Fallout Equestria: Distant Lands

by Crawver

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Adventure, Crossover
Length: 46598

Deadsets' adventure through the unforgiving wasteland

Deadset is a pony living in a tribe deep in the wasteland. When a curse is inflicted upon him, he is thrust out into the harsh wastes, where he has to either learn to fight, or die, forever forgotten.

Published 2012-01-01 02:28:15 UTC
Last updated 2012-08-13 00:22:34 UTC

Chapter 1: Banishment

Chapter 1: Banishment

The cutie mark

Firstly, for those of you who may not be a pony, I feel I should explain what a cutie mark is. It is a small picture that appears on the flank of any and every pony that finds what makes them…well, them. It shows exactly what makes the pony so unique, shows their own talent. Many ponies use it as a sign of age. After all, every pony will get their cutie mark should they wait, and search what they look for. Most find it as a young child, and learn to embrace it.

That said, it then may seem unusual to anyone reading this, but I never expected to get a cutie mark. No-one in my tribe did. But because I was unfortunate to have that strange picture appear on the side of my flank, it set in motion a chain of events I will both always lament, but also be eternally grateful. My mark was nothing interesting. During my travels I’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands of ponies with ones that are far more interesting, but I doubt none that have had such a profound effect on their lives. Allow me to explain.

My name is Deadset. I never understood why my mother called me that, she said it was to show how I was set dead on the straight path or something like that, but I never understood half the things she did anyway. I was born into a tribe called “clarity”. We were a peaceful enough tribe, never seeking out violence, keeping mostly to ourselves, only trading with passing by caravans. We were completely unremarkable apart for one single thing.

Not one of us had a cutie mark.

Whenever I tell anyone I meet on my travels about that, that my entire tribe was ‘blank-flank’, that none of us had found our ‘special talent’, they scoff and call me a liar, but it’s true. Whenever one within our tribe got a marking representing who we were, something terrible would befall us unless the cursed one was cast out. This is what our elders taught us, and it’s what we all believed to our core. I could not stress enough how much our tribe feared those marks on the flanks of ponies, but I appear to be rambling, so I should begin where my life truly began. Not the day I was born, but the day I received my number.

*** *** ***

CRACK!

My ears rang a little as I lifted my head to view my target, a radhog in the pen. Damn, I missed. I felt useless whenever I fired a gun; I never seemed to be able to aim straight.

“You nearly had it that time Deadset!” cried the lilac unicorn with a black mane from the other side of the pen.

“Mmpphhf mfff umph” I tried to yell back, but the revolver in my mouth made it a little difficult. I spat it out, leering at the firearm as it lay in the dirt. I hated it with a passion right now.

“You really should try and use your magic for it you know.” I jumped slightly; the unicorn had silently walked up to me while I was glaring at the gun. I frowned at her.

“Footlock, you’re not the one who ended up shooting yourself in the hoof by trying it.” I glanced down at my left foreleg, seeing the large crack that was made in the hoof by an accidental shot from when I first fired a gun. I could remember how badly I was mocked for my inability with any magic.

‘Deadhead the uselesscorn’ I was nicknamed. To be honest though I did always feel more comfortable pretending I was an earth pony anyway.

“I feel safer using my mouth. If the earth ponies can do it, surely I should be able to.” Footlock giggled slightly.

“Well, at the very least don’t shut your eyes when you pull the trigger. That must make it a bit harder. Now hurry up and kill Oinkers over there. You know father wants the oracle to assign you a destiny today.”

I sighed. Today was a day I’ve been dreading for months. It was my 8th birthday today, and Elder Hoofcrash was going to let the oracle decide what I would be doing for the tribe until I died. All I had to do was get my first kill, and then I was deemed ‘worthy’ for the honour.

I gave Footlock a weak smile, then bent down and picked up the gun between my teeth. Tasted of worry. That, and dirt. I shifted it in my jaw, getting the barrel to point forward and my tongue pressing against the trigger. I pointed the gun at the radhog, who stopped taking notice after the first few misses, and then fired.

It wasn’t a kill-shot unfortunately. The radhog was lying in the mud, blood flowing from a wound in the side of its stomach. It was letting out an almighty racket. I winced at the elders’ daughter.

“Well, at least I hit it. Only took 5 tries.” The unicorn, who was only a few of months older than me, just shook her head. I had no idea how, but she never seemed to miss. It only made it worse that she didn’t understand how I never seemed to hit.

“Better finish it off before it gives everypony in the tribe a headache. I’ll tell father that you got your first kill.”

With that, she turned off and trotted towards the tents. I sighed, jumping over the fence of the pen and grasped the knife on my belt between my teeth. As I neared the squealing hog, I couldn’t help but think of how unfair life was. I’d have to slit the damn things throat to claim my kill and get blood all over my coat.

The traditions of this tribe made no sense to me, but I was forbidden to kill a wounded creature with anything but a knife. I cursed my luck for not having struck it in the head with my bullet, before plunging the blade of the knife into the hogs neck and twisting it. With one final squeal, it finally lay limp.

*** *** ***

When I trotted back towards the tribe, Elder Hoofcrash was standing outside his tent, talking with Footlock.

The black stallion was huge. He towered over anyone else in the tribe by a significant margin, and uses it to full advantage to maintain order. His dark hued mane flowed down his sides. He mustn’t have cut it for years. Everypony was scared to even look him in the eye.

Well, all except his daughter. When he noticed me he stopped and turned towards me and smiled with glee. It didn’t suit him, given that his face was covered in scars. His gruff voice rang out;

“Deadset, today you become a man and take your place within the tribe. You must travel into the cave of our ancestors and consort with the oracle, for it is the oracle that shall decide your fate.” He looked up and down my body.

“You are ready?” I tried to reply, but my voice came out as a whimper, so instead nodded. Even when he was being friendly, Hoofcrash was unnerving. Then without saying another word, he simply pointed at the mountain the village was built besides. I bowed respectfully and departed from him.

*** *** ***

I slowly ventured through the cave, the light of day barely illuminating my path this deep. Nopony ever saw the oracle after being allocated their task, so nopony ever spoke of it. I’m not sure why, but I always imagined it would be a mare, far older and far wiser than anyone else in the tribe. I started to hum to myself, the sounds reflecting off the walls of the cave.

I suddenly noticed that the light within the cave was starting to turn to a sickly green hue. As I ventured deeper, the green grew darker and more intense, until I reached the end where only a strange metal…thing stood before me. I cocked my head, blinking. Where was the oracle? I was definitely in the right cave.

‘Of course you are, Deadhead. There isn’t any other cave on ancestors nearby, are there?’ a voice in my head spoke. This wasn’t unusual for me. I always berated myself when I thought or said something stupid. I called out.

“Oracle? Where are you?” Silence, apart from the echo and the quiet hum of the machine in front of me. It was the source of the green light, and illuminated the cave around me. I decided to examine further, looking at the strange source of light.

I had never seen anything like it before, but not only did it give off light, but where the light came from were words. I slowly read them aloud.

“Gender: Mare or Stallion?” Why was it asking me this? I looked at myself to make sure I didn’t look like a mare. Nope, still looked like me, even with the blood dried on my coat, masculinity and all. I thought maybe I was meant to talk to it…whatever it was.

“Erm, I’m a stallion if you couldn’t tell”. No reply. I then noticed the pad which had letters on it. Suddenly my brain clicked as I worked out that I was meant to write to it. It mustn’t been able to see or hear. I began to type in ‘Stallion’.

“S…T…A…L…L…oh” I looked up to see it had already moved onto the next question, and apparently my answer so far was ‘tall’. That was definitely not my age. I stared at the pad of letters, noticing there were numbers on it as well. I typed in ‘8’, but I guessed because I had leftovers from my last question in front of it, it couldn’t read my answer.

I pressed the button marked “delete”, hoping it would remove my mistake. I was happy to find it did. Soon I had given it my correct age. The machine started to make a whirring sound, before finally displaying ‘37’. I assumed this was what my destiny was. I wasn’t sure how a number could be my destiny, but at least I wasn’t a radhog farmer.

When I told the Elder that I was to be ‘37’, he simply waved a hoof at me dismissively before levitating an ancient board with paper on it, the aura of magic’s colour matching the dark shades of his coat. He stared at the paper for about a minute before his lips curled into another smile that still jarred with his scarred face. “37, perfect. You’re going to be maintenance, Deadset. You start tomorrow.”

*** *** ***

I slumped out of bed. Great, another day being the damned repairpony of the tribe. I’d been given this duty a little over 8 years ago now, and it still felt as damning to know this’ll be all I ever do as much as when I had first found out.

I turned to stare into my mirror. My light cream coat always seemed to be so much better kept when I woke up than my Auburn mane, which currently looked more like a warzone than hair attached to a pony. I stared into my own hazel brown eyes and groaned.

“One less day ‘till death”. I went about my morning ritual of gathering my equipment, and tucking into some radhog meat. I couldn’t remember the first time I had radhog meat, but ever since then it’s been all I ever seemed to eat. Not surprising since it’s all anypony seemed to eat here.

I can remember once when a trader stopped by, and in return for me fixing up his rifle, gave me a box of something called ‘carrot flavoured snack cakes’. I’ve never seen any box like that since, and how I wish I could. They tasted divine in comparison to the chewy, bland taste of radhog.
I finished chewing the lump of meat before finally leaving my tent and trotted off towards my workstation for another boring day of fixing the tribe’s guns.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love fixing things, I always got such a massive pleasure from turning a pile of scrap into a usable gun, but that’s all I ever did, repair guns and barding, or if I got lucky, Boulders would need her chainsaw fixed, which would give me a little more of a challenge, but it was still pretty easy for me now.

I guess I was fortunate when the oracle made me 37. Some ponies got destinies which really didn’t suit them. None more so than poor Balker, our resident junior radhog farmer. He was only given the job 2 years ago, and has already been gored pretty badly by his charge more times than I can remember.

Our tribe is around 200 ponies strong, including the 25ish fillies and colts that are too young to have destinies, and we each had our role to play.

I was just unusual in that I was the only pony in the tribe who was given 37. The last pony who was given that destiny died a few years before I was born. Took me months to repair all the work I was given in my first week.

Things were much quieter now, so I decided that I might as well get a little more sleep in. Anypony that wanted my help could wake me up. I curled up, resting my head on my cracked hoof before dosing off to sleep.

*** *** ***

I was woken up by an angel. Sure, she had a horn instead of wings, but she was an angel to me, even when she hit me in the side of my head.

“Huh, wha…?”

“Get up Deadset, you should be working.” I looked up at the lilac unicorn, and suddenly scrambled to my hoofs, trying to regain my composure.

“Hi Footlock” I blushed slightly; I hoped she assumed it was because she caught me asleep, and not because she happened to have been in my dreams doing…things.

“How can I help you?” I looked into those eyes. Those beautiful green eyes, and didn’t hear her as I began to lose myself in them. She then looked away for a second, bringing me back into the real world.

“…So I just stopped by to see how you were getting on, more ponies are coming to me recently to get patched up after raider attacks. I’m starting to get worried.” She looked at the ground, her expression grim. I nudged her slightly with my hoof.

“Well, it’s just as well they go to you. I don’t know anypony I’d rather have patching me up.” She didn’t brighten up. Stupid. I knew I should have said something else. She then looked at the cracks in my hoof.

“I wasn’t able to help fix that. My magic was too weak when it happened, and now it’s permanent.” I frowned. It was my stupid fault that it happened. I tried to fire my gun with magic, she was not blaming herself for that.

“Don’t worry about it; we were foals when it happened. You’d barely been given your destiny as a medicalpony, and if I remember, you did repair my hoof enough that I got to keep it, instead of having it amputated.” A slight smile. I was happy. She turned and was about to walk off when she spoke again.

“You may get some unusual business today. I saw a new caravan entering the village earlier. They may want you to do some repairs.”

I perked up a bit. Caravans always had more interesting weapons to repair, and I was still hoping that one day I would receive another box of carrot cakes, instead of stupid caps.

I shook myself slightly, noticing that I was drooling a little at the thought of tasting them again. Of course caps were more useful than those cakes. They didn’t even last me more than a meal. But still…

It was about an hour later when the caravan finally made it to me. There was a red earth pony wearing worn looking leather armour leading the group, but she was flanked by two hovering griffons wearing black armour and carrying menacing looking weapons of a design I’ve never seen before. This must be a successful caravan.

I’d only ever seen a griffon once before, and that was with the carrot cake caravan, so I raised my hopes a little more. The red pony stepped forward, a smile beaming on her face, hoof raised. I met her hoof and we did a firm shake. She then spoke, her voice light and bouncy, I liked her already.

“Hello there, my good Claritian, I am wondering if I can tempt you with any of my fine wares in exchange for your services. I hear you’re the mechanic of this tribe?”

I’d never heard that word before. Mechanic. If it meant gun-repairpony, then I much preferred it. I shrugged, choosing to play it cool.

“Maybe. What do you need me for?” She continued to smile at me, glancing at her bodyguards.

“Well, me and my companions here are in need of a few repairs, and I’ve been told none can do better than you in that department, so what do you say, friend? Care to help us out? I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.” Damnit, her smile was contagious.

“Sure, just show me what you need repaired, and we’ll work out a price.”

*** *** ***

Oh, it was my lucky day today. The trader had left me with some wonderful pieces of kit for me to work my magic on.

First was her leather armour. Pretty pedestrian, but I had to say she looked pretty cute out of it. One of her bodyguards had left her rifle, and although I hadn’t noticed when we were negotiating, the caravans Brahmin had a minigun strapped to the side of it which needed some repairs.
Normally I would have charged around 1000 caps for a job like this, but since I liked her, her offering to pay upfront, and not only having 1, but 3 boxes of carrot cakes, she haggled me down to around 600 caps. I didn’t mind as I got to work, chewing on a cake.

I had told her that this would probably take me a day to fix. I was fairly certain I could do it in a few hours, but I knew other members of the tribe could use some extra trade, even if Hoofcrash didn’t like having outsiders around, and having them stick around for the day would mean they should spend some more.

The leather armour was the first I worked on. It was a simple job, patching up the holes with fresh patches of leather, and I even did her the favour of lining the chest of it with thin plates of metal. I hoped she appreciated the effort. Her armour did have quite a few holes in it, and I didn’t want her to be shot up too much.

Next I brought up the griffons rifle. Examining it carefully, I began to dismantle it piece by piece, taking mental notes of where each individual component was. It used an unusual type of bullet, and was magazine loaded, something uncommon for my tribe. I slipped one of the bullets under my workbench, wanting to examine it more later. Surely the griffon wouldn’t notice one missing bullet, right? After cleaning out the barrel, replacing the trigger with a better one, and replacing the stock, I put it down and moved onto the one I hungered for.

I stared at the minigun, mouth almost watering. It was beautiful for me to look at, so many different mechanisms and components… I was in heaven. I tried to lift it up with my hooves, but nearly fell over due to its weight. Damn. I really didn’t want to do this. I wrapped it in a telekinetic field of magic, slowly lifting it up. I hated using magic, was never reliable with me. I strained under its’ weight, sweating a little. I tried to lower it onto the workbench gently, but instead it came down with a very loud ‘THUD’. I winced slightly, wanting to be more careful. A gun like this deserved love and attention. I took a bite out of one of my snack cakes, and started humming as I worked, regularly removing old and rusted components, throwing them onto my scrap-pile, and fishing out something far more worthy to be a part of the magnificent machine.

I thought it would have taken me only a couple of hours to finish my repairs, but it was starting to get dark when the red pony and her entourage returned. She watched me for a few seconds, fully engrossed in the finishing touches and polishing it before finally speaking up.

“Looks like you did a brilliant job, friend.” I jumped, letting out a small cry of shock, before turning to see her. She was smiling again.

“Well, you paid good caps, and I strive to please my customers.” She started to make small talk as I began to bring over their equipment.

“If you work that hard on others weapons, I shudder to imagine how much effort you poured into your own.” I couldn’t help but blush.

“Would you want to see it?” She nodded as she started to put on her armour, while the griffons were inspecting the weapons I’d handed them for themselves.

I pulled out my revolver from my belt with my teeth, placing it on the counter for her to see. It was the same revolver I had the day I received my number, but it looked completely different. Thinking about it, I don’t think I could even say it is the same revolver anymore; I’d replaced every part over and over, improving each time I found a better part for it. The oft-polished metal gleamed, even in the low level lighting. I both loved and hated this gun. Loved it because it was something I could call mine, and I valued it with my life. I hated it because it never shot what I pointed it at. The trader whistled.

“Now THAT is a pistol.” She cooed. I picked it up in my teeth again and placed it back in its holster. She spoke again.

“The name’s Redlight Sunshine, but you can call me Redsun for short.” I smiled, giving a slight nod.

“Deadset”.

The griffon whose rifle I was working on ejected her magazine clip, and noticed she was one bullet short. In a motion faster than I would have thought faster than possible, I found myself staring down the business end of it. She spoke in a low, threatening voice.

“Where the fuck is my bullet, tribal? Say one wrong word and I will blow your brains out.” I started to stammer, looking at Redsun for help. Thankfully she obliged.

“Wingclaw! Lower your gun immediately!” The griffons didn’t even look at her, her glare still fixed entirely on me, but she did lower her rifle at least.

“I’m still waiting for my fucking bullet.” She hissed. I took a couple of steps back, stammering.

“Er…I just…er wanted to keep one as a memento…I’ve never seen one like it before.” The mercs expression didn’t change, but the traderpony spoke up.

“Alice Wingclaw, you are under contract with me, and you will stand down! That bullet will be given to Deadset as a tip for a job well done.” With a moody snort, the griffon turned and hovered towards the Brahmin.

“As you wish.” Redsun turned to me again.

“Sorry about that. Griffons can be a little…possessive at times. Anyway, thank you for your help.”

“No problem” I replied. She turned and started to walk off as well.

“We had better be going now, but also congratulations.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On getting your cutie mark.”

I nearly broke my spine with the speed I wheeled around to look at my flank, and there, printed on the side, was an image of a spanner over a cog.

Fuck…

*** *** ***

I was pacing in front of my workbench. This was bad. This was very, very bad. I was cursed. I would be forced out of the tribe, or executed if I refused. The last time a pony got their cutie mark was Quickstep. I was still a colt back then, but I could remember quite clearly the body parts of those caught in the explosions. It was the day I lost my father. I felt sick.

I had to leave now, fast, before anything should happen to my tribe. It was early evening, night would be here soon. I could use the darkness to hopefully get away without too many others noticing. I checked to make sure I had my revolver in the holster, scrapped up the caps and bullets on my workbench, dumping them in a pocket on my belt, and rushed back to my tent.
A few ponies saw me, and the whispers were spreading around the tribe like wildfire. I hoped no-pony would try and follow me to check that it was true. It was better if I didn’t have to face anyone, that I could leave in peace. Ah, there are my saddlebags. Ok, just need to find my water and spare ammo and then I’ll be-- Suddenly the entrance flap to my tent opened, and there stood the one pony I had dreaded more than any to see. There before me was Footlock. The look on her face broke my heart.

“Deadset…how could you…ponies were saying that you…were…but I didn’t want to believe it…”
Tears were welling up in my childhood friends’ eyes. My stomach tied up in a knot. I desperately wanted to explain, that it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t do this on purpose, but all I could do was choke and splutter. I felt pathetic, all I could do was watch her whimper before me, and I couldn’t say a word. I moved forward and embraced her, and was relieved when she didn’t move away or flinch. We knew I would be gone soon. We wouldn’t get another moment like this ever. I moved my muzzle close to her ear. I had to tell her, I had to tell her how I felt.

“Footlock…I…” CRACK! The first shot rang out through the village.

Oh no oh no oh no oh no. Nononononono, this can’t have been happening. Not now, I was going to leave. I would have been gone had Footlock not found me. How could it have begun so soon? She pushed me off her, a stern look on her face.

“Tell me later, sounds like I’ll be needed.” She turned and left the tent, leaving me alone. I knew I wouldn’t get that later. I let my head sink close to the floor.

“I love you…”

*** *** ***

Once I’d pulled myself together, I rushed out of the tent, revolver in holster, caps and bullets in pocket, and a couple of canteens of water around my neck. I was ready to leave my home forever. A tear rolled down my cheek when I thought of that. Gunshots were now rattling in the air at a steady pace now, explosions too. I’d caused this. Me. I had no idea what it was that I caused, but I knew ponies, my friends, were going to die because of it.

Well, if this is because of me, I’ll help in some way. I withdrew my revolver with my mouth and charged towards where the sound of battle was coming from. With any luck it was just a herd of razorboar. We could deal with that with minimal deaths, and then I’d leave the moment the threat was gone. I skidded to a halt as something leapt out of a tent, and I knew luck wasn’t on my side.

The unicorn before me was a vomit coloured pony that was stained dark red with blood, her mane so torn out that not enough remained for me to tell what colour it used to be. Her barding was a mess of leather and metal, with sharp spikes protruding from every point possible. She was a raider, and raiders were bad news.

She just looked at me, her head shaking violently, a low, manic giggle escaping her muzzle. I pointed my revolver at her head, tongue pressing on the trigger. Her pinprick eyes kept darting between looking into my eyes, and looking at the gun between my teeth. Her laughter grew, but she wasn’t attacking. Maybe I didn’t need to shoot. I’d never shot a pony before. I’m not sure I could if I wanted.

It was then that I noticed what tent she came out of, and what she had stuck between her teeth. Blood was dripping from her maw, and teal coloured fur was mixed in with it. I flinched, taking a step back. She had eaten Dynamos’ colt. He was barely a year old, and this monster had gone into his tent and eaten him. Rage began to burn within me, fuelled by my sorrow that I caused this.

I threw myself at the beast, wanted to tear it limb from limb. I think it had a similar idea, given that it waited for me to lunge forward before ducking under me and biting into my foreleg. I screamed in pain as she sunk her teeth into me. I could feel blood oozing out between the raiders teeth, and sliding down the side of my leg. I hit her in the side of her head with my other foreleg, thankful it wasn’t the one with the cracked hoof, and she loosened her grip enough for me to pull my leg free. I would have continued to strike at her, but I felt uneven on my bleeding leg. She used this to charge into me, knocking me back and we fell through the canvas of Dynamos’ tent.

I landed hard on my back, with the raider only a few feet away from me. She started to snap at me again, which I returned with a hard kick to the face. As much as I might have needed it, I was not a natural fighter, and I was not a strong pony. The raider however, was, and was soon pinning me down, the blood from her mouth dripping onto my face. I was gagging, trying hard not to vomit at the smell. I knew this was the end for me, and it was what I deserved, since this was my fault. Her giggle that never seemed to end turned into raucous laughter.

“Somepony’s about to get eat! Somepony’s gonna be a tasty snack!”

In a last, desperate attempt, I swung my head forward, smashing it into hers, my horn grazing just above where eye was. It wasn’t enough. She returned it with her own, much stronger head-butt. Her own horn crashing into mine, causing my brain to feel like it was set on fire. I screamed out in agony, just begging now for the pain to end. I could hear a strange mechanical chugging noise getting closer to where we were. The raider just lowered herself closer to me and cackled,

“Grazing time!”

*** *** ***

Death was quick and, I would imagine, very painful. It wasn’t my death though. The chugging noise was replaced by a sharp, powerful whine and grinding noise as the blade of a chainsaw cut through the barding and bone of the raider with ease; blood and gore being splattered over me.

When the grinding, whining noise was replaced with the much softer chugging again, the monster on top of me fell apart to reveal the powerful frame of Boulders standing before me, her chainsaw levitating in a white field of magic.

I imagined I looked bad, but with her white coat splattered with now drying blood and gore, she didn’t look far off a raider herself. I could see that her powerful combat barding had taken quiet a beating. When she realised which pony she saved, she glared down at me. I tried to put up a weak smile, but her ire shattered it quickly.

“You!” she pointed her chainsaw at me. I tried to back away, but my wounded leg made that quite painful.

“You caused this! Our tribe is burning because of you!” The chainsaw was getting closer and closer now. I was almost starting to wish it was the raider threatening me now.

“How could you betray your tribe like this!?” She yelled. I stammered. I knew if I said the wrong thing, I’d end up in at least 2 separate pieces. Probably more.

“I didn’t do this! I didn’t mean anything. I never wanted this to happen, and I wanted to leave before it could.” The chainsaw didn’t move as she thought about what I said. I could see the hatred in her eyes. Finally she let up, levitating the chainsaw away from me.

“Fine, we’ll let Elder Hoofcrash decided your fate. I hope he’s run out of mercy.” Although what she said stung, I found it preferable to having an impromptu surgery without anaesthesia. I couldn’t help but find it ironic that if it wasn’t for me, that chainsaw would probably be so rusted that it wouldn’t even work, and yet it was inches away from slicing me open.

I slowly stood up, wobbling slightly. I balanced more on my three good legs, taking the weight off the fourth. Boulders just glared at me.

“I’m going to find more ponies to save. If you dare leave this tent, you’ll wish it was the raider that killed you!” With that she turned and galloped off out of the tent, her chainsaw’s chugging growing quieter and quieter, until it couldn’t be heard over the constant sound of gunshots.
I looked around the tent and I then saw the mutilated body of a young teal colt. Limbs had been bitten clean off, and large chunks of flesh where missing, ending in bite marks. This time I did vomit. The stench was overpowering. I didn’t care about Boulders threat; I had to get out of here.

I stumbled out of the tent, desperately hoping there wasn’t another raider just waiting to pounce on me. I started to inhale heavily, attempting to get the smell out of my nostrils, to little avail. I then realised I had dropped my gun during the fight. I started to search frantically for it. It was then that my ears picked up the familiar cracking sound of a .357 revolver firing. Sounded like it was in good condition too.

I limped as fast as I could towards the source of the sound, to find Footlock reloading into my revolver. I was overjoyed to see her still alive, and she seemed unharmed. I limped towards her. Her ears picked up and she spun on the spot, gun pointed expertly at my head. When she realised it was me, her magic field around it collapsed, and she dropped to the ground. She started weeping.

“Why are these raiders so monstrous? I try to find survivors, but they only leave mutilated corpses.” I bent over to pick up the gun in my mouth. The taste of dirt and vomit did not mix well, and I gagged slightly. I sat down next to her and tried to speak, but all that came out was muffled nonsense. Revolver in mouth. Not best for speaking with. I holstered it and then turned to her.

“Now isn’t the time, we have to move.” She didn’t budge. Damn it, why wasn’t I better with words?

“Footlock, dying here will not help those who were defiled. We can try to repair their memory after the battle, but for now we have to stay alive.” She blinked, wiping her eyes. That got through to her.

“Ok, if we can get to my father, we might be able to help there.” We got up when she noticed me wobbling slightly. She gasped as she saw the large bite mark on my leg.

“You’re wounded!” I looked away from her. I caused this, I deserved this. I deserved to die, I was considering myself lucky.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine. We have to move now,” I stopped for a second, and then continued. “And don’t you dare use that spell on me again.” Footlock shifted on her hooves slightly, almost looking offended, before she spoke.

“You need a healing potion. Look, hold still, I have a couple with me.” She reached into one of her saddlebags, levitating out a vial of bright liquid. I would have protested more, but the look she gave me spoke to me that she was non-negotiable with this one. I finally took the bottle and gulped down the fluid. It’s been a long time since I had one of these, and it was for a much more minor injury than this one. As the potion flowed down my throat, I could already feel it working. My leg tingled as I felt the missing flesh grow anew and repair itself. I wouldn’t say it was a painful experience, but it certainly was an uncomfortable one. Once I finished it, I handed her the bottle and gave her a faux-smile.

“There, happy?” She nodded, putting the empty bottle away. She then motioned and we galloped off towards where the elder’s tent was.

*** *** ***

When we reached the clearing that was around the tent of the elder, the night had fully settled in, only the fires of tents burning illuminated the sky. The Claritians had won the battle, but the cost had been severe. There were still a few pockets of fighting going on, but it was mostly over.

The sight we were met with as we entered the clearing was the Elder in full battle armour looking down at what appeared to be the raider leader. As intimidating as the bloody and gnarled raider looked, he was nothing in comparison to Elder Hoofcrash, whose red and gold ornate armour perfectly complemented his black coat. It was designed to intimidate others before the fight even begun, and it provided protection to match it. I should know, I made it. He spoke in a low, menacing voice that it seemed to make the ground shake

“Any last words before I sacrifice you to the gods, you vile piece of filth?” The raider stared into his eyes with no fear or remorse, just anger. He spoke far smoother than I could have imagined any raider speak.

“The striped one offered us fresh meat, and I need to look after my people. We have to feed, and your tribe tasted delicious.” He broke off into ear-splitting shrieks of laughter. Elder Hoofcrash roared and in one telekinetic motion he unsheathed his sword and decapitated the raider. The head rolled along the ground, the fits of laughter still plastered onto its’ face. The Elder let out another roar of anger and stomped it into paste.

Footlock began to walk towards her father. I saw a raider with two rifles strapped to its side leap out of the shadows screaming. I began to reach for my revolver to shoot it, yelling at the others to look out, but I was too late. The raider bit down on a piece of metal near its mouth and both rifles fired with a loud bang. One bullet bounced harmlessly off the Elders armour with a loud clang. The other however struck against the side of his daughters head. Time slowed to a standstill as I could clearly see the bullet penetrate into her skull, and explode out the other side, followed by a large portion of her brain. The momentum of the bullet knocked her off her feet as she collapsed to the ground. I rushed to her body, tears welling up.

“No…no…” I whispered. I lifted her head gently towards me, her face was unharmed, but her eyes were cold and lifeless. I did this. That fucking picture on my flank did this. The most important pony in my life died because of me.

Around me every pony in the area opened fire on the raider while the elder charged. The raider was just howling with laughter as it screamed ‘bang bang!’ while having holes blown into it. I didn’t care; all I could think about was the pony that lay in my arms, my beloved Footlock. I never even got to tell her how I felt. Finally the raider fell down dead as my eyes began to give up trying to hold back as I cried. The Elder was smashing the raiders’ body into a bloody mess until he finally stopped and turned to look at me. His voice roared out, and this time I could swear the ground did shake as he spoke.

“Get away from her, you fucking murderer! You did this! You killed all of these ponies!” He kicked me so hard with a hoof that I flew away and landed with a thud, skidding along the dry dirt. He stomped towards me, blade raised. I dared not to look into his eyes, lest his very gaze tear my soul apart.

I closed my eyes, expecting to feel his sharp steel cut me to pieces. I heard the whoosh of air being cut, but then a sudden clang. I opened an eye to see a long metal pole ending in two sharp curved blades being held in a grey field of magic, blocking the Elders sword. I recognised it as the tribes’ blade mistress’, the lead pony of our warriors. The grey unicorn stepped over me, standing between me and the fate I deserved.

“Hoofcrash, enough have died this day! Let this one go!” Her determined gaze met with his eyes that burned like fire.

“The gods demand one more for their pile. The one who they cursed!” The Elder swung his blade again, trying to catch her off guard, but she skilfully deflected it. The two duelled it out, strength against agility. Every time he would swing his blade with such power that it would cut her in two, and every time she dodged or deflected the attack, then bringing her own blade inches away from him, forcing him to take steps away from me. She yelled back at me;

“Deadset, get out of here! You are hereby banished, now run!” I just watched, barely able to say anything back.

“But mother…”

“I said RUN!”

The elder used her distraction to his advantage. With one powerful swoop, he brought his massive blade squarely onto the centre of her weapon, cutting clean through it and breaking her telekinetic concentration. She narrowly dodged the blade as it lodged itself deep into the ground. She spiralled around, grasping one of the halves in her magic and slashed at his face.

The tip of the blade ran across his cheek, causing a long thin line of red to be drawn along his face. As the blood started to drip down, the blade-mistress balked, dropping her weapon. No member of the Clarity tribe has ever caused a standing Elder to bleed. It was seen as the greatest offense to our gods, equal to the mark on my flank. The elder raised his hoof to the cut, inspecting the blood on his hoof.

Everypony was silent, and those moments seemed to last an eternity, until Hoofcrash spun on the spot and smashed both his back hooves into my mother’s face. The crack was her muzzle shattering was painfully loud. She flew onto her back. She turned to me, and yelled a barely understandable ‘run’ though her mangled mouth before the Elder withdrew his blade from the ground and swung it around, plunging it into her chest and sinking it down, impaling her. I saw her take her final breath as the light left her pleading eyes.

I turned and ran.

Footnote: Level up
New perk: Good natured—Social skills receive a slight boost, while aggressive skills suffer a slight reduction

Chapter 2: The Outcast

Chapter 2: The outcast

Faster! Go faster, Deadhead!

Even with my head start I had barely gotten any distance between me and my fellow Claritians. The Elder hadn’t even pulled his blade out of my mother before ordering a team to chase after me. He wanted me alive. That couldn’t be good. I could imagine him peeling my skin from my body, torturing me for hours, even days before killing me and—Oh for gods sakes, don’t think about what he could do. Just don’t think about what he would do. Just focus on running. Yes, good idea, focus on running.

A bullet struck the ground inches away from where my hoof was. And focus on dodging bullets too. Don’t think about Footlock. Don’t think about mother. Just think about running, dodging, and losing my chasers.

I had never really left the borders on the tribe before. I was the repairpony. Why would I? I wasn’t appointed scout or warrior. I was a pacifist. No, that wasn’t quite true, but I had never needed to shoot at anything really. I mean I shot myself nearly as many times as I have anything else. Shot myself once; shot 3 other things in my life, all of them being radhogs or that one radigator. I can’t exactly boast I’m a terror of the wasteland.

Nor could I claim I’m the most athletic. I’ve never run as fast, or as far as this, and I was already starting to lag, my breath getting ragged, the burning building up in my legs. I glanced behind me. I could still see a couple of the tents in the village burning, which allowed me to make out the silhouettes of my pursuers. I couldn’t tell which ponies they were however. I was just grateful that Boulders definitely wasn’t amongst them. I could still remember seeing that raider being cut in two.

Still, a quick death like that would be preferable to having my hooves cut off individually and-- ’Deadhead, stop being a fucking twat and run!’ for once I couldn’t agree more with the voice, and focussed on just running. I couldn’t exactly see far, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere away from the ponies shooting at me would be an improvement.

I heard a bullet whizz past my head. I could have sworn the Elder told them to fucking take me alive. Stop fucking shooting at me! I moved my head back and grasped the revolver between my teeth. Fuck, this would be easier if I could actually use my magic, but now wasn’t the time to try. It was so dark that I could barely see the ground, and I can’t say I was too keen on stumbling through the darkness looking for my pride and joy, while a group of ponies I may have once called friends tried to string me up for nothing more than having a picture on my ass. I whiplashed my neck around and pulled the trigger. I really did not want to kill, or even hurt those chasing me, but I really wanted them to stop chasing me anyway. After two cracks from my revolver, I realised I wouldn’t be able to reload until I at least got enough space between me and them to be able to stop. I had to lose them, and soon. 4 Bullets left.

Even in this dark, I could make out the shape of what appeared to be a building. I charged towards it, a few more “pfft pfft” of bullets passing nearby my head again. I was certain that if it wasn’t so dark, I’d have a number of holes in me already. Something I hoped to avoid.

No sooner had I reached the building than I dived through the nearest entrance and scrambled for any sort of concealing cover. I barely even registered the filth and gore that met me. It was a strange building that had tables and chairs attached quite firmly to the ground which…wasn’t…quite ground. It was this cold, strange material that was made of so many smaller similar segments. Having lived entirely with dirt beneath my feet, and occasionally rock, it was unusual to say the least. As the first pony burst through the opening, I ducked under a table. It was nearly pitch black in here, and with my darker coat and mane I doubted they would find me. I hoped not…

“Spread out, he must be in here!” One of them shouted out, whose voice I didn’t recognise.

“He might have just run straight through it and is leaving us for dust.” That voice I did recognise. It was a pony called Winter Dew. Can’t say I ever particularly liked her, but still, didn’t want to shoot her or anything.

“Stay here then, we’ll go on ahead. If we can’t find him by tomorrow night, we’ll say a radigator ate him.” With that, the unknown pony and about half the others left and ran off ahead, leaving me with Winter Dew and what I imagined was about 4 other ponies.

Well, that was a step forward. I had a time I needed to lose them by, as well as losing half of them already. I thought about reloading my revolver. Wait, why would I need to reload my revolver? I wasn’t going to shoot them, was I?

One of them stepped next to the table I was hidden under, and I pushed myself closer against the wall, holding my breath. If I could slip out without them spotting me, I would be home and dry. Home…there was something I was never going to see again. I had never wanted to see the rough mattress I slept on every night more than before. I wanted to be home in my tent, knowing the ponies around me meant me no harm, instead of now, where they were hunting me like a dog.

“Raiders have really taken their toll in here” One of the ponies shouted out. The place reeked. I shuddered to imagine what it would have looked like in the light. I was grateful none of the ponies hunting me were particularly skilled at hunting. I was certain that luck was on my side here. All they needed to do was to work out to start looking under the--

“Start looking under the tables, he may be hiding in the shadows.” Fuck. You just had to think it, didn’t you? I looked around. There was no way I could get under the chairs, was there? Maybe back when I was a colt, but no way now…I still tried. I could hear my pursuers shuffling from table to table.

It wouldn’t be long until they found me. I pressed hard against the gap, trying desperately to slip through. I just couldn’t do it. The great griffon fuck me in the ass with his claws! They are going to find me! There was no way around it, I may have to shoot one of them but…I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. A pony was checking the table next to me. I held my breath, revolver in my mouth. I tensed as hooves came into sight. I shut my eyes.

A shot rang out. I snapped my eyes open to see if I fired, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the sound my gun made. Come to think, it sounded pretty far away.

“They must have found him. Come on, sooner we have him tied up, the sooner we can go back to the tribe.” I continued to hold my breath. There was no way my luck was this good. Even so, they were starting to charge out of the ex-raiders hideout.

After a few minutes, and being sure they were gone, I finally broke down crying. I was so emotionally drained. I had lost everything I had ever held dear. All I had left was what I held on my belt, saddlebags and the revolver I had just dropped. The images of the chewed up colt, the bullet blowing out most of Footlocks’ brains, my mother being bucked so hard her muzzle shattered and being impaled flooded to me.

I couldn’t find the will to even get what parts of me wedged under the seat free now that the adrenaline had finally given out. All I could do was collapse and fall into a dark, restless sleep.

*** *** ***

I was awoken by the sound of crashing in some other part of the building. I felt like dirt, but I could tell I was helpless where I was. Chances are it was just an animal that stumbled in here, and I didn’t want to be caught by a hungry razorboar or bloatsprite. With some difficulty I pulled myself free of the chair, and groggily got to my hooves. I reached down and picked up my revolver.

I breathed in through my nose, and regretted it instantly. I was met with the foulest smell I could have imagined. I began to retch. I got out from under the table and saw grotesque destruction beyond anything I could have ever imagined. Disembowelled and limbless corpses were nailed to the walls, and surprisingly creative profanity was painted, in what I imagined was blood, across every surface I could see.

It turned out I had become rather lucky about which table I hid under. Most of them had bags of assorted body parts or endless amounts of pony filth. Meat was lying on a number of the tables, bite marks clearly evident. Although I hoped that it was rotten radhog meat, I think I knew better. It was all too much.

I rushed outside, throwing up what little food I had left in me. ‘Bye bye, carrot cakes.’ the voice in my head said. I had forgotten to bring them with me, but out of everything I had lost, a few sweet treats were fairly down my list of worries. Once I was done spewing my guts out, I looked up and saw the wasteland for what it was for the first time ever.

It was quite a shocking sight now in the stark daylight. All around me was an endless nothing, bar a few mountains in the distance. I was so far away now that I couldn’t even see where the tribe was. A part of me, a very large part, wanted to run back home. It didn’t matter what fate I had in store for me, it was a fate I knew. Out here was…nothing.

The few traders I have talked to over the years had led me to believe there were a few great civilisations of ponies, but all I could see was dirt, dust, and this strange line of black rock that ran next to the building. I also noticed this strange metal thing lying on the rock line. Whatever it was, it looked rusted. Extremely rusted. I trotted up towards it, examining carefully. It was mostly hollow on the inside, with enough space to fit a few ponies in. Why would anypony need something like this? I would probably understand more if I knew what ‘this’ was.

Suddenly a loud crash of metal rang out from inside the building again. I looked for my revolver. I must have dropped it again while I was sick. I quickly rushed to where my pile of semi-digested food lay, and was grateful that my gun was next to it, and not in it. I picked it up in my teeth and edged through the door of the building.

I held my breath, trying to not smell the vileness, and did my best to avoid looking at the worst parts of the gory scene. I really didn’t want to vomit again. I’ve done that enough in the past two days. Sounds were coming from a room connected to the back of this one. As I edged to the opening, I could hear the muttering of a pony. It was Winter Dew. She sounded…manic. Not manic like the raiders, who just didn’t seem to even see the world that they lived in, but manic as if she was fighting for her life against something that wasn’t even there.

“…Yes. Yesyesyesyes. He did this, all his fault! The raiders, leading us to the monsters, it was all done by him! Must have planned it months ago, maybe more! He must have an agreement with them both and they allowed him past and…killed the others. But I don’t need them, nooooo, I have myself. I just need a new weapon. The Elder wants him, so I shall bring him to the Elder, yes! I…”

I peered around the side of the doorframe. The earth pony was rummaging through every shelf looking for something. I couldn’t see anypony else with her, and she must have been talking for hours given how hoarse her voice was. She was badly wounded and bleeding, but it didn’t seem to faze her.

I jumped into the doorway and tried to tell her not to move, but with a gun in my mouth it came out as an unintelligible mess again. Damn it, in the last two days I have regretted being unable to use magic reliably more than I have the rest of my life. She turned to me, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She took one look at me and my cutie mark, before grasping the nearest knife with her mouth and she began charging at me.

I hadn’t killed a pony yet, and I really didn’t want start now, not her. Not one of my fellow tribals. She lunged for my throat, slashing wildly in the air. I jumped back, trying my best to avoid the rusty, serrated edge. Without letting go of the revolver in my mouth, I tried to reason with her, but I was unable to make anything other than muffled grunts. Something in her eyes though told me that nothing I said would have convinced her to stop though.

She continued to swing and lunge at me. Her knife scratching and scraping along the walls and chairs near her, fury and hatred burning in her eyes. I still couldn’t shoot her. Not even with my life depending on it. It wasn’t right; she had all reason to hate me. I had caused the death of so many of her friends. I had to try and talk to her, but I couldn’t leave myself defenceless.

I would have to risk using my magic to hold the gun. I threw myself back, opening my mouth and letting the gun fly up. I grasped it my magic and began to try and talk her out of killing me.

“Winter, stop, I didn’t mean this to happen, I am sorry, please I…” Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Click click click click click…

I dropped the gun. It landed on the floor the same time she did. I knew my magic was unreliable. I knew it, and yet by trying to save both our lives, I had ended hers. Three of the shots lodged themselves into the floor, causing it to shatter where they impacted. The last one had embedded itself in her spine. Memories of my youth flooded back.

*** *** ***

“Come on Deadset, you can do it!” The young lilac unicorn yelled to me. I stared at the revolver in front of me. It was old and rusted, I would have been surprised if it could have even fired.

“Why do you even hang out with that dork? He’s only a few months off getting his destiny and he can’t even use his magic!” The brown earth colt laughed. There was a crowd of young fillies and colts watching me.

I had been dared that I couldn’t shoot down three tin cans from 10 meters with a fully loaded revolver. Looking at the state of the revolver, I doubted even the greatest sharpshooter of the wasteland could manage it, let alone the useless unicorn of some god forsaken tribe. I bent over and picked up the revolver between my teeth. I slid my tongue onto the trigger and could taste the rusted metal, and instantly spat it out.

“Fucking useless you are, Deadset!” an older, beige buck in the crowd yelled out at me. I glared at the gun. You don’t like me, and I don’t like you, but we have a job to do, so let’s get it over with so I can throw you onto the scrapheap.

I once again picked it up in my mouth and started to fire. It was so rusted that the sound it made was more of a dull clunk that a loud crack it was meant to be. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Every single shot missed the cans. By how much, I couldn’t tell. Another brown buck in the crowd shouted out;

“Use your magic you waste of a unicorn!” One of the fillies started laughing at something she just thought of, whispering it to her friend next to her. Together they started chanting.

“Deadhead the uselesscorn! Deadhead the uselesscorn!” It wasn’t long before the entire crowd had joined in on the chant. All but the lilac unicorn. I fired another two shots, trying my best to ignore the jeers. When both of them missed, I thought ‘Fuck it, they want me to use magic, then I’ll use magic’.

I concentrated, wrapping the gun between my teeth in a sheath of dark blue light. I slowly levitated the gun out of my mouth, spitting out the residue rust it left behind. The crowd still continued their chant, to my ire. Couldn’t blame them though, my grip was pretty shaky, and the gun was swaying quite a bit. Why did I care? I was going to miss either way, so on the unlikely event that I actually hit something; maybe it would shut them up. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.

Pain instantly rushed up my leg. I screamed out in agony. I had no idea what part of my leg I shot, but all I knew was it fucking hurt. I fell over, not wanting to look at my leg. The crowd instantly ran away, pretending as if they had nothing to do with what happened. Well, apart from the lilac unicorn, who rushed to my side.

“Hold still Deadset, you shot yourself.” In between my screams of pain, I managed to breathe something along the lines of ‘tell me something I don’t know’, and as much as I would have liked to have held still, the immense pain coursing through my body made that pretty hard.

“I might be able to help you, but this will probably hurt a bit.” Her horn started to glow as she wrapped my leg up in her magic. Suddenly, it felt like every bone was being grinded to dust. I started to go into fits of agony, begging for death to the very gods. I flailed madly, but Footlock kept a cool concentration, focussing on my leg and holding it still.

I happened to glance at my leg, and I was right. She actually had grinded the bones to dust! My skin lay limp and hoofless inside her magic field. The sight made me want to vomit, but when the next phase started, I was forced over the edge.

I could feel the dust reforming in my leg and returning to their natural, bony state. I couldn’t describe how it felt even if I wanted to, but it felt so wrong. So disgustingly, sickeningly wrong.

When it ended, she released my leg from her magical grip and I threw myself onto my back, still crying in pain, nostrils burning from the acrid smell of my vomit. I really didn’t want to look at my leg after what she did.

“You shot yourself in your hoof, it shattered really badly. I only was given the destiny of medical a few weeks ago, but I had read about a spell that could fix broken bones. I tried my best…but…” I stared at my hoof. It had long cracks running along and through it.

She told me it was only visual, that it was just as strong as any of the other hooves, but it didn’t feel like it. The whimpers in her voice told me she didn’t believe it either. She helped me up as she supported my weight. Together we trotted towards the medical tent to see what else could be done.

I was apparently lucky, that if she hadn’t done what she did, I would be down one hoof, and potentially dead.

Never did get rid of the nickname ‘Deadhead the uselesscorn’ though.

*** *** ***

I was brought back to the here and now by the earth pony I thought I killed suddenly starting to scream. Smash my bollocks in with a sledgehammer, it made me jump in fright.

“I can’t…what…help!” She was screaming, but her body lay limp. I quickly dropped to her eye level.

“I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. You were attacking me, and I was trying to talk to you, and it was an accident, and…” Her face turned from fear to anger at my words.

“You! You did this to me!? Slaughtering our tribe wasn’t enough!?” I suddenly remembered. The bullet went in her spine. I could vaguely remember Footlock once talking about a thing called para…paralysis or something. I don’t know, I’m not a medicalpony. All I knew was that she could only move her head because of my shitty magic.

Last time it only cost me a cracked hoof. This time it trapped a pony in their own body. I couldn’t leave her here, but I couldn’t drag her back to the tribe. It was too far, I was not a strong pony, and I didn’t want to die myself. I felt defeated; there was nothing I could do. It was then the pony on the floor spoke again.

“Kill me.” Wait what? No, no way, I haven’t killed a pony, and I’m not going to start now, especially when it’s a defenceless cripple.

“No, I can’t do that. I can’t kill a pony…” She flared up in anger again.

“You already killed me; my body just hasn’t got the message yet…” She was right. I couldn’t take her with me, and if I left her, she would starve, or worse, a hungry wild animal or raider would find her. I couldn’t think of a worse death.

Solemnly, I bent over and picked up my revolver, took out a handful of bullets from the pocket on my belt, and began loading shots into it. I realised that this was the first time I had ever fully emptied a revolvers cylinder since that day I shot myself. It always seemed my worst luck came with the 6th bullet. Her ears twitched slightly as she heard me reloading.

“No, not with the gun.” Oh no, oh fuck no. Gods’ make me swallow barbed wire, pull it out of my ass and floss me to death NO. She can’t want me to; she can’t expect me to…

She sensed my unease.

“You may not be a Claritian, but I still am.” Tears were rolling down her eyes as she spoke. “I wish to die by our customs.” I glanced at the knife by her limp body.

“But…I never gave an animal a clean death with it, there’s no way I could for you…” Her voice was breaking now as she spoke.

“I don’t care, do it, Deadset, please, so that I may be with the gods now.” My whole body shook as I holstered my now fully loaded gun, and bent down to pick up the rusty knife between my teeth. I rose above her, tears now starting to fall down my cheeks too.

She started to mutter under her voice a prayer, and as she did that I began to think that life isn’t fair. This pony didn’t deserve this. I had destroyed her life, and now I was going to end it, and in such a brutal manner. I waited for her to finish before I got down on my knees, tilted my head to the side, and plunged the knife into her neck.

She let out her finals screams of pain as I twisted the blade. The screams were replaced with a gurgling noise that I knew will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. Blood poured out of the hole in her neck, and from out of her mouth.

I backed away, watching in horror as there was nothing more I could do. It took nearly a minute before the gurgling stopped. All that was left was the occasional twitch of her head.

What have I done?

*** *** ***

I sat outside up against the wall of the building, my head in my hooves. I pressed hard against them, feeling the cracks along the left one. Winters’ blood clung to my coat around my muzzle. I would have washed it off if the kitchen had running water. It didn’t.

Her words were ringing through my head, that monsters had killed the other ones. My world came crashing down around me. The wasteland was now actively making me destroy everything I held dear. I led those ponies here; it was because of me they ran into whatever it was, and then forced me to kill Winter in cold blood.

I stomped against the dirt. I had to do some good for my tribe, even if they didn’t want me. There had to be something I could do. I made a mental note that I was going to find those monsters and kill them. I also had to help Winter with one last thing.

I slowly got back up and walked a little away from the building. I then began to dig a hole with my bare hooves. It may not be much, but if she wanted to be with the gods, I was going to do my best to make sure she was.

When I was finished, the clouded sky was starting to grow dark again. I could imagine the survivors back at the village, still burying those that died in the attack. I knew that Footlock would take prime place with her gave. Her father would make sure of that. I walked back into the building, standing next to Winter.

I had taken out the knife already, but it currently just lay on the floor. I could remember something else she said. ‘You may not be a Claritian, but I still am.’. Did I really not consider myself a Claritian anymore? No, even as an outcast, even while cursed, I was one of them. As a mark of respect, I picked the blade off the floor, and fastened it to my belt. I still hoped deep down I wouldn’t need to use it again.

I dug my head underneath her body, lifting her onto my back. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than being dragged or levitated by me. When I got to the hole, I slowly tilted forward, letting her slide down my back and roll into the hole. I then filled it up with dirt. Once finished, I gave a prayer to the great phoenix that she should be taken under her wing.

When I had finished, I turned and walked back into the building. The main area was still a filthy, wretched raider’s pit, but the kitchen was left relatively unscathed, and would do for the night.

As I slept, in my dreams I could see every pony of the tribes’ heads on pikes, with raiders laughing and eating the decapitated corpses. The screams and death-throws of all those I saw die ringing out through the burning landscape. I saw Footlocks’ head, and the horrifying gurgle rang in my ears. Suddenly a mirror appeared before me, and in my reflection I stood, clad in raider armour, covered in the blood of all those I loved. I too was chewing on a corpse. Suddenly all the heads chanted in unison;

“You did this! You did this! You did this!”

*** *** ***

“I didn’t mean to!” I awoke screaming. It took me a few seconds to realise that it was just a dream. But it wasn’t, was it? I had caused the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of ponies. Clarity may never recover from what I did.

I looked down at myself. At some point in the night, I had wet myself. Just great. I was hoping to have gotten further before I needed a wash, but being covered in raider and pony blood, as well as piss, kind of made it a necessity.

I walked out of the kitchen through the back entrance and faced the building. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten in over a day, and what I had eaten before currently lay on the ground. I decided that after washing myself I should look for food. I took out one of my canteens of water, poured a small amount onto my hoof and began to wash off the stains of the worst two days of my life.

As I did this, I noticed a poster on the wall. Displayed on it was a proud looking blue pony with a rainbow coloured mane. It was wearing some strange black barding that ended in a vicious looking sting, and wings protruding from the side.

Wait, wings? That can’t be right? Ponies don’t have wings, do they? I’ve never seen one with wings before; I knew that much…no, it had to be a part of the barding, like the tail. Bloatflies, phoenixes and griffons could fly, and nothing else that I knew of. Definitely not ponies. But still, those wings matched the colour of its coat, not the barding.

‘What about angels?’ spoke the voice in my head. I…guessed it could be an angel of either the goddess of the day or night. Probably night, given the menacing black barding it wore. Why a picture of a night-angel was on the wall of this building, I didn’t know, but it’s not like it mattered. The words that were around the poster long since faded.

While I was musing to myself, I had finished washing. I still had a little water left in my canteen. I was damn thirsty as well as hungry, so downed the rest of it. As much as I wanted to open my second canteen, I chose not to. I had no idea when I would next find a source of water, so best save what I had.

I walked back into the kitchen of the building and started searching around for food. Earlier, when I thought missing my snack cakes was a small importance, I didn’t think it any more. I would have done anything for one now. I would have done anything for some uncooked radhog meat too though, but still, preferred carrot cakes.

As I searched, I noticed an image of a light brown earth pony with a speech bubble attached. He was saying ‘pony Joes always insist on the highest of standards of cleanliness. Always wash hooves before preparing food.’ Why would anypony waste good water to simply wash their hooves? Water was rare. If I hadn’t been able to repair something that the Elder called ‘a water purifier’ a few years back, the tribe would have died of thirst long ago. As it was, we collected rainwater and poured it though the machine. What came out always tasted of dirt, but I was told that I did well and that I saved the village. But even so, clean water was scarce, so a pony washing only their hooves seemed insanity.

I continued to search until I found a locked cabinet and a strange metal box next to it as well. How the fuck was I meant to get into these? Urgh, the wasteland hated me. I lifted up the box with my hooves, and then I noticed some strange paper thing, sort of resembling a small book, fall down from behind it. I put the box down, and flattened the paper on the floor and started to read ‘Locksmiths today’.

When I finished reading I felt a little angry. It had told me how I needed to open it, but it never explained what a ‘bobby pin’ was. Helpful. I had a screwdriver on my belt, so that was sorted, but without the second thing, what I hoped would be my breakfast lay out of my reach. I stomped the ground in frustration.

A light, cracking noise filled the room. I looked down on the floor, and there lay at the base of the cabinet, parts of small metal clips that I’ve seen before. I was a repairpony; I always had a few of these handy. Were these bobby pins? I went through the instructions the paper thing had given me. The metal clips would be able to do just that. Perfect!

I opened the pocket on my belt and fished out a clip. With my tongue I pushed against it and made it into the shape the sort-of-book recommended. I then got out the screwdriver from my belt and held it at the other end of my mouth. The book had said ‘this is far more difficult for earth ponies’, so I knew I had my work cut out for me, but still, had to try.

After a few attempts, I managed to poke the pin into the hole on the lock. With great difficulty I put the end of the screwdriver into the hole as well and twisted. I nearly twisted what the book-thing said would be enough before the pin broke. Dammit! Still, it did say this would be hard for non-magic users. I fished out another pin and tried again.

This time, I twisted the pin in the lock slightly first, before twisting with the screwdriver. To my surprise, the lock gave off a little ‘click’, and I withdrew my pin and screwdriver. Not bad for a first-timer. As I opened the door to the cabinet, I was more than happy to see my prize was a number of boxes of old food. Unfortunately no carrot cakes, so I settled with snacking on something called ‘sugar apple bombs’, putting the other boxes of food into my saddlebags. While I enjoyed them greatly, and it made my hunger go away, it did taste a little too sweet for me, and the strange white powder made my teeth itch a little. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I was grateful for what I had.

Next I turned my attention to the metal box. It too had a lock, similar to the cabinet on it. I wasn’t sure what to expect inside this one, as it didn’t really look like it was built to hold food. Curiosity got the better of me anyway, and I fished out yet another bobby pin and had a crack at it.

Things didn’t go well with this one. I quickly lost 3 bobby pins to it, and was down to my last. I gave a little prayer to the gods before trying one last time. Success, the lock gave a small click. Fuck, after the click, I accidentally still twisted, causing the pin to snap. I hoped whatever this box held was worth it. I placed the screwdriver back on the belt before opening the lid of the box.

There, at the bottom, was a small black…thing. I was starting to hate how I never knew the names of anything I found, especially when it was mechanical. I brought the thing to my eye level. On the side of it was written ‘S-B; For when you’re in a tight spot’. The bottom of it looked like it attaches to something, but what that something was, I couldn’t begin to guess. I couldn’t even imagine what the thing did.

Great, I lost my last pins for a great big fat load of nothing. I tossed it into my saddlebags and was about to move on when I noticed a small glint at the bottom. I tipped the box over and out slid 4 bobby pins. Now that just made my head hurt. Why would somepony put bobby pins in something that required bobby pins to get into? Surely to get into it they’d need those bobby pins that were inside and, argh, my brain was starting to ache. Still, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I put the bobby pins in the pocket on my belt, and decided it was time to move on from this place. I had spent longer than I had wanted here, and it was time to go monster hunting for Clarity.

*** *** ***

I was a terrible monster hunter.

As I neared where they were, I had found the bodies of a few of the other ponies. They had been completely shredded. Whatever did this to them was strong, and had very sharp claws. I decided that it would be better if I could kill them before they could see me then. ‘Are you mad Deadhead? Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

“Shut up!” I hissed under my breath. This was important, I had to set right some wrongs, and if I had to risk my life doing it, so be it. The monsters appeared to have come from a sort of deep rocky alcove. Gulping, I crouched, treading lightly.

I had barely taken ten steps when the ground started to rumble. Instinctively, I leapt out the way, expecting some behemoth to come charging out of nowhere and trample me to death. Instead, some strange furred creature burst out from where I was standing. I was grateful I jumped. The monster stood about twice, if not three times my height. It stood on its’ hind legs, and its’ long forelegs ended in frighteningly long claws. I already knew what they could do. It looked at me with its’ wicked eyes before speaking;

“Pony want to play?”

I turned and ran. May the great buffalo stomp on my spine with its hooves of destruction! The monster blocked me from the exit, and this alcove had no other obvious exits. I dashed as hard as my legs could take me. I swung my head around wildly, looking for any safe spot, but all I could see were huge machines painted a faded yellow.

I could feel the ground shake a number of times, as more and more monsters emerged to join in on the chase. These things were fast, and I couldn’t help but feel that they were toying with me. They were only a few meters behind me, and closing in. I had to try something.

I made a sudden swerve towards one of the machines. This one had a large arm that rose up towards the sky, and ended with a hook. As I was running towards it, I was mentally analysing what mechanisms I could see. The hook was connected to a long cable that ran down the length of the arm, and wrapped around a drum at the base, which had a lever attached.

If I was right, this would work, and would buy me a precious few seconds. I leapt up onto the machine, kicking the leaver as I ran. I was grateful when I heard a loud clang as it shifted position. I would soon find out if I did the right thing. I began to climb up the machines arm. I heard one of the monsters yell to the others;

“Stupid pony thinks we can’t climb! Pony is trapped. Game over, pony!” Actually, my gambit also revolved around them being able to climb up this. I continued to climb up, glancing back to see they were as well. Faster than I had hoped…I was slowed down by the climb, they barely seemed affected.

I locked my sight back on the hook at the end of the arm. I was pretty high up now. Nearing the end. I could feel the breath of the monster behind me. I gulped. Now or never.

I leapt over the end of the arm, hooves wrapping themselves around the hook. My heart skipped a beat. My hunch was right, and the lever was set to lock before I kicked it. The hook, with my added weight, began to draw more cable as it lowered me down.

One of the monsters had leapt after me, but plummeted down and fell on its’ back. If the fall didn’t kill it, the pool of sharp gems sure did. I looked up to see the other monsters all at the end of the arm, looking down at me. I was right, they’d have to climb all the way down, giving me extra time and…what is that one doing?

I saw one of them lean over the edge of the arm, claws outstretched. No, please don’t. Please, please don’t! It did. It slashed the cable with its claws, and I found myself plummeting from what wasn’t a fatal height, but more than high enough to break bones. A death sentence here if ever I saw any. I glanced at the corpse of the monster at the edge of the gem pool and took another gulp. I leapt off from the hook, and soared through the air. My heart skipped another beat as I landed on the softer monster, instead of the hard dirt, or more painful gems.

The hook however smashed into the ground with full force. The crater it created let off a large cloud of dust. That’ll help. I jumped off the monsters corpse and ran in another random direction. No sooner had I broken free of the dust cloud though, I head one of the monster yell again.

“There is stupid pony. Get it!” I think playtime was over now as they all let out a great howl and started to climb down the arm as fast as they could. Although my risk paid off, I knew I was running on borrowed time.

The ground started rumbling again. Not underneath me this time, but at my sides. Well, if that’s where they were coming up from, like fuck was I going to change course. Ahead I saw a cave. Maybe I could run in there and hide? Suddenly the penny dropped. They were herding me. I wanted to turn away, to do something unexpected, but from quick glances around while running, I could see that would end up me being torn to pieces.

There must have been about 20 of these beasts chasing me now. Well, I guess this is going to be the end for me. I just hope the phoenix has room under her wing for one more. When I entered the mouth of the cave, the monsters seemed to slow down. I didn’t care why though, I just continued to run.

That is until I tripped over the corpse of what must have been another one of their victims. It wasn’t a pony I recognised. Fuck! If this is how I’m going to die, I’m not going down without a fight. I pulled out my revolver. The monsters were standing at the mouth of the cave now, and they appeared to be sauntering over to me, as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

“Stupid pony thinks tiny gun can hurt us. Stupid pony will die like the others.” ‘Fuck you!’ I screamed in my head. Crack. Miss. Crack. Miss. The monster continued to stroll towards me at a pedestrian pace. Crack. Hit, but dammit, it barely left a scratch. What were these things made of? Crack. Miss. Crack. Another pathetic hit. I closed my eyes, giving a prayer to the Draconequus. May his chaotic ways bring blessing to this shot. Crack.

*** *** ***

The shot had struck the roof of the cave. It seemed hopeless. I was dead. Suddenly, a cracking noise echoed though the shallow cave. The monsters stopped, looking up above them. They turned and dashed out of the cave. All but one, who was crushed under the falling rubble. The rocks kept falling until all light from the outside was cut off.

Just my luck. I just swapped a hopefully quick death by sharp claws, for a long death by dark cave and starvation. It was then I noticed the cave was not as dark as it should have been. I looked at the pony corpse that was my companion, and noticed that it was giving off a strange green light.

On further inspection, I saw that it was a small metal tube clamped around his wrist that was doing this. I blinked for a second, before I remembered what exactly it was. It was a…um…pipbuck. Yeah, that was it. I could remember when a trader had arrived at my village one time with one of them. I was fascinated by it, and he showed me a lot of how it worked. He said it could sort your gear, bring up a map of where you’ve been, and even tell you where your enemies are hiding. Now that I saw one that didn’t have a living owner, I had to have it.

I brought out every tool I had, hoping one would do the job. Thankfully one did. As I unfastened the metal from the dead pony’s leg, I slid it off with great care. I still couldn’t believe that the gods would give me such a gift. I looked up, shining the light at the newly made rock wall, complete with monster blood oozing from the bottom. Too bad they give it to me when I was going to die.

Unusually enough, this didn’t actually dampen my spirits much. I had just got something I had wanted from the moment I saw it, and now I did. Deep down, since I knew this thing could do so much, I actually believed it would show me a way out. I slid my own leg in, opting to use my left, cracked-hoof-leg. I need to balance out that leg’s appearance somehow after all. Fastening it tight, I couldn’t help but feel as giddy as a foal drinking it’s first sunrise sasparilla, a very rare treat at the village. I started to look through all the options the pipbuck gave me. I noticed the previous owner had made a recording.

“Ahahaha, alive after being shot in the head. Man, I have some good luck. The guy who fixed me up claimed I was taking something to Neigas, even gave me his pipbuck, but, fuck that man, I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole goddesses’ damned wasteland. Whoever took it off me can keep it, like fuck am I going to die twice for it. Not for a few measly caps when I can hit the jackpot. I’m going to head on down there to the strip myself, win big at the casinos. First need the caps to gamble though. Some quarry worker offered me a few hundred to clear out some critters in the quarry for him. As long as it isn’t hellhounds, I’ll be fine. Yep, things are looking up for me.”

The recording cut off there. I couldn’t help but pity the pony. He was so sure in his luck that he died for it. I also guessed this Neigas place was one of the big pony civilisations. Well, if I was going to build a life now, I guess there is as just a good a place as any. I went to where the pipbuck said ‘inventory’ to check if it had adjusted to me. It had, but there was one thing which seemed rather ominous to me. Under my equipped weapon, my revolver, it said something most unnerving.

“Deadset’s misfortune”.

Footnote: Level up
New perk: Travel Light-- While wearing light or no barding, you run 10% faster.
Quest Perk: Blessing of the Draconequus--The god of luck and chance has smiled upon you. Every 6th shot from the gun ‘Deadset’s misfortune’ has the chance to cause an unforeseen set of events. Outcome is affected by luck stat. Be warned, the Draconequus is a fickle god, and his gift can just as easily be a curse.

Chapter 3: Make a Difference

Chapter 3: Make a difference

Trapped.

I was trapped, and in more ways than one. Physically, I was trapped in a small, dark cave which I had successfully caused a rockslide in. I was lucky not to be crushed. I was trapped emotionally because of the mark on my flank. I was a tribal repairpony without a tribe. To anyone else, it would seem like madness to think I felt trapped, given I was destined to do the same thing for the rest of my life in the tribe, while now that I was an outcast, I could do anything I wanted. My response is how can you be free when the only thing you want is to return back to those very ponies who want me dead?

Maybe it’s for the best that I just lay down and die in here. I couldn’t make a difference for my tribe, or for anyone else. Out here I was useless, even now with a miracle machine strapped to my leg. The previous owner got himself killed trying to make a life for himself, even if it was one that seemed to be based on greed.

I had listened to his recording a number of times. Apparently there was a pony out there generous enough to just give this marvel away. I found that amazing myself. Why any pony would want to part with such a special thing, I would never know. He also seemed to be a medicalpony, given how he saved this pony from a bullet to the head.

Suddenly I winced, remembering Footlock again. My medicalpony died from a bullet to the head. I didn’t want to know if there was a way she could have been saved. I wanted to believe it was out of my hooves, that I did everything I could. I guess I’d have to talk to the good doctor to find out.

Checking the Pipbuck’s map, I guessed it must have been the place marked ‘Hoofsprings’, not too far away. I had to say, I was pretty disappointed with this traveller. Given one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen, and he seemed to have travelled less than four miles. Only three places were marked on the map, Hellhound quarry, where I was, the Collerodeo River Memorial, and Hoofsprings.

It seemed like such a waste. I set a marker on the map for Hoofsprings, and suddenly a holographic framework appeared before my eyes, an arrow pointing in the direction of Hoofsprings. After getting over the shock of having it thrust into my face, I began to smile. This was going to come in handy. I also noticed little red marks on it. Unlike the arrow, these were moving. They must have been the Hellhounds, remembering that the trader from a long time ago told me his Pipbuck could spot hostiles.

Brilliant, I had a plan. Avoid the monstrous Hellhounds, make my way to Hoofsprings, talk to their doctor, and make it up as I go along from there. Brilliant plan, Deadhead, how are you going to avoid the Hellhounds? They noticed you the moment you walked in, and for that matter, how are you even going to get out of this cave?

I drooped. Of course it wouldn’t work. I used all my luck in simply making it to the cave and surviving. There was no way it would last me getting out alive. Not to mention the Hellhounds were probably pretty pissed with me, given how I managed to kill two of their kind. More through chance than skill, but still, I’d be pissed with me if I was them.

I turned up the brightness of the Pipbuck and shone it against the pile of boulders blocking my exit. There was no way I was digging my way through the lower layers of rock, it must have been three or four meters thick. However, further up the pile, the rocks didn’t seem to be so large or strong. If there was something I could use to shift them, I should be able to squeeze my way out.

I decided now would be as good time as any time check the body of the pony who I shared the cave with. He didn’t have much. His barding was so slashed it wasn’t even worth taking. He had a meagre amount of caps on him, and his gun, which I recognised to be a 10mm pistol, was in such bad condition that I thought if I tried to fire it, chances are it’d just break in my mouth. Still, I could always use it for spare parts, or maybe sell it if I ever got the chance.

As I put it in my saddlebags however, my Pipbuck put that second thought to rest, given how it had assigned it a value of - caps. How did it know how much a pistol that I’d just found was worth? How could it have such a thorough understanding of the trade process, that it could just say without doubt, that this gun, which if nothing was useful scrap and parts, wasn’t worth a single cap? This was equally annoying given how it had decided to assign my revolver, which it also took the liberty of renaming, over a thousand caps worth. How could my gun be worth so much? It never even hits anything! And whenever it did, I usually regretted it.

Great, I’m arguing with machines again.

I decided to ignore my rather rude metal companion for a bit, and continued to search the dead pony. I couldn’t find anything else on him bar a red stick of plastic. Not having a clue what it was, I decided to put my annoyance with it aside and consulted my Pipbuck. It seemed to be patronising me now ‘Dynamite- light the fuse to get rid of rocks. Permanently!’

Now that just seemed like too much good luck for me. I needed something to get rid of rocks, and I was provided with something that boasted it could do it.

Of course, luck is a fickle mistress, isn’t it? I had nothing to light the fuse with. I rechecked the body of the dead pony, hoping that he may have something that could light it. Nope, as per usual with my luck, the door closes, and the window opens just enough for me to see a way out, but not enough to squeeze through. Great Phoenix roast my cock with her breath, this was aggravating!

Think. Think your way out of this one, Deadset. This is perfect for you, no ponies’ lives hang in the balance by your choice, so think! If it needs its fuse to be lit, then it requires fire. That, I imagine, would travel down the fuse and into the insides. That must provide whatever energy is needed for it to do…whatever it does. Remove rocks I guess. Try shooting it?

I stopped for a second. That might just work. If the bullet could penetrate the case, it might be able to kick it into doing whatever it is meant to do. Not like I had much else to try.

I grabbed the stick in my mouth and began to climb up the side of the rocky mound. Near the top, I found a nice little place to lay the stick of dynamite. Pushing it in place, I began to descend very ungracefully down the pile. I thought it would be best for me to have some space between me and the dynamite before I shot it. After all, I had no idea what it would do.

Taking about five steps back from the base of the mound, I withdrew the revolver and started to reload it.

There must be a better way to reload this than by individual bullets. Maybe I’ll be able to look into it after my time with the doctor.

Once it was fully loaded, I clenched it with my teeth and took aim. I knew that it would almost certainly take me a few shots before I hit it, but I had quite a surplus of revolver ammo anyway, so it didn’t bother me too much. I steadied myself, taking aim as best I could, and then began pulling back on the trigger. As expected, five loud cracks echoed around the cave, and five misses, some embarrassingly far off the mark. I sighed. One shot left and then I have to reload.

This could get repetitive.

I re-aimed the revolver and took the last shot. The explosion that followed knocked me clean off my hooves.

*** *** ***

I looked up at my dad. He was always so supportive of me, always there for me. Being an earth pony himself, he understood what it was like for me, not being able to use my horn.

Mother never was there for me after blade-master Sixleaf died. She was promoted up in the ranks of the warriors of the tribe, so dad had spent more time with me to make up for it. He was one of the village scouts, so while he would be gone for a few days at a time, whenever he returned he would spend the rest of his time with me.

Sometimes he’d bring back things with him. I loved the things he’d bring back. This time he brought back a light colourful ball. I couldn’t wait to find Footlock and show her it.

We played with it for hours. I loved the way it bounced across the ground. Dad just watched us and waved at me, smiling whenever I told him to watch me do a trick. It was when I was bouncing the ball repeatedly on my head though that he looked really impressed.

…four, five, six, damn it, I missed.

Wait, dad isn’t looking at me, and why isn’t he smiling? Suddenly he got up and started running towards me and Footlock. Is dad coming to play with us? I heard a light clunking noise and turned to see a strange metal ball rolling towards me. I didn’t want to play with it, my ball was far better.

Everything that happened next was a blur. Dad ran into me and Footlock, jumping on top and covering us. There was a loud bang that rang out in my ears, pain and heat washed through my entire body. My eyes were blinded by a bright white light.

When my senses finally returned to me, the village was on fire, and other loud bangs and flashes of light were happening everywhere. I could see a grey mare holding more of those metal balls in her mouth, and there, on her flank, was a picture of one in mid-explosion. Where was dad? He could protect me.

I tried to stand up, but my legs were too weak and I collapsed under my own weight. I began to crawl, looking for him. I found all I could of him near a tent. He was missing both his hind legs and one foreleg. I crawled to him, placing his one leg over me and started to cry.

*** *** ***

When I came around, the dust was still settling. My entire body hurt and my ears were ringing, but the rocks were gone. Mostly. Well, to be honest, it was more that they had just been moved by a great force. At the very least I could exit now.
I shakily got to my feet, head still ringing. The revolver was still in my mouth, so I went and put that back into my saddlebags. I could barely think straight. Taking slow steps forward, I had forgotten why I was even in that cave. Still, all’s well that ends we-…why are my hooves not touching the ground? Why am I flying? Why does my side hurt? Why is the ground coming towards me worryingly fast?

Crunch.

I landed on the hard ground and skidded along. Pain was shooting through my right hindleg. Oh for god’s sake, please don’t be broken! I looked in between my forelegs and-- THE ZEBRA SNAP MY NECK IN THE NIGHT I CAN SEE THE FUCKING BONE STICKING OUT!

Seeing that really caused me to wake up to the here and now. Adrenaline started to pump through my body like never before as I looked around and saw a growing number of Hellhounds build up ahead of me, looking ready to charge. Fuck! I can’t die now. I got away from these things once; I had to be able to do it again.

I got back up on my hooves, but the moment any weight was put down on my right hindleg, I collapsed in a heap, screaming in agony. I must have something that can save me. I must do! The Hellhounds were now charging towards me. I was certain that they’d be ripping into me in ten seconds flat.

I went into my saddlebag and pulled out the first thing I could get hold of. It was the thing my Pipbuck labelled a Stealthbuck. ‘For when you’re in a tight spot’.

I’ve never been in a tighter one.

I had no idea what it would do, or even how it worked, but I was out of options and time. I shut my eyes, prayed, and slammed it down onto my Pipbuck. There was a click and a slight whooshing noise. I was expecting to be torn into hundreds of tiny pieces of Deadset. Instead, one of the Hellhounds called out,

“Pony gone! Can’t even smell pony. Must be nearby. Go look for stupid pony!”

I slowly opened one eye, and to my astonishment the Hellhounds were turning away and walking off in different directions. I slumped on the ground, letting out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Thank you gods, and thank you stealthbuck and Pipbuck.

I looked down at my hooves and had to stop myself from letting out a scream. It had taken away my legs! I tried to find them with my mouth. I could feel them, but I couldn’t see them. It was then that I saw the slight shimmer of the outline of what I guessed were where my legs were. I looked back behind me, and there same was there. I was all but invisible. I had no idea how long this would last for, so got to my hooves, keeping my weight off my mangled hindleg, and began to limp down the quarry.

*** *** ***

Progress was slow, and occasionally I would accidently put weight on my bad leg, or kick a rock I didn’t see with it and would have to stop myself from screaming out in pain, not to mention cause my bleeding to accelerate. While the stealthbuck made me invisible, and if the Hellhound is to be believed, masks my smell as well, I really didn’t want to see whether it would also make me silent, just in case it didn’t.

As I walked, I brought up the holographic framework that pointed me in the direction I needed to go. I couldn’t help but be thankful that the pony I wanted to find happened to be a medicalpony as well.

Now that I wasn’t charging down the quarry at breakneck speeds as I did last time, I was able to get a far better look at the area, and was regretting it. Corpses of all sorts of animal and pony littered the ground, along with the bones of many others. The entire quarry smelled faintly of rotting flesh when I thought about it.

Looking at the bodies, it seemed that the Hellhounds didn’t kill to eat. Very few of the corpses had any evidence of being chewed at all. They were just left there to rot and decay. I guessed the Hellhounds were just extremely territorial.

I must have been limping along for a good twenty minutes before I reached the entrance of the quarry at last. The Hellhounds had come frighteningly close to accidentally walking into me on a number of occasions, but thankfully each time they missed me by a hairs breadth. The gods sure were having a fun time toying with me, repeatedly putting me in harm’s way, before snatching me back at the last second.

Maybe I should start just praying to a specific deity, instead of praying to them all. But I also don’t want to risk receiving the ire of any of them. Especially since they could turn me into a charred corpse in one blinding flash of anger. No, better to stay on their good side I think.

I began to limp away from the thrice damned quarry, never intending to return there again. I’m pretty sure my monster hunting days are over. Now just keep limping down this rock line and hope that no hungry animals find me.

I reached Hoofsprings by nightfall. My journey down the four miles of black rock line had been pretty uneventful besides the stealthbuck wearing off a few minutes after I got away from the quarry. I was endlessly grateful that no passing raider happened to stumble upon me. With my leg, I doubted I would be able to last five seconds against them.

Like you could last much longer at full health.

Shut the fuck up! I just survived going in and out of a Hellhound infested quarry. Although my experiences in the wasteland were pretty paltry, I imagined that was something worthy of boasting, right? You didn’t survive by yourself. The gods kept throwing you favours and you know it. Oh, just shut up. I’m too tired and lightheaded to argue with myself now.

Hey, look, there are some buildings over there. Buildings mean ponies, and ponies mean… erm… something, right? Maybe carrot cakes? Hey, when did the world start to spin like this? Can somepony please tell me when the world decides it wants to spin from now on? Ooofff. Oh hello ground, mind if I sleep here for a bit? No? Thank you.

Finally everything went black.

*** *** ***

When I woke up I was lying on my back on a surprisingly comfortable bed. I couldn't have walked here, last thing I can remember was the ground telling me how much it liked it when I slept on it.

I looked forward at my hindlegs. They looked like normal hindlegs to me. No bone poking out of the side of it. Remembering that grotesque sight, I suddenly felt my food rush up.

I leant over the side of the bed, and someone had thoughtfully placed a bucket down there. Aiming as best as I could, I threw up yet again. This was happening a little more often than I was enjoying now.

“You’re looking a lot better now.”

I looked up to see an elderly earth stallion walking into the room. He was a dark rusty brown with a white mane that was greying around the edges.

“I don’t feel it.” I said, the bitter taste of bile strong in my mouth. Actually, that was a lie. Ignoring that my food was now in a bucket, and that my mouth was burning from the acidic residue, I hadn’t felt better for days. Not a single ache or pain. My hoof was still cracked, but I was just used to that now. I had guessed he was the doctor I was looking for, but my theory was confirmed when I saw an image of a leg brace on his flank.

“Now don’t be all mopey like that. Most ponies don’t survive a brush with a Hellhound. You should consider yourself lucky. The name’s doc Muffinhair.” I did consider myself lucky.

“Deadset.”’ I reached forward and shook his hoof. He looked at the Pipbuck on my leg, frowning slightly.

“And would you care to tell me where you found that?”

I didn’t want to meet his gaze. I knew it was his, I just hoped he didn’t want it back. I could lie, say I bought it. Would he believe me? I would have guessed these things were very expensive and rare. I couldn’t tell. The damn thing put a price on everything I had with me apart from itself. I was never a good liar, better be honest.

“I found it on the body of a dead pony in Hellhound quarry. I thought the previous owner had no need for it anymore.” I gave a weak smile. He didn’t laugh.

“I told that buck not to do anything too strenuous for a couple of days. Charging into a colony of Hellhounds is probably one of the more stupid things he could have done,” The pony slumped down into a chair.

“And there I was being an old fool, thinking that he could make a difference.”

I felt sorry for the old pony before me. The news that he wasted his hopes on a pony he saved from death seemed to hit him hard.

“How do you know it’s the same pony?”

I knew it was, but if I could make him feel better about himself, it was worth lying. The look he gave me made it clear he wasn’t going to buy it. I felt bad having it clamped to me.

“Do you want it back?” I held my leg out to him. He appeared to think about it for a second, then looked away.

“Don’t worry about it. I try to help where I can, and I don’t need it any more. I’m just the old sawbones of a quiet town in the middle of no-where. Anyway…”

He got up, and gestured me to do the same.

“Allow me to explain quite what I did for you. First I repaired the broken and damaged tissue, gave you the standard potion and sew-up job, but I have a good feeling about you boy, so I decided to do a little bit more for you. I gave you a shot or two of a special serum I have. Reinforces your bones. What’s the point of fixing you up, if you’re only going to break it all over again? Don’t worry, no extra cost. You can keep the Pipbuck free as well.”

My bones are reinforced? As useful as that sounds, I wasn't sure how I felt about having my bones altered. Especially without being asked beforehand. On the other hoof however, I probably was going to bleed out if it wasn’t for him, and he was being far too generous for me to even begin to criticize him for it.

“How much do I owe you then?”

“One-hundred and fifty caps.”

That seemed awfully cheap, especially compared to tribal prices, where just fixing a leg would cost me a hundred caps, and that didn’t come with the bonus perks of full body repair, bone strengthening, and Pipbuck thrown in as well. I was about to open my mouth to say deal when he continued;

“Or, you could help me with a little problem Hoofsprings is having, and I’d even give you a couple of healing potions and shots of med-x for your trouble.”

I stopped. Was he really going to give me all this for free, for doing one errand?

Then I remembered that the dead pony in Hellhound quarry, the one whose Pipbuck I now wore, went in there because of an errand. Better find out more before I just say yes.

“I’m interested, tell me more.”

*** *** ***

It turns out not long after I had arrived; the ponies of Hoofsprings received another group of guests. These ones however, were not so pleasant. They were ponies from somewhere called the Commonwealth, and they had apparently threatened to burn down the small town. Doc Muffinhair didn’t know much else about the situation going on; he was too busy tending to me. He sent me down to the town’s saloon to ask around a little more, offering to answer any other questions I had when I returned.

I must say, this town is awfully friendly. The bartender, a mare a bit older than me with a cutie mark of a glass of what I assumed was water, let me fill up my canteens free of charge, and even gave me my first glass of water at half price. The saloon had a musky smell around it I couldn’t quite place. The old hay yellow buck sitting next to me wearing a thatched straw hat complained about this.

“Why’re yah givin’ free drinks when *hic* the rest’ve us gotta pay?” She chose to ignore him and he decided to wander off, walking in an awfully indirect fashion. I was surprised he didn’t just fall over.

“Ignore Ol’ Pete, he’s just had a lil’ too much scotch. So, what else can I help ya with?”

“What do you know about those Commonwealth ponies? Why did they threaten your town?”

She frowned, pouring herself a glass of a darker liquid, one that matched her cutie mark a little more accurately.

“Not rightly sure to be honest. They say their robot is busted, and that they needed some spare parts. They said they knew we had ‘em, but I ain’t never heard of them before in my life, ne’er mind seen ‘em before. We jus’ don’t have what they want. When I told ‘em that, they just said that they’ll burn the town down if we dun give ‘em the parts.” She took a swig from her glass.

“What did they ask for?”

“Just some strange soundin’ metal bits. Ask ‘em yourself if you’d like. They ain’t hostile yet. They’re just a few minutes trot from ‘ere I think.” I got up from the bar.

“Thank you. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Just if ya think shit’s gonna go down, talk ta Sunny, she’ll help ya with defences.”

That struck a chord with me, as if I had already decided that I was going to stick around for a fight. Just because I managed to survive a run-in with some Hellhounds, it doesn’t make me a fighter.

I made my way out of the saloon in search for these Commonwealth ponies. I also wondered what a ‘robot’ was.
As the bartender had said, I found a small group of heavily armed ponies. I had to admit, if they really did want to destroy the town, they could probably do so with ease. There were eight of them, all heavily armed with weapons that glowed with strange energies.

I’d only ever seen such a gun once before. It was owned by a griffon bodyguard of a caravan that came to the tribe. Said griffon chose not to part with it, so I never got a close look at it. Now however, I had a plethora of them pointing directly at me.

“Don’t shoot! I just want to know what’s going on. I’ll keep my gun holstered.”

I knew that there was no point in me even drawing out my gun to shoot. I was such a bad shot, all it would achieve is me getting plugged with holes. That is, of course, if these glowing guns fired bullets, but I somehow doubted it.

A sickly green unicorn with a surprisingly well kept brown and purple mane pointed her rifle at a rock and fired. A green bolt of pulsating light burst from the end of the weapon and struck the rock. It glowed brightly for a second, before dissolving into a puddle of green goo.

“Magical rifles! Don’t try anything or else the same will happen to you!” She must be the group’s leader.

The pony spoke with a strange accent, as if she didn’t come from here, but some other distant land. I guessed that was the Commonwealth.

“Ok, I won’t try anything. Can I step closer to you now?” I yelled to her, trying not to upset the pony with the gun that could melt me, one more thing to add to the growing list of things that I didn’t know much about.

She nodded, lowering her rifle. All the other ponies did so as well, besides the largest one who had two of those rifles bigger brothers strapped to his side. I certainly did not want to piss this lot off.

I slowly walked towards them.

“So, you the one the town sent to surrender with?”

"No, I actually don’t live there, just wondering what’s going on.”

“It doesn’t concern you then. Piss off!” I better play my cards now, before I get melted. I really, really don’t want to get melted!

“I know that you’re looking for some parts, and that you think they have them, but won’t give them to you.” The unicorn looked at me suspiciously, but then decided not to bother asking how I knew that. She probably worked out somepony told me. They weren’t exactly being subtle.

“Pretty much. We know they have them. We offered to buy the parts from them, but they refused to sell, claiming they don’t have them. We know they’re lying.” I decided if I was going to help, I needed to do a little deeper digging.

“What parts do you need?”

“Some pretty basic stuff first, scrap metal, a couple of conductors, some scrap wiring and a spark battery. We could find that stuff easily enough if we wanted.” They could, I had all of this stuff in my workshop back at the tribe at one time or another. It was all relatively common.

“What we need the most is a new central processor.” Now that is something I’d never heard of.

“How do you know they have one?”

“Because they have a working water talisman, and each one of them has one inside it. They’re probably too stupid to even understand how it even works though.”

I had heard of them before, and they sounded fantastic. They were tiny little things that purified water perfectly. My tribes purifier was good enough, but they were large, often broke down, and the water tasted like crap. These talismans were perfect. Although I didn’t believe it, I was even told that under the right circumstances, it could even create clean water out of nothing.

“So you want to kill everyone who lives in Hoofsprings, take one of the few ways of getting clean water in the wasteland, and tear it apart because…” I knew the great sea-serpent would not be pleased with me if I let that happen. The unicorn however didn’t even seem fazed by the fact that her plan would anger a very powerful god, gladly finishing off my sentence.

“Because Sgt Hoofcamp is broken.” What?

She saw the look of confusion on my face and gestured me to follow her.

“Hoofcamp is one of the Commonwealths combat robots. Each one is priceless to us, and to our survival. Technology is wasted on you wastelanders out here; you’ve forgotten what it was for. We at the Commonwealth however have not. We remembered how the ministry of arcane science and technology created and used these machines, and we intend to return the wastes back to how they were.”

She stopped before a strange, spidery looking machine. I had never seen anything like it. It had arms ending in another magical weapon, a round saw, and what I guessed would be a flamethrower. How this thing was able to move though was beyond me.

I was absolutely in love with it. I had to get this beauty fixed. Something so…gorgeous couldn’t just be left in the dirt…But I can’t let them destroy Hoofsprings. The ponies there were too kind for me, gave me too much to simply abandon them. There had to be another way.

“I want to help you, but do you know of any other place that might have one of these processors or water talismans?” Her mouth twisted into a smile. Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. This was so not going to be worth 150 caps.

*** *** ***

She sent me off to a place called a ‘stable’. Apparently ponies used to live in these massive underground caverns for some reason. I can’t say I could understand why anypony would have wanted to do that, but apparently they did. But what I found more important was that it should have a water talisman deep inside.

I did have to worry slightly though when I asked her why they just didn’t go there themselves. She had replied, “Why would I risk that when there’s a perfectly usable one here?” I guessed that ponies were using that one didn’t mean much to her, particularly when she only gave me twelve hours, else they would raze the quiet town to the ground.

When I got to where the stable was however, I was met by a rather strange welcome. A strange metal ball with wings, not looking too dissimilar to a bloatfly, was hovering before an entrance to the cave which the stable was located in. It wasn’t attacking me or anything, hardly moving if not for the fluttering of its wings and a slight bobbing.

I trotted closer to it, inspecting it carefully. It was in bad condition. I was considering shooting it and searching it for parts, after all, it may have what I’m looking for inside, when it spoke.

“Are you sure you want to go in there?” I jumped away in fright.

It spoke in a tinny, monotone voice. It turned to look at me more squarely. Was this a robot too? Was it alive? Could it think?

“I…I’m looking for a water talisman, I was told there was one in here.” It didn’t say anything for a few moments, before speaking again;

“Why would you need one of those?” Was I really being questioned by a ball of flying metal? Come to think of it, was I really even talking to a flying ball of metal? I thought I was going crazy when I argued with my Pipbuck, but this was another level entirely.

”To help ponies. If I don’t, the ponies will die, but I can try and make a difference. I have to help.” The flying thing remained silent for a little while longer, before speaking once more.

“There is a water talisman in there, but be careful. It’s not the only thing down there. One more thing. Do not just give those ponies it. Do not trust them, Deadset.”

What!? I froze in shock. “How do you know my name!?” The ball gave off some static, then began to play upbeat tuba music and began to float off. Did I just hear that? Did it really say my name? And what did it mean “don’t trust them”? Still, it did say that there was a water talisman in here, so I guess nothing has changed really.

*** *** ***

I descended into the cave. It was littered with the charred skeletons of long dead ponies. There were a few radroaches as well. Finally, an enemy I knew I could kill. With a couple of loud squishes, I was left as the only thing alive in the tunnel. Continuing down, I came to a large metal opening in the shape of a giant cog.

As I stepped through it, I noticed a giant metal cog to the side of it that must have slotted in place. Well, she did say the ponies had sealed themselves inside here.

*Click*

My ears perked up. What was that? I crouched, waiting. Nothing. Must have been my imag-

*Click*

I crouched again, bringing up my Pipbuck an activating the holographic framework. There was no red. No enemies, so what was that…

*Click*

Oh, that’s…strange, it was coming from my Pipbuck. Must be something wrong with it. I’ll look into that once I’m done here.
Breaking from my crouched position, I began to trot through the dark, metal room to a set of stairs leading down. Now, if I was some crazy pony wanting to live underground, where would I keep my water supply?

As I slowly made my way down the staircase, I was met by a corridor that had barely lit signs on the roof, all pointing in different directions. “Maintenance” “Main atrium” “Residential” and “Dining Hall”.

I guess the dining hall would be a good start, right? After all, ponies want water with their food.

I followed where the sign pointed me, and soon I was led to a huge metal room with massively long tables with chairs scattered around. From the ceiling hung flags declaring the overmare as the benevolent leader. The room was quite a mess. It looked like the ponies here left in quite a hurry. Many had left their half-finished, now rotting food.

I began to search around, my Pipbuck still giving me an occasional click. It was getting quite annoying now.

“You better stop that soon! Don’t think I won’t stick a screwdriver in you to make you shut up!”

*Click*

I don’t think it heard me.

Fine, I’ll concentrate on looking for this water talisman thing. I walked around the tables and towards the kitchen. It looked as big a mess as the dining hall. Whatever happened here, ponies sure did want to get out in a hurry. Maybe they just suddenly realised how stupid it was to live underground.

After much searching, I didn’t find any water talisman, but I did find a few boxes of food. I realised I was actually quite hungry so started to tuck in. I would have found more, but it looked like the place had been pretty heavily ransacked long ago. My Pipbuck gave off a few more clicks as I ate. Seriously, what was wrong with it? This was starting to get annoying.

I left the dining room, talismanless, but with a belly full of food, and decided to search maintenance. As I trotted through the metal tunnels, a large metal wall stood in my way. That wasn’t right; the arrow pointed at it, telling me maintenance was just through it. It even had maintenance written on it in big yellow letters. Could stableponies travel through walls? I hoped not, or else this would make my search a bit harder.

I turned around and headed into the main atrium instead. I was fairly unimpressed. Just another big empty metal room, apart from some more flags hanging down saying “The overmare is the Law”, and two other signs. One labelled “recreation”, and another labelled “Overmare’s office”. I guessed this Overmare was this tribes’ Elder.

Without leads for where this elusive water talisman was, I decided to ascend the flight of stairs that the sign told me to follow. The door to the office was open, and the room had a dark green glow to it, similar to that of my Pipbuck.

As I entered the room, I looked around, and suddenly froze. There, in front of me, stood the oracle. But the oracle couldn’t move. It was permanently in the cave of ancestors…unless this tribe had their own oracle? I walked slowly up to it. I could still remember how I had to communicate with it last time. Would I have to do it this time?

I looked up at where the words were, but they were different to what I expected. Instead it just had a long list, currently highlighting ‘entry 1’. Not expecting much to happen, I pressed the enter key. To my surprise, the words flashed away, and were replaced with new words.

Entry 1-

Well, this is it. Caramel Twirl standing in for my first day as overmare. And the megaspells are already beginning to drop. To think, had we been a few hours later in closing the seal, we might all be dead now. Ponies are scared, but I told them they’re perfectly safe. I decided not to tell them that our stable was chosen to act as a storage house for a balefire bomb of our own. Down in maintenance no less. What the fuck was Stabletec thinking? Why are we holding onto one of the things we’re trying to hide from? What if it goes off? We could all die. I have done what I can. I’ve sealed and permanently locked the room which holds the bomb. As long as nopony ever finds it, and I’m the only one to know it’s in here, it shouldn’t cause a problem. I also ordered ponies to tear down the posters everywhere that have the slogan “fear the bomb” on it, as well as all the other propaganda that’s hung from the rafters. This stable is one of free thought, not one where I’m the ultimate arbiter of ponies fate.

Balefire bomb? What’s that? My curiosity got the better of me, and I opened the next entry.

Entry 2-

What the fuck Stabletec? I could kind of understand why you had a fucking bomb in here in the first place, but then why does every single computer terminal say “fear the bomb” on it the moment you start it up? Why does every textbook in our school make our children have nightmares of being incinerated by bombs? Why does my broadcast always start and end with one of you fuckers saying “fear the bomb”? I thought the whole bloody point of a stable was so we didn’t have to fear the bombs, not to become so paranoid of them. Things are bad enough as it is, without you making it so much worse.

Entry 3-

Technicians are starting to ask about what’s behind the sealed door. I can’t tell them. They’re all being brainwashed by the propaganda you sick bastards have filled this place with. Ponies are now saying “fear the bomb” in their fucking sleep! If they find out that they’re sleeping on top of a fucking megaspell, there’ll be a riot. They’ll want my head if they realise I’ve been lying this entire time. I panicked and said I didn’t know. It won’t be long before I’ll be asked to open it, for fear of there being a bomb in there. Also, maintenance is warning me that there has been a little bit of a problem with the mainframe wiring and that I shouldn’t try to control any doors up here for a bit. Things are getting better and better.

Entry 4-

More maintenance problems now. Apparently the problem is a little harder for them to fix than they initially suspected. For fucks sake, Stabletec, we’ve only been in here for what, a couple of weeks? We’re meant to be able to live down here for centuries if need be, but it can’t even last a fucking month without problems? Doors are now starting to open and close seemingly randomly. Thankfully the door to them bomb has yet to open, but I fear it’ll only be a matter of time.

Entry 5-

Tick tock tick tock. It’ll only be a matter of time before that door opens. Can’t let anypony find it. I’ve sealed the maintenance wing off. It’s a small price to pay to make sure I’m safe. Nopony will miss a few tens of maintenance ponies. Of course they won’t. They’re all just busy bees, working for their queen. That reminds me, I replaced the decorations back to the set Stabletec had provided. Should let everypony know I am in charge. No mutiny here. No riots here. No bombs here. Everything is perfect. Everything is safe. No need to fear the bomb when it isn’t here.

Entry 6-

Oooooh those naughty maintenance ponies. They broke into the forbidden room and found the bomb. At least it’s in maintenance, and not in the stable. I’m safe. I can’t fear what isn’t here. If they don’t stop playing with that bomb though, I’m going to have to invade maintenance and kill them. Nopony asks about them, as long as there is no bomb, everypony is happy and safe. Everything is happy and safe here in the stable.

Entry 7-

They set it off! As an act of war against the stable, those bastards set it off! I was lied to. It wasn’t a balefire bomb. It was a seeper. Radiation is flooding the stable. Those maintenanceponies can rot down there in their hole. I’ve opened the stable seal. We’re going to rebuild the nation of the vault on the surface. It’s been a month and a half, must be safe on the surface by now. Oooohh, look at my little workers scurry out. Fear the bomb, fear the bomb. I must now leave you computer, my life as a queen begins on the surface.

There were no more entries. She went insane. She had gone entirely insane, killing off ponies because of the fear that they’d find out her secret.

I still didn’t understand why ponies wanted to go underground, something about megaspells? I didn’t know what they were. To be honest, I barely understood what radiation was, just knew it could kill you. Pity I couldn’t tell what it looked like.

It was then that I noticed under the entries a heading saying “unlock maintenance door”. I clicked enter and heard a loud screeching as old and rusted mechanisms sprung to life. I guess I should return there next.

*** *** ***

When I made it down to maintenance, the metal wall had gone. Judging by the grooves in the wall, it must have slid up into the ceiling. My Pipbuck was now clicking far more rapidly. Was that clicking a sign of radiation? Could be, would mean that my Pipbuck wasn’t broken.

I went through the doorway marked ‘maintenance’ and noticed pony corpses lying on the floor. If it wasn’t because I knew the place had been sealed, I would have guessed the raiders had been at them. There wasn’t a single strand of mane or coat on them, and huge chunks of their skin had just rotted away. I could easily see bone in a number of areas on them. The stench was disgustingly foul.

Better make this quick. I rushed through the metal corridors, lit only by sparking machinery, looking for anything that could resemble the water talisman, finding nothing besides more dead ponies. I ran into a dead end.

I was about to turn around when I noticed, attached to a pipe, was a small, blue…thing. I moved towards it with my mouth, clutching it with my teeth. It was cold to touch. This must be it. I yanked it off, putting it in my saddlebag when a rough, raspy voice sounded out of the darkness.

“Put that back, the overmare can’t have it!”

Sea-serpent swallow me up whole, did that make me jump! Somepony was alive down here.

“Where are you? I’m not with the overmare.” A pony stepped out of the shadows, except… it wasn’t a pony. It was the corpse of a pony. Oh night goddess, ram your horn down my throat! Corpses can walk and talk now? The corpse bared its decayed, yellow teeth;

“Lies! The overmare always lies! She can’t have it! She said there was no bomb!” The monstrosity roared at me.

Further down the corridor, I could see another corpse starting to get up. No, this was definitely impossible. When something died, it stayed dead. The dead don’t walk. The talking corpse continued.

“Get this thief, boys! Do to him what we’re gonna do to the overmare!” With that he slunk back into the shadow he came out of, while the other corpse I could see began to charge at me. I quickly unholstered Misfortune. I hope these things don’t bite as hard as raiders do.

*** *** ***

I could have sworn that I had said I was giving up monster hunting. Why the fuck was I having to fight monstrous dead ponies then? After the first one, none of them seemed to be as chatty
.
One of the monsters lunged out from the shadows and bit hard on my hindleg. I let out a scream as I dropped my gun.

If anything, they bit harder than raiders. I was now immensely grateful the doctor had strengthened my bones; otherwise I think it would have bitten clean through it. I really needed to stop getting into fights.

That or find some decent barding. Actually, any barding would do.

I bucked the corpse that was currently chewing on one of my hindlegs, causing it to stumble back slightly. I had no idea how many of these things there were down here, and they seemed to just come out of the shadows, but at least I haven’t had more than one come at me at the same time. I just had to kill each one before another appeared.

I spun round, pulling out the badly damaged 10mm pistol with my teeth. I hadn’t checked to see whether it had any ammo loaded, and I certainly didn’t happen to have any spare lying around.

Aiming at the monster’s head, I began to pull the trigger. The gun gave off some very unhealthy sounding noises as it fired. The corpse barely seemed affected by being shot. Finally something snapped in the gun. I kept pulling the trigger, but it didn’t have the courtesy to even pretend it was firing.

Lightpony bite off my balls, why was my luck getting so bad? I threw the pistol at the dead pony and it shattered into pieces on contact. The dead pony just started to shamble back towards me. My gun was around my hooves somewhere, but it was too dark to see it easily, and with a dead pony coming at me I barely had time to look.

Without thinking, I struck out with my forehoof. Fuck, that hurt, why did I use my cracked hoof to punch it? I must have something harder than it? The monster stumbled back, giving me room to breathe again.

I looked at my hoof. Why did I have to shoot it when I was younger? I then noticed the Pipbuck on the same leg. That’s pretty hard isn’t it? Well here comes the corpse again, time to see if it’ll work. I lifted my foreleg up, and smashed it down hard on its skull. The monster flinched. I hit it again and again until it was sprawling on the floor. Without thinking about it, I quickly withdrew the rusty knife and plunged it into its neck and twisted. It let out a gurgling howl before finally lying limp. May the great phoenix embrace you this time around.

I very nearly didn’t kill the first one. It was hard to find the will to pull the trigger, even when it had me pinned down, its gnashing jaws only a few inches away from my face.

I was barely able to hold it back before I found the guts to fire. I can still remember the gory fountain I created when the bullet passed through its’ head and out the other side, brains splattering in all directions. It was then that I had finally realised that it was either me or them, and these ponies were dead already.

Suddenly I threw up. It wasn’t because of the smell of the place, it smelled awful, but the raiders still had the trophy for vileness. It was because I felt like my insides were boiling and melting into soup. This place was like poison. I had to get out of here.

Find my revolver, I need it. If another corpse should find me, it’ll have no problem eating me now. I hated being weak and useless, and I had never felt it more in my life than now. I caught a glint in the corner of my eye. Thanks to the years of care and polish, combined with the lack of use it ever received, it still practically glowed in the dark. I grabbed it and started to run.

I was nowhere near as fast as I hoped. Running when your insides feel like mush is never easy. I’d barely run for a minute when I could see the exit from maintenance. I’d never been more pleased to see a door before. As I began to run to it, I heard the rough voice again.

“Stop right there overmare scum!”

I turned to see a group of walking corpses behind me, with what I imagined was the leader in the centre. They were given an eerie blue silhouette by a large sparking machine behind them. Oh come on, I was nearly out of here. I’ve already re-killed two of them, why couldn’t they leave me alone? There was definitely too many of them for me to fight.

Since one of them was willing to talk, I had to talk my way out of this. My stomach lurched. Every second I spent in here, I was dying more. I had to do this quickly. Carefully placing my revolver on the floor, I was trying to find the words to say to stop hungry monsters from eating my brains.

“Don’t get any closer, I will shoot you.”

“So you admit you’re with the overmare now! I knew that bitch would try to destroy us further!”

I don’t think the tough guy approach was going to help here. Didn’t help that I most certainly wasn’t a tough guy. By the gods, I could feel my stomach melt.

“N…no, I just need the water talisman. Ponies will die without it.”

“A likely story! Either you hand over the talisman now and die quickly, or resist and we’ll tear you limb from limb!”

To me, negotiations were over. I wasn’t going to die down here; I wasn’t going to become one of them.

Quickly grabbing the revolver at my hooves, I began to fire at the corpses. I had forgotten how many shots were left, but I couldn’t exactly think clearly anyway. Crack. One shot pierced the skull of the far right monster, dropping it to the ground. Crack. Another one dropped to its knees as the bullet passed right through its foreleg. Crack. Miss. Crack. Another miss. Crack. It struck against the sparking machine behind them, making a rather nice clanging sound. Click.

Fuck.

I was out of shots, and the corpses were now charging at me. I wouldn’t even have time to reload before they were bearing down on me. Shifting Misfortune to the side of my mouth, I bent around and frantically tried to unzip the pocket on my belt. Fucking great time to get jammed. Oh shit, they were moving fast. *Clunk*. What was- *Boom*

The sparking metal machine I had hit exploded in a shower of sharp metal and heat. I was thankfully too far away from it to be in any real danger of being sliced apart. The monsters however, were not. In a visceral display I saw heads torn off from bodies, torsos torn into large, meaty chunks, organs and severed limbs fly in all different directions. A rather large portion of it directed at me.

As the hot wind and gore washed through and past me, I threw up again. This time I wasn’t sure if it was because of the sight I had just seen, or because my insides were now most definitely mush. I looked down at my revolver I had just dropped. It had finally gotten covered in undigested food. Was vomit always that shade of red? Does it matter?

Quickly grabbing it, I was thankful I couldn’t taste anymore, otherwise I probably would have just thrown up again. I turned and broke into what I thought was a run through the stable towards the exit, but what was probably more just hasty staggering. When I burst out of the cave and into the cool evening air, I stopped and breathed in heavily. By the gods, it was hard to breathe.

My entire body was screaming in agony. I felt like any second now organs would start just giving up. I didn’t even want to let go of my revolver in case I would be incapable of picking it up again. I wanted to just fall over and die now. No, give the water talisman to the Commonwealth ponies first, die second.

With much resistance from my legs, I slowly started to get moving again.

*** *** ***

When I finally made it to where the Commonwealth ponies had set up camp, I could barely stay conscious. My vision was blackening. I had vomited a few more times on my way there, my vomit progressively turning from red to black. I had no idea what it was now, I must have thrown up all my food long ago. Why did I never seem to be able to hold down a meal anymore?

As I neared the campfire, the ponies around it looked at me, a mixture of shock and suspicion across their faces. The green unicorn then broke into a smile, beginning to trot towards me.

“We were beginning to worry about you. We thought you might have died!” One of the bucks around the camp shouted to her.

“By the looks of it, he nearly did!”

I was glad I couldn’t see myself in a mirror. I must have looked as bad as the revolver between my teeth, which was now covered in what I could only imagine were my guts.

“I’ll assume you’ve returned with the talisman. Just hand it over and your business with us will be done.”

“Do not trust them, Deadset.” the metallic voice spoke in my mind. I’m not sure if it was because I was certain I was going to die anyway, but I did a very stupid thing. I levitated the gun out of my mouth and pointed it at her.

“Not…just…yet.” The energy I was using lifting up the revolver made talking and thinking extremely hard. The Commonwealth pony glared at me, the other ponies around the fire grabbing their weapons and aiming at me.

“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” She hissed. There was no point threatening her. She may have been their leader, but one of the others would take her place if she died, I was sure of that. I needed a better bargaining tool.

Not moving my gun away from her, I went into my saddlebags and threw the talisman on the floor. I then placed the barrel of my revolver on the talisman. All I needed to do was accidentally pull the trigger, and my bargaining chip was gone. I had to keep control of myself. No mistakes allowed.

“Leave…now.” I was drawing huge, ragged breaths between each of my words. I was hoping it made me look a little more intimidating, but it probably just revealed how pathetic I was at this moment in time.

“Leave…Hoofsprings…alone. I don’t…trust you.” The green unicorn gave a short smirk.

“Clever boy. We were going to take their water talisman regardless of whether you came through or not. But what’s to stop us from shooting you now, taking that talisman, then taking Hoofsprings?”

“Because…either way…you’ll only…get one.”

“What…?” She gave me a confused look. I was gambling and guessing now. One wrong word, and she would be able to tell that.

“Do…you think…you could really…kill me…with one…shot?” I was pretty sure they just needed to give me a hard shove and I’d fall down dead, but the expression on her face told me she wasn’t so sure.

“One…wrong move…and I…destroy…this one.”

Suddenly she realised what I meant. They could either take my one and leave peacefully, abandoning Hoofsprings’ talisman, or lose mine and have to risk themselves attacking the small town. I was a little worried when she gave out a laugh.

“Well played. I never expected a Wastelander to be quite so astute. Very well. We won’t attack the town.” it wasn’t good enough.

“You…have to…repair your…robot…elsewhere…as well.” She smirked a little again.

“Fine, you drive a hard bargain, but I accept.” I felt relieved. I did what I set out to do. I dropped my gun, feeling a huge weight of effort being lifted. I kicked the talisman to her. She wrapped it in a sheath of green magic, bringing it close to her face, examining it carefully. Finally she spoke again;

“Yes, yes this is quite satisfactory. Hoofcamp will be up and running in no time.” It was then I notice the ponies near the fire had yet to lower their weapons. The largest one with the two massive magic cannons yelled at the leader.

“Boss, should we kill him and then attack the town anyway?” Oh fuck, I hadn’t thought of that. They had the talisman now, there was nothing stopping them from killing me and the citizens of Hoofsprings. The green unicorn remained silent for a few painfully long seconds, before turning to her large cohort.

“No, I don’t think we should.” Great buffalo, hoof-fuck my ass, I was barely able to remain standing the relief hit me so hard. She then turned back to me.

“I like you, Wastelander, you’ve got guts.” I didn’t feel like it, they felt more like they were lying on the ground somewhere in a red and black heap.

“The name’s Greenbeam.”

“Deadset.” I gasped. “Now…please…go.” I couldn’t say another word even if I wanted. She simply nodded, then gestured to the robot. Three of the ponies rushed to it and lifted it off the ground.

“We’ll travel two miles down the road and begin our repairs there. I assume that is good enough for you?” I nodded. She turned, giving one final smirk.

“Deadset. I won’t forget that name any time soon.” I didn’t say anything. I just watched them walk away, waiting until they were lost in the darkness of the night. I finally collapsed.

I could see the great phoenix behind my closed eyelids.

Footnote: level up
New perk: rad resistance--your time exposed to radiation has helped you build up a level of immunity to it. Your resistance to radiation is increased by 25%
Quest perk: Reinforced skeleton--thanks to some of Doc Muffinhair’s special brew, your limbs now take 20% less damage, are 20% harder, and are 20% cooler

chapter 4: Glimpses of the Past

Chapter 4: Glimpses of the past

I could see her. I could actually see the great Phoenix. She burned a pure brilliant white. She was coming to collect me, to take me to the Afterland. I could feel her radiance wash over me. I had never felt so calm before in my life. I got up on my hooves, staring up at her.

She hovered over me, her sad, soothing song lulling me into a trance-like state. I was ready. I had played my hand, done some good, tried to make penance. All I can hope now is that it is enough for her to be pleased.

Suddenly my body shook with pain. The goddess had turned and was starting to fly away, her beguiling song fading to silence.

“No! Don’t abandon me! I tried my best!”

Pain coursed through me again. No! This isn’t fair. I only ever wanted to do right by my tribe. I swung my head around, maybe there was a final test. Why hadn’t the preachers ever mentioned it before? They had always insisted that the Phoenix would just embrace us under her wing.

The ground began to crack and splinter, opening up in great fissures. Out of them climbed living corpses like the ones I had encountered in the stable. First tens, then what must have been hundreds of them were flooding towards me. I reached back to draw my revolver. It wasn’t there. None of my effects were. Even my Pipbuck had been removed. There was no way I could fight these creatures now.

They shambled closer and closer. I just closed my eyes in acceptance. I was abandoned by even my own gods now. I had nothing left.

Pain lashed through me yet again. I screamed out, collapsing to my knees. With a flash of bright light, I was blinded. I could hear the monsters shriek in fear and agony. When I was able to open my eyes again, the last of them were slinking back into their holes. I then looked up at the source of light, and my mouth gapped wide.

Before me hovered a lilac unicorn, her long black mane flowing in an unfelt wind. Her wings were outstretched, and she gave off a bright and powerful aura of light.

“Footlock…” I gasped. She didn’t even open her mouth, but her voice echoed inside my head.

“Your work is not done. Return to the land of the living, and beware. Your time will come when the angels fall…” Her words echoed and lingered as she started to float away from me as she effortlessly beat her wings. I called after her.

“Footlock! I’m sorry!” There was no voice to acknowledge whether she heard me or not. All there was in my world was another flash of pain.

*** *** ***

I bolted upright, panting frantically. My entire body was in so much pain that I couldn’t even perceive my surroundings. I heard a faint noise that slowly grew to become talking.

“…longer and I would have let the goddesses keep you. How are you feeling Deadset? You’re back with the living.”

I felt like shit. I turned to see Doc Muffinhair staring at me, beaming with delight.

“I was…dead?” He nodded

“For about two minutes. The moment we saw you collapse we rushed to you to make sure you were ok. It’s lucky I have these old things, or else you would have been a goner.”

He reached forward, tapping two metal plates attached to my stomach lightly.

“Emergency cardiac revivers. Very powerful enchanted items. Can restart the heart if used quickly.” He then winced slightly.

“Sorry about the pain, it should subside in an hour or two.” I just fell back onto the bed, my whole body aching. He had taken me back to his house. I just stared up at his ceiling.

‘You brought me back to life. Why?’ I could hear him nicker slightly, almost as if out of offense.

“You saved our lives, only right I return the favour.”

I turned to look at him in confusion. The last couple of days flooded back to me. My standoff with the commonwealth, the monsters in the stable, the strange flying metal ball, Hellhound quarry, killing and burying Winter Dew, the attack on the tribe, and most vividly, the death of Footlock.

I quickly pushed myself up, rolling off the bed and onto my hooves. My entire stomach lurched, and I began to cough up blood. Doc rushed to me, supporting my weight.

“Easier there lad, just because you’re alive doesn’t mean you’re well. You were so badly irradiated I’m surprised I was even able to keep you alive, let alone make you conscious. Let’s get you back into bed before your body gives up again.”

I wanted to resist, but I was far too weak to be able to. He hoisted me back onto the mattress, and then walked off. When he returned, he had a bag of orange liquid in his mouth. He threw it onto the bed.

“Rad-Away. It absorbs the radioactive isotopes in your bloodstream, greatly reducing the effects of radiation sickness. If you drink enough, it will remove all traces of radiation from your body” he explained.

I sipped at it, and began to wretch. It tasted horrible, like rotten oranges.

“How many will I need before I’m healthy?” Please don’t be too many, I really didn’t want to drink a lot of this stuff.

“At your current level of radiation sickness, about 10 bags”

Oh shit.

*** *** ***

To my relief, I only had to drink one bag. The doctor was able to put a needle into me that could drip the rest of the disgusting liquid into me. I could almost feel my taste buds dance with delight. The downside however, was that I was going to be hooked up for a good few hours before it was finished. Still, be happy for the small victories I guess. When he had finished setting everything up, we began to talk some more.

“How much is this going to cost me?”

He gave a weak smile

“I would love to give it to you free, I really would, but this is most of the rad-away I have that you’re using.”

Suddenly I didn’t feel so happy about the line attached to my leg.

“I’m afraid I will have to charge you 300 caps for this, sorry. But our previous deal does still stand, and I’ve put a few health potions and two shots of med-x with the rest of your items.”

Wait, was he really apologising for saving my life, having me use up huge amounts of his medical supplies, and then charge me the bare minimum to make sure he could still eat?

“Don’t apologise, I’m thankful you’re being so kind and giving. I feel bad to take so much.” He nickered.

“You may not think it, but what you did with those commonwealth ponies was a miracle in itself. It’s rare that you find a pony with the strength of will to help others out in their time of need.”

Was the wasteland really this cruel? Back at the tribe everypony helped everypony else, with a few caps passing hooves to ease tension. Point is, whenever somepony needed help, they got it. From the sounds of it though, out here you’re on your own.

“I…just did what anypony should do. I couldn’t let them destroy this place after you helped me so much.” He gave a warm smile.

“Well then, consider all my generosity a bonus for you doing the right thing.”

I couldn’t help but blush. I knew it was the right thing to do, but the inflection in his voice made it sound like just doing the right thing was something to be praised.

“So tell me Deadset, you come up from Neighas or any other town?”

I gave him a quizzical look. Surely it was obvious I was a Claritian, we didn’t exactly blen-…oh wait, I have a cutie mark now. I guess most ponies can’t tell any more.

“Actually no, I come from a tribe a few miles away from here called Clarity. Our village is built at the base of ancestral mountain.” When I told him this he looked quite intrigued. I guess he didn’t get that many tribals around here.

I told him as much as I could about our history and traditions. When I told him that none of us had a cutie mark, he laughed, saying that was simply impossible, and pointed out that I had one myself. I snapped a little when that happened, and couldn’t help but shout at him. When he found out that I had been banished and hunted because of it, he did apologise. I then moved onto the raider attack, and finally about Footlock, describing what happened. I was crying by this point, reliving her death in my head. He laid a comforting hoof on me.

“She was a close friend then?”

“Closest I ever had. Please tell me, was there anything that could have been done to save her? If you were there, would she still be alive?”

He froze, not sure what to tell me. After a few seconds he shook his head.

“I’m sorry Deadset, no. From what you told me about her wounds, there was nothing I would have been able to do to save her. And I don’t think anypony else could tell you any different.”

I pointed at the E.C.R that he had hooked up to its recharge station, wiping my eyes with my spare hoof.

“What about that? You said that I was dead, and that saved me. Why wouldn’t it work on her?”

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry Deadset. It worked on you because your internal organs had just given up, but were still intact. Her brain was destroyed. If it’s any consolation, she wouldn’t have felt an ounce of pain.”

He looked surprised when I began to smile, tears still dripping down my face. I leaned over and hugged him.

“Thank you. I needed to know there was nothing I could have done. That it wasn’t my fault beyond the raiders being there.”
He looked at me strangely.

2But…how were the raiders your fault? You tried to help your tribe fight them off. I don’t think you’re the type to help raiders into you village to slaughter everypony…”

I made a motion with my head, gesturing to my cutie mark. I had already told him that they were curses.

“It was because I got my cutie mark that my tribe was attacked, therefore it was my fault”

I could tell he didn’t agree with my line of logic. He shook his head slowly.

“Deadset, let me tell you the story of my past.

I grew up in a stable myself; it’s why I had that Pipbuck. The moment I got my cutie mark, I was put in the clinic to heal any ponies who needed medical attention.

It was there that I met my wife, Nightmist. She was a medicalpony as well, and was oh so beautiful and caring. We got married two years after getting to know each other. When the stables’ life support systems failed, and all attempts to repair it were unsuccessful, we headed out into the wasteland together.

We became travelling doctors, crossing the wastes from New Appleoosa to the outskirts of Hoofington, until we made it here at the Collerodeo desert. One day when we were making our way to Neighas, we heard a foal crying inside a small ruin. It would have been impossible to have gotten our Brahmin into it, so she stayed outside to look after our stock to while I went in to investigate.

I knew something sounded off about the cry, but it was only when it was too late that I found it was a recording. It was a slaver trap, and by the time I got out of the ruins again, they had overpowered her and were taking her away. I gave chase, but they shot me multiple times. If it wasn’t for the healing potions I had with me, I’d be dead, but I’ve always felt it inside…” He trailed off, tears rolling down his cheeks.

He took a loud sniff and tried to bring back his composure.

“What I am trying to say Deadset, is that I don’t blame myself any more. It was the slavers fault. They set up the trap, and we fell for it, but you can’t blame yourself for what other ponies have done. You’ll never survive if you do.”

What he said made sense.

While he could have done things differently, and maybe have saved his wife, it wasn’t him that did it. Why should he blame himself? And so why should I? Because the preachers made it clear tragedy would fall upon the tribe should anyone be ‘marked’, and not only were they right, it’s very hard to simply put aside sixteen years of lectures from your spiritual guiders.

Still, what he said did make me feel better, if only slightly. He whipped his eyes and began to speak again.

“Anyway, enough of that. It’s late and you definitely need your sleep. You should feel better in the morning. Tomorrow I’ll also teach you how to use that Pipbuck of yours.”

I nodded, saying my thanks again, and he left me alone to fall into a dreamless sleep.

*** *** ***

I was woken up by light pouring through the window. I switched into autopilot as I rolled out of bed, and began searching for my tools. Hmm, where were they? Come to think of it, why has the dirt turned to wood?

“Good morning Deadset.”

Draconequus tear out my heart that made me jump. I whirled around to see Doc standing in the doorway. When did my tent grow a doorway…Oh yeah, I guess I’m still getting used to being out of the tribe. I couldn’t help but let my head droop slightly.

“Morning…”

He trotted towards me, pulling the tube out of my foreleg. I had forgotten I had that in me. I was grateful that there was no more orange liquid flowing through it. While I was glad that I didn’t have to drink the vile liquid, it still made me shudder having it flow through my blood. Still, I did have to admit it did the job. My insides had solidified again, and I was now able to move without feeling like I was about to melt. Doc made a gesture to the door with his head.

“Would you like to come through with me? I made us breakfast, and then we can start your lesson on using your Pipbuck.”

I began to follow him through to what was his living room. It was pretty small and dingy, but I wasn’t complaining. I had spent my entire life without a solid roof over my head, so dim lighting was something I was still getting used to.

On a small table in front of a couple of comfy looking chairs was a tray with a couple of boxes of canned preserved food. We both sat down and began to tuck in. I can’t say it was particularly flavourful, but for some reason this ‘dried oats and corn’ seemed to agree with me more than radhog meat ever did. I made a silent promise to myself not to vomit up this meal. Once we’d finished, he began his demonstration.

I must say, I knew Pipbucks were special, but I never anticipated it to be as amazing as it was.

He first went over what I already knew, about how the map and inventory worked, about its ability to store recordings and messages, and explained what that holographic framework was. Calling it an “Eyes Forward Sparkle” or E.F.S. for short. It displays where you are currently heading to, anything alive around you, and even displays whether their hostile or not.

I’m not sure how that’s possible, but Doc assures me it’s true. My Pipbuck even has a thing called a radio on it. Apparently I can hear ponies’ voices from miles away using it, but he says that only DJ Pon3 is worth listening to. To top it all off, it can even display my current medical health. I was also right about the clicking, it was a radiation detector.

Now, as fantastic as all of that is, and believe me, it’s a lot, it all paled in comparison to what he told me next.

“It’s called S.A.T.S. You can bring it up at any time, and the moment you do, the Pipbuck will sync with your brain, seeming to slow time to a standstill. It will allow you to lock onto any part of any target you want, and it even shows the likelihood of hitting.”

Well, given my luck with shooting, I would imagine it would always say ‘not bloody likely’. Still, that may well help me hit next time I’m blindsided by a pack of monsters.

“Think you’ll remember all that?”

It was a lot to remember, I have to admit, but this was worth remembering. I’m sure I’ll do fine. I nodded.

“Then that concludes our little lesson. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. I hung up all of your equipment by the door. When you’re ready, just head on outside.”

As much as I would have liked to have stayed in the large cushioned chair, I had taken up enough of his hospitality. It was time I took my leave.

“Thank you so much Doc. I think I’ll spend some more time in Hoofsprings.”

He nodded politely as I reluctantly got out the chair and turned away from him. Stopping to collect and equip my effects, I opened the door and stepped outside.

*** *** ***

I had to squint to avoid the glare of light as I stepped out of the house. My eyes had gotten used to the gloom, so the morning light was sharper than I would have wanted.

I decided I should go down to the saloon. I was thirsty, and who knows, I may be able to get an idea of what I wanted to do next.

As I walked down the street, ponies were stopping and thanking me for what I had done. There clearly wasn’t that many residence here, and most of them looked like they wouldn’t last long in a fight.

What, and you would? You should have died long ago and you know it. Don’t start judging others when you won’t last in a fight either.

I hated myself sometimes.

I took a good look at the saloon. It had clearly seen better days. It was made of old and weathered scavenged wood. It appeared as if it had been built in a couple of days, which struck me as rather impressive. I nudged open the door and entered. No sooner had I entered and adjusted to the dim light was I met with a cheer from the ponies sitting around the bar. The barmaid waved for me to come over to her.

“Ah know ya’ll prob’ly heard it enough times already, but thanks partner. ‘Cause of you, we’re still breathin’. Ah know it ain’t much, but for today drinks are on th’ house.”

I trotted towards her, taking a seat on one of the bar stools. I can’t say it was the easiest thing ever to sit on, but it was comfortable enough I guess.

“Thank you. I was just wanting to help. Glass of water please.” She gave me an odd look.

“Ah’m offering yah any drinks yah want for free and yah still choosin’ water?” I tilted my head slightly.

“Ok, what else do you have? Any Sunrise Sasparilla?” She shook her head, looking slightly regretful about it.

“‘Fraid not, but we do have Sparkle-Cola if ya’ll are interested. We also got scotch, whiskey ‘n’ whine if yah wantin’ somethin’ a little stronger.”

I just looked at her blinking. I’d never heard of any of them. She just gave me a smirk.

“We’ll start yah up with a Sparkle, then ya’ll can try the others later.”

She disappeared under the counter, then came back up with a dark curved bottle in her mouth. She placed it on the counter and nudged it towards me. Taking it, I bit off the top bottle cap, and began to gulp, the liquid fizzing in my mouth. It had a smooth carroty taste, and a surprisingly hard kick for an aftertaste. It didn’t take me long to finish it. I dropped the bottle onto the counter.

“Another one of them please…erm” I froze, I couldn’t remember if I had asked her name or not. She must have known my name now, everypony in Hoofsprings seemed to. I turned slightly red. She just smiled and gave a small warm laugh.

“Name’s Scotchtap, an’ another Sparkle comin’ right up.”

She ducked under the counter to pull out another bottle. The ponies sitting around me began to thank me for what I had done. I was now starting to feel almost as if I was a hero. I shook myself, I’m not a hero. I’m a lost outcast just trying to do what’s right.

Scotchtap came up again with another bottle of Sparkle-Cola. She gave it to me, and then turned around to a metal machine sitting on the counter behind her. She gave the knob a turn, and the machine started to give out loud static. She gave it a smack with her hoof.

“Stupid radio! Gone on the fritz again!”

Radio...doesn’t my Pipbuck have one of them? Doc showed me how to use it, maybe I could fix it? If not, I could always switch mine on at least. I stood up and trotted to it.

“Mind if I take a look?” She stepped to one side.

“Be mah guest.” I took out a spanner and screwdriver from my belt and looked at the radio. Opening up the back of it, I shone my Pipbuck to illuminate the inside.

I finally felt back in my element, all the wires and mechanisms were almost like second nature to me. I may have never seen a radio before, but that didn’t stop me from being able to work out what I needed to do to fix it.

I saw that one of the wires had become severed. Spitting out my spanner, I took both ends in my mouth and by using my tongue was able to wrap the exposed copper into a knot. With a small electric shock, the radio bust back into life. Everypony in the saloon went quiet.

‘…so good luck Lightbringer. Next we have a story from down in the Collerodeo desert. After a raider attack on a tribe of ponies, a few survivors managed to escape, but ran into where a pack of Hellhounds had set up home. I thought the story would have ended there, but then to my surprise, one managed to make it out alive, and if that wasn’t enough, then wanders into a stable, and to top it all off, then goes and has a standoff with a gang of Commonwealthers by himself! And won! I don’t know what he found in that stable, but it seemed to give him the edge, stopping the gang from attacking the small town of Hoofsprings. I’ll be keeping my eye out for you now Tribal, keep up the good work. Now let’s all getting shaking it to the beats of Sapphire Shore’

The box then began to play some upbeat song. I can’t say I was really listening to it. I was too busy being shell-shocked at what I had just heard, as well as drooling from the shock I received to my mouth. The entire Saloon burst into cheering and laughter, a number of the patrons coming to congratulate me on getting mentioned by DJ Pon3.

But…he was wrong. I was worried that he was able to track me like he could, but he was wrong. I wasn’t running with survivors, I was running away from hunters, ponies I used to live with. I only went into that Hellhound nest because I wanted to avenge them. I was not a hero at all, and yet the stallion on the other side of the speakers seemed content to make me out as one. I was brought out of my thoughts by the feeling of a rather strong pony smacking me in the shoulder with one of her hooves.

“Not every day that you get mentioned by Pon3, calls for a celebration, don’t you think? Scotch, two glasses of your finest whisky.”

I turned to see a bright yellow mare with a somehow even brighter orange mane with her horn poking out, clad in leather barding, calling out to the bartender.

Two glasses of brownish orange liquid were pushed towards us. The mare tossed a few caps to Scotchtap, and then levitated her glass to her lips, taking a large swig of it. I just looked at my glass, it smelled a little…strange, but it fit in pretty well with the rest of the saloons’ musky scent. I tilted the glass towards me and took a small sip. It almost felt like it was burning my throat as I swallowed. I couldn’t help but go into a small coughing fit. My current drinking partner just chuckled, putting out her hoof towards me.

“Not got much of the hard stuff where you come from, ‘Tribal’? The names Sunny Smiles.”

I took her hoof and shook it, blushing again slightly.

“Deadset.” I looked down at the drink again.

“What is this exactly?”

I took another sip and had the same reaction as last time. Maybe I was drinking it wrong; she swigged it down after all and didn’t nearly cough up her guts. Maybe I should try that. I tilted the glass and took a large gulp.

Next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the floor. I thought my coughing fit was bad with just the sips, but it was nothing compared to what happened then.

Sunny gave me a hoof and helped me back up. The world was starting to spin slightly, but in spite of that, I felt good.

“It’s whisky. Alcohol. By the looks of it, you’ve not had any before.”

I nodded, and my whole body started to tingle. It was as if the movements were happening a second after I was wanting them to. My insides were beginning to feel nice and warm. I was also beginning to sway to the music on the radio. I turned to Scotchtap.

“Another two…glasses of whisky please.”

She poured them and I drank mine down quickly again. I then danced through the day and night with Sunny.

*** *** ***

When I awoke I was expecting to be in Docs bed again, given how much my head was throbbing. Urgh, I can hardly remember anything that happened last night. I can remember drinking that whisky stuff, and dancing, and…nothing beyond that.

Thinking’s hard. Where am I anyway?

I tried to get up, but my body wasn’t too keen on doing what I wanted at the moment. It was content to just lay there. I looked around. I was on a mattress, nowhere nearly as comfortable as the bed I had spent the last two nights in, but since I wasn’t there, I could only assume I didn’t nearly die again. That is a good step forward for me. I have had enough of nearly dying.
The door to the small room I was in then swung open, and Scotchtap was standing in front of me.

“Ah, Deadset, good ta see yah’ll awake. Yah got a lil’ drunk last night, so ah let yah’ll sleep here in the back room. Come on, git up, Sunny’s waitin’ for yah.” I simply let out a mumble and groan of acknowledgement. Her words were drilling into my skull. I really did not want to get up. I rolled over, facing away from Scotchtap, hoping she’d leave me alone for a little longer. The kick I got in the back told me she wasn’t going to do that.

“Come on, git up, or I’m gonna have ta start charging yah room an’ board.”

I let out a few more groans and mumbles as I slowly rose to my hooves. It’s amazing the will you can find when you have someone fussing over you, if just to get them to stop. Once I was standing, she smiled at me.

“There we go, not so bad, ain’t it? Come on now, Sunny’s waitin’ for yah.” She had better be joking. I felt terrible, it was as if somepony had put my head on top of a rock and stamped down as hard as they could. She held the door open as I stumbled out and into the main area of the Saloon. It was a lot quieter today, with only Sunny sitting on a barstool, tucking into some food. I was pretty hungry come to think of it. She turned to me and smiled.

“Morning sunshine, hope you enjoyed last night.” I just mumbled and growled as I sat down on the barstool next to her. I may have, but I couldn’t remember it, and I really doubt I could have enjoyed anything that left me feeling like this.

“Aww, now don’t be like that. Scotch, give him a dose of fixer and…what would you like to eat, Deadset?” She turned to me.
I mumbled “carrot cakes” as best I could. She smiled and nodded at Scotchtap, who proceeded to rummage under the counter for a little while, before returning with a box of carrot cakes, and a small white tablet.

I should have been happier to see my favourite meal sitting before me, but in my current state, I don’t think any emotion beyond grumpy would be even remotely possible. I began to clumsily open the box before Sunny stopped me, shaking her head.

“Trust me, take the fixer first, you’ll feel a lot better.”

She was bigger and stronger than me, so there was no point even trying to argue, even if I was certain nothing could make me feel any better. I grumbled, popping the pill in my mouth and swallowing.

No sooner had I felt it go down my throat was my head beginning to clear and the pain disappear. I fell back slightly from sheer shock of the cleansing wash my body went through, waving my legs around to try and remain balanced. Once I had rocked back into place, I just stared at Sunny, mouth wide open. She giggled slightly. Scotchtap spoke up.

“Yah’ll got drunk last night, so yah got a hangover this mornin’. That there fixer I gaves yah gone cleared up yah head.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.

My stomach started to rumble, reminding me that I was actually very hungry. I turned back to my carrot cakes and began to tuck in. Could this morning get any better? First miracle headache cure, and now the sweet carroty goodness of carrot cakes. This is the life. Sunny looked up from her own meal, which she had been levitating to her mouth, instead of my tactic of eating, which was just shove my mouth against the counter and chew.

“So, ready for the shooting lesson I promised you yesterday?”

Wait, she promised me a shooting lesson? She can remember promising me one? Even with my head cleared, I can’t remember what happened last night. She could not have been drinking the same stuff as me. I looked up from my cakes.
“Erm, sure…don’t remember you offering me one though…”

She smirked.

“Oh that’s normal if you’re not used to alcohol. Anyway, judging by how you struggle to use your horn, you could do with a bit of training.”

She tapped my horn with her hoof, and I couldn’t help but blush. I must have done something last night to give away the fact that I was terrible with magic. I wish I could remember anything.

She got up from her bar stool and threw some caps on the counter, then made her way to the door. I began to do the same, but when my caps hit the counter, Scotchtap began to push them back to me. I gave her a look saying that I had used up enough of her generosity for one lifetime, and she reluctantly scooped them up and put them away. I then trotted over to Sunny.

*** *** ***

We went outside and she led me around to the back of the saloon where there was a row of cans sitting on a fence. She turned to them, levitating out a magazine loaded rifle. With three loud bangs, three cans flew off from the fence.

“Now you try.” Oh thanks for making it look so easy. I unholstered my revolver, and clenching it as tightly as I could between my teeth, I look aim at one of the cans and let off three shots. Each shot successfully managed to miss the can, only making small holes in the wall behind them. I spat misfortune out, thinking the name my Pipbuck gave it was rather apt. Sunny just looked at me with a confused expression.

“Deadset, why don’t you use your magic? I saw you use it against the Commonwealthers, so I know you can do it.”
I just stared down at my cracked hoof.

“I can’t use it safely. It was a miracle I didn’t accidently shoot the talisman or one of the ponies. I just can’t do it without hurting somepony.”

Her expression of confusion didn’t change, but at least she decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask further. I really didn’t want to think about Winter Dew any more. You just did. Dammit.

“Well shoot, let’s just get you better with your revolver then. Now, bite it a little harder, and never take your eyes off the target. When you pull the trigger, don’t jerk it back, and finally, don’t flinch when you do fire.”

That all seemed pretty obvious…still, she’s the expert, so I guess I wasn’t doing all of that.

I reloaded my revolver, and then took aim again. I took my time with my shot this time. I locked my eyes on the can, pointing the barrel directly at it. I held my teeth down far tighter on the mouthgrooves. I slipped my tongue on the trigger and slowly pulled back.

*Crack*

I couldn’t believe it. I actually hit it. The can fell to the floor in a loud clatter. I had actually hit it. I just blinked, not believing my eyes. I was the worst shot in the entire tribe, I had never once hit a target first time, and yet the can had fallen off the fence. Misfortune slid out of my widening mouth. I turned to look at sunny, who was just smiling. I had really hit it.

I couldn’t help but bounce a little in glee. Just a few pointers and I was able to actually hit something. Sunny just chuckled as I bounced around like a foal.

“Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!”

I finally came to a stop in front of Sunny, giving her a massive hug. She laughed, pushing me off her.

“Guess you’re not used to hitting things the first time. Hit a few more and then we’ll head down to the old memorial, normally a few critters to practice on there.”

After pulling myself back together, I trotted over, picking up misfortune and took aim again. Four shots later three more cans had dropped to the ground. Not a perfect score, but it was a dam lot better than my average. I still had a huge grin plastered on my face.

“Well then, I guess you need to get some practice in with some moving targets.”

She turned and trotted off, me following closely, revolver still between my grinning lips. I was still whispering to myself.
“I actually hit them.”

*** *** ***

Well, all good things come to pass. Hitting a moving animal was almost as hard as I remembered. While it wasn’t so much of blind luck as it was before, it didn’t stop the majority of my shots hitting the ground near them. It wasn’t until I had a close call with a radscorpion nearly stinging me that Sunny decided to give me a little support.

“Fuck that was close!” I yelled as the bug exploded from one of Sunnys’ shots.

I was now a little covered in scorpion blood. Perfect. I whipped off the ichor that splattered onto my face, flicking it to the ground.

I was pretty grateful Sunny was here. Although I was definitely doing better than usual, I would have taken a few stings by now, and I could remember a scout coming back to the tribe once after a run in with the sharp end of the scorpions. They’re not fatal, but by the gods do they make you sick. Sunny called out to me.

“We’re here.”

I looked over to her; she was standing by a large statue of a pony holding up a flag. On the base of it was an inscription. I trotted closer to read it. “In memory of wing commander Soarin’ and all other brave ponies that gave their lives in the defence of Collerodeo. May they never be forgotten”

…Well that raises a lot of questions for me. Why would anypony ever defend this wasteland? What was there to defend? And against what? And who was this ‘Commander Soarin’? I turned to Sunny, confusion clear on my face. She just motioned with her head at a small ball encased in the stone. I looked at the sphere, then back at Sunny, even more confused.

“Go ahead, try and levitate it.” Ok…I reached out with my magic and began to envelop the small glassy orb.

“I’ll stay here to make sure you’re safe until you return.” Wait what?

Too late, my mind was whisked away from me.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Oh Light and Darkpony Skewer me through my brain with their horns I’m fucking flying! How can I be fucking flying!? I was with Sunny only a couple of seconds ago! Where the fuck am I!? I tried to turn my head, but my body wouldn’t listen. I can’t even move my eyes by myself; they were flicking and darting from place to place on their own accord, the world tinted slightly blue.

My eyes flicked upwards, and what I saw would have made my blood turn cold if it could. The ever-grey blanket that made the sky was gone. In its’ place was a great endless blue, with a few wisps of grey within it. Is this how I was flying? The gods had taken away the sky and I was being sucked upwards? No, oh Griffon claw out my throat, I can feel wings on my back.

Everything felt wrong, as if this body wasn’t mine. I couldn’t feel my horn, and I had fucking wings on my back. I wanted to throw up, but I wasn’t even able to do that. I was clad in a skin tight blue suit with yellow lightning bolts across it. I could feel a heavy gun strapped to my side. It was then that I realised I wasn’t even a stallion anymore. The tight fabric just ran along between my legs as if there was nothing there. This couldn’t be my body…

“Spitfire, get down!”

I began to involuntarily look around, and saw a stallion, who was in the same tight blue suit with wings. This is turning into a really strange dream. The Stallion crashed into me, and we both began to fall out of the sky. Heat washed over my body as I turned to see an explosion where I was only a couple of seconds ago.

It was then that I noticed I was in a battle. As I plummeted towards the ground, entangled with another impossible winged pony, all around us was gunfire and explosions. It was as if somepony had drawn a massive line in the ground as there was a gaping no-ponies land.

My body sprang to life again, kicking off from the other flying pony, and with precision and grace, we wheeled around each other in the sky. Both of us were bleeding from the explosion. As far as I could see, no deep cuts, but both of us were flying towards a tent on the ground. When we landed, a group of ponies broke off from their positions.

“Wing Commander Soarin, Commodore Spitfire, you’re wounded.”

Both me and the other flying pony turned to look at a small blue earth pony, lifting up our goggles. So, I guess that means I’m ‘Spitfire’ in this dream. The other pony, ‘Soarin’ I guess, spoke.

“At ease corporal, it’s only a scratch.” He turned to me and winked. I could actually feel myself blush. Was it me blushing, or this dream me? This was all so strange. The blue pony saluted and then stepped aside.

“Marshal Fleetfoot is waiting for you inside.” The blue pony, and the rest of the group returned to their position and opened fire again. I had never seen a battle of this size. The biggest I’d seen was the battle against the raiders. This battle must have had hundreds of ponies fighting.

Both Soarin and I pushed our way into the tent. All around us was the sounds of ponies talking into machines which I worked out must have been the input side of radios. There was constant clicking as ponies fiddled and adjusted various machines, and there in the centre was yet another winged pony wearing a tight blue suit, only she had her hood down. She had a blue coat similar to Soarin, but her mane was a pure white. She was flanked by various other ponies, paying close attention to her as she pointed at a board and spoke. As we trotted closer, she looked up with a look of great relief.

“Spitfire! Soarin! You’re both safe. If a little wounded…” She spun around to a nearby pony and roared “Private Raindancer, get these two healing potions!”

The young colt jumped, shakily gave off a salute and then ran off to the corner of the tent. I could then feel myself begin to speak.

“Fleetfoot, both sides are locked in a stalemate. We need re-enforcements before the zebras bring in the centurions.” Fleetfoot looked slightly angry. By now Raindancer had returned with a couple of vials of purple liquid, and both Soarin and I began to gulp it down. I could feel my whole body tingle as it worked.

“I’ve requested for a detachment from the ministry of peace, but that’s all. We can win this battle with nothing more. The army is strained enough, I won’t draw any more forces unless it’s urgent.” What were these ministries I was hearing about? I’d never heard of them before, but now in the past few days I had heard of them a few times. Soarin spoke again.

“Marshal, don’t do this. The zebras are only using recruit legionaries. If they send in more experienced troops, it could tip the battle.”

The marshal began to smile. I didn’t like the looks of this.

“Only recruit legionaries you say? Well then, it appears there will be a change of plan.” She turned to the ponies that were gathered around him. “We turn to an attack. If they are only using less experienced troops, we shall seize the advantage and cripple them before they can do any more harm. Send out the message, we go over the trench in ten minutes.”

I could feel myself step forward, my voice pleading.

“No, Fleetfoot don’t do this. Belay that order, thousands of ponies will die if this doesn’t work. We don’t have enough troops to launch that attack!”

Fleetfoot turned back to me, and I could feel my soul shrivel with the gaze I was met with. While filled with fury, her voice was disturbingly calm.

“Commodore Spitfire I am giving you a direct order that you will obey. I am your commanding officer, so don’t you dare talk back to me. You and Soarin are to personally launch a strike against the zebra chain of command and cripple their ability to control their forces. Do you understand?”

I could feel myself back away. I wasn’t even sure if this was a dream, or something else.

“Yes Ma’am.”

With that Soarin and I turned away and headed out of the tent.

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, although I was incapable of doing it anyway. I still had no idea what this was, as it was far too real to be a dream. Ponies around us were rushing into place, gathering various items they would need for when the assault happened. After a long silence, Soarin finally spoke.

“Maybe she knows something we don’t? She is in charge after all. Would she just send us to die? Command always holds back secrets, in case zebras infiltrate us.”

I could feel myself smile weakly. By now I was itching to be able to take control, it all just felt too restricting.

“Tell you what, we make it through this, I’ll buy you a pie.”

The light blue stallion began to lick his lips and almost began to bounce at those words. I chuckled, and then kissed him on the cheek. The Stallion began to blush, rubbing where my lips had been.

Suddenly an alarm sounded out across the camp. Both Soarin and I dropped our goggles back into place and shared one final glance. I shouted to him over the yells of hundreds of ponies.

“See you on the other side.”

With that, we both shot up into the sky. I felt like my body should be lurching. This isn’t right. Ponies really aren’t meant to fly, and especially not at these speeds. I was travelling faster than I thought was possible. I could hear the all too familiar sound of bullets zipping past me, but I was skilfully rolling and dodging though the air. With all this whirling around, if I was in control of my body I would have vomited by now.

I was now passing over rows upon rows of zebras. Some were firing futilely up at me, but when I glanced back for what I guessed was to check on Soarin, who was keeping close to my tail, was that the majority were firing at the advancing lines of ponies. They were being cut down in droves, but were closing the distance. It was going to be close.

Spinning my head around and refocusing, my eyes squinted at a small encampment in the distance that was made obvious by a couple of campfires. In the centre of it was a large, flimsy looking building, far flimsier than even the saloon back in Hoofsprings. It was guarded by a couple of armoured zebras. I could feel myself bite down on a metal bar in front of me, and the large gun on my side give off a couple of loud bangs.

One of the zebras fell down, a large pool of blood collecting around it, but its’ partner turned and began to return fire with a small automatic firearm, the rattling sound of its fire filling the air. I began to swerve again, trying to avoid the gunshots, but unable to target onto it myself.

Pain rushed through my body as one of the bullets grazed my leg. I began to spiral towards the ground. Another loud bang struck out, and the automatic fell silent. I was flapping frantically, but with my concentration being on my bleeding leg, it was inevitable when I crashed into the dirt.

*Thud*

Beyond the pain in my leg, nothing else seemed to hurt too much considering I had just literally fallen out of the sky. I wasn’t even crying out in pain, although it was clear I was holding back. Soarin had landed next to me, the gun strapped to his side smoking slightly.

He pulled out from his suit a small tube that I recognised to be med-X. I’d never used it myself, but I had been told that its’ effects where quite strong. I was about to find out as the syringe was thrown to me, and I injected it into the wounded leg.
Almost immediately the pain died away. The weeping wound stopped bleeding, and it felt as if I could take on the entire world. I rose back up to my feet and gestured with my head towards the building.

“Thanks Soarin, now let’s finish this before more ponies die.”

We both reloaded our guns, and then rushed to the thin metal door that was the entrance to the shelter. With a slight nod, Soarin spun on the spot and bucked the door clean off its’ hinges.

At the first moment I could, I burst through the opening and began scanning the area. I began to open fire at the zebras who were manning their own radio-stations, bullets tearing holes clean through their bodies before they even had the time to get up from their seats. Soarin dived in and started to do the same. Within seconds the room was nothing but a display of gore, with severed heads and torn apart torsos of unarmed zebras.

We both just stood there, taking deep breaths. The radios in the room were begging to chatter loudly, the zebras on the other ends of them calling for guidance. I turned to Soarin and began to smile. Soarin smiled back at me, but his face quickly turned into one of horror.

“Spitfire look…”

My vision went dark, hearing blocked out by the loud crash of metal striking against my head. I could feel myself being thrown across the room. I crashed hard against something, feeling it fall on top of me. It was a few seconds before my senses returned to me.

When they did, I was met with the sight of Soarin being under assault from a zebra nearly twice his size wielding a long, sparking metal pole. He would have made even my Claritian Elder look small in comparison. The zebra wielded his weapon in his mouth with far more grace and agility than I would have thought possible, each swooping arc narrowly missing the blue stallion as he leapt out the way, returning the attack with a shot from his rifle that harmlessly pinged against the zebras armour. The zebra barely seemed hindered by his weapon, roaring at us.

“The Caesars will shall be done! Ponies will be crushed under his hoof!” I desperately tried to pull myself free, slowly squeezing myself out. I could hear every spark as the zebras spear swiped through the air. With one almighty push, I managed to squeeze myself out. I turned my attention back onto the zebra an-

*BZzZZZzzzt*

Soarin gave out a blood curdling shriek of agony as he was pinned to the ground by the zebra, the sparking end of his spear being pressed down onto Soarins’ chest. Smoke was beginning to rise off him and the smell of burning flesh was filling the building. The screams suddenly stopped and Soarin fell limp, bar a slight shiver from the electricity coursing through his body.

I let out a howl of anger as I charged straight for the hulking zebra pinning the dying pony. With all my might I leapt at him, throwing all my weight into my collision. The zebra stumbled off of Soarin, but recovered, rolling back onto its’ hooves with grace, spear still gripped in his mouth.

As he swung at me, I ducked slightly too late, the searing heat of the spear brushed my back, the suit melting from it. Even with the med-X coursing through my blood, that hurt, but not letting it stop me, I barely let out a cry of pain before launching myself at him again, smashing my skull into his. I gripped around his neck and repeatedly brought my head down onto his as hard as I could manage.

One of the goggle lenses shattered and my vision turned red from both our blood. A shard of glass embedded itself into my eye as I still smashed against the behemoth. I was roaring in pain and anger. The zebra was stumbling around, dropping his spear. I finally let go, dropping down to spin on the spot and buck one of its forelegs with both hooves. A loud splintering noise and a roar of pain echoed out as the zebra fell down to my level.

I quickly clutched the zebras spear in my mouth. In one violent thrust I lunged at the zebras head, the tip of the spear plunging through his armour, and driving deep down through his head. Only when my muzzle touched metal did I stop. The zebra just fell over, shaking violently, his body giving off a thick black smoke.

I collapsed, crawling over to where Soarin’ lay. He was completely limp, a large burn mark on his underbelly. I shook him lightly.

“Wake up.”

No response. I began to shake him harder.

“Wake up Soarin!”

Still nothing. Tears were beginning to well up in my still intact goggle lens. I struck him against his cheek, yelling in desperation.

“Wake up you bastard! Don’t leave me! Not now!”

His eyes suddenly shot open, coughing up blood. When he stopped he turned to me, his breaths were weak and ragged. He was struggling to even whisper.

“We did it Spitfire. I’m afraid though that I’m going to have to take a rain check on that pie though.”

He brushed his hoof against my cheek, and with one final cough, let himself fall limp. I clutched him to me as tightly as I could, crying as the radios around the room rang out with the death cries of zebras and victory chants of ponies.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I opened my eyes, and I was back in my own body, which was currently lying in a heap in the dirt. Still, would take it over being in the sky again. I was met with the sight of Sunny sitting in front of me.

“Welcome back Deadset. It’s pretty intense, isn’t it? Don’t worry nothing happened while you were gone.”
I just gaped my mouth wide. I had so many questions, I didn’t know what to ask first. She just smirked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you more when we get back to the saloon.”

Footnote: Level up
New perk: Swift learner- after your experiences, you have had your mind opened to so many questions, and there is so much you want to know. You are now keeping an open mind and want to learn more. You now gain an additional 10% wherever experience points are earned.
Extra notes: Guns skill-25 Repair skill-50

Chapter 5: Journeys Beginning

Chapter 5: Journeys Beginning

As we wandered back, my mind kept on playing through the events of what I had seen. It was neither a dream nor reality. I couldn’t begin to describe just how strange it did feel. Sunny did seem to know more than me, but she wasn’t too forthcoming at the moment, just leading me back to Hoofsprings. I’ll be honest, I was actually grateful she wasn’t bombarding me with information just yet; I still felt I had to clear my head out first.

It didn’t take us long to get back, all the critters along the path had been dealt with on our first trip through. Sunny stopped occasionally to either skin them, or take any other part she deemed useful. Although I didn’t say anything, I still watched carefully. Always helpful to know more.

Once we made it back to Hoofsprings, she led me into the Saloon, where we both took up a stool at the bar. Doc was already there, sucking on a sparkle-cola. Sunny looked over to Scotchtap.

“Two glasses of whisky, I think Deadset here’s wanting to clear his head up a little.” The barmare nodded, and proceeded to pour out two glasses of the brownish-orange liquid. I could still remember the night before, as well as this morning. I couldn’t say my head felt clearer for it, but Sunny did know more about it than I did. I began to down it, throat burning slightly. Once finished I slammed the glass down on the counter, gasping slightly. Sunny just smiled at me.

“Better?” I shook my head slightly. I can’t say I knew how getting me drunk was going to help. She scooted her stool closer to mine.

“Now, what question do you want to ask first?” I just stared at her blankly. I had never experienced anything like that in my life before, where was I supposed to start. Even through my confusion though, I found my lips opening and words coming out anyway.

“W…what was that? Was it a forced dream?” She chuckled.

“Sort of. It’s called a memory orb; it shows us the memories of ponies long ago. I don’t know how they are made, and I’ve only seen a couple myself, but according to Doc, they’re quite accurate.” Docs’ ears picked up slightly at the mention of his name. He turned to us.

“You took him to the memorial then. Wish I could see it myself, too bad I’m not a unicorn. So what did you make of it?” I balked slightly. I had hated the experience, but it raised so many questions. Hopefully some could be answered.

“What happened? Why were ponies fighting zebras? Where was the sky?” Doc looked at me rather strangely at that last one, as if I had said something really stupid. Knowing me, I had. Sunny just smirked and laughed. Wasn’t sure if she was laughing at me though. Doc went to speak first.

“Erm…Deadset, the sky has always been there, I’m not sure what…” something must have clicked in his head as he spoke as his face lit up. “Oh, you mean where were the clouds. Well, that’s all part of it, and I’ll get to it, but I think we’d better start from the beginning.”

*** *** ***

Wow. If what Doc was saying was true, things have changed a lot. I always thought that the world had always been like this, but I guess not. Sunny disagreed with him on minor points, but the main story she agreed with.

The ponies had been in a great war with the zebras, and nearly won. Then the zebras unleashed the megaspells, destroying the land. This is where things became really complicated for me. Apparently, another type of pony called 'Pegasi' had run away and hidden behind the clouds, where they still live today. That made my whole world tumble. If there were ponies with wings, what were the angels? Things weren’t quite adding up.

“But then what about the gods? Why didn’t they protect us?” Doc just looked at the ground sadly.

“Celestia and Luna tried, but they died in the process. They look down upon us from above now.” What? He had mentioned those two before, they were the leaders of the ponies. Were our leaders gods in physical form? And that still didn’t fully answer my question.

“But…what about the other gods? The phoenix? The Buffalo? The Griffon? What happened to them?” Now both Doc and Sunny were giving me very strange looks. If I thought I had said something stupid before, now I had asked the dumbest question ever. Sunny spoke before Doc this time.

“Deadset…what are you talking about? There are no gods. I don’t even agree with Doc that Celestia and Luna were goddesses.” No! No they aren’t going to start saying everything I’ve learned was a lie. The gods are real, I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. They must have gone into hiding, or are watching from above. I could believe that Celestia and Luna were the light and dark ponies, but to say that there were no others? That was Heresy! Even if I wasn’t the most devout of my tribe, I certainly didn’t want to be told what I was hearing now.

I stamped my hoof on the counter, and then began to rise, stomping towards the door. Sunny quickly got up and laid a hoof on my shoulder before I could go.

“Deadset, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Do you want to try and explain your beliefs more to us?” I stopped and thought about it for a minute, but the shook my head. They thought I was an idiot when I had talked about the other gods; I wasn’t going to be ridiculed again.

“No, I think I’ve taken up enough of this town’s time. Thank you for your hospitality, but I really should get going now.” She looked sadly at me.

“I was hoping you’d want to stay here in Hoofsprings, but I won’t stop you. I wish you luck on your travels.” She turned and slunk away back to the bar. Doc then trotted towards me.

“I don’t know why, but I knew you wouldn’t want to stay around here permanently. It’s been nice knowing you Deadset, you’ve been a great help to us.” He put his hoof forward, which even in my anger I shook.

“So, any idea where you’re heading?”

“…No, can’t say I’ve really thought that far ahead.” Doc just nickered slightly.

“You could always make your way over to Neighas is you want. There’s plenty for a young buck like you to do over there. There’s also plenty of other towns scattered around. I’m sure you’ll do just fine out there. And if you ever get tired of traveling, you’re always welcome here. Before you go, you may want to stop by Chet’s, pick up some supplies.” Doc then turned and walked back towards Sunny. Just as I was about to leave, I heard him shout one last time.

“I’ll be listening out for you on Pon3s’ broadcast. Make us proud tribal.” I couldn’t help but smile at that.

*** *** ***

I did as Doc had suggested and made my way to Chets’. Chet was the trader of the town, and had set up shop in the shack next to the saloon. I slowly opened the door, looking around the small area. The walls were lined with junk of all kinds. A light brown earth pony, not too dissimilar looking to me, walked out from around the back.

“Hi there, welcome to Chets’, how can I help you?” I continued to look around, trying to find anything that would prove useful to me. While I certainly wanted some scrap metal for my journey, I couldn’t really see anything that would be useful for my survival.

“Yeah, I’m wanting to make my way to Neighas, do you have any supplies I could use?” The pony smiled at me, then went out of sight again. When he returned, he was carrying a set of leather barding on his back, and a strange glowing…thing in his teeth. He placed them both on the counter.

The barding I could really use, but I have no idea what the second thing was. I think he could tell from the look on my face.
“It’s a recharger rifle. A magical energy weapon that never requires ammo, it generates its’ own power. Perfect weapon for any travelling unicorn.” I frowned at it. While I could remember what those magical weapons could do, I certainly didn’t want it. It looked far too big for me to aim in my mouth, and if I used my magic, I may well reduce myself into goo.

“I’ll pass on that thank you, but I’ll take the barding, as well as some scrap metal. How much would that come to?” Chet looked down at the barding and made what looked like a faux wince.

“Oooh. This here is some quality barding, it won’t be going cheap I’m afraid. This and the scrap would cost about 250 caps.” He has to be joking. It was in terrible condition. It would barely help me. But still, some help is better than no help.

“I’m not going to pay that much, I mean look at it, it could barely stop a single bullet.”

We both haggled pretty fiercely over the goods, and eventually I managed to get the barding, scrap, a little more ammo for misfortune and a pair of saddlebags for the price he had originally. As I put the barding on, I found I’d have to lose the belt I’d been wearing all this time. It was probably just as well, given how it was now completely full with my tools, weapons and various medicines and food.

I flung it all into my saddlebags which I attached to my new barding. I now actually felt more like a wastelander, and as a little added bonus, it covered my cutie mark. I could still imagine I was a Claritian a little easier than before. Too bad my purchase had completely burned through my remaining caps, leaving me with a hoof full left.

The barding felt strange, which didn’t surprise me, given how I’d never worn any before in my life. It was as if a second, much rougher skin covered my own. I guess that’s the point though, it’s meant to protect me. I guess I’d just have to get used to it. Shifting slightly in my barding, I gave a nod of thanks to Chet and headed back outside.

No sooner had I opened the door that I found Sunny staring at me.

“If you’re going, I’m going to.” I just deadpanned. There was no way she was suggesting that.

“No, you’re not. Why would you want to come with me anyway?” I was expecting her to give a vague answer after a few seconds of thought, but to my surprise she instantly replied.

“Because one, you’re not a good enough shot to survive out there by yourself, and two I’m doing nothing here, and you showed me ponies can make a difference.” I stood a little stunned by this. Although I wanted to be offended by her calling me a poor shot, she was right, even with her lesson.

No, she can’t come with me.

“Sunny, you are making a difference here. These ponies need you, you’re their protection. None of them seem capable of fending off an attack from an angry radscorpion, let alone a raider or two.” She drooped slightly, looking at the ground.

“But what about you then?” I needed to find out who I was now, and although I hated myself for it, I didn’t want her to come with me. I put on a forced chuckle.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ve survived a brush with a pack of hellhounds, I’m sure I can look after myself.” I smiled at her, hoping she’d accept it. To my relief she did.

“Fine, I’ll stay here, but if you ever get in too much trouble, get back here. We owe you our lives, so don’t go throwing it away. Good luck Deadset, I hope you find what you’re looking for.” She turned and trotted back towards the saloon. The moment she was inside I let out the breath I had been holding in.

I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for. My purpose? My place in this world? Maybe even just more knowledge of the past? Regardless, it wasn’t here. With nothing else to do now, I took my first step on my journey.

*** *** ***

I had been trekking down the empty road now for about an hour. There was nothing around but emptiness and dust. In the far distance I could see the great pillars that pierced the sky. The preachers had said they were monuments to our gods, but now I was starting to doubt myself on that.

No! No, don’t you dare start to doubt yourself. They are real, the gods are real. You know for a fact two of them were the rulers of the ponies. Ponies simply must have forgotten them, that must be it. The stress caused by the war caused them to forget the other gods.

‘Then why would you remember? Especially since you had forgotten the war.’ Shutupshutupshutup! They are real, I’m not going to argue with it myself any more. I’m going to find evidence of it, I’m going to prove my gods are real. Yes, that’s what…

*clang*

In my heated argument with myself, I hadn’t noticed the ball of flying metal in front of me. I staggered back, rubbing my head. When I looked up I immediately recognised the thing in front of me.

“I’m surprised you did as well as you did in the stable. Most ponies wouldn’t have made it out alive.” I wasn’t going to start playing this things’ games. I wanted to know what it was before I’ll listen to it again.

“Whatever, I’m tougher than I look I guess. How did you know my name?” It just hovered there for a second, before replying in its’ cold, tinny voice.

“I’ve seen things. I know things. You may call me Watcher.” …Ok, at least it’s answering me, even if it is being cryptic about it.

“Well, why were you watching me then?” Once again it remained silent for a few seconds before replying.

“Curiosity. I saw you running away from your pursuers, and yet you refused to fire back. You may be the type of pony this world needs.” Why was everything I’m meeting praising me for simply not wanting to kill? For not letting ponies die needlessly?

“I’m nothing special, go watch someone else. I’m just trying to find where I fit into this world, not change it.” The ball didn’t take long to reply this time, and almost sounded eager, but that may have been my imagination.

“Sounds like you could use some guidance. Not too far down this road you will find a building, and inside it you may find what you are looking for. If you are to survive this wasteland, you’re going to need guidance, weapons and armour, and friends.” I looked dead at where I thought it could see.

“And how would you know this?” Watcher was silent for a second, before giving off static and then bursting into upbeat music again. It was definitely hiding something. I had no idea what it was hiding, but I was certain it was something.

As the music faded away as the machine floated off, I was left alone again. There was something about what it said, that I needed friends to survive. I thought back to Sunny. Should I have let her come with me? It wasn’t too late to turn around and go get her I think. It may well be useful. No, I can’t do that, Hoofsprings needs her, and after what she said, I couldn’t bare to be around her.

I really did feel disgusting to feeling that way about her, after all she did to help me, but I couldn’t help it. Years of religious training does that to you. It still didn’t stop me regretting how we parted, or that I had made her feel so bad.

Great, after talking to a piece of flying metal, I’m left feeling alone and helpless, and angry at myself for the way I treated another pony. My little adventure is going really well so far. I brought up my pipbuck, wanting to turn on the music to lighten my mood.

What I saw instead was a new marker on my map. This one was labelled ‘Collerodeo HQ’. It only looked like a couple of miles away from where I was. Was this where Watcher was suggesting I go to? Was it the one which put this on my pipbuck? Does this mean it has control of my pipbuck? Was this how it was watching me?

Now I wasn’t quite as comfortable as I was before about having the mini-miracle machine strapped to my leg. I could take it off again, but Watcher didn’t seem to want to harm me, it just seemed…odd. Maybe that’s what robots are like. I guess it hadn’t given me reason not to trust it yet, and I had no other major places to go that are near, so I suppose I might as well start there. It did say I might find something useful there. Turning on my pipbucks radio, I headed off towards my maps marking.

*** *** ***

Even only after just a few days out of the safety of my tribe, I was already starting to see the world differently. Before when I looked out over the wasteland, I saw nothing but emptiness and dirt, all other seemingly minor details I simply ignored.

Now when I look ahead, the small dark shapes in the distances could be just about anything. Maybe a city of ponies, or a place where a battle took place, or just about anything. Even the spires that I had thought were monuments to the gods were more intriguing to me, even if it was just to see if they were what I thought they were.

I mean, they had to do something else right? If the sky wasn’t always grey, and was much…further away, then the towers might have something to do with it.

I did find it comforting however that the thought of the ‘pegasi’, which I had come to the conclusion were just the angels of Celestia and Luna, were up there, looking down on us.

I had decided that the angels had closed the sky to protect our ascension for when we passed away. Since the bombs had destroyed everything down here, then they did their duty to ensure the next life remained untouched. Doc had mentioned something called ‘the sun and the moon’, and the way he described them made me wish I could see them too, but losing them was a small price to pay to keep the angels safe.

Speaking of which the sky was already starting to darken, making the empty road take on a much more eerie feeling to it.
Dj Pon3 was definitely making my journey a lot more pleasant, the music he played adding much needed life to my environments, and although he often spoke of the horrors of the wasteland, he also talked occasionally of a few who were doing some good out there. I actually felt proud to be mentioned in the same way he spoke about some of equestrias real heroes.

He was midway through talking about how ‘Security’ had attacked a group of slavers that my pipbuck burst into static, before being replaced with another, feminine voice that I faintly recognised.

‘…calling for immediate help. I repeat, this is Redlight Sunshine of the crimson caravan calling for immediate help. My caravan was attacked by a gang of raiders and am holed up inside a large building. My bodyguards have been killed, and I won’t last much longer. I need…oh shit, they’ve found me! *chunk* Fuck off you filthy anim…’

Her voice faded away as it was replaced by the sound of gunfire. I knew I recognised her voice, that was the trader who came the day our tribe was attacked by raiders. The day I got my cutie mark.

It was then I remembered it was because of her that I got my cutie mark. Because of her my tribe was attacked by raiders. For a small amount of time I began to smile at the idea of her being at the mercy of raiders.

Only for a small while. The moment I returned to my usual state of mind I gave myself the hardest mental kick I could do. Celestia skewer my heart how dare I be gleeful at the suffering of somepony else. I had to help her. As Doc said, I had to make a difference.

I quickly sprinted off towards my map marker. If luck was on my side, it would be there that she was trapped.

*** *** ***

I hadn’t had to run for long before I was able to hear the gunfight for myself. I was lucky, it was there that she had been assaulted. I was barely a hundred meters away and I could see the raiders patrolling outside the building. If it wasn’t for the darkness of the night, I was certain they would have spotted me.

I froze. I hadn’t thought this one through. I wanted to help the pony in trouble, but was I really willing to kill the raiders to do it? I still hadn’t killed a living pony yet. ‘What about Winter Dew?’ No, don’t mention her; I do not need her blood on my hooved now. I’m trying to make up for it, trying to help others. I can’t think about her now.

I reached into my saddlebag, pulling out misfortune. I checked to make sure it was fully loaded, just in case. I did not want to kill these ponies if I could avoid it, but I wasn’t going to let them kill me if it came to it. I turned off the light on my pipbuck and began to crawl forward, whispering under my breath.

“May the zebra shroud my steps in darkness.”

Raiders certainly aren’t the most aware bunch around. I was slunk in a shadow not ten feet away from the two guarding the door. That said though, there was no chance I’d be able to get through without being seen. I needed them to move, somehow. But they just stood there, deep in their own filthy conversation. The first, blood red pony spoke.

“What do you think the boss’ll do to her when he catches her?” The Piss yellow mare smacked him hard in the head with her hoof.

“What the fuck do you think he’s gonna do to her!? He’s gonna skin her, kill her and fuck her. Probably in that order.” I shuddered. I knew raiders were monstrous, but that seemed…beyond anything I would have expected.

The blood red colt, whose cutie mark I could now see was a burning skull, scrambled up to his hooves. He glared at his companion. I would have sworn he should have seen me.

“Fucking lame, he always does that. Should do something different for once. Maybe set her on fire and watch her burn.” He received another hard smack from the piss coloured unicorn.

“Don’t you fucking dare ever talk about the boss like that you little fucking maggot! Do it again and I’ll tear you to shreds and wear you as my barding!” Come on; get out of the way, please! I need to get to her before you monsters do. You’re not even ponies anymore; you’re filthy, degenerated animals! I had to hold myself back from screaming at them.

A scream echoed out from the building that I recognised as Redlights’. Something clicked and snapped inside my head simultaneously.

“Heh, sounds like the boss got her th…” *crack*

At such short range, the bullet passed through the back of the skull of the mare, punching straight out through her eyeball. The red earth pony was splattered in his companions gore as she slumped to the ground. He scrambled quickly to his hooves again.

“What the fuck!? Who the fuck did…” I leapt out of the shadows, smashing my pipbucks casing as hard as I could against his face. I could hear his jaw shatter from the impact. He flew back onto the ground and I stepped over him and pinned him down. He was about to strike back, but I pulled the trigger twice, and he lay limp in a growing puddle of blood.

I got off the body, not feeling anything. I opened up my saddlebag and pulled out a few more bullets, reloading misfortune. A part of me was screaming in shock and horror at what I had just done, but these weren’t ponies. These were just another animal needing to be put down. There was only one pony in that building worth saving, and I wasn’t going to let these beasts have her.

I turned and charged through the entrance, and was met with three more raiders. Quickly examining them, I saw they had a pistol, a sub-machine gun, and a sledgehammer between them. I needed cover.

Before they had to attack, I jumped to the side of the corridor and bucked open the door to one of the rooms. Luck was with me again, and not only was it empty of raiders, but there were plenty of desks for me to use as cover. I smashed hard into one, knocking it over, and the jumping over the top and crouching behind it just before the raiders followed me in.

The sub-machinegun raider sprayed the room with bullets, punching a number of holes into the desk, narrowly avoiding hitting me. I was going to need to have something else to allow me to fight these raiders off.

I then remember something Doc had told me. S.A.T.S. The moment the hail of fire from the raiders ended, I leapt up from behind my cover and slammed a button on my pipbuck.

Immediately the world came to a standstill. Before me were the three raiders, the one with the sledgehammer mid charge at the desk, while the other two were standing in the doorway, the sub-machinegun raider mid reload, levitating out a new clip of ammo.

I had no idea how this worked, but my pipbuck was targeting the sledgehammer raider first. I selected to target his head, and it told me I had a 56% chance of hitting him. I lined up two shots, and then targeted at the pistolpony.

The gun she carried seemed to be in horrendously bad condition. I was just going to finish off the job then. I targeted the pistol in her mouth. I wanted to line up another shot, but my pipbuck told me I was out of magical energy. Hoping it would be enough, I selected enter.

Time sped up, but was still travelling at a crawl as I watched myself target the raider with the hammer. Two shots fired out of misfortune. The first narrowly glanced the side of his head, an arc of blood flying off from the contact. The second shot found its’ mark between his eyes. As it burrowed into his skull, his head exploded, sending chunks of brain and skull flying in all directions.

As the body collapsed to the ground, momentum causing it to stumble forwards, I found myself immediately retargeting at the pistol armed pony. The shot collided with the pistol, tearing it to shreds and causing it to explode in the ponies face.

Time returned to normal pace again and I quickly ducked behind cover. I felt the solid slam as the body of the raider I killed crash into the desk. I shifted myself behind where I felt the impact, hoping it would provide better cover when the raider fired the SMG again. I could hear the screams of the pistolpony as he staggered around. The mare levitating her gun screamed at him when I heard him stumble into her.

“Get the fuck out of my way you useless piece of shit!” I could hear her buck him hard, with the now too familiar sound of shattering bones. There was then a sickening squelch. I couldn’t stop myself from peering over the edge, and saw her with a hoof stomped into the ponies skull.

No sooner had I looked however had she turned her attention back to me. I quickly ducked back down, slamming my back hard against the desk as the sound of her gun letting loose its’ firepower filled the room. The desk was now being ripped apart by the bullets, only the part I was hiding behind remaining relatively unscathed due to the dead pony bolstering my defences.

Once the volley of fire ended again, I jumped back up and slammed on my pipbuck again, expecting the world to freeze. All I got was a little click instead. It was still recharging. Griffon flay me alive this was bad. The raider was now standing right in front of me, and she was huge. I fired a shot into her chest, but her grizzly barding just absorbed the impact.

She laughed, and then spun on the spot, bucking the desk, shattering it into splinters that rained in all directions. I was knocked back, flying into the wall, misfortune skittering across the floor. Fuck that hurt. I staggered back to my hooves as I heard her finish reloading with a light click.

She strode over to me, knocking away any debris in her path. She pointed the gun at my face, shaking violently. Come on, I can’t die here, Redlight needs my help. Think your way out of this, you know how guns work, you’ve worked with them your entire life, you can do this. Something came to me. She screamed at me.

“Fucking die!” I closed my eyes as I threw my telekinesis out at the gun. Pain raced up my flank as a single shot fired out, followed by a rapid clicking. I had forgotten how much being shot hurt, and the experience in the memory orb paled in comparison to the real thing. She roared in fury as my plan had worked. I’d jammed the loading spring, preventing it from firing.

In her anger she threw the gun to the side, before smashing me hard in the face with her forehoof. I slid across the ground, my blood smearing a line as I travelled. My jaw felt like it had been knocked off. I let out a loud cry of pain.

The raider quickly strode up to me again, wrapping me in her telekinesis and lifted me off the ground. She spun on the spot and bucked me hard, letting me free of her grip and allowing me to fly across the room, smashing into another wall. I was beginning to regret stopping her from shooting me; at least that death would have been quick.

I had nothing left to try, no final tricks up my sleeve. My gun was too weak to even stagger her, and she was strong enough to pound me into paste, which she was doing a fine job of so far. I looked across the floor and saw her gun. I was dead anyway, like it would make much difference if this failed.

She didn’t notice as my horn glowed a light beige, releasing the caught loading spring as a slight *clunk* sounded as the bullets shifted back into the barrel. She stood over me and began to pound at me with her hooves, my barding not even softening the blows. I could feel my ribs break with every punch. With as much effort as I could muster, I brought the gun over to me, right next to my head.

She froze when she saw what I was doing. I gave out a mix between a cough of blood, and a laugh, and then took the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.

The resulting fountain of gore splattered across the walls of the room, her body being torn apart by the volley of bullets. Once the clip was spent, I spat it out. Now I didn’t look much different to a raider myself, my barding and coat stained red with blood, both raider and my own.

I was going to die pretty soon if I didn’t do something. I opened up my saddlebag and pulled out my medicine supplies. Doc had given me some med-X, a few healing potions, and one super healing potion. I really couldn’t need it more.

I downed the super healing potion and immediately felt its effects. My jaw seemed to re-align itself, and my ribs returning to their unbroken state. My body was still wracked with agony however, so I quickly drank another healing potion and, remembering how strong it was in the memory orb, injected myself with one of the two syringes.

The pain was washed completely away, as if I hadn’t just been pounded into the dirt and shot. I almost felt good. I could really use this feeling more in a fight. I gathered up my two remaining potions and med-X, and began searching for misfortune. I found it under a large fleshy chunk of raider. Lovely.

Suddenly a scream rang out through the building. It was Redlight, she was still alive, I hadn’t failed yet, I could still save her. I could also hear the deep roars of what I imagined was the raiders leader. They sounded like they were roars of…frustration. Could she have found a way to keep herself safe? It didn’t matter, I had to get to her, and quick.

Picking up misfortune, reloading, and trying desperately not to gag, I rushed out of the room and down the corridor. Thankfully there were no more raiders, I really hoped there was only one more to deal with. Charging up the stairs, I was met with the sight of a massive raider, even bigger than the last one, clad in spiked metal armour ending in fierce talons roaring at a doorway. On each side of him were large guns ending with small flames, both connected to a tank on his back.

“Get the fuck out here now before I burn this entire fucking building to the ground!” That was my target. It wasn’t going to be easy, I could tell. I fired off a couple of shots that harmlessly pinged off his armour.

“Hey you, leave her the fuck alone!” The raider turned and glared at me, and then a terrifying smile crept up his face. The pony had no mane to speak of; instead he had a series of burns and scars across his body. His coat was a sickly pale yellow, smeared with blood and other disgusting marks. One of his eyes had been gouged out, leaving nothing but a black hole where it should have been.

He roared at me, both his guns bursting into life, spouting out great flames longer than me. I was at the other end of the corridor, but I could feel the heat from here. He slowly started to move forward, before breaking out into a gallop after me. I turned and ran down the stairs again.

*** *** ***

Buffalo crush me this fucker was fast, it was as if he was barely slowed down by his armour. He chased me through the building, narrowly singeing me on a number of occasions. The only reason I was able to avoid being roasted was because he had to slow down to fire his weapons.

I smashed my way through door after door, praying that they weren’t locked, or that there were no more raiders in any of the rooms. I was thankful that I think I had dealt with them all. At some point I would have to stand and fight this monster, but I needed some breathing room between me and him before I was going to even try it. I had to lose him.

Bursting through another door, I slammed it shut behind me and swung my head around rapidly. I was taking a huge risk as if there wasn’t anything I could hide in, I was as good as roasted. My eyes lit up as there was a couple of closets in the corner, dashing to them, I barely had time to shut the door of it before the raider burst in, smashing the door clean off its’ hinges.

I peered through the crack, desperately hoping he wasn’t smart enough to think that I was hiding in here. To my relief, he just continued running. Once he passed me, I burst out of my hiding place and activated S.A.T.S.

I lined up three shots for the back of his head. As time returned to normal, all I seemed to do was anger him as they either missed, or just dented his armour. Fuck.

The raider spun around, roaring in fury, his guns lashing out with gouts of fire. I jumped to the side, trying to avoid it. I nearly managed it, but a small portion of my coat on my back caught alight.

GREAT PHOENIX PECK MY EYES OUT THAT FUCKING HURTS! Even the med-X it hurt more than being shot. The raider just laughed as he watched me roll around on the ground in agony. I could feel the flames burning into my skin. Oh gods, make it stop.

The raider just stood over me, laughing as I frantically tried to put out the fire before it consumed me. The dark walls were flickering orange as I bucked and squirmed.

“Burn worm, burn!” If just being caught by the flames hurt this much, I really didn’t want to be in the direct fire of his shots. Thankfully he seemed content to just watch me slowly be tortured to death…was I really thankful of that?

Once I’d finally put the fires out, my body felt like a smouldering wreck. I lay splayed out on the floor, giving off a horrid acrid smoke, and I shuddered to imagine how much of my body was burned. If it wasn’t for the barding I wore, probably most of it. Where was misfortune? I must’ve tossed it away in my struggle. I needed to fight back before I really was cooked.

Fuck, it was quite a way away. No chance of being able to get a quick shot in. The raider lowered his weapons, pointing directly at me. I looked straight into the nozzles of them. I was truly fucked this time. I was dead anyway, time for another roll of the dice.

I reached out with my magic, grasping misfortune as firmly as I could, which in my current state could have been knocked out by a baby. The raider laughed, and gave me a look with his one eye, telling me he knew there was nothing I could do. Nothing to lose then. I pulled the trigger.

*Clunk*

Well fuck, that was far less than I had hoped. I couldn’t even see where the bullet had struck, but it sounded like it just hit his armour some more. I pulled the trigger again, but all I got was a quiet click. I was out of ammo, time to die.

The raider laughed louder than ever, and then bit down on his saddles trigger. I closed my eyes, expecting one of the most painful deaths I could imagine. Instead all that happened was his guns hissed.

I opened my eyes as I saw the container on his back ignite. Draconequus tear me to shreds this was bad! I shut my eyes tight, bracing myself.

The explosion that followed was deafening. Fire, shards of metal and lumps of raider flew in all directions. I screamed as I felt the barding, and then my back being torn to shreds.

When the inferno finally subsided, I just lay on the ground, blood dripping from the wounds on my back. If this was how the gods wanted to save me, I wasn’t sure I really wanted their help anymore. With great difficulty, I turned and started fishing through my saddlebags a health potion.

Drinking it greedily, I was immeasurably grateful for everything doc had given to me. Had he not given me his pipbuck, as well as all the medical supplies, I would certainly be dead.

When I had finished the potion, I considered drinking my last one, but decided against it. The bleeding had stopped, and while I was in pain, it was bearable. I had better save it in case there was another raider with a rocket launcher or something waiting around the corner. That thought made me shudder.

My ears pricked up as I heard I faint call for help within the building. I remembered why I was here now, I was trying to save Redlight. Just as well I saved a potion, in case she needed it. I shakily got to my hooves and after picking up the revolver, plodded towards where her voice was.

Please don’t be any more raiders.

*** *** ***

There were none others, which I had no words to express how relieved I was. When I had reached the room she was hiding in, I realised it as the same one the raider I had just fought was standing outside. I called out.

“Hello, Redlight? You in there?” She called back to me

“Yes, yes I am. Who is that? Is it safe? Don’t come in here!” Her voice was filled with fear. Not surprising given how she had just fled for her life from a pack of raiders.

“My names Deadset, I heard your radio signal. All the raiders are dead, you can come out now.” She was quite for a second. When she shouted back, she sounded relieved, but her voice stumbled a little.

“I…I can’t.” She must be injured. I guess I’ll have to go in and get her.

As I nudged open the door, I head a quiet beep and whir. I looked up and saw a pair of large metal machines with frightening looking guns attached. I had barely jumped out of the way before they unleashed their barrage.

The wall behind where I had stood was scorched black as two beams of magic struck out.

“What the fuck was that!?” I yelled out when they finally stopped. I had just survived fighting a raider nearly twice as tall as me, I was not going to die now to a machine.

“Automated turrets. I activated them when I hid in here, but I didn’t have time to set targeting parameters. I can’t reach the terminal or escape now.” Things could never be easy, could they? At the very least, I now knew why the raider boss was yelling at the door, instead of actually going in it.

“How can I shut them down?” I almost felt embarrassed by asking that question. I was the mechanic, I should know how to shut down a machine.

“Do you have any EMP grenades?” Any what?

“Erm…no. Any other way to stop them?” She remained silent, clearly she didn’t think there was. Well fuck this, I was so close to helping her, I wasn’t just going to leave now. I pulled out misfortune.

I jumped into the doorway again, and slammed into SATS. I lined up two shots for the first turret, and one more for the other. As time began to move slowly, I could hear the beeps and whirring as they were locking onto me. Come on, come on, hurry up!

As the second bullet struck against the turret, it exploded in a flash of white light, sparks flying everywhere. Good. Two bullets and they’re destroyed. I then fired the third shot at the other turret. It gave off a few sparks, but still needed that second bullet through it. Time returned to normal.

My eyes widened as I pulled back the trigger for my forth shot. The turret exploded in a similar fashion to the first, but not before spraying me with its’ beam.

I collapsed, struggling to breath. It didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as being burned alive, but it didn’t stop it from feeling as if it had torn my lungs out. I couldn’t waste my other health potion in case Redlight needed it. Instead I withdrew my last shot of med-X and injected it into me. Immediately the pain was lifted away, and I was able to breathe again.

A red earth pony with a dark orange mane pony poked her head over an overturned table. When she saw me lying on my knees, she rushed out over to me.

“Are you ok?” I nodded, slowly standing back up. I was amazed at how med-X could make me feel fine no matter what. I turned to her.

“What about you?” Her barding was damaged, but beyond that she looked to be in a lot better shape than I was.

“Fine now, thank you.” I blushed slightly, nodded and turned. I had done what I had set out to do, I had helped her. Now I could continue. She called out to me.

“Where are you going? You can’t go back out into the wastes after that without some rest first.” Now that she mentioned it, I was surprisingly tired. Also, hadn’t Watcher told me to I would find something useful here? I could have a look around in the morning.

“Fine, I’ll be in the room opposite, call me if you need anything.” She gave me a smile as I slowly trotted out the room. I pushed open the door to the room on the opposite side of the corridor and froze for a second, what if there were more turrets?

No beep. No whir. I was safe. All the room seemed to have was a light green glow from an oracle on the far side, and a strange looking book nearby it. I trotted over to it, and looked at the books’ title.

“Wasteland survival guide, by ditzy doo.” I read aloud. Could come in handy. I lay down on one side, reading in the faint green glow, until I finally fell asleep.

Footnote: Level up
New perk: Rapid reload-Well will you look at that, getting some actual use from your gun, and the practice is starting to pay off. Your reload times are now decreased by 25%.
Quest perk: Kinetic dismantle-You may be useless at lifting things, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have other talents. Thanks to your knowledge of guns, you may now use the kinetic dismantle ability, which has the chance of rendering a gun unusable without repair.

Distant Lands Plan

Since I have given up on writing the series itself, I feel no pain in revealing my cards on the table now, revealing all the main points I had planned. The base story arc was already decided, as well as a few “filler” chapters, which would divert slightly from the main plot, but are ultimately amusing in their own right, which does keep to the theme of fallout itself.

Firstly I should talk about the plot, what was actually going to happen. Deadset and Redsun pair off, and he follows her to Neighas, since she needs to return to her caravan company to restart, and he has no real objective as of the moment. They intend to part ways once they arrive there. He finds a statuette of rainbow dash, which he assumes is a relic of the gods, and so takes on a personal role as a preacher, but most ponies on the way really don’t have time for his ramblings, and even Redsun is only putting up with his company because he saved her life, leading up to a rather major clash between the two characters. Along the way, they run into a zebra patrol, that attacks them, and they only survive by hiding. Once they have eluded their attackers, they come across another zebra, who has been strapped to a crucifix, had the black lines along his body cut, and left to die. Unsure at first, they agree to release him, but are unwilling to accompany him on his own quest, and part ways.

Once the two make it to Neighas, Redsun is told that she has been fired from the caravan company due to costing them too much with this latest mishap of hers. Disheartened, she decides to stick around with Deadset a little longer. The two end up going into a bar outside of the strip, where deadest meets a Pegasus. He starts to ramble on about his beliefs to the pony, believing him to be an angel, the Pegasus having little time for it, bucks him hard, and shakes his very beliefs. Also in the bar, deadest notices another pony who he immediately recognises as the maniac from his tribe who killed his father, as well as many others. Like a beast possessed, he chases her down, and while at first she was about to use lethal force on him, she realises he was from the clarity tribe too, and instead tricks him into activating a memory orb she had saved for a moment like this. The orb showed Deadset that she was a trader for the tribe herself, but one day one of the visitors used a strange device to hypnotise her, and ordered her to go on a rampage, and then return to his camp where she was forced into slavery. She tells how she killed the pony who bought her, and trained to become a mercenary to protect herself from slavers tracking her down. She also makes it clear that the moment she has a chance to kill the slaver who kidnapped her, she’ll do so by any means. Deadset offers her help to her cause, sympathising, as well as secretly glad to have some link back to the tribe.

During their time in neighas, they hear rumours of increased zebra attacks in the wasteland, as well as rumours of an impending invasion. Without any money more of their own, they follow a bounty to kill a few particular raiders. They set out into the wastes again, where a few filler chapters would occur, as well as having a few brushes with alicorns, which end up breaking grasp on his faith, but is replaced with a steely determination to remember the past for what it really was, instead of lies, or ignorance. There is also an unknown marksman who seems to help them, but they never see who it is, only hearing the gunshots.

Deadset ends up being mentioned more and more by Pon-3, and his little gang starts to build up a reputation, which draws the attention of a particularly strong gang of raiders. As they are severely overwhelmed, and face dying, they are saved by a lone griffon bearing weapons that could bring more firepower than they thought possible. The griffon insists on travelling with the party, only because he thinks they will lead him to bigger and better fights.

They return to neighas to receive the rewards for their bounties, to find it under siege by zebras. They help the citizens, repelling the attack. They learn that the Caesar of the zebras has decided to restart the great war with ponies, and will begin a crusade across the wastelands. Deadset is recruited into the defence force of Neighas, and due to his notoriety is tasked with ascertaining the location of the Caesar, in the hopes they can end the war before it begins. As they are doing this, the supporting gunman reveals himself as the zebra they had saved earlier, who is out for revenge against the zebra government that he believes has long since forsaken it’s ancient ways. He joins the team gladly.

They eventually find the location of the zebra camp, and even get close to killing the Caesar, but are spotted and repelled before they can do so. They rush back to Neighas to inform the cities council of this. It is now that the final battle is set in motion, and deadest calls upon all the friends and allies he has made up until this point, when they all pool their resources together and kill the Caesar, breaking the back of the zebra army too.

It’s no-where near Kkat levels of awesome, but then I would have never finished it anyway. Next I intend to go over the characters I have in the party, detailing their personality traits, as well as their goals, and finishing off with what happens to them after the battle.

Deadset (the main character): Being a unicorn born into a group of religious tribals, he never had much experience of the outside world, and had a very warped view of the past. Having little to no skill with magic, he was always handicapped in fights, but thanks to his unusual signature weapon, “deadsets’ misfortune”, the tables always seemed to turn when things looked its’ bleakest. He is an ultimately kind-hearted pony, but is not immune to moments of greed or self-importance. When he was out casted, he set his goal to simply doing some good in the wasteland. As he progresses, he decides the best way to do good would be to preach the word of the gods to the wastes, always twisting what information he finds about the past to his favour. When his beliefs are finally shattered, and even he can’t believe in his past anymore, he turns his attention instead to truly uncovering what happened, and learning about ponies true history. He is a mechanic by talent, and in his spare time is regularly maintaining his parties equipment, as well as always looking for new and interesting technology to study.
He generally likes the members of his party, although sometimes has to warm up to them. He instantly likes Redsun, even going as far as to engage in a romantic relationship with her at one point, but the two later decide that they aren’t quite suited for eachother, and instead focus on their objectives. While cautious around Quickstep, he feels a natural connection with her, due to their shared history, and even forgives her for the killing of his father, understanding that it wasn’t her who truly did it. Blackwing unsettles him greatly, being a griffon of notable lust for battle, even for their warring species. Having no real shared interests, or even shared goals, he only really is willing to have him along due to the firepower he brings, as well as relishing the opportunity to study his unusual weapons. After Blackwing kills his own mother, the griffon starts to open up more to the group, and Deadset starts to become a bit more trusting of him. Deadset takes a long time to decide what he thinks about Xynic, and is often baffled by the zebras seemingly bizzare moral code. He nearly kills the zebra when he finds out that it was him who convinced the raiders to attack clarity, but is prevented to do so by Redsun. The two share a great tension, which never really ebs away, but eventually Deadset realises the zebra will only kill those that are unjust, and is surprisingly fair in his deeming of who is worthy of death.
After the battle, Deadset nearly dies, losing his cracked hoof leg to a chainsaw. He survives though, and eventually builds himself a replacement limb. He ends up setting up a repairshop in a small town near Neighas, and is rarely out of business. He gives special discounts to those who offer him carrot cakes.

Redlight Sunshine (The traderpony) Is a silver-tongued negotiator, and Deadsets’ closest friend. After having her caravan destroyed, and nearly dying herself, she is saved by Deadset, and travels along with him. Although only doing so at first for her own gains, she eventually starts to like the unicorn, and then follows him out of a mutual loyalty. Whenever the party needs to negotiate or trade, she takes lead, and will always ensure they get the best deals. While at first incredibly self-centred, thought you’d have a hard time realising it due to her remarkable social skills, she grows attached to those around her, and instead tries to help others, rather than just herself, although she is always just trying to make a living in a harsh wasteland. Being no warrior, she rarely uses any weapon larger than a pistol, and would much rather talk her way through a situation than enter a gunfight.
She, much like Deadset, is generally favourable to her companions. Although her feelings towards deadset are mixed at best at first, she eventually becomes close friends with him, even engaging in a short lived relationship with him. She has great respect for Quickstep, seeing her as almost a mirror of herself, out to make her own living, just in a different field. Although she is sometimes irked by Quicksteps willingness to fight, she understands where those feelings come from. Blackwing on the other hand, she hates. The griffons brash and boastful behaviour regularly winds her up, as well as him being even more gun-ho than quickstep. She regularly uses plays of logic on the griffon to outsmart and make a fool of Blackwing, but is always careful to not overstep a line, less she get melted into goo. She is amazed by Xynics resilience and stoicism, admiring how much the zebra could take, without ever lashing back should he feel the attacker innocent.
After the final battle, Redsun sets up her own caravan company. She makes ties with Deadsets’ repairshop, and visits him fairly regularly. The company never reaches huge success, but does become large enough to ensure a solid base in Neighas, and is a business rival to her old company.

Quickstep (explosives expert bounty hunter) is the parties first injection of “muscle”, and has seen more than her fair share of hardships. Having been forced to kill her friends and family, cast into slavery, and been subject to more cruel methods of torture than she can remember, both her body and mind have become hard and brutal, both bearing scars no pony should ever bear. Normally those who have been through what she has been turn into raiders, but she turned her hatred and fury into unmatched determination and drive to kill the slavers who captured her. Favouring stealth and explosives, her targets often never see it coming, and even when they do, it’s rare they escape the blast radius. Brutal on the battlefield, she learned that it was better to shoot first, than to give your enemy time to line up their shot. She resents her tribal roots, and hates the fact that she was lied to for so long. After she finally achieves her goal, she realises that she has nothing else in her life, so continues to follow Deadset out of a sense of respect for him.
Quickstep often views her companions as nieve, seeing their idealism as misplaced. This no more than towards Deadset, seeing his religious zeal as a massive waste, but at least respects that he’s driven for something. She doesn’t like Redsun, seeing her as a pretentious snake who hides her real self, and would stab anyone in the back should she benefit from it. Blackwing on the other hand, she shares a friendly rivalry with, both often competing for kills, and often sharing stories from their colourful past. Xynic confuses her, and never understands why the zebra insists that they spare some ponies who have attacked them, while will ensure others will die with no mercy. She views this strange morality as a waste, it’ll be much better to kill them all, tying up loose ends.
She doesn’t survive the final battle, instead having to sacrifice her own life to take out a zebra gun emplacement in a large explosion.

Falcon blackwing (heavy weapons specialist) is a heavily built black griffon who fights only for the glory of battle. Being an outcast of his branch of the talon company mercs, he’s driven to regain his honour in his own eyes, and seeks to kill the leader of the mercs himself, his mother. Brutal and violent, he only chooses to follow Deadset as he always seems to get in big fights. He carries two different weapons, one being a minigun named “eagle storm”, and a magic-caster called “dragons’ breath”, and would sacrifice anything to keep hold of them.
He is the most experienced fighter in the party, and as such sees the rest of his team as weak, often not valuing their other skills. He views deadset with interest, and always wonders how such a small and weak creature attracts the attention of fights far bigger than he warrents. He also sees Deadsets’ fascination with his weapons as quant. Blackwing views Redsun as a waste to the party, not really seeing why they have a pony who has no fighting skills along with them. Quickstep on the other hand, he shares the friendly rivalry. The two sharing many ideals and viewpoints, get along rather well, aside for the occasional argument due to Blackwings temper. Blackwing sees Xynics method of war as unusual, and while he doesn’t understand the zebras tendency to kill some, while sparing others, he has no problem with leaving survivors, if only because he hopes for another fight with them in the future.
After the war, Blackwing takes it upon himself to hunt down raiders spread across the waste. Although Deadset or the others never see him again, they sometimes hear Pon-3 talk about “The griffon of the night”, and his crusade against the evils of the waste.

Xynic (Zebra spy and assassin) is the last to join the party, and is the most unusual of then. Originally being one of the Caesars’ Frumentarii, after orchestrating an attack against a harmless tribe in the wasteland in an attempt to cause confusion and chaos, he rebels against the Caesar, seeing the oncoming war as a transgression against the zebras way of life that can’t be accepted. After being crucified and left to die by his own kind, he is saved by Deadset. While he hoped the unicorn would help him in his mission, the unicorn declines, and the two part. Out of a sense of honour, the zebra still watches over Deadset, helping when time needs. When it becomes clear that Deadset has started an offensive against the zebras themselves, he reveals himself and offers his own services. The zebra is now referred to by other zebras as “proditor”, or traitor, a badge he wears with pride. To mark this, he paints over his stripes with the blood other zebras. The zebra fights at range, favouring his sniper rifle and the shadows, although he is competent at hoof to hoof combat. He abides by an unusual moral code that few others understand. Due to his experience as a spy, he is able to see who is a “Nezinau” through very small facial gestures, and it is those who he deems as those worthy of death. If they aren’t, he will spare them.
Mysterious and quiet, he is rarely involved in arguments, and just watches what the party decides to do, following any decision. He sees himself as tied to Deadset, owing him a debt for saving his life. He respects Redsun for her unwillingness to spill blood, but also sees her as nieve, knowing that sometimes you must fight to achieve your ends. He sees Quickstep as a broken warrior, one who would have been legendary were she a male zebra, but due to her mistreatment fights recklessly. He trains her in a few tricks for stealth. He doesn’t like Blackwing, seeing the griffon as arrogant and foolish, as all the griffon wants is to fight, and fights indiscriminately. It is only with him that the zebra will be drawn into an argument with.
After the end of the war, as the Caesar dies, he infiltrates his way back into the ranks of the zebras, and acts as a moderating agent in the zebras government, ensuring that no war like this would ever break out again.

Next I’ll talk about a few of the “filler” chapters. Some of them, while not strictly linked with the plot, many will have impacts on the story as a whole.

Mares of Shadows: Deadset and his party stumble into a small town where a battle between two powerful unicorns unicorns that are dressed in unusual costumes. The battle ends in a draw, and they run off into the night before Deadset can confront them. The townspeople tell him that they are two nutjobs who believe themselves to be a super rivals, one calling herself nightmare moon, the other mare-do-well. Deadset gets’ tasked with ending the rivalry before anymore ponies get hurt. He convinces them both separately to move on, and they both end up travelling into the wastes (potential for a later cameo or something in the story, undecided)

Knowledge and power: In this chapter, after deadset is determined to learn more about the past, the party comes across a wrecked library. Naturally curious, Deadset enters it and starts exploring. After reading a few of the books that weren’t destroyed, he finds that the library is home to a number of raiders. After an initial attack, he also finds a squad of the steel rangers are there, with a similar purpose. They end up teaming up with the hope to eradicate the raiders from the library, and to also find any useful information about the past. It is here that deadset gets on good terms with the rangers. (Potential for a two parter, where they were taken to the rangers bunker, possibility for sub-plot where the rebellion within the rangers reaches the collerodeo, and infighting between the steel rangers, and applejack rangers.)

Dark side of technology: This would have been a mini-saga of about 2-4 chapters, where Deadset and his party end up in the Commonwealth. While at first, everything is civil, Deadset uncovers the brutality and corruption within the Commonwealth (such as things like forced lobotomies, killing innocent ponies and turning them into cyborgs, unethical experiments). Ends up toppling their government, and Greenbeam ends up becoming the new head of the board.

Where griffons tread: This chapter was the one focussed mainly on Blackwing. It would have included a lot of character development for him, and ends with him in a duel with his mother, ultimately being the victor and killing her.

A slave obeys: This Chapter was Quicksteps. After she finally learns the location of the slavers who captured her, the party set out to the location, which turns out to nearly be a fortress in its’ own right. Quickstep is sent into near bloodlust, willing to kill other slaves just to get her targets. She gets confronted by Deadset about this, and eventually fulfil their goal and free the rest of the slaves.

Escaping the past: This is the chapter where Deadset can finally free himself from his tribal roots. Having cast off everything about his beliefs by now, he is hunted down by the tribal leader, Hoofcrash, and his right hoof pony, boulders. After a titanic duel between Deadset and Hoofcrash, both mentally and physically, Deadset proves the victor and Hoofcrash dies from his injuries, but not before apologising for his misplaced hatred. Boulders then heads back to the tribe to lead them herself, ashamed that they abandoned it for their own personal revenge.

And with that we come to the end of my planned saga. It was naturally going to evolve more as I wrote it, with more details and story arcs coming out, but this was my solid plan and could have worked out rather nicely, if only I had the drive to finish it. I hope some people enjoyed the small amount I had done.

Should anyone want to continue it for whatever reason, or just take some ideas from it and incorporate it into their own story, feel absolutely free to. Just give me some mild credit as “inspiration” or something like that.

Should anyone actually have any questions about it, feel free to ask, I would be happy to answer them.

And with that, I call my story to a close. Thank you for those who did actually read it, and to the few of you who supported me. I just suck.

Crawver