//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 - Strangers to the Wasteland 
// Story: The Dweller's Tale: Of Mutants and Magic 
// by Appy 
//------------------------------//

	With a final crack of his pistol, the rodent of unusual size that was chasing Nash halted in its run and skidded forwards on its momentum before finally stopping, dead. With no more violent creatures in sight, Nash stopped to rest as the lit flare he was carrying died out, leaving him in near total darkness. Not even out of the cave yet and he was already beset upon by hostile critters. Rats. Gigantic, mangy rats, twice the length of his foot and about midway up his calf in height, and with a nasty disposition to boot. He limped towards a cave wall and slumped against it.

"I'm not liking this adventure much anymore," Nash whined to the nearby rat corpse. Digging through the bag he was provided, Nash found what he was looking for. Removing the protective covering from the needle, he flicked the stimpak a few times before jabbing it into his leg and pushing the plunger. Almost instantly, his leg went numb as the wounds began to slowly scab up and shrink. Nash grunted in discomfort at the odd feeling. Those pre-war doctors sure knew what they were doing, he thought as he tossed the now empty needle away and flexed his leg experimentally. Several minutes later and using the wall as a crutch, Nash stood up and cautiously placed weight on the leg. To his satisfaction, it worked as though he had never been bitten by a horde of giant angry rats, though it was still particularly numb and uncomfortable. With a strong kick, Nash punted the dead rat towards the way he came, saying, "Hasta la vista, you furry fuck." He shook his head and turned around.

Outside world, here I come, he thought. Loading spare rounds from an ammo box into his pistol's nearly depleted magazine, Nash continued carefully through the bowels of the cave on the little light there was, not wanting to waste another flare. From around the bend he spotted ahead, Nash saw light. A bright light, illuminating the walls and floor of the cave.

His breathing intensified as he slowly made his way to the cave's mouth. Sunlight. Actual, natural light. No generators, or light bulbs to replace. And no ceiling.

Every step seemed a laborious effort as Nash trudged his way through the dank cave and towards the beautiful light. After what seemed like centuries, Nash was standing outside the cave on the dry and cracked ground. He looked upwards.

The most beautiful shade of blue, easily outshining that of his Vault suit, was all that he could see. Completely uninterrupted by any blemishes, barring that of the difficult to look at circle of light which he deduced to be the sun, was all that Nash saw. His bare skin radiated with a warmth the lights in the Vault could never match. The horizon stretched far, broken by the rare rock, dried up shrub, or mesa in the distance.

Slowly, as though afraid of what he might find, Nash raised his arm in the air as high as he could stretch it. Feeling nothing, he stood on his toes to give himself several more inches of leeway, with still no contact. Finally, he tried jumping, waving his arms through the air as though swatting a fly... or perhaps, trying to fly, only to encounter still nothing but air.

With these actions completed, Nash fell to his knees and cried. He wasn't quite sure why, as he didn't feel sad, or particularly happy after his encounter with the rats in the cave for that matter, but he still cried. And he enjoyed it. The tears dried quickly as the warm sun fell upon his face.

Nash rose unsteadily to his feet after a while. Checking the blocky device on his left arm, he searched for the location of the Vault he was supposed to find. Vault 15, due east of his home.

Gonna be a long walk, Nash surmised, looking at the map and data it provided.

Taking a deep breath, he began to walk into the path of the rising sun.



________


Twilight didn't know who had authorized the use of her head as a jackhammer, but she was going to find whoever it was and banish them to the moon. She wasn't exactly sure if she could do that, but she'd be darned if she didn't try.

Something poked her in the flank. Using her wing, she shooed the intruder away. After a pause, it prodded her again, much to her royal chagrin. Groaning, she attempted to sit up, asking, "Is this what a hangover feels like? Because if it is I'm glad I never touched the stuff."

"Jesus goddamned Christ!" she heard something annoyingly close to her shout obnoxiously loud, infuriating her pulsing head further as whatever it was made a scuffle attempting to move away. She didn't care anymore, but whoever was in her royal bedchambers without her permission was going to get severely—

She cut her train of thought, recalling the events that had last transpired before opening her eyes wide. The invading light assaulted her mental faculties further, forcing Twilight to shut her eyes again. But she saw something sitting there, among the all-encompassing desert.

Slowly easing her eyes open, Twilight managed to investigate her surroundings without blinding herself. Sitting in front of her, she saw what appeared to be a hairless diamond dog, wearing a blue garb of some sort. She noted a large yellow "13" on its back when it turned, as well. Her violet eyes probed its green ones, searching for any hostile intentions, and judging by its face she was sure it was doing the same to her. This, coupled with the fact that it was wearing clothing of some sort, lead Twilight to believe that the creature was sapient and not simply a wild animal.

After a bout of silence, she cleared her throat and awkwardly began, "Who... or what, are you? Where am I?"

"OK, so it's not a heat stroke," the creature said to itself. "Unless it is, in which case it's damned convincing."

It shook its head before facing her and saying, "Assuming you're not a side effect of a mental breakdown I may or may not be having after walking this featureless desert for almost eight hours, my name is Nash. Are... are all of the people here on the surface like you?"

"'People?' Do you mean ponies?"

"Ponies, huh? I remember reading something in the Vault library about horses. No, it couldn't be..."

"What couldn't be?"

"Did the war really wipe out humanity? Were you horses the only things to survive?" he asked, before mumbling under his breath, "Horses and damned rats."

"I told you. I'm a pony, not a horse," Twilight said, moderately insulted before jolting slightly as she realized what Nash had just said. "Wait, did you say war? What war?"

"Then your ancestors must have been the horses I'm thinking of and the radiation mutated you all into this twisted mockery of evolution," Nash concluded, ignoring her question. "It makes sense, I suppose, but all in all it's a very horrifying prospect." He put a hand to his chin.

Twilight's feathers ruffled. Bringing a hoof to her chest, she took a deep breath before extending the hoof and exhaling. Slightly calmer, she said in a still-agitated tone, "Next to nothing you are saying is making any sense to me. We ponies are not, and never have been, the descendants of 'horses.' 'Horse,' to us, is an insult. Just as well, we are not the products of any sort of radiologically-induced mutation either; our evolution was entirely natural — although technically evolution is based entirely on mutations, but I digress. Furthermore, I don't know where I currently am, or what this war you continue to mention is. I'm not even sure what species you belong to! You certainly don't look like anything I've ever read about in a zoology or genealogy book. I would very much appreciate it if I could get some answers."

Nash scratched his head. "Uh, wow. Where to begin?" He paused. "Well, I suppose the obvious answer is with myself, I guess. As I already said, my name is Nash. I am a human, or homo sapien if you want to get technical. As for location, the best thing I can tell you is that you are in post-war California, approximately an eight hours' walk from Vault 13 — my home — and quite a lot farther from Vault 15. That's where I'm heading now."

"And what about this war you keep mentioning?" Twilight asked, mentally shelving the topic of "Vaults" and their numerical values for later discussion. Though it was pretty simple for her to connect the "13" on Nash's back to the place he had mentioned which was assigned the same number.

"Well, I don't know much about it myself. I lived my entire life underground, in a bomb shelter called a Vault.  I do know, though, that in October of 2077, which according to this Pip-Boy was almost a century ago assuming it hasn't broken," he said, pointing to the blocky contraption attached to his arm. "the United States launched a series of nuclear missiles in a retaliatory strike against China. Or maybe they fired the first shots, it was never clear. Anyway, thanks to a concept called 'mutually assured destruction' every other country on the planet decided, 'hey, if those jackasses are using nukes, why don't we?' And that's the story of how humanity fucked itself with city-annihilating explosives. In a nutshell. That's not to mention the far more harmful fallout radiation that those bombs gave off. The Vaults were made to protect humanity from the explosions and radiation. That's the gist of it, anyway."

Twilight stared blankly, shocked at both the man's casual use of profane language and the story of how his race had nearly made themselves extinct. Though she was unsure what a "nuclear missile" was, the "city-annihilating" bit was clear enough when she assumed that those were the 'bombs' he had mentioned. Plus, she knew enough about radiation to understand its deadly properties, so she got the essence of his meaning. The "United States" and "China," Twilight surmised, were probably the names of countries, similar to Equestria.

"Not too sure how much of that is entirely accurate," Nash added quickly. "I didn't pay much attention to history. I spent most of my time as a child in the library, looking at data about the outside world. I had always wanted to go outside the Vault, to see the sky. I've read that the night was a beautiful thing to behold, and I wanted to see more than blurry pictures on a computer screen. I wanted the real thing. But it wasn't until..." he looked at his Pip-Boy, "Yep, eight or so hours ago that I've ever left the Vault." Squinting, he stared up at the sun which was well below its apex by now. "The first time I saw the sun, I cried. It was just so beautiful," he said quietly, smiling wistfully.

"You're telling me that you've never seen the outside world until today?"

"That's right. Nobody still alive in the Vault has. Well, maybe one or two of the old timers, but they must have been young when they came in."

"Well, you're in for a treat when that sun sets," Twilight said with a smile, slowly warming to Nash's presence. "The nights in Ponyville were absolutely beautiful. Luna does a great job."

"You say that as though the night sky is controlled by someone," Nash noted with confusion.

Twilight nodded. "Somepony actually, but that's right. Princess Luna raises the moon at night and controls the way we see the night sky. She does fantastic work. Her older sister Princess Celestia — and my mentor, I might add — raises the sun."

Now it was Nash's turn to stare blankly. "You're telling me they fly up there and push those things?" he asked with disbelief. "Because I find that hard to believe. Nothing in the Vault library ever mentioned that. Gravity does all the work here." he said.

Twilight began to giggle, attempting to and failing at choking back her laughter. When she finally recovered herself, she said with humor, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Of course they don't push them! They use their magic to move them."

In response to that, Nash began to laugh. "Now you're pulling my leg. Magic? That's all fantasy crap, though I will admit I've read several fantasy books back in the library..." he said.

And so the unlikely duo traded stories back and forth, swapping information about the other's respective world, and all the laws — physical, natural, magical, governmental or otherwise — that came with them. Within that time, Twilight explained to Nash her predicament: how she had gotten there, and how badly she needed to return home, while Nash explained the situation with his Vault, and about the water chip he was searching for. Nash agreed to help Twilight in any way he could, and she the same to him. Nash took the concept of magic with more than a grain of salt, while Twilight found it hard to beleive that she was in a magic-less world.

After an unsuccessful attempt at showing Nash her magic, and a resulting return of her headache with a tenfold intensity from the strain, Twilight determined that her experiment with Discord was perhaps too successful. She believed that her thaumological magic reserves were completely burned out, which left her without her magic for an extended period of time.

When the sky finally faded from blue to black, Nash was absolutely awestruck. The stars were every bit as beautiful as he had read, and then some. For the second time that day, he cried.

The two of them were lying on a blanket Nash had laid out, Twilight pointing out constellations which were strikingly similar to ones she saw on her world. When Nash finally fell asleep, he did so with a smile on his face.


________


The morning sun, in conjunction with his roaring stomach, woke Nash from his dreamless sleep. The gut-wrenching pain reminded him that he hadn't had anything to eat since midway through his journey the day before. Rationing smartly wasn't exactly his strong suit, so he ended up eating far less than he should have for the amount of walking he did. It was a miracle he didn't pass out. Remembering the night before, he looked to his left. To both his confusion and relief, Twilight was still there, sleeping, proving to him beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was real.

A growling emanated from Twilight's stomach as she began to move.

OK, so she wasn't sleeping anymore.

When Twilight was fully awake, she looked at Nash feeling, he imagined, much as he did when he woke up. "You're probably hungry, aren't you?" Nash asked.

Twilight's stomach replied for her. She grinned sheepishly.

"Thought so. So, what do you eat? Assuming you're in any way close to the horses of the pre-war times, you're probably herbivorous. Am I right?"

"Well, not strictly speaking. We do eat eggs and rarely fish as well," Twilight stated. "We don't eat meat ourselves, though we respect those who do. I actually live with a dragon, and diamond dogs are carnivores too, as well as griffons and numerous other races."

"I see. Well, I'm afraid I don't have much, and what I do have we'll need to ration carefully. Will dried apple slices do?"

"While I'd prefer a daffodil sandwich, that sounds great. Thank you," Twilight said with sincerity as she accepted the small package with her hooves, her magic still useless.

"Alright, great. Just one question, though... what the hell's a daffodil?"

Twilight looked perplexed at Nash's lack of knowledge about such a common plant before giggling, giving the simple answer of, "Well, it's a flower."

Nash looked around at the featureless desert. A tumbleweed blew past the pair, giving them their first sight of a moving object that wasn't either of them since they both entered the wasteland. "You'll have to forgive my lack of botanical knowledge," he said with a smile. "Growing up in a hole in the ground under the most boring desert on this god-forsaken planet will do that to you."

Twilight scanned the surrounding area as well, her eyes resting on the now motionless tumbleweed before nodding her understanding.

After their meager meals and a short sip of water for each, they continued their trek towards Vault 15. Silence reigned for approximately two hours before Twilight abruptly said with a wavering voice, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what?"

"Well, you have such a limited supply of provisions as it is. I'm only a burden, stretching that limit further than it should safely go," she responded sadly.

"Relax, Twilight," Nash said, ruffling her mane. "You're the first living thing I've met that hasn't tried to make a snack of my legs since I left the Vault. That more than qualifies you to travel with me, in my book."

"A-and dare I ask what it was that you encountered?" Twilight asked with a sniffle, holding back her tears.

"Rats," Nash said harshly. "Gigantic. Fucking. Rats." Using his hands, he pantomimed the approximate size of the vermin he had encountered.

"Wow," Twilight said, smiling slightly at the man's over-enthusiastic gesturing. "They must have been terrifying. The largest rodent I've ever seen back home was a mouse, and my friend Fluttershy takes care of animals of all shapes and sizes." Twilight had told Nash about her Ponyville friends the day before. "In fact, I remember one in a tiny little wheelchair with a small bandage on one of its paws. It was rather cute, actually." She giggled, the conversation lifting her spirits.

"Lucky for you," Nash grumbled. "Anyway, Twilight, don't worry about the food or water. You're more than making up for it with your company. I think I'd probably just walk off the nearest cliff if I had to do this trip alone."

"What cliff?" Twilight asked jokingly. "There's nothing out here but—" she was cut off as Nash yanked hard on her tail.

"That one," he said before Twilight could protest, pointing downwards. Twilight's hoof was hanging precariously over empty space.

Situations such as that, among other things, happened often to the pair during their three day trek through the hot wasteland, broken only by the occasional rock, cliff or mountain in the far distance. They encountered no living creatures. Eventually, though, Twilight spotted something out of the ordinary in the distance. Pointing it out to Nash, she asked frantically, "Do you know what that is?"

Squinting his eyes against the harsh light, Nash shrugged, saying, "Looks like a really low cliff from here. Don't know who'd set up all those round rocks along the end like that though. Looks too even to be natural."

Twilight shook her head. "That's not a cliff, and those aren't rocks, Nash. That's sandstone, forming what appears to be a wall or barrier."

"Are you saying...?"

"Yes, Nash. That's a town!"