//------------------------------// // Beginning // Story: Fallout Equestria — S.A.T. // by Faindragon //------------------------------// 'Link Ended’. The words blinked at the corner of my eye for a second before disappearing. I still saw everything through a filter of bright blue, and the lighter blue head was still floating in the air. Dully, I noted the sound of the wire unplugging from the terminal and being reeled back back into my head. “What did you do?” I asked, sitting back down. “I downloaded myself into your eye’s storage device,” the OSAI answered. Her calm voice rolled softly through my head. “Wh… Why?” I stuttered. “I am ordered to oversee and make sure that as many of my patients as possible survive. You are the only patient left, and I will follow my last orders,” the head explained, bobbing slightly as if nodding for itself. “I calculated the time it would take for you to find the terminated link and fix it. There was a high risk that you would die before finding it. I intend to lower that risk.” I took a deep breath. “I guess I’m stuck with you then?” “This is only a temporary solution, until we know who you are and a certificated doctor has discharged you from the hospital. Maintenance can move me back into my mainframe later.” “Nothing I can do to change anything,” I muttered under my breath as I rose from the floor, realizing that I was stuck in this situation and could as well accept it as try to fight it. Turning my head from side to side, I realized another problem. “I can’t see very well with this filter over my eyes.” “Give me a second. I will try to configure it,” the head said as it closed its eyes. Slowly, the blue faded out, allowing me to see the room naturally again. I looked right into the metal frame which had until recently been the home of the OSAI, my own twisted image looking back at me. “Better?” the voice echoed in my head. ”Yes, a lot better. Thank you,” I said, looking away from my own reflection and towards the niche. “You’re welcome,” the voice purred as I started to move, eager to get out of this room. “So, tell me, do you have a name? It would be wrong going around and calling you OSAI all the time,” I asked with a sheepish smile. “My name is SPITFIRE,” the voice answered. “Spitfire?” I asked. The name sounded familiar. “Stasis Pod Interface for Temporal Failure Incase of a Real-time Emergency,” she stated matter of factly. “What should I call you? I can’t just go around calling you ‘occupant of stasis pod 16’, can I?” I stopped in my tracks. “I don’t think I have a name. I mean, if I do, I can’t remember it...” It felt wrong saying those words. Deep down inside it felt as if something was amiss, as if I wasn’t complete without my name. I looked back at my own reflection. Like I will ever be complete, I thought as my eyes scanned a metal foreleg. Three metal legs, various metal plates and a mechanical eye. I guess I will never be complete again. “That isn’t true. Your implants have made you complete. As for your name, it would be easy enough just to pick something to call you.” I was thinking about how awful that sounded when my eyes came to a sudden stop at something I hadn’t noticed before. “What’s that?” I asked as I trotted back to the metal frame, taking a closer look at the mark on my mechanical leg’s hip, where my cutie mark would have been if I didn’t have the implant. “That is the logo used by SAT.” I looked down at the logo etched on my hip, which was a cogwheel surrounded by a faint bluish aura. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t put my hoof on it. “Well then,” I said, looking away from the reflection and once again starting to walk towards the niche. “You can call me Cogwheel for now.” “Okay, from now on, I will call you Cogwheel.” ‘Initiating’. The word started to blink in the corner of my eye, quickly replaced by a long list of words, each word replacing the last one before I could see it properly. The sudden flashing made me stop in my tracks. “What’s happening?” I asked. “I don’t know. I’m not fully connected to the eye’s system yet.” Spitfire’s voice echoed in my head. She sounded worried. “Give me a second.” The words stopped flowing as quickly as they had started, pausing at a short sentence. ‘Start Up Complete’. The words disappeared, and a small orange box took their place. The words ‘User – Cogwheel – Identified, Please Stand By’ were written in the box. “It seems to be some kind of configuration program,” Spitfire stated. The words in the box disappeared, replaced with ‘Welcome to SAT configuration program. If you do not want to continue the configuration, and instead use the default options, please state so now’. Before I could say anything at all, the words were once again replaced. ‘Warning: No SAT configuration equipment detected. Please change your position to a SAT approved testing area. The configuration will automatically start again once SAT configuration equipment is detected.’ I stared at the words for a minute before they slowly faded away, together with the box, and left me with completely uninterrupted vision again. “Well, that was weird,” I said as I started moving again. “The configuration seems like an essential step in the complete use of the eye.” Spitfire paused for a moment. “I could go around the SAT configuration program, should you wish. This would allow you to continue the configuration without the need of the proper equipment,” she offered after a few seconds. I pondered over this option as I walked up to the niche and looked down at the terminal. “Thanks, but no thanks,” I finally declined. “I believe the default configuration will work for now.” I shuddered slightly as the wire emerged from my eye before I plugged it in. “Can you go around the door lock?” I asked as my world was obscured behind a blue filter. The same sentences as before came into view. Stable-Tec Corporation Terminal Protocol >Terminal Locked. Please Contact Maintenance. “I can,” Spitfire reassured me. “This won’t take long.” As she spoke the sentences disappeared and row after row of incomprehensible sentences scrolled past. I’m not entirely sure how long I had stood there before the door opened and the filter over my eye was removed. “Done,” Spitfire purred. “The door is now unlocked.” “I can see that. Thanks.” I drew out the wire from the terminal and it quickly slipped back into the eye again. I stepped out of the stasis-pod room. A layer of dust covered the floor of the hallway and the walls were stained yellow with filth. Here and there I could see other rooms through gaping holes in the walls. “What… What happened here?” I stuttered as I continued moving. “I don’t know.” Spitfire sounded surprised. “But we won’t find out if we keep standing here.” A loud crack, emitting from somewhere under me and echoing in the silent hallway, made me jump back in surprise. “What was that?” I asked as I took another step back, looking down at what I had stepped on. The object I had stepped on was nearly as big as me, coated in a yellowish white material. Is that… “That is the skeleton of a unicorn. You’ve stepped on and broken its horn.” The skeleton’s gaping eye sockets stared up at me. It was like staring into the face of death itself. I took another step back, feeling my heart beginning to beat faster and my stomach turning. My breathing came in short gasps. I tried to force my eyes away from the body, tried to take my mind off the unicorn body I had just stepped on. “Cogwheel, your heart rate has increased dramatically. Is something scaring you?” “No,” I said quickly as I jerked my eyes away from the skeleton. “I’m fine.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m fine.” I threw a quick glance around the room, avoiding to look at the skeleton. “It’s empty in here,” Spitfire stated. “Before I was sealed away, these hallways were always full of ponies. I wonder where they’ve disappeared to.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. I pressed myself as close as possible against the wall as I carefully stepped around the skeleton, trying to avoid stepping on it again. As soon as I had walked by the skeleton, I released my breath. “Do you think we can go anywhere to find out what happened here?” “There are five operating rooms in this wing. One of them might contain information about you. But information regarding what has happened would most likely be found in the Head Doctor’s office or the Maintenance head terminal. I can reach every terminal from both of them. If there exists anything about you then I can find it from one of those two.” “Which terminal is closest?” I kept going, following the hallway. “The Head Doctor’s office is three floors above us.” “Then I think we should start there.” Lamps emitted a soft yellow glow that illuminated the hallway as I continued walking. The only noise I could hear besides my own hoofsteps was a low humming, which I could not place. I passed doors, signs above them telling me that they led to operating rooms or stasis-pod rooms. Ignoring the doors, I tried to find my way to a staircase or something else leading upwards. {*.*} The staircases were easy to find, and luckily they went all the way up to the top of the clinic. After I had overcome the fear of stepping on one of the many skeletons lingering in the stairs, I had quickly found myself in front of a pair of oak doors hanging slightly on their hinges. Gently, I dusted off the golden plate fastened on one of the doors. “Doctor Honey Pod, Head Doctor,” I read from the placard. “Does that name ring a bell?” “Yes. Doctor Honey Pod was the one who oversaw my installment.” “She was Head Doctor at that time?” “Yes.” “That means that there hasn’t been a new Head Doctor since her, nearly two hundred years ago.” I carefully took a step into the room. Glass shards lay scattered all over the floor, the empty window frames that had once been standing tall around the entire office now allowed the wind to blow through. The office had been sparsely decorated. Nearly no furniture was to be seen except the desk standing in front of me and the terminal that stood on it, the green light clearly seen as it was reflected on the dark wooden desk that somehow had resisted the forces of the weather for Celestia know how long. The wind howled through the office, violently tugging my mane. “That would be correct. I wonder what happened here.” Spitfire paused. “I guess we will have the answer soon enough. The Head Doctor’s terminal should be linked to every other terminal active in the clinic.” “Unless the link from here has been terminated as well,” I remarked as I carefully took the first step into the office. The crushing sound under my metal hoof made me stop, reminding me about the crossed window that lay shattered over the floor. Standing on three legs, keeping my real leg from the glass, I quickly scanned the floor for an area not covered with too much glass. “There.” Spitfire’s voice echoed in my mind as a part of my vision was circled with a blue ring. I sat down my hoof, and then repeated the procedure. It took some time to get to the desk and around it, but with Spitfire’s help, I reached the desk without getting any glass in my hoof. I had been so focused making sure that I didn’t step on any glass that I hadn’t looked up from the floor once. But now, as I stood at the side of the desk, I looked through the window frame in front of me. A single road twined over the barren ground scenery below me. A few trees, the dead, dark wood twisted in a way unfathomable, were sticking up from the brown ground. {O-O} “Are you sure about this? It is a very complicated proce--“ “I know that very well, Doctor Pod,” I softly interrupted the mare as I looked through the window. Before me, the grass, which was orange from the setting sun, swayed softly in the wind. “But if something happens, anything, then this is my wish.” I sighed. Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I turned around to face the light charcoal unicorn. “I have arranged everything, and everypony that needed to know about it has heard my decision. Even my successor has been chosen.” “Do you believe that something will happen?” Honey Pod looked up at me, her orange eyes shimmering in the light of the setting sun. “In times like this? Yes.” “I know that life’s been hard for you after your wife and son’s passing...” She trailed off for a second, glancing at me for any reaction. I could feel the tears coming up again, but I forced them down. She sighed. “But is this really the way to go? Isn’t there some other way you could--“ “I wish there was,” I interrupted her. “But this is the only way I can continue living. I’m sorry, Honey.” I turned towards the door and allowed the tears roll down my cheeks as I took the first step towards it. “So am I.” Honey Pod’s words were full of pain, her voice so low that it was nearly impossible for me to hear her. My entire world turned black as I put my hoof against the wooden door, a sad smile making its way to my muzzle through the tears. {*o*} “Cogwheel, answer me!” Spitfire’s voice boomed in my mind as I snapped my eyes open. “What… What happened?” I stuttered as I blinked a couple of times. I was on the floor, lying against the desk, a wave of pain hitting me from my chest area. “You fell to the floor, and didn’t answer me when I asked what was happening. Your neural network was active and working as if you were speaking, but I couldn’t hear you say anything.” “I don’t know what happened,” I said as I rose. I could feel small trickles of blood running down my side from various cuts on my torso and leg. They were probably shards of glass that I’d fallen on. That didn’t matter at the moment, though. “One second I looked out over” – I motioned towards the scenery – “and the next I looked over the same scenery, but now with grass and a setting sun. I was also talking to Doctor Honey Pod about something complicated and…” I trailed off, remembering exactly what I had got to know. “She said that I had a wife, and a son... She said that they were dead...” “That is rather unfortunate, if it is true,” Spitfire said. “How can you be sure that it was not a daydream?” “It felt so real...” I sat down at the desk, my head in my hooves, trying to remember. “Honey Pod... She had a black coat. She was a unicorn.” “Honey Pod was a black unicorn mare, that is true.” She paused, as though she was thinking. “It is highly unlikely that you would know of her appearance had you not met before. Perhaps you were recalling a memory.” “But I don’t remember her...” I sat up more in the chair, recoiling in pain and hugging my sides, somehow making everything hurt worse. I let go and slumped back down in the chair. “I... I don’t remember her, or my wife, or my son. How could I not remember my family? How could I not remember that my family had died?!” I shouted, slamming my hoof on the table. “What else is there to remember that I’ve forgotten?”   “Cogwheel, there is no reason for you to become angry,” Spitfire cooed. “Your memory will come back eventually. It is common for stasis patients to lack long-term memory as they exit stasis. Though currently, that is not important. If the glass splinters in your body are not removed, you will slowly bleed to death.” I ignored her insensitive comment once more, agreeing with her that staying alive was, for the moment, more important. “How long would that take?” I asked, searching for and removing the occasional large splinter from my body. “With the removal of the larger glass splinters, your chance of survival have risen enough to keep you out of the risk zone of dying. The wounds created by the smaller splinters shouldn’t be able to threaten your life.” “Well, that’s something good at least,” I muttered as I pulled out the last splinter I could find. I sighed, feeling guilty for some reason. “Is there nothing I can do about my memory?” “Memory loss, if caused by a reversible condition, can be treated effectively. The Ministry of Peace worked out many ways to return the memory of a patient, both magically and medically. However, should the memory have been removed through magical means, it would only be possible to restore the memories with the container that holds the memories.” “Is there any way for you to determine how they were lost through this terminal?” “There’s only one way to find out,” she answered. The wire inside of my eye popped out once more, and I gently plugged it into the terminal. The filter reappeared for a brief second before the message ‘Access Granted’ showed up. “I’ve already scanned to see if your brain was physically injured or deformed in any way. It was not. As long as the memories were not removed magically then you should be able to restore them.” Spitfire paused for a second. “I’m going to remove the eye’s visual connection while I search through the terminals, for your comfort. This eye can process information at an incredible frequency, and I believe that it would hurt for you to see it process at that speed. This will not take long,” Spitfire reassured me as I completely lost vision from my left eye. “What now?” I asked as my vision came back only a split second after it had disappeared. “I thought you might want to read this. It isn’t the complete message. It had been deleted, but I managed to restore parts of it.” Words started to form on the screen, and I quickly read them. >To: Pliers – Chief of SAT >Subject: Recovery >The installation of the cybernetics, especially the eye you wanted to have installed, was a difficult procedure, and I’m afraid that I will have to keep the patient here for at least two weeks. This is both to make sure that his body won’t try to repel the metal and so that he is ready for an acute operation, should it be necessary. More importantly, the damages he suffered were severe, and I want to make sure that he makes a full recovery before I let him leave this clinic. >Honey Pod “It’s remarkable to find even this small amount of information here. Very few terminals in the clinic are in working condition, every other OSAI is shutdown-“ “SAT requested to have the prototype installed in me?” I interrupted Spitfire. “Yes, but-“ “And I should have been sent home a couple of weeks later?” “According to this email, that is correct.” “Then why did I wake up here one hundred and ninety years later?” She paused. “I’ve just finished searching the remaining terminals. There was a war. The last entry that exists was written four days after the bombs -- it doesn’t say what kind, I’m afraid -- fell on Equestria. The doors to the floors below the third one have been locked since the day the war ended. It appears as though you are the only survivor inside of Fluttershy’s Clinic.” “But, what about the other stasis pods? You said that there were more rooms like the one I woke up in. There has to be somepony else alive in this clinic!” “The other OSAI units are offline. Even if the pods were online, their occupants would all be deceased.” “I’m… I’m all alone then?” I sat down, completely ignoring the blood that started to coagulate on my torso. “You are alone in the clinic. The doors at the lower floors have been opened sometime in the last one hundred and ninety years. Somepony, or something else with the intelligence to open them, has been here. But you’re not alone, Cogwheel; you have me.” I smiled despite myself. “Yes… I guess you’re right.” I sighed as I slowly rose again. “Well, what do you suppose we do now?” “While you aren’t in the risk to die from the splinters, it would still help for you to ingest a healing potion to ensure that your wounds don’t fester. We could probably find some elsewhere in the clinic.” I pricked up my ears slightly. “What’s a healing potion?” “Well, they’re potions that automatically tend to your wounds. But healing potions are really…” Spitfire started to explain as we walked down the stairs. {I-I} The words quickly flashed on the filter that had draped itself over my eyes as Spitfire worked with getting around the security lock before us. On Spitfire’s recommendation, I had found a small saddle bag in one of the equipment rooms. She also made sure that I had stuffed it full with healing potions and some doses of Med-X, a painkiller, which I had come across in another room. I had also found some canned food and some water. Some of the food I ate, calming a hunger I hadn’t felt before, and the rest I packed down in the saddlebag with the healing potions. “There,” Spitfire said as the filter and the words disappeared from my vision. A small click could be heard from the terminal as the door opened with a soft hiss. “This elevator can take us all the way down to the entrance.” “The elevator hasn’t been maintained for nearly two centuries. Are you sure it’s safe to use?” I asked uneasily as I looked into the elevator. The inside was made of a dark wood that seemingly emitted a light on its own rather than reflecting the dull light that the lamp in the roof gave. A poster was placed on the back wall of the elevator. Numerous ponies were pictured in the poster, all but one wearing medical coats. The last one, a yellow mare with pink mane, stood in the middle, slightly higher up than all the others, and smiled pleadingly at me. ‘Fluttershy’s Clinic – Helping Equestria through the war’ was written on the poster. “The elevators are safe to use. I checked with the terminal once I worked around the security lock.” I sighed and walked into the elevator. The doors silently slid shut behind me. “If you say so.” “Welcome to Fluttershy’s Clinic, where we assure that everypony gets the best treatment available in Equestria! I’m happy to inform you that you are currently on the top floor. Where do you want to go?” a soft voice happily announced. I jumped at the sudden voice, not prepared in the slightest for it. “The entrance!” I shouted, startling even myself. “The lobby it is,” the elevator voice chimed as the elevator started to move with a soft humming. It didn’t even take a minute before the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. “Have a nice day,” the voice called after me as I stepped out from the small room. The lobby I stepped into was big and clearly built to soothe every soul that passed through here. Once, the floor must had been beautifully carved stone, but now big cracks ran through most of what I could see through the filth and dirt that lay in a layer over it. The animals and forest environments that were masterly carved into the wooden walls were now partly destroyed. A couple of fountains stood in small ponds scattered around the floor, the green water seeping out from small cracks instead of spurting out from the top of them. Two wooden desks, each of them worn and haggard, stood opposite each other. Doors and hallways lead out from the lobby and into the rest of the clinic. A statue of white marble, portraying a pegasus mare with numerous animals around her, was the only thing in the room that seemed untouched by the passing of time. And then, of course, there were skeletons. I stopped right outside the elevator, my eyes wide as they darted over the scene in front of me. There weren’t only skeletons down here. Fresh corpses lay scattered about as well. Earth ponies and unicorns, mares and stallions, clad in crude armor or wearing nothing at all, lay where they had fallen. Coagulated blood covered most of the bodies and the floor around them. The foul stench of the decaying flesh made the air nearly impossible to breathe. I rose a hoof to my face after gagging on the smell. “Who… Who would do something like this?” “Who would defile a clinic like this?” “I don’t know,” Spitfire said. She sounded as shocked as I felt. “This… This is beyond anything I have ever witnessed.” I looked past the bodies and saw the doors on the other side of the room. Without hesitating, I started to gallop past everything, avoiding every body and the pools of blood on the floor. I didn’t stop before I slammed open the doors and rushed outside. I took deep breaths, allowing the fresh air to fill my lungs. The crisp scent of dirt it brought with it replaced the foul stench that had filled the lobby. I staggered away a couple of steps from the door, feeling my heartbeat and breathing start to slow down again. Before I could even think of speaking, I turned and emptied the contents my stomach onto the ground. “Cogwheel, you are exhibiting abnormal symptoms. Are you sure you’re okay?” Spitfire asked, concerned. “Yes,” I said as I brought up a hoof and wiped my mouth. “Like I said before, I’m fine.” “Ponies who are ‘fine’ do not vomit without reason,” she said firmly. Softening her voice, she spoke again. “What’s wrong?” “I… I just can’t believe what I saw. They were just dead, laying there in their own blood. And the smell...” I hesitated. Thinking about the inside of the clinic made my stomach turn again. “It was just too much.” I took another shuddering breath. “Ponies kill each other during war, right?” Spitfire remained silent. “I thought you said the war was over.” “You’re correct in saying that ponies died during the war. Yet, it was not unlikely for ponies to murder each other in times of peace.” “That wasn’t murder; that was a massacre.” I spat the remnants of the bile out of my mouth. “Those ponies couldn’t have been dead for more than a day.” “Temperature readings indicate that the most recently deceased pony died within four to six hours from now.” I sighed. “That wasn’t exactly something I wanted to hear,” I stated as I pushed myself off the wall. “Sorry.” I grunted in response as I took a look at my surroundings. The first thing I noticed was the calming sound of running water from the two fountains placed on each side of the entrance. I had nearly vomited in one of them. Where the ones in the clinic were broken and spouting filthy slime, these fountains were still pristine and shooting water high into the air above them. Dust, only interrupted by a few faint hoof marks, nearly covered the cobblestone path that divided the area of dead grass and connected the main building with two smaller buildings. Trees stood in rows along the cobblestone, creating a dead, blackened avenue. A wrought iron fence, the metal dark and twisted, surrounded the portion of the clinic that I could see.   “I remember these buildings. That one over there was the Childrens’ Clinic Building, and the one across from that was a sort of school for them, so that they wouldn’t forgo their education while receiving treatment.” Spitfire informed me as I kneeled down to take a closer look at the marks of hooves on the cobblestone. The hoofprints where in two straight lines, one line to the entrance door and one away, and were made by a single pony that had hooves a little bigger than my own. The wind eradicated the trails before my eyes, covering them with dust as if they had never existed. I sighed and raised my head from the ground, starting to walk towards the open gates that stood wide open at the end of the cobblestone path. My stomach had finally started to settle completely. “Well then, what should we do now?” “I’m not sure what we should do.” Spitfire remarked. “If what killed the ponies inside of the clinic is still about, it’s not safe to stay here, but I have no idea of where we could go. The terminals that I could connect to contained no information about the outside world.” I nodded. “Then that makes two of us who don’t know about the outside world.” I turned around as soon as I was outside the gates, looking back at the clinic that, apparently, had been my home for nearly two hundred years. At a sign next to the gate I could read Welcome to Fluttershy’s Clinic – The best healthcare for foals and grown-ups alike. “You know,” I said as I started to walk again. “I have a feeling that this isn’t the last time I’ll see this building.” “What makes you say that?” “I don’t know. I just have this… Feeling somewhere. I’ll return here, someday.” I shook my head as I continued walk on the road that connected the clinic with the rest of the world. We walked without speaking. Neither of us had anything to say. {O-O} “Dust, don’t!” I don’t know for how long we had walked when I heard a high-pitched scream from further down the road. The small hill that the road rounded made it impossible for me to see who it was that had screamed. But it was the first sound I had heard that might’ve been from another pony, so I started to run towards it. “Are you sure about this? We don’t know what’s happening. We don’t even know if that noise was made by a pony!” Spitfire protested as I ran. “You might get yourself killed!” Just as I rounded the corner I felt all of my mechanical legs locked in the middle of their steps, making me fall over and slide to a stop on the ground. “I cannot allow you to put yourself in danger.” My eyes widened in shock as I tried to move my legs in vain. None of them would move. I felt my heart pump faster, not only because I was lying on the ground, unable to move, but also for what I saw in front of me. “Get the fuck away, boy! It’s the girl I want,” a unicorn -- clad in the same crude armor that the bodies inside of the clinic had been -- sneered. “Run now, or I will make a fucking mess of your head.” The unicorn stood in front of two younger ponies, a unicorn mare and an earth pony buck. They weren’t foals, but neither were they fully grown. The buck stood in front of the mare, protecting her with his body, pointing something metal in his mouth at the unicorn in front of him. The earth pony trembled as he looked into the eyes of his assaulter, who held something similar, but he stood fast. The unicorn’s ears folded backwards, and without any warning he smashed the earth pony in the head with the metal. “Dust!” the mare called out as the unicorn growled and turned around towards me, forgetting about the two younger ponies. The earth pony, Dust, fell to the ground. The hit must have been hard. “Uhm… Hello?” I said as I flailed my only biological leg. “Bea… Beautiful wea--“ “Holy fuck! What kind of monster are you?” The unicorn took a step forward, aiming the metal at my head. He chuckled to himself. “That’s disgusting! Are you some sort of fucking robot with pony parts?” Spitfire, would you mind releasing me?! I screamed in my mind. The unicorn took another step forward, the metal floating beside him. “Answer me!” I felt the two, cold cylinders of the metal press against my chin as he looked down at me. “Cogwheel, you have an eighty percent chance of dying right this second,” Spitfire said. “Stay still. Stop flailing around--” Eighty percent?! Just from him hitting me with the end of that? “No. What he is pointing at you fires projectiles out of the cylinders at incredibly high speeds. The likelihood of you surviving a projectile being fired into your skull from this range is very low. If you stop moving and manage to knock the weapon away, you could survive.” I kept struggling, but it was not long before Spitfire spoke again. “That was a hint, Cogwheel.” I did as she told me and slumped completely to the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the buck sit up and massage his head with a hoof. The mare looked towards me with wide eyes.   “Run,” I said, my eyes locking with the stallion’s. “Run and I will let you live.” The unicorn blinked in surprise at my words, before he started to roar in laughter. He pressed the metal harder against my chin as he looked down at me. His face was uncomfortably close to mine, his blue eyes as cold as ice. “Does that mean you think you can kill me?” I nearly threw up as his breath hit my nostrils. “You aren’t armed. Looks to me like you can’t even fucking move!” I gulped loudly, hopefully not loud enough for him to hear. “I… I can still take you on!” “You’re a cocky fucker, aren’t you? Let me tell you a secret,” he said, moving his mouth to my ear. “I don’t like cocky ponies. I remember my ‘pa acting something like you, right before I shot his face off.” The raider paused for a moment before continuing. “Any last words?” I could practically hear the smile in his voice. You said this thing he’s pointing at me fires projectiles? “Yes,” Spitfire said. “It’s called a gun. Guns shoot bullets, like I said, incredibly fast.” I closed my eyes. What are the chances for me being able to push it away or roll away before the projectiles hit me? “Success estimated to a chance of 10 percent, with an error value of five percentage units. A hit at the head from this distance is calculated to be 100 percent fatal. I’m sorry.” It’s not your fault. “No,” I said to the unicorn.   “That counts,” the unicorn said as he took a step back from my body. I could feel the weapon leave my chin. As soon as the cold metal left my chin, I took the chance and rolled to the side. I heard a loud roar, followed by another one. The second one had been closer, and it caused a high-pitched ringing to start in my right ear. I opened my eyes. Before me the unicorn howled as he turned around, the still smoking weapon following him in the motion. The mare stood before him, holding the smaller gun with a trembling magical grip. She looked sternly at him.   “Leave us alone!” she shouted as she shot at him twice more, both shots missing. The buck stood paralyzed beside the unicorn, red blood running from a gash in his head blended together with his lavender mane.   “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this, fucker!” the unicorn shouted out as he floated the weapon to point at the mare’s head. The mare continued firing her small gun at the stallion. Only one of her bullets hit; the others went wide or plinked off of his armor. He didn’t even seem to notice that the shot hit him.   “Goodbye!” the unicorn shouted out at the same moment as I rose up on my legs. Two things happened then; the earth pony, who quickly had gotten up on his legs when the mare had started shooting, suddenly jumped at the unicorn stallion’s gun, pushing it out of the way. And the weapon clicked. “Fuck,” the unicorn grunted. “I hate to do things the fucking hard way!” The buck started to float in the air, his hooves only an inch or two from the ground, kept aloft by the a glowing field surrounding his neck. He thrashed with his legs, appearing as if he was trying to remove an object preventing air from getting into his lungs. “Dust!” the mare shouted out in fear. She rushed forward and started to hit the bigger unicorn’s head with the metal, but he hardly reacted. “Die,” the bigger unicorn hissed as he looked at the struggling earth pony that was slowly strangled in his grip. He didn’t pay me or the mare any mind, as he started to laugh. After the initial shock had worn off, I didn’t waste any time. I jumped at the unicorn stallion and brought my metal hoof against his head with all the power I could muster. There was an audible crack as the unicorn howled in pain and bucked me away. At the same time, the magical field around the earth pony’s neck disappeared. He fell to the ground, taking deep rasping breaths. I landed softly on my hooves as the unicorn turned around towards me. “You want to play, fucker? Then let. Us. Play!” he shouted out as he took out a knife from his armor in the blue grip of his magic, smiling maniacally at me. “I love to play.” “Cogwheel, you need to get that knife away from him. A hit at the point where the bullet penetrated his skin should hurt him enough for him to lose the control of his magic,” Spitfire informed me, as a small blue ring appeared around the bullet hole. “But I’m not entirely sure. Nothing the mare did seemed to phase him. Be careful.” “What is it, fucker?” the unicorn taunted, waving his knife around in the air. “Don’t want to play anymore?” I quickly snorted in response before lowering my head and charging towards him. “That’s more like it!” the unicorn cackled. “Nothing wrong with a little hoof-to-hoof every now and then!” The cold knife came down more quickly than I had expected, slicing a shallow cut across my torso. I tried to tackle him and take him down, but he just jumped aside, leaving me with another cut near the base of the neck. The picture of a pony with two highlighted areas where I had received the cuts popped up in the corner of my eye. “You’re too slow!” the unicorn mocked as he started to circle around me. I followed him with my eyes, slowly turning with him. “How’s it feel to dance with death?!” he shouted as the knife shot toward the base of my neck. I ducked away, quickly working up my speed. This time, the unicorn wasn’t fast enough to jump away. As I slammed into him, I felt the knife sink deep into my shoulder, which was noted on the pony in the corner of my vision. I howled in pain as the cold metal entered my shoulder. With all my might I brought my hoof down on the bullet wound. The unicorn’s screams of pain joined my own. “Too slow,” I growled as I brought my hoof back and hit him again, this time over the head, harder than the earlier blows. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, nothing but the white showing as he lost consciousness from the blow. I calmed down my breathing as I rose from the unconscious body, looking over to the two others. The mare tried to stop the bleeding on the stallion’s head with her hooves. “Dust! You can’t die on me!” she cried at the bigger earth pony, tears running down her cheeks and her body trembling. “You are hurt.” Spitfire’s voice was full of concern. “So are they,” I stated as I staggered towards them, each step bringing a flash of pain from the knife in my shoulder. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to ignore the pain. The buck looked scared as his eyes met mine. “What… What do you want?” he cried out as he held one leg around the mare, seemingly wanting to protect her from me. The other leg he kept on the ground, steadying himself. “You’re another one of Exo’s thugs, aren’t you?” “W... Who?” “Dust,” the mare said, wiping the tears from her eyes with a bloody hoof. “It doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t; he just saved us.” She turned towards me, her big eyes pleading. “Please, help him. He’s badly hurt.” I put down my saddlebags and opened them, fishing out a healing potion and giving it to the unicorn. “Here.” The unicorn smiled and thanked me as she floated it over, carefully starting to bathe the buck’s head with the potion. Before my eyes, the wound closed, the only thing telling me that it had ever been there being the blood in his mane. “Stop,” Spitfire said just as I was about to drink a healing potion on my own. “Don’t drink it.” “Why not?” I asked, putting it down. The colt and filly looked strangely at me. “The knife,” she reminded me. “Your flesh will heal around it, making it almost impossible to get back out.” I grunted as I put down the healing potion and tried to reach the knife with my mouth to jerk it out, but I couldn’t turn my head far enough. “Here, let me help you,” the unicorn said as she released the earth pony. “No, Precious,” the buck said, holding back the mare. “We don’t know if we can trust him. He might be lying about not knowing who Exo is.” “He just saved us, Dust. He even gave you a healing potion. The least we can do is help fix him up a bit.” The buck pulled her back more roughly. “But what if he’s a slaver? Only saving us to take us himself?” “What’s a slaver?” I asked as I lied down. I could feel the earth pony glaring at me. “Or there could be something wrong with his head. You wouldn’t trust a pony with brain damage, would you?” “Dust, stop that! Just... Just shut up, will you? I’m going to help him whether you want me to or not.” The mare wrestled herself away from the buck and walked towards me, reaching for the knife with her teeth. “Now, lay still. This is going to hurt a bit...” I shrieked as she took a firm grip of the knife and jerked it out from my shoulder. As soon as the knife was out she started to gently smear the healing potion over my wounds. The skin crawled from the side of the wounds, slowly but surely patching me back up. Neither wound hurt any longer, but they all started itching insanely. I rose my hoof to scratch them, but the unicorn gently smacked it away. It didn’t take long before the healing potion had finished working and the itching disappeared. As it did, I noticed that the pony figure in the corner of my eye faded away. What was that? I asked in my mind, not wanting Dust to start thinking once again that I was brain-damaged. “It was a health monitor.” Spitfire said. “The eye is connected to your neural system, so it can check you for injuries and show you where they are.” That’s interesting... “Tell me,” I said, looking at both of the younger ponies. “What’s a slaver? And who is that Exo pony you were talking about?” “Do you live under a rock or someth--“ Dust started, but was quickly cut off as Precious slapped the back of his head. The buck brought a hoof up to massage his head as the mare started to talk. “A slaver’s a pony who captures other ponies and sells them as slaves,” the unicorn explained, as if it was the most basic thing in Equestria. “I understand,” I said. I didn’t understand. That would’ve been the equivalent of her telling me that Exo was a pony who sold Exos. What was a slave? ... Perhaps now wasn’t a good time to ask. “So…” I kicked at the ground with my hoof. “What are you two doing out here all alone? You make it sound like it’s not very safe to be out here.” Precious scowled, her face darkening. “We’re looking for our brother. He left a month ago, only leaving behind a note saying that he would come back, that he wasn’t far away. We trusted him, but he hasn’t returned yet. So we decided to go and look for him.” “Do you think something happened to him?” I asked “When we were younger, he would leave for some hours without saying anything. When he said something, or left a hastily written note, he would be back in a couple of days,” Precious said, looking away from me. “But this time, he’s been gone too long. Something has to have happened to him.” “And then you encountered… Him,” I said, wavering my hoof towards the unconscious unicorn. “A slaver.” “No, that isn’t a slaver,” Precious said. “That’s a raider.” “A raider?” “They’re the worst of the worst around here. A slaver only enslaves other ponies. A raider is a pony who steals, rapes and murders ponies for fun.” The unicorn looked towards the raider, wearing a scowl. “But he’s all alone. They usually work in groups. Something must’ve separated him from the rest of them.” “A raider murders, rapes, and steals?” I looked at the unicorn lying unconscious not very far from me. He resembled the ponies I had found dead in the clinic’s lobby; the only difference was that this pony was dark grey, nearly black, with a blue mane. If they were all like this one, some of the horror and shock from the sight in the clinic vanished. Or, at least if they had all been like what I had seen of this and heard from Precious. Could he have been one of them? I asked myself, rising to my hooves. “You’ve mentioned that already. It might indeed be a connection. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could get him to tell you what happened at the clinic.” “How about you?” Precious asked, making me turn my attention to her. The unicorn looked up at me with big, soft green eyes. “What are you doing out here all alone? You don’t sound like you’re from around here, but I doubt you’re one of those ponies that lives in the ground.” I looked away from the two ponies in front of me, my eyes landing on the still-unconscious raider. “Actually, I don’t know. I literally woke up in the clinic just today.” “Fluttershy’s Clinic?” “That’s the one.” Her face scrunched together slightly. “What do you mean you just woke up? Were you staying the night there and just getting out this morning?” “I’m sorry, I just don’t know.” The unicorn’s eyes bored straight into mine, and her lip stuck out as though she was pouting. “Look, what I remember is kind of a long story. I’ll tell it to you later, but for now, all you need to know is that I woke up in Fluttershy’s Clinic just today.” “Why did you leave?” Precious asked. “Wouldn’t a clinic be one of the best places to set up camp?” I looked back from the raider and back to the unicorn. “I don’t think so. There were corpses in the main lobby that I found after I woke up,” I continued, pointing towards the raider before us. “The ponies inside were all wearing armor that looks like his.” Dust rose slowly from where he sat and walked to pick up the gun that lay on the ground where his sister had dropped it. As he passed me, I noticed that he had a cutie mark of a circle with a bar on the bottom stretching to the center of the circle. I had no idea what it was supposed to be. “What is that?” I asked, pointing with a hoof towards the gun that the stallion held. “That’s our protection,” Precious said with a thin smile. “It was our father’s once -- a revolver from the war. When Vigil left, he forgot it, so we took it with us.” Dust slapped a part of the revolver back in position, picking it up and placing it in a small bag on his front leg afterward. The revolver seemed to fit perfectly in the small bag, except for the part he had had in his mouth earlier, which stuck out. “Was Vigil your brother?” “He is our brother,” Precious corrected me. “I know he’s out there, we just have to keep looking.” “Shut up, Precious!” Dust said, stumbling towards us. “He doesn’t need to know!” “Why not?” she asked indignantly. “He’s a stranger. You know what Vigil said about strangers.” “‘Don’t trust them, they might want to hurt you’,” Precious mimed, as if she had repeated it thousands of times. “I know, I know, but it’s different this time. He just saved our lives! Instead of whining at both of us, you should be thankful that he showed up!” “Whatever,” Dust growled as he turned around and started to search the ground. “Come help me find the bags. We’re leaving.” Precious didn’t move. Instead, she just watched her brother search the ground. “Sorry for that,” she whispered. “Dust’s a good pony, he just doesn’t trust... Well, anypony, really.” “Now, Precious! We have to leave and find something to eat.” Precious shot a glare towards her brother’s back, before she turned around on the spot and started to search as well. “Found yours,” Dust called out as he lifted up a green bag from the ground. “And I found yours,” Precious said as she levitated a deep pink one from the surrounding rocks. “You couldn’t have picked another one? We had at least three others,” she teased as she floated it over to him. “I already told you, I like this one,” Dust growled as he snatched it from his sister’s magic, his bluish coat turning light red on his cheeks. “I have some food you can eat,” I said as I got out a couple of the few tin cans I had picked up in the clinic. The two siblings looked surprised at me. “What’s the catch?” Dust asked after a moment. I raised an eyebrow at them. “There isn’t a catch. You need food, and I have food that I don’t need.” “No one just gives food away like that,” Dust protested. “What do you want in return?” “... I don’t want anything.” I cocked my head for a second, then shook my head. “Actually, on second thought, I want you to stop thinking I’m out to get you, because I’m not.” “That’s what they all say--!” “Dust, shut it!” Precious shouted. “We need food, and if he wants to give us some, then why are you complaining?!” “He might have poisoned the food!” “What’s that supposed to mean?” The buck pointed an accusatory hoof at me. “See, there he goes again! He keeps playing dumb so that he’ll just be able to take us later!” “Dust!” Precious punched her brother in the shoulder. “I can’t believe you think he’d save us just to give us poisoned food!” “What’s poison--?” “Poisons are substances that cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by said organism,” Spitfire explained. drowning out the sound of the arguing siblings for a moment. “Or, to put it more simply, poisons can cause extreme pain, if not death, to the individual who ingests them.” “Oh, no! No, I wouldn’t poison you!” I shouted, causing Dust to stop talking mid-sentence. “Now he’s doing it again!” Dust shouted exasperatedly. “He just asked us what poison is, and now he’s turning around and acting like he knows all about it!” I looked dumbfounded at the earth pony, hesitating to tell him. He flinched back slightly as I looked down at him, meeting his sandy yellow eyes, but he didn’t look away. “The way your sister said it,” I lied. “It just sounded like a bad thing, is all.” “Dust, stop that whining right now,” Precious said sharply. “He’s offering us food after saving our lives! What has he done for us to mistrust him?” “He’s a complete stranger! And you know that we’re not supposed to trust--” Dust’s protests halted as Precious grabbed a can of food with her magic and sat down beside me. Without saying anything further, she opened it and started to eat. Dust sighed and walked over to us. “If we die, I’m blaming you,” he said, looking at his sister as he opened a can of his own and sat down. Precious stuck her tongue out at her brother at the remark, but didn’t answer. Instead she turned to me. “What’s your name?” she asked. “I didn’t ask earlier, because of reasons, but I don’t want to walk around and just call you ‘you’ all the time.” “You can call me Cogwheel,” I answered. “That’s a nice name,” Precious said with a smile. “Hey, I know you two are having a moment, but the raider is moving again,” Dust said as he rose from his place. I looked away from Precious and towards the raider, who was bringing a hoof up to his head. He was scowling still and grunting, probably from the pain, but he wasn’t moving anywhere just yet. “Stay here,” I said as I rose and walked up to the raider. He growled as he opened his eyes and saw me. “What do you want, fucker?” I hit him hard in the side, forcing him to roll over on his back and face me. He grunted in pain and lost his breath. “Watch your mouth,” I warned him. “Why didn’t you just kill me?” he asked me through gritted teeth as soon as he got his breath back. “There’s no reason to kill you. That, and I had a few questions for you.” I smiled at him as his horn started to glow, the cold barrel of the sawed-off shotgun pressing against my neck. “Cogwheel!” Precious shouted. The raider looked to the side. “You stay where you are, or I’ll blow his fucking head off!” he shouted before he returned his gaze to me. “Answer mine first,” he snarled. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” His eyes flickered between me and the other two ponies. “The weapon is not loaded,” Spitfire said. “I couldn’t hear any sound before it rose, and his eyes didn’t wander away from you for more than a second. He shouldn’t have been able to find both the weapon and new ammunition in that time. Or reload it, for that matter.” “I’m no one,” I told him. “I’m only passing through.” He pressed the barrel against my head even harder. I could smell the foul stench of his breath again. “Only passing through and ruining my fun. Not for much longer... Ask your damn question. It’s the last one you’re ever going to have. When you’re done here, I’m gonna blow your head off and take what’s mine anyway.” I gulped, just holding back my thought that the weapon might have possibly been reloaded. But right now, I trusted Spitfire. “What happened at the clinic?” His eyes went wide and I could see the aura around his horn falter for a second. “How… How did you know that I was from the clinic?” “Lucky guess,” I said. “Now, tell me. What happened there? Who killed all of those ponies?” The raider trembled slightly as he spoke. “It... It was the old Princess, Luna. I was just standing guard, and all of a sudden, there was this flash from behind me and someone screamed. I moved out of the way just in time to see her firing off two miniguns into the lobby. In the end, I was the only one left. She looked at me and just told me to run. So I ran, not stopping until I was far away from the clinic and her.” “When did this happen?” I asked. His story didn’t make much sense. Who was Luna? What was a minigun? It didn’t matter, I supposed. All I needed to know was what happened. “This morning.” He cleared his throat, his voice changing from thin and quiet to loud and guttural. “Now, for real, anything else you want to say?” I smirked. “Go ahead, kill me.” The raider’s eyes narrowed slightly, and all I could notice was his heavy breathing. Before I knew it, he shouted and lunged at me, hitting me across the back of the head with the weapon before tossing it aside and knocking me to the ground. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” he screamed as we wrestled on the dirt. “Don’t you know who I am?!” He swung at me, hitting only my mechanical foreleg and yelping out in pain. “You can’t do shit like this to me, you freak!” He went to hit me again, this time only building up enough momentum to flip us over. “Nopony just thinks a shotgun’s not loaded!” “Cogwheel,” Dust shouted, lifting the revolver up and aiming it at us. “Get out of the way!” Precious tackled Dust to the ground and threw the revolver away. “Dust, no! You could hit Cogwheel!” There was a slight pause before she spoke again. “You weren’t thinking of shooting Cogwheel, were you?” “Go ahead, fucker!” the raider shouted, looking over in the direction of Dust and Precious. “Good luck with that! I just survived an attack from the goddess herself! Frost Mane doesn’t die--” There was a loud thud as I brought my hoof down on the raider’s face once more. His body went slack and his eyes rolled into his head once more. I stood up and shook myself, glad to know that the current threat was done with Meanwhile, Dust had pushed Precious away and was now heading towards us with his weapon. “Get out of the way Cogwheel,” he growled, stopping before me. Precious ran up to the both of us once more, but Dust kicked her aside. “Dust, don’t do it!” I cocked my head to the side, wary of the young pony. “What were you thinking about doing?” “I’m going to make sure that he never gets up again.” “You’re going to kill him?” I asked, astonished. The buck slowly nodded. “Dust, you can’t do that!” He snorted. “Watch me.” “That’s not what he meant!” Precious said, ripping the weapon away from her brother with her magic. “There’s no reason to kill him! We can just leave now and by the time he wakes up, he’ll have no idea where we are.” He turned on her and snarled. “Didn’t you know what he was going to do to me?! Don’t you know what he was going to do to you?!” Dust lunged for the gun, but Precious levitated it higher in the air above her. “Give. Me. That. Gun!” “No!” she screamed desperately, constantly backing away from Dust as he kept trying to get the gun. Dust grunted and ran at his sister, knocking her to the ground. Precious let out a small cry and ducked away from her brother, almost curling into a small ball under him. “If you let him walk away, he’ll be responsible for the rape and murder of hundreds of other ponies! Is that what you want?” “No,” she cried. “But I don’t want you to kill him, either!” “I don’t think you’re allowed to tell me what to do!” “Dust, stop!” I shouted. The screaming halted instantly, replaced a second later by the sound of soft crying. Dust moved away from his sister, staring down with a hollow look on his face as she slowly and shakily rose to her hooves. She wiped her face with a hoof and started walking towards me. Dust put the gun away. Precious picked up her saddlebag. “Get your stuff,” she said, almost too quietly for me to hear. “We’re leaving.” I watched Dust slug his way over to his saddlebag, not sure of what to do. Precious looked towards me and sniffled. “Didn’t you hear me? I said get your stuff. We’ve got a long way to go until we get to the next town.” The two of them turned away from me and started walking, keeping their distance from each other. Picking up my bags, I threw a final glance towards the raider. Standing over him was the silhouette of a large pony, but when I blinked, it disappeared. Shaking my head, reassuring myself that nothing had actually been there, I turned around and followed after them. Footnote: Level Up! New Perk: Fast Liar - What’s a white lie every now and then to conceal something that others don’t need to know about? You find that it’s easier to lie (which equates to a +10 to your Speech skill). First, a really big thank you to Masquerade313, not only for proofreading and editing, but for giving the story a hell of a lot more life than it had from the beginning. I can’t thank him enough for all the time he devoted helping me with this! Secondly, thanks to Rising_Chaos for proofreading and listening to my never ending babbling.