S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Stalker) Dirge of Equestria

by Hoghound

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Original Character
Length: 121877

Even though the accident happened far long ago, it left everlasting scars on Equestria...

[Lots of swearing - Bandits and Freedomers, seriously.][Moderate violence]

The Stalker universe... only this time, set up on Equestria.

Even after numerous years, Equestria still suffer from the results of the accident. roads are covered by dangerous anomalies, forests are inhabited by monstrous creatures... but there are also marvelous treasures to be found, trinkets with amazing proprieties called artifacts. A pony could get rich or dead real fast.
But what is this "The Zone" place that Equestria has been turned into? many consider it as a source of abhorrent and threatening dangers. others, a marvelous gift sent by the gods. some other ponies say it is an opportunity to cash out bits , and even others, consider it just their home.... But to what point are these descriptions true?

*image by some Unknown artist*

Published 2011-09-13 00:08:32 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-16 01:40:02 UTC

Prologue

September, 17, 1058 P.B. , the reactor at the power block five of the Ponydom Collective Efforts NPP (PNENPP) is destroyed, following a series of thermal explosions. The resulting biomagical radioactive waste clouds spread throught ponyville, the northern reaches of the everfree forest and canterlot.

The implications of this disaster are so grave, that the equestrian monarchy was forced to realocate the citizens of the outlying villages and towns (mostly ponyville)

A 30 Kilometer radius lockout is imposed over the affected landscape, in order to prevent the residents to return to the zone, as a way to preserve them from the heavy residual radioactiveness that still stilled the place. This place came to be known simply as "the Zone"

Despite the disaster, the NPP remained functional. After the pegasai crew finished sealing off the defective reactor onto a heavy wall of concrete, the monarchy thought it was the best of interest to use the available power potential of the remaining four generators, coped with the fact that the area was no longer inhabitable, not having to provide energy to the now abandoned settlements, permitted the rulers to set a network of secret laboratories on the outskirts of the zone.

March, 26, 1063 P.B. , One of the most powerful creatures of the realm , the prime ruler of equestria, braves the Zone in an attempt to nullify the remaining fallout of the explosion. She and her coup of dragons had not been heard of ever since.

August, 28, 1081 P.B. , the exclusion Zone lights up , as clouds can be seen evaporating from the skies. After a brief moment of complete silence, a terrifying roar shakes the ground. Most of equestrian army guarding the perimeter perish immediately.

1082 P.B., scientists were still unable to explain what happened. Rare expeditions into the zone, primarily led by the influent mares of equestria, had shared the same fate of the first one, with survivors telling stories of mutated animals with incredible abilities roaming the place. However, at the time, nobody really felt compelled to attest the validity of such tales, so horrifying they were.

1083 P.B., the situation becomes even more dire, as the Zone and it's children exponentially grow both in size and aggressiveness, blowouts suddenly become much more frequent, and mutants exhibit new disturbing features.

1084 P.B., The lack of a royal heir, paired with the presumed death of the rightful owners of the equestrian crown, has turned the remnants of a once proud and thriving reign under military dictatorship.

1089 P.B., according to several estimates, the Zone is now home to between 100 to 300 trespassing individuals, they named themselves "stalkers", and make their living by collecting anomalous formations of biomagical remnants, popularly known as artifacts, which they sell for ludicrous amounts of money.

1090 P.B., despise military cordons, the stalker phenomenon keeps growing in numbers, however stalkers travel primarily around the borders of the zone, with the center remaining just as the unreachable star for all, but the most battle-hardened legends of the Zone . The few attempts to penetrate deeper into the zone have all ended in failure, with nobody ever coming back from a raid into it.

As a result of this, rumors about the ruins of the NPP had spread among the inhabitants of the zone, while amongst them, two became most recurring. One of them mentioning it as a cemented treasure trove of artifacts, while the other one mentioned it as the lair of the wish granter, a mythical creature of unspoken powers.

While unable to reach the deeper parts of the Zone, the various factions of stalkers have been locked up on a territorial war over the dominance of the few relatively safe areas, in order to control the artifacts within them and eventually bolster they own forces with their gains, enabling a much wider scope of influence over the zone.

It is an unprecedented situation as ponykin , once peaceful and generous creatures, are forced to fight over abandoned crumbs in order to survive.

This is the world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony: FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. II : Dead pony walking

CP. II – Dead pony walking
“The strangest thing is that some of the subjects have mentioned side-effects from the experiment. The other day, 311 was screaming about being capable to see her dead parents. Nonsense, if you ask me.”

The very same bed upon which I had been laid before was holding me again.

Damn. My body found out new and disturbingly intense levels of pain, as if a plant pot struck my head, then an anvil, then a cart full of hay, and then a piano.

“Well, it looks our hero has awaken…” the dusk mare beside me sarcastically snapped

“Just… what hit me ? I saw the whole world around myself… unlit.”

“Helluva lucky unicorn you are… most stalkers out there could not boast having survived a blowout to their friends”

“THAT was a blowout ?”

“Ayep.”

“How I even…”

“Our scouts searched the area after the emission broke out and brought you back. Now, about how you actually managed to survive, I’d say that the answer you seek lies within…”

She touched my chest

“Literally. From what we dug on the Mergequine project, your genetic structure was thoroughly modified. Somehow, it made you better, stronger, more capable. The thing is… a blowout is a sudden release of mysterious energy, one that effectively resonates with all the living beings unlucky enough to be caught by it, generally meaning death. In your case, however… the results are rather… controversial. As we speak, Ameara is re-running your DNA tracing”

“But the stalker…”

“Has been found dead. The Zone is not a forgiving place. Now rest. You had been through a lot lately. When you feel better, meet us downstairs”

She turned around to descend the stair. As she did, I could spot the figure of a bright yellow sun over two white clouds on her flanks. Her cutie mark.

============================== [><]=============================

“Are you sure about it ? I mean… couldn’t you have accidentally done several mistakes on the test?”

“I am afraid not. Potria is especially careful with these things” Ameara apologetically eyed me

We have been in this conversation for half an hour and so. Potria, the dusk colored mare, was now eyeing through the window, while Ameara spoke to me

“I am truly sorry about your situation, Boshan . But even if you had a radio at the time, it wouldn’t do you much good, this blowout was not like any other… it materialized, all of a sudden. Usually, the whole climate changes as a forewarning, giving stalkers a few minutes to seek shelter.”

“Just explain me about this whole… deep genetic changes business my body had.”

“In layman’s terms, your body is somehow very adaptable and diversified, result of an extensive genetic selection. The blowout, in contact with it, reacted as a catalyst, speeding up the lifecycle of your genes. It also increased the efficiency of them.”

“So it is a good thing, right ? my body is working better than before”

“No, it is not. Your genes are working so fast, that it is just a matter of time until they cross the threshold of acceptability, being cracked over the excess they now operate at normally. If our calculations are right, you have thirty days before they shut down.”

“But there isn’t a way to revert this ? I can’t bear the thought of just having a month of life.”

“Believe us, we tried everything we could, but the data we had on you, taken from the mergequine project , was incomplete. And our machines can only work from a certain level. We need to acquire the complete research notes at least.”

“Just tell me, what do you need me to do ?”

She pointed at the map covering the wall beside her, right on the middle, a red circle marked the center of the Zone. The NPP.

“So, the only way to save myself from certain death, is going on a head straight suicidal mission ?”

“Do not be foolish. One does not simply walk directly into the NPP. There are some serious threats blocking access to it. We’ll just progress toward it by small, but consistent steps. I even have someone in mind to guide us safely.”

“You’d care to share his name with me?”

“After you do us an small favor, we shall…”

Fair enough, I thought. After all, Limpid Skies has saved my life (twice). The least I could do was provide some assistance for them. I nodded.

“If you can accompany us…” she gestured toward outside

We moved toward the main courtyard

Noticeably more crowded than before, it was beaming with activity. Limpid Skies members were packing gear, repairing weapons and sewing the holes of their armors.

I followed the two mare officers near a particularly grim group. The two pegasai we approached were carrying what had been a third one, it was now only a bullet-filled corpse.

“Ameara, we lost Delphanos while retreating from the scrapyard. Those goddamn riders, they encroached nearly every corner of the swamp… what are we supposed to do?”

“I believe it is about time we should put someone experienced in charge of the battle.”

She eyed me.

“What, me ? I just wake up two days ago… how I can possibly have combat tactics or strategical skills whatsoever?”

“Well, surviving a blowout is a precedent no other stalker had. I believe your dormant genetical inheritance could somehow aid us on wiping out those vermin.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do i?”

She simply shrugged.

“Oh, we have left your gear with Peppermint, our mechanic. He’s probably done with it by the moment. You should go check with him, while we pay our respects to Delph.”

Leaving them behind, I sought the makeshift shack, with every corner patched, scraped and held together by goddess knew what (maybe super-glue…) the inside was nearly chaotic as the outside, with several shelves filled with broken down junk, spare parts, entangled wires, electronic components, rotting compounds and everything else a pony could think, but the kitchen sink.

Beside the workbench, a hooded pegasus stallion tinkered with the very same PDA a maroon-colored pegasus mare showed to me.

“Go away, don’t you people read the sign at the door?”

I turned from him, just to examine the sign he mentioned, but there was nothing fixated at the door

“Dude, there is nothing at the door”

He lifted his gaze from the PDA, showing he was wearing magnifying glasses with four lens. Observing the door, he was left speechless. After pondering for a minute, the pegasus just remarked:

“Ah, now i remember… used it last week to repair the water pump hull. It is hard to keep track of stuff when nearly everything around seems to be of use to repair broken gear. Anyways, doesn’t matter. It is finished.”

He smiled while handing to me the PDA. The pegasus set his silly magnifying glasses down, while i peeked at the device unsure of what to do with it.

“I suppose you have no idea how to use one of these, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“Well then, stay awhile and listen.”

It came out that a PDA had several useful features. A list of tasks, upon which I could keep track of my objectives, a map, a faction reputation-sheet (marked neutral upon all of them, but Limpid Skies, since I had no contact with any other.), a diary section, upon which personal notes could be set, a rating section, listing the twenty toughest stalkers with their ranks, and an encyclopedia, which could be filled with information about the Zone and survival tips found on other stalkers PDAs or given to me.

“Have I been myself clear or do I need to repeat something ?”

“I think I get it… let me try using it a bit…”

“Suit yourself.”

He crossed over the workbench and handed me the PDA. I could now see his orange, black-speckled fur. A pair or wrenches rest on his flanks.

“Ah, and your pack is atop that shelf” he pointed toward the one at the right corner from the door. “I worked your pistol. It is now properly calibrated”

As I reached the pack, I peeked inside to check if everything there survived the blast. Everything was intact. Then I remembered… catching it from the depths of the saddlebag, I produced a stone with several holes on the surface.

“Any idea of what this is ?”

“An artifact, I see… hmm… I saw some of the guys with this one. They called it a funny name. Jellyfish.”

“Why so ?”

“Probably because of the shape. It indeed look like one.”

“Do it have any special proprieties ?”

“From what I had been told, it creates a protective field around the user, slightly increasing protection against bullet wounds. However, radiation is a side effect of it”

Interesting… if this widespread artifact could even do this, I could only imagine what a rare one could produce. I stuffed it back onto the saddlebag.

“Thanks a lot, Peppermint. I’d better speak with Ameara to proceed to the bog.”

“Wait. Are you going to help our guys fend off the raiders, stranger?”

"If I can be of help to them…”

He eyed me up and down

“Could you do something for me while out there ?”

“What do you have in mind ?”

“I am kind of short of spare parts”

I eyed the room filled with assorted trash, even reaching the ceiling at some points, and eyed him incredulously.

“Yes, I know. But all of this is for everyday repair uses. I need spare trash for personal projects… when you spend some time dismounting and fixing up stuff, you learn how to make quite… unique and ingenious devices from the most exotic materials. I tried all of these, they are not good for the kind of things I have at my mind. they even fail to inspire me…so plain.”

The pegasus deflated at his workbench

“So, I need to be on the lookout for interesting trash. Where should I look for it?”

He immediately stood back up, excited for the prospects of new junk to work with.

“The swamp was a huge farm once, the place used to thrive before monarchy broke out. Scavenging some of the ruins should yield nice results. Do it, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

I shook his hoof firmly.

“By the way, my name is Boshan”

“Well, Boshan, good luck. Oh, one last thing. Your PDA has a built in radio unit with a frequency scanner range of 250 meters, you can intercept even encrypted communications from this range. Also, you can hear us through it, since Limpid Skies possess a 50 KM range radio on this facility, meaning we can keep in touch, send you over the latest buzz and hand over advice as you traverse the Zone.

I exited his shop, waving goodbyes to the black-speckled pegasus

Then, i went to speak with Ameara. She sat at her office.

“Did he updated your PDA?”

“Yes, it will be very useful out there…do we have a plan or something ?”

“Basically, the swamp is just a bunch of land with several interest points at it. Whoever group can keep those interest points and defend them, can easily assume control of the immediate surroundings. So, we have to wipe the buildings clean of raiders to be able to regain dominance over the swamp. First off, we’ll occupy the nearby abandoned buildings, then proceed to confront the raiders and retake the ones at the center of the swamp, acquiring enough reinforcements to stand against them. Lastly, we’ll spearhead an incisive strike at their headquarters, to drive them off our swamp.”

“Sounds easy when put this way… but I suspect it will be as hard as nails.”

She nodded “At least you won’t be alone. Limpid Skies will have your back, Bosh.
By the way, this coat won’t last much out there, take this barding.”

She handed me a worn sky-blue camouflaged barding, the same i saw members of Limpid Skies wearing around the base. Mine had recently sewed holes and the hood had a few red stains over the sky-blue fabric, also a hastily cut hole at the forehead area, to accommodate my horn. My suspicions about the origin of the suit vanished right after spotting a label marked with the letter “D” beside the collar, but Ameara was right. A simple leather jacket would not hold out efficiently against a barrage of gunfire, although i wished to fare better than the previous owner of the armor.

So, i let go my prejudice and wore the barding, using the telekinesis to close the zippers at the back of it, originally intended to allow a pegasus to stretch their wings.

“Fits perfectly, who knew… now we just need to grab you something better than this pig-shooter you have”

She rifled through her desk’s drawers, stopping at a particularly promising one and bringing out of it a sawn-off shotgun along with a few boxes of shells

I flipped around the shotgun with my TK, testing it’s weight, familiarizing myself with its structure. When I felt my TK grew solid enough to precisely wield it, I stored it at the saddlebag.

Ameara mused outside. “Whenever you are ready to go, meet with your group outside. You know, the two stallions we spoke before”

“Isn’t by any chance one of them is the one that guided me by the swamp yesterday ?”

“Actually, Clockgear is at this moment out there on the crossfire. Why you ask about him?”

“The bastard tripped me.”

“Nonsense, you probably tripped on a stump. After all, you couldn’t see”

“But now I see… a big moron is what I see.”

“Look Boshan, I know Clockgear for a long time. He would never do something like that on purpose. It was just an accident”

“Sure it was”

She glared at me skeptically

“I mean… yeah, I am sure it was.”

“Remember, save this energy for the raiders. We cannot afford to fall apart while they roam freely through the swamp.”

I laid my body against the wall and spent a moment to meditate about her words. Then, i exited her office to reunite with my new group.

============================== [><]=============================

Fortunately, traveling blindfolded was more pleasant than the last time.
As my pegasai friends removed it, we rushed through the swamp.

I accompanied them toward the recently purged docks. A faint smell of smoke still permeated the air. Limpid Skies units had recently eliminated the encroaching raiders permeating the building, and were currently defending the structure against a new batch of them. We caught them under fire. The raiders secured their positions behind long-rusted boats, and were thinning down Limpid Skies numbers, slowly but surely.

My group actually landed on the other side of the raiders’ cover.

POWW… POWW…

Two shotguns shells went toward the air, one of them wounding the burgundy pegasus at my right. We quickly dove for cover behind some feeble trees.

My shotgun flew out of the saddlebags, ready for action.

I gestured toward my pegasai group to synchronize our fire, they nodded at me.

I hoofed the land quickly three times.

The pegasai mouthed their handles, triggering their harness mechanisms. It was a metal contraption wrapped around their bodies, allowing the use of bigger weapons, such as rifles and submachine guns, the very same contraption some of the raiders were using, although some of them looked like cheap knock-offs or made of several parts of different models of other harnesses, cramped together.

RATTLLLE…RATLLLEEEE….RATLEEETLEE….

POWW… POWW…

We wounded a raider and killed another. blood sprouted through the extension of his black jacket.

We dove again for cover

As Teacup bandaged his wound the best he could, Tourmaline peeked at the group of raiders nearby

“Three more to go… we can probably wipe them out fast if we just wait for our guys over there to distract them.”

Teacup nodded, and I reloaded my two-slug shotgun while grunting acknowledgment.

Our group stood there, waiting… it went several minutes, until gunshots were heard far out.

At the moment we heard the raiders countering fire, we rushed toward their position, and fired point blank at them while they were aiming toward the docks

RATTLLESQUACH…. RATTLETLEESQUACH….

POWWTHOOF… POWTHOOFF…

Five bodies laid before us. One of them was shot dead by some sharpshooter at the docks.

Tourmaline instantly begun searching their dead bodies, and threw some supplies to us.

“Fair share.” He said. “And if I were you, horn-bearer, I’d trash the shotgun and take one of their rifles. It is simply worthless on mid-distance combat”

I took his advice; after all, from what little we had spoken while on the travel, I could get that he was an experienced stalker. the fact that he was still alive attested to it.

My combat knife dove at the deceased raider’s harness, releasing his AK-47. I’ve also unloaded the other raiders’ AKs to safeguard ammo. Still, all I had was only a handful of it. I had to conserve.

Upon reaching the docks, we were welcomed by the other pegasai.
With the apparently clear situation, they could spare a couple of members to help us on trying to wrestle the raiders off from the nearby interest point.

The map indicated that the interest point laid north. With our course set, our group proceeded.

The swamp eventually came to be much more dense and corrupted trees sprouted everywhere as we approached it, to the point that it became necessary to use our combat daggers to cut through the plants. I was at the front, when my TK-driven knife struck onto ivory and did not release instantly. Coming closer to it, we noticed the fact that it wasn’t ivory, but an ancient sign covered with it. With a few measures of my now freed knife, it was legible. It was written with the following words:

“Froggy Bottom Bog”

A few meters deeper onto it, we heard the raiders occupying the pond that compromised froggy bottom bog itself. It was not much really, just a pond of irradiated water, circumvented by a few wooden piers.

Tourmaline counted eight raiders. It wasn’t going to be easy.

To make matters worse, they were separated through the pond’s borders in pairs. If we opened fire against a group, it would certainly alert the other six raiders.

“So, any ideas?”

“We cannot just fire and run, they would know form where we shot.”

“What if… we separate into three groups and open fire against each squad of them, them team up to clear the last one ?”

“Sounds logical… but how are we going to sync up ?”

“Set your PDAs to time five minutes, to give time to the others cross through the jungle again and find their positions.”

“Okay but… who stays alone ?”

“I do.” i interrupted their planning “my telekinesis enables me to pull out my sidearm faster. If my ammo depletes, I can finish off the other raider with ease.”

“Hmm… well… somepony has a word against it ?”

The other three pegasai fell silent

After syncing our PDAs, Tourmaline grouped with one of the rookies and Teacup with the other. Both of their groups went west and east, respectively. I kept my position.

Those raiders seemed so obliviously blind to their fates… those five minutes came, and in a flash of moment, guns blazed from the depths of the jungle, as we all opened fire simultaneously at the raiders.

At the end of the gunshot, nine bodies rotted on the ground. The Zone reclaimed them as its own.

“A fancy job we did out here, isn’t it ?” Tourmaline broke the silence

Teacup groaned while lying near a tree, he was suffering from a grievous wound, it was starting to hemorrhage.

The elder pegasus paid no attention to him and again begun to scavenge the corpses of the dead. Not even sparing the one of his own group.

Rushing closer to the burgundy pegasus, i begun to tend to his wounds, using my last medkit.

“You are not going to last long on the Zone, horn-bearer. You are too soft.”

Unfortunately, the pegasus died even as i tried to mend him up, his wounds were too deep, he died at my hooves, his blood soaked my barding.

“See? the Zone does not forgive foolishness… Teacup saw it coming.”

Seeing that I couldn’t do anything more to him, I closed his eyes… at least he was now in peace.

I turned toward the two other pegasai alive. Tourmaline and Doughspoon

Nodding my head sadly, I backed away from the burgundy-colored body.

Tourmaline took it as his cue to rummage on his friend’s possessions.

“Don’t you have any shame?” I asked him.

“Look, do you think he cares ? that he will actually complain being looted ? What I do, horn-bearer, is to survive. I do not like it either, but it got me through. This is the way it is supposed to be. This is the way you must embrace if you want to live on the Zone.”

“Even so, he deserves better than this…”

“Alright, if you are so concerned about it, let’s make a poll. Who is against looting Teacup?”

I rose my hoof

“Ok, one vote. Now, who is in favor of looting Teacup?”

Tourmaline rose his own hoof AND Teacup’s dead hoof

Dougspoon absented himself of voting.

“Two votes in favor of looting. Looks like I won.”

After scowling at him, i picked up whenever crumbs Tourmaline left on the raider’s bodies. A few more bullets for my AK and some food.

“We should move out… our guys will fortify this position soon. With luck, we can take out the next point and secure ourselves a nice foothold on this war.” Doughspoon awkwardly said.

The map shown two points of interest nearby, one far to the north, an abandoned scrap yard and another east, a stone bridge crossing what once had been a river.

The bridge seemed the evident strategic choice. Limpid Skies could easily conquer the isolated scrap yard north if the bog was still secured, but the stone bridge was much more prone to territorial disputes, since it was positioned right on the middle of the swamp.

On the trek toward it, my mind raced, trying to assimilate just what I had been through… downright at my second day out on the Zone, I held a dying pony on my hands… one I had been incapable to save… just like the earth pony caught by the blowout. At one moment he was with me, breathing. While the next…

I just wondered… if I’d been around the Zone enough, would I become alike the pegasai next to me? A creature without any scruples, dismissing them at will if they stood between him and survival? I suspected that this would be only the beginning…

By the time we reached the bridge, our eyes spotted a group of raiders trying to defend themselves against a pack of dogs. It seemed like the raiders had been unlucky enough to have attracted a huge pack of the creatures, there were around twenty dogs, chewing down raider bones, while cornering the surviving ones around the stony structure.

The raiders were thoroughly desperate. Three of them lay dead, with their interiors already defiled by the dogs. The beasts only left out the hardest bones and weapons, their stomachs could even digest ammo, I realized in horror as i saw one of them chewing a raider saddlebag entirely, not leaving any of its contents behind.

“Those are blind dogs… let them have their fun, then we’ll eliminate any survivors”

How he could be so calm and focused while seeing this spectacle of horror was beyond my comprehension… I was starting to really hate the pegasus next to me…

Five minutes later, twelve dogs fed on several pony corpses. They had been especially keen to gut their prey in seconds.

“Let’s move. And try not to get on the way, horn-bearer.”

We moved by the bridge’s side, getting closer to the mutants.

I rose my AK, while my pegasai companions readied their mouth-manifold mechanisms

“3…2…1… Blast them good.”

RATTLETLETLETLE…. RATLLETTLLLE… RATLLEETLEE

RATTLEETLEETLEE… RATTTLETLEE

While releasing the deadly barrage, I moved toward the mutants to get a better shot at them.

RATTLETLETLEETLEE… click, click, click

Screw those raiders with all the mutated livestock of this fucking swamp!

The badly kept AK I took from one of them has jammed. I was defenseless!

Two of those dogs lunged at me like lunatics, possibly attracted to the blood that coated my barding. That’s what you get for trying to help others on the Zone.

They knocked me on the grey pavement, their teeth worked through my barding, ripping it to shreds, as my nose was nauseated by their warm and putrid breath. They started biting off my flesh. Pain was unbearable, I was being eaten alive!

A third dog came from the bridge and went for my neck !

Luckily, I was prepared now. My telekinetic grasp pulled off my pistol, touched his skull and pulled the trigger before he could descend upon my throat.

BANG!

Bits of his brain and blood fell over the other dogs, still snapping off blood and flesh entangled cloth from me.

RATTLETLEEEETLEEEE….RATTLETLEEETLEEE

The dog fell dead before my feet, with a mouthful of red-stained fabric on his teeth. The other one ran away.

Reality blacked out…

============================== [><]=============================

“Fucking rookie… looks like you nearly got yourself killed. And Doughspoon, why the hell you aided him? If he is going to start fighting like this, he’s better off dead.”

As I slowly regained my senses, the very first thing I noticed, was that my body was covered with bandages, all of my stock had been used to stack the wounds.

Pain was still over the top, but more moderate than before.

“He is useless now. See?”

I rose up to confront my pegasai companions, they stood nearby a huge pile of dogs, they probably have brought them together in order to burn the mutants remains.

“Thanks Doughspoon. I owe you.”

Tourmaline eyed me depreciatively.

“At least I will not have to stand you goddamn tourists anymore. Limpid Skies has retaken the scrap yard by this moment. Now I just need to reach it to cross the swamp toward Agropony and get on with the cash treadmill again”

“Wait, we have not gained control over the swamp. What… are you… deserting your own faction?”

“My faction?” the elder pegasus snapped “just because i am a pegasus, it does not mean that i am a Limpid Skies member.”

“He is right. Tourmaline is not one of us. He is… a merc” Doughspoon voiced

“Damn right I am. Now that the bandits from this swamp do not entrap me anymore, I’ll just use the back door to quit this shithole. I didn’t enlist to partake on this stupid turf war”

“But Limpid Skies has sheltered you from the raiders! the minimum you could do to repay…”

My PDA’s radio has sprang to life all of a sudden.

“ All units, requesting backup at the treehouse …. A shooter has pinned down all my squad, I need IMEADIATE assistance.”

Tourmaline turned northwest, toward the scrap yard. “Not my problem.”

I rushed over by him. “You ARE going to aid us. THEY SAVED YOUR DAMN MANE FROM GETTING SWISS-CHEESE’D, you INGRATE MOTHERFUCKER.”

“As i said before, i AM bailing out, and there is nothing you can do about it, horn-bearer. Insult me all you want, I’m out of here.”

I locked my infuriated gaze at him. “FINE THEN, GO. But know this. Someday… our differences will put us on the opposite sides of a loaded gun.”

The merc removed his gas mask, revealing the short dark blue hair below it. Tourmaline returned my gaze, with cold, unfaltering eyes.

“I’ll look forward to it… if you manage to live that long.”

With those words, the pegasus left us.

I checked out the PDA. The treehouse was south of our position.

After leaving the bridge, i checked out the (few) raider bodies that the dogs had not consumed entirely. One of them had a PDA. Tourmaline had somehow missed it.

The PDA contained coordinates to a stash on the swamp. It read:

“Shit… those featherheads have made a move toward the base. While my comrades rushed to take their positions, I hid the excess gear under a carriage by the tower. Will pick it up later.”

Doughspoon advised me to take some of the blind dogs’ tails. He said that there were certain individuals who valued them. Personally, I couldn’t picture someone on their right state of sanity wanting a fibrous appendage of a mutated canine, but i carved out three pristine tails anyway.

Me and my companion had to brave the swamp yet again, only this time to reach some firm land, the remnants of an apple orchard, upon the treehouse was encrusted on a clearing. The ponies of the past built it as a landmark on the forest, possibly to keep their pestering colts and fillies away while they did menial work.

“Over here” whispered a voice from our right as we crossed the forest.

The indigo pegasus was taking cover behind a dead oak. The treehouse was a few meters ahead.

“So, you are my reinforcements ?” the pegasus asked, and eyed me “Kid, you took a rain of pocket knives or something ?” he referenced my mud-crusted, blood-bathed, fang-ripped barding, it was somehow sticking to my skin, and the bandages weren’t really helping it either.

I just shooed the desire to itch myself and spoke to him.

“How many raiders are on the treehouse ?”

“One. But he is a helluva shooter.”

I noticed that his armor had been pierced profusely, wonder which kind of weapon the shooter had… there was only one way to find out.

While gravitating a rock, I drew at it a smiley with some of the mud. Then, floated it into the line of vision of the treehouse.

PLITCH…TCHAAK !!!!

The rock crumbled to dust. The pony was handling a Vintar BC. One false move toward him, could pretty much mean a straight bullet to the head.

The indigo pegasus gestured toward me.

“if you can creep up close the tree, unicorn, then you could float these to our friend…”

He handed me three grenades.

“Push the pin, count to three, and release.”

Right now I had to be fast… real fast.

I fell back toward the outer trees of the orchard, trying to find a blind point in the structure, then i ran like hell. My body ached in protest, but my will guided me onward. The sniper saw me coming and started to take shots.

PLITCH…. !!!

Missed

PLITCH….!!!!!

Missed again.

PLITCH…SQUELCH !!!

The Fucker crippled my front right hoof!

Slouching toward the tree, I did a dive roll to cover the last few meters, then, my back hit against the hard bark of the oak. the world seemed… more gray than usual. Then I took notice I had landed upside down against the tree. It was an awkward pose, but I managed to float the grenades and lob them onto the treehouse, unpinning them.

KABLAMMOOO!!!....

Well… no plan was flawless, this one was no exception. I was below the collapsing structure.

Harnessing all of my telekinetical might, I held off a large piece of the roof to cover my body, luckily, it was enough.

After the blast ceased, the pegasai neared me. I shook off the dust and staggered toward them.

“Wow unicorn, now that’s what i’d call some fancy hoofwork.”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, wasn’t enough to evade the bullets altogether.”

The pegasus ripped off some of his barding fabric and wrapped my shot hoof. This day was getting better and better… see a pony die in my hands, being bitten to almost death, and now getting shot… with my luck, by the end of the day, the Zone would hit me with another blowout. Ameara assured me that the second would be pretty much fatal to me; after all, the lucky ponies only get to explode once, while i had been forced to endure attempting a near exhausting sequence of feats in order to avert a timed death sentence.

After ten minutes or so, a Limpid Skies squad reached us, intended to fortify the spot. From their news, i found out we’ve nearly took all the swamp. The raiders were now bunkering onto their last line of defense. The scouting tower, the Barn ruins and ultimately, the apple storage warehouse, by the PDA’s indications.

As Limpid Skies now hogged much control over the swamps, now we could spare more troops into the fray. I reunited seven battle-capable pegasai and marched toward the scouting tower that was further east.

By nearing, the first thing we noted, as usual, is that was crawling with raiders atop it.

“Featherbrains! this is OUR swamp.” And he opened fire against us.

RATTLETLETLEEEE…. RATTTLETLETLETLEEE…

Response fire was immediate.

“Take a hike then, bottom-feeding pansies. We are reclaiming what is ours.”

RATTLETLETLEEEE…RATTLLETLEEE….

“We’ll nail your wings to the…” RATTLETLETLEE… “ugh…”

And with it, five raiders were dead. I took the time to examine their rifles to find a replacement for mine, since it was on a depreciable state. After fidgeting with a few AK parts here and there, i produced a now worthy AK. The bodies also contained much needed rifle ammo, which i quickly looted.

As I noted a few farm props around the tower, my mind quickly went to the stash location data on my PDA.

The carriage was spotted easily. I crawled underneath it. The land below had been stirred. Using my hooves to dig out, I pulled out of the hole an olive-colored backpack.

I took just a moment to spill it’s contents on the ground.

A Scope and two blue medkits.

I quickly put one of the medkits to good use. As found out, these blue ones were made specifically for battle wounds, containing painkillers, antibiotics and other advanced medicine. After exhausting the kit on my wounds, I felt like a brand new pony. If it only had repaired my armor too…

Then, I turned my attention toward the scope, stashing the second medkit on my saddlebags. The scope itself had 2 x magnifying glasses, and appeared to be intended for mounting on assault rifles. As to test it, i mounted it on my AK, the scope fit perfectly onto it.

“Bosh, the broken silo is under attack ! some ponies are trapped inside, holding against the raiders” Ameara’s voice soared from the radio. “I’ve tried to request help from Purity’s squad, but their signal is dead. Your group is the closest to them.”

After gathering three pegasai (the three others were left to secure the tower), we cruised southeast. The silo ruins were by the corner of the swamp.

And it surely looked like our comrades could use some help.

The raiders overtook positions atop the farm’s machinery and whenever protective trash piles they could find, while the silo occupants bunkered themselves and used the top window to fire at their ambushers. From the looks of it, the raiders outnumbered the occupants from 3 to 1. But then, why they have not invaded the silo already? The answer: a few raider bodies were on the doorway to the silo. This was a battle of patience, whoever group could stand their ground and conserve their ammo for longer would be victorious.

RATTLETLETLEEETLE… RATTLETLETLEETLEE…

The rifle atop the window soared. Its bullets vainly hit the pile of saggy old plows which the raiders took cover behind.

One of the raiders raised a megaphone.

“This is your last chance to surrender, winged scum! We promise a quick death.”

“Talk to my little friend!“ The voice of a mare answered, and the rifle appeared again, and released another clip of bullets flying. This time, hurting two of the raiders and striking the megaphone

“You are not getting out of this alive!” the raider shouted “boys, release the rain-boom!”

With it, they have begun to lob grenades at the structure. If we didn’t act quickly, the entire thing would crack over the pegasai inside.

My group opened fire

RATTLETLEETLEETLE… RATTLETLEEETLEE…

RATTLETLEETLEE…RATTLETLEE…

Two of the raiders died. But then, all the others were now aware of us.

“Eat lead, bird-lovers.” One of them threw a grenade at us

“DISPERSE!” my mind yelled.

KABOOM !!!

The explosion only flew away large patches of earth. My crew had been able to shelter in time. Then, we rose again.

RATTLETLEETLEE… RATTTTLETLEETLEE…

RATTLETLEETLEE… RATTTTTTLEEEEERATLLERATTLE…

“GUYS, KILL THEM, KILL THEM ALL”

RATTLETLEETLETLE…. RATTLERATLLE…

RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLETLEEERATTLE….

We were locked on savage combat. One of the raiders threw another grenade.

I dropped my AK and intercepted the explosive mid air, levitating it back to a frightened raider. he actually got time to run from it… although not enough to not get caught on the blast radius.

KABOOOOM !!!

The mare at the silo’s window emptied yet another clip, now having time to scoop up the raiders. I took the time to notice that she was a skilled shooter. About half of her frags were done with a single bullet, to the head.

RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLETLEEETLEEE…RATTLERATTLEEE….

After this show of skill, the (few) remaining raiders were retreating as quickly as they hooves could afford them.

“It’s clear. They are all dead… can we come in?” I voiced.

A violet pegasus carefully poked his head outside, then yelled to the other two inside that it was over.

The building itself was cramped, littered with broken machinery for peeling the grains, storing it, and whatsoever. Spiral stairs led to the top.

“Whee ! we got those rats running ! who’s the best ? I nailed them off… did you see ? I was all like PEWPEWPEWPEW, and they all went like OHNOES! huh, huh, huh ?”

The excited lavender-colored pegasus descended the stairs, a Obokan strapped to her back (she was only wearing the Limpid Skies barding, which mean… she had fired with her hooves!) and her straight brown hair protuberated from her mane and fell over the mare’s face.

“By the way, thanks for the hand out there, although I could had dealt with them easi…”

She eyed through me, smiling profusely

“Ow, about some time you’d repay your debt unicorn… but the last time I saw you, you were not so… ripe. HAHAHAHAHA Get it? ripe? Because you are covered in red, like a ripe apple”

My face blushed, damn, now i was EVEN more ripe. “Sorry, but I do not remember meeting you...”

“Sure you do not, Duu-uh. You were beneath three layers of concrete. Allow me to introduce myself…”

She rapidly rushed back and forth, then made a heroic pose, looking toward a non-existent metaphorical horizon.

“I am… the first… the only… Iridox ! scourge of those who prey on the weak, slayer of mutants, ambassador of the pegasai. I have recently returned from my latest adventure, only to find my beloved homeland being overtaken by vile raiders”

“But we have nearly wip…”

She put a hoof over my mouth, silencing it, then held my shoulder with her other arm, hugging me, her eyes had a wicked vivacity. This pony was taking every word to the heart.

“Picture this, friend.” She moved her hoof through the imaginary horizon “Living the dream, living the dream everywhere and everyday. That’s what the Zone is about. That is why I have this burning need to go outside, have new experiences and then triumphantly return to my lovely swamp. Do you get what I mean, huh, huh, huh?”

She eyed me expectantly. I could only think of one thing to say…

“Iris … it’s like I’m feeling you, but I’m not feeling you, you know? I only had been awake for… say, two or three days. I did not see much beside these marshlands”

“Well… perhaps someday, the call of adventure will call you too ! like this : adveeentureee…. adveeeentureee”

She crept closer to my ear. “Adveeeentureee”

“Stop it… this is silly” I shook her off.

Iris bumped on the floor, still laughing.

I laid my PDA out of the saddlebag, eyeing the map thoroughly. She came by.

“ Awww…. You guys had all the fun while I was away. No fair. Now just the old barn and the warehouse to the north need to be cleared.”

“However, both points must have the highest concentration of raiders. Shit looks serious.” I remarked.

“We could always try some of these” Iris produced a true arsenal from her saddlebags. Bullets twinkled in the floor, forming piles, of all sizes and tastes. and there were even a few weapons among her possessions. A shotgun, two pistols and another Obokan.

I nodded, sounded like a plan for my ears.

“Well, then let’s move out. The last pony to get to the barn is a dirty old mule!” the lavender pegasus rushed outside.

I eyed over the room. All these machinery, Peppermint would be delighted. I started to pry free some of the parts from them.

“Aren’t you coming ?” Iris asked from the doorway.

“Yes… go ahead without me, I just need a moment to finish this.”

“Okay. Do not leave us hanging there, unicorn! “

“As you wish.”

She then disappeared in a flurry of rush toward a building full of raiders, as I resumed salvaging the parts.

============================== [><]=============================

“What took you so long?” the lavender mare snapped at me

“Sorry, a friend’s request. How many raiders over there ?”

“From six to eight, but there is something else.” She pointed at an outdoor oven, close by the barn door. The land around it was dark.

“What is that ?” I tried to focus at the oven, now I could clearly see… half of a body… more specifically, charred half of a body.

“A burner anomaly. Some dumb raider got far too close to it.” She pointed the charred body.

“So… just the two of us, against at least half a dozen raiders… why you didn’t ask for reinforcements ?”

“Silly, we ARE the reinforcements. Now, I’ll go around the barn and kill half of them, and you go toward the front door and shoot dead the other half. Whoever finishes first wins!”

I rolled my eyes… for somepony so battle-skilled, she was rather enthusiastic about it.
Well, the swamp wouldn’t purge by itself alone. It was a dirty work, but somepony had to do it.

I floated my AK off the bag, aiming through its scope, until I found a comfortable telekinetic position that would allow me to run with the gun near me and quickly use the aim.

“Ready?” I asked her

“Just a minute, let me move by the other side. I’ll radio you when I’m in position”

Iris moved through the tall grass, sneaking around the barn. She was a natural.

A few moments later, her voice came from my radio.

“Okay, on my count to three.”

“THREE!”

Adrenaline pumped from my body as i ran to the barn. Iris had already started shooting down even before entering the barn. Well, so much for a sneak attack…

RATTLETLEEETLEEE… RATTLETLEETLEETLEEE….

I bucked the door hard, caughting off-guard the raiders, they were all over a table, playing cards. Iris’ bullets had already fragged two of them.

I quickly blasted them with more lead.

RATTLETLEEETLETLETLE….. RATTTLETLETLELTLEEE

Two more down. The survivors rushed past me, running for their lives. (Apparently, they feared the pegasus mare more than me… figures)

I balefully gazed as they stepped directly into… yes, you guessed it.

BWAAASHHH… AWWWWW… FWOOOSH

Iris emerged from the door, still arriving before the raiders charred completely. Her Obokan was still held on her mouth.

“Wefghh Swoulfgh Hrephghds Zho Okhz”

To which I just glared at her, quizzically. She spit her Obokan and spoke

“We should rally the others to coordinate a full scale attack on the warehouse. Any surviving raider is probably hiding his coward ass in there with his comrades.”

“About time we finish this…” I raised my PDA, tuning the radio to contact the Limpid Skies HQ.

“This is Boshan, we have control over the barn, is anyone there ?”

“Roger. I am relaying our units to rendezvous at given coordinates: 56,3 and 81,4. Good luck, unicorn” Potria’s voice answered.

“You heard the mare… let’s do this.”

After several meters onto the marshland and knee-deep water, we saw the meeting point, it was beaming with pegasai activity.

With a notebook on her hooves, Ameara was checking out the preparations.
When she lifted her gaze to me, she smiled, then, when turning her visage toward the lavender-colored pegasus, her expression was of shock.

Iris rushed toward her, screaming like a maniac.

“SIS, SIS, SIS!!!!”

Then lunged over the maroon pegasus, dropping her to the ground and embracing her on a tight hug.

After being freed from her sister, Ameara’s expression was the one of resignation.

“Aren’t you happy to find your younger sis is well, Mea?”

“I am thrilling of excitement, Iris. So, what do you need from us now?”

“What makes you think I came to ask for favors?”

“Well, for the past three months, you came back only after screwing up something, and every time you came, you brought problems with you.”

“That is NOT TRUE, and you know it, Mea. Don’t you remember who took care of that termite infestation?”

“Should i remind you, who, in the first place, brought a plank of wood “from a real pirate ship, WHOAA” ? “

“Hehe, details… but there was that time when i defended the base against the striders… those mutants were mean.”

“Remember WHO was practicing target shooting that day, using watermelons, and DID NOT cleaned up the mess as i instructed ?”

“Gosh, why do you have to be such a neigh-sayer… sometimes i wish you’d take things less seriously, Mea.”

“And I wish you could use your brains once in a while instead of behaving like a filly, Iris !”

“Says the mare who can’t even top my…” at this moment, I interjected between the two pegasai “Look, do you two have to ? I mean, there is an entire platoon of raiders in that building,” I pointed toward the warehouse.

The two mares blushed.

Ameara was the first to broke the silence “You’re right Bosh. Now, I think there could be an alternative to dealing with the raiders. They won’t budge from there, since we have numerical supremacy now.”

“What do you mean ?” I asked

“Well, we thought about giving them a chance to leave the swamp for good”

Iris’ pupils dilated at this remark.

“Please, please, please, let me do it sis, let me talk to the raiders, please, please, please, hand me the megaphone, please, please, please.”

“Not happening.” and then she stashed the megaphone onto her saddlebag.

Iris, however, pulled Ameara’s saddlebag apart, picking up the megaphone and running off with it.

“Give it back!!!”

“Finders-keepers”

She dashed onto the front of the warehouse, an enormous building with metal walls, circumvented by an iron fence and a steel gate. It was built ages ago to store apples grown at the orchard.

“Hey raiders, open up. I am the pizza pony you guys ordered”

A plate moved from the gate, and a raider wearing a welding helmet gazed from it.

“No, you’re not, cloud-hugger. Now leave before we get angry.”

Ameara finally reached her sister. Having heard the outcome of Iris’ “plan”, she addressed the raiders inside.

“Look, we do not want to be forced to do this… just leave our swamp. All your base are belong to us, you raiders have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

“Hell hath no fury like a scorned raider, lady. Cross these walls, and you are dead meat.”

Both pegasai returned to the RV point.

“If they are so confident to actually carry on a conversation with us, then they must be packing a lot of gun power into there.” Ameara remarked

I nodded. “how do you intent to cross their gate ?”

“C4 it” she took a plastic explosive from her bag. “I’ve been saving this for a special occasion.”

“Then we’ll just storm in?”

“I fear there’s no alternative way. They barricaded all exits, so they know from where we’ll come.”

“Oh, and another thing. Bosh, I want you to lead the assault.”

I eyed her incredulously “Why me? i mean, your sister included, there’s a lot of more capable and more skilled pegasai than…”

“Because your group has so far aided undertaking nearly all interest points, albeit it’s losses. And also because Iris’s strategic plans all amount to the same reckless charge.”

“Hey! I i am still here!” Iris glared at her sister.

“I suppose you’ll want to join him, huh?”

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the world… I can’t wait to get going PEWPEWPEW on an entire line of raiders”

After meticulous preparations (much to Iris’ distress), we decided to overtake the warehouse with a group of eight stalkers (plus Iris and me), while everypony else would offer cover fire and deal with any escaping raider.

I floated the jellyfish out from the bag and attached it to my barding belt. The emanating radiation instantly nauseated me .however, if that thing could swerve bullets like Peppermint told me, it would be worth it.

Ameara’s bomb laid on the rusted steel gate, all eyes laid upon it, expectantly…

BOOOOOMMMM…CRASH…

“GO, GO, GO…”

RATTLETLETLETLEEE…. RATTLERATTLETLETLE…..

Those fuckers had been waiting by the wall’s corners. A trap.

The two stalkers before me fell dead, and several more were wounded. I quickly turned the AK toward the raider to the right.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…. RATTLERATTLETLEE…

Behind me, the music of an Obokan soared in unison.

RATTLERATTLERATTTLETLE…. RATTLERATTLE…

Soon enough, my back was against the warehouse’s wall. Iris and half of our group were by the other side of the delivery door.

She gestured to me “after three beats.”

Then, hoofed the wall softly three times quickly.

We both stormed, leading all the stalkers inside. The interior of the warehouse was ominously dark.

“Surprise!”

A light above us was lit. Beneath it, three catwalks full of raiders, all of them pointing their rifles at us.

RATTLERATTLE.RATTLERATTTLERATTLERATTLE….

“TAKE COVER! IT’S AN AMBUSH!”

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE….

I quickly dived by the rotten wood crates that filled the base level of the warehouse, as bullets flew over my head, hitting the body of less fortunate stalkers.

I looked to the others. Only four survivors. Iris had been shot. They took shelter on another pile of crates, diametrically opposed to me.

Her shoulder was now a scarlet mess, to which she pulled her barding to, trying to bandage it.

The raiders above still gunned down at us… those crates were not going to hold out for long…

Then, amidst the corpses that lay on the ground, I spotted some grenades. It took some patience to levitate it calmly, so that the raiders wouldn’t suspect anything. I flew it across the room, right below one of the raider-filled catwalks. Then I released the pin.

KABOOOM, CREAAKKK…. TCHAACKK

The catwalk fell crashing, breaking over another one and then both thudded on the floor, atop them, several roasted or smashed raiders. Smoke filled the enclosed structure.

My group took advantage of the distraction to open fire.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE… RATTLERATTLE…

Raiders groaned of pain behind the smoke curtain. Now it was just a sweep up matter…

I erupted from the shelter, gravitated the AK and took shots at anything up there that was still moving.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE… RATTLERATTLERATTLE….

After rushing toward the corner of the warehouse and climbing over the stairs, I reached the catwalk level of the structure. Most of the raiders here were dead, bullet wounds plentiful amongst them. Only one of them was still alive, backing up on the last catwalk. It looked like he was guarding one of the dead bodies.
He looked terrified, but nevertheless, he held his AK pointed at me

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…

I ducked at his attack, the pony’s aim was terrible, he must had been really afraid of us.
Most of his bullets hit the roof of the warehouse, and the very few that reached me were softened by the protective field of the jellyfish.

My rifle did short work of him.

RATTLERATTLE…

As I crept closer to his body, intended on scavenging it, I could now examine the corpse he was guarding. It wasn’t one corpse. The raider mare was still alive, on fetal position, contorting herself of pain. The pony I just had killed had been her friend, or lover, or whenever… someone who cared about her.

I got close to the mare. You’d probably think this could be one of those moments of how I was presented the choice to turn the other cheek, forgive the raiders and become a better pony.

The Zone never forgives mistakes such as those.

I floated my pistol out of the holster and gave her the mercy shot.

Bang.

My head dazed out from exhaustion… it had been a long day. But it was over now.

My Geiger counter started to beep. My radiation levels were at half of a lethal one.

I floated the Jellyfish away and into the saddlebag. From down there, it could not further radiate me. I took out one of the anti-rad drugs that Ameara gave me yesterday and gurgled it down my throat.

Tasted like piss. Only if vodka could heal radiation instead of these…

After minutes of looting and scavenging the few somewhat usable weapons for Peppermint, I reunited with the others outside.

All the pegasai were radiant with joy, shouting and celebrating and dancing. When I came out of the structure, they cheered at me, bringing me toward the crowd. From the middle of it, I could spot Ameara tending to her sister’s shoulder. Iris smiled weakly at me.

============================== [><]=============================

The moon could be seen on the dark sky outside, from the window of Ameara’s office. It was the only light on the dark, cloud-filled sky.

Ameara’s hoof fit through one of the holes of the barding she was examining.

Now, it was just little more than a red-colored rag.

“I mean, it is unbelievable. Did you threw it on EVERY anomaly on this swamp? Or did a goddamn pseudodog chewed it to hell? This barding has suffered more on a day with you then on a lifetime being worn by Delphanos.”

She shrugged and threw the rag at the dustbin. The only sound on the room came from my mouth, chewing a soy-sausage n’ bread sandwich.

At the right of me, under the map of the zone affixed to the wall, Iris snored loudly, the pegasus had crashed onto a couch. Her shoulder was covered with a multitude of white bandages that her caring sister took the time to clean a few hours ago.

Ameara glared at her and rolled her eyes. Then, turned to me.

“I suppose you do earn yourself a new one, though, after all you did for us, Boshan. Fair enough. I’ll see about it first thing in the morning. Now go get yourself some rest.”

As I climbed the stairs toward the guestroom, my mind begun to replay the events of today. I quickly tried to dismiss them off, fatigue was unbearable.

I just laid my junk-filled saddlebags at one of the room’s corners and went to the bed.

In a few instants, I succumbed to sleep.

============================== [><]=============================

“Hello ? Aren’t we forgetting something?”

I woke up confused… it was still dark, had they let me sleep for… like, one hour only?

My eyes slowly got used to the darkness. Couldn’t see anyone else on the room.

“Over here”

Impossible… I must had been delusional, or dreaming, or into drugs… my mind couldn’t comprehend it.

Floating above me was a small, white unicorn with a black wavy mane. She was using librarian glasses.

“Who… what are you ?”

“I am your conscience, jackass. Apparently, my services are much needed here” she snipped with an annoyingly acute voice

“But I am a stallion, why the hell is my conscience a mare ?”

“We are not here to talk about me. I came to discuss your actions.”

“I am dreaming, aren’t I?”

“Why have you hurt so many ponies today ? it is a bullet to the head your only answer to problems , or a grenade ?”

“Look, in case you did not noticed, those ponies out there were raiders, the looting n’ pillaging kind of criminal scum”

“Oh really ? how could you know ? they were wearing badges of villainy ? or did you personally asked them ?”

“If it looks like a raider, fights like a raider, and shoots like a raider, then it must goddamn BE a raider”

“if it speaks like a bigot, dresses like a bigot and mow down ponies like a bigot, then it must be you.”

“Look… what I did was to…”

“Survive? well, you saw how becomes a pony that thinks this way…”

“I did it to protect my friends. Limpid Skies”

“And how do you know that they are fighting on the right side ? For all you’d know, they could be pretty well the ones harassing the raiders.”

“I believe we should give them the benefit of doubt. After all, they saved me. TWICE.”

“And what about that raider mare ? Did you expressly HAD to shoot her? By some chance, the image of her crawling on the ground, groaning from severe pain, seemed threatening to you?”

I did not had an answer for this…at least, not one she would accept.
So, I did the only thing I could, I pushed my pillow over the face, to make her disappear.

“You are not getting rid of me this easily, mister. Speak to me eye to eye.”

“Go away, you whining hallucination.”

“I am not whining. I am asking you to reason your attitudes. But if you really want to hear whining…”

“Why do you have to be sooo mean??? What did those ponies did to you on the first place ???? Couldn’t you just allowed them to share the swamp with you friends??? Why do you have to be so selfish ???”

It was just unbearable… I lifted from the bed, and head-butted the floor to make her vanish from my sight and for her voice to disappear.

“Sad how a crash with reality can make such a young , charming stallion, go nuts all of a sudden.”

I raised my hoof, trying to shoo her off. It just went through the conscience, like she was immaterial.

“Hahahaha… stop. It tickles…”

I tried banging my head to the floor again, now at full speed.

Fortunately, I was able to knock myself unconscious and escape that relentless ghost.

============================== [><]=============================

“Some pretty good stuff you got there…”

Peppermint’s eyes glowed as he rummaged the pile of trash I laid down upon his workbench.

“I can work out some mean stuff out of these. Thanks a lot Bosh. I have something for you, as payment…”

He disappeared below his counter, only coming back with… half of a rifle, glued to a pressure cooker, some copper pipes and several other things. It was shaped like a weapon. He grinned while hoofing it to me.

I eyed at the device curiously, flipping it to see from different sides, finally laying it again on the counter.

“Uh-oh… you don’t like it?”

“Emmm… yes, I like it. I suppose I will like it even more once I know what it is”

The pegasus took the thing, and full of pride, announced

“This, my friend, is a finely-tuned throat needler. You won’t find a weapon like this anywhere else. Although you are a unicorn and can pretty much TK everything, this weapon was built to be able to fire even with hooves… see this little lever up here? Just push it to fire. And it is a completely user-friendly weapon, seriously, if you somehow break it, the materials for repairs are almost free. Yeah, this weapon is a marvel of engineering”

He laid it down on the counter again, and then pat the weapon amorously.

STKUP !!!

Finely-tuned my ass!

At the wall of his shack, a half-pound railway spike was struck. Why Peppermint intended THESE to needle throats, is a mystery I’ll never solve.

“Hehehe… just, do not shake it too much.”

I floated the weapon toward my saddlebags, making a mental note to unload the gun and ditch it at the first opportunity.

After waving him goodbyes, i went to Ameara’s office, finding her dying a barding gray. Iris still laid on the couch, much to her displeasure, her bullet wounds meant that she’d be stuck on the swamps for a while.

“And it is… perfect.” She handed me the barding. “I hope you do not mind the grey scheme, I did it because some of the stalkers on the mainland aren’t really fond of Limpid Skies.”

I equipped the barding. it was heavier than the older one. After shaking it a bit, I could feel mail plates sewn inside the fabric. I smiled at Ameara. She just shook her hoof and said:

“Oh, you’d ought to thank Peppermint’s freaky knowledge of sewing for this.”

“Now, I remember you mentioned a guide to the NPP…”

“Well, not exactly a guide… let me explain it for you…I am sure that in the past two days, some of my pegasus friends had been a little… rude with you, right ?”

I nodded.

“I hope you forgive them, because they have a reason in doing so. You see, more or less a month ago, we had another unicorn as our guest. A veteran stalker. Someday he appeared ,washed up by the swamp.” She turned to her sister “somepony simply was far too much selfless to refuse help, even to a complete stranger” Ameara smiled to the lavender pegasus “but I fear that he have tricked us all… long story short, the unicorn rested onto Swampsdale until he recovered all his vigor, and when he left, he sold out information about the swamp’s safe routes to a group of bandits. from that damned day, they had been flocking at the swamp in ever-increasing numbers, until another unicorn stepped in to aid us.” She smiled at me. I felt myself blushing.

“but where does the NPP fits at this ?”

“From what little I had been able to dig out on the unicorn, he actually had survived a raid at the NPP. He knows how to circumvent all obstacles and reach the power plant. He said that he was mugged by bandits, and then thrown at the swamp. It looks like he thought about selling us up to gather enough money to fund himself another raid into the NPP.”

“So, I need to track this guy and follow him ?”

“Yes, you could do this. But it will be better if you can capture him, if you actually have the nerve to face the veteran.”

“Does he have a name ?”

“He called himself “Searinor”.”

“Where do I start ?”

She fetched my PDA, and marked some coords.

“Now, you just traverse the Muzzle tunnel, near the ruined silo, and you’ll hit the Cordon. it is kind of like a kindergarten for stalkers, where the beginners get their skills without exposing themselves to a lot of danger. The place I marked at your map is a rookie village. Once you hit it, speak to the trader. he used to do business with us before the swamp become the “Shangri-la for bandits”. If someone knows about Searinor’s lead, the trader has probably heard of it.”

“Thanks Ameara , I should get going.”

“Wait, this could help you out…” She searched her desk, this time coming up with a crumpled piece of paper.

“A coupon ?”

“Yes, the trader emitted a few of these as currency. Use it to buy basic supplies once you reach him.”

“Awww… they grow so fast… it seems that only three days ago, I carried him. And now he is big enough to go to the mainland.”

Ameara rolled her eyes, while I laughed.

Iris eyed me and said:

“Remember Boshie… adveeentureeee”

“Will do. Until then, get healthy quickly so we can hang out on the mainland”

The lavender pegasus hit her chest and smiled

“Bosh, remember that we will keep contact with you by the radio. It isn’t like you’re never going to see us anymore. And keep your ears open for emissions alerts. If you are caught by another blowout, results won’t be so pretty, although you could use your genes as your favor…”

“How could I do so ?”

“You remember how I told about your metabolism being speeded up, but also adrenaline speeds up metabolism. If you stack both augmentations, you’d have an meaningful improvement in your physical abilities. That means, the closer you find yourself to death, the stronger you become.”

My body shivered at the mention of death… I hoped that I’d never find out needing this genetic superpower.

After saying goodbyes to everyone at Swampsdale, a guide traveled me to the silo. The Muzzle tunnel appeared after a short trek. I checked out my PDA: 3:30 PM, crossing the swamp had taken the whole morning and half of the afternoon.

While traversing the dark tunnel, a megaphone-powered voice soared from the other side of the tunnel

NOT ONE MORE STEP, STALKER. FREEZE.

Oh shit…

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- Bestiary

#/filenam – Blind dog

#/filedescript – A menace that originally came from equestria’s countryside, Blind dogs are the result of multiple lifespans and inbreeding of the canis familiaris that once were used to herd cattle. With their masters long gone, these creatures roamed the Zone aimlessly, eventually degenerating to a state of wild animals, such as wolves. Their body adapted itself to the lack of a plentiful source of food, as their organisms quickly degraded some worthless energy-spending abilities – such as vision – in order to improve other useful ones, such as smell, which the dogs use to avoid anomalies, radiation and stalk their prey. Mutation has also gifted these mutants with uncanny resistance to electricity and chemical agents. Blind dogs build their dens on cold, humid places, such as ruins or caves, being especially ruthless to any stalker that wanders too close to them. They always hunt in packs, preferring to prey on smaller mutants (such as rats) or lone stalkers. Luckily, Blind dogs are mostly coward mutants, and will disband their pack after a few members die or get wounded.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. III: Second first impressions

CP. III – Second first impressions.

“The outside world ? are you really that naïve ? if they really had planned to purify the zone, they would have done it long ago. Over time, everyone outside the Zone just forgotten about us or simply stopped caring. It is easier this way for them.”

I was paralyzed… someone saw me coming. In all the darkness of the muzzle tunnel, I couldn’t discern any other pony. Then, the megaphone sounded again.

KEEP DOWN, OR YOU WILL SHARE THE SAME FATE OF YOUR FRIENDS, EARTH PONY!

Wha…? Earth pony? couldn’t be…

I rushed toward the exit of the dark tunnel, it ended atop a hill, overseeing lush, verdant fields, filled with pine trees and bushes. Far down, a road crossed the fields.

It was a much welcome change from the fetid and ugly swamp. Being on the very bottom, meant that the cordon was barely infected by the radioactive horrors of the Zone.

However, it was not devoid of horrors of its own.

“But I swear, I did not took it! Please, believe me”

I carefully lurked by the trees, approaching the direction of the voices.

“This is your last chance. Spill the beans, loitering scum.”

Military, half a dozen of them. Heavily armed soldiers. All of their rifles aiming a single yellow mare.

Around them, corpses of other stalkers.

The mare’s eyes watered. The sudden fear of death made her cry loudly for her life.

The soldiers merely exchanged devious glances at each other.

One of them approached the mare and subdued her, using an awful amount of force by it. Then stripped her backpack off and blindfolded the mare.

He dragged the earth pony along. All the other military followed, with one stopping to pick the backpack. I followed them as well, from a safe distance.

The soldier released the mare after some walking. She was still blindfolded. Then he spoke to her:

“Let’s play a game, stalker… if you win, we’ll be out of your mane. The rules are simple, really. You just need to cross this minefield in front of you. But thing is, you’re not allowed to remove the blindfold. If you do so, we’ll just shoot you. Understood?”

The mare shook nervously

“Now go. Just walk forward and you’ll be safe in no time.”

She dared a few steps forward, still scared. The mare moved very cautiously, as to avoid tripping any mines, thinking three or four times before taking another step. Meanwhile, the soldiers were yelling “directions” at her and laughing maniacally. Their rifles still pointed at the mare’s flank.

She didn’t know, but there weren’t any mines. From what I could see, they released her on a clean field.

But then, why tell her that it was a minefield?

They must want to make her go slowly, so then they can shoot the mare easily after they had enough fun with her. This thought came to my mind.

I was wrong.

When enough steps were taken, she reached it.

The mare instinctively knew about it when caught on the outer rim of the anomaly, and tried dashing away.

However, it was far too late. If she just crossed it while dashing, then she’d probably be able to cross it unscratched.

The whirlgig (that was the name of the anomaly, according to my PDA) entrapped the mare mid-air, sucking her closer and closer to the core, as she angushly flailed her legs in a futile attempt to disengage from the anomaly.

Eventually, she tired off and the whirlgig got the best of it. As she was caught on the core, breakneck speed winds slashed her throat before she could even scream. The whirlgig then pulled her body higher and higher above ground, while its diagonal sprouting winds dismembered her body in instants. Ultimately, all that was left from the stalker was a scarlet pool of blood.

The soldiers were still watching and bursting in laughter.

The one carrying the backpack emptied it of its possessions. After a minute sorting out the stuff, the soldier came with a box of pistol bullets. He ditched the backpack and everything else from it.

“Sarge, just 20. I guess it can be split by three or four…”

“That is not for you to decide soldier. Gimme that.”

After the sergeant took the box of bullets from the private’s hands, he yelled at his platoon:

“Dismissed.”

All of the six soldiers traveled back to their outpost. The “border” of the Zone, as it was the construction that blocked away one of the few paths leading to the outside world.

As for me, I crawled my ass off from the bushes, and trying to make as less noise as possible, I moved to the village, aiming to not alert the military patrols at the road.

At distance, the megaphone soared again:

“Any attempt to penetrate the security Zone will be punished by any means necessary. The troops will rightfully shoot trespassers at sight.”

Boy, talk about taking their job seriously… thanks heavens, nothing else stood on my way as I reached the abandoned village.

There isn’t much to talk about it. An abandoned farm village, long since deserted and scavenged, the skeletons of former homes now were used as shelter by the “fresh meat” of the Zone. Rookies.

A blue bus was rusting by the village’s entrance. At the side of it, a faded writing said “Happy farm trails.” A lone caramel-colored pegasus stalker stood guard near it.

“Name your business here, stalker.”

“I came to negotiate with the trader.”

“He can be found by crossing the village, at the cellar after the last houses. Mind your manners while you travel to it, though. We may still be inexperienced, but not totally helpless.”

I nervously smiled at him, then proceeded forward

Curious eyes glared at me from inside the buildings. As I reached the middle of the village, the exact point where a few stalkers gathered around a campfire, smoking, singing and telling stories, they all fell silent when I passed by, one of them even stopped hoofing his guitar. All gazes were upon me.

The only one which seemed not to give a fuck was lounging at the wall of a house. From his ochre suit, white gas mask and attitude, he looked like some kind of more experienced stalker, some sort of “caretaker” for the newbies.

Since I had no business with the stalkers, I just ignored the commotion and went directly to the cellar.

Upon opening the heavy metal doors, I stepped inside.

A heavy fragrance of apple cider instantly invaded my nostrils. This basement was used to brew booze. Some of the walls still held some faded and dusty apple paintings. After descending into the cellar, I finally came toward an iron vault door.

On the right side of it, a small camera with a blinking red light spied on me.
After a few minutes, the door’s lock disengaged, wheezed and opened with a thud.

The trader had allowed me in.

Inside, the very same heavy rotten apple atmosphere. A retrofitted sewer grating separated the trader from his customers.

Behind it, a fat brown stallion unicorn, with dirty blond hair and a cracked horn.

The trader didn’t seem to notice my presence, as he was distracted munching some cupcakes lay on a tray in front of him. They looked rather tasty.

“Why are you standing there for, stalker? Come closer. I don’t bite. Unless you have the same sugary filling as these cupcakes”

Then he turned to me, moving his hoofs to the notebook at his right side. (A peg.-ASUS brand machine.)

When he glared at me, I could instantly distinguish his most particular feature: his right eye.

The cornea of it was opened whole, comically. Inside the cornea, red lens moved dazzlingly, stopping for a few seconds, then flipping quickly to another section of the cornea. It was somewhat mesmerizing. This eye was a stark contrast to the left one, a bored light brown eye.

“Ah, a customer… not many come from the swamps these days. I just wish you ponies would wipe your hooves before entering my humble home.”

“Um… hi. You must be the trader. I am kind of looking for somepony and my Limpid Skies buddies told me that you know all the buzz that goes in the Zone…”

“Straight to the business, right stalker? I like it, hahaha. You heard right, young one. I have some good informants, able to dig out crap about any wretched soul that ever crossed the Zone. But where are my manners, stalker? I do not even know your name. since we’re about to deal business, why not introduce ourselves ?”

“Seems fine to me… ok. My name is Boshan Hollowbane, Just came to the Zone three days ago, not much here. I only left the swamp today.”

“Boshan, huh? Interesting name. As for me, I spend so much time down here that everypony call me “The Mole”. Not that I’m complaining, staying underground has it’s benefits, since I just stay here and ripo…uh, trade with travelers instead of risking getting shot by dumb bandits or being bitten by a rabid mutated critter.”

“So, back to the subject, do you know anything about an unicorn named “Searinor”?”

His wicked red eye gazed at me from several positions, until he finally answered.

“I am afraid not… he must have his own personal supplier, or used an intermediate to trade with me. but give me a couple of hours and I’ll get something about him. By the way, how are planning to pay me?”

“Pay?”

“Why, yes. 2 grants of bits”

I just eyed at the trader expressionless…

“Bits? What are those?”

The trader facehoofed

“What the hell? You washed up on the Zone amnesic or something, stalker? Bits are the money you use to buy stuff, these.”

He showed me a pile of bight coins with equine figures and a few bills with mare pictures. Then, he put those away and started to stroke his chin lightly.

“Since you cannot afford the service, Boshan, then can we discuss an alternative payment? I have something else in mind, a little job that needs to be done.”

I came closer, to hear him out better.

“The boys in uniform have been a real pain in my ass lately. They friggin’ blocked off my trade route across the railroad bridge, not letting any stalker come in or out the cordon. As a result, not many customers drop by, or merchandise, for that matter. It will end up killing my profits on the long run.”

“Are you sure of what you’re asking me? There is no way I could kill an entire army of military ponies”

“Don’t rush yourself to conclusions, stalker. No, even if you actually could kill them, I’d ask you not to. You see, the commander of that outpost and I, we have kind of a deal. He loves a bottle of vodka as much as the next pony. In exchange for a few artifacts and quality booze, he brings me a lot of stuff from outside the Zone. It’s a win-win situation. These came from him.” He pointed at the cupcakes.

The trader then opened a drawer, took off a cigar, lighted it and started smoking.

“You see, since cows cannot live long in a mutant-wildlife-infested area, milk is a hard commodity to come by. So, cupcakes, pies, muffins, all of these are indeed a rare treat, much better than those crap-flavored diet sausages. It is a benefit I’d rather not be devoid of, stalker.”

Both of his eyes focused at me

“Instead, I want you to strike a deal with the soldiers. From what I’ve been informed, the reason why they are so hot headed is because somepony stole something from them. Speak with Furpaw outside; he can fill you on the loop of the situation. Complete this assignment and I’ll help you out. Deal?

He offered his hoof. Not seeing much options, I raised my own, brohoofing the unicorn.

“Mole, I have something else…”

I floated the crumpled coupon to him. His crazy eye glanced at it for minutes, then he TK-grabbed it and stashed the coupon on one of the drawers.

“I can credit you 500 bits for this one…”

“What? But you endorsed it for twice this amount!”

“Interest rates, depreciative value, monetary correction. If you don’t like it stalker, then you can take it to another trader.”

As if any other trader would accept a crumpled paper with the name of their competitor on it….

“Fine, show me your wares.”

After a while rummaging at the trader’s overpriced stock, I bought a can of food, five bandages and one hooffull of anti radiation drugs

“While you’re out there, I’ll be digging info, stalker. Take these in case you need to speak to me.” he handed me a piece of paper with numbers. “This is my frequency. If you come across a ham radio, use it at the frequency to speak with me and keep me updated about the assignment. Do me a good job stalker, and I might even let you have a bite at these”

He mused at the cupcakes, and then extinguished his cigar at one of them, laughing.

I turned to leave, inputting his radio frequency at my PDA.

============================== [><]=============================

I couldn’t see Furpaw’s expression, that white gas mask was unfathomable. He was the “Caretaker” I mentioned earlier, a veteran charged of motivating, training and teaching the newbies, also in charge of dealing with outsiders from other factions and whatnot.

“Stalker, if what you told me is right, I believe you’re the only one that can take this job. Come to my office; let’s discuss privately a few details. I’d rather not let them fall upon the ears of the rookies.”

He led me inside one of those ruined houses. His “office” was little more than a room with decayed wallpaper, a bedroll, a few shelves, some tables and a pile of crates.

“Have a seat” He indicated the crates. I took one from the pile, placed it before the loner and sat on it.

“Boshan, right ?” I nodded. “Here’s the truth. One of the stalkers had the audacity to steal from the army, possibly he had help to lug his loot around, but anyways, bottom line is that one stalker stole the soldier’s monthly shipment of sidearm ammunition. Four hundred pistol rounds were diverted from their supplies.”

“And now the soldiers do not have bullets to fill their pistols? Oh my, what a tragedy…. now they can only count on rifle rounds to hurt bandits…”

“Great, just what I needed. Another smartass unicorn, as if the Mole wasn’t enough. This may surprise you, stalker, but the army does not grow ammo on trees. Without using sidearms , they are quickly wasting all their rifle rounds on any hostile, especially mutants. If they keep it up, they’ll end up without any pretty soon. Not that I have love for those sons of a bitches, but they locked us up. Nopony leaves the cordon unless they get their shipment back. And what is worse, they have been accosting my stalkers and laying waste to them in order to rob their ammo.”

The mare on the whirlgig sprouted to my mind.

“But the cordon is huge… where do I even start?”

“First off, do not tell any stalker about the situation. If they know about it, they will just blame each other and turn themselves to the military, or even start shooting each other, hoping to find the culprit. Hell, we are lucky that the Mole lives nearby, and is friends with their commander, or the soldiers would even raid the village. Now, as to where you begin, I deducted a few things about the theft…”

He took a notepad from his pocked, then flipped the pages, searching for a particular entry.

“Ah, here it is. Whosoever stole the shipment knew exactly what they did. It wasn’t a rookie, since most of them do not even know how to reload a pistol properly, let alone steal a huge crate of ammo right beneath the army’s nose. It also wasn’t the bandits work. They are too rough and messy; it is not their style to be stealthy. No. somepony knew what he did there, he probably knew the topography and took time studying the military’s delivery schedules, and also had the mad skillz to snatch the crate silently. I can only think that it was the work of a veteran stalker, or more than one.”

He put away the notepad, and opened a map.

“Here, across the railroad bridge there is a stalker camp. Once you reach it, talk to their “leader”, Jinglepocket, about any stalkers that crossed the railroad bridge lately. Then I’ll be able to thin down my suspect list.”

“Aren’t the military blocking the bridge passage right this moment?”
“There is another way, stalker.”

He pointed to an area east to the bridge passage

“My scouts report that there is a tunnel here leading to the other side, stalker. However, it is a one-way. You’ll understand once you reach it. Also, you might want to avoid the road, since the military is patrolling it nonstop after their crate. Hope you can handle yourself against the mutants and anomalies that sprout on the woodlands.”

I gazed at the sky outside. It was deep black now.

“Of course, you should wait until tomorrow. The mutants are especially active during nighttime. This fact combined with your lack of night-vision technology means that going out there on the dark is the quickest way toward a coffin.”

============================== [><]=============================

Bang Bang Bang….

Yip Yip Yip

Stupid dogs… traveling off-road has proven to be unnerving. Stumbling into those coward dogs or even other braver mutant was common. However, it was more survivable fighting them than a group of soldiers.

After some walking, I finally reached a building. An abandoned factory.

Studying my map, this meant that the railroad bridge was close by. Luckily, I could hide myself from the soldiers on the factory and spy on them from afar, in order to predict their moves and program myself.

BEEP BEEP BEEP….

Of course… a factory filled with anomalies. Just my luck.

BEEP BEEP BEEP….

Well, on the bright side, whenever there are anomalies… there could be artifacts as well. Could be a good opportunity to fill my wallet. And plus, oversee the military activities.

I entered the rusted structure. Like everything else on the Zone, it was long left abandoned and just stood as a rotting scar on the landscape.

BEEP BEEP BEEP….

Twoosh

I kept tossing the bolts at the springboard anomalies. The very same ones that I found at my first day on the Zone. Looks like it was a fairly common sight.
After probing the main floor for a while, I devised a way toward the stairs.

Carefully crossing the dirt floor, I was almost reaching it, when a metallic sound interrupted my focus.

CREAAKKK

Nervously, I lifted the AK, glancing the area.

Squeak Squeak Squeak.

A small naked rodent ran through the floor, squealing frantically.

Goddamn critters…

The stair led me to a catwalk section of the factory, built to allow maintenance for the machines.

One of the catwalks ended on an “L” corner. On the corner, by the wall, laid a cadaver.

Definitely a bandit, by his ragged black jacket. The pegasus was decomposing oddly, probably an effect of radiation, as most of his meat still hanged on the skeleton.

Squee ! Squeeee.

Two of those jerboas were feasting on the cadaver’s entrails. A few steps from them, the bodies of two other jerboas, with several tiny bite marks. The ones which lost the fight for food.

SqueakSqueakSqueak.

When I approached the bandit, the diminutive mammals ran off. Examining him closer, a burn on his left hoof was discernible.

Some steps further into the catwalk, the reason for it. A burner anomaly. Sprouting on the middle of it, an artifact, encased by the ferruginous mist that I was sure would envelop in flames anything that crossed it.

I tried my TK at the artifact. No use. It was thoroughly sucked by the biomagical vortex of the anomaly. The only way to move it, would be to do so physically.

Eyeing around the factory, I moved a metal tube, trying to nudge the artifact toward me.

As I poked it into the mist, the metal glowed red. I pushed it further, touching the artifact.

The tube instantly melted upon touching it. But then, how did the bandit…?

I tried poking at it again, this time using one of the dead jerboas. The critter’s skin immediately caught on fire upon entering the mist. But when it touched the artifact, nothing happened. The jerboa kept burning at the same speed as before. Someway, the core of the artifact-ridden anomaly only instantly melted artificial matter.

My focus kept firm as I tried to push the artifact by using the jerboa, but to no avail. It simply did not budge from the spot it was, even after I tried placing the jerboa in its place.

SQUEAAKKK !!!

Ok, one last try.

I enveloped the jerboa scurrying through the floor with my TK, and pushed him toward the burner.

FWOOSH ! SQUEAAA.SQUEAA

The mammal cried in agony as it was burned alive. It could still face its destiny, the core of the anomaly. I tilted him and shoved it directly at the stone. The artifact left the core of the anomaly, dropping on the ground. Only to be replaced by a scorching entity that someday was a jerboa.

I picked the stone from the ground, letting my magic let go of the mutant.

It was a bright red round stone. When my hoof picked it up, it emitted some heat. Not the damaging kind of heat found on a burner, but instead, soft warmth. My Geiger counter indicated no signs of radiation in it. I just tossed it at the saddlebag.

Looking at the way back, the other section of catwalks led to another set of stairs, this time, leading to the roof.

I spared one last glance at the burner. The jerboa was now coated with a whitish solution. The anomaly was probably producing another artifact from it… fascinating.

After glancing off one of the “marvels” of the Zone and crossing to another stair further above, the wind caught my mane as I ended up on the roof.

The view from up there was rather decent. Could see the village, the border outpost, and the railway bridge itself.

I raised the AK to use the scope, thought it, I spotted the military at the railway bridge checkpoint exchanging gunfire with a group of bandits. Great, If only these two groups could kill each other, my task would be much easier. But the outcome of the fight was rather predictable, since the boys in sage uniform had bigger toys.

Instead of watching the conflict unfold, I scoped at my left, toward west. The direction my map pointed as the location of the tunnel that Furpaw mentioned.

Lush pine forests sprawled from whenever my sight went. This section of the cordon was particularly dense. I guess the best I could do, would be to trust the directions given to me.

============================== [><]=============================

Finally, the tunnel stood a few meters from me. A clearing with a stump and an abandoned van was the only path to it. On the clearing, a huge boar slept lazily.

I considered the option of simply shooting the animal, however, after seeing them charge incredibly fast to catch a prey (almost invariably, a blind dog.) while traveling on the cordon. I believed that a plan wouldn’t do harm.

Then I saw it, sparkling on the ground. I didn’t noticed it before because it was under direct sunlight.

Another anomaly. One that I never saw before. the ground seemed to crackle with blue lightning around it. The boar was quite close to it.

Perhaps, it could work…I thought to myself, as I gravitated a bolt toward it.

I let the bolt go, and at the second the metal touched the anomaly, it expanded.

SWATCH! GROAAA!!

A circular wave of blue lightning hit the boar’s flank. The mutant didn’t move. It was paralyzed.

The chance I needed.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…

However, I didn’t account for the other two boars that were on the bushes.

GROAAA!!! GROAAA!!!

The beasts dashed at me, covering ground in an alarming speed. I turned away and ran as fast as I could. Still holding the AK, I shot everything behind my back, trying to scare them off.

One of them went away. The other one still chased me. I turned to face the boar, while still running backwards. My back hooves hit a tree. Dammit!”

I frenetically tried to aim the AK properly, but the boar was far too close. He jumped, headbutting me. My barding took most of the damage, but the strength of his strike pushed me. I tried to both regain balance and stabilize the AK, when he charged again.

Only now, to be held by my gun. I used the AK to parry his strike. All my TK was used on forcing the gun’s metallic body on stopping a 250 pounds mutant. Not good for the weapon’s condition.
I quickly loosened the grasp on the AK, only to tighten it again and use the riflebutt to slap the mutant’s face .This dazed him enough to give me time to pick up the pistol and shoot him.

BangBangBang…

Problem solved. Now to the tunnel…

The tunnel was filled with construction debris, empty containers and trash. At the other side of it, I could spot another green field, pretty much the same layout as the cordon.

Furpaw wasn’t joking when he told me it was a one-way. An electro anomaly was traveling by the tunnel, appearing and fading at timed intervals. It started spawning on the start of the tunnel and the middle of it, moving forward progressively. I could sync myself to cross it toward the other side, but there wasn’t any way to get back without getting caught on the anomaly. If it could even stun a boar through its resilient fur, I could imagine what it would do to soft-skinned stalkers.

Ok Boshan… it is not so hard. You can do it… just breathe.

I ran through the tunnel, carefully stopping near the anomaly and waiting for it to vanish, in order to proceed again.

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP

After repeating the procedure a few times, I was apt to cross the tunnel unscratched, unlike some burdened or slow stalkers whose skeletons filled the tunnel.

The other side of the cordon was pretty much similar to the one I just left. Pine forests, upon whose shadows, I was certain that mutants lurked.

Checking the map, the stalker camp was not much far north from my position. Another trek by the pine forest and I’d be there in no…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE. GROAAA!!

“These pigs are almost as irritating as those pitiful stalkers.”

A military patrol, scouring the woodlands !

The only way to not be caught on their vision field would be to run to the road.

Huge mistake.

The other military soldiers, bunkered at the railway bridge, opened fire at me on the moment I reached open ground.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE.

I was cornered! Couldn’t go back onto the woodlands, neither use the road. On the right side of it, a ravine protuberated.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE.

The bullets whistled near, digging holes through the metal plates of my armor. One of them shaved near my neck. A fillet of warm blood washed my chest.

My judgment was numbed by the overwhelming harmful options, as I dashed to the only seeming not immediate threatening one. The ravine.

I jumped down at it, my body staggering through dirt and sharp rocks, until I finally reached the bottom of the pit.

Apart from heavy abrasions, gunshot wounds and dazedness, I was OK.

Well, not really. But being alive filled as an important requisite toward reaching that state.

I opened the saddlebag and used the bandages up on the wounds. At least, I wasn’t still oozing blood.

The pit I fell at was dark and damp. After I moved a few steps, it also revealed another characteristic.

BEEPBEEPBEEP

Filled with radiation and anomalies. On the bright side, no soldier would follow me down into this deathtrap.

Bolting off the field of springboard anomalies, I slowly moved across the area.

One thing caught my eye. Under one of the anomalies, the body of a unicorn.

I grabbed it using my inherent TK, tripping a few anomalies while bringing him closer.

Once in reach, it was easily identifiable that the cause of death wasn’t the anomalies, but a few bullets to his head. He was probably thrown on the pit afterwards.

Beneath the location that the body were before I moved it, laid a PDA as well. I also brought it to me. Although the glass screen was broken and the fact that it was tossed onto a shockwave-emitting anomaly, it still worked.

After scanning it, I found the diary’s last entry:

“This is it. I am getting rich, finally.

That Ballpoint dude must be crazy to pay 100 bits for each 20 rounds of 9x18mm; some of the boys are saying that he scavenged a minigun from the garbage and is retrofitting ammo for it. Anyway, somepony like me just couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

Confounding those trigger-happy military nutheads was easy. Almost too easy.

Now, what is getting on my nerve is having to haul this goddamn crate through the entire cordon. if I am in luck, they will only find about the theft tomorrow, when I’ll be at the garbage, drinking my commission. Thanks heavens for telekinesis, if I were an earth pony or a pegasus, I’d never could cross that blasted tunnel with the loot, at least, not in one piece.

The only thing that separates me and the booze are a few kilometers of wilderness, it is just a matter of keeping my head down and being quick.”

Well, well, seems like I found the culprit. But no signs of the crate. And the military wouldn’t believe anything a stalker had to say if he didn’t had the stolen ammo. Their orthodox reasoning methods were limited to putting a bullet or ten onto a stalker.

But somepony else had taken the crate, after wasting the unicorn. Since the military were still blocking the cordon, neither them, nor the stalkers had taken it. Only one faction on the cordon remained. I just considerably thinned down Furpaw’s suspect list.

============================== [><]=============================

“Mole, come in. this is Boshan here. I have news about the assignment”

“My favorite stalker…what’s the update?”

“The thief is dead. I found his PDA. But he didn’t had the package on him. I suspect that the bandits took it.”

“He had what he deserved, stupid moneygrubber, and so will the bandits. If you’re up for it, I’ll cash you up some bits on our deal for your medical treatment tab. Think of it as a compensation for dealing with these dregs of society.”

“I fought bandits before, but never a whole group of them by myself.”

“Hmm… yes, I suppose you could use some help. Let me talk to Jinglepocket”

I stepped away from the loners ham radio. It was one of the luxuries of their camp. They had done a nice job onto it, repairing the small cracks of the stables and furnishing it, even included a dormitory and a mess hall.

I smiled to the carnelian earth pony stallion next to the door and mused inside. Jinglepocket was wearing heavy saddlebags, filled with heavens-knows-what. His prowess on trading and diplomacy has earned the respect of his fellow loners, which praised him as their unofficial leader, or so I had been told. He smiled back and picked up the microphone to speak with the trader.

As I waited for him, I went to the mess hall and bought two bottles of vodka from the barman. The money came from selling off the jellyfish. I also used some of it to repair the AK. That fucking boar’s tough head nearly trashed it. By luck, AKs have cheap maintenance cost, being brought in quantity to the Zone due to their popularity.

Now I had roughly 350 bits. I stashed a bottle on the saddlebag, and floated from it one handful of the anti radiation drugs. After I spent the entire morning running through an anomalous field, some radiation built in on my body’s cells.

I opened the bottle of vodka and spilled the meds into it, and then I poured down my throat the mixture. A cocktail of happiness which also cured me of radiation. Why I hadn’t thought of this before?

My PDA’s time was at 1:48. Time for late lunch.

I floated the can of food from the saddlebag. Not bad. I could get used to eating this stuff. The expiration date still hadn’t passed.

Some time after I enjoyed my meal, Jinglepocket appeared. He sat at my table, eyeing the customers around the mess hall.

“Boshan, I discussed thoroughly with the Mole. I cannot order my loners to aid you. With the mutants and the military crossing the cordon, I fear leaving the base defenseless. You understand, don’t you? We need to keep a safe haven for stalkers, and that means defending it and maintaining order into it.”

I just laid my head down. “How I am going to fight off a whole party of bandits, alone? I could as well just turn me over to them to them with a sign saying “shoot me” “

The stallion snickered a bit, and then cleared his throat. “There is an option. Like I said, this base is a haven for stalkers. Any friendly stalker may seek refuge between these walls. I suppose one of them could help you if I ask around.”

Said those words, he lifted and eyed the mess hall.

“Ponies, listen to me. I know many of you seek to live peacefully and just survive out of the Zone’s salvage. But this pony here” he hoofed to me. “Decided to take a stand against those who greedily steal an honest stalker’s loot bag. Bandits, I tell ya. This courageous pony wants to kick them out of the cordon and teach that criminal scum a lesson they will never forget.”

Then, Jinglepocket lowered his voice dramatically.

“But no pony is an island. And bravado alone won’t save us.” He returned to the normal volume. “This is why I ask you, stalkers, to walk the walk, to fight the fight. Raise your voices and fight for your rights, aiding my friend on his righteous mission. Now, is there somepony here brave enough to aid him on this heroic undertaking?”

“Me, me, me, me, me, me”

A silver-eyed deep blue earth pony mare was hopping excitedly, flailing his hooves on the air exquisitely. The most disturbing thing was the red cloud above her head… her mane. It was too big. Like a dense burner cloud, only ten times messier.

“Anypony…?”

“Me, me, me, me, me, me”

Jinglepocket turned to me apologetically “looks like you’re on your own, kiddo.”

The redheaded mare hoofed him.

“I want to help him, jingly! All you trust me to shoot is one or another strider. I am up to the job! Why don’t you listen to me?”

The stallion shrugged. “Lielle, you’re as helpful as a serving of pseudodog dung. Actually, even less. Since it can be used to draw the mutants away, unlike you.”
Then, he seemed to reconsider a bit. “But it’s not my call. Boshan, it’s up to you to decide, but I’d recommend you not to.”

The blue mare’s eyes sparkled at me, as she opened a wide grin. “Can I, mister? Please? I’ve been dying out here for some fun shooting down criminals, but the other stalkers always keep turning down my company.”

Jinglepocked drew a large cough. “I’ll let you two by yourselves. I have some urgent business”

I just confusedly glared at the mare. “Are you sure you want to come along? Fighting bandits is not the same thing as fighting mutants. They are… ponies.”

She shook her head, cluttering the hair even further. “Yes, I am aware. Jingly told us to leave them alone when they were just a nuisance. Now, they have even a whole fortress on the forest, and they keep assaulting lone stalkers. It is about time somepony stood up to them. I know that I may not have all the combat expertise of everypony, but… I want to help. Please, just give me a chance.”

I don’t know if it were her needy eyes, or the fuzzy crimson hair, but I had felt sympathetic for the mare and hell knows, I would pretty well need all the damn help my hooves could reach.

“Fine, I suppose I could use a friendly hoof. Lielle, right?”

She bounced, grinning and squealing. After a while, she stopped the display and eyed me, embarrassed.

“Sorry, I don’t get out much… and yes, my name is Lielle, Lielle Crackgiggle.” She shook my hoof excitedly “Nice to meet you… um…”

“Boshan, Boshan Hollowbane” I shook my head. “Likewise. Now, do you have a shooter?”

She opened her saddlebag and drew a silenced PB1s “Yea, I saved enough to buy plenty of ammo for my little velvet flute” she giggled.

I didn’t get it. Well, leave it be. She stored the pistol back again. “Have you packed all supplies and everything you should need?”

She drew a hood over her head, and what I thought to be impossible, covering all of her hair.

“I am ALWAYS ready. You never know when you’ll need something at hoof on the Zone.” She mused happily.

Then, both of us moved to Jinglepocket’s shop. He just had finished attending a customer.

“So, you choose for her help… heavens protect you, traveler.” He reached a parchment on a shelf behind him and unfolded into the counter. “Following my scout reports, the bandits built a settlement a few hours from here, overlooking the road to the garbage. If we had dealt with them back then… they still are no match for my group of stalkers, but since they must defend this site, we’re at a stalemate, with the bandits slightly turning the scales in their favor by wasting lone stalkers.” He hoofed at a point on the map. “There is their camp. Beware; they spent a long time fortifying it, to the point that they even have a fixed gun.”

“Do you have any idea of how many hostiles we’ll be facing, Jinglepocket?”

“Probably seven or eight, not counting their leader. That one… you should not underestimate him, unicorn.”

I eyed the elder stallion, awaiting his explanation.

“He “rules” the band by sheen fear. Nobody knows from where he came from, but I can state that he is the most evil bandit of the entire Zone. While with all the other crooks you can negotiate or even turn a blind eye to them, this one particular bandit, Kieffer, he is a total psycho. He lived on the Zone for so long, that he lost track of reality. Once in a while, he suffers memory lapses, and when he comes back from them, he cannot remember where he is or who he is, getting to the point of shooting his own acquaintances. The bastard is always armed and dangerous, indifferent about other ponies plight and feared by anypony else who had the misfortune to bump into him.”

“If he is so horrible and have absolutely no friends at all, why the bandits hang out with him?”

“They do not. The bandits have locked him up on a room, and only release him as a “last resort” offensive method. After he Ponyslaghter any attackers, they just drug him off to jail the monster again.”

My blue companion commented at his description. “Sounds like a terrible character. Like a super-meany chicken thief.”

I rolled my eyes. That was a severe understatement.

============================== [><]=============================

“Ohmygosh! You are on a race against time to survive? You know it sounds just like a video-game plot.”

I just kept my gaze at the map. For the last three hours, I had to listen my excessively talkative companion tell the tale of her life. My mind trailed off after the first five minutes, but she didn’t seem to notice. And then it was my turn to tell my tale, as you can imagine, I didn’t spend a quarter of the time she did.

“And you have always been a loner?” I asked distractedly.

“Weren’t you listening? Ever since I came to the Zone. It is strange, I tried to apply to other factions, but they never answered me. I have been forever a loner so far.”

“According to this, they set shop on a clearing up ahead… prepare yourself.” I drew my AK as I said it.

After a few steps, the bandit lair was visible. It was basically a ruined down mill, of which they reinforced with salvaged metal plates from vehicles and cut down pines.

Blocking the main entrance of the compound, a turned down pink truck, with a machine gun mounted atop it. A bandit sentinel lay near it, lazily playing with his knife.

On the front of the truck, a cardboard cutout figure of a purple unicorn mare. From the bullet holes onto it, the bandits had been using it for target practice, and even drawn a pair of mustaches onto the figure, along with a stallion genitalia down below. How lovely.

As to improve their décor, they also hang pony skeletons onto the stony walls of the mill. Probably their unlucky victims.

I could spot at least three bandits roaming outside of the buildings.

I lend the rifle to Lielle, so she could use the scope to see the compound too.

After seeing she awkwardly trying to hoof the weapon, I used the TK to keep it steady for her.

“Look, look… they have hanged skeletons. Once I heard that zebras hanged scary masks as a welcoming sign. What if all these skeletons mean that the bandits are friendly and right now, they are throwing a Halloween party?”

I glanced at my PDA. “Halloween at march?” Then rolled my eyes at my own gullibility. “The odds of they actually being a bunch of loveable partygoers are pretty much the same of striders growing wings.”

She let go an orgasmic glee. “Flying bacon…. MMMMMmmmmm”

Now I understood Jinglepocket’s advice… although a bit too late.

“Just… grab your pistol and sneak up on them. I’ll go by the other side and try to do the same with my knife. With luck, we can take out four or five of them before we are caught, then we can pretty much rifle the survivors down.”

She wore the necklace with the pistol, then mouthed it and nodded her smiling head several times. I only wished she didn’t point that thing at me while doing so.

She went left while I crawled right, toward the mounted machine gun. I crept real close to the wall, the bandit above still oblivious. I floated my knife…

“BOSHAN! I GOT ONE, I GOT ONE!!!”

Dammit Lielle!

Three and a half seconds after her scream, an alarm soared through the compound. In the shock, I dropped the knife. The machine gun sentinel got into position and began gunning down the mare.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM…

Lielle dived for the trees, but she was pushed by the bullet barrage. She actually got hit by several bullets on her flank. I didn’t know if I was seeing right from that distance or anything, but she didn’t bleed… I wasn’t a doctor, but even that sunrise suit wouldn’t stop the massive bleeding taken by being gunned down by a high-capacity machine gun.

Dumbfounded as I was, and without the knife, I bucked off the truck on a desperate attempt to help Lielle.

CLANKK!!!

The bandit was surprised. He let go the machine gun and mouthed his revolver. Enough time for another buck.

CLANKKK !!!

This time, he lost his balance atop the truck and fell to the dirt. As he tried to stand back up, I drew the AK and shot him off.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE.

I entered the main field of the compound, only to find more opposition.

TCHUKTCHUCKTCHUCK.

BANGBANGBANG.

Three bandits were taking cover behind a forge on the middle of the courtyard, wielding shotguns and a pistol. Several crates were scattered around the ground.

Lielle appeared from an opening onto the fence, vainly shooting her pistol at the bandits.

PLCHUTPLCHUT.

It almost made no sound at all, like a little soft melody. This was the reason she called it “velvet flute”. However, she was oblivious that pistols are rather ineffective at medium and long range.

I used the provided distraction to fire at them.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE

One down, two to go.

Lielle went through the crossfire and sat beside me, panting heavily. I noticed she had several holes at the flank section of her suit, but no bleeding at all.

“Lielle, what the f…”

“Later! Shut up and hand me a medkit, stack!”

I floated my last blue medkit to her. I needed to remember to buy more of those later on.

TCHUKTCHUKTCHUK

BANGBANGBANG

We moved to another cover, closer to the forge, blazing our guns while doing so.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE

PLUCHTPLUCHT

The last bandit ran away to another trio bunkered behind some crates, he tripped at one of the opened crates while doing so, spilling red cylinders on the ground.

Dynamite! The bandits were storing it!

“Lielle ! Shoot the box, the box!”

PLUCHTPLUCHT

BOOOOMMMM !!!

That should teach them not to cover behind explosive-filled containers, had they survived.

The tripping bandit ran away to the mill, screaming like a maniac.

“RELEASE KIEFFER NOW! THEY ARE TOO…”

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…

The sound of a TRs-301 roared inside the dark recesses of the ruined building, as the burst of bullets pierced the bandit’s head off, interrupting his warning.

Then, the gun itself appeared from the darkness, followed by a scarred white unicorn, wearing a well-worn dark trenchcoat.

“DEATH TO THE INTERLOPERS!!! ENEMIES EVERYWHERE” he screamed.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE

That insane unicorn bulleted nearly everything on his reach. When he finally had to reload, me and my companion tried to fall back. That guy made the ravenous blind dogs I saw two days ago seem like puppies.

On the second he noticed us moving away, he dropped his rifle and TK’d dynamite from the boxes, lighting their fuses and floating them toward us.

I used all of my magic exploding them mid-air before reaching us or tossing them away. But the bastard was starting to toss several lit dynamites at once. I was having a hard time trying to keep it up with him.

BOOOM !!! BOOOOM !!! BOOOOMM !!!

“We are doomed if he keeps this up” I said after a particularly close explosion. “I don’t know how long I can handle it. Lielle, run for your li…”

Nopony except me there. She wasn’t by my side anymore. The earth pony probably ran away on the first opportunity. Well, although she abandoned me to an ill fate, I found solace on the fact that she would live.

The albino unicorn was laughing maniacally, cracking crates open and floating more dynamite cylinders from them

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE…

I tried firing at the dynamite while he was moving them, but for each one I exploded, he brought two more!

BOOOOMM BOOOOMMM BOOOMM

One of the explosives fell directly at my feet.

I only had two seconds to look idly at it.

BOOOOM

The impact threw me on the outer wall of the compound. I couldn’t move a muscle. My hooves, my horn, all aching pain.

Kieffer quickly stepped in, smelling a fallen prey. He was standing over me, his butterfly knife drawn.

“I love an up-close personal kill, breathe my victim’s desper…”

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM…

His body was struck by several bullets, while his face froze forever on an expression that mixed sadistic pleasure and confusion.

“Yay. That’s right, chicken thief! Your crimes didn’t go unpunished!” Lielle yelled atop the pink truck, the smoking mounted machinegun close to her.

With her help, I stood up again. after I was feeling a bit better, we explored the mill a bit. The ammo crate must be somewhere.

On the compound, material for creating dynamite. The bandits were mass-producing the stuff for some reason. As I exanimate the forge, I found some metal scraps, forged specifically to crack locks open. Skeleton keys. I grabbed the three of them. I also picked up Kieffer’s TRs. The weapon was very powerful and dangerous, indeed. But close examination told me that its owner frequently did small repairs to the highly unreliable gun, all that time locked up and nothing else to do… I could see that without that special treatment, this particular weapon’s condition would fall pretty quick. Nevertheless, instead of replacing my AK with it, I stashed the TR to sell it later. I also recovered my trusty knife, standing lonely on the cold ground.

Then I went to explore inside the mill. Lielle was busy thoroughly looting the bandit’s bodies and opening every crate to spy on its contents. She ended up with a pile of meds, foodstuffs and bullets.

I used my TK to light a torch on the forge to illuminate the dark building. On the main floor, a stairway to above and a huge opened metal door. Kieffer’s room.
As I predicted, it was filled with materials for weapon repairing. On the ceiling, a hole covered by a black blanket. This was probably the way that the other bandits devised to feed him without having direct contact with Kieffer.

The walls were thoroughly clawed and painted with coal. The bandit “leader” liked to exercise the fine art of drawing violent scenes, with an especially gory one of a pegasus munching a pile of brains being his “masterpiece”.

My stomach revolved at the sight, and I looked around for someplace to sit… then I found it. The crate of ammo. It was still intact and marked with the military crest. The bandits descended it with a rope, as a “gift” to Kieffer.

I floated it out to the main hall and dropped by it while I climbed upside.

There, I found a makeshift office. On the table, several notes and files that confirmed that the bandits had been selling dynamite to representatives from the garbage.

“So, something interesting here?”

The blue pony started to poke around every corner of the room, eventually finding a lockbox. She then drew some bobby pins from her hair and started working on the lock.

“Don’t worry; I know exactly what I am doing.”

In five minutes, she broke twelve pins. However, Lielle was still adamant on prying it open.

I floated one of the skeleton keys and handed over to her.

“Here, try with this.”

“Yea right, as if it would work simple as…” Click !

She widened her eyes. “OHMYOHMY…!”

Then, after opening the lid, her face was one of dire disappointment.

“Artifacts ? artifacts ? why the hell would somepony use this nicely ornamented box to store artifacts ? why can’t I find some muffins or banana bread ? bandits have no sense of value at all…” She tossed the two artifacts to me, a red mishap thingy and a crystallized ball with spikes.

“Are you sure you don’t want them, Lielle? I mean, they should be worth…”

“Yes, I am sure. I have no use for them. Although this is a rather nice lockbox… I will keep it.”

I shrugged and levitated both artifacts to my saddlebags

============================== [><]=============================

“And when I shot at the crates, they’ve blown up! And then, they blew up again!”

Jinglepocket was rather amused at the redheaded pony’s boasting. At first he was incredulous, but after I showed him the crate of ammo, all his doubts waned.

My face was deep under a plate filled of smoked sausages; the burner was bought with the nice money that the two artifacts and Kieffer’s rifle yielded. I also bought a few medkits.

“I should talk to the Mole about our success.”

Jinglepocket countered. “Let me do it, Bosh. It is the least I could do, since the bandits won’t be a problem for a while. Also, leave the crate to me. I’ll strike a deal with the military, but it will take a while to do so. Probably around two or three hours until we can reach terms of agreement and the railroad bridge is opened again.”

Lielle made an irksome face. “TWO or THREE hours? That’s an eternity… what are we supposed to do, just wait here? I had enough of standing around.”

Jinglepocket gave us a wry smile. “If you must… then I have a little breadcrumb mission for stalkers.”

The mare’s smile widened. “It is about rampaging bloodsuckers ? Or recovering an ultra-rare-one-of-a-kind artifact? Or bringing a sample of lunar soil? Oh, oh… I know… you want us to bake a boar liver pie!”

The stallion muffled his laughter and said “although I am aware that these are some really nice options, the mission I have to offer is somewhat less extreme. It is simple, really. After the bandits overtook most of the garbage, anypony wanting to go deeper onto the Zone needed to deal with them someway. But my stalkers have found a tunnel to the dark valley, and that increased our cartographic options. It is the railroad east tunnel, and we had been using it for quite a while. Until after the last blowout, that’s when a strange anomaly appeared on the surroundings of the tunnel. What I need you guys to do is map a secure route into the tunnel for us.”

“Just this, draw a dumb map? I can’t believe you’re paying us to do this.” My companion scoffed

“The challenge of it isn’t much about drawing the map, but surviving the anomaly. Had it been easy, my stalkers would had done it some time ago”

I looked at my companion. She simply told: “are you up for it, Boshie?”

I smiled at her. “Let’s take it.”

“Great. Take this parchment and quill for the quest, meet me when the job is done. So, my friends, I guess I’ll leave you to finish your meal.” Jinglepocket said.

As I eyed him trotting back to his stall, I remembered something.

“Lielle, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
The blue pony’s eyes widened with curiosity, and she blushed a bit.

“No, not at all…”

“I couldn’t help but notice, that you bore being shot by a 300 bullet/min machinegun and also crossed the gunfire breakout between the bandits…”

“So what? Half of all the people on this room did the same at some point of their lives…”

My patience dwindled quickly…

“BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN FREAKIN’ BLEED, HOW IS THAT EVEN LOGICALLY POSSIBLE?”

She just laughed at my rage.

“Look a bit closer…”

I looked at her bullet wounds. Yes, she had several holes on her sunrise suit, but the strangest thing is that the blood remained in the surface of the wound, as if an invisible barrier held it.

“Are you even a pony?”

She laughed again.

“Silly… my glass boulder does it, not me.”

With those words, she opened her belt pack and removed a stone from it, it was transparent. An artifact.

“They call it mica, silly name. It stops all kinds of bleeding. It is really nice because I save a lot on bandages.”

I sat there speechless… an artifact could be this powerful?

“Hey, wanna see something really cool?” She smirked

Without waiting for my answer, Lielle drew the artifact away from her and instantly her wounds begun to sprinkle loads of blood onto the air. Then she moved the artifact close to her again and the bleeding stopped.

It was mind-blowing!

Then, she did the same operation again, several times on a quick succession. Drops of blood quickly tinged everything on a two meter radius, she looked like a broken fountain, sprinkling blood and stopping. On an entire unrelated note, six stalkers sitting near us suddenly lost their appetite.

After a while, she stopped it. Lielle was rather dazed, due to having spent around two liters of blood.

“Pretty neat, right? My record is 63 times before fainting from blood loss.”

I ordered vodka. I guess I deserved one after putting up with being washed by red globules.

============================== [><]=============================

“Are we there yet?”

“You asked five minutes ago…”

“And?”

“No, we are not. Do you see any tunnel?”

We had been following the railroad trail an hour; the mountains blocked our access to the south of the cordon.

After a sharp turn on the railroad, the tunnel was visible. All around it, a rather large patch of green moss. It was sicker than the cordon’s vegetation, several vines and roots were exposed and even four or five weird fruit-filled trees. Bodies were also decomposing onto the vegetation. Not a good sign.

I approached the patch and drew a bolt. I tossed it and it landed onto the moss. Nothing happened.

I threw four more for good measure. Still nothing. My Geiger counter was also quiet.

Whenever… I entered the patch, holding the quill and parchment that Jinglepocket gave us. I was going to draw the map, since if I let Lielle do it, she’d probably draw it upside down, make it a 1:1 scale map or even draw the equestrian globe and point a tiny spot – there - , as the path that we were asked to draw. And also because she was an earth pony, unable to use telekinesis. So, she just followed me.

Tchklink…

“OW! Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Don’t feign innocence. You threw a bolt on me.”

“I did not. You should look at where you’re going, Bosh”

I was completely sure that she did it, but more important matters were at hand…

Tchklink…

“AUCH! You are the one tossing bolts, you telekinesis-yielding bully!”

“I couldn’t do it. I am holding the parchment and quill already. You are just trying to make me feel sorry for you, in the hopes I forget about the bolt YOU threw on me.”

“I do not have any bolts at all, smartass.”

“Come and say that to my face, you backstabbing bolt-throwing mare”

She lifted her front hooves, ready to move, and then fell on the ground.

“My backhooves, I am trapped!”

Roots entangled the earth pony’s backhooves, holding her tightly.

Before I could do any gesture to help her, a bark-encased limb ripped off the map from my telekinetic field.

The tree… IT WAS ALIVE!

The trunk morphed into an evil face, as the braches quickly removed apples from each other and tossed them at me.

Doesn’t look so bad, right? But these apples were filled with several spiky spores, released when the fruit shattered.

The evil creature caught me on surprise and shattered one of the fruits on my back. It instantly begun to pinch, then the feeling grew to outright pain. I rolled on the moss in a desperate attempt to put off the spores.

A terrible idea, since the roots also came to life and tried to entangle me. I quickly bucked them off and rushed to Lielle, the other three trees came to life as well, and started tossing spore-filled fruits at us too.

I drew my knife, using it to free the mare from the roots.

Then, I levitated my AK.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE…

The monsters simply used their branches to defend themselves, and the few bullets that crossed them looked like mere filly scratches on the tough bark.

Lielle also drew her silenced pistol, shooting the tress to no avail.

Plucht plucht…

One of the braches near the silver-eyed mare tried to claw her head off, but she noticed quick enough to duck. The tree, however, had taken her pistol off.

With the firearm on its braches, the monster used another branch to pick up a rock and beat the hell out of the “velvet flute”. After a few minutes of beatings, the weapon was trashed.

“YOU MEANIE! IF I EVER FIND YOUR PARENTS, I AM GOING TO TRIM THEM REAL GOOD!”

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE…

I emptied two or three clips, but the tree wasn’t even barely damaged! How the heck I am going to fight these things?

“BOSHAN, STOP SCREWING AROUND! CUT THEIR LIMBS OFF, GO FOR THE BRANCHES!”

Go for… how could I be so stupid not to think of this before? I dropped my AK onto the mud and grabbed my knife, floating it to the tree’s bark-coated appendages. In a few moments, I cut off all of the branches from the tree. After I did it, it just stood there immobile, making silly faces.

Then, I did the same to the other trees. Now that they couldn’t hurl anything at all, they seemed pretty harmless.

I even carved some arrows pointing to the tunnel on their bark, just for the sadistic pleasure of seeing their pain-impregnated faces as I did so.

“So, the mystery is solved. I guess some gasoline and matches could finish with the trunks and prevent them from growing more branches…”

My phrase was cut dead when I saw Lielle moaning over the broken weapon.

It was smashed beyond repair. I didn’t really know why she had given such an importance to a cheap pistol…

“My poor little velvet flute… may you rest in peace”

She dug a hole onto the patch and buried the gun.

“Aren’t we feeling a bit too dramatic today?” I remarked

“It was a gift from a dear friend”

Me and my stupid mouth… I turned away and finished drawing the safe route to the tunnel. Now it was quite easy, really. The only thing to avoid were the constraining roots.

Our way back to the stalker camp was filled with silence. I had to cut the ice.

“Sorry about it, Lielle… I didn’t know”

“It is okay, Boshan. It wasn’t your fault. It is just the velvet flute reminded me about the joy of sharing gifts and everything.”

I pondered at her phrase. Sharing… it is indeed an almost unheard thing on the Zone.

Then, I stopped on my tracks. “Since you need a gun and everything, I guess there is no harm if I give you one as a gift.”

The mare quickly refused. “Oh no, Boshan, I could never accept your AK, it is your personal weapon…”

I drew another weapon from my saddlebags. The throat needler. It was the only weapon I had (aside from the pistol and knife) that could be yielded by anypony who were not a unicorn without the need for a harness mechanism.

“What is this?”

“Well… it is a stakethrower, yes. It fires railroad spikes. See this lever up here? You can use it to shoot. No trigger at all.”

“Where did you even got a weapon like this?”

“A friend of mine did it, long story, but it didn’t really suit me.”

She was still suspicious. I put my best impression.

“This weapon fires stakes, it ties limbs to the wall, but wait, it does more…”

Her eyes widened. “More? What do you mean by more?”

I gave my most charismatic smile and said:

“Find it out by yourself”

She joyfully took the weapon and pushed the lever.

Choooo!

A stake hit the rocky wall of the mountain

“It sounds like a locomotive! OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH. Thankyou!!!”

She smiled profusely.

“I am calling it ChooChoo !!!”

============================== [><]=============================

“Safe and sound, I see, and with a friend…”

That apple-scented atmosphere still nauseated me. We were lucky of being able to reach the rookie village within daylight, after stopping at the stalker camp to redeem our reward. Thankfully, my funds were now enough for an extended raid deeper onto the Zone.

“Well, you held your end of the deal, stalker, and so should I.”

The brown unicorn laid some paper money onto the counter. Exactly 500 bits. I figured that it would be useless to argue with the Mole, and that I was actually fortunate that he was paying me at all…

“About your buddy, I heard that the bandits at the garbage dug up a PDA with his name on it. If you want to know about the whereabouts of this Searinor, your best bet is to deal with the crooks.”

“Hey, what is this?”

My companion was pushing her hoof onto the Mole’s crazy eye, coming closer and closer…

“Stop it! It is very very frail, it is a magic eye. Costs more than an upgraded SVD”

“You were born with only one eye?”

The trader was starting to get irritated with the blue pony.

“No, my natural eye was shot off. A stupid customer… let’s just say that he won’t be buying anything… ever again. As a result, I had to save loads of bits to buy this half-assed replacement”

“Why you didn’t buy another one to be symmetrical? This way it is just really weird, you look like a zombie”

“Get out, OUT! Take that foulmouthed pony with you, unicorn. One more minute and I am going to lose it.”

As we climbed the stairs back up to the surface, the trader’s last words echoed on the chamber.

“Good ponyhuntin’ stalker”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- bestiary

#/filenam – Treant

#/filedescript – Thought by many to be a drunken stalker tale, treants are described as trees corrupted by the Zone’s influence, infused with mutative characteristics that enabled them to be “aware” of their surroundings and even mimic some degree of intelligence, but not enough to develop the capacity of speech. Like almost any wildlife creature of the Zone, treants are regarded as a very dangerous threat, counting with several formidable abilities, such as a very tough bark, sharp branches capable of throwing projectiles and the capacity to seem a normal tree to trick stalkers and slash them with their branches. Treants reproduce through spores found on their fruits. The most important thing when facing one of them is that conventional firearms are highly ineffective against their natural armor. It is advised to use flame-throwing firearms or explosives to deal with the creatures. Like normal trees, treants cannot move, so running away is also an effective strategy.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. IV: One pony's trash...

CP. IV: One pony's trash...

CP. IV: One pony’s trash…

“There are two types of criminal scum out there. The ones who are simple-minded thugs will instantly bullet you down and take your possessions, while the serious ones will only do so after submitting your hooves to a lifetime of forced labor”

“I still wonder why you want to keep up with me…”

“Well, so far I had a blast. And besides, you know you wouldn’t last long without my help”

I skeptically shook my head. The earth pony surely had an outgoing vision of live, even while on a land scarred by all kinds of biomagical-spawned horrors and whatnot dangerous features. One would wonder about her sanity…

I stuffed the doubts onto the back of my mind. If she was happy to tag along for the ride, well, then there was no problem at all. I just needed to verify if she was sure of what I was going to attempt

“You realize that I’m going to try to breach through the NPP, do you? The most hazardous, dangerous, mutant-filled, anomaly-encrusted, blowout-spawning area of the Zone?”

“You forgot about the tarks, mercs, bandits, military and other kind of territoralist hostiles that set up shop along the way to it.”

Yeah, do that. Spill my complete ignorance about the Zone, right here, all over my face…

“And… gentlepony, I present you… the garbage! OOOHHH”

I climbed the hill, reaching over the smirking pony.

The garbage’s landscape pretty much summed up to it’s namesake. Compromising huge piles of… garbage, what more? True mountains of metal scraps, broken energy towers, dirt, cement tubes, vehicles, construction materials, broken crates… each pile looked like an amalgamation of every ancient discarded crap of Equestria, but the kitchen sink. I even spotted glimpses of anomalies atop them. Onto the base of the nearest pile, stalkers were digging through, under the watchful eye of three trenchcoated bandits. A bit southwest, more bandits, these ones guarding a vehicle park. Choppers, pegasus war chariots, civilian carriages, snow ploughs… all of these bore the weight of years of rust and abandon. Several stalkers were held chained to them, their worn and dirty hooves revealed their fate under the bandits’ control. Most of the slaves were sub-nurtured, and eyed their jailors apprehensively. One of the bandits was sorting out a pile of scavenged goods.

“I heard that after the accident, the monarchy pretty much discarded every equipment used by their evac teams. They weren’t willing to risk lugging around radioactive gear, so they just dumped it away into the piles. I bet there are all kinds of cool stuff under these piles, just slightly tainted. Such a waste.”

Without the scope, she couldn’t spot the bandits and their workforce. I just nodded while eyeing over one of the slaves, this one wearing an orange jumpsuit with a curtain helmet. He was climbing up the garbage pile, probably to get the best tidbits of loot for the bandits. The suit wasn’t a sign of the bandits concern for their subject’s welfare; I thought, but instead, their way to safeguard themselves against the stalker dying BEFORE handing over the loot to them.

“I guess we can check them later…” I said to my companion

To the west, a few more piles stretching onto the landscape and a small swamp. The road coming from the Cordon continued in, also crossing the middle of the garbage and splitting the area in two sides. Further west, a dense forest enclosed its mysteries onto large bushes and thick-leaved trees.

Thankfully, we had deviated from the road. It was fortunate because the bandits held an entryway checkpoint, used to harass rookies coming from the Cordon. But in order to proceed further into the garbage, we had to come across it.

I knew that we two were able to deal with this group of thugs; after all, I and Lielle already did a pretty good job on the gang that encroached the Cordon. However, the Mole said I had to deal with their leader if I wanted to get Searinor’s PDA. Until then, I’d dare not further compromise my situation by earning their hatred, which meant that using the strategy that worked well so far (gunning down bandits) was out of the question for now. We only faced ignorant trigger-happy grunts. The bandits that held the garbage were different. I spotted congruencies onto their suits and some kind of pattern on their shoulderpads (too far to actually discern it), which indicated some kind of organized hierarchy, instead of the misshapen and patched armor wore by the renegade swamp raiders, these certainly indicating their rather (poor) economical situation and the individuality of each “member” of a loosely held group only unified on the intent of scavenging the marshlands.

Bottom line, shit would fuck up pretty quick if we gone guns blazing at the bandits.

“Lielle, this place is crawling with bandits. We need to proceed with caution,”

I levitated the scope at he and held it, aiming at the bandit checkpoint and then at the concentration camp.

“You remember what the Mole said, right? We have to use diplomacy with these bandits. Blend in and acquire the PDA. And this means no shooting at them, at least, not for now.”

“The mad-eye pointed directions to the bandits’ boss?”

I shook my head. “Looks like we’ll have to ask around…”

“We can’t go like this. The bandits hate other stalkers, they will hold us as slaves like those fellas.”

“I know. I was thinking about jumping on a few of them to steal their black jackets and baklavas. But if half a dozen bandits suddenly turn up dead, they will be suspicious and on the lookout for spies, also, neither I, nor you, know how to make a good bandit impression.”

“And how hard it is to perform a good bandit impression? You just dye your clothes black; make a grim face, act tough, bitchslap two or three stalkers and slug down five vodka bottles on a row. Betcha the last one will be easy as pie for you.”

I frowned at her, remembering that I still had a bottle at my saddlebag.

“Is there ANY faction that they are not currently at war with?”

“hmm… freedomers treat them with contempt, shooting them at times. Dutyers, hate them due to their extortion of stalkers for personal gain, and stalkers, due to them… being bandits. No, they are pretty much hated by everyone.

She held her chin, thoughtfully, then erupted into smiles.

“Mercs! That’s it! Every faction on the zone stumbles out with unpleasant jobs that need to be done; even the bandits have standards in that matter. That’s where mercs come in!”

“I thought mercs were hired grunts from big shots outside the Zone, being held by contract to them.”

“Those are full-time mercs. The kind I am speaking about are common, but combat-experienced stalkers who run around the Zone, offering their specialized workforce to anypony who can pay them. They usually do this until they arrange enough cash to buy a specific artifact or suit, hence the part-time, since mercwork isn’t their lifestyle like the first kind”

“So, it is decided. Let’s disguise as mercs and ask the bandits for a job. When they direct us to their leader, we’ll buy off the PDA from him. By the way, how part-time mercs look like? Do they have a special armor, symbol or anything?”

“Nah… they wear normal stalker armor, like you and me, only with a slight difference…”

“Which is?”

“Dirt, scratches, mud, dried blood, filth in general… all stalkers end up encrusted with these, but mercs… due to the nature of their jobs, they are especially… grime.”

“So, just rolling on the earth will suffice it?”

“If you spent a whole week doing it… bring up the scope again, I think I have an idea…”

I brought it to her eyes. “Right… Right… there, hold it.”

She backed away and I peered through it. The swamp.

“I don’t see how strolling through there will help.”

“A bath. We’ll be coated with murky water, dirt, leaves and everything else, just like real mercs.”

“Along with enough radiation to make you and me look like giant fireflies, in case you forgot about that little detail…”

“Why don’t you use your artifact to vent it down, then?”

She laid down her saddlebag and brought up the artifact I acquired at the factory, the lava-colored ball.

“It is called “fireball”. When you hold it, your body dumps radiation through sweat, generated due to the artifact’s heat field, purging it from the organism. But the process also stresses down your moving apparatus, slowing you down.”

“Seems it could work… wait a moment there….why you have my artifact at you? Have you been rummaging at my packs last night?”

She smiled nervously. “Er… you dropped it. I was just storing the artifact for you, I mean, somepony could had picked it up and taken for himself had I left it there…”

She offered the crimson-colored stone, which I promptly took.

============================== [><]=============================

Crossing the road and sneaking up from the bandits guarding the Cordon barrier, had been quite simple. We just waited for a distraction, provided by a bunch of striders wandering a bit too far from the Cordon. The bandits quickly busied themselves at shooting the mutants.

“Shooting” used as in quite a broad term. They basically did noise and scared them off than actually hitting something, possibly due to being drunk. Crawling unnoticed behind them has proved to be filly-level difficult.

Just a quick walk later and we reached the small swamp. It protuberated from the garbage landscape like an oozing wound, holding dark stagnant puddles of radioactive water.

Lielle was holding the Geiger counter on her mouth, while I levitated the bolts to scope the area for anomalies. Only some springboards were triggered so far.

At each water-filled puddle, the mare approached the counter to check up the radiation level. We were looking for a relatively clean one that would allow us to bathe in for a few minutes without risking major radiation sickness.

Eventually, the blue pony came to a halt.

Beep……………………………Beep……………………………..Beep………

“This one, Boshan! It has only slight traces of radiation!”

I grabbed the counter, checking out the level. It was indeed acceptable. Crunching some numbers, I figured out we had forty minutes to enjoy the water without being sick, considering that the suits would partially absorb the radiation.

After setting the PDA to ring after 30 minutes, for extra safety, I stripped off the saddlebags, leaving the fireball and my rifle atop them.

I slowly entered the puddle, as the water quickly deepened to my chest level, soaking my barding in so. The puddle was quite deep on the middle, to the point I couldn’t stand onto it. Apart from the ingrained radiation being bad for my body cells, the water was quite nice and warm. After moments swimming in circles, I dived into the deep water. The bottom of the puddle was covered in mud, aquatic vegetation and sand.

Returning to the surface, I yelled at the mare.

“Lielle, the water is great. Aren’t you coming?”

“In a minute”

She left her saddlebag beside mine, backed off a few meters and dashed off to the puddle, screaming.

“Cannonball!”

TCHWAAA!

She was instantly soaked to the bone, also soaking me further in the process.

The redheaded mare swam around, diving into the deep water as well, and returning with some mud.

She plunged her face onto it and used her hoof to spill all around her visage.

“How do I look?”

“Heinous, mercmare.” I laughed.

“At least it is good for my skin. You should serve yourself with some too, Boshan. Think of it like a free spa treatment served on a hot tub.”

So I dove again, grabbing my own mud and hoofed it all around my face.

I don’t know if she was kidding or not, but the feel of the wet mud all over my face, along with the lukewarm water was somewhat relaxing. I held the back of my head with the hooves, and laid my body belly upside floating onto the puddle. In instants, my eyes closed.

“We should definitely do this again, don’t you t…”

SBLOSH!

Mud coated through my hair and some even went to my ears. Lielle was laughing herself out.

It wasn’t fair. She caught me by surprise!

I dived, returning with batches of mud.

“Oh, it IS on.”

“Bring it”

I threw an entire barrage of mudballs at her, but she either dodged or dived, expertly avoiding them.

On the last dive, she returned with another mudball, flinging it directly at me.

This time, I was fast enough to be able to hold it mid-air with the telekinesis.

“Unicorn power!” BLLLBLBLBLBLBLBLLLLBLBLLLLSH!!

SBLOSH!

Two to zero! And even my tongue was dirty now!

I had to turn the tables of this game…

I dived at the depths again.

“Oh… think you can get away like this?”

She hoofed the water surface and dived her face while searching for me, exactly what I expected.

I swam around the redheaded mare, bumping my body onto the dirt at the depths on purpose.

Then, I ascended and held her with a tight hug. My entire body was covered with mud, leaves and even branches hanged from it. Rolling around the deep bottom caused me to appear like some kind of swamp creature coming from a corny terror movie.

With the hug, I dropped pounds of the mud directly over her head, marring her crimson hair and undoing her hairstyle. She had such long highlights…

“Puny pony… thought you could outsmart the… mud monster?”

I turned over her to face me, the mare’s face broke in laughter.

“Oh my… woe is me. now that you immobilized my frail hooves, I can only imagine what kind of terrible torture you will submit me to…”

“Indeed. It shall be…”

I approached my muddy and branched face to hers.

“Tickling until submission!”

And I started to work my hooves at her armpits.

“No… hahahahahahahahahahahaha….hahahahahahha… I’m very tickl…hahahahahah…plea….hahahhahahaha”

And she broke free, but I still pursued and my hooves reached her again, my disguise having dissolved into the water.

“Hahahahahahha… stop it, Bos….hahahahhaha…hahhahahaha”

Then, I held Lielle’s hooves. She was still snickering from the “torture”.

Maybe it was her vivid eyes, or her charming laugh, but at that particular moment, being covered in mud, leaves and radioactive water, she seemed the most beautiful mare in Equestria, or so my own eyes told me.

We just stood still at that very moment, my hooves gently holding her back and her penetrating silvery gaze upon me.

“You still have a bit of dirt over her…”

She hoofed at my nose, then brushed her own muzzle against it, wiping it clean. It was weird… but I liked it.

Her face assumed a crimson tinge, while my own felt like the living flame from a burner anomaly.

TRINGGGGGGG!!!!! The PDA sounded, announcing that 30 minutes had elapsed.

I glared at it, then gestured to Lielle to leave the water. She seemed a bit disgruntled at the interruption, but nevertheless, followed me. Radiation sickness wasn’t a kidding matter. I dissolved off most of the mud on the water, only leaving some to dry on my face. I also used a branch to scratch my own skin and damage my barding, in order to improve the disguise, while Lielle did as well.
I picked up my saddlebags and gravitated the fireball artifact close to my chest. It instantly started to work out, generating an aura of pleasant warmth, while also numbing my hooves a bit, forcing me to walk at an slower pace.

My friend picked up her luggage and I set the PDA’s alarm to sound at each four minutes.

Following the supposition that the bandits were using their slaves to work at the base of each pile at the garbage, we set our course to the nearest one, directly north. I could spot the garbage pile from there, but no bandits were at sight. Probably if we revolved around it, we’d stumble onto them.

“So… are you going to stick with this hairstyle now?”

Lielle left her long crimson highlights run free, instead of trying to lock them again onto the large “burner-cloud” hairstyle. She softly ran her azure hooves though the muddled highlights.

“I guess so. It was a pain to hold it upside straight, and this new one suits…”

Tring!

I handed the fireball over to her, no longer enjoying it’s warmth, but in turn, unhindering my hooves.

“I wonder what the bandits are after…” I voiced. “to hold an entire scavenging operation just for metal scraps…”

“Artifacts, what more? Everypony on the Zone is so freaking obsessed with them…”

“And you don’t?”

“I admit, they are quite handy and everything, but the depths of depravity or insanity descended by some ponies to get their hooves on them, are simply…”

BLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANG

“Hide!”

We rushed to take cover behind a rock. After moments of silence, she peeked from it, trying to figure out where the gunshot came from

Tring!

She rolled the lava-colored stone to me.

“I don’t see anything. They probably aren’t after us…”

I rose my head to spy as well…

BLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANG

The shots came from a valley nearby.

Cautiously, the mare and I moved cover from cover to it.

Peeking from above, sickly bushes and sprawling twisted trees could be seen. Right on the middle of it, numerous bodies of blind dogs and three stalkers.

I had never seen somepony like them before. these ones were wearing a complex suit, composed of a tactical helmet and gasmask, numerous Kevlar fillings and composite plates, an incycle breathing system and strange hydraulics stretching from an external frame of the suit. All of this painted in red and black. They also sported a crosshair symbol at their shoulderpads, and without exception, all of them were lugging around huge machineguns mounted into their suits. All in all, they looked like goddamn living tanks; they were two unicorns and one earth pony.

“Duty” Lielle whispered to me. “Probably hunting mutants. They are quite away from their home…”

Using machine guns originally intended to be assembled into tanks just to kill dogs seemed like an awful lot of overkill. “Are they hostile?”

“Not really, if you don’t get on their hooves… come on, let’s be neighborly”

She moved from the cover and started to go down onto the valley…

SPLUCHT!

The sniper rifle soared, hitting a hoof of one of the unicorn dutyers.

I quickly grasped Lielle back to the cover. In instants, another shot sounded. The sniper was at the garbage pile, ducking behind a fort made of several sofas.

SPLUCHT!

Another hoof of the same unicorn was hit this time. The dutyer was unable to move, having two crippled legs and his suit hindered him. His companions started to preheat their machineguns, but before they could fire, a third shot came from the fort.

KAPOWWW!

This one hit straight at the unicorn’s visor. Since he was already immobilized, it was an easy victim. The sniper probably had experience in fighting stalkers clad in that armor, having used a more powerful rifle to snipe off the dutyer at his weak spot.

“Those who live by the AK, die by the AK. Ya got that, Duty?”

“Freedom scum! You will pay for this cowardice!”

The dutyers “rushed” (as much as their hefty suits allowed them…) to the pile, laying down a hail of lead at the attackers. The two groups exchanged fire, with neither one being able to cause damage. The dutyers, because they were too far away and because machineguns aren’t known for their accuracy, while the freedomers couldn’t aim at moving targets with accuracy while a rain of bullets threatened them.

The remaining unicorn dutyer flinged a grenade at the pile, landing it on a mound of dirt directly above the makeshift Freedom bunker.

BOOM!

The landslide fell upon the sofa fort, forcing the freedomers to abandon it. there were five of them, and they wore green fleck suits. Unlike the dutyers, their armor allowed them to move with ease. But without the resilience of a true combat armor, two of the freedomers weren’t able to make it to the second cover.

“Why they started fighting? There wasn’t anything at stake…”

“Freedom and Duty are ach-nemesis. They are engaged on a full scale war for quite some time.”

“Isn’t this bad for the other stalkers safety?”

Tring!

I hoofed the artifact to her.

“They pretty much don’t bother with us, saving their bullets for each other.”

I lifted the scope to examine the freedomer group. It was composed of one unicorn and two pegasai. Their suit had a distinct symbol at the shoulderpad, a green boar head with the jaw opened, with the word “воля” below it.

SPLUCHT!

The vintorez round hit the solid rock, missing me by inches.

“You said they wouldn’t bother with us!”

“What would YOU do if a stranger pointed a gun at you during a gunfire? RUN!”

Now, the two factions attempted to shoot each other and us as well. Lielle and I sprinted away from them as quickly as we could.

“Too much for being neighborly…”

“They are quite harmless when dealt separately… I think both of them mistook us as members of the other faction or as bandits”

“What gives you this idea?” I mocked as machinegun rounds whistled close
Some meters later, I sat down my back at a rusty bulldozer. Lielle was panting too. She threw the fireball to me and I stored it at the saddlebag. We were quite clean of radiation now to further need it.

Nopony chased us. I guess they were too damn bent on annihilating each other to actually care about us.

“Phew! Are faction hatreds always so intense?”

We resumed our pace around the pile

She shrugged. “I had never actually seen a conflict of this magnitude between them; after all, the emissaries they sent to the cordon were rather polite, albeit snide, at each other. I guess the loners acted as a barrier for further hostilities, you know, since neither faction wanted to make a bad impression for potential members.”

I nodded. A little love and tolerance would go a long way…

“Listen, stalker cuntfuckers, this is our camp. So why don’t you two dumbasses piss off before shit happens?”

I floated the PDA’s radio, while eyeing the bandit camp. It was basically a hole onto the base of the pile, bunkered at all sides. Two bandits, a purple earth pony wearing a standard Kevlar jacket, a white gas mask and a spiked collar, and a unicorn with a dirty white trenchcoat with black patterns, were glaring at us. Three more supervised their loner slaves.

“Sorry bro, just passing by. We are just looking for a job. Got no clue where to go…”

The earth pony operating the radio whispered something to the trenchcoated unicorn. The unicorn levitated a binoculars and examinated us.

After he was satisfied, he sat it down and said something to the earth pony. His response on the radio came in a few moments.

“Ok mercs, you may approach us. But try anything funny and we’ll be having your asses for dinner. By the way, the gunfire sounds a while ago, those were yours?”

“No pal. It was a gunshot between Duty and Freedom. We just got caught on the middle of it.”

He let go the radio, I still heard the bandit mumbling “freakin’ pigs and jarheads, naggin’ our turf.” While he went again to his unicorn friend.

Up close, the camp was just a provisional base of operations. Almost everything was already packed for quick disassembly in the case they needed to move out. I was willing to bet that they moved it every time they found out that someplace else on the pile yielded more loot.

We went to greet the two sentinel bandits. they were lazily spread on their chairs, drinking sips of vodka while eyeing us and keeping their guns pointed at us. The bandit symbol, a white pony skull on a black crest, was visible at their shoulderpads.

“So… what’s the news around these parts?” I nervously tried to break the ice.

“News? Are you fucking serious, merc? What could possibly change on the Zone? Same shit, different day. Suckers perish at anomalies, we get our swag from pussy scavengers, pigs and jarheads duke it out on each other…”

“And loser wannabes come around asking for directions.”
The trenchcoated unicorn completed.

“Which leads us to the question, merc. Why should we help you?”

I poked at my saddlebags and handed him a handful of bills.

“That’s more like it…” he said while counting the bits. “Head northwest, following the road and you will end up hitting the train hangar. Greyhoof is always looking for new maggots willing to break a leg or two in exchange for jack shit…”

============================== [><]=============================

The hangar was an enormous decayed, but sturdy structure. The metal walls reinforced with scraps, train cars were used for housing, a sentinel tower that ascended at the entrance and an external brick wall pretty much summed up the base.

Bandits that were guarding the entrance didn’t seem bothered with our presence. Looks like the disguise was working well.Amongst the guards, a charcoal earth pony mare was posed near an intercom, sleeping with her head curled. A distinct stench of vodka came from her. Also, her cutie mark was (unsurprisingly) a bottle of the heavenly drink.

As we entered the hangar directly, I noted that there was more to the base to the right, what looked like a fueling area for the trains. But I was in kind of a hurry to wrap up the job to check it out.

Finding the bandit leader wasn’t so difficult, the big signs at a train cart saying “applications taken here” and the misspelled “BAWS” were dead giveaways.

This cart was furnished, having a box filled with food at a corner, a map on the wall, a shelf at which a bunch of brown fur rested upon a orange radsuit at the bottom. The bandit leader was at a chair, eyeing some papers atop his desk. A box full of electronic scraps was by his side and so it was an intercom at the wall.

Greyhoof himself was wearing one of those combat armors we saw the dutyers using. Only that his one was black-colored, had two red-colored gas masks (which I noticed, came from Duty’s own combat armors) for shoulderpads, and that the suit also covered his wings, having two SGi 5k’s inbuilt at each wing. How he actually fired them, it was beyond me. The suit probably had some kind of internal trigger. Also, the symbol of his faction was painted on the left side of his own black-colored tactical helmet. That composed a very fearsome picture… it was best to just buy the damn PDA and leave the bandits to their own rather than stick around.

“I told you suckers not to interrupt…”
He cut off when he eyed us… I guess he was expecting someone else.

The bandit pushed a button at the intercom

“Katherine! Wake up, you worthless bum! You were supposed to keep me posted about visitors!”

Mumbled sounds came as an answer.

Greyhoof turned to us.

“Mercs, I see… are you two looking to score some swag?”

“Actually, we are here to buy something from you. A PDA from a stalker named Searinor.”

Greyhoof hoofed onto his crate, bringing up a PDA. “You’re in luck. I was about to dismantle this useless thing for spare parts… I guess you can have it…”

I extended my hoofs expectantly

“For four thousand bits”

Holy shit! That was roughly eight times the price of a useful piece of information!

“This is ridiculous! We don’t have that much money. Didn’t you just say it was trash?”

“Well, if you want it so much, then it must be valuable. Four thousand is my price…. Hey, leave him alone!”

Lielle was almost reaching the patch of fur, when it sprang to life. The bloated dog gave two barks at the mare, making her step back.

“Down boy…” Greyhoof patted his pet’s head, and it laid down again over the radsuit.

“You have a pseudo for pet? Aren’t these dangerous?” she asked

“Most of them… although Anon here is vegetarian. We found him while scavenging a farmhouse; the poor thing was trapped on a cellar and lived by eating apples stocked in there. Nevertheless, my boys and I picked him up, nurtured and nursed him back to health and trained him. He was quite useful as a sentinel for the presence of other mutants, barking off when he catches their scent nearby. Although now Anon is quite indisposed… this state is lasting more or less one month, with slow recovery. So, keep your hooves off my dog, lady. He doesn’t need your germs…”

A very offended Lielle stood by my side, looking at the dog with contempt.

“Anon… that’s a strange name for a pseudodog.” I said

“It was the only legible word on his collar, anon with a faded suffix… Whistlebone, my commander, told me it was possible that the tag was inverted, claiming that the dog’s name was a faded off prefix completed by “nona”. Nonsense… that’s a female’s name, and I’m sure that Anon is male.”

“How the heck do you know how to differentiate between a mutant dog ma…”

I stuffed my hoof at her mouth. While I had the same question on my mind, I’d rather not ask it. The images on my mind were disturbing enough…

“Greyhoof, there isn’t really anything we can do to lower your price? We have a few goods…”

“How much cash do you have on you, merc?”

“Two thousand and five hundred bits…”

He gave a quick gaze at the papers on his desk

“Well… since I’m feeling especially generous today, I’m willing to cut the price on half the amount… if you do a service for me.”

What a douchebag! He was exploiting my need to his own ends… screw it, this was the only way to get the PDA without confronting an armor-clad bandit backed up by a whole bandit clan.

“What kind of service are we speaking about?”

“Something rather simple really… if you don’t mind accompanying me, Anon needs to stretch his legs and Whistlebone owns me a report.”

Greyhoof opened a drawer, tossed the PDA inside and locked it. Then mused to his pseudodog. The beast lazily stood up and followed it’s master outside.

I shrugged to my companion and followed the strange duo.

Greyhoof crossed the gate outlying the train depot, spending some time at the entrance giving a rant to some charcoal earth pony. We went with him as well.

============================== [><]=============================

The heavy-armored pegasus made his way through the road, spending some time here and there to sightsee the numerous bandit camps across it. He’d just radio them and ask for the situation.

“You are their leader, right? So why don’t they hand you over the report themselves instead?”

He stopped his pace and turned to me
“For several reasons. Because I actually want to supervise those morons, and it is the best way to maximize profit, because I am the boss and I freaking do what I want. And, because…after numerous days walking around the garbage… I kinda grown a fond for the scenery. There ain’t nothing better than the fresh air around these parts…”

And he resumed the stroll, until interrupted by an azure pony.

“Fresh? It is a goddamn radioactive dump! The only place worse is the NPP itself!”

“That’s because you folks don’t smell what I smell, also it’s because you don’t have a gasmask on, hehe. But anyway, what I smell around my garbage is the aroma of potential. Here’s something interesting… the garbage used to be some archeological site. After the nuclear accident, the monarchs filled in the pits with the irradiated gear they used while evacuating the survivors, first class stuff, real neat. They risen up the pits all the way from the bottom and then even some more. Some of the stuff buried in them are worth their weight in gold. That’s why my crew has a nice mining operation around. It would be fine, weren’t for the stench of the other stalkers…”

“You don’t seem too worried in fighting them back… also, aren’t you worried that they could take you out while you’re walking around in those supervising trips?”

“Heh… that’s what the armor is for, boy. It’s my insurance. Also, don’t be naive to think that I don’t have four or five boys laying their telescopic eyes at every movement I take. As for the factions, I don’t give two shits about them, after all, they are too busy with their pointless goals. Bust my ass out eradicating mutants? , Turn the Zone into a fucking touristic attraction? Or the “sharing and kindness” lot ? I can’t decide which one is worse. We here keep it simple, money talks and we let stalkers dig around and stay alive by handing over a slice to us. If the other clans got a problem with it, they’re in for some serious whacking.”

His radio came online of a sudden.

“Boss, I spotted some shootout near the road to agropony. The jarhead cocksuckers are pulling in some brace fighting the muties…”

“Don’t worry... they’re getting desperate. Soon their own zeal will knock them down, after all, wannabe heroes don’t last long in these parts.”

Lielle came close to me and whispered

“He may say that, but I believe that the bandits have pretty much to worry about…and that he is actually shitting his pants worrying about their safety.”

“How bad is their situation?”

“In one word, shit. In two words, deep shit. They are boxed in at all sides. The garbage is a key point of the Zone. Every stalker must cross it. Either to reach deeper into the Zone, where the most rare artifacts spawn, or to reach back to the cordon or their own faction bases to get quality R&R… basically, the bandits are facing a two-way brawl with the dutyers coming from Hoofstok and Jingly’s stalkers from the Cordon. Also, although being neutral to the bandits, freedomers shoot them from time to time. All of that plus mutants make it all complete.”

“Hey mercs, why the fuck are you two falling behind?”

We sprinted a bit to reach him out.

“Sorry, we were just wondering when you would start speaking about the job.”

He eyed us distrustfully.

“Your job is returning a suit, a very special one. Have you seen the stalkers working at the piles? There are some who scavenge the surface, ain’t much risk in there, but no big rewards as well… other stalkers dig deep onto the pile, but that takes a lot of time. We were using dynamite to clear up holes cost-efficiently, but my boys haven’t received a word about our last shipments for a few days, my guess is that the military busted out our suppliers. And the last kind of digger, the one who climbs the pile to reach the anomalies that spawn there, that’s where the artifacts are. Problem is, without a radsuit, stalkers wouldn’t last ten seconds in there, and the suits are hard to come by.”

“Why don’t you buy some from the ecologists?” Lielle asked him

“A long while ago, a group of the eggheads caught a few stray bullets when they came across a few mutants we were shooting at.”

My eyes moved to my companion. Lielle frowned when he mentioned stray bullets. Good thing the bandit didn’t notice it.

“Although it was an accident, they knew better than to return to the garbage, ever again. It was a tragedy, indeed, but we took the best of the worst, their suits. We had at that time, one, two, three suits” He hoofed at the dirt to count. “One of them was stolen from us, the second broke when an overconfident moron danced over an electro anomaly, and the third is the only functional suit left. Do you get me, mercs? I need my stolen suit back; otherwise, my cash flow will dwindle.”

“You have your own suit, why don’t you bring yourself the artifacts?” I questioned

He turned to me, looking annoyed at the question.

“I suppose that’s a “valid” question, since you two lowlifes probably will never be able to afford an exoskeleton. Firstly, the exosuit is a combat-oriented personal armor. It is meant to withstand pistol bullets, shotgun bucks, submachine rounds, low caliber rifle bullets, and in some modded versions, like mine, even sniper rounds. While it’s great for confronting other stalkers, it provides meager protection against anomalies. On par with common stalker suits, like yours. Secondly, like I already said, an exoskeleton is goddamn expensive, and I’m trying to run a profitable business. And last, it weights twenty-five fucking pounds, that’s a lot, even with the augmented strength from the servomotors… if you are caught by an anomaly; it’s pretty much sudden death. Not to mention that the wearer wouldn’t be bringing much loot per trip without being overcumbered.”

“I’m curious, who would steal from bandits?” Lielle wondered

“That’s the most fucked up part… at first, not even I believed, but now I see. It was stolen by a pack of pseudodogs. The nasty feral ones, not like my loyal Anon, ain’t that right, boy?”

He patted on the brown dog’s head. The animal licked his owner’s armored chin.

“But that makes no sense at all, they are animals. What interest would they have over an orange jumpsuit?”

“That’s what I thought when the buddy of the stalker that loaned it came around. He told me that his partner got chased by a bunch of dogs and they didn’t give up chase and that they dragged him to their lair at the forest. Of course, I thought that his partner had run away with my suit and I executed the stalker on the spot. Only later my own scouts informed me that he was speaking the truth.”

He rose his hoof.

“Here it is. Now if you excuse me, mercs, I have a report to pick up.”

His stroll led us to the internment camp set near the cordon border. It was well-defended and circulated by a barbwire wall, being used as a housing and training facility for the captured loners. There were a few tire piles used to mark anomalies inside the camp and a few loners were subdued to their miserable fates, scanning the anomalous fields or either being locked up on cages or chained to the vehicles.

The brown dog walked off to play on the bushes nearby, while Greyhoof was talking over with an orange earth pony. This one was wearing the standard black schemed colors, but with grey straps of cloth along it, also, he was carrying a clipboard.

“Whistlebone, how is productivity?”

The pony offered the clipboard to his boss.

“Hmm… acceptable… although could use a bit of improvement…”

“Boss, there’s one that tried to smuggle an artifact.”

The orange pony picked back his clipboard and walked to an imprisoned olive unicorn. This one was segregated from the others.

“Well ,well, well, who have we got here, Whistle?”

He looked up on the clipboard.

“His name is Keyhole.”

“Hmm… Keyhole, do you know what happens to those who try to pull a fast one on me?”

He crept close to the unicorn, his armed wings set horizontally and aiming at him.

“No, no, no… please…”

Greyhoof raised his hoof, ordering him to shut up.

“You’ve just earned yourself three extra hours of work on the sun. And no water during that time”

He punched the slave’s face, streaking his face with red. Then he left the moaning unicorn to think about his behavior.

Lielle stood there, observing the poor pony while tears ran down her neck.

I reached Greyhoof to resume our conversation.

“I am not pleased with this, pegasus… you ask us to clear a den of pseudodogs plus two grants of cash in exchange for ONE PDA… looks like you are getting the better end of the deal”

“Too bad then…I’m not forcing you two to take on the job, I just offer the choice. If you are discontent with it, just bring me four thousand bits in two days and the PDA is yours. If you change your mind, my scouts told me that the victim was dragged onto the forest east of here; you should start your search there. Of course, if you wish to.”

I shook my head. “We’ll think about accepting the job or not.”

He turned away, eyeing his own workers working at the base of a nearby pile, before focusing his look at the radsuit wearing one scavenging atop it.

“I’m not such a bad guy; you know… some folks out here have grown pretty fat off me.”

“Some have grown to be pretty nutritious dogmeat” The redhead mare snipped

“If you think that we bandits make the garbage a bad place, you should had seen it before we came around. Nopony paid much attention to it, until a lucky bastard scavenged out an abandoned UN cache. All kinds of good stuff: Canida issued rifles, Eagleland forces sidearms, even explosives from Baghdrag …When word got around, all stalkers flocked off to here en masse, each one looking for his own share of “phat lewt””

“What’s bad about it? They just wanted their fair share of the goods… even willed to scavenge them out.”

“Scavenge? They weren’t even able get in consensus. This place was a huge mess, with stalkers shooting each other every time they found out something of value. That’s no way to do business. This ended when my crew came around and set up a few rules. If we hadn’t done it, by now, they would have already shooted and bombed their own asses back to pre-discord age. You see, the Zone needs order, regardless of who enforces it… you may frown upon our methods, but this way, the stalkers live longer”

“Live longer so you can squeeze them harder for profit…”

“Mercmare, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that order costs serious money. My boys need bullets, food, shelter… and also, where do you think I get the funds to pay the likes of you?”

His radio sprang to life.

“Boss, there’s a pack of dogs heading into the camp!”

“Damn it! Defensive positions everypony! Anon, at me boy!”

The brown dog dashed and stood behind its master. The bandits sheltered themselves behind walls, vehicles and sentry-boxes. All of them were pointing their weapons east, to the forest past the small swamp

Then they came, rushing toward patches of green. Numerous blind dogs, with their crimson, brown, grey and albino coats distinguishing them apart from the landscape. Three ochre-furred pseudodogs were leading the pack with vicious might.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE… RATTLERATTLERATTLE….

The pack broke up, splitting off to attack each one of us.

STKUP! Choo! STKUP!

Lielle’s spike crossed the chest of the beasts. The body quickly tumbled onto the dirt.

“You’re not too shabby yourself, Maremerc!” Whistlebone said

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…RATTLERATTLE….

The dogs were quickly being culled by our weaponry, but they didn’t give up. One of the pseudos climbed atop a vehicle, leaped down at the other side and sunk his teeth at the bandit taking cover behind the chariot.

His teammates quickly tossed a grenade at the bloody mess while the mutant was busy feeding himself.

BOOM!

Blind dog after blind dog befell… but the things wouldn’t stop coming. Without killing all the pseudos, they would relentlessly attack us.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE….. RATTLERATTLERATTLE….

All my shots missed. The pseudodogs leaped and rushed around unnaturally, charging to bite and then leaping back. They were damn crafty and quick.

Two bandits were wounded by their bites. We were lucky to stand aside Greyhoof, on the middle of the camp.

STKUP! Choo! STKUP! Choo!

Lielle was defending the wounded olive stalker. His scent of blood made him a preferential target for the canines.

“They are coming through the walls!” Some stalker yelled at the back of the camp.

When I turned around, I saw several blind dogs overwhelming one chained stalker… he was pretty much dismembered in instants.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE….RATTLERATTLERATTLE…

Now we were fighting in two fronts, the bandits were overwhelmed.

The two pseudos jumped over their confounded attackers and darted to Greyhoof. They were eyeing Anon behind him. The poor dog curled up behind it’s master.

Greyhoof prepared his wings, and all four SGi 5k’s pointed to the dogs.

“Suck on this, fleabags!”

TCHTCHTCHTCHTCHTCHTCHTCHTCHTHLEE…

In instants, there was nothing more than lifeless piles of mince around the camp. The remaining blind dogs ran away or had been dealt with quickly after their leader’s demise.

The bandits used medkits and bandages onto their wounded members, while Greyhoof turned to leave.

“Wait Greyhoof… is there someplace where we can get some supplies? If we consider taking up the job, we might as well be prepared.”

“Well, I own a bar at the depot. I’ve set two stalkers to run it for me, while they were in no shape to be slaves, they turned up to be pretty good barkeepers. If you two are in need of grub, just swing by it.”

I nodded. It was nearly three o’ clock and my tummy ached. I wasn’t looking forward to cook a meal around the internment camp because the smell would probably attract more dogs. So, I and my companion followed back the bandit leader into his depot.

============================== [><]=============================

The bar was the external fueling area I mentioned before. It was just a concreted annex of the main hangar, with a stair leading to a recently built second floor. Possibly the living quarters for the barkeepers.

Atop the doorway that led to the bar, a painted sign. It depicted a happy pseudodog in drunken coma, with three bottles of vodka around him. Under the sign, the bar’s name:
“The drunken hound”

Well, it was a bar, more so, it was a bar that was used regularly by bandits. So you guess that the smell wasn’t so pleasant. A mix of cheap vodka, tobacco, sweat and, at that particular day, strider skewer.

Numerous bandits were at the tables (huge rusted iron crates), playing cards, telling filthy jokes, smoking, chilling out , or, the most prevalent, getting hammered.

I and Lielle sat near the barrel-crafted counter. Behind it, we saw a cinnamon-colored earth pony mare washing dishes, and, with his face sank into the wood, some pint-sized reptile with deep red skin and grey scales. He was deep into sleep.”

“Another mutant?” I asked the azure mare.

“Nope. This one is a dragon. Quite a rare sight on the Zone…”

The barmaid finished with her work and came to us.

“Sorry, we’re out of skewer for today… can I serve you two something else?”

“I’ll have some canned oatmeal” Lielle answered

“I want some of your best hay… with mustard.” I asked in turn.

She took notes of the order. “Ok, I’ll be right away with them… the bar is kinda busy today, so please be patient.”

“Why is your copartner slacking off, then?”

“Oh… Toothpick is just a baby. He couldn’t sleep for the whole night…”

“And neither during the day. Stop yelling, will ya? My head is exploding…”

The drowsy dragon yawned lazily.

“Damn bandits… they partied the day before yesterday all the night, Greyhoof’s dog birthday. And not content with it, they threw an after birthday party yesterday. Who does that? I swear, if I hear that stupid fanfare song one more time, things won’t be pretty.”

“Come on… everypony have their spirits high a once in a while” Lielle smiled to him.

“You should had seen last month… they threw a party for a guy dropping alcoholism. They nearly drank the Zone dry… sometimes I think that bandits have four livers.”

Aaattt…. Aatttt…. ATCHOOO!

The dragon’s sneeze filled the air with a small flick of orange flame.

The barmare returned with our orders, leaving them to us, and then turned to the dragon.

“I told you a million times, Toothpick… close your window before sleeping!”

“Yea… I’ll try to keep that in mind next time, Talia”

He turned to rest his head onto the counter again, but the barmare was faster and put her hoof on the location before he could lay his head.

“You had your naptime, now be a dear and deliver this order.”

The diminutive dragon mumbled something, picked up the tray containing a bottle of vodka and some canned oatmeal.

He delivered it to some bandit at the corner, he handed the dragon a few coins and Toothpick stored them onto a pocket at his belt, the only piece of clothing he was wearing.

Aaattt…. Aatttt…. ATCHOOO!

This time, the flick carbonized the bandit’s meal.

“Erm… sorry?”

The bandit gave an angry gaze at the dragon, then broke in pursuit at him. The duo turned tables upside down, wrecked a few crates and broke empty bottles in their insane drift. Toothpick was able to keep a good distance due to his stature, but eventually, the bandit caught up with him. He picked up the dragon and started to strangle his neck, Toothpick’s eyes popped from his face, his tongue flailed wildly.

“Why, you little…”

A sentinel nearby rushed to them and broke off. He held the bandit while Toothpick gathered some breath.

“Whoa, what’s the problem here?”

“This little prick has scorched my meal!”

“Is that true, Toothpick?”

“It was an accident, I swear it…”

“Like I haven’t heard that one a zillion times before…”

I rose from my chair and went to the group.

“Guard, I saw everything…”

“Keep out of this, merc. This is bandits business.”

I picked up a bill of money and hoofed it to the customer.

“Here, that shall cover your order…”

And I hoofed a second bill to him

“And this one, the misbehavior”

The customer just shrugged and left.

“Next time somepony calls me for small shit, I’m complaining to Greyhoof. Understood, Toothpick?”

The dissatisfactory dragon just nodded. The sentinel returned to his post. As soon as he turned, the dragon showed his tongue

Then, he eyed me, still massaging his throat.

“Thanks for bailing me out, merc. But I could have handled it by myself.”

“In your dreams” Talia’s voice came from the counter. “Serves you right for being reckless enough to catch a cold.”

She smiled to me. “But anyway, it isn’t everyday that we have such generous visitors… where are you two lovebirds coming from?”

My face steamed in seconds. “We come from the cordon… just traveling around the zone, doing odd jobs, picking loot, staying alive. You know, stalker business. My name is Boshan, and she is Lielle”

The redhead mare waved her hoof and smiled. “Hi”

“Oh, I see… well, if you two ever need supplies or information, ask us.”

The dragon put a smug grin on his face.

“Ask me, she meant. I know all the gossip about the factions” he lowered his voice “And some more”

Lielle just laughed at the adorable reptile. “You probably won’t interest him. Boshan is nearly oblivious about faction relationships”

The dragon cocked his head. “It’s rather straightforward. Duty wants to destroy the Zone, Freedom wants to destroy Duty, bandits just try to shovel money whenever they can and lone stalkers struggle to survive all this shit.”

“I saw today a detachment of freedomers attacking a group of dutyers for no reason whatsoever…”

“Well, that’s typical. They fight to maintain free access to the Zone by everypony.In their vision, the Zone is a gift from Mother Nature, which should be shared equally by all ponies. They hate the ecologists for hogging all the secrets of the Zone for themselves, and they churn Duty for annihilating the Zone bit by bit, saying that their onslaught will only further enrage the Zone and be the damnation of everypony. In synthesis, freedom is a bunch of anarchists, daredevils, outcasts and hippies tied together in their “free-love” community that is against anypony that tries to set dibs on the Zone, namely Duty or the military. Well, they aren’t very much organized or skilled like duty…but Freedom’s strength lies in their numbers. They are the biggest crew set up on the Zone.”

“And the boys in red, duty? How they have gotten those sweet exoskeletons?”

The dragon looked around, certifying that no bandit was interested in our conversation

“Since you helped me out, I’ll give you that info for free, merc. Duty is supplied by the army. That’s why they have all that state-of-art gear, there’s common interests between the two groups.”

Lielle gasped at the revelation. I mused to Toothpick to continue.

“That doesn’t surprised me much, knowing that they are ex-military themselves. Ah, Duty… what’s to know about it? They are the self-titled heroes of the Zone, having fed up with the contempt of stalkers and started fighting off hordes of mutants in their holy war against the Zone. In their eyes, the Zone is a plaguing disease that threatens to consume our very world if nopony fights back. Unlike freedom, they actually help stalkers fighting off muties and bandits, but also, they walk around thinking they goddamn own the Zone, acting like friggin’cops, roughening on people loitering around and everything. They are good guys individually, but thrown together, they are a bunch of dimwitted fanatics that shoots first and then shoot some more until the enemy is dead, no matter if it’s a mutant or a pony”

Perhaps the biggest danger around weren’t the Zone itself, but a pissed off dutyer. Crossing them seemed like a quick way to a coffin. Freedom’s excuse for fighting them was probably to declaw Duty’s supermassive firepower, their tool to force order and control around the Zone.

“Yep, they’re quite the proud lot around Hoofstok…” Lielle commented.

“Haven’t you heard? Duty has left Hoofstok for good.”

“No way… they held that area with their entire faction. Only a buffed Freedom raid would stand a chance against them.”

“Even more surprising, it wasn’t them what caused Duty to leave…”

“Then who it was? Hoofstok is clean of anomalies and everything; it is the perfect spot for a base.”

“Was, until they begun poking around the sewers. I’ve heard some loners cracked open a bloodsucker lair down there. Damn beasts had no effort in overpowering them. And even started to reach the surface, causing havoc among dutyers. While they could have fought them off, they simply decided to leave. Isn’t that weird? I guess they aren’t so tough after all, fearing pussy bloodsuckers and everything… They left off and set shop into the agropony research institute. And Freedom took their spot; the anarchists teamed up with loners and wiped up the town free of bloodsuckers…although from time to time the monsters down there stir up.”

“That must have pissed off the dutyers…”

“Heh…certainly it did. Those two clans are like black and white, only agreeing over one single thing.”

“That ketchup is the best meal condiment?”

Toothpick facepalmed.

“Not that, Lielle, that’s how your name is spelled, right? What I mean is that both of them believe that the Zone is alive.”

“Alive? Doesn’t seem very playful to me.” I commented.

“Tell me about it. I personally think that they are full of shit… the jarheads believe that it is a parasite that keeps growing and growing like an ulcer, while the pigs consider it an manifestation of nature itself. Gaia, terra or any other moronic hippie nomination.”

“But going on… the bandits are pretty much the group of weakling-cracking bullies around, our gracious hosts. The stalkers are the bread n’ butter folk, just trying to make a living in the Zone. You’ve met the military already, right? They aren’t the friendliest buddies around. ”

I nodded.

“Then, there are the mercs, serious mercs. Technically, they aren’t a faction, but multiple autonomous detachments. The Zone’s own soldiers of fortune. Mercs will do anything for the bits; even eat pseudog leavings if the pay is good. They are relentless and secretive about their activities, but I’ve got some juicy stuff about them… although this one will cost you.”

“I’ll pass.”

Lielle glared at me with her big silvery eyes.

“No. I’m trying to keep the two thousand for the PDA plus a bit for survival needs.”

She frowned. “Well, then I’ll spend my own.”

She picked a few rumpled bills from her saddlebag and handed it to the dragon.

He examinated them and tossed onto his pocket.

“Here it is. According to my sources, some mercs have a hub at the dark valley. They stashed a real loot goldmine at a deactivated lab.”

Lielle put up a serious face and nodded. “That’s interesting. When we come around those parts, let’s check it, Boshan.”

I silently nodded, making a mental note to NOT do it. Pissing off mercs… like I needed to be hunted around the Zone…

“And as a side note, the ecologists. Eggheads who study the Zone and perform scientific research. They employ stalkers from time to time to do errands, since they can’t do shit by themselves without dying. I guess that wraps up factions 101…”

“Not yet, there’s one faction left…”

She was right. The dragon didn’t mention Limpid Skies.

“Oh, if you are really into THAT detailing, there’s the Monolith “faction”. Nothing to worry about them, just a bunch of screwballs that wandered around and preached their crap to other stalkers… like how the Zone is represented by a magical monolith that can grant wishes to anypony who reaches it, and how the entity named them protectors… that’s where all that legend of the wish granter started from… yea right. It’s more plausible that a chaos god made them believe that a stone was alive than all their bullshit. So, in order to prove devotion to their boulder, they went past the brain scorcher, toward the NPP itself and nopony has seen them ever since. They certainly melted off their nutshell brains at the attempt.”

Why he hadn’t mentioned Limpid Skies? Were they that secretive, able to elude their presence into the Zone that well? I remembered Ameara’s words about their faction relationships:

“I hope you do not mind the grey scheme, I did it because some of the stalkers on the mainland aren’t really fond of Limpid Skies.”

Yea… but segregating themselves from the whole Zone… why? Fear? Distrust? My mind boiled with questions.

“Come on, everypony knows that the wish granter isn’t a legend, it is real.”

“It’s just a stupid story for drunkards and dreamers… there’s no such thing.”

“What is the whish granter?”

Lielle and Toothpick fell silent, also, the entire bar fell silent as well. Have I said it too loud? Every look fell on me

My companion was the first to speak.

“You don’t know about the wish granter? And you yet consider yourself a stalker, Boshan…seriously.”

Toothpick opened his mouth to speak, but Lielle raised her hoof.

“Don’t worry, I got this one covered.”

She opened her saddlebag and brought a guitar. Oh no…

The mare started to fiddle the strings.

OOOOhhhh…. Wish granter…
Sweet dreams are made of it…
Who are unbelievers to disagree?
Stalkers travel the entire Zone and them some more…
Everypony is wishin’ for something…
Some of them desire hills of money…
Some of them want tons of artifacts…
Some of them set their sights for eternal fame…
Others seek limitless power…
And some ponies just wish for a shitload of vodka!
Just open your mind, and the wish granter shall concede…
Your innermost desire... turned reality!
What more could you dream about?
Reaching the center is without precede!
Just watch out not to end like a monolithian…
Deranged brain, another tark to roam the Zone…

The awkward silence continued.

“It’s a work in progress…”

Judging by the quality, she started working into it five seconds ago…

“The wish granter is just this? A genie-like stone that grants wishes to whoever reaches it?”

“Yup. I know it looks silly, but stalkers take it seriously. A lot of them consider it to be their lifetime goals. By the way, do you know what I would wish if I ever reach it?”

“I don’t know… brain surgery?”

She punched my forearm. OUCH! I spent all my focus trying not to moan, only to fail miserably. I massaged the bruised area, while she turned to finish her meal.

Toothpick smiled. “I can see you two are no mercs… why are you guys working under Greyhoof’s wing?”

I turned the question back to him

“Why are YOU working under his wing? You hate the bandits, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but they keep me safe… and there’s the bits. Running a bar for these guys is pure profit, and it sure beats working into the piles. Although I can’t stand some of the types around… once in a while a decent fellow like you two appear. Yeah, like the guy I knew other day. A pegasus bud named Walrov, real decent fellow. He told me stories from all around the Zone, the guy is a guide, a real one… knows his way out of one of those underground vaults, blindfolded. So, there’s my reason. What is yours?”

“Greyhoof has something we want.”

“Good luck with that. He usually ends up on the sweeter side of a deal.”

“Tell me about it…”

I picked up the PDA. Five o’ clock. I couldn’t afford to waste my time looking for options… damn Greyhoof.

I lifted up and left some bits on the counter as payment for the food. I started trotting away, but I turned back to Talia.

“Say, have you got some soy sausages for sale? I might need a snack later.”

I paid for them and waved goodbyes to the two barkeepers, then I checked the PDA’s map for the forest… it was near the small swamp we visited earlier today.

“All packed up?”

The redhead mare nodded.

============================== [><]=============================

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…RATTLERATTLE….

The blind dogs howled in agonizing pain.

I turned on my flashlight. Although the daylight still poured, the thick forest enveloped us in darkness.

We had been walking around it clueless for some time now. Maddening howls came from behind every tree, multiple bestial eyes glared at us from the darkness.

RATTLERATTTTLERATTTTLE….RATTTLERATTLE….

STKUP! STKUP!

It seemed useless… for two deceased dogs, many more lurked into the darkness.

“Bastard varmints are toying with us!” Lielle said.

I nodded. “And there’s nothing we can damn do about it…” RATTLERATTLE….

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…. RATTLERATTLE….

GROUWLLLL!!!

The beefy beast dived to me, forcing all it’s incredible strength onto my backside. Its maw closed onto flesh. I shook with all my force while the beast clawed and tried to keep grip.

“Bosah! Keep quiet! I can’t get a shot at him!”

She aimed the stake thrower at me.

“NO, NO!”

STKUP!

The stake hit the beast head, shutting it’s breath down. Miraculously, the projectile didn’t hit me.

“NEVER… DO… THAT… AGAIN. EVER. I COULD HAVE BEEN IMPALED!”

She just looked at me, wishing for forgiveness. “Sorry… I should…” Tears appeared on her eyes.

WOULF! WOULF WOULF!

“BRACE YOURSELF, MORE INCOMING!”

RATTLERATTLE….RATTLERATTLE…

STKUP, STKUP, STKUP!

The dogs were retreating and clawing at us… they dashed around us from all sides, emerging and disappearing into instants.
Fighting into the forest was insanely frustrating. We were forced onto retreating with the rabid beasts howling at our hooves.

“This is yielding no result at all, Lielle.” I said while using a medkit at the bite wound and some bandages at the scratches. I tossed one medkit at her too.

“You know, they are hungry. These beasts will stalk their prey into hell itself to stave the needs of themselves and their pack.”

“And the fact they are used to fighting on the forest doesn’t help us one bit… we should had burn it to the ground… kill the beasts with fire.”

“That way, the suit would be destroyed too…”

I nodded. It was the unpleasant truth, and as long as Greyhoof possessed the PDA, I was his bitch. This made everything harder, so insanely hard…

I opened my pack, remembering about that bottle of vodka. But then my eyes spotted something there…

“Yes, that’s the solution! Lielle, you are a genius!”

I kissed the mare’s cheek. She reddened.

“I am? What are you planning now?”

“Look and see…”

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…

Yes, exactly what I needed. The springboard anomaly we’ve came across earlier.

I wasted no time in floating the burner, a plate and the sausages out of the saddlebag,

“This is no time for lunch!”

“SHHHH, keep close to me.”

I turned on the burner and tossed the sausages onto the plate, they fizzled and in instants, the air was filled with their scent.

“Why do you think it will work? It’s soy!”

“They are dogs, and more so, they are blind. I don’t think they are the pickiest eaters around…”

Keeping a keen telekinetic grip at the plate of smoked sausages, I hid myself at a nearby bush.

WOOF, WOOF, WOOF!!!

The dog jumped at the plate, only be caught onto the anomaly. Now, the canine lied lifeless onto the mud.

GRWOUL! WUFF! WUFF!!

Gregarious beasts are gregarious… after that successful prey; numerous dogs were caught onto the trap. For cunning hunters, they were surprisingly irrational when I offered a juicy bait. That should help clear up their presence at the forest.

The whole fun only ended when a nifty pseudodog tipped off the plate, its contents spilled onto the springboard and wasted away by the anomaly.

RATTLERATTLE… CLICKCLIKCK!!...

I desperately looked into the saddlebag… no ammo!

STKUP! STKUP! STKUP!

BANG BANG BANG!

The mare reached over the body of the dogs. She stared northwest.

“I believe they came from that way…”

I pulled my knife and stashed some of the pseudodog tails, then I picked up my plate and the burner too, not too bad for the wear.

Most of the pack had been dealt with, both by Greyhoof and his bandits earlier and by my trap. But there was still the matriarch… and I was all out of rifle bullets.

After a new walk across the dark, deadly and cold forest, we found it.

At an embankment below, several corpses were laid onto the roots of a fallen tree, being dragged under it and sequentially torn asunder when the pack needed. The orange suit was easily spotted among them. The poor bastard had his wings ripped off…

Three pseudos were guarding them, while the monstrous albino matriarch comfortably sat near her ugly-ass puppies.

“Hand me an explosive…”

Lielle hoofed one of her grenades to me…

I measured distance and…

BOOM!

The blast killed off two pseudos, while the third dashed to Lielle…

STKUP! STKUP! STKUP!

BANG BANG BANG!

… or more exactly, dashed to his own death.

The matriarch growled at us… soon, the huge beast was moving, surprisingly fast for it’s enormous structure. She pawed me.

The wolf-like beast was strangely powerful, as she tossed me several meters back with her strong tackle.

STKUP! STKUP!

Damn beast was too fast for this… the stakes stuck on trees, never hitting the animal.

BANG BANG!

The goddamn mutant just shrugged off the shots as it rushed to me, it’s maw wide open…

YIP, YIP, YIP!

The confused beast turned to face Lielle. She was holding one of the puppies…

GRAUWLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!

It broke chase and rushed back to protect it’s puppies.

Lielle held high the pup, while the pseudo maneuvered quickly, trying to flank her.

The matriarch lunged at Lielle, pawing her back and landing at the other side.

The mare lifted her weapon, firing it while the mutant was preparing for a new jump.

STKUP.

GROULF! GROUWLWOULF!

Now, it was held onto the floor. It’s paw crossed over by an iron stake held her firmly to the ground.

BANG

Good riddance…

“What should we do about them?” Lielle pointed to the pups, still oblivious about the fate of their mother.

“Leave them be. The forest still has a few pseudos roaming around. With luck, they will grow up to be a pain in Greyhoof’s ass. The bastard deserves it.”

I started to loot the corpses. Hopefully, a few rifle rounds were to be found.

And then, I reached the body wearing the radsuit.

The smell was unbearable… the blind dogs, for some strange reason (and true to their namesake) rumped the suit entirely… its exterior was filled with strange and unsavory substances… apart from this, it was quite structurally intact. The body had the wings ripped off. Near it, a broken PDA.

I examinated the broken screen. That machine had been repeatedly stomped over by a dog.

Turning over, I could make out an inscription at the back…

“Propriety of Olaf Walrov, explorer extraordinaire!”

You have to be fucking kidding me…

============================== [><]=============================

It was already dark when we reached back the depot. Judging by the lights and sounds, the bandits were more active during that time. Stupid party animals…

I dropped the corpse at Greyhoof’s wagon. The bandit looked at it, then spoke.

“Merc, let me ask you a question…”

“Shoot it.”

“When you took your sweet time dragging your ass to here… did you happen to notice a sign outside my wagon that said “dead stalker storage”?

“Greyhoof, the only si…”

He raised his hoof. “That’s because there’s no such sign, do you happen to know why?”

“Why?”

“’Cause storing dead stalkers ain’t my fucking business, you dipshit! I told you to bring me just the suit, not the wormfood as well! Good god! Now this scum will be goddamn stinking my wagon, thanks a lot!”

He pushed a button at the intercom

“And living with a pseudodog did great improvements to the aroma, indeed…” Lielle muttered under her breath.

I used all my energy to remain serious. “Well, there’s your suit… and here’s the cash”

I offered the two thousand bits.

The bandit leader shook his head. “A deal is a deal…” He opened the drawer and handed over the PDA to me, taking his money in turn.

“No refunds, merc”

“Yes boss?” Toothpick was standing at the door

“Dispose of the body and clean up the suit…I want it pristine as soon as possible”

Toothpick shooed away Anon. The pseudo started sniffing the body as soon as I dropped it.

The dragon worked his claws at the suit, delicately opening it…

That’s when he saw it. I noticed when realization struck across his face… Toothpick realized that this was the body of one of his friends.

“Why are you taking so damn long, Toothpick?”

“J…just some straps…heh… ok, I think I’ve got it.”

With all the care of the world, the dragon headed out carrying the body and the suit.

============================== [><]=============================

“I’m sorry for your loss, Toothpick.” The azure mare put her hoof on his shoulder.

“It’s… okay. Thank you Lielle. It is a part of the cycle of life on the Zone… like searching for loot, fighting against mutants or exploring it’s secrets…one day or another, we have to bury a friend as well, if there’s enough left of him to bury.”

He stared at the improvised grave, scantly illuminated by a candle. The dragon was quite a good digger, being able to dig off a cove in half an hour. We brought an iron plate from the debris pile, on which Toothpick promptly scrawled the epitaph:

“Here lies Walrov, now set off to explore a better place”

Toothpick wiped his tears. “You know… the Zone takes friends from our hearts, but also… brings friends as well. Thank you, Boshan and Lielle. You two have done me a great favor. I will not forget about this.”

“Eh… Toothpick, now that you mention, you could do something for us…”

“And what do you need?”

“Not much, just a place to crash for tonight.”
“You two can use the top floor above the bar, if you don’t mind the noise…”

“Thank you.” and I shook his hand.

“No, thank you.” He said back.

============================== [><]=============================

I awoke with a sudden jump! My head was nearly killing me, and the fanfare song downstairs wasn’t helping one bit. I tried to remember the dream while wiping off the cold sweat. Okay, there was a fight, a gunfight. I was onto it, fighting against numerous other ponies… I was alone, trying to hold them off… there was a sense of hurry, to open some door… also blood, I don’t know if my own or theirs, was running around my neck… I was wearing a dark armor, yes… with no helmet… damn. It’s all confusing now.

The Zone was really getting into me. Hallucinations, nightmares…

I slowly climbed off from the bunk. Lielle was still deep asleep below me, and Toohpick was snoring nearby, his body spread into an exquisite posture and his tongue laying off his mouth. Talia wasn’t around; the mare was taking care of the night shift.

The window near the dragon’s bed informed me it was early morning. It was still dark, but the sun started pouring little by little onto the piles of garbage.

I carefully moved around the room, taking care not to wake up Lielle or Toothpick, picking up my saddlebags on the way out.

This entire stress dealing with the dogs has left me staving… too bad I wasted all the food on the trap. I reached a free table on the bar, taking some time to observe the few regulars that still were around and the drunkards who fell asleep onto their seats.

I examinated my possessions. The PDA proved to be a dead end. It was Searinor’s, alright, but the only archive it contained was a sound file with indiscernible whispers, I’ve heard it six or seven times, with the volume set on the maximum, but it was too low, I couldn’t distinguish a word of it. And on top of that, I only had twenty bits left. Greyhoof had milked me good… clever bastard.

My belly grumbled in revolt. I hoofed deeper onto my pack, until I reached something… it was edible, of sorts… well, it wouldn’t be as tasty as sausages, but if I poured a little vodka to disguise the taste…

============================== [><]=============================

“Hmmmm… I don’t know what to think of it, Boshan. Beats me. Sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”

I took the PDA and stashed it back. Toothpick had listened the recording twice.

“But I know some guys who might be able to help you with that…”

“Really? Who?”

“The boys from…”

The intercom came to life.

“Toothpick, leave the merc alone with your silly antics, I need to see him PRONTO!”

The dragon turned to the radio.

“Right away, boss”

Then, he turned back to me

“We’ll talk later, Greyhoof doesn’t like waiting.”

I went to the train cart alone. Lielle was still asleep, the events from last night have exhausted her.

Greyhoof lifted from his chair and stood at my front. He measured me up and down with his glare.

“Merc, if you’re up for some more action, I have another job. If you can do it, I’ll hand over your two thousand bits back.”

I eyed him distrustfully. His last job was tougher than nails, and I somehow had the feeling that he would be getting the best side of the deal again.

“Don’t worry; it doesn’t involve killing anything this time, at least in principle.”

“Then, what it is?”

“I’m moving some workers around the Zone, merc. My crew has secured a nice spot on the dark valley, we are thinking of reallocating our base to over there”

He reached the map and pointed to a location southeast of our position. It was close to the cordon border, and yet, was far from Duty and Freedom’s bases. This way, they would just focus onto their war and leave the far away bandits alone…

“What I need you to do is escort the convoy. I will send some of my fighters as well to help. Do it and the money is yours.”

I thought a bit about his proposal.

“Deal, but with one condition…”

“And what is your condition?”

“I need half the amount in advance, you know, to gear up for the trip.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable… you can’t trek without food or water, fine enough. But one thousand is too much, seven hundred and fifty should be more than enough, here, have the five hundred you asked and let’s not talk about it anymore.”

He handed me over the meager amount… Dammnit Greyhoof!

“The convoy leaves at noon, get ready yourself. And merc, one more thing…”

“Yes?”

“Drink AFTER you complete the job, got that?”

I nodded and left the train cart.

============================== [><]=============================

“Yes, that is perfect! It is the perfect opportunity!”

“Don’t tell me you are thinking about…”

Toothpick leaned closer and whispered furiously

“Yes, I am. Don’t you see, Boshan? It is the perfect chance to break free from Greyhoof’s claws! The crook is finally getting desperate, he knows that either Duty or Freedom will end up fraging all his ponies on a crossfire, he knows that without guards or slaves, he ain’t got anything!”

I had my doubts. Although I really hated Greyhoof, I couldn’t help but to fear him as well… he had an entire cadre of bandits at his disposal, and snipers eyeing everything around the garbage. Toothpick really had guts to even think about crossing him.

I knew that Lielle would support the dragon, seeing how the mare loathed Greyhoof as well… ah, to the hell with it. Maybe this could cripple the bandits so bad, that they would break up as a faction. Although if it didn’t, I’d have an entire faction hunting my ass across the Zone…

“Have you got a plan?”

“Yes, and a nice one at that. Knows who supplies the snipers with their booze?”

Of course… smart and simple. Toothpick detailed his plot about drugging off the snipers, taking out the convoy guards and then making a run for the flea market, a stalker-held post some kilometers away from the depot, where the loners would be safe and secured to wander back to the cordon or further deep into the Zone.

It sounded flawless, but then, every plan sounded so…

“So, are down for it?”
“Yes, count me in. although I don’t like the prospects of pissing off the bandits…”

“Don’t worry; these bastards will never know what killed them.”

So I hope.

============================== [><]=============================

The sun was almost unbearable

He had been walking for hours, the convoy rolled around the wastes, with the bandits carefully eyeing every living being that showed up, while slaves moved around dragging their chains.

So far, no disturbances, apart from a few mutants, which we shooed away with gunfire.

“Lielle, are you ready? The moment is upon us”

She nodded

“Get in position and wait for the signal”

She posted herself beside one of the bandits on the right side of the convoy. We were currently guarding the rear.

“Guard, oh guard!”

“What do you want now, dragon?”

“I need to take a leak!”

“We cannot afford any more delays”

“Please dude, I’m really desperate…”

The bandit resignedly opened his shackles.

“Be quick about it.”

“With pleasure!”

Then, Toothpick lunged and clawed the bandit’s frail throat with his sharpened claws.

“NOW!”

I stabbed the sentinel’s back, while Lielle staked the other one.

PLUCHT!!!

The sniper was helpless. His shot missed us by several yards.

“Traitors! Kill them, boys!”

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE…..RATTLERATTLE!!!

The rest of the guards turned to face us, their guns roared in our direction and ours roared back at them as well. Toothpick was wielding the AK he took from his kill.

“Do not shoot the slaves! They are Greyhoof’s propriety!”

RATTLERATTLE…..RATTLERATTLE…..RATTLERATTLE!

The wind then roared as a storm approached. Thunder crackled with immense strength. A lightning appeared in the skies and blurred everypony’s vision…

“Run away! RUN! BACK TO THE DEPOT!!!”

The bandits rushed past us, dashing back to their base…

“Why are you standing around, Boshan? A blowout is brewing! Come!”

Lielle grabbed my hoof and dragged me. Toothpick and Talia had already gathered the other slaves; we were heading to the flea market, now I could see it. a ruined and broken structure. The weather was worsening at each instant, the terrible force menaced to befall upon us…

“Hurry, hurry, into the basement!”

A stalker held the door opened, musing for us to enter.

We did so without second thoughts. Everypony entered the shelter as quickly as his hooves allowed.

I glimpsed the deathly red sky before the iron door closed.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the door opened again, and a stalker crawled from it. After he cautiously eyed around, he mused to us. All clear.

“Phew, we were almost goners this time.”

I nodded. Although I had experienced a blowout before, an even lived after being hit by it, the experience never ceased to infuse me with fear…

“Looks like everyone is alright… and we sent the bandits running back home!”

Toothpick approached us, his teeth grinning.

“Brilliant! Now we’ll have some peace from those folk. Thanks for the help, mercs. He’s a little something for your troubles.”

He handed over a few cans of much-needed food.

“So, what are you planning to do now?”

“Lay low for awhile, enjoy my liberty and such.”

“Say, Toothpick, you were mentioning something about this…” And I lifted the PDA

“Ah… you should see the boys from freedom about it. I’ve heard they are quite the experts with these gadgets.”

“They are at Hoofstok, right?”

“Exactly. Just follow the road that leads north and you two will see Hoofstok soon enough”

We waved goodbyes at them and moved on with our journey.

“Do you think they will ne alright without us?”

“Surely. Toothpick is quite the fighter, and the mare is no pushover herself… and also, they will be among the other stalkers and everything.”

I started to check her over…

“Why are you looking at me so much?”

“Lielle, know what?”

“What?”

“I like your new hairstyle.”

She laughed a bit.

“What’s so funny about it?”

“Oh, it’s not about you. I’m just imagining the look on Greyhoof’s face when he learns about the escape..."

============================== [><]=============================

Whistlebone dashed past the sentinels, entering Greyhoof’s cart. He panted for several minutes before speaking.

“Did you felt it, boss?”

“Yes. Damn the luck! Any news about the convoy?”

“The snipers weren’t able to answer. This was found near them.”
He handed over an empty bottle of vodka.

“What about it?”

“It reeks of… blue joke. Somepony has tainted them.”

Greyhoof took just some moments to make the connection.

“Toothpick! That little scalehead had drugged off my snipers!”

Greyhoof rose from his chair and started trotting around.

“He wouldn’t be able to pull it off alone… that little traitor must have had some help…”

“Positively. The mercs aided him.”

“What? Are you sure about it? I thought I had them at my hooves… a merc would never do anything that would compromise his source of cash. Do you realize what that means?”

Whistlebone nodded. “They were in cohorts with the stalkers all along.”

“Exactly. And now we have a mighty problem at our hooves…”

“What do you mean, boss? you still have enough ponypower to enforce control around the garbage.”

“Yes Whistlebone, but no slaves. I cannot send all my forces to gather some more without being vulnerable, and without the slaves, no money. Without money, my boys will abandon me faster than you could say “profit”. We are checkmated…”

“Boss, what’s that smell?”

“Just the body of a digger that the scum-loving merc dropped around yesterday…”

“No, that’s not it. Where is Anon?”

The two looked around the cart, until Greyhoof finally looked under his desk.

The dog was laying there, proudly sheltering half a dozen of newborn puppies.

“By Luna’s eight inches ejaculating horn! Anon is a female!”

Whistlebone restrained himself real hard not to say “I told you so”. After all, Greyhoof was the boss.

Greyhoof set his eyes onto the pups. Oh, if all these six puppies grown up to be as ferocious as their mother…

Something ringed in the pegasus’ head.

“Whistlebone, how did the merc got rid of the pseudos again?”

“He used soy sausages to lure them to a trap.”

“Do we still have any slave cages around?”

“Two or three, why?”

“We’ll need them. Also, gather some guards and all the meat you can find at the bar. I think I have an idea.”

“Boss, you got that look on your face again…”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- bestiary

#/filenam – Pseudodog

#/filedescript – An even more warped version of a dog than a blind dog, a pseudodog is the result of mutative influences experienced by wolves. Although they usually pack together with blind dogs, the two are entirely different species. Pseudodogs are prevalent around the Zone due to their pregnancy period of 14 to 21 days. Pseudodogs are faster, stronger and more cunning than their canine relatives, plus they have pointier teeth. Likewise the blind dogs, these beasts are fiercely territorial, attacking marauding stalkers with all their rage. Pseudodogs engage in combat by jumping and attempting to outmaneuver their opponents, confounding them with quick attacks and sharp moves, although some of them pack quite a punch when cornered. In sum, pseudodogs are not to be underestimated and prove to be formidable foes. A fast-firing rifle or shotgun is preferential when fighting these mutants.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. V: The harmony of anarchy

Author's note: wow, over two months without an update. sorry guys, I've been busy with exams and real life issues, and plus this whole GSC drama recently... well, anyway, here's the fifth chapter, a bit bigger that the other ones (Wow... 24k+ words? it was only 62 pages on word, just a bit more than the double of the last chapters lengths, perhaps there's something wrong with the word counter...), I intended it to be even bigger, but I decided against it and will add it to the next one. well, enjoy.

CP. V – The Harmony of Anarchy

“Friends from around the Zone, why not join the Freedom faction? The only faction where you will be finding true friends, who will never gonna give you up. Where else would you be liked for just being yourself? Join us and help Freedom on its quest to free the Zone”

The road led us toward a guarded checkpoint. Among the guards, the green scheme was dominant on their clothes; also, the same color was sprayed all over the structures’ wall around the checkpoint.

The Freedomers bunkered themselves behind construction props, blocking the road and setting guard around the sturdy iron gate which led to Hoofstok

One of said guards, an earth pony who was clad onto one of those fancy exoskeletons (but, unlike Duty’s, his was flecktarn colored with yellow plates), and a scoped SG-5k installed along the external frame of the armor. He was waving his hoof, signalizing for us to approach.

I faced Lielle and she shrugged

I drew near to the stalker, who promptly shook my hoof as soon as I came into his reach.

A euphoric feminine voice sounded from inside that armor, greeting us.

“Sup bro, whaddya two doin’? Looking to crash at our turf?”

“Something around those lines…”

“Well, make yourself at home, Stalker! At Freedom, we have – almost - no kind of prejudice. Just come in and knock yourself out!”

“Thanks… we could dig some rest….” I said while moving over

She held her hoof, holding our passage.

“Just a second. Keep your hooves and horns to yourselves, right? Start blasting your guns around, and, as much as I’d regret it, I am afraid we’ll have to “pacify” you in that case. You understand what I mean by that, right?”

I nodded

“Good pony. Now, while you’re around, why not join us?”

To which I promptly switched my gaze to Lielle, and before she could open her mouth, I answered

“We… shall consider it.”

“Take your time then… look around and know the gang”

She turned in to a much more humbly dressed Freedomer unicorn that stood by the gate, and nodded to him

In response to the gesture, he used his telekinesis to turn the handle, and by doing so, ascending the gate, allowing passage.

“Keep following the road, Stalker. The base is just a short trot ahead, but keep on your hooves. There are a few anomalies around…”

“Thanks for the advice. Hey, by any chance… do you guys have a technician around your ranks?”

“Technician? Oh, you mean a tinkerer! I guess that’s fitting for Dom, Dominic Silverwrench. The dude can treat your shooter real good, peak out it’s stats and all, if you’re into that and have the money”

Everything that I didn’t possessed… however, if he was willing to accept some of my goods in exchange…

“I’ll be seeing him, then.”

“Hey, if you do, tell him that I send my…”

The unicorn holding the gate grunted his displeasure. The poor fellow was holding it up since then…

“Oh, right… nevermind. Just go”

We trotted through it, and when we were at the other side, the gate dropped with a loud thud

Then, remembering what had been told, I started flinging the bolts around the road. They hit a whirlgig and two springboards right off the bat.

By now, using the bolts and circumventing anomalies has been assimilated as a second nature. In the Zone, you had to learn fast, or else you’d end as a mutant’s next meal…

“Well… would you look at that!”

The azure mare glared at me with her mocking silvery eyes.

“What now?”

She narrowed her eyes, while muffling a laugh

“I saw how you looked at that mare… you were totally checking her out”

“I wasn’t !”

“Was too!”

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

“Wasn’t!”

“The more you keep denying, the more you are affirming it!”

“How does that leaves me any chance to contradict you?”

“It doesn’t”

Seriously… now, I had the impression that she enjoyed embarrassing or pissing me off, if just for my reaction…

“She was under three layers of combat-designed power armor! I am pretty sure there wasn’t much eye candy to “check out!”

Her grin just grew bigger, and she lowered her voice, whispering at me.

“You have a fetish for mares in armor, don’t you?”

I steeled my glare and looked at her, overly serious.

“For the last time… I am not that kind of stallion. Now, cut it out.”

She dismissed my statement with a hoof and shook herself with a few more giggles

The road led us to a descent. What once had been luxurious, well kept gardens, filled with all kinds of exotic and exquisite flowers, now laid before us in decadence. Rotting from abandonment, the pavement was cracking, giving space to the savage, sprawling flora, which was taking over and growing like a plague against the few withered and pyrrhic flowers that struggled to survive. The road was the only relatively untouched landmark, albeit marred by dry blood. On the right of the “garden”, a huge pile of dirt, the result of a recent excavation onto it. Why some stalker bothered digging around it, was beyond me.

On the far end, after a plank bridge over a stake-filled pit, a compound of discolored, slate-grey, tightly closed structures. Possibly, what was Hoofstok.

I was crossing the “bridge”, when something caught the attention of my friend.

She was glaring at one of the sharp stakes, one which had a blind dog head over the tip.

“Something wrong?”

“Give a look at it…”

It was a dried disgusting body part, coming from an equally disgusting mutant. By the looks of it, the head was sitting there for quite some time (not that it had a choice…) A red crosshair was tattooed onto the forehead.

“That’s the – other – big faction, right? Duty?”

“Yep. It was their kill. From what I’ve heard, they always had trouble with dogs raiding Hoofstok. And yet, now that Freedom has moved in…” She looked around “There Isn’t any dog corpse around, or for that matter, not any signs of recent conflict…”

I shook my head.

“They are probably better at keeping the mutants at bay…”

“So it seems…”

At the entrance of Hoofstok, more Freedomers. They stood around the makeshift barricades, loafing around and playing guard with their TRs-301.

They simply nodded at us, nothing more, and gave passage

Among the scavenged barrier, a big metal plate sign particularly stood out. It was an ancient frayed sign, showing a purple-haired and white-furred unicorn mare, wearing a top hat and a warm smile, pointing to a message below:

Carrousel textiles & Co

Going by the only opened path, it funneled onto a tight passage. The buildings towered high above, and a multitude of awnings obstructed the afternoon sun. Inside those cramped corridors, it was dark as night. Also, they barely allowed two ponies to walk aside. To complete the set, they were littered with all kinds of trash: bolts, metal scraps, discarded food packages, torn rags, you name it. Nevertheless, we went in.

We didn’t trotted much, until we hit an “T” intersection. Thankfully, the wall in front of us was visible due to a purposely and conveniently placed hole on the awning above.

The wall had greed-painted messages all over, directions. They were painted over other messages, scarlet-colored messages.

Evidently, Duty’s, being obscured by Freedom’s own notes.

An arrow to the right informed: “Bar”, “Weapons”, “Rest”, “Mirror Lake”, “Wild Territory”
While the one to the left pointed: "Tinkerer”, “Chief”, “Medic”, “Wastes”

Nearly all of these locations were pretty obvious… except the two last at the first arrow and the last one at the second arrow. I suppose I should ask around about them later...

My immediate thought was to head straight to the “Tinkerer” and ask about the damn PDA already, but my rumbling tummy impelled me to the opposite direction, straight to the bar. Although I didn’t have – almost - any money, Toothpick had given me some canned food. It would be nice to know the atmosphere of Freedom while having it.

“So, we are heading to the tinkerer first, right?” My smirking companion asked

I thoughtfully gazed and answered her

“I was thinking about having lunch first. And while onto it, on the words of that mare… “know the gang” before making business”

She nodded in approval. “Seems like a good idea. I was always curious about how Freedom worked out anarchy and stood united…. Perhaps I can find somepony who can tell me more about it…”

I turned right and she happily followed

Hoofstok was a maze, literally. More dark and tight corridors, sometimes cutting through warehouses, catwalks, broken structures, offices… there were more paths, but most of them were blocked off by gates or huge piles of trash. Possibly a way to avoid being swarmed by mutants, or by hostile ponies… So, there was only one way through, leading us deeper. We spotted a few Freedomers setting guard here and there at the more spacious sections, and some loners as well, going on their business. Much to our relief, at every intersection there were more green arrows, pointing directions. They were easy enough to spot due to the pouring sunlight from the holes above that distinguished itself from the usual darkness. It was quite ingenious, really, although it wouldn’t work at night. They possibly had lights at strategic points, or something alike.

“Eck… so much trash. Couldn’t these ponies spare some time to clear a bit of it?”

I used my magic to help her shove the trash away from her path

“I mean, where does all of this stuff come from? Are they planning to turn Hoofstok into a junkyard or what?”

My mind popped at that question. I knew the answer… it came to me, as clear as water. It surfaced on my mind, my conscious quickly conjuring images to support an upcoming memory…

============================== [><]=============================

“The industrial revolution. A myriad of technological advancements spearheaded by the Earth Pony species, so that they could perform their mundane tasks with ease, without recurring to magic.”

“Exactly. Now have a seat, child.”

I obeyed without hesitation. Mrs (miss, actually…) Brownleaf towered upon all of us. She had that kind of imposing aura which befitted very well her occupation as a teacher.

I always wondered what made us give so much respect to the cream-colored strict unicorn mare. Perhaps it was her pristine combed brown mane, with the first tones of gray appearing. Or it could be her cutie mark, a heavy yellow ruler. The exact duo of the actual ruler she carried at all times, and used to strike onto her desk on the rare occasions that the class got unruly.

“Now, who can tell me what advancements, as Mr. Hollowbane said, came from said industrial revolution?”

The voices of my fellow unicorn classmates soared with various answers

“Engine-powered vehicles”

“Improved medicines”

“Manufacture”

“Firearms”

“Factories”

And the class continued to come up with more answers until Mrs Bronwload rose up.

“Ok, that’s enough”

And she started to write some of the answers onto the blackboard while commenting on them.

“Each one of these are pretty important. Where to begin? Hmm… engine powered vehicles, they are faster than your average pony, can carry more weight, do not tire, some can even fly. Their practical use on the earth pony routine is evident. Examples are the pedalocopter, the Aerial barge and the BTR”

“Improved medicines, or like I’d would put it, pharmacological and hospital care improvements, which obviously allow for an even more extended life expectancy for our already long lives, also, a better resistance and treatment against diseases and harm”

“Manufacture… or mass production. the ability to use machinery to perform serial production of a determined product. It is the heart of our economic system.”

“Firearms… well… offensive machines sanctioned for royal guard use only, used mainly for protection or hunting.”

“And… factories. Where the “magic” happens, well, as much magic as the pegasi and the earth pony rabble can muster… factories are the buildings where said products take form and are produced, using the manufacture system, which technology, like everything else in technology, is loosely based on unicorn magic, but instead of drawing power from the ether, technology employs raw materials as fuel”

And she unrolled a chart with a few figures: a barrel, a black stone, a waterfall and a glowing stick.

“Which are each one of these. Petrol, the sediment remains of old animals covered by layer and layer of soil by numerous years. Coal, a stone formed by sediment as well, forged in the pressure deep within the earth. Waterfalls, which are dammed to direct their waters to move generators and provide electricity. And last, biomagical energy, generated through a complex process by collecting waste magical energy produced by one’s spell, isolating the components of such waste and recombining them to produce highly energetic compounds. Yep, that’s recycling.”

She gave a long glare to the class

“Any questions?”

Nopony raised his hoof whatsoever

“Good, good….” She said while sitting down. “Remember to turn in your 20 pages assignments explaining how rainbow factories work, by next week. Class dismissed.”

Great… I was released from that extremely boring class…
That damn industrial revolution was such a new fad among the Canterlot School. Lectures and more lectures about it and it’s implications in pony life… like we needed to learn about that… we are unicorns, for Faust’s sake! Our magic outclasses any mechanical trinket they can come up with…

I wonder what the teachers used to teach their students before the revolution… probably stuff that was common knowledge nowadays, such as Luna’s betrayal, How wingpower works, Discord’s evil machinations of ages past, the history of cutie marks and their utility…

Altough… I could use a class about the last one… if it could a…

“Boshan, Boshan…”

The image itself begun to tremble, my thoughts being relocated back to reality, a grim reality which stood on stark contrast of the innocence of before… if only I knew back then…

============================== [><]=============================

“Are you there? Hello, talk to me!”

The earth pony mare, having pulled off most of the trash from her way by herself and reached me, now busied herself shaking me frantically.

The first thing I registered were her wide silvery eyes, eyeing me with keen curiosity

My head was aching… I moved a hoof to support it…

How many mental ailments I had to endure? Hallucinations, nightmares and now… a memory reflux! Something inside me was fucked up. What exactly had they done to my mind?

Reconciling a long forgotten past with the present wasn’t going to be and easy (or pleasant, for that matter…) task

“Are you alright?” she asked again “You seemed… lost in thoughts, paralyzed…”

I shoved away my thoughts and focused back onto her. “Yes… kind of it. It’s like… I am remembering”

“Remembering? You just stood there, without moving a muscle… you were starting to creep me out.” She remarked while resuming her trot

“The remembrance dates from before… before I was rescued from that… that place. The lab.” I said while keeping up with her pace

She nudged her head and told me back
“You mean, before you were rescued by stalkers and everything? What importance really does that have? Not much you can do about the past…”

I haven’t told her about Limpid Skies, having said that loners aided me and everything. Not that I didn’t trusted her, I was just being cautious about exposing the faction.

“But still so… I can’t help being at least curious about it. It is my only connection to my colthood… my past life… this… “ailment” and a few stray memories…”

“You should see a psychiatrist…”

“Ya think?” I rebuked with disdain

By that time, we already reached the entrance to the bar. An unappealing door-wide opening greeted us, with a name painted in green bold letters above.

“Brews n’ Blues”

The interior was much more spacious, it was some kind of underground storage warehouse or even a factory.

From the entrance, a metal stair led downstairs, while a broken catwalk led halfway in direction to the other side of the upper level. Peeking form above, we could see the lounge itself. Regarding cleanliness, it wasn’t much an improvement form the Drunken Hound, although they had proper benches , tables and a bar counter, instead of retooled props to serve as furniture. The place was bustling with activity, understandable, since, according from what I’ve heard, this freedom lot loved to lull around and indulge in the simple pleasures of life (boasting, eating, drinking…) during their free time.

We lowered to the base level and walked to the bar counter, in the hopes of finding free seats. The walls there were adorned with the freedom boar, anarchy emblems, the hippie symbol and other more exquisite charms as well, these mystical in nature, whose meaning was beyond my knowledge.

The wall near the bar counter had the enormous green-colored message “Freedom faction is best faction!” and around it, numerous sentences or notes form Freedom members, scrawled around the central one, in support of their faction.

Then, at last, we found two vacant benches by the counter. After laying down on them, I floated off my saddlebags and dug inside to serve myself of some canned dandelions. I offered one of the cans to Lielle, but she hastily refused.

“I have some cash on me… I want to try one of those dishes” She said while trying to get the barkeeper’s attention.

I shrugged and started eating my meal

In a few moments, her efforts were rewarded when a dusk-colored pegasus stallion neared us. He had an odd cutie mark, some wind of blue flower… probably form where the bar got its name.

“Hey, what ya be needin’…” He said only to stop mid-sentence and give us a good look. I could swear there was something wrong with those green eyes… they were twitching, looking at opposite directions, moving at an insanely fast pace… hell, those would have made the mole’s mad eye look natural in comparison.

“I never saw you two before… new friends?”

Lielle was quick to give her best smile and nod

And the pegasus opened in a twin smile

“Then bros, my smooth welcome to the spaceship we named Freedom. The place for your every cosmic needs , positive vibes and free love, dudes. Now, I can see you brought your own grub dude… that’s cool. And you, can I hassle your hunger up with some meal, sister?”

She seemed indecisive for a second, looking at the meal list attached at the wall, but then, she placed her order.

“One of those roasted potatoes filled with chilly beans”

“Groovy choice sister… now, what about a little something to get it down easier? A hard drink? Or grass… really good grass, if you get what I mean…”

That got me curious. “Grass? You mean spice?”

He just chuckled

“Food for the soul, brother” and he disappeared behind the counter, only to return with… a blue colored rolled joint.

“This stuff. It is cooler than cool, it brings laughter and velvet moonbeams, cotton candy clouds which rain chocolate milk , caramel rainbows and the sweet love of mother earth, flowing right from her warm nipple”

“What is that stuff exactly? Is that shit even legal?”

The pegasus chuckled some more. “100% natural unadulterated love. Coming from this sweet little flower” and he pointed to his own cutie mark.

“Blue hope is the name, I guess… Fo’ shizzle… this stuff is what kept me going swinging by, brotha. You see… before all this shit and the Zone, I really loved to fly, soar through the skies, swim into the big blue yonder… But then, someday… BANG! Some ungrovy negativeness showed by and we couldn’t fly anymore… I wandered around bro… yea, it was tough. No love in the zone dude, yeah… but then, I’ve found the best guys in the world… my guys, Freedom. True bros who know how to live the elbow. They shared everything with me… Fresh air, water, food, booze, love… they even told me about this miracle worker flower. And BOOM. Now I can fly high whenever I want without leaving the mother earth’s holy embrace. Even my body basked in the commune with Gaia, as my cutie mark changed into this miracle flower… yeah dude… that’s about it. Now I live to help others remove their strains from this oppressive reality… fight the equine! Care to try some?” and he offered his joint

There was something about his attitude… he seemed aside from this world, looking so distracted and everything… and the derped eyes… could it be the flower’s proprieties that caused it? in any case, I refused it.

“Maybe next time… we’ll just stick with the food”

“Whenever dude… anything else you need from… hey, what are your names?”

“Mine is Boshan Hollowbane”

“And mine is Lielle Crackgiggle, pleased to know you, mister…”

“Flower wave”

Flower ? That wasn’t a very usual name for stallions…

“I know what you two think, but I’m proud of it. I’ve downcast my old name when I learned the way of Freedom. Now, my name reflects my special connection with my brothers, a bond older than time, the bond of life. In result, I call everyone from their cosmic names. Which means, I’ll have to set you two with your own ones…”

Now this was officially weird… but hey, when in Hoofstok…

He put a hoof onto his chin and flipped eyes at us

“You, unicorn… I dig you. If you were a mare, or if I was higher, I’d totally do you, hot stuff.”

Great… an intoxicated pegasus stallion from Freedom was hitting on me. Now I had been thought everything. I could actually feel my dignity dwindling away… away… gone

“Which is why I should call ya… Sunshine Hotdog. Gratz for ya new name!”

Lielle was barely containing herself. She exploded into laughter and giggling, her eyes were even teary due to so much laughter

“And you… you are a pretty cool mare… too bad only unicorns are my type. Your cosmic name shall be Free Laugh”

“What? She has a much less ridiculous name… why is mine so much wor…”

“That’s how the cookie crumbles, bro. chill out, I just do mother nature’s bidding. You should take it on the lighter side of life, Hotdog”

“That’s exactly what I am always trying to make him do…” Lielle sighed “But no, he always keep this overly serious mysterious stallion act… just open a smile sometimes… it won't hurt.”

“Will that make you tone down your antics a bit?”

She took a moment to consider the deal…

“I promise to, if you try…”

My face ached in protest due to my current embarrassment, but I… smiled. I held it for some time, and then I dropped it.

“There. You happy now?”

“That’s… quite a good start. Keep training and you’ll get the hang of it”

“Ya looked pristine spit n’ shine, Sunshine. You should hear the mare more often”

Said mare beamed in pride while the pegasus left us to get her order.

“Sunshine…” She said while giving her mockingly amused glare

“Remember your promise”

To which she instantly shifted to a thoughtful expression

“That blue grass joint… can I try some later? He seemed really excited about it.”

“Not a chance. If it’s consumption causes half of the stuff that the pegasus said to appear, it will cause you a cardiac arrest from overexcitement or something like that…”

And as for me… my mind was already fucked up as it was without any external sources aiding it…

============================== [><]=============================

“This is the place? It’s awfully huge for a workshop…”

“Haven’t you followed the signs? Then, obviously, IT IS the place, you silly colt.”

I sighed. Hoofstok was literally an enormous maze. Confound all those corridors, alleys and everything…Makes me wonder how this place was before the disaster… possibly full of pegasus and earth ponies down on their luck, trying to earn they everyday dough on one of those unicorn-held factories, enduring poor safety conditions, starvation and such… at least, they had better living standards than us, the Zone dwellers…

Anyways… we finally reached the indicated workshop after endless drifting on the dark. It was a big, 5-story construction site. Gray-slated like much of the other Hoofstok buildings, this one stood above most of the others. The green arrows furthermore pointed inside

I just hoped that the mechanic wasn’t like the barkeep…

So, we entered it. On the middle of the building, a few broken down BTRs, their hulls split open and power cables erupting from their engines to a generator at the side. Possibly the source of all electrical output produced by Freedom… the arrows pointed upside the stairs.

After crossing several floors, I noticed that most of them suited the purpose of storage. Rusted hulls, scrap metal, chains, school desks. It seemed odd why a mechanic would need that much metal… I mean, he wasn’t going to build vehicles or anything. You’d have to be way out of your mind to consider driving around the Zone. One anomaly, and blam!

As I predicted, the actual workshop was on the roofing. Cramped, like Hoofstok itself, a multitude of apparel lay scattered. Three workbenches, boxes and boxes atop shelves, filled to the top with scraps, wrenches and the like. Around a corner, some lockers, a few chests and a bookshelf. Some bolts lay scattered around the floor. On the walls, schematics and pictures of technology, including armor. A framed message was particularly insightful:

“In order to create a decent IL, one must recreate the universe first”

Also, a makeshift targeting range was set at the other side of the room. Some ragdolls dressed on Duty’s colors and a blue circle painted on the floor, at some distance from them, to mark the position where the shooter was supposed to stand.

The technician, an orange unicorn stallion with black goggles, was using one of the workbenches; he was using a blowtorch to mold a marekarov into shape. Near his station, a lit lamp with a red and a blue strings

I was unsure how to approach him, as the stallion seemed really involved with his work…

I crept nearer and got a better look at him. His cutie mark was shaped like a… frying pan, and how odd, a frying pan throwing noodles into the air. I guess he was either into the snack or into cooking….

I patted my hoof at his back, which immediately stiffened. He stopped his craft and faced us.

“Are you Dominic Silverwrench?”

“Depends of who is asking… what business have you?” He answered with an uninterested tone.

“Oh… I so want one of these…” An excited squeak came from behind me.

Lielle was pointing at one of the pictures at the wall, the one depicting a stalker with one of those frames designed to support weaponry

“Ah… an excellent choice. I wonder why you don’t have one already…” The mechanic said.

“I wish I had… But they never let me buy one… said it was “too dangerous” for me… excuses, excuses…”

“Nonsense… if you know how to properly use them, they are as good as your mouth, or telekinesis, for that matter…”

Now that he mentioned it, it was really numbing how the heck the earth ponies and pegasus stalkers used those things with such ease… I suppose it wouldn’t harm to ask…

“Dom… how do these things work?”

Lielle gave me a look of pure unbelief

“You mean, you don’t know how the frame works too? Gosh… have you been living under a rock locked inside a safe which key was buried, which upon a house was erected and never inhabited due to an astronomical rent cost?” She moved her head with both disdain and contempt.

“It is okay…” Dominic gave me a condescending look. “Most of unicorns don’t really bother finding out about the frame’s workings, since we can just use our TK at will. But fair enough, if you’re interested, a little lecturing isn’t going to harm you”

He crossed the room, reaching the pictures and stood by the first one.

“This is the ancestor of the frame.” They were two slim pieces of flexible metal slabs, holding a bolted SMG at one of the ends and the other edge supported at the pony’s body by a collar. “This model dates from before the… accident. Commissioned by none other than Celestia herself, it was thoroughly imbued with magic. Basically, two metal “arms” that followed each motion swiftly and precisely, paired by an ease of use and a practical design. You see… it was originally used by photographers. Heh… only some time later, it was repurposed to be used in conjunction with guns… nowadays, almost nopony uses them…”

“Wait a second… you got me there. If it was easy to use, practical and accurate as well… why you don’t use it anymore?”

The technician answered with a smile. He obviously was enjoying the subject, which was his expertise. “It was practical for cameras… Not so much for weapons. For instance, there is this one thing called recoil. This particular frame was too much soaked with magic. When magic is imbued to a designated object, the designated object wears much faster. This is the reason why everypony always enchant heavy-duty materials. Mithril, adamantite , titanium and such… as a mass produced item, the pre-frame was made of regular iron. It doesn’t hold up much long with the recoil kicks and overheating generated from a firearm. Additionally, you cannot possibly use it to wield any weapon bigger or heavier than an AK… a simple matter of center of mass.”

“Which is why it was ditched in favor of the actual one.” He pointed to the second picture, the one that Lielle was squeaking at. The usual frame used by stalkers everywhere.

“Nopony knows who came up with the actual design, but the guy was a fucking genius. No magic on this beauty, everything here is full old school technology craftspony. The Firearm Relay Aid on Maneuvering for Equines, F.R.A.M.E. for shorters, is a true standout. As you can see, the firearm is now attached to the side of the pony, the much-needed stability. Of course, accuracy suffered in the process, but hey, if this one was sturdy enough to last more than two gunfights and most ponies used wide-spread weaponry, such as assault rifles, SMGS, or shotties, why bother?”

“You said that it was crafted without using magic. But if that is true, then, how the heck can the user maneuver their weapons? They’ll be just strapping them.”

Dominic opened another smile, it seemed like he was waiting for that question. “Say, you have a weapon that originally was used on a frame?”

“Where that does relate to the subject at hoof?”

“You have one or not?”

“I have an AK which was looted from a raider”

“Can I borrow it? I won’t ruin it or anything….”

“I guess so…” I said while floating the AK to him. He picked it up mid air with his own TK.

“Here, have you seen carefully? Here, on the trigger.”

He was right. There was a small red blob on the side of the trigger. Somehow, I have failed to spot it before the moment… although, I really never held the weapon up close to my eye, the telekinesis allowed me the luxury to just operate it from a distance

“Now, see carefully, because I am only going to do this once…”

And he approached the red blob to the tip of his horn, holding it there for two minutes. After that amount of time, the trigger melted and fell off from the AK… but before hitting the ground, it solidified again.

“Thanks.” Dominic said while returning my AK. To my surprise, the trigger was intact. The only difference is that it no longer held the red blob. An exact copy of the trigger, but with the red blob included, was lying on the ground.

“This little thing.” Dominic said while floating the trigger. “An interesting piece of old world technology…a motion sensor. Conceptually, it allows limited telekinesis over an particular object. Technology mimicking magic, heh. It is used in conjunction with a motion receiver, which looks rather similarly, except it is a blue blob onto a metallic scrap, those are spread all over the frame.Back on the day, this technology was really popular, used all across Equestria by earth ponies and pegasus for work and leisure. Of all the spells, TK is by far, the most practical, although many of us take it for granted, we’d be desperate if we lost it, even for moments. And such usefulness reflected on the motion sensor, developed by compressing the device to perform limited patterns of action and reaction chains, in the form of a more limited and more sluggish version of TK, but hey, as long as it works.... It really isn’t that hard to find or to be produced either… even if you have only a box of scraps.
So, by properly calibration, when a pony does a certain predefined action or gesture, he will be able to move his weapon (evidently, constrained by being attached to him, but such is the price…) or fire it. Easy peasy.”

“And what about these others?” there were two more pictures left…

“The next one is the IMPREF. Improved Pre-Frame” The pony in the picture was carrying a similar frame to the 1st picture, but with two additional “arms”, and the structure covered in spikes, additional reinforcing plates, leather straps and such. It was attached to a Vintar. “This one is not as frail as the original pre-frame, thanks due to a reduced dosage of magic on it’s crafting. This model keeps the accuracy and handling of the pre-frame, but, thanks due to the reduced magic, it is the most sluggish of all the frames. This one is mainly used by snipers, since they require absolute precision and do their job with only a few shots”

“And the last one… the pride and glory of the Zone, the Exoskeleton and SEVA frames.” He pointed to the picture. Two ponies with overly huge weapons clad in those dreadnaught armors

“Heavy, heavy as fuck, I tell ya. But they can take one helluva beating, lug around a quarter of a ton, and hold up those badass weapons without a pinch. Missile launchers, flamethrowers, miniguns… you name it. If a pony can scrounge a not so small fortune, he can get on one of those and literally stomp on any opposition. It has a really fancy inbuilt targeting system, on which a visor inside the helmet gives a weapon-vision, giving surgeon-level accuracy!”

The unicorn glared at us with pride. To the looks of it, he didn’t get much opportunity to snub his specialized knowledge on others.

“So, about my frame…”

“Ah, right…” He opened a locker and pulled out a sunrise suit, exactly the same that Lielle wore, only that his had the frame. “I keep some of these ready, as not to submit my customer’s armor to the whole framing process… it can take quite long. So, I trade in these premades for the unframed one plus the price for the frame and a bit more for the integrity/condition difference between them”

“How much is going to be, then?”

He glanced a but at her sunrise suit, evaluating it and searching for flaws, bullet holes and scratches, there were quite a few.

“Hmmm… you two seem like nice fellas… I suppose I can make it for 750 bits…”

The mare opened her widest smile.

“Deal.”

“Now, you can change there” He pointed to a curtain near the lockers

The mare grabbed the framed suit into her mouth and darted to the curtain, appearing again in a few moments with her new armor.

“All the motion receivers are already installed and in place, here.” He opened a chest and pulled a hunting rifle, then, he picked up the motion sensor from before and floated it into the trigger… it looked like the device “dematerialized” when in contact with the trigger, integrating itself into it.

“Go to that blue circle and use this dummy to calibrate and define the gestures, and to get some practice as well…” He said while strapping the rifle to her frame.

The mare proceeded to tinker around with it. She moved the gun up and down, sideways, and tried firing it, the rifle produced a thin squirt of water. Soon enough, she was trying to aim at the targets and getting the feel of the contraption. Although she was surely enthusiastic, she was having a hard time due to her lack of familiarity with it.

“Geez…” She said after missing another squirt by roughly 30 cm. “You unicorns surely got it easy… all you gotta do is focus a bit and float around your weapons…”

“Not really… telekinesis is much like strength, you see… it varies from individual to individual can be extenuated and you need to exercise it everyday in order to get it working correctly…” The technician said with expertise. Damn, he was even making me feel shameful for not knowing these specifics about the most peculiar spell of my own race.

“So, I won’t ever see one of you guys floating a rocket launcher or another big gun?”

The technician blinked. “No, you actually will. Although, excepted exceptional individuals aside, most unicorns won’t be able to properly handle them, due to the sheer size and weight… that is, if they aren’t aided…”

“Aided? You mean, there is a way to directly improve telekinetic potential?”

He answered me swiftly. “There is now. By tapping the power of particular artifacts, anything is possible…”

Artifacts, artifacts… they seemed to be the answer for everything. Crystallized trinkets originated from anomalies, bulging with unspeakable powers. Just the equally wonderful and deadly potentials of magic…

“Although, most of us just use the suits to bring out the heavy guns. Gravitational artifacts are hard to come by.” He glanced back to the mare “Yes, that’s it. Now you’re getting it.”

Indeed, she was improving, slowly but steady.

“Now Dom, could you work out some electronic gadget of mine?”

“Let’s see… can you show it to me?”

I grabbed the PDA and handed over to him, the mechanic began to hoof around it instantly.

“Looks like there is nothing wrong with this personal desktop…”

“Exactly… what is wrong is a recorded message onto it, it sounds just like gibberish. i was wondering if you are able to decode it, if it is.”

The unicorn floated ear plugs and hoofed the PDA until he found the recording, then played it.

After he listened carefully to it, he placed his verdict

“Indeed, it is encrypted. A very peculiar old-world encryption, named FFE”

“What does it stand for?”

“Fluttershy Frequency Encryption. A special encryption that configures the entire message to be played on sub-hearing levels, with only the possessor of a predetermined code being able to decode it. Named after an important peace-mongering mare or something,if i recall correctly…”

“Well, can you decode it? And if so, how much it is going to set me back?”

The unicorn gave a contemplative look. “The thing is, albeit the fact that I have software that is capable of decoding it, the whole process is going to take a while.”

Delays, setbacks, time-consuming matters. My life was hanging on an hourglass, grain and grain of sand peeling away, and the whole world seemed to conspire in order to delay me…

“How long? I don’t have much time left to spare…”

“Depends of the size of the message, but if I were to predict, I’d say around eighteen hours. Now, as for the matter of payment…”

“Yes, about it… I can’t spare much money, but I’ve got some tidbits and goods…”

The technician raised his hoof, cutting my speech. “Money doesn’t matter much for immaterial services that we on Freedom provide, as the cost is negligible. However, I can only help you if I get the approval of the fat cat… you see, this looks pretty important, and the boss’s stamp of approval is needed in these cases”

“But I’ve heard that all you guys are anarchists! Anarchist societies don’t possess a hierarchical order, and by consequence, neither a supreme executive officer, meaning that you could do as you please without the need for approval.”

The unicorn let go a laugh “Heh heh… seems that your info on us is outdated, Stalker. Yes, we used to be anarchists. You should have seen it; a lot of guys wreaking havoc, chaos and bedlam… didn’t work out right, but was fun as hell. So, cutting short, we took a poll and came up with a new government system to fit our needs, we call it “anarcho-syndicalist commune”, in which a individual is elected as a temporary executive officer for three months, but all the decisions of that officer are ratified at special biweekly meetings by majority, in the case of internal affairs, and by a two-thirds majority in the case of external affa…”

I coughed loudly

“But well, I digress. Thing is, you need to raise your rep with us, thus getting into the boss’ graces, to get me working into it.”

I sighed… sometimes; there is no way out of certain situations. “Any ideas how to aid Freedom’s cause?”

“You’ve met Wavey, right? Pegasus, green eyes, barkeep, always pulling a crazy-ass mental blowout with his joints. Isn’t exactly the most subtle pony around”

“We were properly… er… acquainted, as to say.”

“Yes, yes… I know what you’ve gone through. I had to shake that crackpot off my tail way too many times, has a thing for unicorns, the bastard.” He drew a long breath. “Some things can’t be helped. If you want to prove yourself, he’s been looking for volunteers to undergo a very special task, ordered directly down from the boss. If you think you’re up to the game, seek him out…”

“Can you start the process while I’m working into the task?”

The unicorn considered it for a minute. “I suppose so… that’s nice loophole on the rules, by the way.” He said while giving me an accomplice’s blink.

“Hey hornbags, check this out, I’m good now!”

Splash! Splash! Splash!

Amazing… she grew from a disaster on the range from a sharp-eyed marksmare in no time… I’d be delighted, if she weren’t using it to soak me to the bone at the time.

Dominic gave a sharp look to her while still under “fire”. He focused his magic onto the red string at his lamp and pulled it.

In response, the ceiling right above Lielle opened and several water-filled balloons fell over her, soaking the now deadpan mare.

“Never start a war you cannot win.” The unicorn said while stifling his laughter.

At the moment, I felt a revengeful smile crept around my face.

“I think that’s enough messing around with the dummy.” Dominic said while strapping it off from her frame. “Which gun are you going to use into your frame?”

The redhead mare went to her saddlebag and pulled out the throat needler. The poor thing has seen better days, being a makeshift weapon, it was barely holding together, giving the impression that it was going to fall apart at any moment. Lielle “solved” the most critical issues by performing repairs to it, which amounted only to adding rather copious amounts of… duct tape, all over the infrastructure.

“Er… are you sure? Does that thing even have a trigger?”

Good question… I didn’t questioned Peppermint about the most basic of things about the gift… an excusable oversight, I guess.

But nevertheless, the mare pointed to the trigger, right under the ammunition storage on the weapon.

Dominic floated the dummy rifle to me.

“Your turn to remove the sensor receiver, friend. Remember, just do as I did.”

I approached the blob on the trigger to the tip of my own horn, and focused magical energy onto it. It felt like a channeling process, that if I stopped it, the action would fail.

After the two minutes, the trigger itself dematerialized and fell on the ground, solid again.

“Why magic? I mean, why a technological apparatus used only by pegasus and earth ponies requires magic to be repurposed onto another object?”

The dusk unicorn just shrugged. “Dunno, I suppose it was a design flaw, a way to avoid including a possibly costly improvement, or if you are with the conspiracy lot, Celestia wanted to keep the pegasai and the earth ponies in check or dependant of unicorns… either way, only unicorns can repurpose motion sensors… would be amazingly effective in combat, if weren’t for the fact it takes two uninterrupted minutes with your horn touching it…”

I floated the device and pushed it into the throat needler’s trigger. The device soon absorbed the trigger into it. Then, Dominic took hold of the gun and strapped it onto Lielle’s frame.

“Alright, there’s it. Now, the bits, if you please…”

The azure mare pulled off the amount from her bag and tossed her old sunrise suit to the stallion as well.

As the technician was counting his money, I floated the PDA to him, so he could get started with it.

“Then, good luck with the job… er… I never really asked your names, did I ?”

I shook my head negatively. “No problems pal. Mine is Boshan and the “mermare” over there is called Lielle” I said while holding my own laughter… the poor mare was still trying to dry herself.

“I see… Pleasured to meet both of you. Now if you excuse me, I’d better finish working into this” And he pointed to the marekarov pistol he was tinkering with before we came.

We waved goodbyes (Lielle’s was half-hearted, since she still resented at being caught on her own game) and went down back to the Hoofstok alleyways

“That Dominic is sure a nice guy, don’t you think? He knows a lot and such and even took the time to explain me the minutiae about the frames…”

“If by nice you mean somepony who’d trigger out an intentional trap onto an innocent customer…”

“It was all in good fun, Lielle. Besides, you had it coming. Plus, the trap wasn’t specifically meant for you.”

Which made me wonder how many times he got soaked by unruly clients before setting it up…

In response, she just grumbled something about how laying traps told much about somepony’s shady and paranoid personality, to which I dismissed as overreacting.

============================== [><]=============================

“Ah, my newest friends again! To what do I owe this pleasure, guys? Found our smooth city pleasing?”

At that time, the bar was nearly empty. Must have been around 3 or 4 o’clock by the time we entered it for the second time that day

“Hey Wavey! The pony I wanted to see. I’ve been talking to Dominic and…”

His eyes grew a fearful expression and his voice showed a hint of panic:

“He is a bloody liar! Doesn’t matter what he said, I totally didn’t do it, it was like that before I touched it, seriously!” He was nearly yelling at the top of his lungs

I glanced confusedly at the mad pegasus, and said “No, it is not about that, wherever it is… he mentioned that you have some kind of task, coming down directly from your boss…”

To which, after hearing my reply, he looked immensely relieved

“Ah, phew. Sorry about the outburst bro. it is just that my little screwhead is rather temperamental about his works… by any chance, you wouldn’t mention anything about my attitude to him, will you? pleaseplease”

I take it back. Sunshine Hotdog isn’t such a bad name; after all, Dominic had it far worse and lived on with his.

“What happens at the Bar, stays at the Bar, I suppose…”

“Thanks a lot bro, I respect ya now. About the mission… we had been having some mutant trouble out of late…”

“Well, fear no longer! I have hunted so many of them… striders, pseudos, blind dogs, boars…” The mare started to list down the creatures. “What kind are we going to face?”

The pegasus gave us a deep look and answered gravely.

“Bloodsuckers”

The fire on Lielle’s eyes quickly died out, only to be replaced by sheen fear. Nevertheless, she did her best to look calm.

“Bloodsuckers? How much are we talking about?” I inquired

“From seven to eleven, I guess… maybe more. They mostly stayed onto their den, we certified of that, but a recent event has stirred them.”

“And you want us to slaughter them off? Two lone stalkers against hooffulls of mutants?”

The pegasus shook his head a few times. “No, no, no… why such negativity? Nopony said nothing about killing, bro. Peace and love all the way. The bloodsuckers were fine, we were fine, everything was in place into the cosmic line before… until loners came into the equation. You see, much of the negative emotions on this planet make me sad, but the worst is greed. They were so intended on raiding the lair for treasures, that we couldn’t talk them out of it. And so they went there, looking for fame and fortune… most of them were wiped out, their mangled limbs remaining as a warning for other foolhardy fellows. But one of them, with quick hooves and short-lived compassion to their “friends” was able to crawl out of the lair. And not empty-hoofed.”

And he pulled something from under the counter. A box

“Peek inside brother, and bask into peace.”

I moved my head to peek inside the box and I’ve saw it on it’s interior: an oblong golden object, resembling an dragon egg in size and shape. It produced a soft luminescence… oddly, it was somewhat enticing… an artifact, undoubtedly.”

“They’ve brought an artifact. So what ?”

“So what that the Zone is angry at us. This artifact was given as a tribute to the mother earth. By taking it out of its place, the fools managed to incur onto her wrath. As a result of their defilement, the bloodsuckers are now popping out of their den every now and then.”

“So, what do exactly you require us to do about it?”

“Return the artifact to it’s righteous resting place, only then will balance be restored. You will be rewarded handsomely if you pull this out, bro. the suckers are giving us a hard time.”

“Wait, wait… if I get this right, you expect us to cut a swath around a bloodsucker infested lair, and wander aimlessly in the dark until, by blind luck, we stumble upon whenever place the loner found it?”

“We have the exact dropzone location, somewhere around the 2nd underground floor, pinpointed. If you accept it, we’ll provide it along with updated maps for the region. As for cutting a swath, that’s ungroovy bro. You must not kill a single bloodsucker. It will further enrage mother earth and she will spawn another, only more savage, in due time. Yes, I know that they are bloodthirsty savage abominations, but in the end, they do not differ much from animals, they only protect their own, go hunting only when they need. They’ve been only acting weird because of this problem.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? How the hell we’re supposed to deal with them? Befriend the bloodsuckers? Or serve myself on a silver platter for them, invite them for a romantic dinner or even bring them flowers, yes, that’s ought to solve the issue…”

“I find your need for sarcasm as a sign of a deep internal sorrow, sunshine. If you want suggestions, just try to avoid them. If you cannot, you can hurt them. Hurt, but do not kill. Hurt them until they flee. As much as I dislike them, we must respect their home.”

Fuck this… accepting this job would be suicide.

“Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

“I feel for you bro, but there isn’t really nothing else. Look on the brighter side…” He opened a moronic smile “Since there are almost no takers for this job, we are granting a juicy pay for it… and besides, doing it will definitively put up a good word for your relation to the boss”

Goddamn it… why it always amounted to the same thing? I having no choice other than comply… well, if I was going to die anyway, I’d much as better die trying to find a way out of it instead of waiting a month (less…) to drop dead.

“Okay… we’ll do it. But the pay must be worth it, and the reputation as well… and look here, if by any chance I die out there and rise after three days as a blood-sucking monster, I will come for you blood, understood?”

The stallion swallowed a gulp. “That’s fair enough, I guess… now, hoof over your PDA so I can update it with the info…”

I hoofed over the gadget to the pegasus, he drew his own PDA and a cable, then connected both devices and fiddled around his.

“There ya go, bro.” He had marked two locations at the map. “This one here marks the trader. Be sure to visit him before ya go into the lair, he has critical equipment for your mission. Just show him the marker on your PDA and he’ll provide the gear.”

“And the other marker?”

“Marks the entrance of the den. Once there, when you reach the 2nd underground level, your PDA will flash a third marker, the place where you should put the artifact.”

He hoofed back my PDA and the box containing the artifact. I floated both things onto my saddlebag

“Don’t go flashing around this artifact bro, it’s one of those pretty rare, one-of-a-kind-like thingies”

“Point taken. Just as a matter of curiosity, how the hell you’ll know if we didn’t kill any bloodsucker down there?”

“You see… I’ll just know. Mother earth will whisper in my ear if you commit such a sin, I will notice the disturbance onto the cosmic lifeline, and I will peek into your aura to double-check it. Is there anything else you need to know?”

“I think that is enough for now…”

The barkeeper left us to attend a stray client

“Are you sure about this Boshan? I don’t feel like second-guessing your choices, but in this case…”

“What is in your mind? Spill the beans.”

She gave me her most serious and self-imposing glare.

“Have you ever seen a bloodsucker?”

The answer was obvious… I haven’t. All I knew was that they were equinoid mutants that had a thing for sucking others blood and were regarded as highly dangerous… but then, danger is always relative…

“Never…”

“I’m hardly surprised… sigh.” She drew a long breath before continuing. “They are terrible, horrible, damned and cursed creatures. Snarling, slouching decadent beings, exhaling the stench of pure corruption from their pores, coming from the very cursed depths of Equestria. Latching sharp claws and shredding teeth, lashing tentacles. All over your soft flesh, drawing away all of your blood while you still agonize through the whole process… murderous and disturbing white eyes, dancing in the darkness… they know, they watch you… they wait for a mistake… and before you can even do something, they leap at you. And then, you are lost. Forever lost… FOREVER!!!”

I listened through with a big dose of skepticism. “And let me guess… you never faced one, right?”

“Er… no. but the stories I’ve heard about…”

I raised a hoof

“Enough. Look here; are these bloodsucker thingies common on the Zone?”

“Somewhat… the further you get close to the center, the more often they and other dangerous mutants show up”

“So, sooner or later, we will have to face them. We could as well get over with it now.”

“You have a point there. But still… I am not fully convinced if this is a good idea…”

“Unless… the great mutant huntress is… afraid.”

She widened her eyes instantly.
“Say what?”

“Scared, a chicken… cock-a-doodle-doo…”

“Say that again to my face, stalker.” She haughtily raised her tone.

“Afraid of a little squid-face rotten pony… I suppose she isn’t such a great huntress after all… such a shame. I guess I’ll have to do it on my own…” I said while holding a look of disappointment. Of course it was a bluff, going alone was suicidal.

“Then it is decided. I’ll show you how a true mutant hunter rises to the challenge at hoof. You are taking me in, smartass.”

Heh, I knew that appealing to her pride would work…

“I suppose that I have no choice then…” I said while feigning innocence

I drew my last bottle of vodka from the saddlebag. When I get the reward (if I get it…) I’m going to restock myself of booze

On the Zone, everything was always “the last”… the last time I get some sleep, the last time I meet my friend, the last time I but some ammo, the last time I draw breath… every stalker was used to think like that, living their days on the assumption that it was their last, because in the Zone, more than somewhere else, it usually was the last if he made a mistake somewhere.

Such is life (or whenever they call it…) on the Zone…

Damn this vodka, making me all philosophical and shit…

It was at that moment that a voice soared through the freedomers’ megaphone system. It was a weird, fucked up voice. It sounded like a Chihuahua, and was at the same time, irritating and funny.

“Hey Dom, guess what I’ve got here.”

A familiar voice answered him.
“Geez Tinder… I can only think of what you haven’t got there… a pair, for instance. Heheheheh”

“Very funny, Mrs Wavey… anyways, the graveyard shift dropped by a few corpses’ loot on me, and guess what? five NVGS not accounted by the scavenging corps !You know what they say, right? Finders keepers!

“Wow, five? And they missed them all?”

“Quite hard to believe, eh buddy?”

“You are really quite the double-digger, Tinder. Hahahaha.”

“That’s what she said! Hahaha”

“Heh. So what about your stupid NVGs this has to do with me?

“I was wondering if you could attach them to some of mine sunrise suits, to increase their value. Since you know how to handle this crap and all…”

“Yep, I’ll take a look at them. Drop’ em and the suits at my shop, will ya?”

“You know that I cannot leave my shop unattended! You get your arse and toolbox over here!”

“Then, why don’t you use one of those damn NVGs right on your shop, to explore your favorite body cavity in the most unnatural way possible?”

“Hey, up yours, you shitty tarkfuckering basta…”

When a third voice thundered through the megaphone system, a ravishing, sharp and venom-filled, yet delicately feminine tone.

“Tinder, Dominic, if you two dimwitted retards are done with your bickering, CLAMP YOUR GODDAMN MOUTHS! DAY ON AND AFTER, THE SAME FUCKING SHIT FOR ALL THE BASE TO HEAR, ANYPONY VISITING THINKS WE RUN A WHOREHOUSE!, SERIOUSLY, IF YOU TWO CAN’T GIVE ME A BREAK, I’LL THROW BOTH OF YOUR SORRY ASSES ON THE FIRST PSEUDODOG DEN I CAN FIND!”

To which both stallions stopped their arguing. I raised my eyes to the barkeep.

“Is this usual?”

“Oh, more than you think, bro… but don’t judge the boss for what you’ve heard. She is a nice, level headed mare. It is only when that kind of situation appears that she loses her temper.”

“THAT was your boss?”

“Ah yeah. At least for two more months. Commander Carmelia… bro, she is quite the looker. A beautiful strong mare that don’t need no stallion.”

“She is a unicorn, isn’t she?”

To which panic arose in his eyes

“How did you know? Are you reading my mind? Are my thoughts leaking again? Oh no, it’s happening again… I need my tinfoil hat! Whereisitwhereisitwhereisit” and he started to frantically roam thought his stuff, searching for the head ornament.”

“Er, pipe down Wavey. It was just a lucky guess…”

Well, almost. Knowing that he had a thing for unicorns helped a bit.

“Dem bro… you almost scared me to death… you should totally like stop doing that… using logic to discern things… pfft… that’s w-e-i-r-d.”

And I’ve drew another sip from the bottle… the last?

============================== [><]=============================

That Chihuahua voice greeted us from beneath his counter

“Hey hey hey… exigent customers… I tell ya, I can see it by the look on your faces…”

Well, he had quite a store. Neatly stacked boxes, rifles in display, medkits carefully assembled onto shelves. Everything was categorically organized and clean… he probably didn’t left his shop very much…

Tinder himself was a tad smaller than an average pony (but still bigger than a colt), in that issue, the grey dual-toned earth pony somewhat resembled a Chihuahua… his face consisted of a light brown mane, huge and extremely disarming blue eyes, a small nose and an overly huge smile plastered onto his mouth.

“Yeah, about that… perhaps some other time, friend. We’re here to pick up some stuff…”

And I showed him Wavey’s note on my PDA

His face dropped to slight disappointment.

“Aw… I was hoping to keep these babies… but alright buddy, if the boss is tellin’ and if it is your own deathwish, then I’ll just do as I’m told.”

And he picked up a box, producing two weird green-tinted goggles from it.

“Alright, since that bloodsucker den goes underground, you two are to be issued two individual, 1st generation, night vision goggles.”

“Sweet!” Lielle picked up hers and wore it immediately. “Everything looks green and very bright! That is so cool… I only imagine how a rainbow would look if you were wearing one of these while looking at it!”

The trader held his head, contemplatively. And then, reassumed his outgoing posture.

“Hey, why not stock yourselves up before heading up onto the lair? How’ bout some medkits?”

And he rushed to one of the boxes and spilled all of it’s contents over the counter

“Naw, we still have a few, but thanks anyway.” Although the four or five meds we had were hardly plenty… well, rationing them would do the trick.

“And bullets? Got enough? You can never have enough bullets! That’s what my mama always said, Faust bless her…”

And he pulled off another box, turning it over the counter and spilling it’s contents over the already filled counter. Some of the bullets rolled to the floor.

“Tinder, we appreciate your offer, but we really got enough stuff. If you could just sto…”

“And what about a new shooter, Stalker? Why stick with those dog-pokers? Here, take a gander.” He said. It was mesmerizing how fast he was pulling merchandising from the shelves to the counter, making a terrible mess on both the shelves and boxes and the counter alike.

Then, among all that mess, something caught my eye… I floated that rifle closer to me. It was truly a piece of art. A black coated NATO professional rifle, full with an assault sight and carbon coating… it was something to behold, so pristine and light that GP37 was… the trader must have had a lot of trouble keeping it so presentable…

“Hmm… this is really nice. If I only had money right now…”

Tinder’s right eye twitched a few times. Then, he reached out and violently pulled the rifle from my magical grip, holding it tight against his body.

“Tinder, what are you d…”

He rose his hoof, pointing to the exit. His eyes now showed pure hostility

“Get out of here… Stalker.”

“But…”

“GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE!”

Whit that warning, me and my companion scrammed from the precinct. On the way out, I even caught his last yell.

“And don’t bother coming back until you HAVE some money to spend!”

Tinder looked at his rifle… it wasn’t today that we was going to sell it for a nice price.

“Fucking cheapskates, freeloaders or whenever…what the heck do they think this looks like, a goddamn charity giveaway?”

And he eyed through his store, the place left on a big mess due to his savvy businesspony sale strategy

“And now I have to clean up this mess again… my lovely store, left to pieces… don’t worry sweetie, I’ll fix you right up.”

And he started to whistle a happy tune while cleaning up, on his own careful, organizing manner.

============================== [><]=============================

Well, enough time preparing. It was time to go hunting. The updated maps on the PDA really helped traveling through Hoofstok, finding the correct path was now much easier.

We were about two blocks away from the entrance, when we stumbled upon a busy Freedomer, carrying a small wagon filled with pony bodies.

“Hey, watch where you are goi…” The mare raved, only to raise her eyes at us and cut her sentence short. “hey, it’s you two again! How are things going?”

It took me a few moments to recall her voice.

“You’re that mare that greeted us at the entrance! Didn’t recognized you without the armor… it’s your leisure time?”

The honey-colored and blonde earth pony chuckled. “No, actually I’m working right now. On Freedom, we can do whenever job we fell like, it helps balance morale.”

Lielle snorted her nose at the wagon. “And what in heavens is this work? Burying up the dead… you really feel like doing that?”

“While it Isn’t the most pleasurable job in Equestria, it is equally important as any on Hoofstok. Plus, we do not bury the dead; I am transporting them to the “organic recycling facility”, or as everypony name it, “The butchery”

My own eyes widened in both surprise and disgust.

“Butchery? You EAT your own dead? That’s got to be the sickest thing I’ve…”

She let go a big laugh, even rolled on the floor while holding her tummy.

“Of all the ideas, that is by far, the most ridiculous… Cannibals, in Freedom. Hahahaha.
No, we just store them, clean the bodies, dismember them and put the meaty tidbits into bottles, which we throw down the sewer into the bloodsucker lair. Keeps them both distracted and at bay.”

“You feed them mutants? This is bottomline insanity… the way I see it, you are encouraging them to lurk around Hoofstok!”

“That’s the idea. They will keep down there and won’t usually come topside to prey on the living, plus, by being fed, they won’t have to hunt for food, therefore, they grow lethargic and less dangerous… much like domestication, but on a smaller scale. What once was a mighty tiger, after generations of being fed and taken care of, bred onto just a harmless cat.”

“But still… not even Freedomers get buried? Their entire destiny is to become mutant meal?”

“Cremated” She corrected. “Burying a corpse is one of the worst things you can do in the Zone…”

“Why so? Let the dead rest, they earned it.”

“Let’em rest, but not when it becomes a burden for us, the living. And the burden are those dem’ dogs… four-pawed vultures, that’s what they are. The little shitheads can pick up the scent of a graveyard from a mile away… this is why you should never dig one near your base. All it takes is one dog. After he is successful in obtaining food, he warns the rest of the pack. And soon enough, they dig a lair near the graveyard. Soon enough, comes a point where the pack grows bigger than the number of the bodies on the graveyard. That’s when they start dogpiling on the living.”

That was quite explanative… that mound of dirt at the entrance, it was a dug up graveyard. Almost likely a Duty graveyard, dismantled by Freedom when they arrived. I’d bet that them Dutyers never bothered asking why the dogs were so numerous around their front entrance, instead, they probably just threw more and more lead at them while hoping for the best… a remedial solution.

“I still think that’s a rather morbid work…” Lielle said

“Well, that’s life on the Zone, Stalkers. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, vodka to piss, and in some cases, back to vodka again… you get used to the system”

Another Freedomer appeared at some distance, this one a stallion. He was yelling

“Angie, stop loafing around and bring those remains before they rot!”

She looked at us apologetically.

“Sorry, I must get on with this. See you two later on.”

And the mare strapped back her wagon and went her way, opposite to ours.
A bit of more trotting and we found the place indicated onto the marker. A broken wall onto a factory was the “entrance” of the den, flanked on the both sides by sacks of sands, metal crates, and any kind of sturdy crap that the Freedomers could put together for cover. All of them were facing the entrance, and a squad of Freedomers pointed their guns inside. Numerous scavenged “danger” and “stop” signs were around the broken wall, adorned by tied up ghost charms, presumably the work of superstitious Freedomers to “ward the place against evil spirits” or some other crap like that… Above the entrance, a lone wooden plank stood supreme, with an especially ominous statement written upon it:

“What the eyes fail to spot, the flesh shall soon feel…”

“The heck is this? Looks like another foolhardy stalker group…”

The Freedom squad leader, an stallion wearing a SEVA suit with the Freedom colors, left his position and approached us.

“Don’t you two know how to read? The signs aren’t exactly subtle…”

“We were issued a mission…” And I showed my PDA to him.

“Well… seems like they hadn’t given up hope yet. Such a futile effort…ok, you two may enter. Just don’t expect any rescue.”

And hoof after hoof, I stepped inside that building, my companion following my lead.

I felt something weird under my hooves...

Dried blood

============================== [><]=============================

I couldn’t see shit now… for the past ten or twenty minutes, we had enough sunlight to guide ourselves, but now, after a few rooms and corridors, everything was deep black.

I turned on my NVG. Suddenly, the interior become a bright green picture.

It was so quiet; I could almost hear my hoofsteps…

“So, since you know so much about the bloodsuckers, how long until we find one?”

She put her hoof onto her own mouth. “Shhh… quiet. You must not warn them. There will be plenty of time for chatting, once we are out of here.”

Too much for trying to cut up the tension a bit.

The corridor we were walking upon ended on a square room. Dusty floor, decaying walls, rotten furniture and paintings, pretty much basic. By the looks of it, looked like some kind of check-in room for the workers, mail receiving and general rest area. A broken elevator lay opened and eternally motionless by the west wall, the east wall had a passage that was blocked by debris. The only way was north, opposite from the south wall we came.

I walked to it, but then, something detained me.

“Do you smell… roast?”

She walked to my side and looked to the interior.

“Nothing there, but I smell something odd too.”

Then, a bright light flared on my field of vision.

FWOOOOOSHHH !!! FWOOOSH!!!

I took off the NVG and clearly saw it. A burner anomaly. The thing was actually… moving. It was rotating clockwise on the annex room. On the middle of the room that the anomaly was, a pony corpse wearing Duty colors, its bare skull charred by flames, which was licked by the burner every time it passed through it.

On the other side of that room, I spotted an exit, leading further deep into the factory.

“A rotating anomaly. C’mon, just time it out.”

And Lielle waited until the anomaly was at some distance and jumped into the room. She followed closely the anomaly without actually stepping onto it, and jumped out at the exit.

Then, she moved her hoof, calling me to go on.

If she did it, how hard could it be?

I fixated my eyes onto the anomaly; it was coming back to my front. Once it moved a bit, I jumped inside.

Hot, hot, hot!

The flood beneath my hooves was boiling, and the burner in front of me emitted so much heat! I steeled my will and set my gaze onto it, moving synchronously with it. In itself, it was a test of heat resistance and focus! And to think that the redhead made it look easy!

FWOOOOOSHHHHHH !!! FWOOOOOOOOSH!!!

Time to move aga…whoaaa!

The mare pulled me out of the room! I was so focused onto the anomaly, that I failed to notice that I’ve already reached the exit.

“Forgetting something?” she asked amusedly

“I got a bit carried… let’s move out.”

And on another dark corridor we went. On its end, a passage to further north, blocked by debris, and another corridor into the west. When we’ve reached the intersection, a spine-chilling roar has made us keep halt!

GRAWULLFLWULLLWULLL!!!

I aimed my AK down the corridor, nothing to be seen there.

“The heck was that?”

“I don’t know, didn’t sound like any mutant I know… if I were to guess, it is… one of them nearby. Just be very… very… careful.”

I nodded, and we both readied our guns. The western corridor ended in a much larger room. A machine with a conveyor belt took up much of the center of the room. Upon it, a number of mounds of old rags, the fabric or clothes that this particular factory was producing before being abandoned.

To think that poor earth ponies and pegasai were subjected to sixteen working hours on such places at the origins of the industrial revolution… it was probably suffocating and crowded when the machinery was on.

We started to move around the eastern wall, the room was huge. When I’ve noticed a particular room annexed to the big one.

From my viewpoint, a large number of lockers were located inside it. I trotted closer to inspect it, when something caught my eye.

There, standing in a corner, a stalker.

Covered in a brown (I assumed, since I had the NVG on and was seeing everything green…) long coat, he was… weeping over the body of another dead stalker. I couldn’t actually make it out his tears, since he was facing the wall…

A survivor! He probably has gone mad, or lost, or even brain-dead. The least I could do was try to help him.

“Hey Stalker, you must leave. It is not safe around these parts.”

No response.

I took a few steps closer to him.

“I’m sorry for your loss, but you can’t do anything more for your friend. Go home before you end up like him.”

Still no response from him.

I turned my face to Lielle, interrogatively

She shook her head, telling us to move on.

Dammit… just one more try.

I stepped even more closely to the stalker; I could hear him breathing over the body of his friend.

“I said that you should go. Are you trying to get killed by a bloodsucker?”

I put my hoof over his shoulder.

All of a sudden, he stopped his ritual, turned his face to me and I could see it.

I saw clearly all of those pestilent pores, snout nose, scaly skin, meaty tentacles and blank, hungry eyes devoid of life. Even if it was only for a split second, the close-up image of the face of a bloodsucker was forever imprinted on my mind.

And by my own stubbornness, I broke his feeding trance

Huarfw, Huarfw, Hisss!

And a sharp and swift hoof tore through my armor, pulling me onto one of those lockers, which crashed into the dusty floor.

The creature jumped to the side, dropping the rotting piece of fabric that someway ended up atop him. And he started to… regurgitate. Somehow he was exhaling some substance from his pores too, all over his body.

PLUCHT, PLUCHT, PLUCHT.

Three stakes hit the wall, the monster having vanished from thin air!

Huarfw, Huarfw, Huarfw…

I rose up and looked around the room, that fucker was close by. I could smell it, I could almost touch it, but he was moving around, too fast, unseen, and with a dangerous punch. It was desperate…

“SHIT, SHIT, SHIT…”

Huarfw, Huarfw… Hersss…

And two white eyes leaped from the corner, while the full weight of the invisible hooves came upon my flank; cracking a metal plate on my barding… they were unbelievably strong for a mutant that was about the same size as an average pony.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG…

The mare unloaded a full marekarov clip onto him, two shots hitting the mutant. He reappeared into vision after being shot.

It changed his focus from me.

The bloodsucker leaped out of the way and ran to her…

Huarfw, huarfw, huarfw….

He raised his roof in anticipation, but by the time, I was already up and with my AK ready.

RATTLERATTLE…

The shot hit the bloodsucker’s right shoulder. He fizzled a bit, a wound oozing into his shoulder.

He then disappeared into sight again and those pair of white eyes trotted away into the depths of darkness.

After all, just like Wavey said, they were just animals. Not willing to fight to the death, unless in special circumstances.

Mean, horrifically mutated, carnivorous and genetically augmented animals…

My flank and side had nasty claw wounds… shit. These bloodsuckers sure packed a mean punch. I had to use two medkits to tend my wounds…we were down to three left.

“That wasn’t so bad; that one didn’t put much of a long fight after all…”

“Are you mad? That fucker nearly torn me apart! From now on, we are laying extra-low profile while in here.”

“If you weren’t so impulsive…”

I shrugged… there was no point on keep arguing. Time could be better spent at completing the mission.

“Guard the doorway. I’m going to search around…”

She nodded.

I eyed through the room. A small locker room used by the workers, four scores of green-colored (Nightvision-wise) lockers. I opened one of them, hoping to find something usable or insightful about our surroundings.

Pretty much everything was unusable. Rotten food, balls of lint, broken bottles, rusted tools, punctured jumpsuits…

I drew a sigh after closing the fifth locker. It was worthless.

I took a moment to examine the corpse that the bloodsucker was feeding on… the poor sod was only a lifeless and withered husk now, with no clue about his identity, faction or gender, so disheveled it was…

Then, my gaze went to the walls. There were some ancient posters over them…
Not a single one deviated from the basic political message. I turned off the NVG and used the flashlight to see them better…

An enormous redheaded white alicorn looking down on thousand of black ponies charring in flames under her:
“Pony hell is a real place, and Faust sends insurgents to there.”

A black earth pony stallion in a mid-jump, wearing a red handkerchief around his neck that was covering his mouth, holding a cocktail Molotov in his right hoof:

“Insurgency is a crime. Do not let these dregs ruin our fair monarchy. Denounce any insurgency or suspicious behavior you may witness”

A shining and rich town atop a mountainside, Canterlot. And under it, a number of smaller towns that composed the equestrian landscape. There was also a point where a line showed where Celestia’s domains ended and some ruler else’s started, these ones were colored a dull gray in contrast to all the glory of the equestrian domains.

“Down with insurgency! May the monarchic regimen shine for another two thousand years!”

“My filly, an insurgent? I’d rather see her seven feet under!”

And the figure of a green-colored stallion with a cardboard crown, holding a small flag with the emblem of a sun and using his other hoof to amorously pat on his filly’s head.

“Join the Equestrian monarchic pride today! Ask your assigned supervisor for details”

Makes you think how much Celestia held an iron grip over her domain… but it was all over now. She was most definitely dead… and the insurgents possibly as well, If they stood in the Zone.

I pulled out my PDA to study the map.

That big room had four corridors deeper into the factory… one that we came from, then there were three to choose.

The stair down to the first underground level wasn’t so far away… only two corridors and one room, after the conveyor belt room, to get to it.

“Ok… I’ve had enough rest. Let’s move out.”

She nodded. I turned off the flashlight and turned on the NVG.

We trotted to the other side of the rusted machine, reaching the second door on the western wall.

An “L” shaped corridor led on, long fallen-off tiles adorned the ground, cracks and holes decorated the walls.

GRAWUUUU! Grawuf, grawu...

More bloodsuckers! I crouched down, and my friend quickly did the same. I moved ahead in a turtle pace, keeping my two eyes opened. When I ended up on the room after the corridor. It was a catwalk platform lying above the underground level. And the bloodsuckers were directly down below.

They probably haven’t spotted us yet. I’ve seen three of them. Two of them, one unicorn and an earth pony, were… cuddling? I had no clue of what they were doing… only that they were too close… they were perhaps a couple or something, which made me think, who was the female or the male? They looked all the same. I wondered how these abominations of nature reproduced, if they did it at all, on the biological sense of the word. The third bloodsucker was still, he stood there, breathing, but immobile. He was… sleeping? Seemed so. To the hell these wayward creatures…

“I take it back, they doesn’t look so bad…” The azure mare whispered.

No, I take it back… these mutants were way more trouble than it was worth, and now my flank ached in terrible pain because of them. If I were using only a coat, the bloodsucker’s punch would definitely be able to tear me in two. It wasn’t a very comforting thought…

After we carefully crawled toward the other side, another corridor. This was a straight one; it led to the set of stairs.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!!!!BEEPBEEPBEEP!!

Almost stepped over onto an anomaly! It was directly below the stair, like, meant exactly to hurt the impatient stalker…

As I looked upon the ground, my NVG brightened up with the anomaly’s light, to which I turned it off.

The anomaly was very, very bright. It was a green bubbling puddle, lighted on like a Christmas tree in the middle of the underground lair.

A “forgotten” limb was onto it, slowly dissolving with a soft hiss, meaning that the anomaly was composed of acid of some kind…

“Fruit punch, a puddle of corrosive liquid of unknown origin, commonly found on underground locations” informed the ever-handy PDA.

“Hey, check these out, Boshie…”

And she was laying over the anomaly to look it better. I reached closer to see it…

Worms, tiny brown worms were squirming along the anomaly… they were over the limb too, looked like they lived and thrived onto the acid anomaly…such a weird thing.
The Zone, in the same level that created life-depriving environments, created life-supporting environments as well…

We cautiously moved past it, reaching the antechamber below.

I could hear those disgusting bloodsuckers from across the wall… Luckily, according to the PDA maps that Wavey gave me, the factory stretched in several corridors and rooms underground Hoofstok, being even connected to the sewers, below the 2nd underground level. This area was dark on the PDA, meaning that the explorer didn’t go toward them.

Thankfully, this layout probably gave a lot of room for the bloodsuckers to stretch their hooves, diminishing our chances to stumble upon one.

But even with that information in mind, I couldn’t help seeing a moving shadow at every corner we crossed, a creak of unknown origin at every room and I was almost sure I could hear hoofsteps nearby. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks at me...

“EEEEeeekkk!”

I snapped alert at the second, trotting close to her.

“What’s the matter? Another one of those things?”

“No, there is blood all over there…”

She was right. On the section nearby, an extensive pool of blood laid bare. It drew a straight line into a room. Almost like…

Almost like if a Stalker with deep bleeding wounds slouched or was dragged into the room…

Okay, I suppose it wasn’t a very bright idea to follow a trail like that, but I let my curiosity get the best of me.

And I instantly regretted that decision when I entered the room…

I’ve seen gore before, even killed another pony. But this…

This was a fucking bloodbath.

There were five corpses, two bloodsuckers and three Stalkers. One of the Stalkers, an earth pony, was at the corner, his body covered in several tourniquets and clothing dried with blood, this was the one which was dragged inside, his wounds suggested massive hemorrhagic trauma and his leather coat was thoroughly pierced. The poor pony had been a bloodsucker punching bag…

The other two Stalkers had less severe, but equally deadly wounds. One, another earth pony, had numerous small wounds into his face and a look of pure terror. One of the bloodsuckers, its hide punctured by numerous bullets and a hooffull of buckshot, laid on his lap. One of the tentacles of the beast was still glued to the Stalker’s face. I could only wonder what was the last thing the unfortunate victim saw… While the third Stalker, a unicorn, had two cracked hooves, and his cause of death was being shelled in the head at point-blank by a sawn-off shotgun, more precisely, the same sawn off he was holding with one of his undamaged hooves, while his PDA was glowing softly nearby his body. Tidbits of his head, brain and horn were scattered around the room, mixed with the rest of the gore. Judging by the state of things, they had been dead for two or three days.

The second bloodsucker… well, I was stepping on it. He had his neck gutted by SMG fire.

“Urgh… this is… I have no words, it is so revolting.”

Not looking “not-so-bad” now, don’t they? Damn, I was nearly throwing up my lunch…

The room was furnished with bunk-beds, footlockers and a wardrobe. An area for “permanent workers” to rest, I believe… now all of these were spattered in two or three layers of blood…

Hopefully, the Stalker’s PDA would shed some light into the situation…

I took it from the Loner’s dead hooves; there were only two entries of interest, the unicorn’s two last entries:

“I can’t… it is just so much… I’m going to write it down, so I can put some of it out of my mind…

It was all that bitch’s fault! Damned be Blueberry! I knew that mare wasn’t the brightest light bulb on the drawer! “I bet these Freedom boys aren’t guarding a ruined factory so heavily for nothing.” She said. “If you ask me, they must be keeping some really nice loot down there, and spread all these stories about bloodsuckers so that they can hoard all the swag for themselves!” Well, look at the result!

If I only didn’t let myself be fooled by her promises of first rate loot… but it is too late now…

After we snuck inside during a change of guards, everything seemed to go smooth. When we reached the 2nd level below the surface, we found that “golden egg” artifact, floating over a stalagmite with a weird halo across it. But that didn’t stopped us from grabbing it. That’s where everything went to shit. After somepony pocketed it and we started backtracking our way to the surface, these monsters attacked us! Several hooves went down on Morning Dew’s coat like it was tissue paper! Poor Morning Dew… there is nothing we can do for him now, but delay his death. He is now bleeding through holes I didn’t even knew he had… I tried to suffice his wounds with some fabric ripped straight from my own coat, but it is no use.

If I still had my backpack! It was stocked with medkits and bandages. I must have dropped it during the gunfight… it is no use now. There is no way I’m going down there again. We already danced with death by pulling Morning Dewl out of there, while Blueberry… she trotted away! She and Tripwire too! Coward bastards!

Now Morning Dew is moaning in the corner, while Scattershot and I are guarding the doorway… I can hear those monsters out there, they smell our fear, there is no hope, no way out. I should have never left the cordon. I hope one of those bastards get Blueberry… the bitch deserves to rot in pony hell…”

The last entry was even more insightful…

“Too much for expecting rescue… we were doomed from the start. There is only me left now. Two of those beasts found our hiding place… Scattershot and I were able to put down one of them before it reached us, but the other one…
Oh the horror! The horror. The horror, the horror, the horror…The bloodsucker broke through the gunfire, cracked my hooves, and then… he caught Scattershot! Faust have mercy on his soul! I saw the desperation onto his eyes when that, that… abomination gave him his “kiss of death”, it was eating him… ALIVE. I shot the monster down, but I couldn’t bring myself to act quickly enough. He is out cold now. Morning Dew has finally expired too…

If weren’t for my wounded hooves, I’d make a go for the surface, but with them, every step is a world of pain.
It is just a matter of time before another one of these beings eventually find me. I can’t take it anymore, I won’t let them make me suffer, I won’t let them take me, I won’t.”

A tragic end to their tale, but that was the price of foolishness on the Zone…

I pocketed the PDA, it could be useful for the Freedomers to know the details about that incident. Then, my gaze went to the corpses… normally, I wouldn’t consider looting any dead pony (bandits and other kind of homicidal scum weren’t accounted as such) but seeing how much trouble one bloodsucker had given me, and the probability that there were more below, I’d rather be prepared than wind up as dead meat…

“What are you doing? Don’t you think they suffered enough already?”

I stopped my rummaging and answered her

“Do you wish to keep them company? I do not like it either, but we should suit ourselves rather than ending up the same as them.”

Shit… that earth pony covered in tourniquets had an iron grip over his belongings… I had to knife out his hooves to get them. A sack containing a wad of bits.

The other two Stalkers had more bits, I collected around a thousand bits, the sawn-off shotguns and five shells, two marekarovs and 40 9x18 rounds and a viper-5 SMG with 75 FMJ rounds. No meds.

I tossed everything but the SMG onto my saddlebags.

“You should exchange your weapon for this one. That pile of junk has already lasted as much as it could… throw it away.”

“But… you gave me it…”

“Because I lacked anything else. Any weapon is better than none”

“Alright, but I want to keep it anyway.”

I sighed. “It is just going to hinder you.”

But she was too reluctant. I agreed then, just to get over with it. since the SMG was already fitted with a motion sensor, I just unstrapped her “weapon” and put the SMG on its place, then gave her all the FMJ ammunition.

“We should move out” She said. “This place is starting to smell really bad”

I couldn’t agree more.

And then, we went back to the net of emptied corridors and rooms. After a set of them, we came upon a bathroom. The stalls’ walls had been torn apart, and a huge gust of dust was spiraling into the point where it was broken. A Vortex. It did the same thing as a Whirlgig, but it was much bigger and more powerful than one.

I tossed a bolt right on the middle of the anomaly. It was caught on the rotary wind and spiraled down to the center at an incredible speed, being bent when it reached it. Thought this whole process, all the outline of the anomaly was visible. Of course, I could just see its dimensions by checking which part of the stalls stopped being damaged, but I liked seeing it light up.

And something else too… under one toilet bowl under the anomaly, a weird-shaped and sickly yellow-colored object… it was shaped like a hook at one end and at the other, some kind of blossoming flower… it resembled some kind of cocoon. Another artifact , one I’ve never seen before.

Well, I could just go there and pick it up, but by doing that, I’d end up in tiny little pieces thanks to the anomaly. I couldn’t use my magic either, since, when I’ve done with the burner, it fizzled. I needed to push the artifact outside of the field of its parent anomaly if I wanted to properly handle it with telekinesis.

I gave it some thought… and I decided on pushing the artifact by gunning it until it left the anomaly.

RATTLERATTLE…

Seemed to work… the artifact was pushed away from the middle of the field, and showed no signs of damage.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE…

And with that final “attack”, the artifact bobbed outside of the Vortex’s field. I quickly grabbed it.

“See? That’s how it is d…”

But then, the mare wasn’t there… she must have wandered off for some reason. What the hell! A place like this and she was trotting away from me.

I had to find her, quick. My hooves drove me outside of the bathroom, and I spotted a figure at the end of one of the three corridors that intersected at the point. It could only be her…

“Lielle, dammit… do not stray away from…”

In my shock, I dropped the artifact. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw…

HORSESHITE! One of those Bloodsuckers was feeding on her! The fucking monster crept behind her and now its tentacles were wrapped around the top of her head! The mare’s normally lively eyes were now blank, devoid of any emotion.

I forced my AK’s butt onto that beast’s head with all the strength I could muster, I wouldn’t risk shooting at it while it was still attached to my friend.

Whammo!

The beast was thrown away from the mare, which promptly fell to the ground. While the monster was probably confused from the attack; I still heard its nefarious breath on the darkness…

huarfw, huarfw, huarfw, huarfw…

I wasn’t going to take any chances, shit just got real.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE…

And I’ve heard nothing more of it… I fired blindly upon the darkness, not caring if I hit it or not… in my desperation, I wasted one entire clip. Perhaps it had run away… it didn’t mattered.

Only her health mattered now.

I took her hoof… she still had vitals, but was unconscious. I examinated her wounds. Numerous wounds on the head, but no bleeding…

“Pretty neat, right? My record is 63 times before fainting from blood loss.”

Of course… her artifact. Surprisingly, the mare’s own antics had probably saved her… For having screwed around with her Mica, her body grew resilient to blood loss, developing an unconscious state as a way to deplete less energy and conserve it.

But that wasn’t going to save her in the case of an infected wound…

I threw my AK back into the saddlebag and used my TK to push Lielle to the bathroom, picking up my artifact on the way. it was the nearest room and only had one entrance. Those bloodsuckers wouldn’t be able to surprise us in there…

And with great effort, I did so. Once there, I spent one medkit and numerous bandages tending to her wounds. It would do for now…

And what to do now? I still had a mission… this was my entire fault. If I didn’t convince her to come, no harm would have come to her…

I could give up, try to rush back to the surface and probably live… but this meant…

Leaving her down here, to these beasts. I would never forgive myself if I abandoned one of my friends… it meant forfeiting all the things that separated equines from simple animals…

I glanced at her face. Her eyelids were now down, she seemed so peaceful…

I wasn’t going to quit… I was so close…

Even if I had to… drag her over with me.

I wouldn’t be able to help her if I was dead…

Shit, mind, in whose side are you in? shut the hell up. I’m going down there and that’s final.

I brought the marekarov from my saddlebag and gripped it with my tongue, while I used my TK to put the mare on my back.

Ugh… it was heavy. I needed to be careful at the most… if one of those Bloodsuckers caught me by surprise while I still had that burden, I’d be a sitting duck.

The PDA showed that the stair to the final level was close by… for some reason; the 2nd underground level was much smaller than the other two… wait, no, it wasn’t. The whole level wasn’t explored. It liked in some parts to the sewer system that ran below Hoofstok and such…

And so, I carried over. My hooves were killing me, but the stairs were just by that corner…

Oh shit, shit…

Another bloodsucker was guarding the stairs! The monster didn’t saw me. What to do, what to do…

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Upon hearing the sound of cracking glass, the beast quickly grew alert, trotting down the stairs at great speed. Something came to mind…

… Dismember them and put the meaty tidbits into bottles, which we throw down the sewer into the bloodsucker lair…

Having being fed on a daily basis, the bloodsuckers were, interestingly enough, conditioned to associate the noise to the food…but it was still unclear why the hell Freedom wished to keep them in the first place!

But anyways, I thanked that stroke of luck and went downstairs too, hoping that the mutant moved to a considerable distance away from us.

Now, if I could only get over a few more rooms…

The 2nd underground level, the least explored one, apparently was a maintenance area for the factory’ machines, as well as power generators, plumbing, sewage disposal and such.

Dripping water and blowing wind were constants down there. At some point, the level wasn’t sealed off from the outside. I moved very slowly, stopping to hear noises and to check out if one of those things weren’t lurking by.

How much time has elapsed since we entered? I couldn’t say. It was probably nighttime now.

And then, after a corridor, I’ve saw the destination pointed by the marker. A room filled with rotors, scrap metal, gears and tubes around the wall, the control room for one of the machines at the top level.

And there it was. The stalagmite mentioned by the PDA was the target. I just needed to put the artifact over there…

GRAWULLWULLLWULLLGRAWUUU!!!

Of all the worst things…

I laid the mare at one corner with her stuff and started to look around for some melee weapon to hold off the mutant…

Huarfw, huarfw, huarfw, huarfw…

His breath was drawing closer and closer from the corridor… but I’ve finally found a hefty metal stock lying around.

Too bad I couldn’t lift it in enough time…

PAWTHOOK!!!.... CRASHHHH!!!

That beast’s charge broke whenever ribs I still had left! Fuck, fuck, fuck… and there was liquid spilling from my back, greasy, dark liquid.

I drew a few of it to my nose and smelled it. Oil. That stupid fuel that the faulty earth pony technologies needed so much, power-hungry and unreliable crap which was the need for the construction of a goddamn nuclear power plant in the first place…

Huarfw, huarfw…

I couldn’t see the invisible fiend… Celestia’s incendiary wingboner! I was defenseless as fuck.

Huarfw, huarfw, HuArFw!!

Ouch… that fucking bloodsucker was going to attempt another charge, one that would be the end of me! I was sweating cold, trying to put my magic on the heaviest object nearby to put it between me and him. And through that desperation, I’ve pulled out something to put between the rushing beast and me.

CRASHHH !!! Huarfwhuarfw…

A new load of oil spilled over me. I pulled out a barrel of it… and though the beast was covered into it too, it was far too worse for me. Now, I couldn’t see it REGARDLESS if it was invisible or not, due to my NVG confounding the dark room and the now equally dark creature.

I wasn’t a very clever pony…

Huarfw, huarfw, huarfw…

If I wasn’t so desperate to get a lead to the pathway to the NPP… dammit, dammit… that warning couldn’t be truer…“What the eyes fail to spot, the flesh shall soon feel…”

Wait a minute… this is why I had been failing, I was letting my lack of vision deceive me. Now it was on me.

I picked up more barrels of oil while I still could and crashed them onto the floor. Oil spilled by the entirety of it, covering every inch. It was just a matter of reaction now…

Splish, splish, splish…

There it was! I picked up the metal stock and floated it inwards the monster’s neck, slamming it against the wall.

Huarfw, huarfw…

Wavey forbade me of killing these things, but he didn’t say anything about beating the crap out of them. It was time for a hooffull of payback.

Whack

Huarfw, huarfw, huarfw…

“Why…”

Whack

“Don’t...”

Whack

“You go…”

Whack

“Goddamn unconscious?”

GRAWULLWULLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although highly satisfying, holding a murderous monster and pounding it had its dangers… the pissed-off beast broke off from the stock and put a really sharp hoof through my face. I felt my NVG being cracked to pieces and my own flesh being ripped to shreds.

Blood dripped profusely from my face, the bastard cut through it horizontally; it was a miracle I still breathed…

Cough, cough… more blood. And the shithead was only bruised. To think that the barkeeper worried about ME killing one of them… now, there wasn’t even the comfort of seeing anything, my NVG was broken and, unless I developed a sonar sense in fifteen seconds, the beast was now DEFINATEDLY invisible. Harmed as I was, I couldn’t draw a gun, or turn on the flashlight quickly enough.

Huarfw, huarfw…

Ripshhhh!!!!

Its hoof tore apart my saddlebag, personal contents and loot flailed to the ground, forming a small pile. On the middle of it, the box that contained the artifact. It was glowing like crazy…

Hisss! Hissaw… Huarfwaw…

The fuck was that? The beast was backing up from it!

Amassing whenever forces that still hadn’t left me, I rose up and floated the artifact outside of the box. It kept glowing, and the beast receded even more at the sight of it…

Hiss, Hissawawaw… Hissaw…

And I’ve floated near to the bloodsucker, which raised his two front hooves and hold his head with them, twitching and flipping his eyes wildly.

Something on that artifact was really, really disturbing the bloodsucker.

And by exploiting that curious weakness, I drew him off from the room. Away from us.

I floated the golden-egg artifact. What was that thing? Why it distressed the monster so much? And why, in eleven hells, nopony told me about that before?

Mentally annotating those questions, I floated the artifact to the middle of the stalagmite, putting it on the middle of the stony halo that floated above it.

A gust of warm wind flew by as I did so.

Somehow… everything seemed back in place. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, it was like a feeling of belonging and freshly-attained equilibrium.

Some drops of blood flew off from my numerous wounds. I’d better patch up.

And speaking of it…

I turned on my flashlight and flashed it around the room, searching, searching… until…

An old pack, the one which was mentioned on the PDA. And its owner spoke the truth; he was probably tasked of carrying the team’s entire stock of meds. Eight medkits and fifteen bandages! It was reasonably intact (surprise, surprise… mutants didn’t cared about meds.), so I swapped it for my own ripped saddlebag

I’ve spent three of them and seven or eight bandages on my own wounds. Even with those, I still needed medical care, that swipe was definitely nasty. Hopefully, the medkits’ painkillers would help me drag myself and my friend out of that hole in one piece.

After gathering all of my belongings and the still unconscious mare on my back, I started the long trek back to the topside…

Weird… the place seemed so… empty, moreover. I didn’t hear any of those abominations roaming around anymore.

And then, we came upon the fruit punch along the stairs… I had to float the bags and Lielle separately, straining me telekinetically… good thing I’ve floated the mare first, because my magic grip broke mid-flight when floating the saddlebags… I needed a good night of rest. Lastly, I trotted aside the fruit punch, picking up the loot and the redhead.

This wasn’t good for my spine…

I further went on; coming by the same sets of rooms, and didn’t found any of those beasts anymore, no sign of them…

And so… the moving burner was at sight. The exit was near.

And so my breaking point. I stopped a bit to rest. I would need to make two trips round’ the anomaly… one with the gear, another with the mare.

I’d better start with the heavier… the mare, that is.

And I dropped the saddlebags, and waited until the burner was at the doorway. When it moved, I did so too. My hooves feeling like molten lava, my eyes watering from the heat… but then, after a bit of trotting, it was over.

I laid her down along the wall, and backed again into the steaming pot. I’ve grabbed the saddlebags at the other side and repeated the operation, until I reached the exit doorway.

I finally picked up my companion and slouched toward the exit… I could feel the fresh air, at last…

“The hell… somepony is coming out of there!”

And fatigue overtake me, I dropped to the ground.

“Get them to the doctor, quick!”

============================== [><]=============================

Rumbling steps… and that old, distinct feeling. Pain. At least the aquamarine earth pony doctor was treating my injuries.

“You probably think that I am a butcher, don’t you, Cork ?”

And his visitor, the pegasus with the freedom SEVA armor, that squad leader that was guarding the lair’s entrance, answered him.

“Not at all Doc... butchers kill before they split open”

“Haha, very funny. If weren’t for me, this one would be worm food now. It surprises me how long he was able to pull along with these kind of injuries…he was drowned in either vodka or painkillers to last this long.”

“Alright, I’m going back to guard duty, see ya later on, Patcher.”

“Try not to get yourself shot; I’d hate to waste a bed on a lazy bastard like you, Cork.”

And the pegasus left the room, disregarding the insult.

“Ah… you’re awake, and still alive. That’s great.”

I tried to move around, only to be hindered by my own numbness…

“Hold it, easy there champ…take it easy… just let me run a final check on ya…”

And he eyed through my entire body, I was naked…where did they take my armor?

“Good, that’s good…” he said as he was eyeing each injury. “Good… good… good…”

And I opened my dry, dry mouth to ask him: “What do you mean by “good”, doc? Those… things… nearly torn me in two.”

“I mean it is good that I’m not you. Now, you seem okay enough to go, although I’d keep you for one or two days…”

“I can’t wait that long”

“Nopony ever does… well, suit yourself. Just a small thing... about your face.”

“What about it?”

“Er… look for yourself, stalker.”

And he handed me a mirror.

There, incrusted around my nose and right cheek, exactly where the bloodsucker striked, a big and ugly… scar!

“Are you shittin’ me doc? I look like some convicted rapist! What the hell you did to my beautiful face?”

“Dammit stalker, I am a doctor, not a fancy-schmancy plastic surgeon! Besides, you are lucky to have been wearing an NVG; otherwise you wouldn’t still have a face after all. Second, it isn’t the end of the world… I’ve heard about some female gryphons that really dig battle scars…”

Yeah, I’ve heard about them too. Some of the preschool stories I could remember pictured gryphons as nastier than certain monsters… brutal, fierce, unforgiving and battle-minded creatures

“To the hell with them…I’d rather be caught dead screwing one of those Bloodsuckers than enduring a creature that can shred me to tears if I crossed it… although the bloodsucker would do that too… oh well, at least it wouldn’t piss over my dead body afterwards.”

“Can’t say that’s what I’ve had chosen, but anyways…”

And he reached the corned, where my saddlebag was. And he drew something from it…

The NVG. It was at a sorry state, definitely scrap metal.

“It is damaged beyond repair, Dom told me. He’s working at your armor now; he asked me if you were stomped by pack of boars.”

“Would be a bliss compared to what I’ve been through….” I said while lifting up from the bed, the numbness was slowly draining away.

“Where is my friend? An azure mare with red hair…”

“Oh yes… she regained conscious a few hours back, we’ve recommended her some rest. You know, if you didn’t administered treatment right away, she’d…”

“Yes, yes… just another day in the Zone…”

The pegasus just silently nodded.

“How much do I owe ya, doc?”

“The boss has paid your tab, stalker. You’ve must have done some really important job to have caught her eye…she told me to send you to speak to her as soon as you rose from slumber. I told her how much you’d want to catch some Z’s after recovering from such wounds, but she asked anyway…”

“Okay, I’ll pay her a visit.”

“And try not to get chewed to death on your way out! I just cleaned the doormat.”

I picked up my pack and headed outside the clinic.

Finally, fresh, sweet air… not the suffocating underground tunnels.

So, the commander lady requested my presence… well, she’d have to wait. I needed, more than ever, to wet my whistle. With vodka.

As I’ve entered the peculiar bar, the equally peculiar bartender cracked:

“Sunshine? You actually made it alive? What the hell I am smoking?”

And then, he derisively looked to the blue join in his right hoof.

“Ah yeah… heheheh.”

And I took a seat in front of him.

“Ah, you’re actually there. Dude, that’s some really bad shit you got there in your face…”

“Thanks for noticing. Now, about the job…”

“The MotherZone just called me, she told me you acted… adequately. Here’s your reward, Carmelia said you deserve every bit”

And he handed me a big wad of bits…I’ve never saw that much cash before.

“How much is in here?” I asked while counting the money

“Ten thousand bits.” The pegasus answered distractedly.

Wow… working for Freedom really paid adequately, unlike my two last contractors…
Although, only half of that amount was mine, the rest was Lielle’s. after all, she helped out.

“So, what’ bout celebrating, dude? Gimme a high-hoof!”

And he raised his hoof, expecting me to tap that…

What the hell…I was grateful to be back upside, that was enough motive to cheer.

So I did his wish, and high-hoofed that.

“Now, Wavey, any idea where I can find the commander? Or my friend, for that matter…”

“Just follow the directions dude… da commander can be found by following the “boss” arrows, and your friend, if she is sleeping, probably can be found at the communal rest area, the “rest” arrow.”

“Ah… I forgot. Anyway, there is another thing I’d like…”

“And what would that be, bro?”

“I need four… no, five bottles of your best vodka.”

============================== [><]=============================

“Heya buddy! Welcome to the best…”

And Tinder looked in my direction with his comically expansive manners and big smile, which instantly broke once he gazed upon me.

“Ah, it is you… I hope you are planning to actually BUY something this time…”

“Surprisingly enough, I am.”

And in milliseconds he grew that overly big smile and outgoing mannerisms again…

“Just name it, buddy! I’ve got everything, and I mean, everything!”

“I’m looking for a scarf. Preferably a big one. And 5.45 rifle ammo too.”

“Hmm, ammo is easy enough” he said while spilling some of said ammo onto the counter. “And about your scarf… it is here somewhere…”

And he drew a few boxes aside, until he found what he was looking for.

“Pick your favorite, pal.” And he showed me. A box full of fabrics of several colors. Green, yellow, white, pink, orange… the only color that it lacked was red.

And I’ve picked up a blue scarf, and tried it out, covering the lower part of my face… good enough to hide that horrific scar…

“I’ll take this one.”

“That will be… two hundred bits. Plus the ammo, seven hundred

Two hundred bits for a piece of fabric? That trader was definitely getting back on me for that misunderstanding…

“Two hundred bits… for a scarf? Are you serious?”

“As a case of Ebola. Feel the texture, the size, the vibrant color! This scarf is one of a kind, buddy! Trust me; I am nearly giving it away.”

“I find it hard to trust someone whose opinion is evidently biased on the matter…”

“C’mon, if you can’t trust a Freedom trader, you can’t trust anypony at all…”

I drew a sigh. He wasn’t going to let it go. And the closest known trader aside from him was at the Cordon. To which I wasn’t going to return any sooner…”

“Okay, have your cash.”

And I’ve thrown seven hundred bits onto the counter, while pocketing a large amount of 5.45 ammo and tossing the scarf around my neck.

“Nice doing business with you… anything else, pal?”

“How much can you give me for these?” I showed to him the two marekarovs and the sawn-off shotgun I had taken from the dead stalkers.

“Way to offload your crap on me. For these ones, I can give you… one hundred bits, tops. These aren’t exactly quality equipment, I shouldn’t even be considering buying them, I’ll know better next time.”

And he separated exactly one hundred bits and gave it in exchange for the weapons.

Pocketing the alms, I’ve left the shop.

“If you need quality merchandise for a fair price again, I’m your stallion all the way! And coming from me, that’s a damn good complement!”

============================== [><]=============================

And there I stood, in front of a locked door and two of those exoskeleton-wearing Freedomers, these ones with shotguns.

One of them already called inside and warned Carmelia about me. I wonder what to expect about this…

“Let him in.” The mare’s voice, this time very calm, called from inside.

And both guards stepped aside, opening the door.

And as I’ve entered the room, it slammed shut.

That room was radically different from anything else I’ve seen. Everything was to a trim, not like Tinder’s shop, an overly organized but functional shop; this room was definitely ornamental, everything about it denounced the mare’s rich and refined taste. Landscape paintings, decorated plates, elaborate furniture… everything had its defined place and was spotless to a trim. It was like a world apart from the Zone, I assumed she must have had gone through immense efforts (or loads of cash) to salvage these things and renovate them to their former glory.

“So, you are the Stalker I’ve heard so much about… you’ve caused quite a stir around these parts.”

The sand-colored mare shook her impeccable cyan mane; there was no sign of emotion in her black eyes. The unicorn mare was probably used to speak about business.

“Will you please take off that dreadful scarf? I won’t speak to somepony that resembles a filthy bandit.”

Seeing my hesitation to take it off, she added:

“There is nothing to be ashamed off, Stalker. I was the one who directed you to the clinic, I saw the result of Patcher’s intervention, so I know what to expect.”

And I let it off, showing the lower half of my face along with that scar.

“Now, now… aren’t you quite the hero? I’ve heard that you were the one who busted out a group of Loners from the bandits rule at the garbage…”

“How do you know that? It was only yesterday that I’ve did that. Also, I’m no hero. My friends were the ones who did that, my role in it was minor”

“Well, I am the leader of Freedom. It is my job to know about things before other ponies do. Now, to the matter at hoof, I see that you were successful on the job. Good, good. My faction desperately needs stallions like you, who get things done.”

“I do not mean to be rude or anything, but how do you know if I even did the job? For all you know, I could just have gone onto that lair and refused to carry on.”

“Don’t be silly, Stalker. I know that you’ve carried it off exactly as I’ve told. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t survive. I know that I owe you more than a few answers about that particular job, so, ask ‘em”

Indeed, there was much that was left to be cleared.

“I’m not sure why you had me to have all the trouble to carry a useless artifact to the bottom of a lair that only contained a hooffull of bloodsuckers. Of course, they were more than a challenge for me and my friend, but one or two squads of Freedomers would have been more than able to wipe them out.”

“Oh, have you never considered that my intent was on keeping them alive?”

“Why? And don’t go on me with all that “cosmic-line” bullshit”

“Figures… that’s Wavey’s blabbermuzzling, isn’t it? That’s the problem with Freedom. Our philosophy tends to attract certain… simpleminded individuals. I’ve tried to explain to him why I wanted the mutants alive more than a dozen times, but he kept going on about that hogwash about “the MotherZone”… I guess that his mind decided that the simplest explanation was the truest. There was a seapony philosopher that wrote a principle about that… ah, I remember the name. Hippoccam’s razor. He isn’t exactly a bad pony; he just has that… special problem. I rue the day that somepony induced that debilitating thing to him, and he took the weed as a habit.”

“But about your question… the Zone isn’t much different from what Equestria was before, yes, the entire ecosystem has been replaced, but what most of the ponies do not get about it, is that it works the same as before.”

“Now, how I can explain this simple enough for you? Ok… imagine your regular bunch of douchebag, self-assuring army dropouts, that is, Duty. Take it that they had been having trouble with a bloodsucker lair nearby their base. So, they just go in and kill every last mutant. Afterwards, in their blindness, they celebrate, unaware that with the bloodsuckers out of the scene, there are less predators that hunt blind dogs. And so, after a week, ta-da, Duty is facing growing masses of blind dogs, raiding their base on a daily basis. So, guess what they do? Take up arms and slaughter them, leaving nothing but impaled canine limbs and rotting corpses under the sun in their wake. Which end up attracting packs of snorks to the area. Do you get the point? By their actions, they aren’t solving their issues, they are just remediating them. This is why we are against them. In their ignorance, they end up doing nothing but screwing the natural chain over and over. So far, the consequences of their actions have been limited, felt only by them. But I fear that someday they end up hitting jackpot and their meddling ends up affecting all the other factions, for the worst”

Insightful… I’ve never thought that way. It made sense. But yet…

“So, what do you do to keep the mutants at bay? They were deadly enough to slaughter… look at this.” And I drew the PDA I’ve found in the lair and gave it to her.

The mare read through it and a small smile crept around her face. “I suppose this explains some loose ends. I take it that you know about our “butchery”, don’t you?”

“I do. Angie mentioned about it.”

“Yes. She is one of the few around here that actually can think. Too bad she had such a bad taste choosing a coltfriend… The butchery exists to keep the bloodsuckers relatively happy and fed, so that, two issues are solved. One, they aren’t likely to get up here if they are getting meal for free down there. Second, in the case that an intervention is needed in their lair, the bloodsuckers would be least likely to retaliate, and if they did, they’d be rusty, due to the lack of use of their predating and hunting skills. Which is why this rag-tag group of Loners was able to kill two of them. If they were facing a regular bloodsucker, one of them would have the Loners butchered in instants. This is why you were not allowed to kill them; I intend to preserve that… “Lineage” of less dangerous bloodsuckers. This is what we do; we seek balance, equilibrium, harmony.”

“What about the artifact? And that stalagmite-thingy? What were them?”

“That artifact was an especially rare one; we only found one of such. It is called “Celestia’s tear” We only know that it creates some kind of “repulsion field” for bloodsuckers.”

“An artifact that affects only mutants? I never heard of that one before…”

“Quite a find, isn’t it? The problem with that artifact is that the repulsion field is extremely limited; it would only affect one bloodsucker. This is why the artifact’s proprieties wasn’t informed to you, if you were over-relying onto it and were attacked by two or more mutants, we’d have to send a mop squad to recover it. And that stalagmite, it is an altar. An anomalous formation that is known to react with other artifacts by amplifying their power. So, by putting the tear back onto it, you actually extended its power so that it affected the entire third underground floor and around, making every bloodsucker be repelled back into the sewers, where they shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Putting back the tear onto it…so, this means that you Freedomers have put it there before?”

“It does. When we first moved onto Hoofstok, the bloodsuckers were raving around the topside, stopping when we carried on that task. And it would be still good, if weren’t for that Loners. Fortunately, I was able to catch up with the sole survivor, the same that was carrying the artifact, after knowing about their intrusion. That mare quickly gave it back, submitting to our persuasion. Since, you know, five guns pointed at one’s body can be quite persuasive. The rest of the story is clear to you. Now that is cleared out, there is another subject…I know that you’ve asked my technician to decode some message on somepony’s else PDA. What I want to know is what interest do you take on it?”

Quick mind, come up with a lie, one that won’t give away my motives…

“A friend of mine was ponynapped and his PDA is the only thing I found when I went looking for him. I want to crack the message to check if he had any dangerous involvement with bandits or…”

“Charming… do you that I was born yesterday, Stalker? Nopony would go to such heights for a friend; I’ve lived enough on the Zone to be realistic about it. If you want to stay in good terms with Freedom, I suggest you to spill the beans already.”

The chances that the Freedom leader would be a mare so versed in social skills… well, there was only one medicine.

“I am tracking a unicorn, one that knows a way into the center of the Zone. For what reason I want to go there, I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Oh, that’s better. Now I know that we have a common interest. One that would convince you to carry off another assignment.”

“Does it involve hoof-brawling bloodsuckers? I had enough of it.”

“No, for all that I’m concerned; you are free to use violence in this one.”

“Then, what is it about?”

“We moved onto Hoofstok to secure a foothold onto the Zone’s center. Truth is that we are currently… stalled. We are massing troops so that we can muscle through the bandits and mercs’ turf, the outlying compounds that do not belong to Hoofstok, the so called, wild territory. We intend to move our faction entirely to get a more advantageous position in the Zone, that position is an equestrian army’ base a few kilometers to the north. According to one of my informants, the grunts there have been requesting withdrawal for some time, no surprises. They are in a harsh land, with little food and surrounded by Stalkers that resent them and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them dead. They were only able to withstand the Stalker’s attacks due to an automated security system, one that we are interested in reclaiming to our own purposes. I’ve came to known that the security system can be disabled, provided that one has a certain override code. What I want you to do is obtain such code.”

“Just this? Are you going to leave me on the dark again? I don’t have a clue where I can find that thing…”

“I have. There is an abandoned facility over a ghost village, a short trot east from Hoofstok, one that some of my scouts have definitely divined it as a military development facility. I want you to check if they have an all-purpose or master override code for security systems, like the one that the grunts are making use to since, none of the Freedom squads was able to fully explore the complex and get out alive.”

“What is in for me? I already did a “trust” task, so Dom will decode my PDA anyway.”

“Indeed he will, but I ask you to think a little about it. If we can get more ground closer to the center, we would indebt it to you. And as such, you’d be allowed safe passage. Think about it, you can’t possibly expect to make it to the center without befriending a faction. Also, your efforts won’t go materially unrewarded. As you’ve seen, I insist on paying a fair price according to the service, and I offer to do it so again, if you take the job.”

“I’ll… mull over it. I had a lot through this day. If you excuse me, I’ll take my leave to get some sleep, that is, if you do not have anything else to speak about with me.”

“Yes… how inconsiderate of me to hold you for so long, but it was needed, wasn’t it? Oh well, you may leave. I await your answer tomorrow, Stalker.”

And using her magic to open the door, the mare regally held her hoof high, pointing to the exit, while her eyes were shut and her nose held high.

============================== [><]=============================

Truth be told, I couldn’t be more relieved when I finally found the room where the “innkeeper” (because it was a free resting “establishment”, actually, just a huge building split into several rooms that that Freedom has fitted with any mattresses, pillows, beds and anything soft they could find, which they offered as a resting place for everypony that wasn’t part of the Freedom faction – they had their own private quarters, presumably – well, good ol’ Freedom hospitality.) has assigned Lielle. And just as he said, there was the mare, laying down on an old bed without her suit, with a blanket down onto the ground, her saddlebags by the corner.

I picked up the blanket and was going to cover her again, when I noted something…

Her cutie mark. I never took note of it before, because the sunrise armor was covering it. Now, it lay bare, and it was beautiful…

A Ferris wheel, all lighted up and painted in vibrant colors… that was it. It meant that she liked the circus, or, it had a metaphorical sense? Like a memory to one’s times of happiness and smiles… much like the ones I strived to recall…along with the rest of my past.

I dropped the blanket over her body and went to a second bed, directly opposed to hers.

As much as I’ve tried, I couldn’t sleep… much thing has happened… and still, not much was clear. I had to wait until tomorrow noon to get the decoded message, and the wait was killing me…

I picked my own PDA, the same that Ameara has showed me… at that occasion, I didn’t read all the data about the project mergequine, and I didn’t had the opportunity to fill myself in more about it.

I pressed the PDA’s buttons, looking for entries about it and skipping the ones I’ve had read already. I came upon an interesting one:

“Result report U-89z:

Subject 413: Non-consistent biological changes

Subject 256: Non-consistent biological changes

Subject 901: Non-consistent biological changes

Subject 761: Negligible biological changes

Subject 313: Non-consistent biological changes

Subject 440: Biological change recorded: growth of a fifth limb. No change in muscular structure or flying appendices generated.

Subject 711: Non-consistent biological changes

Subject 971: Biological change recorded: Muscular mass increased by 50%, growth of magical keratin antler has not been recorded. Partial success.

Relaying all the data to backup facility #4”

So, they had a storage facility for all the data… that was my target. Once I reach the NPP, I shall look for it…

And on another matter, what does it means by… “Partial success”?

I skimmed around more entries, looking for answers…

“*corrupted*…and by doing so, along with wiping their memories and imbuing them with knowledge that is useful for their tasks, we’d have the perfect army. Since alicorns are sterile, we are right now, playing Faust and experimenting until we reach the desired results, a pony combining both flight, magic and muscle, and totally under the monarchy’s command, incapable of regret, fear and mercy, fitted with the most advanced ballistic weaponry we can design, such as the big…*corrupted*…on a tight schedule, since our facility is way behind the other ones that share this project, Kieram has gotten an interesting lead experimenting with the gryphons and I’ve heard that Seaknot solved out some important issues by dealing with the…*corrupted*”

By Nightmare Moon’s whiskers… if any of this was serious…

The project intended to create alicorns… alicorns… create perfection, god-beings, and totally under the control of the monarchy. They must have been facing a tight opposition to even consider such thing… and I was dragged into it.

According to the first entry I’ve read when Ameara woke me up, it was Celestia’s own doing… even if really was, I didn’t hated her. No point on hating ones that met their deaths long ago, but this still had some loose ends…

Even more, there was more than one facility dedicated to the project, It must have been really important to require such an effort… they had been experimenting with gryphons and probably other creatures as well.

But something has pulled the project out of track, probably the accident. Of course, they haven’t succeeded in it, at least in the facility I was found (since, evidently, I was no alicorn.) but still, they have been working on me. The memory purge, although none as strong as they intended to place, was present, also, a small array of knowledge, such as strategy thought, combat tactics and the use or firearms (ironical that they spent millions of bits to implant the knowledge on how to use what was a technological advancement back then, but that nowadays, was a skill that even a filly had, since, on the Zone, they’d teach them how to wield a gun even before they teach ’em how to trot.) Typical military-ish crapload…

And on the other hoof, what they took. My colthood, my family… things I could only remember bits and pieces about.

My magic, without adequate training and conditioning, that I never had the time to undertake, my magical talents never surfaced… I only had the bread n’ butter magic of the unicorn kin: telekinesis, which we all take for granted, really, and detect magic, an almost useless spell that allows me to divine if a certain item or location or pony is imbued with magic or not.

My cutie mark. Without a proper colthood, I could never discover my talent. And now, in its place, laid a gas mask. I had a mark, not a cutie mark. It was just a mark. I didn’t know what it represented or its purpose. And I couldn’t stop believing that the project had its hoof on this too…

My mind, screwed by their training… I could just remember shreds, and even that, I didn’t knew what caused me to learn such things, but I had that skill. Like, for example, you all know how to trot, but you certainly do not remember WHEN or HOW you learned it, the knowledge has just been all along on your head, since you’ve learned it as a little filly or a colt. With me, it was the same thing, but with nearly everything. I could remember, but only isolated memories, with little or no context…

And I laid down the PDA, taking out the AK out of my saddlebag instead.

It could use some repairs…

I floated it close, such a strange thing… A small trigger, a long body… almost like it wasn’t made for pony use…

At first thought, I remembered another preschool memory, about one of the colts on my classroom. He had a real craze for those fiction books, one about mutant furless monkeys. He’d went on about how they had lived before ponykind, invented guns, used to speak a language that resembled gibberish, wore clown shoes and longed for an almost homoaffective kind of bonding around a campfire after a long day of adventures…

Then, I ditched that that idea completely. It was thoroughly stupid…

After a new inspection, I moved the gun around with ease to check its mags… then it hit me.

The guns were intended to be unusable by ponykind, all of it, but the ones who inherently knew telekinesis.

But why? Probably an indirect control measure placed by the princess herself into the design. Well, it was ineffective. Earth pony ingenuity found its way through, with the frames and motion technology....

ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz…

That was when Lielle started to snore, and I felt insanely tired… a nap wouldn’t hurt.

============================== [><]=============================

Books, so many books… and they were heavy too, about the most varied subjects… fishing, crafts, cooking, metalworking, zoology, physics… and several other subjects…

Well, if one of these could help me find my special talent, it would be worth the effort.

The Canterlot royal library had tons of those, thousands and thousands of books neatly disposed, free to be browsed at leisure by any citizen. Like that little, mark-less grey colt, me.

And as I’ve dropped the entire pile of books onto a table near the window, I’ve heard a commotion outside.

Princess Celestia, prancing again with a number of fillies… a new batch of “favorites”… sheesh… it was always like this, unicorn fillies were always favored, by having all the undivided attention of the princess herself. Who always trained them as mares of exceptional magical skill, while colts… were left to their own devices to learn at what they were good…

“What do you mean; I cannot have an audience with the princess? do you have any idea who I am?”

And I turned around, to see the source of that yelling.

Two bulky royal guards had been “escorting” an old coot, a sea blue stallion with a long white beard and purple mage’s attire, decorated with… bells?

And the guards tossed him into the ground, where the old one scrambled, having lost his hat on the confusion.

And it flew near me.

Such a nice hat… so soft and well-made, decorated with celestial bodies…

I took it and approached the old stallion, who still tried to make his whereabouts.

“…have no respect for their elders… Oh, thank you my boy…”

And he took the hat and set it onto his head again, with a concise motion.

“It’s ok. You should be more careful than to cross the royal guard, old timer…”

And he widened his eyes.

“You don’t know me too? Faust’s hooves! What had they been teaching the young at the schools? Never heard of me? The amazing Starswirl, the Bearded? The creator of the amniomorphic spell, the most important conjurer of the pre-classical era? The compiler of the “Baffling and Brilliant Bestiary for all Bickering Beasts”? The cover and main poster of the Neighvember edition of “Playbeard”? Do any of these feats seem familiar?”

“I’m sorry, but… none of these ring a bell… heh”

“Typical… no respect for history. In the old times, I’d have you turned into a newt.”

“That probably wouldn’t make things much worse for me…”

And a sympathetic look grew in his eyes.

“What is wrong, boy? You are still young and healthy; don’t see how things could be bad for you.”

“My flank, that’s what’s wrong!”

“Let me give a look at it”

So, he gazed a bit into it

“Hmm… nothing wrong with it, looks healthy enough and perfect… just a bit chubby, but it isn’t really an issue…”

“It is blank! That’s what is wrong with it. I have no talent whatsoever… Sigh… everything would be so much easier if I were a mare…”

“Why would you say such thing, boy? We stallions have our own importance too.”

“Oh yeah? Name one stallion that had a pivotal role in equestrian history.”

And as he opened his muzzle, I instantly added:

“Excluding yourself”

“Erm… there is…there was…no, he wasn’t… well, that is not the point. The point is that even if they didn’t made it to the books, they were just as hardworking as any mare. It is just that…mares outshined most of the important stallions, but that does not give an excuse for the younger generation to stop trying. If anything, it should make them strive harder.”

“Perhaps… although I have no idea in what I am good at.”

“Tell you what boy… I am not growing any younger, and I could really use an assistant, The last time I had one was over two thousand years back…if you are interested, I can teach you the ways of unicorn magic, so that you’d have some talent.”

“Wow… you really would teach me that? Why?”

“Well… you kind of remember myself when I was younger; of course, you don’t have the dazzling looks, or the sharp intellect, or quick wit that I had, but anyways…”

“If you are interested, come by my house at the blue district, number 38, this afternoon.”

“Thanks, old timer. I’ll be there.”

“I know that you will…So, if you excuse me, I’ll take my leave.”

And he stretched his hooves, causing a fireball to appear and burn down a shelf of books in instants, leaving only a big burnt match in its place.

The librarian stared daggers at the old mage.

“Sorry about that…I can’t control it sometimes.”

And he dignifiedly trotted outside, smiling excuses along the way.

Finally… a chance to know my destiny. I was happier than ever, a powerful mage considered taking me under his wing. I felt like I could float…

I packed all of the books I previously selected and checked them out, dropping them onto my school saddlebag and trotting back home. I was so happy…

That was the last time I saw that old mage, also, I never made it to home…

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- bestiary

#/filenam – Bloodsucker

#/filedescript – Regarded as merely a legend in times before, now Stalkers everywhere recognize bloosuckers as very real and dangerous threats. The beast’s appearance, although resembling a regular pony (earth pony, pegasus or unicorn, there had been sightings of bloodsuckers of every kind) has tentacles where the muzzle should be and scales where the fur should be. The creature makes use of its hooves to maim the prey and it’s tentacles to paralyze unwary ones and suck them dry of blood. One of the most distinctive abilities of a bloodsucker is the production of a corrosive toxin that, when covering all the skin of the creature, renders the bloodsucker completely invisible. It is known that most of these creatures can be found either in underground lair or traversing marshes, if one is foolish enough to hunt them. Most Stalkers, even experienced ones, go through high efforts to avoid confronting a bloodsucker, because if they do, it usually means their death. If a confrontation is absolutely necessary, a fast-firing weapon (either an assault rifle or a machine gun) or a shotgun should be preferred, since spraying shots is the best chance that one Stalker has to hit them.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. VI: Oldword heirlooms

CP. VI – Oldworld Heirlooms

“Hey Stalker, why so jumpy? Here, sit by the fire with us… let me share a tale with you… comfortable? Now, you’ve ever heard about the Cartographer? He was one of the first stalkers to ever brave the Zone… and his heart still beats. Rumor has it that he was one of the original residents before the… you know, accident. They say he can draw maps of every place of the Zone, no joke! Complete with landmarks and indications of anomaly clusters and mutant lairs… how he does that? How the heck would I know? Perhaps a tight network of informants, a special artifact, a lot of legwork… some nutcases even say that he gone to the Monolith, asked to be able to lead anypony through any path… I don’t know where reality ends and the legend begins… but thing is, if you can manage to find him and have a ton of dough, he can draw accurate maps straight onto artifact motherlodes, secret passages, and all the shit like that… That’s somepony I would like to have a chat with. I betcha he has gone even past the scorcher…”

“You said what to her?”

The azure mare deadpanned at my statement. Of course, a natural reaction. After all, yesterday’s adventure had left its scars (not only the metaphorical ones, mind you) and my eagerness to embark on another one after that was not shared by her, since she was the one who had been closer to death.

“Well… I just thought it’d help us go forw…”

“Think again then. You just took a brief break from the earlier incursion, one I joined against my judgment” Yep, throw that one at me… as if my conscience (I should get rid of it as soon as I can…) wasn’t already berating at me for that “And now, after barely surviving that one, you expect me to embark on another just like this? Now I see that you are missing a few screws.”

I sighed. It was no use, and Lielle was right about it, to much of my disappointment. Strange that she was actually making sense, after all. Getting brain-probed by a bloodsucker is an event that dramatically changes how one perceives its life, so it seems…

I packed my stuff and drew a wad of cash from my saddlebag, offering it to the mare.

“What is this? I’m not convinced by bribery.”

“Our reward for doing the job. The Freedomers were nice enough to hold their end of the deal.”

She grasped the money and counted it, sorting out half of the amount

“Two and a half grant for all that trouble? What do they think we are? Pushover hobos?”

“Actually, all of that is your cut. I’ve already shared it.”

And her eyes widened in unbelief, and she started to do the math by tapping her hoof.

“This means, they have paid us… Ten thousand, exactly. I could get used to that…” And she stored her money.

“And for that one other job, the Freedom leader has promised an equally juicy pay. Too bad you are not interested anymore. Well, it was good while it lasted.”

And as I was leaving, she jumped out of the bed and reached me out.

“Wait, I’m going with you again. Ok, last time wasn’t so appealing, but we can both agree that we’ve both learned something from it, and that what makes adventuring worthwhile. I’ve even added records about the bloodsuckers on my mutant hunter’s notes.”

What can I say? Money is a powerful motivator.

“Ok. If you’re in, I am a bit relieved. I’d hate to go through the rest of the way alone.”

“Too bad you aren’t exactly the charismatic type.”

I let that snarky comment slide, and made my way to Dom’s workshop to retrieve my repaired armor, while she came by to do the same. I’d much as well get my own rifle repaired too.

“So, dreamt about something interesting? You were out for quite a while, you know”

“Nothing much, really” She answered “Again that stupid about baked goods being used as ammunition in intricate weaponry employed by two warring pre-classical era pony factions. Maybe it could evolve into something worthy plot wise. Baker wars or something like that…”

That was a new one; she turned out to be a writer… of sorts. Well, the Zone was so desolate and hopeless that some ponies just HAD to have some way to set their minds off from it, couldn’t really blame her for doing so.

============================== [><]=============================

The ever-welcoming mess of Dominic’s shop still stood with all of its chaotic glory, the place, if nothing, was even messier. Undoubtedly, the fallout from repairing our suits, which he didn’t exactly mind cleaning up.

Dominic himself stood again at his workbench, dismantling a FRAME. He interrupted his work to greet us.

“How it goes, Stalkers? Came to get your stuff back and get back to stalkin’? Just a second, I’ve left it somewhere around…”

And he moved around some of the stuff that filled the other workbench, retrieving a green-olive sunrise suit and a grey-tinted LS-3a body armor.

While my friend put her armor right back on, I handed mine back to Dominic.

“Dom, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go right on, pal.”

“How much would it cost to reinforce all the armor with leather, fur, or anything that would soften impact from hooves?”

Yes, I’ve learned my lesson. You are able to, once in a while, dodge a bullet, but yet, I remain to see somepony who can dodge a bloodsucker’s charge without seeing where the shithead is coming from. (And most of the time, THEY CAN’T)

The unicorn’s face broke in a smile of satisfaction

“Looking to protect yourself against those crazy mutants, aren’t we? Wise choice. I’d suggest leather, its light enough and will keep you warm as well too; I have some of it in stock. This upgrade plus the repairs would cost 1750 bits. Still want it?”

“Yep. Sew it already, please.”

And he took my suit, opened a locker and took some leather from it, and retrieved a skinning knife and sewing material from a drawer of one of the workbenches.

Quickly enough, he set to work on the armor, with amazing focus and precision. He was talented in his trade, I’ll give him that.

“So, how is my PDA going?”

“It’s over that workbench, check it out by yourself. Just don’t interrupt it or you’ll have to wait all over again” He said without lifting his eyes from his work, pointing to the farthest workbench.

I’ve came closer to it. there was some routine running on the PDA, on one of the sides, a vertical bar going up and down labeled “FFE” , and on the another side, another vertical bar labeled “RCV”, going up and down in a different pace. On the middle, a number: 73%. The completion rate, definitely. After seeing it for a while, the program seemed to sync out both of the lateral bars for each letter of the message. It would be a while before it was ready.

“Alright, done here” Dom’s voice brought me back to reality. He tossed the suit to me, which I promptly put on, drawing the hood from it and my scarf as well.

“Spotting something out there, lady?” The technician now faced Lielle, thoroughly absorbed in seeing the landscape. His workshop had quite a view, being on the fifth floor.

“Another miserable, grey-dulled day.” She was right. The skies were starting to be overtaken by grey clouds, depressingly announcing a storm for sometime later this day.

“It’s better than other days when the weather is unbearably hot or insanely cold. It is either one excess of another. Fine, not-too-cold-or-too-hot days happens rarely on the Zone. And thanks to this miserable, frequently inconstant weather, the land inside the zone is unfertile, with most of the food coming from outside, traded by scavenge, artifacts or money”

I approached the parapet too, to spot onto outside as well. “I presume the weather is like this because, or rather, the lack of pegasai intervention?”

“Well, I can’t really confirm it or deny, but I have my own theory about it. Pegasai do not change the weather, period. They “soften” it, like the taming of a wild beast. Without them to act upon it, weather is more prone to daily excesses, either scorching heat or freezing cold. I don’t know the technicalities of it, you’d be better off asking one of them that used to work on the weather control crew, if you ever find one, but like I said, they seem to work over on little details from the weather: a cloud here or there, air currents, and it all adds up, in changing those small details, they end up changing the whole, making an otherwise unbearable weather pleasant. Without their efforts, pleasant days are rare, and when they appear, they are short-lived, because there is nopony to “maintain” them. Even if they could actually fly, there’s even another obstacle for them, discouraging any intervention…”

“And that is?”

“Anomalies, what else? Air bound anomalies, some with the size of a whale! There was this one time, when I’ve spotted the grunts with one of their flying machines, helicopters, they call them. The army boys flew directly onto a springboard, and a big one. It cracked their craft apart like it was a ripe watermelon; it went down spiraling and smoking just to hit hard ground. After that, the royal military guard wasn’t so keen to send crafts loaded with personnel ever again, limiting themselves to only fly around the borders of the Zone. Heh… better for us.”

“Quite a view you have here…I can see little skyscrapers on the horizon…”

“Yep, it is. Probably the reason that I was able to hook up my marefriend for so long, gets really pretty at sunset, when the sun goes down behind Ponyville’s skyscrapers.”

“Ponyville, a city?”

“An abandoned one, set out on the very hearth of the Zone, neighboring the power plant itself.”

“I expect to reach it someday…” I sighed

“Everypony does, kid, everypony does. But yet, there is way too much ground that separates Hoofstok from it. You see these compounds stretching north and east from Hoofstok? The Wild Territory, the abandoned distribution center for the goods produced at the textiles compound which is today named as Hoofstok, the Wild Territory is overrun with mutants, mercs and the occasional Tark.”

He pointed east

“All that goes in that direction is marshes and marshes of… waste. An area filled with so much wildlife and Zone activity, that few ever brave it. The wastes, or Zaton and Yanov, the official names of the subzones of the wastes. Few ponies are tempted to head that way, and none that went that way ever came back, their fate remain a mystery.”

The mechanic pointed at the opposite direction, west, more precisely, southwest.

“There is home of all the wayward and wicked, the misguided and insane, the very worst of the Zone… Duty. The agropony institute, what once was a research facility for agriculture is nowadays used as flocking grounds for that kind of… equines. Their domains extend even further east, embracing the Hoofer dam and bordering a Tark-infested mine. There’s interesting stuff I’ve found out about the dam, it was in the middle of some kind of administrative scandal before the accident; it had to be rebuilt over six times, since it was made of inadequate and frail materials. Well, you get what you pay for…”

The stallion moved his hoof a tad in the north direction

“See where the compounds end? Behind that chain of mountains lies Mirror Lake, used to be a pretty place for leisure and everything. That was before. Now it stands as a particularly murky and dark place, with the eggheads trying to do their research while Tarks and Snorks roam the area in big numbers.”

He then pointed to southeast

“Ah, Dark Valley. Most descriptive name ever. It’s always dark, scary, foggy, filled with dogs, boars, striders and if the rumors are true, even bandits. Not much reason to go there.”

Pointing directly south, he commented:

“The garbage, well, you’ve came from it. There isn’t much more I can tell you about it, it is just what the name says, a big dump that the bandits insist on hoofing. Well, they don’t smell or stink too much either, so we leave them to their devices and they leave us to ours, we have other priorities than them in mind.”

And he pointed north

“There goes the army warehouses, not much. Just an ancient REA base, they’re quite fortified on that base, you know. I wouldn’t mind shifting places with them, they have some top-of-the-art automated security system, I wish I could tinker with it. Near their base, if you believe the stories, there is located a… ghost village. Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but the stories someponies spread… further north, do you spot all those red leaves? That’s Whitetail woods national park. Once a rich preserved forest, now it is overrun by mutants, even more, mutants not commonly seen. The whitetail is like a staging ground for all kinds of misshapen creatures. It’s separated from the army warehouses by a big gap, ghastly gorge. Said gorge extends toward the wild territory, the part that crosses it being concreted, and ends up at… Hoofer dam, where Duty has always had a way toward the center of the Zone, but were unable to use it, due to the brain scorcher.”

“The Whitetail Park is linked with some big urban center – the name escapes me at the moment – on the west direction, and north with Ponyville itself. Now, that city is something to be aware of. Ages past it was merely a village, but someway, a huge influx of cash allowed it to be developed. And Faust knows it was needed… from what I’ve read, the city was, originally, very poorly planned – one in each three roads in that city led to a big cliff drop, and some buildings were made of exquisite materials: gingerbread, cardboard, some really wacko stuff. With cash in their hands, the citizens were able to renovate the whole city, affording apartments, more services, fledging a wide array of commerce and development, all of which, included in a chain that allowed the whole city to dramatically develop in a short span of time. Perhaps to feed that power-hungry city, somepony had the brilliant idea of building a biomagical power plant. They had no idea of the outspread of such action, so ignorant people were back then… well, the city is not safe either. (No place truly ever is…) Packs of mutants coming from the Whitetail Park, bandits, desperados and veteran Stalker daredevils that found one or other way past the scorcher and survived that far compose the city’s regular fauna, also, more radiation than you’ll ever want in there. All in there for the lucky ones who can get past the brain scorcher AND the Whitetail park. And lastly, after that city, lies the ultimate prize, the NPP itself, which few laid eyes on, and none ever came back to tell the tale. Totally out of reach and yet, so appealing… it is almost poetic.”

No return? Surely, if someone had reached the NPP, it would be natural to come back to cash out the stuff he stumbled upon and brag around. The fact that nopony ever returned was an indication that, in itself, there was something fishy about it.

“Well, there’s enough of bedtime tales… now, for all the repairs, the cost is 2500 bits.”

And so, I handed over the 1750 bits I owed him, and Lielle handed over the rest of the amount for payment.

“Have a good day, ok? See you two later on.”

============================== [><]=============================

“Well, six medkits, eight grenades and twenty bandages… this will be 1500 bits”

I paid the trader and he handed over the supplies

“Is there anything else?” he asked with those needy blue eyes

“I need a weapon” My companion said.

“But you already have that perfectly fine viper-5 I gave ya; you didn’t even fire it yet!” I reminded her while the trader glared daggers at me

“And that’s why I need a weapon, this one failed in defending me. I need something good, something battle-worthy… something… LIKE THAT!”

And she pointed to a shotgun mounted to the wall, a mighty SPAS-12. Hell, that thing would be able to open some pretty decent holes through an equine…

“Ah, you have good taste lady. I was saving this one for somepony special, but I guess I could order another one, though it’s going to cost you a bit more because of that… also, the craftspony imbued in this thing is dazzling… 8 rounds of pure stopping power, 12 gauge, pump-action fire, an aluminum stock capable of more positions than the Kama Sutra, and IT IS BLACK! What more could you ask for?”

I saw her eyes gleam like a little kid, and she even drooled a bit… Tinder was digging through it; I suspect that he was hearing coins jingling into his head, kind of fitting considering his cutie mark: a twenty bits note.

“WANT!” Lielle said bluntly

“2500 bits, without the ammo…”

And she slapped the cash onto the counter as the trader finished his sentence, even rounding it up to 3000 to pay for extra slugs.

Tinder loaded the SPAS with ammunition and delivered it to the mare, which, in a short interval, tossed her viper-5 onto the bag, and the SPAS onto the frame, and threw the extra slugs onto the saddlebag as well.

Tinder counted his money while I mused for us to leave.

“Wait, you’re forgetting something!” the stallion said.

We returned to his counter, and I looked curiously to the earth pony while he mouth-scribbled onto a paper, and then, he handed it to Lielle.

I read it over her shoulder:

Congratulations. You just bought your very first shotgun. Before enjoying it, you should know a few things beforehand:

1- Aim away from the face

2- Reload frequently, you’ll never know…

3-Not recommended for use by foals under five, for these, see our Sawn offs and Marekarovs

4- This should not be used as a stealth weapon

Thank you for the purchase.

And on really small letters under those:

To the owner of this document, we provide a warranty for the period of 120 (one hundred and twenty) minutes after the purchase, Tinder’s store. Warranty is void if the merchandise is used improperly

The mare folded the note and tucked it into her pack, as we returned to the slim Hoofstokian alleyways.

Ka-ching!

“Alright. Now I can start blasting out those pests” She stated with an unrelenting smile.

I rolled my eyes while half-smiling as well. It was quite hard not to get contaminated by her mood.

“Let’s meet out Carmelia, the Freedom commander, so she can lay out the details about the job.”

She nodded and went along.

============================== [><]=============================

“So, you use a pitchfork formation when you deal with…”

Knock, Knock!

The Freedom leader raised her eyes from the map, her accompanying squad leaders, Cork, Firepit and Sweetmeal did the same as well, all eyes went down upon us, as we entered the commander’s lavishly decorated office.

“We’ll set out the plan’s details afterwards. For now, have a break, brothers.”

And the three heavily geared veteran Freedomers left the area, the last one closing the door on his way out.

Carmelia casually rolled the map and stored it onto a cabinet by the wall, I noticed that she was quite exhausted, leading a faction wasn’t an easy feat, let alone one as ideologically varied as Freedom…

“Much work lately?” I tried to sound relaxed.

“It’s the toll of my job, all the part of being the commander. Can’t say that I’m one hundred per cent satisfied, but it’s what I do best. Tee hee.”

She sat at her ebon chair and bemusedly glared at us, pleased with having our attention.

“So, I assume you two are here for that job I spoke of yesterday, hmm?” And her gaze fully shifted to my friend. “I’m afraid we’ve been not introduced”

“Not yet. I’m Lielle, always a pleasure meeting new ponies.” She said while offering her hoof

The unicorn shook it in turn, opening a welcoming smile. “Indeed. My name is Carmelia, dear. Glad to meet the mare who is keeping this one” -And she hoofed at me- “In short reins. Goddess knows he needs it, with the wounds he came with last night…”

“Nah, most of the time he is cool… Although he has a quite nasty tendency to, once in a while, hit the bot…”

I felt my face blaze with red and I shot angry glares at both of the mares.

“You two realize that I am still on the same room, right?”

Carmelia’s smile quickly assumed an awkward appearance, but she recomposed herself and started talking at once.

“I take it that you two accept the job, then?” We both nodded. “Good, good… as I’ve said, I need you to retrieve access codes for an automated defense system. I don’t know if you are aware, but to the east of Hoofstok lays the wastes, Zaton and Yanov, separated by a road and a thick forest. A singular landmark is strategically positioned on the way to the wastes, connected by the road. It is almost like somepony wished to place it on the most out of the way, secluded place that he could find. A village, an idyllic, rustic village, back on the day. Thing is, that village is in fact, a cover for a presumably – heh – secret military research and development site. I’ve already sent in five or five squads to the area, while they were successful pinpointing the entrance and barging in, their comms died out. Nopony went out, period. What I want you two to do is access the database and download all relevant data, and then, bring it to me, so that we can devise a way to neutralize, bypass or circumvent the automated defense system being used by the military forces occupying the warehouses’ area. It’s simple enough, I presume. Questions?”

Lielle eagerly raised her hoof

“What kind of enemies we’ll be up against?”

Carmelia held her chin on her hoof, thoughtful.

“That’s about it. We have no data whatsoever on what you will face inside the complex, but on the way to it, expect to meet common mutant wildlife, it has pretty much taken over that sector. And anomalies as well, like that even needs pointing out…”

“N-No bloodsuckers, right?” She stuttered

“Nope, we’ve seen none so far, not that’s an accurate indicative of their activity, you must know the reason…” The azure mare’s eyes widened with panic.

“Hahaha, calm down, I’m just kidding. They – usually – don’t go topside, don’t worry about them.”

“And how do we find out the entrance?” I pointed out

The mare withdrew a wrapped item from her desk and gave it to me. It was a small, telekinesis-drawn map marking the route toward Hoofstok to the village, with a blue “X” marking the entrance to the site, wrapped around a flash drive: a convenient and – relatively- cheap way of storing information taken from other technological gadgets.

“Good luck, and remember, get all the data from the database. I’ll keep the cash ready”

We left her office, crossing the door. As soon as we did it, the three squad leaders waiting in the hallway re-entered the room.

“Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?”

“No, not at all… but then again, I thought the same about bloodsuckers…”

I felt sympathetic toward the mare. Yes, she had been through hell and back. Fortunately, not much from now on would make her go off her guard

“C’mon, don’t be such a pessimistic. Everything will turn out alright. We’ll just face a few normal mutants, no big deal: probably dogs or boars, nothing beyond your expertise.”

She seemed to light up a bit

“That seems more pleasant, yeah…”

And at that moment, while we were trotting along the alleyways, the megaphone system cranked up with those long acquainted voices.

“Hey Tinder, you got the loot over there?”

“What loot, Dom?”

“The box, you dickhead. I’ve sent a deliverpony to drop it by your store”

“Ah, that one? Just a sec, buddy.” *Sounds of a cardboard box being torn*”Well, there’s plenty of marekarovs here, dude.”

“So, how much for them?”

“Are you kidding me? You want money for THESE? C’mon Dom, I wouldn’t buy this type of crap off from you even if I were high on joke AND drunk.”

“Did somebody irradiated your weed stash or what, Tinder? Everything there was reworked to function top-notch”

“If you say so, I suppose I can cut some slack and offer 1500 bits for the whole package”

“You mad? There’s like, forty marekarovs in there. I could get more for it by meting them onto scrap metal, you asswipe.”

“Do you think that’s a shitty price, pal? Here’s news for ya: IT IS! If you don’t like it, then take your crap outta my face and scram”

“Alright then, but you pay the deliverpony this time.”

“As if! Just lift your damn butt and pick these up, dopehead!”

“You and I both know that ain’t gonna happen’. I’m not leaving my workshop, buddy.”

“Why is that such a big deal for you? Just call in your marefriend and she’ll cover for you, dimwit”

“She has her own things to do, asswipe”

“Don’t pull that excuse on me. Everypony knows that the real reason she spends so much time away from you is because you have nothing down there that would impress even a little filly!”

“Like your amorous situation was any better, you fucking midget… you must need a goddamn stool in the rare occasions you get lucky, and don’t even get me started on your length... it probably doesn’t even goes past your belly…”

“As a matter of fact, it does. Which is more yours will ever reach.”

“Then, if it is that long, why don’t you turn it and shove it up your…”

Carmelia’s voice broke the two stallion’s banter at that point

“What the hell is wrong with you two? I can’t believe you two brain-dead morons are seriously arguing about whose’s cock is longer! SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET BACK TO WORK ALREADY, YOU RETARDS, I DON'T FUCKING PAY YOU TWO TO LOLLYGAG ALL DAY LONG!!”

============================== [><]=============================

“See, here’s one right there!”

I trotted a few meters near the anomaly. Yep, it was a springboard alright. Its transparent enormous “bubble” outlay defined it as such.

“How you saw it from this distance? It seemed to have nothing at all just a minute ago”

I shook my head and turned to her. I could see the Hoofstokian structures by the horizon… we had been trotting for one or two hours already, the trip down the road was uneventful, unless you count scaring stray mutant dogs as something worthwhile mentioning.

Broken down construction vehicles, scattered props, half-dug ditches, incomplete structures, dirt… everything there hinted that the road area was originally planned to be an eastern expansion of the compound that now was known as Hoofstok, only that, they were never able to conclude it.

“Yes, they are a tad difficult to spot if you don’t pay much attention. Visibility depends on how the sun rays hit the anomaly. Come a bit closer, you’ll see it better…”

She trotted near the anomaly, instinctively raising her hooves to the eyes.

“It is so… bright.”

“Yeah. If you get too close, it gets brighter and brighter because anomalies reflect light. Also, if I hadn’t turned off my anomaly detector, it’d be beeping like crazy. You should look for landscape clues signalizing the anomaly as well… strange vortices of leaves, dancing clouds of dust, air fluctuation, static electricity, weird-colored fog, and of course, blood stains and torn limbs… I thought it was common knowledge for any Zone traveler … How did you traveled around the anomalies without knowing this stuff?”

She took a few strides back and I followed.

“By observing the animals, silly. They have much more sharp senses than us, they know where the anomalies are, so it is just a matter of careful observation, and then, of tagging the anomalies’ location.”

I eyed her curiously. “The way you put it, it worked every single time? I mean, animals cannot know EVERY anomaly pocket, you’d be probably bound to hit one soon or later if you relied only onto them.”

“Yes, it happened. I hit a springboard… five or six times, who’s counting? And the external rim of a meat grinder just once… well, just a few bruises, nothing really serious…” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“Which kind of makes me wonder… why the sudden interest about recognizing and avoiding anomalies?”

She blinked a few times before opening her muzzle. “It is just that… let’s say that… I want to save on meds! Yes, that’s it. I can’t have a nice cash budget when I expend so much on medkits…”

“Ooookay…” My tone dripped distrust, that excuse was faker than a seven bits note, I could tell it. “Next on… bolts!”

I floated the small bag of bolts from my saddlebag, opening it to reveal numerous iron bolts, some rusted, cracked ones, but they were all good for what we usually needed them. The bag was almost full because I picked a few while staying at Hoofstok.

After cautiously hoofing through the bag, I found a bolt that seemed particularly good: it was not too big or small, it didn’t have any rust and the metal still had some shine.

Using my telekinesis, I flung it to the springboard. The small item went through an invisible wall, outlying a small portion of the springboard’s body with red, orange and yellow tones, like a stone hitting a water body and producing small waves around the critical point, while the bolt itself steamed into a molten red coloration. The anomaly reacted by leaving shockwaves that lifted dust in a circular pattern around its main structure, the springboard left out more three or four shockwaves before returning to a stabilized stance.

“Whenever you tread into uncertain territory, always throw a bolt before trotting on. If you don’t, after four or five steps, you’re history. Try it now. Grab a bolt and toss it into the anomaly. I’m not exactly sure on how you earth ponies do it, without telekinesis, so I’d recommend you try either with your hooves, tail or mouth, whenever you feel better with…Also, serve yourself from some of my bolts, if you want to practice later”

I dropped the bag and gave her space.

The mare approached and nuzzled the bag, picking a hooffull of bolts. After eyeing them, she took her pick. Upon finding an especially promising one, she gripped it with her teeth. With the item into her mouth, she carefully aimed at the anomaly…

PTOOOOOOOOO!!!

She spat the bolt right onto the anomaly. From that distance, missing it would have been quite difficult.

The anomaly, in turn, quickly started its reaction chain again, buffing its deadly gravitational shockwaves a few times before subsiding.

“Say…” The redhead started while eyeing the entire scene “This only happens when bolts are thrown or anything else will do?”

“Any object that is thrown in activates it, but you’d better use bolts or other metallic objects for probing areas…”

“Why? Compared to… say… stones; bolts or metallic objects can be hard to find at times.”

“Because bolts or metallic objects don’t break instantly when thrown into an anomaly, like stones or other frail material, thus, the reaction won’t last so long because the item will break quickly. Also, metallic objects are easier to spot; they shine under sunlight or artificial illumination, so they stand out, all the better for the explorer. Though you should use lightweight objects for obvious reasons: bolts, screws, metal scraps, belt buckles, earrings, bottle caps, or, if you’re all out, coins or even bullets will do the trick.”

“Good point. By the way…” She eyed our surroundings “How far we are from the village?”

“Dunno… let’s check it.”

I took out the map. According to it, we should trot a bit more down the road to find a tunnel north, which was directly connected to the village.

“Not far, just a little bit more walking ahead.”

After I’ve used the telekinesis to recover both bolts, reactivating the anomaly once last time by it, we resumed our pace.

Not much later, we’ve reached the marked spot, a wide tunnel intended for stagecoach, carriage and other vehicles’ passage. Much of the tunnel’s structure was tattered by the passage of time and lack of proper maintenance, having collapsed at some sections. Big piles of rock and dirt partially blocked it, but nothing serious.

The mare turned on her flashlight, and I did the same thing with mine.

Besides being pitch dark and a bit cold, the tunnel was devoid of life as well.
Now, this wasn’t a good omen. That place would be the perfect lair for dogs or boars. The lack of them meant that… something other than those creatures was lurking around, something so big that scared them off…

No, I’m just jumping to conclusions here. Perhaps a group of stalkers has previously cleared out the area or some other explanation, no point worrying about these little details.

After crossing the tunnel, we were greeted by one or other sunlight ray that somehow insisted to sprout among the overcast weather; the clouds were still announcing the promise of rain later on.

The village itself was the cemented road continuing from the bridge, ending down on a flooded structure. At the two sides of the road, cliffs teeming with dilapidated houses and withering plants. Rusty fuel tanks, rotten wooden fences… the village doesn’t looked like everything else in the zone, it looked even more eerie and spooky, like it was abandoned BEFORE the disaster… presumably, with the monarchy helping the evacuation, if there were ever motive for one…

Following the map, there were some stairs that allowed access to the top, reaching the houses, and into one of them, a trapdoor that led to the complex.

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

I flung a bolt forward, and it got picked up mid-air, entering a clockwise rotation pattern as it was caught on the Whirlgig’s area of effect, letting out a loud WHOOOSHHH when the anomaly reacted to the foreign object.

“There’s another one, a whir…”

I turned around and stopped mid-sentence. The mare didn’t strayed away this time, but she was facing the other side completely…

She sniffed the air a few times and narrowed her eyes ominously.

“This is… tushkano country.” She said grimly

“Wha…? Never heard of these” I was perplexed… calling out that a group of hostiles was around, suddenly, like that…

“Just stick close, very close…those pests have it coming.” Ka-ching!

Keeping the same controlled anger face, she raised a hoof from the ground, licked it’s sole a few times and lifted it to the air, to feel the air humidity and currents, I can only assume… now how that would help us…

“They are near… very near…” She licked the sole two more times and raised it again… “Around ninety, no, a hundred… more… damn, we’ve hit a big nest… and they didn’t have any food for…” Lielle licked her sole once more “Four hours and…” The mare licked the sole again “Thirty-seven minutes.”

That said, the mare rested her hoof onto the ground.

“Also, the day is partially clouded with eighty per cent chance of rain this afternoon if you ask me, but what do I know? I’m no pegasus” And the azure pony shrugged.

I considered asking her how the hay she did it, but I thought it was best not to. It was probably one of those “earth pony only” things, abilities similar to magic or whenever they were called.

Then, there was shrieking… a multitude of squeals and screeches erupting from the structures, sounding like a horde of cursed souls.

Tumbling around my gear, I retrieved the AK. My grip was shaking terribly… we were outnumbered, surrounded… mother of goddess…

And on cue, the beasts came from the darkness… several bright, devious eyes turned out to belong to…

… Jerboas…

At first, I looked at those pathetic small things with contempt, but then, more of them sprouted from the ruined houses, enough to pose a threat…

“Don’t fire till you see the white of their eyes…” The mare said while facing the other side, we were back to back. When I turned to face her, I saw that the jerboas were massing up on her side as well, the mammals had a specially famine expression. The rodents stood on their two back legs, extending their front claws and teeth in anticipation before leaping.

PWOOT!!! SQUEAAAACHHH!!!

The shotgun shell hit straight into a Tushkano’s head, turning it into a gory mass of unidentified shape, while the other pellets stunned and harmed a hooffull of other Tushkanos positioned too close to the victim.

RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLE…RATTLE… SQUEAA..

I tried to conserve ammo by firing in bursts instead of full auto; most of the beasts fell with one or two rounds

PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! SQUEEASQUEAAACHH!!!

One of the rodents leaped and sunk his tiny incisives at my chest, being hanged to me. I thanked the leather reinforcements that pretty much absorbed the bite.

Then another rodent was successful reaching me, and a third, and a fourth…

While they were too small to reach my face, the only relatively unprotected point, they were hindering me. I shook a few times trying to take them off my back.

PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!

“Stop playing with them, just smack the little cunts” The mare snipped. She was fighting the beasts with an almost obsessive zeal, placing each shot where it pained the most…

I quickly returned fire to the wave of Tushkanos coming to me

RATTLERATTLE…. RATTLE… RATTLERATTLE…

Once a good bit of them were cleaned, I rolled onto the ground, forcibly ejecting the parasites from my armor. And then, I stomped over them. One by one they squealed.

PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!

“Cover me, I’m going to reload!” The redhead mare warned.

RATTLERATTLE…

I’ve turned to the other direction to mow the critters at her side, while Lielle retrieved more shells from her belt pouch and inserted them one by one on the shotgun.

Clickcha, clickcha, clickcha…

RATTLERATTLERATTLE… click click click.

Damn, now I had to reload too… at least a rifle was easier to be refilled…

Clickcha, clickcha, clickcha…

So, I merely floated a fresh magazine from my bag and replaced the depleted one, storing it for reuse.

Clickcha, clickcha… KA-CHINK! PWOOT!!!

Nevertheless our efforts holding ground, there were simply too many Tushkanos. The beasts were coming to us at bunches…

“You know, this isn’t going to work forever…”

“If you know what is good for you mister, you better keep shootin’…” She said while gritting her teeth

PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!! SQUEAAA…

RATTLE….RATTLE…RATTLERATTLE….

“We need an alternate plan… there are more enemies than bullets.”

PWOOT!! PWOOT!!!

“I’m all ears” She said while taking advantage of a break in the mutant wave to reload her shotgun.

“We should move out to the complex and lock them outside; otherwise we’ll have a lost battle in our hooves pretty soon our ammo ends”

KA-CHING!

“You got the map, lead away while I mop these mutants off your tail.”

Okay... I withdrew the map and held it, trying to read it…

PWOOT!!!

The entrance was two houses away to the right. I floated the AK into position and rushed into the masses of Tushkanos…

RATTLERATTLERATTLEE… RATTLERATTTLERATTLE

Many of them fell to the bullet storm, several others were trampled under my hooves… good thing my armor protected my fur from these vermin’s’ fangs.

PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!

The mare was keeping up with my pace, leaving either dead or mortally wounded rodents in her path. Unfortunately, for each one that were defeated, two more seemed to take his place.

RATTLERATTLE… RATTLERATTLE…

There… this should be the place. After two well-placed kicks, the old door gave way only to reveal the house’s dusty interior. Among the bare floor, a single trapdoor was closed.

PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!

Once the azure mare crossed the doorframe, I lifted the heavy steel-framed wooden trapdoor.

“Get in; I’ll close it behind me!”

PWOOT!!! PWOOT!!!

Not needing to hear it twice, the mare hopped into the passage.

RATTLERATTLE….

After leaving a last batch of hot lead to the mutant rodents that still insisted to sprout around, I subsequently jumped inside too.

Thud!

I underestimated that drop… why the ground has to be so hard? After lifting up and spending a few seconds shaking off the dust, I used my magic to pull the handle, closing the trapdoor. Three Tushkanos made it through in the meantime, while the trapdoor fell upon the torso of a fourth, squishing it.

PWOOT!!! Click, click… SQUEAAACHHH!!!

The earth pony drew her marekarov and finished off the remaining beasts.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“That’s the last of them for now.” She said relieved, and started to reload her weapons

“Care to explain your… eager… to frag these… Tushkanos?”

“Don’t ask. I mean it.” She said in a surprisingly serious tone.

Whenever… all the more to keep focus on the task ahead. Speaking of which…

I turned on the flashlight, flashing a second light on the basement, since Lielle’s was already on.

The small room we were at was just an antechamber, with the only exits being the trapdoor via stairs and a big metallic door opposed to it.

Such door was busted open; the terminal at its side had a foreign device attached. Definitely a door cracker… Freedom’s work.

SQUEANGG!!! *ripriprip* SQUACHHEE!!! *ripriprip* SQUEAAA!!!

A quick look showed me the source of that sound…

The Tushkanos, they were chewing the wood parts of the trapdoor to bust in… such persistent little bastards…

“Yeah, I see it too.” The mare lifted her gaze to the sounds. “Let’s enter the site and lock the door, this way the Tushkanos won’t bother us.”

That sounded good, and we crossed the metal door. Once on the other side, the mare took the reins of the situation and started fiddling with the terminal at the side of the door…

Interestingly, there was still energy. Somepony decided that the things buried here were important enough to require a constant electricity flow; the site probably had its own energy source.

After a few moments dealing with the terminal, the mare succeeded in closing the door.

That was weird… she never showed any proficiency with machines before, well… I suppose that we could credit the ease to the Freedomers’ gadget that already tampered the door’s electrical lock.

I took a quick pause to assess my situation. While the Tushkanos didn’t hurt me at all, my armor suffered some punctures here and there, well, could be worse. Luckily, we wiped the thick of them before they could overrun us.

“BEEP! Equine presence detected! Activating Host routine.”

We both turned to the source of the voice, a small camera with attached sound boxes above the frame of a metallic door, pretty much equal in size and composition of the same we just crossed. This was definitely an identification chamber of sorts.

The “camera” faced a determinate point on the ground, and then, it started producing tiny specks of light. Not like a flashlight, it just generated tons of light dots on a determinate area, then; such dots arranged themselves, building a shape…

A shape more familiar than I’d expect. Dear goddess…

There, in front of us, stood a hologram of…

…Princess Celestia…

“Scanning…” She said with a mechanical voice, launching investigative scanners from her eyes.

“Individuals not matching personnel list. Please, state your visitor password or leave the area. Proceeding further without doing so will activate the Breach routine”

The mare scratcher her head quizzically

“Now, what could it be? I don’t have any idea. Do you, Bosh?”

“No clue either… something related to Celestia herself?”

“Uh, uh! I know one! SUN!”

“Password incorrect. Two out of three attempts left.”

“Let me try it… Monarchy!”

“Password incorrect. One out of three attempts left.”

I gazed at my companion, and she just looked at the ground. Well, what we had to lose?

“Friendship!”

“Password incorrect. Activating Breach routine.”

And the hologram changed to an odd motherly tone while changing to a kindhearted expression

“Hush now, dearies… everything will be just fine. If you two surrender, no harm will be done.”

And the door begun whirring, before stopping on its track and releasing sparks.

“Oh my… some mischievous pony rigged the doors. Please, stay off the site.”

“So, what now?” The redhead aimed her questioning gaze at me.

“We just go ahead…” I stated while seeing her doubts on her eyes. “It is just a machine, not the real deal.”

She nodded softly, but still had a doubtful expression.

Mares…

We crossed through the hologram, while the thing “gazed” at us the entire time, pleading us not to go.

Paying no heed to it, I crossed the partially opened door. The next room was an enormous decayed meeting room, complete with a large rectangular table, pots with grey mass that at some point, were plants, crushed chairs, pretty much, that common look of a forsaken building that the Zone seemed to emulate so well, illuminated by ominous emergency lights… It had three sets of double doors, one, budged open, at the north, another, closed, in the western direction and the last, the one from which we came, at south.

The mare was quick to point at something by the western wall.

A blown up machine gun turret.

As on a terrific synchrony, the Celestia hologram formed itself on the middle of the room. The image had a sad semblance.

“We only do this because we have your best interest at heart…”

Four other turrets descended from the roof, its laser sights picking targets…

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

Ooff!!! Right on the chest! That’s what I get for going first.

Caught by surprise, we did the only obviously reasonable thing… rush toward under the table.

“Targets lost, entering standby mode.” The mechanical voice sounded above.

“This isn’t going to end well” The mare said. “Once that thing keeps us in sight, it’s going to go full auto over our arses.”

“I know, right?” I countered while administering a medkit and two or three bandages to the wounds. “Still, we should go together. The more targets that thing has, the harder it is for it to keep focus. Do you still have any grenade?”

The mare opened her pack, checking her supplies. “Three explosives left.”

“Good. You take the right one, while I blow the turret on the left. Then, we try to trot out as quickly as we can before the other two can open fire.”

I pulled a grenade from my own pack, holstering the AK. I used my magic to envelop the explosive, preparing the throw.

“On my mark…”

The azure mare tucked her grenade onto her crimson tail, facing the right side of the room…

“Now!”

“Acquiring targets!”

I threw that grenade toward the left corner, right below the turret.

BOOM! BOOM!

“Unit #5 nonoperational, rerouting po...BZZT!Unit #3 nonoperational, rerouting power. ALERT, INSURGENT BREACH IN PROGRESS! ALL SECURITY PERSONEL, PROCEED WITH COUNTERBREACH MEASURES!”

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

Ouch… one, two, three bullets… coping up with the pain, we finally made it through that door.

Losing no time, the mare started to hoof around the terminal to lock it…

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

“Close that damn thing already, Lielle!”

“This isn’t as simple as it looks” She said while hoofing a sweat off her forehead.

BRRZZLLL!!! TCHAF!

“There you go… ugh.” She dropped to the ground, with bullet wounds on her forearm and hip.

The mare promptly used one of her medkits to treat her injuries, while I served myself of more bandages, since the painkillers from the med I took a while ago were still kicking.

“We need a better plan…”

“Tell me about it.” My friend said while standing up again. “This place is locked up tighter than a chastity belt…”

I shook my head, agreeing. But there was no way back, at least not without deactivating the system. I’d rather not face those machineguns and the Tushkanos again…

Living with the ever-imminent fear of being either shot or bitten… such was the life of a Stalker.

This room was bigger than the first one. If more than anything, it resembled an assembly line of some kind… of what, only Faust knew. There was a big conveyor belt, and big steel “hangers” with scraps of metal. Burnt materials and mashed electronics were everywhere to be seen, along with depleted blowtorches, screwdrivers, rusted toolboxes, etc. At the end of the line, a weird mishap of rubber cables with some kind of… connectors? The tubes were linked to big tanks held high; my best guess is that was some kind of fueling station. Strangely enough, both the tubes and the console nearby were not dusty, being an indicative of recent (three or four days ago, who knows?) usage… probably by Freedomers snooping around. Thankfully, the room showed no signs of bullet holes or blood either… meaning that the security system wasn’t wired onto it.

The room had three exits, the one linking to the meeting room, one at the west and another at the east direction. The last two were normal wooden doors, unlike the big metallic door we just electronically closed.

Among the north wall, strange cubicles, some sort of confinement rooms… three or four of them, all covered with glass and a control pad nearby… a closer inspection revealed that they were some sort of test chamber, designed to test the resistance of a particular item by submitting it to either fire, bullets or explosives.

Now, what kind of stuff they were creating to require such quality test?

The nearest control pad was labeled “vivisection chamber temp commands”, with buttons for opening and closing the door, a big red “activation” button and a dial for adjusting temperature.

“Found anything?” The mare asked.

“Nope, just old useless machines…” I eyed around the room, placing my eyes upon each of the wooden doors… two ways.

“Perhaps we should split up.”

“Yeah, that worked well last time, doesn’t it?” She grumbled

“No, I mean it. This AI will have a harder time keeping tabs on BOTH of us, this means, it will have more chance of making mistakes or overlook things… we could exploit it. Also, by splitting up, we can cover a larger area and find the database, deactivating the defenses more quickly”

“Hmm… well, it’s your call, really. Right or left?”

Does it matter? If the site was symmetrical (which probably was, after all, the monarchy’s lapdogs were a perfectionist bunch, so eager to please their own rulers…) both sides would lead to the same room at certain point.

My eyes went to that odd mishap of black rubber tubes hanging from the ceiling. I’ll go with the door closer to that thing, that’s the way the Freedomers supposedly went.

“I’ll go left. Take care, ok?”

The azure mare just bobbed her head, shaking her magnificent mane and answered.
“And you, try to get back in one piece.”

And by so, she crossed the right door, disappearing into the dark room.

I braced myself, and after a few moments catching some breath, I opened my door...

It was a mess hall, one that would support twenty, twenty five ponies if it were properly maintained. As it was, it was merely a disheveled and dirty room filled with numerous metallic tables, emptied fridges, cracked tiles and one-hundred years old organic leftovers... spatters of fresh blood at certain sections and a pony skeleton under the northernmost table complemented the post-apocalyptic décor.

I trotted through the room, already expecting my gracious hostess…

I was midway though it when she materialized again, her face filled with so much regret… it was making me feel bad for it, even though I knew it was only a machine, the similarities with the real princess were remarkable… as like the programmer thoroughly studied the princess herself to create something exactly like her.

“Your heart is in the right place, child… you are just a bit misguided. Let me show you the way.”

As in response, tiles among the wall shifted to reveal more automatic guns…

Shotguns…

PWOOT !!! PWOOT!!!

Now I can say for sure that my pity for the hologram was short-lived… the stupid thing was more than able to fend off threats for itself, including me.

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

I softly massaged my flank, exactly where a few pellets hit. A few bandages later, it was almost like new.

Strange… whoever made this defense system didn’t take too much heed to the area. For example, the turrets were useless if the target was hidden, like I was, under a table. And the mess hall was filled with tables; to this regard… it would be way smarter to install some floor-based defense. For what I could extract, the mind (or minds) behind the automated defense system intellectually knew all the technicalities to set up a working one, but lacked wisdom to determine effectiveness by disregarding variables.

Not that I was complaining, hehehe…

“Target onl…” PWOOT!!! Ching… “Target lost, ent…” “Targ…” PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!Ching! Ching! “Target lo…” “Targe…”

Those tables sure were resistant to stand those shotguns’ punch… Luckily, I was able to make my way to the other door… only one tiny problem…

The door stood too far away from the closest table. I would need to rush toward it, exposing myself…

Oh, what the hell…

“Target online, opening fire”

PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!

PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!

Move, stupid legs… move… pay no mind to these wounds…

PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!

PWOOT!!!PWOOT!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

Arrrghh!!! My poor little hooves… I’ve got two direct shots and three rebounds… but I’ve made it through.

I seriously hope that Lielle is doing better than me… ack… now, let’s treat those with one, no, two medkits… and a bunch of bandages. Way to go, having serious injuries and pulling them off with half-assed bandaging, painkillers and other drugs whose effect was beyond me…

Goddamnit, I am a stalker. I’ve had worse…

After pulling together my wits, I trotted along the room I was at currently… Some sort of big corridor…

And, as a chronometrically timed psychological torture, the image of Celestia appeared again, reeking melancholy off her wide saucer eyes…

“My sun shines for everypony alike… as every day is a new blessing. Why can’t you enjoy it like everypony else and be grateful for it? Why throw away this precious gift in exchange of a causeless rebellion?”

And she closed her eyes, shaking her head disappointedly.

Sections of the wall opened, giving space to more guns…

FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!

Both the north and south edges of the room were encased in fire, as the flamethrowers laid out all of their propane-fueled flames… too bad I was standing on the middle of the room.

Then, the flamethrowers stopped, and instantly more sections of the wall opened, revealing more flamethrowers…

FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!

It dawned on me, they were boxing me in! The system was designed so that it would hit the enemy at least once, letting the other turrets conserve gas.

And that meant, the next wave was going to be directly on me. Crapcrapcrapcrap… I couldn’t move, not with the wall of flames at my back and front…

The turrets stopped a second time, and sections of the wall, the ones directly at my right and left, opened, bringing forth the weapons…

There was only one direction left to escape the flames.

Down.

FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!

Now, that was probably my most heroic moment… laying out on a dirty floor on fetal position… I am sure that the future generations will forever rejoice in that memory…

As soon as the flames scarring above my head came to a halt, I pushed my legs forward to the exit of the room.

I was lucky that the flamethrowers had such a basic flaw…

They overheat.

FWOOSHHH!!! FWOOSHHH!!!

That last wave caught the tip of my tail; I rolled over on the ground to set out the fire. Apart from my broken pride and disheveled appearance, I had no serious injury.

But then, why I felt like crap?

Celestia… that was it. Whoever was the crafty bastard that programmed that hologram, he was one sick evil mastermind. The way it was designed, the expressions matching each situation… it was like that thing… was built to break both my bones and my feelings alike… like I was the bad guy.

I am not the bad guy, am I? Let’s see… I don’t live in an evil lair, don’t have world domination as a goal, neither have a sadistic pleasure on watching others suffer… all that I desire is… to stay alive. Yes, that’s it. The only creatures that could effectively deem my current actions as evil were pretty much dead or had moved on with their lives, their old allegiance, the monarchy, as an institute, having pretty much being thrown into a coffin, nailed and buried after the accident.

And now, where I was? A proper room, not a corridor… but this one was decorated… although most of it crumbled onto dust and decay, naked pillars, paintings turned into mold and furniture into fine powder and trash… all victims of the implacable passing of the years. A double door went further north, while to my right, four single doors.

“So much potential, if only you used your gift for the welfare of your entire species instead of this selfish endeavor…” The image of Celestia softly cooed, tears on its “eyes”…

Why don’t you leave me alone, you disgraceful shade of the past?

Three machineguns tilted off from the ceiling, all of them positioned directly opposed to the set of single doors.

“Target online, commencing fire”

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

Now, how to solve this? I wouldn’t be able to pass directly over those machineguns… they must go.

I dug my saddlebags for a grenade, holding it tight on a black magical hue. I trotted away from the pillar, tossing the explosive on the turret on the middle…

“Target online, commencing fire”

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

BOOM!! Crack!!

The explosion cracked the ceiling at that point, crashing down and crushing the machinegun under it.

“Unit #8 nonoperational, rerouting power… structural damage on the stallions living area, hostile is armed and dangerous.”

Ok, two to go… and four grenades left.

“Target online, commencing fire”

BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

I tossed that grenade to the northern wall, so it would flip toward the northernmost gun… but I got the “math” wrong, and it landed a bit too far from the gun, catching it on its spread.

“Unit #9 damaged, equine targeting system offline…switching to heat signature targeting system”

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

Great lord… now I did it. That crazed-ass machinegun was going to end up hurting somepony. If I could only…

Heat signature, huh? I checked over my saddlebags while that mechanical menace still roared all of its 1080 RPM live-fire action… The pillar was holding… mostly of it.

Then, I found what I was looking for… my portable burner. Oh, how I am going to miss you…

I floated it beside the southernmost machinegun and turned it on. A lively flame appeared on the airborne burner…

“Additional target detected, switching target”

BLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

The northern machinegun aimed toward the burner and released its deadly rain, cranking its twin useless on the process… my poor burner…I’ll have to get used to campfire-cooked food… burnt on one side and raw on the other…

“Unit #7 nonoperational. Friendly fire detected, Unit #9 defective, deactivating defective unit.” And the assigned machinegun powered down.

Finally, relief! At least this sector was clear from those damnable machines. After a quick break from the intense battle, I set out to examine the set of doors… there were four of them.

If the AI spoke the truth, I was on the stallions living area, and ergo, I could assume that these rooms were private rooms for stallions. Let’s try my luck with the first door…

That room revealed to be almost entirely crushed… the floor collapsed over it, thrashing the chamber … and there was a small pool of water… at least was water when it formed itself… evidently, a leak, which, when detected, instantly made the AI stop sending water through the damaged pipe.

Nothing of interest in there, everything valuable was either destroyed or missing, taken by the original residents or looters, only Faust knew.

The second door… was budged! I tried really hard to open it, without results. Something on the other side was blocking it. After forcing it worthlessly, I left that damn door alone and moved on to the third door…

Now, the room to which it led was reasonably intact… a bunk bed, a desk, a locker… nothing out of the ordinary…

There was something over the desk…a large blueprint.

It depicted a high-tech armor, labeled as EPA14… According to the document, the armor contained numerous life-support functions and a wide array of weaponry; while the design was specially jarring… the armor was a big hefty bulk of chrome-layered metal, fitted in its interior by servomotors and storage spaces… the drawing resembled an alicorn, because the armor possessed a horn coating, wing coatings (if they were folded…) and was less thick at the hooves, as to fit one’s muscles… like it was designed to fit any of the three races.

One size fits all, I guess…

The locker also had some stuff… a necklace with a pen drive as pendant, I’ll check the contents of it later… and a small rectangular box.

I opened that box; it contained a strange kind of… stick. That’s what it looked like, a small metallic stick with a lot of buttons and indicators… perhaps some tool or controller? Anyways, I’ve dumped both items in my saddlebag and left the room.

The last room revealed to be nothing more than a broom closet… a dark, god-forsaken place that served no purpose nowadays, the last janitor long since gone.

Only one direction to head to…

The following room was filled with rows of filing cabinets, some sort of archive room… interestingly enough, the whole room looked as if it was used for target practice for a mad bomberpony… large explosion debris , breaks on the rows of cabinets and carbonized objects were to be seen all around…

A corridor went north, while a pair of bathrooms was to be seen on my left, their doors missing. Another double door went right…

“There is space in my heart for every little foal… even the wayward ones… let go your hate and surrender, we promise to treat you like a decent equine.”

Yeah, like feelings were hardwired into your damn artificial brain…

Two guns erupted from the end of the hall… oh my GODDESS…

“Target online, commencing fire”

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

That was really; really close… grenade launchers, what the hell? Screw it… I’m trying the other way around.

I raised my head from the cabinet row I was behind, only to discover that the door that I’ve came from had a metal plate wall blocking it… the AI trapped me!

“Target online, commencing fire”

PWLUUUUTCH!!!

The grenade went flying over my head; I used the telekinesis to push it further away…

BOOM!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

By Luna’s insatiable black holes… what to do now, what to do? Both the corridor north and the door at the right were prospective exits… but lest I wished to be blown into oblivion, I wouldn’t stand on those guns’ path without any cover…

The bathrooms… If I could only make a run for it… with luck, they will have a passage to another room…

“Target online, commencing fire”

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

Phew… just a bit more to reach it…

“Target online, commencing fire”

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

PWLUUUUTCH!!! BOOM!!!

“Target lost, entering standby routine.”

Arckkkk!!! My leg… of all the legs I had, why the one on the right? And the back one at that…

That was a really nasty wound… the leg was now little more than a limping limb covered in oozing bandages. Though the fact the hooffull of bandages and the two medkits that were applied immediately saved me from bleeding to death or having to amputate the limb, I wouldn’t be able to run for a while…

If only one of my front hooves were damaged in its place… in the Zone, a slow pony usually meant a dead pony…

Stupid metallic shrapnel…

Moving my poor leg around the tiny bathroom, I could take a good look at it… no other exits, only an air duct, too high for me to reach, even if my leg was fine…

This was the end of the line… I had no way out; going against those turrets with my limp leg was stupidity. And from here, while they couldn’t aim at me, I couldn’t aim at them either, so no point trying to nudge grenades at them…

At least I could see the set of double doors opposite to the bathroom… and hope that my friend had better luck dealing with the AI.

“Breach in progress, ladies’ quarter. Security system neutralized, alert!”

Speaking of the devil…

Like an answer to my prayers, that set of doors opened, letting inside somepony else…

Too bad it wasn’t a friend. It was one of those… good lord… the spitted image of the armor in that blueprint… and it was coming for me! Obviously, the AI had control over that as well…

Parasprite cunt, pseudodog arses… that demoniac thing opened a section of its metallic back and materialized a rocket launcher, setting its laser sights directly onto… yes…

FWOOOSHHH!!! BOOM!

The bathroom stalls at the back were smoldered in seconds… and, unlike me, they were made of iron! Either way, the AI had got me good…

As I stood there on the darkness, I could hear every “Thud!” outside, each one signalizing a step of that abhorrent machine, each one counting the time that my death sentence drew closer and closer…

There was only one thing left to do…

I trotted out of the room dragging my limp leg, facing the machine with the little dignity I had left…

“That’s enough… you win! I SURRENDER”

The turrets set their laser sights at me, but they didn’t fire…

“Even though you may have acted against our interests, an equine is still an equine, and deserves utmost care… now stand still and await further orders, insurgent.”

The automated armor took a few steps closer, facing me…

It wasn’t intact… a number of scratches and dirt adorned the machine. It was… examining me.

Then, the machine nodded its head strangely, like it was purposely trying to avoid my gaze or something… perhaps a malfunction… it didn’t lasted long. A jolt of electricity coming from the hologram made the thing stand static again.

“Dispose of the following materials:

1 (one) AK rifle, model 74, origin: Zebraria

1 (one) Marekarov pistol, origin: Fillydelphia

1 (one) Bowie knife, origin: Talos

5 (five) Fragmentation grenades, origin: Baghdrag

Drop the determinate items into the nearest disposal hatch.”

And as response, a section of the south wall moved, revealing the disposal system, just a big hole that would send my weapons to… I had no idea…

I slowly trotted to the designated hatch, bringing my screwed leg along in a pathetic slouch…

“Dispose of the items in 60 seconds, failure on doing so will tag you as a noncompliant and hostile individual.”

What the fuck? Now this too? My situation was bad enough already… I jogged to the damn hatch, bringing my leg to higher levels of pain in doing so.

In a few moments, I dumped all of my weapons into that hatch…

“Request fulfilled… proceed to your designated contention chamber “

And at the machine’s beck, the lights at the corridor to the north started blinking…

I trotted toward that direction, the autonomous armor following me…

The AI indicated me to take a turn to the left, and I obeyed its desire, leading me to a dead end. At my right, a locked room with a rusted “security” sign over the doorframe, and in my front, another big metallic door.

Another jolt of electricity hit the empty armor, forcing it to raise his right hoof toward the door. Consecutively, the door itself whirred, opening its lock to reveal a prison…

“Tread on, insurgent… await further instructions from a facility security personnel”

And, without any choice, I crossed into the prison, the door locking again behind me.

At first glance, the room was deep into darkness. But after some time, my pupils grew used to it and I could discern shapes in the darkness… the outline of five other living creatures…

“Pst, I think that the princess’ faithful servant is gone…”

“Can’t hear the footsteps of her shining knight anymore… yeah. And look, he dropped new blood…”

And the creatures began to creep closer… ponies. Three of them were visible now… A turquoise-furred pegasus mare with a colorful violet mane and magenta eyes, wearing a merc armor. One earth pony stallion with yellow fur, tired black eyes and a sky blue mane, dressed in a light Freedom armor, and an earth pony mare with a dark grey fur, indigo mane, and golden eyes… dressing some sort of modded military armor.

“Hey there, newcomer… welcome to our very personal piece of hell” Greeted the pegasus mare. “A loner, I assume?” I nervously nodded. “So as I and Midlight” She pointed to the earth pony mare, which showed her flashlight cutie mark with pride. “This one from Freedom is Ironfuel and my name is Stargazer”

Well, this ought to explain her cutie mark showcasing three white stars, while Ironfuel’s was a rifle mag.

“You all got captured by that thing?”

She laughed with pleasure. “It’s kinda obvious, doesn’t it? That damned thing outsmarted and beat all of us… so, what is your story, pal?”

“The Freedom leader gave me a job to gather a piece of intel from this place…”

“So, they still have interest about whenever is here…” Ironfuel commented “Though we lost numerous lives already… and everypony trapped here surviving in this condition…”

Indeed… I was almost asking how the buck they were able to live in that cramped place…

“The AI is programmed to regularly feed the prisoners, isn’t it?”

“Feeding as in the broadest term of the word…” The stallion pointed to a large upside down water drinker, one that could be used by hamsters, but much, much larger… it was half-filled. And all around of it, colorful packages littered the ground.

I approached the water drinker and picked up one of those packages…

The cover depicted a old lady with green fur and derisive eyes showing a purple-colored tongue. “Ol’ Granny Smith’s homemade Zap apple pies” and the package went on: “New formula, Tastes like rainbow!” and under it, an “Agropony quality seal” and an F&R inc. symbol…

I turned the package to examine the other side… that pie contained an insane amount of preservatives… “This product does not contain zap apples, artificially flavored and aromatized.” Too much for being “homemade”… “May contain sea serpent facial hair, monosodium glutamate, partially processed corn…” “…No more than 7 parts per thousand of mowed manticore dung per 100g …” the ingredient list went on… that thing also had way more food coloring than it would be healthy… and finally, it stated that “This product shouldn’t be used as a sole component of any diet.”

I raised my eyes from the package and the three ponies nodded… every one showed their tongues, each one having deep purple coloration…

“That’s the only “food” that blasted AI serves us…” Said Midlight. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner… every time is pie time.”

“How long have you been imprisoned?”

“We were counting the days, but…” And the pegasus pointed to a wall. Several tallies were scratched onto it, but most of them were covered by a thick mass of purple substance.

“That’s puke” The mare answered after seeing the doubt in my eyes.

“Purple puke?”

“Yes… half-stare over there…” and she pointed to a corner where a big unicorn stallion was sitting. “He got a bit sick from the pies and screwed over the counter… those pies; they don’t just turn your tongue purple… but every body fluid, stalker. I guess that’s why they come in these cheap packages, a “borderline pass” quality product”

That was disgusting… I could only hope that my friend would make it through and help me out of this situation.

“Aside from that, you guys don’t seem to be doing so badly…”

“You know nothing, Stalker… nothing…” Ironfuel said. “Every night that AI shows here and tells us a bedtime story, an incredible, involving story filled with adventure and excitement…”

“And, for Faust’s sake, how is that bad?”

“The AI was programmed to tell seven stories in total, one for each day. But due to a glitch, it stops the seventh one on the middle and loops out.”

“What?”

“Do you have any idea of how painful it is, Stalker? Even if someday, by a wild stroke of luck, I can leave this place, I will never know what happened to that foolhardy, yet, well-intentioned Alicorn prince!” The stallion roared.

“Well well, don’t be rude to our friend, Ironfuel… he is just curious, that’s all…” The pegasus mare calmed him. “Now, come and meet half-gaze.”

And she pointed to the pony by the corner, a dark pink unicorn stallion with a white mane and a pair of binoculars as a cutie mark. He was wearing a Freedom scout armor, while an eye patch obscured his right eye. (The accessory definitely being the reason for his nickname). He looked undernourished and tired…

“Wait a second, aren’t you fi…”

*snip*

And with that sound, in a split second, my saddlebag fell upon the hands of the fifth pony, which was stealthily ripping it off from my body with a makeshift knife.

“Way to go, Trailblazer…” Stargazer congratulated the brown pegasus in a bandit jacket. “Don’t try anything funny, newcomer… we just want the food.”

Sneaky bastards! They were distracting me to get their hooves on my stuff.

The four went through my pack, retrieving all the food, until…

“Hey guys, this one is loaded with booze! You don’t mind sharing with us, do you, Stalker?”

Yes, I did, deeply… that was MY hard-earned vodka, but reason came to me. They were four, and I was one… there was no chance of winning against all of them…

“No, go ahead…” I said while trying to ignore the screaming pain in my heart, which probably was on par with the one of losing a very dear son.

And after alleviating my bags from all the canned food and the booze, they threw it back at me.

“That’s life, stalker. You get dibs on the load of the next one that gets stuck with us” Stargazer said while flipping over a bottle. After a while, the four were drunk.

“Hic! You shee…” Started Midlight “Thish pony knows where to spend his bits. Instead of buying an improved armor, having to choose between being protected against bullets, radiation, scratches or anomalies, he just buys a lot of vodka! This way, it mattersh little if he is… hic! Shot, chewed, irradiated or torn to pieces by an anomaly, because he ish too damn drunk to care! Whee!”

I was going to have to spend some time locked up with these… individuals… until Lielle finds a way through, if she could. Well, I couldn’t do much now. I started to rearrange the stuff on my violated saddlebags, until my eyes went to that little flash drive that I came upon earlier…

I wasn’t leaving the prison anytime soon, so I connected that flash drive to my PDA, downloaded the data to it and started going through it… it wasn’t intelligence, but a diary, with several entries…

1057, January 8:

Finally we got ourselves a real nice place to conduct research and development… the Equestrian Prototype Armor is going well… just thought of a few more functions to add to the unit, we can probably get our hooves into making one prototype in around two month, if everything goes accordingly to the schedule… on other news, my new coworkers are throwing a welcome party at the mess hall, I’ll join and get to know em’ better, since we will be working together for now on.

1057, February 3:

Geesh… this new defense system creeps the heck outta me. I know that Reena, our programmer, got authorization from miss Heartstrings to install it as a part of training for her own project, but the way she programmed that thing, is just… for instance, she picked Celestia as the default AI template. Yes, while it was certainly inspiring to pretend that the actual princess of the sun was watching over us, she overdid it… I don’t know how the buck she actually programmed that thing to be so… lifelike. The hologram’s stare seems to pierce through steel and her voice sounds like a chorus of angels.I don’t know if it is all psychological or such, but… normally, I wouldn’t mind about it, but add her presence on the bathrooms too? What the hay was Reena thinking? Good thing that Heartstrings forbid her of installing automated weapons on private quarters, and she allowed the workshop to be spared too… just imagine if one of those things goes cuckoo? It could ruin my team’s work entirely. No, no… I will rely on our own pony security, thank you very much…
Ah, on a brighter note: I’ve finished the life support system module for the EPA, if it works properly, the user will be able to have all of his needs (hunger, thirst… and other less mentionable physiological needs) satisfied without even leaving the armor.

1057, February 7:

Finally somepony filed a complaint about the AI’s behavior… I almost feel sorry for Reena, if Heartstrings had thumbs, she’d be history now… well, while I can certainly say that I do not partake with her reaction, it was explainable, we almost had a casualty… now that gal is tuning down her system and programming the AI to be off the restrooms… seems like she is going to have some restrictions too…
The EPA is going ok; today we build a compatible station for fulfilling the needs: hunger, thirst and medicines. Once the armor is ready, we’ll test it. Also, I’ve figured out our little energetic problem: The armor will work by power transference from the site’s generator if it is on reach. If it isn’t, a biomagical compound power rod class 2 will provide power for around 3 months of constant use; the armor will be so thick that we won’t have to worry about the radiation, either for the user or for everypony around him.

1057, February 10:

I am at a loss for words… Reena demonstrated her system’s counterbreach routine, AKA shoot first, then shoot some more - at the loading area. Just seeing those dummies enter that container-filled room and one by one hear the most heartwarming phrases while being filled drown with bullets, I could say that for each pound of kindness, that terrible thing unleashed two of hot lead… these southern ponies have a dark sense of humor…
Anyways, Heartstrings seemed reasonably satisfied by it; however she demanded that the AI allows invaders to surrender, and ordered Reena’s crew to build up contention chambers at one of the unused rooms at the back… seems that she believes that in the case of a breach, prisoners would be more valuable than corpses. Also, she promised the mare that if she did everything on schedule, she could choose the monthly dessert… way to go by spoiling her, boss.
As about my project, we finally started making what matters: the guns. As expected, every opinion on my team differed when I asked which weapons we should include. The solution? Add all of them. We developed some really complex magitech materializing system for the armor’s weapons… it works like this: we develop “recipes” for the weapons, program them into the armor, and it builds and un-build them with the materialization system. Pros: ability to contain a wide array of weapons for every situation, and the ability to adapt to any ammo that the armor may have in storage. Cons: only one weapon may be materialized at once, materialization takes time to kick in and we couldn’t add lasers because it would hog out too much power from other functions…

1057, February 24:

No more zap apple pies! Finally… at first, it didn’t seem that bad, but after three or four days, the taste is sickening. How that mare may actually like this dessert is way beyond me, but we won’t have to worry about it anymore, not after somepony told Heartstring that his piss turned purple… yes, I’m not kidding. Purple, PISS! And the cause was those pies’ food coloring. A month’s supply of dessert is going to waste because of that…
Ah, we finally built the hull for the prototype, it looks glorious… able to fit any pony race, made of an alloy of metals more resistant and thick than dragon scales, it fully resisted the vivisection chamber up to 1000 degrees, gunfire and low-yield explosions without hull damage! Tomorrow we are going to install the user interface and life support systems, the weapon system can be put on hold until the prototype proves to be reliable.

1057, February 25:

Had a busy day… tested myself the prototype, I’ve felt a bit claustrophobic in it, BUT IT WORKS! We even tested the life support system, works to a trim! The interface, voice systems, radio, maps, targeting systems! And the interface stick too! I was the first pony to be intravenously fed! That is so surrealistic…
Ah, the interface stick… I was a bit lacking when describing it… it is a tool that automatically opens the life support and ammo hatches of the armor for a resupply of food, water, meds or ammo, it also includes diagnosis tools that helps performing repairs and grants user permissions for such repairs, it does allow the opening of the armor too, since it doesn’t open from the inside. In summary, it is very useful for field use when the EPA is deployed…

1057, March 8:

The weapon system was installed on the EPA today! This is a remarkable day! Everypony came to pay heed to our accomplishment; we materialized a minigun, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a rifle… everything worked! Faust bless magitech!
Heartstring was really happy with the results, I sniff a promotion coming!
On a less pleasant note, she met me later to discuss a few modifications… seems like somepony on the top of the command chain is worried with the fact that the insurgents got their hooves on an smuggled exoskeleton prototype, reverse engineered it and started producing their own! To avoid a similar fact, Heartstrings ordered me to modify the interface stick, so that it will only open the armor after a code is imputed. I modified it to require a 14 digit code input. If the imputed code isn’t valid, the armor will explode, bringing those insurgents to hell along with the poor soul trapped into the armor. A second mod that she demanded was a behavior module! Yes, that’s right! Apparently, some army “volunteers” may refuse to do their duty, or may crack under certain circumstances, so she wants me to program the armor to automatically attack any enemy creature and follow the current mission protocols regardless of the user’s will! This makes the armor almost an AI in itself, why will they need a pony to “command” it after this “update”?

1057, March 13:

Just did a rundown on the bug list of the EPA, I believe that most of them should be gone now, by next week, it will probably be sent for mass production. As demanded by protocol, I sent a copy of all the data pertaining to the project, including a copy of the unlocking code of our prototype unit, to the assigned central backup facility… Now that’s someplace I would want to go to… I’ve heard that it is the monarchy’s most secretive facility, built near the NPP so it could take the surplus power of it…
Heartstrings showed up today, she decided to put me on the IP project! Now that’s a really important project, I am touched by her trust.
And surprise, today Reena came visit me too. She wanted me to give her AI permissions over our EPA unit in the case the counterbreach routine is activated… I allowed it, under one circumstance: that she keeps her project up to date. Yes, her lax attitude was kinda prejudicing our work overall, some guys even threatened to complain to Heartstrings…
I was also able to prepare the first two “friendship earrings” for use in conjunction with the EPA’s behavior module: anypony using those earrings will be tagged as a “friend”, and therefore, will not be attacked by the EPA’s automated behavioral routine. The two of them were given to Heartstrings, she wanted to borrow ‘em to test something…

That was the last entry. While it was an entertaining history, it yielded no answers on how to deactivate the damned AI or how to escape the prison… all my hopes were laying on Lielle’s hooves… please, please Lielle, don’t get sidetracked!

============================== [><]=============================

The silver-eyed mare let out a loud snerk as she crossed the door… Boshan was such an impulsive fellow about some things… she couldn’t fault him for being so, that being a trace of his personality, but she could fault his general ignorance about most of the workings of the Zone… anyway, the stallion would learn soon enough, the mare thought, this might even be fun… like a race. The first to find a way to disable the AI wins!

After a small corridor, she ended up on an enormous room… a few emergency lights by the eastern wall revealed five or six roll-up doors, large enough to allow vehicle passage. The middle of the room contained a large number of randomly assorted containers with different colors… it appeared to be a loading area of sorts…

The mare cautiously trotted through the gloomy room, until...

*Flash!*

A huge spotlight illuminated the exact position where she was… and it followed her as she tried to get off from it.

The princess’ hologram materialized itself above one of the containers, looking regal as ever.

“I am so sorry for this… I’ll be sure to make it up for you if you survive, child, I swear it!” And she let out a prankish wink.

* WREE! * WREE! * WREE! *

A number of heavy-duty machinegun turrets erupted from the floor, each one with a scanning module atop them.

BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!!

The mare could only feel a surge of lead scratching her fur, while she pulled through all the energy she could to dash ahead, seeking refuge among the containers.

Breathing heavily, she pulled out a medkit and quickly administered it, stitching her wounds and drowning the pain in repressive drugs.

She trotted her way around, using the heavy metallic containers as cover, reflecting on her luck that the turrets were installed on the floor, not on the ceiling. Obviously, whoever set them up had in mind an optimal situation for the room: clear of any loading containers.

However, among with providing cover, they also formed an intricate labyrinth on themselves…

BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!! BLAMMO!!!

The guns’ projectiles worthlessly hit the thick metal, missing the mare for inches… as soon as she heard the machines’ reloading noises; she trotted full speed ahead onto the next section of containers.

On that trot, she darted inside an open container, straight ahead her path. She was going so fast that she stumbled onto something…

After a few moments dusting off and silently cursing the accident, she directed her flashlight upon the floor…

The mare let out a small grunt of surprise.

It was the skeleton of an equine… more than that, of a unicorn! The redhead tripped upon the scrambled bones of the creature.

Not much was left of it, most of the deceased equine’s clothing have long deteriorated… however, there was something else… the skeleton was chained to a briefcase.

Letting curiosity overtake her, the mare examinated it, noticing that whenever was held inside, it was protected by a lock.

The azure pony’s first thoughts were about trying to lockpick it, but reflecting about it, she decided it was a worthless effort, she never really had the thievery skills to begin with…

Strange… why that was so clear in her mind, she asked herself. Was it always like this? And if it hadn’t, why and what made it ring now?

She pushed those thoughts aside and set herself to solve the practical problem that laid upon her: a rusted lock.

After a few moments considering her options, the mare withdrew a skinning knife from her pack. The weapon’s blade was slightly marred with dried mutant blood and patches of fur, but nevertheless, it did the job. A few strikes later and the lock was broken.

The interior of the briefcase was completely empty, except for two small metallic hoops… closer inspection revealed that such hoops were earrings.

Even without knowing if these had a function or some meaning of sort, Lielle thought they were kinda pretty, very feminine… you don’t find these on the Zone every day. With that in mind, she packed the earrings, saving them for a special occasion. Before lifting up, she noticed a shiny gleam at the corner… a gold-colored plastic keycard was lying there. The mare promptly claimed it.

Now, returning her attention to the rigged room, the mare cleared the last few meters of the loading bay, seeking the container’s cover to effectively escape being shot.

As the equine entered the next corridor, a drastic change of scenery could be observed.

A crammed corridor without any adornments, except cracked bones and blotches of blood among the walls.

Unusual that most of the blood was on the walls. The floor, except where it intersected with the walls, was almost clean of it. Also, on exactly the middle of the corridor, an abnormally large blotch of blood occupied the aligned wall.

The mare wanted to go on, to trot through along that room quickly and get over with it.

But something was holding her back…

The confused pony probed her own thoughts and feeling until she came upon the answer: an emotion that she hadn’t fully experienced in a long time…

Fear.

Yes, it must have been it. Before, she would jump head straight and carelessly into situations, believing that her luck and “hunches” would be enough. Most of the times, these proved to be right (otherwise, she wouldn’t be there to tell the story) but on one or another, she hurt herself…

At then, she didn’t paid much heed, but now… the mere thought of it brought shivers. Why?

The bloodsucker, whispered her mind. Ironically, only after facing imminent death, one tends to experience life to the fullest. Now, being alive was a special gift, a thing way too precious to be gambled with, like she did before.

Of course, the full weight of the responsibility of such knowledge dawned on the mare. She wouldn’t have the bliss of ignorance anymore, she realized that her carefree, yet spontaneously happy and helpful attitude would give place to cold logic, introspection and mistrust… closer to being a stalker that she ever was and the main reason the mare couldn’t fit anywhere before.

A necessary sacrifice, she bitterly thought.

With that reasoning in mind, she knew that the corridor was rigged… the body remains were clue enough of that. And before traversing it, she should devise a way to bypass it.

More easily thought than done, since she was trying to outsmart an advanced AI, probably built by one of the finest minds of the pre-monarchic era, she thought, it wasn’t such a piece of cupcake like dodging springboards…

Springboards…?

The mare quickly ruffled through her belongings, quickly finding the bolts, the very same that her friend gave to her earlier on.

Lielle picked one of them, faintly sensing the rough texture of the metal. The redhead eyeballed its gleam, the smell of fresh salvage… perhaps; after all, this security system wasn’t so different from anomalies, being just a stupid trap that sprung whenever somepony disturbs its g-spot.

Now, what did Boshan said earlier? Something along the lines of “Find environmental clues, especially blood and equines’ remains, they usually mark the critical point.”

Maybe tricking the AI was, indeed, as easy as tricking anomalies…

And judging the corridor, the sweet spot would be directly the middle of it, exactly parallel to that giant blotch of blood.

Upon spending a few seconds gazing at the bolts, the mare decided that wasn’t the time for subtlety. She stuffed half a dozen bolts onto her mouth, her brain registering the acrid taste of a mix of irradiated metal and rust.

The mare tried her best not to pay attention to it, struggling to keep the bolts circling inside her mouth, until she had enough of shaking them.

PTOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The long-ranged spit sent bolts flying across the corridor, only two of them landing on the middle of it (one by rebound).

Thirty-three per cent of success rate, not bad. The mare thought.

As soon as those little pieces of metal landed on some sensitive tile on the floor, the hologram was summoned.

Celestia was holding a very persuasive smile.

“Time to put our differences behind us, in essence we are all equines. We are meant to aid Equestria together, do not hear those petty rabble-rousers, be my *BZZT* our friend!”

And the image froze into that winning smile, in the same moment that the entire precinct spoke a very different language… it began to tremble.

BRZOOMMM!!!

The redhead quickly retreated a few steps backing away from the corridor, back into the loading bay, and just in time…

The east wall moved! Huge pistons threw it toward the opposite wall, squashing any object larger than a coin, with extreme prejudice.

Once it smashed its structure against the other wall, it backed halfway and squashed again, repeating the procedure eight times before returning to the original position.

The mare asked herself, who, in their sane minds, would set up a defense system so exploitable? It was either set up in a hurry or it was a beta version, not a fully-fledged operational item.

That wasn’t the time to ponder about that, she quickly restrained herself, this AI could be studied better when its defenses were offline.

Lielle chewed another six bolts and spat them onto the corridor… this time, three struck on the middle of it.

The hologram didn’t materialized, since it was already there, frozen with a smile plastered on its face, but the wall moved again…

Wham!!!

Timing her jumps through the steam hydraulics and pushing her legs to clear out the corridor as quick as she could, the azure earth pony was able to reach the other side of the corridor before the moving wall backed to its starting position.

Just as she crossed the doorway to the next room, a big metallic gate descended, blocking her way back… the AI was designed not only to fight menaces, but to trap them in the case they outsmarted it, crafty…

Now, the mare was genuinely surprised with the next room… pink, pink, pink everywhere… the wallpaper, ruined couches, books, flower pots… all the props were delicate and feminine, the mare would have loved them, weren’t for the coloration.

She didn’t like pink… something about the color that she couldn’t exactly put a hoof into bothered her… it seemed too cliché and tacky for her personal taste, like a color that was forced upon every mare’s mentality to represent femininity, and now they were all stuck into using pink not because they liked it, but because it was stereotyped as a “girl’s distinctive color”, like the social bias was more valuated than personal preferences.

Leaving those thoughts for later, she quickly deducted that the room was either the mares’ quarter or resting area… well, besides her feelings for the pink color, it sure helped in divining for what the room was used.

Moving cautiously through the poorly illuminated room, the mare ended up summoning the hologram and the AI’s defenses yet again… just as she expected, no point trying to avoid the inevitable.

“I just want to be your friend… why do you hate me so much? What I have ever done to you? I’m so sorry…” The hologram cried.

Three automatic weapons appeared at the eastern wall, weapons that didn’t looked like anything the mare had ever seen before… just pronged tubes wired to the ceiling, no noticeable ammo containers or any other additions.

“Target acquired, opening fire!”

BZOOONG!! BZOOONG!!! BZOONG!!!

Lielle was able to dodge the first two beams, but the third one struck right onto her back… the poor mare felt like her skin was made out of lit combustible, that laser beam carved a mighty 2nd degree burn in instants, scorching a whole patch of fur on its wake.

“Structural damage on the stallions living area, hostile is armed and dangerous.” The AI informed. Boshan was going head on too…

Moaning from intense pain, the mare moved under one of the turrets, expecting it to be not able to rotate 90 degrees toward the floor.

BZOOONG!!! BZOONG!!!

This time, both beams missed the mare by a few hooves… seems that the AI wasn’t able to continuously recalculate target positions. Another oversight.

Ka-ching! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT!

“Unit #13 destroyed, rerouting power”

Breaking another dash while the AI was busy adjusting power levels and cooling down the weapons, the mare darted to the wall opposed to the broken turret, she had to be as away as she could be from the other two weapons…

BZOOONG! BZOONG!

More beams, colored with a hybrid color between white, blue and green. Another of those deadly beams hit the mare, this time producing a grievous burn onto the foreleg of her front left hoof. No pain this time, the laser burned so deep that it partially destroyed her nervous ligaments; the smell of boiling flesh infested the room.

Another break from the turrets was everything she needed, and while the weapons were cooling down again, she used the interval to finish this once and for all.

The redhead chugged her remaining pair of grenades onto the deadly machines… this wasn’t the time to be economical.

BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!

“Units #14 and #15 nonoperational, breach in progress, ladies’ quarter. Security system neutralized, alert!”

Lielle sighed of relief, turning her attention to the burns. Those were some really, really serious ones, she couldn’t understand how the lasers went right through her armor like it was wet toilet paper! Using two medkits to subdue the wounds a little, she cursed the overpowered weaponry employed by the AI.

After spending some quality time lying on the floor, the mare awkwardly stood back up on all her fours, and soon started to explore the room.

Another one of those metallic doors led further deep onto the compound… another rigged room expecting a foolhardy insurgent, doubtlessly, the mare grimly thought. Instead of moving in, she drifted her eyes to some doors around the western wall.

The first room along that wall had its door missing, somepony was here before…

The room wasn’t in good shape… right on the center of the floor, a gigantic blackened crater extended itself, seeming the likes of the blast zone of a powerful explosive, with ashes forming a circular pattern around the ground zero. Everything else was either claimed by decades of abandon or had its components burned out.

But most revealing, the room’s eastern wall was destroyed by the blast, giving passage to the neighboring room.

Treading her path around the crater room, the earth pony crossed the broken wall to investigate the second room.

Compared to the first, this room was intact… that was most unsettling for the mare, just because it was an incongruity… in the Zone, dust, decay, half-pilfered buildings and the rotten scent of death were so to be expected, to the level that stumbling on well conserved areas could cause mild discomfort on seasoned Stalkers.

Such was the state of that room, no dust, no dirt… flawless green lockers, a lovely pink bunker bed (much to the mare’s disgust) and a black desk with a matching bench.

Over that bench, a corpse…

It still held most of its flesh, although green fungus was growing all over the deceased earth pony mare’s eye-catching coral fur.

Longing for clues, Lielle examinated the body. The cause of death was a machinegun perforation at the thorax. The fungal growth was recent, leading the mare to suspect that the pony somehow sealed itself on the room, suspicion which turned into certainty when she tried to unlock the quarter’s door: electronically locked, to the point that nothing short of a complete mainframe override would crack it open.

It caught her eye that the deceased equine still held a pencil gripped on its mouth. Diverting her attention to the desk, Lielle noticed that the mare was writing a letter, it read:

“Help! My defense system has gone berserk! If this message reaches anypony, know that my PDA contains key information on how to dea…” and the calligraphy trailed off from the paper at that point. The mare clearly passed away while writing the note.

So, the spell has turned against the spellcaster… the redhead wondered how they didn’t saw it coming. At least the note indicated that the defense system could be turned off.

She only had to find that PDA first.

So, the azure mare started to crack up the green lockers, one by one, each of them revealing to be empty… around the eighth one, she found something… a weird blue-tinted goggle and a strange disk, seemingly made of a mix of silver and glass.

Soon enough, the goggle was being worn by the mare, temporarily replacing her NVG. At first, it seemingly did nothing aside than give a bluish coloration to everything else.

But then, the mare spotted something on the corner of her field of vision. The disk was reacting, producing two blue cylinders that clipped out through the locker’s wall.

Curious of what the phenomena was about; she dragged the disk outside of the locked and set it on the floor.

Another Lielle sprouted out of the device. It mimicked every move that the original did. Putting a hoof onto the doppelganger revealed it to be nothing but a hologram. This was possibly a mobile program testing prototype unit that preceded the hologram creation program used by the AI.

Nevertheless, thought the mare, it was pretty cool. And thinking about making a good profit out of it later, she stored the disk and the goggles onto her saddlebags.

The redhead resumed the operation of opening the remaining lockers, which eventually yielded no more loot.

Furthermore, she went on by searching the bunk bed.

Right on the lower one, she found what she was searching for underneath the blankets: the PDA. Not only that, but under the pillow, there was a small arsenal: a desert eagle, some ammo for it and three grenades.

The grenades were nothing like the ones she was used to, these ones were heavier, and probably, more dangerous as well.

As for the desert eagle, it was love at first sight. Everything on that weapon screamed “size matters”, and the thought of having a weapon that imposed respect among the hearts of fellow Stalkers sure held some appeal in her mind.

At the first grapple, she felt a bit clumsy with the massive hoof-cannon; it occupied her whole mouth just trying to hold the weapon’s grip, thanks both to the weapon’s sheer size and considerable weight. However, she took off the marekarov from her weapon necklace and replaced it with the desert eagle anyway. She would have to shake her neck with twice the strength to bring the weapon to her mouth, but it was worth it, the mare pondered.

Dumping the ammo and the explosives into one of her saddlebags, the mare started to fiddle with the PDA… after some moments working out the gadget; she started to read its diary entries.

1057, January 8:

Yeehaw! All those years learning programming and engineering finally paid off! Got meself a job in the monarchy. Too bad pa’ can’t know ‘bout it, he would be mighty proud of me. Heck, everypony down in Appleloosa would be! But I can understand why the secret… with those blasted insurgent fellas scoopin’ around and trying to get their dirty hooves on everything we care ‘bout. Well, they will have theirs coming. When I get this auto defense system out of the paper and set the technical mumbo-jumbo, I’ll be wanting to see them trying to jack our secrets. Now that’s said, I’ll be going to the party. I hope these eggheads have some hard booze around here somewhere…

1057, February 1:

Can’t Heartstrings give me a break? I’ve been busting out working nonstop and yet she wants results, results, results… and now she comes up with this silly policy of having to record our own projects’ progress once in a while… what a waste of time.
But since she is the one I have to please to get paid, let’s get over with it already. I’ve finished the first holodisk prototype; our defense system will use an improved version of that program, with a minor bug fix with the textures and a better image definition. Also, the weaponry shipment arrived today, now we just need to wire them out in every room and give permissions to the AI, so it can manage those… it should take a couple of days to do so if everything goes accordingly to the plan. I guess I’ll leave the instructions and let my crew do the hard work while I’ll add a few sprinkles to the hologram routine, it will look more real than reality. XD. and I just have the perfect graphical avatar in mind for the AI…

1057, February 3:

Great success! Well, almost, at least. The 1.0 defense system is installed and works clockwork! Although Heartstrings won’t let me install weapons in the personal quarters or the workshop. Can you believe it? Faust forbid, but in the event that insurgents breach the compound, they won’t necessarily bust out on a protected room because of that kind of foolishness, and I don’t think that the whackjobs she hired for security are cut out to fill the blind spots. Seriously, I’ve seen manlier fillies in Appleloosa. I’m damn sure that these stallions haven’t picked anything heavier than a microscope with their girly hooves. Anyway, at least most of the team approved the defense system and ab-so-lu-te-ly loved my Celestia… oh Celestia, my masterpiece, my inspiration, my strength!
Oh, and I’ve got to install point-zero energy focus beam dispensers by the girls quarters! How cool is that? Too bad that the laser is kinda weak, it has a hard time going through thick leather and such… oh well… three of them ought to at least cripple an insurgent raid.

Kinda weak, my plot! Thought the mare. Those lasers gave her grave burns in seconds… there was no way they could be low-powered, unless…

She drew her own PDA, searching it frantically until reaching the encyclopedia entry she wanted:

“Mica

The “Fruit punch” anomaly gives birth to this artifact in the rare event it experiences a critical and fastidious collection of external factors, resulting in an almost-transparent and very expensive artifact. It works wonderfully against bleedings, however, in turn, the wearer’s skin becomes much more vulnerable to burns of any kind”

How could she be so careless? She forgot to remove the artifact before dealing with the lasers. Sighing her own foolishness, Lielle continued to read on the dead mare’s PDA.

1057, February 7:

My neck, it hurts so much! Heartstrings looks deceptively weak, I’ll give her that.
And what was the fuss all about? Some stupid visitor forgot his password, and the AI got rampant against him! To top it out, those security dolts ruined three machinegun turrets! Three, can you believe that? Where do they hire these guys? And worse yet, Heartstrings told me that they were coming out of my pay! Oh, the nerve! Like it was my fault… And now she wants me to add a “surrender” routine by the end of the week, to avoid a reprisal… She also said that “all this violence isn’t the image of Celestia we wish to cultivate”… Pfft… Like my pa’ always said: “Speak kind words, but back it up with pounds of lead, just in case”. And to completely wreck this day, somepony complained about the hologram appearing on the restrooms! I bet it was one of the boys working in that stupid armor-thingy that did it! If you ask me, only those that use their bathroom intervals to loaf around and avoid work would feel bothered by being caught by their ruler with their pants down. Oh well, another thing to fix tomorrow. I’ll get a bag of ice and call it a day.

1057, February 10:

All guns blazing! BLANGBLANGBLANG! I so do love live-fire demonstrations! My defense system working at its peak capacity, fighting those tough dummies like they are nothing, just miserable little bags of flour, totally incapable of resisting! The insurgents will get theirs too in due time! And the best part, everypony at the compound saw it and approved with praise! Yes, finally some recognition baby! Even Heartstrings lightened up, and she said that if I can solve the minor issues and have a preliminary version of the system ready for military usage by the end of this week, I get to pick the monthly dessert offered by the cafeteria’s menu! I am almost tasting zap apple pies, the same that my ma’ used to bake back in the day. I guess those are mass-produced now, everything is, technology is bucking great.
I’ll just have to pull my team to work overtime for a while, with the responsibility of refurbishing a room into a contention chamber for prisoners as well..

1057, February 14:

My system has been perfected! It took a while, everypony busted their backs while working at it, but we did so on time! I just updated the data to the compound’s mainframe. From what Heartstrings told me, the monarchy will start producing half a dozen of defense systems already, to boost the REA bases’ security, only that theirs will have a standard AI without hologram functions and just basic targeting systems, very unlike ours… bummers, well, it’s their plot on the gunfire zone. On another successful note, my team completed their assignment of turning the back room of the west wing into a prison… although I still need o program the AI to provide basic life-supporting to the prisoners… don’t want anypony to go through the hassle of having to interact with filthy insurgents, you know, they’re loaded with diseases… But that can wait until next week. I’m also suggesting that Heartstring transforms the annex room into a security station, so that the security dopeheads would have a place to monitor the prisoners, store apprehended material for posterior disposal and eat their donuts without leaving fucking crumbs everywhere. Oh, that reminds me… zap apple pie time!

1057, February 17:

My boss’ stamp of approval, tasty pie, shelter and washed clothes… what more a gal could want? The only thing I could think of as needed is that somepony special, you know… my soulmate, a stallion to call my own… too bad all the guys around here are so… sigh… softsies! Most of them wouldn’t know how to handle properly a real Appeloosian mare like me ;)
Or I’m feeling just a bit under the weather, maybe another slice will cheer me up.
Oh, I was so busy reminiscing and rejoicing on the dessert, that I kinda… stayed a bit behind on my work… Oh, no worries, I’ll compensate tomorrow.

1057, February 24:

Oh Celestia, oh my… what a bunch of drama queens! Now they are whining about the zap apple pies… and, for a change, all the blame is going over me. Yes, I’ve noticed that the food coloring on them turned my teeth a shade more purple than usual, but hey, you don’t see me bitching about it. Guess who Heartstring charged of disposing of the pies? Ding, ding, ding!!! Exactly, now I have to crack my poor little head looking for someplace to store those… Hmmm… I’ll just give them to the prisoners. By filling a room with the pies and hardwire the AI to send them to the prisoners at meal time intervals! Genius! It’s not like they will be imprisoned for more than two or three days, so no big deal about having a proper diet for them, plus, if you are a traitor, you don’t deserve the right to pick meals.

1057, February 25:

My package has arrived, finally at last! I can at last feel safe now. With these douchebags serving as guards, I’ll be safer packing my own heat: Three F1 grenades from Baghdrag, I’ve heard that they spread so many splinters that it can bleed a chimera to death in 10 seconds flat, if that thing survived the explosion! I’ll test them out someday… And, of course, a desert eagle, imported from Eagleland, the good stuff… I wonder why those gryphons are so obsessed with making burdening and large weapons… they must be trying to compensate for something… but, oh well, any weapon that can pierce kevlar like it is cardboard has my love. If only it was lighter… I’ll have to train lifting this bulk before being able to use it properly… good thing I know lots of ways on how to use my tongue ;)
I’ve stumbled on the boys on my way out… looks like they finally get their toy up and running… seems interesting enough, although, not as cool as my defense system :)

1057, March 3:

Some of the stallions came knockin’ on my door, wanting me to get to working. I’ll keep on when I’m inspired. You can’t rush perfection.

1057, March 7:

Okay, okay… done working on the system… the targeting systems are now improved by 10% and firepower has been increased, the usual… No, something new: each software update posterior to this date will have to wait a week to be implemented on the system. So, if one of those insurgents, by a stroke of luck, manages to rig my system, we can check the changes and undo them before they set it in motion. Clever, I thought of it all by myself.

1057, March 13:

Heartstrings sure won’t give me a break… this oughta satisfy her…. A way to deactivate all the weapons that can be done by anyone in the case of, I don’t know, some unlikely emergency that will fade when we turn completely defenseless ? Anyways, the new software change (enabled on a week after today) will deactivate all weapons when the exact phrase is uttered: “The password is password” Let’s hope that is within the visitors’ brain capacity.
I’ve also heard that Silas is being promoted. Yea, after his resounding success with his armor, he will be leaving us in three days. This means, more budget for me! Yay.
I asked him if I could wire my AI to his armor, you know, I hate waste, and a “mobile gun” would be so much better than those security guards… guess what? He conceded. And all I had to do was listen his sermon about keeping up with the others’ working pace… pffft…. What an egghead. I’ll link the armor first thing tomorrow.

That was the last one.
One needn’t to be a genius to put the pieces of the puzzle together… The mare was quick to figure out the whole situation: due to the lack of proper maintenance and updates, the defense system was basically, a disaster just waiting to happen. And when it did happened, hey couldn’t deactivate it, thanks to that stupid “one-week-before-software-changes” protocol. The broken system butchered all personnel and the few ones that managed to escape its wrath and locked themselves out, died of starvation or from wounds, like the mare nearby.

As for why the monarchy didn’t intervene to either rescue or assess the situation, the answer was clear as well: they desired to keep their secret projects still secret. And to do so, a mass scale instant intervention would point it out to the whole world. The redhead was sure that the equestrian royal army had carefully planned a whole operation, being unfounded by the crescent insurgent crisis, the spawning and the growth of the Zone, and to finally nail the coffin, the downfall of the monarchy.

There wasn’t much to do for these equines now, but lament their ill fates, at least now nopony else would die at the hooves of a simulacrum of their beloved princess…

The mare left the somber room, returning to the mares’ quarter.

When she positioned herself right on the middle of the room, she shouted at the top of her lungs:

“The password is password!”

“Emergencial weapon systems override accepted, powering down… please contact the system administrator…”

And so, the mare started to trot her way out, still a bit cautious. Before she even noticed, she was already crossing the big door further on…

The room behind it was littered with junk… raw material, failed or broken projects, outdated machinery… basically, the garbage on a nutshell…

“Oh, I’m soo happy that you decided to pay me a visit, sweetie! Not many ponies trot into here.”

The azure pony nervously turned her head to the source of that phrase.

The hologram still wore its serene semblance, a semblance that in the meantime that she was down there; she learned to associate with cold-blooded and ridiculously painful murdering intentions.

Seeing it like that, devoid of the accompanying apparel activated by the breach routine was unnatural, out of place… like a death threat uttered by a cute filly…

Or perhaps Boshan was a bit right. She saw him scowling back then, perhaps she was really just maintaining a pleasant illusion by feeling sorry and believing that the machine was capable of complex emotions… when in truth, deep down, she knew that it would just act according to its own programming, incapable of free will…

Still, she couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for it.

Eventually, the earth pony left her own reflections and cruised on the next door by her left, ignoring the hologram.

The subsequent room didn’t had any decorations, furniture, or anything at all, it lay bare, just presenting a door to the west and one north, the last one with a shining panel over it with the word “Mainframe room”, and a keycard terminal nearby.

Hmmm…

Lielle didn’t wasted any time in trying the keycard on that lock. The system instantly recognized it and opened it, giving passage to the room.

Most of the mainframe room was occupied by a tremendously huge supercomputer, accessible thought a terminal inbuilt into its body.

And again, she used the keycard to get access. As she suspected, the computer stored every detail about the compound’s current projects and other interesting data… too bad she was outsourced and didn’t had any storing device for these… Boshan was the one with the flash drive. Speaking of which, now that she had beaten him on this gymkhana, she thought it was best to check on the stallion’s condition. Who knows if he got wounded, lost or something?

A few hoofstrokes later, she started to examine the system’s security cameras log…

============================== [><]=============================

Ouch… damn shrapnels… those little things were all over the floor now, reeking in my own blood. Better to feel the pain now than let those things inside my skin to rust and infect the wounds.

I rested a little while looking at the small pile of metal that I was able to extract… not bad for a half-assed job, I could forge a dagger with that much metal, hard to believe that somepony was able to, somehow, stuff that much inside a small grenade along with the powder.

BROOOOOOM!!!! BROOOOMMM!!! Lunch time! Lunch time! BROOOM!!! BROOOOOMMM!!

With that warning, a tube appeared from the ceiling and brought six of those packaged pies.

Just seeing those being dumped one by one reminded me that it was noon now, and I hadn’t had breakfast. So hungry…

Of course, my cellmates weren’t hungry, they had a freaking feast at my expense… the only remaining things were empty cans and bottles of vodka, those, dry to the last drop (yes, I’ve checked them.)

Perhaps just a bite wouldn’t hurt…

“If I were you Stalker, I’d delay having those as long as I could… they tend to leave an aftertaste… besides, if you take the package seriously, rainbows are probably composed of ancient manure and hot sauce” Stargazer laughed.

“Since you guys lived on this, how bad a small bite would be? It can’t be that unbearable… if I’m forced to spend some time around these parts, I might as well do so with a filled belly.”

The pegasus mare simply shrugged, resuming her previous activity, which consisted of fiddling with a bolt. Wow… these Stalkers sure have to cope with a lot of boredom.

So, this is it, just a taste test… I pushed a slice toward my muzzle, biting a nick off the crust…

Not bad, not bad at all… now for a taste of the filling, I took a deeper bite…

The taste wasn’t so bad… it had, indeed, a spicy aftertaste… but I’ve liked it. Wonder if the spicy taste was softened due to the product being over a century old…

Look at me now, eating one-hundred years old desserts and linking it…

WROOOOOTHHHSHHH!!!

The door’s lock resoundingly shifted, opening the prison to grant passage to somepony else. The other prisoners naturally shrunk to the back of the cell, afraid of the unknown.

I was too busy for that…

“Very, very pretty…” A familiar voice sounded. “I’ve been through high water and hell on Equestria to find you, and you are safe and pretty here, eating goddamn pie like it’s nothing! It’s not even noon!” The mare roared to me. “What do you have to say on your defense?”

“Dfhoo youff Wanft Sfoomff?” I grumbled back, letting a lot of crumbs fly on my attempt of speaking with a full mouth.

The mare simply took the rest of the pie from my hooves, and keeping her serious glare, started to eat it.

I’ve never seen before somepony eat a pie while holding a deadpan simultaneously.

“Looks like you forgot to put your sun block…” I commented while eyeing her various burns.

“You don’t seem much better… that leg was used as a chew toy by a pseudo or what?” she asked back.

“You know her, newbie?” Midlight spoke from the back.

“Yes, she’s with me… by the way, thanks for busting me out Lielle… how you managed to cross the AI’s defenses? The damn thing pinned me down.”

“Had a help from a little friend” She brought up a bolt.

“So, it’s offline?”

“The weapons are… everything is alright now, I’ve even found the mainframe. Now you just need to get the data from it and we can leave.”

“About freaking time.” Ironfuel spoke “Ah, did you smacked the metal equine as well, kiddo?”

“Metal equine?”

“A roving armor… On my raid, we were able to short circuit the AI for a while, but that armor has some autonomous energy generating source, it went on us even after the AI was disabled.”

He must be referring to the EPA that the flash drive spoke, the same that “escorted” me to the prison.

“Nope, I just deactivated the AI’s weapons...”

“Then, you best take off the armor before we can move out.”

“What do you mean by “you” ? Why just me? Can’t you people help?”

Ironfuel raised his eyebrows. “Look at us kid, just look... we are malnourished, sick, weak, debilitated... what help could me and my friends possibly offer? No. Bring us our impounded weapons; we will hold this position while you two go hunt that thing...”

“The security station is on the next door.” Lielle said. “All your weapons are there.”

Made sense... a security station near the prison, so that the guards could supervise the prisoners easily...

After a quick stop where I’ve recovered my trusty AK and the other weapons, Lielle and I cruised to the mainframe room. Chances are, if that armor still lurked around, one of the cameras would catch it...

Once in the room, I inserted the flash drive that Carmelia gave me. In seconds, I copied all the data into the flash drive...

Weird, I could only find data about the defense system, no files about the EPA. Guess that they purged the data of completed projects after sending a copy to the backup facility for security reasons.

But there was something interesting too... project IP. Yes, I’ve read it being mentioned on one of the PDA’s entries... probably stands for “internal protocol” or some other network terminology... that didn’t looked very important, but since Carmelia told me to bring all the data I’ve could find, I added the IP folder to the flash drive as well.

Now that the main mission was complete, only one obstacle remained on the way.

The system’s cameras showed that the armor was trotting around the mare’s quarter, aimless as ever.

I didn’t forget how that mindless thing took away my pride, we’ll see who laughs last, you disgusting scrap pile of malfunctioning data and illegitimate motherboards.

Mental note: that last insult sounds way better for organic beings

“You know, now that we have the data, we could just abandon the rest of the Stalkers to their fates and avoid all the work of bringing down that thing…”

“That’s not a very good idea…” The mare replied, as I expected…

“Why? They are just a bunch of assholes, nopony will miss them, I certainly won’t.”

“If they somehow escape alive, guess who they will mention that left them to their own luck? Plus, helping them will bring Freedom’s sympathy for our cause. We could use as much friends as we can muster if you plan to reach the NPP in one piece.”

“So, surviving in this goddess-forsaken world is all about making friends? I might as well throw away my rifle and bake muffins instead… when you put it like that, you know that it sounds like something incredibly stupid? Like our affinity bonds will magically soothe raving beasts, miraculously cure dire bullet wounds in seconds, put multicolored rainbows in the sky and sprinkles on my vanilla ice cream…”

“That’s enough. Yes, I know that it sounds like a foal’s textbook morale, but it makes sense. At least in our present context…”

Might be… “Street cred” is never a bad thing to have in excess… and plus, I would get my sweet, sweet revenge against that pile of junk…

“Any plan in mind?” she asked

“Unload lead and explosive onto that construct until it stops moving sounds a pretty good one.”

“Let me rephrase that… any smart plan in mind?”

I simply ignored the question and went on to the action. The redhead merely sighed and trotted along.

After a short trot through a room crammed with broken machines and junk, the mares quarter’ door lay upon us. Lielle used a keycard to unlock it.

WROOSHHH!!!

I could discern that… thing, right there, on the opposite side of the room. As soon as we got onto its targeting field, it produced two high-powered machineguns on its back, while, at the same time, retreated to a corned and ducked, facing the wall and burying its “face”, as the machineguns were still aiming at us.

Self-preservation routines for a mighty killing machine? Those programmers must had way too much time at their hooves.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!! RATTLERATTLE!!!!

BLANG! BLANG! BLANG!

My puny rifle bullets hit the armor’s hull like they were freaking jelly beans… Lielle was having better luck with her new weapon, some big silvery-coated revolver…

She must had bought it while we were on Hoofstok… No chance one would find a weapon so conserved lying around. The revolver bullets penetrated the hull a bit, but nothing that could make the minimum effect on the automaton’s attitude.

Thankfully, the doorway provided enough cover for both of us.

Some bullet exchanges later, that thing moved… it ran away from us, going to the other room…

That made no sense… it was a tenacity battle and that thing was holding out much better than us, it just needed to advance and it would mow us down.

Definitely, the armor’s integration with the AI was improperly done, leading to routine errors, bugs, and whatnot software discrepancies.

“That’s not leading us anywhere Boshan… that thing won’t go down unless we use military-grade weaponry against it.”

“Grats for the heads up.” I snarled. “What gave you the hint? The total lack of reac…”

I gasped… incoming idea!

“Wait, that’s just it! Military-grade weaponry! We’ll just use one of the compound’s weapons to knock down that fucker.”

“In case you forgot, the entire base’s weaponry is handled by a homicidal AI, which happens to include the armor on its grid…”

“True, but we can use the testing chambers on the workshop. According to some personnel entries I’ve came around, those were used to test the armor’s resistance…”

“So what?”

“So that it includes flamethrowers for heat resistance testing. The armor can only take up to a thousand degrees… we’ll just trap it and crank the temp up to eleven.”

“Alright, only one flaw…” The cobalt mare shifted her face to a calculating look.

“I would love to hear it…”

“In the execution of that plan, how do you aim to attract the armor to a chamber? Yes, it will probably hunt out targets like us, but to trick it specifically inside the chamber… I don’t see how you can do it without trapping the bait as we…” The mare’s expression changed again to a pleased look. “Nevermind, I have something that rules out the risk factor of the equation.”

“This means you volunteer for being the bait?”

“One of us gotta do it, and let’s face it, you won’t go much far with that leg.”

Point taken… now that everything was properly planned, we only needed to be lucky and clockwork to work everything out.

============================== [><]=============================

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!

Soonly after the machinegun orchestra, the cobalt mare dashed into the workshop, the bullets’ source following along.

Of course, outrunning a plated combat armor loaded with whatnot of ammunition and junk probably weighting the minimum of half a ton was an easy feat, and even before that thing entered the workshop, the mare was already on its hiding spot.

And then, the armor came.

It trotted along the room, divided between… what do you take me for, a robot psychologist? I didn’t have any idea… fearful exploration? I would define that way if the subject was an organic being, like when one goes searching, afraid of what he is going to stumble into, but does search anyway. Of course, that’s just an analogy. It’s a machine we’re speaking about, not a rational being.

When it finally looked to the chambers, the thing spotted a smiling and waving Lielle inside.

It wasted no time in rushing toward it, extending its metallic hooves in anticipation, as if it would strangle its victim… how cruel.

What was the machine’s surprise (if it could process the feeling of being surprised…) when its charge went right through the mare, crossing it like it was nothing… it hit the wall at fifth gait, stumbling onto the floor.

More than enough time for us to dash to the console and lock up the armor and the holodisk inside. It went better than I’ve expected…

“See? That’s a good use for these” The cobalt mare commented while taking off her hologram-producing hipster goggles.

“Thank you very much, milady… and now on tonight’s menu…” I’ve flipped the console’s dial. “Roasted circuits, barbecued metal… heh.” And I’ve pushed the blast button.

Four flamethrowers materialized along openings of the chamber’ walls, laying out 1500 degrees’ flames. It wasn’t maximum temperature, I wanted to see that thing slowly smoldering all the way.

Now the armor occupied itself trotting back and forward, flailing its steel hooves and bobbing its empty head frantically… so lifelike, and yet, such a pathetic attempt on being so.

“There’s something wrong with that thing… its way off its rocker, that isn’t natural.”

I simply nodded my head. “The armor’s AI knows that its days are numbered… its all part of its programming.”

“No, that’s not it… it’s like… oh no!” She brought her hooves to the mouth. “There’s somepony in that thing! Stop it!”

“Are you insane? There’s nothing in there but an homicidal artificial intelligence.”

Wham!!!

Oooff… the mare bumped into me, bringing her hooves to the panel and lowering the temp. What the hell?

WHAMMO!!!

“Leave it, that thing wants to kill us!” I yelled while flipping back the temperature to 1500. “It’s better off dead, no matter if there’s somepony inside or not, although I’m sure there isn’t anyp…”

Wham!!

“Stop being such a stubborn mule! Just give me a while to…”

“To what? Enter that chamber and have twenty pounds of lead shoved up your face? Go ahead, be my…”

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!

The armor was banging on the glass now, other defective routine, no doubt… However the mare merely searched the console, finally finding a push-to-talk microphone that allowed chamber communication.

“Hello, I’m sorry for our… misunderstand. If you are a pony, please knock twice on the glass.”

Yeah, like that’s going to lead somewhere...

Knock Knock!

Celestia be damned… so I was proven wrong…

“Why are you shooting at us? We are your enemies? Knock once for yes.”

Knock Knock!

“See? Two knocks! He’s emphasizing his “yes” answer!” I remarked. “Scorch him!”

“I think that’s a no, stop being such a premature-assumption-taking-precocious-pants and let me do the talking, will ya?”

Like there’s any talking involved on the other part…

“Don’t believe on that thing… It’s a trap, obvious, evident, right-out-of-the-book, TRAP!”

Ignoring my valuable advice, she insisted on a lost cause.

“Can you tell us why you were firing at us?”

Knock Knock!

“No? You mean, you don’t want to, or you can’t?”

Knock Knock!

“There’s somepony in there, now I’m sure of that… and it can’t talk. We should help it out.”

“That’s not out problem. Whomsoever is there, its safer to dispose of him along with that overpowered arsenal.”

“Let me try to help it, please” She pleaded to me.

“Okay, for starters… you don’t even know what is wrong with that… thing, be it pony or machine. And secondly, unless you happen to be wearing a specific prototype technological item shaped as an earring, that thing will go trigger happy all over…”

The mare simply smiled and retrieved something from her bag…

A pair of earrings.

Luna be damned… me and my big muzzle…

The earth pony soon started to wear one and tossed the other one to me…

“I’m not wearing any girly accessories.”

“You’d rather be shot?”

Okay, but I wouldn’t be wearing it for longer than it was needed to…

“Still, no ideas of what the buck is wrong with that thing. Wait a minute; I know the answer for this one! The main issue of that thing is that it is STILL ALIVE! Let’s put it out of its misery!”

The redhead paid no attention to my words; instead, she used the microphone again.

“Say, what is wrong with you? Why you can’t tell us what is wrong with you?”

The machine pointed to itself. Then waved the hoof from its muzzle, like an opera singer…

“Yes, that’s exactly what we want you to do, to talk!”

To which the armor simply shook its head negatively.

The mare seemed to understand. “You… can’t talk?”

And the armor nodded.

“Why?”

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!

“What that means? Six?”

Knock Knock!

“You’re trying to send some message?”

Knock!

“Six knocks… what could it be? If they were at least letters…”

“Maybe that’s what they are…” Yes, it seemed logical in my mind.

“Those are letters?” The mare asked.

Knock!

“Six knocks, that’s an “F”, right?”

Knock!

“Send the rest of the message then.”

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!

“You spelled “I”, correct?”

Knock!

“How many letters left?”

Knock!

“One? Send it then…”

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock!

“Did you count that? That’s way too many knocks…”

“F, I, X, correct? That’s what you wanted to say?”

The armor nodded frantically and hopped around loudly.

“Fix, you mean, there’s something broken in you, with your voice? That’s why you can’t talk?”

Knock!

The redhead turned to me, looking triumphantly. “Who is right now?”

“I still say, kill that thing before we regret leaving it alive.”

“At very least, listen to what it has to say, then we’ll see if we kill it or not.”

“Ok, whenever get us to deal with this quicker…” was my grumpy answer.

“By the way, how did you know about the earrings and what they do?”

“Some diary entries about the armor project mentioned it…”

“Cool… I’ve found diary entries about the defense system. What about we exchange them? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…”

Additional knowledge ain’t ever going to hurt… with that reasoning, I turned the flash drive to Lielle and she, in turn, gave me a PDA.

After a while reading through the life details of a somewhat… eccentric appleloosian (whenever that town may be…) mare and experiencing a new insight on the situation, I came to learn more about the AI and what terrible destiny must have befallen over the former inhabitants of the compound.

“What we need is a voice module then…” The mare spoke. “The armor’s one must have broken down.”

For the next minutes, we searched the workshop for a working voice module, with the EPA’s blueprints indicating what we should be on the lookout for, and eventually, I’ve came upon the indicated hardware, positioned behind a ruined shelf.

“Good, good…” The mare spoke. “We can probably use that “interface stick” that was mentioned, if we find it…”

“Or I could just search my pocket…”

And I’ve pulled out the case containing the sick and opened it.

“That expedites things… now to release out locked friend… you got your earring on?”

I shook my left ear, the one that was pierced by the earring.

“Alright buddy, we’ve found a way to restore your voice… just stand still when we release you, okay? We will not harm you, alright?”

The armor just nodded and knocked the glass once.

WHREEESHHH!!!

Once the chamber was unlocked, the armor calmly trotted outside, cautiously, too cautiously…

Definitely a pony inside there… but I still stick with my idea of disposing or leaving that thing. Nothing good would come from approaching an unstable, experimental and dangerous machine.

Not wishing to deal with that thing, I hoofed the stick to Lielle.

Once in her hooves, she approached the tip of the stick to the armor’s back, and it reacted to the stick.

Holograms of options appeared over the armor… the mare tried hoofing through them, and discovered that they led to multiple menus about status, feeding and ammo storage settings, and finally, menus for fixing defects.

“SOFTWARE / HARDWARE” Offered the hologram

Lielle clicked on “software”. The thing, in turn, showed multiple binary lines, separated by dates of implementation, along with logic associations for routines and scripts.

“I’d leave those alone… nopony but a programming expert should modify these, lest you want to trigger the armor’s weapons…”

The cobalt pony merely nodded and returned to the previous menu, choosing “hardware” this time.

The hardware fixes were much more easily done… the hologram simply requested that we approached the replacement device, and once it was on the scanner’s range, it opened a compartment on the back, revealing the broken module, and it disconnected the wires that attached it to the armor.

We replaced it with the (hopefully) working one… we’ll know soon enough. What the mare expected to hear from the trapped one, it slips me… not much that a trapped scavenger or petty criminal would speak, that was the kind of equine that was probably inside.

The system detected the changes and wired the voice module to the rest of the hardware, the menus indicating that the operation was successful, the earth pony having retrieved the interface stick, it was now back to its case and onto my pack… the armor returned to its normal state as well.

That was the moment of truth.

Unexpectedly, the armor… whosoever was inside it, started to sing!

It wasn’t just any song… it was a very delicate and beautiful lullaby, sang by a very smooth soprano tone.

And, as suddenly as it started, the mare (yes, it was a female inside… that we could tell. Now, its race, due to the armor’s triple-fitting shape, wasn’t so easily discernable.) Started to squeal excitedly.

“Oh, thank you very, very, very, very much… I was so afraid not to be able to ever…” she softly spoke.

And while saying phrases too quickly for us to gather meaning or answers in them, she jumped over us, grasping its hooves on a… hug? Not surprisingly, the mare’s attempt pinned us to the ground, thanks to the armor’s weight.

“Sorry” The armored mare spoke. “I forgot how… “Strong” I am now, given my current… situation.” And she started crying.

“Now, now… what is done is done…” The earth pony comforted her. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened to you, sweetie?”

“Where do I start? There’s so much…”

“Start from the beginning… with your name.” Was my suggestion.

“My name is Moonbreeze…” The pony answered. “Sorry for the fit… it’s just that I wasn’t able to speak with anypony for over three months… If I could, then perhaps things might have ended differently…”

“You didn’t act on your own volition; we know that it was the AI’s routines overriding your own judgment.” The earth pony retorted.

The armored mare nodded slowly

“Three months, you say? Tell us your story, how you ended up inside that thing.” What else could I say? I was curious.

“I belong, or rather, belonged, to a nongovernmental agency founded outside the Zone, formed by descendants of the Zone’s escapees, immigrants and the like of ponydom. We always shunned this place of despair, with all its senseless violence, armed turmoil and political instabilities… everything that goes against our doctrines of pacifism.”

“Now, wait a minute there… you say that you’re a pacifier? You’re a thing that foals suck on?”

The cobalt mare was quick to smack the back of my neck.

“That’s not that kind of pacifying… paci-FIST, which means, one who believes in non-violent solutions for problems, such as negotiations between clashing parties, and act to prevent such acts of violence from happening and by abstaining themselves of doing them.”

Was that a joke? I’ve never heard about those pacifist people… no wonder; they were surely useless and anonymous all along the equestrian history. Useless before the disaster because we already had a two-thousand years of peaceful regency, with next to no sensible violence to be spoken of. Although the picture have changed with the insurgent crisis, the pacifists must have remained worthless, since the vast majority of ponydom was either eight or eighty, being diehard monarchy supporters or savage separatist insurgents, with just a tiny, powerless and naïve portion of them believing in a mutual compromise… that’s how society rolls… the ones giving the cards being either over conservatives or radicals to the end. They weren’t much better off nowadays after the disaster, now that violence has gone over the roof inside the Zone. Nopony would treat with respect anybody without an imposing gun, that’s almost like putting a “doormat” sign over your plot and asking everybody to step over it. That’s the kind of world where one of those noncombatants was dead meat straight from the beginning, the only question being “when?”… Oh well, it told me that someponies outside the Zone nurtured the fallacy that this pacifism thing would lead them somewhere…

“Yes, that’s the correct definition” Answered Moonbreeze. “We formed an expedition following a hint that indicated the location of a cache of technology that could be used harmfully, with the plan of disposing of it. Well, on our way to it, our convoy was raided… the bandits couldn’t care less for who we were and what we wanted… we were no match for them, only me and other three were able to run away, we continued to our original target, to here… this building.”

“After sheltering ourselves inside to escape from those rats…” The mare continued “This… monster… dressed as our princess, it called out weapons and started firing at us! I was so scared… I ran inside and hid on the first place I could find… turns out, it was this disgraceful armor. And now, I can’t get out of it. The AI controlled my movements, every time that somepony entered the compound; it made me hunt it… it made me kill it… I didn’t want to… I wanted to yell… I couldn’t… I’ve… killed my friends… it made me do so.” The mare sobbed. “I didn’t had control over the weapons… only when there was nopony else inside… I trotted so much trying to find a way out of this thing… It feeds me by injections… I don’t taste any of the food… It’s a prison, a mobile prison… that’s everything it is…” Moonbreeze lamented. “I’ve lost all hopes of ever being saved… until now. Please, please… tell me there’s a way of getting me out of this armor!” The mare pleaded, kneeling at my feet.

“I… need to talk to my friend” And I’ve pointed to Lielle, which was evidently sensitized toward the mare’s situation… “Privately…”

Moonbreeze nodded and trotted to the cargo bat, leaving us to discuss…

“Don’t tell me you’re giving doubts about helping that poor mare! You don’t even begin to imagine her pain…” She started.

“I’m as touched as the next pony, but we shouldn’t involve ourselves on that… there’s only trouble coming from helping that one, we’d be safer if we went our way.”

“And leave that victim of destiny on its own?”

“Look, bringing her along would imply in so many risks…”

“At least let’s help her deactivate the armor’s AI routine. That’s step one.”

“I’m no programmer… can’t do much to solve that.”

“I never asked you to work with it… just bring her to our Freedomer friend.”

“You mean Dominic? that might work… he may have enough skills to do that job. But after that, we’re leaving her for good, that’s non-negotiable.”

The cobalt mare reluctantly nodded. I wonder why she grew so attached to what was little more than a stranger… hadn’t she seen the risks that particular equine (more specifically, its armor) meant for us? Better get on with it and forget about Moonbreeze’s issue.

Lielle and I went to the cargo bay, meeting an expecting Moonbreeze.

“We’re done here.”

“Then, can you two get me off this thing?” She asked

“It isn’t that simple, you see… I tried to explain. “The armor was purposely worked to lock its wearer, to impede enemies from stealing it, and if they did so, to impede them of opening the armor to reuse or reverse-engineer it. The only way to open it is by inserting an specific code. Thing is, the code isn’t here in this compound…”

“You mean I’m stuck forever into this?” She cried.

“We have an idea where the code may be, but first we should reprogram the armor, so it won’t go picking targets on its own. For that, we wish to bring you to a friend of ours; he knows how to work with programmers stuff…”

“I… accept it. Thank you two for your kindness…”

“You’re welcome.” The azure mare replied.

“Don’t mention it.” I muttered under my breath.

“Since that’s out of our way, we should check on your friends…”

Horseshoes… I’ve almost forgot about the prisoners.

“Okay, let’s pick them up and find a way out.”

The two mares nodded at the same time and silently accompanied me on a short trot to the contention chambers.

“About some freaking time, did you two take the scenic route or some…” Stargazer cut short her rant, raising her hoof, stricken with speechless fear.

“It’s… it’s… it’s… him” Ironfuel gagged, and the rest of them piled around the back of the room, filled with fear for the bloodcurdlingly armor that haunted their dreams…

“It’s okay, she is with us!” Lielle said.

“She?” Midlight asked

“With us?” Trailblazer interrogated. “That thing blew away half of my squad without breaking a sweat! Are you two brain damaged?”

“She didn’t want to… it was the AI pulling the strings all along…” The redhead tried to justify.

Stargazer raised her eyebrows, suspicious. “Still, we couldn’t just…”

“I swear it; I never meant to do any harm to you, any of you…”

“Silence, herald of the shade of Celestia.” Trailblazer inquisitively spoke. “You don’t have any right here… your actions, intentional or not, caused too much pain in our hearts.”

“Enough!”

All the eyes turned to the dark corner on the back of the room.

Half-stare used whenever forces he still had left to speak his mind, which, given his condition, was severely depleting the unicorn.

“Have you all… forgotten that she is… like us?” *cough, cough* “An equine, just like… any of us?” He roared. “Lost, sad, trying to survive… on a world that hates us? In what… she is so different… from you… or you… or you? You should all… be ashamed.”

All the other prisoners fell silent; the truth hurts, doesn’t it?

“Come here, child.” The unicorn asked. “Help me get… on my hooves.”

Moonbreeze approached the old stallion, supporting his body with all the care of the world, helping him stand up.

“Thank you…” She said while embracing the unicorn.

“Targeting systems recalibration complete!” A mechanic voice said within the armor. “Hostiles detected!”

“No, no, no, no, NO, NOOO…” The poor mare cried as a shotgun formed itself at the side of her chest.

PWOOT, PWOOT, PWOOT, PWOOT!

The weapon fired four point-blank shots at the unicorn, bringing quick death to him.

“Please, stop! Take me instead… leave them alone!” Moonbreeze desperately cried as the shotgun disappeared and, in its place, a minigun appeared, perched at the armor’s back.

The other three prisoners were caught in surprise, their faces paralyzed with terror as the machinegun mowed them down.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!

Now, upon the floor, three more corpses. Two earth ponies and one pegasus.

Trailblazer, the only who weren’t caught by the fire and the one closest to the door, make a run for it, on a furious, fear-ridden dash.

“Sorry, sorry… please, come back! I can fix this, I only want to help!” The miserable mare reached out with her roof.

As a reward to her efforts, now a rocket launcher formed itself on her pointing hoof…

FWOTH!

The fuel-propelled explosive projectile flied away, making the “L” turn, pursuing the pegasus with alarming speed.

Homing rockets… who would have guessed?

BOOOOMMM!!!

I exited the room to see if there was anything left…

Turns out, there wasn’t. The rocked caught its target alright… Trailblazer ran a few meters off, but was invariably caught and blown away…

Just like his squad, he suffered the very same fate.

As I’ve entered back the prison, Lielle was comforting the mare, which was now wrecking in sobs.

I couldn’t know how she could feel sorry for the mare after that display of violence… it happened so quick… I couldn’t move during it.

I didn’t felt anything about Moonbreeze, but fear… yes, it wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t helped much.

I take it back, I’m never going to take off this earring.

I started to examine the bodies… not much I could do, seeing their states… half-stare had his stomach splashed over the wall and tears in his dead eye…

Purple tears…

============================== [><]=============================

Fire… it was strangely soothing.

It crept lively, its flames telling a story of mystery and power that was over five thousand years old, or even older, depending of who was the historian.

How did it emerge? Some wayward troglodyte decided that banging two rocks together was a bright idea? A thunderbolt that struck a tree? Perhaps squeezed dragon glands… some even dare to say that it was a gift stolen from the gods…

No mater where it came from, it played a pivotal role in metallurgic advancements during the pre-classical era, and more recently, was the responsible on transforming highly energetic materials, fuel, into raw energy that was needed by the earth ponies’ machinery…

That was fire, the flame that meant both the beginning and the end, in its quality as the primordial transformer… depending on the strength of the flame, its duration and its fuel, it could atomize even the most resilient of materials, turning it malleable, allowing it to be wrought… worked with… be controlled so that it could assume the form of our wish, become a concrete extension of our imagination, as the material was shaped, our future itself was shaped with it.

The flame was the universal leveler… no matter what was there before; it transformed everything into only one thing, if it had enough time…

Ash. The end and the beginning of all things, philosophically speaking.

That’s what was on my mind as I saw the flames sprouting from the flamethrowers, slowly dissolving four and half of a body into the gray mass. That’s what Carmelia would have wanted us to do. She only didn’t need to know who killed them in the first place.

Hard to believe that instants before, those were living, breathing beings. They had their emotions, loved ones, dreams, desires… now they were just dist, fine dust, just because of a whim from a long dead programmer…

I shifted my eyes to the small pile of scavenged items that I relieved their bodies of. It wasn’t much, Moonbreeze’s terrible artillery crumbled mostly everything, especially their armors, which weren’t at top-notch condition on the first place…

Amongst the usable items, various weapons (both that belonged the dead Stalkers and a few others ownerless ones taken from the security station), a pair of binoculars that belonged to half-stare and cash, around four thousand grant… that should cover up their food expenses…

I don’t know exactly why, but all of a sudden, the thought “That’s the only way a mare will ever buy you a drink” appeared on my mind. Figures…

After the entire chamber was filled with purple smoke, I opened the door, letting the blood-tinted cloud dissolve into the air.

Now that was done, I returned to the former contention chamber, only to find Lielle still hugging the now silent Moonbreeze.

Too much form my hopes that she simply ran away from every other living being in the face of her not so little problem.

“The issue is solved… now everyone that visits this site will credit those to the AI’s body count.” Which, technically, wasn’t a lie.

“Why didn’t you give them a burial? Incineration seems so… crude” The metal clad mare softly spoke. She definitely wasn’t used to the Zone’s customs… I could relate to that… a bit.

“It was needed. This way, nopony can link them and you, misfortunate as it may be, it could dispose Freedom’s behavior toward you, to the point that they turn hostile. And by it, could harm our relationship with them as well. Trust me, you’re going to need them to fix your issues.”

“That’s the friend you spoke of?”

“Yes. Although the armor is probably too advanced for their resources, impeding them to take it off without harm, he can probably deactivate the AI’s auto targeting, preventing further… accidents, until you can find a way out of it.”

“About it… you said that you had an idea where the unlocking code may be.”

“Yeah. Although the armor was developed on this facility, when the project was concluded, all data pertaining to the EPA project was transferred to a backup facility, and the terminal entries about it were purged out of the facility’s system”

“And… you have no idea where that may be located?”

“That, we do.” The earth pony interjected. “Well, kinda. We know it is close to the NPP, a bit coincidental, since that’s where we’re heading to…”

And that’s why you shouldn’t share key info with loudmouths…

“What, the condemned power plant? Nopony sane would go there, to their own death, anything valuable there is surely way too irradiated, and there are mutants and anomalies we can only ponder about, reaching peaks of danger… beats me why anypony would want to go there.” Moonbreeze spoke with conviction. So, the outside world had concrete efforts in monitoring and interacting with the Zone… revealing.

“I’m just going along with my dear friend…” The cobalt mare snuggled on my body, giving no signs of knowing the concept of personal space. “It’s a really nice trip, earning cash, experience, extending my horizons… that kind of enriching thing. And you Boshan? You weren’t really clear with your motives…”

“Ah… you know…” I grumbled. “I got some kind of condition…”

“Like a medical one?”

“Sorta… some time ago, somepony changed my interiors… when I was just… a colt. They changed me, somewhat… took me away from my family and my life with it… they’re related somehow with the NPP, the entries that the loners found on the PDA near they’ve found me told much about the NPP itself… in sum, I’m looking for answers. What they did to me, and how to fix it before I drop dead. And the only place to find the answers I need is there…”

Half-truth was better than a complete lie… I purposely suppressed details to avoid questions, specifically the ones about Limpid Skies and the project Mergequine. They didn’t need to know, and by not knowing, they wouldn’t worry about it.

“How sad… well, that’s life on the Zone.” The redhead said. “We should wrap this up and go home.”

“There’s a few things left…”

“Such as?”

“How to get Moonbreeze to Dominic without doing so in a way that triggers the armor’s weapons.”

”The earrings, duh. Just give one of them to him and we’re done.”

“Nope, that won’t do. Haven’t you heard the radio comms? That stallion won’t leave his workshop for nothing…”

The silver-eyed pony held her head, pondering about a solution…

“If the dragon doesn’t go to the mountain, we bring the mountain to the dragon, of course!” And she extracted the holodisk from her pack. “With this, Dom can watch her hologram and give instructions for us over the radio”

Smart… but what was the range of that thing? No matter, it was worth trying…

“Right, now moving on the list, how to get us out of here? Moonbreeze can’t climb at all; the traphole is out of question.”

“That’s solved too. We’ll just use the cargo bay’s rollup doors.”

“Hmm, okay. Can you stand up Moonbreeze ?”

The mare nodded and got on her hooves, accompanying us.

On the now weaponless cargo bay, Moonbreeze cracked open one of the rollup doors. One of the advantages of wearing a half-ton armor… we found ourselves on a ravine, not too far from the village.

BROOOOMMMMMM!!!

The skies now roared once in a while with thundering fury… everything was black up there now. A quick check on my PDA told that we spent not more than four hours inside… strange… it seemed more. I guess that’s the way the Zone works, you lose track of time when you go through life-risking experiences on a daily basis… and what is more weird, get used to it. Makes me wonder how a Stalker would adapt to the outside world, would he find it, in comparison to the monstrous hardships that the Zone imposed so that one could simply survive, unbearably harmless, drab and dull, with every second lasting minutes, frustrating the tense soul? To the point that It could cause post-traumatic stress? Even enough for a solid, conscious wish to return to this sordid, unforgiving place?

============================== [><]=============================

“Hey, that’s you again, Boshan, right? I take it that your most recent mission was a success, since, you know, you’re still kicking. Ah, by the way, your decryption is complete, pal.”

I nodded to the orange-furred mechanic, looking for a seat around his workshop. It had been an exhausting walk up there; my leg was killing me…

“You should let Patcher take a look at your leg, doesn’t look any good…”

“Yes, yes… but there’s something that can’t wait before that.”

“Ah, the data? Hoof it over to me… I’ll start interpreting it right away, just let me call Carmelia over and she will treat you to your payment. Uh, didn’t you had a traveling buddy?”

“That’s the thing. We found a survivor in that compound…”

“No way! All comms died out, how could it…”

“It’s a very particular survivor.” And with that cue, I took off the holodisk from my pack and set it on the floor before the technician.

“Now, what this could be?” He asked

“Lielle, put her on the hologram now.” I commanded through the radio.

And, above the disk, a hologram of the armored mare appeared. It took Dominic’s breath away, his mouth was agape. I bet that he never saw anything as advanced as that…

“Is that… what I think it is?”

“The successor of the exoskeleton, the equestrian prototype armor” and I gave him two flash drives, one with the diary entries about the EPA and the other one with the data retrieved from the facility’s mainframe.

“Astounding…” He mumbled wile cursorily glancing over the information. “How much for it?”

“It isn’t for sale… the armor locked somepony inside it and we can’t get her out, besides, it attacks anypony nearby thanks to a rather discriminating AI.”

“Thinking better about it, nopony in Freedom would like to sleep inside that thing, yeah… wait… a pony locked inside that thing?”

“Yes. While you probably can’t take her off, I though that you could at very least deactivate the AI”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

And I hoofed over the radio. “Use it to give instructions for my partner, watch the hologram to monitor the results.” And with that line, the holograms showcasing the options appeared, as the mare approached the interface stick on Moonbreeze’s armor.

“Interesting, interesting…” Dom mumbled while directing her to the “software” menu. Once there, he saw the binary lines. “It’s almost alike the exoskeleton’s BIOS… just filter it by date…” He said while bringing the diary entries to the monitor of his own PDA.

And the technician did his tutoring, telling Lielle to either add of remove lines of codes exhaustively.

“This is enough to disable the weapons… you’re right, I can’t open the armor without the code, and I sure as hell won’t try it… but you should call your friend over. I’d love to take a closer look on her armor, plus, we’ll need to grant her user permissions to bring her weapons back online, unless you want to leave a half-ton armored mare totally defenseless” He laughed.

That would be ideal… but it would make her an easy prey, even with all the protective layers and such… she was resilient, not invulnerable. Ahh…. let him do it, we’ll be going our separate ways soon enough, so, there’s no worries about that.

“Can I take my stuff back?”

“Be my guest.”

And I packaged the holodisk and the two emptied flash drives.

“I’ll call Carmelia, she will definitely want to see that armor.”

“When you’re done with that, can you fix my rifle? I’m also thinking about an update…”

“That workbench, first drawer” He pointed. “Look for the AK charter and choose whenever upgrades you want, call me up when you’re done choosing.”

There were so many things that could be updated in that rifle… accuracy, rate of fire, flatness, recoil, detachable stuff… and the prices ranged depending of the update… I looked around the charter, looking for something special, when I finally found a little update that could be worthwhile…

============================== [><]=============================

“This better be good… I’m not fond of having to trot all the way here, especially with this weather… you know, for a change, you should come to my office.”

The sand-colored unicorn gave a very disgruntled look to the technician, who instantly replied.

“You know very well why I can’t leave my workshop alone, Carmelia. One week, one week! That’s how much I had to work to cover for my losses!”

“Oh come on… that was just a fatality, could have happened with anybody. There wasn’t any proof that anypony was involved, and you know better than me that our supplier occasionally runs into defective merchandise… you just had the “luck” of getting a defective groza!”

“You say that, yet, don’t you find it a little weird that the defect was on the grenade launcher? And it was still loaded? And even more, with A FUCKING HYDRA BUSTER? I don’t know about you Carmelia, but, for me, things don’t go blowing up for no reason whatsoever… and I just know who did it…”

The mare cut short his answer by shaking her hoof dismissively.

“All that you know for sure is that Tinder is one forgetful bastard, not some undercover Duty agent lusting for your blood. Spare me of your conspiracy theories, will ya? Any chances you actually tell me why you called?”

“Your contracted Stalker has done his job; he’s right over there, by the window.”

I’ve been watching the rain. It started pouring, little by little, reaching the intensity of a storm in around fifteen minutes.

As I sensed the unicorn mare approaching the parapet, I spilled the news without shifting my gaze from the rain.

“Everything has been already copied to Dominic’s PDA, if you wish to check on it…”

To which the Freedom leader nodded and started to verify the uploaded data on Dom’s PDA.

She begun to nod as her eyes glanced over the acquired intelligence.

“These will do nicely…”

And she offered a wad of money.

“A fair payment for a job well done…”

I counted the money… ten thousand bits again. I suspect that this assignment had higher implications than I’ve first thought… but then, I was helping them on conquering a REA base, I guess that justifies the generous pay.

“One more thing… at this point, it’s just a formality, but… anything about the squads I’ve sent there?”

I gulped… she wouldn’t have any way to find out the truth, so, a lie will convince the mare… not exactly a lie, but a half-truth and omissions…

“Dead, all dead… I’m sorry. The compound had its own defense system.”

The mare blankly looked to the dark horizon.

“I… understand.” And facing the unicorn mechanic “If that’s all, I’ll take my leave, Dominic.”

“Just wait a bit more… there’s somepony else you will want to see…”

This was answered by the mare with a look of polite incredulity, followed by lifting her eyebrows in response.

“Then, I’ll have a seat.”

She didn’t have to wait much. Five minutes later, loud thuds were to be heard, slowly climbing the concrete stairs… took the two mares long enough…

The first to appear was the blue-colored earth pony huntress.

“Hiya Carmelia” And the two exchanged nods. “Dominic, you said that you need to finish the job?”

“Yes, I need to manually interact with your friend to reactivate her we…”

The stallion trailed off his phrase, looking at the heavy armored mare that was now directing herself towards the redhead pony. Moonbreeze’s armor looked especially impressive now that the rain had washed up most of the grime and we could take a closer look to it, outside of a dark hole. The all-fitting shape of that thing gave the illusion that she was some sort of silver alicorn…

Alicorns… there was none of those anymore… the only residues of such creatures… was that project mergequine. But I doubt that they succeeded on creating one. If they did, one would think that they would use them to contain the disaster, suppressing and eliminating all traces of the Zone, and the monarchy would still be shining, right?

It wasn’t our case.

“So, let’s get to working…” Dominic said as Lielle gave the stick to him. “Let’s tap that fine piece of technology… I’ll get your weapons back in no time!”

The mare shivered at the mention of those. “W-weapons? I doubt that’s… a good idea”

“You should get them back, Moonbreeze!” The earth pony interjected. “So you could at least fend for yourself. Who knows what kind of things you may bump into?”

“But… all that they ever brought to me were hatred and grief. I don’t wanna hurt anypony else!”

Carmelia was visibly devolved by the sight of a pacifist… chances were that she never saw one before either, while Dominic was trying to stifle his laughter.

“I’m not talking about shooting ponies! There are far more evil things… mutants, for instance.”

The armored pony drew a long sigh.

“Then, if it’s a must to fend away the Zone’s wildlife creatures, I have no objections. Just as long as I use them to hurt mindless, cruel monsters and not actual ponies…”

“You go get them girl!” The cobalt mare exclaimed while obtaining little success in pushing the way heavier and still a bit reluctant Moonbreeze towards Dominic.

“Hmm… let’s see what weapons you have.” The stallion begun to examine the interface indicators… “Interesting update towards the exoskeleton… the operating system is very similar… yet, with sprinkles, such as enhanced targeting calculators, improved logic, an updated life-support system and this weapon materializing system…”

“That sounds like an interesting update… couldn’t you add that to our exoskeletons, Dominic?” Carmelia asked from the other side of the room.

“No can do, ma’am. It’s way too energetically inefficient. The user would need a backpack full of heavy-duty batteries, like the ones of an aerial barge, to power up that thing”

“And how she has it? I don’t see any “backpack of batteries””

“There’s a class 2 biomagical power rod sealed inside that powers her entire unit, boss.”

“Well… bummers. Would you be interested in selling that lovely thing to us, sweetie?” She asked Moonbreeze with the most pleading eyes of the world.

“I’d love to… but I’m stuck with it.” The mare disappointedly said.

“Nonsense… Dominic can hack into that thing and unlock it quicker than anypony else.”

“Er, boss… that’s a big no, too” The stallion said while still bringing Moonbreeze’s weapons back online.

“Don’t tell me that you finally found your match, a flawless, top of the art, impossible to hack, electronic lock.”

“That’s about it, boss. It only accepts one unlocking code entry, and it must be the right one, can’t brute-force hack it.”

“One entry only? What happens if you insert the wrong one?”

“FIUUUUUUUSHHHHH…… BOOOOOMMMMSHHHH!!!” The stallion whistled on a perfect imitation of how a bomb falling from an airplane would sound like.

“Explode? That isn’t very pleasant… I’m sure as hell wouldn’t wasn’t to lug a bomb around.”

“A bomb?” The armored mare asked, picking up on the chat. “There’s a bomb… inside this thing?” And she looked at us.

Lielle nodded sadly. Moonbreze lowered her head, reflecting on her situation.

“That’s it… one inbuilt eliminator shotgun; twin RP-74s, one RPG-7u, one RG-6 “Bulldog” grenade launcher, one M134 minigun and one inbuilt SGI-5k…” Dominic wiped a sweat from his brow. “That’s a helluva lot of weapons… you should keep an eye on your ammo too… some of those are nearly depleted of it. Everything is back to 100% user control. Why not give it a try?”

The armored equine started to materialize weapons to check if everything was working correctly.

“How much do we owe you, Dominic?” I asked

“Don’t mention it, buddy… it was a pleasure, and plus, I was able to get some data off from her… I’ll be able to add an update on the exoskeleton’s logic. This one service is on the house.”

“So, how do you feel, Moonbreeze?” The redhead smiled to her newest friend.

The other mare dematerialized the twin RPs on her back. So, the armor was working properly and everything…

“I want to ask you two something, Lielle…”

“Go right on.”

“If I am not pushing your kindness too far, could I… join you two? I’d fell a bit less intimidated undertaking a trip to the NPP if I could do so with friends… and well, you two are the closest thing of it that I have right now… I’m sorry, but I just have nopony else to turn to.”

“It would be my…”

Before she could complete that damning sentence, I stuffed her mouth with my hoof.

“You, let’s speak about this, downstairs, only the two of us, pronto!”

And over the surprised trio of looks, I brought the mare downstairs for a little private conversation.

“Are you out of your freaking mind? We had an agreement! Bring the mare to Dominic fix her up, and then, get as far as we can from her!”

“Why the hate? It’s not like she did anything to you. Besides, she wants to reach the NPP too! The more, the merrier…”

“You don’t even begin to understand, do you? Can’t you see the risks implied on traveling with that thing?”

“Risks? She is more than capable of fighting for herself in the case she gets in a pickle, what risks could she offer?”

“First, she is wearing an unreliable prototype that is a pain-bringing arsenal of canned whoopass with a freaking high-powered bomb and a radioactive energy source included! It’s the recipe for disaster! In the very probable event of a malfunction that “accidentally” endangers us, we’re in for permanent crippling or even death!”

“Pfft…. You’re just brewing a storm on a teacup.”

“Am I? Here’s reason number two: she is a pacifist.”

“Seriously? That’s the lousiest reason ever! In what universe does that amounts to be a risk?”

“In the almost certain event that we engage in combat with other equines, she will either do two things: A: refuse to fight them because it is against her nature to do so, and she will merely watch helplessly as we get pounds of lead directly to the head. Or, option two: fight the baddies using an overpowered arsenal, not minding that she was able to use it efficiently so far just because of the AI, and thus, now that is set on manual and she has no knowledge whatsoever in using any kind of weapons for being a fucking pacifist, odds are 50/50 that she will either blow up the opposition or will grossly miscalculate, backfire onto us and grind our plots into dust in a hail of “friendly fire””

“What can I say? Just give her time and she will pick up the ropes of combat situations, don’t go thinking about worst-case scenarios…”

“And the final reason, that armor is anything but subtle. It’s a rare and valued piece of technology with enormous power that could potentially tip the balance between factions. We might be tracked or hunt down… all because of that thing.”

“Geesh… a bit paranoid, aren’t we? Well, if you feel that way, why not tell her about it?”

“And disappoint her; add to my vast list of enemies a fully-fledged armor-wearing mare that could bring me to pieces on a snap of hooves? Showing all the extension of my loathing for her will get me six feet under! Weren’t you listening?”

“Soooo… If you aren’t telling her, I’d best do it in your name…”

Great, just what I needed…

“You wouldn’t dare…”

“Let her come with us or I will.”

“Why are you doing this? It will doom us all.”

“I, for one, would feel a lot safer with somepony like her to watch my back.”

So, this was what it was all about it… the bloodsucker drama and my impotence over it, all over again, guiding her actions and leading her to “acquire” a bodyguard. Damnable is your blackmail, Lielle…

I thought for a moment about telling her to take a hike and traveling on my own, but then… if weren’t for that mare, I’d be flayed and decorating the wall of a maniac bandit, or rotting in that prison. Incredible how much near-death situations a Stalker had to deal with on a short span of time…

What if… An accident happened to Moonbreeze? Yes, it was a big, big Zone. Good ponies died, and things happened every day, things beyond one’s comprehension or control, things that could bring even the most resilient Stalker to his untimely demise. The earth pony certainly couldn’t blame me in that case… I’d just have to deal with that armored mare for a while until I can think about something concrete…

“Alright, alright… let’s take her in for now. And not a word about how I truly feel about her, comprende?”

“Rightsie” She said and flew upstairs like a blue rocket, to tell the good news to her friend.

Now I was plotting the death of a mare I’ve barely knew and that trusted on me… funny how life goes… the things you consider doing just to keep on livin’ it.

When I reached the workshop, the two BFFs and new traveling companions were hugging each other. For Faust’s sake, there’s a place and time for displays of affections. To put those images off from my mind, I set it on the next step of my objective.

“Dom, can we hear the codified message?”

“Sure on, pal.” He mused to the workbench that the PDA was on and begun to set it to play the message…

WAAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Everypony covered their ears at the ghastly scream.

Carmelia gave a censuring look to Dominic.

“Ehehe, sorry… seems I’ve set the RCV a bit high…”

And after a few more moments fiddling with the PDA and adjusting the levels, he was able to playback the message.

The voice that came out of the PDA didn’t belonged to anypony… it was a mechanical, artificial-generated voice.

“North, to the north… Tread the path that we must.
Descent where few be, find what they couldn’t
Under heaps of junk, our history rots into dust.
The way goes far and wide to those able to find it in their first try
However, one must take most care, for which
Brown wings of death comes form above, to suck you dry.
But to those that can outsmart such monster
The maiden of virtue welcomes the dedicated few
Entrance the city where not many enter
And even less come back”

The recording stopped at that point

“So… not much from there.” Dominic said. “You’re stalking a crafty bastard, that’s for sure pal… to conceal his voice on the recording… this one is more slippery than a soapy catfish.”

“And he’s a poet too… any ideas about the meaning of this?” I asked

“He mentioned a monster… perhaps you will have to wrestle another one… rrraaaarghhh! I’m the snork boxing world champ, and I challenge you Stalker, you will never have my fetid champion belt!” Dominic smirked

“It’s a mnemonic message, Dominic. It’s made so that the one hearing it can easily memorize it. It shouldn’t be taken literally. Brown “wings” from above can’t mean a mutant… there’s no flying mutant. He probably means a brown chopper, one that the REA uses…it can mean that the REA watches over the passage.” Carmelia retorted

“Yes, yes… they will even suck you dry if given the chance…” Dominic laughed

“Under heaps of junk, our history rots into dust.” Lielle repeated. “That can only mean the garbage…”

Everypony else nodded agreeing. Yes, it could only be the garbage. Nothing else would fit so well.

“But where exactly on the garbage?” I asked “It isn’t exactly specific about it. The message doesn’t give any other indications about it… only this… “maiden of virtue”, but that’s for the way out on Ponyville… it can only mean some sort of landmark or something.”

“It’s almost definitely an underground way…” Carmelia deducted. “I believe that the message was purposely left incomplete so that one would need additional complementing information to find the entrance, or there’s another underlying meaning, all done as a way to hinder the usefulness of the message in the case it fell on wrong hooves.”

“Great… another dead end. We cannot possibly run a fine-toothed comb over the garbage in search for the entrance… that’s Greyhoof’s turf. We would waste too much time and lives antagonizing the bandits…”

“Maybe you don’t need to…” Carmelia said.

“What should we do, then?”

“I might as well help you, since if you can find the shortcut, there will be no oppositions on your part about Freedom using it for our own purposes, would it?”

I nodded negatively

“So, I shall aid you. Not long ago, we ran over a crew of mercs. Not like the backstabbing fuckers that tends to proliferate on the Zone, no, once in a while, there’s a decent fella that just wants to get his job done. Anyways, we made ties with the merc and his unit. He must have figured out that the best way to successfully keep running contracts on the Zone was to make bonds with its inhabitants to avoid hassles, in the case, us. He even went to the point of rescuing one of my boys’ plot from a REA squad some months back… cutting short, we run a profitable deal: we give contracts, the mercs execute them and we pay them some dough. This particular merc has some sort of flair to track stuff or equines down, especially around the garbage…”

“You think we should give him a visit?”

“I do. We hadn’t had any news from him or his representatives on a while… but he gave me this in the case we needed to contact each other…”

And the mare hoofed over a small paper, unfolding it, I discovered that it was a 15-digits numeral. “That’s a code of sorts?”

“It’s the code to the mercs’ base, an abandoned bunker down in the dark valley… they cleaned it from mutants and use it as their headquarters now. I’ll mark up the location for your group, you should go on there once this rain settles down. But for now, you’d best get some rest and treat that leg…”

And the mare dismissed us , turning to the window and dispassionately gazed at the ever-pouring and melancholic torrent that was often intercalated by crackling thunder…

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- bestiary

#/filenam – Tushkano

#/filedescript – Often mistaken as a Hamster, Rat or Jerboa, Tushkanos are a small species of rodents that tend to plague the Zone. They behave pretty much alike their less warped relatives: using their sharp claws, diminutive stature and quick speed to baffle bigger opponents, uniting in packs to bring down bigger prey, building extensive lairs with an underground network of tiny tunnels and posessing an omnivore diet, Tushkanos are, in truth, very frail cratures. Despise what their sickening appearance might indicate, these creatures are rather cowardly and parasitory beings, often feeding on what they can sunk they teeth on, from simple plants to ill or crippled stalkers. While one Tushkano is hardly a challenge, they can be quite annoying when they attack in packs. Plus, they tend to act as hosts for several debilitating diseases.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. VI: The quick and the dead

CP. VI – The quick and the dead

“Hey champ… don’t mind the weapons pointed at your hide, nothing personal, just business… now if you please drop that bag of yours, just leave it on the ground… yes, yes, that’s more likely… good boy. Now turn around, hold into that piece of crud you call a life and trot your way back to the cordon…

“Wounded again? Why I am even surprised?”

I merely grunted in answer as the greymaned equine indicated one of the nearby beds.

“Wonder how nopony took you for a deader and threw your crumbling ass on a cart for the butchery…” Patcher smugly remarked. “That leg of yours was thrown on a wood chipper or what?”

I simply didn’t had patience for his jokes…”What can you do for me, doc?”

“Well, apart from the minor scratches here and there, your main issue is that limb… it seems a tad pale with all the blood loss it suffered. A little injection or two will fix it right up; too bad the same can’t be said for your combat reflexes…” And he went on to search his medical bag.

“Do you wisecrack on just every patient or I should pay extra for the VIP treatment I am getting here?”

“Just on the ones that will live through their own stupid mistakes… have you ever tried wisecracking to a corpse? It’s no fun at all; they don’t answer back or anything...” He answered while retrieved needle, thread and a couple of syringes. Patcher stitched my leg in no time and moved on to the syringes.

Just a few injections don’t seem that bad… I extended my hoof so that he could apply them.

“Oh, no… I need to apply them on the vicinity of the wound or they won’t work.”

And my eyes followed as he placed himself right behind me.

“Wait Patcher, you can’t possibly mean…”

“Yeah, don’t give me those dark almond eyes, stalker… just relax. The back door is often used by real stallions, or so I’ve heard… with all the colt-cuddlers these days, you’ll never know. I’ll be real gentle with you…”

All feelings went numb and dormant as he quickly applied a tranquilizing shot… I couldn’t move. I just stood there, mentally cursing the medic and feeling especially violated. It was especially memorable when he rubbed a sponge and used alcohol to sterilize my plot, prospects weren’t good…

“Now, this won’t take long, did it?” He said.

Wait, what? I’ve felt… nothing. All this build-up and… “Patcher, did you just…”

He applied an adrenaline shot, which slowly brought my movements back.

“All done. Your leg will be fine in a week or so, you won’t win any iron pony competitions, but you’ll be able to sprint again. Now let me just see your other wounds…”

And the aquamarine stallion followed on to checking my bandaged wounds.

“Nothing too grave, just a bit shabby-placed bandages around. You know, if you keep hurting yourself like that on a daily basis, we could start a fidelity program or something… like, every time you pay for a procedure, you earn points based on the complexity of your wounds and such…”

“That seems a tempting offer… like a mileage thing. Tell me more; what I could exchange those points for?”

“Better treatment, what else? Be filled with two pints of blood instead of one; be treated with syringes that weren’t used on drug junkies, meds that aren’t expired relief aid that were supposedly sent to Zebraria, plushy pillows, hell , you might even be able to buy your spleen back…”

I should have never asked… thankfully, Patcher’s medical skills far surpassed the pony’s talent for comedy.

“This should hold on for a while, assuming you actually avoid getting shot.”

I handed over some bills for the treatment; they were promptly accepted by the earth pony.

“Patcher, do you sell any meds? We’re short on antirads and stuff…”

“Nah, that Tinder’s area. Actually, anything that can be sold IS his area. That shifty puppy would even sell his mother if he could get a good offer…” And he turned to the door. “Next!”

Still a bit groggy, I left the improvised clinic, blinking to the burnt mare that was waiting her turn.

“When you’re done, meet us down at the bar.”

She smiled in response and trotted inside the clinic, I even heard Patcher’s typical greeting before the door was closed.

“I like a hot tanned mare just as the next stallion, but that’s just ridiculous.”

She would take a while there… and we should do some grocery shopping. I softly banged against the armored mare that was sitting nearby.

“Huh, what? You’re done?”

I nodded. “Lielle will take a while there to be healed as well… I have to get some supplies; you can stick around or come with me if you wish…”

“I’d be pleased to. It has been a while since I don’t…” And she fell silent.

I understood and simply signalized for her to follow along.

==========================[><]========================

“Hmm… I don’t know, I’ve seen irradiated shit in better shape than these.”

I rolled my eyes. The weapons were relatively intact; it was Tinder’s fucking businesslike personality that was speaking through him.

Moonbreeze was at one of the corners of the store, curiously eyeing everything with a mix of both amazement and disgust, since both daily goods and weapons were exposed.

“Cut the small talk, how many bits are these worth?”

The trader shifted his blue eyes and looked at the merchandise thoughtfully.

“I don’t know… how much are you asking for them?”

“How about two th…”

At that point, I felt a hoof patting my back… Moonbreeze…

“It’s nothing really…” She began. “But do you mind if I… do the negotiations?” The mare spoke. “Nothing personal, I just think that I can get a bit more off from it.”

I shrugged, doubting that she would fare any better with Tinder, the trader was as shifty as it was, besides, I didn’t needed the money that much, I was simply selling so that I wouldn’t have to haul that junk anymore.

If this makes her happy, why deny it? I backed off from the counter, allowing her to pick up the negotiation.

“So, you’re the so called Iron Maiden…” The trader gave his most charming smile. “The guys told me about you, I thought they were trying to pull a fast one on me… well, just you look at that, hehe.”

“And you must be the “legendary” Freedom trader, Tinder…”

“The first and only! I got the best merchandise, the best prices, the best customer service…”

“Then, how much could you give us for these weapons? They might not be mint-new, but they are certainly battle-worthy…”

“I don’t know… how about you name a price and we work from there, sweetie?”

“How about you give them a price, instead? After all, an arms trader with a stellar reputation such as you probably knows how to evaluate a weapon properly.”

The freedomer looked disconcerted, but quickly recovered.

“One thousand bits.”

The mare imposingly struck her hoof into the counter, making it shake in response.

“These are worth at least three times that amount! You can’t simply expect us to take that offer seriously…”

“One thousand bits or nothing!” The trader raised his tone, narrowing his eyes at the mare.

She said nothing in turn; instead, she just packed the loot and nudged toward the exit.

“Come, there are some ponies who just won’t listen to reason”

Well, what does she plan to do? Let’s play along…

When we were almost leaving, Tinder called back.

“Hey Stalkers, wait up!”

We both turned back to the diminutive stallion, his former cutthroat trading attitude was replaced by an awkward smile.

“On second thought, we could always work something out… perhaps I need to take a second glance at your merchandise…”

The mare returned the goods to the counter, and a few minutes bargaining and tweaking the negotiation, she was able to get three thousand bits , half a dozen of antirads and four medkits for all the weapons… not bad. As an additional prize, I had the pleasure of seeing Tinder cringe his teeth… that cunning bastard finally met his match.

After packing our spoils, I leaded the mare toward the BnB.

“Moonbreeze… that was just amazing! How did you do that? That sniveling cunt already shafted me twice…”

“Oh, that? It was nothing, really… just some applied economics I’ve put to good use. It’s my special talent…”

Hmm… perhaps she wasn’t so bad after all… I guess I should give her the benefit of doubt; I’ve been a bit rash on my previous thoughts about that mare…

==========================[><]========================

I sighed before taking another sip from the bottle of vodka.

The taste was the same as before, but… it wasn’t the same. It didn’t gave that same blissful numbing that went through my pained senses, it didn’t comforted as much as back then, nor filled me with blessed warmth… I guess that my body got used to it…

My lazy eyes drifted from the bottle to the barkeep… Wavey busied himself cleaning a glass with a dirty rag, only dirtying the glass even further with his efforts, but he didn’t noticed such… it seemed that he was focused on the motion, not on the result itself. He didn’t have much to do, we were the only remaining patrons, it was late night and the rain hadn’t weakened a bit… crazy backwards Zone weather…

I asked Moonbreeze if she needed anything ten minutes ago, and she politely assured me she was OK, just like the other two times I’ve asked… that armor of hers surely took care of everything. I wasn’t on the mood for small talk with that mare, and just dialogued with her out of pure civility.

“Hey guys, why the long faces?”

I turned around to face my other companion.

She reeked of some sort of ointment, and there were some sections of her fur where it was completely burnished, such sections were completely sheared, giving Lielle a rather unfamiliar appearance. I guess that the fur will grow in due time… at least, she wasn’t sad about it.

“Come on, we just completed another job, one more star on our books! We should celebrate to that.”

And without delay, she ordered some hay fries. In a couple of minutes, Wavey placed a plate full of steaming hay before the mare.

She wasted no time on stuffing herself, paying little regards for table manners.
“You guys should definitely eat something… “She spoke with her mouth full. “Mmmm, this smells great”

I couldn’t help but notice Moonbreeze downtrodden a bit when the earth pony mentioned the smell… being inside that weaponized tin can, the mare probably didn’t had anything to smell but her own sweat… had I been in her place, I’d probably give an entire hoof to smell some manure. I couldn’t help but feel some pity for her, after all, it wasn’t her fault for ending up inside that thing…

It wouldn’t be her fault either if she killed me…

That realization made me hate her with an intensity of thousand suns. I knew she wouldn’t attack me voluntarily, it WOULD be an accident, she WOULD genuinely mourn my death, and she WOULD have no responsibility at all, and yet, she WOULD feel sorry, but neither of those WOULD bring me back. You know, it’s easy and nice to hate bandits and other scum: they hate you back, they try to kill and rob you, they are, in essence, equine scum. Moonbreeze was the polar opposite… she was a perfect moralist noncombatant, it didn’t felt “right” to hate her, an innocent mare… and yet, the whole sense of wrongness by which she would always be the victim, despise the fact I died, made me hate her even more so… this was fueling a vicious circle of depth hatred… I shouldn’t be thinking about these things after a bottle.

I pulled my thoughts aside and gazed at my other companion, who was finishing with her fries… she seemed so carefree, so happy… I guess we look at things differently…

“Wavey, how much do we owe you? Also, we need some rations for the road…”

“You’re in luck, pal… I’ve just got these” and he pulled a box from under his counter. “Not many buyers for them, but eh, I can make a discount price if you want’em…”

I raised an eyebrow as he opened it… the cardboard box contained many, many rectangular shiny packages which looked like candy bars…

The Pegasus offered me one; the package depicted a hulking minotaur posing for the camera. The “food” consisted of compressed cereals (mostly whey) on the form of a bar… it seemed like a stupid idea, how that thing was supposed to go with milk? You can’t have cereals without milk.

I took a bite from it… it was stale, tasted like old rubber when gnawed my way through it. That thing must have been expired for several years now…

“Eh, I’ll stick with my regular food.”

“Thought so” The barkeep answered with a disappointed smile as he put away the cereal bars.

==========================[><]========================

“No point on leaving during this storm, you should get some Z’s…” The mare advised as she tested one of the beds.

I simply raised my eyes from the PDA and nodded, I was already bunkered at one of the beds, while Moonbreeze, being too heavy for them, lay silent on a corner.
As I put away my PDA, I took a good glance at my rifle… I kept it ready, even though I was on a relatively safe area… you’ll never know.

If the PDA was right, the AK had been designed on Stalliongrad, but it was manufactured on Zebraria sweatshops to cut costs. Ironically, it was better than the toy guns developed by the monarchy equines of Canterlot, the NETO weaponry, as they named those… in comparison with, the AKs and other weaponry were sturdy, reliable, cheap, light and easy to operate, although being less powerful. Well, if there’s one lesson that earth pony weapons developers consistently tend to ignore, is that simplicity is often a better choice.

After checking if the rifle was loaded, I placed it by my side and fell asleep.

==========================[><]========================

“You know what to do with them, put him on the corner, with the others…”

The dark walls trembled heavily, confining and constricting my movements… a cage.

I had been captured. On one moment, trotting happily though Canterlot… on another, being bagged and brought to… well, I had no idea.

The trip was sickening, the cage-box itself moved on and forth, sending me against its walls…

Why? Why me?

When the cloth covering the box was removed, the only vision I had from the outside was a small peeping hole…

Not far from me, an ochre earth pony was slouching lazily on a chair, absorbed on reading a newspaper. I could actually make out some of the headlines…

“300% rise on the price of apples, food prices over the roof due to new taxes instituted for funding anti-insurgent efforts.”

“Ponyville mayor implicated on the Hoofer dam fund embezzling scandal, more details on page 7”

“Canterlot foalnappers still at loose, Wonderbolts still baffled.”

The stallion let out a gruff laugh.

“If they only knew what we do this for…right, boss?”

At that, I moved my eye to scan the rest of the room, stopping at a second pony… from my position, I could only spot his hooves, coffee-colored hooves…

“Are they ready?” He asked stoically

“Almost, almost… we are just waiting another shipment.” The ochre one answered. “What I don’t get is why you need to speak with them before… you know”

The other one sighed. “Her orders… which I am not to question. Such a regrettable choice to do this, but we need to.” The stallion coughed. “After all, if everything ends up as planned, we may have a second choice, one that could avert the whole insurgency straight from the root… assuming that my project ends up as planned.”

“If that’s the price to safeguard the monarchy and everything we love, it is a fair trade” The guard spoke.

“Indeed it is, my friend” His boss replied. “We are just beginning here. When I’m done, these foals will be our future.”

==========================[><]========================

What, just what… happened then? I gasped heavily, filling my lungs with the nightly air, my head spinning , trying to make sense out of those memories, while rain still echoed outside... it was around eleven o’ clock now.

I thought about going back to sleep, but it was no use… I felt restless.

After packing my belongings, I treaded toward the exit…

“Thinking about leaving us?”
The mare rose from her bed within a few moments, not groggy at all.

“You ever sleep?”

“You always make such a ruckus when packing your gear?” She asked in the very same tone. “So, you’re going to the valley… all by yourself, on a dark, rainy night.”

“Yep…” I answered dispassionately.

“Sounds fun… I’ll tag along” She commented as she readied her own stuff. “Just a sec while I wake up Moonbreeze.”

Half an hour later, we were trotting through Hoofstok’s main gate, the rain pouring right through the armor and chilling me to the bone, while the echo of the rain mixed itself with numerous sounds which reverberated through the night… dying mutants, screaming stalkers, and all the myriad of creatures suffering horrors beyond imagination…

Just another night on the Zone.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to travel during a rainy night. Our flashlights only produced a diminutive beam of light, barely allowing us to discern the way… good thing I had the PDA to indicate the way.

It told us to go east, towards the northeastern corner of the garbage.

After a short walk, we reached a transition zone, where perching hills only offered a small passage from the garbage to the valley. My eyes rolled as I spotted a few “radioactive area” signs. The whole Zone was a big radioactive dump, there was no point on labeling here or there…

Also, some anomalies blocked the path. I held a hoof for the others to wait, drawing my bag of bolts to check the area.

As soon as I walked a few steps…

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP…

A quick check on my Geiger counter confirmed it. A radiation pocket… every second I spent there allowed the environment radiation to build up into my body.

I swiftly backed off, holding the fireball artifact to dampen the radiation.

“We have to go through…” I answered the gaze of curiosity that the mares gave me “No time for a detour.”

And I followed on by throwing the fireball to Lielle, Moonbreeze would be fine inside her armor.

“I’ve packed some antirads for myself, you two keep behind me and walk softly, especially you.” And I pointed to Moonbreeze. “If you end up on a whirligig, you won’t be able to trot out of it, not inside that thing… you’ll be spinning, spinning and spinning until you die, understood?”

She gulped. “Yes, I wouldn’t wish that…”

“Alright, on me…” I spoke, tossing a bolt on an arch toward the area. It landed on the ground, quickly disappearing under the wet mud. The rain just made everything harder… “Heighten your senses… visibility is terrible.” I yelled as I tossed another bolt. It struck on a springboard.

I threw a third bolt, diagonally across the anomaly… safe.

Taking a small break to check my Geiger counter, I saw that my level of radiation was already halfway of a lethal dose. I was beginning to feel sick. That only stopped when I swallowed a hooffull of antirads, the radiation counter dropping to zero, but steadily building up again. I had to leave the radioactive area.

“Come on, just a bit more…” I pushed on; trotting beside a fallen tree… the Geiger counter fell silent at that point, signalizing my success.

I felt a tremendous relief as I opened my pack and chugged another dose of antirads… they may taste like piss, but they keep your radiation levels where they should be: on zero.

As I was helping myself of it, the girls caught up with me. They followed the very same path that I came through. No point risking an alternative route when mine was already clear.

“Well… the PDA says that it’s a free way to the dark valley now.” The earth pony spoke. “Guess I won’t need this anymore…” and she tossed the fireball back to me.

“About those mercs, any idea how they may react?” I asked

“Nope… from what I heard, they can be your best friends, until it stops being profitable… but if Carmelia vouches for this particular detachment, I guess we’re fine.”

“We should be going… I’m almost catching a cold.” I spoke, sneezing loudly afterwards.

“PDA says that we should go north… go over that hill and get us a visual.” Lielle ordered, fidgeting with her PDA to find our whereabouts.

And so I obeyed… I trotted up that hill and drew the binoculars to make our surroundings the best I could in that murky, wet night...

The valley sure had a gloomy atmosphere… it was almost like the darkness crept into it by magic or something… I could barely spot things out… just vast expanses of plain fields, covered here or there by some silhouettes of bushes and trees, the most crooked and unnatural ones I’ve seen so far.

Enormous hills stretched to the east of my position, obscuring the view… with effort, a few abandoned buildings could be spotted here and there, with the spotlight going to the northernmost one… a large compound of industrial buildings which included a warehouse… it could only be the mercs’ base.

To the southeast, something of interest… a big orchard glistened through the night due to various electro anomalies under the trees… a second look at it revealed that those were zap apple trees…

Somehow, the electro anomalies were reacting with the trees; making those bear fruit of abnormal proportions… zap apples with the size of watermelons! And not only this, the tree aided the anomaly in turn. When its fruit fell, it attracted reckless striders, which bodies could be seen stretching over the electric anomalies… those would certainly crystallize onto artifacts.

Moving my binoculars to catch a better look at it, something else caught my attention. Tiny spots of light that marred Luna’s purple cloak of darkness. A while later, I was able to tell them apart… bandits. There was no doubt of it… their own black clothes blended with the night, and there were others with them… slaves. They were pushing them into the electro-ridden orchard, no doubt to harvest it for artifacts. Tell about overtime…

“Strange, I thought that Carmelia said that the valley was the mercs’ turf” The redhead pointed out when I told the mares what I saw. “The bandits weren’t supposed to be there, mercs hate competition more than anything else… why they haven’t toasted them yet?”

“Beats me… we know that Greyhoof is one of the bandit bigshots that set its sights towards the valley, but to piss off an highly specialized and trained combat unit, armed with top-notch weaponry is something else entirely… personally, I doubt that they had the muscle to root out the mercs, but who knows? Could be other bandit crew, for all we know.”

“Anyways, the mercs could have moved, or aligned themselves with the bandits, or fallen victim of another enemy…”

“True… what we know for sure is that bandits are roaming through the valley and probably are posted at the mercs base. Only seems logical that they would hitch an already fortified area instead of fixing one from scratch.”

“ Bandits… we need to thing this through.” Moonbreeze spoke. “I mean, we can’t go in just shooting them, perhaps we should just talk with them and…”

It would be stupid if it weren’t so funny… the prospects of entering a scum-infested base and gently convince the bandits to part out with their intel about the mercs’ fate… my charm is too rusty for these kind of things. That mare was delusional if she believed that approach would work…

“Alright, alright… since we aren’t getting any dryer by standing around, plan time.” I spoke.

“Yaaay.” The cobalt mare cheered with false enthusiasm, a deadpan over her face.

“According to the data provided, the base has two entrances, one to the west and another to the east…”

“So, let me guess… we should split up… how original.” The redhead said with the same tone of irony.

“Exactly. We split up and attack them in a two-way offensive. Their contingent is already crippled since they had to send out guards to supervise the slaves. With this low-visibility setting, we will be able to surprise them and…”
“Why does it always come to violence?” The armored mare voiced angrily. “Couldn’t you just think about something else? I don’t know, something LESS extreme.”

Damn easy for her to say that, since she is under layers and layers of almost invulnerable armor… “In the event you’re unsatisfied with my approach, I could always try to have a conversation with them… all the three of us. Me, the bandits, and my gun.”

“I won’t kill anypony and neither should you. It simply isn’t justifiable! You shouldn’t even be considering that…”

“This isn’t exactly magical kindergarten, lady…” I voiced hoarsely. “The bandits won’t think twice before pounding lead into the heads of anypony else who doesn’t bend over to them. Plus, they’re going to die sooner or later, won’t them? If not by me, by somepony else. Why bother?”

“It’s still not right. Every creature has the right to live, the most sacred right that was granted…” She replied angrily.

“Okay, okay… I get it. You dislike harming other ponies. You have no qualms about distracting and scaring them, do you?”

“Come again?” The mare questioned.

“Well, a big, strong and armored mare lugging around an arsenal and firing it wildly is bound to cause an impression… although it won’t get you any admirers, it should be a more… “merciful” option than killing them. You just get as much attention as you can while I go through the other entrance and enter the base while they are all over your position. You should just be careful not to shoot them.”

The mare fell silent for a few moments, considering the plan.

“That seems more appropriate… I’m just going to give them a scare, right? A harmless, foolish scare…” She muttered.

“Sure you will.”

“Hey, what about me?” The azure mare demanded. “Where do I go into that plan of yours?”

“Glad you asked. You’re tagging with Moonbreeze… you two should blend just like glue and rubber. If there’s one thing you know, is being distractive… besides, she could use some moral support and pointers about shooting and strafing around anomalies. That’s where you go.”

“We should sync in our offensives… I’ll radio you in when we are in position.” The earth pony said. “This way, we can make the most out of it.”

“Alright… just radio me when you two get into the position, alright?”

“Alright…” The mare answered back. “Now get to movin’, pal…”

I didn’t need to hear it twice. “I’m out, good luck.”

“Just a second…” Moonbreeze spoke. “Please, just try to not hurt anypony… it would mean a lot to me.”

“No promises.” I replied coldly and trotted away before she could talk anything else.

Rain kept pouring on my back, seeping its way inside my bones… so cold…

If weren’t for that armor, that mare wouldn’t last one fucking day inside the Zone… it was a twisted joke, a pacifist which had enough power to obliterate a small army… it was like giving ICBMs to monkeys. I couldn’t possibly think of something more pathetic…

But all in all, I guess that my tactical choice was alright: to put together the pacific oaf and the buffon, getting them outta my back for a while… with luck, Moonbreeze will end up accidentally blowing up one of Lielle’s limbs, that would surely bring the mare to her senses about having a heavy-duty war machine in our party.

After a while, trotting on a muddy terrain over torrential rain tires the fuck out of you, especially when you got a limp leg. My hood was fucking soaked by that moment… dumb water-retaining fabric…

GLREAARARARARA!!!! BARK!!!BARKBARKBARK!!!GRRRRR!!

I stopped short my trot, ducking into the grass and shutting the light.

Damn mutants… a pack of hounds chasing off some strider. It was best not to interfere. I kept a low profile until the abominations moved away in their chase.

I slouched away from the area and kept my course towards the decrepit factory which was now an impromptu base for general equine vermin…when I was around a hundred meters away from the entrance, I turned off the flashlight once more.

If only I still had my NVG! I hope that bloodsucker rots in the tartarus.

Despise overwhelming darkness and a wet armor weighting a ton, I made the last meters to a tree overseeing the main gate. From the distance, I could spot out two dots of light, two sentinels.

I simply sat and waited for the girls’ signal, no point on rocking the house and give away my position on a silver tray.

So, I unpacked the radio and adjusted it to my companion’s frequency.

“Come out Lielle, over!”

Nothing but dead static in response. Dammit! The storm must be interfering with the signal.

I sighed… now, how the heck I would know when to strike?

Spotting out the guards strolling around the gate, I picked the binoculars to take a closer inspection upon them.

The two sentinels were chatting under an awning, their weapons down… also, the two of them were mares.

Amateurs… two-bits-for-hour thugs.

Well, better early than late… besides, each second I spent under the rain increased the odds of catching pneumonia.

After packing the radio and the binoculars back, I took off my AK and a little something extra I’ve bought…

A silencer. This ought to synergize well with the modified bolt mechanism I’ve bought off from Dominic as well… from what he told me, it should make the AK twenty per cent more accurate. Let’s make good use of my bits, then…

I intended to sneak up onto the guards… with this rain, they won’t see it coming… I thought so as I attached the silencer on the rifle.

Yeah, with my screwed leg, sneaking into unsuspecting bandits was definitely a better option.

I glanced at the leg, still rather sore, covered in small wounds and wet bandages… oh well, what was even more atrocious was my LS-3 armor. The grey coloring was now marred with all sorts of things: several tones of brown mud , layers and layers of dirt, tree sap, stains of blood and all kind of foul-smelling , unpleasant substances… not to mention that the armor was shredded and ripped at several sections that were already sewed over and over into a rather pathetic attempt to deny the obvious… that I was wearing a bunch of old rags, with cracked and rusted plates protubering from the back and raw leather, which, due to the rain and other unsavory weather conditions, was deteriorating much as well. All in all, it was little more than a hefty burden than actual protection, but hey… better this than going naked. I’ll care about it later.

I trotted along, circumventing the bandits so I could end up right behind their field of vision… of course; this meant crawling through muddy grass, with rain at my back.

Eventually, I made it… my heavy breathing muffled by the rain allowed myself to drop close to the guards. One was a pegasus with a hooded magenta jacket and slate black shoulderplates, while the other one was a unicorn which sported a tactical vest over a white jumpsuit, while her face was covered by a three-slot baklava.

“… but then again, Typhoon wasn’t much the one for strategy… luck, luck and luck all the way.” The pegasus could be heard.

“Not luck, Shatterwing, he simply overpowered the REA at that point. The reinforcements didn’t appear coincidentally at the moment, he had it all along. But I agree, he isn’t the brightest bolt on the bag.” The other mare replied.

“Not like I’m complaining, but hey… I’d rather have the dude who pays my check still kicking… you know how much of pain it is to get the dough when the command chain is culled.”

Rain was mixing with my sweat, I readied the AK, aiming for the kill…

“True, those bonafide adventurers never learn… they may kill one or another bandit lord, but that one will only be replaced by a crook twice as much twisted as the first one… natural selection at its finest.”

“Shhesh, again applying evolutionist theories to social situations?” The pegasus shook her head . “I told you a million times, free will voids any attempt to cipher interactions between…”

PLFFFTTTPLFTTTPLFTTTTTT!!!!

Five swift bullets left my own rifle, meeting their destination at the unicorn’s head and neck. It was so quick that the mare was shocked by the suddenness of the strike, looking dumbfounded at her companion… since I had the advantage of the preemptive preparation; I was able to strike once more.

PLFFFTTTT!!!!PLFTTTT!!!!PLFTTTTTT!!!

More shots, these one striking the pegasus’ ill-protected chest, bringing her down almost instantly… in minutes, her own blood being indistinguishable from the jacket’s coloration.

I shook off some of the rain and moved towards the gate without much of a second thought. No time to check their pockets, that would consume time, it could bring me out of sync with the girls’ offensive.

As I was crossing the gate, a short cough was captured by my ears.
The pegasus mare… Shatterwing. She wasn’t dead. Apart from being gunned on the chest, she was breathing… she was gasping for her life, spitting blood… her face was contorted in utter pain.

I approached her. Despise her condition, she had a pretty face: pinkish fur, an emerald mane, amber eyes… every feature complementing another nicely.

That didn’t last much.

I smacked that face of hers with my rifle, sending her teeth flying and bringing her demise on the quickest way I could make do. No witnesses, no errand bandit scouting out for reinforcements before we could wipe this gang.

Before I even crossed the gate, a siren boomed through the base’ intercoms.

RUAAAAAAAARUAAAAAAAARUAAAAAAAAAA

Dammit! Too soon, too soon, girls!

As I made my way inside, I did my best to avoid bumping into opposition. Well, it wasn’t too hard. The bandits were mostly moving towards the opposite entrance, undoubtedly after the girls… plus, they weren’t keen on checking unsuspecting dark corners and dense bushes… such a bunch of reckless dweebs.

BOOOOMMM!!!!

RATTLERATTLERATTTLERATTTLERATTTLERATTLE!!!

BOOM!!BOOOOOMMM!!!

Would you look at that… Moonbreeze had absolutely no qualms about causing severe propriety damage. From the set of gunfire and explosions I could hear, the two were locked in savage combat with a whole load of bandits (well, as much as pulling big guns and being louder in order to make them pee on their undies and run to their mommies could be considered actual combat…)

It doesn’t matter… that distraction wouldn’t last forever. I’d better make it count.

Now that the goons had left their positions to fend off the imminent threat, the main hangar laid unguarded… such a golden opportunity. As I walked inside, the stallion stench struck through my nostrils… the dirtbags used every available corner and opening to place their stuff: campfires, bed rolls, piles of dirty laundry, mounds of trash where several species of bugs and disease-carrying rodents procreated… in sum, the bandits occupied the building as if it were their own home, disorderly so and with no regards for hygiene or personal space either… it was a dumphole even for the Zone standards, which weren’t exactly high on this regards.

If they wouldn’t be killed by the bullets of other stalkers, their own ill habits would eventually be their demise, leading them to inculcate a disease or, at least, a diarrhea every now and then…

I trotted alongside the wall and climbed the stair set at the back of the room, it ended up on a brick corridor, going afterwards on an “L” corner towards the north, further inside the hangar.

RATTTLERATTLERATTTLERATTLLLEEE!!!

As an involuntary reaction to the gunshot, I ducked instantly… however, no bullet whistled over me. So, I dived for the corner. That’s when the second spread was heard…

RATTLERATTLLLEE!!!!RATTTLERATTLERATTTLEE!!!

By now, I figured that the shooter wasn’t aiming at me… however, he was close by. I quietly trotted around the corridor, turning my head at one of the unadorned brick rooms.

That’s when I spotted the bugger. A bandit firing his scoped assault rifle through a window, no doubt he was trying to fend off a hostile (most likely the girls) from afar.

Being so focused on his efforts, he never noticed me. I drew my knife and dug it through his neck for the kill. One stab and it was all over.

As I left the corpse to rot, having Celestia’s own star as the catalyst and witness for such fate, I cruised my way onwards the dark corridor, reaching a new set of stairs which made me go down one level and continue in the northeastern direction…

Clack, clack, clack…

Hoofsteps! A patrol up ahead. I stepped inside the first room I saw, another one of those raw brick rooms which had never been completed, with naked walls and devoid of almost any adornment. From the shadows there, I could safely observe my target: a patrolling bandit. He was easily discernible due to the huge-ass print on the back of his white jacket: a black equine skull with two protuberant dark wings.

Yes, I could take that sucker out… but to do so without alerting his comrades was something completely different.

I stood there, observing the patroller going back and forth… I have to find a way to circumvent or trick him out of…

SNOOOUURCHHH

I almost jumped out of surprise! Mother of Celestia, that room wasn’t empty as I first thought… a sleeping bandit eventually snored on his corner, a dirty blanket covering him. How the fuck someone can sleep when there’s a goddamn gunshot outside, at less than a hundred hooves away? As an answer to my question, several empty bottles of vodka were stacked under the bandit’s foot, near a blue iron chest which was cracked open… his own personal stash of booze.

As out of habit, I instantly aimed for the head… a kill as easy as that doesn’t come every day.

However, my brain started to work quickly, conjecturing a devious plan instead…

At first, I doubted that anypony in their right mind would fall for it, but then, reason told me that bandits were not ordinary, reason-moved soldiers… they were much less than that… they were hoof-picked EXACTLY for not being competent soldiers, so that they could be pushed around , toyed and replaced by their master. They were run-of-the-mill average thugs: stupid, prone to carry orders without questioning and willing to work for minimum wage… all in all, they were just pathetic excuses for stalkers, nothing more than cheap knock offs which could be easily dispatched when dealt individually by an half-assed stalker such as me.

PLFFFTTT!!!PLFTTTT!!!

Two silenced shots to the chest later, the bandit was dead. He would never wake up ever again, Gratefully, he didn’t squeal, yelled or made any other sound that would alert his friends. I set him upright and covered his wounds with the blanket… from this angle, it seemed that he was still sleeping peacefully, the blissful sleep of the innocent, heh…

Afterwards, I rummaged through his trash… luckily; I’ve found a bottle that still had some vodka inside.

Resisting the urge to slug it down my throat, I spilled the booze over the floor and on the bandit, making a small trail from him to the chest. Then, I closed the now half-filled bottle and placed it inside the chest, remembering to close the lid.

Now, for the bait, I levitated one of the empty bottles and placed it on the corridor, where the patroller would certainly be trotting... sooner or later, he would…

Cracksth!!

“Fucking moron! What’s the great idea?” The bandit shouted as he approached the room. I was quick to position myself behind a pile of bricks, where I had a good vision of the show.

“The hell you are doing sleeping, Rothide? We are being fucking invaded and Typhoon needs all his crew to protect…”

At that point, the guard quieted down and picked a particular scent…

“Vodka…” The patroller voiced as he ducked to better discern it. “Stupid cocksucking drunkard drunk himself to sleep… it’s no use.”

The stallion then directed his flashlight to where he was stepping on: a faint trail of vodka. “Dumbass wasted his booze, well… my gramps always said it was a shame to squander alcohol…”

Like an obedient puppy, he followed the trail towards the chest, granting me a clear view of his back… I readied my weapon, focusing on my target. I had to score a one-shot-kill.

“Hmm…” The stallion grumped as he lifted the bottle from the chest. “Not much left, but eh…”

And on a single motion, the earth pony flipped the bottle, gurgling the heavenly liquid…

PLFFFTTT!!!PLFTTT!!!PLFTTT!!!

Bullets struck almost point-blank at his back, piercing through his fancy coat, bringing his death… the bottle fell to the floor, crashing and spilling what little vodka was still inside.

Now that the way was clear, I gave one last melancholic look to the wasted booze scampered around the floor and moved on…

Trotting for a while more on that corridor lead me to another set of stairs, allowing me to either go up or down. Deciding for the first alternative, I trotted upwards and followed on another corridor which brought me to a big room: two vertical stairs led to the lower floor of said room, with only a hoofrail standing between me and the lower floor… as I stealthy approached it, I could view the whole thing better: cubicles, sleeping bags, campfires, thrashed shelves… the bandits occupied the lower floor as much as well as the hangar. There were around half a dozen of them there… I should try the other way, a corridor that was directly after the aforementioned stairs that led to the floor I was on. I should try to sneak up towards said corridor, using the hoofrail as cover…

“You! Yeah, you… fuck you!”

I raised my head to spy on whose voice was that.

The booming voice belonged to a sly earth pony, one clad in a black jumpsuit with a grey tactical vest and a dark gasmask… upon his arm, the bandit insignia could be seen.

That was a merc armor… so, the mercs sided with the bandits ?

“You…” He spoke, pointing to another one of his underling. “Fuck you, and you, fuck you, and you, fuck you… and you… you’re too stupid to even get that right.” And he pointed back to the first bandit he insulted. “You, go fuck him after you fuck yourself”

The merc sighed. “If you guys want to screw me over, at fucking least kiss me first! Don’t you dimwits get it? If somepony gets to the antennae before we can set it right, we’re all screwed, royally screwed! Its already bad enough that we’re unable to call reinforcements due to that goddamn rain.”

“Er, so boss…” a unicorn in a much more modest attire risked speaking. “What do we do?”

“The fuck you want next, kid? For me to hold your hoof, do your fucking job for you? Newsflash… PROTECT THE DAMN ANTENNAE AND SLAUGHTER ANY OPPOSITION, COCKSUCKERS!” He shouted. “Why the fuck I am always surrounded by idiots? Is that simple enough for your pathetic minds? Do I need to spell it out for you maggots?”

“No Typhoon, we get it…” One of the bandits replied.

“Then get to it, you bunch of dorks! I want two stallions upside to fix the goddamn antennae, two to patrol this floor and two more to secure the upper floor. We are lucky that the rest of our crew is able to fend off the attackers for this long… “

I had to do something… if a guard spotted me, I’d lose the surprise element. That would be deadly if all the pack of bandits were within earshot.

Hmm… I guess I’ve milked stealth as long as I could. If I am going to lose it, I’d best as well get a preemptive strike at all of them.

With that in mind, I removed the silencer from my AK and reloaded it.

I dashed to one of the stair, hoping to pull out a curtain of lead over the bandits…

On the middle of my trot, a pungent pain struck, making me fall almost instantly on the cold floor. Just a look revealed what happened: the effort made the stitches on my leg break off. I forced my wounded leg too much.

I was on a world of hurt, and there was only one instant relief for such pain…

“SON OF A HINNY!!!”

“They are here!” Typhoon boomed. “Battle positions now, take out the lights, NOPONY GETS TO THE ANTENNAE boys… stay sharp, they are going to pull out on us on any second…”

I had to hail my own wounded ass back to the corridor, shitting my pants that one of the bandits might be searching around.

Stupid, stupid, stupid… why did I had to run? After what seemed like an eternity slouching back to safety, I bumped into no hostiles… the fuckers were playing it safe, holding their positions.

I moved to a corner, where I could safely turn on the flashlight and bring a medkit to tend the leg… there was no time to do a proper job, so I simply smacked up bandages over the wound and stitched the worst deal of it, following on by swallowing the painkillers to drown the pain.

Grasping my AK and slouching back to the now bleak dark room, I had no choice but to leave my flashlight on. I was a sitting duck, worse… a crippled sitting duck.

“Second floor, you two, go check!” The bandit lord’s voice was heard.

A pair of underlings dashed upwards, one armed with a pistol and the second with a sawn-off. The first one turned the corner toward me, but he was going too fast… momentum didn’t allow him to aim properly.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTTLE!!

Multiple bullets struck over his chest, making him bleed his life out… I tried to ignore the bleeding resultant from his two bullets that hit my chest.

I was moving slowly but steadily...

PWOOT, PWOOT!!!

A load of buckshot ricocheted on the wall, missing me by just a little…

Instead of falling back, I trotted onwards as much as my leg allowed… sawn-offs only have two shots before a reload, that’s their biggest flaw…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLEE!

Leaving another corpse on my wake, I made it to the stairs… flashing my light down, Typhoon’s silhouette was revealed to me. The fucker was waiting for me.

“So, this is it…” He grimly spoke. “The black maned merc that Greyhoof whined about.” He voiced, pointing his own AK at me. “You caused him a lot of trouble, kid… what you lack in cephalic mass, you sure make it up for in guts… coming her a second time, well, it’s your funeral.”

“We’ll se about that…” I found myself speaking back to him “and about Greyhoof… never was much of a big fan of him…”

“Too bad…” Typhoon snickered. “He sent his best regards, now open wide, COCKSUCKER!”

I lunged to the right as Typhoon propelled a grenade towards me.

FWOOOMM……BOOOOOMMMM!!!

The decrepit floor crumbled as it fell victim of the explosive, unleashing a vast cloud of dust and bringing part of the structure down… along with me.

“Finish off whenever is left of him, boys. Don’t let nopony get to the antennae or I’ll serve your asses as mutant breakfast!” He barked while trotting upside, using the only intact stair to reach the upper floor and, sequentially, the antennae. He was followed by two of his boys… smart fucker…

I shook off the dust and hoofed through the pile of debris, look for my AK.

RATTLERATTTLERATTTLERATTLERATTLE!!

PWOOTCH!!! PWOOTCH!!!

Bullets roared past me, closer and closer… I’ll be on deep shit unless I get my shooter…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTTLE!!!

A rifle bullet pierced my armor, stinging my belly… I kneeled bringing out the bandages on a desperate wish for survival…

Before I begun to treat my wounds, a shiny gleam caught my eye: the AK, buried under some concrete debris!

Dropping my bandages, I used my magic to pry my rifle free from there… I was dropping blood and sweat from the effort… it was taxing as fuck, pent up adrenaline didn’t helped much.

RATTLERATTTLERATTTLERATTLE!!!

I paid no heed to the enemies’ fire. It was more important to get the offensive back on.

There… using all my remaining magic, I floated the rifle, aiming back at the hostiles…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

The bandit sought cover as I returned fire, giving me a small window of opportunity to pick the bandages and patch my wounds.

RATTLERATTLE…

As soon as I heard his AK roaring back on, I fired mine as well.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!

The bandit looked surprised as he gazed upon his own chest, blood dropping like a fountain…

A few seconds after his stand, he drew his last breath.

Thanks Celestia for that accuracy update… I wouldn’t be able to hit him with a regular weapon, not on the condition I was…

The momentary break allowed me to waste a medkit and a few more bandages to stifle the pain.

PWOOTCH, PWOOTCH!!

Slugs flew over my head; I dived for cover behind the pile of debris…

PWOOTCH, PWOOTCH!!

The bandit’ hunting rifle fired two more slugs, digging up the concrete pile and leaving me a little more exposed…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

The shots smacked useless against a pillar, the bandit’ cover… he wouldn’t leave there soon, and I couldn’t cut out the gap quick enough due to my leg… only one option left.

“Have a grenade, DUMBASS!!” I yelled as I nudged the explosive towards the bandit’s hiding place.

“You gotta be fucking kid…” was all that could be heard from him.

BOOOOOMMMM

With the first floor cleared up, I trotted on to the second, on Typhoon’s hoofsteps.

As I treaded into the corridor, a lone bandit awaited at the very end of it, near another set of stairs. I pulled the AK to properly greet him.

RATTLERATTTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

Due to the distance, my bullets missed the target, ricocheting along the corridor instead. The bandit climbed up the stairs, yelling at the top of his lungs.

“HE IS COMING, HE IS COMING!!!”

I trotted on upon the stairs, hot on pursuing the crook…

“Here’s a gift for you, moron!”

And he dumped a fucking grenade over me!

I barely had enough time to float it away…

BOOOOMM

Although the explosion didn’t hit me, some of the shrapnel flew on my direction. Having covered my face with the hooves out of surprise, most of them struck onto my front hooves, making small rivers of blood trickle from them, marring my “grey” armor even further…

Nevertheless, I persevered on. I had fucking worse…

As I reached the top of the stairs, a hail of rifle bullets welcomed me.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

Ducking instantly, I averted most of it, returning it back on seconds…

RATTTTTLEEERATTTLERATTTLE!!!!

The enemy took cover behind a wall… he was outside, over the roof, where the rain still raged.

I slouched to the doorway, catching a surprised bandit while he was aiming for a second assault. I smacked his rifle upwards with my own rifle, making the dumbfounded grunt shoot wildly towards the sky, as he attempted to punch me with his hooves…

A wimpy strike, softened by a layer of leather. Besides, he forgot about my weapon. I only needed a few moments to unload it on him.

RATTLETATRATTTLETATLE!!!

Stepping aside from the deader, I made my way over the slippery roof, embracing the cold rain again… I didn’t care… only defeating the enemy matters.

The surface of the roof was covered by a 3x3 square grid of industrial chimneys, having the antennae at the center of said grid. Hoofrails separated the room from a three-story fall.

“Worthless, worthless, worthless!” Typhoon raved to the bandit working on the antennae “Can’t you do anything right?”

“I’m trying boss…” The bandit pleaded pathetically. “But it’s cold and wet, I think I’m sick and that isn’t my expertise…”

“EXCUSES, EXCUSES!!! SHUT UP AND FIX IT ALREADY, YOU WORHLESS WASTE OF SPACE!”

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!

My bullets pierced the antennae and the grunt working into it. Another sorry excuse for a soldier was out cold.

“This is it then…” Typhoon calmly stated. “ You and me, mano a mano…” And he pulled his AK. “Have at you, cocksucker!”

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!

I barely had enough time to seek out cover behind one of those chimneys… from the sound of hooves splashing over puddles of water, I assumed that Typhoon did the same.

You know, there was a reason that he was a bandit lord: respectable combat prowess, not that it was hard to reach that level when you’re being compared to bandit dopeheads…

“That’s it?” I shouted at him. “That’s the best the bandit faction has to offer?”

“We are just getting started here, magical dickhead…” He replied.

I trotted in parallel to the chimneys, circumventing the grid from outside. When I reached one corner chimney and peeked around it, more gunfire.

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

“It’s been a while since I had a duel… it’s refreshing, really…” Typhoon voiced as he backed on to reload.

I cutted inside the grid, firing wildly while he was on defensive…

RATTTTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTTLE!!!

“Give up while you can bitch… you know, I’m just toying with you…”

He appeared from a chimney at my left, his AK readied for more shots…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

More wounds… he is fast, I’ll give him that…

Shifting my position, I trotted to the south easternmost chimney. Behind that cover, I used another medkit to suffice the wounds.

“Come out, here’s something nice for you…”

FWOOOMMM….. BOOOOOOM!!!

The grenade turned the chimney into a pile of smoldering junk! One less place to hide… I had to get back on at him.

RATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

This time, I caught him good! My bullets pierced through the bandit lord’ armor.

As he received the wounds, he immediately retreated to patch em’ up, while I backed up onto my own cover to reload.

“Not bad for a dorky loner…” He goaded from afar. “But you’re playing a game you can’t win, kid! I’m the top cat, you’re just tartar sauce!”

He darted to the antennae, crossing to the other side of the grid…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

His projectiles flew closer to me… I had to shift my position again.

Damn… I’m getting tired of this, and the rain isn’t helping at all…

“You know… we aren’t so different, you and me…” He shouted at me from behind a chimney. “We all enjoy a good gunslinging here and then, we all love to find swag on a croaked stalker’s body… the only difference is that I’m better than you.”

He is just trying to distract you, pay no heed to that idiot’s ranting! Focus on pumping lead onto him.

“I am rubber, you are glue… “

“That’s your comeback?” Typhoon laughed. “Ha !I’ve fought striders who were brighter than you, kid…”

I pumped up my rifle and shot at his position…

RATTLEARATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

“I bet you would love to exchange that worthless dangling piece of meat over your head for a pair of balls right now, dumb unicorn!”

It was clear what he was doing to me… Typhoon was wearing me out, playing his strength… as an earth pony, he could last longer without being fatigued and wipe me out once I were extenuated… smart bastard…

I heard his hooves trotting across the grid again…

RATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

My bullets missed the swift bandit… this game of mice and cat was getting me nowhere…

“Stand still, dumb bandit!”

“Alright…I’ll stick here for a while, HAVE A WHOLE MOUTHFULL OF AUTO!!!”

BRATTLEBRATTTLETATLLETATTTLEBRATTLETATTLEBRAITTTLEBRATTLEBRATTLETATTLE!!!!

One of his shots pierced through the chimney and struck right on my shoulder… I instantly dug the saddlebag for a bandage…

“Dance for me, you little monkey! Circus is in town!”

FWOOSHHH…. BOOOOMMM!!!

Another chimney wrecked by Typhoon’s grenade launcher… I didn’t even had time to mend my wounds before escaping! If he continues to take them down like this, I’ll have nowhere left to hide… and with that leg of mine, I couldn’t possibly outrun anypony, especially an earth pony…

“Perhaps if you were GREAT and POWERFUL, you’d SUCK LESS COCK!!” The bandit’s vivid bantering cracked from through the bricks… not even the rain muffled that bastard.

How the hay was he able to guess where I was? The flashlight? My voice answering back his insults? Or, more likely…

Of course… a crimson trail of blood and spent medical supplies was the main thing that gave my position to that damned bandit.

Now that I am sure of this, perhaps I can…

I yanked the flashlight off and moved to another chimney, dropping one of my worn bandages on the way in order to tip him off, and instantly trotting away to the opposed chimney. There, I dumped another bandage and my rifle, withdrawing my marekarov instead. After such, I kneeled under one of the burnished chimneys… Typhoon would never look there, and I had a good vantage point from that place.

“Now I got you good, assface!” He yelled, emptying his freshly reloaded clip onto the chimney where the worn bandage lay close, believing I was still there… what a dope…

RATTLEBRATTTLEBRATTLEBRATTTLEBRATTLETATTLE!!!

Then, the bandit waited a while, expecting my incoming fire or my desperate dash for another chimney… when around five minutes of silence had gone past, he trotted to the chimney, expecting to loot my body.

“The heck is this?” He exclaimed, seeing nothing there but the bandage. “Smart, but…” His head turned as his eyes searched the area. “Not enough to… fool me?” Typhoon’s voice vacillated as he came behind the chimney where I left my rifle. “How did he ran…?” The bandit muttered to himself “Nevermind the wussy loner, his rifle is probably worth a round or two of booze…”

So, the bandit lord pulled his gasmask upwards and begun to grasp my rifle using his mouth, spending all his attention on such procedure…

It was time.

BANG!! BANG!!! BANG!!! BANG!!!

Soon as he felt 9x18mm rounds drumming against his armor, Typhoon quickly spat out the AK and backed off to a nearby chimney.

“Smart move, but not even enough to bring me down!” He proudly uttered. “Besides, you’re never gonna bring me down with that…” And he went silent. I knew much the reason for his sudden shyness…

A loaded AK shrouded by a black magical hue… and the weapon had a clear, unobstructed view of him.

RATTLERATTTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLE!!!

The bandit staggered around, suffering from massive bleeding…

“Bah, suck it up, Typhoon… “The bandit voiced to himself. “You’ve had worse paper cuts than this…”

“Why can’t you die already??” I shouted my frustration as he sought cover once again… curse them earth ponies and their overpowered racial resilience. If I allow him to heal again, we’ll have to dance all over again!

I couldn’t let that happen, and I just had the perfect medicine for one’s stubbornness to accept their demise…

“Hey Typhoon, think fast!” I grinned as I lobbed a pound of happiness over his hiding spot.

BOOOOOMMMM!!!

I beamed in joy as I saw the resulting blast send his lifeless corpse flying over the hoofrails in a majestic parable… plummeting the resulting mess in hard concrete after a three-story fall.

I took my time to certify myself that he wasn’t kicking anymore, trotting my way back downstairs and checking his remains… as I’ve predicted, it was as pretty as a pile of parasprite innards, a pile of innards which was being marinated under torrential rain… however, it did not deviated too much from the usual deader… a vast number of bullet wounds, around a quarter of his body was burnished, and, as a special bonus, his knees bent and cracked due to the fall, not that it mattered anyways, since he was already seven feet under due to hemorrhage by the time… but his face was intact, mostly due to the gasmask, which was still pristine… heck, his whole suit was salvageable, I’d do it myself if I wasn’t in such a tight schedule…

Instead, I sat back against a wall and spent more than a few medkits to treat my wounds, proceeding to loot Typhoon’s body for clues which would shed a light in the situation.

My eyes went to his weapon, still attached to the bandit’s frame… It was a good weapon, it had been modified for and increased rate of fire, pretty much the same way mine was updated for better accuracy, but the polar opposite… the bolt mechanism of his AK was rigged so that it’d allow the bandit to increase his bullet per minute firing rate… anyway, it probably wasn’t worth carrying, since it was badly damaged due to the battle… instead, I simply took all of his ammo and detached the grenade launcher of the weapon… GP-25 Buckster, the name was engraved on the side of it… and lucky we! Typhoon had a grenade loaded into it, his last! He was probably too reluctant to waste it, as to save it for a “special occasion”. Well, if he hadn’t held his card up his sleeve, things might have ended differently, but alas… I relieved him of his mundane possessions, around 1500 bits in cash and his PDA.

Finally, some answers.

From: Greyhoof
To: Typhoon
Subject: RE:RE:RE: Overseer application

Congratulation Typhoon, your performance on the presented trials has been satisfactory, your position on the fleecing charts is unparalleled… it’s time to dream big… you’ve spent enough time ripping wimpy loners, its about time we move you to where the real coin grinds, where we can put your interpersonal skills to a better use.

I’m prompting you to assume the position of overseer of the operations currently in progress at the sector known as the “Dark Valley”. Your assignments consist of claiming a small factory compound to the north. Preliminary scout reports confirm that the building has long been abandoned by its former inhabitants, being replaced by others far less… educated. You must decimate the mutants and other wandering hostiles on the area and proceed to turn the building into a permanent base of operations, using an assigned contingent of equines for such task… remember, you must build defenses, maintain control over the area, eliminate mutant pockets inside or near the site, manage the slave labor, submit weekly reports to me and send over all the profit generated by the lucrative activities.

Lastly, not to put pressure over your shoulders, but… if you are nurturing thoughts of crossing me, let me tell you a little story about your predecessor, my last overseer, Regalia… the bitch was helping herself of a cut of my profits on the side, off my books, took for herself a fair share of my hard-earned money gained off from the sweat of slaves, it took me a while to catch up with the little scheme of hers, bitch had a silver tongue, that one, could convince you that Hurricane was a shy mare, only posing as a testosterone-filled warmongering stallion, or that Celestia was an alien that came from outer space … she was able to pull it for a while, but eventually, she got too big for her britches. After I caught up to her game, I fed that lying tongue to my dog and kindly dumped her into the Whitetail Park, with orders for my guards to stick at the border of it for six hours and shot her dead if she tried to get back… she never did. Bottom point is, stand between me and my swag, and you’re toast. Don’t fail me, kid.

From: Wildwail
To: Typhoon
Subject: Cleanup report

Boss, we did as you instructed and cleared the section from mutant scum, we were also able to uncover items during our work, which must have belonged to the stalkers who were camped around these parts before us. The items are:

- 3 (three) mercenary suits, complete with gasmasks and kevlar vests, which feature the mercenary crest stitched up.

- 7 (seven) AK-74 assault rifles

- 2 (two) Obokan assault rifles

- 5 (five) marekarov pistols

- 8 (eight) TRs 501 assault rifles

- 1 (one) keycard of unknown function or purpose…by the way, the guys uncovered a closed vault under the hangar, with an opening console. Guess what: it doesn’t work there, the console there has an alphanumerical system… don’t worry boss, I’ve got the top dogs trying combinations to open it, should be open anytime now…

- 4 (four) F1 grenades.

On another note, the slaves work yielded a reasonable profit, more than we expected… we’re pulling around two or three artifacts a day, I’m sending what we scavenged so far. I recommend that you send everything, including the weaponry and armor, to Greyhoof. He will manage the resources and redistribute them according to the faction’s needs.

PS: Inform Greyhoof that the slaves thanked him for their new horseshoes.

From: Greyhoof
To: Typhoon
Subject: RE: Service hazards!

Alright Typhoon, I believe that I have a solution for your little problem, anyways… Its about time I’ve been wanting to shift my main center of operations anyway, we’ve milked the garbage for nearly anything it is worth for. Here’s the thing: I can’t send over all the crew in one move, that would attract a lot of undesired attention, so I’m sending over a convoy consisting mostly of slaves, enough to replace the ones you’ve lost to the mutants and resume the scavenging operation back to full scale. I hired a couple of mercs to secure it, you are to pay them 1500 bits on deliver. Once we receive news that the convoy has arrived safely, we will start moving the rest of the gang. It’s going to be great to be able to breathe without having a fuckload of fuckers up our necks, watching up our every move…

PS: Your lack of success in cracking open that vault door frustrates me… I thought you were supposed to be resourceful enough on your own. Keep trying, my gut tells me there’s something worth the effort in there.

From: Whistlebone
To: All bandit Overseer personnel
Subject: Marked for death!

By order of Greyhoof, a reward of 4000 bits is being offered for those who present proof of the demise of the following stalkers:

- A grey-furred unicorn with dark brown eyes, black mane, gasmask cutie mark… wears a dirty grey hooded armor and wields an ak-74

- A dark blue earth pony, silver eyes, a long crimson mane on an unruffled cut. Wears a nondescript sunshine armor and, for some unclear reason, wields a scrapgun made out of recycled junk.

Those two are accused of disrupting the convoy heading to Dark Valley, siding with the slaves and aiding them in their escape. Pass down this message to all able-bodied personnel.

That was the last message of the inbox. Would you look at that… hunted by bandits. Just what I needed…

Having skimmed through everything in Typhoon’s mail, I started to search his PDA for additional data… well, he wasn’t the type of equine that wrote a diary, but I’ve found something interesting…

– Over the tree

A little bird told me that a recently offed dutyer hid his backpack on the top branches of a pine tree on his clan’ turf. I’ll empty it next time I’m around the Agropony…

That was it… I rested my body against the wall, just hearing the rain… it had been a rough night. I’ve waited ten or fifteen minutes before the girls were into sight. I waved to them.

“Glad we could make it… you didn’t look too bad for the wear…”

I simply smiled. I knew that was a blatant lie… unlike me, they didn’t had a scratch… Lielle still had her… “weapon”, the scrapgun… it had new welded parts all over, looking more like a cumbersome ballista made out of junk, crafted with a number of mishmashes random pieces assorted together with duct tape, including a scope… no doubt she asked Dom for refuse parts and put up that thing for herself… instead of railway spikes, now it fired sharpened stakes of solid iron…real subtle.

Moonbreeze herself was fine, much as well… though silent. She busied herself glancing at the corpses… that does not bode well…

“So, everything went smoothly?”

“More than that… the suckers dashed their way as soon as we popped out the fireworks, didn’t you hear it? By the way, is everything alright with…”

I gave her a dry look for an answer. A simple glance in my direction could tell that I was not OK… I only kept it together due to my roughly patched wound, and that only six or seven hours later after leaving Patcher’s clinic completely healed… life is a bitch when you’re on the Zone.

The thought made me want to drink… crap, I knew I’ve forgot something… I’ve forgot to pack damn booze.

Moonbreeze approached us. “I see you’re awake.” She spoke in a bittersweet tone. “I believe we have to exchange some words about this…”

“What about it?” Was my disinterested reply.

“Care to explain why it was ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, UNCIRCUNVENTALLY NECESSARY to bullet your way through every bandit pony? I thought you were supposed to be subtle and avoid resorting to unnecessary fragging!” She voiced in censure… great, that just made my day…

“It couldn’t be helped… besides, it isn’t my fault if they jumped right at my bullets, doesn’t it? Now that’s cleared out, we should…”

“Excuse me! That’s your answer, a jest? Can’t you comprehend that you just reaped the lives of another beings for NO GOOD REASON? And what is worse, you just shake it off like it isn’t a big deal at all!”

“Because, in the Zone, it isn’t.” I voiced grimly. “People die everyday around these parts, and these bandits… they were Greyhoof’s boys.”

“Greyhoof? What’s the deal with him?”

“You see…among stalkers, there is a certain degree of debauchery, profligacy, corruption and general lack of equine decency which is dumped straight away as most crooks cross into the Cordon... and then, there’s scum who reach even lower standards of morality and ethics… those are what you might call the usual bandits… and even lower than those, there are dweebs that sunk to even less…”

“Spare me the lecture. “The mare rudely interrupted me. “You’re gonna say that Greyhoof and his gang are at the bottom of this chain as justification for killing them, won’t you?”

“WRONG!!!” I uttered to her in ecstasy. “I mean, half-wrong… the thing is… I can totally tolerate bandits who descended to any depth of corruption and perversion … at first, I was like you too, but then I saw it: stalkers see it coming when their enter the Zone, its one of the risks of their line of work… that’s okay with me as long as it is fair game… which it isn’t by Greyhoof’s methods.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that Greyhoof is the one who made a game out of this kind of depravity, backing off his own greed with a drapery of hierarchy: he purposely trains his people to become such monsters, promoting them and collecting all the profit generated by them… it’s like a competition to see whoever squirms the weaker stalkers for most cash, where he is the stepping stone for such madness.”

“Even then, descending to his level isn’t going to solve an…”

“Look people, can’t you do this later? In the case any of you didn’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a mission here!” The redhead interjected, interrupting our discussion.

“She is right… we’ll talk later.” I voiced to the armor-clad mare.

“So much blood…” She whispered, looking sideways to Typhoon’s body. “How can you even sleep at night..?”

“It’s about the blood, then?” I questioned. “You can’t stand it? Then, what goes when you have a period, you simply faint through it?”

“Has anypony ever told you that you are a horrible person?” She voiced her disgust. “That was totally uncalled for and you have the maturity of an eight year old foal. We’re talking about it later.”

I simply shrugged. My point remained… one cannot go through the Zone without shooting… then, what next? Seasoning himself for the mutants? I couldn’t sympathize with anypony who didn’t understand the beauty of it… the beautiful melody of bullets drumming and lead pounding through the body of an enemy, the excitement of each battle, the drive of two ponies to best one another, betting their lives on it…

Words can’t do justice to such thing.

We continued the rest of the way in that awkward silence I knew far too well, descending a couple of levels through the abandoned structure and finally reaching the rectangular, double-layered vault door.

From the looks of it, the bandits extenuated every mean of opening it… a number of electronic gadgets laid near the door, darkened explosive blasts could be seen… whoever built that thing knew exactly what he was doing…

I trotted to the console and imputed the code given to us by Carmelia.

The machine produced a soft beep in answer, and the door begun to whirl slowly, as the locking mechanism unlocked to allow passage to the underground vault…

Inside, nothing but unfathomable darkness and that familiar smell of rot, dust and aged decadence which was perfectly seasoned to its apex inside the cozy vault.

I turned on my flashlight and begun the descent, the girls following close by, our weapons ready.

It ended on a long corridor, where we spent around 10 minutes transposing it… according to the PDA; we weren’t under the compound anymore, but under the valley itself.

Finally, said corridor ended on a rusty metal door. A simple buck was enough to send it down.

After it, a small room with another corroded door to the north and other vault door on the right. On the wall near the rusted door, an enormous dusty flag stood as the only decoration of the room: it depicted a stylized blue eagle head, the mercenary crest.

“It’s busted…” Lielle informed after trying the vault door. “Probably needs a key of sorts…” and she eyed the console nearby, one with a sensor meant for personnel badges or something like that…

“Leave it for later. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the key for it…”

“Alright, lead on.” She voiced back.

I nodded and moved to the deteriorated door, turning around to place another buck to bring it down… I almost delivered the punch, but something made me stop…

“What’s the matter?” The redhead asked.

“I thought I’ve… heard something.”

“Like what? Nothing out of the usual sounds exploring a decaying building.” She spoke. “You heard anything odd, Moonbreeze?”

“Not at all. Look, we should really get going with this…I don’t like this place.”

“Just give me a couple of minutes…”

And over their perplexed glances, I placed my ear against the door.

I waited patiently, my ear glued to the cold door… yes, I did hear something… thought it might be just my…

It was a very unclear sound, like a reverberated, dying echo of the actual sound, having trailed so long and hitting so many obstacles that the original sound was tampered.

It sounded like… scraping. As in, a knife scraping a metal place, but not smoothly… it scraped for a while and then stopped… only to begin again after a while.

I had no idea of what made that sound… could be nearly anything, three or four things already popped to mind.

I probably shouldn’t worry too much about it… could be worse, like the sound of a bloodsucker’ howl.

“Nothing… just my mind, girls… I guess I’m hearing things…” and I laughed nervously.

The two exchanged concerned looks, and the huntress circled a few loops around her head using her hoof.

Dismissing the fact that she just called me a cuckoo, I bucked that frail door and moved on. It brought us to an annex room: a crashed wooden table, burnished shelves and crushed chairs with missing legs could be seen scattered around… broken items and books torn beyond readability…

Something didn’t sit well with that.

Then, the sound. It started slow, then it stepped up the pace… like additional knives joined the first on the task of scraping metal, it was clear as crystal now… and came from the other side of the next door…

“I hear it now…” Moonbreeze voiced, and Lielle nodded in agreement.

“Whenever is doing that, its right across that door…” I spoke, lifting my AK and pointing it at the door.

“You’re not thinking about busting it open, aren’t you?” The redhead questioned. “Damn, you ARE thinking seriously about that…you’re a lost cause…”

“Unless you have a better idea or the innate ability of seeing through iron, I see no other way to know what the hay is behind mystery door number one…”

“For Celestia’s sake… you have absolutely no clue of what is behind that door… could be anything, and yet, you look forward to crack it headlong... this is a bad idea in so many ways…”

“As much as I wish that there’s an alternative, we don’t.”

“You could always lob a grenade and blow up whenever might be behind it…” The azure mare told me. “It’s safer than busting your hooves and exposing yourself.”

“Yes, I could… but you forget we are inside a precarious underground structure… explosives don’t mix well here, since they might damage the foundations and send the whole thing collapsing over us.”

“You got a point…well, then… be my guest, go ahead.” And she proceeded to cock her shotgun ready

KA-CHINKA!

While Moonbreeze, by her turn, materialized an assault rifle on her armor and pointed it to the door.

“Ready… just get over with it.” She added.

Here goes nothing…

WHAMMM!!! CLANG!!!

I jumped back and emptied a whole clip into the room.

RATTLERATTLETATTLETRATTLERATTLE!!

PWOOT! PWOOT!

Nothing in response… no squeals of pain or screams… only bullets ricocheting through the walls. Something was not right.

I poured light into the opened room, trying to make out what was inside, what was making that maddening sound I’ve heard before…

After crossing the doorway, debris and more debris was everything that filled my field of vision… I was on a ruined pantry or something…

That’s when I saw them hiding among the rubbish.

Rabbits.

As I flashed light over their position, it reflected on the creatures’ amber eyes. They were just as clueless as us.

Four or five sprouted nearby, brown-furred creatures… except for the belly, which was colored red… vivid red. I’ve never heard of such coloration before on these critters…

I aimed my AK right at them… the creatures didn’t even flinch. They probably weren’t used to…

“Hey, what’s the big idea? Just leave em’be, you big bully!”

After putting away my rifle, I turned around to face an aroused blue-furred mare.

“Don’t you see they are just as scared as us?”

“Yeah… sorry about that, just force of habit. You ever heard of those?”

“Come to think of it…” She stopped to reflect about the question. “No, not at all… but that’s no reason to go out blasting anything that moves… I mean, how much damage could they cause, even IF they were hostile?”

“Hmm… alright, let’s move on.” Was my grumbled answer.

“Such precious little creatures…” Moonbreeze cooed, much to my disgust… something about that overly sugary tone. “I wish I could snuggle them.”

To which I just rolled my eyes. A few minutes ago, she was dying to leave this place…

“Let’s not waste any time on get…”

I froze my hoof on the middle of the air; one of the critters was standing on my way. I simply moved it to the right and…

Well, the dagnabbit thing just hopped back into my path. I trotted to the left, and he intercepted me again.

So, I just thought about using my hooves to keep him outta my way.

As soon as I approached my hoof to hold him away, the critter began smelling it…

As soon as I saw those amber eyes widening at me, I knew I was doomed…

In seconds, the “rabbit” opened its maw… instead of the usual arcade of teeth, inside lay a grotesque display: full rows of tiny, sharp-edged, carnivorous teeth… and that terrifying vision closed up… right on my bleedin’ hoof

“GET OFFA ME, OFF ME!!! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!!! AUGHAAA” I screamed in agony, just like a little filly… now, I tell ya… I’ve suffered a lot of punishments during my stay on the Zone: bullets, anomalies, claws… guaranteed that those were painful in their own way… but that thing… that bite… it was just the worst. The more I tried to yank it away from my hoof, the more the rabbit tightened its mandible’s grip onto it. Those teeth were made especially to thrash through flesh, and that’s what exactly that they did, insidiously festering upon my hoof with tremendous viciousness.

While my two friends were dazed by that display of mayhem, I was able to, out of pure desperation, make my way toward a nearby wall and swing the rabbit against it, cracking the critter’s diminutive skull against solid concrete and loose his deathly maw from me…

Problem is, popping his whole body against the wall made the entire blood of the creature sprout over me.

And that was just the signal to the rest of the pack that I was a prey…

I saw with stricken terror as over a dozen of more of those things pulling out of frenzy by that sight, their rabid maws oozing foam insanely…

They swarmed through the room and over me like a bunch of raving parasprites… unstoppable, vicious, dangerous… and hungry, very hungry creatures.

As I vainly tried to keep my ground against their rising numbers, the girls had their hooves full, fending more of them bunnies at bay.

PWOOT! PWOOT!! PWOOT!! RATTLETATTLERATTLERATTLERATTLETATTLE

I tried to escape out of their reach as more and more of those monstrous bunnies poured at me, far outnumbering myself and feasting upon my back, ripping away what was left of my poor armor.

“Stop fighting them!”PWOOT!!! “It’s hopeless; just get out of there before you…” PWOOT, PWOOT!!

Thanks for the heads up, lady… if weren’t for you, I’d never see it coming… nevermind that I have a broken leg and a hooffull of mutants crawling through my back as you speak, while I try to swing my rifle and whack them away from my precious flesh.

RATTLERATTLETATTLERATTLERATTTLETATTLE!!!

Most of the pack focused solely over me… of course, chow down the bleeding one, the juicy, juicy prey… I’m just a piece of undercooked meat for you, aren’t I?

Through immense effort, I shook off the thick of the pack from my back as I trotted away from that spot, bashing over some outrunner’s face with my rifle’ butt.

RATTLERATTTLETATTLERATTLERATTTLETATTLETATTLE!!!

PWOOT!!! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT!!!

I knew it was a worthless effort, that I was on a doomed last stand. The rifle begun to get insupportably heavy, and I had to drop it out of exhaustion… the bunnies, in turn, were just more relentless on preying over me, their teeth digging deeper and deeper…

PWOOT!! PWOOT!!! PWOOT PWOOT!!

The sound of Lielle’s shotgun punching shells into the mutants’ tiny bodies was the only comfort I had while I was being devoured alive.

“Help him out Moonbreeze!” The mare shouted. “I don’t know how much longer he will be able to live through…” PWOOT! “I can’t get a clear shot from here, might hit him as well as the bunnies!” PWOOT!!PWOOT!! “His life is on your hooves!” She yelled to our armored companion…
“I… I don’t think I can…” Moonbreeze softly whispered back, her voice trembling; terrified…it was slowly fading…

I could barely hear anything through the sound of teeth chewing, as the pile of monstrosities dug their way through fur, leather and flesh… if I hadn’t bought those leather reinforcements, I’d be dead now… not that’s such a great consolation, they will simply make me suffer a longer period to rip me apart.

I felt tears trickling through my face… I don’t wanna die… not like this, not today.

CLACK!CLACK! CLACK!! CLACK ! SQUATCH!! CLACK!! SQUATCH! SQUATCH SQUATCH!!! CLACK!!!

I couldn’t open my eyes, but I felt the ground tremble underneath me… one by one, all the pests were smacked out of my back, like being cleansed of massive, bloodthirsty ticks.

After opening my eyes, I caught a glimpse of my savior: Moonbreeze was using her metal-clad hooves to trample through the critters, stomping over them and culling their numbers to nil.

When she was done, I was still shaking out of fear… bunnies, even bunnies! To the hell with the Zone!

“Just take it easy… it’s over now.” Lielle whispered as she trotted nearby. “We’ll just take a break and…”

“No-n-n-NO breaks!” I spoke, my voice trembling... cold, it was so cold… “Let’s… let’s just end this already…”

“Are you out of your mind?” The redhead shook me vividly. “You almost expired out there, fella… I bet you are barely holding your marbles together now. We should at very least…”

“I said… we-we… end this… job, asap.So I can d-drink this over.”

“For Celestia’s sake… you’re mental, you know that?” She opened my pack and begun administering my medkits and bandages. “You’ve lost more than a few liters of blood in that little mess of yours.”

“Least… we k-know what we’re up a-gainst now.” I moved my head as she slapped a few bandages over my neck. The bastards… they gnawed their way into me, ripping away my fur, my armor… the teeth ripped, shanked and sank through it… now it was nothing, nothing… just scraps barely held together.

I was beginning to suspect I was born under a lucky star… how else I could make it alive through that kind of ordeal? I took a sideway glance on Moonbreeze’s direction… she was quietly eyeing her blood-muddled iron hooves, likely pondering about just having killed a hooffull of little creatures.

“Er, this should keep you in one piece… mostly.” The earth pony spoke. “At least until we end this job.”

I tried to stand up; only being able to do such after a few tries… I was on a world of hurt; it was a sacrifice just to slouch…

“Although there’s not much we can do for your armor… you’d best stay on the rearguard now.”

I couldn’t agree more, nodding to her statement, buckling my saddlebags again and taking my position behind Moonbreeze.

My AK was lying on the floor nearby, covered on critter blood. I tossed it onto the pack, withdrawing the marekarov instead. Holding the pistol was less of a burden to my telekinesis.

PWOOT!! PWOOT|!!!

The readhead’s shells pierced through the rotten wood, bagging the few rabbits that were still hiding around.

Moonbreeze… why did she helped me? After I was such a douchebag… she cares about me more than I about her… she was right, I’m such a horrible pony and a lousy friend. I guess that I can live with that kind of guilt… better than being a deader.

As my eyes got used to the darkness, I could make out the pantry…

Any food that was stocked here before was long since rotted away or devoured by vermin… now, only it’s broken shelves and cupboards remained, being used as home for those bunnies… that room was leaving me nauseated… you couldn’t take three steps without stepping on rabbit dung, plus, assorted bones and flesh were around… the spoils from their hunts. Three vertical small holes could be seen on the eastern wall, along with only one on the western wall of the room… their purpose was clear: a direct path to the valley, so that these mutants could hunt for food and bring it to their lair. A closer inspection on the western wall revealed that there were a second hole there… only that it was clogged… by a pony skeleton. The marks and scratches over it showed that the mutants dug through the flesh, leaving aside the empty carcass of a poor stalker and its torn sunrise armor. One could wonder… was he still alive when he was brought in?

Nopony deserved a death like that, nopony…

PWOOT!!! PWOOT PWOOT!!

“I guess that’s the last of them.” The earth pony voiced, lowering her shotgun. I slowly nodded, pain still numbing my senses…

The back of the room offered two ways: east and west. Pointing to the west direction, a sign saying “Dorms”

Dormitories… the thought of a cozy, warm bed... that seemed extremely appealing to me. Cozy, warm, comfortable… just like the womb of a…

“Girls… do you mind if I… just check something?”

The two looked at each other, confusion sprouting on their eyes.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” Lielle begun.

“It’s just for a second… just wait over here. If I take more than two minutes, storm inside.”

“We don’t have much a choice, do we?” The redhead voiced her displeasure. “Alright, go rub on dirt or whenever you wanna do…”

So I did… I trotted inside that room, instantly flashing my light to the broken bunker-beds, approaching them and lifting a bunch of rags that someday were blankets…

“What do you think he’s doing there?” Moonbreeze asked her friend. “Don’t you think it is just a little bit odd that he…”

“Nah… probably nothing important. By the way, how you fought those mutants, girl… that was some amazi…”

“Hey Lielle.” I voiced while sprouting my head from behind the door. “Do you mind seeing something here?”

“Just a second.” She answered back to me. “I’m just gonna see whenever he found, then we can get over with this.”

And Moonbreeze just nodded as she saw the redhead trotting inside the room.

“What’s about it? Don’t tell me there are more of those things around…”

“Kinda…” I spoke, approaching the bunch of rags. “We’ve left out a few.” And I pulled the clothes aside.

The mare gasped at the sight: A number of tiny, brown-furred baby bunnies, nibbling on a piece of flesh. They haven’t even grown their teeth yet, being almost indiscernible from regular bunnies… however, I knew what kind of demons were those things.

“The offspring… they’d leave it on the most secluded, most protected section of the lair.” The huntress spoke. “As to guarantee that the next generation will make it.”

“Right. And which is why I asked Moonbreeze to wait outside.”

“I see… she wouldn’t have the stomach to watch. So, I presume you wanna cull the pups.”

“Yes. Look, I know this isn’t pleasant for you either, but we should do this… we can’t let these things run amok through the valley… you’ve seen what kind of damage they can do when fully grown.” I sighed. “Just hold em’ down for me, please…”

She just nodded, strangely stern-faced. Once she had made sure that the bunnies couldn’t run away, I withdrew my knife.

None of those things could be left alive. I enveloped bunny after bunny on my magic, pulling their necks towards the levitated blade… a few left off a small squeal as their lives slipped by. I dropped their little bodies over the floor, and repeated the procedure over and over until there was none left. The mare remained silent as she corralled the critters, so they wouldn’t escape.

“Done here.” I voiced as I sheathed the blood-covered knife. “They won’t bother us again.” And Lielle just nodded in response. She knew I had to do that…

“How did it go? Found anything interesting there?” Moonbreeze asked as we trotted back into the pantry again.

“No, just a false alarm.” Lielle answered her. “At least we just have one more place to search” And she pointed to the door at the east direction: after it, a set of stairs which descended to a small, narrow corridor…

It led us to another enclosed room… our beams of light revealed a rusty footlocker on the left, while a pile of ruined beds and some broken furniture laid by the right wall, while the northern one was filled with broken monitors, all of them powered off… they were part of some odd device that occupied the whole wall, a mishmash of colored cables could be seen sprouting from such big device, most of them chewed… I had an idea of who were the culprits for such…

I turned my attention to the footlocker: locked, just my luck… a quick flick from my skeleton key will solve…

Crack!!

Damn cheap stuff. I tossed away the broken key, searching my bag for the last one…

BRLALAGUUUKKK!!!

We threw our lights on unison to the source of that unearthly sound. What I thought that was a pile of debris… it stirred! It stood on two feet, pushing the trash away… and it faced us!

Mother of fuck! It was one of those bunnies, but bigger, a much bigger one… white fur, demonic magenta eyes and clacking teeth, big as butter knives… and eleven times sharper…

The creature was tall, it’s ears folded at the ceiling when it stood up. There was no way that thing could leave the room through where we came from… I could only presume that it was brought here as a pup, being fed by the other bunnies and growing up inside its iron cage, never able to leave…

The dire creature let out a bellowing roar, the scent of death reeking from inside its maw.

GRAAAASHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAGHWAKLAA!!!

I trembled as I tried to aim my pistol at that… at that thing… I knew it wouldn’t be much use, but I wasn’t looking forward to end up as mutant meal. At least the girls were at my side, readying their weapons as well…

BANG!!! BANG BANG!!!

BLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLANGBLAN BLANGBLANG

PWOOT!!! PWOOT! PWOOT! PWOOT!!!

It seemed like the monster wasn’t immediately aware of the attack, only when he saw his pristine fur marred by blood, it had woken up from its stupor. It descended on all fours and charged against us.

BANG BANG BANG!!! PWOOT PWOOOT!!!

The hulking brute assaulted a violent headbutt against Moonbreeze, sending her through the room, only to have her brief flight interrupted by a hardy wall.

The mare stood on its crash site, seeming dazed… that this was too damn powerful! How the buck can I expect to bring it down?

“Boshan, move off while I try to…” And I saw the panic on her eyes…

CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, WHAM!!!

It wasn’t so bad once you were thrown… it’s the landing that kills it. Having my already injured body hitting a concrete wall like a pitiful ragdoll wasn’t on my plan… I felt my nervous system burning inside out in agony, the message that I knew so well: pain, pain, pain… I could do nothing but stay there on the wall, leaning against a spat of my own blood… the world seemed increasingly blurred, out of focus… was there a fight or something? An earth pony left against a giant carnivorous bunny… colors begun to lose their shine, sounds begun to be suppressed into nothingness, just muffled echo. Thoughts begun to fade… My eyelids felt so heavy, I felt so unbearably tired.

I’m so sorry, my friends… I couldn’t help you.

==========================[><]========================

“Hey, wake up sleeping princess… it’s time you wake up from your little nappy-time.”

Every breath was a fight… I was barely holding it together. The world slowly returned into vision… I was still rather dazed, a ringing sound echoing inside my skull…

“See? I told you he was going to make it.” The blue earth pony voiced to the armor-wearing mare. “It needs more than an oversized mutant to bring down a seasoned stalker.”

“Well, he is a resilient one… I thought he was done, for sure…” Moonbreeze spoke back. “He doesn’t seem too well, though…”

I eyed my surroundings: a number of discarded medical supplies were around me. I had a rough one… I needed rest… rest and plenty of booze.

“But… but…” I mumbled “How did you…”

“Using my brains, of course… what else?” The redhead answered. “You see… I’ve pissed off that thing so bad…” and she pointed to the corridor where we came from. Now it was stained crimson red “That it tried to chase me outta the room, and it got stuck! And after that… like shooting fish on a barrel.” She proudly indicated her shotgun. “Though the difficult part was flaying that thing to get back in.”

“Then, I guess we should get to finishing the quest… after all… we’ve came so far.” I feebly voiced, receiving one nod from each mare as answer.

I reached onto the footlocker and used my last skeleton key to open it.

CLINK!

Inside the container, a bag with two thousand bits, a PDA and a weapon case…

It contained a sniper rifle or sorts… it was a rather cumbersome and bulky weapon, with wooden furnishing and a synthetic stock, the name “Truesight” was etched on the weapon. Perhaps the most jarring thing about it was the weapon’s scope… it sure had one scope inbuilt into it, but the case also included two similar additional scopes… I thought they were spare ones, until a closer inspection showed me that they were made to be used in tandem with the stock scope… as in, they could be piled up on a triangular fashion, attached to the inbuilt scope… but I wonder, why would anypony want to do that? Unless it was made for a three-eyed mutant, there was no reason for such.

“Nice shooter…” The redhead could be heard behind me. “A modded Dragunov, I see…”

“You gals don’t mind if I get dibs on it, right?” I asked. “Since you don’t have a frame for this kinda’ shooter and Moonbreeze… well, she isn’t a gun enthusiast…”

“Knock yourself out.” Was the huntress’ answer, while Moonbreeze silently nodded her approval. All that I needed to pocket the encased rifle on my saddlebags.

Then, I moved on to checking that PDA.

Diary entry, 1 of 8

The Zone… what I can tell about it? Well, we’re here now, not as much a golden mine as I’ve expected, but I suppose these things take time. All I gotta do is get a few contracts here and there and ka’ching! I mean, if a precocious neer-do-well merc wannabe such as Fleabag is rolling in dough, any idiot can prosper in this post-nuclear paradise.

Sure that my boys aren’t exactly looking forward to work inside the Zone… having heard some of the nutcase stories that locals seem to sprout to scare off tourists… like, ponies with octopus tentacles as faces which can turn invisible, or former stalkers that turned mad and run around preying on flesh and leaping two-stories heights… sounds like a load of bull cookies to me.

Anyways, I guess I should give them a few days to ponder it over… eventually, they will get to their senses… they always do when there is money on the line.

Diary entry, 2 of 8

And another contract successfully completed. On this pace, I’ll have enough moolah for an early retirement in no time. Of course, on the past few days, there had been a few losses… expendable personnel, mostly… they can find their way into shooting any kind of enemy, but when it comes to watching their step to avoid those anomalies and radioactive pockets…they are as helpless as little foals. I can’t blame them: they trained years to excel their combat capabilities, years to hone up their marksman skills… the very same training that alienated them to spend so much attention on their enemies, on their guns, that they end up stepping where they shouldn’t and wind up dead at those environmental traps. I guess we aren’t habituated enough to know our way out of some of those things… that comes with time, that’s those stalkers’ forte.

I need to think of a way to transpose this obstacle; otherwise things might be not profitable enough for the hassle.

Diary entry, 3 of 8

I thought about a new lease in life… as our external contracts are starting to run dry, I guess its time to settle down and start doing jobs for those stalker’ fellas… they sure got themselves a hoofful of problems, and most of them can be solved by offing the right kind of people. Also, they got the cash to back up our services, with the entire artifact smuggling business around….

So, as the first step in being successful in the well-compensated freewheeling business provocateur and long term people-dealing business, we set up shop in one of those abandoned structures that are around the Zone, there are plenty to go ‘round, and my boys need a place to rest and drop their stuff from time to time. That’s what this compound is going to serve for us, now that we kindly relocated the former pests from here.

But the main attraction isn’t the compound, oh no… it’s just what lies underneath it: a bunker! Complete with a security-coded door, vents and other kind of life-support thingamajigs! Crosswire was able to bring the underground generators back online and recode the door to serve our needs, also, he was able to get a keycard-locked door inside the bunker back into working state… anypony who was here before, sure was paranoid about security... well, more to our gain. I’ll dump the spare weapons and any other sensible things into there and hold into the key myself.

Diary entry, 4 of 8

Now we officially got a few jobs on our belts, the boys gotten used to the atmosphere round these parts… its kinda nice after you spend a few days in this big radioactive dump called “the Zone”… and the money is not bad either, not a shortage of people needin’ of our skills either… today I’ve met some representatives of a bigshot clan that roams through the Zone, called themselves Freedom…

Apart from the head of some of them being a few whiskers’ short of a full bag of cats, they’re friendly enough after you’ve gone past listening all their crap of communing , love and tolerance… funny thing is, that doesn’t apply to their dealings with another clan of stalkers… Duty, or whenever is called… going on, we were able to get in a consensus for them: we run a few undesirable jobs every now and then for them Freedom chumps and they provide us with Zone intel and field experience bout’ dem anomalies, radioactive pockets and mutants, since their contact network is much more deeply rooted than ours.

Ah, on a side note… another interesting piece of technology was found on the lower level of the bunker… Crosswire said me that everything suggests that it’s some sort of ancient monitoring device, possibly set by either insurgents or the monarchy a fuckton of time ago, to spy the surrounding area. I’ve got to see if he can get some of it into working order… having some sort of thing like that would surely give us an edge in our business.

Damn… Hyena is screaming his lungs out again, I can’t for the love of Celestia figure out what is wrong with that dude… If he is doing it on purpose…

Diary entry, 5 of 8

I’d say we’ve got ourselves over the proverbial dry meat: Crosswire was able to hitch some of the monitoring device back into functioning order, allowing us to get live feeds into some parts of the garbage, the valley and the swamplands to the south. We’ve already been preying over bandit squads every time we see that the are carrying something nice… haha, the bastards are pissed off outta their minds, and yet, clueless. Just yesterday, the guys took this dragunov sniper rifle from them… according to them crooks, they’ve stole it from some old geezer huntin’ at the Whitetail park. It’s gonna be a nice weapon for me once I get used to shootin’ it.

Our dealing with Freedom are going along pretty well, aside some minor problems… like that commander of theirs, Halftrot… guy was all trigger happy while we were culling some snorks, got caught up on his own excitement and got himself too close on those leaping abominations… if weren’t for my boys covering his ass and me pulling that moron outta there, he’d be a goner… I seriously hope that he learned something outta that experience.

Diary entry, 6 of 8

Things are going as planned… a few days’ worth of monitoring that underground structure have paid off: now I am aware what the hell that is: an subway station which was filled up with the radioactive junk pulled out by the monarchy… more so, a group of stalker old-timers was able to dig their way inside that station and use it as their own base of operations, unaware that I have a direct link to their prattling and ramblings… it’s a wonder that the bandits haven’t found their base by now yet… but then again, I guess that’s expecting too much from them… besides, they aren’t digging up that particular pile too much, since is the one closest to the Freedom base. I’ve yet to see if their quartermaster, Carmelia, is interested in buying the cords to the stalkers’ lil’ irradiated hole. I suppose I’ll hold into it for now.

Attached file: Garbage subway station entrance coordinates.

The things I’ve been able to get from this group of stalkers so far:

And the PDA showed a photograph: it wasn’t colored, but rather, showcased in different tones of blue… my guess is that’s the way the monitoring device captures images. Three figures were discernible on that photograph, all of them climbing a huge pile of junk: The one on the left was a big earth pony, equipped with the burdening mishmash of both heavy-duty kelvar protection and servomotors that composed the hefty, custom-tailored exoskeleton armor which was produced in some clandestine factory. The pony on the center was probably a unicorn, that or he was either wearing a helmet made for one… he was wearing a SEVA suit: a lightweight bulletproof vest that covered his whole body combined with an integrated close-cycle breathing system and anomaly suppression devices, the suit was produced by specialized institutes outside of the Zone, meant to be sold for the professional, cash-swimming stalker who desired to last longer than a few days. So, as I told, the helmet was especially made for a unicorn: the dome helmet had an opening for the horn, where some sort of protective, green-colored fabric, coated it. Like some sort of horn condom… while it probably wasn’t as protective as the rest of the curtain helmet, it allowed the use of magic while providing some degree of protection. The last stalker on the picture was another unicorn, though this one was wearing just a worn trenchcoat, his fur sprouting from the coat’ holes. The PDA captioned the picture:

From the left to the right: Mimiric, the muscle, Searinor, the big kahuna and Blurweaver, the group’s spellcaster. From what I was able to dig from their conversations, they’re been around the Zone for a while now, running odd jobs for folks and running incursions to the depths of the Zone, I’ve got to keep my eyes open at them.

Diary entry, 7 of 8

Our cams picked out something neat: a pile of oldworld potential shiny-thingies, just lying around on the swamplands: a derelict weather factory which has crashed many, many years ago, and probably brimming with interesting stuff inside, just waiting for us… the stalkers say its cursed and other load of bullshit about it… they just wanna hog the treasures for themselves, I know that. It’s most likely just filled with regular mutant chumps, more than enough to chow down those wimps who just made it from the Cordon, not a threat to REAL stallions who got enough brass in their balls to stick around into the Zone for a while, like us.

I’ll lead myself a group of scouts tomorrow, to decide if the site’ exploration is worth it or not.

Diary entry, 8 of 8

Wading through my previous entries had shown me… how blind I was, and how everything is so clear now.

Filling my life with futile pursuits… nothing of that matter to me anymore, it’s like everything had been a previous life of mine, ever since I’ve found out the truth.

Celestia… she lives.

I saw her, I saw our holy ruler… I saw her with those old, tired eyes of mine. And I believed… she picked me, me and two others who were deemed worthy enough… the others weren’t in such an enlightened state to withstand her vision, and so, were cast into terrible madness, followed by tremendous pain… of which, the swift veil of death was a relief.

But this shouldn’t be a day for mourning, oh no, for Celestia has spoken into my heart and into the heart of those who upheld her call much as well. She asked me to lead a pilgrimage to her… to Canterlot, so I may properly glorify our goddess.

Most of my former associates thought I was off my rocker when I returned from the trip… from the trip which has purveyed all illusions I had about life so far. It’s understandable. They weren’t there, they didn’t saw her… if they could only have seen what I saw and been where I was… in due time, they will be converted from such petty ignorance.

When I spoke my mind about going past the brain scorcher, only my two friends, the ones which were there and were fervent believers such as me, wished to accompany me. The rest of them… scared… by old legends, fairy tales, slander and lies…all of them, nothing but rats! Cowards! True faith leaves no room for fear! Nor such lowly emotion befits a true believer!

I’m leaving this diary and all the traces of my past life behind, for posteriority… so all may know the truth and follow me into the one true path. I’m also leaving my rifle behind, it’s no use to me where I’m going, only my Black Bronco will suffice fending off those pesky creatures who live in her shade.

It’s a shame I have to leave my boys, but, as I came to know, there are more important things in life…

I put the PDA away and packed it along with the cash and dumped both things into my bags. Sure that those entries pointed the way to me, but in turn… I wonder, what happened at the derelict weather factory with the merc to change his attitude so much? And why only three ponies survived that incursion, what happened to the rest of his scouting party?

Why do I even care? It’s not my business if a stalker digs religious crap and goes on a suicidal trip…
I turned myself to lift up and leave, but I saw something else inside that footlocker…

Crumpled inside a corner, a photograph, a colored one…

It depicted six mares, all of them with various lively fur colors and two of each race: unicorn, pegasus and earth pony. I’ve never seen those gals before…

As I turned the photography, I could make out something written on the back: elements of harmony, monarchy’s last, best hope of salvation. And a monarchy seal after that sentence.

Hmm…

“So, you know any of those?” The earth pony asked me.

“No idea. You have any clue, Moonbreeze?”

“Well… I’ve read a bit about the elements of harmony…” She started. “But I must say… the books weren’t very clear about the hosts of such elements after Celestia’ and Luna wielded them into battle.”

“And what do the elements of harmony do?” I questioned.

“According to the legends, they are some sort of magical-reality-harmonic-stabilization-device… in essence; they pretty much make the things back the way they were into a peaceful state…” She voiced dreamily. “Of course, that’s just a foal naptime history nowadays, the elements have been long since lost and the hosts’ identity are shrouded in mystery… they are probably dead, having met their demise before they could pass on the elements to a new set of hosts.”

“Not much we can do for them, huh…” I spoke while taking a second glance to the photograph. I felt like that photograph was a piece of some puzzle… a puzzle which I wasn’t building, but somepony else was… I guess I shouldn’t leave it just lying around, it could just mean something important. With that in mind, I stored the photograph into my bag.

“I figure it’s nothing important, just echoes of the past that hold little to no effect in our current situation.” I voiced to the girls. After all, now that the mess is done, the elements don’t matter anymore.

“Yeah, you must be right…” The redhead spoke in turn. “Now that we’ve got that intel of yours, we can go home now… or rather, the closest thing from that…” And she began to pick her stuff. “By the way, you look terrible… you should take it easy for a while…”

“I second that… we shouldn’t stick around now that we found what we’ve came looking for.” The armored one voiced afterwards.

“Then lead on, ladies… I’ll be there in a minute, just lemme pick my gear…”

After I grabbed whenever was left of my stuff, I trotted after the girls. Each move was a fucking torture, sore wounds and ugly scratches marred my complexion, reminding me that being alive on the Zone meant either withstanding massive pain or keeping off the worst kind of scum, animal or pony, beneath the barrel of a gun. It was no way to live…

Chances are that I’m not smelling like a bucket of roses either… more like “Eau of weathered hound” or something along that line…

“…I told you we could pull it over.” I caught a glimpse of Lielle’s conversation with Moonbreeze

“Hardly…” Moonbreeze replied. “Tell about borderline success…”

And so, we trotted past the vault, returning the way back into the surface…

Now it was strangely silent, with the rain having stopped and everything… surely by now, the bandits would have returned from…

“Hey guys, that isn’t good for us…” Moonbreeze spoke, pointing to the nightly sky.

I turned to see what she was pointing to… oh dear Celestia…

RUTHARUTHARUTHARUTHARUTHARUTHARUTHARUTHA

A REA chopper… just what we need now, a bunch of soldier boys with orders to shoot everything down.

“Cut the lights off!” I’ve heard the redhead shouting over the engine’s cacophony. We needed to get out of there before they fly close enough to nail the entire compound with machinegun fire.

Even without the lights, we could clearly make out the helicopter’s bright silhouette… they were flashing the valley with the machine’s searchlight…, searching for bandits to dispose of. My guess is that the chopper was the reason because the bandits haven’t made it back yet… too damn afraid or dead already

“We have to scram before those morons make it to our position…” She spoke again. “Just follow my voice, you two… I’ll use the NVG to guide us through the other exit.”

“Alright… just be quick about it.” I replied, my heart beating like crazy… we’ve came so far… to ruin everything now was unthinkable of.

So, Moonbreeze and I trotted behind Lielle, making our best to avoid unnecessary noises and shifting our eyes every now and then to check on the chopper’s position. We couldn’t afford to engage in combat, in my current condition, even a little filly could smack me.

“Look sharp, this is the place where we found ya, Boshan…” The redhead spoke. “Just a few more meters to the east and...”

The place they’ve found me… wait a second.

“Girls, just stop a little… I gotta catch something.”

“Not again…” The huntress’ displeasure could be noticed. “Aren’t you aware they are this close to pumping us with enough lead to build a foundry?”
“Shaddap and help me out here…” I hoarsely spoke. “This is important… now where did he land…? Ah there’s our winner…”

Typhoon’s body, what else? I trotted to it and begun to strip him out of his armor. I needed it, since mine couldn’t stop even BB rounds…

“We have no time for that… you can always buy a new one…” She insisted on dissuading me from the whole thing…

Moonbreeze’s silk voice also resonated through the nightly air “Listen to her, the REA is gonna catch up unless we get out…”

“Just a few more minutes…” I mumbled as I roughly stripped Typhoon’s kelvar vest… he was dead already, it doesn’t matter to him. I should have done this before…

At this point, the machinegun of the REA’s flying contraption begun to roar…

BRATTTATATATATATATATATATTTTBRATATATTATATATTATBRATRTARTARTRATRTABRATATATATATATABRATATATATAT

They were indiscriminately firing against the compound… they oughta hit something after a while.

Thankfully, I was able to relieve the last strap of the armor, stuffing it along with the gasmask into my bag… I’ll retrofit it when we have enough time to. I just tossed my old rags over Typhoon’s yellow fur and shouted to the girls to trot on.

“And where we should go to?” Moonbreeze questioned as we trotted through the eastern gate, exiting the compound. “They likely got the exits covered.”

“You can bet on that.” The redhead smugly remarked. “Those REA thugs don’t do half-assed jobs.”

“We’d best go south until we hit the Cordon…” was my suggestion. “I mean, they can’t just have every exit covered. Sides’ they are after the bandits.”

After that, we spent a long way trotting to the south: Lielle was leading the group, flinging bolts for oncoming anomalies and scaring off the occasional mutants. I was right behind, using the PDA to check if we were on the right route, while Moonbreeze covered the rearguard.

Once we were within a distance, I dared a last glance into the bandits’ base. The chopper was now unleashing rockets round’ the area.

More countless minutes trotting through muddy terrain into the night (we purposely avoided the road, as not to attract unwanted attention) We saw a small group of lights fading into the horizon: flashlights. They belonged to a number of ponies who inhabited another set of abandoned buildings: a degraded real estate, possibly a farmhouse.

“It’s no use hiding.” The blue pony whispered to us. “They probably saw us already, no point on denying we’re here.” And she turned her own flashlight on. Moonbreeze and I quickly followed on the gesture.

“Er… do you think it’s a good idea to speak to them?” Moonbreeze’s voice was of doubt. “I mean, how can we be sure they aren’t bandits or something?”

“We have no choice.” Was my short answer. “If we trot away, they might take it the wrong way, besides… they can’t be worse that the REA.”

As we approached the farmhouse , a dilapidated wall came into vision. Lying over it, a stallion waved to us. A loner…

“Howdy ho, fellow stalkers…” He cheerfully greeted as we trotted within earshot. “You three picked up a terrible night to be wandering around… the REA is pounding the fuck out of the bandits and just about anypony they can find around who isn’t wearing army fatigues.”

“Yes, we just saw that…”I spoke to him. “Any chance we can spend the rest of the night with you guys?”

“Absolutely.” The loner grinned and pointed towards the farmhouse. “Just make yourself at home… we stalkers need to stick together, look for each other, you know… it’s the only way we can stand up to those army chumps and other retards running amok through the Zone… just remember to return the favor to a fellow stalker if the need ever arises…”

“Sure will…” I couldn’t control myself of contentment. “Thanks buddy, we owe ya… we owe ya big time.”

After thanking the guard a few more times than it was necessary, we strolled inside the large farmhouse. The main floor consisted only of a large communal room… the stalkers tore the farmhouse’ rooms walls apart to create one large cozy room., while the second floor still kept its walls, being used as usual dorms for those too tired or who weren’t in the mood to chill by the campfire.

Said campfire had several stalkers gathered around it, occupying themselves on cleaning their guns, reading their PDAs, playing the guitar, sharing dirty jokes, trading, or stuffing themselves.

I simply sat around the campfire, letting my saddlebag aside and allowing the fire to warm my bones, allowing me to forget this night events. I dug my saddlebag for a can of oatmeal and begun chewing on it.

Lielle sat by my side, while Moonbreeze found herself a corner a bit far from the campfire… I guess she couldn’t feel the warmth of it, or wasn’t exactly pleased by the place’s patrons.

“Those are some ugly wounds you got there, sonny…”

I raised my eyes to see who spoke to me, my gaze meeting a set of tired black eyes and a kind smile, wrapped on a face under a battered purple hood. My interlocutor was a respectable donkey, one carrying one of those precision frames and an equally old rifle. Both the weapon and his owner looked like they had seen their share of action back then.

“Uh-huh…” I mumbled back, retrieving Typhoon’s armor for my pack. “You get quite a load of these fighting those blasted mutants… even more so those rabbits…” I voiced, stopping momentarily to cut away the bandit patch from the armor and toss it into the campfire.

“Do you say… rabbits?” The old one held his head thoughtfully. “They shouldn’t be around these parts…”

“You know’em?” I asked, attempting to sew over some bullet holes.

“I fought those damned things back in the day… terrorbunnies are quite the pesky bunch… and might I just say, it looks like you fought off a whole pack of them.”

“You got that right, old timer…” And I pointed to my friends. “Me and my pals cleared up their lair just a while ago, couldn’t say it was exactly pleasing…”

The old donkey lazily scratched his back. “That’s a good thing… world is better off without those spawns of tartarus roaming around. Kinda makes me miss the times they were just around Whitetail and region…”

“Why that has changed?” I asked. “Why’d they leave their hunting area and move off closer to the borders of the Zone?”

“Ah, that’s just it, stalker…” He answered. “The brain scorcher, that’s what happened… in those old good times, you could just walk around it through Whitetail, only backing off when you started to feel lightheaded and all. Yet, for some reason, the field of that thing…it grew. It engulfed the whole area, nopony goes in, nopony goes out. Since then, without stalkers to provide a steady flow of food, the terrorbunnies simply moved to whenever the food is, that is, toward us.”

“You seem to know quite a load about them, old one…”

“Had a few run-ins with them during my time…” He voiced, then pulled off his hood, revealing his wrinkled complexion. His right ear had a visible wound in the exact shape of a mouth’s arcade, like something had bitten it off. “As you see, I have no love for them… the bastards took my ear, but I was able to avenge my loss.” He proudly spoke. “If weren’t for my trusty ol’ Swagloader here, I’d be a stinkin’ corpse.”

And he showed us his special weapon, an amazing specimen of a bolt-action rifle…

“You see, my friend… they just don’t make these anymore.” The donkey remarked. “It might not be as modifiable or quick-firing as the fancy rifles you kids got these days, but this weapon… it packs quite the punch, and you can put your life on it, trust it like a brother, and also, it can withstand a whole lot of things too, I had this thing for quite a while now and I wouldn’t exchange it for any sum of money on this world… “

I simply continued to admire the weapon’s interesting craftspony beauty, the rough dark wooden furnishing, the scratched barrel… that rifle had quite an appeal to the eye which you can’t really describe into words…

“But I bore you, don’t I?” The veteran’s voice brought me back from my trance. “Oh no, I’m just teasing you…” He smiled warmly, seeing my attempts to apologize. “Here, youngster… have a cold one on me for clearing out that terrorbunny den.”

And the donkey stuffed a bottle of vodka into my hooves… that was the kindest gesture I ever witnessed, what a nice guy!

“Enjoy, it’s the good stuff…” And he let out a yawn. “Now if you kids don’t mind, I’ve got to rest these old bones of mine… see you around.”

My eyes followed the old donkey as he climbed the stairs towards the upper floor. I slowly opened the bottle of booze, enjoying the heavenly aroma and experiencing every second of bliss from the experience. As I spilled the cold, yet throat-burning liquid down my throat, every mundane pain was rapidly dimmed into nothingness.

That was probably the only way to endure life on the Zone. I turned around to check on my companions, Moonbreeze was paying attention on the buzz going around and the redhead was stuffing herself. After she finished her can of hay, she was ready to devour a generous loaf of bread…

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you…” A voice soared from the group of stalker

The mare found herself looking dumbly at the group of stalkers. “Eat what? Bread?” She questioned. “I intend to, I’m starving around here…”

“Don’t tell me…” And a loner set himself apart from the group, a skinny, starkly orange-furred earth pony with mischievous eyes. “You’ve never heard about…” And he paused. “The “bread”?”

“Bread, this, you say?” And the mare pointed to her loaf of bread. “I don’t see what is so special about it, being made out of flour, water…”

“Of course you don’t know…” The shabby loner continued. “That some bread may have an additional ingredient… an ingredient which the likes of aren’t so, well, edible…”

“Just what is this ingredient?” The huntress asked. “I’ve never heard of such thing… inedible bread…”

“Oh nevermind… you’re probably safe with it… just forget that I’ve ever said anything…” And he slowly started to walk back to his place…

“Wait!” The mare voiced. “Tell me about it, I wanna know more!”

For a second, the loner’s face was embezzled with a sly grin… no doubt that his fish just pulled the bait.

“You see…” He began. “There is bread… and there are “Bread” He said while making air quotes at the second mention of the word. “A long time ago, this city some kilometers to the north… Ponyville, it was a blossoming metropolis: filled with people and all that crud you read in history books… so, when the accident happened, everypony just abandoned their activities on the fly as their heard the sirens, the bakery included… the bakers left the dough as they escaped the city… it had been left sitting there for Celestia knows how long and…”

“Eh crowbar, spreading your stupid fairy tales as usual, I see…“ Somepony at the back yelled. “Why don’t you go do something usef…”

At that point, the other loners shushed to the one interrupting Crowbar’s tale, making him shut his muzzle… they were clearly interested on crowbar’s history.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, the dough was left sitting on the bakery, being left to withstand the elements of nature and the first raw wave of biomagical waste that encased the Zone… what was the first interlopers’ surprise as they found the dough still relatively intact… somehow, the dough caught enough radioactivity to change its essence, being able to grow like a living being for years, without getting bad or stale… stalkers say it was able to take over the whole bakery in a matter of a decade, not only that, it evolved… mutated to adapt to the Zone… they say that it used its scent to attract small animals, and when they were busy chewing onto the dough’s mass, it would engulf them, choking the creatures and using the nutrients on their corpses to grow even bigger, it begun to overwhelm the bakery, grow past it, consuming every bit of flora or fauna that it found in its way… it grew so big that it begun to detach little portions of itself, as to send its excess to grow by itself on other buildings…”

“And so, why isn’t Ponyville a big mass of raw dough today?” The huntress asked.

“I tell you, we aren’t facing a bread-clysm nowadays thanks to the efforts of a valiant group of stalkers… having found the bakery being taken by a huge, bubbly mass of dough complete with an fine-looking crust, they had no doubts of what to do with it: burn the whole damn thing to the ground. They played safe, you know… they went on eradicating any pockets they could find of the “bread”-thing, not knowing if it was dangerous or not… the damn baked goods could be sending maddening mental waves or poisoning them by osmosis for all they knew…so, anyway, the tale tells that little loaves of the “bread” survived, not being caught by the overzealous stalkers that took down the original entity… without it to guide them, they were left to a life of solitude, hunting whenever prey they could attract.”

Crowbar stopped, eyeing his audience… stalkers were digging each word that he spoke.

“But this isn’t the end… someday, careless stalkers found loaves of the “bread” and passed them on, or even worse, ate them… this is why one shouldn’t eat bread of unknown precedence, even better, not eat bread at all… “

“And…” The mare looked at his loaf with newfound fear. “What did happen to the ones which ate the “bread”?”

“Ah, I’m glad you asked…” Crowbar happily answered. “I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who was friends with another guy, a loner whose brother ate a seemingly harmless loaf of bread… told me that said stalker frequently complained about tummy aches, and around a week later, was having trouble breathing… on another week, he was found dead, wheat sprouting from his mouth…”

“So, what you mean is that…”

“The “bread” grew within the stalker’s stomach… once he consumed it, the “bread” attached itself to the stomach wall, feeding with whenever the stalker ate and fermenting itself while it digested the food… it sprouted a mutated wheat plant, which was able to live inside the stalker’s stomach, even though the lack of light there… it grew towards his trachea, absorbing some of the oxygen produced by the stalker’ lungs, ergo his difficulty to breath… eventually, the sheer size of the thing ended up choking its host, whose carcass was a fertile ground for the plant to take over…

“I’m pretty sure that isn’t even remotely biologically possible…” Moonbreeze spoke from her corner.

“Do you happen to have a master in biology, canned peach?” Crowbar grinned to her, taking Moonbreeze’s continued silence as a negative answer. “Believe whenever you want, the last guy who thought that is seven feet under nowadays…”

“You know…” The redhead eyed her snack with distrust. “I’m not really THAT hungry anymore…”

I saw a smile on the corner of Crowbar’s mouth when the mare carelessly tossed the baked good through a window.

He waited good five minutes before exempting himself from our presence, saying he was going for a nightly trot… no doubt that he was going to recover the bread and gobble it by himself.

I did nothing to stop him from doing so. Technically, he did nothing wrong, and his tale was entertaining enough. He quite deserved the treat…

Aside from that little “incident”, the rest of the evening was pleasant, we laughed together and shared storied by the fire…

As I enjoyed the loners’ company, a rather distinct fuzzy feeling begun to grow into across my chest… and it wasn’t from the vodka, at least, not all of it…

Could that be… friendship?

==========================[><]========================

Greyhoof casually eyed the gruesome display of gore that lay near his hooves, corpses from both the REA forces and his bandits. The pegasus felt nothing as his gaze pierced through the deceased beings. To him, underlings were nothing but pieces of a chess games, only useful to the extent that the player uses them, and ultimately, expendable. Still, he was a tad disappointed to see to how much extent his thugs sucked.

Already being informed of who were the culprit of such carnage, the cold-hearted equine spat on the ground. The loner… he really came out of his way to push Greyhoof’s buttons.

“Whistlebone, enough loafing ‘round. Present me the current situation.” He voiced towards his hoof-radio.

A few moments later, his right-hoof exited the main hangar and presented himself to Greyhoof.

“Most of our boys have been wiped out, as you know already…” And he pondered carefully on what to say next. “Those two-sided loners, with another unidentified equine which aided them… but still, we have a few survivors, enough to fend off the deployed REA squadron.”

“I’ve heard there was a chopper going around…” Greyhoof remarked as he directed a sideways glance to the damaged structures… some parts of it still presented a coat of ash, result of being bombarded by rockets. “What was made of it?”

“It went through an airbound anomalous pocket, a burner…” Whistlebone answered. “The chopper caught in flames and the crew had to forcibly maneuver it downside... we have no idea if they made it alive.”

“I see… and what about Typhoon?”

“He is over there.” And Whistlebone pointed out to a pile of corpses. “What is left of him, anyway… we are gonna take a while to clean up this mess and…”

But Greyhoof wasn’t listening to him; instead, he approached to check his former overseer. Undoubtedly, it was Typhoon… however, with multiple bullet wounds and broken legs, also, pretty much dead.

The bandit lord just shook his head negatively… another failure, massive failure… he wondered why his underlings kept screwing thing s over…

“Stupid…” He whispered to the lifeless body.

“Er boss…” Whistlebone spoke softly. “I don’t thing he is gonna listen to you…”

“Stupid!” Greyhoof shouted, bucking the body with his heavy exoskeleton-clad hooves. “Worthless!” He cussed while breaking Typhoon’s ribs. “COCKSUCKER!” The stallion yelled as he unleashed another heavy blow to the corpse, the cacophony of bones being broken sounding like music to his ears.

“So, should we bury them or…?”

“Burying? That’s doing too much for these good-for-nothing fuckfags…” Greyhoof’s voice was filled with spite. “Leave em’ to feed the dogs once we set up camp, don’t forget to empty their pockets before…”

Greyhoof entered the compound as Whistlebone recalled their forces to occupy the area. He did too much to secure this area, he couldn’t afford to simply just let it go…

After a while trotting through the underground vault’ empty corridors, Whistlebone joined the pegasus again.

“A beauty, isn’t it?” The bandit lord spoke. “When we set up some decoration, sweep the place a bit and get some air freshener around here, it will almost be like our old home.”

“Speaking about that…why’d we leave it? Boss, why leave the garbage when there was still so much to milk there?”

“Its about time we leave Freedom and Duty to suck each other’ cocks without we standing between them” Greyhoof answered in turn. “Hmm, these loners really were through in rooting this place out of terrorbunnies…” And he pointed to the mutant corpses scattered around.

“Yes, most fortunate to our ends…also, there’s still an enclosed door…”

“You mean that one by the flag?” And Whistlebone nodded in response. Without saying anything, Greyhoof trotted back to the flag room.

“Isn’t that a terminal?” He asked. “Perhaps, just perhaps…” And Greyhoof searched his bag, hoping that he still hadn’t discarded it…

He finally came up with a keycard, the same that one of Typhoon’s scouts had delivered to him along with the items they claimed from the facility.

“Just show me what you’re hidin’…” The bandit lord softly whispered as he slit the card toward the terminal.

The rectangular steel vault door begun whirring and creaking until it was fully opened…

As Greyhoof and Whistlebone looked inside the unlocked room, they were aghast with surprise by what they just found…

Weapons, many, many weapons… top-notch weaponry and armor… enough to field a small army. Quite likely the lootroom-slash-armory-slash-arsenal of the mercs…

“Jackpot.” The bandit said, unable to conceal his glee. “With these… I might be able to build a sizeable force, get some respect ‘round these parts and pound them damn prattling loners into oblivion! Perhaps even make our way towards the center of the Zone…”

“Again with that plan, boss?” Was Whistlebone’s dispassionate reply. “I thought we had…”

“BOSS, BOSS!” An underling scampered into the room, stopping right in front of the bandit lord and his right hoof.

“Pipe down, kid…”Greyhoof voiced as he directed to the lowly bandit. “What’s the ruckus all about?”

“The REA, boss! We picked up an SOS distress signal coming from them, looks like some of the soldiers had survived the helicopter crash, they are relaying an SOS message, saying that they have stumbled upon a snork in the woods…”

The underling simply looked expectantly to his bosses as he awaited for an answer. Whistlebone simply grinned malignantly, while Greyhoof had the very same smile under his tactical helmet and gasmask.

“Then, I believe we should give them the proper help…” The bandit lord finally spoke. “Release two packs of hounds upon them. Today, my doggies feast onto the living!” He boomed, and then broke in laughter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- bestiary

#/filenam – Terrorbunny

Thanks to documents recovered during a recent stalker incursion, today we know that these creatures are the result of genetic experiments targeted at creating a species of rabbits that weren’t such picky eaters, though, it’s still rather unclear what was on the mind of the one who thought it was a good idea to splice together genetic material from rabbits and piranhas…

The terrobunnies were the most successful batch of that particular set of experiments, though, a bit too successful… after breaking free from the facility which gave birth to them, these mutants quickly adapted to the Zone’s harsh conditions. Appropriating themselves of abandoned underground buildings and tunnels to use them as lairs, terrorbunnies plague the northern reaches of the Zone, mostly Everfree, Ponyville and Whitetail, although there’s a crescent rise on sights of these creatures on areas closer to the borders of the |Zone out of late. They are easily discerned from ordinary bunnies if you make out their teeth and red-furred bellies.

Although these mutants are technically omnivore, they have a very visible preference towards meat, combining the most deadly features of the two creatures, as in, the bunnies breeding habits and agility and the piranhas’ viciousness and speed, terrorbunnies make out for prime hunters. They will almost always strike in groups: either as enormous swarms that ferociously defend their lairs and bring much bigger prey down in a wave of onslaught and death, or in hunting packs of three to six individuals, which tend to be opportunistic predators: stealing other creatures’ prey, preying on the weak or sick, stealing food from careless stalkers and such. A single terrorbunny is able to fully consume a live, subdued prey three times his size in the matter of minutes, though they would prefer to bring it down to their lairs and share with the others of their kin, since underfed packs tend to turn to cannibalism.

In live combat, they tend to use their razor-edged arcade of serrated teeth, capable of insidiously gaping through flesh without rest at a terrifying pace, using their numeric advantage to swarm the poor prey like a bunch of rabid locusts, turning even more vicious once they pick the scent of blood.

The best way to deal with them, as with every other mutant, is picking them from a distance. In the event such approach is impossible, we recommend the use of pistol against them, since such creatures have rather frail bodies which can withstand one or two bullets and due to the fact that a pistol or other weapon with limited dimensions is more easily maneuvered on the very likely scenario that they will overwhelm you.

On a small sidenote, some stalkers speak of a special kin of terrorbunny, describing them as “white and larger than your average mutated carnivorous rabbit”. The validity of such claims is yet to be attested.

My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic Intellectual propriety belongs to Hasbro
All S.T.A.L.K.E.R. installments Intellectual propriety belongs to GSC game world
I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.

CP. I : A Wonderful new world.

CP. I – A wonderful new world

“Why do these people fight over charred remains of civilization? Why they are so interested on the Zone ? Surely, it must mean more than simple trinkets, to draw them deeper and deeper into it…”

Just a fraction of light reached me. Each bone of my body was aching with pain. Something to do with being beneath a pile of rubble. It was far too heavy for me to lift. The mere effort I was doing to keep myself breathing was downright draining me.

The light grew stronger and stronger through the crack. Something was coming toward me, of which the mere realization made my mind burst from pain, incapable of holding a conscientious level of thought. When the sound of voices drew nearer, I collapsed in exhaustion.

Pain. I guess, after everything I went through, the feeling itself was welcome. It meant I still had a miserable life ahead of me. Slowly, I opened my eyes, letting them grow accustomed to my surroundings.

============================== [><]=============================

My body was resting on an old bed. Above my head, another light. This one was static. It took some time to set my vision to focus it, but I did it anyway. Numbness kept a strong grip over my body, which somepony dragged out from under that accursed broken wall. My head still ached from insane pain.

I figured a change of scenery was needed, moving my head toward the other side of the room, to get a look at it.

It was raining through the window. A black coat of clouds filled the whole of the sky, as the water relentlessly hit the roof.

From my somewhat limited perspective, I concluded that I was being kept on the top floor of an old farmhouse. Ancient rural props and dust littered the place, the walls shown some holes, covered with planks of wood or even covered with solid furniture.

By this point, the sound of the rain made me fell asleep again.

============================== [><]=============================

The two mares talking nearby the bed wake me up. Hopefully, they were so absorbed by their conversation, that they had not noticed it.

“… but it is downright insane. You know we can’t have everypony hoofing around, especially after the raiders overtook the docks and the eastern scouting tower. Heck. They nearly drove us out, it is only a matter of time before they corner us up.”

“Look at him, see if he is at any state of running off the perimeter. Even if, by some dumb luck, he is able to sneak past the guards, the swamp itself will get him sacked in five minutes flat. If not the mutants, the raiders themselves will perforate him like a bath sponge. Besides, he wasn’t hoofing around. He was found. Iridox’s party bought him.”

“I do not need to remind you about that other unicorn she brought to us.”

“Do not mention him. I do not need to remind you that all of us regret the day that one walked inside the compound. But this one does not seem like him at all.”

“Iris reported she found it while raiding the X-58 vault.”

“A government plaything ?”

“Seem likely. Although the fact that they came up with a long lasting life support unit and used it to only safeguard experiments is ironical on itself. Also, Iris picked up the trail of mutants, a very peculiar trail."

“Why so ? these bastards always infest every little hole of the zone…”

“Because, it wasn’t really a trail, and it wasn’t made by normal wildlife mutants, it was made by the bigger ones. It looked like they trashed the place apart, looking for something. “

“Him ?”

“Not likely. If he had been at the life support unit, they would had spotted him fairly easily.”

“How long does it take to process his DNA tracing results ?”

“About a couple of hours. Then we’ll act accordingly.”

I opened my eyes just a bit to peek at them. The two mares were pegasai, one of them with a maroon fur, long hair on a ponytail style and dreamy green eyes, while the other one was dusk-colored with dark eyes and short silvery hair.

I had succumbed to sleep yet again.

============================== [><]=============================

Waking up after what seemed like a thousand years nap, I was feeling good enough to propel myself out of the bed. As I landed my hooves on the cold, wooden floor, I shook off any dizziness which was left.

After descending from the stairs and crossing the corridor, a voice beamed at me.

“Leaving so soon ? not even a “thank you, kind pegasai lady, for saving my ungrateful unicorn arse ?””

That maroon pegasai lady was bashfully smiling at me from her office, which door gave a direct look toward the corridor I was going through.

Without waiting for her to repeat the invitation, I stepped in.

Standing this close to her, I came to the realization she was even prettier form up close. Now I even got a glimpse of her cutie mark. An eagle.

“Thanks pegasai lady, you have my eternal gratitude, etc. now, can I ask for your permission to leave, or do you plan on keeping a grown stallion grounded ?”

Her eyes shifted to an even more naught glare. She was enjoying this.

“Why in such a hurry ? you got to be somewhere ? meet someone ? perhaps a date ? do sightseeing ? where do you plan on going ?”

She had a point. I did not had the slightest idea of where I was, or where to go. But again, I just said those things to tease her. Now, I was limited to stare her blankly.

“As I’ve thought. While I admire your brave eagerness, it wouldn’t do harm to do some reasoning, should we?” she smirked.

“First things first, unicorn, do you have a name ?”

Had I? all my memories, my past life, I just couldn’t reach them. For all I strained my mind, I could not find the answer to this simple question. It was all a haze now.

She crossed her hooves, glaring at me. “by the looks of it… we know more about you than yourself”. She put a device on her desk. It was a PDA.

I had reached it, touching the screen to read the current entry

“Lead researcher Nilos Hydrospin, report N-23. Project Mergequine.

Dear princess, the project specifications had been followed and we have very prominent results upon us. We’ve been able to improve gene strains at the rate of 3 days of work each one, rather slow due to the lack of field usage of the mentioned strains.

However, our attempts to reproduce a single strain had fell upon a problem: compability. As the three ponykind that populate equestrian, each individual has it’s own individuality, both of attitude and genetical, which thins down compatible exchangers.

We are currently developing two independent genetical strains in order to solve that issue: the first one, would be to modify ponykin reproductory system, to allow it to mutate toward the exchanger’s race equivalent, thus allowing a new individual to be created by sharing the features of both races.

The second one is meant to modify pony biological clock, making a particular individual age faster. With it, we wouldn’t have to wait after the subject reaches adult age, wasting valuable resources to grow a filly or a colt, which would eat like parasprites and give nothing back.

By my calculations, in a month we shall have useful strains of those particular genes in a month, still experimental, but nevertheless, will aid us in the long run. However, they drain resources which meant to be allocated on the main project

I also require a new batch of specimens in order to further advance the project. I know, your Mare-ness, of your displease of use of live subjects, I know that with each child that “disappear” in Equestria gives more and more fuel to the oppositionists of the monarchy, but our results are solid. Soon we’ll come with an useful batch, of courageous, relentless and obedient guards.”

“Lead researcher Nilos Hydrospin ,report N-24 . Project Mergequine.

Reporting in, your Mare-ness , the new batch of subjects arrived. Fortunately, they all seem healthy enough to be of use for the project. Accounted in 2 (two) pegasai, 2 (two) earth ponies and 1 (one) unicorn

Data on the subjects:

Subject N. 533
Race: pegasai
Gender: F
Name: Perina Cleverglass

Subject N. 212
Race: earth pony
Gender: C
Name : Rick Buckrigger

Subject N. 569
Race: pegasai
Gender: F
Name: Sarien Flourfetcher

Subject N. 817
Race: unicorn
Gender: C
Name: Boshan Hollowbane

Subject N. 230
Race: earth pony
Gender: F
Name: Valeria Brightmane

…”

There was more on the entry, but I simply lifted my eyes from it. I had spotted whenever the pegasai wanted me to see.

“Such a strange tale, isn’t it ?” she said. “to see that your whole past life is set on only four lines.”

“What is this “mergequine” project ? and what they have done to me ?”

“Calm down, boshie.”- great, I had been given a name two minutes ago, and she was already using it to call me in an embarrassing way- “first off, do you remember anything of your past?”

Now that I already knew my name, my line of thought slowly recalled long-forgotten memories, tracing down images, senses, people. Now I had an answer, a tangible one.

“I only recall the moment when I was just a little colt, playing off on the streets of Canterlot. Back then, it seems like a million years ago.Me and my friends would enjoy all day the sun that Celestia brought at us, disregarding the adults and their discussions about politics or taxes.” I’ve spoke on. “But one particular conversation with my mother, I can restructure. She was talking with my father about leaving Canterlot, and moving into the quick-growing cosmopolitan Ponyville, apply for a job onto the NPP. It was on that very day, I was around Canterlot, heading back home, but someponies found me first... the wrong kind of ponies”

“Explains quite a bit. Now, according to the data here, you’ve been onto a secret lab’s underground chamber for thirty one years”

“Thirty one ? but how they kept me alive through all this time ? food, water, air ?”

“According to our good doctor on the PDA, all of your needs were supplied by a life support unit. You just stood there in inanimate state, while they played with your gene pool.”

“But why ?”

“The data we digged already on this project “mergequine” suggest that it was an experiment to create super-ponies, to be used as genetically enhanced and overobedient royal guard, to deal with the threats of anypony who was opposing the monarchy. Luckly, the scientists had not survived off to see their offsprings, or either, to produce an adequate result to the project. They died of starvation after the first blowout trapped them underground”

“Blowout?”

“Come with me, you should see to understand.”

She walked toward outside the room, and I followed. Once outside the farmhouse, I could see.

The sky was now overcast, towering over the decrepit swamp.

Foul gases, humid air, bubbling noises. All of this things could be seen, most prominently outside the gates, where even once and now I could hear the wildlife, every time, it sounded like no animal I knew

Inside the gates, ponies worked, or to be more correct, pegasai worked. Some of them had a strange blue and white camo armor, they were working on, what I saw now, was a camp. One of them was cutting wood, other was feeding a campfire, and all sorts of trivial tasks.

The building we just left was the biggest of the camp, probably serving as headquarters for the authorities. The other buildings looked like a mishmash of decades old farm buildings with strange green clouds.

“Tell me, what do I see ?”

“What do you see, my friend, is limpid skies, us.” she paused a moment to draw breath on the humid air. “forsaken, homeless pegasai that made our home on this putrid landscape”

“Homeless pegasai ? but don’t you have a magical cloud city , with every luxury of civilization in it ?”

“You see, back in your colthood, there was a terrible accident at the NPP. This happened on the turmoil of a very delicate political situation. The princess herself was hard pressed by opposition groups to leave the throne and end an thousand-years monarchy in order to leave space for democracy, a republic, or whenever they had in mind. Of course, they used the NPP’s accident as political fuel to criticize the monarchic regimen. The accident itself modified the surrounding area of the NPP, changing fauna and flora, also, about fifty employees of the NPP were caught when the first explosion hit. So far, Celestia’s reign had no mortality rate, the accident changed the situation. It may look meager, but the implications of the accident had forced all of ponykind to abandon nearby civilization. it also meant the death or mutation of several animal species, as they food sources had been contaminated with biomagical radiation. But, to cut story short, Celestia herself decided to try to somehow fight back the biomagical waste, or at least, its byproducts.”

“So, all this flora and fauna outside…”

“Yes, it has been tainted. Not only the one on this swamp, but pretty much everything on a 75 km circle from the center. We name it, the Zone. Originally, the Zone only had 30 km. it somehow… grew. Creatures became more violent, anomalies more frequent, radiation more devastating. So, as I was saying, Celestia spearheaded the very first expedition into the NPP, the first of many led by the monarchic council. Thing is, not one of them had ever came back. And a few months after an expedition was sent, the Zone itself seemed to react to the defilement. It grew, changed, adapted… just like a living being… I would say that the Zone isn’t even part of this world, it is an different, detached and unnatural dimension.”

“Very interesting, but where does this link to limpid skies?”

“A few days after the second expedition into the Zone, all pegasai were sick. It started as atrophy, numbness, itching, but it was far worse. Something, or someone, was draining the wingpower from all of Equestria. Eventually, we couldn’t even maintain Cloudsdale up. The city came down crashing, and with it, us. From that day on, we were land-bound. Those sickly green clouds are all that we could salvage from our beloved Cloudsdale. So, we built the settlement you have your feet on, Swampsdale, and formed limpid skies, a faction which conglomerates most of the Equestria’s pegasai, since then, we are working down here, searching the zone, learning about it, so one day, we can finally get our lost wingpower back and reclaim the skies again”

“I once learned that pegasai were responsible for the weather, without Cloudsdale, how does it regulate?”

“By itself. On our first months down here, we were really freaked out by it, but somehow, it has some regularity. Although the swamp only seems to offer dark clouds and rain.” She shivered.

“Some things you mentioned early, anomalies, mutants and radiation… I would like to know more.”

“So be it then. Anomalies are a physical manifestation of the zone energy. They seem to defy the very own laws of physics, being able to injure or even kill you off the bat. Which is why you should be really careful when walking around. Some of my boys had recklessly rushed to an artifact sprouting in the middle of a boiler. The thing pretty much charred them up into a pile of ashes. Sad, really, but teaches us a lesson.”

The image on my head about it seemed as vivid as her words, I could hear every single scream those unfortunate souls yelled

“Now that I mentioned artifacts, it would be a good advice to keep an eye for them. They are worth a fortune, small trinkets that modify your metabolism, one of the most powerful of them is worth piles of gold, diamonds or even pure plutonium, they give off to the wearer supernatural powers, like, being able to withstand electric shock, radiation pockets, or even swerve bullets fired at you. The more dangerous anomalies you find, you can be sure they contain more powerful and rare artifacts.”

“Now let me guess, as I go closer into the center, higher the stakes?”

“Yes, more dangerous anomalies, more valuable artifacts, more interested the other stalkers become in controlling the land… and a whole shitload of rising radiation”

At the moment, an ominous howl soared from the depths of the swamp

“Damn, another pack of those beasts… we’ve been trying to clear the swamp perimeter, but they just keep coming back…”

“So, these are the mutated wildlife ?”

“Right. Common animals that had been touched by radiation, their very appearance changed, behavior, the whole physiology was corrupted, and they eventually became little more than mindless , rabid beasts. Keep your eyes open while battling them, they always seem to have a dirty trick or two up their sleeves” she nodded.“I guess that pretty much summarizes it. You should take it easy now, have a walk around and fix yourself a drink at the bar. If you need me, I’ll be at my office.”

She smiled at me again and turned to enter the building again.

“Wait. You have not told me your name yet…”

“Ah… i am Ameara“

“Well, thank you, Ameara. For saving my ungrateful unicorn arse”

She laughed while disappearing over the doorway inside.

I had a lot on my mind to digest then… all my relatives, acquaintances, friends that I had on my past life had now been long lost. Probably killed by the horrors of the zone, or long forgotten me inside it. This new world now laid before my eyes, a corrupted, tainted shadow of our once glorious Equestria, just stood as a melancholic mockery of the past.

I needed a drink.

“So, one horn-bearer isn’t enough, she brought another…”

The bar (really, just a modified tool shed with a balcony and benches) served as refectory for the limpid skies, with several stump tables and wooden benches. A radio nearby was playing a strange, sad tune.

“I guess… I actually do have a name, you know?”

“Look… just because Ameara is the trusting type, it doesn’t mean that you are welcome here, unicorn. Don’t make yourself too comfortable”

The barmaid was a olive colored pegasai mare, with bored blue eyes and a deep green mane. She was doing her hooves.

“Look, I just want something to make me forget…”

“Aren’t we all ? here, have your poison. You can thank our officer for this one…”

I took the glass and stared at it… probably vodka. It had a nice fragrance.

I’ve emptied it on two sips. The alcohol burned down my throat, distracting my head.

“You said, other horn-bearer… which unicorn came here before I did ?”

“Well… let’s just say that he wasn’t exactly what we thought he was, and backstabbed our whole community, for his own gain”

“But I am not like him”

“You’d best be not. Otherwise, whenever the swamp could manage to throw at you would be like puppies compared to our retribution.”

“Sure thing.”

As I said those words, gunshots were heard from deep onto the swamp. A fire or two appeared on the horizon.

“Those out there are our men… dying, because of him.”

The radio nearby halted the music and a voice came to life.

“ …coordinates are 87 – 51, we are currently under attack, if any stalker nearby can hear this, aid us. Repeat, our post has been overwhelmed by a pack of mutants, our coordinates are 87 – 51, we are currently un…”

“Is this normal ?”

“More than you think. There are just some rookies that cannot keep their feet out of our swamp.”

Ameara’s head popped from the window of her office, and she shouted at us

“Softmane, send the unicorn to me ASAP.”

The olive mare just shrugged and resumed polishing her hooves

“If the boss want to see you, you’d better not keep her waiting.”

I nodded and went to Ameara’s office.

============================== [><]=============================

As I removed the blindfold, the decrepit swamp quickly came to focus. half an hour walking blindfolded , into circles, back and forth, led by a pegasus, was no fun at all. Through all the travel I had to hear him snickering every time I fell on the water or tripped over a stump, which I could swear he led me to ,just to make a fool of myself.

As I shook out the water of the jacket which was issued to me, I drew closer to the nearby pond. As I crept closer, the Geiger counter started to beep. The water from the swamp was contaminated with minor radiation. Looking at the whole area form there, it surely didn’t look like it was originally a swamp, but instead, like fields from a farm, which time and the severe rainy weather had been able to drown the fields and humidify the crops , ultimately leading to the formation of the bog. I glared at the waters.

And I stood there, examining my reflection. A grey-furred unicorn with an unkempt dark mane, with persecuting dark brown eyes, wearing a worn leather jacket and carrying beige saddlebags. On my flanks, my cutie mark was visible, it was my first time actually eyeing it. It was a black gas mask. Also, across my neck was a necklace with a gun attached to the end. Of course, I didn’t needed it, since as a unicorn, I’d would just TK the gun and fire at will, unlike pegasai or earth ponies, which would need to move their necks to grab the weapon attached to the necklace in order to fire, since it would be highly impolite to keep walking around with an firearm attached to their mouth everywhere they went, or, the other way around, the time which would be spent unsheathing a weapon could pretty well mean the meantime a barrage of bullets hit their flank. But at my current state, I’d doubted my capacity to effectively aim a weapon through TK.

The other possessions i had been given were amounted to:

A hoofbag full of bolts

Two ammo mags

A combat knife

A compass

Five bandages

Two handfuls of anti-radiation drugs

Two medkits

Ameara told me to go south once I’d been released from the blindfold, to reach the stalker camp and aid them, or, if it was too late, clear the area of mutants.

Using the compass, I set my course toward south. Walking softly and cautiously, I had been able to spot it. An anomaly.

It looked like a big protuberance of air, enclosed by some kind of translucent gust-made power field. I flew a bolt off my pack and threw at it, just as Ameara instructed me.

The anomaly’s power field temporarily broke, releasing a shockwave, rustling leaves from the ground and some dust. I took the time to define the anomaly’s extension.

After assuring myself of the anomaly’s size, I’ve been able to find an alternative route. As soon as I went toward it, my Geiger counter started beeping insanely. I’d landed near another of these anomalies. backing up a little bit , I threw another of those bolts at it, and like the other, it activated.

Only this time, there was a bright stone floating inside it. An artifact

At the time, I analyzed my options… waddle carefully from both anomalies right through the middle, or… throw a bolt at one and hop onto its position while it was active.

The second option, besides being more risky, seemed more attractive for me.
Keeping my TK sharp, I floated the bolt above the anomaly, while stretching myself to rush through it.

3… 2… 1… Now !

As I saw those clouds of dust rising from the earth, I rushed toward the epicenter of the anomaly, my belly mane feeling the gravitational disturbance as I hoped over the shockwave. At the epicenter, I merely spared a second to grasp the artifact. But while escaping the anomaly, one of the waves hit my back right leg.

Fortunately, it was just bruised by it. after tending to my leg, I decided to take a closer look to the artifact.

Shaped like a plump plastic bag filled with air, the stone had several holes, upon each one I could spy it’s softly glowing core. At the moment I drew it close, my Geiger counter started to build up the rad counter. It built up my radiation level while used. I just stored the stone on my bag and went on, later off, I’d ask one of the limpid sky guys about it, it was risky wearing it without actually knowing if its benign effects would be of use to me.

As I traveled further south, I saw a faint smoke rising from some hills nearby.

Rushing toward the hills, I relied on only my Geiger counter to avoid the anomalies. I couldn’t just spare a moment to safely probe them, seeing as the stalkers were still holding out against the mutants.

The closer I had gotten to their camp, the louder the howl of those beasts blasted my ears.

While running toward the makeshift camp, i gestured my neck, propelling the pistol handle toward my mouth. With the trigger safely kept between my tongue, I aimed at one of those abominations

Bang… Bang… Bang…

As the three shots broke through the mutant’s flesh, it lifelessly stumbled to the ground.

The other five beasts were attracted to the noise. As they faced me, I was able to discern them.

They were huge meat bags, standing over four slim legs, each one ending on a single sharp protuberance. The “head” was compromised of two swine ears and three large eyes, each one of them featuring small holes which closed and opened, while the pupil was on the middle of the circle formed by several of these holes, while the nose was completely absent, and the mouth was literally a toothless orifice. The back of the body ended on a stump tail.

As the pack moved toward me, I was able to strike a few more shots at them. Three or four actually hitting a mutant and the rest of the clip missing them.

At that moment, they came up on me. Lifting a leg and using it to rip my body, the first two of them scratched hard my face, dripping blood all over it. but after I bucked them away, I was able to raise my combat knife in order to defend myself against the others.

Moving the knife menacingly on a wide arch, I was able to keep them at bay and get close to the container that marked the encampment. Atop it, the body of a stalker was laid, I couldn’t tell if he was simply unconscious or out cold.

I simply reached the back of the container, where a wooden stair was hastily put to allow access toward the top. As I climbed it, I still kept my TK strong enough to keep the mutants at a safe distance.

Once I was out of their reach, they readily went back to the corpse they were scavenging before I arrived. It was a nasty job, since they used they sharp mono-claws in order to “tenderize” the meat of the dead stalker. Unable to see such desecration, I reloaded my gun and shot a few bullets at them. Unable to reach me, they scurried away, except one that was trying to drag the dead body with him. A few bullets later, the stubborn monster was dead.

From atop the container, I observed while the four remaining mutants fled to the nearby woods, leaving behind a terrible mess. In the middle of the encampment, broken pieces of what were a ham radio could be seen.

By checking the nearby stalker’s signals, i discerned he was alive, although suffering from massive blood loss, the result of several claw scratches from the mutants. By floating one of the medkits and using it to stack those wounds, i was able to bring him back to conscience.

“What, what… happened ?”

“It’s okay, do not move much. I’ve mended you up, buddy”

“But the striders… they go.. got Bas-Bassiliev”

“I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do for him…”

“I can…cannot hear them anymore, you killed al…all of them ?”

“Two. The four others ran away”

“Bu…but they would never leave f…food behind… they were n…not running from you… there is ju…just… not enough ti…me”

“Do not fear, I will lead you to my friends and they will help you. In a few days you’ll be back on your four hooves.”

He coughed violently, then strongly pulled me closer to his face, glaring at my eyes fiercely

“Y..you simply… do…not…understand… there is… no..t…enou…enough ti..me… it is too…late… f-for… both of…us. here it…co...mes”

The weather changed violently.

Wind roared insanely, the sky was tinged with red and the earth seemed to shake incessantly as if it shuddered in anger at the world above.

Then, a deafening thunder brightened the horizon.

With horror, I noticed that the very whole sanguine-colored horizon was coming toward me, crackling with thunder. The mere instant I took to realize this fact was enough for it to reach me.

First came the darkness, even while I kept my two eyes wide open, all I saw was black, endless void.

Then, my thoughts were interrupted by a stiff, cool breeze passing over the encampment. For a brief moment, everything around me was completely silent.

And as the last thought I could grasp, came the pain. It felt like my heart was stabbed by a thousand rusty knifes at the same time, so intense and exhilarating the experience was.

After instants that seemed an eternity of torture, my conscience blacked out.

…

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PDA entry:

The zone encyclopedia

#/filefolder- Bestiary

#/filenam - Strider

#/filedescript – a common sight on the zone, the striders are an example of the most abhorrent changes that the animal residents of the zone underwent due to it’s influence. Years of adaptation on a harsh, radiated environment has deeply modified the genes of what were once mere domestic pigs. The biological changes are the development of keratin compounds, such as claws and a thick exoskeleton, a deep increase on the creature’s nervous system capacity, allowing it to effectively cover distance with ease and an enhancement on the regenerative capabilities. also, the mutant pig has shown a curiously interesting feature, the development of a third eye and the interconnection between their photosensitive sensorial receptor with the olfactory ones, the latter being incorporated on the other. As a result of this, it is theorized that striders can actually smell through their eyes, helping them to keep track of a prey and “sense” potentially dangerous anomalies. On the psychological changes underwent by the mutant pig, the most noticeable are a sharp increase of territorial behavior, along with aggressiveness. Striders usually form packs of four to eight individuals, with omnivore diet, it is not particularly picky about its meal, ranging from small mammals of any kind to ill-prepared stalkers.

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I do not own, neither lay claim to the intellectual properties that this fan-fiction is based on. This work was made entirely for entertainment and appreciation, and should not be distributed for profit
This is a My little pony : FiM fan fiction Made by Hoghound.