Fallout: Equestria: Written in Sand

by TinnedSardonic

Chapters

How I Died and Learned to Live With It
Strays
Heat, Dust and Thirst
"Recuperation"
Fancy Meeting You Here
One Way or the Other
Best of Intentions
Introduction

How I Died and Learned to Live With It

Chapter One: How I Died and Learned to Live With It

Survival.

That little voice in the back of your mind.

Shush now, can you hear it?

Of course you can.

Everything that has ever lived, is living and will live has heard it, hears it and will hear it.

No exceptions.

You can talk about duty. You can talk about honour. You can talk about fear and fury and faith. About promises. About vengeance. About justice. Love.

But the one thing that can galvanise somepony into action above all others is the Reaper's blade scything towards their neck.

Mostly, they duck and run.

The thing about ponies willing to die, to forsake their own survival, is that they seldom live to enjoy the things they martyred themselves for.

Never understood that, personally.

Besides, this is the Wasteland. There's nothing here worth dying for.

The caravan made its slow, cautious way across the poisoned landscape.

It was hardly an unimaginable occurrence. Plenty of travellers still made trips across the Equestrian Wasteland. But, year on year, the roads became more dangerous as the smaller settlements were overrun by raiders, abandoned by their occupants or simply had a poor season and starved to death when the next caravan didn’t show, the desperate survivors braving the desolation and scattering across the wastes.

This particular caravan was toiling its way south on the road out of New Appleloosa. There was only the one wagon, drawn by an old brahmin, and half-a-dozen ponies. Of the latter, four were leading the caravan, armed and watching the surroundings. Raiders and the local wildlife were an ever-constant danger in the Wasteland. They were well aware of the risks, but opportunities for caps were few and far between in any settlement, at least to those without something special to contribute. But the caravans always had a use for somepony with the nerve to hold a weapon. All they had to do, they were told, was to keep their eyes peeled and ears cocked.

But sometimes, vigilance isn’t enough to save you.

As the caravan passed the skeletal remains of a pre-war billboard, a metal sphere came sailing through a gap in the tangle of twisted metal. One guard noticed and cried out, throwing herself aside. The grenade bounced off the highway’s cracked surface with a click, bouncing twice to come to rest within feet of the wagon’s brahmin.

The grenade detonated, the blast knocking the brahmin down and peppering it with shrapnel. The pony riding on the wagon’s seat was thrown off, her shoulder cracking as she hit the unforgiving ground. The brahmin broke into a chorus of pained howling, punctuated with cursing.

The raiders emerged from their hiding places at the edges of the road, spraying gunfire at the guards. What they lacked in discipline and accuracy, they completely failed to make up for with enthusiasm, screeching taunts and threats at the startled guards.

The lead guard, toting a heavy rifle on a makeshift battle saddle, loosed a pair of shots that struck the first charging pony in the chest. He went down, tumbling to the ground, his weapon skittering away across the cracked tarmac. Before the guard could acquire another target, a shotgun blast caught her in the face, pulping her left eye. She staggered backwards, pawing at her ruined face until a volley of shots from the remaining bandits punched through her light barding. She fell down, coughing up droplets of blood that were lost in the spreading pool from the wounds in her chest.

One of the remaining guards, so young she was barely more than a filly, backed away from the approaching raiders, inexpertly firing her revolver. A second grenade was thrown in her direction. She tripped and fell as she panicked and tried to flee. Her revolver fell from her mouth as she screamed as the grenade came to rest just in front of her, hooves scrabbling at the ground, trying to escape. The grenade exploded, throwing her limp, broken body into the side of the wagon.

A unicorn guard toting a shotgun took one look at the bandits, turned tail and ran. In the chaos, nopony noticed him disappear into the thicket of gnarled, dead bushes at the edge of the road. A stray bullet caught him in the hindleg, knocking it out from under him and sending him tumbling to the ground. He lay still in the undergrowth, trying to stifle the sound of his pained gasping.

The last guard backed away from the approaching attackers, spraying fire from his telekinetically-held sub-machine gun. Two of the raiders were hit, screeching and swearing at him as they returned fire. The guard ducked around a fallen tree that lay across the road and started to reload, fumbling the action as a bullet clipped the log inches from his head. He never noticed the last raider galloping up behind him. With a low sweep, the guard’s hind legs were knocked out from under him by the lance wielded by the attacking pony. As he tried to scramble to his hooves, the lance was driven through his neck. He jerked and twitched his last, the magic field around his weapon sputtering out. Finally, he lay still.

I planted a hoof on the fallen pony's side. With a grunt, I tore my lance free, sending a spray of gore spattering across the ground. I casually tossed the lance upwards and caught it again in a more secure grip. I wiped the bloodied head on the fallen guard's body, leaving a red-brown smear across his green coat. The rest of the gang were whooping and cheering as they started looting the bodies on the ground, arguing over who'd gotten which kill. Good for them. Personally, I’d take first dibs at the wagon.

I trotted over to the wagon, lance held at the ready between my teeth. Unicorns had it it easy, with their magic. Real ponies had to deal with other ponies’ slobber whenever they wanted to trade weapons. I was a lucky pony… after a fashion. None of the gang were mad keen on hoof-to-hoof, preferring their guns and explosives. Me? I preferred it up close and personal. Anypony could pull a trigger.

The brahmin harnessed to the wagon was sobbing in pain as I passed it without a glance. Verdict was standing over its prone form, shoving a new magazine into her pistol. I heard the rapid banging of gunshots as she emptied her weapon into the stricken brahmin. Its howl told me she hadn't gone for the kill-shot. Verdict's cackle told me she wasn't planning to any time soon.

A cough near my hooves made me look down. The wagon-driver pony was weakly trying to get up, her foreleg bent at what looked like a painful angle. She became aware of me just as I raised a forehoof and slammed it into her head. She collapsed. I hit her twice more to be sure, hearing the crunch of her skull cracking under my hoof. She should've thanked me. The others would have killed her a lot more slowly than that.

I stepped around the back of the wagon, lance readied. I reared up and placed my hooves on the tailboard and almost fell back on my haunches when a head poked out from between the flaps of canvas. Without a second thought, I whipped the lance around, the jagged head ripping into the pony's neck. The pony went limp, letting out a pained gurgle. They started thrashing, forehooves pawing at the blood running down their chest.

I pulled on the lance, dragging the pony out from the wagon. They toppled onto the road surface as the lance head came free. I angrily kicked a hoof into the pony's head before giving the body a look-over. It was small. Too small to be an adult pony.

“Stupid foal,” I grunted under my breath.

“Aw fuck, you did it again.”

I growled on reflex. Spitting out the lance, resting it on an outstretched foreleg, I turned to snarl at who had spoken. “Fuck off, it startled me.”

“Pfft, you scaredy-pony. Shame, I was lookin’ forward to a new pet around camp.”

“Fuck off, Shears.”

The mare who'd rounded the corner of the wagon cackled at me, tossing her rust-brown mane back out of her eyes. She leant against the wagon's wheel, idly kicking at the body of one of the guards. “Well,” she said in that twisting-the-blade tone she loved to use. “Maybe ifsomepony else were to-”

She didn't finish that sentence, because I snatched up my lance and whipped it around, cracking the haft against her head. She staggered, smacking the other side of her head against the side of the wagon and falling to her knees. She let out a pathetic shriek and scrambled to her hooves. As she rose, she dipped her head to grab the shotgun hanging from the strap around her neck, but paused when I hefted my lance menacingly.

“Go on,” I spat around the length of wood in my mouth. “Go for it. I'll rip you in half.”

'Please, oh, please, go for it.'

For a moment, I thought she might. I watched her eyes dart between the bloody head of my lance and the grip of her shotgun. Just as she took a breath and dipped her head again, a third pony skidded to a halt in between us before she got badly hurt. Ember, our gang’s ‘leader’. “Break it up!” he roared at us, shoving aside my lance with one hoof. “Both of you! Or I’ll skin the pair of you!”

I snarled again, but I also lowered the lance. Fuck Ember. Seriously. We all knew the only reason I didn’t kill him and take over was because the others didn’t respect me like they did him. And they barely respected him at all.

Ember moved away. Shears leant in closer, making me recoil in disgust. “Next time, killjoy,” she whispered menacingly, before turning and walking away, snapping her tail at me. I ignored her and went back to the wagon. We both knew she couldn’t do a thing to me. Not since I’d given her the beating of a lifetime a while back. I was just itching for a rematch, and this time it’d end with my hooves on her neck, not by knocking her through a window.

I disregarded the first volley of gunfire, thinking that the others were shooting up the bodies some more. They did that. Fucking waste of ammo. It was when I heard Ember howl in pain that I looked around the corner of the wagon.

The old stallion was down on the tarmac, hooves scrabbling at a pair of bullet holes in his side. Verdict was sprawled on the ground not far away, missing half of her skull. The others were running around, yelling and firing their weapons in the air wildly.

'Oh great. They've gone crazy. -Er than they were already.'

That was my first thought. I didn't have time for a second before the next volley of shots flew down from the sky. I registered the snapping of ricochets from the tarmac beneath me, then an almighty blow to my side that knocked the wind out of me. I staggered, gasping for breath, my lance falling from my grip. I barely felt the pain in my flank or the feel of warm blood oozing out under my barding through the sudden, desperate need to breathe. I dropped to my knees, trying to suck in a breath that wouldn't come.

As I finally coaxed air into my lungs, the gunfire that had been ever-present in the background suddenly died away. I looked around again. The others were all down. Only Ember was still moving, reaching a shaking hoof towards his dropped weapon. His hoof came to rest on the rifle's casing before he passed out and went limp. I turned my head upwards and finally laid eyes on our attacker. A vaguely pony-shaped… shape swooped through the air above me. It spun around and came back towards me, breaking into a steep dive.

I lowered my head and snatched up my lance. I reared up and threw it at the descending pegasus. It was, I'll admit, not the best throw. The pegasus made the slightest, totally needless, adjustment with one wing and kept coming. It did, however, buy me just enough time to dive aside, behind the wagon. I wasn't quite quick enough to avoid a bullet that clipped my hindleg, knocking me off-balance. I heard the pegasus pull out of his dive, almost feeling the beat of his wings above me as he regained altitude.

I scrambled into the back of the wagon, trying to hide. Fuck. Fucking feather-brains and their fucking wings. Unicorns, earth ponies, no problem. Line ‘em up and I’ll chop ‘em down. Pegasi, griffins? Cowards flew out of reach all the fucking time.

A crate beside my head suddenly exploded into splinters as a pair of shots penetrated the side of the wagon. I flinched as something wet spattered my face. I threw myself flat, knocking aside several boxes and scattering their contents across the floor. I scrambled as far towards the front of the wagon as I could, trying to make myself as small as possible.

'Okay, think, think, think. There has to be a way out of this.'

I twisted onto my back and watched the flaps. They were pushed aside and a head poked in. I grabbed the nearest box between my hooves and threw it. I was rewarded with a pained grunt and the head disappearing back through the flaps. Hooray. I had achieved more than the entire rest of the gang combined.

Another pair of shots punched through the heavy fabric, missing my head by inches. I flinched, trying to push myself down through the floor.

The pegasus thrust his head back through the flaps. He was wearing a fucking ridiculous hat. That was what I noticed first. The second thing was that said ridiculousness was only matched by the fearsomeness of the battle saddle he was wearing.

“Ah well,” I panted, feeling oddly calm about the whole situation, given the circumstances. “You can’t blame me for trying, right?”

The reply was cold and furious. “Ah reckon Ah can.” There was a metallic clicking as the battle saddle reloaded. “It’s muh policy.”

“Fu-”

I didn’t finish that sentence. Hay, I barely started it. A single bullet flew across the intervening space and hit me square in the skull.

I awoke.

Wasn’t expecting that.

I had a searing pain in my forehead and had blood dripping into my eyes.

Was expecting that. Wasn’t expecting to feel it.

There- uh. Pain. World… spinning. Can’t… word. Brain. Action. Think. That‘s word.

Face. Cold. Hard. Rough.

I was lying on the surface of the highway in a slowly-spreading pool of my own blood. The smell of it was thick in my nostrils.

Up. Get. Plan. Had. Do. Speed.

I managed to lift my head and take a look around. The pegasus had dragged me out of the wagon and tossed me onto the road. Bastard. I placed my front hooves ahead of me and pulled myself forward, feebly scrabbling at the ground behind me with my hind legs. I managed to reach the rear of the wagon. Then came the hard part. I braced my hooves on the tailboard and heaved myself upwards. A fierce burst of pain shot through my head and I collapsed back onto the road surface with a whimper.

I must have blacked out for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, the pain in my head was visible. I swear I could see the entire world pulsing around me as the pain ebbed and flared.

I slowly pulled myself onto my haunches, painfully aware of the constant stream of blood down the side of head. I could feel it soaking into my coat and mane, matting the hair into twisted, gory clumps. I flinched and shook my head as a trickle ran into my eye. I sat there for a few moments, waiting for the pain to die down, just a little, before I threw myself at the wagon's tailboard.

I managed to get my front half into the wagon. With an effort that sent the pain in my head to new heights, I pulled myself forward, falling onto the floor of the wagon. With a moan that trailed off into a choked sob, I thrust my forehooves forward, caught purchase on the rough wooden planks and crawled forward – a yard’s distance that lasted for a thousand years.

My hoof clicked against the empty bottle that had contained the healing potion I’d downed just before the pegasus had poked his head through the flaps. There had to be another one here… somewhere. Who carried just one healing potion? This was a caravan, right? Trading and shit. They should have had hundreds of the things.

I weakly raised my head and looked around. There, just visible over the edge of a box: the neck of a glass bottle. It was only a few inches from my muzzle, but suddenly that seemed like just too far right now.

'Maybe I should just… close my eyes… just fo-… just for a moment…'

With a primal growl, I threw my head forward, gripping the neck of the bottle between my teeth. I fumbled my first few attempts to pull the cap off, eventually spitting the thing aside. I raised my head and chugged the potion. It made a pleasant burning sensation in my throat as it went down. Then I coughed and retched.

'That's not what… .'

I inspected the remainder of the liquid closely through the grey haze obscuring my vision. It was amber. Whiskey. Not a healing potion.

I let out a deranged chuckle. I was too weak to be angry.

I raised a shaking hoof to to the lip of the box the whiskey had been in and tipped it towards me. Various bottles and cans fell to the floor around me. I blearily moved my head to and fro, searching for a familiar one. There. That was either a healing potion or a… a… thing that looks like a healing potion. But isn’t.

As my vision darkened, I managed to raise the bottle and chug down the contents before passing out.

I awoke.

I grinned weakly.

'Fuck you, feather-brain,' I thought triumphantly. 'Next time, more bullets.'

The scent of blood and alcohol made my nose twitch.

A burst of adrenaline shot through me and I hastily lifted my head and looked around. As I pulled my head upwards, there was a brief feeling of stickiness, followed by pain as the half-dried blood gluing me to the wooden boards was pulled apart.

Darkness.

How long had I been unconscious? It must have been hours. I was lucky nothing had stumbled over the caravan while I'd been out. Being caught unawares in my sleep was not something I wanted to repeat any time soon.

I shifted my hooves about, knocking into the scattered tins and bottles. After a brief search, which included plenty of false positives, I found another healing potion and downed it. I lay down for a little longer, to give it time to work. After a few minutes of lying there, feeling the various pains ebb away, I summoned the strength to find my way to the back of the wagon and half-climb, half-fall out onto the tarmac.

It had been mid-afternoon when we'd hit the caravan. Now, it was evening, quickly getting on towards dusk. The grey cloud cover overhead was streaked with brownish-yellows and muddy reds.

I begin stumbling around, checking the bodies of the others. More for something to do than anything else. If they hadn't cut my throat in the few hours I'd been unconscious, they were dead. Couldn't have happened to nicer ponies.

I found Shears' body first, crumpled on the ground. She'd been running away when she'd been shot. Typical. All talk, no guts. I regarded her contemptuously for a moment. That smug, self-satisfied face, with its 'twist-the-blade' smirk…

I lifted my forelegs and brought my hooves stamping down on her head. There was a crunch. Then I was smashing my hooves into her corpse, again and again. I don't know how many times I hit the body before I stopped and stepped away to inspect the result. Again, I don't know how long I stared at the broken corpse, watching the blood slowly seeping from the gashes, looking at the exposed patches of bone beneath a sheen of gore.

“Bitch,” I muttered as I turned away at last.

Ember was still lying where I'd last seen him, outstretched hoof just touching his rifle. Verdict, minus a considerable amount of brain matter, was nearby. One by one, I staggered to their bodies and did nothing but stare, snort, shake my head and leave them lying there.

When I'd finished, I slumped to my haunches in the middle of the road. Even my brief wander around the wagon had drained me of my strength. My head was pounding, my flank was sore from the first bullet I'd caught, I had scratches and grazes from where I'd dragged myself across the tarmac and the minor wound to my hindleg was starting to ache.

But I was alive, which is more than could be said for everypony else present.

I spent a few minutes picking over the wagon and the bodies that lay scattered around, stopping every now and then as the pain in my head resurged. I eventually decided to take the sub-machine gun from the body of my first kill. I at least knew how to use it. Point, pull trigger until the banging stops, reload and repeat. Maintenance, I couldn't do. I ripped a strap of leather from the dead pony's barding and used it to fashion a strap for the gun, letting it hang around my neck. I salvaged my saddlebag from where I'd dumped it at the side of road before the hit and filled it with spare ammo for my new gun, two healing potions I liberated from the wagon and whatever water and food I could find. Never pass up an opportunity for salvage.

It was only when I'd finished, picking up my lance from where I'd discarded it, that I stopped and fell back to my haunches.

I was alone now.

In the Equestrian Wasteland, that was synonymous with 'stupid', 'suicidal' and a whole lot of other horrible words. Like 'prey'.

For the first time, there was no-pony to order me around, put me down and beat down on me when they were bored.

And I didn't have a fucking clue what to do.

I pressed a hoof to the aching spot on my head, feeling the raw scar tissue that followed a curved path across my skull, just above my eye.

My first instinct was to find the feather-brain who'd shot me and force-feed him his own wings. But I was in no shape to wrestle a foal, let alone go pick a fight with somepony who'd killed me once already.

With a sigh, I turned and set my hooves walking in the direction of 'home' – the gang's camp.

What else could I do? The nearest settlement was New Appleloosa, which had been harassed by the gang in the past. We hadn't always managed to take the caravans we'd attacked, and there could be any number of ponies out there who'd recognise me for a 'raider'. Especially covered in blood as I was.

I managed about three hundred yards before the pain in my hindleg got too much to bear. I stumbled to a halt and dropped my saddlebag. I rooted through it for the healing bandages I'd left in them. The gang had always expected – read 'forced' – me to do all the miscellaneous patching up they always needed, on account of being the youngest and newest member for a long while. Then they'd bitch and complain when they went out scavenging again and the bandage came loose.

It took longer than I'd like to admit to get the bandage – threadbare and dirtied as it was – tied around the wound. The exertion made my head pound and I had to sit down for a few minutes afterwards.

I hated feeling weak.

The pre-twilight gloom was darkening fast into night. No-pony with sense stayed abroad in the Wasteland after dark; either you grabbed a light and made yourself a beacon for every zombie, bloatsprite and raider for miles or you stumbled blindly into a patch of radiation or taint or just fell into a ditch and broke your legs. With that in mind, I forced myself onto my hooves and pressed onwards.

Before I'd made the halfway point, the grey haze was clouding my vision again. I narrowly avoided tumbling headlong down a steep incline and followed that up byactually tumbling down the gentler slope I diverted to. I lay at the bottom for a moment, catching my breath. As I clambered to my hooves, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I froze and turned my head towards it. Between a pair of gnarled trees, a pony-shaped silhouette stood. For a moment, we both stood there, watching each other.

Then the other pony let out a raspy moan.

“Oh, for fuck's sake…” I muttered. I sank to my haunches and wearily watched the zombie as it approached. It was a particularly gruesome specimen; somepony had evidently recently shot it more than a few times. One leg was bent at an absurd angle, the zombie ignoring the cracking it made every time it put its weight on it and its eye socket had been smashed open, the eyeball hanging down its face on a strand of sinew. Only its freaky regenerating powers were keeping it up and mobile.

It reached me and managed to rear up on its hindlegs and let out a feeble growl. I threw myself forwards, driving my forehooves into its chest. It fell onto its back, weakly slapping at me with its hooves. I pinned it down with one hoof and raised the other above its face.

“I,” I said, slamming the hoof into its muzzle. “Amnot.” I hit it again. “Beingkilled.” And again. “Byyou!” It stopped struggling and lay still. “Bitch!” I finished with one last stamp to the face.

I stepped off the zombie's corpse and sat down again, panting. I could feel all of my legs trembling from exhaustion and adrenaline. After a minute or so of heavy breathing, I stood up and kept walking.

The pounding on the inside of my skull increased with every step.

I had never been happier to see the squalid little camp that was 'home'.

It was a collection of small wooden cabins, dilapidated and borderline ruinous from decades of neglect. A few ramshackle shacks had been erected by the more enterprising members of the gang that were just as cold, draughty and vermin-infested as the original cabins. The camp was nestled in a dip in the landscape, which kept off the worst of the wind and kept it hidden from wandering zombies and raiders. A small pen for prisoners had been bashed together against the wall of the largest building. Ember knew somepony down south who paid good caps for them.

I suddenly realised that I was lying down. When had I decided to do that?

I forced myself to my hooves, took one step forward and retched. The taste of stomach acid, whiskey and half-digested food filled my mouth as I spat out a bitter wad of puke.

Another step, another rush of nausea and fatigue.

Step by step, I staggered to the particularly run-down cabin that I'd claimed for my own. I slumped against the door, my laboured breathing doing nothing to replenish my strength. I couldn't even raise a hoof to push the door open. I ended up ramming my head against it, the thump sending a bolt of pain searing into my brain. The misshapen door stuck on the warped wooden floorboards, forcing me to repeat myself twice more, accompanied by a groan that slipped between my lips. It probably would have looked fucking hilarious, had it not left a smear of gore across the door as I forced my way in.

As I took the last few steps towards my makeshift bed, I shrugged off my saddlebag and threw my lance aside. The lifting of weight made me feel light-headed as my muscles loosened up slightly, the sudden relief of pain rushing up my neck and settling across my mind like a warm shroud, only adding to my weariness.

I fell headlong onto my mattress, weakly drawing the threadbare blanket over myself, not bothering to try and remove my barding. Within seconds, I was drifting into unconsciousness.

Maybe I'd never wake up.

At least it would simplify things.

Level Up: You have reached level 2!

Quest perk obtained: Bury Me Not

When the Grim Reaper came a-knockin’ on your door, you made sure the house was rigged to blow. Now, with a clean slate and a narrow escape to your name, you have the chance for a fresh start.

Effect: Karma is reset. All faction reputations reset. In addition, you may alter your starting traits.

Trait Selected: Savagery

Blood! Guts! More blood! More guts! Rip and tear!

Effect: You gain 20% damage to all unarmed and melee attacks, but suffer minor karma loss for each kill made with unarmed and melee attacks. In addition, your Charisma is reduced by 1.

Trait Selected: Book Dumb

REQ: INT < 8

Bah! Screw those eggheads with their reading and their abstract conceptualisation! Real ponies buck their problems!

Effect: You may not use skill books or magazines. Changes dialogue options. You may not take the following perks: Comprehension, Educated, Retention. You gain +5% Damage Resistance for every point of Intelligence under 8, up to a maximum of 20%.

New Perk Gained: Intense Training

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Now, if only it didn't hurt so much…

Effect: +1 Endurance

Strays

Chapter Two: Strays

I awoke.

For a moment, it was a normal day. I had always been the early riser. First to the food stores to avoid the others. Go out and swing my lance around for a while to keep myself sharp. Buck trees for a while to keep myself in shape. Spend the day exchanging glares with everypony else. Tag along on any excursions. Survive.

I had rolled off my bed and was halfway to the door when the soreness in my head prompted my memory.

I sank down to my haunches, raising a hoof to trace the path of the scar along the side of my skull, feeling the dried blood encrusted in my mane.

'Well, shit.'

As I stepped out of my cabin for the last time, I cast a glance at the pen where we kept –had kept – prisoners.

We still had a trio in from last week. Ember hadn't found time to organise someone to take them down south. One was lying still. He could be dead for all I cared. One of the others was sitting up, looking at me. I looked back. She didn't say anything, just watched me with tired, haggard eyes. She must have known something was up. Yesterday, we'd all gone out and only one of us had come back, covered in blood and stumbling over his own hooves. Didn't take a genius.

After a few moments' staring, I turned away. It wasn't like I could or wanted to do anything for them. Ember would be furious-

I stopped.

Ember would be furious if he wasn't, you know,fucking dead.

I turned back to the pen and trotted over, smirking. I might have neglected to actually spit on the old pony's corpse, but this was a pretty good alternative.

The two conscious ponies looked up at my approach. One – the mare who hadn't been staring at me – backed away to the far side of the pen, curling herself up in the corner. The other mare just watched as I lowered my head to the padlocked chain around the gatepost. Fuck. The key was probably still on Ember's rotting carcass. After a moments' thought, I jammed my lance into the gap between fence and gate and threw my weight against it. The metal resisted at first, then something snapped and the gate came loose. I spun onto my forehooves and bucked the gate. It swung open with a crash.

I grunted in satisfaction. After scooping up my lance, I turned to leave.

“Thank you.”

I turned back. The mare who had been playing cockatrice flinched as I rounded on her. I regarded her for a moment, then snorted and kept walking.

They'd probably all be dead by the end of the day. At least I could take pleasure in the thought of Ember, in whatever horrible place ponies like him ended up in after death, taking time out between unimaginable torments to bitch about me.

What was my plan?

I asked myself that over and over in my head as I trudged onwards.

Where was I going? What was my destination? How was I going to get there? How long was it going to take?

Would I care if I didn't make it?

All I knew was, anywhere I ended up was preferable to sitting in that camp with all the memories swirling around me. Not pleasant ones. I didn't care that the gang had ended up dead; they were all bastards and I'd hated them. Well, except Shears; she was a cunt and I'd despised her. But it had beensomething. Anything was preferable to this: the terror of total freedom. Nopony to judge you, nothing to rein you in. No restriction on your actions but your own limits.

Loneliness didn't cover it. Anypony can sit alone in a room for a while and not break down in a sobbing heap.

Lack of purpose. Aimlessness. That was closer to the truth. Sitting in that camp, going through the motions, acting like nothing had changed, would've have killed me more successfully than that bullet to my brain-case.

I might have told myself at first that I was just going out for a walk, to see if I could scavenge something useful, maybe butcher a few zombies or bloatsprites to show myself that near-death couldn't slow me down.

But deep down, I knew I was never going back.

Deep down, I needed purpose.

Once I'd gotten away from the camp, I trotted up to the summit of the nearest hill to take my bearings. My knowledge of the area was fairly detailed, up to about twenty miles out from the camp. Beyond that, there could be rainbow-breathing, cross-dressing dragons for all I knew.

I turned my gaze northwards. New Appleloosa was just visible through the morning murk. Not an option, considering how they would more-than-likely react to a 'raider'. Especially if that feather-brain was hanging around. Beyond that, nestled on the mountains that jutted up from the horizon, lay the Canterlot ruins. Fuck. That.

To the south, not visible from where I stood no matter how hard I squinted, was Junction R-7. Last we'd heard, griffon mercs had taken it over. They'd probably shoot first and ask questions never, so fuck that too.

East was mountains. I didn't feel up to mountaineering, so fuck that.

That left west.

Choosing my direction of travel by 'least-worst' was as good a method as any.

I sat down and rummaged through my saddlebag for a water bottle. I'd taken the time before leaving the camp to clean myself up slightly. My face was clear and the fur around my new scar was (mostly) cleaned of blood, but I could feel the matted, bloody clumps in my mane swinging around. Well, at least I wasn't trying to win any beauty contests.

My head still ached, as did my right flank and hindleg, but it was nothing I couldn't power through. I felt surprisingly good for someone who'd died the previous day. Healing potions. A pony's best friend.

After a healthy swig of water, I set off, carefully picking my way down the western slope of the hill.

It had been almost midday when I'd awoken. It felt more like mid-afternoon now. Enough time to get a few hours of travel in before nightfall.

Old habits died hard. I frequently caught myself glancing round to keep track of the others, making sure no-pony had been picked off. All I saw was the dreary landscape. The heartlands were almost completely barren, save for the few rural pre-war homes dotted around, nestling in the rolling hills. The trees, grass and every other scrap of plantlife, were perpetually teetering on the edge of death, the leaves brown and shrivelled, trunks and stems twisted and gnarled. Scattered around was evidence of the times before the war. Cracked paved roads, billboards advertising products long out of production, occasionally the wreckage of an old wagon with the skeletal remains of the occupants lying unburied alongside.

I'd grown up in this. Looking back, it might explain some things.

After an hour or so of walking, I came across a pre-war house. It might originally have had white-washed walls and painted timbers, but now it sported the same dust- and rot-ridden décor as anything else in the Wasteland. One wall had been torn away at some point in the past, leaving the interior exposed, the rotting floorboards protruding into thin air, the roof overhead reduced to blackened, skeletal beams.

I walked in through the gaping hole in the wall and made a half-hearted effort at scavenging the building for supplies. I knew before I started that I wouldn't find much – places like this, without something to scare the casual scavenger away, would have been stripped of anything useful decades ago.

After a few minutes of fruitless searching through the ruins – even the doors had been taken for scrap wood – I dumped my gear on the floor of what had likely been the dining room and sat down for a short rest. My head still ached, but the pains in my flank and hindleg were almost imperceptible. I tore into one of the packets of food I'd taken from the caravan yesterday, not caring to inspect it too closely.

As I ate, I mused on where I was going to come by food to replace the stuff as I ate it. Not to mention water that wouldn't make me glow in the dark and throw up blood when I drank it.

Almost on cue, as I finished eating, the first droplets of rain began to fall outside. I sighed as I clambered to my hooves and stepped out to the point where the orderly floorboards ended and the rubble began. As I looked out, weighing up whether to press on or not, a rumble of thunder passed overhead.

At least now I knew where I was stopping for the night.

Not that I liked it. With no doors and a giant hole in the wall, I wouldn't be able to sleep for fear of something stumbling upon me as it sort shelter. I sat back down next to my gear and irritably cast a look around the room for something.

That's when I noticed it.

When the side of the house had been torn away, a section of the upper floor had fallen and piled up in a tangled pile of rubble against one of the interior walls. Just visible through the mess was the top corner of an intact doorframe.

With nothing else to occupy my time with, I started smashing my way through the debris, tossing the smaller chunks away and resorting to prying some of the larger pieces away with my lance. It took half an hour, and rekindled my ebbing headache, but I finally made a large enough passage to squeeze through.

The door had been smashed open when the floor above had given away, but the hinges were still hanging in there. It led to a downward flight of concrete steps that descended into darkness. I ducked my head and picked up my sub-machine gun from where it was hanging against my chest, holding it ahead of me as I carefully picked my way down the staircase, wary of the rubble that peppered the steps.

The steps ended at a short hallway before a very-solid-indeed-looking door. There was no handle on this side. It was a featureless slab of metal.

I growled irritably. No doubt the room on the other side was packed full of clean food and water and stocked with all the weapons and ammo I could ever ask for. I turned to walk back up the steps, lashing out at the door with a frustrated buck as I did so.

I heard the door groan as it shifted slightly under my hooves, the metal grinding against the concrete floor.

I immediately turned back around and threw my weight against the door. It was heavy, but I forced it open enough for me to slip through.

The room on the far side was disappointing.

A rudimentary cot, a wall of shelving that had been picked clean and a desk and chair. The only light was an eerie green glow from a computer terminal sat atop the desk. Other than that, it was just plain concrete all over, walls, floor and ceiling.

No massive stores of weaponry for me, then. At least it was someplace secure enough to sleep.

After I'd grabbed my stuff from where I'd left it upstairs and dumped it on the floor in my new hidey-hole, I pushed the door to, leaving it ajar. I didnot want to shut myself in and starve to death in here if I couldn't get the door open again.

I lay down on the cot for a while, listening to the sound of the rain outside that drifted in through the open door. It might not have been meant as the height of luxury, but the cot was far more comfortable than the rickety bed in my old cabin. No draughts either.

Lying there, with nothing but the sound of my own breathing and the gentle rustling of rain, punctuated now and then by another rumble of thunder…

It felt peaceful.

I drummed my hooves against the cot's metal frame. I sighed and rolled over, staring blankly at the outline of my shadow thrown against the featureless wall by the terminal's glow. I coughed. I tapped the wall with a hoof, testing how solid it was. I suddenly jerked my head round to look over my shoulder, glaring at the empty room. My eyes found nothing but the green-tinged concrete.

It was too damn quiet.

I rose from the bed and dropped myself into the chair in front of the desk. The two-hundred-year-old furnishing creaked in protest at its sudden wrench from a life of retirement. I rested my forehooves on the desk and looked the terminal over with a frown.

Reading was not my strong suit. I puzzled over the contents of the screen for a good few minutes. In any other situation I would have got up and left, but it wasn't like I had anything worthwhile to leave it for. By the end, there were still a few words that escaped me.

I looked thoughtfully at the screen for a moment longer. Beneath a header of assorted junk, there was a list of items. Mixed words and numbers. The top item was highlighted in bright green.

I raised a hoof above the control panel and hunted for the largest button. I tapped it.

Nothing happened.

I prodded the second largest button. A previously blank part of the screen lit up, a horizontal line in a box appearing. A crackling sound burst out of the terminal's speakers. After a few seconds, a stallion's voice started speaking, the line bouncing up and down in time to his speech.

“This… uh… this is, uh, Staff Sergeant Whickers, 4thCavalry, 32ndRangers Regiment, 2ndBattalion, B Company. I-”

The voice trailed off. For a second, I thought that that was it. Then I picked out the sound of heavy, laboured breathing. It broke out into a sob momentarily, then a burst of static erupted from the speaker. It stopped and was replaced with the voice again. It sounded steadier than it had at first.

“Sorry. You, uh… you don't want to listen to me… well.”

Whickers went quiet again for a moment.

“It happened. It actually fucki- sorry.

“We all knew about megaspells, but we never thought- Sorry, let me just…

The voice took on a more formal, practised tone, as if reading from a script.

“Approximately eighteen hours ago, I witnessed a megaspell detonation in the vicinity of Manehattan. Over the next few hours, I witnessed subsequent… phenomena that I believe to be more megaspells, emanating from the direction of Fillydelphia and Canterlot.

“Since then, I've been unable to make contact with the chain of command. I've only been able to make contact with other… survivors, I guess. Nopony seems to know… what…”

Whickers trailed off again as the stallion's voice cracked. After a few moments, the terminal beeped and the crackling stopped.

I gingerly poked a hoof at the terminal's controls. It beeped again and the crackling re-started.

“This… uh… this is, uh, Staff Sergeant Whickers, 4thCavalry, 32ndRangers Regiment…”

I irritably banged the controls as the same monologue was read out again until I got lucky and shut it off. I sat back in my chair, scratching at the scar on my head.

I didn't know much about Equestria before it was the Wasteland. Just that a long time ago, there was a big war and most ponies were killed, leaving behind ruins and radiation and taint and a few embittered survivors. Thanks, long-dead ponies.

I snorted. Ponies back then were obviously softer. A grown stallion in tears over a lot of ponies he didn't know? Try walking a mile on these hooves, buddy. He wouldn't have lasted two yards.

And what the hay was a 'fenominna', anyway?

After carefully inspecting the controls for a moment, I succeeded in shifting the green bar down to highlight the second item. I hit the second-largest button again. Whickers' voice spoke again. Apparently, he'd managed to stop sobbing like a filly.

“Staff Sergeant Whickers, 32ndRangers. I don't know who might be listening to these recordings, so I figure I'll start from the beginning.

“I'm a soldier, of the Royal Army of Equestria. For the last… hay, I forget how long… Equestria has been at war with the Zebra Empire.

“Yesterday, the zebras hit us with megaspells. They've… probably destroyed Manehattan. Fillydelphia. I saw Canterlot-”

Whickers trailed off. Before I could roll my eyes at renewed tears, he spoke again.

“We – ponies – probably hit them right back. So I guess the war's over… and we all lost.

“Outside, there's radiation, panicking civilians and Celestia-knows what else. I've holed up down here to give it time to die down. Don't know where the owners of this place are.”

There was a tapping sound. I glanced round before realising it was coming from the speakers. It stopped.

“Sorry.”

There was another brief silence, then the recording ended.

I must have spent an hour or so listening to all of the recordings on that terminal. Many of them were inconsequential; just brief comments on how things were going outside, the amount of radiation, if Whickers had seen any ponies that day, on how much food and water were left on the shelves. Many of them trailed off into awkward silence as the stallion ran out of things to say.

The final entry was the longest. The stallion's voice was strained and rough compared to his earliest recordings.

“Whickers here. Well. Food is almost run out. Water won't be far behind. Got enough left for a few days' travel. I'm gonna have to move.

“I suppose I should go and find somepony to report in to, but I've been on the radio for weeks and there's been no word from anypony in command and nothing at all the last few days.”

The now-familiar tapping of Whickers' hoof on the table returned. I glanced at the barely-visible dent on the table.

“The cities… Mane and Filly are still soaking in rads. Probably so are all the others.

“I need to get away. Out of Equestria maybe…”

For a moment, I thought that was where the recording had ended.

“The Palomino.

“The San Palomino. It's a damn desert. Empty. Nothing there to hit with megaspells. No radiation. I hope…”

Whickers' voice broke into a humourless laugh.

“Yeah,” he said after the laughter ended.“And no water either. And the sun's hot enough to fry your brain inside your skull, Whickers. Nice thinking.” Whickers sighed.

“But... it's a better plan than sitting here waiting to die.

“Hah… plan.

“Pack up, head south-west and hope for the best. Hay of a plan.”

The tapping of Whickers' hoof returned.

“I don't even know why I made these recordings, this... diary. This terminal'll probably break down in a few months, anyway. Until then, if you're listening to this, maybe you'd like to follow me.” Whickers laughed bitterly.“Let's meet up. We'll find a bar, have a few drinks. First round's on me. I'll stick a map on this terminal. Look under 'San Pal Map'. Good luck to you.

“But… if there's somepony listening… if you weren't around when-… if…

“I'm sorry. We didn't mean for it to happen. It just… it seemed so important…”

The hoof-tapping stopped.

“We never meant for it to come to this.”

As I poked through the terminal, accessed the map and started studying it, I might have told myself that it was just idle curiosity. I was trapped, bored, and needed to kill time until I felt able to sleep.

Really though, I'd made up my mind, just as I had when I'd left behind the gang's camp that I was never going back.

Like Whickers had said: it was better than just waiting to die.

South-west and hope for the best.

I awoke.

The bed beneath me felt heavenly soft, the blankets covering me so warm that they were smothering me in heat. I exhaled, then breathed in deeply, enjoying the feel of sweet air rushing between my lips.

Just as soon as I had relaxed, bad stuff happened. Of course.

A leering face, its lips drawn back in a sadistic smirk, loomed in my vision. It lowered itself towards me, eyes glinting in the gloom. I could only stare, transfixed, as it hovered over me. I felt a pressure building within my head, pressing at the inside of my skull.

The smirking lips split open. Hot air was breathed onto my face. It condensed on the side of my head and stuck there, slowly sliding down my face. It didn't hurt. But I just knew without being able to see that my hide was peeling away from my flesh and bone. The pressure inside my head was building and building, un-

I awoke.

The cot beneath me was hard and stiff.

Adrenaline surged through me and I jerked upwards. I ran my hoof up to my head, gently probing at where the spectre of sensation that lingered from the dream was supplemented by actual pain from where I'd slept on my fresh scar. I irritably pounded the pillow with a hoof, as if it were to blame.

I shook myself awake and slipped off the cot, stretching out my legs. Barring my rude awakening that still had my heart hammering in my chest, that was the best night's sleep I thought I'd ever had.

I spent a few minutes looking over the map on the terminal to refresh my memory. It was rudimentary, but usable. There was even a dotted line for me to follow: west to the border of the Everfree Forest, then down around the southern edge, around the White Tail Woods, then south, bearing slightly west along the edge of a sheer mountain range, until I hit sand. Simple.

I downed a quick breakfast then left, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The rain last night had cleared up the murk that had been hanging over the heartlands for the past few weeks. I could see all the way to the horizon. Not that there was anything to see besides more ruins, more gnarled trees and more barren earth.

I'd taken the bandages off my hindleg when I'd realised it had stopped hurting. With the constant aching gone, I made good time and was skirting the edge of the Everfree by noon. I had no desire whatsoever to venture into the forest itself. I stuck to a rough dirt track that kept a respectable distance from the trees. Past the absolute fringes of the Everfree, the forest became tangled with twisted undergrowth that looked positively sinister. The heartlands outside the forest were home to enough nasty critters; I didn't want to think what creatures made their homes in that dark place.

Speaking of nasty critters…

The sudden cracking of bullets past my head made me flinch.

I threw myself flat, swearing as I crushed my own windpipe against the SMG hanging against my chest. Irritably, I snatched it up and swung it upwards, searching for my attackers. A second volley of gunfire flew over my head. Mostly. One bullet struck the ground inches from my muzzle, kicking a spray of dirt into my face.

As I drew a hoof across my watering eyes, I growled to myself, “okay, now I'm gonna kill youeven more.”

I jerked the trigger on my SMG, sending a spray of bullets up the embankment on the side of the road, where a pony was visible, crouched behind a wooden fence.. I wasn't going to win awards for marksmanship anytime soon. I definitely killed the air above the pony I'd aimed at good, though. Another burst of gunfire peppered the ground around me.

Fuck it. I was gonna get killed just lying here.

I dropped the SMG against my chest and charged up the embankment. Sure, I was probably gonna get killed just as much this way, but at least it'd be with my hooves buried in somepony's skull.

I jumped the fence at the top of the embankment and collided with something that swore at me. We fell to the ground in a whirlwind of thrashing legs and cursing. A flailing hoof caught me in the throat. Coughing around the bulb of pain blossoming in my windpipe, I struggled to my hooves, stamping out at an expanse of navy-blue fur that was stained with the black of dried blood. The pony beneath me cried out as something snapped under my hoof. She swung out at me again, slapping the SMG hanging from my neck. There was a bang as the gun went off, putting a bullet through the mare's hindquarters.

Wow. Ponies that actually shoot themselves for me. What luck.

The gunshot made the mare drop back to the ground, giving me the space to bring out my lance. She feebly tried to raise a hoof to deflect it as I shoved it through her side. I couldn't help but grin around the shaft between my teeth as I twisted the lance and she shuddered and coughed her last breath.

Losing a fight to a dead pony. Shameful.

An impact in my side cut short my savouring of the moment. I dropped the lance as I staggered, leaving it jutting out of the mare's side. A second pony – a unicorn with an absurdly-styled mane – was hastily snapping open the breech on the shotgun he was levitating before him. I raised my SMG and took careful aim. I pulled the trigger just as he dodged to the side, fumbling his reload as he did so. The stream of bullets from my weapon followed him as I turned my head after him. Two struck home, causing the unicorn's telekinetic field to fizzle out. The shotgun dropped to the ground with a thump.

Something hammered into the back of my head, sending me reeling, the SMG slipping from my grasp. I turned and narrowly ducked under another wild swing of what turned out to be a shovel. I lunged forward and headbutted the wielder square in the muzzle. She staggered back, the shovel smacking ineffectually against my side. I took up my SMG again, drew a bead and fired...

…All of two shots before the magazine clicked empty.

I dropped the SMG again. At least one of my shots had hit home, shattering the pony's teeth and ripping open a gash down the side of her face. The shovel lay on the ground, accompanied by blood spatters and chunks of enamel. I spun around and bucked the mare right to the face, sending her sprawling. I turned back around and leapt forward. The mare swung a hoof at me. I batted it aside and headbutted her again, grabbing her around the neck to stop her getting away. I butted her again, then flinched as she spat in my face with a mixture of blood and broken teeth. I angrily thrust my head forward again, but she snapped her head to the side, making me miss my mark and over-balance. A knee was driven into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I snarled and sank my teeth into her neck. The mare screeched, desperately trying to escape my grip. I shook my head violently, feeling the skin given beneath my teeth before I released her and jumped back, letting her reel away from me. I spat at the ground. Bitch tasteddisgusting.

The mare fell to the ground, pressing a hoof against her neck. “Hebit me! That bastard fuckingbit me!” she shouted.

I lunged at her again, but was interrupted by the shotgun pony charging into my side. I grunted in pain as the scar from the bullet wound in my side was thumped through my barding. Then I flinched as a knife blade appeared in my vision, then flinched again as I felt the line of pain it had drawn along the side of my neck. I twisted round and smashed a forehoof into the unicorn's knee. Something cracked under the blow and he stumbled. I brought my hoof back around and struck him across the face as he fell. As his head hit the ground, I slammed my forehooves down onto his skull. Something crunched and he went still.

I scooped up the knife the unicorn had dropped and rounded on the mare who'd smacked me with the shovel. She was coughing and spitting blood and teeth onto the ground as she tried to crawl away. I pounced on her and shoved the knife deep into her neck. She jerked and screamed as I twisted the knife savagely. As I withdrew the knife, blood came spurting out of the wound, spraying over my face. I grimaced and spat out the knife, raising a hoof to wipe the blood away.

As the mare beside me went limp, spitting out a curse with her last breath, I looked around. Nopony else was around. The only sound was my laboured breathing and the buzzing of adrenaline in my veins.

I reared up on my hindhooves and let out a roar.

“Anypony else want some!?” I yelled, listening to the echoes die away.

I sucked in several deep breaths, savouring the after-fight rush.

As it faded, the pain came rushing back.

The shotgun blast to my flank – miraculously – hadn't penetrated the patchwork leather- and metal-armoured barding. It certainly left one nasty bruise, though. Right over the gunshot wound the feather-brain had given me the day before, too. The back of my head was sore from the shovel-blow, and my ears were still ringing slightly from the noise of the SMG.

Shrugging off my injuries – hey, I'ddied just yesterday, this was nothing – I gathered up my lance and check the bodies for salvage. The first mare I'd killed had been wielding an SMG similar to mine. I took what little ammo she'd had, along with the knife the shotgun-wielding pony had had. On a whim, I trotted away from the road, into the woodland. Score. A squalid camp had been made there, just out of sight from the road. It was nothing special: a measly attempt at a campfire, a few stained mattresses scattered around with tarpaulin stretched over them to keep the rain off and a few boxes of whatever it was the ponies here had gotten off of other travellers on the road.

As I warily walked into the camp, something that'd I'd mistaken for a pile of firewood looked up at me.

I looked back into a pair of glistening golden eyes.

It was a… I didn't know what it was. Some kind of animal. It was like someone had taken a stack of tree branches and roughly stuck them together to make a model of a pony. No, not a pony, a dog. Abig dog. Wolf. That was the word.

I took a cautious step closer, hefting my SMG before I remembered I'd neglected to reload it. I dropped it again, reaching a hoof for my lance. The… tree-wolf let out a noise like a tree straining under a gale. It stood up on a set of trembling legs and took a wobbly step forward. A rope that had been tied around its neck and attached to a stake in the ground pulled tight and it slumped to the ground with a whine.

I chuckled. It waspathetic. Not even worth killing for fun. I could see why the camp's former inhabitants hadn't bothered.

I went to trot past the tree-wolf-thing and explore the rest of the camp. As I did so, the thing let out a whine. I glanced at it. It was straining forwards again, wooden paws reaching towards me. I glanced down at my hooves. On the ground lay a dish on which sat what looked like a chunk of meat crudely hacked off of a brahmin.

“What, you want this?” I asked, nudging the slab of dirty meat.

The tree-wolf just kept whining.

“Alright, then,” I said. “Here…”

I speared the steak on the end of my lance, carefully judged the distance, then tossed it towards the tree-wolf. It landed perfectly – just out of the beast's reach. As the meat flopped down, it scrabbled forward with its forelegs, pathetically reaching for the meat, but unable to do more than gouge at the earth just short of it.

I laughed as it kept hopelessly pawing at the dirt. I left it there as I poked through the boxes scattered around. I found barely anything of worth. A few rounds for my SMG and a bit of food and water was all I kept. Clearly, not many ponies came out this way.

I took a moment to reload my sub-machine gun, then started making my way back to the road. I glanced at the tree-wolf as I passed it. It had stopped trying to reach the meat. It was just lying there, one foreleg still outstretched. I chuckled again-

I remembered lying on the floor of the wagon, legs clawing at the wooden boards as my blood ran down my face.

I growled and shook my head vigorously. That provoked an outburst of pain which forced me to sit down. I shot an irritated look at the wolf. Somehow, this was that thing's fault.

Its golden eyes continued to watch me mournfully. I sighed, stood up and walked over. I kicked the meat into the waiting wolf's clutches. It slowly raised its head and started weakly chewing on the steak, making muffled sounds of creaking wood as its jaws worked.

I sat down, swinging my saddlebag off my back and rummaging through it for something to eat. I came up with a sealed packet of… something. I couldn't read the label. I tore it open with my teeth and started eating, forcing it down my throat.

The pair of us, pony and tree-wolf, sat there, chewing on our respective meals. I pulled out a water bottle, took a swig for myself, then offered the bottle to the wolf. Its head perked up and it sniffed the air, pushing its muzzle towards the bottle. I tipped the bottle up and it raised its head, letting the water fall into its mouth, with more than a little running down its face and neck. It shook itself to dislodge the overspill, spraying me with more than a little of it. I growled and pulled the bottle back, wiping at my face with one hoof.

When we'd finished eating and I'd re-packed my saddlebag, I stood and walked over to the tree-wolf. As I approached, it shrunk away from me. I lunged forward and pinned it beneath my forehooves. The rope it was tethered by had been tied around a protruding… branch behind the wolf's neck. With my forehooves still keeping the struggling wolf still, I grabbed the rope between my teeth and pulled it upwards. The tree-wolf let out a half-whine, half-creak and jerked beneath me, but I kept pulling until the rope came free.

I dropped the rope and leapt back, ready for the attack if it came.

It didn't.

The tree-wolf just lay there for a moment before shakily climbing to its paws and trying a few experimental steps, head snapping round to see where the rope had gone. Convinced that it really was free, it sank back down onto its haunches and resumed staring at me.

I backed off a few steps, wary of a sudden rush, then turned to leave, heading back for the road.

As I clambered over the fence at the top of the embankment, I noticed the tree-wolf had followed me. With the redoubtable barrier of a rickety piece of wood between us, I waved a hoof at it threateningly before turning away.

As I made my way down the embankment, I heard the clatter of wood on wood. I turned and watched the tree-wolf as it made its unsteady way down the slope after me. It stopped, sat back down and started watching me again.

“Get lost,” I said irritably, waving a hoof at it. Naturally, it ignored me. I took a few steps down the road and looked back. Sure enough, it was still following me.

I looked around for something to throw at it. Then something stopped me. Instead, I reached out a hoof and hesitantly patted the tree-wolf's head. It growled, making me flinch and snatch my hoof back, but it didn't try to rip my leg off.

Well, if it wasn't trying to eat me, why not let it tag along for a while?

“You wanna follow me?” I asked. “Got nothing better to do than annoy random ponies?”

The tree-wolf whined. I decided to take that as a 'yes'.

“Alright,” I said. “Well… come on, then.”

It was only when I'd waited several seconds for a response that I realised I was trying to hold a conversation with a fucking animal. I lowered my head and pressed a hoof to my forehead. Maybe getting shot in the brain-case had done me more damage than I'd realised.

Was it safe to let this thing follow me around? I didn't even know what it was. I'd mentally been calling it 'tree-wolf', but…

“You need a name,” I said distantly, raising one hoof to pat the tree-wolf on the back. It growled, raising itself against my hoof. “'Tree-wolf' ain't nearly- Argh!”

I snatched my hoof back, angrily glaring at the shard of wood sticking up out of my matted fur. I seized it in my teeth and wrenched it free, spitting it aside. I turned my glare on my animal companion. I could swear its golden-eyed gaze was laughing at me. After a moment, a grudging grunt of laughter slipped through my lips.

“Splinter,” I said. I pointed a hoof at the tree-wolf. “Splinter. That's your name now.”

Splinter let out a… sound. I'd call it a bark, but… well. Terrible joke. Sorry.

The walk was somehow less tiresome than before, with the tree-wolf trotting along by my side. I had to stop and wait every half-mile or so as Splinter wore itself (Himself? How was I supposed to tell?) out and slumped down to rest. Once, he (or it) came to a dead halt and crouched low to the ground, growling at a rock at the side of the road. As if on cue, a bloatsprite buzzed up from behind it and was promptly leapt upon and messily ripped apart by the tree-wolf.

I chuckled and gave it (or her) a pat for that. Maybe this would turn out to be a good idea after all.

Eventually, the forest began to fall away from the road into the distance, the dirt track holding southwards. It was starting to get on towards late afternoon and a day of walking was starting to take its toll on my body. My various wounds from the last two days weren't exactly painful, but I could feel the raw skin and scar tissue stretching tight as I moved. My head was starting to ache again as well. Wonderful.

I doubted I was going to be as lucky as I had been yesterday and stumble upon an old bunker to take shelter in. I wasn't remotely happy about the prospect of sleeping out in the open. The alternative was to venture off the road, to the outskirts of the forest and use the trees for shelter. I dismissed that idea as quickly as it occurred to me. Anything that came prowling around after dark was more likely to get the drop on me if it had undergrowth to sneak through.

If push came to shove, I could simply push on through the night. Sure, it would be dark, but there were far scarier things in the Wasteland than a lack of light. Like me, for instance.

As darkness started to fall, I came across a pre-war sign at the side of the road, half-buried in overgrown, gnarled bushes.

It read:

Min ry of Pe

White T l Wo Prototypi ility

S ctly No Admitt

Thank you

It was posted next to a track that branched off from the one I was following, leading westwards, towards the forest that was still visible in the distance.

I squinted off towards where the track led. It was hard to tell in the twilight, but I could barely make out the boxy shape of buildings, outlined against the forest.

Okay, maybe I could be lucky two nights in a row.

“What do you think?” I asked Splinter. “Worth a look?”

Splinter barked softly.

“Yeah,” I said. “That's what I thought.”

We headed off down the new track. Unlike the one I'd been following all day, it was perfectly straight, an unerring line that stretched out directly to the buildings in the distance.

As we neared, a chain-link fence came into view. Although dull and tarnished by the decades that had passed, the razor wire that topped it still gleamed in the fading light. The track led up to a gate in the fence that had been torn down at some point in the past, the twisted metal remnants dragged to one side.

The facility was overgrown with irradiated plantlife. Originally, it must have been beautifully landscaped, with evenly-spaced trees lining the path up to the front doors, the path itself split down the middle by a series of raised planters. Now, the trees were swathed in tangled undergrowth, the planters buried beneath blackened and twisted brambles, the thorn-studded stalks trailing across the ground. Beauty had no place in the Wasteland.

The buildings themselves were ugly. No question about it. Ugly, square, box-like. Only the ground level possessed any windows – tiny slits that were set high off the ground.

Splinter was growling almost continuously as we approached the front doors and mounted the few steps. At some point in the past, somepony had attempted to blow the doors open and had only partially succeeded, forcing one door to bow inwards in the middle to create a gap a pony could – barely – slip through.

I cautiously poked my head through the hole. It was pitch-black inside.

I waited for my eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.

Slowly, inexorably, as my eyes adjusted, a pair of red dots appeared in my vision.

“Intruder detected.”

I jerked my head back at the mechanical voice, as the dots were joined by a sudden burst of green light. A bolt of… something struck the edge of the door, inches from my face. Whatever it was, it washot. I could feel the heat burning my face as I backed away. The point where it had struck the door began to melt into green goo.

Splinter started barking furiously.

“Yeah, time to leave,” I said. A second green bolt came flying through the doorway, hissing past my head as I jumped down the front steps.

As I galloped back down the path towards the front gate, Splinter at my side, a deep, robotic voice boomed out over the grounds.

“All employees, be aware that there is an unauthorised presence on the facility grounds. Kindly report to the nearest safety zone until the all-clear is sounded. All intruders, be aware that your unauthorised presence has been noted. Kindly report to the nearest security bot until appropriate punishment has been rendered. Thank you for your co-operation.”

As we passed the first of the planters, there was a clanking and whirring of machinery. The entire fixture shuddered and the centre fell away, leaving a hole that was replaced by a squat robotic turret that rose up from nowhere. It would have been a sticky situation if it hadn't gotten tangled in the plants that had overgrown its mounting. The centuries-old mechanism jerked and clicked as it pulled against the stems wrapped around it. It was the same story for the dozen or so other turrets that popped up as we sprinted past. By the time they had worked themselves free, we were out of the gate and still running.

A volley of searing red lasers was thrown past us by the turrets, striking the ground around us and kicking up small explosions of vaporising dirt where they hit. Then we were out of range. I slid to a halt, panting madly, Splinter flopping to its (or her) belly beside me.

“Well,” I gasped to him (or it) between pants. “Wasn't that fuckinggreat?”

Splinter whined at me, apparently too exhausted to bark.

“Kindly return to the facility for administration of your punishment.”

I jumped and whirled around as, for the second time in as many minutes, a robotic voice startled me.

The security bot was rattling towards us on a pair of rubber tracks. It had clearly been built to resemble a pony, which only made it more horrifying. A bastardisation of a pony's head sat atop the body, metal lips permanently drawn back in a sickeningly cheery grin. It clashed horribly with the baleful, flickering red glow of the eyes.

“Bad fillies and colts need to accept their punishment.”

The bot raised a gleaming green crystal on the end of a mechanical tentacle. Remembering the metal door melting under the impact, I threw myself aside, feeling the projectile fly past me.

“Bad fillies and colts don't get to play games.”

I grabbed my SMG in my mouth. “Shut up!” I spat around the weapon's grip. The burst I fired ricochetted off the bot's armoured casing, sparks dancing off the metal where they impacted. The bot ignored the impacts.

“Guns are not toys.”

I narrowly dodged another bolt of green melting-goo. Splinter flew past me and tackled the bot, paws and teeth scratching fruitlessly at the metal.

“Unauthorised pets are not permitted on Ministry of Peace grounds.”

The bot's second tentacle, which ended in a clawed hand, reached out and seized the tree-wolf by the throat. Splinter creaked and whined as the bot hoisted him (her, it,whatever) into the air. The bot gave him a quick shake and threw the tree-wolf away.

The distraction gave me enough time to bring my lance out.

As the bot turned back to me, I smashed my lance into the tentacle holding the melting-goo gun. There was a crunch of something important breaking and the tentacle went limp upwards of the point where my strike had impacted.

“Damaging Ministry property is a serious-…”

I whipped my lance around, smacking the side of the bot's 'head'. The bot rocked up onto one track, but wasn't visibly damaged. The bot rumbled towards me, one tentacle trailing at its side, the other reaching for me, snapping at the air.

“…offence for which the punishment-…”

I slammed my lance into the bot's head again. The bot jolted under the impact, one of the eyes blinking out. Before I could draw the lance back, the bot's still-functioning tentacle snapped back, coiled around its own head and grabbed the lance below the tip. I released my grip just before the bot tore the lance away and flung it aside.

“…is very serious indeed.”

The bot's clawed tentacle suddenly lunged forward and seized me by the foreleg. I cried out as the sharp edge dug into my skin. The bot yanked my leg hard, tossing me to the side. Pain shot through my shoulder as my leg was almost pulled out of its socket. I hit the ground in a heap, swearing profusely. I jumped up, snarling, as the bot approached again.

“Why do you have to make this so difficult?”

I spun around and slammed by hindhooves into the bot's body. The metal casing buckled under my strike with a clang. The bot's clawed tentacle scratched at my flank, skittering over the metal plate on my barding. When the bot spoke again, the voice was distorted and halting.

“Can't-… wejust… bebebeeee… groooown -wn -wnups abou- -out…”

I picked my hindhooves up and bucked the bot once more. The mechanical clanking and clicking stopped and the bot went still, but more to the point, that fucking voice went away.

I looked around for where Splinter had been thrown. The tree-wolf was lying crumpled on the ground, alternating between whines and pants. I walked over to him (Let's just roll with that, okay?) and sat down, patting him on the back.

“Well,” I said as my heartbeat settled down. “I'll give you points for effort, at least.”

'Still talking to an animal.'

It beat talking to myself.

After a short rest, we made our way back down the track to where it rejoined the south-bound road. The short gallop out of that little death-trap had eaten away the last reserve of strength I had. Rather than press on, I trotted over to the sign that had grabbed my attention in the first place. It had half-collapsed over the decades, leaning backwards against the undergrowth that had sprouted up around it. After a little creative hacking through the bushes, I managed to reach the base of the sign and a little alcove of space that was tucked beneath the slanted sign and surrounded, mostly, by the undergrowth on all sides.

I shrugged off my saddlebags and fashioned them into an impromptu mattress. Splinter had already curled up on the ground beside me and was… asleep? Did tree-wolves need to sleep? Apparently so.

It was an odd thought to fall asleep on, but it did the trick. As my head hit the ground, I immediately drifted into unconsciousness.

Level Up: You have reached level 3!

New Perk Gained: Intense Training

You’re making a concerted effort to be more personable. Great! Maybe now ponies will just want to murder you 'brutally' rather than 'horrifically'!

Effect: +1 Charisma

Companion Perk Gained: Wood Sense of Smell

“So there we were: that psycho-pony and his marefriend walking right into the trap. We would have gotten away with it, too, if not for that mangy mutt!” - Broad Blade, sole survivor of the 'Snickering Shades' gang.

Effect: Enemies are spotted at an increased range, equivalent to +3 Perception.

Heat, Dust and Thirst

Chapter Three: Heat, Dust and Thirst

The desolation only got worse as I pushed onwards. The sickly grass underhoof gave way to barren, blasted earth, burnt black by the long-past apocalypse. What trees there were grew ever more twisted and gnarled, contorting themselves into forms that I could swear were leering at me out of the corner of my eye.

My head was starting to pound again, every step bringing a fresh wave of pain.

I couldn't stop to rest. I still had a long way to go.

I looked up as I walked, watching the dark clouds roiling above my head.

I lowered my gaze just in time to avoid walking headlong into the wagon that lay across my path. I sighed irritably and went to walk around it.

But my hooves wouldn't move.

I looked down.

Oh, of course. The blood was gluing them to the ground. Who's a silly pony? Me. Haha.

I looked back up at the wagon. The tattered canvas flaps were hanging motionless from the roof, undisturbed by the motion of the air.

The darkness through the gap was impenetrable.

As I stared, a feeling of foreboding crept through me, curling around my muscles and holding me in place. I couldn't break the gaze between myself and the the black void before me.

But I didn't want to, in any case. It was very important I kept looking. Otherwise…

'Look away.'

I would have rolled my eyes if that hadn't involved doing exactly the thing that I wasn't going to do.

'Stop. Looking.'

What did I literallyjust decide I wasn't going to do?

'Just look away.'

No.

'Look away.'

No. Won't. Can't.

'LOOK AWAY!'

I tore my gaze downwards. The blood that oozed out from beneath my hooves quickly spread outwards, forming a red, lurid pool under my face. The surface rippled, tiny waves lapping back and forth, forming shapes, an outline, aface.

It grinned at me.

A rush of anger surged through me. With a gargantuan effort, I wrenched my hooves free from their paralysis. I stamped downwards, driving my forehooves through the spectre beneath me. The skin of gore split apart beneath my blow, splitting apart to unleash a void of blackness that enveloped me, burning against my face-

I awoke.

A pair of eyes, glinting in the low light, loomed in my vision. A foul scent of hot breath hung in my nostrils.

I cried out and swatted at the figure above me with a hoof. A bolt of pain ran through my leg as I struck something hard, which yelped.

I pulled myself upright and looked around wildly.

Daylight was starting to filter through the tangle of vegetation that surrounded my hidey-hole, turning the grey of night into the more-brightly-lit grey of day.

I looked over at where Splinter was cringing away from me, whining.

“Oh, fuck you,” I said tiredly. I ignored him as I pulled myself to my hooves, wincing as all the aches and pains of the last two days clamoured for attention, and slung my saddlebag onto my back. As I started to hack at the undergrowth that I could swear had re-grown as I'd slept, I noticed that Splinter wasn't following. After a few moments of glaring, I sighed and reached over to pat him. He shrank away from my first attempt, but after a moment, he raised his head under my hoof and growled. Then he licked me.

“Eurgh!” I groaned, pulling my hoof back and shaking it. It felt like being licked with damp sandpaper. “Stupid animal…” I grumbled, turning back to worming my way out of the thicket.

We continued much as we had the day before, making good time between brief stops when one or the other of us began to flag. The track I followed seemed to skirt most of the pre-war settlements in the region, for which I was grateful. I wasn’t in the mood for another skirmish with raiders or worse, one of those chatter-bots. Especially if it meant picking up another dumb animal.

As the day wore on, the terrain gradually built up from rolling hills to steep slopes of scree and sheer cliffs. The trees were more numerous and less stunted by radiation than those in the Heartlands. In places, they became dense enough to be called a forest. The route we took became less random, the road no longer following the laziest route through the landscape, circling around the steeper hills and meandering along the flats, but instead diligently making for a gap between two peaks that loomed in the distance.

On the far side of those peaks lay the San Palomino Desert. Once I'd made it past them, I could…

Figure out… what to do next…?

I consciously pushed thoughts of the 'What next?' variety out of my mind. The surroundings were closing in around us, the road cutting between a pair of wooded slopes, and I needed to be on my guard, not speculating about the future. That never ended well.

Beside me, Splinter started to growl, his eyes fixed on the point where the track bent out of sight around the spur of rock. I shushed him and strained my ears. The constant quiet was broken by a disturbance further along the track. After a moment's consideration, I dragged Splinter off the track, behind a fallen tree and out of sight.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of something heavy being driven over the cracked tarmac. As I raised my head for a look, a brahmin-drawn wagon came into view, preceded by a pair of ponies. I ducked back down. I had seen the battle saddles the guards were packing. Without a gang of idiots around to throw themselves in front of those guns for me, I was perfectly fine with just sitting here and waiting for them to pass. It wasn't like I was in a rush.

Splinter started growling. I glanced at him, spotting the oncoming bark before it left his throat. I clapped a hoof over his mouth. “Shut up!” I hissed. I cocked my ears, awaiting the inevitable shout and accompanying fusillade of gunfire.

'…Or maybe not so inevitable,' I thought as the caravan passed without incident.

Splinter whined at me as I removed my hoof from his mouth. “Stupid animal,” I muttered. “Come on.”

I stayed off the track as I approached the bend, just in case somepony in the caravan happened to look back, which they would be doing if they had half a brain between them.

As I rounded the bend, I instinctively dropped to my belly at what I saw, before cautiously raising my head to get a second look.

On one side of the track, the terrain rose in a sheer cliff. On the other was a gentler, but still formidable, slope strewn with broken rocks. Nestled at the point where the slope levelled out was a squat pre-war tower of dark concrete. It was surrounded at its base by a low, sloped wall. The silhouettes of ponies on guard were visible as they patrolled along the top. There was no way past the tower without being spotted by the sentries.

I ducked back into the undergrowth.

“Well, shit,” I muttered to Splinter.

He whined back at me.

I wormed my forward, to the very edge of the treeline. Maybe if I timed it right, I could rush past-

A bullet cracked past my ear, followed by the report of a rifle shot and an alarmed shout.

I snatched up my SMG and sprayed a burst of fire towards the tower as I broke cover and galloped forward. A second round zipped past me before I was across the open ground and skidding to a halt against the base of the wall. Splinter crouched down next to me, his head raised upwards, growling at the unseen sniper above us. I started working my way along the wall, searching for a way in. I kept my gaze up, just in case.

I was vindicated not a moment later when a head poked out from atop the wall, silhouetted against the grey sky. A telekinetically-held rifle was floated out and aligned to the pony's eye. I squeezed the trigger on my SMG just as the rifle's barrel was swung in my direction. I missed, but the sniper flinched, spoiling their aim. The return bullet flew above my head. I fired two more bursts and the sniper ducked back behind the wall's rampart, leaving their rifle floating there. It fired and missed again.

I let my SMG drop against my chest and galloped forward, following the wall. I heard another blind shot from the sniper pony, which came nowhere near me, before I turned the corner and was rewarded with the sight of the gate into the compound.

The gates were ajar, leaving just enough room for a pony to squeeze through. I bolted through and almost collided with a pony on the far side. I caught the briefest glimpse of a gun being levelled at me before I lashed out with a hoof and knocked it aside. The report was loud enough and close enough to set my ears ringing. The constant ache in my head, which I'd been able to push aside for most of the day, redoubled.

I snarled in response to the pain, and smashed my hoof into the startled face before me. If I was going to have a headache,everypony was going to have a headache.

Splinter lunged past me in a blur and fastened his jaws around the neck of the pony in front of me. They staggered back, coughing out a cry of pain around the teeth in their windpipe. They fell down and Splinter started violently wrenching his head from side-to-side, the pony's neck cracking as their head lolled back and forth.

I plucked my lance from its sheath on my back and readied it as I warily trotted past the tree-wolf and his prey. After a few paces, I was through the gateway and out into the courtyard that surrounded the base of the tower. Before I had time to admire the doubtlessly-beautiful view, somepony started shooting at me.

I threw myself aside, behind the rust-ridden wreck of a pre-war wagon. The crack-thump of bullets flying past me and burying themselves in the wall behind me became the clanging of metal-on-metal as they sparked off the chassis. I edged along in the narrow space between the wagon and the wall until the cover afforded by the wagon ran out. I shrugged to myself, dropped my lance and stuck my head out for a look.

'Yup,' I thought to myself as a hail of bullets flew past my head and I ducked back behind the wagon.'That was a dumb idea.

'Let's see… one with the assault rifle on the ground about twenty yards away and that sniper on the wall fifteen yards past her.'

As I weighed up my options in my mind, I was nudged in the back of the knee by something hard. Even as I twisted around in a panic, Splinter barked at me. I grinned at the sight of the blood around his mouth.

“Did you enjoy that?” I asked him. He growled in response, turning his gaze to stare fixedly through the ruined hulk of the wagon beside us. “Yeah, thereare more over there.” I grinned and picked up my lance. “Shall we?”

Splinter barked. I let out a roar and charged out from behind the wagon. I barely registered the first shot that glanced off my chest and ripped a gash down my flank, even if it did knock the wind out of me. A burst from the assault rifle-wielding mare tore past me, just as Splinter did likewise in the opposite direction. The mare cried out and scrambled backwards, hampered by her battle saddle. I heard thethunk of bullets impacting wood as Splinter pounced, driving the mare to the ground.

I galloped past the writhing mare as she screamed and struggled with the tree-wolf. The sniper pony who'd taken the first shot at me was stood at the summit of a flight of steps that led up to the wall's rampart. I watched as the sniper worked the action of their rifle and I jinxed sideways as they fired again. I reached the foot of the steps and began mounting them two at a time.

I felt the next bullet tear through my neck and punch out the back, spraying my back with my own blood. It barely slowed me down. My entire world had condensed down to this little shit who Ireally wanted to kill.

The sniper swore as I reached the top of the steps. Good. He – I noted – swung the rifle around, taking a swipe at me with the stock. With a positively lazy swing of my head, I smacked it aside with my lance, knocking it out of the unicorn's magic field. It skittered away over the concrete and down to the ground below. I swung the lance back around, missing the sniper-no-longer by inches. I rushed forward and struck out with my forehooves. The unicorn reared up as I charged and clumsily batted my attacks aside, leaving him open to a smack alongside the head with the haft of my lance. He staggered to the side, and was powerless to prevent me from spearing him on my lance.

I let the lance slip from my grasp as the unicorn fell down. He coughed and wheezed, weakly pawing at the length of wood-and-metal jutting out of his chest. I let out a bark of laughter and aimed a careful blow at his horn. He cried out as my hoof struck it with acrack.

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo,” I sneered at him. I reared up, raising my forehooves above his head. “Die, bitch,” I muttered as I slammed them down on his skull. I chuckled as I felt thecrunch under my hooves.

I exhaled.

Almost immediately, the rush fell away and I almost blacked out. I dropped to my knees beside the body. I groaned and raised a hoof to probe at the wound in my neck.

'Potion.'

I heaved my saddlebag off my back and quickly rooted through it, locating the potions I'd taken from the caravan. I downed one, feeling the warmth run through my veins. I regarded the second one for a moment, then shrugged and took a swig of it. Hey, you only live twice, right?

I lay down for a moment to let the potions work, enjoying the sensation of all my bits being coaxed back into place and knitting themselves together. After a few moments, a familiar something nudged me in the side. I flinched and said, “get off.” Splinter ignored me, instead lying down next to me and nuzzling me in the side.

After a while, I felt strong enough to stand. I picked myself up, angrily stamping my hooves to stop my legs trembling as they took my weight. I retrieved my lance and trotted down the steps and over to the door to the tower. It was locked. A terminal embedded in the wall read simply:

Lockdown Engaged.

Access Denied.

I gave the door a few bucks anyway, just in case.

As I walked away, I had to skirt around the bodies of the two ponies Splinter had taken care of. It was quite a mess. I grinned and patted the tree-wolf on the head.

“Good boy,” I said.

The road continued on through the mountains, eventually merging onto a ledge that was cut into the side of a steep canyon. The rusted, mangled remnant of a metal fence was the only barrier between the road and the long,long drop to the canyon floor below. It didn't help that the canyon had subsided over the years; in places, the road had rumbled away at the edge, leaving a rocky ditch that in some places almost reached the sheer cliff on the far side.

I stayed nice and close to the canyon wall.

It was starting to get warmer and drier as the morning wore on; I could feel the air on my tongue when I breathed in – sharp, lacking the humidity I was used to.

Finally, we emerged from the canyon, the landscape opening up before us. The ground gently sloped downwards out towards the horizon, merging into a flat, dusty plain that stretched out as far as I could see. In the distance, at the very limit of my sight, before the brown haze that was kicked up by the drifting winds obscured my vision, I could make out a solitary mountain rising above the terrain, jutting up into the clouds above.

“Well,” I said to myself, turning my gaze back and forth. “Now what?”

More walking, as it turned out.

Joy.

After an hour or so, I stumbled across a dried-out riverbed. Having no other nearby landmark to navigate by, I followed it.

This 'plan' of mine wasreally stupid, wasn't it?

Following in the hoofsteps of a who-knows-how-long-dead pony. A pony who had probably taken two steps out of that house and been eaten by a bloatsprite. And here I was, hoping that out of the whole Wasteland, I would pick the route that would have me stumble across his bones and… well, maybe I'd do a little dance in celebration. Then maybe I could shoot myself. Hooray.

'Better than waiting to die…'

Although, judging by how hot it was getting and how I emptied my last water bottle after less than two hours' walking, I might not have been given much of a choice. I hadn’t realised how much getting shot through the neck could take out of you. How much water had I had when I’d set out this morning? How much had I drunk before I’d even gotten out of the canyon? Why didn’t I remember?

As I trudged onward, feeling the dust starting to work its way under my barding and sticking to the blood on my hooves and neck, I studiously ignored the nagging feeling in the back of mind that I'd made a mistake. My head drooped lower and lower as I focused on the ground in front of my hooves. One hoof in front of the other. Repeat.

I finally stumbled to a halt when a surge of nausea suddenly rushed through me, accompanied by a feeling of light-headedness, and swung my saddlebag off my back. I rooted through it and produced my empty bottles, fruitlessly tipping them up over my open mouth. Beside me, Splinter lay down, letting his mouth loll open.

I growled at the empty bottles and shoved them back into my saddlebag. It didn't matter; I wasn't going to die of thirst. Not now.

As I hitched my saddlebag back onto my back, I raised my eyes to the horizon.

The ground rose gently before me, creating a steep incline where it bordered the riverbed. Atop the small plateau that nestled in the crook of a bend in the river was a settlement. A wall of scrap had been erected across the slope, which, along with the sheer drop to the river, created a fairly robust defence for the inhabitants. The ground before the wall had been meticulously picked clean of vegetation and rocks that might give cover to an attacker.

Where there were ponies, there was water.

I turned to Splinter. “You could've said something,” I grumbled, gesturing at the distant town.

With a firm destination in mind, I continued on, weighing my options in my mind. They weren't exactly comprehensive: either I could continue on and drop dead of thirst, or I could walk up and hope they didn't shoot me on sight and scrounge some water. EvenI could make that choice.

As I approached the gate, a pair of ponies appeared above the wall, both holding guns. Neither of them were aimed at me, but they were deliberately left on show.

“Hold up, stranger,” one of the guards called down to me.

I obeyed, sitting down on my haunches.

“What's your business- what isthat!?”

I didn't think I wasthat ugly.

Then I heard Splinter growling beside me. I looked down at him. He clearly wasn't taking kindly to the raised voices. I reached over and planted a hoof on his back, trying to push him into a sitting position.

“Quiet down, you dumb animal,” I hissed at him. “You want to get shot?”

Splinter ignored me. His ears were swept back against his head, and he was poised as if he planned to leap up over the wall. I glanced at the guards. One of them had lowered their rifle in the tree-wolf's direction. I raised a hoof and thumped it against Splinter's head. “Knock it off!” I shouted into his ear.

Splinter flinched under the blow and turned his ire on me. I matched his snarl with my own, thrusting my head towards his. After a few moments of staring each other down, he relented, sitting back on his haunches and lowering his head. He continued to growl, albeit more quietly.

I turned back to the guards. One was still resting their rifle on the parapet, wavering between aiming it at me or Splinter. The other said, “I'll say it again: what thefuck isthat?”

I turned to regard Splinter for a moment, then shrugged and turned back to the guard. “I have no idea,” I called to him. “It just follows me 'round.” I smirked. “Nice, isn't he?”

“'He'?” the guard said dubiously. “How can you tell?”

I shrugged.

“Right, whatever,” the guard said. “So… what brings you to Sand's Edge, stranger?”

“What's that?”

“He said 'what are you doing here?'” the other guard said impatiently.

I sighed irritably. “I meant: 'what's Sand's Edge'?”

“You're kidding, right?” the guard I decided to dub 'Moody' said. She still hadn't lowered her rifle.

The first guard shot her a warning glance and said to me, “this is Sand's Edge.” He gestured behind himself. “So called 'cause we're on theedge of the Palomino. Which hassand in it, on account of being a desert. Get it? Very poetic, ain't it?”

“Andwe,” Moody said, “are the ponies asking you what you're doing here. Care to answer that yet?”

I shrugged again. “I'm a traveller. Just passing through.” True enough.

“Fine. Hang on, let me get the gate.” The first guard turned away.

“What!?” Moody said, finally lowering her rifle to turn on her companion and start berating him. “That'sit? He just says 'traveller, passing through', and you want to let him in? How stupid can you get?”

I heard the male guard sigh. I decided to name him 'Unlucky'. Because seriously, you had to be to have to put up with that bitch. Unlucky's head poked back above the wall.

“You going to cause trouble, stranger?” he asked.

“Not planning to,” I replied.

“You collect bounties at all?”

I frowned. “What?”

“Are you a bounty hunter?” Moody demanded forcefully.

“Uh… I guess not…”

“You 'guess not'?” Moody said, squinting her eyes at me. Unlucky ignored her.

“Got anypony chasing you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Fine, I'll get the gate-”

“Butthat stays outside,” Moody said.

I glanced at Splinter, who was glaring at Moody, his teeth bared. She wasn't even being subtle about where she was aiming her rifle. Bitch. Probably desperate for a bit of target practice. “He goes where I go,” I said.

“Our town, our rules,” Moody sneered. “It stays here.”

“Why do you want him so bad? Can't get yourself a stallion?” I said snidely. “I'll warn you now: he splinters.”

Moody instantly turned her rifle on me. I barely resisted the urge to snatch up my own gun. “Screw you, bastard-”

Unlucky pushed Moody's rifle aside before clipping a hoof across the back of her head. She swore at him, but shut up all the same.

“If he comes in,” he said to me, “you're responsible for him, 'kay? I get any complaints, he goes out. He takes a bite outta anypony, he gets put down.”

I nodded.

“Good. Lemme get the gate.”

Unlucky disappeared. Moody leant over the parapet. She raised a hoof to her face, jabbing it towards her eyes, then at me. I raised my own hoof, pointing at her, then drawing a line across my throat. She snorted at me, hefting her rifle menacingly.

The corroded metal panels that made up the cobbled-together gate started to shudder, then were pulled upwards, every jerk of movement accompanied by a hideous squeal of metal-on-metal. As the gate opened, Unlucky was revealed on the far side, feverishly working a winch. He stopped, kicking a brake into place, and waved me through. As I approached, he pulled the goggles that covered his eyes up above the brim of his hat. What little of him I could make out under the hat, kitbashed armour and face wrapping he wore made him out to be a fair bit older than I was, if the lines around his eyes was anything to go by.

“Welcome to Sand's Edge,” he said, holding out a hoof to me. I hesitated, then bumped it with my own. “Born Lucky, at your service.”

“Seriously?” I said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

Lucky-formerly-known-as-Unlucky rolled his eyes at me tiredly. “Yeah, go on, get it over with. I've heard 'em all by now, anyway.”

“What did you do to your mother on the way out?” I asked, not bothering to suppress a smirk.

Lucky shook his head. “Wish I knew. 'Least then I'd know what to apologise for. Anyway, what's your name, stranger?”

I hesitated.

“You dohave a name, right?” Lucky asked when I failed to answer. “Or did you trade it away for that log-on-legs you got there?”

Something bubbled up out of my memory and between my lips. “Killjoy. Name's Killjoy.”

Lucky grunted. “Well, I've heard worse. “ He looked me up and down briefly. “Which warzone did you crawl through to get here?”

Right, Iwas still covered in blood, wasn't I?

Lucky's eyes widened. “And what happenedthere?” he said, pointing at my face. I raised a hoof self-consciously and found the raw scar tissue on my head.

“Some asshole shot me,” I said with a shrug.

“In thehead!?” Lucky exclaimed. He shook his head disbelievingly. “Pull the other one. How long ago was this?”

I had to stop and think. Had it really been only three days? It seemed longer. “Three days ago.”

“What!?” Lucky exclaimed. He actually reared back, as if getting the shot in the head was somehow contagious. “That's- No. Just no way. I ain't never heard of anypony gettin' up after a shot to the head, 'specially not after just a few days!”

I smirked at his reaction. “Actually, I got up after just a few hours.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “You know how it is, when you've got shit to take care of…”

“You sure we ain't got our names crossed?” Lucky demanded. “You've got one thick hide to be prancin' 'round after somethin' like that.”

I shrugged again.

“Well,” Lucky said. “You've either luckier than a tail on a two-headed coin, or that skull o' yours is made of… I don't even know what.” Lucky exhaled, raising a hoof to rub at his forehead. “Hoo… anyhow, anything I can help you with? Lookin' for somethin’ in particular?”

“Yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling the dryness in my throat. “Where can I get something to drink?”

“Well,” Lucky said, sitting back on his haunches, “if it's water you're after, you can use the town well. Just don't go takin' too much. One bucket per pony, per day. After that, you pay for it. Caps or trade, don't matter. Other than that, you can go to Stellar's – that's the saloon, you'll see the sign. Bit pricey, but she gets a good selection from the merchants. Does food, too.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“Quite welcome, friend,” Lucky said.

Moody yelled something about 'leaving the town vulnerable' from above us.

Lucky rolled his eyes. “No rest for the wicked,” he sighed. “Get your rump movin'… Killjoy, weren't it?” I moved past him as Lucky went back to the winch and started lowering the gate. “See you around. An' keep that pet of yours under control.”

I left the guard-pony behind me and headed on into town, Splinter padding along beside me.

Well, I was in. I hadn't even been shot at once. Almost, but not quite. And Lucky had even called me 'friend'. How nice.

‘Killjoy’… Hmph. It would do.

I crossed the open ground behind the gate and slipped down a narrow alley between two shacks, emerging into what I guessed was the centre of town: an open space bordered by buildings that had been thrown together in the same fashion as the wall surrounding the town. A few ponies were drifting back and forth across the square, one or two shooting me nervous glances that turned into outright fear when they noticed Splinter padding along beside me.

In the middle of the square was the well. A pony was resting against it, his shotgun propped up next to him. He had a hat similar to Lucky's pulled low over his eyes, and appeared to be trying to sleep while standing up. He looked up as I approached. “Water?” he said shortly. I nodded. He looked me up and down, then nodded in return. “Help yourself,” he said, pulling his hat back over his eyes.

Well, that was easy.

As I pulled up a bucket of what looked like the most enticing liquid I had ever laid eyes upon, it suddenly dawned on me just how thirsty I was. I set the bucket on the ground and immediately dipped my muzzle into it and started gulping it down. It wasn't perfectly clean, judging by the after-taste it left, but it wasn't irradiated, which was far higher on my list of priorities. I stopped myself at three gulps and nudged the bucket towards Splinter, who mimicked me and started lapping at the water. I shrugged off my saddlebag and produced the empty bottles I was still carrying, setting them down on the ground. When Splinter had finished, I picked the bucket up then hesitated, clicking my tongue as I tried to work out how to get the water from bucket to bottle without spilling any.

The guard-pony sniggered as he watched my moment of indecision. “Good luck,” he said.

“Fuck you.” I set the bucket down again irritably.

“Ah, there's no call for that,” the guard said. “Here…” He leant his head down, picked up a chunk of metal in his teeth and threw it at me. I caught it and looked it over. A funnel. Right, that made sense. I grunted my thanks at him, grudgingly.

As I was bottling the last of the water, somepony said, “well, hello! And what manner o' beast are you s'pposed to be?”

I looked over at Splinter. Sure enough, a unicorn mare was leaning down to inspect him. Her blue coat was bleached from age, and her face was heavily lined, leaving it looking like a sun-baked piece of old leather, but she was regarding the tree-wolf without a trace of fear. Splinter, naturally, was growling at her. She didn't seem bothered in the slightest. Clearly, she had a fetish for bite wounds.

“Sit!” she said in a commanding tone, waving her hoof at Splinter.

The tree-wolf didn't move a twig, other than to continue growling.

“Well, shoot. That usually works.” The mare looked over at me. “Seein' as how I ain't see either o' you around before, I'm guessin' this 'ere beastie belongs to you.”

“Not really,” I grunted as I threw the funnel back to the guard-pony. “He just started following me and I can't get him to stop.”

“Makes him yours in my book,” the mare said. Then she chuckled. “That's how I got my husband, after all.”

“Uh-huh, right.” I slung my saddlebag back onto my back, feeling the reassuring weight of the now-full water bottles sloshing around.

“And surely 'e's got a name…?” she said, cocking an eyebrow at me questioningly.

“Splinter.” Why was this mare talking to me?

She chuckled again. “Well, I ain't got no brains at all if I can't figure out where you got that from.” She stepped around the tree-wolf and walked over to me. “So, what brings you out here? We don't get many visitors these days.”

“Just a traveller. Passing through.” Somepony clearly couldn't mind her own business.

“And where are you headed?”

I paused. Wherewas I headed?

“Don't know,” I grunted.

“Ah, a wandering type, are ya?” She nodded sagely. “Been there, done that. You're probably lookin' fer work, ain'tcha?”

“Well…”

I wasn't. But as I thought about it, it wasn't as if I had a plan. I could do with something to occupy myself with. And if 'work' involved fighting something, even better.

“I guess.”

“Well, ain't that just a fine coincidence!” the old mare exclaimed. “I've got an errand that needs runnin'. Nothin' too hazardous-like, just a bit o' sand-trekkin'. Whaddaya say, buck?”

I shrugged. “Sure, okay.”

“Great! Now listen here. I've got a daughter, see? Lives out a-ways east. She usually comes into town once a week, but she didn't show up this morning. All I need ya to do is head out there and see how she's doin'. Whaddaya say?”

I shrugged again. Okay, maybe it wouldn't involve the fight I'd been hoping for, but it was still something to do. “Alright.”

“Swell,” the old mare said satisfactorily. “I'll have a hooffull of caps waitin' for you when you get back.”

“Uh-huh, and how do I know you'll pay up?” I asked sceptically.

The old mare gasped in mock indignation, clasping a hoof to her chest. “Well I never! Ain'tcha gonna take the word of an old mare? Ask any pony in town, an' they'll tell ya 'Ol’ Ma's word is as good as caps in hoof'!”

“'S true,” said the well's guard, who had apparently been eavesdropping. I glanced at him as he shook a foreleg at me. “I'd stake this leg on Ma's word.”

“Well, thank you kindly, Misfire,” Ma said courteously. The guard tipped his hat to her. “Y'see?” she said to me. Then she frowned thoughtfully. “Although… if it ain't caps you're after, I could show you a thing or two 'bout handlin' yourself in the desert. I've learned plenty in my time, might as well pass it on. How 'bout that?”

I nodded. “Sure. Sounds good.”

“Swell. Just gimme a moment to grab a few things an' we'll head out.”

She trotted over to a nearby shack and disappeared inside. She emerged a few minutes later, wearing a matching hat and coat made from the same tan-coloured leather. She had a gun belt slung across her chest, a gleaming revolver resting in the holster.

“Shall we?” she asked, leading the way towards the gate. I followed after her, Splinter prowling along beside me.

Lucky was pacing back and forth before the gate as we approached.

“Hold up, Ma,” he said, holding up a hoof.. “Need to ask ya to wait there for a few.”

“What? Why?” Ma asked.

The guard jerked his head towards the gate. “Gotta coupla Rangers tryin’ to get in. I’m just waitin’ on- ah, there she is.” He raised a hoof towards somepony behind us. I looked around.

Accompanying Moody as she trotted towards us was an armoured pony that looked more like a machine than flesh-and-blood. Every inch, from head to tail was covered in armour plating. A black, opaque visor hid the pony’s eyes. The metal that made up the armour was scuffed and had blatantly been patched up over a long period of time, if the mismatched metal plates were anything to go by, but the minigun that was slung on the pony’s battle saddle was gleaming in the sun.

“How many?” The armoured pony’s voice was a mare’s. Surprisingly melodious, given her attire. Although it was slightly spoiled by the electronic crackle the sealed helmet introduced.

“Only two,” Lucky said. “Don’t think they’re up to nothin’ but-”

The metal-clad mare snorted. “We’ll see. Open it up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The two guards trotted over to the winch that controlled the gate and started turning it. The gate slowly, jerkily, opened, the rusty metal parts grinding against each other. It shuddered to a halt, suspended above the ground.

The pair of ponies who walked in were dressed almost identically. Both were clad in pale golden longcoats, stained with dust, that almost brushed the ground as they walked. Their faces were hidden by black masks with inbuilt rebreathers and red reflective eyepieces. They were heavily armed; one with a long rifle, the other with a shotgun, and both carried revolvers and knives in holsters worn over their coats.

“You’re not welcome here,” Metal Mare said as they stopped in front of her.

One of the ponies’ mask lit up with a telekinetic aura and the part containing the eye visor was pulled away. A sliver of face became visible between the segments of dark metal. “We know that well enough,” the unmasked pony said, stowing the visor somewhere in his coat. “Believe me, we’ve got plenty better places to be.”

“Richer places, no doubt,” Metal Mare said disdainfully. “I’ve half a mind to buck you straight back over that wall.”

“No need for that,” the other pony replied diplomatically. “We’ve just come lookin’ for a place to rest, is all.”

Metal Mare snorted again. “Bullshit,” she growled. “Which bounty are you gunning for this time? How many caps are you trying to extort from innocent ponies?”

The still-masked pony muttered something disingenuous. His friend shot him a warning look before saying, “none and none. We just want a place to stay the night, maybe get a bite to eat. We’ll be gone by morning.”

Metal Mare stood stock-still, regarding the new arrivals coldly.

“Fine,” she said at last. “But you’re to leave your weapons at the gate. Don’t even think about arguing,” she added as the masked pony scoffed.

“And leave ourselves defenceless? In this town?” the unmasked pony said.

“That’s the deal. I advise you to take it,” Metal Mare said menacingly.

The new arrivals stepped away to confer amongst themselves for a moment. “We’ll leave our guns,” the spokespony said finally. “But we’re keeping our knives.”

“Agreed,” Metal Mare said grudgingly. “But watch yourselves. Lock up their weapons in the guardhouse,” she told the guard-ponies.

The new arrivals shrugged off their firearms, handing them to Lucky, who promptly dumped them on Moody. She staggered under the weight and tottered off towards the shack next to the gate.

“Much obliged, ah, ‘Renegade’,” the spokespony for the pair said. “Don’t worry: we’ll keep out of your mane.”

“Get out of my sight,” Metal Mare said bluntly. The pair walked past her and disappeared in the direction of the saloon. She watched them go, then turned to Ma. “Well? Gate’s open. Are you leaving or not, Ma?” The helmet turned in my direction and I got the immediate sensation of being closely inspected. “Who’s this?”

“Just a traveller, dearie. No need for that tone, now, is there?” Ma said appeasingly before I could open my mouth.

Metal Mare grunted. “Stay out of trouble,” she told me sternly. She glanced momentarily at Splinter. “And keep that – whatever it is – under control, else-”

“I’ve heard this already,” I said impatiently.

“Well, now you’re hearing it from me,” Metal Mare said. The minigun spun up for a second, the motorised whir being all the emphasis she needed. Then she nodded curtly to Ma and walked off, the stomping of her armoured hooves leaving imprints in the dust.

“Come on, buck,” Ma said to me, trotting through the gate. Lucky briefly touched a hoof to the brim of his hat as she passed and exchanged a curt nod with me.

“The fuck was that about?” I asked Ma as we set out down the slope, Splinter following us.

“Language!” she said reproachfully. I rolled my eyes as she went on. “Those were Rangers. You don’t wanna go mixin’ up with ‘em; they’re not nice ponies.” She screwed up her face in thought. “Well, that ain’t quite true. They used to be good folks. Used to see ‘em all the time, keepin’ the caravans safe, shootin’ down raiders and the like. Then, a while back, they just stopped showin’. Now when they do show up, it’s to kill some poor pony for a bounty or to try and shake a few caps outta us. Nothin’ more than thugs. Lucky for us, Renegade won’t stand fer it.”

“Who?”

Ma whinnied. “You pay attention to anythin’, buck? That was the mare who showed up in the armour. Calls herself ‘Renegade’.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t ask. Seems nopony’s happy with the name their folks gave ‘em these days. Seems everypony who walks outta the sands feels the need to give themselves whatever name they please. Think it makes ‘em sound tough. Which reminds me, what’s your name, young ‘un?”

“Uh… Killjoy.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Eesh. Well anyway, she showed up outta the sands ‘bout twenty years back. Poor thing, she was half-dead from the heat. Took ‘er weeks to recover. Not long after, some Rangers show up sayin’ we owe ‘em caps fer their ‘protection’. She didn’t like that fer some reason. Chased ‘em right outta town with that armour o' hers.” Ma sniggered. “She’s stuck around ever since.”

Did this mareever stop talking?

“Poor girl,” Ma went on pitifully. “She’s terrible lonesome; don’t got time fer anythin’ that don’t involve hurtin’, whether its Rangers or raiders. Spends all ‘er time cooped up in ‘er home tinkering with that suit o' hers or things ‘round town that need fixin’. What she needs is a good, strong stallion to show ‘er a thing or two.”

I caught the thoughtful glance that she shot at me.

‘Somepony, please kill me.’

“Anyhoo, ‘fore I talk your hooves off…”

‘Oh, thankfuck for that.’

“…what’s your story, stranger?”

I hesitated before replying. I had the feeling that the truthful answer here would be the wrong one. Call it a hunch.

“Nothing special,” I said lightly. “Just somepony out to survive, like everypony else.”

“‘Nothin’ special’,” Old Ma said disbelievingly. “I don’ believe that folks get scars like that,” she said, jabbing a hoof at my head, “without it bein’ special. Or pets like this, fer that matter.” she added, patting Splinter on the back.

I grunted.

“Ah, I gotcha,” she said. “The ‘strong an’ silent’ type, are ya?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You could say that.”

“Well, at least tell me how ya came by this fella,” she said, patting Splinter again. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like ‘im.”

I gave the abridged version of how I’d been attacked by the tree-wolf’s former ‘owners’, and how I’d fed and released Splinter afterwards.

“Scum,” Ma said disgustedly when I’d finished. “Doin’ somethin’ like that to a fine beast like this.” She placed a hoof on Splinter’s back and started stroking him vigorously. “Who’s a good boy? You are! Yes, you are!” she said condescendingly. Splinter let out a slow, deep creak of appreciation. “And aren’t you a good buck, giving’ ‘im a helpin’ hoof like that,” she said to me.

“I… guess?” I said cautiously.

“And modest, too! Reminds me of an ol’ pal o’ mine …”

She talked.

And talked.

We walked for about half an hour, and she never. Stopped. Talking. Other than to breathe or await an answer from me.

At least some of what she said was interesting. She had, she told me, travelled all across much of the San Palomino in her youth, as well as venturing north towards the heartlands once or twice. She told me, briefly, about the dangers of the desert. The northern edge of the Palomino was mostly just an empty, barren dustbowl, but further south there were sandstorms, raiders, and pre-war military bots roaming around.

I couldn’t help but eye the revolver and ammunition she was carrying. It all looked of fine make – far finer than the bashed-together SMG hanging around my neck.

I unconsciously slowed my pace, dropping slightly behind her.

“… an’ don’t ask me ‘bout Haythorne! I bin near that-” Ma stopped walking and held up a hoof. “Wait.”

I looked around. I couldn’t see anything but dust and rocks. “What-”

Ma floated out a piece of junk from within her coat and lazily tossed it onto the ground in front of her. It bounced once, but before it hit the ground again, a circle of earth beneath it simply opened up, leaving a hole capable of swallowing a foal. The junk fell down and disappeared into the hole. Then it was thrown back out again. Half-a-dozen hairy, spindly legs emerged over the edge of the hole, preceding a cluster of gleaming black eyes above a set of dripping fangs.

Ma’s revolver was suddenly out of its holster. I didn’t even see the thing move; one moment it was resting at Ma’s side, the next it was hanging in the air. Two shots rang out and two bullets neatly removed the creature’s eyes. It collapsed onto the dirt in a twisted pile of limbs and slid back into the hole, leaving a smear of ichor behind it.

“What the fuck was that!?” I demanded, one hoof still resting on my lance.

Ma casually reloaded her revolver, meticulously stowing the empty casings in a pouch. “Language,” she said reproachfully, before saying, “peek-a-boo. Nasty little things. Not too bad fer grown ponies like you or me, but if they catch a foal unawares…” She clicked her tongue angrily. “Do the world a favour and squash every one you see.” She spun the cylinder of her revolver, clicked it back into place and slipped the gun back into its holster.

Right. I’d almost forgotten. In the Wasteland, ‘old’ equates to ‘hard to kill’. Scratch that plan.

“Shall we?” Ma said, stepping around the peek-a-boo’s trap-turned-grave.

After a few minutes of walking (and yet more talking), she drew to a halt next to a bizarre-looking plant that sported a nasty array of spikes.

“This one’ll do,” Ma said. “Watch close, now.” She plucked a purple, equally spiky bulb from the top of the plant. She floated it in front of my face. “Now, this ‘ere might be good eatin’,” she said. “But these spines will tear you up somethin’ furious.” In a flash of gleaming metal, there was a knife hanging in the air in front of my face. Old Ma laughed as I flinched. I watched, disgruntled, as she quickly skinned the bulb. “Here,” she said as she finished and tossed the peeled bulb at me. I caught it gingerly between my teeth. Ma gestured for me to eat it. I did so. It was surprisingly good.

“Like I said: good eatin’,” Ma said, skinning a second fruit and tossing it to Splinter, who started messily devouring it, sending a spray of juice spattering onto the ground. “Just gotta skin ‘em good, first. Roastin’ ‘em above a fire for a minute works, too.” She finished skinning a third and tossed into her own mouth. “‘Course, you gotta be careful ‘bout radiation. If it don’t look like these,” she waved a hoof at the fruit left on the plant, “leave ‘em. Probably poisonous. Or not ripe.

“Anyhoo, that’s half my end o’ the bargain,” she said. She turned away from me and pointed towards the horizon. “You see that hill?”

I squinted in the direction she was pointing. There was indeed a hill rising above the dusty plain.

“Round the south side o' that is my daughter's place. Just call in and see if she's all right. I'll have your caps fer you when you get back. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Good! Mind yourself, now. Lotta peek-a-boo's 'tween here an' there. Just watch your step. Take care!”

With a cheery smile she left, trotting back towards Sand's Edge.

I watched her go, then let out a relieved sigh. She may not have been finding excuses to slap me around like other ponies I could name, but that constant droning was a torture all of its own.

I looked down at Splinter. “Well, just you and me again.”

I learned the most annoying thing about the Palomino very quickly.

It wasn't the heat. Or the ponies. Or the critters – although tripping over a peek-a-boo and having to smack away its fangs before Splinter ripped it in two wasn't something I wanted to repeat any time soon.

No, it was the dust.

After an hour's walk, I was irritably pawing at my eyes with every few steps. Every time I opened my mouth, it seemed, a gust of wind was ready to force a mouthful of dust down my throat. It got under my barding and started to itch.

When I got back to Sand's Edge, I decided, I was going to take Ma's caps and buy something to cover my face before I set one solitary hoof back out in this dustbowl. If I couldn't find anything to buy, I'd kill somepony and take theirs. Ihated dust.

It was getting on towards evening when I reached the house. I sighed in relief as I trotted up to the front door. Just go in, talk to this mare – hopefully she didn't talk as much as Ma (maybe that was why she lived out here, as far away from Ma as possible) – then walk back and…

The front door had been left ajar.

I slowed my pace to a walk and stopped as I reached the threshold.

I gently pushed at the door. It slowly swung inwards, and came to a halt, revealing the darkened interior. As I stepped closer, poking my head through the doorway, I froze.

A thin piece of string had been stretch out at chest-level across the doorway, just beneath my chin.

I slowly withdrew my head, then ducked low and crawled awkwardly beneath the tripwire, mindful of the saddlebag and lance on my back. Splinter followed me, apparently understanding the danger. I patted him on the head. “Smart boy.”

Maybe Ma's daughter was just incredibly paranoid?

I went to call out 'Hello?', then stopped myself. I figured if she was paranoid enough to booby-trap her own front door, she'd probably just blow my head off if she didn't know who I was.

“Hey, Ma sent me!” I said instead. “You here?”

No answer.

I looked around. It was a pretty cosy little shack, with one side given over to a pre-war refrigerator hooked up to a portable generator and stacks of boxed food and the other a large table with a number of chairs scattered around it. A doorway led to another room on the far side from the door I'd entered through, below a staircase that led to the upper level. Scattered around the room were little signs of habitation: unwashed dishes on the table; a shotgun propped against the wall, a bag of shells dumped next to it.

Oh, and a bloody corpse in the corner. That was a nice touch.

I immediately picked up my SMG and moved around the table to get a better look.

I assumed it was Ma's daughter. It wasn't exactly in a good state. Raiders, probably. What a shame.

Well… never pass up an opportunity to scavenge.

Ma's daughter had been a bit of a gun nut, I discovered when I checked the back room. There was a bench against the back wall that was strewn with casings and other bits and pieces. I rummaged through a few boxes, coming up with a few magazines for my SMG that I assumed were the right size. My best find was a revolver that I'd swear was the twin of the one Ma had been carrying. I wasn't particularly enthralled with guns, but I'd happily admit it was a thing of beauty, as was the ammunition for it I picked up.

Upstairs was a disappointment, in comparison. Just a bedroom, nothing of note. As I walked back over to the door to the staircase, I froze.

“…-at wire lower!”

The speaker had hushed her voice, but I still heard it.

Great. A trap. And I'd pranced into it like a frolicking foal. La-de-da-de-dead. Idiot.

I waved a hoof at Splinter, hoping he would understand and stay quiet. I edged over to the wall beside the doorway and gently eased the revolver out of my saddlebag. I started sliding bullets into the chambers, wincing at everyclick.

'Let's see what this thing can do,' I thought as I snapped the cylinder shut and gripped it in my mouth-

“Did you hear that!?”

“Upstairs!”

Damn. Forgot to do that last bit quietly.

I listened to the pounding of hooves as they – whoever 'they' were – charged up the staircase. As they reached the top, I swung out into the doorway, sighted on the startled face just in front of me and pulled the trigger.

'FUCK!'

I would have shouted it if the lower half of my face hadn't gone numb. The kick from the revolver jerked my whole head back. The sound was immense! Was this a gun or a grenade launcher!?

I spat out the revolver, letting it fall to floor, and lunged forward. Hooves were always better.

The first raider's head had been all but removed by the revolver's shot, splattering the pony behind her with chunks of skull and brain. She was still rubbing at her face when I hurdled the decapitated body of her friend and smashed a hoof into the side of her head, knocking her straight through the rickety handrail and down to the floor below.

I was knocked off-balance as Splinter forced his way past me and pounced on the next raider in line, who had time for a brief squeal before the impact knocked him down the stairs in a tangle of fur and wood.

I winced as a bullet skipped off my barding and buried itself in the wall behind me. I glanced down at the fourth raider, who was standing as brazenly as you please in the middle of the floor, lining up a second shot with his pistol.

I drew my lance and threw it in one motion. The stallion dodged to the side as it clattered to the floor in front of him. He aimed back up at me, but I'd already jumped off the staircase and down to the floor.

I narrowly missed the raider I'd knocked off the staircase when I landed. She rolled to the side, smacking her head against the shotgun that I'd seen earlier. Her face lit up as she looked at it and she scooped it up in a telekinetic grab.

“Fuck you!” she crowed, turning it in my direction and pulling the trigger.

There was a click.

“No,” I snarled as she looked at the weapon in horror. I picked up my SMG. “Fuckyou.”

One trigger pull, three bullets, no brains.

The stallion with the pistol screamed around the gun in his mouth and started spraying the air around me. One shot hit me square on the metal plate on my flank, making me stumble as I turned. A second hit me in the shoulder. Then he was out of ammo. Rather than reload he actually dropped his gun and charged.

Just to clarify: he was at least a full hand shorter than me, and as skinny as a twig.

I slapped the stallion across the face, staggering him. Then I twisted round and bucked him square in the chest. He rose up on his hindhooves and fell back into the doorway, where his fall was momentarily arrested by the tripwire that was stretched across it. It snapped under his weight and as he fell to his back across the threshold of the doorway, a single grenade dropped down from the ceiling, landing between his sprawled hindlegs. He scrambled up, propping himself on his forelegs. He looked down at the grenade between his hindlegs. His jaw dropped.

The grenade exploded, hurling his body out through the doorway in a spray of gore. Then I exploded. Into laughter.

I set back on my haunches and howled as I recalled the stallion's final expression.

Being blown up by your own trap. How ironic.

Wait, was that what irony was? I couldn't remember.

I stopped giggling when I reached a hoof up to wipe the tears from my eyes and a bolt of pain shot through my shoulder. Cursing, I twisted my head to see the extent of the damage. I could move my leg, so the joint wasn't ruined, but it hurt like a bitch.

I sighed and took out the half-empty healing potion. I stared at it thoughtfully. I shrugged-

Ow.

I took a swig of the potion, leaving just a little swilling around in the bottom of the bottle. I'd need to see about getting some more, at this rate.

Splinter padded over to me, paws and muzzle stained with blood. I idly patted him on the head as I waited for the potion to work. When its work was done, I made my way back up the stairs, carefully stepping over the bodies as I went, and retrieved the revolver from where I'd discarded it. I emptied the cylinder and shoved it into my saddlebag. I wasn't going to try and use it again – I could swear some of my teeth had been loosened by the recoil – but I could probably get a fair few caps for it.

I looked around as I exited the house, wary of more attackers lying in wait.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye.

I turned my head. There was a figure silhouetted against the sky at the crest of the hill. I squinted, trying to make it out clearly in the fading light. It was… standing upright? I couldn't tell properly across the distance. It looked like it. It looked broader across the chest than any pony I'd seen, as well. And there was something wrong with how its forelegs hung at its sides.

Screw it. I wasn't being paid to tangle with monster ponies.

I trotted off, shooting cautious looks as I went. Until we lost sight of the figure, Splinter never stopped growling.

Level Up: You have reached Level 4!

New Perk Gained: Pack Mule

You've grown used to humping it for long distances across the wasteland.

Effect: Your movement speed while encumbered is increased. In addition, you may fast travel while encumbered.

Quest Perk Gained: Crash Course

You stumbled into the Palomino without so much as a tourists’ guide. Luckily, you’ve managed to survive long enough to pick up the basics.

Effect: You gain +3 Survival. In addition, your hunger and dehydration meters increase at a reduced rate. New food recipes are made available.

"Recuperation"

Chapter Four: “Recuperation”

The Sun was setting by the time I made it back to Sand's Edge. As I neared the town, a pair of spotlights were turned on, spreading a ghostly-white pool of light across the ground in front of the gate.

“Hold up!” somepony called down from behind the glare of the spotlights as I trotted up to the gate. “What- Oh. It's you.”

'Not this bitch again…'

“Yeah. Me,” I replied, lifting a hoof to shade my eyes. “Now get this gate open.”

Moody snorted. “The mechanism's sticking,” she said. “It'll take a minute.”

I stamped my hooves impatiently while I waited for the gate to open. With the Sun dipping below the horizon, it was starting to get noticeably cooler. Shame it didn't take the dust with it.

Eventually, the gate was opened. Very, very slowly. It shuddered to a halt, just below my head height.

“Well?” Moody's voice called from the far side. “Are you coming in or not?”

I sighed and ducked beneath the gate. Moody shot a smug grin at me as I passed her. It disappeared when Splinter barked at her as he followed me through the gate, prompting her to jump back and stumble. She tripped over her own hooves and ended up sprawled in the dirt, cursing at the tree-wolf as we walked off.

Ma answered almost immediately when I banged on the door of her shack. “Took you long enough!” she declared cheerfully. “Well? What did she have to say for herself?”

“Nothing. She's dead.”

I watched as the hopeful grin on Ma's face slid away. She sat down heavily, her mouth trying to form words that wouldn't come.

“Wh- What?” she managed finally.

“Raiders,” I said flatly. “They were lying in wait when I got there. They're dead now, anyway, so…” I shrugged.

Ma covered his face with one hoof. After a long moment, her shoulders started to shake. “I knew…” she whispered hoarsely. “I just knew that one of these… Itold her… stupid filly…”

Her voice trailed off into a choked sob. I awkwardly looked around, scratching at the ground with one hoof.

After a minute or so, Ma shook her head vigorously and gave me a strained, self-conscious smile as she briskly wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Bah! Look at me, goin' to pieces while you stand there, just tangled with raiders… you are alright, ain'tcha?”

I shrugged. “Fine.”

“Ah, you'll be wantin' your caps… I dare say you've earned a little extra…” Ma mumbled to herself. She hesitated, looking thoughtful, then said, “if you're agreeable, I've got somethin' stowed away that should be better use to you than caps. Can't remember where I left it though…” She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Come back in the morning,” she said. “I'll have it dug out by then. I promise you'll like it more than the few caps I can give you.”

“Sure, that's fine. I'll see you then, I guess,” I said in a rush, eager to get away before she started crying again.

She seemed just as eager for us to part ways, because the door closed in my face almost as soon as I'd finished speaking. As I walked away, I heard a muffled wail.

Twenty minutes later, I walked out of the town's tiny shop. The owner had given me a tidy sum of caps for the revolver I'd liberated from Ma's daughter's place. I had a nagging feeling that he'd short-changed me, but I didn't know how much the thing was supposed to be worth. Strapped across my forehead were the goggles I'd bought, which, paired with the scarf hanging around my neck, would – I hoped – solve my dust problems. A solitary healing potion had eaten up almost all of the rest of my caps, the shopkeeper citing 'short supply' as a good reason to charge me an insane amount.

I drew to a halt as I walked back out onto the town square.

'And now what?'

My eye was drawn to the sign that was fixed up over the front of one of the larger buildings in town. The saloon’s door was open wide, inviting in the town's inhabitants. It seemed that most of the ponies in town had accepted the invitation, judging by how much noise came floating out through the door.

I hesitated at the threshold.

It was fairly crowded inside. Most of the tables that were scattered around were occupied, either by chattering groups or sullen-looking loners. I ignored them all and trotted straight up to the bar.

A scuffed and shoddily-repaired radio was sitting on a shelf behind the bar, blaring out somepony's voice in a crackling buzz.

“… any pony out that way, do me a favour and drop in, then drop me a line, ‘cause I’m pretty certain some of those deadbeats owe me a cap or two.

“Okay, enough news. This is Desert Wind Radio, drifting out across the sands like… uh, wind, I guess. And this in particular is a tune from our own Silver Strings. And hey! If any of you pony-folk happen to know a poet, send them my way, 'cause I need someone to write me better segues.”

A melodic twanging started reverberating from the radio as I sank onto a stool at the bar. I studiously ignored all the stares of the ponies who apparently couldn’t believe that a stranger had walked into their saloon. Splinter curled up on the floor beside me and, after shooting piercing glares at the first few ponies to walk past, laid his head down and apparently went to sleep.

I rested my forehooves on the bar and bowed my head. I closed my eyes and focused on all the aches and pains that the day had brought on. With nothing to distract me, the constant throbbing in my head was starting to become noticeable again. How far had I walked today? Miles upon miles. Add to that a couple of gunshot wounds, various bruises and strains and all that fucking dust that was still clinging to my coat…

I deserved a fucking drink.

“Well, howdy there, stranger.” I glanced up. The bartender was leaning on the bar opposite me, giving me a scrutinising look. “This is Stellar's, I am Stellar, and, forgive me for judgin', you look in dire need of my services.” She winked at me. “What's your poison?”

“Whiskey,” I answered shortly.

“You sure?” Stellar said. “I don’t get much of it in from the merchants, so I have to charge extra.”

“Yeah.”

She floated a bottle off the shelf behind her and set it down on the counter. “On the rocks?”

“Huh?”

“Ice. You want ice with it?”

“No.”

“Good, ‘cause I got none to give anyway.” She grinned. “Sixteen caps, Muscles.”

I went to dig out the caps from my saddlebag, then paused, raising an eyebrow at the bartender. “‘Muscles’?” She winked at me in response. I rolled my eyes and slapped the caps on the counter.

“Much obliged, Scarface,” Stellar said, scooping up the caps with her telekinesis and tossing them into a box behind the counter.

“At least pick one and stick with it,” I grunted, pulling the bottle closer. A pony at the far end of the bar called over to her and she moved off to serve them, leaving me alone.

I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a sniff of the contents. I immediately started coughing, the aroma bringing tears to my eyes.

The first few swigs went down to the accompaniment of a burning throat and coughing. Good, strong liquor had always been hard to come by and I'd never gotten my fair share. Besides which, getting too drunk around the kind of ponies I'd endured for so long was inviting trouble. As the bottle emptied, I started enjoying the burn, as well as the increasing feeling of relaxation.

At least nopony seemed interested in trying to strike up conversation. Beyond a few suspicious glances from ponies that came up to the counter to order a refill, it seemed everypony was content to let me stew in silence. Not that I did a lot of thinking; there wasn't a whole lot for me to think about. I was here, alive, against odds that had been stacked up higher than the clouds against me. Nothing was trying to kill me. Nothing more to it. Between swigs from the bottle in front me, I just sat and relaxed, occasionally turning my attention to the pony with the weird accent on the radio, who was nowhere near as funny as he seemed to think he was.

As much as I tried to tune out the chattering of the ponies behind me, I was still acutely aware that I had my back to a roomful of complete strangers. Once or twice, when I heard a thump of somepony's chair banging on the floor, or a bottle being slammed down, I shot a glance over my shoulder. I just as quickly turned back, berating myself internally for being so jumpy.

I forced myself to close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh.

“Problem, stranger?”

I snapped my eyes open and cast a glance at the speaker. My gaze fell upon a pair of red eyepieces set into a dark mask. It took a moment for the memory of the confrontation at the gate to resurface. I gave the Ranger a ‘leave me the fuck alone’ look and turned back to my almost-empty bottle.

“You don’t look like a desert pony,” the Ranger said, apparently not bothered by my silence. “You come down from up north? Maybe through Snapleg Pass?”

“None of your business,” I muttered. I noticed Stellar watching us from as far down the bar as she could manage. The sound of clopping hooves on the floor behind me told me that the Ranger’s buddy was standing behind me.

“You’re lookin’ awful nervy for somepony in such a safe place,” the Ranger went on. His tone was light, but I could feel the menace hidden behind that mask.

I felt a familiar aggression bubble up through my psyche, but the whiskey put a hoof around its shoulders and gently led it away to simmer down in some quiet corner. “Must be the present company,” I heard myself say, not looking up from the bar counter.

“Know what I think?” the Ranger said, dropping his voice and with it, the friendly pretext. “I think you’re a raider,” he growled.

“Really?” I asked casually, the whiskey nudging my mouth into action. “’s a nice thought, that. You’d better think of another one quickly, though, before it gets lonely.” I clapped a hoof to my forehead. “Wait! I just thought of one for you!” I lowered my hoof and turned to him fully, glaring at my reflection in the visor of his mask. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Them’s fightin’ words, scum,” the other Ranger snarled, starting forward. The first Ranger held out a foreleg to stop him, then cast a look around the bar. Other ponies were looking over, clearly anticipating the brewing fight. I heard Splinter start growling from his spot on the floor beside me. The Ranger turned his gaze back to me. I met it without flinching. Then I grinned at him. I hoped it made him angry. Angry ponies are stupid ponies.

“Let’s go,” he said to his fellow Ranger, leading the way out of the bar. His buddy shot me a glare, then followed.

Good. There was more room to swing my lance outside.

I downed the last of the whiskey in one gulp and slammed the bottle back on the counter, hard enough to jolt the nearby clutter. As I stood up, I staggered to the side. I frowned and squinted down at my legs. They looked fine. So it wasn't me; it was just the world being all… swirly. Good. Fuck the world. I sucked in a deep breath and swaggered over to the door, ignoring all the nervous glances of ponies who were trying to look absorbed in their drinking.

The night air made me shiver as I stepped out of the warmth of the saloon. The square out front was only lit by the thin bars of light that seeped through the cracks in the shutters and doors of the surrounding buildings. I looked around as I stepped out into the empty space, Splinter padding along behind me. No sign of any masked morons anywhere.

“Well?” I called out across the square. “Come get some, foal-fuckers!”

Splinter barked. I turned around and casually flung up a hoof to deflect the telekinetically-held knife that came hissing through the air towards my neck. It flew off into the darkness and clattered to the ground in the shadows.

“Ow.” I raised my foreleg and looked at the gash that was seeping blood down my hoof and dripping to the ground. I raised my gaze to the silhouette that loomed out of the shadows beside the saloon. “That hurt, you bitch,” I said indignantly.

A set of galloping hooves drew my gaze to the right. The second Ranger charged out of the darkness. His gas mask was hanging around his neck, his knife clasped between his teeth. I lazily turned to meet his charge, but Splinter beat me to the buck. The tree-wolf pounced, hitting the Ranger in the side and sending him flying. I chuckled as I watched the pair crash to the ground and start rolling around in the dirt, the Ranger slapping aside Splinter's snaps with his forelegs.

I turned back to the first Ranger just in time to catch a buck to the chest. I staggered backwards, the pain cutting through the whiskey-scented shroud that was swirling in my mind. I swore and lashed out with a foreleg that was seized in a telekinetic grab. Before I could pull free, the Ranger twisted my leg harshly, pulling me off balance. I lost my footing and fell to the ground heavily.

“Ooh, you'regood,” I said, my voice muffled by the dirt I was spitting out. I rolled aside as the Ranger's forehooves stamped down on the ground where my head had been. I twisted around and swiped at his legs with a hindleg. I heard him grunt as I struck his knee, buckling his leg and staggering him momentarily – long enough for me to climb to my hooves.

I brought my lance out and clenched it in my teeth. Before I had a chance to swing, the Ranger darted forward, knocking the lance-head aside and smashing a hoof across my face. I grunted and reared up, striking out with both forehooves. I swore as I struck the armoured shell of his gas mask. As I dropped down, I whipped the lance around, cracking the haft against the Ranger's head. He stumbled and I followed up with a knee to the chest.

The Ranger grunted in pain and stumbled backwards. I lunged forward and swung my lance again. There was a crunch as it struck the Ranger's visor and one of the eyepieces developed a lovely web of cracks. He backed away some more and I followed, only to swear as my lance was grabbed and thrown away by his magic.

“You cheating… cheater!” I shouted as I threw myself forward.

The Ranger managed to rip his visor away just in time for me to collide with him and bear him to the ground. We struggled in the dirt for a while, until I managed to pin him down.

“Well, hello there!” I said cheerfully, my face inches above his. I raised my forehoof-

"Enough!"

The electronically-amplified shout startled me. Judging by how the Ranger jerked beneath me, I wasn’t the only one.

A beam of light was shone across us, blinding me.

“Let him up,” the voice at the other end of the spotlight ordered.

I grudgingly obeyed, giving the Ranger one last stamp to the chest as a gesture of defiance.

“Call off your pet.”

“He's not really a-” I started to say.

“Just do it.”

I mumbled a few insults against the speaker's mother. “Splinter!” I shouted. “Hey!” I roared when he ignored me and continued gnawing on the Ranger's leg. He looked up, letting the limp limb drop from his jaws. “Come here!” The tree-wolf snarled at the stricken Ranger momentarily, then trotted over to my side.

The source of the spotlight bobbed closer, accompanied by a set of heavy hoof-steps. As the spotlight was turned away from me to regard the mauled Ranger on the ground, I could make out the formidable silhouette of Renegade's power armour.

“So,” she said coldly. “This is 'keeping out of my mane', is it?”

“Fuck you,” the Ranger Splinter had torn up spat. He struggled to stand, clutching his ripped-up foreleg to his chest. “We-”

“Shut up.” Renegade turned to the Ranger I'd given a beating as he clambered to his hooves. “Take your friend and leave.”

“That pony,” the Ranger said, pointing a hoof at me, “is a murdering, piece-a-shit raider, and you ain’t got no business sheltering him like this-”

The minigun on Renegade’s battle saddle spun up, the high-pitched whine cutting off the Ranger’s speech. “Out,” Renegade said firmly.

I took a surreptitious step away from the Ranger, who was standing stock-still, his form bleached white by the spotlight, eyes blinking rapidly against the glare. He drew himself up, raising his chin defiantly. “You ain’t got the guts to-”

A buzz like a bloatsprite’s great-granddaddy ripped through the air. A line of bullet impacts was drawn in the dirt just short of the Ranger, kicking up a cloud of dust, the motes picked out like stars in the glare of the spotlight. The Ranger cried out and jumped backwards.

“You missed,” I said derisively. Nopony paid any attention.

“Out,” Renegade repeated.

The Rangers glanced at each other and backed down. They limped off in the direction of the gate.

“You'll fucking pay for this, bitch!” one of them called over his shoulder.

Renegade snorted. “Just for that, we're keeping your guns,” she replied. She trotted off after them.

I sank to my haunches, inspecting the cut on my foreleg from the deflected knife. It stung, but it was nothing a tough pony like me couldn't handle. I gave Splinter a look-over, but I didn't know if he could evenbe injured, making the whole exercise pointless. I patted him on the head and he growled in response.

“Who's a badass?” I said as I stroked his neck. “Who's a badass? We are! Aren't we just-”

“You okay there, friend?” I glanced up at the pony who was standing over me. It was… whatsisface… Lucky.

“Oh yeah,” I said, waving a hoof nonchalantly. “They're just lucky that Metal Mare turned up when she did.”

Lucky let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, I guess so. Have to say, I ain't seen anypony ever give Rangers a beatin' like that before. 'Least, not without a certain suit o' power armour.”

“Pfft,” I said disdainfully. “You desert ponies are all weaklings, in that case.”

“Charming,” Lucky said coolly.

The heavy stomping of armoured hooves announced Renegade's return.

“I didn't need you,” I said. “I had it totally under control-”

“Shut up,” Renegade said. “They get a ten-minute headstart, then you're out, too.”

“What? Why?” I demanded. I slapped my forehoof on the ground. “But Ilike it here-”

“You're trouble, and I'm not having it in this town,” Renegade said calmly. “Ten minutes-”

“Now, you hold up right there, missy,” Lucky said before I could speak. He squared up to the armoured mare. “This ain't your town.”

Renegade drew herself up, exploiting the bulk granted by her armour to full effect. “I don't see anypony else keeping the Rangers out,” she said disdainfully. “Not that it matters,” she went on. “I'm not having somepony with grief with the Rangers hanging around, bringing them down on us.”

“That ain't fair, an' you know it!” Lucky said, pointing an accusing hoof at Renegade. “You know that Rangers'll pick a fight with anypony they please an' damned if most of 'em done nothin' to them or anypony!”

“I didn't even know what a Ranger was until today,” I grumbled to nopony in particular.

“There, you see?” Lucky said, clapping a hoof to my shoulder.

“Those Rangers started it!” somepony said. I looked behind me. Apparently, half the saloon had turned out to watch the aftermath. “Just picking a fight for no reason!” The crowd murmured in agreement.

“Fine,” Renegade said eventually. “You get to stay.” She took a step closer, bringing her visor to level with my eyes. “But I'll be watching you.” With those oh-so-friendly parting words, she turned and walked off.

“Ah, don't go takin' it personally,” Lucky said. I realised I'd been mumbling various threats and insults at Renegade as she walked off. “She's always been a bit stiff. Come on, up you get.”

Lucky helped me to my hooves. It was harder to stand than usual. Like somepony had been tying weights to my legs. I glared at them. Nope. Everything looked normal. Weird.

“I have to ask,” Lucky said. “How did ya do that thing with the knife?”

“What, this?” I asked, lifting up my hoof. “'S easy! Just wave your hoof likethis.” I demonstrated. “'S easy!” I repeated.

“'Easy'?” Lucky said. “That kinda trick ain't somethin' anypony I know would try anytime soon.”

“Well,” I said, waving my hoof around some more. “I guess I'm just awesome.” I held my head up high in triumph.

Killjoy. Knife… Bouncing-Off-er Pony Supreme. Fuck yeah.

“Everything all right, Born?” a familiar voice. I liked that voice. It gave me whiskey.

“All clear, now, Stellar. Although,” Lucky stepped past me to mutter to Stellar. “How much has he had to drink?”

“Three whiskeys,” the bartender replied.

Lucky snorted. “A few glasses doesn't-”

“Threebottles.”

“You gave himthree bottles of Privateers' whiskey-!?”

“Lies,” I said firmly, pointing a hoof at Stellar's face. She recoiled slightly as it ended up less than an inch from a her muzzle. “I've hadone, and I'll kill anypony who says otherwise.”

“He kept paying for them,” Stellar said, ignoring me. She shrugged. “Business is business.”

“Kill you all, I will,” I mumbled, looking around at the small crowd. I could take 'em all with one hoof tied to my tail. Jus' watch me.

“Dammit, Stellar,” Lucky said. “When will you-?”

Somepony nudged me in the side. I turned to glare at a young pony who was regarding me with fascination, his foreleg still outstretched.

“You starting something?” I asked him. “You'll die first, bitch.”

He backed off.

'Yeah, you'd better run, Pokey…'

“There is noway he's had that much,” Pokey said, shaking his head. “I can't handleone of those bottles.”

'Okay, you get to live.'

“He has, and I have the caps to prove it-!” Stellar said.

“No you don't!” I said jabbing my hoof at her, making her flinch. “I didn't drink 'em! I-” I hesitated. There was something wrong with that sentence.

“Okay, okay!” Lucky said loudly. “Y'all stop winding 'im up!” He started waving the crowd away. “Go on, clear out. Nothin' more to see, folks.”

I sat down again as the crowd dispersed. I yawned suddenly. How long had today been? Too long. The ground was feeling awfully soft under my hooves…

“Woah there, big guy!” Lucky said, pulling me back upright by the shoulder as I went to test how soft the ground was with my face. “Let's get you someplace outta everypony's way first. Don't want nopony trippin' over you in the dark.”

Ooh. That was a good point. I stood back up, ignoring the aching in my legs. “Nice. Where?”

Lucky rubbed at his face thoughtfully. “Misfire's ol' place should still be empty,” he muttered to himself. He shrugged. “It'll do. For tonight, anyway. Come on, let's get you-”

“You're… giving me ahouse?” I asked as he led the way past the saloon, towards the cliff edge . “An actualhouse?”

“For one night,” Lucky said. “And yes, it's an 'actual' house. Can't go puttin' up ponies in fake houses, now, can we?”

“Wow,” I said. “That's… I like that. And you. I like you.” I slapped him on the shoulder. “You get to be killed last.”

“Well, shucks, ain't that an honour,” Lucky muttered.

“Damn right!” I shouted, making him jump. “I've never killed somepony last before!” I frowned. That sentence didn't seem right, but I couldn't put my hoof on it…

“Okay, okay,” Lucky said soothingly. “Let's just get you to this house and get you into bed, okay?.”

I stopped walking and turned to face him, drawing back from him suspiciously. “What did you just say?”

“Let's get you into-” Lucky stopped and pressed a hoof against his face. “Not like that,” he said.

“Better not be,” I said, holding up a hoof. “You just… keep your distance. I've got my eye on you.” As I spoke that last sentence, some part of my brain hastily tried to intercept it. Too late. “But not like that,” I added instead.

“And here I thought you said you liked me,” Lucky said jovially as we walked off again.

I snorted and shook my head. It caused the world to lurch suddenly to one side and I stumbled into Lucky's side. I growled at the ground and made my next few hoofsteps extra heavy to punish it for its impertr-… imperternin-… nastiness.

“You're not my type,” I said. “An' don't go takin' it personally. 'S just you're old and stuff.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel much-”

“An' notta mare,” I added, once I'd realised what I'd forgotten to say. “'S important, that.”

“Okay, glad you noticed. Here we are…” Lucky pushed open the door of a shack that was suddenly in front of us. Sneaky shack. I trotted right on in, Lucky following behind. It was a very small hut, with just a rickety old bed tucked away in the corner and random pieces of clutter spread across the floor.

“Home, sweet home,” Lucky said. “'T ain't much, but it's someplace to lay down your head down for the night.”

“It'slovely,” I said. Without further ado, I trotted over to the bed, shedding my weapons and saddlebag on the way. I reared up over the bed, spun around on my hindhooves, flopped backwards onto the stiff mattress and was fast asleep before the springs stopped jangling.

I awoke.

“Aaargh.”

I curled my forelegs over my head and groaned.

As I lay there, moaning through the disgusting taste in my mouth in agony at the throbbing in my skull, I heard the soft padding of Splinter walking over, then felt him nuzzling me in the side. I feebly pushed him away. “Gerrof, you bastaaargh…”

I shoved at the door to the shack and stumbled out. As the door banged behind me, I turned my gaze upwards and the glare of the morning sun ran a thread of liquid fire into my brain. I pulled the goggles on my forehead down until they covered my eyes. They did nothing to help.

“I hate everything,” I mumbled to myself. Splinter barked, then whined sorrowfully. “Especially you,” I added.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to find Ma's house again. I banged twice on the door, having to rest my hoof against the door on the third knock as the throbbing in my head overwhelmed my sense of balance.

The door opened, causing me to over-balance. I caught myself before I fell headlong through the doorway. I straightened up and found myself face-to-face with Ma.

“Well, good morning, young 'un,” she chirped. Although she smiled, it was strained and forced. Good. I didn't want to deal with happy ponies at the moment. “You alright there, buck?” she asked, squinting at me.

“'M fine,” I mumbled. “Got headache.”

“Well, come on in,” she said, moving back to allow me past. “Wipe your hooves!” she scolded me as I crossed the threshold.

The shack within was far more homely than the one I'd endured last night. As Ma trotted over to a chest and started rooting through it, I threw a look around the room. Most of the floorspace was covered with clutter; boxes that appeared to contain useless bits of junk. I bent down and inspected the closest one. A broken pistol, a collection of empty food cans and a tangle of electrical wiring. Somepony clearly thought everything was worth saving.

“Ah, here it is…”

Ma walked back to me, levitating an oversized bracelet beside her. She held it in front of my face, allowing me to inspect it. It was old world tech, that much was clear, with a miniature terminal screen and a set of buttons and knobs set into the scuffed metal surrounding it.

“Wha' 'sit?” I asked.

“Pipbuck,” Ma said simply. “Bit o' pre-war magi-tech. Real handy for a pony out in the sands; keeps track o' your health, scopes out nearby critters and keeps maps o' everywhere you bin. An' that's not even half the things it can do.” She lowered the device to my left foreleg. “Lift your leg, an' have a try.”

I sat down and raised my leg, allowing her to slip it on over my hoof. A key was produced and slotted into a discreet hole in the casing. She turned it and the padding suddenly clenched tightly around my leg. I let out an involuntary grunt of discomfort.

“Oh, hush, you big baby,” Ma said, removing the key and slipping into my saddlebag. “Try not to lose that, by the by; ain't nothing can get one o' these off your leg after it's on.” She pressed a button and the pipbuck's screen flashed. Words began to scroll across the screen, too fast for me to read them.

I blinked suddenly as I realised that a similar set of words had appeared in the top-left of my vision. I flinched and as I turned my head, the words moved as well. I swatted a hoof at where it seemed the words were, but they remained. I scowled as Ma laughed at me. A thin, robotic voice emanated from the pipbuck's speaker.

“Primary boot sequence complete. Eyes-Forward Sparkle online.”

The words dissolved into nothing. As they did so, a whole set of discreet diagrams and figures appeared, scattered around the edge of my vision.

“Life signs monitoring subsystem online. Inventory management subsystem online. Auto-mapping subsystem online. Identify Friend-or-Foe subsystem online. Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting System (Patent Pending) online…”

The pipbuck spewed out a whole lot of other long words I didn't understand before finally falling silent.

“An' there y'are! All set!” Ma said.

I raised my leg and turned it back and forth, inspecting my new toy. I looked at the screen. It was displaying a crude figure of a pony whose tongue was hanging out, their eyes screwed up in an expression of discomfort. I felt an immediate sense of kinship.

“That's health monitorin',” Ma said. “Keep a close eye on that, if you've any sense. Hit that button there… that's inventory. Now that button… No not that one,that one! That's the map. Now turn that knob two clicks down, that's- I saiddown!”

It took a while, and more than a few utterances of “your right, ormy right?” – many of which were due to a slight fiasco with the device's voice recording and playback facility – but Ma managed to acquaint me with the pipbuck's functions.

“Last, but not least,” she said. “Hit that button.” I did so.

Nothing happened.

“Well, that was-” I started sceptically, but I stopped as I raised my head.

A whole slew of new diagrams had appeared in my Eyes-Toward Sprinkles, or whatever it was called, floating around Ma. As I tried to process the array of numbers, a fly buzzed across my vision, its wingflaps almost slow enough to be individually visible. I raised a hoof towards it, then noticed a new diagram appear: a dotted line, tracing a curved path from my hoof to Ma's head, with a number floating alongside it. I moved my hoof so that it followed the line, watching the number flicker as it increased, from the mix-sixties up to seventy, eighty. As my hoof moved, Ma's eyebrows rose in slow-motion, her hoof moving upwards as if through thick treacle.

There was a beep from the pipbuck and the E.F.S. devolved to its usual form. Ma's hoof snapped upwards and gently knocked mine aside.

“Nice try, buck,” she said. She nodded her head down at the pipbuck. “S.A.T.S.,” she explained. “Targeting spell. Handy for any tight spots you find yourself in. You'll figure it out yourself, easy enough.”

I nodded, lifting up the pipbuck to admire it.

I liked it.

“So,” Ma said, “that leave us square?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. That seemed lacking, so I added, “thanks.”

“You're welcome, buck. Now if you don't mind,” she said tiredly, “I've got a long day ahead. See yourself out, and thank you again.”

I nodded and made my way to the door.

'Well… now what?'

I hated that thought.

I wandered around town for a while, trying to think of an answer to go with it.

I could go and out and wander around in the dust for a while. Maybe walk until I found another settlement and… rinse and repeat…?

I sat down and rubbed at my face, flinching when my hoof struck something hard. I rolled my eyes at my own idiocy and pushed the goggles up onto my forehead.

Was this going to be the rest of my life? Aimlessly drifting around this dusty piece of wasteland until something killed me?

Granted, up to know my life had mostly revolved aimlesslystaying in the same place until something killed me, but… it was different now. Somehow.

“Hey. You.”

I turned my head. The formidable form of Renegade came stomping over to me from the doorway of a house. Splinter immediately began growling at her. I didn't bother to stop him.

“Yeah. What?” I replied, mimicking her clipped tone.

“I've got a job for you,” she said.

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Really? Yesterday, you couldn't wait to see the back of me.”

“That was yesterday,” she said coldly. “Do you want these caps of mine or not?”

She wasn't even pretending to be friendly about it. Was that a good thing?

“Dunno. You'd better tell me what the job is, first,” I said.

She walked closer to me. I wasn't a little pony by any measure, but the bulk provided by her power armour made her more than my equal in size. I squared up to her anyway.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded suddenly, pointing a hoof at my pipbuck.

“None of your business,” I sneered at her. “And that's not a job. That's a question.”

A snort of frustration burst forth from the armour's speakers. “Do you know where Haythorne is?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“South-west. About fifteen miles. There's an old magical technology factory in the northern quarter. I need any tech you can find that's in good condition.”

I mulled it over for a moment. “What's the catch?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” she said. “Besides raiders, rangers, bots, radstorms and feral ghouls. You know, perfectly normal Wasteland stuff.”

“Sure, whatever,” I grunted. “What kind of tech do you want, and how much do I get paid?”

“Spark batteries, gemcells, any electronics and wiring you can find,” she reeled off. “You get thirty caps for the batteries, one cap for every five 'cells and a cap for every circuit board or metre of wiring. Well?” she demanded impatiently as I thought it over.

“What do you want them for?”

“None of your business,” she said. She cocked her head to the side. “And that's not an answer. That's a question.”

I gave her an insincere, mocking laugh. “Fifty caps for the batteries,” I said thoughtfully. “Four caps for every five cells and three caps for that last thing you said.”

Renegade snorted. “Go buck yourself,” she said bluntly.

“Fine, get somepony else to do your job.” I smirked at her. If she had somepony else to ask, she wouldn't be asking the complete stranger who'd been 'causing trouble' the day before. I knew it and I knew she knew it.

I barely heard the sigh of frustration from the armoured mare. “Forty caps for the first three batteries, thirty for every one after that,” she said. “Three caps for every ten gemcells, and one cap for the circuit boards and wiring.”

I thought about it. Was that a good deal? I had no idea. I'd just asked for more caps on principle.

“I dunno… still seems a little low for such a long walk…” I said.

Renegade sighed again. “And I'll give you something to use against the factory's bots.”

“You didn't say anything about bots before,” I said accusingly.

“I did. You weren't listening. Yes or no?”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

Renegade nodded. “Follow me.”

As she turned away, Splinter barked. I looked down at him. He turned his gaze from Renegade to me, then back again and growled.

“Look, I don't like her either, but caps are caps,” I muttered to him.

“Are youtalking to that thing?”

I turned back to Renegade, who had paused in mid-stride to shoot a glance over her shoulder at me. I shrugged. “Yeah. So what?”

She sighed. I was beginning to get the feeling it was her favourite word. Or not-word. Whatever. “So nothing, if you don't mind looking crazy.” She ignored me as I made a face at her. “Get a move on.”

She led me over to the house she'd come out of, beckoning me through the doorway. The room beyond was festooned with bits and pieces of old world tech. Several terminals, only two of which were undamaged and had lit screens, were resting in a haphazard arrangement on a table in a corner. A long bench lined one wall, bits and pieces of various guns scattered across it in a scene of orderly chaos. Coils of wiring were hanging from hooks in the roof and walls, along with an example of every tool and measuring device in the world.

I turned my eyes from the workings of what looked to be an SMG similar to the one hanging around my neck just in time to see Renegade pop the seals of her helmet and lift it off her head. Her coat was a dark blue, complimenting the lighter shade of her mane, which was streaked with pale yellow. I would have called her fairly attractive, if she wasn't scowling at me like my mere presence insulted her.

“Hold out your pipbuck,” she told me, picking up a cable that ran from one of the terminals in the corner.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I obeyed, but not without putting a scowl to match hers on my face. She jammed the cable into a port on the pipbuck and walked back over to the terminal I was now tethered to.

“If you're planning to keep me on a leash, you're gonna need a longer rope,” I said scathingly. “Also: way too kinky for my tastes.”

She shot a disgusted look at me over her shoulder. She tapped away on the terminal for a few seconds, then my pipbuck beeped and a prompt popped up in my E.F.S.:

Map data added.

“There,” Renegade said, pulling the cable out of the pipbuck. “In case you try to get lost with my stuff.”

I glanced at the compass in the corner of my vision. An arrow was hovering at the edge. I turned my head and it panned across. I turned my head back and it moved back.

“Nice,” I said flatly.

“You're welcome,” Renegade said in a tone that suggested I was nothing of the sort. She walked over to the workbench and picked up a bulky metal canister. She proffered it to me. “Pulse grenade,” she explained. “Pull that bit out, throw it at a bot, bot goes boom. Throw the big bit, not the little bit.” she added condescendingly.

“I know how to use a grenade,” I snapped at her.

“Amazing,” she said snidely. “Did you find a book with pictures and big words? Are you sure you had it the right way up?”

“You realise I can just take these grenades, leave and never come back?” I said.

Renegade smiled viciously. “Oh, youcould,” she said maliciously. “But if you've got the Rangers out for your blood, then this is the only safe town for you in the Palomino. Granted, I'd much rather shoot you myself, but you'd still be dead either way.”

I snorted. “Those idiots? I would've killed 'em both if you hadn't butted in.”

“You got lucky. Out there,” she jerked a hoof over a shoulder, “they'd just pick you off from half-a-mile away.”

“Whatever.” I stuffed the pulse grenades into my saddlebag. A prompt flashed up in my E.F.S., informing me that I had done so. Clearly, the pipbuck had been designed for ponies with a memory span of less than a second. “I'm outta here. You just have your caps ready for when I get back.”

“Good luck,” Renegade called after me as I left. “You're going to need it,” she added just before the door slammed shut behind me.

Well, at least I had an answer tothat question now.

As I left Renegade's house, my E.F.S. showed me another prompt:

Make your way to Haythorne.

I glared at my pipbuck and shook it irritably. “I know that already,” I muttered at it. Splinter whined. “I'm not talking to you!” I snapped.

This was going to get confusing, now that I had myself, an I-still-don't-what-it-is-probably-an-animaland an inanimate object to talk to.

Lucky was at the gate when I walked up. He saw me coming and groaned.

“Couldn't you have come along two minutes earlier?” he said. “I've just closed the gate after Ma.”

“Nope,” I said baldly. “Sounds like you just need a better gate.”

“An' don't I know it!” Lucky exclaimed as he started working the winch. “I keep asking Renegade to fix us up somethin' to do the job, but she never quite gets around to it, for some reason.”

'Maybe because she's a bitch…? Possibly…?' I thought.

“You feeling okay after last night?” Lucky asked. “You were pretty far gone.”

I groaned. As if I needed reminding. “I'm fine.” I tapped the scar on my head lightly. “I was shot in the head once, you know.”

Lucky chuckled. “True. I guess after that, a bit of whiskey is foal's play.”

The gate ground to a halt.

“Stay safe out there,” Lucky called after me as I left. I snorted.

'Fat chance.'

Progress to Next Level: 36%

Challenge Perk Gained: Didn't Even Blink!

'Just dodge it'? Just watchthis!

Deflect an enemy's magically-thrown object with an Unarmed attack.

Effect: Blocking deducts more damage from enemy Unarmed and Melee attacks.

Fancy Meeting You Here

Chapter Five: Fancy Meeting You Here

It took a few hours to reach Haythorne, following the arrow hovering above the compass in my E.F.S.. I was accosted by nothing worse than a brief period of wind, which prompted an encounter with my most hated of enemies. Fortunately, I was assisted by my newly-purchased goggles and scarf, and the wind-borne, dusty foe was routed in disgrace.

Haythorne had been a pre-war town. Now, it was a grey smear of rubble against the dreary brown of the desert. The outskirts were overrun with dust and sand, the surface of the streets was left invisible under a loose carpet of encroaching desert. The buildings were ruinous, each and every one. Windows that had been reduced to gaping holes and doorways that were indistinguishable from the places where the walls had simply fallen through allowed the sand entrance, where it had settled across the decayed remnants of the houses' interiors.

The desert was a predator. And this vestige of a forgotten civilisation was its stricken prey, slowly being digested into nothingness. Maybe in a few hundred years there would be nothing left but sand. Nothing left to show that thousands of ponies had lived – and died – here.

Those weren't my thoughts at the time, as I took my first cautious steps down a road strewn with sand and rubble. My thoughts at the time were along the lines of:'why can't I ever go anywherenice?'. I disliked the oppressiveness of the buildings that pressed in from all sides, cutting off my lines of sight. There could be all sorts of horrible, death-dealing monsters – excluding myself – lurking amongst the rubble, lying in wait for an unwary traveller to pounce upon.

I grimaced and rolled my head around on my shoulders. If I was going to have to be a traveller here, I wasn't going to be an unwary one.

The arrow on my compass was pointing me towards a silhouette that rose above the rest of the ruins, cutting an imposing figure against the clouded sky. As I passed the wreckage of a burnt-out pre-war wagon, Splinter suddenly stopped in his tracks and lifted his head, twitching it back and forth.

Then he turned to his left and growled at a specific building.

I glanced at my E.F.S.. A pair of red indicators were hovering above the compass.

“Well, shit,” I muttered.

A figure suddenly loomed in an upstairs window of the house. Splinter snarled furiously and took off towards the building's doorway, eating up the short distance in great bounds. The pony in the window opened fire, bullets kicking up plumes of dust in a trail that followed after the tree-wolf, missing by inches. Splinter barrelled through the doorway and out of sight. The pony in the window turned his weapon on me, but not before I dived aside and ducked behind the hulk of the wagon next to me. A few bullets ricocheted off the metal before I heard a muffled scream and the gunfire stopped.

I grinned and stood up, brushing sand off my barding and enjoying the shrieks of Splinter helping himself to somepony's legs. I was starting to really enjoy having that dumb animal around.

I snapped my head around at the sound of clopping hooves behind me. Several ponies, armed and dressed in the whatever-I-can-find fashion of assorted wasteland scum everywhere, emerged from their hiding places in the buildings opposite and spread out into a ragged line, facing me. I twitched my eyes back and forth along the line. No guns. Good.

A stallion with a pair of ears that could have each provided shelter for a small family stepped forward, the blades tied to his forehooves scratching at the ground beneath him. He was scarred and worn, and wasn't exactly a prime specimen of health, but he was still almost as big as I was. “'Ello, chum,” he said in a guttural voice, his lips curling up on one side into a lopsided grin that revealed the yellowed, broken teeth he sported. “Now… you've done me a real disservice, you 'ave, setting your pet there on my best shooters.”

On cue, from the house behind me, came a series of gunshots, interrupted by a howl of agony.

“Normally, I'd be obliged to 'ave your legs broken an' give you over to my friends here to” – he cocked his head to one side and grinned maliciously – “enjoy.”

Big Ears' little gang cackled amongst themselves. Fuckers.

“'Least 'til they got bored of you an' slit your froat, anyhow,” Big Ears went on nonchalantly. “But,” he said, putting on an expression of deep thought, “I've got some friends who'll pay well for a big bastard like you, so if you just drop your stuff, we'll forgo the leg-breakin' an' froat-slittin'.” His grin twisted itself further into a leer. “'Course, I can't make promises 'bout the other stuff.”

I snorted and shifted my legs about in the dust, finding a stable footing. “Fuck that,” I growled. “Make a line.” I pointed a challenging hoof at Big Ears. “You first, foal-fucker.”

If Big Ears' grin had grown any wider, he would have snapped his jaw in two . “That supposed to insult me, were it? Nice try.” Big Ears laughed, the rest of his troupe joining in. Without warning, he sprang forward and charged, covering the distance between us before I had time to blink. In a moment, he was close enough for me to get a good look at the stained and crooked teeth that his snarling expression revealed.

I slapped the S.A.T.S. button on my pipbuck.

Big Ears' charge slowed to a crawl. I glanced at the E.F.S., then lunged forward, spun around and bucked him right in the revolting teeth, savouring the crunch of enamel shattering under my hooves. That must have wiped the grin off his face. I let my momentum carry me through, spinning around to face Big Ears. The impact from my buck, combined with his speed had flipped him head-over-tail and onto his back. I turned around just in time to watch the back of his head smack into the ground in slow-motion.

I leapt on top of Big Ears, one hoof raised to slam into his face. As it descended, I watched his eyes open blearily just in time to see-

The targeting spell ran out and my hoof smashed into Big Ears' muzzle. He fell back against the ground, weakly slapping at me and trying to shield his face. I raised my hoof again and slammed it into his face twice more.

I grunted in pain as my hindlegs were swept out from under me and I fell to the side. I cried out as Big Ears swiped at my face with his hoof, the jagged, rusty blades coming too close to my eyes for my liking. Pain flared up from my cheek, and I felt the oh-so-familiar-you'd-think-I-enjoyed-it-by-now heat of my blood trickling over my skin. I clumsily rolled away from the big stallion, hampered by the saddlebag lashed to my side. I scrambled to my hooves and reared up hurriedly as Big Ears lunged at me. Pain shot through my forelegs as I batted his lashing hooves aside and received several scratches for my trouble.

As we dropped down to the tarmac again, I threw myself forward and slammed my forehead into Big Ears' muzzle. He staggered backwards, clutching at his bruised and broken face with one hoof. I ducked my head and snatched up my SMG. As Big Ears lowered his hoof and raised his head, lips drawn back in an enraged snarl, I pulled the trigger, spraying him with a long burst. At least a dozen bullets pulped his chest and neck and he collapsed.

I let the SMG drop against my chest, raised a forehoof and, with a roar of triumph, stamped down on Big Ears' head. There was a crunch and I felt the stallion's skull give beneath the skin. I grinned in satisfaction as I stepped off the body, raising my bloody hoof to shake it clean in a spray of gore.

There was a clatter of wood on tarmac beside me as Splinter appeared, blood and ragged strips of skin decorating his muzzle. I treated the shocked ponies opposite to my widest grin and unsheathed my lance. “Who's next?” I called out gleefully. Splinter interrupted his constant growling to bark his own challenge.

The remaining raiders glanced at each other. Then, in the slow and cautious technique of 'I'll go if you go', charged. I sank into a ready position, lance drawn back to strike at the closest-

A furious storm of gunfire came sweeping down from further up the street and perforated the charging ponies in a maelstrom of spraying blood and pained howling. One mare managed to stumble onwards for a few steps, in spite of the half-dozen holes punched through her flank. She ended up slumping to the ground just short of my forehooves, the length of lead pipe grasped in her teeth falling from her grip and rolling forward to bump against my hoof. I sighed in irritation, then raised a hoof and lightly kicked the mare's head. Hooray. Victory.

The gunfire had been replaced by the approaching clopping of hooves. I warily turned to meet them. Four sets of hooves, to be precise. The ponies they belonged to didn't look like raiders; they were too clean for that. The armour they wore was heavy-duty, not like the loose, kitbashed barding I had draped over my back and flanks. Their suits were all crudely painted the same shade of dark green. Classy. Their weapons were well-maintained, too, if I was any judge. As they came to a halt in front of me, I stepped backwards and hefted my lance.

“Oh, yeah,” one of them said in response; a grey-coated stallion with an obscenely large machine gun on his battle saddle. I took an instant dislike to the cocky grin he was sporting. He touched a hoof to the brim of his helmet in a casual salute as he continued, “you're welcome. Pleasure to save your tail. Let's do it again sometime, 'ey?”

“What thefuck isthat?” another asked, pointing at the crouched figure of Splinter beside me.

“Everypony shut up,” the one in the lead said firmly. She was a unicorn mare, off-white coat, a scoped assault rifle held alongside herself with her magic. Unlike Grinning Idiot, she was bareheaded, revealing her pale purple mane that was tied back from her face. As she spoke she floated the rifle onto the back, stowing it in a holster on her saddle. She took a step forward, raising a hoof to brush an errant strand of her mane from her face. “Look,” she said calmingly. “If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already. Relax, okay? We're not in the business of killing strangers.”

“Apart fromthose strangers, at least,” Grinning Idiot said, gesturing at the crumpled bodies that lay around us. “And I think you'll agree they had it coming,” he added in satisfied tones.

I grudgingly conceded the point and lowered my lance.

“My name's Paramount,” the unicorn mare said. “This is Hardwire –” Grinning Idiot gave another cheerful salute “– Prickle Top, and Macro,” she said, gesturing to each of the ponies in turn. “What's your name?”

I laid my lance on the ground, keeping it within easy reach. “Killjoy.”

“And I repeat: what thefuck isthat?” Prickle Top demanded, gesturing at Splinter again.

I shrugged. “Dunno. I just ran into him a few days ago.” I smirked. “He kills things for me, though, so I kept him.”

“'Him'?” Prickle Top said dubiously. “How can you tell?” I shrugged again.

Hardwire trotted over to Splinter, ignorant of the tree-wolf's growls. “He's pretty sweet, whatever he is.” He reached out a hoof to pet Splinter. “Hey there, little guy! Wanna-Okay-don't-wanna-play-anymore!” he said hurriedly, snatching back his hoof as Splinter snapped at it.

Paramount crouched down and examined Splinter – from a safe distance – before declaring, “it's a timberwolf.” She straightened up and looked at me quizzically. “Where did you find it? I'd always thought they must've gone extinct since the war.”

“It's a long story-”

“Woah! Hold up!” Hardwire suddenly exclaimed, trotting closer to examine the body of Big Ears that was sprawled next to me. “Is that Sharphoof!?” He leant down and lifted up one of the dead pony's forelegs, peering at it. “It is! He's got the bracelet!”

“Seriously?” Paramount asked. Hardwire looked up from prying a band of metal off Big Ears' leg and nodded vigorously. “Well, well,” she said to me with a smile. “Congratulations. Looks like you've bagged yourself a bounty.”

“I did?”

“Fuck yeah, you did!” Hardwire said, finally extracting the bracelet and tossing it up in the air and catching it again. “The guards over at Terminal have been after this little bastard for months! Two hundred and fifty caps on his head!” He stowed the bracelet in a pouch on his armour. “That'll tide me over nicely until-”

“Give it to him, Hardwire,” Paramount said firmly.

Hardwire pouted. “But Boss-”

“Hardwire-”

“But- Look, you didn't even know about the bounty, did you?” he asked me beseechingly.

“I do now,” I said, holding out a hoof. Hardwire grumbled and muttered something about 'too long between paydays'. But he did take out the bracelet and toss it to me.

“Just hand that over to the guard captain at Terminal. She'll pay out,” Paramount told me.

“Right. And what's Terminal?” I asked.

“'What's Terminal'?” Hardwire said incredulously. “How can you be out here all alone and not know about the only settlement in Haythorne?”

“Very easily, apparently,” I said irritably. “So where is it?”

“South,” Paramount replied before Hardwire could open his mouth. “It's easy to find; look for the only place with lights.”

“If the guards shoot at you, just yell at 'em that you got booze. That always works,” Hardwire advised me.

“That only happened once,” Prickle Top muttered. “And it was your fault.”

“So, what are you doing out here?” Paramount asked me, ignoring the ensuing argument that flared up between Prickle Top and Hardwire.

“None of your business,” I replied shortly.

“Charming,” I heard Macro mutter to herself.

Paramount rolled her eyes. “I'm hardly asking for your life story,” she said. “It's just a bit odd to find somepony wandering around on their own in a place like this. Especially with a timberwolf in tow,” she added, shooting a glance at Splinter. “And you don't need to worry; unless you're out on a slave-hunt, you can't be doing anything that'll get you on my bad side after taking out this piece of scum.” She shot a disgusted sneer at Big Ears' corpse.

I sighed and shrugged. “Just scavenging. Happy now?” I said.

“I doubt it!” Hardwire cut in, apparently done arguing with Prickle Top. “The boss isnever happy!” Paramount pointedly ignored the stallion's comment, although she did screw up her face in irritation momentarily.

“So… who are you guys?” I asked. “You don't look like raiders.”

“Uh-oh!” Hardwire said before Paramount could answer. “We've got ourselves an amnesiac! I'mHardwire, remember?” he said condescendingly, tapping a hoof to his chest. “I'm your king, that you've sworn your undying allegiance to-”

“Ha. Ha. Fuck you,” I said. This stallion was really starting to grate on my nerves. “You told me your names, not who you are.”

“Ooh,” Hardwire said in feigned awe. He stepped over to Paramount and stage-whispered to her, “careful, Boss; this one'sdeep.”

Paramount sighed and shot an annoyed look at Hardwire. “We,” she said proudly, “are members of Cartwheel's Cavalry.” She tapped an insignia that was crudely stencilled on the shoulder pad of her armour: a rearing pony backdropped by a cartwheel. “The best merc band in the Palomino-”

“Apart from the Talons,” Hardwire said cheerfully. “And the Privateers, when they're hiring out. And you can't forget the Rangers, of course. And I heard the Shades pulled off a good job last month-”

“We're also the only mercs that don't profit off of other ponies' misfortune,” Paramount said loudly, trying to drown out Hardwire's contradictions. “We don't deal with slavers and we only take clean jobs. And we only accept bounties from reputable sources. Not to mention-”

“Okay, I get the idea,” I said, cutting off her impromptu sermon. “It wasn't like I was asking to join.”

“Deepand more than half a brain?” Hardwire said. “I think I'm in love!”

I snorted disgustedly in reply.

“Oh, but no sense of humour.” Hardwire sighed. “Shame. Still, at least the two ofyou have got something in common.” He nudged Paramount suggestively. She ignored him.

“And what about you? Who are you?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “Nopony.”

Paramount raised her eyebrows sceptically. “Everypony's somepony. I've already said- Would youstop that!?” she snapped at Hardwire, who had been nudging her continually since he'd started.

“Aye-aye, Boss!” he said, acknowledging her with a cocky salute.

“I'm not much of a somepony,” I said dismissively. “Just trying to survive, like anypony else.”

“Well, you've managed it so far!” Hardwire said. “Nice to meet somepony who's got their priorities straight!” He made a quick series of surreptitious gestures in Paramount's direction that suggested to me that he didn't include her in that category.

“Para,” Macro said, “I hate to break up this meet-and-greet, but we should get a move on.”

“Right,” Paramount said. She turned back to me. “We're headed to an old military depot on a scavenging run,” she said. “Care to join us? It's dangerous to be poking around Haythorne alone-”

“Oh, Boss, no,” Hardwire groaned, clapping a hoof to his forehead in exasperation. “Can weplease not go rounding up every aimless, lost pony we run acrossagain? No offence,” he added to me. “There's only so much baggage I can bear. No offence,” he repeated.

“Yeah, no,” I said flatly. “'No offence',” I quoted, “but I tend not to trust ponies I've only just met.”

“Wow, Boss, this pony's smarter thanyou,” Hardwire said cheerfully. Paramount's horn lit up and her rifle was lifted off her saddle and smacked lightly against the side of the stallion's helmet. He swore and clutched at his head.

“Fair enough,” Paramount said to me, ignoring Hardwire's grumbling as she floated her rifle back to her side. “Stay safe out there.”

They turned and headed back in the direction they'd come from. Hardwire hesitated and offered a hoof to me. I looked down at the outstretched hoof, then back up at the stallion's hopeful expression.

“Come on, bro, don't leave me hanging!” he said beseechingly.

I sighed and gave his hoof the lightest of bumps with my own.

“Rock on, buddy!” Hardwire crowed before turning and galloping after his comrades.

“Freak,” I muttered as he left.

Another half-an-hour of walking brought me to the edge of Haythorne's industrial sector. Ruined houses and barren gardens gave way to the broken shells of old warehouses and fenced-off spaces littered with immense shipping containers.

The compass indicator drew me towards a sprawling building that looked less ruinous than most that I'd seen so far. The chain-link fence that separated it from the road was interrupted at an open gate that sported a sign that arched over it that read, in faded lettering:

ARCANE INTELLIGENCE INDUSTRIES

The front entrance of the building had once been sealed by a pair of ornately inscribed metal doors, depicting… well, I didn't actually know what, exactly, because they had been been blown off their hinges and reduced to a scattering of tarnished fragments that lay across the floor of the reception area beyond the doorway.

I brushed a hoof against the well-worn carpet as I stepped across the threshold, Splinter prowling along at my side. I enjoyed the feeling of something soft – however worn it was – underhoof that wasn't trying to stick to my coat and make me itch.

“Okay,” I said softly. “Find… stuff. Shouldn't be too hard, right?” Splinter barked softly in response. “Right.” I glanced upwards at a prompt that popped up in my E.F.S..

Locate three (3) spark batteries.

Optional: Locate gemcells and scrap electronics.

I growled at my pipbuck and gave it a slap. Had that Renegade bitch done something to it to make it as annoying as possible? “I'm doing it, okay? Shut up!” I muttered heatedly. Splinter whined, cocking his head at me. “Not you!”

I chose a door at random and trotted off along the corridor beyond it. It was gloomy, even by wasteland standards; there were no windows and the only light came from the doorway behind me. Even accounting for the wear and tear of two centuries, it wasn't a welcoming place. I couldn't imagine any sane pony who would want to spend their lives… doing whatever it was pre-war ponies did in a place as depressing as this.

Splinter suddenly stopped in his tracks and crouched low to the floor, his head cocked to one side. I mimicked him. For a moment, there was only the faint creaking of Splinter's branches shifting about as he slowly turned his head this way and that.

There was a heavy thump of something metallic slamming into the floor, followed by a motorised whirring. Another thump. another whir. And again. It was gradually getting louder.

One of the doors leading off the corridor swung open and a bulky, metallic leg was thrust out into the corridor and set down with a thump. After a moment, a second leg and eventually a body and a second set of legs were manoeuvred through the doorway.

I regarded the contraption before me. Right… Renegade had said something about robots, hadn't she? This one was almost endearing in a pathetic sort of way. It was vaguely pony-shaped, if ponies had no tails, no neck and a head that jutted up from the middle of the spine and had no features beyond some kind of glass visor in place of actual eyes.

The bot slowly turned itself to face us and I watched as it slowly worked its way down the corridor towards Splinter and I. It finally drew to a halt in front of us. The 'head' slowly rotated in place, panning back and forth across the pair of us.

“Welcome,” the bot said haltingly in a painfully artificial voice,“to…Arcane Intelligence Industries!” I jumped as the robotic voice was suddenly replaced with a recording of a far-too-enthusiastic stallion.“Employees… must present… valid… employee… ID.” I considered this for a moment, then spun around and bucked the bot hard enough to lift it from its feet and send it crashing to the floor.

“How's that for ID?” I said smugly as the bot's legs jerked helplessly.

“Warning,” the bot said as I trotted past it and through the doorway it had come through.“Primary motivators… compromised-…”

I shut the door on the bot's whining.

The room beyond was an immense, high-ceilinged affair, partitioned into dozens of cubicles that each contained a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet and a computer terminal. It was brighter in here, thanks to a series of massive skylights that ran the length of the room, meaning I could pick the greyness of the dirt out from the greyness of the walls.

I doubted I'd find anything of use here. As I trotted across the room, weaving between rows of cubicles, I caught a glimpse of green light that drew my eye over to a certain cubicle. I paused and poked my head into it. There was a terminal on the desk, partially buried under debris from where part of the ceiling had given way. The casing was dented and the screen was flickering, but the text on the screen was readable. I stepped over and spent a few minutes muddling through it.

'… One other thing, we had a spook poking round last week. Was asking about “diverted shipments” She came back last night, just before clocking-off tym & went to talk with the boss. She didnt look happy when she left. Boss came down this morning & told us to “tighten up the records”. Tighten up what? Everything in are departments just fine, apart from some missing payments, but everypony …'

“Intruder… detected.”

I cried out as a searing pain blossomed in my flank. I threw myself fully into the cubicle as the smell of scorched fur filled my nostrils. I craned my head around to look at my injured flank. The metal plate in my barding had neat, round hole punched in it. The metal around the pockmark was red hot and was burning against my skin, but that was nothing compared to the pain that came from the hole where a chunk of my flesh that had been vaporised. It was only a small hole, but it was still one small hole more than I prefer. The blood that came gushing out met the hot metal and began to steam, filling the cubicle with its scent.

I climbed to my hooves, ignoring- no,feeding on the pain that shot through my flank. I stuck my head out of the cubicle just in time to see Splinter tackle the bot that had shot me, knocking it to the ground. He started to smash at the bot's metal hull with his forepaws, the machine hopelessly shooting red beams from its eyepiece that only struck the ceiling overhead.

I flinched as a beam suddenly flashed in the edge of my vision, fired from the opposite direction. I jerked my head around to see three more bots steadily advancing towards me. I ducked back into the cubicle as a second volley of lasers was fired, hissing through the air around me and blowing chunks out of the thin cubicle walls.

I hurriedly rooted through my saddlebag, eventually locating one of the… thingy grenades Renegade had given me. I ripped the pin from it and tossed it over the wall of the cubicle towards the bots. The sound of it hitting the floor was lost to the chorus of robotic voices.

“Intruder… detected.”

“Warning… lethal force… is… authorised.”

“Arcane Intelligence Industries!… requires… your… immediate… expiration-”

The sound of the grenade going off was an electric crackle that made the hairs in my mane stand on end. My pipbuck's screen and E.F.S. flickered momentarily. More importantly, the bots' voices went dead.

I stormed out of the cubicle, every fourth step provoking a stinging pain in my flank. The closest bot had toppled over mid-step. I smashed a forehoof into its head, shattering the eyepiece. I bucked the second bot so hard it smashed straight through the thin wall of the nearest cubicle and lost one of its legs to a collision with the desk. The last bot was twitching in place, its voice faint and halting.“Primary… Moti- ti- ti- vvaaatorsofflineat- at- empt- em- ting-” I silenced it with a long burst from my SMG, holding the trigger down until the magazine clipped empty. The bot fell down with a crash, over a dozen holes punched into its side.

“Fucking bastard machines,” I spat, reaching a hoof around to probe at the wound I'd received. “Fuck!” I shouted as I poked the seared flesh harder than I'd planned. I turned on the nearest wrecked bot and slammed a forehoof down onto its hull. Pain shot through my leg when the blow landed, but I was satisfied to see the metal panel I'd struck dented and cracked when I lifted my hoof away.

After taking a moment to secure a scrap of healing bandage across my wound, I took a closer look at the bot I'd just hit. With a few careful smashes from my hoof, I broke away the dented panel entirely and started rooting around in its insides. I ripped out some of the more interesting-looking bits and shoved them into my saddlebag. After a moment, my E.F.S. threw up a prompt:

Locate three (3) spark batteries. (Two (2) remaining.)

I held my pipbuck up to my face. “See?That's 'being useful',” I told it. “Do it more often.” Splinter nudged me in the side with his muzzle and whined. I patted him on the back. “Not you, you're already useful.”

I smashed into the other bots and managed to turn up a second spark battery and some other bits-and-pieces that would probably be worth a few caps. I probably could have gotten a few more intact parts, but, alas, I tragically kept hitting the fucking bastard machines too hard and breaking them. Whoops.

There was a flight of stairs leading up from the floor to a glass-fronted office that overlooked the cubicles below. Posters with such captions as 'Smile! Happy workers are productive workers!' and 'Stealing office supplies undermines the war effort!' were arrayed on the wall above the stairs, the lettering faded into near-illegibility by the years. I faltered in my steps as I passed one poster which had defied the odds and retained some of its original colours. A pair of bright blue eyes stared out at me, below the only two words that were still readable:

WATCHING YOU

I scowled at the poster, then ripped it off the wall and tossed it over the railing to the floor below. Watchthat, creep.

The office was several times larger than any of the cubicles below. Clearly, its owner had been a mighty office-warrior indeed, to have earned such a privilege over their fellows. There wasn't even anything to fill the space, just an expansive desk that sat precisely in the centre of the room, a few shelves and filing cabinets lining one wall and the decayed remnants of a small tree sitting in a pot by the desk. I gave the pot a disbelievingly nudge with one hoof as I walked past it. Why? Why would anyone go to all the trouble to move to a desert and build an enormous building, then sit down in it and think, “gee, this place could really use some sprucing up.” If they wanted a tree, they could just stay in the Heartlands and go outside.

Pre-war ponies wereweird.

The terminal on the desk was turned on, the screen throwing a green light against the back wall. I stepped around the desk and sat down in the chair.

A moment later, I was sitting on the floor amidst the broken remnants of a chair. I growled irritably and threw one of the rotten pieces of wood across the room. I looked over at Splinter, who cocked his head to one side quizzically.

“That was deliberate,” I muttered as I picked myself up.

The screen was displaying a stylised rendition of the letters 'AIA'. I gingerly prodded the biggest button I could find on the terminal's control panel and the logo flickered out, replaced with the usual lines of blocky text. I sighed and planted my forehooves on the desk, leaning in to muddle through the words.

Or the first line, at least, after which I jabbed the big button again forcefully.

The terminal's speakers crackled into life.

“This is Staff Sergeant Whickers, Equestrian Army, 32nd Rangers Regiment.

“It's been nearly… eleven weeks, I think, since the megaspells hit. For most of that time I was holed up in a house up near Ponyville. About two weeks ago, I made the decision to move on out here, to the San Palomino.”

Whickers laughed bitterly.

“Some plan that was. Almost didn't make it. So much radiation around White Tail… I still haven't got my mane back. Ah well. I was never much of a looker to begin with.”

There was a rapid tapping sound made by Whickers drumming his hooves on the desk.

“And it's not like I'm heading out on the town any time soon, for that matter, considering the state of this place. This is the first seriously intact building I've come across. Everything else… gutted. Burned to a cinder. And that's the ones that weren't just blasted flat. Just piles of rubble and… bodies. Dozens of them.

“At least they would've died quick. I guess they're the lucky ones.”

A long pause ensued, broken only by the crackle of the terminal's speakers and the slow, regular tapping of Whickers' hoof on the desk. I jumped as Splinter nudged me in the side and whined. “Shut up!” I hissed at him as Whickers continued.

“I've not seen anypony living for days. The last was a pair of…”

I jumped slightly as a bang erupted from the speakers.

“Fucking scum,” Whickers growled.“There was a family, with a wagon. Just three ponies who were lucky enough to be out camping when…

“And those two were just helping themselves to the wagon, right over their bodies. The mother was still alive…barely.” Whickers chuckled darkly.“Weren't expecting a soldier to show up. I let 'em run. Gave 'em a chance. Didn't save 'em. Iearned that fucking sharpshooter's award.”

Well, well. He wasn't a complete filly, after all.

“Three months. Not even three months. We couldn't even last three damn months and already we're turning into animals.”

There was a long silence, broken by the creaking of Whickers adjusting his position in the chair that now lay in pieces beneath my hooves.

“I left the family there. No way to bury them. Made sure the filly was tucked up nice and close to her parents before I left. Think that's… how it should be.”

What? What was that supposed to do, make them less dead? Moron.

“Still no contact with anypony. Just dead air on the radio. Battery won't last much longer, anyway.

“I'm planning to head on out down south, to Galloping Springs. See if there's- what's left. At least the security bots here picked up on my ID, so I've got somewhere safe to sleep tonight.”

That lucky bastard.

“Tomorrow… Tomorrow's another day.”

The recording ended.

I forced myself to read through the next few lines, but they all had terms like 'Project Management Orientation' and 'Foreign Incursion' in them.

It had taken himtwo weeks what I'd managed in three days? What a slowpoke.

On a whim, I brought up my pipbuck and started prodding at the controls. What had Ma said?That button, thentwo clicks up,that button…

'Broadcasting device detected. Download content?' read the prompt that popped up on the screen. I cautiously pressed one of the buttons. After a moment, the name of Whickers' recording popped up, accompanied by the rest of the list, which quickly filled the pipbuck's screen. I glared at the 'Items Downloaded' number as it steadily increased, spilling over into double digits before I could blink. “No! I only wanted-!” I muttered at the infernal machine, smacking it on the desk. “Stupid thing.”

I couldn't tell you why, exactly, at the time, I gave a damn about some dead pony's diary, other than that following his first directive had at least given me something to do beyond lying down until I started to decompose.

I was certain, in a not-actually-thinking-about-it kind of way, that I'd been lucky enough to stumble across two of Whickers' journals, and that I wasn't going to find another one.

I guess, in a way, it was reassurance.

If a pre-war pony, who was soft and sentimental and slow and needed a potted plant by their desk could survive out here, then so could I.

And he hadn't had a fucking timberwolf and a bulletproof skull.

I had iteasy, by comparison.

Right?

After leaving the partitioned office room, I began traipsing through the building's corridors again, searching for more parts to scavenge.

I won't say I gotlost.

I'd call it 'orientationally challenged'.

Every one of the corridors was the same: the same faded, peeling paint on the walls, the same threadbare carpet underhoof, the same battered doors leading to rooms that only differed in the patterns the grime and dirt made on every surface and whether or not the ceiling had fallen in.

Fortunately, I didn't run into any more bots. Or perhapsunfortunately, because I still needed more scavenge, and it would at least have broken the monotony.

After about half-an-hour of poking my head through doorways and trotting down cloned passageways, I stumbled across a door that was different. It was metallic, rather than wooden, for a start and was twice as tall as me and wide enough to fit about a dozen ponies through simultaneously. I hooked a hoof through the handle and almost ripped my leg off when it didn't budge when I pulled on it. I snarled, dug my hindhooves into the floor and heaved. For a few moments, the creaking of metal-on-metal interplayed with the sound of growling in my throat, then two hundred years of rust gave way and the door shifted.

I grunted in satisfaction and pushed the door open enough for me to slip through.

I froze upon entering the next room.

It was filled with rank upon rank of bots, all bigger and more heavily armed and armoured than the ones I'd tangled with so far. They were all of the same make: a three-legged contraption, each leg ending in a thick wheel; a bulky torso from which sprouted two arms sporting weapons and a tiny head that barely rose above the main body. The right arm of each bot was a stubby, multi-barrelled affair. The left, what looked like a missile launcher.

I relaxed when I peered at the closest one and noted the rust that had taken hold around the joints, not to mention that many of the bots sported missing panels that had exposed wiring hanging out where components had been ripped out by scavengers. I gave the bot a push and it shifted slightly on its wheels, but didn't start bleating in an annoying voice and try to bore me to death with repeated warnings. I looked around at the dozens of bots.

Jackpot.

After a few moments' searching amongst the rows, I stumbled across a bot that was mostly intact. I tapped at its hull with one hoof. “How do you open one of these things?” I muttered to myself.

It took longer than I'd like to admit to find the bolts that held the rear panel in place.

Poking around in the bot's inner workings, I managed to pry free a collection of electronics and shove them into my saddlebag. The E.F.S. flashed up a prompt:

Locate three (3) spark batteries: Done.

Good. Time to leave. Head south to this Terminal place to cash in that bounty, maybe find somewhere to stay the night, then back to Sand's Edge tomorrow morning to shake some caps out of Renegade. A nice, simple plan.

And, as with all 'simple' plans since a cave-pony said, “hey, guys, I heard a rustling in the bushes; I'm gonna go check it out*,” everything started going wrong almost immediately.

Sorry, I need to take a quick moment out to emphasise for you just how badly this plan went wrong.

…

That long enough for you? Okay…

I cast my gaze around the room. I wasn't crazy about blundering around in those accursed corridors again, so I was very interested in whether there was another way out.

The wall on the far side from where I had entered possessed three doors, each attended by a low ramp that led up to it. Two of the doors were closed, one was open. At least my choice was made for me.

I started weaving through the rows of inactive bots, but as I reached the last few ranks, a red bar appeared in my E.F.S..

I stopped and took a step to put one of the bots between me and the doorway. I watched the indicator on my compass as it slowly panned across, my ears picking up a low rumbling sound that gradually loudened.

A hulking figure loomed in the doorway.

It was almost identical to any one of the inactive bots that I was surrounded by. Except that this bot wasn't inactive. Or rusting. Or missing parts. A pair of baleful red sensors, clearly intended to intimidate, were set into its stumpy head. The weapons on its arms were held at the ready as it advanced into the room.

The bot came to a halt halfway down the ramp. Its head turned to the right, then slowly panned across to the left, while a deep, menacing voice stated, “scanning. Scanning. Scanning.”

I slowly tried to edge myself fully behind the form of the inactive bot that lay between me and the sentry, simultaneously easing a hoof into my saddlebag to pull out one of the pulse grenades Renegade had given me.

“Unauthorised presence detected…”

'Well, shit.'

“…Engaging with lethal force.”

'Of course.'

The bot brought its gatling gun to bear and opened fire. I ducked as a volley of lasers flashed through the air around me, glancing off the armour of the inactive bots, leaving steaming pockmarks where they impacted.

I grabbed my SMG. I didn't know how much damage it could do againstthat at this distance, but it was worth a try. I waited for the bot's gun to stop firing, then activated S.A.T.S.. I poked my head out from behind the inactive bot I was hiding-taking cover behind, sighted on the bot, winced at the abysmally-low figures in my E.F.S. and pulled the trigger.

Click.

“Son of a motherbucking-!”

I dropped my SMG and dived aside just before S.A.T.S. ran out. A second volley of laser fire hissed past me.

Fucking guns and their fucking need for fucking bullets!

“Deploying heavy ordnance.”

'What-?'

The air was driven from my lungs when the missile struck the bot in front of me, throwing it into me. I fell down and the bot toppled on top me, the immensely heavy junk of metal pinning me in place. I was dimly aware, between coughs and wheezed breaths, of the crashing sound made of the inactive bots being thrown into each other and falling to the floor. Somewhere to my left, Splinter let out a howl.

The bot on top of me had fallen on my flank. Thankfully, my forelegs was free. I managed to twist around and start shoving it off.

“Engaging.”

“Oh, fuckoff!” I shouted back as the bot's gatling laser started up again. The bot above me shuddered under a dozen impacts. With a last heave, I threw the bot off my body and rolled to the side, flinching as a red beam flashed above my head, close enough that I could feel the heat of it on my face. I scrambled to my hooves and flung myself behind three bots that had fallen into a tangled pile.

I hurriedly shrugged off my saddlebag and emptied it out onto the floor, pawing through the contents to get to the pulse grenades.

“Deploying heavy-”

'Fuck.'

Before the bot could blow me to pieces, however, a pile of broken bots over to my left fell apart and Splinter heaved himself out of the wreckage. He shook himself free from a few trailing wires, then sighted on the sentry bot. He charged forward and the bot turned to meet him.

“Secondary threat detected-”

Splinter collided with the bot with a dull clang of wood-on-metal. The bot rocked sideways, teetered on just two of its legs for a moment, then fell back down onto all three with a crash.

“Warning,” it stated as Splinter batted at its hull with his forepaws.“Hazardous pest detected.”

“No shit, you piece of junk,” I muttered, finally coming up with one of the grenades. I ripped the pin out and threw it towards the bot. I winced as it clipped the outstretched arm of one of the bots I was hiding-taking cover behind, knocking it off course. I watched as the grenade sailed towards the bot as the machine raised its gatling laser and fired a long burst. Splinter howled and fell down, the beams vaporising chunks of his branches in a cloud of steaming splinters. The bot kept firing.

'Don't miss, don't miss, don't miss…'

The grenade hit the ground several yards short of the bot.

'…So, is that a miss, or…'

The bot ceased firing and lowered its arm. It swivelled in place towards me.“Re-engaging primary threat-”

The grenade went off. The bot started to jerk and twitch, its eyes going dim as blue lightning sparked across its hull. I gathered my legs beneath and hurdled the bots I was crouched behind in a single bound and charged.

“Primary motivators compromised,” the bot stated. Its eyes suddenly flared back to full brightness and the jerking stopped.“Diverting power to-”

“Shut the fuck up!” I roared as I reached the bot and bucked it square in the chest. It rolled backwards on its wheels, its hull dented under my strike.

“Engagi-”

I leapt forward, hooked one hoof around the bot's arm and started slamming the other into the dent my buck had made.

“Warn- -ing.” The bot's voice stuttered as I kept driving my hoof home.“Target wi- -thin minim- -um weapo- range-”

With a clang, the edge of the panel on the bot's chest bent outwards, leaving a slight gap in the bot's hull. I wormed my teeth around the edge of the panel, braced my hooves against the bot's chest andpulled. There was a bang as something snapped and the panel broke away entirely, hanging off the bot's body by a single bolt.

“Warning: Hull integrity-”

“I told you to shut up!” I bellowed. I saw something important-looking through the gap in the bot's hull and smashed a hoof into it. Immediately, the bot shuddered then froze up entirely.

I stepped back from the bot, noting that the light in its eyes had gone out. I spun around and bucked the bot, shoving it back a few paces.

“I!”

I stepped in and bucked it again.

“Fucking!”

And again.

“Hate!”

Once more, and this time the bot collided with the wall and fell down with a crash.

“Robots!”

I turned to the room at large. Where once there had been organised rows of bots, there were mangled piles of metal and electronics, some sporting steaming marks from the laser impacts, one blow open by the bot's missile, its fried electronics smoking profusely.

“Fuck! All! Robots!” I roared at them.

I stood still for a second, sucking in deep breaths and trembling. Then I heard a voice.

“…but a Ministry official has no business poking her muzzle into any dealings…”

I looked down at my pipbuck. I glared at it as the recording it had somehow started to play went on. “Especially you!” I added, smacking the 'stop' button.

I stomped over to where Splinter was lying on the floor. “Come on, you,” I said. “Up and at 'em.” He didn't move. I sighed and reached out a hoof to poke at Splinter's head.

It fell apart under my touch.

I blinked, and suddenly, my hoof wasn't resting on a head at all, but a pile of sticks. I gingerly picked one up, turning it back and forth under my gaze. Then I looked down at the scattered pile in front of me. I finally registered the numerous smouldering, blackened patches that marred the branches and twigs.

I looked at a round-ish gap in the pile that may once have been a timberwolf's eye.

I noted the lack of a warm, golden glow.

After a few moments, I dropped the stick from my hoof and gave the pile a kick, sending the pieces skittering across the floor.

“Stupid animal,” I muttered.

Companion Perk Lost: Wood Sense of Smell

Level Up: You have reached level 5!

New Perk Gained: Earth Pony Vitality (1)

REQ: END 6

“…The innate magicks of the Earthe Pony, whyle not as inclyned to showponyship as those of the Pegasus or Unicorn, are no less remarkable; the strengthe, constitution and stamina of any given Earthe Pony is … disproportionately greater than their counterparts.” - Quaint Curio, ‘A Treatise on the Pony Subspecies and Their Capabilities.’

Effect: You gain +5% to all resistances; fire, poison, radiation, magic and damage.

*Actually, they probably said something like, “ugga-wugga, me chugga,” but that wouldn't have got the point across.

One Way or the Other

Chapter Six: One Way or the Other

I was lost.

It was less than an hour after I'd left the factory, and I'd completely lost my bearings. I'd been trying to pick my way south over the ruins towards this Terminal place the mercs had told me about, but as I continued onwards, the debris began to spill out from the boundaries of the ruined buildings and into the streets. Several times, I was forced to turn back and circle around a dangerously unstable or just plain impassable patch of rubble.

I finally lost patience as the only clear path turned me westwards once more and cut through a row of houses, having to scale the rubble up to a second storey window to gain access. I knew that I had made a mistake when I clambered over the sill and landed on floorboards that made an unnerving splintering sound under my weight. I inched my way through to the rear of the building, which had simply fallen away into the back yard in a heaped mess of bricks and pre-war furniture.

From my precarious vantage point at the summit of the rubble slope, I could see over the fence that bordered the yard and into the artificial trench that had been cut through the ground beyond it. The mangled remains of dozens of pre-war vehicles, large and small, filled the trench, creating a moat of jagged, blackened metal. I clicked my tongue in irritation and looked up and down the trench, which stretched out of sight in both directions. There, in the distance to my right: a bridge.

I took one step down the slope-

“Ow.”

I shook my head and groaned, listening to the sounds of brick and rotten timber crashing over each other dying away.

Fortunately, my tumble had been arrested by something made of smooth metal which was jutting out of the rubble. I cautiously raised myself up and looked at it. A refrigerator. Scuffed and tarnished, but intact. I dug it out of the rubble partially, enough to get the door open.

The stench ofvery rotten food washed over me, making me gag. The contents had been long-reduced to unidentifiable mush seeping out of its faded packaging, except for a single bottle lying on the top shelf.

“Sparkle-Cola? Don't mind if I do,” I muttered to myself, braving the miasma of decayed pre-war food to snag the bottle. I shut the door, twisted around and leant back against it, wary of the slight shifting of the rubble beneath me. I snapped the cap off the bottle, careful to stow it safely in my saddlebag, and took a cautious swig of the Cola.

Delicious.

I chugged almost the entire bottle, savouring the sweet taste despite the lukewarm temperature, then looked around to see if Splinter would like-

Oh. Right.

I rolled my eyes and smacked myself across the face. “Moron,” I muttered as I polished off the Cola and casually tossed it over the fence and into the trench, smirking at the sound of it shattering against one of the wagons. Small pleasures, and all that.

I successfully navigated the rest of the slope and started fence-hopping my way down the row of back yards towards the bridge. After a while, fence-hopping became fence-clambering-and-panting-and-swearing, which, in turn, became fence-smashing in very short order. By the time I was halfway down the row, fences were in a close third place to robots and dust in my list of nemeses.

As I reached the last fence before the bridge and turned to buck it down, my ears pricked up at the sound of clopping hooves coming from the far side. I turned back to the fence and sidled along it, searching for a gap I could peer through, until I reached the gate set into it and pulled it open. Then I sighed and slapped myself across the face. Thank you, mysterious noise-making ponies, for saving me from looking even stupider then I must do already.

There was nothing visible through the sliver of space between gate and fence, apart from yet another sand-dusted street, littered with yet more pre-war wagons, with yet more ruinous houses arrayed in a row beyond it, but I could still hear the clopping of hooves. I strained my ears. They didn't sound right; as if somepony was having trouble with putting one hoof in front of the other. Every so often, the hoofsteps would falter, followed by a rapid clopping of somepony stumbling.

As I edged out through the gate to get a better look, a rumbling sound made me look to the right. A familiar, three-legged silhouette was approaching. The bot was scarred and dented from bullet impacts, but it wasn't acting any worse for wear. I ducked back through the gate as it approached.

“Threat re-acquired. Engaging,” the bot announced as it drew to a halt barely twenty yards away and raised the minigun on its right arm.

Somepony cried out from atop the ramp that led up to the bridge just before the low buzz of the minigun filled the air, punctuated by the clattering of bullet casings on tarmac. Amongst the barrage of sound, somepony howled in pain. Several shots were fired back at the bot from the bridge, sparking off the armoured hull.

I plucked my last pulse grenade from its place in my saddlebag as I kicked the gate open. I carefully gauged the distance, weighing the grenade in one hoof, before ripping the pin out with my teeth and tossing the grenade at the bot. I let out a bark of laughter as the grenade bounced off the bot's hull with a clang. The bot ceased firing and rotated in place towards me. I ducked back behind the fence as the bot announced,“Secondary threat identified. Engaging-”

The grenade went off, the crackling explosion of lightning silencing the bot's voice. I stepped through the gate and casually trotted up to the stricken machine. It was twitching in place, its various limbs unresponsive.

“Warning… W- War- Nin- Ing-”

I spun around and bucked the bot square in its midsection. It toppled to the ground with a crash, the chestplate buckled under my hooves. After a few moments of further twitching, it seized up and fell silent.

I grunted in satisfaction. “One more for the junkheap,” I sneered.

Whoever the bot had been shooting at had fallen silent. No shouting or shooting. That meant either dead or not inclined to killing me on the spot. Either was fine by me.

It was one of each, I discovered when I trotted up the ramp.

A familiar pony in green combat armour was hunched over a similarly-clad figure that was sprawled on the tarmac. Well, they would have been similar if the latter wasn't coated in his own blood. One of the collapsed stallion's forelegs had been almost completely sheared off, only a few tattered strands of ragged flesh connecting the severed hoof to the knee. The chestplate of his armour had been pummelled with enough bullets to leave the surface more pockmarks and cracks than anything.

Purple Mane… Whatserface… Paramount was resting her forehooves on Hardwire's chest, trying to keep a healing bandage in place over the series of bullet holes even as the gushing wounds reduced the bandage to a sodden rag. “Come on,” she said, her voice trembling. “Come on. Don't you die on me…”

It was a bit late for that, I thought. The amount of blood staining the ground was evidence enough, even if she could somehow re-attach the stallion's leg.

Paramount lifted one hoof and pressed it to Hardwire's neck. “No, no, no, no,no!” she said, her voice rising in desperation. Her horn lit up and another healing bandage flew out of one of the pouches on her armour and was hurriedly slapped across Hardwire's chest. As she clapped her forehooves across the bandage, it slid off the stallion's blood-slicked armour and she fell across the body. For a moment, she remained still, hunched awkwardly over Hardwire's corpse. Suddenly she cried out and slammed a forehoof into Hardwire's chest, thumping against the armour plating.

“Damn it!” she sobbed, burying her face in the crook of her other foreleg. “Damn it…”

I turned and walked away. My shrewd instincts told me that she probably wouldn't be in the mood to give directions any time soon. I trotted back to the bot I'd disabled. After a bit of work, I tore one of the panels off and ripped out the bot's spark battery to add to my collection. I aimlessly toyed with some of the other electronics for a while. I was in no hurry to try and hold a conversation with an emotional mare. Eventually, I sighed and tossed the wiring I'd been tying into knots aside and walked back up to the bridge.

As I reached her, Paramount was floating various items out of the pouches on Hardwire's armour and was either replacing them or stowing them on her person. She glanced up at me as I approached. Her rifle, set down on the ground beside her, briefly glowed with magic before she relaxed. She tried to smile while rubbing at her tearful eyes. “Hey there,” she said hoarsely. “Thanks for- Oh, it's you… Killjoy, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for your help.”

I shrugged. “What happened to you?” I asked.

“What does it look like?” she replied harshly. She went back to rooting through Hardwire's belongings for a moment, then she sighed. “Sorry, that wasn't fair,” she said without looking up. “I just- I don't want to talk about it. You can see what the result is, anyway,” she added bitterly.

I nodded. Add another three to the Wasteland's toll.

“You're on your way to Terminal?” Paramount asked as she started stripping the ammo out of Hardwire's machine gun.

“Was. I kept getting turned around.”

Paramount let slip a short chuckle. “Lucky for me, I guess,” she said. She stood up, her eyes not leaving Hardwire's corpse. She reached out a hoof and gently tipped his helmet back from its skewed position, revealing his blank, staring eyes that she eased shut. She briefly rested her hoof on his forehead. I didn't quite hear the words she whispered to herself.

“Come on,” she said, turning away to walk across the bridge. “It's not far; we can make it before they seal up for the night.”

We walked on in silence. Paramount kept her head low, staring blankly at the ground just in front of her forehooves, only briefly raising her head to take a quick look at the surroundings every so often. It was a refreshing change of pace; I'd swear my ears were still buzzing from all the talking Ma had put me through yesterday.

“Where's your timberwolf?”

I glanced at Paramount. She had finally raised her head long enough to look around and notice Splinter's absence. “Dead,” I grunted.

“Oh.” She fell silent for a moment, then said. “I'm sorry.”

I shrugged.

Before we had gone ten yards, she asked, “What happened?”

“Bot got him. Dumb animal thought he could bite through metal.”

“You don't seem very upset about it.” Now the look she was giving me was almost suspicious.

“It was just a stupid animal,” I said dismissively. “No point getting upset.”

She looked away from me, instead scanning a row of ruined houses over to our right. “I always thought most ponies got attached to their pets.”

“He wasn't really a pet,” I said. “I only had him for a few days.”

Paramount fell silent. “Fair enough,” she said eventually.

As we walked the squat, ruined houses were replaced by towering concrete monoliths, their immense windows long reduced to mere holes that allowed sight into their gutted interiors where the floors had fallen through in a tangle of broken girders. They could have originally reached to the clouds for all I knew, but the top floors had simply crumbled away over the years, leaving just the jagged metal frameworks reaching to the sky. In places, they rose above a few stories, forcing us to pass through artificial canyons, walled by their skeletal remains and carpeted by the dust and fragments they had shed.

“So…” Paramount said awkwardly as we skirted a pre-war wagon that had been crushed beneath a fallen slab of concrete. The word hung in the air between us for a while before she asked, “Where do you come from?”

“None of your business.”

Paramount sighed. “I'm just trying to make conversation,” she said reproachfully.

“Well, don't.”

“Have I done something to offend you?” Paramount asked.

“No. I just don't want to talk.”

“Why not?”

“Whynot not?”

“I'm just being polite,” Paramount grumbled.

“Whatever.”

She fell silent again.

I made sure to avoid looking in her direction for a while, so as not to provoke further conversation. I didn't have a good feeling about telling this mare anything about my past. I remembered how she'd reacted to Big Ears.

'My past'… When had last week week become another lifetime?

“Does that pipbuck of yours work?”

“No,” I said through gritted teeth, “I wear it to make myself look pretty. What do you think?” I held the device up, turning it this way and that. “Lovely, isn't it?”

Paramount sighed. “I've met ponies who have broken pipbucks stuck to their legs, okay? They're nearly impossible to remove without the proper tools.”

I let out a snort of laughter. “Morons.”

“It's not their fault,” she said. “Anyway, do you mind turning the radio on?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you want to attract every raider for miles around, you can just jump up and down and scream for a bit. Give me a chance to put some distance between us first, though; I've done enough dying for this week.”

“No raiders in Haythorne.” Paramount said smugly.

I thought of my encounter with Big Ears and his gang. “Oh really-?”

“Not many, anyway,” she corrected herself hurriedly. “Barely anypony here to raidfrom. Just the ponies at Terminal, and they're well-fortified.”

“What about bots?” I said. “Remember those? How about zombies?”

“Ghouls.”

“Bless you.”

“I mean, you shouldn't call them 'zombies',” Paramount said coolly.

“What-the-fuck-ever,” I said, rolling my eyes. I'm not turning it on.”

“Please?” she said. “If you do, I'll stop trying to talk to you,” she added temptingly.

“Well, if you put it like that …” I said, trying to sound begrudging while inwardly sighing with relief. I fiddled with the pipbuck's controls, selecting the only radio station displayed: Desert Wind Radio. A stallion's crooning voice started emanating from the tinny speaker, accompanied by the twanging of an out-of-tune guitar.

“Now, twenty caps'll buy me a kiss from any mare,

But nopony knows just what it's worth to me to feel your stare.

“And I don't know how much I'd pay to take you home tonight,

But I'll bet there's a cap for every colt who'd love to earn that right …”

The sickeningly cheery tone of the song clashed horribly with the drabness of the landscape it reverberated off, the echoes coming back so faint and dulled that they seemed aware of the fact and were deeply ashamed of themselves.

The music finally faded out and the station's host began speaking.

“This is Desert Wind Radio; the San Palomino's finest radio station. And I ain't saying that just 'cause we're the**only radio station!”

I'd forgotten how irritating this stallion was.

“News! News! I come direct to your ears, bearing the gift of news, folks! So pin those ears back and listen!

“Aaand, my first news is bad news. Isn't that just typical? Reports from an anonymous source out of Crystal Canyon say that production at the glassworks isway down, with no explanation forthcoming from the town authorities. In possibly related news, our old buddies the Order have been sighted poking around town. Now I'm not the type to say 'sabotage'… but I just did.”

I tuned out as the host kept talking about things that didn't interest me. It seemed to interest Paramount, at least. Enough that she didn't keep trying to force conversation.

“… And one last note, for anyone abroad in the vicinity of Sand's Edge: just this morning, I got a tip from an anonymous source about a raider on the loose in the area, committed a few murders, thefts, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, you heard me right.A raider. Singular. Now, you might be thinking that's nothing special, but this pony attacked a pair of rangers and came out on top.”

I tuned back in.

“Now, I know some of you folks don't hold much love for our, uh, Ranger-ing friends, but you can't deny that a raider that can tangle with 'em and come out smiling is something to worry about. The description I got was, uh, a little sketchy, but the words 'big as a house' were used, so he can't be easy to miss, and he was in possession of a pipbuck and how many of those do you see? Also: this pony's got himself some kind of magical creature as a sidekick. Big teeth, glowing eyes, made of – and this better not be a joke, anonymous source – trees. Now, I've not heard of …”

“What!?” I exclaimed, holding up the pipbuck to glare at it as the host tried to crack a joke evenhe should have been ashamed of. I smacked my hoof against the casing. “You fucking liar!”

“Good idea,” I heard Paramount say. “I'm sure being a moron with a broken pipbuck stuck to his leg will sort that out for you.” I snarled at her as the host kept talking.

“… Anyone up for a spot of bounty hunting, be aware that there is a one hundred and fifty cap bounty on this pony's head, payment on delivery to the usual drop-off. Although you might wanna hold off on following through until I get a better description. And until anony-source sends their caps through. Hint, hint.”

A bounty. On me.

Well, shit.

“And that about wraps it up for the news! As for the weather: Cloudy, dusty and hot-ty with a chance of radiation. Forever. And now-”

I growled and turned the radio off.

So, I was going to have bounty hunters after me.

Let 'em come.

“Is that true?”

I turned to Paramount. She had taken a step away from me and was standing very still, watching me intently. “No. It isn't,” I said.

“It definitelysounded like you,” she said warily. “Who did you kill?”

I snorted. “Nopony that didn't have it coming.”

“And what do you define as 'had it coming'?” Paramount said coldly.

I narrowed my eyes and hunkered down slightly, ready to spring if she tried anything. “Why are you even asking? You obviously think you need to shoot me.” I snarled threateningly. “Go ahead. Try it. I dare you.”

“And if they'd described me instead, you would have been totally fine with it, I suppose,” she replied sarcastically. “Relax, okay? Just let me hear your side first.”

I cocked my head to the side and eyed her suspiciously before saying, “I only arrived in this fucking desert yesterday. The only ponies I've killed since then attacked me first.”

'Just don't ask about before then.'

“And the rangers? Did you attack them?”

“They attackedme and I beat the shit out of them,” I said. smirking. “I guess I hurt somepony's feelings.”

There was a short pause before Paramount nodded. “That'd cover it,” she said. “I've heard of rangers doing worse. Come on, let's keep moving.” She set off again. The suddenness of her acceptance caught me off-guard and I was left trotting to catch up.

“That's it?” I asked as I drew level with her.

“That's it,” she said briskly. “Why?” she added. “Were you lying? Do you want me to kneecap you and demand the truth?”

“Well… no.”

“So stop complaining.”

“I wasn'tcomplaining,” I scoffed. “You're just a bit quick to give the benefit of the doubt.”

“Everypony knows the Rangers pay off DWR,” Paramount explained disgustedly. “And everypony knows the Rangers are scum. Two and two make four. Frankly, I wouldn't be too bothered if youhad attacked those rangers.”

“Wish I had,” I muttered.

“Besides, no ranger ever saved me from a crazy robot,” she added. “So you started out ahead, anyway.”

“Good to know.”

I thought about the bounty some more. One hundred and fifty caps. I felt insulted. I was worth a lot more than that. Well, maybe they'd get the message when I'd killed the first few idiots who came after me. Then again, maybe it would be better if nopony was after me at all. “This radio station,” I said to Paramount, tapping my pipbuck, “where is it?”

“DWR? Far to the south. Other side of the Mountain,” she replied. “Why? Do you think you can just walk in and ask them to stop broadcasting your bounty?”

“No. I was thinking I'd fight my way in andforce them to stop broadcasting,” I said.

“Good luck,” Paramount said, shaking her head. “The place is like a fortress, and the Rangers keep a close eye on it. Trust me, it's not worth it. They'll forget about you soon enough.”

I gave that some thought. I preferred my original plan… but laying low until the heat was off would be more prudent. Then I could take that braying idiot by surprise. I gave the new prompt that popped up in my E.F.S. a cursory glance. Then I stared at it.

Visit Desert Wind Radio and feed that braying idiot his microphone.

“That's more like it,” I muttered, tapping my pipbuck encouragingly.

“What was that?” I looked over at Paramount as she gave me a double-take. “Wait, are you… talking to your pipbuck?”

I scowled at her. “Well, if it's talk toit or talk toyou…”

“Charming.”

A shadow fell across us as we passed beneath an archway created by the tower to our right slumping over the street, propped up against the building opposite.

“So… you only came to the Palomino yesterday?” Paramount asked.

“I thought you were gonna stop trying to talk to me,” I said.

“That was when you had the radio turned on.”

I sighed. “Yes,” I said begrudgingly. “I arrived here yesterday. What of it?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Heartlands. Around New Appleloosa.”

Paramount frowned. “I think I've heard that name before… What's it like up there?”

“Raiders, radiation, zombies, more raiders, not enough food or water.” I shrugged. “It's Wasteland, what do you expect?”

“I dunno, just… Well, it can't beexactly the same, surely?”

“Why shouldn't it be? There's just grass instead of sand and trees instead of… more sand. And fewer assholes in stupid coats putting bounties on you,” I added sourly.

“I guess that's true,” Paramount sighed. “So what made you come all the way out here?”

I pointedly looked away from her. “I don't want to talk about it,” I said, adding the most ominous tone that I could summon to try and make her drop the subject.

“I'm sorry,” Paramount said after a short pause. Success. “I didn't mean-” She cut herself off as she stopped in her tracks.

“What?” I asked.

“Shh!” Paramount hissed, holding up a hoof. “Did you hear that?”

I cocked my head and listened. “I don't hear anything,” I muttered.

“I did.” Paramount levitated her rifle off her saddle and trotted over to an open doorway in one of the buildings to our left. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder as she slipped through the doorway, rifle raised.

I sighed and followed her. Always humour a paranoid with an assault rifle, that was my motto. Especially if the paranoid was your only guide around a ruined pre-war town. It was a very specific motto, but I stood by it.

The décor beyond the doorway was gratingly similar to the bot-infested factory I'd endured earlier. I scrutinised the carpet closely before deciding that, yes, itwas the same. Then, as if even pre-war architecture was conspiring to inflict me with déjà vu, I followed Paramount through a doorway and into a large room of partitioned office space.

A gunshot rang out.

I ducked reflexively, shooting a look around. As the echoes faded, a distant voice cried out over a muffled howl of agony.

“Consider this a warning to the rest of you!”

“Come on!” Paramount hissed urgently. Without even looking to check that I was following, she moved as quickly as she could while remaining silent towards the windows on the far side of the room. As I joined her, she cautiously raised her head to look over the sill. I mimicked her.

The window looked out onto a square, an expanse of open space surrounded by gutted towers. Pre-war, the square had contained a majestic fountain, surrounded by lovingly-crafted gardens. Now, there was only bare earth and broken concrete. The statues of a number of ponies that had topped the fountain had been smashed and lay in fragments around its base.

In the shadow of the fountain was a group of a dozen or so ponies. Several of them were clustered together, cowering away from the rest, who were brandishing weapons. Between them and us, a unicorn was stood with his forehoof pressing the head of another pony who was slumped beneath him to the ground.

“Slavers,” Paramount whispered in disgust. I grunted in response. She ducked back below the window sill. “Okay,” she said, turning to me. “We need a plan.”

“What?”

“A plan,” she repeated. “Unless you want to just run out there and hope for the best.”

Shehad to be joking.

“There’s… seven of them and two of us,” I said, risking a glance through the window to check.

“Two of usand the element of surprise plus good cover,” she corrected me.

I cocked my head at her. Was she being deliberately dense? I couldn’t tell. Her expression was serious, but the words 'outnumbered by three-to-one' weren't something any sane pony ignored.

“Right,” I said dubiously. “Okay. Here’s my plan: you stay here and get yourself killed. I’ll walk away and live. Sound good?”

“What?” she hissed, struggling to keep her voice down. She gestured angrily in the direction of the slaves. “We can’t just walk away from this!”

She was serious. Serious and crazy.

“Yes we can,” I said flatly. “It’s easy: just put one hoof in front of the other inthat” – I gestured over my shoulder – “direction.” Paramount snarled at me, her grim expression contorting into outright anger.

“If you,” she said icily, gesturing out over the square, “were one of those ponies out there, you would want somepony to help you.”

“Well, I'mnot of those idiots out there,” I said bluntly. “And I don't want to be, which is why I'm leaving.” I turned away, but Paramount grabbed me by the shoulder. I slapped her hoof away. “Get the fuck off-!”

“How can you be so callous!?” Paramount snapped.

“Keep your voice down!” I hissed at her. “You want to die? Go ahead and shoot yourself, but don’t drag me into this-”

“Those ponies are worse thandead if we don't do something!”

“Not my fucking problem!” I said, shoving Paramount away. “You're not getting me killed like you did your idiot friends!”

I walked away, quite content to leave a crazy mare to become a victim of her do-gooder suicide mission.

Until my hindlegs were snapped out from beneath me. I fell down, my foreleg twisted painfully beneath me. I jumped up and lashed out with my hindhooves, hitting only air. I was rewarded with a shove that knocked me onto my side. I twisted around, reaching a hoof for my lance-

And froze when a gun was shoved into my face.

The muzzle of Paramount’s rifle was hovering barely two inches from my right eye. The right hemisphere of my vision was dominated by the dark hole and the merest hint of a glint of light coming off the chambered round at the far end.

Suddenly, I was back on the floor of that wagon, with a murderous pegasus looming over me with twin barrels of lead-spitting death poised to take my life.

I scrambled back, trying to get away from the rifle, but it followed me, bobbing in its telekinetic field until I hit the wall of the cubicle behind me. I pushed myself back against it, willing the wall to give way and bury me. Anything to get away from that dark hole in my world that would spell the end of it.

Around the edges of the gun barrel, I saw Paramount stalking towards me, following the rifle she was holding. “You son of abitch,” she spat as she came to a halt, looming over me. She crouched down in front of me, placing her head alongside her rifle to glare into my left eye.

“I amsick,” she spat, “of ponies likeyou. Ponies who won’t lift a hoof to save anypony’s hide but their own.”

So, she wanted to talk? Good. Talk. I mentally ran through my cause of action: knock the rifle away with my right hoof, lunge forward and headbutt, follow up with anything that made this bitch die.

I must have tensed or something, because before I had a chance to make my move, the rifle’s cocking handle was snapped back and forth in a rapid motion. A single cartridge was flung out of the chamber and was snatched up in its own magical field, spinning in the air to point directly at my face. I flinched at the metallic clicking, banging my head against the wall. I tried to push myself back upright, but fell back down as my trembling foreleg collapsed under me.

“You are going to help me do this,” I heard Paramount say grimly. “Or Celestia help me, I’ll shoot you. Right here. Right now.”

I shifted my head sideways, trying to escape the soulless gaze of the rifle muzzle, but it followed me, jabbing me under the eye. I flinched again. I caught Paramount’s eye.

I quickly wished I hadn’t.

She wasn’t angry.Wasn’t angry. That was what I remembered. I’ve seen angry,been angry. And I saw then something above and beyond whatever petty emotions I’d ever experienced. Her expression was grim. Cold. She wasn’t threatening me – just setting out my future for me, which she had decided forked in precisely two directions, one of which ended with a single bullet through my head. I doubted I would survive it a second time.

“Time’s up. Yes or no.”

Red eyes. I hadn't noticed that before now. Bright fucking red eyes.

“Alright, alright!” I mentally bucked myself for letting a slight tremor enter my voice. “I’ll fucking do it, just get that fucking thing away from me!”

She took a few steps back before lifting the rifle away from my face. I drew in a shuddering breath.

'Bitch.'

I watched warily as Paramount detached the magazine from her rifle, slipped the ejected round into it, then reattached the mag. All the while, she calmly returned my stare. “Go out the back, then move along a couple of buildings in that direction,” she said, jerking her head up the street. “When I start shooting, wait until they’re distracted, then charge in from their flank. Got it?”

I picked myself up slowly, my heart hammering in my chest. “Yeah. Sure.”

Paramount turned back to the front of the building, crouching down as she made her way back to the window to look outwards. I looked at the way we’d come in, then back at Paramount. I backed away, not taking my eyes off her until I'd put a wall between us.

I snarled to myself as I walked back down the corridor we'd entered through. That bitch was going to pay for this. As I exited the building, I stumbled as my left foreleg gave way under me. I glared down at it, narrowing my eyes at the way it was still trembling slightly. I stamped it on the ground heavily as I moved off again.

I picked a door at random and made my way through the dilapidated rooms to the front of the building. I peeked through the broken window that overlooked the square. The unicorn that had been crushing one of the slaves' heads into the ground was dragging her towards the rest of the captives by her mane.

I didn’t have to do a damn thing, I realised as I watched the unicorn throw the pony he was dragging to the ground. Just sit back and let the slavers rip Paramount to shreds, then carry on my merry way. No fuss, no trouble.

A trio of gunshots rang out from where I knew Paramount to be secreted. I risked a glance around the edge of the window.

The unicorn slaver was down, with a pair of holes punched through his side. The other slavers, caught by surprise, looked around in panic, drawing their weapons. Another burst of gunfire. Another slaver went down, a bloody hole ripped through her jugular. One of the remaining slavers pointed and yelled. The others turned in the direction she was indicating and started firing their weapons wildly. Three of them hung back, ducking behind what cover they could find, while the other two charged towards where Paramount was hiding. As I watched them gallop across the open ground, one took a bullet through the eye and they fell, tumbling head-over-hoof until they came to rest.

Fuck it. I was no coward. And if anypony was going to kill that red-eyed bitch, it was going to be me.

I drew my lance, vaulted through the broken window and galloped across the open ground. The nearest slaver was frantically reloading her weapon when she spotted me bearing down on her. She dropped the sub-machine gun and magazine she was holding and went to draw a pistol holstered on her vest, stumbling backwards away from me. As the weapon came up, I reached her and swung my lance in a downward slice. The blade buried itself in the slaver's shoulder, the impact heavy enough to buckle her knees and stagger her. Her pistol went off, the bullet flying past my leg and ricochetting harmlessly off the ground behind me.

I planted my forehoof on the lance's shaft and pushed downwards while pulling the slaver towards me. She fell to the ground, sprawled at my hooves, the pistol falling from her mouth. I ripped my lance out of her shoulder, reared up and stamped down on the slaver's head. One down.

As I turned, an impact on the shoulder pad of my armour staggered me. I growled and snapped my head from side to side, searching for the shooter. A rifle, held aloft in a telekinetic field, popped up from behind a large chunk of one of the fallen statues. It fired as I jumped aside, the bullet flying past me.

I charged forward and leapt up onto the rubble. The rifle was thrust towards my face by the cowering unicorn beneath me. With a swing of my lance, I batted the rifle aside, knocking it clear of the levitation field before he could pull the trigger. I stabbed downwards with my lance. The unicorn barely knocked the thrust aside with his hoof, crying out as the blade ripped through his skin and the point tore through his shoulder. As I went to withdraw my lance, he grasped the end of the shaft in his teeth and tried to pull it away from me, adding his magic to the tug-of-war when I almost lifted him clear off the ground.

We struggled for a moment, then I shrugged and let go. He fell back against the floor, spinning the lance around to point at me. I interrupted him before he could do anything more with a burst from my SMG that spread his brains across the paving stones.

My lance clattered to the ground. I raised my head and looked around for- …

“Stop! Stop there, you bastard!”

… the last slaver.

I looked around. The final slaver had dodged behind the line of terrified slave-ponies. She had dragged one of them up from where they’d dived to the ground at the beginning of the fight and was hiding behind her, pressing the shotgun in her mouth to the mare’s neck.

“Coward!” I called out as best I could around the grip in my mouth. I hopped down from the rubble I was stood on and started edging towards the slaver, the sights on my SMG wavering over the slave's terrified face.

“Drop the gun! Fucking drop it!” the slaver screamed.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking forwards, edging around to the side to get a clear shot.

“Stay back! Stay the fuck back!” the slaver screeched. The slave she had hostage cried out as the raider pressed the barrel of her shotgun harder into her neck. “I’ll fucking kill her! I fucking mean it!”

“Fuck you!” I shouted around the weapon in my mouth.

I stopped my advance. The slaver stuck her head out from behind the slave-pony.

“Last chance! I’ll-”

I triggered S.A.T.S..

The world slowed down. The Eyes-Forward Sparkle lit up, a slew of new numbers and diagrams popping into existence. I tuned most of them out, focusing on the figures floating around the respective heads of the slaver and her hostage. I leaned to the side, sighting down the top of my SMG, watching the numbers as they flickered through the sixties, into the seventies...

I pulled the trigger.

Three bullets sped across the intervening space. The first clipped the slaver’s shotgun and ricochetted off, jarring the weapon from her grip. The second flew harmlessly past her neck. The third ripped through the side of her face in a bloody spray. The slaver stumbled backwards, screeching in pain. The slave she had been holding dropped to the ground in a quivering heap.

The targeting spell ran out as I dropped my gun and galloped forward. I hurdled the cowering slave just as the slaver finished spitting out the tattered remnants of her cheek. She reared up as I reached her, swiping her hooves at my head. I shrugged off a blow to my shoulder and batted aside her other hoof before driving my own into her chest. She turned her resulting stumble into a pirouette, lashing out with her hindhooves. I dodged the clumsy attack and threw myself on top of her, slamming her into the ground. She kicked and struggled, unable to stop me as I stamped down on her back.

I reached one hoof to my saddlebag and rummaged through it, pressing the slaver into the ground with my other hoof. I grunted as something sharp nicked my skin. I plucked the knife out of the bag and casually tossed it upwards, caught it between my teeth and plunged it into the slaver's neck. The slaver screamed, thrashing and swearing at me as I twisted the blade. I grinned around the handle as she started to go limp.

“Fuck you,” the slaver coughed weakly. She cried out as I ripped the knife out of her flesh and stuffed it back in my saddlebag. “When Red Eye-”

“Yeah, fuck you too,” I said flippantly, slamming my forehooves into the back of her head. Her skull cracked on the ground and lolled to the side.

Uncovering the grenade she’d just armed.

I barely managed to push myself backwards and turn side-on to the explosion went it came. The slaver’s body shielded me from the worst of the blast. Even so, I felt shrapnel punch through my barding and into my flesh in a dozen white-hot needles of pain. A fiery hindhoof of spite bucked me square in the flank and I was thrown aside and blacked out as I hit the ground.

Progress to next level: 29%

Best of Intentions

Chapter Seven: Best of Intentions

Pain.

I regained consciousness almost immediately, but would have gladly traded it away again for a shot of Med-X. As I brought a trembling forehoof to my face, somepony loomed over me. I feebly slapped away a hoof that reached towards me. “Get… fuck off…” The words came up my throat accompanied by the metallic taste of my own blood. I rolled away from the pony that flinched and drew back at my protests and onto my front. I managed to raise myself up on my forehooves enough that when I blacked out again, the crack of my chin on the ground was still paining me when I came to once more.

Searing pain shot through me as I was roughly flipped over. A familiar face loomed in my vision. A face I wanted to stomp into a thin paste. “Bitch,” I managed to cough. “You- you’ve… fucking killed me…”

“You’re not going to die. You’renot going to die,” I heard Paramount say, her voice sounding muffled to my ears.

I tried to spit some of the blood congealing in my mouth at her, but my throat caught and I ended up coughing it across my chest. “Fuck,” I said weakly, my head lolling back and smacking on the ground. Something cold was pressed against the shredded flesh of my flank, making me shiver. I blearily lifted my head again and was blinded by the glow of magic as a healing bandage was laid across the seeping shrapnel wounds.

The pain started to alleviate. I let my head fall back again.

“Come on, please work… please,” I heard somepony say.

“Healing potion,” I groaned. “Saddlebag.”

I felt the weight of the saddlebag on my left flank lifted away from me and heard the clattering of somepony rummaging through it. A bottle, wreathed in a magical aura, was shoved roughly against my muzzle. I forced my mouth open and managed to swallow the contents, along with more than a little of my blood. The now-familiar warm feeling spread over my wounds. I groaned as one of my ribs was magically drawn back into place, sinews stitching themselves shut around it. The sensation of blood trickling over my skin slowed, then ceased.

I let my eyelids droop shut, but fought to stay conscious; there was no way I was going to let myself lose consciousness around a pony that had been shoving a gun in my face not ten minutes ago.

I sensed somepony standing over me. With no small amount of effort, I forced my eyes open.

A different, unfamiliar, face filled my vision. A pair of teal eyes, drawn wide with concern, were staring down at me. I rolled away from the mare they belonged to and onto my front and made to stand up. The mare – one of the now-free slaves – who had been staring at me tried to push me back down. “Your friend said you’re not supposed to move-” she said nervously.

“I don’t have any friends,” I growled, shrugging her off. As I straightened my trembling legs, pain shot through my right shoulder. I sank back down, panting. The mare tried to support me as I fell, preventing me from smacking my chin on the ground again.

“Are you okay?” she asked as I shifted about to take the weight off my injured flank.

“The fuck do you think?” I snapped. “I got blown up, dipshit.”

Why was I cursed to perpetually deal with idiotic mares?

“Sorry.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said wearily. My head was starting to pound again; the familiar thumping at the skull beneath my scar. I rested my head on the ground, wishing that the coolness of the paving slabs would travel up from my cheek to the site of the pain to soothe it, just a little.

Second time in less than a week that I’d felt this bad. On the plus side, I hadn’t died for any length of time. On the minus side, this had been perfectly avoidable but for the actions of one psychotic do-gooder.

I realised that the mare who’d been watching over me was resting a hoof on the back of my neck. I weakly made to shrug her off, but the adrenaline and healing potion were fast wearing off and the familiar post-fight crash was settling in.

“I… hate… everything…” I whispered between laboured breaths.

“Are you all right?”

I growled and lifted my head again. “What did I-?”

My words died in my throat as I made eye contact with Paramount.

“You,” I snarled, moving to stand up again. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Fuck you!” I barked. “You-” I would have gone on, but my throat chose that moment to clench itself shut. I coughed and retched as a wave of nausea rushed from my stomach up to my brain, joining with my headache to perform a duet of misery and suffering on my nerves. I groaned and tried to press my hoof to my skull. A burst of pain erupted in my shoulder and I flopped back down again.

“Where does it hurt?” I heard Paramount say, her voice coming from far too close for my liking.

I ignored her, instead focusing on drawing in breath without triggering another painful, throat-ripping retch. I flinched as a healing bandage was wrapped around my aching shoulder. Paramount said something to the mare who was still hovering beside me and walked away again. I twisted my head to watch her leave, snarling at her back.

“Here.” A bottle of water was placed in front of my muzzle. The mere sight of it made my throat burn with thirst and I eagerly seized it between my lips and took a gulp. “Careful!” the mare beside me chuckled as I choked. “Take it slowly.”

I drained the rest of the bottle and tossed it aside. The mare picked it up and conscientiously stowed it in my saddlebag. “Thank you… you know. For saving us,” she said quietly.

“What-the-fuck-ever,” I said sourly. “Thank that crazy bitch.” I jerked my head over at where Paramount was conversing with some of the other slaves. “She made me do it.”

“You saved me from that last slaver.”

I carefully turned my head to look at her. Right… she was the pony that the bitch who had blown me up had taken hostage. I grunted, turning away from her slightly. After a minute, I took a deep breath and gathered my legs beneath me once more.

“No, don't…” the mare said, her hoof pressing down on my back. “Get up,” she finished lamely as I straightened my legs and raised my head to take a look around. I spotted my lance lying discarded where it had fallen and stumbled towards it. “You really shouldn't be moving around,” my self-appointed nurse weakly protested as I walked over to it, my legs trembling, spitting out some more blood onto the body of the dead slaver nearby.

“I've been shot in the head. This is nothing,” I grunted. I scooped up my lance and settled it into its sheath across my back.

“You're okay!” a relieved voice said. I rounded on it, narrowing my eyes. Paramount faltered in her approach as she caught sight of my expression.

“You know,” I snarled between increasingly painful breaths, “somehow, 'I told you so' doesn't quite cut it.”

“I'm sorry-”

“Shut the fuck up.” I raised a forehoof to my face and dragged it across my brow, wiping away the sweat that was gathering there. “Just… Just…”

My legs shook violently and I hurriedly slammed my raised foreleg back down to steady myself. My 'nurse' tried to hold me upright as I stumbled to the side. 'Tried' being the key word here. All she managed to do was slow my fall. A little bit.

“Fuck,” I said tiredly after I had finally come to rest with Nursie sprawled next to me.

I was too tired to protest as Paramount walked up to me and bent down to say, “Look, I know I messed up. I'm sorry. But we need to get moving, or Terminal will be locked down for the night before we can get there.” She shot a look around us. “Unless you want to spend the night out here, you need to just put this to one side. For now, at least.”

I glared up at her, willing my gaze to flay away her her skin and ram red-hot needles through her eyes. Alas, my mental powers were still non-existent.

I didn't want to put 'nearly getting me killed' to one side. I wanted to put a pair of hindhooves through her face. I didn't want an apology from her, I wanted her go and fall on a grenade of her own.

She met my continued glaring with an entirely neutral expression, marred only by a couple of glances at one of the nearby former slaves, who was muttering under her breath and impatiently tapping her hooves.

“Fine,” I said eventually. The acidity in my voice could have melted a hole in the paving slab I was sprawled upon. She nodded slowly in response, just once. I ignored the hoof she offered to me as I struggled to my hooves once more.

“Will you be all right to walk?” Paramount said doubtfully as I let out a groan of discomfort.

“You just… just go away,” I said tiredly. I didn't have the strength to stand and be angry with her. “Just go away and don't talk to me anymore.” She nodded, and turned away.

“Are you okay-? Sorry!” Nursie squeaked as I turned to glare at her as she stood up. “I just meant… Do you need any help?”

“No. I'm fine.”

Paramount led the way south, the rest of us trailing behind. The freed slaves had taken up the weapons from the dead slavers and were glancing around warily as they walked. I brought up the rear, not that my condition gave me much of a choice. Every few hundred yards or so, I would stumble as my light-headedness got to me, prompting a short rest. Every time, Nursie, who was hovering beside me every step of the way, did her best to keep me upright. After shrugging her off the first few times, I gave up on trying to stop her. Having some clingy mare lay her hooves on me was preferable to knocking myself out on the tarmac.

I don't know how long we walked for. I was stuck in an endless loop of carefully planting one hoof in front of the other, my gaze fixed on the ground just ahead of me, only occasionally lifting my head to check that I wasn't falling too far behind the others.

“Hold up!” somepony shouted. I promptly sank down to my haunches, head bowed, sucking in great lungfuls of air. Air that made me cough and scratched the back of my throat. I lifted my head. A slight haze of airborne dust was starting to rise from the ground, lifted by a gentle breeze.

“Radstorm,” I heard the stallion who had called a halt say. Paramount trotted over to him and the two held a rushed conversation, followed by the stallion nodding, clapping a forehoof against Paramount's own and galloping off into the distance. I groaned as Paramount came over to me.

“Listen-” she started to say.

“Which part of 'don't talk-'?”

“Shut up and listen!” Paramount snapped. “This is important!” There was an urgent tone to a voice that forestalled my reply as she went on. “There's a radstorm coming on. We need to get to Terminalnow. It's not far now, how fast can you move?”

“Fast enough.” I waved her away as her expression became doubtful. “Just fuck off. Go. I can keep up.” She frowned and her gaze lingered on me uncertainly as I slipped my goggles over my eyes. “Are we going or not?” I said sharply. She nodded and turned away. As we continued southward, the pace she set was noticeably quicker.

The wind continued to pick up, bringing it with greater amounts of dust. I wasn't bothered, thanks to the goggles and scarf shielding my face, but beside me, Nursie was breaking stride every few yards to cough and rub her eyes. The visibility had dropped so low that I could barely make out anything beyond the figures of Paramount and the other ponies up ahead. I did, however, notice one of them shooting impatient glances back at me, finally moving over to Paramount's side to mutter something to her. She must have said something pretty insulting, because Paramount shoved her away and glared at her until the mare retreated.

I spat a curse into the cloth covering my face as I stumbled over a crack in the road surface. As my knees hit the tarmac, I noticed the conspicuous lack of a steadying hoof on my shoulder. Looking around as I stood up, I saw Nursie slumped on her haunches several paces behind me, her forehoof clamped over her mouth, stifling a series of hacking coughs.

After a few moments of watching Nursie sputter, she stumbled forward until she almost bumped into me. She drew a forehoof across her watering eyes and blinked up at me. “S- Sorry,” she said. “I just- just need a- a-…” her voice trailed off into a paroxysm of coughing.

I sighed, ripped off my scarf and threw it at her. She flinched and had a brief struggle with the garment before pulling it off her face. “Wha- Why did-? Oh!” She rapidly looked from the scarf to my now-bare face and back again. “I didn't mean… You don't have to-”

I rolled my eyes, turned, and kept walking.

It wasn't as if I needed the scarf in the first place; I wasn't going to choke to death on a bit of sand. Besides, if she had fallen behind, I'd have probably been forced to carry her at gunpoint by a certain psycho-mare.

Nursie caught up to me, my scarf now adorning her face. She mumbled something through the thick cloth that I was fairly sure was 'thank you'. I didn't reply, on account of not wanting to inhale any more dust than I had already.

Something was clicking as I walked. My left foreleg. I broke stride to lift my pipbuck and peer at it through my goggles. What was it…? Something Ma had said… I looked at the gauge set into the device next to the screen and watched the needle on the radiation meter wobbling back and forth, ever-so-slowly edging upwards.

At least now I knew why they'd been calling it a 'radstorm'.

We pressed on.

At last, through the brownish haze, the silhouette of a building became visible. The only thing that distinguished it from the myriad of its fellows was the series of spotlights rigged up around it that shed pools of murky white light across the open ground surrounding it. A solitary figure was visible on the broad staircase that led up to what had once been the main entrance. As we approached, it waved a hoof at us, then ducked back inside the building.

As we mounted the staircase, I glanced up at sign affixed above the doorway. Only one word was still legible. At least now I knew how 'Terminal' had acquired its name.

The main entrance led into what had once been an immense hall that was now gutted and ruinous and, at this moment, full of swirling dust. In the centre of the hall, a small fort of sorts had been constructed. It was hardly an impenetrable fortification; a wall just tall enough to deter anypony who couldn't fly and a tower in the middle that sported a few spotlights similar to the ones outside.

“Smaller than I was expecting,” I coughed to myself. Beside me, Nursie laughed, the sound muffled by the scarf.

As we approached the open gate, three ponies stepped out to meet us. One was the stallion who'd gone ahead of us. The other two wore armoured barding and were toting weapons. Guards. That much was obvious, even if they hadn't been eyeing us suspiciously.

“Just in time. Lucky for you,” one of the guards said. “Hurry up and get below, we're closing 'er up after you.”

'Below?'

They stepped aside and ushered us through the gate. Beyond it was a flight of stairs that led downwards. At the bottom, a pair of steel doors, easily half-a-foot thick, had been left open wide enough to allow one pony to slip through at a time. After a minute or so of jostling and impatient queueing, the guard bringing up the rear stepped through and, together with his comrade, began pushing the doors closed.

I slumped against the wall, letting my hindlegs fold up beneath me. I dimly heard the sound of the doors slamming shut behind us, abruptly cutting off the sound of the wind, leaving audible only the sound of ponies scuffing their hooves on the floor and coughing the dust out of their lungs.

“Welcome to Terminal,” one of the guards said insincerely. “No thieving, no fighting, no killing, no anything-I-don't-like-you-doing. Well?” she added almost immediately. “Are you going in, or are we playing at statues?”

I remained where I was, my laboured breathing interspersed with weak coughs, as the others began moving down the tunnel. “Hey.” Somepony slapped me on the shoulder. “You going in or what?”

“What,” I grunted, not bothering to look around.

“I said: 'Are you going in or what?'”

“And I said: What.”

“Oh,” the guard said sourly. “A smartass, are we? I'll be keeping my eye on you, for sure.”

“Like I care.”

The guard leant closer to growl in my ear. “I'll be watching you.”

I shrugged her off and began making my way down the tunnel. At the far end, at the top of a second flight of stairs, the freed slaves and Paramount had congregated. “Well, we made it in one piece,” Paramount said as I reached them. “Now-”

I shouldered my way past the group and kept walking.

“Wait!” Paramount called after me. I growled irritably as she ran to catch up to me. Some ponies just couldn't take a hint. “Listen-”

“No,you listen!” I snapped as I turned suddenly, prompting Paramount to skid to a halt before she crashed into me. “You almost got me killed! I don't care what you've got to say!” I broke off as my throat clenched painfully and I spat out a few strangled coughs. “If… I… didn't feel so… fucking terrible,” I groaned, “I'd be returning the favour, got it?”

“I-”

“So just leave me alone,” I said. “”Just leave. Me. Alone. Clear?”

She backed away, her gaze dropping away from mine.

“Good.” I turned back to the staircase and groaned inwardly at the sight of the steps that set my legs trembling again.

“Hey…” somepony said as I went to descend the first step.

“Whatnow?” I growled as I turned, expecting Paramount, but instead being confronted with Nursie, who flinched and let out an involuntary squeak as I rounded on her.

“I- I…” she said tremulously.

“Spit it out.”

“I'm sorry you got hurt,” she squeaked. “A- and… thank you again, for-”

“Believe you me, it really wasn't worth it,” I said, turning my back on her.

I descended the staircase, grunting and wincing every step of the way, and emerged into a vast underground room, larger than the ruined building above. The level I was stood on was suspended above the floor of the artificial cavern, consisting of a balcony that ran the perimeter of the room and numerous walkways that criss-crossed it in an orderly grid pattern. The walkways had been commandeered by the settlement's inhabitants, who had erected makeshift shelters for themselves out of scrap; tiny houses of their own, many complete with roofs, as if they didn't quite trust the ceiling overhead to shelter them from the elements. The ceiling itself sported an array of lamps, most of which were unilluminated. Those that were, were glowing barely brightly enough to make it anything other than perpetual twilight within the cavern. Many of the makeshift shacks had their own smouldering braziers or jury-rigged electrical lighting, the interplay of the different colours, from orange through to brilliant white, giving the whole affair a chaotic atmosphere.

There was a constant bustling of ponies moving to and fro, conversing, arguing and laughing. The central walkways were thronged with ponies navigating their way between the many shacks in a constantly-shifting mass. The balcony and the outermost walkways were less crowded, but all in all, there were more ponies here than I could remember ever seeing in one place before.

I heard hooves clopping down the stairs behind me and hurriedly moved away along the balcony, wary of venturing into the crowds in the centre of the room. To my left, the balcony overlooked the bottom floor of the cavern. It was less well-lit, but there were still some particularly ramshackle structures in evidence. To my right, the balcony was lined with pre-war shopfronts. Many had had their windows smashed long ago, the contents of their meticulously-arranged displays taken by scavengers. Here and there, a shop had been occupied, either by a merchant of some kind or somepony who didn't care for building their own home from scratch out on the walkways.

After walking half the circumference of the room, I leant against the parapet to catch my breath. I slowly eased myself down to the floor and settled down for a rest. I twisted my head to take a look at my wounded flank. The barding was sporting a dozen rips and holes where the grenade's shrapnel had punched through it and the armour plates were hanging off at awkward angles where the blast had torn the straps holding them in place. It would need fixing, or worse, replacing. Great.

I dropped my head on to my foreleg and closed my eyes. The floor beneath me was cold and hard, but it least it meant I wouldn't be at risk of dozing off and waking up with my stuff missing and some fat stallion with bad breath licking my face and telling me what a pretty colt I was. I doubted I could have fallen asleep even if the floor had been made of feathers and the idyllic dreams of sweet, innocent foals; not with the constant hubbub of background noise and the occasional clopping of ponies walking past.

“Excuse me.”

Or, for that matter, with a mare in armoured barding looming over me.

I looked up. The mare – another guard, obviously – was looking down at me with a look of extreme self-importance. “Yeah?” I asked.

“You can't sleep there.”

“Watch me,” I grunted, lowering my head onto my foreleg again. I growled as she nudged me with her forehoof.

“You're obstructing the walkway,” the guard mare said. “You need a place to sleep, you find someplace out of the way or rent a room.”

I looked around. There was nopony else within twenty yards. “Obstructingwho, exactly?”

“That's the rules,” the guard said implacably. “You either follow 'em or get out.” Her expression softened somewhat as she glanced at the bandages wrapped over my wounds. “'Sides, you look in need of a good bed, not a hard floor.” She gestured across the room. “Try Verdant's; she's got good prices. Cleaner 'n most, too.”

I sighed and stood up slowly; I was too tired to argue. “Maybe I'll do that.” The guard nodded and walked away, personal power-trip fulfilled.

I began to meander along the balcony again, glancing into the shopfronts to see if there was anywhere I could sleep without being harassed by anymore self-important guards. There was no way I was going to pay somepony for the privilege of a bed for one night. I didn't have the caps to spare, in any case.

“Hey, you!”

I didn’t respond to the first shout.

“Hey! I'm talking to you!”

I glanced over my shoulder.

“Yeah, you!” said the young-looking stallion who came trotting up to me. He had his mane shaved bare, save for a gravity-defying strip of dark green that ran down the centre of his scalp. A pair of sunglasses – scuffed and scratched – were hiding his eyes, perched above a cocky sneer. I looked at what he was wearing and… yep. A black leather vest. Holy shit, this pony was the epitome of wannabes everywhere. He was the wannabe that other wannabes wanna be. If he told me his name was ‘Stud McTerrorSmash’, my lack of surprise would be matched only by my shame at having to share a world with this waste of breeding. Tagging along in his wake was a mare who was missing most of one ear. She, at least, had a more subdued appearance and seemed to be cringing at her companion’s antics. Hey, I would too.

“What?” I demanded.

Mohawk raised his head and allowed his sneer to grow more pronounced. “Don’t you ‘what’ me, mister!”

“What?”

“I said ‘don’t you “what” me’-”

“What?”

“Isaid- Oh, fuck you,” Mohawk said, his sneer dropping into more of a pout for a moment.

“What do you want?”

‘Please say “brain injury”. Or “broken leg”.’

“Oh!” said Mohawk, as he sat back on his haunches and crossed his forelegs over his chest, tilting his head to one side. “You think you’re a tough pony, do you?”

“What. Do. You. Want?” I repeated, loudly and slowly.

“You don’t look so tough to me!”

I began to realise that one of us had had this conversation beforehand. With a mirror.

“Yeah, that’s right: youdon’t have anything to say!” Mohawk said when I failed to respond.

“No, I don’t. Bye now.” I turned to leave.

“Oh, gonna run away now, are ya?” Mohawk said as he followed me. “Just as well, I guess; a colt like you’s got nothin' on a thoroughbred stallion like me!”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him. “Are you trying to get yourself mauled? Go. Away.”

Mohawk held up a hoof and sneered. “Hey! Hey! Don’t get aggressive with me, buddy! I’m a pony with no limits, ya hear!?”

I sighed. “If I ‘got aggressive’, you’d be smeared across that fucking wall,” I said, gesturing at the nearby shopfront with my head. “But I’ve killed plenty of ponies today, and I’m really not in the mood to kill any more right now.”

Words I’d never thought I’d speak.

“Oh yeah? Sure,” Mohawk said condescendingly.

‘Remember the guards, remember the guards, I thought to myself.‘That’s not worth this little shit.’

Not quite, anyway.

“Listen, shit-for-brains,” I growled. “I’ve killed so many ponies, I gave up trying to count that high. Fuck. Off.”

Mohawk made a noise. A mock, high-pitched squeal of terror. “Yeah, yeah,” he said sceptically, ignoring his one-eared marefriend, who was tugging urgently on his vest. “And I once bit a dragon's head off.” He squared up to me and pawed at the ground. “I could take you any time.”

I took a deep breath. ‘It’s not worth it.’

“Fuck you. I’m not getting thrown out of here because of you.” I snarled. “And believe me, that’s the only reason you’re not dead yet. Get lost.”

“How about this,” Mohawk said. “We go outside, where the guards won’t bother us, and we settle this one-on-one? Pony-to-pony?” One-Ear’s tugs on his jacket were getting more urgent, between the increasingly fearful glances that she was shooting at me.

I sighed. “Alright, fine.” I gestured in the vague direction of the entrance. “Lead the way.”

One-Ear and I watched as Mohawk turned and cantered away. He made a big show of rolling his head around on his neck, cracking the joints. He got quite a long way before he realised I wasn’t following him. He looked around finally, then began sputtering with indignation and galloped back towards me. I shared a glance with One-Ear, who rolled her eyes at me.

“Dude!” Mohawk said as he skidded to a halt in front of me. “That ain’t cool!”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” I said. “Now go away.”

Mohawk shook his head. “Nuh-uh. I’m gonna take you down if I have to-”

“What’s going on?” a familiar voice called out.

Okay, so I lied. Maybe Iwas in the mood to kill somepony.

I turned to glare at Paramount as she trotted up to us. “What the fuck do you want?” I snarled at her.

She ignored me and spoke to Mohawk and One-Ear. “What are you foals doing?”

“Nothing,” One-Ear said quickly. Mohawk smacked her on the side of the head.

“We don’t have to explain nothin’ to you!” he said, puffing out his chest. “Bounty hunters don’t answer to nopony!”

I lifted a hoof and pressed it against my forehead, biting my lip to prevent myself from groaning out loud.

'Stupid ponies. stupid ponieseverywhere.'

“And why are you collecting a bounty on my friend here?” Paramount asked patiently.

I lowered my hoof. “I am not your friend,” I hissed at her.

Mohawk sagged a little as he realised what he’d let slip, then drew himself up again. “Cuz somepony is paying us, an' that's all the reason we need!”

“And because he’s a bad pony,” One-Ear chimed in.

“Yeah, that too,” Mohawk said, shooting an annoyed glance at his partner. “Justice and retri-boosh-on, all that shit.”

“Uh-huh. Look, I’m with the Cavalry,” Paramount said, tapping the insignia on her armour. She raised her head loftily. “You know what that means, right?”

Mohawk scoffed and went to say something that was doubtlessly idiotic, but stopped as One-Ear tapped him on the shoulder and murmured something to him. They shared a brief back-and-forth in hushed voices before Mohawk turned back to Paramount and said, “Uh… no.”

One-Ear rolled her eyes again.

“It means,” Paramount said firmly, “that I don’t abide by ‘bad ponies’. Slavers, raiders, whatever.” She lifted a hoof and pointed it at me. “I haven’t got a problem with him. In fact, he helped me save a bunch of ponies from slavers today.”

I shot her a searching look. Okay, fine, if she didn’t want to mention the ‘under duress’ part, then neither did I.

“Uh…” Mohawk was looking considerably less full of himself as Paramount went on.

“So, if you’ve got a problem with him, then you’ve got a problem with me,” she said lightly. “And if you’ve got a problem with me, then you’ve got a problem with the Cavalry.” She smiled. “But I’m sure that’s no trouble for tough ponies like yourselves! I mean, we’re only the third-biggest merc band in the Palomino!”

Even Mohawk’s namesake was beginning to wilt before the unicorn’s cheery, thinly-veiled threats. “Um…” he said, as One-Ear started trying to drag him away by his tail. He raised a hoof. “Just wait there one sec,” he told me. He and One-Ear had a second rushed, muttered exchange, which involved a fair amount of One-Ear smacking Mohawk over the head. Eventually, Mohawk walked back over to us. “Okay,” Mohawk said, shifting his hooves nervously, his gaze fixed on the floor just in front of Paramount. “We’re just gonna… leave now. If that’s okay…” One-Ear nudged him. “Ma’am,” he added quietly.

“‘Miss’,” Paramount corrected him coldly. “I amnot that old.”

“Um… yeah, sorry, ma’a- miss. Sorry. Bye.”

The last word was almost squeaked out as Mohawk backed away. The pair turned and walked off, bickering between themselves.

“So…” I turned to Paramount as she spoke. “Do you forgive me yet?”

I stared blankly at her for a moment. “Oh, of course,” I said flatly. “I mean, you just totally saved my life there. I don’t know what I would have done about that pair of little bastards if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Look,” she said, sitting down on her haunches, her gaze dropping to the floor at my hooves, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“Oh, well, that makes it okay then!” I snarled at her. “As long as you didn’tmean to almost get me killed-!”

“No, I know it doesn’t,” she said quietly, still not meeting my gaze. “That’s why I said I’m sorry.”

I glared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. Fine. You said it. Now go away and never come near me ever again.”

I made to walk off, but she followed me.

“Leave. Me. Alone.”

“Look, how can I make it up to you?” she asked. She was actually starting to look a bit desperate. I might have laughed if it wasn’t so annoying.

“You can’t-” I paused. “Well, there is one thing…”

“Yes?”

“Go find a grenade and jump on it. If you could not survive, that’d be even better.”

I turned to walk off, but was arrested by Paramount laying a hoof on my shoulder. “I just-”

I slapped her hoof away and rounded on her. “What is your fucking problem!?” I shouted in her face. “Leave! Me! The fuck! Alone! Or I’ll buck you through that fucking wall-!”

“That’s enough!”

I rounded on the speaker with a snarl. Surprise, surprise, it was one of the guards; the one who had tried to threaten me at the entrance, if I wasn't mistaken. “Calm it down. Right now,” she said menacingly.

“Or else what?” I demanded, reaching a hoof for my lance.

There was a metallic clicking from behind my right ear. I froze.

“Or else 'bang',” somepony said from behind me.

I lowered my hoof.

“Right,” the first guard said. “I’ve seen enough. You’re leaving. Now. Take him down and out,” she said to the guard behind me.

“Right you are, boss.” Something cold and metallic pressed against the back of my head. “Move it. No funny business.”

I shot a look over at Paramount as I was frog-marched away. “Bitch,” I muttered.

The guards escorted me down to the lower level, a gun pressed to the back of my head the entire way. On another day, I might have ducked left, spun, charged and taken my chances. But today, courtesy of one idiot mare, I was bruised and exhausted. Besides, if they'd wanted to kill me, they'd have done it already.

Thinking that made me think of Paramount again, prompting an involuntary growl. I grunted as the gun was shoved roughly against my skull.

“Don't even think about,” the guard holding the gun said.

“Too late,” I muttered.

The lower level consisted of a series of raised platforms between sets of rails that disappeared into tunnels that were blocked off by either fallen rubble or ramshackle barricades. We came to a halt before one such barricade that had a gate set into it. The lead guard lifted a bar that held the gate closed and dragged it open, revealing the tunnel on the far side that led into impenetrable darkness.

“Start walking,” the lead guard said as she leant casually against the barricade beside the gateway, a sadistic smirk on her face. “If you're lucky, you'll come out the other side.”

“And fuck you, too,” I snarled at her. She laughed mockingly in response and gestured through the gate.

I stepped through the gate. After a few steps into the tunnel, the gate behind me was slammed shut, cutting off the only source of light. I froze in place, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

They didn't.

The only light came from the slimmest of cracks in the barricade behind me and the faint glow of my pipbuck screen.

After a while, I growled and stamped at the ground.

I might have been wounded and tired, but I wasnot going to be afraid of the dark.

I started walking, carefully setting down each hoofstep, wary of anything that could spell danger. I kept my eyes, useless as they were, fixed on the darkness ahead, probing for any source of light.

Silence.

It started to get to me after a while. After the ceaseless droning of background noise in Terminal, the quiet was particularly noticeable. The only sound was the soft clopping of my hooves on the ground and a faint humming from my pipbuck. I caught myself holding my breath more than once. Each time, I let it out in a whoosh that was deafening to my ears.

I was aware of the tunnel's gentle downward slope and with it, the knowledge that I was delving deeper and deeper beneath the surface. Thousands of tonnes of rock and sand were piling up above me with each cautious step I took, entombing me under the desert.

The tunnel eventually levelled out and entered a long bend that turned southwards, if my pipbuck's compass was still accurate. Impatience began to overtake me and I broke into a slow canter, only to skid to a halt when I almost tripped over a fallen section of ceiling that was lying across the tracks. As I rounded it and continued onwards, I flinched as a flash of light momentarily dazzled me. I looked around and noticed a recessed doorway in the tunnel wall, the slight crack between the door and wall emitting a thin bar of light that I had just walked through. I stepped over to the door and my ears pricked up as they registered a low humming sound coming from beyond it. I lifted my pipbuck up to the door, the faint glow from the screen illuminating the sign it bore:

SPARTRAN

Restricted Area

Authorised Personnel Only

“Authorisethis,” I muttered, my voice echoing up and down the tunnel. I turned my back to the door, picked up my hindhooves and bucked it.

The door rang like a deep-pitched bell under my hooves, but didn't give way. After a few more tries, the lock gave out. The door barely moved as it broke with a clang of sheered metal. I threw my weight against the door and forced it open, gritting my teeth against the grinding noise of the rusty hinges.

The room beyond was tiny. Barely more than a closet. That wasn't strictly true, I realised as I looked around. The bare floorspace I was standing in was tiny. The room itself wasn't. It was simply packed with pre-war computers. Judging by the way they were humming, I guessed they were still working. By that and the glowing screens of the terminals, anyway.

I overlooked the bounty of pre-war technology, however, as my attention was drawn to the ladder at the back of the room.

“Screw you, morons,” I muttered, thinking of the guards, as I trotted over to it and looked upwards into the shaft it ascended into. I couldn't make out the top, but it was a safer bet than blundering around in a pitch-black tunnel. As I hooked my forehooves over the rungs and leapt onto the ladder, it groaned under my weight. I hesitated and tugged at the rungs above me. They felt sturdy enough. I started to climb, testing every rung before putting my weight on it.

I hadn't realised how the glow from the terminals had ruined my night vision until I was enveloped in the darkness of the shaft. After a minute or so of climbing, I was forced to stop by the growing pain in my shoulder. I looked down. The bottom of the shaft was barely visible as a round, green spot far below me. After a short rest, I continued.

I swore as my head struck something hard.

After a few moments of swearing and rubbing my head, I probed at the obstruction with a forehoof. Smooth metal, maybe a trapdoor? My hoof bumped against something that jutted out of the trapdoor at the point where it met the wall of the shaft. A handle of some kind. I tugged at it and it made a heavy clunking sound as it parted from the wall. I shoved at the trapdoor.

It didn't open.

I shoved at it again, almost dislodging myself from the ladder in my frustration. The trapdoor shifted slightly, but it felt heavy, as if something was pinning it closed. I braced myself against the ladder and pushed until the burn in my shoulder made me stop, panting for breath. The trapdoor didn't budge by a single inch.

“Oh, youfucker!” I bellowed at the trapdoor, my voice shouting back at me from the stone walls around me.

As I hung there, mentally adding trapdoors and ladders to my 'inanimate objects I despise' list, I became aware of a rapid clicking noise.

I looked around wildly, glaring at the walls of the shaft, until my eyes fell on the source: my pipbuck. I checked the radiation meter. The needle was flickering back and forth, but it was steadily edging upwards.

I raised my eyes to the trapdoor.

Suddenly, I didn't want to go that way anymore.

A minute later, I tumbled to the floor of the computer-filled room and sat there for a while, trying to catch my breath, which had gotten its hooves on someone's stash of Dash, judging by how easily it eluded me. The monotonous humming of the computers was broken up when my stomach growled loudly.

Dinner time, I supposed.

I started poking around the room's terminals as I ate. Whatever was in the packet I had pulled out of my saddlebag at random was chewy enough to make my jaw ache, but it was sustenance, at least. Most of the terminals were displaying messages along the lines of'This terminal is locked. Please contact your administrator', but the one that was embedded in the enormous computer that took up most of the room was less boring:

OP 3 Primary Access Terminal

Be sure to log out WHENEVER this terminal is left unattended <<<

>>> ERROR! CONNECTION TO EQNET SEVERED!

>>> ATTEMPTING TO RECONNECT...

>>> ATTEMPT NO. 621274446

>>> PLEASE WAIT…

Current Search Time: 1725777 h, 21 m, 3 s

Current Search Hits: 9003

Current Search Parameters:

+ ministry

+ princess

+ megaspell

+ zebra

+ peace

+ experiment

+ mission

+ attack

+ invasion

+ dragon

+ sabre

+ saabre

+ sunder

+ leviathan

+ leviafan

+ maripony

+ marypony

>>>Press 'Enter' to view more parameters…

What the hay, you only live once, right? I smacked the biggest button I could find on the terminal's control panel. The screen flickered and a new list appeared:

+ marrypony

+ imp

+ gilded

+ hope

+ “gilded hope”

+ stable

+ stable-tec

+ “stable tec”

+ stable-tek

+ stable-tech

+ stable-teck

+ “stable tek”

+ “stable tech”

+ “stable teck”

+ “fuck this shit”

+ “i hate this interface”

+ cloven

+ stone

+ “cloven stone”

>>>Press 'Enter' to view more parameters…

I aimlessly jabbed at the 'Enter' button a few more times, each time producing another list of meaningless words. I got bored pretty quickly and gave one of the other terminals a look:

[…]

PLEASE remove ‘zebra’ from the parameters? Everypony and their aunt is talking about the stripes we get enough false positives as it is. Im spending most of my time following up on leads that lead me to some old nag complaining about her neighbours.

With begging, E.

Mood: {Please Express Your Current Feelings Here. Use Smilies If Possible. :)}

~~~

Sender: op_5_post@iss.moa.eq.net

Recipient: op_5_9@iss.moa.eq.net

Subject: RE: Polite fucking request

Content:

~~~

Request denied.

~~~

And, just for fun, I looked at the last one on my way out:

Sender: op_5_9@iss.moa.eq.net

Recipient: op_5_post@iss.moa.eq.net

Subject: Still a big, fat, unending, overwelming, bullshit nothing…

Content:

~~~

… on the new parameters. I say dump them.

Somepony ask 14 is HE was the drunk one.

Too many false positives being thrown up – Have I mentioned my spare time crisis lately?

With irritation, E.

Mood: >:(

~~~

Sender: op_5_com@iss.moa.eq.net

Recipient: op_5_9@iss.moa.eq.net

Subject: RE: Still a big, fat, unending, overwHelming, bullshit nothing…

Content:

~~~

Listen up, nine.

I don’t give a DAMN how many falsitives you get. You will follow up EVERY LAST ONE until we have full expo on this matter.

Clear?

With {Insert Pleasantries Here}, CB

Mood: >>>:(

~~~

Clearly, not every pre-war terminal could be a font of inspiration.

I slammed the door shut behind me as I exited back into the tunnel, and turned to continue onwards just in time to catch the entire weight of a full-grown pony in the chest.

I staggered back, stunned, then cried out as something sharp was dragged across my neck. I reared up and lashed out at the vague silhouette before me. The skull that my forehooves cracked against felt wrong – not enough skin, for one thing. As the pony fell down in front of me, I got a clear look at it at the same time that a chorus of hellish screeches came echoing down from further along the tunnel.

“Oh, good,” I muttered, stamping on the first zombie's head with one forehoof and drawing my lance with the other. “This isexactly what I need right n-”

I cut myself off by shoving my lance between my teeth and swinging it around to spear the next zombie through the neck as it galloped out of the darkness. I grunted and stepped back as it ignored the length of metal buried in its necrotic flesh and continued to press forward, wildly flailing at me with its forehooves. A second zombie darted past the first. As it lunged at me, I dropped my lance, spun around and bucked it in the chest. The zombie with my lance embedded in it immediately leapt forward and smashed its forehooves against my wounded shoulder.

My foreleg collapsed beneath me and I fell to the ground heavily, knocking the wind out of me. I rolled away from the zombie kebab as if stamped down at me, then twisted around and lashed out with a hindleg, shattering the zombie's knee with a crunch. As it fell down, the lance caught on the ground and was driven out of the back of the ex-pony's neck. It must have caught the zombie's spine on its way through, because the zombie immediately went limp, its shrill cries reduced to gurgling moans.

As I struggled to stand up, the last zombie tackled me, sending me sprawling onto my back. Before I could recover, its forehooves stamped down onto my head, blurring my vision in a haze of pain. When it cleared, I was treated to the unenviable sight of a zombie’s gaping mouth hovering over my face.

I reached up with my forehooves and clasped the zombie’s head, just managing to stop it from tearing my face off. A helping of thick saliva – or what I hoped was saliva – was spattered on my face as the zombie let out a screech.

For a long few moments, we struggled. Me trying to push the zombie away long enough to stand up, it trying to bite down on my head. The thing’s forehooves struck me in the head again, sending bolts of pain through my skull. I roared and shoved the zombie upwards, then released my grip long enough to smack a hoof across its muzzle. It staggered to one side, and I rolled to the other.

I stumbled backwards, away from the zombie, and went for my SMG.

A pair of gunshots rang out. The zombie fell down, two gaping holes blown through its torso.

I froze in place, whipping my head from side to side, trying to locate the source of the shots. Back down the tunnel, from the direction of Terminal, the dim glow of a unicorn's magic field, a rifle suspended within it, floated towards me, shedding light on the features of the pony that approached.

“Are you all right?” Paramount asked.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I groaned. I wiped my face with one hoof, not looking too closely at what the zombie had sprayed me with. “Do you have some kind of fuckingillness?”

“No,” Paramount said. “I’m on a job.”

I snorted. “Really.”

“Really. An expedition came down here a week ago. Scavengers. They haven’t come back. The guard captain sent me out to look for them.”

“Okay,” I said. I stepped aside, pressing myself up against the wall, and gestured down the tunnel. “Off you go, then.”

She didn't move.

I sneered at Paramount. “If you're going to be a liar, at least be a good one.”

“I-”

“Turn around,” I said, drawing a circle in the air with my hoof. “Walk away. Go-”

“No.”

I glared at her. The faint glow from her horn illuminated her expression; defiant, but not angry, just… determined.

“What the fuck do youwant?” I said exasperatedly.

“Iwant to make up for getting you injured,” Paramount said matter-of-factly. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Well I don't want you to, or need you to,” I replied shortly. “So fuck off.”

“Well Ido want to.”

“Why?”

She didn't answer, instead looking away to run her gaze aimlessly around the tunnel walls. “Do I need a reason?” she said finally.

“…What the fuck isthat supposed to mean?” I said, throwing my forehooves up in frustration. “Just fuck off.”

“No.”

“Go. The fuck. Away-”

“You're angry. I get it,” she said calmly. “I don't blame you. But I didn't mean for you to get hurt and I'm not going to let you walk off down here and get yourself killed because of me-”

“Oh, bullshit,” I scoffed. “Now you care if I die or not? You didn't give a shit if I got killed back there, as long you got to play hero.”

“Okay, fine,” Paramount said sharply, her patient tone finally giving way. “Idon't care whether you die or not. That’s why I didn’t just leave you to die after you got wounded. That’s why I didn’t just leave you behind when you were slowing us all down and the radstorm was coming. That's why I came down here after you. That's why I put a bullet through that ghoul instead of you. Because I don't care whether you die or not.” She paused for a moment, cocking her head to one side in faux-thoughtfulness. “Oh, wait!” she said, feigning sudden enlightenment before letting her expression drop again. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

I snorted and sneered at her. She stared back, refusing to blink.

“Whatever,” I said eventually, breaking the stare. “Just stay away from me.”

“You’ll get lost down here on your own,” she called after me as I retrieved my lance and walked away.

“At least I'llbe on my own,” I shouted back over my shoulder. “As in 'nowhere near you'…”

My voice trailed off as I heard my echo change suddenly, becoming more distant. I glanced down. The railway tracks beneath my hooves split into half-a-dozen branches and arced off in different directions into the darkness. I raised my head and squinted into the impenetrable blackness. I couldn't put my hoof on it, but I felt a keen sense of… openness. Like the tunnel ceiling had been ripped away…

I snapped my head around as Paramount trotted up to stand next to me. The glow of the magic field around her rifle illuminated the tunnel ahead, just well enough to show me that it wasn't a tunnel at all.

Two steps in front of me, the tunnel opened into an immense artificial cavern, the ceiling so high that the dim glow of Paramount's magic didn't reach it before it faded into the gloom. Looking around the walls of the cavern, I could make out, barely, at least a dozen blacker-than-black shadows that could only have been more tunnels.

“You sure about that?” Paramount said, in a light tone that I knew was only concealing her smugness. I scowled at her in return. “You don't even know where you are, do you?”

“Too close to you by a million miles, that's where,” I retorted.

“This is the Network,” Paramount said, ignoring my comment and gesturing at the cavern before us. “It's a… well, anetwork of rail tunnels that run under the Palomino. Hundreds of miles of them. Ponies go missing down here all the time.” She shrugged, turning to look outwards, into the cavern. “Maybe lost, maybe… something else. Nopony knows.” She turned back to me, her expression sceptical. “You sure you'll be okay on your own?”

I looked away and cast my gaze around the cavern.

Wounded, exhausted, disorientated, sorely in need of a drink… the odds were stacking up against me, I had to admit.

“Are we going to stand here all night?”

I turned my head to shoot a glare at Paramount. “Who's this 'we' you're talking about?”

“You look tired,” she commented lightly. “But there's all kinds of dangers down here. Can you sleep with one eye open?”

I let out a hollow chuckle. “Right. And I'll sleepso much better if you're hanging around.”

“At least you won't wake up dead,” Paramount said, her voice edged with foreboding.

I snorted dismissively. “I can look after myself,” I said, turning away from her and walking forward into the cavern. I immediately stumbled over one of the rails and let out a sharp gasp that echoed around the chamber as a stabbing sensation erupted in my wounded shoulder.

“Give me a break!” Paramount said as she stepped forward to stand beside me as I slumped down to gingerly probe at my shoulder. “You're tired, you're hurt, you have no idea where you are or where you're going. You had trouble taking on a handful of ghouls!” She laughed briefly. “And trust me; there's worse than just ghouls down here. Much worse.” She stepped closer and stared into my eyes. “If you can't get over your pride,” she said firmly, “you're going to die down here.”

She let those words hang in the air between us for a few seconds before adding, in softer tones, “Let me help.”

I glared back at her for a few moments more, still massaging my aching shoulder, before closing my eyes and looking away.

I sighed and nodded, just once.

I was going to regret this, I knew.

Against the wall of the cavern, somepony had erected a simple shelter by leaning sheets of metal against the stone surface. A mattress had been thrown down in the back, along with a scattering of junk; empty food cans, bottles, the casing of an old rifle that had been stripped down for parts.

Paramount poked her head into the shelter, sweeping her rifle back-and-forth across the interior. “It's clear,” she murmured. I'd already known that, thanks to my pipbuck's E.F.S., but letting her know that would have meant speaking to her. She turned, stepped away from the entrance and gestured into the shelter. “I'll keep first watch,” she said. “You get some rest.”

I grunted and stumbled past her, ducking beneath the ceiling of the primitive shelter, too tired to argue with her. My knees crumpled beneath me as soon as I reached the mattress and I could barely suppress a sigh of pleasure as the constant throbbing throughout my body was relieved. My eyelids started to droop almost immediately…

Suddenly, urgently, a thought came rampaging through the veil of lethargy that was falling across me.

A burst of adrenaline roused me instantly. I raised my head and blearily looked around. The darkness was almost impenetrable, but I could make out the roughly triangular entrance to the shelter, and the silhouette of Paramount, sitting motionless, facing outwards. I shifted around on the mattress and laid my head back down so that I was facing her.

I let my eyes close and slowed my breathing until the thumping of my heart slowed. As unconsciousness came, beckoning and tempting, I forced my eyelids back, heedless of the aching sensation behind my eyes, and watched Paramount's unmoving form. After a minute, I allowed my eyes to close again for a while before forcing them open once more.

I don't know how long I rested like that. Constantly courting sleep, but thrusting it back whenever it threatened to envelop me fully. Thoughts, dreams and mere sensations were all blurred together and became a barely-perceptible distraction from the feeling of nothingness I was desperate to achieve, but not at the cost of vulnerability. I was both hot from the fresh blood that spattered against my face and cold from the air that blew across my hide. I was deafened by the sound of explosions and screams and gunfire and straining to make out stifled sobs. I was grinning at the body at my hooves and snarling at the face in my mind's eye.

“Hey, wake up.”

The words pierced the fog of pseudo-sleep I had lapsed into. I jerked fully awake, swatting a hoof wildly at the figure that loomed over me.

“Woah. relax!” Paramount said, dodging my clumsy swipe. “It's me, not another feral! Relax!”

I shuffled away from her and stood up. “Your turn to keep watch,” Paramount said, suppressing a yawn. “I only need a few hours. That okay with you?”

I grunted in response and moved to the front of the shelter, sitting down to stare blankly out into the darkness. Behind me, I could hear the soft rustling of Paramount settling herself onto the mattress, followed by silence as she finally fell still.

I waited.

I steadily counted my way to a thousand before turning back to where Paramount had lain down to sleep. As stealthily as my trembling legs would allow, I crept closer, expecting at any moment for her to snatch up her rifle.

I looked down at her as she slumbered.

I wavered on whether to wake her up or not. Eventually, I decided it didn't matter. She'd be dead either way, and I was willing to forgo a little satisfaction if it went with a lesser chance of having that rifle shoved in my face again.

She deserved payback.

I watched as she shifted in her sleep, hooves twitching. Occasionally, her lips moved, mouthing words.

A few times, she shivered and winced without waking.

Once, she groaned and clutched her forehooves to her chest.

Some time later, I walked back to the front of the shelter and sat down.

After a moment, I raised my pipbuck and started flicking through the various screens, occasionally shooting glances over my shoulder at where Paramount lay on the mattress.

Progress to next level: 73%

Introduction

Introduction

They tell stories of the San Palomino.

They tell how, when, two hundred years ago, the megaspells rained down and tore Equestria asunder, the Desert was spared the worst of the destruction.

It was not spared the fallout.

As the shockwaves subsided and the survivors crept from whatever holes in the sand had saved them, the same brutal, day-to-day struggle for survival greeted them as it did in every corner of the desolation left behind. Amidst the dunes of the San Palomino, ponies fought and died for the scraps the old world had left behind.

The Palomino had taken lives before the End. With heat and dust and thirst. After the End, it would take lives with the heat of anger, the dust of distrust and the thirst for survival.

They tell stories of the San Palomino.

They tell how ponies go there to die. Alone, in the sands. Alone, to take away the sting of failure. Of failing to win against the Wasteland’s merciless game of survival.

That one always made me laugh; you’ll learn why.

They tell stories…

Who are ‘they’?

For two hundred years, the Sun had risen and set on the Palomino, ushering in day after day of struggle and strife and yet the stories never changed.

As the light faded and the heat of day ebbed, campfires would spring up like beacons in the sandy wastes and ponies would gather round and listen as ‘they’ contentedly retold the same stories of the death of the old world and the void it had left behind, to be filled with all the nihilistic selfishness of ponies who could no longer see tomorrow.

Other stories may have come and gone, but that one always remained.

And then I showed up.

And ‘they’ had a new story to tell.

‘My’ story of the Palomino.

I laughed at that one, too.

In truth, the story they tell isn’t mine. It’s about me, but it isn’t mine.

Yes, there is a difference.

For one thing, the story that’s mine has a lot more petty bickering in it.

Go figure.