“Come on! We can’t stay here!” The earth pony stallion shouted, The ragged soles of his boots pounded against the asphalt as he galloped looking over his shoulder for his brother. He was average in height and was chubby. His body was covered by a well used leather jacket, his hooves covered by some well used boots that looked like they had seen much better days. His hair was the color of mocha, his eyes were a dark yellow. The stallion’s mane was short and spiked which complimented his short and spiked tail. A tire iron rested at his side in a makeshift holster. His cutie mark was able to be seen thanks to the torn bits of his leather jacket. His cutie mark was that of a piece of iron inside of a heart.

“I’m right behind you!” The unicorn stallion shouted in response as he followed his brother. He was short, standing just a few inches less than his brother, and he had a slender body. His hair was fire red with a messy silver mane that went down to the base of his neck, his tail was slightly longer than Iron Hearts own. His eyes were a cool and calming ocean blue. His cutie mark was an arrow that had been lit on fire. He had a matching leather jacket on his body that was in decent enough shape, and wasn’t falling apart like his brother’s own.

As the two were making their way quickly towards the road out of their city, they turned and took one last, long look at what was their home… The fire and smoke filled the sky, their senses were assaulted by the acrid, foul odor of the ponies that lived in their once safe haven. The smell of bodies wafted up and into the air. A group of six ponies could be seen making their way towards them. Searing Arrow and Iron Heart could tell immediately just who they were, and why they were coming towards them. The brothers looked at one another and gulped, as they watched the group soon gather around them in a tight circle.

The six ponies wore raider armor and had scrap pistols in the holsters by their sides. Two of the stallions had Molotov cocktails set in bandoliers that hung around their chests. The stallions all looked to be unicorns, their eyes bloodshot from their use of Dash or some other chem. The two mares that were with the group of stallions had combat knives strapped to their fore hips. One of the mares was a Pegasus, while the other one was a unicorn, much like the four stallions. The unicorn mare was mumbling and giggling to herself, her green eyes were wild with chaotic movements and motions, as she smirked and began to bite and nibble on her lower lip.

“W-wait!” Iron Heart said as he shivered. “Please! Just let us go!” He pleaded to the raiders, his voice was shaking just as his body did from fear. “We didn’t do anything to you! You could have just left us alone, and we wouldn’t have-” He was cut off, as one of the stallions shoved him out of the circle and to the ground roughly a few feet away.

“Shut the fuck up!” The raider yelled at Iron Heart, and the circle closed tighter around Searing Arrow, who was shaking violently.

“Yeah, we’ll leave you two alone… Once your brother here gives Bloodied Heart here a kiss.” One of the other stallions said with a cruel sneer. “And then, once that’s done, we’ll leave you two alone, and let you both go on your way to wherever you planned on running to.” He said with a matter of fact tone in his voice.

“What?!” Searing Arrow asked in fear. “You’re kidding me! Her eyes are shaking as if she had just taken Dash on-” He never got the rest of his words out, as the blood colored unicorn mares lips pressed against his own.

The unicorn mare was the same height as Searing Arrow. As she kissed him, he could feel fresh blood, his body stuck in place as the raider mare kissed him. It was a rough kiss, very rough… He was trying to push his way backwards, only to find a scrap pistol cocked and the barrel pressed directly against the back of his skull. He was unable to do anything. He was about to try pulling away when he felt a sudden and brief pain, as the mare bit his lower lip and caused him to bleed. He let out a yelp of surprise, shock and fear as he felt the pain lance through him. The pain caused him to hold still, as the dirty and cruel mare pulled him further into the kiss. Their two fresh wounds pressed against one another and her blood ended up sliding into the wound where she had bit him!

The kiss lasted a moment longer before the circle eased up and opened, the mare broke the kiss with the stallion. His eyes were wide, as was Iron Hearts, as the mare kissed the right side of his neck slowly. Her eyes closed as she pressed her bloodied lower lip up to the side of Searing Arrows ear.

“Mmmm…” She whispered quietly to him. “You would make an amazing lunch, but… I think that I will let you live. After all, you are quite the piece of meat that I hope to find again in the cold, dangerous and deadly wasteland…” She cooed before she finally released him and stepped back. She began to mutter and mumble to herself once more, as she let out a loud cackle of a giggle, and turned to walk away from the two brothers.

The two brothers were left alone, the smell of their burning home filled their nostrils as they both shivered and exhaled. Searing Arrow wiped the blood from his wound with his jacket sleeve, and shook his head. The unicorn had expected his first kiss to come later on, from a mare that was mentally stable; that sadly wasn’t going to be the case. He turned and walked up beside Iron Heart, and softly sighed. They both had started walking together, and soon, they had left their home, their sanctuary from when they were colts, behind.

They had been on the road for four days, and were running low on supplies. The siblings hunted down some mole rats for breakfast. It had been only a short while later that they had begun to make their way onward once more. Along the way, Searing Arrow had picked up a nine-millimeter pistol off of the body of a long since dead pony. It had half of its ammunition inside of its magazine, the weapon looked like it had seen its fair amount of use in battle. There were slight traces of wear and tear along the trigger and the grip. The unicorn used his magic as he lifted the pistol up and into the air cautiously. Iron Heart looked to his brother softly as they walked, he remembered listening to his brother during the past few days and nights while they traveled and slept. The earth pony had heard his brother laugh occasionally, almost as if he had been told some sort of unheard joke. The chubbier of the two brothers didn’t think anything of it, though. They had just lost their home and their family to a group of asshole raiders that also bit his brother and had originally wanted to eat him…

Searing Arrow didn’t know why he laughed, but he did. It was a soft laugh, as if he had just heard a joke that had a decent punchline. He didn’t know why he had laughed, but he had. The stallion had also been rather hungry as of late, hungrier than normal. He was unsure as to why this hunger was happening, but he would deal with it by eating later on. The wound on his lower lip had scabbed over during the course of their travel. Searing Arrow had been picking at it absentmindedly, only to realize what he was doing and promptly stopped.

The brothers approached a wooden sign that had fallen over. Searing Arrow’s horn glowed as he lifted the sign up, and set it against the trunk of a dead tree that was nearby and looked at it. Their eyes scanned over the sign as they gasped.

“Welcome to Ponyville” Iron Heart said as he read the sign aloud, and then looked to his brother. “Come on, let’s go and look around; see what we can find for supplies.” he said calmly to the unicorn stallion who nodded and walked alongside his brother into the ruined town.

What was once a bustling town that was full of ponies of different sizes and personalities, had since gone silent and dead. The brothers looked at the buildings as they passed… What they were sure was probably at one point a bakery, now sat in ruin. Its brick and mortar walls crumbled and broke due to the years of ill repairs. A tailor’s shop had followed suit, the spot where a glass window once stood, littered the dried and cracked ground at its base with shards of rusted and dirty glass. A decayed and broken farmhouse was able to be seen in the distance, not too far from the town itself. The brothers looked to one another, and then took a look around the town once more. The sun warmed the two stallions as it peeked out from in between the cold, gray clouds. The chilly breeze swept across their bodies as it blew.

“Okay, so… Let’s split up, Searing Arrow.” Iron Heart said, his voice was calm and cheerful, despite the things that they have been through over the past four days. He spoke once again as he adjusted the tire iron from across his back, around his neck. “See what you can find, maybe there will be some food laying around that was missed by any roving raiders.”

“Yeah, maybe if we’re lucky, we can find some really valuable stuff, as well!” Searing Arrow agreed as he used his telekinesis to levitate his pistol out of its makeshift holster, and headed off to explore a large yellow building in the town square. Or, what was left of it, anyways.

Iron Heart gave a nod, as he went off to explore the tailor’s shop. Little did they know that they were being observed. A Pegasus stallion had been observing them from the shadows, his coat was a soft green color and his scraggly mane was pure white. He had a rather long tail that was smoothed down and semi-well brushed that was the same color as his mane. His eyes were jet black. The stallion had on dirty leather armor that covered the upper and lower halves of his body. A rusted shotgun rested inside of its holster by his side. He slowly pulled the shotgun out of its holster, and loaded the magazine with his remaining four shells. He was more than sure that he could kill them, and that he could get what he wanted from them when they came out with the object in question.

Iron Heart had entered the tailor’s shop and scanned the room slowly. The earth pony saw just how ruined the building was, fragments of mannequins littered the floor, along with ashes and scraps of clothes. As he approached one of the scraps and examined it, the stallion could tell that it was the sort of fabric that was once used to make a mare’s dress. He dropped the useless scrap of what was possibly once an elegant and lovely piece of clothing, and moved on to examine the rest of the interior. Iron Heart hadn’t found anything of interest, until he made his way into the back room… The stallion came across what appeared to be a big and bulky safe sitting on a desk that had a box of bobby pins sitting next to it. He made his way up to the desk and opened the small box next to it, only to find that three bobby pins were left inside of it.

Iron Heart let out a groan of frustration, and with reluctance, took the bobby pins and began to work at picking the lock on the safe. He had only just started to find the first of the tumbler's sweet spots, before he broke the first of the pins with a soft snap! Ever stubborn, he tried again with the second of the remaining pins. This time, he had managed to get past the first and second tumblers, before it snapped in the third tumbler. This safe was starting to piss him off alright, as he picked up the remaining one, as he began to slowly and carefully pick the lock.

This time, Iron Heart’s persistence and patience had been rewarded. He managed to get the remaining pin through the last of the tumblers, when he heard a soft click and saw that the safe's door had opened up slightly. He took hold of the door and opened it, revealing ten caps, along with a round, sphere-like object and a key. Attached to the key was a piece of paper that had the word wardrobe written on it. The stallion carefully took the sphere-like object and put it inside of his leather jacket pocket, then the caps shortly afterward. The key was the last thing that he took, and looked around to try and find where the key fit into, he didn’t have to look for very long. The wardrobe had been locked up tight, with a single heavy lock. He wouldn’t have been able to pick this lock just yet, but since he managed to pick that safe’s lock, and found the key, he knew that the wardrobe had to have had something good inside of it, for having been locked up like how it was.

The doors on the wardrobe opened with a loud groan, somehow, this thing surprisingly managed to weather the megaspell that had turned Equestria into a wasteland. Iron Heart blinked as he found what looked like an orb that was made out of Andalusite gems, alongside what looked like a map. The earth pony blinked as he took the andalusite orb and put it into the pocket of his leather jacket, and then took the map in his hooves. He looked at it for a moment, and realized that it was of a route that was mapped out. The route appeared to go from Ponyville to a spot on the map labeled Tenpony Tower. A smile formed on Iron Heart’s face as he rolled up the map and slipped it into the remaining pocket of his leather jacket, and made his way back outside to wait for his brother.

Searing Arrow approached a tall yellow building, its yellow paint having been blasted clean off with holes in the walls, and a partially collapsed roof were clear signs of this building’s demise when the megaspell hit. Only the ground floor was left standing, as the lattices that once hung on the sides of the building’s second floor were broken into splinters on the ground. The stallion took his pistol out and made his way inside cautiously. His hoof steps were cautious as he walked on the rotting wood planks, a loud creaking noise sounded into the air as he cringed. Slowly, Searing Arrow made his way inside of the building.

The interior was dark, only lit up by the brief glints of sunlight from outside. He made his way as he looked around. Searing Arrows eyes scanned the interior, and came to rest on a desk that looked like it had seen much better days. As he approached it, the stallion noticed that there were papers scattered all over the floor behind it, and the long since destroyed terminal monitor that sat on top of it.

“Well, this is perfect.” Searing Arrow said quietly to himself as he moved on and continued to explore the building. “I probably could have scavenged that terminal’s contents, and might have been able to find out something about this town, but… I guess that itself is out of the question, now. Seeing as how utterly fucked the monitor is.” He said as he made his way down the connecting hallway.

The doors had all been destroyed, and as he examined the deep cuts in the walls and the size of the splinters on the creaking and groaning floorboards, he could tell how they had been taken out. As he entered the rooms one by one, he found the skeletal remains of ponies. Three of the four ponies were unicorns, much like himself, while the fourth was a pegasus. The remains were beyond the reach of skeletal identification. He didn’t have that sort of equipment on him, and even with it, he didn’t have the proper skills to use the equipment. Searing Arrow saw the scraps of the clothes that these ponies were wearing, though; and sifted through the pockets. He managed to find twelve caps in total inside of their pockets.

As he explored the rooms, Searing Arrow had noticed that the majority of the terminals had been broken. He made his way to the final room in the building, after twenty minutes of looking around for anything else of value. The room in the back of this decimated building once had a name on the glass and had since been peeled off. He stood out behind the cracked door for a few moments, and listened. The unicorn heard what sounded like insects coming from inside of the room. The stallion took a moment to catch his breath as he levitated his pistol in front of his horn with a soft glow, and kicked the splintered door down!

Inside of the room were three small sacks, they sat on top of a desk and wriggled around slightly. They were a slightly red translucent color. As he approached the desk that they sat on, Searing Arrow watched in surprise and shock, as one of the strange sacks spring out to attack him! He quickly brought his pistol up to bare, and fired! The first two shots missed, going wide as the bullets shot into the wall! The stallion’s third shot, though, struck the thing in the center of its mass, and sent it falling to the floor in front of him. By this point, the other two strange creatures, yes, that was what these things were… These things weren’t just translucent red sacks, but they were something else altogether. The remaining leapt up and off of the desk with a resounding and resonating hiss of rage.

Searing Arrow fired off another three shots, his first shot went wide, and smashed through the remaining glass windowpane that rested behind the desk! His other two shots managed to hit the remaining two in the backside of one of their lower bodies, and the other was a clean shot to the head, which caused blood and viscera to be ejected and to fly everywhere! The one that had gotten the lower body shot fell to the floor next to its fellow creature, which was still alive and holding on. Searing Arrow approached his first attacker and brought his right forehoof down onto it with a loud and sickeningly wet splat! Red blood painted his hoof, the rotting floorboards, and its siblings' bodies.

“Well, these things aren’t that tough!” Searing Arrow said with a smug look on his face, and an just as equally cocky tone in his voice. “I bet that I could take on a whole mess of these little shits, no problem!”

As he rambled on to himself, he hadn’t noticed the remaining creature as it squirmed its way up to his hoof, and took a good bite out of it!

“Ouch! What the?!” Searing Arrow shouted as he felt the pain lance through his hoof and up his leg. He looked down to see the creature that was still alive, biting down into his coat and skin. He shook his leg rapidly as he grunted, he scowled at the thing, as he gave one last and hard shake of his leg. The creature hit the wall with a wet thump as its body went limp, and it slowly slid down the wall; It was almost like someone threw a foals toy at the wall, just to watch it crawl downwards.

Slowly, Searing Arrow made his way around the desk, and kicked away the remains of a broken chair to the side. He knelt down with his telekinesis keeping his pistol at the ready, as he looked underneath the desk. The unicorn could see the termites as they ate away the wood, as well as a metal box that was on the floor. Searing Arrow holstered his pistol and took the metal box out from the floor of the rotting desk, and got up. He brought the metal box to rest on the wooden panel of the window, and tried to open it. The box was locked, and with a grunt, the unicorn brought his right hoof against it! It took him a good few seconds of slamming and smacking the boxes backside with his hoof, before it finally broke. The lid of the box had snapped apart from the bottom with a soft snapping sound, and the screws that once held it shut had fallen to the rotting floorboards.

He pulled the top of the metal box aside, only to find twenty caps inside. Searing Arrow gave a shrug as he lifted the caps out of the box with his magic, and slipped them into the pocket of his leather jacket. He then turned and made his way back to the spot that he and Iron Heart both agreed to meet at. He looked around the building one last time, as he made his way back to the front door, and turned around to look back at the interior. He was able to picture the building before the megaspells were set off. He pictured and imagined that the building was some sort of court house, or maybe a place of work where the mayor came to do her job. His heart sunk as he imagined it, all of those lives that were snuffed out in this town… He turned and with a solemn heart, made his way out of the building.

After a short while, the two brothers had met back up at the town square. Iron Heart blinked as he reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, and produced the strange sphere, as he showed Searing Arrow.

“Hey, Searing, what do you think this is?” Iron Heart asked, confused as he tilted his head. “It doesn’t look like a holotape, and there has to be a way to get into it.” He said calmly as he looked at his brother.

“Well, I’m not entirely sure.” Searing Arrow admitted as he examined the sphere, and lifted it up with his magic. The unicorn’s horn glowed softly as he effortlessly turned it around in the air. “I think that this might be a memory orb… I remember a few months ago, that Blazing Striker and I found something similar to this in the quarry. That particular memory orb was destroyed, though.” He said calmly before he handed the memory orb back to the earth pony, his magic faded as he took a moment to exhale. “Did you find anything else? I managed to find twenty caps, and three bee larvae, that I had to put down.” He added.

“Eh, I didn’t find too much… Besides this, some caps and a crudely drawn map.” Iron Heart said with a soft sigh, and put the memory orb back into his leather jacket pocket. “Well, we might as well check out the location that the map leads to. It goes to-” He stopped as his ears flicked up at the sounds of movement behind him, and turned around.

As they both looked, they saw a pegasus stallion approaching them. His body was clothed in leather armor. His head and wings were unprotected, and his cold, jet black eyes locked onto them. His voice was cold, cruel and sadistic as he approached.

“Well well, gentle stallions.” He said with an icey tone in his voice. “I believe that I will be taking that memory orb from you…” He quickly drew his rusted shotgun from its holster, and took aim.

Searing Arrow quickly brought his magic up, his horn glowed as he used his telekinesis to bring his pistol up and floating next to his side. He blinked, however, as he heard a distant giggle. Shortly after he had heard the giggle, the unicorn stallion heard the voice of what sounded like a filly, who spoke to him. “Oooh! This is going to be fun! Don’t let him catch you by the tail!” The voice said in a malevolent tone that got Searing Arrow to softly and quietly laugh.

Footnote: Level Up! New Perk!

Brothers in Arms: you gain +1 to your initiative and may swap turns with your brother in combat.

Author's Note

I must thank Dandy from the Dead Tree discord server, for bringing the mistakes I made to light. I will be working to make much better chapters than this, due to how I had to shake off the rust from writing recently.