“— and that’s about everything I can think of,” I said to Nika as I stepped around a skeleton lying in the road.
I’ll never understand ponies. It’s been two hundred and fourteen years. You use this road. Move the bones! Mr. Skeleton wouldn’t want to be buried in air atop pavement with a dust coffin anyways!
Nika chuckled and circled around, briefly meeting my eyes as he flew in front of me. “I am certain it is, my friend! Ei, I feel like I asked you for job training.”
I assumed Nika felt uncomfortable on the ground, because he kept circling us about five meters out and twelve meters up. His little spite-bot, Nurse, followed along behind him as best it could… which wasn’t well at all, judging by her getting lapped over and over again and letting out the occasional frustrated beep.
I liked Nurse. You could tell she’d been a normal sprite bot at one point, but no more! Now she was a labor of love, covered in little mechanical arms tipped with medical equipment, and a pair of nacelle protrusions made from the guts of several magical energy pistols to create something like a pair of shotguns, only with energy instead of lead.
She even had a nice, fresh white paint job with an MoK emblem painted on her sensor grill to mark her as a medical bot. Adorable!
Nurse was best sprite bot... until I got mom to make me one with a 80mm mortar mounted to the bottom as a linear cannon.
Vinyl smirked behind her visor and tracked Nika as he arced around her. “You did ask a machine spirit told to be a mailmare about her job. What did you expect?”
“Eh, the usual few cherries skimmed off the top of the cesspool,” Nika replied almost immediately. “I’ve never spoken to any kind of spirit at length before. I… Can’t exactly use, well, what you would call “Griffon magic”.”
What the hay did that talon squeezy gesture Nika just made mean?
My ears perked up. I knew nothing of griffon magic! “OH! What magic do they have?”
“Hey!” Speed protested. “It was my turn to ask a question.”
My ears drooped. She was right. I never knew that social dynamics got harder as you add members to a group. “Sorry,” I said, tucking my tail.
Speed trotted over to me and gave my shoulder a gentle nudge with her pauldron.
“It’s okay! I’d like to know the same thing,” Speed admitted with a giggle.
I imagined she was smiling behind that helmet. The silly mare refused to believe me when I told her the spirts in it were not person-level, not even collectively. Either whatever programming it its virtual assistant worked by was cleverly scripted and flexible enough to be extremely person-like (Nearly impossible for a computer that could fit into power armor of any kind.), or Speed was too in love with the idea of having armor for a marefriend to accept reality.
Nika looped around again. “Eh, long story short, we listen to the collective voices of spirits living within the land. We help them, they help us. Nothing as fancy as the zebras, no potions or enchanting. It’s more primal than that.” He paused for several loops, clearly thinking of the right way to explain more. “It is just like they are a part of the flock. The spirits of a forest whisper of beatles overwhelming ancient groves, we stop the beetles, suddenly our hunters have an easier time finding prey in the forest. We hear the spirits of the mountain are angry at miners stripping land scared to them, we kill the miners, return all the ore we can find, and our homes will not be caught in the worst of the mountain’s storms that winter.”
“No active manipulation at all?” Vinyl asked curiously as she walked around a large boulder laying atop the blacktop.
…
How did that get there?
“Nyet,” Nika repplied, then frowned enough for his face to visibly move behind his mask. “Well… There are the volkhv. But they do not… The volkhv have made friends with many spirits, or even a Great Spirit. They don’t do anything other than ask a friend for help, and the answer isn’t always yes. But a good volkhv could go talon to hoof with a unicorn any day! Eh, well, maybe. Depends on their friends. Also, unicorns always outnumbered them… A griffon must be able to hear spirits already to become one, few try. It requires… sacrifice. Family is important, and the volkhv must live alone. Caroche… Is complicated. For most every griffon, you have the one family member who knows what they say, maybe two, and you simply be a good neighbor.”
“Is there any more to it than trying to be a good neighbor to your land’s spirits?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
It was certainly an intriguing notion. Zebras didn’t summon us to seek harmony, they sought business. Business which favored them. Not that I or any other spirit I knew of had ever truly minded being given gemstones in exchange for services… though it would have been nice to have a more even arrangement.
Nika shook his head as he looped past me. “No more. We’ve tried to more actively harness magic. Some griffons, eh, very very few, once learned to make enchanted items as ponies did, and fewer still managed to learn a teeny bit of unicorn magic, but now? Such things need colleges, skilled teachers, entire libraries of knowledge, and just the right griffon to learn from these things. The Great Spirits meant for us to work with the land. They wanted us to be challenged. To be strong.”
Vinyl nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what I was wondering about. I could have sworn I knew a Griffon who could cast light spells.”
“Da! It’s possible! But that is not our magic… It’s borrowing some mayonnaise from a neighbor,” Nika commented. “So, Machina, I take it machine spirits care for little aside from what your body is built to do?”
I nodded. I had been thinking of a way to try to explain this to Vinyl properly and was happy Nika gave me the perfect chance. “Mhm! I was built to be a person, so that’s what I do. However, as a person, I must still have a primary function, well... a secondary function technically. Wa— er, Vinyl is a bard. Speed is a soldier. You are a doctor. People have primary functions too, just like machines! Two hundred years ago, I was asked if I could deliver a note. It was the first thing I was asked to do for my community, so I did it. I liked it, and asked if I could make delivering messages my secondary function. Perhaps it’s a little silly to latch onto the first thing you find as a job, but…”
I paused and bit my lip in though then smiled. “Oh! That’s a good way to put it. I’m not exactly the same as an organic person. I don’t have the same need to overcomplicate things. I like delivering mail, so I deliver mail. I do not get bored with things I like, so I will keep delivering mail until there is no more mail. Then I will find something else to do. Most likely take charge of mom’s library.”
“I feel like you and Nurse would get along well if she could speak,” Nika chuckled behind me. “That said, it also sounds like you could make wrestling bears your new thing.”
I paused for a moment and tapped my hoof to my chin in thought. “Maybe? It is definitely always exciting.”
“Why do you keep flying around us, Nika?” Vinyl asked, her head turning to track our friendly not-griffon.
“Somegriff needs to keep look out. I can see three versta further than you from up here,” he replied casually.
I blinked. Of course. That made perfect sense. Your horizon line obviously increases distance with altitude, but... “Versta? How far is that?”
I heard the sound of a cybernetic talon smacking against a gasmask. “Blin! I keep forgetting you ponies use that bizzare system. Eh, I can see a bit more than three kilomares further?”
“It’s kilometers, actually,” Speed corrected.
Nika stopped circling with a nearly-flawless imitation of a surprised griffon squawk. “Itak? Something you ponies didn’t turn into a pun?”
“What do you mean?” Vinyl asked, stopping to look up at the hovering Nika.
“What do I mean? What do you mean, what do I mean?” Nika asked, his voice wavering.
Vinyl frowned. “I mean I don't see why you think we’d use a pun as a unit of measure.”
Speed nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that would just be silly!”
Nika held up a talon and began to speak, holding up another talon with each word, keeping a visible count for their sakes. “Canterlot, Trottingham, Ponyville, gesundhoof, mare-trimony, trot of life, Con Mane, Fili-Second, Bridleway, Fillydelphia.”
Vinyl snorted again. “Of course there’s going to be some puns in place names, expressions, and pony’s names. Ponies like humor.”
Nika reached up and lowered his tracksuit’s hood, revealing a little black fur cap with flaps that covered the sides of his head, white fur ear-pockets on the top, and a small brass badge pinned to the front with eight sickles in the shape of a wheel. His hat looked super cozy. Definitely made for snowy areas. I wanted one for my routes back home.
With his hood lowered, Nika, still hovering, calmly took off his sunglasses to stare directly into Vinyl’s eyes, extended a talon in her direction, and shouted, “Your language is twenty percent puns!”
Vinyl snorted and waved a hoof. “No it’s not!”
“Isn’t that a winter hat?” Speed asked curiously.
I hummed, rested a hoof on my chin and ran a quick calculation based on my stored dictionaries and slang list. Comparing all words to equine related terms took a shocking amount of processing power, but...
“Vinyl’s correct,” I said with a decisive nod.
“See?” Vinyl said with a smug grin.
“Equish is twenty-three point eighty-nine percent puns, not twenty percent,” I said with a little nod.
Vinyl turned to shoot me the weirdest look. I had no idea what it meant.
“How are you not melting?” Speed asked, giving Nika a suspicious glare.
“Flesh and bone do not liquify with temperatures,” Nika grunted while still giving Vinyl an accusatory stare. “Well?!”
“Well what?” Vinyl shot back.
“Why didn’t you ponies seize the obvious o-pun-tunity?” Nika demanded.
Vinyl winced. “Ow… That was bad… You just, you don’t pun units of measure. Everypony knows that.”
Nika’s eyes narrowed. “Filly-second.”
Vinyl took a deep breath. “Okay… about to lose cool points, but Filly-second is the name of a fictional character who was a member of the Power Ponies, not a unit of measure. Well, unless you count badflankatude as a quantifiable metric.”
Nika sighed and put his sunglasses back on. “Fine… Fine… Tak? Whose question is it?”
“Yours,” I said.
Actually it was mine, but I was perfectly happy listening to my companions and watching Nika fly.
“He just asked why we didn’t punify kilometers,” Vinyl protested as she resumed walking down the road.
“Yeah, but that’s just asking for clarification, and we haven't been counting those questions so far,” Speed pointed out.
I nodded and dipped my head towards Speed. “What she said.”
“Mmm, I guess that’s true,” Vinyl admitted with a sigh. “I just really want to know why you’re wearing one of those silly griffon hats under your hood!”
“Is called ushanka,” Nika said as he twisted mid air to resume flying in circles. “It was my sister’s. It comes off for two things. This isn’t one of them.”
“What are they?” I asked with genuine interest.
Vinyl facehooved and moaned into her frog. “Hon, it should be obvious.”
“Da! Can’t wash it or sew it back up while it is on my head,” Nika confirmed with a sage nod.
Vinyl triple blinked for some reason. “Huh!”
I blushed and shuffled my hooves. “You’re right. They are very obvious. I should have realised that.”
“Wait, hold the quill!” Vinyl said, raising a hoof. “It has ear covers. You had other pony siblings? How common are pony adoptions?”
That was a good question! My ears perked up as I began to listen a bit more intently.
Nika sighed, then shook his head, muttered to himself while counting on his talons, then grinned at Vinyl. “Okay, I’ll answer, but then I get two questions.”
“That’s fair,” Speed remarked as she kicked a rusting auto wagon out of her way.
The rusted out hulk moved a full two meters from her little kick… I shivered slightly. That armor should probably not be in her hooves.
“Shtosh! Then let us begin the tale,” Nika cleared his throat and waited ‘til he was in front of us to start talking again. “I don’t know the pony calendar, so the year will be as we keep count. The year... was nineteen-eighty-huioviy!”
Vinyl blinked. “Wait, that’s a swear word. I don’t know which one but that’s clearly a swear. Why and how can a year be a swear?”
Nika snorted and waved a talon dismissively. “Because the year was total pizdets for everygrif, Wavinyl.”
“That’s not my name,” Vinyl swiftly correct. “Gears is just—”
“Shush. Nickname applied successfully,” Nika interrupted back. “SO! I was fourteen years old and the winter? She was cold. Icy cold. So cold if you didn’t wipe after each pee you’d get frostbite even though you were using a chamberpot indoors.
“My sister, Lexa, she was older than me, but very very sick. Our family had gone to to Mosscrow get her medicine. They had to all go. The storm outside was too dangerous for anything smaller than a whole flock to fly through it. I’d started my training as a doctor, so I was to stay behind and tend to poor Lexa. She was a hunter, and so she would sometimes eat raw prey if a fire might scare away the family’s food. Unfortunately, the winter was cold, and prey was very scarce. She ate a sickly creature, and was unlucky enough to swallow a few parasites with her dinner.”
I shivered at the thought of being infested with another organism. I’d seen a few ponies suffering from that fate over the centuries… It wasn’t something that could ever really happen to me, but it was just so… horrible!
“She needed a dewormer?” Vinyl asked with an empathetic wince. “I… Needed one that time I tried a griffon dish back in the day. That was the worst three weeks of my life. Well, before obvious things.”
Nika shook his head. “Nyet. Eh… She didn’t have anything that existed before balefire made them. They were not… eh, worms. You don’t have a word for them. You don’t want to need a word for them.”
Everyone stopped to wince. I swear I even felt Jasmine wince deep in the back of my mind.
“It was not the first time she’d been infested by something,” Nika continued as he paused in his circling to hover a few meters off the ground in front of us. “What was new for her, was being forced to lay still for a whole month. It was part of the treatment. She was a strong hen. We didn’t think there would be complications for her laying still for so long, but… a little blood clot formed in her leg, detached, and migrated into her lung. Pulmonary edema. Usually kills in hours, but, Lexa, she was strong. She lasted three days before we realized the storm would not break and we would need to get her a drug to break up the clot before she finished drowning in her own blood.”
Nika’s wings skipped a beat and he dropped out of the air, landing on his rear legs, but managing to gracefully come to a squat as if by reflex. “The night was… very cold. Ice came into the house to say hello. It was a poor house guest. Froze all the kvass! I moved Lexa to the hearth, she hurt too much to move on her own, and if we stayed in her room, we would freeze to death.”
I’d experienced plenty of those kinds of winters myself. Even if I didn’t feel the cold in the same way as other zebras, it still sucked the life out of me below a certain point. Sometimes it got cold enough to do that. Whenever that happened, ponies tended to have body parts freeze solid and come off. That meant a busy month for Mom.
“I thought I could stoke the fire, keep us warm all night,” Nika rocked back on his hooves slightly, clearly not wanting to remember his sister’s illness in detail. “My father… he made a mistake. He said he restocked the firewood before leaving. He had not. I was too small to cut more wood, and even if I were not, it was too cold outside. I would have died in minutes. All Lexa and I had were the coals of the morning’s fire. I knew she was the weaker of the two of us, so I bundled her in the only blanket we had left, eh, the family took them for the journey, so I curled up behind her to keep her back warm, tucked my wings around her, and let myself freeze. If I’d moved, she’d have died. She was a hunter, I was still a chick. She had more to contribute than I… At the time.”
Vinyl shivered. “That… that’s terrible. I’m sorry you went through that… So, she gave you her hat to help you keep warm while you two huddled by the coals?”
Nika nodded, closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. “Da… I woke up the next morning with her hat on my head, under her blanket, with the barely warm coals wrapped up in a towel under me. Lexa was laying on the floor a ways away from me. She had her sewing things in her talons. She had noticed what I was doing, and even though she had a pounding headache and was leaking blood from eh, places, she’d sewn rabbit fur ear pockets to her hat so I wouldn’t lose my ears to the cold. She didn’t need too. I can wear griffon hats. It just hurts my ears to have them folded. She remembered that. Lexa… She did not wake up after that night. So, I keep hat.”
Executing hug-the-griffpone.exe!
I zipped over to Nika, wrapped my forlegs around him, and hugged him close. “I’m so sorry! I lost my dad… I know what that’s life.”
“More like "severely misplaced".” Imaginary dad corrected.
Sush, coping mechanism!
“No respect…”
Nika hugged me back, and I saw the corners of his mouth wrinkle as he smiled behind his gasmask. “Is okay. They didn’t have the medicine she needed in Mosscrow. Lexa was a dead hen. She knew that. She made sure I would live.”
I let go and cleared my throat. “We need to keep moving. But I’m glad you shared that story with us.”
“I am too,” Vinyl said as she begna trotting down the road again. “The whole point of the question game is to get to know each other. That said a lot about you.”
“What’s the symbol on the hat mean?” Speed asked with a tilt of her helmeted head. “Was that her cutie mark?”
Nika laughed as he took to the air again. “Nyet! Griffons do not get cutie marks.”
“Oh! Right… Heh, sorry,” Speed said with a sheepish giggle. “Then what is it?”
“The Kolovrat,” Nika said. “It is the symbol of the spirit of the sun. Wearing it is said to bring warmth and joy to life at every dawn.”
Vinyl blinked and tilted her head back. “Wait, the Griffons worshiped Celestia?”
Nika laughed and shook his head before starting to circle us again. “Da, your Princess moved the sun. But she was not the sun, or it’s spirit. Perhaps his daughter, or sister, or even just a good friend, but not him.”
Nika suddenly reversed his circle to playfully glare at the three of us. “Nu shto! That was three questions! I get three now. So! Eh… What was the headquarters like? I spent years near it, watching ponies die trying to get in. Makes a drake curious.”
“Oh, you‘re a dragon too?” Vinyl asked with a smirk.
Nika snorted. “It’s about as grand as your males calling themselves stallions. I’ve been to a horse’s home once. You ponies are no stallions, if you know what I mean. Also, make it four questions.”
I frowned. I did not know what he meant. What did he mean? Why was this bothering me?
Vinyl giggled. “Fair enough!” she paused for a moment then smiled. “It was wonderful. I’ve never felt so alive before. Not even when I was properly alive and on ecstasy. Honestly, I’m surprised I could willingly leave.”
“Makes sense,” Nika said with a nod before resuming his circles. “I wouldn’t want to leave a magical place where the air was potato juice.”
I frowned and looked up to ask what in the world that was, and if literal, why one would juice a potato, when Speed whispered “He means vodka.”
“Thanks!” I whispered back.
Silly griffpone nicknames for things… Just use proper names!
Wait, griffpone… Searching… Pun levels now 23.9%.
“I liked the atmosphere, too,” Vinyl admitted with a flick of her tail and an embarrassed little hoof skip. “Call me weird, but over the years… I started to find the Wasteland beautiful. In its own way. That old base reminded me of how things looked pre-Gardens. Especially the moss! The way it glowed…”
Vinyl made a happy sound and sighed wistfully. “I wish I’d had a camera.”
“I liked how it synthesized magical radiation for food,” I added with a smile. “It was neat to see such an alien ecosystem up close!”
Nika dropped from the sky and landed in front of us, again dropping into a squat. “Moss? Eh, you mean little clumpy flowerless plants that grow in patches and cover everything?”
I nodded. “Yes, we call that moss. What’s the griffon word for it?”
“Lishainik,” Nika answered before turning to look at his sprite. “Blyat! Nurse! Fill a spray bottle with saline solution, add one ounce iron oxide, one ounce potassium salts, and one ounce hydrogen peroxide. My other questions will have to wait.”
The sprite chirped and began to move, using its many arms to remove small items from the storage bag attached to its back.
I blinked and tried to process the list of chemicals. It was clear Nika wanted to wash either himself or us… But why with something that harsh?
“Um, do we have time for this?” Speed asked, her head inclining slightly. “It took us long enough to find a crossing for the river since the bridge was out. We are on a time sensitive mission, aren't we?”
Nika nodded firmly. “We have time for this! There's no point in warning a city of an attack if you bring a plague with you.”
“He’s got a point, Speed,” Vinyl said, stopping in her tracks.
“I suppose…” Speed muttered. “We care if they live, apparently.”
“It’s just moss though?” I asked with a tilt of my head. “I don’t think either of us touched it. And… It’s just moss! Moss is everywhere.”
“Nyet,” Nika exclaimed, holding up a talon with a shake of his head. “You said the moss eats radiation. We are heading to a ghoul town, dura! Moss reproduces with spores, you, and now Speed and I too, are definitely covered in millions of the moss’ spores. If we go to that town, we’ll cover everywhere we go in moss which will eat the ghoul’s food supply. Worse, I’ve seen other forms of moss take root in ghoul-flesh before! The moss eats radiation, it will kill the ghoul it infests slowly, starving them like tapeworms. Which reminds me, our glowing friend is a ghoul, and she didn't have that suit on before she went in. ”
Vinyl eeped and began to immediately remove her new suit. “Thank bucking Faust I am super-charged right now! We don’t have to shave fur off to make sure we get all of it, do we?”
Nika shook his head. “Nyet. That is what peroxide and brushes are for. I refuse to allow any of you to go another step before we... How you say? Ah! Before we decontaminate everyone and everything we are carrying so we do not create an epidemic a few months from now.” Nika paused for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, eh, and Vinyl takes an antifungal treatment, will be good enough. Eh, you two need to strip also. No hetero.”
Vinyl snickered, in spite of the terrified stance her half-undressed body was in. “Okay, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard the reverse of that joke.”
Nika slipped his gasmask off to flash Vinyl and I a smile. “You two are a couple, I thought you might appreciate it. It’s nice to share humor about such things freely…”
“I don’t get it,” I said as I unbuckled my saddle bags and began to slip out of my broken armor.
I took a moment to inspect the damage the falling rocks and shrapnel had done to the old MAS security armor. The plate which protected my back had split into three separate pieces. Cracks, chips, and pockmarks dotted the sides and barrel. This thing was useless now. Far too little structural integrity remaned for me to trust with my life.
I set it aside so I could put it in my bags after I was finished cleaning. It would make a nice keepsake. Something to remember this trip by.
“I probably should have gotten armor from the headquarters,” I remarked as I sat down to wait for further instructions.
Nika nodded. “Da… Do you have anything else to wear? Ponies here look at you weird if you don’t dress. Strangest thing…” He shook his head, and I followed along in agreement.
The Heartlands have the weirdest traditions...
I thought back to see if I had picked up anything. Oh yeah! That leather outfit I found in the shop I got the ducktape from two weeks back.
I nodded. “Mhm! It’s leather, so it should offer a little protection too.”
“Good,” Nika remarked as he looked over to Speed. “Eh… Speed? I remember you got hugs from your friends. You need to wash too. Do you understand?”
Speed nodded. “Yes. I’ll do it part by part.”
Nika cleared his throat and trotted over to Vinyl, Nurse floating along behind him with the spray bottle. He cleared his throat, waited for Vinyl to finish stripping off her suit, then took a deep breath, turned a little pink, then squeaked out, “This-is-strictkly-not-sexual,-or-infantalizing.-I-need-to-wash-you-to-be-entirly-certain-a-full-decontamination-has-been-preformed.”
Vinyl and I blinked a few times. I put a hoof over my mouth to hold in a giggle. Vinyl stared back at him for a few moments then asked. “Uh… Soooo, you’ve never touched a mare before, have you?”
Nika shuddered. “No. I have. A lot. I do not like gynecology and everything needs to be washed!” He gulped, held up a talon and then added. “Also, you’re a ghoul. A good looking ghoul, but still a ghoul. I— Uh… No offense but—”
“Everything about her looks normal to me,” I reported for Nika’s sake.
His ears drooped back. “Pochemu tak poluchayetsya chto ya vsegda puteshestvuyu s kobylami?” He groaned.
Vinyl tilted her head and flicked her tail. “Uh… That was griffon just now.”
Nika nodded. “Da. So, let’s get you girls cleaned.”
Speed stepped forward and took off her helmet to shake her head. “No so fast mister! You got to watch us strip, so we get to watch you! Besides, you need to clean things too.”
“Eh, fair,” Nika admitted as he ran his talons through his hat’s fur like a mane then nodded to Vinyl and I. “But why would they want to watch me? They’re gay.”
“I’m bi, actually,” I replied with a polite smile.
Vinyl blinked, her ears perked up as she stared into my very soul with pride. “You learned the concept! Good for you!”
“I did?” I frowned and then two hundred years of me being a complete and total idiot hit me in the face like a moving wagon loaded with bricks. “Oh wow… WOW! Bucking… Okay, so, I must have absorbed more of Jasmine’s memories than I realized… Wow. I was so bucking dumb. I… Wow…”
Time to stare into the ground and blush intensely now… Diverting 2% core power to blush… Inadequate. 3%. Yes. Appropriate.
“As for me… If you’re girly looking enough under that tracksuit I might like it a bit,” Vinyl said with a snicker.
“Orientations are silly because all my friends are always attractive,” Speed finished cheerfully.
“Oh… good…” Nika squeaked. “Nu… So, um…”
Nika slowly, timidly, bashfully reached up to his tracksuit’s zipper and took off his jacket. I couldn’t help but notice the inside was lined with dozens of pill bottles, syringes, and little bundles of herbs, all held in place by little improvised pockets.
Was the track suit like, a griffon doctor’s uniform, or had he done that himse—
Nika shrugged his way out of his clothes, completely blocking out the rest of my thoughts with pure dawww! He was fairly slender, a bit under developed, as most wasteland ponies were, but he’d managed to get a nice athletic tone… and develop the cutest bubble plot ever!
In terms of the handsome-cute spectrum, Nika was a solid ten on the cute side. I knew his mane was pink with a blue streak, but without his jacket I could see he left it long, unlike most stallions. The same went for his tail. Everything was just, totally cute! He looked like the stallions I saw in old yearbooks in mom’s library, the kind you’d find in the fencing club, or model making clubs. Not really a jock, but, just, gorgeous and fit!
Or maybe the track team… He did have some very nice abs… And those legs! Yes.
I loved those cyber-talons. He’d made sure they joined him at his shoulders in a way which didn’t add any bulk or break up his body lines. Aside from being made of metal, they looked natural.
I couldn’t help but blush. “Awww! You’re so cute! Why cover up everything?” I asked Nika while doing my best to not just hug.
Which was very, very, very hard. He had the extra floofy pega-floof chest! So soft… Must not nuzzle!
Unless he says okay. Heh heh!
“Cuz mares stare…” Nika mumbled quietly as he stared down at the ground for a moment. “And stallions yell blank flank… vmesto togo, chtoby prosto smotret' na moyu zadnitsu.”
I blinked and looked towards his hindquarters again. I hadn’t noticed the first time (due to ab and floof reasons) but indeed, his creamy white flanks were... blank.
The griffonese must have been a complaint about his lack of talent. Poor griffpone!
“Yeah, I was about to ask why you don't have a mark yet, you’re well into adulthood,” Vinyl said casually, clearly doing her best to make it not sound accusatory.
“Griffons don’t get cutiemarks. I felt the Great Spirit reach out to give me mine and I said, “Ei! I’m a griffon, padla!” and she said, “So you are. My mistake, little one.” Only other time I ever heard a spirit speak,” Nika answered with a tiny but proud smile. “Now… Let’s practice medicine.”
Speed frowned, her eask twitching oddly.
“I think you mean hygiene?” Speed asked shyly.
Nika sighed. “Old sayings don’t translate well do they?”
☢★★◯★★☢
It would seem that a proper bath for three ponies takes quite some time. At least, when you’re washing with a spray bottle. I half wondered if we should take the road back a ways to use the river to save time… But the math simply didn’t add up.
I wound up having to help Nika wash Vinyl. He got her front done, then said he was getting too queasy from radiation. Made sense to me, she was still all cute-glowy. I didn’t mind helping, and it was very cute to know that brushing Vinyl’s cutiemark made her super ticklish!
Also when she got ticklish she kicked. My nose still hurt a little. Vinyl was still a bit mortified that she kicked me in the nose, too.
But that was in the past! Now was the time to get moving again. I could accept the need to stop mid-delivery to correct a problem like “potentially cause a dangerous outbreak without a bath”, but we had mail to pick up and news to deliver! I just needed to get dressed.
I had two choices. My courior’s robes, or the leather outfit. Obviously, I couldn’t launder my robes out here, and they needed to be clean and presentable for the meeting with the Herd’s leaders. Which meant I didn’t really have any choice, since Heartland ponies insisted on casual clothes wearing.
I’ll never understand that…
I shook my head and grinned at the silly cultural tradition and opened my saddlebags to start looking through them. Fortunately the anti-theft charms meant nothing inside would have gotten covered in spores. Poor Vinyl and Speed had to clean their entire kits! Luckily I could use that time to get dressed in this unfamiliar, and complicated outfit!
First the body glove.
The skintight pink garment slipped on easily enough. I’d never worn anything that covered my forelegs, barrel, and belly but not my hindquarters before. It felt... odd. Why not finish the jumpsuit? Of course the outfit did have a skit… Material conservation, perhaps?
Next were the socks. I liked the purple, it complemented the pink and contrasted the black leather nicely. The pleated skirt buckled on, and as I put it on I discovered it had some very well hidden utility pouches. Awesome!
With the skirt on, the vest was easy enough, though why it wasn’t a jacket I had no idea. The thing barely covered my shoulders and barrel… If I had pega-floof and took off the body glove, it would have let all the floof poof out, maybe even enhanced it…
Which made me wonder if I could get Nika to try it on, since we were about the same size, while I slipped on the boots. I like how the boots came up to my thighs and mid-upper forelegs. It would ensure my legs didn't’ get dirty in deep mud. I needed to get an armored pair of these sometime, or perhaps modify these ones later.
Now… the straps. So many straps and buckles! Focus Gears, you can figure this out…
Much to my pride, after just five and a half minutes I figured out how the fake-tactical harness went on and got everything buckled into place. The weird thing was, now that I was wearing it the loops and ring connections on the harness, combined with the way the straps fit around me, made me feel like I was meant to hang from the harness instead of hang things from it.
Fashion designers… So silly! How can you get something like tactical webbing actually backwards?
“Okay! I’m dressed and ready to go,” I called to everyone.
Vinyl nodded and continued scrubbing out the inside of her bag. “Good, almost done.”
Speed didn’t reply, she was too busy reloading some shot shells.
Nika looked over at me, his eyes widened as a grin split his muzzle, then he clasped a hoof over his mouth to hold in a laugh. “Pfff! Hahahaha! That’s great! I love your jokes.”
I frowned, my ears drooping a little. “What joke? It’s this or my couriers robes, and I can't get those dirty.”
Nika’s tail stood up straight as he snorted. “Y— You don’t know what that is, do you?”
“A leather outfit?” I said raising an eyebrow. “Oh! It was in a shop I found, is this some kind of costume? I didn’t get to read many different works of fiction with pictures, so—”
Vinyl finally looked up. Her cheeks flushed a much brighter green. “Uhhhhhh! SOOOOO… Hon? I’m glad you own that. You shouldn’t wear that in public, though…”
My tail swished uncertainty. “Do… Do I look bad in it or something?” I asked while looking down at my forelegs. “I think I look nice in—”
Vinyl shook her head. “Hon, you look great. It’s just that’s a bondage outfit. It’s for sex.”
I felt my core warm slightly. “OH!” I giggled at the myriad possibilities. “Sooo, how is it utilized?”
Vinyl blushed brighter. “Um, I’ll show you later.”
Nika shook his head and opened his saddlebags. “I have extra clothes, you’re my size, plus a few inches on the flanks, but I wear loose pants!”
“Can I keep the boots on? I like the boots,” I asked hopefully.
“Yeah, that will be fine,” Vinyl said with a nod, then expertly undid the harness with a single telekinetic motion.
My ears perked. “Ohhh, you must have used these outfits a lot!”
Nika snickered. Vinyl coughed into her hoof. “No comment.”
“Here you go,” Nika said as he tossed me a yellow and black tracksuit which, aside form the colors, matched his own. “Give it back later, okay?”
I took the outfit and frowned as I held it against my barrel. “Thanks… This yellow will look so weird with my stripes though. Is there any chance you have anything else?”
“Da!” Nika said with a happy grin as he returned to his bags. “I have… A blue one, green, pink, gray, black, silver, red, white, cyan—”
“All tracksuits?” I asked with a little swish of my tail.
“Da!”
Speed looked up at the sound of fluttering cloth. “How many of those do you have?”
“Less than enough,” Nika replied with a confident nod.
“But, why?” Speed asked, her lips pursing in confusion.
Nika looked over his sunglasses. “Have you ever tried squatting in jeans?”
“No,” Speed admitted, her ears twitching with confusion.
“It’s just not comfortable,” Nika said with a slow nod. “Besides, is multifunctional. Squatting, standing, running from or towards things. Stylish, lightweight, breathable, yet waterproof, windproof, keeps you warm enough most days, also, the material doesn’t rot, mold won't grow in it, and vermin won’t eat them. They last until you wear them out, and there’s millions, maybe billions, of suits laying all around Griffonia! In warehouse, shops, homes, schools, everywhere! Real question is, why would you not wear them?”
“Cuz I have power armor,” Speed said honestly.
Nika laughed. “Ah, well, if you find armor for a winged person painted something cheerful, we can put some stripes on it. Then maybe I’ll agree with you.”
Vinyl cleared her throat and started to put her things back into her bag. “I think she means why do you own more coordinated outfits than I did pre-war?”
I blinked and frowned. “He mentioned nine and has one more I can see. You didn’t have more than nine outfits as a celebrity DJ?”
Nika’s ears perked. “Shto? DJ?”
Vinyl smiled and nodded to her guitar and keyboard. “I’ll play something for you later… But seriously, you have a lot of clothes. Do you sell them?”
Nika shook his head and picked up the jacket for his black suit. “For formal events,” he set it down and picked up his green jacket. “Ground camo for forest,” then a brown jacket “ground camo for uh, here. Blue for sky camo, gray for cloudy day sky camo, white for in case I get married, cyan for clubs, pink for when I want to have success in clubs, yellow because cousin Boris gave me his old suit when he grew too big, red for surgery, maroon for when it was first one I pulled out of bag that morning and I was late for work… You know, today feels like a turquoise day!”
Nika quickly changed into a black-striped turquoise tracksuit from his bag, and handed me his gray one. “Here! Mix of black and white. Should look cool on your stripes.”
“Thanks,” I said as I changed as well.
“I will want it back later.”
“That’s okay.”
I had to admit, Nika was right. Tracksuit certainly felt light. It was like I wasn't wearing anything except for my boots. I liked that.
Nika finished up as well, swapping his gasmask out for a silver-painted one, in addition to putting an old, somewhat tarnished silver chain necklace on, as well as a pair of gold talon rings.
He looked up, noticed everypony staring at him, and blinked. “Eh… If you mares want some jewelry, we can trade later.”
Vinyl shook her head. “No! Just, surprised you have some at all.”
“Plenty back where I’m from. I get mostly from patients who don’t have caps to pay,” Nika commented as he buckled on his saddlebags. “Sometimes, I fly over to get more medicine. Ponies can’t make everything we can… Everyone ready?”
Speed nodded and stood up. “I’m ready to continue. We should run to make up some lost time.”
Vinyl put her helmet back on and sealed her suit. “Ahhh, air conditioning!”
Nika’s eyes narrowed. “Immediate envy…”
“See?” Speed said with an audible grin. “Power armor beats tracksuit.”
“Eh, maybe. Your clothes run out of power at some point… Mine don’t!” Nika said with a grin before extending his wings and taking out the air with a single flap. “Davayte, let’s go!”
☢★★◯★★☢
Oak Valley was a city on the sea. Literally, on, the, sea. Our clifftop vantage point gave us a very good view of the city. Truly Oak Valley had been a pre-war marvel, and horribly misnamed, unless the trees in the valley we had just trotted through to reach they city had once been oak trees.
Oak Valley sat atop a series of obviously pony-made islands, HUGE floating barges holding up roadways, parks, even a few smaller buildings. The city core was gone, in its place was a single crater with glassy-smooth sides. The result of a balefire bomb’s direct hit. The fact that any other buildings remained at all was a small miracle.
A series of skyscrapers ringed the crater rim, looking almost like a crown of broken teeth. Broken teeth which were halfway through a dentist’s cleaning. A clear line separated the city, you could see where the Gardens’ cleansing light had at last stopped. The side facing the shore looked cleaner, brighter, a bit newer. The far side glowed slightly in the dim twilight, yet seemed darker. Grays, blacks, ash… The rising sun did nothing to brighten the region, as if it were doomed to be eternally grim and dark.
I turned my eyes towards the sea. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could catch a glimpse of a ship to cheer me up after looking at such a visibly… wrong place as the city’s far side.
Oak Valley had a port. A large port. With a tall razor-wire covered fence surrounding it, and checkpoints. A naval base, just on the city’s outskirts! I couldn’t help but smile as I looked over row after row of rusting, but still floating battleships, frigates, cruisers, and oooh, so many wonderful ships!
“We have to go to the docks once were done!” I said with a happy little hoof-trot-dance.
“Why?” Nika asked with a confused swish of his tail.
“Oh, she used to be a ship’s targeting computer,” Vinyl commented.
“Oh…” Nika nodded, stopped in his tracks and looked towards Vinyl like she’d grown a second head. “The blyat you say?”
I continued to oggle the cute ships in the harbor, working my way up the line, hoping there might be a cloudship carrier in the lineup for machine spirit squee reasons. “I’m a machine, remember? Parts of me were recycled from a zebrican battle—”
My eyes reached the very last dock. It wasn’t like any of the others. It had its own security fence, turrets, checkpoints, and if my eyes were not playing tricks on me with the distance, based on the blackened crater strewn strip of land in front of the fence, a minefield.
Buck all of that!
In the water, moored to the Equestrian naval base, connected to the ground by dozens of gangplanks, scaffolding, and chains…
A ship that was less ship and more fortress. Squared edges, half as wide as it was long. A floating ziggurat. The bow, a massive boarding ramp. Her decks, many tiered, broad, and covered with batteries of turrets unlike anything else to ever sail the seas. Her conning tower, a pyramid shaped temple set atop the highest tier of the ship, once capped with electrum to shine like a beacon, the only warning enemy ships would receive thanks to the stealth systems within her hull. Her armor, thick, impenetrable by all but the mightiest of guns, and even then only at point blank range.
My core skipped several cycles. I ran twelve different checks to make sure what I was seeing was reality. Eleven positive responses and one timeout.
It was!
Vinyl moved in front of me and waved a hoof in front of my face. “Gears? You there? You okay?”
I pointed to the massive ship. “Vi! It’s me!”
The Imperterritus was moored just outside of Oak Valley.