With a low groan, Kiako opened up his pale blue eyes, brought a naked hand to his face and rubbed out the grit that had accumulated at the corners of his eyes during the night. His side ached from where he had lain on his side, the dusty tiles of the floor no substitute for soft bedding. Body still stiff from the night, he peeled the thin wool blanket off of himself, letting it fall in a crumpled heap beside him.

The man got onto his hands and knees after rolling onto his stomach, slowly getting up off of the floor with as much care as he could. As he stood up, he could feel the uncomfortable dampness of sweat around his neckline, the cloth of his jumpsuit adhering to his skin. With a muted groan he wiggled a finger to peel away the thick mesoprene fabric that, while very helpful for protection, was not the best when it came to leisure wear.

Minor discomfort out of the way, at least for the moment, he began to work out the kinks that had built up in his muscles. The soft rattle of armor could be heard as he twisted and stretched, the result of him loosening the straps of the various bits and pieces of armor that covered his body.

A few minutes later, after a thorough morning stretch, he felt that this was as good as he was going to get. After switching out his socks for a fresher pair from his backpack, he began to tighten his boots that he had left on while he had slept, in the not-improbable event that something were to go bump in the night. He worked his way up from the boots, tightening and buckling down whatever pieces of armor that needed adjustments. As he tightened the last strap over his breastplate, he took a moment to actually look around the room.

The area he was in was one large, rectangular area that sported a long window that faced out into a street, the window only being interrupted by a pair of glass doors that allowed entrance from said street. Both the windows and the doors had long since lost their glass, and only a few jagged shards remained in their frames.

In front of him was a waist-high counter, its battered wooden surface marred with crude graffiti and illegible writing, the content of the former more often than not depicting scenes that he found to be wholly inappropriate. Good thing no kids were around, although in this day and age they had most likely seen worse, or even experienced it.

Other than the counter however, the room was very bare, and the only other bits of furniture that he could see had long been smashed into fragments onto the checkerboard tiled floor. The only other entryways in the room were a pair of doors on one side of the room, and were most likely restrooms.

Behind him was a wall that sported several doorways leading off to areas he couldn’t see from where he was standing, but he imagined that they led to employee areas, which were most likely as trashed as the rest of the place. Time, and people, had not been kind to this place, although the fact that the doors and the counter were smaller than they should have been was a strange matter indeed.

He looked over toward his strange companion, who was currently nestled in a corner on the opposite side of the room from him where the counter and wall connected, the soft rise and fall of its furry hide showing that it was still asleep. Truthfully, he was having a bit of difficulty accepting the creature as a she, due to the fact that while it may have been able to communicate, there was a language barrier that significantly hindered the transfer of ideas and feelings that occurred everyday between two people.

As the equine-like creature shuffled in its sleep, a splash of color made itself known and the man found his eyes drawn to the quadruped’s well-toned flank. With the detachment of a person studying a picture, Kiako found himself musing over the image that adorned the creature’s hide. Whether it was paint or some sort of dye he did not know, but the image was very clear in the gradually brightening morning light; sections of the equinoid’s coat had been colored to show a cluster of multi-colored polygons forming a small mound that was topped with a shovel or a spade.

With a shuddering and very feminine sounding yawn, the object of his attentions began to wake up, slowly stretching out its limbs in a dog-like fashion. Whatever the image on the equinoid’s flank meant, he would find out later. For now the man averted his prying eyes from his slowly awakening companion. Nobody liked being stared at while they were asleep, and sharing the same courtesy with his companion was only polite.

*** *** ***

Letting out a shuddering yawn, Finders Keepers found herself glad that summer still had a few weeks to go before the seasons changed. With no blanket to get in the way she was free to bask in the morning light of the sun for as long as she wanted. Determined to make the most of the pleasant feeling against her coat, she lazily stretched her limbs in opposite directions, a dumb grin settling on her muzzle as she felt the stiffness in her legs give way to a series of soft pops and cracks that made her grin even wider.

“This is nice,” she whinnied softly to herself . “Free to wake up whenever I damn well please and with no old nags to wake yell at me to get up... mmmm.”

As she slowly began to open her eyes to the slightly mesmerizing sight of dust motes floating in rays of morning light, she felt something tugging at the back of her mind, as if there was something she had forgotten. Taking a few moment to rid her eyes of the morning bleariness that clouded them, she lazily slid her head along the dusty floor to get her bearings. The nagging sensation soon made itself clear: she wasn’t alone.

Sitting against a teller counter toward the opposite end of the large room was the semi-familiar figure belonging to the creature she had met the previous evening, its body still covered in the frankly uncomfortable-looking barding and armor. The creature in question was currently drinking from the rim of a metal can, the ribbed metal showing between the multi-jointed digits of its pale paws. Finders Keepers couldn’t help but shudder at the sight of the spindly digits, as they reminded her vaguely of the limbs on a spider. Spiders crawling through one’s mane was enough to put them off creepy-crawlies forever.

Letting out another shudder, she sought to take her mind off of the creature by looking around the place that they had both bedded down for the night at. Truth be told, she didn’t exactly know where she was, she had just picked the most intact looking building she could find in the waning light. Now that it was morning and she could see better, she saw that it looked like they were both inside one of the many banks that dotted the Equestrian Wasteland before it had become a wasteland.

Getting unsteadily up onto her hooves, she stretched her forelegs out before her, arching her back for a bit until she felt some of the tension draining away. She had used to think that morning stretches were only for old nags and those with joint problems. Ironically, it had taken a leg cramp while running from a swarm of radroaches to disabuse her of that foalish notion, and now she started off every morning with a good stretch before breakfast. Speaking of which...

Ignoring the rumbling coming from her belly, she took a final moment to stretch her hind legs out behind her before running a hoof through her auburn mane to rid it of any dust that had collected in it, only then turning toward her saddlebags that sat in a clump against the counter. She bent her head down to the leather bags to work the metal clasp open with her teeth before nosing open the flap of the saddlebag that, in her mind, had been dubbed as “the feedbag” due to the fact that she always kept food and other consumables within it. Hoofing through her belongings, she eventually decided that strange days called for light breakfasts, which in this case consisted of a daisy sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

The tearing sound of paper wasn't heard long after.

*** *** ***

Hunger abated for the moment, Finders Keepers set her hooves onto the teller counter, watching the still streets through the window, her ears pinned back in mild annoyance. Eyeing a small pile of bricks on the steps of a building across the street, she found herself mulling over some of the problems that had cropped up recently.

One of these problems was the most obvious one: the creature. While she would be the first to admit that she was no saint, she still felt uncomfortable leaving her strange new companion alone. Not only was it - she had trouble thinking of it as a he or him, even though she was confident as to what its gender was - strange looking, but it also didn’t seem to understand a single word she said. Ultimately she may not have been a saint but, when it came to keeping a watchful eye on the creature, there were certainly worse options out there.

Her second problem was of a more practical and immediate nature: she was essentially unarmed, as her main way of defending herself was, for whatever reason, unavailable. It was fortunate for her that, at the time when it mattered most, the biped's weapon also proved inoperable. Unfortunately, now that the brief moment of being at each other’s throats was over, neither of them appeared to have a working gun available.

She let her forehooves back down on the floor, a snort of mild annoyance coming from her nostrils as she knelt down to draw the jawgun from her barding’s holster, before setting it atop the counter for her inspection. The magazine fed, semi-automatic pistol had originally been a gift from her father back when she had first showed interest in exploring the world beyond her home.

That was over five years ago. Since then the weapon had become worn with use; small, thin scabs of rust had started to appear along the main body, and the wood of the mouth-grip showed where her teeth had created grooves from biting down into the surface. Still, up until now the weapon had been absolutely stellar when it came to doing what it was designed to, being able to hold nine .38 caliber rounds in the magazine plus an extra round in the chamber. It just had to be said: when Ironshod Firearms made guns, they made them to last.

“‘How do you like them apples?’” she muttered quietly, quoting the motto of the long defunct company that had produced so many of Equestria’s weapons, before the end came. Still, as rugged as her IF-14 was, something was undoubtedly wrong with it and not even nostalgia would stop her from replacing it if she had to.

Her ears perked up at the sound of boots walking away from her, and she turned her head to see that her companion was approaching the opposite corner of the room in relation to her before placing the tin can it had been eating out of onto the floor. What came next, after a few moments of fumbling with its barding, was the sight of pale stream of fluid flowing into the metal can.

“Ugh... males,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes. At least it had the decency to turn its back.

*** *** ***

The sun had risen higher in the morning sky by the time the duo came through the steel door frames and out onto the street, the sound of glass cracking beneath hooves and boots sending the pair cringing as a soft echo was heard. From then on they were more careful where they stepped, taking a few extra moments to be sure that they wouldn’t attract undue attention to themselves. Several dilapidated passenger carriages sat on the cobblestone street that ran through the area, their steel bodies covered in thick scabs of rust that had weakened the surface enough for rays of light to shine through in certain spots.

Finders Keepers, now once more weighed down by her belongings, paid the rusted hulks of the past no mind as she began to trot down the street, the soft clip-clop of her hooves making her ears twitch with every step. The buildings opposite of the bank that she had just exited were a mixture of squat, two-story buildings that looked as though they may have been apartments.

Well, maybe once, she thought to herself as her eyes noticed the numerous shapes of loose brick and rotted, sagging rooves that capped the buildings. If she recalled correctly, the shit-hole town she was standing in the middle of had been called Haybale, due to its main export. Stopping for a moment to look around, she figured that not a lot of farming had been done here for a long while. Certainly no signs of long term habitation, save for the litter and trash that had collected in the streets and sidewalks, most likely the doings of scavengers like herself.

A small smile lit up her muzzle as she thought about the things that others had most likely overlooked. It never ceased to amaze her when she combed areas that had been looted and ransacked many times over, and yet still managed to find a few things that had been missed. Finders keepers, losers weepers, she mentally intoned, snorting in amusement at the fact that her birth name had something to do with her cutie-mark.

She glanced over her withers to see how her companion was doing, and saw it crouched in front of one of the rusty carriages, seemingly deep in examination. With a roll of her eyes she turned her body around and trotted back over.

“What’s so interesting about a broken carriage?” she asked, aware that what she said would probably not be understood anyway. The crouching biped ignored her a moment before turning over to her, its face a textbook example of solemness.

Its pale lips parted as it softly spoke a few words, all of it gibberish to her ears. It stared at her for a moment before repeating what it had said, this time in a slower, more patronizing tone that caused her ears to lay back flat in anger.

“Look here asshole!” she neighed, causing the biped to draw back slightly in surprise. “You don’t have to come with me if you’re gonna be prick, and if you’re gonna treat me like a foal then get a new babysitter because I’m really not in the mood to be talked down to by some... some... thing!” She emphasized the final word by poking the creature in the stomach, drawing another look of surprise.

The biped was quick to raise its arms in a placating gesture, the flat of its paws facing her as it made short series of guttural sounds to show its submission to her. She stared at it for a moment longer, ears still laid back in anger, before turning away from him.

If it still wants to follow me, than it better behave from now on, she thought, her jaw clenched as she trotted down the street.

*** *** ***

Kiako Lalene blinked for a moment, the oddity of what had just happened still at the forefront of his mind. That equinoid had neighed at him, a very equine-like trait that he hadn’t seen before in the extremely short time he had known said creature. Even more upsetting was the fact that he had given in so easily! He had stared down far more intimidating things than this uppity, waist high carrot chomper! Chupacabras and creepers could easily make a meal out of something so tiny!

Teeth grinding in frustration at himself for giving in so easily, he set a hand against the rusty carriage that he had been examining -currently forgotten- to steady himself as he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Breathe in... breathe out... breathe in... He continued the mantra, closing his eyes as his trembling of anger slowly receded from his body. After another minute of this, he finally felt himself stable enough to continue travelling without anger clouding his judgement. When he finally opened his eyes he saw that the pony had continued walking and had left him behind.

“Shit,” he murmured, taking his gloved hand off of the rusty carriage. Whatever it was that had bothered him, it was forgotten in the rush to catch up.

*** *** ***

Finders Keepers’ ears twitched as they registered the sound of approaching footsteps behind her. She decided to let her “companion” catch up, her metal shod hooves stopping in place as she waited. While the biped may have had half as many legs as she did, its legs were longer.

“You gonna behave yourself?” she asked, craning her head up to look at the biped. Instead of replying like a polite pony would do, the tall creature instead made a simple gesture with its paw. “Move on” seemed to be what it was getting at. She let out a snort of annoyance at that. “Whatever. Let’s go loot that building over there.”

“That building over there” in question was an exact -although worn- copy of the buildings flanking it: a dirty, two-story cube made up of brick and mortar with no adorning features. The few windows that she could see were small, barely large enough for a full-grown pony to fit through; in truth they were more like firing slits than true windows. The roof wasn’t much better either, with its rotten asphalt shingles, and the upper levels of the building were most likely a breeding ground for mold and other disgusting things.

Looking at the direction of her pointing hoof, her companion seemed to agree with her sentiment, its guttural mutterings taking on a contemptuous tone that were thankfully not directed at her. Without a word she began trotting up to the building entryway, the pitch of her hoof-falls changing subtly as the ground changed from cobblestone to cracked cement sidewalk. She entered the building easily, the door not being a problem at all due to its conspicuous absence. Despite the lack of windows, the morning sun at her back was low enough in the sky to shine enough light through the open doorway and into the entry hall, although the shadowy silhouette her body cast was a bit creepy.

The hallway, like everything else it seemed, was not doing so well when it came to home decoration, what with all the trash and graffiti that littered the area. On the right side of the hallway there was a staircase that lead up to the second floor, the long railing of the bannister leaning precariously over the floor. The left side of the hall continued deeper into the building, numbered doors set into the walls at certain intervals.

Another shadow sidled up alongside her own, announcing the presence of her tall, two-legged companion. Gesturing with a hoof towards the nearest doorway, she indicated that she was going to head inside. Before she had taken two steps the biped had already passed her, the snub-nosed revolver it held in its paw pointed safely toward the ceiling as it glanced through the doorframe. After a moment it turned to face her, dipping its head in a nod.

“Show off,” she groused, trotting over to the doorway. “So what if you fixed your gun or whatever?” She wasn’t sure if the biped had actually fixed whatever was wrong with its weapon, but she didn’t see why it would bother, especially since her own pistol was still broken.

Stepping from out of the hallway and into the apartment, the first thing Finders Keepers noticed was the unmistakable tickling sensation within her nostrils. Looking about the room, she could see why: dust was everywhere! From the cheap hardwood flooring to the mildew-covered upholstery, dust had forged an empire that had ruthlessly smothered any available surface. The era of Equestria had long since ended, and from its debris a new one would arise.

With a loud and sudden sneeze, all of her melodramatic thoughts left her mind, along with some mucus that sprayed across the room. Sniffling noisily as she wiped her muzzle with the back of her hoof, she blinked several times to clear her vision. With the self-caused panic gone from her mind, she realized that the room wasn’t as dusty as she had first thought in her irrational panic.

While the room had certainly deteriorated over the many years it had probably been much nicer than in the crowded space that she had grown up in, although the fact that this room had only one tiny window to let light in was a big detractor. Still, the room had basic furnishings such as several bookcases that lined the wall beneath the window, though their shelves were beginning to sag beneath heavily damaged books. Besides the bookcases, the room had a pair of flower-patterned couches facing each other from across a relatively intact coffee table. In the left-hoof corner of the room was a sturdy looking worktable, its wooden frame supporting the bulky, box-like shape of a defunct terminal, its monitor a spider-web of cracks.

As for the rest of the room, everything else was either smashed or simply not there, probably taken by scavengers like herself. Finders Keepers didn’t see much that she could salvage from the room, save for possibly breaking the terminal open for parts or looking under the couch cushions for bits. She most likely wouldn’t have to resort to those options, as there were several doorways leading to rooms that she had yet to explore.

Leaving her companion to do... whatever it did, she circled around one of the couches, giving the bookcases only a passing glance as she made her way to the opposite side of the room, where she found a small kitchen on the other side of a doorway. Taking a step inside to look around, her hoof slid suddenly slipped out from under her in a terrifying loss of control and it was only due to the furious scrabbling of her hooves to find purchase on the floor that she avoided an embarrassing fall.

Pulse still pounding, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, she tilted one ear back to listen for any laughter and was thankful when she heard none. A quick glance behind her and she was glad to see the tall biped seemingly deep in thought while it stood over the broken terminal. Thank the Princesses for small favors, she thought, raising her eyes toward the water-damaged ceiling.

Taking another moment to compose herself and taking a deep breath, she looked down to the floor to see what had caused her near-fall, noticing an obvious streak from where her hoof had slipped through a thin film of dust that seemed to be prevalent wherever she went.

“I swear,” she muttered, raising her head up to the ceiling, "dust is gonna be the end of me, one way or another.” With a resigned sigh escaping her muzzle, she took another step forward, this time much more carefully.

Getting a better look at the kitchen she saw that, like most long abandoned areas, it had been ransacked repeatedly. Over the years, the faded cardboard boxes of Sugar Apple Bombs and other food packaging littered the floor in front of a rust streaked refrigerator, though why somepony would keep cereal in there was beyond her. Crossing the refrigerator off as a no-go in her list of spots to scavenge, she looked over to the counter that lined the wall under the kitchen's only window, which was the same as the one in the previous room.

Trotting up to the counter, she reared up onto her hind legs and set her forehooves atop the counter, taking a moment to stretch her neck in order to see out of the broken window. The view was less than spectacular, with the only sight being the brick wall of another apartment complex across from her, the alley that ran between the two buildings cluttered with trash and debris. Taking her gaze away from the sight outside, she looked along the line of cupboards that hung above the counter, the rusted shapes of pots and pans hanging from the wall.

Starting to think I should write off this entire town, she brooded, annoyed at the lack of good salvage. Taking her hooves off the counter and dropping back onto all fours, she started rummaging through the drawers, idly wondering to herself why anypony would want to take only the spoons.

It only took her a few minutes to exhaust the amount of things she could pull open and look inside of, and by that time the floor was strewn with various pieces of useless silverware and the other odds and ends that were kept in kitchen drawers. The only place that she had yet to check were the cupboards themselves.

Bracing herself up against the counter, she systematically began to go through each cupboard in hopes of finding something useful, such as a fine tea set that would probably break in her saddlebags, or possibly a can of ground coffee. Though she knew that the chance of finding anything of high value in a kitchen cupboard was hardly likely, stranger things had happened, among them being the sudden occurrence of drinking water that was no longer contaminated by magical radiation, or the fact that one of the Ministry Mares was somehow alive and now leading an ironically named group called the Followers of the Apocalypse.

Despite the name, the Followers were good ponies who espoused the virtue of their leader. Wondering how the meeting for deciding upon a group name went about, she let out a small chuckle, only for it to die in her throat as she opened the last cupboard door.

Partially hidden behind a stack of plates was the macabre sight of a tiny skeleton, its empty sockets staring right into her as its skull was set into a permanent, leering grin, as though it were playing a sick game of hide-and-go-peek and had just been found. Atop its head was a raised nub where a spiralled horn should have been.

At the sight of the long-deceased foal, she couldn’t help but let out a weary, drawn out sigh. Things like this were nothing new to her; she supposed that, perhaps, she had become accustomed to such morbid sights. Still, when those same morbid sights happened to include fillies and colts, she couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow different from the same sights that included deceased stallions or mares.

Finders Keepers couldn’t help but feel her heart sink as her mind conjured up the image of a lone filly trudging down the street, emaciated body protected by a layer of fur matted down from a constant downpour of rain that battered mercilessly against her. Perhaps, seeking shelter in an alleyway, she had noticed a broken window leading into a drier area and, deciding that being inside was far more preferable to being outside, had crawled inside only to find a kitchen that was as empty as her stomach. With life beating the poor filly down once more, Finders Keepers couldn’t help but imagine the filly giving off a final sigh of resignation before crawling into the dry confines of a cupboard to close her eyes one final time.

Finders Keepers had to take her eyes away from the cupboard, the water forming at the corner of her eyes having already dampened her cheeks. Once again she was reminded of one of the differences between herself and other scavengers: she didn’t share that complete detachment that was prevalent amongst those who made their livelihood combing the ruins of the past. The reasoning for that detachment, as she’d found out the hard way, was simple: a pony’s mind, when seeing something unpleasant but not knowing the story behind, will try to create one, often times creating an exaggerated and often darker tale of what may have happened.

She took a moment to recompose herself, fighting the urge to wipe away the tears with a - probably - dusty hoof and instead blinking the moisture away until the world around her was no longer a blur.

Turning her head back to the cupboard, she reached forward with a hoof, clearing away some of the plates that obscured the skeletal body of the foal. As the stack of plates slid away to reveal the fully exposed skeleton, her eyes immediately locked onto the tan colored disk hidden within the rib cage. Seconds later, her ears perked up to the noise of a sudden beeping that sounded in time with the flickering orange light located on the disk.

With a savage shove she launched her body away from the counter edge, the sound of metal ponyshoes crashing to the floor. With a single pent-up breath, she screamed.

“Boobytrap!”

*** *** ***

Kiako Lalene felt his eyebrows go straight up as he bore witness to one of the greatest sneezes he had ever seen, his eyes picking up the dampness of mucus against the far brick wall. Great, he thought to himself, not only does my companion just so happen to have four legs, it also has some of the worst allergies anyone has ever heard of. He couldn’t help but shake his head at the strangeness of his situation.

Letting the equinoid take a moment to recover, he glanced around the frankly boring looking room, the only things besides furniture being several dust-covered paintings or pictures hanging from some of the walls. Peeking his head around the corner, one thing did catch his attention: some odd-looking computer equipment in the left-hand side of the room, sitting by itself in the corner. By then the equinoid had recovered enough to start walking into the room, an air of caution seemingly about it. That was fine, he knew where he was going.

Ducking his head beneath the doorframe, he made a note to piss on the grave of whoever the building’s architect might have been. Revolver still in hand, he made his way over to the improperly sized worktable, finding himself staring down at what rested atop its surface.

The dust-covered computer - if it could be called that - consisted of a simple keyboard interface and a cracked monitor, the latter of which had a plastic frame along the top and sides, most likely for privacy. A quick inspection behind the computer showed no evidence of cables leading to a wall socket, for there wasn’t one.

No other bits of hardware, Kiako observed, absent-mindedly running a finger across the top of the computer hood. Might explain why this thing looks like it could cause an earthquake if it fell off the table; all the hardware in a single unit.

Returning back to the front of the computer, he set down his revolver on the corner of the table, making sure it was within arm’s reach while he began dusting off the computer, his hands running over its surfaces. A few moments later fanning the resulting cloud of dust way, and the computer was more or less viewable again. What was uncovered was... different, to say the least.

Rather than the usual smooth black or white casings that he was familiar with, the plastic of the computer in front of him was a sandy tan color, its plastic surface having a slight texture to it. The screen was different as well, though not because it was cracked; most computer monitors had some form of damage done to them. No, what was different was that rather than the deep black of an LCD screen, the monitor in front of him was a slightly curved pane of glass, its monochrome surface a dull grey.

Like everything else, the keyboard was different as well, but this time in a more worrying manner. Made up of the same sandy tan plastic as the rest of the computer, the keys of the keyboard seemed far larger than necessary, and were more tightly packed together with not a single centimeter of wasted space. The characters on the surface of the keyboard were also a mystery to him, not being either English, Spanish, or any other language he was vaguely familiar with. In fact, the “letters” on the keyboard struck a sudden chord, and his eyes widened with the jarring realization that some of the characters on the keyboard looked exactly like the ones that he had seen in graffiti at the bank.

Taking several hesitant steps back from the computer, he brought his hands up to his face as he let out a soft moan of both frustration and confusion at the correlation his mind had created. The mysteries kept piling on and on, with the first being his sudden appearance in the quarry, the second being the strange equine-like animal that he grudgingly followed in the slowly fading hope of making it back to someplace familiar. With this latest mystery tacked onto the other two, he was beginning to feel as he did when he first started out on his own, after learning all he could from the people of Zanesville: isolated, ignorant, and surprisingly... a bit fearful.

Kiako sent one of the worktable drawers flying across the room, a string of dust trailing behind it as it knocked down a painting, leaving a large scuff mark against the aged brick of the wall. Before he could grab the broken computer and vent his frustration even further, the feminine shout of his companion met his ears, and by the time it ended he was already halfway across the room, hopping over one of the couches as he came to his companion’s aid.

He barely had time for his boots to hit the wooden flooring when his companion slid into view, its hooves sliding through the dust-layered floor of what looked like a kitchen. Before he could get a good look at what was even going on, he was bowled over by the surprising strength of the equinoid, sending him tumbling into the kitchen in a heap.

Laying on his back in a daze, his head pointed toward the living room through the doorway, he caught glimpse of an auburn tail disappearing behind a couch... and in turn giving an unobscured view of the worktable, where he could see the end of his pistol's oaken handle, protruding off of the edge.

He didn’t even have time to curse before the room was consumed in a deafening roar of fire and debris.

*** *** ***

With a low, drawn-out groan, Finders Keepers awoke to an uncomfortable, slightly painful throbbing throughout her body. As she tried to move, she could feel something hard and jagged digging into her ribs through her leather barding, every movement being a struggle. There was something pinning her down to the floor, and when she finally opened her eyes, they met only darkness.

Panic beginning to set in, she started to thrash against whatever pinned her down and hindered her movements. With every shallow breath she took, she could taste more and more dust entering her mouth, and her frantic efforts reached a crescendo when a sudden stab of agony shot up her left foreleg, eliciting a muffled scream from her muzzle, and all she wanted was to be free.

As if in answer to her prayers, a blinding stream of light hit her face as some of the rubble that sat atop of her shifted, just enough to let her screams be carry out farther than they could before. Her anguished wails did stop, however, and eventually quieted down into a muted whimpering as the pain in her foreleg lost its sudden novelty. Dust-covered lips trembling in pain, she blinked her eyes to adjust to the light.

She was in the living room from earlier, though the term would probably no longer apply. The room was beyond wrecked, with masonry and debris scattered across the area, with the few pieces of furniture that were in the room in the first place being either destroyed in the blast, or rendered unusable. Amazingly, several of the picture frames were still hanging from the walls. Her ears twitched toward the telltale clattering of bricks smashing against the sidewalk outside, and although she couldn’t move her head due to being pinned, she could still move her eyes enough to see that that was exactly what was happened. In fact, thanks to the blast, she now had a nice view of the street -and the ugly apartment buildings on the other side of it- so it could be said that the blast wasn’t all bad.

Her snort of laughter quickly turned into a harsh cough, as her body spasmed painfully beneath the rubble, which seemed to bear down onto her more and more with every movement she made, no matter how small. She couldn’t even move her legs now, not that she would dare do so anyway, what with the state one of them was already in.

Eyeballs straining in their sockets, she tried to see what position the sun was in, but was unable to see outside far enough to get a good look at the sky. By her guess, it may have been noon, perhaps a bit earlier. Unfortunately, she had no way to tell, and she had never gotten into the habit of wearing a watch, not that she would have been able to see it, anyway.

Giving her eyes a moment of rest, she closed her lids and let her ears strain a bit instead, letting them twist and turn in multiple directions as she listened hard for any sign of life, such as her bipedal companion, or a group of handsome stallions to rescue her from peril. After listening for a few minutes, her ears did in fact pick up a sound besides the occasional sound of a dropping brick, or the sound of her own beating heart. As she her ears focused toward the sound, she could hear the muted voice of several ponies talking over the backdrop of hooves hitting stone. Whoever they were, they were getting closer.

Licking her dry lips, and by extension the dust that covered them, she readied herself to cry out for help, but the only thing that came out of her throat was a ragged croak that would make even a toad jealous. Coughing on some of the dust in the air that had yet to fully settle, she tried again, this time succeeding in a still ragged, but passable, cry for help. “He-hey! Help!”

Her ears registered the sudden stop of hooves clacking against stone, and she could hear the muted voices take on a sudden intensity of conversation before it quickly died down, and a few moments later the sound of hoofsteps picked up again, this time sounding much more rapid, as though whoever the they belonged to were hurrying to her aid.

“Thank you,” she murmured, offering up a silent prayer up to the Princesses that watched over Equestria. The pain in her foreleg still throbbing, she waited patiently for her rescuers to come to her aid, hoping that they would have a doctor with them. She didn’t have long to wait, fortunately, as she heard their hoofsteps get closer and closer.

“Well lookie he'a! We got ou’selves ah new fuck toy und’uh this pile!” a heavily accented, feminine voice screeched from behind her, causing her heart to skip a beat as her body instinctively tried to jerk from beneath the rubble.

“Wh-what?!” Finders Keepers asked, her voice tinged with fear and confusion. Stuck under a pile and unable to move or escape, she fervently hoped that she had misunderstood what she had thought to have heard.

That hope of a misunderstanding died the moment the owners of the approaching hoofbeats made themselves visible; a variety of dirty and disheveled ponies, all sporting grotesque trophies from their barding. As one, the group of earth-ponies and unicorns let out whoops and cheer as they saw her.

Finders Keepers’ eyes widened in terror, and they began to frantically search the room she was in before moving to massive hole that had once been a tiny window, and through there the street for any sign of help. Oh goddesses, oh goddesses, no! she mentally screamed as she soon came to the realization that, besides herself and the other ponies, there was nopony else around to hear save her from what she had once thought to be rescuers.

She felt the rubble on her shift slightly as it took more weight, and before she could let out a sound of protest she felt something solid connect to the back of her head, pushing her chin painfully into the floor. A pair of forelegs appeared in front of her, and after a moment she was muzzle to muzzle with the owner of those legs, who was currently looking between them at her with an upside-down grin. Inches from Finders Keepers’ eye was a boney protrusion.

“Yuh an Ah are ‘bout t’ get t’ know eachotha’ reeeal well,” the unicorn mare said in the same jeering voice, the thick, ropey scars lining her face seeming to match her coat color. Finders Keepers could only stare in horror at the implications she was being met with, and she felt her body grow colder as the lime-green unicorn called out to her cohorts. “Get in line, we ‘bout t’ have some ent’ainment!”

“Please! Don’t!” Finders Keepers pleaded, her eyes welling up with moisture as five ponies entered the room through the large hole in the wall, beginning to form a line in front of her while the rest hung back. A cobalt stallion that was loaded down with jewelry seemed to give her a sympathetic look, before trundling off to join those who were in the process of looting the already ravaged room. Her panicked attempts to struggle free were only met with cackling laughter and jeers

“Got us’elves a lively one here!”

“What does she think she is, an inchworm?”

“Quit yuh gabbin’! I got an itch tha’ needs scratchin’ an’ yuh bonzos are ruinin’ th’ moment!” cried out the disgusting unicorn mare, putting a stop to the laugher of the group. The mare looked back to her victim, “Now, whea’ were we?”

The unicorn mare positioned herself so that her entire body was in Finders Keepers view, revealing the slightly emaciated and filthy form of her tormentor. The mare leaned in, close enough for Finders Keepers to gag at the smell of the mare’s foetid breath, which seemed to elicit a laugh from said mare.

“Aww, po’ filly don’ like mah breath?” the mare cackled, running a sickly grey tongue along her lips. “Gonna get whole lot worse by tha’ th’ time thi... huh?”

Finders Keepers was too busy cringing at the thinly veiled promise that had been given, her ears pointed rigidly in fear. The terrible mare in front of her seemed to have heard something that Finders Keepers hadn’t, and began to look about the room in confusion. The other ponies in the room picked up on this, and they too began to look about the room, the soft sound of muted and cautious conversation starting to crop up among the unicorn mare’s followers. While Finders Keepers may have been unable to move her head, she could still see ponies entering and leaving her cone of vision as they began sifting through piles of rubble.

After a few more moments of looking about the room, the unicorn magically levitated a rusty revolver out of nearby stallion’s holster, encompassing it in a glow that matched her yellowed eyes. As an almost singular entity the other ponies levitated or drew their weapons, which mostly consisted of battered pistols and several shotguns.

“We ain’ alone he’ah,” the unicorn ring-leader stated plainly to her followers, and swung the revolver in her telekinetic grip over to Finders Keepers’ forehead. “Who else is wi’ yuh?” Finders Keepers’ eyes widened in renewed fear, and she began to stammer out a stream of nonsensical words before the hard metal of the revolver smacked across her muzzle painfully.

Spots swimming before her vision and the sensation of blood pooling in her nostrils, Finders Keepers’ unfocused eyes picked up the matte black finish of an object slowly making its way across the floor, until it slid out of her view. A flash of yellow flashed across her vision as the revolver once more connected with her already bruised muzzle, and she couldn’t help but let out a pained whinny.

“Ans’uh me!” the unicorn commanded, spittle flying from her mouth and cross Finders Keepers’ face. When no immediate answer besides a whimper, the glowing revolver lifted in the air once more for another pass at the downed mare, only for the blow to never arrive as the sound of crashing glass pierced the air.

“Knock it off yuh moron, that was jus’ uh pictua’ frame fallin’!” a male voice chastised somepony else, although Finders Keepers’ couldn’t be sure who due to waiting for the third blow, a blow that would never come. As though a pegasus had bucked a storm cloud, the air was pierced with the sound of a single, deafening crack, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Before Finders Keepers’ ears could pin themselves down to the sides of her head the room was engulfed in a cacophony of thunder and violence that was soon joined with screams of pain.

Finders Keepers kept her eyes shut, the noise in the room fading into a piercing ringing as her sensitive ears couldn’t take the decibel onslaught. Everything in the past several minutes lay forgotten in her mind as she fervently prayed for somepony to make everything stop, and stop it did as darkness gradually clouded over her mind.

Author's Note

Special thanks for this chapter goes to Adam Novagen, my friend and author. I think I pissed him off trying to get him away from his game, but I was being the damsel in distress and needed his help.

I'd like to apologize for the long wait. Hopefully future chapters will be faster, and yes, there WILL be future chapters.