Fallout: Equestria - Wasted Innocence

Chapters

Chapter 1: Stable 82
Chapter 2: Outside The Stable
Chapter 3: Buckingham
Chapter 4: Color In The Vast Grey

Chapter 1: Stable 82

"Just do what you need to do and don't make yourself noticable."

"My job isn't that bad, y'know, terrible pay but flexible hours, plenty of time off, health, dental, and vision covered. Sick leave, housing is paid for, and best of all: paid vacations."

"Bullshit, Cyan, we don't get any of that. If anything at all, we might get a 15-minute break and some coffee."

"Well, at least I get to work with three other earth ponies from time to time. Most of the time, you guys just have to take turns with me," I joked as a pony known as ManeGage looked up at me with a blush.

I looked back down at the two stallions standing at the bottom of the ladder I was perched on top of for just a moment before we all broke out in laughter. We had been joking about those three 'taking turns' with me in so many different ways ever since Blacklight brought it up almost a year prior. Everything from work to relaxation to other various means, and the joke only got funnier once we got to work that ManeGage had something of a crush on me.

Twisting the last wires together and biting the connector clamping it into place, I knew the job was done. That day’s repair was to fix the circuits that ran the stable's ceiling fans in the cafeteria. I really didn't mind being one of the only mares working maintenance in Stable 82, I just didn't get any respect for being the only pegasus in Stable 82 aside from those three.

"Alright, GreyCloud, throw the breaker!" I called to a pony in the other room. With a pop and crackle, light sparks showered from the ceiling as all of the fans in the Cafeteria began spinning all at once. "Well, at least ponies will be eating comfortably from now on." I turned my head, hearing hoofsteps entering the door. Seeing a security pony standing there holding a clipboard, I knew it couldn't be good. I hated reassignments.

"New orders from the overmare, you three: the Spark Generator down on the lower living quarters is down again, and she wants it fixed immediately."

"We just fixed that damned thing last week!" GreyCloud calls from the back room. I was surprised he could hear the conversation back there with all of the circuits humming all at once. I swear the pony is like a hermit, always staying out of view of everypony else. He's also got excellent hearing—it's like he's part batpony or something.

"Orders are orders, and you are maintenance ponies; if it breaks, you four fix it. It's been that way for over 200 years—get over it." The security pony turned and left.

Climbing down and off the ladder, I sighed and turned to the other maintenance pony standing at the bottom of the ladder. He was stood to attention, saluting with his foreleg up and by his brow. I shot him a very confused look. "Uhh, what the hell are you doing, Blacklight?"

"Ma'am, the overmare has summoned up to fix a spark generator, ma'am." He looked so stupid like that, an orange earthpony standing to attention and covered in dust and grease. They should have given us black and yellow Stablesuits to work with instead of blue.

I j chuckled and pushed him aside lightly. "Let's go, asshole—and grab that toolbox, ManeGage."

Making our way down to the Generator control room, the door slid open with a hiss and clunk. The room housed the Mane Six generators used for the main sections of the stable. The large round turbine generators were behind large doors of their own; it was easy to find the one that was down due to the large red flashing light on it and the fact it had a sign on it flashing “OFFLINE”.

"Six generators and we are always fixing number four. What is the point of these generators anyway, when the power to the stable comes from the main reactor room?" I asked, looking back at ManeGage. He just shrugged at me with the handle of the toolbox in his mouth.

I hit the switch on the wall, opening the door to generator four. The door unlocked with a hiss and slowly rose, exposing the spark generator. The turbine wasn't spinning, and it was clear it hadn't been running for a while; it was cold in the room, despite how those generators got HOT. I took a wrench from my tool belt and laid it on a flat surface on top of the front of the generator, preparing myself to crawl underneath it. Being a slim and small pegasus, I was one of the only ponies in the stable who could fit under it, Last week they had me crawling through a ventilation shaft, and the week before that I was up in the ceiling crawling around to find an electrical short.

That was the part of my job I hated: being squeezed into tight spaces I could barely move in, all because I was a slim pony and my wings took up a lot of my body mass.

I shimmied myself on the floor between the generator and the wall. Scanning over the bottom of the turbine housing, I couldn't quite see exactly what was wrong with the thing. Not being able to move much, I raised my hoof and, luckily, was able to use the light from my pipbuck to give me just enough light to notice a wire had come loose. With a wiggle and a click, the wire went back into place, and the generator came to life with a hum and began running in perfect order.

"What was it?" I heard ManeGage ask as I began to wiggle myself out.

"Just a loose wire. I swear this stable is beginning to fall apart on us."

I tried to wiggle myself out, and I was almost out when I heard a shrieking screech and the generator began getting very hot very fast. I slid myself out in a panic to find ManeGage just staring at the thing. My ears drooped and fell flat as I slowly turned to see the small square box in front of the turbine beginning to smoke, and I noticed the turbine wasn't turning at all. The turbine groaned and creaked as it tried to force itself to turn, then, with a snap, sparks began to shoot off from the shaft of the turbine, and smoke dumped out of the metal box, all within seconds.

"Cyan, we need to get out of here! Let go!" I felt a tug at my tool belt as I was pulled out of the room. I fell to the floor and the door slammed shut in front of me. I waited for just a moment, staring at the 'ONLINE' light until there was a muffled yet still very loud boom from the other side of the door.

"What the fuck was that?!" Blacklight yelled as he ran into the room, standing between ManeGage and myself. From the corner of my eye, he stood still, staring at the door as the smoke seeped out, completely enveloping the metal door in a light haze of smoke. "What did you two do?"

"Luna-damned gen’ blew, that's what happened," ManeGage said under his breath, but still loud enough to hear him. He was clearly in shock at what had happened. I was in shock myself. I couldn't even react to the conversation. I had just been under that thing. Only Luna knows what it would have done to me if it were to have blown while I was under there.

"Who was the tech inspecting the generator?" Blacklight asked a clearly out of it ManeGage. "Hello, 'Gage, I need you to talk to me. Who was it?" Blacklight then looked over to me. "Please tell me it wasn't you.”

All I could do was nod, not wanting to admit I may have just messed up big.

"AW, fuck. How?"

"Just a loose wire, Blacklight. I just plugged it back in, that's it."

An automated voice came over the Stable's PA system, giving us bad news. "Lower Living Quarters now offline. Auxiliary power now online." My heart dropped when that message came out loud and clear.

"That can't be good," ManeGage said quietly. "What do you think that means, Cyan?"

"That means our names are definitely in the raffle now. That's what that means. We. Are. Fucked."

Just the thought of being condemned to the outside made my stomach turn. They only held a raffle on three occasions: one, somepony was just born, two, the annual drawing, and three, somepony messed up badly. I was that somepony that time around.

Manegage looked at his pipbuck quickly, then sighed. "Look, here's what we are gonna do: we were never in there. The generator blew before we even got here. Understand? They can't hold a pony accountable if there is no pony here to stop it from happening. Just go back to your Quarters and get your head straight. I'll deal with the overmare, and maybe we might have a chance."

Looking back at the generator door and seeing the smoke seeping out of it, I knew there was no good explanation for what had happened. I had no clue, so if I had no clue, then how would I explain it? Internal malfunction? Not checking it thoroughly enough? Spontaneous combustion? Yeah, that would go over really well. My heart sank even lower into the pits of my stomach when the stable alarms began going off.

"Look, I can only protect you If you get going now. As your senior technician, I am ordering you to go to your Quarters and stay there."

"I'm not sure that will be enough, but I'm with you on this one, 'Gage," BlackLight said with a sigh, staring at the door still. Whatever was going through his head couldn't have been much different than what was going through mine.

I just nodded and began walking toward my living space. Passing ponies in the halls all stopped what they were doing and looked at me with great disappointment. Some shook their heads at me and others turned away from me. The worst were the ones who threw comments at me as I walked the halls.

"Back to your room again, Cyan?"

"What did you do now?"

"Why did they even let a pegasus be a technician in the first place?"

"You'll never fit in here."

Trying to ignore their voices, I broke into a gallop and didn't stop until I got to my room. The grey metal halls and dim fluorescent lights made the stable seem like more of a place of torture than one of paradise. Repeatedly slamming my hoof against the door controls as quickly as I could, I opened the door and shut it behind me. My thoughts all came to the surface at once, and I choked back the tears, unbuckled my tool belt, and let it fall to the floor with a metallic clatter and thud. I had seriously messed up somehow, and there might have been no way of fixing it. I swallowed hard and tried to keep calm the best I could.

"Mom, Dad, I'm home," I whispered as I walked into the living room and sat in front of a picture on the table. It depicted both of my parents holding me as a filly. "Today was a complete shit show. I short-circuited the door leading to the atrium, I fried the water heaters in the stallion’s bathrooms, I did fix the fans in the cafe, but then I blew up a spark generator, and everypony hates me and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I can't do anything right, I can't get the hang of this maintenance thing, and, and I miss you guys so much." I laid my head on the table, breaking into a full-fledged sob.

I must have cried myself to sleep and woke up the next day. I slowly raised my head and wiped some drool from my mouth. Looking down at my pipbuck, the screen was covered in drool as well. I sighed at the sight of it and wiped the screen on my blue and yellow jumpsuit. The time was only 14:35. Okay, so maybe only a few hours later and not actually the next day.

Getting back onto my hooves, I shakily walked over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Goddesses, I was a wreck. My blue coat was covered in dust and oil, my bright blue and green mane and tail were unkempt… I was a mess. The thoughts of everything that had happened earlier that day all came back at once, and my stomach knotted up all over again.

A knock on my door broke my train of thought, and my heart about stopped. I inhaled deeply and slowly walked to the door, then stood on my mother’s hoofmade semi-soft welcome mat.. I was shaking a bit; it felt like my insides were convulsing. I had no idea what to expect, but I expected something bad. I slowly pushed the button until it clicked, and the door hissed as the pneumatic lock came loose and the door rose upward. Standing there was a Stable guard. Well, that is it: the moment they would throw me out of the stable.

"You've got a job from the overmare: polish the stable door. That is all." The security pony turned to walk away.

"W-which door, sir?"

"The big one shaped like a gear. What else? I swear, you get worse at this job every day."

I didn’t mean to be bad at my job. I wanted to go into Stable-Tek science, but, just like the rest of my family, we were always put in the worst jobs in the stable; it something to do with my family making a deal with the overmare some 210 years ago, but that history was lost to time. I just knew my family had always been punished for basically nothing.

It only took about 20 minutes to get my stuff together. My saddlebags had to have weighed a ton, and my tool belt didn't help either. Leaving my quarters, I took a route I very rarely took. Walking through the halls felt like it took an eternity, and it wasn't until I began walking through the atrium that I started getting the feeling that someone was watching me. It was probably just the overmare keeping me in sight to make sure I actually did the job right. Looking up through the catwalks of the multilevel floor of the atrium, I could see ponies walking back and forth, attending their duties as posted for that day. Somehow, it didn't make it seem all that bad, even though they had to share a stable with a pegasus—me.

The next metal door slid upwards with a hiss and a clunk. I slowly walked into the decontamination room, attempting to look through a dust-covered window into the next room. Everything in it was dusty, and it looked like it hadn't been used in years apart from some fairly fresh-looking hoof tracks on the floor, one’s probably left behind from the previous raffle drawings. I did everything in my power to keep my thoughts supressed . I reached up to a control panel just beside the other door and pulled the lever, and the door slowly rose with some dust falling off of it. I reluctantly walked through.

There it was: a 10-foot-tall steel gear-shaped portal into hell. I stood and stared at it for a moment, observing the working of the door, and was immediately impressed at how simple the door was to operate. A large hinged arm on the ceiling with a screw-threaded rod on the end of it, the door itself, and a control panel that only had a lever on it. I guessed it wasn't so bad in there, not much of a threat. What could happen? It's stable, right?

The Entrance room. Ironic name if you ask me, since it was used for more than an entrance. The one thing that stood out was a large poster on the wall directly across from the door that read 'An Obedient Life Is A Happy Life - Stable-Tek'. So that is what everypony saw when they first walked into that room 200 years prior.

I turned my head and looked at the massive steel door in front of me. I thought It would be better to get to doing my job and get out of there as quickly as I possibly could.

As I made my way down the stairs in between the walking platforms, each hoofstep made a metallic clunking sound. And with each step, the gear-shaped door got larger and larger. I never thought it would be so big. I got about five feet away from the door when I heard a collective set of hooves walking on metal from behind me. I turned my head to see the overmare and two security ponies standing at each side of her, as well as one already standing at the stable door control panel. I instantly thought I was going to be sick. I looked at the door and back at the overmare, putting the pieces together in my head. I knew what it was, and I knew what was about to happen.

"Oh." It was the only thing that I could get out as I hung my head low.

"Cyan Skies, I regret to inform you that, due to a population crisis in the stable, we had to hold a private raffle drawing, and your name came up. I hereby sentence you to life outside the stable."

"What population crisis? We just had a drawing last week," I fired back, trying to give myself a fighting chance. "Population control does not mean you get to control the population."

The overmare began pacing back and forth, looking at me with a stern, serious expression. "Your friend came to me claiming that the generator had been blown before you got there. This I know not to be true. I disregarded his plea for your innocence and reassigned him to work in clean-up duty around the stable."

"It wasn't my..."

"You are missing a wrench from your belt, aren't you?"

My body stiffened as I reached for my tool belt and felt an empty tool spot. I never misplaced my tools. "I-I must have dropped it in my room. I'll go back and get—"

A metallic clank rang throughout the Entrance room as a bent wrench covered in scratches and blackened to an iridescent color landed at my hooves. I didn't get it at first until, upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn't just a wrench, it was my wrench.

"I don't understand." Feeling confused, I stared up at the overmare.

"Oh, I believe you understand what is going on here. You never were good at anything we ever assigned you to do, then again did we assigned you to fix things all around the stable with broken parts and defective tools. And those generators—they don't power anything, Miss Cyan. I shut the power off for the Southern living quarters; The generators down there are mainly used for training purposes and to give the maintenance something to do to keep their skills sharp. I just wasn't expecting you to blow up a generator that wasn't connected to the main power grid."

I felt extremely sick to my stomach. "I followed all of the rules. I tried my best. I did everything you told me to the greatest extent. Why would you set me up? Is this about that stupid feud from over 200 years ago?"

While I had my focus on the overmare, I jumped a bit when the stable door alarm sounded and the yellow rotating lights tracked a yellow rotating streak across the wall and the hinged arm slowly lowered into place, moving closer to the door right over my head.

"You can't be fucking serious. I haven't done anything wrong!" I took a step forward and the two security stallions drew their guns. From the look of it, they were aimed directly at my head. I could hear the screw being attached to the door over my head and become attached with a hiss. I looked over my shoulder to look at the door again—a big mistake. Within a split second, both security stallions had me restrained by both of my forelegs and dragging me backward toward the door. I was too shocked to say anything at that point.

The stable door slid open with a screech and a squeal that could break glass, sending sparks flying from all around it. It only rumbled for a moment. Looking back again, I realized they only opened it enough for a pony to slip through. I didn't think they could stop it from opening fully. Panic hit when the security stallion started to drag me to the opening.

"Wait wait-wait-wait, I'll do better and I won't get in the way! I'm small and don't take up much room! I'll live in the storage bays! Just don't throw me out there! Please! Please don't do this, overmare! Please, overmare!"

I felt my hooves being dragged across the metal gear-shaped shrouding of the door, and I was thrown outside to the ground. I slid through the dirt face-first. My tools dumped out of my tool belt and saddlebags, some hitting the back of my head and others falling to the ground all around me. By the time I got back onto my hooves, the door had already rolled back into place. I rushed over and slammed my back against the door and dug my hooves into the ground while the door slid shut with the ear-piercing screech pushing my body into an upright position. The pneumatic locks clicked into place and the alarm stopped. What had I been thinking? As if a small pegasus like me could push the door back open.

I was… outside. Outside. In the unknown. "This isn't real, it's not real, it can't be." Looking down a short concrete tunnel, the only light I could see was a small red light directly over the stable door. It only provided enough light to show the stable door and its number; the rest was pitch-black. I was shaking hard enough I couldn't keep my pipbuck stable enough to use the controls. I curled up on the ground, staying as tight against the stable door as I could get, and shut my eyes. If I couldn’t see it, it didn’t seem real.

Laying on the ground, I only peeked up every once in and while, looking back up at the door and looking over the large 82 painted in yellow and bathed in a dim red light. I must have laid there for an hour before I decided to try to make my way out of the tunnel and to wherever the thing would lead me. The only source of light I had was the dim green glow from my pipbuck, but it would have to do.

Getting up, I gathered the tools I could see on the ground and began walking into the black abyss. My nerves were shot, I was scared out of my mind, and I had tears in my eyes, at least from what I could feel. I continued through the tunnel until another large metal door which reflected the light from my pipbuck revealed itself in the dark. That door was different; it had a handle and the words 'push' painted on it. Swallowing hard, I pushed the handle, and with a creak, the door swung open. Immediately, a huge gush of air rushed into the tunnel, and a blinding light flooded everything around me. I couldn’t see a thing for what seemed like a long time. I stood in the doorway until my eyes adjusted, and what I saw I couldn't believe.

"What the hell is this place?"

Chapter 2: Outside The Stable

Chapter 2
The Surface
"Learning is easy, it's applying your knowledge that's hard."

Looking out over the ruins, the wind whipped my mane and tail, blowing dust around huge clouds. It was like a giant fan that was everywhere all at once. Looking up, it looked like it went on forever. Same went for the landscape—it went on forever, as far as the eye could see. My stomach clenched tightly at the sight of it all. The very overwhelming feeling of sadness and violence was extremely heavy in the air.

Slowly walking away from the stable tunnel, I began realizing more and more just how hostile the outside really was. The ground was covered in dust and dead plants, what I assumed to be trees heavily burnt and dead, and the once great roads of Equestria, broken and sunken into the ground, twisted out of shape. The area was surrounded by what appeared to be broken bits of—what I read about in a book—houses, but, at the same time, they looked nothing like houses, only partially built and burnt pieces of sticks. The sickly greyish-bluish-green sky gave no comfort to the fire-bleached wasteland.

I had always heard that the surface was gone, wiped off the map in a flash along with every last pony who used to inhabit it. I had imagined it as just a vast nothing, but looking at it then only served as a dark reminder of the past. We were never taught what had happened outside. We were only told that the world ended when the Megaspells came and that the radiation would kill us immediately after exposure, yet I was still alive and breathing, and alone. At least in the stable, the hum of the fluorescent lights, creaking of aging pipes, and mechanical whirs of machinery hung in the air; outside though, there was little but silence, apart from the whistling of the wind and the crunch on the ground under my hooves. It wasn't Equestria, not the Equestria I had learned about. It was more like hell, if hell weren’t hot.

The road I walked on was long and straight—well, as straight as it could be. There were a few buildings along the way that were made from concrete. I could recognize the materials, having poured concrete in the stable.

I never stopped, never wanted to. If subjection to the outside world were the punishment we got for something that happened over 200 years ago, I couldn’t stop. I couldn't stop thinking about every pegasus who had ever lived in Stable 82. We were the only pegasi ever in the stable. The pegasus race had everything ripped from them over a deal gone bad. We had horrible jobs, were treated like outcasts, and if we made friends, they ended up as outcasts themselves. We even lost our birthright, having never been taught how to fly.

I was lost in thought for a while, so deep within my mind and trying to understand what had happened back at the stable, that I never noticed I had walked right into a small area upon a hill that still had intact structures, walls, pointed roofs, and windows. Now those were the houses I recognized from the books I had read as a filly. Every house had its own story, its own family that had created its past, which were frozen in time unless somepony disturbed it. Well, if there were any ponies left to appreciate it. But since it was only me, I guessed it would be okay to explore a little. I chose a house at random to explore. If I were the last pony alive in Equestria, how could it hurt to walk into a house and take a peek, right?

Walking up the short, broken sidewalk and up the steps to the door, I slowly pushed it open with a creak to find that the inside, apart from being incredibly dirty and covered in dust, looked perfectly fine. My hooves knocked on the wooden floors, and the tool belt around me clinked ever so quietly. I peered from room to room in the darkness of the house. My pipbuck clicked once or twice every few minutes, alerting me that some small areas were lightly irradiated. My guess was it had been irradiated when the windows broke.

Pushing a door open, I could see there was a small set of stairs leading to a room under the house, a pungent almost rotten smell came up from the stairs. I let out a small cough, covered my nose, and turned to leave the room, slowly shutting the door when I heard a scratching sound come from the bottom of the house. Walking backward, not wanting to find out what was making the sound, I kept my eyes on the door and made my way into another room, closing the door slowly until it clicked. Turning back around to face the room I was in, the first thing I saw was a small banner hung from the roof reading 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'. Party hats and flat balloons were lying everywhere, and a photo lay on the table. The photo was of a filly, a pegasus filly surrounded by unicorns and earth ponies.

My mind couldn't grasp what was depicted in that picture—they all looked so happy, yet, in the stable, we were shunned just for being pegasi. The confusion banged around in my head for a while. Why was I so different, and why did it look like things were better when this photo had been taken? I shook my head and headed for the entrance. I'd had enough of that place.

Walking back outside to the dust-covered wasteland, I had so many questions about the life I had been forced to live for many years. What was wrong with me? What was so wrong with pegasi? Why do these pegasi so happy in the picture but in the stable life was hell?

In the distance, I saw a small fire burning just outside what looked like an area in the road that had been surrounded by storage shelves on the top of the hill. As I began to get closer to it, I began noticing a few familiar objects, couches, chairs, and unlabeled bottles filled with whatever was in them. I barely just got outside the area when I heard a raspy gruff voice behind me.

"You're a lil’ ways from home, arn’t you, filly?"

Turning to see who had talked to me, I was completely shocked to see another pony alive out in the wastelands. Yet I couldn't think of a single thing to say. The pony had leather strapped to their body everywhere and was armed to the teeth with more guns than I’d ever seen in one spot, let alone carried by a pony. Their mane was chopped all to hell, and they looked like they meant business. Keeping perfect eye contact with me as they walked around me and to the front of the small, thrown-together fort they had constructed out of junk. They kept staring at me, looking at me up and down as if to size me up or something. The whole interaction started to make me feel quite uneasy.

“Oh well, time to die."

Wait just a minute—I never ever got a word out to answer this crazy ass stallion! I had no idea what to do. My body froze. I couldn't move or talk as I watched him raise a gun and aim it directly at my head, then look a little disappointed when I didn't raise a weapon of my own. I had nothing to protect myself with—I only had a belt and saddlebags full of tools, and yet the pony was immediately ready to kill, only having met me 30 seconds prior. I hadn’t said a word, yet his response was “time to die”. Who was this crazy bastard?

"C'mon, fight back! It's boring if you don't." Anger started to boil over through his voice. "C'mon, you little bitch, let's go!" He turned his head, holstered his gun, and looked back at me, smiling a bit. "I'll just have to beat you to death with my bare hooves. I'll send you straight to fucking hell to burn with the rest of them!"

I did the first thing that came to mind—I pulled a wrench from my tool belt and flung it at him, hitting him directly in the forehead. it made a sound as it bounced off and spun off somewhere behind him, making him stumble a bit, shaking his head and holding the spot the wrench hit. I took off down the dusty slope of the hill. Almost immediately, I lost my balance, sliding on the dust and dirt and tumbling headfirst down and sliding sideways directly for a tree, slamming into it and flinging me sideways. My body shifted into a roll, going over rocks and debris, and didn't stop until I hit a large concrete pipe at the bottom. My head hit first, sending my body into a backward roll over the top of it, making all of the tools in my belt fall out and causing one hell of a metallic ringing noise as all of them bounced and slid down each side of the pipe. I landed on my back on top of it, and my body slid off of it down the other side. The pain in my head was almost too much to see straight, and the ringing in my ears about made me deaf, but I was still alive, thank Luna. I tried standing up, and I fell as soon as my hooves hit the ground. I couldn't feel my right foreleg or my right wing, both just laid on the ground, limp. I couldn't run or hide, so I pressed my body up against the pipe as tightly as I could and hoped the pony trying to kill me would lose interest and walk away.

I could hear them at the top of the hill laughing, probably because I had taken the ride of a lifetime down the hill. I directed my eye to my limp foreleg while I was lying on the ground. Trying to get a clear look at my pipbuck through my blurred vision, I could tell it was picking up a radiation reading, and the animated pony had places all around it saying 'crippled'. The ringing in my ear was probably preventing me from hearing the clicking from the Geiger counter on my pipbuck, and my vision was so bad now I could barely see anything at all. My head was in bad shape, and I felt weak and sick. I had never had a head injury until then, and it really just made me feel like I was slowly dying.

I laid my head on the ground as my eyes began to flutter. The only thing that brought me back was a burst of three extremely loud cracks coming from right behind me. I knew the sound to be gunfire.. Looking up, I saw the silhouettes of two ponies. One exchanged gunfire with whoever was on that hill and the other bent down in front of my face, saying something I couldn't hear. They yelled something that sounded like, "You're coming with me". I just shrugged and mumbled, "Whatever". Then, everything faded to black.

I woke up sometime later, lying on a cot, with a dim light hanging above my head. My head was absolutely killing me, and my vision was still blurred. I was just grateful somepony found me before that crazy pony did. I turned my head and tried to look around the room, not that it would have done me much good since I couldn't see much anyway. At least the ringing in my ears had subsided, and my body felt much lighter. I closed my eyes and laid there for a while.

I was almost asleep when the opening of a screeching door and the sound of multiple hooves walking in jarred me awake.

"She was unarmed and was being attacked by a raider about a mile outside Sweet Apple Acres. I'm telling you, Frost, she nailed that motherfucker with a pipe wrench right between the eyes, it was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. That was before she took a spill down the hill and hit that old culvert." It was a mare's voice. She seemed to enjoy it. "She's lucky we were there, or else she would be dead right now. Took multiple healing potions to get her to stabilize just enough to get her here, but now what? We are miles away from the settlement, and we don't have the proper medical gear to give her proper treatment."

She had somewhat of a raspy and sweet yet authoritative voice. Reminded me of Miss Cherry from the stable. I heard hooves get closer, and I winced a bit when I felt somepony mess with my head. Maybe they took some sort of bandage off my head next to my right ear.

"Oh, good, you're awake! You took quite a spill, filly. How are you feeling? You about died on us." She spoke in a really soft tone.

"W-where a-a-am I-I?" It was hard to talk.

"Where are ya? Well, you, filly, are in the middle of hell, but not to worry, you are in the care of the best unicorn in the world. My name is Ivory Jade, dunno why my parents named me that but that's my name."

She spoke a bit too fast for my liking, and her personality was really bubbly, which would be kind of cute if I hadn’t felt like somepony closed the stable door on my head. "So are you, like, a medical pony or something? Came to make sure ponies don't die out there?"

"Oh, Celestia, no, we saw you fuck up that raider, then you took a spin down the hill, and CRACK! Got smacked on the ol’ noggin at full speed, and I had to come to see if you was okay. I told Frost, ‘We better zoom down there and make sure she’s okay.’ He didn't want to at first, but we scooped you up, and away we went. Now you're here, and… I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

Oh, goddesses, I couldn't even keep up with her. "How long?"

"Has it been? Four days."

"Four days!? I've been recovering for four days?"

Unbelievable. One pony tried to kill me, and the other took care of me for four straight days. It was hard enough to wrap my head around the entire situation, but, then, I had something new to juggle as well.

"Okay, let me get this straight: I got kicked from my stable due to something that happened 200 years ago, Equestria is pretty much gone, the first pony you call a raider tries to kill me after only seeing me for 30 seconds, I fell to my almost-death, and you find me and take care of me for what you say is four days?" The words that came out of my mouth sounded crazy, but I guess it made as much sense as the rest of the world. "So what actually happened to me? How bad was it?"

The cream-colored pony with the blonde mane sat and stared at the ceiling for a moment as if she was lost in a trance, then took a deep breath.

"When you fell down and went boom, you hit your head hard enough to cause some swelling inside your noggin. You dislocated your right foreleg and your right wing—it's okay, because I reset them both for you—you broke a rib, fractured vertebrae, and I'm pretty sure you also have hemorrhaging in your eyes, but I'm not sure, I'm not a doctor." She looked so proud and even giggled a little with a huge smile as she explained everything.

"If you aren’t a doctor, then how do you know all of that?" A pony doesn't just know all these different ailments unless they actually were a doctor… could they?

"Your pip-thingamajig, silly filly. Those things are amazing; they tell you exactly what is wrong with you, everything you are carrying, hell, they even tell you where you are and how to get to places. Didn’t they ever teach you how to work it?"

They actually never had taught us how to work those things in 82, they just threw them on our legs, had a pipbuck technician lock them on, and off to work we went.

"I gave you what healing potions I had, but you still need at least a few more hours of bed rest to feel better. You do not want to be up movin’ and groovin’ when that healing potion wears off, trust me. I've done it, and it is not pretty, believe me. This one time, I took it and decided to try to go for a run, yeah, biiiig fuck up on my part. Nearly killed myself." She ended the sentence while placing a bottle of water next to me. I hurriedly picked it up and guzzled the water down as if I had never had it before.

I chuckled to myself softly, laying my head on the pillow that I assumed the mare had provided for me, only raising up to sip from the bottle periodically. A thought crossed my mind: the pony was an earth pony, an earth pony taking care of a pegasus. It was unheard of, at least from Stable 82's point of view. I raised my leg and wiped and rubbed my eyes a couple of times to make sure I saw things right. Sure enough, there stood a, quite pretty, mare.

"Listen, I've gotta go. We've got business to attend to in New Pegasus,” she said as she sifted around in her saddlebags. "Wait at least two more hours before trying to walk and about a day to fly from the extra stress on the wings and all holding your weight up off the ground. There's a settlement about three miles north of here, Buckinghoof—a stupid name, but has good ponies—ask for Nurse Light Heart, she's a friend of mine. Oh, and please wait until your vision clears up. Stable dwellers have a hard time adjusting to natural light. I put some stuff in your water that will help you sleep."

My eyes shot open as I lowered the bottle from my mouth. It was already over half gone. Had she planned to put me to sleep so those raiders could find me and do whatever they wanted to me? I tried to pick my head up, but I could feel the heaviness in my body and in my eyes—I couldn't keep them open. Before I knew it, everything went black.

I woke up later that evening, the room was mostly black except the green glow coming from my pipbuck. I looked around a bit as I sat up a bit wondering where that mare and her friend went but from the looks of it they were long gone by now and I was all alone...again. I rolled off the cot knocking over a table in the process and causing everything on it to clatter on the floor or make the sound of breaking glass.

"Fuck me sideways, always fucking something up." I muttered to myself raising my hoof to try to use the pipbuck light but while doing that I noticed something strange, my map was opened and a marker was placed yet no location was named, 'Buckinghoof'. That mare knew how to operate pipbucks better than I did, but how? I was in no mood to try to solve the mystery of a stranger who kept me from dying. My wing and leg felt a lot better now but damn didn't have to run off on me like that. "Stupid name good ponies it is I suppose." I turned on the pipbuck light and walked through the room to the door pushing it open to see the moonlit landscape that awaited me with sadistic arms.

Nothing happened after that, It was a very quiet walk through the wasteland, one that kept me on edge the entire time. The buildings and roads look downright ominous in the dark only lit slightly by the moon. The sky looked just like what we imagined as fillies in 82 except much much bigger and there wasn't nearly as much wind here. Every little noise made me jump or hide behind whatever I could find. I hated being out here alone.

I did feel slight relief when I saw a building with lights in a few windows and it lined up perfectly with the location of my pipbuck. the building was four floors tall and had Buckinghoof written on the side of it, I had never seen anything like it, It was huge, and one word remained on its side still flickering every so often 'MALL'.

Upon reaching the front gate I was greeted by two unicorns with guns on their sides and what looked like security helmets on. I stopped directly in my tracks and stood for a moment not knowing exactly what to do. Do I trust these ponies or do I just turn and find some shack to sleep in till morning?

"Are you just going to stand there and stare or are you going to state your business?!" One of the security ponies called out, he had a very demanding voice and I did not doubt that he would shoot me at the first chance he got if he thought I was being suspicious.

Swallowing hard I knew It was a long shot to try to reason with these ponies but maybe I should just tell them I'm looking for a place to crash and they'll let me waltz right in...yeah right. I took a deep breath and with a shakey voice, I yelled back.

"I'm out here just wandering around the wasteland, I don't know what I'm doing, I've not been out here long and I just need a doctor y'know because I was attacked earlier and this really nice mare helped me and said I need to come here and see a doctor and...Please don't shoot me!" Yea I'm pretty sure I just fucked that whole thing up

There was a bitter silence in the air, nothing but the sound of the wind for what felt like forever until a loud metallic booming noise came from the other side of the gate these ponies were standing in front of. The wall moved in two separate directions revealing a set of glass doors directly behind it. I took a breath and sighed in relief.

"Please step forward!"

I began walking slowly toward the front gate and looked up at the multi-storied structure that stood before me. As I got closer I felt more and more nervous about entering the building, thoughts racing through my head about what these ponies could be capable of doing to me. Walking past the security they never looked at me, kept their eyes on the wasteland and never flinched.

I stepped on a rubber mat type of thing and the glass doors slid open, I was immediately hit with so many different senses, smells of foods, ponies walking back and forth, and the lights, so many different lights, and....a light grey pony wearing a red vest.

"Welcome to Buckinghoof, please come on in and enjoy yourself."
My head cocked in confusion. "Wait so no interrogation, checking for weapons, trying to shoot me first?

The pony who greeted me at the door laughed and looked around the building entrance. "Oh deary me no, but if you are found to be a raider or you try to pull something in here like shooting, stealing, killing, rape, etc.....we will kill you, slowly."

Chapter 3: Buckingham

Chapter 3
Buckingham

Being inside the building made me a bit uneasy. I had no idea if I could actually trust the pony who stood in front of me. A part of me was curious and wanted to explore the building, and another side of me screamed to tuck tail and run in the other direction. I considered turning around until I heard the doors behind me slide shut and click locked.

Well, shit, there goes that option.

I took a deep breath and tried to cast my nervousness aside. “I was told by a kind drifter that I might be able to get some supplies and medical attention here at...” My mind had already drawn blanks. Damn it, how could I have already forgotten the place’s name? What little confidence I had already started to fade quickly as I tried to fight the urge to look at my PipBuck to remind myself.

The stranger at the door looked me up and down as he cocked his head. It felt like he tried to analyze me, or I just confused him. In either regard, my confidence pretty much dropped to complete zero at that point. My eyes met his, and it felt like I had swallowed ice cubes.

"A kind drifter, huh? Are you sure you don’t mean a Wastelander, Scavenger, Settler, or… Raider?”

I nodded slowly, hoping the pony would believe me, but, at the same time, why should I trust him? My stomach twisted a bit. I was a nervous wreck, and I thought he knew it. I had no idea why I was even there, and, worse, I had taken directions from some stranger who could have sent me somewhere to get myself killed or worse. I had no idea what I was even doing. I couldn’t talk to ponies in 82, and I sure as hell wasn’t too much better making conversation outside.

“Well, filly, I think I know exactly who you are. I know for certain I know where you came from.” He moved his head and looked me over again. The knot in my stomach only became tighter as I closed my eyes. “You are one of those Stable ponies, ain't you?

All I could make myself do was nod my head again.

"Well, I'll be Goddess-damned. We haven't had a Stable-dweller in this little building of ours in quite some time. C'mon, let's go talk for a moment. I know a quiet area nearby so I can run some things by you, but I warn you, it's probably nothing you want to hear.”

My eyes shot open, and I looked at him in confusion. I had never had another pony willing to talk before—well, if you don't include Ivory, that is.

He gestured his head toward the inside of the building as he turned and began to walk along the wall. I took the opportunity while I walked to glance up at the floors above. I could see straight up through to a window at the top of the building and into the outside. Each floor was connected to a set of metal stairs. The inside looked huge, and I was only near the entrance. There was a mural from pre-war Equestria painted on one of the walls with the words 'Friendship is Magic' overlayed on it. It didn't seem like friendship meant much of anything outside. I followed the pony into his office, where he directed a hoof at an old broken-down chair while he made his way around to a desk with multiple rusty filing cabinets behind it.

"Go ahead and have a seat, filly. Let's start off with the most obvious of all of the observations anypony is going to make of you. You have the blue jumpsuit, the PipBuck, a toolbelt I can tell is embossed with the Stable-Tek name and logo but… you are a pegasus. What the hell was a pegasus doing underground and not in the sky?” He just stared at me after he finished his statement like I was supposed to have some kind of answer for him on that.

I was too nervous to sit. I had no answer to give him except for a light shrug. All I knew was that I lived there for many years, and then I was thrown out.

“Just start from the beginning. Where did you come from and how did you end up here, miss…?” The stallion stood and stared at me for a moment. I didn’t know where to start with any of it.

I took a deep breath and sat in the chair he had pointed to and started to rattle off the experience I had gone through. “Okay, first off, I came from Stable 82. They have this raffle thing where they kick a pony out of the Stable every so often, and I guess my number had just come up, or they got tired of me down there. Not too long after I had reached the surface, I encountered what I know now as a raider, and got myself injured pretty badly, a random pony helped me get back on my hooves and directed me to come here. That's pretty much all there is to tell.”

The stallion looked at me with a quizzical expression, looking a bit confused. “82? Right? I’m sorry to tell you this, filly, but I’ve never heard of a Stable 82 around here, or anywhere, for that matter, and I've been around these parts my entire life.”

My ears fell back and my stomach dropped lower. From the tone of his voice, I could tell he didn’t believe me.

"Hey, don't feel too bad, yet. I will give you a few words of advice for free, though.”

I directed my eyes up at him, keeping my head hung low, feeling like more of a complete failure as time passed. I couldn't even tell a compelling enough story to make the stallion believe me, and it actually happened.

“Listen, that blue jumpsuit is going to make you stand out like a sore thumb out there. You need to get rid of it pronto; against all of the grey and brown burnt-up wasteland, you might as well have a big orange target on your back. Don't carry anything around you don’t need. It’ll only slow you down. This means all the tools have to go, and you need a gun and need to learn how to maintain that gun. In order to survive, you will need to kill, or you will die,” he finished with a sigh.

I wasn't prepared for that at all. I felt like the entire building had just been sat on my shoulders. I was hoping the place I was told to come to would give me some kind of security, but his words weren't very reassuring. If anything, they sounded just like he intended: a very carefully worded warning that I needed to listen to. I was thrown out of a place of safety into the very bowels of hell. My stomach tightened at the thought of any place out there that could be worse than what I'd experienced already.

"Tools are the only thing I know, fixing things and replacing parts. I’ve never used any kind of gun before, I don’t even know how to shoot one.”

Valet chuckled again. "Aahh, well, you aren't gonna live very long out there then, but I can get you started, at least. First off, get rid of that bright blue clothing, just pull it off and throw it away. After that, I'll take you to meet Trigger, he'll trade you for your tools and give you a gun in return, maybe some caps to go along with it."

Get rid of my Stable uniform? I’d worn one of those jumpsuits ever since I could remember. I guessed I wouldn’t need it anymore, though, since I was longer part of a stable. I looked down at the blue cloth and reflective yellow stripes that covered my legs and felt a tinge of sadness run through my body for a split second. I guessed Valet saw it as well from the looks he gave me.

"I'll give you a moment," Valet muttered as he moved from his desk and out of the door, shutting it behind him.

It didn't take me long to have my saddlebags and wrench belt off and to get that Stable suit off. I walked out of the door feeling absolutely naked, having only saddle bags on and my wrench belt draped and hung over my body. It felt strange to feel the air against my coat and skin, my cutie mark of two wrenches and a nut in the middle being exposed. It all just felt a bit strange.

Valet nodded to me and walked through the building a bit slowly, explaining things to me as I walked alongside him. I got a lot of strange looks right off the bat though. I didn't like it.

"This area is the center entrance where we met earlier. Everypony refers to this as Escalator Commons. The shops surrounding the escalators are all places you can get a bite to eat if you ever feel a bit famished. Down here is Tailor's, she'll fix you right up with whatever clothing you want. Right across the hall here is Cobalt's Armor. That one is a bit self-explanatory. Then right here is a room to just tinker around in—you can use it to your liking."

I couldn't help but smile a little as I thought about the tinkering room. As I walked with Valet, I noticed a set of stairs that led down to a locked gate and a lone neon green arrow that pointed down. "What is that place, right here across from the tinkering room?” Curiosity was building up about each of the rooms, but that one seemed a bit more mysterious.

"You stay away from that one, filly. That's Changeling Hall. It's not a place for somepony to just be poking around in. Just trust me, don't be snooping around down there unless you plan to fuck a changeling." With that being said, he pretty much pulled me to the room at the end of the hall. At the counter stood an orange middle-aged pony with a greyish beard. He and Valet talked for a moment before Valet tapped the counter.

"Alright, put everything up here, he'll take a look at it and give you an offer."

I nodded and threw my wrench belt and saddlebags up on the counter, feeling like I was disconnecting myself from everything I ever knew. It was a saddening feeling, but maybe it was for the best. Those ponies knew how the world worked on the surface, and I just wanted to be able to survive out there as long as possible. The elder pony dumped the saddlebags out and began to go through everything.

"Ok..." the elder started, "15 wrenches, a leather belt, two drills, a buffer, 4 buffing pads, a bottle of steel cleaner, and rust-removing spray. I've got a weapon for ya." The elder pony left and came back with a long grey gun of some sort attached to a harness and a box of ammunition for it. "High-powered hunting rifle, magazine-fed, 6 rounds per mag, takes .308, fairly common round. It's already got a scope attached and tuned, harness worn, and it's got a biting bit, none of that tongue-operated shit. Take it or leave it.”

Before I had a chance to answer, Valet already snatched it off the counter and motioned me to follow him into the back of the shop. Following him into the back, there were 4 separate lanes with metal pans hung in the back. Stood about halfway down at a desk was a mare, a little older than me with a long blonde mane in a braid, her tail straightened. it really complemented her reddish color well in my opinion.

"Cyan, this here is Diamond Sight, she's the best weapons expert we've ever had the pleasure of knowing. You can give this mare a soup can and some string and she'll make a fully functional grenade out of it, so don't underestimate her," Valet explained as he set the rifle on the bench next to her desk. "Hey, DS, she needs to be fitted into this thing and be taught how to use it."

The reddish mare side-eyed me and sighed. "Honey, if you can't even shoot, then how have you survived out there so long? Let me guess, sheltered drifter? Privileged mare with a self-sustaining bomb shelter, or, no, you are just plain stupid."

"Now, now, Diamond, be nice. Our friend here is a Stable-dweller. She's just come into our area. I don't know her full story, but we will get to that in time. For right now, we just need to get her fitted and rested up if she's gonna make it out there."

"Val, you keep doing this shit, you're gonna get us all killed one day."

"I remember a little filly huddled up against an old railcar starving to death who needed help nearly ten years ago, and where is she now? Please, for the love of all things Luna, get her fitted. I've got other matters to tend to." Valet turned, winked at me and tapped my shoulder as he walked out of the room.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do at that moment. I stood right where I was and looked around the room until I felt Diamond Sight throw a piece of leather around my body, pull it tight around my chest, and make a mark on it. Before I knew it, she threw the leather strap around my abdomen close to my flank and pulled it tight. She had her head extremely close to my hind legs. I could feel my face heating up by the moment. I didn't understand why, but her just messing around with that strap was making my body burn up. I shook my head and tried to snap myself out of whatever trance I had allowed myself to get into.

"S-so, you make a lot of weapons here?"

"Not make them," she explained while she took a couple more measurements and messed with the straps on the harness connected to the rifle. "I fix them, modify them, make adjustments, and, in very rare cases if I had the parts, I restore them. Like right now, I just took several measurements of your body so that, when you fire this thing, the recoil doesn't send the entire thing flying off your body and break your jaw in the process."

"Break my jaw?" I thought of the possibility of my jaw getting broken as I moved my jaw back and forth a little. I definitely didn’t want that.

"You'll see." She chuckled as she moved the buckles around a bit. "Though, with a flank like yours… this thing should stay put."

My body tensed a bit and my mouth dropped open slightly at what she had just said. "A flank like… HEY! You aren't making fun of me are you?" My heart pounded in my chest a little and my whole body felt physically hot from the inside out. I still couldn't understand it.

"I wish I was, filly." Diamond picked up the rifle, threw it over my body, and proceeded immediately to pull the belt tight around me. I felt my body drop a bit and I stumbled a little due to the weight. "You'll get used to the thing, trust me. I used to carry around a rifle twice its size. Now, for one last thing." With a click, she fastened a device to the of the rifle. It took me a second, but I did recognize it from a book I once read on guns. Then, her comment about it breaking my jaw clicked all at once. I tried to look at her, but with the rifle attached to me, all I saw on my right side was the scope on the thing and the barrel that stuck out a good foot in front of me.

"Wait a minute, so this is what could break my jaw?"

Diamond Sight smiled and waved her hoof to one of the lanes to direct me where I needed to go. I reluctantly stepped up to a yellow line on the floor and took a deep breath.

"Okay, here's what you need to know: you pull this lever back to load one into the chamber. Remember, it won't fire if you don't do that. This button here will eject the magazine. You only have six shots. so...." Her words kind of faded out as my mind lost itself in thoughts I had never had before. Doing things I'd never thought about before with… her. And then, all at once, I came back to reality with Diamond Sight still explaining things. "...And I've already switched that off for you, so all you have to do is bite down on the bit, and away she goes.”

"Just bite down, huh?" I put the metal mouthpiece in my mouth, made sure my teeth were seated well, and gave the bit a good bite. Before I knew I had bitten down, I was sent flying back, stumbling over my own hooves, and landed on my side on the floor. I landed on the rifle and pinned my wing to the ground. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel good. The crack from the rifle was so loud, that all I could hear was ringing in my ears and Diamond Sight's muffled laughter as she leaned her head down to make sure I was okay. I could barely hear what she said as I got up off the floor. The only thing I could hear was her muffled voice practically yelling in my ear.

"Go up the stairs and follow the number signs. Val prepped a room for you, number 204! Get some rest. Tomorrow he wants me to teach you to shoot!"

I nodded my head and walked out of the room, through the gun shop, and down the halls. I still couldn't hear anything, but I could feel ponies looking at me. It almost felt the same way it did in the Stable. It almost made me feel better to keep my head down. Walking up the stairs, I read the numbers to each room scribbled on scrap metal signs next to boarded-up windows. Room 204 was really close to the stairs. Sliding the glass door open, I saw it was a tiny room converted into a small apartment like we had in the Stable. I slid the door closed and let my body fall onto the bed, still wearing my saddlebags, rifle, and all. The bed wasn't bad, pretty comfortable in fact. Maybe those ponies weren’t so bad after all. My headache was slowly getting worse, but I didn’t think about it as I slowly drifted off to sleep.

***************************************************

"Three, Two, One, FIRE!"

I bit down on the bit and actually shot my target that time. I heard the frying pan ring out instead of my ears at that time. I stood there and smiled at the pan as it swayed back and forth. The end of the rifle smoking also made me feel pretty good inside.

"Good job, filly. You've come a long way, and it only took you a full box of ammunition to finally hit the target, but I think you get the gist of how that thing works. You can come down here anytime to just shoot. Hell, some ponies just shoot shit outside." Diamond went back to her desk and jotted some stuff down on a clipboard on her desk.

"Diamond Sight, I've got a question."

"Okay, shoot."

"Why are you and Valet so nice to me? I mean, you both are earth ponies, and I’m a pegasus."

"I'm going to stop you right there, Cyan." My ears laid back from the offense she had in her voice. "We may be wastelanders, but we aren't monsters. Ponies are ponies, end of the story, so whatever fuckery you heard about the different races, it ain't true." Diamond spun around and met me nose to nose with rage and pain in her eyes. "Val is like a father to me, and you will do good to never forget that. If not for Val, a lot of ponies would be dead, understand? Besides the wings on your sides or the horn on a unicorn's head, I and you and Val and every other pony in the Equestrian Wasteland are all the same.”

I stared at her with wide eyes and lowered myself to the floor a little bit, lightly shaking and afraid of what she might do. "I-In the St-Stable, everypony was ordered to treat pegasi like outcasts, lepers, something to avoid and treat with disrespect and disgust. That's why I asked."

Diamond took a deep breath and sighed. "Listen, you are on the surface now. I don't know what kind of fucked up shit goes on underground, but it's a little different up here, alot more ponies around to tell you exactly how they feel about you. You have a lot to learn. As for Val, let's just say he lost everything in a firefight a long time ago, his wife, kids, pets, everything. He fills that void taking in those who are more unfortunate than him. So don't ever think yourself better or lesser than us, and don't think we are all prejudiced against any pony. I'm sorry for getting so fired up but, ponies need ponies." She backed away from me and turned back to her desk, leaving me sitting there speechless. My mind ran a thousand miles per hour. I had nothing I could say at that moment.

"I'm one of you? We are the same? You don't see me as a useless pegasus?" A tear slid down my face in pure joy that she even went off on me. They didn’t help out of pity, they helped out of love and friendship. "Thank you, Diamond."

"You really think you are useless? If you truly were, you wouldn't have your cutie mark yet. What do you think that means? You are destined for something, Cyan—we all are. So, keep that in mind next time someone tells you that you are useless. Stable dwellers are told how to think , what to say, how to feel. Out here, it’s all from experience. Free will for lack of a better term."

Her words cut through me like a well-sharpened knife. It almost hurt. "What's your story? What happened to you? Why are you here?

Diamond turned away from me, still with a serious expression. "My story? My parents were murdered, brutally, strung up, and gutted like game. Those who killed my parents took me far away from my home, dragged me halfway across Equestria, and used me as a piece of meat, over and over, and then they…” Her words trailed off into a distant mutter. Her expressions changed as if she was looking at something and fell to her haunches looking up with widened eyes. She swallowed hard and continued muttering. Her mentality had to be deeply scarred to snap out of reality that quickly. “Im sorry, no more please. I can’t do it anymore.”

She looked like she was reliving her torture repeatedly withen seconds.. I moved a bit closer to her side. I was going to try to see if she was alright until I saw the tears running down her face, and I knew, at that moment, I couldn't do anything to help. I turned and walked out of the room. As I made my way through Buckingham, I looked at the other ponies who walked around and wondered how bad their story was and what they had been through. It hit me all at once that Equestria was not the hellscape they told us it was in the Stable. It was worse. Far worse.

Already, I could feel an overwhelming amount of sadness from Diamond's story, disbelief of how bad it really was out there in the wastes, and the fact that I couldn’t stay here forever, that I would be back out in it soon, I really didn't much more of a hit to my mentality.

Not paying attention to where I walked, I ran straight into somepony, face first right into their side, which caused my rifle to jab them. I stumbled back a bit and rubbed my nose, feeling very embarrassed.

"I-I am so sorry! I didn't see you there."

The pony turned to look at me, unfazed. It sent chills through my body. They were a bit taller than me and had bright glowing eyes, a jet-black body, and translucent wings with a horn that looked like it was covered in holes.

"Did you come by for a good time, baby?" The pony-like creature smiled and showed longish fangs that stuck beneath its upper lip. "I sense you've got somepony in mind you'd like to have all to yourself. I can do things your wildest dreams couldn't."

"Th-things?" I asked, clearly shaken up a bit, as I took a step back and fell back onto my haunches, feeling weaker by the second

"Let me see what I can do." They closed their eyes and looked up toward the ceiling as green flame-looking magic surrounded their body. It started at their hooves, and, in a flash, the magic dissipated and left the Creature looking just like Diamond Sights. The more I looked at her, the less I had control of my own body, and I fell into a bit of a trance until I heard the sounds of guns cocking on both sides of my head. I shook my head and looked up at the creature, who now looked a bit pissed, but left me feeling depressed. I really didn't care about anything anymore.

I got myself off the floor and looked at two security ponies who held guns to the pony’s head. Further realizing my surroundings, I noticed the same green arrow Valet warned me about earlier. So, that creature must be a changeling. So, if they can turn into anypony you want without you speaking a word, then why did I feel so bad right then?

"Go back to your room and stay there." One of the security ponies barked the order at me.

Nodding, I turned and headed back to my room. I didn't look around or observe, I just followed the order. Once I reached my room, I just sat on my bed and stared at the wall for a bit. It felt like I sat there for hours before I began to feel any better. I allowed myself to lay back on the bed and close my eyes, but, just as I closed my eyes, I felt my bed move as if somepony had sat on it.

"So, I hear you had a run-in with Spell Caster, our strongest changeling."

Thank Luna it was only Valet. I don't think I could have handled anyone else at this point.

"You probably feel terrible right now. But that's what they do, they suck the love right from your body and feed on it."

"I'm starting to feel better a little, but it's a strange kind of better. I'm not as jumpy as I was when I first got here, but maybe that's because I'm starting to get used to this place." I never took my eyes off the ceiling to look at Valet. I didn't see any reason to at that moment. My eyes were more fixated on one of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling in the makeshift room that had been slightly flickering and had caught my attention. It was a long one with a broken and dirty plastic lens that covered it. "You called them Changeling before, and you said they feed off of love and that ponies will pay good money to have sex with them. I don't get it." I crossed my forelegs over my face in frustration. "I feel this bad just coming in contact with one, and ponies pay to be used by them? Nothing I once knew makes sense anymore."

"I warned you, you have to learn to adapt out here. Just stay away from them and you'll do okay during your visit here." Valet stood back up and started to head for the door. "I've got some business to attend to. Is there anything you need to be more comfortable here?"

I slowly uncrossed my forelegs from in front of my face and looked directly back at that flickering light again. "That light needs to be fixed. It looks to have a bad ground or maybe even a bad wire somewhere. The bulb is fine, seeing that it’s not dimming or chasing," I mentioned as I pointed a leg up at the ceiling. "There’s no sparks, and the connections between the bulb and the sockets are good. The flickering is just annoying."

Valet stopped dead in his step and turned to look at me. "You can tell all of that just from looking at it? I just assumed it was broken."

Looking right back at him, I gave him a bit of a confused look. I didn't know if he would believe me or not, but I did spend most of my life making repairs. "Well, yeah. Electrical, plumbing, communications, a whole slew of stuff. You can tell a lot from stuff just by looking at it if you know what to look for."

Valet smiled at me, almost excited. "Interesting. Maybe you can help us out with something. For now, just get to feeling better and we can talk later."

I nodded and closed my eyes, letting myself drift off into sleep.

**************************************************

I opened my eyes and looked up at the door to Stable 82, staring directly at the yellow numbers painted on the grey gear-shaped door. Looking around my surroundings I noticed there were no tunnels, no trees, or buildings, there was nothing in sight except this big gray door, the dusty ground and the wind violently whipping my mane and tail around. I couldn't move or speak. I tried to force my wings to open but my body wouldn't react at all, I couldn’t even feel my body. The alarm for the Stable door rang out louder than I'd ever heard it distorting echoing through the vast nothing. The door gave a shrill screech as it slid back and rumbled when it rolled out of the way opening up to completely to a black void behind it. Everything went silent making my heart sink. I heard voices from the void calling out "It's all your fault" louder and louder. I looked down to see blood running from the bottom of the door and pooling at my hooves. Tears ran down my face. Looking back up I saw Diamond holding a gun in her mouth smiling.

“You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere!.” A voice boomed from the blackened void where the stable door once sat. I clamped my eyes shut tears now pouring down my face. I repeated over and over in my head that this wasn't real, it couldn’t be. Slowly reopening my eyes everything was gone except the stable door, dust-covered ground, and the green cloud-filled sky, but the clouds seemed to be moving unnaturally. Looking up at the door my head began to ache again. The vault door began to melt slowly turning from a thick iron door to a running stream of blood, the 82 was soon covered in the red liquid. A green flame burst from in front of it and materialized a pony figure who I recognized, Val.

“Well, Cyan didn’t I tell you, you were going to die in the wastes. Time to die” Val then disappeared and reappeared next to me holding a drill to the side of my head. “You may feel some pain.” With a loud whir, I could feel the drill begin cutting through my skull and the pain from it was unbearable, not being able to move or scream.

The overmare voice whispered in my left ear. “It's for your own good.” The pain from the drill made my eyes roll back and my teeth grinded. Now looking at the clouds they took the shape of a massive rifle aimed right at me. I heard the crack of the rifle and...

*****************************************************.

I sat straight up in bed gasping for air, drenched in sweat and trembling. My head was killing me and my back was sore not to mention my wing was starting to sting and my vision was beginning to blur back up again. I wrapped a foreleg around my face to block out the light and thought about being back in that shack with the nice mare that helped me when that raider attacked me. She made the world seem almost like nothing at happened. Her smile, the way she talked lightning fast, her light-hearted jokes. Light heart. Everything hit me all at once like a jolt of electricity.

"I forgot to see Nurse Light Heart," I mumble to myself as I get up off my bed and rushed down the halls the best I could. I tried to remember where Val said the medical bay was. I could hardly think from the sudden rushes of pain cutting through my head making me see what looked like electrical arcing in my vision. It was a struggle to force myself down the stairs and to the floor holding on the the rails the entire way down. every sound made my head feel like it was going to explode and echoed repeatedly.

Stumbling through the halls I attempted to try to see the Medical bay or whatever this ponies call it out here. Trying to force my vision to focus on resulted in more pain. Seeing straight wasn't an option as another challenge presented itself...Dizzyness. I tried to steady myself against a wall causing my rifle to scrape against the concrete as I walked. As much as I wanted to check my Pipbuck to find out my condition I wouldn't be able to see it if it was directly in front of my eyes.

I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, I just wanted to cry because of the pain, I fell forward and wrapped my forelegs around my head clamping my eyes shut and hitting myself in the forehead with the screen of my own Pipbuck in the process I laid there until I felt the sensation of flying. If my head didn't hurt so bad I'd say the feeling was pretty nice, I felt my body move a few times and then softly get sat down onto something soft. The pain in my head intensified and the only thing I could do was clench my teeth together and pull my hind legs up to my chest.

Breathing through my teeth I knew I had to sound like I was hissing in some sort of way. I instinctively wrapped my wings around my body and smacked at the buckles connected to my rifle only stopping after I felt the weight of it fall off and I could roll to my side. I felt tears roll down my face and embarrassingly enough I'm pretty sure I was drooling. I tried to open my eyes to find out I could no longer see anything except the electrical arcing.

That explains everything, I died in Stable 82 when the Spark Generator exploded and now I'm in hell paying for whatever I have done.

I felt a tug at my foreleg. I tried to pull back but it seemed like my body was no longer responding to any of the commands I gave it. I couldn't move anything. I felt a sharp pain in my leg a moment after and it seemed like all at once I started getting some control back. My body began relaxing and I could breathe normally again, my jaw wasn't locked into place anymore and my sight began coming back and clearing. After blinking a few times I could see the blurry figure of a mare hovering over me. I blinked more tears out of my eyes and saw there was a unicorn mare looking down at me, she looked just like...

"Ivory?" What was she doing here?

"Ivory? Fuck no filly my name is Nurse LightHeart and you sugercube have a massive concussion and you need plenty of rest and a healing potion or that swelling in your head is never going to go away and in the long run it'll get you killed."

"Ivory said I needed to talk to you."

"And talk we will but first open your mouth and drink this."

I looked at her wondering if I should trust her or not but opened my mouth anyway, I didn't have any time to think before she shoved a glass bottle in my mouth and a bitter and disgusting tasting liquid dumped down my throat, I thought I was going to throw it all back up into the bottle at first. Once I had swallowed the last of the liquid I felt a few things throughout my body begin to feel much better, especially my head, suddenly there was no pressure, no pain and I felt like a brand new pony, even my wings felt good as new. Once the bottle was taken from my mouth I coughed a little and sighed

"What was that stuff, It's far different than what Ivory gave me."

The orange unicorn mare looked at me with borderline rage in her eyes. "It is different from what Ivory gave you, Ivory gave you IPs instead of healing potions, Ivory can't mix healing potions to save her life and always mixes them with other drugs, Ivory almost killed you! Just because you are feeling better does NOT mean you are better."

My ears just fell back and I felt like a filly getting scolded by her parents. "O-ok"

"First off what is a pegasus doing on the ground and not the sky, You better not be Enclave or so help me I will shoot you myself with your own rifle. Now tell me are you from the Grand Pegasus Enclave, Dashite, spy? Who are you?!”

“I am none of those things!” I snapped back, I was feeling quite insulted she brought me back to health just to interrogate me. “I don't even know what those things mean for one and for two Ivory sent me here to get proper treatment. If you have a problem then take it up with her.”

Nurse Lightheart scoffed clearly not believing me. “How could you not know who they are? They all think they own the Wasteland.”

“Look I’m from a stable ok? Yes, a pegasus from a stable. Why in Celestia’s Equestria is that so fucking hard to believe. I don’t kill, I don't steal, I don't do anything, I was a Stable repair pony, a technician, Maintenance. Why am I treated like I'm some kind of threat by so many ponies and others treat me like I'm just some kind of nuisance.” I thought ponies in this place were supposed to be friendly but I've been met with so much disrespect. “Don't piss me off or I might polish your bed rails.” I snapped mockingly. feeling the aggravation start to bleed over into anger, at this point I was starting to not care what happened to me out here as long as I wasn't seen as a problem.

Nurse Lightheart blinks a few times at me, her gaze changing from hostile to surprised. “A stable dweller? I didn’t realize. Wait.” She magically floated my foreleg up looking at my pipbuck then hastily looked over my body muttering to herself while I lay there in a mix of irritation and confusion “No branding, no scars. Feathers intact, no burn residue around the mouth, My goddesses I've made one hell of a mistake.” She fell back onto her haunches and placed her hoof on her face with her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry you look just like a mare that came through here a couple of years ago.”

Sitting up slowly I was now more confused than ever but still a bit irritated. “So do you threaten to kill every blue pegasus that happens to come through here?”

Nurse Lightheart shook her head looking away from me. “No she just, she killed My friends when we went on a supply run, Valet prohibits us from making those runs ourselves now, she was the same color, same color mane, same eye color, the only difference being hers was in a ponytail and her ear was scarred.”

My ears perked up and I felt every fiber of my being jump. “That scar. Was it in the shape of an X right behind her left ear?”

Nurse Lightheart nodded.

“Holy Hell on an Ice. That was my mother!”

Nurse Lightheart’s body visibly stiffened as she lowered her hoof from her face with a look of complete hatred, a scowl that made my blood run cold. I slowly leaned back to get some slight distance between us. “I thought you said you weren’t affiliated.” Her voice was low, almost like a growl. All at once it seemed like the whole world went silent and the only two left were me and her.

“My mother and I have never met, Same with my father, I grew up in the stable pretty much alone, sure I had ponies to teach me my job regiment but that's about the only ponies I had, there were like three of them that actually respected me, so no, no affiliation I swear.” Nurse Lightheart kept her serious glare on me as if it were my fault her friends died by the hooves of my mother

“If that were true, then how would you know about your mother's scars?” She wasn’t willing to let me go without making sure I was who I said I was; she was making this clear.

“Decades of being around the same ponies day after day, the memory kind of sticks to a ponies’ brain so of course I’ve heard about her, and I had pictures of her in my living quarters.”

Nurse Lightheart bit her bottom lip and looked around the room for a moment as if she was trying to think of the right thing to say, she still had the eyes of a pony who wanted to tear my head off. “I think, maybe, you should just go. It’s better you give me some time to think. You may not even be the Pegasus mare’s kid, I don’t even want to think that this conversation came up, just go.”

Nodding I slid off the bed and strapped my rifle back on before looking back at the clearly Mentally torn mare. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. “Thank you, for everything.”

walking out of the makeshift clinic and heading down the hall I thought to myself ‘Maybe this place isn’t for me, maybe I should leave, find a broken-down house somewhere, and wait to wither away.’ Yeah right.

Letting myself get lost in thought I didn’t realize I was already in front of my door. I slid the door open and was ready to lay on my bed to see a note lying on it waiting for me.

“Cyan I have a surprise waiting for you on the roof, I need you to fly up to the roof as soon as you can. —Valet”

Are…you…serious. I can’t fucking fly

Chapter 4: Color In The Vast Grey

Chapter 4: Color in the Vast Gray

Standing on the edge of the roof was overwhelming. There was nothing out there for as far as the eye could see, just destruction everywhere, so many ponies’ lives gone in a flash and so many more broken. Everything seemed so much bigger from up there as well. I could see so much more than I could from the ground.

I looked to the pale cloud-covered sky as the wind whipped my mane around, still taking it all in. It felt cool on my wings as it blew around and underneath my feathers. The wind smelled slightly like burnt wood with dust and sulfur. Being so far up made me feel less constricted, more free than I had ever felt in my life. I thought to myself for a moment, ‘Is this what it feels like to be able to fly?’

I Thought about all the pegasi who were in the world at one time and how few of us were left. Pegasi used to do great things, I bet. Then there was me, and I couldn’t even fly. What was my purpose in the world if I were a flightless pegasus? What was the point in my wings?

“She’s a beaut’, isn’t she? The Land o’ Equestria, they used to call her. Now it’s just the Equestrian Wastelands. Not a pony down there who doesn’t want the other dead for some reason or another,” Valet explained as he walked up beside me. It was hard to focus on what he said when you came to the realization that the world around you was burnt to ash and you never knew it. A slight sadness washed over me. I tried not to think about it

Shifting my eyes to look out in the distance, I heard the sounds of what could only be described as muffled popcorn. That must be gunfire, really fast gunfire, something I couldn’t compete with if I wanted to. It made my heart sink thinking that I may have just listened to some poor pony get killed.

“What happened out here, Val? We were told in the Stable the world had just ended, that there was nothing beyond that big gear-shaped door, but it’s much worse than being thrown into some deep desolate void like they wanted us to believe.” Everything I knew was truly a lie. We were kicked out into a hellscape all because the Stable wanted obedient ponies, but maybe that was all a lie as well. “Any time we asked, we were told not to worry about it.”

“The Great War, kid. Life was going on as usual for these ponies when the megaspells came. The first city to be attacked was Cloudsdale. Blew the fucking city out of existence. There is hardly any trace of it left at all. After that, the war took a turn for the worse. That was 200 years ago.”

My curiosity peaked and my excitement began to grow. I could feel my insides begin to quiver a bit, and adrenaline started to pump through my body. “I’ve never heard of this war or megaspells—they didn’t teach us that in 82, but I did find a book that mentioned Cloudsdale, where pegasi originated from. Not much information about it was in it, though; those pages were torn out. Can you tell me what happened?”

“That's not my story to tell, Cyan. I’m an earth pony—not my place.”

“Val. I’m asking you. Please, tell me what happened. I’ve been in Buckingham for 3 days now, and, already, I’ve gotten threatening looks from the residents. A changeling tried to hypnotize me, Diamond had a complete breakdown and doesn’t seem to trust me, and, to top all of that off, Nurse Lightheart brought me back to full health and then threatened to kill me over something somepony who looks like my mother, who looks like me, who I believed to be dead, did a few years back. Now, please, tell me. What the hell happened?”

“And I’m telling you no, that’s a story somepony else has to tell you. It lies in your heritage. Now, as far as my residents and staff go, they will be dealt with accordingly.” He didn’t sound aggravated. In fact, he had a slight smirk on his face. But why? “There may be some details that I leave out or things I don't know or have forgotten, so, no, I won’t tell you the story of what happened.”

Valet and I continued to look out across the wasteland, the dilapidated buildings and burnt landscape. “Hey, Val, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, kid. Shoot.”

“Can we find somepony who can teach me how to fly? I want to feel the freedom of not being stuck on the ground all the time. I want to be able to use my wings for something more than a blanket when I’m cold. I can glide, I just can’t fly.”

I heard a metallic clang come from behind Valet and I. “Fuck a rooster, that hurt! Goddess-damned pipes!” My head snapped in the direction of where a mare’s voice wanted to… fornicate a rooster?

“Who was that?”

Valet laughed a bit and stepped off the ledge of the building. “Right on cue. Cyan, there's somepony I want you to meet. Follow me.”

There was another pony up there—fuck, here we go again. “Val, is it such a good idea to be introducing me to so many ponies who don’t even want me here?” Valet continued to walk as if he had never heard me. “Val… Valet, dammit, I’m talking to you.” Yup, he was ignoring me. Great.

Valet walked over to a small shack next to the massive windows that would be over the escalators in the mall. How hadn’t I noticed it when I walked out there? I hoped the pony was more accepting of pegasi than the others were. Another clang from behind the shack sounded like a pony working on something.

“Crescent, if you don't stop hitting your head on that pipe, you are going to go stupid, my dear.” Valet chuckled and looked over at me. “Didn’t I tell you I had a surprise on the roof?”

The head of a greyish-green mare who held a wrench in her mouth popped up from behind a panel of sheet metal. Once she noticed it was Val who had spoken, she spit the wrench out, which hit the rooftop with a clang.”I know that, Vally, but I put this little thing together around the pipes to keep myself warm during the cold months.” She pointed a hoof directly at me and smiled. “Who’s this?”

My body stiffened up. I felt like I was under a personal attack, again, from some pony I didn’t even know.

“This, my dear Crescent, is Cyan. I’m hoping you two could get along a bit. I’ve got some stuff to take care of with my staff. She knows her way around tools, so maybe you could let her help with whatever you are working on up here.”

The mare crawled out from behind the sheet metal. Her body was draped in a sheet that loosely covered her. She looked at me with a quizzical expression. “Vally, since when are we taking in pegasi, let alone giving them big ass rifles like that? Can she even handle something that's just barely too small to be considered a battle saddle?” She kept looking at me with a fierce gaze, almost like she wanted to fight.

Great, Valet, good idea, bring me to the roof to get the shit kicked out of me.

Softly laughing, she shook her head. “I’m just fucking with you, filly.” She walked right past Valet and stood in front of me with a big smile on her face. “Your wings are so pretty. Nice to meet you, Cyan.” A wing jetted out from under the sheet toward me.

My heart stopped at that moment. If a wing just popped out from under that sheet, I realized—no way, she was a pegasus as well. I reached my own wing out and our wings both wrapped around each other into a ‘wingshake’ of sorts. The moment my wing made contact with hers, I had the overwhelming urge to cry. She was real, another pegasus standing in front of me! nd she was friendly! Even if she did have an intimidating side.

Her wing was soft and warm. It wasn’t much different than my own; in fact, it looked to be about the same size. She was about the same size as me.

My whole body trembled. I felt like I was going to collapse. I looked over at Val, and he shook his head, smiling. It was unreal. I wanted to jump up and wrap my forelegs around her. Finally, after so much time, a pony just like me.

“Crescent has been with us for a little over a year. Although she refuses to stay inside and prefers to live on the roof, she normally takes care of the electrical connections, generators, and other roof repairs up here. Now that you are here, maybe you can help her.”

“Aaand once you let my wing go, I’ll invite you in. Y’know, we don’t normally get pegasi here hardly at all. Well, actually, I’ve never seen another pegasus, so this is a little exciting to me.” She had such a friendly glow to her face.

I slowly lowered my wing, letting it fold back to my side, still in disbelief. So many things ran through my head all at once. Maybe she would accept me, but what if she rejected me? What if she was just like me? I didn’t know what to do or say, all I could really do was stand there and stare at her until I could muster up the will just to speak

“I’ve never met another pegasus,” I managed to say, almost choking on my words. It came out more of a squeak than words.

Without saying anything, Valet turned and headed back toward the roof access door. My attention was mostly fixated on Crescent, who was headed to the doorway of her little penthouse shack. I looked up at the sky again and gave Celestia a short appreciative thank you before I followed Crescent.

Crescent’s head was turned toward me as she walked into her shack, not watching where she was going. “Hey, before you come in here, I gotta warn you to watch out for the—” CLANG! “—Luna-damned pipes! Fuck that hurts, every time.”

I giggled to myself, ducking my head down and looking into Cresent’s shack. It was impressive to see what that pegasus mare had accomplished all by herself. The shack blocked out the wind and natural light. She had string lights to light the place up and shelves everywhere that held various items. All she had on the floor was a mattress, which was neatly kept, and a small table. A pipe ran from the front of the shack where she kept hitting her head, to the back, and was warm to be nearby. I liked it. It was cozy and felt more like a home.

“So, first things first, before we get started, would you like a Sparkle~Cola, or beer, or something else to drink?” She moved around her little shack and dug through a metal trunk, clinging around what sounded like glass bottles.

“What is Sparkle~Cola?” I’d never heard of that drink name before. Maybe it was something surface-dwellers made.

“Uhh, Sparkle~Cola is only the best drink ever made!” Crescent took two glass bottles wrapped in a red label from the box and handed me one. The liquid inside was a dark color, and I wasn’t sure if I trusted it. By the time I looked back at Crescent, she was already downing her bottle.

I placed the cap in my teeth and popped the cap off with a tsst sound. Once I had the cap off, I spit it out on the table. I felt a bit proud of myself. “I didn’t think I could do that anymore.” I could pull corks out of bottles with my teeth in the stable, but that was the first time I’d done it with a metal cap

“Hey, filly, don’t do that!” Crescent jumped up and took the bottle cap off the table. I felt a bit taken aback. I didn’t intend to offend her in any way. “First, don’t take bottle caps off with your teeth—it’s really bad for them. And second, this is good money you are throwing away.”

“A bottlecap?” Now that had to be a joke. Bottlecaps couldn’t be good for anything if they were on a bottle, right?

“Yes, a bottle cap. Bottle caps, or caps for short, are the way you buy anything. Surely you had to know that.”

The confusion of the importance of a little red cap was lost on me, and I didn’t get it. I knew I traded all of my tools in to get a rifle, but beyond that, I didn’t know you could buy stuff with junk like bottle caps.

Picking up the Sparkle~Cola bottle with my wing, I took a swig, and it was a very different sensation. It had a bubbly yet smooth texture going down that tasted amazing. I took a few larger drinks, enjoying the drink, until my Pipbuck began to click. Raising it up, I noticed it alerted me that, with every drink, I ingested small amounts of radiation. Was that mare trying to kill me? If she was, it didn’t seem to be her intention.

“Is this stuff radioactive?”

“Ehh, only slightly. It’s just like everything else, from the ground you stand on to the air you breathe. Everything is slightly irradiated, and some areas are massively irradiated. Why are you asking?”

I lifted my leg and let her hear the Pipbuck as it clicked. I looked at her with a blank expression. Crescent’s eyes lit up, and she almost tripped over herself to get closer.

“You’ve got a PipBuck, a true-to-life Robronco PipBuck!” Crescent pointed at my PipBuck as she almost bounced in excitement. “Can I please check it out? I’ve never gotten to see one up close and personal.”

“S-sure,” I stammered as I extended my foreleg straight out toward her. She quickly flung the sheet off her back and began to mess with the controls of my PipBuck like a filly would a new toy. Well, a new used toy.

“Stat, Item, Data, I’m guessing these are the main information settings. It’s got a Geiger counter on it. A radio tuner—probably can’t get anything way out here, though.” It was cute, the way she got overly excited about something that had been connected to my leg for years.

I was on the wildest emotional rollercoaster I’d ever felt. I had just met another pegasus, somepony just like me, and in a world I had learned had mostly hatred for me, there she was as she messed about with my PipBuck. I didn't know whether to be amazed or annoyed.

I must have spaced out for a moment. When I came to, Crescent was waving her hoof in front of my face as she tried to get my attention. Then, she leaned in really close, her bright green eyes met mine, and I felt my heart skip. I was for sure fully blushing, no way to hide it. Her eyes were the kind you could get lost in, and I was getting lost.

“Cyan, you in there, filly? You look kind of dazed.”

I pulled my hoof back and shook my head slightly. “I think I might just be a little tired still. It’s been a confusing and frustrating day.”

“I think you just need to go for a fly. I do that a couple of times a day.”

Great. I would have to explain that aspect of my life. I took a deep breath. “I can’t. I don’t what I mean to say is, I don’t know how to… fly.”

“Wait a minute, you are a pegasus, and you don’t know how to fly?”

“That’s what I said. Please don’t make fun of me.”

Crescent giggled as she stood proudly up on her legs. “It's easy to fly, you just spread your wings and push the air with them, like this.” She opened her wings wide, stretching from one side of the shack to the other. My jaw about dropped. I felt like I was hit with a 10-ton hammer. I hadn’t seen anypony like her before. Then again, I’d never seen another pegasus before. “And all you do after that is just push down, flap them, if you will.”

I looked at my own wings for a moment before I spread them wide open, before I closed them again. Crescent had strong wings that she earned from flying all the time. I doubted my wings were half as strong after I’d lived underground my whole life. I turned my head from looking at Crescent. I didn’t deserve to be in the presence of a true pegasus.

Hearing Cresent’s hoof on the floor approach me and stop as she sat next to me made me flinch a little. I still wasn’t used to having anypony actually wanting to be around me, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to run, but another voice told me to give her a chance. Maybe it was all the years of abuse I’d endured in Stable 82. I couldn’t explain it.

“If you want me to, I could teach you how to fly. It’s not much different than gliding.” My head shot up to look at her, and when I did, I accidentally booped my nose against hers softly. I knew I was instantly blushing and highly embarrassed. Not only that, I had noticed she had the deepest green eyes I had ever seen. I didn’t know she was that close.

“I’m s-sorry,” was the only thing I could squeak under my breath. Nothing else would come out.

Crescent moved back a little, rubbing her nose. “It’s fine. So, you want those flying lessons?

I nodded, grinning a bit.

***************************************

I glided down toward the roof and tried to slow myself down by flapping my wings and leaning myself back just as Crescent had instructed. Too late, I hit the rooftop hard and somersaulted a few times before I slid to a stop. I rolled over to my back and looked up at the clouds. Catching my breath proved to be a challenge as I panted, feeling exhausted. My wings were starting to ache, and I was pretty sure I had scraped off a layer of my coat as many times as I had slid. We were at it for hours, and I’d only been able to do one slow lap around one section of the roof.

“You’re improving; you actually were able to land on your hooves before kissing the roof this time.” Crescent was seated by the ledge as she watched every run I made.

I took a deep, slow breath trying to calm myself as I pulled myself up onto my hooves and walked over to her. I propped my legs up onto the ledge, still breathing a bit hard. “It seems like I’m learning this a bit slow, don’t you think?”

“Oh, you want a fast lesson, do you?”

“Well, learning something fast would be nice.” I scoffed, knowing that was not exactly possible. I looked down at the street below. “I wonder how long it would take to get to the ground from up here.”

“You tell me.”

“Learning fast doesn’t exist.”

“Flying isn’t something you learn, Cyan, It’s our instinct. We were never meant to stay on the ground, we are meant to fly. You can’t exactly learn it.” She giggled, taking a sip of a Sparkle~Cola.

I looked over the ledge of the building. It still looked as high as ever, and the height still made everything look small.

“Wanna do a run together this time?” I shot a look at Crescent, who was already perched on the ledge with her wings raised, cracking her neck from side to side. “It’s been a couple of days since I’ve flown; it’ll feel good to stretch my wings a little bit.”

“Am I ready for an actual flight? I mean, you had to push me off for me to get to know what to do.” I was uncertain about going for a real flight of any length. What if I fell? What if I messed something up and ended up running into Crescent? What if…

“Just trust me.” The tone of her voice was soft and inviting, but if there was one thing I’d learned since I left the Stable, trust didn’t come easy. ”If you follow me and do what I tell you, then you’ll do just alright.”

I nodded and took a deep breath, perching myself on the ledge of the building, raising my wings, and assume the same stance Crescent was in. My heart pounded within my chest, and sweat dripped down my face.

This is it, do or die, literally.

“You first.” I felt a shove from behind me. My hooves scraped the edge of the building, and I fell head-first, screaming on the way down. I closed my eyes, seeing the street coming at me, and fast. My wings opened seemingly on their own, and I felt my entire body jerk upward as if somepony had thrown me into the air. A sensation of weightlessness washed over my body like I was floating. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. When I opened my eyes, Crescent was right beside me.

“Now what the actual fuck was that! You scared the living shit out of me!” I glared at Crescent, but she only smiled back and pointed down with her hoof. What now?

I looked down to see the ground far beneath me and moving past me. I looked around in every direction. I was flying! Luna be damned, I was in the air. Once the realization hit and the adrenaline from the scare had worn off, I started to feel it—the wind blowing through my mane and feathers. It felt cool against my body, and, still, I felt weightless. The buildings beside us made a whooshing sound as we passed the broken windows.

“Don’t forget to push the air with your wings, or you’ll fall.” Crescent still looked at me with a big smile on her face until she looked forward again, and her eyes shot open as if she had just seen a ghost, and she tried to backpedal mid-air. “Fuck! Back. Back. Back!”

She didn’t even have time to form a full sentence when I heard gunfire break out, and the rounds that struck the buildings around us threw puffs of dust into the air. We couldn’t even tell who shot at us or where it came from. I tried to turn around and break the rhythm of my wings. I felt myself sink and fall a few feet through the air before I was able to get my rhythm back.

Racing back to the Buckinghoof rooftop, I tried my best to fly as fast as I could, pushing my wings to their limits. A few rounds whizzed past my head and ricocheted off the building beside me. I was rapidly praying to Celestia that one of those rounds wouldn’t come back and hit me. As I flew over the ledge of the Buckinghoof rooftop,, I watched Crescent land with a stumble. I flew in way too fast and hit the rooftop hard, sliding across it again.

Crescent began to laugh as she looked over at me as I tried to peel my body off the rooftop, panting hard, unable to catch my breath. “We made it. That was a little closer than I’d have liked.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “‘Than you’d have liked’? Are you outside your fucking mind? We about got shot back there! What would have happened if we were shot out of the air?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“From that height, we would have… fallen… from that height.” The realization had started to take hold, and I had just started to process it. Could I have really been… “We could have been in the wing from 70 feet up because we were… f-fl-flying.”

Crescent looked at me, smiling. “Welcome to the skies, Cyan.”

An overwhelming pride and relief hit me at once as tears welled up and rolled down my face. “I flew. My wings aren’t useless. I am not a useless, flightless pegasus.”

“Catch your breath, Cyan, and come get a drink.”

***********************************

“...and that’s when they cast me out into the wasteland. I got out here, and I’ve been dealing with nearly everypony I meet telling me they wanted to kill me because of something they all call the Enclave.”

Crescent leaned back with her eyes wide open and a blank expression. She looked like she was still processing everything I had just said. “That was a lot more than I expected, to be honest. Still, why would your family be in a Stable?”

I shrugged, taking a deep gulp from another delicious carroty Sparkle~Cola. “You don’t question the Overmare. We thank the Overmare for keeping us safe. The Overmare knows what's best for the Stable, and all of that bullshit. I’m telling you I don’t know what to believe anymore, Crescent.”

“I hope you believe me and everything Valet has told you so far. I know he’s weird and gives minimal information, but maybe it’s better that way.”

“He did give me another pegasus to talk to. Have you seen any other pegasi on your trek through the wastes?” I had to ask. I really hoped she had seen at least one other.

Crescent looked at the roof of her shack, tapping the top of her Sparkle~Cola bottle with her wing. “I don't really think so. There was one back east around New Appleoosa, but I never met him. Folks from that area would say he could shoot bloatsprites from a mile in the sky, and he wore a funny hat, but, again, I wouldn’t know.”

“Funny hat?”

“Big ol’ black thing. I don’t know, Cyan, I’ve already said I haven’t met the stallion. Not many friendly folks out there. Trot up to one to ask about the weather, and you may get filled with bullets, blown apart, ripped apart if they’re a raider, or sold into slavery. Mare like you, 450 caps, and boom, you end up being somepony’s sex slave until they kill you or you kill yourself.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like much of a fun time out there.” I pondered the details Crescent fed me. I had no idea how I could keep myself safe out there, but I couldn’t stay with Crescent forever, and I certainly couldn’t stay at Buckinghoof forever.

“I did meet one friendly pony right outside Sweet Apple Acres: Ivory Jade, nice earth pony. Talked way too fast, though. She helped me back to health after I got hurt, and it took four days to do so, which Nurse Lightheart says could’ve killed me.”

“Sweet Apple Acres? Are you sure that's where you were?” Crescent had a look to her that suggested she didn’t believe a word of it.

“Why are you looking at me like that? That is what the mare said. My head was killing me, and I didn’t feel like fact-checking a pony who clearly knew the wasteland when I didn’t.”

“According to your story, you got kicked out of the stable about 5, well 6 now, days ago, and tomorrow will make one week.”

“Right.” I nodded slowly, taking another sip from the bottle. “I still don’t see what this has to do with what the mare said.”

Crescent sighed and pointed to her right with her wing. “Sweet Apple Acres is about 3 days from here on hoof. We are about 5 hours outside Applewood. Which, given the timeline, puts you at getting here tomorrow.”

My eyes shot open, and I dropped my bottle, quickly scrambling through my PipBuck’sfunctions. I found the last locations saved to it: Hedding’s Outdoor Supply, about half a city away, and Buckinghoof. Not more than an hour's trot.

“I was lied to, again.” I held my head in shame with the revelation. It felt like a cold knife being jabbed right through my chest. My old sense of outcast and betrayal began to resurface as I instinctively started to draw my hindlegs to my chest and wrap my wings around my body.

“I’m sorry, Cyan, but the ponies out there are not ponies who want either of us around. They lie to us and steal from us. We are such rare ponies that we have such a high price on our heads, our parents would even sell us just to make a few caps.” I could see a deep pain in Crescent’s eyes, and her anger began to boil over as she stood up and turned away from me, digging through her trunk of drinks and clinking the bottles together. “And why? Why would anypony hate us? We haven’t done anything wrong but exist, apparently. We struggle to stay alive down here while the others live it up in the sky!” Crescent slammed the trunk shut. Her breath was shaky, and I could tell she was on the verge of tears.

I about jumped up. Hearing there were more pegasi made my heart race. I was really excited to hear more about the pegasus race, but, at the same time, seeing Crescent’s state, I really didn’t want to push it. I tried to keep it as calm as possible.

“There’s more? Like us, I mean.” I hoped that wasn’t too much or too subtle.

Crescent nodded, It seemed like she didn’t even want to look at me, the way she kept her back turned as she continued to tremble. She aimed her hoof directly up. “They are all up there, The Grand Pegasus Enclave, they call themselves. Nothing but a bunch of liars and traitors. When Cloudsdale was blown out of existence, all pegasi took to the clouds, abandoning the war in the final days. To this day, we are all struggling down here, and yet they do nothing.” Crescent stomped her hooves on the trunk. “What's worse, when I was a filly, my parents were given the chance to live up there amongst them, as they were ‘purebred’ pegasi. The Enclave gave them a price to fulfill, and my parents...” Her voice broke into a squeaky rasp as she tried to talk between breaths. “... actually sold… sold me to… satisfy those debts.

Turning to look at me, Crescent’s eyes were red, and her face was wet from all the tears he had shed. My heart broke for her. I couldn't possibly think of how she must have felt for her own parents, pegasi themselves, when they just got rid of her like that. I wanted to say something or do something, but nothing would have been enough.

“Those fuckers couldn’t hold me down, though. I was able to get myself out of the cage they put me in, and I flew off into the night. They never knew I left. I never saw my parents or the ones they sold me to again.” She chuckled softly and raised a leg up to wipe her eyes with it. “That was so many years ago. I’ve kept that a secret, but I think about it every day. Until now.”

Feeling lost, I tried to think of something, anything to tell her. “Crescent, I never—”

She held a hoof up at me to stop me in my tracks. “Please, Cyan, let me finish. I thought of finding a way to silence the pain, the memories, the existence of it, End everything, but then Valet brought you to me earlier today, and I feel more like a pony than I ever have. I feel like he brought you to me because we both need help. Ponies need ponies, we hear that a lot. ”Crescent slowly looked at the floor as more tears streamed down her face. “But pegasi need pegasi, too.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I jumped up and crawled across the table, knocked everything off of it, including our Sparkle~Cola bottles, and flung my arms around Crescent’s neck. I didn’t get it—my body moved on its own. I met that mare only earlier that day, yet it felt like I’d known her for years. I pulled Crescent into a tight hug, feeling her body shaking, and, eventually, the release of emotions as she sobbed into my shoulder. I bet that was the first time either of us had a true hug.

Crescent fell asleep after her emotional breakdown. I decided to sit by the ledge and feel the wind blow through my mane and let myself get lost in thought as I tried to process everything I’d heard. Between the distant gunfire and Crescent’s history, it was overwhelming. The soft glow of my PipBuck lit the ground around it, which gave me a distraction. I raised it up and flipped through the settings at random until I found a memo that had been saved to it unchecked: “Polish Stable Door.”

“As if I haven’t been through enough today, you go and remind me of that place.” I erased the message and walked back to Cyan’s shack. I really needed sleep.