The Simple Life.

Writer’s notes: First things first, This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria) if you have not read the work in its entirety what are you doing reading this swill? Go read it. Now. Here is the link. (not required, but very strongly recommend)
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html
I’ll wait.
*5 days later*
Done? Good, you may continue.

Second, I use a unit of measurement called a hoof (I was originally going to use feet but it struck me as out of place). A hoof is equal to six inches.

Third, I know I use some inaccuracies on equine anatomy (such as Flank as rump instead of side). I do this because the term has been defined for this universe and that trumps our definition in this case.

Finally I also use inaccuracies on guns, explosives and such, this is based on the main characters skills, if they don’t know the correct word it won’t be used. (I only mention this because it seemed to bother some folk in the other chat rooms)

P.S. I know this section is a bit awkward and I apologize for that. It will not appear in any future chapters if all gos well, but I felt it necessary to get this out of the way.

Introduction

War.  War never changes.  For a thousand years Equestria remained in a state of blissful stagnancy.  That was until a single spark set the world ablaze.  War was reborn.  Raging for decades, the ruinous flames engulfed cities, nations and ponies’ very souls.  Finally, in the blink of an eye, the maelstrom ended in a wave of balefire and silence fell across the remaining cinders...

    ...But this was not the end, as many had predicted.  Pockets of life remained in underground shelters known as Stables and similar installations.  These ponies slowly emerged into the wasteland unprepared for the savage life that would face them.  With limited resources, conflicting ideologies and the wasteland itself seeming to conspire against them, ponies descended upon one-another, destroying any shred of innocence that may have survived in the equine heart...

    ...In the frozen north of The Canterlot Mountains sits a small settlement.  Shetland, frozen in time and untouched by the Apocalypse.  Shetland, the only island of life in a endless ocean of radioactive death.  This is your home.  This is your life.  This is your world.

Chapter One: The Simple Life

               Life in Shetland was safe.  Life in Shetland was reliable.  Life in Shetland was… like watching paint dry.  An idyllic little town of 250 ponies nestled in a mountain valley, north of Canterlot.  Shetland had been fortunate to have been designed by Stable-Tec, saving it from the horrors of the apocalypse.

               My MoM mandated alarm clock woke me a bit before sunrise with a nasally party horn and a blast of illusionary confetti.  I was in my same little, brown room, wallpapered with advertisements for various inconsequential products, wood burnings I had made with the store’s pester beam and posters of a quite attractive, white, unicorn mare with a purple mane; a pre-war singer I liked.  I lit my horn to push back the pre-dawn gloom and pulled on the same green vest with the same ‘Hello, my name is Ochre Bullion’ pin.  I always wondered why the only Shetland General Store employee would need a name tag, but those were the rules.  I plopped myself down in front of the same mirror and stared into the same, half-mast gold eyes as I absent mindedly made my short, black mane slightly more presentable than bed head.  With a long yawn I trudged my way down stairs.  I took my place behind the counter just in time to see the sun peek over the mountains.

               The shop was packed to the brim with little bits of everything from farming tools to sacks of flowers.  The walls were lined with shelves well up into the rafters; this would have been an utterly daft design choice if the town wasn’t populated solely by unicorns.  There was even a sparkle-cola machine, complete with a life sized, promotional stand up of their spokes mare; a lovely, yellow pegasus with a flowing pink mane, holding a bottle with a look of near ecstasy.  I stood next to my cardboard companion, behind a compulsively shined, oak counter adorned only with a, slightly dented, stainless steel cash register and a completely superfluous bell.  Under the counter was a low powered beam pistol, called a pester beam.  Only capable of rising welts or minor burns at worst.  It had come in handy a few times in getting some foals to rethink using my store to get a larceny cutie mark.

               The day’s affairs went by without incident.  Ponies came in; picked up various sundries, shared snippets of gossip that everypony had known for weeks and made transparently insincere attempts at small talk.

My days were so predictable that at one point I had everypony’s orders pre-bagged and priced for the week.  That didn’t go over well with Mayor Goldlight, as she apparently felt I was being ‘presumptuous and condescending’.  Fortunately the mayor’s aid, Keystone, a quiet, tawny buck and one of my best friends, had managed to smooth things over for me.  I never had the arrogance to try to make things more efficient, or *gasp* different again, at least not publicly.

               You see, Shetland was obsessed with tradition to an unhealthy degree.  We always celebrated winter wrap up, even though it is always winter up here.  We had a summer sun celebration, even though we had no Celestia.  The world was devastated by war, but the only mention it ever got was that ‘it happened’.  I was not the most popular pony around, as I was of the opinion that we had gone beyond traditional.  We were stagnant and stagnancy kills.

***        ***        ***

               My last customer of the day, a fairly attractive orange mare named Spring Fresh, picked up a half dozen bottles of apple preserves and her daily Sparkle-Cola.  She was half way out the door when I noticed that her saddle bags were missing.

               “Spring, excuse me, but I think you misplaced your bags around here somewhere.”  I said as I began to scan the store.

               “What are you talking about?”  She replied with a bit of snark in her voice.

               “Huh?”  I said as I looked up, lo and behold, there they were, bright blue with an embroidered trio of red flowers, matching her cutie mark.  How could I have missed that?  “Oh, sorry, have a nice day.”  I apologized sheepishly.

               She walked out with a huff.

                “Wonderful, not only am I arrogant and cynical, but now I’m losing my mind.”  I mumbled to myself, counting out the day’s bits and giving them a bit of a shine to match the one on my flank.  It was about what I expected.  I’d pulled in a few extra bits thanks to Moon Bell breaking a window while trying for a hoofball cutie mark.

               As the sun started to sink back under the mountains I trotted up to the front door to lock up.  I looked down to magically fish my keys from my vest.  When I looked back up I was staring into a pair of massive, green eyes pressed against the glass.

               “Primrose.”  I said in a deadpan as I opened the door for the light pink, vintner mare.  She strode past me, swishing the vines on her flank with each step, and planted her forelegs on the counter.  Well, she definitely wants something today.  I strode back over to her.  “We were just closing up.”

               “You live here,”  She purred.  “you’re always open, so I’d like a drink.”

               “Two bits.”  I replied, holding out a hoof.  “We take cash or credit.”

               “Awww.”  She wined, putting on a pout.  “Can’t this one be on the house?”

               “Nothing is free.”  I smirked.

               “Hum, how about this?”  She whispered before leaning over and giving me a peck on the muzzle.

               “Payment accepted.”  I sighed, well there goes my windfall for the day.  I had to hand it to her; she knew how to get me motivated.  I pondered the depressing realization that she could probably get me to part with my sparkle cola cutout, an irreplaceable relic even before the war, with little more that a swish of that deep blue tail while she chugged her beverage.

               “Well, down to business then.”  She said with all hints of seduction dropping from her speech.  “Keystone and Mayor Goldlight will be returning from their trade run tomorrow and I have been delegated the responsibility of preparing their welcome back celebration.”

               “And I’m sure it will be lovely.”  I said as I took the now empty bottle from her and set it aside for refilling on the mayor’s next trip.

               “Yes, it will be, but first I’m going to need some supplies.”  She said looking at me with puppy dog eyes and slipping into a woe is me voice.  “You see, I’m a bit short on bits and the next decanting isn’t for a month.”  That adorable face had cost me more bits than I cared to count over the years.

               “I think I might be able to help you out.”  I replied  “On one condition.”  I was not going to come out of this in the red again.  “That next batch of yours, I get to take the costs out wholesale.” I raised a hoof.  “Plus a glass now, for interest.”

She took my extended hoof.  “Deal.”

               We walked out of the store to make for Primrose’s vineyard for my “sample”.  The town looked like something out of a storybook.  Short, wooden buildings popping up around twisting, dirt roads and colorful stalls, overflowing with produce and homemade crafts.  Unicorns casually milled from place to place, though notably fewer than I would have expected, going about their daily routines.  The idyllic scene was topped off with a fluffy coating of perfectly white snow.

               We managed to make it half way across town when my head began to spin and a sharp stabbing pain started above my front, right hoof. I stumbled and fell.  My vision started to blur and my senses numbed except for the pain in my leg, which only seemed to intensify.

               I was vaguely aware of Primrose’s attempts to pick me up when a horrific noise, that was a mix of grinding gears and a vacuum cleaner, blared across the valley.  The town vanished in a blast of static and rematerialized a moment later as a distorted mess.

               “Ocher!”  Primrose screamed.  I looked over to her, my vision clearing rapidly, and couldn’t help but scramble back.  Her tail was sprouting from her cutie mark, her eyes had become completely transparent and her front legs had disappeared.  “What’s happening!?”

               “I… I…”  I stammered as baked away, to my shame, from the deformed vintner, looking frantically from side to side.  Everything was falling apart.  The snow was blinking in and out of existence.  Ponies stood on limbs that were no longer there.  One stallion had even become some form of hideous cyclops pony.

               Everything repeatedly dissolved into static, each transition leaving the town in worse and worse shape, lasting just long enough for me to take in the new batch of horrors.  Within seconds all the ponies around me collapsed into jagged blobs of screaming color.

               With a final blast of the grinding noise my senses started failing again.  As the world faded into blackness I could have sworn I saw a floating block of white text.

               ‘Is there anything you would like to change about your childhood before continuing?’

***        ***        ***

               I awoke coughing as a rubbery hose pulled out of my throat.  All my senses returned just in time to notice the withdrawal of several other obtrusive tubes from my body.

               I was lying on my back in some sort of egg shaped pod with slowly dimming blue squares swirling across its surface.  I panicked and began futilely thrashing against my metal prison.  My body felt heavy and sluggish, I had never been a particularly strong pony, but this was the first time I felt truly weak.  Lashing out with spells provided equally negligible results, as my horn seemed to be in some sort of clamp that was sapping my magic.  Not that a flash of light or foalish telekinesis would have done me much good anyway.

               Finally calming down, mostly due to the unexpected strain of moving my own legs, I noticed a small, grey computer was clamped to my aching hoof.  It had nearly blended into my grey pelt in the quickly darkening chamber.  The words ’PipBuck Model 3000’ were embossed on the side.  A message was blinking on the display.

’Life support disengaged- open pod? Yes/No’

With the blue lights dying completely I immediately started mashing the yes button with my hoof as fast as I could.  There was a rumbling groan as the pod split down the middle and slid to the sides.

               The pod was on a platform in the center of a square room with strobing red lights.  Its walls were lined with computers save for a single steel door.  The only computer bigger than a terminal that I knew of was in the mayor’s office.  But how could I have gotten there?  What happened to everypony else?  What in Celestia’s light was that pod?  Why was there...?

A soft click pulled my attention away from my ever growing list of questions as my horn popped out of the magic sapping clamp.  Now able to move, I crawled out of the pod, making my world start spinning again.  I promptly stumbled, fell off the platform and lost my lunch on a bundle of cables that snaked out of the pod.

Yuck.  That probably wasn‘t good for them, but at least they were insulated so I didn’t get shocked.  I slowly lifted myself out of the grassy smelling, green bile, that didn’t even remotely resemble the lingonberry sandwich I had eaten earlier that day.  I resumed my wobbly, ten hoof trek to the door, feeling a bit less ill, but notably slimier.

               Two small bars appeared at the bottom of my field of vision, one red and one white, followed a moment later by a line of white text.

‘>Eyes-Forward Sparkle online.’

Uh hu, wonder what that’s for?

               I froze, my hoof inches from the door control, when I heard another pod opening.

There was a groggy mumble.  That sounded like Bastion.  He was one of the teachers at the Shetland Schoolhouse.  Somepony else is down here, I’ m not-

               *BLAM!*

               The white bar disappeared and Bastion’s mumbling ceased.

I opened the door and, Oh Goddesses!

Across an empty, circular room, ringed with doors there was an emancipated, earth pony mare wearing a long coat with a, still smoking, double barreled shotgun in her mouth.  She was standing over a pod, identical to the one I had just vacated, containing the, now headless, teacher‘s body.

               I dropped to my knees and wretched in vain, apparently I was out of green stuff.  She had killed him... He couldn’t be dead.  He was teaching the foals about cutie marks tomorrow.  This wasn’t happening.  Yeah, this was a dream.  Any moment I’ll wake up.  I was hyperventilating between my futile attempts to throw up.  Unfortunately, the murderer didn’t seem to understand that she was just a figment of my imagination.

               *BLAM!*

               I screamed as hot lead ripped through me, peppering my right foreleg with holes.  Okay, not a dream, dreams could never hurt that much.  The shock knocked me on my back as my new E.F.S. flooded my vision with medical alerts.  I curled up around my injury, moaning.

               “One o’ you fuckers woke up early, eh?”  The mare sneered, dropping her spent weapon and approaching me.  “That keen to die?”  She ground her hoof into my wounds extracting another scream.  She continued to stomp on my leg; I could feel my bone start to buckle.

               I had to do something, anything.  As she lifted up for another blow I swept my hind legs into hers.  The blow knocked her off balance and she fell on my head, hard.  I heard a gurgle from above me as something warm and wet dripped down my face.  Looking up I saw the mare gasping for breath with my horn lodged in her throat.  The red bar disappeared and a message popped up on my E.F.S.

‘>The Unity infamy gained, Vilified.’

***        ***        ***

               “I…  I just killed a pony.”  I mumbled in disbelief.  The Unity mare had stopped gasping shortly after I read the message.  It had taken me several minutes of flailing, my injury not helping matters, before I managed to pry myself out from under her.  Several more before I could think clearly enough to form that sentence.

               “I had to, right?”  I asked nopony in particular.  “Yeah, it was me or her.”  I stared down at the dead body, magically wiping the gore from my eyes.  “No, she shot me.  She killed Bastion.  She wasn’t a pony.  I killed a monster; there is nothing wrong about killing a monster… Right?”

               I checked the other doors, using my meager telekinesis to keep weight off my wounded leg.  The first one opened into another pod room.  A green pony with a brown mane, that used to be the barmare, Holly Heart, lay in one of the pods with her chest blown open.  Every new door showed me a new dead neighbor.  Lily Blue, clockmaker, dead.  Mango Nectar, beekeeper, dead.  Sugarcoat, tailor, dead.  Dead.  Dead.  Dead.

One more door.  Please, I didn’t want to open it, but I had to.  I had to know if it was Primrose or Keystone.  The steel plate hissed up, revealing...

A hallway…  A thousand years of praise to Celestia.

               Gray metal walls, lit by dim lamps along the ceiling, barely two hoofs over head split onto two corridors heading in opposite directions.  At the end of the left hall was a sign ‘Stasis Banks 11-25’ and one on the right ‘Stasis Banks 1-9, Residential‘.

               I was about to make for this ‘Residential’ place when several red bars appeared, accompanied by distant pops and yelling.  I promptly backed into, what I now knew as Stasis Bank 10; having recently learned red was bad.  I would need something to defend myself with and unless I intended to fight with my horn, that left the Unity mare’s shotgun.  I just hoped there was more ammo for it.

               What luck, not only were there two dozen spare shots for the gun (which on closer inspection seemed to be held together with rust and duct tape, not so lucky there), but I also found a bottle full of light brown liquid labeled ‘regeneration potion’.  I downed the potion immediately.  My wounds began to slowly knit closed, allowing me to stand on all four hooves again, as an added bonus it tasted like mint chocolate.  There also seemed to be a lot of useless junk, an old inhaler, bottle cap collection, and bottles of filthy, gray water.  No sense in getting weighed down so I left them behind.  I did however need a place to hold the shells so, much to my displeasure; I slipped on the filthy long coat.

               Okay, I was as ready as I’d ever be...  I really didn’t want to do this, but stagnancy could very well get me killed.

The door opened into another corridor, identical to the one I had just left.  Bank 9 was no better than the last one, ten more dead.  I couldn’t even think clearly enough to put names to the faces...  Numbers.  That was all I could see them as, numbers.  Numbers of ponies who weren't Primrose or Keystone.  Numbers of ponies I would never see again.

Bank 8 was different, only six dead; they must have taken the others.  Bank 7, seven dead; no Primrose.  Bank 6, nine dead; no Keystone.  Bank 5, seven dead.  Bank 4, only three.  Nine dead.  Six dead.

               Bank 1, thirteen dead?  Among the bodies of seven of my neighbors (still no sign of my friends) were five Unity raiders and a green pegasus in blue and black barding with the word ‘Security‘ embroidered on it.  The pegasus was torn to pieces by buckshot.  It looked like she died defending the ponies in this room.  I’d found a hero, a dead hero, she was still warm.  I moved her into a more serene position against one of the less blood stained walls, closed her eyes…  and took her sub-machine gun.  She was a hero, I was sure she wouldn’t mind.

               If she could give her life to protect ponies she probably didn’t even know what right did I have to be numbly skulking around?  No, I was lost, I was pissed, I had a gun and I was damn well going to use it.

               Floating the shotgun in front of me I opened the door to the Residential area.  And right into two Unity raiders.  I swung my weapon up as fast as I could and everything seemed to stop.

‘>Stable emergency code Harmony is in effect.’

‘>All Stable 114 residents deputized.’

‘>Stable-Tec Augmented Targeting System online’

I had never fired a ballistic weapon before, but at this range I doubted I could miss.  At 95%, S.A.T.S. agreed.  I released the spell.

*BLAM!*

***        ***        ***

               They’re not ponies anymore.  *BLAM!*  A raider’s head burst like an over ripe fruit.

               They’re murderers, not ponies anymore.  *BLAM!*  A second was blasted back into a pile of dead ponies in blue jumpsuits.  More murdered innocents no doubt.

               “Then what does that make you?”  Asked somepony with an icy voice, in the back of my mind as I reloaded behind a wall.

               “Shut up me!”  I snapped at myself.  “I don’t have time for this right now.  I promise, first chance I get, I‘ll go wallow in…”  *BLAM!*  A Unity mare’s foreleg was torn from her body.  “Whatever it is ponies are supposed to wallow in.  Pity?”  *BLAM!*  The crippled raider’s chest caved in under the cloud of lead.  “Yeah, pity works.”

               A combination of the narrow corridors, S.A.T.S. and my E.F.S. had allowed me to rampage more or less unopposed through Residential.  Pausing only long enough to empty the raider’s bags and let S.A.T.S. recharge.  Things were steadily getting more difficult as the rooms were getting larger and I was encountering raiders in groups now.

               Two raiders were blocking my path.  I pulled up S.A.T.S., queued up two shots on the heads of the two monsters, 90% and 75%, not bad.  *BLAM!*  One dead. *Crunch*  The shotgun’s trigger tore clean off.  Crap.

               Dropping the mangled mess of metal, rust and tape I jumped back through the door.  I pulled out the SMG I had taken from the security pegasus; my PipBuck had labeled it The Grim Harvest.  I had no skill with these things, but I hoped I could make up for it with volume.  The surviving raider stepped out of the doorway just as I finished loading.  This time he was faster and I caught a pistol round in the shoulder, only a few inches from my unarmored throat.  The dusty gray, leather long coat my PipBuck had identified as a ‘Merc Cruiser Outfit‘ provided surprisingly good protection, soaking up most of the impact and leaving me with a hoof sized bruise instead of a hole.  The raider’s armor proved much less effective as I emptied half the clip into his face with S.A.T.S., turning it into mulch.

               I could hear gunfire from the next room, apparently between five red bars and one white one.  Every survival instinct was screaming at me to just slip around, two had nearly killed me, but I had to do something.  If it weren’t for that pegasus back in the pods, I would have woke up to six raiders instead of just one.  I owed her my life.  I hated owing debts.

               I opened the door to, what appeared to be a rather out of place diner, complete with a fountain bar, stools, a jukebox and everything.  A small security-mare was hiding behind the counter trading pistol shots with four raiders and a fifth bleeding out on the ground.  I glanced at Grim Harvest’s fifty round clip.  S.A.T.S. was still down, but screw that; I had bullets to burn.

    I stepped around the corner and opened up on the assembled raiders, drowning out all other noise with Grim Harvest's rattling roar.

        *RATATATATAT!*

               Ten seconds later I was hiding behind an upturned table with an empty gun and several new bullet wounds.  I had managed to perforate everything in the room except the raiders with my wild spraying.  This aiming thing might be worth looking into.  My beam pistol’s point and click was so much simpler.

               Shots started bouncing of my improvised cover, what was this thing made of?  Not that I was complaining, but who builds a bullet-proofed table?

New clip, S.A.T.S. up, let’s try this again.  I peeked over the table and popped up S.A.T.S., targeting the closest raider.  I queued two bursts and a third on one of the others; I really hoped that the 25% was per bullet.

*RATATATATAT!* *RATATATATAT!* *RATATATATAT!*

Fifteen more bullets and I had only scored four hits. Fortunately one had found a raider’s eye causing him to drop, twitching, to the floor.  Three to go, *BLAM!*, correction, two.  Security had a shotgun.

               Only had one clip left, this thing ate bullets like there was no tomorrow, needed to make it count.  I really hoped this would work.  Leaping out of my cover I clamped my eyes shut, fired off the brightest burst of light I could mange from my horn and charged ahead as fast as I could.  The raiders opened up on me almost immediately but only a handful of the shots even grazed me.  I had gotten within about twenty hooves before their vision cleared, by then it was too late.  I had an automatic weapon and was too close to miss.

***        ***        ***

               “Blossom?!”  The security mare called out gleefully, hopping out from behind the bar grinning from ear to ear.  She was a freckled, dark blue earth pony with a white mane held back by a mat black headband that seemed to be made out of the same material as her armor.  She had ice blue eyes and a silver shield on her flank.  Upon seeing me, however, she seemed to visibly deflate.

               “Um, no. Sorry.”  I replied digging through the raider’s bags for another regeneration potion.  The bullets may not have gone to deep, but I was still more bruise than pony at this point.  “My name’s Ocher.”  No such luck.

               “Wait, you’re one of the pod ponies aren’t you?”  She asked, brightening a little.

               “Pod ponies?”  I cocked my head.  “Do you mean the ones who were brought here from Shetland?”

               “What are you...?”  She paused and cocked her ear.  “Well, let’s go with that for now.  You must have seen Blossom on your way here.”

               “Unless she was a raider, I can’t say I have.”  I said, expanding my search for potions to include the bar and kitchen.  “Who is this Blossom of yours?”

               “Security Chief Harvest Blossom.  Green pegasus, red mane, uncut diamond on her flank, you can’t miss her.  In fact that’s her…”  Her pupils contracted as we both seemed to grasp what had happened.  ‘The Grim Harvest’.  “Her weapon”  She stared at the blood stained floor.  “How? How did it happen?”

               “I’m…  I’m sorry.”  I said in the most sympathetic tone I could manage in my current situation.  “But she was killed defending the pods.  She saved my life and probably the lives of at least a hundred and fifty others.”

               “Batteries…”  She mumbled under her breath.  “She died for fucking batteries.”

               “What do you mean batteries?”  I said, taken aback.  “She died for ponies, heroically I might-”  She reared up, kicked my badly bruised shoulders and pinned me on my back.

               “SHUT UP!”  She moved her face within inches of mine seething with rage.  “Just shut up.  I need to get to the Overmare as quickly as I can and you’re the only other pony I‘ve found who isn‘t trying to kill me.”  Her voice grew cold and almost mechanical.  “So, I, acting Security Chief Maple Sugar, am conscripting you for the defense of Stable 114.”  Maple ripped The Grim Harvest out of my magic grip and set it into an apparatus on the back of her barding, opposite the shotgun.  “Got it?”

               I just nodded dully.  This wasn‘t at all what I was expecting.

***        ***        ***

               We made our way to the armory as I was in dire need of a weapon I could actually hit things with.  That and it happened to be on the way to this “Overmare‘s” office.

Maple made short work of the raider teams we came across, hosing them with bullets and buckshot.  Still being a battered mess, my only contribution was casting a flare spell into each room and ducking behind something that looked durable until the area was clear.

                The armory itself was located in the back of the security office.  The office was a fairly plain room, half a dozen cells to the right, a few desks to the left, armory in the back and raiders in the middle.  Four more Unity raiders and one unicorn who looked as if he coated himself in wonder glue and rolled in a scrap yard, all topped off with a pair of over-sized sunglasses.  The raiders seemed to be trying to cut their way into the armory with some sort of industrial saw.

As I had the distinct impression that Maple would shoot me if I spoke two words to her, I followed our established strategy.  I burst in to the room and set off my flare.  Scrappy turned, seemingly unaffected by my spell and filled my chest with metal from his huge rifle.  I immediately crumpled to the floor, blinding pain lancing through me, from the large spike embedded just above my heart.

I had a hoof long spike in my chest!  Another inch and I would have been dead!

               Maple’s attack was almost as ineffective as my own.  Most of her shots pinked off Scrappy’s armor with no effect, but some managed to find the dazed raiders, dropping two and badly injuring a third.  Here we discovered the weakness of our plan: Maple had just emptied both of her weapons in her opening volley, and my flashing lights had little effect on ponies with shades.

               Maple dove behind one of the desks, biting my mane and dragging me with her.  She started the arduous process of reloading while spewing a rather colorful string of explicatives involving Luna’s horn between mouthfuls of shells.

               Something flew over our desk, struck the wall behind us and set it on fire.  A few seconds later a second object came sailing over, this one I managed to catch.  It was a bottle of vodka with a flaming rag sticking out of the neck.  I chucked the improvised bomb back in the general direction of the three remaining red bars.  With a crash, crackle and scream we were down to one bar, knowing my luck it had to be Scrappy.

               Sure enough, a moment later the armored unicorn stepped around our cover, sections of his armor still burning.  Maple swung her own PipBuck up just in time to catch one of Scrappy’s spikes.  The blast knocked her off her hooves with a crunch, her forearm twisted back at an unnatural angle.

               Scrappy advanced on Maple with a toothy grin, walking right past me.  He may not have seen me or didn’t consider me a threat, ether way it was a big mistake.  I levitated out one of the small revolvers I had taken off the raiders: Maple had taken all the larger rounds.  I slid out from under the desk, magically jammed the gun under his helmet and entered S.A.T.S., it labeled him ‘Unity Scrapper‘, I was close.  Let’s see you block this flash.

        *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*

I pumped three rounds into the base of his skull, making him spasm as the low caliber rounds bounced around in his skull. He instantly collapsed in a twisted, metal heap.

               Maple rolled back to her hooves and made her way to the armory door without a word, dragging her injured leg behind her.  The spike had punched through her PipBuck’s screen, but, as there didn’t seem to be any blood, hadn’t completely penetrated.  I couldn’t help but marvel at the durability of the fetlock computers.  I also couldn’t help but lament the fact that it would probably take one of those industrial saws if I ever wanted to get it off.  Damn thing still hurt.

               By the time I staggered over, Maple had opened the armory and cleaned out a box with the same color scheme as my sparkle-cola stand-up.  Resetting her arm, she stabbed herself with some strange, four needled canister with a multi-headed, lizard-thing painted on the side.  Her broken leg started to ripple as the bone and muscle mended themselves before my eyes.

               “Hydra.”  She said, seeing the confused look on my face.  “Earth pony invention, regenerates limbs.”  She gave me a look over and started digging through one of the lockers dotting the armory.  She pulled out another set of security barding and tossed it at me.  “You’re out of uniform.”

               I looked at her in disbelief, pointing to the railroad spike protruding from my chest.

               “Oh, right, sorry about that.”  She slid a pair of the minty regeneration potions my way.  “And… thanks.”  She said with obvious difficulty.  “I doubt he would have just killed me.”

               I just stared at her.  She flushed.  “Are you going to use those or do you plan on bleeding to death?”  That was a very good point.  I levitated the first bottle to my mouth, pulled out the spike, and managed to lose an unnerving amount of blood before the potions finished knitting the wound closed completely.  I was a bit light headed, but otherwise no worse for wear.  I really should look into stocking regeneration potions when I got back home.  If I got back home.

               “So,”  I said, wiggling out of my putrid long coat.  “Since we have a moment and seem to be on speaking terms, I would like to ask some questions.”

               “Make it quick.”  She grumbled, poking at her destroyed PipBuck.

               “Okay, first: Where are we and how do I get back to Shetland?”

               “Stable 114 and down the south hall, third door on the left.”

               “What?”

               “To get back to Shetland you go down the south hall and take the third door on the left.”

               I pondered a moment.  “But that’s the way I came from.”

               “Yep.”

               I narrowed my eyes at her.  “Could you get any more evasive?”

               “Probably.”

               I stopped putting on the security barding, sat down and glared at her.

               She looked up at me.  “You’re not going to drop this are you?”

               I shook my head slowly.

               “Fine.”  She sighed.  “Shetland isn’t real, it was a VR simulation for this Stable‘s social project.”

               That wasn’t possible: I had lived there my entire life…  I had never left.

    The idea just kept nagging at me.  I knew could disprove it.  I just needed to go through my life and I could prove it to this crazy mare.

    Shetland was a nice, peaceful town.  We had a population of exactly 250 unicorns...  nestled in a special, radiation proof valley.  We were ruled by a mayor who could locate and provide everything the town might want or need?

        “It was all a lie.” The cold voice hissed.

    It was like having a bucket of ice water dumped on my head.  I was looking at the whole picture for the first time, and it suddenly made a lot more sense than the stories I had been fed all my life.  I actually felt rather stupid for believing it for so long.

               I looked up at Maple who had politely stopped while I contemplated my navel and was staring at me nervously.  “I’m okay,”  I assured her.  “I just needed a moment to process everything.  Please continue.”

               “There’s really not much to it.  The Stable-Tec ponies figured they would kill two birds with one stone.  The initial concept was to.”  She bobbed her hooves for quotations.  “‘Preserve the innocence of Equestria.’  So they set up your little simulation.  The problem came from the massive amount of power needed to run the system.  So, to remedy that, the sim was limited to unicorns and arcane extractors were installed to augment the Stable’s generators.”  She paused briefly.  “At least that’s the official pitch.  To put it more simply, you get the easy life so we get to use you as magic batteries.”

               “That would explain the comment from earlier.”

               She ran a hoof across Grim Harvest's clip and sighed.  “That was wrong of me.”  She started digging through a weapons locker.  “I was angry and it easy to forget that the pods are full of ponies, not hardware.  By the way, do you want another shotgun, or what?”

               “You wouldn’t happen to have a beam pistol by any chance?”

               She arched her eyebrow.  “You know how to use one?”  I nodded.  “I think we have a rifle in here somewhere.”

    A magic beam rifle?  It would let me defend myself, but...  This wouldn't be just fighting to survive, scavenging off those who wanted me dead.  This would be choosing to kill, to knowingly prepare myself to take the lives of other ponies.  Come on, they’re monsters, not ponies.  We’ve been over this.  They’re dangerous vermin, nothing more.  There is no shame in this.  Brave face now.

“Sweet.”  I said through a practiced, false grin.

***        ***        ***

               Having finally gotten my hooves on a weapon I could use and barding only soiled by the blood and bile still clinging to my coat, we made quick work of the few patrols between us and the Overmare’s office.  We were confident we could handle anypony the raiders could throw at us.  Opening the final door (Whoever designed Stables sure loved doors), Maple immediately pulled me to the ground and put a hoof over my mouth.

               At least forty raiders and a dozen griffins were arrayed below the elevated office.  A black and blond, unicorn mare with an eye on her flank was having a heated argument with the lead griffin through a shattered window.  Well what do you know, The Overmare and Mayor Goldlight were the same pony, should have figured.  While I had never been overly fond of her in the past I had to admit, seeing her chewing out a griffin, nearly twice her size, on the verge of tears, but still defiant, made me see her in a new light.

               We were close enough for me to hear bits and pieces of their conversation and my PipBuck seemed to be filling in the rest.

    “The might of the Unity has come to clam this Stable and all worthy of its blessing.”  The griffin,who my PipBuck had conveniently identified as Gellwin, postured, looking down her beak at the petite pony.

    “Blessing?!”  Goldlight yelled back incredulously.  “You broke into our home with that metal monstrosity of yours.”  She took a step towards Gellwin, actually making the invader falter for a moment.  “Then you let these savages lose to rape and murder at will and you have the nerve to call it a blessing?!”

     “You small minded foals fear your betters.”  The griffin replied, regaining her composure.  “These are the children of the Unity.  They have earned their place in the new world.  Would you deny your children the chance to grow in a better Equestria?”

               Goldlight was spouting another scathing rebuke directed to the assembled raiders when she caught sight of us and paused.  It was a miracle that none of the raiders noticed, but then again their powers of perception had (thankfully) left something to be desired thus far.  After a moment of staring (Seriously, were these guys blind or something?!) she dropped her head, nodded to the Gellwin and walked to the back of her office.

               A moment later Goldlight’s authoritative voice blared throughout the Stable.  “Attention all Stable 114 residents, this is Overmare Goldlight.  I am officially ordering all Stable security to stand down.  I repeat, stand down, we are surrendering.”  Maple began grinding her teeth so loudly I was certain that it would have given us away if not for Goldlight’s continuing message.  “I have been given assurances that anypony who surrenders peacefully will not be harmed.”

               I couldn’t explain why, but this felt like more of a betrayal than finding out that my entire life had been a lie.  I just wanted to strangle that mare.

               A message popped up on my E.F.S.

‘>Ocher, I need you to listen. I couldn’t contact Officer Sugar’s unit, but I have a plan.’

Scratch that, I could kiss her.

               “We have been given the privilege to be made part of The Unity, Equestria’s best hope for salvation.”

               ‘>I have sent most of the surviving ponies to Shetland.  The excavator can’t fit inside the Stable and it should take these slavers weeks to get to them without it.’

               “All praise to The Goddess and her noble prophet Redeye”

               ‘>I need you two to go find help before they do.  I’ve uploaded the directions and my override codes to an emergency exit.  May Celestia guide and Luna watch over you.’

***        ***        ***

               “This isn’t right.”  Maple grumbled next to me.  “We shouldn’t have just left them.”

               “What were we supposed to do?!”  I replied a far bit more aggressively than I had intended.  I sighed “I’m sorry, but what good are we if were dead?”

               She just stared at the rusted grating we were walking along.

               Goldlight’s emergency exit turned out to be a secondary ventilation system that snaked through miles of cable filled caves.  With no immediate threat my adrenalin induced rampage was quickly catching up with me.  By the time we reached the door to the outside, a massive slab of steel coated in reinforcements with a terminal fused to it, I was dead on my hooves.

               With a massive hiss the door started grinding open, apparently triggered by proximity to the codes in my PipBuck.  No sooner had the first sliver of natural light appeared than all the warm air was violently ripped out of the corridor.  I was sweating so profusely that the resulting blast of arctic air almost flash froze me into my barding.  The shock was like getting shot in the chest all over again, I had to get out of that armor.  In my haste to remove the rock hard fabric I ended up ripping out bloody patches of my light grey coat.  Maple, being a much tougher pony than I, withstood the gale far more stoically, only shifting slightly on her hooves.

               I could have said so many things as I took my first, trembling steps out of the Stable.  I could have wondered at the towering, snow coated mountains, descending into dense boreal forests bellow.  I could have pointed out the glittering city, peeking over a distant rise, seemingly untouched by time.  I could have been baffled by the impossibly tall towers in the distance, piercing the murky sky like the shining lances of some mythical knight.  I could have gasped at the swirling super cell raging in the overcast sky to the north or the billowing pink mist, flowing out of a pass to the east.  I could even have expressed horror at the warped and stunted expanses of wasteland radiating out from countless craters across the landscape.

I could have said so many things, but all I managed was.  “I’m so cold.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Horse Sense -- You are a swift learner. You gain an additional +10% whenever experience points are earned.
Trait added: Pod Pony -- You grew up in a VR chair. You are far more educated than most (+2 skill points per level), but you have no experience with the real world (-10 to survival) and have seriously atrophied muscles (-1 strength). This will not stack with the educated perk.
Spell added: Auroramancer 1-- You may produce a spherical light (identical to your pip buck light) or a beam similar to a flashlight. With some concentration you may also produce a magical flare, temporarily reducing enemies perception.
New Companion Perk: To Serve and Protect -- While you are under the watchful eye of Officer Maple Sugar you gain a 3 point bonus to your DT. This effect stacks with armor, the toughness perk and any other effect that increases your DT.

(Special thanks to DiceArt, Tsosxychor and Twitchy for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Cold Trail

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Two: Cold Trail

“Now what do we do?… Panic?”

               Now it was my turn to be stoic.  I gazed in wonder at the massive valley below me, all the while Maple kept her eyes glued to the sky.  Her knees buckled as she turned the most interesting shade of teal.

               “Whu…  whu...  whu.”  Maple gasped out between ragged breaths.  “Where’s the ceiling?”  Her pupils were quivering pinpricks and her coat started matting to her skin with half frozen sweat.

               I spared a glance at the rolling curtain of cloud above us.  What was she on about?  There is no ceiling outside.  Outside, she had never been outside had she?  “I…  um…  officer.”  I mumbled.  What was I supposed to do?  I managed to make myself utterly useless for the next five minutes simply watching Maple try to pull herself back together.  She finally managed to get back on her hooves, keeping her eyes locked on the snow.

               “Let’s go.”  She groaned, slowly shuffling away from 114.

               “Is there anything I can do?”  I asked lamely.

               “No, I’ll handle it.”  She replied, briefly glancing up at me and almost immediately locking her eyes back on her hooves.  I managed to hear her mutter something under her breath.  Something I obviously wasn't meant to hear.  “I can’t afford to be weak now.”

***        ***        ***

               The trek down the mountain was slow going as I was feeling particularly...  sluggish and the random muscle spasms weren't helping.  On the up side, I wasn’t feeling all that cold anymore.  I was more numb than anything else.

               A little, stylized unicorn in the upper right corner of my E.F.S. had been slowly turning from white to blue, save for it still blinking foreleg, with a little number underneath going down.  I had honestly paid little attention to it until a large a warning appeared under it.

‘>SEVERE HYPOTHERMIA WARNING!’

‘>CORE TEMPERATURE 82 DEGREES!’

Smaller warnings about mild starvation, dehydration, blood loss and exhaustion popped up around it.  I wasn’t a medical pony, but I guessed that probably wasn’t good for me.  While I was usually quite proud of my reasoning skills, I sadly had to admit that, at that moment, I probably wouldn’t have figured out there was a problem without the flashing, red letters pointing it out.

               “Um, Officer Sugar,”  I said weakly.  “I think I may have a problem.”

               “Not now,”  She snapped, still very carefully watching her hooves.  “The sooner we get down this mountain the better.”

               “Yeah, I know,”  I replied with a bit of a slur.  “But my PipBuck’sss rather n’sistent it’s a problem now.”  81 degrees, my vision was starting to blur.

               “Okay, fine, let’s see what’s wrong with you.”  She said, turning towards me, careful to keep her eyes at shoulder height.  “Oh, sweet Celestia!”

               “Huh?”  I followed her eyes to my bare legs and chest.  Going naked, save for a saddlebag, into a tundra probably hadn‘t been my brightest decision.  The patches of hairless hide I had created removing my uniform, as well as the ones leftover from my recent bullet wounds, were looking slightly yellow and waxy.  Funny, I would have thought that sort of thing would hurt more, but they were actually the least achy part of my body.  I jabbed one with a shivering hoof…  I felt nothing.  “He he, would you look at that.”  I said, continuing to poke the yellow patches.  Things didn’t seem so bad anymore, kind of amusing actually.  80 degrees.

               “Stop that!”  She yelled, pushing my hoof away.  “We need to get you somewhere warm, quickly!”

               “Okie dokie loki.”  I giggled, feeling quite euphoric.  “But I’m feeling a bit foalish in the walking department.”  I snickered  “So I‘m gonna be ssslow.”  My vision was really starting to go.  “And you can’t change that by getting all…  bendy.”

My legs collapsed under me.

 *Thud*  

Everything went white.

***        ***        ***

               The first thing I felt was...  warmth, I was warm.  Warm and not slimy.  Was I dead?  Had everything been a dream?  I shifted slightly.  Ouch, nope, not dead, not dreaming.  All the blissfully numb patches now felt like they were full of rusted cheese graters.  I vaguely remembered hitting the snow, not the pleasantly brisk, fluffy, white stuff from Shetland, but the outside world’s life sapping, brittle, grey sheets.  Next, there was a sensation of flying and then curling up to something warm and soft, but that was about it.

               After conjuring a small forehead lamp I found myself curled in a filthy sleeping bag, a soft howling echoing around me, interrupted only by an occasional drip.  Hesitantly, I magically fumbled for the zipper and opened it enough to look out.  The gust of cold air forced my eyes shut immediately.  Well, now I knew it was still cold out and I had no desire to repeat my mistake, this would be interesting.

               I opened my eyes slowly as they acclimated to the cold.  I was in a cave.  A surprisingly well lit cave with luminescent fungus coating the walls.  There was a dying fire to my left surrounded by rusted pots and my saddlebags, a natural ramp extended ahead with a few beams of daylight sneaking in.  A two headed cow-thing with a large, empty pack saddle was frozen into the wall on my right.  No sign of Maple though.

               Being very careful to avoid the fire pit, as it would be ironically unpleasant to be frozen and set on fire in the same day, I rolled around to see the other end of the cave.  No Maple, but there was a tunnel leading further down and a large, hardcover book lying open in a corner with little slips of paper poking out.

                Slowly, but surely, I wormed my way over to the book, unwilling to leave my toasty, albeit filthy, cocoon.  I caught my reflection in one of the shinier pots and I looked utterly ridiculous.  A massive, burnt marshmallow with two yellow eyes and a glowing horn peeking out, flopping across the floor.  If it were anypony else I probably would have toppled over laughing and now I really had a hankering for s’mores.

               The book was opened to a page labeled ‘Frostbite-Treatment’ with several entries underlined; ’Shared body heat’, ’Hot water bath’ and ’Wrapping in blankets’, as well as one section circled several times, ’For severe cases, apply Thermal’.  I flipped the book shut, ‘Canterlot Journal of Internal Medicine, Volume III’.  I was going to leave the heavy tome, but then I caught sight of the recommended price.  ‘3,800 Bits’.  “MIIIINE!”  My voice cracked, in an unfortunately filly like pitch, while I tried to magically shove the book past my face and into the sleeping bag.

               I had three options at that point. I could wiggle my way back outside and try to find help on my own…  As The Mighty Marshmallow Pony!  Not very likely.  Option two, I could sit by, read my new book and mull over how to repay whoever brought me here, probably Maple.  Finally, I could go sleeping bag spelunking.

               Well, the smart thing to do would be wait and brush up on my first aid.  While I usually prided myself for being a smart pony, I needed to find Maple.  I couldn’t explain it, but I felt particularly vulnerable without her.  That and I didn’t do debts.

               Magic beam rifle, ready.  Satchels, wedged in the sleeping bag.  Microspark cells, in depressingly short supply.  I had everything I could think of.  “Marshmallow Pony, away.“

*Thud*

I rolled myself back to an upright position, rubbing my aching snout.  “Away more slowly then.”

               I fell on my snout for the third time in the span of a minute having barely made it out of the entrance chamber.  This was not working, I was just going to have to pony up and explore in my birthday suit, fun.         

               As soon as the sleeping bag came off I regretted it.  My frost burned patches throbbed, the cheese graters slowly turning into chainsaws, ripping into me with every breath and motion.  I collapsed gasping and clutching the largest patch on my chest.  The pain slowly started to fade as the dangerously comforting numbness returned and my Pipbuck‘s cartoon avatar became light blue.  I was going to need to be quick about this, otherwise I‘d freeze to death.

***        ***        ***

               “Stupid pony!“  I cursed myself as I ran for my life through the twisting caverns.  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

               I had only recently shed my sleeping bag when I heard something snuffling in a nearby chamber.  Since it could have been Maple and I didn’t have the sense to check my E.F.S. I trotted in and called through my chattering teeth.  “Anypony in here?”  The only response I got was a low growl.  A lanky, grey furred dog padded up to me, arching its back, its fur bristling.

               I had always liked dogs.  The ones that the farm ponies back in Shetland, no I corrected myself, back in Stable 114 kept always made me smile.  Obviously this feral creature with the bright red E.F.S. tag would be just as loving and reassuring as the simulated pets back home, smart pony indeed.  I reached out a hoof to pet its matted fur.

               The dog’s jaws closed around my foreleg, just above the PipBuck, and started tearing at my flesh.  Instinctively, I blasted it in the face with a flare, it whimpered, but did not let go.  I triggered SATS and targeted the ‘wolf‘, okay it was a wolf not a dog, and prepped two shots on its face.  SATS timed out, I couldn’t confirm the target, I wasn’t about to kill some murdering rapist ransacking my home, I was about to kill a puppy that probably hadn’t eaten in days.

               Another chomp on my leg, this one accompanied by a blinking warning on my E.F.S., convinced me that I needed to do something.  Flipping the beam rifle around I used it like a club to dislodge the wolf.  As soon as I was free I took off at a gallop.

               “Stupid pony!”

               Left.  Left.  Right, or was that supposed to be left, right, left?  My breath was coming in sharp gasps, the combine strain of running in the cold and telekinetically keeping my mauled leg from giving out exhausted me.  The wolf was practically nipping at my flanks and on top of everything else; I had gotten myself completely lost in the labyrinthine tunnels.  I couldn’t keep running, I’d eventually drop from exhaustion and be an easy meal.

               Maybe I could get it to leave me alone if I zapped a paw.  I swung my rifle around, lined up a shot on its front leg with S.A.T.S. and released.

*Fizt*

The needle thin red beam struck the wolf’s paw and completely engulfed the creature, reducing it to a pile of softly glowing ash in the span of a second.         

               I dropped the rifle and just stared, my pistol back home had never done anything like that.  “I…  I didn’t mean to.”  I managed to stammer out.  I had to wonder what it said about my character, when I had a harder time killing a wolf than a pony.

               I could vaguely hear an icy voice scoff.  “Wolves don’t have things you want.”

               No, I had a harder time killing a hungry animal than a sadistic monster.  It makes complete sense.

               I scooped up my weapon and trudged ahead.  Live now, wallow later.

***        ***        ***

               I wandered aimlessly around the caverns for what felt like hours.  I had to pick up my rifle with my mouth when my telekinesis became incapable of both keeping me on my hooves and carrying my weapon.  My blood had frozen to my skin, sealing my wounds, but spreading my frost burn even further.  Turning a corner, I bumped into something rather out of place in a cave.

               A large chariot trailer with the faded image of a trippant pony silhouette carrying a box on its back, had been wedged across the tunnel.  It had been very heavily reinforced, with thick, metal plates riveted, welded and even taped to the faded hull.  The back doors had been replaced with a cheap imitation of the hatches I had seen in the stable, complete with an antiquated terminal.  Some sort of poor pony’s Stable?  That would mean it could have medicine, clothes, food or even help.

               I trotted up to the terminal; this one was not kind enough to open just because I got close.  I had fiddled with computers before and while I was far from skilled, I did know some of the rudimentary points of password recovery.  The terminal had obviously been used some time in the past 200 years as the keyboard was considerably cleaner than the rest of the machine.  Somepony might be inside now, what luck.

               “Just hope they don’t mind you breaking into their home.”

               That was actually a very good point; I just wished it hadn’t come from some douchey voice in my head.  I spat out my gun and yelled.  “Anypony home?!”  While pounding my uninjured hoof against the door.  Nothing, ether nopony was home or they were planning to take my head off as soon as I opened the hatch.  So much for being polite.

               I planted my rump in front of the console and flicked on the interface.  My PipBuck beeped at me.  It had wirelessly opened some sort of emergency access program on the terminal.  A mass of gibberish filled the screen with a handful of four letter words scattered throughout.  I supposed multiple choice would be a fare bit easier than random guessing.

               Door, nope, that would be too easy.  1 out of 4 correct.  Some, no, 0 out of 4.  Bear, still no, 1 out of 4.  Lock out imminent.  Only one viable option on screen, well here goes nothing.  Derp, correct.  Correct?  You have got to be kidding me.

Sure enough the hatch hissed and slowly slid open.  On the other hoof, I never would have guessed ‘Derp’ on my own so who was I to judge?

               The tiny room was so cluttered it almost felt like being back in the shop.  The walls were coated with posters depicting scenes ranging from a team of mares skating across a frozen lake under the words ‘Iron Pony, Winter Games’ to a wall eyed, gray pegasus advertising a mailing service.  Various metal boxes were scattered around, forming impromptu furniture, including a desk, quilt coated bed and various cushioned stools.  No pony was there.

               There was also a liquor cabinet over in a corner, wonderful; I could use a glass after everything that happened today.

Everclear, everclear, everclear, more everclear, nothing but fucking everclear.  No chardonnay, no merlot, no applejack not even any of that pink, 2 bit shit.  I scoped up all the glorified paint thinner anyway, worst come to worst I could use it as an explosive, disinfectant, or actual paint thinner, come to think of it.

               My E.F.S. beeped at me.

‘>Core temperature 85 degrees and falling.  Hypothermia stage III imminent.’

With that I made a bee line for the pseudo bed.

               I yanked the quilting off and wrapped it around myself.  My temperature was still falling, but it was doing so more slowly.  It took me a while to notice the contents of the bed.  A large pegasus skeleton, with a fractured skull was curled up on the crates.  I almost wiggled out of the quilts before I managed to remind myself that I had recently worn much worse and that I really liked not being a ponysicle.

               He was clutching something to his chest.  Very carefully, I magically wiggled the object out without disturbing the remains.  It was an old envelope of photographs.  A burly, brown, middle-aged pegasus buck with a wide brim hoofball cap surrounded by five young, pegasus mares, including the grey mail-pony from the posters.  They were in a clinic, bringing a bouquet of flowers, to a purple, unicorn mare in a full body cast.  A little hand scrawled message was written on it.  ’Sorry we dropped a piano on you, again.’  I couldn’t explain it, maybe it was the innocence of the scene, or the genuine concern on the faces of the pegasi, or the sheer absurdity of the quotation, but it just made me smile.

               The next one had all six pegasi wearing blue vests and standing on a grassy cliff.  I could vaguely see several ponies fishing something purple and green out of a lake in the background.  ‘Winter wrapped up on time for the first time in years.  Next year we get Ditzy a compass and go for a record.’

               ‘The little muffin finally gets her cutie mark.’   A small, gray, unicorn filly was levitating a blue and gold cloak with an image of a prancing foal on it over her head, grinning from ear to ear.  The cutie mark in question was obscured by the edge of a grey hoof on the lens.  

               The next picture was of a modest sky wagon with the words ‘Ditzy Doo Deliveries’ written across the side.  The grey mare waved exuberantly at the camera, grinning from ear to ear and the little muffin was bouncing in circles around her.  She seemed to have been doing it long enough to leave a visible ring of trampled grass.  ‘Ditzy expands the competition.  I couldn’t be prouder.’

               One in front of this very trailer, the burly pegasus was shaking hooves with a coffee coated earth pony with a green mane.  The earth pony was wearing a fairly nice suit, and a pink and yellow butterfly pin.  ‘Best contract ever, Ministry of Peace sending bulk orders of medicine to the front.’

               One of the light green pegasi from the other pictures was standing with a silver disk around her neck on a pedestal with two other pegasi I didn’t recognize, though the one with the gold had a dazzling rainbow mane.  ’Dizzy takes the silver in the winter games, cloud clearing event.’

               The final image was of the brown buck, looking far older than the previous pictures wearing a party hat over his hoofball cap.  He was sitting at the head of a long table coated with food, gifts and streamers.  Four of the five mares were there as well as an striking, grey, unicorn mare about my age, I could only guess was the “little muffin” all grown up.  There was also an empty seat at the table with a little name tag reading ’Flora’.

               My mirth was short lived as I tuned the last picture over.  There was writing scribbled on the back.

               ‘All my work for nothing.  We tried for a spot in the stables.  We tried to reserve space at the ministry buildings, at Hoofington, at Flankorage and they turned us down.  I built this place; put so much work into it, so much planning.  They didn’t make it, none of them.  I waited and waited and waited.  Nopony got down here.  They are all dead and I’m all alone.’

               ‘What right does an old stallion like me have to survive when so many young ponies didn‘t?  Flora, Raindrops, Showers, Dizzy, Ditzy, Dinky, I am so sorry.’

               ‘I’ll see you soon fillies.’

               That’s when I noticed the revolver behind the bed.

***        ***        ***

               I had managed to locate a yellow medical box, like the one from the stable, among the old pegasus’ things.  It had contained two of the chocolate regeneration potions, one purple healing potion and a bottle sporting the image of a livid, white mare with a mane and tail made out for fire under the words ‘THERMAL, cold weather relief.’

I also dug up several sets of weather appropriate clothing, consisting of a thick jacket, coated in pockets, a fur lined cap similar to the one in the photos and a ’Boxxy Brown Moving Co.’ jumpsuit.  I was a bit depressed that all the suits built for a stallion fit me about as well as the sleeping bag had.  The mare’s suits were a bit tight and the wing sleeves fluttered around like windsocks, but they would keep me warm so I settled for the largest one with ‘Dizzy Twister’, embroidered in white, on the right breast and collar.  My PipBuck had labeled it a ‘Roaming Trader Outfit, Winterized‘.  That was creepily appropriate.

               After returning the photos and quilt to the skeletal pony I exited the tomb.  I wandered through the caves nursing one of the chocolate potions for my leg.

This new outfit was keeping me surprisingly warm.  It wasn’t the sleeping bag’s soft, snugly warm that you just wanted to curl up in and forget the world, but my core temperature was actually going up.  My sense of touch had begun to return.

I let out a sharp gasp and collapsed as a sharp pain shot through my body.  The tearing sensation in my frost burns had returned, worse then ever.  Even the slightest movement caused the thousands of tiny daggers inside me to rip into my insides.  I curled into a tight ball, trying my best not to remain still.  I could feel sharp points scraping against my lungs with each ragged breath I took.  The blades were continually shrinking, but at an agonizingly slow pace.

After what felt like hours, the chainsaws under my skin returned to relatively pleasant cheese graters.  I uncurled gingerly and checked one of the patches on my PipBuck leg; the yellowed section had turned deep red and wept what looked like, blood slush when I put pressure on it.  My whole body still ached, but at least I could feel it.  As long as I could feel I would know I was still alive and that's what was important.

I struggled back to my hooves and continued my search for Maple.

               The body in the shelter just kept nagging at me.  I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.  He had survived where so many others hadn’t.  How could he throw that away?  All the work that had gone into that shelter wouldn’t have been a waste if it had saved one pony.  Just one pony and he refused to let it do that.

                A noise snapped me out of my contemplation, Grim Harvest’s distinctive rattle echoed through the tunnels.  Being able to put weight on all four legs again, I took off at a gallop.  Sharp yelping had joined the SMG; I couldn't help but feel sad for the wolves.  I knew they would have eaten me in a hot second, but I couldn’t help it, I liked dogs.  A white bar had appeared among a half dozen, rapidly disappearing red ones.

               I passed the body of a wolf pinned to the cave wall by the spike formerly lodged in Maple’s PipBuck (I really wished I had thought to take the scrapper’s spike rifle) as well as several others that had been reduced to mulch by a storm of bullets.  I turned into a large chamber with a shallow pool in the center just in time to see Maple turn the last one’s head into soup with a point-blank blast from her shotgun.

               She was a mess; shallow, bleeding bites covered her exposed legs, neck and even one across her face.  Her hooves were soaked in blood with small tufts of grey fur still stuck to them.  Her breathing came in heavy gasps through chattering teeth.  Her armor was probably not much more effective against the cold than my saddle bags had been, she was just a far stronger pony.  The bodies of at least a dozen wolves and one half eaten pony littered the cave in and amongst piles of bones, most of which looked equine in origin.

               “Um, Maple?”  I whispered timidly.  I had a healthy fear of her before, as one should for mares who could kill them with nothing, but their fetlock.  But now, with her looking like some ancient goddess of war, literally standing on a mound of the dead, I was terrified.  If she ever decided to turn those hooves on me there would be little I could do.

               “Officer.”  I piped up a bit louder.  She turned her head towards me as her tag blinked to red for a split second and then back to white.  The bite on her face was far worse than I had thought; blood almost masked the entire right side of her face.  The teeth had barely missed her eye, surrounding it with ragged punctures.

               She slowly walked towards me; stumbling over a wolf that still had one of her hind legs embedded in its skull, but managed to keep her hoofing.  “You shouldn’t be here.”  She growled dangerously.  “And why are you wearing a mare’s clothes?”

               “Are you kidding?”  I asked, taken aback.  She was bleeding to death and the first thing she does is chew me out and criticize my new outfit.  I dug through my innumerable pockets and satchels for the Thermal and the purple health potion that I had to assume was more potent than the chocolate one from the notably larger value my PipBuck had assigned it.  “Take these, quickly.”

               She grabbed the health potion from my telekinetic grip chugged it down.  Her wounds vanished almost instantly, those purple ones really packed a wallop, I‘d need to keep that in mind.  Next was the Thermal, Maple’s shakes quickly subsided and her cheeks were actually looking rosy.

               “Okay,”  I said  “there’s an old shelter a little ways back, it had some medical supplies and I think there were also some jumpsuits you could wear under your barding.  I think I could find it again, but I‘ll need your help getting back to the entrance.  I got a little l…”  She shut me up by pressing her blood soaked hoof to my muzzle, the iron reek almost made me ill.  She stared at with an unamused deadpan, pulled up my PipBuck and tapped a few of the buttons with her nose.

               PipBucks apparently had automatic mapping.  “That would have been good to know.  I’ll be need a thorough rundown on how this thing works.”  My stomach growled loud enough to echo across the chamber.  When was the last time I had eaten?  Probably never, but from my perspective I was coming up on 26 hours.  “But, first I’m going to need to eat something.”

***        ***        ***

               We made our way out of the caverns at around noon, not that we could tell through the cloud curtain that still stretched across the entire sky, only pierced by the tallest mountains and several pony made towers.

               “I ate too much pie.”  I groaned.  My stomach was doing somersaults.  I had been hesitant to try a 200 year old apple pie, but food was food and this pastry was packed with enough preservatives to probably outlast its packaging.  I leaned several things then; one, pie was delicious, whether it was real or virtual.  Two, pie should not be eaten on an empty stomach.  And three, my stomach was not used to digesting real food and protested, violently so when forced to do its job.

               Maple seemed to be having none of my digestive problems as she was still contently snacking on some old cereal from an improvised feedbag.  She was looking better and better the further down the mountain we went.  The insulated jumpsuit we had scavenged for her from Boxxie’s shelter fit very nicely under her Stable barding and was doing a respectable job keeping her warm.  I also had to guessed that the fact that the horizon was steadily getting higher, covered up by the distant mountains, was helping.

        I needed something to take my mind off my aching hooves and rolling stomach.  “So, about that PipBuck lesson?”  I asked, hesitantly, given how aggressively she had responded to me in the past.

        *Munch*  *Munch*

“Hum, right.”  She said with her mouth full.  “Okay, hold up the PipBuck.”

        I held it up.

    “The first tab is your health monitor, it includes a radiation counter, a thermometer, a...”  Her voice was getting more and more distant.

        She wasn’t stopping...

I did my best to hobble after her on three legs.  I just couldn’t figure her out, one moment she wants to rip my head off and the next she was completely dismissive.

        “The second magically organizes your possessions.”  I had a handle on that one, name, weight, price, etc.  The price tag confused me a little as the numbers didn’t coincide with the number of bits I knew certain items went for, the fact that my 3,800 bit book was assigned a value of 100 was particularly distressing.  “Last tab is for data, it has a auto-map, file storage and even a radio.  I assume you already figured out SATS and the EFS.”

    A radio; that was good, I could use a diversion and Maple was not the best conversationalist.  I pulled out an ear bloom that was attached to the PipBuck and flipped through a hoof full of frequencies.  The first one was a stallion’s voice that reminded me of my own sales-buck voice, so practiced that it practically oozed.

        ‘...greed and wickedness.  Together, we can raise Equestria back to its former beauty!  Together, we can build a new kingdom where all live together in perfect unity!’

        Unity radio.  Screw that, next.

The second signal was a deafening blast of static that forced me to rip my ear bloom out.  Well, we won’t be doing that again.

The third was a thick, raspy, but oddly melodic voice, like a singer gargling nails.  It was speaking in a language that I didn’t know, then again I only knew pony and a few squawks in griffin.  It was a mix of harsh, one or two syllable words and long, flowing ones that strung together in what sounded like a poem spoken in cold hatred.  It was hauntingly beautiful, but nothing I could stand to listen to for long.

        The last one was a deep, rolling voice speaking in measured rhythm.

        ‘...Voice of Flankorage, this is your host, R.F.P.  We have an important announcement.  The Baron has been spotted in the vicinity of the Bayuchief Smelting plant.  All citizens are engaged to avoid the area until this threat has moved on.  For local news, I am joined by Colonel Hoarfrost.  Colonel.’

        An older mare’s voice that radiated confidence, authority, and a notable amount of arrogance replaced R.F.P.’s.

        ‘All ponies are encouraged to disregard the seditious Legion broadcasts.  They are intended to spread fear and disharmony among us, we will not let them.  If you are still concerned, Frostborn recruiting offices are always open and eager to help ponies defend their homes.  Now, I return you to R.F.P.’s regularly scheduled program.’

A piece of completely unfamiliar music flowed out of my ear-bud.  It was dominated by a violin and a military drum beat, joined by a booming chorus of mares and bucks after about a minute.  I couldn't decide whether to be inspired or intimidated.

***        ***        ***

               After a few hours of climbing we spotted a small village sitting at the base of a relatively smooth slope that extended well up the mountain.  A few dozen wooden cottages were scattered around a large central building with two parallel wires running out of a square hole that nearly took up the entire third floor, and up the mountain.  Several ponies were milling around the central building.

My frostbite had been steadily healing over the past few hours; It was still painful, but no worse than a bruise.  My stomach had stopped resisting and resigned its self to its task of digesting solid food.  And we had just found civilisation.  I was actually feeling rather good, all things considered.

               Finally.  Now we just needed to enlist the help of these ponies to save the stable or, at least get directions to somepony who could help and all this would be over.

***        ***        ***

               Note to self: assume everything here wants to kill you until proven otherwise.

               When we approached, what my PipBuck had kindly labeled, ’Coltinvill Ski Lodge’ I had actually bothered to notice that all their tags were white.  There were five earth ponies and two unicorns, all decked out in some sort of combat barding, a little lighter weight than Maple’s, covered in little bits of jagged metal and other improvised patches.  As we approached I couldn’t help but notice that their coats were far thicker than our own, I might have even gone as far as to call them fluffy.  They were amiable enough to start with, for what looked like blenders on legs.

A large, green, buck with a blond mane and a circular saw on his flank told us to.  “Stay put till we get da boss.“

               Da Boss turned out to be a strongly built griffin in a suit of heavy barding, that would have almost looked professional if it had been cleaned sometime in the past ten years.  She had a heavily stylized bird of prey painted in red across her left pauldron.  A pair of sizable rifles were slung under her wings, looking like a foal’s toys next to her sheer bulk.

               She smiled and walked up to us as though we were expected guests extending a talon in polite greeting.  I extended my hoof as well, happy to finally find someone friendly.  The next thing I knew, all the tags had turned red, she had her rifle pressed into my neck and one of the fuzzy ponies, a red unicorn with a black and white, striped mohawk and a set of hoof prints for a cutie mark, had floated his own hoof cannon to the back of Maple’s head.

               “Who the fuck are you?”  The armored griffin demanded.  “And why shouldn’t I just shoot you now?”

               Okay, who am I?  ‘I just escaped from Stable 114, please don’t shoot me, it’s my first day outside.’  No, that would be stupid.  Think up a lie.  “I’m a traveling merchant.”  I replied with my best ’you can trust me’ grin.  Well, zero points for originality there Ocher, but I suppose the best lies have an element of truth.

               “Well you’re dressed for it,”  She replied.  “But if you’re a merchant where’s your brahmin?”

               Where is my brahmin?  Brahmin, brahmin…  What the hell is a brahmin?  “I, uh, sold it.  Yeah.”  That sure was convincing.  I’m gonna die.

               “Do you seriously expect me to believe that a trader would sell their pack brahmin?”  She asked with a sneer, driving the barrel of her rifle deeper into my neck.  Maple started stealing glances at one of her guards’ holstered pistol.

               Pack brahmin, some sort of beast of burden… The two headed cow thing!  Brahmin were two headed cow things!  Oh, I could work with this.  “Yes, yes I do.”  I said, confidence returning to my voice.  “She got hurt on the road and would never have survived the trip here, so I sold her and everything I couldn’t carry.  Better to take a small loss than lose everything if she fell off a cliff or something right?”

               “I suppose that makes sense.”  She mumbled.  After a little pondering she broke into the most disturbing smile I had ever seen.  “That means you’re sitting on quite a few caps.  Give them to me!”

               “You want my what now?”  The look of utter confusion on my face must have been priceless.

               “Don’t play dumb!”  She barked. “Your bottle caps, give them to me now or I’ll paint you with your guard’s brains and see if you get it then!”

               She wants bottle caps?!  No time to ponder that, Maple had a gun to her head.  I opened my PipBuck inventory and pulled out a sack of 1326 caps!  Wow, slavers collect bottle caps apparently.  “There.”  I said as I handed her the caps.

               Her eyes lit up at the sight of them.  “That’s a lot for one brahmin.”  She pulled her gun away from my neck as the other guards gathered around her to ogle the sack of trash.

               Caps for a brahmin?

               “I’m gonna to get myself someth’n nice with these.”  The griffin boasted, puffing up her chest.

               Why would I get caps for selling a…

               “Maybe a new chew toy.”  She continued, her grin getting more and more predatory by the moment.

               AW CRAP!  I just gave this feathered bitch all my money.

               “I hear dat.“  Piped one of the other guards, a blue mare with a pink mane and a shotgun.  ”The Herald’s girls just picked up a fresh batch from the stable up there.”  She waved a hoof up the ski slope.

               That’s what the little value tab on my…  come again?

               “Yeah, I saw them on my way in.”  She said licking her beak.  “That little, pink mare looks like a screamer.”

               Little, pink mare?...  Primrose...

You threaten us.  You rob us!  AND NOW YOU PLAN TO HURT MY FRIEND?!

Category changed, monsters.  You all die now.

               I lowered my head, pointing the tip of my horn at the griffon’s face.  I turned to Maple; staring until I was sure I had her attention and then shut my eyes as tightly as I could.  I prayed she got the hint.

               I started building up magic in my horn.  Fortunately, our captors were too preoccupied discussing the various unpleasant things they had planned for my caps to notice.  I built up one overglow.  Two, I started sweating, still nothing.  Three, the magical strain was causing my knees to nearly buckle, wow they were dense.

               “Hay!”  The griffin yelled, finally noticing the leg sized, golden glow coming from my forehead.  “What do y-?”

               “Now!”  I yelled as I released the magic in a flash of light bright enough to burn even through my eyelids.

               The griffin shrieked and I immediately leaped forward, embedding my horn into her.

*BANG!*  *BANG!*

Still a bit dazed from my own spell I opened my eyes just in time to see Maple grab the blue mare’s pistol and shoot her twice in the chest before she even got it out of the holster. The massive bullets tore gaping holes, easily the size of sparkle cola bottles, through the guard.

               Looking up through the spots still swimming in my eyes, I realized that I had missed her neck in my blind charge.  My horn was embedded down to my forehead in one of her unarmored armpits.  I had gotten inside the range of her rifles, blinded her and probably cost her the use of her arm, but now I had my horn stuck in a very large, very angry griffin, who was easily three times my size.  Not a good place to be.

               In a random frenzy, her functional talon raked my side.  My new jumpsuit provided about as much protection as raider armor, but she still punched through with little effort.  Three lines of liquid fire opened down the length of my body as her claws ran through me as though I were made of butter.

               I struggled to get free to no avail.  Her mangled muscles were clenched around my horn, holding me in place.  To make matters worse, every time I tried to jerk away her claws sunk deeper between my ribs.

               I could barely make out Maple trading shots with the remaining fuzzy thugs around the flailing boss.  Three others, including the blue mare who had pointed out the stable, were already sprawled out in slowly growing, red circles of snow.  That still left four on one, she wouldn’t be able to help me any time soon.

               I was thoroughly panicking.  Okay, you had saved me before SATS, I have no weapon, I still hope you work.  Time slowed to a crawl.  It was letting me target something!  Yes.  Don’t care what it is, just do it.

               My telekinesis reached out and squeezed something with all my strength.  The griffin staggered, painfully ripping her claw out of my side to grab her chest.  A second clench brought her to the floor, pulling me under her.  Her weight was unbearable.  Her armored bulk pressed so tightly on my chest that I couldn’t breathe and my blood was pumping out in large sheets.

               It was her or me now.  Enough energy for one more charge of…  Telekinesis>Heart?!  I did not know I could do that.  I let SATS take over and grasped at her heart with my magic.  The muscle contracted and my spell held it there for two solid seconds.  It didn’t start back up.

               ‘>Shrikes infamy gained, Vilified.’

               Now I was bleeding out under a dead, armored griffin that was slowly crushing the life out of me.  Somehow I had figured this would have turned out better.

               “At least she isn’t making any new holes.”  The icy voice scoffed.

               True, true.  Now stop talking to the nice, stress induced hallucination.

               “I could also be a blood loss induced hallucination.”

               That was an excellent point, voice I‘m not listening to anymore.  I managed to wiggle loose enough to retrieve my last, thankfully unbroken, health potion.  The potion’s magic took painfully long to knit the slashes shut and I could feel it slowly repairing the internal damage.  Unlike the nearly instantaneous purple potions, these things were clearly not meant to be used in the middle of a fire fight.

               Blood loss, under control.  Now for the crushing issue.  I magically groped around the griffin for the clasps, straps, screws and whatever else she may have used to hold her armor on.  In my haste to get free I wound up ripping out as many feathers and clumps of fur as armor plates.  I was actually making progress until I got to the breast plate.  The twenty pound slab of ceramics and steel quickly overwhelmed my telekinesis, dropping it inches from my face.  While I was able to breathe again, I still couldn’t free myself.

               Thrashing futilely in rage and frustration I cursed The Unity, Da Boss and The Goddesses themselves.  I could have managed this a few days ago.  No, I wouldn’t have had any reason to handle this a few days ago.  I had no right to be here.

Why was I such a weak pony?

***        ***        ***

               After what felt like hours Maple dragged Da Boss’ body off me.  She was looking nearly as bad as she had in the cave.  Her barding was peppered with bullet holes and burns from some sort of magical energy weapon.  I figured from her multitude of small cuts and the clump of blood soaked, black and white mane hanging from the small cannon she held in her mouth, that she had even gone tooth and hoof with Tracks.

               “Thanks.”  I said, unsteadily rising to my hooves.  “How are you holding up?”

               She spat out the gun and grumbled.  “I’ll live.”

               “That’s good.”  I started to stretch out my aching body.  “Look, I’m sorry about this.  I should have known better than to just trot into strange ponies and expect to be welcomed.”

               “And I should have stopped you.  I‘m losing my edge.”  She sighed.  “You wouldn’t happen to have magicked up any more healing potions?”

               “Um…”  I darted around, emptying all The Shrike’s bags into my own, followed by a quick flip though my PipBuck’s inventory.  “No, no I have not. I do have some bandages…”  I glanced through the few things The PipBuck had qualified as Aid.  “And some disinfectant, but you won’t like it.”

               “I’m sure I’d like gangrene less.”  She puffed up her chest.  “I can take it.”  I pulled the bottles of Everclear out of my bags.  “Aw, horse apples.”  She groaned, losing a bit of her bolster.  “This is really going to suck.”

***        ***        ***

We promptly moved into the nearest cabin.  If I doused her outside, the evaporating alcohol would have frozen her within moments.

The cabin was, for lack of a better word, cozy.  It seemed to have weathered the last 200 years fairly well.  A rustic, four poster bed, with only a light coating of dust and mildew, was adjacent to a large, brick fireplace.  Empty door frames led into a modest kitchen with a wood paneled fridge and a surprisingly modern and out of place bathroom.  An intricately carved, wooden box was resting next to the fireplace full chopped wood and a few alchemically enhanced starter logs.

I floated one of the starters and a pile of chopped logs into the hearth. A shot from the novasurge pistol one of the Shrikes had shot Maple with and we had a respectable fire.

“Let me check around for any medical supplies.”  I said while I snuffled around the kitchen.  “We wouldn’t want to do something unpleasant when we have a potion nearby.”

        “Right, right.”  She grumbled.

The kitchen held little more than a few knives, pots, pans and dishware.  The fridge was empty.  Oven, empty.  The cabinets yielded some unenchanted bandages for accidents.  Those would come in handy, but we would still need the disinfectant.  On to the bathroom.  Oh, goody, a medical box...  a locked medical box, perfect.

        “Sorry, no go.”  I called out from the bathroom, pulling out the bottles of everclear.

               When I walked back to the main room Maple was gingerly striping out of her armor.  Under the thick layers of barding she had a stunning figure, even with her numerous injuries; the flexing of her well toned muscles was almost hypnotic.

               “Ocher.”

               “Huh, what?”  My attention shifted back to her face.

               “Pass me one of those.”  She said, pointing a hoof at one of the floating bottles.  “I’ll be dammed if I get drenched in booze without getting drunk.”

               I dully floated one over to her and unscrewed the cap.  She chugged down a solid quarter of the bottle before coming up for air.  I couldn’t help, but stand there dumbfounded.  That stuff was 90% alcohol and she just downed enough to floor any of the farm ponies back home as if it were nothing.  On top of everything else, she was turning a very nice shade of purple.

               “Um, ready?”  I asked awkwardly, my skin tight jumpsuit getting very uncomfortable; it was very obviously designed for a mare.  She nodded.  Okay, self control, you can do this without making an ass of yourself.  I proceeded to pour the rest of the Everclear over her wounds causing her to hiss and tense up.  Not helping!

               Behave Ocher, behave.  This is purely platonic.  You’re just wrapping wounds…  on the naked, booze soaked, and slightly inebriated mare with an amazing body.  Why do you hate me, Equestria?

I managed to practically mummify her without doing anything ungentlecoltly.

        “Stay here,”  I said heading for the door.  “I’m going to make sure there are no other Shrikes in the area.”

“Yes ma’am.”  She mumbled. Ma’am?  Better not question it, at least she wasn’t arguing.  She was in no shape to fight, but I still doubted I could stop her if she wanted to.

        I stepped back out into the snow and made for the lodge, my barding still chafing terribly.  “Stupid sexy Maple.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Auroramancer 2 -- The power of your light spells is increased by 50%. You may also create a stronger burst, identical to a flash-bang grenade. This blast is centered on you and is disorienting to use. Sunglasses weaken, but do not negate this spell.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, Tsoxychor and Twitchy for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Winter Dust Up

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Three: Winter Dust Up

“Don’t ask me where we’re going. Cause I don‘t know yet.”

The E.F.S. is good.  The E.F.S. is my friend.  The E.F.S. just kept me from walking straight into a half dozen Shrikes.

For some reason I couldn’t account for, the little, red lines didn’t show up until after I had entered the building and nearly knocked over a fuzzy, green mare.  She had only managed to get her pistol out of its holster and suck in a deep breath before S.A.T.S. put three smoldering holes in her head.

*Fizt*  *Fizt*  *Fizt*

Stress relief would need to wait.

The lodge was done up in the same down-to-earth, yet elegant style as the cabin had been.  Wood paneling disguised the concrete walls and steel doors where it hadn’t been peeled away.  Large pots, filled to bursting with scented, plastic plants littered the lobby, in and amongst richly upholstered lounge couches and magazine stacked side tables.  A large, dark wood, service counter stretched across the back wall, still retaining a hint of its finish even after two centuries.

Several doors led from this lounge to deeper in the building.  Two leading to stair wells, a quartet of bathrooms and a hall that turned to a floor to ceiling, open frame, which, if its stylized sandwich sign was any indication, opened into an eatery.

I could hear crude, rowdy conversation from the four bars in the eatery and somepony, no; I don’t kill ponies, somebody using one of the bathrooms.

I couldn’t afford to lose the element of surprise and someone was bound to notice the singed, green body, crumpled at my hooves.  I wrapped the corpse in my telekinesis and began the arduous task of dragging it behind the service desk.  Even with my magic lessening the load I had to struggle to make any real head way, at least my rifle had cauterized the wounds so I wasn’t leaving much of a blood trail.

I finally managed to reach my hiding spot when the stallion’s room door swung open.  A big, fluffy, purple buck wearing a similar apparatus to Maple’s saddle, mounted with a weapon I didn’t recognize, connected by hoses to a tank on his back, marched out with an eye watering wave of stench.  I doubted a healthy pony could make that smell.  No, not a pony, damn it.  He’s not a pony, he’s a Shrike.  They’re slavers, bandits and murderers, just like the Unity.  Monsters, nothing more.

“Oy!,”  The buck shouted.  “Da Boss’ been gone f’r a while, where’d she go?!”  Had he not heard the gunfight not fifteen minutes ago?  I was honestly shocked that they weren’t hunting us down yet.  This buck at least had an unnatural bowel movement as an excuse, but the others?

“She’s playin wit da city ponies outside!”  A mare’s voice belted back from the eatery.  “You’d better stay.  Member last time ye in’terrupted er fun?!”  Okay, so they did hear, but thought we were on the losing end.  I supposed that made sense.

“Eh, blow it out yer ass Crisps!”  The buck yelled back.

“I got da’ dynamite, dat’s my job!”  Crisps voice was followed by a chorus of laughter.

Dynamite?!  As if Stinky’s heavy weapon and the hoof cannons these bastards were packing wasn’t bad enough, now I had to deal with high explosives.

“He he, yeah, member dat zebra back in Glyphmark?!”  The buck chuckled, making his way to the others.

A zebra?  Around here?  That couldn’t be good.

“Oh, yeah.  Must’a been a colt-cuddler!  Fit three whole sticks in!”  Crisps bellowed with what I could only describe as pride.  “What a boom!”  She slammed something for emphasis; I would have to guess her table from the sound of rattling bottles.

I thought I was going to be ill just hearing that.  While he was a zebra, nopony deserves that.  At least it cleared up any moral ambiguity about this group.

They continued to exchange brief anecdotes and praise for malefic actions as Stinky made his way to the others.  By the time I heard him sit down I was about ready to throw caution to the wind, leap up and pummel him to death with my bare hooves.  That would have turned out quite poorly, as I had learned from a particularly gruesome boast about the effectiveness of ponies as kindling, that the thing on his back was a flamethrower.

If I wanted to do this I wound need to find a way to deal with them in ones or twos.  Even with a charged flare I’d still have problems as Stinky and Crisps only needed to know my general direction to incinerate or blow me apart, respectively.  But first I had to see if I could scrounge up some medicine or more stealth conducive weaponry, beams of searing light and 15mm bullets weren’t exactly subtle.

After taking anything valuable from the dead Shrike, taking special care to remember to grab her caps, I left her wedged under the counter.  With Stinky’s odor still so thick in the air that it was nearly palpable, I doubted they would be able to smell her, not for a while at least and judging from all the dust and debris I was lying on they didn‘t come back here often.

I slowly skulked out from behind the counter, wrapping myself in a magic field to soften my hoof steps.  This did force me to keep my weapon holstered and surrounded me in a glowing, gold aura, but as long as I stayed out of sight it would serve its purpose.

I made for the stair well, careful to avoid the numerous magazines littered about the lounge.

As soon as I closed the second floor door behind me all five hostile E.F.S. contacts in the lounge vanished, replaced by four new ones spread out all around me.  Where these buildings insulated with lead or something?

A hall, lined with doors stretched to both sides of me before making ninety degree turns back the way I came.  A thin rug, coated with stylized ponies frolicking among pine trees, ran down the middle of both corridors, accompanied by moss green mats with white numbers outside each door.  I got the distinct impression that this floor was meant for guests who could not afford one of the ritzy cabins.

My best guess, from the limited information provided to me by my E.F.S and a din of noise (it would be disrespectful to all things musical to call it singing) echoing through the halls, placed the Shrikes in rooms 04 and 23, with one patrolling the halls.  I gently dropped my telekinesis boots and floated out my beam rifle.  The patroller would be my first target.

I nestled down behind a nearby trashcan and placed my weapon on top.  Deactivating my magic field, I took hold of the mouth grip.  It felt odd, holding the rubbery, orange handle between my teeth and holding the trigger with my tongue, but it was preferable to having my weapon lit up like a torch while setting up an ambush.

“Trottin down cannon street!”

*Gulp*

“Buckin on every door!”

I heard The Shrike a while before she staggered into view.  A shaggy, blue, unicorn mare with a tangled, blue-green mane, stumbled obliviously towards me.  She had three different booze bottles (vodka, scotch and absinthe, I think) orbiting around her, taking deep swigs from whichever one was closest between singing lines of a crude, drinking song... badly.

“Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!”

*Gulp*

“I couldn’t find a whore!”

I struggled to discreetly shift the eight pound gun in her general direction with nothing but my mouth.  How did earth ponies do this?  I shuddered to think what the recoil on a ballistic weapon would do to a pony’s teeth.

“I fin’lly found a whore!”

*Gulp*

“She was r’ther thin!”

The sights on this thing were a nightmare to use with the mouth grip, a gun built for unicorns and saddles if there ever was one.

“Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!”

*Gulp*

“I couldn’t get it in!”

She emphasized the last point by swinging her hoof in the air and nearly falling on her face.  Almost there, but at this rate I was fairly she would die of alcohol poisoning before she got to me...

“I fin’lly got it in!”

*Gulp*

“Worked it all about!”

She was swinging her hoof in circles over her head, barely keeping her hoofing.  If the other three could ignore this racket why was I bothering to be sneaky?

“Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!”

*Gulp*

“I couldn’t get it out!”

Wait.  They couldn’t.  Not even the Unity raiders were dense enough to miss this.  They also couldn't miss it suddenly stopping.

“I fin’lly got it out!”

*Gulp*

“It was wet an’ sore!”

She nearly tumbled into me after shaking her hoof as if she had subbed it, but didn’t seem to notice.  The lush continued past me on her unsteady way.

“Da moral o dis story is!”

*Gulp*

“Tu never fuck a whore!”

Her voice faded into incoherent noise shortly after she turned the corner, though I wasn’t sure whether it was because of whatever insulated this building or the eight shots she had taken on this stretch of the corridor alone.

I floated the gun out of my mouth and back up to my eye; that felt so much more natural.  I gently placed my hoof on the handle of room 04’s door; one red bar inside.  Pushing down, I swung the door open and immediately entered SATS.

The room looked very nice, albeit in dire need of cleaning.  A princess sized bed rested in a corner with moldy sheets that had once had complex, snowflake patterns.  A respectable, oak dresser had been knocked over across the door way to a light blue, linoleum tiled, private bathroom.  The Shrike herself, a shaggy, purple earth pony with black, buzz-cut mane, was seated at a writing desk, cleaning her disassembled pistol.

I set up three shots on her, one in the head and two in the chest, and released the spell.  My first shot went wide, I supposed even 95% could miss sometimes, merely singeing her ear.  She had managed to pull out a knife that looked like it used to be part of a lawnmower before my second shot put a smoking, pinprick hole in her stomach and was nearly on me by the time my spell ended; scorching a second hole bellow her ribs.  I barely managed to swing up my left arm to keep her blade from my throat.

WRONG HOOF!  WRONG HOOF!

The improvised knife sunk into my unarmored fetlock, forcing me to bite down on my lip to keep from screaming.

From her ragged breathing around her knife I could tell that I had pierced one of her lungs, but that wasn't stopping her from trying to saw through my hoof.  I howled, losing control as she hit bone.  The other two red bars on my E.F.S. started moving.  If I wasn't screwed now I would be soon.  I started firing off rapid flares while I tried to wedge my rifle out from in between us; I'd never been able to cast that quickly before.

That did it.  I swung the weapon around, jammed it under the Shrike’s ribs and magically mashed the trigger until the weapon clicked empty.

The stench of burning fur, cooking pony flesh and the coppery twang of my own blood made me ill.  I had burned a hole the size of my leg clean through her, leaving her a slowly burning, purple mass at my hooves.

***        ***        ***

The other two hadn't proven to be anywhere near as difficult.  Apparently the thing with magical weapons was placement.  One or two of the beams could burn their way through nearly anything, as the two Shrikes with third nostrils would attest.  But since they only left needle thin holes and cauterized the wounds, poorly placed shots were little more effective than throwing darts.  Even less so now that I had managed to get flesh half melted into some of the weapons components, effectively ruining the casing.

I had cleaned out the room and the dead Shrikes, but, alas, there was not a bandage to be found.  With my magic occupied keeping me mobile, I was forced to holster my weapon and hope I could find something to put me back together before another Shrike got their claws in me.

I heard a mumbling noise down the hall.

*Snort*

“Two weeks later.”

*Neeigh*

Oh sweet Celestia.  The blue mare from earlier was snoring face down in a pool of mixed spirits with her fluffy rump sticking up in the air.  The martini glass with a chainsaw like sword skewering an olive on her flank was intriguing.  I knew it was an optical illusion caused by her longer coat, but I could have sworn that the sword’s teeth were moving.

*Snort*

“I was takin a piss.”

*Neeigh*

I walked closer to her and her smell finally over powered the reek of death that was clinging to me, sort of like a ashtray swimming in a mixture of liqueur, sweat and a sort of...  muskiness...  she looked so soft.  Well, horse apples, my barding was tight again.  Damn you to the moon for a thousand years pheromones.

I was also having some unrelated problems with killing an unconscious pony (to be fair, all she had done was drink too much to the best of my knowledge so I couldn't tag her as a monster).  It would just come back to bite me if I left her here.  I sat down and floated out my gun.

*Snort*

“Lunadamn son o’ a bitch.”

*Neeigh*

I lined up my shot with her white EFS contact...  hold up, white?  When had it turned white?  Well if she’s not going to kill me, what right did I have to kill her?

“This won’t end well for you.”  The icy voice returned.

Oh, don’t you start with me.  I don’t kill ponies and that is that.

“Give it time.”

Her unconscious attempt at music faded as I made my way up to the next level.

*Snort*

“She gave me Syph’lis.”

*Neeigh*

Well my barding wasn’t uncomfortable anymore.

***        ***        ***

The third floor had a distinctly different aesthetic from the rest of the facility.  A massive room took up most of the level with a large, train like thing, hooked to cables that ran along the ceiling dominating the space.  A series of tarnished, steel fences clashed horribly with the woodsy feel of the building, looking more appropriate for a dilapidated amusement park than a resort.  Almost the entirety of the south wall consisted of an open hole framed by some broken prewar tech.  A pair of doors and an elevator took up the North side and there was not a red bar to be seen.

I took a brief moment to follow the cables up the mountain.  Being at least 24 hooves up I was able to get a far better view.  A slightly smaller copy of this building was on the far side of the cables, at least five miles away.  Small figures, barely more than specks, were milling about the building and a massive hole that had been dug into the far cliff face, leading lines of ponies to a tent city that was set up around the wooden structure..

A machine was sitting idly by the opening.  It looked like a massive chainsaw strapped to a tank, at least 30 hooves from tread to cabin.  Several flying figures were orbiting the device, to large to be pegasi and to thin for griffins.  This had to be the excavator Mayor Goldlight had told me about.

I sat and brought up my rifle.  These things have effectively infinite range right?

“They also leave a shining trail right back to their source.”

Okay, there were only about a dozen flying ones I could manage twelve vital shots before they covered five miles.

“You only have six shots left.”

        Maybe I could tag a leader, that Gellwin perhaps.

        “Then the rest will kill you and any time Goldlight bought you would be forfeit.”

        “DAMN!”  I bucked one of the fences, falling flat on my face as my wounded leg crumpled under me.

I started struggling back to all fours when I noticed something jammed under the tram.  I gently lowered myself down and started up my horn light.  There was a crushed skeleton tangled up in some of the machinery on the bottom of the vehicle.  A dusty, but otherwise intact, beam rifle and a duffel bag lay next to a half melted set of gears.

I floated the rifle and bag over.  Okay, the rife wasn’t in quite as good a state as I had thought.  It looked fine, but was nearly wrecked on the inside.  It did however have a customized barrel attachment and a chassis that wasn't coated in liquefied flesh, a considerable improvement over the current state of my weapon’s casing.  I would need to swap those out when I found some tools, now for the bag.

Empty soda bottle, with a cap, taking that. Empty syringe, ‘insulin’ that sounded familiar, no matter, I didn’t need it.  A crime novel, ‘True Guard Stories, Canterlot’, reading material sounded useful.  An ID card ‘MoM Director of Fun, Inkie Flash’.  A Wonderbolts lunchbox filled with what, acording to the faded sticker, had once called a banana; really didn’t need that.  And finally, a maintenance kit, how fortuitous.  Now...  How was I going to get out of this pit?

        I reared up and tried to haul myself out by my good foreleg.  I grunted and strained to no avail, I couldn’t even lift one hind leg over the edge.  I just wasn’t strong enough; I would need to think of something else.

I looked around, finally settling on the duffel bag and one of the fence polls; this was going to hurt allot.  I tied the bag’s strap tightly around my injured leg, above the cut, and then levitated it over the post.  Using my tied leg as an anchor I climbed up the pony height platform, my wound screaming at me the entire time.  By the time I got over my foreleg was soaked with blood, the pressure had reopened my wound.  In fact it was probably bleeding more freely than it had when originally been made.

        Now, having a real chance of bleeding to death, I was in a desperate search for anything even remotely medical.

        “Not to mention the five Shrikes down stairs you still need to deal with.”

        Thanks, I feel much better now.  I thought going insane was supposed to make things less stressful.

        “Where did you hear a daft thing like that?”

Just ignore it Ocher.  If you ignore it, it will go away.  I opened one of the large doors on the other side of the tram station.

A well decorated office with a large desk, a terminal and a wall safe.  There were also several posters of the same grinning, middle aged, pink mare with various sayings across the walls.  ‘A Loyal Pony is a Happy Pony’.  ‘Giggle at the Traitor, And Then Tell MoM’.  ‘Life’s A Party, And The Zebras Aren't Invited’.  ‘Pinkie Pie is Watching You, FOREVER!’.  Well that was out right disturbing.  Glad we didn’t have any of those in Shetland.

        I sat down at the terminal, flicked it on and waited for my PipBuck to start up its hacking program.

        ‘>Error.’

        ‘>Password recovery failed.’

        ‘>Terminal security will not allow access.’

        ‘>Please make sure you have the latest updates.’

        How was I supposed to update it?  Everypony was dead and it wasn’t like I knew programming.

        ‘>Password located.’

        ‘>Access granted.’

        Hu?  Didn’t you just say you couldn’t access it?

        ‘>Welcome Director Flash.’

Ah, the ID card I should have tried first.  Well let’s see what the Director of Fun kept on her computer.

A few inventory reports, they ran out of streamers a lot.  A welcome letter to somepony name Harry who had moved into a nearby cave from Ponyville and was trying to fix up the place.  Staff assessments with little more than smiley faces and sad faces placed next to each name.  Well that's that, on to the personal files.

Porn.

Porn.

Dragon porn.  I had always wondered how that worked.

Horn enlargement, I self consciously prodded my own horn, living proof that horn size did not mean magic power (at this point I would rather have average telekinesis than an average horn).

More porn.  This was ridiculous.  I liked a good show as much as the next buck and I did indeed have a section for it in my shop, as well as a few personal shots of Primrose floating about my room.  But this much and on a work terminal no less.  So unprofessional.

Porn.

SpikeBuck driver.

So.  Much.  Porn…  Hold up, ‘SpikeBuck driver’?  That sounded interesting…  and only a little bit like porn.  I tabbed back and downloaded the file to my PipBuck.

It wasn’t porn.  It actually seemed to be a 36 digit access code and installation guide for some sort of PipBuck attachment.

That was all the files, now to pop the safe open.

Oh, happy days.  There was a fully stocked med kit, bandages, painkillers, regeneration potions, more of that insulin stuff, a bottle of THERMAL and even a pair of purple health potions.  I ignored the rest of the safes contents, stabbed myself with a dose of Med-X and chugged one of the regeneration potions, not even taking time to savor the taste.

No longer dying, I returned my attention to the wall safe.  There were several piles of pre-war bits, griffin bills and even zebra denarius.  I had no idea why somepony would need zebra money up here and, frankly, I didn’t care.  I had no idea if they still had value, but I would be dammed if I left all that money just sitting there.  Sweeping it all into my bag I noticed one final item in the back, it roughly resembled my PipBuck in style but was much smaller and looked like it would fit just above my hoof.  The SpikeBuck perhaps?

I hooked in into my PipBuck and my screen immediately went dead.  Horse apples!  I just broke the thing that was keeping me alive.

‘>...Too Many Secrets...’

My PipBuck flared back to life, blinding me with updates, status reports and permissions.

‘>Black Apple SpikeBuck online.’

‘>Please insert PipSpike to activate.’

Well that sure was...  Something.  Well, on to the next room then.

***        ***        ***

‘Ms. Ginger Crisps.’

‘We would like to thank you for your contribution of one pregnant mare to the Unity.  Foals are the future and you have ensured that this child will have a bright one.’

‘We have calculated your fee.  You will receive the second hand, household slave rate of 225 caps for the mother and an additional 125 for the foal, as it has yet to be corrupted by the evils that would poison it against salvation.

‘To collect your compensation, please report to The Whorl Timber Yard.  You may collect in caps, product or you may waive your fee in exchange for a regular stipend should you decide to put your skills to work for The Unity.’

‘Sincerely, Overseer Gellwin Stormpride’

The second room seemed to be Crisps sleeping quarters; I had found the note under a beer bottle on her desk.  I didn’t know what disgusted me more, that they were selling ponies like mere livestock, or that they placed the value of a mother and her foal’s lives at less than half that of my rifle.  Regardless, I was going to make them pay for this.

I took a few minutes to fit the new chassis and beam splitter muzzle attachment to my rifle before heading down to deal with the last five.  I passed the drunken mare again, but left her alone, I had bigger fish to fry.

One of the Shrikes bumped into me on the way down the stairs.

*Fizt*

SATS let me melt through her throat before she could even yell.

Pausing in front of the door to the first floor I started building up a charge in my horn. I slipped on a pair of snow goggles I had scavenged from one of the Shrikes earlier. If I was lucky, I wouldn't daze myself this time.  One over glow, that was surprisingly easy, only mild difficulty breathing.  Two, my barding was doing an admirable job of wicking away the sweat streaming off me.  I stopped at three when one of my legs gave out on me, no sense risking a burn out or unconsciousness.  Clamping my eyes shut, I bucked open the door and flooded the building with light.

I opened my eyes again, only slightly dazed this time thanks to the goggles.  The other two Shrikes and Crisps, a cream unicorn with bulky saddlebags and an explosion as a cutie mark, had been examining the green mare I had hid behind the counter.  No sign of Stinky though.

*Fizt*  *Fizt*  *Fizt*

SATS served me well, my rifle’s twin beams disintegrating one Shrike with the first shot and spearing through both eyes of the second, causing her to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.  My third shot, unfortunately, only wounded Crisps. I was aiming for her head, but karma seemed to have other plans.  One beam speared through her thigh and the second spayed her.  

She shrieked as she curled around her melted nethers.  Normally I would feel bad about doing something like this, but the slaving bitch would get no sympathy from me.  I walked down the stairs, carefully loading my last microspark pack.  I had just leveled my gun at Crisps’ head when my entire left side burst into flames.

Stinky had come out of the eatery and caught me with the outer edged of his cone of flame.  If it weren’t for the fact that the flames only just reached me and my barding seemed to be at least fire resistant I would have been dead in seconds.

I desperately rolled to put out the flames before they could spread, succeeding just in time for Stinky to buck me over the counter.  I landed with a crunch, judging from how painful it was to breathe and my distorted barrel; he had broken several of my ribs.

I telakenetically reset my ribs and downed a health potion while I struggled back to my hooves.  I peered over the counter and came face to face with Stinky’s flamer.

“Any last word ye’ li’l shit?”  He growled as Crisps crawled blindly behind him for protection.

I got da’ dynamite, dat’s my job.

“Ya,”  I grinned, slipping into SATS and tagging one shot on Crisps bags.  I hoped she was dumb enough to keep the detonators in.  “blow it out your ass!”

*Fizt*

The moment the shot was fired I dropped to the floor.

With a deafening boom the room was painted with a fresh coat of Shrike.

***        ***        ***

Here I was torn.  On the one hoof, the sparkling city on the horizon and its ‘Frostborn’ offered the best hope for finding Stable 114 some help.  On the other, at least 26 of my neighbors were still in the custody of The Unity and I knew one the locations of their camps (The Whorl Timber Yard had appeared on my PipBuck‘s auto-map as soon as I had read about it).

That little, pink mare looks like a screamer.

Primrose…  She might be there.  She was my friend.  I had failed her in Shetland, I couldn’t fail her again.  Now it was a matter of convincing Maple to come with me.  I had serious doubts that I could survive a one pony assault on an unknown number of heavily armed psychopaths using my friend and neighbors as pony shields.

I trotted back out of the ruined ski lodge, magically picking pieces of the help desk out of my hide.  My hooves made soft crunching noises where the snow was crusted over with blood as I made my way to the cabin Maple was resting in.  I telekinetically opened the door and found myself staring down a pair of stacked shotgun barrels.

“I probably should have knocked huh?”  I said, peering at Maple around her gun.

She was looking surprisingly well put together.  She was back in her armor (a mixed blessing there) and there was no sign of her injuries.

“Probably.”  She said flipping her guns up.  “I can’t tell who you are through doors without my PipBuck.”

I followed her back inside the cabin.  A pile of blood soaked bandages were piled by the hearth, next to a yellow medical box popped open, with a hair pin sticking out of the lock.

“How did…?”  I stammered.  “But I…  You can pick locks?”

“Yes.”  She replied lying down by the dying fire.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  I asked.  If I had known I would have just brought her that damn box in the first place.  Then we could have both taken the remaining shrikes and I could have avoided a half dozen broken bones (I had broken three times as many bones in the past few hours than in the rest of my life put together).

“You never asked.”  Was she kidding?

“Why would I ask?!”  I yelled.  “You’re security!  It’s your job to keep locks unpicked!”

“Ocher.”  She sighed, turning to me.  “I am not my job.  You of all ponies should understand that.”

“Me?”  I was confused.

She shrugged.  “Whatever you did in the Shetland sim, I’m sure it didn’t involve using energy weapons or jousting.”

“I was a shop keeper.”  I told her frankly.  “I learned how to shoot with the family’s pester beam.  I used it to make wood carvings.”  I paused, slightly more embarrassed.  “As for the jousting...”

 I thought back to when I was a foal.  It was shortly after my mother had died in an inventory accident.  Bluebolt, a colt a few years older than me, had made some insensitive remark.  I didn’t even remember what he had said to make me so angry; the whole memory was a red tinted blur.  All I knew was he opened his mouth one moment and the next thing I knew I was levitating the cash register and he was curled on the floor, bleeding profusely from a broken muzzle.  “I have a bit of a temper.”

She turned to me; looking a bit surprised at my candidness.  “I wasn’t always in security.”  She fiddled with her hooves, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.  “The Stable leadership wasn’t perfect.  Sometimes ponies slipped through the cracks.”  She sighed deeply.  “I was one of them.  My foalhood was spent galloping through access tunnels with a small herd, stealing whatever I could to live.  Mostly just scraps, little things we could sell for food.”

“When I was still a filly, about eleven, I made a terrible mistake.  I stole a box I thought contained a collection of Super Mare comics.  We were going to read them and then pawn them off to the other fillies and colts for bits of their lunches.”  She gritted her teeth.  “I was stupid and sloppy.  I should have checked the box.  I had always checked the boxes.“

She turned to me and put her forelegs on my shoulders.  “It was full of muffins!”  She yelled at me.  “I stole food!”

I looked at her befuddled.  How was stealing muffins worse than stealing a box of collectibles?  “And that was worse?”  I asked as sensitively as I could, though I probably just came off as confused.

“Worse?!”  She yelled in disbelief.  “WORSE?!”  I cringed.  That last one nearly left me deaf.  “How could...?”  She let go of me and started pacing, mumbling under her breath.  “Stupid pod-ponies.  Spend all their time in a damn paradise.  Don’t know shit from sarsaparilla.”  She turned back to me, slipping into her cold, mechanical, security officer tone.  “A Stable has limited resources.  Stealing food is the same as stealing life and is punished accordingly.”  She gently stroked The Grim Harvest with her hoof, as if it were a newborn foal.  “My herd abandoned me to the security forces.  If it wasn’t for Blossom...  I would have been recycled.”  

Recycled?  How do you recycle a pony?

“The same way you recycle any other plant or animal.”  My frigged delusion remarked.

The same way you...  No.  They wouldn’t have.  But there was no other explanation.  The look of regret and resignation on Maple’s face confirmed it.  They would.

“Recycled?!”  I yelled back, utterly appalled.  “They would kill you for accidentally stealing a box of muffins?!”  Why was I trying to help these ponies?

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”  She sighed.  “Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.  Now you know why I can pick locks.  I’m sorry I didn't bring it up earlier, but its not something I'm proud of.”

“I...”  Best to let sleeping dragons lie.  “Okay, I’ll drop it for now.”

“Good.”  Maple said, walking over to the luxurious bed.  “Lets stay here tonight,”  She started turning down the bed covers.  “there’s no telling when we will find a bed again.  An avalanche survival kit is under the bed if you’re hungry.”

“Map... er, I mean, Officer Sugar.”  I piped up.  “There is something I need to talk to you about.”  

“Maple is fine,”  She replied, not looking up from her work.  “I don’t usually stand on ceremony.  As for the supply box, the first rule of scavenging; always look under the bed.”

“No, no.”  Just spit it out Ocher.  “I found the location of a Unity slaver camp and I’m going to shut it down with or without you.  I can’t abandon my friends and neighbors.  Not again.”

        “Okay.”

        “Now I know you don’t wan...  beg pardon?”

        “I said okay.  Lets get going.”  She flipped her guns down and started gathering bits and bobs from around the cottage.

        “I, but, you...  Really?”  I asked, flabbergasted.  “Just like that?”

“Ocher,”  She said in a lecturing tone.  I just realised, she was still slightly purple.  “I may not be my job, but that doesn't mean I won't protect ponies whenever I can.”  She turned her shield emblazoned flank towards me.  “Or dole out justice to those who would harm them.”

        I just sat there, dumb struck as she loaded the contents of the survival box into her saddlebags.

“Oh, and Ocher.”  She turned to me on her way out the door with a dangerous smirk.  “You have had a bad few days, so I will let it slide this time.  But if you ever insult my character like that again I’ll make you a mare.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  Crusader-- You have improved your ability to see distant locations, you may add two additional levels of magnification whenever you zoom in (eg. x5 binoculars may be used on x5 or x7 zoom)

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, Tsoxychor and Twitchy for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation and fallout-equestria.com)

The Merchant

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Four: The Merchant

“You make it sound as if it’s going to be hard.”

I stomped my hoof nervously.  We had come to the snow line.  Beyond this point, Equestria changed abruptly from a dirty white to a dirty brown.  This was dirt and stone...  All I had ever known was snow.  Even the farmland in Shetland was perpetually covered with snow.  Dirt just looked…  unnatural.

This was ridiculous!  I had nearly died from hypothermia, charged a giant griffin, attacked four heavily armed bandits by myself; and that was just in the last few hours.  Now I was freaking out over dirt!  This must be how Maple felt; seeing the sky for the first time.  Her comment about weakness made so much more sense now.  I felt utterly pathetic, being disturbed by something that I knew couldn’t hurt me.

Dirt is everywhere, nothing’s more natural.  You’re the weird one Ocher.  Just get over it.

I took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.  Dirt was odd.  It gave slightly underhoof, but it felt more grainy.  It was sort of like walking on a thick layer of flour.

I kicked up a small cloud of dust that I could only describe as smelling ’earthy’.  I kind of liked ‘earthy’.  It mixed beautifully with the sweet pine scent that wafted up from the forests further down the mountain.  It reminded me of curling up with somepony in front of a warm fire and devouring a hearty loaf of sourdough bread.

I guess dirt wasn’t all that bad.

***            ***            ***

“I bucking hate dirt.”  I grumbled, using one of the knifes from the cabin to scrape the built up gunk and slime from my mud caked hooves.  I was sitting, soaked, shivering and naked, in a dank cave, next a small fire I had started with a shot from the novasurge pistol and one of the starter logs.  “And water, for that matter.”

It had started raining less than an hour after we had started down the dirt infested foothills.  No, this wasn’t rain.  This was the sky trying to physically assault us with grape sized pellets of water or, failing that, drown us.

All that sweet smelling, dusty dirt turned into hoof consuming sludge in a matter of minutes.  I had practically jumped out of my skin the first time I stepped on a patch of mud and sank up to my forearm.  At least I would have if the mud hadn't held me firmly to the ground.

To make matters worse, Maple loved every second of it.

We eventually found a shallow cave in a cliff face and, with much difficulty, I convinced Maple to set up camp till the rain stopped.

“What are you talking about Ocher?”  Maple called from where she was sitting on a patch of stone, just outside the cave mouth.  “This is amazing.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if your barding wasn’t waterproof,”  I assured her.  While her armor had proven quite impervious to the sky’s assault mine had not fared quite as well.  It’s weather resistant layer had failed after a mere ten minutes…  then its moisture absorbing feature kicked in.  What was meant to keep my own sweat from freezing me had instead caused my barding to swell to such sizes that I had to practically waddle into the cave.  I had wrung out as much as I could and spread it out on the other side of the fire to dry.

“Sure I would.”  She said so softly that anypony else would have been unable to discern it over the rain.  “This is beautiful…”  Her voice drifted off as her eyes followed the rain back to the overcast sky.  Her front legs gave out from under her, but she rolled on to her back and kept her eyes locked on the clouds, silently mouthing something over and over again.  ‘It’s just like a ceiling.  It’s just like a ceiling.’

I ambled over to her.  “Maple are you allr- Hrunng!”  Without my barding, my frost burns tore back into my flesh as I got further from the warmth of the fire.  I stumbled, but stayed on my hooves.  Maple didn't even seem to notice; she remained lost in the rolling storm clouds.

I couldn’t get to her; every time I pushed myself forward my injuries got worse.  I had to retreat back to the fire, and made sure I had the Thermal on hoof.

She just lay there, staring.  Her pin prick pupils slowly widened again as her rhythmic chanting slowed and finally ceased.  She was wearing the most serene smile I had ever seen on a sober pony.

She rolled to her hooves and trotted back to the cave entrance, soaked to the bone.  “Ocher,”  She said in a hushed, excited tone as if she had seen some small animal and was afraid she would scare it away.  “Look.”  She activated a lapel flashlight we had found in the survival kit and a hundred faint, rippling rainbows coated the cave mouth.

She had never seen one before had she?  The first time I had seen one, I was just a foal.  I could remember the sense of utter wonder it evoked in me.  To experience that as an adult had to be magical.

“Maple,”  I waved her over.  “Come on, warm up.”  She looked hesitantly between me and the waves of color dancing across the cave walls.  I telekinetically unclipped the light from her vest.  “I’ll hold it, now get out of the rain.”  She came over and curled up next to me.

I had to admit, her wonder was contagious.  There was a sliver of beauty in this war scarred hell.  I could almost feel my mane inflate.

***        ***        ***

“It’s been six hours Ocher,”  Maple called from her patch of stone outside the cave.  “I don’t think it’s going to stop raining any time soon.”

“But I-”  I started to protest.

Maple cut me off.  “Those slave ponies don’t have forever.”

“… Fine,”  I grumbled, damn moral fiber.  “Let’s at least have breakfast first.”

Maple ambled back inside while I dug through the food section of the survival kit.  Let’s see. Freeze dried apples, those looked nice.  Some garlic herb crackers, we would need the carbs.  Oh, and “hot” cocoa, it would probably be more like cold brown sludge, but I could use the caffeine.  Huh?  The mug had instructions?  Who would need instructions on how to operate a thermos?

‘1) Twist cap ¼ counter clockwise.’

‘2) Wait 30 seconds.’

‘3) Enjoy. (Warning: Hot)’

Okay, quarter turn and-.

“Whoa!”  The base of the thermos started glowing orange and I could feel it heating in my hooves.  “Maple!”  I shouted excitedly.  “Look, it heats its self!”

“Of course it does,”  she said, looking at me with her head cocked, obviously confused at my excitement.  “They have one use heat talismans in the bases.”  I decided not to make a snide remark about never seeing a rainbow.

I inhaled my food while running through all the things I could do with the talisman.  Emergency heaters for my barding.  Fire starters.  Impromptu ammunition for my rifle.  With enough of them I could even take a hot bath.

“Do your worst wasteland!”  I yelled, stepping back out into the downpour.  “I have cocoa!”

***            ***            ***

When will you learn Ocher?  Don’t tempt the blasted hellscape.

It had taken several hours of slogging through the mire that coated the foot hills, but we managed to reach The Whorl Timber Yard slaver camp by dusk.

We were on a, thankfully, rocky, cliff, overlooking a saw mill, walled with everything from sky buses to fused chunks of scrap metal.  An open, garage like building housed a massive conveyor belt with a rack of circular saws; each tooth looked to be the size of my horn.  A trio of office bungalows rested against the wall on the other side of the complex.  The side facing us was stacked six ponies high with fresh cut trees.  A small railroad snaked off to the north, vanishing beyond the tree line.

The entire camp was crawling with slavers.  I was able to pick out at least three larger ones wearing scrapper armor with battle saddles equipped with industrial saws and spike rifles.  If the group back in 114 was any indication that meant that there were at least twelve other slavers around and possibly a few griffins.  This was going to be a problem.  Just one scrapper was a match for the two of us.

Five ponies were huddled together in a barbed wire wrapped cage at the heart of the camp; four mares and one stallion.  Damn it, I could see that one of the mares was pink, but I couldn’t tell if it was Primrose through the murk.

“What would you do if you could tell?”  The arctic voice asked, almost sounding amused.  “What if it wasn’t her? You’d have no reason to risk your life.”

It was right.  I would have no reason to go.  I probably shouldn’t even go now, I had a mission to complete.  What right did I have to risk the lives of at least 150 ponies for the sake of 5?

“You don’t owe these ponies anything. The important thing is that you survive.”

“That’s right,”  I said, stepping away from the cliff edge. Maple was staring at me with a mixture of confusion and disappointment. “There’s no reason to…”

I heard a scream, barely audible over the downpour.  One of the Unity ponies had grabbed a green, earth pony mare from the pen.  The scrapper had her bushy, blue tail in his mouth and was dragging her, kicking and screaming, to one of the offices.

Not my problem?!  What the hell was I thinking?!

I swung up my rifle and pointed it at the scrapper.

“You only have one shot left,”  The voice taunted.

“You have no right to talk to me anymore!”  I yelled at myself.  “You almost made me leave them!  I can do this.”

“You could also kill the pony you’re trying to save.”

“I can do this.” I lined up the top of the barrel with the scraper’s head.

“The beam splits.”

“I can do this.” My magic flicked off the safety.

“You’ve missed at a tenth this range.”

“I can do this.” I took a deep breath through clenched teeth.

“Do you know if the rain will affect the shot?”

“I…”

“Could you live with yourself if you killed her?”

My vision blurred as tears began to well up.  “I…”  I couldn’t do it.

The mare disappeared into the third bungalow.

“DAMN IT!”  I screamed as I threw my rifle in the mud at my hooves.

Maple was looking at me nervously. I had that entire argument out loud…

“Ocher…”  She said hesitantly.  “Are you all right?”

No, I’m not ‘all right’ you moron!  “No.“ I mumbled.  Of all the stupid questions you could ask!

“Okay,”  She said in a strangely supportive voice.  “How about you head back to the cave.”  She placed her hoof on my shoulder.  “I’ll come get you when this is over.”

“Looks like you’re off the hook.”

Don’t let it provoke you.  You’re better than this.

“No,”  I said again, louder this time.  “I can handle it.  I need to do this.  These creatures need to be destroyed so they can‘t hurt anypony else.”

Maple studied my face intently.  What would I do if she tried to stop me?

After what felt like an eternity she nodded, apparently satisfied that I wasn’t going to go postal in the near future.  “Okay,”  She said, taking her hoof off my shoulder.  “ But as soon as this is done you’re going to take it easy.  I’m trained for this, you aren’t.”  She walked back to the overlook and sat down.  “So, what’s the plan?”

The first thing that came to mind was to charge down, guns blazing and probably die.  Not my best idea, all thing considered, but I was seething with such hatred (and an odd desire to play cards) that it was difficult to come up with anything else.

Come on Ocher, you’re a clever pony, you can do better.  Sniping?  No, we only had one weapon that could make the shots; my nearly depleted (and now muddy) rifle.  Sneak in?  Not likely.  I was essentially walking in a sponge and I doubted ‘subtle’ was in Maple’s vocabulary.  Out flank them?  I’d just get the captives caught in the crossfire; or worse yet, used as pony shields.

Maple started fidgeting impatiently.  I couldn’t say I blamed her; the longer we took the more they could hurt the ponies we were here to save.

ARGH!  What could I do?!  Lie them out of bondage?

Actually, that wasn’t so bad.  The Shrikes thought I was a merchant after all and I had always taken a perverse pride in my own deceptions.

I hastily filled Maple in on my new, not suicidal, plan.

“Let me get this straight.”  Maple said in her ’Pod Ponies are stupid’ voice.  “So all we need to do find a safe, subtle escape route for one, two, three, four, five,”  She pointed her hoof at me.  “Plus yourself.  Six ponies!  All without letting the slavers figure out you’re not a buyer?”

“That’s the gist of it.”  I replied with a halfhearted smirk.  “I should have enough to buy them and there were plenty of supplies back at the ski lodge to get them back on their hooves.”  I shook most of the mud off my rifle and reholstered it.  “We can come back later when we don’t have innocents to worry about.”

Maple sighed, obviously not happy with this.  “If worst comes to worst,”  She said, opening one of her saddlebags.  “We can at least arm them.”  Inside were the half dozen 15MM, Shrike, hoof cannons we had managed to repair.

I hid my horn under the padded hoofball cap (I’d take any advantage I could get) and started down the hill.  This was going to be interesting.

***        ***        ***

“What business do you have with The Unity?!”  The camp’s scrapper gate keeper barked.  He was an orange earth pony, a fair bit smaller than the one I had fought in 114.

I’m here to kill you.  “I’m here to buy of course,”  I replied with a pleasant smile.

The scraper looked at me skeptically.  “Your reference?”  He demanded, holding out a hoof.

Stupid!  Of course they need a reference to prevent exactly what we were trying.  I started rummaging in my numerous pockets, stalling for time.  Think, think, think.  A piece of paper brushed against my muzzle.

Ah ha.  That should work.

I handed him Ginger Crisps claim note.  “I’m here on behalf of a mutual friend.”

He studied the note intently, furrowing his brow in concentration.  “I really gota learn to read one of these days.”  He finally said.  “But that’s the overseer’s signature alright.”  All his hostility vanished in an instant.  “Welcome!  How may I help you this evening?”

That was… easy.  “I’m in the market for additional household staff,”  I said in my best imitation of the Unity radio announcer’s voice.

“Well, I think we can help you out,”  He replied as he led us to the cage.  “We have four fine specimens right here.”  The scrapper opened the gate and walked inside.  Grabbing the yellow buck by the mane he returned to us.  “This one is particularly well trained.  He’s been in and out of our care for the past six years now.”  I could believe it, he hadn’t even tried to resist.

“Hum…”  I rubbed my chin.  “He looks promising, but I was hoping for a bulk order.”

“Not a problem sir,”  The scrapper led each our for examination.  In addition to the buck there was a lime green unicorn who had been sold by her family to pay off gambling debts, a blue earth pony who was caught ‘trespassing’ and the pink mare had been ’saved’ from a ruined caravan.

I was actually relived that Primrose wasn’t among them.  I doubted I could keep this facade if I knew she was being treated like this.

“These look like a good start,”  I said, pretending to appraise the four in front of me.  “but, I was hoping for more.”

“More?”  He asked, looking confused.  “For household use?”

“It’s a big house,”  I replied with a grin.  “I saw one of you relocating a fifth one on my way down here.”

“You don’t want those,”  He said waving his hoof dismissively.

Those?  There was more than one other pony inside.  I had to get in.  “I’m quite sure I do,”  I replied, pulling the sack of caps out of my pocket; which had swelled to over 2500 after my skirmish with the Shrikes.  He looked back and forth, obviously conflicted.  This wouldn’t take much.  I jingled the bag.  “I can make it worth your while.”

“You sure?”  He asked.  “They’re used.”

Used?  USED!?  These are ponies you sick son of a bitch!  Not furniture!  “That’s not a problem for what I have in mind.”  I said in a calm voice, letting my rage turn to cold hatred.

“Yes Sir, I’ll bring you to the boss mare immediately.”

Boss mare?  Overseer Gellwin wasn't here?  Damn it!

***        ***        ***

    He led us into the third bungalow which was apparently reserved for Gellwin and the boss mare. As soon as I entered I could hear soft sobs.

    The building seemed to be split into three rooms.  A hardwood door on my left had the word ‘Overseer’ embossed in faded gold leaf; I would need to give that special attention on the return trip.  An open room directly ahead of me resembled a well maintained, impromptu lounge.  Along the back of the room were a trio of vending machines (Sunrise Sarsaparilla, Sparklecola and a Neighstlé Snacks) between a luxurious couch and a meticulously maintained sofa that resembled a bowl of pillows.  Finally the source of the weeping; a simple, metal door to my right with the words ‘Management’ painted in chipping, black paint and ‘Sandstone’ carved strait into the steel with a knife.

        Our guide hesitantly knocked on the management door.

        “WHAT!”  A gruff mare’s voice bellowed from the room, echoed by a barely audible squeak.

        “We have a customer ma’am!”  The scrapper halfheartedly yelled back.

        “You know the prices!”  The mare, who I could only assume was Sandstone, barked.  “Why the fuck are you bothering me?!”

    “He wants to buy our whole stock!  He says the ones in the yard aren't enough!”  There was no reply.  “He has the caps for it!”  The scraper added, almost apologetically.

        “Augh!”  Heavy hoof steps approached the door.

        THAT was a mare?!

    A massive, tan earth pony with a blood red mane and eyes stood in the doorway; looking more like a griffin in a pony suit.  She was wearing what appeared to be reinforced scrapper armor without the champron, right sabaton or croupiere.  “So,”  She glared down at us with utter contempt and growled.  “You want to buy my toys?”

        “Yes,” I replied as level headily as I could.  “I have a large order to fill and caps to burn.”

    “Suit yourself,”  She snorted and turned back into the room.  Her cutie mark was a blood stained, barbed wire whip.  She flicked her tail.  Okay, she was technically a mare.

    Her room was filled with cubicles stripped of their coating and welded into crude cages filled with piles of straw.  Three had ponies in them.  The green mare from the pen was curled up and weeping softly into her tail; she was covered in bruises and bleeding from her nose.  A filthy, white buck was lying unconscious in a second stall.  And the third held a softly breathing, black pegasus.

    I could hear Maples teeth grinding and I couldn’t blame her.  The knowledge that I wouldn't be able to save anypony if I was dead was all that was keeping me from leaping at this...  thing.

    “You can’t have the featherbrain,”  She said dismissively.  “The others are yours for 300 caps, I have no use for them anymore.”

    Calm, Ocher, calm.  Keep it all inside.  Their lives depend on it.  “Are you sure?”  I asked, walking over to the third cadge.  “I could use a pegasus to get those hard to reach places.”

    I took a closer look at the ebony mare.  Her teal mane was a tangled mess.  Her body was coated in a multitude of scrapes and bruises except for her cutie mark (some sort of green target with several lighter green dots).  The hair on her inner thighs and tail was matted with blood.  The only part of her that seemed unravaged were her wings, which seemed to have been meticulously groomed.  Though it was her deep blue eyes that held my attention.  She wasn't broken like the buck or green mare; all I saw was rage.

        “I’m not going to get a new one soon and I like the feathers,”  Sandstone replied.  “Not selling.”

        “Really?”  I asked walking up next to her.  “I have a thousand caps here that say otherwise.”

        “A thousand?”  That peeked her interest.

        “Yes, a thousand for immediate purchase.  You don’t even need to clean her up first.”

        “Hmm...”  Sandstone rubbed her muzzle.  I almost had her.

    “Just imagine how proud Gellwin will be when she comes back and finds out that you managed to sell out,”  I pressed.  “I know she just acquired a large batch and will need the space.”

    I caught the hint of a smile.  I had just won.  She would try to raise the price, but I would counter by offering to waive Ginger Crisp’s voucher.

    “I suppose I might be able to part with her, but it would be like losing a beloved pet.  I couldn’t part with her for so little.”

    Ponies aren’t pets, you sick, sadistic scum.  “Tell you what,”  I said, awkwardly putting my foreleg over her shoulder.  This would be the most challenging lie I had ever told.  “Because I like you,”  I almost choked on those words.  “I’ll give you two grand for the lot of them and,”  I pulled out the slip of paper.  “Consider this a gift to the glory of The Unity.”  I would need a shower after this.

    “Done.” She extended her unarmored hoof which, on closer inspection, seemed to be flecked with fresh blood and a few green hairs.

    I took her soiled hoof, fighting the utter disgust I felt at the thought of touching this creature.  “A pleasure doing business with you.”  Before day break I will reduce you to a pile of smoldering ash.  And one day soon I’ll rip your overseer’s filthy throat out with my bare teeth!

***        ***        ***

    We left the camp with the slave ponies; the still catatonic, white buck was slung over the yellow one’s back.  Maple had managed to discreetly reassure each of them of our intentions while feigning to examine their restraints.  I was honestly impressed with her restraint.  If it weren’t for her grinding teeth, I would go as far as to say that she did better than I did.

        Nopony said a word until we got back to our overlook.

        “Alright.”  I turned back to the other ponies.  “Now you buy your freedom.”

        “What?!”  Maple yelled at me, horrified.  “How dare you?!”

    “Look!”  I snapped back.  “Nothing is free!  In this world or any other.  Any pony who tells you differently is a filthy liar!”

        “These ponies have nothing!  This is just cruel!”

    “Cruel?!”  I spun around and pressed my forehead against hers, being careful to not stab her with my horn.  “Making them live in my debt is cruel,”  I hissed.  “A debt is like a blade hanging over your neck and something ‘free’ is even worse.  The blade is still there, you just can’t see it.”

    I turned from her.  “Now I need payment for my services.”  The assembled ponies stared at me with a mix of regret and hatred.  They’d thank me for this one day.  “From each of you, I want one small rock.”

    All there expressions shifted to utter bewilderment.  Maple seemed particularly confused.  “You heard me,”  I said impatiently.  “One rock for your freedom, cough them up.”

    One by one the ex slaves retrieved small stones from the mud and placed them in a small, plastic bag I had provided.  The black pegasus was last.  When she approached she threw her stone to the mud and knelt down in front of me.

        “I will not pay your trinket,”  She said in a smooth, authoritative voice.  “I cannot be free until my honor is restored.”

        “Your honor?”  I asked.  “I just want a rock.”

    “Yes.”  She stood and spread her wings. “If you will aid me in destroying that camp and slaying my tormentor I will serve you until you feel I have paid my debt or we encounter an Enclave patrol and a proper reward can be arranged.”

        “Enclave?”  I was very confused.

        She saluted.  “Lieutenant Echo, communications officer of The Great Pegasus Enclave.”

        ...I was still confused.

***        ***        ***

        The orange scraper stopped Maple and I at the camp gate.  “Sir, I’m going to need you to leave.”

        “Come now,”  I replied.  “We want to talk with Sandstone again.  I have a business arrangement for her.”

    “I understand,”  He said apologetically as a black shadow floated down behind him.  “The boss is sleeping and I-”  He cut off with a gurgle and collapsed to the floor.  Two long cuts ran across his neck from ear to ear; coating Maple and I with arterial spray.  I almost felt bad for him; of all the psychopaths I had encountered he had the best manners.

    Echo was hovering behind him, holding a scavenged straight razor in each fetlock and a carving knife in her mouth.  Barely wasting a second, she shot back up into the sky, becoming just another patch of black in the rolling storm clouds.

        One of the other slaver’s E.F.S. tag shifted to red. “What the-”

I swung up my beam rifle, entered S.A.T.S. and sent my last beam through her throat.

*Fizt*

    Dropping the spent weapon (I would get it later.) I pulled out the novasurge pistol and put two bolts of white hot magic into the gasping mare’s chest.

*Pew!*  *Pew!*

        Behind me, Maple opened up with the Grim Harvest as more of the white tags turned red.

        *RATATATATAT!*

    I ran to the logs for cover, firing my pistol’s agonizingly slow projectiles in the general direction of the slavers.  A buck shrieked behind me.  Got one.

    The red bars on my E.F.S. vanished one by one as the Unity raiders fell. Consumed by clouds of lead from Maples saddle, sliced to ribbons by one of Echo’s dive bomb attacks or cooked alive by one of my poorly aimed shots.  We were wining.  Aside from a few grazes we were unscathed.  The enemy had been reduced to less than half their numbers in a matter of seconds.

    “Not used to fighting ponies who can defend themselves are you?!”  I yelled across the camp.  “How do you like it w-  Ugh!”  My cover violently shifted, knocking me over and pinning my hind legs under it.

    The second scrapper, a purple unicorn (I had given up guessing the walking tanks’ genders), had simultaneously activated the saw house’s conveyor belt and kicked me onto it.  I swung my pistol around and shot at the controls.  With a crackle and a hiss the control box was reduced to glowing slag.

The conveyor belt sped up.  Shit!  I just made things worse.

The scraper cackled and wrenched at my pistol.  I desperately tried to hold on, but its telekinesis was far stronger than mine and I lost my last weapon.  The armored unicorn stood next to me on the belt, grinning with satisfaction.  This sick scum was willing to leave its comrades to die just so it could watch my face as I awaited my doom.

I needed help.  I was going to be shredded.  I began charging a flash bang, I doubted it would have much effect on my captor, but it might attract Maple or Echo’s attention.  The saws began to cut into the log that was pinning me.  No time to charge.  I pooled as much magic as I could and unleashed it in a beam straight up.

The scraper yelled and stumbled.  The moron had been staring me in the face when I set off my spell.  I heard the clang of metal on metal.

Oh, you stupid bastard.

    In its daze, the scrapper had backed into the safety railing, not three hooves away from the spinning saws.  I gently reached out with my magic and grabbed hold of its maroon tail.  It turned its head, realising what I was doing an instant too late.  I jammed the hair into the machinery.

    “NO!”  The scraper shrieked; it was a buck.  “I’m not supposed to die!”  He fell to the ground, trying desperately to hook his hooves on something.  “Goddess!  Redeye!  Mother!  Help me!  Somepony!  Please!”  The saws were less than a hoof from his flank.  He held out his hooves to me, staring at me pleadingly.

        “He deserves no mercy,”  The cynical pony in my head piped up.

        And he shall have none.  I clenched my eyes shut.

    The sound of his screams mixed with the high pitched whine of shredding metal, groan of straining gears and a wet tearing as he was consumed by the machine.  The machinery ground to a halt, as somewhere a belt or drive shaft let go, the saws unable to force their way through the balled up remains of the scrapper’s armor.

I managed to wiggle out from under what was left of the log.  A ragged breath came from the ruined saw house.  The machine had stopped working about half way through the scrapper’s chest.  The sight was enough to make me lose what was left of my lunch.

“Leave him. Its what he would do.”

“Yes he would,”  I said, retrieving my pistol from where the scrapper had dropped it and wiping my mouth.  “But I’m better than he is.”  I walked over to him and pressed the gun to his temple.  “And now he knows it.”

*Pew!*

***        ***        ***

Echo bucked open the door of the first bungalow so Maple and I could fill it with light and lead.

*BLAM!*  *RATATATATAT!*  *BLAM!*

This building was only divided into two rooms.  It had apparently been an office space of some sort.  Solid steel desks were scattered about; some of which were coated with blankets, sleeping bags and pillows to make impromptu beds.  A padlocked door stood to our left with ‘Janitor’ painted on it.  In and amongst the furniture were seven, well armed raiders; two of which had been blown away in our opening volley.

These slavers were ready for us.  They had pulled several of the desks together to form a barricade.  No sooner had we slain their two comrades than they opened up on us with several automatic weapons.

We dove for cover behind desks of our own.

“I need my gear!”  Echo yelled over the din of gunfire, dropping her knife. She swooped down next to me.  “They keep it in the janitor’s closet!”  She pointed one of her razors at the door.

Maple would need to pick the lock.  Damn, No desks for cover.  If she tried something that complex she would be torn apart.  While I had never actually seen her pick a lock, I doubted time would stop for her and even a few seconds could be fatal.  Cover.  Cover.  Where could I find cover?

Maple’s E.F.S. signal started slowly moving across the room.

“Maple!”  I yelled.  “Don’t d-”  My jaw dropped.

She had crawled into her desk’s hoof well and was lifting the entire thing on her back like a turtle shell.  Goddesses, how was such a small pony so strong?

The Maple-turtle was slowly making its way across the room, bullets pinging off it constantly.  Despite her seemingly inequine strength she was obviously struggling with each step.  I could see the sweat rolling down her neck and the strain in her tensed, well toned…  No!  Bad Ocher!  We are fighting now.  Argh!  I would need to talk to her about this before I got somepony killed.

We provided cover fire for our encumbered comrade; Echo proving to be about as inept with firearms as I was.  The 15mm cannons actually had some luck penetrating our enemies’ cover, despite Echo’s horrid aim.  One of the slavers shrieked as a stray bullet punched through the desk and buried its self in her chest.  Four to go.

Maple finally made it to the closet.  Pulling out a screwdriver with her fetlock and a hairpin with her teeth she began to fiddle with the lock.

“Got it!” Maple yelled to us, not thirty seconds after she started.

Echo immediately dropped her pistol and bolted for the closet.  Maple had barely gotten the door unlatched when the black streak shoulder charged through and slammed it behind her.

From the brief glance I had gotten, the closet was full of a nearly comical mixture of cleaning supplies and tools of war.  Mops, brooms and spears were lined up across the back wall between two buckets, one holding sponges and the other kitchen knives.  A set of coveralls and a floral shirt flanked a suit of scrapper armor in a corner cabinet.  The shelves on the side walls were coated with a mixture of small fire arms and boxes of detergent.

“What now?!” Maple yelled.

“Keep shooting!” I suggested, shrugging.  Whatever Echo had planed, she had better get it done quickly.  I was running low on magic cells for my pistol and the slavers’ concentrated fire was swiftly eating through Maple’s cover.

One of the raider’s tags started moving from cover.  I peeked over my desk to see this new target; a lone, amber mare with bloodshot eyes, carrying a sledgehammer in her teeth.  I floated my pistol to my eye and entered S.A.T.S.  Two to the chest and one to the head.  My first shots left smoldering patches of half melted skin on her breast and the third ignited her black mane, wreathing her whole head in flames.  What had been going through her head?

Oh crap.

The burning mare hadn’t fallen, she hadn’t even slowed down.  I was stuck out in the open until S.A.T.S. wore off, and she was moving far faster than she should have been able to in slowed time.

S.A.T.S. dropped just in time for me to avoid a fatal blow to the head.  I wasn’t so lucky on her back swing.  She caught me square in the shoulder with a sickening crunch as her hammer forced my bones into unnatural angles.

With a gasp I collapsed to the floor, cradling my dislocated shoulder.  The hammer-mare stood over me, sledge raised high.  She flashed me a horrific, skeletal grin through her melting face.

*BLAM!*  *BLAM!*

One of the burning slaver’s hind legs blew off in a spray of half cooked flesh and gore a split second before Maple knocked her to the floor with a full body tackle.  The mares rolled across the floor in a tangle of thrashing hooves, snapping teeth and crackling flame.  I slowly crawled across the ground, searching for my pistol: any other weapon and I would just as likely kill Maple as help her.

The raider had managed to slip behind Maple, sinking her teeth into the back of Maple’s neck and igniting her mane.  Instead of attempting to shake the raider off, Maple reared up and fell back onto the desk I had been using for cover.  The raider’s decaying teeth shattered under the full weight of the security mare.  The maneuver had left bleeding gashes across Maples neck, but completely destroyed the raider’s jaw and seriously damaged her, now visible, skull.

For the love of Luna!  The raider rose shakily to her remaining hooves; her lower jaw little more than splintered shards of bone held together by sinew.  Boiling blood was pouring from what had once been her ears, eyes and nose.  What did it take to kill this thing?!

Maple obviously shared my feelings, as she stumbled away with a look of utter horror.

Ah ha!  I had found my gun sticking out of a waste bin under the desk.  Floating it out, I entered S.A.T.S. again and cued three shots on the ‘Unity Berserker‘.  Let’s see you get up without a head.

*Pew!*  *Pew!*  *Pew!*

    My first shot went wide, searing the ceiling.  The second struck the berserker square in the mouth enveloping her completely in a field of destructive magic.  In an instant the seemingly indestructible creature had been reduced to a glowing, green puddle.  S.A.T.S., apparently as concerned as I was that she may still be alive somehow, fired the last shot into the still quivering slime.

Maple was panting heavily and seemed completely drained, a steady trickle of blood flowed from her ragged neck wounds.  She just slumped down against one of the desks, completely oblivious to her still smoldering mane.  I quickly pulled out a bottle of water and dumped it over her head to extinguish her mane and pressed my last regeneration potion to her lips.  She didn’t even react to her dousing, but I was able to coax her into drinking the potion.

The other raiders seemed just as shocked by the berzerker’s display as we were and had ceased firing.

This was worrying.  One moment Maple was a superheroine straight out of Sword Mares and nearly catatonic the next.

A message popped up on my E.F.S.

‘>E.F.S. coordinating signals...’

The compass bar vanished from the bottom of my E.F.S. and a small, dark green circle with a white triangle in the center popped up in the upper right corner.  No, no, no!  Not the E.F.S.!  I couldn’t lose my E.F.S.!

‘>Stand by.’

Smaller, light green lines filled the circle.  They looked suspiciously like desks.  Had I somehow relocated my map feature?

‘>Systems synchronized.’

Two white dots and three red ones appeared on the disk.  This was my E.F.S.; only better.  How did that happen?

‘>Radial targeting engaged.’

I caught sight of something flying through the air out of the corner of my eye.  It almost looked like a green, metal apple without a stem.  The apple sailed behind the slaver desk fort followed by screams as the slavers desperately tried to climb over their cover.

*FWOOM!*

With a crackling boom the entire back half of the room was engulfed in a blinding dome of emerald energy.  All the red dots on my improved E.F.S. immediately vanished.

The raiders and their desks had been fused into a single semisolid mass.  It was like some form of grotesque, technicolor, clay sculpture.  I had trouble telling where flesh ended and steel began.

“Clear,”  Echo called from the closet.

She was wearing a military uniform consisting of a black undershirt, a tan double breasted jacket and a grey cap with a star ringed ‘E’ on it.  She had discarded her straight razors in favor of a belt of combat knifes, and what resembled a large kitchen knife made of some sort of light blue metal.  She had also braided a crescent blade made out of the same blue metal into the end of her tail.

“What was that?”  I asked, breathing heavily.

“My last magic energy grenade,”  she replied as if it were the most natural thing in Equestria.

I stared at her bemused.  Was the entire outside world so twisted that not knowing about a flesh melting, magic apple was considered unusual?  Were there even enough decent ponies out here to help us save the Stable?

If it wasn’t for Blossom...  I would have been recycled.

I was honestly starting to doubt there were that many decent ponies in the Stable either.

Maple moaned and shuddered.  Argh!  Ocher you dolt!  Pull yourself together.

“Did you happen to find any medical supplies in there?”  I asked hopefully.

Echo stared off into space, moving her eyes as if she were scanning down a list and blinking irregularly.  “Nothing you would want to use,”  She finally said.  “There are no safety regulations down here and most of the stuff in there was made recently.  It would just as likely kill you as it would help”

“That explains a lot,”  Maple said in little more than a ragged whisper.  “Buck usually doesn’t take this much out of me.”

I looked over to where she had dislodged the desk and sure enough, there was an empty medicine bottle with ‘Buck’ mouthwritten in black marker and a crude drawing of pills on a white label.  “You took a full bottle of suspicious pills in…”  I was going to finish with ‘our situation’, but that failed to convey the sheer stupidity of her decision.  “ever?”  I asked, stunned.  I thought she had more sense than that.  Steroids were dangerous at the best of times; there was a reason I never stocked them.

“I used my last Stable dose at the ski lodge,”  she replied, struggling to get back to her hooves.  “I couldn’t think of any other way to get to the door.”  She laughed weakly as she collapsed back into my lap.  “Sorry.”

I…  You… But…  Celestia damn it to the moon.  Now I felt like the inconsiderate one.  “Its okay,”  I sighed.  “Here, let me help you.”

I carefully slid under her, using my magic to keep some of the weight off her wobbly legs.  With her barrel resting on the small of my back I dropped my spell and stood up.  “Ungh!”  I grunted under her full weight.  What was this pony made of?  Solid stone?

Echo was still flipping thorough her invisible list as I hobled from one desk-bed to the next trying to find one that wasn’t melted, painted in gore, coated in serrated bits of metal or so foul that I felt infected just looking at it.  By the third one I was utterly exhausted and my shoulder was not making things any easier, essentially limiting me to three legs.  “Why did I think I could do this?”  I mumbled to myself.

“You tried,”  Maple said, softly patting my head.  “Just put me down facing the door and reload my saddle.”  I gently set her down on the cleanest spot of flood I could locate.  “You can come pick me up when you’re done.  I’ll just be busy.”  She yawned.  “Napping.”

“No!”  Echo yelled frantically, snapping back to reality.  “Don’t let her go to sleep!”

I immediately started lightly tapping her with my hoof.  “No, no, no,”  I said.  “Stay awake now, we still have work to do.”  I turned to Echo.  “Why can’t she sleep?”

“I don’t know what they did while making the drug,”  She replied, going back to her invisible screen.  “But if it’s from the same batch I found in the closet she might not wake up again.”

Not wake up again?!  I shook Maple violently.  “No you can’t sleep, you... er...”  What sort of things did security do?  “You have a patrol.”  I said with as much authority as I could muster.  “Now on your hooves officer!”

“Yes ma’am,”  Maple said almost as if it was more of a reflex than a choice.  She put a hoof around my intact shoulder and hauled herself up, using me as a crutch.

“Is there anything we can do?”  I asked Echo.

“I could mix something together to counteract the chemical in her body,”  she replied, paying attention to the real world again.  “But I’m not a doctor, so what I cook up may be more toxic than the Buck.”  She made an interesting motion that I could only describe as shrugging her wings.

Echo flapped over to Maple and I.  “Her best chance would be to wait it out. Sandstone always keeps some Fixer in her office.  That should help keep her conscious until the drug flushes out of her system.”

I cocked an eyebrow.  “Are you sure she has what we need?”  If not, I was making my way back to the ski lodge, I knew there was safe medicine there.

“Yes,”  Echo replied.  “She would frequently get hangovers and needed it when we…”  She trailed off and absent mindedly rubbed her hind legs together.

That was worrisome.  “Um, Echo,”  I said.

“Anyway.”  She snapped back to reality. “Yes she has what we need and we should retrieve it as soon as possible.  I assume you noticed the upgrades I made to your targeting system.”

“You did that?”  I asked, looking her up and down. “Where is your PipBuck?”  Was she keeping it in her tail braid?

“No I don’t, but I have a cut down version built into my headgear.”

“A Pip… hat?”  I asked hesitantly.  She nodded.  “…Okay then.”

***            ***            ***

We stood outside the management bungalow. The rain was doing a world of good for Maple‘s condition.  Just being out in it seemed to revitalize her, but not enough for me to let her fight.  This was going to be a problem.  Echo was the only one of us in any shape to fight and even she hadn’t fully recovered from her captivity.  Every other scrapper we had taken down took at least two of us or a good number of cheap tricks.

“There are no ‘cheap tricks’,”  my arctic delusion said condescendingly.  “You do whatever you must to live or you die.”  Wonderful, my own stress was talking down to me.  Celestia I wanted a good drink!  Hell, I might even settle for spirits at this point.

I floated my beam rifle from the mud and reloaded it.  I had managed to locate one full microspark cell and a half full one in the closet.  It wasn’t much, but at least it was something.  I doubted I would be using the novasurge pistol again anytime soon, not after that berserker fiasco.

Echo, armed with a pair of her knifes, hovered at the door, nodded to us and then bucked it open. A tan and grey mass plowed into the pegasus, making her flail to remain aloft.

Sandstone was wearing her full suit of reinforced armor made all the more intimidating by a massive, metal helmet forged from a wrought iron fence to resemble the jaws of some deep sea fish.  She had huge, jagged, steel blades built into her sabatons, two unpainted grenades and a pair of rail rifles on her saddle.  She was holding something between her clenched teeth.  A jet black feather, far too large to have come from any bird.

Echo righted herself and flicked her fetlocks, hurtling both of her blades at Sandstone’s chest.  Regrettably, the knifes bounced off the scrapper boss’ thick, metal armor and fell to the mud harmlessly.

Sandstone released an almost primal howl of rage and responded with a volley from her rifles, narrowly missing the erratically moving flier.

Echo quickly swooped back at Sandstorne, half jumping and half gliding.  She stopped just short of running face first into the slaver boss’ jagged hoof, pirouetting and whipping her tail blade across the slaver’s lightly armored underbelly.  The armored juggernaut reared and shrieked as the blade slipped between two of her armor plates; opening her belly from leg to leg, just below her ribs.

Sandstone flailed ineffectively at the raven pegasus darting around her.  Using her wings to flit and spin from hind leg to hind leg in tight circles around her opponent, Echo seemed to be dancing as much as she was fighting.  The slaver swung her vicious hoof blades at the Enclave mare’s neck, but Echo simply ducked under the blow and jammed one of the combat knifes under her opponent’s foreleg.  She left the blade in the wound, allowing Sandstone to drive it in deeper as she frantically tried to catch her far more agile foe.

I felt rather helpless, just sitting in the mud as our new companion slowly sliced the titanic mare to pieces.  Both Maple and I both lacked the precision weapons or sharp shooting skills needed to outmaneuver the pegasus and avoid hitting her.

Nearly every seam on the scraper boss’ armor had become a bleeding lesion and at least half a dozen knifes where sticking out of her joints. If we hadn’t just fought a creature that had kept moving after nearly being reduced to a skeleton it would have been astonishing that she was still alive, let alone still fighting.

*Crack!*

“Know your place!”  Sandstone bellowed, catching Echo with a lucky backhoof.  “You feathered cunt!”

The black pegasus was sent bouncing across the mud like a rag doll.  As soon as she was clear, Maple and I opened fire on the wounded scrapper.  My rifle proved to be utterly useless; its beams managing to do little more than scorch small pits in Sandstone’s armor.  Maple was nearly as ineffective, only a few shots out of her swarm of bullets managed to penetrate the softer joints and seams of Sandstone’s armor.  At least we had gotten her attention.

Echo was curled up in the fetal position where she had fallen, trembling and slowly rubbing her hind legs together.  She was cradling her face where Sandstone’s serrated hoof claws had left ragged tares across her cheek.  This looked bad, if she was out of the fight Maple and I were doomed.  We stood little chance against the raider in our condition.

Sandstone advanced on us menacingly.  “I’ll fuck you to death with your own horn, you treacherous, little shit!”  she barked.  “But first I’m gonna make you eat that lying tongue of yours.”

She was almost on us.  Well, here goes nothing.  I started releasing rapid flashes from my horn and charged for her stomach wound, my shoulder screaming at me every time I put weight on it.  If I got my horn inside her I might be able to stop her heart like I had with the Shrike griffin’s.

Sandstone batted me away with a practically effortless hoof swipe.  The jarring impact made my vision blur and her claws dug deep gouges in my scalp.  With my world spinning I landed face first in the mud.  As I tried to rise I felt a weight slam into the back of my head, forcing my entire muzzle below the surface.  I strained against the force, but it just kept forcing me deeper under.  My lungs burned.  I was still dazed from the scraper’s blow and couldn’t concentrate enough to perform even the simplest spells.

Suddenly, the weight lifted.  I pulled my head out of the muck and opened my mouth to suck in sweet, fresh air.  The force slammed back into the base of my skull, forcing my entire head under the surface.  I sucked in a disgusting mixture of mud and gore.  I spasmed as my lungs violently rejected the sludge I had attempted to fill them with.

*Boom*

I was barely hanging on the edge of consciousness when the burden keeping me under vanished with a muffled thud.  I strained to rise, but between my wounded shoulder and the slime in my throat I didn’t have the strength.  Damn, I was going to die and we had just won.

Something grabbed hold of my mane and yanked me upright.  I immediately doubled over and coughed up mud.  It felt like an eternity before I could breath freely again.  No matter how much I hacked up there always seemed to be more.

Clearing the sludge from my eyes I saw that Maple had managed to hobble over and pull me up.  Sandstone was lying in the mud next to us, still twitching but very dead.  Her barrel had been blown open from the inside, forcing the metal armor to twist into even more gagged shapes and almost weave together with her ruined ribcage.

Echo was lying on her back in the mud about 30 hooves away with one of the metal apple stems clenched between her teeth.

***            ***            ***

The sun’s glow was shining, dully through the thick cloud cover and rapidly dwindling rain by the time we pulled ourselves back together.

I cracked open another mug of cocoa to stave off exhaustion and to wash the revolting taste of mud out of my mouth.  The warm thermos between my hooves did wonders, taking my mind off my waterlogged barding, traumatized companions, crippling injuries, fake life and all around depressing situation.  This was it.  This is what would keep me alive out here.  The little things like a hot cup of chocolate or a rainbow on a cave wall.

“You are pinning your hope on a beverage?”  my imaginary adviser asked.

“Quiet you... me… whatever you are,”  I snapped back, careful to keep my voice down.  “I’ve given you your crazy time, now you will give me my cocoa time.”

“She keeps the drugs next to her bed; the process will take some time,”  Echo said rubbing her hind legs together.  “I am going to scavenge the last building.  It was their mess hall and I might be able to find something useful.”  With that she left us at the door.

We managed to find the fixer, along with a good deal of other ‘safe’ medicine, in a medical box resting next to Sandstone’s bed.  Before I did anything else I made sure Maple took one of the fixer tablets and sat her down in Gellwin’s couch-nest.

“Echo said it should take a few hours for you to work through the buck,”  I told her, floating out a few magazines that had been lying next to the table, and a bag of potato chips from the snack machine.  (There was a disclaimer on the bag.  ‘Not to be used in muffins.’  Who would need that?).  “So, sit, read, eat and I’ll be back when I’m done searching this place.”

“I feel fine,”  she protested.

“But you aren’t,”  I said flatly.  “I did a flip through of the medical book from the cave and it said that fixer just masks a problem, it doesn’t get rid of it.”

“I don’t like being useless,“  she grumbled through a mouthful of chips.

If she, of all ponies, was useless then what did that make me?  “You’re not,”  I told her a bit more sharply than I had intended.

I doubled over from the sudden strain on my lungs and coughed up a mass of dirt filled phlegm.  Smooth Ocher, real smooth.

I shook myself and wiped my mouth to regain my composure.  “You saved my life when you shouldn’t have even been able to move,”  I continued.  “But if you want to do something productive,”  I floated the medical journal out of my bag.  “Flip through this.  At least one of us should know how to put a pony back together.”

My own injuries required little more than a bit of telekinetic bone shifting and a health potion.  I shifted my shoulder into its socket with a horrific pop that brought tears to my eyes and downed a regeneration potion.

“All right then,”  I said, struggling to sound confident through the throbbing ache in my leg.  “Let’s see what Gelwin kept in her office.”

A message popped up on my E.F.S..

‘>New signal found.’

The ear splitting static channel had been labeled with some alphanumeric butchering of the equestrian language.  Eh, what was the worst that could happen?

As if on cue, the cynical pony in my head started up.  “It could b-”

“Zip it.”  I quietly cut him off.  “I wasn’t asking you.”

I fiddled with my PipBuck‘s dials until I had this new channel selected.  Much to my delight I wasn’t deafened by static.  Instead an excited and decidedly self satisfied buck’s voice howled at me.  “Hellllooo chillldren, this is DJ-Pon3, OOOOW!  I’ll be bringing the truth to all you good ponies up north round Flankorage for the next day or so.  Lets start with some news.  Apparently a traveling merchant, coming down from the southern mountains, had enough of being ambushed on the road.  So what did he do about it?  Well that’s what I’m here for kiddies.  He marched himself right to The Shrikes nest at the Coltinvill Ski Lodge and cleaned out the whole mess of them.”

I was stunned.  How could he know that?  Was I being followed?  Did somepony have me in their sniper sights right now?  Agh, never mind that for the moment; I was on the radio.

“Did our little northern hero stop there?”  he continued.  Me?  A hero?  I couldn‘t help, but imagine The Mighty Marshmallow Pony again.  “No ma’am, he did not.  Last I heard he was assaulting one of Red Eye’s camps.  Good on ya Merchant, keep fighting the good fight.  We’re all rootin for ya.  Now here is Sweetie Belle, bringing you the great truth of the wastes…”   A sweet, melodious voice flowed from my earbloom.  It mixed beautify with the cozy heat of the cocoa.  If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine myself back at the Shetland tavern, curled next to the fire and swapping rumors and wild fantasies with my friends.

I was practically giddy.  I was a hero; the radio said so.  I even had an alias; The Merchant.  It was simple, accurate, yet foreboding; if said in the right context.  ‘Ocher Bullion, The Merchant!  Savior of Ponies and Slayer of Monsters!’  My own smug satisfaction was nearly palpable.  And on top of it all they were playing my favorite song.  All things considered, this hadn’t been that bad a night.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Scoundrel 1 -- You can use your wily charms to influence people - each rank raises your Speech and Barter skills by 5 points.
New Companion Perk: Echo Location -- By coordinating the targeting systems of your E.F.S. with Echo’s you can determine the distance of threats as well as direction.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, Littlekittenmittens, No One, Otherunicorn and Twitchy for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Wendigo

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Five: Wendigo

“Maybe I should start up a pony-group to teach ponies about history.  I bet everypony would love it.”

Gellwin’s quarters were sparsely furnished, but what furniture there was seamed to be of exceptional quality (compared to the rest of the camp anyway).  Her bed was a larger version of the bowl couch in the lounge, except this one was filled with feathers instead of pillows.  Most of them were large and rich brown, griffin feathers if I had to guess.  As for the others, they were notably smaller than the griffin feathers and in all colors of the rainbow… they were pegasus feathers, no doubt about it.  I didn’t even want to think about how she had acquired so many.

A mahogany armoire sat opposite the bed, intricately carved with images of ornately armored griffins doing battle with an enormous dragon.  It was mostly full of old clothes, pre-war uniforms and the like.  Only two items peaked my interest; a set of griffin sized, bright pink, fleece pajamas gave me a good chuckle and a damaged, griffin-made, beam rifle with a scope I could probably use.   I took the rest anyway, mostly out of spite.  I’d probably sink them in the mud outside later.

Finally, a wooden desk with the same style of carvings as the armoire faced the door, polished to a mirror shine.  It was unadorned, save for a few hoof bound books, and a cloud shaped like a terminal.

I had read about cloud technology, but had never seen it.  I had to wonder what it felt like.  My hoof passed straight through it, barely disturbing its surface.  It was briskly cold and left my leg slightly moist, sort of like passing through heavy fog.  Now how was I going to get into this thing?

I mulled that over while I flipped through the books.  They were all slave ledgers.  Most of the captives seemed to have been sent off to Fillydelphia, but a few others were sold to ‘The Crucible’, ‘Black Apple Rangers’ and ‘The Northern Legion’ as well as a hoof-full of independent ponies.  I would need to keep an eye out for these groups: anypony who would work with slavers was bound to be bad news.  I felt a twang of shame when I spotted ‘Seven slaves purchased for 2400 caps by a grey, earth pony stallion; recommend upgrading him to a preferred customer to encourage future business‘.

Back to the terminal problem.  How was I going to pull this off?  I lacked the magical skill to allow me to manipulate clouds on my own and no matter how I waved my PipBuck at it I couldn’t make it connect.  Heck, even if I could it was probably encrypted beyond what my ability with computers could handle.

“You just had a pegasus computer expert pledge her service to you,”  the cold voice said with a considerable amount of condescension.

“I… er… um,”  I mumbled back.

“Oh, no witty retort?”  the delusion asked.  “Aren’t you going to tell me to shut up?  That you can’t listen to my counsel because its ’coco time’?”

“Well,”  I responded abashed.  “You had a point this time.”

“Of course I had a point!”  the voice barked back, some how sounding both frigidly dispassionate and furiously indignant at the same time.  “I had a point in the cave.  I had a point at the ski lodge.  You may not have liked it, but I had a point on the overlook.”  I could have sworn that my refection in the desk’s mirror finish turned ice blue and glared at me.  “I have just as big a stake in your survival as you do, and don’t you forget it!”

Did I just get justifiably chewed out by my own crazy?  I rubbed my temples with my hooves to clear my head of that unnerving concept.  My reflection had returned to its regular grey and black.

Trotting back outside, I found Maple with her snout buried in the Canterlot Medical Journal, occasionally mouthing some of the larger words.  She had spread out various snacks form the Neighstlé machine in and amongst a few magazines from the side table.  Three in particular caught my interest:  An issue of Ponies Magazine was featuring a piece on some noble who went nuts from “war time stress disorder’ and held up a school at gun point.  There was also a copy of the Equestrian Cinematographer with a positively radiant picture of ‘the little muffin’ from the delivery buck’s photos.  Finally there was a stack of almost perfectly preserved issues of Wingboner that would have been old even before the war.  I would need to take some time to brush up on my history later… yeah, history.

“I’m heading out to find Echo,”  I called back as I opened the door.  “I need her to decrypt a cloud.”

“Okay,”  she replied absent mindedly, waving her hoof in a half hearted, dismissive gesture.  “You go.  You go.“

I left the bungalow without another word.  Wait for it…

I heard the sofa’s cushions rustle as she shot her head up.  “You need her to do what to a what now?”  she asked, utterly perplexed.

I burst out laughing as shut the door behind me.  She would probably buck my flank for that later, but it was so worth it.  The look on her face was priceless.

I was still chortling as I opened the door to the middle bungalow.

The building was divided into six rooms.  The bulk of the space was taken up by an industrial cafeteria with a half dozen stainless steel, circular tables and some rather uncomfortable looking, half rusted stools.  The south wall had three bathrooms; mares, stallions and griffins (I guessed griffins were either accustomed to unisex restrooms or where simply an afterthought on the part of the designer).  The entire northern quarter of the building was a half open kitchen that had once been sterile white, but was now a mold coated grey.

I froze immediately as I heard a long scream over a cacophony of destruction from the back of the kitchen.  I pulled out my beam rife and hustled towards the sound.  I shouldered my way through the unlatched, metal doors.

*thunk*

The jet-black blade of a combat knife embedded itself in the door less than half a hoof from my eye.

Echo was standing on her hind legs in a storeroom at the back of the kitchen.  The feathered soldier was a disheveled mess, panting heavily and coated in small pieces of debris.  Her teal mane was matted to her sweaty sable coat in some sections and flaring out in frazzled tufts in others.  She was staring at me with quaking, pinprick pupils seeming unsure whether to kill me or run away.

“Lieutenant,”  I said, hesitantly lowering my weapon.  “Um, is there anything I can do?”  That was pathetic.  How was it that I could bluff through an entire camp of sub-equine sociopaths with little effort, but I struggled to try and comfort one, obviously traumatized, mare?  At least I did better than ‘Are you okay’.

She just stood there, motionless.  I was honestly debating whether lowering my gun had been wise.

“No,”  she finally replied, dropping her gaze to the floor and making a conscious effort to normalize her breathing.  “I’m fine.”  She hastily dusted herself off and dropped back to all fours.  “What do you need from me?”

“Are you sure that you…”  She shot me a vicious glare that made it abundantly clear it was in my best interest not to finish my sentence.  “I mean, can you break into cloud terminals?”  I quickly amended.

***                ***                ***

Harbinger.

Ma‘am, my flock has secured several prewar facilities that will make excellent processing and distribution centers for our trade with the north (Tagged list below).  I have set up my headquarters at the Whorl Timber Yard as instructed.  The slaves Red Eye has sent up with my Talons have proven to be quite industrious; we should be able to begin lumber production in a week or two at the latest.  Red Eye can expect his first shipment in two months, far sooner if we can convince Canterlot Caravans to provide us with transport and guides in exchange for security.

Sincerely, Overseer Gellwin.

P.S. My pay is late.  See to that quickly or there will be dire consequences.

Over a dozen new location tags sprung up on the E.F.S. map.  I would need to take the time to deal with those after Stable 114 was liberated.

Echo had hacked into the Overseer’s files with little difficulty and downloaded all the logs to my PipBuck.  That first one was dated over four years ago.

“I will keep a lookout,”  my feathered companion said curtly.  “The longer we stay here the more likely we are to be attacked.”  Without even giving me a chance to respond she spun and flapped outside, barely missing me with her tail scythe.

I sighed and brought up the next log; this one was tagged a year later.

Harbinger.

My Lady, production has been proceeding slowly.  There have been unforeseen complications with the local fauna.  Just this week I have lost six guards and four slaves to yao guai attacks.  Any team I send in to exterminate the beasts return vastly diminished, telling mad stories of some evil spirits from buffalo mythology.  Red Eye’s logic for filling the heads of these ground pounders with such useless information baffles me.  All a soldier needs to know is how to fight and how to follow orders, anything else is just a distraction.

The following is the debriefing of my youngest daughter and chief ranger Thirsha Stormpride.  She was the leader of the last team I sent in to resolve the issue.  It is mostly nonsense, but I figured you would want to make up your own mind, minds, or whatever you things have.

“The horror!“  the text vanished and was replaced by a surprisingly young sounding and obviously terrified griffin’s voice.  The horror!  They were everywhere!  They are everywhere!  We have to leave!  We shouldn’t be here!”

“Calm down,”  A raspy, buck’s voice said reassuringly.  “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

“Yes preacher,”  Thirsha replied, trying to catch her breath.  “I’ll… I’ll try.”  She took a deep breath.  “A yao guai had killed a guard and ran off with one of the slaves she was watching.  Mother sent me and a half dozen claw picked Talons to hunt the beast down and return the Unity’s property, one way or the other.  We trailed the monster five miles into the woods before things went bad.

“We stopped to rest our wings around dusk and Prin, my heavy weapons specialist, went off to take a piss.  He never came back.  The shit really hit the fan after that.  I sent my wing out in pairs to search for him and one by one they vanished.  In less than an hour only Rhorrin, my tracker, and I were left.  I decided to return and get reinforcements before I lost what was left of my wing.  We stopped back in the clearing to gather up our remaining supplies and we found my team.”

“There was blood and feathers everywhere,”  Her voice began to waiver and I could almost hear her shaking.  “I’ve seen battle, I’ve seen death, but this was something else.  Something worse.  They had been torn apart and strung across the trees.  It would take a hellhound to do that to a single griffin, let alone five.  I… I… I didn’t know what to do.”  She gulped.  “That’s when I noticed them.  Dozens of blood red eyes were staring at us from the shadows, always staying just out of our lights.  My wing had been a warning.  These creatures… the demons had given us a warning.  That’s why they let us go, to tell you that these are their woods and we have no place here.  Please tell my mother that we need to return to Fillydelphia immediately.”

“Interesting,”  the preacher said dispassionately.  I herd him shuffling some papers.  “You have been judged guilty of cowardice and dereliction of duty.”

“WHAT?!”  the young griffin streaked.

“You will now be subject to disciplinary action,”  the raspy buck continued, unfazed.  “You are to be striped of your command and grounded for a minimum of three years.”  I heard a door open and two sets of heavy hoofsteps enter the room.

“No, but I-,”  I heard her start to stand, only to be slammed back into her seat.  “I demand to speak with my mother!”

“My dear,”  the preacher purred (the bastard was enjoying this).  “Your mother is the only reason you are not facing the death penalty for heresy and treason.  Now bring me those pliers; I will do this myself.”

“No, no!”  Thirsha shrieked.  “Get your filthy hooves off my wing!  No!  NO!”  I heard a wet pop followed by a blood-curtailing screech.  “AAAAGHHH-”

The recording cut off abruptly and Gellwin’s log continued.

While I regret dismantling my primary scouting wing the abundance of griffins in this region has been a boon to recruitment efforts, mostly negating recent losses to the wilderness and disciplinary action.  On a tangential note, please inform Stern that I have opted to go into business independently and will be negotiating my own contract at years end.

I will be requiring the services of one of your agents to sort out the facts and deal with the predator problem and additional laborers would not go amiss.

Yours, Overseer Gellwin

That was thoroughly unnerving; I had just figured out where all the feathers in the Overseer’s bed had come from.  I would need to wait on the other two reports.

I gathered up all of Gellwin’s possessions that I had no use for and proceeded outside to enact my petty vengeance.

***                ***                ***

It was past noon by the time I finished stringing Gellwin’s fluffy, pink pajamas on a flagpole that was attached to the administrative building.

“Have you finished your juvenile pranks yet?”  Echo shouted from the next roof, sounding like a disapproving parent.

I turned and stared at her.  It had been years since somepony spoke to me like that; it was surprisingly comforting.  “Nope,”  I finally said, turning back to my work.  I pulled out a can of black spray paint I had found in the janitor‘s closet and painted a massive ‘114‘ across the sleepwear flag. “Now I’m done.”

“Charming,”  the pegasus said, obviously unamused.  She suddenly ruffled her feathers and spun towards the camp entrance, drawing two of her knifes as she did.  “We have company.”

I swung up my newly scoped beam rife and entered S.A.T.S.  The targeting spell tagged six ponies coming down from the southern foothills.  A green mare with a bushy, blue mane and tail was limping at the head of the group.  I let S.A.T.S. drop.  It was the former slaves we had left on the overlook.

“Echo!”  I shouted over, lowering my weapon.  “Stand down, they’re not enemies!”

The soldier pony hesitated for a moment before sheathing her weapons and relaxing her wings.  “Yes sir.”

I climbed down from the bungalow and trotted to the camp entrance, carefully stepping around Sandstone’s half sunken carcass.  “Welcome to camp ‘We Just Bucked The Unity’s Flank’!”  I bellowed to the approaching ponies with a doapy grin.  “What can I do for you this fine day!”

The ponies stopped about two hundred hooves away from me and shuffled about nervously.  The yellow buck was still carrying the comatose, white one on his back and seemed to be doing little more than following the four mares while staring dispassionately at the ground.  The mares were having a hushed argument that I was obviously not meant to hear, however my hat had surprisingly good acoustics.

“You go talk to him,”  the green, earth pony mare said, nudging the pink one forward.

“What!?”  she replied with a hushed yell.  “I’m not going to talk to him.  He’s insane.”  While probably true, that still hurt.  She turned to the lime green unicorn.  “Why don’t you go, unicorn to unicorn?”

“No way,”  the unicorn said, shaking her curly, yellow mane.  I was starting to take this personally.  “Besides, this was Rosalyn’s idea.”

“You are all pussies!”  the blue mare snapped, marching to the front of the group.  “I’ll do it!”  She ran a muddy hoof through her short, midnight blue mane and sauntered up to me as bold as can be.  “I’m Scoop,”  she declared, holding her hoof out to me.  She was a tiny thing, even smaller than Maple, she barely came to my chest.

“Ocher Bullion,”  I replied, shaking the worst of the grime off my hoof before shaking hers.  “How can I help you?”

“First of all, we are all grateful for what you did for us, even if some ponies are too cowardly to say so,”  she said, turning back to shake her hoof at the other mares.  “Anyway, we have nowhere to go and were wondering if we could come with you until we find a place to stay?.”

I face hoofed.  Of course they didn’t.  Ocher you are an idiot!  All I had done was point south, say ‘there is food and shelter about seven miles that way’ and left them on a rock in the middle of nowhere.  They didn’t have digital maps strapped to their fetlocks.  Hell, I hadn’t even had the good sense to give them winter clothing or weapons.  If they had done what I had told them to they would have wandered the mountains aimlessly for days, completely naked before freezing to death or being eaten by wolves.

“Sure,”  I replied, hiding a blush.  “But I expect everypony to pull their own weight… except for him.”  I pointed to the yellow buck with the white one across his back.  “He can pull that guy’s weight.”

“How wonderful,”  Scoop said, clapping her front hooves together.  “Well now, this means introductions are in order.”  She pointed a hoof at the green, earth pony.  Taking a closer look, I noticed that she had a pumpkin wrapped in rose vines for a cutie mark.  “That’s Rosalyn.  Asking you for help was her idea, but she’s too much of a coward to talk to you herself!”  the blue mare raised her voice pointedly.

Apparently cowed by Scoop’s comment, Rosalyn hesitantly approached me with her head down and her entire body tensed.  I couldn’t tell if she was about to run away or curl up into the smallest shape equinely possible.

I put on my most friendly salesbuck face (I wasn’t sure how reassuring I actually looked as I was still nearly coated in blood.) and slowly extended my hoof to her.  “Hello Rosalyn.  It’s a pleasure to see you again.”  See?  I’m not always talking to my self, shooting things or using rocks as currency… Wow.  I really needed to reevaluate my life.

“All that happened in the last six hours,”  My ever-helpful crazy chimed in.

“Not now,”  I snapped back at him.  “I know you’re trying to be ‘helpful’, but we don’t want these ponies to get the wrong impression.”

Rosalyn stared at me, utterly terrified.  Even Scoop backed up nervously.

“You did that on purpose didn’t you?”  I asked the voice.

“I am a spiteful bastard.”

“Thanks Echo,”  I said to nopony, flicking a random dial on my fetlock computer.  If I was lucky they might think I was talking over my PipBuck… Could PipBucks even transmit audio?  I popped my ear bloom out and turned to address the assembled ponies again.  “Sorry about that,”  I said with a smile.  “Do I get to meet everypony else?”

One by one, the others made curt introductions and retreated to the middle bungalow for some much-needed rest:  The blond unicorn with an dartboard on her flank was Flights.  The pink mare I had mistaken for Primrose was named Spruce after her cutie mark, a small tree.  Nopony knew what to call the catatonic, albino buck so we settled on Cave, due to the barely visible cave mouth on his flank.

“And what about you?”  I asked the yellow buck.

“What about me?”  he asked in a tone that was disturbingly similar to my delusion’s.

“What’s your name?”  I pressed.  I wasn’t going to have any of that ‘tortured stoic’ garbage.  I rescued you from slavers and just agreed to escort you to some form of civilization.  Be happy damn it!

“Rocksalt,”  he sighed, lowering his head and letting his unkempt, brick red mane fall over his slate grey eyes.  “Is there anything else I can do for you Master?”

“Whoa there,”  I said, taken aback.  “I’m nopony’s master.  That’s what the whole rock thing was about.  You’re free.”

He raised his head and stared me strait in the face.  “Will we be following you?”  he asked calmly.

“Well I suppose that’s the plan,”  I replied, unsure of where he was going with this.

“Will you be giving us orders?”

“Not orders per say,”  I said.  “But I will need you to help carry things and, for the sake of safety, I‘d like you to follow any instructions my companions or I give you.”

“Then you are our master.”

“But… but,”  I stammered.  “I freed you.”

“I am no longer a slave,”  he said, a bit of the coolness leaving his voice.  “This is true, but we all have our masters.  Now, if you will excuse me, I need to see to Cave; my back hurts.”  He turned and walked towards the bungalows.

“Luna’s lacy lingerie!”  I exclaimed, pointing a hoof at his rump.  “What happened to you?!”  It looked as if somepony had skinned his flanks and branded crescent moons on the scar tissue where his cutie marks should have been.

He paused and turned back to me with a sad smile.  “Not all masters are as kind as you seem to be.”

***                ***                ***

“All right,”  I said to my assembled traveling companions as I unrolled a region map that I had found in the survival kit.  “Now, how will we be getting to that big city on the horizon?”

“Flankorage,”  Scoop corrected me.

“Right, Flankorage.”

The former slave ponies had all retrieved their belongings from the janitors’ closet and donned several thick, furry coats that the slavers had been using.  The only one who refused the rather ripe winter garb was Flights.  The pail green mare had instead opted to wear the clothing she was brought in with; a rather alluring blue and purple saloon dress, complete with fishnet stockings, that was apparently enchanted to resist the cold.

That did strike me as an interesting reason to enchant clothing; I added winterized nightwear to my ever-growing list of things to invest in.

Maple had also insisted on arming them with the Shrike hoof cannons and various small arms we had taken from the Unity raiders.  Aside from Rocksalt, who had assembled an assault rifle and a shotgun from the various bits-o-gun that we had scrounged together as if it were second nature to him, our new traveling companions showed about as much aptitude for firearms as Echo or I did.

“We head east,”  the scared buck said.  “Along the foothills until we reach the main road from Canterlot and follow it north.  The entire journey should take a little under a week.”

“I don’t think Caves has a week,”  Rosalyn objected.  “He needs medical attention now.  Besides, that takes us too close to the place Baron was sighted.”

It was refreshing to finally see ponies actually caring about one another out here.  I had to agree; in his current, catatonic state Cave probably wouldn’t last two days.

“Why don’t we just take the lumber rail?”  Maple suggested, tracing a thin line on the map through the woods to the dot labeled ‘Flankorage’.  “That should only take three days; even less if we can get one of the trams outback running.”

“That’s perfect,”  I said.  “This way we can set up a decent place for Cave to rest and get to the city in about a day.  We don’t even need to do any repair work.  According to Gellwin‘s logs they had everything fixed nearly four years ago.  And as a plus we would still have enough room to take everything that isn’t bolted down.”

“We don’t want to travel in the woods at night,”  the scared buck stated.  “Its too dangerous.”

“I’m sure we can handle a few wolves and yao guai,”  I said dismissively.  I had no idea what a yao guai was, but if they could only handle two raiders then they couldn’t be that tough.

“I’m sure we could,”  Rocksalt replied.  “But the yao guai aren’t what we need to worry about.”

“And what is?”  Echo asked from the corner of the bungalow, where she had been hovering silently.

“These woods are home to demons.”

Spruce, Flights and Rosalyn recoiled form the table as if the yellow buck’s demons were going to claw their way out of the map and devour everypony.  Scoop, on the other hoof, seemed almost excited at the concept.  Echo just hovered there, her expression unreadable.

“What do you mean ‘demons’?”  Maple asked unconvinced.  “The last demon in Equestria was defeated over two hundred years ago.”

The scarred stallion shook his head.  “I don’t know the specifics, but I know they’re there.  I have had many masters and none of them will travel the woods at night.  Not even the Northern Legion or Frostborn would make the attempt without considerable numbers.”

“The Legion is full of superstitious fools,”  Echo scoffed.  “And the Frostborn are paranoid relics of a dead world.  I have been in the forests and there is no threat greater than a few predators and those vagrants savage enough to live there.”

Given the choice between a soldier’s first hoof experience and a traumatized buck’s rumors I would need to go with Echo; especially with somepony’s life at stake.  “We have to risk it,”  I declared.  “We’re pushing our luck as it is staying this long.  We have no idea when Gellwin and her army are coming back and Cave is short on time.”

The yellow buck bowed his head.  “As you wish.”

“All right,”  I rolled up the map.  “Gather everything you can carry and meet up at the tracks in ten minutes.”

“By the way,”  I said to Rocksalt when the others were out of earshot.  “What are yao guai?”

“Bears,”  he replied, seemingly unsurprised at my ignorance.

“Oh, well that’s not so bad.”

“Twenty hoof tall, mutant bears.”

I gulped.  “And these things aren’t as dangerous as the ‘demons‘?”

“Not even close.”

Maybe this wasn’t my best idea.

***                ***                ***

Everypony managed to clean out the timber yard with surprising efficiency, gathering around the tracks just before dusk.  They were all laden down with packs, bags and even a rolled up bed sheet, all filled to bursting with everything from rifles to tin cans.

The train itself was a small, bullet shaped engine with peeling green paint that looked like it ran on some form of giant spark battery.  Several flatcars were hitched between a modest crew car and the engine.  Each segment was emblazoned with a stylized, crosscut log over a faded motto.  ‘Choose Whorl Timber, It Makes A Whorld Of Difference.’

It was no surprise that I had failed to spot the machine from the overlook.  The entire thing was being kept under an old rain tarp in an alcove under the camp.  I was initially very worried that I had been wrong in guessing that Gellwin had repaired the engine, but a cursory examination showed recent repairs (I may not have been a mechanic, but I could tell when something was patched together from a half dozen different metals) despite the considerable amount of dust that coated every surface.

I was getting a bad feeling about this trip.  Despite Gellwin’s insistence that Thirsha’s story was nonsense, she had allowed this fully functional vehicle to languish after taking the effort to fix and fuel it.  Why would she do that if the woods were safe?

The crunch of dry leafs pulled me away from my worrying.  Echo had landed next to me with a fluffy, white ball in her front hooves.

“We are ready,”  she stated.  “Maple seems to have made a full recovery and the refugees are settled in the crew car.”  A jet-black wing pointed to each location in turn.  “I would recommend designating two ponies to watch from the tree cars for security purposes.  Two shifts would be preferable.”

“So, you and me then Maple and Rocksalt?”  I asked.  As the scared buck was the only other pony in our little group to seem competent with weapons he seemed the most appropriate choice for the last slot.

“I don’t trust that one,”  the umbral pegasus replied, nodding her head towards Rocksalt.  “He isn’t what he claims to be.”

That had been bugging me as well.  I couldn’t quite place my horn on it, but he was almost too calm, too accommodating.  Regardless, if he tried anything Maple would be with him and if anypony could take care of him it would be the nigh immortal, security mare.

“By the way,”  I pointed at the ball she was carrying.  “What’s that?”

“I took the liberty of relieving our pursuer of her terminal,”  the soldier pony said with a slight smirk.  I had never seen her smile before: she had such a serious face that there was actually something unnerving about it.  “Quality cloud is always useful to have around.  I also took the chance to leave Gellwin a little token of my appreciation for her hospitality over the past two weeks.”

Two weeks?!  Sandstone had managed to reduce Rosalyn to a quivering heap and beat Cave into a coma in little more than two hours.  Whatever the black flyer had left, I didn’t envy whoever found it.

***                ***                ***

Harbinger.

Praise be to The Goddess my Lady.  The new solders Red Eye has sent to us have proven quite effective at hauling fresh timber; almost making up for the loss of our direct route through the forest.

These ‘Scrappers’ have also allowed me to use my Talons for more sensitive tasks than shepherding these new converts.  They are little more than steel plated thugs, but they follow orders fanatically and are capable of controlling this new army you are assembling.

Though I am afraid I do not only bare good news.  Canterlot Caravans has withdrawn its support from our trade route in response to our recent build up of soldiers who, in all honesty, are little better than raiders.  While we will still be able to use the pass near Glyphmark, it will force us to reduce our loads to what our traders can carry on their backs.  I hope you will be able to make them see the light and amend this grievous error in judgment.

Your servant, Overseer Gellwin

***                ***                ***

We managed to get the train running with little difficulty.  Its interface seemed to be idiot proof, consisting of little more than an on/off button, a speed lever, a fuel gage and a radio; my PipBuck had more buttons.  I was rather impressed that the pre-war ponies were able to reduce such a complex device to these few, simple controls.

Scoop had volunteered to mare the controls for the first shift.

“So, you were captured ‘trespassing‘?”  I asked the blue mare in an attempt to start conversation while the vehicle went through its agonizingly slow power up sequence.  “Are you a spy or something?”

“A spy?”  She gasped, feigning offense.  “I am not that boring, I assure you.”  She turned to the controls and flashed me her cutie mark, a notepad a quill.  “I’m a reporter for The Voice of Flankorage.  I was looking into a build-up of Unity forces; Ron thought they may be violating their treaty with the Frostborn.”

“Treaty?”  I asked, cocking my ears.

“How do you not know about the treaty?”  Scoop asked, utterly baffled.

I spent my whole life in a simulation, being used as a magical power source.  No, that was stupid.  Everypony was already doubting my sanity; best not to add fuel to the fire.  “I’m from a Stable.”  I responded.  I didn’t lie, I just neglected certain truths.

“OooOoooh,”  she said, turning back to me and putting a hoof on my shoulder.  “Stable ponies.  I got it.  Just stick with me and you’ll be fine.  You won’t find a better guide to the city.”

“I appreciate that,”  I replied, copying her gesture with my own, considerably larger, hoof (I may have been a weak pony, but I was by no means a small pony).  “But, you mentioned a treaty.”

“Right, right, right.  Well, the Unity set up camp here about four years ago and started preaching their ‘goddess‘,”  the reporter pony bobbed her hooves for quotations.  “So, obviously, the Frostborn got involved.  Oh, right.  The Frostborn are Flankorage’s military; they pretty much run the show, but we can talk about them later.”

Scoop sat down and removed her hoof, I did the same.  “You see,”  she continued.  “Flankorage doesn’t support slavery, but most other groups do.”

I sighed at that hideously depressing statement.

“Yeah, I know it sucks up here.”  My self appointed guide shook her head.  “Anyway, Flankorage would never survive if it completely alienated its neighbors; it’s having enough problems with the Northern Legion… argh, later.”  She ruffled her midnight mane.  “The treaty, the treaty.  What the Frostborn do is, in exchange for trade rights, make each group limit their operations.  Slaves can be brought in from elsewhere and will not be freed, but nopony can enslave anypony else in Flankorage’s territory unless they break the law; assault, theft, larceny stuff like that.”

“Well they’re definitely violating their treaty,”  I growled.  “They attacked my Stable and captured or killed everypony they ran across.”

“Really?!”  Scoops asked with an offensive amount of glee. She leaped to her hooves, grinning from ear to ear.  “That is just so wonderful!”

“Well fuck you too,”  I snorted, glaring at her.  “I’m glad the massacre and enslavement of everypony I have ever known makes you happy.”

“Oh, my.”  She flushed.  “I am so sorry.  Its just that this will give the Frostborn a valid reason to boot the Unity out, or at least force them to release their slaves and pay reparations.”

“They would help 114?”  I asked hopefully.

“As long as it’s in the valley I don’t see why they wouldn’t,”  she replied with a shrug.

“That is perfect!”  I exclaimed, scooping up the diminutive mare into the tightest hug I could manage.  “You are my new favorite pony!”

“Thanks,”  she said calmly.  I had honestly expected her to push away, but she actually snuggled deeper into my embrace.

While I knew it had been less than a week, it felt like an eternity since I held somepony like that (actually, I had probably never held anypony at all.  Wow, was that a depressing thought).  All my worries just seemed to melt away.  It was hard to imagine that something so basic as simple pony contact could make me feel so much better.  She was so soft and so warm.  I nuzzled my muzzle into her dark blue mane.  Despite having obviously not bathed in over a week, and having recently slicked her mane back with mud she still smelled nice.

*knock* *knock*

I started and fell onto my back, pulling the tiny, reporter mare with me.

An upside down Maple was standing with one hoof on the door to the engine, staring at us with a sad smile.  “I don’t mean to interrupt,”  the security mare said softly  “But Rocksalt insists that we leave while there is some light left.”  Without another word she turned and walked out.

That couldn’t be good.  I didn’t have to be talented with psychology to know there was something wrong.  I started shifting my head back and forth between the door Maple had left from and the reporter pony in my hooves.  If I dropped Scoop and went after Maple I might ruin what had just happened and I didn’t know if I could handle that.  It wasn’t even sexual, I just needed some kind of physical contact.

“Are you two…?”  the tiny mare asked hesitantly, pressing her forehooves together.

I released her and rolled to my hooves.  “Not to the best of my knowledge.”

Scoop gave me a little smile.  “Look, I got into the coffee from your survival kit so I’ll be wired for hours.  You go talk to her and I’ll start the train.”  She cantered over to the controls skillfully swishing her tail.  “We can talk more after your watch if you like.”

“Thanks.“  This filly was a saint.  “I may take you up on that.”

I trotted out the door as the train rumbled to life and began to move.  I could hear weeping over the low hum of the engine as I opened the small battery room (the only other compartment in the engine car).  The chamber was tiny, only large enough for two ponies to stand face to face.  The entire back wall was taken up by a pair of titanic spark batteries and various pieces of monitoring equipment.  The front wall had a small cot pressed into it, leaving barely enough space to squeeze by.

The security pony was curled up on the bed in the far corner.  She was clutching The Grim Harvest to her chest and sobbing into the weapon.  Her head shot up as I entered the room.

“What do you want?” she asked gruffly, hiding her face behind her gun.

“You seemed upset,”  I replied, sitting down next to her.  “And I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you?”

“You keep your fancy talk to your self,”  she said trying to restrain herself.  She waved her hoof at me dismissively.

“Look,”  I pressed,  telekinetically patting her on the shoulder (I would have used my hoof, but I was afraid she would break it…  I seemed to have a bad habit of gathering mares that could kill me with no effort).  “If I upset you with that thing in the control room I’m sorry.  I didn’t know you felt that way.”

She immediately stopped crying and stared at me with her ears cocked.  The security pony raised a hoof and opened her mouth.  She turned back to the batteries and pantomimed something before turning back to me.  “You mean you thought that I…”

The blue mare fell on her side and burst out laughing.  “Oh, Nightmare tap-dancing Moon, that is good,”  she guffawed, clutching her sides.  “My little egotist here gets all cuddly with one little filly and suddenly thinks he’s the next Coltsanova or something.”  The azure mare wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof and rolled back to her rump.  “Thanks,”  she sighed, controlling her snickers.  “I needed that.  Look, how about you insult my character again and then we’ll talk,”  she barely managed to squeeze out before a new wave of hilarity overtook her.

“Huh?”  I asked, cocking my head.  I was barely audible over the blue pony’s raucous laughter. Why would insulting her character make things better?

“But if you ever insult my character like that again I’ll make you a mare,”  the icy voice said in a mocking imitation of the security pony.

“Oh… OH!”  I said with dawning realization.  “So you and Chief Harvest were..?”

“Yeah,“  Maple sighed,  her laughter quickly dying.  She was softly petting the gun that had somehow remained in her lap.  “She was my wife.”

“Oh goddesses.  I am so sorry.”  I bowed my head.  No wonder she had been so hostile with me at first, given what I had cost her.

“I know it wasn’t your fault.  She chose to go to the pods and…”  The little, blue mare wrapped her front hooves around her chest.  “She always had to try and help everypony.  I know she saved your life and without you Overmare Goldlight wouldn’t have been able to hide everypony else in the pod banks.”  She rose to her hooves and turned to me.  “That thing in the control room…”  She looked away and sighed.  “You remind me of her, okay?  She was always a good talker, had your sense of humor and always went out of her way to take care of everypony else.  Seeing you cuddled up with that little surface pony…”  Maple reattached The Grim Harvest to her saddle.  “It just brought back some memories.”

“Well, I can’t be her,”  I apologized, bowing my head further.  “But I’m still good at talking and I do want to help everypony so if you ever need to get something off your chest or something, just let me know.”  I spread my forehooves.  “Friends?”

“You’re a good pony Ocher.  Blossom would have liked you.  Friends,”  she said, hugging me and resting her head on my shoulder.

Wow. I knew she was well built, but this mare was pure muscle. It was like hugging a toasty warm, flannel wrapped block of steel.

“Ocher,”  my new friend whispered in my ear.

“Yes?”

“You smell really bad.”

“I know,”  I said, holding her tighter.  “So do you.”

***        ***        ***

Harbinger.

All praise be to you, my Lady.  First allow me to say that your solution for the Canterlot Caravans problem was truly inspired.  With their access to the city cut off they will either go bankrupt or come back to your glory on their knees, begging for your forgiveness.

The enlightenment of Stable 114 has been delayed by the machinations of its heretical Overmare; she has been punished and awaits your final judgment.  Half of the population have been locked in the lower levels; with the equipment Redeye wished to acquire.  We are using the scrapers to cut through the doors, but it is a slow process.  It may take up to twenty-five days before the remaining ponies can be brought into the light.

Of the population we have access to only a small percentage were ready to join the Unity.  Many of the Stable ponies fought back quite vigorously and had to be eliminated.  As for the pod ponies, many of them were too emancipated to even walk, let alone toil for the good of the Goddess.  In addition, the magical potency of the population required the extermination of several others, as Red Eye has discouraged the capture of powerful unicorns (they are more trouble than they are worth).

I have sent the ninety-seven new workers directly to the Polychrome Weather Facility in hopes that you will forgive me for this debacle.

Your servant in this life and the next, Overseer Gellwin

***                ***                ***

The moment I stepped outside my E.F.S. was flooded with contacts; mostly white, but a few bands of red were sprinkled throughout.  Some of the trees were absolutely massive.  A giant ironwood was easily two hundred hooves tall and as wide as a family carriage.

With the last moments of Celestia’s light fading behind the still solid cloud curtain I managed to discern dozens of creatures practically swarming through the underbrush.  A colony of ants the size of grown bucks were feasting on the body of another one of those bramin, cow things.  An enormous, jet-black bird sat perched in one of the larger trees, vibrating slightly and making an ominous buzzing tone.  Some creature resembling a wallaroo with vicious, curling horns darted into a thick shrub as our vehicle approached.

Despite the monstrous appearance of most of the fauna, I was amazed to see so much life.  Everything I had been told in Shetland made the wasteland out to be some barren desert practically oozing with radiation, but there was a thriving ecosystem here without any pony help.  As an added plus, there wasn’t a ‘demon’ in sight.

There was, however, a black pegasus waiting for me on the lumber cars.  She was sitting in a sofa made out of cloud, widdling down a discarded piece of wood with one of her many knifes.  Little piles of scrap wood and bits of random debris were scattered around the half rusted edges of the flatbed.

“So, Echo, hugs?”  I asked the umbral pegasus as I approached her perch on the center log car.

She just sat there and glared at me, unblinking, like some form of grim statue… with lots of sharp objects.  The only motion I could see was a slight shifting of her back legs.  Small flakes of dried blood flaked off her thighs and stained the perfectly white cloud chair as they dissolved into flowing red-brown veins.

I averted my gaze.  “No hugs then?”

“No hugs.”  she stated flatly, turning back to the forest.

I cautiously meandered over to the soldier pony, feigning interest in the various piles of trash that littered the car.  Wood, wood, rock, milk bottle, ’My Foal Is An Honor Student’ carriage sticker, wood, blue horseshoe, another rock… thrilling.  Oh!  A deck of griffin playing cards, still in its original wrapping; I’ll have that.

“Are you done digging in trash now?”  Echo asked in her disapproving parent voice.

“Oh, um, yes,”  I said abashed.

I trotted over to her chair and plopped my self down on the floor.  I got a better look at the pegasus’ craft project.  She was carving a small, wedge shaped blade, shaving off bits here and there for balance.

“So,”  I said, breaking the silence.  “You’re from the Enclave?”

“Yes,”  she replied, not looking up from her work.  “I’m a first lieutenant specializing in communications technology, assigned to the raptor Pyrocumulus.”

“Interesting, interesting,”  I said, rubbing my chin.  “Now… what is the Enclave?”

“The Grand Pegasus Enclave is the governing body of Equestria’s pegasus population,”  the flyer said stretching her wings.  “We control everything above the cloud layer.”

That’s right, pegasi could control the weather.  That would explain such a long overcast and the violent weather; they must have been trying to clean some of the magical fallout away.  “That makes sense now,”  I replied.  “So, when can we expect a clear day?  Don’t get me wrong, the cloud cover is wonderful for Maple, but I haven’t seen the sun or stars in… ever come to think of it.”

“You can’t.”

“Pardon?”  I asked confused.

“You can’t expect a clear day,”  Echo clarified.  “The cloud curtain is active indefinitely.”

“Because…”  I prompted, rolling my hoof for her to continue.

“Further information is classified to surface ponies,”  she stated flatly.  “But I can assure you that it will come down one day and we will save you.”

“Ah.”  Well that sounded like a pile of well rehearsed, grade A horse apples.  I guess I could count the ‘Grand’ Pegasus Enclave off my list of potential saviors.  ‘Paranoid relics’ it was.

I twiddled my hooves for what felt like an eternity despite my PipBuck‘s claim that it was only ten minutes (If this was ten minutes of silence I would go mad by the two hour mark; well, madder) .  “Do all Enclave communications specialists know how to use knives like you do?”  I asked in another attempt to make conversation for our four-hour shift.

“No.  Most com officers have only limited combat training,”  Echo said finally looking up from her work and meeting my eyes.  “But I find it helps me to get my point across.”

Had she just told a joke?!  It wasn’t a very good one but still. It was progress.  In a few more days I might actually be able to have a conversation with her that lasts longer than two sentences.

“Darn,”  the Enclave pony said sounding a bit disappointed.  “My wing mates always found that one funny.”

I wiped the vacant expression off my face.  I had been so surprised that she had even attempted humor that I had failed to even provide a token chuckle.

“Oh, I’m sorry,”  I quickly apologized.  “You just seem so somber I was surprised.”

“I wish I could say that was a new development,”  she sighed.  “I’m not what you would call ‘good with ponies’; don’t take it personally if I bark at you.”

“Don’t worry about it.  I probably deserve it anyway, being an ignorant Stable pony and all.”  I put my hoof on her shoulder.

The next thing I knew I was on my back staring up a the black pegasus with her blue knife at my throat.  She was breathing heavily and staring at me with a mixture of rage and terror.  The wickedly sharp blade bit into my throat as I desperately tried to stay still, producing a thin trickle of blood.  It didn’t even hurt.  It was more like a line of ice being drawn across my throat.

“I… I…”  she stammered, pulling the knife away.  “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“No touching,”  I whispered gently rubbing my neck.  I could still feel the blade and the wound was just starting to sting.  “Got it.”  I slowly rose to my hooves.

“I honestly didn’t intend to hurt you,”  she insisted, sitting back in her chair and pulling her knees to her chest.  “It just happened.”

“Don’t worry about it,”  I reassured her.  At this point I was willing to consider anypony not intentionally trying to kill me as an ally.  “Now I know, no uninvited contact.”

“Thank you for understanding,”  she sighed, going back to her carving.  “DUCK!”

Without thinking I threw myself to the floor just in time to see Echo‘s new wood knife fly over my head.

*spluntch*  *thunk*

I turned and saw a wolf sized cricket pinned to the flatcar’s five hoof tall lip.  The mutant monster clicked its bolt-cutter-like mandibles in the air as it struggled to remove the wooden spike in its thorax. It was producing the most horrid sound I had ever heard next to the Shetland simulation failing and Keystone’s singing, as if somepony was failing terribly at playing the violin while accompanied by a warbling screech.

“Damn locusts!”  my flying assassin bellowed over the thrashing insect‘s death throws.  “Could you get me a new piece of wood and shut that obnoxious thing up before it brings the whole swarm down on us?!  I don’t want to ruin another knife on it!”

I pulled myself back to my hooves and bucked the creature with all my meager might.  It burst like an egg, showering my hind quarts with pail green ichor.  The horrible noise stopped.

“Is anything here normal sized?”  I asked, totting over to one of the debris piles.

“Most birds are,”  Echo flared one of her wings and started counting on her feathers as I rummaged for a new bit of timber.  “Radhogs are about the same size as normal pigs were.  Most canines seem unchanged.  Other than Brahmin, I think that’s it.”

I found a promising chunk of wood that looked like it had once been a two by four.  I wrapped it in my telekinesis and yanked it free of its pile.  The rest of the heap tumbled after it, burying me under a small avalanche of wood chips and assorted garbage.

I pulled my self out of the trash shaking the splinters out of my mane.  Bits and pieces of refuse were sticking to the bug goo on my barding.  Ugh, that was disgusting, my armor was soaking up the slime and I had no choice but to wear it (otherwise I would trigger my frostbite again).  I began peeling old food wrappers off my clothing.

I spotted something glint from under a rusted floor grate uncovered by the trashalnche.  I lit up my horn and maneuvered around the debris to get a better look, absentmindedly pulling more ooze smeared scraps off of myself as I went.  It was a small, glass orb, about the size of a billiard ball, with a soft glow coming from inside.

“Hu, what’s this?”  I asked Equestria in general, reaching out to the little ball with my magic.

“NOOOO!!!!”  I heard Echo yell as I managed to wrap the little sphere in my magic.

The world ripped away from me.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

        GAH!  What happened?!  Where did the train go?!  How did I get here?!  Why wasn’t I slimy anymore?!

        Calm down Ocher, calm down.  Get a feel for your situation.  Then you can panic.

I was standing in a large, dimly lit, wooden room, staring  at a heavy, deep blue, velvet curtain.  Everything seemed duller some how.  Shapes weren’t as sharp, colors weren’t as vibrant and lights were dimmer.

I had no idea where I was or how I got there, but all in all I didn’t feel too bad.  If anything I felt better than I ever had before, albeit a little on the bulky side, but I could chalk that up to eating nothing but two-hundred year old pie and cocoa for the past four days.  I was wearing some form of fitted suit made out of a soft, flexible fabric and a headband.  My chest was feeling strong and puffed out.  My legs felt like tensed cables, just itching to run, heck, I almost felt like I could outrun Echo.  My flanks were clean and slime free.  My… wait a minute, that’s not what’s supposed to be there.  I WAS A MARE!!!

I tried to charge my horn… no, horns.  I had a small one on either side of my head.  What type of pony had two horns?  My body involuntarily stared down at my light brown hooves.  Those weren’t pony hooves, they were far too spindly.  What in the sphincter of Nightmare Moon was I?  I attempted to twist my head around to get a better view, but I couldn’t control any aspect of my warped body.  Even blinking and breathing seemed beyond me.  It was as if I was a prisoner in my own body.  No, I wasn’t even in my own body.  What had I done to myself?!

“Don’t be so nervous, you‘ll do fine,”  a scratchy mare’s voice said.  “Besides, if you mess up nopony will be able to see past my pure awesome.”

My… host, for lack of a better word, turned to the speaker.  She was a cyan pegasus, about ten years older than I was, wearing a blue and gold uniform similar to Echo‘s tan and black one.  The mare looked familiar… this was the same polychromatic pegasus pony that had won the gold metal in Boxxie’s photos.

“I know, Dash,”  my host sighed and shuffled her tiny hooves.  What ever I was sounded like any other mare.  She had a hint of an accent that I didn’t recognize and a slight raspyness, but now where near as much as the rainbow pegasus.

Hold up there; light blue pegasus, prismatic mane, and Iron Pony class athlete… Was that Rainbow Dash?  The commander of the Shadow Bolts, leader of the Ministry of Awesome and one of the best flyers in Equestrian history Rainbow Dash?!

“Of course its Rainbow Dash you dodo,”  the icy voice scoffed.  “You would have known that in the cave if you paid more attention in your history class.”

Wonderful, you’re in here too.  So I never got a Rainbow Dash Wonder Bolts card or Ministry of Awesome Shadow Bolt action figure and found the abridged blurb they had on the wartime government boring.  Its not like I wouldn’t recognize any of them; Applejack’s book ‘Tails Of A Small Town Apple Vendor’ helped me learn my trade.

“You failed to recognize the single most distinctive historical figure other than the goddesses?”

Oh, forgive me.  What a crime I have committed in assuming that more than one pegasus might just happen have the same color scheme in the past two centuries.  And besides, I know all their cutie marks, so I could pick them out that way.

“Then why don’t you just check?”

Trust me, I’m trying.  Given Dash’s athletic record it is probably an absolutely glorious backside, but my host doesn’t seem to be all that interested in the potentially perfect pegasus posterior and I seem to have no control over what goes on at the moment.

“You still should have known.”

Yeah? And I bet you could pick Starswirl The Bearded out of a crowd.

“Sure I could.  Here’s a hint; look for the one with the beard.”

If you weren’t me I would buck your ass so hard!

“If I wasn’t you, you couldn’t buck my ass.”

Why you little-!

“I just don’t feel right being celebrated for what I did,”  my host finally continued.  “I had never killed before.”

The sudden and involuntary movement forced me out of my heated argument with… myself.  Crap, I did it again.  I really hoped I wasn’t lying on my back somewhere, yelling at myself about meeting a two hundred year old celebrity.

“Strongheart,”  the legendary pegasus snapped, slamming both of her front hooves on the not-pony’s shoulders and pressing their faces together.  “You did what you had to do to save lives, never feel sorry for that.”

“But Dash,”  Strongheart started to object, but was almost immediately cut off.

“But nothing,  Dash insisted, narrowing her almost unnaturally intense, magenta eyes.  “Those filthy traitors got exactly what they deserved; hijacking a train full of innocent ponies like that.”

“I know you’re right,”  my host sighed, gently pushing Dash off  “I just don’t know how to feel.  Last year I would have been sick to my stomach at the very thought of taking a life and now I’m being praised for taking five.”

    “You’re not being praised for killing,”  Dash said sharply.  “You’re being praised for saving the lives of nearly three hundred innocent ponies.  Be proud of that.”

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Good.  Well you’re on soon so I better go get ‘em warmed up for ya,”  the cyan pony said, lifting into the air.  “Oh, and you have something in your teeth.”  With that Rainbow Dash vanished through the curtain in a burst of light, leaving a thin trail of multi hued fire in her wake.  Not a moment later there was a bright flash on the other side followed by what sounded like thousands of ponies letting out a roar of applause.

Strongheart turned and trotted to a body length mirror.  As she went I managed to take in more of my environment.  I was definitely behind some sort of stage.  Various props and lights were scattered amongst sections of rigging in what could only be described as organized chaos.  A few stagehooves were milling about at the edges of my host’s vision, doing something with the ropes that I couldn’t quite make out.  Curse this body’s inferior senses!

Strongheart finally made it to the mirror.  A little buffalo was staring back at me with nearly black brown  eyes.  The horns I had felt were covered up by a caramel poof of hair.  She was wearing an expertly tailored, white dress jacket trimmed with turquoise triangles and a matching head band with two long, black tipped, white feathers sticking out the back.  She looked exhausted, some obviously talented makeup ponies had attempted to hide it, but there were some things no amount of cosmetics could cover up.  There were dark bags under her eyes that were still visible through the layers of concealer and she just seemed to slump; though that may have just been how bison held them selves.  And she did indeed have a scrap of green stuff wedged between her front teeth.

The little buffalo had a sort of natural grace to her.  While she didn’t have what one would call traditionally beauty, I would have definitely taken a pass at her if she were a pony.  Hell, I was an experimental stallion, I might have given it a shot anyway... yet another on a depressingly long list of attractive females who could rip me to pieces.

“FILLIES AND GENTLECOLTS!!!”  Rainbow Dash announced from the other side of the curtain.  “NOW FOR THE HEIFER YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!”

    My host frantically picked the offending bit of foliage from between her teeth; it was a bit of clover with a nice raspberry vinaigrette.  She patted her self down and put on a smile that I could have pegged as fake when I was no more than a foal and zipped to the front of the stage.

        “LITTLE STRONGHEART!!!”

    The wall of blue fabric pulled back with a flash of blinding light.  As the bison’s vision cleared I could feel her muscles tense up, desperate to be anywhere else.  We were staring out into a vast, marble and gold auditorium.  Gilded VIP boxes coated the walls, swathed in countess noble banners displaying the cutie mark heraldry of the Equestrian elite.  Statues of regal looking ponies where garbed in flowing robes of gold filigree and rich, flowing silks billowing dramatically in a magical breeze that kept the entire room pleasantly cool.

    All of that paled in comparison to the rows upon rows of checkered ebony and white birch chairs filled with more ponies than I could conceive of existing in one place.  There had to have been thousands of them of every hue and breed imaginable.  I had only ever seen two hundred and forty nine ponies in one location before and even that only happened at major events in Shetland.  Now I was staring out at ten times that easily, every one of them frantically stomping their applause.

        “IN THE BARREN DESERTS OF SOUTHERN EQUESTRIA!!!”  Rainbow Dash’s voice boomed out across the theater in the most overly dramatic tone I had ever heard... coming from somepony else.  “ALL THE PONIES ON THE TEN O’ CLOCK APPALOOSA EXPRESS WERE GOING ABOUT THEIR DAILY LIVES, UNAWARE OF THE DANGER LURKING IN THEIR MIDST!!!”

The crowd hushed almost immediately as the legendary pegasus continued from wherever she was hiding in a low and ominous tone.  “Hidden among all the good little ponies were five who were not so good!!!  And then THEY ATTACKED!!!”  The assembled ponies had a collective intake of breath.  “THESE FIENDS HIJACKED THE TRAIN AND PLANED TO SELL IT AND ITS PASSENGERS TO THEIR ZEBRA OVERLORDS!!!  THEN...!!!”

“IN CAME LITTLE STRONGHEART!!!”  The flyer dropped down next to my host in a burst of prismatic light.  “TO SAVE THE DAY!!!”  She was wearing some sort of gem encrusted bridal that was magically amplifying her voice to supernatural levels.  “SHE SINGLE HOOFEDLY DEFEATED THE TRAITORS AND SAVED EVERYPONY ON THE TRAIN.”

“And today we are here to honor her bravery,”  a mare said with a thick Manehatten accent.  My host turned to the new speaker, an orange earth pony with her deep purple mane done up in a tight bun.  The newcomer was wearing a tailored, black business suit and a pair of small square glasses over her emerald green eyes.  “Because of your heroic act I, Valencia Orange on the behalf of everypony in the Orange family would like to present you with these tokens of our appreciation.  First we have Treads from The Cutie Mark Crusaders.”  Valencia ushered a little, deep red colt in the same red red and gold cape I had seen the ‘little muffin’ wearing.

“Well, um,” the little foal stammered awkwardly.  “We, the members of Crusader Troop 42, would like to… to…”

“Go on sweety,”  A breathy, motherly voice from off stage encouraged.  “You can do it.  yay”  It had come from a buttery yellow mare standing with about a dozen other red cloaked foals and the coffee coated buck who was shaking hooves with Boxxie.  I knew her, she was the same pony from my sparkle cola stand up.  Agh, she was an important pony, a former model, was part of the group that banished the last two demons from equestria, mare of the Ministry of Peace and mind behind the megaspell; what was her name?  Bumblefly, Flutterby, Buttershy... Fluttershy!  Ah ha, that was it!  Wow, I really should have paid more attention in history.

“To present you with this,”  Treads continued with renewed confidence.  He pulled out a larger version of his own cloak except the foal emblem had been replaced with a buffalo.  “We would like to make you an honorary Cutie Mark Crusade Master.”

The procession of gifts continued for the better part of an hour.  Some of the more impressive gifts were a silver rifle called ‘The Shooting Star’, given by a older buck with a ten gallon hat and a huge mustache, a trio of luminescent feathers from Princess Celestia’s pet phoenix and a royal knighthood bestowed by Princess Luna’s captain of The Night Guard (a slim, pinto, earth pony stallion).

As the ceremony drew to a close Little Strongheart trotted numbly back stage, laden with treasures and trinkets galore.

“I told ya you’d do great,”  Rainbow Dash’s voice came from above me.  “Now I know you’ve already done so much for Equestria, but I want to ask you to do something for me.”  The blue pegasus sighed.  “Things aren’t going well... this war isn’t just another little adventure my friends and I could just make go away.  All right, I’ll just spit it out.  I’m going back out there at the end of the week and there is no one I would trust more to watch my back.”

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

        I surged back into my own body with a start.  I wasn’t on the train anymore.

        Before I could take in my environment a black hoof covered my muzzle.

        “Shhhh,”  Echo whispered in my ear.  “We’re being hunted.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: But I Am Weak And Helpless -- Due to your timid demeanor you generate 20% less threat from all actions and are less likely to be suspected of misdeeds.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and Tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Hide And Seek

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Six: Hide And Seek

“I’m almost as big as her, how is she going to gobble me up?”

I surged back into my own body with a start.  I wasn’t on the train anymore.  I was on my back somewhere dark...

Before I could take in my shadowy environment a black hoof covered my muzzle.

“Shhhh,”  Echo whispered in my ear, barley visible in my murky environment.  With her face as close as it was I could actually see small lines of green text and numbers running across her deep blue eyes, making them slightly luminous.  “We’re being hunted.”

HUNTED?!  DID GELLWIN FIND US ALREADY?!  HOW MANY SLAVERS ARE THERE?!  HOW MANY GRIFFINS?!  HOW MANY SCRAPPERS?!  TWO HUNDRED?!  THREE HUNDRED?!… Oh crap!  I can visualize larger numbers now!  No, no, calm down.  We have done quite enough panicking for one day; at least I thought it was the same day.  Observe your environment, assess the problem and figure out how to resolve it.  Yeah, that should work.  Observe, assess, resolve.  Observe, assess, resolve.

I let my eyes adjust to the darkness around me.  We were in a murky chamber made from packed earth and wooden joists.  Two exits were cut straight into the walls, barely large enough for a grown stallion to pass through.  Simple wooden tables and chairs were sprinkled about and a half dozen cots lined one wall; the one I was on was decidedly hard and uncomfortable.  The air was moist and musty, reeking of decay and frightened ponies and a soft howling echoed down the halls.  Echo was sitting next to my bed and Scoop had fallen asleep on the other side.  Rock Salt and Maple were each guarding one of the entrances, tensely scanning the halls with their battle saddles.  The others were clustered around Cave’s unconscious form three cots away.

I seemed more or less intact.  I had a bit of a headache, but I had probably landed on my face when I blacked out so no surprise there.  I actually seemed to be cleaner than when I had gone under; some pony seemed to have taken the time to remove some of the debris and locust gunk from my coat.  The only thing I could honestly complain about was that I seemed to be missing my ‘Boxxy Brown Moving Co.‘ fuzzy hat.  I really liked that hat, it was warm.

Magically pushing Echo’s hoof away, I rolled to my rump.  “What happened?”  I whispered.

“After you triggered the memory orb I pulled you back into the engine car and had Rock Salt take your place,”  Echo replied quietly, rubbing her hoof where I had telekinetically touched it.

“Hold up,”  I stopped her, holding up my hoof, careful not to touch her.  “Memory orb?  What‘s a memory orb?”

“You’re a Stable pony and you don’t know what a memory orb is?”  the soldier pony asked, cocking her ears and knocking her hat askew at a rakish angle.  To be honest the look worked for her; at the very least it helped to offset her dower demeanor.  “I suppose ignorance is a better reason for your actions than incompetence or thoughtlessness.”  the black pegasus shrugged her wings.  “Memory orbs are recording devices.  They allow unicorns, or other ponies with a device called a relacorder, to record and view other ponies’ memories.”

So that award ceremony actually happened over two hundred years ago.  I really was a buffalo heifer… and I really talked to Rainbow Dash.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh!  I needed to find more of these things!  Maybe I could find one of Fluttershy from her modeling days; now that was one lovely mare.  Or I could find of Applejack so I could get business tips straight from the horse’s mouth.  I might even manage to find one that would let me see the god-princesses.

Wait, I was in there for more than an hour, what happened during that time?  “Echo, what happened to my body?”  I asked.  “How long was I out?”

“I can’t say I’m an expert,”  she replied, fixing her hat.  “But from what I’ve read they are real time experiences.  As for you, it has been an hour and a half since you found it.  There weren‘t any problems unti-”  Echo stopped and silently pulled out a pair of her blades.

I floated up my beam rifle. Somepony had been kind enough to place it by my cot.  Echo must have spotted something on her PipHat, as her E.F.S. seemed to have a longer range than mine.  My own radar was showing no contacts beyond our company, hostile or otherwise.  Wait a minute, my mini map was almost coated with signals on the train and there was no way we had made it out of the woods in an hour and a half.  So either we were in another lead lined building or there actually were no living things other than the nine ponies in this room.

“We need to leave,”  the tensed pegasus whispered.  “They found us again.”

“How do you know?”  I asked.  “my E.F.S. isn‘t r-”

“Hush,”  the Enclave pony cut me off.  “I’ll explain later.  Just get the others ready to go, quietly.”

I rolled out of bed and trotted next to Scoop while Echo silently flapped over to Maple.  Placing my hoof over her mouth, I gently shook the sleeping reporter pony awake.  Her stunning, blue-gray eyes (Why hadn’t I noticed those gems before?) snapped open in surprise, darting around the room in a panic before settling on me.  She calmed considerably, but still seemed worried.  Nodding to me, she darted away to our assembled baggage.  I was a bit forlorn that we seemed to have less than a tenth of what we had pried out of the slaver base.

The other three mares were also sleeping around Cave‘s cot.  I planted my hoof on Spruce’s salmon muzzle.  Her eyes opened immediately and she tried to scream around my leg  “No,”  I whispered as she struggled to unwedge my hoof from her mouth.  “No shrieking, no squealing or screaming ether…  Do you promise not to shriek?”

“Umhm,”  the arboreal pony mumbled.  She stopped her struggling and just stared at me, shaking like a leaf.  Blast it all!  What would it take to convince these ponies that I wasn’t some sort of evil, lecherous hump?!

“It might help if you didn’t drool over everything with a vagina,”  the icy voice taunted.

“Well that was charming,”  I grumbled back sardonically, causing Spruce to shrink away from me, as if she could sink into the floor through force of will alone.

“Talking to yourself probably isn’t working wonders either.”

I growled at the frigid bastard who I had the misfortune of sharing a brain with.

“Look,”  I whispered tersely to the pink pony.  “Something has Echo worried.  Wake the others quietly and arm yourselves.”  With that I dislodged my hoof from her mouth and hustled over to Maple and Echo.

“Is everypony ready to leave?”  the ebony flyer asked without even turning to me.

“Spruce is on it,”  I spat with a considerable amount of spite.  “This way I don’t need to explain to each of them that I don’t want to molest them or whatever other bit of maliciousness they seem to think I’m planning.”

“You?”  Maple asked seeming mildly amused.  “The only pony here that you could molest is Cave.”

“Oh that makes me feel so much better,”  I mumbled back, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Enough,”  Echo hissed at us.  “This is no time for your petty complaints or foolish mocking.”  She stopped and darted her eyes from side to side.  “They are close.”

“For the love of Luna, who are ‘they’?”  I asked in an exasperated huff, throwing my hooves in the air.  “I can’t see anything on my E.F.S.”

“I don’t know what they are,”  she replied irritably.  “They are fast, they are strong, there are a lot of them, they don’t show up on an E.F.S. and they are almost here.”

*Bang!Bang!Bang!*  *Bang!Bang!Bang!*  *Bang!Bang!Bang!*

Rock Salt’s assault rifle echoed throughout the cavern.

I spun around, swung up my beam rifle and entered S.A.T.S.  I frantically tabbed between available targets:  Rock Salt was bringing his battle saddle around to fire on another one of the dozens of shaggy silhouettes that were charging down the pitch black corridor, each one had blood red corneas;  Echo, who had spun and hurtled a pair of knifes that were slowly gliding towards our attackers;  Maple was wrapping her mouth around her saddle’s firing bit;  Scoop hefted a Shrike hoof-cannon that was comically large compared to her small frame;  Cave had been slung over Rosalyn’s back while Spruce and Flights supported his head and rump respectively;  And back to Rock Salt.  Ah crap!  Not only were these things invisible to my E.F.S., but they also couldn’t be targeted with S.A.T.S.!

“Dozens of blood red eyes were staring at us from the shadows, always staying just out of our lights.”

“Demons,”  my delusion stated solemnly.

*BLAM!*

The scared buck discharged his single shotgun into one of the demons, illuminating a mass of deep blue fur and thick, yellowed talons as my targeting spell failed.  The creature staggered back and collapsed in a heap, only to be replaced by two others a moment later.  They were each slightly larger than a grown buck with three claws at the end of each foreleg.  Fortunately they were only able to fit down the corridor two at a time, but there seemed to be a sea of luminous, red eyes as far as I could see.

“Get the civilians out of here!”  Rock Salt barked, all subservience vanishing instantly.  “I’ll keep them off your tail!”

Another pair of Echo’s knifes found one of the demons’ eyes.  The beast collapsed with a scream that sounded eerily equine, rolling back and forth on the ground and clawing bloody gashes into its mangled face.

“We can’t leave you here!”  I protested, charging a flare in my horn.  “We stand a better chance if we’re together!”

“I stand a better chance if you get everypony out of here!”  The yellow stallion spun and bucked one of the creatures in the face.  “NOW!!”

“Do as he says!”  Echo yelled, throwing her last two blades and crippling two more of the shaggy monsters.

But I’m a hero, I’m supposed to save ponies.  How can I just abandon him like this?

“It was ignoring his counsel that got you into this mess,”  the icy voice said.  “He obviously knows what he’s doing.  If you stay we may win, but ponies will still die and we will probably be one of them.  A corpse can‘t save anypony.”

“Damn it all!”  I yelled.  “Fine, lets go!”  I ran to the other exit and motioned for the others to follow.  As soon as everypony else had gone I followed them down the earthen tunnel.

“All right you feral fuckers,”  I picked up Rock Salt‘s voice at the edge of my hearing.  “The foal‘s shoes are off.”

***        ***        ***

*Fizt!*

My target was enveloped in a dazzling sheath of light before disintegrating into a pile of ash.  I blinked to clear the afterimage from my eyes.  I had just vaporized a tree root, if not an entire tree.

I sighed and checked my rifle’s Microspark charge; ten shots left and only twenty more in my second battery.  With my E.F.S. being practically useless I had spent the last half hour lashing out at shadows and tricks of my own horn light as we navigated the twisted, subterranean tunnels looking for some way out.  Was this how most ponies up here lived?  Not knowing whether some horrible monster or deluded psychopath is going to jump out from behind every rock or be hiding behind every door.  My heart was hammering in my chest and my coat was sodden with sweat.  How could surface ponies possibly survive like this?

“They seem to manage somehow,”  my brainmate said in an odd attempt to be reassuring.  “So will you.”

“That’s a new tone for you,”  I grumbled at myself.  “Aren’t you going to tell me that you ‘told me so’?  Or make some snarky comment about how stupid I was for taking the train?  Huh?”

“Because I didn‘t!”  my arctic advisor snapped back.  “I’m no more infallible than you are!”  I could almost swear I heard the fringed creature weeping with rage through its gritted its teeth.  “I agreed with you and now we might all die for that mistake!”

“Ocher,”  Scoop said, nuzzling my neck.  “Why don’t you let Maple lead for a little while?”  She nodded to the security mare who was currently taking up the rear.  Maple was back peddling slowly, sweeping her clip light back and for the methodically.

Our little band was clustered together between Maple and I; as we were the only ones with light sources and ranged weapons we were competent with.  Echo was floating along with us on her cloud, fiddling around with her PipHat using Maple‘s lock picking tools.  If our lives weren’t in immanent danger I would have found the her frazzled mess of hat mane hilarious next to her relatively tidy uniform and up tight demeanor.

I rested my face on the top of her head, her soft hair doing wonders for my frayed nerves.  “No,”  I said resigned.  “I got us into this and I need to find some way out.”

“Its not your fault,”  the sky blue pony said reasuringly.  “We all agreed to take the train and you had nothing to do with coming down to the zebra tunnels.”

“But if I had the good sense not to grab some shiny thing...”  I perked up my ears and lifted my head.  “Zebra tunnels?”

“Yeah,”  she replied.  “These are an old bunker system the zebras built during the war.  They run through the entire valley and even into the Flankorage sewers in some places.  There are even rumors of a tunnel that leads through Canterlot.”  The reporter pony stepped away from me and continued down another featureless, dirt passageway.  The moment her cheek left my neck I could feel my anxiety start building again.  “Most ponies avoid them though,”  the reporter mare continued sounding more chipper by the moment.  I got the distinct impression that this conversation was as much about making her feel better as it was about calming me down.  “Too many dangers.”

“Such as?”  I prompted.  If this discussion could calm both of us and fill me in on what we might encounter I intended to keep it going as long as I could.

“Well, aside from cave ins,”  she continued, causing me to eye the walls warily.  “The system connects to several fire ant nests,”  Those must have been the creatures I had seen eating the bramin.  “Locust swarms nest down here sometimes same with a few other predators…  Oh!  And the zombies.  Can‘t forget the zombies.”

“You’re kidding,”  I replied in disbelief.  This mare had to be pulling my leg…  Oh Celestia, I hoped she was pulling my leg.  “You’re kidding right?  What else is down here?  Werewolves?”

“Don’t tempt fate,”  the icy voice warned.

“I’m not kidding,”  the diminutive pony replied with a half smile.  “Some poor souls don’t have the good fortune to die from massive doses of balefire radiation and most of them become mindless killers... Not all of them mind you,”  she amended quickly.  “Some of them, called ghouls, are just ponies trying to make the best of a bad situation.  But the zombies are kind of dumb and not all that dangerous unless they’re in large groups so they aren‘t what we really need to worry about.”

“So… what is?”  I asked hesitantly.  I wasn’t sure whether I really wanted to know the answer.  No, scratch that; I defiantly didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t let my own ignorance get anypony else killed.

“Dragons,”  Scoop said as if it where the most natural thing in Equestria.

“DRAGONS?!”  I yelled.  My voice resounded through the corridors and earning me a nasty glare from Echo and a nearly imperceptible, nervous gulp from Maple.

“Yep, dragons,”  the reporter mare went on, ignoring my outburst and sounding almost chipper.  “The Northern Legion still uses parts of the network and they let their younger dragons live down here.”

“How the hell are we supposed to handle dragons?  Scold them until they…”  I let my voice trail off as we came to another open chamber.

The first thing I noticed was the iron reek of blood, so thick in the air I could almost taste it.  The earthen walls were cross hatched with long gouges in groups of three.  All the cots where stained with blood and numerous other bodily fluids.  Piles of debris were scattered around the walls, consisting primarily of shredded clothing and splintered weapons.  A small fire was smoldering in the center of the room surrounded by piles of cracked, gnawed bones; one was a pony skull.

“Looks like some unlucky explorers got caught by a yao guai,”  Scoop proposed, stepping forward.

“No,”  I whispered, catching her shoulder.  I pointed to one of the weapon piles.  Sticking out of a small, aluminum plate was Echo’s wooden dagger from the train.  These weren’t just piles of garbage; they were trophies.  “Back up, slowly.  Its those things that attacked us earlier.”  The little, blue pony paled and quickly shuffled around behind me.  “I think I saw another fork a little ways back.  They might not know where we are yet.”

I caught a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye.  I swung my light around to see a mass off grime smeared fur uncurl from an alcove in the wall.  A pair of blood red eyes snapped open and stared right at me.  I swing my gun up a split second too late; the monster pounced from  its hiding place and knocked me to the ground.

In a panic I set off an uncharged flair as the beast dug its claws into my shoulders.  Celestia help me, I saw it.

THE DEMON HAD BEEN A PONY!

Standing about half a hoof taller than me the creature had roughly the proportions of a grown mare.  Under its layer of muck, the creature was coated in thick, powder blue fur, topped with a matted green mane.  Its front hooves were each warped into a trio of short, thick, pail yellow claws.  The monster’s mouth was filled with wide, serrated teeth and six long, saber shaped fangs.  It had bright green eyes with minute pupils and luminescent red whites.  A trio of diagonal, blood red marks resembling jagged slashes ran across its flanks where its cutie marks should have been.

As I stared at the terribly twisted equine in horror and disgust it opened its maw wider than I would have thought possible.  Pain shot through my face as the monster clamped its jaws over my muzzle.  Its curved fangs punched through my cheeks and locked its mouth over mine.

I flailed at my mutated assailant, kicking at every part of the creature I could reach.  The way I was being held prevented me from putting any of my strength, as meager as it was, behind my blows.  I quickly found myself out of breath…  I couldn’t breath!  The thing was smothering me with its mouth and drowning me in my own blood!

My vision was began to blur.  I saw nearly a dozen others pull themselves out of concealed nooks in the chamber, if they hadn’t been moving I would never have noticed them.

*BLAM!*

I could hear Maple open fire on the horrors that where literally coming out of the walls as my consciousness started fading.

NO!  I wasn’t going through this again!  I lurched myself forward, ripping long tears in my cheeks and bringing tears to my eyes.  Feeling something moist brush my muzzle, I opened my mouth and bit down hard.  My teeth sunk into the demon’s tongue, filling my mouth with thick, burning hot blood.

The creature released my face and reared up with a muffled roar.

The moment my head was free I yanked to the side, severing the demons tongue.  As it reeled from its injuries I rolled back to my hooves and spit out the still quivering chunk of meat and its revolting blood.  The searing pain in my wounds was oddly dulled, if anything it felt hot and tingly.

Shaking itself off, the demon charged back at me.  It reared up and raked my back with its claws, tearing through my barding and digging into my hide.

I leaped forward and embedded my horn under the monster’s ribs, tearing through its diaphragm.  I hoped I could do this without S.A.T.S.’s help.  I probed around in its chest with my magic, finally finding the demon‘s rapidly beating heart.  Squeezing as tightly as I could I forced the pumping muscle to slow to a crawl.  A flood of the monster’s burning blood poured over my face from the hole my horn had punched in its chest, stinging my eyes and nose.

The demon let out a sharp gasp as it tried to suck in breath with its perforated diaphragm while its heart fought against my magic.  Despite its failing systems the beast continued to tear into my back.  One of its wild swipes scraped across my spine, causing my legs to give out on me.

I couldn’t feel anything behind my stomach!

“Just die already!”  I growled at the monster as I shifted my magic target, clamping its arteries shut.

The demon let out one final, strangled howl of defiance before it finally stopped struggling and collapsed in a shaggy heap.  Without its body as a support I crumpled under my own weight.

I rolled onto my back, still unable to feel my legs.  The dirt floor ground into my wounds and the skin on my face felt like it was boiling.  I was only dully aware of my surroundings.  Maple was reducing several demons to pulp with swarms of bullets.  Echo was dancing between the monsters, slicing them to ribbons with her sky blue blades.  Spruce had collapsed against a wall and wasn’t moving.  I couldn’t see the others from where I was lying.

Another abomination loomed over me.  This one looked like it had been a orange, unicorn buck.  Its horn was thick and curved, looking more like a rhinoceros horn than a pony’s.  It had the same three slash cutie mark as the green one had.  The creature’s warped horn lit up with a hellish, red light, coating its claws in crimson sheaths that tripled their length.  It reared up on its hind legs and pointed all six of its sword sized claws at my face.

I had to move.  Move Ocher!  MOVE DAMN YOU!  MOVE OR YOU WILL DIE!

*BANG!*  *BANG!*  *BANG!*  *BANG!*

The monster’s horn exploded in a sanguine burst of light, blood and splintered bone as two more holes blew open in its throat, nearly severing its head.  It dropped almost immediately, its spike filled jaws still snapping wildly at some invisible prey.

I sluggishly turned my head towards the source of the sound.  Scoop was standing on the body of a pink demon with a still smoking, Shrike hoof-cannon clenched between her teeth.  I think I was starting to love that little, blue mare.

***        ***        ***

“Game over man!”  Flights yelled, waving her hooves in the air hysterically.  “Game over!”

Scoop had managed to get our last healing potion down my throat seconds after killing the unicorn demon.  The green demon’s claw had scratched my nerve stem and according to the Canterlot Medical Journal, if she had taken even one more minute and it would have taken considerably stronger magic to heal me, if it was possible at all.  My flesh still felt like it was writhing where I had gotten the monster’s blood on me, but otherwise I was no worse for wear.

Spruce had not been as fortunate.  The pink mare’s throat had been torn out while I was still trying to dislodge the first demon from my face.  It was my fault she was dead, same with Rock Salt.  There was no other way to see it.  I chose to lead them into danger.  I chose to fool around with odd magic items.  I chose to continue leading the group when I obviously was no longer fit to do so.  And when we were ambushed I managed to make myself almost useless.  Some hero I turned out to be.  I wasn’t sure what depressed me more, that I had failed or that two ponies dying only bothered me because of their circumstance.

“What the fuck are we gona do now?!”  the panicking green unicorn continued.  “What are we gona do?!”

“I know what I’m gona do if you keep screaming like a schoolfilly,”  Maple barked at the frantic, blond pony.  “Just calm down.  Ocher and Echo are clever ponies.”  The security mare put her front leg over my shoulders and gave me a reassuring smile.  “They’ll figure something out and I’ll keep everypony safe till they do.”

I flushed at her display of confidence.  “Well we know they hide in the walls so I will know what to look for now,”  I said as I stood and trotted over to one of the demon’s trophy piles.  “I should be able to help us avoid being surrounded again.”  I started digging around, partially for any useful bits of equipment I might be able to drudge up and partially to give me something to analyze other than our bleak situation.  Broken rifle, trash.  Wheelchair, useless.  Two hundred year old milk, disgusting…

“Got it!”  Echo exclaimed from the back of the chamber.

“Huh?”  I pulled my head out of the trash pile and perked up my ears.

“I have altered my scanner so it might be able to detect these things,”  the black pegasus continued, pressing invisible buttons.  “They have some sort of inherent magic that is jamming our targeting spells so I have gone back to basics.”  The mini map in my radial E.F.S. vanished and was replaced with a series of numbered rings.  “This set up can’t tell friend from foe, but it should be able to pick up motion from anything bigger than a mouse.”  a little, white ring radiated out from the center of my new tracker, outlining six blobs in roughly the same spots as my companions.

“What about S.A.T.S.?”  I asked hopefully.  If I could get the targeting spell back we wouldn’t need to worry about ambushes of any kind.

“Unfortunately your targeting spell won’t work at all in this mode,”  the Enclave pony replied with a look of genuine pity.  “You can still slow time, but you won’t be able to target anything.”

“Just our luck,”  the icy voice scoffed.  “Look, I need to talk to you.”

“Later ,”  I grumbled under my breath.  “Ahem.”  I shifted my attention back to Echo.  “I mean, can you get it working later?”

The assassin raised her eyebrow skeptically.  “No,”  she responded after an uncomfortable pause.  “The enhanced targeting spell is tied into the same spell these creatures are jamming, so no amount of fiddling on my end can make it functional; you would need to reengineer the entire spell matrix to do that and I have neither the equipment or the bone structure,”  she indicated to my horn,  “to do that.”

Damn it!  That was probably too much to hope for anyway.  At least we could see them coming now.

“All right,”  I said, turning to address the other ponies.  “We will take a few moments to rest, salvage these piles and find some sort of way to carry Cave.”

“WHAT?!”  Flights roared,  stomping up to me.  “We’re wasting time on him?!”  She slammed her hoof into my chest hard enough to make me stumble back.  “You have already gotten two ponies killed for him and now you want to risk the rest of us!  He’s a lost cause!”

So much for ponies actually caring for one another.  “He is still alive!”  I snapped back.  “And I have no intention of leaving anypony behind!”  I stepped forward so I was horn to horn with the lime green unicorn.  “And that is final!  If you don’t like it you can go,”  I growled, baring my, still blood stained teeth, almost instinctively.  “I’m not forcing anypony to come with me.”

The blond mare backed away from me quickly, stumbling over her dress.  She slinked back to Rosalyn while eyeing me nervously.  I probably had just killed any chance of making friends with anypony else, but I just didn’t care anymore.  If I couldn’t earn their trust or respect fear would work for the time being.

“Now?”  my delusion asked, sounding almost apprehensive.  That was worrisome.  When your crazy is scared you know something is wrong.

I turned my attention back to the trophy pile.  Scooter handlebars, trash.  An intricate, silver, full helmet with black trim and a small, black apple painted on the side; interesting.  I slipped it in my bag.  My PipBuck labeled it ‘Black Apple Ranger Helmet, Power Armor’.  Black Apple Rangers?  They were on the Unity’s buyer list.  No sympathy for this slaving bastard then.  More importantly, I had found power armor!  Granted, it was incomplete, damaged power armor, but power armor all the same.  Now if I only had some idea on how to use power armor.

“Ocher!”  my arctic advisor snapped at me.

“Okay, okay,”  I mumbled under my breath.  “What do you want?”

“There is something seriously wrong with us,” the voice replied.

“What are you talking about?”  I asked, digging through more of the trash in search of the rest of the power armor suit.  “I feel fine.”

“What about that thing with Flights?”

“You heard what she said,”  I retorted.  “Did you expect me to let that slide?”

“She is confused, scared, and irrational,”  my crazy spat back.  “And you know it.”

“She pissed me off.”

“So you snarled at her like an animal?!”

Had I?  I remembered growling at her, but was I acting that aggressively?

I absent mindedly ran my tongue over my teeth to get the rest of the demon’s revolting blood off them.

“Ouch,”  I exclaimed.  I had cut my self on my own teeth?!  Maybe there was something to what the voice was saying after all.  “What do you want me to do about it?”  I asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know,”  my mental companion responded grimly.  “I just thought you needed to know.  I’ll try to figure something out, but in the meantime try to keep your temper in check.  I don’t think it would take much more to get Flights to draw a weapon on you.”

“Right, right,”  I sighed, digging thru more trash.  “I’ll do what I can.”

“We are gathered here,”  I heard Scoop’s voice from behind me.  “To bid farewell to Spruce Grove.”

Dislodging myself from the pile of trash I had been rooting through, I turned back to the center of the room.  Everypony else had gathered around the central fire pit.  They had placed the pink pony’s body on one of the cots and placed it in the embers; the bottom had already begun to smolder.  Her jacket had been zipped up to cover her wound and if it weren’t for her unnaturally pale complexion I would have believed it if somepony had told me she was sleeping.  Scoop was standing on her hind legs at the dead pony’s head, reading something out of a small note pad.

They were giving her a funeral.  Why hadn’t I thought of that?  I was supposed to be the civilized one here and I was digging through trash instead of sending a pony off properly.  Regardless of what Maple said, I was not being a good pony.

“We only knew her a short while,”  the reporter pony continued as I made my way to the fire.  “But that doesn’t make her any less important.  Would any pony like to say a few words?”

Rosalyn stepped forward and bowed her head, letting her shaggy, blue mane fall across her face.  “Spruce and I were captured together,”  the green earth pony said forlornly.  “We were traveling south, through Glyphmark.  She ran a little tree farm further north with her brothers.  Some fancy pants noble from down south wanted a few saplings for a private garden.”  The mare raised her head and looked at me on the verge of tears.  “She was only supposed to be gone for two weeks.  None of this was supposed to happen.”  She sat down and stared at something shiny in her hooves sobbing softly.

The bed ignited, filling the chamber with flickering orange light.

“I don’t have much to say,”  Flights said, stepping forward.  “I know you were kinder than most ponies, you seemed like a good tipper and you deserved better than this.”  She shot me a glare that could have shattered steel.

“She died well,”  Echo piped up from where she had been hovering.  “She faced her end with more dignity than most.”

”Anypony else?“  Scoop prompted after a pause.  “…No?  I’m afraid I can’t say much ether.  I’m sorry for stepping on you that one time.”  The reporter pony bowed her head and flipped to the next page of her notebook.  “May Celestia guide our fallen comrade into her loving hooves,”  Scoop continued, rising back to her hind legs,  “and Luna protect her on her final journey.”

“I never meant for this to happen,”  I said approaching the burning body.  It was probably inappropriate to speak at this point, but I had to say something.  “I didn’t mean to scare anypony or get anypony hurt.  I…”  I sniffled.  “I was only trying to help.  I’m sorry I failed her.  I wasn’t taught how to do this…  I…  I…”  I was arrogant and stupid.  I was too preoccupied with my own run of good luck to pay attention.  I was wrong.  I failed as a hero.

“I…“  I fell to my haunches and lost all composure.  “I just want to go home!”

***        ***        ***

“Contact,”  Echo said from the front of the line.  “Sixty hooves ahead.”

After my breakdown I had relocated myself to the end of the line.  Scoop and Maple had done an admirable job of trying to cheer me up over the past half hour, but it couldn’t change the fact that my stupid decision had gotten two ponies killed and continued to endanger the rest of us.  Echo took charge quickly and without any commentary on my collapse.

“Fifty hooves and closing,”  the black pegasus continued.  “At least five signals.”

Every pony brought their weapons up and pointed down the earthen hall.  I sent a flash of light down the corridor.  I may have been depressed, but I would be damned if I let my self fail anypony else.

Nothing was there.

“Forty hooves…”  the soldier pony said.  The tunnel was still empty.  “Thirty.”

“That’s impossible,”  Maple grumbled tensely.  “That’s right on top of us.  You must be reading something from the surface.”

“No,”  the militant flyer responded with a hint of worry creeping into her voice.  “This scanning mode can’t penetrate that much dirt.  Twenty hooves.”

I narrowed my light and tried to follow one of the contacts on my E.F.S.  It pulled far to the left.  They weren’t in the tunnels.  “Get away from the walls!”  I yelled, leveling my beam rifle at where I guessed one of the horrors was burrowing.

*Fizt!*

A screech of pain reverberated from the wall.  A half dozen holes began to form from the sides of the tunnel in a flurry of yellowed claws.

*BLAM!*  *RATATATATAT!*  *BLAM!*

Two of the demons exploded under a hail of bullets from Maple.  The other four managed to free themselves from the dirt and pounce at our company.  Rosalyn managed to knock one out of the air with a well placed shot from her hoof cannon, but the other three landed in the middle of our group.

A red, demon mare had pinned Flights and clamped its jaws over her face while it tore at her dress with its talons.

I turned my beam rifle around and jammed the barrel into its crimson eye with an oddly satisfying squish.

*Fizt*  *Fizt*  *Fizt!*

The demon was enveloped in a brilliant, scarlet light as my magic weapon deconstructed the abomination.  The lime green unicorn had some nasty looking burns where the monster had been touching her, but seemed okay otherwise.

Maple had bucked the second’s teeth in.  The two of them were rolling on the ground, trading kicks and slashes.  The last one, a purple buck, had knocked Rosalyn to the floor with a swipe of its claw, leaving a trio of nasty looking tears across her chest and was swiping at Scoop.

*Fizt!* *puft*

I fired off a shot, searing through the violet beast’s shoulder and depleting the last of the power in my weapon.  The monster turned to me and bared its dripping fangs.  I desperately fumbled to switch out my Microspark cell as the demon pounced at me.

*BANG!*

A searing pain shot through my shoulder as the purple demon’s collapsed on top of me with a smoldering hole in its neck.  Scoop’s hoof-cannon had blasted clean through the creature’s throat and punched into my shoulder.

I shoved the corpse off just in time to see another hole appear in the ceiling, directly above me.  A unicorn demon dropped out with all six of its claws enveloped in crackling flames.  A black streak knocked the beast out of the air and sent it tumbling down the hall behind us.  Echo untangled herself from the creature’s corpse and yanked her knife out of its sternum.

I wrapped my wounded leg in a magical cast and shakily got back to my hooves.  Despite numerous scratches and cuts, Maple had managed to unhinge her assailant’s jaw and was stomping it head into something resembling chunky salsa.  Flights and Rosalyn were leaning on each other for support.  Echo was making her way back to us, using her cloud like a scooter and cradling her left wing.

“Ocher, are you okay?”  Scoop asked with a mixture of guilt and concern.  “I am so sorry.”

“Its okay,”  I grunted, properly reloading my weapon; last twenty shots.  “You saved my life again so don’t worry about it.”

“Contact,”  Echo groaned.  “Sixty hooves.”

Again?!  Half of us were crippled and the rest were seriously injured.  There was no way we could survive another onslaught in our state.

“Fifty hooves.”

“Forty”

A figure trotted around a corner up ahead.  I immediately shot out my light spell.

The figure was a large, silver, pegasus mare with an ice blue mane and brown eyes.  She was completely encased in heavy metal armor that looked far more refined than the scrapper version.  Her headgear seemed to consist of a sparkscooter helmet with a large, silver dome coming out of the top and extending into, what looked like a robotic spinal column down her back.  She had a pare of oversized, metal shoes with complex machinery encasing them.  While her cutie mark was obscured there was a symbol painted on her hip plates, a black gear with a red medical cross in the middle.

Flights, Rosalyn and Scoop  scampered back as if this one pony was as terrifying as a dozen demons.  Even Echo seemed nervous.

“Who is that?”  I asked the reporter pony who was using me as a shield.

“That’s B, B, Baron.”  she stammered out.  “It’s a legendary hunter.  It has been around for over a hundred and fifty years.”

The armored mare turned and casually walked toward us.

“What is the problem?”  I whispered, that helmet didn’t look particularly easy to hear out of but, it was better not to take chances.  “And how could one pony live for two hundred years?”

“No pony knows how,”  the tiny, blue mare replied barely audibly.  “But it has destroyed entire settlements and slaughtered fully armed … squeak”

Baron stopped a mere ten hooves away.  “You chose to brave feral territory?”  the armored mare asked in a booming, masculine bass that I would have thought incapable of coming from anything smaller than a scrapper.  “I don’t know whether to be impressed with your bravery or appalled at your stupidity.”  She looked us over calmly.  “I take it you know who I am?”

I looked to Echo, but she had paled to a dark grey and, while not as blatant about it as the other surface ponies, she was clearly terrified.  I guessed I was in charge again.  Don’t screw this up Ocher.  “Baron?”  I asked as politely as possible.

“Yes,”  she replied.  The silver mare stared at me intently for an uncomfortably long time.  “You are from a Stable.”

“Oh no, no, no,”  I said shaking my head.  If I had learned anything it was that being a Stable pony was not good to advertise.  “I’m actually fr-”

“That was not a question,”  Baron cut me off.  “It was a statement of fact.  I wish to enlist your aid.  Do not attempt to lie to me again.”

“I’m sorry”  I said hesitantly.  “So you’re not going to kill us?”

“Not unless you give me reason to.”  She said, cocking her head.  “I am willing to escort you and your companions out of these tunnels and then to any location you desire in the valley.  In exchange I will need the use of your SpikeBuck.”

“And if I refuse?”  I was fairly sure I knew what the answer would be, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“Then I will kill you and take it anyway.  I can not afford to delay.”

I figured as much.  “Well,”  I said with resignation.  “It looks like we have an agreement.”  At least I would be able to figure out what the fool thing did.

Footnote: Level Up

New Perk:  -- .Body Augmenting Telekinesis 1: You have developed an advanced skill at manipulating the living body with telekinesis.  This allows you to continue holding objects while you maintain a magical cast and cast the heart attack spell at close range without S.A.T.S. assistance.

New Quest Perk:  -- Once Bitten: Your encounter with the ferals has caused a fundamental change in your body.  You have grown a thicker coat and maintain a higher core temperature, making you more resilient to the cold.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, No One and Otherunicorn for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

BARON

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Seven: BARON

“Aren’t you a little old for this?”

The armored pegasus known as Baron trudged ahead of us, navigating the horror filled tunnels with an almost bored calm.  We hadn’t detected any other demons since we had joined company with the supposedly ancient mare; I wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or worried about that.

The others all seemed apprehensive and exhausted as well, especially the surface ponies.  Maple had taken the burden of carrying the comatose Cave, despite her numerous lacerations.  The security pony was putting on a tough façade, but her injuries were obviously taking their toll.  Echo was still using her cloud as a floating crutch for her injured wing and leg, floating in the middle of the group.  Flights was supporting Rosalyn, who was struggling to breath and loosing an unnerving amount of blood from her nearly disemboweling injury.

My own crippled shoulder was starting to wear on me, despite my magical cast.  Scoop was kindly trying to help me along, wedging her self under my hobbled leg and letting me use her as a support.  I had absolutely no clue why the cute, little news mare seemed to have taken a liking to me, but I was thrilled that she had.  Being around her just made me happy.

I deliberately slowed until we were near the back, next to Maple.  “Scoop,”  I whispered to the reporter pony when I was sure Baron was out of earshot.  “Why is everypony so scared of this pegasus?  Granted, she is large and intimidating, but at least she is better than the demons.”  She looked at me as if I had sprouted a second head.  “Stable Pony,”  I said, tapping my chest softy with my injured leg.

The midnight maned mare sighed.  “It is a plague,”  she mumbled back.  “Wherever it goes ruin follows.  If you only knew the stories.”

“Well why don’t you tell me some?”  I prompted.  She needed something to occupy her mind other than worry and I had to know who I was dealing with.

“Um, what do you want to hear first?”  she asked, prodding my neck with her nose.

“As I have no frame of reference,”  I replied with a half shrug.  “How about the earliest one you know.”

“All right, let me think,”  the reporter pony said while she snuggled deeper into my coat.  “Were you always this soft?”  Was I?  I looked at my fetlock.  Wavy, ashen gray hair was bulging out from under my PipBuck and fell nearly a quarter of the way down my hoof.  While I supposed I hadn’t had a trim in a while… actually I had probably never had a trim.  I didn’t remember my coat ever growing out that far before.

“Well,”  the azure earth pony continued.  “Baron first showed up in Flankorage about a hundred and fifty years ago.  At first it helped the Frostborn as they made their way out of Stable 116 and actually inspired The Hunters Lodge.”  She paused, realizing that I had no idea what she was talking about.  “Right, you don’t know the Hunters.  They brave heavily irradiated areas and regions filled with vicious monsters to find supplies, recover technology and destroy dangerous creatures that get too close to pony settlements.  Though lately they have been taking less reputable contracts; like collecting bounties and recovering escaped Unity slaves.”

“Anyway, back to Baron,”  the news pony continued with her story.  “It was a hero up until about seventy years ago.”  She looked up at me with a mix of regret and excitement.  “That was when The Black Apple made itself known and established a town in the eastern foothills.  They offered anypony who would join them advanced medical treatment, the protection of The Black Apple Rangers, a group of power armored soldiers, and as much food as they could eat.  Needless to say ponies flocked there in droves and it soon became a thriving community.”  Scoop sighed.  “Nopony knows why, but that drove Baron mad.  It traveled to the Black Apple town and wiped it out, slaughtering every last mare, stallion and foal.  If that wasn’t bad enough, it drove the Frostborn and Black Apple Rangers to the brink of war.  Only the Frostborn’s condemnation of Baron as a raider and the fifty thousand cap bounty they placed in its head averted a devastating conflict.”

Fifty thousand?!  Lets see… a small pie runs around two to three gold bits, the same pie reads as five caps, so that would make it about twenty thousand bits.  That was more than my entire shop, stock and current equipment combined!  Baron killed entire families and was worth more money than I had ever seen in my life.  Now how could we take this monster down?

        No!  Damn it!  I can’t start thinking that way.  I’m going to do it for the ponies she killed, not the money.  If I start giving and taking life for caps I’ll be no better than the wretched Unity.

“Don’t even think about it,”  Scoop said nervously, seemingly able to read my mind.  “Baron has been hunted for nearly four generations and nopony who has gone after it has ever come back.”  She kicked at the ground uncomfortably.  “At least not as themselves.”

“As themselves?”  I asked perplexed.  “And why do you keep calling her an it?  I mean I could understand if you just heard her voice-”

“Ocher,”  the blue mare interrupted me.

“Yes?”  I asked, cocking my head.

“Shush.“

Scoop stole a glace at the silver pegasus and shuddered, burying her face back in my oddly fuzzy neck.  “This isn’t the first Baron,“  the news mare whispered.  “Some ponies say that Baron is an evil spirit that possesses ponies and bends them to its will.  Others say it’s a curse; that anypony who kills Baron becomes it. Or it may simply be a hereditary title, passed from one pony to the next with the armor and mission.  But whatever it is, anypony who goes hunting for Baron comes back as the monster or not at all.”

Maple stumbled and fell to her knees, having been distracted by Scoop’s story and being nearly dead on her hooves.  Her unconscious cargo tumbled to the floor.  “I’m fine, I’m fine,”  the security mare insisted weakly, struggling back to her hooves.  “I just hit a root.”

“Why do you waste your time and energy dragging the white one with you?”  the silver pegasus asked without turning around.

“He’s hurt,”  I replied indignantly, sliding off Scoop‘s back and stepping between the unconscious buck and the armored flyer.  “He needs medical attention.”

“Let me see him,”  the armored mare said stopping and turning around.

“I, um…”  I stammered as the hunter barreled past me as if I wasn‘t even there.  “Hey!.”

Baron ran her magitech encased hooves over Cave’s prone form, her eyes darting through a sea of glowing, red numbers that flowed across the inside of her helmet‘s visor.  “His spine is badly damaged,”  she stated, placing her hooves on ether side of the comatose buck’s head.  “I will handle this.”  Baron pressed her hooves into Cave’s temples.  Arcs of light blue, arcane energy enveloped the albino pony’s head causing him to spasm and jerk.

Cave’s signal vanished from my E.F.S.  The white buck’s head was smoldering and blood was leaking from his ears, nose, eyes and mouth.  Scoop, Flights and Rosalyn recoiled as Maple and Echo tensed, slowly reaching for their weapons.

“You murderer!”  I bellowed, charging the steel coated pegasus.  “First foals and now this!  How could you?!”

In a silver flash the tunnel spun and I found myself on my back with a painful ringing in my ears.  Baron stood over me, magical lighting sparking menacingly from one of her metal hooves.  “I saved him a slow and agonizing death,”  the pegasus rumbled in my ear.  “The damage to his nerve stem was too severe.  If I had gotten to him within a few hours of his injury I might have been able to save him, but at this point there are only two facilities in the valley that could have saved him and they would give him fates worse than death.”  She turned and continued on her way down the tunnel.  “Now come along, I‘m on a schedule.”

“Why should we?!”  I yelled at the foal killer as I struggled to regain my hoofing.  “You’re a monster!  You might just kill us anyway!”

“You are correct,”  Baron growled without turning back.  “I am a monster and If you come with me you may die.”  The armored mare stopped and turned back to us with a cold rage in her eyes.  “But if you leave now, I swear, by my hooves or the ferals’ claws, you will die.”

“She’s right,”  my cold advisor cautioned.  “If we fight now there is no way we would win.  Only two of us are in any shape to fight and frankly they are worse shots than you are.”

Damn!  It was right:  Maple was exhausted and suffering from massive blood loss.  Echo was nearly immobile, denying the pegasus her single greatest strength.  I was almost out of ammunition and nopony else knew how to fight.  If we fought something that was able to survive being hunted for over seven decades we wouldn’t last seven minutes; if she decided to leave us to the demons then maybe an hour at best.

I dropped my head as Scoop moved up and wedged herself back under my shoulder.  “Fine,”  I growled through my teeth.  “Have it your way.  Just give me a minute.”

“Very well,”  the silver mare said irritably.  “One minute.”

“Scoop, Maple,”  I said to the two blue mares, pointing at Cave’s corpse.  “Help me with him.”  Scoop nodded and Maple slowly let her saddle‘s firing bit fall out of her mouth.

We moved the albino pony’s body against the wall, doing our best to put him into some form of repose.  I kneeled down in front of him.  “I am so sorry,”  I said to the body.  “I’m sorry failed you.”

“Your time is up,”  the armored mare boomed.

“Coming,”  I hissed back.  Before this day was over one of us would be lying in a puddle of our own blood, that was a promise.

***        ***        ***

“This is where we leave,”  Baron stated, indicating to a masterfully camouflaged door.  “We will come up in an abandoned pharmacy.  I should be able to find what I need to fix you.”

“Like you ‘fixed’ Cave?”  Flights spat at our guide.

“Watch yourself girl,”  the armored pegasus warned.  “ I am a monster, remember.  I need him.”  The hunter pointed her hoof at me.  “Not you.  I am offering to help you out of the kindness of my little, black heart.  So don‘t push me.”

The lime green unicorn stepped back behind me timidly, shaking in her ruffled, purple dress.  Humph, little flip flop.  Just a little while ago she had recoiled from me as if I were a monster, but soon as she saw a real monster I suddenly became her protector.  I was half tempted to just step aside and watch what happened.  Damn, pesky morals.

“That’s enough,”  I said as tersely as I could, glaring at the large, silver mare.  “Are you going to open the door or not?”

“You’re a brave one,”  the hunter pony said, turning back to the door.  “I will give you that much.”  She wedged a hoof behind a root near her head and pulled.  With a soft hiss the earth disguised door crept open on rusted guides.  Beyond it was a rusted, metal staircase illuminated only by Baron’s helmet lamp.  The entire hall reeked of mould, but it was a pleasant change from the carrion stench of the tunnels  “Now, let’s go.”

The stairs ended in a rotting, wooden door.  Our armored escort didn’t even bother reaching for the handle, instead she just reared up and smashed the door to flinders.

My PipBuck registered a new location, ‘>Xeruth’s Potions’.

The pale rays of morning sunlight that could pass through the cloud curtain were filtering in through gaps in the large sheets of plywood that covered the store’s display windows.  The shop’s interior was eerily similar to my own store.  While the shelves were nearly bare, and what was there consisted solely of expired drugs, the layout was nearly identical.  It even had the same brand of cash register.  What was different was the prevalent graffiti, stating such unpleasant sentiments as;  ’Better Wiped Than Striped’,  ’Take your dirty witchcraft somewhere else’, as well as a plethora of others that were far less tasteful.

I could see several cat sized cockroaches scurrying about and chewing on scraps of garbage while avoiding the beams of light as if it caused them physical pain.  My E.F.S. indicated that there where many more of the disgusting creatures scattered throughout the building.  I recoiled in disgust, pulling out my beam rifle.  It almost felt as if it was my own home the monstrous pests were defiling.

“Don’t,”  Scoop said calmly, placing a hoof on the top of my gun and pushing it down.  “Radroaches are only pests.  They aren’t worth the ammunition, just give them a good kick if they get to close.  Unless we will be sleeping here it would be best to just leave them be.”

“If you say so,”  I replied skeptically, looking at the massive bugs with revulsion.  I was honestly contemplating exterminating the vermin on principle.

“Humph,”  Baron said irritably.  “Somepony else must have come through here since my last visit.  You may be out of luck.”

I trotted over to a staircase behind the register.  “No store keeps all their stock out in the open,”  I stated.  “If this place is set up anything like my own store then there will be living quarters and a terminal up here.  I might be able to find where they kept the rest of their goods.”  I turned to the floating, black pegasus.  “Echo, I might need your help if the terminal has any form of encryption or security on it.”

“Well make it quick then,”  the silver pegasus replied, stomping on a radroache and making it burst like a balloon.  “And stay focused.  I know you Stable pony types, too damn curious for your own good.”

I turned and hobbled up the stairs, Scoop still supporting a good half of my weight.  My hobbled assassin followed us up, keeping a few steps between us, walking up backwards from the sound of it.

“While you’re up there you can get away,”  the arctic voice said.  “Just open a window and climb out.  If this place has the same layout as the Shetland Store there should be a window just over the awning.  Two short drops and you’re free of this madmare.”

Sure enough, as soon as I rounded corner at the top of the stairs I saw a large, wood framed window, easily large enough to fit through.  It was only a few yards to the tree line and less than a quarter mile to some sort of road.  The Morning dew was sparkling in the weak sunlight off the myriad of leaves and flowers that coated the forest underbrush.  It was hard to believe that such a beautiful place could hide so many twisted monsters.

I stepped up to the window and magically yanked it open.  I was hit with a wave of crisp, cool air rich with the scent of evergreens and the intoxicating earthiness of fertile soil.  Combined with the soft warmth of the little mare under my leg I just felt so comfortable.  What I wouldn’t have given for one more mug of cocoa to complete the experience.  I leaned out, just to get a better look.  The brisk breeze felt so good on my face, cooling the still burning skin where the demon had bit me.

“Look how close that road is,”  the cold voice continued.  “I’d bet you could make that in five minutes, even with your injury.”

“Yeah,”  I replied, shifting further forward.  “I probably could.”

“Ocher?”  the blue mare asked nervously.

I pulled out my beam rifle and bought the scope up to my eye.  That was more than a road; that was a highway.  At easily eight lanes across, probably closer to ten, it had to be the main thoroughfare for the valley.  Moving my sights down the carriageway I spotted a line of small, multicolored signposts between the cracked, black asphalt and the tree line that had encroached to within a few pony lengths of the road.  If I was going to find help anywhere it would be somewhere on that highway.

“That’s it,”  the arctic being in my head encouraged.  “Just a little more.  It will be easy.”

“Yes,”  I responded, scanning for soft spots in the underbrush.  “Yes it would be easy.”

“Ocher,”  the reporter mare said again.  “Ocher, you’re starting to scare me.  Don’t tell me you’re going to run.”

“Climb out and run,”  the icy voice insisted.  “Live.”

“No!”  I snapped at the selfish prick in my brain.  “Luna damn it!  Stop that!”  The bastard had almost talked me into doing something unforgivable, again!  How did it keep doing that?  It was like that thing could just worm its way around in my mind and press at all my weak points, exploit every selfish desire.

“It’s nothing,”  I said, turning to Scoop.  She looked terribly frightened and was trembling, but to her credit she was still supporting me.  “I saw an opportunity and, to my shame, I was tempted to take it.”

“That didn’t look like a simple moral dilemma to me,”  the news mare said skeptically.  “That looked like something far worse.”

“I’m just stressed,”  I replied, fighting back an odd surge of anger that I couldn’t explain.  “I’ve had a fairly crappy week.”

“Uh huh,”  she said, obviously unconvinced.  “I’ll drop it for now, but I am getting you some serious R&R. That is nonnegotiable young buck.”  Young buck?  I had to be at least four years older than her.

I gave her a half smile.  “Thanks, I look forward to it,”  I said, sliding off Scoop’s shoulders and taking care not to be ginger with my wounded hoof.  “But in the meantime it may be wise for us to divide our efforts up here as we don‘t want to keep the steel plated sociopath downstairs waiting.  Three ponies can search faster than one right?”

“All right,”  the blue mare said hesitantly.  “I’ll go see what I can find in the bathroom.  Be careful, okay.”

“Okay,”  I replied with a slight nod as she finagled the door open with her fetlock.  “You too.”

“She’s right you know,”  Echo whispered in my ear from out of nowhere.

“Gah!”  I shouted, jumping straight up in the air and coming down hard on my wounded leg.  “Ouch!  Don’t do that!.”

“You have a functional E.F.S.,”  the black flyer stated flatly.  “I shouldn’t need to announce myself, despite my skills.”

“What was that?!”  Scoop called, poking her head out of the bathroom.

“Nothing,”  I replied waving a hoof dismissively.  “Nothing.  I just got spooked and slipped.  I’m okay.”

The reporter mare cocked her ears and narrowed her eyes.  “Echo snuck up on you didn’t she?”  she teased with a little chuckle before disappearing back into the bathroom with a flick of her silky, midnight blue tail.

“I like her,”  Echo said with what could almost be called a smirk.  “I really do.  And she is right.”  The soldier pony’s meager amusement vanished so quickly it made me question if it had been there in the first place.  “I’ve seen this kind of behavior before.  The Enclave waged a war with the Griffin Republic about sixty years ago.  Several of the veterans have nearly identical arguments with themselves and explosive bouts of anger.  Its called complex post traumatic stress disorder and it isn‘t something that will just go away if you ignore it.”

“I understand,”  I replied hauling myself back to my hooves.  “But too many ponies are relying on me.  I just can’t justify stopping now.”  I shook my head.  “Look, I know you’re right, you both are, and I do plan on doing something about it.  I’m going to take Scoop up on her offer and look into something more long term as soon as 114 is safe.”

“When we find an Enclave patrol I will see if I can get you a pass to go up,”  the Enclave mare said, easing herself back onto her cloud.  “I can’t promise anything though.”

“Up?”  I asked, trotting over to the bedroom door.  “As in above the clouds?”

“Yes,”  she replied, floating around the living room and flipping through the bits of debris that littered the room.  “The Enclave is the only group that has any real experience with C.P.T.S.D. and you would have the best luck finding somepony who can help you in our city.”

I stopped and turned to the black pony.  “Thank you,”  I said, slightly stunned.  “But why would you do that for me?”  If they kept all of Equestria from the sun, of the sake of security, getting them to allow a surface pony into one of their cities couldn’t be easy.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,”  she replied flatly, not stopping her search.

The right thing to do huh?  I couldn’t help but smile at the idea.  While she was a bit gruff I had found another good pony; something I noticed to be depressingly rare on the surface.  I magically popped the bedroom door open and trotted in.

The decor was different but the layout was the same as my own room.  A twin sized bed was nestled in the back, right corner with a dirty, pink clock resting on the floor next to it.  The walls all had slightly faded, hoof painted images of exotic flowers and sweeping landscapes.  The rooms vanity table seemed to have actually been used (I only ever bothered with my own for its mirror.) and had several colorful bottles scattered across it.  Ah ha!  The console was in the same place as in my room, between the dresser and the window.

“Alright PipBuck,”  I said holding out my foreleg to the console.  “Lets get decrypting.” … Wonderful, now I was talking to inanimate objects too.

“You did that before I got here,”  the icy voice mocked.

“Stupid, amoral bastard,”  I grumbled to myself as I flailed my PipBuck in front of the terminal in an attempt to get it to work.  “Being right and being an ass about it.”

“Speaking of which,”  the voice continued in the same condescending tone.  “Try turning the terminal on genius.”

“… Shut up,”  I rebuked weakly as I pressed the power button.  The terminal didn’t even have a password and immediately brought up a list of journals.  No inventory list or ledger though.  Eh, I might be able to find a reference in the logs or something else useful. Well here goes, log one.

A deep, melodious, mare’s voice came from the computer’s speakers.

‘I have finally scrounged the funds for my store.  I will need to work in that oppressive city never more.  Tonics and potions and poultices I shall sell.  I see my future going very well.  While I miss the home I love so dear.  I can see a brighter future here.”

What the fuck was that?  Some attempt a poetry?  Oh well, no mention of a stock room.  On to the next one.

‘A mighty tragedy has just struck.  The ponies have gone to war with my people, curse my luck.  I will continue to make my healing brew.  Of this art ponies have no clue.  I just hope that this will all be over soon.  For the last pony war brought forth Nightmare Moon.’

Uh huh…  So that rhyming thing wasn’t just a one time experiment.  I got the distinct feeling that this would get on my nerves fairly quickly.

“I pray that such a horror can not be the truth.  My kin have slaughtered a school of pony youth.  This incident has ignited the ponies’ fire.  For my stripes I have earned their ire.  While I try to explain that Equestria is my home.  Most of them insist that I roam.  I shall stay despite their rage.  I refuse to let fear be my cage.’

She must mean the Little Horn Massacre.  I was only taught a little about it in school, but I knew it was a major turning point in the war.  The Zebras unleashed some sort of necrotic weapon on a school, killing everypony.  The event propelled the god princess Luna to the position of leadership and brought about the formation of the six ministries.  That was about as modern as my historical education covered.

‘My home has been defiled.  For by the ponies I am reviled.  Their allegations are slander, nothing less.  The Ministry of Morale has left my place a mess.  The accuser insists he is an honest pony.  But I know that all his claims are phony.  I was never a traitor to the crown.  Yet they insist on beating me down.  If treachery is all they can see.  Then a traitor I shall be.  To Xenophon’s soldiers I have spoken.  I offered my shop as a token.  Through my store his soldiers may pass.  The cruel ponies will wish they weren’t so crass.

Xenophon?  Why did that name sound so familiar?  That was going to bug me all day, I just knew it.  Any hope for a cash of medical supplies would be in this last log.

‘Curse Xenophon and his promises to the moon!  The ponies have retaken the city and will be here soon.  He swore I would be safe with his master plan.  But when the ponies struck back he just turned and ran.  They are already hammering at my door.  Should they get in they will treat me like some common whore.  I shall deny them the pleasure of my torment out of spite.  None of this was supposed to happen, it just isn’t right.’

Well that was a depressing waste of time.

I made my way back out into the living room.  Echo was flipping through an old book with some swirling flower on the cover.  Scoop had come out of the bathroom and was rifling through the couch cushions.  The little blue mare was carrying a small, plastic bag of medical supplies on her back, probably enough to patch everypony up, but far from the treasure trove I had hoped for.

“No luck?”  Echo asked, not taking her nose out of the book.

“No,”  I replied despondently.  “Just a sob story about the former owner. You?”

“Just the book,”  the soldier pony replied.  “Everything else was either junk, damaged beyond repair or just not my size.”  She finished with a nearly invisible smile.

She was trying to be funny again.  I gave a slight chuckle.  At leas this one was better than the knife pun.  “And what about you, Scoop?”

“I fumb bu memigul mumnet,”  the reporter pony mumbled with her face buried under a pile of old pillows.

“Beg pardon?”

“And eight caps,“  she popped her head out and continued.  “You really couldn’t find anything at all?”

“No,”  I said shrugging.  “Nothing, not even…”

“The first rule of scavenging; always look under the bed.”

I dropped to my hindquarters and slammed my hoof into my forehead.  “I’ll be right back,”  I sighed before trudging back to check under the stupid bed.

***        ***        ***

“It took you long enough,”  Baron grumbled from the doorway, wiping green ichor off her armored shoes with the welcome mat.  While I was searching the armored pegasus had spent her time hunting down and crushing the radroaches.

While there hadn’t been a full storeroom I had found a locked safe under the bed.  After a few minutes under Maple’s screwdriver it had yielded a slew of potions that healed all kinds of ailments; broken bones, addictions, poisons.  And not only stuff that fixed the bad but stuff that brought the good; strong muscles, sharp mind, swift feet, wow.

After letting Echo’s PipHat (I still didn’t know what it was actually called.) analyze the various flasks of rainbow goop it was a breeze to put everypony back together.  Echo and Maple guzzled their pink-purple sludge without a fuss.  Rosalyn was far more hesitant, either because of her injuries or a reluctance to drink from a two century old, unlabeled bottle, making Flights force feed her.  My own recovery required a trio of refilled, med-X syringes duck taped together, identified by the PipHat  as ‘Untainted Hydra’. The two inch needles hurt like hell; there was something about hurting yourself that was just more painful than somepony else inflicting the same injury.

“Were coming, were coming,”  I snapped back.  “Keep your saddle on.”

The exterior of Xeruth’s Potions was coated in flowering vines growing out of ceramic pots that ringed the wooden building.  Another anti zebra sentiment was plastered across the awning; ‘The only good zebra is a dead zebra’.  A skeleton was hanging by its neck with just above the door with a sign hung around its neck with ‘Traitor’ written on it in big, black letters.

“So where are we going now?”  I asked, trotting up next to the armored pegasus.  “And why should we follow you anymore?”

“Because,”  the foal killer replied with the very edges of a cruel grin visible in her helmet’s tinted visor.  “I could still kill all of you with little issue.  Because having a dangerous ally is better than being left alone among enemies.  But most of all, because you are curious.”  She pointed a wing at my PipBuck.  “You want to know what that SpikeBuck actually does.  That is why you will follow me to the Saddlebag Storage warehouse.”

Damn, she was right on all counts.  I needed to find out if this thing was going to be a blessing on a curse.  But what could this monster want from a warehouse?  “All right,”  I responded sourly, joining Baron on her walk to the highway.  “You win.  So where is this Saddlebag Storage place?”

“About a mile to the south,”  Baron said, jerking her head to her right.  “Help me retrieve what I’m after and I will escort you anywhere in the valley or leave you be, you may even try to kill me if you wish.  Your choice.”

Scoop, Echo and Maple all fell in behind me uncomfortably, but without coercion.  Flights and Rosalyn followed dully, probably for lack of a better option.  Despite our disagreements and mistrust I had to feel for the mares.  They had no previsions, almost no ammo and where stuck in the middle of nowhere with a legendary monster and somepony they thought was completely insane.

We walked along in silence for what felt like a short eternity.  Everypony was too nervous to make decent conversation.  The forest floor was thick with ferns and tiny bunches of rich hued flowers.  The dense, coniferous trees thinned enough to see the overcast sky as we neared the crumbling highway.  The rolling clouds that I had once found so intriguing made me rather depressed, knowing that a few selfish ponies had decided that Celestia's light may never bless Equestria again.

        ‘>Route 24, Canterlot Highway’

        My PipBuck tagged the road the moment I set hoof on it.  The road extended as far as I could see in both directions, ending in a thick, pink cloud to the south and a hill topped with the little signs I had seen earlier to the north.  According to automap we had only walked a third of the way to Saddlebag Storage.  I doubted I could stand the rest of the trip in silence.  I had to make conversation with somepony, anypony.

“So, Baron,”  I said walking beside the silver mare.  “You’ve been around for a while right?”

“You could say that,”  the steel coated pegasus replied.  “One or two centuries.  Why?”

“I ran into a name back in Xeruth’s Potions that’s been nagging at me.  Do you know a zebra named Xenophon?”

“Xenophon?“  Baron asked.  “He is the Tribunus of the Northern Legion and probably the single most dangerous creature in the north; even more so than the Brood Mother.”

That was where I heard that name, he was one of the zebra commanders who got a passing mention in history.  He was supposed to have been some sort of hotshot tactician in the war; the Legate’s protégé or something like that.  Now to find out what this Brood Mother was… hold up.  ‘Is’?  “What do you mean is?”  I asked, cocking my ears.  “That was over two hundred years ago.  How could he still be alive?”

“You didn’t question my age.”

“I just figured you were lying,”  I replied with a shrug.  “You’re really over a hundred years old?”

“Yes,”  Baron replied flatly.  “I will be two hundred and thirty eight in autumn to be precise.”

Riiight.  Two hundred year old pony my fluffy, golden flank.  Best humor the delusional psychopath for the time being.  “So Xenophon is just like you?”  I asked skeptically.  “Whatever you are.”

“No,”  the silver pony replied uncomfortably.  It was rather unnerving to hear that supernatural, booming voice expressing anything other than boredom or anger.  “Xenophon is nothing like me.  I may be a monster, but I am nothing compared to that fiend.  Xenophon is a ruthless abomination of dark magic, armed with the physical manifestation of consummate hatred.”

Well… that was quite unsettling.  I was starting to reassess the value of silence.  Maybe the radio would have something more cheery to say.  I fiddled with the dial until I found The Voice Of Flankorage (DJ P0N3 had gone back to nothing but static.).

“Now for an update from The Crucible,”  RFP’s deep, rolling voice flowed out of my PipBuck.  “The Ladies of Blood and Flame-”

        I clicked the radio off.  Never mind, silence it was.

***        ***        ***

        The Saddlebag Storage warehouse was little more than a big, grey, concrete box.  Two centuries of decay did little to make it any more aesthetically interesting.  There were only two entrances that I could see, one personnel entrance and one for wagons.  The first term that came to mind was ‘fire hazard’ followed closely by ‘death box’ and ‘blatant trap’.  It may have been the architecture.  It may have been intuition...  Or it may have had something to do with the piss poor job somepony had done trying to hide a large spark wagon with titanic wheels behind a shrub less than half it’s size.

        “We appear to have some company,”  Baron said as if she was merely commenting on the weather.  “I am sorry, but this may delay us a few minutes.”

        “Are you sure?”  Maple asked from behind me.  She had been quiet for so long I was starting to worry about her.  “They may be stupid, but it looks like they may have some good gear.”

        “How fortunate for you then,”  the silver mare said disinterestedly as she cantered up to the personnel entrance.  “When I kill them you may count all of their equipment as part of your reward.”  She bucked the door open.

        *BOOM!*

        The steel coated pegasus was blown back in a shower of shrapnel, gravel and fire.  She tumbled end over end, finally crashing into a young pine tree and nearly snapping it in half.

        “Come on!”  Flights called frantically from the back of the group.  “Its dead!  Lets go before whoever set up that trap comes back!”  The lime green unicorn shuttered.  “Or worse, Baron’s curse gets us!”

        A murmur of consent came from the rest of my company.

According to my E.F.S. Baron wasn’t dead , but she wasn’t moving either.  I was honestly a bit disappointed.  Could it really be that easy to defeat this mass murderer?  

        The silver mare pulled herself back to her hooves, peppered with bleeding holes but seemingly unfazed.  Pine needles, wood splinters and chunks of shattered concrete were stuck all over her body with a mix of blood and tree sap making her look more like a moving statue than a real pony..

“Of course not,”  my frigged delusion sighed.

 Baron hacked up a mass of blood and I could have sworn I saw bits of teeth and metal mixed in as well.  “After I fix my armor,”  she continued as if exploding had only hurt her about as much as a swat to the nose.  “You will want to watch your step; the building appears to be mined.”  A small, metal cylinder extended from one of her helmet's steel, spine guard plates with a hiss.  “For safety I will take point.”  The protrusion slammed back into the apparatus, causing the silver pegasus to squeeze her eyes shut and shiver.

        The foal killer’s numerous wounds all knitted shut in a matter of seconds.  That was disheartening.  I could see at least nineteen more of the little syringes hidden in the headgear.  There was no telling what other potions were loaded in that thing.  This would make killing this monster a lot more difficult when the time came.

        “Come along,”  Baron instructed us as if she were talking to a group of school kids.  She walked back to the mangled door.  “I doubt the fools who set up this little welcome would hesitate to shoot you.  Most who hunt me will slaughter anypony around so they don’t need to share my bounty...”  She seemed to lose focus and begun talking more to herself than to us, sounding almost sad.  “More Innocent ponies have died at the hooves of those chasing me than by my own.”

        “Did ya hear that?!”  a raspy mare’s voice yelled with excited glee from the warehouse.  “I got ‘em!”  A scarred violet unicorn barreled outside, oblivious to her surroundings  She was wearing a peculiar combination of an armored vest and a ruffled skirt so short that it only half covered the bomb on her flank.  “Tell the King that I-!”

        *Crackle!*

        The steel wrapped pegasus surged forward at speeds nearly comparable to Echo’s and slammed her sparking hoof into the purple unicorn.  The demo mare shook and spasmed as the ruinous lightning engulfed her.

        “I don’t like mines,”  Baron said to the smoldering corpse.  “You never know who will set them off.”

        “Sable?!”  a much deeper mare’s voice called out.  “Oh shit!  It’s still alive!  Get ready!”

        According to my E.F.S. there were five others in the building, all hostile.  They were darting around, no doubt preparing for Baron’s inevitable assault.

        “I will handle this,”  Baron said, marching into the building.  “This won’t take long.”

        “This doesn't feel right,”  Maple grumbled in my ear, readying her guns.  “Are we really going to let this criminal kill all the ponies in there?”

        “I don’t know,”  I replied, shaking my head.  “They did attack first, my PipBuck labels them as hostile and if they are as indiscriminate as Baron says they are...”  I glanced back and forth between the security mare and the warehouse.  "But they’re still ponies...  I just don’t know.”

        “There it is!”  a third voice, this one a buck’s, bellowed from deeper in the building.  “Blast it!”  The sound of gunfire echoed from the destroyed personnel entrance.

        “Goddess save us!”  the deep voiced mare screamed.  “Its not stopping!”  The gunfire was quickly replaced with shrieks and grotesque cracking noises as the red dots on my mini map vanished one by one.

        “Please!”  the mare begged.  She was the last one alive and her E.F.S. contact was right in
front of Baron’s.  “I’m sorry!  I don’t want to die!  I’ll do anything!”

        *Crunch!*

        The last red dot disappeared.

        “You may enter now,”  Baron called, sounding slightly out of breath.

        I had come this far so I might as well see it through.  I cautiously approached the entrance, taking care to avoid the burnt body of the demo mare.

        Saddlebag Storage was little more than a large, empty room crisscrossed with catwalks.   An elevated office was suspended over the warehouse floor and a stairwell labeled ‘basement’ was nestled in the back.  The ponies who had tried to ambush Baron were strewn across the vast chamber.  All of them were burnt and had their bodies twisted into unnatural angles.  One buck’s head had even been embedded in the concrete wall and his body was still flailing.  The silver pegasus was standing by the staircase that lead down to the basement, tapping her armored hoof impatiently.

        “Your companions may wait here,”  Baron boomed, descending the stairs and gesturing for me to follow.  “This shouldn't take long.”

        The hunter pony led me down through a series of decrepit corridors and into a modest sized chamber with a thick, metal door linked to a terminal on the back wall.  “This is it,” she said, indicating to the wall vault.  “I need you to open that door.”

        “Oookay...”  I said skeptically as I approached the wall terminal.  “Wouldn’t Echo be a better choice for this?”

        “No.”

        Well I guessed that was that.  The PipBuck’s hacking interface opened up and immediately closed again.

        ‘>Error.’

        ‘>Emergency bypass impossible.’

        ‘>Please contact the system administrator for assistance.’

        I sighed.  There was no way this would go over well.  “Baron,”  I said cautiously, turning to the imposing flyer.  “I can’t get in.”

“Correct,”  Baron replied calmly.  That was unexpected.  “Here.”  The armored mare’s helmet produced a thin, leaf shaped ruby that looked like it would fit perfectly into the slot on the SpikeBuck.  “Take it.” 

        I magically grabbed the gem and floated it over to my PipBuck for identification.  It was beautiful and almost seemed to have lines of pulsing light running through it is complex patterns.

        ‘>PipSpike’

        “Try again.”

        “All right,”  I said hesitantly as I waved my fetlock computer in front of the terminal again.

‘>Error.’

        ‘>Emergency bypass impossible.’

        ‘>Please contact the systt;n;bnwgbgvkjwbfh;qf;lbakfb;kj’

        That couldn’t be good.

        ‘>Use PipSpike X1’’

‘>Yes/No?’

        “Here goes nothing,”  I mumbled as I pressed yes.

        As soon as my hoof touched the button Baron’s PipSpike’s faint patterns of light brightened until it was wrapped in a sheath of sparkling red magic, dispelling my own golden glow.  My PipBuck was enveloped in a similar field and was making my leg move on its own.  I desperately struggled to reassert control over my body, but to no avail.  My fore leg was dragged into the air and the crystal leaf slid into the SpikeBuck’s socket.

        The automated magic pulled my hoof back and lined up the PipSpike with the terminal’s access port.  No, no, no, no, no, no.  I wanted to hack into the computer, not hack it to pieces.  It was no use, I had no power over my own body.  I slammed the fragile looking spike straight through the terminal’s steel casing.  The glow around my hoof twisted my fetlock, breaking the PipSpike off inside the machine.

        ‘>Access DeB*&Rfbfva93f’

        The computer’s screen filled with continually changing random symbols before going completely dark.

        Oh crap!  I broke it!  Baron is going to kill me, and probably everypony else around.  What am I gona do?

        ‘>Too Many Secrets’

        ‘>Access Granted’

        ‘>Disengaging lock.’

        “Huh?”  I said out loud as I regained control of my body and dropped to my haunches.  “What just happened?”

        The huge, steel vault screeched open on ancient hinges.  Four bolts, easily the size of my leg, were recessed in the two hoof thick hatch.  Inside a steel room barely large enough for a pony to fit in was a single wooden box a little over one hoof long on each side.  All this effort for a little box?

        Baron cantered past me and scooped up the box in her wings, cradling it as if it was her child.  “Thank you,”  the armored pony rumbled in some feeble attempt to sound gentle as she nuzzled the lid.  “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

        “You went through my gang for that?”  a deep, gravelly voice growled from behind us.  “You fucking pussy!”

        Ocher you bucking idiot!  You have an upgraded E.F.S. use it!  I swung around and pulled up my beam rifle.  Baron followed suit after gently setting the box back down.

        Standing in the doorway was a bright red stallion who was built like a scrapper.  He had a close cropped, blond mane and tail with mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes.  He was completely unarmored save for a pare of armored shoes that looked similar to Baron’s.  His cutie mark was the symbol for balefire radiation; I had to wonder how somepony could get a flesh melting hazard for a talent.

        “I am feeling generous,”  the silver pegasus replied with a dangerous rumble.  “So I will not fight you.  I have what I came for, there is no need for you to die.”  

        “I’m not going to fight you,”  the crimson buck chuckled as he closed the steel door behind him.  “I’m gona kick your ass.”

        “This is your last chance,”  the armored mare replied.  “It doesn’t need to go this way.”

        “Who do you think I am?”  the blond pony responded indignantly, dropping into a fighting stance.  “I’m the King and there’s only two ways this can go... in both of them, you die.”

        “Very well,”  Baron said, making her hoof weapons spark menacingly.  “Ocher, get in the vault and protect my box.”

        I was loath to follow the orders of a foal killer, but at the moment she was the one who, according to my E.F.S. at least, didn't want me dead.  I levitated the box and backed into the vault, jamming a peace of rubble into the hinges.

        The two giant ponies circled each other like sharks.  In a flash Baron charged the bounty hunter and slammed the back of her hoof into his face.  The buck’s sunglasses were knocked across the floor revealing his blood red eyes, but he seemed more pissed off than hurt.

        *Crack!*

        “Eat The Mighty Hoof you bitch!”  the King bellowed as he spun around and bucked the silver mare across the room with his armored hooves.  “Nopony fucks with my shades.”

        Baron crashed into the far wall leaving a discernible impression in the concrete.  The armored mare’s breastplate had been caved in and she seemed to be struggling to breath.  Regardless she got back on her hooves and charged back into the fray.

        The hunter pony just kept barreling into combat, scoring blow after blow on the red buck’s legs, but every time she seemed to be gaining the advantage she would be wracked by a fit of wheezing coughs.  Her opponent took every opportunity he was given, using his magically enhanced hoof strikes to drive Baron’s dented armor deeper and deeper into her barrel.

In their fifth exchange the King drove his hooves clean through the silver pegasus’ weakened armor and half way through her chest.  The foal killer, who was my only ally against this juggernaut spasmed and collapsed, clutching her shattered rib cage.  Baron’s white light vanished from my E.F.S., leaving me alone with the hostile, blond buck.

        “I told ya, you little cunt,”  the King spat at Baron’s corpse.  “Its my way or... hell, its just my way.”

        I never thought I would lament the death of a serial killer, but that mare had been my only hope.  I brought up my beam rifle.  Maybe I could take him down if I got lucky and hit him in the eye.

        “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,”  the blond stallion sneered a he hobbled over to his sunglasses.  “I wonder what Baron’s boy toy would be worth to the Unity.  That Gelwin bitch needs to get layed.”

        Boy toy?!  I growled and crouched down.  What was I doing?!  I stood no chance against the bounty hunter, but I would be damned if I was going to be chained to some slaver’s bed.

        With what sounded like wet velcro Baron’s signal blinked back on my E.F.S.  The hunter’s silver helmet dome and metal spine riped out of the rest of her armor on six needle like legs.  The device looked like a metal horseshoe crab with its underside coated in bloody barbs and needles.

        “The fuck are you lookin at bitch?”  the King asked just as the robotic crab leaped at him clamping its self to the back of his head.

        I just sat there, starring in horror as the machine used its hooks to dig into the blond pony’s back.

The red stallion's butch facade crumbled in an instant.  “What?!  No!”  he screamed, his voice cracking terribly.  “Please!  Don’t!”  The robotic helmet shot dozens of metal needles into his spine making his body go completely ridged.  “I’m sorry!  I didn’t believe!”  he was crying like a foal. “You can’t do this to me!  I’m The King!  Mother Fuc-!”

*WREEEEEEEEE*

With a what sounded like a chirping blender the King’s body started spasming as a stream of red and grey ooze fountained out of the harness.  His E.F.S. signal was blinking back and forth between red and white.

The bounty hunter’s signal stabilized on white as he stopped quaking and the jet of gore slowed to trickle.  Baron‘s unnatural voice boomed from the red buck as he flipped the thick, mirrored sunglasses back on  “Hail to The King, baby.”  The stallion shook his head,  sending droplets of the bloody slime spraying in all directions.  “Ugh.  Where did that come from?” 

        I brought my beam rifle up and entered S.A.T.S.  This thing was just wrong, whatever it was.  I targeted the apparatus.

        ‘>B.A.R.O.N.  >Head  >85%’

        “Baron?”  I asked in disbelief, letting S.A.T.S. fail and backing as far into the vault as I could.  “What are you?”

        “Black Apple Robotic Operative,”  the King said. No, not the King, Baron.  B.A.R.O.N.?  Whatever it was started advancing on me.  “Model N.”  In a wash of static BARON’s (Yeah, lets go with that) voice warped into the King’s, “ I don’t let many ponies know what I really am.”  

        “If you want to take my life I will make you pay dearly for it,”  I stammered, stepping out of the vault and trying to gather what was left of my courage.  “Nothing is free.”

        “A wise motto,”  BARON replied calmly, still advancing.  “But I have no intention of killing you.”

        “You don’t?”  I asked, lowering my weapon slightly.

        “No,”  the large stallion said evenly, stopping less than a hoof from my gun barrel.  “I may be a monster, but I am a monster of my word.  I promised to escort you or leave you alone and I can’t do that if you are dead.  But at the moment I just want my box.”

        “Okay...”  said with a mixture of confusion and fear as I floated the box to his hooves.

        The hunter pony reverently lifted the lid.  The box was lined with pink satin and only held one item, a small statue of Fluttershy surrounded by numerous small animals.  The loving smile BARON gave the trinket looked hideously disturbing with the streams of gore that leaked out from under the harness.  “I’m here now,”  he... she... it cooed at the inanimate object.  “I’ll protect you...  Oh that son of a bitch.”

        BARON scooped up the statue in his mouth and shoved me back into the vault.  Four of the harness’ injectors pumped something into the hunter pony as he slammed the massive door shut in my face.  A split second before I was locked in the steel safe I saw the skin on his cheek boil and form what looked like an armored pony cutie mark.

        With a cacophonous boom my entire metal prison was lifted in the air.  As I came back down my head slammed against the steel door and everything went white.

***        ***        ***

        “Ow,”  I moaned, rubbing my head and trying to ignore the slue of medical alerts that flooded my E.F.S.  “Yes, I know I have a broken rib.  Its my rib, I can feel it.  Thank you.”  How long had I been out?  “Ugh.”  I lit my horn as I tried to reorient myself.  The vault’s door was twisted half off its hinges and was hanging ajar.  Outside I could see some disturbingly familiar earthen tunnels.

        “Aw crap!”  I yelled at Equestria as a whole.  “Zebra tunnels again?!”

        “Shut up you twit!”  my delusion scolded me.  “Did you forget what’s in these Celestia forsaken hell holes?  Or do you want to call every demon in the valley?”

        I gulped.  “Sorry,”  I whispered back abashed.

        “Look,”  the icy voice continued.  I could almost see the blue me shaking his head in my beam rifle scope.  “We like Scoop right?”

        “Yes,”  I responded without hesitation.

        “We trust her right?”

“Yes...”  I replied again.  Where was he going with this?

        “Then relax.  She said these were a bunker system and a bunker is useless without a way in or out.”

“We didn’t find one last time,”  I snapped at him.

“We didn’t know what to look for then,”  the frigged crazy continued, ignoring my outburst.  “Luna knows how many hidden doors we passed.  If we just look for roots like the one BARON showed us we should be out in no time.  You can do this.”

        “Oh,”  I groaned, wrapping my chest in a telekinetic braise.  “But what if I can’t?”

        “You can,”  the voice insisted.  “You just have to keep it together.  Keep!  It!  Together!”

***        ***        ***

        “Are  you sure about this path?”  I asked myself.  “We haven’t seen another fork for ten minutes.”

        “Trust me,”  the voice responded.  “Have I ever steered you wrong before?”

        “You don’t want me to answer that.”

        I had maintained a constant dialogue with myself since I left the wrecked safe.  While it probably wasn't doing wonders for my sanity it did help me calm my nerves.  When not trying to convince me to betray my friends the icy voice was a surprisingly good conversationalist.  He was still an ass though.

         “On that note,”  my crazy continued  with an evil sounding chuckle.  “You still owe me a wallow in an unspecified substance and I know how much you hate owing anything.”

        “I promise, first chance I get, I‘ll go wallow in… whatever it is ponies are supposed to wallow in.”

        “Now?”  I asked irritably.  “You’re bringing this up now?”

        “Yes I am,”  he replied unapagogically, sounding quite pleased with himself.  “I just figured out what I want you to wallow in.”  I could swear I saw him with a mischievous grin in my rifle scope reflection.  “How about you take a roll in a little bit of reporter pony?”

An image flashed in my mind.  The little, blue mare was sprawled out on her back in my bed back in my shop.  Her spiky, midnight blue mane wreathed her blushing face on my pillow.  Her notebook was laying open between her hind legs, just barely covering everything.

My face went completely red (An impressive feat for a gun metal gray pony).  “You can’t be serious,”  I stammered, shaking my head.  “I couldn’t.”

        “You were never this much of a prude with Primrose,”  the cold voice continued.  “You two would discuss your exploits in the middle of the market just to fluster the other ponies.”

“That was different!”  I barked.  “She has been one of my best friends since we were foals.  I just met Scoop a little over a day ago.”

        “Don’t give me those horse apples,”  the delusion scolded.  “You’ve wanted to get under her tail since you got all cozy with her on the train.  And you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed how snuggley she has gotten with you.  With how sporadic you’ve been acting no sane mare would get that close unless she wanted you.”

        “But, but she is younger than me…”  I stammered.  “And that behavior was your fault.”

        “What is four years in the long run?”  my icy crazy asked.  I could see my reflection shrug.  “You’re both adults.  Get over it.”

        “Fine,”  I said indignantly.  “What do you want me to do?  Trot up to her and say:  ‘Hay hot flank, want to go behind that rock and screw?’”

        “I would have suggested flowers and a romantic dinner,”  he snickered.  “But if you think you can pull off the direct approach more power to you.”

        “You son of a bitch!”  I yelled at him.

        “Don’t talk about your mother like…”  the voice trailed off.  “Hush.  I hear something.”

He was right, there was something echoing down the tunnel.  It sounded almost like an unearthly choir singing in an oddly familiar language that sent chills down my spine.  The radial shadows cast by my horn light twisted and seemed to stretch towards the music.

        “Don’t just stand there,“  the icy voice instructed me sounding very nervous.  “Hide, you twit and turn you horn off.”

That was a very good idea.  I shut down my horn light and used my mini map to locate a nook I could curl up in.  Two dots, one white and one red appeared at the edge of my scanner’s range.  The chant was getting louder and clearer.  I was actually able to make out a few distinct words; I still couldn’t understand them, but they reminded me of the lyrical broadcast I had heard outside Boxxie’s cave.

        The dot stopped a mere yard from my hiding place.  “A little mouse has gotten lost in my maze,”  a voice that sounded like somepony was gargling nails echoed with one of a singer called out.  “Show yourself so I may dispel your haze.”  A zebra?!  This couldn’t be good.  I stayed in my hiding spot, my beam rifle pointed at the entrance.  “This grows tiring little mouse,”  the creepy zebra continued.  “For you are now a guest in my house.  I know where you hide in fear.  I will be cross if you do not appear.”

Something told me whatever the thing was did indeed know where I had wedged myself.  Without the element of surprise I would be easy pickings so I reluctantly crawled from the nook and relit my horn.

        The creature standing in front of me made me want to retch.  It was a zebra stallion, a little shorter than me, who looked like he had been dead for months.  His flesh was a waxy amber color where it should have been white, and beetle shell black on his stripes, all drawn tight over his skeleton.  His patchy mane actually looked more grotesque for all the grooming that was obviously put into it.  He was wearing a suit of red leather armor with complex, gold filigree running between medallions of carved jet.

The horror’s eyes were hollow pits filled with dark purple flames and an intricate glaive that seemed to be the source of the singing was floating behind him, wrapped in an identical, burning glow.  Zebras weren't supposed to have magic!  The blade seemed to be pulling my light into it.  The longer I stared at it the more nauseous I became as the world seemed to twist around it, but no matter how ill I felt I couldn’t pull my eyes away.

“It is a pony I see,”  the dead zebra sang in his unnatural voice, allowing me to tear my eyes away from the magic weapon.  “You were wise not to flee.  Your plight must be truly grave.  For you to brave the dangers of this cave.”

        “I, um, you see,”  I stammered.  Celestia save me, it was a zombie!  It was going to eat me!  No, no.  It’s talking to me.

        “Some of them, called ghouls, are just ponies trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

        Yeah, that’s right.  Maybe it was one of the nice ones...  who was a zebra... with eyes made of fire.

        “You are right to fear me child of Nightmare Moon,”  the regally dressed corpse continued, advancing on me menacingly.  “You shall face your judgement soon.”

        Well, that ruled out “poor soul just trying to help”.  I brought up my beam rifle and entered S.A.T.S.

        “>Tribunus Xenophon.  >Head, Chest, Chest.  >95%, 95%, 95%.’

        *Fizt!*  *Fizt!*  *Fizt!*

        Six lances of searing light spat from my magical weapon, burning smoldering holes through the undead zebra.  My final shot grew to envelop the beast’s chest.  That’s right monster, burn to ash!

        In a flash of violet flame the spread of my weapon’s disintegrating energy slowed and began to retreat to the initial wound.  HE SURVIVED!?  Not only had I nearly vaporised him but there were holes cut clean through his head and two more that should have pierced his heart.  The wounds left by my beams were leaking wisps purple smoke that had the sickly sweet smell of rotting vegetation.

        “You insolent foal,”  the seemingly immortal zebra said, sounding more disappointed than angry.  “I shall purify your tainted soul.”  He stepped in close to me, twisting and bobbing around my attempts to line up another shot.  In a blur of hoof strikes he knocked my beam rifle from my telekinetic grip and kicked all of my legs out from under me.

        I rolled onto my back and fished the nova surge pistol from one of my numerous pockets.  Maybe he would be more susceptible to melting than vaporising.  I looked up to see his pole arm hovering right above my face. “Oh crap.”

        “AAAAAAAGGH!”  I shrieked as the unnaturally burning blade came down on my left eye.  All I could see were violet flames enveloping me in nauseating agony.  I arched my back and kicked at the ruinous blade to no avail.  I started to lose feeling in my limbs as all the heat in my body felt as if it was being pulled towards the weapon to fuel its eldritch flames.  I had to force in breath with sharp gasps as the flames consumed more and more of my strength.

        “Ah, I see you are a little Frostborn spy,”  the zebra commented, examining my still weakly flailing legs.  “I fear your fate must now be worse than to simply die.”  He yanked the blade out of my eye, but I was to drained to even scream.  I felt lessened, not quite a husk, but greatly diminished.  The weapon had consumed more than my flesh and warmth, it had left a throbbing pain that I couldn't place anywhere on my body.

        Four more zebras in similar armor approached from behind the zombie, these ones alive.  “Take this one and bind him on the hill,”  the monster instructed the others.  “We shall show them the price of contesting my will.”

***        ***        ***

My entire body was enveloped in burning pain.  My waking spasm caused a whole new wave of stabbing agony to shoot up my front legs as something sharp and cold ripped into my flesh.  A steady trickle of blood was flowing down my face from my shattered horn and ruined eye.  I could feel my own weight crushing down on my lungs, making me fight for every breath.  My heart was burning as if it was trying to pump white hot molasses through my veins.

Biting my lip, I slowly opened my eyes.  My entire left side was enveloped in darkness.  The frigid wind biting into my injury forced my to snap my eyelids shut again.  I sucked a few stabbing breaths and tried again with only my right eye.

I was bound by my front legs at least twenty hooves in the air, hanging above the highway.  My broken hind legs were dangling limply, blood still trickling out of my flayed flanks forming into slick, half frozen sheets that ran down the length of my thighs.  My exposed muscles were on fire, every slight breeze felt like rusty knifes were being raked across the raw flesh.

What I thought were sign posts from Xeruth’s Potions had turned out to be something far worse.  All along the road were ponies.  Dozens of ponies trussed up to wooden posts with moons carved over their skinned cutie marks.

They were all dead and slowly becoming food for the dozens of giant, bloated, multihued insects that buzzed around below me like a cloud of macabre confetti.

One of the profanely colorful scavengers landed on the exposed meat of my leg.  I couldn’t even muster the strength to kick it off and every attempt to use my magic felt like a drill was being slowly driven through my splintered horn and directly into my brain.  I grimaced as the little horror took a small bite out of me, forcing me to feel its bolt cutter like jaws slice into my thigh.  The tiny beast promptly spat out the chunk of pony meat and flew off.  Thank Celestia for small favors.

With the insect no longer trying to eat me alive I strained to lift my head and turned it slowly from right to left.  I was lashed to a large sign, with my front legs stretched out to my sides and bound by razor wire to ‘Flankorage’ to my right and ‘Canterlot’ to my left.  My flayed flanks were nailed just beyond the tips of each of my hooves, so close that I could almost touch the gold coins that were my cutie marks.  The very symbols of who I was where fluttering in the wind like grim banners.

The highway stretched between the two cities on the horizons, one of cold steel to the north, ringed with a towering wall and one of decaying marble to the south, enveloped in a swirling pink cloud.

My extremities were already becoming numb.  I had already lost all feeling in my hooves.  I was dying and I knew it.  I let my head drop back to my chest.  Nopony could be seen for miles in any direction.  I was alone.

“Icy,”  I called out weakly.  “Icy, delusion, madness, stress, whatever you are, please.  Are you there?  Please, for the love of Celestia answer me.“

The ever present voice in my head remained silent.  “Please,”  I begged, tearing up in my remaining eye.  “Please talk to me.  Somepony, anypony, say something.  Please, please, please.”

I sobbed as I felt my consciousness start fading  “I don’t want to die alone.”

All alone.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  --  You Big, Dumb Meany! : You can draw  on considerable reserves of power when stressed.  +1 str when your HP drops below 50%.
New Quest Perk: -- Soul Feeder: A necromantic attack has left you permanently diminished, reducing your lifespan considerably, but you are now far more resistant to necromancy and other magic that targets your life force.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to DiceArt, No One and Otherunicorn for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Shadows of The Past

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Eight: Shadows of The Past

“I‘m!  Not!  Letting!  Go!  I‘m!  Re!  spons!  i!  ble!”

        I was back home.  Back in Shetland.  I was behind the counter of my shop, standing on the tips of my hooves to see over the top.

I peered around the well stocked store.  A cherry red scooter and wagon set was displayed prominently in the window.  The oak counter top was covered in crude, crayon doodles of ponies around town, and the cash register was sitting there, undented.  My gunmetal gray blank flank was reflected on the shining front of the store’s Sparkle Cola machine.  The Fluttershy cutout stood head and shoulders over me, exuding maternal comfort throughout the room and the juggling of boxes could be heard from the back room.

        The front door jingled as Bastion trotted in, looking vexed.  The orange school teacher was barely a young adult, looking rather silly in his oversized suit jacket and bow tie, with his book stack cutie mark half covered by the brown corduroy coat.  He stomped up to the counter with a huff, shaking out his normally well kept, deep red mane.

        Oh boy!  I was going to make a sale like a big pony.  “Welcome to the Shetland General store,”  I greeted him squeakily with a toothy smile as I tried to scramble on top of the counter.  “How can I help you today sir?”

        “Pepper!”  the orange stallion called out irritably, completely ignoring me and my well rehearsed greeting.  “Peppercorn, where have you gotten to?!”

        “Hold your horses, Bastion,”  A singsong voice chuckled from the back room.  A chestnut brown mare with a long, shiny, black mane, bright green eyes and a lounge couch on her flank cantered in, floating several full cases of Sparkle Cola behind her.  “Now, what can I help you with that my little salesbuck here can‘t?”

        “Mama!”  I called out, hopping down from the counter and bouncing up to her hooves.

        “It’s your ‘little salesbuck’ I’m here to talk about,”  the teacher pony grumbled.  “I caught him and his little friends selling contraband behind the school.”

        “Contraband?”  my mother asked, giving me a stern look and setting the boxes of soda down behind the counter.  “What was he selling?”

        “Wonderbolts cards and comic books,”  the orange buck spat as if the collectibles were profanities.

        “We bring the ponies what they want,”  I replied, closing my eyes and putting my hoof over my heart, in an attempt to seem self-righteous.

        “So that’s why you’ve been spending all your allowance on things you already have,”  Pepper said with a smirk.  She turned back to Bastion.  “Now, why are these little collectibles contraband?  Back when I was a filly nopony would be caught dead at school without a copy of Mare Do Well or Wonder Stallion in their saddlebags.”

        “Primrose says it’s because Mr. Bastion has a really big stick up his butt,”  I chimed in helpfully.

        “Ocher,”  Mother scolded.  “That was very rude.”

        “Quite,“  the educator scoffed, glaring at me.  “They are banned because they cause distractions and interfere with my lessons.”

        “And you knew about this, young colt?”  the chestnut mare asked me with a sidelong glance.

        “No, no, no, no,”  I replied, waving my hoof dismissively.  “I had no ide-”  My mother’s bemused glance turned into a withering glare.  “Er, I mean yes mom, sorry mom,”  I quickly corrected myself.

        “Now you are going to stop your little side business,”  mother instructed sternly, trotting back to the soda boxes and floating them into the vending machine.

        “But moooom!“  I whined, pointing to the store window.  “We almost made enough for the scooter and Primrose’s dad said we could ride down the hill behind his vinyard.”

        “If you want the scooter I’ll set up a stall for you in the market next weekend and you can earn it then,”  she said, magically tussling my mane and pointed to the orange stallion.  “Now apologize to Mr. Bastion and no more of your little comic book cartel.”

        I hung my head and nickered.  “Sorry Mr. Bastion,”  I mumbled bitterly to the floorboards.  “I won’t do it again.”

        “All right,”  Pepper said to me with a nod, then turned to the orange buck with a serene smile.  “Is that satisfactory Bastion?”

        “It will do for now,”  the educator pony snorted and pointed a hoof at me.  “But don’t let me catch you doing anything like this again.  Do I make myself clear, young colt?”

        “Yes sir!”  I replied, screwing up my eyes and bringing my hoof up in a mock salute.  “Don’t let you catch me.  Got it.”

        “What?!”  the teacher snapped, turning a darker shade of orange.

        My mother buried her face in her fetlock, giggling inanely.  “Primrose is right,”  she eked out between chuckles.  “You really do have a stick up your butt.”

        “E-e-excuse me Mrs. Bullion!”  the orange buck stammered irately.  “But that was highly inappropriate!”

        “Oh, lighten up,”  the chestnut mare instructed, waving her hoof.  “If you’re going to work with foals you need to get a sense of humor Basti.”

        “But, but, but,”  the teacher fumbled.  “They are just so uncouth.”

        “They’re kids,”  Mother replied, nuzzling behind my ear.  “By definition they’re uncouth.  I need to ask, if you have such a problem with disorder why did you choose to become a teacher?”

        “Because I am one of the few ponies who can,”  the educator pony replied.  “I know the subject matter, I’m not much of a craftsbuck and I want to do it.”  He sighed and shook his head.  “I just want to make them into good ponies.  My predecessor just did what she had to, but there was no initiative, no real goal.”

        “That’s a noble goal,”  my mother said sweetly, trotting over to the orange stallion.  “It really is.  But you just need to give in every once in a while.  Relax and let your students have some fun.  I promise it will help your students focus and maybe actually want to go to your classes.”  She lead the teacher pony back over to me.  “Maybe we could come up with some sort of compromise?  Like using the comics for a writing assignment or something.”

        “Oh!  Oh!”  I shouted, jumping up and down.  “I know!  Sword Mares!”

        “Sword Mares?”  the teacher asked, bemused and a little concerned.  “That doesn’t sound like something for your age group young colt.”

        “Were you ever a foal?”  Pepper asked, looking half way between amused and concerned by his ignorance.

        “The last issue, ‘The Revenge of Discord’, was a cliff hanger!”  I continued excitedly, completely ignoring the confused buck.  “We can have the class write and draw the next issue!  Who knows, somepony may even get a writing or drawing cutie mark and we can get new entertainment all the time!”  I smirked and tilted my head.  “Of course you would need somepony to help distribute them to everypony else, right?”

        “Hmmm, a creative writing exercise,”  Bastion mused to himself more than anypony else.  “I could do a lesson on narrative structure coupled with a lesson in equestrian art history and composition.”

        “Of course you would need somepony to help distribute them to everypony else, right?”  I repeated more insistently.  “Because I already know somepony who can do that for you, cheap.  Hint, hint.”

        “That could actually work,”  the orange pony continued, still ignoring me and rubbing his chin.  “Yes, yes, that will do quite nicely.”  He trotted over to my mother.  “Pepper, I will need all the art supplies you have in stock: crayons, pens, colored pencils, charcoal, paper, the whole nine yards.  I will also require a full set of these a Sword Mares comics so I can have a frame of reference.”

        “How lovely,”  Mother replied, turning and trotting back into the store room.  “I’ll get those art and crafts materials for you.  Though I’m afraid Ocher has cornered the market on comics at the moment so you will need to talk to him about Sword Mares or wait for the mayor’s next trip to the wastes and hope for the best.”  A huge grin spread across my faces as Peppercorn vanished into the back.

“Oh, and Basti, did you hear?”  she called from the other room.  “It looks like Plum Nectar’s new foal will actually carry to term.  Won‘t that be wonderful?  A new student for you to mold in your own image of obsessive compulsiveness.”

        “I look forward to it,”  Bastion replied, almost playfully.  “We need more compulsive ponies in this town.”  He turned back to me with a stern look.  “Now, about your comic books.  How much for a set?”

        “Oh, I don’t know,”  I replied, casually examining my fore hoof.  “A whole set isn’t easy to come by you know.  I’m thinking four hundred bits, and trust me, that’s a bargain.”

        “Uh huh,”  the school teacher replied, obviously unamused.  “I think not.  How about this for a counter offer; you give me use of your set for class use and I don’t give you two months of detention for selling prohibited materials in my school.  I will also let you sell what we make, but only if everypony in class gets one for free.”

        “Oh, you’re good,”  I said, doing the math in my head.  Ten other foals in class, about half a bit to make each comic, sell them for one bit each.  That would be five bits of expense on the class, but I could make a good deal more with some of the older ponies.  “You’ve got yourself a deal,”  I held out my hoof.  “Under one condition; I still get to sell the comics at school.”

        “Deal,”  Bastion reached down and shook my tiny hoof gently.  “You can sell your books after class.”

        There was a terrible, high pitched scream from the back room followed by a cacophonous crash and sickening series of crunches.

        “…M-mama?”

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        “Mama?”  I called out again weakly as another beat of my failing heart sent a fresh wave of agony through my rapidly numbing body.  The cold wind whipped cruelly against my numerous wounds, but I was so far gone that I almost didn’t care.

        I forced my eye back open.  I had to know if somepony would be there when I finally succumbed to my injuries.  The swirling horde of prismatic scavengers were dispersing into the woods, leaving all the other corpses striped down to bones.  “Don’t find me appetizing huh?”  I spat spitefully at the retreating insects, coughing up a fresh mouthful of blood.  “You couldn’t eat me while I was out could you?  Couldn’t be that kind?”

        I heard something from behind my head that I couldn’t discern, it almost sounded like talking.  A moment later my left foreleg flopped to my side, the razor wire ripping huge gouges down the length of my limb as it fell.  I couldn’t even muster the strength to turn my head.  The noise started up again, its meaning still just out of reach.

        My other arm came lose and I practically peeled off the sign post. I plummeted head first towards the near black asphalt.  There was a red and silver blob directly below me on the rapidly approaching highway.  Whatever it was I doubted it was very soft.

        *Thud!*

        Everything went black again.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        I was slowly walking down the snow coated, cobblestone streets of Shetland again.  My eyes were puffy and sore, I had obviously been crying profusely.  I could hear the low cries of a pipe organ fading in the distance as the sun sunk low on the horizon ahead of me.  A pink filly with a deep blue mane was pressed against my body on my left and a tawny colt with dark grey mane and a bridge on his flank was nuzzling my neck to my right.

        “It wasn’t your fault Ocher,”  Primrose said softly.

        “But it was still my idea,”  I moaned, staring forlornly at my hooves.  I was wearing a simple, jet black dress jacket. Primrose and Keystone were similarly dressed in a black lace dress and a black vest respectively.  “My petty little scheme got mama killed.”

        “It was an accident,”  Keystone insisted, pulling his head out of my mane.  “It was nopony’s fault.  She could have just as easily been taking down some special stationary for me when that shelf fell.”  Deep down I knew he was right, but I still couldn’t shake the terrible sense of crushing guilt.

        Before I knew it I bumped my hoof against the shop’s stoop.  I floated the brass key to the Shetland General Store out of my suit pocket and stared at it morosely.  “Are you sure you want to do this?”  the pink filly asked nervously.  “You can stay at the vineyard for a few days if you want to.”

        “No,”  I replied, still sniffling as I inserting my key into the lock.  “This is my home…  But I wouldn’t mind if you two could stay with me for a while.  I don’t want to be alone.”

        “Sure we will,”  the royal blue maned filly said, putting her front leg over my shoulders.  “I can stay as long as you want me to.  My family won’t need me back home for a few days and even then, only till sunset.”

        “I’m sorry, but I can only stay for a little bit,”  Keystone apologized.  “The mayor is taking me out on my first scavenging trip outside the valley and I need time to prepare.”

        “I understand,”  I replied, entering the shop.  “Your duties come first.”

        “The burden of a cutie mark,”  the tawny buck said with a shrug.

        I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of that statement.  Everypony ached for their cutie mark, but all the colts and fillies soon began to lament the amount of responsibility that came with it.  As the first in our little group to receive a mark, Keystone had been spending less and less time with us, but he always seemed to make the best of the time he had to give.

        The three of us just sat in my room and enjoyed each other’s company for what must have been hours.  The first rays of dawn seeping under my shutters finally ended our conversation as Keystone frantically gathered up his things and attempted to make himself presentable for his boss.  Primrose yawned with a squeak and uncurled from next to me on my bed, woken up by the normally quiet colt’s worried ramblings and hysterical search for his scattered belongings.

        “Bye Key,”  the pink filly said sleepily, absentmindedly waving her hoof.  “Have a nice trip and bring us back something nice.”

        “Right, will do,”  the tawny buck replied, stuffing various scraps of paper in his vest.  “So do you want a comic, a Shadow Bolt action figure, a few packs of cards or what?”

        “I want a dress,”  Primrose groaned, stretching herself out and rolling from side to side.  “Bring me something pretty to wear.”

        “A dress?!”  both Keystone and I asked simultaneously, shocked that the little farmer pony actually wanted something fancy.

        “What?,”  she asked irritably, sitting up and planting her hooves on her hips indignantly.  “A girl can’t want to look pretty every once and a while?”

        “I suppose,”  the orange-brown colt replied slowly.  “So… a dress.  Okay, I can do that.  But why?”

        “Aren’t you running late?”  the farmer filly inquired crossly, ignoring the question.

        “Right!”  Keystone shouted, resuming his mad search.  “I’ll see you two in a few days, bye.”  With that he shoved the last of his crumpled notes into his collar and rushed down the stairs.

        “So, what are we going to do today?”  the vintner filly asked, wriggling out of her wrinkled funeral dress and dumping it unceremoniously at the foot of my bed.  “We could go play with the new puppies at Robbindown’s farm, we could go steal some grapes from the vineyard.  Oh!  Or we could watch a movie at the town hall.  I think they‘re showing a Hearths Warming movie today.”  She frowned at my obvious disinterest in her ideas.

        We sat there silently for several minutes.  Primrose tapped her hooves together in contemplation and chewed her lip.  “Ah ha!”  she exclaimed, hopping off my bed and trotting cheerily to my closet.  “If you want to stay in I could use a job.”  She rustled around my wardrobe for a little while before slipping on one of my employee aprons.  “I could always work here as your salesfilly for a little while.”  the pink pony suggested with a hopeful smile.

        “I would like that,”  I replied with a weak smile, putting on my own uniform.  “It might help things feel more normal around here.”

        “I’ll stay as long as you need me,”  she said softly, nuzzling under my chin.  “Besides, dad will be thrilled that I got a job before I even earned my cutie mark.”

        I lead her down stairs and walked her through how to open shop, taking care to avoid the store room.  Everypony would need to make do with what I had out as I had no intention of restocking anytime soon.

        As we were finishing up I heard the jingle of the front door.  It was a blue colt with a sea green mane and a white bunny on his flank.  He was a few years my senior.  “Good morning everypony!”  the rabbit keeper pony announced himself theatrically.  “I come seeking rabbit food!”

        “Morning Bluebolt,”  I grumbled from behind the counter.  Primrose and Keystone had done wonders for my mood, but I was still in no mood for any of Blue’s antics.  “It’s in aisle two like it last week and every week for the past two hundred years.”

        “Well you know its good to check with the new management and all,”  the blue adolescent pony quipped insensitively as he cantered over to the bunny chow.  “Never know if they might move things around.”

        “Blue, stop it,”  Primrose cautioned with a low growl.  “That’s not okay.”

        “Hey Ocher, congratulations on the promotion,”  the azure colt said with a chortle, ignoring Primrose‘s warning.  “You are one lucky colt.  You have your own place and nopony to tell you what to do.  I mean seriously I en-”

        The world turned blood red and the horn on my forehead flared to life.  Before I knew it the stainless steel cash register flew off the counter and slammed into Bluebolt’s muzzle, cutting his tasteless remark short and sending him sprawling on the floor.

        I stood over the blue colt, floating the newly dented slab of metal over his head.  He was curled into a tight little ball, cradling his shattered nose in his front hooves.  I screamed at him primally, too angry to even form coherent speech.  I brought the register up again for another blow to the prone colt’s head.  The desire to make the source of my anger cease to exist was the only thing running through my mind.  I could almost see the prone colt warp into a blue version of myself.

        “Ocher, stop!”  Primrose cried, magically yanking the register from my telekinetic grip and tossing it to the floor.  She wrapped her front hooves around me and pulled me to the floor.  “Don’t do this!  Don’t hurt other ponies!”

        “I… I…”  I sputtered with rage while I flailed against the pink filly’s embrace.  “I need to make him pay!  I need to make that thoughtless, irresponsible bastard pay!  He killed mama!  His stupid scheme killed mama!”

        “Stop it!”  she yelled, pressing my face into her chest and burying her face in my mane.  “It wasn’t your fault!  You are a good pony, and good ponies don’t hurt ponies!”

        “I…  I…  I don’t hurt ponies,”  I broke down and sobbed like a newborn foal into her chest.  My face matted to her chest fur with a mixture of cold sweat and tears.  “I don’t hurt ponies.  I don’t hurt ponies.”

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        What did that say about me, that one of my final thoughts was why I beat a colt half to death with a large chunk of metal?  Huh.  It just hit me; Keystone knew.  He knew Shetland was a lie and kept acting like he was my friend.  I had to remember to buck that deceitful little bastard when I ran into him in whatever afterlife was waiting for us.

        I couldn’t really feel much of anything anymore, my whole body just throbbed with each beat of my heart; it was practically soothing after my last few agonizing experiences with consciousness.

        I could hear the same garbled facsimile of speech buzzing around me.  Out of some morbid curiosity to learn my final resting place I strained my eye to open a sliver.

        I was on my back in some sort of… room… thing.  Damn blood loss!  Everything beyond a hoof’s reach was a muddy brown blur.  All I could really discern was that I was on a table, the room was brown and it had very bright lights.

        A big, red stallion with a shiny, metal dome on his head was standing over me with scores of small, spindly, mechanical arms snaking out of his harness and digging around in my open chest cavity.  Huh, so that’s what my heart looked like.  My massive physical injuries seemed almost funny now that I couldn’t feel them.

        Another pony loomed over me, this one was a blue mare with a white mane.  She started making more bits of pseudo talking noises, but somehow seeing her lips move allowed me to piece together what the near gibberish meant.  “…heart is beating too fast,”  the blue pony said nervously to the red one routing around in my insides.  “Do something!”

        “He was infected by the ferals,”  the red buck… no, I knew this one, BARON replied without looking up from his gruesome work.  “His heart beat is supposed to be high…  But not this high.  He’s going tachy!”

        The hunter stallion brought his sparking hoof weapons up to either side of my heart.

        “No,”  I moaned weakly, as I lifted my shredded front legs to try and fend off the sparking gauntlets.  “Those hurt.”

        “Damn it all!”  the harnessed pony yelled, pulling what looked like a glowing blue billiard ball out of some compartment on his mechanical spine with one of the blood stained appendages and handing it to the blue p… no, Maple.  “I can’t have him flailing around while I operate.  Press this to what’s left of his horn.”

        “Are you sure?”  the security pony asked, taking the orb with her fetlock.  “From what Echo said doesn’t he need magic to use these?”

        “Just press it to his damned stump,”  BARON insisted harshly, batting my hooves away effortlessly.  “He’s pouring enough magic out of that wound to activate every orb I have on me and then some.”

        The blue mare just nodded and pressed the sphere to my shattered horn just as BARON sent an arc of arcane lighting through my heart.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        ARGH!  I was getting sick of being thrown around to some of the less pleasant moments in my life only to wake up again more and more dead.  What nasty memory was I going to pop into next?  A clip show of all my trips to the dentist?

        Hold on… this didn’t feel familiar.  I was still a buck, but I couldn’t feel my horn, or even the jagged stump of one…  I was in one of those memory orb things again, as an earth pony stallion this time; at least this one was closer to my comfort zone than the buffalo heifer from last time.

        Eh, lets figure out where I was thrown this time.  I was in a large, marble ball room that was reminiscent of amphitheater from Little Strongheart’s ceremony.  Four royal blue, wooden doors were spread evenly around the hall engraved with stylized hearts wrapped in thin, flowing vines.  Stained glass windows were spread around the entire chamber, depicting every form of natural phenomenon from raging seas to shining stars and planets.  The floor was checkered with massive white and pink stone tiles with swirling veins of rich red flowing through like a drop of ink in water.  Each window and door was flanked by a pair of thick stone pillars inlayed with geometric patterns of silver filigree, making them look like unbelievably large, opaque gemstones.  An enormous series of thick, gold rings floated in and out of each other high above the floor, illuminating the room with dozens of magically shining crystals that made the light seem to dance off the innumerable reflective surfaces.

        Well over a hundred ponies were milling about the hall in regal attire.  Most of them had a trio of diamonds embroidered on the collar.  If I recalled correctly it was the label of a famous pre-war fashion line.  A posh, four pony classical band was playing a soothing tune on a raised dais opposite a vacant stage with a fancy podium and a hanging banner reading ’Nightlight Society, Unicornia Charity Auction‘.

        “We should probably go find Rarity since she was so kind to give us these tickets,”  a familiar soft voice came from next to my host.  “That is, if you don’t mind.”

        My host turned to the source of the voice, a butter yellow, pegasus mare on his foreleg.  The pony’s long, bright pink mane was wrapped into a tight bun on top of her head.  She was wearing a flowing, lavender gown made from layers and layers of overlapping, sheer fabric arranged like the tightly wrapped petals of a giant rose bud.  Fluttershy seemed to be a bit older than her modeling days, but younger than she was at Little Strongheart’s award ceremony.  If I had to hazard a guess I would say it was about five years before the war.

        “Not at all ma‘am,”  my host said evenly with a hint of tension in his voice, causing the mare to turn nearly scarlet.  “I’m your escort for this event.  Though I still haven’t quite figured out why you wanted me to join you instead of one of those high-class ponies the princess was kind enough to introduce you to.”

        “Stadle,”  the blushing mare replied meekly.  “I asked you not to call me that anymore.”

        “But it is the proper form of address for one’s teacher.”  my host argued calmly, bowing his head slightly, causing a lock of dark green mane to fall across his face.

        “But I haven’t been your teacher in years,”  the former model protested.

        “You will be my teacher until I have nothing left to learn from you, ma’am,”  Stadle insisted with a weak smile.  Wow that was sappy.  “But anyway, why me?  I‘m hardly a prestigious pony.”

        “Nonsense,”  the yellow pegasus scolded suddenly.  I was rather taken aback by her sudden tone shift.  “You’re a doctor, for Luna’s sake.  If that’s not prestigious I just don’t know what is… except maybe a designer or a conjurer or a princess…”  The mare paused for a moment before letting out an adorable squeak and dropping her head  “Oh, I’m sorry.  I’ll stop now.”

        “Come on ma’am,”  my host said chirpily, draping his front leg over Fluttershy’s drooping shoulders.  I caught sight of a bit of his coffee coat between his hoof and his black tuxedo sleeve.  “Let’s go find Rarity.  I’m sure she’s dying to talk with you or at the very least dying to be saved from the sycophants that tend to frequent these occasions.”

        With a nod the pink maned pegasus followed my host into the bulk of the crowd.  The nearly solid mass of ponies, mostly unicorns, parted shockingly easily with a few ‘excuse me’s and ‘pardon’s.  In a matter of seconds we had made it to the heart of the gathering.  My host seemed to be about my height, slightly taller than an average stallion, but he was easily dwarfed by the scrapper sized, unicorn stallion that stood at the center of the crowd.  He was stark white with a blue mane that was going grey around the temples, dressed in an incredibly well tailored suit with a gold chained monocle sticking out of the breast pocket.  A white unicorn mare in a sleek gown that was practically scaled in thin, wedge shaped moonstones was having an involved conversation with the massive buck about Equestran politics.  The two where so close in pallet that I had to assume they were related.

        “Ah, Miss Rarity,”  the towering unicorn said in a charming, high class accent, putting on his monocle and examining us more closely.  “It appears the rest of your guests have arrived and I would hate to make you a poor hostess.  Shall we table this discussion for another time?”

        “Yes.  Thank you Fancy Pants,”  the glamorous, purple maned mare replied with a polite nod.  “Why don’t you attend the unveiling of my spring line next week and we can continue our talk then?”

        “It would be a pleasure my dear,”  the noble buck said with a slight bow before trotting off to talk with another mob of high society ponies.

        “Fluttershy darling,”  Rarity said, embracing the yellow pegasus affectionately, but being compulsively careful not to wrinkle their gowns.  “I’m so glad you could make it.”  She turned to my host and nodded.  “And you too, Stadle dear.  Don‘t take this the wrong way, but would you mind terribly going to get us some refreshments?  I would like to speak with Fluttershy in private for little while.”

        “Sure,”  Stadle replied with only a hint of bitterness in his voice.  “I’ll see if somepony interesting is milling around the punch bowl.  I can also make myself scarce later this evening if you two want to have a girls’ night after the auction.”

        “Why thank you,”  the gem swathed mare replied brightly.  “That sounds absolutely marvelous.  What do you say, Fluttershy?  I hear there is a new zebra bath house in the city and judging by some of the lotions and soaps Zecora has made for me it must be truly luxurious.”

        “Oh, that sounds lovely.  I would love to,”  Fluttershy said perking up and flapping her wings in excitement.  “Um, that is if you don’t mind, Stadle,”  she continued, noticing my host again and shrinking back.  “Please don’t be mad at me.”

        “Nonsense, ma’am,”  Stadle replied, placing a hoof reassuringly on the buttery pony’s shoulder.  “I suggested it.  Besides, nopony can stay mad at you.  Trust me, I tried last time you made me eat brussel sprouts.  I‘ll see you for dinner in the gardens then.  You are of course also invited Miss Rarity.”

        My host left the two mares with a deep bow and made his way through the throng of pompous ponies.  He made less shows of courtesy on his way to the buffet, opting instead to just shoulder his way through.

        The buffet table held a truly impressive spread.  Little flowers made from radishes, carrots and parsnips were scattered between dozens of dishes that I couldn’t even identify: rainbow hued spreads, slices of exotic fruits and bite sized sandwiches with frilly garnishes.  A crystal bowl sat at the base of a fountain, bubbling over with a pink, fruity smelling beverage with just a hint of alcohol twang.  I may not have been able to feel my own stomach, but the intoxicating aroma of so many extravagant dishes made me hideously depressed that my last meal had been demon blood and healing potions.

        “Stadle!”  a squeaky voice yelled from behind the brown buck I was inhabiting a moment before a pink blur slammed into him and knocked him off his hooves.

        My host found himself sprawled on his back with face enveloped in a mass of fluffy, pink hair that smelled like candy.  The coral mass let out a high pitched giggle and sat up on his chest.  It was a light pink mare in a red and white dress that made her look like a candy cane dipped in cotton candy and bubble gum.  There was something very familiar about this pony, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it.

        “It is so good to see you again!”  the candy mare blurted out, speaking a mile a minute.  “It has been so long, I didn’t expect to see you here!  I know Rarity said you would be here, but you haven’t shown up to the last four parties we sent you invitations for and I was getting worried that maybe you didn’t like us anymore!  But now you’re here and I’m just so excited!  Did you see the floating chandelier?!”  Ow, ow, ow.  Last time I had checked ponies needed to breathe in order to speak.

        “It’s good to see you too, Pinkie,”  Stadle replied with a half grin.  Pinkie, Pinkie…  Pinkie Pie, leader of the Ministry Of Morale, duh.  I only had a plastic version of her head coating me in illusionary confetti every morning since I was a foal.  It was odd, I was actually a little disappointed that Icy hadn’t jumped on me for that one.  I probably wasn’t doing wonders for my mental stability to worry about my crazy, but at this point it didn’t really matter that much, I just wanted somepony to talk to.  Where had he gone?

        “I’m sorry I couldn’t attend any celebrations,”  my host continued evenly, dropping his gaze slightly.  “My studies here in Canterlot kept me occupied.  And yes, I did see the chandelier.  I see how they did it, I just don’t understand why.”

        “Anyway,”  the pink pony said, hopping off Stadle and literally bouncing up and down.  “This party is sooooo dull.  Wanna dance?”

        “Not right now,”  the coffee buck replied, rolling back to his hooves and shaking himself off.

        “Awwww,”  the candy pony moaned, coming to a stop and drooping her head.  “Why not?  You used to like dancing.”

        “I still do,”  my host reassured the dejected mare, and pointed to the stage.  A light brown unicorn stallion with a tiny pair of glasses perched on his snout and floating a gavel had stood behind the podium.  “It looks like the auction will be starting soon.”

        “You’re right!”  Pinkie practically yelled, perking up instantly.  “I heard they found lots of rare books!  With Twilight’s birthday coming up I need to buy lots of books!”

        Stadle rolled his eyes and chuckled.

        “Fillies and gentlecolts!”  the auctioneer pony announced in a magically augmented voice.  “The Nightlight Society would like to present The Wonders Of Lost Unacornia!  All proceeds from tonight’s auction go to the Little Horn School For Gifted Unicorns and future archaeological expeditions to our ancestral homeland!”

        A silk swathed cart was rolled onto the stage baring a thick stack of polished, granite slabs each about the size of a pony’s head, all bound together with three rings of bronze.

        “Our first artifact for tonight is a ancient spell book, dating back to the Paleopony Period!”  the brown unicorn continued, gesturing to the stack of stones.  The pink pony next to my host resumed her ecstatic bouncing.  “This tome was unearthed from the depths of the royal library and contains the origins of some of our most widely used spells!”  With every word, Pinkie Pie got more and more ecstatic.  I was half worried that she might explode.

        “We shall start the bidding at fifty thousand bits!”

        The party pony’s eyes went wide and I could have sworn that she froze in mid air for a second before slowly drooping back to the ground like an under inflated balloon.

        The rest of the evening went about as well for gift searching.  Everything was horrendously expensive and most pieces were sold to museums and noble’s private collections.  As the hours drew on Pinkie eventually managed to get her hooves on an annotated copy of an old beginner’s book belonging to some pony named Clover by convincing my host to split the costs between them.  Fluttershy seemed to do far better, purchasing several old portraits of unicorn royalty and a stack of conceptual sketches from the royal tailor.

        “Our final lot for the evening are artifacts unearthed from the tomb of the last unicorn king himself!”  the auctioneer announced with great reverence despite his unnaturally amplified voice.  “Most records of this pony were lost during the Age Of Discord, but our team at The Nightlight Society has uncovered two priceless relics from this arcane ruler!  First we have a hoof drawn portrait of the King Pyrite!”

        A canvas, easily four times the height of a grown pony, framed in mahogany with intricate gold leaf, was wheeled in.  It portrayed an absolutely stunning, royal purple, unicorn stallion in a scarlet velvet cape with a flowing, raven black mane with a chain swathed book on his flank.  He was inequinly beautiful, everypony in the room, mare and stallion alike, stared at the painting in enraptured awe.

        “And for the second item in this lot!”  the auctioneer’s voice broke us out of our collective trance.  “Is an item forged by King Pyrite himself!  One of the last spell-forged weapons ever crafted by pony hooves!  A grim reminder of a darker time to be sure, but still an important chapter in our collective history!”  An ebony box, nearly thirteen hooves long, was placed at the base of the king’s portrait.  “This was guarded by dozens of seals and took our best mages days to break the wards that had survived the ages!  The name of this blade has been painstakingly translated from the old equestrian runes!  I am proud to present you with…”

        The case was magically flipped open, revealing an intricate glaive made out of a solid piece of black steel, studded with perfectly spherical jet.  “The Black Blade of Disaster!”

The horror’s eyes were hollow pits filled with dark purple flames and an intricate glaive that seemed to be the source of the singing was floating behind him, wrapped in an identical, burning glow...

“AAAAAAAGGH!”  I shrieked as the unnaturally burning blade came down on my left eye.  All I could see were violet flames enveloping me in nauseating agony.

Celestia protect me.  It was the same weapon.  The same blade that crippled me!  And I had a chilling feeling that it knew that I, the real me, was there in the memory, and it was watching me.

        No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than the entire left side of my face was enveloped in purple flames.  I felt my flesh crack and peel, but my host didn’t seem to notice the sizzling pain.  I had to just stand there powerlessly, feeling all of the flesh agonizingly burn off half my face as Stadle listened to the auctioneer pony ramble on and on about the pointless minutia surrounding the weapon‘s discovery.

        I saw the blade itself burst into flames and float out of its case, consuming everything else in violet fire through my burning left eye, while my right still saw the packed ballroom.  “You belong to me,”  An unearthly choir of echoing voices sang out in time with the flickering inferno.  “You and all ponies are mine by right.”

        As the pyre wrapped around me the burning memory fell away, leaving me floating alone in the void.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        “Ugh,”  I groaned uncomfortably as I flowed back into my own crippled body.  The ever present agony that had welcomed me the last few times I had woken up seemed to only be concentrated around my actual injuries; still quite painful, but far from the crippling pain I felt while I was strung up.  The left side of my face felt heavy, itched terribly and still burned from my partial immolation in Stadle’s memory.  Fucking hell, wasteland, make up your damn mind already!  Are you going to kill me or not?!

        I stretched out my aching joints.  I could move?  Ha!  I could move!  I’m not dead you creepy, undead, zebra bastard, take that!

        I eased my eyes open.  Hold on, eyes?  I had two again?  Ocher two, zebra monster zero.  Everything out of my left side was grainy with a red tint.  The contrast between both my fields of vision made me nauseous.  I snapped my eyes shut, rolled on my side and emptied whatever was left in my stomach all over whatever I was lying on.  I groaned in disgust and discomfort as the bile soaked into my fluffy coat.

        I opened my right eye again.  I was lying on a blood stained, gray plastic card table in a boring, brown room lit by a bright white pot light in the ceiling.  The walls were lined with simple shelves filled with bits of scrap metal, a toaster and the disassembled remains of a black trimmed power helmet.  A pair of rubber tubes snaked out of my front legs and into two bags suspended above my head, one containing a pale yellow fluid and the other was filled with blood.  My chest fur was notably shorter in an almost perfect square over my sternum, framing an H shaped patch of raw skin.  An odd, new cable protruded from my PipBuck and wrapped all the way up my leg.

        I tried to sit up, but wound up rolling off the table with a painful thud, knocking over a tray of small, blood coated, metal tools on my way down.  The amber IV’s snapped off in my arm as I hit the floor.

        Shaking my head to clear my mind, I unsteadily rose to my hooves.  I mindlessly used my magic to pull the broken needle from my vein.  My magic worked again!  Yes!  It still felt like I had a cork screw drilling between my eyes, but I could actually cast spells.  If my horn worked again then maybe…  I arced my head to look at my right flank.  My gold coin cutie mark was there on my rump, slightly duller that I remembered and ringed with a gruesome looking scar, but it was there, I was me again.

        “Yes!”  I shouted hoarsely, jumping in the air with excitement without thinking only to have my legs crumple under me as I came back down.

        “Note to self,”  I moaned, struggling back to my hooves again.  “Don’t jump yet.”  I spotted a simple door in the corner and hobbled over to it, taking care to avoid the sharp implements I had scattered across the floor.

        I winced from the strain of using my magic, but managed to pop the door open.  It lead to a dimly lit, dark wood hall dotted with glass covered movie posters.  Across the hall were a trio of bathrooms (Mares, stallions and unisex griffins) between two sets of double doors labeled ‘Screen 1’ and ‘Screen 2’.

        My stomach growled at me, demanding to be fed.  There were far to many things vying for my attention for me to think clearly.  I sighed and stumbled over to the stallion’s room.  One thing at a time; clean the taste of vomit from my mouth first, then figure out where I was and maybe scrounge up a snack.

        I popped the door open with my hoof this time and nearly fell flat on my face.  The restroom was floored in filthy, blue and white linoleum with eight stalls lining one wall opposite a row of mostly broken sinks under a long wall mirror.

        Watching my hooves in an attempt to maintain my balance I slowly made my way to the nearest intact sink and placed both my front hooves on the rim.  Confident I wasn’t going to loose my hoofing or wrench the sink out of the wall I looked up at the mirror.

        “AAAGH!”  I screamed, falling back onto my scarred rump.  It looked like a toaster had been melted to the left side of my face!  The mismatched piece of metal ran over my wrecked eye, wrapped under my ear and extended nearly down to my jaw.  The cable that was coiled around my leg extended up around my neck and plugged into the back of the mishmashed apparatus.

        I tried reopening my right eye and a red lit lens irissed open on the device.  This thing was my eye?!  No, no.  This couldn’t be real, I just had gotten something stuck to my face when I fell.  I pawed at the device with my front hooves, but it held fast, pulling painfully at my face as I applied more force.  It was real.  What had happened to me?!

        Breathing heavily, I pulled myself back up and jumped back up on the sink.  My horn had been restored but looked smooth and raw.  I magically turned the tap and splashed water on my face.

        My PipBuck began clicking and a large, red ‘+2/sec’ appeared on my E.F.S.  Wonderful, that was just what I needed.  My PipBuck was doing something new.  That usually meant I found an exciting, new way for the wasteland to kill me.  The warning only persisted for a few moments, but I had the distinct impression that drinking this water was far from healthy.

        I trudged wearily from the restroom in a dull haze.  There was something about my synthetic replacement that made my loss sink in.  What had happened was real, my eye had been cut out, my body was nearly destroyed and I wasn’t going to wake up in my bed to find that the last few days had been a bad dream.

        “Just keep moving Ocher,”  I told myself.  “Just keep moving.  If you stop you aren’t going to be able to start again and ponies are counting on you.”

        Large, swinging doors were at each end of the hall under the word ‘Exit’ painted in peeling, red letters.  I cautiously made my way to the closer of the two, but stopped when I heard noises coming from ‘Screen 1’.

        I eased open the double doors with my muzzle and ventured inside the dark chamber beyond.  It was a small movie theater with enough simple, wooden benches to accommodate about thirty ponies comfortably.  The screen was showing sweeping shots of a small town accompanied by an almost mournful orchestral score.  The seats were empty save for a single armored stallion lying next the the projector in the back row.

        “It’s about time you woke up,”  BARON groused, lifting his head and stopping the projector with one of his harness’ serpentine arms.  “The movie’s almost over.”

        “B-BARON?”  I asked, still not in full control of my mental facilities as I made my way up to him.  “What happened?  Where are we?”

        “Do you want the long version or the short one?”  the red buck replied.

        “Lets just do this a piece at a time,”  I said, sitting down next to the hunter pony and rubbing my right temple.  “Start from the beginning.  Why did you lock me in a safe and how did it wind up back in the accursed zebra tunnels?”

        “This bastard here,”  the armored stallion said kicking himself in the side.  “Wired the room to explode if he didn’t win.  I put you in the vault for safe keeping, but unfortunately the foundation wasn’t as durable as I had hoped and you fell into the catacombs.”

        “Oh, thank you then…  Hold on a second,”  I replied, holding out a hoof.  “if the blast was strong enough to destroy the foundation how did you survive?”

        The ancient cyberpony stared at me evenly.  “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m very hard to kill,”  BARON said, making it very clear that I was not pursue the topic any further.  “Now, I‘m sure you would like learn what happened after we cut you down from your perch right?”

        “What about that c…”  I began to inquire about the cutie mark that had formed on his face right before the explosion, but thought better of it when BARON shot me an icy glare.  “I mean how did you find me?”

        “You travel with good ponies,”  the armored buck said almost forlornly.  “The pegasus gave me your PipBuck’s tag and we tracked you down through the tunnels.  It was however rather difficult to convince them of who I was and that I hadn’t just killed you.  I eventually had to show them what I really am to get them to listen to me long enough to explain myself.  That security pony of yours bucks like a train and the little blue one nearly gelded me with a quill.”

        I couldn’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy about that.  My new friends were willing to challenge a legendary mass murderer for my sake.  That and the mental image of the two little, blue mares attacking the massive, armored buck with nothing more than their bare hooves and a sharpened feather.

        “Any way,”  the hunter pony continued.  “When we found you, you were nearly dead.  So the Enclave mare cut you down and we brought you here so I could provide you with medical treatment.”

        “You fixed me?”  I asked, cocking my head.  I remembered him standing over me and shocking my heart but my memories were fuzzy and it was hard to sort out what was real and what I had imagined…  If he fixed me then he was responsible for the toaster fused to my skull!  “You fixed my cutie mark, legs and horn, why did you put this thing on my face instead of healing my eye?!”

        “I have extensive medical training, yes,”  the parasitic machine replied with no hint of bitterness towards my disbelief or anger.  “The cold had preserved your cutie marks well enough that I was able to graft them back on with only minimal nerve damage.  Broken bones are so easy they don‘t even deserve mentioning.  And for your horn, while they are deceitful little bastards, zebras know their pharmaceuticals.  Between the elixirs you found in the apothecary’s shop and a few chemicals I synthesized I was able to restore the nerves and bone.  It will be sore for a few days, but should be able to recover full use of your magic.”

        The huge pony placed his hoof on my shoulder in an oddly comforting gesture.  “I couldn’t save your eye,”  BARON continued with what sounded like genuine regret.  “That wound was inflicted by a necrotic weapon; it would never heal.  I had to completely remove the affected tissue or you would have bled to death.”  He moved his hoof to the slab of metal on my face.  “I could either permanently cap your ocular nerve or connect it to a synthetic eye and since I had the parts on hoof I decided to give you the implant and make it your choice whether to keep it or not.”

        “Um, thank you,”  I replied, still trying to process everything.  “Why did you do all this for me?”

        The ancient machine sighed and restarted the projector.

        The orchestral score resumed its mournful score as the camera panned to a close up shot of a mare in a deep purple, masked jumpsuit with a matching cape with a ‘M’ shaped clasp and wide brimmed hat staring out over a picturesque town.  She dipped her head and wrapped the hat and mask in a field of purple magic.  The masked pony pulled off the concealing articles of clothing, revealing a stunning, grey unicorn with a tussled, blond mane.  It was the Little Muffin from Boxxie’s photos and the Equestrian Cinematographer magazine, looking more radiant than ever.  She was gazing off into the distance with a mixture of grief and determination as the screen faded out, leaving only the ‘M’ on her broach.

        ‘Dinky Doo as Mare Do Well and Night Sky’  formed on the screen in a facsimile of teleportation magic as the score built to a familiar piece of fanfare.

        “This is one of my favorite films,”  BARON said, pausing the movie again.  “Not for the contrived, Ministry of Image plot or the marginally impressive special effects, but for the character.  Mare Do Well exists in a real world, especially Dinky Doo’s interpretation of the role.  Too many actresses play her like Supermare in purple.”  The armored pony waved his hoof dismissively.  “That ‘friendship, harmony and the Equestrian way’ stuff is all well and good, but it doesn’t apply to reality.  Mare Do Well exists in a world of gray where the right path isn’t always a moral one.”

        The hunter shifted and hopped off the bench and started to trot away.  “I aspire to follow the right path whenever I can,”  he continued, looking over his shoulder.  “But that means I must frequently be less than a paragon of equinity.”

        “Um, thank you again,”  I said awkwardly, rubbing my fluffy fetlock.

        “Save it.  I can’t escort you if you’re dead,”  BARON replied as he pushed the door open, his expression unreadable through his helmet’s tinted visor.  “You helped me and now I am fulfilling my end of the bargain.  Look, we’re at a rest stop about twenty miles outside Flankorage.  The rest of your comrades are resting in the motel.  I assure you they would be appreciative of your accolades.”

***        ***        ***

        The motel lobby was sparsely appointed, with a slightly moldy, dark green carpet leading to a wooden counter along the far wall, between a pair of staircases.  To my left was a series of vending machines interspersed between the regular trio of bathrooms.  Scoop, Maple, Echo, Rosalyn and Flights were lying on several couches in a rest area to my right.

        No sooner had I entered the room than I was tackled to the floor by a pair of blue blurs.  Scoop wrapped her front legs around my neck and buried her face under my chin while Maple flopped over my midsection.  The two former slave mares joined the pony pile and even Echo gave me a hesitant pat on the head.

        “It‘s good to see you too,”  I gasped from under the pile of technicolor mares.  Despite the considerable weight on my chest I was so comfortable I could have curled up and fallen asleep right there.  Their collective smell was making my still hazy head swim and I needed to exert a considerable amount of willpower not to embarrass myself.

        “Well isn’t this a cute picture,”  the hunter pony chuckled as he entered the room.

        Scoop gently ran her hoof over my implant.  I was surprised how much it hurt not to be able to feel her touch my cheek.  “Why did you put this ungainly thing on him?”  the reporter pony asked accusingly, glaring up at BARON.

        “I built a nearly state of the art synthetic eye with using nothing but a broken helmet, a pile of scrap metal and a toaster using no tools beyond what I could find in a janitor‘s closet,”  the hunter replied indignantly, looking down at the diminutive mare.  “Given the circumstances I think I did quite well.  If you want your colt toy to be sleeker get me some better parts and I will upgrade him.”

        Did he just call me Scoop’s colt toy?!

        “You will,”  she said sternly, shaking her hoof at the armored buck.

        And she didn’t argue.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: -- .Tough Hide (level one)- The brutal experiences of the Equestrian Wasteland have hardened you.  You gain +3 to Damage Threshold for each level of this perk you take.

New Quest Perk: -- Basic Ocular Biotic- Your missing eye has been replaced by a crude synthetic.  This device is tied into your PipBuck and allows access to all of its features remotely as well as increasing your Damage Threshold by 2.  The primitive nature of this synthetic imparts a -1 penalty to your perception score and prevents you from wearing full helmets or eyewear.

New Companion Perk: -- Medical Engineer- B.A.R.O.N.’s integrated systems allow for the creation of chemicals in the field.  Once per day he may produce three doses of Buck, Dash, Turbo, Thermal, Regeneration Potion, Mintalls, one Health Potion or one Hydra.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

SilentBrony:
typo?

NOT A CHAPTER: Announcement

Note: Delay on Chapter Nine’s Publication

I would like to apologise, but I will need to miss my two week deadline this time as No One (Fallout Equestria: Heroes) and I are helping A Friendly Hobo (Fallout Equestria: Tales of a Courier) rewrite his story with a heavy restructuring (that and college classes have just started and homework has a bad habit of eating a lot of my writing time.).  I will however have the chapter out next Monday come hell, high water or Ursa Majors.  While these delays are regrettable and I will try to avoid them whenever I can they may happen a few times during the semester.

I will however, not leave all you good people high and dry.  I have a FOE:OF tumbler now where any of the cast can be asked and I will give vectored (the type of digital graphics I use for my pictures) responses whenever I am able.  Artemiev (he has several stories so I’m just linking to his profile here) is beeing kind enough to render some of my pony war machines, the latest two are a zebra tankette (I don’t have a preview for that one) and a custom raptor M2.2 (20% more raptor) for Raimbow Dash. (view image to see full size)
 (you can see the rest of my fleet and some of his other works o his DA)

Next we have FO:E week on Supremacist Fan Fiction Review (with art work done by yours truly).  There will be author interviews and reviews of Heroes, Pink Eyes, Best Laid Plans, Tales of a Courier, Forgotten Light, Operation Flankorage, Project Horizons and Fallout Equestria. (view image to see full size)

Last, but hopefully not least I have the first four pages from chapter nine an apology.  I hope you enjoy them, short as they are. and yet again, sorry for the delay.

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Nine: Welcome to Flankorage

“Thank goodness.  Being a city pony is hard work.  I‘m so hungry I could eat a h-”

        I stretched out my aching neck, producing a loud series of cracks.  Over the course of a few hours I had managed to grow accustomed to the distorted vision of my artificial eye, but the apparatus still easily weighed over four pounds.

        Laden with half a dozen salvage filled saddlebags, I staggered out onto the top floor balcony of the motel.  A stabbing pain coursed through my skull as I closed the door to the last room.  According to BARON, I had to exercise my horn frequently if I wanted regain my full magical potency, despite the pain.  Easy for him to say, he didn’t need to deal with what felt like drill between the eyes.

        I stepped out into the diluted sunlight onto the top floor deck of the motel, overlooking the rest stop.  A respectable parking lot stretched out from the ring shaped building, flanked by the theater on the left and a magical vehicle service station to the right.  The motel its self, the ‘Northern Light Lodge’, stood four stories tall and encircled a hot tub the size of a public pool.  What I wouldn’t have given for a relaxing dip, but without a considerable source of magic there was no way to turn it on.

        My barding chafed my hindquarters and cut off circulation to my extremities as I trotted down the stairs towards the lobby where everypony else was waiting for me to finish snuffling around.  I had lost practically all of my possessions in the tunnels and while my fluffier coat was doing an admirable job of fighting the cold I was loath to run around the wasteland without at least the meager protection my last outfit had provided.  A spare Boxxy Brown Moving Co. jumpsuit that Maple had kept in her bags was serving for The time being, but this one was easily two sizes too small.  Unfortunately armored barding seemed to be a scarce resource in hotel rooms.  All I had managed to dig up that could even fit me was a black tuxedo with a poofy, gold tie; snazzy to be sure, but not something suited to hiking, never mind combat.

        I spotted Echo perched on the ‘Northern Light’ sign, a wavy rainbow with a star at each end, sharpening a set of ice skates.  The Enclave pony hadn’t faired much better than I had in the equipment department.  Aside from her two blue metal blades, she had lost all of her knifes during our flight from the demons and was making do with any item remotely resembling a blade that she could get her hooves on.

        I raised my hoof to give the black pegasus a friendly wave, causing my jumpsuit to pull painfully tight in a very sensitive area.  My involuntary spasm of pain sent me tumbling down the remaining flight of stairs.

        “That is it!”  I yelled as I untangled myself from my numerous saddlebags.  “I can’t wear this thing anymore!”  My struggles to escape my suffocating outfit were apparently quite amusing as I found Echo staring at me and chuckling softly to herself.  “Yeah, yeah,”  I grumbled in her general direction, bowing deeply to stretch out my aching mussels.  “I just live to entertain.”

        “Oh!“  Flight’s voice came from behind me.  The entertainer mare was standing in the open lobby door, blushing and half averting her gaze.  “There you are.“  I had just mooned the poor mare, right when she seemed to be getting used to me.

        I immediately snapped my rear legs under me and dropped to my rump with plop, suddenly finding my own fore hooves quite fascinating…  Actually they were.  I hadn’t noticed before, but there were three sharp growths coming out of the front of each hoof; they sort of looked like little claws.  That couldn’t be a good sign.

        “He was infected by the ferals, his heart beat is supposed to be high.”

        I guess I couldn’t delude myself into thinking I just needed a trim anymore.  I was going to turn into a monster!  A horrific, pony eating monster!  No, no, stop that.  I haven’t hurt anypony.  I’m still a pony.  I’m still a pony.

        “Ocher,”  the lime green unicorn said hesitantly, sitting down next to me and snapping me back to reality.  “I’m sorry for how I treated you.  Rosalyn is sorry too, she’s just too shy to tell you herself.”  She rubbed her fetlock uncomfortably.  “It’s just… we were scared okay?  There are more false saviors in the wasteland than real ones.  Trust me, I know.”

        “How did you wind up with the Unity anyway?”  I asked, discreetly shaking out my fetlock to hide my diminutive claws.

        Flights fiddled absentmindedly with the ruffles of her battered dress.  “My family works in the Crucible;  it’s an entertainment town on the outskirts of Flankorage.”  the green mare replied with something between nostalgia and regret.  “They run a lounge, ‘The Stick and Carrot’.  All my siblings work there as bouncers, barmares, entertainers, everything.  We are quite popular actually, even among several groups of very important ponies, myself specifically… that was actually the problem.”

        “It was a problem that you were popular?”  I asked, bemused.  “Isn’t that usually a good thing?”

        “Not with some of the ponies I was popular with,”  the unicorn continued, getting up and standing in front of me.  “I was a game girl.  My job was to make the customers comfortable and like me so they would drink and gamble more.”  She pantomimed little flirting gestures.  “The problem comes when they like me too much.  I attracted the attention of an aristocrat pony from Manehatten, Bigwig, who was up north on vacation.  He became a bit obsessed with me and asked me to come back to Tenpony Tower with him, but I couldn‘t leave my family so I told him no.”

        She started pacing back and forth.  “He didn’t take no as an answer,”  Flights continued, becoming more agitated with each word.  “The bastard tried to bribe me and even threatened me.  Eventually he resorted to attacking my family.  He hired some pony to rob us blind and then tried to cash in all his chips!”  she was practically screaming and her nervous pacing had become furious stomping.  “He could have ruined us, but he offered to pay our way out of debt if they sold him me.”

        “They didn’t really have a choice,“  the lime green unicorn went on, all of her fury being replaced by morose resignation.  “Anypony who doesn’t pay their dues in the Crucible become the property of the settlement.”  She dropped back to her haunches and stared at the dirt.  “We would have all been enslaved and the fate of community slaves is far worse than being a bed servant to a rich Mainhattenite.”

        “If you were sold to this Bigwig bastard how did you wind up in a Unity slave camp?”  I asked as delicately as I could, shivering slightly as a gust of chill air blew through my shaggy coat.  “Especially one that far off the beaten path?”

        “Tenpony tower doesn’t allow slaves or slavers,”  the entertainer mare responded, looking up at me.  I fought to keep from grinning at the thought of a settlement that didn’t deal with sub equine scumbags like the Unity.  “So he had them sell me to the Unity and planed to have one of his servants ‘save’ me and hire me on as an indentured servant; little more than a slave with a different title.”

        “Hold on,”  I said, standing and trotting over to my discarded uniform.  The cold was getting to be a bit much for me to handle and the padded vest looked adjustable enough not to cause me breathing issues.  “Do you think we should stop by your bar when we get to the city, in case Bigwig finds out you got free and tries to threaten your family?”

        “Thanks,”  the lime green pony said, blushing lightly.  “That means a lot to me, it really does, but they should be fine.  The deal was for them to sell me to the Unity, everything after that was Bigwig’s responsibility.  If he tries anything now he will be breaking his deal and will be enslaved by the settlement.”  Flights stood and used her telekinesis to help me wiggle into my vest.

        “But I could use your help on another issue,”  the entertainer mare continued, magically adjusting my buckles.  “While he can’t do anything against my family directly he can still do the same thing to other mares.  If you could prove he robbed us to the Ladies they can make sure he doesn’t hurt anypony ever again.”

        “Of course I will,”  I replied, finally getting the barding to fit comfortably.  My rump was still chilly, but over all it was an improvement.  “Just one question; who are the Ladies?”

        “The Ladies of Blood and Flame,”  the unicorn said, waving her hoof in mock theatrics.  “They were mentioned on the radio earlier.  Anyway, they are in charge.”

        “That sounds ominous.  Not the most likable of ponies I take it?”

        “Oh, don’t get me wrong,”  Flights responded, trotting back to the lobby door.  “They are both utter lunatics, but they are fair rulers…”  the lime green mare put her hoof on her chin and chewed her lip.  “Though the Lady of Blood has been acting strangely lately.”

        “Strange?”  I asked, pulling my numerous saddlebags back on.  “I need to wonder what qualifies as strange for a pony called Lady of Blood.”

        “She used to be very flamboyant,”  the Crucible mare replied, opening the door.  “She was creepy, but she just livened up any room she entered.  Recently though, she has been more disturbing and almost reclusive.”  She shook her head and stepped into the lobby.  “Just… if you can find evidence, it would probably be safer to bring it to her sister.  She’s the pink one, you can’t miss her.  I need to visit the little fillies room, then I’m going to make sure everypony else is ready to go.”

        I nodded and gently kicked the door shut behind her.  As it would probably take a few minutes for everypony to get ready and do their business I flipped on the radio and tuned to ‘The Voice of Flankorage‘.  It was bound to be depressing, but I was bad at waiting and without Icy to argue with there was little else to do.

        “Beeeed!  Ow!”  a melodious voice bellowed from my PipBuck, accompanied by a dying fanfare.  I had just missed a Sweetie Belle song, wonderful.

        With a pop the fading instruments were replaced with R.F.P.’s measured, deep, rolling voice.  “Good morning Flankorage.  We here at the broadcast station have an exciting news docket for everypony today, but first, we here on the Voice of Flankorage team have a more personal message to share.  If you remember a few days back, one of our brave reporter ponies went missing.  We have received unconfirmed reports from a reliable source in the Frostborn Cavaliers that she is still alive.”

        “You ponies deserve the whole story.  Our reporter was dispatched down south to investigate a potential scandal.  Unfortunately, during her investigations she was snatched up by the Unity and enslaved at one of their camps.  Things were looking bleak for our newspony until that Merchant pony my colleague , DJ-PON3, brought to our attention arrived.  According to our source, he some how managed to get all the slaves out of the camp before returning and exterminating the entire facility.  Merchant, you have our thanks for saving our Scoop, visit us any time.  We would love to have you.  We are also legally required to offer our heartfelt condolences to the Unity for their tragic losses.”

        My stomach turned in knots.  On the one hoof I was overwhelmingly proud for saving Scoop, Echo and the others.  But on the other hoof I had managed to get three ponies killed through my own arrogance and stupidity.  I knew Icy would have said that if I hadn’t showed up they would have all been killed or worse and one had been beyond my help from the start.  Unfortunately, logic did precious little to help alleviate my guilt…  Hold up.  Everypony who knew I was at the timber yard was either with me the whole time or dead.  How in the sphincter of Luna did these news ponies keep learning of everything I did?  Where were they hiding all the damn cameras?

        “Now for local news,”  the announcer pony continued.  “Canterlot Caravans has postponed their shipments to and from the valley once again due to ‘logistical difficulties’.  Many Flankorage industries rely on the supplies imported from the south and if Canterlot Caravans can no longer provide them many will be forced to turn to alternate suppliers such as the Unity.  If these ‘difficulties’ are not resolved soon it could spell the end for one of Flankorage‘s founding factions.”

        “Finally we have some rare news from further north in Zebra territory.  Apparently the Merchant isn’t alone in the fight to protect ponies.  A lone sniper has been disrupting Northern Legion supply lines and defending the Bassy border settlement.  According to witnesses, the zebras have taken to calling this mysterious hero Penumbra and residents have begun using the moniker as well.  As the sniper pony has never actually been seen we have been unable to get a statement.”

        “This news segment has been brought to you by Square and Level Construction; we do it right.  When we come back I will have Hunt Master Blood Moon in the studio with his top five salvaging tips, but first here is Ocatvia‘s Second to accompany the morning calm.”

        “Hunts Master?”  BARON’s borrowed voice scoffed over the soothing cello music that was flowing from my PipBuck.  “Hardly; that one is little more than a glorified bounty hunter.”  I turned with a start to see the armored buck standing less than a leg’s length behind me.  I had to put a bell on all my companions… or actually pay attention to my E.F.S.  “Your entourage is ready to go.  We shouldn’t delay longer if we wish to reach the city by nightfall… Trust me, we want to be there by nightfall.”

        “Right,”  I replied with a nod, turning off my PipBuck.  Twenty miles in a day, that shouldn’t be too hard.

***        ***        ***

Welcome to Flankorage

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Nine: Welcome to Flankorage

“Thank goodness.  Being a city pony is hard work.  I‘m so hungry I could eat a h-”

I stretched out my aching neck, producing a loud series of cracks.  Over the course of a few hours I had managed to grow accustomed to the distorted vision of my artificial eye, but the apparatus still easily weighed over four pounds.

Laden with half a dozen salvage filled saddlebags, I staggered out onto the top floor balcony of the motel.  A stabbing pain coursed through my skull as I closed the door to the last room.  According to BARON, I had to exercise my horn frequently if I wanted regain my full magical potency, despite the pain.  Easy for him to say, he didn’t need to deal with what felt like a drill between the eyes.

I stepped out into the diluted sunlight onto the top floor deck of the motel, overlooking the rest stop.  A respectable parking lot stretched out from the ring shaped building, flanked by the theater on the left and a magical vehicle service station to the right.  The motel itself, the ‘Northern Light Lodge’, stood four stories tall and encircled a hot tub the size of a public pool.  What I wouldn’t have given for a relaxing dip, but without a considerable source of magic there was no way to turn it on.

My barding chafed my hindquarters and cut off circulation to my extremities as I trotted down the stairs towards the lobby where everypony else was waiting for me to finish snuffling around.  I had lost practically all of my possessions in the tunnels and while my fluffier coat was doing an admirable job of fighting the cold I was loath to run around the wasteland without at least the meager protection my last outfit had provided.  A spare Boxxy Brown Moving Co. jumpsuit that Maple had kept in her bags was serving for the time being, but this one was easily two sizes too small.  Unfortunately armored barding seemed to be a scarce resource in hotel rooms.  All I had managed to dig up that could even fit me was a black tuxedo with a poofy, gold tie; snazzy to be sure, but not something suited to hiking, never mind combat.

I spotted Echo perched on the ‘Northern Light’ sign, a wavy rainbow with a star at each end, sharpening a set of ice skates.  The Enclave pony hadn’t fared much better than I had in the equipment department.  Aside from her two blue metal blades, she had lost all of her knifes during our flight from the demons and was making do with any item remotely resembling a blade that she could get her hooves on.

I raised my hoof to give the black pegasus a friendly wave, causing my jumpsuit to pull painfully tight in a very sensitive area.  My involuntary spasm of pain sent me tumbling down the remaining flight of stairs.

“That is it!”  I yelled as I untangled myself from my numerous saddlebags.  “I can’t wear this thing anymore!”  My struggles to escape my suffocating outfit were apparently quite amusing as I found Echo staring at me and chuckling softly to herself.  “Yeah, yeah,”  I grumbled in her general direction, bowing deeply to stretch out my aching mussels.  “I just live to entertain.”

“Oh!“  Flight’s voice came from behind me.  The entertainer mare was standing in the open lobby door, blushing and half averting her gaze.  “There you are.“  I had just mooned the poor mare, right when she seemed to be getting used to me.

I immediately snapped my rear legs under me and dropped to my rump with a plop, suddenly finding my own fore hooves quite fascinating…  Actually they were.  I hadn’t noticed before, but there were three sharp growths coming out of the front of each hoof; they sort of looked like little claws.  That couldn’t be a good sign.

        “He was infected by the ferals, his heart beat is supposed to be high.”

I guess I couldn’t delude myself into thinking I just needed a trim anymore.  I was going to turn into a monster!  A horrific, pony eating monster!  No, no, stop that.  I haven’t hurt anypony.  I’m still a pony.  I’m still a pony.

“Ocher,”  the lime green unicorn said hesitantly, sitting down next to me and snapping me back to reality.  “I’m sorry for how I treated you.  Rosalyn is sorry too, she’s just too shy to tell you herself.”  She rubbed her fetlock uncomfortably.  “It’s just… we were scared okay?  There are more false saviors in the wasteland than real ones.  Trust me, I know.”

        “How did you wind up with the Unity anyway?”  I asked, discreetly shaking out my fetlock to hide my diminutive claws.

Flights fiddled absentmindedly with the ruffles of her battered dress.  “My family works in the Crucible;  it’s an entertainment town on the outskirts of Flankorage.”  the green mare replied with something between nostalgia and regret.  “They run a lounge, ‘The Stick and Carrot’.  All my siblings work there as bouncers, barmares, entertainers, everything.  We are quite popular actually, even among several groups of very important ponies, myself specifically… that was actually the problem.”

        “It was a problem that you were popular?”  I asked, bemused.  “Isn’t that usually a good thing?”

“Not with some of the ponies I was popular with,”  the unicorn continued, getting up and standing in front of me.  “I was a game girl.  My job was to make the customers comfortable and like me so they would drink and gamble more.”  She pantomimed little flirting gestures.  “The problem comes when they like me too much.  I attracted the attention of an aristocrat pony from Manehatten, Bigwig, who was up north on vacation.  He became a bit obsessed with me and asked me to come back to Tenpony Tower with him, but I couldn‘t leave my family so I told him no.”

She started pacing back and forth.  “He didn’t take no as an answer,”  Flights continued, becoming more agitated with each word.  “The bastard tried to bribe me and even threatened me.  Eventually he resorted to attacking my family.  He hired some pony to rob us blind and then tried to cash in all his chips!”  she was practically screaming and her nervous pacing had become furious stomping.  “He could have ruined us, but he offered to pay our way out of debt if they sold him me.”

“They didn’t really have a choice,“  the lime green unicorn went on, all of her fury being replaced by morose resignation.  “Anypony who doesn’t pay their dues in the Crucible become the property of the settlement.”  She dropped back to her haunches and stared at the dirt.  “We would have all been enslaved and the fate of community slaves is far worse than being a bed servant to a rich Manehattenite.”

“If you were sold to this Bigwig bastard how did you wind up in a Unity slave camp?”  I asked as delicately as I could, shivering slightly as a gust of chill air blew through my shaggy coat.  “Especially one that far off the beaten path?”

“Tenpony tower doesn’t allow slaves or slavers,”  the entertainer mare responded, looking up at me.  I fought to keep from grinning at the thought of a settlement that didn’t deal with sub equine scumbags like the Unity.  “So he had them sell me to the Unity and planed to have one of his servants ‘save’ me and hire me on as an indentured servant; little more than a slave with a different title.”

“Hold on,”  I said, standing and trotting over to my discarded uniform.  The cold was getting to be a bit much for me to handle, and the padded vest looked adjustable enough not to cause me breathing issues.  “Do you think we should stop by your bar when we get to the city, in case Bigwig finds out you got free and tries to threaten your family?”

“Thanks,”  the lime green pony said, blushing lightly.  “That means a lot to me, it really does, but they should be fine.  The deal was for them to sell me to the Unity, everything after that was Bigwig’s responsibility.  If he tries anything now he will be breaking his deal and will be enslaved by the settlement.”  Flights stood and used her telekinesis to help me wiggle into my vest.

“But I could use your help on another issue,”  the entertainer mare continued, magically adjusting my buckles.  “While he can’t do anything against my family directly he can still do the same thing to other mares.  If you could prove he robbed us to the Ladies they can make sure he doesn’t hurt anypony ever again.”

“Of course I will,”  I replied, finally getting the barding to fit comfortably.  My rump was still chilly, but over all it was an improvement.  “Just one question; who are the Ladies?”

“The Ladies of Blood and Flame,”  the unicorn said, waving her hoof in mock theatrics.  “They were mentioned on the radio earlier.  Anyway, they are in charge.”

        “That sounds ominous.  Not the most likable of ponies I take it?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,”  Flights responded, trotting back to the lobby door.  “They are both utter lunatics, but they are fair rulers…”  the lime green mare put her hoof on her chin and chewed her lip.  “Though the Lady of Blood has been acting strangely lately.”

“Strange?”  I asked, pulling my numerous saddlebags back on.  “I need to wonder what qualifies as strange for a pony called Lady of Blood.”

“She used to be very flamboyant,”  the Crucible mare replied, opening the door.  “She was creepy, but she just livened up any room she entered.  Recently though, she has been more disturbing and almost reclusive.”  She shook her head and stepped into the lobby.  “Just… if you can find evidence, it would probably be safer to bring it to her sister.  She’s the pink one, you can’t miss her.  I need to visit the little fillies room, then I’m going to make sure everypony else is ready to go.”

I nodded and gently kicked the door shut behind her.  As it would probably take a few minutes for everypony to get ready and do their business I flipped on the radio and tuned to ‘The Voice of Flankorage‘.  It was bound to be depressing, but I was bad at waiting and without Icy to argue with there was little else to do.

        “Beeeed!  Ow!”  a melodious voice bellowed from my PipBuck, accompanied by a dying fanfare.  I had just missed a Sweetie Belle song, wonderful.

        With a pop the fading instruments were replaced with R.F.P.’s measured, deep, rolling voice.  “Good morning Flankorage.  We here at the broadcast station have an exciting news docket for everypony today, but first, we here on the Voice of Flankorage team have a more personal message to share.  If you remember a few days back, one of our brave reporter ponies went missing.  We have received unconfirmed reports from a reliable source in the Frostborn Chevaliers that she is still alive.”

        “You ponies deserve the whole story.  Our reporter was dispatched down south to investigate a potential scandal.  Unfortunately, during her investigations she was snatched up by the Unity and enslaved at one of their camps.  Things were looking bleak for our newspony until that Merchant pony my colleague , DJ-PON3, brought to our attention arrived.  According to our source, he some how managed to get all the slaves out of the camp before returning and exterminating the entire facility.  Merchant, you have our thanks for saving our Scoop, visit us any time.  We would love to have you.  We are also legally required to offer our heartfelt condolences to the Unity for their tragic losses.”

My stomach turned in knots.  On the one hoof I was overwhelmingly proud for saving Scoop, Echo and the others.  But on the other hoof I had managed to get three ponies killed through my own arrogance and stupidity.  I knew Icy would have said that if I hadn’t showed up they would have all been killed or worse and one had been beyond my help from the start.  Unfortunately, logic did precious little to help alleviate my guilt…  Hold up.  Everypony who knew I was at the timber yard was either with me the whole time or dead.  How in the sphincter of Luna did these news ponies keep learning of everything I did?  Where were they hiding all the damn cameras?

        “Now for local news,”  the announcer pony continued.  “Canterlot Caravans has postponed their shipments to and from the valley once again due to ‘logistical difficulties’.  Many Flankorage industries rely on the supplies imported from the south and if Canterlot Caravans can no longer provide them many will be forced to turn to alternate suppliers such as the Unity.  If these ‘difficulties’ are not resolved soon it could spell the end for one of Flankorage‘s founding factions.”

        “Finally we have some rare news from further north in Zebra territory.  Apparently the Merchant isn’t alone in the fight to protect ponies.  A lone sniper has been disrupting Northern Legion supply lines and defending the Bassy border settlement.  According to witnesses, the zebras have taken to calling this mysterious hero Penumbra and residents have begun using the moniker as well.  As the sniper pony has never actually been seen we have been unable to get a statement.”

        “This news segment has been brought to you by Square and Level Construction; we do it right.  When we come back I will have Hunt Master Blood Moon in the studio with his top five salvaging tips, but first here is Ocatvia‘s Second to accompany the morning calm.”

“Hunts Master?”  BARON’s borrowed voice scoffed over the soothing cello music that was flowing from my PipBuck.  “Hardly; that one is little more than a glorified bounty hunter.”  I turned with a start to see the armored buck standing less than a leg’s length behind me.  I had to put a bell on all my companions… or actually pay attention to my E.F.S.  “Your entourage is ready to go.  We shouldn’t delay longer if we wish to reach the city by nightfall… Trust me, we want to be there by nightfall.”

        “Right,”  I replied with a nod, turning off my PipBuck.  Twenty miles in a day, that shouldn’t be too hard.

***        ***        ***

        “Get down!”  I yelled, tackling the lime green unicorn to the ground.  A set off massive, jet black talons slashed through the air where the entertainer pony had stood not a second earlier.

        The massive, black feathered bird swooped back into the overcast sky with a rumbling hum that made my teeth shudder.  A rain of black-red blood sprayed from the dozens of small holes Maple’s shotgun and Grim Harvest punched through the creature’s underbelly.

        “Find cover!”  BARON barked from the middle of the highway, waving his hoof towards a pile of boulders near the tree line that Rosalyn was hiding behind and Scoop was using to steady her hoof cannon.  “It’s coming back around.”

        I rolled off the prone entertainer pony and pulled Echo’s sidearm from my barding and swung it up at the rapidly descending, house sized vulture.  Slipping into S.A.T.S. I queued up four blasts of magical, liquid fire on the creature’s eye.

        *Pew!*  *Pew!*  *Pew!*  *Pew!*

        Three of the blasts pulled low and splashed against the buzzard’s viciously hooked beak, liquefying small patches of yellowed bone.  The fourth struck its target, boiling the volleyball sized organ and bursting it like a balloon.  I couldn’t help but feel a stab of empathy for the half blinded monster; it made my missing eye itch.  Shrieking in pain, the blinded raptor slammed into the asphalt, nearly flattening Flights and I with one of its flailing wings and completely burying the armored, hunter pony under its black, feathered body.

        I hopped back to my hooves and scrambled away from the flailing mass of claws and feathers.  Flights was already on her hooves and galloping to the boulders the two other mares, Scoop and Rosalyn, were firing their hoof cannons from.

        A black streak shot down from the sky and skimmed along the vulture, leaving a bloody line across its back.  Echo pulled up sharply and skidded to a halt on the opposite side highway, her tail braid soaked in the buzzard’s unnatural gore.

        “I thought you told me birds were normal sized!”  I yelled at the Enclave mare, swapping out my pistol’s spark cell for a fresh one from one of my innumerable pockets.

        “I said most  if the birds were normal sized!”  the black pony replied, spitting her ichor coated, blue steel knife into her fetlock.  “This one appears to be an exception to that rule.”

        The crippled bird rose back to its talons and spread its hundred hoof wingspan with a booming thrum.  The sound hit me like a solid wall, knocking me off my hooves and sending me sprawling in the dirt.  My weapon didn’t fair nearly as well, shattering into pieces of warped plastic and twisted metal in my magical grip.

        “Uuugh,“  I groaned as I dropped the wreckage of my gun and struggled to get my bruised legs back under me.  One, two, three, four, yeah they all still worked; for the moment at least.  Maple was bucking furiously at a crag in the road that had caught her shotgun and was keeping her stuck to the ground.  Echo had been blown back off her hooves, tumbled off the highway and slammed head first into a pony sized stone on the side of the road.  She barely avoided being decapitated by her own tail blade, but the nasty blow knocked the soldier pony out cold and left a bloody stain on the rock face.  How I hoped she was only unconscious; there was no way I could handle another death.

        The buzzard stalked away from BARON’s broken and battered body (I saw a quartet of his chrome, harness injectors plunge into his spine so he was still alive, but it would probably be a while before he was fully functional again), and advanced on the motionless, Enclave pegasus.  Oh no you don’t.  “HAY!”  I bellowed at the creature, shooting a blinding beam of light at its remaining eye.  I winced and staggered as the drill in my horn made another rotation into my brain, but I got the predator’s attention.  “OVER HERE YOU OVERGROWN DODO!  FOLLOW THE SHINY PONY!”

        The predator shrieked at me and advanced on me at frightening speed, despite its awkward gait.  I groped my barding for a weapon to no avail.  I had not thought this plan out very well, but I was the only pony who was still mobile enough to avoid the bird‘s crushing, hooked beak.  I immediately turned and took off at a full gallop for the tree line; at least it wouldn‘t be able to fly in there.

        I plunged into the underbrush with the massive avian hot on my tail, snapping its pony sized jaws at my hindquarters.  Thick brambles tore at my already failing legs and entangled themselves in my coat, continuing to scrape at my hide with every movement I made.  I weaved between the massive trees with as much agility as I was able, but the vulture, despite its blindness, seemed to easily keep pace with me.  I couldn’t keep running much longer.  I was far from fully recovered and exhaustion had nearly caused me to fall twice already; one slip up would mean death.  I needed a place to hide, quickly.

        An enormous tangle of roots jutted out of a half collapsed zebra tunnel.  I was loath to deal with those death traps ever again, but the forty hoof, predatory bird snapping at my flanks wasn’t giving me many options.  I dove through the lightest patch of vines and scrambled as far into the hollow as I could.  Hissing through my gritted teeth I relit my horn, but to my dismay the cavern extended a scant five hooves in either direction before becoming an impassible mass of tangled roots and rubble.

        A roar sounded from behind me.  I turned just in time to see the massive raptor’s enormous, yellowed beak smash through the layer of vines and slam shut mere inches from my nose.  I scrambled back and pressed my back flush against the cavern wall as the creature’s head retracted.

        My breath was coming in ragged gasps while I prodded magically for something, anything, I could use as a weapon.  The head smashed back in, deeper this time; the roots wouldn’t hold it back much longer.  Fuck!  The closest thing I could find to a usable weapon was a slightly pointed stick about the size of my leg.

        The predator pushed in closer, shrieking over its ever present hum, only four hooves from my underbelly.

        Even closer.  Three hooves away.

        Closer.  One of the major roots snapped, allowing it to surge closer and rip a shallow tear down my breast with the tip of its beak.  It would have me on its next attack.  I started building up a charge in my horn and floated up the sharp stick, blinking back tears from the stabbing pain it caused.  The buzzard recoiled its long neck, preparing for its last attack.  I was only going to get one shot at this and if I missed I was dead.

        The beast’s head slammed through the last wooden barrier that separated us just as I set off my flare.  I leaped to the side, causing the stunned beast to miss me by a hair and bury its maw in the dirt.  Not wasting a second I slipped into S.A.T.S. and designated a single attack on my avian opponent.

        *Squelch*

        The beast howled through a mouthful of dirt as I bucked the wooden stake into its remaining eye.  Got ya!  Taking advantage of the creature’s agony, I darted out of the hollow, between its legs and through the woods, in the general direction of the road.

        I heard another thrum from behind me as the tree I had been hiding under fell to the forest floor and the giant raptor pulled itself free.  “Shit!”  I exclaimed, pushing my legs as hard as I could.  “Must run faster.  Must run faster.”  My brief, terrifying rest had done little to ease the strain on my burning muscles.  

        I burst through the tree line just as my front legs gave out on me.  Careening end over end I slammed face first into a warm, sunset orange mass.

        It was a unicorn mare in a heavy, black greatcoat, lined with pink fur and an oversized, black officer’s cap with gold trim and a large smiley face embroidered on the front.  Standing on her hind legs, the militant mare was holding a well polished saber in one fetlock and a five hoof long, metal candy cane in the other.  She looked down at me with a sweet smile that completely contradicted her imposing, albeit very pink, uniform.

        My companions where nowhere in sight.  I must have gotten turned around and wound up on a different chunk of the hilly highway.

        The buzzard crashed out of the trees and onto the road, spraying gore from its ruined eyes and filling the air with a head splitting whine.  The standing mare’s reassuring smile became a toothy, ear to ear grin.  “I love my job,”  she said merrily, wrapping her metal candy in a field of yellow magic to help her level it with the vulture‘s breast.  As it passed my eye level I saw a riffled barrel on the front of the candy cane.  Sweet Celestia!  That thing was a gun, and whatever it fired was easily the size of a lemon!  “Party time.”

        *KABOOOM!*

        With a deafening blast the buzzard’s chest blew in half, showering the highway with half cooked meat.  I couldn’t explain it, but it smelled oddly good; I could hardly keep from drooling all over myself.  I rolled to my rump while I waited for the ringing in my ears to stop and absentmindedly sucked some of the half coagulated blood out of my leg fur.

        I was delicious!  The seared blood was so hot, sweet and rich.  It was making my mind go completely blank.

        “Wooooo!”  the deep orange mare squealed from the ground behind me, pulling my attention away from my delectable fetlock.  Firing her weapon had blown her off her hooves, tangling her up in her massive jacket and sending her fancy hat flying to reveal a short mane of curly, red hair.  “I adore party time.”  She flipped back to her hooves in an impressive show of agility and floated a lime sized, bubblegum pink bullet down the candy cane gun’s still smoldering barrel.

        “Who are you?”  I asked the orange unicorn, wiping some of the blood from my muzzle with my highly absorbent leg fluff.

        “Oh!”  she exclaimed, turning to me with her softer smile and extending her hoof.  “That was rude of me.  I’m Captain Dawn Star, Ministry of Morale Field Officer for the 2nd Frostborn Chevalier Squadron.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

        “Um… that’s a mouthful,”  I replied, shaking her hoof and taking care to keep my claws hidden.  “I’m Ocher Bullion.  Thanks for saving me by the way.”

        “Is there some part of covert operations you don’t understand ma’am?”  a mechanically filtered stallion’s voice (similar to BARON’s but no where near as deep) asked from behind me.  I turned and saw a unicorn, covered from horn to hoof in a suit of sleek, gem inlaid, power armor and a fur lined coat similar to Dawn Star’s (but with white fur instead of pink) seemingly materialize out of the underbrush.  He was completely featureless under his seemingly visor less helmet and carried an intimidating, tubular weapon that occasionally sent sparks of magical energy arcing along his armor’s lines of crystalline inlay.

        “Well, you’re no fun Dust,”  the morale mare pouted.  “Besides,”  she continued, quickly becoming far more chipper and holding up her weaponized dessert.  “If they wanted me to be subtle they shouldn’t have given me a Cannondy Cane to play with .  Anyway, this is probably the pony we‘re looking for.”  The Frostborn were looking for me?  “Grey coat, black mane, tall, coin mark, probably woolly…”  Yeah, that sounded like me, but why would they be looking for me?.  “…The eye plate is unexpected though.”

        “You’re looking for me?”  I asked, getting back to my hooves.  “Wh-”

        “Ma’am,”  Dust cut me off.  “We have secured the others and await your orders.  Several of them are badly injured and will need to be dealt with quickly.”  The others?…  Oh no!  If these ponies are Frostborn they would attack BARON on sight and I doubted my friends would let some strange armored ponies kill our guide.

        “NO!”  I bellowed, planting my hooves on Dawn Star’s shoulders.  “Leave them alone!  They’re not-!”  I was abruptly cut off again as a field of shimmering, white magic wrapped around me and slammed my face into the pavement.  I heard a crunch and felt my nose shift out of place.

        “Sorry about that sweetie,”  the morale officer said, sounding as if she genuinely cared that I got hurt.  “The lieutenant gets a little over protective of me sometimes.”  She looked up at the armored stallion who was magically pinning me to the ground.  “You can let him up.  He’s not going to hurt me.”  The soldier pony released me from his magic field and I sat back up, wiping a trickle of blood from my slightly misshapen muzzle.  “Now listen up.  We aren’t going to hurt your friends.  We are only gathering you up so we can take you safely back to Flankorage.”

        “But you don’t understand,”  I protested, sounding far from convincing with my broken nose.  “One of them-”

        “Killed BARON,”  Dust cut me off again.  “We know.“  Damn it all, stop interrupting me!  Wait, killed BARON?  Had somepony killed him in the short time I was away instead of, well, SAVING ME?!  “The Hunter known as the King informed us and offered up the mass murderer’s flank plates as proof and the other’s collaborate his story.  He refuses to give us the helmet as he claimed it as his trophy, but that is his right as a hunter.”  Oh that clever bastard.

        “Yes, that’s it exactly,”  I replied with a toothy grin.  “You understand my fear about mistaken identity right?”

        “Well of coarse I do silly,”  Dawn giggled, tussling my mane.  “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I wasn’t empathetic.  I’m very good at telling when a pony is upset, worried or…”  She leaned in closer to me, almost touching her horn to mine, and her voice became far softer and more sinister.  “when they are lying to me.”

***        ***        ***

        She knew.  The smiley face pony knew The King was BARON.  And there was no way that wouldn’t come back to bite us later.

        Dust and Dawn had lead me along the road and met up with my friends; they were all a bit battered, but conscious and no worse for wear.  Eleven more fully armored unicorns were encircling the group, all armed with pony length, magical rifles and equally large, gem studded lances.  Scoop and Maple broke from the group and tended to my injuries despite the Chevalier’s protests, but Dawn Star kept them from doing anything rash.  BARON was flexing and boasting in The King’s crude speech patterns to one of the soldier ponies who I assumed was a mare due to her relatively slight build.

        Maple and I traveled mostly in silence, keeping tabs on the numerous conversations around us as the walls of Flankorage grew ever closer.  The pony BARON had been chatting up, who was indeed a mare, was named Sara and was sickeningly receptive of the hunter pony’s crass advances.  Echo and Dust argued about the particulars of Frostborn/Enclave treaties and rights, each spewing a slue of precedents that meant nothing to me out of context.  The three wasteland mares (even Scoop to my burning chagrin) seemed to be awe struck and were fawning over the magical armored soldier ponies.  Through the whole thing, the orange, morale mare blathered on about seemingly random subjects to whoever she was near, flowing seamlessly from one irrelevant topic to the next as her listeners changed.

        The forests that filled the rest of the valley were cleared for miles around Flankorage.  In their place were thick fields of fruit bearing briers tended by scores of agricultural ponies, single mindedly working the numerous farms.  A series of buildings surrounding an enormous stadium stood along the northern edge of the clearing, all swathed in colorful, billowing banners.  A staggered line of ruined, observatory like cannons overlooked the city from the slope of a towering mountain to the east.  The cloud piercing, ivory spire I had seen from the Stable exit jutted out from an adjacent valley, just north of the guns, but the raging storm that had been orbiting it every other time I had caught sight of it was absent.

        As the blob of bright clouds that passed for the sun on the surface vanished behind the western mountains we finally reached the ten story, steel wall that ringed Flankorage.  A heavy, solid steel gate, easily large enough for a full grown dragon to walk through, stood closed at the end of the highway.  Tall, grey, metal spires peaked above the top of the wall, peppered with tiny spots of light.  One building towered over the others, topped with a horizontal, eight spoked wheel, five of which connected to armored zeppelins.

        I stood there, jaw agape.  I knew it was big and I could see it growing as I approached, but standing at the foot of the monolithic city made its sheer scale truly sink in.

        “Come on slow pokes!”  Dusk called from the base of the wall.  She was standing by a barely perceptible door just adjacent to the main gate with a small, circular hole at about head height.  “The city is closed for the night so we need to use a security entrance.”  The officer unicorn floated off her cap and slid her horn into the opening.

        With a surge of orange magic the door split and slid aside to reveal what looked like a mesh floored freight elevator, easily large enough to accommodate two dozen ponies.  “Up we go,”  the amber mare said, trotting onto the elevator.  “unless you want to stay outside in the mud till morning.”

        Everypony shuffled into the oppressively cold lift.  The shaft was dimly lit with weak, pale blue lamps studded along the exposed, steel girders that supported the walls.  The slot grating that made up the floor exposed a jet black pit below us, the meager lighting studs vanishing in the murk.  With a flick of her horn the morale officer brought the elevator online with a hiss and a blast of steam.  Maple and I threw ourselves to the grating as the platform shook and lurched upwards, rattling on its raw tracks.  It felt like the thing was moments away from hopping its tracks and plummeting us all into a bottomless pit.

        “I’m gonna die,“  I mumbled to my self and clamped my eyes shut.  “I’m gonna die.  I survived a hell spawn zebra and a house sized raptor, but this stupid scrap pile of a lift is going to get me killed.”

        I felt a hoof prodding at my flank.  “Ocher,”  Scoop’s sweet voice whispered in my ear.  Slowly opening my eyes again, I saw the reporter mare staring me in the face.  “We’re at the top.  You can get up now.”

        I flushed and stood back up, keeping my eyes abashedly on my hooves.

        A burst of chill air hit me as Dust opened the door to the top of the wall and trotted out with the rest of the Frostborn ponies.  The top of the wall was obviously built to fight from; wide enough for five ponies to walk abreast, with a chest high parapets, studded with gun emplacements along the outer edge.  Each weapon was attended by a soldier pony in white and green flack armor.

        The Chevalier lieutenant stepped to the fortification’s inner edge.  “Merchant,“  Dust said with a synthetic chuckle over his shoulder.  “I think you will want to see this.”

        I followed the armored pony to the edge and what I saw left me stunned.

        We were overlooking a massive courtyard, stretching from the armored wall to the city proper a quarter of a mile away.  The municipality was no where near as pristine as it appeared from the outside.  The twisted, metal skeletons of ruined skyscrapers littered entire neighborhoods of rubble.  Impact craters, from city block sized chasms to hoof sized pockmarks peppered everything.  Despite the dilapidated conditions, hundreds of ponies roamed through the blasted streets.

        Standing in perfectly ordered rows in the courtyard were easily over a thousand ponies.  Every one of them wore the same white and green, armored barding, equipped with an assault rife battle saddle.

        “We give our lives to Flankorage,”  the assembled ponies boomed out in eerie unison.  “Our beacon of light in a world of darkness!”

        “We give our hearts to the ponies who call it home.  For they are the life blood of the city!”

        “We give our souls to the god princesses.  May Celestia’s light guide and Luna’s shroud protect!”

        “We are the Frostborn.  The Flankorage First and Only!”

        “We hold the line against the savage, the mutant,  the zebra!”

        “This we swear!”

        Dawn Star trotted up next to me, her coat billowing in the wind despite its bulk.  She turned to me with a massive grin.  “Welcome to Flankorage.”

***        ***        ***

        “You had better hurry if you want your case heard,”  Dust instructed as he trotted down one of the clean, metal corridors of Stable 116.  The forest green, Chevalier stallion had removed his helmet and would have actually given me a run for my money in the charm department if it weren’t for the latticework of scars across his face; but then again we may still have been, even if I was wearing my stupid, face toaster.  “The council is nearly adjourned for the night.”

        We had been rushed to another elevator at the base of the wall that took us under the city.  Apparently Flankorage was essentially a single structure, with the wall and all major buildings in the city connected to an underground tunnel system, all leading to Stable 116, situated under the sky port at the city’s core.  A spell powered tram system ran throughout the labyrinthine, eleven mile long complex and we were whisked onto one (the Gold Line according to sign on the tram car) almost as soon as we stepped off the second elevator.  All the soldier ponies save for Captain Dawn Star, Dust and Sara left us to attend to their own business on other lines.

        At BARON/The King’s subtle prompting (via E.F.S. messages) I had Flights help me remove my robotic eye and replace it with a strip of black cloth from Echo’s tattered uniform; making an effective eye patch that actually looked rather rakish with my longer coat.  Style aside, removing the apparatus was probably wise as it not only would cause problems if I needed to turn on the charm, but it could potentially expose BARON’s true nature to other ponies in the city.  Captain Dawn Star seemed to already know and I doubted her team was as ignorant as they pretended to be so I just had to hope for the best with them.

        While I was at it I opted to change into the fancy suit I had found in the Northern Light Lodge.  Flights was kind enough to help me get the tuxedo sitting properly.  The entertainer mare was quite good at fitting stallion’s clothes; I had the distinct impression that she either moonlighted as a tailor or her saloon job entailed more than just flirting.  I couldn’t help but a surge of satisfaction at the little sneer Scoop shot the green unicorn as she pressed up against me to get my coat tails sitting correctly.  I was quite aware of how petty it was and I did feel a bit guilty about it, but the reporter mare’s little show of jealousy was rather gratifying after her fawning over the Chevaliers on the way to the city.

        Our mysterious patron had not only dispatched a dozen heavily armed ponies to retrieve us, but also seemed to have enough pull to get an immediate audience with Flankorage’s ruling body.  Something was going on here and I really didn’t like it.  Nothing was free, we just didn’t know the price yet and I had the sinking feeling that it was just going to keep getting higher and higher.

        “So what am I supposed to do here?”  I asked the verdant Chevalier buck as I cantered after him, making light clanging noises reverberate down the hall.  “Is there any particular etiquette or decorum I’m supposed to observe?”

        “Just stay quiet until your case is called,”  he said sharply, turning a corner with an overly dramatic flourish of his coat.  We followed him down a long corridor that terminated at a large set of oak double doors bearing, in gold paint, a trio of rings, connected in a perfect triangle.  The dark wood looked terribly out of place in the cold, metal corridors of the Stable.

        “I’ve been to council meetings before,”  Scoop assured me from my blind side, nuzzling my neck fluff.  “I’ll walk you through it.  Don’t worry.”

        “Or you could just let the King here do all the talking,”  Sara giggled from behind me.  The bright yellow soldier mare was still fawning over BARON like some fan filly, looking tiny next to the armored stallion, even in her magical plate mail.  “I’m sure he could get them to listen to anything.”

        “Don’t mind her,”  Dawn nickered from the back of the group.  “She has always had a thing for the Hunters.  Thinks they’re romantic.”

        “Well they are,”  the groupie unicorn replied slightly indignantly.  “They go out to battle savage monsters and seek lost artifacts, lone ponies verses the vicious, cruel world.  Their just like the dashing heroes out of a fantasy novel.”  The King?  Dashing and romantic?  Ha!  That drunk Shrike mare from the ski loge had more charm while she was passed out on the floor, in a puddle of booze and drool.

        “Cutie,”  Maple said with a soft, sultry voice.  “You’re a magic knight in shining armor.  I don’t think it gets more romanticized than that.”

        “I-I, but, you…“  the orange unicorn stammered, flushing and coming to a complete stop.  “Cutie?”  The security mare ignored her and trotted up to flank me with Scoop, flicking her bright white tail across Sara‘s nose as she passed.

        “You just did that to fluster the poor mare didn’t you?”  I whispered in the Stable mare‘s ear, fighting to suppress a giggle.

        “Yeah,”  Maple replied with a grin.  “All that hero worship was getting on my nerves, but it is nice to know I can still make mares weak in the knees.”

        “You’ll have to give me lessons some time,”  I said, nudging her armored ribs with my knee.

        “What?”  the blue earth pony asked, placing a hoof on her breast in feigned offence.  “And help the competition?  Never.”

        “Your companions will wait here,”  Dust interrupted, magically opening the double doors.  Beyond them was a richly appointed antechamber with cushioned benches and small reading tables lining both wood paneled walls.  An identical set of doors sat at the far end of the room, guarded by a pair of Chevalier unicorns in elaborate suits of gold trimmed, jet black power armor with shining, magical energy lances built in.  Over a dozen ponies wearing dress suits in various states of disrepair were crowded around the entrance to the next room and a few others sat scattered about the chamber.  “You will need to leave you weapons here as well.”  That last bit might have been an issue if I had any weapons left.

        “Are you okay with this?”  I asked my assembled companions.

        “We should be fine,”  Echo assured me, unpacking her cloud into a crude lounge and digging out a copy of ‘The Manehattenite’ from one of the reading tables.  “The Frostborn may be many things, but deceitful isn’t one of them.”

        “Besides, we have the gallant knight and Daring Do over here to protect us,”  Maple chuckled with playful sarcasm, pointing to Sara and BARON.  “Who would dare mess with us now?”  The little,  blue mare’s joke caused the armored unicorn to blush and sputter while the hunter buck simply ground his armored forehead with his hoof.

        I nodded and made my way to the black armored, honor guard ponies; I was hardly in any position to argue with the heavily armed ponies.  The morale mare walked next to me, nodding for the guards to open the doors.  Beyond them where a set of wide, carpeted stairs.  As I nosed my way through the assembled supplicants, taking care to avoid treading on their moth eaten dresses, I was barraged by a slue of complaints and criticisms.

        “What is a woolly doing here?”  an indigo, unicorn mare in one of the nicer gowns, a multi-layered, aquamarine dress with delicate lace trim, scorned, sticking her nose up at me.  “Are there no standards anymore?”

        “How did he get in so damn fast?!”  a red earth pony buck in a brown, pinstripe jacket asked irritably, shaking a mixed bag of bottle caps and bits at the guards.  Want the money.  Want the money.  Want the money.  “How much does a pony need to pay to get swift justice around here?!”

        “Please,”  the slightly raspy voice of a small, brown robed griffin girl I had mistaken for a large pony pleaded.  “The Zony district is in desperate need of increased security.  The brutality these people endure is unacceptable.”

        I pushed forward to the door.  No telling off the pompous bitch.  No drooling over the sack of money.  No fretting over the standards of living for some ponies… no, zonies…  What in Equestria was a zony?  I had to stay focused.  I had a Stable to save and only one real chance to do so.

        “Ma’am,”  one of the guards said from behind me.  “You may not enter the council  chambers at this time.”  The two council guards had stepped between us and the little, blue news pony.

        “It’s okay,”  Scoop chirped, trotting up to the Captain and I and pulling out a small ID card glued to a worn notebook cover.  “I have a press pass.”

        “Nopony is allowed in without express permission from a council member or ambassador,”  the black armored buck (At least I thought it was a buck.  It was hard to tell through the voice modulators in their helmets.) responded flatly without even bothering to look at the little mare‘s credentials.

        “You must be new here,”  the reporter pony replied impatiently, sitting down with a huff and beginning to lecture the armored soldier as if he was just a little foal.  “Here is how it works:  We play your ‘rah, rah, go us’ patriotic broadcasts and you let us attend and report on state events.  You have to let me in.”

        “Oh just let her in trooper,”  Dawn Star instructed the guard pony brightly as she floated off her fancy hat, sword and confectionery cannon, placing them by the door frame.

        “Yes my lady,”  the troopers said in unison, bowing their heads and stepping out of Scoop’s way.  The little mare hopped back to her hooves and walked back up with her snout in the air.

        “Lady?”  I asked the soldier mare as the three of us made our way up the stairs.  ‘…it would probably be safer to bring it to her sister.  She’s the pink one, you can’t miss her.’  Well the smiley unicorn wasn’t pink…  “That wouldn’t happen to be Lady of Blood would it?”

        “Oh please,“  Dawn replied with a half hearted whicker.  “Those ponies are insane.  No, I’m the second daughter of Duke Morning Star; you’ll be meeting daddy soon.”

***        ***        ***

        The three of us emerged into a large room that was vaguely reminiscent of 114’s atrium.  A shadowed balcony ran around the room, filled with silhouetted figures, most of them ponies, but some distinctly not (I was able to make out several griffins, what seemed to be an overlarge unicorn that would stand a full head over any pony, even a scrapper, and what seemed to be a hybrid of a pony and a giant, armored bug).  Directly above us was the distinctive, half circle window of an overmare’s office with the Stable Tec logo removed and replaced by the same three circle symbol from the doors.  Aside from the yellowish glow that radiated from the office above, the only source of light in the room was a single spotlight shining down on a lone table in the middle.  The simple, wooden table had three ponies, two earth pony mares and a unicorn stallion, standing opposite a nervous looking earth pony buck in worker’s overalls.  The four were arguing fiercely, pounding their hooves on the table, shouting and generally behaving like obstinate adolescents.

        The morale mare directed us to a set of seats that I would probably have blundered into if they hadn’t been pointed out.  I probably could have remedied the issue with a bit of light from my horn, but I had the distinct impression that becoming a floodlight would not put me in these ponies’ good graces and I desperately needed to be in their good graces.  I set myself down as gingerly as I could so as not to ruin all the work Flights did to make me look presentable; though with the tuxedo and the stylish eye patch I thought I looked down right debonair.

        Scoop plopped herself down next to me.  “Now if you want to get anything out of these ponies there are a few things you should know,”  the reporter mare whispered softly in my ear, waving her hoof towards the table.  “Remember when I said that the Frostborn technically run the show here?”

        “Yeah,”  I replied as quietly as I could, cocking my ears.

        “Well they do,”  the blue mare continued.  “116 was designed to study the prolonged effects of martial law, but once they left the Stable they found holding off the zebras, keeping wild threats at bay and managing the day to day activities a logistical nightmare.  So they delegated the civil duties to the three most proponent groups in the city.”

        “That one is Duke Morning Star,”  she said, indicating to the unicorn stallion.  He was wearing an almost pure white, fur trimmed robe with gold embroidery, making him look like a ghost with his ice blue coat and platinum blond mane.  “He is the direct descendant of the region’s prewar noble, North Star.  The aristocracy handles all foreign relations for the city.  They generally aspire to keep their diplomatic allegiances strong and consolidate power back into the hooves of the nobles like in the days of Celestia’s rule.”

        “So that’s the pony who set up the stupid ‘slavers welcome’ treaty?”  I hissed back a bit more loudly than I had intended.

        “No, that was his mother,”  Scoop replied, shaking her head.  “I am loath to say it, but the city probably wouldn’t have survived without it.  Just remember, they are more interested in pride and power than ethics so don’t try to appeal to their ethics because it won‘t get you very far.”

        “Anyway,”  she went on, indicating to the better dressed of the two mares.  This one was wearing a fitted, deep red suit that complemented her aqua coat and slicked back, orange mane.  “That is Racket, she is the CEP of Canterlot Caravans and is in charge of Flankorage’s economy.  I would say that she has more of a heart than Morning Star, but she will still put caps and trade above everything else.  The Unity has hurt them financially so they should probably support any course of action that will bloody the slaver’s collective noses.  The Unity still brings a lot of caps into the valley so they will be less supportive of anything involving open war or total expulsion from Frostborn territory.”

        “And that last one is Lapis,”  Scoop said, pointing to the last mare.  She was deep blue, with a long, black mane and wearing a simple, but well crafted pink and yellow robe.  “She is the current head of the New Ministry of Peace, you shouldn’t have any problems getting her on your side.”

        “New Ministry of Peace?”  I asked.  “Didn’t the old one screw up pretty badly with the apocalypse and all?”

        “They started out as a group of doctors, nurses and social workers who survived the balefire bombs,”  the news pony elaborated with a flourish of her hoof.  “They pulled the survivors together and cared for them until 116 opened again and now they manage all the city’s civic issues.”

        “Any way, you are probably the last case of the evening and they have spent the whole day remembering how much they all hate each other so the councilors will be trying to wrap this up as quickly as they can so they get back to their own business.  So keep it short and to the point. You should be fine.”

        I nodded.  Short and to the point.  ‘Excuse me, these bastards invaded my home.  Could you please come and kill them for me?’  No, that wouldn’t work.  Something a little less blunt and whiny.  Hmmm…

        “Then it is agreed,”  Morning Star announced, forcing me to focus again.  His voice was little more than a whisper, but it reverberated through the entire chamber.  “We regret to inform you that the Frostborn are spread too thin and our own security forces are otherwise occupied, so we cannot spare the horsepower to sweep the service tunnels at this time.”

        “But my mares are dying down there!”  the foreman buck protested, slamming his hooves on the table.  “And everypony needs-”

        Racket silenced him with a single gesture before pressing her hooves together in front of her mouth.  “However,”  she replied calmly.  “We will provide you with an allowance of caps to equip and arm your workers or hire outside assistance as you see fit, but we expect you to remedy the situation.  Do we understand each other?”

        “Y-yes ma’am,”  the stallion stammered, standing to leave.

        “We truly are sorry about this,”  the yellow robed mare said as the worker buck was walking past us.

        That probably wasn’t a good sign.  If they refused to even protect their own city’s infrastructure what were my odds of getting them to lend me a small army?

        “I believe we have one final petitioner for the evening,”  the Duke said, indicating to me with a sidelong glance.  “Merchant, join us if would be so kind.”

        As I rose to my hooves I felt something warm, soft and moist press against my neck, just under my chin.  “For luck,”  Scoop whispered breathily in my ear, making my knees turn to jelly and almost causing me to fall flat on my face.

        The reporter mare stifled a giggle with her fetlock as I continued my short trek to the councilors’ table.  Think about Wonderbolts.  Think about Wonderbolts.  Rainbow Dash’s perfectly toned flanks in a skintight jumpsuit.  Damn it, gutter brain!  Math!  Math is good.  Two times two is four.  Four times four is sixteen…

        “Please take a seat,”  Lapis prompted, indicating to a cushioned bench under the table.  I did as I was told.  “So, what is it that you need from us?”

        All right Ocher, moment of truth.  “I come from Stable 114 in the southwestern mountains,”  I said, mustering as much false confidence as I could.  “We have recently been viciously attacked by a group of Unity raiders.”

        The councilors’ expressions where unreadable except for Racket who was wearing a nearly imperceptible, devious smirk.  The others in the room where far less composed.  A collective gasp and a swarm of angry murmurs came from the collected figures on the balcony.  I had an active audience.  I could work with this.  “They tore down our door and flooded into our home!”  I continued, standing and addressing the crowd more that the politicians.  “In the short time our Stable security was able to fight them they had caused a death toll numbering in the hundreds with several dozen more taken as slaves!”  I paused for a moment to let my statement sink in, doing my best to look each observer in the face.

        “It has been brought to my attention that, not only is this heinous act unconscionable, but it defies a treaty made with this city,”  I continued, directing my speech back at the political ponies.  “So I have come to beseech you to send aid to our beleaguered home.  My people have managed to entrench themselves in the bowels of our Stable, but they can not hold off the slaver’s onslaught forever.”

        “That is bold claim,”  the pale noble stated calmly.  “I don’t think you realize the magnitude of what you are asking us.  Your request would force us to openly attack our most powerful ally.”

        “But if what the Merchant says is true then they have already broken their alliance,”  the robed mare interjected.  “These slaver alliances have been taxing Flankorage’s moral center for decades now.  We can not allow them to overstep the few safeguards we have in place to protect our ponies.”

        “That is a lie,”  a raspy voice called from the balcony behind me.  I knew that voice.  But where from?

        “Calm down,”  A raspy, buck’s voice said reassuringly.  “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

        That was it!  The Preacher from Gelwin’s recordings, the stallion she instructed to rip out her own daughter’s flight feathers.  I looked over my shoulder at the slaver priest.  An additional spot light illuminated an older, off white, earth pony buck in a blood red robe.  He was completely bald with a jet black spiral tattooed between his bright yellow eyes, about where a unicorn’s horn would be.

        “This pony is trying to deceive you,”  the bald buck continued, addressing the crowd and pointing his hoof at me accusingly.  “He is a vicious killer who has slaughtered the children of the Unity at every turn.  This twisted stallion seeks to drive us apart with his malevolent claims of betrayal and subterfuge.”

        “I kill your monsters because I watched them invade my home and slaughter half the ponies I have ever known!”  I snapped back at him, building a flare charge in my horn.  “And you have the nerve to call me a ‘vicious killer?!”

        “We do,”  a echoing female voice came from behind the tattooed buck.  I nearly fell off my bench as the overlarge unicorn stepped into the light.

        It was a goddess!  A huge, winged unicorn with a deep purple coat, a long, golden mane that seemed to billow in some ethereal breeze and luminous, solid green eyes was standing next to the slaver priest.

        “The Unity was invited to bring the glory an light of the Goddess to this dark and deluded Stable,”  the demigod continued.  Invited?!  Goddess or not, what kind of maniac would invite a horde of murderous psychopaths into their home?!.  “Give us until morning to gather proof of our benevolent intent.”

        “As tempers seem to be running high and everypony is tired I have been instructed to adjourn for the evening,”  Dawn Star interjected, holding a hoof to her ear and starring up to the office that overlooked the chamber.  A lone, pony silhouette stood in the middle of the window, looking down on us.  “You have your evening, Harbinger.  We will reconvene at o’ five hundred hours tomorrow.”  Lets see, that would put it about an hour after ‘sunrise’, probably figure in another hour or so for the councilors to argue.

        “Agreed,”  the midnight mare said as she stepped back into the shadows, her luminous eyes going dark.

        So that was the Harbinger from Gelwin’s messages.  This blasphemous demigod was the leader of the Unity in Flankorage.  It was the face of the enemy.

***        ***        ***

        “Ron is going to be so happy to see me,”  Scoop chirped, practically bouncing beside Maple and I as we trotted through the blasted, night streets of Flankorage.  “Not only am I not dead, but I have a short report from this evening’s council, several new stories we can make into radio plays and I am even bringing him his new favorite Stable pony.  Isn’t this exciting?  Are you excited?  ‘Cause I’m excited.  This is just going to be so much fun.”

        I gave my companions a rundown of my meeting as soon as I got back to the waiting room.  As expected, everypony reacted with some mix of outrage and snide cynicism to the Preacher’s denouncement of my character.  But when I got to the demigod’s ridiculous claim that they had been invited Echo blanched and quickly excused herself from our company, saying that she would see us in the morning.

        BARON opted to take his leave shortly after the Enclave pony did, heading off to the Hunter‘s headquarters as soon as we got back to the surface (something about checking on his investments).  Finally Flights and Rosalyn split off with Dawn Star to find some form of trustworthy escorts to take them home.  The bar pony offered Rosalyn a job at the Stick and Carrot as the poor mare had nowhere else to go.  Scoop suggested that they stay at the broadcast station until I got back and could take them myself, but the entertainer mare declined. (I could understand, I had no idea when or even if I would be back and she had been away from home for far too long as it was.)  The lime green unicorn also took the time to tag her home on my PipBuck with an attached objective of ‘Stop by for a visit some time’.

        The city streets where a mess of pot holes and crumbling cement lit by a combination of the few lamp posts that had survived the centuries and jury rigged systems that ranged from flashlights hung from buildings to flaming braziers.  The buildings around me were a bazaar mix of ancient and recent architecture with crude, sheet metal shanties set up between dilapidated, prewar ruins and what looked like brand new construction.  The few dozen ponies (According to Scoop Flankorage’s population was actually closer to ten thousand) that wandered the avenues actually made the streets seem more lonely than if they had been empty; serving as a cold reminder that this city was built for millions.

        “Well, you have Harbinger sweating at least,”  the reporter mare continued.  “She usually just lets her creepy priest do all the talking.  I haven’t seen her speak through one of her alicorns in years.”

        “Alicorns?”  I asked, sidestepping a small blast crater.  “You mean that thing, that pseudo goddess, isn’t Harbinger?”

        “Oh heavens no,”  the news pony responded with a dismissive wave of her hoof.  “That was just one of her agents.  She overshadows them to act as her eyes and hooves in the wastes; you can tell when she is using one by their glowing, green eyes.”

        “Then what is Harbinger really?”  I inquired.  “And for that matter, there are more demig-er, alicorns?”

        “Tons of them,”  the little mare replied with a hoof flourish.  “Nopony knows where they came from, but they started showing up with the Unity.”  Scoop trotted over to a slightly warped, metal bench and sat down.  As for Harbinger herself, I have no idea.”  Scoop stopped and shrugged.  “Nopony outside of the Unity priests have ever seen her, but if I had to guess I would say she is a very powerful alicorn.”

        “So these alicorns are dangerous I take it?”  Maple asked as we joined Scoop on the bench.  “Like feral demon dangerous?”  I couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of those saber like teeth sinking into my cheeks and the taste of their burning blood filling my mouth.

        “They are a different kind of dangerous,”  the blue mare responded, getting into her ’story teller’s’ voice.  “The Hunters clash with them on occasion, when their targets happen to be Unity slaves…”  She paused, seeing Maple and my looks of utter disgust that somepony would assassinate a slave.

        “… Oh!”  the reporter pony gasped as she figured out the cause of our revulsion.  “No, no, no.  The Hunters may be a shadow of their former selves at this point, but they still have some standards.  They will still kill bounties even if the pony in question is enslaved at the time, but most of the times they fight alicorns are during rescue missions.”  Well that was something redeeming I guess, not a lot, but something.

        “Anyway, back to alicorns,“  the little mare continued, fidgeting a bit.  “According to the few Hunters who make it back from fighting them they have some sort of hive mind that makes them especially potent in groups.  The only times the Hunters ever win is if they ambush the alicorns or hit them with guns built for fighting zebra tanks and dragons.”  She shook her head and stood back up.  “Unfortunately I don’t know the specifics, just wild tails about indestructible shields, armies that materialize out of thin air and other bits of melodrama.  Anyway, we are almost home and if I keep going on like this we won’t get there till morning.”

        “I’m just looking forward to being able to sleep in a real bed after all this time,”  Maple announced, getting up to join the reporter mare.  “Not needing to worry if I’ll wake up with a gun to my head would be nice too.”

        “Yeah, beds are wonderful,”  Scoop sighed.  “All warm and soft even better if there is a very special somepony to snuggle up to.”

        Four times four is sixteen. Sixteen times sixteen is two hundred and sixty nine ... er.. I mean two hundred and fifty six...

        The broadcast station was one of the taller buildings in the city; while still dwarfed by the sky port it was easily thirty stories, not including the numerous antenna that sprouted from its flat roof.  A cardboard box, slightly larger than a pony, with a ’No Running By The Pool’ sign taped to it sat next to the skyscraper’s entrance in a pile of old mattresses and empty beer bottles.

        “’AY!”  a gruff voice bellowed from the box as we made our way to the door.   An off white earth pony buck with an unkempt, gray beard stepped out of the cardboard container shaking his hoof.  He was wearing a dark green beanie, a tattered, green jacket, a pair of pants that were more patch than denim and a single, leather loafer.  “Who ’er you three and what ya doin’ on ’ma lawn?!”

        “What?”  I asked, turning to the unkempt stallion and instinctively groping for my nonexistent weapon.  Maple immediately dropped into a fighting stance and leveled both her guns.

        “Don’t worry about him,”  Scoop assured us, waving the security mare down.  Maple complied hesitantly.  “I’ll take care of this.”

        The little, blue mare cautiously approached the ranting tramp.  “I’m Scoop,”  she said slowly, enunciating each syllable.  “We’ve talked before.  You gave me that tip about the Unity down south, remember?”  That lunatic told her to go south?!  He is why she got captured and enslaved?!

        “Don’t be daft!”  the off light grey pony replied irritably.  “Of course Oi remember ye!  Oi’m talking about those three!”  He waived his hoof at Maple and I.  “And, yes Oi may be the ‘lunatic’ responsible fer ‘er gettin’ snatched, but Oi’m also the reason you meet ‘er in the first place, Flufficus Pufficus.”

        “I-er… what?”  I stammered, perplexed.  Had he just answered my thoughts?  Maple obviously shared my confusion as her head had cocked a full ninety degrees.

        “Now introduce yourself loike a polite pony,”  the tramp instructed, gently shoving past the reporter mare and stomping up to us.  “All three of ye.”

        “Um… I’m Security Officer, Maple Sugar,”  the Stable mare said hesitantly, pointing to herself.  “And this is Ocher Bullion.  You do know there are only two of us right?”

        “A pleasure to meet you Miss Sugar,”  the hobo pony replied with a big smile, loosing all hints of hostility.  “And you too, Mister Fluffy Puffy.  That other bastard hasn‘t introduced himself to you either, eh?”

        “Um, my name is Ocher,”  I replied.  Up close this pony reeked of sweat, alcohol and several other foul odors that I didn’t care to identify.  “And what other bastard?  We are the only ponies here.”

        “That one,”  the grey pony said, pointing at me.  “Right there.”

        “Me?”

        “No,”  he said dismissively.  “Not you Fluffy.”

        “O-cher Bul-lion,”  I corrected him, bobbing my hoof with each syllable.

        “Fluff-y Puff-y,”  he replied, copying my condescending tone.  “It’s yer own damn name, get it roight.  Besides, Oi wasn’t talkin’ to ye.”

        “He is the only pony there,”  Scoop said, putting her hoof on the filthy pony’s back.  The hobo groaned and rolled his eyes.                

        Without warning the tramp pounced on me, knocking me to the ground.  “’Ay!”  he yelled at my raw horn as he batted it repeatedly with the back of his hoof.  Every impact made my vision go white for a moment as the drill in my head rammed deeper into my brain.  I arched my back and tried to scream but I only managed a squeaky gasp.  “Wake up in there you magical bastard!”

        “GET OFF HIM!”  Maple bellowed as the vagrant’s weight was lifted from my chest with a crunch.

        I got back to my hooves cautiously, gasping and fighting my light headedness.  My skull still throbbed and my vision was blurry.  The earth pony tramp had been bucked into the middle of the street and laid there, curled up and clutching his slightly misshapen ribs.

        “Aaaaggggghhhhh!”  a loud, arctic gasp came from the back of my mind.

        “Icy?”  I asked myself, still stumbling around.  “Is that really you?”

        “Ocher?”  the frigid voice asked weakly and out of breath.  “You can actually hear me?  I‘m still alive?”

        “Yeah, yeah,”  I replied.  Scoop and Maple were eyeing me nervously, but not backing away.  “What happened to you?”

        “I don‘t know,”  Icy wheezed.  “He hurt me.  The zebra actually managed to hurt me.  Then when they broke  your horn everything just went dark.”  I heard his voice devolve into hacking fit.  “The murk covered me and no matter how loud I yelled you never seemed to hear me.  I felt like I was drowning, but I would never die.”

        “But you’re okay now?”

        “No,”  the arctic voice replied, slowly seeming to regain his strength.  “There is something very wrong with us, but I think we will live.”

        “Good, good,”  I said, nodding my head.  I never thought I would be glad to be reminded of my stress induced madness, but it just felt lonely without him.  “Anyway, I‘m glad you are back.”

        “It’s good to be back, it truly is.  But don’t think I’m going to be going easy on you because of this,”  Icy chuckled.  “You need somepony to point out when you are being a stupid pony.”  I couldn’t help but grin at his statement.  I knew he was going to be grating on my nerves in a matter of days, but for the time being I was just pleased to have my brain mate back.

        “There y’are,”  the tramp said, trotting back up to us with a bit of a limp.  “It is about toime.  Now introduce yourself like a nice, polite pony.”

        “Who is this filthy vagabond?”  Icy asked with disdain.  “And why is he calling you rude?”

        “I think thi-”  I began to reply before being interrupted by the hobo.

        “Oi’m the buck that got you out of your ‘murky, eternal drowning’ melodrama,”  the grey stallion said in a mocking imitation of Icy’s voice.  “And Oi’m calling you rude, not Fluffyus Maximus here.”

        “Did he just answer me?”  the arctic voice inquired.

        “Don’t you talk about me as if Oi’m not here!”  the tramp yelled at my horn irately.  “Oi will not be!…  Never mind.  Oi’ve got something for ye.”  the gray pony hobbled back to his box and started throwing more beer bottles into the street.

        “Lets go before he gets done,”  Scoop said pressing herself to my side to steady me and helping me to the broadcast station door.  Maple followed, flanking me with the reporter pony.  “I’m sorry, he has never attacked anypony before.  He is usually just ‘that friendly homeless guy‘, but he is a good contact.  He just seems to know things nopony should be able to know and has given me some of my best stories.”

        “Yeah, I noticed that last bit,”  I replied, doing my best to move under my own power.  “He just had a conversation with the voice in my head.”

        “Uh huh,”  Maple said hesitantly.  “So the voice is back then?”

        “He is,”  I responded, nodding to her.  “But he seems to be a little less leave them all behindey now.”

        “We might want to hustle,”  the little, reporter pony interjected, oddly unfazed by my news of hobo/crazy interaction.  “Trust me, you don‘t want whatever he wants to give you.  I‘ve gotten a few rocks, empty bottles and an old shoe.”

        “AVAY!”  the ragged buck’s voice boomed from behind me.  Was the tramp speaking Zebra?  “TRUE TO FLUFFY PUFFY!”  I turned back to the homeless pony just in time to see a shiny, round object flying at my face and slam into the tip of my fragile horn.

        With an agonizing crack everything went white.

***        ***        ***

        “Ugh,”  I moaned, waving my hoof to ward off a horrible stench that seemed to be smothering me.  My clawed hoof contacted something soft, scratchy and greasy in front of my face.  I slowly opened my eyes to see the homeless pony’s face scant inches from my own with my hoof pressed against his beard.

        “Well then,”  the tramp growled ominously, pressing his nose against my own and narrowing his eyes.

        I started charging my horn for a flair and magically probing around in his chest for his heart.

        “Oi‘m goin to go and get mesel’ a sandwich,”  he continued, becoming cheery again and smiling from ear to ear.  The vagrant buck got off me and trotted to a doorway where Scoop was waiting for him.  “Cheery-bye!”  He waved and cantered off, past the reporter mare without another word.

        “I-I-”  I said flummoxed and sitting up.  I was in a green room with a beige carpet, a little bigger than my own, that had obviously once been an office for a very important pony.  The entire south (according to my E.F.S.) wall was a single window with a breathtaking view of the torch lit city, with the fully illuminated sky port standing jutting from the center.  The doorway that the little, news pony was in was situated between two humongous bulletin boards, coated with photos, magazine pages and miscellaneous scraps of paper.  A fairly posh, princess sized bed with red, flannel sheets sat opposite Scoop, between the window and a doorless bathroom.  My barding was folded neatly at the foot of a dresser on the other side of the room.

        “Sorry about that,”  Scoop apologized, entering the room, shedding her own clothing and tossing it to the side as she went.  An intoxicating sent hit me as soon as she unzipped her jacket, nearly making the world spin again; a pleasant change from the stink of the vagrant pony that still clung to my coat.  “He didn’t mean to hurt you.  He actually felt so bad about it that he offered to help Maple carry you up here to my room.”

        “Oh, this is your room,”  I said, slowly releasing the magic from my horn.  I hadn’t been in a mare’s room in years; Primrose usually came over to my place.  “Thanks.”

        “It’s not a problem,”  she replied, kicking off her last leg warmer.  “It is too late to take you to Ron tonight.  If I did he would keep you up all night swapping stories.  So I‘ve shown Maple to her room for the night; one of the suites we have set up for guests.  We only had one room available that wasn’t filled with radroaches so you will be staying with me tonight.”  I’ll be spending the night with her.  Be a gentlecolt, be a gentlecolt.

        The little mare trotted into the bathroom and turned the bathtub’s hot water fully on.  “Though I will be damned if I let you get hobo stink all over my bed,”  she said, fiddling with the temperature knobs.  “But, while I have been saving my rations, I only have enough water and power credits for one bath right now.”

        “That’s okay,”  I replied forlornly.  So much for sleeping in a bed.  “I’ll just sleep on the floor.  The carpet looks comfortable enough.”

        “Well you don’t need to,”  the blue news mare said almost timidly, poking her head back out and looking at me from through her midnight blue bangs.  “We could always share the bath… if you want to that is.”

        “I‘d love to!”  I replied brightly, hopping to my hooves.  I took a deep breath and dialled back my enthusiasm.  I didn’t want to seem desperate or over excited.  “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

        I heard her slip into the tub with slosh, sending a cloud of steam that smelled of a sweet mixture of soap and mare that made my spine tingle.  Oh Celestia, I hoped the parts of my implant that was still attached was waterproof.  “Now Icy,”  I mumbled to myself.  “I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until I say otherwise.  Understand?”

        “You don‘t want pointers?”  he responded snidely.

        “Icy,”  I cautioned with a low rumble.

        “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,”  the cold voice reassured me.  “I’ll keep quiet.  Think of it as a head warming gift.”

***        ***        ***

        I stretched out in the red, flannel sheets as the first morning glow percolated through the cloud curtain.  My freshly cleaned coat was fluffed out in a full body bed head, probably making me look like some sort of grey pompom with legs.  I could have just laid there forever, everything was so cozy, soft and sweet smelling.  I looked down at the little blue mare that was curled up against my breast, breathing softly into my chest fluff.  Her cheeks were flushed and her midnight blue mane was tangled with my own fur.

        “Ungh,”  I moaned lightly.  The council would be making its decision soon and I was supposed to go meet with Ron first.  Scoop let out a squeaky yawn and pressed her face against my neck, purring softly with a serene smile.

        “They can wait a while,”  I whispered, wrapping my self back around the soft, silky body of the diminutive, reporter mare.  My own very special somepony.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: -- .Stable Shot -Your attacks are smooth, graceful and precise. You have a higher chance to score a critical hit on an opponent in combat, equivalent to 5 extra points of Luck.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Many Faces

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Ten: Many Faces

“Secrets and lies.  That‘s all it is with these ponies, secrets and lies.”

        I trotted down one of the Flankorage Broadcast Station’s pale green halls with a snuggly blue mare slung over my back.  Scoop, quite obviously not a morning pony, was still half asleep and was absent mindedly nibbling on my ear.  I had thank Celestia the reporter mare was so small; actually being able to carry my very special somepony without straining myself did wonders for my ego.

        I was floating my own tuxedo and one of the cleaner outfits from Scoop’s wardrobe; a fur lined, indigo dress with a matching, hooded cloak.  Grinding pain in my horn had dulled to a mild ache that was barely perceptible through the remnants of my endorphin induced glow.  While it would be freezing outside (especially for Scoop, since she lacked my fluffiness) there was no need for insulated clothing in the magically heated skyscraper, and besides, having her body pressed against me was more comforting than any outfit I had ever worn.

        The reporter mare let out a squeaky yawn in my ear.  “I need coffee,”  she announced, plopping her chin on top of my head.  “Bring me breakfast in bed.”

        “I’m not taking you all the way back to your room,”  I replied, tapping the call button for one of the building’s still functional elevators.  “I‘ll pick something up for you on the way to our meeting with Ron.”

        “I don‘t want you to take me back to my room,”  the news pony snickered.  “You’re my bed, silly.  Now… To the cafeteria my noble steed!”

***        ***        ***

        Three dozen round, metal tables were scattered around the broadcast station’s dirty, white lunchroom.  A stainless steel counter ran along one wall with a pink, unicorn mare serving snacks.  A series of large windows overlooking the city opened on the opposite wall.  Over a dozen ponies sat in ones and twos, nibbling on pieces of bread smeared in various preserves and taking notes in little books; it was actually rather comical watching the earth ponies try to write with their pens held in their mouths.

        A little, blue security mare sat in a bright green beanbag chair at the table farthest away from the windows. Her snout was buried in the book we found in the potions shop: the one with the stylized flower on the cover.  She had a half finished bottle of Sparkle Cola and a slightly nibbled bowl of freeze-dried veggies and noodles.  It was kind of odd to see her out of uniform after so long; her compact yet powerful body practically rippling every time she turned the page or reached for her breakfast.

        No!  No!  Bad libido!  There is a beautiful, loving mare on your back, you don’t need to lust over the one who has no interest in you.  Calm down.

        “She may have no interest in you,”  Icy snickered in the back of my mind.  “But she might be interested in joining your little snuggle toy.  Princess sized beds are easily big enough for three.”

        “Now you shush,”  I quietly chastised myself.  Thankfully Scoop was still asleep enough not to notice my personal argument.

        Maple looked up from her book and greeted us with a big wave and a bright smile.

        “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it,”  the frigid voice chortled.  I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he managed to make laughter feel uninviting.  “I’m in in your head.  You can’t really lie to me.”

        “Why did I miss you again?”  I asked through gritted teeth, waving back at the security mare.  I stumbled a bit as the reporter mare on my back shifted and made me lose my balance.  “Because I can’t seem to remember at the moment.”

        “Because I’m honest. I, ahem,”  Icy distorted his voice into a nearly perfect match of DJ-PON3’s.  “Bring you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.”

        I winced as Scoop bit down on my ear.  “Feed me,”  she mumbled through a mouthful of my fur.

        I trotted over to Maple’s table and dumped my mare saddle into the lap of a very surprised Maple.  The two earth ponies flailed and sank into the cushy seat as a single, tangled, blue mass of mare.

        “Now that is more like it,”  the chilly voice said with an audible grin.  “Why aren’t you wearing your eye?  I want a picture of this.”

        “What the hell?!”  Scoop cried, suddenly jolted awake.  “Oh, uh, hi Maple.”  the security pony wiggled out from under the reporter mare’s (slightly scratched) haunches, blushing a bit and looking rather guilty.  “Good morning.”

        “Morning,”  the white maned mare replied, averting her eyes from the wiggling pony on top of her.

        “I’ll get us some breakfast,“  I said, smirking and floating out a little bag of bottle caps; I still thought bottle caps were a silly form of legal tender.  I placed our clothes next to the beanbag chair and trotted off to the cafeteria counter, leaving the two mares to untangle themselves from each other.

        “What can I do for you, hun?”  the pink, unicorn mare behind the counter asked, magically tucking a lock of blond hair behind her ear.

        “Well,”  I responded, absent mindedly scratching my chin.  “I need a pot of coffee and, um…  What else is on your menu?”

        “Let me see,”  the cashier mare said, sticking her head under the counter and rummaging around.  “I’ve got tatters, pine nuts, rye bread, mixed berries, Apple Bombs, freeze-dried noodles, BronCo Mac & Cheese, canned fruit cocktail, I even have some jerky for griffin customers, but if you want my advice,“  She popped her head back above the counter and beckoned me closer.  “If you give me a few minutes I can make one of Scoop’s favorite meals for you.”

        “Oh, thank you…”  I replied hesitantly.  “Forgive me, but what’s the catch?”  Nothing is free.

        “No catch,”  the pink caster assured me, waving her hoof dismissively and chuckling.  “I like you.  You’re one of the nicer bucks our little Scoop has brought home.”

        “One of?”  I asked a bit dejectedly, letting my ears droop.  I was fairly certain there had been others; nopony could get that good without practice.  But it was rather disheartening to hear it put so bluntly.

        “What?”  she asked, digging out a jar of preserved cherries and a cocoa thermos with ’coffee’ written on the side with a black marker from under the counter.  “You thought you were the first?  She’s nineteen for Luna’s sake.”

        “I know, I know,”  I assured her, forcing a smile.  “How much do I owe you?”

        “Fifteen caps for the coffee and the meal is a thank you for bringing our favorite reporter back home.  I‘ll bring it to your table when it‘s ready,”  the pink pony said pouring some nutty smelling oil in a skillet and placing it on a hot plate.  I dropped the caps on the counter without complaint; I couldn’t really bring myself to haggle with her after she offered a gift.

        I turned to walk back to my friends, floating the coffee pot and a trio of mugs behind me.  “Hay,”  the cashier mare called, waving me back over.  “If it makes you feel any better you are the only one she has ever invited to spend the night in her room.”  She winked at me before returning to her pan.

        “You’re not big on privacy around here are you?”  I asked, mildly amused.

        “Secrets don’t last very long in a tower full of journalists,”  the bubblegum unicorn replied, doling out the cherries into pieces of flat bread.  “Besides, Scoops favorite contact is far from subtle.”  She had me there; I wouldn’t be surprised if his smell alone could wake the entire building.

        “Thanks again…  I don‘t believe I got your name.”

        “Darla,”  she replied, not looking up from her work.  “and you?”

        “Ocher, a pleasure to meet you.”

        “Likewise.”

        Scoop had pulled up two more of the plush seats and was lounging in one with her hind legs propped up on the table.  Maple had placed her book on the table and was finishing off the last of her noodles.  I trotted over and threw myself onto the empty chair, cracking open the thermos (oh, clever, the talisman still worked) and pouring out three mugs.

        The reporter mare took a big gulp of her drink and snuggled deeper into her chair with a contented sigh.  “Oh, that is nice,”  she said, a rosy glow spreading across her face.  “Every morning should start with a cup of joe.”  She sat up in her chair and placed her elbows on the table, nearly folding herself in half.  “So no food?”

        “Darla offered to make something special for you,”  I replied, taking a sip of the bitter beverage.  “It should be done soon.”

        “Oh boy!”  the blue pony exclaimed, clopping her forehooves together.  “Darla makes the best treats in the wasteland.”

        “Ocher,”  Maple piped up from my blind side.

        “Yeah?”  I replied, swiveling my ear to face her and turning just enough to see her out of the corner of my good eye.  She was smirking and still a bit flushed from her encounter with Scoop’s flanks.

        The security pony wrapped her front leg around my shoulders and pulled me in close.  “Next time you throw a mare at me,”  she whispered breathily, her lips lightly brushing against my ear and making me quiver.  “I’m keeping her.”

        I turned beet red and stared out into space, unable to think of anything other than a writhing mass of blue mare.  “I-er-ah-hum,”  I managed to mumble out as a thin line of drool ran down my chin.

        “Very dignified,”  Icy snickered.  “Truly the behavior of a wasteland hero.”

        I let my shoulders slump and I swirled my drink around in my cup.  I was hardly a hero.  Heroes were brave and never left anypony behind; I lost three.

        “Ocher?”  Maple asked caringly, running her hoof through the back of my mane.  Scoop had rolled upright and was looking at me nervously.  “Are you okay?  I was just teasing, I wouldn’t really do that.”

        “Yeah,”  I responded with a forced grin.  There was no sense in making my friends shoulder my own mistakes and guilt; that was a burden I deserved to bear.  “Just processing a mental image of that scene and lamenting that it will never happen.”

        The security mare chuckled and flicked my nose with her hoof.

        “What will never happen?”  the little, azure mare asked excitedly.  “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

        “Nothing at all,”  I said dismissively, avoiding her piercing, ice blue eyes.  “Just an idle fancy.  Nothing you need to worry about.”

        She snorted and smushed her nose against mine.  “Tell me,”  she commanded firmly, her eyes narrowing.

        “Leave him be,”  the security pony instructed, gently pushing Scoop away from me.  “It was just an adolescent fancy involving a pile of mares.”

        “Oh.  Well that might be fun,”  Scoop cooed with a mischievous smirk and half-mast eyes.  “And something I can easily arrange by the way.”

        Hamina, Hamina, Hamina.

        “Scoop!”  a familiar, deep, male voice called out from the elevator.  A bulky, red, earth pony stallion in an off-black, pinstripe vest strutted into the cafeteria with pleased grin on his square face.  “It is good to see you home sweetheart!”  Sweetheart?  “You thought you were the first?  She’s nineteen for Luna’s sake.”  Oh please don’t tell me.

        “Ron!”  the reporter mare squealed, hopping out of her chair and bounding over to the brick red buck, wrapping her hooves around his neck.  So that was R.F.P. huh?  From his voice I had kind of expected him to be more… proper; monocle, top hat, the whole gentleman look.  “I missed you!  How did you keep this place running without me, old man?”

        “Same way I did before you got here,”  the announcer pony said warmly, patting Scoop on the head.  “Quietly.”

        The little, blue mare nickered, blowing a lock of her tussled, deep blue mane out of her face.  “Oh, I need to introduce you to my friends,”  she chirped, galloping back over to us.  “This is Officer Maple Sugar.”  She leaped up onto the table and gestured to the white maned mare.  “She’s a Stable pony, tough as a scrapper and brave as a Chevalier.”  The security mare blushed uncomfortably and seemed to sink into her chair.  I was getting the distinct impression that Maple was not a big fan of public accolades.  I would do well to keep that in mind; the last thing I wanted to do was make her unhappy as a reward.

        “And this,”  Scoop continued, hopping backwards and landing in my lap and nearly causing me to spill hot coffee all over her.  “This is Ocher Bullion, the Merchant and my coltfrend.”  She nuzzled under my chin.  There was something about affection that made a pony feel really low for being jealous.

        “Huh, I didn‘t take you for the ’special somepony’ type,”  the bulky buck said, trotting up and slumping down in Scoop’s empty chair.  Not the ’special somepony’ type?  I supposed I understood, after all Primrose was more family than marefriend and I had never really expected to ever find my own significant other.  “What makes this guy so special to get both DJ-PON3 and your attention?”

        “Not to sound ungrateful,”  the announcer stallion continued.  “I am thrilled with what you have done for everypony, Scoop most of all, but you also need to understand my concern for my little girl.”

        “Your little girl?”  I asked, readjusting the little mare in my lap into a more comfortable position.  “You’re her father?”

        “He is the closest I have,”  Scoop replied.  “He took me in as a foal and helped raise me.”  She turned to Ron with a smirk.  “As for Ocher, he is smart, brave, kind,”  Aw gees, I was far from brave, every time I had to fight I was scared stiff or to blinded by rage to feel anything else.  “and well, has a silver tongue.“  She practically purred the last part and nestled further into my lap.

        “A silver tongue huh?”  Ron asked, shooting me a sidelong glance.  Aw crud, he was going to hit me; I had sold enough ice packs to know that father figures rarely reacted well to somepony sleeping with their daughters.  “I guess I‘ll need to ask you to join me for a morning talk show sometime.”  Or not, I liked this not hitting me attitude far better.

        A waft of hot, sweet and starchy air filled my oddly sensitive nostrils.  I turned to the source of the intoxicating sent.  “Here you are dear,”  the pink, culinary mare said, trotting up to our table and putting down a tray of crispy, golden brown rolls, coated with powdered sugar and oozing thick, pink syrup.  Oh those looked lovely.  “Enjoy.”

        “You got Darla to make Cherry Changas?”  the red buck exclaimed in pleasant surprise.  “How did you manage that?  I can’t even get her to make me Cherry Changas and I’m her employer.”

        “Simple,”  Darla said brightly, placing her hooves of either side of Scoops face.  “She’s a lot cuter than you are.”  The reporter mare played along, giving Ron her cutest puppy dog face and whimpering adorably.

        “…fine,”  the announcer pony replied, drooping his ears.  “She’s cuter... Can I have one anyway?  Please?”

        “Jah sure,”  the news pony mumbled through a sticky mouthful of confection.  “Thish ish reary good.”

***        ***        ***

        I was back in my tuxedo and being led through the halls of Stable 116 by a pair of black armored council guards.  Scoop was trotting along beside us in her indigo dress with her press pass tied around her neck like a medallion.  Maple was following on my heels, in her freshly cleaned 114 security uniform.  I had managed to convince the guards to allow Maple to join me in the session as all the other ambassadors were permitted escorts and I was the closest thing Stable 114 had to representation.

        The vaulted council chamber was as foreboding as ever.  It struck me as a miracle that the ponies who worked down here didn’t go insane; spending day and night in the same oppressive murk and harsh lights.  Duke Morning Star, Racket, Lapis were in their seats, with the Preacher sitting opposite the empty chair I had to assume was meant for me.  This would be a challenge to my patience; I was honestly glad that I wasn’t allowed to bring a weapon into the room (or even own a working weapon for that matter) or I was bound to blast that Unity monster into a smoldering pile of dust.

        I took my seat, staring daggers at the off white, slaver buck.  Maple stood behind me, opposite the shadowed form of an alicorn while Scoop made herself comfortable on the waiting seats and pulled out her notebook.

        We all just sat their in silence, the Preacher and I exchanging looks that could have curdled milk while the other three just studied us.

        “Well then,”  Racket said, breaking the silence.  “As everypony is here, shall we begin?”  The aqua mare folded her forelegs over her chest, taking care not to wrinkle her burgundy business suit.

        “Agreed,”  the pale duke whispered with his magically amplified voice.  “The Unity has presented compelling evidence to support their claim, but have insisted that we not conclude our deliberations until you were present.”  That sounded far from promising.

        “Indeed!  It is only fitting that such a vial deceiver! ”  red robed, Unity priest orated, gesturing grandly in my general direction.  “is forced to the power of the truth and glory of the Unity!”

        It would be so easy to just magically reach inside this animal’s body and oh so gently pinch his arteries shut.  No pony would need to know either, I could just hide my spell with a little light; everypony would think his little, black heart gave out on him.

        “Stop it, Ocher,”  Icy commanded sharply.  “You’re better than this.  You are no assassin.  Besides, it’s too risky.  If you’re caught this will have all been for nothing.  Even if you do succeed they will just send another one to take his place and we will be right back where we started.”

        “You know what?”  I replied pleasantly, giving him the widest grin my face would allow and revealing my unnaturally sharp teeth.  “You are absolutely right.  The truth does tend to force manipulative scum to show their true colors.  Care to save yourself the humiliation?”

        Icy was right though, I wasn’t an assassin; assassins killed ponies.  Then again this thing across from me was far from a pony.  He was a monster just like that giant bird on the highway.  That vulture’s blood was so delicious; I wondered how this monster would taste.

        … AAAGGHH!  What in the hell was I thinking?!  That was just disgusting!  Monster or not, ponies are not meant to eat meat!

        I failed to contain a shudder, destroying my confident façade.

        The off white stallion smirked.  “We will see,”  he sneered, pulling his hood off and revealing his horn tattoo.  “Let us see who the light of truth will burn clean today.”  An interesting word choice, I may need to put that to a more literal test depending on how this meeting goes.

        “Please,”  Lilac finally spoke up, shifting a sheet of raven hair from her face.  “Bickering wont accomplish anything.”  She turned to the Preacher, gently waving her deep blue hoof in his direction.  “Present your evidence so we may come to a decision.”

        “As you wish,”  the marked stallion replied, nodding to his alicorn companion.  “Our glorious prophet has seen fit to grace you with his visage.”

        The alicorn, this one’s coat was such a deep green that it seemed nearly black, sat statuesque, her eyes shining with an emerald glow.  This was Harbinger.  The possessed mare’s horn lit up with a silver glow.

        I jolted back in shock as the false goddess’ eyes, horn nose and mouth began to leak what looked like mercury.  She quivered and twitched, obviously in terrible pain, but stoically maintained her stance.

        “What is going on?!”  Maple demanded, attempting to interpose herself between me and the rapidly growing pool of silver liquid.

        The alicorn dropped to her knees and coughed up a gout mercurial blood into the puddle.

        “Radio signals have a hard time penetrating the valley,“  Racket replied calmly.  I could almost swear she was enjoying this gruesome display.  “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we can only contact the outside world after a rain storm.”  Lilac was no where near as pleased as the merchant mare, flinching and grimacing at every muffled cry the demigoddess made.  Morning Star on the other hoof, was completely expressionless, it was like trying to read marble.

        The pool of liquid rippled and seemed to fall upwards nearly twenty hooves before plummeting back down into the pool, becoming a cyclical waterfall of liquid metal.  The Unity mare struggled back to her seated position as the last few drops of magical mercury fell from her eyes.  I almost felt sorry for the tortured monster, almost.

        “The Unity developed this spell a few months ago,”  the Canterlot Caravans pony continued, only making a token effort to hide her glee.  “It allows instantaneous communication with their base back in Fillydelphia, but it nearly kills its caster.”  That was some dark magic they developed there.  It almost sounded like the sort of unnecessarily brutal spell the Lich Emperor from Sword Mares would use.

        I put my hoof on Maple’s shoulder.  “It’s okay,”  I assured, regaining my diplomatic front.  “If they want to cripple their own agents just so we can tell their leader to take a long walk off a short cliff in person, I say we let them.”  The security mare gave me a worried look, but backed down and returned to her seat.

        The wall of flowing metal rippled and became mirror smooth.  A very fit, crimson, earth pony stallion with a meticulously groomed, jet black mane materialized in the reflective surface, filling the entire wall of metal and towering over everypony else in the room.  A ring of light scars adorned his flank where his cutie mark should have been; whoever had removed his was far more careful than the zebras had been with mine or poor Rock Salt’s.  He wore a shiny, black cape, draped, stylishly across his right side with the distinctive, green screen of a PipBuck peaking out from underneath the cloak.  His left eye was a vivid blue, but it was his right that caught my attention.  A sleek, metal sheath covered his right eye socket, glowing with an ominous red light; I was starting to feel self-conscious over my own toaster-eye and was relieved that I had elected to go with my eye patch.

        A hazy room came into focus behind him.  He was standing on a balcony with a faded, green banister, overlooking an auditorium packed cheek to jowl with filthy, emaciated ponies.  Many ponies in the crowd seemed to be suffering from burns and weeping lesions across their entire bodies.  A pair of black-green alicorns stood to either side of him, their faces were still wet from a mixture of sweat and silver blood.

        “Greetings.  So you are the representative from Stable 114, the newest member of our noble project.”  The red buck’s words were oily smooth and was obviously well practiced, practically dripping with confidence and authority; under different circumstances I may have asked him for lessons.  “I am Red Eye, and you are the merchant that has been giving my Harbinger so much trouble.”

        “It has been a pleasure dismantling your twisted, amoral regime,”  I replied with poisonous pleasantness.  So this was Red Eye?  Hardly impressive to look at compared to some of the other monsters I had seen, but I was far from foolish enough not to understand the threat he represented; it was probably a cult leader like him that ushered in the apocalypse in the first place.  “And I look forward to evicting your murderous thrall from my home.”

        “You poor, misguided child.”  He shook his head in disappointment.  “While our methods may seem to be harsh, I assure you that we only seek to better the lives of everypony and the wasteland in general.”

        “By killing them in cold blood?!”  I snapped, slamming my hooves into the table hard enough to make the statuesque duke start and cause the other two to nearly jump out of there seats.  To the moon with diplomacy at this point, I wasn’t about to let this monster start glorifying his atrocities.  I stood and addressed the rest of the crowd.  “By stealing them from their homes?!  By stripping entire communities to the bone?!  By beating and raping them over and over again, until they are broken husks?!”  One of the pony shadows by the insectiod figures on the overlook shuddered at my last exclamation amidst a depressingly subdued murmur of unrest.

        “Truly depressing acts, all of them.  Symptoms of what is plaguing this world.”  Red Eye hadn’t even missed a beat in contemplation.  “Equestria is sick, but it is not beyond hope.  Within the Unity, there is no such strife.  We all work together towards the common goal of a restored Equestria.  But until such a time where all ponies are ready to join the greater good, to be truly free, none of us deserve such freedom.  Sacrifices must be made if we are to ever achieve our true utopia.“  I could hear Maple’s teeth grinding as she seemed to try and slowly drive her hooves through the solid steel floor.

        “Red Eye,”  the ice blue duke interjected before I could vent my furry at the slaver scum’s insistence that crimes against equinity were necessary sacrifices.  “We have already refused to join your organization and if we wish to hear sermons your emissaries seem more than happy to oblige us.  Could we stick to the reason for this gathering?  The legality of the Children of Unity’s presence in Stable 114.”

        “Yes, yes, of course,”  the unity stallion apologized with a curt bow and small flourish of his cape.  “Please forgive me, but this Stable buck reminds me of myself before I learned the truth and I hoped to educate him.”  I was sick to my stomach, not at the thought of having anything in common (aside from the physically obvious) with this murderer, but that I actually felt a twisted surge of pride from his praise.  “It is truly a shame that such a misunderstanding came between us.  As I am sure Harbinger has been kind enough to point out, we were invited to your Stable.”

        “So you have said,”  the orange maned, economic pony said impatiently.  “But that fails to provide evidence or explain why this pony,”  She gestured to me.  “clams that you slaughtered numerous ponies.  Forgive my skepticism, but that hardly sounds like a well intentioned integration.”

        “A truly sorrowful turn of events.”  The cyberpony shook his head, sounding genuinely remorseful, but with his skill with words it was impossible to be sure.  “We received this message nearly three weeks ago.”

        Another series of ripples spread across the magical mirror, distorting the red stallion’s image and replacing him with a jet black, middle aged, unicorn mare.  She was wearing a deep blue Stable 114 jumpsuit and had her golden mane pulled back in a tight bun.  She was standing in a circular office, in the middle of a ring shaped desk.  What did Mayor… no, er, what was it called?  Overmare, right.  What did Overmare Goldlight have to do with this?

        “This is Overmare Goldlight, twelfth administrator of Stable 114,”  the umbral mare stated, her voice sounding slightly distorted in the recording.  “I am herby officially requesting the assistance of anypony who can here this.”  She what?!  “The Stable‘s systems are failing and can no longer meet our growing energy needs.  We can not even divert enough power to open our own Stable door and supplement our resources.”

        Something was very wrong with this message.  Her speech patterns were off.  This message was a fake, no doubt about it.  I doubted that anypony else would notice, but I had known that stubborn mare my entire life.

        “And she had lied to you all those years,”  my arctic voice sneered.  “But this is a complete load of horse apples.  114’s systems may have been degrading, but it was far from starved for resources.”  How the hell would he know that?  I didn’t know that, how could my crazy?

        “Um, I’m just being logical,”  the thing in my head replied evasively.  “We came out that side passage so they obviously could get in and out.  Also, Maple would have mentioned it if the Stable was falling apart.”

        “We promptly responded to this cry for help,”  Red Eye announced as he repaired on the sheet of silver metal.  “We even expended the resources to bring a pre-war engine on line in order to remove their imprisoning door.”  He sighed and dipped his head, rubbing his temple with his left hoof.  “Unfortunately the administrator had neglected to inform her security forces of our arrival.  That unfortunate misunderstanding devolved into an attack.  My children defended themselves and claimed the surviving combatants in accordance to our treaty with your government.”

        “They shot first,”  the security mare at my side growled, quivering.  “Your raiders shot first and we defended ourselves.”

        The cyborg stallion turned his gaze on my companion.  “I understand.  Your leader’s failure must have made our arrival chaotic.  Your mistake, while costly in pony lives, is understandable and I forgive you.”

        The blue mare clamped her jaws over her fetlock hard enough to break her skin.  A thin trickle of blood flowed out of the corner of her mouth, mixing with the tears of rage that were rolling down her cheeks.

        She had lost her wife, and this monster was claiming that it was her fault.  I wrapped my leg around her shoulder and pulled her against my fluffy barrel, glaring daggers at the arrogant cult leader.  What I wouldn’t give to be able to reach through the augury spell and throttle this bastard.

        “Regardless,”  the crimson buck continued, addressing the councilors once again.  “I hope this has reassured you of my benevolent intentions.”  If I didn’t know better I would probably end up siding with the charismatic orator.  “Now if you will excuse me, my attentions are needed elsewhere.  I hope to see you again, it has been fun.”

        “Count on it,”  I promised, dragging my free fore leg off the table.  My diminutive claws scraped across the stainless steel table, leaving surprisingly deep grooves in the metal.  I immediately blanched at my blatant exposure of my own blemished nature.  An angry murmur came from the overlook along with a look of barely contained revolution from Lapis.  The statuesque noble was inscrutable as ever. Racket arched an eyebrow at me, pulling out a stylus and a small computer from a briefcase she had apparently been keeping in her lap and began to type something.

        “That is good to hear,”  Red Eye responded, seemingly oblivious of my unintentional display of my mutation.  “The Unity needs as many smart ponies as it can find.  Until then.”  the mercurial waterfall began to boil away, causing image of the magnetic ‘prophet’ to waver and vanish.  The alicorn who had been maintaining the spell collapsed in a heap; still breathing, but barely.

        The Preacher cantered back into the spotlight, a self satisfied smirk plastered across his face.  “The Unity rests its case.  We now await the council’s judgment.”

        The councilors exchanged brief glances and all fixed their eyes on me.  They had made their decision before Red Eye had even shown up.  The deceptive bastards had known that my claim was hopeless the entire time!  “The council has made its decision,”  Dawn Star whispered calmly, his magical voice instantly silencing the unrest my claws had caused among the observers on the balcony.

        I was just about to stand and protest their inevitable dismissal of my case when a message popped up on my E.F.S., disconcertingly filling my blindside with text.

        ‘>This was a farce from the start, but there is still hope for your cause.  Stay calm and dignified.  If you trust me we can bloody the Unity’s nose and both come out of this debacle squeaky clean.’

        “We will not be sending military forces to the Unity occupied settlement, Stable 114,”  the unicorn noble continued.

        Maple nearly leapt out of her seat at the white blond unicorn, but I pulled her in closer.  “No,”  I whispered In her ear, my eyes darting between the dozen power armored honor guards who had all leveled their magical rifles at the security mare‘s head.  “You can’t save anypony if you’re dead.”

        She growled, but stood down.  That was good.  There was no way I would have been able to hold her back if she didn’t want me to.  The guard ponies lowered their weapons but kept their eyes on my companion.

        “While your circumstances are truly tragic,”  the New Ministry of Peace mare apologized, eyeing Maple nervously.  “But we can not justify attacking our friends and allies on the word of somepony we barely know.  On top of that it appears that the Unity was well within their rights and are maintaining a legal occupation.  However, we are not without mercy.”  She extended her pink and yellow cloaked hoof to us.  “You will not be reprimanded for your attempted deception or turned over to the Unity for punishment.”

        “While you are still welcome in the city I have arranged for you to join one of my expeditions to a location of your choosing,”  Racket said with her impish smirk.  “It strikes me that a journey like this may be cleansing experience after what you have been through.”  Well that was hardly subtle.

        ‘>New Mission Objective: Speak with Racket in her office.’

        “I believe that concludes this matter,”  the well dressed mare continued, putting her computer back into her bag and standing.  “As everypony seems to be flustered I would like to motion that we take a recess to clear our heads before we take the day’s petitioners.”

        “That’s it?”  the slaver priest protested indignantly, trotting around the table to me.  “This stallion is directly responsible for the deaths of no less than thirty Children of Unity and there is no telling how may other ponies he has butchered in the name of his self righteous delusion.”

        “Now that is just silly,”  I replied, reapplying my calm front flashing him my pointed teeth.  “I don’t kill ponies.  That is the domain of sub-equine monsters like yourself.  I have no problem killing those.”  I warped my voice into a rather good imitation of Red Eye’s.  “Your mistake, while costly in pony dignity, is understandable and I forgive you.”  He glowered at me, flushing a light red and raising his hoof as if he planed to strike me.  Oh go ahead, please.  Give me a bucking excuse.

        “That is quite enough,”  an authoritative mare’s voice boomed across the chamber.  The room immediately went silent and all eyes went to the raised, overmare’s office.  The lighting had shifted to reveal the figure in the window to be a khaki earth pony with a slicked back, snow white mane and pale green eyes, standing in a wide stance with her forelegs crossed behind her back.  She was wearing a light blue military uniform with one breast nearly plastered with medals and a pair of small, square framed glasses perched on her snout.  She was completely motionless save for the rhythmic swishing of her tightly braded tail.

        “But general Permafrost-”  the slaver priest began to protest before being cut off by the militant mare.

        “Do not push your luck, Preacher,”  the imposing pony continued, leering down at the assembled politicians.  “The council may be forgiving of your insolence, but I am not.  You have won your case, do so with some dignity.”  She turned to me with a chilling stare.  “As for you, Merchant.  You have bucked a dragon’s snout and escaped with your life.  Don‘t waste that blessing.  Now, all of you, get out.”

        The general turned and all the chamber’s lights abruptly illuminated the assembled observers.

        The colorful mix of unicorns, earth ponies and griffins slowly milled out through a pair of doors on either side of the room.  The two insectoid figures were pegasi standing at attention, coated in thick, black armor with scorpion like tails and antenna like protrusions from their helmets.  To their right Echo watched us in a fresh pressed, pristine uniform, looking distinctly uncomfortable.  A fluffy, bubblegum pink unicorn mare with a spiky, indigo mohawk was asleep on her hooves, leaning on one of the two flamboyantly armored, earth pony stallions who flanked her.  The one on her right was wearing a caparison made from ring linked bottle caps and the other had a grizzly suit of metal armor, studded with sharpened unicorn horns.

Three earth ponies in the black accented power armor of the Black Apple Rangers were slowly making their way to the exits.  One of them, a tomato red mare with a black mane, was not wearing her helmet and looked as if somepony had taken a food processor to her face and then put it back together with bits of metal.  At the very back were two ponies with pale gray stripes (zonies maybe?) in tattered clothing that I doubted did much against the biting cold.  They were huddled next to a griffin wearing a ragged, New Ministry of Peace robe.

        Scoop bounded up to me and wrapped me in a tight embrace.  “I am so sorry,”  she mumbled, nuzzling the right side of my face.  I could feel my cold fury and unnerving bloodlust start melting away the moment I felt her warm body press against mine  “I honestly thought they would help.”  The little mare extended her other hoof and pulled Maple in so all three of our faces were smushed together, cheek to cheek.  “I promised you help and I will get it for you.  Ron and I will launch such a smear campaign that the public outrage will force the council to overturn its decision and do the right thing.”

        “You will do no such thing young lady,”  Racket scolded, trotting up to us.  Following behind, carrying her briefcase, was her aid, a little green colt.  The young pony had been sitting patiently in the shadows and actually looked rather adorable in his tailored, brown business suit.

        “And why not?”  the reporter mare asked indignantly, pulling her head out from between Maple and mine and pressing our faces into her chest.  My head grew a little fuzzy from the two mares’ combined scents and the oddly alluring aroma of the security pony’s still trickling blood.  “The Voice of Flankorage has the right to broadcast any message we feel is right.  The Frostborn can‘t afford to stop us, what makes you think you have the right to?”

        “I don’t,”  the aqua pony replied, shaking her head.  “But it is in your best interest to keep quiet for now.”  She adjusted her collar and trotted towards the door.  “Now, if you would be so kind as to follow me,”  She beckoned us with a flick of her orange tail,  “we can get some real business done.”

***        ***        ***

        “Miss Racket will be with you shortly,”  Paper Weight, the CEP’s little assistant colt, informed us from behind his desk.  I was having a hard time taking him seriously as he needed to sit on a thick stack of books to see over his own workstation.  “Please be patient and feel free to help yourselves to some hors d'oeuvres.”

        We were sitting in a plush waiting room on one of the upper floors of the needle-like skyport.  The brick red walls were lined with portraits of stuffy looking ponies in suits.  There was a set of double doors on either side of the room, one behind the colt’s table and the other between two fuzzy couches.  Maple and I were sitting straight backed on a red velvet lounge with Scoop sprawled out on our laps.  A few workers in burgundy uniforms wheeled in a cart covered in little brown crackers adorned with various spreads and garnishes.

        “So, what do you think she has planned?”  the security mare asked, polishing the Grim Harvest with an oiled rag.

        “I’m not sure,”  I replied, floating a wafer smeared with a yellow jam and topped with little red flowers into Scoop’s waiting mouth.  “All I know is that she definitely hates the Unity as much as we do.  She seems to be the only ally we have at the moment.”

        Paper Weight perked up and ran his little hooves through his chestnut mane.  “She will see you now.”  He pressed a button on the side of his desk, causing the doors behind him to slowly swing open.  “You might want to be quick about it, the boss lady isn’t known for being all that patient.”

        The aqua business pony was standing behind an elaborate desk.  She had changed into a clean, but far more casual corduroy jacket over a burgundy, twill jumpsuit.  This mare had a real thing for red.  “You, sir, have friends in high places,”  she said, leaning against her desk and waving us into her office.  We trotted in, with Scoop riding on my back.

        “Now, before we go over anything I need to ask, are you willing to fight for your home?”  the councilor pony inquired as the door remotely shut behind us.  “How far are you willing to go for this?”

        What an utterly daft question to ask.  I hadn’t trudged across sixty miles of monster infested wasteland, was shot repeatedly, nearly got eaten on three separate occasions and got horribly mutilated for shits and giggles.  “As far as I need to,”  I replied tersely, placing my front hooves in the table, opposite Racket.

        “Likewise,”  Maple interjected, still fuming from Red Eye’s message.  “I will go in there alone with a sharp stick if I have to.”

        “That is exactly what I wanted to hear.”  The orange maned mare grinned and narrowed her dark red eyes.  “Forgive me for my caution, but what I have set in motion isn’t what one would call legal.”

        “How illegal are we talking?”  Scoop asked, perking up and resting her chin on the top of my head.  Racket arched her eyebrow at the news pony on my back.  “… I won’t tell anypony, Crusader’s honor.”

        The executive pony contemplated this for a moment, scrutinizing the little, blue equine.  “Let‘s see... bribery,”  she finally answered, waving her hoof in the air,  “misallocation of military resources, fraud, sedition and conspiracy to commit treason.  Needless to say, if this goes badly we will all hang.”

        “Hang?!”  I exclaimed, taking a step back.  “I’m going to need you to elaborate on this a little bit.”

        “There was no way we could side with you in this case officially,”  the CEP admitted, sitting behind her desk and pursing her hooves in front of her lips.  “We can’t afford to officially act against the Unity at this time.  We are in dire need of their metal.”

        “Hold on,”  I stopped her, raising my hoof.  “Isn’t Flankorage a mining city?  How could you have a metal shortage?”

        “Yes, we have all the ore we could need,”  the aqua pony replied, waving her hoof dismissively.  “We even have the facilities to refine it into steel ingots, but what we don’t have are factories.  Before we made contact with the slaver empire we needed to have metallurgist unicorns craft our metal goods one at a time.  Meanwhile the Zebras had been bringing griffin factories back into operation for the last twenty years.  Griffin factories may not be up to the standards of Equestrian ones, but there is something to be said for quantity over quality.”  She stared down at her hooves and shook her head, causing a lock of her compulsively groomed mane to fall across her eyes.  “To put it frankly, we just didn’t have the horsepower to compete with all our enemies.  But since we started trading for I-beams with the Unity we have been able to drastically increase our infrastructure, and the larger munitions they can produce in Fillydelphia have allowed us to bring some of our most powerful vehicles and weapons back into service.  If it weren‘t for those windfalls we would have completely collapsed over a year ago and you would have emerged into a world where simply being a pony would be a death sentence.”

        “That is fascinating,”  I responded as politely as I could.  It was hard to remain pleasant after hearing that I had a band of slavers to thank for the ’good’ condition of the region.  “It truly is, but what does it have to do with me?”

        “I am simply trying to explain that this was the inevitable outcome from your appeal,”  Racket sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fetlock.  “It was not a reflection on your skills as an orator; which were impressive by the way.”  I puffed up my chest a from at her praise.

        “Anyway, here’s the plan,”  she continued.  “Officially, I am sending an arms shipment to Coltinvill in the south west with an escort of Frostborn Chevaliers and a hoof full of mercenary guards of my own.  You would join them and set up a new home in the resort town.  However, I have arranged you to take a detour to the ski lodge to recharge the vehicles.  While they are in the vicinity the expedition leader will decide to check in on our ’good friends’.  According to your testimony I doubt they would pass even the most rudimentary inspection and if all goes according to plan they will shoot first.  That will give us our pretext to liberate the Stable and restore your good name.”

        “That sounds like a big risk,”  I said, rubbing my chin.  “What’s in it for you?”

        “Would you believe me if I said it is out of the kindness of my heart and love for my fellow pony?”

        “No.”  Nothing is free.

        “Smart,”  Racket replied with a smirk.  “To be honest, it’s because those slavers are trying to run me out of business.  They attack my traders as soon as they get out of the valley, undercut my prices with their slave labor and are gunning to take my seat on the council.  So any opportunity I can take to hurt them is its own reward…  That and your patron is a very good pony to have owe you a favor, as I am sure the considerable resources that have been thrown behind this operation attests.”

        This ‘patron’ owed me a favor?  Who owed me a favor?  The drunk Shrike?  I didn’t kill her.

        “Yeah,”  Icy said snidely.  “You only left her alone among the corpses of her comrades.  And even if she was grateful I doubt some raider would have the pull to facilitate a plan this complex.”

        Right, right.  Um, who else have I helped?

        “And is still alive.”

        And is still alive…  That was a depressingly short list.

        “So,”  the business mare went on, forcing me to stop dwelling on my own shortcomings as a hero.  “Are you in or out?”

        “We’re in!”  Maple shouted before I could even think.  “When do we leave?”

        “Immediately.”  The aqua pony stood and trotted to the door.  “I have taken the liberty of adding you to the preferred customer list.  Get yourself resupplied from my stock room in the docking ring and meet the others in bay 7.”

        ‘>Canterlot Caravans fame gained, liked.’

***        ***        ***

        “Welcome to the Canterlot Caravans home office outlet!”  Paper Weight announced, ushering us into the shop.  The little colt had volunteered to be our guide for as long as we were in the sky port.  The gesture was just so cute, I couldn’t bring myself to point out that my PipBuck was a very competent guide, when I actually paid attention to it that was.

        We had taken a freight elevator up to the ring shaped hub.  The raw metal terminal was surprisingly roomy with nearly three pony lengths of clearance overhead.  Different colored lines were painted along the walls, leading out of the eight exits.  The inner ring consisted of guarded, warehouse like rooms between wide passageways to the outer ring and, I assumed, the docks.  Nearly a hundred ponies milled around between the corridors that lead to the zeppelin docks and the stockrooms.

        Looking around I saw that the eight docks were owned by the various factions I had seen in the council chamber.  One that had previously to belong to the Ministry of Awesome (I had always liked that name; it conjured images of action heroes sitting around a room, coming up with new kinds of coolness, awesomeness and radicalness… whatever the difference may be.) had become the Enclave dock with several of the insectoid armored pegasi protecting a black, metal door that looked like it had been recently installed.

To their right was the Equestrian military port with several bored looking soldier ponies playing a dice game; I supposed it made sense, who would attack their storehouse in their own city?  Next, in the former Ministry of Wartime Technology warehouse, a Black Apple Ranger and two roughly pony shaped robots stood watch.  The Ministry of Peace center had been transformed into a hospital by its newer counterpart.  The Unity had set up shop in the former Ministry of Morale storage area.  The Ministry of Image hub was serving as a lounge for aristocratic equines to relax in.  Almost coming full circle, I saw the Ministry of Arcane Science facility had become a savage looking hunter’s hall with over two dozen griffins admiring trophies ranging from iron gray dragon skulls to grizzly quilts made from flayed cutie marks; the scene wasn‘t doing much for my opinion of griffins.

        Finally there was the Canterlot Caravans store.  A pure white, earth pony mare with a sea blue mane, tied back in a pony tail and a pair of half moon glasses on her snout sat behind a cash register in the middle of the warehouse.  While nothing to look at, the depot put my store’s inventory to shame, with floor to ceiling aisles full of everything from motor scooters, and full body armor, to entire pallets of cocoa thermoses.  Despite the small fortune in goods on display there were no guards to be seen, but from what I had seen of Racket I doubted the store was as defenseless as it appeared.

        “We have the best selection and service in the city!”  the excited colt continued, bounding behind the counter, much to the chagrin of the salesmare  Even a princess thinks so!”  He pushed a small button on the back of the cash register.

        “I’m.  Princess Celestia,”  A regal, but obviously spliced together, voice to played from several concealed speakers throughout the room.  "And.  This is.  My favorite.  Shop.  In.  Flankorage.”

        “See?  See?”  the little, green colt chirped, bouncing up and down.  “Even one of the god princesses likes us.  So browse and enjoy.  I’ll go tell the expedition that we will be departing within the hour.”  With that the foal bounded off down the red marked corridor, more bouncing than running.

        “Isn’t he cute?”  Scoop asked, pressing her cheek against my neck.

        “Ayep,”  I replied, pressing my muzzle into her soft, midnight blue mane.  “Adorable.”

        “I want one.”

        “You what?!”  I exclaimed, jerking back.  I had never really considered having children.  Yeah, I loved her (At least I was fairly sure I did.  This was new for me, but it was something more than lust; I knew that.), but I had never expected this to come up so soon.  She was just so young.  I knew it was a possibility in the future, but so soon?  …Wait… it was a possibility now!  Sweet Celestia!  Was my the little mare in heat last night?!  What were the odds of conception?!  How long did it take until a mare knew?!  Oh I was so screwed!

        “No, you’re not,”  Icy differed snidely.  “She was, that’s the problem.”

        Not helping!  “Um-I-er,”  I stammered.  My eyes were unconsciously drawn to her soft, blue furred belly.  I knew there was no way she would show yet, but that didn’t stop me from thinking she looked a little rounder; though that was probably from the half dozen deep fried confections she had devoured at breakfast.  “I’ll take responsibility fo-”

        “Got ya,”  the little blue mare snickered, winking at me.  Maple trotted up, out of my blind side with the biggest, shit eating grin I had seen in my life.  My expression must have been priceless.  The little news pony must have intuited my other fear because she leaned up, pressing her cheek against mine.  “I’m not in season till next week,”  she breathed in my ear.  My legs turned to jelly.

        “You’re a sadist,”  I said with a fake sneer.

        “And just too damn cute,”  she replied, showing me a heart melting puppy dog face.  “You will need to find out just how sadistic and cute I can be when you get back.”

        “Sounds fun…  Hold on.”  I raised my hoof.  “When I get back?  Aren’t you coming with us?”

        “No, honey,”  the reporter mare replied, pressing her face against my outstretched hoof.  “I’m not.  If you are going to pull this off you are going to need Ron and I to start spinning your liberation as soon as it happens.  You have seen what the Unity can do if they have time to prepare and you can’t afford that.  I need to be here, to gather as much evidence of the Unity’s illegal activities as I can and present it at the same time as your attack.”

        “Stay safe,”  I said, pulling her into a tight hug.  While I lamented being away from her I was honestly relieved.  This was going to be dangerous and I couldn’t stand it if she was hurt.  Though given what had happened last time she had investigated the Enclave I wasn’t sure if she was any safer here.  “And don’t get caught.”

        “Same to you,”  she replied, and pressed her lips against mine.  “Promise you’ll come back and I promise I’ll be here.”

        “Deal.”  I let the little mare go and she darted back to the elevator.

        “She can take care of herself,”  Maple reassured me, putting her hoof on my shoulder.  “You need to focus on the task ahead.”  I sighed and nodded.

        The two of us browsed up and down the aisles for what we would need. Maple picked out a set of Frostborn combat armor with all its insignias painted over, and a big, drum fed shotgun.  I settled for a light armor weave jump suit and a few ceramic plates that could fit under my Boxxy Brown vest.  As for a weapon, I found a rifle in the magical weapons aisle that I could have sworn fired bullets, but on closer inspection it drum held a magical power cell.  My PipBuck labeled it a ’Beam RCW’, some kind of magical assault rifle that used the massive Arcane Charge Packs for ammunition.

        Now looking more like a soldier pony in her new armor, the security mare and I brought our new equipment, a healthy selection of medical potions and a saddlebag full of cocoa, to the cashier mare.  Thanks to Racket’s discount, I managed to haggle down to my PipBuck’s ‘suggested’ prices.

        As we were turning to leave I came face to face a jet black, insectoid helmet.  “AAGH!”  I shouted, nearly leaping out of my skin.  Without missing a beat, I slid into S.A.T.S. and targeted the thing.

        ‘>Echo >Head >95%’

        “Echo?”  I asked, letting the spell drop.  My E.F.S. compass had expanded into a little mini map.  The Enclave pony was wearing a much lighter version of the power armor I had seen the other pegasi using, consisting of a few angular plates over a pitch black body suit.  There were large protrusions from all four of her gauntlets and bladed sheaths covered the outer edges of her wings.  Her distinctive, arc shaped tail blade was still woven into her braded, teal tail.  “Goddesses, don’t scare me like that.”

        “I’m sorry,”  the soldier pony apologized, pulling up her face plate.  “But I urgently needed to speak with you.  I would have found you earlier, but that councilor you were talking to was carrying some sort of inhibitor and your PipBuck‘s tag only recently started transmitting again.”  Recently?… Paper Weight had the jammer on him.  Racket really didn’t want to take any chances.  “Oh, and hi Maple.”  the black mare waved.

        “What is it?”  I asked, heading to the Canterlot Caravans docking port, bay 7.  “It isn’t that I’m not glad to see you, but I have something I really need to do.”

        “Whatever it is, its less important,”  Echo insisted, easily matching my pace with eerily quiet hoof falls.  “I need to go back to your Stable.  That recording was fake and I fear I can prove it.”

        “Really?”  I asked, stopping in my tracks.  “I mean, I knew it was fake, but I didn’t think anypony else would, never mind prove it.  How?”

        “I am not at liberty to disclose that information,”  the armored pegasus said, shaking her head.

        “Then how is that helpful?”  Maple asked indignantly, between mouthfuls of shotgun shells.

        “As a soldier I can not divulge classified information,”  the umbral flyer responded with no signs of hurt or offense in her tone.  “But as I am on medical leave for my hostage experience, I can point you in the right direction as a private citizen and, I would like to say, friend.”

        “You can,”  I assured her, catching myself before I instinctively patted her on the back.  That would have gone very badly.  “And we were actually heading to Stable 114 anyway, to liberate it.  Would you like to join us?”

        “Officially, I must say no.”  The dark flyer pulled her face plate back down.  “However, I do believe I forgot my hair band the last time I was in the area and you would be amazed at how much freedom I have when it comes to retrieving Enclave property.  When do we depart.”

        “Five minutes ago,”  a little voice squeaked from my blind side.  I turned my head and saw Paper Weight tapping his hoof impatiently.  “Why is an Enclave trooper coming with you?  Did you ask Miss Racket?”

        “She is coming with us because we think she will be able to help us strengthen our case,”  I replied authoritatively, looking down at the foal.  “I have not asked your boss’ permission, but I doubt she would object.“  I hated needing to be domineering to a child, but I doubted I could afford to lose Echo to Racket’s apparent over cautiousness.

        “Fine,”  he pouted, looking all the more childish in his tailored suit.  “But hurry up, we need to go.”

        We followed the administrative assistant pony down the red lined corridor and into a wide, rectangular room with the far wall open to the sky.  Two thin, angular tanks were parked side by side, painted in arctic camo.  Each one had a quartet of pill shaped protrusions filled with blue gems the size of grown ponies and a single, forward facing gun that I probably could have shoved my entire leg down.  A modified version of the Equestrian flag was emblazoned on the side of each turret, with the silhouettes of Celestia and Luna on a graduating gold to purple field, on either side of Flankorage’s triangle of rings.

        About three dozen soldier ponies were waiting around the room in various states of readiness; only a third of them were in the Chevalier power armor.  One dark gray mare was dying her mane blood red in a sink by what appeared to be a maintenance station; her tail was the same red, but was showing cotton candy pink at the roots.  A brick red unicorn was absentmindedly throwing a small bouncy ball against one of the tank’s insignias with her bright yellow tail.  A tawny, unicorn stallion who was built like a rock was lying down in a corner with a scoped hunting riffle snuggled under one leg and a plush, orange pegasus under the other.  All the others were standing in neat rows in the center of the room, while a mare dressed in a greatcoat and smiley face hat marched up and down the lines.

        “Is there a problem ma’am?”  one of the guards, a sea green buck about my age, with a spiky, brown mane, asked nervously as Dawn Star stopped in front of him.

        “Yes trooper,”  the orange unicorn said contemptuously, glairing holes through the young stallions face.  “You were born.”

        The aqua soldier blanched and stepped back as the morale pony brought her massive cannondy cane level with his face.  What the hell was she doing?!

        I drew my new rifle and charged into the room, Maple hot on my heels.  “Don’t!”  I bellowed.  Why was nopony else trying to stop this?!

        “Wait!”  a familiar, gravelly voice came from behind me.  I turned to see a huge, red stallion in full body armor.  What was BARON doing here?

        I picked up the soft click of the unicorn noble’s cannon.  I turned back just in time to see the cannon’s trigger completely vanish.  I was too late.

        *Honk!*

        A spray of brightly colored confetti enveloped the soldier buck and blasted his mane back.  What had just happened?

        “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”  Dawn Star screamed, flailing her forelegs in the air.  As if on cue, all the other military ponies started singing.

        “This is your birthday song.”

        “It isn’t very long.”

        As abruptly as it had begun, the singing stopped.

        “Welcome,”  the morale mare called out brightly, waving to me.  “I’m so glad you took so long.  I was afraid I would need to rush this and accidentally put the cake mix in my cannon instead of the confetti again.  Oh, or a real shell, that would have been embarrassing.”  This pony was certifiably insane!

        “Umm, never throw me a party,”  I said, putting my weapon away.  “What is BA-er-The King doing here?.”

        “Everypony here knows who I am,”  the harnessed stallion spoke up from behind me as Dawn wandered off, blathering on about all the unpleasant things she could have filled her gun with (raw sewage and used needles stood out as being particularly unpleasant).  “There is no need for subterfuge.  Something big is brewing in the south and several powerful ponies have agreed to back my new alias in exchange for my support when the time comes.”  That was ominous.

        “What sort of something?”  Echo asked, cocking her head.  “I haven’t heard of anything.”

        “You wouldn’t have.”  BARON turned to the black pegasus.  “Not through all of the Enclave propaganda anyway.  There are more conspirators in the wasteland than most ponies dare to imagine.  Some of the major players are bringing their plans to fruition and somepony new has stumbled into their web of schemes.  Don’t ask me the specifics.”  The armored pony stopped me before I could inquire further.  “I have only seen the signs: the Unity is expanding their influence rapidly, Steel Rangers are increasing their patrols and even the Talons are gathering in numbers that haven’t been seen in over sixty years.”

        “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here,”  Maple said apprehensively, interposing herself between the immortal and myself.  “Last time you were with us was due to some form of twisted honor and you still nearly got Ocher killed.  Why should we trust you now?”

        “If you are worried that I’m only doing this for money or a pat on the head from the ponies who think they hold my leash I can assure you I am not,”  the armored stallion replied with an unnerving chuckle.  “I am in no need of money; in fact, collecting on my own bounty was a rather existential experience and one that will sustain me for decades.  As for why I am here, lets say I have a personal interest in seeing you succeed.”

        “Just keep your distance,”  the security pony growled, barring her teeth.  “I don’t trust you.”

        “A smart decision-”  BARON began before being cut off by an authoritative voice.

        “You can continue this discussion on the Rouncey.”

        A toned, yellow stallion was standing on the entrance ramp for one of the tanks, staring down at us with exhausted looking, slate gray eyes.  His brick red mane was ragged and rough cut in stark contrast to his freshly pressed officer’s jacket.  A trio of long, jagged scars ran across his face, with similar wounds scattered across every visible part of his hide.  His haunches were almost solid scar tissue and ragged brands of a crescent moons were seared into his hide where his cutie marks should have been.

        Rocksalt?!

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  -- Empathy - You have studied other ponies, giving you the inside knowledge of their emotional reaction to you. You will see the reaction level of the person you are talking to, when involved in an indepth conversation.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)Compilation)

Backtrack

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Eleven: Backtrack

“After ah beat ya I don‘t ever want to see you bam bahozlers around here again.”

        Rocksalt?!

        “Get the civilians out of here!”  Rock Salt barked, all subservience vanishing instantly.  “I’ll keep them off your tail!”

        “We can’t leave you here!”  I protested, charging a flare in my horn.  “We stand a better chance if we’re together!”

        “I stand a better chance if you get everypony out of here!”  The yellow stallion spun and bucked one of the creatures in the face.  “NOW!!”

        “Do as he says!”  Echo yelled, throwing her last two blades and crippling two more of the shaggy monsters.

        “Damn it all!”  I yelled.  “Fine, lets go!”  I ran to the other exit and motioned for the others to follow.  As soon as everypony else had gone I followed them down the earthen tunnel.

        “All right you feral fuckers,”  I picked up Rock Salt‘s voice at the edge of my hearing.  “The foal‘s shoes are off.”

        “But-but-but-”  I stammered, taking a set back from the yellow revenant.  “You’re dead.  The tunnels.  The demons.  I got you killed.”

        “Please,”  Dawn Star’s peppy voice chirped from behind me.  “It takes more than a few drooling mutants to kill a veteran Chevalier.”

        He was a Chevalier?  I looked back to the scarred buck.  From what I had seen, all the Chevaliers were unicorns; at least their armor was built with horned ponies in mind.  And even so, what was one doing as a slave for six years?

        “And you are, of course, the expert,”  Icy said snidely.  “As you’ve known what a Chevalier was for what?  Two days now?”

        I ignored the abrasive voice’s comment and slowly approached the yellow stallion.  The closer I got the clearer it became, it really was him.

        As soon as I got within leg’s reach I threw my forehooves around him.  “You’re really alive!”  I exclaimed, tears starting to well in my eye.  The flayed pony tensed when I lunged for him, but quickly relaxed.  “I didn’t fail you.  I didn’t get you killed.”  There was no way I would get such a redemption for Cave or Spruce, but one less death was hanging over my head.

        “No, I’m fine,”  Rocksalt assured me, dislodging himself from my sudden embrace.  “Thank you.  I was relieved to hear your group got out…”  He examined my eye patch and the scars that ringed my cutie marks, with a hint of sympathy on his otherwise dispassionate face.  “Mostly intact.”

        “You set all this up?”  Maple asked, cocking her ears and trotting up next to me.  “How?  For that matter, how did you even get out?”

        “It wasn’t too complex,”  the former slave replied, running his hoof over his facial scars.  “I may have gotten a little rusty during my years of captivity, but I managed to fight my way to an exit and up to the surface.  Then I looked for you, but I located a patrol first and made my way here to gather more help.  I hope that adequately explains the situation as we are on a tight schedule and the longer we delay the more likely we are to be caught.”  He made a sweeping gesture with his hoof causing all the soldier ponies to start gathering their gear and filing into the two tanks.  “We can continue our discussion later, but for the foreseeable future my attention will be needed elsewhere.”

        “Right, right.”  I nodded, blushing at my sudden show of affection.  “Anyway, we can talk on the way then?”

        “No,”  Rocksalt replied flatly, turning away and tapping a few controls on the side of the tank.  “You will be riding in the APC Rouncey.”  He nodded his head to the other tank.  On closer inspection that one had a notably smaller gun; though still unnervingly large.  “This one is a Tank Hunter Rouncey and only has room for my Chevaliers.”

        “Ah, got it,”  I said, feigning understanding; Tank Hunters were apparently smaller inside that APCs, whatever those were.  “I‘ll leave you be then.”

        I trotted over to the other vehicle as the dozen power armored unicorns and one noble joined the scarred buck.  Most of the other soldier’s had filed into our APC’s tail hatch and BARON was waiting for us by one of its massive, jewel encrusted pods.  The only ponies who had not yet taken their places were the red dyed mare, who was scrambling into a pink and yellow New Ministry of Peace robe and the bulky stallion who was putting his foal sized doll in a little army uniform… okay then.

        I climbed up the ramp and into the back of the tank.  The inside was claustrophobically cramped, with a bench running along each wall and another running down the middle.  Each of the side ones were packed with a dozen ponies, crammed haunch to chest; some had even adopted some odd, slouched back seating position to get a little more room.  Two more ponies in unarmored fatigues were visible through a hatch near the nose of the craft.

        “Granite!”  The blond mare with the ball called out, shouldering by me and poking her head out of the transport.  “You coming or not?!”

        “Yeah, yeah.  Hold your horses!”  the plushy laden buck replied gruffly as he trudged up the ramp.  “Just had to get Orchid here ready for battle.”  He had the stuffed toy strapped to his side with a foal harness opposite his rifle.  “She always needs to get ready last minute.”  He planted himself on the middle bench with a dull thud.

        “If that thing makes me miss a contract I’ll tear her stuffing out myself,”  the red mare sneered, settling down beside he tawny companion.  “As soon as I’m done with yours.”

        “I love you too sis,”  Granite chuckled, putting his chin on the mare’s head.  I had to assume these were some of Racket’s mercenaries, as they had none of the Frostborn’s almost mechanical discipline.

        Echo hovered up behind them, took one look at the cramped compartment and went rigid.  “I think I will opt out of the ride and follow from above,”  she stated, forcing herself to regain composure.

        I glanced back over my shoulder at the cramped partition.  Maple and BARON had settled on the middle seat as well, leaving little more than a nub at the end.  I had the distinct impression that we were cramming far more ponies into this thing than it was designed to hold; that or it was not designed with ponies as big as the King or Granite in mind.  There was no way she could ride without somepony touching her.

        “Hey honey!”  one of the soldier ponies, a mare who’s coat was unnervingly reminiscent of the green bile I had thrown up when I woke up in 114, called out to the Enclave pony with a condescending grin.  “I know you Enclave ponies think you’re all hot shit, but I can promise you our Rouncey is faster.”

        My airborne companion bristled, but hesitantly joined me at the top of the ramp, staring at the offending mare the whole time.

        “Excuse me,”  the robed mare apologized, nosing past me and nearly bumping into the umbral pegasus.  My heart froze in my chest for a moment as I was sure Echo would take the dyed mare’s head off.  Fortunately, my flying companion managed to show restraint and the New Ministry of Peace mare passed without incident, sitting down on the end of central bench gingerly; Echo and I would be standing apparently.

        The robed pony sighed, darting her eyes around the compartment and seeming to take great care not to touch anypony.  I had to wonder why she was coming along on this mission; she seemed to be unarmed and clearly was no combatant.

        The ramp hissed as it started to close, causing Echo to press herself against the ceiling to preserve what little space she had.  I cringed , when, for a brief moment, the compartment was plunged into darkness before the vehicle's own flickering, internal lights came online.  I couldn’t help but image myself back in the Stable 114 pod, thrashing against the clamps that were holding me down.

        Gulping, and shaking my head to clear my mind I trotted up to the cockpit.  The drivers were far better illuminated than the dreary crew compartment, with well lit displays and dials (what exactly they were supposed to mean was an utter mystery to me.) and the heavily filtered daylight coming in from the several reinforced windows that ran around the tank’s nose.  The entire area had a soft, pleasant glow.

        Intending to wander into the driver’s compartment, as there was obviously no place for Echo or I in the passenger area, I turned to see how my aerial friend was fairing.  Not well.  Her head was darting from side to side and while I couldn’t see her expression through her face plate her body language was unmistakably apprehensive.

        I glanced around to try and find anything that could help her  and spotted an alcove in the ceiling, roughly where the tank’s main gun was.  The Enclave mare followed my gaze and without warning turned into a teal streak, zipping into the crawl space.  She apparently found enough space to turn around as she wiggled back out head first and rested her chin on her folded, front legs.  If it weren’t for her carapace armor (yeah, that name fit) it would have probably been cute, but as it stood, it looked like a massive bug was glowering at everypony onboard.

        With a half smirk I totted into the warmly lit cockpit.  One of the two ponies, a puce, earth pony mare, glanced away from a ceiling mounted helmet like display and gave me a look over.  “We’re about to move out.  If you want to sit up here you can, but you need to strap yourself in.”  She pointed over her shoulder to a fold out seat by the hatch.

        ”We can’t have you bouncing around in here while we are trying to drive,”  the other operator, a nearly black-brown unicorn stallion with his horn covered by a clamp like the one from my Stable pod, continued without looking up from his displays.  Why would anypony want to put their horn in one of those horrid, magic sucking devices?

        I nodded and sat down on the seat.  I wasn’t entirely sure why they expected me to be ’bouncing around’.  I was hardly some little foal and I wasn‘t a childish pony… at least not as far as they knew.

        As soon as I had gotten myself magically strapped in (I couldn’t help but pity the earth ponies and pegasi who needed to manipulate the moderately complex straps with only their hooves and teeth.) the Rouncey rumbled to life with a deep hum.  A violet glow came from both sides of the machine that looked almost identical to a unicorn‘s magic field.  A massive door at he back of the hanger that I had previously mistaken for a wall, ground open, revealing the overcast sky and distant mountains.  We slowly began to slide towards the empty air.

        I pressed myself back into my chair to put as much distance between me and the ledge as was ponily possible, despite knowing full well how pointless it was.  Were they out of their pony minds?!  We were at least a hundred stories up and in a freaking tank!  Why in Equestria would they open a door to the sky?!

        “Express elevator to hell!”  the bile colored mare from earlier called out from behind me with almost sadistic glee.  “Going down!”

        I instinctively clutched my seat with my fetlocks as the machine jerked and lifted into the air a moment before we plummeted off the edge.  My pulse rocketed and my insides all surged into my head as we plummeted down towards the relatively crowded thoroughfare below.

        “UAHAHA!”  I squealed like a filly as the tank nosed up and leveled off just above the rooftops.  “Were flying!”  I cried in excitement, watching the bundled up ponies move between the various buildings, looking like swarms of fluffy, rainbow ants in a maze.  Flankorage its self looked like a series of concentric rings, split by eight main avenues radiating out from the sky port; each of the resulting wedges were sliced up in a more traditional grid pattern.  “We’re really flying!  Maple, you need to see this!”

        “Yes, I know!“  I heard Maple bellow from behind me, sounding slightly muffled.

        I pried my eye away from the breathtaking view to pear back into the other partition.  Echo just sat in her cubby space, motionless while most of the soldier ponies were just sitting there, looking stoic and obviously used to this sort of thing.  Granite had his face buried in a rather soggy looking paper bag while his sister just stared straight ahead, grinning madly, from ear to ear.

        The security mare had clamped herself around one of BARON’s forelegs, burying her face in his shaggy, blond mane  “Tell me when we stop!”  she yelled through gritted teeth and a face full of stallion.  The hooded, ministry mare poked her head up and silently nodded in agreement, apparently doing the same thing with the armored stallion’s other front leg.  The possessed buck’s expression was indiscernible through his helmet, all I could see were his eyes, slowly looking back and forth between the two terrified ponies that were affixed to him.

        I swiftly shifted my attention back to the windows as we soared over more of the city, making a wide, banking turn back to the south.  I knew I should have felt bad for the traumatized ponies in the back, but this was just too much fun.

        What unicorn foal hadn’t dreamt of flying through the air like a pegasus?  I was nearly inconsolable when I first found out my magical affinity was for light spells instead of growing wings like Mare Do Well.  It had taken Primrose throwing me off the roof so my mother could catch me and float me around with her magic to finally cheer me up again…  I was coming to save you Primrose.  I was coming to save everypony.  With with my new allies and this flying tank there was no conceivable way I could fail…  Oh, she would just flip out when she saw the freaking, flying tank.

        “Looks like we popped a few newbies today, Bore,”  the mare, who I assumed was the gunner, giggled and nodded to me.

        “Just make sure they don’t pop all over my nice, clean ship,”  the unicorn pilot replied, looking back to the passenger area; it was only for a moment, but the knowledge that nopony was controlling the flying block of metal made my heart to lodge its self in my throat.  “Okay, Sabot?”

        The purse pony unbuckled herself and stood up with a degree of stability I didn’t think possible and cantered over to me as if she were strolling across a room instead of a flying tank.  “You want a better look?”  she asked sweetly, planting herself down next to me.  I caught a flash of what looked like a bullet with a big grin emblazoned on her flank.  “You can use my seat if you like.”

        “Really?!”  I exclaimed, leaning forward and making the security straps dig into my chest.  I magically fumbled at the clasp until Sabot stopped me by gently pushing me back in my seat and pressing the release with her nose.  The moment I wiggled out of my restraints Bore made another wide turn and I slid out of my seat and landed on my haunches wit a dull thud.  “Ow.”

        “Come on,”  the militant mare said, wedging herself under one of my forelegs for support.  She lead me over and practically lifted me into her seat, buckling me in with practiced ease.  “Now I’ve put on the main gun’s safety so you can’t shoot anything, but feel free to play around with the turret cam.”  She lowered the half helmet onto my face, taking care to slip my horn into a slot in the top.

        As soon as the display was secured around my head everything around me fell away and was replaced with a sweeping view of the city.  It felt like I was actually sitting on the top of the tank.  No, scratch that, it felt like I was the tank.  Every movement of my head was mirrored by the vehicle’s gun.  I could hear the hum of the levitation pods and the low murmur of the thousands of ponies going about their daily lives below, I could even feel the cold wind whip against my face.  A small set of crosshairs were in the center of my vision and small indicators telling me how much ammunition was left, heat in the gun, the condition of the tank and a radial map like the one on my E.F.S. only far larger.

        The Rouncey dipped down, flying low down the southern thoroughfare and heading for the massive gate I had seen coming in.  Everypony in the street below paused what they were doing and looked up at us as we swooped overhead.  I giggled childishly and was dully aware of my real body shifting back and forth on the upholstered chair.  My only disappointment was that I seemed unable to turn more than thirty degrees in any direction and everything just out of my field of view just seemed so interesting.

        Rocksalt’s ‘tank hunter’ swooped down in front of us on pillows of white magic as we cleared the city proper and soared out across the open ground that encircled the decrepit metropolis.  A trio of armored cargo carriages sat idly on the main road.  The front two were pulled by a team of six ponies in heavy, metal armor and the third had a team of two hulking buffalo steers in heavy furs.

        I had never seen real buffalo before.  Well, technically I had never even seen an earth pony until a week ago, but anyway.  They were far larger than the little heifer I had been in the memory orb; I had to assume that she was the exception and most buffalo ladies were more… reasonably scaled.  I was rather curious as to why they would be up here as, from what little I knew about them, buffalo were from far warmer regions.  I would need to make a note to talk to them when I got the chance.

        Both of our airborne tanks flew down to float on either side of the small caravan, just above the ground.  As we passed them I could have sworn I could smell the two bison, sort of a mix of honey, sweat and curdled milk; distinctive to say the least.

        I dully picked up the gunner mare‘s voice with my real ears.  “Well, I have a job to do now.”  She pulled the helmet off my head, causing my consciousness to snap back into my own body.  “Hope you had fun.”

        “Uh huh, yeah,”  I replied, still a little disoriented from my glorious time as a flying block of metal.  I had to do that again.  “That was wonderful, like a dream, only real.”  I leaned up as the puce pony deftly unhooked my restraints.

        “Yeah,” she replied, untangling me from the belts and ushering me out of the seat.  “It can get really trippy the first time.”

        I spread my forelegs wide and looked at Sabot with a warm smile; taking care to keep my claws and fangs hidden.  “May I?”  The black maned gunner smirked, nodded and copied my pose.  “Wonderful.”  I wrapped my legs around her in as tight a hug as I could manage.  “Thank you, truly.”  I caught an appealing sent and snuffled, following the smell back to its source and closing my eye so I could focus in on it.  My nose found its way to the nape of the soldier mare’s neck.  It was sort of a meaty sweetness, not quite as nice as Scoop’s, but still quite intoxicating after my euphoric flight.

        “Okay, that’s enough,”  Bore instructed from my blind side with a tone that could have meant either amusement or a warning.  “My wife is a wonderful mare, but you’re getting a bit too familiar there, kid.”

        I snapped my eye open and disengaged myself from the generous gunner, shaking to clear my head.  I had always been a fan of the lady folk and fairly sensitive to smell, but this was getting unnerving.  Oh geez, I mentally prostrated myself before the little Scoop in my head, begging for forgiveness.  I was dully aware of the rear hatch’s low hiss as it slid down and the clang of armored hooves marching down the ramp.

        I looked back up and saw that Sabot was nearly as flustered and embarrassed as I was, fixing her uniform where it had gotten rumpled against my chest and avoiding eye contact while wearing a blush up to her ears.  It was rather odd that she didn’t try to push away when I started sniffing at her mane.  I puffed up my chest a bit.  Maybe it was my soft, silky coat, my dashing eye patch or my own natural charm.

        “Or it might be the fact that you are the only pony here who has bathed in the past few days,”  Icy sneered, stomping down my ego.  “She might have just been wondering at the exotic smell of soap.”

        “Right, sorry about that,”  I apologized, nodding to the pilot.  “I got a little carried away after my flight.  It won’t happen again.”  I turned back to the puce mare.  “Thanks again.  So, will we be stopped long?  Maybe I should go take a walk.”

        My left eye itched.

        “Not a good idea,”  BARON said, walking into the cockpit with the dyed mare still clamped around his front left leg.  “You spit in the Unity’s face and got off with a fetlock slap.  They do not take such offenses lightly.  If you step outside now you may very well catch a bullet with your face.”

        I blanched and took a step backward, bumping my haunches into Sabot’s controls; fortunately, she was still self-conscious enough not to chastise me for it.  “Th-they would attack me inside the city?”

        “Inside the city is where you’re in the most danger,”  the robed mare spoke up from my harnessed companion’s leg.  “Lots of ponies with lots of guns and any one of them could be on the Unity’s payroll.  I’m Red Tape by the way.”  She extended her hoof to me, but immediately pulled it back as she began to slide down the huge stallion’s leg.  “I’ll be the one declaring your Stable in violation of basic pony rights and legalizing our little invasion here.”

        “Um, pleased to meet you,”  I replied, taping her preoccupied hoof with my own.  “So, you will be fighting with us then?”

        “Me?!”  she gasped, growing pale and nervous at the very mention of combat.  “No, I could never…  I just file reports.  I-I’ve never even touched a weapon.”  I found that hard to believe, given what I had seen of the wasteland so far, but she did seem genuinely upset at the prospect.

        I bent down a bit to look her in the eye.  “So you will just be sitting in the tank then?”

        “It’s an IFV,”  Bore interjected.

        I turned around and cocked my head.  “A what?”

        “Infantry fighting vehicle, it’s not a tank.”

        “Okay then.”  I looked back to the dyed mare and repeated my question with the appropriate nomenclature.

        “No.”  She shook her head.  “I’ll be with the troops when they go.”  Her voice was growing shaky.  “If I don’t, this won’t work and our cover won‘t be believable.  I-I-I just need to try not to get shot.”

        I was actually a bit taken aback at that.  That was a degree of courage that I hadn’t expected to see outside of comic books, to go into a life or death situation and just hope that you would be okay for the sake of others.

        “You can call it brave if you like,”  Icy said snidely.  “I call it stupidity at best, inexcusable weakness at worst.  To be unwilling to defend yourself when you know many others are relying on your survival is just offensive”

        I nickered.  While he had a point, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being.  Icy could be as cynical as he wanted to, I wasn’t about to ostracize a new ally.  “Thank you for your help then.”  I patted her on the back.  “You have probably found the safest spot around.”  I looked up at BARON, who seemed rather un-amused.  “I recall you saying something about being very hard to kill.”  Very un-amused.  “Though I think you can let go of him now.  I don’t think we will be doing anymore aerial acrobatics.”  I looked over my shoulder to Bore and Sabot.  “Right?”

        “Not unless we’re attacked, no,”  the puce gunner responded without meeting my eye.  “The cargo carriages can’t fly so we will be hovering for most of the trip.”

        “Thanks,“  I said before returning my attention to Red Tape.  “See?  Come-on, you can let go of the oversized stallion now.”

        “But, what if we-we crash?”

        I just stared at her flatly.  “We are only six hooves up and in an armored box, we might bang our fetlocks.  You‘ll be fine.”

        Tape looked up and gulped.  “O-okay, if you say so.”  She slid down BARON’s leg and plopped to the floor with a cringe.

        “See?”  I said reassuringly as the armored stallion gave a sight of relief.  “How long will we be traveling by the way?”  I asked, addressing the army ponies again.

        “Assuming we aren’t attacked,”  the dark brown gunner answered, tapping out some calculations in in the air.  “I’d say about six hours before we split off the main road and make for your Stable.”

        “And I take it I can’t go outside during that time?”

        “That wouldn’t be advisable,”  the harnessed, crimson buck interjected.  “No.  As long as we are on an established route there is a chance for detection.  To be honest, it would be best if everypony other than the Frostborn troopers stayed inside until we break away from our official path.”

        “Ugh,”  I sighed.  “What am I supposed to do for six hours in a cramped tank?  …er, I mean IFV,”  I amended myself due to a dirty look from Bore.

        “You could try that memory orb the tramp hit you with,”  my arctic delusion suggested, almost hopefully.

        “I would advise catching up on some reading,”  BARON said, sounding disappointed that he even had to bring it up.  “But your blue friend still has her snout buried in both the texts you have with you and has insisted that I help her go over some of the more complex concepts in equine medicine.”  I had noticed that Maple tended to be enthralled with the Canterlot Journal of Internal Medicine and that zebra book, ‘Supernaturals’, whenever she had a moment of free time.  I had to wonder if she had missed her true calling as a medical mare.

        “Or you could try the memory orb,”  Icy repeated insistently.

        “Some of the soldiers will probably start up a few dice games in the back,”  Sabot mentioned, glancing over her shoulder.  “I’m sure they would let you buy in if you like.”  That sounded fun… and possibly profitable.  Not quite as good as card games, reading somepony’s face was less helpful when nopony needed to bluff and I had no intention of cheating.

        The massive Flankorage gate rumbled open, revealing the farmland beyond.  I hadn’t noticed in the dying light when I had first entered the city, but there were small, golden brown shoots starting to grow up among the berry coated vines.  The three wagons slowly began rolling down the highway.  Both Rounceys  took up flanking positions with the caravan, drifting after it so smoothly that a barely noticed we had started moving; though Red Tape still barely managed not to latch back onto BARON’s leg.

        “I hear memory orbs are a nice pass time.”

        “You’re not going to drop this are you?”  I asked myself under my breath, earning a few uncomfortable looks from the ponies around me.

        “No.”

        I sighed.  “I think I’ll give a memory orb a try, see if that can kill a few hours.  Thanks for the offer anyway.”  I nodded to each pony it turn and went back to the passenger area to find a place to nestle down and go comatose for a little while.

        Most of the troops had left and the dozen who remained split off into a few groups; the largest of them was headed by the obnoxious, green mare.  The two mercenaries had joined one of the games in progress and it was looking like the red one with the ball was taking everypony else to the cleaners already.  Echo was lying in her nook, motionless; with her helmet on I was unsure if she was keeping watch or just asleep.

        Maple was indeed lost in her books, with both texts open next to a first aid manual form the ski lodge survival kit.  The pocket book was covered in sprawling notes in red ink and the security mare seemed to be cross checking every instruction with both of the other books.  BARON shouldered past me, sat down next to her with a resounding thump and began browsing through her notes.  Every once in a while he would stop her and point something out or make an observation about efficiency.  If I didn’t know better I may have mistaken the mass murdering parasite for an experienced teacher.

        After giving the entire room a thorough look over I settled on a section of bench near the cockpit door and curled up on it.  I was rather uneasy about going into another memory orb given my last few experiences with them, but I had no intention of giving in to paranoia.  I floated out the transparent sphere and nestled it between my hooves.  Taking a deep breath I reached into it with my magic.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        I was struck with a blast of muggy air, thick with the sickly-sweet sent of rotting vegetation.  My tiny hooves crushed through a thin layer of brittle leafs and sunk into fetlock deep muck.  My short coat was slicked down with perspiration and my light barding was unpleasantly soggy.  I recognized my distinct, bulky form, spindly legs and muscles like tightly coiled springs.  I was in the buffalo heifer, Little Strongheart.

        My host was slowly walking through a dense jungle with an oppressive canopy, blotting out most of the pale light from the full moon overhead and a nearly solid underbrush that came up to the little bison’s chest.  The calls of numerous, exotic beasts echoed through the trees, sounding eerily harmonious with the mournful songs of nocturnal birds.  Despite the low light I could see unnaturally well.  As my host had no headgear on other than a small earpiece and a headband, I had to assume magic was involved.

        I had to admit that being female still threw me off, as did my inability to control any aspect of my body. But despite everything, having two eyes again was nice; I definitely didn’t miss the itching.  And muggy, while unpleasant, and not something I had any desire to repeat, was a new experience for me.

        “Oh,”  Icy groaned followed a series of low pops.  His voice actually sounded like it was coming from just outside my field of vision; my inability to move my eyes was driving me nuts.  “It feels so good to finally stretch my legs.”  An ethereal, light blue unicorn with an off white, spiky mane, who otherwise looked unnervingly like me, cantered into my vision.  His horn was semitransparent and looked like an icicle jutting out of his forehead and a coating of hoarfrost hung off his coat in some sort of imitation of my own fluff.  A large, frozen gear slowly rotated on his flank and a thin cloud of cold mist billowed off his body and pooled at his hooves.

        My host seemed to completely ignore the unnatural stallion…  Icy?  Is that you?

        “Yeah,”  the frozen stallion replied, bowing down and stretching out his back with another series of cracks.  “Yeah, that feels sooo good.”  He was sounding almost obscene.

        Wha-why are you here?

        “You expected me not to be?”

        Well no…  I mean yes, but…  Why can I see you?

        “Oh, that.”  The arctic stallion turned to me and gazed holes through me with his metallic blue eyes.  “I don’t really know myself.  Ever since that tramp woke me up I’ve just been feeling so cramped; I had never realized how small your head was.”

        Thanks.

        “Anyway,”  my, somehow manifested, delusion continued.  “You know how you have no control while you are in a memory orb?“

        Yes, it was frustrating.

        “Exactly.  Well I feel like that all the time now.  So I had the idea that I might be able to get some air if you used an orb and it seemed to have worked…  Or it just made your head bigger.”  He stopped and shrugged.  “Either way is good.”

        “Captain Strongheart,”  a young mare’s voice came from my host’s ear bloom, causing Icy to stop talking despite the fact that his ‘physical’ form could not have heard it; he apparently still shared my senses.  “Target is approaching.  All troops in position.”

        “Acknowledged Archer,”  my host replied, sounding far more tired than the award ceremony, but still determined.  She pushed ahead, leaving deep trenches in the sludge.  “I’m almost there.”

        The little bison emerged from the underbrush onto a low cliff overlooking a muddy road.  A large, green and brown striped vehicle that resembled an train sized millipede was slowly crawling down the road on a swarm of tiny legs.  Four much smaller, pill bug like, jet black vehicles with swiveling turrets on each side.  I would have been surprised if they could even hold three ponies inside.  There were also several zebras in suits of red leather barding sifting through the trees ahead of the insectoid machines.

        My host hunkered down in the mire and watched the precession.  She slipped a firing bit between her teeth and pulling her front hoof up to examine a bulky computer that resembled a PipBuck, but nearly enveloped her entire leg.  A topographic map showed nearly two dozen red dots that corresponded to the locations of the zebras and their vehicles; save for two in a dense patch of trees.  There were also five smaller, cyan dots scattered around a moonlit clearing in the procession‘s path, but I couldn’t locate who they represented through the dense foliage.

        One of the zebras stopped in front of the bush with the unknown, red dots and said something to her shoulder.  Almost immediately one of the black vehicles rolled up and enveloped the trees in twin jets of flame.  Two monsters that resembled six legged panthers with two squid tentacles sprouting from each of their backs ran, howling from the blaze.  The beast’s flight was short lived as the flame spitting tank shifted and incinerated both of them.  The sent of burning flesh wafted up into my host’s nostrils and made her feel sick to her stomach, but she refused to move or look away.

        We just sat patiently until the entire caravan had entered the clearing.  “Now!”  Little Strongheart shouted as soon as the last zebra stepped out of the tree line and into Luna‘s ghostly light.

        A series of explosions shook the jungle, blasting a flaming ditch around the zebra convoy and scattering the remains of three of the zebras across their comrades.  Before any of the soldiers could react a trio of missiles and what looked like a short spear-sized arrow pierced each of the flame tanks, causing them to erupt into blooms of fire, viscera and shards of metal.

        My buffalo host leaped down into the panicked mass of zebras and quickly dying fires.  One of the surviving zebras ran towards her, his entire left side burnt and peppered with shrapnel.  Wielding a mouth griped spear, he charged the heifer.

        Strongheart ducked low and brought her short horns up, into his throat.  Twisting to the side, she tore huge gouges in the zebra’s neck and throwing him over her shoulder.  She spun on her toe to face a second zebra, a mare with an assault rifle saddle, and clamped down on her firing bit.

        *BANG!*

        The mare dropped to the mud, gripping at the bloody hole that blossomed open in her chest.

        Two more enemies cantered up, flanking my host with a pair of flamethrowers.  Before they could strike a second massive arrow knocked one off her hooves and pinned her to one of the flaming wrecks.  The other Zebra stared in shock for a moment before looking down and seeing a thin blade materialize out of the front of her chest.

        An earth pony stallion in a jet black, full body suit flickered into existence, standing on his hind legs behind the skewered zebra and holding a long, needle like sword in his fetlock.  He twisted his weapon and kicked the striped mare off his blade, staring at my host through his featureless, bronze visor.  ‘Lancer’ was embroidered in purple across his right breast next to a similarly colored cloud and lighting bolt.

        I caught a glimpse of my bison host’s reflection in Lancer’s helmet.  Her face was covered in dark camo paint nearly the same shade as the massive bags under her eyes.  She was wearing a stripped down version of the equestrian military barding that the Frostborn used, a tattered, red and gold cape and a headband with a fiery feather in it.  A silver rifle was mounted on her battle saddle, opposite a blocky antenna array that was hooked up to her ungainly PipBuck.

        My host looked back to her primitive PipBuck.  Save for the millipede train‘s oblong, red blob, all the hostile dots had vanished; the last one winking out as a pink twister speared into the ground on the other side of the vehicle, throwing up a brown and red plume of grime.  The cyan contacts were all converging on our location.

        One by one the other dots fell in in front of Little Strongheart.  The first one was a familiar light khaki pegasus mare with a poofy, pink mane wearing a black and gray outfit that was reminiscent of Echo’s Enclave uniform.  She swooped down and hovered just above the muddy, blood soaked ground…  Where had I seen her before?

        “She was in some of the photos from the shipping pony’s shelter,”  Icy said, walking up to the flyer and circling around her and cocking his eyebrow and smirking as he passed behind her.  “She came in second to Rainbow Dash in the Winter Iron Pony competition.”

        That was it!  She was Dizzy Twister.  I was still wearing her Boxxy Brown vest.  Sure enough, as she got closer I could make out her name in purple thread on her lapel across from the same, purple crest from Lancer‘s.  Curse these inferior, buffalo eyes; even without my implant I could have made that out as soon as she came into view in my own body.

        A moment later, a blue, earth pony mare came bounding out of the trees and landed on top of the zebra train.  Her darker blue mane was held back with a twisted leather headband.  She had a large compound bow with a long spike extending from the bottom slung across her back and a quiver of the javelin-like arrows painted in various colors.  Her barding looked lighter than the others, consisting only of a hide vest, combat boots on her hind legs and thin, leather socks that came just above her fetlocks.  Her golden bow and arrow cutie mark seemed to be the only spot on her body to not be covered in small scrapes and paper thin scars.

        A unicorn in a bulky suit of camouflaged power armor, that didn’t match any of the three models I had seen, sloughed through the mud and sat down beside Lancer, sinking down to his hips.  A very large gun was strapped onto the middle of his back, with four missile tubes (three of which were empty), two on each side of the cannon.  All in all he looked more like a tank with legs than a pony.  ‘Hot Potato’ was painted in bold, black letters across each of his clunky shoulder pads and the cloud and lightning bolt were on his flank pads.

        Finally, a hooded figure in lose fitting fatigues and lightly glowing, formal shoes who seemed to trot on top of the sludge as if it was solid ground.  A pony sized platform, laden with various bits of equipment from guns to tools, was floating after her on a pillow of deep purple magic.  She went up the my host, allowing me to make out ’Turtledove’ on her uniform, and pulled off her hood.

        She was a zebra!  …And was drop dead gorgeous; I was new to female specific sensations, but I had the distinct (and rather tingly) feeling that my host felt the same way.  Her nearly pitch-black stripes framed her face perfectly and ran across her ruby red eyes like natural eye shadow and a mask at the same time.  Her striated mane fell across the left side of her face and flowed down her shoulder.

        “All hostiles have been eliminated Captain Strongheart,”  the Equestrian zebra announced in a smooth, lyrical voice, giving my host a salute.  “No distress signals managed to get around the new, Black Apple jammers and we should be able to make this look like a dragon attack.”

        ‘Very good,”  my host replied almost mournfully, nodding to the breathtaking zebra and trudging to the armored tank.  “What about the transport crew?”

        “It appears to be a drone,”  the armored stallion rumbled, his artificial voice sounding a good deal like BARON’s.  “My E.F.S. is registering it as a single target and any crew it may have had would have tried to fight us off.”

        The blue mare who, through process of elimination, I had to assume was Archer (the bow and arrow also have influenced my conclusion a little bit) hoped off the train and into the mire.  “We will need to make sure that its memory logs are destroyed beyond all hope of recovery, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”  She waded over to her second arrow, but seeing both it and the zebra it had impaled were burning furiously she just shrugged and returned to her comrades.

        “Then let’s get this done,”  the commando heifer said, putting her hoof on the millipede-train’s armored side.  “Lancer, it‘s all yours.”

        The faceless stallion nodded, sheathed his sword and dropped back to all fours.  I still found a bit unnerving how some ponies seemed to be so natural on their hind legs; any time I reared up for any length of time was very strenuous on my legs and back.

        My manifested crazy walked straight through the stunning mare with a grin on his frozen face.  “Not all ponies have the muscle mass of cooked noodles.”

        I couldn’t really fault him there, he was right and I had just set myself up for that one.

        “See?”  he continued.  “I abuse because I care.”

        Yeah, about yourself.

        “And your point is?”

        A loud roar drew my attention away from the arctic phantom.  Lancer had pulled a large rig with a circular saw blade from Turtledove’s floating cart with his fetlocks and had started to slice into the transport’s siding, sending a shower of sparks and metal slivers in all directions .  He was ripping through the steel plates as easily as if they were wood and had sliced an eight hoof square in a matter of minutes.  He calmly set the rig back down and bucked his new entrance in.

        The interior was pitch black, even too dark for the bison’s magical night vision.  My host pulled her hoof out of the mud and wiped it off on her flank before reaching up and pulling the phoenix feather from her headband.  She closed her eyes and pressed the plume to her chest.  We were filled with pleasant warmth, completely dispelling the oppressive, jungle air.  We opened our eyes again and the feather was glowing like a torch, with its own inner fire.

        Little Strongheart slipped the flaming quill back into her headband and stepped into the transport with Philomena’s feather burning away the murk.  The entire compartment was filled with yellow crates, each emblazoned with three pink butterflies but my host completely ignored them in favor of six heavily secured obelisks in the middle.

        She slowly approached the pillars, her breath catching in her throat.  Each of the stones were made from seamless, pink marble inlayed with ruby runes; while most were illegible to me I did recognize a few that had to do with medical magic.  They all seemed to hum and glow as the phoenix feather’s fiery light washed over them

        “It’s a mega spell,”  Icy gasped, materializing beside me.

        A mega spell?!

        “Yes. One of the earlier, modular ones.  A  mass heal if I had to guess.”

        How do you know these things?  I’ve never looked into mega spells or anything to do with really powerful magic for that matter.

        “You must have seen something and I just put two and two and two together,”  he replied defensively, glairing at me.  “And to be frank, I am a lot smarter than you are.”

        “Hot Potato!”  my host bellowed, turning and galloping back out into the moonlit battlefield.  “Get me a line to Captain Stalwart Shield on the Appaloosa, now.”

        “Yes ma‘am!”  the armored stallion boomed, setting up what I assumed was communication equipment.  “But I will need to deactivate the jammer and we haven‘t managed to shut down the drone‘s distress call.”

        “It doesn’t matter,”  the bison replied quickly, looking around nervously.  “We need extraction immediately.  There is no time to be subtle anymore.  We have a traitor on our hooves.”  Little Strongheart’s voice quieted to a horse whisper as she nuzzled the tattered Crusader’s cape.  “And I pray it isn‘t who I think it is.”

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        I stretched out on my little section of bench as I was shook awake from my nap as the Rounceys came to a halt.  The orb had only managed to burn about half an hour and, despite Icy’s prodding, I was not interested in dealing with the stifling jungle atmosphere again.  I played a few rounds of dice and shared a half shot of something from a gas can labeled ‘the good shit’ with Granite and his sister who I had learned was named Alabaster.  That had been a very bad idea; my head was still throbbing and I had the distinct impression that a full shot would have made me go blind.

        “Get yourself ready,”  Maple instructed softly, still shaking my shoulder.  “We’re at the ski lodge and you need to get ready to fight.”

        “Huh?  What?”  I asked groggily, scratching at my eye patch; damned thing itched again.  “What happened to just trotting up to the Stable door?”  All the soldier ponies were gone, leaving only Maple and I in the compartment.  My fur rustled in the icy wind that was blowing in from the open hatch, dusting the vehicle’s interior with snow.  I had nearly forgotten how cold real snow could be; even my new coat was having a hard time compensating for it.

        The security mare brought my armor plates over to me.  “Delayed.  The slaver scum set up camp here and…”  She adopted a dower demeanor and put on an imitation of Rocksalt’s voice.  “We can’t afford to have forces at our back when we go into battle.”

        I slipped the pads under my jumpsuit with a snicker.  “That was pretty good, but why are we fighting?  We have two tanks-”

        “IFVs!”  Sabot yelled from the cockpit.

        “IFV’s,”  I amended.  “Why do we need to fight?”

        “To preserve our ruse,”  the white maned pony continued in her Rocksalt voice.  “The Frostborn can not be linked to any hostilities before we approach the Stable proper.”  That was a good point, the soldier ponies had fairly distinctive equipment from what I had seen, the Chevaliers even more so and it would probably be hard to mistake whatever kind of craters the massive cannons on the Rounceys made.

        BARON trotted out of the cockpit with Red Tape latched to his leg again.  He was carrying my robotic eye in his tendril-like arms and my new gun in his mouth.  The armored stallion walked over and dumped them at my hooves.  “I took the liberty of making a few modifications.”

        “What sort of modifications?”  I asked, floating it to my face and magically screwing it into its base plate.

        “As your new weapon has an integrated scope, I set it up to link directly with your eye,”  the red buck replied, trying to gently pry the robed mare off his leg.  “So you will be able to use it to see around corners and aim without floating it in front of your face.”

        Huh.  As soon as I finished hooking up the armored cable to my PipBuck I found my field of vision split between BARON’s face and the gun’s view of my hooves; the split was more nauseating than the eye usually was.  “Thanks… but-um, can I turn it off?  It seems a bit distracting.”

        “A polite understatement,”  Icy hissed.

        “Yes,”  the big pony said, finally succeeding in dislodging the dyed mare and dumping her on her rump.  “Just think of winking the synthetic and it will toggle between its two modes.”

        I winked and my vision shifted to its regular, fuzzy imitation of pony sight.  “Thanks.  So, what are we up against?”

        Maple kicked a full drum into her shotgun.  “According to Rocksalt, they have a working tram to the top so the numbers may change.”  So that’s why they set up shop there; that tram would make the trips up and down the mountain far easier.  “But at the moment there are about twenty with five scrappers and a pair of griffins.  With the four of us and the two mercenaries Racket hired it shouldn’t be too hard.”

***        ***        ***

        I shifted in my snowy perch overlooking the ski lodge.  I looked through my beam RCW’s scope at the raiders who were slowly encircling Maple, BARON and the two mercenaries.  My telekinesis twitched nervously around my weapons trigger as I lined up my sights with one of the two griffins and waited for the signal.

        As everypony else only used close range weapons, it was decided that I was to provide cover fire while the others got close by pretending to be looking for work.  The whole thing made me uneasy.  For one thing: while surprisingly good at it, BARON was not as skilled a liar as I was.  Secondly: I didn’t recall getting completely surrounded as being part of the original plan.  I was half tempted to just open fire and hope for the best.

        Without warning, my harnessed companion leaped forward and slammed both his front hooves into either side of the lead scrapper’s head, caving in the metal and pulverizing the skull.

        All at once everypony sprung into action.  I opened fire on my griffin target, perforating her with dozens of tiny holes and igniting her coat.  As she fell in a flaming ball of feathers a black streak shot out of the sky and slammed into the second griffin who vanished in a poof of feathers and red mist.

        I shifted my aim to the raiders and started picking off ones who moved away from the group.  Maple and Granite enveloped the disorganized slavers in clouds of bullets from their battle saddles while Alabaster pelted them with grenades.  The remaining scrappers fell in twisted heaps as BARON bent them into unnatural shapes, shrugging off shots from their spike rifles.  We were taking them apart.

        I noticed a red bar on the edge on my E.F.S. compass (I was too far away from Echo to use its radial form) and rolled onto my back in time to see a purple, Unity stallion baring down on me with a large sword that had once been part of a wagon in his teeth.  I leveled my magical rifle with his head, but my shot went wide as the buck knocked my gun out of my magical grip with his blade‘s surprisingly long reach.

        I managed to set off a flare in his face before he could bring his weapon back around cleave me in half; fortunately, his reach came at the cost of recovery time.  I rolled to my hooves and scrambled to recover my weapon.  I almost had it…

        *Crunch*

        I shrieked as the slaver brought his sword down on my right, hind leg.  The blade carved clean through my hoof and splintered my bones as it bifurcated my leg nearly to my knee.  I could feel my blood rushing out of my body in head spinning gushes.

        I managed to maintain enough of my concentration to force a healing potion down my throat as the raider yanked his weapon from the ravaged remnants of my leg.  My flesh knitted closed and my mind to stop swimming, but my bones just felt twisted and wrong.  He hurt me…  He may have crippled me!  This monster was keeping me from my home and I had to make him PAY!

        The edges of vision blurred red and I could feel my jaw loosen as I staggered back to my intact hooves, practically seething.  My nostrils flared.  I could practically smell the blood rushing through his veins...  I had no intention of letting it stay there much longer.

        The violet stallion swung his sword back at me, trying to take off my head.  He was just so slow, like he was moving underwater.  I managed to duck under his blow and embed my horn in his chin, punching through all the way to his palate.  Not wasting a beat , I drove forward, forcing him onto his back and planting my clawed, front hooves on his chest.

        He tried to knock me off, but I just shifted my head forward, lengthening the gash under his chin and jamming his mouth held weapon against the back of his mouth so hard that several of his teeth cracked and went with it.  He tried to cry out, but he only managed to inhale the jagged remains of his teeth.  I bared my fangs and growled.

        I reared back, ripping my horn from his muzzle, and slammed back down, claws first.  The little talons sliced through his meager barding as if it wasn’t even there and passed into his hide.  I yanked my hooves up, flaying off ribbons of flesh, and slammed them back down again, and again, and again.  Eventually my knees got tired and I just started digging.  My hooves passed through the raider’s body as easily as if it was made of clay.

        I finally struck snow and crawled off the raider, leaving his barrel hollow and his insides scattered across the slope.  I was soaked up to my knees in blood, matting my fur down and slowly dripping into the snow.  The smell was nearly euphoric.

        I brought my fetlock up to my nose, pressed my muzzle into the soaked fur and inhaled deeply.  My mind went completely blank and I let out a stuttering moan.  One little taste wouldn’t hurt…

        “Don’t do this,”  Icy cautioned sternly.  “It’s wrong.”

        “No…”  I sighed, still quivering from the blood smeared across my snout.  “How could something this glorious be wrong?”

        “It’s cannibalism!  Don’t do it!”

        “No it isn’t.  He wasn’t a pony.”  I stared at his excavated corpse as a line of drool rolled down my chin.  “It isn’t cannibalism if I eat a monster.”  I opened my maw wider than I thought was physically possible.

        “STOP!”

        “Ocher!”  a mare’s voice called out from above me.  Startled, I spun towards the source of the sound, causing my tenuous hoofing to slip out from under me and burring my muzzle in the snow.

        I pulled myself up, coughing and sputtering from the rapidly melting snow and broken pine needles that had gotten stuck up my nose.  “Uugh,”  I groaned, slightly disoriented and absentmindedly rubbing my sore jaw.  “What the hell?”  I looked up and saw a black armored pegasus hovering over me.  My head was clearing rapidly.  What was going through my head?

        The Enclave pony pulled up her mask and looked at me with her ears drooped.  “The battle is over,”  she said with a nearly imperceptible note of sorrow in her voice.  This felt oddly similar to when I had found the soldier mare going ballistic in the timber yard’s larder.  “We need to regroup… but I can take circuitous route if you want to talk.”

        “No, no, thanks,”  I replied, shaking my head and trotting away from the raider I had painted the landscape with.  I was too close to home to afford anymore distractions.  I almost ate that thing, but this needed to be finished before I could give this problem the attention it deserved.  “I may take you up on that later though.”  I wiped the remaining blood stained snow from my snout.

***        ***        ***

        Echo and I walked into the central building of the ski resort, nodding politely as we passed BARON and Granite who were systematically checking the outlying buildings.  The interior of the ski lodge was much as I remembered it, the same fine wood work and rustic atmosphere; the Unity had surprisingly taken the time to clean the slimy remnants of the Shrikes off the walls.  Maple and Alabaster trotted out of the dining area, each with a sack of canned foods across their backs and chuckling at something.

        The security mare cantered up to me, digging something out of her bag.  She pulled out bag of chips and immediately dropped them on the floor when she caught sight of me.  “Hayayayay.  Goddesses, what happened to you?!”

        “The slavers had some scouts,”  I replied calmly, still limping on my damaged leg, despite the magical cast I had wrapped it in.  “One came across my hiding spot and things got a little hairy.  Echo got the others.”

        “You look like a mess,”  Alabaster commented, pulling out her ball and magically dribbling it.  “You sure you didn’t get run over by a dragon?”

        I shook my head.  “No, no.  Just a raider with a very big sword.  Anyway, is the building clear?”

        “Mostly,“  the blue, security pony replied, trotting around behind me and taking a close look at my recently bifurcated leg.  “We haven’t gotten to the top floor yet, but you need to get this leg set properly.”

        I looked over my shoulder.  “Can you do it here and now?”

        She sighed and shook her head in the negative.

        “Then it will need to wait until BARON can do it anyway,”  I said obstinately, hobbling over to the stairs.  “Might as well finish clearing this building and seeing if we can use that tram.”  I had too keep doing something.  I had to stay productive or I was liable to tell everypony what I had almost been driven to do…  What I had almost wanted to do.

        I forced my way up to the third floor, the three mares in tow.  I heard a familiar mare’s voice coming from up ahead.  “Fucking hell!  I fucking found the only sober fucking raiders in fucking Equestria!”  Where had I heard that voice before?

        I pulled out my rifle and walked onto the tram station.  A shaggy, blue, unicorn mare with a tangled blue green mane was magically tearing through the bags of a scrapper and his raiders; they looked like they had been sliced apart.  It was that drunk, Shrike mare from before; no wonder I had a hard time placing her voice, she wasn‘t slurring.  What was she still doing here?  And more importantly, why was she surrounded by eviscerated slavers?

        “Hay!”  the Shrike mare yelled, spotting me.  “I know you!  You didn’t shoot me that one time and killed the others!”  She rushed up to me, dropping to her haunches a good thirty hooves away and slid the rest of the way on her rump.  “Thanks.”

        I cocked my head.  “Huh?”  ‘Killed my allies and left me alone in a a puddle of my own slime’ equated to ‘thanks’?  The others came up behind me, but I stopped them with a raised hoof.

        “You have no idea how much liquor they had lying around,”  she continued, grinning from ear to ear.  “I got to sleep in the boss’ room, nopony complained about my singing; it was wonderful… until I ran dry.”  This mare was oddly talkative and open, it was kind of creeping me out.  “Anyway, these ‘Unity’,”  she bobbed her fetlocks in quotations,  “folk showed up a few days ago and threw me in a cage.”

        “Um… well,”  I replied uncomfortably.  “That’s nice, but what happened here?”

        The deep red mercenary mare trotted past us and over to the bodies.  “I’m not a doctor pony, but…”  She rubbed her chin and stared intently at the dead scrapper.  “He seems to have come down with a terminal case of dead.”

        “Thanks, that was very informative,”  I said flatly before turning my attention back to the blue Shrike.  “So you’re okay then?  No hard feelings?”

        The fuzzy unicorn waved her hoof dismissively.  “None whatsoever.”  She leaned in closer and narrowed her eyes and her voice became dead serious.  “But I do have one thing to ask you.”  This couldn’t be good.  “Do you have anything to drink?”

        “Um, yes,”  I replied, bemused.  “Would you like some?”  She nodded her head eagerly.  “Well let’s see.”  I dug through my bags and pulled out a few bottles.  “I have water, cocoa, Sunrise Sarsaparilla, Sparkle Cola, I brought a few fresh-”

        The azure unicorn stopped me by pressing her hoof to my mouth; the smell alone was nearly nauseating, never mind the taste.  “Let me tell you a few things about me.”  She pulled her filthy hoof away; thank the goddesses.  “One: if you hurt me you will end up in at least three pieces; that’s my lowest record cause I only had a spoon at the time.  Two: if you can keep me liquored up I will be your best friend forever.  And Three: my name‘s Rippertini, pleased to meet you.”

        “Ocher and likewise,”  I said hesitantly, fishing out another bottle from my bag.  A ’best friend forever’ who was a skilled fighter sounded quite valuable, no matter how bad she smelled.  Her being a credible threat with a spoon was probably an exaggeration, but, if the bodies at her hooves were any indication, she still seemed quite competent.  “I have some berry wine, rubbing alcohol…  Hay Alabaster!”  The red mercenary looked up from looting through the bodies.  “Do you have any of that stuff from the gas can on you?”

        She nodded and magically threw me a flask from her bag.

        As I unscrewed the container, also labeled ‘The Good Shit’, the fuzzy caster stared at me intently before almost reverently grabbing the liquor and taking a small sip.  Rippertini’s eyes went wide as dinner plates.  “Do you have more?”

        I looked to the red grander and jingled my cap pack.  She grinned and nodded.  “A lot more,”  I assured the practically drooling Shrike.

        She flopped on her back and spread out all her legs.  “Take me, I’m yours!”

        Oh geeze!  You have a wonderful pony in Flankorage.  You have a wonderful pony in Flankorage.  “Thanks for the offer, but…“  I said, politely opting to study the newly refurbished tram instead of the presenting mare.  Not only had the Unity apparently repaired the vehicle, but they also scrubbed it down (probably with snow) and gave it a nearly mirror-like shine.  I saw my own reflection and it scared me.  My claws were longer than I remembered, actually poking out of my fetlock fur and the entire front half of my body was plastered with gore, making my coat look crimson; I almost looked like…

        I broke into a wide, toothy grin and looked back at the splayed mare at my hooves.  She, understandably, curled up a bit and scootched away.  “But I have a better idea.”

***        ***        ***

        I scratched at my prosthesis with my boot covered claw as the tram came to a halt in the Unity controlled station.  I adjusted Dawn Star’s greatcoat, pulling it tighter around my shoulders to fight off the cold, and pulled the hood securely over my horn.  My skin tingled from the chill air under my freshly sheared, blood red coat.  My hind leg still ached from where BARON had re-shattered it and injected me with Hydra, but I could walk without a limp again.

        I got to my hooves and adopted the most self-important and superior demeanor I could muster, kicking Red Tape’s empty dye bottle under my seat.  I swaggered to the door with Maple, Rippertini and Alabaster in Unity raider armor with BARON and Granite following in suits of scrapper gear.  Echo had her own business to attend to; that and I couldn’t find any Unity uniforms for a pegasus.

        An armored griffin stopped us by flaring her bladed wings at roughly neck level and growling.  “Halt!  What do you want?!”

        “I am here to inspect my newest holding,”  I replied in the smuggest, most oily voice I could muster.  I glared at the Talon, tilting my head to make my mechanical eye more prominent.  “Now, take me to the Stable.”

        She sneered at me.  “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

        “Show the proper respect,”  BARON ordered sternly.  “This is our lord, Red Eye.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  -- Eclectic Memory -- You can glean more than most from out of body experiences.  Viewing some memory orbs may bestow the same permanent benefits as reading skill books.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Homecoming

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Twelve: Homecoming

“Oh, sweetie, you are turning the most delightful shade of red.  It is most becoming.”

        “Show the proper respect,”  BARON ordered sternly.  “This is lord Red Eye.”  I intentionally unfocused my implant so it would move and whirr, hopping it would keep her from noticing it was on the wrong side and that my real eye was gold, not blue.

        The armored griffin gulped and took a nervous step back and looked me up and down.  Please, have never really seen the bastard.  Please have never really seen the bastard.  Please have never really seen the bastard.

        “Of course sir,”  the Talon finally replied, bowing her head and lowering her wings quickly.  “Please accept my sincerest apologies, we were not expecting you and have been experiencing some breaches in security as of late.”

        “And that is commendable,”  I said with a nod.  I triggered SATS and targeted the griffin’s head.  It was tempting to just magically burst a blood vessel in her slaving brain, but I opted out, just taking note of what my E.F.S. labeled her.  “But while being thorough is commendable,”  I continued when the spell dropped,  “I would hope you could recognize your own employer, Serrish.”  Oh, the irony of that statement was just delicious.

        She seemed a bit taken aback and sunk her head lower.  “You know my name sir?”

        I walked past her, making sure my coat would billow dramatically behind me.  “I aspire to know all those who aid the Unity in its grand mission.”  Praising the slaving scum still felt like poison on my tongue.  “Now, show me what you have accomplished here.”

        “Right away, sir.”  The griffin saluted and fell in beside me.  “Would you like me to arrange an alicorn escort for you?”

        “they have some sort of hive mind that makes them especially potent in groups.”

        If anything could blow my cover it would be a psychic, false goddess.  “That will not be necessary,”  I replied dismissively.  “My own security detail will be quite sufficient.”  That meant there were alicorns up here and from what I had heard about them…

        “...indestructible shields, armies that materialize out of thin air”

        I didn’t want to deal with them any time soon… Or ever.

        Serrish nodded and hustled up to my side.  “As I’m sure you’ve seen, we have made considerable progress in establishing infrastructure.”  She rushed ahead and opened the station door for me.  “Despite several setbacks and damage to our supply lines.”

        My companions, the Unity griffin and I trotted out of the wood paneled station and out onto a wide, railed balcony that ended in a ramp down to the ground.  Small, simple shacks made from riveted sheets of corrugated metal had been set up in a shanty town between the tram station and the nearly sheer mountainside further up the slope.  A behemoth saw sat to the side of the camp, sunk halfway up its treads in the snow.  A ragged hole had been torn in the rock face that I assumed was Stable 114’s entrance.

        Nearly a hundred raiders hustled through the camp in thick coats and other bits of mismatched, winter clothing.  Pots of boiling porridge hung over a half dozen roaring fire pits, each one surrounded by groups of cackling slavers.  Several armor coated scrappers were overseeing small teams of battered, withered slaves in tattered Stable jumpsuits as they hauled sleds of scrap metal and machinery out of the Stable.  A pit near the edge of the camp was filled to the brim with burned and broken bodies in blue uniforms.

        I heard Maple snarl as she stepped past me, her jaws tensing on her firing bit.  I had to wonder it it had been a mistake to bring her along.  On the one hoof, she had just as big a stake in this as I did, if not bigger.  But on the other, most of the ponies below had probably been her friends, or at least her neighbors.  She had shown impressive restraint when we had infiltrated the timber yard, but this my have been to much to ask of her.

        I put my hoof on the security mare’s shoulder and pulled her back as hard as I could without arousing suspicion; I barely managed to shift the blue pony‘s attention.  “Not yet,”  I whispered as reassuringly as possible.

        “They’re working them to death,”  the Stable mare growled around her bit, quivering in rage.  “We can’t just leave them here.”

        “And we won’t,”  I replied under my breath.  “Just wait for the right time, not now.”

        The Talon turned back to us and removed her helmet.  “I beg your pardon, lord Red Eye?”  

        Aw horse apples!  A lie, a lie, blessed Luna, I needed a lie.  “I was discussing plans for my visit.”  Right… now what would those plans be?  Something a grease ball like Red Eye would do…  “My aid believes that this would be a good location for my speech,”  I continued, indicating to the white maned mare.  No cult leader would pass up an opportunity to hear themselves talk.  “But I do believe that the Overmare’s office would be a far more suitable venue for my first address.”

        Maple was still tensed, but nodded, playing along for now.  I had to admire her self control.  I doubted I would have been a stalwart in her horseshoes.

        Serrish bowed.  “Forgive me sir.  I should have thought to prepare for such an event.  Would you like me to announce your presence and assemble the workers?”  Without her face concealing helm I couldn’t help but notice that she was just a kid; she couldn’t have been older than her mid teens.  I felt a stab of guilt.  In an hour or so this child would be dead or at the very least captured.  Could I really dismiss her as a monster?  Surely she was just doing what the bigger ponies, er, griffins told her to do.

        “And they will tell her to kill you,”  Icy said bluntly.  “Young or not, she made her nest…”

        “And I’m about to knock it out of a tree,”  I mumbled to myself.

        “My lord?”  the young guard asked.  Icy was right: if it came down to it I would pull the trigger.  I just hoped she would have the good judgment to stand down.  Nothing is free.

        I waved my hoof dismissively.  “There is nothing to forgive.  My visit was unannounced.”  No sense in guilt tripping her.

        I gazed across the camp.  When the Frostborn got here the Stable ponies would inevitably be caught in the crossfire if they weren’t simply used as pony shields.  “I would like you to gather the workers in the atrium, but do it discreetly.  I want my appearance to be a surprise.”  I had to get into Goldlight’s control room anyway for my part of the plan anyway.  The liberation would be far easier if somepony on our side controlled the doors and other Stable systems.  This way I could also lock the room down and keep everypony safe until the battle was over.

        “A surprise?”  the adolescent griffin asked hesitantly.  “Surely you want me to set up some security and keep some slaves to keep working.”

        I needed another lie, another lie, another lie.  Why wouldn‘t I need security in a room full of several hundred ponies who probably wanted to kill me?  …I got nothing.  I guess I’m going to need to, to borrow a griffin term, strong arm it.  So much for mister nice buck.

        “Are you questioning me?”  I replied incredulously, glaring at her and stepped forward.  “Are you questioning the will of the goddess?”

        The Unity guard backed away from me as I advanced on her.  “I-I-I didn’t mean…”  she stammered with a mix of fear and shame.

        “I know you didn’t,“  I sighed and shook my head, driving the adolescent griffin back until her hindquarters bumped into the banister.  “You were doing your job.”  I softened my expression and placed my booted hoof over her heart.  “Have faith my friend...“  There was a line I had heard the Unity leader say on the radio that would work here.  What was it?  Ah!  “Until everypony is free, nopony should be free.  The guards can pull the sleds for an hour or so while the newest members of our family are enlightened.”  I removed my hoof and waved it to my companions.  “My own security is quite sufficient to keep me safe while I bring the words of the goddess to these miserable souls.”

        The young Talon gave me a warm smile and placed her hand reverently in her chest where I had touched her.  “Shall I start now, sir?”  she asked dreamily, slowly moving out of the corner I had backed her into.  “Or would you rather I finish your tour first?”  So, she had a little crush on Red Eye, or at the very least was star struck.  That would make this even easier.  Who says no to somepony they admire?

        “Now is good, thank you.”  I walked to the ramp with my companions in tow.  “I think an unguided tour would better inspire me for my speech.”  I started down the ramp, but stopped as if I had an after thought.  “By the way, where do you think I would find Gellwin?”

        “The security office most likely,”  Serrish replied, sounding almost hurt and nervously running her fingers through her snow white chest feathers.  “She doesn’t get out much since her accident.”

        “Accident?”

        The griffin teen nodded.  “Yes.  There was a live grenade rigged in her desk; it took her right claw and damaged her eye.”

        “Quality cloud is always useful to have around.  I also took the chance to leave Gellwin a little token of my appreciation for her hospitality over the past two weeks.”

        Well done Echo.  That was one mare I did not want to piss off.

        I shook my head in fake sympathy.  “That is tragic, it truly is.  I will check in on her when I have finished my speech and official tour.”

        Serrish looked up and cocked her head, scratching the back of her neck nervously.  “Don’t you want her to conduct the tour?”

        “To be honest, no,”  I answered warmly, shaking my head slowly and putting on my most supportive smile.  “I know she would insist, but I think I would rather have you give me the tour.  I don’t want to argue with her given the circumstances.  Do you think you would be up for it my dear?”

        The adolescent guard seemed to melt for a moment, but regained her composure when Rippertini and Alabaster snickered at her.  “I mean, yes sir!”  she shouted, still a bit pink in the cheeks.

        I waved my hoof to the Stable slaves.  “Then you had best be about your duties.”

        Serrish snapped a salute and leaped into the air.  “He likes me,”  she giggled to herself when she thought she was out of earshot; I loved my exceptional ears.  I was really starting to feel bad about using her this way.  Using a kid’s heart to betray her kin just struck me as a low blow.  “He called me his friend and actually touched me.  I’m never washing these feathers again.”  Slaver or not, I hoped she would make it through the day.

        We pressed on through the camp, letting the impressionable guard start rounding up the slaves.  A few of the Unity raiders gave us uncertain looks, but a growl from BARON or, a very unhappy, Maple here and a flash of my robotic eye there dissuaded any further investigation.  The key to infiltration was self confidence; act like you belonged and most would assume you did.

        Maple grimaced and bit down on her lip as we started passing the work column.  The Stable ponies were even worse off than I first thought.  Not only were they half starved and beaten, but most were also half frozen in their insufficiently insulated jumpsuits.  Weeping, yellow sores and blackened extremities and other signs of severe frost bite coated more than half the bedraggled ponies.  Some of them seemed to have odd, blistering burns on their legs and faces.

        A limping, strawberry roan mare looked up as we passed.  She stopped in her tracks, examining us with a mix of disdain and confusion through her cream, rat’s nest of a mane.  “Maple!”  she bellowed.  “You filthy traitor!”  Before anypony could react she charged the security mare and slammed into the snow at my azure companions hooves as her leg gave out on her.

        Maple knelt down to the livid Stable pony.  ”Officer Blanket Stitch, I…”  She glanced up at me wide eyed, shaking her head and mouthing ‘I can’t’ over and over again.  This was tearing her up.

        “You left us!”  the irate security pony spat at my companion as she struggled to rise.  “And now you’re in bed with these fiends!”

        The light red mare’s outburst was drawing a crowd of raiders and slaves.  I’m so sorry, Maple, but I can’t jeopardize our cover.  I let out a throaty chuckle and smirked down at the two security ponies.  If this was going to be a spectacle then damn it, I was going to make it my spectacle.  “Another broken heart, Maple?”

        The white maned mare looked up at me as if I had just struck her.

        I twisted my face into an awkward, apologetic smirk and tilted my head to the approaching crowd.  “Oh well,”  I said, resuming my slimy impersonation of Red Eye.  “You have served me well.  Do you want her?”

        Maple stared at me blankly.  “What?”

        “Do, you, want, her?”  I repeated, far more pointedly.  “I recall you mentioning interest in an aid.”

        Maple looked from the crippled, Stable pony at her hooves to the Unity guards that had gathered around us.  “Yes?  Yes I would!”  she replied with dawning realization.  “Thank you, my lord.”  She shoved her front leg under Blanket Stitch’s barrel and yanked the other security mare to her hooves.  “Lets go, slave.”

        The weakened, red and white pony struggled in Maple’s grip.  “You know what?!  I’m glad Blossom’s dead!  That way she isn’t-”

        Maple cut her off with a back hoof to the face, sending the other security pony back to the snow with a bloody snout.

        Alabaster quickly scooped up the dazed, Stable pony and shoved a leg warmer in her mouth.  “We are trying to save you,”  the mercenary mare hissed, barely audibly.  “Now shut up and come with us.”

***        ***        ***

        “Oh Officer Sugar, I am so sorry,”  Officer Blanket Stitch apologized, wrapping the azure mare up in a tight hug.  “I had no idea.  I just saw you dressed like that and with them and-and…  What was I supposed to think?”

        After the security mare’s outburst we had very quickly hustled up to the hole in the rock face.  The Stable 114 door itself had once resembled a giant gear similar to the one I had seen on Icy’s flank, but was now sitting against the tunnel’s walls, having been sliced in half and ripped out of its seating.  When we had finally made it inside we ducked into an abandoned bathroom and filled the Stable mare in on the plan.

        Maple just shook her head.  “You couldn’t have known and I would have done the same.  Now stand still. I need to treat your leg.”

        “Make it fast,”  I instructed, trotting in place nervously.  BARON and Granite were outside, guarding the door, but that would only keep prying eyes out for so long.  “The longer we stay here the more likely we are going to get caught.”  That and I was very uncomfortable being in the little filly’s room.

        My white maned companion nodded and quickly bound the strawberry mare’s sprained leg, using several paper towel rods and gauze as a makeshift cast for the officer.  Alabaster and Ripertini passed the time by bouncing the mercenary mare’s rubber ball against the far wall, though I did need to stop them from taking a shot every time one of them missed.

        “Done,”  Maple announced, dabbing off the last remnants of blood from the roan pony’s muzzle.  “The cast should do for now, but she should get a proper medical brace as soon as possible.”  She glanced over to me almost critically.  “You really should have gotten BARON to do this.”

        I pulled my hood back down so it completely concealed my horn.  “You did fine.  Besides, given the situation, it was probably better a familiar pony did this than… whatever BARON is.”  I put a booted hoof on Maple’s shoulder.  “Besides, I knew you could handle it.  You have gotten quite good at this.”

        Maple smiled up at me.  “Thanks… and I was the one who broke her nose.”  She turned back to the roan earth pony.  “Sorry about that by the way.”

        The cream maned, Stable pony shrugged.  “I had it coming.”  The officer turned to me with a concerned look on her face.  “I appreciate what you did for me, but what about everypony else?  They are freezing to death out there.”

        I caught Alabaster’s ball and dropped it into her pack.  “I convinced one of the guards to take them inside for a speech.  If nothing else that should give them a well deserved rest.  Now, we need to get to Goldlight‘s office as soon as possible.”

        Rippertini passed her Shrike hoof cannon to the red and white mare as everypony else composed themselves.  “Yur gonna need ta be a slave fer a bit longer,”  the blue unicorn said apologetically as she shoved the legwarmer back into the security mare’s mouth.  “Tuck dat gun away fer now.  You can shoot some ah dem bastards later.”

        I almost telekinetically opened the door, but Alabaster beat me to it.  That was close.  Red Eye was an earth pony, no magic allowed.

        The crimson unicorn trotted out between our two scrapper impersonators, looked around and beckoned us to follow.  I didn’t know enough about the Unity leader to risk being seen leaving a bathroom with four mares.

        I followed out without a word and resumed my cult leader façade, everypony else falling in behind me.  I brought up the Stable map in my mechanical eye; it was disconcerting at first, but it was better than wandering aimlessly.  I plotted the most efficient course to the Atrium that avoided all the corridors I thought giant alicorns could easily fit through.

***        ***        ***

        We worked our way through the claustrophobic, twisting halls.  I passed through a series of corridors labeled ’Residential Two’, indiscernible from every other slate gray passage in the shelter.  Heavy metal doors doted the hall, each leading to a ransacked family home.  It baffled me how ponies could spent their whole lives in this world of gray.  A world with no open spaces to run in, no sweet, rich earth, not even the perpetual overcast that passed for a sky in the wastes.

        Maple poked my flank as we passed a residence across from a ransacked schoolroom.  “Stop here for a moment.  I want to go get something.”

        I turned my head as the security mare disappeared into the domicile and caught sight of the name card on the door; ‘Harvest/Sugar’.  I drooped my head.  “Take as much time as you need.”  After what I had cost her…

        She didn’t take long.  After some rustling Maple trotted back out wearing a pair of simple, gold bands above her PipBuck, each engraved with an overlapping flower and shield.  “Okay, I’m ready to go now.”

        “Are you sure you have everything?”  I asked, not quite able to bring myself to meet her eyes.

        The blue earth pony stroked one of the anklets as if it were a child.  “Everything important.”  She looked back up to me with steely resolution.  “Now lets get this over with so we can deal with these bastards.”

        “Deal with what?”  an oddly echoing voice inquired from behind me as I was hit with a sent that reminded me of rotting fruit; enticingly sweet, but with that indescribable suggestion of poison.

        Ugh. I rolled my eye (the synthetic did not respond while I had my PipBuck open in it.).  Time for Red Eye to put his hoof down again.  “That is none of your concern,”  I snapped, shaking my head and slowly turning.  “Do you know who I am-m-m-m…”  Oh crap!

        A massive, blue-black alicorn mare towered over me.  Her bright red mane and tail flowed around her in an eldridge breeze, flickering as if they were made of flames.  “No, we do not.”  She bored into me with her nearly white eyes.  “We demand to know.”

        I gulped.  I’m fucked.  I’m fucked.  “I’m Red Eye,”  I squeaked, my voice cracking for the first time in years.  Oh, I hoped this worked.

        The unearthly demigoddess leered down at me, her expression unreadable.  “You are not,”  she stated flatly.  “You are an impostor.  You will come with us to be processed or we will kill you.”

        “I-er-um…”  I stammered, avoiding eye contact with the supernatural mare.  Say something you stupid git.

        “The Unity needs as many smart ponies as it can find. Until then.”

        “I mean I’m here with an invitation from Red Eye,”  I corrected myself, forcing myself to look the alicorn in the eye.  I magically pulled my hood off and deactivated my PipBuck map, allowing me to focus my implant on the fiery mare.  “Though from what I have seen I am far from impressed.”

        The false goddess cocked her head an just stared at me for a moment.  “We do not understand.  You will explain.”

        “Look how easily I managed to get in here with this simple disguise,”  I scoffed, shaking my head and slowly walking around the huge creature.  “It is just sad how lax security here is.  If this is the best your ‘Goddess’ can offer, I fail to see why I should side with you over the Frostborn.  Care to explain?”

        The alicorn followed me, still quite perplexed.  “We do not believe you fully grasp your situation.  We are the children of the Goddess.  We do not explain ourselves to lesser beings.”  She stopped and spun me around with her magic, nearly tapping our horns together.  “You will now come with us so we may decide what is to be done with you.”

        I ran in place as the dark mare lifted me off my hooves.  “Is this how the Unity treats potential allies?!”  I snapped, trying to seem as imposing as possible while flailing my legs in mid air like some newborn foal.

        The midnight demigoddess narrowed her eyes.  “This is how the Unity treats intruders.  Our sisters are certain that you would not consent to join us and that this entire conversation is nothing more than a ru-”

        *CRACK!*

        The alicorn’s head transformed into a cloud of red mist and I fell to the floor with a thud, coated with arterial spray.

        BARON walked over the pseudo goddess’ body with a series of crunches as his armored bulk crushed her fragile wing bones.  “This conversation has ceased to be productive.”  He wedged his blood soaked power hoof under me and hauled me back to my hooves.

        I just stood there and blinked numbly.  Despite my knowledge to the contrary, I couldn’t help but see Princess Luna’s brains splattered across the floor and soaking into my barding.  I trembled, drenched in the viscera of a divine being and mouthing incoherently.

        The harnessed stallion prodded me and said something as my comrades moved around me, but I couldn’t hear him over my heart pounding in my ears.  The alicorn’s pungent ichor was giving me a throbbing headache.

        “Ocher, move.”  Icy ordered sternly.

        The blood smelled different from a pony‘s.  It was twisted, tainted, nothing like the ambrosia a goddess’ blood should have been.

        “Ocher!”

        This thing was no goddess.  This was just some pale mockery of the god-princesses.  The edges of my vision faded and the pounding in my head quickened.

        “MOVE!”

        “Huh?  What?”  I asked, shaking my head.  The tendrils of red receded and I was able to make out muffled sounds again.  My three mercenaries and Blanket Stitch had taken up defensive positions.  Maple seemed to be in the same ‘he just killed a goddess’ daze as I was, just walking in circles around the dead alicorn.

        “I would advise an expeditious retreat,”  BARON stated calmly.  “The others know what happened and the entire Stable will be on high alert soon.”

        I nodded dully and brought my map back up.  Where could we go that would be safe…ish?  I scanned through my PipBuck‘s schematics as quickly as I could.

        Maple came up and poked my chest.  “Ocher, did we just kill a goddess?”  the blue mare asked hesitantly, still eyeing the dead alicorn.

        “No,“  I replied flatly, still flipping through floor plans.  I took a deep sniff of the dead mare, as much to reaffirm it to myself as Maple.  “That was only a fake goddess.  Don‘t let it get you worked up.  Everypony needs us to be at our best right now.”  That was hypocritical of me, but I couldn’t have either of us freezing up if, (who was I kidding?) when we needed to fight another one of these things.

        Damn it.  None of these places were safe enough to hold up in.  Even the rooms with single, small entrances were too easy to get to.  The slavers could just bury us with sheer numbers if the scrappers and alicorns didn’t take us apart first; BARON was probably the only one who could go toe to toe with the Unity’s elites anyway.

        “Some time today would be nice,”  Alabaster hissed impatiently as she nervously orbited a trio of grenades around her horn (Kind of a dumb idea in my opinion. One lucky shot and boom.).  “I don’t look good in a slave collar.”

        “I know!”  I snapped irritably, flipping through my other tabs in hopes of finding something that could help.  Information about me.  Useless.  My inventory.  Useless.  “I’m working as fast as I can.  If we make the wrong turn or run down the wrong corridor we are doo…”  I trailed off as I came to my log entries.

        >I have sent most of the surviving ponies to Shetland.  The excavator can’t fit inside the Stable and it should take these slavers weeks to get to them without it.’

        That was it.  “The pod banks!”  I exclaimed, bringing up my maps again and plotting a path.  “Mayor, er, Overmare Goldlight sealed them.  If we can get there we may be able to hold out until the cavalry arrives.”

        “This way,”  Maple instructed, taking off down a corridor at a half gallop.  “Hurry!”

        Without thinking I took off after her.  According to my radar the others were hot on my heels.  We charged down corridor after nearly identical corridor, the security mare seemingly knowing the way more by feel than sight.  The ease with which she could navigate these labyrinthine corridors baffled me.  Red ticks danced across my compass, but at the speed we were moving and without Echo being close enough to enhance my radar, my E.F.S. was next to useless.

        I caught a whiff of something vile as we careened blindly towards another corner, a mix of sweat, oil and the ozone tang of cheap spark batteries.  What would make that smell… “Maple, get down!”  I bellowed, tackling the azure mare to the floor as a scrapper turned the corner and fired a burst of spikes down the hall.

        As I was scrambling to regain my hoofing and let the security mare under me back up BARON leaped clean over us; an impressive feat given the bulk of his armor and heavy weapon rig.  The harnessed stallion slammed the Unity elite into the far wall with a crunch.  The Hunter buck had all three hoof long spikes jutting out of his chest, but seemed all in all unbothered by the rusted chunks of metal.  In one fluid motion he twisted the scrapper’s head all the way around with his hooves.

        Maple forced herself back to all fours, lifting me with her.  “Thanks.”  She nodded, shifting me off her back.  “How many more do we need to deal with?”

        I floated out a magical holdout pistol from a hidden pocket in Dawn Star’s coat as I tried to make an accurate guess with my E.F.S..  “About…  Ah, fuck it.”  I lifted my nose in the air and took several deep sniffs.  Mare, gun oil, very close, that was Maple.  Stallion, chemicals, blood, there was BARON.  Vomit, alcohol, the sickly rot of frost burn and a clay smell that I assumed was plastic explosive identified Granite, Rippertini, Blanket Stitch and Alabaster respectively.  I also picked out several others, all smelled of smoke, cheap gruel and cheaper booze, but they were all distinct.  “Five, one or two intersections ahead, no scrappers.”

        Everypony looked at me uncomfortably.  I already looked like Red Eye, reminding them of what was happening to me probably wasn’t my best idea.  I could actually smell the fear in the recycled air; it was exciting, but was still disheartening to get from my friends and allies.

        BARON cocked his head and nonchalantly slammed the dead Unity guard’s head into the wall, readjusting all his harness components at once.  My companions all turned to the commotion.  As soon as he had their full attention he stomped the slaver’s skull flat, extracting cringes from the others.  He managed to draw all the ire to him with a single show of pointless brutality… Why?

        “They can’t be afraid of you,”  my psychosis induced guide said.  “Like it or not, you are in charge and they need to be comfortable with you; at least as comfortable as possible.  Nopony trusts him, so a little more doubt won’t hurt.”

        I shook my head.  “Thanks, BARON,”  I mumbled under my breath as the others went to scavenge the dead slaver while giving the Hunter a wider breadth.  I gently poked my white maned companion on the back as she passed me.  “Look, I know it is unnerving, it scares the horse apples out of me at least, but what is happening to me is a tool we can use.  We need every advantage we can get.”

        The security mare took my booted hoof and pressed it to her chest.  “Ocher, I don’t know about the others, but I’m not scared of you, I’m scared for you.  Whatever is going on can’t be good.”  She dipped her head and looked back up with a smirk.  “Besides, I don’t think you could hurt me if you wanted to.”

        “What would I do without you?” I asked with a smile despite myself.

        The blue mare just shrugged.  “Freeze and die.”

        “Fair enough.”  I took another sniff.  The chain smoking alcoholics were getting closer and there was a hint of toxic sweetness.  “We need to move.  Another alicorn is coming.”

        The Security mare nodded and turned to the others. “Okay boys and girls, lets get a move on!  We are on the clock!”  She trotted to the head of the column.  “Alabaster, frags around that corner on Ocher’s mark.”

        The explosive mercenary hesitated for a moment, but floated out a quartet of grenades and waited flush to the wall.

        I walked up next to Maple and sniffed the air.  It didn’t take long for me to match up the scents to ticks on my E.F.S. compass.  “Now!”

        Without a moment’s hesitation the four apple shaped bombs lost their stems and disappeared around the corner.  A few seconds later series of explosions wracked the hall, accompanied by screams and a spray of viscera.

        I immediately switched to breathing through my mouth.  The smell was as intoxicating as ever and I couldn‘t risk loosing control again.  “Lead the way Maple, I think my sniffer is tapped for the moment, but we should be clear for a little while.”

        The defender mare gave me a curt nod and took off again.  I nearly slipped on the remains of the patrol we blew up, but other than that I couldn’t tell one corridor from the next.  Left, left, right, left…  I gave up trying to keep track of our path (that was the PipBuck’s job anyway) and just followed the bobbing, white tail in front of me.

***        ***        ***

        “This is it,”  Maple whispered, sliding to a halt next to a familiar, buckshot dented wall.  She looked over to me and jerked her head to the door.  “Guards?”

        My E.F.S. was still swarming with contacts,  friendly and hostile.  My scanner was still practically useless, I knew there where guards there, but depending on what floor the contacts were on there could have been anywhere from two to twenty.  I didn’t want to risk snuffling around again, I hadn’t fully calmed down from the last time.  Lacking other options, I pressed my ear to the door.

        There were raised voices, cursing, and some whimpering.  “I can pick out four distinct voices.  I think there are also one or two Stable ponies so we can‘t just blow up the hallway.”  A grinding whirr of metal ripping into metal.  They were still trying to cut their way in.

        Maple kicked her loading leaver, making her guns click ready.  “I guess we are doing this the old fashioned way then.”

        “No,”  I stopped them with a raised hoof.  “My cover is blown, but you should all still be able to close unmolested.  Two of you can take Blanket Stitch and get close.  The rest of us can back you up.  BARON and Granite could go, but scrapers may be more easily recognized.”

        Rippertini, to my chagrin, used the opportunity to take a deep swig of ’the good shit’ from her flask.  I guessed I couldn’t expect any more acting from her for a while.  Maple and Alabaster could go, though I didn‘t know how effective the demo mare was without explosives.

        “Hi guys!”  the inebriated mercenary yelled out, trotting through the door and towards the slavers.  Welp, that plan was screwed.  “Ah was wondering if you could look at somefin’ fer me.”

        “Um, sure,”  a stallion’s voice came from around the corner.  “What can I do for you darling?”

        I peeked my head out in morbid curiosity, charging up a flare in my horn for when the horse apples inevitably hit the fan.  Three slavers were talking with the blue mercenary in another nondescript corridor.  A pair of Stable ponies who were strapped to a saw rig and cutting into the thick set of double doors.  If the piles of broken saw blades that littered the floor were any indication, they had been at it for some time.

        The blue unicorn sauntered up to one of the raiders, a deep green stallion with a long scar across his face.  “Ah found somfin interesting’.”  She floated up a old hoof file to the raider’s face.  “Ah want te make ma self all pretty fer somfin special tonight.  Does dis file look bent te you?”  She brought the file right up to the slaver buck’s eye.

        “That’s sweet of you,”  the unity stallion replied with a chuckle, tilting his head to inspect the hoof care device.  “I don’t see anything wrong with it.  Where did you find this?  My sister would love to get one fo-”

        Rippertini cut him off with a surge of magic, sending the hoof file almost clean through the slaver’s head.  The green stallion collapsed into a screaming heap, clutching his eye; my own cybernetic burned at the sight.  Before the other raiders could react to their wailing comrade the blue mercenary spun out a pair of the chainsaw swords pictured on her cutie marks and raked them across the other’s throats.

        “Impressive,”  BARON boomed as he lumbered out behind me and examined the drunk unicorn’s work.

        Rippertini turned and chuckled as she kicked the hoof file, ending the blinded raider‘s suffering. “Imagine what ah could have done wit a spoon.”  That was an unnerving prospect to say the least.

        I followed the harnessed stallion out, still shuddering at the eye gouging.  The Stable ponies, both salmon mares with aqua manes that struck me as mother and daughter, had dropped the saw and were huddled against the mangled hatch.  I approached them with as reassuring a demeanor as I could muster, letting my flair charge bleed off as a soft glow.  “Calm down, we are here to help you.”

        The older mare shifted around to shield the younger one, who on closer inspection was only in her teens.  “What do you want, slaver?”

        I sat down and waved my front legs.  “No, no, no.  I’m not a slaver.  I-”

        “Rose, it’s okay,”  Maple interrupted, shouldering past me and kneeling down in front of the frightened Stable mares.  “This is Ocher.  He is with me, one of the good guys.”

        The older, salmon pony nervously glanced between BARON, Rippertini and myself.  “What are they?”

        I self-consciously covered my mechanical eye with a booted hoof.  If I made these ponies uncomfortable just with my eye how was I going to fit back in with my community when my coat grew out again and I took off my boots?  With what I knew I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to.  I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to do when this was done.  There was no way I could stay here, but after the incident on the cliff, I didn’t know if I could trust myself with Scoop anymore; I didn’t know what I would do if I hurt her.

        “Ocher is a pod pony,”  the blue, security mare replied as the rest of my group came up behind us.  “That is Rippertini, she is a mercenary and just sort of fuzzy.  BARON…  Okay I don’t really know what BARON is, but he is scary and on our side right now.”

        I walked up, carefully stepping over the bodies of the dead slavers.  “You know her?”  I asked in an attempt to open some form of dialogue.

        “This is Rose Bell and her daughter Ruby,”  The white maned defender pony responded, indicating to each of them in turn with a soft smile.  “They are repair technicians.  Rose used to leave my gang treats when I was still a tunnel rat.”

        I held out my hoof to the pair, beaming pleasantly.  “Nice to meet you.  Any friend of Maple’s is a friend of mine.”

        I accidentally inhaled through my nose and got a deep whiff of the spreading pools of gore under each dead Unity guard.  The very edges of my vision started to turn pink, but I quickly shook my head to clear the sensation.  There had been something else in the air other than the iron tang of blood, smells of my various companions and the grease of the two mechanics.  The sickly sweetness of the fake goddess was back and a lot closer than before.

        I put my hoof back down and drew my gun.  “Another alicorn is coming.  We need to get moving.”

        “Right,”  Maple said, kneeling beside the pod bank door controls.  “Now, what is the code Ocher?”

        “The code?“  Right...  How was I that dumb?  A code or key would be needed to open a locked door.  I didn’t know to damned code.  And I was supposed to be a clever pony.  “I don’t-”

        “Eight, nine, five, eight, zero, six, two, six, three,”  Icy interrupted.

        “What was that?”  I asked, cocking my head and getting the expected stares from everypony around me.

        “The door code,”  the delusion replied impatiently.  “It is eight, nine, five, eight, zero, six, two, six, three.”

        “How do you kn-”

        “Assuming direct control!”  an echoing, supernaturally deep, mare’s voice resounded down the corridor.

        “Just enter it already!”

***        ***        ***

        Three members of 114’s security had met us with an octet of shotguns (six in battle saddles and two more in the magic field of the unicorn officer) as soon as we opened the door.  They thankfully lowered their weapons as soon as they saw Maple and Blanket Stitch.  The group of guards quickly ushered us in and closed the door behind us.

        The inside of the pod bank was much as I had remembered it.  The only differences I could see were the new abundance of bullet holes and the nearly solid blood stain on the other side of the door.  The Unity had apparently cut off as many systems as they could, shutting down the florescent lighting.  The entire area was only illuminated by floor mounted emergency lights, giving the whole place a hellish, red glow.

        The unicorn guard, a pinto stallion with a black mane, slung his two floating shotguns.  “Good to see you Officer Blanket.  Officer Sugar, we thought you were dead.”  He nodded to each of the security mares in turn.  “What is going on?”

        The blue security mare patted the pinto on the shoulder.  “It is good to see you too, Beetle.  We’re here with help.  We are going to get the Unity out.  But first, who is in charge here?”

        Officer Beetle pointed down the corridor.  “The Overmare’s assistant has taken over logistics and calming the pod ponies.”  Keystone…  I still hadn’t decided if I was going hug him or buck him in the face when I saw him again.  “As far as decisive decisions go, one of the sim ponies has taken charge.  Milk... something or other.  They tend to keep to themselves except for meal times.”

        “Milk Thistle,”  I interjected.  “She was the doctor in Shetland.”  I shook my head to clear the image of the dark green mare looking down mournfully at a crushed, chestnut brown body.  “She has helped keep me in one piece since I was a foal.”

        The pinto nodded, only slightly peeved at my interruption.  “Yeah, that was it.  Anyway, as I said, they stick to their own most of the time in the lower fifteen banks.  The general population is using banks two through ten and the maintenance level.  Thankfully the reclamation vats still work so we aren’t going to starve anytime soon.”

        I raised my hoof again.  “What about bank one?”  I knew it probably wasn’t the most prudent question, but I knew it would bug me all day if I didn’t ask.  “Oh, and if you have access to the machinery why don’t the lights work?”

        The security stallion rolled his eyes and growled.  “When the section was sealed off some monsters that looked like Princess Luna appeared out of thin air.  We managed to take them down at considerable cost to the remaining security forces; the horrors used a perverse spell to stopped my officers’ hearts.”  Note to self: do not share my heart attack spell with the security ponies.  “We didn’t know how the mildly radioactive, mutant… things would effect the vats if they were recycled, so we just dumped the bodies in the first bank.  Obviously we can’t have ponies live with rotting, radioactive corpses.”

        I nodded. “Okay, that makes sense.”

        “As for the lights,”  Beetle continued, leering at me.  “Do you have any idea how old this equipment is?”

        “I would assume two-hundred years,”  I replied like a smart ass.  While alienating a new ally was generally a daft idea I was getting vexed with his attitude.

        The security stallion grumbled.  “Yeah, and they are falling apart.  We don’t have the equipment or experts needed to fix them safely and we aren’t about risk breaking them just so the lighting is nicer.”

        “Oh, there was one more thing I was wondering,“  I went on.  “May I ask you another question?”

        Officer Beetle looked over to Maple pleadingly.  “Must I?”  The blue mare smirked and nodded.  “Fine.  What do you want to know?”

        “Why didn’t you seem surprised that Blanket Stitch was alive?”  I asked, pretending to notice his obvious irritation.  “But thought Maple was dead?”

        The security stallion cocked his head and turned to the white maned mare.  “First name basis then?”  The defender mare nodded again.  “All right then,”  he sighed.  “When we first got sealed off from the Unity they tried to get us to let them in.  They gave us a list of security officers and other important Stable personnel that they held captive and executed one of them every hour until they figured out that we couldn’t open the damn door.  Officer Blanket was on the list, Officer Sugar was not, simple as that.”  He trotted past me and magically opened the door deeper into the facility.  “Now I assume that the acting chief asked about the ponies in charge because she wanted to talk with them.”

        Well, that was a shut up and go away if I ever heard one.  I just nodded and headed down into the facility.  I had no intention to push the point.

        I headed off down the hall with most of my companions in tow.  Blanket Stitch had opted to stay with the other security ponies as soon as Rippertini remembered to take her legwarmer out of the security mare’s mouth.  A few ponies poked their heads out as we passed (nopony I recognized), but the halls seemed eerily quiet for supposedly having several hundred ponies in them.

        “Who are you?”  a familiar, mare’s voice asked as we passed the twenty-fifth and final pod bank on our way to maintenance.

        I turned to see a thin, older, dark green, unicorn mare standing in the bank doorway.  She had a shaggy, white mane that she had attempted to corral into a bun with a bit of wire.  She had taken some of the padding covers from one of the pods and turned it into an impromptu smock, half covering her aloe vera cutie mark.  Moon Bell, a milky white, blank-flank, unicorn filly with a dark purple mane, and Crescent, a bright yellow, unicorn colt with a curly, green mane, peeked out from behind the mare’s legs.

        ”Milk Thistle,”  I said softly,  “it is good to see you alive and well.”

        The doctor mare scrunched up her face as she examined me, trying to see through my disguise.  The week had not been kind to her: the formally shapely and jovial mare was gaunt, exhausted and seemed to have aged ten years.  “Ocher?”  she asked hesitantly, her face slowly softening.  “Is… is that you?”

        I nodded, covered my cybernetic with my booted hoof and adopted my ‘welcome to my store’ smile.

        She rushed up to me and wrapped her front legs around me.  “Oh goddesses!  What happened to you?!  I thought you had been taken!”

        I patted the medical mare on the back.  “I had a couple run ins with sharp objects, but I’m alright.”

        “That is a bold faced lie and you know it,”  Icy interrupted.

        “I woke up early and got sent out to find help,”  I continued, completely ignoring the voice in my head.  “They should be here in a little over half an hour.  How about you?  I hear that you have taken charge here.”

        The forest mare let go and stepped back, straitening out her smock.  “Well, somepony had to, and I would be damned if I let that snake in the grass, Keystone, do it.”  She stomped her front hoof.  “That bastard and Goldlight have been lying to us for years.”

        I nodded solemnly.  “Yeah, I know, even to me…”  I looked up at the pod doctor.  “Is Primrose okay?”  It was nice to see one of the Shetland ponies I actually liked, but I could really use a friend and I didn’t know if I could call Keystone that anymore.

        “I’m sorry Ocher,”  Thistle apologized, shaking her head.  “She wasn’t here…  But at least she wasn’t among the dead, so there is hope.”

        “I have sent the ninety-seven new workers directly to the Polychrome Weather Facility in hopes that you will forgive me for this debacle.”

        Right, hope.  How was I going to get into get into the Harbinger’s home base?  My disguise would never work again.  Racket rather explicitly told me I would never get Flankorage to help me attack the Unity directly.  I didn’t have any other powerful allies.  What hope was there?

        I rubbed my temples with my hooves.  One thing at a time.  We have a Stable to save, the Frostborn are on their way and they expect me to have control of 114‘s systems by the time they got here.

        The two foals finally worked up the nerve to approach me.  Crescent, who had been a blank-flank before the attack, now sported a vent grate on his haunches.  Poor colt’s parents had both been among the dead and now his talent was tied to this dark and dreary place.  “Mister Ocher?”  the bright yellow colt asked.  I nodded reassuringly.  “Why are you red?”

        “And what happened to your eye?”  Moon Bell added before I could answer.

        I smiled warmly and magically moved some of my coat to show the gunmetal grey roots; at the rate my coat was growing it would be back to full length in less than a day.  “I just dyed it to get past the bad guys.”  I turned to the little, cream filly.  “My eye got hurt, but BARON over here,”  I indicated to the heavily armored stallion,  “made me a shiny new one.”  I leaned in closer to the foals and dropped my voice to a whisper.  “Don’t tell him, because it will hurt his feelings, but I liked my old one better.”

        That managed to extract a little snicker from the foals as they pantomimed zipping their mouths shut.

        I looked back up at Milk Thistle.  “How many of the other foals…?”  I hadn’t seen any dead children on my way out, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been taken away.

        “They’re all here,”  the green unicorn replied, nodding behind her.  “The last four banks have different pods with all the foals in them.  I had never noticed, but thinking back we did seem to always have thirty-nine or forty growing ponies at any given time.”

        I glanced at my PipBuck clock; my hour and a half window had diminished far faster than I had expected.  The Chevaliers would be making their way into the secret entrance by Boxxy Brown’s cave in a few minutes.

        I stood back up, gently tussling Crescent’s mane.  “Thistle, can I ask you to come with me for a few?”  I asked seriously.  “As you are one of the ponies in charge here and I need to make an important announcement.  Plus…”  I rubbed the back of my head bashfully.  “I kinda don’t want to convince everypony I run across of who I am.”

        The medical mare nodded and gestured to the door at the end of the hall.

        “Hey, can I see your doll mister?”  Moon Bell asked, trotting past me, over to Granite and his sister.  “She’s pretty.  I really like her mane.”

        “Sure,”  the tawny unicorn replied almost paternally, magically passing the doll over, not breaking stride.  “Her name is Orchid.  She has been with me since I was a little pony.”  He gently bumped into the red and blond grenadier.  “My sister gave her to me as a cutecinnyerra present.”

        “And I have regretted it ever since,”  Alabaster chuckled.

        I couldn’t help but grin at the sight of the two heavily armed mercenaries playing with a doll and the tiny filly.  The sheer absurdity of the image was worth a chuckle.

        I magically accessed the door controls for the maintenance level.  Now I had to decide what to do when I ran into Keystone again, to hug him or buck him?

***        ***        ***

        Yep, I opted to buck him.

        “You knew,”  I growled at the tawny stallion sprawled out at my hooves, barring my pointed teeth.  “You knew the whole time you slimy bastard.”

        Keystone hauled himself back to his hooves and magically shifted his bedraggled, dark gray mane out of his face.  “Yes, Ocher, I did.”  He rubbed his slightly swollen jaw where I had kicked him.  “You have seen what is out there.  Look at yourself, look a what the wasteland has done to you in little over a week.  There is no way most of these ponies would survive out there.  Why in Tarterous would I tell anypony that their paradise was a lie?”

        “Because I was your friend and I trusted you!”  I roared, stomping my hoof.  I was honestly rather surprised that none of the other Stable ponies were trying to hold me back, though I supposed my fangs, cybernetic and group of heavily armed allies might have had something to do with that.

        My foalhood friend looked up at me with a mixture of anger and shame.  “Damn it, Ocher.  I still am your frie-”

        “Save it, Key,“  I cut him off and glanced around at the nervous, Stable ponies that filled the skeletal, metal catwalks of 114’s cavernous underbelly.  Pipes, ducts and bundles of wires snaked down from the Stable proper, nearly forty hooves above us, and into massive, thrumming machines that were crammed into the chamber.  An iron pony swimming pool sized vat jutted out of the floor in the center of the room, filled with bubbling, light brown sludge.  “I can’t get into this right now,”  I continued, readdressing the traitorous buck.  “I just needed to get that out of my system so I can save you sorry ass.”

        I looked away from the tawny buck and addressed the rest of the chamber, walking in a small circle.  “There is more help on the way!  But they can’t do this on their own!  I need to get to the Overmare’s office as soon as I can if we want this to work!  If we are lucky the remaining hostages will be relatively safe in the atrium during the fighting!  Now, is there anyway I can see what is going on in the rest of the Stable?!”

        “Clutch, the 114’s simulation computer, is down the hall to the left,”  the suspicious voice in my mind said.  “I have already marked it on your PipBuck.”

        I pulled up my map display on my cyber eye.  Yeah, there was a marker two levels down, labeled ‘Clutch’ and a new mission objective to access it.  “How the hell?”  I mumbled to myself.  Was it something with my eye that could let a delusion access my equipment?  I could use my PipBuck with a thought, did that mean Icy could as well?

        “Ocher, we will talk later,”  Icy scolded.  “You still have an audience.”

        I shook my head.  “Right.”  I readdressed the crowd.  “Never mind!  Now, I am looking for volunteers to help retake the Stable!  Anypony who is willing, please speak with Officer Sugar, the King and Miss Rippertini!”  I indicated to Maple, BARON and the buzzed mercenary in turn.  “They will do what they can to arm and prepare you for battle!”  I doubted any of them really knew how to fight, but the S.A.T.S. systems in their PipBucks should be able to even the odds a bit if they were careful.

        “I hate to ask this,”  I apologized, softening my tone and turning to Milk Thistle.  “But could you extend the offer to the rest of the town.”  I glanced over to Racket’s mercenaries, who were still playing with the foals.  “Alabaster and Granite will help any volunteers prepare.”  I sighed and looked at the floor.  “I am truly sorry, but if we want to win we will need as many armed ponies on our side as we can get.”

        The motherly, medical mare put her hoof on my shoulder.  “I understand.”

        “I’ll be right back,”  I told my companions.  “You all know what you need to do.”

***        ***        ***

        “How do you know all this?”  I asked myself as I zipped down through utility tunnels to the 114 super computer.  “Because I sure as hell didn’t know how to navigate this place.”

        “Is it my fault that you don’t know how to use your PipBuck properly?”  the delusion asked snidely.  “All that information was in there and I honestly don‘t have something better to do most of the time.”

        “Granted,”  I replied, coming to a door labeled ‘Simulation Control’.  “But you are more than just a figment of my imagination aren’t you?”

        “Yes.”

        “Mind telling me what you are then?”  I asked, opening the door.  On the other side was the small, white room with the words ‘Anti-static Chamber’ painted on the side wall in big, blue letters.  An identical door was locked on the other side of the chamber; I had the distinct feeling that I wouldn’t be moving forward until I was thoroughly de-staticed.

        “When I find out you will be the first to know.”

        I stopped in my tracks and cocked my head.  “You don’t know what you are?”  I asked in disbelief.  The door shut behind me and the room started to hum softly, making me jump in surprise.

        “No, I don’t,”  the voice replied, sounding a bit forlorn.  “The first thing I remember is you waking up from the pod.  All I knew was that I had to get help for the Stable and I needed you to do it…  Ah!  Whatever this room does with static, it is giving me a headache.”

        My cybernetic was starting to burn, not enough to really hurt, but it was damned annoying.  Something struck me, Icy had recognized the pillars from the Little Strongheart mission orb as a mega spell rig.   “How did you know about the megaspell?”

        I could almost feel him shrug.  “I am not sure to be honest.  I just seem to know things sometimes.  When I saw the megaspell it was as if an entire encyclopedia chapter just popped into my mind.”  He hissed.  “Damn room.  Ugh, anyway, one moment I only knew the broad concept of what a megaspell was, your level of knowledge to be frank, the next I knew who built it, how much it cost, how to put it together and exactly what it did; it was a battlefield medical spell by the way.”

        “So… can you tell me anything else?”  I asked, scratching the back of my head.  “Any guesses or theories about how you got in my head?”

        “A few, but I don’t have enough evidence to make me comfortable to share them.  I know a good part of me comes from you, but for the rest… I have some rather silly possibilities.”  The room stopped humming and the far door unlocked.  “Oh thank fucking Celestia,”  the arctic delusion exclaimed.  “Come on, we have a job to do and we‘re on a time table.”

        I sighed and walked over to the door.  “You are in my head, so I do want to talk over these ’silly possibilities’ of yours at some point.”

        Icy chuckled.  “You do realize that you just set up an appointment to talk to yourself don‘t you?”

        I rolled my eyes and opened the door to the Clutch.  The room was a towering cylinder, its walls covered in layers of pony thick cables that ran down to a monolithic spire of steel in the center.  The ceiling was inlaid with a glowing spiral of gold, equidistant decagons of diamonds ran along the coil.  A terminal jutted out from one side of the tower, topped with a pony sized monitor and flanked by six others; three to a side.

        I approached the monitors and… had no idea what to do with it.  Lacking any other bright ideas, I waved my PipBuck at the computer in hopes that it may do something.  “Well, this was your idea, what do we do now?”

        “Keep your barding on,”  Icy hissed as numbers scrolled across my fetlock computer.  “I know the numbers, I’m just having a hard time remembering them.  After the little flashes of insight it takes me a bit to dig out the useful information.”

        “Huh?”

        “As I told you, it’s like an encyclopedia.  But after a second or two of knowing all of it, most of the information fades, sort of like a dream, and I need to read through the entry again.  I have a feeling that this isn’t how it is supposed to work, and due to a lack of other options, I blame you.”

        “Gee, thanks,”  I huffed.  “How long is this going to take?”

        The augmented crazy growled.  “I’ll have it as soon as you stop bothering me with your ina-”  He paused for a moment as a chunk of code lit up on the central screen.  “Oh.  Never mind, I’m done.”  Several folders appeared on the central monitor and streams off numbers scrolled across the six smaller ones.  “Give me a few moments to connect your PipBuck to the security network.”

        I decided to take the time to look through some of the options on the monitor.  I was never good at waiting anyway.  “Lets see what we have here…”

        ‘>Power Levels.’

        Boring.

        ‘>Maintenance Reports.’

        May as well be written in Fancy, next.

        ‘>Biological Recycling Rates.’

        Recycling rates?  …Eww.  Next.

        ‘>Omen.’

        OoOoOo, ominous.  Lets give that a look.

        ‘>Error.  Encrypted data.  Could not open file.’

        “Damn,”  I grumbled, backing out to the main menu.  “That one looked interesting.”

        ‘>Population Reports.’

        Huh, that could be interesting.  It might be fun to look into my family history for a little bit; see if there was anypony famous was in the sim and the like.

        “No,”  Icy snapped a bit nervously.  “I’m done.  Lets get moving.”

        I rolled my eyes and checked my timer…  Aw crap!  I was down to a few minutes of wiggle room.  I transferred the ‘Omen’ file and ‘Population Reports’ to my PipBuck.

        As soon as the files finished downloading I took off back towards the Stable proper as fast as my hooves could carry me.

***        ***        ***

        I reentered the door to the pod banks and kept my hoof hovering over the enter button.  I was watching Red Tape and the two dozen Frostborn regulars approach the Unity camp through an exterior camera, waiting for the inevitable conflict.

        Between the Stable and Shetland ponies we had managed to put together a small militia, sixty-five strong and to my surprise, Keystone was one of them.  All my companions had striped themselves of their Unity armor and donned sets of 114 jumpsuits to avoid confusion and friendly fire.  I didn‘t have time to change, but I was sure my black and pink greatcoat was distinctive enough to avoid problems.  BARON had however glued chunks of his scrapper armor to the barding.  Nearly all of the volunteers were only armed with pipes and small knifes so the armory would need to be one of our first goals.

        The plan was to wait for the Flankorage soldiers and Rocksalt’s Chevaliers to start their attacks on the slaver camp and secret entrance respectively.  Once the Unity committed their forces in earnest we would move out to force a fight on three fronts; all the security ponies other than Maple would stay behind to protect the rest of the population.  If all went well, we would make it to the atrium before the Frostborn entered the Stable.

        Once there, we would split off into three groups: one would arm the enslaved ponies so they could defend themselves until we got the atrium locked down (according to the surveillance system, it was far easier for fake Red Eye to order all the workers into one room than it was for the other slavers to get them back to work). Maple would take the second to the armory to properly equip our little militia.  Finally, I would take one or two ponies with me to take control of the Overmare’s office.

        A sudden surge of motion pulled my attention back to the exterior camera.  Red Tape was yelling her head off and gesturing angrily at the mass grave behind the raider’s camp.  The other slavers were all standing from their campfires and bedrolls and gathering around the soldier ponies, outnumbering them nearly four to one; I even spotted several alicorns flying in and amongst the griffin guards.  I spotted Sabot and Bore’s Rouncey lazily floating up the slope on its levitation pods.

        The dyed mare waved her hoof for the gathering Unity forces to move aside.  Needless to say, they didn’t comply, causing her to stomp her hooves in anger.  She turned to the soldiers behind her and signaled them to go in.  Almost as soon as the New Ministry of Peace mare turned her back one of the scrappers opened fire.

        I cringed as the robed pony dropped to the ground with several spikes embedded in her haunches.  The wounds didn’t look fatal.  With what she risked for us I hoped she was okay.

        Almost immediately both sides opened fire on each other, with tracers and magic beams streaming back and forth across the ski slope.  One of the alicorns, a dark green one, seemed to be forming a bubble around herself, but was blown to pieces by a burst of shells from the rapidly accelerating IFV.

        I reluctantly switched to the feed of the pod banks’ door.  Three blue-black alicorns, one of whom had solid green, luminous eyes, vanished and four scrappers heading down the hall, along with their retinues.  That left only one scrapper and a dozen raiders guarding the exit.  That was doable, even without the other Stable ponies.

        I took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves and give the other slavers some time to distance themselves.  “Okay, everypony ready?”

        Maple, wearing a set of security barding with a flower embroidered on the flanks, put her hoof on my back and nodded.  “We’re as ready as we will ever be,”  she said sternly.  “Lets get this done.”

        “Yeah, lets.”

***        ***        ***

        *Pew!*  *Pew!*

        A raider stallion’s head was reduced to a puddle of indigo goop as I fired Dawn Star’s novasurge defender into his face.

        “That was the last one!”  I called back over my shoulder as the headless body slumped to the floor.

        We had made it to the atrium with only four dead and half a dozen wounded; S.A.T.S. had done wonders to make up for the Stable ponies’ lack of training or experience.  The open chamber was packed nearly cheek to jowl with exhausted and battered ponies.  The walkways above us were cleared in short order by Granite’s rifle and his sister’s grenades.  The few guards at the doors were also fairly easy pickings.

        I pulled up my map and charted the shortest path to the catwalks and the Overmare’s office that hung above the common area.  “Okay, I need two volunteers to come with me and work our way to the upper level!  Everypony else, guard the doors or go with Maple to the armory!”

        “What ye need teh work yer way up there fer?”  Rippertini asked, a white glow erupting from her horn.

        I suddenly had an odd feeling of being wrapped in the coils of some massive snake as I was floated up in the air.  “Gah!”  I yelled.  “What are you doing?!”

        The fuzzy, blue mare chuckled, despite the sweat streaming down her face.  “Am given yeh da direct route!”  She levitated me up to one of the walkways and dropped me in a heap.  “Whoa, dat took a lot out ah me.  Sorry, but yer on yer own up there!  Ah don‘t have enough booze teh float anah pony else!”  How the hell did this mercenary mare equate booze to magical energy?

        I pushed myself back to my hooves.  Whatever spell she used for levitation may have been far less fun than flying or the telekinesis my mother used to use, but I had to admit, it was efficient.  “Alright!  Keystone, lead Rippertini and BARON up here!  I’ll get started!”  I didn’t bother to wait for confirmation and bolted for Goldlight’s office.

        I opened the door to a circular office with another door on the far end.  A thick window dominated one side, overlooking the atrium.  A C-shaped desk encircled a plush, rotating chair between the window and a wall of computer banks.  Ventilation ducts were cut into the ceiling above each door  Four machine-gun turrets hung inert from a dome-like bulge in the middle of the ceiling.

        I zipped over to the desk and threw myself into the seat; it was indeed very comfortable.  A computer terminal was built into the tabletop, directly in front of the chair.  I dropped my gun down magically flicked the computer interface on.  “Okay Icy,”  I said waving my PipBuck at the desk to establish a wireless connection.  “Do your stuff.”

        “Working,”  the technically adept entity replied, causing numbers to roll across both screens.  “I just need to give you permissions and lock out all the others.  This shouldn’t take too long.”

        I heard a door hiss open.  Looking up, I saw a large griffin standing on her hind legs in the doorway.  In her left talon, she carried a finely crafted sword, nearly as large as she was and covered in griffin writing.  Her right arm ended in a bandaged stump just above the wrist and the right side of her face was covered in a web of scars.  Gellwin’s functional eye glared at me with an unearthly green glow, the other one was milky white and seemed to just drift lazily.  Unlike the other griffins I had seen she was completely unarmored and judging from the long scars that covered her body, it was by choice instead of a lack of time.

        Everything seemed to slow to a crawl.  I glanced to the pistol on the table and back to the angry griffin.  Could I get the gun up, aimed and fired before she closed in and cut me apart?  My heart hammered in my ears.  From the look on her face, she was thinking the exact same thing.  Without armor I could kill her with one or two shots and given the size of her weapon my armor wouldn’t mean a thing.

        Nothing for it.  I grabbed for the gun and pulled up S.A.T.S. as soon as I felt the weapon in my grasp.  Ah crap!  Gellwin’s wings had allowed her to cover the distance far faster than I feared and her sword was already swinging towards me.  I designated a single shot to her head.  I would be lucky to get that one off in time and I’d be screwed if I dedicated more shots, as there was no way to deactivate the spell before it finished its sequence.  I released the spell.

        *Boom!*

        The Unity griffin’s blade fell short and ripped through my gun, causing it to explode in a wash of destructive magic.  I was unsure if the miss was a result of her recently lost depth perception or if my gun had been her target the entire time.  Before I could figure it out the griffin dropped her scorched weapon and slammed her wing into the side of my face.

        My jaw twisted into an unnatural position with a nasty kronk as I was knocked out of the seat and over the table by her brutal wing buffet.  I curled up and cradled my face in my hooves, even trying to grimace hurt.  Her blow had damaged my implant, causing it to flicker on and off; if it wasn’t for the metal plate she may very well have caved my skull in.

        “You have stuck your nose in our business for the last time, heretic!”  the slaver griffin boomed with a disturbingly familiar echo to her voice as she walked over to me, brandishing her remaining talons.  “We shall relish dismembering you,”  she almost purred.  “Claws provide a visceral thrill we rarely have a chance to enjoy.”

        I struggled back to my hooves with considerable difficulty; most of my right side was bruised.  I saw one of the ventilation ducts pop open with my real eye as the clearly possessed griffin passed it.  A lock of curly, green hair poked out.  Oh no…

        Crescent slid out of the vent and plopped to the floor behind Gellwin with a box cutter clenched between his teeth.  There was no way I could get to him in time to stop him.  I tried to warn him away, but with my jaw hanging uselessly all I managed to do was make unintelligible gurgling.

        The bright yellow colt leaped up on the slaver boss’ back and embedded his little blade into her wing joint.

        The mangled lionbird roared in pain and flexed her still functional wing, knocking the child off her back.  Crescent quickly scrambled back to all fours and dove for his weapon.

        “You impudent, little cur!”  she howled, catching the foal by his tail and pulled him into the air.

        No!  Move Ocher, move!

        I hadn’t even taken a step when she swung the child down to the metal floor with a horrific crunch.

        Oh goddesses, please be alive.  Please, please, please…

        He wasn’t moving.  He wasn’t breathing.  He just stared up at the towering griffin with empty eyes and a pool of blood spreading out from the back of his head.

        “How dare you…”  I hissed through my dislocated jaw.  My heartbeat quickened as the smell of the murdered child’s blood filled my nose.  Tendrils of red snaked into my vision.

        Gellwin turned to me casually, as if she had just stepped on a bug.  She was smiling… The monstrous bitch was smiling!

        The muscles in my jaw flexed, forcing it back into its socket with a crack; I didn’t even feel pain anymore.  “HOW DARE YOU?!”  I howled at the top of my lungs.  I was pumping napalm through my veins and I felt a series of pops throughout my body.  My world became completely red and seemed to slow to a crawl.

        I lunged at the murderess, my claws ripping through the boots.  My talons hooked into her chest and I snapped at her neck, but was thrown off before I could get a good grip.  I went sprawling, but managed to dig my claws into the metal floor and right myself almost immediately.

        I was going to kill her and nothing was going to stop me!

        The possessed griffin lunged at me with her claw, unsteady on her paws from her ruined limbs and the six deep gouges I had left in her chest.  I hunched under her blow and sprung out in a pounce.  Already unsteady, I managed to bowl her over and knock her to the floor.

        I slammed one hoof into Gellwin’s chin, forcing her head up and pressed the other’s claws into her breastbone, puncturing one of her lungs.  Her talons racked my back again and again, but my flayed flesh barely stung.  I opened my jaws wider than should have been possible and sank my fangs into her neck.

        Her lifeblood flooded into my mouth and it was practically euphoric.  The griffin thrashed under me to no avail.

        “Releasing control of this form,”  a ghostly, mare’s voice echoed from seemingly nowhere.  The slaver leader’s eye stopped glowing solid green and returned to a sickly yellow.  She was suddenly terrified.  Her pupil contracted and she desperately tried to mouth something as her color quickly drained away.

        She was begging.  This thing had the nerve to beg for mercy after what she did?!  I bit down harder and yanked my head back, ripping out the majority of her throat and leaving her gurgling and grabbing at what was left of her neck.

        I got off of her and absentmindedly chewed as I watched her thrash about and hemorrhage all over the office.  She tasted so good.  I shuddered, feeling the innumerable lacerations across my back start to slowly knit closed.

        I had to have more!

        Rushing back up, I buried my muzzle into her chest.  The tough, gamy muscle, chewy organs and rich, creamy marrow.  Every part had a distinct taste and was more delectable than the last.  All my wounds were healing almost as quickly as if I had taken a regeneration potion and I felt stronger than I ever had before.  I didn’t even notice when Gellwin had stopped twitching, I was too enraptured by my feast.

        I heard the door hiss open behind me and I reluctantly pulled my head out of the griffin’s carcass to look at the newcomers.

        A tawny buck and fluffy, blue mare with matching blue jumpsuits stood in the entrance with looks of utter horror on their faces.  A much larger, red stallion in an armored version of the same outfit and a large, metal harness clamped on his head seemed more disappointed than appalled.  It didn’t matter.

        I had more prey.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  -- Cannibal : -- With this perk, you gain the option to eat a corpse to regain Health.  But every time you feed, you lose Karma, and if the act is witnessed, it is considered a crime against nature.
New Quest Perk: -- Twice Bitten- .Your beastly nature has developed further.  You gain the ability to use your nose to track prey.  Your claws and teeth have grown enough to be used as viable, albeit small, weapons.  And you gain increased benefits to health and physical abilities from eating meat.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A Friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)

Stable Wrap Up

Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

Chapter Thirteen: Stable Wrap Up

“That doesn’t tell me anything about who I am.  I need answers.  I feel like I’m looking at a complete stranger.”

        I heard the door hiss open behind me and I reluctantly pulled my head out of the griffin’s carcass to look at the newcomers.

        A tawny buck and fluffy, blue mare with matching blue jumpsuits stood in the entrance with looks of utter horror on their faces.  A much larger, red stallion in an armored version of the same outfit and a large, metal harness clamped on his head seemed more disappointed than appalled.  It didn’t matter.

        I had more prey.

        I turned around and bared my fangs as the griffin’s blood dripped down my chin and pooled at my hooves.  My breathing was heavy and the staccato hammering of my heart drowned out all noise.  I had never felt better in my life.  I was no longer the weak, fragile pony that needed living shields and trickery to survive.  I was strong.  I was fast.  I was angry about something, but I couldn’t quite put my horn on the exact reason.  But most of all, I was still hungry.

        The two ponies in front moved their mouths and made some indecipherable noises as I slowly circled around them.  I clicked my claws against the floor in anticipation as the red one shouldered past the others, babbling something incoherent to them.  Just a little further away from the group, come on, come on.  Got ya!

        I pounced at the crimson stallion with a snarl.  My charge was met with an armored buck to the chest, distorting my barrel, throwing me across the room and slamming me into a solid steel wall.

        I gasped from the oddly numbed, but still considerable pain as I pulled myself back up.  I could feel one of my ribs had piercing my lung and one of my hind legs had a jagged spear of bone jutting out of it just below my knee.  I magically reset my bones and hissed as I felt them slowly knit back together.  A distant voice started to whisper in my ear, but sounded more like a brisk wind than actual speech.  My euphoric rage was starting to fade and it was taking my new found fount of power with it.

        More food; that was what I needed.  More food would bring me more power.  I dived for the ravaged body of the griffin, but was knocked away again by the steel stallion.  Tumbling end over end, I thudded against the thick glass of the office window.

        I rolled back to my hooves with much more difficulty.  The world was moving faster and my body felt so much heavier.

        I roared out a challenge at the buck who had dared to get between me and my feast.  If he would not let me feed on the lionbird then he would take its place on the menu.

        My claws left deep scratches in the steel plating under my hooves as I charged back at him, intending to chew those meddlesome legs off.  I reared up and swung a claw at his shoulder and I found myself on my back.  He had caught my fetlock with his own and had thrown my legs too far up for me to maintain my balance.

        Rolling back to my hooves, I rained blow after blow at him, but failed to hit him even once.  Every time he would deflect my claws so I had to step back to regain my balance, embed my talons in the floor plating or over reach myself and painfully slam my face into his metal chest.

        I was slowing down and he just seemed to be getting faster.  It wasn’t fair!  I was finally strong.  I readied myself for another attack.  There was no way I would let some… whatever this thing was…  Hunter?  Yeah, Hunter felt right and oddly familiar.  Gah!  I couldn’t get distracted.  No Hunter was going to take it away from me.

        “…cr,”  the voice came again, almost intelligible over the roar of blood in my ears.  I swiveled my ears around to try and pinpoint the source of the obtrusive whispering in my head.  It was very distracting.

        My metal coated opponent took the opening my befuddlement left and twisted both my front legs around into unnatural angles.  I collapsed in a heap, my entire upper body numb and useless.

        The red began to fade from my functional eye and my head was spinning.  I rolled my head up at the harnessed stallion.  BARON?  When did BARON get here?  Everything was getting all bendy and blurred.  It was like hypothermia all over again.  Me and mountains clearly did not mix well.  The thrill of power was fading into hazy deliriousness and I was having difficulty sorting out what was happening.

        “OCHER!”  Icy bellowed, causing me to wince as if he had actually been bellowing in my ear.  “Snap out of it!”

        “Uuugh,”  I groaned, shaking my head and straining to move my paralyzed limbs.  “Stop yelling at me, Icy.”  I looked up at the harnessed stallion, seeing three of him.  “Hi BARON…  Why can’t I move my legs?”

        The red buck loomed over me.  His features and clones phased in and out of existence, making him switch from the harnessed bounty hunter to a red blob.  “He is crashing,”  the Hunter stated to the others.  “I think I managed to burn him out.”

        Something about that sounded familiar, but for the life of me I couldn‘t remember where.  “Bur… burned…”  I struggled to make my mouth form words.  “Oug?  Oub?  Out?”  That last one sounded right.  “Wabt du you men bund out?  Am nut un fiber…”  I trailed off as my mouth became too tired to use anymore.  Black was replacing red in my real eye and the cybernetic’s sputtering was getting worse and worse.

        The ever shrinking tunnel of my vision managed to discern Rippertini and Keystone walking up behind BARON and looking down at me with a mix of fear and disgust.  I tried to address them, but my body felt like it was made of lead and refused to follow my commands.  Stupid, lazy body.

        Everypony faded into blobs of color as I struggled to speak and move.  Why bother?  Too tired…

        Everything faded to black.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        “Seven, six, five…”  a little voice called out into the darkness,  “four, three, two, one.  Here I come!”

        I moved my little, deep purple hooves away from my eyes.  I was on an iron bench in a flagstone paved atrium.  Raised beds of aromatic flowers and sweet smelling fruit laden bushes were sprinkled around the several metal seats.  Tall, dark stone walls encircled the plaza with two extravagantly engraved oak doors leading out in opposite directions.  The warm sun streamed down through a tall, stained glass ceiling, depicting a white unicorn head on a blue field coated in silver stars.  Crickets chirped in the foliage and the bustling of busy ponies could be heard softly echoing through the yard.

        I had no idea what was going on.  I wasn’t having a dream; it was too real, too vivid.  Shetland had no place like this so there was no way I was remembering this… besides, I had never been purple before.  I didn’t recall touching a memory orb and if I had Icy would be strutting around, probably making fun of my clearly foalish form.  Whatever was going on, I could feel a little horn on top of my head and my unicorn colt body was comfortably familiar.  I felt as if I was making my own decisions, but at the same time, that those choices were predetermined and I was just playing a part.

        I zipped off towards one of the doors, seeing it was slightly ajar and pushed it open with my black-purple magic field.  I was wearing very comfortable clothing; they were warm and felt like they were lined with silk.  Something was flowing from my shoulders, a cape of some sort.

        I dashed into a long corridor of dark stone, split by a bright red carpet running down the center of the straw cushioned floor.  Torches on wrought iron sconces lined the walls, between heavy, polished wood doors and tall, narrow windows, filling the cavernous hall with dancing shadows.  At the far end another grand door was flanked by long banners with the same unicorn bust and stars as the window in the courtyard.

        A powder blue unicorn mare was walking down the hall with a basket of potatoes in her indigo magic field.  She was wearing a pale yellow, hooded robe similar to the ones that the New Ministry of Peace ponies wore, but far more rustic.  “Your Grace,” she said, bowing deeply as I galloped past her.

        I skidded to a halt and circled back around, practically bouncing in front of the mare.  “Miss Coral!”  I squeaked.  “Did you see Star or Viola lately?”

        The purple mare nodded. “Yes, Your Grace,”  she replied with another bow.  “Lord Star and Lady Viola passed this way, into the antechamber a few moments ago.”

        “HAY!”  a filly’s voice called down the hall.  “THAT’S CHEATING!”  I looked around Coral and saw a light brown filly with a long, braid of purple mane poking her head through the far door.  She squeaked as soon as she saw me and dashed away.

        “Thanks Miss Coral,”  I said to the robed unicorn as I pursued the other foal.  “There is no escape from me!”

        I pushed the door open with my umbral magic and bounded into the antechamber.  Long tapestries of sweeping landscapes, hoof stitched portraits and intricate, magical designs hung, interspaced between the towering windows and elegant torches.  Cushioned stools stood under each window, each wrapped in silky, cream cloth.  The chamber ended in a smaller, but far thicker door with a crested shield hanging above it.  Two unicorn stallions in chainmail barding and deep blue tabards stood at attention on either side of the heavy door.  Each had a voule, a blade resembling a curved meat cleaver on a ten hoof stick, floating at the ready in their telekinetic grips.  Another hall branched off to my right about half way down the hall and a violet braid vanished around the corner.

        I smirked and seemed to innately know that hall lead to the throne room and that there was no way to circle back around me.  I gave chase, receiving half bows from the two guards as I passed.  “I have you now my lady!”  I cackled in faux mania, made all the more silly with my childish voice.

        The throne room was an ornate hall.  Its walls were covered in murals of elaborate landscapes that phased from rolling, white sand dunes to a boiling, green sea and finally to a meadow speckled with white flowers.  A series of polished marble platforms extended out of the back wall, forming wide steps leading up to a throne of polished, dark wood resembling two rearing unicorns across the back and another two sitting sphinx like served as hoof rests.  The long carpet that had run down the corridors lead directly to the base of the throne.  Fake trees made of silver with blown glass leaves and small gemstone berries flanked the throne, intertwining above the raised platform.

        Four more unicorn stallions in extravagant, full body concealing suits of half plate armor each swathed in a unique tabard, depicting precious gems (a heart shaped ruby, a tear shaped emerald, a diamond sun burst and lance of amethyst) stood at the foot of the throne with five-pronged military forks in their magic grips.  Their faces were hidden behind armored masks modeled after the stylized, white unicorn that decorated the building.

        A light blue unicorn mare was lounging across the throne’s hoof rests.  Her long, wavy mane bulged out from under a large gold crown and fell across her back in thick pink sheets.  She had a heavy cape made from rich purple cotton and trimmed in gold silk wrapped around her like a blanket.  She waved to me lazily as I entered with a little smile.

        Two brightly colored, glazed pots the size of grown ponies stood on either side of the door, filled with perfumed water.  A little reed was sticking out of the one to my left along with a wet, white tail floating on the top.  I grinned and reached in with my dark magic field, pulling out a damp, orange, unicorn colt with the impromptu straw sticking out of his mouth.  “I got you Star… where are your clothes?”

        The damp colt looked up at me sheepishly and spit out the reed.

        I set him down and he went behind the pot to retrieve a deep blue cape and cowl.

        I turned to the mare on the throne who was chuckling softly and pointing behind her seat with her hoof.

        “I guess Viola slipped around us!”  I called out, crouching down and stalking towards the throne.  “Come on Star!  Get dressed and we will go check the kitchens!”

        I passed one of the motionless guards (the diamond one) and caught my reflection on his mirrored breast plate.  I was dark purple with an oiled back, black mane.  I was wearing a deep red tunic tied at my waist with a leather belt and a gold buckle.  A heavy, black cape was fastened to my shoulders with two sapphire clasps.  There was a moving, leather pouch hanging from the belt.

        Making my way up the stone steps I beamed at the powder blue mare.  “Thanks mother,”  I whispered as I passed.

        The mare nodded with a mischievous smile and curled up in her cushion.

        A trap door was sitting ajar right behind the throne its self.  I eased it open to reveal a dark, stone staircase leading down.

        I delved into the darkness, seemingly incapable of making a magical light and fumbled around for each step.  It grew notably colder with every step I took and a steady drip started to echo through the pit along with my hoof falls.

        I came to the foot of the stairs and fumbled around, but only ended up wandering back to the stairs and banging my fetlock.  “Ouch!”  I exclaimed, holding up my sore hoof.  Any attempt at being sneaky was pointless now.  “That is it!”  I magically opened the pouch on my hip and lifted out a ball of gray fuzz on a string.  “Nibbles, find Viola.”

        The ball of fluff uncurled its self into a poofy rat and hoped to the floor.  The rat zipped off into the dark.  Guided by the string attached to the little rodent, I followed.

        A scream came from elsewhere in the chamber and the room lit up.  I was in a simple rectangular room with drains along the sides and a wooden door opposite the stairs.  The chestnut mare was sitting in the corner and lighting the room with her horn while she fumbled to get Nibbles the rat off of her purple braid.  She was wearing a light yellow dress with green trim, now badly wrinkled and stained with dirt.

        “Found you!”  I announced brutishly as I cantered over to her.  She did not respond and continued flailing at the rodent in her mane.  I let out a shrill whistle and Nibbles hoped off the girl and scampered back to me.

        “You’re a butt,”  Viola pouted as she readjusted her dress.

        “That is ‘You’re a butt, Your Grace,”  I replied with false indignity.

        The little lady stood up and flicked my horn, making it sting and wobble uncomfortably.  “Queen Sterling Silver helped you didn’t she?”

        I ignored her question and wandered around the little room.  “I’ve never been here before.  What is it?”

        “A royal escape tunnel Your Grace,”  the filly replied snidely, bumping me with her hip.  “Father says it leads out into the mountains.”

        A glint in one of the drain grates drew my eye.  “See?  That’s why I need help,”  I replied as I went over to investigate.  “Your father is the royal engineer.  You’d find some little hole that nopony knew about and we would never find you.  It just wouldn‘t be fair.”

        She followed behind me, keeping me in the light.  “Says the little prince…  What are you looking at?”

        I harrumphed and knelt down by the drain and probed for the shiny thing with my magic, but I couldn’t get a grip in it.  “There is something shiny down there,”  I replied as I crawled a little closer.  “It could be an old coin, a gem, a rare bottle of wine or even an ancient relic!”  My voice grew more and more exited as I went on.

        The brown filly looked over my shoulder, but the object was still outside the range of her light.  “Or it could be a piece of broken glass.”

        “Regardless!”  I announced, leaning in further and sticking my hoof through the grate.  “I must know!”  I heard a series of crunches and looked down at the crumbling grout around edge of the metal bars.

        The grill came loose beneath me and dropped me down into the drain.  I tumbled end over end down a wet, rocky slope and splashed into a pool of freezing, slimy water.

        The shock of cold water felt like a vice of needles squeezing around me and I felt like I was made of bruise.  I quickly managed to get my hooves back under me and force my head back above the water.  

        “Are you alright Pyrite?!”  Viola called down.

        “Yeah,”  I wheezed as I tried to crawl back up the slippery slope, but could not get any hoofing on the slick surface.  “Yeah!  But I’m stuck!”

        “I’m going to get help!”  the chestnut filly shouted back down.  “Just stay there!  I’ll be right back!”  The light faded and died as the little lady’s hoof steps ascended the stairs.  I was quickly plunged into complete darkness.

        I stood there alone; up to my neck in water… wait, alone?  “Nibbles?!”  I called out, magically pulling on the rat’s leash.  It was stuck on something so I blindly fumbled along the floating line.  “Nibbles?!  Where are you?!”

        My hoof brushed against matted fur.  I floated the little thing up to my face and I could not feel it breathing.  “Nibbles?  Come on, stop it.”  I shook the drowned rat gently.  “Please do something.”

        The temperature in the room plummeted and a cold, white light flickered into existence in front of me.  I looked up and saw a stack of polished granite slabs, bound in brass rings and exuding a luminescent mist, perched on top of a stone alter.  Lattices of ice spread out every time the mists brushed the water’s surface.  The walls were covered in slimy, green algae and practically crawling with small leach like creatures.

        The stone tome seemed to call to me.  I took my dead rat and slugged thorough the half frozen slush, actually feeling warmer as I got closer.  A wisp of mist passed over me, coating me in a thin crust of ice that seemed to only tingle.  I continued moving forward, the ice falling off me in sheets.

        Reaching the pedestal, I reared up and planted my hooves on either side of the stone book.  Strange runes were engraved in the cover and smaller letters seemed to shift across the ice that filled the larger ones.  I touched it and was immediately flooded with some sort of power that felt like cold fire running through my veins, alternating between warming and chilling me with each beat of my heart.  The moss on the walls blackened. The slug things shriveled and peeled off into the water.  Little black and purple embers floated to the tip of my horn.

        I took a deep breath and the tiny flame seemed to breathe with me.  More by instinct than anything else, I moved the tiny flame over Nibble’s chest and pressed it in.

        The dead rat took a stuttering breath and coughed up a thimble full of murky water and what looked like bone fragments.  “Nibbles!“  I cried in excitement at the revival of my pet.  The little creature rolled back to its tiny claws and looked up at me, the umberal, black flames flickering in its eyes.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was alive again.  I scooped up Nibbles and nuzzled it.  I had my rat back.

        A flash came from behind me.  I turned and saw something dark peeking out from under my tunic.  I pulled the red fabric up and saw a black flame emblazoned of my flank.  I got my rat back and I discovered my special talent; this creepy book was the best thing ever.

        A booming voice sounded throughout the chamber.  “PRINCE PYRITE?!”  The stone book’s glow instantly died.

        I blindly fumbled back to the slope, plunging back into the bitter water.  “I’m here!”  I replied as a rosy light appeared through the hole left by the grate.  The ruby crested guard appeared in the opening and grabbed me in his telekinetic magic.

<_=======ooO Ooo=======_>

        Muffled voices interrupted my utterly bizarre dream.  I rolled around on something that was supposed to be soft, but was failing miserably.  The considerable weight of my cybernetic was missing and I could feel my uncomfortable bedding on my bare hide.  I tried to open my eye, but it felt as if they were made of lead, sliding closed if I tried to force it to open more than a sliver.

        I made out a blurry, gray wall made of concrete to my right.  That was boring even by delirious, semiconscious standards.  I rolled over; a depressingly arduous task.  I was in a small room with a toilet against one wall.  The far wall was made of close set, metal bars, looking out into a room with a door on each end and several desks down the middle; one of which had a pinto unicorn in a suit of security armor seated behind it.  This was oddly familiar.  I had been here before…  I was in 114’s security office!  …and in a cell, that couldn’t be good.  Why was I in a cell?

        “What the fuck is going on here BARON?!”  I heard Maple’s voice bark as she stomped into the room with the harnessed stallion in tow.  “You told me we had at least a month before he started to lose control!”

        Losing control?  What were they talking about?  And why the hell were they messing around in here with the battle going on?

        “I was wrong,”  the Hunter stallion replied slightly irritably as he set a bunch of small bottles full of multi colored liquid on one of the desks.  “I assumed he was just bitten, but he must have consumed some infected blood or got some of it in an open wound.”

        I had been worried that getting a mouth full of the demon’s blood was going to be a problem, but what did it have to do with…  I didn’t.  No, I couldn’t have.  I went to the Overmare’s office, set Icy to work on the door controls, Gellwin came in and the Crescent…

        “Then fix him!”  the security mare snapped, tapping the Hunter stallion on the chest.  “You said you could.”

        I pushed myself up to my knees, still trying to sort out what had happened.

        The red buck popped open a hole in his harness and started emptying the bottles into his robotic spine.  “I said no such thing.  I said I could retard the process if I had access to a proper lab for a day or so.  Fortunately, the feeding frenzy didn‘t fry his brain and he didn‘t eat the colt so he isn‘t beyond my help.”  He swept the empty bottles into a trash bin under the desk.  “I am sorry to say your Stable is not up to the task.”

        I hadn’t even taken a step when she swung the child down to the metal floor with a horrific crunch…

        My memories were coming back in flashes, intense enough to make me stagger.  She had killed the foal and I was so angry.

        “Fine then,”  Officer Beetle interjected, standing up from his chair.  “You tried.  Let’s just put the beast down and be done with it.”

        My talons hooked into her chest and I snapped at her neck, but was thrown off before I could get a good grip…

        I shook my head and stumbled over to the bars, dragging my longer claws across the floor.

        The azure mare shot the other security pony a glair.  “No.”  She turned back to BARON.  “Then where do you need to be and what do you need?”

        I bit down harder and yanked my head back, ripping out the majority of her throat and leaving her gurgling and grabbing at what was left of her neck…

        I quivered, tasting the griffin’s warm blood in my mouth again, causing me to quiver in a mix of disgust and delight.

        “I know of two in practical range,”  the harnessed buck replied, shaking his head,  “but they are far from safe.  Either the Black Apple or the Ministry of Arcane Science hub in Canterlot should have what I need.”

        Rushing back up, I buried my muzzle into her chest…

        I ate her…  I really ate her.  I collapsed to my knees and retched through the bars, expelling a splatter of bloody bile across the security floor.  I could make out several feathers in the vomit.

        Maple turned and rushed over to me.  “Ocher, just breath.”

        I flopped against the bars and just stared at the puddle that had once been a Unity griffin.  “What happened to me?”  I asked raggedly, unable to rip my eyes away from the sludge.

        Maple knelt down in front of me, but I noticed that she carefully stayed out of my hoof reach.  “Those things that we fought in the tunnels are infectious and your condition got worse faster than we expected.”  She looked genuinely sympathetic.

        “You mauled and ate the slaver,”  Icy hissed at me.  “Then you attacked your allies while completely ignoring me!”

        I closed my eyes and shook my head.  I hadn’t even heard him.  I looked back up at Maple and BARON, who was walking up behind her.  They knew what was happening to me the whole damn time, but kept it from me, just like Keystone had.  I looked away from the two, too hurt and ashamed to maintain eye contact.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

        The azure mare turned away from me.  “You had a lot on your plate and we didn’t want to cause you any unnecessary stress.”

        “Unnecessary stress?!”  I spat back in disbelief.  “I think it would be kind of important to let me know I was turning into a flesh eating monst-”  I cut myself off with another round of nausea.

        “It was my idea,“  BARON stated flatly.  “There was nothing I could do about it at the time and I figured that you would do something stupid if I told you all the details.  I made a mistake.”

        I turned back to Maple, spitting a blob of bloody phlegm on to the floor.  “And you went along with this?”

        She looked back at me.  “Frankly Ocher, I think he was right.”  My jaw dropped in disbelief.  “I was going to tell you after we got to the city, but then one thing just lead to another.  I’m your friend, but I couldn’t in good conscience put everypony here at risk for you.  Can you honestly tell me you would be able to focus on the task at hoof if I had told you that you were slowly becoming a demon?”

        “I-”  My voice caught in my throat.  ‘I’ll deal with it later’ had become my mantra since entering the wasteland, could I really fault them for doing the same?

        Hells yes I could!  I may have been keeping my head in the sand, but I chose to put my head there.  I sighed.  But she was right.  I had tried to ignore the issue, but if somepony had taken me aside and brought it up I would probably have flipped out.  “No I couldn’t…”  I growled.  “But you two are going to tell me everything now.”

        The harnessed stallion walked closer and laid down next to Maple.  “You have been infected with a mutagenic compound found in the body fluids of the ferals.  A bite takes about a month to run its course, but infection rates vary with dosage and infectious medium.”

        My eyes went wide.  Body fluids?  Oh goddesses, Scoop!  What had I done to her?!  I buried my face in my hooves, shaking back and forth. “No, no, no, no…”  I looked back up at BARON pleadingly.  “Can you stop the process if you catch it early?”

        The red stallion cocked his head.  “Early?  Your case is anything but early.”  Maple glared and elbowed him in the ribs.  “Oh, early,”  he continued, putting the pieces together.  “No I can’t, but don’t worry about it.”

        “Don’t worry about it?!”  I bellowed at the heartless bastard.  “I have turned my marefriend into a monster!”

        The harnessed buck waved his hoof at me dismissively.  “No you didn’t.  If you were a biohazard I would never have let you get near her.  Unless you two had a bone marrow transplant I don‘t know about there is no way you could have infected her at that point.”  I started salivating at the mention of creamy bone marrow, but quickly shook to clear my head, this was too important.  “Your body was not producing enough of the mutagen to create a self-sustaining infection in anypony else.”

        “How do you know?”  I replied, still panicking.  “Are you sure?”

        “I’m sure,”  BARON responded flatly.  “You just entered the infectious stage about an hour ago and fortunately it didn’t burn you out.”

        I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down at my hooves.  I didn’t know how BARON could know so much, but I had to believe him.  I couldn’t live with myself if I inflicted this on the first pony I cared for this way.  “So, I’m infectious now?”  I asked morosely, the realization that I would never be able to be with my special somepony again sinking in.

        Maple nodded and scotched closer.  “I’m sorry Ocher, I really am.”  She stuck her leg through the bars and stroked my mane, seeming almost motherly.

        I let out a low, rumbling purr and pressed my cheek back against her fetlock.  I needed this, contact, closeness, something.  I pulled back and pinched my nose with my fetlock.  What I needed and what I could have were very different things now.  “You can’t.  I’m infectious, poison.”  I pushed myself into the furthest corner from my allies.

        BARON put his hoof to his armored dome and shook his head.  “Something about body fluids seems to escape you.”  He lowered his hoof back to the floor.  “Unless you plan on feeding her your blood, biting her or rutting her-”  Maple bristled at the concept and I couldn‘t blame her.  “you aren’t going to cause any problems.  Hell, you could kiss her if you wanted.”

        I flustered, why would he even bring that up?  “How the hell could a bite be infectious, but a kiss would not?”

        “Saliva kills the virus that transmits the mutagen,”  the red stallion replied, as if he was giving a lecture to foals.  “You have noticed how the ferals eyes are red correct?  And I’m sure you felt a few pops when you attacked the griffin.”  I nodded dully.  “That was your smaller blood vessels rupturing from high blood pressure.  It turns your eyes red and makes your gums bleed.  The virus can survive in the blood long enough to get into the wounds caused by a bite.  Now, there are a few other things you will need to know before we let you out of there.”

        I scratched at the floor, leaving grooves in the metal.  “You can’t let me out.  I’ll just hurt ponies again.”  I dropped my head and let my shaggy mane fall over my red tipped face.

        “Finally,”  the pinto security stallion piped up.  “Somepony who is reasonable.  Keep the animal in the cage.”

        “We are going to let you out, Ocher,”  the security mare stated in a tone that left no room for argument.  She reeled on the unicorn buck.  “And you will show some damn respect Officer Beetle!  If it weren’t for him I would be dead several times and you would be stuck in the Stable’s dark, oily guts until the slaver finally cut you out and slapped a collar around your neck.  Do I make myself clear?”

        The pinto stallion bristled but stepped back and slinked over to the door.  “Yes ma’am,”  he grumbled resentfully.  I had the distinct impression that Maple’s return knocked this guy off the top of the totem pole.

        “Right,”  BARON said, digging through his bags.  “You are still less dangerous than most of the sociopaths in the wastes anyway.  Think of it as a bad temper you need to keep under control.”

        I gulped.  “But I already have a bad temper…”

        “Then you should have plenty of practice.”

        “My temper doesn’t make me want to eat ponies!”  I snapped back.  How could he be so calm about this?

        “Yes, about that,”  the Hunter stallion responded, his demeanor unchanged from my outburst.  He threw a plastic packet full of brown strips of something.  “You will have an easier time with self-control if you don’t starve yourself.”

        How was I starving myself?  I was eating two or three full meals a day.  “What is it?”  I asked, floating the packet and opening it.  I sniffed at the strips, my enhanced nose being one of the few perks of this change.  It smelled smoky, savory and had a hint of honey; rather enticing really.

        “Radigator jerky,”  BARON replied, laying out some miniature mechanic’s tools on one of the desks.  “I picked some up at the griffin hub of the sky port just in case.”

        I chucked the bag of dried flesh back through the bars.  “I’m not eating meat!”

        The jerky bag came sailing back in and struck me in the face.  I sat and blinked, more from surprise than anything else.  “Yes you will,”  the harnessed stallion ordered sternly.  “You are carnivorous now, whether you like it or not.  If you don’t eat meat you will lose control again.  Your body won’t let you starve and you will go savage.”  He gave me a very serious look.  “Every time you enter a feeding frenzy it is less and less likely that you will come back out of it and if you ever get a taste of equine flesh you will be beyond my help.”

        I begrudgingly picked up the griffin food again.  “You seem to know an awful lot about this thing that most ponies around here think is just a myth.”

        BARON placed my mechanical eye on the desk and started doing… something with it; I was having a hard time following the harness’ four darting, robotic tendrils.  “I ought to.  I helped design it.”

        He what?!  Not only has this thing been terrorizing the region for a century, but it also created the demons that haunted the valley?!  How did it plan to explain this away?  Maple seemed to share my shock as she stomped over to him and yanked him away from his work.  “Why would you do such a thing?”  she asked critically.

        “I had my reasons,”  he replied irritably, yanking away from the azure mare.  “And are you honestly complaining?  If I hadn’t you would still be in this mess, only I would not be able to help you.  Now are you going to let me work or not?”

        The white maned mare walked around the table BARON was working on and slammed her hooves down.  “Not until you tell us why you would do such a horrible thing!”

        The armored buck growled as the blue earth pony’s hooves knocked several of his tools off the desk.  “I can’t tell you.  It is classified.”

        “Seriously?”  I asked irately, stomping up to the bars.  “Why the hell not?!  You made it for the war right?  Who could possibly care if something is classified anymore?!”

        The robotic doctor groaned and brought his hoof to his face.  “No, I mean I literally cannot tell you.”  He sounded almost sad about it.  “I would tell you if I could, but I haven’t managed to completely disable that security feature yet.  Now please let me get back to work on your eye and eat your damned radigator.”

        I leered at him for a moment as I floated out one of the smoky strips of spiced meat.  I wasn’t sure what to make of that.  On the one hoof, I couldn’t see him getting anything out of us by keeping us in the dark; if anything the suspicion would make his life more difficult.  On the other, two centuries to disable some security device struck as a stretch to me.

        “He has done a good deal of fucked up stuff, but so far lying to you has not been one of them,”  Icy reminded me, obviously still sore at me for unintentionally ignoring him.  “Now stop pushing your luck with the ancient robot that is helping you and take your medicine.  I won’t get drowned out again.  Clear?”

        I glanced from my jerky to the pile of half-digested griffin on the other side of my bars and something struck me.  I was such a self-obsessed shit.  I knocked on my cage, causing Maple to stop trying to drill holes through BARON’s head with her eyes.  “Um, I need to know…  Crescent?”

        The guardian mare pondered for a moment.  “The colt?”  she asked hesitantly.  I nodded, looking down at my hooves.  “I’m sorry Ocher, he didn’t make it.”

        I sighed.  I had already known, but I had to have somepony else tell me for it to really sink in.  I hadn’t really connected with the kid before, but he was one of Moon Bell’s friends and they did come in to my store nearly every day for treats, and to apologize for breaking something at least once a week.  I couldn’t really wrap my head around why the foal had given his life for me.  What in Tartarous had I done to earn that from him?  I looked up at Maple through my bangs.  “I didn’t…“  I glanced to the pile of meat in the corner.  “Did I?”

        The azure mare trotted over to my cage and stuck her hooves back through, softly taking hold of my face and forcing me to meet her gaze.  “You didn’t do anything to him.”  She brushed my mane out of my face.

        “What part of ‘if you ever get a taste of equine flesh you will be beyond my help‘ did not sink in?”  The red buck asked, not looking up from his work.  “Now you had best eat up, the battle isn’t over yet.”

***        ***        ***

        I popped another strip of unctuous jerky into my mouth as BARON refitted my cybernetic eye.  He had made a few modifications, changing the light, reinforcing the chassis with bits of PipBuck and replaced some of the wiring.  I still looked like I had a toaster melted to my face, as I essentially did, but at least the new, yellow light went with my real eye.

        Maple had scrounged another beam rifle out of the armory to replace my lost gun before heading off with BARON to check on the Stable and Frostborn wounded; as short hoofed as we were on trained fighters we were even shorter on medics.  That left me with Officer Beetle, who had spent the whole time leering at me.  I couldn’t really blame him for it, given what I had done, but it was still damned annoying.

        I swallowed my chemically treated, mutant meat and floated up the rifle.  “So, what is going on with the battle so far?”  I was still hurting from what had happened, but I had managed to reign myself in enough to be useful again.  “How can foal sitting me be justified if this isn’t done yet?”

        “The worst of the fighting is done,”  the pinto officer answered, floating out two pistols to augment the twin shotguns on his battle saddle; he had been forced to give up his other two shotguns for some of the other defenders to use.  “But the damn slavers are like infestation, crawling into every dark corner and digging in.  Most of it is just mop up, two or three degenerates in a broom closet, but there are still a few areas that are giving us problems.”  He cocked his shotguns and flicked off the safeties of the ten millimeter pistols.  “They’re rallying around the remaining scrappers and alicorns in little strongholds throughout the Stable.”

        I nodded to the heavily armed security stallion.  “Understood…  Are we going to be okay?”  I asked seriously.  If we were both going to spend the whole time looking over our shoulders this was going to be a lot harder.  “Or should we see if we can get new partners on this little hunt?”

        “If you are asking whether I am going to spend this whole trip insulting you or filling you with holes, then no, we don’t have a problem,”  he replied tersely.  “I have been given a direct order to show you respect and I do what my superiors say.  If you are asking whether I think you deserve that respect or if I like you then the answer is no.”

        I knew I was going to regret this, but curiosity got the better of me.  “Why?“  I asked, tilting my head.

        He looked me square in the eye; his tone unwavering and matter of fact.  “In my mind, you are a damaged and unstable piece of machinery.  I do not doubt that you are useful, but you are still what you were bred to be, a battery and the fact that I must take orders from you is insulting.”

        I snorted, taken aback that his problem was not my loss of control.  As offensive and bigoted as that was, I had to admire his rather twisted honesty on the subject.  Telling somepony that you saw them as property while they were helping to exterminate slavers took a lot of… something.  This particular something happened to be far from my favorite though.  “We are going to need to have a long chat when we are done with this.”

        “And won’t that be fun?”  he replied snidely.  “Now why don’t you be a good magic flashlight and lead the way.”

        I grunted and headed off towards one of the several new mission markers that had popped up on my PipBuck.

        The steel gray walls of the Stable’s nearly every corridors were splashed with red-brown stains and dotted with bullet holes.  Every time we passed one Beetle gave me a leer as if they were my fault.  This was sure going to be fun.

        Two red dots appeared on my E.F.S. display as we passed a restroom.  I nodded at the room and charged my horn.  The security stallion bit down on his firing bit and stepped in front of the door.

        I triggered the door and unleashed my flair on the pair of raiders cowering in the back of the lavatory, under a sink.  “Drop your weapons!”  I bellowed, swinging up my beam rifle.  “On the ground! N-!”

        A chorus of gun blasts cut me off and shredded the slavers as well as their wash basin cover.  The cracks made my ears ring and my neck stung as the clusters of lead passed within an inch of my throat.

        I turned to see Beetle kicking a fresh set of shells out of his battle saddle.  “What the hell?!”  I bellowed at the trigger happy buck,

        He just shrugged.  “What?”

        “They were going to surrender!”  I barked back, baring my teeth.  “And you damned near took my head off!”

        The pinto rolled his eyes.  “You’re in one piece and they were vermin; you don’t let a cockroach surrender do you?”

        “But they weren’t cockroaches, they…”  I trailed off.  They couldn’t be ponies.  I didn’t kill ponies.  “Just let them surrender next time.  That way nopony can claim we didn’t try.”

        The quad wielding stallion grumbled.  “Yes sir, Commander Battery,”  he replied sardonically.  “I will ask before I shoot them.  That way the soldier ponies can shoot them later.”

        “Good,”  I responded and turned to leave.  Half way down the corridor I stopped and turned back to him.  “What do you mean shoot them anyway?”

        “Don’t be naïve,”  he snipped back, still trotting to the waypoint.  “These fiends had an armed conflict.  Do you really think they will use the food and guards to take them back to wherever your soldiers came from?”  I had not thought of that… good guys always let them surrender.  “No they won’t.  They will hold a fake trial and execute them.  Hell, even if they do take them home they will be probably be killed.”

        “How many times did the Lich Emperor surrender to the Sword Mares?”  Icy asked flatly.

        “Forty-seven,”  I mumbled to myself without a pause.

        “And how many times has he escaped to sow discord again?”

        “Forty-six.”

        “Exactly.  The one time he didn’t was the Hearts and Hooves special.  My point is that you can’t always afford to give second chances.”

        “You know,”  the security unicorn interrupted,  “most count from ten when they are pissed off.”

        I grumbled and continued down the corridor to the waypoint.  They both had valid points, but I was not about to kill yielding enemies; it just didn’t sit right with me.

        We were nearing the Unity group we had been tasked to deal with.  A wide window frame dominated a wall under a sign reading ‘salon’.  Two Frostborn troopers, a lime mare and a lavender stallion, had their backs pressed against either side of the window, sitting in the glass from the shattered window.

        The two soldiers nodded to the broken window and the stallion held up an empty grenade belt.  I motioned for Beetle to stay put and crawled up to take a peek.

        The salon’s floor was covered in checkered vinyl tiles instead of the cheap carpet and steel grating of the rest of the Stable.  A half dozen barber chairs lined one mirror studded wall.  Shelves of mane care tools and two century old products ran along the other side of the room.  Posters of ponies wearing extravagant mane styles were plastered between the mirrors, each advertising a different kind of shampoo or styling gel.  A sales counter had been flipped over into a makeshift barricade.

        An armored griffin and an injured scrapper were directing a pair of battered slavers to take up defensive positions around the room.  A second scrapper and a half dozen other raiders were tossed in crumpled heaps at the back of the room.

        I slipped back to Beetle and waved the two soldiers over.  “Look,”  I whispered,  “they are done and I would be willing to bet that they know it.  I am going to go in and tell them to lay down their weapons.”

        “What if it doesn’t work?”  the security stallion asked snidely.

        “Then I get shot,”  I replied.  “You three get to point, laugh and fill the room with bullets.”

        He perked up and smirked.  “I like this plan.”

        “I thought you would,”  I deadpanned.  Shaking my head I turned to the soldier ponies.  “This okay with you two?”

        The lavender grenadier shrugged.  “No need for all of us to get shot at.  Be our guest.”  Well, that sure was a rousing vote of confidence.

        I crawled under the window and floated up my gun sideways.  “I just want to talk!”  I called out to the slavers.

        There was a long pause.  “Throw your piece away and come over!”  One of the Unity slavers barked back.  “If we see that horn glow we will end you!”

        I did as I was instructed and crawled into the room.  Almost immediately I was swept off my hooves by a mass of steel and white feathers.  “Lord Red Eye!”  Serrish, adolescent griffin from the tram station, cried out.  Even though I couldn’t see her face, I recognized her voice and smell.  I was honestly relieved that she seemed uninjured.  “What happened to you?!”

        “Are you soft in the head, girl?!”  the heavily armored shock trooper barked before I could get a word out.  “That magical bastard’s not Red Eye.”

        “No, I recognize him,”  she replied defensively.  “This must be some sort of disguise,”  she looked down at me, “right?”  Oh, there was no way this was not going to go badly.

        I eased myself from her downy chest and back onto my own four hooves.  “No, Serrish, I’m sorry.”  I shook my head and looked up at her remorsefully.  I knew this was going to hurt her.  “I‘m not Red Eye.”

        The griffin stepped back.  “You’re not him?”  She looked down at her talons and began to tear up.  “I let you in and you are one of them…  You said you liked me.”

        Ouch.  Twist the knife why don’t you?  I sighed.  “Look, I do like you.”  I wasn’t lying there.  She seemed like a sweet kid, barring the whole slaver guard thing.  “That is why I’m trying to get you out of this in one piece.  Please, stand down and I swear I will do everything I can to keep you safe.”  I looked over to the other Unity slavers.  “The same goes for the rest of you.  Stand down and I will make sure you at least get a trial.”

        “But, you betrayed me,”  the Talon whimpered, looking away.  “Why should I trust you?”

        The scrapper rose to his hooves.  “Betrayed you?!”  he shouted through what sounded like a collapsed lung.  “You stupid cunt!  This is your fault!”  He swung down his shard rifle.  “Forget this fuzzy prick, I’m going to fucking kill you myself!”

        Without even thinking, I brushed past Serrish, brought up S.A.T.S. and cued up two attacks with whatever the spell decided I was equipped with at the moment.  Unleashing the spell, I lurched forward and jammed my claws into the scrapper’s good lung and then slammed my other bladed hoof into his exposed face.

        As soon as the spell dropped I yanked my claws out and the shock trooper dropped like a stone.  The smell of his blood was intoxicating, but nowhere near as all-encompassing as before and it quickly subsided.  I was breathing heavily and turned to the other two, bearing my teeth as the other three armed ponies that made up my team stormed into the room.  “So, are we going to be doing this peacefully or is this going to get messier?”

        The two other slavers dropped their weapons and just slumped down in defeat.

        Serrish looked between me and the dead scrapper.  “He tried to kill me.  My own commander tried to kill me…”  She looked me in the eyes morosely.  “I am never going to be able to go back to the Unity am I?”

        I patted her back with my tail.  “Probably not.”

***        ***        ***

        Beetle lead the way to the medical bay; where Milk Thistle had set up her temporary office. Serrish followed me dully while the soldiers escorted the raiders.

        Four members of the Stable militia met us at the door; three pod ponies and one from the Stable proper.  The guards greeted us warmly, but became hesitant when they spied our Unity prisoners.  Fortunately they were in no mood to argue with me and let us past.

        The medical bay was a sterile white room with a dozen medical beds.  Six gurneys were pressed against the walls.  A bevy of flat surfaces, from catering carts to wheeled tool chests and even several tables from the cafeteria had been packed in.  Every flat surface had a wounded pony on it and a hoof full of others in light blue medical smocks rushed between them.  I spotted Milk Thistle through a window at the back of the room, working on somepony in what I assumed was the emergency theatre.

        Thistle was clearly too busy to see me at the moment and the room’s smell of so much blood and chemicals was quickly becoming uncomfortable.  I asked one of the guards, a teal stallion who used to be a tailor in the sim, to let her know that I wanted to talk with her when she had a moment.  With a final glance around I turned to leave.

        “Where has Rocksalt set himself up?”  I asked the lime soldier mare.  “I need to go over what will happen here when we are done.”  The sooner I could get BARON to a lab to deal with my condition the safer things would be for everypony.  From what I had overheard, Canterlot was sounding like the more promising option.  I knew where it was and Racket may be able to help me get there (her company was called Canterlot Caravans after all).  Conversely, the Hunter stallion had a very violent history with the Black Apple; whatever it was.

        The Frostborn mare mumbled something into her helmet’s headset and looked back to me.  “The Colonel is actually waiting for you near the entrance chamber,”  she replied, checking her rifle‘s magazine.  “Something about an Enclave agent.”

        Perfect, I needed to touch bases with Echo anyway.  She had seemed certain she could explain the recording the Unity used to try and discredit me...  That and she had always seemed to be oddly supportive, despite her pragmatism, and I could use that about now.  I stepped back a little bit and waved my hoof down the nearest corridor.  “Lead the way ma‘am.”

***        ***        ***

        A light flashed across the cave mouth as Bore and Sabot’s Rouncey chased a trio of armored griffins through the hills.

        An orange mare wearing only a massive, black officer’s cap with a smiley face embroidered in the center was arguing with an armored Chevalier and a black on black, winged silhouette.  The three ponies were standing around a long, spindly machine, wrapped in sheets of dull, black plastic.

        I approached the group with my eclectic entourage and waited for them to have a moment.

        “You really expect us to believe that pile of horse apples?!”  Dawn Star shouted at the Enclave pegasus, lightly kicking the device between them.  “You know exactly what this damned thing is!”

        “I do,”  Echo replied tersely, slightly twitching her head, clearly flicking through her E.F.S. tabs.  “It is a signal booster, as I said.  The Unity must have hijacked it to break into this Stable’s logs.  Even Stable Tech cannot compete with Enclave equipment.”

        The noble morale mare sneered.  “Right, and because your mighty, pegasus science is so advanced that this rabble,”  she waved her hoof at the ruined slaver camp,  “managed to not only find and hack into your toy, but do it without any of you featherbrains figuring it out.”  The orange mare stepped closer to the dark pegasus.  “Pick one.  Is the Enclave incompetent?  In which case, I will need to advise my father to reevaluate our treaty.”  The officer unicorn moved even closer until she was standing face to face with Echo.  “Or were you conspiring with these slaver scum to break our rules.”

        The morale mare taped Echo on the chest to punctuate her last statement and in the blink of an eye one of the Enclave pony’s fetlock blades was pressed to her throat.  Okay, no more waiting my turn.

        I rushed up to pull the two apart, but the Chevalier beat me to the buck and threw the two of them apart.  “That is enough!”  Rocksalt’s magically amplified voice boomed.  I skidded to a halt in front of the trio and plopped down on my rump.  I had honestly not expected to see him in proper, horned Chevalier armor, as he was an earth pony.  He turned to Dawn Star.  “You back off Captain.  She would not have brought it to us if her government was working against the city.  Be that as it may,”  the armored ex-slave turned to address the still highly tense Echo.  “you clearly have a bad apple in your bushel.  Tell your commander to get your house in order or we will do it for you.  Do I make myself clear?”

        The teal maned flyer took a few deep breaths and nodded.  She turned to me. “I assume you heard all that, Ocher.”

        I pointed to the device at my hooves.  “That broke into Goldlight’s logs and broadcast the fake signal.”

        “Close enough,”  Echo responded, regaining her composure.  She looked over my shoulder at the dejected Serrish and the two battered raiders.  “Anyway, what are these?”

        “Ah yes,”  I replied, turning to address Rocksalt.  “We took these three prisoners in the salon.  I was wondering where I should leave them?”  Echo tilted her head, expression unreadable through her insectoid mask.

        “Here is good,”  the orange unicorn replied coldly.  She trotted over to one of the raider prisoners.  “You are accused of crimes against equinenity.”  The slaver seemed to visibly deflate and stared down to the floor, mouthing something.  “By my authority as heiress to the Flankorage duchy and my position as an officer in the Frostborn military I judge you guilty as charged.”  She floated up her massive cannondy cane to the raider’s head.  “The sentence is execution.”

        I smacked the huge gun down.  “No!”  I snapped.  I would not let them break my word, even to a monster.  The morale pony seemed almost tempted to turn her weapon on me, the black pegasus tensed up and officer Beetle gave me a look that just screamed ‘I told you so‘.  “I promised that they would at the very least get a fair trial.  Maybe you can trade them back to the Unity to free some slaves or something like that.”

        “That would work,”  the yellow stallion replied, taking off his helmet and wiping some sweat off his scarred face.  I saw the edge of a circular scar in the center of his forehead.  Holy shit, that poor buck was a unicorn!  He must have noticed my shock as he shot me a look that said ‘don‘t bring it up‘ in no uncertain terms.  “As we are leaving a garrison here, we should have the room to take a few back to the city.”  Dawn Star stepped back, clearly displeased with veteran Chevalier’s decision.

        I glanced over my shoulder at the silent and dejected griffin youth and chewed my lip.  If the scrapper was any indication, the Unity would kill her or worse if they ever got hold of her again.  “What if the Unity won’t buy them back?”  I asked, readdressing the soldier ponies. “What will happen to them then?”

        Rocksalt shrugged his shoulders.  “It depends on their tribunal.  Best case, the New MoP gets their hooves on them and they can spend their lives as sanitation workers, though they may end up in penal squad or working in the mines.”

        At best this kid could look forward to spending her years in some filthy, reeking pit or killed by those she would call allies and she had me to thank for it.  “Any chance I could oversee one of their sentences?“  I asked hopefully.  “The young griffin’s perhaps?”  The other raiders were already adults, they had a choice about what they did with their lives.

        “That, and you don’t feel guilty about playing with their feelings,”  Icy interjected, almost seeming supportive.  “If you are going to do this at least be honest with yourself about why.  Mistake guilt for kindness and you will just end up hurting her and yourself.”

        “Psychoanalyzed by my mysterious brainmate,”  I mumbled to myself while the two Frostborn ponies talked over my request,  “fun times.”

        “Come off it,”  the arctic entity replied snippily.  “You know I’m just trying to help.  Lie to yourself long enough and you will start to believe your own horse apples.”

        Yeah, I had kind of gotten that vib from Red Eye when we had spoken.

        The Frostborn Colonel turned back to me.  “I think that can be arranged if a few conditions are met.”

        I perked my tufted ears.  “Oh?”  I looked over my shoulder to see Serrish’s response to the good news; I had to be better than living in sewage.  To my disappointment, she seemed completely uninterested in her fate.  I sighed and looked back to Rocksalt.  “What would those conditions be?”  The young griffin may not care, but I did.

        “The Captain knows more about the legal issues than I do,”  the yellow unicorn responded, indicating to the mare in the huge hat.  “She will fill you in, but it may be better if we wait for whoever is in charge of your Stable, as it concerns the whole community.”

        Officer Beetle stepped forward.  “Acting Chief Sugar’s orders be damned,”  he growled.  “I am not going to let you make decisions for the whole Stable.”

        I leered at him; my patience for his bullshit was quickly running out.  “I had no intention of doing so,”  I replied as evenly as I could.  “I have already asked Milk Thistle to come out here.  Why don’t you go get whoever runs the rest of the Stable and we will go over it?”

        The pinto security buck seemed all set to argue with me and seemed to stumble over himself when I didn’t disagree with him; it would be a lie to claim it I was not amused by that.  “I… Fine.”  He stomped off, back into the Stable.

***        ***        ***

        The sizable entrance cave was feeling rather crowded with a mix of pod ponies, Stable ponies, Frostborn, mercenaries and bound raiders.  All six surviving members of Stable security, including Maple, Beetle and Blanket Stitch, as well as Keystone and a few ponies I had not spoken to represented the Stable.  Rocksalt, Dawn Star and Dust stood on the high ground near the cave mouth with their tank destroyer sitting in the entrance menacingly; their setup was very well organized to inspirer intimidation.

        Milk Thistle was the sole representative of Shetland and was trotting anxiously, clearly unhappy to be away from the medical bay.  I was having trouble looking her in the eye…  Crescent had essentially given his life for mine.

        BARON, Echo, the mercenaries and my captives stood with me off to one side.  Alabaster and Granite seemed to be keeping as much distance between them and me as they could; I honestly couldn’t blame them.  Rippertini, oddly enough, actually stood next to me, seemingly unphased at what she had seen me do.  I was not planning to look a gift horse in the mouth, I would take any ally I could find.

        “Now,”  Dawn Star shouted so everypony could hear her,  “We, the Frostborn of Flankorage, have fought to free your home, but this invasion has left you exposed to the dangers of the wastes.”  A murmur went through the Stable ponies.  “But we can help you.  If Stable 114 joins the Sovereign City of Flankorage as a protectorate we can leave a garrison of soldiers here and extend the protection of our treaties to your society as well.  All we ask in return is your loyalty and abidance of our laws.”

        “This is not a decision to be made lightly,”  Rocksalt continued where the morale mare left off.  “The Captain here is transmitting the terms of this offer to your PipBucks, review them carefully and we will answer any questions you may have.”

        Almost simultaneously, all the Stable ponies brought up their fetlock computers.  I accessed my own with my cybernetic eye and flipped through pages of legal speech.  Let’s see, no murder; duh.  Don’t steal; no brainier.  Respect private property… unless you are the government; that one was a little unnerving.  Food and water rationing, that one was only relevant to the city proper.  Ah, legal repercussions… huh, one of the numerous legal specifics had been highlighted for me.

        ‘While civil crime has standardized punishments that all territories must observe, each territory has the right to punish capital crimes that occur in their territory as they feel fit; the counsel reserves the right to overturn any decision made by a provincial government.’

        Ah ha, that was what the scarred buck had in mind.  If Stable 114 decided to join I could claim responsibility for the griffin girl’s crimes and set her punishment as helping me out or something.

        I flipped through some of the other treaties and addendums while I waited for the others to think it through.  From what I had seen in the wastes they really didn’t have much choice.  If they didn’t join Flankorage they would not last a year before some monsters found their way in or the Unity came back.

        “Clever bastard,”  BARON mumbled from behind me.

        I turned around as unobtrusively as I could. “Huh?”

        “Your Stable has just been forced into Flankorage’s empire,”  he replied quietly.

        “Well they haven’t decided yet.”

        “Don’t be naive,”  the harnessed stallion grumbled.  “They don’t have a choice in the matter.  Your home may have been under the claw of a dragon, but they have just bucked that dragon in the balls on your behalf.”  Okay, not seeing the bad yet.  “Now they are saying that they will leave you to its wrath unless you get under their, admittedly nicer, claw.” Oh!  That was underhanded.

        “What is this part about mandatory military service?”  Milk Thistle spoke up irritably.  “You want us to sign over our lives to you?”

        “Ma’am, we are spread thin as it is,”  Dawn Star replied.  “We will defend you for now, but every province must provide horsepower based on their population in exchange for our resources.  We will train and equip your forces so you can protect yourselves.  If you are attacked we will bring the full force of our army down on your enemies, but on that same token, we require you to send forces to assist us if we chose to call on you.”  She thought for a moment.  “The militia you have assembled already would be quite sufficient.  Send them to the city when you have the chance and we will train them for you.”

        “We don’t really have a choice in the matter do we?”  Keystone asked despondently.

        “Sure we do,”  Beetle replied.  “We can play ball with these ponies or we can fend for ourselves in the frozen hellscape.”

        Maple turned to address the Chevaliers.  “What else would we need to do for your protection?”

        “Nothing at all,”  Dawn Star replied chipperly.  “Though I would advise you send an ambassador to the city to represent your Stable in the council.  You also probably want to talk to Canterlot Caravans, The New Ministry of Peace and the my father to get financial, social and diplomatic assistance respectively; I have also transferred the information on those groups to your PipB-”

        The roar of the Chevalier’s Rouncey cut the young noble off as it lifted into the air and zipped off.  The Chevaliers, my companions and I rushed out of the cave with the Stable security in tow.

        The slaver camp was in ruins, with the twisted wreckage of their shelters and scorched bodies.  The two IFVs were looping around to flank a group of half a dozen alicorns, two deep green ones, three midnight blue ones and a single violet one, who were flying from further up the mountain.  The violet demigoddess had luminescent green eyes and seemed almost radiant compared to the others.

        One of the green alicorns formed a shimmering bubble of green energy around it, but it was almost instantly burst as the tank hunter Rouncey fired its main weapon and reduced the creature to a fine, pink haze.  Almost simultaneously, both Dust’s lightning cannon and Dawn’s confectionery weapon opened up on the group of winged unicorns, blasting the remaining green one into a rain of scorched meat.  The rest of us could do little more than just watch as nopony else was equipped to do so.

        The three midnight mares fled north while the luminescent, violet one turned to face down the magical war machines.  She brought up another emerald shield and hovered in the Frostborn’s path.

        The lighter transport opened fire, lancing the magical barrier with beams of destructive energy, but the arcane assault seemed to have little effect.  The Rouncey whipped past to give its more heavily armed sister a clear shot and pursue the fleeing alicorns.

        The glowing alicorn vanished in a flash of green veined, purple light.  A split second later one of the lighter IFV’s levitation pods exploded in a spray of metal and crystal shards.  The demigoddess reappeared in the middle of the steel carnage, her shield sputtering in and out of existence around her.  Sabot and Bore’s war machine plummeted out of the air and crashed into the snow, tumbling end over end down the slope.

        I charged down the mountain after the crashed Rouncey as its larger sibling reduced the alicorn to pulp, the stronger shield no match for the tank hunter’s hoof wide gun.

***        ***        ***

        “Anypony in there!“  I yelled as I clawed at the battered steel of the downed Rouncey’s side door.  “Somepony, please answer me!”

        Echo and the Chevaliers beat me to the crash, but couldn’t do anything about the door until I got there; the Frostborn elite’s weapons could get through the steel, but would risk hurting the two ponies inside.  The vehicle itself was a mangled wreck, but fortunately had come to rest right side up.  One of its pods was completely gone, the other three had cracked gems and bent sponsons.  The turret was bowed and spewing rainbow sparks in all directions.  The entire nose of the vehicle was buried in the ground.

        I finally sliced a leg sized gash through the door, but my attempts to force the hatch open only managed to gash my fetlocks on the jagged strips of metal.  BARON came up behind me, pulled me out of the way and ripped the door open like it was made of cardboard.

        As soon as the Hunter buck opened the vehicle wide enough I wiggled past him and through the opening, ripping some stinging gashes along my sides.  Dawn Star and Maple followed close behind me; the power armored ponies were still too big to squeeze through the twisted door frame.

        The interior actually didn’t look too bad, a bit dented, dark and still claustrophobic, but more or less intact.

        I lit up my horn and climbed over the boxes of ammunition, food and other supplies that had broken free from their restraints and were scattered across the compartment.  The morale mare headed to the back to open the rear hatch while my security companion and I cleared debris away from the cockpit door.

        Fortunately the interior door controls were still working and we managed to get into the cockpit without difficulty.  It was an utter mess.  The thick glass of the front window had exploded inward, covering the chamber in jagged, knife-like shards.  Instruments sparked and sputtered as they struggled to keep the crippled vehicle’s failing systems running.  Sabot’s puce form was sitting motionless in her seat, head still in the turret cam helmet.  A stream of blood ran down the controls in front of Bore’s station and a strip of bloody, black-brown scalp hung from the Rouncey’s still swinging horn clamp.

***        ***        ***

        I waited anxiously on a metal bench by the medical bay doors, back in my Boxxy Brown armor and with my beam RCW slung across my back.  Serrish was sitting next to me and starring off into space.  The Stable leaders agreed, somewhat ruefully, to the Frostborn’s offer while we were getting the two pilot ponies out of the crashed Rouncey and made my custody of the griffin youth official.  Since then, the adolescent had been silently following me like a lost puppy.  I knew I needed to have a talk with her, but I felt it better to wait until I was in a better mental state myself.  Officer Beetle had told me that my other two captives had ‘attempted to escape’ when we left and had to be shot; what a load of shit.

        I peered in through the window at the packed recovery room that had once been the Stable gym and was conveniently just across from the clinic.  I spotted several familiar faces, sprawled out on exercise mats.  Sabot had suffered a serious concussion and was in a coma; one of the nurses had told me that her odds of recovery were good, but not certain.  Bore had his head heavily bandaged as the crash had ripped his horn off at the root and that was beyond even BARON’s ability to fix with the facilities at hoof; it would take years of therapy and regenerative spells before he would be able to fly his Rouncey again.  Red Tape was sitting in a wheelchair at the back of the room.  She had survived the salvo of spikes, but one of them had struck her spine, severing it at the hips and costing her the use of her hind legs, baring a very good response to regenerative spells back in the city, for the rest of her life.

        “Don’t even think about it,”  Icy instructed sternly.

        “Don’t think about what?”  I asked under my breath.

        “Don’t start on that ‘it’s all your fault’ garbage,”  he retorted sharply.  “These are soldiers.  They were here to free this place from monsters.  They got hurt doing their jobs and helping ponies.”

        I grumbled.  I could not claim that it had not crossed my mind… but since when did guilt need to make sense?  I was no soldier.  I was a bucking store clerk.

        “Exactly.  Your risked your life to help them when you had several outs.  These are mostly trained soldiers, so knock it off.”

        Before I could respond I caught a whiff of Echo’s unique odor of rain and ozone.  “Hey,”  I said dully, turning to the silently hovering Enclave mare.

        “I must say, I am hard to spook, but that sniffing thing is unnerving,”  she stated, sitting down next to me and pushing up her mask.  “I wish I could do it.”

        I looked her sternly in the eye.  “No you don’t.”

        “Fair enough…”  She looked around and pointed to the adolescent griffin on my other side.  “Can you ask her to go somewhere else for a few moments?”

        I shook my head. “Sorry, no.  If she leaves my sight and one of the Frostborn or 114 security see her before I do they will kill her.”

        The soldier pegasus grumbled.  “Alright then, since she is stuck with us I suppose she ought to know.”  she continued, slightly vexed, as if Serrish were an annoyance more than anything else.  “BARON has managed to secure us transport.”

        “Oh?  That is good news.”

        “In that busted sky tank.”

        If my mouth had been full I would have done a spit take.  “What?!”

        She gave me her nearly invisible smile.  “Yeah, she is badly battered and the Frostborn don’t have the parts to fix her.  The Hunter said he could do it and that was that.  She is ours until he can get her to fighting strength again and then they will buy her back from us.”  She waved her hoof in what looked like a pantomime of a back pat.  “Congratulations, you now own a floating death box.”

        I looked over to the gym and the two broken pilots.  But that was their flying death box.  I couldn’t take it from them because they got hurt fighting in my little war.

        “Well then you had better get it fixed up before Bore gets his horn back,”  my cold advisor said with uncharacteristic warmth.  “Think of it as a get well gift.”

        I couldn’t help but smile at that.  “You know what Echo, I think this may work out nicely.”

        The medical bay door hissed open and the dark green doctor mare trotted over to us, looking solemn.

        I got to my hooves and started towards the doctor pony.  “Thistle, I am so sorry ab-”  I began, but was quickly silenced by a hoof to my lips.

        “Don’t, Ocher,”  Milk Thistle instructed with a shake of her head.  “Just don’t.  This is going to be hard enough as it is.”  I nodded obediently as she led me back to the bench.  “I know it isn’t your fault, but I can’t help but think that if you weren’t here he would be.”  The doctor mare who had taken care of me since I was a foal seemed to have trouble looking me in the eye.  “A lot of the other ponies here feel the same way…”  She chewed her lip.  I did not think I would like where this was going.  “Ocher, I know this isn’t fair to you, but we need you to leave for a while.”

        I was not expecting to be welcomed back, but to hear it said still felt like a buck to the stomach.

        It must have shown as she immediately looked away.  “Look,”  she continued,  “we all know you saved our haunches here.  This will just take some time…  I’m sorry.”

        I felt something soft touch my shoulder.  Turning, I saw Echo’s wing draped across my back.  She was trembling with effort, almost violently, but still kept it there a moment.  The shear gravity of that left me speechless.  She had willingly touched me.

        I nodded to the umberal pegasus wordlessly and stood.  I had expected this, at least it wasn’t permanent and I had a good group of friends to lookout for me while I was in exile.  It wasn’t like the twisted halls of the Stable had ever been my real home anyway…  I sighed and headed towards the exit.  Before I turned the corner I held up my PipBuck and turned back to Milk Thistle.  “You know how to reach me,”  I said with forced humor.  “And I deliver.”

***        ***        ***

        I trotted outside with Echo and Serrish in tow as the sun was falling behind the mountains.  The valley was actually rather beautiful with cloud muted the golds and oranges of sunset tinting half the forests, cutting off abruptly to a deep purple where the mountains cast their shadows.

        Bore and Sabot’s Rouncey was waiting for us by the tram station.  The crippled war machine was levitating a few hooves above the snow on its three remaining pods.  All the Frostborn insignias had been stripped off the vehicle, most noticeably, the flags that had been emblazoned on either side of the gun section.

        BARON was literally bucking some of the dents out of the chassis.  Alabaster, Granite and Rippertini were sitting on the back ramp, playing a game of cards.  Keystone was seated in one of the back seats; given what he had done, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.  Maple was climbing down off a ladder, having just finished writing ‘Blankflank’ along the side of the IFV in big, black letters.

        I trotted over to them, stopping in front of the security mare.  “So, Blankflank?”  I asked with a mix of curiosity and awkwardness.

        “Yup,”  she replied with a smile.  “Poor thing has lost its mark and its purpose.”  I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that it had been pointed out, the flag symbols had looked like cutie marks.  “We had best get started on finding out her new one.”

        I tilted my head.  “You’re coming with me?”  I asked, honestly surprised.  “What about the Stable?  Aren’t you the security chief?”

        The azure mare shook her head.  “I have never wanted command; too much paperwork, and not enough time spent helping ponies.  Beetle can have it.  As for the Stable…”  She brushed the gold bands on her front right fetlock.  “I have what made it home right here.  Besides, who else is going to keep you from becoming a ponycicle?”  She shook her head and snickered.  “No, you are stuck with me for the duration.”

        I pulled the defender mare into a tight hug, taking care to avoid using my claws.  “Thank you.“  Yeah, this exile thing may work for me.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  --  Piercing Buck  --  Piercing Buck makes all of your Unarmed and Melee Weapons (including thrown) negate 15 points of damage threshold on the target.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A Friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)