Fallout Equestria - No More Tears

Chapters

Home
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Home

I sat outside the door which stood stagnantly in my path. It was much more intimidating from the outside, and I honestly couldn't breathe, I whimpered, looking up at the 24 stamped in the middle of the door. I became aware of the constant clickety click of my Pip buck's rad meter. In my distress and confusion, I forgot that I had flesh melting radiation to worry about. I ran up to the door and began banging on it, my strikes simply being reflected due to my low strength which had already began to weaken. I looked up at the camera above the door which swiveled above me as if there wasn't a dying mare on the doorstep begging to be let in. My skin began to crawl with the realization that I would not be let back in, or maybe it was the radiation which had also began to make my skin itch and burn. I began to cry, staggering up and trying to gather my thoughts to hack the access panel to the door, however, the exhausting three meter trip rewarded me with absolutely nothing to hack. I whimpered as my muscles spasmed and I fell to the ground hard semi-lifelessly, feeling my life being leached from me. I couldn't cry, I couldn't control my muscles and the sickening realization washed over me. Alone and betrayed by my Stable, I would die.

I awoke in a frenzied cold sweat, searching all around for the door, and the radiation, and the burning itch of death, which I never found. I was asleep in my warm, and relatively comfortable top bunk, and my brother was snoring as he does from below me in his bunk. I would usually ask myself why he got the bottom bunk since he could fly. Some days I came home too tired to climb up and just slept on the floor. But right now I paid that thought little mind. I was too terrified to think about much of anything. I peeked out from under the pillow wrapped around my head and mentally scolded myself for being scared like a little filly. There was virtually nothing to be afraid of on this trip. But the emotion stuck with me. Night after night my dreams would be plagued with the same dream killing me over and over again. I didn't understand the deep psychological meaning that I'm sure it had. But when I consciously thought of the topic, I wasn't scared in the least, in fact I was interested, even excited to get to go out of our Stable. I pulled my Pip Buck to my face to check the time and decided it wasn't worth it to try and fall back asleep, so I stared blankly at the dark ceiling for close to an hour, drifting in and out of deep thought, pondering what I might find out there.

The alarm clock on my pip-buck buzzed loudly, I silenced it with my magic. I hazily turned over on my top bunk and yawned. From the bottom bunk, my brother's alarm clock sounded with the same drab tone.

"Nuuu. I don't wanna get up" he complained, weakly bashing the pip-buck against his end table in an attempt to silence it. I magically turned his alarm off and sat up in bed. The fluorescent lights buzzed to life in the room. They were activated by timers to be a fail safe if our alarms didn't wake us. They were bright enough to wake anyone, any you'd do just as well sleeping as you would holding lamps over each eye.

"Come on Wendy. Today's the day."

"Day? What day?" He asked pulling his cover back over him. "And don't call me that, sis."

I laughed and replied, "Today's the day we scout the outside world." The Overmare in our stable, High 'n Mighty, was beginning to get restless. We hadn't received any messages from Stable-Tec HQ, or any other stable nearby since we were closed in here about 150 years ago. She wanted a small group to go see if there was any civilization out there, and the dice had been rolled. I was one of the scouts, as well as my brother.

He jumped up and began quickly trying to compose himself as he rooted through his drawers trying to find a clean stable 24 jumpsuit. I laughed triumphantly as I pulled a clean and folded one for me out of my dresser. I've always been somewhat OCD, but in contrast, my brother Wind-Fire was a total slob. Everywhere he went, he would leave a mess for me to clean up. Not because I was told to, simply because my disorder wouldn't allow his level of disorganization. It did help in my profession though, I’m an engineer, or more so a mechanic. Maybe a technician is an appropriate term. Whenever the Overmare needed something done that involved tech, I would be the only one to call. Literally. Instead of spending time with others as everypony else did as fillies and colts, I tended to lock myself away in my room and read old arcane tech manuals, textbooks, and various other informational texts. I was antisocial, maybe even a shut-in, but as long as I had my brother here to keep me in good spirits, I would be fine.

My brother, in our natural contrast, was a bit of a "Jock". He spent his time in the stable with his friends in the food court. He worked as an entertainer, and most of his entertainment came from fire. Fire breathing, fire twirling, using his wings to spark flames, setting himself on fire. He is probably one of the biggest pyromaniacs I have ever known, and ever will know. Its a wonder that any of us are still alive because of him burning up all our air. But the dual air talismans in the maintenance levels that I fixed can handle any CO2 that he can pump out. And on the subject of the maintenance level, Wendy and I would have to go hang out there for a few hours before we leave. Regardless, the Overmare hated him for his fire, and I think she would prefer that my brother didn't come back when we went out with our scouting party.

Despite our differences, my brother and I are best friends. When we both moved out of our parents room, we both decided we would room together. Most kids couldn't wait to sever all family ties when they moved out, but that wasn't the case for us. We've always been close, there to help each other when the world got us down. Which in my case, happened a lot. I was the meat of the stable, everyone saw me as a nerd. It's not that they didn't respect me, its just how things worked. There were three "Classes" in our stable, Blue, High, and then Scum class. My family which was a member of Scum class. The term blue wasn't a term for the color of their coats. I was blue, my dad was blue. you don't see either of us in any kind of high society. Blue was short for blue blood, and that's what they tended to be. Blue blooded assholes. That wasn't always the case, as some didn't act that way, some were even relatively nice.That wasn't the official ranking either, Mighty would never allow it. Bad for her image. Ironically, I'm who the upper class came crying to for help when their fancy Delta pip bucks crashed or broke or started electrically shocking them. I preferred the 3000 models anyway. Sturdy, reliable, and simple. A bit on the heavy side, but I don’t mind.

I yawned as I slipped into my jumpsuit. I sat down at the table and got some eggs out of the fridge and began to cook them. Another important perk of being a technician is that I get access to food that noone else in the stable does. Well, I really steal it. The Blues have a replicator. It can make a copy of any kind of organic material that exists, living or dead as long as it's information is maintained in the database. Anyway, the first time I broke down, i saw my opportunity. I made some food, rigged it to break again next week and stole food again next time it broke down. They would be complete idiots if they weren't suspicious, but they haven't tried to stop me. Don't guess they want to risk all of their food instead of sharing a little. Greedy bastards.

“So, who else is gonna come with us?” Wind-Fire asks sitting at the table, now in his jumpsuit.

I think for a moment, “Lets see, I’m the brains if we come across any tech. you’re the strength if we need to carry anything. That leaves a medic.”

“Who is?”

I think again for a moment. “Logically, Rusty will be the medic.”

"Awww. Not him! Hes bat shit crazy Gears!" he said as I sat a plate of food in front of him.

“Exactly, he's expendable.” I say. “All the other doctors are needed in here, if the Overmare can get rid of him I’m sure she will be happy.”

“And you are too?”

"Am I what?"

"Expendable? Are you expendable?"

“I've got no choice, do you know any other technicians in this stable?”

He flattened his ears. “The way you say it makes her sound like a jackass.”

“Yeah, cause she is.” I say flatly. He shrugs and nods.

The Overmare had a special grudge against my family dating back to pre-war times. Something about my grandfather breaking up with somepony named “Lotus.” None of us were really sure why the Overmare still held the grudge, and why she made our lives hell over something so insignificant.

I sighed as we finished eating. I looked at the clock on my pip-buck, then at Wendy and excitedly squeaked, “Ten minutes until we have to head for the stable door” I pulled on my saddlebags containing some food, some lockpicks, various light all purpose tools and cables and a couple of books to keep myself entertained away from home. He nodded and did the same with his saddlebags. I headed over to the mirror by my bed. I levitated a brush out and brush my blue mane out of my face and fix my bed head. I inspected my blue coat for any dirt and wipe it off. I look at my teal eyes in the mirror and sigh. “Well, about time to head out huh?” I asked glancing at my brother who has done the same to his wavy orange mane and tan coat. He nodded and smiles.

I trotted over to the door and reached for the button to operate it. As I reached for it, the door lifted open and a grey blur tackled me down in a hug. “HEY! Mom! You scared the hell out of me!” I exclaimed as I stood up. She let go and smiled.
“Jumpy, are we?” My dad asked coming around the corner, his coat blending in being same hue as his stable Jumpsuit and his blonde mane graying to match the drab walls of the stable.

I smiled. “Coming to see us before we head out?” My mom nodded and my dad replies,

“Actually, bringing you something.” He smiled and produced a small golden figurine holding a sword in its mouth from under his wing. “For good luck.” he said smiling. I glanced at my mom who nodded again with an enormous smile. I smiled back. Sometimes I wish I could have heard my moms voice. A few years before my brother and I were born, there was an accident in maintenance which crushed her throat. She had to have her larynx removed in order to survive, which left her as a mute, usually communicating by a small blackboard she carried under her wing.

“We’ll miss you two so much!” my dad said as my mom gave my brother and me each a big kiss on the cheek.

"Mom! Don't do that!" we both said with a groan. She silently laughed and produced her blackboard. She wrote on it, turning it around to reveal her message. 'Be safe out there, We love you'

We smiled and hugged her and dad. "We love you too." I say. "We'll be back within the week." They nodded, my brother and I took breath and we headed out the door. We trotted down the hallway semi-aimlessly. We sort of gravitated towards the stable door, but didn't ever seem to get there. I looked over at him, and he was already staring at me.

"What?" I asked as we both grinned, starting to crack up.

"What're you staring at me for?" He asked defensively, his snicker beginning to form into a laugh.

"Me staring at you? You looked at me first!" I give him one of my weak little punches to the side, which he returned only a little harder. We kept shoving at each other walking down the hall until we broke out into a fight, limply flogging one another with our hooves laughing like we were foals. That was another thing about my brother that I was thankful for, he was cheery and playful. If I so much as sissy slapped one of my "friends" that I have, they would have stomped me without hesitation. It seemed our family was the only one capable of fun. Maybe that's why the Overmare hated us, she was just jealous.

"So, want to head to the hangout?" He asked, finally letting himself stop laughing.

"Why wouldn't I?" In fact, I was hoping he'd ask, I spend all my time down there anyway, its nice to have him around so I don't feel like some creepy old hermit lady living in a cave. I followed him the way we both knew, down the main hallway and down the flight of stairs to a wall terminal and a locked door. Of course I already hacked the door and reset the password, so my brother and I spent the next week trying to come up with the most nonsensical, unguessible password in equestrian existence. After many suggestions, we settled on the phrase, 'cheeseburgerismeat.' We were never very good at logic. I have a knack for fixing things, but I always wanted to be an artist.

The password was entered and we both snickered at it. It never stopped being funny. We trotted along until we met a hole in the floor going straight down twenty feet. I went first, catching each rung of the ladder with my hooves until I felt the sturdy support of concrete floor under-hoof again. I looked around into the darkness. I clapped my hooves and declared, "Lights." And perfectly on cue, the voice recognizing toggle switches did their jobs. A warm, soft glow illuminated the room in harsh contrast to the hard cold fluorescent lights in the level above. I trotted over to my favorite spot, a big gap between two empty vats, whose purpose was unknown to us, and we had spent many hours telling stories to produce sensible but sometimes terrifying lore behind their origins. They lined the walls all around the level, but we never opened them. Neither of us had the guts.

The warm glow of the incandescent lights just wasn't enough for Wendy's compulsive fire starting, and he had a small fire built in no time inside a ring of old cinder blocks and bags filled with a grainy substance which had also eluded identification. I let out a sigh of relaxation. Twenty feet higher may be where my family lives, but this place that not even the Overmare knew about was my real home.

I kicked my hooves up onto a cinder block and cracked open a tech manual discussing the evolution of the Pip Buck from a pocket watch to the sleek delta models of today. Wendy simply busied himself prodding the fire with a metal rod, shivering in satisfaction every time cinders and sparks flew up into the air. It was sort of disturbing. It didn't help that there's hardly anything flammable down here. I didn't even know how he started them. We had a few hours to burn, so after I got my nose out of the book I joined him by the fire, his fascination was total, he never looked away as long as it burned, but he still payed attention to me.

"I like fire." He incoherently grumbled to himself, rocking back and forth every time the mysterious kindling popped.

"So I noticed." I said prodding the fire with my magic. He stared blankly into the fire. "So what do you think about the outside world? What do you think we'll find?"

"Well, I expect absolutely nothing. If the legends hold true, all it is is a dessert in all directions as far as they eye can see."

"According to Mighty." I snorted. He nodded hollowly, still distracted by the fire. "You know that she's hiding something, just because its her. She can't be trusted." Another shallow response of agreement. I pause for a while before asking, "So.. what do you think the chances are of... dying out there?"

This time he had actually taken this in and turned to me. "If all goes as planned, Slim to none. Why are you worrying about it? Scared?"

I shook my head quickly, denying it, "No, no, not at all, I'm excited to go out there, its just.. I've been having the nightmares again."

"He gave a small chuckle and clapped a hoof on my shoulder, "Sis, you're a big filly now, and if you keep your mind right, you have absolutely nothing to worry about, okay? Don't worry."

I only nodded, whenever he was around or in front of fire, he turned into this sagey old man type figure. It was weird, but helpful and comforting nonetheless. " Yeah. Guess so, thanks."

"Bout that time though, isn't it?" He asked reluctantly bringing his hoof down snuffing the flames and standing up. I nodded again and looked around the room which had been substantially dimmed by the lack of fire. The wise man act was usually nice, but today it just seemed unsettling. I couldn't wait to get topside and have my goof of a brother back. Sure hope that things aren't on fire outside.

I turned and headed for the ladder and was followed by Wendy up the ladder. I squinted my eyes once they met the painfully hard light and headed on down the hallway. I locked the door behind us as we ascended wordlessly, heading to the door.

We arrived a few minutes later, waiting for us were various friends and other dwellers watching us come in. After sitting for a while, staring aimlessly at the large metal puzzle piece in the wall, the Overmare walked in through the security door, leading from her office. Trailing behind her was a reddish orange Pegasus with red eyes and a slicked back yellow mane who was soon recognized as “Rusty” by my brother. And behind him were a couple of the blue security guards who protected the Overmare.

One of them shot me a dirty look which I returned. Her head swiveled to my brother and she almost visibly winced. I think she remembered the harsh bucking she received from my brother a few years back, and I don't mean that romantically. All I know is stable facial reconstruction surgery will never be the same again. The attack shocked me, even though he was a jock, Wendy tended to be the gentle giant. Then again, I would have tried the same thing if I found my sister being beaten with a lead pipe. Ironically enough, we all were punished for it, but in the end,crowbar was the one who walked away better for it. That's blue logic for you. My train of malicious hate was derailed as rusty broke my concentration. Rusty walked over to us with two first aid boxes in place of his saddlebags, which my brother and I had draped over our backs, ready to go.

“Hello there.” he said in a scratchy timid voice. He appeared to be visually shaking, but not malnourished or anything we had expected. There were rumors about him that had been told since he caused the accident that killed his parents and muted my mother. He was already emotionally unstable due to the loss of his parents, but the jeers and taunts about being a murderer from all the other fillies and colts is what cracked him. some say he's spent the last fifteen years in the lower levels of the stable alone, when in reality, hes been up top working at the clinic. He only had been put into solitary confinement over a nervous breakdown once, which I considered to be pretty good for someone who's lost everything and more. It seems we both knew what it was like to be alone. But If i could say, he had it off much worse than I did. I wanted to feel sorry for him, but he seems like he's received too much pity, if I were him I'd be sick of it.

We smiled at him and looked at the Overmare who levitated us each a gas mask. my brother whispered in my ear, “No radiation suits? Pretty ill equipped for a facility built to survive a nuclear holocaust huh?” to which I laughed and nodded darkly, trying to accept my brothers attempts to raise spirits..

“Laugh all you want, but this is all we've got.” the Overmare said with a grim smile. “Besides, sensors read fairly low radiation levels so you should be fine.” That phrase didn't help ease my worries. 'Fairly' was a slightly vague concept.

“Just help us when we start keeling over.” My brother said snatching the mask out of the Overmare’s telekinetic grip.
“Whatever.” she said dropping the remaining two masks in front of me and Rusty. I pulled mine over my head and looked at rusty who was struggling to get it on. I took it in my magic and put the mask over his head. He nodded in thanks to me and we stood in a line expectantly by the door. Wendy swished his tail nervously as the onlookers withdrew to a safe distance from the door. The Overmare walked up to a control panel.

“Ready?” I asked my brother

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” He replied straightening up.

A loud buzzing alarm sounded in the large metallic room and the hard fluorescent light was replaced by a warm glow of a siren. After a few seconds a large hydraulic arm lowered itself to the large gear shaped door with a dull click.
it began sliding back. The Overmare cringed and we covered our ears as the door screeched across its pre-war rests. The ground shook as the door began to roll aside.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Educated - In your time in the stable, you've acquired numerous books on varying topics, reading them in all of your spare time instead of socializing has cost -1 Charisma, but you've gained +1 Intelligence, and helpful insight for the above world.

I'd like to thank KKat for writing the original Fo:E for writing an unbelievably great story, and Somber, for writing Project Horizons, the story that pushed me over the edge and forced me to try my hand in writing.

Author's Note

I wanted to make the stable seem more homely/friendly than I previously did.

Chapter 2

Everypony held their breath as they expected to be overcome with flesh melting radiation, however, not a single Geiger counter made a click as the door stood open, revealing a rocky passage lined with charred black skeletons, easily identifiable as equine remains.

“At least they died quickly” Wendy said taking a deep breath.

“We don't have all day!” the Overmare reminded us, shoving me towards the door. I shot her an irritated look as I willed myself forward, passing through the gear shaped doorframe and out into the cold tunnel. My brother followed me, then Rusty. we looked back at the stable. The Overmare saluted at us and operated the controls and began to shut the door.

I gulped and watched the door roll shut, sliding shut with now less shrill screech, displaying a pristine “24” on the front of the door. I glanced up the corridor, keeping my head on a swivel. I was paranoid and scared of being out of my home. I didn't trust the low visibility of my mask, even though only friendly, green dots were on my E.F.S. Except for one which was flickering red and green from inside the stable. It had done this before on rare occasions and I never found an explanation for this. I eventually regained my composure and our party continued blindly up the pitch black corridor.

I heard the sound of rock tumbling around and the thump of a body dropping. I turned towards the sound and flicked on my pip-buck light.

“Owwwww” Wendy whined as he peeled his face off of the ground. He inspected what he tripped over and made an audible gulp upon discovering he had just crushed one of the charred equine skulls.

“You alright?” I asked helping him up.

“Uh. Yeah, yeah... Only napping.” he stammered looking away to hide his face, flushed in embarrassment. I smile and go, come on then, lets keep moving, to which he nods.

The three of us kept walking for a few yards before coming to a double sided cellar door with light streaming in through loose cracks. I look at Wendy and Rusty and ask, “Ready to see the surface?” I received three tentative nods. I take a deep inhale, eliciting a deep hiss from my mask before opening the door. Bright natural light flooded in, and in a flash, we all found ourselves on the ground covering our faces with our hooves. I'm the first onto my feet, peeking my head out of the cellar door and looking around with my eyes squinted. As I let my eyes adjust to the light, I'm joined on each side by the rest of my party. Once my eyes finally begin seeing more than white, I let my jaw loosely hang open.

I surveyed the vast landscape, totally devoid of life. I was awestruck by how barren it is. Overcast grey clouds above, and nothing but brown desert as far as the eye can see, interrupted by deep black tarmac in stark contrast to the landscape dotted with withered shrubs and the occasional charred stud protruding from the ground marking what had once been the foundation of a house.

“I don’t know whether to cheer, or cry.” Wendy said flatly, absorbing about as much about the landscape as I did. “What do you think Rusty?”

“Dead. Flat. Hot.” Is all he could muster with a clear lack of enthusiasm.

“Barren” I say in agreement. “Well, lets get moving.” I sighed as I take out a photo taken from this exact spot from 150 years ago. I switch between the photo and the landscape. I sighed again. The photo looks so happy and green. The skies are clear, and surprisingly there along the road used to stand a small residential town, eerily abandoned by its inhabitants in the photo, and wiped entirely out of existence in reality. I looked up at the sky. Still overcast. “Hmm, that's strange, no break in the clouds anywhere, think its because of the radiation?”

“What radiation?” Wendy said removing his mask and tapping his pip-bucks rad meter.

“Good point.” I replied, eyes still fixed on the sky. I took off my mask as well and put it in my saddlebags. I helped Rusty, who was fighting with the straps again.

"If everything's been destroyed, why the pristine door?" Rusty asked looking back at the wooden door with shiny new hinges.

"Good question." Both my brother and I said. I trotted back up and inspected the hinges. "These have been oiled recently." I observe, wiping some oil from the joint.

“And the woods been stained too” Wendy added as he runs his hoof across the sanded wooden panel.

I nod and trot back away from the door. “We had better get a move on if we're gonna get anything done.”

I looked up and down the road, eyeing the cracked tarmac striped with yellow lines down the middle. It looked almost like a bumblebee. Neither of which I had ever seen before. Except for in my books of course. As the others looked along the lines in confusion, a smile spread across my face. I'm the only one who knew that the cracked asphalt had ever served a purpose.

"These were used to make travel with ground carriages easier. Kept them in lanes to make sure they didn't get crowded." I say digging through my saddlebags. My brother eyed me curiously while Rusty's vacant expression remained unchanged.

"What're you doing?" Wendy asked, watching me search my inventory.

"Deciding our route." I say producing a bag of bits and levitating out a single shiny gold coin. I point to the east. "Call it."

"Sun." he said as I flipped the coin. It tinked across the ground and rolled along a few feet before circling around and leveling it out Sun side up.

"Looks like we're going east." I say levitating the bit back into my bag and taking a step onto the road. I smiled at the familiar hardened surface that reminded me of the stable floor which I was already beginning to miss. I can't say I liked the strange dusty dirt of the outside. It crackled with each step, stained my hooves and make them itch. My brother looked around and joined me on the road. Rusty however stayed on the side where he could walk in the dirt. I levitated out a canteen and took a drink and passed it around. Rusty took it thankfully and guzzled half of it and passed it to my brother who took a sip and passed it back to me. We began to walk, following the pavement east.

After a few hours of trudging along the hot road, my pip-buck began beeping alerts about dehydration, and for that I almost felt thankful because it gave us an excuse to stop for a breather at a small ditch running alongside the shoulder. All three of us trotted down into the ditch and collapsed into our own individual heaps, again, passing around my almost depleted canteen which I finished off, pouring the last drops out onto my tongue before dropping the canteen beside me. I sighed in relief as my dizziness began to subside and the little red "H2O" icon disappeared from my stats screen. I looked up and around at the darkening cloud layer.

"What's happening? Why's the sky getting dark?" Wendy asked following my gaze up to the horizon.

"The suns going down above the cloud layer. Day is turning to night." I say flatly. Another fact that only I knew from the old stable history books. In the stable, We still used the terms day and night, but they were used to denote times for sleeping and times for work.

"How do you know this stuff?" Rusty asks. Wendy and I looked over at him with a look of surprise on our faces. This is the first time we heard him say anything other than "yep" or "nope". I guess that years of being shunned by all of the stable's community had left him as an introvert. He looked away shyly as if he feared that he stepped out of place.

"I've spent my whole life reading books. I always wanted to see the surface and... now that we're here, that endeavor doesn't seem too promising." I say trying to keep contact with his scared red eyes. He looked back at me with a simple nod and curled up on his side. It was then I realized that he wasn't scary in the least. In fact, he even reminded me of the head of the ministry of peace before the war, Fluttershy. I smiled and laid on my back, digging the small golden figurine out of my bag and turning it around in the grip of my magic. It was a family heirloom that neither of my parents had ever explained in much detail. My dad had said my great-great grandfather found it back on a trip to Stalliongrad. He said that it was probably pretty old, even by pre-war standards considering no one used swords for over 500 years before the bombs fell. I sat it down beside me as I rested my head on my arms and closed my eyes, heavy with the day's work.

"Sis?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we gonna die out here?" I frowned. Were hours away from any known civilization, which required backtracking at least ten miles of straight, featureless tarmac, we were out of water and low on food. I took a deep breath.

"I don't know, but to be honest, probably not." I say opening my eyes to look at my brother whose frowning at me as the sky reaches its darkest.

"Then explain to me what that is?" He motions to the west to a hill a mile or two away that's crested by a very faint glow. I raise my eyes to look at it. Perhaps it was somewhere safe, maybe even civilization. but it was too far away, we were all exhausted, and Rusty had already fallen asleep and the sliver of my being that was still afraid of him was begging me not to poke the bear. So I shook my head.

"We'll go check that out tomorrow morning, now lets just rest up okay? We need energy if we're going to survive this week."

"You're the boss, boss." he said laying down between me and Rusty. I nodded, and looked at my pip-buck. When i was little, I had a severe form of insomnia, so much so that I was prone to diseases due to a weakened immune system. I really didn't mind much, but my parents on the other hoof did. They made me use my technological knowledge to modify my pip-buck’s S.A.T.S. system to force sleep for a set amount of time. I never uninstalled it when I outgrew my insomnia and it had, in fact, come in handy on several occasions, this being one of them. I entered the command prompt for sleep into my pip-buck and set the slider to eight hours. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the ground. Letting my senses dull as I slipped into the tranquil buzz of S.A.T.S. induced sleep.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Slim Frame - Your small size has given you +5 to sneak, and potions heal you 15% more, however, your limbs are crippled 25% more easily.

Chapter 3

In my dreams, visions arose of a land untouched by spellfire, much like the small glimpse into the past I had received from the picture given to me by my parents. A large city, centered around a seemingly impossibly high crystal tower that would boggle the mind of any stable dweller who is conditioned to a ceiling no more than a few feet from their heads. Green, lush vegetation surrounding its eastern borders, and harsh, flat snowy tundra bordering its west. Ponies happily trotting about performing daily tasks with a strange crystalline glint off their coats and manes.

I stood in a balcony, seated near the top of the spire, watching over the landscape and the ponies that I had imagined to be my subjects, and I the queen of this strange new world, letting my troubles of the wasteland sink away as they are replaced by all of the senses, filled to bursting with all of the sights sounds and smells of a Crystal palace far, far, away. 'Strangely realistic for a dream.' I think to myself as I inhale the fresh air, untainted by radioactive particles and dust. I hear trotting behind me and go to turn around, but to my surprise, my muscles don't move on my command.

"Cadence, I brought the reports from princess Luna." a friendly, male voice said from behind me. I turned around, following my body which is still ignoring my input. I brushed my pink multicolored mane out of my face with my magic. It was then I realized that I wasn't me. I felt taller, more powerful and sensitive to the air blowing through my feathers. Wait, feathers? WINGS? I HAD WINGS? I frantically willed myself to look back, but to no avail seeing as though my body was not under my control. I mentally sighed in disappointment and turned my attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Good, good. Thanks, Sir Armor." My host said in a sweet and playful tone.

"Hey, that's King Armor to you, Princess Cadence" he replied, echoing the same friendly tone she had used to him. He trotted up and kissed me on the muzzle and gave a hug which my body gladly returned. At this point, all I could feel was confusion. Princess Who? Armor, Cadence? I would just put this off as part of a strange dream if Luna's name hadn't been mentioned.

"So, what's new on the homefront?" The unicorn stallion asked trotting to the edge of the balcony overlooking the kingdom with the wind blowing his neon blue mane into a messy combover.

"Uhm.. Nothing too interesting." I said somewhat distracted. While my host was busy intently soaking up the image of Armor's flanks, I was observing the mark on his flank. It was a blue shield, embossed with the familiar pink starburst seen on the flank of the ministry mare, Twilight Sparkle. Now this is a mystery... I thought to myself. ...One thats gonna drive me nuts.

He turned to look back at me "What? You're mumbling. Something the matter honey?" I shifted my eyes away to look up at his and stammered,

"Oh, no, sorry. I'm just tired today." I felt her droop a bit. "Yeah, news isn't very good today. We've got zebra pushing on our south, and changelings rallying to the north."

Armor cringed, "I thought we banished all of them with their queen years ago"

Cadence sighed, "That was years ago, and sometimes, banishment isn't enough."

"We'll, luckily for us, that letter from Luna is asking if were receiving any hostile contact from the zebras. Shes offered to.." Cadence cut him off with a shake of her head.

"I know that Equestria’s one of our allies, but I don't want to get roped up in the war. It isn't our fight." She closed her eyes and sighed helplessly.

"But think of all our friends, the Princesses, the Wonderbolts, the ministry mares, my sister." This only seemed to unsettle Cadence more as I felt a tear trickle down her cheek. Armor sighed "I understand you don't want to bring war to us, and I don't either, but we don't have too much of a choice." Cadence nodded and looked back at him who had come up muzzle to muzzle with her. He smiled. "Come on Cadence, how about we head out for a nice dinner date and we can think this over, hmm?"

She sniffled a bit and gave him a little peck on the nose, "Yeah, I think I'd like that." I felt her smile as the world around me became hazy and the beautiful world of the past faded away and left me awake in the dim light of... where am I?

As the feeling in my own body returned, I frantically started looking around and froze when the glint off of a shiny glass ball caught my eye. It sat beside where my head had been resting on the cold concrete floor, I reached out to grab it, but discovered my hooves had been bound behind my back. I struggled to set myself free when my rustling attracted some attention. A dark grey gryphon materialized out of a dark corner and walked up to the other side of the cell that I found that I was being kept in. His scars became visible, cut into him with the same pattern of the stripes of a zebra, his beak curved into a wicked smile as he reached through the bars and grasped my chin in his razor sharp claws to pull me face to face with him.

"Awake already?" He asked in a heavily accented voice that just oozed brutality. I went to reply defiantly but in my fear, produced only a terrified squeak. His smile grew as he chuckled to himself. "We have plans for you stable dweller."

I began to tremble in fear for my life. Hadn't the wasteland already tried to kill me? In fact, it was in the middle of doing just that when this new threat rescued me? Sort of. While I was trapped in a cell, alone, with my head in the claw of a gryphon, tied up and fearing for my life, the dehydration induced dizziness from before had stopped. I could see and think straight for the time being and as long as I had my wits, I had my life. I stopped and thought logically for a moment and relaxed as all the pieces fell into place. Had they wanted to kill me, they wouldn't have fed me and given me water. What did they have planned? Were they friendly? No, definitely not, the face that was not that of a happy neighbor who was glad to see another soul in these goddess forsaken wastes. It was more of a "You would make a nice snack" expression. Or.. oh goddesses, where are my friends when I need them?

"I don't think this one will make a very good addition to Red Eye's army, Stripes." A ragged white earth pony stallion with a torn ear says walking up alongside the gryphon. "Look at how lanky and weak she is."

"Hmmm, but she may be good for something." Stripes said tilting my head side to side, his face returning to that 'rapey' expression. How would that even work? I'm a pony, hes a gryphon, do wastelanders even have any sense of decency?

"Not so fast." the white one warned. "If shes from a stable, she's could probably rake us in some money. When we found her, her pip-thingy had her asleep, its been modified, normal ones don't do that."

"Maybe" Stripes said dropping me. "If she is as smart as you let on, she could be of some real use to us after all. I suppose Red Eye doesn't need to know we found her and her friends." On the inside I let out an enormous sigh of relief knowing I wasn't going to be a overgrown bird's whore. "But are you sure we can't have a little fun with her?" He asked, almost pleadingly to the other one. He got a good look at me and grinned, "Tempting, tempting, just... later."

I began to tune out their discussion of what to do with me and I began to assess the situation. Since my brother was strong, he would probably be forced into this 'Army' Which answered one of our questions, is there any civilization out here? If there is, so far all we've seen is the barbaric side, but if I make it through this, there may still be hope for this place. Rusty would probably have been killed, because if they use this much brutality to secure soldiers in their army, that meant that they were expendable. So medics are pretty much useless.

I took a moment to look myself over and frantically thought to myself, 'okay, I'm bound, so I can't move, I don't think my magic is limited. I won't test that, i don't want to get their attention should they change their mind about not using me as a living sex toy.' There was a metal collar latched tightly around my neck, enough to allow me to breathe, but pressing studs into my neck to keep me from getting comfortable anytime. A small box on the right side flashed with a small red light embedded in the collar. If i had to guess its a remote controlled shock collar. I had read about one of these before in books and how they were developed by the Ministry of Wartime Technology to keep enemy P.O.W.s in line at camps.

As the gryphon and the other pony continued debating my fate I sat up and began fiddling with the collar. Not to disarm it, just to readjust it to not stab my neck. I looked around the room outside the cell. All of my equipment was stacked neatly on a shelf along with Rusty's First aid boxes, and Wendy's bags, neither were bloodstained so I guess they're fine. I look at the glass ball on the floor and levitate it into a pocket on my suit that I was thankfully still wearing.

The shifting warranted some attention from the gryphon who looked at me and laughed. "Getting restless are we? You won't last long with that attitude." He produced a small metal box that was painted to look like a pack of cigarettes. he flicked the top open and a small tab separated from the side to form a clacker which he squeezed threateningly. I shrank back down in fear of getting shocked. "Now that's more like it." he said putting the clacker into his shoulder pocket. "You stay right there, we'll be right back for you." They walked out and I heard a screen door slam shut.

Knowing that this was the only bone these two would throw at me, I wasted no time searching around the cell for any kind of metal scraps that I could use to pick the lock on the door. I searched every square inch of the cell before drooping, realizing the futility of my efforts. Then it hit me.

"My bags!" I exclaimed, hope welling up in my chest, scooting up to the bars and trying to use long range telekinetics to undo the straps on my bags to search for the lockpicks inside. I fumbled with the strap weakly until it popped open with a soft click and its contents spilled onto the table. From the pile I pulled a set of lockpicks to me, my grip getting stronger as they neared me. I repeated the process with the small golden figure my father had given me. Being heavier, it took longer for me to scoot the hardened figure of shiny salvation across the floor to me. I pulled it through the bars, and began using the sharp sword in the figure's mouth to saw through the ropes hindering my movements.

A few minutes later, the ropes lay coiled in the cell and the door wide open as I pulled on my equipment as well as that of my comrades. I searched around the room for anything useful as a weapon, and found what I was looking for in a cabinet next to an empty fridge. The blade was dull, but the point however, was not.

"Looks like I'm stabbing." I whispered to nopony in particular, rounding the corner to search the rest of the building for my brother and Rusty. I trotted quickly with worry audible in my stride on the hard wooden floor. I never really was stealthy, but at this point I didn't care, all that mattered was finding and freeing my brother. Rusty was important too, but my brother took priority.

I headed up a flight of stairs. This building was beginning to seem bigger on the inside than on the outside. I hadn't encountered any exits, and this was the second floor. I began to think that that screen door didn't actually lead outside. As I continued down the hallway, a tinking sound caught my attention, leading me around a corner and through a doorway with another few cells, mostly with other pitiful ponies, but the one on the far right which housed the bright orange mane of Wendy with one of the metal collars clapped around his neck, tapping his pip-buck against the bars of the cell weakly. I trotted up and tapped mine against the bars next to him.

He jumped up in surprise and let out a sigh of relief when he realized I wasn't trying to kill him. "Ready to get out of here, or have you grown fond of this place?" I tease while fishing through my bags to retrieve a lockpick to pick his cell door.

"Oh, no, i actually like it here." He said rolling his eyes sarcastically. "Comfortable beds." He motioned to a pile of straw in the back corner of the cell. "Friendly cellmates." He nudged a fresh corpse with a broken neck in the opposite corner. "And let me tell you, the food here is phenomenal."

I smirked and stood, leaning on the open cell doorframe. "Good, then you shouldn't have any problem staying while I go find Rusty and we get outta here."

He frowned and trotted out of the cell next to me, "On second thought, maybe we can find somewhere better to curl up and die."

"Thought so." I levitated his bags onto his back and brandished my knife again. "Ready?"

He nodded and we walked towards the doors, trying hard to ignore the other bound prisoners staring at us with scared, helpless eyes. We couldn't risk staying here and alerting any slavers in the vicinity. We trotted through the doorframe and ran headlong into an alarmed Rusty, heading toward the room we had just left. I looked at him in total relief and smiled lowering my knife.

"Great to see you, Rusty." Wendy said clapping him on the shoulder. He winced at the friendly contact and looked away bashfully.

"Likewise." Is all he said looking back up at me as I placed his first aid boxes over his back.

All three of us continued down the stairs back to ground level, happy to be reunited, and confident in our strength. As we finally reached the floor, light streamed through a single window.

"Well, at least we know its daytime." I said peeking over the windowsill. Outside, locked in chain link pens are even more enslaved ponies. We were at the end of what seemed to be the main street of an old town, with a standing clock tower at the corner of a saloon shaped building marked with a faded painting of an apple. Other than the slaves, there was no activity, and the town looked as if it had been very busy, very recently.

As I scanned the yard, something out of place caught my eye. A young mare digging at the corner of a fence, about to squeeze through. She was out of sight of the gryphon and the other slaver who sat at an overturned cart playing cards, totally oblivious of our escape, and that of the fenced mare, who had just slipped through the hole. She turned around to face a stallion inside the pen who was slightly larger than her, and therefore unable to slip through the fence. They put their hooves in the same spot on the chain link cage and silently said their goodbyes. The mare turns and ran. Ran towards the boundaries of the camp. And suddenly, with a sound of corn popping and a flash of light and a stream of gore, her valiant escape plan came to a gruesome end as her head violently detached from her body which fell limp along the boundary marked by metal poles. Blood began to pool around both parts of her corpse.

I gasped and flattened my ears, tears starting to well up in my eyes from witnessing the act of spontaneous violence. Wendy jerked back in shock, staring at the body wide eyed. Rusty seemed mostly unaffected, his only hint of acknowledgement was a slight flinch. The stallion in the pen wobbled on unsteady hooves and fell to the ground violently weeping. On the complete opposite end of the emotional spectrum, the two slavers laughed and pointed at the deceased slave and her devastated lover.

After a long shocked silence, Wendy spoke up. "We need to get these collars off." I nodded in agreement and tilted his head to the side to look at the panel housing the explosives. I found a small hole, when picked with the lockpick, popped off a cover to reveal several wires tangled in a knot, attached to a small charge of explosives. I rooted deep through my memories to try and bring forth any books I had read on the subject of explosives. Nothing came to mind and I sighed nervously, prodding the wires hesitantly bringing my knife to bear. I'm gonna have to wing it.

"Moment of truth." I said reassuringly. If I couldn't remember what I should do, I guess go with what the movies taught me: cut the red wire. I slid my knife along the red wire, and after a dramatic pause, sever it. The collar starts beeping furiously and both of us seized up expecting instant death.

As the beeping stopped, a piercing click of a firing pin is emitted from the device. I shut my eyes expecting to be showered in gore strewn paste that had once been my brother, but the explosion never came. I hesitantly opened my eyes to look at my brother who is sweating profusely, but sighing and inhaling deeply, getting air that the collar had previously had constricted.

"It was a dud! You are one lucky son of a bitch." I exclaimed hugging him, showing heavy relief that he wasn't torn in half by the collar.

He started laughing joyfully, just having clicked that he hadn't died. "Don't talk about mom that way." he said unlatching the deactivated collar and dropping it to the floor.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but we were just escaping." Rusty said finding his voice.

"Yes, of course, sorry." I say beginning to work on his collar. This time, I cut the black wire and the collar pops off and tinks to the floor harmlessly. We all release another sigh of relief. I levitate the lockpick and knife to Rusty and tell him to cut the black wire. I tilt my head to the left, revealing the box, he nods and slips the lockpicks into the collar. A metallic clink surprises me and I shrink helplessly, fearing the angel of death that was surely about to descend upon me, but it didn't. Only Rusty waving a broken lockpick in front of my face. I sighed in relief and nod. I wiped the nervous sweat from my brow, fishing another pick out of my bag and levitating it to him. This time, the cover pops off and tinks across the floor, he quickly severed the black wire and the collar popped off onto the ground.

"Free at last." I said smiling happily and rubbing my neck where the collar had left a mark. The guys nodded and I flatly whined "Aren't we getting the hell outta here?"

"Sounds great to me. Lets see if we can go find any civilized civilization." My brother says yawning.

"Right behind you!" A familiar voice called from the doorway, twirling a frighteningly sharp blade in his claws.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: 'Scientific' pursuits - Your knowledge about mechanical endeavors and your fiddling with objects has granted you +10 Science and +5 Lockpick, after all, you can't do science without breaking a few rules.

Chapter 4

My mind raced to figure out what my best chance for survival was and in my panic, I activated S.A.T.S. on my pip-buck. Time slowed to a sluggish pace as I took the time to assess my situation. The two friendlies outlined in green, a few green and red dots upstairs, so there's more the prisoners and slavers ready to attack, so this had to be silent. Then the gryphon and the torneared pony outlined in red. I eyed the blade that was twirling between his claws in slow motion. I weighed out the odds and decided an attack to disarm was the best solution. I input the attack sequence on his left arm and activated S.A.T.S. I lurched forward and struck him in the elbow. But he was faster and had dodged my second attack, grabbing me by the mane and hauling me against him, pressing the blade to my throat.

"Oh yes, we see now that you're far too dangerous to be kept in a cell. Ingenuity like that would be useful, but you happen to be much too smart for us to contain you. You'll break out again and again." He hissed into my ear. And then, loud enough for my comrades to hear, taunted "I guess that means she's only single use, huh Deck?" He asked turning his head to face the white pony who has started chuckling to himself.

"Yeah, disposable! So, now or later?" He asked rubbing his hooves together greedily looking me over.

"How about now?" Stripes asked, leaning me forward, keeping the knife pressed firmly to my throat. He stared at my brother who looked on in terror, and Rusty who is still trying to comprehend what's going on. "We're going to fuck her. Again and again, and you're gonna watch!" He wrenched my tail up while keeping eye contact with my brother. He winced and shrank down helplessly, Rusty's eye began to twitch, apparently his brain was able to process the imminent raping. His blood red eyes showed emotions of rage so strong, I could almost physically feel the burning glare of rage. I looked up at my friends pleading for help with my eyes and then shut them tight expecting to feel a stab of pain from behind, but it never came. Stripes and Rusty were staring each other down, the smug expression of the gryphon clashing with the enraged one of my friend.

As soon as the gryphon broke eye contact with Rusty and returned his attention to me, something inside Rusty snapped like a twig, his snarl opening up into a fearsome battle cry as he charged forth in an orange blur, bowling Stripes over onto the ground, and with inequine strength, began mercilessly bashing his head against the ground, still bearing his mask of glorious rage as he snapped his neck, and continued the mauling, even after Stripe's corpse had fallen limp. At this time, the other pony now identified as Deck saw his chance and lunged forward, picking up and sinking the fallen gryphon's blade into Rusty's shoulder, who stopped as blood poured out of the wound.

Rusty looked at Deck with an insane smile that betrayed no pain as he twisted his head and gripped the knife in his teeth, pulled it out with nothing more than a wince and began walking toward him. Deck, who realized the potentially fatal error, began to back away from Rusty who continued his advance. I watched in fear and horror as my friend's rage willed him forward and tackled the slaver to the ground with the knife, stabbing him in the stomach repeatedly and darted for his throat with his mouth. He started relentlessly biting him, eventually tearing through and ripping a hole in his throat. Deck tried to scream, but only produced a choked gargle. Rusty stood triumphantly over him, dangling the torn chunk of bloody meat into Deck's face. Rusty failed to hit anything vital, and Deck was left to suffer as Rusty gored his torso with the knife, spraying himself in blood and using his free hoof to crush his innards. Deck let out a final gargle as his head fell back and Rusty began 'nesting' in his rib cage, his coat entirely hidden in the thick layer of Deck's blood, his red eyes looking over his handiwork he began laughing insanely and repeatedly stabbing Deck's limp head. screaming out phrases of incomprehensible revel.

I felt my brother's arms pull me up and wrap around me in a protective hug as we watched Rusty maul his remains. After a few minutes, his gaze emptied of rage met ours of total fear and suddenly he frowns looking down at the mess centered around him. He inspected his hooves, stained with gore and he wavered, returning to the withdrawn Rusty we had become accustomed to. In the middle of the bloody pile, he collapsed and began to cry, his violent sobbing beginning to echo off of the walls of the prison.

My brother and I looked at each other with exchanged looks of fear and confusion, and we kept our distance from rusty as he emptied his tears, he cried for what seemed like hours, but was only about thirty minutes before I began moving towards him. He looked up at me fearing whatever ridicule or punishment I was sure to bring upon him. I looked at the pile of gore and pushed my squeamishness aside as I kneeled beside him in the blood and leaned in and hugged him. He froze for a moment as the friendly contact registered with his brain and he latched his arms around me in a tight hug and continued crying like a filly. I tried not to feel the blood beginning to cake onto me as I began stroking his mane comfortingly in an attempt to calm him down. His wails softened to a whimper as he looked up at me. "I didn't want them to do it, I don't know what happened."

I shake my head, "No, you literally saved my ass there and I'm glad that you did."

"But I just killed someone." He whimpers, letting the weight of the crime he had committed sink in.

"But it was necessary." I say reassuringly. "This place is savage and brutal, and if we're going to survive, we have to adapt." He nodded and made his attempt to straighten himself up. Easier said then done I thought to myself, catching a quick glance of the mess. If this is what killing was, I wanted no part in it, but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

"I didn't want them to do that. You and your brother are the only two I ever cared about, especially you Gears." He said standing up, trying his hardest to ignore his mess which proved impossible which sent him darting into the corner, where he retched up whatever unrecognizable 'food' the slavers had fed him. I grimaced and stood, trotting back over to Wendy who looked on in pity.

"I'm never going to forget this." He said wiping the blood off of me.

I nod in thanks. "I guess he needed to vent after all his torture in the Stable." Wendy nodded in agreement and we both watch him rise up and trot over, going back to his normal bashful self, trying to push the events of today aside. "Let's go free the rest of these prisoners, shall we?" Rusty nodded.

We collected ourselves and headed up the stairs to the other cell block, where another guard sat at a desk with a bottle of whiskey listening to a radio happily tapping a police baton to the desk in time with the happy upbeat tone, completely uncharacteristic of its surroundings, I checked the E.F.S. and he was one of the red dots, but what about the other? I scanned the room and to my surprise found the other red dot in a cell asleep. I looked back at Rusty and held out my hoof. He looks at me questioningly. I point to the slaver and draw my hoof across my throat. Rusty shrinks down and shakes his head, reluctant to take the step to kill again. I silently open his first aid box and remove the still sharp, gore encrusted gryphon blade. I silently walk across the floor in sync with the music, using the beat to hide my clumsy hoofsteps. I positioned myself behind the slaver waiting for the opportune moment to strike which came when he tilted his head up to take a pull from his bottle of whiskey. As he exposed his neck, I darted my knife around his front and cut a bright smile across his throat, spilling out the whiskey he had just begun to swallow. He dropped the bottle which shattered on the ground as he grabbed at his bleeding neck in futile attempts to staunch the bleeding. I watched him sink down and let the overpowering feeling of guilt wash over me as he stared at me with his blank dead eyes.

"One." I said sheathing the knife and kneeling by the desk to loot its contents which awarded me with a pack of bobby pins, pieces of a pistol, and a small sack of bottlecaps. For someone to keep these in a safe place, they must be pretty important, so I dropped them into my bag and decided I'd let my Pip-buck worry about them. I picked up a screwdriver off the floor and took out a bobby pin and set to work unlocking all the cell doors, except for the one with the red dot inside. It's inhabitant whimpered at me pleadingly, but the dot stayed red, E.F.S. doesn't lie. I finished freeing all of the remaining prisoners except for him, a muscular grey earth pony who looked like he could crush my head between his hooves. The prisoners all rushed to the dead slaver and begin tearing at his clothes, one produced a key which he used to unlock all of the collars and they run out of the building and get to work freeing the outside slaves. I dropped a set of bobby pins and a screwdriver into the cell with him and the three of us walk out, I turn to look at the remaining slave whose violent enraged bashing of the bars told me that my E.F.S. was right about them.

"Have fun." I said walking out trailing behind my friends as we head down the stairs, open the door and head back out to the wide open wastes.

As we stepped outside, the light was almost blinding. How long had we been inside? I thought to myself as i stretched my sore muscles, finally getting a chance to relax. I brought my pip-buck drowsily up to my face and scrolled through my functions until I came to the chronometer setting. I almost froze in shock when I discovered that we had been locked up for three days!

“Three days! How is that even possible?” I asked my brother who was helping free the rest of the prisoners. All he did was shrug, but the movement was enough to cause him to lose focus and break his lockpick.

He growled and stomped his hooves in frustration, “Son of a fuck! Gears, that was our last lockpick!” I smiled and brought out a pack of bobby pins. He snorted at me and taunted, “You know that only works in old spy movies.”

I pushed him aside determined to prove him wrong as I picked the lock with the bobby pins and a screwdriver. “Is It?” I asked smugly as the lock made a dull click and I swing the chain link gate open and step aside to avoid being trampled by the horde of desperate slaves rushing out like water from a fire hose. I smiled as I imagined the princesses looking down on me from the everafter or wherever the hell the stories say they are. Everyone knew that the chances of one of them still being alive were slim to none, but forget both of them. Either way, I felt empowered to do more good deeds, it felt great so bring justice to this so far lawless world, and I couldn't wait to do it again.

As the crowd cleared out of the makeshift cell, only one was left, the hopelessly crushed brown stallion from earlier who watched his lover be decapitated by a collar. I trotted into the cage and kneeled by him, who had run out of tears to let out. "Hey there." I said tilting his head up to look at him. He did nothing but shy away from my contact. I tilted my head and nudged him again, sitting down and asking, "Wanna talk about it?" He nodded and I sat back, waiting for him.

"Its a long story, and I'm sure you really don't care about it." he said poking at the dirt in front of him.

"Try me." I said sitting comfortably. He told me the story about how he had grown up in a town called New Appleoosa, and how about a year ago, tensions between New and Old Appleoosa had reached a breaking point and the slavers came and took most everyone and killed a few of his friends, and how they had captured his family. He had been locked up for a few months when the slavers raped and killed his mother and beat his father to death when he tried to lead a rebellion. And how just today, his sister made a plan for when the slavers left to raid Appleoosa again, how she would escape when they were all gone. We all saw how that turned out. The rest of the ponies in the pen believed the collars were trackers, but the first hand experience with his sister changed that. After telling his story, he sat up and looked at me still teary eyed.

"Thank you, I guess I just needed to let it all out." He said staggering to his hooves and looking at the open gate.

"Where will you go now?" I asked looking at the surrounding barren landscape save the mountains to the west.

"Probably back to New Appleoosa." He said looking at the mountains. "If anything is still there when I return, Ill probably settle back down, try and find my old marefriend if she's still alive."

"Why don't you come with us? Were headed west and chances are we'll get you home, and you can teach us what you know about the wasteland."

He shook his head and kept his gaze along the mountains, "I'm thankful for you setting me free, but I have some business to attend to, but if we meet again, maybe." He wiped the tears from his eyes, "The names Scrap Metal, and if you ever find yourself in New Appleoosa, look me up." And with that, he trotted out of the cage and ran into a nearby building, probably to get some supplies. I turned back to my companions, my brother specifically, who seemed a little shocked by the display of kindness from me, who had minutes ago, slit a pony's throat in cold blood and left another one for dead in a cell.

He shook off his mask of surprise,“So now that we've been out here for four days and have done nothing productive, should we just head back to the stable and say everything out here is dead?” Wendy asked kicking at the ground with his hooves in exasperation. Rusty trots up beside me still caked in blood, tilting his head expectantly. We had a week from the start, and this is our fifth day out in the wasteland, and its true, we had really found nothing that anyone would want to experience, I had heard of New Appleoosa which sounded civilized, and maybe the dream I had. Which brought another question to mind that I’d bring up some other time.

I looked at my brother and shook my head, “No, we're out on a mission and we still have three more days.” I kept the place of my dreams in mind, “ There's still an entire world out there we haven't explored.”

“Well, how do we know if there's anything out there worth finding?” He asked motioning back to the enormous barn we had been kept in for the past three days, and then to the surrounding desert and the mountains to the west. “We don’t even know where we are.”

“Only one way to find out, and navigational issues are no reason to throw in the towel.” I say looking at the enormous mountains blocking our view of the west. Didn't those used to be in the east? Just how far did we travel? I looked back down at my pip-buck and began to scroll through the functions to the map. I hardly ever used the map, because by the time I got my pip-buck, I already knew the innards of stable 24 by heart. The new display was different from any other function I had ever used, and I predicted it would take some getting used to. At our current location, a small box labeled 'Appleoosa' flashed. Well that answered where we were. I scrolled the wheel up and down, but couldn't figure out how to move east and west on the map. Wasn't I supposed to be the techie?

My brother looked over and clicked one of the three buttons near the base of the device which scrolled the display east and west. I smiled and thanked him and worked on finding my way along the highlighted path and groaned when I found we had in fact come across a mountain pass to arrive at our current location. Well, I wasn't here three days, it took three days to get me here before they deactivated my S.A.T.S. sleep.

“Let me guess...” he said still looking over my shoulder at the map. “ We've got to go mountain climbing?” I nodded and cringed looking at the mountain tops. For someone who had spent their whole life in a hole, the last place you wanted to put them was on top of a mountain. I folded my ears back, groaning again at the white peaks. Wendy on the other hoof seemed to be thrilled to get to that elevation and had assumed leadership by taking the first steps out towards the nearest road. Rusty followed happily, ready to gain altitude, but I much rather preferred to find an alternate route, but my brother was headstrong in personality and a pegasus in nature, he was eager to reach those heights, even having never flown before. There isn't much space in a stable to fly, so its no wonder why they felt so confined.

Rusty remained the emotional constant as I traded moods with my brother, trotting along behind him, staring at the peaks in contempt, even from miles away, they mocked me with their height. Another thing that stable ponies weren't used to were the long distances between locations. As the generations went on, our endurance dropped on the vigor-o-matic machine in the clinic. As colts and fillies, we were tested to find our base S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits. Strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. It always stumped me how they calculated the last one, considering that I never believed in luck.

Every five years after our tenth birthday, we were required to take the test again, to keep track of our progressing S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits, being twenty, I had taken the test three times. As useless as being scored like this seemed, it actually was used to predict our jobs. I had a 4 in strength, but a 9 in intelligence, so I was less suited for manual labor. I should have gotten a job as a teacher, but we had no technicians in the stable, and since I had spent my whole life reading manuals, I was suited for the task and the Overmare sent me to maintenance for hooves-on self training.

As the sky began to darken, we neared the base of the mountains, arriving at a shack labeled, Appleoosa Train Depot. As little as stable ponies knew about the surface, trains were kept around as a sort of fable for grounded ponies. So all of our eyes brightened up as we read the sign, but darkened to match the sky as we remembered that everything had been destroyed. I always wanted to ride a train, since I was a filly. Even though trains were one of our fantasies in the stable, we couldn't have one for obvious reasons. While my brother drooped in disappointment, I smiled, knowing that the trains were wonders of equestrian engineering, they would be an excellent source of scrap, so as soon as we reached the tracks I followed them until we came to the hangar, which was at least two stories tall. I couldn't tell due to a lack of windows. It seemed that pre-war surface dwellers dreamed to reach great heights, while stable dwellers were perfectly content to stay on the ground, and further down, the better.

I trotted up to the giant corrugated metal door and inspected the lock. “Unlocked.” I say happily as I struggle to pull the rusty door along its rolling hinges. As rusty and Wendy positioned themselves by the door to help me push it aside, the door gave a rusty crunch as it began to slide aside on 150 year old rollers. As the door reached the fully open position, the magically powered lights flickered to life revealing lanes and lanes of train engines, seemingly untouched by the elements and destruction of the past years. The only defects being the metal of the train and the tracks fusing together. I ran my hoof along one of the enormous wheels designed specifically for tracks and wondered where this engine had been, how far it traveled around equestria to come here to its final resting place here. I sighed and started climbing up the ladder of a diesel engine, into the cockpit, but froze when I discovered a curled up rotten body in the floorboards. I gagged a bit at the sight, but wondered how it could have been preserved so well for so long, even when metal is beginning to corrode around it. I climbed up into the engine, skirting the corpse and heading up to the control panel, running my hoof across the levers and dials, examining every detail of the “dashboard.” I looked at the fuel gage and made a mental note to siphon the fuel from this train.

Sounds of movement from behind me alerted me to the presence of my brother. I smiled as he trotted up behind me. “Well, never thought I would see one in real life, huh?” I say motioning to the dashboard. No reply came. “You okay Wendy?” I ask starting to turn around, meeting with the glowing eyes of a corpse right in my face, baring its rotten teeth at me in a hungry snarl. And then it screamed. It opened its mouth, screaming whatever was left of its lungs out at me, spraying me with the foul smelling funk of the past century. And he sounded very hungry. I screamed right back at him, more out of panic then attempted intimidation, and in that panic, I drew the frame of the pistol I picked up from my bag and bashed the hilt against his temple wildly with my magic, sending him sprawling backwards, shaking his head in pain, before taking another wild lunge at me, but by then, I had gotten my bearings and targeted two S.A.T.S assisted strikes against his head, the first uppercutting him on the chin, busting his teeth out, and the second, coming down hard atop his head in the mightiest finishing blow S.A.T.S. could muster with my puny ‘4’ strength rating, but it was enough. The blunt grip of the pistol broke through the weak top of his skull, scrambling whatever it contained, and I stood back shaking as he collapsed with the butt of a pistol shoved through the top of his head.

Wendy popped his head up over the edge of the window, jumping up in my defense, repeatedly asking what was going on, to which I reflexively yelled “Zombie!” before my adrenaline started wearing off and I started letting my tears of panic trickle out and I fall down to my knees, gasping for air.

Wendy kneeled by me asking if I was okay as Rusty climbed up into the engine with us, drawing a looted police baton and prodding the still zombie with it. It remained unmoving. “What is that thing?” both my brother and I said in unison.

“A zombie?” I ask.

“A monster?” Wendy asks me. We continue discussing the nature of this abomination before Rusty chimed in.

“That must be a ghoul. I heard some of those prisoners talking about them.” he says removing the gun from its head and wiping it across his side, smearing his coat with a little more blood before giving me back the pistol back to me which I levitated back into my bags. I stood up with a shudder and sidestepped the body again. I collected myself and trotted to the back of the engine to where the fuel tank is located. I remove some surgical tubing and empty water bottles that i had found among Rusty's medical boxes and began filling the bottles with fuel. If there was any civilization, we could trade for supplies, and if all else failed, we could take the fuel back to the stable to be used. As I switched to fill the fifth bottle, I looked back at Rusty and Wendy who were looking over the edge of the train, their faces watching the ground in despair.

“What’s wrong guys?” I ask loudly so they can hear me over the loud buzzing of the fluorescent lights. They snapped their heads towards me and shook their heads hard, signaling me to be quiet. It was too late however, as they weren't the only ones to hear me. More screams of the undead echoed throughout the hangar as more ghouls made their way to our location, beginning to climb the engine to get to the tasty morsels within. “Not again!”I groaned drawing a proper baseball bat and swinging it magically, knocking the nearest ghoul off of the ladder and to the ground with a meaty crunch of a broken neck. We each took our places by the edge of the engine, wildly swinging blunt weapons to keep the ghouls at bay, but our fight seemed futile as ghoul upon ghoul poured in, replacing each fallen one within a matter of seconds.

I magically grabbed a ghoul’s wing and dragged it aside knocking another one off of the engine in a painful combo. “How are you guys holding up?!” I yell to my fellow living fighters.

“If you want my professional opinion, we’re fucked!” My brother yells as he throws his bent lead pipe into the sea of the undead before drawing a heavy book and crushing a ghouls throat with it.

“Thanks for the positivity.” Rusty says headbutting a ghoul who was foolish enough to peer over the edge.

I was beginning to think we were fucked as well, and then it hit me. “Wendy? Do you have your lighter?” I asked stabbing a shard of metal into the eye socket of a climbing zombie.

“Yeah, but I don't think this is the time for a show!” He said reaching into his bag and flicking the top off of a lighter.

“Oh, but that’s exactly what time it is!” I say throwing him a bottle of diesel fuel. He caught it in a hoof and looked at me before a look of understanding registered across his face, spreading his features into a wide grin. He popped the cap off of the bottle and put it to his lips, pouring a mouthful of diesel. He struck his lighter, and like a mighty dragon from a storybook, billowed flame all over the ascending ghouls, setting them ablaze. Wendy wiped his lips as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. He poured another mouthful, repeating the process and spewing tongues of flame out into the crowd, killing dozens, and seriously wounding the rest. He withdrew and repeated on Rusty’s side, catching a ghoul in the face with a blast of flame, popping his eyes like balloons under the intense heat. We surveyed over the damage wrought by my brothers spectacular showmanship and smiled and hugged each other realising we weren't going to be torn asunder by teeming hordes of the undead. He turned his head and spit out what he could, sticking his tongue out with a face of disgust. I rooted through his bags and levitated a bottle of water to him, which he gladly took, using one half as mouthwash, and the other half as drink that he passed around between the three of us.

“Good, good, now lets get the hell out of here before more show up.” Wendy said jumping off of the engine, softening the landing with his wings, dodging the burning heaps of flesh. Rusty and I followed him down and out to the entrance of the hangar.

“Now what, we just gonna walk?” Rusty asked, looking up the tracks leading up through the mountain pass in the darkness.

“Nope.” I say eyeing a lever powered train cart housed under a corrugated metal shelter.

“This is gonna be a long trip, Gears.” Wendy said folding his ears back, looking at the dinky little cart.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Pyromaniac - You have discovered your Brother's real world applications for his pyromania, and have learned from watching him. While not a sociopath, you are 25% more accurate in S.A.T.S. with flame based weapons.

Chapter 5

In no more than an hour, I had repaired the cart into a somewhat working condition, scavenging parts from what I could and scooping grease out of the train engines to use on the moving parts of the cart. I slopped a hoof full of grease into each wheel joint and worked it into the axles and wheels. I spun the last wheel to test its lubrication and smiled when it revolved several times with no squeaking. I looked around at Rusty who napped, leaning against the track changing lever, which was long since rusted into disrepair as well, but we weren't headed that way, so I would have to push my desire to fix it to the back of my mind. I glanced at my brother who was lazily fiddling with his pip buck, probably playing a game that I coded for him a while back. He called it pong. He growled, thumping his Pip Buck to the ground, just having lost a match to the computer.

"Wendy?" I asked pushing all of my weight against the cart to turn it back over onto the tracks. "If you don't mind, I'd appreciate your strength right about now."

He looked up and with a hint of irritation, hissed "I hate that name, Its not my name."

"Well? What do you want me to call you? I've called you Wendy all our lives." He opened his mouth to provide an alternate name for himself, but closed it again, lacking any kind of suggestion for what I should call him. "Then Wendy it remains." I say rolling my eyes as he reluctantly trotting over and helping me overturn the heavy cart.

"It was okay when we were little, but now, it makes me sound like a mare, not to mention a Filly." He said straining against the cart as I also began using magic to turn it over.

"Well good, its perfectly deceptive against anyone who wants us dead. As it turns out, the one who sounds like a filly is actually the strongest in our party."

He growled as the cart finally began to tip, "Yes, but its the same as naming a bodybuilder 'Tiny'." The cart flipped over with a mighty slam as the wheels met the special grooves in the tracks, causing Rusty to jump awake, crusting some of the blood off of himself in little flakes. He gasped and groaned, rolling his shoulder around in pain from recently having been explored by a ten inch blade.

"You alright Rusty?" I asked trotting over to him, looking at his shoulder.

He gently brushed by touch off of his shoulder and complained, "Hurts a lot. And the suit covered in blood doesn't help." He motioned down to his ragged jumpsuit, encrusted in blood and gore from his violent outburst.

I decided to take a long shot for his well being."Well, why don't you just take the suit off, its not like it offers much protection." His face turned slightly red, and my brother's jaw dropped at my request.

"Gears, are you crazy?" My brother asked looking at him, and then at me. Back in the Stable, we weren't supposed to ever remove our jumpsuits in public, purely for the reason of hiding out cutie marks. A cutie mark was a very private matter, and by our views, showing is was equal to bending over and presenting yourself. There's nothing sexual about the mark on a flank, but its a symbol of intimacy between two ponies. Wendy and I had only seen each others on rare occasions, and that was only because we had lived together, and it was unavoidable. But all of us had seen the ponies out here running about without anything covering their cutie marks. It must be the social norm around here, so there was nothing wrong with it.

Rusty looked left and right shyly but nods, squeaking out, "Good idea." As he began to slip out of his suit, dropping it aside and attempting to hide his medical cross with his wing and turning at a head on angle to hide his 'nudity'. I looked away, turning back to my brother who only stared at me in disapproval.

"Its not like it matters out here, Wendy." I said looking back at Rusty who flapped his wings a couple times to fan away the heat of his embarrassment. I looked down at my own jumpsuit and pulled the zipper back up to my neck, closing it up around me again, and quickly changing the subject. "Shouldn't we be heading somewhere?" I asked climbing up onto the cart. My brother nodded and did the same. We both looked at Rusty, who trotted up to the cart, shoving his embarrassment aside as he took his place beside me.

"Okay guys, since you're the strongest, you have to work the lever." I say pushing down on the see-saw shaped crank in the middle. I strained downward, and with an extra push from my magic, slowly pushed the lever downward, and the cart responded by jerking forward a couple yards. I sat up and looked at the two pegasi, who stretched out their legs, and stood up on their hind legs, leaning on the see-saw lever. They began to push in opposite directions, only showing about a quarter of the strain I did when I worked the lever, and their strain lessened as we began to to move forward along the tracks and gain momentum.

* * *

My brother and Rusty were pushed to their limit as we slowly climbed the steep mountain, hoping to reach the top sometime soon, which we did. As the slope became gradually flatter, they eased their strain, and when we came to a downhill slope, I engaged the brake, bringing us to a stop at a breathtaking view of the barren wastes below. In the very west, barley visible on the horizon, rested a grand city with a faint glow about it in the dark sky, which lit various other blemishes all over the perfectly flat equestrian Wasteland. I let my party rest and catch their breath as I soaked up the view of the destroyed lands below me. It reminded me of my dream that I had, that I still didn't want to tell my brother about. Yet.

"How are you guys?" I asked the two exhausted pegasi who slumped, back to back with their eyes closed, breathing steadily, letting themselves sleep. I smiled and decided that it was probably best to join them, and slumped down into their little huddle and rested my head on my brother's shoulder. No need for S.A.T.S. sleep, I was tired enough from the events of the past day.

In my subconscious mind, I began having the same dream of the previous night, the only differences being the clarity, and the fact that I could control my own actions. This dream was a much darker, fuzzier version, Sir Armor never arrived with the note. I simply wandered around inside the enormous palace, being built around me by my subconscious imagination, ponies milling about, carrying out their mundane daily tasks. As I reached the bottom of the tower, I walked outside, exploring around the town, watching the bakers make their bread, watching salesponies fell flowers from some stalls, and watching others set out various other stable related knick-knacks everything was still dark, only knowing what these things looked like from my small memories provided bu my books and personal experience. I looked around, in my dreams, hearing the sound of a train whistle blowing from a distance away. I smiled and trotted across town, to where I found the train station. I sat on a bench on the platform and looked down the tracks expectantly. I sat and continued watching along the tracks and listening to the whistle blow, but it didn't last long, before a shadowy filly fluttered up to me on unstable wings and began nudging me, and prodding me hard. I turn my head to her and tilt my head questioningly. The filly opens her mouth, and instead of a sweet little feminine voice, it was the voice of my brother, "Gears, Gears! Wake up! Wake Up! There's a Train coming." She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. I sat there confused, letting the filly shake me until the world around me began to fade away.

I opened my eyes to my brother, holding me upright shaking me by the shoulders, his eyes wide open in concern. "What is it Wendy? I was having the strangest dream." He opened his mouth but was interrupted by a train whistle in the distance. I sat bolt upright, That whistle didn't come from my dreams, it came from real life! I shook myself awake, shaking my brain into a state of awareness, I trotted over in the cart, scanning down the hill's winding downward passage for the oncoming train, it wasn't visible, which gave us time to come up with a plan. I looked all around, and then back to the guys who were at the see-saw lever ready to go. "If we go now, there's a chance we can come across another route to take. to get out of the train's way. They nodded as I disengaged the brake, and we began rolling down the slope, without any voluntary input.

We gained speed as we rolled down the mountain, the cart staying firmly planted on the tracks as we rocketed around the corners. We came to a straight stretch, and in sight was the oncoming train, a few hundred meters beyond a fork in the tracks ahead. There was a track switch lever in between the fork that looked actually functional. Wendy saw me looking at it and nodded, clambering up on top of the seesaw, which had long since broken due to the frighteningly high speeds. he spread his wings out wide, and after some hesitation, began gaining altitude unsteadily, his wings bending in ways I had never seen them before. He shifted his body to become more streamlined and he began to speed up, tearing ahead of us on unsteady wings, as he approached his destination, he was unsure of how to stop, from the cart, I saw him drop to no more than a few inches above the ground. As his disused wings bent under the force of the wind, they snapped shut to his sides and he slid along the rocky ground in a desperate attempt to stop. He caught the ground hard and tumbled violently, coming to a stop beside the lever bringing a cloud of dust along with him.

Rusty and I looked at the unmoving pegasi by the lever and both bit our lips and shrank down, beginning to fear for Wendy's life, and our very imminent demise. Suddenly, the pile of red and tan began to move, staggering to his hooves, and limping up to the lever which he strained against until it clicked to the opposite, shifting the track aside as we blew past him, I slammed on the brakes as we came to a screeching halt about a hundred feet down the tracks. Seconds later, the train came rushing by, and just in time, Wendy shifted the track back to its original position, only knocking the engine off of the tracks for a fraction of a second as it slammed back down onto the tracks, carrying three passenger cars behind it in a grey and red blur.

Down the tracks, I jumped out of the cart and began galloping down the tracks at full speed, stopping at the fork, kneeling by my brother who had just collapsed again, a bloody trail marking a skid to a stop from his rough landing. I turned him over onto his back and he was smiling. Maybe grimacing, I couldn't tell. Either way, he was letting the torn suit peel off of him, fully exposing the thorough sanding of his skin the wasteland ground had provided upon his rough landing. Rusty caught up, quickly peeling off the remains of his jumpsuit and opening his medical boxes, removing some gauze and a bottle of alcohol. He began washing Wendy's raw belly to his chest with the rubbing alcohol, before sitting him upright and bandaging his entire torso with the roll of gauze. My brother mostly kept level headed through the treatment, though at times, he would cry out in pain as the alcohol began to clean his wounds under the bandages. I looked at Rusty who nodded to Wendy. I nodded back and helped him up onto Rusty's back, and I used my magic to keep him steady on Rusty's back as we carried him back to the cart. I stared at my brothers matchstick cutie mark. At this point, I figured it wouldn't be long until I too was naked, but hopefully still alive.

Wendy groaned helplessly as we laid him on his back in the floor of the cart. I stayed beside him as Rusty ran further down the track to fix the lever that would lead us back onto the main track. I saw him strain against the lever before it gave and he galloped back to us The three of us hopped in the car as I disengaged the brakes and we slowly continued descending the mountain, none of us talking, all getting our nerves back after a near death experience with a 200 ton steel behemoth.

We barrled down the mountain, the slope eventually angling to an almost flat plain, we still had enough momentum to make it through to our destination however, because we were speeding towards it uncontrollably as It grew on the horizon. As we got closer to see buildings in the distance and another train depot, I yanked on the brake lever, having been weakened by the previous stop, the pin holding it in place gave and snapped as soon as the brakes made contact with the wheels.

"Rusty?" I asked looking over at him, who was crouched behind the edge of the cart. He turned to look at me waving the brake stick at him. "Now would be a good time to panic!" I chuck the stick out in front of the car with all of my might and it landed a few yards ahead, wedging deep into the railroad ties, as our cart neared the station, it suddenly jerked to a stop, catching on the heavy steel lever and sending all three of us hurtling through the air, landing roughly in a hard and painful tumble on the ground, sliding to a stop alongside the tracks. My Pip-buck flashed alerts of a crippled torso, head traume, and broken limbs as I lay on the ground, felling my free floating ribs shift around inside me with every move. I cried in pain and looked over at Rusty and my brother, both of which had much smoother landings, my brother laying on the ground as he did before, and Rusty staggering to his hooves and limping over to make sure I was still kicking. I looked up at him and groaned, keeping my movement to a minimum.

I shut my eyes for a moment and rested, and when I re-opened them, Rusty was replaced by a grey maned, one eyed pony with an off white coat. And did I mention he had a gun pressed to my head? "Hello there." I said looking up at him with a forced smile/grimace. "Um, is there anypony around named Scrap Metal?" It was all I could muster before I blacked out.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Dangerous Situation - You have found that you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble. From trial and error, you have discovered what methods work depending on a certain personality. +5 Speech, and for when conflict is unavoidable, +5 to melee weapons.

Chapter 6

It was a shallow and dreamless sleep, like blinking my eyes and waking up somewhere else. I opened my eyes slowly, expecting to be locked up somewhere dark. I had obviously been the subject of some horrendous torture at the hands of my new captors, because I hurt EVERYWHERE. Every time I moved, little daggers of pain jabbed me in every nerve ending that my body had inside it. I groaned out loud, letting my eyes adjust to the dim room where I was being held captive, I turned over onto my back, moaning in pain as the assault on my body continued, letting myself enjoy the soft bed underneath me. Wait... Bed? I was in a bed? This was unexpected, being a prisoner shouldn't have included such comfortable accommodations. Oh no, its worse than I thought, I'm being kept against my will as a trick pony for some pervert! Blegh! But wait again, I looked over myself and realized that they had fixed me up. My limbs were no longer bent in all the wrong directions, I couldn't feel my ribs free floating inside my chest, and my torso was wrapped tightly in bandages. This didn't reassure me, because sensibly, a rapist wouldn't want to touch a mangled, broken corpse. I looked at my Pip-Buck and examined my stats, which to my surprise showed no ailments, and no crippled limbs, and even said my head trauma was resolved. I couldn't believe that, as my head still hurt as if it had been slammed into the ground at high speeds, oh wait, its all coming back to me now. My head was slammed into the ground at high speeds, so that felling was well explained.

I felt raw all over. I wondered if this was what Wendy felt like when he had his rough landing. Oh shit. Are they alright? I ask myself looking at the nearest door, my eyes finally readjusted, which allowed me to look around in the dimly lit room. This cell indeed was very luxurious. It had a window, a separate bathroom, and a wooden door, and still shockingly, a bed.

I tried to sit up in bed and I quietly cried out, as my weak bones didn't like the idea of cooperation. I collapsed back down eyeing the door, which mocked me with its proximity. I began to cry to myself, letting tears roll out onto the soft mattress. There was no way I could see myself getting out of this one. My friends were surely dead and I would never see my friendly home in the stable again. Never see my parents, and even the Overmare who I hated so.

I began crying louder, hoping that my captors would come to me and end it, because by now, I surely had nothing to live for. Maybe they would be merciful and just kill me instead of slowly violating me until I keeled over. As I continued crying, I heard steps coming up stairs. So I knew I was on the second floor. I watched the door creak open, expecting to find a slaver, or a gryphon come through the doorway, what came around was even worse than I had expected, the door swung open and in walked a fleshrotten ghoul, Grey flakes of skin and coat stuck to horrible rotten meat, the remains of its bubbly cutie mark remained on its flank, with strands of butter yellow mane growing out from the top of its head. Mocking me with its horrible yellow walleyed eyes and its remains of wings with no more than a dozen feathers sprouting out total.

I began to cry even louder and more desperately as I shrank back against my pain to distance myself from the zombie, who began to advance slowly. My friends were a snack, and I was next! The should mare sat on the edge of the bed with me, scooting across the mattress towards me. Not only were they going to eat me, but the ghoul was going to rape me beforehand. She leaned in to begin tearing me limb from limb, I cringed expecting more pain, but l opened my eyes to her, who had latched her arms around me in a big squishy hug, and surprisingly, she didn't small like a corpse like the other ghouls I had encountered. She even seemed friendly, but I was hesitant to let my guard down.

She let go of me and reached under her wing. I flinched expecting a weapon, but she only produced a small blackboard and a piece of yellow chalk and began writing on it with her mouth, she turned the board around to show a message written with expert penmanship, reading, 'Good to see your'e awake.' She erased it with a few wipes of her hoof and began writing again, this time reading, 'How are you feeling?'

I stared at her with a look of pure confusion. First a hug, and then apparent concern? What's next wasteland? My voice stammered out crustily, gaining clarity as my sentences went on, "Umm, okay I guess, Better than earlier? I think?"

She gave a partially toothless smile and began writing on her board again, 'Glad to hear it, can you walk? Does anything still hurt?'

I continued staring at her, still fearful of what she had in store for me. "Why? Why do you care, arent you going to kill me? Scream at me? Tear my skin off?"

She visually drooped, folding her ears back, aligning her eyes to look at me sadly, she looked down at her board and began to write again, turning it around to reveal another message, 'I care because I'm friendly, I saved you from getting shot by our mayor and brought you here and patched you up and had a friend of mine heal you up nicely. Do I look feral?'

Friendly ghouls? This was new. Ferals? I didn't understand any of this, and I was still fearful of her, but I began to let my guard down, starting to trust her, and fighting against the pain to sit up in bed, which I successfully achieved this time. She reached forward and helped me to sit up. This time, I didn't shy away from her touch. Sitting up, I looked over at her and smile sincerely. "I didn't know that there were friendly ghouls, I had, a very bad experience with some ghouls yesterday in the Old Appleoosa trainyard. I'm SO sorry for judging, I'm new to the wastes."

At my apology, she brightened up, putting a hoof over my shoulder and smiling again. She broke away to write on her blackboard again, 'Were the ones there foul, screaming, insane zombies?' I nodded and she began to write again. 'Kill as many of them as you want, they are feral, and as you can tell, a lot different from ghouls like me.'

I nodded again and smiled at her, trusting her completely now "Well, thanks for the help with that. And um.. Whats your name?"

She wrote again on her board 'Ditzy Doo at your service.' She giggled silently and wrote another message 'But most of the citizens here call me Derpy. Because of my eyes.' I smiled again, having sense not to ask her about her eyes, not wanting to offend my host again.

"Nice to meet you Ditzy, Umm, where exactly am I?" I asked looking around the tastefully decorated room.

'You're in the friendliest little settlement in all of the wasteland, New Appleoosa.' I brought my Pip-Buck up to meet my face and scrolled to the map, and sure enough, my marker was near a small box labeled, "New Appleoosa."

"Last question, wheres my brother and my friend, Rusty? Are they okay? Are they safe? Are they even alive?" I asked with a serious frown, but Ditzy smiled and slid her board under her wing and stood up. I watched her as she opened the door leading downstairs, motioning for me to follow her down, I scooted over to the edge of the bed and worked on bringing myself up to my hooves. As I brought them to the floor I gasped at the intense pain from my weak limbs and collapsed to the floor in a painful heap. Ditzy rushed to my side and shouldered me up, supporting me and steadying me with her wing. I nodded my thanks to her and she returned a 'happy to help' smile. She was beginning to remind me of mom, more and more by the minute.

She helped me down the stairs into a large shop room, with walls decorated by shelves, adorned mostly with junk, but with some weapons and even the occasional rifle. Boxes of Items were stacked around the lower parts of the walls, and a large crate sat in the middle of the room surrounded by four chairs, one of which was occupied by my brother, who was bandaged up over his raw areas, and fast asleep, leaning on a hoof at the makeshift table, his wings lightly fluttering in his sleep. I smiled, and Derpy assisted me in limping over to the table where I sat watching him sleep, waiting for him to wake up. By his snoring that didn't seem like it would be any time soon.

Ditzy returned to her counter, and began rummaging around through a box, squinting at me with her walleyed gaze. and pulling out four medical braces for each of my legs. Two for the front joints, and two to fit the fetlocks of my hind legs. She fluttered over the counter gracefully, dropping all of the braces onto the table, signaling me to try them on.

I sat up on the chair and started on my hind legs, sliding my legs into the braces, aligning the joints of the bone to the joints of the medical brace, and tightening the brace. I smiled as it fit just fine, and began repeating the process with the identical brace on my other leg, and then attaching the braces to my front legs. I got out of the chair, testing my weight on the braces. It still hurt to stand, but at least it was doable. I began to walk around the room, but found I had to resort to using a limp. Ditzy watched happily as the braces restored my ability to walk.

"Thank you so much Ditzy." I say hugging her again "How much do I owe you?"

She smiled and shook her head, producing her blackboard to write, 'No charge, friend.' I hugged her again happily, and she hugged back. Yep, She was exactly like mom.

"So, can I just go anywhere?" I ask her looking at the door, with early morning light beginning to pour into the room. She nodded and motioned to the door with her hoof. I smiled and limped my way over to the door.

Outside was a chaotic scene of destroyed buildings, and dirty ponies trotting around attempting to clean up a town that had recently been pillaged. This town had much the same layout of Old Appleoosa, except that It was much more lively here. Another important difference was the lack of slaves, everypony I could see was free and mostly happy. They clustered together in groups, happily talking about a victory over slavers, and from what I could tell, the place had definitely been attacked recently. Thinking back, maybe it would have been better to let the train passing us be derailed by the track switch.

I continued trotting about, searching for any familiar faces among the crowds, but it seemed they would find me first. As I continued searching, a group of ponies surrounded me, headed by Rusty and the familiar face of Scrap Metal who both hugged me. I cringed at the affectionate hugs, for my body still hurt at the slightest touch.

"I see you made it here in one piece." Scrap said letting go of me along with Rusty, who withdrew to a safe distance from me in his timid nature.

"Mostly" I said, happily greeting him with a nudge of his arm.

He looked down at my braces and cringed a bit. "What happened to you, you look like a train wreck."

Inside I was hit hard with the memories brought forth by his word choice. "Urgh.. tell me about it. I'm still raw all over from that. How bout you Rusty?"

He nodded and in his soft spoken voice said, "In a lot of pain. I broke one of my wings." He lifted up the damaged limb with a wince, displaying the bandages. "And also twisted my hind leg, but that's not too serious."

Scrap gave a chuckle and asked me, "So how's old Ditzy been treating you?"

I smiled, "She's great, she reminds me of my mom."

"Getting a little homesick?"

"Just a bit. Also, I had no idea there were nice ghouls." This brought quite a laugh from the whole group.

As Scrap finally stopped laughing, he nodded, "Old Derpy is one of the sweetest ponies you will ever meet in the wasteland, shes nice to everyone, and will help anypony in need."

Okay, now, this was getting frightening. Was my mom related to Ditzy? "Well, I'm glad we all made it here in one piece." I say leaning against Rusty who looked away again bashfully. I chuckled and put an arm around him. That rewarded me with a bright red face, burning in embarrassment as all of his new friends started making lubby-dubby remarks about us, I felt myself start to get slightly red as well and I looked at Rusty who gave a shy shrug.

I let go of him and stepped back to a safe distance to fan away the growing awkwardness between us as we looked away from each other. The laughter from the group quieted down. I looked at Rusty and asked, "So, shall we head back to Ditzy's and wake my brother?" He nodded. We said our goodbyes to our friends and began hobbling side by side toward the shop.

As we walked in, I slammed the storm door shut with excessive force, which caused Wendy to jump from his chair and fall back onto the floor, not in pain, only shock. Derpy covered her mouth in silent laughter and Rusty and I burst into heavy laughter as my brother struggled to get his bearings back.

"Dammit gears! If you weren't a cripple, I'd cripple you again for that." He said staggering to his hooves.

I chuckle and stuck out my lower lip while I gave the most soulful puppy-dog eyes I could and asked, "Would you ever hurt me?"

"Yes." He replied coldly. "Especially for interrupting that dream."

"What was the dream about?" I asked in a sorry tone.

"Home." He said looking out the window.

I smiled and looked at my Pip-Buck, "According to this, you can stop dreaming, because it's time to go home today."

He perked up instantly but frowned again, "How do we get home?"

Ditzy tapped on the counter which got out attention. She motioned outside and we followed her outside to a large buggy, which I had assumed was going to be broken down for scrap, but I hadn't an idea that it was in functioning condition. She motioned to the back, we took one last look at the little town and climbed aboard the buggy as Ditzy hooked herself to the front of the buggy.

* * *

As it turned out Ditzy was full of surprises, With seemingly puny wings, she pulled a sky cart, containing three full grown ponies across the skies of the wasteland, almost as high as the mountain we had been on. I was afraid to look over the edge of the cart, watching my brother, again, my opposite, Standing up in the cart with his wings outstretched. As Ditzy signaled us that we were close to our destination, my brother leaped over the edge of the cart with his wings outstretched, beginning to descend in a spiral until he landed, not exactly gracefully, but better than the landing he had with the train.

Rusty, Ditzy, and I landed soon after, , all of us jumping out of the cart, trotting in place giddily excited to go back home and see the familiar faces of friends and family. I turned to Ditzy, who smiled at me, "I'll never forget you Ditzy" I said giving her a hug, which she returned. We all said our goodbyes and headed to the still pristine door hiding the tunnel that led to the Stable.

As we swung open the door, we were greeted by a foul odor in the dimly lit tunnel. I looked around and let my eyes adjust to the light. As the world focused into view again, I noticed two more bodies were added to the corpses along the sides of the tunnel. At first I paid them no mind as I proceeded to the door of my stable. I headed up to the control panel and entered the passcode and pulled the lever to open the door. Click. Nothing. I looked back at Rusty and Wendy who shrugged at me. I tried the passcode again with different capitalization. Still nothing. I hummed in confusion and looked at the bodies.

"Search them, maybe they have something to do with it." We all headed over and fell backwards in shock when we were greeted by the cold, dead faces of our parents, My father, Sea Spray, and My mother, Sea Shell. As tears began to pour out of my eyes, it hit me. "The Overmare never intended for us to come back in, It was just a ploy to get rid of all of us."

Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Paranoia - Your ability to see things from many perspectives combined with your recent head trauma has granted you +2 Perception, at the cost of a bit of your sanity.

Chapter 7

I cradled the body of my dead mother against my chest, letting my tears roll out and patter down onto her, soaking into her mane. My brother kneeled beside our father, beginning to sob, shedding more tears as he hugged dad to his chest. This only worked to unsettling me even more. My brother was the standing stone of the family, usually the last to react to any unfortunate event. In short, I had never, ever, seen him cry. And his tears proved to me that this wasn't just a cruel nightmare, it was a tragic reality, that our mother and father lay slain at the hooves of our stable. Or at least the Overmare's hooves. She's the only one who ever had a problem with our family, and all over some damn breakup almost two centuries ago!

Looking over and seeing my strong brother turned into the heap of misery that he was ignited something inside of me. Something that gave me a purpose. A deep throbbing hatred towards our Overmare. I hated killing, even the slaver scum that threatened to violate me. However, this bloodthirsty feeling could only be sated by the blood of the Overmare and whoever was responsible for the cold blooded murder of two of the three ponies that ever loved me.

I stared at the Stable door with its nice, neat, "24" labeled on it, mocking me with its security as if it were saying, 'Yeah, I'm keeping you from your purpose. And they're safe in there while you've gotta wander the hellish wastes.' I felt a roar of rage, frustration and grief erupt from my throat as I lunged at the door and violently began bashing it with my hooves in an attempt to get at my target within. The door didn't budge as my strikes echoed off of the walls of the tunnel. Rusty looked on at me flailing pointlessly at the 20 ton behemoth. I cried as I wore out and sat pitifully in front of the door, still dripping tears onto the dirty pathway. My brother pulled my father up and propped his body against the tunnel wall as if him and mom were sitting side by side as they once had done, way back when they were inseparable.

Wendy sat looking on at them, attempting to dry his tears, much like he had done with any other emotion. I had to give it to him, he was an ice cube. And that's why I loved the bastard. At hearing his crying stop, I too began to sober up, only letting out little tremors of rage as I gave the door the best death stare I could muster. The tunnel pulsed in bright light and went dark again as we heard the hinged tunnel door shut. I paid the sound no mind, but I began to whimper as I received a soft, comforting hug from my favorite flesh rotten friend. I turned around to see the friendly face of Derpy, her eyes no longer crossed as she looked at me with an even more comforting smile. I buried my head in her shoulder and continued to cry into her. She stroked my mane as I let out my frustration and sadness. I heard my brother shift around further down the tunnel, and Rusty as well. I looked up from Ditzy's shoulder for a second but covered by eyes again as I saw Rusty and Wendy walking side by side with Mom and Dad draped over their backs.

Eventually, after I had cried all I could cry, I let go of Ditzy and turned to look again at the door. It would take a master technician to hack into there, somepony who was above even my capabilities. I sighed and Ditzy patted me on the head. I smiled at her and stood up, ready to leave and put in motion my plan of vengeance. If I had one anyway. Ditzy and I trotted out back into the wastes, letting our eyes adjust and watching Wendy stare at the bodies. I kneeled beside him and sighed.

"I didn't see that one coming. Not at all." I say silently, looking into the dead half lidded eyes of my father, and the closed ones of my mother.

He nodded, "Me neither. What do we do now?"

"We make her pay." I say, my sorrowful expression turning into a grim smile as I imagined myself murdering High n' Mighty in the most brutal way possible. I stood up and began scooping at the ground with my magic.

"What're you doing Gears?"

"Burying them."

"Burying?"

Right, forgot that. In the stable we recycle our dead into fertilizer for the underground subsistence farm. Which also reminded me that the bodies were left outside as a pointed note for us, or else they would be being ground into compost. "Burying is when you lower the bodies into the ground, so their bodies can become a part of the earth again."

"Without grinding them up? Whole?" He asks in confusion to which I nod. Ditzy confirms my fact with another nod of her own.

After a long while of scooping at the ground magically, Wendy joined in, digging at the dirt with his hooves. Derpy ran back to her cart and returned with three shovels, and of us dug at the ground with the exception of Rusty who sat on the ground, watching us dig. He looked up at me and then back to the hole. I levitated him my shovel, and continued scooping the ground magically. We dug and dug until the sun was low on the horizon before we had a hole sized large enough to accommodate both parents. I lower them in slowly and rest them at the bottom of the pit, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. My friends, caretakers, mentors, masters, and providers lived no more. As we said our goodbyes, Ditzy and Rusty watched respectfully. Out of my bags, I levitated out Dad's gold figurine, which I sat between him and Mom. I turned and trotted back to the cart as fast as I could as Wendy set to work burying them.

I sat in the cart in the floorboards, watching the sky go completely dark, and it was soon after when I felt the cart shift as Ditzy hooked herself to the front, and Wendy climbed in along with Rusty. We all looked at each other sadly. Our entire trip to Appleoosa was deafeningly silent with the exception of the wind blowing by, indicating that time had not stopped altogether. We felt the jerk of the carriage spiraling down, before coming to a relatively smooth landing down the main strip of New Appleoosa.

Derpy parked her carriage alongside her shop, we all got out and trotted into her store silently as the trip we had just finished. Inside the store at the table sat the white stallion with the eye patch that had held a gun to my head when we arrived. I cringed at his rigid, muscular scary body, but I wasn't afraid. If he were to draw his pistol and splatter the wall behind me with my brain matter, I wouldn't mind, In fact, It would free me from the troubles of the wasteland that had been added to my growing list of emotional issues. Oh fuck, no, that wouldn't work, because then I wouldn't be able to crush in our Overmare's skull. I looked up at him now with resolve in my heart, but to my surprise, He wasn't even armed. He sat at the table with a bottle of a dark brown liquid that I couldn't Identify.

"Back already?" He asked. Derpy looked at him and shook her head, motioning to us and making a face, which signaled to him that now wasn't a good time. He nodded at her, "Look you three, I was here to talk to Ditzy, but now that you're back, I wanted to apologize for holding a gun to your head when we saw you. You came from the tracks and you didn't look familiar, so we assumed that you were slavers. Ditzy here convinced me that because you each wear one of them Pip Bucks, that you were actually stable dwellers. Again, I'm sorry." He said removing his hat revealing a streaked silver and blue mane.

"It's alright." I say looking back at him. "I understand that It wasn't an aggressive move. You were only trying to defend the decent ponies you have living here, which I can respect." He nodded in return and I headed behind the counter and up the stairs back to the room where Ditzy had rested me. In the dark, I fumbled around, tripping, and almost falling. I caught myself with my magic and climbed into the bed quietly pulling the covers back over myself. Hold on, these covers are warm, i guess that old eyepatch came in and had himself a nap. I curled up in the bed, draping my arms over a stiff pillow and letting myself drift off.

I dreamed, very badly, not surprisingly about my parents. We were all sitting down in our living room, Wendy and I sitting on the floor in diapers by the radio, listening to it play songs by Sweetie Bell, all tight and cozy together, happily sitting there without a care in the world. I was going to miss those days a lot. Well, maybe this dream wont be so bad I thought to myself as I crawled out from under the jukebox. I immediately wished I hadn't jinxed myself.

There was a knock at the door, My dad stood up from the couch and looked at Mom, who returned his gaze with a shrug. He shrugged back and headed up to the door, He hit the mechanism, and as soon as the door halved and slid apart, he was torn asunder by deafening gunfire, splattering his blood against the wall. Wendy began crying loudly as I watched in shock and horror, my filly mind not quite understanding what is going on here. As what was left of my father's corpse fell to the ground, my mother stood up, mutely shrieking in terror as the Overmare's security units bust into the room with threatening police batons. In but a few seconds, a bullet was put through my brother's colt sized head, showering me with gore as I began to cry as well. A dark maned guard seized my mom around the neck with an arm, levitating a knife to her throat as he dragged the struggling mare to the back room as she choked out gargled cries for help, the door shut behind them. Then, the Overmare trotted in, wielding a baton in her telekinetic grip, began repeatedly hitting me over the head mercilessly, causing me to bleed.

I held out my tiny hooves which did little to stop the vicious onslaught. I looked over to the door that my mother and the guard had disappeared behind and then to the window, and with a muffled pop, splattered with blood. The Overmare continued beating me, and then suddenly, with a particularly hard thwack, I awoke, being flailed with the panicked hooves of another pony who I had unwittingly slipped into bed with.

I let them know I was no threat by jumping out of bed and tumbling down on the floor. They popped over the edge of the bed over top of me, with their hooves drawn back to strike, I turned on my Pip Buck light, flashing it into her eyes, stunning her as I staggered to my hooves and backed against the wall, keeping the light shone on her. She was now out of bed, standing in the opposite corner of the room which was now illuminated by my light, we were both panting heavily and were both scared out of our minds. I took a step towards her, lowering my light away from her eyes. She tried to step farther back in the corner, but ran into the wall and sank down a bit, spreading her wings out as if she was trying to intimidate me. I took another step forward, kneeling a bit to reach her lowered height.

"Hello there?" I asked her tilting my head, taking another step. That was close enough, because she had in fact lept at me, bowling me over and flailing me. She clearly had no combat training, but she could hit surprisingly hard, not enough for me to target a single S.A.T.S. strike to her stomach. It wasn't much, but it was enough to knock her off balance, I used this opportunity to roll up onto my hooves and jump atop her, pinning her down by her wings, she struggled a but under me before giving up and sitting her head back down on the ground, exposing her neck to me.

"What are you doing?" I ask

"Well, you've got me pinned. At least make it quick since you want to kill me."

I let some pressure off of her wings,"If I'm correct, you attacked me first."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you gonna do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill me? Aren't you gonna kill me?"

I shake my head again. "No, no, no, I think we had a simple misunderstanding is all." I got up and let off of her.

She staggers to her hooves and we just stare at each other for a moment. There's a clunking up the stairs and my brother opened the door and flicked on the light. "You alright, Gears?" He asked looking around. Now that the light is on, Mystery mare and I took a chance to get a good look at each other. It was established that she was a pegasus, she had a white coat with a curly mint green mane. Her cutie mark was hidden under bandages wound tightly around her flanks and up her torso, stopping at her waist.

While we were sizing each other up, Wendy took the time to cut in, "Hey so um... Who are you?" He asked pointing a hoof at the new mare. She snapped back to attention, but kept her eyes on me.

"Umm, I'm Lilly, who are you?"

"My names Wind-Fire, and this is my sister, Gears." I straightened up and looked at Wendy, and then at Lilly, who had also recovered from the initial shock of a fight. She nodded and looked around a bit. Lilly and I looked at each other for a moment before trotting to our sides of the bed. Wendy shrugged and headed back down the stairs, closing the door.

Lilly and I continued to stare awkwardly at each other, but I broke eye contact enough to sit back in bed. She followed suit, sitting on the other side looking at me. "Why did you hit me?" She asked.

"I hit you?"

"Yeah, you started twitching which woke me up and then you started smacking me."

I looked at her "Oh goddesses, I'm so sorry, I guess I was having a nightmare."

Her gaze softened a bit. "What about?"

"I.." I stammered a bit. "My parents and the Overmare in our stable."

"What happened?"

"The Overmare killed them, both of them."

"Oh, sorry to hear that, but at least it was just a dream, right?" I cringe and close my eyes, pulling a hoof over them to stop any tears. She frowned. "No? Oh, I'm sorry again, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"It's okay Lilly." I sniffled. "I only found them today, it's gonna be on my mind for a long time now."

"I'm so sorry I brought it up." She said again, lowering her eyes.

"Its alright, its alright." I said sighing. "Its not your fault, and I'll get over it eventually, after I get payback."

"I'm sorry we got off on the wrong hoof."

"Likewise." I said letting out a pent up sigh.

"Here, you sound like you're tired." She said scooting a pillow under my head.

"Thanks friend." I said smiling a little bit.

She smiled back at me, going, "Try not to have any more nightmares, okay?" I nodded. She nodded in return. She draped her wing over me and rested her head on a pillow. Even though she was seeming a bit overly apologetic and nice to me, I scooted in closer, letting her soft wing warm me. I can't explain it, but under the wing of a complete stranger I hardly knew, I felt... protected, safe. For all I knew, maybe she planned to slit my throat, regardless, I felt myself slip into a deep and dreamless sleep. Perhaps if I didn't wake up, it would be for the best.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Vengeance - While not having any goals set by your treacherous superiors, you're hell bent on revenge and will stop at nothing to reap what you are due. +1 Endurance, +10% Damage resist.

Bonus: Well rested - You have slept soundly under the protection of a friend, +1 Intelligence for 24 hours.

Chapter 8

Whoever this 'Lilly' was, I thought it might be appropriate to say that she was not good at sharing a bed. Not at all. I awoke, freezing cold in the morning air. Lilly in her sleep, had hogged all of the covers, had bushed me to the very edge of the mattress, and had shifted sideways, so I could not scoot back up. Her mouth hung open as she snored very loudly, flittering her wingtips in her sleep. But at least she hadn't slit my throat.

I had time to think to myself, and had chalked up my foolish decision to share a bed with a complete stranger to simple suicidal grief. I had since come to terms with my parents murder and had accepted that nothing was going to change that. I also realized that my parents wouldn't have wanted me to mope at their deaths, nor would they approve of my blood lust for their murderers, but I disregarded the latter, because killing her is something I needed to do. I'm not sure if Wendy felt the same way, but even if he didn't, he's still the kind of stallion who would revel in her just desserts. I slipped out of my train of thought and observed the room around me. The snoring mare, the morning light filtering in through the ragged, drawn curtains, my bags, which were undisturbed by my roommate. I looked back at her. Even through her heavy snoring, she still looked at peace, so I left her to nap, also with the hope of avoiding another panic driven quarrel.

I silently stepped towards the door and slipped out, heading down the stairs to Ditzy's shop. My brother was not asleep in the chairs like he had done before, in fact, he wasn't even in this room. He had gone out somewhere, but Rusty slept on the floor in a neat little bedroll. Derpy slept in another room in a twin mattress. I sighed, the more I saw her, the more I thought of Mom. I shook the thought away as I stepped outside, letting the cold, dry wasteland air wake me up. I scanned the town, but didn't see much activity other than a few lights from various buildings. I shrugged to myself and headed to the nearest building that didn't look residential. I headed up across the old wooden porch and up to two swinging doors which led inside. I lifted my hoof to knock, but remembered it was a public place. I pushed the doors aside and stepped in. The sounds and smells and warmth poured out of the building as I looked around. There was a small stage at the far end of the place with nothing or nopony upon it. Various other ponies milled about around the floor which was scarcely populated with tables and chairs. A long counter ran parallel with the left wall and cornered at the wall behind me. I trotted further in, drawn by the warm light. Along the bar sat Wendy, holding up a bottle of brown liquid to his lips. I climbed up onto the stool next to him and watched as he downed half of the bottle's contents before looking over at me.

"What're you up to Wendy?" I asked still looking at him.

"Nothing, just.. I found this drink, Its amazing, you should try some." he slurred out, sitting the bottle down on the bar shakily.

I sniffed at the bottle and withdrew as it surprised me by its unfamiliar scent, but then it came to me. "Are you drinking alcohol?" I asked in a slightly panicked tone.

"Is this what this is?" he asked looking into the amber bottle. "How do you know what this is?" Back in out Stable, nopony knew about alcohol of any type. It was banned from the day it closed generations ago. I, being the studious one, had found some old posters to terrorize any ponies into sobriety. After the place was dry, roughly 75 years after its closing, they took the posters down and put them in hiding. For good reason too, the posters told us quite disturbing 'facts' about alcohol that were sure to scare anyone enough to fear any kind of drink for the rest of their existence. Statements along the lines of, "Alcohol causes instant liver petrification." and "5 out of every 5 alcoholics die from brain deterioration." Now, i had always assumed that they weren't quite telling the truth, but that didn't stop me from swearing not to touch a drop of alcohol in my life. The three empty bottle's in front of my brother challenged the stable's facts, seeing as though he was still alive. I was still hesitant to let myself even smell the fumes off of his breath.

I said nothing to him as he downed the rest of his drink, and before I could object, slid a tall bottle of clear liquid to me and pushed it into my hooves. I stared at him as he stared back, wobbling on top of the bar stool. I took the bottle in my magic and looked through at the clear liquor. Perhaps not liquor, maybe just water. As I opened the bottle a heavy smell hit my nostrils and I tilted my head away, coughing a little at the smell.

"Do it you wimp." My brother said with a stupid smile across his face. He seemed intact, I guess one little drink wouldn't hurt...

* * *

Two or three bottles later of the amazing drink I found to be called "Vodka" I struggled to keep myself upright on the bar stool. My vision was a blur as the blob colored similarly to my brother lay face down on the bar, still sitting on the stool. I felt all warm inside from the drink, I had no depth perception, and my head had began to hurt. My mood suddenly took a nosedive as I scowled at the bottle. I didn't have the patience to think straight. i just growled halfheartedly as I wished the aching in my head would stop. I heard hoofsteps from behind me. I felt my vision clear up a bit as my pip buck flashed an alert, notifying me that my first bottle of vodka had worn off. I became more aware of my surroundings and the hoof resting on my shoulder, with the buck attached to it.

"Well hey there pretty lady." He said smugly, with the slightest hint of what sounded like sarcasm. "You look a little unsteady, do you need me to provide you with some.. homely accommodations?" He asked tipping his hat our of his face and looking at me with his stupid bright green eyes.

I may have been drunk, but I wasn't stupid. That tone wasn't a sincere one that voiced concern for my well being, it sounded triumphant, as if her were already celebrating getting under my tail. "Sorry slick. I don't swing that way." I said brushing his hoof off my shoulder. Surely that would put him off to where he would leave me alone.

"Oh, no ma'am." he snickered "You misinterpret my type of hospitality, I merely want to provide you with a warm bed and shelter for the night." There was that tone again.

"No, thanks, I'm staying with Ditzy." I replied, trying to get my wits together. This guy just didn't want to piss off.

"I think you'll find that my home will be much more comfortable that that of a fleshrotten zombie." Ohh, no he didn't... The combination of the rude remark about my friend, my grief, his hoof sliding down across my waist and the vodka in my system lit a small flame of uncontrollable rage inside me. In a flash, I wordlessly yanked his hoof onto the bar, and pinned it to it with a nearby knife. He let loose a scream of pain as blood began pouring out, but had almost no time to react before i magically smashed an empty vodka bottle across his face, knocking him to the ground in a heap of pain and sharp shards of glass.

I plucked the knife from his hoof and let him drop to the floor, unconsciously bleeding heavily."Oops, must have hit something major." I said wiping the knife with his hat before dropping it, covering his face." My attack, though impressive, was not in any way subtle. A few other bucks I assumed to be his friends rose from their seats near the stage. "Shit."

They drew their knives and walked toward me, one staying back at their table levitating something onto the top and sitting it there. As the nearest buck took a wild swing at me, I let the alcohol take over. In my magical grip, I smashed a plate into his face, causing him to stagger backwards, a second pony took a swing as well, which I easily ducked and he smashed his baton into the back of the head of the first pony who fell to the ground. Looks like I wasn't the only one fighting drunk. The third swung at me with his hoof, uppercutting me on the chin, causing me to bite my tongue. I spit blood into his face and magically smashed a bottle into his head, knocking him out as well. The second pony had recovered from his stagger, and took out my legs and pinned me down with a baton against my neck.

"So much for decent folk here." I said relaxing, letting him think he had the victory. He sneered and began to pick me up. Earth ponies didn't seem too smart to me, he forgot I was a unicorn as I headbutted him, damming my horn into his eye, making his scream in pain. I arched up and bucked him in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back, holding his gouged eye socket in sheer pain, I stood up on my hooves and looked around. Our fight had attracted a lot of attention, and a pony from behind the bar hooked his arms around my waist and yanked me up onto the counter, roughly smashing my head into the wood to knock me out, I saw stars, but tried the vodka bottle to the head trick, unfortunately, he saw that coming and blocked it with a hoof. He cringed and yelped as the class shattered all over him. It wasn't enough to stop the attack as he started sliding me down the bar, aiming to ram my head into the post at the corner. I prepared for impact and reached my hooves out, and totally unintentionally caught the bar ans swung around, stretching my hoof out into a mighty kick that sent the buck tumbling over the counter onto the floor below, taking empty bottles with him to shatter on impact. I smiled and continued along behind the bar, and then suddenly, a loud bang and a biting pain in my flank that I had never known before knocked me over and into the shelves housing the liquor. Time slowed as the shelf began to topple and brought roughly a thousand pounds of glass, liquor, and wood down on top of me. Before I blacked out from head trauma, I heard more shots.

Blacking out was like blinking my eyes and teleporting, I was somewhere else, I wasn't in as much pain as before, and I was back in bed at Derpy's. Unless the interior of all wasteland houses looked like this. I found that I could move my legs without much pain. I try to sit up, but a familiar white hoof stopped me. Well at least I'm not alone here.

"Are you feeling okay?" Lilly asked in a little concern.

Well, somepony's getting protective over a stranger. "Yeah, yeah, I think so." I say brushing her hoof aside and sitting up standing on unsteady hooves. Ow. My leg hurt. A lot. I hissed and lifted my hind right leg up and limped around the room experimentally. "Yeah, I'm mobile." I hobbled over to the mirror, Celly H. Fuck I was a mess. There were small cuts all over my body, presumably from the glass shards landing all over me. My flanks were bandaged up where a red dot was seeping through the bandages.

"Here, drink this." She said holding up a purple vial. "Ditzy's orders." I nod and take the vial.

"A healing potion? Why not give this to me earlier?" I asked swirling the vial's contents.

"We tried, you were unconscious, and well, you didn't take the potion too well."

"Explain please."

"The potion didn't mix well with the vodka inside you and you vomited something up that burned a hole in Ditzy's floor." She motioned to a splatter shaped hole that was chemically charred around the edges.

I shuddered, "Ugh. That was in my stomach? I don't think I ever want to drink again."

"At least you didn't get a hangover." She said tapping herself on the head. "Less talky more drinky." She made a drinking motion with her hoof. I looked myself up and down in the mirror. I had never had to use a healing potion myself, but I had heard about their powerful abilities. I levitated the vial to my lips and started drinking. It tasted like cough medicine with bleach. Don't ask how I know what bleach tastes like. Long story. I coughed and swallowed the terrible drink and to my amazement, my wounds started sealing shut, even the long scar down my face sealed shut and left no scarring. Was it too much to hope for that my gunshot wound had healed as well? I began unraveling my bandages and when they were off, there was no red, burning hole, only a small ripple of skin where the wound had left some scarring.

"That's amazing..." She smiled. "...ly disgusting." I added with a little smile, working my leg back and forth. It ached, but the stabbing pain had disappeared. It was a tremendous relief that I wouldn't have to limp around for much longer. I set my hoof down and limped back over sitting on the edge of the bed. Lilly fished out a couple of bottles filled with a dark liquid. "What's this?" I asked looking at the worn label.

"Come on Gears, even I know what this is." She said prying off the cap and taking a drink. "Its Sparkle Cola." I pried the cap off of the top and levitated it into my bags. I took a sip and was met with a delicious, but flat, carroty flavor, but hey, what else can you ask for from a drink that's been sitting outside for almost two centuries. I realized just how thirsty I was and began guzzling the drink, not bothering to savor it. My Pip Buck clicked a few times and went silent. Oh joy, that was irradiated.

I looked over at Lilly and her bandages, hmm, now was a good a time to ask as any. "What's wrong with you? I mean, your bandages? Whats the wound." She looked down sadly at the question. Oh, Now I had asked a personal question. Fine, lets hear it about how you were razor raped by a slaver.

"Nothing's healing under here, I'm hiding my flanks."

"Why?"

She looked around a bit. "I'm ashamed, an outcast. My cutie mark isn't to be seen by anypony." Okay, not what I had expected, but still, I had a feeling that this revolved around rape, she was a pretty mare after all. She slowly began to unravel her bandages. As she dropped them to the floor, I cringed at the fresh, red burn onto her flank. The burn was in the shape of a thunderbolt and a cloud, much like the ministry mare, Rainbow Dash. "I'm a Dashite."

"What's that?" I asked staring at the burn which obscured her cutie mark.

"I'm an enemy of the Enclave, a traitor, and all I did was suggest we helped the surface." Enclave, What? Dashites? Traitors? What else don't I know about? "They kicked me out of the sky and banished me to the surface. I never realized how stuck up the Enclave is. To them, surface dwellers are all vermin."

I had heard stories about all of the pegasi flying up to the clouds before the bombs fell, This must be what the Enclave is. And if the word traitor is used, that Implies there's some form of organized government up there to betray. All of the pegasi didn't leave us, My stable was proof of that. Pegasi in the stable were at least 1/3 of the population. I never got the exact statistics because that wasn't my job, but that aside, it sounded like the Enclave were some ponies that you didn't want to piss off.

"And all you did was speak out?" I asked still staring at her mark.

"Yeah, the leaders of the enclave are... Eccentric in their dictatorship." Okay, so they definitely were not a government I would want to live under. She began to wrap up her bandages but I stopped her.

"Why do you hide it?"

"Because it's a shameful mark, high traitor, and If I'm seen with it by any Enclave soldiers, I'll be shot on sight."

"Wouldn't they shoot any surface dweller on sight?" I asked.

"Hmm. Good point." Damn, this is one of those occasions where I hate it when I'm right. "But still, Im ashamed for having it."

"And what surface dweller is going to judge you for it? I don't think anyone would berate you for having that mark, and if the Enclave is as bad as you say, they should actually see you as an ally."

"Another good point. But still, I don't want to assist in the downfall of the Enclave, its my home up there, with all my friends and family." She looked down and away sadly. It was then I realized that we were in the same situation. Betrayed, Forgotten, Abandoned. Not by our friends, but by the corrupt leaders of our respective organizations. I could tell she wanted revenge by looking in her eyes.

I put a hoof around her shoulder. "I'm in the same boat as you are Lilly." I proceed to tell her the story of my stable kicking me out over some old grudge, and then the murder of my parents. I'm going for my revenge, and I'm going to kill that bitch High N' Mighty. You should come along with us to be wanderers, we need all the help we can get.

"But how? You can't get into your stable to get your revenge."

"I can, I just need the right approach."

"And where will you find it?"

I grinned a bit, "Stable-tec HQ."

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Heavy Drinker - Whenever you are heavily under the influence of Vodka, you have +3 Strength, -1 Intelligence, and your crit. chance is boosted by 50% However, you can't heal yourself with potions until the alcohol wears off unless you want to become an acid spewing drunk in the middle of a battlefield.

Chapter 9

"And exactly how do you plan to find any working Stable-Tec facilities?" Lilly asked looking at me in disbelief, as if I had said something that defied space and time itself. Oh joy, this meant it was going to be a lot harder than I thought, but I told her my plan anyway.

"There would logically be a Stable-Tec hub up in Canterlot, so I thought we would head up there to find one." I say, confidence starting to build up. But it was smashed by what she said next.

"How stupid are you exactly?"

"Elaborate please."

"You do realize the ruins of Canterlot is filled with pink cloud, right?"

"Pink cloud?" She gave me the, 'how dumb are you?' look again. Well excuse me for not knowing the lore of the wasteland, I've been too busy being smashed, stabbed, raped, sanded, pricked and generally brutalized to sit down with a local and ask about all the towns.

"Pink cloud is a gas that flows through Canterlot. It ignores any protection, going right through gas masks, melting suits to a body, burning through protection spells, and possibly turning you into a ghoul that cannot die."

I look down a bit, "But we've got to find a way in there." I said pleadingly.

"It's suicide Gears. The only reason we... I mean, the Enclave haven't taken the city is because none of our scouting parties ever came back. Ever." She said, narrowing her eyes for emphasis on the word, 'ever'.

"But we have to try, do you know anywhere else that has a Stable-Tec hub?"

She thought silently for a moment, "Maybe there's one in Manehattan, Canterlot has to be our last resort." I sigh, I prefer not to be eaten by noxious gas, so it sounds like we're going to Manehattan.

"Alright, I'll tell the others, but for now, I'd like to rest." She nodded in agreement as I sat up, back against the headboard of the bed. I magically began to dig through my bags, I pulled out a brown bottle and hovered it over in front of me. "Buckweiser, Prince of beers." I read aloud. I looked over at Lilly who only shrugged.

"Are you sure you should be drinking? I mean, after what happened last time?" She asked as I popped off the bottle cap and dropped it in my bag.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere for a little, might as well, besides, I know my limit now." She shrugged I went to take a drink, but stopped and offered it to Lilly. She shrugs and took it from me, turning it around in her hooves.

"I.. I've never drank before. I'm only 19."

I raise an eye questioningly, "Is that a factor?"

"Yes, in Thunderhead, anypony had to be 21 before they can legally drink."

"Oh, well, alcohol was outlawed in our stable, no one inside even knows of its existence. Besides, I'm only 18." I said levitating out my second and last bottle.

She shrugged and brought the bottle up to drink. She took a mouthful and lowered the bottle. She furrowed her brow and swallowed, sticking her tongue out at the taste. "It.. that's horrible, but whoa, that's warm." She smiled a bit "Once you get past the taste, this really isn't bad at all." She took another drink.

I decided it was my turn, so I popped my bottle and took a drink, I too cringed at the flavor. It was unexpectedly bitter, and it was weak, didn't pack a punch like vodka did, but then again, that was liquor, this is a lager. I finished off half the bottle before sitting it down on the nightstand, I coughed, "Ugh, no more, that's definitely an acquired taste."

"May I?" Lilly asked. I nodded and levitated her my bottle, which she happily finished off. I leaned back against the headboard. She's interesting. I think, watching her inspect the bottle, and look inside thoroughly, I suspect that she was looking for more. She was cute too, but hey, slow down there Gears, you only just met her the other day, no need to bring out the wedding bands. She looked up at me, "Whatcha staring at? Have I got something on my face?"

I snap back into reality and stammer, "Oh.. um.. yeah.. I mean no... Just... thinking..." She giggled, I looked away and felt my face redden. Smooth. Thankfully the awkward moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. I put on a deep fancy voice and called, "Intrude."

Who came through the door wasn't who I expected, or who Lilly had expected either, because both of our faces started to panic. It was the sheriff, the eyepatched white one. "Hello there ladies." He pulled up a chair and sat backwards in it, straddling the back rest and propping himself up with his hooves. "Well Gears, you got yourself into one hell of a mess." I shrank down. "You destroyed hundreds of caps worth of liquor, wrecked the saloon, and killed Country Music." Fuck. That's two. "And I'd like to congratulate you. The town and I all owe you our thanks." Wait.. what? My thoughts must have had registered on my face because the sheriff laughed. "You heard me, thanks. You killed one of our town's problems. Country led a wannabe gunslinger gang, and they committed all sorts of petty crimes, like theft, sexual harassment, and in one case, arson. You beat down his gang too, and since they started it, all the damages are coming out of their pockets. Also, we got Slowpoke under charges of attempted murder. Lucky for you, he ain't a good shot."

I continued to stare at him blankly, trying to process the completely backwards situation. "Um.. thanks Sheriff..."

"Silver Star, but everyone just calls me Star. Also, you should know, everyone in town respects you now. On a personal note, sorry for holdin' a gun to your head when you got here, since you came across those mountains, we thought you were slavers, that's all that comes over from that way." A couple of times a month, they come over and capture residents to take away to be slaves."

My Pip Buck beeped. 'Quest Added: Good ol' Fashioned Throwdown.' Lovely, first objective, ask Star about defense of New Appleoosa, optional, warn him that you freed all of their slaves, so they will probably make another run soon. Okay then. Lets do this.

"Um, sheriff? Can I be of any help in defending the town?"

He smiled and nodded. "Of course, any extra hooves are greatly appreciated."

"Also, you may want to know, since I was locked up in Old Appleoosa, we freed most of their slaves, so they may be returning very soon to get more."

I saw him smile, "Good, Good, the sooner they come, the less time you have to spend here."

"Why are you so sure of my abilities? I've never even fired a gun before."

"Exactly, And you've survived out here so long without guns, that's even more impressive, of course, guns are quite difficult to come by though."

"I guess so, I wont make any promises to defend your town, but I will try my best." Objective complete. New objective, prepare the town for the impending attack. Optional: Build defensive fortifications. Optional: Procure weapons for your party. This new feature was beginning to creep me out. Maybe I had accidentally added an extra dash while coding my modifications and this happened. As helpful as it seemed, I wanted it turned off as soon as possible.

"That's all I came to tell ya, Oh, and if you would like somewhere nice to stay, If we pull this defense off, there's a nice empty house on the north side of town with your name on it." Wow, A bar fight just won me the respect of a town to the point where they're offering me a home. Is the wasteland so hard that even the smallest good deed was held in such high regard?

Star gave a friendly nod, taking the chair and sitting it back where he had gotten it from. He trotted out the door wordlessly. "Uh, huh.. so, step one, guns." I had never really seen a gun until just recently. Well, I didn't even get to see it, but I was shot by it, and that was enough for me to conclude that I probably wouldn't grow too fond of guns out here.

"There's an old weapons manufacturer out northwest of Ponyville." Lilly added helpfully.

"How do you know that?"

"I was an intelligence officer in the Enclave okay? We sent out a patrol out to see what we could see from the factory, they couldn't get in because it was locked."

"Wow, your troops seem generally incompetent, huh?" I asked with a chuckle. She was not amused. "Gosh, just a joke, lighten up." I said rolling my eyes.

"It was locked, how did you expect them to get into there?" I levitate out a screwdriver and a pack of bobby pins. This.. this amused her. Her face spread into an enormous grin as she began to crack up, and finally, laughed herself out of breath. Now I wasn't amused. "Gears! You know that only works in old spy movies."

I snorted triumphantly, "Yeah, that's what my brother said until I picked his ass out of a cell with this."

"I'll believe it when I see it." She said chuckling. I cuffed her on the shoulder and we both laughed. For the first time since I learned of the Overmare's betrayal, I was actually happy. We continued our laughing, eventually calming down enough to get up and out of bed. Now that the aching from my wounds had subsided, we could get back to work. Self pity gets you nowhere.

I looked at Lilly. "So. Ready to go to... where?"

"Well, if you insist on pointlessly trying to open a door my best men couldn't even crack, we're headed to Ironshod Firearms. Its north of Ponyville like I said."

"How do we get to Ponyville from here?"

"Its a straight road west, right at the edge of the Everfree forest." I shuddered, I didn't know much about that place, and I imagined that nopony did either. But from what I read and the tales that have been told, it was definitely not a place that I wanted to stay long.

"Right then... Lets go get everypony together and head out." I say rooting through my bags and getting out my stable suit. I suddenly remembered that I didn't have it on and I felt my face suddenly grow very hot. Lilly didn't act like, 'Dear sweet Luna you're naked!' Instead she just looked at me with a blank expression.

"Are you alright?" She asked observing my face. I remembered what I had said to Rusty back at the train yard and I felt the burn going away slightly, barely kept lit by embarrassment.

"Yeah, yeah.. Stable pony thing. Nudity is frowned upon." I say rather than taking all the time and effort to explain to her the regulations for cutie marks. I felt so exposed whenever my gears were showing, and that was whenever I was alone. It was another story if anyone else happened to be watching. I shrank down again, the conditioned morals beginning to sink back in. "Let's just go." I trotted to the door, as I opened it, I felt a pull on the knob, making me swing the door open faster than I had intended. Behind it was Rusty, who was surprised by my unexpected opening of the door, jumped up into the air. Upon his descent, he failed to find his balance and tumbled backwards down the stairs.

"Oh shit! Are you okay Rusty?" I ask rushing down the stairs where he was heaped at the bottom. As I helped him up to his hooves, he let out a little squeak. Shy as a mouse sometimes, and capable of mauling corpses another. I doubt I'll ever understand him. Anyway, I helped him up into the main shop room where my brother was sitting ready. I guess they heard our planning.

"So, taking us out on a suicide mission?" Wendy asked. Yep, that confirmed my suspicions.

"Hopefully not." I said reassuringly.

"Well, I'm ready to go when you are." He said pulling the gryphon knife out from under his wing and holding it in his teeth by the blade, offering it to me. I smile and levitate it into the deep slot on my pip buck where it fit snugly. Well, what a pleasant surprise, I have an extra pocket now.

"Rusty? Are you ready to go?" He looked back at the boxes slung over him and nodded. Okay, you coming Lilly?

She nodded. "Yeah, I am. I figured why not make what you can out of the situation and try to have fun."

"Alright then. We're all ready?" They all nodded. I cracked my door and stepped outside with the other three trailing me.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Mare of the Ponies - Your likable nature has become well known throughout town, your good deeds have not gone unrecognized and anypony allied with New Appleoosa will come to your aid, any allies see you with +1 Charisma. However, Anypony that is rival to your allies hate you, and while not actively showing aggression, they see you with -2 Charisma.

Chapter 10

Remember how when we traveled back to the stable and Ditzy had taken us in her cart? Yeah, I do. I also remember my hooves not aching, my throat being wet, and blood silently coursing through my head, not sounding like a hydroelectric water turbine. Yeah, basically the point I'm trying to get across is that it was very dumb not to have asked Ditzy to do the same for us again. Goddesses I was so tired, but it was only three in the afternoon and we were a long ways from Ponyville.

It seemed all of my companions shared the same thoughts, all of us were looking ragged and worn. Being stable ponies that wasn't a surprise. After all my years of physical inactivity, I'm surprised I'm so skinny. The only one of us that didn't seem overcome with exhaustion was Lilly, who hovered alongside my using her wings. Ugh, i suppose that even Enclave ponies have to do physical work. That explains why she hit so hard. Either way, she was still looking good, and probably fit to carry us in a cart if we ever came to one.

"How come neither of you are flying?" Lilly asked, motioning to both Rusty and Wendy, who were trotting along at a wobbly pace.

Wendy perked up to look at Lilly and opened his wings, "Stable doesn't give you much room to fly, plus, when I tried I crashed and burned pretty hard." He flapped the feathery appendages pathetically to show how weak his wings were.

"Sucks to have wings in a Stable, huh?" She asked smiling. Both Rusty and Wendy nodded.

"Yeah, but wings are somewhat rare in our Stable too." Yes, that was true, our family is... was the only family with Pegasus genes strong in our DNA, which explains why I was the first non Pegasus member of our family on over four generations.

"Ah, so you're something special huh?"

"Eeyup." He said with a cheeky grin. "And das whai I get all da Ladies!" He chanted, strutting and flapping his wings.

"Ladies? The only thing you've brought into our room at three in the morning are other stallions." I said, matching the cheekiness in his voice. He immediately snapped his wings to his sides and turned bright red, turning his head to attempt to hide his blush from all of us. He failed, as we all began to crack up. "I swear, you and Eye Drops kept me awake that night, damn, you two were loud!"

"Gears, stoppit, please." He said laughing nervously, but he was clearly grateful that I was breaking the news to our friends so he wouldn't have to later. Yes, yes, my brother was gay, but in all fairness, so am I. I wondered if homosexuality was a gene, hmm, I don't know. Technically I'm bi, but I prefer mares to stallions. And our parents... they did not take kindly to the whole, both kids being gay thing. And even the Overmare took an interest. She claimed that it would cause a tremendous drop in stable race diversity. Which I didn't understand why she would be trying to make us have kids, Less population meant better living conditions, and the fact that she hated our family with a passion didn't help my suspicions either. She always had something planned. Sneaky bitch. Back to the conversation at hoof:

"You're embarrassing me Gears." He said closing his eyes and looking away again. Also, In case this raised any questions, no, I did not enjoy listening to my brother getting buttfucked by a stallion in the other room, in fact, it emotionally scarred me, I went to therapy. Its bad enough if you were to walk in on your brother if he were straight, but its a whole new ball game when hes gay. And so, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to get revenge on my brother for all the trauma.

"Hey, none of us judge you." Rusty chimed in, his usually timid voice being harsh and scratchy due to dehydration. "In fact, I'm gay too." Wendy blushed even more and looked away from him.

"Really?" He asked again.

"Yeah, he is, I can tell by the way he looks at you Wendy." Lilly said doing a loop in the air, laughing. They blushed and began to trot apart, eventually reaching opposite ends of the lane. "Don't seem so shy." Lilly added, "I too find mares preferable." I blushed a bit and looked away, realizing that we had just been bed mates for the past couple days. Okay, while that was reassuring to me personally, that wasn't very good for my feeling of badassery. Four fags journeying through the wastes? Really? Who the fuck was going to take us seriously?

I voiced this concern to my comrades, "Guys, who is going to take us seriously, really?"

Rusty and my brother drooped, nodding in agreement to what I had said, but Lilly had entered thought. She flapped along and finally smiled, "Hey, If nopony takes us seriously, they don't see us as a threat, and so they wont send out their stronger guys to grind us into a pulp on the ground. It would be a much easier fight."

"Rather than avoiding the fight altogether through intimidation?" Wendy asked looking at Lilly.

"If we survive the fight, we get the loot to help us live out here longer." That. That was the kind of wasteland mentality that I hated. Yes, it was survival of the fittest out here, she made a good point. Killing someone for their things just seemed... wrong. It sounds like being a bandit, especially when there was an alternate, nonviolent way through this situation, and that was to be as intimidating as possible.

"Maybe we're over-thinking this, we have no reputation yet."

"Granted that we couldn't be intimidating if we tried." Lilly said chuckling to herself. "Not to mention how stupid most of the ponies out here are, they're likely to charge you, no matter how much better equipped you are."

Another good point, but that still didn't change my stance on pointless bloodshed. Killing was killing after all. I looked up at the darkening sky, we were all exhausted, but we still had ground to cover. "Lilly, how far til we reach Ponyville?" She looked at me and motioned to my Pip Buck. "Oh, duh." Is what i said out loud, inside, i was beating myself over the head with a pipe, 'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! stupid!' I tabbed over from my inventory screen to my map screen. Not too far from us was a blank map marker, flashing rapidly to emphasize our proximity. "Not far at all actually." I said, everypony perked up, realizing that we were finally going to get a break from the walking. I motioned to the top of the hill. We all picked up the pace and crested the hill, out faces going from ones of hope, to ones of awestruck horror.

I had expected a destroyed town, with toppled statues, crumbled buildings, and radioactive air blanketing the streets, what we found instead, was much worse than anypony could have predicted. The smell alone was enough to stagger most everypony, except Rusty who just wrinkled his nose and stared down at the town in awe. The gore spread all around the valley town, topped Rusty's episode by at least forty score, profane graffiti littered the walls, and organs were strewn across the town as if this were a Hannibal Lector welcome party. I was sure that It was designed to be as visually offensive and appalling as equinely possible. All of us looked at each other and then back at the gory spectacle.

"Welcome to Ponyville."Lilly said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Uhm... ladies first?" Wendy asked, motioning his hoof down the hill into the town.

Lilly snorted, "Wendy, your sister and I have more testosterone than you and Rusty combined, you should go." They began to bicker as we all began heading down the hill, advancing towards an old justice building. Lilly and Wendy argued in front, while Rusty kept his head on a swivel, searching for anything hostile, unfortunately, his eyes weren't trained on his E.F.S. when the shot rang out. I was spattered with blood as the bullet clipped Rusty's neck and he dropped like a rock, screaming and pressing his hoof to his neck to stop the bleeding, he forced himself to be silent and still, probably to trick the sniper into thinking he had gotten a kill.

"FUCK! SNIPER!" Lilly yelled, hauling us behind the facade of the justice building, leaving the unmoving Rusty out in the open.

"What do we do now?" I asked frantically, "We can't leave him out there to bleed to death or get shot again."

"You're the unicorn right, don't you know any spells for this kind of thing?" I thought for a moment, the only spell I ever used was the old levitation spell, which was legally the only spell I should know in my stable, anything much more than that would need to come from a gifted unicorn. Fortunately, I had something that nopony else did: books. I had taught myself a few spells when I got bored, first, there was a spell that could charge electronic devices, which I was somewhat proficient at but rarely used, next, a spell that made a pop like a firecracker, which I never practiced, and finally, a shield spell. I could only hold it for about a minute last time I tried and it was very taxing, I almost burnt myself out. But I didn't see much of an alternative.

"Okay, lets do it." I began to focus all of my energy to my right side, the side where the sniper was watching from. I felt the energy begin to build as the shield formed a dome, covering only my right side, I took more time to thicken it, and then took off full sprint out to Rusty. I knelt by him and used levitation to bring him onto my back. Damn he was heavy! His bleeding had slowed to a trickle as I carried him back towards the saftey of the building, and suddenly out of nowhere, a bolt of extreme pain lanced through my horn as my shield rattled. "Holy hell, did that just block a bullet?" I yelled, still walking towards my friends. I glanced up towards where the shot had come from, balcony, third floor, and there were two snipers, well, they appeared to be arguing, the second one shoved the first out of the way and brought a much larger, more menacing rifle to bear. I added more layers to my shield. Fuck. This was going to hurt. A lot.

She shot was almost drowned out by the intense searing pain that shot through my head as the shield shattered like glass and the bullet punched through, slamming into my ribs. I felt a rib crack, but the bullet was slowed substantially and hadn't penetrated my skin. I cried out in pain as the shards of my shield fell to the ground, beginning to evaporate into a fine blue mist. Luckily, I was close enough to make a dive behind the building, where my friends were waiting expectantly for my return or my demise.

I dropped Rusty on the ground, and began digging through his medical boxes for something to stop the blood that had began steadily trickling from his neck. I levitated out a couple healing potions and his only roll of gauze, which I quickly wrapped around his neck semi-tightly, and after a few seconds, the blood seeping through began to slow, Rusty however, was already unresponsive, so I wrenched his mouth open and poured one of the potions into his mouth, hoping that the liquid wouldn't simply drown him instead. Fortunately, he swallowed the potion rather than letting it go down his wind pipe, and the bleeding stopped, so I removed the bandages. His neck was still bloody, gashed deep by the bullet wound skimming his throat, the sniper had hit something vital. Luckily, I had nutted up and saved him and closed the potentially fatal wound. But now, there was the second problem to deal with.

"We can't fire back Gears." Wendy said, grabbing my arm and holding me behind the safety of the wall. I believe we were imagining the same thing, both snipers aiming their rifles at the clear area beyond the wall, wishing and waiting for us to jump out and do something stupid, which is exactly what I had intended to do. The attempt at Rusty's life had pissed me off, nopony hurts my friends, and I had hoped that the bullet was meant for me, but what was more likely was the snipers being bloodthirsty assholes. Either way, that didn't stop me from trying something stupid.

I stepped out into the open with my gryphon knife and kicked on S.A.T.S. As I had predicted, the two unicorns up in the loft were silhouetted in green, I only had one knife, and a 10% chance of hitting something vital, but I threw the knife anyway, and as I somehow watched from a cinematic view in slow motion, I watched the targeting spell work its magic as it pierced the pony with the larger rifle in the eye, dropping him almost immediately. Great, I had thought this through, but not well enough. The second sniper was still up there and I had no weapons. Luck played out for me as he threw his rifle off of the balcony. I smiled, until he levitated up the much larger rifle in his telekinetic grip. I said a prayer to Luna, cause I knew I was fucked. The shot came and my eyes bolted open, a bit of concrete chipped away from the building to my right and ricocheted away and struck the ground a foot from me, I was paralyzed as I waited for the second shot, but the sniper was wobbling on the platform, trying to hold the enormous rifle in his magic. I watched him tumble off the balcony, releasing the rifle as he landed on his head from a two story fall. He didn't get back up.

"Three." I said trotting over to the dead pony on the ground. He looked like a train wreck, His armor was patched together out of various pieces of rubbish, none of them looking like they could protect him from much more than a penknife, but I looted him anyway, despising myself the whole time, especially since he had nothing of value on him except for his rifle, and the much larger rifle that I could barley lift. I assumed the ammo would be up in the tower, but before I could fill my daily quota of bad decisions, Lilly caught me by the shoulder and took the heavier rifle, in her hooves nonetheless. I went from feeling bad, to feeling insignificant. Lilly was much stronger than myself, even when I used magic, given that my magic was weakened by the whole shield spell, but I still wouldn't want to fight her again. Last time she was half asleep, and she still almost had me.

"If you're going up there, I'm coming with you." She said trotting ahead of me, pulling the bolt back on the enormous rifle with relative ease, ejecting a cartridge about as big around as a small bottlecap. Let me re-iterate on my point, I still don't like guns. Either way, I pulled out the smaller rifle that he had originally dropped, and I knew from my books that it was a ".556 lever action repeater." I aimed down the sights experimentally, before sliding it into my pack, and dragging the dead raider into the open door and dropping him in the corner, already panting from exertion. Lilly was already up the stairs. Damn you pegasi and your endurance. I followed her up, tripping on the last stair and face planting into the ground.

"Ow, dammit." I said, lacking any edge to my voice because I was so tired. Lilly just giggled at my pratfall. Dammit, if I weren't tired and you didn't have that big ass gun I'd... wait, she had just giggled at me. Maybe I wouldn't strangle her for that, dammit, that was cute, now I needed to find a way to vent some of my embarrassment. Instead, I smiled dumbly while staggering up to my hooves.

"This belong to you?" Lilly asked as she yanked the gryphon knife out of the pony's eye, and pitched it over with out cleaning it off, i caught it in my magic and gagged, looking at the deep red blood and sticky pits of brain matter on the end of the blade. I shook the blade furiously at the wall, spattering it with a messy red paint job, leaving a splattery streak over the existing bloody graffiti.

"Ugh." I said with a deep shudder. "So.. bloody."

"Hey, from what I hear, this is nothing compared to what Rusty did to those slavers. I think he has a bit of a crush on you to have snapped like that." Lilly said digging through some unmarked ammo bins and pulling out enormous rounds that I assumed went with the rifle now slung over her shoulder. She also threw me a box of .556 ammo.

"I would have thought the same, but he's gay, I just chalked it up to him snapping at the best possible time."

"For no reason at all?" She asked, ejecting the bolt of her rifle and loading in 5 new rounds. For the sake of occupation, I started reloading my gun as well.

"He's the friend of both me and Wendy, and he didn't want that gryphon to touch me, i assume cause my brother was also in the room, and that was just.. too much. Besides, he needed a reason to vent."

"If you say so." She said setting her gun in the corner. "If I can tell you something embarrassing, I thought you and Wendy were a couple when you came into town before you told me."

"Ewww, even if he wasn't my brother, no way!"

She began to laugh and fell backwards, clutching her waist and laughing hard enough to bring out tears. I just shuddered at the thought. It didn't help that I had walked in on my brother before, and that had mentally scarred me, it maybe wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't so... ugh,, I'm done thinking about this now! then I realized I was still loading my full magazine and dropping bullets to the floor, I stopped and looked away, giggling a little myself. Wasn't I the one in my family with the highest perception score? Luckily, Lilly was too busy laughing her flanks off to notice, so I silently scooped up the pile of rounds and slid them back into the box.

The moment was saved by my brother, helping a very wobbly Rusty up the flight of stairs into the room where we were sitting. "Miss anything?" He asked.

I shook my head, "No, no no, just some... fairly disturbing girl talk." Lilly began to laugh harder and I looked away, and then he said it, he fucking had to ask.

"What about?" He asked shouldering the pale Rusty to a chair. And then she said it, through all of her laughing, she managed to choke it out.

"Your sister's uncontrollable attraction to you." Lilly said with a huge grin spread from ear to ear. Okay, I dont care how cute she is, I'm going to strangle her.

Luckily Wendy was sensible enough, and with a roll of his eyes, commented, "Seems legit." I was a good actor, and kept a straight face.

I could imagine how hilarious this was from Lilly's point of view, but man, what a fucking low-blow! "That would have been funny had it not been so wrong. Is incest not frowned upon in the Enclave?" I asked starting to grin. The words hit her like a sledgehammer ans she quivered a but, but began to grin again, i returned the smile and we both fell back laughing our lungs out. And then I remembered my broken rib when it shot a bolt of pain up my side and I immediately stopped laughing, and replaced it with a pained gasp and curled up. Wendy was beside me in a second, with a syringe. FUCK NO! I started scooching away from him frantically, but he caught me by the arm and jabbed the needle into my ribs and injected it, even against my audible protests. I sighed as the pain ebbed away and he withdrew the needle, throwing it into the corner where it shattered. Yet another relief. Despite the fact that I experienced much more painful injuries, I still hated needles.

"At least you're in one piece you big baby." he said with a grin. "Rusty is so lucky, half an inch to the left and that would have been fatal." I frowned and shuddered a bit, I had already lost my parents, and my home, I don't know what would happen if I lost my friends, nevermind my brother, all I can say is, heads would roll. A lot of them.

Speaking of killing, I had already killed four ponies. One was already unforgivable, I mean, what about their family, friends, relatives? Their childhood, any education, memories, I had stolen them away from them. And it was getting easier to as the body count rose. As a side note, I hadn't counted the feral ghouls at the train station. I had come to be able to tell the difference between ghouls like Ditzy, and others like the hoards that we slaughtered. It didn't bother me as much, considering they had already lost everything, and I guess I was doing no more than putting them out of their misery.

I looked at the surrounding room, ugh, it was filthy, bloodstained, and generally uninhabitable, but it would have to do, we were in no state to travel, we were too exhausted to carry Rusty around and needed to give him time to recover. If there were more of these damn... psychos throughout town, I certainly couldn't handle another fight like that one. I looked around at the room, Wendy had shouldered Rusty off somewhere where he could lay down, which just left Lilly and myself. I looked over at her, she was maintaining her new rifle, and it suddenly occurred to me.

"Nineteen huh? How did somepony as young as yourself become head of the Enclave intelligence?" She paused a minute and leaned her rifle in the corner again, taking a deep breath as I sat, waiting for a response.

"So, I guess you will want to hear the whole story, huh?" I nodded. "Well, long story short, my dad, General Swift, had me appointed as the head of communications, for good reason. My cutie mark used to be a radio. As the Enclave's order giver to outside units, I was to give orders precisely as my superiors directed me to." I nodded when she paused. "It was about a week ago, my father had told me to convey an order, and I didn't." Okay, it seemed a little much to banish her for disobedience.

"And that was when I saw the Enclave for what it truly was. I was to pass on the order to troops that a small settlement was to be wiped out so the Enclave could possess the technology. I had heard the reports about that town, about how it was peaceful, which is a rare find in the wasteland. I wouldn't send the order and my father became infuriated. He had no misgivings about burning off my cutie mark and dropping me on the surface to die." Damn, that's still not worth banishing her. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks and she looked away. "To him, I wasn't a daughter, I was just an underling, a grunt. So, always remember, the Enclave are opportunists, manipulators. They are never to be trusted, Gears, Because they will always stab you in the back." I frowned a bit at her tears and once again realized the similarity of our situations.

By now, she was starting to whimper to herself as she let tears drip off of her face onto the floor. "I'm sorry, I know how you feel, we're all in the same boat; stabbed in the back." She nodded but still cried. I stood up and walked over to her. She looked up at me with those sad green piercing eyes, I gave a sad little smile and leaned forward to hug her. She paused for a moment before suddenly darting her head into my neck as she began to cry aloud, her free flowing tears starting to trickle down my shoulder. Oh goddesses, no, must be strong, must be strong, must not think about it, fuck... now I'm thinking about my home. I did the same with her and we sat there, helplessly letting out muffled cries into each other's shoulders. I think that night was the longest time I had ever spent crying in one sitting.

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Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Loyalty - Your good deeds, patience, and support for your companions make you an excellent leader figure, any followers in your service will follow you to the bitter end, likely whether you want them to or not. When your health drops below 50% all followers damage resistance goes up 50% and any shot to the body will be a critical hit.

Chapter 11

We woke the next morning in a rather... hilarious situation. Last night in our crying, we must have tired ourselves out and we had collapsed into each other, propping one another up like the sides of a teepee. I had no complaints about cuddling with this mare that I so adored, but one question lingered: How the hell did we manage to stay upright? Eh, probably we were too exhausted to shift around in our sleep, moping about our past is hard work.

As much as I didn't want to, I had to get up. It was morning, and we were in unfriendly territory. I shifted around, taking Lilly in my magic and gently laying her down on the ground as I staggered to my hooves. Oh goddesses, the floor had numbed my hindquarters. I needed to get some circulation going, so I silently trotted about. I checked my Pip Buck, behind me was a dot for Lilly, two dots in the other room for Rusty and Wendy, okay, what's this new dot? Downstairs, there was a green dot that occasionally flickered red. Lovely, First thing in the morning is to stab a sleeping pony in the throat.

I pushed my thoughts aside and drew the gryphon blade from my leg pocket in my stable jumpsuit. At this point, it was either he/she/it or us. I remembered the cheesy rhyme that my parents told me. Red, it's dead. Personally, I thought it was pointless to have a high tech targeting system and E.F.S. on an oversized wristwatch in a place where almost everyone was peaceful, but it had repeatedly proved its usefulness out here.

My clumsy hoofsteps caused the stairs to creak as I descended to the ground floor, but thankfully my target seemed to be a deep sleeper. Downstairs, my E.F.S. indicated the flashing red and green dot was directly around the corner. I steeled myself and declared, "Five." I popped around the corner, bringing my knife down full force at my target. In the slow motion of the S.A.T.S. targeting I got the chance to identify my target... Fuck me.

Abort! Abort! I screamed in my head, and just in time, veered the knife to avoid shiskebabing a blue colt with a dirty brown mane and A leather flight cap, despite his being an earth pony. His clothes consisted of pieced together rubbish, much like the two I had killed before. I cancelled the strike in S.A.T.S and my knife swung aside, nailing itself into the floor, making the colt jolt awake and jump back.

"FUCK ARE YOU CRAZY FRENZIED BITCH!?" he incomprehensibly shouted at me in his panic. Damn, this kid knew some language for his age. He looked as if he had just gotten his cutie mark. "Explain what you're doing in my house!" His house?

"Your... house?" I asked, prying the knife out of the ground.

"Oh what? you just barge in here and expect me to answer your questions, even after you tried to kill me? I don't think so asshole." He produced a grenade out from under where he sat on the floor and pulled the pin, still clamping the spoon to the side of the grenade in his mouth.

"Woah woah woah... slow down there friend." I say backing away from him and bumping into the wall. "I thought you were a.. a..." I point to the body in the corner.

"A raider?" he asked sliding the pin back into the grenade with his tongue. Wow, he was practiced. "Yeah, I am a raider, what's it to you?

"You're a raider? But you're just a colt." I say looking at the small blue foal with a cutie mark of a barrel with three X's marked across it. "Where are your parents? He motioned to the corpses in the corner of the room that I had killed earlier.

Shit. "I um.. I ah..." I said softly looking away, stiffening up for fear that he was going to pull the pin again.

"Ah, don’t sweat it, they were bastards anyway." I think I felt a little bit of myself die inside. How anyone could be so insensitive about that. All I know is that if we switched places, I would be strangling him right about now, but that had already happened, and that is exactly what I had intended to do to the Overmare.

"Does that matter?" he asked beginning to sound annoyed.

"Why aren't you trying to kill me?"

"Why, is it strange to you? Cause if you want I can put a bullet through your brain right now, or use you as paint." He flipped the grenade over in his hoof. I shuddered a bit, wondering what it would feel like to be torn asunder by explosives. "Well... I'm waiting."

"Ah, no thanks, I don’t feel like dying today." I say rubbing my arm awkwardly.

He walked towards the stairs muttering something along the lines of, 'Stupid bitch' I followed him upstairs to find him facehoofing at the discovery of my friends. "I count four assholes living in my house. You should leave." He said pulling another grenade out from a metal box.

"Ah! don’t kill them! Nonononono!" I said as he pulled the pin and tossed it into the middle of the room. Fuck! I dove for cover inside a closet, waiting for the explosion which came, its proximity making my ears ring. I fearfully stepped back out, but instead of having been splattered with the paste of my friends, they were just as clean as before, and a dazed and confused Lilly was stumbling around, yelling profanities as she ran into a bookshelf that brought a case full of empty bottles down on top of her, shattering and showering her in broken glass. In the other room, we heard a similar cacophony until Wendy stumbled out into the room. Meanwhile, on the floor, rolling around in psychotic joy was the colt, holding his sides and gasping for air as his face went from blue to purple.

As much of a dick move that had been, I had to admit, it was pretty funny. I felt myself losing control over my laughter as I trotted over to Lilly, helping her out from under the bookshelf, glaring daggers at me. I shuddered a bit, I didn't like that look, or all of the ill intent behind it. She stood, brushing my hoof off her shoulder, "Not cool Gears." She trotted over to help my brother up, shouldering him to his feet with a smile. He smiled back awkwardly and trotted in, trailed by a groggy Rusty. "So, who's the colt? Lost his mama?"

He was clearly unamused, "Ever say that again and I'll turn you into glue myself."

"Damn, kid." She said flattening her wars looking on at him in shock.

"He's a raider." I explain, "This is his house, we came in and killed his parents. And hes been... relatively hospitable."

"Yeah, until now. Get out, or I will do exactly as I said." He produced a grenade again. Goddesses, where did he keep all these grenades?

"Woah woah woah.. hold on, we at least need to plan ahead if we’re going to fight our way through here."

At this the colt perked up an eyebrow, "You're planning on attacking the town, well, I might as well tag along." Wait, what did he just say?

"What? Why? Aren't the other raiders your friends?" I asked, also receiving confused nods from my comrades.

"Yeah, well, the way I figure it, they have better loot than anything I could pick off of any of you." Ouch. Damn, I’m glad I never got to meet his parents face to face, because of what I've seen of it, this kid is the living embodiment of the wastes. Cruel, dark, abusive, and oppertunistic. I hope he didn't have any siblings.

"You mean you would just stab them in the backs?" Lilly asks in shock.

"Of course, why do you seem so surprised? I'm a raider." Well, another member of our group, but all of us had been stabbed in the back before as opposed to him, who was planning the stabbing. He shot up red flags all over, but strength was in numbers. Even if he was a colt, he still seemed incredibly violent. Maybe even a touch psychotic.

My Pip Buck flashed an alert, telling me a few things. Follower added: Boomer. Boomer has given you the 'pack-a-punch' perk. New quest added: Fight the Power! First objective, exterminate all raiders in the Ponyville ruins. The fact it used the term "exterminate" didn't help the uneasiness caused by the co.. er.. Boomer.

I looked at the colt who had pulled on a set of saddlebags and had begun shoveling grenades into them. How somepony his size was able to carry all of those grenades, I would never know. Lilly began working the bolt of her big ass rifle and checking the actions. "Can you even fire that thing?" Boomer snorted.

"Probably not." Lilly admitted, lifting the gun that may have well been twice her wingspan. Boomer held out his hoof, asking for the gun. "What? Seriously? If I can't fire it, I know you can't."

"It was my mother's rifle and yes, I have shot it before." He's gone from hating his parents to being wistful about their possessions, what is wrong with this kid? Lilly reluctantly offered him the rifle, and he took it, almost four times his size, turned it over and began stripping it apart. Lilly watched in despair as the only gun that hadn't been pointed at her was disemboweled by the colt, who after some tinkering, began putting it back together.

As the gun was pieced back together, Lilly's face began to relax. Maybe he wasn't breaking it, nope, he held out the rifle that Lilly promptly swept back protectively. In front of Lilly's hooves Boomer dumped a pile of brass shards. "These were in the receiver, a few more shots and you would be paint."

"Umm, thanks."Lilly stammered eyeing the shards of brass that could potentially been deadly. Boomer nodded.

"So when are we going to fuck their shit up?" He asked digging through a nearby cabinet.

I spoke up, "Well, let us wake up first, and then.. I guess we'll attack. What are we up against?"

"Ponies with guns. Wake up cause I'm short on sleep and someone's gotta pay." He emerged from the cabinet with a grenade launcher and a tiny battle saddle, pieced together with various rubbish, much like their armor. I looked over at the corpses of his parents. Huh, they were wearing armor, but I wouldn't stoop so low as to strip them for my armor. The wastes may be cruel, but decency still exists. Boomer is a... I'm not sure. Being a raider, I believed he was fairly good, he hadn't killed us. But he seemed like the kind of pony who would stab us in the back as soon as the right conditions arose

An hour and a split fifth of vodka later, we were ready to go to battle. I hovered my new rifle up, making sure it was loaded. "Ready?" I asked.

"As I'll ever be." Wendy said nodding, using the same tone we had when we left the stable. That worried me a bit, this wasn't our home, we had only camped here one night, it was dark, bloody, dirty, and for whatever reason, my brother was going to miss it. The only thing I would miss about it would be the safety it provided, which would be understandable. The wastes were a dangerous place filled with hazards, raiders, and colts who wanted to turn you into mincemeat with precision explosives.

Disregarding any worries we had, we stealthily made our way through the ruins of the small town, occasionally picking off raiders that either saw us or got too close. We had to have killed at least five by now, which doesn't help my confidence for the upcoming battle. Skirting around the edge of town, we made our way to a large tattered barn, bordered by fields full of withered trees. The bright, but worn red paint along the top of the barn gave way to darker, red smears of blood along the bottom level, the smears turning into splatters around openings in the old wooden structure. The ground around the building was stained a light shade of red. Various bodies were strewn all over, in various stages of dismemberment.

"I'll go on in." Boomer said loading his grenade launchers on his battle saddle. He swiped my bottle of vodka from my pack and chugged its contents. He threw the bottle to the ground shattering it before taking off as fast as his little legs could carry him, screaming his battle cry, "LIGHT THE FUSES, BITCHES!" He dashed by a window, firing one launcher at a time, lunging to compensate for the recoil. As he fired one, he reloaded the other as he circled around the barn, screaming and laughing maniacally while firing into the barn. As scared of the raiders (including boomer) as I was, I kneeled by my comrades with our weapons trained on the door, Wendy stood beside the entrance with a bottle full of diesel fuel and his lighter, and when the dazed and confused raiders inevitably stumbled out, already blood splattered and gore strewn, they were drenched in liquid hellfire before being silenced by the firing line set up by Lilly, myself, and the recovering Rusty.

Since we had the element of surprise, It was an absolute bloodbath. The charred bodies of the raiders joined the others strewn about the fields, but were still being pushed around by the force of Boomer's grenades. Even though all of the raiders were dead, he kept firing. And firing. And firing, until the click of his launchers brought an end to his vicious mutilation of the surrounding landscape. He laughed heartily and triumphantly as he kneeled over top of one of the raiders trying to crawl away. He pleaded for answers on why he had done this, but received none as Boomer began to carve him up with what looked like an old rusty letter opener. That answered my question of why raiders splattered their camps with gore, they were all obviously psychopaths. Boomer cept carving at him, even though he had long since lost the last spark of life in his eyes, and began to carve out his organs before throwing them all over like some sick confetti.

The four of us were all too mortified to do anything as we watched him gore what was left of the raiders cadaver. It was just as bad, if not worse than Rusty's episode. Rusty simply had crushed the slaver to death, Boomer had completely disassembled him and was rubbing the ichor all over him. I took a cautious step forward, when he didn't turn on me, I continued walking until I reached his side and kneeled down, he looked up at me from his kill, the fires of battle starting to wane from his eyes, I halfway expected him to break down and cry like Rusty had done. Instead he took in a deep breath and let it out smiling and going, that was great, I needed that. He wiped a piece of the raiders liver off of his face and stood up, trotting around and shaking the blood off of his hooves. I felt my insides burn right before I violently retched up the 200 year old cereal that I had eaten earlier.

"Fuck, you're so weak." Boomer snarked trotting back to the main group who all parted to keep a safe distance from him.

Once I had finished vomiting, I trotted back to the group as well and just rasped, "Boomer... that's not okay. Why do you do that?

He shrugged, "Just cause. Do I need a reason?" The level of threat in his voice told me I should hold off on the questions, lest I become his next victim. I shuddered at the thought of being killed like that. "Next stops Ironshod farms, right?" We all nodded and he took off in a northeastern direction.

We followed behind Boomer. I whispered to Rusty, "This kid almost makes you look sane." He glared at me, clearly not amused and brought his hoof around in a mighty slap upside the head. I saw stars, even though the cloud cover hid them from me.

I rubbed the side of my face, "Ow dude! That hurt, I was JOKING!" I said scratchily. Rusty glared at me spitefully, but as the mark welled up across my face, the glare softened.

"Uhm. Yeah, sorry, I just over-reacted. Sorry." He stammered shyly looking away.

"Its okay, really, I shouldn't have opened my mouth."

"No, really, I need to learn not to be so sensitive to my past." He said shaking his head and putting a hoof on my shoulder.

"You two! Stop your little lover's quarrel, we've, got ground to cover." Boomer snarked from up front.

"Stop talking at me like that!" I say defensively "There's nothing between us." I looked over at Rusty, whose feathers were ruffled as he was blushing heavily. At least I thought there was nothing between us, right? Besides, I have my sights set on Lilly. I looked upwards, scanning the sky for any trace of that mint green mane in contrast to the white clouds. I eventually found her directly above us at an impossible height that seemed impossible for someone used to living in a hole.

Beside Rusty, my brother was flapping his wings, attempting to gain altitude. Whenever he got any further than a foot off of the ground, he would falter, and tumble down onto the dusty earth. But that didn't stop him from trying again. Another thing about my brother, he's stubbornly persistent. I cringed each time he fell and staggered back up, every time with another cut. "You, basic rule of the wastes, don't waste your energy." Boomer said flatly, motioning to my brother beginning to bleed from one of his wings. I understand Boomer was trying to look out for us, which was ironic, but He didn't have to be such a dick about it. I cant tell if I love or hate him, at this point, I don't even know If I can trust him. H=Even though he was a kid, he still seemed like the kind of guy who would slit my throat as I sleep to make a quick bit..er..cap. My point is, I'm sleeping with one eye open. It's one thing to trust a psycho you've lived with your whole life, but another to trust one that you just met. Oh well... lets see where this takes us.

We all walked up the road heading northwest. Lilly flew high above, scanning ahead for danger. She must have had eyes of a gryphon, because even at her altitude, she returned the wave I sent to her. Also, the enormous rifle she carried didn't seem to restrict her movement as she flew. On the ground, Boomer was perched atop my back standing up, all he needed was a saddle and this would be almost cute despite the fact he was spattered with the blood of that one guy he just mutilated. He stood atop me pointing ahead almost like a little commander, I take that back, it was adorable!

Behind me side by side, trailed Rusty and Wendy. Wendy was limping from his repeated falls and Rusty was starting to tire out from all the walking. Up ahead in the distance, I could see the edge of the infamous Everfree Forest. For whatever reason, it looked untouched by the bombs that had destroyed literally everything else and turned Equestria into the hellhole that it had become. The way the leaves blew made me uneasy. There was no wind. We all stared at the trees in eerie silence.

"No stoppin' now. Keep walking!" Boomer barked, tapping me on the head.

"If you aren't enjoying the ride, they why don't you walk?" I asked, my irritability beginning to get the better of me.

"Make me." He asked with a smug grin.

"Thought you would never ask." I returned with a grin. He frowned, but before he could protest, he was bucked and sent sprawling across the ground a few feet away.

The dethroned colt coughed and hacked as the little dustcloud around him cleared. He looked over at me from where he laid on the ground, he hacked again "B..Bitch." I grabbed my stomach and keeled over laughing as he struggled to find his footing and wobbled his bay back up to his hooves. The rest of the party joined in the laughing, save Lilly who was still patrolling the skies. Eventually, Boomer gave and started laughing as well. For the first time he gave a genuinely amused smile. Who said there was no fun in the wasteland. I kneeled down for him and he clambered up onto my back again and we continued down the cracked tarmac to our destination.

* * *

The building was much larger than I had expected. It spanned farther than I could sprint in one go, and it was at least five stories tall. Given that half of it is a factory, that comes as no surprise. Even the front door was intimidating. Heavy steel on hinges, locked together with an enormous, almost cartoonish padlock. Scattered along the ground in front of the door were hundreds of broken lockpicks which marked the failures of earlier attempts to gain access to the factory. The heavy door was scarred and marred by various attempts to bludgeon the door down.

"Alright gearhead, get to work." Boomer urged as he pushed me toward the door, insane expectation and excitement in his eyes imagining the loot within.

"Calm down, I'm working, I'm working." From my bag, I levitated out a box of bobby pins. The lock didn't look too complex, I just needed to *SNAP*... Dammit. I pulled the bobby pin out and saw that It had been broken right in the middle. It wasn't a natural snap, It was clean cut right through the pin. Great, the lock was enchanted. Nothing I hadn't been able to handle before when I picked the lock to the basement in the stable. I levitated out the next pin and as I slipped it into the keyhole, a strong gust of wind knocked me off balance, causing me to lurch forward and snap the pin.

I grumbled, turning back to see Lilly landing, totally oblivious to the fact that she had totally ruined my concentration. What she said next only reinforced that belief. "Hey there Gears! Have you picked the door yet." That was my second to last pin, every fiber of my being pulled me so slap her upside the head and unleash the past day's stress in the form of a probably unintelligible rant, but years of being alone had taught me self control, so I pushed my anger away and sighed, turning around and drawing my last pin. Realization washed over her, "Oh, shit, I'm sorry for that Gears."

I sighed, "Its okay, I'll get it this time." I slip the pin into the keyhole and return to my state of nirvana as I picked the lock. The first pin gave, then the second, then the third, fourth, fifth, now I have to get the last one. As I pushed the last pin into place, I felt the bobby pin begin to bend, I stopped cold and began to turn the lock, hoping that my last bobby pin wouldn't break. To my credit, it didn't and the lock turned, unlatching the padlock with a sound of snapping metal. A smile spread across my face. "The key to everything is patience and concentration." I remove the slightly bent bobby pin, and because it was the last one, threaded it into my mane. "Now, let's get this open."

Everyone moved up to the door except an astounded Lilly who stared at the padlock in disbelief. "H-H-H HOW!? The Enclave's best locksmiths couldn't even pick that."

I smiled, "I had a lot of free time on my hands back home." I had picked a lot of locks in there, but I rarely stole anything. Any kind of thievery was punishable by death, along with various other minor crimes.

The doors loomed above us, then we realized that picking the lock was only half the battle. This door had to be at least three inches thick. Each one of them must weigh about a ton, but all we need open is one. Well, this is not a job for a lanky mare, that's for sure. As my brother alone tried in vain to wedge open the door with brute strength, it became clear to me that this called for some ingenuity. I surveyed the landscape and found a rock that I believed would function as a pulley. Out of my bag, I levitated a coil of rope and tied it to the door handle with a triple knot, reinforcing the knot so it wouldn't break. I took the other end of the rope and brought it around the rock. "Well strongman, you're up." I hand my brother the rope.

"What? Me?" He asked. "How will this help?"

"Trust me, it will." I reply.

"Need help?" Rusty asked, grabbing the rope. I doubted he had the strength to open the door, after all, he had probably lost about a pint of blood on account of being shot in the neck, but I wouldn't deny him the chance to help. Wendy stepped up, also taking the rope in his teeth. Boomer even joined in, heaving along with the two much older and stronger stallions. I walked up to the groaning door and watched as applied physics began to open it on its old, unrusted hinges.

I stood before the open blackness of the factory. "Let's do this." I take a step into the factory. I silently watched as red dots traced across the floor slowly. They all headed towards me. I flinched as they traced up my legs but relaxed as I realized they weren't harmful. They traced up and came to a stop on my forehead, a bit strange, but... wait...

We all frantically dove for cover as the turrets rounded on us, ready to cut down the intruders.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Enclave Master Locksmith - You've bested the top lockpicks in the Enclave. Any enchanted locks are 75% easier to pick, and with enough time, any lock in the wasteland is pick-able.

Chapter 12

The first thing I asked myself as the turrets began to turn to us was: I wonder what It feels like to die. But before I got the chance to find out, I was bowled over and dragged behind cover by a certain frenzied colt. He may be tiny, but he sure knows how to apply mass, even if he was never taught formally about physics. I seemed to be the only one paralyzed in fear because all of my comrades had been waiting for me behind the stack of crates that was already riddled with bullet holes from the turrets which had begun firing. I staggered to my hooves, not daring to peek over the crates for fear of losing my head, so I levitated out my rifle and brought it over the crates and attempted to fire blindly at the turrets. I telekinetically pulled the trigger but my gun had never went off. I dropped it down beside me and found out why. It had been chewed like a pencil by the hail of gunfire from the two security turrets. Any hope of the mechanism working was lost just by looking at the ruined weapon, so I cast it aside in frustration.

Times like these, I doubt that my ingenuity can save me, this is also the time Boomer grabbed me by the shoulders shaking me, trying to scare me into doing something and saying that I was the genius, and that I should solve this. I doubted myself, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try. I looked up and down the ceiling, searching for any kind of wires leading to the turrets. I found my way along a wire, leading to a wall terminal. That was all the way across the factory with no possible way to reach it without exposing myself to the turrets. I groaned and looked over at Boomer who was beginning to seem a little uneasy himself, probably wondering how long the crates would last until the bullets ate their way all the way through it.

“Over there is a terminal that might be able to shut off the turrets. I don’t think I would be able to..” He brought his grenade launcher to bear, cracked it open, and began loading shells into the massive grenade revolver. It was almost as big as he was but it didn’t seem to pose a problem. I observed that the shells he had loaded had a blue stripe around the case, and if memory served me right... “Right, I should get ready.”

“Ten seconds, can you make it?” He asked, angling his launcher for an ark at the turrets. I wasn’t too fast, but I’m sure I could make the run in that time. I nodded and dropped into a stance, briefly stretching out my muscles before the shell thumped of the launcher. I watched it ark towards the turrets and as they began to track the flying projectile, I darted off at fast as I could gallop, the other side of the factory seeming miles away. I turned my head and watched the shell erupt into a blue ball of crackling electricity. The turrets went limp and drooped, the red lights fading from their optics, and as quickly as they had gone out, they were back online. So close! I gave my sprint all that I could to make it behind a pristine shipping container, but the turrets weren’t going to cut me a break. As I dove for the safety of the container, I felt the bite of three bullets tear through my hind leg. I cried out as I quickly dragged myself behind the container. Not braving the look at my leg, I staggered up and limped my way to the terminal.

Each step was like being stabbed again and again as I took the walk to the terminal. My worry had turned to disdain when I realized that the password for the terminal was twenty digits long. I bashed my hoof over the top of the screen, I began to panic, if I didn’t get this down, we’re all good as dead. I remembered a small tin that I had picked out of a drawer at Boomer’s place. A tin with the lettering ‘Mint-als’ across it. It had been used before, because there was only one left in the tin. As it said, it advertized heightened senses, awareness, and enhanced clarity. If I was going to use these, now was the time.

I let myself fall down to my side as I levitated my bags beside me and started rooting through them in search of the tin which I eventually found nestled between a couple of books. I levitated it out and popped the lid, levitating the drug into my mouth and chewing it down. It tasted.. funny. Not necessarily unpleasant, almost like one of the chalky candies that one's grandmother would put on the table in a little dish for anyone and everyone to eat. Sort of minty, sort of marshmallowy, but definitely chalky. The flavor was forgotten as soon as the drug began to take effect. Sense of feel was already taking effect, as I could literally feel my pupils dilating. I could see in dark places and with no glare or pain, and most importantly, I could think clearly again.

I didn’t know how long the drug would last so I set right to work. I stumbled up to the terminal, bringing down the keyboard and planning out the hacking sequence. First I had to enter in the console command: secureset/inquire? From their, lists of words mixed into jumbled characters and punctuation came up and began to remove the duds, selecting anything between parentheses or brackets. This cleared up five results, leaving eight more. I selected the first three, which were all incorrect, then found the <> within the characters and replenished my allowances. I selected three more, which all proved incorrect as well. I had no more resets, and I didn’t have time to reset the terminal, so I guessed. The terminal accepted the password which turned out to be ‘ironshodfirearmspass’ which made me facehoof inside and remember rule #1 of a hacker. Just because a password is long, doesnt mean its complicated. Now one command came up: Enable Security Y/N? Y. The clatter of gunfire from the turrets behind me did not stop. This struck me as odd however, because the security should all be linked at once unless.. fuck. I called over to my party “Guys! Get ready! You’re gonna have company!”

They barely had time to draw their weapons as three robotic ponies materialized from the shadows, the wear of their two hundred year inactivity being in no way apparent in their movements.

“Security breach detected. Remain stationary until the problem is resolved.” Yeah, that was definitely going to happen. Boomer was the first to fire a shell from his grenade launcher, shooting the blue EMP shells in between the two back securitrons, who temporarily fell limp. Lilly brought her AM rifle to bear and swiftly blew the first one’s head violently apart. They all struggled to remain safe behind cover.

While they were busy fighting those three, I had somehow let my concentration slip and failed to notice the fourth one rounding the corner on my side. Shit, a broken legged unarmed pony versus a functioning armed one made of metal? Now was the time to face it. I was royally, utterly, and completley fucked. Scratch what I had said about it being armed, It carried no weapons, maybe it intended to crush my skull, but I can assure myself that it wouldn't be quick nor painless.

As it turned out, I was right. As it loomed over me, it picked me up by the head and began to squeeze very slowly, making my head throb with an audible heartbeat which was beating much too fast to be considered healthy. As the Mint-al wore off, It left me one last idea. All robots had a combat inhibitor, regardless of what it was designed for, it was called a “combat” inhibitor. And since I was a unicorn, I could telekinetically dislodge their programming chip and send it into a frenzy, which is exactly what I did. Through my throbbing, crushed head, I channeled all of my magic I could muster into yanking the chip, which slid out with machine precision.

The effect had been what I had hoped for when Luck decided to side with me. Instead of continuing to crush my head, it flung me aside into a wall before charging at the nearest dot on it’s built in EFS which happened to be turret number one. It bowled all of its mass into the side of the structure, knocking it over and tearing it from its base. The other turret which had just realized the securitron was now hostile, began viciously chewing through it with a lead firestorm.

All of this was dark and hazy as I watched from the wall. I gave a little halfhearted ‘humph’ of pride in my handiwork. Then the combined head trauma caught up with me and I felt my world being swallowed in the blackness of unconsciousness. Damn.. again already?

* * *

I woke laying down on top of the shipping containers that had been the salvation of my party while I made a run for the terminal. I knew this not because I could see it, but I could feel the marred metal surface of the container. It felt like laying on a bed of nails, or more accurately a cheese grater. More feeling came back so I could feel that my jumpsuit had been taken off, and i could feel the tightness of a blindfold across my head. Throbbing pain from my hind legs and a couple more areas of pain up along my flanks made me groan. I brought my hoof up slowly to my face to remove the blindfold, but was stopped by a quick hoof. "Hey, hey, slow down, you're okay." It was Rusty's voice.

I groaned again and asked, "Saved my ass again? Explain the blindfold please?" The words came out slurred and raspy, but the message got across.

Rusty inhaled deeply and sighed. "That robot that was crushing your head caused... somewhat severe trauma and..." It was clear he was stalling for some reason. "The light in here would give you a severe headache."

Not sure that this was the real reason for being blindfolded, I made another attempt to take it off, which was stopped again by Rusty. "Rusty... What do I look like? Am I whole?"

As Rusty went to answer, a warmer hoof rested on my shoulder. This time it was Lilly, "Trust me when I say that you're all in one piece. You're okay, Rusty dug out the bullets and we've healed you up." I could almost feel Rusty glare at her. "Er.. Rusty healed you up. You did take quite a hit to the head." Okay, two reports of confirmation were enough.

I struggled to sit up, and the colder set of hooves helped me into an upright position. "Okay, ill keep on the blindfold if it makes you feel any better. But I would definitely rather have it off."

"Trust me, having it off would be.. agonizing." Lilly said passing me a cold drink in a bottle. I tried to take it my magic, but I couldn't grip it, so I picked it up in my hooves. It was Icy to the touch and oddly shaped, and when I took a sip, I was greeted with an unfamiliar carroty flavor. I heard my pip buck click, but it was weak, so I ignored it as I took another sip.

"What is this? It doesn't taste like alcohol." I say smiling. The face movement sent a small jolt of pain through my head.

Lilly gave an amused laugh. "Not everything in a glass bottle is alcohol you know? It's Sparkle Cola." Uh huh. That explains the flavor. I had read a bit about sparkle cola, and how due to shortage of glass they were going to start canning their product. I was small when I read that, so I didn't get the message of bottles by context.

"So this is what it tastes like. Not bad." I say with a little shrug. I finished the bottle and blindly looked around. I tossed the empty bottle towards the left and to my disappointment, it didn't even shatter. Having a four strength was bad enough, but this was just embarrassing. I struggled up to my hooves, my reluctant muscles aching in protest, but I made it up and stretched each of my limbs. "Help me off of this?"

"Yeah, follow me" Lilly said as I felt her drape a wing over me. I could feel myself blushing, but we walked along the container sluggishly, leading down a ramp of other shipping containers. "I'm still impressed that you managed to pick that lock. Spy style nonetheless."

"Thanks, it just takes concentration, time and a couple thousand picks." She chuckled and I smiled. "So um, where's Wendy and Boomer?"

"They're off looting around the factory. That terminal did disable all of the security that hadn't already spotted us."

"How'd you deal with the other turret?

"We did what you did, took out a securitron's combat inhibitor. You're very clever, especially when you're put on the spot like that."

I chuckled and remembered the mint-als. "I had a bit of help."

She led me around a corner, "I'm sure you did."

"Where are we going? I'm all disoriented. Which way Is the door?"

"Were headed away from the door. Wendy and Boomer are this way. Also, let me say that I've never seen so many guns. Ever. Not even in an Enclave armory." Okay, now I really wish I wasn't blindfolded.

"Can't I just get shades? Please?"

"No light or you'll be more blind than you are now." She teased. Ugh. Sooner I heal up, the better. Without my sight I feel so lost. After a few stumbles and changes in direction, I was greeted by an enthusiastic cuff on the shoulder, the height led me to believe it was my brother, which it was. I winced and grimaced at the hard hit, but he must have mistaken it for a smile and gave me a tight hug, and at that I voiced me complaints with a series of 'OW's.

"Oops, sorry sis, glad to see you're okay. You did lose a lot of blood. That and the trauma, we almost lost you." Welp, this is the... I lost count of how many times I almost died out here already. I shot a look in what seemed like Lilly's direction. By her movements, I could tell she was shaking her head. Okay, they were definitely hiding something from me.

"Right... Find anything worth taking?" Of course they did, I just didn't like talking about my injuries lest I find that somehow I'm just a head in a jar.

"Isn't there anything not worth taking?" Boomer asked. He sounded ecstatic and I could hear him jumping around on top of a barrel with childish and slightly psychotic joy. "Grenades! Pipe bombs! Mines! Stickies! Dynamite! C4! Thermite! Satchel Charges! Warheads! *SQUEE*" Remind me never to stick around to let him use those. The way he was beating on the barrel suggested that he couldn't wait to kill with those.

Wendy gave a nervous laugh and i heard him trot off to where he was working before, then electrical zapping. Lilly groaned and flinched. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"He's using a cutting torch, its really hurting my eyes." She turned away and began leading me back to where Rusty was. This time, we used a much more efficient route and were there in no time. I was led back up top of the container where I would be able to overlook the factory. Last I remembered, it was almost pitch black in the factory though, they said the light was intense. Maybe they had found a way to turn on the lights. If that was the case, light would be bleeding through the blindfold. Ugh. I found my way down onto my stomach and laid there, blindly surveying the enormous factory. Lilly kneeled down and sat beside me. I smiled and closed my eyes under the fabric and rested my chin on my hooves. I didn't want to have to think about this any more.

Steps behind me announced the arrival of a bunch of unknown ponies. I turned my head to them in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse. Rusty trotted over to them, so I assumed they were the group of pegasi from Appleoosa who had volunteered to pull one of the shipping crates back. After a brief chatter, they departed and they could be heard heading along the path that led straight to Wendy and Boomer. The chatter echoed from that location, and the screeching movement of containers announced the departure of the first group. I observed as the sound got dangerously, then deafeningly close. I even felt the edge of the container tap my nose as it passed and I flinched back. Damn, close. As it transitioned from the concrete floor of the factory to the dirt and dust of the outside, the screeching ceased and the team of pegasi took off with the container securely in tow.

I turned my head when the next screeching started and heard the next container screeching past much faster than the other one had, given that this one also sounded much larger. As it came through the gap beside my container, I crushed against it, pulling the container slightly through friction. The container lurched forward and pulled me, smashing my face into the container.

With a slight tearing of fabric and a few gasps from me friends, I realized that the corner had torn off my blindfold. I rubbed my nose where it had slammed the container and opened my eyes. I was greeted by nothing but blackness. I babbled in disbelief with the crushing realization. I screamed. "I'M BLIND!" I staggered up trotting around in a frenzy, frantically waving a hoof in front of my face, Hoping that this was just a dream, that none of this was real. I wasn't blind, I wasn't thrown out of my home, my parents weren't murdered. My mind gave no relief as my friends dove onto me, tackling me down, rejecting each of my attacks for freedom. Before I knew it I was bound together by all four hooves.

I screamed out for help, but was silenced by a rag stuffed into my mouth. I was already scared and confused, couldn't I get a break. I flailed around to the best of my abilities before my head was grabbed and I could feel the hot breath of Rusty who was face to face with me, holding me by the shoulders.

"You're okay! Calm down! The reason I kept you blindfolded is because I knew you would react like this." Fucking hell! Of course I'm going to react like this! I'm BLIND! I struggled more, but rust pinned my head down by the sides of the rag and Lilly held my legs. I continued screaming angrily into the rag. "LISTEN! If you promise to stop struggling, and stop screaming, I will explain everything, okay?" I pushed aside my boiling sense of anger and betrayal in exchange for logical thinking and gave the best nod I could. "Good, untie her." He removed the rag as Lilly began untying my hooves and as quick as it happened, I was free and upright with another sparkle cola in my hooves. I was hesitant to drink it, but decided that if it was drugged I could use the rest, so I drank it, but found no overwhelming urge to sleep, only the hyperactivity of the caffeine setting in. I sighed, calming down.

"Let's hear it." I say leading my eyes up to where I presumed Rusty sat. It was a while before he began.

"Sorry for the whole lying about the blindness thing." Gee. That helped considering it had all come to pass. "Your blindness is temporary. Or at least should be. It was caused by the severe head trauma you've been through since you left the stable."

"How do you know?" I asked. He motioned to his Pip Buck with the small red plus under the rad meter. A medical Pip Buck, capable of doing medical scans as sophisticated as an auto doc.

"Now, as I said, this should be temporary. I had planned to keep you in that blindfold until you had recovered, and then you would never have known about this. I did this for your own good." He was being unusually formal. "Can you forgive me?" And there it was, the request to forgive the unforgivable .

I sighed and took a deep breath. "Rusty, you know this as much as I do, because you've been with me every step along the way, but I've been lied to too much, and this has been hard for me."

"I see. Sorry Gears." He sounded hurt, but understanding.

"I can still forgive you though." I heard him sigh in relief. "If you promise me something."

"What?"

"It stops here, you never keep any secrets from me anymore, and you tell may anything that you've lied to me about to date." I tried to imagine the look of uncertainty on his face, because his silence sure suggested it.

"I can agree to that." He said letting out a deep breath. These go back to the stable, and they're personal." Lilly got up and trotted off. Once she was out of earshot, he went to say something, but faltered. "First off, parents." He drew a shaky breath and he moved closer, sitting upright in front of me. "I didn't kill mine, and mute your mother. It was a planned attack by the Overmare." Ugh, another reason to want that bitch dead.

"Next, me spending time in the lower levels of the stable wasn't a myth. I needed psychotherapy after I killed the Overmare's sister." That explained why he was so level headed about the Overmare business, his appetite for revenge had already been sated to some degree. "And third and lastly." He stammered a bit trying to find the right words, he was clearly very troubled by this last one. "Third." His voice had turned to a shivering one that was barely intelligible.

"Third?" I asked, sitting up straighter, waiting on his answer, beginning to grow impatient.

"I-I..." He took a deep breath and let it out. I jumped in utter shock when he leaned in and brought is lips to mine in the deepest kiss I'd ever received from anyone. Ever.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Heightened senses - Your blindness has already begun to pay off. Judging distances, locations, speeds and motion without eyesight has heightened your Perception to an unaided maximum of 10.

Bonus: +10 Speech

Chapter 13

My first emotion when Rusty lunged at me was shock, then confusion. Its not that this was making me angry, I just was staggered by his sudden.. er.. confession. I did nothing to stop him, I just sort of let him do what he does. I didn't kiss back, in fact, I hardly moved. Forget making any advances on him during the moment. I didn't share these feelings for him, I didn't even know he felt this way, in fact, I believed he was gay. Now, thinking back to all those times he saved me, he did tend to give me special attention in contrast to the others. He always seemed so timid when I was around as well. Damn I'm blind, and not just because of the hit on the head.

I didn't know how to react, and I didn't. He was obviously really tense over this, so I let him continue. The emotional part of this would surely be good for him. Probably. He brought a hoof along my side and I could see he had no intention of stopping. I shuddered, I liked it, but I didn't want this. As soon as I found my limbs I put a hoof to his chest and gently pushed him away. We were face to face, so I could feel his blush as he realized he got too carried away.

"I uh. Um. Rusty.. Wow." I stammered pushing him further so we were both sitting upright again. He scooted away, still quite embarrassed of what he did. "When? I thought..."

"Stable. Long time ago." He squeaked, his voice becoming more regretful.

"Why?" I asked, keeping my sightless eyes trained on him. I didn't quite know what look I was giving him, but by his frantic stammering in search of words, It was probably a death stare, so I softened my face and hoped it didn't somehow make it worse.

He relaxed a bit and thought for a minute. "You were cute. Um, you were a lot different from the other mares. You liked to be alone, you didn't obsess over petty things like fashion, or bits like the others did. When we were foals, you actually talked to me." Since he'd had a crush on me since a long time ago in the stable, it sort of gave him the feel of a stalker, but a sort of friendly one. I remember the time I went and talked to him at lunch one day when we were in school. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was a dare by one of the other fillies at my table. As it turned out, he was nice, but incredibly shy.

"Why did you say you were gay?" I really wanted to hear the answer to this one.

"I wanted to make your brother more comfortable, I thought that if he was happy, you'd be happy." Ahhh. Clever. That was very clever. I never would have thought of that. My brother did seem at ease, well, as lax as one could be in the post apocalyptic wastes of Equestria, where everything wants your blood.

"I see." We both went quiet, and the thick silence was threatening to rob me of my hearing as well. I leaned towards Rusty and put a hoof on his shoulder. "Rusty, I.."

"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" He staggered up to his hooves and galloped away sadly. I sighed. From being able to pull a move like that to turning into a hermit crab. He clearly still wasn't stable, and I would like to help him out, but... that was asking a bit much from a friend. I felt slightly bad, and even selfish for still wanting to pursue Lilly. I sighed again. I would be able to think clearly and sort all this out if I didn't have so much shit to wade through.

"Everything okay? It seems you scared off Rusty." Lilly's voice said softly, each one of her steps coming closer and making my head throb from the banging of the metal. She sat beside me.

I sigh again and shake my head, "I don't know. I just had one of the most confusing experiences of my life just now." Funny, I didn't seem to care about any of the other things Rusty told me, his deep love interest was all that really troubled me.

"How so?" She asked draping her wing over me again. "What'd he say?" Goddesses I love it when she did that.

"I.. I just.. I honestly don't know how to say it." I say shaking my head. "Hes too shy for me to talk to him about anything."

"About what?" She asked again. She was persistent, I could give her that.

"He's apparently got a love interest for me, and before we could talk it over, he shied off." I say looking away from Lilly, hoping my hesitance on this topic wouldn't give my crush on her away.

"You mean like the one you've got for me?" She asked cheekily. Fuck, I had to say it, not just now, but I had to say to my brother. 'Oh, shes so cute.' I had to fucking say it! I was burning up in embarrassment, but I couldn't make a fool of myself.

"Uh.. where... where'd you hear that?" I asked, my voice was shaky and weak.

"Surprisingly enough, Rusty confirmed it, but I had a sneaky suspicion. I've seen the way you look at me." I felt sick to my stomach. I was still in shock from earlier, and this just broke my brain mechanism. She giggled at me as I just stammered to myself. So Rusty knew that I wanted Lilly, and that's why he was so incredibly shy towards me. Common sense has abandoned me at this point. But then again, psychology wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to. "So, what do you think?"

"Think?.. About what?" I was spending more time thinking than I was speaking.

"About Rusty, what are you going to do?"

"I.. I'm not sure. I guess I don't want to upset him, but I honestly don't... I don't like him that way. And then there's.. well.. you know."

She giggled cheekily again, damn her smugness, "Well, whatever feels right to you, that's what you should go with." Well, that doesn't help. I never was good at thinking emotionally. I use logic to balance out the benefits and the risks of things, but sometimes I get reckless, for example, when I'm angry, or when I get out of the clinic and I'm sky high on anesthesia. I have been somewhat cold in that respect all my life.

"I'm bad at that kind of thing, like, I don't know what I should do. I don't want to hurt Rusty's feelings." This was already taking its toll on me. It sucks having to make an impossible decision. I could hurt a friend, even though I'm sure he'd understand, and right here, dangling in front of me is the chance that I hoped for, which had already come so soon. Honestly, I barely knew either of them for more than a week. I audibly sighed. Lilly noticed I was really trying hard to think here so she began stroking my mane. It really did nothing but jumble my thoughts, but it was relaxing, so I leaned in against her.

I began breaking this down as I would any other problem and attempted to solve it systematically. I had two decisions. One that I would prefer, and another I wouldn't. However, the one that I didn't prefer would make someone else happy, but may also result in sadness from Lilly. I decided that either way I did this, I would be hurting someone's feelings, So it was back to me at the tie breaker, and it took me right back to where I started. Damn, what a paradox. It was here I realized that sometimes, problems couldn't be solved by functions and equations, and sometimes, you had to take a step out into the darkness and hope that you don't fall. And as long as your heart is in the right place, you wont make the wrong decision.

In my head, I began thinking of a way to apologize to Rusty, or at least console him for my decision. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into Lilly's neck. She scooted closer to me, tightening her wing's grip around me as I let out a long deep breath and gave a little whine.

"Tough decision?" She asked still stroking my mane. I nodded into her neck. "You decided on me?" She asked again. I paused a moment before nodding again.

"I feel sort of like a traitor." I whimpered, sort of beginning to tear up against her, matting the pristine white coat of her neck with tears. "He's done a lot for me."

"Its alright, its okay." She comforted, resting her head atop mine.I closed my eyes again,letting her warmth sap away my sadness. My mind was eventually clear enough to let myself be pulled under by the sanctuary of sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long hard day.

OooOoooOOOoooOooO

I was back in that crystal spire again. Like in the mountains, it wasnt as clear as it was back in Old appleoosa, but I was in control of a body. And this time, it actually was my body. It was very in depth for a dream though. I had all of my senses again, as opposed to most other dreams, where Im given only a faint glimpse of a vague subject before being awoken the next day. I again was at the top of the spire, letting the wind blow through my mane. I smiled and looked down on the ants of my kingdom, hundreds of feet below. I didnt mean ants to sound inferior, but at this height, they literally looked like ants. Not the enormous ones that would find their way into the stabe though. I mean proper ants.

I doubted that these dreams really meant anything, but I sure enjoyed them. I guessed I used it as an escape, because I had this dream whenever I was troubled. I wished I had wings so I could fly from my spot on the tower, but I didn't, so I stood up on my hind legs and put my arms on the railing, feeling the high altitude wind blow through my mane. I smiled and breathed in the fresh air and decided that since it was a dream, I could have wings if I wanted to, so I climbed up onto the balcony and let physics do its work.

I plummeted to the ground, cutting through the air at blinding speeds, and when I reached about a hundred feet, I began to arc, and blew along the ground at no more than a few feet. I was flying, and It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I don't know how I knew what it felt like, but it made me feel free, and I immediatley began to forget all about what happened today and focused on flying.

I arced upward, rolling over and helixing back down to the ground. I flew between gaps in buildings and through a nearby belltower, knocking the bell with my hoof as I passed. Its deep ringing fading as I began to climb again for another descent. I rounded the top of my flight path, and began to glide down, preparing to land. I began falling faster and faster, and I attempted to pull up, but my wings werent responding, I couldnt feel them anymore. This was not going to feel good.

The impact had done much worse than I had expected to, evne in my dreamworld, pain still existed, and as I smashed into the ground at barley subsonic speed, I felt every bone in my body bend, break, shatter, or puncture through my skin. I lay on the ground, broken, bleeding and screaming in agony as I looked down at my ragged body. I cried for help and felt my tears beginning to pool together under me. From a distance, Rusty galloped up to me, with his medical saddlebags open, holding multiple healing potions and bandages. I smiled in relief when he kneeled beside my. My relief came too early however. He looked over me and groaned. "Oh.. Its you." He grumbled and stood up, trotting away.

I called desperatley for him to come back, but he only swished his tail spitefully, stuffing his healing supplies back into his bags. I whimpered and began to cry again, both in pain and sadness. From his direction, another pony came galloping up, I became hopeful again, that maybe he had sent help, but that hope died in the pipe. Up ran up a fully grown, red eyed Boomer, spattered in blood, laughing inanely. The image unsettled me, but I really became terrified when he ran up to me and looked over me as If I was a meal for him. Something about the blood told me I was about to be. I gulped and cried in dispair. He bit down on my tail, and pulled me around and then up agianst him.

At this point, I was almost unconscious from blood loss, and then to add to the bleeding, he darted down, tearing a generously sized chunk out of my neck and laughed triumphantly as my juggular began to furiously spurt blood. I screamed, but it only came out as a panicked gargle as Boomer continued to eat me piece by piece. Eventually, he tore open my chest and tore out my still beating heart and showed it to me, displaying its bloody glint in the eerily happy sunlight. He opened his mouth wide and clamped down on my heart, causing it to explode bloodily, showering everything nearby in red. My vision began to go black and my screams began to fade.

OooOooOOOooOooO

I woke in the same place that I did when I fell asleep. I was nestled underneath Lilly's head and tucked under her wing. I was panting like I had just run a marathon. I was also hot and clammy, which was understandable, not just because of the horrifying dream, but because also because Lilly was so warm. I brought my hooves up to my eyes, waving them in front of my face. I still lacked any kind of vision. I took a deep breath and buried my face back into Lilly's neck. I cried over my dream. Not because it was so horrible, but because I could see all of that happening. I imagine that Rusty wouldn't be too happy with me.

Also, while it hadnt been on my mind too much of late, I had thought about what Bommer would turn into when he grew up. I was afraid of something like that happening to him, after all, I saw what he did to that other raider. Maybe we should but some effort into taming him down.

I didnt want to think about this anymore. I just wanted to forget today, and I guess my dreamland wasnt safe from terrors anymore. I nuzzled up agasinst Lilly more and brought her wing tightly around me. She stirred, but didn't wake. I covered up my face with her wing and closed my eyes. That night's sleep was shallow and dreamless.

* * *

I woke to Lilly gently nudging me with her hoof, when I opened my eyes, I received a dark blur with a twinge of varying degrees of light. "You alright? You're all hot and sweaty. Have a nightmare?" I gave an enormous yawn and nod. "Wanna talk about it?" I really wouldn't cause I'm sure she's sick of hearing about my problems. I shook my head and closed my eyes. "Hows your vision?"

"I can see light and dark blurs. And a little bit of color." I smiled, realizing that I would have my vision back after all. It was little comfort for the troubles of the day, but it helped. I sat up, slipping out of Lilly's grasp and stumbled up to my hooves, stretching out awkwardly to avoid falling off the container. I was stiff as I had been in a long time, and took another round of stretching.

Lilly giggled. "Why do you stretch like that? Its so weird."

"You're weird." I say sticking out my tongue and cracking my neck.

"You look like you're about to take it up the butt." She joked. I felt myself blush. That certainly wasn't something I wanted in a wasteland filled with violent horndogs.

"I.. I don't even know what to say about that one. I've always stretched like this. How am I supposed to stretch then?" I honestly wanted to know. What kind of muscle relaxation have I been missing out on?

"Nah, you're cute when you're clueless, you know everything too often. It makes me feel dumb." She laughed as I shot her a look. I was too tired to care too much about it, so I shrugged.

"So when are we heading back to New Appleoosa? I'd like to go get some rest there."

"Ehh, as soon as you're ready. We've packed a ton of new weapons. Most of the factory is unexplored, but we want to go ahead and get out of here."

"I'm ready."

"Good, we're actually waiting on Ditzy to come with the cart to take us back. She should be here any minute. The others said they would tell her to come for us when they got back to town." Ah, so when we get back, the town should be fortified. Hopefully, Ill have my vision back by then, because my sight had improved since I had woken up, I could now see colors, but everything was still a blur.

"Um, take me down to the ground and outside?" I asked looking about, observing the color changes at different elevations of the factory. "Please?"

She chuckled and said, "Yeah, come here, lets go." I nodded and stumbled over to her and found my way under her wing. She lead me down the ramps and down to the floor.

"Ah there you are, you two ready to go?" Wendy asked.

"Cause I'm starting to get fuckin' impatient." Boomer said trotting around in circles urgently.

"Yeah, we're ready and waiting on Ditzy." Lilly said as I opened my mouth to say the same thing. Rusty didn't say anything. I could imagine him glaring at me even though he probably wasn't. "Let's go then." Lilly began leading me to the door, and three sets of hooves followed us.

We stepped out into the sunlight which was blindingly bright in contrast to the darkness inside the factory. I even had to squint my eyes, because all I could see was white. We all stood around, letting our eyes adjust and waiting on Derpy, who eventually landed In a heavy gust of air that nearly knocked me over. How was I so helpless without my sight? I was last to be herded into the back of the cart which was crowded until Lilly and Wendy got out to fly, leaving me, Rusty and Boomer. I felt the cart lurch and we were soon in the air. None of us spoke, except Boomer, who didn't actually speak. He only sort of mumbled to himself in sick anticipation.

I decided that this was crushing me so I scanned around until I was looking at a reddish brown blur. I cleared my throat and sighed. "Rusty, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.."

"No." Um, no what? Was he that mad at me? "No, I'm sorry. It was my fault for pulling something like that and expecting you to embrace me with open arms." Well that was unexpected, but then again, I was new to relationships.

"Really?" I asked raising an eye looking at him again. He nodded.

"I am a bit sad, but I'll get over it. You aren't the only mare out there." He said with a little sigh.

"No hard feelings?" I asked tilting my head.

"No hard feelings." He echoed. He extended a hoof for a shake. I brought my hoof up to his and pushed it aside. He sighed sadly, but I leaned in and gave him a big hug, which softened him up. I felt him give a relaxed sigh, then he smiled.

It was about this time when Boomer stopped rambling to himself and chimed in. "Uhhhh, did I miss something? Did you all fuck?" God I wanted to smack him, but i looked at Rusty who looked back at me with the same mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Yeah, you missed it, this was a while back." I said grinning.

"Yeah, we just found out she was pregnant with my child." Rusty said holding in a snicker.

"Wha.. Really?" Boomer asked, his eyes going wide. "No, no way." He began to laugh.

"Yeah, you're gonna be a dad." I say tipping Rusty on the nose with my hoof. He nipped back at me with a grin. I felt that this joke was gonna go too far, but oh well, I'm sure this will be worth it. It was fun to mess with Boomer.

He chuckled. "Good for you two. I think. Don't be assholes to your kid like mine were to me. When I was a little foal, my real parents left me alone under a bridge with nothing but but a firecracker and a single match." We both stopped laughing to ourselves and I let go of Rusty. We both sat up, and Boomer returned to his self ramblings.

"That's rough. Sort of ruined the fun." I say. He nodded in agreement. "Well at least we've got some insight on why he is the way he is."

"Yeah." He seemed to be in thought. When he came back, he asked, " You know... Hypothetically... If we did have a kid." I laugh and shake my head right there.

"Not likely, and besides, I think I'm gonna try and straighten that out first." I motion to the quivering colt who was surely enjoying his imaginative rendition of his new toys in action.

He snickered, "Good luck with that."

We felt the cart lurch again as it began it's descent. Soon, we were on the ground and I was being led out of the cart by Lilly. I could tell because my vision had returned to the point where I could make out the colors, light, and shape. I smiled and looked around the town. I could hear steady, controlled gunfire from one side of the town. From the corner of my eye, I saw the approaching sheriff.

"Welcome back, y'all did a fine job. Ain't never seen guns this fine. We're trainin everyone to use em now. Were gonna start fortifyin the town for attack soon. Yer works done, and as promised, you get the house on the edge of town. We appreciate all your work." He pulled up my hoof and handed me a scroll of paper and a key, which I presumed to be the deed. "Y'all take it easy now. I gotta get back to the range." He trotted off and I looked around at my excited party, who quickly ushered me along to our house.

I stood on the doorstep and levitated out the key and slid it into the lock and popped the door open. By the gasps of my friends, it sounded good. Very good. I trotted in and slumped down onto the nearest couch which was softer than a bed in the stable. Ohhhh.. A mare could get used to this. I grinned and stretched out on the sofa, letting myself really relax for the first time in days.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up

Perk Added: Home sweet Home: You have found a nice comfortable place to call your home and have become more organized because of it. +15 barter in New Appleoosa affiliates. +15 guns due to the range in town.

Chapter 14

I kicked my hooves up onto the arm rest of the couch, much like I would do back at home after a busy day of maintenance work. It felt exactly like a stable sofa, which was eerie, but at the same time comforting. I had doubted that all the stables made it, I knew some were bound to fail, and so it was possible that I was sitting on a genuine Stable-Tec sofa.

I opened my eyes and looked around the building. I was in the living room, up some stairs, a catwalk overlooked the living room. From where I was sitting, a short hallway led deeper into the house. At the end, I assumed there was a bathroom, and the two doors must lead to bedrooms. The living room was fairly large, so It doubled as a kitchen.

Inspecting the other furnishings closer, I could tell the blinking lights of old servers and pointlessly oversized tape recorders/players. It was all Stable-Tec, from the vent slats attached to the walls to the cushions underneath me. It was all in startlingly good condition too, and the attention to detail was amazing. The yellow stripes on the top and bottoms of the walls were exactly where they should be. The walls themselves had been evened out with a thin layer of drywall. The knob doors had been painted like the sliding Stable doors. All the details blew my mind, but then again, I was semi-blind.

The Sable furnishings were comforting, and for obvious reasons it reminded me of home. I'm sure that the Appleoosans were proud of this work of art, but it was also very creepy that all of these things were once used. A metallic, smoggy smell wafted through the air. I was starting to feel homesick, and for a second, I was back in the Stable, back when things were simple. There was some degree of peace. Dad stood by Mom, who was cooking on the range that I had brought back to working condition. Wendy sat in the corner grumpily reading a 200 year old magazine. Dad kissed mom on the cheek, Mom, being herself, mutely giggled, knowing what he was really pestering her for, and plucked a carrot from the strainer at her side and stuffed it into his mouth and went back to cooking. He smiled and munched it down where only the stem was left protruding from his lips. We were so happy back then.

I sighed as my vision blurred back to reality, I miss them so much. It was hard knowing that I was never going to see them again, that they were cold and half decayed underground together as they always were. I thought I was done moping about their deaths, but all these memories came flooding back to me. I turned over on the couch and buried my face in it to ensure that no one else saw me crying. I just couldn't seem to let this go. I remembered my mission, and what my overall goal was. I had gotten so caught up in all the things that have passed since our exile, but now, a new kind of blood lust began to plague my mind. I wanted her so dead, but I shouldn't let the thirst for vengeance be the only thing to lead me back home. I was gonna go home and live again, try to salvage my life. I doubted that Lilly or Boomer would follow us in and live in the Stable, so my sense of urgency was conflicted. I wanted to get my revenge, but I also wanted to stay with my new friends, and my marefriend. This is another one of those damn unsolvable paradox equations that left me to emotion, but here, two different emotions pull me in two different directions. I would miss everyone here in Appleoosa except for the guys who shot me. But here I was getting ahead of myself, I still had a long way to go before I got home, I would have plenty of time to sort all this out in my head.

I felt a weight on the edge of the couch, but I didn't look up. I could tell by the amount of weight (or lack of) it was Lilly. And logic told me that if anyone else did it it would be weird.

"Like the furnishings? I put in some ideas with the sheriff." She asked in a happy tone.

I nodded and let out a shaky breath, "You did this?" I asked in surprise. "I love them... Its just.." I let out a little whimper.

"Homesick?" She asked reaching out to stroke my mane. Damn, only knows me for a week and can read me like a book.

"Violently so." I say sitting up and wiping my eyes. I gave her a little smile. Which she returned. "It only strengthens my hate. For the Overmare, but I love the furnishings." I saw my brother nod from his place on a stool. I took a look around the room. Rusty had disappeared, along with Boomer, both I assumed had left to check out the rest of the house, or go catch a nap in the beds.

"So. How are you two?" Wendy asked, looking back at us. "I mean..."

"Coupled." Lilly says with a little smile. I smiled too and leaned against her.

"Oh.. Cute." Was all he remarked sincerely. I hoped he found someone soon. I saw the way he looked at Rusty, but.. I think he's gonna be in for a hell of a surprise when he finally makes a move on him. I snickered to myself at the image of Wendy pinning Rusty down and trying to kiss him, and then Rusty returning the favor with a hearty sucker punch to the chin. I began to laugh harder, clutching my stomach and keeling over slightly.

"Oh what's so funny?" He asked, raising an eye curiously. I was laughing too hard to answer.

"She just had a think, I'm sure." Lilly said starting to snicker. We already thought too much alike, I'm sure she was imagining the same thing. Wendy began to nervously laugh, unaware of what happened between Rusty and myself. I yawned, the energy of amusement beginning to fade away, and realize that even though I did nothing but but eat, sleep, and get shot, I was still tired, and only slightly hungry. I stood up and trotted over to the locker style cabinets, which what at home, I used to store food. Not to my surprise, the locker was empty, after all, it was somewhat difficult to come across food that was worth eating. In the Stable, the food was recycled. As nasty as it sounds, it was actually not bad. It got bland after a while, and the first time I ate a box of sugar bombs from out here, it was well worth the small cost of being irradiated. Regardless, I still missed the grey protein mush. Vegetables were endlessly grown however, and were among my favorite snacks.

So, since we now have cabinets, I decided, 'Why not use the locker for something practical?' Gun storage seemed perfect, given that the locker was fairly large. Standing upright, you cold probably fit Boomer and myself into it, so it was big enough to hold most of our weapons. Guns, from what I heard were fairly rare, so they should be kept safe. It made sense, cause the only guns I had seen were on important figures around town. Strike the raiders of course, which probably attained the guns by killing others with guns, and then suing it to do unspeakable things to their corpse. Now that we had unlocked Ironshod, everyone in town had a weapon. I even noticed blurry little foals carrying around pocket pistols. One thing that I worried about was if anyone bad got into the factory, those weapons would be openly available to the wasteland. But I guess that was inevitable, wasn't it?

I trotted around, looking for the huge dufflebag crammed to bursting with weapons that I had never known existed. I heard steps exiting the room, and assumed it was Wendy leaving to go find something to do, or perhaps him heading to bed to rest up. My vision had improved drastically, so I could make out the shapes of the guns as I attempted to sort through our loot. I eventually came to Lilly's enormous AM rifle that she used. I brought my hooves around it and tried to lift it, I struggled until I finally brought it a whole foot off of the ground before dropping it with a heavy thud. Lilly, who was still laying on the couch, giggled at my attempt and stood up, heading over.

"You're so weak." She said sticking her tongue out and with a swing, brought the gun upright, where she leaned against it, herself also standing up.

"How do you even fire that thing? Without magic I mean?" I asked, looking baffled at the strength she applied to the towering rifle.

"Oh, that's fairly simple." She leaned in grinning and whispered, "I have gun training." She used one of her hind hooves to kick the gun up as she stood upright in a wide stance, catching the rifle in her hooves, aiming it at a wall. "Now, an important thing about firing this one is that it kicks like a mule. And when it does, it takes practiced timing." She imitated the kick of the rifle, slamming it hard against her shoulder, and using the force to spin all the way around, facing the original wall. And here I was thinking I was good with a gun, she astounded me. I really was glad that I was on her side. Not only because of her skill, but she also seems pretty proud of herself. I liked that.

"I don't even know what to say about that." I say staring at her strange stance. "How do you pull the trigger?" She rolled her eyes and tilted the gun down, displaying the trigger guard to me, which had been widened to fit a hoof into it, or a tip of one anyhow. "So, care to teach me about these things?" She shrugged and leaned her rifle on the couch and sat on the floor next to the pile of weapons. I joined her, and she picked the gun out of the pile that looked almost exactly like mine.

"Do you know what kind of gun this is?" she asked holding it out for me to inspect.

I shook my head and dumbly said, "One that kills things?" She laughed and shook her head. "How do you know so much about weapons? Obviously you ar-- were Enclave, but do you all know about these guns?"

"Only a few of us know about conventional weapons like this."

"Conventional?"

"Yeah, most of the Had started using energy weapons. I didn't like them too much, they felt too artificial, I'm a classic sort of girl." Uh huh, this is getting interesting and potentially deadlier by the minute, but I guess it cant hurt to know.

"Energy weapons? Like laser guns?"

"Ehh, kind of. Laser, plasma, Gauss, pulse. That sort of thing." I was going to act like I knew about them because I didn't feel like a lecture about every single one of those if I wouldn't be using them in the immediate future. "Now want to get back to the lesson?" I nodded and so began an hour long lecture about lever action rifles, their history, who invented them, when, and why. This branched into a longer spiel about the .556 round and all of its useful applications, then different bullet types such as hollow point, explosive, armor piercing, and incendiary, which led into their applications, then to all the different guns we had here. For once in my life, I spent hours trying to keep up with a teacher. She taught me all that the time allowed, and until I was half asleep when the sky darkened. But at least I came out of it much more aware than I was before.

I swayed and leaned into her, who had just finished a lecture about Boomer's grenade launcher. She let out her own yawn and sat the weapon down. The look on her face suggested that she hadn't intended to get so carried away, and that losing track of the time was not intentional. We both stood up and stretched out, stiff from hours of sitting on the floor. "Ready for bed?" she asked, to which I nodded, but held out my hoof motioning for her to wait a minute.

I numbly shuffled over to Boomer's bags and began rooting through them, I returned to Lilly carrying a box of sugar bombs. He wouldn't miss them. "Yeah, now I'm ready." She smiled and chuckled and we headed down the hall and went into the bedroom with the open door. I climbed up into the bed, which had been fluffed up beyond Stable-Tec standards so it didn't feel like a rock. Lilly followed me up and we both sat with our backs to the headboard, sharing a box of stale sugary cereal. The warmth of each others bodies lulled us both to sleep as I slept dreamlessly, letting the box of cereal half eaten. That was one of the best evenings of my life.

* * *

I woke up, and had somehow shifted sideways on the bed. Cereal was everywhere, in the sheets, all over the floor, stuck to us, and it was going to be a living hell to clean up. But we've got more things to worry about doing, like barricading the town for the impending attack. There's plenty of time to clean up massive cereal spills when you're dead.

I decided not to rouse the still sleeping Lilly because she was lightly twitching, and the smile across her face suggested she was having a very nice dream, so I left her to it as I worked my way quietly out of bed and slipped out into the living room. Being the only one up, I decided to start the morning off by appeasing what was left of my OCD. I cringed at the pile of bags that was left behind to be dealt with later, but knowing my friends, later would never come. I sat on the couch, levitating the items out of the bags to see that they were all there, but didn't touch Boomer's bags. I feared for what may be inside it. Honestly, I've never been so scared of a colt in my life, not even in my childhood.

I got to my bags and began sorting my items about. My old knives, batons, sticks. All the things that have helped me survive all that had passed. I started rooting through my clothes I brought and found a nice clean Stable jumpsuit that I slipped on. I found the old ragged, burnt, torn and bloody suit and examined it. I found a large bulge in one of the pockets, and since I couldn't find the flap, I just tore through the pocket. The perfectly round, hoof sized clear ball fell out and bounced across the couch before settling in the crease between the cushions. I stared at it, pondering what I should do with this, and what it does. I levitated it over and sat it atop a dented area on the locker so it wouldn't roll off and shatter on the concrete floor. Then again, it went through hell with me, so I doubted it would break that easily.

I continued rummaging through my bags when I felt a set of hooves wrap around my shoulders. "Watcha up to?" Lilly asked, looking over my shoulder at the mess of trashed items all around me.

"Stuff." I said shrugging and smiling, not looking up at her.

"What kinda stuff?" She asked playfully, reaching out and picking up the bit of pipe that kept me alive on the trains.

"Stuffy stuff." I said turning to face her. She let go of me and hopped over the back of the couch, taking a place next to me.

"Hey, a cereal bomb went off in our room." She said, raising a hoof and motioning back to the rooms.

I chuckled and nodded, "Yeah, I noticed. I didn't wake you up. So.. What were you dreaming about?"

"Oh. Well, if I told you.. I'm not sure how you would react." She said smiling awkwardly.

"My parents are dead and my home stabbed me in the back, I doubt this could be much worse."

"Yeah, well. I had a dream that I was dating your brother. It was... a strange dream." I just cocked an eye. "You and him are a lot alike. I sorta liked him, but I know I didn't have a chance cause.. ya know." She blushed sheepishly.

"I don't even know what to say about that." I say chuckling, "We are nothing alike, in fact, we're polar opposites." She gave an embarrassed little shrug.

"Well, I do like you a lot. You're cute." She said giving me a little tap on the nose with her hoof. "And you're smart, I like that." I smiled and layed into her, nuzzling into her neck and smiling. She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

As much as I wanted to curl up with her and get some more sleep, we had work to do. I looked up at her and said, "Should we go? I think we should go on and help with the town." She nodded in agreement and we both stood up. I levitated a pistol from the still unsorted pile of weapons and placed it in my pouch pocket on my back leg.

We both stepped outside into the wasteland, looking around at the land, turned blue grey by the early morning light filtering through the Enclave's cloud layer. Mares and stallions milled about the town carrying boards to their destinations to fortify various buildings. The bell tower and the pub roof were two of the completed areas of reinforcement with battlements sturdily attached around the roofline. Most of the other buildings were in some stage of improvement and strong wooden barricades lined the streets in rows leading up to the tracks. Clearly someone here was a strategist, because the order looked like a defensive position I read about in one of my books.

As I surveyed the town, I was unaware of the white pony sneaking up on us, and before I realized it, he was between Me and Lilly with arms around both of us laughing heartily. "Howdy ladies! Come out to help us fix up the town like a rock?" We smiled as the eyepatched sheriff motioned around. "And as ya'll can see, I think we're doin' a fine job."

"Need any help?" I asked him, to which he nodded.

"All the help we can get, Ditzy says they'll be here by tomorrow, give er take a few hours." Shit, we need to move, now.

Lilly and I got out of his bear hug and turned to him. "Where do you need us?" She asked.

"Whelp, I assume that ya'll are gonna want some place near the front lines, C'ept you, I seen that rifle of yours, you're gonna want the bell tower. So you two can go work on that building." He motioned to a building near the edge of town, which was also near the tracks.

"Okay then." Lilly said turning to me. "Ready to do this?" I nodded and we set off for the cart filled with lumber.

* * *

About three hours later, it was daylight and the wastes were beginning to get hot very quickly. Lilly and I worked on either side of a board, her hovering on the outside nailing it up as I held it up. The heat was making me sweat heavily in combination with all the work. I'd never had to do this much manual labor at once. We were on our third building, my muscles ached from holding up the boards, and my horn still ached from my head trauma. But all this would pay off in two ways. All this would make me stronger, and it will protect the town, so I pushed past my pain and continued to work.

My mane was dripping with sweat, but Lilly had tied hers back with a rag, she was more used to work, seeing as though she was stronger. She wiped her forehead after hammering in the last nail. "Ahh, that's number three, ready for a break?."

I shook my head hard, spattering out the sweat and wiping my eyes. "Yeah, I'm beat, what did you have in mind?"

"Go to the bar?" She asked pointing to the pub which was still in service despite the continuous renovations.

"Of course, let's go." I doubted a drink would really be good for my head injuries, but I didn't care, it had been forever since I had a drink, and I'd like to see how well they dealt with the bar fight from what seemed like ages ago.

We both walked into the pub through the swinging doors, we received a dirty glance from a group in the corner, and a fearful one from the bartender, hoping that nothing would happen this time. Lilly and I took a seat at the bar. We both decided we would share a scotch, and try something new, so the bartender set out two glasses for us along with a bottle of scotch. I reached into my pocket to get the caps to pay, but the bartender smiled, realizing we weren't wanting any trouble. "On the house friends. you've done a lot for this town, and your guns've helped us run most of the scoundrels out of town." He dropped his voice and said, "Most." Shooting a quick glance to the group in the corner.

"Yeah, sorry about breaking your bottles last time, was an accident."

He laughed and smiled, "Naw, its alright, totally worth it to see that asshole get his just desserts. And no offense, but I didn't expect a stable pony to do something like that." Lilly began pouring us our drinks and I picked up my cup.

"Well, I don't guess I'm an average stable pony."

"I'd say, Most newcomers done even make it to Ironshod alive." That was unsettling, i gave him a smile though, because I really didn't want the details.

"Thanks. So, just out of curiosity, how many slavers are going to show up?" I needed to know what I was up against, after all, we had only seen two of them, they were mean ad brutal, but went down like any other one unfortunate enough to piss rusty off. Which reminds me, I hope he can control his temper during this fight, I don't wan't him charging out there and getting himself killed.

"Bout a hundred of em. We outnumber em five to one, but they're trained to kill. I don't like them odds too much c'nsiderin that a fifth of our population is under the age of fifteen. But I'll be damned if we don't start fighting back. Them slavers took my wife, my boy and burned down my house."

The odds weren't too good, but I understood his loss. "How long ago we're they taken?"

"Train that left just before you arrived, I'd say that if you freed all their slaves, they aren't going to execute em, rough em' up a bit maybe, but I'm sure they can handle themselves."

"Well, I hope they're alright, but I know how you feel." He nodded in agreement and poured another glass of scotch.

"This ain't a normal drink for cheers, but what the hell." He raised his glass up. "To victory." Lilly and I did the same and met his glasses over the bar in a piercing clink, we downed the contents of our glasses and sat our glasses down. "I want ya'll to have something for later, you know, when the occasion calls for celebration." He reached under the counter and produced a bottle of what I believed was red wine. "Now I know t'ain't much, but I hear you're a good fighter when you're liquored up. And besides, you saved my bar from the gang, I owe ya one."

Lilly looked over at me and smiled. "Ohh, fancy." I nodded and smiled back.

"I'll be sure to drink this later, thanks... er..."

"Names Buck." He extended a hoof, which I met and shook. "Nice to meetcha." Lilly and I both laughed. And introduced ourselves. He laughed as well, "Funny, you're heroes round here, but none save Ditzy and Silver know your names. We just been callin ya one, two, three and four."

"The one that has the slicked back mane and the medical boxes is Rusty, and my brother's name is Wind-Fire, but we all just call him Wendy. The little blue colt's name is Boomer, and it may be best to avoid him for a little while. He's a... semi-former raider."

"Alright, thanks ya'll, and good luck out there whenever the battle comes." Well, this bartender was one of the nicest ponies I'd met. Aside from Ditzy of course. He just seemed to glow with sincerity, I'm glad to have another friend out here.

"Likewise friend." I said to him. He nodded and returned to cleaning mugs behind the counter. I know I said it before but I'll say it again. Its good to know there are decent ponies out here, but this is New Appleoosa after all, where everypony is friendly except the ones that aren't.

Lilly and I sat in the bar for a little while discussing battle plans and strategies and running out scenarios. I understand why she is so good at this, her father was an Enclave general. We kept on for about an hour, before we headed back outside. Nopony was working, because the town had been finished, and rifle wielding ponies stood up along the battlements, waiting on attack. Lilly and I shrugged and we headed home, where everyone sat in the living room, working their guns out, testing, and maintaining them. My brother was fiddling with something that looked like a saddle, only a lot more... I don't even know how to explain.

"What's that?" I asked sitting down beside him.

"Battle saddle." He replied flatly, very absorbed in his work.

"What's it do?"

"Helps non-unicorn ponies fire guns more effectively." I looked over at Rusty, who had his in what looked like working condition, with an assault carbine on one side and a shotgun on the other.

"Where'd you get them?" I asked.

"Bought them."

"From who?"

"Ditzy."

"How much?"

"Fifty caps each." Little pricey, but Its not my money to spend.

"Hoes it work?"

He looked up at me scowling, he didn't seem happy that my constant pestering had finally broken his concentration. "Your marefriend's a pegasus, I'm sure shes seen one before, how about you ask her?"

I began to laugh, Lilly nodded but I finally got my laughing down to a chuckle, "I can see how it works bub, I know about mechanics."

He seemed frustrated. "Fine, If you can work it, why don't you fix it for me?" He handed me the entire saddle and slid his two weapons of choice over to me. Since I had never worked one of these before, I was running on guesses, so I took one of the rifles and popped it into the saddle holster, brought the reloading bit into place below the receiver. I found the mouth bit and the cable running to the firing mechanism, which I slipped into the trigger and locked into place, I tapped the mouth bit and the rifle clicked, ensuring I had done it properly. I repeated the process with the other side and levitated the saddle back over to him. It made my head ache a little, but it was worth it.

His scowl turned to a smile as he stared at it and chuckled. "Damn your ingenuity, what's next, getting the stable door open all by yourself?"

"I wish." I said, laughing again. In total time, it had taken me about ten minutes to fix the saddle, and we spent the rest of the day picking, cleaning, and adjusting our weapons of choice. My two were a small pistol with an attached silencer, and an assault carbine like Rusty's.

As we packed our weapons away into the locker, the sun had began to set. After a short series of tactical planning, we all retreated to our rooms, but Boomer slept on the couch.

"Don't want a bed?" I asked him as I passed the couch.

"Nah, don't wanna share one with a faggot." He snarked.

I stopped and turned back at him. "Ouch, watch what you say, that wasn't very nice."

"Oh what, you gonna cry? Pfft. Baby." He said rubbing his hooves over his eyes in mock crying.

I stepped towards him, looking over the edge of the couch, remembering how young he was. "Take it back."

"Why should I?"

"Where I come from, you know what we do to naughty colts?" I narrow my eyes menacingly.

He lost his snarky grin, my face must have been terrifying. "What?" He asked coolly.

I grinned. "Well.. we TICKLE THEM!" I reached down and began to tickle his exposed belly. He began to laugh and protest as he jerked around to avoid me, but I was quick. I plucked a loose feather from Lilly's wing and magically tickled him with that.

"AAHHH HAAA! AHH HAA! STOP THAT YOU BITCH! AHHH HAAAA!" He rolled around laughing uncontrollably, He was totally at my mercy. He flailed his hooves around to no avail as I continued relentlessly tickling him.

"OKAY! OKAY! I'M SORRY ALRIGHT?? JUST STOP!" He managed to breathlessly choke out between laughs.

"Not enough! Say uncle!" I said, not letting up on my assault.

"WHAT? NEVER!"

"Saaay iiittt." I said, laughing myself, it was fun, and probably unlike any torture he'd had before.

"NO! WHY! I CAN'T BREATHE!"

"I'll stop if you say it!"

He tried to keep his dignity, but couldn't, because he eventually cried, "UNCLE! UNCLE!" And I broke away laughing, dropping the feather on him as he continued trying to work all the laughs out of his system. I smiled and trotted back to my room, he may have gone through a ton of shit in his childhood, But I could still do things to help make it better.

Lilly followed me in, shutting the door behind her. "I can't believe you did that!" she was laughing to herself. "That was great, I never thought you'd get him to say it."

"I have my ways. I said emptying my pockets and stripping off my jumpsuit.

"That took guts, I wouldn't have done that, I'm afraid he's gonna find some way to retaliate."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"So, want to drink that wine?" Lilly asked reaching down into her bags.

"Why now?"

"We don't know If we'll be around tomorrow to enjoy it. Why not?"

"Can't argue with that." I said opening a drawer and setting out two empty coffee cups. She smiled and poured us each the cup up half full. We sat down on the bed like we did last night against the backboard and each drank a cup and had another poured before either of us spoke.

"So, you really think you can change him?" Lilly asked looking at the wall, where on the other side, a sleeping little colt was probably dreaming of tickling one of his victims to death.

"I don't know, maybe. I hope so, I want him to have a better life than what he's had."

"You seem almost like you want to be his mother or something." Lilly said taking a drink from her wine.

I shrugged. "Bit young to have my own, ya know?" I took a drink myself. "Besides, I doubt I would want one until I got back into the stable anyway. Too dangerous out here."

"Yeah, I understand that. I guess Boomer's a good place to start then." She drank the rest of her wine. I had never considered mothering Boomer to try and straighten him out, but I had considered just being like a big sister, which is what popped into my head during the tickle armageddon.

"Yeah, I guess so." I downed the rest of my wine as well and I scooted down to where I was laying on the bed with my head on the rocky pillow.

"Don't guess you have to worry about being a parent out here." Lilly said with a cocky grin.

I smiled back, "You would think so, but the slavers say otherwise."

She chuckled and there was another silence. Lilly scooted down beside me. "I'll keep you safe from any slaver's rape pregnancy."

I smiled, "Thanks."

"Hey, wanna do something fun?" Lilly asked pushing her mane out of her face, her eyes were wide with excitement. This would be good.

"Uh, sure, what'd you have in mind?"

"Ehh, nothing much." She sat up and hopped over top of me, pinning me down with a deep kiss, much like Rusty did a couple days ago. This was a bit early, but I didn't protest like I did with Rusty, in fact, I kissed back. I went with her philosophy of 'we may not be around tomorrow to enjoy it' Lilly was right, I could tell, tonight was going to be fun.

================================================================================
Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Strategist - You know the land well, and when in a scenario of defense, you get +10 to Guns, Medicine, Melee, Repair, and +1 to Strength.

Bonus: Lover's Respite - +1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes for 12 hours.

Chapter 15

*BANG!*

Mmmmmh, what a night. I woke up all sweaty and warm, pulled deep under the covers with pillows on either side of my head. The alcohol sparked sex fire raged until the sun began to rise, and it was one of the most fun evenings ever. I was still tired from all the activity, and even a little sore. Another thing on my mind was whether or not I should still be considered a virgin. I was blurry on the technicalities.

*BANG! BANG!*

I was awoken by the sounds of hammers outside, striking on rare occasions. I was more comfortable than I had been in ages, so I opted not to move. I couldn't get last night off my mind. In an attempt to distract myself, I wondered what the others were up to. I imagined Boomer out harassing the bartender, then Wendy and Ditzy playing a hand of cards. Then I imagined Rusty out training a group of colts how to set wounds.

*BANG! BANG! POP! POP! POP! BANG!*

I groaned, whoever was hammering sounded like they were missing the nail head quite often. I pulled the pillows around my head tighter and attempted to fall asleep.

*BANG! BANG! POP! RATATATATATATAT! KABOOM!*

"Hey, that last one sounded like..." I turned over in bed, lifting the covers off and scanning the room which was illuminated bt the noon light. My lover was nowhere to be found. "...Lilly's rifle!" I hastily threw the covers aside and frantically searched for my suit which I found inside out in a corner. I pulled it on, checked the pockets, then threw the door open and dashed out to the living room, almost kicking the locker over whilst retrieving my weapon. I levitated my carbine up by my side and rushed out the door. Luckily I hadn't been a total dumbass and realized it wasn't a builder with tourettes.

Smoke burned through the air, and as I adjusted to the light, I saw the townsfolk up in the fortifications, returning fire towards the eastern side of town. Right where the train tracks ended. I sprinted across the street lined with barricades and looked upward. Lilly was up in the sky, evading shots, and occasionally stopping to spot a target, dispatch them, and keep dodging. Though she was hardly more than a dot, I could still make her colors out. From above me, a brown earth pony was thrown off of a set of battlements, half of his neck missing, likely from the effects of the hollowpoint.

There was no saving him, so I pushed my queasiness aside and climbed up the barricade where he previously sat to observe the situation. I was on the opposite end of town from the train, which made me think that the pony who was just killed was a lucky shot. Scanning up along the main street, the same scene became more frequent the closer the barricades were to the front lines. I saw Rusty sprint across the street, grabbing one of the fallen Appleoosans by the shirt collar and dragging them to safety, he began patching them up, stopped, put his ear to their chest, and started furiously beating on it in what proved to be a futile attempt to restart their heart. Wasting no time he stood up and dashed over, dragging the nearest fallen friendly to safety and repeating the process, this time successfully, as they picked up their weapon and climbed back into their place on the battlements. He was a very good medic.

Further up the street, The little blue colt was strafing left and right, darting in and out of buildings, all the while launching grenades out in a steep arc that landed at the enemy's front lines, blowing up slavers, each shot injuring at least one. I couldn't hear his sadistic war cry over the gunfire, but I'm sure he was screaming profanities at our attackers as he turned them to bloody splatters and hamburger meat strewn across the field. This battle was of epic proportions, lines of each side firing into one another, effectively mowing each other down.

I turned my head from where I crouched to look at the battlements set up on the opposite side of the street. Three foals, two fillies, one a colt were holding small SMGs in their teeth and firing wildly towards the train. Suddenly, one of the filles heads popped and trailed bloody steamers where the bullet had exited. She slumped back lifelessly and sluggishly slipped off the back of the barricade, busting her head open on impact with the ground. I held my tears and my vomit as I stared at the dead child. One of her two friends turned back around and screamed for them, reaching out to the corpse. The other shook his head and directed her attention back to the train. All of this was happening silently, drowned out by the deafening static of gunfire.

I looked at the filly and could tell, even though her head had been busted open, the shot was clean, right through the eye and through the brain. The slavers had a sniper, a sadistic one who murdered children without their cutie marks. I brought my carbine up over the barrier and looked through the attached scope. Unfortunately, its zoom wasn't strong enough to get a clear look at the enemy lines, so I produced my binoculars and scanned. In the back of the train was a large buck on a mounted machine gun who appeared to be laughing as he mowed side to side. I heard the boom of Lilly's rifle and in a bright flash, he simply ceased to exist. Explosive rounds. Neato. From the sides of the train, they had their own barricades set up, and for some reason, we had given them sufficient time to dig adequate trenches. Only about three quarters used them, as the others were out in front unprotected. One would fall every second, save the combos courtesy of my favorite little sadist. I looked about and found him, there he was. The enemy sniper sat at the front of the train, his rifle perched over the canopy of the engine. He had camouflaged himself well, as I couldn't tell he was there save his exposing muzzle flash.

I looked towards the sky and saw Lilly was still looping and shooting, unaware of his presence. I needed a way to signal her, which with a little thinking outside of the box, wouldn't be too hard. I climbed down from my fortification, the other two occupants having shared the same fate as the first, and slipped into the nearest building. It was a house and in the far corner was a mare cowered down, she would wince and jerk every time a bullet grazed the building or chipped through the wall. I looked around the house and found what I was looking for, I looked at her and gave her a nod, and slipped into their bathroom, where I punched their mirror and took out a shard about the size of my hoof. I gave her a nod of thanks as I slipped back out and climbed back to my spot.

I tilted the mirror around, hoping to catch the glare and shine it across Lilly who was still flying in her erratic patterns. Catching her was easier said than done, because as anyone could guess, the patterns were meant to be evasive. However I eventually caught her, sweeping a bright glare across her eyes. She froze and began descending, eventually reaching the ground and clambering up onto the scaffolding with her rifle in tow.

"GLAD TO SEE YOU'RE UP SUNSHINE!" She screamed, It was barely audible, but I could hear her enough to get the gist of what she was saying.

"GLAD TO BE HERE!" I screamed back. "I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!"

"WHAT!? YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP!"

"I SAID, I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!" I screamed with all the voice I could muster.

"SPIT IT OUT! I NEED TO GET BACK INTO THE FIGHT!" She yelled urgently.

"SNIPER! FRONT OF THE TRAIN BEHIND THE CANOPY, TAKE CARE OF HIM" I yelled, leaning in to say it into her ear. I kissed her on the cheek and pulled up her wings, shoving her off of the ramparts where she instinctively took to the air. I brought my binoculars up to my eyes and focused in on the sniper, who seemed blissfully unaware that he was being targeted. That ended when a bullet embedded itself in the canopy, stunning him where he fell off the train with his rifle. He staggered up and began sprinting for cover behind a rock. His dash was stopped as one of Lilly's rounds caught him in the temple, evaporating his head into mist, flinging his body back and sending his hat spinning comically into the air. I chuckled in morbid amusement, then decided I should move up. I looked towards the sky at Lilly who gave me a nod before reaching almost cloud altitude and continuing her erratic flight patterns.

I stepped off of the barricade and began running down the side of the street. It was lined with bodies, some of which were dead, others still screaming in pain from their dismemberment and bodies twitching, desperately seeking contact with their nervous system. I stopped behind another barricade which was made from a wagon and watched a skinny medic gallop up to a friendly in the street. His helmet fit him loosely and I watched the little red cross bob up and down as he kneeled by the patient, checking his pulse which had just recently stopped. He began chest compressions on him when a bullet struck his helmet and he fell over in shock. He staggered back up into a sitting position unharmed, removing his helmet and examining the bullet lodged into the side of it. That was something amazing, that looked like a pretty big round too. I watched his head explode as his instantly lifeless corpse dropped the helmet in his hooves. Amazing helmets don't help unless they're on your head.

I got up and continued running, narrowly avoiding a spray of bullets that chased me into the clock tower. I climbed the ladder, ignoring that I had almost been mowed down. Inside the watchtower was a slightly less macabre sight. Only one was dead, slumped in the corner who had died from a series of shots to the body. I kneeled by the living Appleoosans and received a wink from our friendly neighborhood Buck the bartender. I nodded back at him and smiled before bringing my rifle up and observing the field. As targets made themselves visible, I would unleash a three round burst reloading when unnecessary. A nice trick I learned was to wound a target, and when their friends came to help, get a double on them. It seemed like a dirty trick, but hey, whatever it took to protect this town.

I stood in the watchtower, taking potshots through the narrow slit and taking down targets when I was joined at my side by Wendy. He had been shot in multiple places, but had been patched up pretty well. He smiled at me and asked, "How're you doing?" It was quieter in the tower so we didn't have to scream.

"Alive. How are you?" I asked back at him.

"Great, sore but alive as well. I came to tell you all to put pressure on the right side, they're trying to come around and bomb from the flanks. The left is watching their side. Silver says that If we keep this defense up, we can push them back, but only as long as our front lines don't fall. Kay?"

I nodded and smiled, "Good to see you're alive."

"You too." He echoed before fishing a few clips put of his bags and dropping them beside me. He disappeared back down the ladder. A resonant ping brought me back to attention as a bullet glanced off of the bell in the tower and embedded itself beside me in the floor. I shuddered and looked out the slit. A first group was approaching around the right side.

"You heard him! Open fire!" I ordered hoarsely. Luckily all of the tower's dwellers respected me enough to shift targets and drop the small team of three in a matter of seconds. The second group came and picked up the explosives and continued their forward movement. I quickly gave the order to "Slot the bastards." And returned to my firing at the train. I popped the head of the gunner on the back and felt accomplished until another pushed his corpse aside and took his place. I continued to fire, and I soon learned the value of S.A.T.S. targeting, snapping between targets with computer aided precision and dropping each one of them, reloading at the end of the firing sequence. Hmm, how deliciously powerful.

"SHIT! THEY'VE PLANTED!" Buck yelled, dropping to the ground, No one else did a thing. The explosion was almost deafening, making my ears ring and slamming me back against the wall. The tower swayed back and forth, deciding which way it wanted to fall, I quickly jumped up and grabbed at a support beam and held on, watching in slow motion as the tower chose its fall pattern and as the ground rushed towards me and the other free falling ponies. Oh Shit. The world went black and all I could feel was pain.

I sat up. Hazily looking around me. I couldn't remember what I was doing here. What was going on? I tried to recollect my thoughts, but the ringing in my ears was making them scatter like radroaches when you turned the lights on. I lifted my hooves to my face and examined them, covered in the dirt, ash, grime and blood from what I believed to be a battle. Nothing was piecing together as I sat there, contemplating the means of my situation.

The world was brought back to me with the screech of gunfire and my aural nerves reconnecting providing my brain with a constant scream of throbbing pain. Oh yeah, I had forgotten where I was, silly me. I staggered up and ran for cover, only my body wasn't following the path my brain had set for me. I swayed all around, strafing back and forth, willing myself forward to the cover, which I eventually reached. I looked around the corner at the front lines. I couldn't judge distances. I lost my depth perception, cause my left eye was sightless once more. I made a check to make sure it was still there, which it was. The shellshock began to wear off and I could feel my body again. I wasn't as dizzy anymore, and the vision in my bad eye flickered as if it were reconnecting. All I could think to do was fire blindly over the barrier into the train.

Rusty sprinted up and kneeled beside me, waving a hoof in front of my face. I barely responded, so I felt his hooves pry my mouth apart and pop in a couple of Mint-als. He moved my jaws, chewing for me. The drug began to take effect and with a gasp, all of my senses came back and pain stabbed me up the ribs. I had been shot at least three times while I was in my loopy state. I became totally conscious of my situation and gave Rusty a wink and a smile, pushing my pain away and rushing further up, all the way to the front lines.

Nope, hadn't changed since I looked at it through the binoculars. Dead littered the edges of the streets and the edges of the barricades. No Pony's land between the two entrenched sides was speckled with the bodies from both sides that were dumb enough to charge right into the open like that. Peering around the corner, it seemed that the slavers were in fact pulling back. What was left of their forces began seeking cover and jumping back up into the train. "GO GO GO!" Urged Silver Star as I saw him running out into the open. What remained of our forces rushed forth in a push, all of us screaming our own battle cries. Mine being, 'Please don't let this be a stupid idea!'

The machine gunner continued spraying into our charge, dropping those running alongside me every now and then. But we had the advantage of numbers. That was until Lilly topped the final gunner in line. Then they were fucked. We surged around their cover, all of us drawing our melee weapons, from combat knives to sharpened spades, we literally cut down all of what remained in a savage push of vengeance unlike anything I imagined the peaceful Appleoosans were capable of. Their sadistic mutilation of the slaver's corpses rivaled that of raiders as we swept forward, crushing the life from the remaining few. Our charge, headed by Silver Star surrounded the very last one, who was quivering, holding a butter knife in his hooves. He began to cry as the sheriff grasped him by the mane and dragged him across the ground, the crowd moshing around him, heading towards the sheriff's office.

Whatever they were doing, I didn't want the purity of the Appleoosans to be tainted any more than it already had. Killing that last one would complete the transition from peaceful townsfolk to bloody relentless raiders. I had to settle them down.

Pushing my stage fright aside, I clambered atop the train, levitating my carbine above my head. I shouted in the best voice I could, "TODAY, HOPEFULLY YOU ALL HAVE SATISFIED YOUR VENGEANCE. YOU KILLED PROBABLY MOST IF NOT ALL OF THE APPLEOOSA SLAVERS, IF I WERE THEM, I WOULDN'T BE MESSING WITH US ANYMORE! LOOK AROUND AT ALL THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION THIS FIGHT HAS CAUSED, AND WHILE IT WAS DUE FOR THE SLAVERS, A LOT OF GOOD PONIES DIED TODAY! BUT IN THE END, IT MUST BE WORTH IT! AM I RIGHT?!" As cliche and cheesy as the victory speech was, it still received a lot of victorious screams, whoops and yelling in affirmation.

I stumbled down from the top of the train and began the long limp back to the sheriff's office that had been forsaken by the townspeople. I pulled open the door and slumped in a chair next to Rusty, who just happened to be sitting in here with me. I picked up on listening into what was happening between the remaining Slaver and the Sheriff.

"Now, we killed nearly all ya'll, and it was rightly so. We've suffered from yer slavin' for way too long, and we ain't havin' it no more. So here's the deal. You can walk back across them mountains with yer tail between yer legs to your superiors, whom I doubt will be pleased to hear this." His voice lowered, but was still audible. "Or you can avoid the red tape." Star slid something across the table which scraped to a halt. He came to the door and walked into this room, standing across from us, lowering his eyes slightly, scowling at the ground. After a long silence, all of us but Star cringed as a pistol round went off in the next room. We heard a body drop, knocking over a chair and shattering what sounded like a shotglass.

Star sighed and sat with us. I winced again, this time from pain. I hadn't noticed Rusty had began to treat my wounds. "Lost a lot of good ponies today." Star said with a sigh, removing his hat for the first time I had ever witnessed. "I don't know if it was worth it."

"Sure it was." I say. "It may not seem like it now, after all this settles down end everyone realizes what they just did, its going to take a while to *ngh* let the wounds heal." He just shook his head.

"We was peaceful folk. Appleoosa used to be a nice hos'pitbal place where anyone and everyone could come and stay without fear. Now, I doubt we can keep that reputation."

"But you can always get it back. You may not see it now, but this probably saved a ton of ponies in the future. You all don't have to worry about the slavers anymore."

"Ah guess you're right." He said looking up at us. "This town's still around, an once we pick up the pieces, we ain't gotta worry no more."

"See? No big deal. In fact, you'll probably be loved by a lot of wastelanders."

What I thought would cheer him up actually seemed to worsen his unease. "Yeah, and b'come vilified by Red Eye and his goons." I heard that name before back when I was a slave, and the way Star used it didn't exactly suggest he was friendly.

"Who's Red Eye?" I asked, to which the sheriff gave a genuine chuckle.

"Red Eye's the head of the wasteland's slave trade. Well, he doesn't really trade them, he just buys and stockpiles them. He's tryin' to make an army to take over whatever's left of Equestria."

"If someone's in control of the country again, doesn't that mean we can rebuild? Start over?"

Another laugh, this one sarcastic. "Yeah, you'd think wouldn't ya? The problem is the way he goes about it. You wanna unify everyone, not just enslave em. And don't get me started on his real motives."

"What are his motives?"

"Nothin' like what he says. That's for damn sure." He grumbled. I went to ask another question about how he knew, but was cut off by a yelp of pain as Rusty yanked a bit of shrapnel from my side. It began to bleed, so he stuffed it with a rag and held up a potion which I generously drank. Blood loss had already begun to affect me, but the Mint-als wearing off made it worse. The world began to spin as I stumbled up from my chair.

"I'm gonna go lay down, tired." I slurred, tipping over against Rusty who stood up to catch me. Star tipped his hat as Rusty led me out the door. The chaos outside had subsided as everyone began hoofing through the piles of the dead, trying, but hoping not to discern their loved ones from the mass of blood and gore. I was already weak, but the blood and the crying children, parents and even loaners was too much. I put my face into Rusty's neck and ignored all the sounds as he blindly led me across town, back to our house.

We opened the door and I rushed inside, letting myself fall down on the sofa, visually staining it every time I moved, but I didn't care, better this than the bed. I sighed and closed my eyes, thinking about Buck. No one else but me survived the falling tower, so I'm sure Buck was with Celestia now, wherever that was. I didn't cry though, I just stared at the ceiling absently, wondering who I wouldn't see again. I guess a rescue mission for his wife and son was unnecessary now. I hadn't even thought about my friends. I pushed those thoughts aside, the thought of losing my friends was unbearable.

Rusty left and came back with a pail of water and a cloth. "You may wanna wash up. Don't want those wounds to get infected." I knew the healing potions closed the wound, but it still left the area prone to infection, which I imagined was pretty hard to avoid in the wastes. I nodded in thanks and sat up, unzipping my suit and peeling it off of my coat. Underneath, the hairs of my coat were matted with sweat but relatively clean in contrast to my hooves and any other bit of my body not covered by my suit. I really didn't want a mirror.

I laid down on my side, the wounded side up, where I levitated the cloth from the bucket. I began to wash around the little pits created when the potion healed over the open holes in my side. They were tender, but the warm raw soothed the pain away. My Pip-Buck clicked a couple times, signifying the water was radioactive, bur by the temperature, it had been boiled, so It was somewhat clean. By wasteland standards anyway.

"Can you take care of yourself?" Rusty asked, standing up from where he was kneeling. "Because I've gotta go help the others who are still alive." I tuned my head and nodded at him. He stood up and turned trotting to the door.

"Thanks Rusty." I said with a smile. He turned and nodded a 'your welcome' and stepped out. As he left, I sat up painfully, beginning to wash my face with the rag. I wrung out the rag and sat it beside me, as I dunked my head in the pail. I brought my head up dripping, feeling the hot water run down my neck and off of my back dripping onto the sofa. It had just occurred to me how long it had been since I had taken a shower, it surprised me, and quite frankly offended me that I had forgotten. I don't guess that my friends had cleaned themselves either, and I wondered how none of us had noticed.

I dried my face and mane with the wrung out cloth, letting myself relax. Today was going to be a tough day to forget, but luckily we could take as much time off as we wanted to recuperate. I wanted to stomp High n' Mighty so much, but it could wait. They weren't going anywhere. Rush but no rush. I dipped my tail in the bucket and wrung it out with my magic. My thoughts started drifting towards home again. They went through my head painfully. They were the same ones I always had. Parents, Overmare, etc. I dipped the cloth and washed my flanks, wiping blood and soot off of them with each swipe. And what of Lilly? I allowed myself to think about that, about what I would do If I lost her. I had only Known her for over a week, and had dated her for no more than a few days, but It felt like I had known her for years. I guess it was cause she seemed a lot like mom, only more... snarky. The perfect duplicate of my mom out here was Ditzy, they were two of a kind in almost every way aside from cosmetic differences. Shit, I wonder how Ditzy fared. I doubt I could handle losing another mom.

I stood and levitated the bucket with me as I walked outside disrobed of any clothing save my Pip-Buck, which wouldn't come off If I wanted it to. I went along the side of the house and levitated the bucket up, I looked up and closed my eyes, pouring its contents over me in a brief shower. It felt nice, like a long lost comfort of home. The bucket emptied, and I wrung out my mane and tail again, undoing the ponytail and letting it fall down along my neck. My hair was actually pretty long when I let it down. I slung it over my shoulder and shook off. I limped over to the porch and overturned the bucket, sitting on it like a stool.

Sitting there, a lot of stallions walking past me shot me a quick glance, before continuing on their paths to wherever they were headed. I relaxed a bit, leaning against the wall of the house, watching a dot descend from the sky. In a slow helix, Lilly descended , stopping in the street and trotting over. She gave me a grin, adjusting her mane which had been blown back by the wind, but aside from ruffled hair, appeared mostly untouched.

She wasn't distraught like the rest of the ponies, she actually seemed to be in a good mood, but calmer than she usually was. "Hey hey there pretty lady, looking good. Do something with your mane?"

I chuckled, glad to have a sweet distraction from the discord around me. "I took a shower and let my mane down, why?"

"It seems I'm not the only one taking a look at you." She motioned back to the road and the various passing ponies. "You were cute before, you're looking sexy now." I laughed at the joke. "Hey I mean that!" She quickly said. Realizing it was a complement I felt myself blush, was it even possible to be unwittingly sexy? Damn, nope, cant do this, I'm busy moping.

"You alright, you look pretty good yourself." I said, half way complimenting her looks, half way checking to see if she was hurt.

"Shot clipped one of my wings but I'm okay, you?" I turned to my side, showing her the three pink dips running up my side, to which she hissed. "You alright? That looks bad."

"Yeah, I'm really sore and tired, but other than that, I'm okay."

"I'm tired too, wanna go catch some sleep?" She asked.

I shook my head, "Nope, I'm gonna stay up as long as it takes to make sure our group gets back together. Rusty just left, and no post battle signs of Boomer or Wendy."

"I wouldn't worry too much about Boomer, he's probably just off somewhere gutting a corpse."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about." I said frowning slightly. I stood up and headed for the door inside. The light was giving me a headache. Lilly followed me inside where we both plopped down on the couch with a box of cereal. It was around 3 o clock when we headed inside. Wendy got home at 4, and Rusty came in at 6. Both were welcomed with happy receptions. All except for Boomer, who much to my worry hadn't shown up yet. We all stayed at home up til around midnight. I began to voice my concern to my friends about his demise.

"Don't worry, we checked all of the Intact bodies. Boomer wasn't among them." Rusty assured.

"What about the dismembered or decapitated ones?" I asked, still not satisfied.

"The torso of a blue colt was found, but it was too big to be Boomer." Well, that surely eased my distress... not.

At around 12:30, our front door burst open, and there, reeking of alcohol and blood was the kid we had been waiting on. He staggered in with a nearly empty bottle of vodka, smiling and mumbling out incoherent chatter which sounded along the lines of 'We won.' He brought the bottle up to his lips and chugged the rest, before giving in and vomiting all over the floor, then collapsing into the pungent puddle of liquid in a quivering heap.

We all sat, stunned and frankly offended that he had shown up like this, but I levitated him up out of it, glad to see him safe. Safe being a relative term, I doubted that this was his only bottle. I sat him in the sink, and looked around the cabinets for a bottle of dirty water which I poured over him, washing the vomit from his coat effortlessly. I decided that as punishment for showing up like this, I'd let him sleep in the sink. He didn't seem to mind now, being unconscious and all, but it would definitely have a negative impact on him tomorrow.

Each of us retreated to our bedrooms, and I slipped back into the spot where I had been so comfortably been laying this morning. Lilly climbed in behind me, and realizing the sensitivity of the subject, wrapped an arm around my front and draping her wing over me. I wordlessly laid into her, pulling up the covers telekinetically before letting myself drift off to sleep.

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Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Pain Train - You've taken some heavy caliber rounds and lived to tell the tale. +15% Damage resistance. Plus another 15% added whenever Mint-als are used.

Perk removed: Lover's Respite