Fallout: Equestria - Shadowless Augury

Fallout: Equestria – Shadowless Augury

Chapter 3: Reanimate

“Is it… zombies?”

“Uh… not very likely.”

A name, that's all we had. It wasn't much, but we would have to work with it. Hopefully somepony will recognize the name, but if not then we would have to rely on the Samdiny. This buck is trying to be hidden though. If the Samdiny didn't know who he was, who will then?

* *           * * *        * *

“Red Rum…” Shadow started thinking. Please tell me you've heard the name before. “Doesn't ring a bell.” Nothing is ever easy.

“We don't really have much then,” I said as we started walking away from the once beautiful school. “And I have no clue where we are.” We were never this far away from Mom and Dad’s usual route. I never realized how big Neigh City was, and we had only travelled a fraction of it.

“You have any more friends who might know where we should go next?” Cor asked Shadow.

“There might be some ponies I could ask. Assuming we reach them before word spreads that I've just gone rogue.” She just quit being a Samdiny mercenary less than a minute ago. Not only did she quit, but she killed so many ponies when she did. She really went out with a bang.

“Take us there quickly. Anything we can get on him is vital at this point.” Shadow nodded and started leading us to our next destination.

“Yeah, but before we leave, tell me about that resignation.” Cor said to her.

She stopped walking. “I’m done with the Samdiny. I can’t say some of it wasn’t fun, but even I knew it was wrong. Everything we did was wrong. The worst part is they felt like they had morals. Being honest to a contract doesn't make you a morally good pony though, right? It's about doing the right thing.” A simple smile grew on her face. “A group of mercenaries thinking they have morals,” she chuckled, “It’s the dumbest thing ever. So, I guess I’m with you two now.”

I looked at my brother, see what his opinion on this was, but he was looking at me for an opinion. I nodded my head. “I guess you’re with us now. You can have this back now,” I said as I handed her the weapons we took from her when we first met. Some might think trusting a stranger and former enemy (or she was still an enemy) was a bad plan, but I knew what I was doing. I could tell the Samdiny was destroying her; we were just the spark that made her leave. Without us, she wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

“Can I get new armor? This one isn’t cutting it.”

“Hold on to that armor, it might come in handy later.” She nodded her head in response. With that we started walking again.

* *           * * *        * *

I was confident in Shadow's ability to get us to another compound at the start of our walk, but after going in circles for an hour and listening to Shadow mumble to herself about which way was right, I realized we were going nowhere.

“Is it safe to say we're lost yet?” I asked her.

“No,” Shadow said firmly. “I know where I'm going.”

“You said that the last time we passed this building,” I reminded her.

“I just… fuck! Fine! I don't know where I'm going!” She threw her hooves in the air.

“Well, what now?” I asked.

“Are there any other safe houses nearby?” Cor asked the defeated Shadow.

“I'm thinking… Oh! There's one at Rad Hill.”

“Take us there,” I commanded her. I had no clue where Rad Hill was, but from the name I imagined needing plenty Rad-X and RadAway. Assuming it was named after radiation.

“How far is Rad Hill?” Cor asked.

“Maybe an hour's trot, if we pass the checkpoints easily.”

“Checkpoints?” Cor and I both asked.

“Rad Hill is an extremely protected town. It's heavily guarded and checkpoints are set up around major roads. Or whatever counts for major in the Wasteland.”

“Why would they take such precautions?” I asked.

“The town was built on top of an underground lab. The lab held countless riches and was stripped quite quickly, but of course greedy ponies came to take the riches. Rad Hill was constantly attacked and the ponies living there could barely protect it. The Samdiny wanted a share in those riches, so they made a deal. Protection for a share of what they found in the lab and full access to the lab. The lab became the safe house and Samdiny protect that town like no other. And that's Rad Hill's history in a nutshell.” So the Samdiny had at least one ally. They probably had more. That meant us waging a war against them would lead to our downfall. We weren't ready just yet.

“How difficult would it be to get past the checkpoints?” I asked her. We might have to end up sneaking past if they won't let us in so easily. And I didn't think I was ready for another attack on all Samdiny forces within the mile.

“If they think I'm Samdiny still, it should be easy. If not, we probably won't even get in.” I was hoping for the former, but knowing the Wasteland, things wouldn't be so easy.

* *           * * *        * *

We weren't too far from the checkpoints now. We slowly walked toward them as we kept an open eye for a way to sneak past them.

I could make out the ponies from here. All the Samdiny had their usual armaments, but something stood out. They all wore headsets. Not very important, but if they had headsets that means they could know Shadow left the Samdiny. I hoped for the best as we got closer to the checkpoint.

A mare stood on top of a wall made of scrap metal and sandbags. The wall stood about three times my height and seemed to extend forever. The tan mare shouted down at us, “State your business here!”

“Twisted Shadow, Samdiny officer, ID number: 51-840-341-7752! Requesting entry to Rad Hill!” Shadow yelled back.

The mare said something inaudibly into her headset. She nodded her head and the gate into Rad Hill opened. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

We walked in to find a not so luxurious town built out of thin sheets of metal. Ponies were stationed at guard towers and constantly kept an eye on us.

“That wasn't so bad,” I said in regards to the checkpoint.

“It's more like we got lucky,” Shadow said back to me. “The ponies at checkpoints don't like letting others pass, especially if you have company. We got lucky they didn't decide to shoot us.”

“Where's this lab?” I asked.

“There,” Shadow pointed to a cave at the bottom of the hill where the sheet metal town lay.

As we approached the dark cave my Pip-Buck started ticking slowly. There was radiation here. I was right about the name, unfortunately.

“Anyone have Rad-X and RadAway?” Shadow asked. Unfortunately we didn't. And I had a feeling every eye was on us.

“Let's make this quick. Shadow, do you know your way in there?”

“I can't say I do.”

“Search the safe house quickly then. We can't spend too much time in here.” With that we went deeper in the cave.

Cor and I turned on our Pip-Buck's light when things started getting too dark. The ticking was slowly speeding up.

“You think there would be lights in a safe house,” Cor said.

“They're trying to hide it. Ponies won’t come into this cave if there is radiation and no lights,” I figured.

We kept walking until we reached a service elevator that took us down into the earth. There was a haunting feeling that the lift would break while we were riding on it. The sporadic placement of lights didn’t calm my uneasiness. I noticed my Pip-Buck stopped clicking as we continued to go down.

The elevator stopped and we couldn't see anything. With our Pip-Buck's light on again, we started walking into the darkness. In the darkness we found a door about twenty feet from the elevator.

We were greeted by an almost blinding white room. It looked so sanitary as opposed to the filthy Wasteland above. Ponies quickly shuffled between tables and machinery, paying no attention to us. I assumed they were Samdiny.

“Stay close to me and don't do anything obvious,” Shadow said with a stern voice. I'm guessing we're in a serious situation now.

We hugged the wall of the large room and followed Shadow. I looked around the room as we walked. I couldn't focus on one thing though; ponies and machinery were moving around quicker than I could keep up. What were the machines and ponies doing? The robotic arms twisted and pulled at small silver boxes. The ponies ran with the boxes from one table to another and left the machines to do their jobs. Other ponies were huddled around a table with another machine sticking out from the table. Different machines took small and shiny metal plates and assembled… something with them.

Before I could finish seeing what everypony was doing, Shadow opened a door for us. We were in a much smaller room now that only held a desk and one terminal. Shadow locked the door and powered on the terminal. “Nothing,” she sighed, “just the name Red Rum again, and something about Project Hard Light.”

Project Hard Light, I read about it briefly when we were at the school. I went behind the desk to look at the terminal. “Project Hard Light” read one entry.

Project Hard Light is to begin as soon as safe house #36 is ready for use. All medics, engineers, and participants are to report to safe house #36 when the notice is given.

I could assume the bedlam outside was Hard Light related, but what was it? Before I could ask Shadow if she knew anything, somepony unlocked the door. In the doorway stood a tall and muscular earth pony with a cobalt coat and a jet black mane. “What's happening in here?” he asked.

“Oh, um… Chief Navy Grave,” Shadow's trepid voice said. “We… uh… We-”

“We came to be a part of Project Hard Light,” Cor covered for her.

“Don't bullshit me,” Chief Navy Grave said.

“We're not, sir. We have come to be a part of Project Hard Light,” I said.

“You better tell me what's happening now, Shadow,” he commanded.

“We were… uh, just sent to make sure everything was in order with Project Hard Light,” she said. Why? Why was she such an awful liar?

He stared daggers at her. She was just barely shaking under his stare. “Who're your friends?” he asked her.

“J-Just some recruits,” she said. Why was she so terrified?

A strange smile grew on his face. “Has anyone ever told you how bad of a liar you are?” He chuckled. It was the most honest statement I heard a Samdiny say. “I'm losing interest in this subject. Get out of here before I kill you myself.”

Shadow was ready to bolt, but she remembered why we were here. She asked Chief Navy Grave a question. “Before I forget, can you tell me something about Red Rum?”

“What is there to tell?”

“Where is he? Who is he?”

“‘Where is he?’ That's a question I doubt anypony could answer. As for who he is, he’s silent about those details too. Rumor has it he has augmentations to strengthen his body, but he has to live in constant pain. So he got another augmentation to have him on a constant supply of opiates. Another rumor is he plans on using us to destroy then rebuild.” That caught my attention. “But my favorite one is where he is Discord, The God of Chaos’ own child. Or the one whe—”

“Wait. Destroy and rebuild what?” I asked, getting back to the more catching rumor.

“Everything, all of Equestria, gone in the blink of an eye. Then he rebuilds it, better.” All of Equestria gone. I actually had to think if starting over would be bad, but the pony leading this revolution couldn't be corrupt. No, starting over would be useless then.

“Is there anywhere we could go to find him?”

“Safe house #7, there’s supposed to be records of everything we've ever done.”

Now that we had our information we could leave. We continued out into the magnificent white room we were in before. Ponies still ran around in chaos.

At the end of the room I noticed panoramic windows. We walked toward the windows and saw ponies lying on tables. A machine beside the tables filled syringes with a liquid from the small boxes I saw the other machines work with. The machine injected the ponies with the liquid from multiple syringes. What was it doing though? Each pony stood up and walked into a back room. I thought about going in to see what was happening, but I was already scared we were going to get caught, so we left.

We went through the radioactive cave as quickly as we could and were back at the radiation-free Rad Hill.

“So how far is the next safe house?” I asked Shadow.

“I don't even know. It’s somewhere by a metro station. We could find it if we try hard enough, but it might take a while.”

“Would anypony here know?”

“Maybe, but that would be suspicious, and we don't want to arouse suspicion.”

“Let's head to the town before we go,” Cor suggested.

The layout of the scrap metal town was confusing and the ponies in the town kept giving me weird looks when I got lost. Eventually I found a general store by the name All the Scraps.

The inside looked just like the outside, thin sheets of metal and steel beams made up everything in the town. Behind the counter was an earth pony mare with a green coat and a cotton candy mane and matching eyes. “I haven't seen you three before. I'm guessing you're new here.” We nodded our heads. “Welcome to my shop then. We buy your scraps and we sell other ponies' scraps. The name’s Jade. How can I help you?”

We got orange pouches of RadAway which did exactly as the name says it does, got Shadow leather armor similar to ours, and sold whatever weapons we didn't need and bought ammo for our guns. After exchanging caps, we left for wherever Shadow would take us.

* *           * * *        * *

        “It doesn’t feel like we’re going anywhere,” I complained after not even 10 minutes of walking.

        “It’s going to be a long walk. All these walks are long walks,” Cor said. “Why, the fuck, are all the safe houses so far away from each other?!”

“Which sounds more secure? Everything of importance right next to each other or everything of importance on opposite corners of the world” Shadow retorted.

“Which one's more convenient? How about that? The Samdiny have some of the worst logic I’ve ever heard. Are they all idiots? Because it sure as hell sounds like they are,” I said.

“They are, but that's not the reason why they take such precautions. If one secret got out everything could be compromised.”

“Such as…?”

“Knowing where all the safe houses are could lead to something unfortunate for them.” I felt a plan coming from this conversation, a plan in which we wouldn't get anything done, just like this one.

“Mind telling us where they all are then?” Cor asked Shadow.

“I can't, and I'm not telling you the story of why I can't.” Cor wasn’t fond of that answer. I put a hoof on his shoulder and a simple nod that said “trust me.” That must have been good enough for him.

“How far from the metro?” Cor asked.

“I don't know. There should be a safe house nearby where we could download a map of the safe houses, but it's probably going to be a sneaky bit of business.” Perfect for me, I was a master of stealth… or at least decent enough.

“How far from that safe house?” I was starting to think that was the only question that arose when we went to these safe houses. Nothing about what was in there, only when we would get there. At this point it was what we were having the most trouble handling.

“We'll find out when we get there.” That wasn't very assuring.

* *           * * *        * *

The urban Neigh City was more than a few miles behind us at this point. We were on the countryside now. My Pip-Buck named this dead terrain Peneia Plains. It was still technically Neigh City, but to everypony else it wasn't even close to the city.

“There,” Shadow pointed to a small rundown shack my Pip-Buck labeled as Mountain Dew's Shack. For a safe house I expected something more. And this was not nearby like Shadow said it was.

“That’s it?” Cor asked in disbelief.

“Oh, it gets better,” she said as we approached the rotten wood door.

It opened to a typical shack you would find in the wasteland. Deteriorating spartan furnishings, knocked over and broken bottles of alcohol (and a filled bottle of vodka and moonshine that I took for keeps), broken picture frames, and of course, a holotape left by somepony’s bones. I plugged it into my Pip-Buck and let it do the work.

“I don't know what's happening. I don't even know if I want to. First I saw the brightest light I ever hoped to see along with a great rumble and a resounding bang, now it's all quiet. I took a look outside and there was a huge green fireball consuming the city. Half of my family was in that city…

He sighed sadly, “If anyone ever hears this, promise me you'll do better. I had a chance to stop this damn war… If I tried harder I could have. Please, do better than me, try harder than me.”

The recording ended. I assumed the pony remains and the holotape were Mountain Dew's. I felt a bit sad for him; he had to carry the burden of failing all of ponykind. I couldn't help but shed a tear.

“Suthain,” Cor called me, “are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said as I looked back at the two behind me. “So how does this pass for a safe house exactly?”

“This isn't the safe house,” Shadow informed me. I was confused but at the same time glad that this wasn't all there was. Shadow walked to the wall away from the door and gave it a tap in three different locations. The wall slid down and a staircase was revealed to us. “That's the safe house,” she pointed her hoof down the stairs. “Like I said before, we need to sneak around here. Anypony spots us and we’re dead.”

“Why do we have to sneak around?” I asked her. I don’t understand why the Samdiny wouldn’t recognize somepony they still thought was their own.

“They aren’t fond of visitors, Samdiny or not. There’s plenty of high value information in there, and they can’t risk any of it being leaked. So it’s best if only one of us goes in. None of us have the slightest clue of what's down there. We have the same odds of finding the information we need, it's a matter of who's the sneakiest. I should say now I'm not stealthy at all.” At least she was honest.

I thought about it for a moment. I was sneaky, but was this my job? “It's between the two of us, Brother,” I said to Cor. “Take your pick.”

He took a moment to think about this. Finally he looked at me, “I would do it myself, but I know you can do it better.” The comment brought a proud smile to my face. “Take this,” he gave me his combat knife, “for when you need to keep things quiet.” I nodded and proceeded through the doors at the bottom of the stairs.

This looked much smaller than the previous safe houses. A row of terminals stared at me as I stood there wondering where I was going. I tried my luck with the terminal closest to me.

There were journal entries, Samdiny notices, and a map of this safe house. It would appear I'm luckier than I thought.

The journal entries on this terminal weren't important, just somepony complaining about each of their employers. The Samdiny notices were the same ones I read on the past terminals.

The map was the big prize. According to it, this place was huge! It was at least the size of two hoofball fields and it looked like there was a staircase going down. If this was a haven for information, how much was there? Enough to fill this entire safe house? I needed all the information I could get, and conveniently enough, this map labeled what each room had in it. I downloaded the labeled map onto my Pip-Buck and got up.

I walked toward the room labeled “Crossroads”. I was surprised by the lack of sneaking involved in here. As if some cruel deity heard what I said, I walked into a room divided into two floors. The top floor was nothing but catwalks leading to other doors while the bottom floor was a mess of boxes and supplies piled on top of each other about two ponies high. Armed ponies walked around on the catwalks and between the paths left open by the fairly large crates. This was a change from the last room, and was going to be quite a treat.

At least I could use the crates for hiding. Maybe this was going to be easier than I first thought. My E.F.S. couldn't pick out the individual number of ponies here, but I was able to make out at least six on the catwalks and there were probably the same number on the ground.

My map told me I had to go to the end of the room. Seemed like this might be a problem with all the ponies here, but I had faith in my abilities.

I crawled by the crates right next to me and peeked around the corner. A pony walking slowly was approaching me. I turned immediately and went around to the other side of the box. I waited for the pony to get to the box so we were on opposite sides of it. I carefully moved around the crate, keeping it in between us and making sure he couldn’t see me. Once he passed, I walked down the path he came from with no trouble. Though my E.F.S was cluttered with red bars, I was still able to pick out some of the ponies walking close to me.

I reached the end of the room and found a simple door by the stairs to the catwalk. Of course, it was locked. My E.F.S was telling me there were two ponies coming from two different directions. I needed a plan fast. I didn’t have to time to pick the lock though. I dashed behind one of the large piles and waited for the pony coming this way. She was right next to me; I quickly put one hoof on her mouth and pulled her closer to me with my other hoof. With my magic, I thrust the knife Cor gave me into the bottom of her neck, right above her chest. Mom, being a doctor and all, told me where the perfect spots to stab a pony are. It hits major arteries and veins and doesn't leave nearly as big of a mess. The mare in my hooves was gone in seconds.

I looked around, no pony saw me, good. I put the body under the boxes, hopefully I would be gone by the time they notice her. I still had to sneak past the other pony that was coming my way earlier. I slipped behind unnoticed and picked my way through the door. It took much longer than I was hoping for, but the lock finally gave.

I walked into an office with a glowing green terminal on a desk and not much else of notice. I shut the door behind me and quickly went to the terminal only to find it was locked. I wasn't the best at hacking these things, but I might be able to figure something out. Using my magic, I tapped some keys and brought up a new screen. From here I could guess the password until I had to eventually back out from too many failed attempts. I kept guessing passwords, backing out, going back to this screen, and trying again until I finally guessed right.

How did Dad do this so easily? With no trouble at all, he would be logged into the terminal in less than half a minute.

There was plenty of info here. Different projects the Samdiny tried, safe house locations, and entries from a pony named Razor Slash. I heard some talking outside the room and my E.F.S was showing more bars than before. I didn't pay attention to what they said, but I assumed it was about the dead body there. If they knew I was here, then I wouldn't have the time to read through everything here. I downloaded everything on the terminal to my Pip-Buck and got ready to leave.

I waited for the voices to disappear and my E.F.S to look clearer, then I left. The room was empty, no pony was here anymore. The body I left was also gone. I had to disappear quickly now that they knew I was here.

Now that no pony was in the room anymore, I could check the catwalk. There were plenty of doors up here. I opened the closest one and found several terminals that were already logged in. They held the same entries from the last terminal, save for Razor Slash's entries.

I left the room and went into the next room. A munitions closet; assault rifles, submachine guns, handguns, shotguns, sniper rifles, missile launchers, grenades, mines, ammo, everything ever needed and in perfect condition. I took an assault rifle and used its parts to repair Dad’s precious weapon. No magnums, unfortunately, but plenty of ammo for one. I took whatever I thought necessary for the three of us then left.

Into the next room I went. I found even more weapons and ammo. Once properly looted, I got ready to leave. Something caught my eye as I turned to leave, a small glimmer behind a row of rifles. I moved the weapons and looked into the face of a camera. I was being watched. I still had the rest of this safe house to check though. Part of me was saying don’t risk it, play it safe. The other part was intriguing me with the thought of what else was in here.

I decided to finish my job here. I was probably going to end up regretting that.

I left and looked in the corners of the room for any cameras. There was one staring back at me.

I had to do this quickly. I gave each room a quick peek.  All were the same, weapons, or terminals. Some filled with useless junk, others without. Some locked, others not. One room led me to a strange place though. I looked at armored ponies in pods. At the end of the long room was a terminal. Of course I had to go to it. There was a single entry on it, “Project Hard Light”.

We ran some early tests and appeared to have fucked up royally. Every prototype is so damn mad at the world. Even after the memory erasing procedure, all they want to do is murder everything in sight. All of these early test subjects have been transported to stasis while we figure out what to do. Red Rum said he wanted them to be the perfect warriors. To him that means he wants them to kill everything in sight. We think it will just lead to everypony’s demise. So we’re going against the boss and putting them in stasis.

They're pretty much ready for deployment; their armor is built to take just about anything, but we don't want to have something terrible happen. They're almost-perfect soldiers. Hopefully next batch will be better.

Why we dedicated most of this safe house to making a project that might be a failure, I don't know. But now that we have it we might as well make use of it.

So this is what Project Hard Light is. I touched the glass on one pod. Suddenly the pony's eyes opened and she fiercely hit the glass separating us. A small crack formed from the impact and I fell back. All the ponies woke up and the pods slowly began to open.

This was going to be bad.

They jumped out easily. Each pony wore chrome armor covering their chest, back, and legs almost fully. In the small gaps in the armor I could see a black bodysuit. It reminded me of the bulky Steel Rangers' power armor, but it still looked different. With how easily the ponies moved, I assumed the armor was lighter than the Steel Rangers'.

Instead of instantly attacking me, each moved in synch to put on a chrome helmet with a gold visor by their pod. I couldn't tell mare from buck anymore. Then they all turned to me. I slowly backed away to the door. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to shoot, that would create quite the ruckus and probably wouldn't even hurt them, but they would kill me.

I gave it a try anyway. I took out Mom's .44 and shot at the closest one to me. The pony in the suit simply gave a feminine laugh at my feeble attempt. Before they had a chance to attack, I ran out of there.

I guess everypony took a lunch break because the room was filled again, and every gun was pointed at me.

Great, just fantastic.

I didn't stop for a moment. I jumped down from the catwalk and ran back into the quiet room with no ponies while bullets rang off the walls beside me. The room with terminals was now filled with more ponies. I rammed the one in front of me with all my force. He fell to the ground and I continued to run frantically out of the building.

I reached Cor and Shadow and yelled, “Run!” They followed behind me.

“What are we running from?” Cor asked.

“Huge ass armored ponies!” I yelled my answer as I continued to run. “I'll explain it later!”

* *           * * *        * *

We kept running for about a mile before we stopped. We all fought to catch our breath. “Why did we run again?” Cor asked again.

“In the safe house there were stasis pods… ponies in armor wouldn't even flinch… from a shot at point blank.” I said in between breaths. I calmed down, and then I said, “Ran my ass out of there before they ate me or something. I didn’t get what we were looking for, but I got something.” I waved my Pip-Buck in front of them. “I got plenty of information on anything we might need, except for Red Rum.”

“So do we know where the next safe house is now?” Shadow asked.

I checked the safe house locations I downloaded from the terminal. Safe house #7 was farther away than I wanted it to be, but we had to make the journey. “I got something for the two of you,” I said as I took out the weapons and ammo I found in the safe house and gave them to the two and gave Cor back his knife.

After a little repairing and reorganizing, we were ready to leave. “Follow me,” I commanded as I started walking down the barren road.

* *           * * *        * *

        “Are we there yet?” Shadow asked impatiently.

        I looked at my map. “Not even close,” I chuckled. It was starting to get dark, but I didn’t care. We needed to get there as quickly as possible, and we weren’t taking any breaks. It looks like we weren’t going to sleep tonight.

        “You think by the end of this we’ll have walked across all of Equestria? Because we might as well be walking across Equestria!” Cor yelled in frustration.

“What do you expect from idiots that put safe houses on the four corners of the world,” Shadow said. The Samdiny really were idiots.

“I’m hungry,” Cor complained even more. “When can we stop to eat?”

“For the older brother, you sure do complain a lot more than your younger brother,” Shadow noticed.

I've wanted to complain ever since Mom and Dad died, but I haven't for one reason. They would want me to be strong.

“We don't have food though. Unless you want to go hunting for us,” I suggested.

“Ugh, fine,” Cor sighed. He wasn't a fan of certain lines of work, hunting was one of them. I found it strange because he had the skills to be a hunter, but he still hated it. Of course, when hungry, he’d get food. Cor ran ahead of us looking for game.

“So did you find sneaking to be fun?” Shadow asked me in an attempt to end the awkward silence between us.

“Not as fun as I expected.”  A question came to my mind that I hadn't asked before, but Shadow hasn't been helpful when it comes to questions about the Samdiny. I asked anyway. “Remember that terminal that had something about Project Hard Light? Do you know what it is?”

“Not really. I know some ponies were excited for it. Can't help you much more than that though.” I wasn't content with the answer, but that seemed like the quality of most of her answers. “Why do you ask?”

“In the safe house, I think I saw Project Hard Light. That's what made me run out of there in such a hurry.”

“What was it?”

“They wore silver armor, bullets didn't do anything more than humor them, and they looked like giants compared to me,” I recounted the experience.

“Sounds crazy enough to be Samdiny,” Shadow remarked. I guess that's how it worked. If it was that crazy, then it might just be connected to the Samdiny, but what about something as crazy as trying to start anew?

“I never thought something as simple as revenge would be so complex. We can't even find this damned buck, but we're finding out every little evil thing he's planning. This is hard,” I sighed. “I'll just have to endure.” When Cor was training me to fight, he would always push me harder. If I was too tired to go on he’d make me do more. Each time I asked to stop, he would tell me to endure.

“Things will get better,” she told me. It brought my hopes up until she said, “Hopefully…”

I heard a gun go off where Cor ran to. I guess he found food. More loud bangs pierced the air. There’s no way he would waste this many bullets on one animal. Something had to be up. We ran to where we continuously heard gunshots.

We found Cor shooting at some pony running from him. On the floor was a common Wasteland occurrence, a raider. The pony had her mane up in a mohawk and wore armor with spikes protruding from each piece. The pony running from Cor must have been a raider as well. “Pieces of shit stole my food then ran off,” a disgruntled Cor said. “At least I got some meat for us.” He held up a dead radhog. “It’s a small kill, but it will suffice.”

“We should probably get moving. Hopefully there won’t be any more raider trouble,” I said.

* *           * * *        * *

It was night already, but I already decided we weren’t going to sleep. We had a lot of distance to cover and we needed to know as much as we could about Red Rum fast.

We stopped in an abandoned farm for a break and started eating the radhog that Cor killed for us. I never did this much walking before, I wasn’t sure if my own body could take much more without rest. “Endure,” I kept saying mentally to keep my tired body from going to sleep.

Something made sure I wasn't going to sleep. I heard hoofsteps outside the barn. I carefully peeked out the barn door. There were three Samdiny leading two slaves down the road. I waited for them to pass by us. “Let’s get moving.”

“Can’t we sleep?” They complained.

“No. We still have a lot of ground to cover, and there’s some Samdiny outside. So let’s go take them out.” Both of them looked unhappy with the plan, but they went with it.

We walked out now that the mercenaries had past. It was dark enough for the three of us to hide under night’s cover. We quietly caught up to the mercenaries. One mercenary was in front leading the two slaves while the other two mercenaries were covering their flanks. Each of us had to take one out. There was hardly any room for error; one slip up and those slaves could get hurt or killed.

I motioned Cor to take the mare at the front, Shadow and I would take the two at the back. I didn’t know if Shadow was a good shot or not, but if she wasn’t I needed to make sure I could adjust to her mistake. I was going to be responsible for her.

We were all ready. Shadow and I put several shots into the ponies in the back. Cor quickly shot the pony at the front. I thought they were all dead, and then the pony at front turned her gun at us and started shooting. We couldn't take cover anywhere so we kept moving. Thankfully, she was shooting at us instead of the two slaves. I quickly got off a shot. I was lucky enough to hit her, finally ending her.

We thought it was over, and then raiders came.

Why is it never easy?

Raiders aren't very smart. Instead of using tactics, they charge and get themselves killed. This was no exception. They charged us and led themselves to their deaths. One managed to get a good shot in, but the bullet was stopped by my armor. We took them all down quickly.

All the enemies were neutralized. We walked toward the slaves who were low on the ground and trying to keep from getting shot. We took off their shackles and after a few thanks, they went on their way. Now that we finished our business, we continued down the road.

* *           * * *        * *

It was almost sunrise, or what would count for sunrise when clouds blocked the sun, and we finally reached the safe house. We weren’t in the dead countryside anymore, now we were in the equally dead, large, horseshoe-shaped city known as Neigh City. We approached a metro station and went down the stairs and into the dark station.

We turned on the lights on our Pip-Bucks to find the inside was destroyed. The walls, ceiling, and floors were crumbled. Rubble and detritus just filled the inside.

As we continued to walk in the dark lobby, we heard growling. It might have been a ghoul. Down here, it was nothing more than a mindless zombie who does nothing than attack anything on sight. However some ghouls can be intelligent and as smart as ponies. They don't usually growl like animals though. I could only assume it was a feral beast instead of a civilian.

“Keep an eye out,” I said as we carefully walked through the destroyed metro.

“You'd think the Samdiny would clear this place out before making it a safe house. How safe could it be when ghouls are around?” Cor noted. I was starting to question whether the Samdiny were geniuses who made sure no pony could find them, or idiots who didn't know how to do anything properly. Either way, we had to find the safe house.

Our Pip-Bucks started clicking and an ominous green light came from the end of the lobby. I enveloped Dad's assault rifle in a lilac glow and aimed at the green glow.

A green glowing pony came into our view. Its veins could be seen distinctly contrasting against the glow. It was missing parts of its coat and mane, and its body was deteriorating to the point where no flesh could be seen in some parts, just bone.

Behind the glowing pony came several regular non-glowing ghouls. I would have preferred one ghoul to fight, but the Wasteland wasn't very kind. The growling became louder, I saw the green aura from even more glowing ghouls, and I was a bit more frightened.

Luckily, I had a few grenades on me from the last safe house. I threw one into the crowd and ducked for cover behind a ticket kiosk. The ghouls let out screams as the grenade went off. The glowing ones that survived let out another scream and a wave of green radiation that made my Pip-Buck click even more. The hurting ghouls were re-energized from the radiation and started running toward us.

I took out two more grenades and blindly threw both into the mass of zombies. The two exploded and more screams and radiation waves followed. The grenade killed some, but it wasn't doing much, unfortunately. Before they had a chance to reorganize themselves, I shot wildly in the crowd, Cor and Shadow did the same. I took the empty clip out of my weapon and loaded in a fresh one.

Shooting wildly wasn't working, so I decided to pick targets. The glowing ones seemed to heal the entire crowd with their radiation, so I chose them for a target. I took out two of the glowing ghouls in the front easily, but I couldn't shoot the rest. The glowing ones were scattered in the large crowd of ghouls; I couldn't target them. I had to take the ghouls out before the glowing ones could heal them.

I shot at each one until they dropped. They were getting closer and there were still so many of them. I kept shooting and dropping more and slowing them down. One jumped on me and brought me to the ground. It slashed at my face with its decomposed hooves. I kept it at bay with my own hooves and yelled for help while more ghouls surrounded me.

I turned to see the flash from their weapons behind a crowd of ghouls. I desperately looked for the gun that has been knocked out of my magic's grip. I couldn't see anything through the swarm of ghouls and the occasional green wave of radiation.

Without my gun I had to do some hoof-to-hoof combat, starting with a head-butt to the creature's mouth. I think I only made it angrier, but I kept my composure as its attacks became even more violent. I let go of its decayed hoof and, as fast and strong as I could, punched the feral ghoul; it still managed to get a nice cut on my cheek. I stunned it and used the opportunity to push it off me.

I got to my hooves and shoved my way through all the ghouls around me to find my gun. I searched the floor around me wildly. The ghouls I knocked down were starting to get back up.

There it was! How did it get all the way over there? It didn't matter. I grabbed it with my telekinesis and quickly shot the ghouls. Once reloaded, I started shooting the mass of zombies by Cor and Shadow. It wasn't long before all of them were finally dead.

Shadow stood there holding her shotgun, trembling at the same time. Cor was on the ground with a dead ghoul on top of him which he pushed off after he calmed a bit. All of us were breathing heavy and our hearts were pounding. I let out a sigh of relief. “Fuck ghouls, amirite?” They agreed with me.

“I’m surprised to be alive,” Shadow said. ”I think I'm done with scary for the next few months. All who agree say ‘aye’.”

“Aye,” Cor and I said together.

I don't think I wanted to see another ghoul after that. For a moment, I was starting to think we weren't going to make it. Ghouls can usually be taken down quickly, but when you get swarmed…

I was surprised; ghouls weren't usually in such large groups. Something had to be up down here, and I'm thinking it was Samdiny. Either that or we're the unluckiest trio in the Wasteland.

“So the safe house's first line of defense was a horde of ghouls. How nice,” Cor commented as he picked himself off the ground. “This is the safe house right?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, this place is made of a red line, blue line, and green line. We just follow the green line and we'll get there soon enough.” Soon enough was supposed to mean “not a walk that would take us all fucking day”.

We walked down the hallway the ghouls came from and into a mezzanine. This large area was just as destroyed as the lobby. A large map preserved behind clear plastic showed us where to go. We took the path indicated by the map and prayed we would reach the safe house before we were old and senile. Maybe that was hoping for too much.

We walked through the destroyed line, and after a surprisingly short walk, we found a surprisingly crude safe house. Instead of an architectural beauty cleverly hidden in the walls, it was in the middle of the metro line and put together with cheap chain-link fences that only covered half the metro line. We walked around and into another mezzanine.

There still wasn’t a Samdiny look to it. There were trash cans on fire and the rubble from the megaspells' destruction wasn't even cleared. I couldn't see any ponies, but my E.F.S. showed plenty of red bars. An ambush maybe? We continued forward and checked a terminal placed on a table. It was nothing special except confirmation that this was a Samdiny safe house.

We walked up nonfunctional escalators and into a small room that held nothing save for a bed and terminal. Upon hacking into it, I found a file called “History”. As guessed, it was the Samdiny’s history from inception to now. We all huddled around the small screen and went to the last entry, “Red Rum - Project Hard Light, Project Clear Skies, Project Destroy Rebuild Until The Goddesses Show”. The last project had me on edge. We were ready to finally learn who he was. We leaned closer as the file started loading.

Empty! The damn thing was empty! There really was nothing on him. Nothing was ever going to be easy. I should have at least figured that.

Cor sighed heavily. “Can’t say I wasn’t expecting that. Well this sucks.” We came so close. We were right there! The Wasteland just wouldn’t let us win this time. “What happens now?”

It was a good question, and I didn’t have an answer for it. “We could ask around,” I suggested. “I don’t know if that’s going to be helpful at all, but it’s worth a shot.”

“No,” Cor said. “I think it's time we call it quits. If the Samdiny don’t even know who they work for, then how is anypony else going to know?” It never really crossed my mind. I just always thought that somepony out there had to know something; it was just a matter of finding that pony.

“Who said the Samdiny don’t know who he is?” Shadow said, catching our attention. “Just because there aren’t any records doesn’t mean nopony knows him. There are ponies who know him, I’m sure of it. We just need to find them.” I couldn't have said it any better.

“So we just keep raiding safe houses until we find our info?” Cor asked. Shadow and I both nodded. “Just wanted to remind you two, this is one of the dumbest ideas ever.”

“It's worth a shot at least,” I said. “I know it's not the greatest plan, but we have to keep going.”

“Suthain,” Cor said as he grabbed my shoulders, “this is dangerous. I know you want to keep going, especially for Mom and Dad's honor, but they wouldn't want us getting ourselves killed over something like this.”

“You know they would want us to do good though,” I said with our eyes locked. “Even if we get hurt more than they want us to, they'd be proud of us if we keep doing right. Just like them. Trust me, Cor. I know we can do this. We just have to try hard enough.”

He nodded reluctantly. He sighed, “Fine. Let's just get out of here before somepony comes.”

I downloaded everything on the terminal onto my Pip-Buck. I didn't know if I would ever use any of it, but any Samdiny information was good to have. Then we left the small room.

I took one step out the door and felt something hit me hard against the back of my head. I fell to the ground with a small grunt. I turned to see a double-barrel shotgun to my head. Cor and Shadow were pushed to the ground beside me and both had guns pointed at them. There were red bars on my E.F.S. that I didn’t notice before.

I got a quick look around me. Seven Samdiny ponies, four were lower ranks, three were higher ranks, each had an assault rifle on them, the three officers had drum fed shotguns similar to Shadow’s on them, two lower ranks had baseball bats, two had fire axes.

A position similar to this got Dad killed. I had to take them all out at the same time, but how?

“So, you think you can just walk in here and nothing will happen?” the buck with the shotgun pointed at my head said. “You were wrong.”

“Are you going to kill us?” I asked.

“No, the boss ordered to keep you two alive,” he said as he looked at Cor and I, but he didn’t move his weapon. “As for her, we weren’t given any rules.”

“So you’re going to kill her. She’s Samdiny, you know,” I informed him.

“Is that so?” He walked to her. It was dark enough so her leather armor looked the same as the Samdiny recruits’ armor. “Why would a fellow Samdiny bring the enemy into our safe house? Answer that for me.”

Welp. I had nothing. Things were going to get loud soon. I just needed to make a plan and execute it flawlessly.

“Uh… Well, you know how easily rookies get deceived,” I said to him. “Speaking of rookies…” I grabbed one of the fire axes with my magic and struck the buck with the double barrel across his face. He fell to the ground and I took his shotgun and put two shots into the closest pony with the help of S.A.T.S.

Cor and Shadow figured out what I was doing. Cor quickly got up and brought a lower ranking Samdiny to the ground. He put himself under the pony as a shield. From there he took the pony's gun and shot one of the higher ranking Samdiny. Meanwhile Shadow took out her shotgun and placed several shots into the pony standing in front of her. Her chest was gone by the time Shadow stopped firing.

I took Dad's assault rifle and placed a barrage of shots into the next pony. Shadow stood and brought the last pony down by bludgeoning her with her shotgun. She didn't stop until the Samdiny's head was completely gone. Then she spat over the body and acted like nothing happened. Cor shot the pony he was shielding himself under and pushed his dead body off.

That was close. “Twisted much?” I said to Shadow. She simply shrugged. I was turning to leave, and then I was tackled to the ground. The pony who I hit with the fire axe was on top of me and throwing his hooves wildly at my face. His face had a large gash across it and it dropped blood on me.

I kept my face covered and tried to avoid his punches. He wasn't intent on stopping though. I grabbed his foreleg with my hoof as it came down. I reached around his shoulder and grabbed my own foreleg just above my hoof. I had his entire foreleg trapped. I twisted it.

He was screaming in pain. “Tap and you'll be spared,” I said to him as he struggled. I didn't want to kill him. I noticed Shadow had her weapon pointed at him. Cor made her put it down.

“Just… do it,” he said to me. “Just… end the pain.”

“Tap,” I told him. He was struggling to get out of my grip. “I don't want to do this.”

“Why… would you… spare me?” he groaned in pain. “Who am I? A pony trying to… ngh, to lead you to your… death?”

“Most ponies would choose life without a question,” I told him. “Please, just tap.” I cranked his foreleg a little more. I heard his hoof tap on the ground next to us. I let go of his foreleg. He immediately rolled off me and held his shoulder.

“Why do you want to keep me alive?” He asked. “What am I worth to you?”

I picked myself up and said, “I believe all ponies have some goodness in them. And you're not Samdiny anymore,” he looked at me slightly confused. “You go back to the Samdiny or anything morally evil, I will end you. Understand?” He didn't answer. I jumped in his face and he fell back to the ground. “Understand?!” I shouted through gritted teeth. He rapidly nodded his head. “Good.” I backed up and got ready to leave.

“So you just say that, and then you leave?” he asked as we were walking away. “How do you even know I'll follow through?”

“I'm good like that,” I said as I turned to him. “Besides, why would you ask if you weren't going to follow through on our deal? If you planned to dishonor the deal, you would have been gone without hesitation.” I turned to leave again.

“Wait. Where are you even going?” This buck asked too many questions.

“To find Red Rum.” He had a quizzical look on his face. “Samdiny boss. If you could help us…”

“Not really. I don't even know who he is. He asked us to capture you two alive,” he said as he looked between Cor and I. “Sorry I can't help.”

I nodded my head and said to him, “Find us if you find out anything.” He nodded and we parted ways.

We left the safe house and walked down the rest of the green line. As we were walking, my Pip-Buck picked up a radio signal. I tuned to it to hear a distraught mare's voice.

“Hello? If anypony is hearing this… I just don't know what's happening anymore. Things just got out of control… We need help… We know there's life outside of the stable… Please, help us… This message repeats.”

We had to help whoever was in this stable. We all knew it. According to my map, the stable was close, next exit led to it.

We quickly moved down the rest of the line and arrived at the exit. We dashed up the stairs outside, around the side of a building, into an alley, and into a rock tunnel. At the end was a large steel gear with a large number 85 printed on the center. Next to it was a control booth and not much else.

I walked to the control booth and tapped a few keys on it hoping it would do something. Nothing happened. “How exactly do we get in?” I asked.

“If only she left instructions. You can't do anything with that terminal?” Shadow asked as I continued to tap keys.

“Nothing,” I sighed as I turned from it in defeat. There had to be some way in. I looked at the two. Something behind them caught my eye. The tunnel we were in was made of rock, but that spot just behind the two of them looked… different.

I walked to it and tapped it with my hoof. A metallic clang rang out. I hit the rock next to it to find the usual sound of rock.

“Is there any way to tear through this metal?” I asked while investigating the faux rock. What could get through this? If I recalled correctly, these stables were designed to take direct hits from a megaspell. We didn't have anything that came close to that strong.

A crevice formed where the metal met the rock. I ran my hoof along it and felt a draft coming from the inside. If I could feel air coming from within, then this wouldn’t protect well against a megaspell. Assuming the ponies inside are still alive then this wasn't here when the stable was initially built. Maybe we could destroy it.

I gave it a nice kick, but it hardly moved. “Help me knock down this wall,” I said to my brother.

“Will it even come down?” Cor asked as he came up to the wall beside me.

“I don't know. We should try anyway though,” I said as we counted down and kicked it in together. Part of the wall dislodged, and we easily knocked it down from there. The wall fell with a satisfying clang. I was actually surprised it worked that easily.

With our Pip-Bucks' light on, we walked through a dark gray hallway and up a stairwell. I hit a button on a wall and a door opened in front of us.

We walked into a dark room and stopped dead in our tracks as soon as the room was lit up. There was dried blood on the wall and floor and a dark red “HELP US” and “FORSAKEN” written everywhere. Numerous dead bodies missing limbs, covered in blood, and brutally dismembered lay on the ground. The lights flickered irregularly.

“What the fuck?” I said as I took in all the eerie aspects of the room. I noticed a holotape next to one of the mutilated bodies. I plugged it into my Pip-Buck and let it play. I heard a buck's voice (I wasn't able to tell from the body) under the screams of many others.

“Goddesses damn it! The password isn't fucking working! The Overmare finally does something right, for a change, by giving us a way out of here. Then our escape doesn't even work! She gave herself up and told us how to get out of this hellhole, but the fucking password won't fuckingwork on her fucking terminal or the fucking main door!!!” There was a moment of silence that ended when he said, “Oh shit, oh FUCK NOOO-”

I heard a small struggle just before the tape cut out. How did we walk in so easily when they couldn't walk out at all? It looked like these ponies didn't stand a chance against whatever it was that did this.

As scary as the room my Pip-Buck named “Overmare's Office” was, we decided to carefully continue on through an open hallway. The two areas seemed to share flickering lights, mutilated dead bodies, and blood everywhere. The same words “HELP US” and other gibberish was written in blood all over the walls.

Every noise we made struck me with fear. I heard some noises in the walls. We all stopped in our tracks and had our guns ready. Nothing was on my E.F.S. though. We didn't know what to expect, but if it was whatever caused this, then it couldn't be good.

The door in front of us opened and a ghoul came out. No, it wasn't a ghoul. Its body was mostly whole, apart from missing its coat, mane, and some skin. It wasn't lacking as much muscle and it wasn’t emaciated like a feral ghoul, but its eyes had a low red glow to them, its face was covered in blood, its bottom jaw was detached, and its hooves had small blades on the end of them. Maybe this used to be a pegasus; it had wings, sort of. Its “wings” were long, sharp, and jagged bones protruding from armlike projections where wings would usually go. Something caught my eye, or a lack of something, there still wasn’t a red bar on my E.F.S.

“What the fuck?” I said aloud as we all stared awestruck at the monster.

It let out a fierce yell then began charging at us. It took less than a second for it to reach me and bring me to the ground. It started stabbing at me with its sharpened hooves and wings. It continued to let out fierce screeches.

“Get it off me!” I screamed as I struggled to keep it at bay. I kept the sharpened blades on its hooves from stabbing my face, but I couldn't keep its wings from stabbing my sides. The sharpened bones didn't penetrate my armor, but it still felt like my ribs were going to crack from the impact. “What the fuck are you two doing?! Shoot it!”

It took Cor and Shadow a second to react to my shouts. Shadow pulled out her assault rifle and put seven bullets into its head. The monster's head popped off and it fell limp. I pushed it off me and picked myself up.

My heart was racing. Suddenly another one rushed through the same door and started running toward us. Another few bullets from Shadow's gun and this one fell too. I picked up my fallen assault rifle and walked over to the creature Shadow just killed. The body lay on its side. I went to turn it over to get a better look at it. When my hoof was an inch away, it quickly got up and brought me onto the ground.

“Ah! What the fuck?!” I screamed. Cor and Shadow peppered the creature with bullets, and it finally went down for good. I pushed it off me and was finally able to look at it. It definitely wasn’t a ghoul, but it was certainly as scary as one.

“It wasn't on my E.F.S., and S.A.T.S. wasn't working on it,” Cor noted. What was so special about these monsters that our Pip-Buck's spells wouldn’t work on them?

“So we should probably get this done quickly,” Shadow said. I nodded and we all started going down the rest of the hallway.

My Pip-Buck led me to what looked like a server room. Servers and panels with lit up controls took the space in this room. It looked the same as the past rooms, except there was a steady red glow coming from the servers against the wall. “NO ESCAPE” was written on the walls in the same dark red as before.

We continued into an open room with two floors. My Pip-Buck labeled it as the “Atrium”. Blood stains covered the walls and floors, there were no lights in this room, and mutilated bodies were on the floor and hanging over the ledge of the second floor. We stepped in and the door loudly shut behind us, the light next to it changed from green to red, and soft yellow lights lit up the atrium. “Ugh, what now?” I complained.

I heard noises, then a momentary silence. I heard a few ghoulish screams a few seconds apart, then another silence. We cautiously went down a set of stairs to the bottom floor of the atrium. A noise behind us caught our attention. A pair of wings lifted the door and a creature slipped underneath the opening.

These things can open locked doors with their wings? A short burst of shots to its head with Dad's assault rifle and it went down.

We turned back around, then another door down a hallway opened and two more creatures emerged. We were about to open fire on the two, then another came from the same door the first one came through. I shot one in front of me and brought it to the ground. Cor and I took the other one in front of us to the ground and Shadow had already taken the other down.

That wasn't the end though. A door by our exit door opened and a creature came flying out of it. I turned quickly to shoot it. While I was shooting, another came from the hallway door. I killed my target and turned for the next one. Cor already had it covered.

I thought it was clear, and then I noticed one creeping up on us from the staircase. I brought that one to the ground and it was finally clear. The yellow lights disappeared and there was a small green glow coming from next to the door.

We walked into the stable's cafeteria. My Pip-Buck's arrow landed on a door behind the counter. A few green bars were on my E.F.S. Hide with the food, genius actually. I tried futilely to get the door opened. It must have been barricaded from the inside. I didn't know how to get in, so I knocked politely. I didn't receive an answer. I knocked again. Still no answer.

They were alive, at least my Pip-Buck said so, but it’s been acting strange since we got in here. Targets weren’t showing up, and now ponies that might be dead were showing up. Part of me thought they were taking a while to open the door, another part was telling me this entire stable worked in reverse. The logical part of me agreed with the former assertion.

I heard a noise. More of them? I didn't want to fight any more of those creatures though. There was a small shuffling sound behind the door. “Hello?” I heard the same mare from the recording whisper behind the door. I was immediately elated. “Is the rescue team finally here?”

Somepony was alive! This stable didn’t work in reverse then. So why didn’t these creatures appear on my E.F.S.? “Yeah, that's us,” I said.

“Oh, thank the Goddesses. We're getting out of here, everypony. Give us one second,” she said, “we need to take down the barricades.” We waited patiently. The door opened to a frowzy peach pegasus in a blue and yellow jumpsuit who was more than glad to see us.

Behind her was a storage room with enough preserved food to last centuries. Several pegasi looked to us with a newfound hope. A few of them were cut and bruised badly. One was missing his foreleg. At the stump they tied his jumpsuit to stop the bleeding. “Is it too much to ask you to get us medical supplies from the clinic?”

“Cor, keep them safe and give them these,” I said as I gave him all of our healing potions. It would be enough to keep them from keeling over before we came back. “Shadow, you're coming with me to the clinic. Can I get directions?” I asked the peach mare. She pointed us down the hall, up a set of stairs, and the clinic should be there

We cautiously walked through the dark, bloody hallway in the direction she sent us. We found the clinic easily. Bodies littered this area more so than the other areas. And even more were gathered only at the door. The door wasn't opening here either. I noticed green bars here too. “Hello?” I knocked. “Anypony in here?”

“We're not opening the door,” a buck said sternly. “We don't care if you die at the door, we just don't want to take the risk of them getting in here.”

“Don't worry, it's all OK. We've cleared them all out. It's safe now,” I didn't actually know if it was safe yet, but I needed some way to get the door opened. “We just need some medical supplies to help the wounded.”

“If it's clear, go to the Overmare's office and open the door from there. Get it done yourself, and you can have all the medicine you want.”

“Just please let us in. You need to understand that ponies will die without your help,” I begged.

He sighed, “I'm sorry, but I still can't let you in. I can't take the risk. If it really is safe, open it yourself.” It didn't seem like we had another choice. I just hoped we weren't going to get attacked again. We were though, I knew it, and the buck behind this door knew it.

We headed back to the cafeteria and told the peach mare and Cor what our situation was. “Well… would you be willing to do it for us? That's what it boils down to,” she told us. I nodded my head. I didn't even have to think about it. I wanted to help ponies, just like Mom and Dad. She gave us directions to the Overmare's office at the top of the stable.

The two of us headed back through the atrium to the Overmare's office, thankfully, without attack. We searched the entire room for any sort of key, but we couldn't find anything. I found a terminal in the first room we came through. It was quite simple to hack into actually. Surprisingly, the only two entries were about the Wasteland:

Entry 1:

Our tests suggest the outside is no longer dangerously irradiated. We shouldn't even have to wear radiation suits. My stable can’t know about this expedition. If they do, they'll want to get out there, and Goddesses only know what they'll do for that freedom.

Entry 2:

We've studied the outside for two days and we have more than enough to report on it.

Our tests were correct; the outside is no longer heavily irradiated except for small, easily avoidable pockets of heavy radiation. The water seems to be greatly contaminated and undrinkable. Old maps are useless now. Most of Neigh City is an abandoned ruin with nothing more than mutated animals, assumedly from high exposure to radiation.

Despite all, ponykind is still alive! A small settlement called “Bedrock” has formed just outside the stable. The inhabitants seemed to find us rather out of place, but soon welcomed us.

Bedrock is a fairly large outpost built in the middle of destroyed buildings and goes far down into the street. They use rubble as a disguise for their settlement. They gave us a quick rundown on what Neigh City (and the rest of Equestria) has become. Ponies took to calling it the “Wasteland”, seems fitting. I've left three of my ponies to stay in Bedrock and collect data until we return.

>Emergency Unlock: Y/N?

>Enter password:

>volar

It was the same password that unlocked the terminal.

>All doors are now unlocked.

We walked back to the clinic and tried opening the door. It opened, but it was blocked. I stared at the tables and machines blocking the doorway in disbelief. I sighed heavily and said, “They just won't let us win.”

“Yup,” the buck said from the inside. “You can slowly take it apart, or blow a hole in it with explosives from the chem lab.”

“Ugh, why? I just want to leave this goddess forsaken hellhole. They can't let me do that?” Taking the barricade apart sounded like it would take a while, so we went back to the cafeteria again and asked for directions, again.

It was a short walk down the hall to a lower level. From there we walked through a door into a lab with working lights. The entire room was lit up with white lights, illuminating gray walls, tables with cylinders filled with liquids and rocks, and other lab equipment. One side of the room had double doors with a sign that read “Experiments”.

Did I want to know what happened in there?

The opposite side of the room caught my attention though. There was a window to another room and above it read “Cryogenics”.

Looking inside through a window, I saw tables with the creatures strapped down and other tables with microscopes and other equipment I couldn't think of identifying. Shadow looked for a formula to make a bomb. “Make a few extra. Never know when we could use them,” I said while I walked into the other room.

The room was cold. A digital thermometer in the wall read “2.73°C”. Four of the creatures were on tables. One body was dissected, the other four were whole. Another door inside the cryogenics lab led to a long room of the creatures frozen in cryo-tubes. None of them except for a few looked the same.

I went back to the creatures on the tables and began to examine the closest one. I moved closer to it. The thing tried jumping at me! I fell back, unable to even shoot it. Its restraints kept it from actually attacking me. I got back up. I took Mom's revolver out and shot it in the head.

Hoping to avoid another one jumping at me, I checked the corpse that was dissected. I could just barely tell it was a buck; his face and body was barely discernible from a buck’s or a mare’s and his cutie mark wasn't even there anymore. I took a closer look at one of his wings. Most of the wing was decomposed. Several sharp bones protruded from the limbs; it hurt to touch the bone. Its forelegs had equally sharp bones protruding from them just above his Pip-Buck. I didn't know much about pegasus anatomy (or any anatomy for that matter), but I didn't think those bones were supposed to be there.

I walked over to a terminal that was on a counter and began to hack into it. After a few failed attempts, I got the password: cure. I began to read the entries.

Medical Journal:

Entry 1:

One of the bucks who went to Bedrock, High Wing, has been becoming increasingly ill. Three days ago we reported a mild fever and chills. His symptoms became worse the next day. Two days ago he had a high fever, extreme necrosis, swelling of lymph glands, and seizures. Nothing we give him seems to remedy this. We will continue to keep watch over him.

Entry 2:

High Wing passed away five days after his symptoms first appeared. More ponies have been getting sick with the same symptoms as him. The disease is definitely contagious, but we're starting to believe some ponies have a natural immunity. For the sake of the stable's health, everypony that has so much as come in contact with the infected has been quarantine. Most of these ponies have contracted the illness, but some of the ponies (including me) haven't gotten sick even though we are in continuous exposure. If our immunity theory is true, then there is hope for the uninfected part of the stable.

Entry 3:

Over half the stable has fallen ill. None of the infected ponies have survived. Some of the ponies have begun a strange reanimation process two-three days after death. We first noticed something was strange when the first pony to reanimate's heart and brain activity stopped then brain activity returned over 35 hours after being pronounced brain dead. So at least they’re not mindless. Not quite sure if that's good or bad.

All of these reanimated ponies have been put in the cryogenics lab for two reasons: we need to preserve them for experimentation and the reanimated ponies are incredibly aggressive and violent. The Overmare has ordered us to begin experimentation on them immediately. None of us really want to cut our now-hostile friends open though.

Entry 4:

We started experimentation on the reanimated ponies finally. Unfortunately, we're having a hard time working on them when they keep trying to kill us. It's not cold enough to completely freeze them, sedatives don't sedate them and the Overmare doesn't want us to kill them. So we're forced to work on attacking and screaming subjects. We've been able to tell that their reanimation has caused their bones to shift. These bones have sharpened and protruded from their wings and their hooves. They use these sharpened bones to attack us.

Because of their slashing nature of attack and the jagged cuts they made in one of our senior medical officers, we've taken to calling them “lacerators”. The lacerators like to play a little “game” with us. Those assholes play dead and when we go to work on them they attack us while we're working on them.

Fucking assholes.

Entry 5:

We've cut some of them open and brought others to the Overmare. I don't want to know what happens in that room where the Overmare conducts her experiments. Not many ponies in the stable know this, but the Overmare is actually a genius. She's helped us out more than once in the lab. Now she's started doing her own experimentation and we're not allowed to see. I just hope things don't get too intense for her.

Shadow came in the room. “Bombs are ready,” she said.

“We're almost out of here,” I breathed a sigh of relief as we started out of the chem lab. A small red light lit up next to the door and the bright white lights were replaced with dim yellow lights. “What now?” I complained.

I heard glass shatter behind us. I turned around and saw through the window to cryogenics a lacerator coming from the cryo-tube room. Was it missing its wings? It disappeared from my view. Several loud clangs came from behind the door. Without its wings, it couldn’t lift the door and get through.

I barely heard a hissing sound and… was that smoke? A hole appeared in the door that slowly grew bigger. I was in too much awe to shoot it. It crawled through the hole then yelled at us. It spit green goo at me. I moved out of the way. The green goo started burning away at the ground beside me. Corrosive acid? It yelled again then charged. Using S.A.T.S., I shot it twice with Mom's revolver and it fell to the ground.

Without a noise, it stood back up and started charging again! The spell hadn't recharged yet. It jumped into the air and thrust its hooves at me. I shot it twice in midair without S.A.T.S, but it kept its momentum. I moved out of the way as its hoof-blades stabbed into the floor next to me.

I went to my Pip-Buck and radioed Cor. “Cor, you there?”

“Yeah, I hear you,” he said.

 “We need your help,” I said, “There's an emergency lockdown keeping us in here. We need you to go back to the Overmare's office, go to her terminal, and unlock all the doors.”

“Going now. How’d this happen?” he asked.

“I don't know. Just get us out of here.” I didn't want to spend any more time in this stable, and these lockdowns weren't helping much.

“Yeah, just give me a second.” Shadow took it down with a quick burst of her assault rifle. Another lacerator came out of the hole in the door. We both shot it down.

“Hurry!” I yelled at my Pip-Buck. We stood with our weapons ready. The panel next to the door lit green.

“Got it!” Cor yelled back to us. “We almost out of here?”

“Almost. Get back to the cafeteria now. Keep those ponies safe,” I said as I went to open the door. Suddenly the door burst open and a lacerator on the other side jumped on me. I kept its hooves away, like before, but this one spit acid at my face. I moved my head out of the way of the acid, but some of it still landed on my armor. The acid left a hole in my armor and was slowly burning into my body. I gritted my teeth in pain, levitated the revolver against its head, and pulled the trigger. Its head exploded and it fell limp. I pushed it off me and picked myself up.

We started out the room and a lacerator jumped out of the hole in the door cryogenics. We rushed out and closed the door. We headed back up the stairs, but another lacerator came out from under a door. I pulled the trigger before it even touched the ground. Mom's revolver clicked. It took me a second to realize it was empty. “Fuck,” I muttered. I moved down the hallway as I reloaded. Shadow took it down.

I heard plenty of ruckus inside the laboratory. I couldn't help but open the door to find out what was going on.

Four lacerators stared at me from inside. I noticed the door to the experimentation lab was destroyed now. I took a closer look at the lacerators. One of them was missing its wings, but it had large snake-like fangs. The second looked normal, or whatever would count as normal for them. The third was the acid-spitting variety, I could tell from the lack of wings and green goo hanging from its mouth. The last one was significantly bigger than the other two. It looked more like a hellhound than a pony actually. I just hoped it wasn't one of those dogs everypony in the Wasteland had grown to hate.

I'd only seen a hellhound twice, but the first time was enough to never want to see one again. Hellhounds were crafty, they dig holes in the ground to get the jump on you, and then they tear you apart with a single swipe of their claws. What I was looking at had the some of the same features as a hellhound, but it also had that same necrotic look to it the other lacerators had.

It would have been crazy to fight that thing. I shut the door and yelled, “Run!” I started for the stairs. What about the others though? The ponies in this stable were already hurt; they wouldn't be able to last a second against that hellhound. I changed my direction and went down the hall.

Shadow and I burst through double doors at the end of the hall. We were in a large open room mimicking the outside, presumably before the war consumed all beauty. I never knew what healthy grass and flowers looked like, or a sunny cloudless day. It felt so wonderful in this room. I knew it was all synthetic, but it felt so wonderful here. I was infatuated with the bright sunlight for a moment. The moment ended when I was interrupted by four lacerators breaking down the doors we just came through.

My mind kicked back into battle mode. I brought S.A.T.S. up and put two shots into the nearest lacerator. Shadow took down the next one. Two bullets from the revolver brought down the next one. Shadow let out a quick burst that brought the last one down.

Another one shambled through the doorway, but everything seemed fine and under control. I got a strange feeling suddenly. I turned around and saw the fanged pony creeping up behind us. It went to bite Shadow. Everything came to a stop with S.A.T.S. I targeted its head for two bullets. Things slowly began to speed up. Its head exploded in a mess of gore from the two bullets, covering both of us. She was repulsed by the splatter of gore in her mane, but that didn't stop her from fighting.

I reloaded and turned to shoot the lacerators at the doorway. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wall get torn down by the hellhound-lacerator. Six bangs filled the air, but the hellhound was barely moved by any of the shots. It swiped through the air at me. I rolled out of the way as its claws ripped through the ground.

I kept distance between us while I reloaded. It would charge at me, I would just barely move out of the way, I would shoot and reload, and then we would repeat the cycle. “Shadow?” I called her name.

“Yes, that's me. How may I help you on this beautiful and sunny day?” Was this really the time for jokes? I looked over at her and saw her dealing with all the lacerators in the stable. It was just a field of red bars there.

“Well, I was going to ask for your help,” I said as a set of claws swiped just to my left, “but it looks like we're both in a predicament.” I shot the brutish lacerator twice in the head with S.A.T.S. help. It actually flinched this time. At least I was doing something.

“Yeah, looks like we could both use help,” she said as she continued to gun down lacerators. She barely kept up with the swarm of monsters as she reloaded.

I was mostly defensive when I fought the hellhound. I was able to dodge each swipe of its claws, giving me the chance to shoot its head.

Then it surprised me. It dug into the ground.  This was typical hellhound behavior; I just didn't see it coming. I looked around for it. How was I going to find it? Then I felt the smallest of vibrations under me. Shit.

I leapt out of the way as the ground beneath me exploded. The hellhound rose out of the ground and I kept shooting at it until I was out. This son of a bitch wasn't going down.

I remembered something as I put away Mom's .44. “Shadow,” I yelled, “give me one of the bombs you made!” She levitated out a bomb made from a circular metal casing with a button on top and threw it my way.

I enveloped the bomb in my magic and pushed it against the hellhound's face. I pushed the button on the top of it and backed away from the hellhound. I covered my face and braced myself for the explosion. Hot shrapnel flew through the air and the explosion sent me flying through the air.

I picked myself back up and observed the destruction. The hellhound-lacerator was dead. Its entire head was gone.

“Shadow,” I called her name. “Shadow?” She was lying face down on the ground. A dark pool of blood was around her and dead lacerators formed a circle around her. I ran to her and gently turned her over.

She was alive! She half opened her eyes. “Those bombs pack a punch, huh,” she said quietly. “I had a feeling I fucked up somehow when I made them.”

“Don't worry,” I said as I picked her up in my magic, “at least there's a medical clinic we can go to.” We walked back to the cafeteria. Surprisingly enough, there weren't any lacerators to deal with.

I put her down and took another bomb. I opened up the bomb and saw a pale powder in a container. I assumed it was the explosive powder and removed some of it. I walked back to the clinic. “I'd move back if I were you,” I said to the ponies behind the barricade. I placed the bomb, ran around a corner, and pushed the button from afar with my magic.

The explosion wasn't as large as the last one, but that's not to say it was small. It punched a hole in the barricade. A few ponies in the same blue and yellow jumpsuit peered confusedly through the hole at me.

A brown buck walked through the hole. He looked at me soberly and said in the same voice that answered me before, “You told us it was clear.”

“I know. I'm sorry. We needed the door opened though,” I said to him.

He was less than an inch away from my face now. “Do you realize what you did? You could have gotten us all killed.”

“Those things didn't attack us until we went to the chem lab, which you sent us to. I know I lied about this stable being cleared, but at least I'm taking responsibility for that,” I said.

I thought we were about to start fighting until an orange mare walked in between the two of us. “Both of you stop.” She forced us to take a few steps back from each other. She said to the buck, “Wingspan, calm down.” She turned to me, “Thank you for helping us. Some of us actually appreciate it,” she stared coldly at Wingspan.

“It's nothing. We have some ponies in the cafeteria that really need medical attention. So I'm asking you for your help now.” She nodded and I led her to the cafeteria. One look at the half dead ponies and she rushed them back to the clinic. All of the ponies in the clinic not tending to the wounded ate as much as they could. I could only imagine how hungry they were after being trapped for days.

Cor and I sat in the clinic while we waited for them to finish working on everypony. Shadow was recovering from that explosion. I drank half of a  healing potion and poured the rest into the small hole on my chest.

We had to get these ponies out of here. I wasn't going to let them stay in here. I started thinking back to what the buck said. We didn't clear the stable. It probably still wasn't clear. Which meant we only had some time before more lacerators came. But I wanted these ponies to get treated before I led them out of the stable. Could they treat these ponies in time?

While we waited, Cor and I drank through the bottle of vodka and ate whatever food they had in the cafeteria.

* *           * * *        * *

I thought of something after twenty minutes of nothingness.

What if there were still more ponies in here? We didn't mean to find the ponies in the clinic. What if there were more and we just didn't know about them.

I went up to the orange mare from before and asked, “Is there any way I could check if there are other ponies alive in here?”

“Well that Pip-Buck of yours should tell you. Or you could use the stable's P.A. system to get ponies to set up a beacon,” she offered me.

I wasn't going to walk around the stable looking for green bars and hoping they weren't the ponies I already saved. That left me with one option. “How do I access the stable's P.A.?” I asked her.

“Overmare's office. Do you want me to show you?”

“No, stay here and help these ponies. They need you more than I do.” She gave me a nod and went back to work.

I told Cor to stay here and keep these ponies safe while I went to look for more ponies. He really didn't want me going by myself, but I talked him into letting me go.

I went to the Overmare's office without any problem. I fiddled with a microphone until it worked. Into the mic I said, “Attention to all ponies. Your stable is filled with zombie-like creatures, as you may have noticed. If you haven't been rescued yet, then set a beacon with your Pip-Buck and wait for help to come.”

I looked at my E.F.S. for a beacon to come up. I waited for a few minutes for a beacon. I started losing hope as time progressed. I got up to go back to the clinic, thinking there was no pony else to save. On my way there I noticed something on my E.F.S. There was a blinking marker over my compass.

Some pony still needed saving.

My Pip-Buck led me past the cafeteria and to another hallway with the same gory motif as the other rooms. This room had no light whatsoever, so I had to rely on my Pip-Buck's lamp. “FORSAKEN” was written on the walls in blood. I kept walking through the hallways until I reached my marker.

I opened the door and found a single mare bleeding out on the ground of what I assumed was her apartment. I gently picked her up with my magic and brought her to the clinic.

Once there, I left her to be treated. I started walking to check on Shadow but I heard her whisper to me with whatever strength she had, “Please… help them.”

I walked back to her. “Help who?”

“My friends… Back of the Aviary… Help them,” she said. The doctors kept ordering her to stop talking so she could conserve her energy. She didn't listen to them. “Please… save them,” she pleaded. She stopped moving.

I didn't wait to go back down to the large simulated outdoors which I assumed was the Aviary. It was a long walk to the end of the room, but once there I was greeted with a single door.

The door opened and I peered into a locker room. I walked in and looked for any ponies still alive. Nothing was coming up on my E.F.S.

I walked among the rows of lockers, looking for any ponies. Suddenly two green bars and two red bars appeared in my vision. I ran around the lockers to them.

I turned the corner to see two lacerators eating two bodies. I shot them both down with Dad's assault rifle and S.A.T.S.

The ponies being eaten were still alive according to my Pip-Buck, but for how long?

I moved the lacerators and saw… Mom and Dad? Their entrails hung from the lacerators' mouth and by the hole in their side.

“Mom? Dad?” I slowly approached them. Dad looked at me with anguish. “I'll get you out of here,” I assured them.

“No,” he said. “You've failed us.” Then the two green bars vanished.

I was taken aback. I failed them? Maybe I could have done something, but I wasn't given the chance to do anything.

“Yes, you failed them,” a familiar voice said. I turned to see Red Rum standing there. He put his hoof on my shoulder. “You failed them,” he repeated. “You didn't do anything to prevent their deaths. You failed.”

* *           * * *        * *

“Wake up,” Cor shook me awake. “C'mon it's time to go.” It was all just a dream. Sure enough the doctors weren't working on any more ponies. The wounded ponies were bandaged up and ready to go.

I put away the bottle of vodka that was still open and stood up. “Hold tight for a second,” I said as I walked away.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I didn't even turn back when I said, “I just want to check something out.” I just had a feeling. I just needed to make sure…

I followed the same path I did in the dream. Every detail was the same. Almost as if I had already known how this hallway looked. I hesitantly opened the same door from the dream.

The same pony from the dream was bleeding out in the same spot. This was really weird now. I picked her up and brought her back faster than I did in the dream.

I didn't wait for her to tell me about the ponies in the aviary, I went there myself.

I ran through the destroyed simulation and more hesitantly than before opened the door at the far end of the room. The gruesome image of my parents from the dream was making this a much more arduous task.

The same lockers were here. The same four bars were at the end of the locker room. I ran around the same set of lockers and saw the same two lacerators from the dream. They weren't eating anypony this time. They were trying to though, and they were about to get a bite in.

I wasn't going to let them get that bite in. I shot them with Dad's assault rifle and S.A.T.S. and they fell down.

The two fully armed ponies underneath the lacerators pushed them off and stood up. A mare and buck who looked like they had gone through hell and back stood up. “Thank you,” he said. “Almost thought that was going to be the end.”

“I aim to save,” I told them. I didn't care what the dream said. I wasn't going to let failure be an option; I was going to save ponies.

I led them back to the clinic. I was glad to see the bleeding mare from the apartment was alive this time. I let another ten minutes or so pass so the bleeding mare could recover, but I needed to get these ponies out of here quickly.

“Is everypony in here?” I asked aloud. Everypony simply looked at me. “I'll take that as a 'yes'. We're going to get you out of this stable and into a settlement called Bedrock.”

“Wait a second. Why are we leaving?” some buck shouted.

“Do you really want to be living here?” I inquired. “There's bound to be more lacerators in here, and this entire place has been ruined with blood, bodies, bullets, and explosions.”

“What if we don't want to leave?” the mare next to me asked.

“It's time for all of you to go outside. You've all been living peacefully without disturbance, but now a disturbance has come up,” I said to all of them. “Your pegasi dammit, don't you want to fly outside. The real outside. Not some simulation that's ruined thanks to us and plenty of lacerators.”

“Some pegasi like their current home though,” a different mare said.

“No. I agree with him,” Wingspan said. “Things are changing. The outside is there for us now, and it's not a dead world of nothingness anymore.” I didn't want to tell them that it sort of was, “It's time we moved out,” he finished with a small nod my way. I was glad he wasn't trying to fight me anymore.

“Thank you. Now can we all get out of here?” I asked the ponies in the room. Other than a few disgruntled ponies, most were happy to leave the stable.

I walked up to Shadow who was still recovering from her wounds. We were limited on our supplies after all. “How you holding up?” I asked as I sat next to her.

“Could be better,” she said while she looked at her bandaged back.

“Do you think you can stand on your own?” I asked and was given a nod in response as she slowly got to her hooves.

With Cor and I in front of the crowd of ponies and Shadow behind them, we left the stable. The large cog shaped door with the number 85 on its face rolled out of its way for us.

Once we were all in the rock tunnel, we closed the large door so no lacerators could make it out again. Hopefully I wasn't also trapping ponies in there. We went through the rock tunnel and into the muted sunset. The pegasi's hooves stopped clopping against the ground. I turned around to see them in awe of the outdoors and some of them captivated by the sky.

“Whoa,” a few of them said as they looked around at the buildings and sky. They all happily took to the air and flew around each other and the buildings.

“Should we stop them?” Cor asked me.

“Nah, let them have a little fun,” I told him. It was the first time they'd been outside and out of their tiny rooms. Of course it was natural for them to stretch their wings. It's the first thing I would do if I was them.

We continued walking as they flew over us. We kept our eyes open for Bedrock as we walked among dark buildings. I called out the fliers to keep their eyes opened for some settlement amongst the buildings.

I looked around for anything that fit the description in the Overmare's terminal. Rubble was said to hide the settlement. But rubble was everywhere. Finding it would be like finding Red Rum; it wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

One of the pegasi called out, “Hey, I think I see something!” He dove down behind the buildings then came around to see us. “I think I found it!”

We all followed him around the building and to a pile of rubble that looked no different from the others. We struggled to climb up the pile, but we eventually reached the top. Looking down we saw Bedrock; a settlement built into the streets and blocked by rubble and buildings.

The pegasi landed behind us as we walked down. Some ponies gave us funny looks as we passed them. I guess it wasn't everyday they saw a group of twenty ponies walking in for the first time. The fact that we were mostly pegasi probably made them think “Enclave”.

I walked to one of the ponies and asked for whoever was in charge of this place. We were pointed to the biggest building at the end of the settlement.

All of the buildings we walked by were made of rubble and scrap metal put together. The roads were made of cobblestone, a true luxury in a Wasteland settlement.

Three pegasi walked up to us. “Hey, you wouldn't happen to be coming from the stable, would you?” a gold mare with a luxurious purple mane asked.

“Are you the ponies the Overmare left to gather info?” I asked them, already assuming it was a “yes”.

“Yeah, we are. How do you know that and why are they out of the stable?”

“Well, the Overmare's terminal had journals about your mission outside. As for the second question, you're stable got really screwed. Something from out here infected the population and turned them into zombies,” I said as her face became concerned. “There weren't many survivors. I'm sorry.”

Without waiting for anything else, she pushed her way through the crowd, giving short hugs to the ponies she knew, but still in distress looking for somepony. “No,” I heard her say quietly. “No!” she shouted furiously. “Dammit!” She flew to me. “Is this everypony?!” she asked frantically with worry.

“That's everypony we could find,” I told her.

“There's nopony else?” I nodded my head. “No, there has to be more. There has to be!”

“I'm sorry, that's everypony.” She mouthed “no” and started crying. Ponies started looking our way. She was making a scene. I doubt all those ponies really understood. I didn't know who she lost, but I knew what she was feeling. Cor did too. Everypony we got out of that stable did.

I put my hoof on her shoulder and told her, “It's going to be all right.”

“Don't say it's going to be all right!” she yelled as she threw my hoof away. “You don't understand! Have you ever lost somepony? Have you ever lost somepony so close to you that you’d rather be dead than alive without them! Have you?!” she screamed as tears ran down her face.

I nodded my head and said, “We've all lost something dear to us. You're not the only one.” I put my hoof back on her shoulder. “Just be strong.”

She nodded. “Be strong,” she repeated. She hugged me and cried into my shoulder. I struggled to keep from crying. I wanted to cry, but I also wanted to be strong for her. I didn't care about the ponies giving us funny looks. Some looked like they sympathized with her. Good. Loss isn't something foreign in the Wastes.

I waved Cor to keep going. His eyes were getting a bit watery, but he nodded his head and led everypony else to the end of the settlement.

I was still holding her. “I know we don't really know each other, but can I ask who you lost?”

“I… I don't really want to talk about it.”

I didn't want to pressure her into telling me if she didn't want to, but I wanted to sympathize with her. “Talking might make you feel better,” I told her.

“My marefriend. Her name was Jetspeed. And my mother, and sister,” she said through her sobs.

“I'm sorry,” I said. I didn't know what else to say. I could try and comfort her, but what could I say? “It's going to be all right.” I already said that, but I knew it wouldn't be all right. Getting over something such as this doesn't happen so easily.

“Who've you lost?” she asked. Like her, I really didn't want to talk about Mom and Dad, especially to a pony I hardly knew. She told me who she lost though, I felt obligated to tell her about my parents.

“My mother and father. It was just a few days ago actually,” I said as I struggled even harder to fight the tears. That night replayed in my head. “I know what you're feeling. You want them here so that bad feeling can go away. But that feeling makes us who we are.” She gave me a puzzled look. “Everything we experience defines us, whether it's good or bad. We're all going to face something hard eventually. How we deal with it makes us stronger or weaker.”

She gave a little nod. “Thank you,” she said as she finally regained her composure. “I don't think you told me your name.”

“Suthain. Yours?”

“Aurum,” she told me. “Thank you for saving who you could.”

“That's me, I aim to save others. Sorry I wasn't able to save more,” like Mom and Dad. “Let's catch up with everypony else,” I suggested. With a nod of her head we made our way to the group.

We walked into a tall building that sunk into the crater. The inside was luxurious and put most places in the Wasteland to shame. I requested to see the leader of this place. Cor was talking to an earth pony with a light gray coat and a gray mane.

Aurum went to talk with her pegasi friends. “I'm here,” I announced my presence. “Are you the pony in charge here?”

“Yes, that's me. Name's Cobblestone, pleasure to meet you,” he said in a haughty voice as he stretched his hoof out. I shook it and he continued with business. “You're trying to make an insane request by the way.”

“They need a home. Please, help us,” Cor said. “They're old home is the worst thing you could ever experience in the Wastes, and this is the closest place they could go to.”

“You're asking for my help, but help comes with a charge,” he said as a smile grew on his face. “You help me, I help you.”

“What do you want?” Cor asked.

“You do a few jobs for me, and I gladly take in these ponies. Or you give me, hmm… five thousand caps.” That was only one option for us.

“What kind of jobs?”

“Oh, nothing big, just a small trip to get my favorite gun back, find some weapons in a police station so we can protect ourselves, get us some food, water, and medical supplies, and maybe eliminate some enemies.”

“Enemies? What kind of enemies?” I asked him. I was fine with everything except for the last part.

“Just some ponies that seem to think it's funny to steal from us at night and a pony who owes me caps.” He said. I didn't want to kill ponies, but that didn't mean I wouldn't set them straight.

I looked at Cor. He gave me a nod. “Deal,” Cor said and extended his hoof.

“Wait,” I interjected. “I want to see the housing before you two shake on it.”

“Of course, follow me,” he led us out the main building and to a shorter but wider building.

We walked through a door that was barely held together. The inside was scrap metal over chunks of rubble. How this building stood, I didn't know. We went up a flight of stairs and Cobblestone opened a door. “This is a common living quarter,” he said as he showed us a large room with about fifteen bunk beds with two footlockers on each side of them, a refrigerator, three lockers, and a radio. At least the room wasn't a cobblestone monstrosity like the hallway leading here.

I nodded my head. “Now it's a deal.” We shook on it.

“Thank you very much,” he said with a smile on his face. We walked back downstairs, and Cobblestone got a pink mare to show the stable ponies to their rooms. “If you'll excuse me, gentlecolts, I have some business to attend to. If you need anything more ask Rose,” he said as he pointed to the pink mare. He walked back to the main building.

“Something's up with him,” I said to Cor once he was out of earshot.

“Of course there is. Dude's weird. And I have a feeling we're going to get screwed over in this deal.” I nodded to that.

We talked to the pink mare and got the three of us a room for the night. Maybe a bit of sleep would do us all some good.

Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk Added: Scoundrel – You can use your wily charms to influence ponies. Each rank raises your Speech and Barter skills by 5 points.