It was another beautiful day in Equestria. Too bad it would be the last one Stonewall would ever see. Of course, all the screaming and panicking wasn’t really helping him lock the scene in his memory. He loosened his teeth on the grip of his gun, glancing around. “Come on, three more blocks and we’re there!” he chided his charges.

Arpeggio nodded dully, the older unicorn carrying his filly atop the two bulging saddlebags he’d insisted on packing. Their personal robot, a Stable-Tec design, was equally loaded down, but steadily trundling along at whatever pace Stonewall set. Shouts and screaming bounced off the storefronts lining the street as ponies rushed up and down. The rattle of somepony yanking closed a security gate drew his eye for a moment.

He looked up as another missile contrail shot across the sky over them, then around at the crowds. Most of them know there’s a Stable under the city, he thought, switching off the safety of his saddle-mounted shotgun. One provocation, and it’s going to be bloody and violent all over the place. As if some malevolent entity heard his words, the horizon lit up in the direction of Manehattan. Oh sweet Celestia, don’t let all these foals realize that was a balefire explosion.

With two blocks to go, Arpeggio stumbled over a piece of trash, Harpsichord tumbling off him and wailing. “Don’t fret, little lady,” Stonewall said around the gun bit. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

Another flash of light lit up the horizon, this time towards the south-east, from the slightly closer city of Fillydelphia. “Balefire bombs! The zebras are attacking!” somepony shouted.

Almost immediately, the throng of ponies, adults and children alike, descended into madness. The town of Roam, named after the distant Zebrican city, wasn’t all that large by population, but it did house several companies’ financial experts, as well as being a major distribution hub for the agriculture of northeastern Equestria. So that made it a target for a full-on, scorched earth attack like this. The only question is, how far down the list are we, and how many more bombs do they have left before our number comes up?

Arpeggio stumbled back to his feet as Stonewall stood guard, gunshots and swinging knives already visible around them. “Go, go!” the unicorn said, limping forward as quickly as he could. “We have to get my daughter to safety!”

Stonewall nodded, already picking out targets in the crowd. Biting down on the trigger, he cleared a path ahead of them, buckshot blasting ponies out of their path with casual disregard as he walked forward, Harpsichord cowering at his flank. “We’ll be there any minute,” he mumbled around the grip.

A gunshot roared close enough for him to pick out the wielder, and he spun to the side, putting two rounds into the tan unicorn. The unknown assailant burbled something, frothy blood spilling out of her neck as she tumbled to the ground, the pistol clattering to the sidewalk. That was too close, Stonewall thought. “Sir, do you require medical assistance?” the bot asked.

“Daddy!” Harpsichord cried, causing Stonewall to whirl around. Arpeggio lay on the ground, blood spurting out from his shoulder. “Daddy, get up!” The gouts of blood were already weakening.

“Get her to safety,” the unicorn gasped out. “Please. Save my daughter!” His head slumped to the side, eyes glazing over as the squirts slowed to a trickle. Heedless of the blood, the filly threw her forelegs around him, sobbing.

“Bot, grab that pistol,” Stonewall ordered with a jerk of his head. It hesitated a moment, but as Arpeggio’s bodyguard, he had authority to give orders. It rolled over, picking the weapon up in its mouth. “Shoot anypony who threatens the filly.” Grunting, he undid the buckles on the saddlebag, tossing it onto his back. I really hope it doesn’t interfere with my gun. “C’mon, Harp. We have to go.”

“But, Daddy,” she protested, hiccupping through her tears.

“I’m sorry, but it’s too late for him. He wants you safe, and I can’t carry you. It’s only a block and a half away, see?” He pointed one hoof down the street, where the brick face of the Roam branch of Royal Equestrian Arms stood. “Can you keep up?”

On shaking legs, Harpsichord stood back up. “I think so,” she said. He started trotting forward, forcing the filly to nearly gallop as they moved through the street. A riot was already starting in front of the REA building, and he started blasting their way through. Pushing open the bulletproof doors, two more of the security squad also opened fire, forcing a hole in the crowd.

“Stonewall! What took so damned long?” Knockout demanded. As another pony in the crowd lunged forward, trying to force her way to safety, the elderly yellow unicorn dropped her pistol and pulled out a length of steel pipe, slamming it brutally up into the intruder’s ribs before shoving her back down the three stairs to the sidewalk.

“Don’t ask,” Stonewall said, backing up the steps, firing point-blank at any pony dumb enough to test him. “Are we waiting for anyone else?”

“You’re the last ones,” Knockout said, smacking another unicorn hard enough to crack his horn. “Let’s get inside.”

They backed inside, letting the robot lead Harpsichord to the basement stairs while they barricaded the entrance with the reception desk and the statue of Luna, before they followed along. At the top of the stairs, Knockout stopped, putting a hoof on Stonewall’s shoulder. “Go on down, I’ll make sure nopony else follows.”

As he opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head. “My grandfoals are downstairs already. Besides, my days are numbered no matter what. I can stay up here and make sure no one can unseal that door, or I can follow along and be a drain on the Stable.” Her graying tail smacked his flank as she lifted her pistol again and turned to face the door. “Now get on downstairs.”

Stonewall nodded, feeling tears come to his eyes. “I’ll tell your family what you did for everypony,” he said, wiping his eyes. No more words needed to be said as he clattered down the stairs, nudging the safety back on just in case.

Four stories below the earth, he stopped in the concrete antechamber before the gaping Stable door, staring up as gunshots echoed down. “What are you waiting on, an engraved invitation?” He grimaced at the shout from Level, the Overmare, and trotted inside. The massive door was already rolling into place as he came down the hallway into the Stable proper. “Where’s Arpeggio?” Level demanded. “Harpsichord just started crying, and the damn bot wasn’t helpful at all.”

He sighed, sitting down heavily and letting the saddlebags slide off his back. “Somepony with a gun shot him less than two blocks away. He insisted on going through every room in his house, picking out all these damn knick-knacks and memorabilia.” Stonewall shook his head, nudging the bags. “I didn’t want Harp to show up here empty-hoofed, but I think half this stuff is useless.”

Level shook her head, pacing back and forth. Her cutie mark was for the tool, just like her name, but her talent extended to making her one of the most obsessive ponies Stonewall had ever met. “He was supposed to be our second medical pony, thanks to his time in the Colt Scouts! Now we’re completely devoid of medical ponies!”

“Huh? What happened to Suture and Staples?”

“I don’t know. Their PipBucks won’t give me a location for them. In total, we’re missing seven ponies we should have, and we have almost two dozen more we’re not supposed to. Someponies couldn’t say no to their poor cousins,” Level said scathingly.

Stonewall sighed again. “Well, if none of them have medical training, reprogram the damn bot. The only thing Arpeggio ever used it for was having it do the yardwork and drive his car around.”

Level blinked at him in surprise. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said, mulling it over. “I just might have somepony do that.” She started down the left branch of the hall towards the elevator. “Oh, and put Harpsichord in with First Strike and her foals, at least for now. She can’t live in an apartment all by herself, after all.”

Nodding, the security pony rose back to his feet and retrieved the bag. Only after he had it situated properly did he realize he had no idea where Knockout’s daughter was living. Right as he stepped forward, the entire Stable trembled. The fancy entrance plaque tilted slightly off-center, and he briefly considered straightening it, before deciding to wait and see how long it took before Level noticed instead.

“Welcome to Stable 92,” he muttered. “Home for the next ten years.” The fluorescent lights reflecting from the blank metal walls gave him no sympathy as he headed down below to find somepony to point him the right way.

===---===

Ten years, one month, three days after the bombs

Stonewall stood in the Overmare’s office, along with Flashbulb and Souffle. “So,” Level said, almost too quiet to be heard. “According to the main computer, the radiation levels outside have fallen enough to safely leave the Stable.”

Flashbulb instantly shook his head, his electric-blue mane whipping around. “Safe? The entire town was devastated by a balefire bomb only minutes after we all reached the Stable! We can’t possibly be better off on the surface than we are down here.”

Level opened her mouth to respond, only to have Stonewall cut her off. “As unusual as it is for me to agree with Flashbulb, I do in this instance. If the city was hit by a bomb, the only sensors the computer still has access to are in the stairwell, and possibly the building. The rest of the town could be in far worse shape.” The electric unicorn quickly recovered from the shock of having the security pony on his side, and was nodding confidently. “Which is why we need to organize a scouting party to the surface.”

Flashbulb kept nodding for two seconds until his brain caught up. “Wait – go outside? You just said it’s a bad idea!”

“No, I said it’s a bad idea to move out of the Stable without knowing conditions on the surface.” Stonewall leaned a little closer. “It might be safe. It might be deadly. There might be a greeting party from StableTec upstairs waiting, or a squad of Zebrican soldiers.”

Level stepped forward, causing the two arguing ponies to back off. “How many ponies are you thinking of taking?”

Sighing, the head of security thought it over. “Myself, Flashbulb, Gale, First Strike. Maybe Alfalfa, if she can leave the new crops for a few days.”

“A few days?” Souffle asked. “Surely it can’t take that long!”

Stonewall shook his head. “If we want to be sure the surface is safe for us to move out, then we’ll need to go over the whole town. Sure, that’s only talking about maybe five square miles, but we’ll have to walk the whole perimeter, survey the damage to the infrastructure of the town, chart repairs, take soil samples,” he trailed off for a moment. “The longer we take, the better it is up above. Won’t take more than an hour if the radiation levels on the street are still too high outside the door for the sensors.”

Flashbulb looked between the other three ponies. “I understand why we can’t bring the Overmare along, but why do you want me there? You hate me, and the feeling is mutual.”

“I don’t hate you, I think you’re an arrogant blowhard. But you’re good at your job, and you know more about what we can repair or salvage on the surface than almost anypony else in the Stable.” Stonewall stared at him for a moment. “Plus, if there is danger, you’ll have to be nicer to me after I save your flank.”

Huffing angrily, Flashbulb stalked to the door. “Fine. I’ll collect some tools that I’ll need. I assume we’ll open the Stable door in the morning?”

“Six sharp,” Stonewall confirmed. Souffle waited until the unicorn left before walking over and nuzzling her husband. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll be careful out there. I’ll be back in time to see whether our little Cinder Block is getting a brother or a sister.”

Level moved back to her desk, horn glowing as she closed the door and turned on a monitor. “There is something else you should know before you head up above,” she said. The monitor flickered to life, displaying a graph with several different colored lines. “I know the Stable was built larger than usual, but even with that, we’re approaching maximum capacity. Not on water or power, but space. If we can’t move out to the surface, we’re going to have to start either double-booking apartments, or repurposing other rooms in the Stable.”

Stonewall sighed again, rubbing his muzzle with one hoof. “I thought this place was designed for six hundred ponies?”

His wife nodded. “It was, but the problem is the design. It was intended for six hundred ponies in nice, neat families – two parents and two or three foals per apartment, perfect at maximum capacity. But we had a lot of families with only one foal, and most of them have now grown up and want to get their own apartments and start their own families.” She glanced down at her own swollen belly. “Or already have. Which means we are getting closer to requiring food rations, too.”

“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind. What happens if we can’t move out?”

Level and Souffle exchanged a nervous look. “Then, anypony with cutie marks related to construction gets to be involved in carving out new rooms out of the bedrock. There’s a natural fissure no more than two hundred feet outside the southern walls of the Stable. We dig through to there, and dump the extra rock down, and we can have as much room as we need.”

“We just have to get power cables, water pipes, light fixtures, doors, and all of that set up.” Stonewall blinked as he considered it. “Ambitious.”

Level smiled. “Unicorn magic backing earth pony ingenuity can do anything. Wasn’t that the motto of the Ministry of Wartime Technology?”

“Heck if I know. I’m just a bodyguard,” Stonewall said. All three of them smirked before he nodded a farewell to the Overmare, walking out of her office with his wife.

===---===

The next morning, five ponies stood in front of the massive steel door, waiting. Stonewall glanced down at his PipBuck, fighting the urge to scrape his hoof against the concrete. Alfalfa looked ready to sit down on the bench and take a nap. When the door finally opened at five minutes after six, they all turned to glare at Flashbulb. “Sorry, just getting everything properly packed up,” he said unapologetically.

Without another word, Level reached up a hoof, pushing the lever for the Stable door. Flashing lights and a siren came on, making everyone flicker red and yellow as the door rolled ponderously aside. Alfalfa gasped in surprise, taking a small step backwards as the lights outside came on, illuminating the desiccated bodies of at least a dozen ponies in the antechamber outside the door. “Sweet Celestia, what happened to them?”

“Radiation poisoning and starvation,” Stonewall said. The bit of his shotgun was in front of his mouth, every moving part freshly cleaned and oiled after ten years sealed in his personal gun safe.

“Couldn’t we have let them in?” the farming pony asked.

“Nope,” Gale said. Flexing her wings, she darted out through the upper part of the door, whirling past the stairs and back again. “My EFS doesn’t read anyone.”

Everyone looked at Stonewall, who just stared at the bodies for a long moment before stepping forward. He calmly shoved the skeletons aside with his hooves, holding his breath as he stepped through the clouds of dust. His own EFS was there in his peripheral vision, showing tiny green lines for his companions. “Time to see the surface,” he said, staring up the stairs.

His own pace was unwavering, but seven flights of stairs left the two unicorns and the other earth pony sweating and breathing hard by the time they reached the top. The steel door was surprisingly still intact, though unlocked. Splashes of long-dried blood decorated the walls here, where Knockout had made her last stand to protect the Stable and her family. First Strike put one hoof on the edge of the dried brown stain where her mother had probably died, staring down at it while the others caught their breath.

“Right now, my PipBuck is reporting radiation levels. One rad an hour or so,” Flashbulb said. “Not immediately bad, but it will affect everyone in no more than a year, maybe two.”

Stonewall nodded, making a couple of hoof gestures. First Strike levitated out a pair of pistols, stepping to the other side of the door. They both turned to look at Flashbulb, who took two deep breaths before reaching out with his own telekinesis and shoving the door open with a bang. More dust rose in the air as another group of pony skeletons flew across the room. “Oh Luna,” he muttered, pressing one hoof to his mouth and swallowing several times.

Stonewall, First Strike, and Gale swept the next room quickly, the only other ponies long dead. The others trotted out behind them, looking around the office. Cubicle walls had decayed, being little more than cheap aluminum frames holding up particle board and cloth, but the steel desks were all still intact and rusted in place. The gloom was thick, with no windows and no electric lights to brighten the room. Stonewall moved towards the door he vaguely remembered leading towards the front of the building. “I’ve got red,” he whispered.

Alfalfa and Flashbulb huddled together as the three security ponies converged on the door, trying to triangulate where the threat was. The wind whistled outside the building, occasionally sending cold gusts down the halls as they snuck forward, their hoofsteps little more than soft clicks on the concrete floors.

At the doors to the lobby, they stopped, Stonewall peering around the doorframe. The front doors were smashed in, the durable glass still in the battered and twisted doorframes. Trash littered the lobby, and the thick smell of mold and rot filled the air. Roaches the size of Stonewall’s head skittered around, hissing at each other and chewing on the luminescent mushrooms as the light of dawn softened the outside horizon.

That’s it? Roaches? They’re big, yeah, but I think the threat detection spell must be wacky. Stonewall straightened up, turning back to say something to the others, when Gale sneezed. Almost instantly, the roaches swarmed towards them, as everyone backed hurriedly away. He stomped one underhoof, only then noticing the serrated, two-inch long mandibles that bracketed their mouth. Oh, buck this.

He grabbed the bit of his shotgun, flicking the safety off and blasting away. The first shell of buckshot shattered two of the roaches, causing a couple in the back to abandon the chase in favor of the easier meal. Alfalfa screamed as one of them came out of the wall, tearing a chunk out of her hind leg before she could stomp it to death. First Strike had already dropped her pistols, letting them swing from tether cables on her saddle, in favor of a pair of large knives. Every time she sliced a roach in half, the two parts would continue to squirm and struggle, often lashing out at the other roaches.

When his EFS finally showed clear, Stonewall blinked at the time. Only one minute? Seemed like three times that long. He cleared his throat. “Everyone okay?”

“I’ll live, I think,” Alfalfa said, lifting her hoof so Gale could wrap a bandage around it. “They don’t seem to be poisonous, but I’m going to be limping.” She gingerly put weight back on the injured leg, wincing slightly.

“Alright. Gale, head out to the street and take a good look around. Tell me what you see,” he ordered. Nodding, the older Pegasus trotted to the broken doors and leaped into the air, flapping hard to get above the level of the buildings. The other four walked slower, and stepped out into the streets of a town they hadn’t seen in ten years.

The most noticeable thing at first was the dirt. Caked filth coated every intact window and wall within sight. Half the windows at street level were shattered, the shards long since ground down underhoof. Rusted cans and scraps of plastic and paper lay in the streets. Cars, broken down and stripped of anything useful, or simply burned in place, were scattered about in the streets and on the sidewalks.

The street signs were long since missing, but if Stonewall remembered, this was Eighth Street. Arpeggio had died two blocks to his right, and city hall was a quarter mile to the left. “Alright. We’ll start with some buildings that would be rallying points for survivors. City hall, the police station, the hospital.”

He was about to say more when an explosion rocked the air above them. Gale’s body tumbled down to the street in chunks, her broken submachine gun smashing inches away from Flashbulb’s tail. “What in Tartarus was that?” he cried out.

“My EFS has nothing,” First Strike said, taking a couple of steps up towards the east.

“Mine neither,” Stonewall said, stepping the other direction, towards Arpeggio’s body. “Wait. Southwest. Two, four, I can’t count them.”

Alfalfa and Flashbulb were already backing towards the building and the safety of the Stable. Stonewall covered their retreat, crouching behind the half-melted wreck of a car. Ten seconds later, their attackers came into view. Ponies, mostly earth ponies with a couple of unicorns. All of them were dressed in scraps and rags, with leather and metal scraps sewn or riveted in place. They all had numerous scars and injuries, and their leader had a necklace of bones dangling from her neck. “Find that damn pegasus, and see if she had any friends!”

First Strike fired as they moved forward, her pistols almost blurring as S.A.T.S. helped her aim. Six bullets tore into the leader, turning his head into a smear of grey and red. They were still too far away for his buckshot to be effective, so Stonewall bided his time. The ponies, obviously used to combat, ducked into cover, sprinting down the street at random, some of them firing back. Of course, without PipBucks, their own shots were wildly inaccurate.

The unicorn fired again, taking down two more before having to duck down behind her cover. Stonewall stepped out as an earth pony charged past him. He ducked the clumsy knife swing, planting a solid kick right below her ribs before driving her to the ground. His shotgun roared, swatting another crazed pony aside before a second shot opened her lungs to the outside air.

He dove back behind the car as a hail of bullets slammed into the wall behind him, brick fragments flying everywhere. “Stable pony,” his attacker hissed, her forelegs still wrapped around her stomach. Her knife was lost under the car somewhere, so he had discounted her as a threat. “Going to get in there. Then we can live the good life. You can suffer and die!”

Her mouth lunged down towards her armor, yanking out a grenade. He entered S.A.T.S. himself, taking a brief moment of nearly-frozen time to decide. He could shoot her, but with her mouth already on the pin she could still blow him up if he wasn’t fast enough. So instead, he targeted one shot on the grenade itself, before putting the next one on her head. Activating the spell matrix, he experienced that peculiar slowing of time, where anypony with a PipBuck moved as fast as equinely possible.

The first shot sent the grenade flying, bouncing off the wall and somewhere on the other side of the burned wreck. The second dissolved her muzzle from the eyes down to her neck, leaving her thrashing and gurgling. Time returned to normal long enough for him to hear another attacker swear before the grenade exploded.

He glanced quickly at his EFS. Two left. Deciding to risk it, he backed up towards the shelter of a pair of newspaper boxes, blasting away at the car where another attacking pony cowered. The bang, and the sudden burning sensation along his back made him realize that the boxes only gave him cover from one assailant. Luckily for him, First Strike opened fire again, blowing off the horn of the unicorn who shot him.

“Get out of here, and we won’t kill you!” Stonewall shouted. He couldn’t see the last attacking pony, but he heard a can rattling as it tumbled down the street. As much as it pained him, he had no intention of letting this pony escape and tell others the Stable was still intact and occupied. As hoofsteps suddenly clattered on the street, he lunged out of cover, entering S.A.T.S. and putting three blasts of buckshot into the unicorn attempting to flee.

One by one, they slammed into her, the third one breaking bone around her hock and sending her tumbling to the ground. Before she could do more than scream in pain, six more bullets from First Strike blew holes up her body from flank to neck.

It took Stonewall a moment to come out of battle fugue. “Clear,” he said. “Ow, sweet Celestia that hurts!” He looked at his back, seeing where the bullet had punched a neat hole in his armored uniform, right above his cutie mark.

“What do we do now?” First Strike asked, guns still levitating as she replaced their magazines.

He stared at the death and devastation in the street. “We gather up their weapons. Then we go back downstairs, lock the damn Stable door, and give it another try in ten years. Maybe then we won’t have random groups of ponies slaughtering each other in the streets.”

She was silent as they checked each body, one by one, taking every weapon and bullet, and leaving everything else behind. The leader’s necklace was made from what looked like Pegasus wing bones, and Stonewall ground each bone to powder underhoof before turning back. “Do you really think that’ll happen?” First Strike asked. She looked green at the thought of ponies taking flesh trophies from one another.

Sighing, he shook his head. “Nope.” Nothing else was said as they rejoined Alfalfa and Flashbulb at the building. With solemn faces, they collected the pieces of Gale’s body, wrapping it in a plastic tarp meant to contain the soil samples. Whispering an inaudible prayer over it, Stonewall shouldered the burden of his friend’s corpse, and descended back down to their Stable. They sealed the door, turned off the lights in the entry chamber, and each pony silently vowed they would never set hoof back on the surface ever again.

===---===

War. War never changes.

Nopony ever expected the end of the war to come the way it did, with fire falling from the sky. Then again, nopony ever expected the war to begin. It started as so many conflicts do, with ignorance and unintended offenses colliding, each side convinced they are more wronged than the other. The common kindness is ignored. Generosity is buried under hurt feelings and greed. Honesty hides behind the solid wall of self-righteousness.

The end could have been foreseen, as it inched steadily onward with every failed diplomatic attempt, every death, and every casual insult towards the other side. It came with a bang, but it was whispered for everypony to hear long before it happened.

War never changes, and perhaps neither do ponies. Anger and hatred can live in any heart. Jealousy and envy can spoil any relationship. They are their own form of madness, and as Equestria’s last ruler knew, madness has its own momentum.

When the first balefire missiles were launched, the entire world dissolved into a chaotic swarm of robbers and criminals, every pony interested solely in seizing what little they could before life, as they knew it, was brought to a blazing halt. The wealthy of Stable 92, those rich enough to build themselves a haven, barely escaped the riots in the Equestrian city of Roam, fleeing to the underground Stable protected by a small army of hired thugs while the poor and downtrodden tried to enact vengeance on them for the sorry state of the world.

Those events left the Stable dwellers so scarred that when the all-clear signal sounded, ten years later, a quick glance outside was all it took to convince them to stay in the Stable, waiting for further contact from StableTec before risking their lives to the wastelands. And as the years slipped past, and only silence was heard, thoughts of the outside faded away, content to live in their self-contained paradise and forget the awful past.

But the rest of the world has not forgotten them. And hatred has a legacy all its own…

==---===

StableTec Data Entry: Stable 92

Stable 92 was not originally on the planning list for Equestria, but was started instead as an independent project. Multiple high-level staff from several companies affiliated with the Ministry of Wartime Technology learned about the Stable project, and pooled private resources to construct their own Stable. Entry was originally set at one million bits per adult, and one half million per colt or filly. Originally, only thirty-seven employees, half of them from Royal Equestrian Arms, started the project, but by the time Stable 92 was seized by royal decree, over four hundred fifty million bits had been poured into the construction project.

With the population of the Stable already self-selecting towards the ultra-wealthy, Vice-President Scootaloo added Stable 92 into the experimental list. The intended population was five hundred seventeen ponies, to include two hundred forty eight unicorns, two hundred sixty six earth ponies, and three pegasi. Of these, only forty-two were ponies either assigned by StableTec or sponsored by somepony else (indispensable family servants). With a population nearly double that of a standard Stable, 92 was also significantly larger. The Stable included: three residential levels, including a fully stocked medical clinic, four recreation rooms, two theaters, and a gourmet cafeteria; two industrial levels with a geothermal generator and taps to a natural aquifier, as well as several mechanical and electronic workshops capable of recycling and fabricating every part in the Stable; two agricultural levels, with both hydroponics and orchards; and a defensive armory including a shooting range.