Fallout Equestria: Ashes to Ashes

by Tango

Chapter 8: New Faces

Why?

Why couldn't I just simply wake up normally for once?

Was it because the universe hated me? Was it some kind of mean karma thing for getting innocent ponies killed? The slaves that I accidentally burned, Lapis and the other members of the caravan, for whose deaths I was indirectly responsible, the brainwashed ponies living in Sirenville, who had woken up from their trance only to find themselves facing a bunch of severely pissed-off raiders? Or was it the colt, the foal that had been standing in the room and fired back when Lazuli and I blindly cleared it?

Or was I overthinking it and was the answer simply that I had been lying on my bad shoulder, you know, the one that had the bone sticking out of until Lazuli had popped it back in?

Judging from the agonizing pain, it probably was the latter.

As fast as I possibly could I rolled back onto my good side and whimpered a bit for good measure. Looking at my shoulder, I realized I could really use a doctor right now, preferably one who knew how to treat infections as well. Though the wound had been closed because of the healing potion I had drank, it didn't mean that it was closed nicely. The fact that I had been lying on it and rubbed the still weak skin open, causing it to be exposed to the wonderful wasteland dirt probably didn't help either.

Some good and unrelated news however, was that Sirenville was still smoldering in the gloomy morning light. Practically nothing was recognizable, the shacks were too badly constructed and probably had fallen apart almost immediately. As for the manor, apparently the architect of the old villa apparently really liked to use wood in his or her designs.

Besides the structures, the once lushly green hill had now turned into an interesting mixture of black and grey, the only things still standing were the fire blackened trunks of the trees, and that was only because they were supported by their roots.

Looking up, I saw that the smoke had mixed with the cloud layer and dispersed, causing swirling and shifting patterns to emerge. As I looked at the spectacle of shapes, I noticed that the smoke was slowly being absorbed into the wall that separated the enclave from the rest of the wasteland.

In short, it was amazing.

I would have stayed there in an attempt to take in all of the details, were it not for my shoulder and Lazuli. And, more specifically, Lazuli noticing said shoulder.

In no time she had stuffed my breakfast down my throat and began supporting my weight. With her help and under the constant verbal assault of her lecturing me, we went onwards again.I had had plenty of practise ignoring other slaves and as such had no trouble whatsoever not paying attention to Lazuli. I did make sure to occasionally nod and mutter sorry.

After several hours of limping in the general direction of, well, the horizon, I had decided that on the next opportunity we should get a map. Lazuli wholeheartedly agreed, which was no great surprise.

We then continued our way for another several boring hours until in the afternoon we found something more interesting than rocks: other ponies. About a dozen were gathered near a ruined building, next to a road leading to a rather large and much less ruined building. They didn’t look like raiders and we could use some help, so we approached them.

Before we even got close, they spotted us and sent three well armed ponies towards us. All three were wearing a similar duster over their barding. The blue unicorn buck on front, who had a fancier hat than the others hinting that he was the leader, spoke up once they were close enough. “Hello there, I’m sheriff Blue Lamp from Greenmall PD. What are you two mares doing around here?”

I looked at Lazuli, seeing if she had ever heard of the place before. The blank look in her eyes hinted that she hadn’t, so I answered. “Oh, we’re just aimlessly wandering.” I pointed in the direction behind us, where in the far distance a faint trail of smoke was still visible. “We came from there, stopped some bitch with huge ego from making a whole town go crazy and fall in love with her.” I then wiggled my bad leg. “I kinda broke my leg, it was sorta set, but it still hurts pretty bad. Do you have a doctor in that mall?” I looked at Lazuli, who was staring at me with an incredulous look on her face. I shrugged again, I’d just told him the truth.

The sheriff took several moments of blinking and staring at me as if I were mad before he sighed and turned around, gesturing for us to follow him. We did just that, flanked by the other two ponies. As we trotted back the sheriff started talking again. “Yes we got a doctor in the mall, but he can't exactly fix your leg just yet.”

“Why not?” Lazuli asked curiously.

The blue buck pointed a hoof towards the large building down the road. “That's the mall, and currently we're having a little gang problem. The Timberwolves have taken over and have a large number of hostages. They're demanding a pretty damn big ransom, and promised that they'd shoot the hostages if we would try to attack. Luckily those fine ponies over there,” he pointed at the ponies standing at the smaller building, “have agreed to help us retake the mall. And if what you said about your previous adventures is true, we could use your help as well.”

“Well, I'm kinda useless as of now, with all the limping,” I pointed out as we reached the rest of the group. Out of the nine ponies that were there, four more wore the same dusters as our welcoming committee. The other five were an interesting bunch. There was one tough-looking unicorn mare, wearing a battle saddle with a cumbersome looking gun on it. She kept glancing at the mall through the scope of that rifle and didn't pay us much attention, unlike the white unicorn stallion with green mane that came galloping towards me as he overheard us. A yellow pegasus with black mane was meanwhile flying around above the group, making me slightly dizzy and jealous while looking at him. At the same time a mare in extremely heavy body armor was yelling at the pegasus to come the fuck down, to not make us a nice target for the Timberwolves inside the mall. A little distance away from them stood a zebra with some strange bands around her hooves, watching everything and slowly shaking her head.

As I took this all in, the white buck reached me and came to a halt before inspecting my shoulder, his horn softly glowing. “Uhm, hi.” I said to him, but he didn't respond and seemed to be rather focussed on his magic. After a minute he stopped and looked up to me, nodding.

“Hmm, severely broken shoulder, set but not yet healed properly.” He turned to the zebra and asked her, “Hey Eclipse, do you have some of that healing salve for me?” The zebra trotted over and dug out a small bowl out of her saddlebags, which she hoofed over to the white buck. Meanwhile Lazuli, I and the sheriff were just watching. It felt a bit awkward to have a strange buck just jump on me and start treating me without any explanation, but hey, I couldn't really complain now could I?

The buck nodded at the zebra, who I assumed was called Eclipse, and proceeded to gently apply the salve to my shoulder. As the healing cream made contact I felt a tingly sensation and then numbness. I was pretty grateful for that numbness since after my shoulder and leg were properly sedated, I heard my bones crack and shift slightly into the right position. Yeah, I was glad to not have to feel that.

After a couple of minutes of shifting and settling, the numb feeling wore off and I regained full control of my leg again. Experimentally I took a few steps and was happy to find that all the pain was gone! I turned to the buck and zebra mare who were responsible for my recovery and smiled broadly at the both of them. “Thanks a lot! This feels so much better!”

The white stallion smiled and stepped forward, offering a hoof I gladly shook. “You're welcome. My name is Soft Touch, and that,” he pointed at the zebra, who nodded in acknowledgement, “is Eclipse. Over there are Boomer, Daisy and Swifty. Swifty's actual name is Swift Death, but we prefer to call her Swifty.” he said as he pointed at the pegasus, armored mare and the mare with the impressive gun respectively.

I continued smiling. “Nice to meet you Soft, I'm Ember and that's Lazuli.” I gestured towards my... friend? Yeah, considering how many times she had saved my flank, it was a safe bet to say she was my friend.

As we introduced ourselves, the other ponies, and zebra, came together. Many hoofshakes were traded before the sheriff cleared his throat. “Uhum. Well, now that we all know one another, how about we go and save my ponies?” Oh right, we were going to help them, almost forgot about that.

The murmurs of the group died down and we all turned to the sheriff. “We can't go in guns blazing or those mules will kill everypony inside. We need to devise a plan, I propose we distract them with negotiations while a couple of us go in sneaking and free the hostages. Once they're cleared we'll flush those Timberpussies out of my mall.” He looked at the group of five and asked, “Now, who's the leader of your bunch?”

Instantly Boomer, Swifty, Soft Touch and Eclipse pointed towards Daisy Field, who looked around a bit unsure. “I'm not the leader, I don't even know why you're following me!” Upon the insisting hoof pointing, she admitted defeat and hung her head. “Fine, I'm the leader then. Why did you ask?” she asked Blue Lamp while the rest of their group was chuckling, except for the zebra.

I found myself giggling softly too as the sheriff replied. “Well, I wanted to ask you who of your team can go in sneaking, and who should go negotiating.”

Daisy didn't miss a beat and answered immediately. “Eclipse for sneaking and Softy for the talking. Maybe Boomer can set up some explosives for extra distraction too.” The named ponies and zebra all nodded at the proposed tasks while the sheriff put up his hoof.

“I'd rather not have you destroy my mall in the process if you can help it. So no explosives okay?” Boomer looked a bit sad at the denial of his fun while Blue Lamp turned to me and Lazuli. “And how can you two help us?”

Lazuli spoke up. “I'll help with freeing the hostages, but it'd be best if one of your deputies would tag along, so that we know where we're going.” The sheriff nodded and pointed at a black stallion with dark blue mane. “Night Shift will come along with the two of you.” He then turned back at me. “And you? How can you help?”

I shrugged. “Well, I'm not really good with talking, so I'll help in flushing the place afterwards.” The reply got me a short nod from the blue stallion.

We went on to discuss the plan in more detail, but I didn't pay much attention since my part was pretty straight-forward: be patient and then rush in. What could go wrong with that?

“Okay everyone, you know your tasks and I want to sleep in my own bed tonight so let's do this!” On his cue, we all started moving. Lazuli, Eclipse and Night Shift worked their way through some cover on the right side of the mall while the rest of us trotted to the front in plain sight to grab the attention of the Timberwolves. The building had a peculiar design, from the sky it'd probably look like a big H with an arch in the middle bit, connecting the two halves. It wasn't a very tall building, only two stories high, and parts of the roof and wall had collapsed from two centuries of decay. Still, it looked in pretty good shape compared to some other buildings I had come across.

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted the moment they shot in the dirt in front of us. “Don't come any closer! No tricks!” they yelled from the roof of the mall. We stopped of course, as was  the plan.

The sheriff yelled back as Soft Touch nervously took a few steps forward. “We're sending an unarmed negotiator! Do not shoot! I repeat! Do not shoot!” Luckily for Soft Touch, the Timberwolves seemed to listen and decided not to turn him into a colander. For now at least.

The voice from the roof sounded again. “Okay! The white wimp can come, but the rest stay back!” Soft Touch trotted forward some more, until he was in the middle of the courtyard while the rest of us stayed where we were. I looked around, scanning for possible ways in, but most of the shop windows were boarded shut. The only real way in seemed to be through the front doors.

Soft Touch cleared his throat and turned his head upward, towards the roof, to address the voice who seemed to be in charge. “What are your demands?” he asked.

“We fucking told you already! We want like, a ton of guns, a million caps and a tank to get out! Go fucking get them or we'll fucking shoot your precious ponies inside!” Right. So they were armed and crazy idiots. Great.

Soft Touch facehoofed so hard that he made me believe he broke something. He shook his head and yelled up again. “Okay, let me just get my spare tank filled with bottlecaps and ride it back here!”

From the roof the voice replied again. “Okay awesome! I told you they'd do it!” The last part seemed to be directed to somepony else. Nevertheless, everypony of our group facehoofed in unison while Soft Touch replied.

“Do you happen to have ever heard of sarcasm before?!”

A short pause later the roof voice sounded again. “Uhhh... No!” My head was starting to hurt from all the facehooves. Maybe that was their tactic? Act so stupid that we'd knock ourselves out? It must be, there was no way somepony who was such an idiot could have gotten in such a great blackmailing position. I decided to try and resist the facehoofing for now and whispered my concerns to the pony next to me, Daisy, who got a healthy chuckle out of it.

Meanwhile Softy continued to attempt to reason with the numbhead on the roof. He took in a deep breath and let out a sigh from his guts. “Look. I do not have a tank. Okay? Tanks are extremely rare, what made you think we had one? And one million caps? Are you crazy? The most caps I've ever seen together was a couple thousand! How the hay are we supposed to get a million caps?!”

Another silence followed for several minutes before the voice replied. “But you said you had a tank and caps!”

I had to try my very best to prevent another facehoof while Soft Touch stomped around. “WE. DO. NOT. HAVE. THAT. AND WE NEVER WILL!” he screamed from the bottom of his lungs. “Make a better demand!”

A couple of minutes later their reply came and all the unicorns in our group had to work together to restrain Soft Touch from smashing in the front door and storming inside. Their demand was this. “Uhm, okay. We then want guns, ten million caps and a vertibuck!”

Luckily for us, that was also the moment the sheriff got a radio message from Night Shift and gave the signal for attack. Right on cue, two loud bangs were heard from behind us as Swifty and another deputy took their shots with their long rifles.

The rest of us in front of the mall stormed the front doors, which Daisy was nice enough to buck it in with her power armoured legs. I was glad she did that too, since shortly after the two shots hell came upon us from holes in the boarded windows from the second floor. Daisy and several deputies gave us covering fire as we rushed into the mall. As I caught a glimpse of the destruction caused by her machine grenade launchers I was glad I was not on the receiving end. Sheriff Blue Lamp wouldn't be happy with her.

As we stormed inside we quickly dispersed to find and take out the Timberwolf members while behind us the battle raged on. I didn't look back as the screams of one of the deputy sounded above the noise of gunshots and explosions. I followed Soft Touch and two deputees up the stairs where we spread out to clear the old shops. Me and one deputy rushed over the bridge connecting the two halves of the mall leaving Softy and the other deputy cleared out their half. After crossing the bridge we came to an intersection where we split up again. I went left and the pink mare went right.

All throughout the mall, gunshots and explosions sounded as Timberwolves and our group battled it out. I made great use of my healed leg by leaning on it when I bucked the door of the first room open and burst in, I quickly spotted the stallion in dark brown barding at the window and fired two shells into his head before he had the time to react. I quickly looted his body, not bothering to look at what I took, and moved out of the room again.

I galloped through the corridor to the next shop, it was hard to see what it exactly had been selling since the name-sign had been long missing. It didn't matter too, since all I had to do was jump in and shoot whoever was in it. I quickly found complications with that simple plan as it turned out the room was empty. As I saw the large gaping hole that once had been a boarded up window and the blood splattered all over the walls and ceiling I was even more convinced that it was a bad idea to ever piss Daisy off.

Quickly I left the room for the next, but I got a surprise as I burst out into the corridor. I distinctly did not remember seeing a dark grey mare with red mane in that corridor. And neither did I remember seeing a weapon like she had mounted onto a battle saddle before. And finally I certainly did not remember ever seeing a gun that shot fire before. However, I did not get much time to remember anything since those flames were busy licking my coat.

The scream that came out of my throat as I felt my coat burn away sounded something like this. “GHAAAARAAALADFDAADFOA AAAAAA!!!” Of course I could be wrong about that. My mind was a bit too pre-occupied with rolling away to remember everything in great detail.

I was glad, however, to find out that the rolling managed to put out the flames. I scrambled back up my hooves as fast as I could and backed away from the flamer filly and her fire of fury. That's quite the tonguebreaker isn't it?

While I was busy backing off, I unloaded everything I had at her in wild panic. I mean, I figured that the more bullets were inside of her, the better it was for me, so I swiftly and deliberately fired as many rounds at her as I could manage and discarded all my empty weapons. Hmm, the second sentence sounds a lot better, let's go with that one.

Anyway, the disadvantage of my rush to fill the quickly approaching mare with lead was that most of my shots went wide. Well, that was a bummer. I kept backing off, trying to find out what to do while attempting to slow her down by throwing the contents of my saddlebags at her, most of which was incinerated by the flames before even coming close to hitting her.

Then, as the grey pyro mare let out a laugh at my predicament, she reminded me of a certain smiling somepony. And that memory brought back other memories, taking place in my bed. And then all of those memories reminded me that I could make fireballs myself! I mentally facehoofed for not thinking about that sooner and quickly focussed on the proper image. That wasn't very difficult with the real deal filling the air right in front of me. Within seconds I managed to fabricate a proper flame and sent it flying at her face.

I grinned as the flamer mare yelped in surprise and pain and forgot to keep her aim at me. I took the opportunity to rush forward, spin around at the last moment, and buck my back hooves into her chest, sending her flying the short distance to the opposite wall of the corridor.

As I looked at her I saw that a large portion of her face had burn marks and that she had trouble keeping her eyes open. I didn't want to let her get back to her hooves so I rushed in again, reared up and brought my forehooves down onto the joints of her forelegs, causing her to scream in pain. Of course she did her very best to fight back, kicking, biting, anything to hurt me.

I wouldn't have anything of that and reared up again, this time bringing my hooves down onto the head of the crippled mare. She let out another scream, albeit much weaker than the first one and struggled to get up.

Seeing that, I turned around and bucked her in the jaw, a move which rewarded me with a satisfying crunch and caused her to slump down against the wall. I bucked again for good measure and caused a not-so-healthy amount of blood to flow out of her mouth.

Then my gaze fell onto the battle saddle she had been wearing. A gun that shot flames. I liked it, and considering I just threw away the rest of my weapons and I would have to search all over the corridor to find those otherwise, I decided to give it a try and put it on.

After a little wriggling and adjusting straps I had gained an awesome new weapon. Now I only had to figure out how to use it. It took only some experimenting on the grey mare and a few minor scorch marks to my own coat before I knew how to operate it. Outside, the explosions had ceased and the frequency of gunshots had dropped. It seemed like I was running behind on schedule so I galloped towards the next room with a little effort. The extra weight on my back threw me a bit off balance and slowed me down somewhat, but hey, fire belching gun. Totally worth it.

The second-last room had one earth pony with an assault rifle in it. He didn't really pose a threat to me anymore though, seeing as his brains were splattered over the ceiling. Probably had something to do with the bullet holes in the wall. Oh well, free loot for me.

When I burst through the last room I was expecting to see just one, maybe two of those moronic Timberwolves. I did not expect to find four of them, who were operating a large caliber machine gun they had set up.

Of course, they were not too happy to see me either and two of them immediately turned around and opened fire on me with pistols. Without hestitation I returned fire. Literally. I watched as the flames licked around their bodies and set them ablaze, it was a beautiful sight to behold.

The only problem I had was, well, that I had forgotten to behold another sight. Namely, the fuel level. And I had no idea of how to refill it. This of course was a rather big problem, seeing as how I had now severely pissed off the four ponies. It could be expected that being set on fire wasn't good for your mood. The best choice of action for me was a tactical retreat probably so I quickly backed away from the room, though not without taking a few bullets first.

The moment I was out of the room I switched to the assault rifle and waited for my enemies to come to me. I did not have to wait long as blue and grey stallion came bursting out after me. I barely avoided his knife lunge before I got the chance to retaliate by putting a small burst of bullets in between his eyes. Without waiting for his still smouldering body to hit the floor, I turned to face my next opponent. And the inside of a shotgun barrel. Damn. As quick as I could I ducked and turned around, all in order to not be hit in the face with hot lead travelling at the speed of sound.

It worked. Sorta. The shotgun blast missed my face and instead the pellets bit into my flank. The sudden pain, combined with the awkward move I just did, were enough to make me drop to the floor. I attempted to scramble up, but found staring into the barrel once again. Really, it was unhealthy how often I found myself in that situation. One way or the other, I didn't really see a way out of this one. On previous occasions the owner of the shotgun had wanted to capture me. This time however, it was a severely pissed off Timberwolf bandit, who did not seem interested in taking captives in the slightest. Beside that, I really doubted if I'd be able to pull off a fireball, seeing a I needed several seconds for that, while pulling the trigger took only a fraction of that.

“Any last words to say bitch?” the pony on the operating end of the shotgun asked me. I tried to think of something funny, but came up blank. Looking into the shotgun had that effect on me, strangely.

As I mulled about something witty to say before I'd have my brains shot out, I failed to notice a white and black blur appearing in the corner of my view. The shotgun pony, who was a teal mare, missing a large portion of her mane, didn't notice the blur either until it was too late and Eclipse had stabbed her in the neck. When she retracted her hoof I saw that the knife was coming out of the band around her fetlock. She pushed a button on it and the blade retracted without making a noise. That was convenient.

With some effort, I climbed back onto my hooves and smiled at Eclipse. “Thanks for the save.” The zebra gave me a small smile and nod of acknowledgement in return, but didn't say anything. I didn't particularly care about that, she could've bucked me in the head and I'd still be thankful.

Anyway I got up and together we finished off the last two remaining ponies in the room, who were half dead to begin with. That flamer had been pretty useful after all, now if I only would have some more practice, I'd be neigh unstoppable!

When we returned to the plaza, all the noises of battle had died down. There, assembled around a the statue of a rearing unicorn, a pretty big number of ponies was assembled. I spotted most of our assault group among who I assumed were civilians. There were about thirty non-armed ponies standing around while the sheriff was giving some sort of speech. I also spotted numerous shapes, covered up with sheets. Several ponies were busy dragging new ones in, and throwing them on a heap. I noticed that four of the bodies were separated from the rest, placed somewhat closer to the group of still living ponies.

I trotted over to the statue and the group of ponies, trying to see where Lazuli was. I eventually found her near the edge on the other side, helping Soft Touch by holding a foal who he was examining. Relieved to see that she wasn't one of the ponies covered by the sheets, I turned to listen to the last part of the sheriff's speech.

“...so here we are together, to salute the brave ponies who gave their lives so that we can once again live in peace and comfort. They went in boldly, to kick the flanks of those fucking Timberwolves to the moon, and I promise you this: I will make sure every last one of those bastards is hunted down and put to justice. I will not tolerate them taking over our home, capturing you all and threatening to kill you! They are a menace! A rabid wolf, and they must be put down!” He stomped his hoof to put extra emphasis on the word “Down.” before looking around the assembled ponies triumphantly, eliciting a cheer and hoofstomps from the crowd.

I got in line for Soft Touch to let him treat my bullet wounds and bleeding. A little while away from the group I spotted Swifty shaking her head at Blue Lamp's speech before walking away. In front of me was Boomer, who had his wing twisted in a weird angle and seemed to be missing quite some feathers. I tapped his back, causing him to jump around to face me. He sighed as he saw me. “Hi, you're Ember right? You were also in the assault team?”

“Yeah, and you're Boomer right? What happened with your wing?” I said as I glanced at his twisted feathery appendage.

The yellow pegasus wiggled the broken limb a bit. “Crashed through a window trying to avoid bullets.” He then pointed at my bloody flank and face. “And you?”

I followed his gaze. “First a flamer, then the results of trying it out” I tapped on my newly acquired flamer.

Boomer nodded. “Sucks huh? So, where're you from anyway?”

“Yeah, it stings like crazy. Ever heard of Saltash? That's the town. I assume you're from up the clouds?”

Boomer shook his head. “Nope, can't say I've heard of it before, sorry. And again, nope, I'm not Enclave, never was. I was born under the clouds, my mom was a Dashite and my dad an earth pony. And I'm the perfect mix of the two: agile and graceful like a pegasus and determined and brave like an earth buck.”

“More like overconfident like a pegasus and stubborn like an earth pony!” a voice left of me snickered. I turned around to see Daisy trotting up to us, a smirk on her face. I shot a slightly nervous glance at the big guns at her side as she continued. “If you hadn't been so full of yourself and so incredibly stubborn, you wouldn't have flown right in front of the windows. Hey, you may as well have just painted a big red target on your flank!”

Boomer dramatically feigned to be undignified. “I'll have you know that I only did that to draw fire away from the ponies in the plaza. And drawing a target on my flank? Why, to make it easier for you to stare at it?”

I chuckled at the verbal sparring of the two and decided to chip in myself as well. I turned my bloody flank at Daisy and smirked. “A big red target? Like this?”

Boomer and Daisy laughed at that. “That wouldn't change anything for you with that red coat of yours. You'd better dye it if you don't want ponies to shoot you anymore,” the purple mare commented.

“As if purple is such great camo. The only reason you're not filled with lead is because of that armour of yours. How do you even move in that thing?” I smirked.

Daisy pounded her chestplate with her armoured hoof and chuckled as it sent out a resonating clang. “Power armour. It means that the suit has a ton of motors and actuators, allowing me to move easily. Besides, armour would be a good idea for you to get too. Unless you get a kick out of getting shot of course.”

I nodded in agreement. Armour really sounded like a good idea considering the amount of fire I drew. “Yeah you're right, armour would be pretty useful. Where did you get yours? I'd like to buck in doors as well.”

The iron mare shook her head. “Nah, this was from the Steel Rangers. Fat chance for getting one, and even if you'd manage to nick one of their suits you'd still need training in order to use it. You'd better look for something different, leather, security, whatever suits your fancy.”

“Aww, I wanted to use those guns of yours too.” I pouted with a chuckle.

She chuckled. “Nope, those are all mine. 'Sides, you already got that flamer. Where'd you get that actually? I don't remember seeing you having it before the assault.”

I smiled and patted the flame spewing weapon. “Yeah, I got it from some crazy Timberwolf mare. I'm still getting used to it, but when I used it, it was pretty effective. At least until I ran out of fuel. Eclipse saved my flank.” I looked at my wounded haunch. “Well, in a manner of speech,” I chuckled.

While Daisy laughed at that, it had become Boomer's turn to visit Soft Touch and the line moved on a place. The purple power-armoured pony suddenly grew a smile. “Hey Ember, it was Ember wasn't it? Yeah, how about I teach you how to use that battle saddle?”

Of course I quickly nodded. “Thanks! That'd be great! Want anything in return?”

Daisy tapped her hoof to her chin a couple of times, grinning. “Weeeeel... the sheriff offered a bounty on whoever got rid of the Timberwolves, and I was wondering if you and your marefriend might wanna come with us.”

I smiled and nodded. “Sure! I'm glad to help, I mean it's the le-...wait a sec... Lazuli is not my marefriend! She's just a good friend of mine, nothing more, okay.”

The purple mare grew a cheeky grin. “So you're still single? Good.” Before I could respond she continued. “So we're gonna take tomorrow off, then go after those Timberwolves. Oh, I'll meet you tomorrow here by the statue at noon for your training, see you then.” She winked and trotted away, leaving me behind, blinking. I didn't get much time to think though since Soft Touch called me over for my check-up.

Dazed, I trotted towards him and Lazuli. They both looked at me with wide grins and I stared back in confusion. “Wha.... what just happened?” I asked nopony in particular, though I'd appreciate it if somepony (or zebra, sorry Eclipse) would explain it to me.

Lazuli and Softy looked at each other for a second before bursting out into laughter. After a minute of me sitting there, huffing and glaring at the both of them Soft Touch spoke up. “Daisy just hit on you Ember. Don't worry, she does that to everypony.” Then he put a hoof to his chin and hummed, as if realising something. “Though it appears that she took a real liking on you, seeing that you're one of the few to actually go on a date with her.”

“A date?” I spluttered in confusion.

Lazuli nodded and smiled evilly. “Well yes, you made a date to go see each other again tomorrow, at noon I believe. How else would you call that?”

“Training.” I muttered, then realised something. “And how do you know all that?! Don't you two know that you're not supposed to eavesdrop?!”

My turquoise tormentor coyly smiled at me. “I'm a perceptive mare, and I'm suuuuure that it will just stay with training, or whatever you want to call it. Her leaning around you, gently nudging you to help you aim, accidentally brushing your flank.”

I felt blood rise to my cheeks. Bad blood! Bad! Pleadingly I looked at Soft Touch, hoping he would, could help me. My search for aid was futile though, as he was grinning in the same way as Lazuli. “Help please?” I squeaked, knowing beforehoof that the question was of no use. An assumption that was confirmed by the loud laugh the two of them let out.

I spent the next ten minutes listening to all sorts of mockeries from the treacherous two. I highly suspected that they were purposefully stalling the treatment just so that they could torture me longer. They even seemed to have developed a game: 'Who can make Ember squee the loudest?' I wasn't taking count, but they seemed to be going neck-to-neck.

Needless to say I was overjoyed to leave the two torturers and quickly made my way away from the mall the moment I had the chance. I galloped for a couple of minutes, until the wind has cooled down my cheeks and the mall was a good distance behind me. In fact I was back at the smaller ruined building, where we had met sheriff Blue Lamp and the others before. There I found a comfortable patch of dirt and sat down to think a bit. About Daisy, the ponies here, Sirenville, Saltash, Neighvac and even Appleloosa.

When I was done thinking I had come to a very important conclusion: thinking made me depressed and didn't solve anything at all. I still had no idea of how I felt for Daisy's sudden approach, let alone of how to deal with it. Thinking about Sirenville made me regret killing that colt, though everything did end up in a nice fire. Saltash... thinking about that place made my head hurt. I figured that I might as well go back there one day and clean that town out, though I knew that Lazuli was right in that I couldn't do that all by myself. Neighvac I was worried about, worried that I had screwed up their contracts with Saltash and made the slaver town attack them. If anything, that was another motivation to clean up in Saltash later on. Appleloosa, well, those were mainly just depressing memories which I quickly suppressed.

I sighed and hung my head, in a way, being a slave had been easier. Though I would never ever want to go back to that situation, at least I never had to worry about so much stuff. I could just be frustrated and depressed and ignore the world around me, since I had no impact on it at all. Well, until Stargazer at least. I realised that the fact that he was dead was partly because of his own stubbornness, but also for a great deal because he had stood up for me. If I had been doing that in the first place... I would have been dead instead. Slavers did not like ponies who stood up for themselves, and doing so had only gotten me a great deal of pain.

I sighed yet again, but then tensed up as something poked at the back of my skull. “Boom, headshot.” a feminine voice whispered, making my heart skip a beat or ten and sending me jumping in the air with a surprised yell.

After impact with the ground, I looked up to see a set of dark red hooves, leading up to the rest of a mare's body. I recognized her as Swift Death, or her much more pleasant nickname, Swifty. While I was busy regaining my breath and trying to get my heart working again, she smirked at me. “I had about forty-two ways to kill you just now, and that's without getting creative. What're you doing out here by yourself?”

I took a deep breath and got back on my hooves. “Thinking.” was my brilliant answer. It got me a raised eyebrow from the mare, the motion making me notice a long scar underneath her eye.

“Thinking.” she imitated my voice mockingly. “For real? You didn't seem like the thinking type to me, the way you acted during the fight.”

I suddenly found that I developed an itch in the back of my neck, and rubbed a hoof along it. “Yeah well, it didn't really get me anywhere, except for making me a bit depressed.”

She grinned and extended her hoof. “Thinking tends to do that, just try and keep it at a bare minimum and you'll be fine. Name's Swifty, or Swift Death, or Please-Don't-Kill-Me. Whatever you like better.”

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit and accepted her offer to shake hooves, but all she did was push her hoof against mine before taking it back, a bit like a stomp. It left me a little confused, but I shrugged it off. “Will do Swifty, I'm Ember, don't have a nickname so you'll have to do with that.” I grinned and looked at the long, sleek rifle on her back, it resembled Fifty Cal's sniper rifle, but seemed even bigger and had some additional parts that I didn't quite recognize. “So, what kind of gun is that?”

Swifty turned at that to give me an even better look, she smiled as she replied. “That, my dear Ember, is Skullcracker. And he's one of my best friends in the whole wide wastes. See those little lines?” She nudged at a long series of markings along the barrel, there were almost two rows above one another, running the entire length of the long piece of metal.

I looked at them and nodded. “What about them?”

She grinned at me and I had a sudden flashback to Smiley. “Headshots, all of them.” My eyes went a little wide, there were dozens of markings on the gun, if every single one was not just a kill, but a headshot at that, that was definitely impressive. I whistled and nodded, causing her to smile broader. “C'mon, let's get back to the mall, it's getting dark and it's a bad idea to be out alone at night, obviously. 'Sides, they got a bar there.”

The moment she mentioned the word 'bar' and with it gave the promise of alcohol, it was as if I heard Sticky Piston's disembodied voice echo through the air. “Go my child, go and get hammered!” I laughed and trotted back to the mall, together with Swifty. My old tutor and the sniper mare were right, thinking was not a pleasant thing to do, and the best way to solve it was by drinking!

Empowered by this revelation I was already in a better mood, and trotted back the distance with a grin on my face as me and Swifty discussed what types of drink were the best, making jokes and mocking insults. It was a great way to get my mind off from the stupid thoughts it was having earlier.

Arriving back, I found out that the rest of Daisy's group already was present and we were welcomed with much enthusiasm. Swifty and I made our way towards a round table, were only Eclipse didn't seem to be drinking alcohol. Still, the zebra probably inhaled more of it by simply breathing than Lazuli whilst drinking. She was just staring at her bottle of Wild Pegasus, seemingly trying to analyse it. Next to her, Boomer and Softy were encouraging her by making an example. Daisy sat on the other side of the table, watching the trio with amusement until she spotted me and Swifty and grew a big grin. Swifty quickly took a seat between Eclipse and Boomer, leaving the only spare one next to Daisy and Softy. For some reason, perhaps the all too wide grin of most of the table's occupants, I had the idea that they had done this on purpose. That idea got a little more reinforced when I saw that most other tables had at least four more seats than ours...

Carefully I took the seat as I felt everypony's gaze on me. I looked back defiantly, albeit with hot cheeks. I hoped that my coat hid any blush as I stared them down one by one, causing them all to start whistling and take sudden interest in other business. Though when I did that with Daisy she just stared back with the broadest smile, making me the one to look away. I flustered a bit before looking around me, searching for a distraction, when Piston's teachings saved me. “So, I was promised booze, where is it?” I asked nopony in particular.

The bartender was called over, an odd buck in a wheelchair, and he took our orders. I thought about the possible reason for the wheelchair for a second before spotting that his hind legs were missing. That explained it. The buck stuck around our table for a while, trying to tell us some story about how he had one time single-hoofedlly saved a small city from bandits before we practically threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get the booze. I was still way too sober to believe any of that. The wheelchair buck huffed before rolling away as Daisy searched through her saddlebags. I was about to ask her what she was doing when she took out a small radio and turned it on, filling the combination of bar and tavern with cheerful music.

The bartender returned with more drinks and we started chatting and laughing throughout the evening. Boomer and Softy's persistence paid off with Lazuli joining their drinking game. Swifty and Eclipse were softly speaking to one another and me and Daisy talked about all sorts of stuff while we all ignored the stallion in the wheelchair, who was telling another story. I stopped listening really, but I believe he pretty much claimed to be faster than Rainbow Dash. In his chair. For the sanity of all of us, Eclipse stood up and dragged him behind the bar again, where she took out a tube and applied it to the wheels of his chair. When she came back and we stared at her she gave a small smile and showed the tube. “Wonderglue.” she explained and all of us burst out in laughter.

We kept drinking, going through plenty of bottles and I got to learn more about Daisy and her group. Apparently she used to be a Steel Ranger, eventually she got fed up with her Elder. She claimed that her chapter was little more than raiders in fancy armour, so she took her stuff and left. She roamed the wasteland and met the others of the group one by one.

Softy she found when the caravan he was travelling with got ambushed by a bunch of raiders. The mare in shining armour came in and saved... well, only Softy. The rest were already dead. Since then, Softy stuck around with her, out of gratitude and since he had nowhere else to go.

They found Boomer when dealing with a contract of sorts. It involved manticores and apparently the pegasus' explosives came in really handy. In turn, Softy's medical skills had helped save Boomer's life by swiftly making an antidote for the poison with which the yellow pegasus was injected. He had nothing better to do and liked hanging out with the two, so he decided to stick around.

Next came Eclipse, who they found while she was collecting herbs. There was some confusion at first, and the zebra didn't want to have anything to do with the three adventurers, but a hellhound attack made them gain mutual respect for each other. Since she had been roaming around on herself before already, Daisy had reasoned that coming along with their little group would be a good idea, strength in numbers and all. The zebra hadn't seen any flaws in that logic so she came along as well.

Finally there was Swift Death. Apparently she had been hired by the Steel Rangers, in a rare occasion of outside collaboration, to assassinate Daisy for deserting. She had succeeded in gravely injuring the mare, but her friends had then found and captured Swifty before she could finish the job. After talking for a while, Daisy had given Swifty her tags, which she returned to the Rangers. Of course the Rangers had never intended to pay for the job, and attempted to double-cross Swifty. She escaped and with the aid of the other four they took revenge on the Ranger chapter, succeeding in assassinating the local Elder so that a better pony could take his place.

They had then proceeded to have a ton more adventures before coming here and deciding to help the sheriff with the mall.

When it was our time to tell our stories, I also curiously listened to Lazuli's, as it struck me how little I actually knew of her. I probably really should have asked more about it in hindsight.

Lazuli's story started with her sister, Lapis. According to Laz, they had both been travelling around together, going from settlement to settlement and taking on a large variety of jobs. Lazuli had had a talent of sneaking, and Lapis one of talking and thus they had also pulled various small schemes to acquire caps from unsuspecting strangers. Some of the stories were quite funny too, like one where she dyed her coat to match her sister's in order to be able to unsuspectingly raid a small town. When eye-witnesses blamed Lapis, she referred to the sheriff as her alibi, since she had been talking with him the entire time. Whenever they pulled one of their schemes, they made sure to not take any important things. Lazuli wanted to ensure no pony's life became endangered because of her taking away perhaps some rare medicine, or the food stock of a small town.

Me and the others were listening interestedly to her story, occasionally laughing at a funny moment or a joke from one of the others. Of course, she had to come to the part of how we ended up travelling together, and we all went silent for a bit out of respect for Lapis. She quickly added that she didn't blame me for it, not anymore, and that she had forgiven me. She also told a brief version of her side of the events in Saltash and Sirenville, of how she'd sneak off to find some more supplies while I was asleep, and how she had looted pretty much anything around there. She left out the bit of how she blew up Asshole, probably to let me decide if I wanted to tell it or not. She also explained how she figured out the brainwashing music of Sirenville and practically saved my flank there, even though she had to blow up the tower I was hiding in to do so. She also gave me a quick summary of how she and Eclipse had freed the hostages in the mall, earlier that day, before letting me do the talking.

I took another swig of the Wild P to lubricate my throat and loosen my tongue before telling my story. I told about my youth in Saltash and told them in a few words of how the town was taken over and I became a slave. Not wanting to ruin the good mood, I skipped my years as a slave and jumped straight to escaping and ending up in Neighvac. I happily told them about how I started my new life there and about finding out that my home town was so near. I didn't really elaborate about the slaver ambush, since that felt more like Lazuli's story and instead told of how I reacted after finding out that my home town was now a retirement home for the older slavers and raiders. Even as I told it I could feel myself rage again, but a comforting, armoured hoof on my shoulder helped me calm down again.

I told about our encounter with Silver Tongue, how I had given him a goodbye gift and about me and Laz hiding in my old neighbours' home. Elaborating on Lazuli's part of the story, I described how I had come to the conclusion that hiding in barrels was a bad idea, gaining some laughs and chuckles from my audience. I continued with how I had been captured and well, tortured by Silver Tongue's trio. At one point I even jumped onto the table to give everyone in the tavern a good look at my flanks, aiming to show the scar. Of course the bartender, who's wheelchair was still glued stuck, yelled that he had much worse scars, and that he had been tortured way worse before. That caused everyone, including residents of the mall, to yell at him to shut the buck up, which he grudgingly did.

After that I jumped down again, tripped over onto my snout, got picked up by Daisy and Softy and then placed firmly onto my chair again. From there I told how Lazuli had blown up Asshole and how we ultimately had to flee town. Very briefly I addressed how things had gone in Sirenville, still feeling a bit ashamed at the fact that I had almost shot Laz, and then proceeded to tell in great detail of how the town had burned. I believe somepony put a bottle in my mouth to shut me up while I was just getting started. Oh well, free booze. I wasn't gonna waste that, so I expertly started chugging it down as the others continued laughing and talking and making jokes.

Then, the song on the radio ended and some stallion started talking about news and stuff. Seeing as there weren't any other fun broadcasts, we listened with a half ear while keeping up the story telling. Until the voice on the radio said something about Appleloosa. Immediately I started listening intently, ignoring the slightly swaying mare in power armour on my right, who had started leaning against me. The others became quiet as well, when the radio stallion told about how one pony had trotted into the slaver town, and single-hoofedly freed the slaves.

I spat out the bottle and started laughing. Somepony had had the guts to actually free them! Somepony had actually freed them! I jumped back onto the table and screamed in joy, not caring in the slightest bit that everypony around me was looking at me. Not noticing either, that was a bit hard since everything was spinning and swaying. But hey! Who cared?! Apple-fucking-loosa was finally no longer a slaver town! No more being scared of being dragged back there if slavers would find me again, no more bad memories every time that name was brought up! Even before the music returned I started dancing over the the table, making it creak dangerously. I did not care! All I cared about was being overjoyed. And more booze, that would be great too!

In hindsight, jumping at the edge of the table wasn't my smartest move, but how should I have known that the whole table would tip over? Alas, I rested in my fate of meeting my old adversary, the ground, once again. I closed my eyes as the whole table flipped over and the floor pulled on me with an unseen force, intending on giving me a big old hug.

But the impact never came. After several seconds of anticipation I opened my eyes to find myself hovering just over the floor. I blinked in surprise and let out a small yelp when I was lifted in the air. Suddenly I became aware of everypony laughing around me and a large, cold hoof under my belly, holding me up.

I looked behind me and Daisy grinning at me as she put me down on my own four hooves. I wobbled and swayed around a bit before leaning against her, causing her to smile even broader. “So what're you all happy about?” she asked me.

Immediately I started explaining in great detail of why I was so incredibly happy, or at least I tried. My tongue wasn't really cooperating with forming intelligible words, still, I tried the best I could and rambled on and on and on and WELL HELLO THERE OTHER TONGUE! My eyes went wide as Daisy apparently decided to shut me up by kissing me, which worked. Very well.

When she finally released me so that I could, you know, breathe again, I heard everypony around me cheering and stomping their hooves and I got the feeling that that night was gonna be a good, good night.