Chapter 3: A Town That Used To Be….
“What is this place and what happened here?”

What an unfortunate series of events…and to think I would die as dull and not remembered by anypony as I had lived my life, I could’ve changed something but I didn’t, it was always “I can do it later.” Boy do I regret my decisions now.

As time slowed to a snails pace as I watched my imminent doom approached and water hit my face and blinded my glasses, I couldn’t tell what was happening as everything kinda turned off in my body, I couldn’t feel my legs and hooves as my PipBuck started ringing like crazy probably about how I was about to die, thanks PipBuck…I hadn’t noticed.

I don’t know how long I was in the dark, but as I choke and puked up all the water that had entered me as all I could feel was more water falling on my face, once I opened my eyes I was just staring up into a deep abyss which made me question was I falling or flying? My glasses were just soaked in water as raindrops trickled down on my face. I tilted my head to the left as I saw the same grey pony was next to me laying on the dirt…”dirt?” Last time I checked, I should be on the cold and wet metallic floors of the Stable and not in the Gardens of it, but it explained the rain.

I sat up as he noticed me. “Your finally awake! Lets move! We’ll catch a cold!”

“W...What? Where are we?” I whimpered.

“We’re on the other side of the door now…get your things, we need to find shelter.” He said that sentence with such a jolly tone that it sent chills down my spine.

I got back upright as my legs felt as weak as the day I broke one of them while walking down a flight of stairs. I grabbed my bags and made a quick inventory in my head of everything I had, there was no way going back to the safety of the Stable now…I had zero to none survival training except that one book I read that only briefly covered the basics of survival, but they were about surviving in the jungle and more urban environments, where I was…it looked more like a desert to me, a desert which was raining very heavily that it could probably fill a river, the other pony took point as I followed behind, taking in everything around me through the thick rain.

“Um…if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your name?” I asked, because if we were going to stick together, I needed to know his name.

“Its Jack, Jack Molten…and yours?” As he continued trotting along the dirt path that was entering something that looked like a town but all the buildings were destroyed and what remained was rubble and debris.

“Berg, Berg Electron…nice to meet you.” I wanted to thank him for saving my life, but it kinda slipped my mind through all that had happened.

As we entered the town, I saw a sign that was half in the ground. “Ponyv…” I was disappointed that it was rubbed off by time but my PipBuck alerted me so I checked what was going on. It displayed on the data page that we were in some town called Ponyville, from the PipBucks readings it seemed like this town was rather large and had multiple Districts to it.

“We should split up, look for any buildings that can be used for shelter and any supplies that we can use.” He barked at me rather urgently which caught me by surprise.

“Um…okay! I’ll tell you if I find anything.” I was very against the idea of splitting up because we were in a place that was totally unknown to me, I would’ve said something but he caught me by surprise and I was still tired and dazed by the water and the rain.

So as he trotted off to the left side of the town, the only choices were the road that led to the right or the road that cut straight to the town’s center according to my PipBuck, so I took the middle path as I walked down the road, observing the structures as I went closer and closer to the center of town, I had noticed that the buildings that were more to the inside of town were less broken and retained somewhat of their original stature. The center of town seemed to be some sort of shopping district as there were many stands and carts strewn around, there must’ve been some stuff left around so I walked over and started searching.

From the carts and some boxes that I managed to open with ease mostly because they were pretty broken anyways so a little force with my hooves simply cracked them open, I got two healing potions, a Rad-Away, a box with a few magical bandages left in it and a small leather pouch that had bits in it. I put everything in my saddlebags as I fiddled around with my PipBuck to sort the things out. Once I had looted everything, I decided to move along a road to see where it led, my PipBuck showed up that it was called Sugarcube Corner.

From the weirdly faded yet bright outside of the building, I walked up to it and tried the door…locked, like almost every other building, I took a look in through the wet and cracked window and peeked in, I could see a counter and some sort of vending machine that emanated a faint glow to it, it looked special and important to say the least so I had to find out what it was.

I went around the building to see if there was any other entrance in, and there was! There was a back door that had the knob removed by force somehow so I went in, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I realized that this was some sort of bakery, the glass case was empty and the glass smashed as well…why would ponies do this? What happened out here that turned everything like this?

I was drawed towards the faint, warm glow of the vending machine as the red faded sign above it said “Sparkle-Cola.” There was some writing below it but it was nothing more than smudges at this point, from the look of the machine, it seemed like there was still cola inside it, it looked like it took bits in a coin slot so I got the pouch and put in 4 of them as I pushed the only button that was still lit up.

CHUNK!

With a rather loud “thud” 2 bottles fell into the receiving drawer at the bottom of the machine as I stuck my hoof inside and grabbed them out, they were in glass bottles and had a reddish-purple color to them, I put one in my bag for Jack and propped the other one on the edge of the counter as I popped the cap off and it tumbled into the air, I caught the cap mid-drop as it seemed to have writing on the underside of it but it was too dark to see so I held onto it until I was out, feeling quite parched…I took a gulp of the drink, it tasted like some sort of tangy grape soda with gas, the gas had dissipated quite greatly but you could still taste traces of it faintly.

Before I had stepped out the door, I noticed something in a drawer that was refracting light through the window, I slowly walked over to it and opened the drawer, to my surprise…there was a six-shooter gun inside with a piece of paper next to it. The paper was quite worn out but still readable, it was a diagram and explanation on how to use a gun with…your mouth? It apparently said that the gun was manufactured specifically for using it with your mouth and tongue, you hold the handle in your mouth and use your tongue to pull the trigger…weird…

I opened the barrel to see if there were any cartridges inside, there were 5 bullets inside…I tried to put the gun in my mouth like the picture depicted, to say the least it was very awkward to use, but after 5 minutes of testing I finally got it in a comfortable position where my tongue could touch the trigger, I had never used a gun before and I never thought I would, but this seems like a good thing to have in this place…

As I finished off the drink, I kept the bottle because it could have been of use in some way or another, I trotted out the door and back into the rain…in the distance of about where Jack went, I could see a faint light that glowed a orange ember, did he start a fire? Or did he find a torch? Lighting a torch in this weather? Of course that’s logical, stupid me…

The constant curiosity of what he had found bugged me to a point where I had to check up on him, plus I wanted to tell him what I had found so I started to make my way towards the light.

There was just one more corner before I would walk out into the street where the light was emanating from, if I had took one more step without knowing what was on the other side of that corner, my hoof would’ve been taken off cleanly…but this happened

“MMM-MMPHH!!” A muffled scream hit my ears as I screeched to a halt on the corner.

“Oh shut up you worthless piece of crap…you look so worthless that I’d doubt we’d even get a good price for you from the slavers!” It was another ponies voice, it sounded very rough and gravelly, I slowly peeked around the corner to see what was going on. Three ponies were in a house that had the front part of it torn off, Jack was bent over with his hoofs tied behind his back and his mouth was gagged with a cloth next to a fire, Jack took notice of my eye around the corner as he gave me a silent “no” nod.

“What are you doing? Don’t go waggling your head around you got me?!” As the dark brown colored pony gave Jack a strong right hook with his gloved hoof, Jack landed right next to the fire and almost getting his face seared off by the blaze.

I was caught in a state of confusion, I didn’t know what to do…the first thought that came to my mind was to talk them to let Jack go and this was all just a mistake, as I took my first step out of the corner…my leg landed in a puddle as the sound alerted the ponies to my presence.

“Uhhh…guys? Could you let…”

“BLOODY HELL! WHO’S HE?!”

BANG!!!

A buckshot round fired from the unicorns shotgun came flying at me as it hit my leg and arm, I doubled over in pain as I hopped back behind the wall as I let out a quiet scream of pain and anger, and many other emotions actually.

I could hear the ponies running towards me from the sound of the puddles, I started panicking and tried to find the revolver from my saddlebag amidst my pain, which was pretty useless with my injured hoof, and soon…the unicorn pony had his shotgun pointed down at me and in my face, the water was steaming off the barrel as I could see the shell inside…I was screwed at that point.