Fallout Equestria: Shattered Armour

by willm111

Rating: teen
Tags: Crossover, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Comedy, Adventure
Length: 38139

You think your life in the wastes is tough? Try being the only male of your species.

Broken Thorn only ever wanted to serve honorably, to work for the betterment of Equestria in the royal guard and serve Princess Celestia.
That didn't work out so well when the Balefire bombs dropped right in the middle of his first mission.
Two hundred years later he finds completing his mission to be the least of his worries. Stranded in the wastes with no friends, a pair of wings he doesn't remember getting and too many questions.
Being an Alicorn is tough.
But being the only Alicorn stallion?
Needless to say hilarity and chaos follow.

This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat, whose magnificent work of fiction inspired me to seriously write for the first time in my life.

Published 2013-05-05 22:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-19 08:28:29 UTC

Prologue: Last Orders

Fallout Equestria: Shattered Armour

Prologue: Last orders

Okay we all know how it goes, I want to tell a story, you want to hear a story, and with all stories it’s best to start at the very beginning. Unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the beginning of this story could be anything from three months to over two hundred years ago. In a way all stories these days start then, you know what I mean.

If I start at the very beginning and tell you everything that happened between then and now, it’s going to be mostly boring and still manage to spoil the surprise.

If I start three months ago, you’re going to have no idea what I’m talking about and ask stupid questions like “what’s he doing there?” “what scroll?” and “why is he worried about his mane?” ...
Errr... actually, you’re probably going to ask those anyway. It’s the same with any story: you start with questions, and as you progress you get more questions than answers and finally at the end you get almost all the answers you want and I promise that’s only because I don’t know the answer to some of them.

To be fair, I didn't know any of the right questions to begin with. That's how things got a little crazy, and then it turns out those questions and answers weren't actually all that important.
In the Wasteland the most important question is always “how do I not die?”.

...

Sorry rambling a bit there, I often do that. If I do it again just throw a horseshoe my way.

...

You don’t have any horse shoes? Nopony? Well lucky lucky me.

Let’s get started, then. It all begins just over two hundred years ago, in a place that you all know of, even if you never went there.

The most magnificent city in Equestria: Canterlot.

On the day the world ended.

<---------------------------------------------------->

“Private Broken Thorn! How long are you going to stay napping on duty, you lazy son of a mule!”

My eyes snapped open violently while rest of my body remained perfectly still, yet tensed, then relaxed, as my brain caught up with the rest of the world.

Slowly, I sat upright like I had all the time in the world, which I did in a manner of speaking.
I eyeballed the blue maned unicorn stallion at the foot of my bed, taking in his mock expression of anger.

“Sir, today is my day off, sir. I am using it to catch up on my sleep to better serve Equestria in the future, sir!” I yelled back to him. I laid back down and shut my eyes. Ahhhh to just lie there and enjoy some peace and quiet with nothing, no danger, no duty or obligations to drive you forward, the very definition of bliss.

It was rudely interrupted by a tingle of magic that whipped the sheets of my bed. I glared at the unicorn at foot of my bed, who had a ridiculous grin on his face. “PRIVATE Bronze Arrow how I spend my free time is of no concern to you. Now get lost before I kick your plot off the mountain.”

“How can I not be concerned over my bestest buddy getting in trouble for missing his physical?” He followed with wink.

Buck, could it be? I know I didn’t have a physical scheduled, it could be... Arrow messing with me but I had to check.

I got up from the bed glaring at Arrow and his huge grin and went to the roster board at the far end of the bunk house. Right there, under today’s date was:

Private Broken Thorn
Physical check up
Examination Room B

That had not been there yesterday or three days ago when the schedule was posted. It had to be.

“Ah yes that thanks for reminding me Arrow, I’ll head there now.” I said as casually as I could.

“You do that.” He said and trotted out the door.

I went to the locker rooms and headed over to the mirror. My mood of excitement was spoiled by what I saw there, overnight my mane had gone from dark red to a paler almost blood-red shade. “Stupid cheap spell” I muttered, “If ever find that blue unicorn again...”

I continued to look at myself reflected in the mirror and recast the spell until my mane finally returned to its “normal” dark red colour. I looked the rest of myself over in the mirror to make sure I looked presentable. Perfect white coat, long flowing tail, short cut mane, awesome cutie mark, and long shining horn. Well it should have been a long horn. Instead of tapering to a sharp point it ended in a flat disk three inches from where it should. All in all fit for duty, with some additions.

I turned away from the mirror and towards the bank of lockers, three minutes work and I turned back to the mirror. A solid helmet covered my head and neck with a blue brush on the back. Overlapping plates of armour covered the rest of my body from chest to tail, with the Canterlot coat of arms where my cutie mark would be. Finally, four bracers covered my legs from hoof to just above the knee leaving only part of my upper leg and chin exposed. The armour was coloured a beautiful gold colour, but it wasn't heavy; it felt like my own skin.

What can I say? I looked great and loved it.

In case you didn't get it I was a member of the Canterlot Royal Guard, the oldest fighting force in Equestria, guardians of law and order for generations, and bodyguards to Princess Celestia herself! At least we used to be.

...

Later. Anyway I left the barracks and went to the medical wing...

<---------------------------------------------------->

I knocked tentatively at the examination room door. “Come in.” A mare’s voice responded.

Inside there was the usual doctor’s equipment, sink, bed, desk and a couple of chairs.
There was also a very pretty pink earth pony mare in a nurse’s outfit, I put on my most professional face and tried not to stare.

“Private Broken Thorn reporting for physical assessment.”

“Yes, I know. The doctor will be here shortly.” She gave a faint smile then went out the door closing it behind her.

I settled down on one of the chairs and tried to keep my excitement and fear under control, if this was what I thought it was then it may just be the best day of my life. Then I knew it was, I could feel her coming down the hallway, it was like having a fire at my rear except no fire could ever be that hot.

Oh Luna forgive me that was so inappropriate!

Dismissing such embarrassing thoughts, I got up from the chair and faced the door dropping into kneeling bow as it opened.

“Hail Princess Celestia” I said then looked up. She was as magnificent as ever, towering over me with her magnificent multicoloured mane blowing in an ethereal breeze. She had a radiant smile on her face as if she was the one lucky to see me.

“It's just Celestia. Now, Broken Thorn, rise.” She said in a kindly voice. Yeah that’s right, the Princess knew my name.

...

What? No applause? What does it take to impress you ponies?

...

Okay one, say that again and I’ll explode your face. Two, if I was in a position to do that sort of thing do you think I would be here telling you this story? Now shut and listen, it’s about to get interesting.

“I have a mission for you, but it must be kept secret. I apologize for taking your day off from you but it is the only time you could leave the palace without arousing suspicion.” Her voice gradually grew more serious as she went on and drew out a scroll tied with a red ribbon and gold seal.

“I live to serve you and Equestria, your majesty. I didn’t have anything better to do today anyway.” I chuckled.

She returned my joke with a faint smile then continued. “I need you to deliver this to Twilight Sparkle. She should be at the Ministry of Arcane Science’s Maripony facility. You are to give it to her and no one else. Not an assistant. Not a guard. You give it to her personally. Once that is done you will guard her and obey her orders as if they were mine. Do you accept?” she thrust the scroll towards.

“It will be done your majesty!” This was what I joined the Royal guard for! Well, not this cloak and dagger crap, but to work with those ponies who could make a difference! I was going to be protecting a ministry mare! How awesome is that?

I took the scroll in magical grip, and Celestia gave me a brief nod, walking out the door and shutting it behind her. I spent a few moments catching my breath, I hadn't breathed since she entered the room. Then, I began making plans. Maripony, huh? That’s some distance away. I would have to take the train and...

Oh dear, this was supposed to be low key...

I would have to leave my armor behind...

<---------------------------------------------------->

The train rattled along through the pristine countryside, endless fields of green interrupted by the occasional building or copse of trees. Oh beautiful Equestria, I fight for you, I thought. Then, I thought about ridiculously sappy that sounded and tried to think of nothing at all out of embarrassment.

The train was filled with the usual assortment of ponies. I ignored them unless I noticed then looking at me. After returning my armour to my locker, I had left the Palace without any trouble. However, once in the city, I was racked with paranoia. Was the Ministry of Morale following me? Could there be Zebra sympathizers lying in wait? I shifted slightly, feeling the weight of the combat knife and pistol concealed in my jacket. Not weapons I was comfortable with but I needed to keep my options open.

As I looked around, I started to feel the effects of missing the sleep I had tried to get.

I struggled to keep my eyelids open...

Who would have thought this would actually be boring...

I wished something interesting would happen...

...

'BOOOOMM!!!' Didn't even begin to describe it...

I had enough time to jump out of my seat as the world, or maybe just the train, was turned upside down and I blacked out.

...

...

...

Yeah give me a moment, see this is the problem with stories like this. At the time I didn't remember what happened next, for me what happened next happened quite a bit later. Or rather I started remembering stuff when I was actually me again.

I think you all know what I mean so I’ll just skip to the interesting part.

200 years later...

Notes:
Character: Broken Thorn
Race: Alicorn, you have wings of a Pegasus, magic of a unicorn and earth pony body but only gain a perk every second level.
Cutie Mark: Horseshoe surrounded by red magic aura.
Coat: White.
Mane: Red, apparently

Traits
Gifted: You have more innate abilities than most, so you have not spent as much time honing your skills. All seven stats have a +1 modifier. All skills are -10%. You receive 5 less skill points per level.
Magically inclined: You have been trained in the magical arts from the time you could walk and have already mastered several spells. Because you spent so much time learning magic you have not mastered any other skills. Instead of picking skill tags you choose three starting spells.

Tagged Skills
N/A

Spells:
Star Swirl the Bearded’s Magic Bullet (Rank 1): Fires a magic “bullet” of condensed energy. The strength of this bullet is proportional to the amount of magical power put into the spell.
The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Illusionary Shape: Creates an illusion around yourself that alters how you appear. Can be used to conceal your horn, wings and cutie mark.
Unity’s Alicorn Shield (Rank 1) - This Shield spell, sturdier than most, will resist most types of kinetic force up to a certain point. It won’t be able to fully resist attacks with damage exceeding 20% of your total health. This spell is also immovable in relation to you and won’t take any other forms than a sphere around your body.

SPECIAL
STR 7
PER 4
END 6
CHA 8
INT 5
AGI 6

Author's Note

I owe a lot of people thanks for this.
Thankyou to Kkat for creating this beautifully messed up world.
Thankyou to Adder1 for giving me some great advice. I must confess his character Frost Windchill of the Lunar Guard was a big inspiration for doing a character from the Royal guard.
Thank you to donutsforthewin9 for editing my work so I wouldn't be embarrassed to show my face in public.
And finally thank you to the dozens of other FOE side story writers who made me realize I could give writing a try, I have never found anything more satisfying and challenging.

Chapter 1: The Worst Day of the Rest of Your Life

Chapter 1: The Worst Day of the Rest of Your Life

You know sometimes you have a dream about being in school, in class and the teacher asks you to hand in an assignment that you didn’t know about, and you get that horrible feeling of dread in your stomach that manages to stay with you even after you wake up and realize, hey, I finished school two years ago!

...

You don’t get that? Right no schools, well that’s one new experience the Followers can give to the wasteland.

That was pretty much how I felt when I woke up except I couldn't remember the dream, or even when I had fallen asleep. I knew my name. I knew who I was. I knew that I had left Canterlot on my mission, but I couldn’t remember what had happened between then and now, there was just a blank space in my mind.

It was at this point I became aware of several important facts.

One: I was in cave of some sort with a fire burning near the entrance.

Two: My entire body felt wrong from my horn to my hooves. Sort of heavier but more delicate like I had just run a marathon until I had collapsed from exhaustion.

Three: There was something around my neck that felt heavy and was choking me slightly. My front and rear hooves had been bound together and my wings had been tied back too.

Finally, there were three ponies sitting around the fire talking about me.

"We should just leave it, those things always creeped me out. Not to mention they're dangerous," said one of the earth ponies, a green stallion with a yellow mane.

"Yeah, ever since the bomb went off, these things have been going nuts all over the place! They're too dangerous to try to control," said a red earth pony mare. What things were they talking about? The bomb? I remembered an explosion. What was going on?

"You're idiots, the pair of you!" yelled the third pony, an orange unicorn mare with a black mane, "We're wanted ponies, easy prey for prey for bounty hunters mopping up the last of the army outside Fillydelphia. We need something that can buy us protection, and this guy is priceless!"

"Why? Because he’s the wrong colour? Or because he got an extra large helping of crazy?" Wrong colour? O Goddesses! Had my mane spell worn off! Bucking Hell!

...

Yes, I said buck instead of fuck, I've never been good at swearing, don't judge me.

"Because he's a HE, a male, a stallion! Don't you know anything? That's why the goddess worked with Red Eye in the first place! He promised to make stallions for her! They’ll pay good caps for him!"

Okay now their talking about me like I’m some prized stud! Which... Was actually kind of cool and a little bit kinky but I had other plans, it was time to intervene.

"Or you do what any sensible decent pony would do and let me go before you get in real trouble" I said in the calmest voice I could manage.

The trio exchanged surprised glances as they realized I had been listening to them. They got up from the cave floor and moved to surround me in a semicircle. It was only then I noticed just how odd these ponies looked, for starters they were filthy, covered in dirt with greasy manes, and wearing equally dirty barding which seemed to be made of heavy cloth with metal plates riveted on. Some sort of improvised combat armour? Were these soldiers? Well that made things easier. Another thing was they seemed kind of small for adult ponies but they defiantly weren’t foals. Another weird thing to deal with. "I am Private Broken Thorn of the Canterlot Royal Guard. I am on a special mission for the Princesses. Release me at once!" I said in my most authoritative voice, which was only slightly spoiled by my desperation showing through at the end.

The trio stared at me with mixture of shock and confusion then burst out laughing. They looked like they might fall over until the red mare signalled then to be quiet., "Told you, completely fucking crazy. Off him now before he tries something." I sat completely stunned, they were talking about killing me so casually! What had I done? What should I do! Were they Zebra spies? Or deserters? Either one could be dangerous.

"Now now there's no need to be hasty," said the orange unicorn. " I'm sure we can come to an understanding, " she said giving me a large brittle smile. Nervously I smiled back.

"Now let's set some ground rules" she said leaning closer then she brought her hoof around and smacked me in the face.

I'd been hit before, pummelled in training, smacked by my parents or teachers for misbehaving, but I’ve been hit never like that. To just have pure violence dumped upon you while helpless for no reason is a terrifying thing! But I didn't get scared I started to get angry.

"We. Own. You. Understand? Feel that collar around your neck? It's a bomb that will go off if you so much as breathe without our permission, understand! Slave!" the unicorn screamed into my face.
She levitated a device with a red button on the top in front of my face.

"See this? It's a dead switch. If I release the button, it sends a signal and bomb takes your head off. If I die, it goes off. You run, it goes off. You disobey, it goes off. I GET BORED, IT GOES OFF! Do. You. Understand?" She finished with look of savage glee. She was actually enjoying this!

I heard that some ponies could be obscenely violent, from stress or fighting the war but this was ridiculous! I was a soldier, a fellow pony, we should be on the same side!

But if we weren’t on the same side, if this was the enemy...

I was a soldier of Canterlot, I’m not going to take this lying down! Time to show them that they should fear me. I gave them my best cheeky grin and said, "So when my head isn't exploding it’s not doing anything?"

The unicorn frowned for moment as she tried to make sense of what I said but it gave me all the time I needed. I fired up my horn and blasted the device with a concentrated ball of magical force shattering it into pieces. Needless to say I was quite relived when my hypothesis proved right and my head didn't explode, no device to send the signal, no explosion, a rather floored design really.

"We'll now that that unpleasantness has been dealt with I think I shall just leave on my own" I said casually turning my head and firing three more shots shredding the ropes to free my hooves and wings before turning back to find something being pointed at my face.

Two round metal tubes that had been welded together and mounted on a wooden handle.

It was a shotgun!

I barely reacted in time jerking to side and down then forward under the gun towards the unicorn levitating it slamming into her chest with my shoulder and driving forward with my wings.

With a sickening crunch we slammed into the wall, I staggered backwards winded from exerting myself. I still felt strange, my body seemed to protest strongly yet give into my demands, why? What had happened? Was I poisoned?

I turned back to the two ponies expecting them to surrender now that their leader was incapacitated. It was only then that I saw they also armed.

...

Yeah, yeah, I know. It seems stupid not noticing the weapons or that I had a gun pointed at my head, but I wasn't always the most observant pony.

Turning my back on them was also a pretty dumb move.

...

Yes I was a trained soldier, that means it usually pretty clear who’s trying to kill you! I wasn’t used to dealing with complicated situations.

The mare was drawing a sub machine gun from a holster on her neck while the stallion drew a machete from a sheathe on his side. "Don't!" I screamed firing a shot at the SMG, at least that was my target but this sort of spell requires a bit of thought and I wasn't thinking at all.

The shot ploughed into her eye killing her instantly.

I stopped, stunned. I'm not a killer! I've been trained to fight with hooves, weapons and magic but I never tried to kill a pony! I was supposed to fight Zebras and the odd criminal! Except... These ponies wanted to kill me for whatever reason, that made them enemies right?

Drifting into thought cost precious moments, the remaining stallion had decided to run, bolting out of the cave entrance.

"Wait!" I shouted. He turned back to look at me with a look of terror in his eyes... Then fell off a cliff.

I ran outside into the almost pitch black night, above the moon and stars blazed giving enough light to the cave entrance was on wide rock ledge with a gentle slope to right descending to the ground. It was far enough or rather too far for a pony to fall. I didn't bother looking over the edge to see him, I just couldn't handle this! Two ponies dead by my hooves! I was supposed to protect ponies not murder them! How did it go so wrong?

Wait. What about the unicorn mare? I had only run her into the wall right? She should just be knocked out. So when she came around she could... try to kill me for killing her friends.

Okay, okay, I told myself, keep it together. You're a member of the elite Guard! An Soldier! A master of magic! You can handle one psychotic mare. Then, I could move on to more important things.

Like the mission...

The scroll!

I had put it in my jacket pocket but I wasn’t wearing my jacket anymore. Had one of these three taken it?

I walked back into the cave to check on the mare with my head full of new purpose. My mistakes didn’t matter, I had to get the message to Twilight Sparkle. I checked on the mare, she was definitely dead. A pony’s head shouldn’t contain that much blood.

I grimaced at the task ahead of me and started searching the bodies for the scroll.

They had some stuff on them. Ammunition for the shotgun and SMG, some tins of food, a large bag of what appeared to be bottlecaps, and finally a shaving mirror.

Well just because I was now a triple murderer who was about to fail his mission is no reason to look like an idiot while doing it. I flipped the mirror opened and examined my mane.

Oh Goddesses it was worse than I could possibly imagine! It was long and flowing and so very, very... arrggh!!!!!

I cast my illusion spell, then cast it a few more times just to be certain I didn’t have to look at THAT again.

I opened my eyes and saw my mane in the mirror. It had returned to its usual dark red colour, though it was still very long. How long had I been out?

I picked up the machete in a magical grip. It was covered in dirt and grease but had only a few specks of rust and a good sharp edge. Whoever that pony had been he at least knew how to take care of his weapons. Look like he used it a lot too.

A few minutes work had my mane cut down to a the usual short length I preferred, out of my eyes and ears, easy to tuck under a helmet.

I was about to close the mirror when I caught a glimpse of something in the mirror that seemed out of place. By my sides were to large feathery limbs.

Suddenly I realised what was strange about my body that had been bugging me since I woke up, this wasn’t my body!

My wings had been tied back when I woke up! I had used them to charge the unicorn with more force I had ever used!

...

Okay missing that is pretty stupid but checking for new body parts is not something anyone does when they wake up. Missing body parts perhaps but not new ones.

...

What? What about Hoofington?

...

Shut up! I’m telling the story! Wait your turn! Anyway...

I had wings...

WHAT THE BUCK!?!

I staggered around in circles trying to get a good look at them with the mirror, until I realised I could just spread them. They were massive almost reaching from one side of the cave to the other, it was then I realised why the ponies had seemed so small, I was huge! In fact with my white coat I looked a lot like...

I whipped the mirror around to my flank to get a look at my cutie mark. Luna be praised, the same iron horseshoe suspended in red magical glow was there. At least some things never change.

I brought the mirror back to my face to look at my horn. Yep, still cut short. I was definitely me, I was just twice my size and had sprouted wings.

I collapsed to the floor gasping for breath as the world spun around me. What had happened? Was I dead and this was Tartarus? Had my memory been erased by the Ministry of Morale? Had the Ministry of Arcane Sciences conducted some experiment on me? Had I achieved enlightenment and risen to godhood?

I slapped myself lightly with my hoof. Focus! Whatever happened you still have a mission to complete! The scroll might be on the body of the other earth pony that fell off the cliff, but it’s too dark to head outside to check, so I would have to wait until morning.

I also needed food and water. I had little of that here but I didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, or sleepy for that matter. I should settle down, get some rest and save the food for later.

"Hey there! Have your guys... Oh." Said a feminine voice from the entrance to the cave.

I turned and saw standing at the entrance to the cave a strange creature with the head, wings and front legs of an eagle and the hind quarters of a lion. A perfectly normal look for a griffin, I know, but this one was black. Her beak, her feathers, fur, tail and legs were all completely coal black. I had never seen a griffin before in person but I had seen pictures and read about them, so I knew she wasn't normal.

I also noticed one black claw going for some sort of compact machine gun at her side. I was starting to notice a pattern here, people carried weapons, then tried to shoot me. What the hay. But this time I was ready. No more killing, I needed answers!

I fired up my horn and reached out with my magic, wrapping the griffon in a telekinetic field and throwing her into the air. She made no sound beyond a gasp for and continued reaching for the gun at her side.

"Enough!" I shouted. I reversed the direction of my telekinetic grip and slammed her into the floor then continued pushing ever bit of her down.

"I don't want to fight you" I said walking forward and picking up her gun in my mouth and placing it out of reach. It was a strange sort of gun, it had a vaguely rectangular shape and thick barrel. It also lacked the firing bit I had seen on pony guns, instead it had small curved trigger, clearly a weapon meant solely for griffins.

"I don't want to fight you, I just want to talk. I know griffins have fought for Equestria and can promise you will be compensated for you time." A mixed look of confusion and annoyance crossed over her face as if being immobilised by me was just an embarrassment. Finally, she relented and twitched her head in a nod as much as my magic would allow.

"Okay, I'm going to let you up now, don't go for the gun I'll hold onto it for now." I released my magic and took a few steps back then settled down in a seated position.

She raised herself to a seated position so her eye level was the same as mine. Her build was about the same as mine, bigger than the average pony but normal for a mature griffon.
"Aren't you a bit pale for an Alicorn?" She said.

I laughed. I couldn't help it, she was right! I looked just an Alicorn, even if I didn’t feel like one.
"Yes, I know, strange times. My name is Private Broken Thorn of the Canterlot Royal Guard. I’m on a special mission for Princess Celestia. I was on my way to Maripony when there was an explosion then I woke up here. Did the Zebra’s attack?" I asked

"Zebra attack? When was this?" She said with a look of confusion. Unbelievable, you think being a mercenary she would have noticed Zebra’s attacking the heartland of Equestria.

"It doesn't matter." I said trying to hold back my annoyance but honestly what could I expect from a griffon. "I just need to know want is the state of the war? And how can I get to Maripony?"

A look of confusion took over the griffons face "Well... From what I've heard, the Enclave has gone back above the cloud level. Filydelphia is mostly in one piece except for the outer wall, that got levelled by the megaspell. The Steel Rangers and what's left of Red Eyes army are fighting over the factories or scattered and on the run. That's all I know." She said then folded her arms and nodded, as if that explained everything.

"Ok" I said hesitantly as I tried to make sense of her words. Who were the Enclave? Her words suggested they could fly so were they Pegasus or gryphons? And this Red Eye again, a zebra general perhaps?

"But what about Canterlot? Is it under attack? Are the princesses fighting? I can't imagine them sitting around doing nothing."

I noticed various expressions passing over the gryphons face as she tried to process what I had said. Did I have the same expression when she answered my questions?

"Er... Do you mean the Princesses Luna and Celestia?" She finally answered

"We'll yes, they are the only princesses in Equestria aren't they." Was she simple?

The gryphon continued to frown then suddenly her face resolved into an expression of enlightened horror. "Mister, you mentioned an explosion?"

"We'll yes, a pretty big one, it knocked the train I was in off the rails." I was suddenly doubting the reliability of this mercenary’s information. Surely she couldn't have missed an explosion like that? It was huge, it might even have been a...

A megaspell... My stomach suddenly turned over until felt like it was crushing my heart.

"And when do you think these bombs fell?" She asked carefully.

"What do you mean think? It was this morning, or yesterday morning! Sometime then!" Confusion threatened to over whelm me, how long had I been unconscious inside that cave?

"Mister... “She said with sad pitying look on her face "The bombs fell over 200 years ago. The Zebra’s used Balefire bombs. Equestria was destroyed and the Princesses died in Canterlot"

I couldn't breathe.

They actually did it, like doomsayers said they would.

A Balefire apocalypse.

Equestria destroyed...

Luna dead...

Celestia....

"NO" I shouted, "THATS NOT POSSIBLE!!!" I screamed leaping to my hooves.

Bright light caught my eye, outside the sun had risen.

I ran out the cave ignoring the surprised griffin to see the verdant green plains of...

Green plains of...

Green...

There was no green, just endless sandy browns, burnt blacks and light earth reds as far as the eye could see. An endless wasteland.

Only two things could do this, balefire and time.

That blank space in my memory, how much had I forgotten? How had I survived?

Two hundred years. My family had to be dead, and everyone in the guard, they wouldn’t have stopped fighting to the bitter end, but you can’t fight a balefire bomb.

"I missed the war, and we lost." I said aloud.

"I'm sorry for your loss" the griffin said from behind, I turned seeing she had retrieved her weapon.
Was she going to shoot me? What did it matter? Everyone I loved was dead in a war no living soul remembered. Why should I keep living?

I shut my eyes and waited for the shot.

Except...

I felt sick, alone and heartbroken but...

I didn't feel like this was the end, or that it should be. A part of me within my grief was still working to keep going, to figure out my next move.

Did I have something to live for?

The scroll... Lost, but something like that would have been protected by powerful spells to make sure it delivered its message.

The mission... Twilight should be dead of old age even if she had survived the bombs, except she was the most powerful unicorn in generations. She might have found some way to cheat death.

Equestria... Was ashes, but I had already seen that there were still ponies out there surviving. They probably didn't have much to live for, but ponies always seem to find a way to keep going.

How had I become an Alicorn? Was it some miracle or a curse? I wanted to know.

I REALLY wanted to know the answer.

Perhaps there was something out there worth fighting for.

Somehow I had already survived two hundred years. I must have had a reason. Besides I wasn't the sort to break a winning streak.

No time for dying yet.

I opened my eyes ready to unleash magical death on the griffin but found she had holstered her weapon and was looking at me expectantly.

"Sooooo... You mentioned something about compensation?"

Oh dear "Err... I don't really have anything to give you, my country seems to have been destroyed"
I said dumbly. Wow. Smooth. Civilisation destroyed, millions dead and I'm making jokes.

"That's cool, that's cool. You're lost, disoriented. You say things you don't really mean." She said dismissively, "but you’re a stallion right?"

"Errrr... last time I checked.” I was still a stallion, right? I thought I was a stallion, but given the other changes I had been through, I couldn’t be certain of anything. I briefly looked between my legs to my rear. Yep definitely a stallion, that unicorn mare seemed hung up on that too.

Ohhhhh dear, I don’t know whether to be happy or worried if THAT was the sort of thing was what she was talking about.

...

No I hadn't much. There was always some fooling around in the guard but I was never good at chasing mares.

...

Well yes, I certainly learnt a lot once the mares started chasing me, now shut up!

The griffin nodded with a slight smile on her beak. "I think we can come to some arrangement," she thrust a claw towards me. "The name's Scarlet, mercenary".

"Scarlet?" I said placing my forehoof in her claw and shaking while looking the entirely black griffin up and down.

"Yes. Scarlet" she said sternly while squeezing my hoof slightly too tight. “Just, Scarlet."

"Ok, just call me Thorn" I replied meeting her gaze.

"Sure thing Thorn! Now that's out of the way I think it's time for breakfast!" She released my hoof and turned back into the cave past the fire. She stared at the bodies of my captors seeing them for the first time.

"Err should we do something with them, it's not really healthy to leave bodies lying around. Unless your into that sort of thing! It's cool, I've worked with raiders before!"

I stared at the bodies of the ponies I had killed trying to come to terms with what I had done.

"No, we should bury them; it's the least they deserve"

"We'll that's nice, I guess." Said Scarlet as she rolled over one of bodies and started rummaging through the pockets on their barding.

"What are you doing?" I asked confused.

She looked up at me and sighed "You got a lot to learn, mister. This is the Equestrian Wasteland; you take what you can get, whether it’s from dead friends or dead enemies. Understand? It's all about survival."

"All right, all right" I relented under her barrage. She had a good point. For one, I still had this bomb collar on and I needed the key to get it off. I stated rummaging through the unicorn mare’s barding with my magic.

After thirty seconds of work, I had attached the most sturdy looking saddle bag to my rear and packed it with the food I had found earlier. I also found the key I needed. I unlocked the collar and threw it to a far corner of the cave.

"Keep it," said Scarlet from the other side of the cave.

"Why?" I asked.

"Might be useful," she replied.

"I destroyed the detonator."

"Still might be useful," she replied sharply. I guess that settled it.

I looked down at the shotgun, SMG, machete and the ammo for the guns.

Guns really weren't my specialty, but I still felt off, I wasn’t sure about my magic. Best to keep my options open. I picked up the holsters for the guns off the bodies and strapped them on. The thought of wearing dead ponies clothes was repulsive, but I could bear it. I drew the line at wearing their barding however, it didn’t look too solid anyway.

I went outside to the cliff edge and looked down to see the third pony at the bottom of the cliff.
I levitated him up to eye level while trying not to look at him. He was a real wreck. I hoped he died quickly. I riffled through his pockets to see if he had the scroll, but he had nothing on him at all. I slipped the sheathe for the machete off his shoulders and onto my own then set him down on the ground next to the other two Scarlet had dragged out of the cave.

“Stand back.” I ordered, I looked down at the ground and fired up my horn. I reached out with my magic and seized as much of the earth as I could and heaved it upwards. The earth exploded upwards. That was too easy! I was always good at magic in general but my telekinesis was never that strong. Was this body making my magic stronger too?

That was Awesome!!!

I checked that line of thought and composed myself, this was a burial after all.

I reached out with my magic and pulled the three bodies into the hole, then gently lowered the earth back into it. It was so easy it was almost laughable. If this was how much my telekinesis had improved, then what would my other spells be like?

Once we were done, Scarlet directed me to sit opposite her around the fire with a can and fork, both slightly rusty, in magical grip.

"Are you sure THIS is healthy?" I asked sceptically.

"Of course my little pony. Now listen up you’ve got two hundred years of history to catch up on, but first I want to get some facts straight." Her tone was annoyingly cheerful. I got the impression she was enjoying knowing more than me. It must be a rare occurrence for her.

I told her about how I lived in Canterlot and worked as Royal Guard. That interested her for about five minutes. She only really wanted to know if I could fight. I told her about my mission for Celestia, that certainly impressed her. I was amazed that even two hundred years after her death she was still worshipped as a goddess.

"You really admired her, didn't you?" Scarlet asked when I had finished a rant about how great Celestia was.

"That's... Not quite it. How many ponies can really make a difference? With her power and influence, Celestia could affect the entire world! But rather than use the world for her own ends, she always tried to make things better for others. I knew I could never do something like that on my own so I wanted to help some pony who could. It's all I ever wanted." Wow, I don't think I ever opened up like that before.

Scarlet didn't seem to appreciate this though, in fact she seemed a little shaken.

She was interested that I didn't remember anything between the bomb and waking up it the cave, but didn't comment. Then it was my turn to ask questions.

She talked for hours, about how some ponies survived in underground shelters called Stables, and how ponies left on the surface became wild and savage raiders.

She told me about Red Eye, and how he revived Filydelphia industry through slavery...

...About the goddess and her army of Alicorns and promises of unity.

...About the Great Pegasus Enclave who abandoned the surface and shut away the sky.

...About the pink cloud that killed the Princesses and turned Canterlot into city of nightmares.

...About the Steel Rangers, once Equestria's finest soldiers, who became hoarders of technology, and who called themselves knights while killing anyone who got between them and their goal.

More than once I felt sick but managed eat a couple more cans of food. I interrupted only to ask a few questions. Scarlet seemed to know a lot about the wasteland, bar some specifics. There were two questions she couldn't answer that I was determined to find answers to.

"So the goddess made unicorns into Alicorns? Like me? How?"

"Nobody knows, just really powerful magic, I guess. The thing is she could only make Alicorn mares. Even unicorn stallions got turned into mares. You sure you don’t remember any of this?" She raised her eyebrows, at least I think they were eyebrow. It’s hard to tell when everything is the same colour.

“No, I remember the bombs falling then waking up here.” I replied glumly.

“Well from what I heard they all went pretty crazy when the goddess died. Thing is, they're still looking for males to breed. Could be a great opportunity?” she waggled her eyebrows at me and winked.

"Moving on.” I said angrily, becoming a breeding stud for a bunch of insane magical abominations was... Okay I admit it was an interesting prospect, but I had better things to do.

The other question was a bit more complicated.

"Who the buck is this Littlepip?!" When Scarlet started talking about some of the more recent history of the wasteland, I had trouble believing her.

"One little unicorn couldn't do all that! Beating the Enclave AND Red Eye! Clearing the sky? Killing a dragon? No pony could all that!"

"Well she did have help." Scarlet muttered indignantly.

"I'll believe it when I meet her and ask her myself, I'll find out if she's such a hero then."

"Good luck with that. According to DJpon3 she's stuck up inside the SPP control centre behind an impenetrable shield with... Nothing much to do." Okay bit of a lame joke but I think Scarlet was starting to warm up to me. I gave her my warmest smile.

"Then maybe she'll appreciate a visit, help relieve the boredom."

"R..right." She said nervously, okay apparently my smiles are creepy, don't do it again. “Anyway we need to talk about how you’re going to pay me back for this info and saving your sorry arse.”

What?!

“You did not save me! I barely stopped myself from killing you! And as for your info, I could have gotten that from anypony!” She seemed rather stunned by the rebuttal; did she expect me just to go along with whatever she said?

“Well, yeah... I haven’t saved you... yet. You just try setting out into the wastes without a guide! You wouldn’t last a day!” She responded indignantly. She did have a point, I needed a guide.

“Alright so what did you have in mind,” I relented.

Scarlet ruffled her feathers and composed herself again. “Near here is an abandoned Stable. I couldn’t handle it on my own, but the two of us should be able to manage it.” She said happily. “We go in, get the water talisman, and anything else we like, then sell it for a fortune so you can pay your debt! Easy!” She finished triumphantly.

It made sense as a plan, in a world filled with radiation a clean source of water would be invaluable however...

“So how much could you sell the water talisman for?” I asked conversationally.

“Depends on how desperate the buyer is for water. Could be thousands of caps.” Caps not bits, I mused now that was interesting.

“No deal,” I replied.

Scarlet's jaw dropped, “But, but why! It’s a good plan! It could make us thousands!”

“By the terms of the agreement it would make YOU thousands, you would get the reward and I would have my dept paid, several time over it would seem.” Scarlet looked suitably embarrassed that her petty scam had been figured out. She wasn't a very good negotiator.

“Okay, tell you what. You travel with me for a while, teaching me what you can, we go get the talisman, we find a buyer and split it sixty, forty. Deal?”

Scarlet glanced at me suspiciously, “That’s sixty for me and forty for you right?” Amazing! She could learn, maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. I nodded.

She thrust out a talon, “Then it’s a deal!”

Notes:

New companion! Scarlet, griffin mercenary.

Race: Griffin
Coat: Black, for now.

Traits

Finesse: Your attacks show a lot of finesse. You don't do as much damage, but you cause more critical hits.

Tagged Skills
Unarmed
Survival
Sneak

SPECIAL
STR 8
PER 9
END 5
CHA 1
INT 5
AGI 9
LCK 3

Author's Note

Well this is all I have that is presentable so far, thanks again to donutsforthewin9 for great editing work.
The next chapter is where the fun really starts cus stables... yay.
Any and all honest criticism is appreciated, this is my first time writing and I need all the help I can get.

Chapter 2 First blood and bone and everything else

Chapter 2: First blood and bone and everything else

You starting to get what I meant about questions? I had a bunch at that stage, but they had to take a back seat to not dying. I went along with what Scarlet proposed because it was clear it meant something to her that I pay this “debt” and because I wanted to do something meaningful. Getting paid for it was just survival.

That was all I ever wanted: to do something that made a difference to at least one pony’s life. I never did that in the war.

...

Yeah I was part of the royal guard, but in the later stages of the war, after the regular army was established, they didn’t really DO anything. Just guard the palace and Canterlot, which never came under direct attack. They were too outdated. Not enough guns, and too much old fashioned thinking. Just a bunch of pretty ponies in shiny armour.

...

Sigh. I joined because they had a great history of training battlemages, and magic was my special talent. And they did teach me well. I just didn’t do anything with that training. That’s why I started working directly for Celestia.

...

No spoilers! The answer to that is part of the story. Something to look forward to no? NO? Then shut up and listen things are about to get interesting.

And by interesting I mean dark, violent, and downright creepy. Yay Stables.

...

No you won’t need a bucket but let’s just say I didn’t need a spell to conceal the colour of my mane when we were done.

...

Okay maybe YOU need that bucket.

Anyway we were walking down the road to the Stable when...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“And then he said 'That's not a ghoul that’s a cactus!' Bwhahahaha!” Scarlet cackled as she finished the joke.

“Okay so what’s a ghoul?” I asked. If she was going to bombard me with inane stories and jokes I should at least try to understand them.

As she explained what ghouls were, it only increased my level of despair and the belief that I had died and this was some sort of purgatory.

So now I have to deal with undead ponies that feed on radiation whose minds decay until they're blood thirsty monsters. Wonderful, as if being an aberration of nature myself wasn’t enough, there were rotting zombies that may or may not be completely insane to deal with as well.

There was one thing about them that was extremely interesting to me.

“They’re immortal?” I asked.

“Well they die if you shoot them of course, but they don’t age. There are some ghouls who were alive before the Great War still running around.” Still alive after 200 hundred years. It was a long shot but Maripony would have been a big target for bombs. If Twilight Sparkle had survived...

I signed and surveyed the blasted landscape for the hundredth time. How could anypony... anyone, considering the griffin by my side, survive in this? There was nothing but rolling hills covered in dry withered grass, interspaced with the remains of sky chariots and houses. I even saw one or two skeletons just lying by the side of the road.

“We’re here!” Scarlet announced.

My eyes snapped forward. We were in front of a Pony Joe’s! I might have felt sad seeing this once bustling diner reduced to such a sorry state. Every window was broken, the paint was chipped and peeling, and the sign had been torn off entirely by some enterprising scavenger.

I should have felt sad seeing a symbol of old Equestria like this, but I always hated donuts.

“Really? This is a Stable? It looks extremely comfortable, except for the complete lack of radiation shielding.”

She punched me in the shoulder, or tried to, I was a bit too tall for that so she hit my upper leg instead and rolled her eyes. “You rookie, all Stable entrances were concealed above ground! They were Equestria’s worst kept secret.”

I nodded, that made sense. I had heard a lot about Stables but had never actually seen one.

“Okay where’s the entrance?” I asked, I wanted to get started! I could feel my blood pumping, we were going to do this! Descend into a piece of Tartarus itself and return with a priceless treasure!

SO! AWESOME!

“Dunno. Inside, I guess? The guy I spoke to said it was inside the Pony Joe’s at the end of the highway.” Well, that was a mood killer. Did we even have the right place? I surveyed the surrounding again. Sure enough the road did seem to tail off right here. Was it covered in sand or dirt over time, or did they really stop building the road here?

“Lets get inside.” I saw that Scarlet had pulled out her gun, so I did the same with my shotgun. Shotguns work well in confined spaces right? And you don’t have to aim much, so that would work for me. I really wasn’t very good with guns.

The inside of the diner was in even worse shape. Drifts of litter filled every corner and most of the seat covers had rotted into something squishy. My wings scraped the ceiling and walls, giving me an unpleasant tingle. Why were they even up? How long had they even been up like that? I pulled them to my sides as tightly as I could while keeping my eyes forward.

“Did you hear that?” Scarlet spoke suddenly. I hadn’t heard anything. Curse you stupid wings! I didn’t mind being bigger than any other pony but what was the point of extra limbs I didn’t know how to use?

...

What about my fifth leg? What do you mean fif... Ooh.

Anyway I heard the noise the second time the thing moved, a scuttling noise that made my hide crawl. It came from around the where a door labelled "staff only" was sitting ajar.

Scarlet glanced sideways and nodded towards the door.

I returned the nod.

She glanced at me again and nodded her head twice towards the door.

I returned with two nods as well. Yes I had heard the noise. What are we supposed to do now.

Scarlet groaned quietly and broke her silence. “Well go check it out, you fool.”

What?! She wanted me to go first?!

What if she was setting me up to shoot me in the back? But why wouldn’t she have just done that back at the cave? Why bring me this far? Maybe she just thought I could deal with it better than her?

My musings were rendered obsolete as the creature lurking around the corner of the bar decided to break our stalemate.

I didn’t see it clearly, but I was feeling too highly strung to take any risks. I fired my shotgun, but all it did was create a small crater in the floor to the right of the thing. Now that it was out in the open I could see it was a quite small but I didn’t see it clearly, I was too caught up levitating my shotgun around.

I fired again this time hitting the floor to the left of the creature. It was running in some crazy zigzag pattern straight towards me! Was it intelligent? Whatever it was, I now faced it with an empty gun.

Good thing I brought a spare! I dropped the shotgun and tore the SMG out of its holster and thrust it forward. Let’s see it dodge this a point blank range!

To my amazement I hit the thing. Not with a bullet but with the gun barrel, immobilizing the thing by squeezing it between floor and gun.

It was a roach bigger than my hoof.

I had been blazing away fighting with very nearly all I had against an oversized BUG!

Scarlet collapsed laughing. “Oh you better watch out! Those things will kill you! AHAHAHAHA!”

“Shut. Up.” I lifted the gun away from the creature and glared at it.

It waved its antenna at me, as if it observed me with similar disdain then scuttled past me out the diner door.

“C’mon, enough fucking around, let’s find the entrance.” Scarlet took the lead through the staff door to the back. Now if I was a pre-war scientist hiding a giant bunker where would I put it?

Behind the door there was a storeroom, kitchen, and an office. I started going through every room. None of the doors were locked. Mostly they were devoid of everything but a few cardboard boxes.

I looked for switches, trap doors, maybe even a sign saying this way to the Stable, but found nothing of interest.

Scarlet riffled through every box and container she could find. I thought she was just messing around until I realized that she was doing the smart thing and scavenging. After a few minutes I broke our mutual silence.

“You find anything?” I asked when we finished searching the office.

“Naw, this place has been picked clean.” So others had been here before us. That worried me. How long ago had they been here? I sighed and went back to the hallway. There was one last door to try.

Feeling frustrated, I turned and bucked the door down. It hurtled into the room and smashed into the far wall. Oohh that felt good. How long had it been since I really hit something?

'200 years,' a nastier part of me replied. I muttered under my breath as I went into the room.

It was a garage, I think, or rather a loading port for trucks delivering supplies for the diner. That was suspicious. Why would a small diner need such a large space.

I smiled. I knew we had found it now.

“It’s here. Look for switches, doors, the Stabletec logo anything...”

Click.

Scarlet had slipped through the door behind me flipped a large lever. I didn’t even know she was there. Incredibly sneaky and little impulse control, why was she starting to worry me?

I was about say something along the lines of ‘The burned hoof teaches the best’ but the floor went out from under me, literally. The entire floor dropped a half a meter and started sliding to the left revealing a staircase wide enough for five ponies to walk abreast. I had great view of this as I was floating in the air lightly flapping my wings. I was flying!

It just felt so natural, so easy. I had done it by reflex without even realising.

As if I had done it a thousand times before.

Nothing should feel so good and so wrong at the same time.

I snapped my wings back to my sides and dropped heavily onto the stairs. I turned and glared at my wings.

I wonder if I could just cut them off with the machete? It would save me a lot of trouble.

Wait did I really just think that? Was I seriously considering mutilating myself just because I found flying too strange?

But I’m a unicorn! I’m not supposed to fly!

No I’m an Alicorn. I can fly. I can use magic. I can do whatever I want!

Put like that, it didn’t seem so bad. So I had wings. So I was bigger than other ponies. These are improvements, not a curse. What sort of pony doesn’t want more power?

I grinned, savagely satisfied with the conclusion my internal dialogue had reached.

“Well, are you coming?” Scarlet called from the bottom of the stairs. She had slipped past without me noticing again. She grinned up at me “It’s about to get interesting!”

“Hay yeah!” I returned and galloped down the stairs.

...

Yes, I say hay instead of hell you got a problem with that?

...

Yes I can swear, arse, fuck, shit, cunt, hell, bastard, I just choose not to, my parents raised me like that.

...

I’d like to see you say that to their faces. You’d be picking splinters out of your plot for weeks.

Anyway we got to what we had been looking for, the stable door...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“Sooo... these things usually left open?”

“I dunno. Makes it easier, right?” Scarlet's lack of concern was starting to worry me. In the cave she had told me Stables were either full of paranoid ponies too scared to open the door and venture out into the wastes or full of whatever had killed them.

Neither of these seemed the sort to leave the door open.

The doorway was a massive cog shaped entrance; it was brightly lit from within revealing stairs leading up to a platform with a control panel and two doors with signs above them. One read "Atrium" and the other "Storage".

As we advanced into the stable I saw that the cog shaped door had been pulled to the left by some device hanging from the ceiling. So the door had been left open, not forced, but why? The entrance itself seemed deserted; no pony was there to greet us.

There was not much of anything actually, not even any dirt. A good change from the usual rubbish, muck, and rust that covered everything in the wasteland. Who maintained all this? Was Stable-Tec just that good? But why would they shut the hidden entrance but not this more secure door? Why...

"Oi, you got a constipated look. You feeling alright?" Scarlet snapped me out of my contemplation.

"Constipated!?"

"Yeah, you know when you can't take a shit. You looked like that." She said plainly.

"I was thinking," I growled. "Guess you don't know what that looks like."

She shrugged "Spend too much time thinking and you're dead. Come on, we need to head downwards to the service levels. That's where we'll find the prize!" She reared back onto her hind legs and stalked forward holding her gun with both claws.

She looked quite menacing. She was finally in her element, a mercenary, not a guide or a teacher. Maybe this could work out after all.

I drew my SMG to accompany my shotgun and advanced with her up the stairs. A brief glance showed the storage room was a cul-de-sac filled with empty shelves, machines and consoles. Everything was free of rust, but there was a thin layer of dust over everything. 'Nothing too suspicious,' I thought. No pony would come here without reason, and there was no reason to come here. Except for the Stable door, why would they leave it open? I couldn't make any sense of it!

I went back the lobby and inspected the control panel. It seemed straightforward, move lever, shut door. I just hoped it could be opened afterwards.

"Come oooooonnn! Stopped dawdling! I don't know why I bothered bringing your lazy arse along," Scarlet whined from beyond the atrium door. She had opened it and gone through without making a sound. Her sneaking and haste were really beginning to get on my nerves.

I grumbled silently and followed her down a hallway into a larger room. It was a courtyard reaching up to balconies on three sides. On the forth side directly opposite us there was a wall with a large round window set into it. Within the courtyard there was nothing but four doors leading to staircases, two up, two down. The two leading up were labelled "Overmare's Office" and "Cafeteria" respectively. The two leading down were labelled "Maintenance" and "Living quarters", I nodded towards the Maintenance door.

"We need to head down yes?"

"That thinking work out for you then?" Scarlet answered mockingly, "I'll take point, and you cover my back." She advanced towards the doorway but suddenly stopped dead. "You hear that?"

"Hear what?" My patience was beginning to wear out, but then I heard it too. A sort of dull airy roar like a hoof drier.

"Fuck, it's a robot." Scarlet muttered darkly. She flicked a tab on her gun, removed the clip, and replaced it with another from her vest.

"What are they?" I asked.

"Armour piecing rounds."

I glanced down at my own weapons. "Don't suppose you got any armour piecing rounds for these?" I waved my weapons vaguely in her direction. She glanced at them briefly before returning her gaze to the doorway.

"Ten mil? Yeah, same as my gun but different clips. There's no time to change them over."

She was right, something had reached the top of the stairs and was advancing into the atrium. It was, as Scarlet said, a robot, a domestic model I think. It was composed of a large central sphere with several optical sensor orbs extending from it. It balanced on a jet of magic current blasting from below it, keeping its body a meter off the ground. Between these it had an array of arms ending in various tools including grabbing claws, a flame thrower, and a circular saw blade.

The blade held my attention for a moment before I realised that, despite our expectations, the robot had not attacked. It only continued to advance towards me.

"Hold up, I think it's friendly." Scarlet said lowering her weapon. "Try talking to it."

"Why me? You're supposed to be the leader?" I protested, I really didn't like the look of that saw blade.

"Right. So I'm giving you leadership. Anyway most of the stables were made for ponies not griffons. It might not respond to me." I couldn't argue with that logic, as much as I wanted to.

I went forward until I was within hooves reach of the thing, then tried to greet it. Tried to being the point.

Scarlet was right, the robot did respond to me. It grabbed my neck with one of its claws. I gasped trying to catch my breath as my magical grip of my weapons failed and flailed at the arm with my forehooves. The machine just regarded me impassively, then it fired up the saw blade.

Just before I could piss myself in terror, a hail of bullets tore into the robot from the right. I glanced to see that Scarlet had moved to flank the thing before firing. Nice to know she cared enough to not try shooting through me.

The machine twitched, sparked, then exploded into pieces. I collapsed to the ground, the claw still gripping my neck. I grabbed it in my forehooves and hurtled it away in disgust. Why had it tried to kill me? No, why had it tried to kill me in THAT way? It had a flamethrower, why not just roast me?

"We'll at least you make a good decoy." Scarlet chuckled. "Heads up, there's more on the way."

I glared at her. "I'll show you what a trained guard can do. Stay right there." I moved past the doorway in time to see two more of the same kind of robot slowly advancing up the hallway from the stairs. I snatched up my guns and moved to the left side of the doorway as close to the wall as I could. Then, I waited.

The first robot moved out into the atrium and turned to face me. Before it could, I lunged forward past it's outthrust arms and pressed my shotgun up against it central body.

BLAM!BLAM!

Both barrels fired, just to be sure. It exploded in a shower of sparks. Before it hit the ground I orbited my SMG around it to point at the second machine behind it.

I squeezed the trigger and didn't stop until the gun clicked empty, the robot thrashed in a spectacular display of sparks before collapsing to the ground as its propulsion jet failed.

I turned back to grin at Scarlet "So how does that rate?" I reloaded both of my guns simultaneously.

"Nine out of ten for style three out of ten for ammo conservation. A full clip for one enemy? What a waste. I'm not going to give you any ammo now." She sounded bored.

“Don’t you have any magic to use? I saw one Alicorn throw a bunch of magic arrows through some Steel Rangers once. Can’t you do that?”

“Magic arrows? I know that spell!” We began moving down the hallway to the stairs. “Soaring Blade’s Silver Arrows. It’s one of the oldest combat’s spells in the world, it’s at least five hundred, I mean seven hundred years old.” I corrected.

“So do it! Or is your horn not up to it?” She turned back to glance at my shortened horn. I signed.

“That’s not why I’ve been holding back, my magic’s just felt uncontrollable since I woke up. It’s... it’s like using a gun that’s all rusted. You know it should work but you don’t want to risk it.” I explained.

“Hmmm... alright so why is your horn like that then?” We had reached the bottom of the stairs. A long, slightly dusty corridor stretched before us, ending in another staircase. There was a door to our right in the wall and T-junction just past it.

“Foalhood accident. A friend of mine and I were hiding in the hedges trying to learn magic to get our cutie marks. We were so focused on our horns I didn’t hear my dad start the chainsaw. It was one of these new special ones for unicorns, powered by the users magic. I had just fired up my horn when he carved right into it.” Scarlet winced, most people did when they heard this story.

“Ouch, so your own farther cut your horn down? That’s harsh.” She shook her head, but then looked up accusingly. “Hang on, unicorn horns grow back, I know they do!”

I smiled. It was common mistake. “Not really, it takes healing magic to grow back a horn entirely, but it wasn’t that simple. My magic and the chainsaw’s magic interfered with each other. My horn wasn’t cut. It exploded.” Scarlet’s beak dropped open in awe. At least I hoped it was awe, if she started thinking I was lying it would just get embarrassing.

“How did you survive that?” Yay! She did believe me. I was in full story telling mode now, both of us had slowed to a crawl as we continued along the hall, homing in on the shut door.

“Lots of expensive reconstructive surgery. My dad had some friends in the Ministry of Peace who tried a bunch of experimental procedures. They worked pretty well, but there were some side effects.”

“It didn’t all grow back?” We stopped side by side in front of the door.

“Yes, but that wasn’t the only change. You see I can...” While talking I had reached out my hoof and tapped the door switch next to the door opening it.

The whole room was full of the same robots as before. In perfect sync they turned to face us.

“Run.”

Scarlet’s voice was full of dread. I tried to think of a plan but Scarlet had already run off back down the corridor. I had to follow, so I turned on my hooves and powered forward just in time. I felt the grabbing claw of the lead robot pluck a hair out of my mane.

I fought the urge to look back and focused instead on keeping up with the griffon in front of me. For a moment I thought I had the wrong griffon, Scarlet had turned completely white!

I don’t mean going very pale as most living things do when they get a shock. I mean that she was now white, from beak to tail, instead of black. How did she do that? I know griffons don’t have that sort of magic.

My confusion over Scarlet's sudden change was replaced by the shock of seeing her outpace me.

“Hey!” I called, “Where are we going!” If she heard me she didn’t respond. I lost sight of her as she reached the top of the stairs leading back to the atrium.

I reached the top of the stairs and jerked to a halt. Scarlet was nowhere to be seen. Where had she gone? OUT! Of course, the robots wouldn’t follow us out of the stable... I hoped. In any case, in the wastes we would have more space to outrun them.

I charged towards the exit flailing my wings, stupid things were getting all over the place. I pulled them tight. Maybe I should tie them down or something. That would be better than using the machete certainly.

My inner musing was stopped dead by what I saw in the entrance room. The Stable door had been shut, and to top it all off, there was no sign of Scarlet anywhere.

I groaned and went to the control panel. Please Luna and Celestia, don’t tell me Scarlet left me here to die! I couldn’t be certain, but was the panel just as I left it? It was clearly in the position labelled open, but the door was shut. I reached out with my magic and pulled the leaver into the closed position. It moved without any resistance at all, nothing happened. Suspicions growing, I bent over to look at the underside of the control panel, various cables twined around its supports leading into the floor.

All of them had been cut, with a saw, I think.

I stood upright comprehension dawning. This whole place was a trap! The door was controlled remotely and left open to bring fresh prey inside then shut behind, trapping them inside.

But... where was Scarlet?

I stuck my head into the store room and called out for her there was no reply. Where was she? Had she gotten out of the doorway before it shut? It didn’t matter, I needed to find away to deal with the robots.

I returned to the entrance room. This was a good place to make a stand, one entrance I knew they would come through with plenty of space on my side. They could only come at me one at a time. Perfect.

As I took up position in front of the doorway a grinding sound drew my attention to the left. A panel in the wall had slid aside revealing four robots!

I screamed and turned my guns on them unleashing a hail of bullets and buckshot. Some struck the lead robot, but most hit the wall harmlessly.

“Why? Why do I suck at this?!” I screamed as I dashed back down the corridor to the atrium. Once there, I could see that the other robots had reached the top of the stairs at last. They really moved slowly. Ten out of ten for menace, two out of ten for effectiveness. Good grief, Scarlet was rubbing off on me, still it gave me an idea. If I could outrun them and find out how to shut them down... I would live long enough to smack Scarlet’s flank for leaving me behind.

I looked towards the Overmare’s office door. That seemed to be the right place for a control room. I ran through the door only to collide with another robot coming the opposite way. It was just as surprised as I was. Luckily I had the better footing.

The robot unbalanced on it’s hover jet and fell onto it’s back. I wasted no time in rearing up on my hind legs and dropping back down with my forehooves together slamming them into the robot with my full weight behind it. The sphere crumpled and sparked, the robot flailing arms went still.

Score one for Canterlot hoof-to-hoof combat training!

My elation was short lived. There were three more robots coming the hallway.

I turned back around to see the atrium was quickly filling up with more machines. They were spreading out in a line to surround me. I had only one place left to go. The Cafeteria doorway.

Yet again, I surged forward. All this running around, but I wasn’t even short of breath. I had always been quite fit; you can’t go on patrol all day in full armour without developing some stamina.

This time nothing blocked my way. The doorway led me down a hallway to a closed door.

I pressed the door switch with my magic, dashed through it when it opened, pressed the button on the other side to close it, then blasted it with my horn just for good measure. The control panel sparked and something within the door went ‘clunk’ but it remained closed.

Finally, respite! I turned to survey the room I found myself in. It was, as the sign had proclaimed, a cafeteria. Rows of tables with benches filled the room from one wall to another. On the far wall there was a serving counter, behind it a door which I presumed lead to the kitchens.

Kitchens.

Well it was about lunchtime, so why not grab a bite to eat?

...

Killer robots, yes I hadn’t forgotten. It’s called distraction or denial. You find something mundane to distract yourself from whatever bad thing is happening to you.

...

Oh give me a break, yes it was stupid but I was still new at this.

So anyway the kitchen...

Completely bare.

Not a snack or tin of beans to been seen. Had somepony already been here? Had Scarlet?

The usual bench tops, cookers and other cooking implements surrounded me. Disturbingly they were all in perfect order and stacked away tidily.

Only machines could achieve such precision and order. Or Twilight Sparkle. Her OCD tendencies were the source of much gossip in Canterlot, but I didn’t honestly expect that she was hiding in an abandoned Stable filled with killer robots.

If only I was that lucky.

There was another door at the back of the kitchen. It lead to a hallway full of more doors. Storerooms, larders, and directly opposite the kitchen door one labelled freezer.

I wasn’t particularly interested in frozen food, but the freezer door was open.

Curious, I went inside. It was dimly lit, and, of course, very cold, but not painfully so. Several carcases were hung from the ceiling. It wasn’t a pretty sight, the one directly in front of me was still fresh, I could see blood had dripped onto the floor.

Wait a minute... Where had these carcases come from? Pigs were the favourite choice for meat pre-war but I hadn’t seen any. And who would take care of them and butcher them? Who had butchered this one?

Whoever had done it had made a poor decision; this pig wasn’t very big and kind of... lanky. It’s legs did seem kind of long. This was a pig right? I trotted closer.

You know it looked kind of like...

I never saw the robot coming, all I felt was its claw wrapping around my neck. I tried to turn but it’s grip cut into my neck choking me. I bucked and hit something that was torn away, but the robot remained upright and pushed me forward. I unbalanced on my forehooves and collapsed onto the floor.

Then I heard the saw start up.

“Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.” See I can swear, that was almost all I could do as I saw the blade out of the corner of my eye moving towards the back of my neck.

“NO!” I gasped, I reached out with my magic and grabbed the blade pushing it away from me and parallel to my neck.

Right up into the carcass above my nose.

It was kind of a sppllkkk! Noise. Blood and other unmentionable fluids and bits rained down on me. It burned my eyes and I couldn’t see, I just focused on keeping my grip on the saw blade.

It was hell! More blood rained and it felt like I was drowning but then I heard a sound that at the time was as sweet as Luna’s singing.

Scarlet’s gun fire.

The rain of blood stopped abruptly, and the grip on my neck loosened as well. I lay there stupefied, trying not to breathe. Then I felt someone pull the claw off from around my neck.

“Are you alright?” Scarlet asked nervously. I can’t imagine how I looked to her, lying on the floor covered in blood.

“Where. The buck. WERE YOU!” I screamed, then gasped trying fill my lungs with fresh air instead of blood.

“Hey I thought you could keep up! Pegusi are faster fliers than griffons generally.”

I coughed, despite my efforts something solid had been inhaled. “I’m not a Pegasus, I’m... me. I couldn’t see where you went and I didn’t see you at the exit. Where were you?” I finally got onto my hooves and wiped the bloody muck out of my eyes.

Scarlet looked quite shocked. She also looked completely black again. “Why did you go to the exit? I just headed straight here, to put some distance between us and them.”

I stared stunned at her. “Why... why the hay wouldn’t you go to the exit?! We would have had the entire wasteland to outrun them in!” I screamed, how could anyone be so stupid! So short-sighted!

“Well, I suppose that is a good idea. So why didn’t you do it? Why are you here instead of outside?” She asked scornfully.

“The door was shut, you lead us into a bucking trap!” I tried to wipe away the bloody gunk that covering me but only seemed to succeed in rubbing it into my coat.

“I told you this is risky business! So stop complaining. We’re getting out of here. No talisman is worth this. We need to get to the Overmare’s office, there should be some sort of override for the door there.” She turned away from me and stalked towards the door.

“Alright, fine.” I hauled myself forward trying to ignore the slick cold feeling of blood on my body. Goddesses I was going to stink when we got outside!

I spared a glance for the robot Scarlet had destroyed.

“You see any more of these things up here?” I asked.

“No there was just that one. I was following it until it found you.”

Wheels started turning in my head again. “But you didn’t see me?” I asked conversationally.

“Nope just the robot. It seemed to know where it was going so I followed. Why?” Scarlet stoped to look back at me in the kitchen.

“It’s just... these things seem to have no trouble finding me, but they seem to be ignoring you. Why? Does it have anything to do with how you changed colour back there?”

Scarlet turned away from me “What are you talking about.” I walked around to look her in the face again.

“You turned white. Completely white. As white as you are black now. How?”

Again Scarlet turned away to avoid looking me in the eye. “You’re seeing things.”

I reached out with my magic and grabbed Scarlet’s head and turned her to face me. “I know what I saw. Tell me what you're hiding!”

“You let go of me you fucking punk!” Scarlet screamed, struggling in my grip. I fought back trying to pin her down but we both stopped when we heard the noise.

A high pitched mechanical screaming.

I dropped Scarlet, and we both dashed out of the kitchen. The door was still sealed shut, but there was a cut in the door in the shape of the upper and left side of a rectangle. In the middle of a top edge I could see the curve of a saw blade. They were cutting through the door.

“Shit. Here they come. Do you know how many there are?” Scarlet asked rearing onto her hind legs. I didn’t answer. I was thinking.

The robots didn’t attack Scarlet. Why? She wasn’t a threat? No, it was more like they didn’t notice her. Well she was sneaky. They moved slowly, but only attacked in close combat. We didn’t have enough ammo, but they really weren’t that tough if I could break one with my bear hooves. I just had to stop them getting a hold of me. I could take them out with magic, but if they came at me more that two or three at a time I would be over whelmed. There were no weapons here, but the benches could be...

“HEY! No time for being constipated now; we gotta fight!” Scarlet screamed in my ear but I ignored her. I had a plan.

I stepped forward to the bare counter separating the kitchen from the cafeteria and fired up my horn.

“Stay back and shut up.” To my surprise Scarlet did so.

I grabbed the nearest table and turned it on it’s side, using it to sweep the benches out of the way, then left it on it’s side. I repeated this several times until I had created what I wanted. A corridor of tables leading from the door to counter right in front of me.

I turned to Scarlet taking in her bemused look and started shoving my weapons and ammo into her arms.

“Take up position behind the tables on the right side. When they reach halfway between here and the door, start taking out the ones just coming through the door, leave the rest to me.” For a moment she looked like she would start screaming again, but instead she nodded.

“Got it.” Scarlet stuffed the ammo into her vest then, gripping her gun in one claw and my double barrel in the other, jumped over the counter to take up her position.

I turned to face the door. I was almost ready for this. I just needed to make sure I could do what I was planning. I fired up my horn a shot a magic blast at the counter.

It left a dent and a scorch mark about the size of my hoof in the metal, not nearly good enough. I poured more power into the spell and tried again.

This shot tore through the counter out the other side and impacted with a bang in floor. That was more like it!

Now we were ready. I glanced over to Scarlet at her position right by the door. She gave a claws up. A ringing endorsement. I couldn’t believe she had just done what I said. Maybe she just saw the sense in my plan?

...

No I didn’t really think that. I was starting to get the feeling she was used to obeying orders rather than giving them.

I turned back to the door. The saw blade had reached the first cut then withdrew.

This was it.

My first real battle in the wasteland.

All I could think was don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up...

The door fell in and I fired a blast blindly through the opening. The lead robot was pulverised and fell to the floor in the doorway, but two more robots floated over it unhindered. My magic flowed sluggishly, but it came. I fired two more shots each taking about a second. They fell too but it was long enough for the rest to pour through.

They tried to spread out, but the heavy tables hemmed them in. They milled around in confusion but the ones in the lead broke away from the pack and continued heading towards me. I blasted them to pieces too. My plan was working perfectly!

I continued to blaze away with my horn. The corridor of tables became littered with torn metal. At the rate I was going Scarlet wouldn't have to fire a shot. I became lost in the haze of battle. Every shot I fired ended with a sparkling explosion.

Then suddenly it didn't.

PING.

I blinked, staring at the new type of machine that had come through the door. It stood on four legs ending in wheels that it rolled forward on. These supported a heavy torso and two grabbing arms. It had no head or neck to speak of, just a slight bump between it's shoulders that sheltered an optical sensor.

"Well aren't you an ugly one." I was feeling cocky. It was just one more stupid robot to smash. I fired up my horn and unleashed an extra powerful blast just to make sure.

PING.

I stood there stunned, the shot had just left a small black mark in the center of the robots chest. It surged forward towards me with a claw out-stretched.

I ducked down behind the work top just as the claw had punched through the air where I had been moments before. I rolled to the side as the arm bent at the elbow to scratch at the floor.

I couldn't stay here; it's too penned in. I rolled to the left as far as I could, then vaulted over the bench. My graceful leap was interrupted by part of my table barrier smashing me out of the air. I landed badly. My legs went out from underneath me. I rolled onto my back in time to see the robot had broken through the barrier and was again charging at me.

I was out of options. The one spell I could rely on couldn’t punch through that armour and I had no guns left.

So I bucked it in the groin. From lying on my back it didn’t have much force, but it stopped it dead regardless, giving me time roll onto my belly.

This time I gave it a full on buck to the chest that sent it reeling back. There was a sizeable hoof shaped dent in its chest. This was working! I followed up with another buck to the same spot.

Unexpectedly the machine turned it torso to the left, my hooves glanced off its chest doing no more damage than a few scratches.

The left arm reached around and grabbed my outstretched legs in a painful grip and started hoisting me up by them. I fell forward onto my face, my ears ringing. I needed to fight back but I couldn’t focus! Magic was useless, unless I risked trying one of my stronger spells meant for punching through armour. I fired up my horn, time to risk it.

The machine was lifting my hooves towards the ceiling, letting me hang like a gutted fish. I could see it clearly once my head was clear of the ground, it looked even more menacing upside down. I started to mould the energy in my horn into the required shape, compacting it down into a small red hot ball that would explode like a jet of water when I wished. But it hurt, Celestia help me it hurt. I was on the verge on burnout, I could feel it. My body just wasn’t ready for this magic. But better to burn out than die. I focused on the machines chest ready to unease magical destruction.

The machine punched me in the chest with it’s spare claw. I felt at least one of my ribs pop and crack and something within my belly burst like rotten piece of fruit. My horn flickered and died, I just couldn’t handle the pain and shock. I had never been injured before.

...

I kid you not. Other than my horn exploding I had never been hurt worse than cuts or bruises.

...

Yeah. I did cry.

...

Like a little filly yes. Big bad Alicorn stallion crying like a little child in his first real fight in the wastes. Laugh it up, like none of you have ever cried.

I choked trying to keep the contents of my stomach from choking me and blinked away the tears blinding me. I didn’t want to die! I had my mission! I had so many questions! Why can’t this be a bad dream? I cringed as the robot drew back it’s claw for another strike.

Suddenly a savage scream tore the air a black shape landed on the machines shoulders. It dropped me in untidy heap.

I struggled to my hooves to see a shocking, but welcome, sight. Scarlet was attacking the machine with her bare claws!

The machines arms flailed around but couldn’t bend enough upwards to reach between its shoulders where Scarlet was perched. She clawed at the machines optical sensor until she gained a purchasing and tore the plate covering the machine's top clean off.

Good grief, the muscles on that bird! My only regret was I couldn’t see clearly through my tears.

...

Oh come on! Like you never checked out a mare when she’s showing off her awesomeness rather than her flank!

She followed by whipping out the shotgun and shoving it inside the machine through the hole. Both barrels fired and tore the machine apart from the inside. The machine twitched a bit, then fell down spewing sparks. Scarlet rode it down, balancing on top to land in front of me.

“And that how we used to do it back home! Hey are you crying?” I turned away from her to hide my face.

“No.” I said as levelly as I could.

“You are! What happened? You were doing so great until the big guy showed up then...” I turned back around and tackled Scarlet to the floor. Couldn’t she take a hint the stupid chicken! Why couldn’t she just back off?!

“I said I’m fine!” I screamed in her face. “Just shut up... arrrrgghhhhh!!!!” My ranting turned into actual screams as she poked a claw into my still sore ribs. I rolled of her groaning.

“Broken ribs, I thought as much. No wonder you’re so cranky. Here, take this.” She reached into her jacket and produced a bottle filled with purple liquid. A healing potion.

I glared back at her and took the potion in a magical grip and broke the seal. I chugged the potion down while trying to look at Scarlet without showing I was looking at her. She had an expression of what I think was concern on her face.

The pain in my ribs and gut finally eased up, I passed the bottle back to Scarlet and mustered the courage to look her in the eye. “Thanks, I needed that.”

“No problem partner.” She replied as she took the bottle in her claw. I noticed the skin where her talons met flesh was torn up. Did she get that fighting the robot? Ouch.

“You got any more of those?” I asked.

“No that was the last.” Scarlet reached into her jacket and pulled out the shotgun and SMG.

“You want these back?” She asked. I shook my head and pushed them back into her arms with my hoof.

“You’re the gunslinger, I’ll stick with magic for now.” It was for best really.

“Eh I prefer my claws, guns are just like a spray can of bullets. I like to keep things quiet.” I glanced over the ruined robot she had mutilated. Yes very quiet and subtle.

“Come on, you need to get cleaned up.” That would be nice but we needed information more than comfort.

“We should head for the Overmare’s office. We need answers.” I got to my hooves and walked past the table barrier. The little path was littered with robot parts, there wasn’t a single moving machine to be seen. Scarlet and I had really cleaned up.

“So, your first real fight. I remember my first battle.” Scarlet began chattering as we walked side by side out of the mess hall. “I was a real mess. I threw up everywhere when it was over. At least you didn’t do that. How are you feeling?” A good question really. The pain was gone, the panic too. All that was left was a strange feeling of peace. I opened my mouth to say as much.

Then I threw up.

Notes:

Level up! Level 2
New perk: Black Stallion - You're one good looking stallion! You get +10% damage to the opposite sex, and unique dialogue choices with other-gender individuals (whose barn door swings that way).

You are half covered in blood, what sort you don’t know. Eeewwww.

Author's Note

Do you know when I first discovered Fallout Equestria I thought it was a bad joke. I kept on getting a bunch of ponies every time I searched for fallout art on deviantart. Then I found a comic adaption and thought "Well this is amusing but it can't last". Then I found the written story and thought "Oh come what sort of sick joke is this?" and started reading.

Now I honestly think FOE is one of the best works of fiction ever, thank you Kkat!

Chapter 3 What about me? Well what about you?

Chapter 3: What about me? Well what about you?

Hooves up those of you who threw up the on their first day in the wastes?

...

Okay, dumb question. But yeah it really wasn’t a good moment. My first fight against a dangerous enemy and I choked nearly getting myself killed. If I had been alone, I would be dead. Scarlet had saved my life several time over.

HOWEVER, if I had met anyone but Scarlet at the cave, I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place.
To really hate someone you have to know them, and once you do they are either your friend or your enemy.
Or you don’t care. Or you can’t tell the difference. But that can only last for a while.
Anyway I was doing some self reflection in the Overmare’s personal bathroom...

<---------------------------------------------------->

I looked like shit.
To be exact I only looked like I had taken a dive in a pile of shit a week ago. All the blood had dried out covering me in a brown crust. My face was streaked with tears, and my mouth tasted of bile. In short, I was not a happy pony.

So why couldn’t I stop staring at myself in the mirror?

I turned to the side taking in the blood stains, my and wings and finally my cutie mark. At least that was the same as before. Come to think of it, I didn’t look that bad; The contrast between the dark brown and pure white in my coat was actually quite stunning. And if you realised that the brown was actually blood...

Sweet Celestia, I looked BADASS!

I shook my head trying to shake the silliness out.

...

It worked when I was a foal. I knew being covered in something else’s blood was not healthy. Time to do something about it.
Huh, I wonder if it would be so bad if it was my blood instead.
I stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the tap with my magic.
Nothing happened.
I frowned trying to remember if this was the right way to use a shower. Even in my slightly addled state, I couldn’t understand what was wrong. Turn tap equals water. What had I missed?
I turned away from the shower and went back the sink, I would just have to make do. I turned on the tap.

Five caps if you can guess what happened.

...

Wrong! It made a groaning sound, spat out some dust and THEN failed to deliver the water.

...

Okay bad joke, here’s the caps, go get another drink, get me one too. I wish I had a drink to help me handle what came next.
I was beginning to see a pattern here and a nasty suspicion was beginning to grow in my mind. I went over to the toilet cubicle and looked in the bowl hope hoping there would be no water so I wouldn’t have to clean myself up with it. It was empty. My relief did little to relieve the growing despair.

I left the bathroom and went back to the Overmare’s office where I had left Scarlet. I could see her rear sticking out from under the desk as she rummaged for salvage, on the desk was a terminal with the screen glowing.

“How did hacking the terminal go?” I asked.

“Piss easy! It was already logged in. You want a breath mint?” Scarlet emerged from behind the desk and presented a thin metal tin. I recognised the container even with the label nearly worn off.

“Mintals are not known for their sweetness. We’ll sell them, don’t eat any.” I walked behind the desk ignoring Scarlet’s mutter of “can’t take a fucking joke” and settled down in the chair in front of the terminal.

It was logged in under the Overmare’s name. One Shiny Steel. Funny sort of name for a mare. There were several options but only two caught my interest. One read ‘Stable Tech Instruction for the Overmare’ and the other was a flashing warning that said ‘Critical System failure!’.

I selected the flashing warning. It confirmed my suspicions. The message read:
Warning! Critical System Failure!
Water Talisman failure error 001.
Water supplies exhausted.
Please contact the Head of Maintenance to replace water talisman.

I groaned and slumped forward. It all made sense, the lack of salvage, the hidden door being shut, the taps not working and Scarlet saying she had heard about this place some time ago.

Somepony had been here already and taken the talisman.
Can you imagine... No I see by that look you don’t need to imagine how it feels to work so hard, to risk yourself and then find out you could never had succeeded in the first place. It hurt so bad I thought my heart had stopped.

I looked over to Scarlet rummaging inside a waste bin, stupid chicken! She nearly got us killed... got ME killed chasing after something that wasn’t here! Didn’t she ever think?

I turned my attention back to the terminal to try and distract myself from my rage. I went back to the main menu and selected the Stable-Tec orders file. To my surprise it was an audio file and went thusly:

“Is this thing on? Okay here we go again. My name is Scootaloo the Vice President of Stable-Tec, if you’re hearing this it means the Stable-Tec Omega level protocols have been activated because of a Megaspell attack by the Zebras. Your job as Overmare is to keep the ponies in the stable alive, but that’s not enough. If it come to this then it means we weren’t good enough. Equestria wasn’t good enough, ponies weren’t good enough, we need to find a better way. That why each stable will be running an... experiment, a new way of doing things. The experiment is for your stable is simple but gross. One of the eggheads came up with the idea that a higher protein diet may increase a pony’s intelligence. That’s why your stable has been given a number of pigs. They’re food, not pets. The sty and abattoir is completely automated and run by robots programmed to do all the messy stuff. All you need to do is cook and eat it. I know eating meat is not a regular thing for ponies, but I have been told this may actually work out well for you. Regardless, your priority is the pony’s safety not the experiment, if at any time you feel that their lives are in danger shut it all down and act as you see fit. Good luck, may the Goddesses be with you.”

I slumped back into the chair, stunned. The last best hope for ponies to survive the apocalypse and they were running experiments on them?! Still, at least it explained the carcasses and the robots behaviour. At some point they must have started attacking ponies and... and...

I really wanted to get out of here and clean myself up.

Concentrating on the terminal again to stop my brain thinking, I found what I should have looking for the first time ‘Emergency Override: Open Stable Door’. I selected it and got out of the chair.

“We’re leaving.” I said out loud. I looked around for Scarlet but she was gone again. STUPID! STUPID! CHICKEN! I should leave her to get butchered by the robots.

“What’s happening?” she said into my ear from behind. I turned so sharply I lost my balance and fell onto my rear.

“Don’t sneak up on me! We’re leaving!” I got back on my hooves and started trotting towards the door, Scarlet followed behind.

“What about the water talisman? Our payday? Our deal?” We accelerated to a gallop as we entered the corridor.

“There is no talisman you stupid chicken! When did you hear about this place? Two, three years ago? Somepony already took the talisman! Now run!” As we entered the Atrium my fears were confirmed, the robots we had destroyed earlier were gone, probably for repairs.

In silence we charged out into the entry hall, the door had just finished opening and I didn’t want to see if it would close again.

We kept going until we hit the stairs leading back to the diner. I glanced back to the stable door in time to see one of the robots standing just inside it.

It appeared to be waving at me.

I pumped my wings and hurtled up the stairs, Scarlet did the same and we exploded out of the passage into the Pony Joe’s garage. I made a beeline for the hidden door switch and flicked it over. The door in the floor closed, hopefully for the last time. Goddesses, what a nightmare!

“Well that was pointless and futile. What’s our next move going to be? Mug Discord for books? Resurrect Star Swirl the Bearded to teach us how to play poker?” A bad joke, but I was pissed at Scarlet.

To my surprise Scarlet didn’t reply, she just turned away and trotted out through the staff door we had originally come in through.

“I said what are we going to do next? We need money, we need supplies.” I followed her out the door into the corridor.

“You tell me, I’m just a stupid chicken right?” Her tone was so foalish! Then again but then my insult had been too.

“Look,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry I called you a stupid chicken, but you have to accept that this was all your fault. You took us into that death trap!”

“Hey! I didn’t know there wasn’t a talisman! And I told you stable are always death-traps!”

“IF you had just sat down and thought for a moment then you might have realized old intel is no good!” This was getting us nowhere, figuratively speaking. We had just heading out the diner door when it happened.

“What the hay are we supposed to do now? We have no healing supplies, no money what are we supposed to doooooo!” I was tackled to the ground by Scarlet. I struggled, afraid she was about to use those deadly claws on me!

But she had other plans, she wrapped her arms around me and hauled me back into the diner. I tried to break free of her grip but was distracted by the bullet speeding past my head into the floor behind us. It shattered the tiles and was followed by a loud retort.

“Sniper! On the dunes!” Scarlet screamed into my ear. She didn’t have to tell me twice. I leapt to my hooves and dived behind the row of tables along the window laying down as flat as I could.
A sniper in this situation was bad news. There was only one way out of here, and it had no cover unless we could get through the garage door out back.

But even then, we still had no cover around the diner; it was completely flat until you hit the dunes our sniper was using.

Scarlet could fly up and flank him? Tricky, she would have to be damn fast, and the sniper would have to be a bad shot for her to get up to speed.
But if we had a distraction...

“So, you figured how we’re going to shit on this punk?” Scarlet whispered in my ear. I turned my head to see her holding onto my neck still. I had carried her from the door and not even realized. She gave a crazy grin that I couldn’t help but return.

“Depends. How fast can you fl...” I was interrupted by shards of tile flying into my face. A bullet had hit right in front of me inches from shortening my muzzle.

Acting on instinct I rolled to my right along the length of the diner, Scarlet let go with an ‘omph’ as I rolled over her. I kept going, which was the right move as shots seemed to follow me! One after another, a line of bullet holes appeared heading right for my head with each one getting closer.

I panicked. How was this sniper doing this? They had to be firing blind through the wall, yet they were clearly aiming at me. At me and not Scarlet a small voice in the back of my mind said, just like the robots. Now, isn’t that a coincidence.

Scarlet was screaming something at me from the other side of the room. I couldn’t hear it properly.

All I caught was “Shield."

Shield? Did she mean a defensive spell? I knew some, but they would take too long to cast or be too weak...

Shield...

Something went ‘click’ inside my head.

I landed on my belly and threw up an orb of pink energy that surrounded me with my horn. Just in time one final bullet smacked into the shield half a meter from my face.

I stared at the spot, lying completely motionless on the floor watching the ripples in the shield disappear. How had I done this? This shield was brilliant! Energy efficient, though I could still feel a drain on my magic, and strong pity about the colour, but nothing was perfect.

Where had I learned this? Using it felt so natural, just like flapping my wings had been.

Unity...

Something stirred in my mind, but it was made of mist, just shapes. No substance.
I shook my head, trying to rouse myself from introspection. Somepony was shooting at me. The impossibilities of my existence can wait until later.

“So you finally remembered how to do that? Good. What’s the plan?” Scarlet was looking at me with, I don’t know what sort of expression. Hope?

We needed a plan now.

Perhaps we could...

Seven bullets, tightly grouped, punched through the wall, making a beeline for my face. I felt my horn ach as the shield blocked them.

Planning.

Distraction. Kill.

Plan done.

“I’m going to create a distraction! You get up high and attack from above. Fill him full of lead!” I shouted to her.

“Okay!” she shouted back.

I stood upright, the shield moved with me remaining in a perfect sphere around me. Time to show the waste what I could really do!

I never got around to telling Scarlet, we were interrupted by those robots, but my horn getting exploded had some interesting side effects.
I could sense magic.

...

Now I know that may not seem so great but it really was amazing. Magic is usually visible sparkles, glowing and so on, but you can’t see it if your line of sight is obscured and you can’t always tell what it’s doing without using certain spells. I could do both of these. Cast a spell on the other side of a wall and I would know exactly what spell, if I was concentrating. I could do this and more.
I concentrated now on the spell surrounded me, analyzing it from the inside out until I found the parts I was looking for.
It was pretty simple really. The shield pushed back with equal force when something hit, stopping it.
I changed the spell, making it give more force when it was impacted.
I screamed and charged.

Chairs, tables, the wall, it didn’t matter the shield tore them apart, shredding them like paper and hurling the scraps away.
Blood stained Alicorn charging through a wall screaming at the top of his lungs.

Best. Distraction. Ever.

More shots bounced of my shield, it taxed me further, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need Scarlet or a plan, I would find this punk and tear him apart myself!

Unless he had backup.

Or an even bigger gun.

Errr... maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but it was too late to stop now. I charged up the dunes, pumping my wings. When I reached the top of the first dune I didn’t stop.

I took flight.

You know how I said I flew before over the stairs? That was a lie. This was flying.
I soared, high over the dunes, my wings still pumping and my momentum pushing me forward. Below me, the dunes stretched out below me. The whole world was still, just waiting for me to glide forever.

...

Okay kind of lame description I know but I really don’t know how to describe it. It was perfect moment. Just me, the wind, the sand and the endless blue skies.
As usual, my contemplation was ruined by the real world, or, as I called it, Scarlet and the problem we were dealing with.
I could see her on the dunes shouting up at me. To my disappointment, she wasn’t standing over the body of our attacker.
I dove down to land and did so with some grace trotting forward a few paces as my wings folded up. Then I turned and galloped back to Scarlet.

“Where is the bastard?” I asked when I drew close.

“I don’t know, one moment he was right here with his rifle, the next he vanished.” She glanced around us her gun clutched in both claws.

“Buck. Back to back now.” We drew up next to each other looking in the opposite directions. I recast my normal shield altering the size so it covered us both.
We waited. Come on make a move you punk.
A minute went past.
Then another.
Three minutes.
Sweat pooled in my eyes from the strain of holding the spell. What was he waiting for? For the spell to fail? Of course he was!

“We need to move. Do you see anyplace with cover?” I whispered to Scarlet.

“There’s a rock formation about a click north of here. I know it, there’s plenty of cover and exits.” Perfect, but too far to hold the shield. Time to take a risk.

“I’m going drop the shield and throw up some sand as cover, we make for the rocks. Fly low and don’t stop.” This was a crazy plan, we had almost no chance if our mysterious attacker had a clear line of sight on us, wherever he was.

“On my mark, three, two...” I reached out and gripped as much sand as I could around me a circle.

“One... GO!” I shouted, throwing the sand up as I dropped the shield.
I charged out of the sand cloud pumping my legs and wings as hard as I could but I couldn’t get up in the air. I saw Scarlet take off flying low over the dunes just ahead of me, but rapidly drawing away.
Then she looked back at me and started to slow down.

Celestia buck me to the moon and call me Luna, she was actually worried about me! Or the pay day I represented. Still, I appreciated the thought.

I could see the rock formation up ahead. There were several large boulders all covered in sand forming craggy canyons leading off into the distance.
I dived behind one, putting it between me and the expanse of dunes, firing up my horn readying to fire.

“It’s okay, I think he’s gone for now,” Scarlet called from somewhere above me.

I looked up to see her tail flicking back and forth above my head. She was perched on top of the rock keeping look out.

“Did you get a good look, at him?” I gasped. I was really puffed out both magically and physically. I hadn’t realized until how badly until we stopped.

“No, but he was definitely a unicorn stallion. Can’t say more than that.” Scarlet dropped down next to me, and started panting. She looked pretty rough as well.
“You... Okay?” I asked between breaths of air.

“Yeah, that was a pretty good plan,” Scarlet replied, her tongue hanging out.

We must have just sat there for half an hour, just trying to catch our breath. I broke the silence first.

“Look, I appreciate what you’ve done for me but this just isn’t working out. Every move you made was sloppy, unplanned and reckless.” Scarlet snorted and turned away from me. I gripped her head with magic and turned her back.

Scarlet shoved a claw in my face and roughly pushed me away. “Shut up! You think I don’t know that?! What the hell do you know army boy!” She stalked away from me.

We sat in silence for a while. I considered just getting up and leaving, but something held me back. She had endangered my life yes but she had also saved it. She was a dammed good soldier and she knew the wastes. I needed her but did she really need me?

Scarlet surprised me by speaking out first. “I was part of something great once, or so they kept telling us. I didn’t really care, all I wanted was my pay and it was so easy to just go with it, you know. There was always someone telling me what to do. All I had to think about was how to do it.” She turned to look at me, she looked on the verge of tears. “Then it all fell apart because the people giving orders weren’t as good as they thought they were. So I thought screw it! I’ll do my own thing, I’ll give the orders for a change.” She curled up her knees and cradled her face in her claws. “That worked out so well didn’t it?”

Celestia help me! Why couldn’t they cover how to deal with crying girls in basic? Still there was opportunity here, she was a soldier, a follower and I was... well I couldn’t say I was a leader. Promotion had never been a realistic expectation for me but my improvised plans here in the wastes had kept us alive. I turned to look at Scarlet again.

If I could just get her on my side...

I wouldn’t be alone. That was what I was really afraid of. Being alone meant a cold, pointless, miserable death. Time to turn on the charm.

“I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. You got me moving when I was about to give up, you saved my life more times than you endangered it and you didn’t give up when things went bad. That counts.” I got off my rear and walked around to look her in the eye with my best speech giving face on.
“I don’t know much about being in charge, but I know that in a battle any order is better than no orders, that you shouldn’t split your forces without reason and you don’t throw away a good soldier. Which is why I want to hire you full time.”

Scarlet turned back to me confusion and hope fighting over her expression. ”Why? I nearly got you killed? I...”

“You know the wasteland, you kill robots with your bare claws, you can sneak like a shadow and you helped me. That’s all I need. You get a fair share of any loot. I get your contract. I give the orders, you give advice. Deal? We stick together and we kill anything that tries to kill us.” I held out my hoof to her.

She glanced at it then looked me in the eye returning my level stare. “You really are a naive sort of guy and kind of sissy for an Alicorn, but you kick ass when you’re not sitting on your own. Okay you want my contract, done. But first what exactly are we going to do?”

Good question. Part of me wanted to find out how I had become an Alicorn, while another wanted to find out where Twilight’s letter had gone. Neither seemed the sort to inspire a mercenary like Scarlet. There was one thing we could agree on.

I gave her my best and possibly first attempt at a ‘badass’ smile.
“We make more bits than we know what to do with and enjoy the fact we’re alive. Think about what a great team we make! Deadly griffin mercenary and Alicorn battlemage! Who could stop us? The Lightbringer?” My own enthusiasm was making me talk shit but I didn’t care. We were a great team, with me in charge that is.

It worked, or at least Scarlet didn’t protest, she just nodded and took a thin scroll out of her jacket. “Okay I’m with you, but this better be worth it! And don’t lose my contract; getting a new one is embarrassing. And we use caps, not bits.”

I took the scroll and opened it. It was more or less what I expected: the terms of her contract, what she would and wouldn’t do and that stuff. I rolled it back up and tucked it away into my saddle bags. “Okay, our first move is getting away from here and find some place to hole up for the night to recover. Then we need to find some new supplies and a paying job. Then we find the punk who shot at us choke him with his tail until he says sorry. Sound good?” I held out a forehoof again.

Scarlet pushed it down with a claw and grinned. “I’m starting to think you just like holding hooves with me. Come on captain. We should get to cover. It’s going to be dark soon.” She trotted away into the rocks, and I followed.

We walked in silence for while, Scarlet leading the way, me trying to think of an actual long term strategy.

Making money was important, but it was just a means to an end. I needed to complete my mission. Get to Maripony, find the letter, find out how I was changed, find Twilight Sparkle and complete my mission.

But... Maripony had been megaspelled into a smoking crater by the Lightbringer. The letter could be buried under a million tons of rubble. How could I ever get to it?

What the hell are you thinking? The nasty cynical part of me asked. Why are you trying to complete a mission for a ruler who died centuries ago? Celestia, Luna, Twilight Sparkle and all the ministry mares are dead along with everyone you knew. Why does anything from back then matter? Why try at all?

But the Royal Guard, the princesses, Equestria! It’s what I lived for! What else am I supposed to do?

Whatever you want to do, was the only answer I received. I couldn’t think of a reply. Did I really want to go chasing ghosts? What did I really want?

I looked up at the griffin trotting in front of me. I REALLY didn’t want Scarlet to leave me behind, nor did I want to abandon her. It wasn’t like we had much in common, aside from the desire to not die.

Oh what the buck, that’s enough for now. Just go with it, you fool.

“You said you use caps not bits. What exactly did you mean by that?” I inquired.
Scarlet looked back at me smiling broadly. She really enjoyed being the knowledgeable one. “Well my little pony, a long time ago...”

<---------------------------------------------------->

We found a shallow cave set into the canyon wall. Not very defensible, but Scarlet was adamant that no one would know the way up like she did. I might have said otherwise but I was feeling too tired to care. It was a place to sleep and eat another can of food. That was enough.

Scarlet’s explanation about caps had been informative. I was glad I hadn’t thrown away the bag of bottle caps I got from my captors. If we found a merchant we might be able to buy something useful.
Now that we had eaten, we settled down, just resting as the sun went down. Without Celestia. It was really starting to hit me that we lived in a world without powerful goddesses watching over us. But if they had been killed by the bombs like so many others, were they really divine?

I snorted, it didn’t matter. Maybe Celestia had lied to us, or maybe we over estimated her. What mattered was staying alive.
I tried to make conversation to distract myself. “You said you were part of something great once. What were you talking about?” I asked Scarlet on the other side of the cave. She had dismantled my SMG and was using it to replace parts on her weapon as well as transferring the cartridges into magazines suited for her weapon. She froze when I voiced my question.

“What, great? ME? No no, it was nothing like that, just the usual hoo-rah crap they fed us. It was just another gang I was in. Making caps, scavenging ruins, nothing special. What about you? What was it like in the Royal Guard? I’ve heard so much about them!” Scarlet replied hastily. Her change of subject was more than suspicious, why didn’t she want to talk about her past? It didn’t matter, from what she told me about Unity, I would have been a lot worse.

“If you think you heard anything about the Royal guard then you really heard about somepony else. When the war first started they were pretty much the only professional soldiers in Equestria. But as the war progressed they weren’t enough. They were too few and too... kind. They didn’t use guns, they tried not kill their enemies, all of their training was focused on non-lethal takedowns. A relic of a kinder age. So the Princesses established the regular army, then the Steel Rangers, then the Shadowbolts and the Lunar Guard too. Now they were scary ponies. And they were all better than us. They used guns. We used magic. They got sent to the front lines. We stayed in Canterlot. It was pathetic. We changed of course. We learned, we used new more deadly spells, trained with firearms but then Celestia stood down. We had always been her guards but now we like... a useless appendix just left to wither away into nothing. The Lunar Guard took prominence and got sent to the front lines. We stayed at home, safe and useless.”

I sighed, I had wanted to get that off my chest for years. “By the time I joined the guard it was just an escape for foals of nobles to join the military but not be in any danger. A bucking joke. I was so bored but then...” My rant was interrupted by a snore. Scarlet had fallen asleep.

<---------------------------------------------------->

I dozed throughout the night, not truly sleeping. My fatigue eventually faded away as did the ache in my horn from casting the shield spell.
Come dawn. I roused Scarlet from her sleep with some difficulty and light scratches on my neck. Scarlet gulped down another can of food. I considered doing the same, but I just didn’t feel hungry. Then we settled down to make some plans.

“There’s an old Ironshod firearms factory north of here run by this guy Rusty Nail. He makes ammo and other stuff for anyone who can pay for it.” Scarlet told me between mouths of food. “He sometime hires mercs to do extra dangerous salvage runs. We should be able to get a job paid in supplies.”

We packed up what little we had and set out. It was strangely peaceful. There was no bird song or insect sounds, just the wind blowing particles of sand along. The sun blazed away above but it wasn’t too hot. I was beginning to enjoy the walk when Scarlet said something.

“Sorry I didn’t catch that, what did you say?”

“I said. BIG FUCKING SCORPION 9 O’CLOCK!”

I turned to my left in time to see a massive scorpion, it’s body as long as mine with a stinger level with my head, advancing on me. I threw up my shield just in time for as the stinger shot forward to strike at my neck. The shield stopped it with minimal effort.

I focused my magic into a blast and aimed it at the insect’s tail, the shot tore part of it away, leaving it hanging by a few threads of flesh and carapace. It let out a distressed chattering noise and started to back away. I dropped my shield and fired a triple burst at the creature’s eyes killing it instantly.

“OH YEAH! Score one for me! How do you rate that Scarlet? Scarlet?” She had vanished again.
“SCARLET!” I shouted, she couldn’t leave me alone! How could she do this? I had her contract why would she...

“Be quite and get over here you fool!” I turned to find Scarlet to the left of the path lying flat on a rocky outcrop peering down into a small valley.

False alarm. Of course she didn’t leave. Have some faith.

“Stay low. We don’t want them to know we’re here.” Scarlet said as I approached. I got down onto my knees and shuffled forward until I could see into the valley.

As I did I realized I could hear and smell what was going on in the valley.

I smelled dead flesh rotting in the sun.

I heard pitiful agonized screams.

I saw raiders.

Notes:

Level up! Level 3
Spell upgraded: Juggernaut shield – You can alter you shield spell turning it into a magical battering ram. This costs twice as much magic as normal and attempting to knock down something too heavy can cause you to burn out.

You are covered in dried blood and have some sneaking suspicions what kind. Double eeewwww.

Author's Note

Chapter 3 at last! Big thanks to donutsforthewin9 again for editing. Thanks also to those of you posting comments I need all the feedback I can get.

Chapter 4: Just don’t care!

Chapter 4: Just don’t care!

Who here is willing to kill to protect their family and friends?

...

Everypony, of course.

Now keep those hooves up if you’d be willing to steal to feed your family?

...

I am going somewhere with this, and I see most of you are lying. Really? You wouldn’t steal food to feed your family? Be honest I’m not going to arrest you. The point I’m trying to make is in the wasteland you have to be prepared to act and sometimes do bad things if you want to protect yourself and the things you care about.

That said what is with those raiders?! Banditry I can understand if you have no way of feeding yourself but the rape? The torture? Leaving bodies around looking like they have been tore apart by rabid dogs? Why do that?

I have always been a curious pony not afraid to ask questions so ask that question I did.

...

I got an answer, you want to hear it?

...

Okay so there we were looking down on this little slice of Tartarus...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“This... I don’t... WHAT IS THIS!” I stammered looking down trying to comprehend the scene below. That pony’s ribs... were they BACKWARDS?

“I said keep down!” Scarlet shoved me down with a claw on my nose. “Get your head in the game. I count fifteen of them, what about you?”

She was right, this was combat. Time to live up to my words and make a plan. I surveyed the valley below trying to focus on the layout rather than the things that used to be ponies scattered across it.

The dominating feature was a massive three story building with solid concrete walls, the Ironshod factory I assumed as it was the only structure in the valley still standing. Surrounding it was a maze of smaller ruined buildings none taller than one and a half stories. There were also barricades that faced inwards to the warehouse made of scrap metal. The barricades were patrolled by earth ponies and unicorns with a variety of weapons. I tried to do a count of them but my eyes had never been too good at range.

“Okay fifteen seems about right. But fifteen what? Who are these ponies?”

“Raiders.” She said it like it was all I needed to know.

“Ahem. Memory damaged Alicorn over here!”

“Raiders are...” Scarlet waved her claw vaguely in the air. “They’re nutcases. And idiots, they just kill, torture and rape everything in their path. They’re not too tough, they usually have crappy equipment and I don’t think sleeping where they kill their victims is any good for their health. We should be able to handle this if there are no surprises.” She slipped her gun out of her holster and checked the clip. “You got a plan yeah?”

I didn’t. I was still processing the kill, rape and torture everything part. Why would any pony do that? How could that accomplish anything? And now we’re just going to kill them all?
There had to be another way.

“Didn’t you say you have worked with raiders before? What are our options for negotiation?”

Scarlet looked at me like I had started to drool. “Uh... none. Didn’t you hear the kill EVERYTHING part? And I never worked with raiders. Now come on let’s get down there and kill em.” With that she vaulted over the edge of the overlook and vanished.

I scrambled up onto my hooves hoping to see where she had gone but could not find her. There was about fifty meters of open ground between the overlook and beginning of the ruins. There was nowhere to hide, did she have a... what were they called? Those cloaking things from Stable-Tec. It didn’t matter, one against fifteen was not good odds.

I leapt down the slope and charged towards the cover of the buildings at full tilt then dived rolling to stop with my back against a scrap of brick wall. No shouts, no cries of alarm, against all odds they hadn’t seen me coming.

Okay planning time. Scarlet was probably somewhere ahead of me silently taking them out one by one. If I charged in it might upset her plans. I wasn’t sure I could be of any use in these confined spaces anyway with no weapons or armour. Then again my magic provided both. With my shield and magic bolts I could probably take them all out myself. But... I really didn’t want to put Scarlet at risk, so long as she remained...

A cacophony of gunfire broke out. I could hear the quieter retort of Scarlets weapon mixed in with it.

Oh bucking hay! Well charging madly had worked pretty well until now.
I charged around the corner heading for the noise, numerous paths between building and piles of rubble were on both sides. A good place for an ambush. I summoned up my shield and slowed down to a trot keeping my eyes scanning everything around me.

Out of nowhere an earth pony mare came charging out of a side alley only to be knocked back by my shield. I turned to face the pony, she was a raider I assumed. She was wearing some sort of leather harness with metal spikes on it and large knife in a sheath. She seemed more surprised to see me than I was to see her but her shock quickly changed to hatred and rage. She drew the knife from the holster with a scream and swung it at me.

I will never feel more grateful for my shield than I did then.

The knife smashed into the shield and broke into pieces. The raider stared at the broken hilt her expression changing to panic. She started wimpering tried to shuffle backwards away from me only to trip and fall on her rear. Goddesses help me she just looked pathetic, she wasn’t even that old, nineteen perhaps? Only a few years younger than me. I couldn’t kill her like this. I picked up a large jagged sheet of metal with my magic and slammed the flat of it into her side and wrapping it around her body tightly. She collapsed under the weight of it and drove the jagged edges into the ground pinning her in place. She couldn’t move without shredding her legs on the jagged edges.

“You. Stay. Here. Understand?” I glared at her trying to make myself as menacing as possible.

“Okay.” She whispered.

I then I realised the noise of gunfire I had been following had stopped. I accelerated to full gallop towards where I had last heard it.

A few seconds of panicked charging later I heard a new noise to follow, a meaty thud followed by a groan and voices.

“You bitch. You must think you’re something special taking on all of us by yourself. Well now you’re gonna spend all night paying for it. Spread her wings out and bring me that gun.”

I slowed to a trot creeping forward as quietly as I could to peer around the corner of a ruined building taking in the sight beyond. It was, I assumed, the raider’s camp. It was an open clearing among the buildings with several leans-to’s made of scrap metal and canvas bordering it. In the middle of the clearing eight raider ponies surrounded Scarlet. Two of them were on top of her pinning her down and trying to spread her wings out on the ground. She was in rough shape with a black eye and numerous cuts on her face.

Directly in front of me with his back to me was the pony I had heard speaking, a heavily built unicorn stallion with greying hair and cutie mark of a gun pressed against a pony skull. He held Scarlet’s gun in his magic trying grasp the weapons trigger mechanism.

“Let’s try this, your wings, your gun.” He pointed the weapon at Scarlet’s thrashing wings.

“NO!” I shouted I leapt around the corner I unleashed a bolt of magic the back of the unicorn's head. It stuck dead on, not hard enough to break anything but enough to knock him unconscious and flat on his face.

I followed with four more bolts at the two earth ponies pinning Scarlet down. The shots slammed into their chests hurling them off her. The five remaining raiders opened up with their own weapons, a sorry assortment of mouth pistols and one bolt action rifle.
The shots struck my shield making my horn ache, but my attention was focused elsewhere on Scarlet and her weapon. I grabbed it with my magic and thrust it into her claws.

I reared up on my hind legs thrashing my forelegs wildly and shouting. The display momentarily stunned the onlooking raider making them take a step back in shock.

That was all Scarlet needed to roll onto her back and bring her gun around firing wildly into their midst. The barrage of shots at short range knocked them down like dominos; their ragged leather armour did nothing to stop the bullets. Scarlet didn’t let up until the clip ran out then she collapsed panting on her back.

I dropped my shield and advanced towards her keeping my eyes on the two earth ponies that had been holding her down. The one on the right was definitely dead, my shots had slipped in under his ribcage and likely pulped his insides, the other had gotten lucky and hit the center of his chestbone only knocking him back. This spell was more unpredictable that I remembered, or rather my control of it had become sloppy with my increased power.

As I advanced on him his eyes opened and looked at me in terror.

Be honest am I that intimidating?

...

Oh buck you!

What was I was to say... what could I say to somepony whose friends I had helped kill and who had been trying to kill me?
It didn’t matter, a bullet low to the ground came from behind me striking his head and distributing his face across the ground.
I tried to turn to face the attacker but ended up crashing to the ground as I felt a searing pain in my left foreleg. The bullet had torn a chunk out of my leg on the way to its unintentional victim.
I could turn enough to see my attacker, the raider leader I had knocked out in my initial attack. He had drawn a massive revolver and was struggling to use his magic to aim it after my attack had rattled his brain.

I gritted my teeth trying focus through the pain as he tried to line up another shot. I threw up my shield moments before he fired again but force of his shot was too much for my hasty shield, it punched through it and grazed the heavy muscle of my right rear leg just above my cutie mark. I lost control of my shield and it collapsed around me. I thrashed in pain as I focused on a new approach, reaching out with my magic I gripped the barrel of his gun jerked it upwards. The unicorn stallion started cursing under his breath as we struggled with control of the gun and pulling ourselves to our hooves at the same time.
Gradually I gained the advantage pointing the gun upwards then gradually turning it around to point towards its owner.

Goddesses the look in his eyes! The fear, the panic, that expression that said I know you have beaten me and I know you will kill me.

I loved it.

I squeezed the trigger triumphantly.

*click*

The gun was empty, the raider was just a surprised, his expression of defeat changed to one of triumph as he abandoned his struggle to control the weapon and charged at me with his horn trained on my throat.

He was interrupted by Scarlet tackling him from the side claws gouging his face and belly. She knocked him to the ground then grabbed his horn with both claws and in one savage motion snapped it off.

The effect was immediate, he went into shock from the pain and started shuddering violently unaware of Scarlet standing above him his own horn gripped like a dagger poised to strike.

“NO!” I shouted snatching the horn out her grip and bringing it to my side.

Scarlet turned to face me wide eyed, “The fuck do you mean NO? This fucker was going take me apart, he’s a raider, he deserves to die, why do you want him alive?” Damn good question. I had just acted without thinking and now this pony’s life was in my hooves.

“We need intel, how many raiders there are why they here. He’s their leader he should know.” A lie. The truth was...
I was a bucking moron; this guy was a psycho all of them were. I had been ignoring it but the results of their savagery were everywhere. Even in their own camp there were bodies or parts of them everywhere.

“You are mistaken.” A dark voice spoke behind me. I turned to see three more ponies had entered the camp two earth pony stallions and a unicorn mare. The mare drew my attention first as she was levitating a grenade and had just pulled the pin out. The stallion had battlesaddle with shotgun on his right side. The one in front of them was the one who had spoken. He was one of the biggest ponies I had ever seen, his head came up to my neck where most ponies would be level with my chest. He was covered nose to tail in armour made out of scrap metal, with jagged spikes and blades pointing in all directions.
I turned as carefully as I could trying not to put any weight on my injured leg, I still had the horn in my grip so I threw it at the unicorn grenadier. The lead stallion dodged thinking my target was him and charged forward. Behind him the horn struck the mare’s shoulder digging in and making her loose her grip on the grenade as she turned to see what had hit her.
The other stallion was more focused on trying to line a shot with his battle-saddle than the dropped grenade.

*BOOM*

The blast obscured them both in a cloud of dust and sent a shockwave that knocked my attacker forward on his face to land at my hooves. I couldn’t miss such an opportunity; I reared up on my hooves and brought my good foreleg down as hard as I could on him.

My blow stuck his neck armour, he twisted out from underneath me and rolled to the side back onto his hooves and straight into another headlong charge at my side.

I wheeled to right trying to circle around him but he was too quick. The jagged metal that made up his shoulder pads slashed my sides a he hurtled past.

I tried to block out the pain focusing on making this punk pay for it rather than the burning in my side.

As I turned to follow my opponent I felt my wings flare out to the sides again threatening to throw me off balance. Stupid things! Good for nothing but flying...

Or maybe...

The raider charged at me again, I wheeled left this time but this time he was ready. He leapt head down aiming straight for my neck with the blades mounted on his head plate.

He was ready for my dodge, not my wing.

I brought it around at full extension to slam straight into his side while he was in mid air sending him sprawling on the ground to my right just a meter from me.
I followed up by rearing on my hind legs ready to slam down with my both forehooves on his head but he recovered even faster than before leaping to his hooves and out of the way.

I pivoted on my forehooves swinging my rear legs around to unload an applebuck straight to his chest that sent him flying into one of the lean to tents the raiders had around the clearing wrapping him in the tough canvas.
I tackled the writhing mass of canvas wrapping my forelegs around the neck of a pony shaped lump of canvas pulling it into a neck lock.

...

A neck lock works like this...

..!

Yeah it’s pretty damn uncomfortable; hold it for long enough on anypony and they will die. Doing it on a pony wearing spiky metal armour however...

I could feel the blades of his armour scraping my chest through the canvas. I was lucky I was much bigger than him or those blades would have been tearing up my groin. He kicked and struggled like mad as I squeezed tighter pressing my foreleg against his neck but his armour protected his throat stopping me from crushing it. Worse the pain from my own damaged leg stopped me from squeezing as hard as I could. He was just starting to wriggle free when Scarlet appeared by my side and pressed the saw off shotgun to the side of his head.

BLAM!

I dropped the raider turned sack of pony mince and pulled myself free of the ruined tent to survey our battlefield. The two ponies that had accompanied the large raider were dead killed by the grenade; the raider leader had passed out from the pain of having his horn snapped off.

“Those were some pretty fancy moves there.” Scarlet said holstering her weapon “So what are we going to do with that guy?” She gestured to the unconscious raider.

I tried to stand up and speak but gasped instead as the pain of my injuries hit me. I managed to choke down my rebelling stomach and focused instead on getting all four hooves on the ground.
Most of my injuries seemed superficial except for my damaged foreleg. It held my weight but I was losing a lot of blood. I tore away some strips of canvas from the ruined tent and shaped it into a rough bandage. Once that was done I addressed Scarlet.

"We... Make sure he doesn't go anywhere. You tie him up, there was another I caught earlier. I'll go get her."

I walked quickly back the way we came thinking up a plan on the fly.
Two prisoners, what could we do with them? They had already committed crimes that would have gotten them a life sentence in an Equestrian court, but Equestria didn’t exist anymore. Perhaps a local prison or court could deal with them?
Best to just ask Scarlet how to deal with them, anything short of executing them would do. I came upon the bound mare to find she had tried to wriggle free despite the ragged edges cutting into her. She recoiled in terror when she saw me and began shivering, I pretended to ignore her reaction and picked up her and the sheet magically and carried the sorry bundle back to the camp.

Scarlet had secured the stallion by tying his forelegs in front of him using canvas strips. She was just securing his neck the same way to a concrete pillar when I trotted up and dumped the mare next to him. She took one look at her slain comrades and sobbed.

Scarlet approached me with an annoyed look on her face.

"So fearless leader, what the flying fuck are we going to with these two?" Yep she was annoyed. I put a smile and tried placate her.
"I told you, interrogation. We need to know what they're doing here, how many there are, if they have any supplies stashed nearby. We just need to get them to talk." This seemed to perk her up.

She grinned broadly. "Ooohh, I get you, I get you, interrogation, good idea. You do that, whip out your blade give em a scare then get to it. I'll watch your back make sure no one disturbs you." Then she dashed off before I could say anything.

Me interrogate them!? I knew nothing about interrogation, but now I had to do it.

Ok. She said take out my blade, give them a scare, I had forgotten I still had the machete from the cave.

I walked with my side facing them as drew the machete slowing giving my captive audience a menacing glare.

...

What? I was part of the Royal Guard I know how put on a show to impress.
And I wasn't shy about showing off my flank.

...

It's not that kind of story alright! Unbelievable. Wasteland ponies have nothing else on their minds do they?

...

Errrr... Eh heh maybe later? Just let me finish this bit then I'll meet you out back.

As I was about to say my show only had half the impact I hoped for, since only half my audience was conscious. The mare was obviously terrified, she was sweating bullets and shaking like a leaf, the stallion just hung there like a piece of meat.

Was he dead or dying? I didn't know. I prodded him gently in the ribs with the tip of the machete; he groaned a bit but otherwise didn't respond.
This was daft, how could I wake him up? Then I remembered just how sensitive my horn had been after it had been after it broke.

I turned the machete around and tapped the stump of his broken horn with the back of the blade.

His response was instant. His eyes flew open and he screamed like... Like nothing I had ever heard before. It was quite a shock, I must have leapt a foot backwards.

Once he stopped screaming, he started swearing, oh what a tirade! I don’t have a problem with swearing I just choose not to do it, but listening to this was physically painful.

I tapped him on the horn stub lightly again, he clenched his jaw and growled but didn’t scream this time.

“Now there’s no need for such behaviour, I just want to ask some questions, you answer them all, I let you go. Clear?” I said in my most reasonable voice.

The raider barely looked at me, he was glancing all around the camp at his fallen comrades. “You made a mess of my boys.” He said blankly.

I shifted nervously; this was not how I imagined somepony would react. “Well yeah you would have done worse to the ponies in that building if we hadn’t. Speaking of which exactly why are you here?”

...

Yes I know striking up casual conversation is not exactly the best method for interrogation with a raider.
In fact it was exactly the wrong method to use.

“You know what I did to the last hero who thought she could take out me and my boys? She was cute little unicorn, found a Pipbuck, thought she was the second coming of the Lightbringer...”

“That’s not important. I just want to know why you...”

“So after we caught her one of the boys mentioned they knew where we could find some barbed wire...”

“Hey I’m asking the questions! How many of you...”

“The best part however was when her friends arrived and tried to clean up the mess...”

“SHUTUP!”

I meant to hit him the flat of the blade I swear. I just wanted him to stop talking about doing such... horrible things! The worst part how he managed to make it seem ordinary, like he was just chatting about going to the shops.

The blade cut into his neck almost taking his head off and spraying blood onto the mare and me.

I watched him the whole time he seemed shocked at first but then her seemed to smile and then he was gone.

I killed a pony I had tried to save, the only reason I didn’t freak out there and then is the mare was doing enough freaking out for the both of us.

“Ohgoddessespleasepleasedon’thurtmetheresonlyfifteenofusIjustjoinedyesterdayJUSTLETMEGO!”

I could feel a terrible cold creeping into my gut, I needed to do something, anything! If I just stood there I would crack.

“Silence.” I hissed at the mare.

“I’lldoanythingyouwantyoulikemaresrightIcouldsuckyour...”

“SILENCE!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.

The mare's mouth snapped shut, the rest of the world seemed to take a hint too, I couldn’t hear anything except her teeth chattering.

“Now that I have your full attention, there were some questions I wanted to ask you, answer them and I will let you go, don’t answer them and we have a... problem.” I slowly glanced at the dead unicorn making myself look at it.

“Ye...Yes sir.” She barely managed to say it her teeth were chattering so much.

“First what is your name?”

“Lovely Dagger, sir” A good name for a raider I suppose, she certainly was quite lovely even with the blood and dirt covering her.

You know she probably would do anything I asked her...

I mentally slapped myself. I was still a soldier! That sort of behaviour was just not done!

...

Well not done by the Canterlot Royal Guard at least.

“And how many are in... were in your gang?”

“Just fifteen of us sir, like I said.” Dammit, being called sir by a pretty mare was starting to do things to me, I needed to wrap this up quickly.

“And why exactly did you attack this place? I thought Rusty Nail sold to everyone?”

“The boss had a plan, thought we could rush them when they opened the doors but they saw us coming. We’ve been camping here half a day trying to find another way in and getting any customers who come.” Stubborn ponies, haven’t they heard? ‘It’s not retreating, it just advancing in a different direction.’ My sergeant always liked that line.

“Okay then, we’re done.” I used my magic to unwind the sheet metal around her body. She was just getting to her hooves shakily when something occurred to me.
“Actually there is just one more question I would like to ask.” She stop dead stared at me eyes wide.

“Ye...yes?” I took a deep breath, I wasn’t sure why I was asking this but I knew I would never get a better chance than this.

“Why? I mean why all this? I can understand killing to survive, I’ve done it myself but why the torture? Why all this?” I gestured vaguely to the campsite and its victims with my forehoof.

She looked at me like I just asked if the sky is green. “Just... why? Why not live like normal ponies? Why be raiders?” I finished lamely.

She stood there for a while staring at me blankly. Then she surprised me and answered.

“I suppose it’s because when you’re a raider you can just not care. Stuff like morality, ethics, law they complicate things. If you want something and you can take it you do, if somepony’s too weak to keep it then it’s their problem. And if you hurt inside because you have nothing, or you’ve lost something or been denied something you get somepony else and write you pain on their body to make them scream in your place if only for a little while.”

A raider with a bit of poetry in their soul, weird but stranger things have happened.

I don’t know how long we stood there just staring at each other she broke the silence first. “Um... can I go now?”

“Eerrr... yes. Run along, and don’t get into any trouble.” She bobbed her head in a small bow then trotted briskly away heading south.

“I cannot believe you actually let her go. You’re something else Thorn.” I managed not to jump out of my hooves as Scarlet appeared beside me. I really needed to find out how she did that.

“She’s harmless, barely a grown mare she’ll be fine on her own.” I turned to face Scarlet. “How are you? Did they hurt you at all?”

Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Oh now you worry about me instead of the ponies who tried to kill us. I’m fine they just roughed me up a bit. What about you?”

“I’m fine, don’t like this leg though.” I winced as I lifted my damaged fetlock to Scarlet’s eye height.

“Meh. Don’t such a baby. Doesn’t matter how bad you get beaten so long as you can last long enough to get one of these into you.” She pulled out a canvas sack and passed it to me. I picked it up with my magic and opened it, three very welcome bottles of healing potion rattled against each other.

“You’re like my own divine guardian Scarlet.” I said as I chugged down half of one of the potions then poured the rest onto my damaged leg. “You find anything else?”

“Some caps, some ammo, only one gun that’s worth anything.” Scarlet pulled out the huge revolver that the unicorn had shot at me with and twirled it on a talon.

“Lovely.” I examined the damage on my fetlock making sure it had closed up completely. The pain was gone but it pays to check these things. “Shall we go see if anypony’s alive in there?” I nodded towards the factory.

“Sure, but first.” Scarlet gestured to the ruined campsite. “Aren’t we going to clean up?”

I glanced briefly to the bullet ridden bodies and ruined canvas tents before my eyes settled on the unicorn still tied to the post. Flies were starting to swarm over the blood staining his chest.

I could have left him there, but how would I be any different from him if I did?

I walked over and undid the canvas strips holding him and left him flop to the ground on his side.

“That’s enough, we’re done here.” I turned and started walking towards the factory.

...

It is stupid isn’t it? I buried the ponies I killed accidently but didn’t bury the ponies I set out to kill. To be honest I just wanted to get out of there.

...

I understand that almost anyone wouldn’t care about leaving them lying in the dirt and sun like that but I was trained to be an honourable soldier, I couldn’t not care.

I just didn’t care enough to actually do anything about it.

...

Well I don’t feel like that now looking back, but does it really matter? For me it was a matter of keeping moving or I would panic and freeze up and I couldn’t do that in front of Scarlet, I was supposed to be the leader!

So anyway where was I? Oh right, we were heading towards the factory with my shield up because Scarlet said...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“I told you didn’t I! Alicorns are not welcome anywhere!” Scarlet screamed in my ear over the sound of gunfire. Somepony I could barely see was firing at us from a window above a large set of steel double doors. They had started firing the moment we had approached. Only my shield and an ungainly dive for cover behind a brick wall saved us. Every now and then a few bullets broke through the wall to strike my shield.

“Okay, okay I get it already! Everypony hates my guts, now how do we stop him shooting?” Ironic words, the gunfire stopped just as the words left my mouth. Then we heard a voice that spoke with, of all things unexpected, a Canterlot accent!

“I say! Is that a Talon uniform I see out there? Come on now! Don’t be foalish; come out where I can see you and we can settle this peaceably.” Not the sort of language you expect from somepony who let loose thirty rounds a second at you with no warning.

“Can we trust him?” I asked Scarlet as she crouched next to me. She had a rather intense expression. I wondered if I looked like that when I was planning?

“I don’t know. Nail loves money but he’s kind of a bastard. Still he respects the Talons so I think I can use that.” Scarlet got back on all fours and moved out of my shield and around the cover.

“Hey Nail you fancy dickhead!”She yelled. “Quit shooting at my partner! Have you finally lost your marbles? I barely managed to stop her ripping the building apart along with your stupid thick head! Let us in already, you owe us for wiping out the guys gutting your customers!”

“Upon my word, is that the one and only Scarlet I see? In the company of an Alicorn? Celestia help me, don’t say that bore Redeye has risen from his grave?” The voice called back. For somepony who had just been insulted he sounded remarkably cheerful.

“See! You are going mad! Redeye’s dead and nothing to do with you, me or anyone! Now open up already!” Scarlet shouted back. There seemed to be a bit of an edge to her voice like she was nervous. Well being an easy target can’t be good for one’s nerves.

“Oh very well! Don’t worry I’ll be but a moment, wait right there!” The shadow in the window moved back into the darkness inside the building.

I released the shield and got to my hooves. I walked around the corner to glare at Scarlet.

“Well done, but what did you mean by ‘stop HER ripping the building apart’?”

Scarlet signed deeply but didn’t turn to face me. “I told you, there are no Alicorn stallions. Go swinging around your junk in everyone’s face and you’ll just get in trouble. It’s best to keep a low profile. No one will be looking for an Alicorn stallion so just try to act feminie alright?”

“Alright.” I said and grinned behind her back. Scarlet had been using her sneakiness to mess with me since we began travelling together, but I had a few pranks up my sleeve too. I made a few alterations to my illusion spell. “How about this?” I said doing my best impression of Scarlet’s voice.

“I’m serious!” She started to turn around. “If the wrong sort of people find you they... will... wha?” She stopped speechless.

The thing I love about my illusion spell is that it’s very simple but really flexible when combined with my abilities, changing my hair colour is just the simplest use for it. It can create some very detailed illusions and hold them indefinitely.

I had made my hair longer and my face shorter and more feminie. The blood coating the front half of my body was gone and so had certain other *ahem* equipment.

...

Yes, I can change my appearance to female even now.

...

No I will not tell my story while I’m the wrong sex for your enjoyment! Seriously? Is that what you came here for? How about a strip tease while I’m at it?

...

Drop dead. Rot before you touch the ground.

Anyway, back to Scarlet.

Her expression of shock changed to one of anger "So what are you? A changeling? Or are you just too fucked in the head to get over losing your dick?" If looks could kill I would have been smashed through the wall by Scarlet's glare.

"I have never lied to you or hidden anything. It's just an illusion spell, see." I altered the spell changing my coat to an entire rainbow of colours. "I learnt it a long time ago and I've gotten very good with it. I never used it for something like this before but it's not hard to work out."

Scarlet huffed angrily relenting only slightly. "Okay fine. I get it you're Magical genius, la de da. You should have told me you could do something like that, everything will be a lot easier if I know what you're capable of."

Why that little..! That's the very definition of the pot calling the kettle black! She wanted to know everything about me but she dismissed every question about herself!

I wonder if she used to be a lawyer?

Before I could say as much I was stopped by the sound of a key turning in the lock of the factory door. I had forgotten Rusty Nail was on his way to us.

"Change your coat and mane to purple now!" Scarlet whispered harshly. I complied grumbling only a little.

The steel double doors swung open and a rust brown earth pony stallion trotted out. His face had such a large grin going from ear to ear it looked like it had been nailed there. He wore a suit of combat armour in impeccable condition with a large mini gun on the left of his battle saddle connected across his back to an ammo container on his right. Celestia knows how many rounds he could fit in that thing.

He grinned at Scarlet and I then swung his hoof and bowed so low his mane brushed the ground.

"Greetings ladies!" He said boisterously as her straightened up. "It's always good to see new and old customers. Especially after enduring the company of... Cheapskates." Her sneered.

"Yeah, yeah it's good to see you too Nail, now let us in already, you owe us some supplies." Scarlet drawled.

Nail raised a hoof to his chest and gasped in mock horror. "What nonsense do you speak of!? You should know Scarlet I never give... credit.” He said darkly. I felt it was time I stepped in. Negotiation was the leader's job was it not?

"Sir, we just risked our lives clearly away those cheapskates who would have robbed you, killed you and left you smeared on the wall. We could have left you and taken our business elsewhere, instead we helped you the least you owe us is some travelling supplies and equipment for our trouble."

Nail's jaw dropped in shock. "She speaks! And what a sound to be able to shame me so! Very well, to be in debt is not proper. Let us say... Ten percent off everything?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Thirty percent off everything this one time or ten percent for life. Your decision of course.” I wondered if I should add a little flirting for good measure, then dismissed it. Having an Alicorn come onto you may not be the most pleasing thing.

…

And yet no one has trouble coming onto Alicorns!

…

Later!

Various emotions played across Rusty Nail’s face threatening to wipe of his chronic smile, but he finally managed to return showing as many teeth as possible.

“Well… yes. You make a good point my dear. But I am running a business here and I was just planning to wash away those scoundrels myself when you intervened. Shall we say fifteen percent of this one time? Of course I do hope you will come back? We are the only ammo manufacturing plant outside Fillydelphia after all!”

“Twenty percent, or we won’t be selling the swag we got from the fight!” Scarlet blurted out. Lucky she did, I was about to settle for fifteen percent.

“Oh very well, come on in. You head over to the store and I’ll take my new customer for the grand tour yes? Come along my dear let me show you the wonders of New Ironshod Firearms!” He turned and trotted back through the doors.

Scarlet gave me a nudge in the ribs. “He means you dear. I’ll trade in what we have for what we need and meet you back here. You follow fancy prick and make a good impression. Try not to make any trouble okay?”

O sweet Celestia why couldn’t I have used a different disguise.

Because you charged ahead without thinking or gathering any intelligence, Scarlet was starting to rub off on me.

I followed Nail into the building muttering under my breath while to think of some way to get back at Scarlet for that dear.

The building’s interior wasn’t much better than the outside, stained walls and piles of litter in the corners, it almost looked like nopony lived here for years except for the desk. I think the room had been some sort of reception but Nail had made some improvements to the receptionist’s desk. A large cage of steel mesh surrounded it going into the walls and floor, I couldn’t see much other than a single very bored looking unicorn mare inside surrounded by racks of guns.

“As you can see we take security very seriously. All transactions take place here, most customers never see beyond this, but for you my dear I think you deserve to see the whole picture. This way please!” Nail lead me off to door the right as Scarlet passed us heading to the counter. I looked back at her as Nail fumbled for a key to the door, she looked grim. I think. Griffon facial expressions are weird.

“Ironshod firearms was established before the Great War. It was one of Equestria’s first major arms manufacturers. Throughout the war it made millions of guns and ammo all for Equestria’s finest soldier’s.” And anyone else with the bits to buy them, I remembered my farther talking about buying one but he never did. I followed Nail into down the hallway the left into what must have been the factory floor.
“And now thanks to a little ingenuity and effort on the behalf of yours truly it does so once again!” Nail continued. He was right, the room was packed end to end with work benches crammed with parts and at least two dozen ponies sitting on stools bent over furiously assembling guns of all kinds.

“Our production rate is on par with that of workers before the war despite the disadvantage in tools and materials. How do we do it you ask? Good old pony know how and a little elbow grease. Isn’t that right lads?” He ruffled the hair of an earth pony worker; he twitched slightly but otherwise didn’t move, he just kept on doing up screws in the butt of an assault rifle. None of the workers had so much as twitched an ear when we came in. It was odd and a little unnerving.

I quickened my pace to catch up with nail and walked straight into the back of the one the seated ponies.
“Sorry.” I muttered under my breath but I don’t think he heard me over the sound small flat tin falling out of my saddle bags and spilling it’s contents across the floor.

I don’t know how the Mintals ended up in my saddle bags. Scarlet must have put them there but when? Why? Did she have no room left in her bags? Did she know what would happen? I never dared ask.

The effect was immediate. Every single pony in the room turned their head towards the sound. This was followed by everypony that could see what had caused the noise diving for the scattered pills.
They didn’t make a single sound, no yells no shouts, they just piled in on top each other desperately snapping at floor trying to snatch up pills with teeth and tongues before some other pony could push them out of the way. They ignored me completely, none tried throw me out the way or knock me down. I was nearly swept of my hooves by the tide of ponies sweeping around and under my legs however.

The worst part was when one poor sod head butted me between the legs. You see my spell doesn’t actually change my shape, it just makes me look different. So parts of me that that don’t fit the illusion effectively become invisible.

So when he dived into the space between my legs he actually went straight into...

...

Uh, yeah you’re right who wants to hear about that.

After that it was over in a heart beat. Once they realised the pills were gone they just slipped back into the seats like nothing had happened. The only things left were a patch of concrete floor that had been licked clean and a small bloodstain.

“... And that’s how I found this place using a broken Pipbuck, a paperclip and goat’s skull! Are you alright my dear? You look rather pale.” The self centred fool hadn’t noticed a thing! Although in fairness, whatever he did with goat skull may have been more interesting than I gave it credit for.

“I’m... fine. Just admiring your employee’s work ethic.” And the bite marks they had left on each other.

“Oh very good, let’s carry on shall we?” He smiled cheerfully and trotted onwards.

I won’t bore you with the rest of his tour; it was just more of the same. Workers working as hard as they could. Some of the unicorns moved parts around so fast they were a blur! After the incident with the Mintals it was pretty clear what drove them to work so hard. I needed to confront Nail about this alone without any guards.

Although come to think about it there were no guards. The only pony I’d seen armed and armoured was Rusty Nail. Even more suspicious.

“Well that wraps up everything of interest. All that’s left is this! My own little sanctuary of peace and relaxation.” We ascended to the top floor on a flight of steps. There wasn’t much here, it was just two doors ending in a large window reaching from the floor to the ceiling, likely the same window Nail saw us approach from. The two doors stop opposite each other, one was a regular internal door but the other was like something out of bunker or a Stable, solid steel with a large keypad lock.

Nail went to the regular door and opened it with a hoof. “Come in. I’d offer you a seat but... well I’ve never had a guest of your dignified stature before.” He was right; the rooms contain two swivel chair that couldn’t fit me on either side of a large battered desk.

“Now finally to business.” Nail sat down in the chair on the far side of the desk. “I need somepony like you, powerful, brave, intimidating! Recently some of my suppliers have been getting disagreeable. I need you to meet with and get them to agree once again. Easy enough no?”

Ever hear the saying; don’t assume it makes and ass out of you and me? I got the feeling Nail was making a few too many assumptions about me and Alicorns in general.

“Hold on! What exactly are these supplies you need?” I said slamming a hoof down on the desk for emphasis.

Nail vaguely waved a hoof in the air as if trying to dismiss it as unimportant. “Oh the usual stuff; food, scrap metal, medical supplies...”

“Like Mintals?” I interrupted.

Nail’s constant grin froze on his face like he’d choked on it, then he recovered and coughed into hoof. “Ah... you are sharp one aren’t you?” No just stupid and lucky but you don’t need to know that.

“It’s true, most, well nearly all my workers are on chems, Mintals in particular. See when I first started this place we had a big problem with employee motivation. Most were just homeless drifters or slaves not even Fillydelphia would take. The work was sloppy and slow. Then they refused to stay when we weren’t earning enough to feed them all! All because they couldn’t work hard enough! Stupid lazy scoundrels!” He slammed both hooves into the desk hard enough to snap a chunk of it off and sending him sprawling face first on to the floor.
Slowly he pulled himself back onto the desk with his forehooves and continued his rant. “So I tweaked them a little. Mintals to improve the quality of their work, Dash to make them work faster, a few unique combinations of my own and voila! The perfect work force! Not even pre-war workers match our level of production.”

I am not a violent pony.

...

No really! Yes I was a soldier but we were trained to control ourselves and flow of battle. I wasn’t that good at either of those things but still I always considered violence to be the last resort.

...

I... no you’re right. It was only just starting to get to me, the wasteland I mean. To lose everything and have it replaced with a world of pain and blood. It’s inevitable that a bit of it becomes part of you.

I reached out with my magic and seized the minigun mounted on Nail’s battle saddle. I lifted it up with Nail still attached and swung him over the desk into the ground at my hooves.

“Wh... Why?” He gasped as he tried to grasp the firing bit for his weapon.

“Those ponies. They would kill each other for their next fix. How do you stop them murdering you in your sleep?” I stamped down with a hoof on the firing bit crushing it and trapping an ear between my hoof and the floor.

“AAAHHH! THE SAFE! Only I know the code for the safe! Goddesses let me go! I’m just trying to run a business!” His Canterlot accent was suddenly gone, another thinly veiled lie.

“That safe?” I looked out the door to the heavy vault door opposite the office. “What is the code?”

He didn’t answer, so I ground his ear into the floor squeezing blood from it.

“GAHHRRGH! It’s five, seven, nine, one! You crazy bitch!” That surprised me, I had forgotten I was still wearing that illusion. I let it fall away.

“That’s crazy bastard to you.” I said in my normal voice, wow it’s amazing how much strain putting on a fake voice can have, it’s such a relief when you don’t have to do it anymore.

Nail rolled over just enough to stare up at me in shock. I released the magical grip I had on his weapon and stamped my other hoof down on his neck. He made an unpleasant gurgling noise and kept breathing and struggling pathetically.
I turned my magic towards the door keypad and entered the code.

You know I can never thank the goddesses enough for my luck. Sometimes I thank Discord too.

Three sharpened metal poles suddenly thrust out of the door right through the space where a pony entering the code by hoof would have been standing.

“Naughty.” I picked him with my magic threw him out into the hallway into the vault door. “Naughty Nail. The REAL code if you please.”

He gulped. He was pressed against the spot the spikes had emerged. “Two, one, seven, six... NO! Err... Two, one six, seven! That’s it!”

I entered the code and the door swung open. I trotted to the doorway and peered inside. Countless boxes of syringes, inhales and pills sat on shelves all around the room, enough drugs to keep an army of junkies happy. It took my breath away, even pre-war it would have been worth a fortune, now. Priceless!

Now can anypony guess what incredibly stupid thing I did at that moment?

...

Correct. I let Nail go.

“Now that wasn’t so hard let’s take all this downstairs and...” I interrupted by an incredible pain in my side. While I had been gawping at the vaults contents my grip on Nail had slipped and
put a knife in my side!

“YOU IDIOT!” I roared, I pushed outwards with my magic rapidly forming it into a shield that exploded outwards from my skin forcing Nail and his knife away from me.

Quite far in fact.

Rusty Nail flew through the air down the corridor bounced once then hurtled out the open window.

I walked over to the window and looked see Rusty Nail on the ground with neck in very wrong position. I walked back to the vault trying to figure out why I kept on accidently killing ponies. I mean come on! That makes what? Five in two days? What the buck was wrong with me?

...

Yeah I know it probably would have ended like that anyway but still.

I needed to focus on my priorities, first up: stab wound. There were a few potions in the vault I chugged down one for the stab wound then another for my injured leg, it had started hurting again.

Next, the junkies downstairs. What to do with them? I started trotting back down the way we came. Probably be best to give them the drugs but would that really help them? No. I had disrupted their lives so I had to take responsibility for that, there had to be somewhere that could help them kick the habit.

By the time I had reached the floor I didn’t really have a plan but I did have a speech! It was inspiring! Moving! It would drag those junkies to their hooves by their hearts!

“ATTENTION EVERYPONY!” I bellowed. Everypony in the room stopped working and stared blankly at me, a good enough start. “Rusty Nail is dead and his vault is open! Now is the time for...”

*Sigh* I really wanted to do that speech.

...

Well what do you think happened?

Level up! Level 4
New Perk: Stone wall – You know how to plant your hooves when taking a hit, you are less likely to be knocked down in combat.
You are still covered in blood and are beginning to smell a bit. You are also feeling a bit flat.

Author's Note

And we're back!

It's been a funny few months but I am still writing, it's just too much fun to stop. The next chapter should be out in a few weeks, sorry for the delay.

In other news my editor donutsforthewin9 seems to have vanished of the face of the earth, if anyone is interested I am looking for a new editor, if you're interested please send me a PM. This chapter was edited by me to the best of my rather poor skills.

Finally I would like to thank Kkat and Somber and Adder1 and Murkynumberseven for writing such incredible stories. You make me want to be a better writer.

Chapter 5 Hooves of steel, head of Swiss cheese

Chapter 5: Hooves of steel, head of Swiss cheese

“So... why are we doing this?” Bronze Arrow asked. The sun reflected off his cutie mark almost blinding me as I glared at him. How could being shiny be a talent? I could definitely do better.

“Because today, I’m going to get my cutie mark! This spell will definitely work.,” I huffed as I kicked open the gate leading to an open field filled with nothing but knee length grass and, near the center of the field, a large grey boulder.

“Right, but why are we here?” asked the Cheeky sod.

“You got anything better to do? I need somepony here in case I burn out my horn or pass out or something. This is a whole new spell! There’s no telling what will happen!” And everypony said I was too reckless!

We had reached the large boulder now. From a distance, it had seemed unremarkable, but up close somepony had engraved the word ‘Tom’ on the flattest surface. Weird.

“Well when you put it like that, I think I’ll hide behind that rock until you’re done,” Arrow muttered nervously.

“Wouldn’t do you any good; that’s the target. Just stay about ten meters away, preferably where I can see you. that should be safe enough.” Arrow nodded and moved away from the rock.

I stood in front of the rock, grinding my hooves into the grass and marvelling at how I could barely feel it through the shoes.

I checked to make sure that Arrow was out of the way, and then fired up my horn. I started pressing together layer after layer of magic into the shoes on my rear hooves. The shoes started to hum making my tail twitch and shake, I could even see a small glow coming from behind.
I looked back to where Arrow stood, now frozen in terror, gave him a nod, then bucked the rock as hard as I could.

BOOM!

I felt the energy in my horse shoes explode outward. this was followed by feeling my face plough into the grass as the spell pushed back. I slid forward a couple of meters on my belly, and then rolled onto my back to see Arrow running towards me, waving a hoof and shouting.

“Look, look! It worked! There it goes, there it go... oh dear.” I looked to where he was pointing to see the boulder tumbling through the air high above the ground, across the field, over the fence, and straight into the wall of a large red barn, smashing it into splinters. Several angry ponies started swarming around the outside.

“Discord’s balls; we are gonna get in so much trouble.” Arrow moaned. “C’mon if we cut through the Everfree forest, we might lose them; or get eaten by Timberwolves if we’re really lucky.”

I sighed. “You go, stick to the road. They’re going to figure out it was me eventually, so I might as well come clean now.” I started trotting towards the barn.

“But how could they know it was you?” Arrow shouted.

“Because my horseshoes are embedded in the rock!” I shouted back.

So away I went, limping slightly from the scratches the shoe clips had left in my rear hooves, to get what was coming to me.

I didn’t even notice the horse shoe surrounded by a red magic glow on my flank until somepony pointed it out.

<---------------------------------------------------->

...

What?

...

No, that didn’t happen after the incident with Rusty Nails.

...

I guess it was kind of a flashback? I was talking to the workers, then everything went black; then I was caught up in a memory of getting my cutie mark.

...

Stranger things have happened.

...

Like Arrow’s curse, yes. Discord’s balls. That was a popular one when we were foals. According to legend, he has three of them. None of them are the same size or shape, and only two of them are in the same place.

...

Yes, we had legends about that, but nopony knows how we got them.

...

Right! The story… so, yeah; I was speaking to the workers, then I blacked out and woke up later...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“Here, drink one of these healing potions,” Said a mare’s voice; it’s exactly the sort of thing you want to hear when you’re lying on the ground too battered to move. Everything ached; my eyes were so swollen by bruises that it was a strain to open them.

“Don’t waste a potion on his stupid ass. Just hold him still, I found a permanent marker.” Exactly the sort of thing you don’t want to hear Scarlet say when you’re immobilized.

I groaned and started struggling to my hooves. Everything felt sore, but nothing seemed to be broken. I forced my eyes open to see Scarlet and the unicorn mare that had been at the reception counter. The unicorn mare was looking at me with concern as she levitated a healing potion back into a saddle bag at her hooves. Scarlet just glared at me.

“Enjoy your improvised massage did you? All those hooves, it must be so relaxing. WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU DO?!” She screamed in my face. I stared blearily at her, pondering that question myself. What did I do? The right thing, surely?

Scarlet started pacing back and forth talking angrily. “There I was, just waiting for you to finish rubbing shoulders with fancy dick, when a wave of ponies just barges through, and makes off with everything not nailed down! It was like they were possessed! What did he want to talk to you about away?”

I tried to speak, but choked on my first few words. No part of me had escaped a beating. Finally, I managed to squeeze out the story of what had happened.

“What I don’t get,” I turned to face the unicorn mare; up close I could see she was a very dull grey colour with a hammer for a cutie mark, “Why are you still here? Why didn’t you run like the others?” I asked.

“I wasn’t strung out on drugs like the others; he needed somepony sane to manage the till. How are you a male Alicorn?” Her voice was dull and flat, just like her mane and coat.

“Magic.” It still hurt to talk, and I didn’t want to waste words on somepony who willingly worked for Rusty Nail.

“Okay. Thanks for getting rid of Nail; this job was getting boring. I’d give you a reward, but the others took everything.” Huh... I didn’t know what to make of that.

“It’s fine. Scarlet, did you get the supplies we needed?” She hadn’t stopped glaring at me, and did so for a moment more before answering.

“Yeah, I did. Healing potions, ammo, food, Radaway; all the essentials and some extra as well. Lucky I did since you went and lost your stuff.” I lost my stuff?

I LOST MY STUFF!

I hadn’t realised since I was paying more attention to the pain, but my saddle bags were feeling unusually light. I levitated the bags in front of my face; it was completely empty. They had picked me clean; not even crumbs were left. They had even taken the machete out of its sheathe.

“Discord’s balls.” I muttered quietly. “Scarlet, I’m sorry. I just wanted to help those ponies.”

She rolled her eyes. “Help them to our stuff you mean.” I knew then that I would never live this down.

“So, what are you going to do now?” the dull mare asked. Good question. Our plan had been to get some supplies, then look for a job. We had succeeded in getting supplies. Now, where could we get a job?

“Do you know where the nearest town is?” I asked the dull mare.

“New Appleloosa.” Scarlet snapped. “They would have work but you might not get the warmest reception as an Alicorn. You can still do your disguise thing right?” Now what was that about? The dull mare didn’t bat an eyelid while Scarlet looked... Impatient? It didn’t matter we had a direction now.

“New Appleloosa sounds nice. I went to Appleloosa once, nice tourist dive.” Goddesses, that was a long time ago. it would be ten, no, two hundred and ten years ago now. Unbelievable.

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be heading off to Junction town now. I have family there. I wish there was some way I could repay you. Those ponies took everything that wasn’t nailed down except for my tools.” The dull mare said.

Tools.

Nails.

And a certain very old new spell.

Maybe it was just the concussion from being trampled, but I suddenly had a really great idea.

“Actually...” I coughed. “If you can find some decent steel, there may be something you could do for me.”

<---------------------------------------------------->

How much do you ponies know about horse shoes?

...

Right, but did you know they were among the first tools designed by pony smiths.

...

Well, it was a big deal at the time. They could protect your hooves when walking, they could make an ordinary kick shatter stone, they turned each hoof into a hammer, you could even throw them at a peg in the ground for a foal’s game.

Frankly, I was surprised more ponies in the wasteland don’t use them.

...

Those clip-on shoes don’t really count as horse shoes, and they’re not that common or useful as old fashioned horse shoes; they can be pulled off easily.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that horse shoes can symbolise a lot of things; like my cutie mark. My special talent isn’t horse shoe magic, no it’s...

...

What?

...

What do you mean they can’t stay on? They’re horse shoes! You need a claw hammer to get them off!

..?

Wait, you really don’t know how they attached horse shoes do you?

...

HAHAHAHAHA! You really don’t know! Oh what a buck of hicks!

..!

I’m just kidding! I’m just kidding! Look, I’ll show you how they’re held on.

!!!

See?

!!!

That’s pretty much how Scarlet reacted when I told the dull mare what I wanted. She said...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“He fights robots with tears in his eyes, he spares raiders, he contemplates the mysteries of the stars on the can, and now he nails bits of metal to his own flesh. People of the wasteland, I give you BROKEN THORN! IDIOT OF THE YEAR!” Scarlet followed up with a surprisingly noisy round of applause for one person.

I growled, trying to keep my anger in check. She had been absolutely insufferable since we had left the Ironshod factory. It had taken an hour for the dull mare to make the shoes and nails, but only minutes to attach them. I was amazed at how painless it was.

...

Well, if it had hurt, there would have been no point to it. It just felt kind of strange, like the shoes and nails were a part of me, but numb; with no sense of touch.

In any case, it worked for now. I needed to put them to the real test. Time to make Scarlet eat her words.

“I got my cutie mark by making a new spell, you know.” I looked around and spotted a large boulder by the side of the path. It was no Tom, but it would do. “I made a spell that could make a strike with a hoof have many times its normal force.” I turned off the path and trotted towards the rock.

“In theory, you could charge your hoof with the energy, but it doesn’t work. There’s already too much magic in living things. But a piece of metal close to you, like... oh, say, a horse shoe, can be charged with little effort.” I stopped facing the rock. “However, the modern clip on shoes can’t handle the feedback from the spell. They go flying off. But shoes that are nailed on...”

I went over the spell in my mind. I channelled the energy from my horn through my entire body, through the nails and into the shoes on my rear legs. It came like a flood; I had so much power to work with and the shoes drank it up like a desert meeting the sea. They started to glow with a bright white light.

“Well, let’s see what happens.” I said casually. I braced my front hooves on the ground and applebucked the rock as hard as I could.

CRACKTHOOOM!!!!

The top half exploded outwards, breaking into shards that sprayed out like a shotgun blast, peppering the ground behind it. Some bits must have flow fifty meters.

“That was… unexpected. I thought the rock would go flying.” I said as I surveyed the damage. Still, that should shut Scarlet up. I turned to face her, only to see she had drawn her gun.

“Okay, that was pretty impressive. How did you know that guy was there?” What the buck?

I turned back to face the rock and saw, through the clearing dust, a pony, groaning on his back on the other side of the shattered rock. I walked around to get a better look at him, and threw up my shield for good measure. Poor guy must have been hiding behind the rock; it was a miracle the blast didn’t take his head off. He was a unicorn stallion, with a green mane and a grey coat. He was old; how old I’m not sure. He could have been a badly aged forty years, or a well-aged sixty. He was decked out in a thick duster covering a suit of security armour, with a couple heavy duty saddlebags hanging on his rear, a shotgun, an assault rifle and a sniper rifle slung across his back.
The strangest things, however, were the Pipbucks. He had two of them, one on each foreleg. I recognised them from Stable-Tec’s adverts.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He opened one eye and glared at me.

“Sure, fine, just peachy. No exploding rock is going to get the better of me.” He rolled over onto his belly and slowly stood up.

“What’s your name?” I asked. Two Pipbucks; why would anypony need two? What could they do exactly? I couldn’t quite remember.

“Give me a minute, my ears are still ringing. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” What.

“But... you answered me before!” Was this guy senile?

“Ah I heard that. And I answered because some damn fool always asks, ‘Are you okay?’ I got blown up, would you be okay?” Considering I survived the balefire apocalypse, yes, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You fucker. Dump the guns now!” Scarlet screamed while aiming her gun at his head. While we had been talking, she had come around the other side of the rock, trapping the unicorn between the two of us. Very tactical, but why was she angry?

“The last time I ‘dropped’ something on the request of a griffin, a good a time was had by all. The time before, however...” The space above him blurred, and suddenly the sniper rifle on his back was pressed against the shield, pointing at my face, while the shotgun pointed at Scarlet. Both were held in a pale grey magic glow coming from the unicorn’s horn.

“Now, I’d like you to explain the reason for all this hostility.” His voice was cool and level, not a hint of fear. Whoever this pony was, he was definitely an experienced fighter.

“Don’t play dumb, you wrinkled piece of shit! I recognised you! You were shooting at us at the Pony Joe’s!” He was? Wait...

EFS. Eyes-forward-sparkle. A tracking spell that allowed you to track other living things. A standard feature for Pipbucks. He had a Pipbuck and a sniper rifle; things were starting to fall into place.

“So, that whole shooting through the walls thing. I can’t imagine it works so well with cover this thick.” I jerked my head towards the boulder while cursing my own stupidity. An ambush; why else would a pony hide behind a rock near a deserted path?

“It seems we may have gotten off on the wrong hoof.” His face and voice didn’t change at all; did this guy have ice in his blood?

“Drop the fucking guns, fucker!!!” Scarlet, on the other hoof, looked like she was panicking. I needed to cool the situation.

“You tried to kill us; why? What did we do to you?” Okay, not very cool, but I did want to know.

He turned his head to look me right in the eyes, trying to stare me down, and then he sighed and answered. “A Talon merc and a male Alicorn working together; it’s not hard to figure out. Redeye is back, isn’t he?”

<---------------------------------------------------->

...

Oh, no! He’s most definitely dead. You heard it from DJ PON3, yes? But this was right after the battle of the Cathedral and the day of Sunshine and Rainbows. At the time, Redeye being dead seemed too good to be true. There were a lot of rumours that he was alive and in hiding at the time. Rusty Nail and Tumbler had both jumped to the same conclusion.

...

Buck, I’m getting ahead of myself. Tumbler was the name of the unicorn that attacked us. It didn’t take much to convince him we didn’t work for Redeye. It took a lot longer convince Scarlet to not shoot him in the face; but when I did, a new opportunity arose...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“I picked that Stable clean myself years ago.” Tumbler said as we settled down in the shadow of small cliff. ”There’s nothing left but those crazy robots. They malfunctioned and started to...”

“I know what they did.” I interrupted, while trying to forget what I knew.

“So, where can we find another water talisman?” Scarlet snapped. She was still angry that we didn’t try to strangle Tumbler with his own tail as promised, even though he said sorry first.

“Stable 16. Went there five years ago but couldn’t get far. The living quarters are neck deep in radioactive water. But now we have an Alicorn.” Simple enough, I suppose, but I wasn’t too keen on deliberately exposing myself to dangerous radiation, Alicorn or not.

“THERE IS NO WE!!!!!” Scarlet interrupted my contemplation with loudest scream I’d heard from her yet.

“Excuse me?” Tumbler seemed nonplussed as he lit his horn and delicately levitated out bottle of Sparkle cola with condensation forming on it from his saddlebags.

Damn. When did I last have a cold drink? Wait! How did he keep the bottles cold in this heat?

“Let’s get one thing straight! Me and Thorn are a team! You are a useful idiot with a debt to pay! You lead us to the talisman, we go our separate ways. That’s it! Clear?” What was her problem? She had been testy ever since I accepted Tumbler’s offer of parley.

“That should be Thorn and I.” Tumbler said. Grammar tyrant! Maybe this was a bad idea.

“We should get moving; the Stable’s just a few hours north.” Tumbler levitated the empty bottle back into his saddle bag, stood up, and headed back towards the path.

I moved to follow him, but Scarlet grabbed me by the mane and pulled my ear to her beak. “Do you really trust this guy? He tried to kill you!” She whispered frantically.

“Strictly speaking, no one can be completely trusted; however, I trust this guy enough to lead us to the loot without trying to backstab us.” I replied. That wasn’t the wasteland speaking, it was just something a friend taught me a long time ago.

“Then how much do you trust me?” Scarlet said. I couldn’t answer. True, I trusted her to not stab me in the back, but beyond that she had not been entirely reliable.

Anything I might have said then didn’t matter. When I didn’t reply right away, she snorted and released my mane. She stalked after Tumbler with her head hanging low.

Why couldn’t girls ever ask me easy questions? Like where are the bodies hidden? Or what’s the square root of two thousand seven hundred and forty five?

...

...Yes, thank you, you’re very helpful.

As we walked down the path, I talked with Tumbler, trying to get to know him. Also, because Scarlet was still sulking and wouldn’t use more than two words per answer.

“How do you make a living, Tumbler?”

“I’m a Stable diver.” He answered cheerfully. “I go into Stables and take out whatever’s useful. Pipbucks, water talismans, clothes, even the metal wall plates in a pinch. Resources like that are always in demand. Sometimes I work with others, but usually I do it alone.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? Scarlet told me the Stables turned into death traps!”

“Yes and no. The experiments Stable-Tec was running were, at a glance, harmless. But, after 200 years, the odds of something going wrong through stupidity, bad luck or oversight are just...” He sighed sadly. “There are some Stables that made it; they opened up and helped repopulated the wastes. Others are still locked up with ponies inside. Those are the ones I like to find. Ponies should live in the sun.” He smiled broadly and looked up at the cloudless blue sky; it was a real smile, born of joy; not just the usual grins me and Scarlet had exchanged for not dying.

I couldn’t help but smile myself. I grinned broadly; maybe this wasn’t so bad? The whole world can’t be sadness and death right?

Then Tumbler saw my smile and snapped back his default ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll shoot you’ look he had before we got moving. He started trotting faster along the path until we were no longer walking side by side.

“What a little bitch! Am I right?” Scarlet said with her usual tact. “Just ignore him until we get to the loot. Punk like him just isn’t a team player like us, right?”

“Perhaps.” I glanced down at her. “But at least he answers questions honestly.” She ignored me and trotted faster until the three of were moving as a widely spaced column, with me at the back eating their dust.

Woo. Go team.

After an hour or so of awkward silence, I noticed the land around us changing. Rolling dunes and rocks gave way to hills and fields covered in black and brown grass with the occasional scorched tree and shattered building.

“We’re here.” Tumbler turned off the path, started rummaging in his saddle bags, and pulled out a security helmet with the Stable-Tec logo on it. “The entrance is just this way.” He pulled the shotgun off his back and held it by his side.

“Watch out.” Scarlet whispered to me. “If he’s going to try anything, it will be in the Stable.” She pulled out her SMG and checked the clip. That bird was too paranoid.

“Now, if I remember correctly, it’s right...” Tumbler disappeared so suddenly I cast my shield spell in shock. “Here.” A muffled voice came from somewhere near the ground.

I moved forward shield still up and looked down. Tumbler was standing in a narrow trench in the ground. It was invisible unless you were right on top of it. I altered my shield to project an inch from my skin and hopped down into the trench.

Tumbler nodded my way and advanced forward. “This Stable has multiple routes to the door.” He rambled. “There should be a passage somewhere on our left. Not sure what experiment this stable was running, but about a century ago most of it got flooded with irradiated groundwater and the inhabitants had to leave in a hurry.”

Tumbler proved to be spot on. There was an opening to our left, and it looked more like an oversized rabbit burrow. I had lot trouble fitting through the opening. I only made it through because of Scarlet motivating me.

...

She... uh. Pecked me.

...

NO! You can’t have a go! Back off, you vulture!

…

Thankfully, the tunnel got wider the further in we went, and more tunnels joined up with ours. I asked Tumbler how far they reached, and he said the only other entrance he knew of was three kilometres away. At this point I was glad we had Tumbler along. As soon we entered, he switched on both of his Pipbuck’s lights.

And then we were there, the Stable door in front of us was open; the déjà-vu only added to my growing nerves.

“So, let me just clarify some things.” Tumbler continued to take the lead with his shotgun as we advanced into the stable. It wasn’t anything like the previous Stable. Everything was covered with rust and strange growths. There was no light except for Tumbler’s Pipbucks.

“Umhmm.” Tumbler replied.

“I go alone into the part of the Stable that’s filled with irradiated water. Yes?”

“Umhmm.”

“Irradiated water that would quickly and painfully kill a normal pony, but won’t kill me due the strange magic that makes up my body.”

“Umhmm.”

“To retrieved an incredibly valuable and delicate pre-war magic talisman.”

“Umhmm.”

“In the dark.”

“Umhmm.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with this picture?”

Tumbler gave me a sly grin. “No. Because in my picture, you’re going to have one of these.” His horn lit up and pulled a Pipbuck out of his saddle bags.

“It’s a 2000 model; not quite as tough or comfy as the 3000s, but I updated all the software, so it should work well enough. Let me put it on for you.” He turned back to face me, levitating the Pipbuck between us.

“Hold it!” Scarlet screeched. She leapt right over my head and landed between me and Tumbler.

“How do we know this isn’t some kind of trick? There could be bomb in there! Or a magic virus! Or spiders!” She glared at Tumbler, her beak an inch from his nose.

“I have no reason to hurt you. It’s just an ordinary Pipbuck; I promise.” Tumbler said calmly.

“The fuck it is!” Scarlet bellowed. “You just want to get us apart so you can pick us off one by one! You tell him Thorn!”

“Spiders?” I blurted out. “Are you serious? By Celestia’s beard, just calm the buck down Scarlet! I’ll check it out.”

I picked up the Pipbuck with my own magic and levitated it close to my horn. I closed my eyes and started examining every inch of it with my mind.

It may interest you to know that living things contains some amount of magic. In fact, everything does! Rocks, trees, ponies; they all have greater or lesser amounts of magic. But this wasn’t that useful to me. Sensing magic that small takes a lot of concentration. Finding living things is easier, but it still takes a lot of effort.

In any case, I couldn’t tell if there was anything wrong with this Pipbuck. It was full of incredibly complex spells matrixes that dealt mostly with information. There was nothing that seemed directly harmful.

And there were definitely no spiders.

“It’s safe.” I said, eventually opening my eyes. Scarlet was trying to stare down Tumbler, but he was watching me, ignoring her completely.

“Good; Now we’ve got the general fear and paranoia out of the way.” Tumbler lit up his horn and grabbed the Pipbuck and started moving it towards my left leg.

Scarlet muttered something unintelligible under her breath. Between several fucks I heard something about a cherry bomb enema that made me smile a bit.

“Now get ready.” Tumbler said in his serious voice. “Once I strap this on you’re going to start seeing stuff. Numbers, letters; just ignore it and don’t do anything until I tell you to.”

The Pipbuck clicked as it wrapped around my leg. It felt snug, but neither hot nor cold. After a moment, green numbers and symbols started flashing across my eyes. I tried to follow them, but it gave me a headache so I just shut my eyes and waited.

“Okay; all done.” Tumbler muttered. “I turned off most of the features except for the map, the radio, and the light. Trying to learn E.F.S and S.A.T.S now would just be a distraction.”

I opened my eyes to find they were blissfully clear of lights. I looked down at my left leg to see the machine now attached to it. Now that it was this close to me, I could actually feel the spells inside it working. It was like having star constellation stuck to me.

“Wow; This thing is pretty amazing.” I chuckled. I had never been too interested in Stable-Tec; their whole attitude had been too defeatist for the guard. However, they knew their stuff. I’ll give them that.

“Let’s move; the sooner we get out of here and paid the better.” Scarlet roughly shouldered past me and Tumbler.

I went to follow her, but then Tumbler stopped me with a hoof on my shoulder. I turned to face him and he gave a little shake of his head with a small grin on his face. I was confused for a moment but then I realised what Scarlet had done. I turned back in time to see Scarlet vanish round the corner.

...

Oh you’ll figure it out eventually. Scarlet did.

“What are you two waiting for? I need the fucking light!!!” Scarlet bellowed.

“Do you need the map?” Tumbler shouted back.

<---------------------------------------------------->

So, after the civil war that followed that, exchange I was ushered down some steps by Tumbler into a corridor filled with chest high water, carrying nothing but the Pipbuck for light and a sealed box for the talisman. It was hard going; the Pipbuck didn’t illuminate much above the surface of the water, and I had to move slowly, checking the map regularly.

A daunting prospect, but at that stage I was just glad to get away from Scarlet. What was her problem? I could understand a certain amount of suspicion, but her hostile attitude towards Tumbler just made me feel like... like...

I don’t know. It just didn’t make sense to me; he was honest, and there was no reason for him to hurt us.

Thoughts like that chased each other around my head, but were gradually intruded on by another.

I felt great.

The water was freezing cold on my hide, but I felt warm, almost tingly inside. Was this the radiation? Scarlet said radiation didn’t hurt Alicorns, but she never said anything about this!

I dunked my head underwater. It was dark, but surprisingly clear. Nothing grew in it, I guessed. I realised I could finally do something I had needed to do for a while. I started scrubbing with my hooves, but switched to magic when my shoes began chaffing too hard. I kept moving forward, leaving behind a trail of darkened water as the dried blood, dust and other muck washed off.

Goddesses, that was a relief! And the water just felt so good! How was it doing that? But of course I had a way to find out!

I opened us my senses and was suddenly struck with the most profound feeling of @%$(%)#^%$>?:@$%*@#%.

...

No, of course it didn’t make any sense! Do you have any idea what rads are?

...

Well, I don’t exactly know myself. It would take somepony like Twilight Sparkle to put the right words around it, and even then it would be impossible to make sense of. I can only tell it to you as I understand it.

As I told you, everything contains magic; and that magic follows a pattern. Everything has a different pattern, from objects to ponies to spells. Some are simple, some are complex. All are different, but each individual one is structured in some way.

But this magic I felt wasn’t structured. It was just random parts moving endlessly; like a kaleidoscope of random energies. Pure chaos.

It made me sick to my stomach.

The next thing I remembered was opening my eyes underwater and choking on a lung full of liquid. I broke the surface, heaving and gasping. How was I not dead? That sort of magic should just kill everything.

I staggered along the corridor, heading for my goal, trying to put it from my mind but I couldn’t. I had to see it again.

I opened up my senses, slowly easing into feeling the flow of energy around me. It wasn’t so bad once I got used to it. Then I turned my senses on myself.

Now, as I said, I’m only explaining it as I understand it, but what I saw was impossible. Somehow my body took this terrible energy, and just made it into... me. My body was soaking it up like a sponge, making my magic and everything else stronger. It was like watching maggots and ashes turn into apples and water.

Gross, impossible, disturbing.

Me.

For the last few days, I had been working very hard not to ‘freak out’. My drill sergeant always warned it could happen. A new soldier, their first time on the battlefield... A lot of screaming and crying is to be expected.

I had managed to avoid most of that, but not anymore.

I screamed and thrust the water away from me telekinetically until I could hold it at bay as a wall of water surrounding me, but, more importantly, NOT touching me.

Whatthebuckwhatthebuckwhatthebuck!!!!! How do I stop this? Were the Princesses like this? What...

Light.

Were Alicorns some sort of weapon meant for the wasteland? They came from Maripony, where Twilight Sparkle had worked. Were they her fault? Was she an Alicorn somewhere? What if...

There was a light beyond the wall of water.

What if...

Light!

I snapped out of my inner rambling just in time see something that glowed with sickly green light burst through the wall of water towards me and ram into my shoulder.

As the magic holding the water back collapsed, I flailed with my steel shod hooves and managed to strike what felt like a head, tearing it away from me, along with part of my neck. Whatever this thing was, it had sharp teeth.

The water crashed into both of us, rolling me away from the creature, I hoped.

I broke the surface gasping for air. I looked around for the creature but only saw the glow vanish around a distant corner.

Celestia’s beard! What was that!? How bad did it hurt me? I turned my neck, trying to get a look at where it had bitten me, but couldn’t see it.

But I could feel it healing. Yet another exhibition in the freak show of my life.

Part of me wanted to curl up and cry again, but most of me was getting angry. That was good, I could use anger.

Now, where was this overgrown light bulb? I couldn’t see anything beyond the small circle of light generated by the Pipbuck.

I switched off the light and stood, still focusing on every sight and sound I could in the pitch black darkness. Nothing stirred; I felt nothing except the tingle of radiation and chill of the water.

Maybe it had backed off. I shouldn’t worry so much. I flicked the light back on.

An incredible screeching sound echoed down the corridor. It sounded like somepony had been cutting metal with a chainsaw, caught their hoof in it and then kept on sawing.

I flicked the light back on and spun trying to look every direction at once but couldn’t see anything, abruptly the screaming stopped and there was no sound but the sloshing of water.

Buck my life; I had no chance of spotting that thing before it closed with me. A shield would stop it but make it nearly impossible to move through the water. What should I do?

I heard a gentle sloshing sound in the distance; at least I hopped it was distant.

There was only one way to do this; I just really didn’t want to do it.

I opened up my senses and extended then in all directions, trying to ignore the (%$(@%$*&%$@&! of radiation beating on my senses, and looked for anything living.

I didn’t find anything living, but there was something: a large mass of @%(#*^$%*%@!!{ moving right towards me at the other end of the corridor.

I reached out, grabbed it in a levitation field, and pushed it as hard as I could towards the ceiling until I heard bones break, and then dragged it along the ceiling towards me.

I stopped it directly above me and held it there; finally, I could see what I was dealing with.
It was a pony, more or less. Scarlet had told me about ghouls, but she had never mentioned anything like this! It was a stallion, I think, but between losing a lot of skin and all of its hair, it was a bit hard to tell. It glowed a bright green; it was actually emitting radiation! That’s how I had found it, but why didn’t it feel like a living thing?

...

Correct. Ghouls are, technically speaking, not living creatures, but I didn’t know that at the time.

“What are you?” I murmured. Applying as much pressure I could to keep it from moving, I lowered the creature down from the ceiling until it was at eye level. It growled in response, and snapped its teeth trying to bite my nose. I saw, on its chest, one of its ribs sticking out through its skin, oozing some strange fluid.

“Tough sucker. What do you eat down here?” The creature curled its forelegs up in front of it, made a bubbling, hissing sound, and glared at me.

“Can you understand me?” Stupid question, Scarlet had told me once that ghouls who went feral were just animals.

“THHBBBTTTT!!!!” The ghoul stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry at me! I was so shocked I almost dropped it. I had never heard an animal do that; have you?

...

But this was a ghoul! My amazement was only compounded when its broken rib started sliding back inside its chest. The radiation was healing it, just like me.

“Guess we have something in common.” The ghoul continued to glare at me, but now it looked silly rather than threatening.

“I need to get moving. Come along and make yourself useful.” I sloshed my way down the corridor with the ghoul floating behind, bubbling and hissing all the way.

...

Because I needed a better light source! Have you ever tried to extract a water talisman? Depending on how messed up the Stable is, it can be really hard. Thankfully, with Tumbler on the radio talking me through it, and the ghoul for extra light, I managed.

Needless to say, I was feeling pretty good as I trotted back to where I left Scarlet and Tumbler; but then something weird happened. I heard Scarlet and Tumbler arguing...

<---------------------------------------------------->

“So; he doesn’t know about her?” Tumbler’s voice echoed down the staircase. I almost didn’t hear it over the ghoul’s hissing. I stopped dead. Were they talking about me?

“He was the in Royal fucking Guard. How do you think he’d react? Dude’s enough of basket case already. Knowing...” I couldn’t hear what Scarlet said next over the ghoul letting out a loud growl.

“You hear that?” Tumbler said over the sound of pumping his shotgun. I dunked the ghoul under the water to silence it. Buck it all, it was just getting interesting.

“Yeah. Look, just don’t talk about it, or I’ll smash you’re face in, clear?” Scarlet growled back.

“Crystal clear, Shadow Feather.” Shadow Feather? Whatever it meant, it touched a nerve for Scarlet.

THANG! The sound of a pony being tackled into a metal wall was my cue to enter.

“Hey, guys; I’m back!” I shouted us the stairs. I began walking up them with the ghoul floating behind me.

I came upon Scarlet and Tumbler trying very hard to look like they hadn’t just been at each other’s throats. Despite their efforts, I could see Scarlet’s feathers were ruffled, and Tumbler’s security helmet had scratches on the face plate.

“Damn, boy; how many rads did you soak in down there? You’re glowing.” Boy? I’m pretty sure I was chronologically older than Tumbler.

“Oh, it’s not me; it’s this guy I found down there.” I levitated the hissing ghoul past me into their line of vision.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The shots from Scarlets and Tumbler’s shotguns tore the ghoul out of my magic grip hurtling him down the stairs back into the water.

“What did you do that for?” I screamed. They looked at me in shock.

“You had a feral ghoul behind you! A glowing one! Didn’t I tell you how dangerous they were?” Scarlet said as she holstered the double barrel.

“He wasn’t feral! At least not completely! I was using him as a nightlight!” I only realised how stupid my words were when they were out of my mouth.

“Son.” Tumbler said gravely. “Once a ghoul reaches that level of decline, they can only go down, not up. He would have torn your throat out the moment you let down your guard. Let it go.”

“But... he... raspberry.” I stuttered; what had I been thinking anyway? Could I really drag that ghoul around the wasteland with me? Tumbler just stared sadly at me, while Scarlet didn’t look at me at all.

“Stables can drive you nuts if you’re not used to it. Let’s get out of here, and back into the sun.” Tumbler turned away and started walking back towards the exit.

“Yeah! And to our payday! You got the talisman, right?” I gave her a nod. “FUCK yeah!!” She whooped, and then trotted after Tumbler.

“What was I doing?” I murmured. I trotted after them. Maybe the dark and small space was getting to me.

The last thing I heard as we left the stable was a distant bubbling noise that made me smile a little.

<---------------------------------------------------->

So... pet feral ghouls: good idea, or bad idea?

...

Sorry, didn’t smell... See! You back there. I don’t know what I was thinking; why I didn’t just kill the swimming ghoul, other than his use as a light source.

...

No; he was an animal. Tumbler was right; there is no helping a ghoul once they reach that stage. Except for a bullet.

There wasn’t much excitement after that. We left the Stable and discussed where we would sell the water talisman. Scarlet wanted to take it to Tenpony tower because she knew a guy who knew a guy, but Tumbler told us about a new settlement in the wastes, one desperately in need of resources but capable of paying a lot.

They called it Break Pit.

...

No. You wouldn't have heard of it.

Not after we visited.

Level up! Level 5

New Perk: Tough Hide – The brutal experiences of the Equestrian Wasteland have hardened you. You gain +2 to Damage Threshold and 10% resistance to poison.

Quest Perk: New Horse shoes – You have horse shoes nailed to your hooves. It is not clear what this will do to you, but for now you do gain 10% more damage with unarmed attacks.

New Spell: Broken Thorn’s Thunder hoof – Releases a massive shockwave of energy from your hooves when striking. Requires: Horse shoes.
You are no longer covered in blood and have absorbed a moderate amount of radiation.

Author's Note

First up I'd like to thank my new editor Josephdalepony for taking over as editor. Thanks Joe, you've spared everyone the pain of my amateur grammar.

To everyone else please keep commenting, I'm still not sure what's good and what's bad so say what you think.

Happy belated new year.