket with patches of metal built into the chest and forelegs. He looked off to it's side, and found that it wasn't alone, 4 more 'ponies' flanked a wagon which was connected to a fifth. The wagon was loaded with crates.

"It's not that bad if you look at it the right way."
That was a lie. From the stories that he had heard, Pripyat looked better than that place.

"What are you supposed to be?" The creature asked him.

"I could say the same thing." Nikolai politely responded. He still kept his rifle in hand.

"I- we are ponies." The creature answered.

His mind cried success. It wasn't often that he was right. He'd take his victories when he could get them.

"And we-" A second, entirely new voice continued from across the road.

"-Would like your shit. Please drop your weapons and make this easy for us." Another one of those ponies emerged from a ditch, it had something that strikingly resembled a sawed off shotgun in it's mouth.

Nikolai facepalmed. "Of course it is trap. " He began to raise his rifle, when all of a sudden...

"Ah! Blyat! What is with these people and their music!?"

He cursed as his radio somehow crackled back to life and began playing some over the top version of 'Katyusha' at a volume most sentient beings would consider earsplitting. And at the most inconvenient moment possible too.