Fallout Equestria: Ashes to Ashes

by Tango

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 77628

As a filly, Ember was captured by slavers. Several years later she escapes but how will she survive?

Set in the Fallout Equestria universe as described by Kkat (if you haven't read it yet, http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html go read it now, I can wait a couple of weeks)
Ember is a young unicorn mare who regains her freedom after years of slavery. Follow her on her journey through the wasteland. Will she withstand its horrors without going crazy? Will she be able to come to peace with her past? Will she ever find happiness? And most importantly: will she ever find something tasty to eat?

Only one way to find out.

If you do or do not like this story, please leave a comment. Feedback is appreciated :D

Published 2012-01-03 23:40:16 UTC
Last updated 2012-10-22 17:06:30 UTC

Chapter 2: Fireproof

Ashes to Ashes Chapter 2 -

Fireproof

The first thing I noticed was the smell. An unpleasant mixture of smoke and something I couldn't quite put my hoof on. It penetrated my nostrils and hurt my lungs. I coughed in a reflex to clear them.

That made me notice the second thing: moving hurt. A lot. You know when somepony describes pain as being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles? Well, I felt as if I was being stabbed by thousands of spears. Oh, and apparently somepony had dropped a building on my head. Every single muscle in my body hurt. Every muscle? Hey, will you look at that! My eyelids were still okay!

This led to the third thing I discovered: my surroundings. The world around me was mostly black, the ground littered with unfamiliar shapes. Which was strange, because judging from the light that filtered through the ever present cloud layer it was already early in the afternoon. Wait, early in the afternoon? Why weren’t we on the move already? And more importantly: were was everypony?

For some reason the black shapes intrigued me, it was as if they were calling out to me, I found myself limping to the closest one. While crawling closer, I noticed that the smell was getting stronger, and if I looked closely I could see a little bit of smoke coming out of... its mouth and eye-sockets?

Suddenly the events of the previous night came back as I fell on my haunches. The guard mare, Stargazers defiance, the griffin, his death, the grinning slaver, the fire, and finally my rage. My incredible anger towards everything around me, focused on the the green slaver.

I looked away from the smoldering corpse and my eyes fell on something shiny next to it. Looking closer, I found out it used to be a shotgun. Now it was partially molten and rendered useless. My gaze fell back to the corpse, all that was left of my tormentor was a pile of charred flesh and bones. Her hide and mane were completely burned away.

One part of me told me she got what she deserved, another told me she didn’t deserve this. That nopony deserved this. I blocked the second part out. She did deserve this, she hadn’t given a damn about the lives of other ponies. She had been grinning when Stargazers life was crushed out of him. She didn’t deserve to live. I picked myself up with some effort and turned around.

Oh.

I fell back down again as I saw that she hadn’t been the only one in the camp. All around me I now recognized the corpses of ponies and griffins. A few of them were still smoldering. From the positions they were in I could tell that most of them had been trying to run away, it hadn’t made a difference. I had killed everyone in the camp. No. Not killed. Slaughtered, annihilated, I had burned them alive.

I remembered the screaming of which I had only vaguely been aware. I imagined their last moments, desperately crawling away from me, their bodies on fire. I shuddered and closed my eyes, but the images wouldn’t go away. I opened them again and saw a pony, it was impossible to tell if it had been a buck, mare, slaver, or slave, lying on the ground, it’s back arched in pain. It was too much, my stomach launched the grey sludge from the night before back out, a part of my brain noticed in amusement that it was still sticking together.

I forced myself not to look directly at the carcasses again as I slowly walked towards the fireplace. That only made it worse; from the corners of my eyes they seemed as demons to me. I fully expected them to jump at me. Hyperventilating I reached the fireplace, which now contained nothing more than ash and a few small pieces of charcoal..

I caught my breath and shot one last glance behind me. Every single one of them returned my gaze. Maybe I was hallucinating, maybe not, but not a hair in my mane (which was, by the way, standing straight up) wanted to stay here any longer.

So I ran.

I ran until I could run no more.

Then I walked.

Every single step was hell, so the walking turned into limping. I kept going though, because there was no way I was going to survive the night without any supplies. In order to turn my attention away from the pain, I forced myself to count every living plant I walked by. Counting rocks would have been a better idea: as the cloud layer slowly turned red, foreshadowing the night, I had counted precisely thirty-two green plants. Those plants had been the only signs of life I had seen all day, save for some bloatsprites in the distance. In my current condition, I think those bloatsprites would have kicked my flank easily.

I was slowly climbing a hill while my legs were moving themselves without me having to think about it. As the day drew to an end, the struggle to keep my eyes open slowly became harder and harder. When I reached the hill top though, something caught my eye. There, half a kilometer from the base of the hill, was a small settlement! Lights were burning among the dark shapes of buildings, inviting me to come over. I had no clue whether or not the locals would be hostile or friendly but I honestly didn’t give a buck.

Unfortunately,while I was distracted by the town, one of my hooves got stuck in a hole. Before I knew it, my face had already made contact with the ground. A new surge of pain shot through my leg as it was bent in a way it wasn’t supposed to. To make matters worse, I was already descending the hill and my forward momentum caused me to roll over, gaining speed as I came down. My attempts at stopping were useless so I resorted to my old habit: screaming as loud as possible.

Finally the slope flattened and I managed to come to a halt. Remember when I was talking about being stabbed by spears? Scratch that, the pain I now made me feel as if I was burning alive. I chuckled a bit about the irony and coughed up some blood. Wondering how close I was to the settlement, I opened my eyes. If I had had some strength left in my front legs, I would have used them to wipe my eyes. A couple of hundred meters from me, a dragon was watching me. A giant. Bucking. Dragon. My last thoughts before passing out from sheer exhaustion and terror were how it was going to eat me. I concluded that my personal favorite method of being devoured was being swallowed whole before the darkness took over.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Slowly, my eyes opened. I blinked a couple of times to check if they really were open since I couldn't see a thing. Everything was completely black around me. The only indication of up and down came from the feeling of a cold, smooth floor underneath me. I tried standing up and, to my pleasant surprise, found that it no longer hurt.

I attempted magic to light my surroundings but utterly failed to produce even a single spark. The act did provide me with a better view of the area though, just not in a way I felt really comfortable with. All around me, countless pairs of faint lights appeared, shaped like eyes. It was impossible to tell how far away they were from me, but I could tell they were coming closer.

Frantically I looked around, searching for a way out.

There was none.

While the eyes slowly approached me, the soft glow of their eyes allowed me to distinguish their shapes. Ponies and griffins. It didn’t really surprise me. That didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid when they came closer.

They were now close enough for me to touch them. I did my best at kicking, punching and biting to keep them away but the sheer number of them overwhelmed me. All of them jumped on top of me, crushing my breath out of my lungs. Their sticky, hot and disgusting limbs pinning me down under them. I tried desperately claw my way out of the mass of cadavers, searching for a place to breathe.

I managed to get my head out of the ball of bodies, only to find myself staring into two large reptilian eyes. Petrified, I watched as the creature opened its maw. A faint glow started to build up in its throat. It grew bigger and bigger as time slowed down, until the glow turned into a fire, so bright and hot.

I thrashed around, trying to escape while sweating from the increasing heat. However, it was of no use. The flames rolled out of the great maw and circled around me, the heat was suffocating, the light blinding.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I jumped up. Or rather, I tried to but was held back by a firm pair of hooves on my chest.

“Aaauuurrhgggh!” That was me. It really hurt, so the screaming was perfectly justified. “What precisely hurt?” You might ask, upon which the answer would be: Every. Single. Thing. Granted, some things hurt more than others but the overall feeling was not pleasant by any means.

“Hold still! This is for the pain!” I didn’t recognize the voice but immediately tried to be as still as possible. Not that the alternative was much better.

“Aaauuh!” I felt a sharp stinging pain in my left foreleg, the one that had decided to get stuck behind something. My instinct was to pull it away, but I blocked it. The voice had promised it would help against the pain and compared to pretty much everything else, the sting was nothing.

“That’s it, try to relax.” The voice was from a mare. As my eyes adjusted to the bright lights above me I noticed she had a silver grey coat and a light blue mane. A sad smile was on her lips as her bright green eyes met mine.

That was the last I saw of her as my vision blurred and the pain faded away. I felt really sleepy and struggled to try and stay awake, I didn't want to fall asleep and have that dream again. The painkiller, or whatever it was she had injected me with, was stronger than me though and soon I was plunged back into sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

This time, luckily, there was no dream and for a change I woke up normally. I felt a lot better than before, whatever that mare had done to me, it had helped. Part of the comfortable feeling came from the bed I was lying on. It was a proper, clean bed and it felt great just lying down. I gently lifted my neck, careful not to strain anything. Looking down at the rest of my body I saw a whole lot of bloodied bandages. My left foreleg was wrapped in a brace, preventing me from bending it.

Next to my comfy bed were several carts with medical equipment on them. One of them held a large heap of bloodied rags and a shiny bowl. Surrounding me were portable curtains, placed to create a small private room. It was nice and quiet and for half an hour I was happy to just lie there. I couldn't even remember the last time I chose for myself when to wake up. After a while though, I got utterly bored. I couldn't move properly and I had seen every detail of my makeshift room already. So I decided to see what was inside the big, shiny bowl.

Since the cart was just out of reach I tried to grab it telekinetically. As a slave, I wasn't allowed to use magic, so it took me a couple of attempts and a lot of effort before I finally got a grip. Luckily I still remembered how to do it from my foalhood, when it was the first thing I (and every other unicorn) learned. I didn't remember it being so difficult and exhausting though. As I slowly lifted the bowl towards my bed, the headache returned. It got worse quickly until I could no longer hold it and my magic collapsed.

The bowl, no longer supported by my magic, was once again bound by the laws of physics. More specifically, gravity. For a split second, it was just hanging still in the air as a last act of defiance. Then it accelerated towards the ground, which it shortly afterwards met. The impact of metal on concrete was very loud, even more so because it was pretty much the only sound in the building. As the bowl bounced up, its contents, small pieces of metal, were launched out of it. Each of the the pieces was bound by gravity as well, the sound they made when hitting the ground resembled a hailstorm on a rooftop.

Needless to say, all this noise attracted attention. I was still frozen in place, staring at space which had been occupied by the bowl less than ten seconds before, when the curtains were opened. The grey mare who had put me to sleep came storming through the opening. She stopped at my bed and looked first at me and then at the bowl with spilled contents on the floor.

I tried my best to look as innocent as possible, upon which she burst out in laughter. It took her a full minute to calm herself enough down to talk. “I see you found out that you’ve got a burnout.” Upon my not-understanding look she answered. “When you overexert your magic, you can suffer a burnout. Compare it to straining a muscle. While recovering it is impossible or very difficult to use magic, as I’m sure you just noticed.” She chuckled and picked up the bowl and the metal bits and placed them back on top of the cart.

“If you were wondering what that metal was, I think you’d have more of a clue than me. I found them in you after all.” I shuddered. The mental image of all that metal inside me was pretty disturbing. “They were a real pain to get out too, you know.” She continued. “Especially since the entrance wounds had been burned closed.” My stomach chose that moment to interrupt with a loud rumbling noise.

The mare facehoofed. “Oh silly me, you must be starving. I mean, look at you. Your ribs are almost poking out.” She levitated a plate with some meat to me. “Here you go. Bon appetit.”

It took me precisely twelve seconds to gobble it up. Not that the taste was so great, mind you, but my stomach just demanded the food to be brought to it as soon as possible. The mare stood next to me, looking at me with an amused expression. She levitated a bottle of Sparkle-Cola to me, I recognized it from my foalhood when it had been my favorite drink. “Here, you’re probably a bit dehydrated as well.” Wasting no time, I immediately chucked down the entire bottle, it’s taste was amazing! I could almost cry over the the magnificent carrot flavor. Once I was done, I smacked my lips and looked back at the grey mare.

She chuckled at my eagerness. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I think it is time for introductions. My name is Fixer and, as you probably have already guessed, I’m the doctor of around here. So, what is your name, mysterious mare?”

I gulped. On the one hoof, I didn’t want to talk. It went against my principles. But then again, Fixer had saved me and well, fixed me up. She had taken care of me, given me medicine, food and drinks without asking anything in return. The least I could do was answer the damn question.

“E... Ember.” There. I said it. Okay, for a casual observer it might have seen like a gust of wind, but still, I said it. And luckily Fixer was listening closely. “Nice to meet you Ember. I have some questions for you, but they can wait if you are too tired. Do you feel like you can answer me?”

I nodded. “Good, now, don’t take this the wrong way. But I’m curious. How are you still alive? You came in here with a dozen bullets in your body, a broken leg, evidence of small burns, minor dehydration and starvation. You didn’t have any supplies with you and the nearest settlement in the direction from where you came is a three day journey. So, how did you manage to get here?”

“I only broke my leg just before I arrived here.” I apologized, flushing. My throat hurt a bit and I coughed. She laughed at me and floated another sparkle-cola over, which I gladly drunk. “You truly are a special one aren’t you?” She grinned. “But still, that doesn’t answer my question. How did you manage to walk for such a long time with such injuries?”

Truth to be told, I had no clue myself, so I gave her my best attempt at a shrug in my circumstances. She tapped at my neck. “Does this have anything to do with it perhaps?” Wait, what did she mean? I brought my right hoof to my neck. There was something metal around it.

My heart stopped for a second. The collar! How could I have forgotten about it? More importantly: why hadn’t it exploded yet? Slave collars are fitted with a small explosive charge, big enough to blow of the slave’s head, yet small enough to not hurt any bystanders. They were constantly in contact with a radio transmitter, if you tried to escape and went out of range, the collar would explode. I knew this because I had seen it happen. It’s not a pretty sight.

Now for the one-million-caps question: why was my head still attached to my body? Unfortunately I couldn’t answer that since it was a bit difficult to see it. It did feel different from usual though. As I ran my hoof around it I could feel that it had deformed a bit, but nothing more than that.

Fixer saw how confused I was with the collar. “I think it is a slave collar, didn’t you know you were wearing it?”

I sighed and explained. “I’ve had it for a long time. Too long. It’s just. I’m surprised it didn’t work.”

“Oh. Oh! I’m sorry.” She then gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean with ‘work’? How is it supposed to work?”

As I explained how it was fitted with explosives her expression went from surprised to enraged. “What kind of pony would even design such a horrible thing? And here I thought I had seen it all.” She sighed.

After a small pause she spoke up again. “You know what, stay here, I’ll bring Sticky Piston over. He’s our town mechanic, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to keep walking around with a live explosive on your neck.” And with that she left me.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

As it turned out, the brown earth pony with rusty mane knew what he was doing and he was able to release me from the collar without too much of a problem. Piston then proceeded to examine it thoroughly. When he was done he turned back to me and Fixer. “This is one mighty fine piece of equipment. The pony who created it must’ve been really skilled for getting all those components into such a small space.” Fixer shot him an angry glare. “Oh, and he must’ve been really evil as well of course.” He added quickly. “Anyway, I figured why it didn’t work properly. It’s been fried.”

“So somepony overloaded the circuitry?” Fixer asked. I had no idea what she meant with circuitry, or how one would overload it. Luckily Piston explained. “Nope. It’s been literally fried. As in, somepony burned it. See how it’s not a shaped like a circle.” He pointed at the collar, which was more egg-shaped. Fixer and me both nodded. “Well, it’s not supposed to be like that. Something heated it up enough for it to melt a bit. Do you even know how hot that is? And since you were wearing that around your neck I have no bucking clue how you’re not a small puddle of pony goo.”

I winced, images from the camp flashing in front of my eyes. “Hey, you okay? I didn’t mean it like that.” Piston’s voice snapped me out of it. He and Fixer were looking at me in concern. “I’m fine.” I managed to squeeze out.

Fixer closely inspected me. “Well then, if you’re as fine as you say, I think you’ve stayed in bed long enough.” I stared at her, my braced leg and the bandages. She followed my look. “Don’t worry about that. The bandages were to stop bleeding while I cut the bullets out and the brace to keep your leg still while the healing potions did their magic. You should be fine by now. So, let’s have a look shall we?”

With that, she removed the bandages and the brace. Underneath was smooth hide, with only tiny scars. Clearly Fixer knew what she was doing. There was something else though. Something I had never seen before. On my flank a yellow flame had appeared! A cutie mark! My cutie mark!

My enthusiasm got drilled in the ground when I figured out when I must have gotten it. I had gotten my cutie mark for mass murder. For burning all of the slaves and slavers alive. I could see all their corpses looking at me again. Fixer misinterpreted my distress. “Yeah, one of the bullets hit your cutie mark, I did my best to disguise the scars. I’m sorry if it wasn’t enough.”

Great, even before I learned I had one, my cutie mark had already been damaged. Well, it was not like it was something I was very fond of. “No. It’s okay. Really.” I managed to mutter. Deciding to not worry about it anymore I stepped out of bed, careful not to put any weight on my previously broken leg. Once I was standing firmly I slowly put some weight on it. I was amazed that it didn’t hurt. At all. Then again, I had never experienced the wonders of a healing potion before. If one of the slaves would be injured, he or she would get a day off at best. After all, we were considered expendable equipment.

After I was done admiring and testing my healed limbs I turned back to Fixer. There was a question that had been on my mind for a while now. The problem was that even though I was curious, I still wasn’t used to the whole “talking” thing, let alone asking questions. But, I reasoned, I wasn’t a slave anymore, and I knew I wouldn’t last long without information. And in order to get information, you need to inform. So, I took a deep breath and asked the question that had been bothering me the most. “Uhm, I’m sorry but, where am I?”

They both stared at me for a full minute, then looked at each other and fell on the ground laughing. Deeply embarrassed I tried to make myself as small as possible until they were done. “Oh my. Heh heh. Sorry, I totally forgot you might have some questions of your own. Well Ember, you’re currently in my medical outpost. But I’m going on a limb here and assume you mean the name of the town. Welcome to Neighvac. Our small piece of paradise in the wasteland. If you don’t mind the occasional attack and the bugs crawling around, that is. Luckily Sureshot and Fifty got us covered.”

Once that was cleared out it was time for my next question, equally bugging as the previous one. “What was that dragon?” Fixer and Sticky Piston went for another round of rolling on the floor. This time it was Piston who was the first to get back on his hooves again. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about that scary dragon. That old bastard has been here for a long time and he hasn’t hurt a bloatsprite. Not that that would have been a bad thing, the little buggers are annoying as hell.”

Upon my confused look he chuckled. “Hey Doc, got permission to let me show her?”

Fixer gave me a brief glance. “I don’t see why not, and while you’re at it, why not show her the rest of town as well?”

Piston nodded and tossed the collar to me. “Here, it’s yours. I made sure that the explosives are disarmed so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.” I caught it and wondered if I should keep it, and, where I could keep it. I put it on the bed. “Thank you, but I can’t really keep it with me.” I said, gesturing to my non-existent saddlebag.

This caused him to blush a bit. “Right. Um. Fixer, can you hold on to that thing while we get Ember some supplies?” Fixer chuckled. “Sure I’ll keep it for a while. Now off you go.” We were pushed to the door, which she opened with her magic. “Oh, and one thing Ember. It’ll take a while for your magic to come back, so don’t push it okay?”

With those last words of advice we were shoved outside. It was somewhere around midday in the small town. I saw several ponies sitting in front of their small wooden cottages. I turned back to the medical outpost. What I saw almost made my heart stop. The giant friggin dragon! It was standing right behind Fixer’s office, scanning the wasteland. In the daylight I could see more details. It was tall, about twenty meters of rusty scales, claws, fangs and all sorts of nastiness.

Wait a second. Rusty? I walked around the building to get a better view. From up close, I could see that it’s scales had one day been painted red. The paint had long since fallen off, exposing the metal scales to the environment. I tapped one of it’s legs. It sounded hollow. I looked back up, the giant beast hadn’t moved a muscle, standing still like a statue. I looked back at Piston, who had a wide grin on his face. “It isn’t a real dragon is it?”

“Nope, this bad boy here was build before the war. It’s actually hollow and was part of a playground.” He gestured to some rusty wreckages around us. My mouth fell open. Oooohhh. Well that made sense.

Piston chuckled. “Hey, wanna take a look inside? I’ll introduce you to Fifty.” I nodded, still amazed at the construction, and followed him to the other side of the dragon. By design, it’s tail was bent to one side, revealing an opening. I shot him an incredulous look. “Seriously?” I asked.

“Hey, remember it was made for foals. They must’ve found this hilarious!” He shot back and crawled inside. I followed him up some small stairs. Luckily it got wider in the middle of the dragon. After we made our way through its neck, we arrived in the mouth of the beast. I chuckled, before I had passed out, my wish had been for the dragon to eat me in one bite. Now I was standing in its mouth.

“Ember, this is Fifty. Fifty, this is Ember.” Piston waved his hoof at a dark green stallion with a large bullet for a cutie mark. I suddenly realised I had never looked at Piston’s or Fixer’s cutie marks. A quick glance showed that Piston had a steamy piston on his flank. Figures.

“Pleased to meet ya Ember, my full name is Fifty Cal by the way, but everypony just calls me Fifty.” He said, without looking back. He was scanning the wasteland, apparently looking for any threats. Mounted on a rails was a large scoped rifle. The rails allowed him to aim anywhere within 180 degrees. I noted several mirrors hanging from the dragon’s nose, showing the spots behind us. From up here, you could see anything coming from kilometers away.

BANG!

I was startled by the gunshot and, as it appeared, so was Piston. “Sonnuva! What was that for?”

“Damn Geckos. They built a nest near the well, just behind that hill over there.” He was pointing straight ahead, I followed his leg with my gaze and was just able to make out a small hill. How Fifty was able to see Geckos beat me. “Every time somepony goes to get some water, the buggers attack them. I shoot as many as I can, but they just keep coming. Bastards breed like bloatsprites.” He actually turned around to face us for a second. “Say, why don't you two flush 'em out? It would be mighty appreciated to, you know, get our only water source back. I'll give you supportive fire while you're at it.”

Without hesitation, I nodded. This would allow me to actually do something back for the people who had saved my life. Besides, Geckos didn't sound so bad. “I'll do it.” I looked to Piston, who also nodded. “Sure, why not.” He turned to me. “Let's get ourselves some guns then, shall we?” Oh, right, guns. I had actually never fired a gun, everypony did it though, so it shouldn't be hard to learn. I turned around and followed Sticky Piston down the dragon, until we got out of it's, uhm, backside again.

We went to a small store were the owner, Golden Cap, gave us a discount after Piston told her what we needed the supplies for. Then we went behind the shop, were Piston set up some tin cans for us to practice. Since my magic was still rubbish, I had to use the mouth grip. The gun tasted filthy, but I had had worse things in my mouth. “Okay, first things first, have you ever used a gun before?” My teacher asked me. I shook my head. “Figured as much. So, for lesson number one. You point a gun only at things you want to shoot, never to things you don't want to shoot. Understand?” I nodded, careful not to point my head directly at him.

“Good. Next lesson, safety. Right now, the safety is on, as long as you haven't cocked the gun, it ain't gonna fire. So disengage the safety like this.” He showed me to movement with his mouth and I copied him. “Good job. Now, while the safety is off, keep your tongue from the trigger ’til you're sure you wanna shoot. Then, point the gun at the thing you want dead, hold it steady, and pull the trigger.” He showed me the movements and shot, knocking off one of the tin cans. “Damnit, I wanted the left one.” I heard him mutter.

Grinning, which is pretty hard with a gun in your mouth, I copied his movements and aimed for the can on the right. I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Now it was Piston's turn to grin: I had not only missed the can, but the recoil from the gun had jerked my head backwards and made me drop the gun. “Whoops, forgot to tell you 'bout the recoil.” I was not amused, it had hurt! “Anyway, the shot was close enough for me. You've passed gun training! Now for the real work, what do you say we go hunt ourselves some geckos?”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I knew it! I knew that every single thing in the wasteland was mutated. So no exception for geckos. But there was no way I could have known they had turned into some kind of dragon hybrid with the ability to breathe fire! I mean, it was bad enough that they were slightly bigger than most ponies, were damn fast and had sharp claws and teeth. But fire? Come on! That was just unfair.

Luckily we also had an unfair advantage: Fifty Cal was a very skilled sniper and once we had managed to lure the geckos from behind the hill, he was picking them off one by one. Still, there were plenty left for me and Piston to have fun with. And with that I mean run away from them while screaming. It also didn't help that we had dropped our guns. No, I didn't drop it from the recoil. It's just that my pistol had become pretty much useless after I was done shooting with it, since Piston had forgotten to tell me how to reload it. Not that I would have had enough time to do that. The geckos were incredibly fast on two legs and had forced us to a tactical retreat.

I looked back when I heard curse words mixed with Piston's screams. It turned out he had every reason to curse as he had tripped and fallen down. One particularly large gecko was looming over Piston, ready to incinerate him.

Without hesitation, I launched myself at the wannabe dragon just as it started to exhale. The impact send both of us rolling on the ground and I learned something new. Ever since I found out that I had survived being incinerated in the camp, I had wanted to know if I was invulnerable to all fire or just my own. When the gecko's fiery breath set my mane on fire, I learned that it was just my own.

Luckily the rolling put the fire out before it could do any serious damage. Still, my situation was hardly ideal as I ended up below the large creature. It had me pinned down and inhaled to burn my face off. By inhaling, it exposed its neck to me. I gladly jumped at the opportunity by stabbing him with my horn. Blood splattered all over my face as my horn cut open his artery. Still, the creature didn't realise it was supposed to drop dead and instead went berserk, cutting me with its claws. I tried my best to block them and managed to land some kicks myself, but he kept going until his last breath, making some deep gashes.

After he was finally dead, I had another problem: I was kinda stuck with my horn inside the throat of a heavy reptile, who was lying on top of me. After several minutes of wriggling, I managed to free myself. Around me were half a dozen of geckos. Fortunately Fifty had already dealt with them. I saw that several of the corpses were missing a head and made a mental note to never piss off anyone with such a rifle.

I looked around, searching for Piston, whom I eventually found lying underneath one of the geckos. I helped him move the carcass and helped him up. “Thanks for the save with the big one Ember.” He said, before looking concerned at my rump. “Uh, let's get back to Fixer. Those gashes look pretty bad.” I followed his look. All over my body were scratches and cuts. Most of them seemed superficial and would probably heal on their own, but two of them were pretty deep and bleeding heavily. “Yeah, that would be smart.” I agreed, before adding. “Um, do you happen to have something to stop the bleeding with?” I didn't want to end like the big gecko.

Piston nodded and quickly skinned one of the corpses. He strapped the makeshift bandage over the wound. It was gross, but at least I wouldn't die.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Once we were finished, Piston picked up our guns and we went back to town. We entered the Fixer's office after confirming to Fifty that all of the geckos were dead. Fixer was pretty pissed at me for getting so many new injuries on the same day she had declared me cured. Piston told her to shut up and treat our wounds, which she did, albeit while constantly muttering at how irresponsible we were. When she was done, all of the cuts had were closed and some small burns on my neck had been treated. Piston then told her about what had happened, and her mood improved slightly. It turned out that she was running out of water, and if we wouldn't have cleared the well, she would have had to improvise with alcohol.

“What? You saying that if we wouldn't have gotten rid of those devils, you would have made alcoholic healing potions? Ember! We gotta find more of them buggers and lure 'em to the well!” Fixer, who’s cutie mark depicted a bottle of pills I finally noticed, facehoofed. I, on the other hoof, had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “Why would we want to do that? Wouldn't that be incredibly redundant and dangerous?” I asked.

Now it was Piston's turn to facehoof. “Ember, everything is better with alcohol, don't you know that? And I would happily risk my life if it would mean alcoholic healing potions!” I wasn't really used to rhetorical questions, since I wasn't really used to answering questions in general, so I answered. “I'm sorry, but I've never drank alcohol, so I didn't know that everything is better with it.”

Piston gasped and faked a heart attack. “Fixer, permission to take Ember to the bar and show her the liquid miracle? I simply cannot allow anypony to not know its sweet, sweet taste! And besides, after all she's been through, I bet she could use a drink.” Fixer eyed Piston closely and then looked at me. “Permission granted. But only, and you need to listen to me carefully, only if you don't let her drink too much. I don't want to see her here tomorrow with alcohol poisoning, understood?” Piston nodded furiously and dragged me out.

He brought me to the local bar and ordered a dozen bottles of varying liquids.

Piston grinned at me. “Let's start with this one.” He pointed at a bottle containing a red liquid, named Pan Equestrian Gargle Blaster...

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out things to improve!

Chapter 3: Hangover

Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 3

Hangover

I was standing in the middle of Neighvac. The main street was completely deserted, save for me and the gecko king, wearing his crown of water bottles. Ten meters of dusty ground separated us. Slowly we circled each other, keeping an eye for any sudden movement. Once in a while, he would hiss at me, at which I would return a growl.

A small hole opened up in the cloud curtain. Sunlight fell through it and created a perfect circle of light between us. From the hole, a shape fell down. I struggled to keep an eye on the gecko king, fighting my curiosity about the shape.

A faint noise got louder. “WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

BANG!

The shape crashed down into the ground, creating a small crater and making me struggle to stay on my hooves. Once the dust cleared, the shape appeared from the crater. It was the bartender whose name I never learned. He stood there, smiling and waving at me. “Hello with the pudding.” Well, at least he was civil. I smiled back and said. “Good day with the cake.”

The sneaky gecko king used the distraction to leap from behind the bartender, claws ready to tear up my face. Time slowed down while he jumped at me and I got a good look of his long claws and fangs. I saw him come closer and closer, while I stood there, petrified.

Then, at the last possible moment, one of the water bottles on his crown exploded and his head was jerked back. Time returned to normal again and a shower of water and blood erupted from the late king's head.

I saw a large hole in his skull and I looked around, searching for my savior. Behind me, the dragon stood, with Fifty Cal in its mouth. He gave me a nod and I waved at him when I noticed a movement in the corner of my eyes.

My eyes shot to its source: the dragon's tail! The dragon was alive after all! I tried to yell at Fifty, warn him to get out of there, but no sound left my mouth.

The dragon's eyes looked at me, and with a shock I realized that I recognized them. They were my own!

The beast winked at me and closed its jaw. I stared in horror as I witnessed Fifty disappear between the long, sharp teeth which now formed a large grin.

“Noooooooooo!” I screamed. That bastard! Who did that dragon think he was? I grabbed a nearby rock and ran towards the laughing creature.

He didn't even notice as I ran up his tail, between the spikes on its back and on top of its head until it was too late. I brought the rock down and crushed the skull, sending scales and pieces of skull flying. Its head cracked like an egg.

I looked inside the dragon's head, where Fixer and Sticky Piston were standing.

Fixer gave me a stern look. “You should really wake up.”

Piston looked at her. “Oh let her sleep some more, can't you see she's having a nice dream?”

Fixer dismissed him with a hoof. “Listen to me. It would be really smart to wake up now, before something bad happens. Okay Ember?”

I almost lost my balance when the dragon's head moved. “Ember.” It said.

From its mouth I heard Fifty speak. “Ember.”

Down on the ground the gecko king stood up again. “Ember.” It sounded a bit like a frog's croak. Whatever a frog was.

Then the bartender yelled at me. “Pudding!” “Cake!” I yelled back.

Finally I put my attention back at the inside of the dragon's head. I looked expectantly at Piston. He didn't disappoint. “Ember!” His yell was so loud that I had to cover my ears.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“Ember!”

I groaned.

“Ember, Ember, wake up!”

I stretched my legs, and curled up a little. I was still tired and the voice hurt my ears. “Awww, can't I stay in bed just a little longer?”

“That's the problem, you're not in your bed.” Wait, what? I opened my eyes. All I saw were clouds. Oh, right. I must have fallen asleep outside. No problem, I was used to that. I slept outside all the time. Sand was my favorite soil to fall asleep on, then came mud. Mud came second only because it was so wet and cold. I liked its squishyness though. It felt like I was currently lying on rocks, hard and cold. Or wait, no, it felt more like metal. As I ran my hoof along the surface, I felt some texture, scales. Okay, that was unexpected, metal normally didn't have scales. A voice in the back of my head was screaming that I knew what metal this was. I knocked. It sounded hollow.

I shot up, and immediately wished I would have stayed down, the sudden movement made my head spin. But I knew where I was: on top of the dragon's head! “She's awake!” I heard a voice yell from the ground. The sweet, safe ground. The sweet, safe ground which happened to be twenty meters below me, I noted as I looked down. The sight instantly made me feel dizzy. “Ember! Listen very carefully to me! Whatever you do, do not, under any circumstance, look down! Oh, and don't panic, Piston will come and get you out of there!” I recognized the voice as Fixer’s, who now shouted something unintelligible to Piston.

I decided to follow her advice and not look down anymore, instead I inspected my sleeping spot. Celestia knows why, but sometime last night I had apparently had the brilliant idea to spend the night as the dragon's hat. My 'bed' was located between two large spikes over the dragon's ears, giving me something to hold on to. The previous day I had been two meters below, I hadn't had any trouble with the height back then, but then the statue's teeth had been there to hold me back from the edge. Now, with only a spike preventing me from becoming a pony pancake, it was a lot scarier.

Several tense minutes passed, during which I spent most time lying curled up in the middle of the the statue's scalp. Eventually loud huffing and puffing announced that Piston had arrived to save me. When I looked at him though, I wondered which one of us needed the rescue. His eyes were huge and he was shaking all over his body, apparently I hadn't been the only one to look down.

After we had calmed down a bit, we made our way down the dragon's spine. Fortunately Piston had brought some rope with him, which we had tied around one of the spikes and around ourselves. We then zigzagged through the spikes on the statue's back, making our descent somewhat safe. As we came down, I noticed that what looked like the whole town had gathered around, watching us. All of the attention embarrassed me and I walked down the last part with a huge blush on my face.

The moment I set hoof on the safe soil, I let myself fall and kissed the ground, causing a loud cheer from the audience. I immediately covered my ears in agony. Since when did sound hurt so much? “Here, drink this, it'll make you feel better.” I looked up at Fixer, who was levitating a bottle of water. Wasting no time, I grabbed the bottle with my own telekinesis. Or at least I tried to, since the moment my red aura enveloped the bottle, a splitting headache caused me to throw up.

“Aw, isn't she cute? Her very first hangover! Does anypony have camera?” I looked up at Piston.

“Don't talk. Please, just don't talk, it hurts.” I managed to mumble.

Fixer deemed me unfit to take care of myself and instead put the bottle at my lips. “Drink. Hopefully this will teach you to stay away from alcohol.” She kept her voice down, for which I was eternally thankful. While I was drinking, the townsfolk scattered and went back to their own businesses.

Fixer had been right, the water helped numb the pain. Once I had finished the bottle Fixer left to get some more. I looked at Piston. I remembered that he had taken me to the bar, where we had been drinking together. That left me with an important question. “Why doesn't it hurt you?” I asked Piston, it was unfair that he seemed to be okay while I had been sleeping on top of a dragon.

“Practice, my young apprentice, lots and lots of practice. Oh, and the fact that you hogged the whole bottle of Gargle Blaster might have had something to do with it too.”

I remembered the bottle, how could so little liquid make me feel so sick? Right on cue, my stomach decided that it didn't like water and sent it back up. At least that made Piston look a bit sick as well. “You let her drink a whole bottle of Pan Equestrian Gargle Blaster by herself?!” Fixer, who had come back and overheard our conversation, had discarded her soft voice. “What were you thinking? That stuff can floor an Ursa and you gave it to somepony who had never drank before!” I clutched my ears, trying to shut out the sound.

Fixer was far from done, she ran up to Piston and started tackled him. “You. Inconsiderate. Stupid. Moronic. Ass!” Punctuating each word with a smack in the head. Piston curled up and begged.

“Mercy! Have mercy, please, Ember, tell her to stop.” Despite my headache I grinned at him and shook my head, this was far to funny to put an end to.

But, as they say, all things must come to an end, and after a couple of minutes of bashing and yelling, Fixer was too exhausted to lift her hooves anymore. “Now. *Pant* Apologize. *Pant* To her!” She managed to say.

Piston stood up unsteadily and came swaying to me. “I'm sorry about getting you drunk and stuff. But we did have a good time didn't we?”

“I honestly can't remember,” I said.

Fixer gave a smirk. “Yeah, that's what alcohol does to you. I suggest you better watch out next time.”

Piston gave her a dismissive wave. “Don't mind her Ember. She still isn't over the time that she drunk a little too much.” He gave a dreamy smile before continuing. “The next morning she completely freaked out when she woke up in my bed.”

Fixer's face turned from silver to red. “You promised to never talk about that again!” she yelled at him.

“Hey, I never promised anything. You just told me that you would kill me if I talked. And, if I recall it correctly, it was you who actually convinced me to, you know,” Piston retorted with a wink. I didn't think it would be possible, but Fixer's face was now even redder than my coat.

“I did not! You're making it up!” Even though it was funny to watch them argue, I wished they wouldn't yell. My headache had gotten worse again from all the loud noises.

“I ain't making up anything. You got me in bed, and I was more than happy to let you have a good time! I'm a real gentlecolt you know, I always let the ladies go first. In fact, I'm pretty sure I let you go for what, five, six times before it was my turn.”

Fixer looked as if she wanted to skin him alive. I figured my stomach wouldn't be able to handle such a mess, so I decided to jump in. “Piston, I was curious, how did I end up on top of the dragon?”

The two of them turned to me, distracted from their argument. Piston sighed. “Frankly, I have no bucking clue. After you finished the Gargle Blaster, you jumped up and yelled something about saving the town from a monster. Then you ran to the door and left. I got up as quickly as I could, but since I'd had a few bottles myself, my reaction time wasn't exactly top-notch. By the time I got out, you were long gone, so I searched all around town for you. I even went to the well, since I figured you meant geckos when you said monsters. I had never thought 'bout looking for you on top of the dragon though.”

He looked me in the eyes. “Look, I'm sorry for what happened. I was trying to cheer you up a bit and I promised to keep an eye on you, but well...” He gestured at the dragon. “Apology accepted?” His expression was serious and I saw that he meant it when he said he was sorry.

“Apology accepted.” I agreed, I couldn't possibly stay mad at him. Sure, it was a big shock to wake up twenty meters above ground, but he never meant any harm to me. He only wanted to give me a fun time. Which reminded me. “Say, until the dragon climbing part, did I have a good time?” I wondered.

Happy that his apology was accepted, Piston's smile returned. “Oh yes! You were having a great time. Dancing and singing like there was no tomorrow, though nopony was really sure what you were singing.”

“That doesn't really sound like me.” I had only started speaking again less than a day ago. It seemed odd for me to sing and dance.

Piston sighed. “You're right, you only did that for a little while. When there was about a quarter bottle left, you started sobbing. It was hard to understand, partly 'cause I had had a few bottles myself, but I do remember you calling for your mother.” I looked at the ground, my mood was killed.

Piston and Fixer came next to me. Fixer put her leg around me. “Ember, do you want to tell us?” I shook my head, I was tired and wanted to sleep, escape from reality. “No. Not yet, at least. I, I want to go to bed now, please.”

Fixer squeezed me a little tighter. “I understand. You can use one of the beds in the clinic.”

I followed her inside and was soon asleep, this time in a proper bed.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

After a long nap I woke up again. Fixer had given me some water before I went to sleep, and my headache was almost gone. I now had only a faint throbbing feeling, which was a great improvement.

I climbed out of bed after managing to overcome a slight dizziness. Fixer wasn’t in the building, so I decided to take a look outside. When I trotted out the door I noticed the light falling through the clouds had lessened, indicating that it was some time in the afternoon.

Coming out on the main street, I had no idea where to go, so I decided to check if Fifty knew where Fixer was. I made the climb to the dragon’s head, this time the proper way.

Once I was in the mouth, I coughed to catch Fifty’s attention. I didn’t dare to get close enough to tap him on the shoulder, partly because it would be unwise to startle someone with a large gun, partly because I didn’t want to get close to the edge. It just didn’t feel safe for me anymore.

Fifty snickered when he looked in one of his mirrors and saw me. “Did I impress you so much that you wanted to become a sniper as well?”

This time I understood the sarcasm and laughed with him. “You really are a good shot, I was glad you had our back yesterday.”

“Thanks, I must say I was quite impressed by your hoof-fighting skills too. That gecko was no lightweight.” I blushed a bit under his compliment. The nice thing about a red coat though, is that you would have to be practically on fire before other ponies can see your blush. “Anyway, what is it you wanted to see me about?”

“Well, I’m looking for Fixer. I kinda hope she can give me some directions on what to do next. I now sleep in the clinic, but that can’t go on forever. I need to find some kind of income for myself.” The nap had given me the opportunity to think about my future, something I hadn’t really done before. While I knew I was welcome with Fixer, I felt a bit like a parasite. Besides, I wanted to feel useful, so a job would be a good idea.

“I don’t know ‘bout Fixer, but if you need an income I think I might be able to help you with that.” Okay, he had my interest. “Next week there’ll be a trade caravan to Saltash. They’ve got some supplies we need, and we’ve got water to trade for it. Partly thanks to you of course. Anyway, if you want, I can get you a spot on the caravan, help with carrying the supplies. We’ve got no Brahmin you see.”

“Wait! Did you say Saltash?” Old memories flashed before my eyes. A small town in the middle of the desert, smiling ponies walking through the streets, strange hooves from under my bed, a slaver dragging me to the middle of town, the same ponies as before, but no longer with smiles, a final look back, the large billboard with the letters written over a long faded image: Saltash.

“Yeah, Saltash. They’re not the nicest bunch, but not too bad once you get too know them. Besides, they’re one of the closest towns to Neighvac and we really need some of the stuff they can provide. So yeah, we just got to deal with them.”

That was interesting. And unexpected. I occasionally thought about what happened to Saltash after we had been taken away, but it had never crossed my mind that new ponies would settle there. From the way Fifty talked about them I understood that they weren’t the nicest ponies either, which was difficult for me to imagine. It did made me curious though. “Is it okay if I think about it?” I needed to sort out my thoughts first, decide if I really wanted to go back.

Without looking back, he nodded. “Sure, you’ve got plenty of time to think about it.” It still was a little weird to talk to somepony who didn’t look directly at you.I got a lot of respect for the sniper though, standing for hours in the same position, always alert. That made me wonder, standing for hours, surely he would have to empty his bladder once in a while. I inspected my surroundings more closely, there surely was no bathroom here. It also didn’t smell, well, not more than usual, so he didn’t do it in a corner or something.

Speaking of corners, in one of them was a small mountain of food and drinks, as well as ammo. In another corner were more drinks, except, the bottles were all filled with yellow liquid.

Fifty saw me stare via one of the mirrors and chuckled. “I wouldn’t drink those if I were you.”

Oh. OH! I stammered a goodbye and quickly ran out of the dragon again.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

After walking around for a bit, I arrived at Piston's shack. Once, the structure must have been a lovely house. Now, sheets of metal showed were the walls and roof had collapsed. The area around was littered with pieces of scrap metal and old machinery.

I went up to the door and knocked, half expecting to break it. “I'm coming!” I heard Piston yell, so I decided to wait. After a minute or two, the door opened. The pony in the door however, was not Piston but rather a heavily blushing Fixer.

She let out a squeak of surprise. “Ember! What are you doing here? Why aren't you still in bed?”

“I was, but I woke up and went looking for you,” I answered, also a bit surprised to find her here. Last time I checked, she had been pretty angry at Piston. “And now I found you, but uh, why are you here? Weren't you angry with Piston? Did you come here to apologize or something?”

Fixer laughed nervously. “Yeah, something like that. Say, why don’t we go back to the clinic?” She quickly added. While she led me back to the medical outpost, I noticed that she was having a little bit of difficulty walking. When I voiced my concerns though, she assured me she was fine.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

After we came back, I told her about Fifty’s offer. I didn’t tell her about Saltash though, I didn’t feel ready to tell her my life story yet. She seemed a bit hesitant about it first, but admitted that the caravan probably was the best way for me to get some caps.

Though the route between Neighvac and Saltash was relatively safe, I had displayed a talent for getting injured. And relatively safe didn't mean a lot in the wasteland, where even the bugs could kill you if you weren’t careful. So Fixer decided it would be a good idea to teach me some basic medicine; how to bandage wounds to prevent bleeding out, how to remove a bullet and how to use healing potions.

Granted, even foals knew how to do the last thing, but she did give me the tip to remove bullets before using a potion. Healing potions would usually push any shrapnel and bullets out, but sometimes you just didn’t have any potions with you. On such occasions, it would be advisable to remove the metal so that it wouldn’t do any more damage.

After some practice on a piece of meat Fixer made me promise to never attempt to remove a bullet without without using my magic to manipulate. It is very difficult to handle a scalpel with your mouth and if the piece of meat would have been a real pony...

Let's just say that a shotgun would have done less damage.

When my lessons were finished, it was time for bed.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I had my standard nightmare, with the slavers attacking and dragging me away. This time though, I didn’t wake when I was dragged out of the room. Instead, the black slaver carried me outside, levitating me so I couldn't hit him or try to rip his snow white mane out.

We passed by several corpses, some of slavers, some of ponies I knew. I didn’t care though, I only cared for my mother, which I made clear to my captor by lots of kicks and screams.

This didn’t seem to have any effect though as the slaver chuckled before whispering in my ear. “I love the way new slaves struggle. It only makes it more fun.”

Confused, I stopped for a moment. Then I remembered why I had been whining in the first place and continued.

The stallion laughed a bit. “I think you and I gonna have a lot of fun together.” Something about his voice made me shudder and redouble my efforts to get away from him.

He took me to where they were holding the other captured ponies. Slavers were busy putting collars around their necks. An older stallion, whose name I couldn’t remember, recognized me. “Ember! Thank goodness you’re alright!” He looked around. “Where is your mother, didn’t she come with you?”

I looked at him, unsure of what to say. That wasn’t a problem though, as the the slaver laughed and answered for me. “I’m afraid her mother won’t be coming.” He grinned before adding. “Well, maybe if she stayed alive long enough...” He shook his head. “Anyway, she was too stubborn to surrender. We were lucky that this one,” he poked me. “was such a loud-mouth.”

My fault. It was my fault that they had found me. All I had to do was to be quiet. I stopped my wriggling and sat down, staring into the distance.

The old stallion spat at the slaver. “You disgust me.”

The black stallion didn’t seem to appreciate it. He slowly wiped the spit from his face before roughly grabbing the buck by the mane and dragging him away from the group. He addressed all of us.

“Listen carefully, because I will only say this once. You are now our property, slaves. If you behave nice, you’ve got nothing to worry about. However, if you don’t obey or even, as this one...” He pulled out a revolver and pointed at the stallion on the ground. “...insult your master. Then you will face the consequences.” He pulled the trigger.

Around me, several screams and angry yells sounded. I didn’t scream or yell. I just sat there, staring at the old stallion whose name I couldn’t remember. In my head I heard my mother’s lovingly voice: “That’s my filly, I love you so much. Now remember, whatever happens, make sure they do not find you. So no moving or talking, okay?”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

There was no screaming involved when I woke up, which was a nice change. My body didn’t want me to have nice things though and had produced a huge amount of sweat, soaking my mattress and sheets. I quickly rolled out of bed and dragged the soaked clothes outside. It still was a bit dark, but during the day it would hopefully get hot enough to dry everything.

Since I awoke earlier than Fixer, and since I kinda ruined her mattress (as far as a 200 year old mattress can be ruined), I decided to make us some breakfast. As a slave, food was provided for us most of the time. This meant I missed any experience with preparing food, but hey, how hard could it be?

One ruined kitchen later I had managed to create something, after some poking at it I concluded it was hot and perhaps edible. Since I knew how it had been prepared, I decided to let Fixer taste first. I discovered that I could levitate small things again without a headache, though I was still a bit lacking on control. Oh well, if I kept practicing, I would probably become better at it. So I levitated the plate with uhm... well I wasn't really sure about what to call it, so let's stick with Ember's special for now.

Fixer was happily surprised when I announced that I had made her breakfast. Her smile faltered a bit when she saw exactly what I had made though. After I assured her that it was perfectly safe she took a small bite. Which she instantly spat out again.

After rubbing her tongue for a while she sighed. “I think cooking lessons are in order. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the gesture, it’s just, did you actually taste it yourself?”

“Uhm, I’ve actually never cooked before.” I answered honestly while nervously shuffling my hooves.

Fixer gasped. “Wow, no wonder then. Did your parents spoil you so much that you didn’t have to cook yourself or something?”

That made me cringe. Fixer noticed and facehoofed. “Oh, I’m sorry Ember. I forgot. I shouldn’t have started about your parents.”

I sighed. “It’s okay, and I still promised you to tell my story. But can we go see Piston first? I don’t want to have to tell it twice.”

She agreed, and after a quick meal (prepared by Fixer), we were on our way.

A short walk later we arrived at Piston’s house. Fixer knocked and we waited for the door to open.

“Fixer! Good to see you again!” Piston said cheerfully after opening the door. When he saw her expression and me, he got a bit more serious. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s probably easier to discuss this inside, can we come in?” Fixer answered.

Piston hastily nodded and gestured for us to come in. After we got seated on some raggedy chairs I took a deep breath. “I used to live in Saltash...”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“...and that’s when you found me.” I concluded. Somewhere through the story I had started crying, causing me to see everything blurry. Furthermore my throat was hoarse, which wasn’t surprising considering I just talked more than in the past years combined.

A silence fell now that I had stopped talking. Piston and Fixer were still sitting in the same position as when I had begun. Neither of them had spoken during my story. It was a bit odd to be the talking one for a change, while everypony else was silent.

Several seconds passed in complete silence. I was getting more and more uncomfortable and wanted to leave, then Fixer stood up and walked to me. She completely startled me by putting her forelegs around me, holding me tightly.

For a moment I didn’t know what to do. I decided to return the hug and let myself hang onto her. I put my head on her shoulder, it felt good, safe. The feeling made more tears come out, but not tears of sorrow. It felt relieving to cry, it was as if part of my misery washed away.

We stood there for a long time. Simply holding on to each other. No one spoke a word, nor was it necessary.

Once I was done, I broke the hug. I felt better than I had felt in years. Relieved. “Thank you, I think I needed that.” I whispered, not wanting to violate the perfect silence.

I looked at Piston, who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. I gave him a weak smile and he came over. He also gave me a hug, albeit shorter and a bit awkward. Nevertheless, I was glad that he did. “I’m so sorry for you, it’s just, I’m not really good with emotional stuff.” He gave a small snort.

I smiled at him. “Hey, me neither.” It made him chuckle a bit.

We kept standing there as they asked me questions, which I tried to answer as best as I could. Eventually it was time for my own question. “So, how is it now in Saltash?”

“Well, it’s definitely different now. There are quite some shady figures so if you decide to go there, you should keep an eye out,” Fixer told me.

“It’s a Luna-damn ratnest that’s what it is. Half of the scum of the wasteland come there!” That was something I liked about Piston: he always seemed honest.

“Sure there are some rotten apples,” began Fixer, until she saw Piston raising an eyebrow. “Fine, a lot of rotten apples. But there are also good ponies there. I mean, we trade with them; you can hardly call that criminal activity.”

Piston’s expression hardened. “Sure we trade with them, but if we would one day decide we wouldn’t want to trade with them anymore they would just as happily come and steal our water. Besides, where do you think they get all those goods from? Heck, I bet that half of the bandages in your clinic originally belonged to some poor bastard who came to an unfortunate end in Saltash.”

Fixer’s facial colour had started to match mine over the course of Piston’s monologue. “Now listen to me very carefully. Those bandages saved lives and I refuse to believe that they were taken by force until you can prove me otherwise. So unless you’ve got some hard evidence saying that the ponies in Saltash are as bad as you say, you need to shut your mouth! Understood?”

Piston was evidently taken aback by the outburst. He quickly nodded and muttered a “Yes mam” before taking some quick steps back.

As Fixer seemed to be steaming I figured it would be a good moment to step in. “I guess the only way is to go and see it for myself. Who knows, maybe I can visit my old house.” I let out a weak laugh. Truth was, a part of me really didn’t want to go back to the origin of my nightmares. An equal part did want to go back though, partly out of curiosity, partly because I silently hoped to somehow find my mother again. I was no foal, I knew that if new ponies lived there now, all corpses would have probably been taken away. Plus, if after all those years my mother was still be there, well, I wasn’t sure if I would want to find her.

My decision snapped both of them out of their argument. “We should better get started on those cooking lessons then, if you want to be able to take care of yourself,” Fixer said.

“And you’re gonna need to train a bit, water is pretty heavy if you’re not used to carrying loads. Come back tomorrow, I’ll put together a rig for you to practice with. No offense, but you don’t look like you can carry a whole lot,” Piston said as he poked at my ribs.

I smiled as I realised that these ponies really cared for me, that I could say that they were my friends.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 4: A Long Road Home

Ashes to Ashes – Chapter 4

A Long Road Home

True to their words, Fixer and Piston taught me how to take care of myself. Over time my cooking skills gradually increased until the point were we could actually eat my creations. The cooking lessons also greatly helped me to practice some fine control with my telekinesis, which was beneficial in the shooting practice Piston gave me.

This time he actually taught me how to reload as well and after a couple of lessons I had become a decent shot. He also gave me some tactical tips, like to find cover, or retreat if the enemy has a bigger gun than you do.

Between the shooting and cooking lessons, Piston made me carry around a rig loaded with scrap metal. I had carried heavy loads before, but walking through the wasteland while suffering from malnutrition and dehydration is an effective way to destroy one's condition. Fortunately the combination of training, good food and proper rest at night was enough to get me back to strength.

Well, proper rest...

Over the course of the week my nightmares had slowly become worse. Every time I had the dream where I was dragged out by the slaver, I spotted something new: bloody hoofprints on windows, the remains of a pony who seemed to have had a grenade explode underneath him or her, screams coming from one of the buildings, slowly dying out.

In short, I wasn't looking forward to going back.

Still, a part of me insisted I should go there, out of curiosity and the hope for closure.

All of this I was contemplating while lying in bed. I had been sleeping alone in the clinic for the last couple of day since Fixer was now spending every night at Piston's house. According to her, she had to watch over him since he had caught some rare disease. To me, Piston looked pretty much the same as before, though maybe a bit tired. But who was I to judge a doctor's opinion?

The next morning the caravan would leave and I was supposed to be sleeping, getting a last, good rest before hitting the road. Still, I couldn't fall asleep. I thought of my fears and hopes in Saltash. I thought of the nice ponies here in Neighvac, specifically Fixer and Piston, who had helped me get my life sorted out. I wanted to stay, but I didn't want to abuse their hospitality.

I rolled over and groaned in my pillow. Bad move, the pillow was stained with two centuries of sick ponies and, though it had been washed many times, I could easily smell that. Quickly I rolled back to my side and smelled myself. Not the best smell either, but still better than the pillow. I chuckled a bit as I tried to imagine having a proper bath. The closest thing I remember were the warm showers back when I was a filly. Maybe I could try to get a bath once I was back in Saltash. It seemed unlikely since they needed to import water but hey, a mare can dream right?

As I was thinking about nice, warm baths I slowly drifted to sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“Aaahhhhh.” I let out a sigh of relief as I stepped into a large pool, filled with clean, warm water.

This was perfect, I closed my eyes and let myself relax as all the dirt and grime of the wasteland washed from me.

When I opened my eyes I saw there was something wrong. I was pretty sure that there weren't supposed to be any dark tendrils floating from my hide. I tried to rub them of my skin but that only seemed to make them bigger. All I could do was watch while the darkness spread throughout the water, slowly making it increasingly more difficult to see the bottom of the pool.

I didn't want to stay in the water anymore, so I turned around and tried to climb out. My wet hooves had trouble getting a grip on the slippery surface around the pool, but after some effort I managed to lift my rump out.

Just when I thought I was safe, something wrapped around my hind leg and jerked me back in. With a surprised yell I disappeared beneath the surface and into the darkness. It was so dark that even after blinking several times, I wasn't sure whether my eyes were open or shut.

After a short struggle I managed to breach the surface. While gasping for air I saw movement from the corner of my eyes. I jerked my head in its direction and was greeted by an abomination.

The creature seemed to be made out of the water of the pool, it was impossible to tell where the liquid ended and the thing began. That was made even harder since it shared the darkness of the water. Darkness was a lacking description actually, since it implied that the creature still had a color. Rather, when I looked at it, all I could see was the world behind it, but not the creature itself. For me, it was a hole in my vision, and I could only determine its outline by looking next to it.

I noticed that the water had turned into the same undefinable stuff as the creature. I could still feel it, and see how high it was based on the sides of the pool, but my legs seemed to be cut clean off underneath the surface.

I looked back up at the abomination. Another annoying thing about not being able to see it was that I didn't know how far away it was. I could see that it was getting bigger though, but I wasn't sure if it was actually growing or getting closer.

Either way, I wasn't keen on playing sitting duck and tried my best to scramble away. Panic and slippery surfaces don't go well together, making even harder than the first time to climb out.

A brief glimpse over my back taught me that the thing had definitely grown as it now covered everything behind me in nothingness.

I focused forward again, determined to escape this freak. As I tried to crawl my way out of the pool though, I slowly saw the world around me disappear until only a tiny speck of light was left.

For as long as I could, I stared at that tiny speck of light. A voice in the back of my mind told me to stop struggling as it was utterly pointless. The voice was joined by more and more until they had formed a deafening chorus, forcing me to stop. Making me let go of the side to put my hooves over my ears.

I shot a last glance at the light.

I blinked and it was gone.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I awoke with a loud yelp. Why did my dreams always turn out like that? I was just having a bath for Luna's sake! I let out a sigh and rolled ungracefully out of bed. Then, as I hit the floor, I remembered: caravan day! Quickly I grabbed the few possessions I had, the broken slave collar, the .32 pistol with some rounds, a couple bottles of water and some food I had prepared myself (under the professional guidance of Fixer of course) and a saddlebag into which I put everything.

After getting ready to roll, I trotted outside. I was early so I sat down and watched my new colleagues assemble. With them came half of the town to wave them out, which was understandable since most of the caravan members had relatives here in Neighvac. After a while I saw Fixer and Piston join the crowd, standing close together.

After spotting them I quickly waved and walked towards them. They saw me as well and we met half way. “Will you look at that,” Piston said with a big grin. “our baby girl is all grown up now. Finally she's spreading her wings.”

His comment earned him a quick poke from Fixer who, I now noticed, looked pretty tired herself as well. I mentally shrugged, she must have stayed up late to take care of Piston. “Good luck Ember, I hope you find some answers in Saltash,” she said. “and you should know that you're always welcome in Neighvac, just look for the big dragon.”

Her words made me smile, it was very comforting to know that I had a safe haven. These ponies had been nothing but friendly and understanding, they had helped me without even knowing who I was, but rather because it was the right thing to do. I drew both of them in a tight hug. “Thank you so much for everything you've done. I owe you more than my life.”

They both returned the hug and we stood there for a minute, laughing and smiling, until a dark-green stallion, who I recognized as the caravan leader, interrupted. “Okay everypony, saddle up! We move in ten minutes!” All of the caravan members, who had also been saying goodbye to their families, trotted towards the foot of the dragon, where our saddles were neatly displayed.

I broke the hug. “Well, goodbye then.”

Fixer nodded. “Goodbye Ember, take care and remember those cooking lessons.”

Piston gave me a wink. “See you later Ember, get back in one piece will ya?”

“And you get better soon!” I grinned and walked towards the rest of the group. After putting on my gear, which was a lot easier now that I had good control over my magic, I stood in line with the rest of the caravan. We were standing in front of the dragon statue, neatly in a row. I counted a dozen water carriers, myself included, and four guards. Everypony was in a good mood, cheerful shouts were exchanged between us and the rest of the townsfolk.

I looked up at the dragon's mouth and saw Fifty in his usual spot. He didn't bother to look down, instead he kept scanning the wasteland for threats. I admired his dedication to the town, the way he took his job extremely serious, never letting his attention slip.

My thoughts were interrupted by the caravan leader's booming voice. “Alright colts and fillies, time to move!” Right on cue we started walking, though I had a little bit of trouble matching the pace at first. But after a while I matched the leg motions of the mare next to me with perfect synchronization.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Our first stop was the well, it was on our route to Saltash so we would stop there to fill the tanks.. Each of the water carriers had two large tanks on his or her back. They were to be filled to the brim and then closed, to prevent sloshing. The tanks were pretty big and it took a while to fill all of them. While mine were being filled, I was very glad that I had trained with the scrap metal, I hadn’t realized that water was so damn heavy? “Where does all that water come from anyway?” I asked nopony in particular.

The pony next to me chuckled. “Can't handle some weight?” I was slightly startled to see a large, sand-colored stallion. The large rifle on his back indicated he was one of the guards. That made me a bit nervous as in my mind, guards weren't there to protect me, but to keep me from escaping. And on top of that my last conversation with a guard hadn’t ended very well.

“No no, I was just curious, that's all.” I quickly said, doing my best to avoid eye-contact. Slavers considered eye-contact to be a form of disrespect and had taught me that lesson well, a painful lesson. “I mean, where does the water for the well come from?”

“Oh, well that's a good question.” He came a little closer and pointed a hoof in the direction of Saltash. “See those mountains?” I nodded, a little uncomfortable from the lack of personal space. Still, I'd had worse intrusions, so controlling myself with an actually friendly guard shouldn't be a problem. “When it rains over there, the water goes into underground rivers, which lead here. So basically we're standing on top of an underground lake, or at least that's what the information of some old terminals showed us.”

I nodded again. It made sense I guessed, I wasn't exactly an expert on underground rivers. “May I ask why you're actually interested in some dull, underground lake, Miss...”

He had gotten even closer, so close in fact that I could feel his body heat, or was that my own? Seriously, did this stallion not know about personal space? A small voice in my brain got really uncomfortable with the short distance between us and screamed that I should run away. Luckily the rest of my brain was still sane enough to point out that firstly, I had to stay with the caravan. Secondly, the stallion, although being an untrustworthy guard, hadn't done anything to threaten me, and had actually been friendly. Thirdly and finally, running would be rather difficult and hilarious for anypony watching, now that I had two large, completely filled water containers on my back.

While my brain was arguing with itself, my mouth decided that the voices in my brain were idiots and proceeded to answer the question. Unfortunately, without a brain to guide it, my mouth couldn't do a lot. “Em. Ember. Just curi, curi, curious.” Was all that came out. A small part of my brain got distracted from its internal conversation and wondered since when I had started stuttering.

“Well pleased to meet you, miss Ember.” He said while shaking my hoof. “My name is Shield, Iron Shield.” He stopped for a moment, looking me over. I still kept my eyes fixed at the ground, yeah the ground was pretty. “I'm not making you feel uncomfortable, am I?”

“No.” I lied before I knew it. I was a little disappointed in myself, already lying after one week of talking again. So I quickly corrected myself. “Maybe a little. But it's not your fault. I'm just not used to, uhm, friendly guards.” I was once again glad that my red coat made my blushes nearly invisible.

Shield's voice got a bit softer as he inched even closer. “That's a shame, how could anypony not be nice to such a beautiful mare as yourself.” He gave me a small flick with his tail.

“Okay, that's it.” The voices in my brain yelled angrily. “You're on your own now!” And just like that, it shut almost completely down. The only part that was left was the voice that had come with the 'run for it' plan earlier. Now, without the rest of my sanity to stop it, that part was left in control...

While producing a high-pitched noise I didn't know I was capable of, I jumped and galloped away from him and the rest of the caravan. Luckily my hooves were carrying me in the right direction. Unluckily those same hooves failed me as they got stuck behind each other. That, combined with the extra weight on my back, caused me to topple over and land face-first in the dirt.

What'd ya know, my brain had been right, running away with filled water tanks on my back actually was hilarious for everypony watching. Even the caravan leader couldn’t suppress a laugh as he offered his hoof to me. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but next time, wait for the rest of us will ya?”

Heavily embarrassed I quickly accepted his hoof and allowed him to pull me back up. Internally I scolded my brain for deserting me and putting me in this situation.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

The rest of the caravan quickly joined us and we set off to Saltash. My little run-away had apparently lifted the spirits even more as I noticed a lot of whispering and giggling between the other slaves... no wait, water carriers! They were water carriers, not slaves. I mentally facehoofed.

After a while the whispering died out, I honestly didn’t care what other ponies thought of me. Well except for Piston, Fixer and Fifty.

I wondered about Shield. Why did I become so nervous around him? Was my mind still not used to the idea of friendly guards? Or was it because he had come so close to me? Actually, why did he come so close to me in the first place? Did he plan to give me a flick with his tail? And why had I gotten so embarrassed by it? I got frustrated by my lack of social experience, it felt like I was missing something, but I had no clue what it was.

“What are you hiding?” I thought as I looked him over. He was walking in front of me, next to the caravan, and gave me a nice view of his side. His walk seemed confident, relaxed. His ivory mane was well-kept, and his muscles strong. On his flank a large, reinforced shield was visible, big surprise there.

Whispering from behind me distracted me from Shield’s flank. And made me notice that he had turned his head and was looking me directly in the eyes! My heart skipped a beat and so did my hooves, causing me to nearly tumble over. With some quick reflexes and a bit of magic to make the water tanks lighter I managed to stay on all fours though.

I looked up to see Iron Shield shake his head and smiling look ahead of him again. Behind me the whispers had turned into a loud giggling. Normally I wouldn’t have been bothered by such a sound, but I blamed them for almost making me trip, so I angrily turned my head around.

Behind me, two almost identical mares were walking side by side, both making very poor attempts at holding in their laughs. The only obvious difference between them was that one had a turquoise coat and a dark blue mane, while the other had those colours switched around. Upon seeing the most intimidating look I could produce, both nearly choked with laughter.

I remembered being distracted while walking often ended in a meeting between my face and the ground, so I decided to focus back at where I put my hooves.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

After a day of walking through the wasteland, we arrived at the base of the mountain range. Nighttime was falling, so we set up camp on top of a small hill. We didn’t bring any tents or mattresses with us, though some had brought blankets. Me? I didn’t mind sleeping on the dirt. It was actually a bit nostalgic.

With some wood from a long dead tree, a campfire was made. After having dinner, which tasted a lot better than the glue-like substance the slavers made, I chose a spot right next to the fire. The warmth made me feel safe and the dancing flames calmed me down. Soon, I was feeling drowsy and had trouble keeping my eyes open and I fell asleep not long afterwards.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I was in a room. Not the usual dark and dreary room, but a brightly lit one. It was a large room, filled with burning candles which made dancing shadows.

All feelings of uneasiness left my mind as I walked towards a large table in the centre of the room. On it were fancy plates and all sorts of foods. I wondered why there was so many when I heard somepony knock on the door.

I walked to the front door and opened it. On the other side was Iron Shield. I asked him to come in and we went to the table. Somehow I knew just where he was supposed to sit and led him there. Just as I wanted to sit down, another knock on the door sounded.

Again I opened the door and this time Fixer and Sticky Piston were standing there. I was very glad to see them and after some quick hugs I led them to their respective seats.

Then I noticed there was still one chair unoccupied. Right on cue, a third knock sounded and I left my guests behind to answer the door.

Crying, I fell on the ground as I saw my mother. Smiling, she picked me up in a long hug. My tears became of joy as I led her to her seat, practically bouncing with happiness.

I sat next to her and all of us talked, laughed and ate.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

I quickly put a hoof in front of my mouth, but the screaming didn’t stop. Which made sense, since for once it wasn’t me who woke up everypony with my screaming.

It became a lot less amusing when the screaming noise was joined the sound of gunshots.

The whole camp turned into one chaotic mess. Ponies were running all around, screaming incomprehensible slurs. The only thing that was clear was that we were under attack.

Immediately I jumped up and started to look around to find the source of the sound. That was made rather difficult difficult by the complete lack of light, save for the campfire. Curse the darkness of the night! What didn’t help either was that the gunshots seemed to be coming from everywhere around our hill. Without wasting any more time I levitated my pistol in front of me and galloped to the edge of the camp. There was a nice, big, convenient boulder behind which I could take cover.

Carefully I peeked my head out of cover in an attempt to spot my targets. The darkness hid their bodies, but the muzzle flashes from their guns betrayed their positions. It was pretty convenient that earth ponies held guns in their mouths, all I had to do was shoot at the flashes until they stopped.

I was so occupied by the shooting that I didn't notice that the gunfire and screaming behind me had stopped, at least not until I felt something hard and cold being pressed against the back of my skull. "Drop it." A raspy voice told me, so I dropped my gun and slowly stood up. When I turned around I had the familiar experience of staring into the barrel of a shotgun. I gulped.

The shotgun pony led me back to the campfire. There, the rest of the caravan was gathered on the ground. Another pony was putting something around their necks. Slave collars, I spotted with fear and disgust.

Quickly I sat down in the middle of the group. This was not good, not good at all. I had no intention at becoming a slave again, but if I didn't think of something quickly, I would be in a lot of trouble. Once a slave collar was put on, it was impossible to remove by yourself. Oh! That gave me an idea!

As quickly and stealthily as possible I pulled out my old collar and put it on. It was a risky move, if they would notice, I would be in a lot of trouble. It was a risk I was prepared to take though. There was no way anypony would take my freedom again.

Once I got the collar on I slowly moved my way around the pony who was putting the collars on. I was almost there when the unicorn mare called for me. "And Where do you think you're going?"

I put on my most innocent and fearful eyes and pointed at my collar. Silently I was praying that the small amounts of light would disguise my bluf.

She looked at me for what felt like an eternity before muttering "Strange, I could've sworn I hadn't done that one yet." and walking away. I let out a deep sigh. Close call.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Once everypony had gotten their collar one of the slavers who I presumed to be the leader gave us a small speech. I didn't pay any attention since I had heard it all before. Instead, I started looking around to see if there was any chance of escape. I counted nine guards, seven earth ponies and two unicorns. Most of them seemed either tired or injured, which was good for me.

After the speech we were allowed to go back to sleep. Most of the caravan members and slavers did so. I only pretended. Before we went to bed I had chosen my sleeping spot carefully: at the edge of the group, near the boulders. I also took great care to make myself stand out as least as possible, every time I saw a guard look at me I made myself as small as possible and never looked them in the eyes. It was pretty easy for me actually. I just acted like I always had, but even more submissive.

Now it was just a matter of sneaking out unnoticed. Though most of the slavers had went to bed, there were still four awake. The one with the shotgun was one of them and he didn’t seem to think I was harmless.

I got a bit nervous, the sun was getting up and if I didn’t move soon, there was no way I could escape unnoticed. But with the shotgun pony watching me I wouldn’t get far either. In short, I needed a distraction.

My gaze fell upon one particularly drowsy mare on the opposite side of the hill. She kept falling into sleep, only to wake up again when her head fell down. In her mouth she loosely held a small pistol. Perfect.

After making sure that none of the guards were looking in my direction, I focused on the gun’s trigger. It was tricky to try to manipulate something so small from a large distance, but eventually I was rewarded by a loud bang.

The gunshot sent the mare flying backwards and made her the focus of attention for a couple of seconds.

That was all I needed. While the camp was in disarray I dashed as quickly and silently as equinely possible towards the boulder. From there I made sure that nopony had seen me leave before galloping towards the mountains. The first daylight was already filtering through the clouds and if I ran back to Neighvac I would make myself an excellent target. My only chance was to reach the mountains before they realised I was gone and find a place to hide between the rocks.

I was almost there when gunshots from behind me indicated that they had found out about my escape. A quick glance over my back told me that there were three shapes in hot pursuit. They provided some extra motivation for my legs to carry me as fast as possible.

Soon enough I reached the a tight canyon, it featured steep cliffs on both sides and was apparently the only way through. I made a mental note when I saw a large boulder precariously resting on top of one of the sides.

After working my way through the canyon I found a way up the cliff. I grinned as I formed a plan in my head.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Once in position, I patiently waited for my pursuers to enter the canyon, giving myself the opportunity to catch a breath. Several minutes passed before I heard voices echoing from below.

My initial count had been correct, there were three guards, one unicorn and two earth ponies. I was actually a little bit disappointed when I saw that the shotgun buck wasn’t with them. I wanted to give him some payback for surprising me, but he could wait. First I would have to deal with these four.

“Hey you! Looking for somepony?” I yelled at them as I stuck my head out of cover.

All of them instantly stopped and stared at me in utter astonishment. Once they had recovered from the shock they turned their guns at me. The largest earth pony yelled back. “Yeff! Ge ouwn eer!”

I gave him a confused look. “What was that? I couldn’t quite understand you.”

His face got red as he yelled even harder. “GE OUWN EER EIGHD OUW!”

I tilted my head. “You really need to learn how to articulate.” Putting emphasis on every syllable of ‘articulate’.

He spat out his gun, his face was almost as red as my own as he yelled at me once more. “I SAID GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“Oh OK.” I replied and pulled my head behind cover again, leaving behind three extremely confused ponies.

I didn’t make my way down though. I only pulled back my head so they wouldn’t see the glow of my horn as I took away the support for the boulder. The large boulder on the opposite side of the canyon, now directly above a stunned group of squishy ponies.

All I heard were a dull blow and a scream of pain. I quickly trotted back down into the canyon, wondering how I ever could have lived without my magic.

The result of the impact wasn’t very pretty and made me struggle not to vomit. It was effective though. Two of the slavers had been spread out over the canyon floor. The third only had his lower body crushed. I felt a tinge of compassion for him as I imagined how it must have felt like, but quickly dismissed that feeling with pretty much every memory of the past years.

Determined to not stay any longer than necessary I quickly looted anything lootable. The side-effect of my boulder-to-the-face tactic was that the boulder didn’t discriminate between target and loot, effectively making the gun of the half-squished pony the only thing still recognizable and useful.

It was a laser pistol, and in pretty decent condition as far as I could tell. A quick check of the magazine showed that it was filled with a total of thirty energy cells. I had no idea how much damage I could do with it as I had never seen one in action, so I decided to test it out.

Taking careful aim, I shot one laser at the half-squished pony, who spontaneously burned to a pile of ash.

Wow. Okay, I didn’t expect it to do that. The small pistol’s destructive power astonished me. I looked it over again, growing more and more confident. With this weapon I would be practically unstoppable! It would be a piece of cake to take on the slavers and free the caravan, if the only thing I had to do was to hit the bad guys.

Now the only thing I would have to do was to actually find the slavers.

With the cliff as a lookout post that was an easy feat. The caravan was slowly moving alongside the mountain range, apparently to give my three pursuers the opportunity to catch up. I followed the cliff in their direction, if I could overtake them I might be able to set a trap. The prospect made me smile.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Setting up a trap proved to be more difficult than I had first anticipated. They stayed too far away from the mountains to use the rocks as cover, making it impossible for me to sneak up on them. This meant that the only way for me to get into range would be to wait for the night to fall.

It was difficult to control my eagerness for testing my new toy, but I managed. The waiting was pretty boring though, and I had trouble staying awake. Fortunately the night eventually fell and I could put my plan into action.

My plan was simple: kill the guards one by one. The awesome laser pistol would reduce them into piles of ash before they would be able to alert the others. All I had to do was make each shot count, since if I missed, I could just as well shine a bright spotlight at myself.

My heart pounded in my throat as I snuck as close as possible to one of the guards. Because the slavers were faced towards the caravan members, and the camp was on a hill, I couldn’t take a clear shot at his head. It shouldn’t matter though, my awesome gun would kill him no matter what. It did make me wonder though, why weren’t there more of these laser pistols? I shrugged, it didn’t matter if there weren’t any more of them as long as I had this one.

I lined up a shot and silently prayed for Celestia and Luna to guide the shot.

I pulled the trigger and watched as the laser beam struck the slaver right on his flank!

The guard then did something completely unexpected. I fully anticipated him to burn up into a pile of ash, melt into a puddle of goo or even simply drop dead. What I did not expect, was for him to jump up in the air, screaming and rubbing a large scorch mark on his flank armour.

Incredulous I stared at my pistol. “Why did you fail me?” I felt the urge to yell at it.

My disappointment in the pistol become less of a priority as the screaming slaver woke up the whole camp. Well, shit. There went my plan of being all sneaky.

It was time for plan B: figuring out a plan C. Luckily my brain was helpful and pointed out that the gun still had 28 shots left. Thanks brain!

As quickly as I could I fired as many shots as possible. I only stopped after I was completely sure the slaver was dead, his armour and hide still smoldering from the shots.

Phew, that was one problem solved. With the three slavers I had killed earlier that left six problems unfinished. The sound of bullets whizzing past my head indicated that those six problems now knew where I was and that they weren’t glad to see me.

My brilliant brain didn’t take long to fabricate a plan D: tactical retreat!

As fast as my legs could carry me I ran back towards the mountain, passing a nice, big boulder along the way. Oh how I loved these boulders! Without hesitation I ducked behind it, feeling a lot safer now that I at least had some cover.

Now that I was safe(ish) I peeked back, only to be greeted by a loud bang and a stinging pain in my left ear. The second time I levitated my pistol with me and fired at the two dark shapes that were running towards me. One of the dark shapes had a faint glow by his head, the same glow that enveloped a floating shotgun next to it.

It looked like I would get my chance of revenge after all.

The second pony didn’t have a faint glow, but bright muzzle flashes from a submachine gun to light her head. The bullets she fired were chipping away at my boulder and grazing my mane, so I made her my prime target.

I fired the laser pistol at her. The red stripes of doom illuminated the area briefly like a stroboscope, almost putting me in a trance as if I emptied the last energy cells.

When my ammo was depleted I snapped out of it. The fact that a certain somepony’s shotgun blasted pieces of rock in my eye might have had something to do with it as well.

While my right eye was blinking and tearing like a maniac I now had to face the shotgun unicorn with an utterly disappointing and, more importantly, empty gun. Well, I still had my horn with awesome unicorn telekinesis, so why not use it?

With all my might, I threw the pistol at the unicorn, who was about five meters away. He simply stepped aside and fired another round at me, which I barely managed to evade by ducking back behind my trusty rock.

Time for plan E, or F, or G, or... you know what? Screw it! Time for plan One. That was much less confusing than using a letter, and if it actually worked I could pretend it had all been part of my first plan.

But first I would actually have to think of a plan One. My watering eye wasn’t helping. Wait, eye! That was it! All I had to do was to surprise the Mr Shotgun and make sure he couldn’t see anymore.

I peeked my head above the boulder, levitating a rock the size of my hoof next to me. As soon as I saw Mr Shotgun I threw the rock at him. Laughing, he stepped out of it’s path and fired his shotgun at me again.

Perfect.

After quickly ducking behind my boulder to escape the deadly shotgun blast, I rolled beside it and sprinted towards Mr Shotgun, picking up small pebbles on the way. He frantically tried to load the next shell as he saw me coming. When I was about halfway his grin showed that he was ready to pump me full with lead.

That’s where the pebbles came in. With all my might, I threw the small cloud of tiny rocks at his face. I didn’t expect to actually hurt him, they were just intended as a distraction.

Plan One was almost flawless; the incoming pebbles broke Mr Shotgun’s concentration and forced him to shut his eyes. However, he still managed to pull the trigger, causing pain to erupt all over my left side.

Unfortunately for him, I had already built up too much momentum and when he opened his eyes again, he had a perfect view of the back of my head. The front of my head was invisible though, as my horn was completely embedded in his chest.

We stood there in complete silence for a while. “You bitch,” he finally muttered with his raspy voice.

“Surprise.” I said, my voice slightly trembling.

As he fell to the ground I quickly pulled my horn out, causing blood to spurt out of the wound. I could also feel the warm fluid running down my neck, probably from Mr Shotgun’s mouth. I would do anything for a bath now.

Or a healing potion. A brief inspection of my left side showed multiple wounds, most of them seemed shallow though. Still, it hurt to breathe and my left back leg had trouble carrying my weight.

The sound of gunfire and screams put me out of my misery. Were they shooting at me? The shots were coming from the camp, but they didn’t seem to be aimed at me. I quickly grabbed all the gear from Mr Shotgun and the other slaver and limped my way back to the camp.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

By the time I arrived, the gunshots had stopped and the only slavers in the camp were lying on the floor, leaking from multiple holes.

Happy that the caravan members had apparently managed to free themselves, I walked into the camp with a big smile.

Nopony smiled back.

Out of the seventeen ponies the caravan had started with, myself included, only ten were still alive, most of which were crying over the bodies of the dead. I recognized the caravan leader as one of the ponies still standing.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“What does it look like?” he snapped back. “While you drew those two away and got the other slavers distracted, several ponies had the brilliant idea of taking them out. They succeeded, but at what price.” He gestured his hoof around the camp.

“They fought for their freedom,” was my response. What else could I say?

He sighed. “I know, I know. But the price is too damn high.” He sighed again. “Look, we’re grateful for our freedom but its ju-” He was cut of by a voice from behind me.

“YOU!” I spun around and my face got introduced to a turquoise hoof. After rubbing my muzzle I looked up (with my good eye) and saw that the hoof belonged to the turquoise mare with a dark blue mane. Her eyes were filled with tears and her look was murderous. I briefly wondered where her sister was when she started talking again. “She died because of YOU!” Stomping her hoof on the dirt to make her point extra clear.

Oh. Oh shit.

I looked behind her, where a mare with a dark blue coat and a turquoise mane peacefully lay on the ground.

I wanted to say something, let her know that it wasn’t my fault, that this was all because of slavers. But nothing came out of my mouth.

Instead, she punched me again. And again. And again. On my head, shoulders, anywhere where she could hit me. I let her. Eventually her punches became weaker and weaker until she was hanging around my neck, slowly lifting her foreleg and letting it come down on my back again.

I put my own foreleg around her, letting her cry on my shoulder. I desperately wanted to help her, to make it up to her, to make things better again. But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I would try, I could never bring her sister back. “I’m sorry.” I meant it. I felt truly sorry for her, but still the words were just words.

We stood there for a long time. Eventually my legs collapsed and we fell down. There we fell asleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

The next morning the mood was somber. The first thing we did was bury the dead and treat the wounded. The caravan members received a proper funeral, complete with named graves. The slavers were burned in the fire, after all of their valuables were taken.

Out of the seven caravan ponies that had died, three had been water carriers, the rest were guards. I tried to feel sad about Iron Shield, but my heart was already hollowed out. Without ponies to carry the water, we used the surplus to wash ourselves of the blood.

After we were done we went back to our path in a solemn silence.

I walked next to Lazuli, the turquoise mare. The caravan leader had told me her name, Lazuli hadn’t spoken to me since the night before. That was okay though, if anypony would understand that, it would be me after all. I understood she had to cope with the loss of her sister, and I knew she blamed me. So I stayed with her, in case she needed a punching bag. If there was anything I had learned in the past weeks, it would be that emotions weren’t supposed to be suppressed.

And so we walked. Without guards, we were more vulnerable. Therefore everypony who wanted had taken one or two weapons, be it from the late guards or the dead slavers. I still had the single shotgun and the submachine gun, though the latter had little ammunition. After throwing the laser pistol away, I had lost it and didn’t bother searching for it again.

Luckily we made it through the mountains without having to use them. Behind the mountains was a large plain; the bottom of a former lake. The salt layer gave Saltash part of it’s name. The other part came from an old, sleeping volcano that ponies could no longer identify, although they diid know that it was part of the mountain range.

Despite the somber mood, I still got a bit excited at the sight of the distant town. It all seemed so familiar, the shape of the houses, the calm smoke coming from several chimneys, the billboard, the pony hanging from the billboard.

Okay, that last part was new. And disturbing, definitely disturbing.

But as I read the town name on the billboard, I knew I was coming home at last.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn, Hawk281 and Nyerguds for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 5: No Place Like Home

Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 5

No Place Like Home

When the night fell, we had made our way into town. For me it was familiar and strange at the same time. I recognized most buildings. The saloon I only knew from the outside, since I had been too young to go in. There was the sheriff's office, where the bad ponies, if any, were locked up. Then came the town hall, a large and prestigious building where most parties were held. The medical outpost, a place I could easily remember from my many visits, from back then I had had a talent for getting injured. My mother half expected my cutie mark to be a broken leg. I saw the houses where my friends used to live, their parents driven crazy by our enthusiastic games. And finally I saw my own home, I recognized the window of my room, now stained with dirt.

I recognized it all, and yet, at the same time, I didn't. Every building had changed from what I remembered. Windows were smashed in and now covered with planks. Offensive slurs were written on walls. Very few ponies roamed the streets, and those that did seemed to be either in a hurry or looked at our caravan with suspicion. From the saloon came not the sound of laughter and singing. Instead angry yells and shattering glass could be heard.

It made me feel uncomfortable and unwanted. Subconsciously, I moved closer to Lazuli, only noticing when we bumped into each other, causing both of us to yelp in surprise. From the look on her face I could tell she wasn't very happy to be here either, so we stayed close together. We stopped in front of the town hall, where we would spend the night.

As we entered, I once again noticed the differences between what I remembered and what it was like now. The room was dim and dusty, with only several blankets on the floor to indicate the places where we were supposed to sleep. The old, patchy curtains were gone and had been replaced by the trademark boards. The chairs and tables were also gone, leaving a feeling of emptiness.

And yet I could still see how it used to be, how the whole town would come together in here to celebrate whatever it was we were commemorating. My last day here had been the morning after one such party. Once we foals were sent to bed, I would see the adults going to the saloon through my window. Now that I thought about it, it seemed as if the slavers had pretty good timing. After experiencing a hangover myself I doubted that the guards on the morning shift would have been as alert as usual. Plus, all the gunshots and loud noises wouldn't have been nice on their hangovers. The longer I thought about it, the more I realized what luck the slavers must have had when they had attacked.

"What's wrong?" The voice of the caravan leader snapped me out of it. All of the other caravan members were already lying on their blankets, which made me realise I must have been standing there for several minutes.

"Nothing wrong!" I quickly replied before finding a sleeping spot for myself. I choose a nice piece of wooden floor next to Lazuli. The turquoise mare was still ignoring me completely. I had respect for whoever had made this floor. Even after two-hundred years of ponies walking on it, it still was pretty much intact. The only thing noticeable was that mold and woodworms had hollowed parts of it out, giving it a sponge-like structure. That was only a good thing though, since it made my sleeping spot a bit softer.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

The next morning I woke up with an unfamiliar pressure on my back. A quick inspection showed that it was a hoof, a hoof which turned out to be connected to a turquoise leg. I smiled and decided to stay in bed for a little while longer.

About half an hour later the leg stirred and indicated that Lazuli was waking. Curious to see her reaction, I pretended to be still asleep. Soon enough I heard a soft moaning behind me. "Mmmmhh, Lapis?" Oh, she thought I was Lapis, who I assumed to be her sister. That was kinda awkward. I had no idea what to do, so I just kept playing dead.

It didn't take long for her to figure out I wasn't Lapis though, as evidenced by the jerking back of her leg. I heard her mutter something incomprehensible, followed by quick, short breaths. That made me worry a bit, so I decided it was a good time to pretend to wake up and see if she was alright.

When I turned towards her, I saw that she was uncontrollably sobbing. It broke my heart to see her like that, especially since it was partly my fault. The worst part though was that she kept repeating the same line over and over again, as if she were in a trance. "She's gone. She's gone. She's gone."

I wanted to do something for her, to tell her everything was gonna be alright. But it wasn't. I remembered how Fixer had hugged me after telling my story, and how much better I had felt afterwards. That was something I could do as well.

So I walked over to her and held her. Nothing more, silently praying it would help her calm down.

Eventually it did. When she stopped crying I held her for a little bit longer before letting go again. She looked up to me and gave me a small smile after which she stood up and started gathering her stuff. I couldn't help but give a small chuckle at the irony, I, the mare who destroyed a whole slaver camp out of suppressed frustration, was giving emotional help to another mare. Long live the wasteland.

As I watched her pack her belongings, I felt glad that I had helped her. Still, she probably needed to talk about it. "What was her name?" I asked. I was pretty sure it was Lapis but I wanted to get that cleared up. It also seemed like a good opening question to me.

"Lapis." Her answer confirmed my suspicion, but nothing more.

“Tell me about her.” Yeah, talking was good. I hoped.

“She was my big sister. We were twins you know. Always doing things together, helping each other out. It was easier that way. Even when those slavers captured us, we figured that if we would stay together, we would hold out. But now? I just... I just don’t know anymore.”

“Don’t... don’t you have anyone back in Neighvac?” I suggested.

She let out a snort. “Ha! It was always just the two of us, always wandering around. We had only been in Neighvac for what? Two weeks? Two and a half? It was hard for us to settle, so we went with the caravan. See the world you know. Nothing could stop us together. Or so I thought...”

An awkward silence followed. After some hoof scraping, Lazuli was the one to finally break it. "Why did you come back anyway? You were free. You could have left, never come back." Her tone was accusing

It was a good question which I hadn't thought about. “Well...” I started, trying to remember my thoughts “...I don’t know. It actually never crossed my mind to not come back. I guess I wanted to save you guys. And I wanted to kill those slavers.” It was an honest reply but Lazuli didn’t seem satisfied with it.

“But why risk your own life and everypony else’s?” Her tone was angry and she took several steps towards me, causing me to instinctively back off.

At the moment I hadn’t cared about my life. And I never actually thought about ‘collateral damage’. “I think I was overconfident, the idea of anypony besides the bad guys dying never occurred to me.” I began to wonder, who was questioning who?

“So you’re a stupid, arrogant, madmare who lacks any form of consideration for other ponies?” That was actually pretty much how I felt at the moment.

I gave her a weak smile. “You can punch me if you want.” It was all I had, really.

She took another couple of steps forward, as I backed off I stumbled and fell on my haunches. Lazuli brought her face close to mine, inspecting me with her deep blue and especially angry eyes.

Then she let out a loud groan and gave me a weak punch in the shoulder. “But you also saved the caravan and probably Neighvac as well.” Upon my non-understanding look she elaborated. “If we wouldn’t have delivered the water, the ponies here would taken it by force. Saltash is dependant on Neighvac for water, and they have more and bigger guns. I don’t think even Fifty and Sureshot would stand a chance if Saltash became desperate enough.”

“Would they really attack Neighvac, just for water?” I asked, glad for the change of subject.

“Remember that a lot of retired slavers and raiders settle here. And just because they’re retired doesn’t mean they suddenly become harmless. If anything, they are more dangerous than normal raiders and slavers, otherwise they wouldn't have survived long enough to be able to settle downin the first place."

“Wait wait wait. So what you’re saying is that slavers now live in this town? That it wasn’t enough for them to enslave us? That they decided to add a little bit of extra humiliation by making it an old pony’s home for fucking retired slavers? And why has nopony told me that before?” Now it was Lazuli’s turn to back off as I shouted my questions at her, trembling with rage.

“Please don’t hurt me.” Her voice was soft, but enough to make me realize what I was doing. I found myself standing over her shivering form. She was looking at me with big, scared eyes.

“Oh crap. I’m so sorry. I... it’s not your fault.” I fell back down on the floor, ashamed of my reaction.

Still, it wasn’t fair. Slavers that had destroyed my life were now living in my home! As my anger returned I stood back up. I wanted to outside and kill every single one of them. I just couldn’t let them desecrate my home. While levitating my shotgun and submachine gun over, I was about to trot outside when Lazuli’s voice stopped me.

“You didn’t care about any of us. You just wanted to kill those slavers.” Her voice was soft, she didn’t sound angry. Somehow that only made it worse, her statement caused me to stop dead in my tracks and think. Was she right? Had I really not cared about the ponies that were killed because of me? Had revenge been the only reason for me to come back?

Then came the really frightening question: did Iron Shield, Lapis and those other ponies die because of my revenge? I didn’t want to answer that. "I... I don't know. Yes, I wanted to kill every single slaver. I still do. I hate them and will always hate them. But I don't want to hurt other ponies, and I'm sorry for what happened."

Lazuli walked next to me and gently lowered my guns. “What did they do to you to make you hate them so much?”

I sighed and gestured for her to follow me, leading her outside. Our conversation had been slightly confusing for me, I was pretty sure that I had been trying to console her, not the other way around.

Once we were outside I pointed my hoof at my old home. “That used to be my house.”

"If you lived here, then why didn't you know what kind of ponies live here?"

"Because I lived here before them. And when I lived here, there were no slavers and raiders around. Or at least not until the end."

"So you were taken by slavers. Then what happened? Were they so impressed by this town that they decided to settle here?"

"I don't know, but I intend to find out." And with that I set out to the saloon. There was a good chance the caravan leader would be there and hopefully he would be able to point me in the right direction for answers. Lazuli stood there for a moment before following me.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I was lucky, the dark-green stallion was sitting at a table, having a conversation with another pony. The old, ruby red buck looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Was it his fedora? The long scar running across his left eye? Or maybe the uninterested look with which he watched the caravan leader yelling at him? "I told you already, it wasn't my fault that we were caught by slavers!"

His conversation partner didn't seem impressed at all. "Your part of the deal was to deliver the water. I don't care how you do it, as long as I get it. But since you didn't bring enough, it wouldn't make sense for me to pay you, would it?"

This seemed to make the caravan leader even angrier. "And your part of the deal was to keep your 'friends' of our backs!"

The other just shrugged. "I did, nopony I know attacked your little caravan. So you still owe me six barrels of water. For a discount of course, seeing as you didn't deliver on time." He gave a large, toothy smile.

The caravan leader stood up and slammed his hooves on the table, causing everypony in the bar to look up. "That's an outrage! You cannot expect me to give you a lower price! You don't even need the water right now, we've brought a month's supply for crying out loud!."

The ruby stallion leaned back and put his forelegs behind his head. "Half price, last shot. Take it." Amused I noticed he didn't say 'or leave it'.

That left the caravan leader opening and closing his mouth several times. Finally he reluctantly grumbled "Fine," before walking towards the exit and bumping into us. "Are you also intent on sucking the caps out of me?"

I gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, we're just looking for some info about the town."

He seemed to clear up a bit at that and pointed at the ruby stallion, who featured a smug grin on his face. "Go bother that leech over there, he'll be able to give you the information you want.” He gave a small huff and left the building.

I nodded and walked over to the table.

"Well hello there ladies! To who do I owe the pleasure?" He offered his hoof, which I carefully shook.

"I'm Ember. And she," I pointed at Lazuli, who also shook the stallion's hoof. "is Lazuli. Though I have no idea why she's here as well."

That got me a confused look from the turquoise mare. "Why? To make sure you do nothing stupid of course."

I was shocked, I would never do such a thing! "Hey, why would you think I might do something like that?"

She gave me a sly smile. "You were about to take on the whole town this morning, if I remember correctly." Oh, that.

"Yeah? Well, maybe you didn't remember correctly!" Ha, perfect comeback! I focused my attention back to the old buck, who had been watching our small discussion with amusement. "Anyway, that's not why we're here. We've got some questions for you, Mr..."

"Silver Tongue. And though my tongue isn't made of silver, I still can do some nice tricks with it." He gave us a wink, which confused me a bit. When I looked at Lazuli to see if she understood what he had meant, I saw that she was furiously blushing. That only confused me more. Oh well, it probably wasn't very important.

"Right... About our questions Mr Tongue."

"Please, call me Silver. And I'm more than willing to help you two lovely ladies in any way I can. And while some secrets are worth a price, I'm sure we will be able to come to an agreement." I hoped the price wouldn't be too high.

Before I could ask something though, Lazuli jumped in. "We were curious about the history of this lovely town. Could you help us with that?" That wasn't precisely what I wanted to know, but she seemed to know what she was doing. So I let her do her thing.

Silver Tongue waved his hoof dismissively. "Why would two nice mares as yourselves care about history? There are so many more interesting things to do for you two."

"Perhaps, but we would still like to know more about Saltash. It just seems like such an interesting place." I didn't know why she didn't just cut straight to the point, but Silver seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Perhaps he would be more inclined to tell us what we wanted to know if we asked nicely, instead of saying 'Hey, I used to live here until slavers took over. Tell me who they are so I can kill them.' Yeah, I began to see why Lazuli wanted to do the talking.

The old buck shrugged. "If you really want to. But let me order some drinks first. Hey Broken Bottle, one wild pegasus and three glasses over here!"

"No, thanks. I don't drink." I told Silver. Considering what had happened last time, drinking might not be such a good idea.

"Nonsense, everypony in the wasteland knows how to drink. Besides, it's my treat, it would hurt my feelings if you'd decline." I nodded, from what I understood about Lazuli's tactics, we were supposed to make him like us, so it would be better to play along.

We waited for the deep-blue unicorn to bring a bottle of wild pegasus and three glasses to our table. Silver filled the glasses and handed them over to us. "Cheers. To good company and boring history!" I had told myself to only take small sips, but as I tasted the fine liquid my tongue demanded more. Before I knew it my glass was completely empty. This caused the old stallion to chuckle. "See? Told you it was good."

As he refilled my glass, Lazuli gave me a worried look. I gave her an apologetic smile in return and made a mental note to let this glass stand untouched.

"Right. Where were we? Oh yes! You were wondering how Saltash became such a sanctuary for the veterans of the wasteland. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Upon the confirming nods from both me and my companion he continued. "A long time ago, on this very spot, there was a beautiful lake. It may not have been as brilliant as your coat, but it was beautiful nonetheless." He gave a small wink at Lazuli that made me feel a bit jealous. "Once ponykind discovered this lovely place, they decided to settle here. The town was prosperous but small, something that saved them during the war. When the bombs fell, Saltash was too unimportant to be a target. That, and the mountain range which protected it from most of the fallout, saved the town and it's inhabitants."

"Wait a second, the mountains stop the rain, which is why you need the water from Neighvac. So why was there a lake here in the first place?" I knew that what he said was the truth, I had heard it before at school after all. But it didn't make sense to me and I had never wondered about it before.

"Ah, you're a smart one." His compliment made me beam with pride while I gave Lazuli a triumphant look. Ha, you may be pretty, but I am smart! Wait, why did I think that? We were supposed to be a team right? My thought was true though, she was pretty. From her brilliant turquoise coat to her deep blue eyes. From the way her mane flowed and ended in a playful curl. I remembered when we had washed ourselves, how her wet mane had looked, hanging in front of her eyes, her eyes that were now giving me a very odd look. Wait, what were we talking about again? "...so that's why there already was water here." Crap.

How had I become so distracted? Now I had missed the whole explanation! I sighed and brought my glass to my mouth as Silver continued. "So, you would think that the town was spared while Equestria was burning. That was not the case however. Maybe it was the shockwaves from the bombs, maybe it just bad luck, but one way or the other, a sleeping volcano in the mountain range erupted. Because of the tremors, the ground underneath the lake was torn open, emptying the water in an underground cavern where the heat from the earth vaporised it. That tear in the earth is still visible today, if you want to visit it. The ashes from the eruption then descended upon the whole valley, covering it in a thick layer."

I nodded again and noticed that my glass was empty, as was Lazuli's. I had to admit, the way Silver told the story made it way more interesting than the version of my old teacher. I swear, one of my classmates who was good with technical stuff had recorded one of his lessons, every night when he had trouble falling asleep he would then play the recording and bam! Instantly asleep. I even borrowed it for myself once to see if it really worked. It did.

While filling our glasses, Silver continued. “For several years, the locals struggled, surviving only on old supplies. Several families left, searching for a better life, which was pretty difficult considering it was only a few years after the apocalypse. They were lucky though, and found Neighvac and it’s uncontaminated source of water. A trade route was set up between the two towns and the rest is history.” Huh, I didn’t remember hearing about Neighvac in class. Probably because the anything else always seemed more interesting.

“Wait a second, you said that the ponies in Neighvac set up the trade route, right?” Lazuli’s voice was a bit slurred as she spoke up. “But nowadays they seem scared of you guys. So what changed?”

As Silver replied, I noticed that he had only taken a few sips from his own glass. Ha! I was winning! “Winning what?” A tiny voice in the back of my brain asked. “Doesn’t matter, still winning.” Was my response and I finished my glass. Lazuli followed my example and opened a second bottle, brought by the bartender.

“Up until about decade ago that was the case. Both towns were prosperous. Problem was, they didn’t want to share with everypony. Back then I was living with a band of adventurers, roaming the wasteland and having a fairly good time altogether. But every time we tried to come into Saltash to have some fun, they denied our access. We didn’t like that. So we waited for an opportunity and took over. The ponies in Neighvac quickly adjusted, especially after we showed them how much they could use our protection.”

So he had been there all those years ago. He had been one of the slavers that had taken away my life. I felt my blood begin to boil. I wanted to stand up and rip his face open, make him choke on that fedora of him. Something held me back though. A pressure on my shoulder. It was Lazuli’s leg keeping me in place. What had she told me again? Something like: “I’m here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.” Did she consider making a pony choke on a fedora stupid? I didn’t really see anything wrong with that.

There was also nothing wrong with the pressure on my shoulder. Her leg felt soft and warm and made me relax. How come I hadn’t noticed that before? Was it the alcohol? Nah, alcohol couldn’t do such things. “Alcohol made you climb up a dragon statue.” the voice in the back of my mind pointed out. A good swig of wild pegasus drowned the voice and let me focus on the conversation again.

“But what *hick* happened to the ponies who lived here?” Lazuli’s hiccup made me giggle, for no other reason than it being funny. Then my giggling made her giggle as well. I noticed that she was slightly swaying so I put a leg around her as well, to prevent her from falling. Her back felt the same as her leg, soft and warm.

Silver Tongue was broadly smiling. “Oh, they didn’t make too much of a fuss. In the end they left peacefully.” Instantly my happy thoughts were gone again.

Goodbye happy thoughts! Hello again rage, how have you been? What’s that? You want to blow up his face? Why yes, of course I’m willing to help, that sounds like a lot of fun!

I stood up and reached for my shotgun, but couldn’t find it. Whatever, improvising might be fun as well. As I my mind tried to find a creative solution I thought it might be a good idea to have a little chat. “Peacefully? I wouldn’t describe it as peacefully.”

Silver Tongue gave me an odd look. “What would you know about that?”

I gave him a cold stare. “Traumatising might be a better description.”

This only seemed to confuse him more. “But you weren’t there, were you? No, you’re too young, would’ve been a filly and we had no fillies with us. Unless...” His eyes went wide for a second before returning to their usual confident expression. “Unless you were a filly. I knew you looked familiar, you were the little brat under the bed!”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. The only way he could’ve known I had been under the bed was if he had been in the room as well. And since he wasn’t the unicorn that had dragged me away, he must’ve stayed in my room. With mom. I felt my blood grow ice cold. Back then, I hadn’t know what they had meant with the things they had taunted my mommy with. Later on, I got first hoof experience.

“Ah yes. It was you! Heh, and to think I’ve been trying to get you two drunk enough to continue the family tradition! I do wonder if you have as much endurance as your mommy, she lasted three rounds if I remember correctly. Pretty impressive, given her state.” He chuckled as everything I slowly turned red. “You could say she was dying for a good fu-”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence as I had grabbed the bottle, smashed it and was now pressing the sharp glass against his throat. Simultaneously I heard chairs falling and a lot of clicks, indicating that pretty much the whole tavern was now holding me at gunpoint.

I couldn’t care less.

“Take it back and I’ll make it quick.” I hissed, standing over him. Small trickles of blood were running down his throat, blending in with his ruby coat. Silver stared back at me, his eyes were wide with fear, something that made me feel rather satisfied. Then he looked around, presumably at the rest of the tavern and his expression became slightly more confident.

“You’d be dead before you could even make a scratch.” His spoke softly, probably because there was a sharp and pointy object on his windpipe.

I grinned. “That sounds like a challenge to me. You’d be surprised at how many bullets I can take.” I thought back at the charred remnants of the slaver camp where I had woken up. How many bullets did I have in me then?

He gulped, causing more blood to mix with his coat and my grin to grow wider. All I had to do was give it a quick slash, or a slow one. Slow might be better, but riskier as well. I tried to figure out how much damage I could do while being shot at, but was rudely interrupted by a now familiar pressure on my shoulder.

“Ember, come.” Damnit Lazuli! Can’t you see I’m busy? I wanted to ignore her, but she slowly pulled me away. I shot her an annoyed glare. She slowly shook her head. “Remember what I said about stupid things? The only thing you’ll accomplish is creating a bloodbath, getting yourself killed. And me as well.”

She had a point. Celestia damn her! Why did she have to be right? If I would start a fight, she was likely to be caught in the crossfire, considering she was standing next to me. And if she would die I would never forgive myself. Of course, never is relative if you’re going to be dead as well, but I didn’t want it to end like that. So I let her drag me away from him. Just as Silver’s smug expression came back though, I turned around and gave him a quick buck in his nether region. It felt immensely satisfying.

“Run!” I yelled at a surprised Lazuli as our roles reversed and I became the one dragging her away. Luckily everyone in the saloon seemed to surprised or amused to be shooting at us. I was sure I heard at least several loudly laughing. We quickly bolted out of the door, onto the streets. It was somewhere in the afternoon, the sun still tried it’s best to pierce through the cloud cover. I had no doubt they would come after us so we needed a place to hide. The town hall with the rest of the caravan? No, too obvious. My old home? Silver knew me, so he probably remembered where I lived. That wouldn’t be safe either. I decided for the next best thing, my old neighbour’s house. I used to come over to play with Coal Ore a lot and knew his place as well as my own.

As I led Lazuli into the abandoned building, I heard a strangely high-pitched scream come from the tavern. “Find her!” Smiling, I closed the door behind me and made my way to the attic.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

The Ores had been good friends of my mother and I. They had a big family and an equally big home. Cole was by far the youngest of them all, and though his brothers and sisters loved him, they didn’t spend a whole lot of time playing with him. He didn’t mind though, since he had me and I had him. Together we terrorised the town, from borrowing candy from the general store (we were going to return it! Eventually...) to jumping off rooftops in homemade contraptions, attempting to earn our flying’ cutie marks (though we came closer to ‘broken leg’ cutie marks).

We also played games together: ancient board games that had survived the apocalypse, painting awesome pictures on the walls, playing tag and hide-and-seek. There was always a lot to do in the Ores’ house, and my mom had to came over a lot to apologize for any property damage. I don’t think she or the neighbours minded it though, since they always were nice to each other.

Those days of running around in the house now proved to be invaluable as I knew just where to hide. In the attic there was a fake wall, with a small storage room behind it. The opening was well hidden and you would have to know it was there in order to spot it. Luckily, I did know where it was. There was something strange going on though, normally, the removable planks were hidden in plain sight but somepony had apparently decided to put a large chest in front of it. The chest was pretty heavy, but my telekinesis and Lazuli’s earth pony strength allowed us to quickly shove it aside, giving us access to the hidden passageway.

Several days after I was captured by the slavers, the initial shock had subsided a little. It was only then that I noticed that I couldn’t find Cole in the group. I had never known what happened to him since his parents were among the slaves.

Until now.

As I triumphantly opened the hidden room, a dull smell filled my nostrils. Inside was an impressive mountain of empty Sparkle Cola bottles, stacked in a pyramid. Lots of food wrappers littered the ground, organised to form happy faces. The faces were placed in a circle. In the middle of that circle, illuminated by small cracks in the wood, lay a small unicorn skeleton curled up in a ball.

I fell down, almost knocking over the glass pyramid, and cried. Evidently his parents had put him in here, making extra sure he was safe by placing the chest in front. How long had he been here? Judging by the empty bottles at least several weeks. I looked around the room with blurry eyes, scratch marks around the door and cracks in the wooden outer wall showed that he had tried to make his way out. Unfortunately, even two hundred years after the apocalypse, this house was still tough enough to withstand the efforts of a little colt.

Lazuli silently pushed me completely inside, covered our tracks and closed the secret door again, forcing my eyes to adjust to the little amounts of light. I just sat there, silently weeping for my old friend. Now it was Lazuli’s turn to hug me. I let myself fall to the ground, a respectful distance from Cole’s remnants. The events of the day, the alcohol and the calming presence of Lazuli made me swiftly fall to sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I was still in the hidden chamber, but instead of a skeleton, a live version of Cole Ore was sitting next to me, tinkering with his invention. His dark grey coat was spotted with black specks of dirt, matching his ink black mane. I noticed that my coat wasn’t much better. Heh, our moms would probably make a big fuss about it, giving a speech about how we had to use the water sparsely and blah blah blah. I didn’t care. Neither of us did. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good, in this case a small combustion engine put together from scraps. Cole was good with engines and other mechanical stuff. I mostly cheered him on and assisted with my telekinesis if needed.

We were convinced that the single ponypower the thing provided would be enough to propel our ingenious contraption: a pair of wings which were to be attached to my back. Besides being Cole’s assistant, I was also the test pilot. So far, no test had been successful. Which wasn’t really surprising in hindsight, strapping a contraption heavier than myself on my back was not the ideal way to fly.

Still, we weren’t going to give up just yet. We were sure that the engine would be the solution. Nothing could ever go wrong with strapping a homemade combustion engine on your back and jumping off a building. Nope.

We didn’t get to that though. Loud bangs from outside distracted us from our work. That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. I went to the opening, our only significant source of light. I had to see what was going on outside, I had to make sure nothing bad would happen.

The moment I stuck my head outside, something took hold of my mane and pulled me out. As I looked up I saw it was Silver Tongue. Immediately I started flailing around, trying to hit him in every place I could. My efforts were in vain though, he hardly seemed to notice my struggle.

Cole Ore did hear me though and he came looking for through the hole. Surprised to see me in my position, he stopped just before the exit. Silver dropped me and a wide grin spread on his face. I realised what he was doing but couldn’t stop him as he swiftly placed the cover back in its place. I tried to rip it away, let Cole free, but I simply wasn’t strong enough.

With no other reason than to taunt me, Silver put the heavy chest in place again and left the room. I had no idea why he didn’t take me with him, perhaps he knew I couldn’t possibly free my friend.

I tried though. I bucked, I hit, I scratched and threw heavy objects at the wall separating us. After a while it became clear that it had no use, so instead I lay down on the chest and cried. From the other side of the wall I heard Cole’s sad voice. “Thanks for the company.”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I woke up with a shock, hitting my head on the ceiling. I didn’t really have a hangover from the previous day, just a light headache but the impact didn’t really help. I had a bigger problem though. Two actually. Firstly, a certain turquoise mare was no longer by my side. Secondly, I could barely see my hoof even when I practically poked myself in the eye with it. It was probably smart to first fix the light issue, so that I would have an easier time solving the mystery of the missing mare.

Let’s see. Oh wait, that’s the problem, I can’t. Um, let’s think. I could try to blast a hole in the wall, but seeing how little light was shining through, I doubted that it would solve my problem. It would also attract every single pony in town, kinda negating the whole idea of a hiding place. It would also be nice to actually have my shotgun. I still didn’t know where that thing had gone. Dammit, now I had three problems to solve instead of two. Things weren’t looking up. Okay, what else could I do? I needed light but didn’t exactly have a torch. Or anything to set on fire for that matter. Maybe if I made my horn glow?

Gears fell into place in my mind. Wait a second! I need a light, fire makes a nice light, I’ve got a freaking flame for my cutie mark! I could make fire, couldn’t I? I did it before, though completely uncontrolled and unintentionally. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how I’d done it. It probably wasn’t a good idea to try to precisely replicate that first attempt though, seeing as how I was currently hiding in what was basically a flammable box. I needed to make something smaller, much smaller. And less likely to kill me and everything around me. I shuddered as I thought about the charred corpses. Yeah, let’s not do that again.

I focused on my horn. Normally when levitating, I imagined the object flying so I figured it would be best to try to do the same sort of here. I pictured a small flame, floating in the air and lighting up my surroundings. It took a bit of effort to imagine the everchanging shape, but eventually I got a clear picture. Then I willed that picture in existence, floating in front of me. A small spark appeared, gave a weak flash and winked out of reality once more. That was promising! I tried again and this time the spark stayed. And grew. And grew. What started as a tiny spark was now the size of my hoof.

Uh, that wasn’t good. I tried to stop it from growing. It didn’t. I panicked and blew and waved my hooves at it. That only seemed to make it bigger. Think, think, think! I hit myself in the head, hoping to find a solution before burning the town to the ground. Strangely enough, it helped. Because as I hit my head, the flame grew again. That made me curious and stopped the panic mode, which stopped the flame from growing. Interesting. I calmed myself down some more, clearing my mind (which was surprisingly easy) and the flame shrank. That was cool, or rather, hot. I toyed a little bit more until I got complete control over it and after some practice I managed to shape it independently of my emotions, which was pretty useful. I wouldn’t want to accidentally burn Lazuli to death because I got startled by a bug or something. I also noticed that the flame wasn’t very hot or large; it only seemed to get as big as two hooves maximuml and I could lick it with no problem. Okay, that last part may not have been my smartest move, but I was just curious to see what fire tasted like and I figured it probably wouldn’t hurt me. As it turned out, it was rather spicy.

Oh, right! Now that the light issue had been dealt with, it was time for my other quests: find Lazuli and my shotgun. Or the other way around. I still had my SMG, but that thing only had one magazine left. I looked around, searching for clues. One of us apparently had caused the bottle pyramid to collapse in our sleep. I felt a bit sad as one of the last things Cole had done was make that thing. It felt wrong that we had disturbed it. Carefully I levitated the bottles back in their original position. The only change I made was to position the pyramid a bit further away from our sleeping spot, so no more accidents would happen.

Happy to have restored my old friend’s final resting place to its original state, I opened the door panel and crawled out. Still there was no sign of Lazuli. This worried me; why would she leave our shelter? She had been the one who insisted to not do anything stupid. Running off didn’t seem like something she would do. Why would she leave me alone like that? I would have to go looking for her, subtly.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

In hindsight, walking into the bar and demanding to know Lazuli’s location might not have been very subtle. I did learn that none of Silver’s goons knew where she was as well. And I got some running practice. Dodging bullets is a really good motivation!

I was glad that I still knew all the places to hide and sneak away in from my childhood. Still, the layer of murky water in the barrel I was hiding in was slowly turning red, indicating that I needed to work on my speed if I wanted to outrun bullets again.

Once the coast was clear I climbed out of the barrel and looked over my injuries. It turned out to be only a couple of grazing shots. Nothing some improvised bandages wouldn’t hold together until I got my hooves on a healing potion. I would have to get some kind of cloth for the bandages though. The only two safe places I could think of were my hiding spot in the attic and perhaps with the caravan. Hopefully my pursuers would think twice before opening fire on ponies who could shoot back. Hopefully.

I snuck my way back to the town hall, doing my best to stay unnoticed. My efforts were rewarded and I managed to arrive unharmed at the building. Well, except for my previous injuries that didn’t want to heal. Apparently if you dip your wounds in dirty old water, they get itchy. I didn’t like itchy. It was distracting to say the least.

As I opened the door, I was in the middle of a particular annoying itch, it was so very hard not to scratch it open. So hard that I didn’t notice that the town hall was pretty much empty, except for a familiar ruby stallion with a fancy fedora, sitting in the middle of the room with a big grin on his mouth.

The itch had nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t notice a bag being pulled over my head, followed by a heavy blow against my skull, knocking me out almost instantly. That was just me being stupid.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 6: Revenge

Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 6

Revenge

My head hurt. A lot. As if somepony had thrown a boat on it. Not that anypony could ever hope to survive that, but still, you get the idea. I tried to rub it, hoping to ease the pain a bit, but found out that my leg was chained to something. I tried my other legs, but they were just as tightly secured as the first one. Chains held them splayed out, making it very difficult for me to even wriggle.

They didn't stop me from trying though. I had a good motivation: my wounds were itching even more than before, and not being able to scratch them drove me crazy. Briefly I wondered what made them so irritating. Then I remembered I could simply open my eyes to see what was wrong.

It took me several seconds of blinking before my eyes had adjusted to the light. When I was finally able to see again, I saw something I hadn't seen in a very long time. It was a detailed wood engraving. On it were a dozen ponies, playing, eating and laughing. It was part of an old bed, from before the bombs, a memory of happier days. I recognized it because I had been sleeping with my head next to it for most of my foalhood.

Then that must mean...

I looked at the mattress I was lying face down on. I hadn't even realised it had been there, the itching was rather distracting. Now that I knew it was there, my eyes swiftly found what they had been looking for: a couple of black circles, very small and almost unnoticeable on the stained fabric, but they were there. About a year before I left this town for the last time, me and Cole had gotten a bit wild while jumping on my bed. I tripped and fell, hitting my mouth against one of the bedposts. Blood was spilt and tears were shed but after a quick trip to the all too familiar doctor's office, all that remained were some small now brown stains on my mattress.

“Welcome home.” The voice would have made me jump up in the air, were it not for the chains holding me in place. I knew that voice, I could easily imagine its owner's smug grin. Rapidly I swung my head around, searching for the source of that voice. Twisting my head, I could see him.

Silver Tongue was standing right behind me, with him were two other ponies that I didn't recognize, probably his goons. The one on the left was a big, pink earth pony. Thinking back to my last memory before I was knocked out, I figured he must've been the one who hit me in the head. I was a bit disappointed at myself; how could I not have noticed something so big and bright? A sudden surge of itchiness answered that for me. While struggling and wriggling in an attempt to ease the irritation, I looked at the other henchpony, a dark green unicorn mare. She looked happy to see I was awake. Way too happy for my liking, her smile caused an involuntary shudder to run down my spines.

"Well, well, well. The long lost daughter finally returns. Tell me, Ember, how does it feel being in the same room in which your mother died?" I yanked at the chains, trying to pull myself free so I could rip his gut open. All I accomplished was to injure myself further.

As I growled in frustration, Silver let out a loud laugh. "Oh, look at her. They grow up so fast, I can still remember your mother's face when we pulled you from under the bed. Priceless."

I forced out a smile as I looked him in the eyes. He was trying to get me angry? Well, two can play that game. "Your voice sounds different, Silver," I smirked. "Almost like a mare actually."

It worked, Silver's eyes narrowed as he came closer and hissed. "We'll just see how much you'll be smiling in an hour from now. I can assure you that you will regret that."

I gave him a questioning look. "Regret? I'm really proud of it. It was really hard for me to hit such a small target." I gave him the widest smile I could produce as his face showed a wide display of emotions. No matter what they would do to me, that face was more than worth it.

After opening and closing his mouth for a couple of seconds, Silver pulled himself together and gave a small nod to the mare. I decided to call her Smiley since her trademark smile got absurdly wide after the gesture. The reason for her joy soon became apparent as she floated out a whip.

Normally I wouldn’t be too worried about being whipped. It would hurt me pretty bad, but I was used to it. Smiley’s smile was way too big for my liking though, it wouldn’t surprise me if her cutie mark was a whip. I decided to check once more how tight my chains were. Some frantic tugs made it clear that my legs were still perfectly secured. Knowing what was coming, I tensed my muscles and bit down in the mattress, which tasted familiar, and pretty disgusting.

*Whack!*

The whip cracked and came down on my flank, causing me to arch my back in pain. I had expected the mare to hit me on the back, like normal slavers did. Consequently, I wasn’t properly prepared for the jolt of burning pain. I had never known cutie marks are a particularly sensitive part of your body, probably because I had never had one before. All in all, I was glad I had been biting in the mattress, as filthy as it might be. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of hearing my screams. Instead, I remembered my itching. Thanks to the pain, the irritating feeling had subsided a bit. I let go of the mattress and smirked. “Can you scratch a little lower? It’s a bit itchy there.”

She complied instantly, not giving me the opportunity to bite into the mattress again. As a result, a surprised yelp escaped my mouth as I trashed and pulled at the chains. The pain numbed out the itch though, making it hardly noticeable. I grinned at her. “Perfect, thanks.”

She just grinned back at me and readied her whip. Quickly I bit back in the mattress, just in time for the third strike. She had skill, I had to admit it when she hit the first wound spot on. I would have yelled my lungs out if it weren’t for the mattress.

As I let out a breath and steeled myself for the next blow, I attempted to think of something, anything to make her stop. Preferably involving hurting her. I couldn’t exactly hit her physically, due to those damned chains. But I still was an unicorn, wasn’t I? All I had to do was drop something heavy on her. Looking for such a thing, my eyes searched the room. There wasn’t a lot to work with, the only thing suitable was my night table next to me. I focused on it, slowly lifting it with my telekinesis.

It’s funny how distracting it can be to get whipped in exactly the same place for a third time. Seriously, how did she do that? With a loud thud, the table fell back on the ground and tipped over. Even worse, since I had been focusing on levitating the thing, I wasn’t prepared for the burning pain. As I shot up as far as my chains would allow, I could hear Silver and the pink giant laughing behind my back. Luna damn me! I was supposed to keep my cool, not let them have their fun!

But then again, I wasn’t that silent, submissive Ember anymore. I hated them. I hated Smiley for having so much fun torturing me. I hated the pink giant for catching me off guard and hitting me in the head. But most of all I hated Silver Tongue. I hated him for invading my home, killing and enslaving the ponies that I grew up with. I hated him for shooting my mother, and even more for the things he and the other slavers did to her afterwards. I hated him for taking away the town, arrogantly settling in the houses of ponies who’s lives he ruined. I hated him for taking me back here, choosing this place above all to humiliate me. I hated him with every single fibre of my being.

And above all else, I wanted him to know that. I couldn’t use levitation? Well, how convenient that I had just learned a new trick. I let go of the mattress and craned my neck as far as possible towards Silver, who gave me an amused look. I gritted my teeth and imagined the fire. As I felt my horn tingle, the whip came down on me again. It broke my concentration for a second, but I disregarded the pain, instead feeding the small spark that had appeared in front of me.

It felt great to see Silver’s confidence melt away as the spark grew. The whipcracks filled the air more and more frequently, each time briefly snapping me out of my focus and causing the flame to shrink a bit. Each impact also increased my rage and after every jolt of pain, the flame had grown bigger.

Silver became nervous at the sight. “Don’t stand there! Do something!” he yelled at the giant pink pony. The pain on the back of my head reminded me of what this one could do. I didn’t want to be knocked out before I was finished, so even though I wasn’t nearly satisfied with the size of the fireball, I decided to give it a test run. And I knew just the target.

I did a very convincing imitation of Smiley’s expression as I looked Silver in the eyes. “Catch.” I launched the ball of energy at the source of my anger, just before the behemoth punched me in exactly the same spot as before. Seriously, where did these ponies learn to be so accurate? As my world faded away, I heard a satisfying and surprisingly high-pitched scream.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Pain. So much pain. Everywhere, but mostly on my flanks and the back of my head. And damnit, I still couldn’t lift my hooves to rub it, partly because of the chains, partly because I was way too tired. The only thing I seemed to be able to move were my eyelids, which I slowly opened. The darkness before my eyes turned into redness and then whiteness as they adjusted to the light. Once I could see properly again, I looked around the room and saw only the large pink stallion. He was standing directly behind the me.

“Where are Silver and Smiley?” I asked, hoping the answer would be ‘at Silver’s funeral’. I wasn’t so lucky though.

“Boss is at doctor. You burned him!” well, at least I had done some damage, I was satisfied with that.

I gave him the widest grin I could muster as I pictured a flame in my mind. “Why don’t you go visit him then?”

He stared at me in confusion. “Boss said I must stay here.” Then he spotted my glowing horn and jumped on top of the bed and, since I was on it, on top of me. As he landed he brought his hoof down on my spine, the impact driving all the air out of my lungs. I swung my neck back in agony as I howled in pain. This guy was heavy, way too heavy, and I was his rug. He let out a triumphant laugh. “Ah, ah, ah. No magic, little pony.”

I tried to buck him off of me, an attempt which completely and utterly failed of course. Partly because he was just too damn heavy, partly because I could only move so much because of those damned chains! It was surprising how much I had grown used to my freedom in the last week and a half. After the loss of my mom, the lack of freedom hadn’t been my main concern and I had quickly grown used to it. Sure, it had bothered me at times, but now that I had tasted freedom again there was no chance in hell that I was going to let them take that away from me again.

So, against better judgement, I started another spark. It was a bad idea for several reasons: firstly, my headache was killing me and using magic didn’t help it one bit. It took all my willpower to stay focused enough in order to actually create the spark. A spark which, almost as soon as it was formed, disappeared again. Why? Because a certain somepony who was crushing me with his weight, decided to smack my horn, causing my head snap sideways and sending a bolt of pain through my skull that almost made me pass out.

The pink brute let out another laugh. “Puny pony can not use magic. Puny pony can do nothing. Boss said I could do anything.” I was ashamed of myself, how could a pony this stupid have snuck up on me. I really should pay more attention to my surroundings. Like the fact that the stallion had lifted his lower body from my back and had brought it further down...

Shit.

I turned my head as far back as I could, hurting my neck muscles some more, and the sight confirmed my suspicion. My eyes went wide as I looked at his face while he got in a good position. Somehow his smile was more disturbing than Smiley’s. “No.” I whispered. “NO!” I screamed and tried to make another fireball, levitate something heavy on top of him, anything. The only thing I accomplished was making my brain hurt, he didn’t even need to hit me. Desperately I started to wriggle, making the chains bit deeper in my skin. I knew what was coming, sadly, and it never was fun. But this time was even worse, on my own bed, just next to the spot where they had done the same to my mom.

I screamed.

He laughed.

Once he was done he finally got off of me, allowing me to breath normally again. I was panting, tired from constantly yelling and trying to escape. I had gone into blind panic mode, the only thing I achieved was tearing the skin beneath the chains open. My sight was blurry from my tears, though I couldn’t remember starting to cry. I heard hoofsteps coming from next to me. With effort, I lifted my head at a pink face. I decided that he deserved a name: Giant Asshole, Asshole for short. Through my tears I could see a big smile on his stupid face. I saw something else too, behind him was a bright blue shape.

Wait, was that who I thought it was? Whoever it was, Asshole seemed oblivious of the other’s presence and was just standing there, looking at me. The opportunity was just too perfect. “Asshole.” I whispered, too soft for him to hear me. Curiously, he moved his head closer as I saw the blue shape move away. Now that he was close enough I swiftly worked up some spit and launched it at his face, causing him to stumble back.

Furiously he looked at me while wiping the saliva from his muzzle. “You are bi-”

He never got to finish his sentence as a loud explosion tore up his midsection, right where his saddlebags were. I was showered in pieces of Asshole and shrapnel and laughed. I kept laughing, even when my chains were opened and I could move my legs again, even when a glass bottle was shoved in my mouth and I choked on the liquid that was flowing through my throat. Then, as I felt my wounds close, I stopped laughing and cried. Though I could move my legs again, I didn’t. I just stayed on my bed as I remembered lying directly below it, seeing my mother fall.

Eventually I was dragged off by my tail and unceremoniously dropped on the ground. The impact with the floor made me regain my senses somewhat. I wiped my tears and stood up shakily. In front of me was Lazuli, who gave me a worried look. Between us, on the floor was an old stain: a large, rust-coloured spot. I fell back again and kept staring at the place where my mom had spend the last minutes of her life.

I just sat there, frozen, not blinking until Lazuli pushed me up. I didn't resist her gentle force, but kept looking at the spot as she drove me out of the room. Instead of going through the front door, she led me upstairs, to the attic. My mind was just blank as she pushed me forward and onward, to the window at the back of the house. She opened the window and stepped outside, onto the slightly sloped roof, and gestured for me to follow her. I complied. Together we carefully walked towards the next house, one misstep and we would fall all the way down. I didn't think about that though, I simply followed.

Between the two houses was a small gap, about one meter across. To get to the other side we would have to walk over a plank that was placed in between, probably by Lazuli. She went first, taking great care to balance herself. Once she was across it was my turn. Though the healing potion had closed most of my wounds, the strained muscles in my legs still hurt from the chains, making the balancing act much more challenging. It was a good thing my mind was blank when I looked down, since it prevented me from freaking out at the height.

Once I was across, Lazuli led me towards our shelter. As soon as I was inside, I went towards a corner and curled up before drifting into sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I was standing in the middle of nowhere. Around me was nothing, complete darkness. It was impossible to see anything except my own body, which was somehow still illuminated. Below me was a floor. I couldn't see the floor, nor feel any texture. The only reason I knew there was a floor was because I wasn't falling.

I moved forward, looking for something I could use as a reference, a beacon, but I found nothing. Nonetheless, I kept moving, always forward, never stopping. I tried using my magic to light the area, but it didn’t work. So I just kept going.

Eventually I noticed something new. Gradually, the area in front of me had become brighter, illuminated by a faint light. The change had been subtle, and I only noticed it when I saw that the floor wasn’t one solid piece, but had long cracks in it. All of the cracks seemed to originate from a point far in front of me. Happy to finally have a guidance, I followed the cracks to their source.

I noticed that the further I went, the more details I could see. Initially I had thought that there were only several large cracks, but as I looked more closely, I could see that the area between them was not smooth either. Thick lines branched into smaller ones, which split into even smaller ones. With every step I could see more and smaller lines, never touching one another. The sight amazed me.

I was so occupied by the intricate patterns that I almost walked into a giant pit. I was standing at the edge of a completely vertical cliff. As I looked beside me, I could see that both sides of the edge were slightly curved and would probably form a circle. I couldn’t know for sure though since I couldn’t see the other side. Instead, I saw a giant hole with a flickering light deep inside that reflected against the irregular walls. It seemed as if I had found my beacon, but how was I supposed to reach the light?

A loud cracking noise from right behind me made the answer to that question clear. As I turned around, two cracks behind me connected, separating my piece of floor from the rest. Slowly but surely the impossibly tall pillar I was standing on started to tilt. I wanted to jump off, but I couldn’t move. Looking down, I saw that there were chains around my legs, holding them into place. I could do nothing but scream as the pillar gained speed faster and faster. I saw the light grow and noticed that it was a raging inferno. I looked at the shifting shapes of the flames and felt a calmness wash over me. Mesmerized by the dancing forms of light, I fell silent again. The warm glow enveloped me and I felt the chains become loose. Further and further down I fell, until everything was light and warm. I smiled as a tranquil peace washed over me.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

When I woke up, Lazuli was still there. In fact, she was right beside me. Asleep, holding me with one leg. The darkness of our shelter was a little suffocating. Quietly I worked my way out of her grip and slowly opened the hatch after listening for sounds from the other side. I needed some fresh air.

Once I had walked to the other side of the room and opened the window, I lay down in front of it. Fresh air swept through the room as a gentle breeze rolled in. I closed my eyes and sighed. Much better.

After a while I scrambled back onto my hooves. A stinging pain around my fetlocks drew my attention. The healing potion from before had done a decent job in reattaching the loose pieces of skin, but it wasn’t fully healed yet. I made a mental note to look for more healing potions and started to check the rest of my body.

Despite the healing potion, sleep and the fresh air, my head was still throbbing with a dull pain, specifically at the back of my skull and at the base of my horn. Carefully I felt my horn. I winced as even the slightest touch sent a jolt of pain directly to my brain, even I wasn't stupid enough to make an attempt at magic now. Instead I continued my inspection. My head seemed badly bruised, but it wasn't a serious hindrance, just like the stiff and sore muscles in my neck.

Moving further down, I felt that my rump was pretty much okay. Some small scratches were the only real injuries. That, at least, was some good news.

I turned my neck and looked at my flank. It was not okay. My skin had been torn open in long, vertical stripes, most of which had been closed now. But one cut was bigger and deeper than the others, and it ran directly through the middle of my cutie mark, splitting it in two. I still wasn't sure about how I felt about my mark, but I didn't like the mutilation one bit.

The itchy wounds were gone though.

A soft thump from right behind me caused me to jump up. As I spun around, I found myself staring in Lazuli's eyes. I let out a relieved sigh. “Will you never sneak up on me like that again please, I thought they had found me.”

Lazuli's eyes averted my gaze. It made me feel a little guilty; she did save me after all. So I gave her a small grin which of course she couldn’t see. “But what you did to that pink moron was fantastic. How did you do that actually?”

“Live grenade in his saddlebag.” She was still staring at the floor, which struck me as odd. I mean, how often can you explode somepony like that? That was something to be proud of, but she seemed to feel bad about it.

“Hey, don't feel sorry for that idiot. I'm really happy that you came along and gave him what he deserved.” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible, but the memory of why he deserved it made me involuntarily shudder.

She looked back up at me, tears forming in her eyes. “I am sorry. Sorry that I couldn't help you earlier. I knew where you were, but I was too scared to help you. I thought: I'll just wait until they're gone and then free you. And then you started screaming. I was hiding in the other room and came out when I heard it, but when I saw what he was doing... I just froze. Only afterwards, when he was done,” she spat out 'done', “then I realised what was happening. I should have done something sooner, helped you, but I was a coward.” Her eyes went straight back to the floor after she was done.

I put a leg on her shoulder. “Hey, I'm glad you came in the first place. And don't worry about not acting sooner, your timing was perfect. If you would have made him explode when he was still...” I shook my head, banishing the thought. 'Anyway, any sooner and you would have got me killed too. And that would have been really unfortunate don't you think?”

Lazuli seemed to feel slightly better after our talk and she brought me across the room, into the our hidden sleeping spot, where she had stashed an impressive supply of food, water, and medicine. “Wow.” I commented at the neatly stacked pile. “Where did you get all that stuff?”

She waved her hoof dismissively. “Oh, from the general store. And the doctor's office. And a couple of houses.” I grinned as she pointed at the various items. She then pointed at another pile in the corner. “And that's from the armoury. Putting a lock on the door isn't going to help much if you leave the windows open.” She beamed as she showed a couple of pistols, three grenades, three sawed off shotguns, including my old one, an assault rifle and four mines. So that's why my shotgun had been missing. In hindsight, not being able to draw a gun might have saved my life in the bar, with everypony else pointing theirs at me.

I levitated the shotguns over and grabbed a saddlebag from the other pile. “Did I already tell you how awesome you are?”

“Well, my special talent is sneaking around.” she said, showing her cutie mark to me. It was a tiptoeing pony, looking over her back, fitting.

I started filling my saddlebag with half of the supplies. Two of the healing potions disappeared down my throat, knitting the cuts on my flank back together and easing my headache tremendously. Most of the stripes left no traces, but the large cut turned into a long, perfectly straight scar. There was nothing I could do about that, I thought. There was something I could do about the creator of that line though, and I was looking forward to meeting Smiley again.

I turned back to Lazuli, who was still looking rather content with her loot. Since she was actually good at not getting caught, I figured it might be a good idea to let her make the plan. “So, how are we gonna kill Silver Tongue and Smiley?” I asked as casually as possible.

Her grinning face turned into a serious one. “The smart thing to do would be to sneak out of town unnoticed, preferably at night.” She sighed and looked me in the eyes. “For once, I'm not going to do the smart thing. I know I won't be able to get you to leave this place before you get your revenge, and after seeing what they did to you...” She shuddered. “But first, I need to ask you a question: do you think that killing Silver will give you some kind of peace?”

I saw his face flash before me, sporting a smug grin that made me want to punch it in. “Definitely.” I said, without any hesitation. I paused for a moment, something in the back of my mind irking me. Another face flashed before my eyes. It was the face of a grinning stallion, peeking under a bed. “Wait a second, Silver was one of the original slavers that came here. That means that he must know who was behind everything.” And boy did I want to meet that guy again.

Lazuli nodded. “Now you're thinking. If you want to get to the pony responsible for this whole mess,” she gestured her hoof around her, stopping at Cole's remains. “then Silver's probably your only shot.”

I nodded. “And he probably doesn't want to give the name to me if I just ask nicely, so I'll have to force it out of him.” Grinning, I started rubbing my hooves together, I was genuinely looking forward to some alone time with Silver.

Lazuli backed off several steps before smiling weakly. “Uhm, yeah. How about we go and find him first?”

“Follow me!” I enthused as I trotted a few steps and then paused, briefly waiting for Lazuli to fill her saddlebags and go after me.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Once again I was glad about all the hours I had spent running between the houses when I was a filly. The both of us managed to sneak behind and between the houses unnoticed until we reached the doctor's office. We ended up on either side of an open window. Since subtlety wasn't exactly my speciality Lazuli went first. Two minutes and a dull thump later she put her head out of the window again, smiling.

Once I had climbed through the window, I found myself in the doctor's private quarters. There was a small bed, a terminal, several bookshelves, an unconscious unicorn with a stethoscope around his neck, tied up and gagged, a storage cabinet with medical equipment and drugs and a nice, dark green rug. How that rug survived the apocalypse beat me, but it was nice nonetheless. From the cabinet I grabbed a couple of bloodpacks, four healing potions and a scalpel, then we silently entered the hallway.

The hallway connected the front door to four other doors, which I recognized as the waiting room, the consult room, the stairs to the next floor and the doctor's private quarters, from we had come. In front of the consult room was a familiar unicorn, now without her usual grin. Instead, Smiley looked pretty bored. Lazuli quickly made her life more exciting by galloping towards her, turning at the last moment and planting her hind hooves in Smiley's face. The force of the blow sent the dark green unicorn flying, making somersault, which she actually executed pretty gracefully, at least until her head made contact with the floor again and dragged a long blood trail over the planks. Littered across the floor were white and red fragments of teeth, making me take a mental note to never piss Lazuli off thoroughly.

I gave a wide grin to the moaning heap of pony before giving her a hoof to the head myself, aimed at the spot in her neck where the pink asshole had hit me too. Though I couldn't hit nearly as hard as Lazuli, it was enough knock her out. After dealing with Smiley, Lazuli and I returned to the door she had been guarding. Very carefully we opened it and peeked into the room. On the far end was a desk littered with clipboards and thick books. Against the wall next to it were two cabinets: one with medical supplies and one with dead, preserved animals. At the opposite wall, left from the door, was a bed on which lay a snoring stallion wearing a fedora. His chest was covered in bandages and he was lying on his back. It made me strangely happy to know that he was now at my mercy, something I was no planning to show.

While Lazuli kept an eye on him, I grabbed his sheets and cut them into four equal pieces with the scalpel. It was a bit tedious, but in the end we had ourselves one tied up, splayed out Silver Tongue. We brought in Smiley and placed her on the chair behind the desk, bound by her own whip. While waiting for the two to wake up, we looted their saddlebags. Smiley had three bottles of wild pegasus and a ton of drugs, all of which I let Lazuli have. From Silver's saddlebags we took almost two thousand bottlecaps, half a dozen cigars and a silenced pistol which was perfect for what I had been planning. Using a normal pistol would work too, but then we might risk alerting others to our presence. With the silencer we would run no such risk.

Getting a bit restless, I decided it was time to wake up Silver, so I punched him in the face, which proved to be a very effective way to stop somepony from sleeping. The look on his face went from anger to confusion to a combination between the latter two and fear. I gave him my best imitation of Smiley when she still had her teeth. “Rise and shine old buck.”

This seemed to tip his emotions back to anger. “How the fuck did you get here? I thought I had told that moron to keep you occupied!”

The memories from the day before came back, and with them my grin melted away. “Oh, he did. But I have a friend.” I pointed at Lazuli and smiled at her. ”Thanks for the paint job by the way. The walls could really use some colour and red really is my favourite.” Strangely enough her face became a tint greener at my compliment. Oh well, back to Silver who's expression had a little more fear mixed in it. “Anyway, I want to know something and you will tell it to me.”

He laughed, his smug look returning. “I'm not telling you shit. You got nothing on me.”

I grinned. “I was hoping you would say something like that.” I turned to Lazuli. “You may want to look away for the next part.” I grabbed the pistol in my mouth, my horn still hurt too much for any kind of magic, and put it against his leg. One gunshot and a loud scream later and the smug grin was replaced by a look of pure hate.

“You brat! How dare you fucking shoot me! You will pay for this.” Clearly Silver was not amused. Good.

I put the gun on a small table and smiled at him. “Oops, sorry. Let me take the bullet out for you.” From the table I got the scalpel. I knew that Fixer had forbidden me to use it without magic, but I figured that this was the perfect opportunity to practice.

It took me four bullets before I realized what I was doing wrong: you were supposed to make a small incision and use a tweezers to grab the bullet, not cut away the flesh around the wound until the bullet was completely exposed. It made me wonder how I never picked that up from Fixer's lessons. Oh well, at least I knew it now. And so did Silver. Lazuli had left the room halfway through, something I didn't hold against her. One part of me didn't agree with what I was doing either, but that was drowned out by the rest of me that screamed for sweet, sweet revenge. As I went on my vision started to get blurry and the world around me faded away. I stopped thinking about what I was doing and just kept going. It was only when the pistol's magazine was depleted and I had removed seven bullets that I paid attention to my surroundings again. I found that my muzzle was covered in Silver's blood and struggled not to throw up. I failed.

After wiping my mouth and washing it with some water I turned back to the whimpering slaver. I had put tourniquets around his legs to prevent him from bleeding out but his face definitely looked a lot paler. He was crying and kept muttering the same word: 'Steel Collar'. “Is that his name?” I asked. He nodded frantically.

“Ye-yes. Collar. St-steel Collar. You want him. Not me. Not me. Please. Not me. Not any more.” He broke down, tears streaming down his face. It was strange, this was one of the ponies that had raped and killed my mother, driven me from my home, sent me into a life of torture and then tortured me some more. And yet I felt bad for what I had done to him. I looked at the bloodied scalpel, his mutilated legs and I felt sorry for him. I didn't want to. I wanted to make him suffer as much as possible. But here he was, and I felt pity.

I sighed. “Where can I find him?” I asked, my voice flat.

He looked up to me with begging eyes and shook his head. “Please. No more. No more.”

I had to know and he was the only one who could give me a clue for where to look. He had to know it! I slapped him in the face and raised my voice. “Where is he?!”

But he shook his head again. “I don't know. You gotta believe me! It's the truth!”

I looked at him. There was no trace of arrogance anymore. I believed him. That meant that I lost the only lead I had. So much for getting my revenge. I sighed, I still had a job to finish. With the shotgun in my mouth I trotted over to him. I wasn't proud for what I had done to him, but I would not ignore what he had done to me.

He stopped sobbing and stared at me, eyes wide. A moment later they were gone. Shotguns are pretty devastating from up close. I looked at his remains and didn't know how to feel. On the one hoof I wasn't proud of what I had done, but on the other I still believed that he had deserved it. It would probably lead to some more nightmares.

A loud maniacal laugh made me spin around. It was Smiley, having the time of her life in her chair. She saw me looking and nearly suffocated in her bonds. I slowly trotted over to her and looked her in the eyes. She calmed down to a nervous giggle. ”What's so funny?” I asked her.

She had another laughing fit before calming down enough to answer me. “You fink fad you are beffer fan ush, bud you are wrong!” She burst into another laugh.

I raised an eyebrow. “I'm taking revenge, you were the one who enjoyed torturing me. You can't compare that.”

“You liked id!” she laughed. “You kepfd going, fad means you liked id!” She was right, at least partly. I had liked it. But at the same time I had known that it was wrong. Did that make me like her?

“I liked taking revenge, but I do not hurt innocent ponies like you do. That's the difference, what I did was for a reason. What you did was unjustified.” I felt proud of myself, of course it had been justified! Maybe I went a bit too far, but that was just because I lost control of myself. I wasn't like her.

And yet she kept laughing. “He dook revenge doo. You bucked him in fe nuds!”

I wanted to argue back, say that what he did to me was way out of proportion for kicking him in his stallion parts. But she was right, no matter how much I hated to admit it. My kick humiliated him, so he took revenge by whipping me. I took my revenge by shooting him in the chest with a fireball. He took his revenge by telling Asshole to do whatever he wanted. I took my revenge by slowly cutting out bullets that I shot in his legs, and then killing him. My ears dropped. Every time, one of us had made it worse. It was like a competition on who could hurt the other the most and I had won. Yay.

At that moment I realized I needed a drink. Badly. But there was still the issue of a crazy tied-up mare who was laughing at me like a drunk hyena. My anger was gone, washed out by the feeling of guilt, but I couldn't just leave her here. I looked at my flank, at my cutie mark which was neatly split in half by the same whip she was now tied up with. Smiley followed my gaze and managed to laugh even louder. I looked at her, promising to never be like her again. To never take pleasure over the death. When I found Steel Collar I would make it as swift and clean as possible. I closed my eyes and stopped her laughter.

Without looking back I walked out of the door and collapsed into Lazuli. She lead us back to the hiding spot where I slowly calmed down a bit. “You do not look like you have found peace.” she said softly.

I shook my head. “It felt good to hurt him, and that scares me. I do not want to be like them.”

Lazuli hugged me. “You're not like them. The fact that you don't want to be proves that. It makes sense that you felt good to finally have revenge on him, after what they did to you.”

I kept shaking my head. “I kicked him in the nuts, he made them whip me. I burned him, he let them go ahead. We were like a bunch of foals, pointing at each other and telling that the other started it.”

“That may be right, but letting him walk away wouldn't be right either. One day or another he had to pay for his crimes and today was that day. I didn't like the way you made him pay, but I can understand why you did it. Just, when we find the one behind this, try to keep in control, okay?”

I nodded. “Thank y-.” I was cut off by loud yells from the streets.

“Find them!”

“Silver's dead!”

“Kill them!”

Pushing my head against one of the planks, I could see a large mob gathering outside. They had found out about our little adventure sooner than we had expected. What I also didn't expect was that the plank I was leaning against decided, after over two hundred years of decay and days or even weeks of abuse by a colt, to finally give up and break. Now that my support had snapped and splintered and I was still leaning forward, I was sent dangling half over the edge, two stories above the ground.

Beneath me the mob, alarmed by the sound of planks snapping and crashing onto the dirt, looked up at me. I stared back at the two dozen slavers and raiders and all of us just kept like that for several moments, nopony moving a muscle. Finally I waved my hoof and put up a sheepish grin. “Uhm, hi.”

Once again I owed my life to Lazuli who yanked me back behind the edge moments before bullets whizzed past. We rushed over the plank connecting this building to my former home down the stairs and out through the front door as the mob bashed in the Ores' door. As we galloped away somepony must have spotted us, because gunfire sounded behind us.

We went away from Neighvac, towards some close by hills. Running over a wide, flat lake bed with no cover whatsoever didn't seem like a tactically sound decision. The falling darkness helped to hide us and we were eventually able to shake off our pursuers. For good measure we kept going as far as possible, until we encountered the ruins of an old farm. After crushing the radroaches inside we went up to the only intact bedroom and lay next to each other on the old bed, not before carefully moving the skeletal remains of it's previous owners off of it of course. The stress of the day made ensured a deep sleep for the both of us.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 7: Melodies

Ashes to Ashes – Chapter 7

Melodies

Note: Big shoutout to Nyerguds, the author of The Daily Unlife, for super fast pre-reading in order to make this chapter readable!

The next morning we ate our breakfast in silence before heading back on the road. I think neither of us knew where we were going, except for the fact that it was away from Saltash and Neighvac. After half an hour I was the first to break the silence. “Shouldn't we head back to Neighvac?” Right now that was the only place where I knew I would be safe.

But Lazuli shook her head. “They will be expecting that, meaning that every slaver and raider between us and Neighvac is waiting for us to pass by. And considering what we did to Silver Tongue I think we may have a bounty on our heads. The only way to make sure is to find a radio somewhere though.”

I shrugged. “All right, how long do you reckon it will take for them to give up?”

“I have no idea honestly, but at least a couple of weeks. Until then it would be smart to stay out of the area, lay low.”

“We're gonna need to trade sooner or later,” I pointed out. “Our supplies will last about a week, but if we keep going longer than that we will be starving.”

Lazuli nodded. “You're right, if we find a town we'll go in to gather more supplies.”

I nodded as well. “All right.”

That concluded our only conversation for that morning, neither of us made an attempt to start a new one. Normally I didn't have any trouble walking, I would just zone out and keep going, just letting my thoughts float free in my brain. Every time I tried that now though, my mind went back to my bedroom and the doctor's office. I had to actively block those thoughts to prevent reliving those memories.

So I decided to train my horn a bit, see if that would distract me enough. Over the night my headache had subsided and allowed me to use magic again, though it took effort. So I started levitating random rocks from the ground and moved them around in as intricate patterns as I could, which would be circles. As I had demonstrated before though, me not paying attention to where I put my hooves often ended poorly. This was no exception.

As we rounded a corner, I astonished myself by managing to take down three ponies: myself by tripping, Lazuli by causing her to laugh so hard that her legs collapsed underneath her, and the pony I literally bumped into by sheer surprise. I was happy to note that the pony's tail smelled and tasted as if it had been washed very recently, though that wonderful smell quickly disappeared as my head continued its descent towards the hard dusty wasteland. It was disappointing to notice that the wasteland hadn't been washed recently on the particular spot where my muzzle made contact.

While I was busy scraping the dirt of my tongue, Lazuli had helped the other pony up. It turned out to be a stallion. A teal earth pony with indigo hair and a very annoyed look on his face. Also mud, a lot of mud decorated his features as well. Apparently he had fallen face first into a large pool of the stuff that was covering most of the road. “Uhm, sorry?” I gave him my best apologetic smile.

Strangely enough my smile did not help calm him down. Perhaps I had to work on my smile, or maybe it would have helped if Lazuli would stop rolling and laughing. She did have an undeniable point though: the sight of the otherwise spotless stallion with his face covered in mud was pretty funny, especially since he started opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, like a fish out of the water. Or at least that's what fish did according to my old teacher. And I must say that his enactment looked pretty much exactly like what the strange buck was doing.

“Ow come on, lighten up! It's just some mud.” I tried to cheer him up.

“Just mud?!” I nodded in confirmation, he probably had some mud in his ears and hadn't heard me well.

“Just mud?!” I kept nodding, he seemed to be a bit slow in understanding me.

I was just about to lift my chin again to complete yet another nod when he tackled me and pinned me to the ground. He brought his muddy face near mine and started yelling. “Do you have any idea how long I've spent getting cleaned up this morning? Do you?” Honestly I had no idea and the fact that there now was a fully grown stallion sitting on top of me didn't really help me focus.

“Four bucking hours! That's how long!” That confused me thoroughly.

“Why would you even want to do that?” I asked while scratching my head. “We're in the wasteland! What's the point in getting clean if something's gonna try killing you later?” Sure, getting clean was nice and necessary from time to time. But it was a luxury and a shiny coat was a poor investment choice since it would get dirty again the very same day. Over the years I had come in contact with lots of types of filth: dust, mud, weird sludge that made your skin peel off (luckily only a couple of drops), blood, rain, organs, and pieces of brain. Hell, I probably still had bits of Asshole on me. And in me... I smacked my head to punish my brain for bringing that back up. Instead I pictured how good it would be to get a bath, I probably deserved it too.

While my brain was rambling about, the stallion had gotten off of me, Lazuli's pistol pointed at his skull might have had something to do with that. I got up and nodded at her. “Thanks.” Then I turned back to the stallion. “Look, sorry for running into you, but you were gonna get dirty one way or the other out here.” I shrugged and gestured for Lazuli to lower her gun.

Then the buck did something I wasn't expecting: he broke into tears, they were streaming down his cheeks and mixing with the mud.

Lazuli was the first to react. “Uhm, are you all right?” He shook his head and continued crying. Needless to say, it was a rather awkward situation.

I decided it was my turn to do something, considering that it was more or less my fault for bumping into him. So I asked. “Can we do anything to help?” I may have been hoping that he would invite us to help him bath again, so that I might have the chance to get clean as well. It wasn't fair that this good smelling stallion was complaining about how filthy he was from some mud while I probably still had pieces of brain in my mane.

To my utter disappointment however, he shook his head and whined. “It's too late! It is of no use anymore, all is lost forever!” He flailed his hooves and head around pretty dramatically, causing me to feel a whole lot of things at the same time: jealousy for his shiny coat and good smell (except on his face and were he had made contact with my body), pity for his situation for which I was responsible, wariness for the hooves that were spinning around and annoyance for the fact that he just gave up like that.

So in a fit of brilliance I trotted over to him, dodged his legs and grabbed his shoulders before yelling in his face. “Calm down! Get a grip on yourself! We are gonna help you whether you like it or not!” From the look in his eyes I concluded it was going to be the latter. At least he stopped crying and throwing his legs around.

I stared into his bright azure eyes. “You are going to tell me what the hay is wrong with you and then we will fix that, understood?” He slowly nodded and sighed.

“Fine. I guess that's the least you can do after ruining weeks of preparation.” I shrugged, letting him know to get on with it. “There's this mare...” He paused and I nodded impatiently, I was a mare too, but did I put dramatic every time I told ponies that?

He sighed again and continued. “Her name is Siren and she's the single most beautiful creature in the world. I want to spend the rest of my life by her side, and today I planned to ask her. I've been saving caps for months now so I could buy her a gift and make myself worthy of her presence. That is, until you came along and ruined all of my preparations.” I wasn't sure whether to vomit or feel bad for him, sure vomiting seemed only natural after hearing the way he spoke of her, but my breakfast hadn't been that tasty the first time and I wasn't sure if it would become better on the way out. I decided to just go with feeling bad for him.

“I'm sorry and I will do whatever I can to help you get noticed by her, promise.” I rehearsed the old rhyme I knew from when I was still a foal and crossed my heart, hoped to fly and jammed my hoof into my eye. Upon the incredulous look from both Lazuli and the teal buck I shrugged. “What? I learned that from Coal.”

Lazuli smacked a fly on her forehead and the stallion just stared at me blankly. “You're kidding right? Surely you must be kidding.”

I shrugged and offered a hoof, which he suspiciously looked at before shaking. It was a bit difficult to connect our hooves since one of my eyes was tearing profusely, but we managed. “I'm not kidding, and my name is Ember. And that,” I pointed at the turquoise mare who was giving me an incredulous stare. “is Lazuli.”

“...I see...” The stallion said before clearing his throat. “My name is Pump and I need to go back as soon as possible, but I can't appear in front of Siren like this. So, what do we do now?”

“How about we get you cleaned first?” Lazuli suggested while fishing a water bottle out of her saddlebags. Before Pump could protest she had emptied the bottle over his head, washing off the mud and revealing the annoyed look on his face.

“Great, now I'm all we-.” He was cut off as his mouth was stuffed with towel, expertly thrown at him by a smirking Lazuli.

“Here, dry yourself up and stop whining.” The surprised buck quickly complied and soon his face was dry again. It was probably nowhere near as clean as how it had been before I had bumped him into the mud, but it was better than, for example, my own face.

Lazuli also seemed pleased with the result as she took the towel back and stuffed it into her saddlebag. “Never leave without one.” she muttered before closely inspecting Pump from all angles, from his muzzle to his hooves, as he stood there absolutely still. When she was done she smacked him on his cutie mark: a drop of water falling towards a pipe. “You're clean.”

The teal buck gave a loud yelp and jumped in surprise. When he came down again he turned back at Lazuli and glared daggers at her. She just grinned back at him. Pump sighed and turned away from his chuckling competitor and faced me, looking a bit nervous. “Well, I guess I'm off now. I wouldn't want to keep Siren waiting.” He gulped and carefully inched his way around the mud pool. Me and Lazuli looked at each other and shrugged.

Five minutes later, when he arrived on the other side and finally looked up again, he found himself face to face with both me and Lazuli. He scrambled back a few steps to the edge of the brown goo before staring at us in disbelief. “H-How did you two get here?!”

In unison, me and Lazuli grinned and showed our muddy hooves. “We took a shortcut.”

Pump shook his head in disapproval. “If you are to come with me, you must clean yourselves. I will not allow anypony to defile Siren's surroundings with such filth.”

Lazuli blew raspberries at him. “Oh lighten up. There are much worse things than having a little mud on your hooves. It will dry and crumble off before we're there.” With that, she turned around and trotted away. I quickly caught up with her, and we went on our way. Pump followed closely behind, shouting arguments for why we really should get cleaned.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Roughly twenty minutes later Pump had gained my respect. Not only for his determination of convincing us, but also for his stubbornness; even when the mud had crumbled off our legs he still insisted that we were way too filthy and that Siren would faint from our stench. The latter part was admittedly pretty annoying as well and I could see that Lazuli didn't like it either, so we both ignored him.

After about fifteen minutes he gave up and instead started humming a strange tune. It was then that I noticed a weird cord hanging from his ear. When we asked him about it he told us that it was an earbloom, connected to a tape recorder, and allowed him to listen to music. Before we I could ask if he would be willing to share the music, we reached the top of a hill and looked over a gentle-sloped valley and Pump promptly shut up, growing a big grin on his face. “Sirenville.” he said in awe.

On top of a small hill on the other side of said valley stood a large and impressive looking villa. It seemed to be very well maintained, even now several ponies were busy carrying out repairs and repainting the bright white planks. The villa itself wasn't the most interesting part for me though, since around it was something I only knew from pictures: actually green trees, grass, bushes and even flowers! The whole hill was a patch of colour in the otherwise dull and grey wasteland and it was beautiful. Throughout the gardens even more ponies were moving around, tending to the astonishing plants.

I found my mouth was still hanging open as we trotted to the foot of the hill, were numerous shacks and hovels were scattered around. The ponies roaming the street all seemed so happy, though about a quarter of them were dressed like raiders. It was a strange sight, seeing such menacing looking ponies smile so broadly. In fact, their joy seemed contagious. On our way to the mansion I couldn't help but smile at the discovery of this incredible place. It seemed so nice here, so colourful, so lively. Faintly, I heard a mare singing an amazing song. I was drawn to the melodies that seemed to be coming from all of the houses, but the loudest source was the hill. Impatiently I increased my pace until I arrived at the garden.

Around the garden a fence was built and the gate was guarded by half a dozen guards. Upon seeing Pump they smiled even wider and stepped aside, granting us access to the villa. As we walked through the garden I occasionally stopped to simply stare at the wonderful display of life. All the ponies smiled and nodded at us as we went past them, and I waved and smiled enthusiastically back. I took in the scents from the grass, the trees and the flowers and I was happy.

I also was right in the assumption that the voice came from the villa. As Pump knocked on the door I could hear it clearly. The song wasn't made out of words, but rather soothing melodies. As the sounds entered my ear they hugged my brain and told it that everything was going to be okay. That I had nothing to worry about and that I could shake off all of my sorrows. I happily obliged and let my mind relax as I followed Pump through the door opening. While entering, a part of my brain protested and yelled that I was forgetting something or someone. The music smothered that part though and assured me that I had nothing to worry about.

Trusting the music, I walked inside behind Pump, doing my best to be as silent as possible. I wouldn't want to pollute the music with the sounds of my hoofsteps would I? As the teal stallion lead the way, a warm feeling spread in my heart. The music became clearer and clearer as we continued through the hallway to a pair of large doors.

Without hesitation I entered the room, eager to find the creator of the mesmerizing notes.

I was a bit disappointed to find out it was a tape recorder on repeat. It was standing in the middle of a large living room, filled with beautiful, antique furniture. The wall on the far side had a pair of windows in it, running from floor to ceiling and overlooking the garden. All of the other walls were decorated by numerous life-sized paintings of a stunning beige mare with a swirling chocolate brown mane.

After staring at the closest work of art for a couple of seconds, a sudden stirring in the middle of the room made my attention focus there. From a comfortable looking bench that was facing the windows, a familiar pony had stood up and was now looking at me with the same emerald eyes that decorated the paintings.

“And who might you be?” the stunning mare asked with the most mesmerizing voice I had ever heard. Just listening to her simple question caused my jaw to fall wide open and left me at loss for words. Not that I needed any, since before I remembered that she had asked me a question, she already cut me off. “Never mind, do not bother telling me. I would not be able to remember all the names of my admirers anyway. Of course you must be dying to acquire my name.” I found myself nodding fervently and leaning closer, which was a bit strange, since I already figured out that she was Siren. It was no rocket science.

The beige mare whipped her mane and struck a pose similar to the largest painting. She looked at me en profile from the corner of her eyes and gave me an alluring smile. “My name,” she paused dramatically and caused me to hold my breath. “is Siren.” She turned her head back to face me. “And this is my lovely piece of paradise.”

I couldn't deny that Sirenville was lovely indeed. Or at least the fenced off part. The area without the slums and the ponies who, I suddenly realised, looked unnaturally happy, especially in their raider clothing. It also seemed a bit unfair that Siren lived in a mansion, while all the other ponies worked for her. What did she give for compensation? The music? Speaking of which, the recorder seemed to have stopped and Siren was rewinding the tape, I think. I wasn't really an expert on how tape recorders worked. Where was I again? I looked around the room, my eyes stopping at the numerous paintings. It seemed strange to me, why would anypony want that many paintings of herself? All she really needed was a mirror. Oh wait, there were at least eight of those. She really did seem to like herself. And beautiful stuff, like the garden. I wondered where she got the water from. Then I wondered why she would waste perfectly fine water on decorative plants. I kinda started to dislike the mare with several musical notes, swirling around the head of a stylised pony, for a cutie mark. Actually, I should probably tell her what was on my mind. Yes, that seemed like a good idea, I opened my mouth and stepped forward, just as a delicate click sounded from the recorder and the astonishing music filled the air once again.

“Siren, I...” What was I going to say again? I remembered something about her cutie mark, had I been staring at her flank? As fast as I could I stepped back and lowered my head in shame, a large blush on my cheeks.

Siren paid me no attention though and instead focused on Pump. It made me a bit envious to see her smile at him, talk to him, but at least she hadn't noticed how I had been looking at her. “So, am I correct to assume that you have solved the problems with the water supply?” she asked Pump.

In response, the teal buck nodded so fast that it was almost impossible to keep track of his muzzle. “Yes my love, everything is fixed now. And as you have seen, I brought these two mares, who helped me clean myself after the red one bumped me into some mud.” He pointed his hoof at me and... Strange, I could have sworn there should be another mare next to me, if only because Pump said so. The thought was quickly carried away by the playful notes from the recorder, the fact that Siren seemed to burn her gaze into my soul also helped to bring my focus back.

Incidentally, the stare also caused a warm trickle to flow down one of my legs.

Deeply embarrassed by the leak and frightened to death by the look in Siren's eyes, I stumbled back. She closed in on me, horn flaring and giving the small puddle a wide berth. “Where is the other one? He said there were two of you, but I only see you. So I ask you. Where. Is. She? Where is the mare that defies me?” Her words hurt. Literally. It felt as if she was punching me with each syllable.

Within moments I was lying on the floor, rolled up in a ball. “I don't know!” I answered truthfully. “I didn't even remember her! Please, anything, I'll do anything for you! I will make it up to you, I swear!” Every fibre in my body wanted to help Siren find the other mare. To bring her to justice so that my love's wrath would be calmed.

What? 'My love'? Where did that come from? I hardly even knew what that word entailed! Yet, it felt right somehow. Yes. Siren was my love!

I crawled over to her and kissed her hooves, which seemed to ease her anger somewhat. More importantly, she directed it to Pump instead of me. “You, water caretaker. How did you lose her?”

Pump whimpered and held up a hoof defensively. “I'm sorry! I have been careless. She must have slipped away while we were hurrying through town, restless as we were to bask in your glory.” I only understood about half of what he was saying but nodded to back him up nevertheless.

Siren let out a dramatic sigh. “Very well then, let the guards keep an eye out for her, and show the other one around and find an appropriate job for her. Oh, and send somepony to clean up this mess!” She pointed at the result of my fear with a look of disgust on her face. I was rather glad that I hadn't been standing on the rug, but instead on the stone floor.

Pump nodded and quickly left the room with me hot on his tail. We stopped by a bulky, lemon-coloured stallion who looked like he could crush either one of us by simply looking at us. The only thing that made him look slightly less tough was the stylish butler uniform he was wearing and the fact that it seemed to be two sizes to small for him. The muscled buck didn't seem bothered in the slightest by it though as Pump exchanged some words with him. Occasionally they shot looks in my direction, and by the stare the stallion gave me, I suspected he would be the one to clean up my mess. That was incidentally the main reason why I didn't want to come any closer to the pair.

After a couple of minutes they broke up and the lemon buck went his own way again. Pump looked back at me and gestured for me to follow him throughout the hallway. Neither of us spoke a word as we trotted outside, back through the garden and the gate, where Pump informed the guards to look out for... Lazuli. That was her name! She was my friend, but at the same time Siren didn't like her, which meant that if I saw her, I could bring her to Siren. That way she might forgive me for my stupid behaviour! Way to go brain! You're awesome!

When we were done dealing with the guards, my guide brought me to a tall, uhm, structure directly at the base of the hill. It was a bit difficult to describe since it had no obvious shape, except for it being tall and thin. It appeared as if somepony had decided to take some giant steel toothpicks and placed them vertically, leaning onto each other. For good measure some ropes were tied around the long beams while pieces of junk were attached to the at seemingly random locations. When I looked closer, I saw that the planks, tires, shopping carts and other things were not placed randomly; instead they made up a stairs around the outside of the tower. All in all I felt like I could bring the whole thing down by sneezing in its general direction..

Pump smacked me on the back. “Congratulations! You're on guard duty, now get up there and do your job.”

Half of my brain screamed that climbing up that thing would be my worst idea to date, but the other half argued that this job would keep Siren safe and that that was all that mattered. The tunes that drifted from the manor shushed my panic by assuring me that the tower was completely safe and confirmed my suspicion that keeping Siren safe and sound was the most important thing in my life.

So I nodded an impatiently looking Pump and started my ascension. Even though I had some experience with climbing onto really tall structures, at least the dragon hadn't been swaying slightly in the wind. And I never had to actually make small jumps between platforms to get up Fifty's sniping post. The only things that kept me going were the fact that I never looked down and my resolve to never let Siren down.

It took me the better part of an hour to complete my heroic climb, but when I got to the top I was happy to find a platform with safety rails on all sides of a small platform. Besides a chair, there were several crates, some filled with food and drinks, one with only empty bottles and a mattress. Onto the five corners of the safety rails, umbrellas were strapped, creating a small roof. The fabric of the umbrellas was only slightly perforated and would probably hold most of the rain, though due to the way they were positioned most of the water would flow to the middle of the platform, which was unfortunately the location of my mattress.

Besides all the luxurious accommodations of my watchtower, there was also a small speaker box which, judging by the lovely sounds coming from it, was directly connected to the tape recorder in the villa. “How nice of Siren to have them install it.”I thought with a wide grin on my face.

No sooner had I thought those thoughts, or I panicked. And with good reason, since the whole platform tilted slightly. Looking around for the source of the goddess-forsaken movement, my eyes found a rope which was attached to the floor and held up by a crane. The reason why I hadn't spotted it sooner was probably because it was A: at the edge of my safe zone and B: more like a single H-beam with the rope held between the flanges. I had little interest in having my platform pulled over so I grabbed the rope and pulled it up. It took a while, but in the end I discovered the gift basket on the bottom.

Ah, so this was how I would get supplies up here. It was actually pretty smart, since I did not want to use the 'stairs' more often than necessary. After dumping the basket's contents onto my mattress, I slowly lowered it back down. Once that was done I went to see what goodies Siren had bestowed upon me.

The most obvious thing that lay upon my bed was a large rifle. It was not as big as Fifty's, but up here it was a definite improvement over my three shotguns. Besides the gun, the basket contained fifty rounds of ammunition and a note. Curiously I grabbed the note and started reading:

Dear [insert name here],

you are bestowed upon the honour of serving the amazing Siren.
For this prestigious duty we would like to congratulate you and wish you the best of luck.
Do your absolute best in our collaborative effort to rebuild Equestria's former and you will be rewarded generously.
With this note you will find the equipment necessary to do your job. Use it well.

Sincerely,

your beloved Siren.

P.S. Do not turn off your designated speaker box in your living area. Punishment for disobedience of this order is severe.

A personal note from Siren! Sure, it was not directed to 'Ember', but since I never got around to tell her my name that was hardly her fault. I was so excited that I had contain myself to not jump around like a maniac. She actually cared for me, this meant she probably forgave me for leaving my mark on her floor too!

The note gave me enough determination to do something I hadn't done so far, and that was a crucial part of my job too: looking around. I scurried carefully towards the edge of my little platform and got familiar with my surroundings. My tower was slightly higher then the villa, even though it was standing at the foot of the hill, and this meant I had a perfect view inside the closest rooms. Slightly left to the villa I could make out the mountain range separating Neighvac from Saltash on the horizon. Slowly spinning counter-clockwise, I spotted a couple of the lone towers that littered the wasteland randomly, the ruins of a small town several kilometres away, smoke coming from a city on the horizon and dusty dirt, lots and lots of it.

The most interesting part was probably Siren's villa, or perhaps the burning city. I kept looking in between the two when I realized that my job was to look out for threats, not architecture. It was a boring job, really. I had a pretty clear view on the area around the town, and it was completely devoid of life. After staring at the dirt and rocks for several hours, night was beginning to fall and I was severely bored. At least the music from the speaker kept me from falling to sleep.

As the light from the obscured sun slowly faded away, I briefly wondered when Siren would go to bed, and if I could see her from my venture point. I looked at the villa, trying to determine what room she could be in when I saw it: a turquoise mare opening a window, trying to break in. Without hesitation I aimed my rifle at her and readied it to fire.

I hesitated.

I knew this mare and my mind was screaming at me not to shoot her, to let her live. As my brain revolted though, the music seemed to grow louder and more threatening until it drowned out the resistance. I was convinced. Siren regarded the turquoise mare as a threat, and thus she needed to be removed.

My sights lined up with her head and I held my breath.

I bit the trigger and the world slowed down.

The bullet was launched forward by a jet of hot gasses that quickly dispersed after leaving the rifle's mouth. The small piece of streamlined lead flew towards the mare's head, leaving a blast of sound in its wake that extremely briefly cleared my mind. If it was by instinct or pure luck I do not know, but Lazuli had managed to pry open the window's lock just moments ago and bended slightly downward to open it, allowing the bullet only graze her mane before shattering the glass behind her into thousands of little pieces.

Time stopped being silly and went back to normal again as hell broke loose. From all around Sirenville, shouts and yells echoed as ponies were looking for the source of the gunshot. I myself had never fired a proper rifle before and had not been suspecting it to kick back so strongly that it would sent me flying to my mattress. Lazuli, to her credit, was stunned for mere seconds before turning around to see where the shot had come from.

As I scrambled back up my hooves I panicked. Not only had I damaged Siren's villa, but I had left the source of her frustration alive! I brought my rifle back up and started firing at the offending mare. As it turns out, shooting at a zigzagging target while being in a state of hysteria does not improve accuracy and within moments she was at the base of my tower.

I briefly wondered about what she was planning to do, since getting up to me was hardly an option. The way she ran away from the tower again, which was much like the way she backed off from Asshole after slipping a grenade into his bags left me with a fairly good idea of what she was doing.

In an amazing epiphany I jumped back onto my mattress and wrapped it around me as tightly as possible.

It was not a moment too soon as I felt and heard a loud explosion, coming from almost directly underneath me. The shock waves sent the whole structure shaking, but that was far from the scariest movement. Veeery slowly my tower started to tip over, in the direction of the villa. Soon however, that veeery slowly turned into regularly slowly, then into trotting speed, galloping and finally holybuckI'mgoingtodie!-speed, which was admittedly the most frightening of all.

As I made my way towards one of the side rooms of the villa I kept myself wrapped as tightly as possible in my my protective mattress, which turned out to be made out of a highly absorbent material. Maybe drinking those three sparkle cola's during my watch hadn't been a good idea. Also I screamed. A lot.

The sound of my screams was dwarfed by the immense noise that sounded when the metal construction made contact with the wooden building. I only knew what margarine looked like from school, but I could suddenly picture the phrase 'like a knife through hot butter' very well.

Besides rediscovering old words, I also found out that even though my cushion of safety did soften my fall, it did not prevent the bones in my right shoulder from snapping and tearing through my skin. And I can tell you that though that sound sickening, it was nowhere near as bad as the feeling it left me with. I continued the tradition of expelling bodily fluids by vomiting violently from the pain. And yes, the stuff that came out was more or less a fluid if you must know, so my previous sentence stands.

A side effect from crashing into villas was, besides a world of pain, a loud ringing noise in my ears that blocked out all other sounds.

It left me somewhat confused. Why was I here again? More importantly, why was there a bone sticking out of my shoulder? The feeling of excruciating pain did not help me think clearly, and neither did the fact that the ringing noise lessened and the music came back. Hey! The music! That was the key, that was the thing that made me act so weirdly. I wanted to facehoof to express my disappointment in my brain's capability of deduction, but with only one functional foreleg I decided against that. Instead I was content with lying down, still on my warm mattress. It was obvious that I couldn't fight the music if it had made me shoot Lazuli, so I just made myself comfortable while the noise in my ears subsided, waiting for the melodies to entrance me again. Maybe they would take away the pain.

Except they didn't. In fact, the whole 'music taking over my mind' thing didn't happen. Undoubtedly it had something to do with the earblooms that were jammed inside my ears and then held there by a piece of cloth that was wrapped around my head tightly. From the earblooms a loud crackling noise sounded, blocking out any and all other sounds.

Surprised, I lifted my head and looked behind me at a weirdly looking Lazuli. She had the same set-up around her ears and was staring at my shoulder. Oh right, loads of pain. With my newly cleared mind I remembered that I had something for that: Med-X! Glad that my magic allowed me to grab a syringe without moving a muscle. I hardly even felt it when I stabbed the needle in my shoulder and emptied the pain relief into my bloodstream.

Then I stood up on three legs, my fourth limply hanging from my side and was glad that there were plenty of planks lying around. In no time I had made myself a splint, though now came the hard part: putting the bone back in the right way to ensure that it would heal properly.

I looked from my shoulder at Lazuli, hoping she would get the hint. She slowly nodded and trotted over. I closed my eyes after jamming another Med-X in my shoulder.

One crunch later I could set the splint and I was able to walk relatively normal again. I remembered the machine that Siren had been using control my mind amongst others, so I lead the way to the living room.

We arrived at the double doors and stopped. Lazuli grabbed a grenade and I floated out my three shotguns. My turquoise guardian angel carefully opened the doors enough to fit the grenade through and lobbed it into the room. She quickly closed the door again and we waited a couple of seconds. The shaking of the ground indicated a successful detonation and immediately she bucked the doors open.

I limped into the room, my shotguns flaring at anything that turned towards us. I was pissed. Because of the brain-washing music, my broken shoulder and peeing myself way too much. My conscience yelled at me that the ponies in the room were just as mind-controlled as I had been, but stinging pain in my chest, followed by a much worse, burning pain in my lungs shut up that voice for good.

As it turned out, using three sawed-off shotguns at once was a pretty effective way to deal with anything actually. Combined with some more precise shots from Lazuli's pistol it was even more devastating and the room was cleared out within moments. As the dust settled I counted five ponies on the ground, three of which were not moving anymore at all. The big pony in butler costume was one of them, another was still a colt, a blank flank.

Fuck.

I stuffed my regret away in a corner of my mind and got back to the task at hoof. I could have some nightmares about it later, probably together with the stuff that happened in Saltash. Right now, the sooner we would stop the music, the better. Then I could worry about why I should really listen to my conscience. Oh, and it might also be smart to drink a healing potion, to stop the bad cough I had developed. And with bad I mean that there was quite some blood involved.

As soon as the potion was down my throat I made my way over to the tape recorder and pointed at it while mouthing 'boom' to Lazuli.

She was a smart mare and gestured for me to stand back, which I quickly did. The last two times she made something go boom, I had been close enough to know that I didn't want to be anywhere near this explosion.

I limped out of the door, but not before putting some tables between the two still breathing ponies and the incoming explosion. So far the antique wood had withstood over two hundred years of deterioration and one other grenade blast. I hoped it would be able to survive another one.

The turquoise bomber mare quickly joined me and we waited until the ground shook yet another time before coming back in. Both the grenade and the tables had done their respective jobs, leaving the machine in rubble and the injured ponies unscathed.

Their behaviour had also changed. When I had covered them with the table, they had still made very poor attempts at assaulting me. But now that the music had apparently stopped, they were just lying there, blinking and looking around, as if they had just woken up.

Lazuli and I left them to get their wits together while we went to search the other rooms. Though we had freed the town from Siren's grasp, we still needed to take care of her, lest she would escape and rebuild later. Remembering how her voice had actually hurt me, I kept on my ear protection, hoping that those attacks worked similarly as the recorded music.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Five minutes after we stared our search I determined that being crippled sucked. Fifteen minutes after that and my conclusion had been reinforced thoroughly.

So I was very glad when we entered a large bedroom and finally found Siren's beige shape huddled up on top of the bed. Upon seeing us enter she jerked up and slowly trotted towards us, her horn glowing brightly and her face radiating her wish to destroy us. I had been a smart pony though and our ear protection left me and Lazuli slightly chuckling. Or at least me, I didn't exactly hear Lazuli and wanted to keep an eye on Siren.

Meanwhile the normally beige mare's coat started to look a lot like my own red one. The look on her face made it look like she wanted to cut us to pieces, feed us to radroaches, then stomp those to a pulp and feed it to a brahmin which she would like to burn and spread over Canterlot. And then she would like to drop a couple of balefire bombs on it for good measure. That, or she simply wanted to strangle me.

Either way, I was having none of it and used my shotgun as a club to knock her out. While I kept the slightly dented gun pointed at her head I removed my ear protection and enjoyed my hearing without having to worry about stupid mindstealing music.

Then, without warning, Lazuli grabbed the shotgun from my grasp and pressed it against the base of Siren's horn and shot.

Surprisingly, it was not very bloody. Apparently horns don't have much arteries running through them and are made mostly out of... horn. Right, nevermind that. Everypony probably already knew that. Anyway, the point is that Siren now had been turned into an earth pony. I remembered how it had felt when Asshole had been stomping at my horn and could only imagine the massive headache Siren would get if she ever woke up again.

Considering that she had made me shoot Lazuli, I considered the chance of her waking up to be rather slim. I took back my shotgun and aimed it at Siren's temple. Before I could fire it though, Lazuli smacked it aside. “No, don't kill her.” Her tone was soft but serious. I knew that tone, she used it too when we talked that morning in Saltash. It meant bad news to me.

Still, it couldn't hurt trying. “Why not?” I asked. “She mind-controlled me, made me shoot you! And she did the same to this whole town. We let her go and she'll do it again!”

Lazuli's answer was simple. “She won't, not without her magic. So there is no need to kill her.” She trotted a little closer and stared me in the eyes. “And I will not let you do to her what you did to Silver Tongue. Do you understand?” The look in her eyes showed that I really didn't have a choice but to nod, so I did.

She looked at me with a triumphant gaze and petted me on the head. “I knew you would understand. Now, just because we're not killing her doesn't mean we can't get a bit more even...” With that she disappeared underneath Siren's wide, luxurious bed and returned moments later, dragging a large chest with her.

With a wide grin she opened the chest. “These sorts of ponies always keep their caps underneath their beds, see?” Inside the chest was, as the turquoise mare had predicted, bottle caps and a lot of junk. A grand total of four friggin bottle caps to be precise. The look on Lazuli's face was priceless.

I chuckled and gave her a nudge. “Come on great treasure finder, let's get out of this town.”

Lazuli looked very sad as she supported me while trotting back outside. Sirenville was in a state of complete disarray. I concluded that the ponies, when released from the spell, went back to their old states, but with the addition of being really pissed off. And since about a quarter of the town's inhabitants seemed to be raiders, things got ugly.

The quality of the watchtower was a good indication for the rest of the town, which is why it wasn't surprising that within an hour after shutting down the signal, over half of it was flattened to the ground and the other half on fire. It was nice and warm and would have calmed me down if it weren't for all the screams coming from that general direction. Those were a real mood breaker.

When we were a good distance away from the town we turned and looked back for a moment. We were now far enough to not hear the screams anymore so we sat down and rested while enjoying the view. While looking at the flames that had rushed their way through the garden and were licking at the house I started feeling drowsy. With a smile on my face I slumped against Lazuli and drifted off to sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Nyerguds and Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 8: New Faces

Ashes to Ashes – Chapter 8

New Faces

Why?

Why couldn't I just simply wake up normally for once?

Was it because the universe hated me? Was it some kind of mean karma thing for getting innocent ponies killed? The slaves that I accidentally burned, Lapis and the other members of the caravan, for whose deaths I was indirectly responsible, the brainwashed ponies living in Sirenville, who had woken up from their trance only to find themselves facing a bunch of severely pissed-off raiders? Or was it the colt, the foal that had been standing in the room and fired back when Lazuli and I blindly cleared it?

Or was I overthinking it and was the answer simply that I had been lying on my bad shoulder, you know, the one that had the bone sticking out of until Lazuli had popped it back in?

Judging from the agonizing pain, it probably was the latter.

As fast as I possibly could I rolled back onto my good side and whimpered a bit for good measure. Looking at my shoulder, I realized I could really use a doctor right now, preferably one who knew how to treat infections as well. Though the wound had been closed because of the healing potion I had drank, it didn't mean that it was closed nicely. The fact that I had been lying on it and rubbed the still weak skin open, causing it to be exposed to the wonderful wasteland dirt probably didn't help either.

Some good and unrelated news however, was that Sirenville was still smoldering in the gloomy morning light. Practically nothing was recognizable, the shacks were too badly constructed and probably had fallen apart almost immediately. As for the manor, apparently the architect of the old villa apparently really liked to use wood in his or her designs.

Besides the structures, the once lushly green hill had now turned into an interesting mixture of black and grey, the only things still standing were the fire blackened trunks of the trees, and that was only because they were supported by their roots.

Looking up, I saw that the smoke had mixed with the cloud layer and dispersed, causing swirling and shifting patterns to emerge. As I looked at the spectacle of shapes, I noticed that the smoke was slowly being absorbed into the wall that separated the enclave from the rest of the wasteland.

In short, it was amazing.

I would have stayed there in an attempt to take in all of the details, were it not for my shoulder and Lazuli. And, more specifically, Lazuli noticing said shoulder.

In no time she had stuffed my breakfast down my throat and began supporting my weight. With her help and under the constant verbal assault of her lecturing me, we went onwards again.I had had plenty of practise ignoring other slaves and as such had no trouble whatsoever not paying attention to Lazuli. I did make sure to occasionally nod and mutter sorry.

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After several hours of limping in the general direction of, well, the horizon, I had decided that on the next opportunity we should get a map. Lazuli wholeheartedly agreed, which was no great surprise.

We then continued our way for another several boring hours until in the afternoon we found something more interesting than rocks: other ponies. About a dozen were gathered near a ruined building, next to a road leading to a rather large and much less ruined building. They didn’t look like raiders and we could use some help, so we approached them.

Before we even got close, they spotted us and sent three well armed ponies towards us. All three were wearing a similar duster over their barding. The blue unicorn buck on front, who had a fancier hat than the others hinting that he was the leader, spoke up once they were close enough. “Hello there, I’m sheriff Blue Lamp from Greenmall PD. What are you two mares doing around here?”

I looked at Lazuli, seeing if she had ever heard of the place before. The blank look in her eyes hinted that she hadn’t, so I answered. “Oh, we’re just aimlessly wandering.” I pointed in the direction behind us, where in the far distance a faint trail of smoke was still visible. “We came from there, stopped some bitch with huge ego from making a whole town go crazy and fall in love with her.” I then wiggled my bad leg. “I kinda broke my leg, it was sorta set, but it still hurts pretty bad. Do you have a doctor in that mall?” I looked at Lazuli, who was staring at me with an incredulous look on her face. I shrugged again, I’d just told him the truth.

The sheriff took several moments of blinking and staring at me as if I were mad before he sighed and turned around, gesturing for us to follow him. We did just that, flanked by the other two ponies. As we trotted back the sheriff started talking again. “Yes we got a doctor in the mall, but he can't exactly fix your leg just yet.”

“Why not?” Lazuli asked curiously.

The blue buck pointed a hoof towards the large building down the road. “That's the mall, and currently we're having a little gang problem. The Timberwolves have taken over and have a large number of hostages. They're demanding a pretty damn big ransom, and promised that they'd shoot the hostages if we would try to attack. Luckily those fine ponies over there,” he pointed at the ponies standing at the smaller building, “have agreed to help us retake the mall. And if what you said about your previous adventures is true, we could use your help as well.”

“Well, I'm kinda useless as of now, with all the limping,” I pointed out as we reached the rest of the group. Out of the nine ponies that were there, four more wore the same dusters as our welcoming committee. The other five were an interesting bunch. There was one tough-looking unicorn mare, wearing a battle saddle with a cumbersome looking gun on it. She kept glancing at the mall through the scope of that rifle and didn't pay us much attention, unlike the white unicorn stallion with green mane that came galloping towards me as he overheard us. A yellow pegasus with black mane was meanwhile flying around above the group, making me slightly dizzy and jealous while looking at him. At the same time a mare in extremely heavy body armor was yelling at the pegasus to come the fuck down, to not make us a nice target for the Timberwolves inside the mall. A little distance away from them stood a zebra with some strange bands around her hooves, watching everything and slowly shaking her head.

As I took this all in, the white buck reached me and came to a halt before inspecting my shoulder, his horn softly glowing. “Uhm, hi.” I said to him, but he didn't respond and seemed to be rather focussed on his magic. After a minute he stopped and looked up to me, nodding.

“Hmm, severely broken shoulder, set but not yet healed properly.” He turned to the zebra and asked her, “Hey Eclipse, do you have some of that healing salve for me?” The zebra trotted over and dug out a small bowl out of her saddlebags, which she hoofed over to the white buck. Meanwhile Lazuli, I and the sheriff were just watching. It felt a bit awkward to have a strange buck just jump on me and start treating me without any explanation, but hey, I couldn't really complain now could I?

The buck nodded at the zebra, who I assumed was called Eclipse, and proceeded to gently apply the salve to my shoulder. As the healing cream made contact I felt a tingly sensation and then numbness. I was pretty grateful for that numbness since after my shoulder and leg were properly sedated, I heard my bones crack and shift slightly into the right position. Yeah, I was glad to not have to feel that.

After a couple of minutes of shifting and settling, the numb feeling wore off and I regained full control of my leg again. Experimentally I took a few steps and was happy to find that all the pain was gone! I turned to the buck and zebra mare who were responsible for my recovery and smiled broadly at the both of them. “Thanks a lot! This feels so much better!”

The white stallion smiled and stepped forward, offering a hoof I gladly shook. “You're welcome. My name is Soft Touch, and that,” he pointed at the zebra, who nodded in acknowledgement, “is Eclipse. Over there are Boomer, Daisy and Swifty. Swifty's actual name is Swift Death, but we prefer to call her Swifty.” he said as he pointed at the pegasus, armored mare and the mare with the impressive gun respectively.

I continued smiling. “Nice to meet you Soft, I'm Ember and that's Lazuli.” I gestured towards my... friend? Yeah, considering how many times she had saved my flank, it was a safe bet to say she was my friend.

As we introduced ourselves, the other ponies, and zebra, came together. Many hoofshakes were traded before the sheriff cleared his throat. “Uhum. Well, now that we all know one another, how about we go and save my ponies?” Oh right, we were going to help them, almost forgot about that.

The murmurs of the group died down and we all turned to the sheriff. “We can't go in guns blazing or those mules will kill everypony inside. We need to devise a plan, I propose we distract them with negotiations while a couple of us go in sneaking and free the hostages. Once they're cleared we'll flush those Timberpussies out of my mall.” He looked at the group of five and asked, “Now, who's the leader of your bunch?”

Instantly Boomer, Swifty, Soft Touch and Eclipse pointed towards Daisy Field, who looked around a bit unsure. “I'm not the leader, I don't even know why you're following me!” Upon the insisting hoof pointing, she admitted defeat and hung her head. “Fine, I'm the leader then. Why did you ask?” she asked Blue Lamp while the rest of their group was chuckling, except for the zebra.

I found myself giggling softly too as the sheriff replied. “Well, I wanted to ask you who of your team can go in sneaking, and who should go negotiating.”

Daisy didn't miss a beat and answered immediately. “Eclipse for sneaking and Softy for the talking. Maybe Boomer can set up some explosives for extra distraction too.” The named ponies and zebra all nodded at the proposed tasks while the sheriff put up his hoof.

“I'd rather not have you destroy my mall in the process if you can help it. So no explosives okay?” Boomer looked a bit sad at the denial of his fun while Blue Lamp turned to me and Lazuli. “And how can you two help us?”

Lazuli spoke up. “I'll help with freeing the hostages, but it'd be best if one of your deputies would tag along, so that we know where we're going.” The sheriff nodded and pointed at a black stallion with dark blue mane. “Night Shift will come along with the two of you.” He then turned back at me. “And you? How can you help?”

I shrugged. “Well, I'm not really good with talking, so I'll help in flushing the place afterwards.” The reply got me a short nod from the blue stallion.

We went on to discuss the plan in more detail, but I didn't pay much attention since my part was pretty straight-forward: be patient and then rush in. What could go wrong with that?

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“Okay everyone, you know your tasks and I want to sleep in my own bed tonight so let's do this!” On his cue, we all started moving. Lazuli, Eclipse and Night Shift worked their way through some cover on the right side of the mall while the rest of us trotted to the front in plain sight to grab the attention of the Timberwolves. The building had a peculiar design, from the sky it'd probably look like a big H with an arch in the middle bit, connecting the two halves. It wasn't a very tall building, only two stories high, and parts of the roof and wall had collapsed from two centuries of decay. Still, it looked in pretty good shape compared to some other buildings I had come across.

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted the moment they shot in the dirt in front of us. “Don't come any closer! No tricks!” they yelled from the roof of the mall. We stopped of course, as was the plan.

The sheriff yelled back as Soft Touch nervously took a few steps forward. “We're sending an unarmed negotiator! Do not shoot! I repeat! Do not shoot!” Luckily for Soft Touch, the Timberwolves seemed to listen and decided not to turn him into a colander. For now at least.

The voice from the roof sounded again. “Okay! The white wimp can come, but the rest stay back!” Soft Touch trotted forward some more, until he was in the middle of the courtyard while the rest of us stayed where we were. I looked around, scanning for possible ways in, but most of the shop windows were boarded shut. The only real way in seemed to be through the front doors.

Soft Touch cleared his throat and turned his head upward, towards the roof, to address the voice who seemed to be in charge. “What are your demands?” he asked.

“We fucking told you already! We want like, a ton of guns, a million caps and a tank to get out! Go fucking get them or we'll fucking shoot your precious ponies inside!” Right. So they were armed and crazy idiots. Great.

Soft Touch facehoofed so hard that he made me believe he broke something. He shook his head and yelled up again. “Okay, let me just get my spare tank filled with bottlecaps and ride it back here!”

From the roof the voice replied again. “Okay awesome! I told you they'd do it!” The last part seemed to be directed to somepony else. Nevertheless, everypony of our group facehoofed in unison while Soft Touch replied.

“Do you happen to have ever heard of sarcasm before?!”

A short pause later the roof voice sounded again. “Uhhh... No!” My head was starting to hurt from all the facehooves. Maybe that was their tactic? Act so stupid that we'd knock ourselves out? It must be, there was no way somepony who was such an idiot could have gotten in such a great blackmailing position. I decided to try and resist the facehoofing for now and whispered my concerns to the pony next to me, Daisy, who got a healthy chuckle out of it.

Meanwhile Softy continued to attempt to reason with the numbhead on the roof. He took in a deep breath and let out a sigh from his guts. “Look. I do not have a tank. Okay? Tanks are extremely rare, what made you think we had one? And one million caps? Are you crazy? The most caps I've ever seen together was a couple thousand! How the hay are we supposed to get a million caps?!”

Another silence followed for several minutes before the voice replied. “But you said you had a tank and caps!”

I had to try my very best to prevent another facehoof while Soft Touch stomped around. “WE. DO. NOT. HAVE. THAT. AND WE NEVER WILL!” he screamed from the bottom of his lungs. “Make a better demand!”

A couple of minutes later their reply came and all the unicorns in our group had to work together to restrain Soft Touch from smashing in the front door and storming inside. Their demand was this. “Uhm, okay. We then want guns, ten million caps and a vertibuck!”

Luckily for us, that was also the moment the sheriff got a radio message from Night Shift and gave the signal for attack. Right on cue, two loud bangs were heard from behind us as Swifty and another deputy took their shots with their long rifles.

The rest of us in front of the mall stormed the front doors, which Daisy was nice enough to buck it in with her power armoured legs. I was glad she did that too, since shortly after the two shots hell came upon us from holes in the boarded windows from the second floor. Daisy and several deputies gave us covering fire as we rushed into the mall. As I caught a glimpse of the destruction caused by her machine grenade launchers I was glad I was not on the receiving end. Sheriff Blue Lamp wouldn't be happy with her.

As we stormed inside we quickly dispersed to find and take out the Timberwolf members while behind us the battle raged on. I didn't look back as the screams of one of the deputy sounded above the noise of gunshots and explosions. I followed Soft Touch and two deputees up the stairs where we spread out to clear the old shops. Me and one deputy rushed over the bridge connecting the two halves of the mall leaving Softy and the other deputy cleared out their half. After crossing the bridge we came to an intersection where we split up again. I went left and the pink mare went right.

All throughout the mall, gunshots and explosions sounded as Timberwolves and our group battled it out. I made great use of my healed leg by leaning on it when I bucked the door of the first room open and burst in, I quickly spotted the stallion in dark brown barding at the window and fired two shells into his head before he had the time to react. I quickly looted his body, not bothering to look at what I took, and moved out of the room again.

I galloped through the corridor to the next shop, it was hard to see what it exactly had been selling since the name-sign had been long missing. It didn't matter too, since all I had to do was jump in and shoot whoever was in it. I quickly found complications with that simple plan as it turned out the room was empty. As I saw the large gaping hole that once had been a boarded up window and the blood splattered all over the walls and ceiling I was even more convinced that it was a bad idea to ever piss Daisy off.

Quickly I left the room for the next, but I got a surprise as I burst out into the corridor. I distinctly did not remember seeing a dark grey mare with red mane in that corridor. And neither did I remember seeing a weapon like she had mounted onto a battle saddle before. And finally I certainly did not remember ever seeing a gun that shot fire before. However, I did not get much time to remember anything since those flames were busy licking my coat.

The scream that came out of my throat as I felt my coat burn away sounded something like this. “GHAAAARAAALADFDAADFOA AAAAAA!!!” Of course I could be wrong about that. My mind was a bit too pre-occupied with rolling away to remember everything in great detail.

I was glad, however, to find out that the rolling managed to put out the flames. I scrambled back up my hooves as fast as I could and backed away from the flamer filly and her fire of fury. That's quite the tonguebreaker isn't it?

While I was busy backing off, I unloaded everything I had at her in wild panic. I mean, I figured that the more bullets were inside of her, the better it was for me, so I swiftly and deliberately fired as many rounds at her as I could manage and discarded all my empty weapons. Hmm, the second sentence sounds a lot better, let's go with that one.

Anyway, the disadvantage of my rush to fill the quickly approaching mare with lead was that most of my shots went wide. Well, that was a bummer. I kept backing off, trying to find out what to do while attempting to slow her down by throwing the contents of my saddlebags at her, most of which was incinerated by the flames before even coming close to hitting her.

Then, as the grey pyro mare let out a laugh at my predicament, she reminded me of a certain smiling somepony. And that memory brought back other memories, taking place in my bed. And then all of those memories reminded me that I could make fireballs myself! I mentally facehoofed for not thinking about that sooner and quickly focussed on the proper image. That wasn't very difficult with the real deal filling the air right in front of me. Within seconds I managed to fabricate a proper flame and sent it flying at her face.

I grinned as the flamer mare yelped in surprise and pain and forgot to keep her aim at me. I took the opportunity to rush forward, spin around at the last moment, and buck my back hooves into her chest, sending her flying the short distance to the opposite wall of the corridor.

As I looked at her I saw that a large portion of her face had burn marks and that she had trouble keeping her eyes open. I didn't want to let her get back to her hooves so I rushed in again, reared up and brought my forehooves down onto the joints of her forelegs, causing her to scream in pain. Of course she did her very best to fight back, kicking, biting, anything to hurt me.

I wouldn't have anything of that and reared up again, this time bringing my hooves down onto the head of the crippled mare. She let out another scream, albeit much weaker than the first one and struggled to get up.

Seeing that, I turned around and bucked her in the jaw, a move which rewarded me with a satisfying crunch and caused her to slump down against the wall. I bucked again for good measure and caused a not-so-healthy amount of blood to flow out of her mouth.

Then my gaze fell onto the battle saddle she had been wearing. A gun that shot flames. I liked it, and considering I just threw away the rest of my weapons and I would have to search all over the corridor to find those otherwise, I decided to give it a try and put it on.

After a little wriggling and adjusting straps I had gained an awesome new weapon. Now I only had to figure out how to use it. It took only some experimenting on the grey mare and a few minor scorch marks to my own coat before I knew how to operate it. Outside, the explosions had ceased and the frequency of gunshots had dropped. It seemed like I was running behind on schedule so I galloped towards the next room with a little effort. The extra weight on my back threw me a bit off balance and slowed me down somewhat, but hey, fire belching gun. Totally worth it.

The second-last room had one earth pony with an assault rifle in it. He didn't really pose a threat to me anymore though, seeing as his brains were splattered over the ceiling. Probably had something to do with the bullet holes in the wall. Oh well, free loot for me.

When I burst through the last room I was expecting to see just one, maybe two of those moronic Timberwolves. I did not expect to find four of them, who were operating a large caliber machine gun they had set up.

Of course, they were not too happy to see me either and two of them immediately turned around and opened fire on me with pistols. Without hestitation I returned fire. Literally. I watched as the flames licked around their bodies and set them ablaze, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

The only problem I had was, well, that I had forgotten to behold another sight. Namely, the fuel level. And I had no idea of how to refill it. This of course was a rather big problem, seeing as how I had now severely pissed off the four ponies. It could be expected that being set on fire wasn't good for your mood. The best choice of action for me was a tactical retreat probably so I quickly backed away from the room, though not without taking a few bullets first.

The moment I was out of the room I switched to the assault rifle and waited for my enemies to come to me. I did not have to wait long as blue and grey stallion came bursting out after me. I barely avoided his knife lunge before I got the chance to retaliate by putting a small burst of bullets in between his eyes. Without waiting for his still smouldering body to hit the floor, I turned to face my next opponent. And the inside of a shotgun barrel. Damn. As quick as I could I ducked and turned around, all in order to not be hit in the face with hot lead travelling at the speed of sound.

It worked. Sorta. The shotgun blast missed my face and instead the pellets bit into my flank. The sudden pain, combined with the awkward move I just did, were enough to make me drop to the floor. I attempted to scramble up, but found staring into the barrel once again. Really, it was unhealthy how often I found myself in that situation. One way or the other, I didn't really see a way out of this one. On previous occasions the owner of the shotgun had wanted to capture me. This time however, it was a severely pissed off Timberwolf bandit, who did not seem interested in taking captives in the slightest. Beside that, I really doubted if I'd be able to pull off a fireball, seeing a I needed several seconds for that, while pulling the trigger took only a fraction of that.

“Any last words to say bitch?” the pony on the operating end of the shotgun asked me. I tried to think of something funny, but came up blank. Looking into the shotgun had that effect on me, strangely.

As I mulled about something witty to say before I'd have my brains shot out, I failed to notice a white and black blur appearing in the corner of my view. The shotgun pony, who was a teal mare, missing a large portion of her mane, didn't notice the blur either until it was too late and Eclipse had stabbed her in the neck. When she retracted her hoof I saw that the knife was coming out of the band around her fetlock. She pushed a button on it and the blade retracted without making a noise. That was convenient.

With some effort, I climbed back onto my hooves and smiled at Eclipse. “Thanks for the save.” The zebra gave me a small smile and nod of acknowledgement in return, but didn't say anything. I didn't particularly care about that, she could've bucked me in the head and I'd still be thankful.

Anyway I got up and together we finished off the last two remaining ponies in the room, who were half dead to begin with. That flamer had been pretty useful after all, now if I only would have some more practice, I'd be neigh unstoppable!

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When we returned to the plaza, all the noises of battle had died down. There, assembled around a the statue of a rearing unicorn, a pretty big number of ponies was assembled. I spotted most of our assault group among who I assumed were civilians. There were about thirty non-armed ponies standing around while the sheriff was giving some sort of speech. I also spotted numerous shapes, covered up with sheets. Several ponies were busy dragging new ones in, and throwing them on a heap. I noticed that four of the bodies were separated from the rest, placed somewhat closer to the group of still living ponies.

I trotted over to the statue and the group of ponies, trying to see where Lazuli was. I eventually found her near the edge on the other side, helping Soft Touch by holding a foal who he was examining. Relieved to see that she wasn't one of the ponies covered by the sheets, I turned to listen to the last part of the sheriff's speech.

“...so here we are together, to salute the brave ponies who gave their lives so that we can once again live in peace and comfort. They went in boldly, to kick the flanks of those fucking Timberwolves to the moon, and I promise you this: I will make sure every last one of those bastards is hunted down and put to justice. I will not tolerate them taking over our home, capturing you all and threatening to kill you! They are a menace! A rabid wolf, and they must be put down!” He stomped his hoof to put extra emphasis on the word “Down.” before looking around the assembled ponies triumphantly, eliciting a cheer and hoofstomps from the crowd.

I got in line for Soft Touch to let him treat my bullet wounds and bleeding. A little while away from the group I spotted Swifty shaking her head at Blue Lamp's speech before walking away. In front of me was Boomer, who had his wing twisted in a weird angle and seemed to be missing quite some feathers. I tapped his back, causing him to jump around to face me. He sighed as he saw me. “Hi, you're Ember right? You were also in the assault team?”

“Yeah, and you're Boomer right? What happened with your wing?” I said as I glanced at his twisted feathery appendage.

The yellow pegasus wiggled the broken limb a bit. “Crashed through a window trying to avoid bullets.” He then pointed at my bloody flank and face. “And you?”

I followed his gaze. “First a flamer, then the results of trying it out” I tapped on my newly acquired flamer.

Boomer nodded. “Sucks huh? So, where're you from anyway?”

“Yeah, it stings like crazy. Ever heard of Saltash? That's the town. I assume you're from up the clouds?”

Boomer shook his head. “Nope, can't say I've heard of it before, sorry. And again, nope, I'm not Enclave, never was. I was born under the clouds, my mom was a Dashite and my dad an earth pony. And I'm the perfect mix of the two: agile and graceful like a pegasus and determined and brave like an earth buck.”

“More like overconfident like a pegasus and stubborn like an earth pony!” a voice left of me snickered. I turned around to see Daisy trotting up to us, a smirk on her face. I shot a slightly nervous glance at the big guns at her side as she continued. “If you hadn't been so full of yourself and so incredibly stubborn, you wouldn't have flown right in front of the windows. Hey, you may as well have just painted a big red target on your flank!”

Boomer dramatically feigned to be undignified. “I'll have you know that I only did that to draw fire away from the ponies in the plaza. And drawing a target on my flank? Why, to make it easier for you to stare at it?”

I chuckled at the verbal sparring of the two and decided to chip in myself as well. I turned my bloody flank at Daisy and smirked. “A big red target? Like this?”

Boomer and Daisy laughed at that. “That wouldn't change anything for you with that red coat of yours. You'd better dye it if you don't want ponies to shoot you anymore,” the purple mare commented.

“As if purple is such great camo. The only reason you're not filled with lead is because of that armour of yours. How do you even move in that thing?” I smirked.

Daisy pounded her chestplate with her armoured hoof and chuckled as it sent out a resonating clang. “Power armour. It means that the suit has a ton of motors and actuators, allowing me to move easily. Besides, armour would be a good idea for you to get too. Unless you get a kick out of getting shot of course.”

I nodded in agreement. Armour really sounded like a good idea considering the amount of fire I drew. “Yeah you're right, armour would be pretty useful. Where did you get yours? I'd like to buck in doors as well.”

The iron mare shook her head. “Nah, this was from the Steel Rangers. Fat chance for getting one, and even if you'd manage to nick one of their suits you'd still need training in order to use it. You'd better look for something different, leather, security, whatever suits your fancy.”

“Aww, I wanted to use those guns of yours too.” I pouted with a chuckle.

She chuckled. “Nope, those are all mine. 'Sides, you already got that flamer. Where'd you get that actually? I don't remember seeing you having it before the assault.”

I smiled and patted the flame spewing weapon. “Yeah, I got it from some crazy Timberwolf mare. I'm still getting used to it, but when I used it, it was pretty effective. At least until I ran out of fuel. Eclipse saved my flank.” I looked at my wounded haunch. “Well, in a manner of speech,” I chuckled.

While Daisy laughed at that, it had become Boomer's turn to visit Soft Touch and the line moved on a place. The purple power-armoured pony suddenly grew a smile. “Hey Ember, it was Ember wasn't it? Yeah, how about I teach you how to use that battle saddle?”

Of course I quickly nodded. “Thanks! That'd be great! Want anything in return?”

Daisy tapped her hoof to her chin a couple of times, grinning. “Weeeeel... the sheriff offered a bounty on whoever got rid of the Timberwolves, and I was wondering if you and your marefriend might wanna come with us.”

I smiled and nodded. “Sure! I'm glad to help, I mean it's the le-...wait a sec... Lazuli is not my marefriend! She's just a good friend of mine, nothing more, okay.”

The purple mare grew a cheeky grin. “So you're still single? Good.” Before I could respond she continued. “So we're gonna take tomorrow off, then go after those Timberwolves. Oh, I'll meet you tomorrow here by the statue at noon for your training, see you then.” She winked and trotted away, leaving me behind, blinking. I didn't get much time to think though since Soft Touch called me over for my check-up.

Dazed, I trotted towards him and Lazuli. They both looked at me with wide grins and I stared back in confusion. “Wha.... what just happened?” I asked nopony in particular, though I'd appreciate it if somepony (or zebra, sorry Eclipse) would explain it to me.

Lazuli and Softy looked at each other for a second before bursting out into laughter. After a minute of me sitting there, huffing and glaring at the both of them Soft Touch spoke up. “Daisy just hit on you Ember. Don't worry, she does that to everypony.” Then he put a hoof to his chin and hummed, as if realising something. “Though it appears that she took a real liking on you, seeing that you're one of the few to actually go on a date with her.”

“A date?” I spluttered in confusion.

Lazuli nodded and smiled evilly. “Well yes, you made a date to go see each other again tomorrow, at noon I believe. How else would you call that?”

“Training.” I muttered, then realised something. “And how do you know all that?! Don't you two know that you're not supposed to eavesdrop?!”

My turquoise tormentor coyly smiled at me. “I'm a perceptive mare, and I'm suuuuure that it will just stay with training, or whatever you want to call it. Her leaning around you, gently nudging you to help you aim, accidentally brushing your flank.”

I felt blood rise to my cheeks. Bad blood! Bad! Pleadingly I looked at Soft Touch, hoping he would, could help me. My search for aid was futile though, as he was grinning in the same way as Lazuli. “Help please?” I squeaked, knowing beforehoof that the question was of no use. An assumption that was confirmed by the loud laugh the two of them let out.

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I spent the next ten minutes listening to all sorts of mockeries from the treacherous two. I highly suspected that they were purposefully stalling the treatment just so that they could torture me longer. They even seemed to have developed a game: 'Who can make Ember squee the loudest?' I wasn't taking count, but they seemed to be going neck-to-neck.

Needless to say I was overjoyed to leave the two torturers and quickly made my way away from the mall the moment I had the chance. I galloped for a couple of minutes, until the wind has cooled down my cheeks and the mall was a good distance behind me. In fact I was back at the smaller ruined building, where we had met sheriff Blue Lamp and the others before. There I found a comfortable patch of dirt and sat down to think a bit. About Daisy, the ponies here, Sirenville, Saltash, Neighvac and even Appleloosa.

When I was done thinking I had come to a very important conclusion: thinking made me depressed and didn't solve anything at all. I still had no idea of how I felt for Daisy's sudden approach, let alone of how to deal with it. Thinking about Sirenville made me regret killing that colt, though everything did end up in a nice fire. Saltash... thinking about that place made my head hurt. I figured that I might as well go back there one day and clean that town out, though I knew that Lazuli was right in that I couldn't do that all by myself. Neighvac I was worried about, worried that I had screwed up their contracts with Saltash and made the slaver town attack them. If anything, that was another motivation to clean up in Saltash later on. Appleloosa, well, those were mainly just depressing memories which I quickly suppressed.

I sighed and hung my head, in a way, being a slave had been easier. Though I would never ever want to go back to that situation, at least I never had to worry about so much stuff. I could just be frustrated and depressed and ignore the world around me, since I had no impact on it at all. Well, until Stargazer at least. I realised that the fact that he was dead was partly because of his own stubbornness, but also for a great deal because he had stood up for me. If I had been doing that in the first place... I would have been dead instead. Slavers did not like ponies who stood up for themselves, and doing so had only gotten me a great deal of pain.

I sighed yet again, but then tensed up as something poked at the back of my skull. “Boom, headshot.” a feminine voice whispered, making my heart skip a beat or ten and sending me jumping in the air with a surprised yell.

After impact with the ground, I looked up to see a set of dark red hooves, leading up to the rest of a mare's body. I recognized her as Swift Death, or her much more pleasant nickname, Swifty. While I was busy regaining my breath and trying to get my heart working again, she smirked at me. “I had about forty-two ways to kill you just now, and that's without getting creative. What're you doing out here by yourself?”

I took a deep breath and got back on my hooves. “Thinking.” was my brilliant answer. It got me a raised eyebrow from the mare, the motion making me notice a long scar underneath her eye.

“Thinking.” she imitated my voice mockingly. “For real? You didn't seem like the thinking type to me, the way you acted during the fight.”

I suddenly found that I developed an itch in the back of my neck, and rubbed a hoof along it. “Yeah well, it didn't really get me anywhere, except for making me a bit depressed.”

She grinned and extended her hoof. “Thinking tends to do that, just try and keep it at a bare minimum and you'll be fine. Name's Swifty, or Swift Death, or Please-Don't-Kill-Me. Whatever you like better.”

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit and accepted her offer to shake hooves, but all she did was push her hoof against mine before taking it back, a bit like a stomp. It left me a little confused, but I shrugged it off. “Will do Swifty, I'm Ember, don't have a nickname so you'll have to do with that.” I grinned and looked at the long, sleek rifle on her back, it resembled Fifty Cal's sniper rifle, but seemed even bigger and had some additional parts that I didn't quite recognize. “So, what kind of gun is that?”

Swifty turned at that to give me an even better look, she smiled as she replied. “That, my dear Ember, is Skullcracker. And he's one of my best friends in the whole wide wastes. See those little lines?” She nudged at a long series of markings along the barrel, there were almost two rows above one another, running the entire length of the long piece of metal.

I looked at them and nodded. “What about them?”

She grinned at me and I had a sudden flashback to Smiley. “Headshots, all of them.” My eyes went a little wide, there were dozens of markings on the gun, if every single one was not just a kill, but a headshot at that, that was definitely impressive. I whistled and nodded, causing her to smile broader. “C'mon, let's get back to the mall, it's getting dark and it's a bad idea to be out alone at night, obviously. 'Sides, they got a bar there.”

The moment she mentioned the word 'bar' and with it gave the promise of alcohol, it was as if I heard Sticky Piston's disembodied voice echo through the air. “Go my child, go and get hammered!” I laughed and trotted back to the mall, together with Swifty. My old tutor and the sniper mare were right, thinking was not a pleasant thing to do, and the best way to solve it was by drinking!

Empowered by this revelation I was already in a better mood, and trotted back the distance with a grin on my face as me and Swifty discussed what types of drink were the best, making jokes and mocking insults. It was a great way to get my mind off from the stupid thoughts it was having earlier.

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Arriving back, I found out that the rest of Daisy's group already was present and we were welcomed with much enthusiasm. Swifty and I made our way towards a round table, were only Eclipse didn't seem to be drinking alcohol. Still, the zebra probably inhaled more of it by simply breathing than Lazuli whilst drinking. She was just staring at her bottle of Wild Pegasus, seemingly trying to analyse it. Next to her, Boomer and Softy were encouraging her by making an example. Daisy sat on the other side of the table, watching the trio with amusement until she spotted me and Swifty and grew a big grin. Swifty quickly took a seat between Eclipse and Boomer, leaving the only spare one next to Daisy and Softy. For some reason, perhaps the all too wide grin of most of the table's occupants, I had the idea that they had done this on purpose. That idea got a little more reinforced when I saw that most other tables had at least four more seats than ours...

Carefully I took the seat as I felt everypony's gaze on me. I looked back defiantly, albeit with hot cheeks. I hoped that my coat hid any blush as I stared them down one by one, causing them all to start whistling and take sudden interest in other business. Though when I did that with Daisy she just stared back with the broadest smile, making me the one to look away. I flustered a bit before looking around me, searching for a distraction, when Piston's teachings saved me. “So, I was promised booze, where is it?” I asked nopony in particular.

The bartender was called over, an odd buck in a wheelchair, and he took our orders. I thought about the possible reason for the wheelchair for a second before spotting that his hind legs were missing. That explained it. The buck stuck around our table for a while, trying to tell us some story about how he had one time single-hoofedlly saved a small city from bandits before we practically threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get the booze. I was still way too sober to believe any of that. The wheelchair buck huffed before rolling away as Daisy searched through her saddlebags. I was about to ask her what she was doing when she took out a small radio and turned it on, filling the combination of bar and tavern with cheerful music.

The bartender returned with more drinks and we started chatting and laughing throughout the evening. Boomer and Softy's persistence paid off with Lazuli joining their drinking game. Swifty and Eclipse were softly speaking to one another and me and Daisy talked about all sorts of stuff while we all ignored the stallion in the wheelchair, who was telling another story. I stopped listening really, but I believe he pretty much claimed to be faster than Rainbow Dash. In his chair. For the sanity of all of us, Eclipse stood up and dragged him behind the bar again, where she took out a tube and applied it to the wheels of his chair. When she came back and we stared at her she gave a small smile and showed the tube. “Wonderglue.” she explained and all of us burst out in laughter.

We kept drinking, going through plenty of bottles and I got to learn more about Daisy and her group. Apparently she used to be a Steel Ranger, eventually she got fed up with her Elder. She claimed that her chapter was little more than raiders in fancy armour, so she took her stuff and left. She roamed the wasteland and met the others of the group one by one.

Softy she found when the caravan he was travelling with got ambushed by a bunch of raiders. The mare in shining armour came in and saved... well, only Softy. The rest were already dead. Since then, Softy stuck around with her, out of gratitude and since he had nowhere else to go.

They found Boomer when dealing with a contract of sorts. It involved manticores and apparently the pegasus' explosives came in really handy. In turn, Softy's medical skills had helped save Boomer's life by swiftly making an antidote for the poison with which the yellow pegasus was injected. He had nothing better to do and liked hanging out with the two, so he decided to stick around.

Next came Eclipse, who they found while she was collecting herbs. There was some confusion at first, and the zebra didn't want to have anything to do with the three adventurers, but a hellhound attack made them gain mutual respect for each other. Since she had been roaming around on herself before already, Daisy had reasoned that coming along with their little group would be a good idea, strength in numbers and all. The zebra hadn't seen any flaws in that logic so she came along as well.

Finally there was Swift Death. Apparently she had been hired by the Steel Rangers, in a rare occasion of outside collaboration, to assassinate Daisy for deserting. She had succeeded in gravely injuring the mare, but her friends had then found and captured Swifty before she could finish the job. After talking for a while, Daisy had given Swifty her tags, which she returned to the Rangers. Of course the Rangers had never intended to pay for the job, and attempted to double-cross Swifty. She escaped and with the aid of the other four they took revenge on the Ranger chapter, succeeding in assassinating the local Elder so that a better pony could take his place.

They had then proceeded to have a ton more adventures before coming here and deciding to help the sheriff with the mall.

When it was our time to tell our stories, I also curiously listened to Lazuli's, as it struck me how little I actually knew of her. I probably really should have asked more about it in hindsight.

Lazuli's story started with her sister, Lapis. According to Laz, they had both been travelling around together, going from settlement to settlement and taking on a large variety of jobs. Lazuli had had a talent of sneaking, and Lapis one of talking and thus they had also pulled various small schemes to acquire caps from unsuspecting strangers. Some of the stories were quite funny too, like one where she dyed her coat to match her sister's in order to be able to unsuspectingly raid a small town. When eye-witnesses blamed Lapis, she referred to the sheriff as her alibi, since she had been talking with him the entire time. Whenever they pulled one of their schemes, they made sure to not take any important things. Lazuli wanted to ensure no pony's life became endangered because of her taking away perhaps some rare medicine, or the food stock of a small town.

Me and the others were listening interestedly to her story, occasionally laughing at a funny moment or a joke from one of the others. Of course, she had to come to the part of how we ended up travelling together, and we all went silent for a bit out of respect for Lapis. She quickly added that she didn't blame me for it, not anymore, and that she had forgiven me. She also told a brief version of her side of the events in Saltash and Sirenville, of how she'd sneak off to find some more supplies while I was asleep, and how she had looted pretty much anything around there. She left out the bit of how she blew up Asshole, probably to let me decide if I wanted to tell it or not. She also explained how she figured out the brainwashing music of Sirenville and practically saved my flank there, even though she had to blow up the tower I was hiding in to do so. She also gave me a quick summary of how she and Eclipse had freed the hostages in the mall, earlier that day, before letting me do the talking.

I took another swig of the Wild P to lubricate my throat and loosen my tongue before telling my story. I told about my youth in Saltash and told them in a few words of how the town was taken over and I became a slave. Not wanting to ruin the good mood, I skipped my years as a slave and jumped straight to escaping and ending up in Neighvac. I happily told them about how I started my new life there and about finding out that my home town was so near. I didn't really elaborate about the slaver ambush, since that felt more like Lazuli's story and instead told of how I reacted after finding out that my home town was now a retirement home for the older slavers and raiders. Even as I told it I could feel myself rage again, but a comforting, armoured hoof on my shoulder helped me calm down again.

I told about our encounter with Silver Tongue, how I had given him a goodbye gift and about me and Laz hiding in my old neighbours' home. Elaborating on Lazuli's part of the story, I described how I had come to the conclusion that hiding in barrels was a bad idea, gaining some laughs and chuckles from my audience. I continued with how I had been captured and well, tortured by Silver Tongue's trio. At one point I even jumped onto the table to give everyone in the tavern a good look at my flanks, aiming to show the scar. Of course the bartender, who's wheelchair was still glued stuck, yelled that he had much worse scars, and that he had been tortured way worse before. That caused everyone, including residents of the mall, to yell at him to shut the buck up, which he grudgingly did.

After that I jumped down again, tripped over onto my snout, got picked up by Daisy and Softy and then placed firmly onto my chair again. From there I told how Lazuli had blown up Asshole and how we ultimately had to flee town. Very briefly I addressed how things had gone in Sirenville, still feeling a bit ashamed at the fact that I had almost shot Laz, and then proceeded to tell in great detail of how the town had burned. I believe somepony put a bottle in my mouth to shut me up while I was just getting started. Oh well, free booze. I wasn't gonna waste that, so I expertly started chugging it down as the others continued laughing and talking and making jokes.

Then, the song on the radio ended and some stallion started talking about news and stuff. Seeing as there weren't any other fun broadcasts, we listened with a half ear while keeping up the story telling. Until the voice on the radio said something about Appleloosa. Immediately I started listening intently, ignoring the slightly swaying mare in power armour on my right, who had started leaning against me. The others became quiet as well, when the radio stallion told about how one pony had trotted into the slaver town, and single-hoofedly freed the slaves.

I spat out the bottle and started laughing. Somepony had had the guts to actually free them! Somepony had actually freed them! I jumped back onto the table and screamed in joy, not caring in the slightest bit that everypony around me was looking at me. Not noticing either, that was a bit hard since everything was spinning and swaying. But hey! Who cared?! Apple-fucking-loosa was finally no longer a slaver town! No more being scared of being dragged back there if slavers would find me again, no more bad memories every time that name was brought up! Even before the music returned I started dancing over the the table, making it creak dangerously. I did not care! All I cared about was being overjoyed. And more booze, that would be great too!

In hindsight, jumping at the edge of the table wasn't my smartest move, but how should I have known that the whole table would tip over? Alas, I rested in my fate of meeting my old adversary, the ground, once again. I closed my eyes as the whole table flipped over and the floor pulled on me with an unseen force, intending on giving me a big old hug.

But the impact never came. After several seconds of anticipation I opened my eyes to find myself hovering just over the floor. I blinked in surprise and let out a small yelp when I was lifted in the air. Suddenly I became aware of everypony laughing around me and a large, cold hoof under my belly, holding me up.

I looked behind me and Daisy grinning at me as she put me down on my own four hooves. I wobbled and swayed around a bit before leaning against her, causing her to smile even broader. “So what're you all happy about?” she asked me.

Immediately I started explaining in great detail of why I was so incredibly happy, or at least I tried. My tongue wasn't really cooperating with forming intelligible words, still, I tried the best I could and rambled on and on and on and WELL HELLO THERE OTHER TONGUE! My eyes went wide as Daisy apparently decided to shut me up by kissing me, which worked. Very well.

When she finally released me so that I could, you know, breathe again, I heard everypony around me cheering and stomping their hooves and I got the feeling that that night was gonna be a good, good night.

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I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn, Roan and Nyerguds for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 9: A Day Off

Ashes to Ashes – Chapter 9

A Day Off

I was lying on my back in the middle of a black, smooth plane. The cool floor felt... well, weird. It had no texture whatsoever and seemed to extent to the horizon without the slightest height change.

Above of me the familiar cloud curtain was shifting and twisting slowly, creating and destroying recognizable shapes. But where normal ponies might discover brahmin or bloatsprites in the shapes of the clouds, I saw the faces of Greenmall's deputies. The mares and stallions that had died taking their home back. I sighed and shook my head, they'd known what they were getting in to. Their own damn faults, as harsh as it sounded.

But then the faces changed.

It took me a little effort, but then I recognized the faces of ponies from Sirenville. The cloud heads were blurry, hard to see any details on. All except for one, the colt who'd been killed in the manor. Killed by either me or Lazuli, not that it mattered who did it. What mattered was that he was dead and never deserved it. He'd been in our way, brainwashed by the music, so he was taken out of the equation. I briefly wondered whether or not Siren had survived the destruction of the villa. I hoped she escaped, if only so that I could let her know personally what I thought about turning foals into mindless drones and cowering behind them.

The coolness of the ground had gone. Instead, it was getting warmer and warmer by the second.

The faces had changed again, now to Smiley, Silver Tongue and Asshole. Good. I did not mind at all being remembered that they were dead. Good riddance. Still, if this was going where I thought it was going...

Soft cracking noises started coming from all directions, growing louder and louder rapidly.

I gulped as I recognized the new faces in the clouds. Lapis, Shield and the other caravan members were staring down to me. Without the colour to tell, Lapis looked exactly like Lazuli, making it all the more frightening and reminding me I'd been responsible, at least partly. And that I still was. I owed Lazuli more than I probably could ever repay her.

The cracking noises grew to the sound of thunder every time a new fracture occurred. In the distance I could see faint light, glowing from underneath as pieces of the now hot ground became brittle and broke off.

Lightning struck from the clouds, jerking my attention back to what was above me.

It were the burned faces of the slavers and slaves that I'd incinerated. Their molten, twisted heads looming over me, lighting jumping between them and the surface, still far away but closing in fast, taking chunks of the world with them.

I didn't pay it much attention though, as I stared at the face that was forming in the clouds.

Stargazer stared back at me, his eyes devoid of life. No wonder, since they were clouds, but his expression was the same as it had been after he had been killed, and my mind filled in the details. As I saw him again I felt sorry. So very sorry that I hadn't spoken up. I could have saved him! All I had had to do was talk. Let the slavers have what they wanted. Agree to just sleep alone and deal with whatever happened next. But instead I had cowered, hidden behind some stupid promise I had made to myself. What was the point if it got someone I cared for killed?!

I curled up and whimpered as the ground crumbled and sky portrayed the inhabitants of Saltash who had been killed during the slaver attack. I was ashamed to admit I’d forgotten most of their names.

By now huge chunks of floor disappeared with every rumble, all around me the world crashed into the abyss. I was staring at the clouds breathlessly as my mother stared back with fear and sorrow. I knew she hadn't been scared for herself, or had felt self-pity. No, she must've thought she had failed in protecting me. Me, the stupid brat who couldn't keep her trap shut, and then did so for a decade.

How I wished I could change it all, prevent everything from happening. How I wished that the pony who wiped out Appleloosa would've done so earlier. Or someone else. Anyone. If something had been done against the raiders and slavers in the wasteland nothing would have happened! My mom would still have been alive! Saltash would have been a free, happy town! No more slavers capturing ponies, forcing them to work their lives away without hope.

Something had to be done still. Sure it was too late already to change all that had happened, but better late than never, right? I stood up and looked around, finding that I was standing on the last remaining chunk of only a couple of meters across. All around me was an abyss, incredibly deep, with a faint, orange light at the bottom.

I jerked my head back up and saw that the clouds had changed again. I saw the faces of my previous foes, mocking me. In response I dared a glance down and saw that what had been a faint glow had turned into a true inferno, growing larger by second. Grinning I stood up and faced the source of my grief.

I laughed as I felt the fire grow, come out of the depths and shoot into the skies, incinerating everything.

Content with my victory I looked around at the inferno. The tips of the flames were licking away at my hooves, but I wasn't afraid of them. They were a part of who I was, a part of how I was going to help in cleaning up the wasteland, starting with those Timberwolves tomorrow.

It was then that a voice I hadn't heard in a long time spoke up, calmly and confidently, even with the hint of amusement I heard the words, “Sneak attack brat.”

And then I was flung into the depths of abyss of fire.

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I didn't scream when I regained consciousness, I felt way too tired for that, and my headache demanded for me to not make any loud noises. That same headache also demanded me that I stayed absolutely still and not move a single muscle. It then also demanded a hundred thousand caps ransom in exchange for the safe release of my brain. Hmm, I briefly wondered how much and what I had drunk the night before.

So I kept still, trying to negotiate my way out of the hostage situation, until we all came to an agreement. The headache would retreat slightly if, and only if, I promised to have a night like the last one soon.

Speaking of which, what exactly had happened in that tavern?

In order to determine that, my freshly released brain figured out that the best course of action would be to open my eyes. I did just that, and immediately regretted it. Apparently I was hovering just meters underneath the sun, judging be the insane levels of blinding light. I guessed the fact that the light was penetrating my eyelids even when I still had them closed, making them glow bright red, was a pretty big give-away. But hey, the state of my mind should count as a proper excuse for that.

After several more minutes of lying perfectly still, I decided to give it another try. This time however, I opened just one eye, and did it much more carefully. This approach worked as my optical nerves got used to bright light. Then, when my left eye was adjusted, I opened the right one, still with great care.

By the time the visual problem was solved, several more minutes had passed. It was then that I actively took in my surroundings for the first time of the day. I found myself lying on my back, staring at the morning sky. Not that it was really different from the afternoon or evening sky with all the clouds. The only way I could tell it was morning was because the light wasn't as bright as during the middle of the day, and the sounds of ponies doing their daily business indicated that it wasn't late afternoon yet.

After establishing that, I grew a little reluctant for the next part: getting up. Surely I could stay down and sleep some more until it was afternoon. My head felt like it could use some rest. My stomach and bladder however seemed to be determined to get me onto my hooves, trying to blackmail me with defiling my direct vicinity.

I couldn't really argue with that logic, so I unsteadily rose. Quickly I left my sleeping spot, which apparently had been the roof. I briefly noticed that there was a discarded bed-sheet next to me, with an impressive collection of empty bottles of varying sizes and shapes next to it. As I rushed down the stairs recalled Daisy and I putting those bottles there before we went and... Whoa! Severely distracted by the memory flash, my forehoof slipped and sent me tumbling the last two stair steps down. I quickly picked myself up again, happy to know that everything was still intact, as more fragments of memories trickled back. That, however, wasn't the only thing that was threatening to trickle so I made a beeline towards the nearest bathroom.

Luckily, I made it. Unluckily, it was the stallion's bathroom, and occupied. You can probably imagine the surprised looks on their faces. You should imagine it too, since I was way too much in a rush to notice anything, let alone take the time to look at faces to describe. Instead I darted straight into the nearest stall, just in time. The stallions whose privacy I had rudely invaded (not that I cared) politely closed the door behind me, for which I was very grateful.

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A little while later I flushed and excited the bathroom as dignified and fast as possible, silently thanking Celestia that the toilet hadn't become clogged. Now that my stomach was empty again, I figured it might be a good idea to get some breakfast, so I trotted around the mall for a while, ultimately ending up at a coffee shop. Curious to see what coffee actually was, and lured in by the nice smells, I stepped inside.

The coffee shop was a small but cozy place, numerous tables dotted the floor and the air buzzed with small talk from the morning customers. It seemed like the ponies of the mall were picking up their lives again pretty quickly. I quietly wished they didn’t, since the sounds were rather annoying to my poor ears. I was about to leave again when from behind the counter a pegasus mare waved a wing at me. I concluded she was the owner of the shop, partly because of her location, and partly because she seemed to be dealing with another customer, a filly sized mare. I trotted over to the two, who appeared to engaged in small talk. The light-grey pegasus turned her attention to me. “Hello there, welcome to Foggy's Coffee Shop. I'm Foggy Field, how can I help you?” Her tone was friendly and optimistic and she gave me the most pleasant of smiles.

Even with the headache still hammering at the inside of my skull, I managed a smile of my own as I answered her question. “Good morning, it's morning right? If it is, I'd like some breakfast, oh and maybe try some coffee too. Otherwise it'll be lunch.”

Both of them chuckled and the pegasus went to fetch a menu while the small mare looked me over. In return I did the same to her, and discovered that some of her original equipment had been replaced by metallic substitutes. One of her eyes, for example, wasn't green like the natural one, but icy blue, with the iris making faint buzzing noises every time it dilated. At least I guess that’s what it sounded like for normal ponies. To me it resembled more of a chainsaw. Furthermore the lower part of her left front leg consisted out of a prosthetic limb, with pieces of metal, tubes and wires interrupting her sand-coloured coat. There were more additions to her, but most were more subtle than those two. All together I suspected that this mare had more metal in her than flesh, and definitely had more prosthetics than I had seen in my whole life combined.

When I brought my gaze back to her eyes, I noticed she was watching me with an amused smirk. “Never seen a cyborg before?”

I shook my head. “Well, once or twice, but never so much on one pony. How did you get all of that?”

The little cyborg mare wanted to answer me, but was interrupted by a soft cough coming from Foggy. She was holding out a menu which I quickly grabbed. I looked the choices and ordered some cereal, I'd always loved those when I was little. That was when I realized that I had left my saddlebags up on the roof with Daisy. And I didn't feel very inclined to see her just yet, I needed to sort out what happened the previous night first. Besides, I think I threw most of my belongings at the crazy flamer mare so there was a good chance that the few bottlecaps I owned were now spread over the floor if I was lucky. Most likely somepony had eagerly taken the chance to pick up some extra caps.

So I returned the menu and gave Foggy an apologetical smile. “Uhm, I think I lost my caps, so sorry but I can't pay you.”

This caused pegasus to frown slightly. The sand-coloured mare jumped in to my aid though before the shop owner could say anything. “I'll cover for her Foggy.” Then she turned to me, her mouth still curled up in a big sly grin. “It's the least I can do after that... exciting show she and her marefriend put up last night.” The evil little mare giggled at the my rather obvious discomfort and led me to a table after paying Foggy. She was very evil I tell you, even though she payed everything for me, the pleasure she took out of teasing me was just plain evil.

After occupying my seat and letting my blush fade away a bit, I asked the question that had been bothering me the most. “First of all, thanks, whoever you are. Secondly, what exactly happened last night?” Sure I remembered bits and pieces, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what must've happened given that Daisy and I went to bed together, but I thought it'd be nice to at least know what I had done.

My table companion smirked and leaned a little towards me from across the table. “I'm Banshee, and are you sure you want to know?” she asked back with a look of amusement and a hint of... I wasn't sure, perhaps admiration. Obviously I nodded and let her tell the story.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Roughly half an hour later I found myself staring at the wall behind Banshee. Do you remember the day before, when those flames had been licking the air just in front of me? Yeah, that was a cool breeze compared to the burning feeling in my cheeks. No wonder though, since according to Banshee that first kiss between me and Daisy hadn’t been the last. Far from it. Luckily I hadn’t been the only one doing embarrassing things. Boomer somehow had managed to convince Lazuli and Soft Touch to join him on the stage, from where they had treated (though Banshee described it as tortured) the whole tavern and beyond on their singing skills, or lack thereof. After letting me hear a recording she had made with her cybernetics, I had no choice but to agree with the small mare.

“And what about Swifty and Eclipse?” I asked once I was able to tear my gaze from the wall again.

This brought an even broader grin to Banshee’s face. “Did you know those two could dance?” I shook my head. “No? Well, apparently neither did they, nor anyone else. And they were right as well, can't say they didn't try though.” She chuckled. “All together those two gave everyone a quite some laughs as well, really, last night was a great night!”

I nodded absentmindedly, perhaps Banshee was right and last night was a great night. But if she was, then why did I feel so... so guilty every time I thought about it?

The cyborg mare must've picked up my confused state with her super enhanced angst detector or something, because she scooted a little closer to me and wrapped a leg around my back before giving me a comforting smile. Well, it was supposed to be comforting I'm sure, but it hardly helped. Still I gave her a weak grin back, hopefully to ease her mind. She chuckled and poked me between my ribs, causing me to yelp in surprise. As I rubbed the spot and gave her an annoyed scowl, she had the nerve to just burst out into laughter. “C'mon, don't be so uptight. Smile a little! Don't worry so much okay? You look so much cuter with a smile on your face.”

I eeped and felt a blush grow on my face. What was it with ponies who thought I looked cute?! I mean, I was just a normal mare! There was no reason whatsoever to try and embarrass me (and often succeed to my dismay) over that. And besides, I didn't really like... mares. Actually, I never really had any interest in any pony whatsoever, legacy of previous experiences with my 'masters'. Most of them had been stallions, or at least the ones that abused me. Well, they all abused me, I mean abusing in that special private manner which caused the most nightmares. But anyway, most had been stallions, but I could certainly remember the few mares who'd done the same. And at times they'd been worse.

But now, now suddenly ponies liked me. Daisy obviously, Banshee didn't hide it either, now that I thought of it, maybe that one guard from the water caravan, Shield was his name right? Maybe he'd liked me too. That actually made some kind of sense. And Stargazer? Had he felt that way as well? Urgh! This was way too confusing and exactly why I liked alcohol so much. On the other hoof, if it hadn't been for alcohol, that kiss from last night might've never happened. Hmm, food for thought. What was I thinking about again? Oh right, me getting completely embarrassed by ponies displaying interest in me. You know, this had all been so much easier when I was still a slave. Not once did I have to wonder about stupid problems like this, instead my problems had been more like: don't talk, obey and get food. Stay alive. But no, I would never ever ever ever ever go back to that. Even all those stupid awkward problems combined were not enough to drive me back to that hell of humiliation.

Banshee didn't get it, which wasn't surprising since she couldn't exactly read my mind, instead she laughed even louder and poked me again in the same spot. And it tickled! Dammit it tickled and I couldn't hold in my giggles. As I put my hooves in front of my muzzle to try and shut myself up, I knew that I was defeated, so I bowed my head and sighed. “All right, what do you want?” I asked her.

She tilted her head a little and adopted a more serious expression. “I want you to solve your problems. Go and talk with that mare of yours and fix it. Really, talking helps.”

“I don't really know if I want to,” was my cowardly reply.

“What do you have to lose, hmm? What's the worst case scenario?” I opened my mouth to answer, but she put her hoof over it to shut me up prematurely. Good thing too since I really didn't know what I was about to say. “The way I see it, in the worst case you two find out things don't work out and break up,” she continued. “You might hurt your pride, so what? If that's the possible outcome the I'd say, just go and talk. Who knows, maybe you two end up as an adorable little couple.” She winked to punctuate that last sentence. I daftly responded with a confident squeak. Okay, not so confident, more like panicked.

One way or another, she made sense and I really couldn't argue with her logic. With a deep sigh I gave in to her demands. “Fine, I'll go and talk with her. We actually were supposed to meet up at noon at that statue.”

Banshee giggled and a sudden feeling of nervousness washed over me. “What?” I asked as I stared at her.

“Oh nothing, it's just that you're about an hour too late.” I immediately jumped up, knocking over my chair and bumping into the table. Unfortunately for me, the table was much heavier than me, and my action earned me a nice bruise. Ignoring said bruise, I started to dash out of the coffee shop, but was stopped by Banshee's voice. “Wait! You didn't even finish your coffee! Or start it for that matter.”

Without replying I levitated the cup over and downed it in one gulp, an action which I immediately regretted as the cooled down liquid tasted rather poorly to me. Still it wasn't as bad as some other things I'd had to drink before so I managed to keep it inside of me. Quickly I put the cup back onto a table and resumed my galloping escape, yelling a quick “Thank you!” to both Banshee and Foggy. I was sure that the other ponies who were talking, eating, drinking and doing whatever else you were supposed to do in an establishment like this gave me some weird looks. I didn't really notice though as I rounded the corner within seconds.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

After quickly retrieving my gear from my sleeping spot before rushing to the statue in front of the mall, the designated meeting spot. But there was no Daisy.

Panting, I let my head hang low. Great. Just great. Not only did I botch up my best shot at learning how to use my new awesome flamer properly, but I also missed my shot at having an awkward conversation with the mare I'd kissed. Well, put like that it wasn't too bad I suppose, but still, a good talk between the two of us might be useful. Or something. I don't know.

As I was standing there, contemplating and staring at a small specific speck of dust on the ground, I was suddenly shaken up by a short cough. When I jerked my head upward, towards the sound, I found that it originated from an odd equine who had claimed the statue as his seat.

Curiously I looked over him, mentally listing the odd things about him. First of all he wasn't a pony, but still an equine. He was old and his coat was dark grey and rough, his ears long and draped to the side of his head. The way he was sitting was not normal for a pony too, on top of the statue's back, sideways, on his flanks, with his hind legs seemingly comfortably hanging. He had his front hooves pushed against each other and was looking at me with a combination of a scowl and a smirk. The final curious thing about him was a long, thin and light grey moustache decorating his face.

“What tha matter? Never seen a donk before?” he suddenly snapped, startling me. I knew what donkeys were, but never actually seen one myself. “Thought so. Ya looked like a tin can finding one of them chicken ships.” What. I think I understood little more than half of those words, and even then they didn't make sense.

My confusion was obvious, causing him to shake his head before hopping down the statue and smoothly rolling over to me,in one fluid motion, picking up a wooden cane as he did, tapping me on the nose with it as he stopped in front of me. And that all in one fluid motion. Needless to say, I fell back on my haunches, flabbergasted and with my eyes derped. How in the whole of Tartarus did he do that?! He was old! He wasn't supposed to!

He snorted. “Hmph, youth these days. Can't take nothing no more. Get off ya flanks and tell me ya name. Dontcha know how ta properly respect yer elders no more?”

Hastily I complied, scrambling to my hooves. As I got up I noticed that he was pretty small, almost a full head smaller than me. “E-Ember sir.” In the back of my mind I was reminded of several of my previous owners and got the urge to buck him in the face and run away.

He took that urge away when he nodded approvingly. “See? That weren't hard now was it? Now we all can go and introduce ourselves all proper like.” He coughed and extended his hoof. “Ah mahself go by many names. The Janitor, Ol' Donk, That One Guy With That Fancy Moustache, How The Hell Didcha Do That, but fer now ya'll can call meh Sensei. Fancy meeting ya Ember.” He chuckled, making me wonder what was so funny. “And now for tha part where ya tell good ol' Sensei what tha matter is.”

I blinked and shook his hoof briefly. “Matter? What do you mean, matter?”

The old donkey let out a loud laugh, which quickly turned into a coughing fit. A little concerned, I extended my leg to pat him on the back, but he swatted it away with surprising speed and strength. “Ha! Dontcha fool yerself! There's always some matter when they come to Sensei! I dun even get it mahself, but it's always true. Always! Now, dontcha be all shy and speak up!”

My mind took a little while to wrap itself around all of this. A strange donkey who claimed that everyone always came to him with problems. Well, considering this was the wasteland, that was not a big surprise. Everyone had problems. Still, I'd talked to Banshee about everything before, and she'd been a complete stranger too, so I guess it couldn't hurt telling Sensei too. Besides, I was kinda scared that he'd smack me with his cane if I didn't answer him.

So I told him everything. He wanted to know my problem? Well, he could get it. I talked about every single thing that had ever happened to me and which I could still remember. From my childhood to this instant. It took me a while, and I guessed that it was already late in the afternoon when I was finally done. To his credit, Sensei kept silent and listening the whole time, though I had to poke him to wake him up halfway through.

When I was finally done the glow from Celestia's sun behind the clouds was fading already. The donkey let out a small cough and twirled his moustache a little. “That's a lotta problems ya'll got there. Also, for tha record, Ah'd also have accepted “Ah wanna learn to use mah flamer but mah marefriend ain't here.” Cause that's a problem Ah can help ya with. All that emotional stuff, ya gotta face that yerself, though Ah might set ya on a right course.”

“Wait, you can help me with the battle saddle?”

Sensei frowned and trotted to my side. He stretched so he could bring his muzzle to the side of my head before yelling, “Yes! Ah! Can!” The assault on my ears left them ringing.

Rubbing my ears I scowled at him. “What was that for?! Are you crazy!”

He nodded. “Yeah Ah am. But that ain't nothing to do with tha yelling. Ya'll seemed deaf, so Ah were friendly 'nuff to help ya'll.”

I raised a hoof and opened my mouth to object, but he swatted my leg away with his cane. “What's it gonna be?” Upon my response of glaring he rolled his eyes. “Ya'll Ember. Me Sensei. Sensei help Ember with big fire gun. Ember want?” Yeah, yeah, make fun of me being a little slow on the draw. How often did you meet a weird donkey who had no business being so agile with his age?

Anyway I sighed and nodded, might as well take the opportunity. “Yeah. Fine.” A fraction of a second later I received a whack on my head with a piece of wood, a feeling which I felt would become a lot more familiar very soon. I jumped back and glared at Sensei. “Ow! What was that for?!”

That did not faze him in the slightest, and he stated in a casual tone, “Yeah what? Ah didn't hear 'please' nor 'Sensei'. Ah offered some of mah valuable time to help yer sorry flank, so Ah demand a little respect in return yah hear? Also, just to be clear, Ah ain't no boss of ya. Ya'll can scamper away any time ya want, so dontcha get no stupid feelings 'bout me bein a slaver ya hear! Ah want nothing of that, it's distracting for tha lessons.”

I groaned before reluctantly giving in. Sure this guy was an ass, in more than one way, but he also was my ticket to unleashing fiery doom so much more effectively. Fiery doom sounded so good. “Fine. Yes please Sensei.” I responded, hoping there was enough of a sarcastic tone to my reply.

*Twack!*

Fancy that, I was right when I predicted I'd be hit with the cane much more often! Perhaps I should set up a shop, ask people to come by and pay a few bits so that I could predict how often they'd be hit with the cane. Options were 'a lot' and 'seriously, a lot', I'd be rich!

As I was contemplating future business models, Sensei gave me another scowl. “Ah toldcha, ya'll don't need to do this. Either do as Ah tell ya, or get lost! Ah'm not in tha mood for fooling around ya hear me?”

I sighed and nodded. “Okay, got it, you want me to take this seriously. Makes sense. I'll do my best.” As he brought up his cane I quickly added, “Sensei.”

Lo and behold! The grumpy donkey actually grew a smile! Sure you'd need a microscope to properly see it, but I was sure it was there! “Much better. Oh, and,” He hit me again, even though I attempted to dodge, “there ain't no doing yer best. Ya either do as Ah tell ya, and succeed, or dun listen and fail. There ain't no trying, got it?”

I slowly nodded. “Okay, I'll do as you say. What do you want me to do?” In response, Sensei grinned. I did not like that grin. Not in the slightest.

“Ah wantcha to work fer it.”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Sensei was true to his word. He seriously made me work for it. I did push-ups, galloped laps around the mall, climbed the stairs to the roof, sat together with him on the back of the statue in that awkward, but strangely comfortable pose to meditate, drank some disgusting drink, mopped the floors of the mall, cleaned the toilets, changed the bed-sheets in small motel on the top floor, had a sparring match with the donkey, lost a sparring match to a donkey, and then I did it all again, but this time with Sensei on my back. At least he had a radio with him, playing some catchy songs the whole time.

By the end of it all, it had gotten pretty dark. I was dead tired and sore all over my body, unsurprisingly, and had slumped down after carrying a bunch of debris and Sensei around the mall. With a groan of tiredness I looked up at the donkey and asked the question that had been on my mind since pretty much the start of my training, “How does this help me learn how to use my flamer Sensei?” Yes, I automatically called him Sensei now, blame the bruises on the back of my head.

He looked back, stroking his moustache with a hoof, and replied. “Hold on, ya sayin' ya'll want to learn to use that fancy flamer of yours? Why didn'tcha say so?”

As he hopped of my back with a grin I just stared at him in disbelief for a moment before throwing my legs in the air and yelling, “Oh come on! I spent hours doing stuff for you! The only reason I did it was because I thought you were training me or something!”

Sensei looked at me weirdly. “Are ya'll crazy? That was no hours, it was a training montage! Took 'bout half an hour tops. Don'tcha kids watch movies no more these days?” He sighed and shook his head. “Anyways, doing mah chores ain't gun help ya'll learn to handle a flamer. Ha! Didcha really think that mopping and cleaning toilets would help? At all?”

As he talked I developed a rather annoying twitch in my left eye. Not as annoying as what he just made me do with no good reason whatsoever though! Slowly I stood up and walked towards the donkey until we were pretty much snout-to-snout. “You. Made. Me. Do. All of that.” I waved my leg around for emphasis. “For NOTHING?!”

To be honest, I was pretty impressed that Sensei didn't even blink as I shouted in his face. Nope, instead he wacked me on the back of my head with his stick. “Sit down.” I made a move forward again, but he lifted his cane menacingly, so I forced myself to stay put. What? He was quick with that thing! And being hit in the head for countless of times at the same spot hurt! If lawyers had still been around I'd sue him for giving me brain damage.

Sensei gave me a small nod and started to trot around me while I did my best to keep glaring at him, the twitch still present but slightly less pronounced. “Ah know ya'll wanted to learn how to shoot yer fancy gun, but didcha really think I'd work fer free? Ha! Ya know, Ah'm the janitor, and ya'll just helped me do mah job fer a bit. An' sides, Ah wanted to see what ya'll could do, and Ah gotta say, though ya ain't the fastest, strongest or smartest, ya sure are determined. So, Ah've got faith in ya, and in return Ah'll help ya'll as Ah promised.”

I was still very much pissed off, but could not argue with his logic. Yes it was a dick move to make me do all of that without telling me what I was doing exactly, but it was really quite unreasonable for me to expect him to work for free. Still, I really wanted to set him on fire for tricking me, but in order to do that I'd need his help to learn how to properly use my flamer. Stupid dilemmas. For the moment I settled with accepting his help first, and perhaps then burning him. Ha! A win-win situation!

Slowly I nodded. “Fine, show me.” Immediately after I swatted away the incoming cane. “And stop hitting me with that thing!”

Ha! That seemed to impress Sensei slightly as he grew a small smirk. “Sure, turn 'round.”

I complied and he took off my battle saddle. Once it was on the ground he started pointing at every single component and telling me how it worked and how to keep it in working condition. He then explained how to aim, fire and refuel before letting me put the saddle back on so that I could try it out.

A short time and a number of burned hairs later I felt confident enough to use the flamer without problems. And during the learning process I had also learned to not let my mane get in front of the gun, lest it catch on fire. Now that that was all out of the way I turned to Sensei and gave him a small nod. My annoyance and frustration had faded slightly while testing the flamer out and I was no longer ready to painfully burn him. I had to admit, even though his methods had been dubious he still kept his part of the deal, so, yeah, I thanked him. “Well, thanks I guess Sensei. I hated doing this.” I figured that if he had been honest, I could as well.

Sensei gave me a nod back. “Ya'll are welcome Ember, 'twas a nice change o' pace training ya. Ah know ya'll be a fine janitor someday. Now good luck savin' yer friends.” He waved at me and trotted into the mall at a relaxed pace.

I chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, well, I wouldn't do it again. Ever. But thanks anywaaaaait a minute! What do you mean with 'good luck saving my friends?!” I rushed after him and entered the mall a moment after he closed the door. He was nowhere to be found though.

As I went trotting through the mall, I thought about what he'd said. Saving my friends. There weren't a lot of people who I could call that. So he meant either Fixer and Piston, which I highly doubted, or Lazuli and Daisy's gang. But why would they need saving? Today was supposed to be a day off, no dangerous business involved. They were supposed to be relaxing around the mall, taking their well earned rest. Something I obviously hadn't done, as proven by the muscle ache from Sensei's training. But now that I thought about it I hadn't seen any of them, which was definitely odd. And Daisy's sleeping spot had been unoccupied too.

A yawn escaped my muzzle as I trotted up to the roof. Last night's, uhm, lack of sleep, and today's torture by Sensei were taking their toll. Wherever they were, I would have to find my friends the next day. The moment I touched the sleeping spot I went out, plunging into a well-deserved, and thankfully, dreamless sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

When I woke up the next morning I quickly had some breakfast a la Ember, meaning I just went a short way into the wastes and stomped a small radscorpion. My now properly working flamer ensured it was cooked better than I could have; even with Fixer's lessons I was still a disaster in the kitchen. It was an improvement over cataclysm at least.

After satisfying my stomach I decided to go and look for my friends again. Instead of trotting around like a headless griffon though, I went to the buck whose job it was to help me. Or so I thought at least. I wasn't all that familiar with how the law worked around most of the wasteland towns.

Anyway, I headed to the security office and entered. I did not in the least bit expect to see what I did in there.

During the last couple of weeks or months of my life as a slave I'd caught the occasional glimpse of a goddess. And I'd always been glad that it was from a long way off, which in my opinion was the best distance from which to look at the things. Even from afar it had been clear that the creatures were pretty darn large. They easily towered above he largest ponies around, making them even more intimidating.

So you can see why I almost had a heart attack when I saw what the sheriff was talking with, or at least I assumed it was the buck talking, since I recognized his voice. The reason I could not get visual confirmation was because my view was blocked by a huge pony-thing. I was calling it a pony-thing is because I lacked a better word to describe it. Well, perhaps behemoth, giant or really, really big could approach the size, but they didn't do it justice.

Okay, so, here's what it looked like, or she rather. She was a mare, though that was more of a guess then a confirmed fact, at least her bone structure seemed female. Furthermore, she was big. Did I mention that yet? This was the first pony I'd seen that probably look an goddess in the eyes, hell, perhaps she could even look down upon them. At the very first glance I'd been terrified that this might have been one of the rip offs from Luna, Celestia and Cadance. I’d seen those alicorns before, back in Appleloosa. Rumour had it that they were servants of Red Eye. I definitely hoped those rumours were wrong, a slaver with those things at his command... Anyway, I had seen them good enough to notice that there were some major differences between those alicorns, and this gargantuan. The lack of both wings and horn was a pretty big clue, as was her muscle structure. Where the feathered abominations had a sleek and delicate build, this mare was pretty much the opposite. She was almost completely muscle, and there was no doubt in my mind that if she was so inclined, the behemoth could lift a box cart. Quietly I sneaked past her to get a better look at the situation, and further inspection confirmed my suspicion of her not being one of the goddesses.

Because besides all of those other features, her coat colour was also a pretty big give-away, with its bright orange colour, topped off with a pink mane and tail. Every goddess I'd seen so far seemed to be sporting darker colours, and definitely not orange and pink. Then the final clue was the way the gargantuan talked. I was pretty sure that “Poly want candy! Puny pony give Poly candy!” was not very befitting for a goddess.

Still, I had to respect the sheriff for not giving in to the pony, even though she towered over him and was... well, she wasn't really angry or annoyed. She kind of reminded me of myself whenever I had demanded a glass of hot sauce from my mom. Yes, I drank hot sauce as a filly. Yes I know that it's weird. But normal drinks tasted pretty dull compared to it, though that might have had to do with the dull tingling sensation to my tongue every time I'd drank it. Looking back, I highly suspected it to be the feeling of my taste receptors burning away. Oh well, there was nothing I could do about it. And now I was craving the stuff. Damn.

Anyway, sheriff Blue Lamp did the right thing by putting his hoof down and shaking his head. “No Poly, you will get candy after you've fixed the hole. Really, between the attack and your tendency to walk through walls this mall is starting to look like Swiss cheese. Maybe that'll teach you to use the doors like everypony else.” He gave her a stern look, while having to stretch his neck in order to make eye-contact. “Now you go and fix that hole and then I will give you some nice sugar bombs.” He grew a small smirk before adding, “And if you fix all of the other holes in the walls I'll give you even more! How does that sound?”

Judging by the hopping of the massive mare, which caused a terminal to fall off of the sheriff's desk, she liked it. My sharp observation was confirmed when she scooped up the poor buck and nearly crushed him with a hug. “Ha! Poly fix holes! Poly get much much candy! Puny boss pony be much nice pony! Poly say thanks!”

I wasn't sure whether or not to be amused or worried about the sheriff. It was pretty funny to see the pony with seemingly the most authority here being picked up like a doll, and see him flail his limbs in a panicked attempt to get out of the hug. The flailing was also a cause of worry, together with his blue face becoming even more blue and his eyes bulging out of their sockets. Yeah, it'd be better to go and save him, he still was my best shot at getting some answers and it wasn't likely that I'd get much of a response from a pony who was hugged to death.

So I tapped the behemoth's leg. Well, I was aiming for the shoulder, but couldn't quite make it without stretching. I was glad to see that the tapping was enough for Poly to let her deadly hug slide a bit, giving Blue Lamp an opportunity to catch his breath again. Confusedly the pumpkin orange mare turned her head, looking around the room before apparently remembering that normal ponies were not at eye level and spotting me. She craned her neck towards me and sniffed, giving me a good look at her face. Apart from it being huge, as was expected, she had a deep scar running across her right eye, which was covered by a heavily dented piece of metal, held on by some string and acting as a makeshift eye patch. It made me briefly wonder what in the world could have done that to the huge pony.

While she was sniffing me, I rushed to think up something clever to tell Poly, so she would let go of the sheriff. All I could think of for the moment was, “Uhm, hi.” Not my brightest line.

It did the trick though, as I was rewarded by a big lick over the length of my face. “Poly say hi puny pony!”

While the term puny pony was debatable in my view, I did not let it deviate me from my rescue mission. After wiping my face with a fetlock to clear out most of the saliva, I smiled and made a nice suggestion. “Say, uhm, Poly. Well, the nice sheriff promised you candy after fixing the holes right? And it seems you really like candy, so why don't you leave the sheriff be and go and do what he said? The sooner you're done, the sooner you'll get candy!”

Poly's jaw dropped slightly upon the revelation and she forgot all about squishing Blue Lamp, instead opting to get started on fixing the walls as soon as possible. Unfortunately though, she took the shortest route out of the office, which happened to be a straight line through the wall. I myself was barely able to roll out of the way, causing me to end up on my back as I was covered in dust and rubble from what used to be a wall. If Poly kept it up, I doubted she'd ever finish repairing the mall.

Coughing from the dust I turned to Blue Lamp, who was busy picking himself up again. “What just happened?” I asked, figuring I deserved an explanation at least.

“That.” The sheriff pointed at the freshly made hole. “That was Pumpkin Polypheme. Or Poly, as everyone calls her. She's a walking disaster she is. Sure she's got the biggest heart I've ever seen, but she doesn't know her own strength and is pretty stupid to say the least. I'm just glad I can easily bribe her with candy.” He let out a deep sigh. “Anyway, thank you for stopping her from crushing me to death. Now, what did you came here for?”

I chuckled a bit before going into serious mode. “Ah, well, I haven't seen my friends yesterday all day, and not today either. And Sensei told me that I should go and rescue them or something. So, do you happen to know where they are?”

Blue blinked. “Sensei who? Nevermind, they didn't tell you? Huh, figures. Well, you know them Timberwolves and the reward I put on their heads?” I nodded. “Well, your palls decided to go and get that reward.”

Now it was my turn to blink and stare. “Wait what? No, you must be mistaken or something. I mean, why would they ever do that? Are you sure it wasn't some other group?” I knew that the chances of another group with the same types of ponies probably didn't exist, but maybe there was! And maybe they had come along, and perhaps kidnapped all of them! And then, and then... But the sheriff shook his head.

“Sorry ma’am. Looks like they ditched you. I was kinda surprised you weren't going with them too. But when I asked they said you were too tired still, and didn't want to wake you up. You gotta understand though, the sooner those bandits are cleaned up, the better. And besides, they said they'd be back by noon.”

I took a couple of deep breaths, letting the words sink in. Okay, so they didn't want to wake me. That was pretty considerate of them. And they'd been planning on coming back by noon. Which they hadn't. “Wait, back by noon? That was yesterday! And how far is that camp anyway?”

The blue buck rubbed his temples with a hoof before trotting over to his small desk on the other side of the room. I followed along, passing by three empty cells on my way. He sat down and put down a map on the desk. “Look, they left really early yesterday. I think they were still drunk even from the night before. The camp is about two hours away from here. An hour and a half if you gallop. If they'd been successful, they'd come back by now. I told them to not underestimate those bandits. Sure, the ones that invaded my mall had been idiots, but so far, nopony I ever sent there has come back. And yes, I did tell them that beforehand.”

I looked at the map and tried to memorize as much of it as I could. “I'll go. I need to save them. Also, why didn't you tell anyone that they were missing?!”

He shrugged. “Well, sure, go ahead if you want to. There's still a big reward, but don't say I didn't warn you okay? And who should I have told it to? I don't have any more deputies, nopony to send anymore. And I'm not sending ponies from this town to rescue a bunch of drunks okay? Even though you lot did help save my town doesn't mean I'm gonna give that all up again for them.”

I groaned, this wasn't a discussion I wanted to have right now. “Look. I'll just go, and save them. Okay? Now, is there anything you can tell me about the place that could help me?”

The sheriff shook his head. “I know jack shit about them, besides the general location of their place. They seem to have holed up in a small forest, lots of cover and obstacles. Also, you'll get yourself killed. By the time you get close enough for your flamer to work you'd be shot to death thrice over.” He put his hoof on my shoulder. “Look, maybe they'll use them as hostages. Then you can go and pay their price and everything will be okay.”

That last plan sounded good, except for the fact that I didn't have any caps. “Okay. Got no caps, and for some reason I doubt you'll be paying them anything.” Blue Lamp nodded in confirmation. “Ugh, fine. I'll have to go in then. So. Lots of cover and obstacles huh? And I need to find a way to get in there quick, probably catch them by surprise.” I sighed and looked over the sheriff's office, until my gaze rested on the fresh hole in the wall. A small grin spread over my face as a plan started to form in my head. “So, I need a quick and hard hit-and-run action.” I swished back to the sheriff and put up my most innocent face. “Say, do you have some sugar bombs for me? I could really use the sugar right now.”

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you very much Otherunicorn and Nyerguds for proofreading and pointing out things to improve!

Chapter 10: Revelations

Ashes to Ashes – Chapter 10

Revelations

After convincing the sheriff to aid me in bribing Poly it was a piece of cake to get her to come along. Armed with my flamer, sugar bombs and the strongest pony in the wastes (or at least the most unintionally destructive) I went my way to see where in the name of Tartarus my friends had gone. Also on my to-do list was, besides quite probably breaking into the camp of the Timberwolves, finding out why exactly they had gone without me. Before we got to that point however, I had to solve a rather difficult issue: finding out where to go exactly. The always helpful sheriff had pointed me in a the general direction and told me that they'd holed up in a forest. Hmm, too bad that my friends were there as well, otherwise my new plaything would make smoking those thugs out ridiculously easy.

As I was contemplating the best ways to roast some raiders Poly suddenly spoke up. Well, it was more of a very loud “Squeeee!” followed by her bouncing around me and pointing forward.

Following the direction of her leg I saw what she was pointing at: a four-legged creature primarily made out of bark, long fangs, sharp claws and a lot of anger. What I assumed was a timberwolf was growling deeply at me and Poly from only a few meters away. It was a lot more threatening than I had expected it to be, due to using the Timberwolf gangmembers as comparison. The size played a big role in it as well, as the wolf was twice as large as I was, even in his (or her?) crouched down position, ready to strike.

The biggest thing in my advantage though was the quite obvious fact of the wolf being made out of logs and branches. I still had to be careful though, one wrong movement and the beast would leap at me and if I would burn it too late I would have a seriously pissed off, burning wild animal in my face. Not a good idea. I would have to play this careful, slowly circle around him, study his movements and...

“PUPPY!” The exclamation from Poly almost threw me off balance and the following charge by the giant finished the job of knocking me off my hooves. The timberwolf seemed just as flabbergasted as I was and stood there, petrified with its tail between its legs as Poly tackled him and quite literally hugged him to death. The sounds of snapping logs and branches combined with howls and yells of pain filled the air before slowly fading. The wolf struggled, but Poly hardly seemed to notice the deep scratches his claws left on her back.

As I watched the giant mare pet and hug the lifeless body I made frantical mental notes to never act cute while around her, not that I knew how to do that. My mental scribbling was interrupted however as a distant howl pierced the air, soon followed by another, and another, and another, and, well, you get the idea, I got the nagging feeling that we were going to be screwed very soon. The one good thing about the howls, except for warning me about an imminent attack, was that it focused my attention towards them, and made me notice our goal.

True, before the war this might have been called a forest, but as of now the collection of charred wood, bushes and a living tree here and there hardly qualified as one anymore. When I’d looked in that direction before I hadn’t realized it even was the forest we were looking for, some big park at best. Still though, the collection of dark wood, branches and the occasional leave-roof provided enough shade for me to not see a thing in there. Well, except for the pair of glowing yellow orbs. And its numerous companions. At least now I had an idea of why my friends hadn’t come back yet!

I wasn’t a fast runner, and I doubted I could outrun a dozen of the things, especially with them being not so happy about their friend and me being slowed down by the flamer. Besides, I still had to field-test said flamer. “Poly! More puppies coming!” I hoped that would convince her to abandon the boring, not-moving puppy and go hug the interesting jumpy ones. It would of course be nice as well if she survived, but with her walking through walls and not noticing I somehow figured she’d be okay.

Of course I had to take care of myself too, and the best way to do so was to face the general direction of the wolves and point at them with my flamer. Letting out a warning flame seemed like a good idea too, and the bright flame did elicit some yelps from my foes.... But then they came out. Now no longer in the cover of the shades I could clearly see them, all fourteen of them. All fourteen big, angry, wooden wolves. And they were way too clever too! Instead of just rushing at me one by one like good doggies they slowly crawled closer, staying right outside of the range of my flamer and beginning to circle us. Next to me Poly had dropped the dead wolf and was now curiously looking at the wolves. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if we’d let them go ahead and execute their plan we’d be boned, so what we needed was something unexpected, something to throw them off guard.

So I jumped onto Poly’s back and took one the sweets. Once I made sure Poly had seen it I threw it right behind the wolves. In the second they were distracted by seeing the candy fly over their heads Poly took off, galloping right at them while I charged my horn and aimed my flamer while simultaneously attempting to hold on to the charging mare. My multitasking skills were tested pretty vigorously by all of this.

In reaction we got greeted by a flurry of fangs and claws as the closest wolves leapt at us. I had anticipated such a reaction though, and rewarded their effort by blasting one of them in the head with a fireball and incinerating another two with my awesome flamer, getting some loud cries from them. It was really too bad that a fourth wolf knocked me from my steed and sent me rolling over the floor. Even worse was that five more wolves all working together managed to get Poly down, indicated by a minor earthquake.

Poly’s condition though was the last thing on my mind as of now, considering I was currently in the middle of a pack of unhappy timberwolves. At least my brilliant tactical move had ensured some chaos amidst the canines. Setting several highly flammable creatures on fire tends to create mass panic among the group. That gave me some valuable seconds to get back onto my hooves and get my bearings again.

The first thing I saw was the gaping jaw of the one that had knocked me off. From up close those fangs looked even bigger, and sharper, and closer obviously. In short it was a rather frightening sight, made even scarier by the jaws snapping at me and pulling a part of my mane out. Judging by the blood and the sharp, burning pain he also included part of my skin along with the hair.

I screamed in terror and scrambled back, away from the snapping jaws. That move saved my face as his clawswipe only scratched my cheek, as opposed to tearing it apart. Still though, this fight wasn’t going in my favour, but hey! What was that on my battlesaddle, pointing directly at the wolf?

I fired and a stream of fire spewed out of the flamer, turning the timberwolf into a bonfire. A squeeking, trashing bonfire. It was pretty amusing actually, how such a frightening creature could suddenly become so... pathetic, helpless against the flames slowly burning up his body. I giggled softly and let out another jet of flames as I took a couple of steps towards it. The whimpering and howling mass of burning wood crawled away from me and my fire. Funny how the roles of hunter and prey could be reversed so incredibly easily.

As I stood there, contemplating philosophical questions, I got the nagging feeling I was forgetting something. Something important. My nagging feeling got quickly replaced by intense pain though another wolf helpfully reminded me that the fight wasn’t over by swiping me with its claw.

As I sailed through the air I caught a glimpse of Poly who was struggling to fight off four of the wolves simultaniously, while a two more leaped at her. I didn’t have time to think about it though as it was time for my unpleasant reuinion with the ground. My momentum sent me rolling for a couple of meters before I managed to stop and try and get up again. Note the word ‘try’. Before I could blink I was pinned by the weight of the wolf who had presumably swiped me. That wasn’t an observation, just a guess, my vision was way too blurry to be able to distinguish any of those wolves.

Not really feeling comfortable in my position, I decided to use my magic to blast the creature’s head away. The timberwolf however had other plans and clenched its jaws tightly around my neck, clamping my windpipe shut. On top of that he swiped my horn with one of his claws, now that he didn’t need that anymore to pin me. Upon impact my magic imploded and I realized I didn’t have enough time to charge up another one. Panicking, I attempted to flail and hit and push the wolf away. It didn’t helped me one bit though, the only thing I achieved was making the wolfs fangs dig deeper in my throat.

I started having trouble seeing, and my lungs seemed to be on fire with how desperate they were for air, I felt myself getting very tired. I stopped struggling against the timberwolfs grip since it didn’t make a difference anyway. Nothing I did seemed to do anything actually. Hiding under the bed? Nope, leave it to Ember to botch it up. Making a friend? Pointless because he gets killed. Save ponies from slavers? Get ponies killed. Take simple revenge? Not without... a price. Free a town? Doesn’t matter, they all kill each other anyway, with me taking the lead at that. Find somepony who actually like-likes me? She goes away and I die while going after her. I didn’t want to let go, but the only thing I could see by now were some blurry spots. It was just... frustrating how much better other ponies were at pretty much everything I did. So I did the most stupid thing I could do in my position, using the last air in my lungs to let out a deep groan. That was the last thing I remembered doing before I lost all track of my surroundings and myself.

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When I woke back up again I found myself suffering from the biggest headache I had ever experienced, including the morning after my first introduction to the wonders of alcoholic beverages. Speaking of which, I could use a drink right now, might smoothen my throat-ache. Oh dear Celestia since when did breathing hurt so much?! Of course, if I’d been thinking logically I could have figured out that a timberwolf bite to the throat wouldn’t make you feel very awesome. Ironically, the lack of oxygen caused by said bite and the thereon following fainting had made it a little difficult to actually get my wits together again. In fact, all I had done after regaining consciousness was attempting to not move and breathe as shallowly as possible. I hadn’t even bothered opening my eyes, which, when I thought about it, might be a smart move.

Of course it took me an eternity to actually find the strength to pull off such a feat, and when I finally did manage to open one eyelid I was once again blinded by way too much light and quickly shut it again. You’d think that the ever present clouds would diminish that somewhat, but alas, no such luck.

In order to share my discomfort with the world I let out a series of grunts and groans while wiggling my various limbs. I was just thanking my luck that at least all of my appendages where still there when I had the bright idea to scrape my throat. The result was a coughing fit of epic proportions. It felt like I had accidentally swallowed some of that flamer fuel and lit it on fire!

As I was wriggling on the floor like that I suddenly felt something pin me down. Immediately I had flashbacks to waking up with a certain asshole doing the same thing not too long ago. With that in mind, my first reaction was to fight back, or more specifically, lashing out with my hindlegs in the general direction of my attacker.

Imagine my surprise when the impact was followed by a high-pitched scream, obviously coming from a mare instead of a stallion, as I was expecting. Even more, I recognized that voice! “Lazuli?!” I shouted out in between coughs with a mixture of emotions. Did I hurt her? What the hell was she doing here, wherever we were? Why had she left in the first place? It dawned on me that opening my eyes for good and, well, asking those questions would be a pretty effective way of finding out. So, once more I found myself blinded by bright light, though this time I managed to fight my way through by blinking a lot.

I was met by the sight of Lazuli’s face. She did not look very amused which wasn’t very surprising, considering me hitting her. “What was that for?!” she snapped.

Between my sore throat and embarrassment for attacking her I managed to squeak some kind of answer out, “Ithoughtyouwereattackingme!”

Immediately her expression changed to one of concern. “Oh shit! No, I didn't... You were coughing, so I tried to help, sorry." I blinked and relaxed a bit while my breathing returned to normal. She wasn't trying to hurt me, nor was she angry, just concerned. That was much more preferable in my opinion. Now though I remembered my earlier curiosity and decided this was the time to fire my arsenal of questions.

"How did you get here? How did I get here? What exactly is 'here'?”

It only took a brief moment for Lazuli to respond, tapping on an iron bar with her hoof. Glancing around, it became obvious that we were in a large steel cage, around the size of a small bathroom. “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re captured by the Timberwolf gang, you were dumped in here by one of the actual wolves.” She frowned. “They should’ve picked a different name for their gang, it gets confusing.” Lazuli shook her head and frowned while pointing behind me. “How I ended up here... Well, I followed them. And they can explain why I went after them.” Looking over my shoulder I was surprised to see Eclipse, Swifty, Soft Touch, Boomer and Daisy divided up in two other cages similar to ours. None of them had any equipment left on them, obviously robbed by the Timberwolves. Eclipse and Swifty were cagemates, just as Softy, Boomer and Daisy, who didn’t look back at either of us. There a few more cages, one containing a sleeping Poly, but for the rest they were all empty. We were in the middle of a clearing in a forest. Bushes and trees around the clearing obstructed my view to further ahead, but I could

“Daisy?” It took her a couple of seconds before she glanced in my direction and made eye contact. I was pretty sure I knew the look on her face. It was almost identical to the face Coal Ore always made when he had to talk to his parents after a failed test flight. By that logic she must have done something bad and expected some kind of punishment. Oh joy, this ought to be good. “What happened? Why did you decide to leave without telling me? And how did all of you get captured?”

Daisy didn’t answer. Instead she decided that the floor of her cage was way more important. “Go on then, tell her!” Lazuli snapped after a while, causing Daisy to jerk her head back up. “That’s the least you can do.”

The mare that had seemed so confident when I met her gulped and took a deep breath. “I uh... The thing is... Well, you see...”

I groaned. “Get on with it already will you?” I was getting pretty curious to what this big reveal was going to be. Whatever it was though, Lazuli seemed to be not so happy with it, so I didn’t think I was going to be either.

However before Daisy could answer (which might have taken a day or so at the current rate), Softy spoke instead. “We’re changelings,” he stated, before turning to Daisy. “I don’t see why that was so hard to tell.”

My response was to blink, then blink again for good measures before asking my next question. “Wut?”

Daisy shot Softy a glare before turning to me. “So yeah, we’re changelings. Sorry.” She gave a nervous smile.

I shook my head. “No, I mean. What even is a changeling?” My best guess was something that, well, changed? Nope, not a clue.

Daisy facehoofed. “You don’t kno-... Right, okay, means we did our jobs well. Uh, changelings, that’s us, are a species who can take the form of other species. Oh, and we feed on love.” At my still very confused expression she groaned. “Urgh, okay Softy, you can explain if you’re so eager to.”

The medic buck shrugged. “Hey, if you can’t properly tell a story that’s your problem.” He turned to me. “Right, so, changelings. We’ve been around a long time, for as long as there were equines, there were changelings. The way I look now, a unicorn, that’s not who I really am. Rather I copied this appearance from the real Soft Touch.” He paused, probably to see if I understood, so I tilted my head a bit.

“How? How did you take over somepony’s appearance?” If it was some kind of illusion spell changelings would have to maintain it all the time, even when asleep. That would be incredibly draining I suspected.

Softy shrugged. “That’s our inherent magic. Do you ask a unicorn how she levitates a rock? She just does. We see a pony or zebra or mule or another equine and we change into their shape. On top of that we have wings and horns of our own,” he smirked. Great, a race of what were basically alicorns that could go unnoticed by ponies.

I sighed. “So, what’s your deal then? Why take over somepony’s form?”

He nodded. “Why indeed. The answer is that we feed on love.” On my blank stare he elaborated. “Yes, love. Well, we eat and drink, but they’re mostly to help in our disguise, we don’t need to do it to survive. Love however, that’s what keeps us going.”

I blinked. So changelings fed on love? Okay. I guess. So Daisy had been someone else than she pretended to be. Some weird alicorn creature that lived on love. I didn’t see why she was making such a huge deal though. I mean sure, it wasn’t nice of her that she pretended to be someone else, but it was still her that I... Wait a sec... I slowly turned to Daisy and stared at her while the gears in my head fell to place. “You... I... I was just some snack?!” If looks could kill, I would have balefirebombed the place. My horn flared up as I charged up a fireball. Instead of a fireball though, there was a bright flash and I felt a sharp pain pierce through my skull where my horn was attached, causing me to fall back.

Lazuli came over to help me up, I gladly accepted her help. “Magical horn inhibitors, you probably shouldn’t want to use magic.” Great. Just great. What did a mare have to do to burn a treacherous leech’s face off around here?!

I sighed in defeat and continued glaring at Daisy and the other changelings. Eclipse and Swifty didn’t seem to be interested. Boomer had a small grin on his face, probably due to me failing to cast my spell while Daisy looked away. Soft Touch was the only one who just looked back, seemingly waiting for me to talk some more. Sure, I could do that. “Fuck you. Why do you even think this is okay?”

He shrugged. “There are far worse things in the wasteland than one night stands. If anything, you should be thanking Daisy for a nice night and get over it. You didn’t get physically hurt, at least I don’t think either of you are really that into bondage, if anything you were shown that you need to watch out who you trust, big deal.”

When Softy speculated about my kinks, I felt my cheeks get rather hot, though I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t enjoy that specific one. The sound of Lazuli scraping her throat made me jump. “I...” she hesitantly started, “I don’t think Ember is into that no, bad experiences with chains and ropes.” I felt my ears droop when I thought about it again and leaned a little closer to Lazuli with mixed feelings as she continued, “Yes the wasteland is not the best environment, but that doesn’t excuse you from betraying ponies like that.”

The changeling that had been pretending to be a medical buck grew a small smirk. “Betraying? We don’t see it like that. I daresay we have improved the lives of a lot of ponies. In fact, Eclipse saved Ember’s life, so she actually owes us one.”

I squirmed a little. “I uh, okay yeah, I guess. Ugh, why do you even go around pretending to be heroes in the first place? Wouldn’t it be a ton easier to just find a pony you actually like and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, feed off of him or her? I mean, I guess it’s not that bad if you actually like the pony back.”

Softy softly chuckled. “That’s unfortunately not an option. If we feed off of one pony for too long, they’ll become... drained, by a lack of a better term. That’s why we go around and do good, to be liked and adored by whole communities. It’s a little less efficient than feeding on one pony, but a lot less noticable.” He paused and pondered a bit. “That’s actually how our hive survived the great famine.”

Well, I guess they were a little a less evil than I had thought, and what they did actually seemed to help. It didn’t mean I forgave Daisy, on the contrary actually, if I understood it all well, she had been actively ‘draining’ me. I shuddered a bit at the term. Ignoring her, I looked back at Softy. “Right, I suppose that now I’m expected to ask: What great famine?” I figured that if we were going to be in these cages I might as well try and not get bored.

The white-coated stallion smirked and nodded. “That’s an excellent question. Let me ask you one in return. When in the history of a species that feeds on love and positive feelings of other species will they come in trouble? I’ll spare you the effort of answering it, it was when the other species started killing one another. When every equine set their mind on the total obliteration of the other side. When nopony or zebra trusted one another anymore. I suppose the development of shields, preventing us from accessing several large cities near the end of the war helped too, plus the fact that many of our disguised hivemembers were sent to fight in the war. After only a few years of war, our hive was only a shadow of its former self, even after Chrysalis’ defeat at Canterlot.”

He grew a small grin. “So we adapted. We sought other examples to copy, most notably war heroes. At least, that’s what we made them. We looked up dead or dying ponies and zebras on the battlefield and copied their forms and pretended to have been seriously injured. Once found by our respective sides we would be brought back as heroes and welcomed as such. It also had a nice benefit of using wartime stress disorders as an excuse for shifts in personality. Oh, and before you go about telling me it was immoral, we had to survive. The whole war was immoral, and we turned the ponies and zebras we copied into heroes. If we found someone who was not quite dead, but definitely lost, we would honour their last wishes, most often being to take care of their families.”

Throughout the story I had been listening and I couldn’t help but sympathise with them. “Ah.” Was my response before some more gears clicked in my brain. “Wait, so did you do that too? I mean you must have those, uh, disguises from somepony I think. Where they already dead too?”

Softy’s somewhat triumphant smile turned to a more serious expression with a hint of sadness. “Yes, unfortunately. We came upon the real Softy, Daisy, Eclipse and Boomer when they were already dead. We found Swift Death later on, she was too far gone to save, hellhounds are nasty creatures.”

My lack of response probably triggered the changeling to go on and sigh. “Look, all I'm saying is that we're not evil. Yes we pretend to be other ponies, but that doesn't hurt anyone, well, not physically at least. It's the best way for our species to survive without leeching off of others like some filthy parasites.”

I tried to object to that, and even opened my mouth to do so, but I couldn't. Softy had some solid arguments, and any arguments of my own seemed rather silly compared to them. “Okay, you win. I'm still pissed at Daisy but at least I won't skewer her with my horn now.” I knew when to admit defeat and take the high road. Promising not to kill someone was taking the high road right?

It was at least a higher road than the one Softy walked, as he couldn't resist to snicker and make a remark, “You're not going to impale her on your horn? I thought you already did that...” At least everyone else had the common courtesy to flush as hard as me!

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After our extensive talk I'd decided to take a nap since I was still pretty exhausted. If Lazuli would claim that it was evasive behaviour then she'd be lying through her teeth. When I woke up after some rare, proper rest I noticed something was wrong though. It didn't take long for me to determine that this 'something' was half a dozen of the timberwolves, accompanied by three Timberwolves, (that is, six wolves and three gang members. I still need to find a way to keep them apart properly) standing next to our open cage. To my delight I saw that only one wolf was free of black burn marks. “Touch the fire and you'll get burned, bitches,” I muttered under my breath, immediately regretting it as it was just incredibly cheesy and didn't make much sense either way. At least I could blame the fact that my brain was still starting up.

Turning to more important issues than weird tangents, it appeared as the others were just waking up as well, with the exclusion of Poly, who was still in the same position as the day before. Looking between the open cage door and the group of captors guarding it, I halfheartedly hoped that we were being set free. It only took a few words from the stallion with the largest decoration on his helmet to break that illusion. “Get your ass up redhead, boss wants to see you!”

By second nature I obediently stood up before the command even sank into my still somewhat groggy mind. It just was a deja vu to pretty much every day of the past decade, complying to commands. Wow, I only knew the bright green stallion for less than a minute and I already hated his guts! “You know what?” I said, my voice starting a little hesitantly but getting more confident as I sat my plot down again. “Let 'boss' come to me.” Ha! It felt so good being able to say that right back to his face! His expression and the facehoof of Lazuli were completely worth being dragged over the rough forest ground by my tail. As it turned out, one did not simply say no to the 'boss', which wasn't an overly creative name might I add. Personally I'd let others call me Her Royal Majesty Of The Everburning Flame if I'd ever would lead a gang, just to hear others say that every time they wanted to address me.

Anyway, while I was busy figuring out how to run a gang and how I would make sure to pick a less confusing name than the Timberwolves, I was being dragged off by one of the wolves, probably towards this boss type. I wondered if they'd let the wolf with the biggest burn injuries drag me off on purpose. I did find out that he was a surprisingly malicious type as he seemed to pick the route with the most bumps and rocks.

Luckily for me the journey wasn't too far, and soon enough I was dropped in front of a rather large tent. The thing was painted in different shades of green, gray and brown, making it look pretty... well, boring. A sharp pain on my flank brought my attention back to more important matters, like who poked me. Snapping my head around, I saw that it was one of the wolves who had swiped me with a claw. There were even a couple droplets of blood trickling from the gashes. I stared at the responsible wolf, and by the large scorch marks over a good portion of its neck I supposed that I shouldn't really complain, and that we probably weren't even yet.

“Get a move on will ya?!” one of the gang members kindly asked as another practically shoved me though the tent flaps. So much for a dignified entry. Oh well, at least rolling through the door gave me an excuse to act like a grave crime was committed to me and get up as slowly as possible, accompanied by lots of groans. As I did that, I took the time to look at the tent's interior, which was surprisingly spacious. The first thing I noticed were the nice and soft carpets I had landed on and for which I was grateful. Then, next to me were what I supposed were elite guards or something, judging by how they had actually decent looking combat armour and didn't move a muscle upon my entrance. Moving along, on the far side of the tent was some sort of throne with on either side a very large and very intimidating timberwolf. At least they would be intimidating if the one on the left wasn't curled up and snoozing and the one on the right wasn't playing around with a large white ball. Oh wait, nevermind, not a ball, a skull. Okay, so they were indeed intimidating, moving on.

On top of the throne, which was made extra comfortable by lots of pillows and blankets, sat a creepily smiling pegasus mare. Her smile was made even creepier by her teeth, which had been sharpened to fangs. As I slowly got to my hooves the cyan mare wiped a strand of blood-red hair from her face. “Hello there, I'm Sharp Fang, the leader of this pack. You're probably expecting me to say something along the lines of 'I do hope you were treated well', don't you?” she asked me in a neutral tone. “Don't worry, I'll spare you that brahminshit. Let's cut to the case, shall we? You attacked us, why? We tried interviewing your oversized companion, but that was hopeless as you probably know. So, I'm asking you, why did you attack us?”

I was taken aback by the forwardness of the mare, and replied in one of the most vague ways possible. “It's complicated.”

“You'll see that I'm intelligent enough to understand, so explain,” she replied, her smile faltering a little.

I guessed that it couldn't hurt to try, so I shrugged and nodded. “Okay, sure. Let's see, I and a friend of mine helped to clear that mall from your gang members together with some other ponies and a zebra. Then they kinda disappeared, and according to the sheriff they went here, so I went after them.” I paused for a second before adding, “You know, that really wasn't all that complicated now that I think about it.” That was probably because I had left out the complicated changeling part, but if the gang leader didn't know about that yet I figured she didn't need to know either.

The mare on the throne nodded. “Ah, so you're part mercenary, part loyal friend.” She stared off, seemingly thinking about something. When she turned back to me, she wore a small grin. “You know, you're a pretty decent fighter if I have to believe my puppies. Would you consider joining us? Oh, and before you ask, if you say no, my puppies also said that they would very much like to see you grilled, so that'd be the alternative.”

In response I raised my hoof, something I was still used to from the couple of years of school I had enjoyed in Saltash. “Uh, sorry but what? Since when do wolves talk?” I deliberately avoided answering the question. I didn't want to answer that, at least not until I had learnt a bit more about this mare and her wolf-pack.

The wolf who was playing with the skull looked up to me and bared its teeth. Meeting his eyes I shrunk back. Somehow I got the feeling that he had just told me that I insulted his intelligence. The leader of the Timberwolves chuckled as she saw my reaction and shook her head. “The fact that they don't speak our language doesn't mean that they don't communicate. It takes years of living with them before you can understand them properly. It helps that I was raised by them of course.”

I looked back to her, grinning a little. “Is this the point where I ask you about your tragic life-story?”

She chuckled again and nodded. “I'll give you the short version. You see, I used to live up above the clouds. I don't remember much of it, except that it was brighter and more boring than down here. One day I, as a young filly, decided to go exploring beneath the clouds, no matter how explicitly my parents had told me not to. I ended up nearly dead after an encounter with a manticore. The alpha mare of this pack had other plans however, and she got the pack to chase that thing off. As it turned out, the alpha most likely had just lost her cub, and I think she still had her motherly instincts so she took me as her cub instead. The pack raised me to what I am now, and when my mother died, I became the new alpha.” She paused before nodding at the two wolves by her side. “My little brothers here have always helped me out, and I them. Under my charge we continued the tradition of taking in lost ones, hence why there are other ponies around here too. Of course new members start at the bottom of the ranks, and there aren't many ponies who manage to make their way up, and none who get the same respect as I do. Any questions?”

Truth to be told, I hadn't expected much at the beginning of the story but it certainly had intrigued me. There were a couple of things that didn't add up to me though, so when she asked me I voiced my biggest question. “Why did you send those ponies to the mall? Not why you sent them there specifically, but why them? If you'd have just attacked with your whole pack I'm sure things would've gone better, but you didn't. No, instead you just sent only ponies, idiots too. Sorry, but they were. You didn't seem to care much for them either. I nearly plain told you I had helped with killing them. Heck, I even got that flamer from one of your pack members, but you didn't seem to care!”

She shook her head. “I do care for my pack, but that's the thing, I care for my pack, my family. I want them to be strong, to be able to thrive. Recently we've been getting more and more ponies joining, too many mouths to feed basically. So I had to make a choice, kick out the new ones, maybe lose future talent, or make them prove themselves by making themselves useful. The mall had plenty of supplies to feed us for some time, all they had to do was raid that food and take with them as much as possible. It didn't matter whether they failed or succeeded, since the problem would solve itself either way, by getting more food or fewer mouths.” She shrugged as I stared at her. “You gotta make tough choices when it's about surviving, only the strong and smart have a place here. You were either stronger or smarter than the ponies and wolves you've killed, meaning you'd have more right at a place here. Speaking of which, what's your answer to my offer of joining us? We now have a couple of spots open...”

“Gotta make tough choices to survive,” I murmured. Sure I could just be a stubborn ass and probably die by not joining her, but really, the offer didn't sound that bad, especially when taking the alternative into account. There was one thing I wanted to know though. “What about the others in the cages?”

“What about them?” was her answer.

“Well, did you make the offer to them as well? And if not, what'll happen to them?”

“Ah right, that issue.” She let out a sigh and shook her head, though her faint smile showed that she was just acting the part. “Unfortunately they all refused after hearing the conditions. You see, I want to make sure that you're ruthless enough to be able to manage in our pack, and that your loyalty belongs to us. So while I'm not going to make you kill any of them, I will give you a choice. Pick one, and that one will be killed. The rest will be released. Pick none and... well, we'll give you a head start. My brothers do love toying with their food.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I was tempted, very much so, to pick Daisy and get it over with. I was fairly confident none of the changelings would ever forgive me, but hey, I didn't exactly like them either. Plus, Lazuli and Poly would be released and safe right? But still, I couldn't do that could I? That'd be just plain evil! But then again, so was killing, and I had done that before as well. Heck, I might have killed a foal even. Sure it'd been an accident, self defense or for the greater good, but was this so much different? Logically, picking one would be the good thing to do as everyone would come out alive! Except for the one I'd pick of course. At the moment I could really use a loophole or master plan to get out of this mess. A crazy pony might offer herself to be the one picked, but I was going one step further, hoping and praying that I could pull off the 'plan' that was forming in the back of my mind. Plan would be too big of a word though, wishful expectation would be better.

I took a deep breath and spoke up. “Why let me pick one? If you really want to test my loyalty you'd let me pull the trigger.” There, I put my bait on the table, now to see if she took it. If she did, whatever way my plan would go, I'd end up killing someone. Who I'd kill would make all the difference.

She stared at me for a moment, and I gave her my blankest stare in return. Honestly, being stared at was a laugh compared to the things some ponies would attempt to get the truth out of you, or at least the 'truth' they wanted. After a short moment of thought, Fang grinned and nodded. “Sure, why not? I figured letting someone else pull the trigger might make it a little easier for ponies to do. It's actually pretty refreshing to see someone wanting to do it themselves. We'll make sure to put you in a different cell for the night, you can do your thing tomorrow morning then.” She made a small, dismissive gesture with her hoof and the two stoic guards next to the entrance stepped next to me in unison. Clearly it was time for me to go. I wasn't finished though. If there was any way for my plan to have a failure chance lower than nine out of ten, there was one last step I had to put in motion.

“Wait!” I yelled, “Uh, I have another request.”

The pegasus raised an eyebrow, seemingly a little annoyed. “Oh really? Well, make it quick then.”

Taking a deep breath, I grinned, hoping to appeal to the more feral side of Fang. “I don't want to execute someone without a fight. I want a duel.”

After a moment of confusion, the cyan pegasus burst out in laughter, the wolf who'd been chewing the skull joining her with loud barks. When she was done she leaned forward, exposing her fangs with a wide smile. “I give you the chance at proving yourself with no risk at all and you insist on a duel to the death? And here I was thinking you were somewhat intelligent.”

“Perhaps I'm just confident of myself and enjoy a mild challenge,” I offered, “and hey, if I fail you know for sure that I was too weak or stupid anyway.”

She shrugged and nodded at the two guards, who directed me to the exit. “Very well then, you'll get your duel in the morning. We'll see if your confidence is justified. Be ready to fight tomorrow, and good luck Ember.”

I smirked as I trotted outside, escorted by the two guards. That was part one of the plan, getting in the position to have plenty of freedom of movement, hopefully getting rid of that horn inhibitor, and getting my hooves on a weapon. The second part... Well I had to work that out still, and it would highly depend on the situation, but the goal was to cut off the head of the beast to sow chaos, and then gallop as quickly as possible from a horde of frenzied wolves... I never said it was a good plan! Now I just had to find a way to inform my opponent of this plan and make sure he or she wouldn't kill me outright. I supposed I could just tell them when I got back and when there wasn't anyone around. Something bugged me though, something Fang had said to me. I couldn't quite figure out what it was though.

During my musings and planning, I had been hoofed over to my original escort group. This time I just followed them, not too fond of being dragged over the floor. When we returned to the cages I was put in a seperate one, just like Fang had told me. The others, and Lazuli in particular, looked at me in concern, but I turned my back on her. The last thing I wanted was to let one of the gang members hear me talk about my plan, so I decided to wait until it was night.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

When the light had faded and we were left alone in the pitch black darkness of the forest I turned to face the cages of the others. In my paranoia I had been listening for what seemed like an hour before daring to speak up, having made as sure as I could that there were no others listening in. “Laz?” I whispered, hoping that she was still up and awake.

“Ember? What did they do to you?”

I gave her a short briefing of where they'd brought me and what Sharp Fang's proposal was. She listened silently, until the moment where I said, “I accepted.”

“You did what?!” She forgot to keep her voice down and I cringed, doing my best to shush her.

“Wait, hear me out, I've got a plan to get out of here.” I begged while staring intently around. The complete darkness was only broken by a faint gloom from the direction of the main camp, but even that was near impossible to notice unless you knew where to look.

After a small pause, Lazuli agitatedly whispered back, “It'd better be a good one this time.” That was a bit of a low blow, but she did have a point. I didn't exactly have a good track record when it came to planning and Lazuli had first-hoof experience in that.

“I'm... I'm not completely sure it'll work, it's a gamble, but the alternative was becoming dog food. And not just me, but all of us.” Honestly I mostly cared for Lazuli and Poly, since they were the closest to me and because it was my fault they were into this mess respectively. I wouldn't let any changeling get killed on purpose, and seeing them get killed would probably have some impact on me, but I was still more than a tad bitter about the whole deceiving thing.

“Ember... you better have put together the best thought-out plan in the history of Equestria.” She sounded dead serious, and again I couldn't blame her for being as cautious as she was.

“Uhm,” I started, “I hope so. See, I managed to convince her to let me duel the pony I point out. So if the two of us do some kind of fake fight, hopefully we can get our hooves on some weapons and kill Fang. Then, without a leader, there will be a lot of confusion and chaos, I think. That should give me some time to distract them for a bit while you open the cages of the others and we can all get out of here.”

The sound of a hoof coming in contact with a certain somepony's forehead echoed through the forest. For some reason I had the idea that Lazuli was not too fond of my plan. “Ember... I... I don't know where to start. Do you realize how much of your so called plan relies on assumptions? Who knows if we'll be able to get weapons? Who knows whether we'll be able to kill Fang? Who knows how the wolves and ponies will react? Who says that the first thing they do won't be tearing us to tiny pieces? What made you think this was a good plan at all?!” Yes, my assumptions were confirmed, Lazuli did not like my ideas.

But then, what else could we do? “And the alternative? If you have a better idea, then please, tell me, cause I don't want to end up as dog food!” I growled back at her.

“We should have waited it out, see what their weak spots are, when and where the guards patrol, find a way to escape on our own, unseen, without putting our lives at risk by some gamble. In short, we should be patient. Tell her tomorrow that you don't want to fight, that you changed your mind, maybe that'll work.” Lazuli hissed back.

“Actually, we might have a shot at this,” a third voice chimed in. It took me a moment to recognize it as Boomer, the changeling who had previously disguised himself as a pegasus. “Pick me and I can turn back. I bet they won't expect a changeling flying around and blasting around with my magic.”

Before either me or Lazuli could respond, a fourth voice interrupted. I instantly recognized this one as Daisy's. “That's a stupid idea, and if we try that I should be picked. When was the last time you fed, Boomer?” She didn't wait for a response and continued, “I'm stocked up, thanks to Ember. And no offense Laz, but I think we have a slightly better shot with Ember's plan. This is a one time opportunity, and we don't know what they'll do to us if we keep waiting longer.”

I blushed quite a bit at Daisy's mention of me having 'supplied' her, and at the same time felt annoyed that she had to bring it up. In response I made a snide remark, “Picking you, Daisy? I suppose that'll make it a lot easier to 'pretend' to fight.”

“...I still think it's a very dangerous idea,” Lazuli remarked, “but if you want to attempt it go ahead. Just remember to be careful okay? The both of you. Oh and Daisy, you don't need to pick Ember's side to try and feel less guilty, if you feel guilty at all. Just so you know.”

“I'm not!” Daisy called out. “I just think it's our best shot, honestly.” It didn't sound entirely convincing to me though. I couldn't tell whether I wanted it to be the truth or not though. If she was telling the truth she was probably not feeling guilty which would make me hate her more, and if she was lying then I would feel guilty for making her put her life at risk. Great, this was one of those situations, one which was designed to make me feel suckish either way.

One way or another, we had a plan, now we just had to act on it. “Anyway,” I said, “let's just get some sleep. Tomorrow I'll pick Daisy and she'll distract the gang members while I get the rest of you out of there.” It seemed simple, but even I could see that there were still things unaccounted for. Like, how were we going to get Poly out of here? If I listened intently I could hear her calm breaths. If we couldn't get her awake there was probably no way we would ever be able to carry her out of there, even without being chased by wolves. I hoped that we could figure something out. For now I couldn't do anything but follow my own advice and get some rest, so I did, if staring up to the ceiling of a cage is considered resting at least.

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The next morning we were awoken early. One by one the others were taken out of our cages and led into the forest, until I was the only one left. They even gathered a small army to drag the snoring Poly off. I had hoped they would make the others watch, so it was a small relief knowing that part of the plan went well. For me, Fang herself came to bring me along. “Ready for your big moment?” she seemed in a peculiarly joyful mood. I guessed she quite liked the prospect of a duel and bloodshed.

In return to her question I gave a smirk. If all went well, there would be bloodshed, just not of a pony she expected. “Yeah! I'm pumped, let's do this!” No I wasn't. I was nervous, concerned and afraid. There was no backing off now though, it was way too late for that.

I was led to a clearing in the forest, surrounded by a small crowd of wolves and ponies. On the far end, each bound to a tree by thick ropes, were the others. Sharp Fangs led me around a small, fenced off arena to the ponies and changelings, stopping a couple of meters in front of them. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as I waited for the cyan pegasus to speak up.

She herself waited a couple of seconds, looking around until the forest went absolutely silent. The edges of her mouth curled up into a grin and she spoke up. “Welcome everyone! Today we will demonstrate what happens to anyone who dares to oppose our might! And who knows, perhaps we will welcome a new member by the end of it. Who wants to see bloooood?!” She burst out in laughter as her family howled and screamed for bloodshed, their combined roar echoing in all directions. I chuckled along, trying to stay in my role.

Once she was done, she waited a moment until everyone had gone silent again before turning to me. Sharp Fangs gestured to my friends, bound to the trees, and asked me sweetly, “So Ember, who did you pick?”

I felt everyone's attention on me as I took a deep breath and pointed at Daisy. “Her.” Daisy and the others looked absolutely shocked while Lazuli hung her head and Poly kept snoring.

Then, several things happened in short succession. Firstly, Fangs smirked at me and patted me on the head while she whispered, “None of them told me your name, Ember.” Then, while I attempted to process that piece of random information, she drew a revolver.

Gears spun in my head, my mind racing to figure out what was going on and what she meant. Nobody told her my name, so what? But how did she know my name then? Wait, she said none of us, so that would mean that someone else had, and couldn't she talk with those wolves? But that would mean they had been spying on us, and that would mean... Oh fuck, she knew what our plan was all alo-BANG!

Before I could do anything the revolver went off, and my first reaction was to be relieved it wasn't me who was shot. My second one was a mixture of disbelief, terror and anger as I saw who had been on the receiving end of the bullet. Against the tree were previously Daisy had been bound was now the lifeless body of a weird, black insectoid pony. Its horn, mane, ears and limbs already had numerous odd holes, but I doubted the one where one of its eyes should be was intended, especially considering the dark green blood gushing out of the hole.

I turned away from the dead changeling, hardly noticing the screams, howls and laughs coming from all around me, and I did the first thing that came in my mind: plunging my horn into Sharp Fangs' side. As I felt her muscles twitch and her warm blood spill across my forehead I yelled. It wasn't something coherent like, 'Don't touch my friends!' or anything resembling that. No, it was a roar, fueled by anger and pure, unbridled hatred. I noticed she attempted to beat me off of her with her wings and could feel her fangs scraping at my neck, but I was having none of that. An extra thrust of my neck, a twist of my head and my horn was buried into her from tip to base. It wasn't enough though, and right now I felt particularly sadistic.

Pulling out my horn halfway, I felt the inhibitor slide off and laughed. A moment later her scream pierced my ears and I took out my horn completely, done with Sharp Fangs. I was up to speed again, free and very willing to burn every last one of my enemies. Luckily for me and my friends I hadn't gone completely mad yet though, and as I glanced around I saw at least a dozen ponies and wolves closing in on me. Even if I could pull off something like in the slavercamp again I didn't want to with Lazuli, Poly and the other changelings so close. So instead of being stupid and engaging them all I picked one at random, charged him and tackled him to the ground while setting his head on fire. I rolled away, got up and started galloping, headed towards the tents. According to the plan I was now being a distraction, but the only thing on my mind was getting my hooves on a weapon, preferably my flamer. Oh how I'd love to burn this whole forest to the ground!

Somehow I managed to stay ahead of my pursuers. Apparently it helped that I blasted a bunch of fireballs at trees as I passed them, slowing them down and buying myself some extra time. When I reached the tents I also made sure to set fire on the biggest one, just because I could, before searching the other ones. I was lucky, and found the armoury on my second attempt. Thanking the weird donkey for teaching me, I equipped my flamer and stepped outside again. There I saw five wolves who had positioned themselves to make sure I couldn't escape. That was fine, I had no intention of running anymore. To my amusement I noticed the one who I charred heavily before was among them, along with the two 'little brothers' of Sharp Fangs. Good.

I was still standing at the entrance of the tent, the wolves in half a circle around me, just out of reach of my flamer. They were smart, and knew that I was slow and could only point at one of them at a time. Every time I pointed at one, he would back off a little while the others advanced. My mind seemed to work overtime, thinking of a way to break the impasse and turn it to my advantage. I could attempt to shoot a fireball or two at them, pick them off one by one, but that might give them an opening to attack while I charged up the second ball. Hmm, I wondered if... Yes, yes that might work. That might work perfectly and very lethally. Now to ensure they'd be taken by surprise.

Luckily for me, the stupidest thing to do is often the least expected, and I was good at doing stupid things. Hence why I charged forward, screaming and spewing flames from my flamer. The wolf I charged at easily jumped back from the flames, and the others circled around me, quickly closing in. I was trapped and about to be ripped to pieces by wolves, so I laughed like the maniac I was when I saw my improvised tactic work. I could actually control flames other than my own, magical ones, and I just created a fuel tank's worth of flames. Without even looking I turned the floating flame, controlled by my magical aura, in a ring around me. The wolves had been too greedy, too close to their prey and when they realized the flames were coming their way it was too late. Their howls of terror sounded like music to my ears, and when I glanced over to see them rolling across the ground in desperate attempts to extinguish the flames my laughing only got louder.

“BURN BITCHES!” I yelled while reloading my flamer like I'd been taught. The only wolf standing now was the one that I'd charged, coincidentally the 'brother' of Sharp Fangs, the one who'd been playing with the bones to be precise. He growled deeply at me, baring his teeth and ready to strike. I wasn't intimidated. I was angry, and burning things, and it felt great. I could take this puppy easily, especially with my new trick. “BOO!” I laughed as I let out a jet from my flamer, taking over the flames and directing them towards the wolf.

I wasn't the only one who liked to do unexpected things as it turned out. This was demonstrated by the wolf leaping at me, giving no fucks at being set on fire, and hitting me head on, sending the both of us tumbling over the ground. I did my best to keep the claws and fangs at bay, but the wolf was strong, stronger than me. He tried going for my neck again, and I somehow thought that if I'd wake up from being choked again it would be as chewing toy. Naturally I had no interest in such a fate so I did my absolute best to fight back, trying to stab him with my horn and burn him with my magic. Together we rolled into the armoury tent, which was currently on fire. I briefly wondered if the wolf even cared about surviving himself, or if all he cared about was getting me killed. It sure seemed to be the latter!

Politely disagreeing with his point of view, I desperately tried to end the fight before we would both get killed. Then I realized we were in a tent with more weapons than just a flamer. Once more I was extremely glad I was a unicorn and was able to simply grab the closest weapon and unload it at the wolf's face, a procedure which had to be repeated two times before I he stopped biting me. I supposed that was pretty difficult when your lower jaw was blown off by a point blank shotgun burst.

As quickly as I could I scrambled out of the tent and galloped out of there, trying to find my way back to the others. My search was made a lot more difficult by the fireballs I had shot when running away from the clearing. I apparently had forgotten about the fact that trees tended to burn, and now I found myself in the middle of a growing forest fire. How useful that I now knew how to magic those flames out of my way huh?

When I arrived on the clearing I saw, in short, chaos. Ponies and wolves were trying to fight two changelings in their natural forms while further ahead I saw two identical ponies fight one another. Lazuli had escaped as well and was taking out gang ponies one by one. The tree Poly had been attached to was fallen and then dragged for a couple of meters, the hulking pony herself being nowhere to be found. The fire I had started was spreading quickly, starting to surround the open spot. I jumped in, setting anything on fire that wasn't Lazuli or a changeling as I made my way towards the others.

“EMBER! WHAT THE HELL?!” Lazuli screamed over the screams and howls around us.

I looked around and laughed. “FIRE!” I yelled back. “EVERYTHING IS FIRE!” For some reason Lazuli did not seem amused in the slightest.

“We need to get out of here, now!” She turned to the changelings flying around and the pair of identical ponies. “Let's go!” That made me a little sad, I didn't want to go yet, not before I had burned the whole forest down. The reasoning that it would be a bad idea to burn something down you're still inside of went past me.

One of the two identical ponies took the head of the other and snapped her neck. I had a feeling this was Eclipse. She seemed to burn up in green flames as she turned back to a changeling, before taking to the air. From behind Lazuli an unknown stallion galloped up. I was about to incinerate him when he too turned into a changeling again. The final two joined us as well, occasionally blasting at the enemies. Damn, it looked like we were leaving anyway. With an exaggerated groan I turned to Lazuli. In my last attempt to stall I asked, “We can't go! I haven't burned everything yet! Oh, and Poly isn't here!”

I was rewarded with a hoofslap on my cheek. “Snap out of it! We're leaving, now! That Poly was scared of the fire and ran away. There's no way we're going to find her now anymore!”

I stared at her in surprise for a couple of seconds. “Wait what?” We were really going to leave like that? But then again, hadn't that been the plan, to escape? Before Daisy was killed? Oh fuck, Daisy. I looked over to the tree she'd been tied to, my chest feeling like it was squeezed together.

“EMBER!” Lazuli basically screaming in my ear brought my attention back to her. “We. Are. Leaving. Now.” She pointed towards the forest, the part that wasn't on fire yet. The four remaining changelings had already cleared the way, which wasn't that difficult with everyone running around in panic. I felt a faint pride in the chaos I'd created, thought it was dwarfed by the cocktail of emotions and adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Figuring that it would be a terrible idea to piss off Lazuli even more, I nodded and followed her in full gallop. As we ran, I felt the rush from before slowly dissipate. The more the adrenaline wore off, the sharper I felt the stings of pain with every step. It was nothing I couldn't endure, but it worried me to think of how it would be by the time this was all over.

We ran and ran until we finally left the trees behind us. The howls and screams of trapped ponies and wolves were slowly dying out, along with their sources. Nobody seemed to care about fighting us anymore and the couple of stragglers who managed to make it out either ignored us or fled away.

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Also it turned out I was right about my injuries stinging and itching like crazy. When inspecting myself, it turned out I had gathered quite a bunch of gashes, scratches and burns, the majority having stopped bleeding at least. So I turned to the changelings, unsure who was who, “Uh, Soft Touch? I could use some help.”

In return, I got an angry look from all four of them. “You do realize that your plan just lost me one of my closest friends? Cause it appears you don't. If I were you Ember, I would think very carefully about your next words.”

I felt my ears drop and glanced at Lazuli, hoping for some kind of support. She was ignoring all of us though by staring off, away from me. I turned back and shook my head. “I... I didn't want her to die. I didn't like her, but I didn't want her to die. It shouldn't have gone like this! Sharp Fangs, she didn't hold up to the deal... She heard us talk about the plan, or those wolves did!”

One of the insectoids bared its teeth and hissed at me. “If you hadn't wanted her to die, you shouldn't have gambled with her life!”

“But she volunteered for it!” I countered.

“She volunteered after you manipulating her into feeling guilty, like she owed you something! You said that she used you, but you used her as well and out of the two of you, only you survived!”

“But I didn't mean for her to die!” I cried out before looking over to Lazuli, hoping to get some support. “Laz?”

She turned around, looked back at me, and shook her head gently. “No. You didn't mean for her to die. Nor did you mean for Lapis to die, nor for Poly to go missing. But it happened, and I warned you. You didn't listen, and now we're here. I... I want to sympathize with you, but you're making that really hard on me. I don't want to be your babysitter, and you should make your own decisions, but you will not ever gamble with someone else's life again.” She paused for a moment, giving me the opportunity to let it all sink in. They were upset about what happened and I had set everything in motion, making me the one responsible. It didn't feel fair, but then again, my actions hadn't been very fair towards them either. Next time I would just let Lazuli save the day. At least she managed to do that without killing friendlies.

I nodded, closing my eyes, and Lazuli addressed the changelings. “It'd be for the best to just move on and leave one another.”

“Yes. That would be for the best. We need some time to get set up again. Oh, and Ember,” I looked up to them, “, thanks for getting us out of there. We still don't forgive you for what happened to Daisy, but at least you're not a complete failure.” And just like that, without waiting for a response, they turned and walked away. Great, that left me feeling even more conflicted, wanting to argue back that yes, I did save their asses. But I knew that they'd respond with reminding me I hadn't saved all asses. I supposed that it was for the best, to just walk away.

I looked back at Lazuli, who avoided returning my gaze and started walking in the opposite direction. “Let's go.” was all she said. So I followed, head hung low and legs itching.

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I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you very much Nyerguds and Bonshea for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!

Chapter 1: Memories

Ashes to ashes - Chapter 1

Memories

“Mommy?”

“It’s okay sweetie, everything’s gonna be okay. Now remember, we’re playing a little game ok?”

“Yes mommy, hide and seek.”

“Good girl, now why don’t you hide under the bed? I bet nopony would ever find you there.”

The filly smiled and snuck under the bed. She had a bright red coat and an orange mane. Everypony always told her she looked like a little flame. She pondered about what her mommy had said. She was right, nopony would find her under the bed, especially not the new ponies in town. She was a bit sad that she couldn’t join the party outside, but her mother had insisted on playing the game when she had seen them. And since mommy controlled the sweets, the smartest thing to do was to listen.

Besides, the filly thought, it seemed as if the party would be coming to her! The sounds from outside were getting louder by the minute. It was a bit weird that the sounds weren’t from cheering ponies, as one would expect at a party, but rather lots of bangs. She mentally shrugged, maybe they had firecrackers. That would be great! She loved firecrackers, even thought she had seen them only once. But judging by the sounds, the party ponies had lots of them!

Her mother, who had a similar colour scheme as her filly, only darker, had also noticed the sounds getting closer.

“Stay here honey, mommy’s going to take a look downstairs real quick.”

The filly nodded and crept deeper under the bed.

While the mare was away, the foal noticed that the party ponies were running out of firecrackers as the sounds from outside died out. She was a little upset about this, she had really wanted to see the fireworks. Silently she hoped that they had saved some for her.

The filly bumped her head into the bed when suddenly there were a couple more bangs, these ones were much louder then before.

She was rubbing her head when her mommy came in the room, locking the door behind her.
The mare looked differently: her own red colour was mixed with a darker shade on her haunches, like somepony had thrown a bucket of paint over her.

When she saw the confused look in her fillies eyes, the mare made an honest attempt at a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry sweetie. Now, do you remember the new ponies we’re playing hide and seek with?”

The filly nodded.

“Well, they have found me and they will be here soon. So when they get here I want you to stay hidden as best as you can, do you understand?”

The filly nodded and chuckled, her mom obviously wasn't good in hide and seek if she had been found so soon. It was a perfect opportunity for the foal to prove herself to be better then her mother.

“That’s my filly, I love you so much. Now remember, whatever happens, make sure they do not find you. So no moving or talking, okay?”

Once again, she nodded.

From the other side of the door, muffled stallion voices sounded.

“Where did that bitch go? Search every room!”

The mare grabbed something in her mouth. The filly didn’t know what it was called, but she did know that her parents had gotten upset when she had tried levitating it. She was told that it wasn’t a toy and that it was very dangerous for her. This made her wonder why her mommy would be holding it in her mouth. She was about to ask her when somepony tried to open the door. Remembering her promise, she crept back as far as possible. As the mare saw her filly crawl under the bed, a tear escaped her eye and she gulped.

More voices turned her attention back to the door.

“Boss, this door is locked.”

“What are you waiting for? For her to open it? Fucking shoot it open!”

The filly heard a loud bang and saw the door slam open. They had saved some firecrackers after all! She saw lots of hooves on the other side of the door opening. Then she heard lots of bangs and screams. From her position underneath the bed she saw several bodies, belonging to the hooves in the door opening, fall down on the floor.

One of the party ponies had leaped into the room and had fallen just in front of the bed. The filly panicked when she looked directly at his face. Surely he would spot her from the floor. She held her breath and made herself as small as possible while she kept staring at the stallion. His eyes were wide open but didn’t move.

The trance broke when a familiar voice’s shriek pierced the air.

“Mommy?” The filly whispered as her attention was turned towards the hooves of her mother.
Soon the hooves were joined by the rest of the mare’s body as she fell on the floor. There was even more red paint smeared over here and she was breathing funny.

The rest of the hooves trotted closer towards the mare.

“Not so tough now huh?”

“Too bad you didn’t surrender, you’re pretty though. You would have made a good slave.”

“Boss, what should we do with her?”

“Whatever you like, but make it quick, we gotta round up the rest of the slaves.”

One set of hooves trotted back towards the door, the rest closed in on the mare.

“You gave us a hard time, allow us to return the favour.” One of the voices chuckled.

With her last strength, the mare turned her head towards the bed and looked at her daughter. She cried as she looked at her filly underneath the bed.

“Mommy? What’s wrong?” The filly forgot to keep her voice low at the sight of her crying mother.

Instantly all sets of hooves turned towards the bed. One of them stepped closer and stopped right in front of it. A tar black stallion’s face appeared, half covered by a snow white mane and sporting a wide grin.

“Well well, what do we have here? A straggler?” He turned his attention back towards the mother. “No wonder you kept on going so long, you’ve been trying to keep this little brat safe. Too bad you died for nothing, how does it feel, dying while knowing you’ve failed?” He let out a loud laugh.
The dark red mare tried with all her might to glare the black buck to death. It didn’t work.

“Now now, don’t be upset. We’ll take real good care of the little brat.”

The filly felt herself being pulled away from under the bed. That wasn’t fair! She started screaming and kicking in order to make her point clear. The only thing she accomplished was making the buck laugh harder. She was floated out of the door. The stallion stopped in the opening.

“Now say goodbye to your mommy, you won’t see her again.”

Confused she looked at her mommy. Her mother’s eyes were wide with fear. Her beautiful, tear-filled, amber eyes. The filly didn’t want to go away from her.

She screamed.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I screamed.

I opened my eyes and looked around me. It took my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness. Next to me, several ponies were laying on filthy mattresses, covered in all sorts of dirt. All of them were wearing metal collars, slave collars, I remembered as I rubbed my own. For years it had been chafing, itching, choking and cutting me.

I hated it.

I hated being a slave, being nothing more than a tool to everypony else. Just something they could use and then discard. I’ve had many masters but in the end I always ended up here again, Old Appleloosa. The things they’d made me do were sickening but there was one thing I hated more than all of that.

I hated myself.

If I had just listened to my mother and stayed silently under the bed, nopony would have ever found me. My mother’s sacrifice wouldn’t have been in vain and the last thing she would have seen wouldn’t have been her filly being carried away screaming.

That is why I hadn’t spoken a word since that day. I owed it to her. The only sounds that came from my mouth were the screams whenever I had another nightmare. My earlier masters sometimes would test me to see if I really was mute, at first they would get a reaction from me but as I grew older, I got used to the pain and humiliation. The last time somepony provoked a reaction from me was a long time ago. This little act of defiance kept me going.

“Are you all right?”

The voice came from the mattress next to me. I realized I was still sitting and quickly laid down again, ignoring the question.

“That must have been a really bad dream. Or perhaps a memory.”

The voice was from a stallion, probably the new buck. A dark blue unicorn, a couple years older than me. Most of the other slaves minded their own business. Occasionally one would try to approach me, attempting to start a conversation. They would first say something like ‘I know how you feel’ and then start about how you shouldn’t be facing your problems on your own. Then they would explain how they could comfort me. When I wouldn’t respond, they would get frustrated and reveal their true intentions of ‘stress relief’. After swearing at me for a while, most would just give up. Unfortunately some took my silence as a challenge and would try to force themselves upon me.

The way my masters tested to see if I really was mute was most often by heavy beatings. This gave me a lot of first hoof experience on pony anatomy. I quickly learned what my vulnerable spots were, how a quick punch in a specific location could make you curl up in pain.

I was always happy to share those lessons.

After a while, only new arrivals bothered to speak to me. Usually I would just ignore them until the other slaves told them about me.

This guy was different though. For the last week he had been trying to start a conversation with me. The only reason he wasn’t curled up and crying right now was because he was always polite and never tried to approach me. The others had told him to give up but he was stubbornly going on. I had of course stubbornly kept my mouth shut, trying my best not to acknowledge his existence.

My scream had been the first sound I had made this week. I cursed myself for showing that sign of weakness.

“You know, you remind me of myself when I was younger. After I lost my father I locked myself into my room and didn’t let anypony in. I just laid on my bed, staring at the ceiling.”

I turned around to face him.

“The next day my mother came in. She didn’t say anything, she just trotted over to me and gave me a hug. I let all of my pain come out and cried. After crying for what felt like hours, I felt better. I know how difficult it is to deal with sorrow, but you have to find a way to let it go. And the best way to do that is to talk about it. My name is Stargazer, what’s yours?”

I looked at him and noticed my vision had become blurred. I brought a hoof to my eyes and was surprised to find out I had been crying. The last time I had cried was... um... long ago. So long I couldn’t even remember.

After several seconds of being completely stunned I realized Stargazer was still waiting for an answer. Looking back at him, I felt my cheeks grow hot. On the one hoof, I had promised myself to never speak again. But on the other, he wasn’t my enemy, and I felt that I owed him an answer after trusting me with his story.

“Ember” I muttered before bringing my hooves to my mouth. Wow. Did I just? Yes I did. Does my voice really sound like that? I remembered it more... fillylike. Well of course it sounded different now, I wasn’t a filly anymore. Wait, why did I just talk? I hadn’t even made a decision yet. Were was my self control? What was I thinking? I found myself breathing hard and fast, the collar cutting in my neck at every gasp.

“Well, pleased to meet you Ember.” I focused back at Stargazer as I managed to get my breathing under control. Then a sudden realization dawned on me. Since I hadn’t spoken in all those years, Stargazer was the only pony alive to know my name. Even the slavers didn’t know nor cared for what my name was and simply called me all sorts of names, none of which really flattering. And there was the breathing again.

My thoughts were interrupted by Stargazer waving his hoof in front of my face. I realized I must have looked like a complete foal then and tried to bury my head in shame. I quickly turned around and curled up again. By focusing on my breathing I finally managed to get it under control again.

Without warning, Stargazer touched me. I lashed out at him when I suddenly realized he was hugging me. I tried to stop halfway and the result must have looked pretty funny for anypony watching us. Looking around, I saw several slaves observing us, amused and surprised expressions on their faces. Embarrassed, I curled up again. When Stargazer laid his leg on my shoulder again, I instinctively winced, but I kept lying. Once I got used to the feeling, it actually felt kinda nice.

I closed my eyes and relaxed a bit. Slowly I drifted of to sleep.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

“Wake up you useless pieces of shit!” The unpleasant voice of a slaver mare pierced my ears.
“Try to at least look like you’re worth something. We’ve got important customers today!”

I tried to stand up but was thrown off balance by an unfamiliar weight on my back. Panicking I threw it off and jumped up. When I looked back I saw Stargazer waking up. The events of the night before came back to me and I felt my cheeks blush at my panic attack. Stargazer gave me a reassuring smile when he came up though.

Our attention was drawn towards the door as a dozen of slavers entered. They arranged us into several lines. Once we were all neatly lined up, a griffin entered, who I assumed was the customer.

My assumptions were proven to be correct when she spoke up: “So, this is the merchandise? I do hope they are in good condition. Red Eye doesn’t like to pay for broken ware.” Even though I was used to it, I still hated being talked about as if I were an object.

The lead slaver responded: “Of course they are. I would never try to sell anything of poor quality. You know what, I’ll even give you a receipt.” He chuckled at his own joke but quickly stopped when he saw the glare from the griffin. “Heh-heh uh. Right, um, if you would follow me miss.”

They went on to inspect the slaves, stopping by everypony while the lead slaver told the griffin about any ‘faults’ they had. Several minutes later the two arrived to me.

“This one doesn’t talk but she will follow orders no problem.”

“A mute? We already have one of those. Oh well, as long as she follows orders” She inspected me carefully. “Well, well, you don’t see that everyday. A fully grown pony without a cutiemark.”

I twitched at the mention of my blank flank. Being a slave didn’t give much opportunities to explore ones talent so I had never gotten mine. Sometimes I fantasized about what cutiemark would have been if I hadn’t been a slave. Of course, my previous masters had seen my flank as well and some had tried to ‘help’ me find it. It often involved humiliating tasks and every time I completed the task I was glad to not have a permanent reminder of it on my flank.

They moved on to the next pony, who happened to be Stargazer. I listened carefully, curious about what they had to say about him.

“And here we have a new arrival, not too bright, considering we caught him trotting about the wasteland on his own, but he is tough though. Perfectly suitable for some heavy labor.”

I heard the griffin stopping for a second, before continuing to the next one. What had Stargazer been doing, all alone in the wasteland?

After completing the round, the griffin stopped by the door and addressed all of us: “Okay you lot, from now on, you’re all workers for the great Red Eye. Now get ready, in an hour we’ll be on our way to Fillydelphia.”

Oh well, it was about time I got to stretch my legs.

An hour later I was outside together with about twenty other slaves, neatly in a two pony thick row. We were guarded by a dozen guards, some at the back, some at our flanks and a group in the front. I could make out the silhouettes of several griffins flying above us.

A shout from the leader was our cue to move, so we walked out of the town. I didn’t bother looking back.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Okay, I take the thing about stretching my legs back. After two days of walking, I had grown thoroughly tired of it. Luckily it was almost time to stop for the night.

Half an hour later we set up camp. The slaves were driven into a small circle, surrounded by the guards. The strongest slaves had been carrying several tents, which were set up around a campfire. After getting some grey sludge for dinner I lay down next to Stargazer.

In the last couple of days, we had grown closer and I had started to trust him. He was like a big brother to me. Every night he told me stories, it didn’t matter that I never said anything back, he was happy to talk, and I was happy to listen. He had told me about his past, how he had been interested in science and left his home to join the steel rangers as a scribe, how he hadn’t been comfortable with the way they treated innocent wastelanders, which ultimately led to his desertion. That was when the slavers had found him. He told me to always follow my own heart, and that he respected it if I kept silent. During a story he would hug me. It felt safer with him around and I hadn’t had any nightmares anymore. Exhausted from the long day of walking, I was already falling asleep when an unpleasant voice violated my ears.

“Hey you two, lovebirds, no cuddling between slaves!”

Annoyed, I looked around for the source of the sound. It turned out to be one of the guards, a green unicorn mare with spiked hair and, more importantly, a shotgun which was pointed at us. Grudgingly I stood up and walked to the other side of the circle, where I laid down. The wasteland made an uncomfortable mattress and I had gotten used to Stargazers leg around me. However the exhaustion from walking all day long caught up with me and I was fast asleep in no time.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I woke up screaming, waking everypony in the camp. They weren’t very happy that I had interrupted their sleep and I got the opportunity to learn a whole lot of new swears. I was about to lay down again when I suddenly found myself staring into the barrel of a shotgun. I gulped and looked at its owner whom I recognized as the guard from the previous night.

“I was having a really nice dream.” She sounded angry. “Watch. Your. Step. Lovebird.”

Shotguns can be either fun or terrifying, depending on which end you are standing. Since I was on the wrong end, I acted very carefully. Sure there were times when I wished the slavers would just kill me, but right now my brain told me that it preferred to stay inside my skull. With my eyes fixed on the barrel, I slowly nodded. She took the shotgun and trotted back to one of the tents. I let out a sigh of relief and laid down again. Once the adrenaline wore off, I quickly fell asleep again.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

In the morning everypony was a bit more grumpy than normal and a lot of them, slaves and slavers alike, shot me glares. After the slavers had gotten their breakfast, we were herded towards a large pot. An earth pony with the remains of some dead bug as cutiemark was handing out bowls containing our 'breakfast'.

Truth is, when something broke, the slavers would use the same stuff to hold it together. But hey, we were about to walk for a whole day so I had no right to complain. I grabbed my bowl (the slaves weren't allowed to use magic) and turned around, only to bump into a familiar green face. the collision made me drop my bowl, spilling its contents in the dirt. The upside of the grey sludge being so sticky was that it stayed together when spilled. That is, until a hoof stomped onto it.

“Oh, was that your breakfast?” The guard mare smirked and trotted away. I stared at the remains of the food. Right on cue, my stomach grumbled. Great, just great.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

Halfway through the day it had started raining. Now it was nearing nightfall again and we were setting up camp in the small puddles that had formed. Somehow I had managed to survive. Counting rocks had taken my mind off of my stomach even though it had made me nearly trip several times.

After everything had been set up and the slavers had gotten their dinner, it was our turn to eat. I nearly choked on my glue-ball but my stomach was thankful. Walking to the circle in the centre of the camp I hesitated: should I go to Stargazer, sleep without nightmares but disobey the bully guard. Or should I sleep by myself, obey the guard but risk having another nightmare and waking everypony up again. I decided that the slaver mare could go buck herself and went over to Stargazer.

I was already falling asleep when I heard a click just behind my head. Turning around I was greeted with a familiar sight: the barrel of a shotgun. Really, this was getting old.

The slaver mare glared at me. “What did I tell you about not sleeping with him? Now get up and walk!”

Stargazer stood up next to me. “Hold on, if she sleeps alone, she’ll get another nightmare and wake everypony up again.”

She turned the shotgun towards him. “You stay out of this. If your mare-friend screams again, she will be punished accordingly.”

“First of all, she isn’t my mare-friend, she is my friend and she needs me. Secondly, why are you picking on her? She hasn’t done anything wrong to you!” That’s it Star, you tell her!

“Oh really? She is not your mare-friend? Then get your flank up and follow me to my tent so you can prove it.”

Wait what? She was hitting on Stargazer? Why didn’t she just order him to come with her? Was she actually jealous of me? I couldn't help but snicker at the last thought, but was interrupted when Stargazer did something completely unexpected: he spat in the mare’s face.

It took my mind a while to process that. Years of being taught to be obedient had taken away the very idea of such an act of defiance.

Clearly the slaver mare was also taken by surprise. She blinked a couple of times and made some incredibly funny faces. Then she tried to burn Stargazer to the ground with her stare, I swear I saw steam coming from her ears. She was about to say something when I heard something land right behind me.

Startled, I quickly turned around. It was the griffin boss and the look on her face said: I am not amused. She was looked at Stargazer, then at the guard mare, the spit still dripping from just below her right eye.

“I do NOT tolerate disobedience or disrespect and neither does Red Eye!” She boomed. “You will be used as an example of what happens to workers who do not know their place!”

She pointed at Star and several slavers escorted him to the center of the circle. This was not good, I had seen dozens of ‘examples’. Best case scenario would be torture, worst case...
I had to do something! I looked at the green guards mare, hoping she would speak up and tell that it had been her fault. She was grinning. She was actually grinning. I didn’t know a lot about love, but she had been hitting on him less than five minutes ago! Why wasn’t she doing something to help him? I panicked and pushed my way towards the middle, where Stargazer was standing still, surrounded by guards.

The griffin spoke. “You are workers for the glorious Red Eye! He gives you a purpose in life! Protection, shelter, food! All he wants in return is the loyalty and respect he deserves. THIS stallion.” She turned and pointed her claw at Stargazer. “Has chosen to insult his protectors. And I want all of you to know what happens to workers who bite the hoof that feeds them.” Okay, that was all buffalo manure and she knew it. Who would call their slaves workers? As far as I knew, workers were free to go whenever they wanted.

My thoughts were interrupted when she walked over to Star and grabbed him by his throat. As he struggled I saw blood dripping down from where the griffin’s claws were puncturing his skin. She lifted him in the air with one paw, crushing the life out of him. Stargazer. The first pony in years who had been kind enough to honestly care about me. He was dying in front of me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I screamed.

It had become my usual reaction to bad stuff but at least it caught his attention. He looked up and saw me, sobbing and staring at him, and did something that only seemed to make it worse: he smiled. He gave me a reassuring smile as his trashing slowed down and finally stopped. The griffin held him like that for what seemed like an eternity before throwing him down on the ground. “They die.” She finished.

I collapsed on the ground, tears streaming from my eyes. They killed him. They actually fucking killed him. I screamed again, this time it wasn’t a scream of terror, but one of rage. How dared they. What gave them the right to treat us like toys, using us and discarding us when they grew tired of us? I looked around, most of the slaves were staring at me, a lot of the guards as well. I looked further, I saw the tents, the food pot, the campfire.

I kept staring at the campfire, my mind going blank, all of the sounds around me died out, only my emotions remained as i looked at the flames licking at the logs, consuming them. Even though I was pretty far away from it I could see every detail as sharp as if I was standing right next to it.

I stood up, not looking away from the fire. Ponies around me backed up, forming a small circle.

I stared at the flames and felt my horn tingle. I paid it no attention.

Wind blew up my mane, which was strange as it had been wind still all day.

Somepony tried to pull me away but quickly retracted his hoof.

My vision became a bit blurred as a fog appeared around me. I looked down to find the rain puddles boiling but disregarded it and focused on the fire again.

A shotgun floated in front of me. It was surrounded by a green aura which I immediately recognized. I turned to face the slaver guard who had been the cause of Stargazers death. Her face wasn’t as schmuck as I was used to, instead it was filled with terror. I saw her lips moving and I could faintly hear her. “Calm the fuck down!” She was screaming, though it sounded as whispers to me. “He wasn’t important, get over it.”

This only made me angrier. I couldn’t think straight anymore, all I knew was that Stargazer was dead and that it was her fault. And know she said he was not important. “He was important to me.” I whispered. “He was important to me and you took him from me.”
The circle around me grew bigger as ponies slowly backed up, shielding their eyes with their legs.

She stared at me in confusion for a second. “Gee, he was just a slave. Don’t need to get worked up so much about that.”

I remembered everything slavers ever did to me. I could see the faces of the slavers that broke into my room when I was a filly. I saw them laughing as my mother died in front of me. I saw them take me away, selling me to the highest bidder: an old filthy stallion who liked fillies way too much. I saw myself back in Appleloosa after I had become to old for him. I saw half a dozen other masters, each using me like I was nothing more than a tool. I saw myself a couple of days back, when I met Stargazer. A friendly face. I saw the life being crushed out of him, still smiling. I saw a green unicorn mare grinning at the sight.

A couple of things happened at once.

My vision was taken away by an incredibly bright light. I could hear several loud bangs and a lot screams. For some reason I found it very funny that for once I wasn’t the one who was screaming. Suddenly I felt very tired. It was probably for the best to lay down and calm down a bit. Whoops! Without warning, my legs decided to stop working. I was happy to find out that the ground was completely dry. Now if those ponies would just stop screaming so I could just go to sleep. Sleep would be good, hopefully it would get rid of that terrible headache. And maybe that stinging feeling all over my body. I felt myself slowly pass out as the screams around me faded.

./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^./^.

I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively

Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit.

And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!