We awake early in the morning, the crack of dawn, just like I told them. They follow orders without question, I hope they stay that way. We load the various bags onto the brahmin of the waiting caravan of brahmin, and then walk.

The sun wasn’t entirely up, just a bright light on the horizon. The wasteland is a very repetitive piece of scenery, with miles of barren desert extending far beyond a ponies vision, with the occasional remnants of the old world scattered throughout to remind us all of the sins of those who came before us, the skeletons beneath the sand and the rotting wood of destroyed carriages. The orange light washes over the wastes, easing my stinging eyes into the light.

The journey is silent, save for the moos of the brahmin, and the occasional cough or grunt of one of my team. I trot close to Dweller, leaning into his ear and asking if his Pipbuck can act as a radio, he tells me yes, and a loud, crackling, buzz emits from his hoof, followed by the ever so slightly staticy, yet beautiful, voice of a mare singing. I catch myself humming along to the tune of “Mad about the mare” and I hear Double barrel give a hearty chuckle.

“What? It’s a good song.”

I defend my humming as his chuckle ceases.

“Hey, whatever you say.”

We share a sly smirk at each other and keep walking alongside the brahmin. As we continue to walk I feel something beneath my hooves, hard, cold, metal and beeping. I freeze, the rest of the caravan quickly stopping behind me. Tail Fire raises an eyebrow.

“Landmine?”

I violently nod my head as I begin to shake and break into a cold sweat. Dweller quickly gets behind me, his horn glowing as I feel the warm magic energy beneath my hoof.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I find it hard to look behind me, mainly out of fear that I’ll shift weight off of the landmine, sending my flank sky high. He speaks through gritted teeth, there must be something in his mouth.

“Relax, I’ve got this. Just don’t move until I tell you to, okay?”

I stiffen my legs and follow his advice. Whatever he’s doing, I just hope it works.

“RUN!”

I bolt forward, bucking a cloud of dust up where I was standing. I jump as far as my legs will take me and land, face first, in the dirt as a muffled KABOOM dends shrapnel and dirt into the air and back down again.

I roll onto my back, the dirt sticking to my coat. I survey the damage, hoping the team didn’t get hit. I see Dweller stand up, brushing the dirt from his coat and ruffling it out of his mane. We lock eyes, unable to comprehend how close we both just where to death. He opens his mouth.

“By Lunas southern beard. DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

He’s an excited child, dancing on the tips of his hooves and jumping up and down. My head drops back to the dirt as I burst into hysterical laughter, followed by the rest of the group, stepping out from behind the two brahmin they had used for a makeshift, fleshy, living barricade. After the mine scare, we kept moving, Dweller staying close to me as I periodically checked his Pip-Bucks map.

“This is the place, just alongside these tracks.”

I turn around, signalling the rest of the group to stop.

“Here?”

I hear cream soda yell out from behind the rest of the group.

“Yea, we wait here ‘till the train carts come by, then we hitch a ride.”

I reply as Dweller trots to the brahmin, taking the bags from their backs and setting them by the track. We don’t wait for too long before a cloud of dust quickly drifts down the rail line, accompanied by the sound of thunderous galloping. As the galloping gets louder, it begins to slow to a gallop and the cloud begins dissipate. Two dirty bucks carry a rusted, old train cart , barely held together as it violently shakes on its way down the line.

“T-this is our ride?”

Dweller turned towards me with fear in his eyes. I throw my foreleg around his neck and bring him closer to me.

“That it is, my privileged friend. You are looking at the height of wasteland technology.”

“The height of wasteland technology is a rusted deathtrap pulled on rails by two bucks?”

I release my grip and begin to load the bags onto the train as it comes to stop just in front of us.

“That it is.”

From out of the corner of my eye, I could see brahmin, scattering. I snapped my head back to where they should have been standing to find Tail Fire handing bags to Cream Soda and Double Barrel. I threw the two bags I had already removed from the brahmin onto the train and ran to the two bucks pulling the train. They were filthy, more so than most wastelanders , with a black goo clotting their coats and chips in their hooves. They wore goggles and had all manner of leather and chains adorning their bodies, though it would seem to be for practicalitys sake over any kind of perverse pleasure, as their leather harness’ connected to the rusted train cart through long, dirty chains.

“Hey, thanks for this. Either of you know when we should get there?”

The yellow buck turned to me, raising his goggle to his forehead revealing two circles of clean hair around his tired, old eyes.

“Well, if there ain’t any attacks or repairs to be done, we should get there around noon-ish.”

“Thanks for that, pal.”

I pat him on the back before he yells to me.

“So, this means you and the big guy are even now, right?”

“Oh, yea, yea, sure.”

I nod my head, running back to the cart, where the group has already made themselves comfortable. I stand next to Tail Fire as she stares out the window.

“Enjoying the view?”

I try to make conversation, but am met with disinterested grunts. I lean closer to her, trying to see what she’s staring at. Her head snaps towards me as I see a red glint in the mountains above us. My eyes widen and I begin to stutter.

“D-did you see that?”

“See what?”

I keep my gaze towards the mountains, my brain racing through the numerous possibilities of what it could have been. Raiders? Steel Rangers? An NLR patrol? It doesn’t matter now, the train is quickly building up speed and I can’t see anymore movement in the mountains. I finally snap my gaze from the mountains and shake my head, staring at my hooves before glancing up to see Tail Fire.

“Nothing. It was nothing. Guess I must’a been seeing things.”

I force a chuckle and walk to the back of the cart, where Dweller was already lying down, fiddling with his Pip-Buck as it spewed forth static from its cold, rusting speakers. I lie beside him and stare to the ceiling, hoping to catch a few minutes of sleep.

“What do you want?”

I hear Dweller mutter even through the static. I turn to Dweller, looking up at him as he keeps staring at the device on his hoof.

“What?”

“What do you want? You were talking to Tail Fire and now you’ve come to me, what do you want?”

“I want sleep, damn, why so touchy?”

“I’m busy!”

He finally looks away from the Pip-Buck to shoot me a look of burning anger. I scoot backwards and raise my hooves up as a sign of peace.

“Sorry, man, I just-”

Before I can finish my sentence, the static from his Pip-Buck cuts out and a message erupts from out of the white noise. A woman, soft spoken, sounds nice, old but filled with fear at the same time.

“It’s going to be okay, Muffin, everything’s going to be fine just keep your head down.”

It sounded like a warzone, behind her soothing tone, screams and muzzle fire could be heard. My mind was painting a picture far worse than the firefights I’d previously been privy to. I shuddered to think of the battle that ensued behind the cries of the child in the recording.

“Just keep your head and remember that mommy loves yo-”

That’s when it cut out, not the gunfire or screaming, but the voice, harshly followed by a thud and the child's cries erupting into a scream of pure terror. I was at a loss for words, all I could do was stare into Dwellers eyes as they began to slowly redden and fill with water. As I stood up to leave Dweller to himself he curled into a ball and faced the wall. I found Cream Soda and Double Barrel screwing around with the equipment to the front of the cart.

“What the hell are you two doing?”

Double Barrel looked up from the shotgun held like a baby in his arms.

“Weapons check.”

said whilst cocking the gun. I turned my head to Cream Soda, raising my eyebrow as I asked her.

“And you?”

She held her head low and stared at me through her bright blue mane, which had draped over her eyes.

“Well, Double Barrel was just showing me proper gun maintenance and-”

“All right, all right, fine.”

I stopped her as her voice became higher and her eyes, glassy. I thought I was past making mares cry, guess I was wrong. I finally settle near the window adjacent to Tail Fire, I spend the rest of the journey staring out of the window. The journey was shorter than I expected, and we get to the facility as the sun descends from the Equestria skies.

The train leaves as soon as our last bag is thrown from it. We sling the heavy bags over our backs and across our flanks, in the distance, we see the checkpoint, a small box on the horizon. The surrounding areas were empty. The usual bloatsprites, hell hounds and other abominations of the wasteland where nowhere to be seen. We count it as a blessing and set up a camp within the small checkpoint just outside of the facility. The checkpoint was a rusted mess of pre-war technology, damaged beyond repair a long time ago, except for a single terminal built into the wall below a wide, bulletproof window. We lay down our bags and I look to Dweller, tilting my head to the direction of the terminal. We both walk over to it and I blow the dust that had accumulated atop the terminals thick, green, glass screen. Dweller sneezes and gives me a perturbed expression, I pay no mind to his annoyance and lightly tap the terminal.

“Fix it.”

I pull a pair of binoculars from my saddlebags and take my place at Dwellers side, looking out through the window. The facility was a giant, beaten down box on the horizon. The four corners of the building held towers, also boxy and with large machine guns atop each of them. As I hear Dweller let out a victorious cheer, I see the machine guns droop, now disabled. I turn to Dweller and nod, he returns my nod and disappears in a brief glow from his horn and a puff of smoke. In the distance, I see a similar puff several feet above the the facility, and Dweller falls from it, landing on the roof of the building. As I run out of the checkpoint building, I call to the rest of the team.

“C’mon! We gotta move!”

I dart past faces contorted into confused expressions. As I begin to feel out of breath, I reach the doors. Massive, rusted, vault doors. As I slow to a stop, the main gear in the centre of the door begins to turn and the two metal flaps to the side of the door open, releasing the door to slowly lower as the rusted metal grinds against itself in a sharp screech. The rest of the team quickly catches up behind me as the door opens to reveal Dweller, waiting for us. I trot up to him, my head stooping from fatigue. In between breaths I say to him

“I… didn’t know… you could ‘port.”

He tries to hide a smirk by hanging his head low and muttering out

“Yea, well…”

I place my hoof on his head, scruffing his mane. I walk past him, and look around. The facility is pitch black. As Dweller fixes his mane I yell back to him.

“Couldn’t get the emergency generators on line, huh?”

My words echo through the blackness. Dweller replies.

“Yea, just give ‘em a minute to kick in.”

Deep into the facility, a light suddenly bursts to life with a loud bang, and then another and another. Dozens of rows of lights activate on the ceiling above, until a pale, sickly yellow light overtakes the atmosphere.

I look on in awe at the vast emptiness laid out in front of me, and my team come to my side, doing the same. I feel a few words are in order. I clear my throat and speak.

“Well then. Let’s get to work.”