The high noon sun had passed her zenith as we finally started on our way again. After we had sat there for a couple of minutes in silence – other ponies religious believes were nothing I wanted to talk about, especially with Angel, he seemed not to be too wrapped in it too tight, but I still had a feeling as if I could crush our entire friendship over this matter – we returned to our camp site. Telling me he hadn't slept this night was a fatal mistake on the part of my unicorn companion, for now I was adamant about packing our things together by my own hooves and mine alone, while he should rest and elaborate an adapted route in the process.

The result was that we would travel northeastwards and walk an arc towards one last sea of debris we would sleep at, one last time. Tomorrow we would reach the vertibuck crash site. Thinking of the near end of my journey I felt joyful, soon I would be safe back home and the wasteland's horrors would be nothing but a bad memory.

The safe at the other unicorn's camp had held several magazines of "special"-labeled ammunition, incendiary rounds and some others I wasn't too exited to know about, some spark batteries and cells to power a magical energy weapon, but sadly no such gun itself. The true treasure of the secret safe although was a fragment of pre-war combat armor, two legguards fitting on a pony's forelegs. Arguing they weren't fitting his hooves, that he wouldn't need any extra armor and that I had found the stash after all, Angel nearly force me to take them for myself.
The incredibly resilient material, colored in a light but bleached green, – kind of predictable since it was supposed to be combat armor – was divided into several armor plates that lay partially above the following and were overall attached to a glove. The right hoofguard was also equipped with a implemented holster for my gun. It came in handy, since the hunter-ponies from the night before had been rotten to my old one.

"Angel, did you know those... hunters?" I asked as we walked through a small valley.

For a few seconds the unicorn seemed to think, but then he shook his head.

"Neither of them in person, though I haven't looked at them too closely, but I knew, who they were. They were members of a gang operating in several locations all over the wasteland."

A group? Oh marvelous, so there were even more of them out there...

"The're called – or further more call themselves – "The Hyaenas", quite fitting, considering the cowardice and treachery in their acts."

"Hyaenas? I thought I knew the name..." I muttered. But had they been griffins or zebra tribe from before the war? I was almost sure the name wasn't connected to ponies of any kind.
"Help me along, please. What were those hyaenas again? I think I've... heard something about them, but I don't recall from whom. They're connected to the zebras, right? Maybe a one of their special forces groups?"

"First thing was right, the latter... not so much. Once, I was told, there were animals living in the lands of the zebras. All of this was long before the war, when the zebras themselves were little more than animals yet, and by that time, they were natural enemies. Maybe the gang gave itself that name because of... racial reasons, I don't know."

"And are those hyaenas..." I gulped. "Are all the raiders like them?"

"Raiders?" Angel looked a me in surprise that big, as if he was told that he would see one of our princesses his next birthday. "No, no, no, you've gotten something wrong. The Hyaenas're just an ordinary wasteland gang, with a big field of operation, yes, but far too much civilized to be raiders, at least they have their "goals"."

"So you're telling me the ponies who captured me to sell me to a "collector" and killed and decapitated another unicorn to sell its horn "fresh from the roast" to other ponies, were no raiders?"
He shook his head again.
Just an "ordinary" group of ponies? I didn't wanted to know what tier of sickness raiders embodied then. And the featherbrain I was had thought it couldn't get worse.

"You gave me an apple back then?" I asked as we took a short rest mid-afternoon. Our baiting-place was located near a larger line of hills, a hillside to one of our sides, a field of tall grass on the other. We had been a little bit ahead of schedule and the time of dusk was still far away as we took our last break to brace ourselves for the last part of our journey. The last hours had been pretty uninteresting, no RADscorpions, bloatsprites or other ponies had attacked us, we didn't even spot something living apart from ourselves. And I was torn between finding the lack of "action" good or not, but balancing the threat of an animal attack and the sight of Angel's awesome guns I came to the conclusion that I would've appreciate it not getting attacked again. Once we would've reached our final destination I could ask him about them.

"Well, that's true." Angel answered, taking a few apple wedges out of his saddle bag. They weren't as shiny and fresh looking as the one I had ate this... midday.

"But from where did you get it? I mean..." I made a sweeping gesture. "It doesn't look as if anything's going to grow here, no living plants, left alone an apple tree."

After gulping down one of the wedges, he answered. "You think it looks like this everywhere in the wasteland?" On my questioning look he continued. "That's actually right for probably ninety-nine percent of the equestrian wasteland, but some places... Some places are still gifted with pre-war facilities. The apples I got out of one of those, it was kind of a... conservatory, if you know what that is..."
I nodded slowly. Conservatories weren't needed above the clouds, our cloud seeding program took care of our food supply most of the time. But if it didn't... we would have to improvise something, taking food from somewhere else, maybe the surface, even though it would most likely be contaminated. I was glad a famine like this hadn't yet occurred during my lifetime, but I was sure it had been... dreadful.
"We visited the Fillydelphia region a few weeks ago, some jobs before the caravan that found you. My group traded a few packages of them for some higher quality ammunition and weapons."

"But how is it possible that those facilities survived the war? I mean, not even that school was spared, even if it wasn't a direct hit? A miracle?" He nodded. Or maybe the pre-war ponies hadn't been so shortsighted after all, maybe the had built them underground, like the gym, which was fairly intact as far as I had seen. Built it to survive the war and... what came afterwards...

A swish, right behind Angel in the grass...

By the time I had drawn my gun and looked up again I saw much to my disappointment that my companion hadn't brought out his elegant black but his home-made weapons. Together we took aim at the swishing grass next. As the noise intensified the grey unicorn gave me a nod, his eyes suggested to be prepared to shoot. As if this would work in my case...

Suddenly something khaki hopped out of the bushes. I almost thought it would've been another RADscorpion, but as I looked closer said creature turned out to be a pony, with a kakhi hide and dark grey mane, but a pony nonetheless. A male pony... another one...

By Celestia's crown was the mare-to-stallion ratio in that part of wasteland seemed awfully imbalanced!
The stallion cocked his head and immediately his eyes widened in fear as he found three pistols pointed directly at his face.

"Please don't shoot me!" he cried out and threw his hooves over his head. I saw how the weapons wrapped in Angel's magical grip shook a little as the kakhi one moved his head towards his own weapon, strapped to his shoulder.

Please don't let him attack us, for his sake!

"I... I will surrender my gun, okay?" he said shakingly, drew his gun slowly and threw it to the ground in front of us. "I've got bottle caps, I left some goods behind at my camp site, please, you can have everything, even my clothing, but please, please don't kill me. Take everything!"

"What?! No!"

"I... I can tell you, where the next merchants travel, please, just..."

"We aren't bandits!" I had to shout to get through the constant begging to spare his life. Hastily I put away my own gun, signaled my grey companion to do the same and kneeled down next to the grey-maned stallion, who was still lying on the ground, his hooves clenched over his head. "We don't want to kill or rob you, we just thought you were going to attack us. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."

The stallion stopped crying and looked up to me again, as I shoved his gun back to him, then he stood up and faced us.

"Luna's butt, girl," he said, his voice still a little bit raspy, and pulled a canteen out of one of the many pockets his dark brown jacket was cluttered with. "I thought you would be my end." He took a deep sip, than offered the canteen to me, but I rejected it with head-shake. "You know, the wasteland..." Then his gaze fell onto my wings, he seemed to choke on the sip and his voice pitched a doubting tone. "You... you're not from around this lands, are you?"
It wasn't a question.
He took another sip after another unsuccessful attempt to pass his canteen along to Angel.
"So you're another one of those dashite-do-gooders,"

"I am..."

"Ha! From smoke to smother, or better, from heaven to the dirty boot scraper of the goddesses below huh? Listen to me, kiddo, when I tell you, that there's nothing down here worth leaving your pretty house on a cloud,"

"She isn't... please, don't..."

"You Dashites better stay where you..."

"I! Am! No! Dashite! By Celestia's forelegs and Luna's horseshoes!" I pitched my saddle bags, reared up, spread my wings, performed an half-turn and thereby showed him my fully intact cutie mark. "I didn't leave the Enclave! I may be stuck down here, but I didn't turn my back on my home! Do you understand? Do you understand me!?"

The stallion had fallen over with shock and was now lying on his back, staring at me blankly and in fear. And I stared back, panting in rage. I was angry... furious, but I didn't know how or at whom, I simply was angry.

"Ah... yeah... I should've known..." the stallion stammered and crawled backwards, away from me. "You're no Dashite, of course not, you're... you are... way to clean, yes, that's it!"

I scowled at him and breathed heavily.
A grey scheme edged itself in the small gap between the stallion and me, and I heard Angel calling out to me:

"Please, please calm down. He didn't mean it like that. Pegasi like you're just a rare sight down here, do you understand?"

"I know." I growled. I had experienced it last night.

"Why... why don't you fly ahead a little bit, to the hills. Maybe you can see our next stop from there, hm?"

I snorted, dropped on my forelegs again, took my saddle bags in my muzzle and flew away, towards the line of hills in the distance Angel wanted me to be.

As I had went airborne and flew a few meters above the ground my anger was already fading and by the time I landed on the ground again, it was entirely gone.

But why... why had I become so angry in the first place? I had managed to scare a full grown and armed stallion, I wasn't more impressive than any other enclave pegasus, I wasn't dressed in an especially intimidating way and I my gun had been holstered since the beginning of our talk. It had been my anger alone that had frightened, the anger arising from... I didn't know where.
But it was related to the Dashites... an hence to Sunshine.

Was I blaming her for everything that had happened?
For Cloud Striker? For the others who fell in the battle... but they were alright, weren't they?

What if they hadn't made it?
What if all of them had died, just like Cloud Striker?

No, no, no!
I hammered my wings against my head.

No, Feather, you must not think something like that. Never, at no time, never ever!

But it was too late: the thought had already entered my mind.
Cloud Striker was dead, I had seen it happening, her... her head had been spilled all over my body!
An the others... they had been n bad shape due to the crash... could they take on a large group of bloodthirsty raiders? And how big had this group been? Ten ponies? Twenty? Hundred?

Three of us had already died in the vertibuck... four died on the ground... then her... what had we, no!
What opposition could Hurricane and the others have offered to them?
I had chosen to leave, had taken flight to... to chase Sunshine. I. Their leader. I should have stayed, to fight alongside my friends and... and die with them.
Hurricane had sent me away, but why? Had he been aware of the lost cause?

Behind me somepony stepped on a dry bough.

"Angel," I said without turning around. I simply knew it was him. "I... I want to know something."

"You... what...? Anything."

My voice trembled and he had caught that, but that didn't matter now. He couldn't refuse to give me that answer, he had no right to.

"I want to know the truth. And you will tell me the truth."

His face darkened in concern.

"Do you really think my friends are still alive?"

The grey unicorn remained silent while I dropped on the ground, fighting down the tears. Then suddenly I felt like Angel lay down next to me, putting one of his forelegs around my neck.

"What's the matter?" he asked gently. "Is it... something about last night?"

"Just answer me, Angel. What do you think? Did they... survive?"
I turned my head around to look my companion in the eyes, but his head was bowed down in consternation. "What do you think?"

He just lay there in silence while I wiped the tears out of my eyes with my wing. Everything was still under control, the locks were still sealed.
After what seemed like eternity he took a deep sight and turned his head up and towards my face. In the meantime I had fully curled up on the ground and was looking up to the cloud cover.
Lunar Rock was somewhere up there, but even if I would return somehow, nothing would ever be as it was used to be.

"Feather," he said slowly, addressing me by my name for the first time. "I don't know anything about the enclave soldier's abilities to fight raiders, but..I've heard stories about single ponies taking on dozens of enemies in heroic battle. It's not entirely sure something happened to your friends."

"But I want to know, what you're thinking. You yourself!" I tried to scream but all I managed to do was to whisper. "What do you think, be honest, please."

He followed my gaze upwards to the skies, sighed again.

"Feather, listen, I don't want to hurt you. But if you demand it... I think... I think there might be an terrible surprise once we reach the crash site."

So he thought it too. He didn't believe that they were alive and neither did I, not really. I may have tried for the last days, made up an illusion for myself, tried to blind myself to the truth, but deep inside I already knew all hope was gone.

"So, why came you along with me?" I whispered while the tears ran down me cheeks, I buried my face in my hooves and covered it with my wings. "If you don't believe in their well-being, then why are you coming with me? Why did you even bother feeding me, giving me a place to sleep, why did you bring me to Duct Tape in the first place, if there was no hope for me ever to find home again? Why didn't you just..."

"...leave you behind? To die out there? You want to know why?"
I nodded.
"You want to know why I didn't simply left you you to die of blood loss or starvation? Why I didn't shatter your hopes of a save return to your home back in Springmare?"

My eyes were still shut as I felt how he shoved my wings aside and lifted my head with his hooves.
As I reopened them I looked him directly into the eyes.

"Feather, your hope was the only reason for not destroying it back then. Hope, even if may be in vain, is something even rarer than kindness or innocence in the wasteland. I didn't want to drown that delicate little flower that was your hope, and be it just to make your first days on the surface a little bit less cruel."
He let my head down.
"Besides, I never said that there was absolutely no hope for your friends to be alright, like I said, I've heard stories about the Enclave's soldiers..."

It may have been a lie, but it... it gave me strength.
Strength to move on eventually. Maybe he was right...

"Thank you, Angel." I mumbled and laid my wings on my head again. And he just lay there.

By the time I had regained control over my body, I felt dizzy... no, that wasn't dizzy, I was drowsy. Had I... fallen asleep? I lifted my head and saw that the dust had drawn near. In an hour or two it would be pitch-black.
And there it was again:
The pure white unicorn, standing upon a hill in the distance, gazing at the sky just as I had. The sound I had heard inside the scorpions' cave had returned, it remained soft this time but didn't fail to relax me again. I gasped in surprise as the tall unicorn... spread its wings?

"You're doing better now?" a voice asked from my side.
I blinked. Turning my head I saw Angel, still lying by my side and smiling at me gently. Was I doing better?

"I... I don't know." I answered and looked into the distance again, but the... princess-pony was gone, as was the noises that had accompanied it. "But if you think that there's still hope, I will believe in that too."

"Trust me, holding on to your hopes is something way too many ponies have stopped doing. You have to hold on to it and never let it go. Never."

A short pause followed and the two of us gazed into the distance and at the sky once again. As I saw now, there was a group of buildings not too far away, standing out against the darkness by its few illuminated windows. Our destination, the last stop.

"What happened to the other stallion?" I asked to break the silence. Lying here was well and good, Angel's soft side to lean against, the tranquility... but we had to get moving or we would never reach our next camp site.

"The traveling merchant?" Angel asked in surprise and I nodded. "He left, soon after you flew away."

"What did he want?"

"His answer surprised even me. He said he was coming out of a town, a few steps from here. I guess he meant those." He pointed a hoof at the distant buildings. "I never heard of anything you can call a town this far out in the fields, but that's not saying much, smaller communities are founded as fast as a pegasus makes its nest... no offense. But I'm concerned about how they... will react to you."

"Because I'm a pegasus."

"Because you're enclave. Well, that usually means you are a pegasus, so both of it."

Of course. Although being a pegasus had saved me from... what, getting killed instantly? I didn't know what those other bucks would've done to me in case I would've been an unicorn. But then it was highly unlikely I would have ever been in this kind of situation.

"So... what are we going to to about that whole... wing-stuff? I doubt I can tuck them away like that. So, are we going to sleep outside tonight?"

"No, no, don't worry, fate's granted you a favor. The traveling merchant had some things to offer, this among other things." His magic wrapped around a dirty brown blanket that was lying on his back, between the saddle bags. "He gave me a discount, since I prevented you from stomping or abducting him. Or maybe because we didn't shoot him in the first place."

"Abducted... oh, nevermind." I began to wonder how all those "the Enclave's abducting ponies for cruel experiments"-stories came into being at all, considering the No-trespassing-policy of the Enclave regarding the surface. Well, there were those Dashites... and they were obviously excoriating their former fellow enclave citizens. If they liked it... pffh.
"And for what are we needing this blanket, it won't make me invisible and I doubt we can trick other ponies by shrouding me with a dust sheet, dusty and dirty as it might be."

"Oh, that's no blanket and no dust sheet either. That's..." the unicorn struggled for words. "...how can I describe it... those are wasteland settler garments for earth ponies. And since you've got no horn sticking out your forehead, wearing this will conceal you and your pegasus wings."

I took a closer look at the clothing he offered me. Basically it were several shredded sand-colored pieces of fabric, stitched together, resulting in a coat not unlike Angel's blue coat. Of course his was was much shapelier than mine. Upon closer examination I saw three holes in the fabric, one bigger hole, probably for my head, and two smaller ones for my forelegs.
Somehow I felt reminded to the High Council's garments.

"I don't want to push you, but you should change your clothing soon, if we want to arrive at the... town... before nightfall." Angel said as he pushed me with his head, then he stood up and walked downhills towards the buildings. "I'll be waiting dead ahead, follow me when you're finished."

To putting on the wasteland settler outfit felt like... like... exactly like slipping on a dirty, patched-up and sweat-soaked piece of clothing felt like. Judging by the looks and smells I assumed that it had been worn by more than a dozen ponies before and by the time the fabric had touched my hide I came to think I wasn't the only one living inside this garments now.
At least the outfit fulfilled its purpose: nopony could tell for sure if I had wings hidden beneath the coat, if I was a little bit plump or if the outfit itself wrinkled up in a strange way.Having to hide my race's distinctive features to not have any problems with other ponies left a nasty taste in my muzzle and I wondered if griffins had to do anything like that to be tolerated, though I imagined it to be pretty difficult to make a griffin look like... something else. Or zebras. Thinking that ponykind's worst enemies would be treated equally to ponykind's proudest citizens felt strange. They had destroyed the pegasus' capital Cloudsdale and the whole of Equestria afterwards and what had we done?

But it didn't make sense to think about stuff like this right now. I had no clue about how non-ponies were treated in the post-apocalyptic Equestria, maybe everything was alright. As "alright" as it could get in the wasteland at least. As I burdened myself with my saddle bags again and I strapped my "old" and tattered holster around my foreleg again I recognized twinkling in the corner of my eye. I turned towards the sparkling object and found a large piece of broken glass lying a few meters away from the place Angel and me had been laying earlier. Either it was broken quite recently or wind and weather had been kind to it, any way it was clean enough so that I could see a reflection. A reflection that – bringing in a giant amount of imagination – resembled the picture I had seen all that time ago, the last time I had looked into the mirror of the Lunar Rock academy. I fought down the upcoming memories and images.

No, Feather, not another breakdown right now! The last one had occurred just moments ago.

I took a closer look at my reflection dressed in sand-color:
The once white hide of the pony I was looking at was now stained with dust and mud, its dirty blonde mane dangled in its face on which the first signs of fatigue were already becoming manifest. But I didn't feel that exhausted at all. If my father could see me right now, would he recognize his daughter? I thought asking myself this question to be enough to proof my disguise's effectiveness.

Fairly satisfied I checked my clothing and its straps one last time and closed up to the grey unicorn buck at the foot of the hill, who was by now scouting the area around the town from the distance.

"I'm done." I said and sat down next to him. "And I have to admit, it's feeling pretty awkward. Dusty and sweaty. And I think there's something crawling around in there."

"That's good." Angel answered and raised a hoof full of dust. "You're looking pretty lousy already. No offense. But there's still something missing. A finishing touch."
Saying this he blew all the dust on his hooves into my face and mane.

"A..."
He set his hooves on the ground again, looking satisfied. "Much better."

"A..."
"Against your prior assumption, you weren't dusty enough."

"Achoo!"

With a massive sneeze a large part of the dust blown into my face returned to its initiator's face. Angel just looked at me in bewilderment and shook his body, dedusting himself.

"No, no, not I'm not dusty enough, you are. My whole life I had the opportunity to obtain this dirt. But I appreciate your thought, thank you and: gesundheit. Now let's get moving, before the night catches up to us." my companion said with a smile and together we started walking.

"Angel, why do I have to wear this again?" I asked during a short break as I was trying to scratch my neck somehow. By Celestia's sweaty back, usually I would use my wings for that, but no – they were cuffed behind my back now, figuratively spoken. By now I was sure something was living in there. And to top it all I started to think like one of those wasteland ponies!
"It itches and it stinks and its dirty and it stinks..."

"Yes, you're not saying this for the first time. I've heard your prior complaining."

"I'm not complaining, I'm whining right now."

"But it's necessary."

"Necessary, right." I grumbled sarcastically as I tried to reach out for my neck with my forelegs, but falling flat on my face was the only thing I accomplished by that.
"Nothing happened in Springmare and we were able to talk sense into Steed as well, so why do we need this disguise now? Are the ponies here differently minded or..." Lying on the ground I finally managed to eliminate whatever had caused the prickle. "...or is it just another "reinsurance" in case somepony tries something?"
Now it was itching at three other places. Great!

"Trust me, it is necessary." Angel said with a blank expression while he was watching me tossing about in the dust. "You're right, nothing happened in Springmare, but even you must've noticed that the residents were all but eager to house a pegasus like you."

I tried to remember how the surface's ponies had been dealing with me before:
Duct Tape and Suture had been kind towards me, but they were payed for that. The drunken mare, Grape if I wasn't mistaken, had been really drunk and thereby honest I guess, but here buckfriend had compensated that. Shot Glass acted friendly as well, but once again, she was most likely payed for that.
And besides that... The whispering crush of ponies in front of Suture's store, Steed...

"I think it balances each other." I said and pulled myself up again, without dedusting myself again, and we continued our walk.

"You know, Springmare's completely different than this town here."

"Why's there a town at all? You said there was nothing out here."

"Exactly, that's what's concerning me." he answered. "The last time I tracked through this area, there was nothing yet, meaning this "town" has to was founded recently. From this follows, that I don't know the inhabitants of the place and how they react to strangers. Hence the disguise. Whoever settled down here had to be aware of the danger. Living that close to raider territory makes pulling triggers much easier. Unlike in Springmare. You have to admit that a pegasus would raise suspicion, and your disguise will prevent one of the guards or settlers from acting with precipitation."

"They would kill me?!"

"Shoot you, leastwise."
Because it might be that I was an enclave pegasus.

"You might be an enclave scout or soldier."

"I am a soldier. Technically."

"Yes, but you're no danger to the surface peace, are you?"
I nodded slowly and bowed my head down, watching the ground passing by under my hooves.

"I'm sorry, that's life down here. And you don't have to wear that garment for long. After we've left the town, do anything you want, you may burn the outfit, but right now, just act like you're an earth pony."

"So they're not shooting at earth ponies and unicorns?"

Racists!

"Oh, they do, but not as quickly. Hush now, we're coming in sight and..."
Angel froze in his tracks, hit his face with his hoof and I stared at him in confusion. I didn't reckon that.
"You're so stupid!" he grumbled and rubbed his forehead.

"Excuse me?"

"No, not you. I'm stupid."

What was wrong now? Was I still not dirty enough? Were my clothes suspiciously little ragged?

"Is something wrong with me?" I asked in annoyance. He nodded. Of course it was me, it was me every time something was wrong.
"And what's it? Not enough dust in my face?"

"Everything's alright on the outside."

"Great! So what's it? I don't have to catch a weird wasteland disease to be authentic?"

Angel shook his head.

"No, you don't have to. It's all about your name. Your name isn't exactly common in the wasteland, it will raise suspicion. And we don't want that."

"So what are we going to do about that?"

"We have to think of..."

"Halt!" a female voice called out form a wooden barricade that was surrounding the town, wherever it wasn't covered by debris. A bright spotlight beamed out from somewhere before us and blinded me. "Stand still, immediately!"

"We're only passing by, we don't mean any harm to you." Angel said and I could see his silhouette stepping forwards. Then a shot rang through the air, I hit the dirt and pictures of Angel's bursting head came to my mind. But luckily there was no noise of a bullet ripping apart flesh and bones, instead the projectile bounced off a rock nearby, sending small splinters flying into me.

"Another step and the next one won't be a warning shot!" another pony, another mare, yelled from the distance. Snipers?

Angel was in no need for another invitation and so he immediately retreated to my side.

"I assure you, we're no thieves, no bandits and no raiders either. We don't want to afflict damage, neither to your community nor to its inhabitants." I answered. Why couldn't I hold my own tongue?

"You can make sure of it." Angel resumed.

My eyes adjusted to the blinding light – as far as this was possible at least – and now I could see the silhouette of the mare talking to us. She was standing between two of the wooden walls, the spotlight was attached above. She gave a laugh.

"Yes, sure. And let you just off..."
By the time she had finished her sentence, it seemed to become clear to her that neither of us would leave this place in one piece, if we would show any hostility to her.

"And now?" I whispered towards my companion.

"Now we wait and hope for the best." he answered, but I also saw the tiny spheres that were cocking the guns strapped to his forelegs. Please Luna, don't let it come to that.
"Your name," he added quietly, "Think of a new and unsuspicious name, while I'll do the talking."

Right. New Name. Unsuspicious and with a connection to surface, that would be the best. But also nothing extraordinary. Think, think, think!

"Okay, strangers, I'll come down, but don't try anything funny. You won't survive that!"

Name, name, name!

Suddenly the bright light vanished and was replaced by the smooth light of an unicorn's horn. It wasn't the blue light of Angel's magic, the pony whose horn was emitting the light was a light pink mare with a just as pink mane, swathed in nearly the same clothing I was.

"Now let me take look at you, and if I get the impression that either of you..."

Creating a new name couldn't be that hard, could it?

"Angel?" Much to my surprise it wasn't me who was calling out my companion's name, but the approaching mare, who was by now flinging her forelegs around the buck's neck. Illuminated by her horn I could see Angel being just as surprised as I was now.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Angel, it's me. Late Tulip."

"Tulip... Tulip, you were that pony, I..."

Now the buck's horn lighted up and I saw a big grin spreading across her face.

"Two years ago you guarded a caravan over there at the Great Oat Lake, I was the daughter of the caravan's leader. You guided us through the valleys in record time and smashed that one gang lying in ambush nearly single-handedly. It was so awesome!"

It seemed as if he was starting to remember the mare's face and name, because the clueless expression on my companion's face faded and with a small *klick* he disarmed his pistols again.

"Ah, yes, Tulip from... Manehattan? To the Great Oat Lake and back, yeah, hell of an adventure..."
Or he was just pretending.

"Indeed, that was us." The pink mare squealed. All of the sudden she seemed to realize that Angel wasn't alone and her head started traveling from Angel to me and back to him. "So, I guess you're not traveling alone either, do you? But I've no manners, you and your companion, both of you are welcome to follow me inside, we will talk someplace more... pleasant."

Tulip turned around and started walking towards the gap in the barricades again, signaling us to follow her. As Angel and I had caught up to her, she almost tossed herself at my grey companion, causing him to blush slightly and forcing me to trot behind the two other unicorns.
If my mare's intuition did fool me right now I would guess somepony had a crush on a certain buck.
As soon as we had set hoof behind the wooden walls, two earth ponies came galloping, closing the gap with another part of debris they were lifting with the help of a strange treadmill-apparatus.
Several times Angel tried to start a talk, but every time he was confronted with either silence or words of procrastination. Since no dialog of any kind seemed to achieved I tried taking a look at this town, but apart from some windows, covered from the inside by close-drawn curtains and even more barricades blocking the streets, I couldn't see much in the light of the two unicorns' horns in front of me.

After several minutes of walking through the relatively cleaned up streets in awkward silence, Tulip turned left all of the sudden and opened a door to one of the higher buildings. This – former – city seemed to be in better shape than the one we had encountered the scavenger family in. The bigger buildings must have been more than five stories tall before the war. By now most of them had lost around twenty percent of their former height, but they were still impressive to look at. That and the streets being mostly clean – at least of the usual debris such cities tended to produce when bombarded – made the whole settlement look more... welcoming look.

The foyer of the office building we had entered by now was illuminated by the warm and flickering of an open hearth in the middle of the room and was definitely meant to be some kind of living room. The floor had to be cleaned up repeatedly, there was no rubble of the ceiling, no empty soda bottles or even a piece of paper lying on it. It almost looked like the halls of the Lunar Rock academy, imagining it without the cracked concrete of course. Even a roughly woven carpet was decorating the room. Almost all of the desks had been moved into the corners or broken up to result in burning material for the fire and some lockers were placed at the room's walls. The few desks that remained were arranged as a dining table next to the hearth.

"Please, take your ease, you two. I'm just going to get us something to eat. You can leave your saddle bags in the lockers." Tulip said in a rush and before anypony could reply she had already vanish upstairs.

Angel and me took a seat. Everything had worked out so far, nopony was hurt, we had met a friendly pony and I finally came up with the banal name "Earth Walker", should I be asked for it. It was no graceful name, but at least it didn't obviously spell "pegasus".
My grey companion gazed into the fire, saying nothing. What was going on inside his head? Something connected to Tulip, even I could tell that.

"So, Angel... care to explain?" I asked.

My companion just shook his head. "For a caravan I don't think this is a good place to stay. They're too noise, too bright and way too close to the raider territory..."

"That's not what I meant. I mean..." I nodded towards the staircase. "...Tulip."

"What's with her? I know her."

"You know her or you "know" her?"
Luna spank me with the moon, had I really just asked this? I felt my ears and face burning, lucky for me, my wings were bound together and thereby in no condition to betray me.

"I worked with her father a few times and that was it." he said and I saw how he blushed again. "But maybe... just maybe things look different to her."

"Please, help yourselves." Tulip's said suddenly from behind us and as we turned around I saw the pink mare, holding a tablet laden with all kind of wasteland food in her magic grip. She dropped the tablet as soon as he had reached the table and tossed herself at my grey companion again, causing the same discomfort than before. I wasn't entirely familiar with how the surface ponies expressed their affection for each other, but judging by the grey unicorn's reaction – or further more the absence of any reaction – I guessed that kind of acting was just as odd as it would've been at home.
I turned my head away from the yearning mare and towards the food she had offered us. The table was now set with several pre-war food cartons, some old and wrinkeled fruits – maybe once apples – and a couple of hoof-sized bowls with a strange mass inside, presumably a kind of surface food I didn't know yet.

"Now tell me, Angel: what are you doing out here? Are you no caravan-guard anymore or is she..." Without turning her head away from the grey buck she pointed a hoof at me. "...your caravan now?"

I got the strange feeling that she somehow didn't like me. Angel seemed to think the same, for he tried to initiate a three-pony-talk.

"Why don't we introduce ourselves as a start? You two don't know each other yet."
That was my cue.

"Hello, my name is Earth Walker. You're Late Tulip, am I right? And I'm..." In default of any knowledge on surface greeting rituals I decided to simply sit still on my seat.

"Fresh out of the Stable, are you?" was everything the mare answered as she turned her head away from Angel.

"How do you know?" Angel bailed me out, once again. What the heck was a stable?

"She's far too clean to be true wastelander like us. She's out here for a few weeks at max."
Too clean? I was wrapped into a carpet full of vermin and I was too clean?
"So, which one was it? Stable 5 or 27 or... no, no, by your looks... let me take a wild guess, it was the infamous Number 38. Diplomacy and talking stuff, superciliously until they're confronted with the outside. Then they're unviable. Am I right?"

I looked at Angel, seeking help. But since he couldn't help me without saying something suspicious I decided to take my chance. I might not know what a stable was, let alone Stable 38, but I had gotten the hint "diplomacy and talking", so I should be able to make... something out of it.

"You're right," I finally answered. "Number 38, diplomacy and stuff, hence my cutie...

"Your cutie mark shows your talent for diplomacy?" she asked with a furtive look. "I've never seen such a cutie mark before, not even on a stable pony. Show me. Please."

I gulped, not able to decide what was more shocking. The fact that I might be unmasked as a pegasus, which, according to Angel, might have quite a fallout on us, or that another mare had just requested me to disrobe myself in front of her and a buck. While I stared at her in disbelieve I saw how the grey buck facehoofed in shame.
Just keep your composure, Feather!

"I... I would rather not..." I jabbered while my cheeks started to burn. "My... I doubt it'd be appropriate if I..."

"Oh, come on, don't be such a killjoy. In exchange I'll show you mine..."

"Please, Tulip," Finally Angel spoke again. "when it comes to her cutie mark, Earth's a bit... quirky about it. You know, stable pony kind of quirky, their whole habit of dressing and so on. She doesn't like it when anypony's looking at her, let alone if she's undressed. Some kind of an inner problem." He whispered the last part in a conspirative manner.
When it helped...

"If that's the case, then I'll go without that, of course. You could've simply said something, Earth. Anyway, an introduction isn't what I had in mind as I brought you here, you'll have to excuse me for a few minutes, I have to talk to the guards."
And with that, the pink mare stood up again and rushed to the exit, leaving the two of us alone without having said anything about herself or the town.

"What was that?" was the only thing I managed to say after a solid minute of awkward silence. I was still a little bit shocked by the pink mare's... candor. "What was the point?"

"Well, that was Tulip and that's the whole point. I think right now she's rampaging through the streets, beating her head against a few walls to calm herself down. At least that's the kind of thing she usually does. That's what she's like."

"Why should she be in need of calming herself down? I mean, our talk lasted for – what – a few minutes at last and we did barely say anything and nothing of it seemed offensive in some way."

"Like I said, it's Tulip. She's a little bit odd, when it comes to... anything connected to me. I mentioned before that I worked with her father some time ago?"
I nodded.
"Actually it's a few years, but nonetheless, she cast an eye at me back then. Trust me when I'm telling you, that she's used to be a pleasant contemporary, except when she's... obsessed with something. And when she's disappointed by something or somepony, then she can get... unpleasant. And I'm sorry to say that I was that disappointment all those years back."

"Do I really want to know it?"

He rolled his eyes as if he was asked to remember a gruesome wound. "Long story short: I refused to spend the night with her."

The twitch moving through my body destroyed the chain of foodstuff I had arranged in orders of size out of boredom and sent most of the items to the floor.

"She... she, you... she wanted you to... together with...?"
He nodded and closed his eyes, obviously trying to fight down the pictures coming back to his mind. I did the same.

"And then?" I asked as if I was remotely controlled. I didn't want to know all the details, but a lower instinct of some kind forced me to continue the talk. Like whenever an accident occurred back home in the Enclave and the present pegasi were fluttering all over the place, watching the spectacle instead of doing something.

"I asked her to leave. Three times." Angel continued with a sigh. "Eventually she decided to do me the favor and absconded. I guess there might be a connection."

A connection? By Luna's tush did she just... me... oh, Celestia!

"Did she just try do score with me?"

"By the goddesses, no!" Angel shouted in surprise. If I remember rightly I had never seen him that surprised.
"I don't think so..." His eyes wandered to the door. "Well, I hope so..."
He shuddered. "However... I think she thinks of you as a rival."

"A rival? In what way? Are you suggesting she thinks you... and me...?" He nodded and my heart skipped a beat. "But we aren't..." He shook his head and I felt relieved somehow. "And that's why she left?"

"Like I said, she's odd when it comes to that. She's good at detecting interpony signals, whether they're real or not, and it has yet led to some... weird outcomes."

Angel didn't want to give away more details, maybe because Tulip could come back every second and then that would be very weird as well. And I was thankful for that.
After we stared into the flames of the hearth for what felt like eternity the sound of a closing door made my ears perk. Turning around I saw Tulip entering again, her mane dripping with water. But it didn't sound as if it was raining on the outside.
So that was how she was calming down? I guess better than demolishing any walls.
She didn't sit down as close to my companion as before, now she was placed in the middle of our seats.

"Okay, let's start this all over again. I'm sorry for... whatever I've said earlier. You're earth Walker, nice to meet you, and I'm Late Tulip. I'm basically the leader of this settlement – well, along with the other ones of course. So, you two are traveling together? "
I nodded, but I wasn't sure where this was going. One the one hoof she sounded nice but on the other hoof... she'd been odd before.
"Consider yourself lucky, traveling with Angel's always a... pleasure. And please excuse the harsh treatment at the gates, you know, a town can't be secured enough. Just because you don't carry any severed heads on spikes with you, that doesn't mean you're no bandits or thieves or – even worse – spies from above."

"From above?" I asked with feigned ignorance. The more I was able to strengthen the image of the clueless stable pony – whatever that was – the better. "You mean from outer space."

The pink mare burst out laughing and looked at me with both amazement and amusement afterwards.

"Almost forgot: stable ponies don't know nothing. But somepony has to tell you eventually. So, tell me: How long are you really up here? A month, maybe three weeks. However, did you see anything else than unicorns and earth ponies?"

"I saw a few bloatsprites and RADscorpions."

"I mean ponies, airhead. Ponies with wings."

"You mean pegasi?"

"Yeah, the turkeys..." Tulip spat out. Oh, I could tell what would come next by now. "Did you see even one of them? No, of course you don't and you know why? Because the only thing those birds care about are their own feathered butts embedded in those Celestia-damn clouds they use to block out our sunlight. But every once in a while they really come down here, not armored or with a whole squad of their weird flying machines, but as "ambassadors of peace", dressed in fancy and shining uniforms. Believe when I'm saying you: those are the worst. They are their scouts, being on look-out for their next target."

"I severely doubt that's what those ambassadors are for." I said glowering. "I mean, why should they do that? Because they're evil? Come on, you make it sound as if those Enclave ponies are just aliens and want to destroy everything good what remains of Equestria for good measure."

"So you've already heard of them? The Enclave, I mean?"

"It's hard not to hear about them as soon as you see the cloud cover by the time you exit your stable, isn't it." Angel stepped in. "That's the story anypony gets about the Enclave."

"Tell me, why do you believe that the pegasi are just that evil?" For a second I didn't care about my disguise. I was just sick of all the accusations those surface dwellers stated against my home.

"Careful, sweety, if you wouldn't have got no wings I would say you're one of them. But who cares about their "reasons"? All I know are the stories our own trading partners tell us about them. That they carry off settlements, sometimes even a whole stable, for reasons of testing whatever they're concocting up there in the sky. I think "They're just a bunch of sick fuckers" is enough to settle this argument, don't you think so. After all, they were the ones who sealed the sky. Not that there no sick fuckers down here too... but you get my point. But since you're traveling with Angel I don't believe you're such a spy, he's a good pony, he wouldn't waste his time with filth like them. Speaking of traveling: what brings you here? This isn't exactly the nicest place to walk by."

"I was about to ask you the exact same thing." The grey unicorn growled. "Have you any idea how close you are to the raider territory? Too close, that's how! And you... you're camping here. What kind of irresponsible blighter has lead you here and what kind of caravan-route is this anyway? And why are you carrying all this stuff along?"

"Don't you get it? This is no encampment, this is our new home. We want to live here!"

Angel looked as if Tulip had bucked him right into the face. Even I was wondering about their chosen location, since it was merely a stone's throw away from the place those raiders had slaughtered... attacked me and my team.

"You... you want to live here? As in forever?" The pink mare nodded. "But what about the caravan? Your father's life's work?"

"There's no Tulip-Caravan anymore. Father died a few months ago and without him... business just wasn't as fruitful anymore. So I and most of our staff decided to settle down, to start our own town. If you've all the uninhabitated wasteland to go, one spot is as good as the other, isn't it? That's why we choose this place. There's no taint, just minor radiation..."

"But it's irresponsible!The Bloodhoof territory is maybe a half day's trott away and you move into some old ruins right next to them? And then you pull off a crazy light show like that one earlier? Are you out of your mind? This is madness!"

"Don't lecture me, Angel!" Tulip shouted back at my grey companion, while I tried to crawl out of the line of fire as unflashy as possible. If looks could kill...
"We just found a home and you with your spooky raider stories won't take it away from us! There hasn't been a sign of them since we arrived here four weeks ago and guess what: the Sparrowtans also marched in there two weeks ago, so even if there once were raiders, by now they should be toast. Or they've finished off themselves."
Or it had been my friends... wait!

Four weeks? The attack on our vertibuck had been... how many days ago?
Springmare, Steed, Wasteland, School, around three days unconscious... a little bit more than a week.

"But I've seen them, the raiders, a whole horde. Maybe a week ago and not far away!"

Tulip's gaze wandered from Angel, who was still burning with anger, to me. And by her look I could tell she wasn't convinced.

"Is that so? What makes you so sure about that? Because if you really would've encountered a horde of Bloodhoof-Raiders, then you wouldn't be talking to me right now. Then you would be dead."

"They attacked us!"

"It's the same. I know Angel's one hell of a gunslinger, but even he can't take on a whole hunt of raiders all by himself without any casualties."

Without casualties?

"Without casualties?! They killed my friends! Well... at least some of them..."

"Your friends? You didn't mention your friends earlier. What've you done out there?"

Stick to the truth, Feather, as close as possible at least.

"They were friends from my stable and we were... investigating a strange vessel we had found in the desert. It looked like an enclave flying-thingy, so we drew closer to... investigate. And then they came. Some crazy giggling ponies with..." I couldn't remember the clothing I had seen anymore, but my guts told me they had been gruesome. "...disgusting cloths."

The pink mare asked with the same urge that had driven me to ask Angel about the juicy details of Dana's "proposal". "And then? How did you get away?"

"We fought against them and then I fled. I got injured in somehow, Angel found me and took me to Springmare. And that's it."

"You've been in Springmare? Why... why didn't you just stay there, it's nice according to what I've heard and save. Out here there's nothing, well, except from us, but I'm sure you weren't searching for us."

"In fact we... I'm searching my friends." I said quietly and Angel tenderly put a hoof on my shoulder from behind.

Now Tulip looked as if she had eaten something long beyond its expiration date. Did the ponies down here even expiration dates?

"You two... you're searching her friends? Stable ponies with maybe a month of experience, who got attacked by raiders? Angel, did you even tell her the odds of her friends being something else than a bunch of severed limbs on sticks by now?"

"She knows that there might be nothing to find, she knows the odds and she's fine with them. And while she's fine with that, I'm fine with that, So I'm going to help her until the very end."

Silence fell after the grey unicorn had spoken his last sentence. Adding something simply didn't seem appropriate to me and I was surprised by the determination that had spoken out of Angel. Would he... really follow me until the end, whatever that would happen to be, or was it just another layer of our disguise? I wasn't sure what to wish for.
Tulip's gaze turned from my face to Angel's and back again. She seemed... impressed, a little bit envy and but impressed nonetheless.

"I guess I won't be able to talk you out of this, will I? So, in exchange for letting you throw away your time like that, would you care to do me a favor? Of course that's no question as such, you've no choice. I, as wrong as this sounds, order you to take this night off of your journey, you'll stay here. Of course that's usually nothing I can decide all by myself, but... I'll set things straight in a moment. Come along, I'll show you your room for tonight."

The pink mare got up and guided us towards the staircase she herself had used earlier and up to another floor, this one, in contrast to the ground floor, fully wrapped in darkness. The stairs kept coming and coming, it used to be a highrise once after all. It came to my mind that I had never ever climbed that many stairs before, I had been flying all the time. And flying was definitely less exhausting. After finally arriving at what Tulip described as the top floor, the pink mare led us into a room, easily as big as the one back at the school vaults, minus the bunker feeling. That was nice. But it was even nicer that the room's shattered windows were set so high that the only thing able to look through them would be a pegasus flying by at close distance. Or a griffin.
But either way, I would be able to get rid of this itchy cluster of rags I was wearing right now. And even if it would only last for this night.

After showing us the room Tulip made quick exit, jabbering something about "the others" and "settling things", closing the door behind her. We put down our saddle bags we had brought up from the living room below. After all we were storing our food in them.
I unfurled our bedrolls, while Angel fanned a small fire in the middle of our room and set up our cooking equipment.

"That worked out quite well, didn't it?" I asked and slipped off my bug-infested clothing , after the grey unicorn locked our door at my request, allowing me to stretch my wings again. Hard to believe they had been bound together for merely a few hours. Angel had been right with what I had said about the torture of his horn being hurt for a week. "And our disguise fooled them as well... okay, that sounded much more scornful than intended, like one of those "ambassador-spies" Tulip was talking about earlier. Pffh, why would we use spies at all?" I huffed. "There's just one thing I didn't understand earlier: what's a stable?"

"You... the enclave pegasi know nothing about the stable-projects?" Angel asked in a surprised tone that surprised me in return. He hadn't sounded like this as I asked him about raiders or the surface's wildlife. Obviously stables were something pretty common down here.

I shook my head. "At home we know... nothing about the surface and the life down here. Actually I was surprised that there were civilized beings at all, we're always told that nothing remains of the pre-war Equestria, that we pegasi are the only ponies left. Of course some ponies tell stories about the surface, but it's just fiction. Along with the stories about evil griffins, the surface tales are the most popular of the bedtime stories among the pegasi parents. They're quite creepy and support the idea of an uninhabitable surface."

"Well, I bet by the time those stories were created the surface indeed was uninhabitable. And for that matter, the stables were build underground, not unlike the bomb shelters yesterday. But the stables... they're the school's underground to the power of ten, maybe more. All in all they're underground bunkers, built to preserve pony life, but they also served a "higher purpose". Often social experiments to figure out... something, I guess."

Wait a second! Did he just said that there were... "Other survivors?" Okay, there had been many survivors, due to what I'd seen prior this week.
"I mean..." How was I able to ask my question without sounding disrespectful? Civilized survivors? Pre-war survivors?
"...ponies like me. No pegasi, just... ponies without wasteland experience." Well, that sounded neutral.

But instead of giving my the lightening answer I had hoped he had intended, he just shook his head and sighed, looking saddened again.

"I'm afraid there are no, at least none I've heard of." the unicorn buck said, chewing on his lips. "You remember all those experiments the surface dwellers blame on the Enclave? That crazy talk about abducting ponies and cruel experiments? Well, many... some of the stable's – often social – projects tended to... backfire. Sometimes a stable can be best described as a nightmare factory. There's only a hoofful of stables I know about whose population survived in a significant number and even less of those survivors can cope with the surface's ways of life. But to return to the matter of experiments: they come from the pre-war Equestria, not unlike the Enclave, and therefore most of the ponies associate the too, resulting in the fear and sometimes hatred you've already encountered."

"Okay, so why is it better to play a stable pony again? I mean, if the Enclave and the Stables are treated nearly equally? Shouldn't ponies like Tulip hate me too?"

"Unlike the pegasi, the stable ponies are often seen as the victims of the builders of their homes. Up to the point where they start to attack the wasteland – be it in self-defense or not – or try to force their ideology on the wasteland's ponies of course, but... let's skip that part."

To me it seemed highly unlikely that there were other ponies like me out there. Ponies who still possessed a pre-war attitude to morality, just like me, who were lost, confused and disoriented. I was glad Angel had taken me to a safe haven like Springmare or else... maybe I would have hurt another pony or myself. But since I doubted I would meet a stable pony in the few hours left for me to get something wastelandish thrown into my face, I decided to let this topic be. At least I still had a perspective. Angel too seemed not to be too interested in any further explanations.
Silence fell again afterwards, until somepony, judging by the voice it was Tulip, tried to get into our room. Of course that resulted in her slamming face first against the locked door and as Angel unlocked the door again after I had dress again, the pink mare seemed both happy and a little bit pissed. Quite understandable considering the her face being a little bit tablet-shaped.

"I'm not interrupting something, am I?" she asked with the conspiratorial look I had seen before after entering our room. The abrupt head-shaking of both Angel and me made her smile grew even wider. I hated this mare."Your mane, Earth. You should really do it again before we go down for you two to meet the others. There will be a nice little dinner, you will introduce yourselves, talk a bit, offer your presents to your hosts and so on. Our town council will be there as well, watching you with their judging eyes, and at the end they'll decide whether you two can stay or not. But don't worry, everything will be fine."

Dinner? – Introducing? – Talking? – Town Council?! – Presents?!
Goddesses, I was finished!

"Come on, Earth, it'll be fun." Both Tulip and Angel yelled again and again while they tried to magically remove me from doorframe I had managed to get my teeth into. "Apart from that: you have no choice until you want to sleep outside the towns boarders tonight."

"That was no dinner, that was a trial!" I shouted after we finally arrived back at our room. I felt empty as if I hadn't eaten for days. Tulip had led us back down, through the streets and to another of the tall buildings where our "dinner" should take place. We had entered a large hall with a just as large table in it and a whole bunch of earth ponies and unicorns sitting around it. Empty seats were arranged at the front side of the table, two next to the entrance – our seats as Tulip mentioned – and three others at the opposite side. After sitting down the pink mare had left the room again and returned a few silent minutes later with two stallions, and together they occupied the other side of the table.

After watching us with his eyes for what felt like eternity the oldest of the council members rose and inaugurated our meal, but the judging eyes of the ponies around kept me from eating any of the offered food, though it didn't seem too tasty as well. The meal was finished in complete silence and I felt as if I had somehow blundered into some kind of secret society, but the worst part was just about to start as the three council ponies at the end of the table raised their voices to address – or rather question – Angel and me.

Angel was doing most of the work, answering all his questions and a whole lot of the ones addressed to me, while I was able to avoid most of the questions about my background by simply referring back to my "stable life". But apart from hearing that Angel used to be a caravan-guard for the whole time he was knowing Tulip by now, I didn't learn anything new about my companion.
After we didn't mention anything about connections to the raiders or any other villains, the council seemed satisfied and proceeded to the presents we would have to offer them.

A present to make them let us stay – given the circumstances of their life I could understand that habit, but it was still nothing common for an enclave pony like me. My worries about the present not being valuable enough were shattered by the time Angel revealed "our" offer: a pre-war magical energy weapon, a plasma pistol, just like the ones I was used to use back home in the Enclave. The gun made both me and all the other ponies at the table gasp in surprise. And for it being around these lands for over two centuries it still looked pretty good and – and that was the most important part – it was still fully functional.
After eying the weapon for several seconds and making a few uncharged test shots the residents, the crimson stallion next to the main councilpony most of all, seemed impressed and generously granted us the permission to stay for the night.

"Yeah, when it comes to strangers they're sometimes a bit... harsh, either with words or without. They were like this when we met them first all those years ago and since nothing bad ever came from their habits I'm okay with it." Tulip said casually, lying next to our campfire, a large bottle of... something not too tasty in front of her. Inviting her to stay until we would go to bed had been a fatal mistake by Angel, but since I didn't want to put one of the ponies who would house us for tonight off, I agreed. And that meant I would have to wear my wasteland vermin outfit until she was gone again.
"But don't worry, they like you, or at least they like the present you brought them. I still can't believe we have our own energy weapon now, even if it's public property now. Which means Old Timer's going to use it and nopony else. But still... that's amazing."

She continued her monologue about the plasma pistol and how it was awesome and how Angel was awesome. I groaned inside and nodded every time I felt as if she had ended one of her sentences. How a single mare could talk so much about having a shiny new toy, even if it was of plasmic nature, made my head spin

"There's just one thing I haven't understood yet." I started several times, stifling the pink mare at my third or fourth attempt. "From where have you taken the plasma pistol? You weren't carrying it with you the whole time, were you?" Because a plasma weapon would've been nice to use – even if I hadn't used my own gun to the point it hurt by now. But still, it would've been nice.

"I've got my tricks." the grey unicorn said with a smirk. Something I hadn't seen too often on his face before. "Bigger ones and smaller ones, the gun counts towards the latter. You know, it's an old trick among us caravan-guards to leave secret stashes behind, filled with a small amount of supplies for the time of need. Sometimes these supplies are food, medicine or weapons, along with fitting ammunition of course, because otherwise that would be just cruel."

"But how do you hide those at all? And where? You're not burying them like a treasure chest, are you? And how do you prevent other ponies from taking what is yours?"
Okay, now I was just as chatty as Tulip had been when it had come to the issue of a plasmatic weaponry.

"Ah, kind of. Most of the time we stash away our stashes in hollowed-out rocks, sometimes in a tree trunk, but that's not happening very often due to the lack of tree around here. And to prevent ponies from taking them... We do nothing against that. You could call it some kind of karmic idea: One of s hides a syringe of medicine we don't need right now, another pony finds it and is able to rescue somepony else, that's good for us, indirectly of course, karmic. And if said pony keeps the medicine to itself, well, than that's none of our business. That way everypony wins."

Suddenly the pink mare to my left nudged me with her horn and whispered loud enough for everypony around too hear: "I've gotten around a lot with daddy's caravan and you know what? I haven't met one single pony who's hiding away spark cells and beam pistols, except for Angel, because Angel's awesome." Whatever she had been drinking since she had joined us, it was loosening both her tongue and her restraint and that wasn't good.

"I just want to be prepared." the grey buck tossed in. "In case of an beam pistol emergency!"

For a few seconds nopony said anything, only the noise of what sounded like a cricket sounded through the shattered windows. Then we all burst out in laughter and as it ended I saw even Angel wiping a tear of joy out of one of his eyes. A strange picture, he had always seemed so calm and restrained. As we sat there, recovering from the sudden burst of laughter, I was overwhelmed with a emotion which could be best described as sorrow.
Of course I would leave this wasteland eventually, tomorrow if possible, but even when all the mutated creatures, the RADscorpions and bloadsprites, and all the hyenas and raiders would be gone and I would be at home again... that one part of my life, the surface, the dust the bug-infested clothing, Angel... all of it would be over, forever. And I think I would miss it.

"So, Earth *hick*, when you find your friends tomorrow... what will you do then?" Tulip asked, her head bowed, chewing on a pre-war hay burger she had levitated out of my saddle bags. "You're going home again?"

"I... I think so." I would fly home when possible, that was for sure. But would I stay? For a time of course, but then... I doubt I could ever completely forget what I had seen and experienced down here or live my life as if this week on the surface had never been. "But honestly, I haven't thought thus far yet. I will return to my home, but then... maybe it's possible for me to come back somehow. To help the ponies on the surface."

The pink mare choked over the sip of her drink and chuckled

"I'd like to see that. Stable ponies emerging from the underground to make the world a better place. Please don't do that, sweety. If you manage to get home again, then stay there. You have it nice, warm and save in your stable. The wasteland's no place for a pony like you and with your attitude you would be eaten within days. Come back in when you and your friends're tolerably wastelanders. If we make it that long, then you can come and get us some shiny arcane device thingies, I've heard you undergrounders are pretty schooled in stuff like that."
Would she be disappointed when one day a vertibuck full of enclave technician ponies would land in the middle of their town and it would turn out that the pony she knew as Earth Walker never existed? Even worse, that she had been one of the "enclave spies"?

"However, let's drink a toast to Earth and her friends, our future saviors!" Tulip bawled, levitating one small glass of her drink over to me and another one to Angel. Balancing such a small thing like a tumbler on your hooves was pretty difficult when you were used to do it with you wings. "Here's to you, Earth! And so that you may find your friends in one piece."

Tears of affection ran down my cheeks, as the two unicorns chinked their glasses and we all took a deep sip out of them. All at once everything seemed to be good and easy...

After the two unicorn's glassed had touched a few times further, toasting the town, the caravans, the goddesses in heaven and much more, Tulip began to totter and was led out of the room by Angel. But not after bidding her goodbye to the two of us with blown kisses and juicy murmur.
Whatever she – and therefore I – had been drinking, had one wacky side effect on me: it made me bone-tired – fortunately not affecting my restraint. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep.

I woke out of my pleasant slumber in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. My head hurt a bit and I felt the urge to breath some fresh air, the now faded campfire had made the air inside our room stifling and along with the booze – I was now sure what we had been drinking had been something alcoholic – it had made my dizzy and sleepy. Which would be great if I hadn't slept for maybe an hour prior this day – or was it yesterday already – resulting in me not being able to sleep through the night. I hated it when something like that happened, being awake at night if I didn't want to be awake was annoying, since you couldn't do anything without waking the others. I groaned, scanning my environment for something interesting to focus my thoughts on. Pale moon- and starlight fell through a window at our room's walls, casting its light on my companions bedroll. His empty bedroll.

"You can't sleep either?" A voice said from one of the windows and turning my head I saw my grey unicorn companion, bathed in the moonlight and gazing into the night. Without his blue overcoat he seemed strangely naked, as I noticed not without discomfort. I negated his question with a shake of my head he most likely wasn't able to see. "I never sleep well if there's something else I should be worried about. It's not pleasant, but it had kept me alive ever since... I started my life in the wasteland."
So he was worried. Of course he was worried, he always was. Although we were protected by twenty or so guardponies, as Tulip had dropped by the time she wasn't drunk yet.
"There's nothing for you to worry about, we're save, relatively. It's just silly me, watching out for trouble whenever other ponies sleep and thinking whenever I should sleep. And what about you? Is something bothering you?"

I shook my head again and extracting myself from my bedroll. A unpleasant tingling sensation went through my wing tips, usually warning me of Hurricane or Sunshine about to rip out one of my feathers, but that seemed highly unlikely right now. Apart from my sleep overdose there was only one on my mind able to end my sleep.

"No, there's nothing. I awoke, just like that. Maybe it was... whatever Tulip served us or the meal earlier, but..." I sighed, finally freeing my wings from the sheets I was wrapped in, and trotted over to Angel. "You know, as strange as this may sound: When tomorrow... when everything's over for me... I... I don't know... I think I'll miss all this."

"Miss this?" Angel said with a chuckle that sounded extremely pretended. "No, really, you shouldn't miss any of this. Life in the wasteland is nothing anypony should miss. But still...I think I'm going to miss you too. It was nice to travel with you, even if it was just for such a short time. "

"And what are you thinking about? What's bothering you?" I asked, lying down next to him.

"A little slice of everything. The ponies here, the ones in Springmare, Steed, the Hyenas, the way we'll take tomorrow... you see: I'm thinking about everything and nothing of it has to worry you."
While he was talking, I rose from his side and trotted over to the window and, balancing on my hindlegs, took a look out of it. This windows were either really really impractical or they had been built for giant monster-ponies. Or just for ponies who were larger than my, Angel for instance. Many of the fires which had lighted the darkness of the night while we had been walking through the streets were dead by now, just the ones at the barricades and on top of the building in front of me, some kind of sentry tower, were still lit. But...
"But come on now, you should really go back to sleep." Angel said, sounding like my father... no, sounding like one my foalhood memories I had of my father. "or else you'll look terrible when we..."

"Angel, I think... we may have got a problem." I said as my eyes started to adjust to the lighting conditions of the outside. Something raised my suspicion, but I couldn't say what.
Three ponies, whether they were mares or stallions I couldn't make out, were standing around the fire at the front gate, obviously chatting. My grey companion rose from his position in the moonlight, trotted over to me and looked at the scene below. He was just about to say something, but then he saw what had shocked me:
The fire at the building below was lit, but instead on a bunch of chatting ponies around it, it cast its flickering light on three dark pony-shaped figures, each of lying in a small pool of... blood.
Realizing what exactly I was seening took a moment, but then Angel and I gasped in unison.

"Your damn right, we have got a problem." Angel said grimly as he span around and dashed to our saddle bags in the corner of the room. He lit his horn, opened his bag and began rifling it, pulling his shiny black automated pistols out of his bags, while simultaneously levitating his home-made guns out of their holsters and into the bags, along with two strange bar-shaped... devices?... he strapped around his forelegs immediately. While whipping on his dark blue overcoat, he tossed my own gun to the ground in front of me, the magazines followed clatteringly.

"I don't understand..." I stammered, standing there while my companion obviously prepared himself for battle. "How could somepony... who could do that?"

"Raiders. Bloodhoof-Raiders, I bet my own horn it's them." he grumbled, stuffing two magazines into his guns simultaniously and taking off what seemed like the safety catches. "I told them this would happen, but they wouldn't listen, nopony ever listens. Now take up your arms and get your saddle bags. I doubt this is going to be easy."

Without questioning him any further I obeyed his commands, crawled into the itching carpet-clothing again – since I didn't want to be shot for good measure/mistaken for an enemy while there was an ongoing raider attack – slung the holster around my foreleg and burdened myself with the bags. Nothing was left of the caring expression on my companion's face as we walked towards the door, which just got ripped out of it angles with a loud crack, and we entered the corridors again.
Within my recollection it had been much more steps downwards, but we were in such a hurry I almost tripped over my own garment a few times as I followed Angel rushing through the large building, we were probably on our way to Tulip's room, but I couldn't tell for sure.
After a few minutes of rushing my companion finally stopped in front of a door at the first floor. I was about to warn him not to charge into a mare's bedroom without previous announcement, especially a mare like Tulip – Thank you, brain! – but before I could say anything he had already pushed open the door and flooded the room with his magic light.

I spotted the pink mare lying under a blanket in one of room's corners, dashed over to her and froze in front of the curled up figure, no sure how to wake her without getting punched in the face. That had happened before. Sunshine's right hook had been devastating. I decided to wake the mare by poking carefully.

"Tulip!" I whispered. "Please, wake up, we've got a problem."
No reaction.

"Tulip, come on!"
Nothing.

"Don't make me..."

Bright pinkish light erupted before my eyes, blinding me and I fell over, screaming.
My eyes! I'm blind!

"Please shut up, Earth." the mare muttered. "My head... what's wrong with you? Why are you waking me in the dead of night... it's still night it is?"

"We've got raiders!" Angel answered for me, still standing in the door frame.

I sat up again, rubbing my eyes, surprisingly I wasn't blind after the light show. The pink mare was suddenly wide awake and sat bolt upright on her mattress.

"Say again? You mean... actual raiders? Here?" She stammered. "Okay, okay, okay, okay... from where – whatever – how... where are they?"

"They already killed your guards on the roof."

With a loud gasp Tulip leaped up and dashed towards a pile of clothing next to the door. Worn dresses and other wasteland clothes flew past my head until the pink mare finally levitated a revolver along with an holster out of the pile and stapped it around her forehoof, then she bolted out of the room, almost running down Angel.

"What are you two waiting for?!" she shouted from the end of the corridor as I left her room. "We have to warn the others. The guards. The council. Everypony!" And with that she disappeared behind the corner and into the staircase. We galloped after her.

While we had galloped through the empty building I had already heard screams of terror and pain, but I didn't sense them until we were standing on the street.
Screams of ponies fighting, screams of ponies dying...
Tulip was already charging towards the bigger building that had housed the council before and I followed her, but then I felt Angel's magic wrapping around my shortened tail. Before I could say anything or stop my run I went down to the asphalt and Tulip met the same fate.

"Hold up." Angel said with a calming voice and released our tales. "We should think over our next action before we do anything stupid. We have to be prudent."

The pink mare next to me jumped up again and span around, facing Angel, her eyes blazing with anger.

"Be prudent? We should be prudent? While my friends get slaughtered over there, you want me to be prudent and sneak through my own home like a thief." she shouted, varying between swinging her forelegs against the grey unicorn and trying to hit him with applebucking kicks. "I don't know how you treat your family, but I won't..."

The pink mare was silenced by Angel as he focused his magic on the pink mare's collar, pushing the struggling pony to wall behind us and pressed his foreleg against her throat. I couldn't see his face but by his voice I imagined it to be dead angry.

"Listen to me carefully, Tulip." he snarled, "I know you want to help your friends and I understand that. But if you're just running in there head over hooves then a painful and bloody death is the only thing you will accomplish. The Bloodhooves just secretly killed your guards, even you have to notice that something's wrong here. I'm sure whoever did this is just waiting for you or other ponies to charge in without thinking. So for your sake: be patient and let's get the hell out of here! Understood?"
The mare ground her teeth. I approached the grey stallion and was about to say something to calm him down, to defuse the situation somehow, but then his head span around, and he focused me with the same glare he had in those first ruins, shortly before I talked to Steed.
"You too. Did you understand what I'm saying!" he shouted at me.

He was right, of course he was and I should listen to him. He had survived many years on the surface... but those were Tulip's friends fighting for their lives. And I wanted to help them too, I wanted not to fail them how I had failed my friends...

"Angel..." I muttered. "We have to help them. Her friends are in danger and we...we can't just stand here doing nothing, while they're getting..." I gulped, "...killed. We can't leave. It's her family."

Something inside Angel's head seemed to snap, he loosened both his magic and his foreleg, letting the pink mare slide to the ground, rubbing her throat.

"You can't be serious! Those are raiders, if not even worse, we should avoid a fight while we still can. And you're not up for this. I mean, no offense, but from what I've seen of your fighting skills, I can tell you this won't end well."

"You don't have to stay, Angel, we..." I glanced over to Tulip, who was standing up right again by now. I was playing a dangerous game by now, I wasn't absolutely sure about the grade of my companion's loyalty. And if my tactic would fail and backfire I would have to stand against a unknown number of enemies and wouldn't have a pony leading me to my friends anymore. "...we will figure something out on our own. You can go whenever you want."
Giving him the choice whether to abandon me, the pony he had saved at the hazard of his life a few times by now, or save his own hide. I was surprised by my own cruelness.

The gears inside the buck's head run hot and after a few seconds of tense silence, he burst and agreed to help us with our bold undertaking, not without swearing to the goddesses, that he would pull me out of the next dangerous situation on my tail if necessary. Everypony drew his or her guns and we started walking. Together we moved through the streets, much to my surprise not dashing from cover to cover how I thought it might be good, but in the middle of the street. Angel reminded us several times "not do do something stupid", but how was our way of wandering around sane in any way?

"Please don't mind me asking, but... wouldn't it by much more... efficient to find some cover? I mean... because of the cover. Whoever assaulted this town will be able to shoot at us from everywhere." I whispered, barely loud enough for the two ponies by my side to hear it. "At least that is what I've heard in the class."

"You've never encountered Bloodhoof-Raiders before, that's for sure." Tulip replied and Angel remained silent, watching out for anything hostile. "If this would be any other gang, then I would completely agree with you, but we aren't fighting another gang or slavers or those enclave fuckers. You see, every raider tribe's got one special weapon they're using most of the time. And if there's one good thing about the Bloodhooves, then it is that they don't use ranged weapons. See, their name's got quite a history..."

The pink mare was immediately silenced as a scream rang throughout the empty streets. No cry of fear, pain or – Luna forbid – death, but something even more terrifying. I was almost overwhelmed by the same feeling of terror and disgust that had carried me away at the crash site.
The battle cry of a Bloodhoof-Raider.
And it was accompanied by the same insane and vile giggling than earlier that week. We formed a triangle, each of us covering one direction, scanning the area for the source of the noise. And then my eyes spotted him.
A dirty cyan earth pony buck, standing on top of a small pile of rubble, bathed in moonlight. I couldn't make out the color of his tangled mane, for it was covered in dirt and liquids I didn't want to know, but what I could see more than I preferred: the vile smile around his smeared muzzle.

With a roar the dirty stallion launched himself at us, laughing and giggling in the same way I had feared all the time. I couldn't see any kind of weapon, so what should I do? Except for shivering?
Spare him? Maybe he was one of the monsters who had attacked us a week ago, maybe even that one fucker who had killed Cloud Striker.
So kill him? I would be the right thing to do. Tulip would approve. Angel would say it had been right. But it didn't felt right. He was unarmed, he could have been a deserter and not hostile towards us. Maybe we could talk to him... finding out what was going...

Blam!-Blam!-Blam!

The buck got tossed backwards as my grey companion's gun took care of him, sending a burst of three bullets into the charging raiders brain. Its momentum made the lifeless corpse slid over the street and towards us, stopping a few meters in front of me. I tried to look away. I had seen ponies dying in battle once and that had been enough for me.

"That was close." Tulip said, carefully walking over to the fallen buck. "Why did you not... oh... I'm sorry. Stable pony and the first time you see a Bloodhoof, that must be... hard. They can be pretty intimidating, especially when they're charging at you." She began searching through the raider's pockets. It was amazing in some way that the buck's leather armor, ripped apart as it was, was still equipped with enough pockets to hold what seemed like my entire left saddle bag. With a disappointed sigh the pink mare turned away from the dead body, obviously not satisfied with what she had found. Searching the dead seemed inappropriate to me but I guess, since this were wasteland-murderers and bandits, it may be... okay. If it was for our own good.

"So this... this is a raider? An actual raider" I asked, pointing a foreleg at the figure to my hooves while I still tried to avoid looking at him. "That's one of the ponies who have attacked me? And killed..."

Angel remained silent, so Tulip nodded. "Yes. Maybe not this particular one, but he's associated with them. We are lucky, he has been just a low ranked one, without any special chems. You see..." she kneeled down next to the corpse and turned it around, stretching out one of its forelegs. As I realized in horror – after making the mistake of looking – this was not the normal hoof of a normal pony. Something like a small was stretched to it, something that... was that a severed hoof? Vomit raised in my gullet and I could barely avoid to release it into freedom. What kind of sick pony was walking on the hoof of another pony? To make matters worse, the... hoof, strapped at the bottom of his bloodstained leg, had all kind of nails, shards of glass and other sharp objects attached to it. "...this is why they call them "Bloodhooves". Their hoof-club is what gives them the name."

She dropped the raider's leg and on Angel's mark we started walking again. I only hoped that the others – if there still were others – hadn't heard our shooting. But that seemed like wishful thinking.

"It's gruesome, I know," Tulip continued in a whispering tone. "but for our sake, most of them're just using this as their weapon, no guns, no nothing. Of course they're high on chems while in combat, but since they have to come close to you... you've get your chance. You see now why we were walking in the middle of street? Longer way for any of them, more time for us to shoot."

I wasn't really listening to what the pink mare was saying. I was still shocked by the... the severed hoof. Would I really want to find what was left of my friends if they had been at the mercy of ponies like this? Would I even be able to?
I felt almost relieved as another pony crossed our way. Just as the one before he was covered in stuff I didn't want to see and was mowed down by my companions really quickly. But how did ponies like these managed to invade this town without setting off any kind of alarm? They didn't exactly seemed stealthy at all.

Occasionally we heard screams as we moved silently through the thankfully both raider and corpse-free streets, but now something encouraging joined them: gun shots. So that meant that apart from us there was still somepony out there, fighting back.And after a little while Tulip finally gave a signal for us to stop. It seemed as if we had arrived at the main building – or at least the one we were headed to. Peeking around the corner we saw nothing, except for a few bullet casings shattered across the road, which – in combination with the lack of dead ponies – meant that the guards had made it into the building alive. But so had the raiders as we were told by chortling chatter, so loud we could hear it through the main door.
Drawing closer I could see that there were several cracks in the door, some of them even large enough to look through them and into the foyer. But by the time I had glanced through the gaps I was already regretting it:

Corpses.
A lot of them.
The entire main hall was cluttered with lifeless figures, most of them dresses like the two raiders before, but also nearly a dozen ponies that looked like the earth pony town guards I had seen before. Blood was covering the sand bags, that were meant to be cover for the guards, and the even walls and in the middle of this slaughter five of the giggling and bloodstained raiders were standing between the dead ponies, talking in a language I couldn't understand. Or maybe it was just a very strange accent. Sometimes when pegasi of other enclave cities came visiting Lunar Rock I had heard similar noises, especially some of the Neighvarro ponies, the biggest military force above the clouds. The only signs of town ponies still being alive were the shots that rang through the building, I presumed it to be coming from a room behind the big door inside the foyer. Obviously they surviving defenders had withdrawn back there.

"Five of them." I announced after I had returned to my two companions, who were waiting a few meters away, cowering against brick-colored wall and monitoring the two corners of the street. The face of the grey unicorn was still looking stonily, but unlike before he went into the rapture of nodding. "And... it doesn't look pretty in there, Tulip. They've killed... many of the guards, but... I think there still some left deeper inside the building, somepony's still shooting there."

With a saddened look the pink mare sighed, she checked the rounds inside her gun and a small smile spread across her face as she emptied the magazine shoved in another one.

"I've got more than twice the bullets I need left, so don't worry about that. Those rounds will teach them the meaning of fear, for the few seconds before they're burned from the inside at least." As a result of my questioning look, she added: "I'm going to use the good stuff. Maybe I can't save them anymore, but I can still take revenge. So now let's get in there and hose those Celestia-damned monsters. Oh!" the pink mare snapped at Angel. "Don't start. We won't do something smart this time. I just want to blow the shit out of them."

"I didn't want to hinder you, I just wanted to talk about how to take them out as efficient as possible. Without running the risk of any of us getting hurt by any of them. Can we agree on that?" Angel said while he was checking the filling of his own weapons. "You said five raiders?"
I nodded and detailed the distribution of our enemies inside. We – well, mainly Angel – elaborated a tactic to take down them while charging into the main building. We would form a trident, Tulip and I would secure our flank while Angel, the buck with the two guns, would cover the front.
Cowering next to the cheeks of the door, I waited for the signal to... initiate our attack and tried to brace myself for what was coming next: I would have to face a raider in close combat and then I would have to shoot him. Was all this really necessary?

I took one last breath, then Angel tapped my shoulder, we formed our battle formation, the two unicorns' horns flashed and the door was shoved open. Accompanied by a loud crack as the leaves crashed against the wall we rushed in, taking aim at the raiders inside.
Due to our trident fomation one of the side-mares would have to face two enemies and fortunately tat wasn't me. The raider I had to face now just rose from a mutilated body of an unicorn stallion, turned his face to me and then the time froze.

The raider I was seeing over the barrel of my gun now turned out to be an earth pony mare, a few years older than me, maybe as old as Angel or Tulip, with an light indigo hide and a felted and dirty blonde mane, that dangled into her face. I could see her eyes narrowing in what I thought was rage, then she started charging towards me in slow motion.
What... what should I do now? I had to shoot her... I simply had to, she was about to injure or kill me and my companions after all. Over the ironsights of my gun I could see the raider mare's head.

Just move your tongue a little and it will be over.

But... what made me sure she really deserved to be killed, to die? Because she was in this room, with all those dead ponies around her? Because she was dressed in the same clothes like the ones that had attacked my friends and me? Because she could be a murdering, ransacking pony of prey?

Just move your tongue and pull that trigger.

Were the ponies, who were getting killed by Angel an Tulip right now, her friends, maybe even her family? Did raiders had families? Maybe she had a foal of her own?

Just pull the Luna-damned trigger, you featherbrain!

My gun shook inside my muzzle and my ironsights wobbled.

Kill her already!

My head twitched and I closed my eyes.

Blam!

I wasn't shooting. Somepony else was.
As I opened my eyes again I saw in horror how a fountain of blood erupted on the mare's chest.
But even more terrifying was: that didn't stop her.
The raider seemed staggered for a second, but then she continued her charge.

I gasped as the mare's chest was torn apart by the bullets Angel's automated pistols sent into her. She stumbled, went down and then she screamed. Not in rage or anger, but in pain. The noise was ear-piercing and brought the tears to my eyes. That was exactly that kind of scream we had been hearing all the time since we had left Tulip's house. And at the crash site.
The scream of a dying pony.
That wasn't right.

Blam!-Blam!-Blam!---Blam!-Blam!-Blam!

The raider fell silent after the grey unicorn stallion next to me sent two other bursts of fire into her head, tearing apart flesh and bones, sending drips of blood flying all across the surrounding ground. And across me.
And I, mesmerized by the fallen mares wreckage that had been her face seconds ago, started to cry.
Angel had just murdered another mare right in front of my eyes. A mare I had been about to spare, even if she had been a raider. I had been overwhelmed by my feelings and thoughts of her life and I wasn't able to do what was right. What Angel wanted me to do. So he had cleaned up my mess. He had done the right thing. So why did I fell so... miserable?

"What was that?!" the voice of another mare echoed through my mind. It was Tulip and she sounded angry. "What the hell was that, Earth? That thing was about to tackle you, to kill you and you just turned away? That was a raider!"

"I'm... I'm so sorry." I muttered. I truly was, but for what or whom was I sorry? For not killing this mare or for being so weak right now. She was right. That mare had been a raider, murdering scum, a pony who had most likely killed more than one pony in the last hour. And because I hadn't removed that flaw on the face of Equestria I had endangered my friends... no, my companions. She would've killed me first and then she would've attack my friends off their guard.
"I just...couldn't do it."

"Couldn't do it? That was a raider, a scourge of ponykind! If anything, you should be happy to kill something like that. This one alone might have slaughtered dozens of ponies just this week. What is wrong with you!"

Angel chipped in, levitating one of his guns between the enraged mare and me.

"Tulip, stop! You can't understand... you see, a stable pony..."

"I! Am! Not! A stable pony!" I screamed as loud as I could.
I was sick of this. Sick of this place, sick of all those ponies, be they dead or alive, sick of the blood in my face and all around, sick of this dirty and bug-infested rag the surface dwellers may call clothing. Sick of hiding myself for what I really was. And what I truly felt. "I am no underground-bunker-dwelling pony and I haven't come down here by my own choice! I don't want to be here, I don't want to fight, I don't want to kill and I don't want other ponies to kill! I never asked for that!"
With a loud ripping noise my I teared my overcoat to pieces, revealing my white wings and looked the gasping mare in the eyes with tears and anger in my own.
"And I don't want to hide myself anymore. You see!" I spread my wings and reared up in front of her. "I am Whirling Feather, Second Lieutenant of the reconnaissance unit Delta-4 of the Grand Pegasus Enclave city of Lunar Rock. That's what I am and nothing else. No stable pony, no Dashite, just that!"

The pink mare's jaw dropped. The pistol she hold with her magic grip shook, maybe she was taking aim at me, the "feathered spy", but I didn't care. For now all that mattered was that I finally felt free again, free of the physical and psychological bounds I had taken on not even one day earlier.

"She... she's what?!" Tulip shouted at Angel, who jumped in between me and her. "She's one of those... she's an enclave scumbag? Did you lie to... how long did you know? And don't tell me you're just as surprised as me! Tell me the truth!"

The grey buck, his two guns still floating in front of him, tried to sound nice.

"I'm sorry, Tulip, I truly am. We... I knew about your and the town's... dislike for pegasi of any kind. It just seemed much less problematic to go into a town without her being constantly treated like somepony... she is not. She is no spy and no danger for you either, she's just a mare who wants to go home again. Do you understand?"

"Why didn't you just tell me..."

"Would you have listened? Or would you have told your friends what and who she is? And can you say for sure, that they wouldn't cast her out? Or shoot her for simply being a pegasus? In case you want to shoot her right now, let me tell you: you'll have to shoot through me first."
I could see Tulip's eyes widening and she lowered her gun. Now her own eyes were sparkling with tears.
"Now listen, Tulip. Your friends are still in danger, they're fighting inside this building and we still want to help you, whether one of us got wings or not. And as long as you can inhibit your rejection against ponies like her for a few hours, then everything will be fine. Together we can save what's left of your town, but if you don't want her to come along, I won't come either. So, what's your choice?"

That was no choice and I knew that. Just as the one I had offered Angel earlier hadn't been a real choice. For a few seconds the pink mare only stared at Angel's face, I could understand why she was confused. A pony she had admired a long time ago, heck!, most likely she was still admiring him, had lied to her to help another mare. And now said pony threatened her with leaving her alone against a group of hostile ponies of an unknown force level.
Tulip dropped her weapon completely, moved sideways, past the grey unicorn in front of me, and took a look on me. I was still sat next to the raider with the blown off face, breathing heavily. I hadn't taken a single breath during Angel's speech.

"So be it." she said with a sigh, turned around again and trotted over to the hallway, that led to the place of the ongoing shootout. "If that's what you want, okay. She can come with us, but after that... Heck, I don't know what will happen afterwards! But I guess, another gun between us and the raiders is something good, even if this gun is jammed and is only there for them to shoot holes in it." And with that she vanished into the hallway. Angel wanted to give me a leg-up, but I refused. I was strong enough to stand up on my own.

"Is everything okay?" my grey companion asked while we were following Tulip towards the next battle field. "That raider I've killed... she seemed to have an impact on you."

I shook my head. Of course I wasn't okay. He had just murdered another pony right before my eyes. With the same ruthlessness the raiders had acted as they had shot us down and stared killing the others.

"I just... I felt as if I was there again. At the crash site. With all that death around me and as I had to... to kill another pony... I simply couldn't do it. It felt unnecessary. There already were so many dead ponies, I couldn't stand sending one more to the ground..."

"That's your only mistake." the unicorn answered in a low voice. "You see those raiders as ponies like yourself, like me or Tulip. But they are not. For what they've done they forfeited their right to be called ponies. You just have to think of them as the mindless beasts they are... but, " he looked at me with a sad expression. "But if you don't feel well by... fighting against them, just stay behind me. I will protect you."

An angry hiss of the mare walking a few meters in front of us made us stop. We had arrived at another corner, one corridor was crossing the one we had been walking through. To our left would be the big hall that had housed the dinner and to our right was a closed double-door, behind which I could hear the battle.

"Alright, everypony." Tulip growled, her gun floating next to her face. "Behind this door is our own "stable". As soon as we enter this room, we should search for cover, so that my people don't turn us into paste from the inside of the bunker. On my mark. I'll count to three."

The stomped her hoof to the ground.

Okay, Feather, be cool now. Just go inside and duck, then everything will be fine.
A second stomp.

Just don't get killed.
And the third!

Break a leg!

With another wave of magic the two unicorns shoved open the large double-door and together we rushed inside.
Somepony was shouting something at the other end of the room, there was the sound of fired weapons and cries of pain and anger everywhere, but the only thing I was aware of now were the sand sacks that were piled up next to a stone pillar a few meters away from the entrance. Only when the three of us had arrived at the cover my tunnel view faded and I realized, that there already was a pony, hiding behind the sacks. And that he wasn't a raider. In fact he was the crimson council pony who had been sitting next to Old Timer, the highest one, and was now wielding Angel's plasma pistol. His eyes widened in surprise as Tulip dashed right over to him.

While the two town ponies talked to each other in a rushed but relatively happy voice I tried to peak around the corner of our cover. Why were the fighters of the townsfolk even cowering behind cover if they had a bunker with what seemed like a machine gun attached to...
Angel's magic wrapped around my tail again and pull me back into the cover, just as a fusillade punched many shards of stone out of the pillar, right where my head had been eyeblinks ago, followed by a loud burst of laughter from the inside of the steely fort that was erected at the far end of the large hall. A shiny, but by now pretty gauged metallic cube that rose almost up the ceiling, with small embrasures attached to the walls and one bigger one for the main MG.
And the raiders were inside that bunker?!

"How is this possible?" I asked the Tulip and the stallion next to her. Obviously he had introduced her and Angel to the current situation already, because none of them seemed surprised by my question or asked what exactly I meant. "How did they get inside?" And why were they using guns?

"I don't know, they were here by the time the most of us came running. They started storming this place as soon as they arrived here from what I've heard. They knew exactly what they were looking for. We got most of them,but... unfortunately not all." the stallion said with a grim expression. Either he hadn't discovered my wings yet or he simply didn't care right now, because he said nothing about them. "Acting like this is highly untypical for Bloodhooves. Or - and that thought is even more terrifying - those are elite ranked raiders. The ones who extend their usage of weapons. And to cap it all, they've got a Celestia-damned griffin with them, he is the one who's using our own machine gun against us. But that doesn't matter now. How do we're getting them out of the fort again is all I'm worried about now?"

"You tried shooting?" I asked. "I mean, using the plasma pistol. From what I know the energy projectiles become extremely hot by the time they get contact with a target. Did you try... melting your way inside?"

"We're already past that. I mean, the fort was build under the instruction and with the materials of the Sparrowtans, for stable ponies: it's nearly impenetrable for smaller firearms."

"Any grenades or rockets."

"Oh, no of course, how could we forget that? You're one smart stable-filly, aren't you? Your mother must be so proud." the crimson stallion replied with a sarcastic undertone. "Listen, kid, we've got our whole weaponry behind this bunker, guess why they were so eager to build this colossal piece of trash in the first place. To protect our weapons and all the explosive stuff from whoever would attack this town. And now those raiders have occupied it and we're deep, deep down in the bloody soup of our own organs."

I could see that. Their whole weaponry they need to bust this bunker - if this was possible at all - was stashed away behind the enemy's line. Each and every attempt to break through was answered with another fusillade of machine gun fire, which had mowed down half a dozen ponies already. And this count grew larger and larger every minute, when somepony was stupid or bold enough to move out of cover to take a lucky shot at the embrasures, without success as it seemed so far. But there had to be something we could do apart from besieging this fortress for... how long? Hours? Days even? Even if this plan would succeed, it would cost the town countless ponies...

"There has to be something we can do. No besieging. Any..." I searched my mind for any bunker.busting strategy I had ever heard of in class, had read of in a book or seen in a old movie tape.
- Calling in Raptor-class air support: negative.
- Siege the enemy's position until hunger or thirst would drive them out of their fortress: I had discussed that before.
- Detonating a miniature-seized bunker-buster megaspell inside the bunker: neither did I have one of those right now nor am I inside the bunker to plant it, so: nope.
- the path of the ninjapony, hiding in the shadows, infiltrating the enemy base and taking them out without being noticed: would be nice, but I was no... on the other hoof, I was a pegasus, that would come almost as surprisingly as a ninjapony.
Worth a try!
"Are there any secret entrances the raiders don't know about?" I asked, but as soon as the words had passed my lips I felt as if I was asking for a magical alien laser-canon that could shoot right through those primitive armor plates, reducing every raider behind to dust without touching the weapons.

"No, there are no "secret passages", no air shaft leading into their backs and no secret trap door either. We wanted this place to be safe." he sighed. "And that's what we get. So as long as you're not carrying a shitload of grenades with you and your horn-headed buckfriend can't grow you a pair of wings to reach the small breathing hole on top of the bunker, I think we have no choice but to stick to the siege..." The crimson buck fell silent as he saw the sneaking looks on the faces of the two unicorns.

I spread my wings and the stallion gasped, aiming his gun at me. That seemed to be a habit of the wasteland bucks too. Angel did his best to shove away the weapon and Tulip began to talk insistently at him, explaining what she could explain about my presents. That was nice of her.

"But if I would happen to have wings, purely hypothetical: what would we do?"

What had come over me to suggest that stupid, stupid, extremely stupid action and even more important: what had driven me to agree with what I had just said? Ninjapony - pffh!
Suddenly I fluttered behind the massive stone pillar, centimeters under the ceiling, Angel's old plasma pistol held tight in my muzzle, my wings flapping and waiting for the the townsfolk's leader's signal to open fire on the bunker, hopefully covering my approach in the process. Angel had told me it was a crackpot idea, even Tulip had tried to hinder me, but no... I had to insist on being a strong, independent pegasus, that was able to save the day all on my own. Featherbrain!

"You're really sure you want to do this?" The crimson buck asked up to me, he still looked a bit confused given the latest revelation. But at least he was just as reasonable as Tulip had been, accepting me for being useful in the current situation.
I nodded shakingly... what?! I nodded?! How... stupid body of mine. Celestia curse my mind for sticking to what I had suggested! Fuck my brain, nopony needs a conscience and this stupid little thing they call coherence.
"Okay then, stable... spy... pony, on my mark." he raised one foreleg and he "leaders" of the other fighter-citizen groups did the same.
Any second he would stomp his hoof down and then all hell would break loose.
Any second now...

There was the signal, every pony who was wielding a firearm right now jumped up and unloaded their clips at the steel fortress. After waiting for a second I span around the stone structure and dashed towards the small gap between the bunker's and the room's ceiling. Just as I had reached it the machine gunner under my hooves began to return the fire. I turned around and gave the small crowd of armed town ponies an encouraging nod.

Just don't let them see how you feel about this.
Slowly I crawled along the metal plate beneath me, any noise that could originate from my hooves clomping against it were drowned by the sound of gunshots from behind. The breathing hole, my target, was only a few meters away and before I could think about it twice I was already there.

I lay down the plasma weapon and took a deep breath...

Alright Feather, you know what comes next, don't you? You will go down there and turn those fucking raiders into a fucking green pile of goo. Every last of them, don't think about it. They are evil. They are not ponies.

I gulped, took the magical energy gun in my muzzle again and slumped through the small hole.
Landing as soft as a feather I scanned my environment: raiders - three - one of them... dead?... and one griffin at the MG.They hadn't heard a thing, consumed by the shooting and the vile laughter as they were.
Three targets and I had enough charges for a dozen enemies.
I took aim at the first raider's head. A buck. Brown hide. Red mane.

Pull the trigger, Feather.

Had he dragged his dead companion in here? His friend maybe?

Don't start with that again, pussycat, raiders have no friends. They are animals. Beasts

None of them suspected a thing, most likely they would feel anything if I would shoot them.

They are evil. They don't deserve the mercy of a painless death, but you will give it to them.

You will make this place better in doing so.

I... I had to do it. I had volunteered for this, it had been my own idea.

Don't be a coward. Not again.

Show all of them that you aren't as week as they think. That you don't need to be protected.

That you can protect yourself and the ponies around you.

The gun in my muzzle shook.

Three simple moves with your tongue and it will be over.

This nightmare will be over.

Maybe I would be able to talk to them this time. The others had said that this were no ordinary raiders. Maybe I could talk...

Come on, featherbrain, do it!

They attacked you. They attacked your friends. They killed them and so many other ponies.

They deserve to die!

I steadied my weapon again.

They did this to you.

They're responsible for you being trapped down here... maybe forever!

Take vengeance!

Cloud Striker's head exploded in front of me.

Avenge them!

It is the right thing to do!

Kill them!

Then I pulled the trigger.

Three blast of magical plasma flew through the bunker and the two bucks liquified instantly as they were hit. Their giggling laughter merged with the burbling screams as their figures vanished and all what was left was a pile of green goo on the ground.
The third shot however missed the griffin, who turned around, his eyes widened in horror as he saw me.
A small pegasus mare with an instrument of death clenched between her teeth.

"Wohoho... calm down!" he screamed. "Don't do something stupid! We can talk about this, I'm sure!"

"No." I almost whispered. "We can't talk about this."

And then a fourth blast of plasma hit him, but he didn't liquify like the others had. Instead the bolt of magical energy flew towards his face and burned its path through it, exterminating those eyes, begging for mercy.
His lifeless body dropped and without hesitation I trotted towards the entrance and crashed into the heavy metal door face first. It wasn't locked.
As the door opened I saw ponies cheering. Cheering me and what I had just done.

"I'm done." I whispered and then everything around me slipped away.

Level up: Level 7

Skill(s): Energy weapons 25

New Perk added: Plasma Captain

"This! Is! Plasma!"
Any damage you inflict with a magical energy weapon during a critical sneak attack is doubled. Those sneak attacks gain a chance of 15% to cause critical damage.