Wander had been telling us Pip’s story for so long that I honestly thought it didn’t have an end. I didn’t want it to. I was hooked, and by now it felt like telling the story was just going to be part of what we did together when traveling, but... just a few hours after Wander had regained her composure and resumed the story, it was over.
Wander was justifiably quiet after her bout of storytelling. Prince Silverlight had moved back to the engine after informing us we would be stopping in Ponyville for trade purposes. Speed, while she didn’t need to sleep, had chosen to nap since she was quote “too bored to wait” end quote.
I’d related to strike up a conversation with the Pegan soldiers around me, but they were all deeply invested in their own conversations already. Unfortunately, that meant all I got to do was stare out the window and think about the way things had gone fourteen years ago.
They had gone very poorly!
Now that I knew all of Pip’s story; her struggles adapting to the ways of the wasteland, her battle with addiction, her reluctance to be a hero and yet paradoxical drive to do the right thing, her weird religious views of the Princesses, her horror at the depth of her own wrath, her quest for self-identity and purpose in the Wasteland, and most importantly of all, her sacrifices… Well, I felt like I knew her very well.
As a pony who knew her very well I had one thing to say about Pip. She was an idiot.
A well intentioned, lovable, heroic idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
It wasn’t that I held her many foolish decisions against her, goodness knows that I made plenty of my own poor choices across my life times. (Oatmeal! Was I crazy?) No, it was one singular thing which she had the capability to do, but did not, which greatly diminished the quality of life for everypony. Or at least, which prevented it from developing.
I saw what Prince Silverlight saw now. Pip had found Celestia, perhaps not alive and well, but able to think, feel, speak, listen, and seemingly capable of casting spells. With Celestia’s assistance, Pip had been able to modify the SPP pod before entombing herself within it in order to broadcast her story to the world. By speaking it. Out loud. Over the airwaves. Via radio.
Radiowaves passed through the SPP’s shield. This meant if somepony trotted up to the Crusader Maneframe housed within the SPP and plugged a radio into it, Princess Celestia could interact with her little ponies once more.
But Pip didn’t do that. She had a radio. She had enough tech to remote-control eye bots. She hadn’t given Celestia so much as a Trotty-Talkie.
Perhaps there was a good reason for this. Pip hadn’t ever left the SPP chamber. Maybe the parts laying around up there were incompatible somehow. Maybe Pip didn’t use a microphone, but a brain-to-terminal interface to transmit her voice. Celestia couldn’t use that in computer form.
But. Pip. Got. Visitors.
Homage was also an idiot. For the same reason Pip was, even, but much more intensely. Apparently she’d gotten to go visit Pip multiple times and never realized she could, you know, bring Celestia a radio!
I grit my teeth and stared out the window, trying to keep my anger down. Those two ponies had a chance to being the greatest mind in known history the ability to at the very least advise the budding nations growing within the ruins of her empire, but didn’t.
Celestia had not ruled Equestria when the world ended, that had been Luna! Celestia had presided over a millennium of peace and prosperity, largely created by her tireless work, and what do ponies of the modern world do when they know that at the very least her memories, logic, and personality are preserved and can be interacted with?
Sweet buck-all!
”It’s beyond deplorable,” Imaginary dad growled in the back of my mind. ”An icon of our species deserves more respect than that. Even in times likes these, we should at the very least have cleaned up her yard…”
Tell me about it! I kind of want to figure out where Spike’s cave is and have him burn me just so I can give my god-aunt a hug! Even if she’s not a pony anymore, or a separate entity form the Princess Celestia we once knew, a copy, she’s still clearly a person! A person who’s had to spend two hundred years watching every last horrible thing in the ruined Heartlands without any means of interacting with anypony. No way to help… Actually, isn’t that a lot like the Emperor from that game mom loves?
”Eerily similar,” Dad agreed. ”You know… If radio passes through, and you can teleport through via dragon fire, I’ll bet that a police or military grade emergency sub-aether transmitter would make it through too. If that’s the case— No! It has to be the case. Pip is able to control Sprite-Bots in real time.”
My ears perked up as I realized what my subconscious was telling me by way of dad’s ghost. “We could plug a link module into the maneframe!” I exclaimed out loud, jumping up in surprise.
My outburst drew Wander's attention. “Huh?” She proclaimed in the unmistakable tone of a pony who had no idea at all as to what was going on.
“Celestia!” I said, turning to face her. “If Pip can control robots in spite of the shield, and dragonfire can transport matter through the shield, that means it’s not preventing sub-aether signals from passing through the—”
Wander sputtered and facehooved. “OH-MY-BUCKING-LUNA! You’re right!” she leaned into her hooves and groaned. “Highschool arcana was so long ago but there’s no excuse for not knowing— Arrgh! If I’d remembered that I could have bought one of six robot controllers I’ve found over the years for Homage to install in her!”
“It’s also not blocking radio waves, either,” I pointed out. “It would be cake to set Celestia up with some robots to pilot so she can go, you know, princess things!”
Wander nodded, opened her mouth to agree, then her eyes widened as her mouth twisted into a smile. “I seem to recall from a certain memory orb that your mother’s old lab is intact.”
I frowned and nodded.
Wander continued. “It’s out of repair materials… But there’s plenty of robots active in it. I’m pretty sure you could salvage parts and materials and use that lab to, say, make something like you, only bigger, and more alicorn shaped.”
I shook my head and sighed. “No way! I’m able to fix some things but building a custom frame is way beyond my—”
“Your mom, then, whatever!” Wander pointed out with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “The point is we could give Celestia a body. Easily! And with the SPP’s network, she would have nearly real-time control and feedback anywhere in the old world.”
I raised an eyebrow. Wander was right of course, but I thought she wasn't technically minded. “Uh, not that I’m upset, but when did you learn so much about technology?”
“I helped design the radio network the SPPs use,” Wander reminded me with a smirk. “I may not know terminals, robots, or other things like that, but I do know audio and radio equipment. Which is why I should have realized this seven or eight years ago!”
Wander slumped in her seat. “There’s another failure to add to the pile…”
I closed my eyes tightly. Wander had just made progress! I wasn’t going to let her backslide. “We’re finding Spike’s cave. We’re fixing this. As soon as I’ve delivered my last radio, we’re fixing this!”
“Agreed,” Wander replied with a nod before slumping back in her seat.
This time, she had a thoughtful expression. Probably trying to remember the last place she
found a remote control system for a robot.
”We have to be missing something. If it were that easy, the NCR would have done it. Wouldn’t they love to have Celestia back?”
Maybe they don’t… I thought as I turned back to the window to think.
☢★★◯★★☢
The train’s intercom crackled and hissed as a deep voice spoke. “All hooves! Inbound anomalous weather! Brace for impact!”
Few words can so totally draw your attention as those last three.
I turned to look out the window, hoping to see what kind of danger we were in. I immediately regretted that decision.
A tornado plunged down from the sky at us like the incoming hoof of a vengeful god. Its funnel was so wide I imagined it swallowing up entire cloud cities in a single gulp. Except this tornado wasn’t sucking things in. It was throwing things out.
Auto-wagons. Bits of houses. Trees by the grove. Grass by the hayfield. The air around the vortex was filled with a cloud of shrapnel and chaff so dense that the tornado seemed to have its own armor.
If the debris were its armor, the tree-like icicles which flew out from its center were its arrows.
Terror gripping every corner of my mind, I did the only thing a pony could do when nature itself has decided it is time for you to die. I closed the window shade and shrank into my seat to shiver in terror.
Speed looked out another of the windows and whistled, clearly impressed with our impending doom.
“I’d like to see the company of pegasi who could make that!” She said with an excited swish of her tail.
“No pegasus team in history could do anything like that, kid,” One of the soldiers, I didn’t know which, said in a condescending tone.
“Uh, yeah… That’s why I’d like to see some who could,” Speed said with an adorable frown of annoyance.
Wander leaned across me to open the window shade slightly. Her ears and tail stood up in alarm as she immediately dropped the shade. “Well, we’re boned!” She squeaked.
“Sooo… Who here bets Pip notices her buck up and fixes it before we all die?” Somepony asked with a nervous and worried laugh.
“She’s stopped all of them so far,” somepony scoffed. “We’ll be fine!”
“Yeah, but these keep happening more and more often… Think the SPP is breaking? It’s not like anypony can maintain the towers,” another posited.
“I heard she’s sick,” yet another piped up. “I can’t imagine what would happen if I were plugged into a weather machine and ate Ginger’s cooking.”
The entire traincar wretched in unison, temporarily distracting me from my fear.
“Dammit, Maple!” A mare yelled angrily. “We’re about to die in a magic tornado! I didn’t also need to remember what you did to that poor bathroom!”
“YEAH!” About ten ponies yelled back.
“Guys! It’s changing course, we’re okay!” Somepony called form the front of the train.
I opened the window shade a twinge. The tornado was indeed reversing its course, throwing up a wave of dirt twice as high as the train as it did so.
“Thanks, Pip,” I whispered quietly.
No way a monster like that would have changed course without her making it happen. Even if she had accidentally created it.
I couldn't blame her. After all… She was coughing up blood while plugged into a weather machine.
Honestly, it’s a little weird I hadn’t run into something like this sooner.
☢★★◯★★☢
In the hours after our narrow escape from death, there was little for me to do aside from be terrified at the thought of the train being hit by another hyper-death-tornado. You’d think everypony would be happy to be alive and talking, but that wasn’t the case. I guess when you’re stuck in a small place with nearly a hundred ponies, and you don’t know all of them, that talking just isn’t a very good idea.
Wander had a way to occupy herself. And the soldiers too. She was telling the story of the Ministry Mares’s becoming the Elements of Harmony. She had a surprisingly good account of the story. Some of it was different from the book, which I’d read to the point of memorization, but other parts seemed… Well, different.
“No, trust me,” Wander insisted after somepony had said something. “Rarity really was that stuck up and honestly, I’m underplaying her divaness for the sake of believability. I swear to Celestia herself, that mare was like a living cartoon character. Proof of that being the spell she learned to teleport her couch slightly away from her so she could telekinetically drag it into position to fake-faint on. Yes. Really.”
“How do you know that?” someone called loudly.
“I lived next door to her for a while and she did it like all of the time,” Wander applied evenly. “Anyways, Rarity was panicking over a tiny fleck of mud on her hoof—”
I stopped listening to the story I already knew and decided to take a look out he window. Fortunately there wasn’t the wrath of a million pegasi descending on us this time. Instead, there was a battlefield!
Smoke was rising from blackened patches of earth where either rather potent grenades or mortar shells had created blackened craters which still smouldered slightly. The bodies of NCR troopers could be seen lying where they fell, their tan long coats fluttering in the wind.
Intermingled amongst the NCR corpses in a way which suggested the fight had become a melee were uniformed corpses I had never seen before.
They wore metal armor, it looked like the ancient platemail pony knights wore back in the day, only rather than forge blackened, chemically blued, or polished to a silvery sheen, it was painted orange. Not a bright orange, a dull orange that would blend in with rust.
The plates themselves gave the ponies a rather insectoid look. As if the armor had almost but not quite been modeled after a changeling exoskeleton, then given artistic flair to invoke the medieval look from before.
In addition to the plate armor, each of the mystery soldiers wore a beige tactical harness which seemed to serve as little more than a place to attack grenades and ammo.
I leaned over the seat in front of me to get the attention of a plum furred pegasus. “Excuse me?” I asked.
He looked up. “Yes, ma’am?”
I pointed out the window. “Who are those orange armored soldiers?”
The Pegasus didn’t even blink. “Oh, that’s the Mobile Infan—”
The soldier's head turned so rapidly his neck popped as he looked out the window. “Dead! Okay, much better!”
My ears lay back in fright. “Uh, is that a prob—”
“Yeah, that’s the Herd’s soldiers,” the trooper groaned into his hooves. “Looks like they tried to make a push to take Canterlot… Again. This might lead to war if the NCR—”
The intercom crackled again. “Attention everyone, we are being flagged down by an NCR platoon. Seeing as we’re crossing over a recent border-skirmish , they probably want to check the train for survivors. The Prince has decided we will comply with their search. Please take a seat if you are walking as we will be braking in five… four… three… two… one… Now!”
The land train jerked almost violently as the tank applied its brakes. I heard a rather distressing shriek of metal as the seat pressed against my back like it wanted to push me over.
The intercom crackled again, this time the Prince’s voice came from it. “Everyone, please remain in your seats for now. That being said, Maverick, Ace, Brown, and Honey, please split into pairs and guard our cargo. Allow the NCR to inspect it, but make sure sticky hooves stay on the ground. Additional, Pink, Vividly Pink, and Vantapink, please come up to the engine and bring your medkits. I would like to offer medical assistance, if we are allowed to do so.”
I watched as the pink triplets stood up and retrieved large brown bags from the cargo rack above their seats.
Oh. My. Celestia!
I’d almost gotten their names right!
☢★★◯★★☢
Surprisingly the NCR platoon stopping us only added half an hour to our journey. They’d recognised the landtrain as belonging to Los Pegasus and simply wanted to know if we had picked up any of the Herd’s Mobile Infantry. They checked the cars and sent us on our way. Nice and easy.
I’d figured a fight would break out, but no. Everypony had been nice and respectful. I guess that’s how things go when you’re talking to the people who supply your nation with their military equipment.
Then again, that made the fact they wouldn’t let the Prince visit Celestia even more odd. There had to be something everypony was missing… I was tempted to call Homage on the radio and ask about it, but it felt like something I shouldn’t talk about on a train full of ponies.
Or while driving through the Everfree Forest.
I’d heard each and every last legend about this place. A living forest, not in the normal way. No. They said this place could think, feel, and hate. It certainly seemed like it could hate. It also was very much a magical forest.
Fourteen years ago Red Eye had burnt most of the forest down. Wander had made that very clear when telling Pip’s story. This forest had been ash and sparse groves of trees just over a decade ago. While some trees can grow to maturity in that time… Everything we drove through now was old growth.
These trees didn't just look mature, they looked ancient! More than that… I could see the spirits living within each and every single last one! This place was such a hotspot of spiritual activity that looking out the window almost blinded me with how many overlapping auras there were.
Tree spirits. Plant spirits of all kinds. Stone. Earth. All of them here. All of them very, very old. Older than the forest was said to be. Likely drawn here from the Spirit Realm by Nightmare Moon during her rebellion as a convenient source of power…
Every so often I would look out the window and think as hard as I could, Hi! Just passing through. Machine spirit here. Sorry! Not trying to do anything bad. Just passing through!
So far, it seemed to be working. Or at least, not angering them more.
When the announcement had come saying that recent rains had made the terrain ahead too muddy to drive through and so we would be passing through the Everfree, not a single pony had been happy. Everypony around me was quiet. Sitting. Waiting. Hooves to their weapons.
The tension was so thick I swear I could see it.
Or maybe that was just the blinding auras of ancient and deeeefinitely malevolent spirits. It was like being in the middle of a hoard of Windigo, only all of them were the really old, really powerful ones that weren't aware I could do as much harm to them as they could to me.
Wander, definitely aware of the tension, stood up from her seat and trotted into the aisle. I frowned as I watched her move, trying and failing to figure out what she was up to when she cleared her throat and announced:
“Ladies and Gentlecolts, as a pony who used to live in a certain village on the edge of this forest, and no, I don’t know why we put towns next to this place either, I can tell you that the Everfree won’t bother you until you bother it.”
Vantapink raised her hoof. “Question: Would driving a fifty thousand ton vehicle through it while belching all kinds of smoke from its engine into the trees bother it?”
Wander shrugged. “Probably? But, seeing as how were in the middle of the forest now, and it hasn’t grabbed us with vines and had venus flytrap like plant-maws break through the windows to eat us, or sent a small army of timberwolves to rip this tin can appart and munch on the tasty tasty meat inside, or, and this is my favorite thing it’s done before, send forth a swarm of huge pill-bug like monstrosities that are resistant even to AP rounds from a three-oh-eight rifle to rip us all to little scraps of flesh that will rot and feed the plants, I don’t think it cares about us. You can relax a little.”
“Uhhh…” I said slowly while giving Wander a horrified look.
She nodded. “Yeah, the Everfree can do that. I’ve seen it do that and more. Thing is, it’s not as dangerous as ponies think. When it’s pissed off, yeah, it is. Big time! That said, I knew a zeeb who used to live in here. Like, full time.”
“Yeah, but that’s a zebra though!” A soldier exclaimed with a worried whimper.
Wander looked towards the back of the car with a deadpan expression, then lifted me up with her magic, making me yelp.
“Hey!” I said as I squirmed in her grip.
“Oh, look!” Wander said flatly. “A zebra! Who happens to have been trained as a shaman. Just like Zecora, the one who used to live here. Point is, we’ll be fine.”
Wander put me back down as the soldiers around us began to whisper back and forth to one another. From the sound of things, it seemed like they were grateful I was here.
Now would probably be a terrible time to mention I am horrible at being a shaman…
Wander cleared her throat again and pointed to the left of the train. “To continue helping you through this, why don’t we start off with a little tour? To our left is the crater which was once Stable 101. If you listen closely, it’s said you can hear the bubbling of the Taint deep under the rubble. That’s total bull, by the way. I checked.”
Speed raised a hoof and Wander nodded to her. “Yes?”
“Sooo, if Red Eye had his base there, and it was full of all kinds of cybernetics and other goodies, can we stop and dig through the rubble for loot?” She asked hopefully.
While taking an entrenching tool out of her bag.
Wander shook her head. “That would be a waste of time. It’s too well buried to dig out. Rubble will have crushed everything Calamity didn’t steal.”
Speed blinked and frowned. “But when they’re dead it’s looting.”
“When it’s Calamity, it’s stealing,” Wander corrected matter of factly. “Now many of you might not know this, but Stable 101 was built beneath the spot where the Castle of the Two Sisters once stood. That’s right, we’re passing by Equestria’s original capitol. The Castle was mostly torn down by Princess Celestia’s request a few decades after the Elements of Harmony were once again active.”
Wander turned to look out the left hoof side of the train. “I am not sure why she didn’t have all of it removed. I do however know that everything but the original keep, including the dungeons, was removed. If you ask me, it’s a bit of an interesting mystery… But when it’s all said and done, it’s probably better that Red Eye’s cathedral didn’t have an ancient library of musty old spell books attached to it.”
I winced at the idea of a Slaver King with aspirations of godhood having access to the ancient magics ponies had largely abandoned in favor of the more convenient and readily available technology.
According to some of the more dusty history books in mom’s library, pre-classical pony wizards had once made flying islands, created volcanoes beneath enemy cities, granted the power of flight to any and all creatures within a given location, developed potions of immortality, and many other god-like feats of magic, including the creation of the Elements of Harmony themselves.
The details of how these ancient spells worked had been lost to time due to their complexity, the rareness of individuals able cast them, and Princess Celestia herself rounding up every spellbook and scroll of such magics she could find in her early days as Equestria’s Princess.
Knowing what little I did of Princess Celestia, it was doubtful she had destroyed those many scrolls and tomes…
Maybe the demolition had been a cover for her to move some ancient vault which she no longer believed was safe?
I couldn’t help but think about what might have happened here so long ago as we continued to drive through the forest.
Thanks, Wander. I needed that.
☢★★◯★★☢
Wander continued playing tour guide as we drove through the Everfree. To my surprise, for an evil enchanted forest of doom, there sure were a lot of named locations in it! Plenty of rivers, and trails, and Zap Apple groves… Even things as small as known animal dens. For example, “Mister Bear’s burrow”.
There were so many animal dens!
According to Wander, before becoming a Ministry Mare, Fluttershy was something of a caretaker of wild animals, and she was pretty sure that every single animal in a twenty mile radius around cottage had been given a name at one point or another.
That made me wish I’d been alive back then.
Well, alive, pony-shaped, and able to walk around and do things. Talk to ponies. That kind of thing.
“And of course this patch of land we’re passing through now is, or uh, was, Sweet Apple acres,” Wander announced as we finally emerged from the dense old-growth-but-not-really trees. “I’m pretty sure most of you recognize the name, what with Stable Two being located just under… Huh, they tore down the old barn. Well, it would be right over there and—”
Wander stopped talking as she saw something out the window. I turned and looked, getting a nice view of a clear field, without so much as a single rock blotting the face of the lovingly tilled soil. A huge patch of the field to the south was covered in trees which grew in nice even rows, indicating they had been planted by ponies.
The trees looked mostly healthy, and were fully grown. They had to have been planted just a few years after the Gardens were used. Small reddish-purple apples were growing on their branches, making me wonder where in the world they had gotten apple seeds from. Probably Stable Two.
A group of Earth ponies and a few hellhounds were walking through the trees, tending to them carefully. They seemed to be taking orders from a sandy-orange furred mare with a thick blond mane.
None of what I saw was breathtaking… So why had Wadner just stopped talking?
I turned to look back at her again, flinching slightly at the pained expression on her face, and followed her eyes. She was staring at the orange mare.
I smiled, stood up, trotted over to her and gently nuzzled her side. “Hon? It’s okay if you think another mare is cute. We’re open, remember?”
Wander shook herself and inhaled sharply. “N— No. She’s a dead ringer for someone I used to know… I uh… tour over, everypony!” Wander announced sharply as she raced for her seat and sat down, sitting bolt upright.
”Gears… That looks like she just had a flashback,” Imaginary dad warned. ”You should—”
Sit quietly and give hugs.
”You know, for being so innocent about romantic relationships, you sure are good at them.”
I settled into the seat next to Wander and scooted up to her side. “Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded slowly. “Y— Yeah. Just… Memories.”
I nodded understandingly and leaned against her shoulder.
Speed leaned up over the back of the seat. “Were the apples grown here really good, or something?” she asked with her usual foalish simplicity.
Wander closed her eyes tightly. “Yes.”
“What’s an apple like, anyways?” Speed asked.
Not wanting Wander to have to answer a question that would make her think about the past, I cleared my throat loudly and said, “Based on dehydrated samples of apple and cinnamon oatmeal, having factored oats and cinnamon out of the equation, an apple tastes about how you would imagine an organic substance composed of:—”
I took a deep breath for emphasis.
“Dihydrogen monoxide, palmitic acid, carbon glycerol, glucose, polysaccharide, carotene, tocopherol, riboflavin, nicotinamide, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, ascorbic acid, palmitic acid, stericacid, oleic acid, salicylic acid, purines, sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorus, chloride—”
Wander reached over and put a hoof over my mouth. “Shhhh… No. Bad. Don’t describe flavors. You’re terrible at it.”
“Agreed,” Speed and five Pegan soldiers said in unison.
My ears drooped sadly. Note to Self: Ask mom to finish my sense of taste some day...
“Well how would you describe it?” I asked with an embarrassed dip of my head.
Wander sighed and closed her eyes. “Sweet Apple Acres grew a little bit of everything. Honeycrisp. Gala. Golden Delicious. Reds. McIntosh… Tartarus, half of the apples you might know of were named for ponies who lived here and grew them. Whatever variety of apple you chose, they were just the best. Fresh, crisp, perfectly sweet, or perfectly souer.”
She shifted in her seat to look up for a while as a smile parted her lips. “The apples were wonderful, but the cider! Oh the cider! Sweet Apple Acres made the best cider and applejack once upon a time. It was pure ambrosia!”
Her ears flattened, and her smile faded. “Big Mac worked so hard to make their cider a nationally available brand… It ruined it,” Wander sighed and turned to look out the window away from Sweet Apple Acres. “You couldn’t make it at that scale. Not everything can be mass produced. Sometimes, it’s gotta be a microbrew. For a long time… I thought that was the worst thing to happen to this orchard…”
Wander stopped talking after that. Speed returned to sitting down, and I kept snuggling up against Wander’s side until the train came to a stop with a long metallic squeak. I frowned and looked up, no one had mentioned any kind of stop and the intercom hadn’t said anything about, well, anything.
Why were we—
The intercom hissed for a moment and a mare’s voice cheerfully made an announcement. “For the sake of our passengers, whom I have just been informed have no idea of our schedule, we’ve arrived in Ponyville for a scheduled stop. Over the next hour or so we will be unloading a shipment of knives, farming tools, and shotshells. Feel free to remain aboard or visit the town! We won’t leave without you.”
“Oh,” I said with a blush.
It made perfect sense for a trade-kingdom to make stops to deliver or sell goods whenever possible. Especially if they had a whole train worth of stuff to move around. Those old shipping containers couldn't possibly be totally full of old world relics… Right?
I gave Wander a quick little side hug. “Hey… I think I should deliver a radio to the mayor while we’re here.”
Wander nodded. “Go for it. I’m staying here.”
“Why?” I asked with a frown.
It suddenly hit me that she probably really, really, really didn’t want to set hoof in her old home. Vinyl’s friends had definitely lived here. That meant Wander was probably having a hard enough time being on the train…
If only I had realized before I had said anything.
Wander closed her eyes and sighed loudly. Speed, who had been walking towards the car’s door with a few of the soldiers, noticed us, frowned and trotted over. “What’s wrong?”
“Wander wants to stay on the train,” I said with a worried look.
Speed nodded and squeezed past me to take my place on the seat. “I’ll stay with you while Gears delivers the radio then!” She said cheerfully while raising her pipbuck up for Wander to see. “Wanna watch something? I’ve got plenty of videos stored on this thing! We could watch some old TV shows, or I could show you some of my old runs! I’ve got the one where I beat the Oneighda Beach landing simulation in twenty-two minutes flat!”
Wander sputtered as her eyes snapped open wide as could be. “YOU DID WHAT?!” she demanded.
Speed blushed lightly and pawed at the seat. “It’s not that big of a deal... I had several hundred thousand tries to work from when developing the route. I memorized the entire battle moment to moment, and worked out a route around most of the traps, the best way up to the sea wall, and so on… Turns out there’s also a major structural weakness in Zebrican pillbox designs so you can collapse them pretty easily… I did have to use an allied soldier as a meat shield at one point in the run, but I’m pretty sure nopony would have minded in real-life if I still managed to make that time!”
Wander looked up at me, her eyes swill wide. “Gears, do the thing. I’ma watch some horseapples.”
Speed’s ears drooped, “B— But I actually did it…”
Wander nodded. “I believe you,” she said as she turned to look at the tiny screen on Speed’s wrist. “But even still, singlehoofidly winning one of the bloodiest battles in history in less time than an episode of your favorite cartoon is horseapples.”
“Not when you just let yourself die ‘til you got it right,” Speed said as she clicked away at her pipbuck, searching for the file to play.
I bit my lip. I kind of wanted to see this… but at the same time, I had a package to deliver. Work called!
I trotted off and waved at the two of them. “Bye, girls! Back soon.”
Wander looked up just long enough to call, “If you find a house with pictures of me in it, please don’t anything from it back. Like, anything. At all. Please. Just don’t.”
“I promise!” I said as I stepped out of the train…
And into a charming little village!
It was first and foremost a Hellhound settlement. I recognised the rough hewn-timber, earthen-brick and pre-war scrap architecture from the city-which-shall-not-be-named. Unlike the village on the shores of the hell-lake, Ponyville’s Hellhounds had painted everything in nice bright colors!
Everywhere you looked you could see oranges, yellows, pinks, and greens! No so much for the other colors of the rainbow, but a little bit of everything could be found somewhere. Especially on the pre-war buildings.
Much to my surprise, while lots of the old buildings had clearly been torn down, some of them were instead being repaired. Hellhounds were everywhere, carting whole wagon loads of supplies back and forth, moving things for the earth ponies who were working on the actual carpentry side of things.
For a moment I thought the crafting was all pony done, but then I saw there were a smattering of Hellhounds working too. From what I could see, in order to effectively use tools like, say, a hammer, a hellhound had to trim their claws…
This explained why so few of them were willing to work. I imagined their claws grew back over time, but any species which has a natural weapon would definitely not like giving them up…
As I walked into town I saw the trio of pink soldiers open the rear most cargo wagon while chatting with a group of Hellhounds and a single pony who were clearly there to help unload the shipment and deliver their payment.
The Hellhounds had two wagons stacked high with open boxes filled with buckets of paint (based on the colorful drips on the sides), assorted gems, gold, and apples.
As I trotted by, I managed to overhear a snippet of their conversation.
“— and we’ve included some six-gauge like you’ve asked for. Not sure what you’re after that needs a shell that big, but not also explosive.” Vantapink said with a smile.
“Zombies,” one of the Hellhounds growled.
Vividly Pink shot him a glare. “You mean ghouls?”
“No! Ghouls people. It wrong call zombies ghouls. Insulting,” the Hellhound said with an accusatory glare.
The other hounds nodded in agreement.
I frowned a little. I’d never thought of that… I’d have to ask Wander what she thought about that.
And speaking of asking people things…
I trotted up to the group of Hellhounds as they began to unload crates from the trailer and politely cleared my throat. “Excuse me, I’m delivering mail. Where is the mayor’s office?”
One of the hellhounds pointed to a small earthen hut built against the side of a halfway rebuilt building which had probably been Ponyvile’s town hall once upon a time. Then she grunted.
“Thanks!” I said with a smile and walked over to the hut.
The old town hall was mostly a burnt out shell with intact ribs poking up from the ashes. It was astonishing that the skeleton which had once held up what may or may not have been a domed roof was still here after two hundred years. The ponies who had built Ponyville clearly knew their trade well.
As I approached the hut, I noticed a team of Earth Pony carpenters, six of them, working on repairing one of the old hall’s floor joists. From what I could see, the building’s second floor was almost ready to have floorboards put back on it!
Unable to do otherwise, I cleared my throat and called out to them. “Hello!”
One of the workers ears perked before he turned to look at me. “Hi there, miss. Whatcha need?”
“I was wondering why you’re rebuilding that. Wouldn’t it be best to knock it down and start over?” I asked with a curious smile.
The carpenter laughed and shook his head. “Not a chance, missie! Why waste good architecture? We don’t have the blueprints for many prewar buildings, but we do have their skeletons. One day we’ll look just as pretty as Sire’s Hollow, and grow twice as much food! Just you wait!”
“Oh! Well, I suppose that’s a pretty good reason.” Ah, rivalries! The cause, and solution, to so many of ponykind’s problems.
“Sure is!” he said as he turned back to his work.
I got back to my own work as well. A few more steps brought me to the blue-painted earthen hut’s door (made from the bottom of a steel bathtub) and knocked gently.
“Enter!” a female hound barked.
I pushed the door open and immediately bit my tongue to stop myself from laughing. The hut was tiny, but the mayor was huge! She reminded me of the massive Hellhound barkeeper, Conan. She had the same massive, muscular build, and had crammed her smooth silky, cream-furred body into an old wonderbolts uniform.
A wonderbolt uniform held together with scraps of fabric for a dozen other sets of clothing and prayers. She was easily four times the size of a pony, and that uniform had been made for a very little mare.
Imaginary dad laughed his plot off in the halls of my mind. It took every single ounce of professionalism and self control not to join him.
Aside from the comically dressed hellhound, the Ponyville town hall also contained a few recently painted pictures of the town and countryside, a desk made from some old auto-wagon tires and a part of a barn door, and that was it. All wedged into the same tiny office as the Mayor.
Aside form the pictures, the most notable piece of decor was the mayor’s drinking mug. Which was a unicorn skull with a gold handle attached to it with the word “raider” engraved into the forehead with a claw tip. Based on the fizzy brown liquid bubbling in the skullmug, the mayor was a fan of Sparkle Cola.
Personally I’d put the drink on my ‘tastes bad’ list. It was too similar to certain lubricants to be good simply because of a little sugar and leaf juice, in my opinion.
“H— Hello!” I managed to say with a shaky smile. “I’m Whirling Gears, I am here to deliver a package.”
The mayor stood up, making her spandex, uh, outfit, creak in distress. She extended her paw for me to shake. “Lobos! Daughter of Mighty Conan, the Brewer!”
I put my hoof into her paw and shook it. “Oh! I thought his daughter lived with him.”
“Conan have many daughter,” Lobos said with a laugh. “You think wif say no if he ask to mate? No wére say no if I ask to mate. Lobos father give her this power!”
I blinked. “Oh. Uh… How many sister’s do you have?”
Lobos shrugged. “Can’t count.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no offence, but like, in general, or do you mean there's more than you can count?”
She rolled her eyes. “Pony tongue hard speak. We use different sounds. Pony use too much soft. Best keep speak short. Stop throat hurt. Can’t count sisters. Can count numbers. Not stupid. Lobos know all pony words, understand all pony words. Just hurt say, so speak like this.”
I nodded understandingly. “I meant no offence. I know many ponies who cannot read or do math.”
Admittedly, they had not gone to school yet… But I imagined not many ponies in the Heartlands could do those things either.
Lobos nodded, seemingly satisfied. “So! Who send thing to Lobos? Prince? We payed for last shipment good.”
I smiled and opened my saddlebag. “Actually, I’m here on behalf of Queen Katydid of Lith, a country to the far north. She would like to trade with you…”
I removed a radio from the case in my bag and set it on her desk next to her mug, followed by a letter. “This letter contains instructions on how to use this radio to contact her in order to make a deal, and—”
“Good!” Lobos exclaimed happily as she bent down to look me in the eyes. “You trusted servant of Queen, yes?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Want tour of town? See what have. Tell Queen. She know Lobos tell truth of what can offer if zeeb do this,” Lobos proposed.
I blinked in surprise. “You’re the first person to think about that. Sure! I’d love to have a tour,” I said with a smile that quickly faded. “Oh! Um, but I came on the Pegan’s landtrain and it's kind of my ride soo… I should probably—”
Lobos waved her paw and walked out of her hut in but two steps. “We have many hours! Make new deal for next shipment. Come! Lots to see.”
Well, they had said they wouldn't leave without me, and this was kind of important…
I nodded and trotted along after the enormous, hilariously dressed hellhound. Unfortunately for me, her outfit wasn’t getting any less hysterical with time.
☢★★◯★★☢
The tour was actually pretty nice! Lobos had lead me around town to show me their many grain silos and warehouses. The hellhounds of Ponyville had initially been miners, but after deciding to let a tribe of Earth Ponies with nowhere to go move in with them, as well as allowing a few of the Stable Two ponies to remain near their ancestral home (Hellhounds very much get the concept of ancestral lands), this particular clan found they very much enjoyed farming.
It was just a little ironic that a clan known as the Skull Drinkers liked to farm. Really like to farm!
Ponyville was surrounded by acres and acres of farms of all types. While the hounds prefered to live in Ponyville, they worked all day up to three miles away from town, growing food on every inch of arable land they had found. From what I was shown, they treated the process with near-religious reverence.
None of it made sense to me until I was shown the new Ponyville Brewery. They turned half of what they grew right into various alcohols. Not just the drinking kind either, but the cleaning, and medical kinds too. Turns out the whisky I’d drank in Fillydelphia had been made here.
It was good to know that we could get a supply of actual alcohol. Not just the drinking kind, but the medical kind. Sterile bandages are more important than feeling a bit bubbly for a few hours. Besides, we had plenty of Changeling drinks to go around!
The tour brought us back to Sweet Apple Acres, on a path which brought us past the incredibly large even after all these years pile of dead trees pulled out of the old orchard. Apparently the old trees were no good for anything, not even charcoal, and were being left to rot.
I’d asked why, all Lobos said was: “No matter how cut, trees poison. Many die.”
I decided not to press the matter. I did get to inspect one of the new trees though! Lobos was extremely proud of the new apple trees. Heck, it seemed like everyone was! Especially the orange mare who had freaked Wander out so much.
Lobos walked me right up to her and introduced her to me. “Gear, this Apple. Apple best tree pony! Make little sick apples into big strong apples!”
The mare laughed and pushed her mane out of her eyes wit the back of her hoof and held it out to me to shake. “Howdy! Name’s Applejack, named for my great, great, great grandmare. You probably heard plenty about her.”
I shook her hoof. “Indeed I have. Nice to meet you. It’s also nice to see apple trees. Where did you get the seeds?”
Applejack shook her head. “You don’t use seeds for apple trees, well, not like how you’d think. You can grow new trees from seeds, but the apples you get are all crabapples. Uh, I don’t mean poop. That’s what they’re called. The slang for poop comes form how bad they taste.”
I nodded. “I see… So… Pretend I don’t know anything about farming,” I said with a sheepish grin.
She smirked. “Pretend, huh? Right well, what we did is use seeds from the hydroponic orchard in Stable Two to grow new trees, and we’ve got cuttings from the already grown trees down there to get good apples up here. It took a little doing. Soil ain’t the same as it was when my ancestor was growing apples here. We’ve had to use a little magic to get things going down the right trail, but I think we’ve got it now.”
I looked into the branches of the tree above me. “So, these ones will be sweet? Or are these a sour apple?”
“I don’t know,” Applejack admitted with a cheerful smile. “These are a whole new variety of apple! There’s really no way to tell how it will taste ‘til it’s grown, and even then, it will take the trees about two years of maturing for them to taste the same year to year.”
She nodded towards her group of workers who had moved to the next tree while we were talking. “I need to get back to overseeing those guys, none of them were Stable ponies. You turn your back for ten minutes and they're already talking about getting a unicorn to just magic the apples to maturity,” she shook her head and began to trot off. “That’s how you make darn sure you don’t get consistent flavors!”
Lobos waved as Applejack ran off, then squatted down to look me in the eyes. “Apple ran Stable water-orchard. Knows plenty. Would be happy to help Queen plant orchard, if can grow trees in snow.”
“Actually, if she knows how hydroponics work well enough to tell us how to make the nutrients a hydroponics garden needs, that would be very valuable to us,” I pointed out.
“Lobos will remember!” she said proudly before standing up. “Come! Spooky forest next.”
I gulped and glanced over towards the distant old growth forest. “Do we really need to go into the Everfree?”
“Yes! Part town too,” she said with a simple nod.
I winced. “Yeeeah… But um, well, there are very old and powerful spirits in the forest. I do not want to make them angry,” I said as slowly and respectfully as I could.
To my surprise, Lobos nodded. “Lobos knows. Many zeeb tell us this. Forest is safe, if with hound. We make trade with zebra tribe lives in forest.”
I raised my eyebrows. “There’s people living in there?”
“Yes. Forest welcome them, keep others out. We not go in, just to edge. Grow special plants for potions at edge. Forest help special plants,” Lobos said with a smile.
I swished my tail. “You’re… You’re getting those spirits to help you grow things?”
“Yes! We tell forest we no cut its trees and give it extra fertilizer. Zeebs say it let us grow plants in it and not eat hounds.”
“Oh! You made a pact,” I said as I took note that as terrifying and obviously hostile as those spirits were, they were not above making a deal. “You should be super careful not to break it…”
Lobos laughed. “Lobos tell forest “If someone cut tree, Lobos cut them twice as much.” It like that. Seal deal. Come, back town. Lobos no make zeeb go to forest if scared still.”
I laughed nervously and nodded. “Y— Yeah… Still am.”
No need to tell her that machine spirits and plant spirits don't usually get along… The stone spirits in the forest would probably like me, but they’d more than likely side with their friends in the pending “devour her essence!” party.
After all. I’d told the forest I was just passing through… and it had let me. Don’t break deals with spirits!
☢★★◯★★☢
Lobos was much less enthusiastic about the rest of Ponyville. I suppose it made sense. Trading food, and paints, and alcohols was a thing you could do. Trading houses? That’s a little bit harder.
Possible, mind you. But harder.
It was still nice to see how the Hounds valued the old town. Their earthen homes were built in similar styles to the old-world buildings, including thatched roofs on a few of them. Some of the hounds were living in old buildings which had been restored, too.
What especially warmed my heart was one home which had a hound-pony couple living in it. This community was fully integrated, and quite happy from the looks of things. It was nice to see a place in the Heartlands which wasn’t, well, awful in some way.
I felt at home here.
“This is town store,” Lobos said as she pointed to a larger building which sat on one side of the town square, next to a oddly shaped half burnt tree. Or at least, it was oddly shaped until I saw somepony had grown it around a building pre-war.
That was a little like the pre-Celestia magics I was thinking about earlier…
“Hounds good at make things from earth. Not only home. Bottle. Jar. Plate. We sell to ponies here. Easily more to sell up there… Lobos must go now. Pegan ponies will want know what to send for next time!” Lobos said as she walked off leaving me before I could say goodbye.
Even so, this was easily the most pleasant delivery I’d made so far. Sire’s Hollow being a close second only because I’d gotten the poop punched out of me on the way into town.
I hummed to myself and turned to look at the town store. It was a nice squat little building with a sign reading “General Goods and Some Unrelated Thing”. That had to be some kind of joke, but I didn’t get it.
Thinking that maybe, if the hellhounds here were in need of six gauge shotgun shells, they might have some 30mm rounds I could buy, I began to walk across the ancient cobbled street towards the store. I was just about to walk inside when the communicator Mare Do Well had given me chirped.
“Hey, Gears? It’s Do Well. Can you do me a favor?” the old ghoul asked in her squeaky voice.
I took an annoyed breath and sighed. “If that wasn’t a pun, yes.”
Do well was silent for several long moments. “So uh… No then?”
I looked up into the sky, searching for her overhead where I knew she almost certainly was. I didn’t see a thing! Then again, blue sky, blue Wonderbolts uniform…
“It was a joke. What do you need?” I asked curiously.
“You know that little grassy hill you passed a while back?” she asked. “You asked the hellhound wearing my old costume why it had windows in it?”
I blinked. “Wait, that was yours?” I asked as I did my best to remember how big she was in person. “How the hay is it not just, like, exploding off her with every step?!”
“No idea. Good job not laughing! Anyways, you remember that house?” she pressed.
I nodded.
“Good!” Do Well said cheerfully.
Ah ha! She could see me. I squinted harder, where was she?
“Left a bit… Up… More up. If you don’t see me now, you can’t from there, sorry,” Do well said as I searched.
I couldn’t see anything. Just blue.
“How do you do that?” I asked slowly. “I don’t have the best eyesight, but—”
“I’m two kilometers up. I’d be the tiniest little dot with non-pegasus vision and I’m wearing blue. I can see you just fine, though. By the way, you’ve got one of Wander’s hairs in your mane.”
I ran a hoof through my mane and sure enough, brushed a single long blue strand of hair out of it.
“I wish mom had built me with pegasus vision…” I grumbled. “Anyways, what do you need?”
“That house belonged to an old friend of mine,” Do Well said casually. “Or maybe belongs? I just saw her walk inside. I hear she’s here quite often as an ambassador for the Hellhounds and the NCR… I think it’s time I said hello to her again. From what I saw, she’s old enough to die any time now. I may not get another chance, you know?”
Huh. Do Well also knew Fluttershy in addition to Wander. I wonder if she used to live here too?
“What should I tell her? That a ghoul with a secret identity says hi?” I asked with a playful smile. “I’ll need your name. I don’t think she’ll do anything unless I can say who wants to talk to her but won't just, you know, come see her in person.”
“Hey, I’d love to just swoop on in, but there’s a team of ponies working on her garden right now,” Do Well said with a genuinely frustrated sigh. “I lost my hat. It got shot off last night and the plasma cooked it to nothing. I’ve got a very distinctive mane, odds are pretty good they could recognize me and decide “hey, let’s shoot her because the world exploded that one time!”. Also, there’s no way Shy won't see me and immediately be all “My Name! Why haven't you visited me! You knew I wasn't a tree anymore! Everypony does!” and I’d be all “hold on, your gardener wants to give me a bullet suppository and he’s not attractive enough for me to be cool with that.” and it would just be really awkward and painful.”
I hummed. “I see… Do you need a hat? I might have picked one up somewhere.”
“If you have one, that would be awesome! Give it to Shy for me… and tell her to meet me at the Crusader’s old treehouse. It’s still there! How cool is that? You’d think the overpressure wave from a balefire bomb would send some planks fillies nailed together scattering like autumn leaves. Nope! Still there. The hellhounds haven't even dug up that tree, which is great because it was the best napping tree ever and it looks like some of the leaves are growing back! I’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
I nodded and turned to walk up the street to the old hill-cottage. “No problem. Oh! Uh, quick question. Did Wander know Applejack? Because she had a bit of a little freak out when she saw her great great great whatever granddaughter in the orchard a while ago—”
“Oh good! You see her too. I thought I was seeing a ghost. An angry ghost. Haunting the world until she found her hat… Which was probably stolen by Calamity, if we’re being honest.”
I shook my head. “Why does everypony seem to blame him for anything that goes missing? He didn’t steal that much in the story!”
“Yeah he was on his best behavior for that whole thing,” Do Well said with such conviction I instantly believed her.
“Oh.”
☢★★◯★★☢
A few minutes of walking brought me to the door of Fluttershy’s cottage. I could tell a lot of work had been done on it recently. Great care had been taken in restoring the wooden boards which framed the doorway, and the gardeners out front were busy not just tending to the plants, but also rebuilding a little white picket fence.
It felt odd to me that ponies would show this much care and kindness to the mother of the megaspell while Do Well feared for her life if she was recognized. I couldn’t help but wonder if her fears were overblown. Or… if not, what in the world had she done?
I reached out and knocked to the door. Once, twice, three times.
“O— OH! Just a minute,” an older mare’s voice called from within.
My eyes widened in shock. Pip said Fluttershy’s voice was soothing. She had not said that it was so soothing and nice, and kind, and loving that it felt like— Like— Like this!
A few moments later the door creaked open and a end-of-middle-age mare peeked at me through the gap.
What the buck, Do Well?! That is not about-to-die-old!
I mean sure, her mane is starting to go gray but—
“Hello,” Fluttershy said with a polite little smile as she opened the door the rest of the way. “Are you from the Korika Tribe? I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to visit just yet. May I have another few days? Flying here was a little more stressful than I thought it would be, my wings are still very sore.”
I shook my head. “Oh, n— no! I’m just a mail mare.”
Fluttershy smiled more. “Oh! Well it’s very nice to get mail again,” her smile slowly collapsed. “It’s a credit card offer, isn’t it?”
My blank stare made her giggle. “Sorry, pre-war joke. Would you like something to drink? I can’t imagine walking all across Equestria not making a nice young mare thirsty.”
I shook my head. “No thanks. I don't need anything.”
“In that case, may I have my mail, please?” Fluttershy asked with a happy little wing flutter.
Genuine sadness overtook me as I realized I didn’t have any envelopes for her. She was just so happy to get to experience this little trapping of civilization again!
I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid it’s a verbal message, Miss Fluttershy. A ghoul pony who claims to have known you would like to meet you at the Crusader’s old tree house as soon as possible.”
Fluttershy gasped, her eyes widening. “I see… Do you know who it is?”
I shook my head. “Technically no? She’s going by the name Mare Do Well, and used to work for the MoA. That’s all I know.”
“Mhm…” Fluttershy said slowly with a knowing expression.
Oh good! She definitely knew her.
“Thank you for telling me,” Fluttershy said with a little grin. “Could you do me a quick little favor? Um, if you have time, with your rounds.”
“I have some time,” I admitted.
“Would you mind walking me to the tree house?” Fluttershy asked with an embarrassed swish of her tail. “I pulled a wing muscle, and so I can’t really fly right now. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I was never very fast. Sweet Apple Acres has been having… well… feral ghoul problems. I don’t think I could run away and, well, I just couldn’t bring myself to hurt a pony, when they’re already hurting so bad.”
She saw ferals as people! I winced and nodded. “Of course I can. Can we go right now? I have a landtrain to catch.”
Fluttershy nodded and offered me a grateful smile. “Thank you. I promise I’ll be quick as I can.”
I moved aside as Fluttershy took a step out of her cottage. As soon as she gingerly closed the ancient door, I turned and began escorting her across town to the old orchard.
And instantly realized why Speed hated escort quests. As lovely a pony as Fluttershy was, she was, so, bucking, slooooow!
☢★★◯★★☢
Half an hour of walking and talking later brought Fluttershy and I to a lone tree at the edge of Sweet Apple Acres. It would have taken less time, even factoring in how slow of a walker Fluttershy was, except she stopped to squee and gush at every single animal or insect we passed while walking.
The worst part of that was I couldn’t be mad. She was just so happy to see life returning to the world, and seeing as how she was indirectly responsible for its destruction… Well, if I was mad at her over that then I’d be an absolute monster.
Also, watching a older mare pet a mutant fieldmouse, coo, call it the prettiest little thing, and clearly seeing the mouse was never once afraid of her… it was both adorable and awe inspiring.
Even the twelfth time she did that was still a little adorable.
I looked up at the tall oak tree before us. It wasn’t even blackened by flames on one side, like every other old tree in town had been. Somehow this tree, the derpy-looking plank ladder nailed into it, and the rickety little treehouse held aloft by the tree’s ancient branches were all perfectly intact. Just dead looking. As if it were winter.
“Thank you for walking me here,” Fluttershy said with a appreciative smile. “I hope I didn’t make you too late by talking to all the little animals…”
She tapped her hooves together awkwardly. I felt my non-existent-heart constrict as the daww nearly killed me!
HOW THE BUCK DID SHE DO THAT?!
What are you?!
“I— It’s fine,” I stammered. “Want me to stay here till Do Well shows up?”
“In the tree house!” Do Well called.
Fluttershy nodded to herself. “I thought so… Excuse me,” she said with an oddly angry twinge to her voice before turning around and climbing up the ladder.
Well. That was that. Time to stop holding up the train.
I turned around and began to walk back to Ponyville.
Fluttershy began to shout at the volume and tone of an angry mom! “RAINBOW DANGER DASH! WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU JUST STOPPING BY NOW?! I KNOW YOU KNEW I WAS ALIVE AND WELL! I THOUGHT YOU'D DIED!”
My eyes widened in terror at the sound of the very angry Fluttershy.
Holy-mother-of-Celestia-how-the-buck-does-a-mare-totally-180-like-that?!
Wait!
WAIT!
RAINBOW DASH?!? WHHHHAAAAAAT?!
Rainbow sighed just loudly enough for me to hear. “Yeah, I was a jerk to ignore you for over a decade, but can you not yell my name so loud Gears definitely herd it?! I’m in disguise for a reason!”
“Why?! Ashamed of what you did? I helped end the world, but I still show my face!” Fluttershy shouted much less loudly.
Wow. Even when livid she was still polite and accommodating.
“Nooooo,” Rainbow intoned loudly. “You gave them the technology to end civilization. You were at the meeting. You know what I did.”
I looked up at the tree. What did you do? Yell it for me to hear, Angryshy! Please?
“They don’t know about that.” Fluttershy said after a moment’s silence.
“And they never will!” Rainbow said firmly. “Fortunately, there's no way to get to it now… the thing is, they know about other things the MoA did. They’d blame me for them… Rightly so. Not everypony will understand what it took to keep our kingdom safe. I was loyal to Equestria, not a Princess, or the people. The kingdom. That… That was the wrong call on my part. Look, Shy, I—”
“I still want to know why you let ponies think you’re d—” Fluttershy stopped mid sentence and gasped. “Wait a minute, you’re the Element of Generosity! You were in the same room as me! I— That’s why you didn’t say anything! You knew I’d recognize your voice.”
I winced. Wow. That was cold of Rainbow… Necessary, but cold.
“How are you even Generosity?” Fluttershy demanded. “If the same pony can be a bearer twice, shouldn’t you have become Loyalty again?”
“I don’t know!” Rainbow objected loudly. “None of us really knew how the Elements worked. Not even Twilight! I’ve spent hundreds of years saving ponies in the waste. Apparently that’s generous, even if you can’t actually die… Then again, it hurts like tartarus every, single, time I come back and I always wish I’d stayed dead that time and spend about five minutes balled up and sobbing after reforming... But, I’m still out there so… I guess it is pretty generous of me.”
“But why didn’t you talk to me?!” Fluttershy demanded, her voice cracking in distress.
I could tell she was trying to stay mad but wanted to give her friend the mother of all hugs. And a blanket. Also some hot chocolate.
“Oh, gee! Why didn’t I, in a room full of other ponies, announce that a mare everypony out there might want to shoot on sight, is alive, and also right, bucking, here?”
“Oh,” Shy said quietly. “What about any other time and place?”
“... I… I wasn’t emotionally ready for it, okay?” Rainbow groaned. “You remember how everypony started to hate each other back then. You were there. You were part of the split…I was worried you still hated me. You were basically frozen in wood for two hundred years. I thought it would still be fre—”
“I was conscious, actually,” Fluttershy said very very quietly.
I almost hadn’t made it out.
“W— What?” Rainbow sputtered.
“I’m not going to talk about it anymore.”
“Oh… Well, buck… That sucks!” Rainbow shouted.
I heard a few hoofsteps and the sound of fabric on fur. That was definitely Fluttershy getting a hug.
Good. She needed one…
I shivered at the thought of being a tree for two centuries. After getting to be a zebra, being anything immobile again would be torture.
“Still. Yeah…” Rainbow said slowly. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”
“... I guess that’s fair,” Fluttershy said quietly. “I forgive you.”
“Thanks,” Rainbow replied quietly.
“Why did you change your mind?”
“Uh…” Rainbow said with an audible worried hiss. “Well… ‘Cuz you’re old and I might not have the chance next week.”
I winced as a loud slap rang out from the tree house above me.
“I AM NOT THAT OLD!”
“Ow!” Rainbow protested. “Sorry! It’s just, you look pretty o—”
A second slap shook the tree.
“OW! When did you get so slap-happy?”
“Oh… Sorry,” Fluttershy apologized. “Velvet has been saying I should be more assertive, and—”
Rainbow inhaled sharply and let out a long, deeply frustrated breath. “Sweet Celestia! We settled this two hundred years ago! More assertive isn’t aggressive, Shy! Also, hi, Gears! If you tell anypony who I am I’ll shoot you with something low caliber!”
I winced at the thought of a bullet zipping out from the blue and stinging me on the rump.
How hard was it to sneak up on Rainbow?! Well, uh, I guess in this case she knew I hadn’t left...
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy gasped. “Don’t you dare! She’s a nice Zebra!”
“She’s a robopony! It would bounce right off,” Rainbow scoffed.
I cleared my throat and called up the treehouse ladder. “It would still hurt though.”
Rainbow poked her head through the trapdoor to look down at me, “Hold the phone, what?! You can feel actual pain? What monster did that to you?”
“Mom did.”
Her mask twisted as her face scrunched up in confusion. “Huh? I thought Wander said you were a robot.”
“I am, but I still have a mom,” I said with a smile. “The pony who makes your body and puts you in it is your mom.”
Rainbow’s face contorted in the most adorable way as she tried to parse my logic and then refute it, but she couldn’t find room to object.
“Mhm!” Fluttershy said in the most adorable tone of voice ever! “She’s absolutely right. Everything alive has a mother. She’s definitely alive, like any bound spirit.”
Wait, she’s spiritually awake and has been treating me like a zebra this whole time?!
Ack! Too… nice… Must, deflect, thought process before… not-heart… attack!
“I uh,” I said as my brain scrambled in search of a topic. “I hate to interrupt, but… Rainbow? Didn’t Gilda kill you?”
Oh, Celestia, why did I ask THAT of all things?!
“Yep,” Rainbow said flatly. “Totally did. Thanks for reminding me. It hurt like buck, then she flew off, I regenerated, and that hurt like buck too. She didn’t know I was a ghoul… that was... classified.”
Fluttershy sighed. “I’m sorry… I was hoping you might have died from age… You look young again. I— I wish I never invented those horrid things!”
I blinked as I tried to parse Fluttershy wishing death on somepony. “Hey, um, without context, that sounds really mean.”
“She means she was hoping that I could age and die like a normal pony,” Rainbow called down to me. “Which I can’t. The regeneration returns me to the prime of my youth… only still crippled.”
“I— I don’t like having doomed a friend to walk the world eternally…” Fluttershy said quietly. “Um, maybe Gears should come up here? It’s a bit awkward… She’s just, down there. We’re up here.”
“Well, she should be getting to her train, actually. So no,” Rainbow said a bit loudly. “Anyways, you didn’t doom me to walk the world.”
Fluttershy stammered for a bit. “W— Well, I mean, not directly! I still invented the healing chamber and the megaspell that turned you into the first ghoul. This is my fault!”
“I fly it!” Rainbow said with an audible grin.
“That is a terrible joke,” Fluttershy said flatly.
I giggled.
Fluttershy poked her head through the trapdoor. “No! Bad zebra! That was terrible! Don’t encourage her!”
My ears drooped and my tail tucked up under my hips as I felt cowed to my core.
“Hey! Shy! Don’t be mean to the poor sexy robot!” Rainbow protested.
“How was I mean?” Fluttershy asked.
“Do… Do you remember how much influence you have over others’ emotions when you’re you?” Rainbow asked awkwardly.
“Oh… Sorry, Gears!” Fluttershy apologised.
“Look, anyways… I’m sorry, for everything.” Rainbow said.
I watched her forelegs hug Fluttershy gently through the opening of the trapdoor.
“I’m sorry too,” Fluttershy agreed, turning ot return the hug.
“Awesome!” Rainbow exclaimed as she let go. “Emotional junk is over. Let’s get lunch!”
“Do you still eat?” Fluttershy asked curiously. “We split before I really had a chance to find out.”
“Yeah. I eat… By chance do you know if your ministry scrapped the pod version of your megaspell?” Rainbow asked hopefully. “I want to examine it. I might have found a cure when I was in Neighpone but I’d need—”
“I’m sorry, but no. We dismantled it so nopony else would be… well… ghoulified.”
“Oh.. Well that’s okay then,” Rainbow replied with surprising sincerity. “Pretty used to this by now. Besides, I don’t get old! I mean, look at you… You’re so—”
“Rainbow. Please stop calling me old. I don’t want to have to slap you again,” Fluttershy begged.
“Sorry…” Rainbow said as she scratched the back of her head with her hoof. “Just… I remember you like, when we met. That’s my mental picture. You know?”
“You mean you remember me as a six year old?” Fluttershy asked, dumbfounded.
“Huh? No! I mean, when we met again in Ponyville.”
A thought occurred to me, one I felt compelled to voice.
“My mom might have records of it. I mean, the pod thing!” I called up the ladder. “She worked on a lot of things.”
“Awesome! We’ll have to talk about that later,” Rainbow said as she peeked through the trapdoor again, offering me a genuine smile. “I’d love to cure the flight nerf but leave the rest, and I think I found a way to do that. But, for now, I’m going to have lunch with an old friend… Head back to your train, and remember, you have no idea who I am!”
I smiled and rolled my eyes. “I won’t… But seriously, if they still like Fluttershy, they’ll still like you! Wait! You were the MoA Ministry Mare!”
Rainbow nodded slowly and looked me straight in the eyes as she deadpanned, “Duh.”
I aimed a Glare Configuration at her for that. “That means you know where a place is! I was talking to Homage and she told me about a place that has a special magical forge that makes armor for you—”
Rainbow’s wings flared. “Oh. Oh crap…” she said as what I could see of her face through her mask turned a distressing shade of pale. “Somepony found the ground facility… I thought going back to maintain the robots would be enough to keep it pony free!”
Ohhh… That was going to make this next part hurt, but she needed to know.
“Yeah, well, the Tainted are using it now,” I said with an apologetic frown
“What?” Rainbow said flatly.
I cleared my throat to begin the explanation. “They have identical armor, they’re not getting it from Los Pegasus, they have Ultra Sentinels that will spit out phrases about defending a place called Star Drop HQ, and—”
“SHIT!” Rainbow yelped loud enough to make her voice crack. “Shy! Lunch downgraded to tea! I have to go confirm that, because if that's true then there's a tiny tiny tiny chance they might have access to the very very very bad thing of badness. You know the one! I ripped the controls out but—”
“Would that be the Rainbow Relay?” I asked with a wince.
Please don’t get more mad.
Rainbow took a deep breath. “I put four bricks of c4 on the bucking power plant alone… If you tell me that—”
“Huh!” I exclaimed as an ancient puzzle piece fall into place. “So that’s why mom made a block of C4 just to punch it while screaming she hated its sisters.”
“Please tell me it’s not working…” Rainbow whimpered.
“It’s working,” I said as Rainbow groaned. “The Tainted used it to beam troops into Fillydelphia.”
“I— But… Who the hell is your mom and how can she fix blowing a complex system’s critical parts to tartarus?!” Rainbow demanded. “That’s just not bucking fair!”
“She was an MAS researcher who worked on a lot of different projects, and also we saved lots of files from hubs in the first few months of the collapse. It’s possible she had the blueprints for the individual parts of the Relay, if not all of it.”
Rainbow took another deep breath then facehooved. “Yeah, I’m gonna need a name.”
“Oh, Black Swan.” I answered.
“Oh…” Rainbow said as all the confusion melted out of her. “Buck. Yeah… She worked on the Relay… I kind of remember her. How’s she still around?”
“Cybernetics,” I answered.
“Um, wasn’t she that filly Twilight was livid about?” Fluttershy asked. “I remember she called me to ask how she should handle her second in command… Something about him abusing her? I um… I hope it was work abuse and not—”
“It was constant mind wipes without any regard for her safety or health. Also, slavery. He broke her brain.” I said loudly to make sure Shy didn’t have to think about rape on top of everything else she must be dealing with today... and in general.
Rainbow sighed and rocked back out of view of the trapdoor for a moment. “I didn’t know about that. All I know is that Swan’s work was basically magic. Okay. Well, the good news is that even if the relay is working, they still won’t have the access codes to get to the thing. Everyone aside from me who knew them is long dead. But! This does confirm some of my own suspicions… So yeah… Gotta go scout that… Shy? Do you have tea? I need, like, all of the cider, but good apples are extinct, so, you know. Tea.”
“I have tea, and would love to catch up, “ Fluttershy said with a polite little nod. “If you can talk about anything aside from what sounds like a bunch of raiders getting ahold of your big prototype teleporter, that is.”
“Let’s hope that’s all they are, and all they got.” Rainbow suddenly pointed to me seemingly threateningly. “You! We will be in touch. I’ll want to talk about your mom. If she could fix the Relay, she can probably also slice her way past security and use it to get to a place that nopony can ever, ever, ever get too! Celestia, why didn’t I put a self destruct on it?”
“Okay. I’ll keep an ear out for my pin.” I promised.
“Oh, nononono! This will be in pony,” Rainbow promised. “You should get going, your train is ready to go.”
I eeped, having totally forgotten about the train. Watching Rainbow and Shy reunite after all this time had just been so nice!
“Thanks! See you later. Goodbye Fluttershy, I’m glad you’re not a tree because you’re super nice!”
“Thank you, and goodbye,” Fluttershy called from the treehouse.
“See ya, se— Uh, zeeb!” Rainbow called with an odd verbal quaver.
As I ran back towards the train, I swore I heard Fluttershy giggle.
☢★★◯★★☢
I made it back to the landtrain in five minutes. I was on the bus-car before I knew it, verbally apologizing to everypony as I walked past them to take my seat.
“What’s eating her?” somepony asked.
“Guess she didn’t know we just finished loading up,” Vantapink laughed. “You’re fine, Machina.”
“Oh…” I said to myself as I slipped into my seat next to Wander.
Wander immediately grabbed me and pulled me close to her and pointed to Speed over her shoulder. “She is scary.”
“We already knew this,” I said as soothingly as I could.
“You don’t get it… Speed! Show her the thing!”
Speed slid over the seat to hang over me in such a way as to give me a good angle of her pipbuck screen. “Sure!”
Wander turned to look me in the eyes. “You’re about to see her win the bloodiest battle of the war, right after Shattered Hoof, in twenty minutes, without flying!”
I blinked. “What? Without flying?”
Speed squirmed a little. “W— Well I mean, all my runs are without me flying.”
Wander nodded. “Yes. They are. Apparently, she’s so good she thinks that would be cheating, or something.”
Speed squirmed more and bit her lip. “Uh… A— Actually… I just um…” she stopped for a moment to scratch the back of her head. “Don’t know how… Heh.”
Wander and I shared a look for a moment before tipping out heads back to look up at her. “WHAT?!” We asked in unison.
“I um… There wasn’t room in the pod for my wings to stretch out… So I couldn’t learn to fly in there… So I didn’t learn how. Yeah…” Speed said with an awkward flutter of her wings. “Can we watch the thing and not talk about that please?”
“Sure!” I said with a nod and a smile, hoping to not embarrass her any more. “Lets see how good you are at war.”
☢★★◯★★☢
Twenty minutes later and I was sitting next to Wander with the same shell shocked look on my face as her.
“Damn…” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” Wander agreed.
I slowly turned to look at her. “Sooo uh… D— Did you also think that was kind of… Sexy? You know, that bit where she redirected the cannon barrel by clamping her hind legs around it and swinging from the barrel?”
Wander nodded and blushed. “Yeah…”
“Then I vote we cuddle the Warrior Princess so she doesn't get mad at us. Like, ever,” I proposed.
Speed rolled her eyes. “Oh, for buck’s sake! I get it. It looks terrifying. You’d be just as good at it if you did it a few hundred thousand times and got bored so you started messing around to improve your times t— Wait? Did you say cuddle? I mean, uh, yeah! Appease me!”
Wander shook her head and smiled. “We might as well make her our third, or we’ll never get to be romantic thank to her hearing range… Why don’t you squeeze in between us Speed? It’s a long road.”
“But I wanna lean on your shoulder,” I said with my best pouting expression on full display.
Wander scooted over, wedging me between her and the side of the passenger car. “In that case, dibs on the sandwich filling! Speed, over here!”
“Um, actually, I’d rather have my own seat… But as soon as a whole bunch of strangers aren't looking… and listening, sure! I’ve been wondering if reality is better than simulation for a while now anyways.”
With that decided, I plopped my head down on Wander’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and sighed happily as the train began to rumble its way into the distance.