Fallout of Equestria: Bad Gambit

Chapters

Meet Sunshine
Slavers and Lollipops
Big Money and Headbutting
She's Fantastic.
Just a Fluke

Meet Sunshine

"Ponies don't make themselves heroes. They don't make the right choices, or be forced on to some sort of special path. A hero is made when someone puts that person above others because of what they think of them. Whether what they think is right, or wrong."

I took another tentative step. Nothing changed. Another step. The echoes of the my hoof against the cold steel linings of the Stable floor rang softly, but clearly. Still nothing. Maybe nothing would happen today. Maybe... Another step out into the atrium. Only twelve and a half steps left to the doorway. After that, only sixteen more to the stairwell that would take me down to the sub-basement of level 2 with only twenty one more steps, but none of that mattered. If I could make it out of the atrium... One more step. An ear twitched in the crowd that had gathered for the daily devotions, but the head it was attatched to continued to stare reverently at the Overstallion. Three more steps without interruption. A unicorn in the row closest to the back, and as such to me attempted to cover a yawn with a hoof in an attempt to disguise her boredom, but when a fully grown mare lifts a hoof to her mouth, it is fairly obvious that she is indeed suffocating a yawn and it is a more than reasonable assumption to assume that she would indeed be bored. Six and a half more steps to go. Four more hoofbeats rang true. I glanced back to the audience, almost entirely behind me now, the Overstallion preaching from the Gospel of Moon and Stars, throwing his voice around the room, spinning his simple words into a blur of emotion and story. It really was amazing. I guess. If you're into that kind of thing. I certainly wasn't. I just wanted to complete those two and a half steps to safety.

As I turned back to the doorframe that contained both my dreams and hopes, I took two more dreamy steps. I was almost through. My eyes misted at the thought of what was about to happen. I could feel the faulty Air Fluctuators sending gusts and gutters through the hall, blowing my mane ever so gently, pulling me into the hall. The seed of a grin planted itself on my face as the edges of my mouth began to turn up ever so slightly. Another step...

And safety. I could have laughed out loud. Well, probably. I'd never really done it so I wouldn't know. I turned down the hall and started to skip, yes, skip to the stairway that would lead me back to the haven of my dwelling, where I could be at peace for one more cycle. Hypothetically. I slammed headfirst into a unicorn and fell on my flank in actuality. Fuck me. I was past the threshold of peace. This wasn't supposed to happen. I couldn't move. I fell back onto my back and sighed as I awaited the inevitable.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't think that anybody'd be leaving during the-- Oh! Double-Oh! Sunshine!" And that would be me. Sunshine Lollipops. She gave a playful smirk as she rolled me back onto my stomach and prodded me until I rose. "Missing Devotions again? For shame." She broke out into a fit of giggles that bounced around in my head like the bells of seraphs. My face remained stoic. Devotions were... well, devotions. The whole of the Stable gathered every single day from eleven to about twelve thirty to raise their prayers to the glorious Luna, Queen of the night and Empress of the Stars. Or at least, we were supposed to, but several ponies snuck around other parts of the stable during that time instead. It wasn't mandatory or anything, but it was... just what we did. After the Devotions, there'd be a large communal luncheon full of probably delicious food and amazing punch, prepared out to the goodness of the hearts of whoever'd been feeling particularly generous that day, which tended to be more than we needed. I didn't often get any of course, because of my... occupation.

I was perfect. Really. Amazing at everything. I got a perfect score on my General Occupational Aptitude Test, which is weird because I have been told multiple times that it didn't have a scoring system.

Anyway, being perfect, the Overstallion had had the predicament of deciding what field I'd be forced off into. Naturally, I was never confronted for my opinion. It wouldn't really have mattered anyways. The Overstallion had, in his infinitely finite wisdom decided that it would be best for me to 'Apprentice' at various jobs throughout the Stable, which really meant that whoever I was supposed to be apprenticing under for the day got a half-freeday where I'd do everything for them, and from eleven onwards I was to help out whoever needed help that day, doing oddjobs and whatnot. Generally I ended up being thrown from pony to pony doing favors, covering shifts, and making miracles and whatever else was required of me until I either passed out or was close enough to my room at the end of their task to sneak to bed undetected. After a few years of trial and error, I'd found that the most likely way to get back to my room was to wait until devotions were already started then sneak around the back of the large atrium. It was only my luck that my quarters were on the Overstallion's side of the Stable and as such I had to go through the atrium to return from any of the other departments. Even then, it seemed that all too often, I'd be discovered by one of the worshiping ponies who'd walk over to me discreetly and ask me to report to them later, all the time with a smile on their face while I nodded my solemn agreement.

But every once in a blue moon, I'd get by. I'd make it through that doorway and get to sleep the rest of the day off, or play games or read or just enjoy laziness. Which brings me to my current predicament.

"So, has anyone snagged you for the afternoon yet?" I shook my head. She grinned brightly. It was like the blessing of Luna herself to be able to gaze upon such a beautiful smile. No one could resist the charms of Clean Cut. I grimaced. "Good. In that case, report to the medical office at thirteen hundred, soldier!" She spoke robustly, her voice taking on a 'gruff' tone as she barked orders playfully and hopped off giggling, red and yellow twisted tail bouncing, Scalpel cutie mark shining brilliantly, blissfully ignorant to my internal turmoil.

Oh well, I consoled myself. At least the medical office was more fun than maintenance, and there was a certain satisfaction to helping someone to get better. And, another part of my mind added, there'd be a nice flank to stare at even if it did turn out to be something un-fun. I nodded to myself and glanced at my pipbuck. 11:31. Might as well go to devotions and get something to eat for once, if I was already promised to be somewhere. Maybe that'd get ponies off my flank for a few minutes. Probably not.

* * *

A hour and a half and six random requests later I walked through the door of the medical office. Clean Cut was glaring at some paperwork, frowning as her butter colored horn produced magic a shade lighter to shuffle through the papers while holding a quill adjacent, ready to mark should it be needed. I clopped twice on the doorframe to let her know I'd arrived. Her eyes twinkled as she looked up, another smile slipping onto her face. Not a 'Oh, I'm glad to see you' smile, but rather a 'Guess who's going to be doing my work' type of smile. Naturally. She flipped her hair and readjusted her lab coat as she signaled for me to come in.

"Ready for something fun?" She tittered, bright eyes staring directly into mine.

Bullshit.

"That's right, I've got a whole mountain of paperwork to do, and I have asked you here today so that you could assist me in my noble endeavor." Her voice turned to a sophisticated Trottingham twinge as she put a hoof to chest like something out of an old romance holovid.

Assist? Double Bullshit.

She frowned. "Well, I say assist, but apparently Weak Knees is having more constitution issues and, with her baby and all, is asking me to make a house call, so it'll really be just you for a while."

I'm too clever for my own good. I nodded my understanding and walked over to the 'Assistant Officer's' desk, which was really more of a flimsy table used for junk, and began clearing it off as she magicked the paperwork over to me. I balanced the papers on my tail and picked up a spare pen with my mouth. Sometimes, I envied the magic of unicorns, but I'd long since accepted my earth pony heritage and resigned myself to only having a massive intellect and strength. Not a bad fallback at all, I'd say.

"Okay, I'll be back in... say, a couple of hours. Try to stay out of trouble." She mocked as she trotted out of the office, white lab coat disappearing behind into the cold grey hallway. Trouble she says. Still, I quickly flew through the paperwork, correcting ponies conditions and diagnosing their complaints with relative ease. Medicine was one of the first places I'd been told to apprentice in, and I'd taken to it like a Pegasus to the sky. In a matter of moments I was finished and searching around the office for something to relieve my boredom. The office was really just a trio of steel cubes attached to each other by a wide doorway with a telescoping cellophane wall that could make one into a private operating room, and another large room. In said room, Medical equipment hung from the ceiling, and white, clean sheeted beds lined the wall. A electric blue tail flickered into my vision beyond the doorway into the room with the beds.

Clean cut hadn't said there were any patients... though she hadn't said there weren't any either. The tail flicked back into sight, but this time it was followed by a light blue coated pony as he walked into the room. He shook his head as if to clear out a fog in his mind. That's what he was probably doing. Ponies in books did it all the time. He arched his back as he stretched and yawned.

"Yo, Cleany, where'd you go?" The now easily recognizable Head Mechanic Drill Bit glanced around the room, his glare finally settling on me. "What a bitch. If I'd wanted the run-around I'd have gone to the Athletics center. I take my eyes off her for two seconds and she's gone. Hey, doctor prodigy guy, you know where she went?"

Drill Bit was a earth pony a few years older than me, and one of the dozens of stallions chasing after the beauty that was Clean Cut. Personally, I liked Drill Bit, which says a lot about him. While yeah, he was really crude and always overly casual and cursing, but he was honest and he got the job done.

I was silenced before I'd even spoken by Drill Bit holding up a hoof as he glanced at his Pipbuck. "Never mind, I have to get to work anyways. If clean cut comes back, tell her I said I'd be back at seven." I closed my mouth and shrugged as he walked out of the room haughtily, probably rushing to get to whatever maintenance job was posted for the day. I guess, that was one benefit of my job. If I could find a quiet place where nobody would happen upon me, I could go nearly the entire afternoon without any work, just daydreaming the day away.

The medical office turned out to not be such a place. As I looked through the drawers of my beneficiary’s desk for something interesting to do, a scream filled the air to the point of bursting, followed by cries of 'Medic!' That would be me, I mentally sighed as I tore out the door, stopping only to rip a first-aid kit off of the wall, pulling it from its purposely permanent position with relative ease.

I speed through the steel halls in the direction of the shouts, almost freezing when I finally came upon the source of the scream and general ruckus. A cut up pony was laying against the wall, next to a collapsed ladder, howling in pain while others stood by nervously and some issued (poor) medical advice. He had multiple lacerations on his torso and what looked like hundreds on his arms, though his already red coat made it hard to distinguish between what was bleeding and what was just bloody. None very deep, but still bleeding profusely. Luckily, it was nothing beyond my ability, or the ability of anyone who'd known rudimentary first aid. I set a reassuring hoof on his shoulder and then got to work, cleaning and binding his cuts.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"How’s my hubby?!"

"What could have done this!?"

"This isn't the line for the theater!"

A veritable wave of ponies poured their concerns and questions into my ear as if shouting louder would make me answer faster. I silenced them with a flat stare and went back about my work as more and more ponies arrived at the scene. As I worked through one of the final cuts on his abdomen, one of the worse ones that had scratched his ribs, a small piece of chitin fell from it. That couldn't mean anything good. As I patted the last adhesive bandage on with a hoof, I dragged out a low quality healing potion from the kit and passed it to him.

"Thanks boy," He said as he chugged it down. I hate it when Ponies call me that. "You just saved my life, I'd reckon."

You'd reckon wrong old man. None of the cuts were that deep, he probably would have gone into shock from blood loss if nobody had tried to stop the bleeding, but that would have been about it.

"Damn thing came at me while I was changin' bulbs." He gestured to the ceiling where a light panel was out of place and then to the floor where his ladder lay against the floor. Damn thing? At least that explained the chitin.

"Hubby!" A yellow manned silver mare forced her way through the crowd with reckless abandon. "Are you alright boo-bookins?"

"Shut yer trap woman! Men are talking!" He shouted back at her. Slowly he turned back to me, his grimace becoming a heartfelt smile. It was... unsettling to say the least. "You've saved my life, and I'd say you've more than earned these, boy." He said softly as he passed me a bag full of hard round objects. My eyes went wide as I pulled the drawstring.

Biscuits. Naturally. I looked back up.

"Now, I know you're gonna say you don't deserve it, and that it was what anypony'd have done, but you done saved my life, you're a hero, and you deserve it."

Wow. Everything about that sentence was a lie. Before I could say anything he rose from the ground and walked away, leaning on his wife. The crowd slowly cleared leaving me holding a bag of biscuits and staring at the piece of chitin that had fallen from his wound.

It was huge. Like, monstrous. Feasibly impossible actually. To supply a body as large as was indicated by this small piece with oxygen would require an infinitely efficient transportation, which was something insects lacked. Maybe it was just a growth from a smaller bug? Some sort of pupae? No, a dead-cell tumor would be a new development in medicine all together and it must have been alive and big to have caused those wounds. A scuttling in the ventilation system brought me back to my body. Not a good sign indeed. I scratched my head. To get out the ventilation system and back in without leaving any trace beyond the chitin... it must either be very smart, or very lucky. Something trickled down my head. I looked down at the blood still pooled around the where he'd been laying, and by extension covering my hooves. Gross.

I flipped my head around trying to throw as much blood off as I could, then I packed up the first aid-kit and started heading back to the medical office when I slammed face first into a certain mare for the second time that day. She shook her head to shake off the pain, then recoiled at the sight of me covered in blood.

"What happened?!" Her voice echoed off of the hall's walls louder than any hoofstep ever could have. "Are you alright?!"

I groaned from where I lay splayed out on the floor. This day had been nothing but sucker-bucks, both physical and psychological. As I began to rise I was forced back down by Clean Cut who was already pulling things out of her medical bag. I groaned again. "Ohmyohmyohmy," She spluttered as she began to hyperventilate, "Who did this to you! Why isn't anyone helping you! Why aren't... you..." Her frantic shouting died down as she wiped a hoof across my forehead and realized that it was neither my blood nor was I in any sort of danger. About the same time, I realized I was being straddled by the most attractive mare in the stable. The tufts of my ears twitched.

"Oh, sorry, I mean, I'd heard somebody'd been hurt so I came running as fast I could, and then I saw you standing here, in the blood, and... yeah. Sorry."

Overreaction. That was it. She didn't mean anything by it. She was just making sure I was okay. My ears twitched again. She still hadn't moved. A red flush crept across her face as she realized what she was doing and she leapt from me with such force that I was thrown back to the floor again.

"Ah, um, yes. Sorry." She meeped. The floor must have been rather interesting, because as I finally was allowed to roll onto my stomach and pick myself up off the floor Cleans Cut's gaze never left it. Suddenly her head shot back up and her eyes returned to me.

"So what did happen here? All I heard was that somebody'd been slashed up pretty bad, so I came running."

That was, the gist of it, I suppose. I picked up the piece of chitin I'd found and then pointed to the ventilation grate.

"This is... No way." Her tone turned cold. Angry cold. "This, could not be what I think it is. Bugs, could not be this big. A bug could not make wounds that would leave that much blood on the floor. Are you trying to scare me?" She stared furiously at me. I stared right back, then gestured to the grate again.

Her mane went limp like some sort of dead animal, and her red and yellow mane seemed a few shades darker than usual. Her eyes widened. "Oh god. Of course you aren't kidding. You haven't made a joke in your life! Your sense of humor is blander than the Onion soup the recyclers put out!"

Hey! My sense of humor was awesome!

The only awesome thing about it is that I can call it a sense of humor without bursting into laughter.

Shut up me.

Suddenly there was another warm body pressing up against mine. Clean Cut glanced around, trying to look in all directions at once. "Oh no oh no oh no. We need to tell somebody!" She said, using her magic to lift me entirely from the ground and dragging me along as she barreled through the halls, dodging ponies and charging around corners recklessly. I left unsaid that I could have easily doubled her speed even if she wasn't dragging an object as large as me. It was pretty nice to have somebody else do some work while I was in the same wing.

Running headfirst into one of the steel walls of the Stable was not. I was going to get a concussion at this rate.

"Okay, good news and bad news!" I heard Clean Cut announce in an particularly authorative voice. "Good news is, the attack on Big Hitter wasn't the fault of anypony in the Stable, so you can call off any investigation you had going."

As my headache dissipated, I began to glance around and discovered we were in the Security wing of the Stable, specifically the head office of our Stable's chief security officer, Tough Luck. Great. As much as I was the smartest pony in the Stable, Tough Luck might very well have been the dumbest. Then again, while he was nearly dumber than a reprocessed stable-issue biscuit, he did have a knack for instinctually finding out criminals, and was headstrong enough to pursue any issue until the truth was splayed out for all to see. Within weeks of his promotion to Security Chief, crime rates had dropped 100%. Which, I suppose wasn't all that amazing, seeing as the only crimes were generally petty thievery, and nobody wanted to get on Tough Luck's bad side. I heard he once bucked a punching-bag so hard the sand inside turned to glass.

"The bad news is that it was someTHING in the Stable that did it." Clean cut used her magic to toss the piece of stark black chitin onto the table, between Tough Luck and two other large security stallions.

Tough Luck stared at it blankly. "What's that? Are the coffee recyclers malfunctioning again?" Clean Cut's confidence faltered.

"Um. No, actually that's chitin."

"What? This thing's a Kite? I really don't see how this is relevant Ms. Cut."

Clean Cut facehoofed. "No, it's... a part of a bug. You know how bugs have those hard exoskeletons?" Tough Luck raised an eyebrow. "Hm. You know how bugs are hard and crunchy?" Tough Luck smiled brightly and nodded. "Well, Chitin is what makes those bugs really hard and crunchy! It makes up their... shell."

"Oh!" One of Tough Luck's thugs exclaimed. Speedy Law, I think was his name. "So this is part of the carapace of what you think did this?"

Tough Luck and the other security officer stared at Speedy. "Deputy Swift Justice, What in sam hell is a carry piece?" Ah, I was wrong.

Speedy Law/Swift Justice shook his head. "It means the shell of a bug."

Tough Luck nudged the other officer and grinned smugly. "Didn't know you were such a nerd Swifty!" They both broke out laughing.

"Am not!" He retorted. They laughed harder.

"Ahem." Clean Cut cleared her throat and the laughter slowly died down. "Anyways, whatever left this is what made the attack on Big Hitter. More bad news, this thing seems to be using the ventilation to move around. The holey thingies in the ceilings." She added as Tough Luck frowned at the mention of ventilation.

"Okay, boys," Tough Luck slammed his hoof onto the table, launching a ridiculously calibered pistol into the air, then catching it with his mouth. "Looks like we got ourselves a bug hunt." He said with a mean grin as is cohorts fitted sidearms into their barding and grabbed their individually assigned weapons, Highground levitating a submachinegun into a small holster on the flank of her security barding while Swift Justice finished loading a high powered rifle into his battle saddle.

Clean Cut smiled as she picked up a pistol with her magic and slid it into a pocket of her jacket, then tossed me a rifle and griptype saddle, more of a back holster, really. I frowned when I realized that I'd have to wield the rifle like a Zebra, but shrugged it off. I was awesome enough to handle something simple like that with ease. I slid out the clip and clicked it back in place after I was satisfied with how much ammunition it held. I didn't want to run out of bullets if I was going to be fighting something that could do so much damage at close range.

The tufts of my ears twitched.

Wait.

Wait just one second.

No. Something was wrong.

I looked at my rifle. Then to Clean Cut, who stared back at me. Then to Tough Luck, who tossed his stupidly large pistol in the air then caught it in a holster on his left leg. Then back to my rifle.

My rifle.

Wait, MY Rifle? No way. No way in Tartarus. I was a lover, not a fighter! Plus, I could get hurt! Unfortunately, just as I began to voice my complaint an extra clip of ammo was shoved into my mouth by familiar butter colored magic.

"Don't want to run out in the middle of a fight, right?" She said, gleefully ignorant of my dilemma.

"Okay men, and lady," Tough Luck winked at Clean Cut, "Who knows where the ventalamawhozit is?"

Everypony glanced around. I sighed as best as I could through the clip in my mouth, then used my pipbuck to send the coordinates to the other four. If my name wasn't Sunshine Lollipop, I'd have wagered my cutie mark stood for competence. I also probably wouldn't have made that wager because my cutie mark was a cartoon-y sun eating a lollipop. I glanced back at my flank and frowned. whatever it was, it wasn't me shooting up dangerous insects.

"Okay, so it's on the first level, so we'll get up there first, then we'll split up. Me and Highground will the eastern thingamajigger. Sunshine and Swifty, you'll take the west one." Tough Luck began to walk out of the room but was halted by Clean Cut.

"What about me?" She glared.

"What about you?" Tough Luck glared right back.

"I'm going, so where do you want me?"

"You're not going, so I want you right back in your office where you belong. Who's on medical duty right now?"

Clean Cut flipped her hair and smirked at no one in particular. "I've already called First Aid and Bronzed Scalpel to take care of the office for the rest of the day. And, I am going with you, or I'm going to tell the Overstallion that you rushed ahead without my consent, unaware of the threats that could very well have laid ahead."

Tough Luck was aghast. "You wouldn't."

Her smirk widened into something more of a wicked grin. "I would. And no one in this room would testify against me but you."

He slammed his head against the ground in frustration. Now, I'm not a small pony, in fact, I'd like to think that I'm fairly above average in both height, length, and muscle density, but I still jumped like a filly at the sudden sound and vibrations that shook the office. "Fine," He growled, "But you stay with me, and stick within five feet of either me or Highground." Her wicked grin flared again as she flipped her hair once more.

"As you wish, oh captain of security." She said sarcastically as she trotted out of the office, leaving Tough Luck to grumble as he walked after her. The rest of us followed.

Why do I always follow...

* * *

We didn't file a report. I glanced to Tough Luck, who ducked to make it through the door we were passing though at the moment. His muscles budged and his eyes burned with excitement. He probably had enough sinew to rip me in half then force my cell membranes to bond back together as he pushed me back into one piece. We probably didn't need to file a report anyways. It was three levels up to the first floor from the security office, and I saw several familiar faces. All of those faces were covered in either confusion or panic, and at some times envy at being in the presence of Clean Cut. I imagine the confusion and panic came from the fact that 4 large, and one not so large, well armed ponies were walking somewhere with purpose, and the fact that Highground was grinning a terrifying grin. She knew there was a fight coming, and she relished in it. Not what I'd have expected from such a cute filly, but considering she stood a half pair of ears taller than me, I was willing to let it go.

Before long, we were on the first floor. Which was not fun. The first floor was for lack of a better word, abandoned. Cobwebs adorned every corner and lights flickered out as often as they flickered on when we flipped their switches. Nobody came up here except for mantenance every other decade or so. After all, why go up to the cold upper level where the Stable door rusted and threatened to fall in any time. Well, it probably wouldn't, given that it was held in place by several tons of steel, and that it was stuck in a rut that held it in place even further so that it would actually have to put forth unnatural amounts of energy to move even an inch, but it still scared Ponies to think about. Nobody knew what was on the other side of the door. Well, that was another lie.

We knew what was on the other side of the door: Nothing. One of the Megaspells hit our door directly. Didn't make a dent, but the records say that it shook the Stable like an earthquake and not a single one of the above ground sensory units have worked since.

My ears twitched. There was a skittering of hard claws against cold steel somewhere in the distance. The tufts of my ears shook.

Not that I was scared of course. It's just unsettling to know that there's something in the distance that you can't see that very well harbors ill intent towards you and could in fact be hurtling towards you at this very instant with terrible fangs glistening with insectoid poison and claws that could rip though flesh like it was warm cud and--

Point is, I wasn't scared.

"Okay, looks like were at the," He scrunched his eyes at his Over-sized pipbuck, "This is where we split up." He turned back to me and Swift Justice and gave us a confident smirk. "Remember, you see a bug, stomp it." Swift Justice gave a quick salute and I rolled my eyes as we walked towards the western Ventilation Shaft Air Conditioning Power Conduit. Yeah right. Stomp it he says. Stomp the thing that maimed a ex-stable athlete. That'll do it.

Our hoofbeats echoed off the empty cold steel, sounding forlorn. Which is weird, because sounds don't really express emotions. Well, I guess they do, seeing as they're the way that they are the way we express our words and tones that express emotions. And to that effect, the tones and tunes found in music often make us feel different emotions. I suppose there must be some sort of correlation between--

A scuttling noise in the far corner of the auxiliary generator room we were walking though broke me out of my thoughts. Before my ears could even twitch with anticipation (Not fear, obviously), a shot rang out, and my ears twinged in pain instead. From what the poor lighting revealed, I could already see that the wall was stained with blood. I suppose my hypothesis for a more efficient way of oxygen transfer was correct. Stepping around one of the smaller generators, I got to see exactly what we were going to be fighting for the first time.

It looked... kind of like a dog. It was about three feet long, from tail to nose, and maybe a foot and a half high. Its face was scrunched up to reveal two enormous pairs of incisors, like a mole's. Unlike a mole, or a dog, aside from its four regular legs, it had four more appendages branching out from it's shoulders, each ending in wicked points. Points exactly like what I'd found broken off in Big Hitter's wounds. It's coloration was grey, brown and black, with grey fur that shifted in shades for the more doglike parts, and black and brown for the buggy parts. I imagine that, based on what I'd already seen, its eyes would have been more mammalian, but I wasn't able to tell because there were a pair of holes where Swift Justice's bullet had torn directly through its skull, taking both eyes with it. I was suddenly glad about being paired up with this stallion.

"Well, that's one ugly son of a bitch, isn't it." He said as he walked over, talking around the bit in his mouth. He sighed. "I reckon he won't be the last one we see." My ears twitched. I nodded and turned back to the pathway we were supposed to follow. The Power Conduit and its Talisman were in the next room. This was just a service door, not even powered by a generator or talisman. Just wood and metal. Maybe some plastic too. I readied myself against the door, preparing to buck it open. Swift Justice stood strong, ready to fire at whatever hellish beast we found beyond the door. I took a deep breath. Swifty nodded. I bucked the door with all my strength, actually knocking it from its hinges as it flew inwards several feet. I knew I was awesome. Before the door clattered to the ground, three shots rang out, bullets screaming from my companion's battle saddle.

Twitchy twitch. I dropped to the floor as one of the creatures soared over my torso, allowing me to roll onto my back and deliver a powerful kick with my back legs that sent it flying into the ceiling with a sickening crunch.

Two more flashes from the muzzles of Swift Justice, and all was silent. I shook my head when I realized that I was still on the floor, waiting for my ears to alert me to danger. I picked myself up and turned back to the security pony. He had a confused look on his face, and he was staring into the room that the creatures had just come out of. I followed his gaze. Inside the room was disgusting. The walls were covered in webbings and wrapped prey like roaches and the like... but more disturbing than that was what was in the center of the room. There, surrounding the casing of the Talisman that regulated the air for the Stable, were hundreds and hundreds of eggs.

Or rather, Hundreds and hundreds of empty eggs. My eyes went wide. We'd killed seven. There were at least a thousand hundred empty eggs here. Swift Justice iterated what I was thinking.

"If we only killed seven... where are the rest?" He turned to me, eyes fearful. I couldn't see myself, but I'm sure mine were a mirror reflection in green.

Before he could say anything further, I bolted back the way we came, ducking and dodging generators and boxes as I ran to the room where we'd split up with the rest of the group. He was only a few steps behind me, struggling to keep up with the pace I was setting, but keeping up none the less. In a few seconds we were at the meeting place, and the others were sitting there leisurely, Tough luck, polishing his combat knife, Highground and Clean cut, chatting Idly.

"Where've you idjits been?" He said with a overconfident smirk. Too overconfident I now knew. "We already cleared out our... what's wrong?" His smirk changed to frown. The competitive fire in his eyes dulled.

"Those... Things," Justice sputtered as I gasped for breath, "They're gone! Hundreds! They're--" He was cut off by a distant scream. My eyes widened further. So this is what fear felt like.

We all ran towards the stairwell to the second level as one.

"What happened?" Clean Cut shouted, panic rich in her voice.

"There were eggs!" Justice answered for me, “Hundreds of eggs, all empty, and we only killed a few! The rest must have already gotten into the ventilation shafts and gotten deeper into the Stable already!"

More screams confirmed our fears.

I leapt down both flights of stairs, not stopping on a single step between flights, bouncing off of walls to make the tight turns, the others were right behind me. I wish they hadn't been. I slipped and fell in a pool of blood as I reached the second level, slamming into the floor, covering my bluish green coat with crimson. As I struggled to rise on the slippery terrain, I came eye to eye with a pony. A pony I knew. Drill bit. His lower half was no longer attached to his body, and was nowhere in sight. There were bite marks all along his torso, his eyes had been torn from his skull. My stomach turned against me. I knew this pony. A pony I knew was dead. He was dead. There was no coming back from death. I tried to scream, but I couldn't make a sound. The others were fast behind me. I heard Clean cut's gasp, and heard Swift Justice empty his stomach onto the steel of the floor. The steel of the floor of the Stable we'd all grown up in. The steel of the floor that was now covered in blood and gore. I thought I was going to vomit. I didn't.

Instead, I got angry. My left ear twitched a few milliseconds before my right. A Bluish green hoof shot past my head and crushed the torso of one of the monsters to the floor. It squealed in agony. Not for long. My hoof lifted itself from the monster’s body and replaced itself on the monster's head, crushing it like a empty tin can. It made what should have been a sickening crunch. Instead, I found it satisfying. I looked up. At least a hundred of them were crawling towards us. The group behind me opened fire, ripping through them. I myself pulled my rifle off my back for the first time, firing deliberately. Find a target. Dispatch a target. Repeat. Over and over. Before long, there were none left. More screams echoed throughout the Stable, and we ran towards them.

There were no words between us. There were none needed. We were employed to help Ponies, and there were ponies to help. It was time to shut up and put up. And we did. I lead the charge. I was afraid. More than I was afraid, I was furious. They were hurting my ponies. MY ponies. In a few swift seconds, we'd reached the atrium, blowing through every single monster we'd seen.

When I saw the state of the Atrium, something hit me. For every bug you see, there are easily a hundred more. Bugs wouldn't just put their eggs out in the open like that. Not unless they'd run out of space first.

There were thousands of them. Thousands upon thousands of them. Corpses were everywhere. It was a scene out of a nightmare. There was no hope. No hope at all. I stopped being angry. They weren't hurting my ponies. My ponies were already dead, and their corpses were being devoured.

"Oh god..." The words escaped Clean Cut's mouth, slipping through in less than a whisper. I had good ears. I wished I didn't. There was no hope in those words. Only despair. There was suddenly a scream beside me, and I saw a friend of mine torn apart. Moral Highground died. Her scream turned to a wet gurgle as her throat filled with blood. there were tens already on her body, and more coming.

"GET BACK TO THE FIRST FLOOR!" Tough Luck screamed, his voice shocking me and the rest of the group into movement. We turned tail and ran. We abandoned Moral Highground. She was already dead, but we left her all the same.

Swift Justice slipped. Swift Justice died. I went to school with Swift Justice. He was in my class, a quiet pony, simply observing and learning and trying to have as much fun as possible without offending anyone else. I'd forgotten my homework once, and he said he'd forgotten his too so that I wouldn't be the only one the class laughed at. I'd forgotten about that. Tears welled in my eyes. I blinked them away. The monsters weren't coming out of the clockwork at this point, they were the clockwork. Clean Cut, Tough Luck, and I ran up the stairs, clambering just ahead of the wave of death that had manifested itself in the form of thousands of eight legged monstrosities. I saw Tough Luck, stopping in front of one of the blast doors that dotted the Stable. That would stall them. Maybe we could escape. I could have laughed with joy. I didn't. I was too scared. I kept running. I heard the doors shutting behind me, followed by several insanely loud shots.

I stumbled, as I ran, looking back to see the doors shut, no living monsters on the side we were on. We were safe. My ears twitched. I could hear the scuttling in the ventilation. Not safe for long. I stopped and waited for Tough Luck and Clean Cut to catch up to me. The door towered before us. Mocking us. We had two doors, one led to lethal amounts of radiation, the other lead to hordes of creatures waiting to devour us.

We were all breathing hard, but it was Tough Luck who was the first to speak.

"This Stable is done." He laughed. It was a pitiful, mirthless laugh. "No way out." He sighed, then looked to Clean Cut. "I suppose this isn't the best time to admit that I've had a crush on you since 5th year?"

She sniffled, then gave a hiccuping laugh. "I suppose this isn't the best time to admit that I'm gay?"

They locked eyes. They laughed. I think I did to. "Well, If I'm going to die, I'm taking these bastards with me." His grin turned to a ferocious scowl. He walked over to the controls to the door.

"What are you doing?" Clean Cut asked, going to stand beside him.

"Nothing lives through radiation, even things born from it. As much residual radiation as is out there..." He paused, then turned to me. "It'll kill them. Probably irradiate the entire Stable. It'll kill us too." His eyes were full of sorrow. I nodded my approval. Vengeance is a dish best served irradiated, right?

He smiled. A sad, sad smile. It was terrifying, really. The smile of a man who has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Clean Cut pushed up against him. She turned back to me and smiled too.

He coughed. "Let's see, the code for Stable 51... let's see... Scoots<3Rumble... Heh. Not exactly what I thought my last words would be..." He said softly as he fed the code into the gargantuan machine. It probably wouldn't even work. Nearly two hundred years of neglect and a Megaspell would do that to machinery. I heard myself give out a surprised grunt as the enormous hydraulics that were designed to move the door moved to their purpose. The Enormous circular door slowly dragged itself inwards, and rolled out of the way. White light made its way through the door, soft and gentle. My fur shimmered, and the tufts of my ears twitched. Tough Luck looked into Clean Cut's eyes. "I don't know about you Sunshine, but if I'm going to die, I'm going to do it beneath that big, blue, irradiated sky... unless it's nighttime of course. Care to join me Ms. Clean Cut?"

She smiled. "I'd love too." They walked out. They left the Stable, walking though that great big door into the even bigger world beyond. I realized I was smiling for the first time today. Crying too. Weird. Not things that usually come together.

I could hear squeals of pain coming from the innards of the Stable. There must have been even more radiation than we'd thought. I'd like to see the sky before I go too, I thought to myself. I began walking. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Heh. Four steps. Three more. Another two. Another and a half...

And I could see the sky. It sparkled like a thousand diamonds. A thousand, hundred diamonds, surrounded by a eternally stretching ring of smoke on a backdrop of shadows. Clouds, a part of me echoed. Clean Cut and Tough Luck laid side by side, just by the entrance of the Stable. Smiles adorned their face. Heh. I kept walking. Didn't want to interrupt. The ground was soft under my feet, and crunched pleasantly when I walked. It smelled... like life. I breathed deeply, taking in the scent of the earth. The tufts of my ears twitched happily. My left front leg gave out. I realized I was laying on the ground. I slowly rose.

A single tree marred the horizon. I wondered what it would be like to fall asleep under a tree, like they always were doing in books. I blinked, and realized that I was already under it. I guess the radiation was getting to my brain. I looked up. The ring of... clouds was closing up. Yeah...

This wouldn't be a bad place to die.

* * *

And then the worst thing that had ever happened occurred. I woke up. I was supposed to be dead. I'd found peace. I tried to call tears, but the rational part of me rejected the thought, disgusted at my emotions. There was a clinking around my throat. I put my hoof up, running it along a rough metal ring with several wires poking out of it that had found its way onto my neck. I opened my eyes. In front of me was a beautiful mare. Golden hair, pure white coat... decked out in brown leather? Definitely not Stable issue.

Maybe she was an angel, here to take my soul to Celestia. I relished the thought. I laughed internally. Maybe the leather meant she was just a kinky angel.

Suddenly she walked over to me. Her mane curled and frizzled at the ends, folding around a beautiful white horn, making a single loop around her chin. She gave a soft smile, then flicked me in the forehead.

"Good morning, and welcome to the wasteland, home of the free, brave, and dead. You are currently none of those, Mr. Stable Dweller, and that thing around your neck is a slave collar. You make one move I don't like, and it pops your head like a grenade.My name is Techo Babylon, and this is my personal hellhole. Soon, it's gonna be yours." She laughed.

It was a pretty laugh.

_____________________________________________________

Level up! Guns: 30

Perk Gained: Radiation wizard- You've survived so much radiation, a little bit more isn't going to hurt you. Much. +120% Radiation Resistance. You also might be a wizard. Which is a weird thing, for an earth pony.

_____________________________________________________

Author's note: This took me a while... I've been taking a break, or rather, I've

been avoiding writing stories for no reason recently, but for some reason I

really felt like writing this... Sunshine Lollipop is a good name. I wish I had

a name like that. But no, I'm just simple, old Kaibomb, King of Dimension and

Guardian of Forgotten Times. Oh woe is me. (By the way, best pony is Twilight

Sparkle.)

Character List --

Sunshine Lollipop-- Earth Pony

He's Blueish Greenish but slightly more kinda greenish mane and coat,

both kind of blending into each other. A shortish long manecut with a short

hairspike at the front. He's tall, but not too tall. More lean than muscular.

Pretty much always blank faced or confused.

Cutie Mark: a cartoon sun that looks like it's on ecstasy eating a

lollipop.

Clean Cut-- Unicorn

Super cute pony with a Yellow and Red twirled mane, kinda like a

cinnamon twist extending into a long braid. She's got a Butter colored coat and

similar colored magic.

Cutie Mark: stitches in the shape of a heart with a pair of band-aids

making it look like a broken heart.

Tough Luck-- Earth Pony

Huge golden pony with silver hair. Like, crazy muscular. If you saw this

dude trotting down the street, you'd say, Holy shit what is a horse doing on the

street. Because you are a human, and he is a pony. Well, you're probably human.

I don't know, and I try not to judge.

Cutie Mark: A Pair of large overlapping Horseshoes form a circle in

which lies a four leafed clover.

Swift Justice-- Earth Pony

Large grey pony with a black mane. He's definitely a guy you'd bet on in

a fight, unless it was against more than ten other guys. Even then, he'd put up

a hell of a fight.

Cutie Mark: A Gavel with wings. It's pretty kickarse.

Moral Highground-- Unicorn

Chocolate brown mare, Dark pink mane with lighter pink highlights. She's

the kinda pony you wouldn't picture in security armor until she stopped stooping

and you realized she was a good head taller than most ponies. Honestly, she's

adorable.

Cutie Mark: A cliff with clouds beneath the cliff and a sun above it.

Big Hitter-- Earth Pony

Another Huge pony with a weak but stark green coat greyed with age. His

now totally grey mane is similarly touched by time.

Cutie Mark: A baseball Diamond with Balloons on either side.

Weak Knees-- Earth Pony

Electric blue pony with a lighter blue mane. She's totally preggers yo.

Cutie Mark: a Heart with four arrows though it, each tangled up with the

others.

These are just the characters that I noticed and felt like telling you about,

let me know in the comments if there are any particular ponies you want

described or given a backstory. Feel free to tell me how bad I am or boost my

already gargantuan ego. Either way, comments are appreciated.

Slavers and Lollipops

It was a pretty laugh. But, as they say all too often, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Her laugh slowly descended into more of giggles, and then into chortles until she finally let out a snort and abruptly stopped laughing, her face turning the color of a tomato.

Speaking of which, I'd never seen a tomato. I looked up into the branches of the tree I'd fallen asleep under. Its branches were thick and healthy, and its leaves were a perfect shade of green. Too perfect. I scrunched my eyes and discovered the leaves were actually glowing. A closer look at the tree revealed that its sap, slowly pulsing through the tree with naught but capillary action and a miraculous circulatory system propelling it, was also glowing brightly, enough to be seen through the cracks in its bark. I could have smiled. To see life continue, and not only continue, but adapt to thrive and survive in the face of such adversity... it filled me with a sense of awe. I knew what I should do. I was going to find a tomato, so I could eat it, and then use my knowledge of it for metaphoric purposes. Now, if I was a tomato, where would I be, I asked myself, drifting through my mind in search of my memories of my days in the herbologist wings, particularly the day were we talked about what environment tomatoes were most well evolved to thrive in. As I thought, I turned... South, I suppose, whichever direction would take me away from my Stable.

I swiveled my head back and found that I couldn't see the Stable door anymore. I couldn't even see the depression on the hill where it'd stood. Oh well. I started walking in the direction I'd chosen.

"H-Hey!" A voice called after me. "Get back here! You're my slave now! You have to do what I say, or- or I'll hit you!" Oh right, her. For a moment I thought about asking her for directions to the nearest greenhouse. I shook my head at the mental image. 'Excuse me, Ms. Techno Babylon, I know you want to enslave me and all, but could you direct me to some locally grown produce first?'

"Hey!" She all but screamed it this time. Keep it up lady, maybe if you shout at me enough I'll come back. "If you don't come back here right now, I'll use this!" Ugh. These are the type of people I had to deal with. Using relative words like 'this' when I couldn't see the object to which she was gesturing. I looked over my shoulder and gave her a flat stare. She meeped. Oh come on, I wasn't that scary. Heck, I'd go as far as to say I was adorable. I was fluffy at least.

"I mean it!" Her voice came out more as a strangled sob this time. "I'll blow you right back to hell!" Ah, right the detonator. I put a hoof to the collar that was decorating my neck. As if. I gave her a stare. A really, really good stare. A stare that said, 'Listen bitch, I saw everyone I've ever cared for, known, or even thought about existing with the exception of Luna murdered by monsters straight out of my nightmares. or die from radiation. And as far as radiation goes, I just walked through enough to kill thousands of ponies my size and I just woke the fuck right back up. So do your worst, you fucking cunt.'

Like I said, it was a really, really good stare. And she got the message. Oh woe is me, she got the goddess-be-damned message. And directly after she received it, she burst into tears, huge pearls of water running down her face from her eyes and nose as she wailed. It was the most disgusting, undignified show of emotion I had ever seen, and I'd watched a few of my Stable's hoofball games.

There was a pang in my heart, or what I imagined was around my heart, I don't know, emotions are weird. Maybe it was a bit too soon to be bringing up old memories, even in my head.

Still, I couldn't let a mare cry. Accursed morals. I brought myself to be beside her, and put a hoof on her shoulder, drawing her closer as she cried, her wails slowly turning to sobs, and her sobs to sniffles, and her sniffles to just burying her face into my chest. I frowned. I was no slaveholder, but I was pretty sure this wasn't how master servant relationships were supposed to play out.

Once her eyes were totally dry, and my chest was completely covered in snot and tears, and her hiccupping sobs and sniffles were finally gone, she turned up to me, her eyes bright. Too bright. She'd just threatened to waste me, and then she looked at me like this. I'd been here (Conscious) for Thirty minutes and I already was starting to hate it. I realized I couldn't feel my battle saddle pressing against my back. Must have dropped it. Oh well. I doubt it could have gotten me out of a situation this awkward anyways. "I'm sorry, it's just... well. Um."

She turned red again and stared at the ground. Not tomato red this time, more like dull and old 'EXIT' sign. Still not her normal white coloration though.

She took a deep breath, then exhaled with a purpose. Oh man. I knew what was coming. She was going to ask me to do something. I'd been pushed around enough to know that. I tried to escape, but it was too late.

"Will you please be my slave so that I can sell you so that I can get enough money to be accepted into the Detrot Institute of Science and Technology!?" She shouted with enough willpower invested in it I nearly fell over. I felt myself tipping slightly. Scratch that. I hit the soft, wet ground. I felt a uninvited sigh pass through my lips. Uninvited but not undeserved.

So she needed money for college... and her first reaction was to enslave another pony? That was a little sick.

Tears welled in her eyes again when she saw the look on my face.

"I'm so sorry!" She wailed. "It's just, I mean-- I needed the money, but the tuition is due in three days, and I found this slave collar just lying around, and- and- please don't hate me!" Her wailing turned back into full on sobbing. Ah. An act of desperation. I could forgive that. It was illogical to, but I could all the same. My ears twitched in pain as her crying hopped octaves. I really hoped I could forgive that. But, step one would be to get her to stop crying. Again. I put my forelegs out and pulled her into what I hoped was a comforting hug. She was tiny, nearly a full head shorter than me. Granted, that only put her a few inched shorter than a regular pony, but still, all things are relative. "I'm so sorry..." She said softly, a whisper choked by sobs. These ears of mine were starting to tick me off. You don't just turn down anything a girl asks you to do after you hear her say something like that in such a depressed voice.

I pushed her back with my forelegs, holding her out in front of me so that we locked eyes. I put every ounce of will I had into that look. Every single ounce of benevolent feelings I had went right out my eyes and into assuring her that I was not angry, and that I was here to help.

Always with the helping. Her dark golden irises sparkled. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes and flowed over the dimples formed by a soft smile that slowly spread across her face. She really was beautiful. And cute. A sort of combination of both.

"You have pretty eyes."

I drew back and raised an eyebrow. Not exactly the response I was expecting. That was something a colt was supposed to tell a filly. Not that I didn't get a lot of shit about my eyes. Not many ponies had dark green spirals trekking across their irises. Still it was weird. Almost as weird as the look she was giving me. I once again began to doubt her grasp of a master-servant relationship. Speaking of slavery...

I broke off our impromptu staring competition and nudged my collar with a hoof.

Her eyes widened. "Oh yeah," She gave a nervous laugh, "I forgot about that. Um. I can't really... take that off." She gave me an even more nervous lopsided smile. It was official. I fucking hated the wasteland. I groaned and flopped over onto my back.

"Wait!" She shouted, biting at my hair to try to pull me back up. Good luck, I thought. I laughed at the thought of a tiny mare like her picking me up off the ground, then felt myself slowly rising, surrounded by a pulsating golden glow. Goddesses damn it. Fucking unicorns. "I said I couldn't take it off, I didn't say I didn't know any way to get it off!" I glared at her. Why hadn't she said that earlier? Dramatic timing? "What I meant was that I couldn't take it off right this instant."

I exhaled heavily as I dropped back to the ground, hooves squishing into the damp soil. I could feel my inner earth pony writhing to get out as I felt it conform around my hooves. I looked to her expectantly. Well, maybe more demandingly.

"Calm down," She said frantically, "I know a pony back in the Main who could get that collar off of you in ten seconds flat." She flipped a hoof in front of her face and closed her eyes to further illustrate her point.

I stared flatly. The Main. Yeah, that meant something to me.

"Oh, right, Stable-tard, sorry." She facehooved. I glared. "The Main is... a village I guess? It's kind of a big market that got so expansive that it became more of a small town, all constructed in the ruin of an old spring that had been converted into a water filtration and exporting facility, though the megaspells destroyed the building, leaving the spring itself open to the elements. Still somehow pumps out fresh, clean water though."

I raised an eyebrow in amusement. Thousands of years after the beginnings of civilization and we still found our roots around water sources.

"It's only an hour away," She said, quickly, talking like an excited filly, "We can make it in thirty if we try!" She dashed away, in the direction I'd been headed earlier no less. I looked up into the clouds and smiled. I'd always wondered what it would be like to run beneath the open sky. I guessed that a not so open sky would do. And so I gave chase, quickly catching up and trotting alongside her as she ran forward gleefully.

* * *

Well, ran for the first three minutes. I actually did grin when she collapsed panting after running at what was a dead sprint for her for three minutes. Without a word, as par usual, I flipped her up onto my back and kept trotting in the direction she'd indicated as she fell asleep on my back. I couldn’t believe how trusting she was. Says the stallion walking with a mare he’s known for ten minutes and has already put a bomb around his neck towards a town that could have been full of anything from nice people to giant snakes. Snakes made out of chainsaws. She snored. It was adorable. Just the perfect combination of sound and quiet rumble. Exactly the thing I needed to keep from thinking about how my entire... Stable... had died... horribly. Shit. A warm breath passing over my neck raised goosebumps. My ears twitched uncontrollably until Techno's teeth clamped down on the right one, holding it in place. She drooled and gnawed on my ear.

I was a bit surprised to discover that I didn't care.

After a few minutes of trotting alone I came to a worn and practically non-existent road, but some of the cobblestones were still in place, and it was flatter than the rest of the earth I'd traversed so I continued to trot along it. I missed the feel of the soft earth beneath my hooves, but it was nice to not have to leap over branches and roots. My eyes roamed across the landscape, observing and carefully noting everything. Eventually, they fell onto a disgusting puddle that had nothing growing remotely near it. A pool of radiation, I guessed. A sudden clicking of my pipbuck proved me right. I gave the puddle a wide berth and continued forwards, turning my thoughts to my pipbuck.

'The Pipbuck 2000 Beta, a pony's best friend!' Promised the packaging of my new pipbuck. Well, relatively new. A pony in Stable 51 was only granted one pipbuck. Ever. And to tell the truth, I was the first pony in the Stable who needed a replacement. I'd seen the things take beatings that had nearly killed the ponies wearing them without getting a scratch, from falling from an atrium ceiling to a pony who'd had his entire left foreleg ripped off and pulled through a Hard-Mineral recycler. They were definitely tough sons of a bitches. Mine... tried its best, but after I set my mind to finding out what the inside of one looked like, it didn't last very long. I ended up frying the entire thing after I tried hooking up our primary generator to my pipbuck and a set of microcombustion pistons and ripped the thing in half and zapped it with enough power to run the Stable for the next several years all at once.

Anyway, after they'd reset the generator and cut as much of the burnt hair off of my head as possible, they'd laughed it off and shoved me on over to our local pipbuck repair pony, who'd just stared at me and laughed when I told him I needed a new one. When he finally accepted the truth, he was furious beyond words, and nearly threw me out of his office. Fortunately for me, he was a pony who was willing to let things go and gave me another pipbuck. Kind of. He gave me a two thousand model instead of the regular three thousand, in order to let it be a lesson to me. It wasn't. I always thought the two thousand models looked cooler anyways, even if they were a little bulkier.

If I remembered correctly though, that packaging had promised some other things too, like some sort of life detector, and compass, and a bunch of other jazz. I glanced to my leg where the pipbuck swayed back and forth contentedly. Oh well. Not like I could do anything with it while I was walking anyways. At least the Geiger counter was in working order. It clicked away obliviously as I sidestepped another puddle. Or was it working?

Thinking back, I didn't recall hearing a single tick out of it while I'd stumbled away from the Stable... But that was impossible. I heard the screams of the monsters as radiation purged the stable. I'd seen with my own eyes the bodies of Tough Luck and Clean Cut, side by side, lying too still to be even sleeping. I'd even seen my own fur shimmering with radiation... I glanced at it now. It was dull as the day I was born. I racked my brain for an answer. No radiation, but it killed the creatures, or at least caused them horrible pain. It definitely killed my late companions. Some of them. Not a majority I supposed. Not even a minority really. More like an anomaly.

I shut my eyes for a few seconds as I walked, trying to focus on the feel of the cobblestones underneath my hooves.

Clip clop, said my front hooves.

Clip clop, replied my back hooves.

Swish swish, conjectured a wind-caressed dying bush.

Growl, interrupted the hostile.

My hoofs slammed to the earth, holding me in place. My eyes opened slowly. An eyebrow raised at the sight of a mottled brown dog standing defensively over the corpse of some sort of mutated boar. It bared its teeth to me as if trying to show me the blood flowing from its jaws and greasing its fangs, to prove that the boar was its kill. Techno Babylon vibrated as she gave a purring snore and continued to chew contentedly on my right ear. My left twitched in agitation. The dog gave another growl, this one more ferocious than before. I growled right back, lifting my left forehoof to show the dog the blood from some of the creatures I'd smashed with bare hooves. It cocked its head at me, green flecked yellow eyes filled with confusion. I guess nobody'd ever stuck around after it growled, much less showed proof that they were strong too. Its tail began to wag, and it lifted its deceased quarry in its jaws and padded off happily, apparently convinced that I was no threat.

Stupid dog. I totally a threat.

My life was becoming like a snowball. It was a little weird to begin with, but it just kept picking up more weirdness as it went downhill. I adjusted my back to make sure Techno wouldn't fall off. At least that wasn't weird.

No, nothing weird at all. Nothing strange about being able to carry a fully grown mare on my back, much less doing as such through a landscape destroyed by a war that had happened almost two hundred years ago. I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time, and what I was sure would not be the last time, and began trotting again.

Soon, the small scrubs and weakly trees that grew along the path began to disappear, replaced by nothing but weeds, and the soft earth I'd loved so quickly dried out, becoming flakey and hard as well as heaped with dust. My mouth was drying out at just the thought of living in a place like this. If it wasn't for the merciful cloud covering, walking along this path would have been a labor unmeant for the weak of heart.

Not long after the squishy soil turned to shale and sand I began to see signs of life. Pony life, rather. A poorly constructed sign pointed in three directions, including the way I was going, the way I'd been, and somewhere of to the east. The signs read, 'The Main, Place of peace and good trade' though someone had scratched off 'good' and wrote 'poop' over it, A skull and crossbones sign, and 'Scurvy Heart's den' respectively. The later seemed to have only recently been added, with paint hardly worn while the paint of the other two was chipped and marred.

I stuck with the path to the Main, though I wasn't sure I wanted to participate in any poop trade.

The ground cracked under my hoofs, painting the bloody instruments with a overcoat of dust. It also made a cool sound.

It also might have been very entertaining.

There is a small chance I tried to make a beat out of my hoofsteps.

There is a far greater chance that while doing said act that may or may not have happened I crushed a small lizard. Which ruined my mood. I stomped onwards trying not to think about it.

* * *

If I had to pick a word to describe the Main, it'd be dusty. The dust from the surrounding flats covered every inch available, from the time-rutted wheels of pony drawn carts to the horseshoes nailed into seemingly every wall. There was an enormous saloon next to a bank, which was clearly defined as such by the large words 'BANK' painted onto a large and slightly decorated wooden plank attached above the doorway. Speaking of doorways, for the number of doorways there were, there wasn't a single door in sight, just swinging batwing doors hinged onto every building in sight. It was like I'd walked straight into an old western holovid. I was slightly confounded by the sight of a three story mansion built in the center of town. It defied logic, at least to me. You could've fit at least ten Stable atriums inside of the gargantuan structure. I was far more than slightly confounded by what lay directly behind it, connected by enormous pipes and wires. It looked like a barrel. A big barrel. A ten story tall barrel. My ears twitched with excitement.

The Main. My pipbuck beeped quietly.

I thought back to what Techno Babylon had said earlier. The building surrounding the spring had been destroyed... Which meant that there must have been a building large enough to encase what I was seeing now, at some point in time. Looking closer, it wasn't hard to pick out the rubble around the edges of the Mansion and surrounding the Main. It must have made a hell of a crash when it came tumbling down.

I shifted my gaze to the right and left, looking at the ponies who were going about their business. Each and every one of them was decked out in full western gear, ponchos, cowpony hats, some even had boots with metal spurs. What the heck would a pony ever need a spur for, I wondered. Probably something kinky. I'd have made fun of their ensemble, but with all the dust that was finding a new home in my fur and settling into my collar, I couldn't deny their practicality.

And with a sleeping mare on my back, I drew as many stares as I gave. Though most seemed to be staring at the large 51s emblazoned on my shoulders and the collar around my neck, some whispering to ponies besides them while others grinned in a less than friendly way.

A quite mumble rolled past my ear, coupled with a sharp crunch. Something about techmaturgic pleasure from what I could make out. It was probably time to wake up sleeping beauty anyways. I opened my mouth to speak, but it was immediately filled by a gust of dust, causing me to cough violently instead. My racking cough was enough to incite an adorable yawn from the mare sitting on my back though. Good enough. I turned my head so that I could see my Golden manned passenger as she blinked the sleep from her eyes.

"We're here already?"

No, we're back in... somewhere. I needed to learn some outside locations. It'd prove for some far more effective mental wit.

She slowly rose and stretched like a cat, arching her back and slowly unfolding her tail until it was at its longest. Her joints popped and cracked as she worked through movements perfected with practice, popping every poppable joint and some I wasn't aware were possible to pop all while maintaining perfect balance on my back. She exhaled harshly to blow the sand off her face then pulled a bandana over her snout from where it had rested around her neck. She then looked down into my eyes and frowned.

"When did you get short?" She asked.

I gave her a flat stare.

"Oh," She looked down and noticed, apparently for the first time, that she'd been laying on the blue pseudo-leather of my Stable jumpsuit, "That makes sense."

Suddenly her eyes light up and she, well, probably, grinned like maniac. The bandana around her snout made it hard to see. She put her forehooves up on top of my head, forcing my ears to flop out sideways. Her hoof pointed majestically towards a ramshackle old decrepit shack out towards the edge of town, in fact in the direction I'd come into town from. "That's old mare Glycerin's house!"

A frown tugged at my lips. The confusion on my face must have been evident, because Techno started explaining.

"Old mare Glycerin was a... ah, some sort of explosives expert in the militant group that used to run this place back when it was just a couple of settlers defending the Main. She's good with guns. With her help, you'll have this collar off in no time!" Her eyes looked like they had stars in them as she stared directly down at me from where she stood with her upper body perched on my head.

"Let's go!" She shouted enthusiastically, throwing out her hoof towards the shack again.

I didn't go. At that time, I believe she actually realized where she was.

"Um, mush?" She said sheepishly.

I pulled my head around and bit down on the supple leather at the nape of her neck then picking her up and depositing her back on the ground besides me. She glared at me. I started walking in the direction she'd indicated and she followed quickly behind me.

"You could've just asked me to get off." She mumble indignantly.

Right as I began point out that I wouldn't have wanted her to get off while still on me, I was cut off by a harsh voice, full of malice and greed.

"Yo! Techno!" A grey mare trotted up to us, followed by a small group of other deathly colored ponies, all greys and browns, none of them wearing the usual gear of the townsponies I'd seen so far, instead wearing outfits that seemed to be cobbled together from a combination of household objects and spikes. I'd have shuddered at the thought of what it would be like to be attacked by a mare with gear like that if I wasn't so busy staring at the strange set-up she had strapped to her back in place of a saddle.

It looked like a regular battlesaddle, but rather than a ammunition box or bag and a series of straps and splints to hold the guns in place, it looked more like two straight mechanical arms extended from the top of her midsection, ending in anticlimactically innocent metal boxes with a few glowing lights. The ashes charred into the edges of a hole on the front of the boxes made me think they were probably far from innocent. Maybe some sort of flamethrower? The rest had more usual armaments, all low quality, but still working and ranging from submachineguns to beat up rifles. One did have a rigging of pipes and tubes leading to what I was positive were some sort of flamethrowing pistols.

"Uh, hey Angel..." Techno murmured, trying to make herself as small as possible behind me. That type of reaction was definitely not on my list of good signs.

The mare, Angel, gave a cruel chuckle. Her gaze shifted to me. "So you really did get one didn't you?" She laughed again. The fuck was I, a comedian? She sidled closer, pulling herself up to my face in a far too close and too personal way. There was a strange glint in her eye. "He looks like a strong one too. Big, strong, green... He'll catch you a good amount. Probably enough to get you into that Museum of yours." I finally understood the look she was giving me. She was looking me over like some sort of animal she was thinking of buying. And then abusing. And then fucking. And then eating. What was clear was that she didn't think of me as a pony, much less living, thinking being. The rest of her party were giving me similar looks. Even the stallions.

"It-- It's an institute, Angel." Techno said, a little louder this time.

"Sure sure sweetcheeks," Angel cooed, not looking away from me, or receding from her too close position, "So where'd you find this one?"

"Ah, He was, um, sleeping, on a hill, and I-- um-- I put the collar around his neck, and um... we we're actually going to get it off." She stared at the ground, bracing herself.

Angel grimaced, then took a step back and spat on the ground. "Techno, kid, you're too soft. You've gotta learn to assert yourself! He's your captive! You can blow his head off at any time! You can do anything to him! Watch!" Her hoof suddenly tore off the ground and crushed into the side of my face, a back hoof that would have sent any normal pony to the ground, earth pony or otherwise. Even with me, if I'd been hit with one of the spikes decorating her gauntlets I'd have been writhing in pain. But, none of them did hit me, instead only her bare hoof and a thin piece of metal slapped across my muzzle. It moved my head a bit to the side. I turned back to her and raised an eyebrow.

She glared at me. "It's common courtesy to fall down when your better hits you, slave." She growled.

I shrugged and rolled onto my back. Her grimace turned to a grin. The ponies behind her gave malicious laughs.

"See, Techo? He's practically broken already!" She said with sadistic glee, patting Techno on the head, mussing her mane. She closed her eyes and blew on a hoof, as if to clean off the extra talent that she assumed was dripping from her every pore. "Tell you what, how about I take him to the slave market and sell him for you? Then you won't even have to feel bad!" Oh that didn't sound good.

"Um, Angel, that's--"

"It's settled!" Angel shouted, pulling a chain from who knows where and attaching it to a small indention in my collar. Techno flinched back from Angel's sudden declaration. "I'll be back tomorrow, Techno baby." She called over her shoulder as she trotted off towards the opposite end of town, forcing me to quickly roll back onto my feet up and trot after her so as not to be strangled or trampled by her friends.. I looked back and saw Techno standing stock still, confused and distraught.

The town flew past, and the ponies ignored what was going on. They were ignoring slavery. That was probably a bad sign too. In a few moments we were past the Main, and faster than I'd have liked we were passing the last of the buildings surrounding it. Our hoofbeats rang out like percussion.

We were leaving the Main. Rather, I was leaving the Main. Somehow I didn't think I could count the crazy mare leading me by a chain and her buddies as a part of my entourage. Oh well. Easy come, easy go, whichever way the magic flows.

With a few more moments, I couldn't even see the town behind us.

There was a sudden tugging on my neck and I was forced to come to a quick stop to prevent my windpipe from being crushed. I looked behind me and saw that Angel and her friends had stopped, and she was grinning at me maliciously. She pulled a wicked looking knife out from behind her back. She snickered. "I know I told Techno that I'd sell you... but I can have a little fun first, can’t I?" She said, running her tongue along the edge of the blade. "She's too soft for her own good, that girl." She said as she wrapped the chain connecting us around her hoof, drawing me closer to where she sat. "I really should just leave her... but she's family, you know?"

Those two were related? The looked nothing alike, and Angel was an earth pony. Bullshit says Sunshine Lollipops.

"Well, not real family," She said, chain grating as she pulled me even closer. There was no slack on the chain at this point, and I was forced closer and closer. "But she's close. I've known her since she was just filly, always with her heads inside of robots and gadgets. I suppose I'm thankful enough for that, she made me these babies, after all." She said, gesturing to the strange contraption on her back. She sighed, pulling me within a few inches of her face. Her breath was hot and humid. "But still, she has no Idea how to... relax..." She said as she began to draw her knife across my left cheek, shuddering with pleasure. I felt something warm and wet running down my face.

"Let me have a turn when you're done, Angel." One of the stallions called out, his mustache fluttered as he spoke, and he'd already started on the straps that held on his armor. My ears twitched.

I was about to get raped. Sunshine Lollipops, the larger than average and stronger than average pony, was about to get raped. Fuck that.

As she moaned with pleasure, I put a hoof onto the chain she was still holding in her right hoof and then pushed it down and sideways to the ground, hard. Caught off balance, she fell and crashed to the ground, landing on her battle saddle thingie with a loud crunch, her knife clattering to the hard ground beside her.

"You bitch!" She screamed as she struggled to unwind the now tangled chain around her foreleg. As she rolled around helplessly, I picked up the knife with a deft flick of my tail and used it to slash through the chain at the collar. With the tension suddenly gone out of the chain, Angel slipped and fell again, growling with frustration. I dropped the knife back to the ground.

There was a click and a sound of settling metal as the barrel of a rifle was pressed against my head.

"Don't you move you cunt. One step and I'll make you wish you'd never been born."

I doubted that. I turned to face her.

"I said don't move!" She shouted, panic evident in her voice. I moved. I took the barrel of her rifle in her mouth and pulled, trying to pull it from her battle saddle. Instead, the barrel bent inwards.

Must have been more worn than I thought.

She stumbled back, falling on her rump as her eyes went wide in fear. I tried my best not to give her an evil glare. I don't think I succeeded.

"My turn." The one who'd been removing the lower half of his barding said, walking over to me with a length of chain dangling from his mouth, ready for business.

As I turned to face him, I noticed the biggest pony of the group helping up the one I'd scared out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't even seen him move. He was nearly as tall as I was and far thicker. For someone his size to have moved without me noticing, with eye or ear, was terrifying.

"You okay?" He whispered, concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry for worrying you." She whispered back, getting back up onto her feet while calming him with a soft smile.

"Dasher, Smasher! Get your incestuous assholes over here and hold this guy down for me!" The mustachioed pony shouted out, sneering at them. He turned his attention back to me. "I'm going to have fun with you, you little bitch."

Where did this guy get off calling me little? I was like, a head taller than him. He stalked towards me, spinning the chain with quick, efficient movements of his head. A chain that size would break bones if it hit at that speed. I sighed. My ears twitched. I was already beginning to duck when he brought the chain directly through the space where my head had just been, clipping the tops of my ears. I blessed the cartilage’s ability to bend, because otherwise I'd have been knocked to the ground. As it was, I instead charged forwards, still ducking, and rammed my head into his jaw, and he screamed in pain as he was forced to bite onto the chain, pushing his teeth into the nerves. He must have been really lucky in the placement of the chain, because I didn't hear any teeth crack or break.

I slipped backwards, back to where I'd been in the middle of the seven ponies as the mustachioed one fell to the ground. Dasher and Smasher, I'm not sure which was which, regarded me with cautious eyes, but I didn't see a attack coming from the small one, and I could see in the larger's stance that he would hold back and protect the smaller mare, his sister, I supposed, instead of pressing an offensive.

There was a familiar ringing of magic in the air, and I swiveled my head to see the... pony with the jury rigged flamethrower pistols aiming both of them at me. I think it was a mare. The guns were pointed at my torso. This time it wasn't just for show. She was aiming to kill. I stared at her. She stared back through her gasmask. I said nothing. Neither did she. The flamer pistols continue to hover.

"Oh, stop it with the silent love-fest already!" Angel shouted, rubbing her head. She'd shaken off the chain and was picking her knife off the ground. She glared at me. "Let's... Let's just get going." She sighed, and started walking off in the direction we'd been going, just like that.

"Are you Fucking KIDDING ME?!" Mustachio screamed. Angel glared at him. "You're not even going to fucking hit him?! I'm going to break this fucking bitch!"

"No, Slash. You're not." Angel said coldly.

"Why the FUCK not?!" He roared, spittle flying from his mouth as his nostrils flared.

"Because I said so." She said, turning back around. "Salts, get him moving."

The pony with the flamers nodded, nudging me with one of her pistols. I walked forwards. The others pulled their weapons from me, holstered them and followed, except for Slash.

"FUCK THAT!" He screamed indignantly. He wasn't ever going to shut up. "I'm going to rape this little whore in every hole he's got until he's bleeding from each and every one of them, and then I'm going to cut a few more and fuck those!" There he goes with the 'little' thing again.

Angel stopped, turned, and bit on the battle bit in her mouth. Her weapons hummed. "No, you're not. This is our merchandise. We don't break what we're going to sell."

Slash glared daggers at her. He spat onto the ground next to me and let out a frustrated breath. "Fine, but I'm going to buy this little bitch at the auction, and then you won't be able to say shit." Angel chewed on her bits again and the hum of her weapons slowed and halted with a whine.

"Whatever you say, Slash." She said, turning again and trotting forwards. I trotted after her.

"I mean it Angel! I'm going to do it!" He shouted, voice almost pleading.

"I believe you, Slash. You're going to buy the big mean pony and make him regret ever being born, I know." She called back, voice condescending.

"Aaaugh!" He shouted at the sky in frustration, finally picking his pants up off the ground and trotting after us.

* * *

We trotted for what felt like hours. The grey sky slowly turned dark blue. I sighed. It probably had been hours.

"Who wants s'mores!?" An enthusiastic unicorn mare with a yellow mane and a pretty shade of brown coat bubbled as we made camp. I said we, but I didn't really do shit. I just sat there as the slavers rolled out their thin sleeping bags and set up a fire. Ironically, the one with the flamers had no part in that, instead choosing to simply lay on her back and stare at the desert sky.

The slavers sighed collectively. "They aren't s'mores if they don't have Chocolate, Daggers." Angel explained as she opened a bag of junk food and chowed down.

"They don't have Graham crackers either." Slash said as he rolled over on his sleeping bag so that he was facing away from the fire.

"Or marshmallows." Added Dasher, who was munching on a couple of carrot with Smasher, who only shook his head.

Daggers deflated for a moment, then lit up again. "You want some, don't you Salts?" She hopped over to Salts and placed her forehooves on her stomach and stared into her eyes, blocking Salts' view of the stars. Salts said nothing as she pushed her to the side and continued staring at the clouds. Daggers pouted as she somberly walked back to the fire and sat down.

"What about you, slave?" She said in a voice so sad I couldn't help myself from nodding. "Yes!" She yelled, hopping up to her feet and bouncing around the fire before rummaging through her saddlebags.

I was a bit put off when she pulled the carcasses of several small lizards from her bag, along with a loaf of hard bread. She put two different types of lizards between two slices of hard bread, then impaled it on a tiny metal pole, and handed it to me before making her own. She used her magic to hold it over the fire, and I followed suit, though I used my tail to hold the skewer on account of not wanting to singe my face. I brought it to my face as she did, after the bottom lizard had bloated up a pale yellow, and the top had shriveled into a dark brown. It tasted sweet, like a candied apple, but it was crunch and savory at the same time. My ears twitched with pleasure.

"Whoa! How are you doing that?" She asked, her face the epitome of wonder.

I looked around, confused, before following her gaze to my tail. I looked at her questioningly.

"I can't do that! Even if I didn't have magic, I couldn't do that!" Weird. Everypony in my Stable did it. "Teach me!" She said eagerly. And so I did. Or tried, at least. By the time the fire went out, she was able to grip her skewer in her tail, but after that everything went to hell, and she wasn't able to control it in the slightest. When the fire went out, she gave me a genuine grin and hopped over to Salts and snuggled up next to her. Salts simply pushed her away, but Daggers didn't seem to be put off by it.

The last pony in the group, a muddish brown pony with a slicked back grey mane and beard stubble stood watch. It didn't look like I'd have been able to escape. Not that I would have. Where would I have gone? Back to the mare I'd only known for an hour? I sighed, then slumped to the ground and fell asleep.

I had nightmares this time. Without radiation crushing down on me, bad dreams came at me in full force. I saw every pony in my stable die horribly. One by one, as if I was a ghost, simple forced to watch. Drill Bit. Highground. Even the Overstallion. I saw Tough Luck and Clean Cut die, though this time, they didn't die peacefully, instead being torn apart like Swift Justice had been. I even saw my parents die, even though I couldn't remember what they looked like.

When my eyes finally cracked open, I'd relived the night before last a hundred times over. I rubbed the sand out of my eyes with a hoof, and saw that it was shimmering. I blinked and the shimmer was gone. Probably just a trick of the light. My ears twitched.

"You guys ready?" Angel said, Armor already readjusted and weapons ready to go. The slaver crew gave a collective nod. "Alright, you guys go ahead. I'll follow behind in a second, I wanna talk to this stallion before we sell him off."

Slash's eyes flared with anger, but he sighed and started walking. The rest followed in his hoofsteps.

Well, not Daggers. She bounced alongside Salts, who continued to ignore her.

I turned to Angel. She stared at me solemnly. Then she walked over and attached another chain to my collar, and looked me in the eyes. "You didn't kill me."

"Why?"

Why hadn't I? I guess it just hadn't seemed right. She'd been on the floor, and really she wasn't a threat to me. But then again, she was trying to sell me into slavery, so she was a bit of a threat.

"And you didn't hurt anyone. It would have been easy to crush my throat, or Slash's or Dasher's. But you didn't." Her stare turned to a glare. I shrugged.

Angel sighed. "I didn't think you knew. You and Techno Babylon are the same. Always being... merciful." She looked out to where the rest of the slaver party was already starting to disappear over the horizons. "Better get going. Gotta sell you bright and early." She said, tugging on the chain connecting us. I could have sworn I saw my fur shimmering again as she pulled me along with her away from the campsite.

Big Money and Headbutting

Ponies sell ponies. This wasn't a hard concept to grasp. It made sense. For the stronger, smarter, and faster to oppress the weak was just nature. The strongest thrived, the weak tried to survive, and the weakest died. It made sense that, in an attempt to survive, some of the weaker would subjugate themselves in return for the opportunity to live on, even if it meant that they wouldn't thrive. And furthermore, it made sense that once this practice became established, the stronger would continue to seek out weaker ponies to subjugate in order to make their lives easier, to make a profit, and to further thrive by exploiting the weak.

What didn't make sense was that the strong would build such a ridiculous structure for the transactions of the subjugated to the ones in power to take place.

The monstrosity of architecture must have stood twenty stories tall, a conglomeration of metal, stone and clouds, held together with an array of adhesives ranging from glue to duct tape from the look of it, and the loud but gentle hum was enough to make anyone understand that without magic, this thing wouldn't be standing. The design was like a Cloudeseum out of an old textbook, but stretched upwards so that it stood proportionately like a roll of bits. My pipbuck beeped as I made the mistake of following the structure all the way into where it began to disappear into the wisps of clouds. I nearly shuddered to think that anyone would go up there at all, much less willingly.

"So, we're headed to the very top floor."

Damn it.

Angel gave me a wicked grin. "We have a prime slave to sell, after all. Big, strong, fast, ignorant, and most of all, compliant." Her hoof patted my head. My ears drooped. Then her tone got serious. "Because of this, we're probably going to leave our weapons at the... which floor was it?"

"Eighteenth." Dasher said confidently.

"Right. We'll have to leave our weapons at on the eighteenth floor, along with all but three ponies, so I'm going to want our big guns going with me to protect our... asset. That means Rock Smasher and Daring Daggers. You guys okay with splitting up?"

Smasher and Dasher gave each other a glance, then Dasher smiled and nodded, and Smasher nodded his consent. Daggers gave Salts a huge hug and began tearing up, but nodded her consent.

"Hey!" Slash yelled in a hurt tone, "Why the fuck am I not one of the big guns?!"

Angel narrowed her eyes. "Slashy Songs, when the fuck have you EVER been one of our big guns?"

Slash stared at the ground. "Maybe if you'd just let me try..."

Angel sighed. "Fine. If you can beat Smasher or Daggers in a hoofwrestling contest, you can be a big gun."

Slash had hopped up from where he sat and ran over to Daggers before Angel even finished talking, biting her tail and dragging her over to a medium sized boulder where he plopped down and slammed his right foreleg onto the rock face. Daggers gave Angel glance, then set her hoof on the boulder when Angel nodded.

"Okay, on the count of three," Slash said quickly, "One, twothree!" His words slurred together as he pushed his hoof down as hard as he could. Daggers did all she could to keep her hoof from being crushed down into the boulder, but was losing surely, if slowly.

Her bubbly grin slowly crept back across her face. Her hoof stopped shaking. Slash's eyes widened.

A burnt orange aura enveloped Slash, and he shot upwards from the table, barely holding onto Daggers' hand. He gave a sheepish grin. Daggers' smile widened as she slammed him back into the earth, taking his hoof to the boulder with a thud.

"No fair!" He whined. "She used magic!"

"And do you think that someone in the Colosseum is going to hesitate to press their advantage?" Angel said, her voice harsh. She finished messing around with her special guns and turned back to slash, staring disapprovingly.

He grunted and walked back to his gear, shouldering it and mumbling under his breath.

"That's what I thought. Let's get to work, kiddies." She commanded as she began to walk towards the tower slowly, showing no weakness. The rest of her companions followed suit, walking with a casual step that left neither weakness nor sign of hesitation. I waddled after them, trying not to step on the cracks in the ground.

The doors of the Colosseum was... daunting to say the least. They reached my height several times over, and were carved with graphic scenes depicting both death and sex, and sometimes both. Two guards, both ponies nearly my size, and about the same height and girth as Rock smasher, stood decked out in armor made entirely from metal and thick rubber, with spikes raising from everywhere that wasn't a joint. Angel gave them a casual grin. "We're here to make some money boys."

The one on the right, with a dark blue mane and lighter blue coat showing though the visor of his helmet responded. "Just the one?" He let out a hearty laugh. "Fine as he is, I'd say ye've been slackin' on yer game." Angel's grin twisted at the corners.

"Yes Heavy, just one, but wait 'til you hear who caught him..." She leaned in close and both of the guards bent down and turned to hear her whisper. "Techno. Babylon." They both rose as one and roared with laughter. The laugh of the one on the left was unsettling to say the least, but genuine.

"So she did now did she?" Heavy pushed the guard of his helmet up and grinned. "Well, tell 'er I said congratulations. But that brings te question why ye're her and she ain't."

Angel sighed. "I... may have take the liberties of selling this one and handing her back the profits back in the Main." She frowned. "I guess I didn't really ask, but I don't want her around here as long as I can help it." Heavy grimaced and the one on the left nodded sagely.

"I c'n see the wisdom in that." Heavy said as he turned around and signaled something upwards with his hoof. The heavy wooden door of the Colosseum began to open, but rather than sliding outwards or inwards, it was pulled up into a thick, low floating cloud by gargantuan chains. "Go in as it pleases ye, though I'd suggest laying low of Third Law. He's on 'is period, as best I c'n judge." Angel nodded, and we passed under the enormous doors, which crashed down behind us just as we finished crossing the threshold.

The inside was just as terrible as the outside, a mixing pot of cultured splayed out like a dead animal. Here and there you could spot Zebrican lettering and inscriptions that had been torn from their rightful places, next to looted pieces of art from high society unicorns from before the war, which were balanced with Pegasus cloud sculptures and works that might have been genuinely original. There were even some residual gore from Minotaur and Goat cultures floating around. It was disgusting. Maybe it was just a bit of culture shock after coming out of the polished steel interior of my Stable, but I couldn't stand the place. But the hairs standing up on the back of my neck wasn't purely a result of the decor.

All around us were creatures from every race imaginable, and some more besides. There were Earth ponies aplenty, supplemented by unicorns and even pegasai. I suppose the Cloud architecture had to come from somewhere. The white and black coats of zebras flashed in the crowd, and Minotaurs stood high above the rest of the creatures, with the exception of a Lizard wearing a pair of brightly colored goggles who stood even taller than they. A reptilian eye flashed around cautiously and settled on me. Though I didn't consciously try to express either fear or anger, but my muscles tensed and I'm positive that I let out a low growl. Loud enough to be heard though the crowd, if one was listening for it. The Lizard's scaled teeth revealed themselves in a grin as the lizard stooped down and disappeared behind other ponies and minotaurs.

"The hell is wrong with you?!" Dasher said, swiftly smacking me on the back of the head. She looked around cautiously, then turned her gaze back to me. "You're lucky you tried to pull that shit down here on the first floor. If you'd've done that higher up, people might have noticed and we'd have had a harder time time selling you." I snorted and followed Angel, who was making her way though the crowd, pushing various out of her way.

That, at least, comforted me. As ponies and zebras, goats and minotaurs alike were pushed and shoved, they call called out insults and gave dirty looks.

They were more pony than I'd given them credit for. I let myself relax, but not to slack. My ears stayed perked, and my eyes still wandered, but I wasn't going to cause myself any bodily harm from stress. Before long, we arrived at an uncharacteristically spartan set of steel doors. Angel pressed a button on the frame and they slid open, revealing a large elevator. There were pegs on the floor, worn by constant use of chains. The slave elevator.

"Going up?" A shadow materialized out of the corner of the elevator. A Zebra. "What floor?" A Zebra Bellhop by the looks of it.

"Which of the High Floors are Third Law free?" Angel asked, her confident smile still emblazoned on her face. If she wore it much longer it was going to stick.

The Zebra laughed. It was... melodic, maybe. He certainly wasn't a pony who'd died his coat. "Good question. I'd say the Twenty eighth and Thirtieth are being the most lacking in chubby pony, assuming he hasn't used the stairs to wander about. At the pace he's waddling about at, I wouldn't expect either to be safe for long." As we piled into the elevator, he stood up on his hind legs and pulled down on a chain, causing the doors to slide back inwards. He'd probably opened them too.

"I'd say your best bet is the twenty eighth. He usually tries to go up in an attempt to disprove gravity, but I doubt you'd have more than an hour until he found his way there. Mayhaps you should go to the twenty ninth and simply wait until he's gone and sneak onto the floor, no?"

Angel frowned, but nodded. "Sneaking won't be easy with the type of people I'm bringing. Buffoons, the lot of them." Dasher snickered until her brother smacked her on the top of her head. "Take us up to the twenty eighth, my good Zebra."

"As you wish." He said, then coughed and adjusted his tone to the Middle Tongue, his casual smile disappeared and a more somber expression replaced it. "By agreeing to pass the eighteenth floor, you are also agreeing to submit yourself to the rules and regulations of the High Floors. Do you find yourself to be in agreement with these measures?"

"I do." Angel responded.

"And are you in all honesty planning to be up to no good on the floors to which I am going to take you?"

"I am." Her eyes narrowed dangerously, even as the corners of her grin turned up even more.

"Then in accordance to the fifth rule of the Colosseum of Injustice, I shall take it upon myself to escort you to the floor of your choosing, as long as you shall take it upon yourself to knock some heads in my name if the opportunity arises."

"I will."

"Our accord is completed. Let's, how you ponies are always saying, get to business, then." The Zebra stallion said, his face softening back into a cocky grin. He placed his hoof to the wall of the elevator behind him, and there was a crackle of dark electricity as lines of green and violet began to run from where his hoof came into contact with the hard steel, forming the lines of a circuit. My ears twitched in wonder. They'd formed a magic circuit in the middle of the wasteland. And they used it for turning on an elevator. A cold shiver ran down my spine. I was no unicorn, but magic circuits weren't supposed to work. They were perfect manners of conveyance of magicka in theory, but tests had always failed, at least from what I'd read.

What were these ponies doing differently?

Before I could reduce myself to simply glaring at the circuit, there was a grinding of gears and a whine of metal wire running across metal casings and the elevator lifted itself off the ground.

I was glad for the fact that we were in a elevator designed for the transport of slaves, because that meant there was plenty of room. No one had to come crushingly close to another, like one would have had to do in the maintenance elevator back in the Stable. Not that that stopped Daggers from hugging Salts as tightly as she could anyway. I was beginning to think she had a thing for her.

The elevator creaked and groaned as it passed level after level of low level scum and high class criminals. Not that I'd seen much of a law system in the wasteland, but it was probably to classify criminals by a moral standard similar to my own than by any perverted laws I'd find in the wastes. The elevator jerked and made unsettling noises at every single floor, threatening to drop like a rock at the shortest notice, making a rusty clanging at all of the metal floors and a softer, but just as frightening echo of twanging cables on the floors with cloud based supports. All throughout the ride, the magical hum rang through the air, seemingly tainted with the crackle of electricity. Though maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was some sort of coalition of corruption.

The Elevator crunched to a halt. The Zebra smiled.

"The Eighteenth floor. You know how it goes." He said, gesturing out the door to where a thick, tan pony with a greasy rustled brown mane sat behind a set of metal bars on a counter with a large opening at the surface of the counter.

The rest of the floor was still quite spacious, despite the large quantity of room taken up by the counter and what I presumed was the weapons vault, and it was furnished practically with large, cushioned, backless benches, which were further decorated by ponies of every variety. Earth Pony, Unicorn, a Pegasai or two, and even what looked like a large, bipedal dog. It growled at me. I growled back.

Another swat and a frustrated look came from Daggers as she and the rest of the Slaver crew passed me and walked up to the counter. I followed the group. Each passed his or her weapon through the bars without conflict, or talking. Apparently the pony behind the bars recognized them and stowed their weapons away properly.

When it came turn for the mud brown, black maned pony of our group--Coin Shot, I think it was-- to give his weapon to the pony behind the counter, he placed his shotgun on the counter and received a glare in return.

"That it?" The Counter pony said in a voice as gruff as his appearance.

Coin Shot sighed, then began pulling weapons out of his pockets. He was like an old pony with pockets full of hard candies, if you replaced old with incredibly threatening, and hard candies with varieties of weapons I hadn't even seen in holovids or read of in books. By the time he finished fishing his last grenade out of his worn cap, it looked like there were enough weapons on the table to arm every single pony in the room twice over. There probably were.

The Counter pony glared at him. Coin Shot gave an indignant snort, then flicked his tail, tossing a wicked dagger into the air and catching it with his teeth, and set it on the counter.

"Happy?" The Counter pony frowned deeply.

"Very. Now get out of my sight." Coin Shot tsked and stalked off angrily to the rest of the group, who was waiting near the elevator.

And then it was my turn. Kinda. The Counter pony glared at my collar, then back to me. I shrugged. He rolled his eyes and shooed me off with a hoof. I reconvened with the rest of the group at the elevator, where the Zebra was standing just outside the elevator.

"You have agreed to the Accord of the Colosseum and disarmed peacefully, so now you may choose your retainers." He said his voice filling once more with formal purpose as Angel, Daggers, and Smasher walked past him into the elevator.

"These two." Angel said as she turned around in the elevator to face the Zebra. "I have chosen my guards and companions. I now request to be taken to the floor of my choosing."

"It shall be done as you wish." The Zebra said. Suddenly all eyes were on me. Still outside the elevator. Right.

I trotted into the elevator, trying not to shift my weight nervously. I'd never been sold off to the highest bidder before.

"Try not to cause any trouble." Angel said as the grate to the elevator began to close.

"But what if the other kids are meeeeeean to us?" Slash whined, doing his best impression of a spoiled foal. I really couldn't tell the difference between it and his normal way of speaking.

"Break a leg or four. Just don't be the one to start it." Angel said as the doors slammed shut. Before they did, I saw the wicked grin on Slash's face. I was suddenly glad to not be staying on the eighteenth floor.

* * *

Imagine a casino. Now replace all of the card tables and roulette wheels with pits full of slaves, and replace the stage of performers with very, very high class slaves, showing off their prowess as they were auctioned off to the highest bidder. And now add strippers. Strippers everywhere. I know that ponies usually don't wear clothes, but there was a certain something that the action of removing exceedingly skimpy clothing did for a stallion, or a mare for that matter, and the ponies that were dancing from seemingly randomly raised platforms throughout the room. I say room, but Grand Hall would probably be more appropriate a term. My eyes caught on a pegasai mare who's skimpy coverings were currently in the process of becoming even less foal appropriate. Her wings flexed, sleek muscles causing her fur to ripple subtly, emphasizing her every curve and crevice. Her lime green eyes flashed when she saw me staring, and the corners of her mouth turned up as she turned around in a movement that couldn't be justified by words. Pictures probably wouldn't do it either. I doubt a holovid could have pulled it off with all the magical effects implementation in the world. My ears shuddered violently.

I liked pegasai now.

A tug on my chain that near pulled me to the ground reminded me that there were other ponies in the world. Angel fixed me with a harsh glare, then sighed and pulled me towards the enormous stage at the far end of the Grand Hall.

Ooh, that meant I was a high class slave. Good for me.

Whips cracked as we walked past the pits full of lower slaves. Moans of pain filled the air alongside cruel and sadistic laughs. There was a loud thunk of hoof colliding with muzzle, and a particularly ugly light red, nearly pink, stallion crashed to the floor.

"Oho, so she wants to play, does she?" The stallion cooed as he rose back to his hooves, standing ferociously over a small filly, far to small to have made the sound that'd drawn my attention. A smear of blood across her left back hoof disproved my hypothesis. Her slave rags quivered as the ugly stallion towered over her, a look decorating his face that could only be described as terrible. The filly shivered in fear.

"Knock it off, Hope." An official shouted at the stallion. "Hands off the merchandise."

"Or what?" He shouted, spittle dripping from his mouth like malice dripped from his voice.

"Or we see if any of your ancestors were pegasai." The security officer tilted his head towards one of the gilt windows, completely unphased by the Hope's tone. He was definitely on my list of badasses.

The ugly stallion spat on the floor next to the filly. "I'm going to buy your ass," He said, "Then I'm going to make you regret that your grandparents ever thought about getting into the situation that gave them the slight possibility of an idea of fucking each other." The filly scampered away, and the ugly stallion grinned sickly. My ears twitched angrily. What an ass.

Speaking of asses, I was pulled thoroughly onto mine with a, at least to me, sudden jerk on the chain connected to the collar around my neck.

"Jeez, I'm finally seeing how Techno got a collar around your neck." The impatient look that adorned the trio's faces made me think that they'd been trying to get my attention for a while. They sighed collectively and began dragging me once more towards the large platform.

I tried to keep my head down as we made our way to the base of the platform, but it would've taken far more willpower than I had to keep from looking back to stare at the pegasai mare, still dancing, and still glancing in my direction and grinning whenever she caught me looking in generally ungentlecoltly places. I finally was able to tear my eyes from her perfect curvatures when I taught a nearby wall a lesson by ramming it with my head. Or maybe it taught me a lesson. It was hard to think with the overwhelming headache that was taking up residence in my skull.

"Angel, Baby!" A tall silver stallion walked over and... fake kissed Angel on the cheeks? "It's been too long, too long baby!"

She giggled, a genuine, horrifyingly feminine giggle, and pushed him away. "It's been a month Fair Trade."

"A month without seeing your beautiful face is like a lifetime without air, baby." He said. The way he talked reminded me of a cartoon character. High pitched and obnoxious. Angel and Daggers sure didn't seem to mind. Smasher just stared in all directions at once, never pausing in his search for danger. "And you too gorgeous!" He said, this time directed at Daggers, who didn't push him away when he did his fake kissy thingie.

"And here's my favorite big boy, back to say hello." He pushed his way past the mares and siddled up to Smasher. "And how've you been handsome?"

Smasher's stony demeanor faltered for a moment and he tried to avoid eye contact with the auctioneer pony. Well, who I assumed was an auctioneer pony. I mean, tux, quick voice, named 'Fair Trade'. It's not fair to judge any other pony by their name or cutie mark, prime example being a certain 'Sunshine Lollipops', but sometimes first impressions are the best and most accurate, and I'd've been willing to bet that this was one of them.

And then he moved on to me.

"And who is this lovely hunk of stallion you've brought for me to gobble all up?"

"That's our slave. I figured he seems in perfect condition, so we're selling him on the high floors." Angel explained.

Fair Trade rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'd have never have guessed. But what's his name, honey?"

"Oh, well that's... ah..." Angel tapped her hoof on the ground as if struggling to remember. "Slave?"

I gave her a flat glare. What a shitty master. Didn't even know my name. Wait. My ears twitched. Nopony knew my name. Not a single person still alive.

Fair Trade laughed. It was a nice laugh, considering it came from a stallion who sold slaves for a living. In a world where slavery was normal, I suppose the people in the business are probably just as normal as the rest. "Let me guess," He said, staring at my flank in a manner a bit too judgmental and observatory for my comfort, "You've got a sun eating a candy... Sunny Chew?"

I shook my head.

"Candied Glow?"

Another shake.

"Hot Bite?" He said, leaning far closer to me than would have been required under any circumstance with a very suggestive smile on his face. Well, maybe not any circumstance, but any that were likely.

I shook my head and backpedaled a bit.

"Candied Chew?" Daggers imput.

"Sunray Taffy?" Angel asked.

"Bright Sucker?" Fair Trade suggested.

More shakes of my head.

"Sunshine Lollipops." Rock Smasher said-- not even really a question, just an obligatory guess-- as he surveyed the constantly shifting crowd.

My ears quivered in pleasure at hearing my name out loud. Not many people called me by it, even back in the Stable. Just 'Hey you's and the like. I nodded.

"Huh." The three who'd been guessing most robustly let out a collective grunt of dissatisfaction. "That's a stupid name." They said at the same time.

"So what's your special talent then? Candy?" Fair Trade asked.

I shrugged. Daggers tried and failed to stifle a giggle as she fell onto the floor quivering with laughter.

"He's like a giant blank flank!" She said between wracking giggles.

Ouch. Right in the feels.

"Okay, so I'll put him on the next auction, head of the line." Fair Trade said as he began to walk away back to his post closer to the stage.

"Wait, when is that going to be?" Angel asked.

"Another fourty minutes or so, sweety. You just missed the last one." He said, vanishing into the crowd.

"Damnit." Angel grunted. "Bar?"

"Bar." Smasher grunted back, already turning to clear a path to the liquor counter.

If it hadn't have been called a bar, I doubt I would have stuck a name that simple to it myself. A bar is simple. It's a counter, behind which a pony with large amounts of ales and beers and various spirits sits, and where a pony can, for the right price or equivalent, obtain said alcohol. It can be large, but does not very often exceed more than four or five feet behind the counter, and extends generally far more laterally than otherwise. Fights sometimes start here, due to the amounts of intoxicating liquors served without restriction --With the exceptions of age and money-- and due to the various types of people who wind up there.

It should not have a waterslide.

I'd like to further emphasis. There should not be a slide, which leads into a pool and is slicked by a flow of water, on which ponies have fun and enjoy themselves in a manner that follows in the nature of pre-war summers long gone.

This bar had a waterslide.

Needless to say, I was spellbound by the waterslide and could detract neither my attention from the slide itself, which was further surrounded by lush ferns and other greenery, or the beautiful mares who were using it. There might have been stallions too, but I was a bit stuck on the water slide and beautiful mares part.

A sudden chomp on my ear brought me back to Equestria to find Daggers chewing gleefully on my right ear. My left twitched in irritation.

"Isn't this how you like your mares?" Daggers jested. "Riding you and telling you where to go?"

I snorted. She giggled.

"Onwards noble steed!" She called as she flung her hoof out in the direction of the alcohol selling part of the bar.

Hear that? She called me a Noble Steed.

The part of the bar that sold alcohol was just as, if not even more-so, extravagant as the part that was a Luna-be-clopp't waterslide, decked out with furnishings from what looked like gold gilt drama sofas to toga wearing mares feeding the wealthier patrons some sort of... crunchy... mixture of fruit. It looked like it was to fruit as a mutt was to a dog. A crunchy muttfruit maybe.

Fortunately, there was a simpler region of the bar consisting of a simple polished and worn wooden counter where my party settled in. My chain was attached to a bar stool where I was directed to sit.

"What'd ya like?" Asked the brownish gold pony behind the counter, polishing an already sparkling glass.

"Beer."

"Whiskey."

"Apple Maretini!"

Twitcha-twitch.

"Got it, beer for muscles, whiskey for ms.Mohawk, Appletini for the hyper one, and a bottle of our finest wine for the slave." He said as he whirled around, sorting through and grabbing bottles with dexterity that seemed beyond the realms of pony agility. Within seconds our drinks were layed out in front of us with perfect precision, and the barpony was back to cleaning glasses.

"How much do we owe you Hopps?" Angel asked, frowning into her whiskey. The barpony laughed.

"You don't owe me anything. In fact, the next patron to walk up to this bar has offered to pay for all of your drinks himself." Hopps gave Angel a mischievous grin. Angel started to say something but was interrupted by a stallion slamming his hoof down on the bar, leaving a mar in the finely polished wood. It was the ugly stallion from before, flanked by a duo of stallions just as ugly and far larger than himself.

"Get me the best you got, and hurry it up!"

My teeth grit behind my lips.

"As you wish, Master Crushed Hope," He said, bending down beneath the counter and returning with a bottle of expensive looking wine --not as expensive as the one in front of me though-- and placed it in front of Crushed Hope, "That'll be four hundred and fifteen caps."

Crushed Hope took his more than evident frustration out on the bar again, leaving a second mark near the first. "That's ridiculous, last time I was here your best was only a hundred eighty!" He screamed.

"I'm sorry sir, but prices do tend to fluctuate out here in the wastes, as you know." Crushed Hope grumbled and nodded to one of his associates who forked over the caps. Hopps' grin remained both wide and confident as he picked up the sack of bottlecaps and placed it somewhere out of sight beneath the counter. Caps. What a weird mode of currency.

The ugly stallion took a seat a stool away from me, while his entourage stood, looking around attentively.

Hopps winked at Angel, who only sighed and downed her drink.

I looked at my own drink for the first time. A whole bottle of wine. My gaze shifted around the counter. No cups. My ears twitched. Oh well. I leaned over the counter and picked up the bottle with my teeth then held it in my hooves as I tugged the cork out with my teeth. It tasted... expensive. Very expensive.

"What's a slave doing here?" Crushed hope slurred between droughts of wine. "And drinking too?" With no further warning, a hoof slammed into my jaw, knocking me off balance enough to make me fall to the floor. The bottle of wine I'd been drinking flew through the air until I snatched it out of the air with my tail a moment before it shattered against the ground.

The barpony frowned and his eyes narrowed. "Now, Master Hope, this slave is neither yours nor is he your problem, and it is the owner's prerogative to have their slave do as it pleases them, not you."

"Right you are boy." The ugly stallion's muzzle split into a sick grin. "I suppose I'll just buy him then. How much for the big fucker?"

"He's not for sale, yet." Angel said, not looking up from her drink. "He'll be up at the next auction."

Crushed Hope frowned, obviously disgruntled by the fact that a seemingly common pony had just told him 'no'. "Well, you wouldn't mind if I knocked him around a bit, would ya?"

Angel's eyes flashed angrily. "Yes, I would mind. He's mine and I want him in peak condition when I sell him. I'm here to make money, Mr. Hope, not to act like a douche bag." Crushed Hope's nostrils flared. Not only had someone told him no, somepony'd told him no twice in a row.

"Well, fine then, that makes two pieces of trash I have to buy today to make a point." He snorted, then brought his face up to mine and stared directly into my eyes. His eyes were the color of tarnished silver, and filled with malice. "No one crosses Crushed Hope, and that means nopony, get it? I'm going to buy you, break you, then sell you."

But, I didn't cross... I didn't cross him. What?

"You hear me slave!?" He screamed at me, spittle practically drenching my face, "NOPONY! CROSSES! ME!"

My eyes narrowed. My eyes flickered to Angel, who shrugged.

Then he headbutted me. Or tried to, at least. A headbutt is an technique that is effective in very few situations, and in none of those is any part of the user's head supposed to come into contact with any part of the opponent's body or head that is hard. It is designed to deliver a quick and weighted blow into a soft part of the opponent. It shouldn't be used in a forehead to forehead manner, because that would damage both sides equally, assuming that both the user and his opponent are of similar sizes. Now, Crushed Hope might have been big by Wasteland pony standards, but to me, he was not. If he'd grown up in my vault, they'd probably have called him names. I was bigger than average for my vault. The point of the matter is, even as I was sitting down, I was taller than he was, and when his head tried to come into contact with my muzzle, I simply leaned forwards a little bit and let him collide with my forehead.

"No...pon...ey..." He slurred, more due to lack of consciousness this time than alcohol content or attitude. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. His guards stared at his limp body. I stared at his limp body. The slaver trio stared at his limp body. The mares who'd been feeding the high class ponies and the high class ponies themselves stared at his limp body. Ponies that had been going down the waterslide halted before leaping onto the slide and stared at his limp body.

Then, the enormous body guards of Crushed Hope started laughing. Entirely genuine, cracking up, rolling on the floor laughter poured from their mouths as their lungs emptied and their eyes started tearing up.

"Heh, dumb cunt." One of them said, throwing Crushed Hope over his back and starting to walk away, still giggling.

The other gulped air greedily as he tried to stop laughing, then rolled back onto his hooves and began following after the other. Before he passed out of eyesight, he turned back to me and saluted.

"Huh." Said Daggers, obviously striving to use all of the wit in her arsenal to sum up the situation.

"Huh." Added Angel, trying to add a bit of comedy to the situation.

"Huh." Smasher drawled, doing his best to ignore the racist undertone in Angel's comedic relief.

"..." I snorted.

"The nerve of some ponies," The barpony said, "he didn't even finish his drink." Hopps smiled at me, and slid the bottle to my seat over the counter. "More for you I suppose, slave." I shrugged and pulled myself back up onto the stool and put the bottle in my tail back onto the counter next to my new bottle.

The trio stayed silent as I chugged the first bottle and started on the second.

"Sunshine. Not only have you knocked out one of the most influential ponies in the wasteland, in the last five minutes you've drunk more than three hundred caps worth of wine." Angel said, the confusion in her voice nearly material. "Do you... understand anything?"

I stared at her flatly, my ears perked.

"This isn't really something I have to worry about, but you realize that he's going to be angry, right?"

I shrugged and nodded.

"And that when ponies are angry, then tend to lash out? Generally at whatever made them angry?"

I nodded, finishing off the last drops of wine in the second bottle, then balancing it mouth to mouth on top of the other.

"And you realize that with the amount of alcohol you've just consumed, you'll probably be drunk for the rest of the night, assuming your liver doesn't fail?"

I stared at the bottles. It hadn't tasted like all that much alcohol to me. I shrugged.

She turned to Smasher and Daggers. "I'm not sure he can comprehend sequence of events, or time. Maybe he is cracked." Smasher nodded. Daggers bit her lip and frowned.

What a load. I could understand sequential events better than any of them. It wasn't hard to see how things would go. Assuming that I was purchased by a lower class pony here, it wouldn't take Crushed Hope long to find me, buy me, or simply steal me, and then destroy me, assuming I didn't simply escape. If purchased by a middle class pony, I'd have a few days of Solace before Crushed Hope turned up to buy or steal me, but the dealings with would take longer and there would be more expenses on Crushed Hope's part. If, however, I was purchased by a very high class pony, it would take a decent amount of time to be found and bought, because it would lead to a multitude of problems for Crushed Hope if he tried to steal me, assuming that the high class pony was willing to sell.

The path was clear, all I had to do was be bought by a high class pony and prove my worth to an extent that he refused to sell me, or of course be bought by a enemy of Crushed Hope, though that would be harder to find in the time period I had. Easy peasy. I flicked the wine bottle off of its companion and slid both back over the counter to Hopps, who flipped them into a bin beneath the bar with his tail. Both landed perfectly on their bottoms with a clink.

My ears twitched. I looked back to see the slaver trio staring at me.

"You don't seem worried at all," Daggers said hopefully, "Do you have a plan?"

I nodded.

Angel narrowed her eyes. "Does it involve escaping?"

I shook my head.

Smasher glared at me. "You're going to get us in trouble." He muttered quietly, too quiet for the others to hear, but it wasn't hard for me to pick up.

"Well, whatever your plan is, you'd better not mess up our payday, got it Sunshine?" Angel said, slamming her hoof down on the counter. The barpony glared at her, and she grinned back sheepishly and tried to rub out the mark she'd made.

There was a chiming of bells, and a voice came over a very old and crackling, if well cared for speaker system. "The twelve o'clock auction will begin soon kiddos, so if you've got some savvy slaves you're looking to sell, get 'em on up here!" Fair Trade's voice faded even though the speakers continued to crackle for several seconds before being cut off near violently.

Angel sighed. "That's our cue." She pulled the chain to my collar off of the bar stool and reattached it to her armor, then trotted off to the stage dragging me behind her. We pushed through ponies of all types on our way to the stage, from rich ones to slaves like me. Angel seemed to be too distracted to give much of a shit about either as she shoved them out of the way.

"Fair Trade. Slave. Take him." Angel practically moaned.

"Angel, baby, are you... drunk? You've only been gone for thirty minutes! And, it's bad taste to get drunk before noon. Even if it's only by a few minutes." Fair Trade looked her over.

"Whiskey. Idiots. Bad combination. Take him." She said, detaching the chain from my neck and attempting to shove me over to Fair Trade. Instead she knocked herself of balance and nearly fell. "Start the bid wherever. Get me money." She stalked off into the crowd. Daggers waved goodbye enthusiastically and Smasher nodded.

Fair Trade gave me an appraising gaze. "I'd say... Two thousand. Hows that sound?"

I was worth ten bottles of the finest wine this place had to offer? Sounded fine to me. I nodded approvingly. Fair Trade grinned wickedly.

"So we'll start the bid at three." He said, nudging me towards a small stairway leading onto the stage, I hopped up the steps and found a place in the line of slaves that had already partially formed, right between the pale yellow green filly from before and a shaggy red unicorn stallion.

The filly stared at me silently.

I stared forwards, into the crowd.

She kept staring.

So did I.

She leaned forwards to look at my face.

I finally turned my gaze on her, and she squealed in terror and stood back up straight and stared out at the crowd as I'd been doing, as if to deny that she'd ever been staring at me.

Foals.

I went back to staring silently at the crowd, assessing who was and wasn't a good bet for who wouldn't let me go once they got me. Most seemed wishy-washy at best, but a small few seemed both proud and easily impressed. I'd aim for those. One in particular seemed interested in me, a white stallion with a blue and teal striped mane cut short and slicked back with a small black mustache and a grey suit with matching top hat. He was aiming for me. I'd have shuddered, but I didn't really care anymore.

"Ladies and Gentlecolts!" Fair Trade shouted over the static-y intercom through a jury-rigged microphone enveloped in a silver aura. "Welcome to the Twelve O'Clock Slave Auction! You folks know how this works, but I'll go over it once more for the slower among you; One hoof for a hundred caps, two for two hundred, a tail for fivehundred and all three for a thousand. Any higher or lower than the designated amounts are to be spoken, but remember that going below a hundred is generally bad form!" The crowd laughed and jeered at his jests, filling the spaces between his voice with cheers.

"We'll start this bid off with a lovely locally grown stallion from the Main!" My ears twitched. Were they starting in the middle? "Don't be shy now, get on out here, our one and only... Scrubs!" The last pony on the line to my left, four from myself, took a couple of steps forwards, trembling. The crowd's cheers turned to shouts at the sight of the wimpy light green stallion.

"Oh shut up you!" Fair Trade said, roughly but not seriously. "I know he doesn't look like much, but this boy-o's probably just what you need for your more dangerous snatch and grab missions. He's a doctor, ish, and he's specialized in treating combat wounds! And also, I don't know quite myself, I hear he's rather compliant too... if you know what I mean." Fair Trade nudged the air suggestively and the crowd of slavers burst out into laughter. "So, he's a learned pony so lets start the bidding at-t-t-t... Two thousand caps!"

A collective cheer went up, and hooves began shooting up near as fast as Fair Trade could run off the price. Scrubs wound up selling for 3,450 caps to a pretty mare in black leather who led him off the stage in a collar also made of black leather and attached to her belt by a fine chain. She nuzzled him with sadistic affection. Her cruel smile would have given most men nightmares. I just snorted.

The next slave was a mare named Berry Smoothies, who was pretty tall for a mare, reaching almost to my muzzle, discounting her ears. She sold for 2,637, though the price would have continued to rise if it weren't for the fact that one of the multiple patrons bidding knocked another clean out, and the rest shut up after that. She was led crying from the stage. I growled under my breath, but I didn't move.

"And next we have the looooovely Ms. Wonderflash! I think this is our first pegasus of the day, and it's just as likely our last, so get her while she's hot! Though she'll be like that for years to judge, in my professional opinion. Starting the bid at five thousand caps!" The noise that issued forth from the audience was incomparable to anything that'd come before, the Grand hall filling with cheers and hundreds of hooves were flung into the air with reckless abandon.

"Let's see, Fivethousand twohundred, fivethousand sevenhundred, fivethousand eighthundred, sixthousand--(This went on for a good thirty seconds or so before silence filled the air), Eight thousand six hundred and twenty caps! Do I hear nine thousand?! Yes? No? I suppose not! Going once, going twice, going thrice and she's gone! To the gentleman in the tutu!" Fair Trade gave a helping hand to a large, well dressed stallion who was in fact indeed wearing a tutu. Wonderflash was lead struggling off of the stage, the sounds of her resistance lasted long after she disappeared into the crowd.

A mare wearing yellow sunglasses and a labcoat underneath her slave collar leapt forwards, thrusting her chest forwards in an attempt to emphasis her... existence.

"And now we haaaave... Lady Fantastic?" Fair Trade struggled with the name, squinting at a text filled piece of paper he held in front of himself with his magic.. "This says she's a scientist, good with pets, theoretical physicist and a complete moron." He looked up from his paper and frowned. "Starting bid... five hundred caps."

Lady Fantastic deflated when she heard her price and pawed at the ground as if depressed. She wound up selling for 732 caps to the stallion with a top hat.

"Next we have Dead Redemption, kind of an ominous name, starting bid... requested three thousand caps. He was born and raised in a small village north of here, yada yada, avenged loved ones or something... Talented in organization and strenuous telekinesis! There you go! Starting at two thousand five hundred!" The crowd shouted enthusiastically, filling the air with bids and some shouts that were shouted just to be shouted. Dead Redemption just stared at the crowd, resigned in his fate. When the final bid was called, he just walked forwards and let himself be chained and led away. It was a bit sad.

"And now we have a special treat, a Stable pony!" Fair Trade announced me, and the crowd responded vigorously.

I was a bit special, wasn't I?

"As you may have noticed, he's huge, to say the least, though I haven't had the chance to undertake an opinioning of his underjunk, but I doubt it'd be far to say that that's proportionate, so keep your eyes on this one ladies!" Fair Trade winked at the crowd. "Name of Sunshine Lollipops too, so I don't think it'd be particularly unfair to say that his special talent involves being sweet."

"A close friend of mine brought this one in and says that he's docile and compliant as a sheep, easy to control and not fond of disobeying orders. Starting the bid at three thousand!"

Cheers went up, especially with the mares. Fair Trade certainly did have a way with words.

A mare with long green leggings and a sky blue coat threw both forehooves into the air.

"Three thousand two hundred!"

A stallion with a gruff beard and cigar raised both of his forehooves and his tail.

"Three thousand seven hundred!"

Several more ponies flung hooves and tails into the air, and I could've sworn I saw a hand at one point.

"Five thousand six hundred!" Fair Trade shouted out into the crowd. "Do I hear six thousand?! Going once! Going twice! Aha! Six thousand from the gentleman in the back!" I followed his gaze to the Top hatted stallion.

Looks like I'd found my patron.

She's Fantastic.

Hopefully. The creepy look the stallion in the top hat was giving me was unsettling. His grin widened, making his mustache dance on his upper lip.

Unsettling to say the least.

His white coat glistened as he hopped up onto the stage, thin chain in his mouth. He seemed excited. Really, really excited.

"Oho... you'll do quite nicely. Perfect, really." A bit of drool dripped from his mouth and splattered on the floor. We both looked at it, his face plastered with surprise. "Oh, whoops. A bit too excited it does seem. Anyways, come with me." He slipped the chain into the hole in the collar and dragged me from the stage, trotting happily towards the back of the crowd. Fair Trade winked at me as I slipped off the stage.

"Chainsy, hold this for me," He said, handing the chain off to a small, portly dark purple mare who was also holding the chain to Lady Fantastic, who was still staring at the ground with a nearly material clowd floating about her head, "I have to go back for the last one. My plan's coming together perfectly, Chainsy! Perfectly!"

"Yes, Master Good." The mare said, nodding her head in agreement. The mustachioed stallion, Good, squealed like a foal and hopped back into the crowd. I stared blankly at Chainsy. She stared back at me, clearly both used to Good's antics and unamused with them.

Lady Fantastic let out a weak sob. Chainsy patted her on the back. The crowd roared. I couldn't hear Fair Trade's voice this far back, it was completely enveloped by the crowd's shouts.

Chainsy stared at me. I shuffled my hooves uncomfortably.

"You're supposed to be the strong one, I'd suppose," Chainsy said, looking back at the stage. "I'd bet you'll die first. They usually do. Especially if they're courageous." She looked me up and down, then sighed. "You don't look like a hero to me. Maybe you'll be okay."

I snorted, but my interest was piqued. Dying didn't sound good. And strong one? 'The' strong one? I began to open my mouth when I was struck in the back of the head with something rather large and soft. I

"I got her Chainy, oh yes I did!" Master Good giggled with pure glee. "The plucky one! Oh this time's sure to work!"

"Yes, Master Good."

I moaned as I rolled onto my legs, and heard a smaller moan echo mine. Lying next to me was the filly from before, holding her head with both hooves. She slid forwards as Master Good handed her chain off to Chainy. Then Master Good turned his attention to all of us, clopping his hooves together excitedly.

"Ohooo, this is perfect, just peeeerfection! Come along Chainsy, we don't want to be late!" He hopped off into the direction of the elevator. Chainsy shrugged her shoulders and tugged on the chains, signaling us to start walking. We did, even though two of us were sniffling. The filly's eyes were wide with unimaginable fear. Even her apparent curiosity from before was vanished under the terror that now shrouded her. Suddenly, her legs gave out. Chainsy just glared at her, and then at me.

"Well, I ain't carrying her. Get to it, 'Strong one'." She said, perfectly content to drag the filly along the tiles unless I did something. I did. I deposited her on my back and began walking again at Chainsy's slow but consistent pace. She shuddered on my back. There was no... warmth to her, like there'd been with Techno, or even Daggers. She was just cold, and reeked of fear.

Reeked? The wasteland was really getting to me. First growling, now identifying by smell. Maybe that radiation did more than addle my brain temporarily. She muttered apologies in a voice so soft even I struggled to hear it. Her voice was just as scared as she seemed.

The elevator doors creaked open, and a familiar Zebra smiled weakly at me and the other slaves. He looked apologetic. Before the grates closed, I saw Angel and Smasher staring sadly from the bar. Daggers was on the floor, snoring.

"Going all the way down, Master Good?" The Zebra asked cautiously.

"Where else, my good Zebra!" Master Good practically hummed with excitement. "Stop at the Eighteenth, of course, must pick up the baggage and what-not." He stomped a hoof on the floor to emphasis his excitement, and with a silent sigh, the Zebra touched a hoof to the enchanted wall.

Creaking filled the air as the elevator shook its way down the Coliseum, coming to a shuddering halt at the Eighteenth floor. The metal grates opened slowly, revealing a scene of utter chaos. Well, maybe not chaos. Actually, to be fair, it was rather peaceful. But indeed the scene did give leave to the idea that there had been a great deal of chaos prior, chaos so great that in fact its atmosphere had leaked forwards in time to corrupt the time of the present that should have been peaceful.

There were only five ponies still standing, and one of them was covered from head to toe with blood soaked bandages, a fierce grin still decorating his face. Master Good's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Ey there slave!" Slashy Songs said jauntily, wincing as he waved, his foreleg enveloped in bandages. "So they got you sold, huh?" He looked at the ground sheepishly and then to the pile of unconscious and bloodied ponies beside him. "Sorry about what I said about making you regret being born and all that. I... have anger issues. Got it all out here though, so I can whole heartedly wish ya good luck in all your endeavors 'n whatnot!"

I nodded slowly. That made sense. Kind of.

Salt nodded back. "Live well." She cocked her head behind her gasmask. "Or, at least as well as you can in slavery."

Dasher and Coin Shot looked at Salt, obviously surprised by her speaking to a mere slave. Dasher was the first to shake off her surprise and grinned at me calmly, wishing to me in body language what Salts had said in words. Probably. Coin Shot did the same but with a nod rather than a grin.

Around this time, Master Good regained control of his vocal cords and asserted himself on the situation.

"What in the sam't Tartarus is going on here!" He screeched, rapidly losing his composure. "MARCH! FORCE! Get your GODDESS-BE-DAM'T arses out here!" The looser pieces of the ceiling freed themselves with help from Good's voice and dropped to the ground in a haze of dust. My ears twitched in pain. A pair of squirming armored figures dislodged themselves from the mass of creatures splayed out on the ground and in a pile. They swiftly dusted themselves off and stood at attention, despite looking like they'd been through a food processor and back.

"Re-Reporting." One coughed, not budging an inch as a dislodged tooth fell from his mouth and clattered to the hard tile floor despite the fact that one of his legs was clearly broken in multiple places.

"Reporting, Master Good." The other said, less beat up than the first, but still in no condition to be standing. Master Good snarled and made a face that'd have made a lemon pucker. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen a lemon yet either. I made a mental note fix that.

Things to find: 1. Tomatoes, 2. Lemons.

Master Good raised a hoof as if to strike out at the ponies before him, but halted his actions with obvious reluctance, stroking at his mustache instead. "March, Force, we're leaving. Get your things." They saluted and limped towards the pony behind the counter, who pushed their weapons back to them without a word.

"Sir, Force and I are in need of--" A hoof wiped blood from his mouth "--Medical attention. Permission to seek it?"

Good slammed a hoof against the floor, disgusted with his subordinates. "Wah wah wah!" He mocked furiously. "All you fools do is whine! Get to work for once and prepare the elevator, we don't have time for your paper cuts." He exhaled harshly in an attempt to regain tranquility, once again reverting to smoothing his mustache with his hoof. "If you do your job well, I'll have someone treat to you when we get back to the camp, fair enough?"

"Yes, Master Good," They both repeated. March left a thin trail of blood from a wound in his side as he made his way into the elevator supported by Force.

Master Good turned back to myself and the other slaves and smiled sweetly, though it was more disgusting than nice now. A monster's smile. "Well, let's get going then?" He trotted past us and into the elevator after Force and March. His hooves clicked out a quick, irritated tune against the tiles. I forced myself to follow, despite knowing what I was following. The filly on my back let out a small terrified murmur, then went silent again. Her breathing wasn't too fast, or shallow or deep, but it was uneven. My hooves made sullen thuds. Lady Fantastic followed quickly behind me.

I caught Salt shaking her head sadly as the grate closed.

* * *

Master Good's larger entourage was waiting for us at the base of the Coliseum with several wagons and twelve ponies. One was a pegasus, but he stayed on the ground. Master Good and Chainsy rode in the foremost wagon, a large mountain of supplies and a sniper rifle wielding pony rode in the second, and the slaves rode in the last. There was one more slave aside from us, a bipedal dog with a bowtie, but he didn't speak at all, instead he just stared at the chains binding his wrists together. He smelled of blood and resignation.

"Get us moving, Sunny, I want to make it to the mansion before sundown." He smiled again, with childlike innocence and horrible understanding at the same time. "I want them to go in at sunset. Heros are always fighting evil in the night, and I think that might be for the best. Consider it a trial run."

The pony to which the lead wagon was attatched nodded and started moving, pulling the wagons around and starting back west.

In my wagon, Lady Fantastic had quieted her own sniffling and had her forelegs around the filly in an attempt to comfort her. It didn't seem to be working. There were two upraised sections of the wagon that I assumed were to be makeshift benches against the walls of the wagon. There was no back, just a empty space for loading and unloading. The ponies around us were walking casually, existing more as a presence than a force to keep us there. I doubt they expected us to make a run for it. They're guns looked well maintained. I didn't expect us to make a run for it either.

"Shh, shh, now. It's all okay..." Lady Fantastic whispered into the filly's ear. She sat on the same side of the wagon as the filly while I sat beside the dog. "Slavery can't be that bad. Sure it'll be hard work, but we'll live, don't you worry. Right Greeny?"

I nodded my assurance. A solitary sob rocked the filly's body.

"You don't get it, do you?" She said, nearly a whisper. "Do you have any idea who we're dealing with?"

Lady Fantastic looked at me, confused. I shrugged, unconcerned.

"No, I'm a bit new to the western waste." Lady Fantastic said, hooves still patting the filly on the back. "I think that's true for Greeny too." I nodded again.

The filly raised her head up, the gentle peach of her irises was discorded by the red surrounding it. As quick as she'd turned her gaze to us, she put her head back down and let out a few more sobs. Grey clouds formed a ceiling across the sky without mar nor gap. The desert surrounding us was desolate at best, now that the Coliseum was nearly out of sight. Only the tip of the enormous spire was visible at this distance. The only signs of life were burnt out campfires sparingly spaced and cacti that'd been slashed open for moisture.

Without warning, the vegetation became denser, and the light brown of the dusty shale became the mottled green gray of softer soil. I say the vegetation became denser, but really that meant there was more than one bush in sight at a single time. A cold breeze suddenly cut past us. I tried and failed to remember the season. Fall, maybe.

The filly shivered with the sudden cold. Her teeth might have been chattering, but if they were I couldn't hear them over the creaking and groaning of the wheels of the wagon.

Lady Fantastic was more animated. She suddenly pulled her limbs together and shivered as if it was the coldest breeze in the world, teeth chattering like bad static. Her labcoat probably didn't provide much protection against the elements. For the first time, I was thankful for the pseudoleather of my Stable jumpsuit.

I shifted uncomfortably. They were both cold. I was warm. My teeth grit.

I sighed and gave in to my instincts, plopping myself down between the two benches and pulling Fantastic and the filly into a semi embrace. The filly shied away from me, but didn't seem to begrudge the warmth. Lady Fantastic, on the other hoof got closer than I intended and put her face up to mine so that we our muzzles were almost touching.

"Oh, Greeny, I knew this would come," She said, voice filled with painfully honest dramatic flair, "But we cannot be together, for a life as a slave is rough alone, and can be far worse to a pair madly in love." She batter her eyelashes behind her yellow sunglasses. I stared at her coldly and pushed her back along the ground with a hoof until she was a healthier distance from me.

She shivered and her teeth began chattering as her lips pulled into a pout. "Okay, fine! I get it, you're not ready for how fantastic I am!" She whined, closing the distance between us again and pulling one of my forelegs over her neck while maintaining a frustrated and distant expression. "You will be one day, Greeny." She huffed, chin high in the air despite the fact she was using me as a shield against the wind.

A gruff laugh filled the air, sick and dark of humor. The dog grinned, eyes narrow and full of hate.

"Is nice to see ponies still full of life," His eyes glinted darkly, "Though they go to a place full of so much death."

Lady Fantastic's expression drooped, pulling herself closer to the dog, ears perked. "What? Do you know where we're going?" She said, cocking her head inquisitively. The wagon jumped as we slid over a rock along our path. The dog grinned at us, a knowing, malicious grin.

"Yes, Jack knows where the ponies go." His gaze shifted to the filly. "Jack thinks little pony knows too, though she is too scared to say." His throat filled with a growling laugh. The chains of his wrists clinked as he readjusted himself on the hard wooden bench. His eyes narrowed.

"The ponies go to Tanglewood." The filly quivered at the name, drawing herself nearer to me. The dog, Jack, grinned at our clueless expressions. "Maybe the little one knows more, eh? Maybe she tells you, so you can know how you die.

All eyes were on the little one. She shivered and took in a deep breath, steeling herself.

"We, at least the three of us, are a trio of slaves in the possession of Good Intentions." She looked towards the first wagon, barely visible over the mountain of supplies in the second wagon. "Everybody knows what happens to the slaves that are bought three at a time by Good Intentions. He goes out, far and wide, to cheap slave markets and expensive ones alike, seeking out ponies who fulfill his parameters. Those parameters aren't difficult to fill, nor does he ever verify his finds. He wants a smart one, a strong one, and a spunky one, to make up a story-book team. He wants a story-book team because he has a story-book problem that he needs to fix, and rather than try to use as much muscle as possible, he's somehow gotten it stuck in his mind that the only way to get it done is to send in 'heroic' trios. He's sending us to Tanglewood Manor, which is apparently his ancestral home, and according to rumor, he's looking for some sort of ancient magical heirloom." She sighed. "Not a single trio has ever come out, and he's been at this for the last eight years."

Lady Fantastic's face transitioned to concerned confusion to elation. "So... that means I'm the smart one?!" She squealed in glee. The filly stared at Fantastic, her jaw hanging open. I shrugged. Being sent into a mansion after a magical artifact wasn't as bad as anything I'd been imagining we'd be doing. At least I'd have the opportunity for some fun instead of working on a radioactive rock farm or something.

The filly reeled. "You're going to die," She said slowly, as if spelling it out for a mentally deficient foal. "And you're excited... about being called smart?"

Lady Fantastic nodded enthusiastically. She smiled brightly.

The filly slumped on the ground, her mind struggling to understand the stupidity that was the Lady Fantastic. Jack smirked and stared off into the distance.

Lady Fantastic patted the filly on the head. "So, what's your name anyways?"

The filly didn't look up. She just sat there. "Uh. I'm Lucky Fluke. Nice... to... meet you." She fell against me sideways and made not motion to get up.

Lady Fantastic grinned wickedly. "Fluke huh... sounds like that's exactly what we'll need kiddo. Maybe you'll get your cutie mark."

The wagon kept rolling, oblivious to Lucky Fluke's utter confusion.

* * *

"Ah, the Tanglewood Manor." Good Intention twirled his mustache, gazing upon the wizened structure admiringly. Wizened was being gracious. The entire structure of the Manor had been constructed of wood, and time hadn't been kind. In fact, if this Manor had been an abandoned puppy, time would have stopped to pet it, then slapped it full across the face and punted it into traffic. The building creaked and cracked with only the wind pressing against it, and it didn't press very hard because it found numerous slips and passes through the collapsed walls and broken windows that dotted the building like pre-war posters depicted flies on a Zebra.

Thinking about it, I'd seen several Zebras since getting up to the wastes, and not a single one of them had seen malevolent despite being in the business of slaving ponies.

Anyways, the mansion was bad. There was a short wall of stone running around the perimeter of the mansion, cracked, but still standing strong. It looked like there had been columns around the main entrance to the building, but they'd long since collapsed taking bits of the upper floors with them. Strangely enough, it seemed like the majority of the higher floors were indeed intact. There was one thing that seemed peculiar though, considering what I'd seen of the wasteland.

The plants. They were everywhere, and they didn't seem to be originating from the garden, instead they seemed to be growing outwards from the house. Large tendril like roots extended out of windows and side doors, sometimes just bursting out of the architecture without respect for designed openings. That was probably how the manor had stayed up all these years, plants slowly taking the place of the deteriorating supports and integral structures inside. The last rays of the sun played across an enormous yard and filtered through the structure itself. Regardless, the whole place still looked like one big--

"Deathtrap." Lady Fantastic muttered. The mare looked more annoyed than scared or angry. "How are smarts supposed to help me in a place like that?"

"Are you seriously just getting this now?" Lucky Fluke's voice screamed of frustration. "We are going to die."

Lady Fantastic gave a cocky grin and patted Fluke on the head. "Ah, we'll be fine." She hopped down from the wagon, hooves thudding against the softer soil. She held her chin high. "You've got me on your team after all." Fluke groaned in that special way kids do when adults are being stupid and headbutted the side of the wagon in frustration.

"Slave!" One of the guards who'd been surrounding our wagon shouted. "Who the fuck told you to get off of that wagon?!"

Lady Fantastic raised an eyebrow in a rare moment of actual intelligence. "Weren't... you going to tell us to get down?"

The guard sputtered. "Well, yeah, but-- just--"

Lady Fantastic moved in on the guard. "Aw, babe, you don't have to try and impress me. Fantastic thinks you're already... fantastic." She licked the side of the guard's face, slowly and sensually. The guard mare's face went red, and she backed up far more rapidly than would be dignified under most circumstances, let alone this one.

"Just-- just get the rest of the slaves down from there, minus the dog!" She squealed, running off towards the head of the wagon train.

I stared at Lady Fantastic. Lady Fantastic stared back, waggling her tail. "I think she likes me Greeny. Whadya think?" I nodded and turned my gaze to the horizon. Nothing for miles. More and more plants as proximity to the mansion increased, but not a single farming building or similar structure marred the surrounding landscape.

I hopped down to stand beside Fantastic. There was a thud as something landed on my back. I turned my head to face Fluke, who was standing nonchalantly on my back.

"Listen Lollipops," She said, her fear evidently gone, overridden by frustration, "If I'm going to die young, I'm going out in style. Also, I'm not walking."

"Lollipops?" Fantastic looked at me with an amused expression. "Greeny's name is Lollipops?"

"Sunshine Lollipops, actually," Fluke said, standing tall and superior on my back.

Fantastic gave me an amused grin. "I think I'll stick with Greeny. It fits you better, what with you being all green and whatnot." I shrugged. It certainly did fit me better than Lollipops, Cutie Mark or not.

"Ahem!" Our attentions were drawn to Good Intentions, who was standing proudly at the gate to the manor. "Heroes, come here please." The three of us pushed our way past guards, who for the most part stood out of our way, and lined up in front of our benefactor. He smiled innocently and twirled his mustache happily. "It's so good to know I have some folks in my employ who can actually follow directions." He turned and gestured at the Manor with his tophat.

"This," He paused dramatically, "Is the Ancestral home of the Goods. During the war near two hundred years ago, we were forced to take shelter in a local Stable. Needless to say, we were elected as overseers, and led the Stable to prosperity. About a hundred years ago, we chose to lead our people from the Stable, and came to our mansion to reclaim what was ours. Unfortunately, we returned to this mess." He turned back to us. "Sadly, we haven't been able to reclaim anything at all, really. Everyone we send in winds up dead, killed by some monster thing living inside my home."

He grinned. "Which is where you come in. You are the heroes that I carefully selected to have the honor of entering my ancestral home, and defeating the beast that lays within."

Dust rose as he dragged one of his hooves across the entrance to the grounds, drawing a line in the chalky soil that must have been a stone pathway at some point.

"Conky, get their collars off." A small mare walked over shyly and unlocked our collars with a key. Which is weird. Because my collar wasn't from her, so how would they have the key? Thinking of that, all of the collars did seem strangely uniform. I guess they had a common lock and key too. The fur around my neck bristled and rustled at its regained freedom, and the wind playing across it was a symphony in itself. Fantastic smiled brightly as her collar was removed, but Fluke frowned.

"Over the line, if you'd please." Lady Fantastic hopped over the line, not letting her hooves touch it. I followed in a less enthusiastic manner with Fluke on my back. My fur seemed to glisten as I crossed the line, and my ears twitched furiously.

"Sunshine," Fluke whispered into my ears as they stopped flickering, "Did you just... sparkle?" I snorted and shook my head.

"So, as you've seen, we've removed your collars." Good Intentions explained. "What this means, is that if you complete this last task, you're free. Naturally, if you try to return or escape without completing your task, we'll simply mow you down. If you return with the Head of the beast, we'll let you three, or whoever's left, on their way. Got it?"

We nodded.

He smiled brightly. "This is the first time I've ever sent heroes in at night, so maybe that'll be the disadvantage you need for your heroics to kick in. Good luck, brave heroes!"

I started walking towards the dark, abandoned building, Lady Fantastic following close behind. Fluke began to shiver again.

"Oh!" Good Intentions called out, "And if you find a magical rod that has plants surrounding it and bring it to me, I'll let you free and pay you a thousand caps each, regardless of if you've taken care of the beast or not! It's a precious family Heirloom and it's very special. The Magical Scepter of Fertility it's called. Makes plants grow, as you can see. Good luck!"

So, find the magic rod or kill a monster that has destroyed everyone sent into the mansion before, regardless of weaponry or skill.

Right, rod.

I looked to Lady Fantastic. "Magic rod, right?" I nodded. "You okay with that kiddo?"

Lucky Fluke nodded. "As if any sane pony would go after the unknown monster that has rendered every mission into this mansion futile and killed them without leaving a single survivor." My thoughts exactly.

We swiftly crossed the yard, jumping over stupidly large roots and other growths until we made it to the gargantuan slabs of oak that could only barely be called a door.

Lady Fantastic blew a lock of hair out of her face. "Ready?"

"Ready." Fluke said, positioning herself defensively on my back. I nodded. The sun disappeared beneath the horizon as the day settled into night.

"Knock it down, Greeny." She commanded. I rolled my eyes and pushed the door inwards gently. It swung open without resistance, despite the rust on the hinges.

She gave me a flat stare. "You have no sense of style." She walked forwards sullenly, head hanging. I rolled my eyes and followed. The entry hall was big. I glanced about. Not big enough to match the rest of the building though. It was seemed like strange a strange construction, though I wasn't exactly an architect. Roots and plants seemed thicker inside than out. The last remains of sunlight faded quickly, plunging the room into darkness.

Nopony moved.

"Uh, Greeny, you got a plan for this?" Fantastic's voice called out, less confident than any time before.

Suddenly, soft blue light began to flow from hundreds of different points in the room, and quiet humming filled the air. Flowers. Bioluminescent flowers, everywhere, opening. The light revealed hundreds more buds, slowly opening into even more luminescent flowers. They were beautiful. I glanced behind us, the door slowly creaked shut, and the quiet humming stopped. Spells, probably from hundreds of years gone. In a house like this, they'd probably been old when the war came around. None of the flowers seemed to be blooming around the windows... so photophobic bioluminescent flowers? There was a lot wrong with that. I guess that's kind of how radiation rolls. My pipbuck beeped softly as if to agree with me.

"Nicely done, Greeny." Fantastic said, eyes wide with awe.

"Whoa..." Fluke obviously agreed.

Lady Fantastic shook her head, throwing off her sense of awe and slapper her face with her hooves to get her head into the game. She then ran behind me and headbutted me forwards, into the center of the room and towards the nearest door.

"Okay, so all we have to do, is stay away from the dark, and get to the middle of the house, get the rod, and get out."

I stopped in the middle of the room and turned around to give her a questioning look. The floor creaked as I stepped around on it.

"Why would we avoid the dark and get to the middle of the house?" Fluke vocalized my confusion from her spot on my back.

Fantastic looked at us like we were idiots. "Well, if you were a rich prick from two hundred years ago, where would you keep the treasure? And if you were a monster that nobody saw coming, where would you hide?"

Both Fluke and I stared at Fantastic in amazement. "Fantastic, that's... actually not a bad idea." Fantastic's grin could have melted the coldest ice.

"I know, right!" She began leaping up and down with excitement. "I am smart, I am smart! I'm the best and greatest! I'm Fantaaaaaaaastic!" She chanted. The floor groaned again, this time louder than before, but Fantastic either didn't hear it or she wasn't deterred.

Suddenly, the floorboards beneath our hooves splintered, and Fantastic and I dropped into the darkness. I felt the weight of Fluke leave my back as she leapt to safety. The floor came as suddenly as the floorboards splintered. I heard bones break over Fantastic and Fluke's screams as I slammed into the cold concrete fo the basement floor. There was a second, meatier thud as Fantastic crashed down on me. My vision began to fade to black.

The last thing I heard before my consciousness faded was Fantastic.

"Oh... I fucked up."

And then darkness.

Just a Fluke

Blacking out isn't scary. It's not really painful, either. It's just exceedingly disorienting. It's like the feeling you get when you wake up after a particularly interesting dream and you can't remember why you're in a bed so suddenly. You wake up, feel refreshed, then proceed to feel very confused.

Of course, when you wake up with a mare on top of you in a dark room, illuminated by blue flowers, and she's screaming your name, it's not a illogically large leap of logic to assume that you'd be very, very confused.

I was very, very confused.

"Greeny! Greeny! Damnit! GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENYYYYYY" I groaned and pushed Lady Fantastic off of my chest. It was hard enough breathing without a hundred pounds of mare on my sternum.

She gave a relieved laugh. "Thank the Goddesses, I thought you were--" She cried out in pain as she tried to rise, falling back to the ground in pain, clutching at her left foreleg. She let out a pained moan. "--hurt." She finished weakly. "Fuck." Her lab coat was torn at the shoulder, and there were ripped where her leg bent in ways it wasn't designed too. I jumped off the floor, pain and lethargy replaced by panic and hopped over to where she lay on her back on the cold concrete floor. Her eyes glimmered the same color of orange as her mane, or at least the color I imagined her mane would be if her mane wasn't been so dirty. Apparently she'd lost her glasses in the fall. Her gaze went to her leg. "Ooooh fuck. That'd explain the pain."

It didn't look good. It was easy enough to see that her metacarpal and humerus were snapped, possibly shattered, and I'd have wagered that her carpus was shattered too from the way she was holding it. I'd have needed an X-ray to be sure, but I didn't need it to be sure that she wouldn't be running any time soon. If she didn't get medical attention soon, she probably wouldn't be running any time again. Luckily, I was awesome.

"How bad is it?" I shrugged nonchalantly, as if it'd be an easy fix. To be fair, I couldn't be sure without an X-Ray, so it wasn't exactly a lie. I rolled up the sleeve of her lab coat and gently ran my hooves along her leg, pressuring places where I wasn't sure about the breaks and shattered bone. She whimpered in pain, but allowed me to continue without a fuss. It wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought. The breaks on her humerus and metacarpal were clean, and could easily be splinted, and her carpus wasn't broken. She'd probably just sprained a muscle. Still, in a place like this, it was probably going to get us killed. Or at least her.

I shook my head, trying to throw that thought out. I gave her a bright and confident smile. I'd read in multiple places that keeping moral up was just as if not even more so important than anything else. She sighed and laid her head back on the ground, defeated. "That bad, huh?" I frowned a bit and gave her a confused stare. She let out a weak giggle. "I've never seen you smile. You just stare blankly and look confused." I shrugged, and slowly and gently laid her leg out straight, perpendicular to her body. I looked around the room, searching for something I could use as a splint.

The room we'd landed in was a contrast to the room we'd fallen from, cramped and dark instead of stupidly spacious and windowed. There were still luminous flowers, though not as many. The walls were dominated by roots and even branches, and there was a door visible in the blue light of flowers that decorated this room almost as completely as the one we'd been in before. We were surrounded by racks upon racks of wine despite the small space. There must have been thousands of bottles. Wine racks to some at least. All I saw was planks of wood, perfect for splinting.

I walked over to the nearest rack and removed the bottles one by one so that I could tear it apart without them breaking and causing further complications.

"Lady Fantastic? Uh, Sunshine? Are you guys okay?" A small frightened voice called down from the hole in the ceiling, followed by a reddish pink mane and a pear colored head.

Fantastic's face lit up. "We're fine kiddo! A bit scratched up, but fine." She frowned and rolled her head back to look at me. "We're fine, right?" She added in a lower voice.

Let's think about it. One of Fantastic's legs was broken in multiple places. Her and I were trapped underground in a cellar of a building that was inhabited by a horrifying monster that could potentially be anywhere. The little one was alone and scared. If we tried to escape, we'd be shot on sight unless we either carried the monster's head or a magical rod that was hidden somewhere in the mansion. The mansion was full of other potential hazards, and inhabited by a likely magical growth of plants that glowed blue, and was so big that we'd probably run out of water before we searched it in its entirety. Also, now that the adrenaline from Fantastic's cry of pain and injuries was fading, I was starting to feel my own injuries. Several ribs felt cracked, I was covered in weakly bleeding scratches and bruises, and I was fairly certain I had a concussion.

I shrugged and went back to working a piece of wood out of the wine rack.

Fantastic glowered at me.

Lucky Fluke frowned at Lady Fantastic. "You don't look very fine."

"I'm very fine, thank you!" Fantastic said haughtily, "And if I'm not, I'm sure Greeny can fix me up, right Greeny?"

I finally wrenched free the board I'd been I'd been working at and nodded as I walked back to Fantastic. I paused halfway there, then trotted back to the wine rack and picked up a bottle with my tail, then returned to Fantastic.

"What's the wine for?" She asked as I approached. I tossed it to her and mimed drinking. I put a hoof on one end of the board and pressed down, snapping it in twain. The boards clattered to the floor and I nudged them under Fantastic broken leg. I ripped long cords of pseudoleather from my jumpsuit, which was becoming rapidly more ragged. It more resembled a vest than a jumpsuit at this point. "Oh, pain-killer, right?"

Nope. Distraction.

I nodded anyway, and she opened the bottle with her magic and put it to her lips. Lucky Fluke watched curiously, but covered her eyes when I gave her my best you-might-not-want-to-see-this look. I braced my ears and put a hoof on her chest, and bit down on her hoof. Then I pulled. Wine shot from her mouth like something out of a comedy holovid as I wrenched at her arm, straightening the breaks and putting it in position to be set properly, her magical grip faltered and the bottle clinked to the ground, spilling its contents on the concrete floor.

And then she screamed. She screamed profanities so loudly of such magnitude that if a foal from my Stable had been caught whispering something remotely similar they'd have been locked in their room for several months and put on a list for psychological evaluation and rehabilitation.

"--WITH THE MOON, THE STARS, AND EVERY OTHER CELESTIAL BODY IN THE UNIVERSE!" She finished, panting heavily.

The awkward silence that followed seemed just as loud as the scream, punctuated only by Fantastic's heavy breathing.

Both Fluke and myself stared at her quietly as she continued to pant as if she'd run a marathon. If I had to judge, I'd say that she'd certainly exhaled enough in a single breath to put her on a list of world record holders.

Fluke broke the silence. "What's an ova duct?" She asked innocently. My ears twitched, and I went about my business tying Fantatic's foreleg to the board I'd procured. Fantastic winced, but didn't fight back or curse. I'm not sure she had anything left in her.

"It's an, um, a--" She groaned in despair, partly from the fact that she was stuck in a three hundred year old deathtrap on a suicide mission with a little foal and a huge freak who apparently knew first aid and didn't talk, ever, and partly because she didn't want to give a foal the 'Talk' during the situation mentioned prior. She didn't really want to give the talk to any foal, ever, really. "--You'll find out later kid." She flopped her head back onto the floor and laid still as I finished securing my makeshift split. They were pretty kickarse makeshift splints. Well, kind of kickarse. Well, They wouldn't fall apart immediately. Probably.

I nudged her on the shoulder to let her know I was done after making one final check on the bindings, and she rolled onto her stomach, to the right so that her right foreleg could bear the weight of her upper body immediately. She stood well enough, her grey coat shivering with pain as she tried to ease her left leg to the ground. Her hoof retreated from the cold concrete, and she held it closer to herself than usual, but she'd be able to walk and it wasn't life threatening, so that was a plus.

"Hah, I guess you really do know what you're doing, Greeny." She said, waggling her foreleg, trying to remember which positions pained her the most. I nodded. My gaze now turned to the head of a certain filly who was staring through a hole in the ceiling. The ceiling was probably sixteen feet or so up and it was probably a miracle that Fantastic and I hadn't suffered any further injuries. My ribs argued against miracles, but I ignored them. The real question now was how we could get back up. There was a chance we could climb the up the wine racks, but considering how easily that board had snapped under just a fraction of my weight, I doubted that was much of a possibility, at least for me. Fantastic was lighter, but even if the boards wouldn't break, her leg would be far too much of a handicap to climb much of anything, much less the near direct vertical ascent that the wine racks would require. The easiest thing to do would to be to get Fluke to fall down instead... but she could get hurt easily, even if I used myself as a cushion, which would probably further damage my ribs, and leave a hell of a bruise regardless. Fluke sensed my contemplations and began shuffling her feet nervously.

"No way," She wailed, "I'm not going to jump down there."

"Jump down here?" Fantastic echoed, her head swiveling to look at Fluke through the hole. "Why the heck would you do that?"

Fluke bit at her lip. "We have to stick together, right? And you guys can't climb out, Sunshine's too big, and you're... broken--"

"I prefer the term, physically impaired, thank you." Fantastic cut in.

"--so the only thing that we can do to group back up would be if I jumped down into this hole. And I'm not doing that."

"Don't think of it as jumping, think of it as... falling with style." Lady Fantastic attempted to reassure her. "Plus, with my magic, and Greeny's squish organs, we could cushion your fall pretty well. Just a bit of a bruise, if that." I nodded in agreement. It certainly wasn't ideal, but that was the best way to go.

"Yeah, well, um--" She faltered. "--I can't do it."

Can't?

"Can't?" Fantastic iterated.

The pearish colored foal retreated from the hole, so that only her eyes and droopy hair was visible. "I'm... afraid of heights." She murmured.

Ah. That made sense. It was easy enough to see the memories in her eyes, brought to the surface by situational griefs, nearly ready to breach. Trauma was a pretty good reason for phobias, and something told me that she'd had plenty of trauma. Best to avoid bringing it further, and just find another way to regroup.

"Really, why?" Fantastic brought it further. I facehoofed.

The memories in Flukes eyes slowly shifted to tears, bubbling up at the edge of her pale peach eyes. "I... don't want to talk about it."

"Oh." Fantastic's eyes widened slowly in recognition of what she'd done. She snatched up her sunglasses and turned away, rubbing the back of her head in a cliché nonchalant way. "Oh, uh, yeah, no! That's cool! I mean, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine! It doesn't matter! How about we try and figure a different way to group up instead?"

Fluke sniffled. "Yeah. that'd be good."

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding and sighed. I pointed a hoof towards the overgrown door hiding in the shadows of the cellar, where the light of the flowers didn't reach as well. Lady Fantastic nodded to me and smiled at Fluke. "Okay, looks like we're going that way. Stay right there, okay?"

Fluke nodded, wiping a remaining tear from her eye.

"We'll be right there, so don't worry about it." She said with a smile, and began to limp awkwardly towards the overgrown door. I smiled confidently at Fluke. She laughed at my attempt towards normalcy as I followed Fantastic.

The door was covered in roots, but not by a single flower or branch, and none of the roots were thick like the ones that ran along the wall. Maybe a side effect of the different material. It was made of a light wood, something that looked nice but wouldn't have kept out the elements very well. Which probably wasn't a problem for a door underneath the center of the house, so I guess it didn't matter. I put a reluctant mouth on it. It felt weird. This was a house for unicorns, not earth ponies. Strange, considering that Good Intentions was an earth pony.

Stupid pony genetics.

The door gave way with less resistance than I expected, and I stumbled into the darkness of the hall beyond. Total darkness. None of the blue flowers were anywhere. There was a clambering of hooves behind me, and I turned around to see Lady Fantastic holding a two flowers in her telekinetic magic. She smiled brightly and trotted into the darkness, using the flowers as makeshift torches. Miraculously, they stayed lit, despite being disconnected from the larger plant. Magic was indeed a frustrating element for an earth pony such as myself to deal with.

I snatched a pair of blossoms for myself with my tail and trotted into the darkness after Fantastic, throwing one last glance at Fluke. She was staring wide eyed at my tail, which was shimmering green where it case in contact with the flowers I held. I growled at my fur and hurried ahead to keep pace with Fantastic.

Fluke kept staring into the doorway for at least fifteen minutes after me and my magical stupid glowing tail disappeared through it.

* * *

Unfortunately for Fluke, fifteen minutes later we fumbling through the dark, and it felt like we were no closer to finding a way out than we'd been before. Not, of course, that the flowers provided inadequate illumination, but rather that the hallways we were in grew larger and larger until the flowers' glows were unable to reach the walls. As for the fumbling, that was much less myself and much more Fantastic as she tripped over nearly each and every slightly uneven stone because she kept magicking her flowers farther and farther away until the walls and varied inscriptions on them were visible, but the cobblestones were less so. Each trip and fall lead to another wince of pain and an inspection of her splints. They were holding up well enough so far, despite the abuse.

Our search for a stairwell could be summarized as such; these ponies hella liked wine.

"Ugh! This is taking forever!" Fantastic whined as we slowly walked through the dark corridor, pushing in each door, breaking the thin roots that tried in vain to hold them in place. Each door revealed more and more wine cellars. There was probably enough wine in this building to get every stallion and mare in the Main drunk a hundred times over. "Greeny, tell me a joke."

I swung my flowers over an inscription in the wall. 'The Way of Good', carved in a solid golden plate mounted on the wall. Probably golden. Definitely metal, but it was hard to tell in the constant blue light emanating from our bloom torches, not to mention the sporadic green flickering of the fur on my tail.

"Greeny, what's..." She stopped trudging and turned her gaze to where I was looking. Suddenly her eyes were brighter than the torches we were carrying, despite her glasses, and a broad smile formed on her face. "...that?"

She spun back to me, hovering a few inches from my face. "Is that gold? Greeny, is that gold? Like, gold-gold? Real gold? Is it?" Her excited voice flew down the hallway and back, echoing loudly. Her tone laughed in the face of danger. As if danger could quell the greed of a wastelander. Ha.

I shrugged, but she was already busying herself with wrenching the plate from the wall, beads of sweat forming on her silky grey coat as she huffed and puffed and tried to magick it down. Her flowers laid at the ground near her hooves, petals facing the earth so their light was dampened. Seeing that there would be no way to remove her from the plaque minus removing the plaque itself, I grabbed her flowers and bundled them together with mine and jammed their stems into a crack in the stone wall. I began poking at plaque with a hoof, ignoring Fantastic's attempts to remove it. It didn't seem to be mortared in, nor did it have any signs of being nailed there.

Magic then. Stupid, law defying magic then. My head started to ache. Of course it was magic.

I took a step back and tapped Fantastic on the shoulder. She let out a loud breath she'd obviously been holding and panted with her effort as she took a momentary break from trying to use her telekinesis to free the plaque.

"What?" She asked. She already sounded exhausted. I couldn't decide whether that was because magic was a lot of work or because she was really out of shape.

Since it was a brick enchanted there by magic (probably), simple telekinesis wouldn't work; it would take an actual loosening spell or the like, maybe even a displacement enchantment or something. I tapped her horn to try to pass the information on.

She glared at me furiously. "What do you think I've been doing?!"

Telekinesis. I stared flatly as I waited for her to get it.

She kept glaring. And glaring. Then her eyes went wide with realization, and a smile jumped back onto her face. "Oh! I get it! Aye Aye captain Greeny!" She shouted with gusto, leaping back into the fray.

Ah, but that is meant both metaphorically and physically. Metaphorically, she threw herself back into the struggle to remove the brick. Physically, she leapt at the brick, stabbing it with her horn instead of using a spell like I'd hoped she'd do. Without warning, though inanimate objects rarely give such, the brick brightened and began to glow with its own golden light and Fantastic's horn sank into the material as if it was pudding, rippling slowly outwards from where her horn was displacing its golden material. My own eyes went wide as Fantastic's stupidity actually worked in our favor.

Fantastic stumbled backwards as her horn was forcibly evacuated from its new golden sheath, the glowing golden material drawing back into the wall, and the wall followed suit by drawing back itself, the bottom swiftly disappearing into the top and the top quickly vanishing into the ceiling of a earthy cavern.

I could smell fresh air, crisp and cold, but fresh. My hooves dug themselves into the moist soil without my consent, but I enjoyed it all the same. My ears twitched at the pleasant sensation. My brain was fuzzy with pain, but this sensation overrode it.

"A way out..." Fantastic gaped, "We can escape! We can be free again!" She spun on her good leg and planted a wet and sloppy kiss on my cheek. My ears twitched again as I turned to face her. There were stars in her eyes, bright as I imagined real ones to be. "Let's get out of here!" She said, limping forwards into the tunnel.

But we couldn't do that. Even if there wasn't a guard at the end of this this... secret tunnel we'd discovered, and there probably would be...

We couldn't just leave Fluke. My head throbbed. Memories of blood and screams echoed through my skull. Now was not the time to come out of shock.

I snorted and stomped my hoof, shaking out the bad memories.

Fantastic stopped and turned once more, looking back to me. "Sunshine? What's wrong?"

I stared back. She might be thick, but she'd figure this one out on her own.

She laughed nervously. "Come on. We're at the exit! The finish line! Please, let's just go!"

Nothing crossed my face, but disappointment rushed through my mind.

Tears were running down her face now, her sunglasses did nothing to hide the wetness on her cheeks. I almost went to comfort her. Almost. "Please?" She said, her voice weak, little more than a whisper. I shook my head. She hung her head beneath her forelegs. A tear collided with a stone. I couldn't bring myself to blame her. We were between the ragged teeth of death, and I wanted to go running back down its throat. She just wanted to be safe. I did too. But... I'd lost enough recently. This time death would have to take me first.

Then she laughed. A genuine laugh. It was full of despondent acceptance and fear, but it was still a laugh. "Heh. I guess you really are the strong one."

Her tears vanished, with a flick of her head and a flash of magic she was wearing a smile again. "Back into hell?" I nodded. She laughed again, stronger than before. "This is good."

I stared at her, throwing as much of an expression of shock as I could at her. Her grin widened.

"When we were sent into this stupid mansion, we were going to die victims of a stupid rich guy," Her sunglasses drooped and I could see the glimmer of excitement in her eyes. "But now, we get to die heroes. Heh. I always wanted to die a hero." I nodded. Before I could do more, she was already back into the tunnel.

"Let's do this!" She shouted confidently, rearing up on her hind legs and charged down the narrow tunnel, striding confidently, if with a slight limp. A very, very small smile appeared on my face. Very small.

And so I followed a mad mare into the darkness, and it wouldn't be the last time I did as such.

* * *

With flowers back on our persons, we nearly ran down the hallways, full of enthusiasm that should neither have existed nor been possible yet was there all the same. With the insane righteousness of stupidity flowing through our veins, there was nothing we couldn't accomplish. Doors flashed by, probably more wine cellars, but what we weren't looking for wouldn't be behind a door, no, it would be in the open.

We thudded around corners, no longer hesitant or afraid of the shadows, for as long as they stood between Fantastic and me and a little filly who was all alone in a mansion that was inhabited by a monster, they might as well have been ants standing in the way of a flood. Our hooves smashed into wall and plant matter alike as we bounded over thick roots and other growths, our makeshift torches providing just enough illumination for us to not snap our necks. When it finally occurred to me that Fantastic was keeping pace with me with a broken leg, I glanced sideways to see that she was augmenting her leg with magic, levitating that part of her body while using the rest of it to its full potential. It was impressive, not many unicorns could divide their attention between three things, let alone while running as fast as they could. I'd learned that lesson when I'd pulled a prank on the last Overmare involving multiple delicious pastry projectiles.

Before long, thankfully because I doubt Fantastic could have kept up that pace for all that much longer, we came to a stairwell, where we stopped to catch our breath. We panted for a few seconds, then looked to each other and started up the stairs.

A distant scream echoed through the air. A filly's scream. I grit my teeth and sprinted ahead, flashing up the stone steps and colliding with a thick wooden door at the top of the staircase. I could hear Fantastic's steps following, but wasted no time with waiting. I strained against the heavy door, pushing it open inch by inch. It was a unicorn door, made to be held up slightly when moved so as to make its set position more solid, and nearly inoperable by any other type of pony. But I was not just any pony. I was a earth pony, and I was afraid. Afraid for another, and I felt stronger than ever. More blood splatters flashed into my vision. Well, nearly ever. With a final push, the door creaked and cracked open and I tumbled into an ornate hall.

My ears twitched.

Another scream, this one even more distant than the last. I was both relieved and frightened at the same time. First, if it was more distant sounding, and I'd come a considerable distance, then it must be moving her, and moving her while she was still alive, but Second, she was getting even farther and farther.

I wasted little time on these thoughts, and instead charged forwards again following the sound, just as Fantastic slipped through the door behind me. The tile flooring gave little resistance, but a long and carefully woven carpet reassured my footing and allowed me to run at my fastest. Like hell was I going to lose another one.

I was stopped by another door. Or rather, another door tried to stop me. It failed. Chips of wood clattered to the ground as the door was smashed off of its hinges and trampled into the ground. This room was familiar. The Grand Hall from before. The hole we'd made stood proudly in the middle of the hall, and out of the many shattered and empty hanging window panes I could see the fires of Good Intention's camp. That didn't interest me though, and I instead focused my attention on a small pool of glowing greenish fluid. I'd seen enough holovids to know monster blood when I saw it. I took a deep breath and followed a trail of droplets of monster blood up the left path of a divided grand stairwell at the back of the hall. There was another squeal of fear, closer this time, but weaker.

The stairwell lead to a hallway, far larger and decorated than the door we'd come into the Grand Hall from, full of tattered and torn paintings of probably famous ponies, or the ancestors of whoever built the Tanglewood Manor, or at least the ancestors of whoever paid to have it built. The plant life was even thicker here, glowing flowers abounded, and even more fantastic flora grew peacefully and happily despite the lack of sunlight and soil. There were doors everywhere, some labeled with names of a time long past, and some not marked in any way, but I ignored this and followed the trail of monster blood though a stupidly large and overly decorated doorway at the end of the hall.

If I hadn't been near frothing with fear and adrenaline, the sight probably would've dropped my jaw. I know that ponies living before the war lived in excess, but this was ridiculous. There was a bed large enough to hold my entire living apartment, and the entire structure (because when something is that large, it is hard to refer to it as furniture) was covered in cloth-of-gold, and the pillars at the edges that supported an enormous canvas enchanted to look like a swirling rendition of the night sky stood like trees, and it was all blanketed in tropical plant life. The walls were covered in dressers and external closets and what little space on the walls wasn't was painted with images of fantastic creatures and magical beasts. There was a mirror, miraculously intact and covered in some sort of ivy, at the left of the room, and it was large enough that a dragon could have admired its entire length. It was there that the monster blood led, or at least that was near where it lead. There were scrape marks along the floor, as though the vanity supporting the mirror had been pushed roughly to the side along the wall, and behind those scrape marks was a door thick enough to make the Stable Door flash through my mind, slightly ajar. From it poured plants of all kinds, and as well as a greenish light. Greenish like the blood of the monster. Greenish like me.

The plush carpeting squished under my feet, and muffled my footsteps as I made my way to the door. There were two gentle hummings beyond it. One was similar to that a glowbulb makes, and the other was a magical sound, like that which flows from the aura of an unicorn. Neither were important to me, because there was another sound, far quieter than the others, but far more important. The sound of a sniffling filly. I threw myself at the crack in the door and found that it was plenty wide enough to accommodate my entire girth, and slipped through it, into a room that seemed the complete opposite of the bedroom before.

Four stark white walls were the only decorative thing about it, made from some sort of metal or plastic, or enchanted wood. The floor was cracked as though some sort of gargantuan hammer had struck it, shattered outwards from the middle of the room, and the cracks were full to the brim with plant life of all types. A cactus sprang from one corner, a cocoanut tree from the next, it was a chaotic display fitting of a Draconequeus. The ceiling much mirrored the floor, shattered and broken. The room was illuminated by glowing green light that spewed forth from the centerpiece of the room.

A magical rod hovered in the remains of what must have been some sort of glass containment unit, and beside it were the reasons I was here. Lucky Fluke was held immobile against a piece of whirring monitoring equipment by a green slime, and staring intently at her was the monster. She sobbed softly, trying to avoid looking at the beast.

When Good Intentions had told me there was a monster, I'd started thinking big. If it was strong enough to ward off a man with that many hired guns, it would have had to be strong, so maybe it was some sort of dragon. But that would have been too large to move effectively through the building, so maybe something smaller, like a chimera would have worked. When I saw the plants, I assumed it must have been some sort of Venus Fly Trap type monster. Something gross, chitinous, and drooling malicious intent. It had killed every single person who'd set foot in the mansion, and they were mostly just harmless slaves after all.

What I had not expected, was to be looking at a fuzzy greenish stallion, about my own height, and about my weight.

My ears twitched.

The monster spun and stared at me. Its ears mimicked my own. I stared back. Its eyes and mane were also greenish.

I was not trained to deal with this situation.

It was me. Or rather, it was something that was trying to look like me. Without warning, a second green glow filled the room, and green hellfire consumed the doppelgänger, revealing a black armored and twisted horned creature in its place. Its eyes were a dull blue, lifeless and stale. A Changeling. A mutated changeling. Great. A throaty roar filled the air and the creature, now far larger than myself, leapt at me.

This, I knew how to handle. I growled right back and jumped at the creature. We collided in midair and threw each other back to the ground. I landed on my side on the tile floor and rolled back to my hooves, the Changeling was less graceful and far less lucky, and was thrown into an upraised root. Its size helped it little as its chitin cracked under the strain of its weight.

"Sunshine!" A small voice behind me cried. I nearly let out a relieved breath. She was alright. Instead, I dashed forwards again. The only way to deal with a creature that large was to hit it while it was unprepared. I hopped over roots and flowers and jumped at the beast, throwing my hooves out to catch it in the throat. There was a whistling sound as the creature's tail whipped through the air and caught me in the side, throwing me past the rod's containment unit and bouncing off the ground all the way to the opposite wall. I let out a weak groan of pain. The beast roared again, this time in triumph.

"Hey freak! Try this on for size!" A familiar voice shouted as one of the pieces of equipment ripped itself from the floor and collided with the Changeling's head. It howled with pain. "Ha! Monster Oh, Lady Fanta--"

Her voice cut off as a root wrapped in a sickly green glow smashed into her head, knocking her sprawling.

"Fantastic!" Fluke screamed. The creature let out something that sounded like a laugh then turned its attention back to me. Despite its size, it stepped lightly and made little sound. "Please! Stop!" Fluke's shrill screams filled the air, but the creature paid them no mind.

I tried to stand and my vision blurred. My mind writhed in fiery agony. The Changeling placed a perforated hoof on m chest, pinning me in place. I let out another grunt of pain and the creature gave its corrosive laugh again. "Pony thinks he strong, yes? Eheh. Yes, pony strong." It crackled. One of its hooves came down on my stomach, hard. I gasped for air as the wind was driven from me. "But not as strong as Changeling."

It lowered its head to mine to say something more, but I didn't let it. I brought my forehead up to its snout and head-butted it with all my might. Blinding pain shot through my head, but it worked well enough. The Changeling squealed in pain and stumbled backwards, tripping over the roots it had avoided before. It crashed to the ground with a mighty thud, crushing smaller roots and flowers beneath its body.

And then it got back up. The creature roared with fury, its chitinous muzzle dripping radioactive green blood, and threw me against the stark white wall with its magic.

"You. STUPID. Pony!" It screeched, punctuating its words by slamming me against the wall. The pain was slowly being replaced by numbness. My vision started to fade. Its eyes were full of fire, but no more alive than before. They were still the same pale, dead blue. I couldn't do any more than keep my eyes open. Its pale eyes finally drifted over my own, and it froze. From that reaction, I guessed I was glowing. Great. Not only was I going to get smashed by an ugly mug like that, it was probably going to make fun of me for sparkling afterwards.

But it didn't smash me. It began to retreat instead. It slowly stepped backwards, its magical grip fading. The sick green aura holding me in place faded and I collapsed to the tiled floor.

I looked up, still on the edge of consciousness and falling fast, and saw the Changeling's eyes shift from pale blue, to something more livid. Something more alive. It hissed, seemingly at nothing, and shook its head and looked around. It seemed confused. It looked back to me and frowned. Then turned to the magical rod, still hovering serenely in the broken remains of its containment unit. There was a rush of wind as it took off towards the rod, snatched it, and escaped from the room, flying right over the head of Fantastic, who was slowly rising to her feet again. The sound of shattering glass rang through the house, and what remained of the magical glow faded. Even the glow of the magical flowers seemed to dampen.

And they were both gone.

Strangely enough, the first thing that rolled into my mind was that, since we neither defeated the monster nor obtained the magical artifact, we'd have to chill here forever.

"Uh, Fluke? Greeny?" Fantastic asked, stepping over a root as she made her way to the center of the room. "You guys okay?"

"Fantastic!" Fluke squealed enthusiastically, struggling against her goopy bonds. "You guys made it!"

"Heh, yeah kid." Fantastic flipped her hair and gave Fluke her best grin. "And you're... covered in monster goop. Great. Let me get that for you." She said, smiling gently as she used her magic to pull magical goop off of Fluke's body and mane. The filly giggled as the slippery substance wobbled in the air, floating in the grasp of Fantastic's magic.

"You okay Greeny?" Fantastic called out over the whirring machinery. My head was still throbbing, my fractured ribs seemed to be multiplying, I was having flashbacks from my horribly bloody last few days, and my pipbuck refused to cease its incessant beeping. Warnings scrolled across my vision informing me that I was injured. No shit. I grunted and rolled onto my back. "Good to know, my giant green buddy. Are you sure you're okay kid? That big lug didn't do anything to you?"

Fluke frowned. "I'm fine. It just... took me here and stuck me to this wall. Then it kept staring at me and changing faces. It was really weird." Fantastic nodded.

"I imagine so kiddo." Then the duo walked over to where I was still laying slumped on the floor. I groaned, tried to stand, then fell back to the floor. My head was pounding out a beat that sounded like something out of one of Saphire Shores’ techno phase. "And you're sure you're alright?" I grunted and flopped onto my side so that I was facing them.

Fluke and Fantastic gave each other concerned glances then looked back to me. "Well," Fluke said, "What hurts?" I knocked a hoof against my head. All of the adrenaline from that encounter was fading, and I was starting to feel very tired, hurt, and hungry.

"Your head hurts?" Fantastic said, voice brightening. "I know how to fix that!" She shouted gleefully. I tried to cover my ears. The loud noises hurt. Her horn began to spark, then to twinkle, and then it became a full on magical firework. She tapped my forehead with her horn and the bright light dissolved into my skull.

My head throbbed from the lightshow.

Wait.

No it didn't. I opened my eyes and looked around. Fantastic was grinning and Fluke was staring with great concern. My headache was completely gone. Sure, my ribs were still hurting, but that was a pain of body, and was easy to ignore in comparison. I gave Fantastic a questioning look.

"Hangover cure spell." Fantastic said, blowing imaginary smoke off of her horn. "Works every time."

Hangover? I thought back. I had drunk a couple bottles of wine. Maybe that had something to do with it. I shook my head again, without pain, and stood up. My balance was perfect, and once more I was towering over the two fillies. I turned my attention to Fantastic first. I wasn't the only one who'd been hit by the Changeling. I tapped her makeshift splints and she laughed.

"I'm fine greeny. Hit me in the side. I might have a few broken ribs, but that's nothing a healing potion won't fix." I nodded, then turned to the filly.

"I'm fine too, Sunshine." She said confidently, chin held high. I nodded, and began to walk out of the room, signaling Fantastic to follow.

"Come on Fluke," She said as she and Fluke hopped past me, "We found a way out!" Lucky Fluke squealed happily and darted forwards, despite not knowing which way the exit was. Fantastic looked back to me and flashed a smile again before running after her. "Last one there is a rotten raider!"

I shrugged and started to walk after her, but a flashing screen on the containment unit caught my eye. A single, small screen, not dissimilar to that of a pipbuck was displaying distress signals at the sudden loss of the magical rod. I tapped a few buttons with my hooves to quiet the machine. It had been working for two hundred years, and I thought it deserved peace. As I closed the caution pop-ups, a series of journal logs appeared on the screen. Apparently the last user had been in the middle of writing one. I opened the file and read them one by one.

Journal One: The topic for today's journal is how stupid it is to write a journal. I mean, I know what's going on, I'm not some sort of slackjawed pony. It really grinds my gears that the Queen is having us do these stupid things, but I guess it's not all bad if I can use it to make these ponies feel like dumbspores. My only regret is that I'll be a thousand miles away when they stumble upon these entries (And I say stumble because to think that a pony would ever be smart enough to find something is a bit silly) and realize that their precious 'Shady Butler' was a Changeling the whole time! I mean, how dumb do they have to be to not have any suspicions at all? 'Shady Butler'? Really? It's embarrassing, really.

Journal Two: Since I have to write this thing anyway, I figure I might as well turn it into some sort of therapeutic session, and boy do I need it bad. I know that it's my job as a Changeling to shift my form and personality so that I can fit in, but never before have I wanted so badly to smack a ho! This filly, the fuckin' heiress of the Good family, name of 'Good Try' is a fuckhole. She's as bitchy as a bitch can get, struts around like a Hivemistress with a stick up her ass telling us how worthless we are and how her soup needs to be 100.35 degrees precisely or it won't please her. It is a mental battle for me to see how the ponies around her have to deal with this all the time and haven't resorted to physical violence yet. I swear, if ponies lived off love like proper, civilized beings, this pony would have starved to death while she was still a pupa! Or whatever gross pony thing they do when they're young. And I apologize to the Supervisor who's going to have to go through and read all of these when I bring my log back. It must be hard work to have to deal with all this shit, and I tip my hat to you. Metaphorically. If I know me, I'm probably off getting drunk as you read this. Cheers!

Journal Three: To be honest, I'm a bit worried. I was approached by the head maid today who asked me if I'd be willing to sign up for some Stable the Good family is gonna be staying at. Naturally, I turned it down, after all, I couldn't abandon the Scepter of Fertility. I mean, a bit of pony stupidity couldn't matter to me one bit, but the way she said it... It makes me think that this 'megaspell war' might actually happen. Knowing ponies, it really could go down. It freaks me out a bit. I also tried watermelon for the first time. It's pretty awesome. If only it felt as good as love, then we'd be in business.

Journal Four: The whole mansion is on lockdown. The only reason I'm still allowed in here is because I'm the head butler now. That's right, the whole rest of the fucking staff abandoned ship. That's twelve ponies between me and the position, and they're all out of here! It's just me, a couple of maids, and the security guards left. I really want to make like a banana and split too, but this could be the perfect opportunity to filch this thing. If only I could think of some way to sneak it past the guards outside. Maybe I'll get them drunk or something. Whelp, this has been your favorite Espionage artist, signing off again.

Journal Five: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The reason I'm typing that out so many times is to give myself time to think about why the FUCK I'm still typing on this fucking thing. So, turns out ponies are so FUCKTARDED that they actually did it. They went and fucking blew the fucking world to FUCKING BITS. I can feel the radiation already. It hurts. It tastes like scorn. The whole mansion shook when the megaspells detonated. The ponies outside are already dead, and the containment field shattered along with most of the windows in this pony shithole. The magic is spilling out without anything to hold it back. I can understand why the Queen wanted it so bad now... It's amazing. It's not love, or fear, no, but I feel like I could live forever off of this stuff. It doesn't taste all that great, but it's not bad either. Just... raw energy really.

Journal Six: So, upside to the radiation, I'm getting bigger, stronger, more... fighty goody. Douwnside, i'm going insane, I think. Maybe not insane, no, but devinititltllty crazy or somthing. losing my miind maybe? yeah, that sounds good. I'm losing my mind. So, onecagain, this has been the best changeling ever, signing off... for what might be the last time. Dont' know why I''m still typping. nopbony's gonna read this sh ita nyways.

Huh. Well. That explained the changeling. And the rod, in a way. The artifact of the Good family indeed, though they kept it locked up for some reason.

"Greeny! Hurry up!" An impatient voice called from the hallway.

I sighed and jogged out of the room, and back down the hallway, and back down the stairs with Fantastic and Fluke in tow.

We were halfway to the secret tunnel when we started to hear voices from up above. Good Intention's men must have finally gotten up the courage to come knocking after seeing the monster fly out of one of the windows. I took a bit of pleasure in knowing that they wouldn't find anything.

When Fluke and Fantastic looked to me frightfully, I put a hoof to my lips and kept walking silently. Without a sound, or at least without any that anypony on the main level could have heard, we made it into the secret tunnel and onto the moist, soft soil. I dragged myself away from squishing my hooves into the soil to point out to Fantastic a small golden panel on this side of the doorway. She nodded and used her horn again. The hidden door returned to its place as swiftly as it had left.

We made our way down the damp tunnel, and after a short while, we saw the dim grey moonlight of the waste. Soon after that, we emerged into the beautiful grey of the wasteland. It smelt wet, and fresh, and good. I guess I really was an earth pony. The soft yellowish tint of the sun rising into the clouds in the east slowly became visible.

I turned to Fantastic and Fluke, who smiled broadly at me. We were free. Free to wander the waste and go on wacky adventures and do whatever else we damn well pleased.

I snorted with pride.

Which, is about the time I heard a click as somepony put a gun to my head.