Fallout Equestria-Painful Truths

The night began set over the land of Equestria, the moon slowly creeping up to take the place of the sun, only to be hidden behind a thick cloud cover. Thunder began to boom in the distance while lightning danced across the sky.

A young stallion was lounging on the flatbed of an auto-wagon, his back resting up against a large gun turret, watching over the vehicles like a shepherd watches sheep… albeit a very bored shepherd.

He was the new guy so he was learning the hard way that the shit jobs roll down hill. If it wasn’t, “Go get the beer!”, or, “unclog the toilets!” Of course now it was guarding the vehicles in the rain.

The dull blue colored pony tried pulling a tarp over himself to keep him dry but it only managed to dump the pooling water on his head. Cursing and leaping down from the back of the wagon, he began stomping around. He felt like venting.

He had earned his right to be here. He was not some hand-me-down punk. He had been with a gang a whole month and he’d at least been given a gun. Now he was asked to do the humiliating stuff, chores that some, lesser member should handle. He wasn’t even allowed to do anything except guard the vehicles alone, a more experienced pony sat in the other vehicle with a big gun.

He wanted a big gun.

Stomping around some more and cursing the higher powers that be, he began imagining enemy combatants, trading and blocking the enemy’s blows and hitting the enemies with his excellent hoof swings. He was a badass, nopony wanted to fuck with him.

His hooves covered in mud and his mane and coat soaked. He felt the hostile specters had had enough of his awesomeness and returned to the truck. Shoulders drooping as he saw the tarp had fallen in the mud.

Muttering another curse at the evil tarp while picking it up, the pony began trying to shake the mud off, only managing to fling the crud onto him. The pony cursed again and began blaming the tarp for his boring job and miserable conditions.

He really wished there was someone he could beat up. All he’d have to do was imagine they were this tarp and they’d be sorry.

Lightning illuminated the area in a flash, a crack of thunder following and making him jump and hurl himself to the ground, getting a face full of muck.

This was just not poor Look Out’s night.

Sitting up and wiping the mud out of his eyes, he grabbed his tarp and wandered over to the other truck. Hoping to swap out tarps before the others came back and he was forced to keep the dirty one.

“Hey gramps you mind if-“ Look Out began, his eyes slowly meeting the area where poor Head Shot’s head had been… or at least it had been there a minute ago.

All that remained of poor Head shot’s head was a bloody stump. The rest of his body remained wedged in the turret of the dark blue auto-chariot.

Look Out began to shake. He turned frantically in place trying to see who was shooting. He hadn’t even heard a shot. Look Out had been assured no pony was foolish enough to attack them, and that they were a bad ass gang and no one messed with them.

Apparently some pony hadn’t gotten that memo.

Backing away slowly Look Out felt his rump back into something sturdy. Look out fought hard not to squeak in surprise. His head slowly turned, his whole body shaking furiously now.

Behind him stood a tall pony, he had never seen a pony that tall… Look Out did a double take and could see the pony wasn’t standing normally. The mysterious pony looked more like a zebra. Maybe he was a zebra, or she was a zebra, it sure was walking around in that weird way like they do.

Look Out had heard stories of zebra’s being sneaky, the stripped bastards showing up and killing rooms full of ponies while they slept and fighting on their hind legs. They were freaks, but freaks Look Out never wanted to have to fight hoof to hoof.

The mystery pony was cloaked in a dark coat that draped down nearly to his hind hooves. Metal caps encased each hoof and one of the fore-hooves had a device of some kind, a gun maybe because of it having a metal tube and being pointed at his head, but it was like no gun he had ever seen. Looking up the barrel he could see the pony’s face was concealed beneath the shadow of a large brimmed hat and was smirking at him.

“Feeling lucky punk?” the gruff, male zebra figure asked.

Look Out finally felt his tiny shred of courage leave him and he wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to upset him. What should he do? What would a braver ganger do?

“Uhm...” he managed to squeak.

The figure just stood there, motionless for a few seconds. He then began to lower his gun, chuckling and walking away from Look Out.

Look Out took a moment to process what had just happened. The fact that The Figure hadn’t shot him and that he was still alive. He began telling himself it was because he was a badass. That The Figure didn’t want to fuck with him. Yeah, that had to be it.

His eyes began leading him towards the large turret he had been using as a bed just a minute ago and with his new found courage, he began slowly slinking towards it, just in case.

His hoof touched the bed of the auto-wagon when he heard an, “Ahem”, from behind.
Look Out slowly turned, feeling his badass status had finally run out.

He turned slowly around, not wanting to see it coming so that-

Look Out fell to his rump, his back hitting the wagon and telling him he could crawl away no further. His stomach told him it was time to vomit. His hard core ideals and bad ass mind set evaporated at the site of what was dangling before him.

The gnarled remains of the corpse had been torn apart, and all that remained was something that only vaguely resembled a pony with a collar wrapped around its neck.

“Here, hold this for me would you.” The Figure said, dropping the corpse into Look Out’s lap and causing the young stallion to grab it out of reflex, instantly regretting it and finally vomiting up his pathetic dinner.

The dull blue colored pony continued to wretch as the figure began walking into the bunker, chuckling.

Chapter 3:

♪ And you ain't no friend of mine. ♫

Damn it’s wet out there.

Stepping inside the bunker I started shaking the mud off my hooves. I looked at the old coat and knew it needed some care soon, the frayed and aged cloth having lost its oil layer and no longer repelled water as well. Still, the coat did its job and protected the saddle bags and other things inside its pockets.

Metal capped hooves clanking against the metal grated floor, I started walking over towards the terminal beside an open double door. The Keyboard folded down as I turned it on.

According the device, this was an Royal Equestrian Army research bunker, and apparently, I should leave if I was not authorized. The last part made me snicker a little.

Feeling I’d gotten all I could from the terminal I backed out and poked my head through the doorway. Nobody was home, so I walked inside. The first room was a landing that had a series of stairs leading down. Approaching the railing I could see down at the bottom were a few dead protectaponies, holes blasted in them about the size of my hooves.

I moved to the stairs and descended, tongue in cheek while thinking over what could shred a robot like that. It could have been anything really, the ponies outside had a couple of 50calibre machine guns on those autos, so who knows. What I had a hunch on was that they were dragging a heavy weapon with them, which seemed bit overkill, but if it dusted a robot in a few hits, maybe they had the right idea.

At the bottom of the stairs I could see close up that they had missed the first few shots and then hit the robots. Apparently they had aimed low and used the recoil to carry the barrel into the robot’s path.

I picked up a few of the robots spare parts and switching to a more cautious approach, walked beside the doorway, back against the wall and slowly peeking my head around the corner.

Looking left I could see it was a dead end. The opposite lead down a narrow hallway, only about two meters across. The hallway then made a right turn, an unopened doorway sat just before the turn, probably locked.

Sneaking up to the door, keeping low to the ground and taking great care to try and not let my hooves clang against the floor, but that was a feat in and of itself.

At the door, I reached into a pocket just beside my chin and rummaged for a bobby pin, finding one and grabbing my screw driver and getting to work on the lock if possible. Now of course I’m no pro locksmith, but after the first, second, third, and a bunch of other attempts, I finally got it open. The door parted and… bathroom.

My eye started twitching horrendously, was that blood I smelled? I think I was hemorrhaging.

I walked into the bathroom, my vision slightly messed up while my eye had its freak out moment and I began checking everything. The stalls were empty, the trash can had… trash, and the single suitcase in the corner had nothing interesting. Finally I spied a medical box mounted on the corner, the faded yellow box still sporting it’s three butterfly motif. Who thought that butterflies were a proper sign for a medical box? When I was shot the first thing that hit me wasn’t butterflies…the old world confused me.

My rant lasted long enough for me to unlock the box and find… a dose of med-x pain killer. How lovely.

Pocketing the syringe I walked back into the hallway and nonchalantly looked down the next branch of the corridor, nothing. Trotting down the hallway and walking past what looked like offices. I could see that most were work areas, blue prints of assorted kinds taped to the walls or drawn on chalk boards. Feeling curious, I poked my head into the third office, just for a look.

The office was filled with assorted mechanical bits and schematics for what looked like simple locomotion for something. A model of the device sat on the table and I began moving it back in forth in my hooves while looking around the room, the device looking more like something that would go in a robot’s legs or in a hydraulic piece of machinery. The room told me nothing about the primary purpose of the device though, just that it had the possibility of lifting a lot. Probably just an over paid elevator project.

Boredom pulled me out of the room and told me to continue down the hallway, passing a couple more rooms with similar small projects in each.

At the end of the hallway I could see it made a left turn and I poked my head around, having assumed that the ponies in here weren’t anywhere near the entrance from the lack of noise.

The next hallway from what I could see ended at a door with a terminal beside it. Above the door frame, a sparking turret base, sparking every few seconds. I took a few steps and took a whiff of the air, was something burning? I looked down to see a pile of ashes under a hoof. Apparently someone had got cocky and had missed an energy turret, turning the poor bastard to ashes. Hopefully it was the heavy weapons pony, but I couldn’t be that lucky.

Adventuring through the doorway I entered into a big room. Pausing and doubling back, I stepped back into the hallway and logged into the terminal to see what it did. As I scrolled through the prompts and such, the terminal told me that it had controlled the turret above the door (great place for a terminal that controlled a device that could go nuts and shoot its creators, right below it) and the door lock. The terminal told me nothing else and I pulled out and stepped back into the room.

Looking around I found multiple docking stations, robots still inside and ready to serve. I went up to the first robot and looked at what the terminal said. The terminal explained that this was a protectapony, model V, it was ready to serve. Rolling my eyes at how useless some of these terminals were, I moved to the next and was given the same song and dance.

Ignoring old world stupidity, I walked along the railing and looked below. More docking stations with robots awaited me. Turning my head ahead, more interested in finishing my exploration of this level before headed down.

Ahead, an unopened door sat in front of me. Accessing the terminal to the door and clopping my hooves together, I bit down on my tongue and went to work hacking the door. The lines of previously used words or phrases the computer felt the need to show me, lead to me trying to find a common set of words or themes to the words. Finally feeling I had the right one (hopefully not), I poked the execute button and heard the terminal beep and explain that the password was indeed…Secret.

Seriously, that’s the password?

The door opened and I found it was another hallway, so I casually began strolling and seeing where it would take me.

Approaching the first corner, I stuck my head out slowly, seeing that the hallway continued for another three or so meters before entering a larger room, a turret hanging from the ceiling just in front of the doorway.

The turret however, wasn’t offline. Sensing my presence, it began to open fire on my corner and forcing me back as the bullets pinged and panged against the metallic walls. Finally, something to entertain me, woo!

Reaching into my pockets, I pulled out a hoof full of spare parts and flung them into the room, the turret immediately taking shots at them. Lifting myself up and turning around the corner, drawing both guns at the same time, I leveled, aimed, and fired. Both shots flying straight and true straight through the gun housing but no dice, the turret was heartier then that. The turret was finished with the distraction and moved its barrel towards me. I fired another pair of shots into it and one struck home, impacting the lifting mechanism and the gun drooped, but wasn’t dead. The machine gun turret began firing away at the ground, the bullets impacting the ground and some actually ricocheting elsewhere in the room, one nearly grazing me so I threw myself back into cover, waiting for the turret to run out of ammo.

After about a minute, the gun finally stopped firing and I began entering the room, holstering my guns and moving closer towards it. The automated turret gun tried firing at me when I was right under it, but instead of a bang, there were only a series of rapid clicks.

Letting out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding, I grinned slyly at the turret and trotted up to the terminal beside the doors.

A few taps of the ol’ hooves on the keyboard and the terminal chirped. I face hoofed rather hard and wandered inside, the terminal telling me the right password of course, was password.

Seriously, whoever developed this security must have been shot for incompetence.

The doors opened and revealed a room with a large set of terminal banks and desks. Walking through the place I spied some paper work and moved towards them, swiping aside some dust then giving them a read.

The paper work suggested this place was a security station, apparently they found that security should be placed far away from the offices below. That didn’t exactly say anything new about the old world, everything they did seemed to be nothing less than dangerous, but I guess when you’re desperate to win at any cost you’ll do anything. I could understand that logic and moved on to the nearest terminal.

I walked along the outer wall, looking at the terminals lined up along the wall, all the desks with different old world paraphernalia and objects that ponies would put at their stations in an attempt to individualize their area. From the moment I entered the room I could see most of the screens were black and most were broken or too rusted to use. Some even had had their screens blown out, puking their machine guts all over the place.

Finally finding one in only a mild condition of disrepair, I pulled up a chair and pushed the power button, seeing the screen flicker on and grinned at the tough little terminal. When the prompt requested an order, I went to work, rapping away on the keyboard and navigating menus.

The options before me said that I could look through security or find out about security hazards. I felt knowing my enemy was the best thing right now, so I tried using the security hazards bit. No dice. The hazards tab told me I needed to reconnect to the primary server and some nonsense.

Blocked from knowing what was down here I decided to work on security feeds. I opened the first one on the list, nothing, second camera, nothing. This went on all the way till about camera twelve, which was pointed at the ceiling, so useful.

Feeling this was a lost cause I was on the verge of giving up, seeing nothing worth my time and feeling that the longer I waited the more of a chance the gangers would clear out the bunker. I tapped the next button and watched the screen flash to life, the immediate area glowing from the light from the real time view that had popped up on the terminal. I checked the number for the camera, number thirty (which somehow was still working) and began watching the scene of a slowly deteriorating fire fight.

The initial scene was straight out of a action movie. A single pony from what I could see stood in each of the three rooms in the camera’s view, each crouched cautiously at the corner and awaiting from the sporadic gunfire from down the hallway to subside. One was armed with a large caliber rifle that was fed into a saddle bag. My first instinct from seeing the gun was to dodge for cover, it was huge! A pony down the hall turned into its room and ushered a pony into the hallway. The mare raced from her doorway towards a forward piece of cover further up. Big Gun pony took a step into the hallway as soon as Runner Mare took fire from something sitting inside of a cloud of smoke, firing some sort of semi-automatic gun. Big Gun pony stepped out and braced himself, planting each hoof wide and once he felt secure, bit down on the control bit and the gun began to fire, the barrel recoiling into the gun, resetting and then flying back again as another bullet flew out. The rate of fire on Big Gun pony was freaky, a constant, boom, boom, boom, boom. No more than a second between each shot.

Whatever was inside of the smoke must have been vaporized, there’s-

A shot flew out of the smoke and hit Running Mare in the side of the face, dropping her instantly.

Big Gun Pony took cover and said something, his face scrunched and contorted in an angry snarl. I watched Next Wave pony looking toward big gun pony, a hoof gesturing and waving about… clearly a pony in charge. Next Wave pony was dressed in what looked to be a suit of refurbished combat armor, metal plates pounded out and standing in for the missing parts. Big Gun wore mostly nothing. I did a double take and saw Running Mare was the same way, sparsely equipped except for a descent looking firearm strapped to her back.

They were well equipped, so that meant they were city gangers. Combat armor pony had to be a lone merc attached to the ganger forces, meaning he probably knew what he was doing… sort of, getting stuck in a hallway was a shitty situation no matter how you split it.

I knew Next Wave had to die, without him the gangers could be talked or killed without even a second thought. Tapping a hoof on the screen where Next Wave stood turned into the room again and most likely grabbing another ‘volunteer’.

Returning to the list of video feeds, I began flipping through each, trying to find a camera inside of the room with Next Wave pony and his volunteers. I’m sure that even pre-war ponies were dumb enough to spread out camera feeds and would keep them in some sort of order, hopefully descending the hallway.

Hitting the execute button for camera thirty-eight and was rewarded with the picture of a room, filled with about six ponies and… Next Wave, living up to the title I’d assigned him and already in the process of marshalling out another pony into the line of fire.

I looked at the assets for the room, scrolling down the tiny list and grinning near the bottom of the list. Hitting the execute button I stretched out a bit and sat watching the carnage unfold.

I watched as the security turret descended silently, not a soul in the room noticed it… at first. The first series of shots impacted into the closest pony, a mare standing to the side, oblivious of how I had just snuffed her out of this world with the push of a button.

Lifting my fore hooves up and gesturing at the screen like the gun fire was somehow controlled by my hooves, I began to gun down the ponies, each taking a burst or small stream of bullets into the back, most likely severing it and nearly killing them instantly. Some took their shots in the head and some, unfortunately, were shot in the ass and forced to run into the hallway where they lost the other end of them with a bullet to the side of the head.

Next Wave was quick on the draw to respond and pulled out a pistol, a revolver with a scope, and began to fire shots at the turret. I felt my job here was done and blew off the imaginary gun smoke from my hooves and went back to the menu, finding the, ‘call security’ button, and smiling. I loved how easy it was sometimes.

Tapping the button, I leaned back a bit and watched my second wave of handy work go into effect.

I watched on camera thirty, the hallway begin to swarm with robot security, the full docking stations coming to mind and the level of security and ferocity they were attacking the gangers with seemed to tell me that whatever had been here, had been important enough to make sure that nothing got out of here alive.

The robot security attacked the ponies in the hallway from behind, cutting them to ribbons and then giving chase to whatever was at the end of the hallway.

Feeling more confident about going down, I deactivated security after a minute and trotted out of the room, a song coming to me and giving me a bit of a spring in my step. Love it when a night is as easy as a button push.

As I exited the office I noticed a set of stairs hidden behind a pillar to my right and smiled.

“After you sir. No, No, after you you good sir.” I joked with myself. I took a bow and skipped down the stairs. The music becoming more like an infection and bringing a smile to my muzzle while I imagined how nice Gun Pony’s battle saddle would sell… I hoped being with a rocket didn’t hurt it but knowing my luck… yeah, it was probably beyond any repair… damn.

Stepping off the final steps, I trotted towards the hallway and began navigating it, finding security bots standing still and awaiting orders again, patting the first protectapony on the head and smiling.

I went room to room and began searching high and low for any traces of bullets again, while ignoring the gory mess that had been about ten ponies about three minutes ago.

Once I hit the main hallway which had bared the brunt of the fighting, I began finding fresh bodies or piles of ash, looting the former and trotting past the latter.

The ponies that hadn’t been disintegrated were carrying assault weapons with lots of bullets, but this wasn’t anything special. Any pony gang from the city was usually armed like this.

I passed by the remains of Big Gun pony and sighed, such a waste. His mangled and horrendously disfigured body covered most of the gun and a bit of maneuvering I managed to separate the useless fuck from his awesome gun… or what was left. The primary bullet feed system had been damaged, the bullets in the feed had gone off and helped reduce Big Gun to nothing more than a meat chunk, wonderful. Tossing the useless weapon aside, I left Meat Chunk alone and ignoring his near empty room, I made my way towards Next Wave.

Next Wave, to my astonishment had survived the turret it seemed, the remains of the automated gun scattered across the floor and the hub it had been attached too sparking. Next Wave apparently had been killed by a bad case of lead poisoning… damn. It was a contagious disease in the wastes and if not careful, everyone could catch it. The body had taken a burst of fire from the single sentinel robot in the hallway, the large 5mm minigun still smoking on the robot. Sighing again at the bare state of Next Wave’s room, the bodies of the ponies inside ignored, there was nothing in there… damn it!

Aside from the rooms with the two interesting ponies, I had cleared every room up to this point, gathering quite a bit of goodies… but still no bullets. Still in need of ammo, I signed at being forced to continue my search, turning the corner at the end of the hall and…

Ping!

A shot caught me in the shoulder and impacted the plating there, but it was all the warning I needed and I tossed myself to the corner. Looks like someone managed to survive the attack, wonderful…

Slowly I moved my muzzle past the corner, trying to catch a view of the shooter, a bullet impacting the wall right next to my face, missing it just barely and forcing my head back behind cover. Of course, the one pony left in the group was the sharpshooter, figures.

Reaching into my pocket I rummaged a second and produced a small mirror. Cautiously I began easing it around the corner, keeping it in view and seeing the interior of the room.

From my position I could see a railing and a distant railing and walkway, it looked like a catwalk. Hidden behind a sentinel body, its head missing and smoking, sat a figure with a rifle hoof carried rifle pointed right down my hallway.

Envious of the shooter’s position, I began searching for a good spot of cover of my own, but the hallway was only filled with giant armored robots and dead bodies… I grabbed a roll of duct tape and went for a quick stroll to see if there was yet another ‘wave’ to send out.

***

A few minutes later, I was ready, and took my first steps into the hallway, the meaty thunk and pinging of metal on metal telling me the pony was hitting Next Wave’s lower half. Pushing the stallion’s head out of the way, I tried seeing through the eye pieces in the sentinel helmet I’d made. Slowly moving forward, a dead pony strapped to the front of me and a looted head section of a sentinel, I took aim at the shooter’s cover and began firing.

The shooter continued to fire, a single shot hitting my helmet and reverberate, the sound nearly tossing me off balance but caught myself and grabbed the helmet and waited for the noise to pass. The mare began to work the slide on her rifle and allowed me to fire a shot into the bot’s corpse, the round going inside but not exiting. Damn sentinel’s for being chunky on the inside.

The pony finally stopped shooting, lowering their rifle for a moment and from this distance it looked like the figure was gapping at me… or laughing, I wasn’t sure how sadistic they were so I assumed the former. The instance though was enough for me to hit them, firing a shot and the round flying through a weak point in the robot and blossoming out a shock wave and throwing the robot back into the figure and tossing both over the side of the railing.

That’s one way of doing it I guessed and began removing my makeshift body armor, making a mental note to try pitching sentinel plating for body armor to someone at some point.

Finishing discarding my armor, I knew it was time to get back to business.

With the shooter dispatched, I holstered the pistol and strolled into the room to see a lower level, the room at first glance looking more like a bottling plant of some kind, an assembly line that led metal to a series of machines that would fold the metal, and then fasten unto other metal shapes. It looked like it could be very…

“HELP!” someone cried.

Ears perking up just a bit, I strolled towards the railing and found myself taken back a bit.

I found my head dropping a bit, remembering how many bullets I had expended in hopes of killing the shooter (who I now knew was a mare). But I couldn’t be that lucky I supposed.

The mare was struggling to get the lifeless sentinel robot off of her, her face scrunched in great physical exertion, but to no avail.

My hooves began clanking against the stairs as I descended, and I could see her head crane in my direction, her ears searching for the source of the noise, and her hooves stopping and waving at me.

“Hey! Hey you! I… I need help!” she begged as her face darted between me and the bending machine.

Hopping down the last few steps and landing loudly on the concrete ground I continued towards the mare, my attention really not on her and more split between searching for anymore rooms and wondering if I had hid the bike well enough… was that kid a threat to my ride out of here?

Naaahhh!

The mare’s words became louder and drew my focus back towards her, my head snapping towards her and I realized I was almost in front of her. Sliding the last little bit towards the mare I came to rest nearly muzzle to muzzle with her, about a hoofs length between us. I stared down at her with a look that reflected my wavering interest in her peril and annoyance for her still being alive.

“Yo, common… don’t take that gunfight personal, I-I was just freaking out, those robots… it- it was crazy!” she explained frantically, her body slowly being pulled away from me down the conveyor belt.

Her pleading reminded me of something and urged me towards the controls of the machine.
Taking a good look at them and then rolling my head to the side to look at her, back to the controls, and then back to her.

“I REEAAALLLY wish I could remember why I walked over to the controls of this random machine!” I said, gesturing at it and then scratching the bottom of my chin, “So curious…”

“Oh common! You can’t be serious!”

I shrugged and strode up alongside her, the mare having a few minutes before the machine got her, plenty of time to talk fast.

“The fuck is wrong with you, stop this damn thing, please! This is no way for a pony to go!”

I shrugged at her, “Nothing’s wrong with me. You’re the one trapped on the conveyor belt. And you’d be surprised as heck the interesting ways I find gangers killing ponies these days.” I informed her with a nod.

“What?! Common, you- you can’t be serious. This thing will kill me!”

“Weeelll, technically, you should be dead, but you’re still here…. So let’s see if that luck holds out.” I said with a encouraging grin.

Her eyes left me, glancing over at the machine for a moment, her pupils shrinking, “Common, you gotta help. I can’t get this piece of shit off me!”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me.” I explained dead pan. Seriously, does this mare not catch a hint, geez?

Plopping down on the ground just across from the mare and slowly tracking her with my head, I began to suddenly remember a song but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the name… this is going to bug me all night.

The mare’s head shot back and forth between me and the machine, beads of sweat now rolling down her face as she began to grin at me, her fear not even hidden and blatantly written all over her face. I expected either she’d crack and tell me something or she’d forget and begin to studder… either way, I figured I’d better turn the machine off soon, it was getting awfully clo-

“I- I can pay you, I have loot!”

Bingo.

“Where?”

Both of her hooves began pointing anxiously towards a doorway tucked away in the corner on the second floor, “There, that’s where my loot is, good stuff, worth a lot of caps. Now, get me out of here!”

I smiled and tipped my hat, then dropped to all four and walked towards the stairs again.

“Wa- wait! You have to help me! Help!” she demanded, her voice on the verge of crying.

Not breaking stride I turned and smiled at her, shrugging again, “All I hear is, Help! I’m suffering from a case of imminent karmic justice.” I mocked.

“What!? What the fuck is wrong with you! You’d let a pony get crushed like this?”

Having just started back up the stairs, wanting to sweat the last bit of anything out of her, I rolled my head to the side and looked at her, putting on my best uninterested look.

“Well I thought my general lack of interest in your dilemma made that apparent.”

The mare just looked at the machine and I continued back up the stairs. Damn she was cutting it close, seriously… she just needs to spill it already, don’t need to have to deal with getting rid of yet another horribly mutilated corpse… but dropping it in that kid’s lap was priceless haha, priceless.

Turning away and putting my first hoof on the top of the stairs, I tried not to grin. I began to count down…
5…
4…
3…

“Wait! I- I can get you more loot! I know of a job!”

Damn I’m good. I should print a book. How to get a pony to spill their guts while threatening to spill theirs… title needs work.

Pausing mid stride and feigning interest finally, I began to turn towards the mare, rearing up and laying my hooves over the side of the railing and gesturing at the mare, “What job?”

The mare began to jab her head in the direction of the controls. I nodded and slowly cantered down the stairs.

As I approached the mare I began to notice how her fear had manifested into physically trembling and her tongue constantly licking her lips while she kept watching me take my sweet time getting to the controls. The sounds of the machine eating the last of the scrap caused the mare to jerk her head towards the machine’s scrap feed and watch it devour the metal. The machine’s began to bend the metal, the sheets of metal protested with a groaning sound while the machine roared, adding more hydraulic power and crushing its prey into… whatever the hell this thing turned scrap into. The pile at the end suggested nothing more interesting than parts of a terminal housing.

I reached the controls and stopped just in front of them. I stood up and leaned against the console. With a hoof, I began to touch the shut off handle, my hoof resting on the top and my head rolling just to the side and looking at her with a grin.

“I’m listening.”

She gulped and grinned nervously at me again, “We- Well w- we were supposed to do another j- job a- at ah stable.”

My hoof dragged the shut off switch to the off position and slammed into the console.

Turning on a hoof and stomping towards her. Slamming my fore-hooves against the side of the machine and leaning in close I was centimeters away from her. She blinked and was now looking at me, her eyes still filled with fear, but not of the machine I suspected.

“Go on.” I said, my voice low and dangerous as it was spoken through gritted teeth.

“Y- you- your e-

“SPEAK!”

The mare cringed away (as far as she could while pinned beneath the large bot), her mouth open, ready to say something, but she didn’t, her eyes fixed on mine for some reason and her hooves trembling against the metallic armor of the sentinel that she had been trying to both push away and was now trying to use as a shield from me.

“W- we… we wer-were supposed to go there, grab up the tech and anything worthwhile, then leave, easy thousand caps to kill some stable ponies and steal their shit. We even have a way inside.”She informed me anxiously, her stuttering starting to get rather aggravating, but… as long as she kept talking.

Changing tactics for a moment, I gave the appearance I was mellowing out a bit. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath and leaning back a little, giving her the illusion of ‘breathing room. “That’s neat… But where, did you…” I asked, giving her a quaint smile and booping her nose, “Find the location of a stable and have a way inside?”

“We uh… we found this kid, wandering around in a town, asking any stallion or mare. Heck, he asked anything with a pulse if they would help him. So we head out and tell the boss, he says to us, get the kid and have him lead us to the stable. But when we get back there, kid’s gone.”

My pleasant appearing smile vanished. I pulled back slowly and turned away, sighing and feigning towards the controls again.

“Wa- wa- Wait! We know where he is now! After we couldn’t find him the first time, we started driving to nearby towns, but somehow, every time we get to a new town, he manages to get past us and makes it to a few more towns before we can even find out here isn’t there. S-so finally we track him to Son Tor. We find out that he managed to leave again, just before we arrive. Seems he headed out with a scavenger team headed to some other military base… We know the pony that set up his job and we were headed there after this job… until all this shit…” she trailed off while I continued towards the controls.

I heard a thump and the sound of hooves slamming into metal, “What the fuck do you want, tell me!” she screamed hoarsely. Her nerves probably frayed from all of the constant threats and thoughts of her eminent doom.

“Tell me the name of the pony giving out jobs and about the kid asking for help!” I said, whirling around and getting in close to her face again…

Wait… why did that seem so familiar?

“Scar… his name is Scar…” She explained, wiping away her tears and sniffling.

Oh no.

“… and the kid is ah… ah… oh shit I- I know this just give me a sec…”

“He’s a unicorn…” I finished. My eye began to twitch slightly.

“Yea… and he’s…”

“Tan… tan with a dirty blonde.”

“Yea, how’d you know?” she started but her voice began to trail off as I turned to her.

I just stared at her for a moment, the mare’s eyes still a little watery as she looked at me, an audible gulp coming from her throat. I stomped towards the console and threw the start-up handle, my coat noisily flapping behind me and then turned towards the stairs again, ready to grab the loot and head out.

“WAIT! You- you can’t just leave me here! You- I told you everything you wanted to know!”

“Yea you did thanks.” I replied calmly, having already made up my mind as to the fate of this mare as soon as she revealed her true intentions with the stable.

“Yea bu- but you… you can’t do this! Please! I- I have a foal! She needs the money I get from jobs!” she said trying to appeal the better pony inside of me.

“Then I’ll make sure to deduct my teaching fees from your loot. It’s a new course I’ve made called, “Crash course to learning the harsh nature of the wastes, a foal’s guide”, I’m told I’ll have copyright issues, but my lawyer assures me I have a chance.”

“What the fuck!” the mare screamed.

Her hooves began to bang against the sentinel as I reached the second floor. Chuckling, I looked down as the mare began flailing, thinking about how silly she’d feel in a moment.
While the mare screamed bloody murder, I was suddenly struck with the beat of a song… I couldn’t put a hoof on the name or many of the lyrics but the beat. I knew the beat and began to canter to it, stopping at some points and speeding up for others.

The mare’s screams stopped as I assumed she passed out from probably shock, but either way I was just happy she was finally done, her voice was starting to grate on the ears.

Metal began to crunch and then a loud roaring and puttering sound emanated from the machine. Just as I had presumed based on how the metal had been broken up preemptively before being fed into the machine, the sentinel draped across the mare acted as a shield, jamming the bender before it reached her and in the end only scaring the crap out of her.

I got to the door and hoofed the handle down. The door opened, bathing me in light. Ignoring the symbolism attached to the light bouncing off the metal of the room and highlighting all the items inside, I moved into the room and found it was exactly what I was looking for.

The walls were adorned with schematics about a very familiar technology and from what I could see, assorted parts and bullets lie strewn across tables and work benches, each in either the process of being manufactured or already finished and just awaiting it’s purpose in life like a good soldier. I collected everything the mare had missed, schematics and everything possible that mine and her bags could fit.

Exiting the room the smell and sound of a broken pre-war machine greeted me. The machine had finally stopped, leaving the mare’s body a untouched and the sentinel beheaded.

Heading towards the exit I froze, turning in place towards the mare and remembering her friend outside. Chuckling to myself, I made the turn at the stair case and trotted down to her.

***

I exited the bunker to find the rain had stopped, awesome.

It was still dark outside but the rumbling vehicle engines and bright lights told me that nothing had changed in the good chunk of time I had been down there. The bunker’s front was still illuminated by the autos.

Walking towards the road I saw the headless stallion still in the gun turret, the body right where I had left it and turned to see the young teen still lying where I had confronted him before, his back up against the auto-wagon. He was covered in vomit and the corpse of the raider was just a little ways away, most likely he had tossed it and then emptied his stomach.

The young ganger looked up at me with an exhausted look that only came with puking your guts out multiple times. He squinted towards me, his eyes trying to adjust before they began to grow. His terror from earlier hitting him and his chest began to heave. I just smiled.

“Here, brought you another gift, mind holding onto this one better?” I asked, un-slinging the mare’s body and dropping it in the kid’s lap. I dropped the mare’s body into his lap… followed by the severely shot up corpse of Next Wave pony.

I left the young stallion with his new friends and trotted off to my bike that I’d left sitting just nearby. The pony began puking his guts out again at the sight of his boss.

I sat down in the seat and realized I still had that song in my head, my head bobbing to it without me even realizing it. So, with a sort of theme song to this whole ordeal, I started the engine and sped off back the way I had come, heading straight for Son Tor again.

***

My trip back to the main road was rather tame thankfully, no crazy raiders attacking or creepy towns filled with zombies. Hitting the main road made my trip back much more pleasant but I couldn’t enjoy it, the mare’s words bother me the whole way. The idea of her fellow gangers trying to seize that kid’s stable, all the hundreds of pony lives that have been put endanger because the Overmare decided to send that stupid kid out into the wastes for help instead of someone more competent. The fuck was she thinking?

Still on the main road for at least another few hours I turned the radio on, hoping the news had some news story or song to take my mind off the situation.

I fiddled with the dial and found the news already in progress.

“…and of course, we thank them for their efforts.

I welcome you all who are just tuning in tonight. Our top stories right now involve the mysterious foal napping occurring all over the coastal parts of Los Pegasus and news from the war front. Starting with the story closer to home and our hearts, I am told there are no leads right now but that house troops have been deployed to the coastal area in an attempt to track down who has captured over a dozen foals. Troops deployed are courtesy of The Drop club. We all thank you for helping. The other top story deals with a more distant but over all a more grievous problem, the war. The sudden rain from tonight has bogged down troop movements and forced troops into a more desperate battle than ever, fighting boredom. Our prayers go out to those on the front lines, good luck.

In other news, we have reports of gang actions being halted during the night by a sudden and bold attack by our enemies from the north. Every gang instantly turned their guns towards the sky, illuminating the night with tracer fire for over an hour. Once the enemy was defeated, all the gangs resumed their activities and began turning their guns on each other. Los Pegasus thanks you all for keeping your priorities in mind.

Well that is all I have for you for now. I will speak to you all when I have more to comment on. Until then, we have more music for you to keep those frowns turned upside down.”

The music began to play, a rather somber song about a stallion singing about maybe being remembered, so I turned it off. Annoyed at how short the news was tonight, but even more annoyed at the choice of music.

Who the hell plays music that can put people to sleep at night?

The roar of the engine giving some sound, I continued onwards. Just keeping that song I had in my head earlier, finding it hard to remember it now, of course, when I needed it… Figures.

***

I reached Son Tor, eventually, and relatively unscathed. Some morons had a fight on the road about who could pass, even though it was a four lane stretch of road, but who was I to question. The detour to miss the fight cost me about half an hour and accidently crushing a small radscorpion herd with the bike.

Pulling up to the gates, I reenacted the same song and dance as before and watched the gates open same as before. I pulled the bike into the same spot and threw down the kick stand, ditching the bike in a hurry and making my way back to the shit hole of a bar I had been at before.

Pushing and leaping over ponies, I raced up and down streets, some blocked or moving too slow for me. I passed by a pony pushing a cart filled with cabbages… and grenades (seriously?) His sign warned ponies to look before they eat… but I don’t want to think about how often that happened that it required a sign. Looking around the cart, I saw an average sized stallion pulling it and whistling a tune whine blindly trotting down the street.

“Hey, hey buddy! I gotta go, can you move your ass?”

The pony didn’t respond, so I took it to the next level.

Spinning around and leaning on my fore-hooves, I pulled back my hind legs and wound up for the pitch, letting them go and bucking the cart.

I heard a yelp and squeaky wheels heading away from me.

Turing back around and noticing no one blocking my path now, I broke back into a run, ignoring the cabbage pony screaming for help and ponies racing to help him the best they could while he hurtled into a building. There was a loud crash of wood versus rickety metal and the words, “My cabbages!” coming from behind me as I turned onto the street taking me straight towards my goal.

Bursting through the doors I found the bar very packed, all manner of life now swarming to the booze and food of this place. I could see assorted mares and stallions of the night plying their trades to the drunken patrons and some of the patrons accepting this. Some just puked and fell over.

Finding time was of the essence, I cast subtlety to the wind. Shoving and pushing people aside, I began to make my way towards the bartender who, more often than not, knew where someone like Scar would operate, and since I personally didn’t know much other then the obvious about this town, I only had this place as square one for finding him.

I watched the mare who had served me earlier trot by as I threw my hooves around a pony’s face and tossed him out of the seat he was holding for me. The pony fell to the floor and began to laugh hysterically at this, not even trying to right herself. The server mare looked wide eyed for a moment and then resumed her duties quickly.

Pulling myself up on the chair, I came face to face with the bartender. He looked at me confusedly and then leaned in towards me, “What can I get you?” he yelled.

“I want to know about the pony that beat my ass earlier! I was told his name was Scar. I need to know where he is!” I asked, the sounds of the bar patrons nearly canceling out my voice.

The bar pony just shrugged, “I’m not an info pamphlet, order something or leave!”

I sighed.

Knowing this was probably going to have to go the hard way, I reached into a pocket and found my pouch of caps. Undoing the leather tie around the top I opened it and grabbed a couple rolls of a hundred in my teeth. I dropped them onto the counter for the bartender to see and gestured at them.

He looked at me skeptically, then after a nod at the caps, he raked them behind the bar with a hoof and jabbed his head towards the service area. I tipped my hat to him and began walking towards the door, avoiding the assorted patrons who felt it prudent to get up from their seats just as I walked by.

I pushed these ponies aside and pushed open the doors when I got within hoofs reach of them, the smell of booze and rank pony fur being replaced with… about the same thing truthfully.

The kitchen was more or less just a series of refrigerators and raw meat with other food stuffs scattered about. The zebra operating the grill paid me no mind while I ventured towards the back, following the only route the kitchen presented.

Starting down the corridor, I followed it until I found myself in a small room with a door at the end. Two familiarly big ponies sat flanking the doorway, one reading a magazine while the other gnawed on a bone like some sort of hound, the former of the pair lowered his magazine and scowled at me. I held out my caps bag and rattled it, the very distinct clinking sound telling them why I was here.

The newspaper pony jerked his head towards the door and I walked over to it. En route towards the door, I could spy pipes and a bat lying against a filing cabinet just beside bone pony. I assumed they used melee not solely because of their looks, but because with a bar just down the corridor, I doubt guns were the best choice for keeping your deeds unknown to others.

Stepping up to the door and pulling the handle down, I pushed open the door and stepped through then closed it with a hind leg. Sitting at a rusted metal desk before me sat a very familiar white stallion, the same left eye scar and bolts for a mane, honestly in this light he looked more like a raider. Glancing at the interior of Scar’s office, I could see a mare sitting in a corner on a mattress, a few filing cabinets, and a terminal. The sparsely furnished room made me wonder if he really made all that many caps… or if he was smart and actually invested.

The stallion stopped his writing and looked up at me, a pencil still in his mouth while he looked me over then sneered, “You better have my money or so help me, I’ll have basher and smasher break your legs.” He threatened, spitting the pencil out into a drawer and then closing it.

I leaned to the side a little and tossed on a ‘god fuck yourself’ look. “Not here for that, I’m here for that job you offered.” I stated, ignoring his threat completely.

“Don’t need yah anymore, found some others to handle it. So you’re shit out of luck.” He explained snottily.

“Okay then…” figuring I’d have to do this the easy way, “Tell me where you sent them, or I’ll kill you.” I explained with a shrug.

Scar just stared at me for a moment, taking his time to process what I had just said, his cold expression slowly giving away to a smirk and then evolved into a smile. He started chuckling at me and then clopped his hoof on the table three times, “boy am I going to enjoy beating some respect into you, you cocky fuck.”

I just shrugged again, “I’m not joking. I’ll kill you, if you aren’t useful. Hell, I could just use your terminal to find out what I need. ”

My threat drifted in the room for a moment. I could feel the tension as I watched Scar shove himself back in the chair and drop to the floor, the difference in scale was immediate… he was shorter in the chair, awesome…

Grinning manically, Scar just stood there, waiting for me to make good on my promise and presenting a point blank target.

It was blatantly obvious he was trying to threaten me, so I did what anyone would do stuck in this situation… I smiled back.

Before I could finish blinking, he rammed his head into mine, pushing me back from just the sheer force of the blow, but I was fine. Scar however fell backwards, gripping his forehead with both hooves while he fell to his rump.

“What the- what the fuck!”

Fixing my hat, I looked up at him (even sitting down the bastard was tall), and rapped a hoof against my forehead, the sound of metal striking metal with a clank, clank was evident to all those present. Scar stared at me blankly for a moment, confused and holding his bruised head while I enjoyed the irony behind someone head butting a pony who uses the metal plate on his head to head butt people… usually.

I smirked at him, “That all you got?”

Scar’s confusion disappeared, his lips stretched back into a snarl and his eyes began to fill with an anger I’d seen in ponies before when their pride was wounded.

“I’m going to enjoy kicking you ass all over again to stupid fuck…” he said, clanking his hoof against the desk three times. I heard noises outside the door and the handle turning.

I pulled myself upright, turned on a hoof while drawing both guns. The minions opened the door just as I finished and both were greeted with a shot through the chest. Minion One was hit by the sonic boom from the shot, hurling him through the doorway. Minion Two caught only a part of the force which threw into the door frame, a meaty crack coming from Minion Two’s noggin as he impacted.

I turned back to see Scar just gapping at me, his pistol on the desk. Fully turning to face him, I fired a shot into his shoulder, the round punching through his thick arm and knocking him off balance against the wall.

“Wha- what the-“ he tried stammering but was cut short by both my hooves ramming into his shoulders. The barrel of my pistol slid into his wound and elicited a scream from him. Scar Tried to force my off of him with a hoof to the face. It hurt, but I just smiled and rammed my head into his muzzle again, and again.

A dazed look crossed the pony’s face and I removed the weapon and took a step to the side, letting his body collapse to the floor. Lifting his head and trying to focus on me, his mouth hanging slightly ajar, it took a moment for him to shake off the daze and to speak.

“Who... what the fuck? How did you do that? We- we kicked your ass so easily last time…”

I chuckled, “Yea, funny stuff huh?” replying casually while taking a seat on a corner of the desk and digging into a pocket.

“Bu… but you… what…” he began but immediately silenced as I raised the pistol towards his head, his eyes drifting from me towards the barrels and taking a loud gulp.

Hearing the familiar jingle, I lifted a bag of caps out of my pocket and opened it, fishing out the amount he said I owed and dropping it onto the desk.

“There’s a thousand, double what I owe you. Now, you tell me where you sent those scavengers for the job or I’ll end this as I said I would.”

The stallion just stared at me, “If... if you could’ve paid me, why didn’t you?”

“Had to pay my barber first, and now I’m here. So tell me. Where. Are. The. Scavengers.”

With a raised eyebrow, Scar slowly nodded, “I set them up with the same deal like everyone else. Ponies come to me looking for work, I charge a small fee and they go off and collect loot and I pay them. ”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why charge them if you’re going to give that money back to them anyway?”

“So if even if they don’t come back, I still make money. I win either way.” He replied confidently.

“Nice plan. Especially the part where you remove records at Salvage Brokers… a bit excessive, but a great way to make sure no one touched your claim.”

The stallion just tilted his head, raising an eyebrow, “What? No, no, we never touched their files. I pay real scavengers for locations they hit. Then find some part someone wants and send scavengers after it. If they get loot fine, if not, they can’t blame any pony but themselves.”

Rather clever plan I admitted, making sure my expression portrayed this.

“Alright then, well, just show me where you sent your latest team and I’ll be on my way.” I said, fluttering my eyes and giving him a smile.

He nodded and tried reaching for a desk drawer. I saw this and apologized, pulling the desk back and letting him inside. He produced a sheet of paper.

I took it and the pistol still on the desk then walked towards the door. Before stepping out I turned to the mare still hiding the in corner, her body shaking and trying to use a book to shield herself. Rolling my eyes I turned back towards the doorway and walked out, stepping over the bodies and heading out towards the kitchen.

Entering the room again I found the cook still hard at work, having either chosen to ignore the gunfire or being completely oblivious. Neither matter to me as I watched him racing to and fro, preparing plates of old world food from a can, or cooking up skewers of meat and vegetables.

As I approached the swinging doors of the kitchen I found the server girls burst inside, forcing me to leap back in surprise, holding down my hat with a hoof. The door sat in front of me for just a moment before it began to swing back towards the doorway. The servers balanced plates on their heads and backs, one even grabbing a plate in her teeth and then both blitzing the door just as quickly as they had arrived, completely unaware or uncaring of my presence. I allowed myself a smile at how smoothly this was going and following the girls out through the doors, dropping to all four and trotting out.

The bar was packed, more so than it had been a few minutes ago. The loud noises and voices of dozens of people in a confined space filled the air. The stench of old beer, alcohol and roasted meat wafted through the place. I could see loose panels on the walls vibrated and shook from the commotion as ponies and zebra banged on the floor or impacted the walls of the shanty bar. I could see the radio above the bar was playing, the light on but with all the noise, I expected nobody could truly hear it.

Looking around and checking the faces of those closest to the kitchen and from just glancing at the glasses of beer and fairly happy looks, nobody seemed to care. Not a soul paid me any mind or even looked my way, Awesome.

Heading towards the exit with a push and a shove, I nudged open the door and headed into the dimly lit street. Looking over my shoulder to the right, then my left, confident no one at all was curious as to the shots. I dropped the casual act and made a dash for the bike. Moving through the streets and cutting through alleys, I reached the parking lot and leapt onto the bike.

Reving the engine and peeling out of Son Tor as fast as the bike would go, I reached the highway quickly and set myself on the course the paper told me to. The instructions said that the complex I was headed to was situated up north.

I sighed and cursed my luck… fuck. Telling myself I needed to go that way was the easy part, it was the sane part of me that screamed out telling me not to attempt this. I’m not usually intimidated by most things, but I’m also not stupid or crazy. Thinking back to radio broadcast and stories I had overheard… the north was not a place you wanted to take on. Northern territory is the contested territory of the Los Pegasus area, owned by the city and a shit ton of other groups. Entering that territory ran the risks of running into gangs who were not only fighting, some were on the war path. Hell, running into a gang would be a cake walk considering.

Trying not to think about it, I sucked it up andaccepted the risks, knowing full well that if it was in fact the same pony (to which I had no doubt), I had to act fast before that moron gets himself killed… or worse, captured by the group hunting for his stable.

Switching topics, I began to plan. Planning always helped focus my damn mind when it began to think. Using my little mental map, I dropped it onto a table and began to go through the route I’d planned (metaphorically of course… gotta keep myself entertained somehow, and acting as though I was in one of those old rooms you see ponies of the past planning in always helped.) Unrolling the map and sliding some nice paper weights over the corners (because I could never find a damn use for them otherwise), I began to dot out the route and to the best of my ability, outline known danger zones.

To get to the base, I have to cut across the plains, which, although were mostly flat, were still used by everyone else just for ease of transportation. Since the roads were a dinner bell to every gang and monster up north, I began to mark, dotting along the route I was taking more or less in real time. I had no real idea how long this would take, encounters aside, I wasn’t a wiz with geography, nor a mechanic, so I had no idea how many kilometers to the charge I’d get with this bike, but I looked at the power gauge. The meter hovered around the lower middle, so I doubted I’d run out anytime soon, but I needed to start looking for cells for the bike. Mental me grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, making a literal mental note to grab some damn cells.

By my guest-ah-ments, these ponies maybe had half a day ahead of me, but no more. It hadn’t been super long since I’d seen that stupid kid, so they either took an auto to the site, or ran the entire way. I had to think that the latter was the more logical, but in all honesty I imagined that these days, everyone has a freakin’ auto to spare.

Moving out of the planning room to a second and reasserting myself to my surroundings, I noticed the sign to turn off was coming up. The exit was the death trap, so I veered towards the side, hitting a slight bump as I drove off the road and into the dirt. The path ahead was flat, featureless landscape, the dry and lifeless ground blowing away in the light of the moon. In the distance the land began to elevate slowly and then jut up suddenly. These hills were as best as I could recollect were home to a mercenary group… or raiders. Always get those two mixed up, oh well.

Anyway, so with a route laid out I just continued to drive on, no need to sweat the small stuff. I had a plan and if needed I’d improvise. It’s what I’m good at.

Looking at how far I had to travel and how late it was, I flipped on the radio, figuring I’d use it as long as I could to stay awake, suddenly realizing that stupid me hadn’t slept in a while. Oh well.

The station was already in progress of a song, trumpets blaring with drums and trombones playing in the background. Yea, this will do nicely.

***

The sun began to peak over the horizon, the night’s hold over the land began to loosen, making spotting enemies much easier.

The morning consisted of dealing with a couple of Radscorpions, the little bastards thinking it was funny to pop out from behind a rock and try to take swipes at me. In retaliation I spun the bike around and ran them down. I thought it was pretty funny… but that was probably just the lack of sleep talking.

Lack of sleep and radscorpions aside, the trip was fairly tame. Having to only avoid a few areas that looked like raiders were holding them, or places with big “DO NOT ENTER” signs. Yea know, the usual things to avoid and keep on the lookout for.

Anyway, sometime during the morning I found the place I’d been looking for... I think?

Honestly all these damn military places look the same after awhile. It was a standard military installation built on a flat piece of land. No hills, no cover, just a broken chain link fence spanning the perimeter… how exciting.

So, ignoring the obvious stay out messages, the bike rumbled on past through a break in the fence. I tried to keep the speed to more of a crawl so I could see nice signs like, “Now entering a live mine field!”

Because however much I thought that “no, that’d be silly… who the hell puts a mine field in the middle of… oh right, we do.”

The bike continued on while I began to rant and rave internally over the intelligence of the old world. A sign on my left stated I was entering an R.E.A airfield, and that I should stay out. Damn, better pack up and go home I suppose.

Chuckling and returning to things I had just reminded myself not to do, like staying out of areas marked off limits, I began to make out multiple half cylindrical buildings. Hangars I believed from the looks of them, the doors facing me looked open and for the most part… yea, so did the other sides.

Just beyond the hangars I could see a observation tower of some kind. I figured it was the primary building and most likely my goal since none of the buildings seemed to have the needed pull or interest that was needed to attract looters.

Oh and of course besides the bike, there were no loud noises… so that’s a good start-

A loud burst of gunfire suddenly tossed me for the bike and onto my side.

Rolling onto my back, I watched the bike slowly begin to abandon me, the momentum carrying it away I supposed… and here I thought vehicles had measures to stop that… damn it.

Ignoring the cowardly bike fleeing the scene and began searching for the source of the gunshots…

Nothing.

So with no one to shoot at me… I began to think cover was the better- oh, no, none of that either… completely wide open. So… with no enemy and no place to hide, I didn’t even draw my guns, and instead began checking myself for damage. The coat itself was for nothing more than concealment, a few plates attached for minor protection, but overall I usually just relied on my speed, keeping my armor weight low and using cover. Pushing the sides of the coat away, I could see the thick steel chest plate I wore had blunted the bullets, lodging them slightly inside.

Ignoring the damage and returning to my primary problem, a nasty one at that, I still couldn’t see the shooter. Flipping myself over onto my belly, I tried to stand slowly, looking and seeing where the bike had finally fallen. Slowly I began to move towards-

Gunfire rattled off near me and forced me to ground, the burst last no more than a second and stopping when I hit the dirt. More confused than hurt I began to look around again and go figure, still nothing.

Crawling now and keeping very low to the ground, I made my way towards the bike, no gun shots. I moved around the bike, using the seat for cover in more or less the direction I was sure I was hit from.

A little closer now, I could make out the vague outline of… something. A shimmering outline perched behind a bush and slightly concealed behind a rock. Where oh where… wait… shimmering outline. I knew what this was, or at least I had a guess. Damn Stealth Buck cloaking devices.

With an idea of what I’m up against, now I can deal with it.

Reaching into a pocket I rummaged for a piece of scrap metal, finding damn near everything else and then- oh there we go. Scooping it up with a hoof, I took aim towards the side of the gun and hoping for a bit of skeet shooting.

With a toss I hurled the metal into the air and took aim, taking three shots in rapid succession. The first shot aimed just above the muzzle flash, but no dice. The second shot was aimed at the muzzle flash, the shot flying through the machine but it was still operational. My final shot was aimed just below the muzzle flash. The bullet flew through and impacted the dirt before I could blink, the final shot silencing the turret instantly.

The metal thumped to the ground.

Standing up, I walked over to the shard of metal, the turret only having hit it a little and why waste good scrap?

Looking one last time min the direction of the turret I found that it was still cloaked, the stealth buck or whatever concealed it was still active but clearly it was down for the count. Holstering and dropping to all four, I trotted alongside the motorcycle and began the tedious process of righting it.

With a grunt and a curse, I leaned against the seat and used my back to push the bike up, a hoof gripped onto the frame and the other keeping the front wheel straight.

The bike leaned into position and sat. Clanking my hooves together in a wiping action, I nodded and grinned at how easy that had been. Hell, I wasn’t even going to question why that worked so well, just as long as it works.

Mounting the bike, I started it up and slowly eased the bike forward, letting bit by bit off the clutch and then letting the bike roar forward, heading straight for the facility.

***

I reached the facility about twenty minutes later, no more surprise turrets or anything, just barren desert with a sky chariot facility at the center.

Cautiously riding into one of the open hangars I could easily see how barren this place really was, litter and crates cracked open were strewn all over the place. Clearly if there were things here they-

I could make out movement off to the right. I shut off the engine and dismounted, turning just in time to hear what was scuttling about.

A giant cockroach walked into view, clicking and hissing then charging. I waited until it was close and then brought a hoof down on top of it, the metal meeting the bug’s carapace and winning.

Pulling hoof back I noticed how… gooey it all was. Damn it.

Shaking my head in disgust I began to try to shake off the guts clinging to my hoof, flicking it away and dragging it across the papers that were just nearby.

With a series of clicks, a small group of Radroaches moved into view, rising up a little to signal their charge, and then took off straight towards me.

I sighed, having just cleaned off one hoof and sat leaning partially on my right side while the group charged. When they reached me I let my right hoof crush the head of the first, the second roach pushing past and trying to lunge at me, my left hoof moving and crushing it’s front two legs. The rear two continued and scuttled over their lead bug, trying to crawl up my leg. I pulled it back and brought a hoof down on each of their backs, cracking the carapace with a hearty crunch. The wounded roach had finally made it towards my back leg, trying to bite me through my duster and failing. I kicked him with a hind hoof and chucked it a few meters away.

Sprawled on its back, the bug began to scuttle for all it was worth, trying to right itself. I wasn’t in any reach danger so I walked towards it. The bug flapping it’s wings and launching itself back to its legs just as I got along side, a hoof already coming down on top of it and cracking it open.

With the fight over I began cleaning off my hooves again while heading towards the front of the hangar.

Honestly… how Radroaches are even a threat is beyond me. You’d have to be on your death bed to not be able to not beat one. Rolling my eyes and knowing I’d never get an answer, I realized I was just at the doorway so I took a look outside.

Just outside of the hangar was a barricade that was… well it wasn’t made of scrap for starters.

The barricade looked like it was an actual military barricade, shaped like a small bunker with four walls and a small stair case leading to a parapet on top. The whole thing was made from panels, so from just looked at it I immediately felt that someone put this here. The condition supported the theory with how new it looked. Just a glance around the area, it was blatantly obvious this base hasn’t had any tender love and care in… yea, long time.

The barricade bunker thingy however wasn’t my concern so I let it be and chalked it up to another wasteland event I’ll never understand. Directly ahead was another hangar, both doors open and the central building a straight ahead.

Running towards the hangar I made sure to poke my head inside the bunker thingy. Whoever had been here had cleaned it out already, a couple of outlines on the ground in the shape of something akin to a crate were scattered around inside.

Leaving the bunker alone finally and making my way towards the hangar I stopped at the doors, peeking around and looking side to side, nothing scuttled or clicked inside, so I ran towards the next set of doors.

At the next set of doors I repeated the cautious checking of my surroundings then bolting for more cover. Leapfrogging between each pile of crates or sky-chariot wreck, I made my way to the side of the building.

Looking left, then right, neither seemed any different than the other. So I chose left.

Making my way cautiously along the wall, I kept close and low to the ground as I approached the corner of the building that would take me to the other side. Choosing not to let myself get caught off guard by some damn Raiders or-

Snapping immediately to the side of the building, I took stock of the large group of heavily armed auto-chariots and auto-wagons parked out front. Carefully, I leaned forward and tried to get a better look at how truly screwed I was.

There was a pair of sharply dressed individuals ordering and shoving ponies into position. The commanding pair consisted of a zebra and a gryphon, both dressed in white shirts and black trousers. The zebra in a black suit jacket and tie while the gryphon sported only a black vest with suspenders. The pair was really well equipped too, the gryphon holding a .45 caliber sub machine gun and the zebra with a baseball bat sitting in a sling across his back, and a .45 pistol in a leg holster. Neither were common, nor cheap guns to maintain.

The gryphon jumped down from a wagon bed and began gesturing for the ponies carrying crates to move forward and then helped them shove the crate into the back. The zebra just sat on the flat bed of an auto-wagon, an overseer’s stare on everyone coming and going from the front door.

These were city folk without a doubt, probably hired and put in charge of whatever gang this was. The vehicles were fairly common models except for a single auto-chariot, the red coloring was only slightly faded and not sporting any wasteland “improvements” to the auto’s body or frame.

These were professional city gangers and they were here stealing old world stuff… common thing to do nowadays.

I pulled my head back into cover and backed up until I was safely around the corner. I needed inside and those scum bags were using the front door… the only point I had left had to be the other side. Instantly I began to wonder about the status of the scavengers if a gang was putting this much power behind a old military base, must be something here they-

I stopped myself before I began to question the thought process of gangers. Fuck them, I’m not here for them, so who cares who they’re doing?

Anyway, I turned and headed the opposite way, heading towards the other side of the building closest towards the hangars and run way. Walking along the side of the building I noticed how few wrecks there were for what appeared to be an airfield, why did they have an airstrip if they didn't use aircraft? Pegasus don't need runways, did they? I snickered at the idea of it, but sadly I knew better, sigh, damn confusing old world ponies.

Thinking over the convoluted and confusing old world took up the time needed to trot to the other side of the building. I didn't see a entrance right away, just a pile of rubble obscuring a point around the corner ahead. Nearing the corner and taking a peek, I could see there was a fairly large hole in the building wall facing the airfield, far from the gangers.

On the ground snaking out of the hole was a line of rope. I followed it with my head towards a tree maybe fifteen meters away. Without a doubt this had to be those scavengers. rope and using the most difficult and direct way inside, classic scavengers.

I moved towards the hole, my mind beginning to conjure up a scenario for this whole thing.

From the looks of it, Scar hired the scavengers to grab stuff inside, the gangers hired to do the same thing, but faster and more direct. I'm thinking that the scavengers got here first, found the main door blocked and looked for another way inside, the hole meeting that requirement after a fashion. I glanced at the rubble for a moment while I proceeded inside. The rubble at first glance was just as it appeared, a pile of rubble.

On the ground I could make out hoof prints and indentations in the ground. Were they drag marks? Anyway, the scavengers cleared the entrance and used some rope to... mark their path?

I wasn't sure yet of the rope's purpose yet, but I was sure bid find out in a moment. The rope lead into a tiny room with a single door that had somehow remained fairly intact, the glass was cracked and the wood rotten but the door stood vigilant. The rope trailed underneath the door.

Welp… No guts no glory. I turned the handle, the mechanism squealed and the hinges creaked but the door opened. Inside was black, the lights inside behaving died long ago and the light outside was blocked by the remains of the roof.

I took a few steps, why didn't I- oh crap! Slowing down to a very drawn out walk, I turned and began to try to rummage for a flash light I thought I had. I chuckled at how stupid I must look, wandering into dark ass room with no-

Crap…
Yea know…
You’d have thought I’d have seen this coming. But nope, gravity wins again. I fell.

Not far, but far enough.

Belly flopping to the ground, I felt my chest plate take the brunt of the fall in my teeth, it was rough, but it didn't sound like anything broke, so I was thankful to whoever cut me that break.

Rising to my hooves, I looked up to see that nearly the entire first floor was missing. Apparently something had come screaming in through the broom closet and... disappeared apparently. There was, at first glance, nothing in the room.

I was seriously annoyed with myself, seriously, falling through a hole in the floor... lame. thankful no one was here, I tried again to find my flash light and discovering it hidden in my saddle bags, great place for it Fell Iron, brilliant.

Drawing the device with my teeth and flipping the switch with my tongue, the room instantly brightened.

Illuminating an area close to myself, i came nearly face to face with a recently deceased pony. the body of this earth pony stallion was just lying there. he looked fairly fresh, and after looking up and following a path from the door to him, he probably was the first to go through the door, and from the way his neck looked… he was quite dead.

"Sucks to be you pal." I said before looking away.

At first glance I got the impression this was some sort of dining area for base personnel. The assorted tables lying about on their sides were a big clue, but the large concentration of snack machines hiding in the corner was a dead giveaway.

The door above me that I had entered through slowly closed and removed the last bit of natural daylight, throwing the room into near pitch black, my flash light now was the only light source, cutting through the thick, dust ridden darkness like a knife through butter. I could see multiple doorways surrounding me, all were open and leading in opposite directions, but from quick glances at them, most were just small rooms, one lead into a kitchen area.

I looked through one doorway and immediately saw it lead down a hallway. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce which way they had gone so I moved towards the door.

I tried the door handle and found it was unlocked, a few bobby pins sitting in bent wrecks just beside it. I opened the door, who picks a locked door then closes it? Whatever, I said and opened the door and getting a better look at the hallway. Ahead I could see that it turned left.

Creeping towards the corner I tipped back my hat a bit, trying to make sure that if anyone was ahead, I'd hear them before I could see them.

I approached the corner and slowed down. Pausing there for a moment I tried to take in the sounds of the area. There wasn't much down here apparently. No dripping of water, no clopping of hooves, or any footsteps for that matter. The only real sounds were made by me, the occasional breath being the loudest thing in here.

So, with no sounds ahead, I gave it a quick check, made sure the coast was clear and then headed straight, the new hallway leading me left again, but there was no deviations so it was easy to remember how to escape. I figured this place wouldn't stay quiet for long.

The hallways took me through multiple turns and corridors. I found signs of struggle dotted throughout the place, a scavenger’s body here or a place with crates or boxes opened and their contents looted. All the bodies from what I observed had been shot, or in some fashion dismembered, that didn’t bode well at all in my mind, but still no stupid kid sized unicorn body, so that was reassuring, but not much. I imagined that if the five I had passed by so far had fallen, how much longer till that dumbass perished?

That realization got the lead out of my ass. Quickening my pace and racing ahead, I began running through each hallway, poking my heading a room just long enough to check for bodies.

Taking a right turn, I found myself at an intersection, one path heading left, one going right.

I chose left and began running down the corridor.

I hadn’t based my decision on anything more than a quick glance, but both seemed to be the same... I hope.

Returning my attention to the task at hoof, I found myself near the end of the hallway, my mind thankfully stopping my before I just waltzed out. Once again I poked my head slowly and cautiously around the edge and took a look.

The only thing I could see at the end of the hallway was a large metal door, a terminal beside it, but nothing-

Wait, no. No there was something else, just beneath the terminal.

Rushing the door I could see the body of a pony on the ground and the area just in front of its head covered in blood and glass. I glanced up for just a moment then back to the-

I did a double take of the terminal. The screen from a distance had looked deactivated, black and lifeless like most are until you interface with it, but that wasn't the case here. I could see that the terminal had acted like a shrapnel bomb, the glass and internal parts… Yea, this mare was dead, and probably not in a quick way either with how her hooves were placed on her face, trying to shield her face from danger that had already done its damage.

I heard a hissing noise and a wave of light hit me, not blinding, but the sudden change in brightness was enough to make me shield my eyes. I looked underneath my hoof and could see an earth mare, her dark blue pastel coat covered by a red robe. She screamed something about a breach in the western corridor. Suddenly the little technicians in my brain went to work and… yea, she meant me, shit.
I dropped my raised leg and could see multiple pony shaped figures clad in very heavy looking metal armor, hell their whole bodies were encased in the stuff.

“Haha, wrong room.” I chuckled nervously while trying to hit the close door button, if there had been one… there wasn’t.

One of the metal figures began galloping at me at an impressive speed for being a metal pony.

Spinning around and racing down the hallway, I could hear the heavy clanking of metal on concrete just behind me.

I reached the first turn and grabbed onto the corner, using the momentum to swing me into the corridor taking me towards the intersection.

The second corner reached me quickly and without thinking I ran back the way I came. Swerving to the side, I slid slightly across the concrete, the metal on my hooves sparking against the ground but putting me in perfect positioning for heading straight.

The pursuing pony had to be no more than a few second behind me. About half way down the hallway now, I threw myself up onto my hind hooves and whirled around, my hooves already going for my holsters and by the time the were drawn I was facing back towards the intercection just as the metal pony ran into view.

“Can’t hide from me primitive!” the metal clad pony boomed down the hallway just as her head turned towards me.

“Who’s hiding? I just needed your fat, metal ass away from your friends.”

Without stopping to let the pony retort, I fired a shot from each pistol.

The first shot was aimed at her front hoof, the second going for center of mass, but the pony’s mid section was concealed behind a massive minigun battle-saddle, shit...

Shot one flew straight at the hoof in the blink of an eye, penetrating the armor with no problem and impacting the concrete on the other side. The second shot impacted the gun, the shot flying through the gun, I’m not sure it penetrated the armor too, but I wasn’t going to let off the pressure and raced forward.

The pony thing screamed at an impressively high volume and then lost its footing, tripping over the wounded limb and falling to the ground. Hearing this I hoped that a simple hit to the leg wasn’t enough to drop metal pony before I could question it, then the bastard could explode for all I cared.

Reaching the pony thing’s head, I put a gun to the pony’s head , “Drop the guns and I won’t blow you away. I don’t have time to deal with your dumb-“

The metal pony swung a hoof at my leg, the metal clanging against the metal brace on the side of the lower limb but the power behind the swing took me off my hooves easily.

I fell with a thump on my side. Bringing my head up I saw I was directly in front of a multi barreled weapon that was beginning to spin rather fast. Pushing off with a fore hoof, I catapulted myself to my hind hooves, just as the minigun roared to life.

The pony stood up just as fast, the armor around its wound beginning to… huh, that’s a new one.

I watched the armor knit itself back together just before me. Well shit, that’s not very fair…

The pony didn’t think so and wasn’t paused by internal debate. It swung the still firing minigun towards me and immediately drew me out of my mental conflict.

Spinning to the left, I found myself alongside the metal pony, the gun still firing but quickly correcting its angle on me, but not fast enough.

Taking a quick look at the armor at close range, I noticed a very interesting set of wording on a hind quarter side panel, the words warning printed in nice yellow letters.

“This looks important!” I grinned,

The shot flew into the metal pony’s hind quarters where a regular pony’s cutie mark would be. The shot sailed through the armor but only clanking against the other side. Glaring angrily at the fat ass suit of armor, I fired again… and Still nothing. I fired again, and again.

The pony armored thingy screamed with each shot, then, after the sixth shot, it stopped mid scream, its body freezing in place.

A familiar smell began to fill the air as metal pony began to bleed through the small holes in the armor. Not a lot, but enough to at least show me that I had hurt it.
Holstering my guns, I began to walk towards the right path of the intersection, walking backwards and gesturing for the pony to halt.

“Alright just… stay there, and we won’t have any issues!” I stated, getting no reply, “Ok, good boy. Stay.”

I turned around and began running down the right hallway, and taking the left turn it offered.

Go figure the right hallway was the ‘right’ hallway.

I ran down this new hallway and glanced inside of the doorways it held, each just as before and empty of both loot and any sort of struggle. I wondered if maybe the scavengers had already finished, maybe they had pulled out when the gangers showed up or those crazy metal clad ponies. Each room assured me that they had been here for at least awhile, and that at some point… some had cut and run perhaps. Piles of loot or loot able items were still present, perhaps some cut and run and others went on, unable to carry everything, they prioritized, and left the scraps behind.

Turning back, I found myself almost at the end of the hallway. Ahead there was another left turn, which I figured might actually take me back to where the metal ponies had gathered. I needed to be careful, so at the corner I looked, nothing, so I made my way towards the right side of the hall, walking close to the wall.

My pace had slowed dramatically, from covering nearly a twenty meter hallway in a little more than a minute, to a careful and methodical walk, taking my time at each doorway and looking in. The loot pile in the first room was… pretty substantial, but nothing I could use and I didn’t need any extra weight slowing me… with a sigh and a bit of reluctance, I left the pile of beautiful loot behind and walked to the next room. My little mental pony self began to write one very familiar word, Whore.

Well, loot whore or not, I did tend to value very obscure things over other ponies, pretty much how it goes now a days, right? I checked the next room briefly, trying hard to resist even looking at the loot still sitting in place, and moved on.

I remember once, coming across a dead merchant. I had moved fairly close to see what had happened, asking and calling out to whoever was there, no answer. So since no one seemed to be there, I trotted up and began looking through the stuff in the bags. All of a sudden I noticed a foal and her mother dead on the other side of the Brahmin. After finding nothing in the bags, I had gotten back on course and headed towards the trade post. Inside, I had overheard a group of bandits that were trying to sell off some loot he had ‘found’. The only item I really noticed was a foal bottle and other items needed to care for one. The guys said it had been a successful trip to a ruined supermarket, but I wasn’t convinced, so I asked them, away from the merchant. Apparently, the bandits had needed some caps, and sure enough, there was a merchant and some other ponies. The pony said he fired, looted, and ran.

Seeing that wasn’t something new, but the explanation was… eye opening, to say the least.
Moving past yet another doorway, I noticed that… this room was untouched.

I leaned to the left and tried to see into the room in front of me, the door was closed.

Knowing that either two things could have happened, I reared up and drew. My hooves clanked against the metal grating on the floor as I approached.

The door is a classic heavy metal door. At the center of said door, there was a button, almost camouflaged against all the other hydraulic and metal parts attached. I tapped a hoof against the button at the center, instantly the metal rods holding the door in place retracted and the door fell into the ground. Without pausing I whirled around with both guns aimed into the doorway, one low, one at an approximant height to a regular pony.

But there was nothing.

The light in the room flickered a little and the stagnant air inside told me this room had probably been closed for quite some time, unlike the rest of this place.

There was a work area in the corner and all the tools needed to construct bullets in the other corner. In the center of the room sat a primary table that seemed to hold a little bit of each station, a few bullets, a few unknown weapon parts (presuming weapons based off the theme), and a few schematics.

Backing away and holstering, I let out a rather loud and annoyed sounding groan. Seriously, where the hell is this-

Clink.

It wasn’t loud, but my head still whipped to the left. Something metal just fell, and after nearly two hundred years, if it hasn’t fallen yet…

Moving towards the end of the hallway I noticed the lights getting darker, their bulbs or something having failed long ago. My eyes were surveying the doors on the right, but I made sure to keep my eyes watching front.

As I moved closer, I could make out something ahead. It was hard to see, but from the looks of it, part of the roof had collapsed and caught something beneath it… I think. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like one of those metal-

“Hello?”A soft voice asked.

Without thinking my hooves flew to my sides and my hind hooves spun me towards where I believed the target was on my right, both guns trained at average pony… level.

The guns were trained about thirty centimeters above the speaker. I corrected this after a moment.
A fairly dirty and mangy looking pony sat before me, a unicorn to be precise.

He sat just inside the doorway, his muzzle pointed at the floor and his ears drooped. The kid looked up at me with the most pathetic stare he could manage. He started speaking but I was still examining him, then looking into the room behind him, the lights were off, so I didn’t see much. The kid’s stable jumpsuit was still okay, no bullets wounds, knife wounds, and no pieces of metal jutting out from any part of him, so he’s fine.

“…an- and sh- she just… I- I didn’t mean-“ he blubbered on, holding up his slightly bloody hooves for me to see.

“That’s nice kid, love in the wasteland is awesome, but we have bigger problems… like a room filled with heavily armed and armored ponies that are fucking nuts.”

The kid took a step back towards the doorway.

“Nope, we’re getting you out of here.”

The kid’s head began to raise and his ears perked up, “We are?”

“Well I mean… I’m not going to force you to leave your wasteland beauty you have stowed away in there, but yes, we’re leaving.”

His mouth suddenly went from happy to sad in the blink of an eye, his ears drooping again and his face starting to lower. I wasn’t going to stand for this sort of sadness, not after nearly being sawed in half by a damn minigun.

I holstered and dropped to all four then took a seat on the floor. Then, with all the inspiration I could muster, I cleared my throat, sat up straight, held up a hoof and took a deep breath. His head began to rise as if he expected me to say something.

After a moment to let his head level out and his expression to not be so sad, I slammed my hoof against the side of his head. The blow knocked him off balance and into the door frame. After grabbing the side of his face and looking back at me, eyes filled with a sort of ‘how could you do that?!’ look, I got to my hooves and turned towards the exit.

“Mope on your own time, not mine. Now, get your ass up and let’s go!” I said, breaking into a half run, half jog down the hall.

I looked back to see the kid think about this for a moment, only a second, and then get to his hooves and begin to follow. I turned my head straight and gave myself a mental pat on the back. I give the best inspirational speeches.

I didn’t enjoy myself long. A set of loud bangs echoed from just down the hallway where rubble metal pony sat. Seems the gangers found them.
Waiting for the kid to catch up, I began to urge him to greater strides with my hoof pushed him along. Eventually he hit a speed closer to what I can walk, but it would have to do.

Walking along side, we made our way through the hallway and back into the area with the still frozen metal pony. I ran past the pony until I heard only one set of hooves moving. Stopping and spinning around, I saw he was standing looking into the face of the metal pony, head tilted to the side.

“Common kid!” I urged. He only turned to me and gestured at the metal pony.

“What about her?”

I raised an eyebrow, “Her who?”

He gestured again at the metal pony and I shrugged, “Life’s tough all over. She’s a big girl, I’m sure she can slow them down for a second.”

The kid only pursed his lips and glared at me, “We can’t just leave her.”

“And I say we can. Now unless you want to argue this out hog tied to the back of a motorcycle, you’ll get you skinny ass over here.”

The kid continued to glare at me, his poor pitiful me routine completely gone. He plopped his rump on the floor, and crossed his fore-hooves.

Rubbing a hoof on the bridge of my nose I began to contemplate the ramiphications of beating him senseless, then dragging him out of here. I mean… why would he give a shit about this pony, when he had a stable to save. I bet she wouldn’t do the same.

“Why the fuck should we save her, huh? You think she would do the same?”

The words paused him for a moment and he lowered his head, his eyes searching for the answer on the ground for only a moment.

“Even if she wouldn’t, even if she isn’t a good enough person to help… Why should we be just as bad?”

Something snapped inside as how naïve he was acting in the face of gangers and metal armored killing machines. I ran up alongside the stallion and began shoving him in the direction of the exit before…

“Ahem, yes. I… I can’t move.”

I stopped, and slowly turned towards the suit of armor.

My head titled to the side, “Well… that’s tough shit, ain’t it. You can’t try to blow me away and then ask for a favor, not how that works.”

“Well you tried to hurt the scribe… I couldn’t let that happen… and we thought you were one of those primitives trying to get inside.” she explained. I shrugged.

“Well I’m not, and no one asked me, so tough shit.” I replied and turned back to the kid.

I again began pushing the kid towards the exit. The kid resisted, but he was a fairly young pony and hadn’t much weight on him.

Suddenly the leapt to the side, my hoof lost its purchase and I fell on my face, ow!

“I know, I know! I still need the thingy from inside the other room. We can go get it, and tell her friends that she needs help!” the kid said cheerfully.

I pushed myself to my hooves then turned to him, snarling and eye twitching.

“How bout nooo! We don’t need anything, except you, me, and to get the hell out of here.”

Looking at the kid I could see that smug, beaming smile on his stupid little face. Like he knew something I didn’t.

Standing and putting my hooves behind to push him again, he turned to look at me, still smiling.

“If you get the device, I can turn it in for money, which in turn, I can give to you for saving my life!” he said gleefully, smiling so wide now that his eyes were closed.

I stopped, pondering his offer for a moment.

My mental self began to photocopy a sheet of paper with the term, WHORE!, written on it… but I had to know how much that device was worth to Scar now… was my life worth a sack of caps?

“So this device, you know what it looks like, right?”

The kid nodded like a fool and began running back towards the room filled with giant metal clad ponies and ponicidal gangers.

“Thank you.” The metal pony added.

“Didn’t say I’d help you, just the kid.” I snarled at her, infuriated that I had sold myself to this kid for… well I don’t really know yet what I had sold myself for. Damn it.

“Alright kid, I’ll go inside, grab this thing, then we’re out of here. I’m here for you, nothing else.”

The kid looked at me as if wanting to ask something but stopped, instead he merely nodded.

Returning the nod, I continued towards the doorway again. The door as before opened, but this time there was no earth mare screaming about intruders. This time, there was a small war going on. Multiple metal ponies fought and dived for cover from the other doorway on the other side of the room. Bodies of gangers were lying in the doorway while multiple metal ponies fired heavy weapons like rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and miniguns into the hallway, at what I presumed were the gangers.

While the metal ponies watched the hallway though, they weren’t paying attention to me, more than likely confident one of them could take on a single regular pony. My attention was lost on the metal clad ponies as I turned towards the noise emanating from the back of the room. I could see ponies in red robes dumping paperwork and parts in their saddle bags while some planted explosives at the base of the heavy and immovable machines. Whoever these ponies were, no pony was getting this tech if they couldn’t have it.

Still looking around, I could see directly across from me, a pony about three meters away from my objective. It was a cylindrical device. It looked no more special than any other pump connection that I had seen before, but according to the kid, it was important. The pump device connected a pair of water tanks that stood at least nine meters high and looked embedded in the wall itself.

Just looking at the set up of the room, I couldn’t see any way to get past the guards and the robed ponies without setting off an alarm. My mental self got to work coming up with plans and mapping the room.

Before me was a square room, with a walk way surround the perimeter of a lower area. The lower area was accessible via four short staircases, one in front of me, across from me, and one on the left and right, each sitting from what I could tell, in the center of their respective walkways. The metal ponies had a small barricade set up to the left of me, about thirty meters away. They would lean to the side, fire a few rounds down the hallway and then duck back inside, they were stalling for time. Heading straight, I would go down a short flight of stairs, about six steps, and then cross the lower landing that was filled with desks and filing cabinets and work tables. After crossing this area that was mainly used by the metal ponies, I would ascend another flight of stairs and end just in front of my objective, simple.

The problem was, all it would take was a single pony to look my way, and the metal ponies would open fire, most likely killing me.

I looked at the fight to my left, the metal ponies put on a good show but there were only six of them against what I would presume are dozens from how many vehicles sat outside. I needed a plan that could get me across safely. Thinking back now, I didn’t exactly remember all of my plans, most were improv. I quickly tried to remember the few ‘snatch and grab’ schemes I could think of, none of them applied to something like this.

What does a pony do when they need to get somewhere, filled with ponies who are just itching to blast anything that looks hostile.

Hmm…

Without realizing it, I was sitting on my rump, actually tapping my chin trying to think of an answer. Honestly though, I had nothing. So without anything to go on, I’d wing it.

“What the hell…” I muttered and trotted towards the stairs, nonchalantly.

Keeping my movements no faster than anyone else, I trotted down the steps and towards the machine. I passed by one of the metal ponies, the pony’s head turning just slightly towards me. Quickly I turned to face it and said, “You’re doing a good job, thank you. We’re almost done.”

The metal pony nodded and turned back to the fight and I continued trotting.

Stiffing a chuckle, I turned back towards the machine, making my way up the stairs and walking the few steps till I was sitting just at the base of the large tanks. I looked to see a robed pony off to my right, the pony I’d noticed earlier, still hard at work on something.

I took a seat, rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath. I really hoped this guy was really wrapped up in his work.

“Pipe Wrench.” I said

Without thinking anything of it, he put his muzzle in the tool box beside him and brought out a wrench, his eyes staying fixed on the electronic device he was fiddling with while his neck craned towards me, offering the tool.

“Thank you.” I said courteously and got to work removing the bolts securing the device.

While I loosened the bolts, I found some wouldn’t move, so I asked for oil. The robed pony was far too interested in his work to care, so he’d lean over and oil a section. Then I needed a mallet to knock a bolt loose, he’d give it a few swings and pop it loose, all the while keeping his mind on the task at hoof, not paying me any attention to someone asking for a piece of technology to be removed. All the while, the fighting towards the hallway was growing fiercer.

From what I could hear, the metal ponies, who kept using dorky names like Knight, or Paladin, were running low on munitions, apparently having lost some when they fell back to this room and were forced to leave them in a room the ‘invaders’ could get to.

With the gunfire grew more frequent, suddenly a loud, boom, boom, boom, echoed through the place. I whirled around to see a metal pony slumped on the ground, it’s head obliterated and chunks of it’s body torn asunder. Whatever this heavy gun was, the damn gangers now had the edge they needed to push these dumb bastards out of here.

I began picking up the pace, loosening the bolts and such as fast as possible. Finally, the last bolt was knocked free by my friend and I grabbed the device and stowed it in my saddle bag.

“Thanks for the help buddy.”

“Uh huh…”

I turned and started towards the exit, a sudden chirp and buzzing noise forced me to stop. I knew the sound of a laser pistol when I heard it. The jig was up.

Slowly I turned towards the apparently now perceptive pony, and saw he had a laser pistol in his mouth… pointed at me of course.

“Phurm hurm guhrm hurm!” the stallion tried saying. But from my experience, having a pistol in your mouth makes orders hard to hear.

I began shrugging at him, gesturing towards my ears like I couldn’t hear him, slowly approaching him while I did so.

“Phurm hurm guhrm hurm Nur!” he exclaimed, I just shrugged more and feigned ignorance.

Finally, like the smart nerdy pony he was, he raised a hoof, and put the pistol in it so he could speak, “I said-!”

I closed the distance in a flash, rushing him and swinging a hoof at his face and laying him out with a single blow. As the pony fell I made sure to grab the pistol as he hit the ground with a thud. No one looked around, the sound of simple thud paled in comparison to the firefight at the front and all the other noise caused by the other’s work.

I put the pistol in my bags and began running towards the exit.

As soon as I broke the normal stride and now my metal hooves clanking unceremoniously against the metal floor, the metal pony that observed me earlier turned immediately. I was already almost out the door when I heard the minigun spinning up, the whining of the motor was very particular, and so I threw myself to the nearest table just as the first hail of bullets flew past, impacting the metal floor and pinging off.

The minigun roared as it spat bullets in hoof full’s all around me. The table however was perfect cover, the base being secured to the floor and made of thick metal.

With bullets pinging off the table and pinning me, I needed to think of a way out of here… but what?! Think Fell Iron, think damn you!

I began to plot out a convoluted escape attempt using some rope and a mine, when luck proved to be on my side, answered my previous query a booming voice.

The minigun fire stopped and continued firing elsewhere. I poked my head over cover to see one the gunner had stopped and turned back towards the doorway. The booming bang, bang, bang, bang rang out from the hallway, each bang apparently fired a shot that either missed, or tore a chunk out of something else. I watched one of the pony’s armor take a hit and kept going, impress- oh wait never mind, that was shorted lived.

The first shot would impact, causing a metal pony to waver, then the next few rounds would do the same and the metal pony would either fall over with massive dents in the armor, or a chuck of the armor would give way and the heavy shots would tear the pony beneath to ribbons. Either way, these ponies were being ravaged by the heavy gun down the hallway.

I watched two ponies killed in just a matter of seconds, the others took up flanking positions near the door and began shouting orders towards the nerdy ponies for them to evacuate. This was a golden opportunity, so I took it. Running for the door with all my worth.

Racing up the stairs and reaching the doorway, I looked back out of sheer curiosity… and whoa had this place gone to hell quickly. Gangers flooded inside, leaping over and dog piling onto the metal ponies. Each metal pony blow hurled the gangers off, but they kept coming, where one fell, two rushed forward to grapple the ponies. I watched as the two unmolested metal ponies ran down into the center of the room, one with a large automatic grenade launcher and another with a laser gatling gun. They were going to unleash some serious…

A black gryphon flipped over the gun and landed in the primary area. The metal ponies turned to engage, but the gryphon was… holy hell he was gone. I searched for him like the metal ponies. There was a yell from below to flee and I turned just in time. On the ground sat a stick with what looked to be a-

Oh no, no, no, no.

I moved towards the door and hit the central button, the hydraulics opening and dropping the door. Just as the door reached the ground, the air filled with a sort of static electricity. I couldn’t step through the door fast enough. As I stepped through I quickly turned and drew a pistol, pointing it at the terminal on the now over run side and prepared to shoot. A black figure in the center of the room caught my eye and I looked for just a second.

The black gryphon looked at me with a cold and hate filled stare.

Him nor I moved for what seemed like an eternity, the action and combat around us seeming to slow to a crawl, however it all ended abruptly, the gryphon suddenly drawing and hurling a sheathed blade at me before I could even register the blade in flight. I fired my pistol and turned as quickly as I could, the whizzing of the blade coming close and impacting something with a thunk. The terminal destroyed, the door now had no way to realize it could open and began to seal. Hurling myself inside, I rolled into the familiar hallway with the dead unicorn hacker.

Getting up from from my prone position where I had landed, I ran on all four, galloping loudly down the hallway as I made my way for the the corner only to find the kind wasn't there, figures.

I continued on towards the metal pony, I'm sure that's where he would be, probably cowering behind it or something. Sure enough, the kid was sitting just in front of the immobile pony, a hoof up and waving about while his mouth jawed on about something. The closer I got the more anguish and emotion I could hear in the conversation, too bad we didn't have time for sappy conversations.

“...and that’s why I’m here.” He sighed, dropped his gaze towards the floor.

Skidding alongside himI found myself facing the metal pony, the kid just to my right.

“Alright, got your pump, let’s go, now.” I explained frantically, really hoping se gangers couldn't get in here with moremof those grenades they'd used on the metal ponies.

“Okay. What about Heavy Duty here?” he asked gesturing to the metal pony.

“Get her a name changed to something more feminine, I don’t know! We have to go!” I said, scooping him up and tossing him on my back.

“Wait! Please help! I’m trapped in here!” the metal clad pony screamed.

I turned and shrugged, “Not my problem!” and raced towards the exit.

The kid leaned close into my ear, “Bu… but we can’t leave her, she can’t move. She needs help. I was thinking we could-“

I turned a corner, slamming into the wall, the kid yelped I kept running.

“Kid, I don’t think you realize the concept of me being here for just you. No. One. Else.”

I didn't hear a reply, just a gasp and then a hoof beating on muffled metal.

"You're hurt! there's a-"

"Doesn't matter, hurt time is later, running time is now." I explained, my eyes fixed on the path ahead.

Once again he didn't reply. I heard a small grunt and a clanging from behind me, but I kept running. I didn't have time for defenseless metal clad mares, or time to even stop to see what the hell he was talking about. I was too busy trying to get this moron on track to save his stable.

This was all moot though. Carrying his ass out through the abandond hallways, then back into the cafeteria. Now, we have another problem.

I'm not really sure why the scavesngers had brought a rope, but that's the way it is.

Mirroring my concerned look, the kid turned back towards me and gestured, "How do we get out?"

"My thoughts exactly... how did you guys get in?"

The tan pony looked away, itching at his mane and then rolling his head to look back at me, his reluctance to answer was the same reason why I didn't share.

I nodded, "yea, same here."

He took it for what it was and put a hoof to his chin, tapping it. I began to look around the room. From my estimate the next floor was no more than a few meters off the ground... there had to be a way.

As if instantly catching on, the kid began looking around too. I doubted he knew what for, but hopefully a pocket elevator would appear, or a ladder... That's it!

I rushed over to the downed tables and got to work shoving them just below the ledge. The kid caught on quick and began to shove a table or chair.

After a minute of pushing, we had arrayed about eight tables and some chairs... which I wasn't even sure why they would own, but what the hell.

"Alright kid, take those three and line them up straight with the door above us. After that, we'll stack the tables-"

"…and make a stair case!" he exclaimed as his eyes met mine.

I nodded and got to work pushing tables into place. The kid pushed a table right behind the one I pushed into place, the stair case slowly began to take shape.

I caught the kid looking back the way we had came, the image of suddenly a few dozen gangers rushing us with that cannon did not inspire me, but we had to focus. I shoved the kid back into it and gestured for him to shove the table beside the others so I could lift.

One by one, tables began to go up, each new step taking us closer and allowing me to add a new step higher. Soon we used up the tables, and for our bottom step we used the chairs.

The sound of metal hitting a hard surface echoed loudly through the room. I turned towards the source of the noise, the kitchen. The kid wandered out with a pan on his head, shrugging and wincing when he looked at me.

"We're ready to go, get up here and let’s leave, before those damn gangers actually get in here."

He nodded and ran over towards me. I was already on the first step and began to climb towards the top.

I leapt for the third level, seeing the table wobble to the side didn't help, but with a grunt and some effort, I finally pulled myself over. Turning around to check on the kid's progress, I found him just attempting to reach the second level. With an anguished sigh, I returned to my own problems.

The fourth level was bound to be the most unstable and hardest to keep from wobbling, but if we kept clam and-

Suddenly the third level began to sway a little. I whipped around and saw the kid grabbing on for dear life.

"Help?" he muttered, his voice straining from the physical exertion of carrying himself.

I leaned closer to him, "I'm here to help a stable. Not help you with your weedy little problems, now get your ass up here and stop monkeying around."

Before he could answer I turned on a hoof and grabbed for the next table. If he wanted to save his stable, he needs to toughen the hell up, or he'd lose it.

Scrapping and grabbing for the other end of the table, I heard little gasps and squeaks from him, I glanced and saw he was...still stuck. With another sigh, I finally got my footing and pulled myself up onto the final stack of tables.

I let out a breath I didn’t I had been holding and turned confidently towards the... closed door.
I realized the folly in my plan when I hadn't taken into account the fact that the dam door also had to be opened and couldn't be pushed, shit. I wasn't tall enough and the kid sure as hell wasn't... damn it!

"You okay- whoa! You... you okay, what’s going- ahhh! What’s going on?” the kid asked in between his outbursts.

“Door’s closed and we can’t get high enough to open it… We don’t have anything left to stand on.” I explained. My voice trying to not sound as defeated as my words sounded but it was hard.

Clank, Clank.

I looked down to see the kid hitting the pan he had had on his head earlier against a table leg, looking up at me smiling. Damn smile.

Rolling my eyes at him I was ready to… oh, oh that’s good.
I didn’t say anything, just reaching down and catching the pot with my teeth and then lifting him up the stretch. He earned that final leg up with that stupid pan… who’d have thought it.

Lifting him up on my back, He stood on his hind legs and with his teeth, snagged the door handle with the pan and pulled. The lock opened with a click while the hinges squealed and whined at being opened.

I pushed him up onto the ledge and then threw myself up, squirming and wiggling my way through the doorframe and then rolling over onto my back. With a quick kick, the door slammed shut.

The back of my head hit the ground with a clank. I needed a moment to rest, just one second. After the peaceful second I rolled to the side and stood up. The kid was lying just a few steps away. He lie on his back while his chest heaved. I shook my head and snorted, “Rest is for suckers, get up. We still got gangers to out run.”

His breathing stooped and he threw himself onto his side and looked up at me, “Running?”

I chuckled, “Figure of speech. Now common, get your lazy ass up and let’s get going. We got a bounty to collect.”

I didn’t stop to listen for a response and began walking. The clip, clop of hooves galloping behind me told me he was up and right behind me, so I picked up the pace, practically sprinting nearly the whole way. I would look back and see the kid beginning to slow, or to faulter. I would turn around and sigh, only to hear his heavy breathing getting a little closer.

We made it to the bunker structure and I galloped inside to ready the bike, finding it exactly where I had left it.
With a leap, I slid into the seat. Quickly my hooves slid to the controls and began preparing the bike. With a turn of the ignition key, the bike roared, happily starting up with no problems, then idling proudly.

The engine’s rumbling concealed the kid’s approach. I turned to see him examining the bike and contemplating how to mount it.

His head tilted, “where do I sit?”

I gestured to the area of the seat just behind me.

He nodded then bit down on a portion of his tongue. Narrowing his eyes at the seat, he arched his back a little and then like a spring, leapt towards the bike, jumping over it and face planting on the other side. I face hoofed. All the minute amount of respect he had gained had vanished instantly.

Dropping my hoof away from my eyes, I found the kid now on the seat, but scrambling to face the right direction. I said nothing and just watched for a moment, my blank and unamused stare watching this useless pony lose a fight to a seat, it wasn’t even the whole motorcycle, just the seat.

“Wait, I got it now, lemme just-“

Fuck it.

I revved the engine, “Grab onto something!” I warned and let off the breaks and bolting towards the opened pair of hangar doors.

Just as we cleared the door I hooked around the hangar’s side and headed back the way I came, straight into the desert and away from this place, the kid grabbing on for dear life and screaming most the way... I’d have double face hoofed if it wouldn’t have killed us both.

***

The sun’s light illuminating the area fully now, it was easier to tell what lie ahead of us, so I found dodging anything remotely sketchy was easy. The problem with easy is it left time for the mind to wander… I didn’t like my mind wandering too much, but it happened whether or not I wanted it.

Taking my eyes off the road for a second, I let out a deep breath and then focused on the path ahead.

A lot had happened in that place. Metal armored ponies running around calling others, scribes. Said scribes were in the process of dismantling a military complex… Why did that sound familiar?

Then, on top of that brain teaser, why were gangs attacking ponies like that? Were they after the armor, The guns?

I sighed. None of it seemed to make any sense, and contray to what I tell people, shit like this bugs the heck out of me… I usually just find something else to take my mind off of it all. It’s not like it’s my problem after all, and if there’s one unwritten rule of the wastes, don’t go sticking your muzzle where it doesn’t belong, it’s bound to get hit if you do.

Shaking my head, I tried to remember what I should really be worrying about… I turned and saw the kid was finally turned around and grabbing ahole of me. He sat comfortably sleeping on me… was that drool? Never mind. Anyway, What I wanted to ask him when we got a chance is what the hell his stable needed so bad they descided he was their only option for asking for aid. Were they sick? Was there a fight and he was the only one to get out? Who knows… it’s all moot anyway. I need to stick with facts and things I could account for, I’d ask him for information later. I need to stick to what I know, and what I do know, is if this kid is the only pony they felt could save their stable… they’re must be super fucking desperate.

(Based in the universe of Fallout Equestria By Kkat. http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html )