Fallout Equestria: The Blue Lightning

— I’m afraid I fucked up again.
The tiny machine bobbed closer.
— I’d disagree with that. Why don’t you put the gun down and tell me about it?

FoE: Project Horizons, chapter 23

The double doors of the house were wide open. From a small hill, a huge orchard could be seen. The trees there were blackened and bare, and must have once grown apples.

Amazing, Cosmic thought. And they’re still growing somewhere. Otherwise, every month or two, a container of fruit wouldn’t arrive in The Republic – somewhat rotten, but still fresh by the standards of this world, which has been in a coma for two hundred years, frozen by radioactive eternity. An expensive treat, of course; the earth pony wondered how much cheaper the apples from this orchard were sold? Though it didn’t seem as if the caps were being paid off back then.

Cosmic pushed the unwanted thoughts away and turned her attention back to her Argument, which had its butt in the ground. Under the trigger guard was a dry dead stick (there were no others here) that seemed to be so easy to press on both sides to make the carbine fire. Of course, she could have broken off the spoon and pulled the trigger with her hoof, but something stopped her. Maybe it was respect for the weapon she got from the town’s arsenal, which had been a faithful companion for years.

A pity it had to end like that.

Cosmic’s ears pricked up. From the top floor came some kind of bustle and two ringing voices. Surely Sonic and his friend were tinkering with that thing of theirs again. Self-taught technicians, damn them... While she was up here fiddling with a carbine and a stick, because all the fucking weapons in the fucking Wasteland are designed so that only a fucking unicorn can shoot himself with them.

Yeah. She fucked up. Lost everyone she ever got close to. Four dead and another turned to the dark side. The Republic may survive this blow, but will Cosmic? Will she be accepted after her failure – or forced to respond for what she’s allowed to happen?

No matter. She had already condemned herself.

Her shoulder ached, and the mare wrinkled in pain. She had no more healing potions, and the last of her bandages were wrapped. There was still food – thanks to Metal Dawn, who hadn’t crushed or taken all the luggage of his dead comrades, screw him, – but not much, and the water in the flasks was running low. In a couple of days, he would have to go somewhere else to replenish his supplies – New Appleloosa, for example… or The Republic.

Cosmic shuddered and tears filled her eyes. No, no, she wasn’t ready for that yet.

And she probably never would be.

She put the muzzle of the gun into her mouth. Images of the night before last flashed before her eyes.

The night her world had been shattered.

“Cosmic…! Cosmic…!”

The voice came from somewhere far away, growing louder and then fading. But the earth pony couldn’t remember who it belonged to. Someone vaguely familiar…

The pain returned. A sharper one where her shoulder should be, and a slick, pulling pain in the rest of her body. Cosmic groaned, and the rim of a glass bottle touched her lips, wetting them with a bitter liquid.

A healing potion. Just what she needed.

So Metal Dawn didn’t trample everything! came the thought, breaking through the shroud of pain and becoming a life vest for the consciousness that floated to the surface. Praise the holder…

Cosmic put her mouth to the bottle and gulped down the potion greedily. Warmth immediately began to spread through her body and the pain eased slightly. Her eyes opened. Someone was looming over her, holding the vial of medicine. It was too dark to see exactly.

Night. Still night. So not much time had passed.

We could try to catch up with Metal Dawn and—

The bottle emptied, and someone’s hand moved it away. Cosmic leaned back, tried to breathe – and then realized who was fiddling with her.

“How did you… how did you get out…?” she said with difficulty.

Sonic shrugged – the movement was obvious from the silhouette.

“All I had to do was clear a path about a hundred meters from the wreck, right? So, I looked for some trash, and then I just started throwing it in front of me, moving forward. But,” he laughed awkwardly, “there wasn’t enough trash to go around, so I–”

“Don’t tell me you… Oh, Goddesses!” Cosmic closed her eyes and groaned again – but this time, clearly not in pain. “You threw our supply of canned goods into a minefield?!”

“What was I supposed to do?” parried the hedgehog. “Sit there and wait for you – I’d have gone crazy! Besides, you were gone for a long time, and I got worried. And when I had almost cleaned everything up, I heard gunshots and flew straight here! But no…” he shook his head, “I wasn’t in time. My speed wasn’t fast enough.

“Well,” he added after a while, “I guess we’ve got bigger problems than condensed milk splattered on the ground anyway.”

“How long… am I here…?” The voice disobeyed Cosmic again.

“Dunno, I don’t have a watch,” Sonic waved his hands. At the angry look, he hastened to correct himself, “Two or three hours, no more.”

“Was… was there anyone else here?”

Metal Dawn was talking about the slavers, about them coming here soon and taking over Monterey. But she’s still here. What had happened while she was unconscious?

The sensation of blood under the armor returned to her brain. Cosmic barely squinted at her left shoulder – it was wrapped in something. Thank the Goddesses, Sonic had found enchanted bandages in her saddlebags and used them for their intended purpose.

“Yes, some guys came here…” It wasn’t visible in the darkness, but judging by the tone, the hedgehog was clearly grimacing. “Whah, how the hell they smelled... Oh, let’s start at the beginning, okay? Well…”

“…Get away from her, you scum!” Sonic shouted, running as fast as he could to where the gunfire had come from earlier.

In the darkness, he could see well enough to see who was standing over whom and whose bodies were lying around. In those moments, he wanted only one thing: to save Cosmic while it was still possible.

At full speed, Sonic slammed into Metal Dawn, who was just beginning to turn his head at his appearance. A revolver bang – the bullet hit the ground near Cosmic’s ear. The collision sent the hedgehog and the stallion flying in different directions like bowling pins. Sonic immediately jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain in his body from the sensitive impact, and turned his head to look for his enemy, but there was no one there now.

The hedgehog blinked dazedly, unable to believe his eyes. The enemy had just been here, but suddenly… vanished? What was this invisibility? Could it be that those ponies had invented stealth during the war…?

Dumbass. Of course they could have! And they probably did! But… how am I supposed to fight him now?

He suddenly broke into a sweat as he fully realized what had happened. He found himself face to face with a pony who had gone mad and who was invisible.

And who had two revolvers.

And behind Sonic, there was only a wounded, bleeding mare.

The needles in his neck quivered with a sharp wave of foreboding. The hedgehog barely had time to jump aside when a bullet whistled where he'd been standing a second ago. Panic crept up from the depths of his mind.

No! Cosmic…! Sonic clutched his eyes shut, nipping the tears in the bud. I gotta protect her! By all means…

And he did the first thing that occurred to him.

Started running…

…around Cosmic.

The world blurred – it felt even despite the night’s darkness. There was a blue glow at the edge of his vision – a reflection of the trail he had left.

He remembered Earth, where he’d started running circles around the baseball field out of loneliness and hopelessness... and what it had led to. So now he was trying to find the line he had crossed and not to cross it again, so that Cosmic wouldn’t get hurt accidentally. After all, he was still a blur to the eye that saw in normal time.

The hedgehog didn’t pay much attention to the thunder of another shot. And when the bullet, illuminated by his electric plume, became visible and flew towards him in slow motion, he simply grabbed it with two fingers without stopping and threw it away into the darkness.

Another second of running – long and dragging, like caramel… third one… fifth…

Why don’t you shoot? Sonic grinned. You’re chicken, ain’t you?

Just then, a new insight cut through his consciousness.

The hedgehog tried to brake and was thrown out of the circular trajectory like a bean out of a centrifuge. He screamed as he flew but was silenced by his nose on the ground. Loose chunks flew in all directions; Sonic was dragged about twenty meters before he stopped.

His mouth filled with dirt; his body felt like it had been run over by a roller. Spitting and shaking, the hedgehog got to his feet and staggered back to Cosmic. When he reached the mare lying motionless, he looked back and stared into the darkness.

He was expecting something: a shot in the back, in the face, or at Cosmic, but nothing happened. The landscape around him was dark and silent – and, as it had been after the recent skirmish with the raiders, it smelled of gunpowder and blood.

The assassin who had just shot the squad had escaped.

Sonic froze, unsure of what to do. Run after him? But where? Which way? The pony had disappeared, vanished into the night as if he had never existed. So the only thing left to do was to save those who might have survived.

The hedgehog looked at the mare and gasped as he found himself sitting in a pool of blood beneath her, slowly seeping into the ground.

His heart was pounding, and his breath was catching in his throat. The alien was clearly not ready for such horrors.

“Now, Cosmic, now…” he fumed. “So, where did she keep healers here…?”

With trembling hands, he opened one of the saddlebags of the blue earth pony and shoveled everything out. It was all wrong! A burst tin can, some crushed food packets, a broken flashlight (oh, he wished Metal Dawn had a light like in a stallion’s ass…), an armor repair kit, but absolutely nothing in the way of medical supplies.

The hedgehog groaned in frustration and shook out the other bag. Bottle shards, a bag of caps, a blister of pills crumbling to dust, an intact flask of water, and… there it was! – a bag of bandages and two saved healing potions.

Without hesitation, Sonic tore open the package and began to wrap Cosmic’s shoulder. The bandages got wet quickly, but a few layers later, the bleeding seemed to stop.

Sonic picked up the potion bottle and moved closer to Cosmic’s head to bring her around and make her drink the medicine – when he suddenly heard voices and footsteps approaching. Somebody was on the way here, and not alone. It couldn’t end well after what had happened.

The unicorn, harnessed to a cart that had fallen over sideways, groaned and stirred, holding his head. Sonic looked at him, at Cosmic, then at the potion in his hand… and closed his eyes, tormented by inner contradictions.

Why is it always so complicated?! Why do I have to choose who to help and who not to help?! Especially when another option is to save myself! Why?!

On the other hand, the pony didn’t look hurt too badly. It seemed he was just knocked out during the fight. Which meant that…

The voices were getting closer. There was no time for anything else.

Sighing loudly, Sonic grabbed both healing potions and rushed to the cart. Quickly untangling the harness from the lying unicorn, he jumped inside and burrowed into a pile of wrappers that smelled deliciously of cheese.

Stomp… stomp… stomp…

Closer and closer…

They stopped. Very close.

Sonic began to breathe quietly through his mouth so as not to give himself away. Something told him that he wouldn’t be happy to come face to face with these ponies. Even if he considered that they wouldn’t be able to catch him.

This was about something else.

Cosmic… If he tried anything to defend her, he could very well get himself killed and her as well. The way the meeting with the raiders had ended had dampened his excitement; it seemed much harder now to do justice. After all, taking on murderers and psychos wasn’t like stealing a truck from bank robbers with them inside. It required… something more than just the desire to uphold justice. Something important that Sonic doubted he had in himself.

It’s easy to show off when you feel immortal. And simply impossible when that confidence is shaken.

“…Aha, there he is!” There was an unpleasant voice almost right above the hedgehog’s ear. A muffled thump and a painful groan from the unicorn merchant. “You’ve had enough? You’re coming with us. We don’t care who you are, only how many caps you can bring. And your horn makes you even more valuable.”

Another blow and the prisoner cried out in pain. He must have been hit on the horn with a hoof.

“Holy shit!” said another of the villains in a hoarse voice. “Look at the security this asshole signed up for! Fuuuuuuck… and the pegasers too… I ain’t wanna meet the guy who killed ‘em all!”

“Look!” A third voice, a bit younger than the other two. “There’s a survivor here! Even bandaged herself before she passed out… Eh, too bad she’s gonna die, but I could‘ve gone with her…”

“You can have a good time while she’s alive,” the first one said. “If you’re not afraid of getting blood all over you.”

“Shit!” A clatter of hooves on the ground: the pony jumped aside. “You should have warned me!”

“Let’s just finish her off,” huskily said the other. “We can’t take her with us anyway.”

“Alright,” said the first. “Sawed-Off, shoot. There’s already blood everywhere…”

“Do you want to waste a bullet on a mare that can die on her own?” shouted another voice. Obviously that was the merchant. “You guys are idiots.”

“Shut up!” Another blow and a moan of pain. “Put something in his mouth, eh? He’s talking too much.”

“Hey, let’s take it all for ourselves?” the husky suggested with a chuckle. “There are suuuuch weapons in here, how ‘bout ‘em, Sawed-Off? And we could use some extra food…”

“We ain’t get paid for this,” the first one, obviously the leader of the gang, reminded them. “We can’t carry all this stuff. And what are you going to do when you run out of ammo for one of these things? Someone’s going to take it and smash your face in with it… No, let’s get this off first.” There was a nudge and a moo in response: the trader was already gagged. “Then we’ll go back and get what we need. Okay?”

“Yeah,” said the husky. “Let’s go then? Hey, Sawed-Off, you got a shot at her yet?”

“Back off,” said the third. Sonic shuddered as he heard the click of a gun being set to fire. “I’ll shoot her and then we’ll go…”

No! You wouldn’t dare! Hedgehog bit down on his gloved hand so the chattering of his teeth wouldn’t give him away. Someone, stop him…

“C’mon, that asshole was right: it’s just a waste of a load,” the leader said, and I think he kicked the merchant again. “If we’re lucky, we’ll come back in the morning and clean this place out. Cager, hold him. And you, Sawed-Off, help us put our bracelets on him…”

For some time, there was fumbling, interspersed with soft cursing and clanking. The prisoner didn’t seem to resist the chains at all. Holy Keanu, he didn’t stand a chance! And even if Sonic had intervened, any one of those three could have finished off the merchant. And then both the hedgehog and Cosmic could have been hurt.

Sonic was shaking – too much for him to dare go into super speed mode again. For the third time that night. Without replenishment. Without a normal, relaxing rest.

He’d run from the abandoned building and those laps around Cosmic on sheer drive, powered by fear for the fate of the mare he’d taken in. But now the adrenaline had worn off and there was nothing left to feed his inner motivator.

Damn, it’s like hiding from echidnas! thought the hedgehog, almost gritting his teeth in helplessness. If only they would go away soon…

At last, the vague rustling stopped, and hoofsteps could be heard moving away. The chains jingled melodiously with each of them.

It was only when the sound of the stranger’s presence faded into the distance that Sonic breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed exhaustedly into the cart. But he immediately shook his head, jumped up, got out of the pile of cheese wrappers, and ran back to Cosmic.

She had to be brought to her senses.

“When did they leave?” the earth pony asked, breathing hard from the stabbing pain in her shoulder.

As luck would have it – as luck would really have it! – Metal Dawn had stomped out all the painkillers. Not just hers, but everyone else's as well. Furthermore, as Sonic had reported after checking the bags of the dead team members at her request, the stallion had destroyed half of their healing potions and supplies. The rest, no doubt, he had taken with him. Along with all their caps and Pegasi combat drugs, the only dope the mayor had tolerated in The Republic.

Silver Star will kill me. And then he’ll find Metal Dawn and kill him, too. With sticking a shotgun halfway up to his…

Sonic shrugged.

“Two hours, maybe. I don’t know!” He shook his head. “I lived without a smartwatch for so many years, and then I forgot to put it on, and that’s it…”

“What are you talking about…?”

It was hard to talk. The words weren’t forming into a meaningful sentence in her brain, and her jaw felt like it was getting heavier and wouldn’t move. It’s from the blood loss, Cosmic thought lazily. Fuck, if Nightlight were alive, she’d do something… about this… Damn you, Dawn, for killing our medic!

“Never mind…” Sonic brushed aside, but immediately became serious. “Are… you okay?”

“Can’t you see?” A faint grin touched the earth pony’s mouth. “I’m doing my best not to die. Oh Goddesses…”

It was only now that Cosmic began to realize the horror of what had happened.

“Nightlight… Snow… Stream, Spark…” She breathed more frequently. Her eyes were fixed on the black night sky. “They’re all there… And he’s got them… He’s got them…”

The mare let out a howl of pain – not physical, but mental – and clattered to the ground, sobbing. She couldn’t even lift a hoof to wipe away her tears, so tired and injured she was. She screamed – releasing all the despair that had gripped her when she realized her comrades were gone.

At all. Completely. Forever.

Cosmic didn’t believe in some kind of ponies’ paradise or wherever souls were supposed to go after death. The Wasteland didn’t leave any room for faith.

Sonic sat next to her, holding the blue earth pony so she wouldn’t accidentally hurt herself. He didn’t say anything – perhaps realizing that words couldn’t fix anything here.

Finally, Cosmic fell silent. After she had cried out some of her pain, she only sobbed quietly while the remains of something salty and wet oozed out of her eyes and flooded her face. Soon that stopped as well.

No. I must… survive. I don’t wanna… leave… like this…

Catching her breath, she turned back to Sonic:

“Listen, have you seen… my gun here?”

“This?”

He put something in her hooves. Something very familiar.

Yes, it was her Argument. Cosmic tensed and, catching herself, pulled the bolt of the carbine with her teeth. It didn’t seem to be broken. But there was only one way to test the weapon in action – by shooting. The earth pony didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention right now.

It was lucky that Metal Dawn hadn’t arrived in time and that the slavers had been too lazy to search her and take Nige and Dan away. At least if the carbine jammed, she’d have something to shoot back with.

“You can get something yourself. For protection,” she said, gripping the gun tightly and running her hoof lovingly over the worn gold letters on the barrel: LAST AЯGUMЭИT. “And kick me when they’re back. I wanna know in advance where to shoot. Until then, I’ll–”

…sleep, she wanted to finish, but her strength left her.

Her consciousness slipped back into darkness.

Cosmic awoke to a stinging kick in her side, right where her ribs were resting against her armor. As soon as the mare opened her eyes, Sonic immediately removed his foot. Cosmic wrinkled her nose as the movement tore away a crust of dried blood beneath her armor.

Her shoulder still hurt, but not as badly as it had at first. Her head was surprisingly clear – as clear as it could be, of course.

Cosmic grinned and gripped her carbine more comfortably, preparing to take it in her teeth and fire back.

Sonic touched her healthy shoulder gently.

“Wait – he seems to be alone out there,” the hedgehog said quietly, peering into the darkness as she did, where she could hear someone’s slow hoofsteps.

“Hide,” Cosmic whispered back.

If the slavers had decided to send only one of them to get the stuff, they had made a big mistake. Because the mare they were about to waste a shot on had not only survived, but was now armed.

And if only one of them remained and the other two were put down, the life of another scum wouldn’t be a significant loss to the Wasteland.

Cosmic put the carbine aside for a moment, lifted herself up on the ground with the hoof of her good leg, unhooked her saddlebags, shoved her surviving belongings into them, and tucked the bags under her back. Then she picked up her weapon again, but now she was sitting instead of lying down. It was definitely more comfortable.

“One more step and you’re dead,” she said as the unknown pony stopped at the overturned cart and grabbed the mouthgrip of her Argument.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sonic crouching on the ground behind the bodies of Spark and Nightlight. With any luck, the hedgehog would remain a mystery to this lonely guest. For some reason, Cosmic didn’t think there were many ponies who needed to know about the blue alien.

“Easy,” the irritated voice replied, and the mare was surprised to recognize it as Monterey Jack. “Or I’ll shoot you.”

In the faint glow of his horn, a shotgun could be seen aimed at Cosmic.

Blimey… We’ve obviously been hocked for a pile of caps. Me, to be exact.

With telekinesis, Monterey put the cart on its wheels and unloaded the scattered cheese wrappers into it. Then he turned his head to look for another, whispered a curse, and walked straight toward Cosmic.

She raised her carbine but was in no hurry to shoot. It seemed he didn’t want to kill her now. The shotgun was meant to be a tool for conversation, not murder.

“Now tell me…” Monterey said, his voice trembling with restrained rage as he jammed the double-barreled weapon into Cosmic’s neck. “What. The. Fuck. Was. That?!”

“One of my troops turned out to be a traitor,” the earth pony grumbled. It was hard to stay calm when your life literally hung on someone else’s trigger. “He somehow managed to turn invisible and used the darkness to shoot everyone else, leaving you to the slavers who happened to be nearby. He tried to kill me as well, but only wounded me. And then he ran away. Sorry, I don’t know much more than that myself. His last villainous speech –” Cosmic chuckled, blinking away tears “– turned out to be… quite rambling.”

“Arrrgh… Damn it!” the unicorn stomped, throwing the shotgun aside in frustration. Then he sat down on his croup and wrapped his front legs around his head.

What the hay is going on here…?

A new piece of the puzzle fell into place in the earth pony’s mind.

“Does it have something to do with that tube you were wearing?” she asked randomly. “That’s what you were looking for, isn’t it?”

“It doesn't matter,” the merchant said hoarsely. “You can’t help me anyway. Except return the contract fee. You and your damn crew didn’t fulfill it.”

“Look in the bags,” Cosmic sighed, pointing her head behind her back. “It would be too painful for me to do it myself.”

“You’ll be patient,” Monterey threw at her.

He got up and walked around behind her. Cosmic felt the magic lift her up, then put her back on the lighter bags. Contrary to expectations, quite gently: the wounded shoulder didn’t even raise the tone of its painful whine. Despite his anger, the unicorn was no sadist.

“I should be able to get more compensation from you for my lost cargo,” he muttered, walking back to the cart with his caps. “But this stupid contract only gives me ten caps per fucking kilogram… and what was missing weighed a lot less than that. You owe me two… no – three caps… Cosmic Valor.”

Said in a contemptuous tone, the earth pony’s name sounded like bitter sarcasm.

“Consider it your force majeure fee,” the mare grinned wryly. “I won’t ask for a thousand because…” she closed her eyes, struggling to say it, “yes, I screwed up. I didn’t even think it could turn out like this! And… how did you get away from them? And what, you don’t even try to go through anypony around?” she returned the taunt back.

Monterey Jack sighed heavily and seemed to make a facehoof.

“They’re all dead. I had help, and I… Fuck, I just tried to rob a unicorn filly that just came out of a Stable a few hours ago, and she hit me with it, threatening to shoot me if I even put a couple of holes in her. If it didn’t work out with her, I wasn’t an idiot to mess with a mercenary squad leader right after that. Even if she’s injured.”

“From a Stable? Really?” Cosmic’s eyebrows raised. “I thought all these shelters were abandoned for long…”

“Apparently not,” the merchant said venomously, strapping himself back into his cart. “You’re on your own. I’ll try to get to Tenpony myself somehow. Thanks a lot for protecting me.”

“Wait,” the mare called to him, then wrinkled her nose as her shoulder reminded her of a cascade of unpleasant sensations. “What was in that tube?”

“I don’t know,” Monterey snapped. “I was just supposed to deliver it. That’s the end of it, and I’m out of here. You’re a pretty good target now, you know. And a very profitable one, with all the stuff that’s left over,” he pointed with his hoof in the direction of the corpses. “Anyone around will be hit. So goodbye.”

“There’s one more thing. Do you happen to know if there are any merchants in New Appleloosa who buy up all kinds of… rare artifacts?”

“Mm-hmm.” He was about to leave, but stopped and turned back. “Why do you want it?”

“I think it might have something to do with… well, everything that’s been going on.”

“Basically, there’s this one guy,” Monterey began to remember. “I don’t know his name, I’ve only seen him a few times. He always sits in a dark cloak against a wall somewhere in the Turnpike, but he leaves at the first sign of trouble, and then you can’t find him. He’s a shady one, I wouldn’t risk messing with him. But they say he pays a decent price for some items, especially pre-war ones. I don’t know who he sells them to. Nopony knows…”

“Thank you,” Cosmic replied, spreading herself tiredly on the ground and putting the bags under her back.

This short conversation exhausted her completely.

The merchant turned and walked away, dragging a creaking cart of cheese behind him.

The mare waited until he was far enough away before turning to Sonic, “That’s it, you can come out now. And… do you have any more healing potions? I’m kinda feeling a bit–”

“The last one.” A bottle hit the hoof of her healthy leg. “The rest broke. All of them.”

“Oh, I get it.” With a leg around the potion, Cosmic drank it, but with almost no taste. “That bastard, may he rot in Canterlot, figured everything so that none of us had the slightest chance… There was one thing he miscalculated,” she grinned, turning her head to Sonic. “That you would come. Although…” she shook her head sadly, “that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“You’re not just going to lie here until you get better, are you?” hedgehog asked. “Maybe we can go to your base when you’re better?”

“Are you kidding?” Cosmic snorted. “There are so many plasma mines around that I’ll never go there. Even if, as you say, there’s a corridor there now. It’s just…” She sighed. “That place will remind me of the guys now. And that hurts twice as much.”

“I’m sorry,” Sonic lowered his eyes. “Maybe you have another place in mind?”

Cosmic thought about it. The healing potion cleared her head a bit, which was again covered by a fog of pain, so it was not too difficult to think of an option.

“You know, there is,” she said. “There’s a town called Ponyville, a few hours’ walk from here. It’s a shithole full of raiders now, but from what I’ve been told, it’s where–”

“…where Twilight Sparkle got her start in learning the magic of friendship,” Sonic finished for her.

“You… from… where…”

The mare’s anger returned, the same anger she’d felt after the hedgehog’s revelations at Murky’s bar. Her soul was stabbed again by the feeling that something was being kept from her.

“I’ll tell you everything, okay? But when we get to a safe place. I think the time for you to listen to it is almost upon us.”

Tell it to me, quickly! Cosmic wanted to demand… but there was no strength left for objections.

Instead, she yawned and continued, “There’s an abandoned farm nearby. We can go there. Actually, there’s nothing there but garbage… but it’ll be fine for a few days’ rest.”

“Good,” Sonic nodded. “Then get some rest and we’ll be on our way.”

…As the light began to fade, a casual traveler would have seen a strange sight: a blue hedgehog and a blue earth pony were walking together through the Wasteland. The mare’s left foreleg was slung over Sonic’s shoulder, and she was waddling on three hooves.

Dawn was coming… if one could call it that. Another gray, cruel day under a cloudy sky.

A tear rolled down her cheek and fell, soaking into the contaminated ground.

When she and Sonic arrived, Cosmic had just collapsed and lay unconscious all day, her body recovering from the blood loss. The healing potions had done their job, but in such small quantities, they couldn’t heal someone all at once.

And they certainly couldn’t heal a soul. Repeatedly shot with a .44 caliber revolver.

When she regained consciousness, Cosmic was left alone with the thoughts that tormented her. The realization that she could have done things differently – for example, not taking Metal Dawn with her, bringing his aggressive advances to light, or keeping a closer eye on him instead of talking to Monterey – hurt her more than the bullet that had gone through her shoulder, perhaps scratching the bone.

Now there was no turning back. She just couldn’t bear such shame.

She didn’t deserve to live while her friends died because of her foolishness. It was only fair, in her opinion.

Goodbye, Wasteland, Cosmic thought, crying silently with the muzzle of her carbine in her mouth. I couldn’t change you for the better. I hope Sonic will be more successful in it.

The hooves pressed down on the stick that pulled the trigger…

“What the heck are you doing?” a stern voice rang in her ear.

“AAAAH!”

Cosmic shrieked in surprise and released the barrel of Argument from her mouth. The wand snapped with a crack; the weapon fired a short burst that buzzed next to the earth pony’s head and bounced off the roof.

Breathing heavily, the mare stopped her faltering gaze at whatever it was that had distracted her.

Hovering at her level was a sprite-bot, a flying balloon with wings and a loudspeaker. Usually bots played pre-war music – not the kind the blue earth pony listened to, but pseudo-heroic stuff that sounded like a misplaced and ridiculous belch of the past amid the post-apocalypse, – but this one was silent. And seemed to be watching Cosmic intently.

“Think again. You might be making a big mistake,” the same voice continued from the loudspeaker.

“You’re just a sprite-bot,” the mare muttered, staring dazedly at the hovering metal sphere with her eyes wide open. “You can’t talk… Well, of course,” she exhaled suddenly, pointing her weapon at the sprite-bot. “Who are you? What do you want from me? Where the hay did you come from?”

“Cosmic?” Sonic’s face peered cautiously out of the house. “I heard shots…” He looked at the carbine. “Wait, what are you…” And then the hedgehog saw the sprite-bot. “What the hell is this?”

“Call me Watcher. Basically, my main job is to keep an eye on what’s going on in the Wasteland. These sprite-bots are proving to be a very useful tool.” There was a slight chuckle.” Sometimes I intervene to make a difference, to help someone, or to prevent someone from acting rashly. Your case seems to fall into the latter category.”

“What’s the case?” Sonic asked incomprehensibly and turned to Cosmic, who held a weapon in her hooves. “Wait, you’re not gonna–”

“Apparently not.” The mare carefully put down the carbine and leaned it against the wall of the house. “What can you do to help me? You won’t get my troop back anyway. And you don’t have any food, of course.”

“There’s always another way,” the sprite-bot replied. No – someone who’s been running it. “You must find your virtue to guide your actions. Perhaps it will become your new reason to exist… which I can see you need now.”

“I don’t know,” Cosmic shook her head. “Everything seems so meaningless… I have nothing left that matters. Fighting comrades, together with whom we went through so much? Murdered by a traitor among them. A profitable job and a good reputation? No one will hire me to guard a caravan now. My home? Would I be accepted there after what happened?”

She sighed and looked at Sonic. “The only thing I can do is help him find the Elements of Harmony to save his world. And for this one, there’s nothing left anymore.”

“W… what did you say?” the voice from the loudspeaker asked in amazement.

“Elements of Harmony. You know something about them?” Cosmic looked at the bot expectantly.

“N… no, nothing,” Watcher said deafly after a pause. “Just that they disappeared with their hosts when the world ended.” His tone dropped almost to a whisper, as if it physically hurt him to speak on the subject. “They were the best ponies in all of Equestria…”

“Tell me more,” the blue earth pony begged. “Please.”

“Twilight Sparkle. Applejack. Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash. Rarity. Fluttershy.” There was an undisguised bitterness in Watcher’s voice. “The six Ministry Mares who had been put in charge of Equestria during Princess Luna’s reign. But even they couldn’t stop this world from collapsing under its own evil.”

“You can see that,” Cosmic remarked. “Not even a single pony, not even six can do that. But you still haven’t given me a reason to live for Equestria… or what’s left of it. I don’t think even your virtue can make a difference. All the shit that’s going on here will stay here, and I’ll just die. Better that,” she glanced at the carbine, “than by the raiders’ hooves or starvation.”

“So you’re nervous about food?” Sonic said, laughing and waving his hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right here!”

And he immediately ran off, vanishing in the distance with a blue spark.

“Wow,” muttered Watcher, turning the sprite-bot around to follow Sonic. “I’ve never seen a creature like that before…”

“You know, neither had I until recently,” Cosmic hummed. “He came to us in The Republic, said he was from another world and was looking for the Elements of Harmony, showed us his portal rings, ‘cause of which a part of my group was killed… Anyway,” she sighed. “We’re outcasts now. So we have to find a way to survive.”

“Do you want revenge on… somepony who did this?”

“Of course I do, dammit!” She slammed her front hoof into the ground. “I’m gonna make that bastard answer for everything! He’d fired his revolvers a total of eleven times, so he’d get at least eleven bullets from Argument. If only,” the mare grinned wryly, “somehow, miraculously, I manage to find him. ‘Cause he’s wearing an invisibility cloak! And I didn’t expect anything to go wrong…”

“Don’t let your anger get the better of you,” Watcher warned. “Try to understand what you wanna do, not your inner demons.”

“To restore justice,” Cosmic said. “It’s either me or him. I still don’t absolve myself of responsibility for the oversight that cost so much. But if I find Metal Dawn and punish him for his crimes, at least I won’t be ashamed to return to The Republic. That course of action will be understood there… hopefully.”

“Well, good luck on your hard way… Cosmic, right?”

“Cosmic Valor,” the earth pony corrected and picked up the carbine again. “If you make a joke about my name, I’ll have your bot for scrap metal.”

“Not even gonna,” said Watcher.

And the music returned. The sprite-bot was no longer under anyone’s control. Spinning in place, the metallic wanderer of the Wasteland turned and flew away, broadcasting something sickeningly heroic.

Cosmic waited until he was out of sight, then took one look at the weapon in her hooves and, like Monterey, kicked it away.

Damn it – after such an incredible rescue as she’d had that night, she wasn’t ready to die either.

Dust rose in a cloud in the distance. Cosmic looked up and saw a familiar blue trail heading toward the farm. And apparently, the hedgehog was now carrying something.

The mare got to her hooves and went to pick up the carbine lying in the dust. When she came back to the entrance of the house, Sonic was already standing on the doorstep with a heavy, even if it looked, box on his shoulders.

“Huh,” he exhaled and threw the container to the ground. Then opened the lid with his foot and pulled out one of the cans with a yellow and pink label. “Take your order – Condensed Fluffy Milk with Love. Ministry of Peace, 1031 Harmony Era. Shelf life unlimited…”

Cosmic snorted at the ridiculousness of both the situation (a hedgehog bringing a two-hundred-year-old can of milk to a pony just to keep her from shooting herself) and the can’s label. And in the next instant, the mare was overcome with hysterical laughter.

She was rolling on the ground, hammering on it with her hooves – and tears were streaming from her eyes at the same time. The remnants of grief for the lost former life.

The outburst of emotions ended as suddenly as it had begun. Cosmic sat outside for a while to get her thoughts in order and to look at the huge orchard of dead apple trees, then she put Argument on her back and went into the house.

The first floor was so full of dust and debris that she didn’t want to stay there for long. Even when the injured earth pony reached the farmhouse, she found the strength to make it to the second floor before passing out. When she woke up, she found that Sonic hadn’t wasted any time either.

The stairs creaked slightly. Cosmic entered a spacious room on the second floor (the other rooms were rubble or destroyed) and sat down in the corner, putting the carbine next to her.

Near the window, a small, even compared to Sonic, yellow fox with two luxurious tails was fiddling with a large, like a packed backpack, and with the look of a terribly complex device. Cosmic even looked at her own tail – her dark brown hair was tangled and looked as lame as possible. It might need to get washed as well.

Sonic sat at the table, busy with an ancient terminal. Surprisingly, this product of past technomagical developments still worked, even though there was no power anywhere. After the "eternal" canned food, it didn’t seem impossible anymore. The spark batteries might not be completely depleted.

“How you doing?” Tails (that was the fox’s name) turned to the mare. “Is everything… alright?”

“No,” Cosmic replied shortly. “But that’s none of your business. Never mind. I…” she sighed. “I’ll manage. Probably.”

Tails looked at her carefully and then, apparently having drawn some conclusions of his own, nodded and went back to work.

Sonic said that the idea to bring the fox with his detector had come to him when Cosmic and her team had left the hedgehog alone and were on their way to New Appleloosa. There were still rings left, but there was nothing to do, especially since the main mission was at a dead end. And Tails was just the one to help them find a more precise destination.

He’d just have to get his strange, bulky equipment up to date.

“Whoa…” Sonic said, keeping his eyes on the terminal. “Look, there are audio recordings here… Well, let’s repair the damaged ones… and now…”

He pressed a button. The room was immediately filled with disturbing, menacing music, heavily laced with interference. The deep, squeaky voice of a singer sounded.

Rise up, my loved Equestria,
Rise up for…

“Shut down!”

“What?” Sonic was surprised and turned to Cosmic. “Why?”

Against the evil Zebra force…

“Shut down, I said!”

“Alright.” He pressed the button again and the music stopped. “Uh… can you explain what’s wrong?”

“Damn you…” Cosmic swore floridly. “I hate old war songs. They are here like ghosts from the past – reminders of what happened two centuries ago that we could have prevented, but for some reason did not. I hate feeling guilty every time for our ancestors who let it happen.”

She rested the back of her head against the wall.

“Maybe it was right, maybe it wasn’t – it doesn’t matter now. The whole world, all of us, made two big mistakes. I’ll tell you now, and you’ll know what they were. One day, we and the zebras decided to throw some megaspells around, either thinking it wouldn’t make much of a difference or, on the contrary, wanting to make a difference, and accidentally burned the whole world to the ground. What was left after that, you can see for yourself. And then the worst happened. We. Have. Survived.”

Sonic said nothing. He turned back to the terminal screen, scrolled down the file list, and started a randomly selected record.

The first chord was long, harmonious, and majestic. Cosmic fought the sudden urge to stand up. And even more – to raise a hoof to her temple in salute.

And then the song itself started.

The Harmony light, which is shining in darkness,
Is bringing salvation from oppressing chaos,
With moonlight and sunshine to brighten our path now.
A beautiful era is waiting for us!

Praised be the homeland, our beloved Equestria,
For magic of friendship a secure stronghold!
Forever guarded by Luna and Celestia,
Praised be our land, we are safe from Discord![1]

Cosmic didn’t notice as she began to cry again. The sounds of the measured, majestic melody touched some strings in her soul, and it was impossible to ignore it.

And from Fillydelphia to Cloudsdale
Our fields and our gardens have stretched far away.
Alone in the whole world, you stand one and only,
For each single pony a dear native land.

Wiping her eyes, the mare looked up and away. The window showed only an unsightly present, a legacy of an even worse past, but the song gave hope that beyond those gray clouds, a better future awaited Equestria. With sunshine and rainbows.

It must be an anthem, Cosmic guessed. Composed in those distant times when there wasn’t even the stench of war here.

So let tiny spark in our souls get blazing,
And then it will never go out again!
And stronger than troubles is our solid friendship –
It was so, it is and will always remain!

As the last chorus sounded, Cosmic blinked away the remaining tears and took a breath. It turned out that listening to the anthem, she didn’t dare not only to move, but even to breathe. Sonic and Tails looked shocked as well.

I must survive, a thought formed in her brain. I must find my virtue and change things for the better. Otherwise, the Wasteland will remain the Wasteland forever – with only a pale shadow of the order and law needed for normal life.

Were there other ponies with the same goals? I think so, yes. But all of them are clearly long dead – and most of them probably didn’t die of their own accord. Are there any now? I don’t know. But if there are, their time may not have come yet.

Unlike mine.

Late in the afternoon, the three of them sat on the floor of the terminal room, drinking condensed milk that Sonic had brought straight from the tin. The canned milk was thick and sweet – just as it was supposed to be. Gosh, I wouldn’t mind living in that Equestria where they make this stuff, Cosmic admitted admiringly.

“So, what are you gonna do now?” she asked the two aliens, who were more different from each other than ponies of different races, but were still on the same team. “You’re probably running out of time, aren’t you? And you’ve been sitting here for so long…”

“Well, not exactly…” Tails glanced sideways, and it didn’t escape the earth pony’s attention.

“Sonic, you promised to tell me everything,” she turned to the hedgehog with a determined glint in her eye. “Every last thing, no secrets. It’s time. Otherwise, I’ll no longer cooperate with you anymore.”

“Good,” Sonic sighed. “Then here’s the biggest secret of all: your world is fiction. Equestria is made up.”

“Uh… what do you mean?”

It didn’t feel like some kind of revelation. It felt more like an… unfunny joke.

“In the world where Tails and I came from, there’s a cartoon show about the ponies,” the hedgehog explained. “A series of drawn and voiced stories about the kind of world I’d expect to see here. Where there’s no war, and everyone lives in peace and harmony, and when some villain shows up, the Mane Six get together and fight back…”

“And how did you get here if this world is fiction?” Cosmic asked snidely. “Do the rings allow you to go anywhere at all?”

“They do,” Tails nodded seriously. “I researched them once and came to the conclusion that they’re connected to space within the Multiverse–”

“Let’s not get off topic,” the earth pony interrupted him. “So you mean to say that you came here – to the invented, as you say, world – to find artifacts and take them with you, which are also invented, yes? That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“But I’ve seen your country on TV! And this place didn’t look so…” Sonic hesitated, choosing a word, “wild! Where are your ideals of friendship? Where have they gone?”

“Equestria is gone. And friendship too. All that’s left is stupid, soulless magic that, like before, only unicorns have. And one simple but clear rule: kill or die. And be glad if either happens quickly.”

“And what about you and your troop…?”

“Now I don’t even know,” Cosmic lowered her gaze. “Maybe it wasn’t even a friendship, but just a cooperation for survival, based on the assumption that none of us would shoot at the others for his or her own good. And we carried weapons as if for such an occasion.”

She thought for a moment and then added, “By the way, what is TV?”

Five minutes later…

“Twilight Sparkle became the supreme ruler of Equestria? Huh. I’ll never believe this. She’s not even related to the Princesses. Then war would break out for the throne, and the Zebras would never miss a chance to seize the moment. The end would be shit anyway.”

Half an hour later…

“…Well, let’s say you convinced me.” With the hoof of a healthy leg, Cosmic rubbed her shoulder, which was hurting again. “Although it’s a load of crap, honestly. And tell me, if everything was so happy there, even with five alicorn princesses, why’s everything so bad now?”

The hedgehog and the fox looked at each other.

“We don’t know,” Tails said. “Maybe something happened one day, and this reality started making its own rules.”

“Eh, if only another episode had been the starting point…!” Sonic slammed his fist down and grabbed his head. “We’d be here in a normal, peaceful version of the future…!”

“You still have the rings,” Cosmic remarked in a colorless tone. “Why didn’t you just–”

“I tried!” shouted the hedgehog, jumping to his feet. “I told you – I tried Ponyville first, but it turned out to be almost destroyed, covered in blood, shit and corpses! If I had imagined another place, it wouldn’t have made any difference! Somehow it had become! Just! Like! Here!”

He was breathing heavily, standing with a look of rage and despair on his face and his fists clenched. The rage left him as quickly as it had enveloped him; Sonic swayed and fell back onto his butt, then covered his face with his palms.

“And what then?” Cosmic asked quietly. “Actually, I wanted to ask you what you plan to do now. How’ll you search for these Elements? And why’re you not in a hurry?”

“When you left me in that house,” the hedgehog replied, pulling his hands away from his face, which was frozen in tired sadness, “I had been in this world for almost two days. For Tails, it was only ten minutes before I called him.”

“Eleven and a half,” the fox said, and shook his head. “I don’t know what this is about. I can only think that time passes much faster here… But it’s for the best. It means we’ll have time for everything.”

“Oh, yeah.” The earth pony was no longer surprised. “Well… and?”

“I need at least a couple of days to calibrate the detector,” Tails said, waving his hand towards the device. “The energy field here is quite unstable, although the artifacts’ signatures are clear. But the variation in parameters is still too great. Both in direction and range.”

“You’ll obviously need an escort,” Cosmic said. “You don’t know a damn thing about anything out here.”

“You cannot move much yet,” objected the fox. “Your wound–”

“I’ll be back to normal in two or three days. Thanks to the healing magic… But I have my own business that’s more important to me.” She gritted her teeth. “To find Metal Dawn and make him answer for everything.”

“Maybe he went back to New Appleloosa?” Sonic suggested. “To get a payoff from that merchant? And stayed there…”

“You know, there’s something in that,” Cosmic admitted, and grinned. “Probably drinks our and given caps… Oh, I feel, he will eat the bullets by all his holes – for 5.56, nine and ten millimeters at the same time…”

“Watcher…” Tails said suddenly. “I’m haunted by something in him. There’s something strange about him – some secret he doesn’t want to reveal about himself. And that reaction to the mention of the Elements…” He looked at the mare. “Before you go, can you please call him in for another talk? I really wanna track his signal and find out where he’s transmitting from. Maybe that brings us closer to an idea.”

“Will do,” Cosmic grinned and looked out the window again at the gray, dim sky.

She had a goal now. Life made sense again for a while.

Note: Level up.

Player: Cosmic Valor. Stealth skill increased to 50%. New perk: Thirst for Revenge – when you take damage, your stamina consumption is reduced by 20%, your damage threshold is increased by 1, and when your health is below 25% of maximum, enemy attacks deal 30% less damage. These effects last until the opponent is killed.

Player: Sonic. New perk: A Sapper for Yourself – each of your items has a 50% chance of being dropped on a mine. New quest perk: Breaking the Fourth Wall – you can convince enemies that they or you do not really exist.

[1] Lyrics by Dragonshy, translated from Russian (imitation of the national anthem as the Equestrian one). The original is here: https://tabun.everypony.ru/blog/Poetry_blog/29119.html