//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10: Talons of the North 
// Story: Fallout Equestria - The Code of Honor 
// by FireStorm2247 
//------------------------------//

(A/N - Please read the comment I have posted below this chapter. It will explain a few things about this chapter.)


Chapter 10: Talons of the North
 


“Years of silence… now dispersed.”




Entry #8:

I finally found the time and the courage to write again. It’s been 12 hours since I fled 

12 hours since we had been attacked. The soldiers came out of nowhere, cloaked in their own tech, tech that my father had said he had seen on the battlefield. It was the perfect ambush and 

and they killed everypony that was left. One of father’s friends saved me from being stabbed, bought me the time I needed to run

to carry the Torch and run. He told me not to look back, not back at him 

or the body of my father or the enemy, but only to run back to the bastion for help. I’m the only one left from the convoy

the enemy is hunting me, trying to finish what they started ten days ago… was it really only that long ago? Not much time has passed.

I’ve got to get back to the bastion and tell the others even with my father dead, even after what happened.

I don’t know if I can go on though

what can I  possibly do against such reckless hate and malice? What can I do against the enemy that’s already taken everything from me? And why are they hunting us, killing us? Was it simply because we were part of Equestria? Was it because we worshipped the Sun and the Moon? Was it because of how valiantly we fought on the battlefields of the war? 

have to sleep and hope that they don’t find me. I can’t run any longer until I rest

If they do find me, then I’ll die sleeping. If they don’t, I’ll be able to return to the bastion.

Got to sleep, rest

Can’t write anymore

Don’t want to

I looked back up at the top of the first page of the diary and read through some of the words again, my entire focus set into the slightly faded but still preserved text. Entry number eight was the first page of the diary, and therefore the first entry. Even after reading only one page, a deep feeling of sadness and sympathy was welling up within me, and answers to rapidly forming questions were only slowing piecing themselves together as I reread the text. The skeleton was the owner of this diary, of that there was no denying, and whoever the skeleton once was had experienced a tragedy of his or her own; if the words hadn’t been enough to express that, the way the entry had been written was enough. It’s lack of proper grammar and sentence structure showed that the pony had either written hastily or had been too distracted with other thoughts; I had a feeling that it was the latter. Already, the owner of this diary was similar to me, and it was an instant connection once I had read about the diary owner’s father being killed. Not only had this pony lost friends and family in an attack, like me, but the weapon that he or she had carried had my own cutie mark stamped onto the stock. 

The Torch… Blue Fire’s Torch… it rested along the wall nearby where I lay. That rifle had an aura… it made me feel slightly uncomfortable when looking at it for too long… I still didn’t know how, nor did I find it possible, that a weapon could have such a similarity to me. A cutie mark was a part of a pony, and seeing it stamped onto a material item like that……

I forced my eyes away from the sniper rifle and back to the paper.

Upon another glance-over, it wasn’t hard to recognize what the word ‘stripes’ had meant; I now had no reason to doubt the involvement of zebras in the battle that had taken place here in the radio station. But the fact that this pony had been chased by zebra soldiers was something rather puzzling to me. Why would Equestria’s wartime enemy be hunting a single pony, wanting to kill him or her just as they had killed off this pony’s convoy? What could somepony and his or her friends have done to attract that much attention from their enemy? Maybe the next entry would say something about it.

I carefully turned the page and read silently;

Entry #9:

It’s all gone. All of it. 

I survived the night, made my way back to the bastion and managed to avoid the striped soldiers, but I was still too late. Everypony’s dead. Stallions, mares, foals

Everypony

I am the sole survivor

There were no zebras here when I arrived. Only the dead left behind from the battle that had taken place here.

We weren’t prepared enough to fight them off. We didn’t have many weapons or survivors, and while there are dead zebras here, it still wasn’t enough. 

Now I’m the only one left, and I don’t know what to do. After everything that’s happened in the past eleven days

I just want my father back. I want my friends back, my family. I want my life back

But everything’s gone.

I can hear my father’s voice, my mother, all of my friends, telling me to move on anyway. To be strong for myself and for all of my loved ones, even after their deaths

but it’s hard to when none of them are here to tell me in person, face-to-face like before. I don’t know how to honor their request.

If the zebras don’t backtrack to try and find me here, I’m going to bury my friends, all of them. Then maybe I’ll find the strength to head out towards the heartland. There’s got to be somepony out there who can help me. 

Anypony.

I lowered my eyes from the page and let out a soft breath. So… this pony had lost everything? He or she had lost family and friends… all because of the zebras? 

Same curse, different killers. 

I flipped to the next page of the journal, a very short entry detailing the pony’s arrival at the town of Ashton. He or she had only written about how the town was still deserted and claimed that he or she would be hiding out within its perimeter for the night. 

The next entry said the same things. The pony had continued to travel, claiming to still be hunted by a group of zebra soldiers while entering a rocky region of tall hills called Moonstone Peaks. The pony had entered his or her first solo engagement with the zebra pursuers, a small patrol of three scouts that had been exploring the terrain around the hillside. According to the journal, she had killed all three with Blue Fire’s Torch and the armor-piercing rounds she had loaded it with.

That was where the eleventh entry had ended, and as I turned the page, accidentally turning two of them, I noticed that the pages beyond the last entry were all blank.

I turned back to the correct page. One more entry;

Entry #12:

They finally got me

Two days after the Moonstone Peaks saw me using the rest of the food and water I had found in Ashton, and I still had to keep running. I kept heading in one direction, west, just trying to put some distance between myself and the zebras. They just kept coming though. I fought three other patrols throughout the day and I’ve been running for hours, just running and not looking back

just running

Dishonorable. 

No.

I fought up to this point. I killed the enemies of my family and friends, my enemies. I fought them up to here in this radio station. When I got here, it was just like they had pulled all of their remaining soldiers together for one final effort to finish me off.

I think they succeeded.

I managed to hack into the terminal in the control room and find this chamber thanks to some distance I put between us, just a single stroke of good luck. I also managed to reset the terminal security program, but before I could hide, they made another push, and they caught me off guard

shot me up badly.

I sealed the door from the inside so that they wouldn’t get in, and after they tried breaking through it for awhile, they left.

They left

They know that the job’s done. They shot me with at least ten bullets. Each one did its job considering my lack of combat armor. Should’ve gotten some from the bastion or the convoy. Should’ve looked for potions and bandages too, maybe even more weapons. But I guess there’s no need to worry about it anymore

Even as I’m writing this, I’m bleeding out

I’ll die soon, in this room. I think it used to be a shelter of some kind. Now it’s empty, an appropriate place for my tomb.

Don’t even know why I’m writing anymore. Maybe just to pass the time I have left, to think about seeing all of my friends and family again in the everafter. 

I kind of wonder if Celestia and Luna are up there. My guess is yes, especially because of everything I’ve seen. Everyplace abandoned - farms, Ashton, Buckley

Marefax destroyed

I think the war really did take a terrible turn. The sun went out days ago, blocked by cloud cover, and I think the radiation from Marefax is spreading across the region. 

If it’s like this everywhere

If the world really did end

Goddesses, I wonder if I would’ve even found anything in the heartland. No, not after everything I’ve seen. 

Doesn’t matter now. Everything just hurts.

I forced myself to put away Blue Fire’s Torch in some old case that was left in this room. Locked it up and hid it. Don’t know why. Maybe there’s a chance that another survivor is out there. One of my brothers or sisters might be outside right now, making there way deeper into Equestria to find help. Or maybe one of them is nearby. Maybe they’ll find my rifle.

I hope they do. If anypony finds it, it should be one of them. The Torch belongs in the hooves of its creators. 

If any other survivor finds this diary, please believe me when I say that I did my best. In honor of my family, friends, and home, I tried

I tried

Forever honor-bound, forever strong

I looked up from the page to face the wall, my mind frozen in thought.

Last entry… things begun to add up.

This pony had been chased across the southeast, having to stay on the move lest he or she be killed by the zebras that were the pony’s enemies. The pony had suffered loss after loss throughout the course of at least five days, seeming to nearly be unable to find the strength to carry on. And yet still, the pony had made his or her way westward in the hopes that something would turn up, anything that could give some help. Even as the world began to darken in the aftermath of the Last Day, the pony struggled forward and carried hope.

But even that wasn’t enough to keep the pony from getting killed. The pony, now skeleton, had lost everything, and then had sacrificed even life itself in the pursuit of his or her goals. And as far as I could tell from the words written within the pony’s diary, those goals were nothing short of honorable. The pony had only wanted to help his or her friends, the survivors that had lived within this bastion - home perhaps - to live on. Even when the pony had lost loved ones, he or she had persisted and had continued to do so even when all hope seemed to vanished… and it had, it seemed… but the pony carried on…

Strong… even until the end of the road.

“Forever honor-bound, forever strong…” I whispered. I liked the way the words sounded. They seemed so familiar to what Stable 181 had taught us. Honor… one powerful virtue of several in the pre-war world, the world of peace before the war. This pony, whatever his or her name, had spoken of the word, the virtue, and he or she had tried to uphold it; in my opinion, the pony had done so.

I closed up the diary and let my hoof rest on it, letting out a breath and nodding before gently pushing it away. Just then, I felt a body shifting under my extended left wing, and I turned to see as Blake began to wake up. As he stretched out, he let out a tired groan before partially opening his eyes to look up at me. “What are you doing, big sis?” he asked sleepily.

“Oh, just reading.” I replied with a smile. 

“Why are you up so early?” he inquired, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes. 

I chuckled as I lowered my head down to bump the side of his face with my muzzle. “I couldn’t sleep.” I answered. “Slept for a few hours and then woke up. I couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards, so I stayed up and read.”

Blake let out a great yawn before looking over at where the closed diary lay away from me. “That’s the one that belonged to the skeleton in the hidden room.”

“Yes, that’s the one.” I said with a nod. When Gunny, Shore, and I had discovered the room and its various contents, Blake had wandered down to see our discovery for himself. Though he had seen the skeleton where it lay in the middle of the small shelter, he hadn’t been perturbed by its presence. Instead, he had simply avoided looking at it by looking over Blue Fire’s Torch at my side; he had found it rather ‘cool’ how my cutie mark had been painted on both sides of the stock. 

“Are you going to keep it?” Blake asked, looking back up at me. When I nodded, he added, “And the rifle too? It’s really awesome-looking.” 

“It is pretty neat, huh?” I looked back over at Blue Fire’s Torch where it rested along the wall. “Yes, I’ll be keeping the rifle too. At the moment, as far as I’m concerned, it’s mine because of its name and because of the flame etched onto it.” 

But still… there was another reason. 

The words written in the diary’s pages told a story of honor, courage, and drive, all in the absence of hope and even with the deaths of loved ones. The pony who had once been had valiantly traversed a long road, but still had come up short and had lost to the zebras and the wasteland that was forming in the wake of the Last Day. Though Blue Fire’s Torch was in my possession, I felt the need to carry the rifle not only as a weapon, but as a treasure - a treasure that I would see returned to the hooves of anypony, alive or dead, that had been a part of this pony’s family, one of her brothers or sisters. It was the least I could do to honor the pony’s bravery and honor. 

“And it had two blue flames on it.” Blake added with a sleepy smile. “It could be like you and dad. Two of the same cutie marks, but still one honorable family.”

I gave a light giggle, lowering my head down to kiss Blake on the forehead. “I think that’s a great idea, baby brother.” 

Blake let out a content sigh as he closed his eyes and lowered his head back to the floor, and I gently ran a hoof along his mane as he begun to fall to sleep again. “We still have a couple hours yet.” I said. “You should get some more sleep before we start moving again. We have a lot of walking to do today.” Blake only gave the slightest nod to my words, already nearly asleep, and I stayed beside him until he passed into the land of dreams once more, whereupon I carefully rose and stepped away.

As I stretched, I approached the control room entrance and looked outside. The holes in the ceiling of the neighboring room were dark, showing that it was indeed still night outside, and as I trotted through the news radio station, I saw Hallion, Marian, and Lucan asleep in the main lobby. 

Quietly opening the double doors, I slipped out into the wasteland night to face the east. As of yet, there was no color on the horizon, and the land was utterly quiet… aside from a light and distant *clink* that my ears picked up. It had come from around the radio station, followed quickly by a second and a third, and as the noise sounded in continual rhythm, I trotted around the station wall to peer out to the source of the persistent sound. I immediately recognized it coming from the pile of wreckage we had passed on the way to the radio station several hours ago, and upon checking my E.F.S. compass, I saw one friendly marker on the display. 

With a small smile, I trotted forward towards the wreckage, the hammering sound temporarily breaking before quickly resuming again, louder and quicker. As I approached, I suddenly heard my pipbuck chirp over the banging coming from among the wreck, and I raised my right foreleg to see my large map displayed. Aside from the eight icons that adorned the expansive map, a ninth had appeared, marking the wreckage and designating a name: Zebra Recon Craft Crash Site. 

Raising an eye, I looked back up at the wreckage in front of me and studied it from the nose to the tail. This vehicle was nothing that I could remember from any of the texts in Stable 181’s Hall of Records. The only vehicles that had been discussed in a select few documents had been the great Pegasi warships… that and the occasional miscellaneous vessel used during the war like the somewhat common bombing chariots and the Vertibucks. This wreck, zebra or not, was completely foreign to me. “Hello?” I called to the wreck, and I flinched as the rhythmic banging of metal on metal halted with a rather hard *thunk* and a loud “OW! DAMN IT!” from a voice I instantly recognized. 

Gunny rose up from behind what I could safely assume to be the double tail of the vehicle, and the stallion was rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “Hi…” he managed as he continued to rub his head where he had hit it.

“Sorry…” I muttered sheepishly. “Is your head okay?” 

“Yeah, just a bump.” Gunny answered, lowering his hoof away to look back at me. “I thought you’d be asleep with Blake.” 

“I was for awhile.” I replied. “I just woke up early and couldn’t fall back to sleep afterwards, so I decided to come outside for some air. Where’s Shore? I didn’t see him inside the station.”

“He’s keeping watch on the roof.” Gunny explained, nodding towards the station. “He used that fallen over radio tower to climb up and said he’d keep watch until we’re all ready to move again.” 

“Speaking of which, why are you out here so early?” I asked with a smirk, jabbing a hoof at him.

“Same reason as you I guess.” Gunny replied with a shrug as he looked back to where he was working. “That and my curiosity got the better of me about this wreckage here. I know your pipbuck can identify locations and items. Did it give any kind of indication as to what this thing is?”

“Yeah. It said that it was some kind of zebra vehicle.” I answered, trotting up to stand outside the tail of the aircraft. “A reconnaissance aircraft of some kind.” 

“Curious. I wonder if it had something to do with what happened at the station with that skeleton.” 

“There’s a chance.” I replied, ducking under the tail and joining Gunny. “Is there something that you’re trying to find?” 

“I found something that I want to take out of here, yes.” Gunny answered, crouching back down to look up at what I saw to be an open panel on the belly of the aircraft, behind which rested another metal sheet. “I got my hooves on a toolbox in the radio station’s storage room. It had a hammer, wrench, and a couple other tools, so now I’m trying to pry this thing out.”

I crouched down beside him to try and get a better view. “What is it?” 

“It’s a radio box.” Gunny answered, his horn glowing again as he levitated out a wrench from the brown metal toolbox at his side and looked it over. “I can tell because of the acronym stamped on the side of the panel here. It says CVR, or cockpit voice recorder. I found a manual in the Hall of Records about them being installed in the Vertibucks used during the war. They could record conversations between the pilots and their bases. I’m just wondering if this one might have anything recorded onto it.”

“Huh… actually, now I’m kind of curious myself. Would you like some help?” I offered.

“Well… actually yes.” Gunny said after a thoughtful pause. “That pipbuck of yours has a rather bright lamp on it. If you could turn it on and shine it under here, I’ll actually be able to see what I’m doing.”

“Sure.” Crawling forward a couple paces and situating myself next to him, I raised my pipbuck leg and turned on the lamp to shine it over where Gunny was working.

Now bathed in light, I could clearly see the open panel and the sheet that rested just behind it, CVR just barely legible in small white letters on the metal. It was fastened into the aircraft by a series of ten screws, three of which had already been removed and dropped onto the dirt. Likewise, there were four larger bolts that required a different tool to remove, the wrench from what I could tell. As Gunny returned to work, his screwdriver floating up to the fourth screw, I let out a giggle. “So this is what it’s like working on machines.” I remarked. “Is this what you had to do back in the Stable when you weren’t on guard duty?”

“I wasn’t in the maintenance department much. Still, I knew how to use basic tools and such from my weapon maintenance training.” he replied as he removed the fourth screw. “Shore gave me plenty of opportunities to practice outside of the armory when he wanted a terminal to be serviced, just to make sure all the exterior panels and parts were holding together to protect the circuitry. When I was fixing things or breaking things down, they almost always involved weapons, but enough of that carried over into tinkering with other things too. I can’t do any of the fancy ‘build things from scratch’ stuff or anything spectacular like that, but I know enough to get by.” 

“Plus there was the one time where my mother brought you in to fix our table.” I added, smiling at the memory.

“Yeah… and furniture.” Gunny stated with a chuckle, already moving on to the sixth screw. “I forgot how good I am at fixing metal furniture.” We both shared a round of light laughter, comfortable silence following as I watched Gunny work out the rest of the screws; two of these had taken more time due to them being rusted in. 

“So now you just have the bolts left?” I asked as I peered closer at the panel.

“Yeah. I’m almost there.” Gunny answered, setting aside the screwdriver and wrapping the wrench in his magic. However, as the wrench approached the bolt, it instead lowered back to the ground. “But before that,” he began, and I raised an eye and turned to see him looking at me, a focused stare in his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something. It’s something that’s been on my mind most of the night.” 

“What’s the matter?” I asked, suddenly a little worried.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened last night on that hill, the hill where we encountered that raider patrol.” he explained. “When we were engaged, I fought back with the intent to make sure none of the bastards lived. I mean, why wouldn’t I after our time out here? Why wouldn’t I after everything that happened?… But then that mare showed up… Ivy. When I reflect on what I did that night on the hill… I actually cringe when I think about how close I was to killing that unicorn. I had the shotgun to her head. I even fired just inches away from her. All it would’ve taken was one movement to bring that mare’s life to an end. To tell you the truth, I think that if you weren’t there, I would’ve killed her myself… so I wanted to thank you, Nova.” 

I tilted my head, puzzled. “Thank me for what, Gunny?” 

“For keeping me from pulling the trigger.” my friend answered, a thin smile forming on his face. 

“Oh… well…” I began, a smile matching his as I felt a tinge of heat in my cheeks. “It was nothing really. All I did was just give her a chance to explain herself.”

“You did more than that, friend.” Gunny retorted with a snort. “You saw something that I didn’t see… something that I wouldn’t have seen. Unlike me, you saw through that red and black armor. You saw some good in those eyes, and then she proved that by explaining her history. What you did on that hill says good things about you, and I’m glad you were with me. By stopping me, you saved Ivy’s life and let her truth be told.” 

“Oh, Gunny.” I replied, nudging his side with a hoof. “You were just trying to protect us. And if it makes you feel better, I was feeling the same way before I listened to Ivy tell her story. I almost didn’t say anything at all.”

“But you still gave her the chance.” Gunny interrupted gently. “And I’m glad that you did. Thank you.” Coming from Gunny, the praise was invigorating, and I smiled and nodded before my friend turned back to his work. “Now, let’s see if I can get the rest of these bolts out.” 

I lit up the CVR with my pipbuck lamp as Gunny returned to work. The remaining bolts proved easy for Gunny to remove with the wrench, and when the last bolt fell to the ground, the CVR shifted in its housing and fell out of its place in the hull behind the cockpit, Gunny catching it with his telekinesis before it fell to the dirt. “Alright then.” he remarked with a smirk, setting the spoils of his work gently down onto the dirt. “Let’s see if we can figure out how to make this thing talk.”

“Actually, I think I already see something.” I remarked, looking along the bottom of the left side of the device and placing my hoof over a small metal flap. “Is that a thing that my pipbuck can plug into?” 

Gunny ducked his head under my chin, briefly invading my space to catch sight of the flap secured onto the bottom of the CVR as I opened it, revealing three ports of varying sizes. “Yeah, I think it is.” he replied, shuffling back and crawling around to my other side. “Let me see your pipbuck.” 

Raising my pipbuck leg (and awkwardly trying to keep the light fixed onto the CVR), Gunny focused his magic to open the terminal interface port cover on my pipbuck. Upon doing so, the cable slipped out and hovered over to the now open panel, pressing against each of the ports before finding the one that fit the head of my pipbuck’s terminal cable. As soon as it connected, I pressed the button that brought up my terminal records menu and saw just in time as a new fourth item was added to the list of terminal documents my pipbuck housed in its memory storage; the item was called Zebra Recon Craft Black Box Recording. “Goddesses, I feel like a nerd using this thing.” I remarked as I set the cursor over the item, giggling as Gunny removed the cable from the CVR and returned it to my pipbuck. 

“Be glad Shore didn’t hear you say that. You’d get into a scientific debate.” Gunny warned playfully as he scooted up beside me. “Let’s hear the recording.”

With a nod, I clicked on the item for it to play. Immediately, my ears were greeted by the soft grinding of radio static, the sound growing and dimming as if the recording was trying to adjust itself to work. Then a stallion’s voice spoke;

“-oh-seven to command, I have taken heavy damage -bzzzt- took a direct hit to the fuselage -kzzzt, crackle- engine system is failing and I can’t -bzzzt- No response from the throttle or the flaps -kzzzt- gliding in towards the surface from high altitude for several minutes -bzzzt- Buckley must’ve had a better radar system than we -bzzzt, crackle, kzzzt- attempting emergency pullout! I can’t move! -kzzzt, crackle, bzzzt- was too slow… distracted with thoughts of home to focus on the mission. I’m tired… tired of this war and this fighting… years and years of bloodshed -bzzzt, crackle- wife and my children, I love them very much -bzzzt- If I die, I die for the glory of my homeland… not the Caesar -bzzzzzt-” 

With a final trail of static, the recording ended, and I lowered my foreleg to the ground in silence, the words of the zebra pilot’s final moments echoing in my mind and keeping me from speaking. From what I had read about zebras in Stable 181’s Hall of Records, I hadn’t expected something like this. In the Stable’s records, zebras held hardly any similar emotions that ponies held, or at least the records never wrote about it. Only the parts about them being the enemies of Equestria, killers with the intent to bring the pre-war Equestria to its knees, was what the print of the texts had described; I felt rather downcast at knowing that some of that was rubbing off on me… I definitely knew better now. 

“I guess even zebras could regret the war.” Gunny said lowly, pushing the CVR away. “Of course, every text we had in the Stable that described zebras only told about the bad shit… they probably intended to leave out anything that might’ve displayed the zebras as something better than monsters.”

“I know.” I nodded solemnly, freezing as I suddenly heard my pipbuck beep again. Looking down at my right foreleg, I saw that my pipbuck’s large map was displayed; a new location icon had appeared, and this one was given a name. Buckley Air Force Base was scrolled across a small portion of the map, further east and slightly north of our current position and perhaps just a day’s walk away (or at least half that time if I wanted to fly). 

“Buckley Air Force Base?” Gunny asked, looking over my pipbuck’s map. “Didn’t Hallion say something about that?” 

“He mentioned it.” I answered; boy, was my curiosity bump itching. “If we didn’t have a job to do, I’d probably go and scout out that place.”

“Hallion’s mentioned it enough times for me to be a little curious myself.” Gunny replied with a thin smile, crawling backwards and out from under the aircraft to stand on all fours. As I joined him, turning off my pipbuck lamp, Gunny let out a yawn before looking back at the radio station. “For now though, let’s go get something to eat. My guess is that Lucky Hallion will want another early start today, so we might as well start getting ready now.”

I gave a nod before the two of us ducked under the tail of the aircraft and left the wreckage behind. Though as we trotted along, I couldn’t help but glance back at the wreck. The aircraft had remained there for at least one hundred and seventy-five years… and yet there was no skeleton to show that the pilot had died in the crash… there was only an open cockpit. I wonder where he went…

Wherever he went, I hoped that he got to get away from the war he was so tired of… to see his family again like he deserved.

***				***				***

“Mares and gentlecolts,” Hallion announced proudly as our caravan came to a stop. “welcome to Challenger.” 

Before us, resting under the mid-afternoon cloud cover on a landscape of dirt and dried grass was the great body of the settlement… no… city, of Challenger; it was BIG!

We had started moving again early in the morning as per Hallion’s instruction, and we had made good progress throughout the day, running into no other raider patrols as we cut across the great emptiness of the Equestrian southeast. That emptiness, however, had eventually lead to the cracked concrete of another pre-war roadway. This old road had snaked its way deep into the south of the region but had, in turn, connected to a ponymade trail carved into the earth, making a dirt road that lead straight to the sight that I now beheld. 

Challenger itself was a massive array of stone and metal buildings that spanned to at least five stories in height. They were lined side-by-side and evenly spaced, particularly along the length of the east side of Challenger’s north wall. Behind those buildings, I could see the tops of other buildings, equally tall, as they spread farther south. The north wall which faced us was made of solid steel, a great barrier that stood half as tall as the buildings it protected; the two ends of the wall each held a large built-in cylindrical tower, a watchtower of some kind. Within my line of sight was also a pair of barns to the east of the city, spaced apart from each other and built away from the city wall. Both of these were similar to the barn I had seen at the Black Blood Forward Post. However, these barns looked carefully tended to, and while there wasn’t any crop growing in the dirt beside them, I could see ponies going about their tasks around them. But the most impressive structure of all was something that was easily twice as tall as the buildings themselves. It was something that I couldn’t identify even if my life depended on it, but upon inquiry, Hallion freely filled us in. He identified the huge structure as a pre-war machine called a tower crane, the tower (or what Hallion called the mast) partially hidden behind Challenger’s wall yet still stretching above the city. A similar tower sat horizontal atop the mast, and Hallion explained its components to the group as we all looked on in awe, thereby unknowingly saving my brain from frying in my skull. The counterjib was the shorter end of the horizontal tower thingy and was where the motor and the counterweight of the tower crane rested. The much longer end of the horizontal tower thingy, called the jib, extended out towards Challenger’s north wall, stopping directly above it where an assembly of iron cables connected the tip of the jib to a massive steel door built into the fortification. Both the jib and the counterjib were connected by great cables to what Hallion identified as the tower crane’s apex, a short pillar of metal that rested atop the crane’s turntable and operator’s cab. Even from the distance between our group and the city, I could barely make out the figure of a pony rather swiftly climbing up the mast on a built-in ladder to reach the operator’s cab; Goddesses, if I had been an earth pony, or even a unicorn, I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to do that. 

“This place is just…” Shore muttered, absolutely awed at the marvel of a city before us. 

“Amazing?” Marian answered for him, to which my friend nodded. “Hallion and I have seen a lot of wasteland towns in our travels. But in terms of settlements that were built from scratch, I think this one is the crown jewel. This place is packed with history, a history that led to the birth of a magnificent achievement. Hell, even that tower crane has a story of its own, but I’ll leave it to one of the city’s citizens to tell it. They take great pride in everything they’ve built over Challenger’s fifty years.”

“And right now, you’re only seeing one side of the city. Challenger stretches farther south to accommodate the number of citizens it has. It’s basically a really big rectangle if you look at it from a Pegasus’s-eye view.” Hallion explained, smirking as he nudged Betsy forward. 

As we followed, making our way towards Challenger’s north wall, Marian added, “It’s places like this that give me a lot of hope for the future of the wasteland. This was the result of earth ponies and unicorns making the best of what they had and working together to build a home. It’s amazing what some cooperative work and drive can do.”

“There’s honor behind that.” I remarked with a smile, no longer staring in wonder, but now taking in the sight in admiration; I had only seen a part of Challenger, and I already liked it. 

“And they built all of it from the ground up?” Gunny asked in amazement, still on the recovery path as we walked. 

“Yep.” Marian answered with a giggle. “There was only dirt here fifty years ago. Then ponies from all over the north came down and started working together to build. Everything you’ll see inside those steel walls came as scrap from Equestrian ruins.”

“That’s really cool!” Blake piped up from his perch atop Betsy’s wagon, both he and Lucan looking out at the city with big smiles. 

“It’s so great to see home again!” Lucan exclaimed happily, letting out a cheer as a great rumbling suddenly filled the air. As I looked over the city wall, I saw movement up above as the great tower crane slightly rotated on its turntable before the cables connecting the end of the jib to the door grew taut. With a groan, the massive steel door was lifted up and held in place, Challenger’s sign that we had been sighted and were given clearance to enter.

“We’ll be entering in through the city’s warehouse district.” Hallion explained as we continued ahead. “When we get in, and after we report in with the checkpoint, I’ll be heading straight to the trade administration building to fill out the necessary paperwork. It isn’t much. They just want something to keep track of the trade traffic in and out of the city.”

“In the meantime, we’ll be waiting for Hallion to finish so that we can drop off the shipment into the weapons warehouse.” Marian added, looking back at us before a smile spread across her face. “During that time, you’ll have a few moments to ask some of your many questions. You all have that look in your eyes.” 

“Does Challenger have any problems with newcomers wandering freely within the city limits?” I asked.

“Not at all.” Marian assured. “Why?” 

“Because I’d like to help Lucan find his parents.” I answered, looking up at the wagon to see the young colt staring eagerly at the open gate as we closed the distance.

“For Lucan, I definitely think that they wont mind.” Marian stated confidently before facing forward. 

As we passed under the gate, I immediately beheld the sight of six ponies as they entered the open dirt clearing ahead and trotted towards us. Two of them had come from a compact shack just behind the wall and to my right. Three of the ponies had come from the far end of the clearing, emerging from a wide travel lane, behind which was part of a massive metal structure. The sixth had come from one of the two single-story stone buildings built directly ahead of the gate, and as we walked into the clearing, I could see the clear text of a large sign built over the closer building’s front door; Trade Administration. 

“Welcome back to Challenger, Lucky Hallion.” A stallion’s voice drew my attention to the front of our convoy, and I came to a halt as Hallion gently urged Betsy to a stop before closing the distance between himself and one of the six Challenger ponies, a dark blue unicorn stallion with a short-cut white mane and tail. “It’s always a pleasure to see you here.” 

“It’s good to be back, even for the short amount of time I plan on staying.” Hallion replied with a smile before nodding back to his cargo. “Everything that was on the supply order is in the wagon, and there’s even a little bonus. We ran into a Black Blood patrol on the way in, and we picked up all of their useable weapons and what was left of their ammo. All of that’s in the pile too.”

“Sounds good to me. Challenger can use all of the weapons it can get.” the blue stallion replied. “This shipment came just in time too. President Radiant Gem is getting ready to send another batch of soldiers out to the east. Most of these new weapons will probably go with them.” 

“The Black Blood’s been moving around a lot lately.” an earth pony mare next to the blue unicorn added grimly. “And their presence to the southeast of Ashton has only been increasing.”

“Plus, they’ve been getting the strength in numbers to start setting up holdouts all over the southeast. Rumors have gone around about them being down by Wheaton, holding out in the Moonstone Peaks, and even setting up in a couple of the pre-war farmsteads nearby.” an earth pony stallion explained.

“In other words, they’re moving in, and quick.” the blue unicorn stallion finished. “It’s why we’ve been hard-pressed to get supplies out to the southeastern settlements. We here at the warehouse district are too busy making weapons for the soldiers instead of packing existing weapons up and sending them out. Aside from that, Challenger can’t even send anypony out on a bathroom break without them getting ambushed by Black Blood fire teams. Our soldiers make it through to Ashton easy enough, but the caravans are more vulnerable. They’re targeted more than the soldiers, as I’m sure you know from your run here.” 

“I hope what we have here will help you, then.” Hallion replied, dipping his head to the blue stallion. “My first offer still stands, just to let you know.” 

“Quite a few ponies around here are considering taking you up on that offer.” the blue unicorn remarked with a chuckle. “But President Radiant’s politely refused whenever the topic came up. I can’t say that I disagree with her either. Besides, what kind of a city would we be if we went around seizing the stocks of successful wasteland merchants?”

“Even when said merchants are offering on their own accord?” Marian asked with an expectant smile. “Stable 203 would serve as an excellent outpost.”

“I know. We may be in a tight spot… a very tight spot, but we’re not on our last legs. As we like to say, trade might very well save the wasteland one day. Right now though, we’ve got to focus on the Black Blood, and it’s our current task to get you over to the necessary paperwork so we can record this shipment and drop it off. If you’ll come with me Hallion…” 

“Excuse me…” I ventured, raising a foreleg to catch the blue unicorn’s attention. When he swung his head over to look my way, I lowered my foreleg down. “Is it really that bad out there?” Ever since the stallion and his comrades had begun talking about the Black Blood movements around the region, the question had sprung to life in my mind, a part of which was unable to comprehend that the Black Blood Raiders could have enough ponies in their ranks to cover ground across an entire region of Equestria. I hoped that there was at least some chance that some of the stallion’s explanation had been exaggerated. After all, these were just raiders - gangers dedicated to making everypony’s life as miserable as possible…… right?

The stallion, however, only smiled back at me with a polite and understanding smile. “You must not be from around here. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have asked that…… well I’ll be damned. You’re a Pegasus…” 

“Um… yeah… why do you sound so surprised?” I asked slowly, involuntarily looking over at Gunny and Shore where they stood next to me; both of them shrugged, looking just as ready for an explanation as I was.

“Pegasi are hardly seen nowadays.” the unicorn stallion explained. “Most, if not all of them, were a part of what was called the Grand Pegasi Enclave. Then, when the war ended, they all disappeared into the sky… I guess a few are still earthbound nowadays… But still, it’s a rare sight to see one. You just caught me off guard was all.” 

“Disappeared?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

The blue stallion looked over me, his gaze studious before briefly turning back to his comrades. “You five go ahead and get Hallion the necessary paperwork. I’m kind of curious about his caravan guards here, and I’d like to ask some questions myself.”

“Yes sir.” the earth pony mare with him acknowledged, she and the four others leading Hallion and Marian towards the Trade Administration building as the blue unicorn turned back to me.

“To answer your previous question, yes.” he said with a nod. “They disappeared, as in ‘they sealed the sky and completely deserted the surface.’ On the Last Day, the pre-war city of Cloudsdale, which was the crown jewel of all Pegasi cities, was the first target to go. Balefire ICBM took it out. Once that happened, the Pegasi abandoned the war, sealed the sky in permanent cloud cover, and hid in their own cloud cities to stay safe. Enclave Command gave the order for every Pegasus pony to return to the clouds, and those who didn’t were the ones that refused or were caught by the bombs.” 

“I thought they were down on the surface like all the others on the Last Day.” Shore commented with a thoughtful frown. “There was nothing in the texts that said anything about them leaving the surface and abandoning the war effort…”

“None of them would have anyway.” I replied, looking over at him. “All the books we had were saved days before the end of the world.” Shore slowly nodded his understanding.

“Still… they walled up the entire sky?” Gunny asked, looking up to the cloud cover over Challenger.

“I imagine some places can still catch a glimpse of sun and moonlight.” the blue unicorn replied, looking out to the north. “Places like the Ponave and the Trottingham region might… I can’t really say.”

“How do you know all of that stuff about the Pegasus ponies?” Blake piped up curiously before jumping down from the top of the wagon to trot up beside me.

“History tends to float around in the remnants of the old Equestria. Those who have the right eyes and have the desire to try and discover it tend to find it. Whether it be a few days or a few years, we find it. And me? I’m a stallion who likes to keep the history he learns in his head. I’ve done enough traveling in my time while Challenger was under construction and… oh,” the stallion chuckled. “I guess I should probably introduce myself before I delve off into a bunch of stories. The name’s Duke. Short and simple, easy to remember among the warehouse district.” 

“I’m Nova.” I introduced with a smile, Gunny, Shore, and Blake following my example with introductions of their own. 

However, when Duke looked over Lucan, the colt being the only one to not introduce himself, his eyes widened with a jolt of realization that I partly expected. “By the Goddesses, Lucan!” The colt gave a big smile from his place atop the wagon’s cargo. “You’ve been gone for three days! What happened??” 

“I… I wandered too far from the new farm when dad was working on it.” Lucan muttered, his smile fading and his ears drooping in shame. “I-I didn’t mean to… honest, I didn’t… but when I saw those hills, I wanted to go and explore.”

“You always were the type to go rushing off to new adventures…” Duke remarked, a slight smile tugging at his face. “Have you been okay while you were gone?” 

“Yeah. It was Nova that took care of me after I was rescued from the bad ponies’ camp.” Lucan added, looking down at me; I smiled encouragingly back at him. “She and her friends brought me to Hopeville. I even made new friends when I was there. And now I’m back home!” 

“So the Black Blood captured you… I’m glad they didn’t… well… never mind. I’m glad that you’re back safe and sound. And I guess these four ponies here are to thank.” he remarked, turning back to me again.

“Are you… Lucan’s father?” I asked, curious and hopeful.

Duke, however, shook his head with a smile. “No, I’m not. But his father and I are good friends. Have been since foalhood…” Duke’s smile faded as he turned back to Lucan, he and Blake hopping down from the cart and trotting up next to me. “But… Lucan… when you went missing, your father went out there into the wasteland to search for you. He hasn’t been back since.”

“Dad’s gone??” Lucan exclaimed, ears folding down again. “Where is he?? He’ll be alright… won’t he??”

“I don’t know where he is, but I do know that he’ll be fine wherever he trotted off to.” Duke assured instantly, a confident answer that could only come from a lifelong friend.

“What about mom?” Lucan asked worriedly. “She’s here, right?” 

“Your mother’s still here.” Duke replied with a nod, Lucan becoming only partly relieved at the statement. “She’s been holding down the house and working in the market square… but the past three days have been hard on her. She’ll feel world’s better when she sees you again, and speaking of which, you should get back to her. Also,” he added, looking back at me. “it might not hurt for one of you to come along with us, especially since it was you all that brought Lucan back.”

I looked over to where Gunny stood, and he gave a nod. “If you want to go with them, Shore and I can find one of the leaders and keep moving forward with our job here.” he offered.

“Okay. Blake and I will go with Lucan then.” I replied, smiling at him. “Meet you back here?”

With his nod of agreement, I turned and trotted over to the waiting Duke, who was looking at me with a raised eye as Lucan and Blake joined us. “What do you need to see one of our leaders for?” he asked. 

“It’s… a long story.” I answered with a half smile. “Perhaps I could tell it to you on the way?”

“Sure. We have to cross through the presidential district before we get to the residential sector of the city, so you’ll have plenty of time.” Duke replied, trotting ahead and motioning for us to follow. 

Nodding at Blake and Lucan where they stood beside me, the three of us followed after Duke and drew up with him as we passed by the Trade Administration; the neighboring building had a similar designation marker built over its entrance, reading Caravan Guard Recruitment Station. Beyond the station was another road of the warehouse district, and before we turned left on the ‘T’ intersection, I could see two other large metal buildings to my right, their great size making it abundantly clear that they were a part of the city’s warehouses. 

Facing forward, I saw the road ahead passing straight between an open steel gate, the wall making a barrier between the warehouses and what I assumed to be Challenger’s presidential district. The two guards on station at either side of the open gate, two earth pony stallions armed with dual shotgun battle saddles and clothed in dark green combat armor, exchanged polite nods with us as we passed by into the presidential district. The first thing that came to recognition was the number of ponies on the road ahead. Here, there were several of them trotting along the road, and though it wasn’t crowded by any means, there had to be at least thirty ponies along this first stretch. To my left, immediately behind the gate, was a longer and windowless sheet metal building. When my eyes shifted to the right, I saw another building of similar make that extended up to the first road which branched to the right. As we passed it by, I saw even more ponies walking back and forth along it’s length; there were at least another thirty that I could see. 

Instead of turning right onto the second road, we continued ahead on the primary lane, and my eyes were drawn to the great courtyard beyond the metal-barred fence. Though it was entirely dirt, just like Hopeville’s courtyard, there was a vast array of metal sculptures that dotted the great yard. Among them were alarmingly accurate recreations of ponies in various stances, from simply standing and looking out in one direction, to posing with a foreleg raised, to fully rearing up on hind legs. For one reason or another, these metalwork creations snatched up my interest immediately, and I couldn’t help but look over each that was close to the fence as we walked. The first masterpiece was the design of a unicorn stallion standing up on his hind legs and leaning against the pole of a battle standard. Close by, a metal earth pony mare wearing some sort of flat sheet metal hat was posed with a foreleg snapped up to her head in a salute. The third however, brought immediate recognition to me. The third metal figure was a Pegasus mare, outstretched wings perfectly detailed down to every feather. Even without color, the design of the mane worked into the metal was something that I immediately recognized, and it didn’t take the butter yellow coat and bright pink mane for me to tell that the metal figure was Fluttershy. 

“Metalwork caught your eye did it?” Duke asked expectantly, and I blinked before looking to my left, seeing the blue stallion also looking over the Fluttershy figure beyond the bars of the fence. At my smile and nod, Duke gave a chuckle. “Challenger takes pride in everything that makes this city what it is. Our metalworkers are one of many prime examples.”

“How do they make all of that?” Blake inquired curiously.

“Challenger’s metalworkers actually showed up about fifteen years back. They were a small and isolated settlement out on the old Route 52, and when word was getting passed around about Challenger’s growth in the relatively quiet southeast, they were one of the settlements that came looking. Before then, they got their hooves on some arc welders from an old ruin out in the far north, got to using them for both defense and construction. Those things spit electricity like a regular lightning storm. Anyway, they eventually built their own forges out of old concrete blocks and by that time, they found out about us. So when they asked for shelter, we provided, and when they packed up their forges, they provided us with metal craft. You can identify the blacksmith ponies today by the pendants they wear. Each is a metal circle with a triangle fit into it. It was a tradition of theirs back in their old home.”

“That’s really cool.” I stated, nodding with approval as we continued to walk along the road. 

“As you can see, they immediately got to work on the courtyard when they asked, and the president of the time approved.” Duke continued, briefly stopping to point. “You can see that big building beyond the courtyard, there. They built that too, from the ground up. That’s Challenger’s presidential palace. They’ve taught us all that strong magic and pre-war welding tools can go a long way.” 

As I peered through the fence to look, I could see a massive building beyond the assorted metalwork figures in the courtyard. The building was made entirely of sheet metal and steel plate, and it stood five floors high, over double the size of Hopeville’s City Hall. More impressive than its sheer size was the fact that metalwork stairs had been built to lead to the entrance of the palace, in front of which were four smooth metal pillars that rose and connected to a balcony that extended from the roof. “How long did it take them to build it?” I asked curiously.

“About five years.” Duke answered as we began down the road again. “They mostly used their forges, but they had help with the salvage we brought in during the time. Most of Challenger’s buildings are made from when we tore down standing, or mostly intact pre-war structures piece by piece and reassembled and reinforced them. The palace itself has been standing for about nine years, and it’s still exactly how it looked when it was first made.” I turned to make another reply about how beautifully crafted the palace was, but he beat me to a response, asking with a smirk, “So, can I ask you a question now?”

I gave an embarrassed smile. “Heh. Sure…” 

“I’m curious as to where you and your friends came from. That, and I’m kind of interested in finding out how you came to meet Lucky Hallion.” Duke explained. “When he shows up to Challenger, he usually doesn’t bring caravan guards along. Between himself and his sister, along with the cargo they bring, they tend to keep raiders and ghouls off of their backs just fine.”

“Well,” I began. “my friends and my brother and I are from Hopeville. But not originally.”

“Hopeville… I went there a time or two. Good and friendly town with a lot of decent ponies in it.” Duke said with a smile and nod. “Didn’t expect them to find a Pegasus such as yourself though.” 

“It isn’t like that though.” I replied gently, winning a raised eye as a response. “Did you notice the armor that my two friends were wearing?” 

“Yeah, some blue and black combat armor.” Duke answered, tilting his head slightly. “What’s so important about that?” 

“That’s armor that was supplied to the Stables before the end of the world.” I explained. “We lived in one before we came outside. Stable 181.” 

“Oh… I see.” Duke said, looking away slightly as we turned right on a corner in the road. Now, the road stretched straight forward all the way down along the presidential sector, this lane likewise spotted with several ponies going about their errands. The left side of the street was spaced with small, box-like, single story metal houses, the right side of the road still the same fence that surrounded the wide space of the presidential courtyard. “So, what happened?” 

“The Black Blood happened.” I answered bitterly. “They broke into the Stable, killed half of our population and chased the rest of us all the way to Hopeville.”

“Wait, you mean the Black Blood followed you all the way to Hopeville? As in they were there before?” Duke asked, stopping at the edge of the road to give other passing ponies room to travel, two of whom were looking at me with curious eyes.

Tightening my wings against my sides in response to the passing ponies’ looks, I stepped up next to Duke. “I guess so. Our survivors traveled across the wasteland to search for a new home, and after two days, we found the town.”

“So Hopeville’s citizens welcomed you then.” Duke stated, his small smile at the thought of Hopeville offering charitable protection fading when I shook my head. “No?”

“When we arrived, Hopeville was abandoned. Then our security ponies found the residents in the City Hall. All of them were dead, and if any of them made it out, they haven’t returned.”

Duke’s ears flattened. “Goddesses…”

“That’s primarily the reason why we wanted to talk to one of Challenger’s leaders.” I added. “We need help getting Hopeville running again, and Lucky Hallion pointed us to Challenger to do just that. That’s why we were traveling with him.”

“But you said that the Black Blood attacked Hopeville.” Duke stated, unease etched in his voice. “Challenger’s been at war with them, and yet we’ve never heard of them moving out farther than some of the old pre-war farms to the east. They even come around the Moonstone Peaks, and Challenger itself, but never anywhere else.” 

“It might interest you to know that they recently engaged the settlement of Proudspire too.” I added with a frown, making Duke all the more alarmed. “My friends and I were there when they were attacked, and we helped the settlement pick itself up and drive the raiders back. And after that, Hopeville was attacked by a Black Blood company, around two hundred of them. We fought them back as well, but now we’re dangerously vulnerable. We can’t take another attack like that again without supplies and perhaps some extra guards.”

“Why hasn’t Challenger been giving stuff to Proudspire and Hopeville?” Blake asked, he and Lucan trotting up next to me.

“My dad told me that it was because of the raiders.” Lucan piped up, sounding nervous himself. 

“And that’s the truth. The raider threat near Ashton has been growing rapidly, and Challenger’s been forced to respond… maybe we’ve been a little too focused on that lately……” he answered, scowling in thought. “Are your friends going to talk to General Silverlight?” Duke asked me.

“When Gunny and Shore were done helping Hallion, yes.” I replied with a nod. 

“I have a feeling that both she and Radiant Gem will want to know about what you just told me.” Duke said, nodding for me to follow him as he continued down the road before bowing his head in thought. 

“I uh… didn’t mean to be the bearer of bad news.” I apologized, a long moment of uncomfortable silence having followed the news. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Duke replied, halting his train of thought with a light laugh. “It’s just that when you’re not in the city guard or the army, you tend not to hear as much as you’d want. A few of my friends serve, and they’re primarily where I get my information from. That, and gossip tends to flow quite freely around the city taverns. Still, the information isn’t exactly solid all of the time. That’s why it’s kind of unsettling to hear that the Black Blood’s been moving beyond Challenger… where was your Stable located?” 

“Far to the west of here.” I responded. “I’d say at least two days away from Challenger, if not more.” 

“The Black Blood must be scattered all over the entire southeast then.” Duke muttered, looking ahead as we approached another open steel gate. The two guards standing watch on either side of the gate stood still as statues as we approached, only briefly moving to give us a nod of greeting before returning their eyes forwards. “We’re going to be entering the residential sector now.” Duke said, his smile indicating that he was glad for a chance to change the subject. “Just to warn you, you and your little brother should stay close. Sometimes the streets can get a bit packed.”

“Yeah, there’s lots of ponies in the streets around midday.” Lucan added, enthusiastically cantering past us and trotting through the gate as the rest of us followed after him.

We passed the gate to enter a short open lane, flanked on both sides by five-story metal buildings. And at the end, I saw an almost constant stream of ponies across on an intersecting street, going to and fro as they ran their errands; it was literally a never-ending line of color. “There’s so many ponies…” I heard Blake say beside me, his voice easily expressing his awe. 

“You’ll only see more as we get farther in.” Duke replied after a polite laugh. “Stay close.” 

Approaching the end of the entrance lane, Duke and Lucan carefully stepped into the street and turned right, Blake and I following along right behind so as to keep close to them. All along the wide street were ponies, Challenger’s citizens, traveling into and out of buildings that lined along both sides of the road. Several ponies carried saddlebags as they walked, coming onto the road from other intersections farther ahead or disappearing deeper into the residential sector. And with these ponies came their many voices, all chatting at once as they continued on with their activities. But with this increase in activity came a sudden and very uncomfortable increase in the number of staring eyes. Whenever I would turn to look over one of the apartments or shops that lined the road, I would see one or more ponies looking my way out of the corner of my eye; with everypony in the street being either a unicorn or earth pony, it didn’t take much to know what part of me they were looking at. 

“So, Nova,” I heard Duke say from up ahead. “what do you think so far?” 

Aside from the stares… 

“Challenger is impressive.” I remarked with a smile. “It’s amazing that all of these buildings were made from ruined salvage.” Most of the buildings on this first road were five stories tall, some a little shorter and others a floor larger, with smaller shops and structures nestled in between them. This gave a rather protective impression at first sight, the taller buildings looking like bodyguards to the smaller… which reminded me… “What’s the story behind that tower crane?” 

Duke smiled big as he led us past the crowds and onto a second street heading south. “That beast was rebuilt and completed about five years ago, just after the last panels of Challenger’s wall were set up.” he began as we moved along. “A supply caravan found the thing in Manehattan, still standing in an old steel yard even after the balefire blast and the years of weathering that have slowly torn down that old city. After the leader of the expedition group to Manehattan got the crazy idea of trying to tear it down and rebuild it in Challenger, Radiant Gem sent most of the city’s army out to the city to secure a site around the crane. Then came the process of tearing it down, piece by piece, top to bottom. There was a second crane in the steel yard which was larger and had a greater reach than the one we have now, but for some reason, it didn’t survive the weathering. Having that second crane intact and operational would’ve made it a lot easier to dismantle the first, but either way, we cut it down piece by piece and salvaged some of the more important electronic and mechanical components from the fallen one. Then, piece by piece, we carted the whole damn thing back to the city and built it back up. Again, the metalworkers proved themselves, and with welder, magic, and a lot of persistence and prayer, we reassembled the whole thing and got it running. Back in the pre-war times, the crane would’ve been assembled by another larger crane, but seeing as how we didn’t have such a machine, we had to make due with what we had. But as you can see it’s still standing just fine. It’s Challenger’s point of pride, second only to the presidential palace.”

“Did you help make that?” Blake asked him, looking up at where he could see the crane even from the street. 

“That I did.” Duke answered enthusiastically. “I was in Manehattan as a part of one of the salvage teams for about a year, and I helped carry some of the parts back.” 

“How did you get the pieces across the wasteland?” I inquired. 

“Wagons, brahmin, had some long flat carts with wheels that we tied the bigger parts down to with cables. All of those were under heavy guard on their trips to and from Manehattan. It took almost two weeks per load, and of course we encountered bandits and wasteland critters.” Duke explained. “It was quite the adventure.”

“So what’s its purpose?” I asked. “Other than opening the gate, I mean.” 

“That’s really about it.” Duke replied, smirking when he saw my slightly raised eye. “That part of the wall used to be solid with no gate. Building that crane allowed for us to build a more fortified entrance to Challenger. If the need arises, we can use the crane to move crates over the wall between the warehouses and the supply bunkers in the military district, but we don’t do that much.” 

“Impressive.” I complimented after a nod.

“Thanks. And speaking of impressive, that sniper rifle of yours is a piece of work.” Duke remarked, falling in beside me. “Where’d you get it?” 

Blue Fire’s Torch…

“I found it.” I replied, feeling the rifle’s weight on my back from where it was secured to my battle saddle. 

“Just found it?” Duke asked after a preceding moment of silence. 

“Well I didn’t steal it.” I stated with a frown, looking over at him. 

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that… you don’t see all that excited about it.” Duke replied easily. 

“It’s… difficult to explain. I found it in an old ruin just to the northwest of here, and before now, it belonged to a pony who I think lived during the Great War.” 

“And it survived fully intact for one hundred and seventy-five years?” Duke asked, and after my nod added, “That’s quite a find. Are you going to use it?” 

“I… I really don’t know.” I answered, looking down at the dirt as we walked. Maybe if I somehow scrounged up the caps to install a firing bit into it I would, but at the moment, I really didn’t see myself as a very proficient sniper. “Right now, until I have some time to figure it out, I’m just carrying it.” Duke only nodded at that, perhaps that not-so-excited tone of my voice telling him that I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of the weapon; I still really didn’t know yet.

“That’s my house!” I heard Lucan pipe up happily, and I turned away from my thoughts to see as Lucan bolted on ahead, rather adroitly weaving between the ponies on the road. We had been on the same road for the duration of our chat, and I saw that the five story buildings behind us had given way to smaller shelters. Likewise composed of sheet metal, these buildings stood only two stories tall and were uniformly complete with stone steps leading to their front doors. These houses largely reminded me of Lucky Hallion’s shack by Stable 203, the difference between them being that the houses looked much studier and well-tended, evident by the lack of wear and tear that the wasteland brought to those shacks left alone for long periods of time out in the open.

Just a few moments later, I caught sight of Lucan as he ascended the stone steps to wait outside the closed door of a house just down the road on the left side. The colt was literally hopping in place as he waited for us to catch up, and when we approached the steps, he turned and enthusiastically knocked on the door with a forehoof and waited. 

And waited…… and waited…… no answer.

“Is she home?” Lucan asked, a frown forming on his face.

“She should be. If not, then she’s in-” Duke’s words were interrupted as the door gave a light rattle, partially opening as an exhausted-looking earth pony mare’s head poked through. 

“Yes? Can I hel…” the mare began, only to fall silent as she beheld the colt standing before her, a big smile on his face. “L-Lucan??” 

“MOM!” 

Fatigue forgotten, the door flew open as Lucan’s mother closed the distance and scooped up her son, immediately bursting into tears of joy as she hugged him tight.

A colt brought back to his mother, another promise kept. 

Seeing the rather emotional reunion unfold, I couldn’t hold back a tear of my own, one which I quickly wiped away with a foreleg as I smiled, doing my best to ignore an image of my own mother embracing me. Instead, I reached over and pulled Blake against me in a light hug, an embrace which he returned by nuzzling my chest. 

After a moment, Lucan parted from his mother, the mare giving him another kiss on the forehead before looking towards Duke where he stood to my right. “Duke… did you find Lucan?” the mare asked, wiping her snout with a foreleg as she begun to recompose herself. Lucan’s mother was a crème-colored mare, a square topaz gemstone on her flanks as her cutie mark. Her mane and tail were a chocolate brown, equally brown eyes watery with leftover tears.

Duke smiled. “That’s actually thanks to my new friends here.” he answered her, nodding towards me before the mare’s eyes focused on mine. 

“You found Lucan?” she asked, descending the stairs with her son behind her. As she stepped up to me, I gave her a smile and nodded, whereupon the mare threw her forelegs around my neck to pull me into a hug. “Oh Goddesses, thank you… thank you so much for bringing my son back home!”

“Well, it wasn’t just me, you know.” I stated with a light laugh, patting the mare’s back before she released me. “But you’re welcome all the same.” 

“Could you please fill me in on what happened?” she asked after a little laugh of her own. “Where did you find him?” 

With the five of us assembled in front of the porch, I recalled the events of Proudspire’s counteroffensive, the successful destruction of the raiding camp leading to the founding of Lucan and the other two prisoners in his company. Lucan had happily described the proceeding events - how Gracie had healed his sprained foreleg, his arrival to Hopeville, the friends he had made and the games we had played together. Both he and Blake had gladly recollected their pony-pile, embarrassing me in the process when they recalled ‘how easy it was to bring her down.’ In the end, Lucan had even called me a good foalsitter, making his mother smile brightly as the last of her tears faded away. “It was a lot of fun there. I’m glad I met Nova and her friends.” Lucan finished, trotting over to me and throwing his forelegs around mine. 

“You’re welcome Lucan.” I replied with a chuckle, returning the embrace before looking back at his mother. “Lucan told me that he lived in Challenger just before we left home to come here. Before then, I had no idea.” I explained.

“I’m glad you and your friends were able to take care of him while he was away, Nova.” the mare stated with her unfading smile as Lucan trotted back over to her, hugging her again before she extended a hoof. “I’m Bella… and I am eternally grateful to you. If there’s something I can do to help you, please just tell me.” 

Bumping my own hoof against hers, I gave another smile. “My name’s Nova, and this is my little brother Blake. I’m glad that we could help. And please, there’s no need for any kind of reward. Seeing you and Lucan together is good enough of a reward all on its own.” 

“That’s very kind of you. Thank you Nova.” Bella said again, turning to Blake to smile. “And thank you for being such a good friend to him.” Blake smiled back, puffing out his chest at the praise. “The last three days were difficult without Lucan home.” Bella added after a moment, a sad smile on her face as she held Lucan close. “But my husband left just a few hours after Lucan’s disappearance. He told me to stay here and watch out for our house and our booth in the market, but he hasn’t returned since he left, and that was three days ago.”

I nodded sympathetically. “Yes. Duke told me… do you know where he went?” I asked. 

“He said he was going to start with the Moonstone Peaks just northeast of here, figuring it best since it’s where Lucan always wanted to go and explore.” Bella answered. “Then he said he would go to Plainwell if he didn’t find anything at the peaks. Plainwell’s the closest town to them.”

“He said he’d come home after Plainwell to try and find Lucan the following day if he didn’t find him on the first attempt.” Duke said, concern etched in his voice as he added, “He could be at either place right now.” 

“Have you sent anypony out looking for him?” 

“I’ve asked around, but both the city guard and the soldiers are too busy here at home and out in Ashton.” Bella answered with a sigh. “The guards here have their patrolling and guard duty. Plus, most of the new soldiers are finishing up their training to head out to Ashton, so they have no time because of where they’re needed. Aside from that, it’s dangerous to go out there alone. Without help from ponies trained in the use of firearms, Duke and I wouldn’t last out there, especially if we came across a raider patrol. We know how to use a gun, but we’re not skilled with one. The raiders could easily get the upper hoof.”

“Oh… I see.” I muttered lowly, frowning as I looked at the ground. Bella’s words did make sense. Even with weapons training, going out into the wasteland alone was all kinds of risky, and while having a gun and knowing how to use it greatly increased your chances of survival, the chance of running into a hostile fire team was just as great. But… that was the downside of being on the ground, walking the wasteland without the protection of Challenger’s walls to cover you from enemy fire…… what if…

Wings… flying…

“Perhaps you helped that other settlement to more quickly achieve your own goal of helping Hopeville, but sometimes you should offer the help freely, out of the goodness that the Stable put into you. You’re a good and honorable mare Nova, and I have a feeling that that’s not something you find often in the wasteland.”

A filly’s father had said that to me…… if there was any chance to follow those words with actions, then now was the time.

“What if I looked for him?” I offered. 

“You… but you-” 

I cut off Bella’s words by unfurling my wings. “I don’t have these wings for nothing you know.” I added with an encouraging smile. “You said that he went to Plainwell, and that he would come back right after looking around. Just a quick flight to Plainwell to ask some questions, then I’ll look over the peaks. After that, I’ll come back and tell you what I learned, or if I find him, I’ll bring him home.”

Bella, despite hearing what I thought was a solid plan, still spoke up in protest. “But it takes at least six hours to get there. And then it takes about four more to get to the peaks. You’ll be out there all night, and that’s not safe at all.” 

“Wings.” I reiterated with a smirk, ruffling my feathers before returning my wings to my sides. “If it takes that long to get there by walking, then I can cut that time in half, if not more, by flying.”

“Please, Nova,” Bella began, placing a hoof on my shoulder. “you’ve already done so much for me by bringing my son back. I don’t want you risking yourself for me, especially since you hardly know me. I’m sure that one of the city guards could rally a group to go looking. I just need to keep asking.”

But even she didn’t seem so sure of her words. “Let me help.” I said, gently nudging her hoof away. “I want to. If nothing else, look at it as me just trying to build trust between Challenger and Hopeville.”

“You’re from Hopeville?” Bella asked with a smile. 

Subject change to dissuade me… not working.

“Yes and no… but it’s a long story, and one that I’ll gladly tell after I go out there and look for leads on your husband.” I said, returning her smile with one of my own (despite it perhaps being a bit goofier); Bella sighed. 

“You don’t have to do this… I mean, you’re just a stranger.” Duke spoke up, pointing a hoof at me. “We’re not expecting you to suddenly devote yourself to us.”

“It’s not that at all. I just want to help.” I said perseveringly.

“If you really want to…” Bella said, shaking her head slightly before smiling again. “then I’d be in your debt.”

“So it’s settled then.” I declared with a nod. “I’ll go to Plainwell, ask around and see if I can find anything, and then search the peaks before I come back-” 

I felt a nudge at my side, turning and looking down to see Blake looking back at me with sad eyes. “You’re leaving again?” he asked glumly, ears coming back against his head. 

“Only for a bit.” I answered after a light sigh. “I’m not going out and getting myself hurt. I’m just going to be flying to a town and asking some questions.”

“And I can’t come with you right?” Blake asked bitterly, looking away.

“I’ll be much faster by myself.” I replied gently, hugging him. “This requires speed, and I’ll be much faster while flying. That’s the only reason why I’m not taking anypony with me.” At Blake’s sigh, I gave him a peck on the forehead. “I’ll be back by dinner time.”

“Promise?” Blake asked, looking up at me with only the faintest smile on his face.

“Promise.” I answered, giving him another hug before turning back to the others. “I need to get back to my friends and let them know where I’m going. Could one of you come back with me to the warehouses and tell me a bit about Plainwell?”

Though I hadn’t asked for everypony to follow me, Duke, Bella, and Lucan had all volunteered to come along, the five of us heading back the way we came in a tight group. During the walk back to Challenger’s main gate, Duke had filled me in on what to expect in Plainwell. According to the warehouse stallion, the town of Plainwell was a smaller one, perhaps just a little larger than Hopeville was. Plainwell itself served as a resting point for travelers coming from the north, as well as for any caravans or ponies moving between Challenger, Ashton, and Hopeville. The town was inhabited by around two hundred ponies, a mix of settlers from the heartland and a small tribe from the far northeast binding together into one settlement. While it did rely on Challenger for supply, the settlement was somewhat independent, the ponies there sometimes traveling up past the heartland to Route 52 to trade because of the connections the tribe in the settlement maintained to their native homeland by the Route. They sometimes managed to bring back some of the fresh produce from the cropland up that way, and in turn, they would supply Challenger with a share of the goods in exchange for the shipments that the city brought to them. 

“They’re very welcoming to most ponies. So long as you don’t look like a raider, then you’ll have no trouble with them.” Duke finished as we turned onto the final street leading to the main gate. 

“That doesn’t seem too bad at all.” I agreed with a smile, looking ahead towards the gate. In the clearing, Hallion, Marian, Gunny, and Shore were standing by Betsy and the supply wagon, the cart now empty of its weapons shipment. However, instead of the warehouse ponies who had greeted us upon our arrival, there were three others. Two of them, earth pony stallions, were clad in the same green combat armor that the gate guards had worn, and both of them wore assault carbine battle saddles. But the third, an earth pony mare whom the guards flanked, wore a different outfit. She wore light black barding which covered her chest and belly, and on her back was a thick duster made of dark green leather. The cloak covered all of her back and her flanks, only her white tail, streaked with light-blue, remaining unconcealed. The mare’s mane was also a light blue and white, her coat a brilliant silver, and on her head was a black beret with five silver stars placed across the front. 

As we entered the clearing, Gunny spotted us first and upon seeing Lucan and Bella, smiled and nodded to me in approval. 

“So this must be your other friend.” the beret-wearing mare stated, and I turned just in time to see her dipping her head to me. “I’m General Silverlight of the city of Challenger. Welcome to our home.”

I returned the gesture to her. “I’m Nova. This is a beautiful city, and I’ve only seen parts of it so far.” I complimented. 

“Well, everypony who lives here tries their best.” Silverlight replied with a light laugh. “It isn’t perfect by any means, and we still have our own in-city problems. But, we try.” Turning back to Gunny and Shore, both of whom trotted up to me, she added, “Your friends here just finished telling me about Hopeville. While I’m sure it won’t mean much, I’d like to apologize. Had we known about the raiders’ movements, we might’ve prevented Hopeville’s destruction and the fights that you and your ponies have been through.” 

I shook my head at that. “I’ve heard that Ashton has taken up Challenger’s focus.” I said gently. “You’ve been trying to keep the Black Blood at bay, and that’s better than just ignoring it and letting them attack the other settlements.” 

Silverlight nodded. “That’s what we’re trying to do. Their force has been growing every day for the past month, and training more soldiers and sending them out to Ashton is the best we can do to match their strength.” she explained sourly. “We’ve already engaged them in multiple firefights southeast of Ashton, and because of that, we need more soldiers to keep the town fortified… but still, with everything that Gunny and Shore told me, I know that Challenger needs to start focusing on both the raiders and the settlements.” 

“So you’ll be able to help Hopeville resupply?” I asked hopefully. 

“Yes, and Proudspire too.” Silverlight replied with a nod. “I was told about your time in Proudspire as well, how the settlement held the raiders back. I’ll have to talk it over with the president first, but I’m sure that she’ll understand when I tell her what I’ve been told. In fact, if there’s nothing else I need to be informed of, I should get back to the palace and get an audience with President Gem. If everything goes smoothly, I can have the warehouse personnel start assembling two caravans and send them out tomorrow.”

“That sounds great.” I said, letting out a sigh of relief; Hopeville would soon get the help it needed.

“We’ll be waiting for the orders, general.” Duke spoke up with a determined nod.

“Very well then, I’ll be off.” Silverlight said, adding to my friends and I, “If you four need a place to stay, check over at the Sunstone Inn and Saloon. They have beds for rent if you want to wait for the word.” 

“We’ll check it out. Thank you, ma’am.” Gunny replied, raising his hoof in a salute which Silverlight returned (after flashing him a smirk) before trotting away, her two guards following after her. 

“Thank the Goddesses.” I said, turning left and right to look between Gunny and Shore. “Seems like things are going to work out for Hopeville.” 

“With a bit more luck, we’ll be able to get moving again tomorrow.” Gunny replied, looking out at Challenger’s open steel gate. “The sooner we get back with supplies, the better.” 

“While we’re waiting, however, I would like to look around the city.” Shore stated, adjusting his reading glasses. “The warehouse ponies told us about some of the places in the residential sector while we were unloading the wagon, and I would very much like to see them for myself.”

“That, and we should probably go check out that saloon.” Gunny added, looking in front of his hooves at the two pairs of saddlebags that rested before them. “Hopefully I have enough caps to get us all a room to sleep in.”

“Oh, are you Nova’s friend?” Bella asked curiously, Gunny looking back up to see here smiling. 

“Yes ma’am.” the stallion replied. “I’m Gunny and this is Shore.” 

“I already thanked Nova and Blake, and so I’d like to thank the both of you for bringing Lucan back.” 

“Certainly. I’m glad that we could help.” Gunny replied with a nod. 

“Also, I couldn’t help but hear about you needing a place to rest. You would all be welcomed to my home if you wished to stay.” Bella offered benevolently. “It’s the least I could do for what you’ve done for me.” 

Gunny looked back over at me, giving a shrug after a long pause. “I don’t know. What do you think?” he asked. 

“That’s… very kind of you, Bella.” I said, a little hesitantly. “But I don’t want to impose.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be.” Bella said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Besides, if you’re planning on leaving for your home again tomorrow, then I could put a roof over your heads and some food in your bellies so that you’ll be ready for your journey back.”

“If Nova wants to, then I will take up the offer.” Shore spoke up, nodding over to me; why did I have to decide??

I frowned as I thought over my options… though really, despite not wanting to impose and having an inn that would give us rooms… I knew that Blake and my friends could use the rest after the past two days of walking, and hell, I could use that too. Not needing to pay would just be a bonus. “Well, if you think it’s alright and we wont be in your way, then certainly.” I declared. 

“Absolutely.” Bella replied with a smile.

“We get to hang out some more, Blake!” Lucan piped up, quickly trotting up to my smiling little brother and clapping forehooves. 

“Gunny, Shore.” I said, calling their attention to me. “I need to tell you something… I’m heading out again.”

“Heading out again?” Shore asked, raising an eye. 

“Yes. Lucan’s father went out looking for him on the day of his son’s disappearance. It’s been three days, and he hasn’t come back yet. So I told Bella and Lucan that I would go out to a settlement called Plainwell to the north and ask around, see if I can find some leads in regards to his whereabouts.”

“By yourself? That’s a little risky don’t you think?” Gunny asked, both concern and doubt etched into his words. “If you’re going anywhere, I’m coming with you to at least provide some fire support. If you run into any raiders or ghouls out there-”

I interrupted with a raised hoof and a shake of my head. “That’s the thing Gunny. I’m not going to run into anything on the way to there. I’ll be flying high up in the sky to avoid detection, and I wont land until I get to Plainwell.” I explained. 

“But you’ll be gone into the night.” Gunny protested worriedly. 

“According to Bella and Duke, it takes six hours to reach the settlement on hoof.” I replied. “Flying will easily cut that time in half. I might even get there in under two hours if I fly without a break.”

“Are you sure?” Shore asked with a frown. “It’s dangerous to be outside without some help.”

“I know that, and I know that the two of you are concerned, but I can take care of this.” I answered with a nod, smirking and winking as I playfully added, “I’m a big, tough girl.”

Both of my friends let out a sigh. 

“Fine.” Gunny said with a shake of his head. “But you should at least take some provisions.” A second later, the unicorn stallion’s horn glowed with magic, and two of the saddlepacks on the dirt in front of him opened, a box of Dandy Colt Apples, a bottle of purified water, and a healing potion floating over to my own saddlebag. As he opened it and set the contents inside the right-side pack, he said, “Just be careful out there. If you’re not back within a day, Shore, Blake, and I will be out looking for you.” 

“That won’t be a problem.” I replied, smiling as Gunny closed my saddlebag. “Oh, could you also take my sniper rifle and keep it safe while I’m gone? I don’t want the extra weight while I’m flying.” 

“Sure.” With a nod, Gunny detached Blue Fire’s Torch from my saddle and secured it to Shore’s security armor. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before nightfall.” I assured, keeping my smile before turning back to Bella and Duke. “Who’s the pony I’m looking for?”

“His name’s Shotshell.” Duke answered. “He’s a brown unicorn stallion with a golden mane and brown eyes, has three shotgun shells for a cutie mark.”

“He carried a pair of saddlebags and a black pump-action shotgun with him as well.” Bella added with a raised hoof. “Hopefully that will help you in your search.”

“Every little bit of information helps.” I replied with a nod. “I’ll do my best to bring him back.” 

Even before I turned to face Blake, I felt his eyes upon me, and I looked down to see him gazing upon me with worried eyes; he was the most worried of them all. “Come back soon.” he said as I stepped up to him. 

I lowered my head down and kissed him on the forehead. “I will. And I’ll be careful too, I promise.” 

With Blake’s nod and farewell, I stepped away from the group and out into the open as I fanned out my wings. Then with a deep breath, I launched myself skyward, immediately pouring on the speed and passing over Challenger’s wall as determination set itself into my head. Though Bella and Duke hadn’t expected me to care, I did care… or at least I cared enough. It was all about family, and while my parents had been lost to me, I felt that I could prevent the same thing from happening to little Lucan; I wanted to give him the chance to grow with both of his parents there to see him through.  

With my wings scooping at the air around me, I shot ahead towards the north, leaving Challenger behind.

***				***				***

With the sky beginning to darken in the east, I knew that I had been flying for over two hours. At the first leg of the flight, I had been worried about my wings growing tired and while they were getting slightly achy as I continued forward, they were still holding up as I continued onward. 

I had flown with only one break, pausing long enough to eat the food and drink a portion of the water that Gunny had given to me before continuing forward, eating up the distance as the afternoon progressed to the early evening. Down below, I could see the curve of the road that led to Challenger. I had been following it since the beginning, using it as a source to mark my path; it would be easy to follow it back to Challenger when I was finished. The road itself had been the only sight during my time in the air, aside from the Moonstone Peaks, which I had seen in the early stages of the journey. From up in the sky, I had been able to see that the peaks were indeed rather tall. Despite their height, however, the peaks were more like large hills, with only some paths, crevices, and rifts to break up the curves of their shape. 

While I was on my own personal mission, flying alone and high above the wasteland made me miss flying in general… or at least the peaceful kind of flying. Over the past several days, I had been flying only to fight or to hurry to an objective. Flying through the sky, unimpeded by raiders, was very refreshing… and terribly nostalgic. Seeing the vast expanse of the southeastern wasteland, the endless sprawl of brown and black, brought the images of the pre-war world back. In Stable 181, there were many books about pre-war life and the era of peace, and many of these contained pictures that I could still recreate. Every time I looked below me, I could picture the dirt and dust as it vanished and transformed into sprawling green meadows. I could see the scattering of forestland and the occasional rocky peak, just as Hallion had described. And if I tried hard enough, I could see the farmland, plots of crops that southeastern farm ponies would be tending to without paying a single thought to technology and war. It made me wonder if Equestria could ever return to its old self… would ponies ever live in harmony again? It’s what Stable 181 and the Golden Fire family taught us to do, but could others do the same? Could we? 

Seeing Equestria return to the days of peace would be both a miracle and a blessing. But after one hundred and seventy-five years of existence, the wasteland had fortified itself as a cruel place. Was there really a chance of seeing green again? Was there really a chance of seeing the kind of peace and serenity that existed two hundred years ago?… If there was a chance, then I wanted to help to find that chance in any way possible. Helping the other settlements, both Proudspire and Challenger and any others, was perhaps the most honorable way to attempt that. Helping others to help the wasteland was a way that I could do my part, for Hopeville, Challenger, the southeast… I knew that I wanted to do good.

Looking away from the ground far below, I straightened myself out and banked right to slightly adjust my course, the wind blowing in from the east neither hindering nor helping my flight time. However, as I lowered my altitude in my adjustment, I could see something in the far north. To my left, the pre-war road leading to Challenger had begun banking back to the northwest towards Hopeville. But straight ahead, the second pre-war road had taken shape, and a small yet solid plot of buildings was visible. 

With my destination in sight, I dove back down to lower my altitude. Even as I shot downward, angling in towards Plainwell’s southeast side, I could see much of the layout of the settlement. The town was split in half, the pre-war road cutting right through it, and each half was composed of three rows of stone houses and other buildings that were evenly spaced, following the curve of the road. Each building had its visible wear and tear from the years, (cracked stone, crumbling corners and sides) but each and every one of them stood. But as I grew closer, adjusting the angle of my descent, my previous interest in visiting was replaced with an itching tension. There was no pony on the road, and there was no pony among the houses. For being a settlement in the southeast, there was no activity; it looked entirely abandoned. 

Closing the distance between myself and the ground, I drew parallel along the road before beating my wings back to slow my approach, and with a final few flaps, I lowered myself to the cracked concrete and tucked my wings in against my sides, both of them grateful for the break as I looked out into the town; it was definitely deserted, or in the least, nopony was home. I took a step forward, reaching down and flipping the safety lever of my battle saddle off before my pipbuck chirped. Looking down at the computer’s screen, I could see the new marker displayed on my pipbuck’s larger map. Though empty, this place was definitely Plainwell, and if this was the last place that Shotshell had traveled to, then I needed to look around for clues. But now, I also needed to try and find out why Plainwell was silent. General Silverlight would want to know why, and the rather ominous stillness made me want to know why as well.

Focusing ahead, I walked slowly forward, scanning the first of the buildings on both sides of the road and checking my E.F.S. for signatures; there were no hostiles or friendlies at the edge of town. The first buildings I passed by were simple two-story houses, all made with stone exteriors. Most of them were without windows and doors, some of the open holes covered over with cloth and duct tape, the old fabric shifting in the breeze. 

“Hello?” I called, not loudly, but hopefully loud enough that anypony within the surrounding buildings would hear…… no answer… I stopped in the street and took in a breath and exhaled before crouching down and closing my eyes, listening. I could hear the breeze, passing along the street and churning the dust. I could hear the sound of the cloth, light, but just loud enough to make sound as the wind passed through it… then… a small sound that passed through the draft… something different… coming from farther ahead.

Opening my eyes, I started forward again, moving slowly to sneak along the road. Despite the quiet, I still felt as if something was out there, and I checked my E.F.S. again… green. There was definitely something down the road, and with the possibility of a first contact, I quickened my pace, still crouched and moving with as little noise as possible as I drew up against the wall of a house on the left side. As I advanced, I checked the space between each building, finding nothing as I moved from house to house, the green marker growing closer. But as the symbol moved along my compass, showing that I was close to drawing parallel to it, I now could clearly hear the sound I had heard before - a sob. With this… came a very unpleasant scent that suddenly attacked my sense of smell. It was foul and acrid, and as I closed in on the building that the green marker resided in, the smell only grew more potent. 

Stopping at the corner of the target house, I noticed an opening that would’ve been a window sitting just ahead; beyond that was the front entrance, lacking a door. “Hello? Is anypony in there?” I asked quietly, creeping up below the open window and listening for a response.

Another sob answered, a snuffle following, but then I heard a faint voice. “Don’t… come…”

The voice belonged to a mare, that much was distinguishable to me, and it was coming from the far end of the building’s interior. “Are you okay?” I asked, checking my E.F.S. again to still see a lack of red. The mare only repeated herself, however, her plea only slightly stronger on her struggling voice; she sounded like she was hurt. “I’m coming in. I promise I won’t hurt you.” I called, hoping that my words were enough of a deterrent to keep whoever was inside from panicking. 

I snuck past the window frame and along the house’s front wall, approaching the entrance. But just as I prepared to cross the entrance and step inside, I saw a trace of color on the ground. There was red here, dark and… still wet… and as I stepped around the entrance, I froze in fear as I barely prevented myself from stepping down on a dead pony. A tail was draped over the body, leading to another body… leading to another… and another… and another…

Corpses… spread across the entire floor. There was at least twenty bodies inside, every single one of them riddled with holes, and their blood painted across most of the floor and along parts of the walls. It was all I could do to wheel away and stagger forward, tearing myself away from the sight just as I hitched forward and emptied the contents of my stomach onto the road. Even after only eating a small meal, I had thrown up twice in just seconds, feeling as if I nearly puked out my own entrails before I managed to stop.

With a miserable series of coughs, trying to spit out the terrible aftertaste, I turned away from my partially digested food, careful to avoid facing the building again as I took in deep breaths, the smell still attacking my muzzle. That feeling of panic that I had nearly forgotten rushed back all at once, nearly causing physical pain and shaking me when the retained image of the mass of bodies reminded me of the Stable massacre… all those bodies, just like what the raiders had done in our home. But back in the Stable, I hadn’t seen many of the casualties… they had been killed in the living quarters, away from me. In Hopeville, I had not seen the bodies that Gunny had seen in the City Hall - I had been outside with Captain Saber. This time, I did not have that grace… this time, I bore witness to this terrible horror…… this had to have been the work of the Black Blood… it just had to have been. Who else could’ve done something like this? Who would be so evil as to kill so many and toss their corpses in a building to rot away?… And where were they?… I snapped my attention to my E.F.S. compass again, nearly in panic as I searched left and right to check for any red. Then I double checked, frantically looking down both directions of the road and looking for any shadows nearby. Still, there was only the one green friendly marker and nothing on the streets. And upon looking more closely, I could tell that the pony whom the marker represented was inside the building of corpses; one of them had survived and was still alive inside. 

Instinctively closing my eyes and letting out a shaky breath, I faced the building again and gathered my voice and my nerves. “Are… are you alright?” I asked, barely suppressing the urge to collapse and curl up as the memories of the Stable assaulted my mind, that urge to flee coming on stronger when there was no reply from the mare inside. “I’m… I-I’m coming in… to get you, okay?” I called, shivering at the thought of what I was about to do. I knew right away that I couldn’t leave that survivor in there… there was no way I would leave her… but to get to her, I’d have to go inside.

I opened my eyes with a sigh and checked my E.F.S. compass. Though the mare hadn’t responded, the marker was still present on my pipbuck’s display, and that meant she was still alive. “I’m coming in.” I called again, mustering myself up with a deep breath before focusing forward and stepping up to the entrance of the building. 

Immediately, I searched for spaces between the bodies to step into, and I found the first of those spaces close by. One hoof in… slowly… over the first body… stone. Second hoof… same thing… Two more agonizingly slow steps and I was inside the building, the bodies all around. I raised my right foreleg to check my compass again, doing my best to ignore the coagulated blood that now decorated my hoof. The marker was to the left and forward, telling me that the survivor would be in the far corner of the building, and as I set my foreleg back down, wincing and letting out an involuntary squeak at the light splatter that resulted from the step, I asked, “Are you on the first floor… or the second?” The first floor room was large, taking up the entire space aside from an intact wooden staircase against the far wall and a smaller room in the left corner. 

“First…” came the weak answer; she was in the corner room.

“Hold on… I’m coming.” I repeated, raising my foreleg for another step and stepping around the dead mare in my path. Everywhere I stepped, there was blood, still wet enough to make lightly audible spatters every time my hoof came down onto the floor. Every step made the urge to run all the more powerful… but no, I had to get this survivor out of here… I had to help her. 

I halted my movement after stepping over a third body, looking over my compass one more time. The survivor had said that she was on the first floor and the marker was straight ahead, beyond four more dead ponies. The first of these was that of a stallion with three large holes in his side and another in his skull, bits of brain around his head. Suppressing a gag that came out as a rough cough, I searched for open spaces and found them, stepping over the dead pony. The next body was that of another mare, likewise killed with a headshot and covered with lacerations. I carefully made my way over the body, planting a forehoof down before it slipped on the blood-covered floor. I only avoided falling atop the corpse by snapping out my wings and quickly fluttering them to heft me up, buying me just enough time to plant my hooves more firmly onto the floor, and regretfully splashing my lower legs with specks of blood.

Letting out a sigh, I finished stepping over the body. Now I was nearly there, but as I stepped around the third body in my path and looked up to see the corner room, I froze dead as my eyes instead fell upon the next corpse.

Sprawled on his side in a pool of his own blood, laying across the doorway of the small room, was a colt…… so young and small… shot in the head with a small caliber weapon, a pistol judging by the small size of the hole. But what was even worse than that… his eyes were open, emotionless with death… but I swear I saw a light silver line where tears had trailed down his face from the corners of his eyes, washing just enough of the dirt away in their path to make their trails recognizable. 

I choked back a sob as I finally turned away from the body, closing my eyes and lowering my head. “Goddesses…… I’m so sorry…” I muttered, shaking my head as a tear slid down the left side of my face. It wasn’t like there was anything I could’ve done for him… for any of them… but this massacre… I felt like I had to apologize. If there had been something, anything, that I could’ve done to prevent this… I would have…… but it had been beyond my reach, and that made me feel all the more wretched and heartbroken.

Looking back at the dead child, I carefully reached over and gently closed his eyes with a hoof. “Celestia… dad, mom… please watch over these poor ponies… they’re with you now…” I whispered, my silent prayer to these bodies that had once been Plainwell’s citizens; even though I knew none of them, it was my way to honor them for who they were… whoever they were before this atrocity.

Returning my focus to the corner room’s entrance, I walked over the dead colt and into the room. There were two bodies close to the doorway, and in the far left corner, I saw just a hint of movement from a third. The mare laying in the corner was matted with blood along most of her side, and what was worse was that a chunk of her back had been torn out by something and her left foreleg was gone entirely; how the hell was she still alive?

Trotting across the cleaner room, I made my way to the mare and reached around with my forehooves to undo my saddlebags. She needed a healing potion if she wanted any chance to survive, but just as I found the first of my saddlebags’ two clamps attaching it to my saddle, I felt a nudge against my free foreleg. “Don’t…” the mare’s voice croaked, and I turned away from my bags to see as the dying pony shifted. “I’m beyond saving.”

“But I have a healing potion.” I insisted, nodding back to my saddlebags over my flanks. “Please, I can help you.” The mare only shook her head at me, a very slight movement. “W-who did this?” I demanded softly, fixing the mare with a firm but gentle stare.

“Talons… soldiers from the northlands… they came back.” the mare replied, breathing heavily between some of her words; I could tell that she didn’t have much time left. 

“Came back?” I asked, shaking my head slightly. “I don’t understand.”

“They come from… a city in the north.” the mare explained with difficulty. "A pre-war city…… not like Challenger…” She paused to take in a ragged breath. “They were… Challenger’s enemies many… years ago… when the city was…… being built… they’ve returned…… that’s what Shotshell told me…” 

Shotshell? “You know Shotshell?” I asked, and at the mare’s slight nod, I added, “I’m looking for him. Is he here?” 

“He came… into this house as well… early today…… just after the attack in the night… on our home……” the mare responded, her voice breaking as she lightly groaned with pain. “He asked me… if his son was here… I told him what I could… but then……” 

“But then what?” I asked, tenderly nudging her belly with a hoof. 

“They came… and took him as a prisoner.” the mare answered slowly, now struggling just to speak. “That’s why… you have to go…… warn Challenger… warn everypony… please…” 

“I’ll…” As I begun to respond, I instinctively looked over my compass again.

Red. 

Coming from my right side was a whole mass of red markers on my compass, so thick that I couldn’t count how many enemy contacts there were. “They’re already here.” I whispered, my breath picking up; the adrenaline was beginning to move.

“You have… to leave……” the mare stated again, managing to raise her head to look at me, eyes hazy with pain and fatigue. “Run, fly… and when you move, watch out for… their ‘storm drums’…… the Plainwell tribe’s name… for their great guns on wheels. One of them… took off my foreleg with one shot.”

“I… no… I have to help Shotshell.” I said, slowly but with firm determination. “His wife and his son, they sent me out here to look for him… and after seeing what happened here, there’s no way I’m going to desert him. I have to bring him home.” 

The mare’s head fell to the floor again as she sighed. “I don’t… want to see… another good pony die here.” she said, closing her eyes. 

“I won’t die here… and neither will Shotshell.” I said, gently placing a reassuring hoof on the mare’s neck, feeling a very weak pulse.  

The mare’s head moved in a slight nod. “I believe you…… Go then… do what you think… is best for… the future…” her last two words were the weakest, and even as she spoke them, I felt as she begun to fail, and it was only a second later that she became the newest casualty in the building; with a sigh, I pulled my hoof away. 

Though part of me immediately wanted to give this mare and that colt from before a proper burial, I knew that I had no time left. These Talon soldiers were approaching, most likely coming to look over this building again, and I was not interested in being taken prisoner… or worse. But still, what about Shotshell? Bella and Lucan needed me to find him, and now that I had a solid lead as to his whereabouts, I had a much better chance of success. I still had to think about how to get him freed from captivity however… but for now, I needed to focus on the hostile targets that were closing in, and more importantly, I needed to get out of this building. 

Turning back, I made my way across the floor, carefully but swiftly stepping around the bodies. As I reached the building’s entrance and crouched along the wall, I could see the first of the hostile ponies. There were three of them at the front of a whole column of hostile infantry that was at least twenty strong, all of them wearing uniform night black armor, each suit with a set of three jagged white lines painted along its chest plate. Each pony was well armed with a variety of battle saddles, equipped with shotguns and assault rifles. Those who didn’t wear saddles, the unicorns of the group, carried well-maintained precision weapons from bolt and lever-action rifles to semiautomatics. But as they continued slowly down the road, some of their ponies diverting to check the buildings, others came into view… except they weren’t ponies. 

Traveling at the back of the column were two creatures, both with large brown wings against their sides, long tails, paws with talons, and beaks on their faces - griffins. I had read about them and their involvement in the Great War. Griffins were largely a neutral party during the time, only serving one side or the other through mercenary work; I suppose it was the whole ‘serve the highest bidder’ thing. These two griffins carried two weapons each, one assault rifle and one large rifle strapped to their armor, the structure of the latter reminding me of Gunny’s .50 caliber rifle that he had given to Proudspire; the griffins must’ve been sharpshooters. 

Between the two griffins, however, was perhaps the scariest asset of their column. Surrounded by a field of magic, pushed forward by a crew of five unicorns, was a large mobile gun mounted onto two wheels and a heavy iron carriage. Though the gun’s barrel was narrow in diameter, it was long, and the weapon as a whole was nearly double the size of the unicorns that pushed it forward. I didn’t know what the weapon was, but judging by the fact that this gun’s barrel’s diameter was still much larger than either of my rifles, I knew that I didn’t want to get caught under its fire. 

The ponies at the head of the column were nearly upon me, and even as I watched, I heard as one of them pointed at my hiding spot, shouting, “Check that building! I want to see if there’s another ‘holier-than-thou’ white knight that came waltzing along from Challenger.” They definitely had Shotshell… and I had no more time to wait. Tensing, I lunged forward and out of the entrance to land on the street, and as surprised shouts came from the column, I snapped out my wings and shot skyward, just as gunshots struck the concrete below me. 

As I shot past the rooftops, bullets following me up and zipping around me, I quickly leveled out and sped away due north. Below, I could see another group of Talons, a second equally-armed column that had been searching through the buildings on the northeast side of the road. However, upon seeing me above, there were alerts going up all over the abandoned town as they called back and forth to one another. 

Suddenly, a shot flashed by me, barely missing my right side, and I craned my head around to see the two griffins in pursuit. They were quickly closing the distance between us, and it didn’t take much to tell that there was no way I would beat them in a straight flight… at least not yet. I had to maneuver and evade, and with a grunt, I tilted right and banked sharp to angle towards the ground in a dive, completing a one-eighty degree turn and shooting by my two pursuers. However, one of the two copied my move to stay with me, the other doing the same but arcing in the opposite direction. In response, I beat my wings faster, rising in a steep climb to take me higher up before halting and falling back down in a dive. As I predicted, one of the griffins had followed me upward, staying right on my tail. Now, we were barreling straight towards each other; time to fight. 

At the same time the griffin brought her .50 caliber to bear, aiming for me, I clamped down on my saddle’s firing bit and fired, two pairs of shots sounding with the boom of the .50 cal. Though I missed both pairs of shots, the griffin had missed as well (though I felt the wind of the bullet), and we tilted in opposite directions to avoid crashing into one another. But up ahead, as I continued my dive, I saw the griffin’s partner below, hovering in the air as he aimed through the scope of his own .50 cal. If I continued in a straight dive, I would get hit for sure, and quickly, I banked away and right to level out, the shot the second griffin took going wide as I evaded. 

Plainwell was just ahead, and I could see the two Talon columns below as they spread out along the town’s north side, positioning themselves to cut me off. I veered left and away from the town and its dangerous airspace, the two griffins now moving on an intercept course to my left. As we drew closer, I could see as one of them resecured his .50 caliber to his back to draw his second weapon, an assault rifle which he now held at the ready in his talons. I had no choice but to angle away from them, putting them directly behind me as I put on some speed to try and gain distance.

Another .50 caliber shot echoed in the air, and I felt as the bullet punched through my right-side saddlebag, looking back to see as the potion and the water that had been kept inside now dribbled out of their shattered containers and through the holes in the pack. More bullets followed the heavy rifle shot, and the assault rifle rounds forced me to drop altitude. As I hooked back around and righted myself facing northeast, I could see flashes of gunfire on the ground ahead. I didn’t know what it was, but any chance at a distraction was a chance I needed to take; if I continued to evade and dodge like this, I would wear myself out. 

Mustering all my strength, I sped forward and dropped in low to the ground as I went, sending up a thin trail of dust in my wake. Behind me, I saw as one of the griffins leveled out just above my elevation, .50 caliber rifle brought up to aim as she slowed. The second griffin was higher up, slowly banking down towards me before lining up his own shot and firing. I leaned right as the first of his shots struck the ground, kicking up dirt around me. At the same time, the heavy rifle fired its next echoing shot, going low and hitting the blurred ground behind me as I sped forward and leaned left, passing just ahead of a line of assault rifle fire from the male. Then the gunfire I had spotted before was just ahead of me. 

It was coming from some sort of camp with tents lined in three rows of ten and other shacks and watch posts scattered around as a perimeter. Black-armored soldiers were engaging armorless ponies who were fighting from multiple directions, occupying  three shacks and catching a chunk of the Talon fighters in a crossfire. However, there were other solid positions that the Talons had formed, one of them including a dug-in mobile gun, the long barrel firing off ringing and very loud shots in rapid succession. The slower fire rate made me think that it was not only a mobile gun, but a precision one as well; right now, it was filling one of the three opposing shacks with large holes.

Beating back up, I passed by over the camp as my pipbuck beeped to label the location. I didn’t have time to look as the assault griffin fired back down at me, taking advantage of my increased altitude. Still, his shots fell behind as I poured on the speed to make up for the lost distance, and with a back-wing, I slowed to a crawl and turned in midair to hover and face the two griffins. The .50 caliber griffin immediately brought her rifle to bear as I halted, the second banking down from the left to come at me from an angle as I activated S.A.T.S., using the time slowing spell to think out my next actions. The .50 caliber griffin would be the first target, because in just a few seconds, she would shoot again, and hovering made me an easy target. The second griffin was just in the corner of my vision… one shot for each of them.

Executing the spell, time returned as I bit down on my saddle’s firing bit, my battle rifle and carbine roaring their next shots - a hit. The sniper griffin’s .50 cal fell from her talons as I scored a perfect headshot, her now lifeless body plummeting after the heavy rifle as I snapped around to face the second griffin. But before I could fire off my second targeted shot, the griffin’s assault rifle spit lead, and I felt two impacts from the burst of fire, one bullet hitting my upper left foreleg as the second struck my left flank. My second targeted shot canceled as I cried out in agony, the pain forcing my wings to snap shut as I toppled out of the air, the second griffin racing past me. 

Quickly though, I forced my focus away from the terrible sting, concentrating on unfurling my wings out again and righting myself in the air. There was only a short distance between myself and the ground as I fought to make my wings work. But just before I would’ve hit the ground, my wings caught the air and I managed to pull back up, flying straight over a squad of Talon unicorns who were reloading their mobile repeating cannon. To my left was the group of opposing fighters, perhaps thirty to forty strong. As I flew along the battle below, I tried to focus in on that group. If Shotshell was here, he would be fighting with them. 

With a grunt, I looked down at my left foreleg as I flew. A trail of blood had already gone down the limb from the bullet hole, and what was worse, the bullet hadn’t gone clean through. My left flank was the same way, blood streaking along my coat and concealing part of my blue flame cutie mark. Even as I flew, the wounds continued to bleed quite generously. No potions, no bandages… I had to land. Flying under fire was one thing, and flying after being shot but healed afterwards was another. But flying while wounded and bleeding, with no source of medical aid, was something else, and I didn’t want to risk another crash landing like back in Proudspire; there was only one thing left for me to do. 

I tilted left and angled in towards the ponies fighting against the Talons, each of them creating a solid mass of green when I looked over my E.F.S. compass. As I made the final approach towards the group, several of them spotted me, most only casting quick glances and seeing me as a friendly (thank Celestia). However, one of them I saw caught my focus. A brown coat and a gold mane made the unicorn’s colors, the stallion having three shotgun shells on his flank. At his side levitated a powerful-looking black shotgun, shooting out a cone of flame as he fired at a Talon earth pony, now bathed in fire for his failed attempt to get close to their group; the shotgun wielding pony had to be Shotshell.

I hovered in towards the cover of a nearby shack, one of the three occupied by the friendly contacts and the one where Shotshell was closest. However, I learned the hard way that the bullet in my foreleg had embedded itself into bone. As I landed behind the safety of the back of the shack, my injured limb gave out with a crack and I fell onto my side as a jolt of pain ripped through me, causing me to cry out again. This immediately won the attention of a nearby unicorn mare who had been reloading a nine millimeter SMG. She was a light grey mare with a red mane and tail, equally crimson markings painted along her entire body. At seeing me collapse, she swiftly holstered the weapon to her tattered barding and trotted up to me with worried hazel eyes. “You are wounded.” she observed concernedly, already looking over my new bullet holes.

No kidding. “Ugh… please h-help.” I managed to say through a groan. Now that I was temporarily safe from attack, the adrenaline slowly fading, the pain in my foreleg was all I could think of. Coupled with the bullet embedded in my flank, the burn was nearly unbearable to me, turning to such when the mare suddenly proceeded to inspect my foreleg, raising it with a hoof and causing the pain to flare again as I cried out and whimpered. 

“I do not have Challenger healing potions, but I do have something that will help.” the mare said (in a rather exotic voice), carefully setting my foreleg down before her horn glowed with magic. 

“Sheva, are you alright??” I heard a stallion call out over the fighting; I didn’t look to see who it was.

“Yes, Shotshell. But this young mare is hurt and needs help.” Sheva calmly responded; how could she be so calm when the bullets were still flying? “I have something to help, but we must leave soon if we wish to escape.” Sheva turned her eyes back to me as a small, round bottle hovered in front of her, a watery, dark ruby liquid contained within. “Drink this.” she commanded gently as she removed the cork. I swiftly obliged, opening my mouth with a shaky nod as she brought the bottle to my lips to let me drink. But immediately, the strange potion struck my tongue with a tremendously vile taste, and I would’ve spit it right out had it not been for Sheva, the mare quickly bringing one hoof to the back of my head and the other to my jaw to keep my mouth closed. Then, she tilted my head back before I could fight her, and the drink went down my gullet. 

After a moment, I was released, and I rolled onto my belly as I fell into a coughing fit, trying in vain to get the sour taste out of my mouth. “W-what… did you make me drink??” I demanded, my voice coming out as a rasp as I struggled to calm myself.

“It is a healing brew of my tribe, created from the land of Route 52.” Sheva responded, placing a reassuring hoof on my back as I took in deep breaths. “It will cure the wounds you have taken, quell the bleeding. But the pain will remain for a time.”

“Sheva, there’s more coming!” Shotshell warned from nearby, and I looked over to see him as he reloaded his shotgun behind the opposite end of the shack. “You need to tell your ponies to move or we’re going to get surrounded!” 

Sheva nodded her reply before nudging me to look at her. “Please stay here for now. You are in no condition to fight.” Before I could protest this, the tribal mare trotted away, readying her SMG as she passed out of my sight. 

With the bitter drink in my belly and pain in two legs, I shook my head and focused my attention to the unicorn stallion nearby who returned to cover after firing another two shotgun blasts. “Shotshell…” I called out, a little weakly but still loud enough for him to look at me, eye raised. “Are you actually Shotshell?” 

“Yeah, I am.” the buck said hesitantly, levitating out two new shells and loading them into his shotgun. “But I’m afraid that introductions are going to have to wait for now.” 

“Bella and Lucan sent me to find you.” I explained as loudly as I could, slowly rising up to my hooves. Already, the two gunshot wounds were closing, and my previously bent leg was beginning to mend; the pain was still there though, and I forced myself to my hooves while keeping my foreleg off of the ground, barely suppressing another cry as the pain continued to course around my left side.

Shotshell immediately frowned, looking over me with suspicion as his eyes narrowed. “How do you know those names?” he demanded. 

But as I made to respond, my eyes widened as I caught sight of a black-armored earth pony sneaking around behind the shack, approaching Shotshell from behind with a combat knife clenched in his mouth. 

“SHOTSHELL!!” 

Even before I finished yelling his name, the unicorn buck ducked his head down low, the Talon’s blade swiping where his neck had been and scraping against the sheet metal of the shack’s wall. A split second later, the unicorn’s shotgun snapped back and struck the earth pony in the jaw with its stock. With the soldier stunned, Shotshell jumped away to put distance between himself and his new foe, and quickly righting himself, he aimed the shotgun forward and fired, a cone of flame engulfing the soldier; before the Talon could scream twice, I activated S.A.T.S. and finished him off with one pair of shots to the head. 

With a *ping*, my battle rifle’s autoloader ejected the spent clip and fed another into the weapon. At the same time, Shotshell stepped over the burning body of the soldier to peek around the corner of the wall, ducking back almost immediately. “They’re moving up!” he called over the noise. “We’ve got to go now, otherwise we won’t be able to escape!” 

“Do you have some kind of plan?” I asked back as he holstered his shotgun to his armor. 

“Sheva and I planned something out while they kept us in our cells.” Shotshell replied, trotting up close beside me before looking back at his armor and opening one of its pockets with his magic. “All of the tribe’s remaining foals, along with their parents, are being herded up in the shack behind us. The same is happening for the other citizens. There aren’t many, but we’re hoping to get them out of here and back to Challenger while the rest stay behind.”

“Isn’t there some way the others could come too?” I asked, flinching as an explosion ripped up the dirt a few meters behind me. “Why are some of them staying behind?”

“If all of us left, the Talons would follow us and pick us off. With a chunk of us staying behind, we have a better chance of getting at least some ponies out alive.” Shotshell answered, shaking his head before adding a little more sourly. “Plus, those that are staying behind volunteered after losing their own families to the Talons…… Here, let me bandage these wounds. They’re still bleeding, and the last thing you need right now is to lose consciousness.” Even as he spoke, I was starting to feel slightly lightheaded, and when I looked, I saw as most of my left foreleg and left hind leg was covered over with red. Yeah… they’re definitely bleeding… still.

With a nod, I raised my foreleg higher, another bolt of pain quickly shooting through my crippled limb. Shotshell quickly undid the medical bandaging with his magic and secured two onto my first wound before moving on to the second and patching it up. “That should completely stop the bleeding.” he said as he finished. “These and the tribal drink will keep you alive while we head back to Challenger. Then we’ll get you some proper medical care… and I’ll want to be asking you some questions too. Now,” he added as he crouched down. “get on my back and hold on. Even with Sheva’s medicine, I know you’re not in the condition to walk, let alone run. That griffin is still out there, and those mobile guns of their’s will take you as an easy target.”

For time’s sake, I obliged and climbed onto his back, doing my best to ignore my protesting and crippled legs. Then he trotted over to the left corner of our cover and peeked around, letting me catch a view of the battlefield; there wasn’t a whole lot of progress on the skirmish - hardly any new casualties. Ponies fired and ducked, or fired blind over their cover as each side kept the other from advancing too far. The Talon soldiers were only advancing with the help of their mobile gun, its larger rounds carving into the cover provided by rocks, sheet metal, and occasional sandbags. “What are those things anyway?” I asked as he stepped back behind cover, readying himself to run. “Those guns of theirs?”

“The tribe here calls them ‘storm drums.’” Shotshell explained briefly. “But to put it short, they’re pre-war weapons. Twenty millimeter flak guns. I don’t know where the Talons got them from, but they’re deadly, and they’ve been using them for years.” Before I could ask anymore questions, he added, “Hang on tight. I’m going to sprint for that shack just ahead. If you’re strong enough to provide some fire support while we move, then I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll try.” Carefully, I shifted so that I could look over my left foreleg. Then, with some effort, I managed to get my mouth around Fire Rose’s firing bit and remove the weapon from its holster. “Ah-khay.” I called through a mouthful of metal, lifting my head up and lowering it over Shotshell’s right shoulder to face the battle. 

“Alright, hang on!” With that final warning, Shotshell leapt from cover and galloped out into the open. Already, bullets were striking the ground around us, kicking up dirt as the stallion ran. 

While I wrapped my limbs around Shotshell as tightly as I could to keep from falling off, I aimed Fire Rose and brought up S.A.T.S.. Beyond the sights of my mother’s pistol, I could see several of the enemy soldiers peeking up from behind sandbag barricades, and three of them were taking shots at us. One shot, two shots, three shots, execute.

Activating the spell, I fired one shot which went low and struck the barricade the first pony was hiding behind. The second shot went wide as the speed of our passage moved the sights of the second target. But the third, by what I felt was luck, found home and struck the third soldier square in the head, sending the stallion reeling back as his rifle toppled over the barricade and onto the dirt. 

By then, we were safe behind the wall of the next shack. The front entrance must have faced the battlefield, but in the back wall was a large hole carved into the sheet metal, and as Shotshell stepped around and inside, I saw a small collection of Plainwell’s survivors. There were sixteen here, split into five groups of what I assumed were families. Four of the groups consisted of one stallion, one mare, and one frightened foal. The fifth was made of one stallion, mare, and two children. The foals themselves ranged in age, the youngest perhaps even younger than Blake, and the oldest holding a nine millimeter pistol through telekinesis. Each of the mothers and fathers were armed with small arms, primarily pistols. Sheva herself was here, currently consoling her own little filly with a unicorn stallion (whom I assumed was her husband) at her side; he was the only one armed with something larger than a pistol or SMG, his weapon being a well-kept lever-action rifle.  

Upon our entry, Sheva turned to see us and gave a nod. “Are we ready to leave?” she asked in her exotic voice. “Please, my daughter is terribly shaken.” 

“We’re ready to go… except we still have one thing we need to take care of.” Shotshell said, frowning as he thought. 

“Our warriors are already holding back their advance.” Sheva replied, cocking her head slightly but otherwise remaining calm. “Why do we delay?” 

“They still have a griffin out there.” Shotshell explained bitterly. “If we try and move while they have a flier out there, he’ll be able to tell the other Talons where we’re going. Aside from that, he’ll be able to pick us off from the air.” 

“The outsider is right.” the unicorn buck next to Sheva declared, nudging her gently with his muzzle. “We will be vulnerable on the ground. We can not lead our young outside while their sky warrior still fights.”

“What’ll we do then?” another mare asked, holding her young son close. “We can’t stay here forever…”

The sounds of the battle outside took over as the shack went silent. But before long, Shotshell craned his head back to look at me. “Hey, I hate to ask, but can you still fly?” 

After holstering Fire Rose, I responded by ruffling out my wings and giving them a flap. Unlike my legs, my wings were untouched and were working just fine… well, I’d already flown with one disabled leg, so why not try flying with two?… This wasn’t going to be fun… “Yeah, my wings are fine.” I responded, clearing my throat. “What do you want me to do?” 

“If you’re sure that you can fly, we need you to distract that griffin.” Shotshell replied, carefully lowering himself down so that I could balance on my hooves; despite my wounds nearly closing (and unfortunately leaving the bullets inside the healing flesh), I had to keep my left foreleg off of the ground. “I know you’re wounded, but I’m not asking for you to fight him.” Shotshell explained as I listened. “If you can get him to come to us, we can open up with the weapons we have and bring him down. Then we’ll be free and clear to evacuate.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Of course, there was the matter of flying and keeping up my strength after losing a good amount of blood… I refrained from saying that aloud, instead adding, “If that’s what it will take to get you all out of here, then I’ll do it.” The logic behind the plan was sound. I was the only one who could fly, and that griffin would be trouble to anypony trying to flee on the ground. At least with an enemy in the air, the griffin would be distracted; I just hoped I could last. 

“Thanks.” Shotshell said, placing a hoof on my back with a thin smile. “Remember, all you have to do is lure the griffin to the shack, dive in low, and we can take care of the rest.”

“Right.” I agreed with a nod. “But I think we’ll only have one shot at it. There were other groups of Talons in the settlement itself. When they get here…”

“I know.” Shotshell interrupted gently, leaning up against me. “I’ll help you walk outside.” Taking his support, we made our way out of the shack and onto the dirt again, the survivors looking on behind us. 

As we came to a stop beyond the makeshift entrance, Shotshell looked back at me again. “I’ll be keeping an eye out for you to make your pass.” he said. “When you’re close enough, we’ll make our move. And regardless of whether or not this works, we’ll be moving northeast to put distance between us and this camp. Then we’ll hook south to head to Challenger.”

“Okay. I understand.” I replied with a nod, looking to the darkening clouds as I prepared to leap. “I’ll try and meet up with you.”

Shotshell, however, nudged me as I crouched to spring skyward, and I eased away from my tension to look back at him. “And remember, be careful up there.” he said, a thin smile on his face. “I have a lot of questions to ask you.” 

I smiled a half smile back at him, giving a nod before he stepped back to give me some space. Then with a beat of my wings and a painful push of my legs, I was in the air, gliding low to the ground before winging my way upward and around to face the battlefield. It only took me a second to spot my target. The griffin was banking and dodging, occasionally strafing the ground with machinegun fire, slowly but surely chipping away at those survivors who continued to fight. But what was worse was that Talon reinforcements were on the approach from the north, both columns I had seen in Plainwell nearly upon the field; I didn’t have much time.

Blasting ahead as fast as my wings could take me, I readied S.A.T.S. to draw the griffin away, approaching the enemy flier head on. But before I could get close enough, the griffin rose up from his latest dive and spotted me. He immediately made me his next target, beating his powerful wings to propel himself straight towards me and snapping his assault rifle up to take aim. 

Up came S.A.T.S., and with the spell, I fired a pair of shots just as he fired a burst from his rifle. Both of our attacks missed, but as I banked right, hoping to pass the griffin by, I saw with shock as the griffin instead drove in towards me and closed the distance between us. Then, twisting right, he flashed by, and I cried out as sharp pain erupted in my belly, nearly making me lose my pace in the air again. Though I staggered, dropping in altitude, I kept myself up, managing to recover… but not while avoiding a glance at my torso. The griffin had literally used his own claws to hit me, carving three long gashes into my belly which had already begun to bleed openly; any deeper and I felt that my own guts would come spilling out… okay, not thinking about that… Despite the shock, my wings were still carrying me as I came back around to look for the griffin again. He was already on the approach for another attack, his assault rifle brought to bear. I couldn’t take another hit, or I’d be down and out for sure… 

Instead of heading straight for him again, I snapped my wings shut and dove down, a burst of rifle rounds from his weapon zipping past me. As I banked up and bolted towards the shack, the griffin swiftly arced around and pursued, another line of fire from his assault rifle passing below me as his shots went low. The pain of my new wounds made evading a challenge all on its own, and veering hard right greatly disturbed the gashes along my stomach. Banking in the opposite direction did the same as I evaded in curves, the griffin staying with me the whole time and keeping me under fire. A fourth sharp left turn put the shacks into sight, almost directly ahead and below. Behind me, the griffin followed my turn precisely, staying directly in line with me; the griffin was taking the bait so far.

With every ounce of my strength, I pulled forward and dived again, angling in towards where Shotshell was hidden and waiting. But the sudden increase in speed was starting to make me lightheaded and unfocused… and those gashes in my belly weren’t feeling any better. “Only a dive and a fly-by… I can do this…” I said to myself, wincing as more bullets whizzed by my right side, barely missing. The griffin was closing in, and the pain was rippling throughout my entire body now, the wounds burning and my wings now starting to ache from the evening’s flying… one more hit and I’d be out… I’d crash……

FOCUS!!

I snapped from my thoughts and kept my wings flapping as I zeroed in on the shack. Up ahead, even in the increasing darkness of the approaching night, I could see as Shotshell’s head poked around the shack entrance. Upon catching sight of me in my approach, he ducked back inside, only to return a moment later with four others as they sprinted out of the shack and lined up to aim their weapons at me; time to spring the trap.

With one final effort, I drew level from my dive and turned hard right, snapping my wings out full to halt before bolting right, turning nearly at a right angle. The griffin, however, having been nipping at my tail the whole way down, did not turn as fast as I did. Through the noise of the battle and the wind against me as I bolted away, I could hear the distinguished volley of small-arms fire from below, mixed with the crack of a rifle, and when I looked behind me… well, if I wasn’t hurting so much, I could’ve cheered at the sight. The griffin had been brought down. Though I couldn’t tell how many times he’d been hit or where, his assault rifle fell from his claws as the griffin soldier plummeted down and struck the ground away from the battlefield and remained motionless after the impact. Towards the south side of the battlefield, the two other columns had entered the field, and those Plainwell citizens that still fought were now gravely outnumbered. This was the only chance that the families Shotshell and Sheva were leading would have to escape…

And now, it was my turn to do just that…

I needed to get out of the sky, letting out a pained grunt as a suddenly familiar feeling swept over me. I had passed out once after nearly being killed at the hooves of Butcher in the Black Blood Forward Post. Whether it had been the blood loss or the pain, I didn’t know, but my vision was blackening around the edges as I continued northeast and away from the camp. Below, the ground was void of any Talon soldiers. I would be able to land safely, and as quickly but carefully as I could, I glided in towards the surface and back-winged to pull into a hover before lowering myself down the rest of the way. 

Landing on my hooves proved to be a little easier this time around, but I had a feeling that this was because of my being more accustomed to the pain in my shot limbs. Still, it hurt terribly, and I instantly lowered my head and closed my eyes tightly shut to try and mentally block out the burn. A moment later, and I allowed myself to open my eyes, and to my dismay, I could see that the gashes on my belly were still dripping blood, several droplets darkening the dirt under me as the wounds continued to bleed. 

Through my darkening vision, I could still see the fading light to the west as I slowly turned to look back towards the direction of the fight. I could hear the shots clearly, though still distantly as they echoed in the air, and across the dirt and dust, I thought I saw figures on the approach… at least a dozen. But now, I could only hope that it was Shotshell and his group of survivors as I felt my limbs begin to tremble, fighting to support me in my weakened state. 

With a weak groan, I crumpled to the ground and fell onto my uninjured side, my vision fading to black as I slipped away from consciousness.



Footnote: Level Up!!

New Perk: Arcane Power - Arcane magic has been one of your greatest advantages in battle, and your effective use of it has shown this. Your S.A.T.S. spell now regenerates 20% faster.