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Chapter Ten

"DEATH FROM ABOVE!"

Equestrian Wasteland
Brighton Hoof Highway, Equestria
21 Years after the battle of Hoofington

Boo's Perspective

The cool night air was only disturbed by the crunching of our hooves on the cracked sun worn asphalt. We made our way east toward the Robronco sattleilte facility. The only light out tonight was that of a sliver of the moon, hanging in the cloudy sky like crescent shaped sickle. We had our heads on a swivel looking for night time raiders, but we met nothing in the long hours trek. Byte finally broke the silence as he sucked on a ruby.
"Why the hell are these things so spicy?" He asked using his magic and putting the half melted ruby back into his saddle bag and pulling out a mint green emerald and popping it into his mouth sucking on it.
"Mmm, Mint!" He commented happily.

"No idea." Phoenix said tersely as he looked around us for trouble.
I smiled, "Something to do with dragons and not wanting to be bored with life giving gems they magically flavored all the gems in equestria to taste like different things." I said.
Byte's red eyes widened. "That would have been a powerful magical spell how did they pull that off?"
I snorted. "They didn't. I was jokin' Byte." I replied as the top of a building came over the horizon and the first thing I noticed were the lights.

He frowned, "Ah, I see. Something to do with Discord then."
"Uh, you boys see that?" I asked stopping and pointing at the light at the top of the building.
They both turned their eyes and ears toward the building's roof top over the horizon.
"Lights." Phoenix said simply.
"You think somepony is home?" I asked.
"One way to find out." Byte said as he started to trot toward the building.
We had made it about half way down the road when something pinged off the asphalt spitting rocks and dirt up at us. It took my brain a second to realize what just happened as Phoenix and Byte jumped behind old dilapidated Motorwagen on the road side.
"Is... somepony shooting at us?" I asked stupidly standing in the middle of the road a bit peeved.
Phoenix's magic reached out and yanked me to him as another ping followed by a crack is heard, from where I was standing.
"Boo do you want a hole in your head?!" Phoenix asked as he floated out a long rifle from his bag. Another ping followed by a crack and little chunks of rock pepper the two of us from the road way.
Byte blinked and then scurried into the busted out window of the motorwagon and I could hear him crawling around in there.
A bright light suddenly shines on the motorwagon casting is in shadows from the building. "Well this isn't a way to make friends." I said simply pushing a mini Boo out of my hoof. The little pegasus copy of me looks around meets my eyes and salutes as she flapped her tiny wings and took off toward the sky. A second later a shot was heard and the mini me exploded into a cloud of rainbow blood. I cover Phoenix with an umbrella out of nowhere with a wiggle of my earth pony nose. Just as quickly I dismiss the umbrella.
Phoenix observed, "Must be a pegasus, griffon, hippogriff, or thesteral to make that shot that quickly."
I looked over to him. "Are you saying unicorns and earth ponies don't have that good of shots?"
A reply to that was an explosion going off 100 feet to our right. "Well shit." I said simply looking around for a place to run for better cover. I banged the wagon, "Byte gotta move dear. They are lobbing missiles now."
The reply I got was a sudden explosion of a missile into the front of the motor wagon pushing the long dead machine into both of us and shoving us a good two feet back. I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears as something hard dropped on my skull followed by the cyber unicorn. Strangely he didn't have a scratch on him. What lay on the ground was an old energy pistol that had seen better days but hummed to life as Byte levitated in his magic to him and checking it over.
"It's got two maybe 3 shots in it." He said with a smirk.
"Uh where did that come from?" I asked looking at the weapon.
"A skeleton in the wagon was a pegasus and had it strapped to their front leg. I detected a fain energy..."
BOOM
Another missile exploded against the wagon pushing it into my back.
"Less talking more fleeing!" Phoenix said darting back the way we had come. I shrugged at Byte and we made a tactical retreat.

Once we had gotten a sufficient distance away from the explosion. What's down in the middle of the road and I asked, "Anypony hurt?"
Both the boys shook their head in the negative. I looked back towards the way we came, "Well we are definitely going to need a new strategy. Any ideas?" I asked looking back to them.
They looked to each other than back at me and they both had a smile on their faces.
"I'm not going to like this am I?"