In no more than an hour, I had repaired the cart into a somewhat working condition, scavenging parts from what I could and scooping grease out of the train engines to use on the moving parts of the cart. I slopped a hoof full of grease into each wheel joint and worked it into the axles and wheels. I spun the last wheel to test its lubrication and smiled when it revolved several times with no squeaking. I looked around at Rusty who napped, leaning against the track changing lever, which was long since rusted into disrepair as well, but we weren't headed that way, so I would have to push my desire to fix it to the back of my mind. I glanced at my brother who was lazily fiddling with his pip buck, probably playing a game that I coded for him a while back. He called it pong. He growled, thumping his Pip Buck to the ground, just having lost a match to the computer.
"Wendy?" I asked pushing all of my weight against the cart to turn it back over onto the tracks. "If you don't mind, I'd appreciate your strength right about now."
He looked up and with a hint of irritation, hissed "I hate that name, Its not my name."
"Well? What do you want me to call you? I've called you Wendy all our lives." He opened his mouth to provide an alternate name for himself, but closed it again, lacking any kind of suggestion for what I should call him. "Then Wendy it remains." I say rolling my eyes as he reluctantly trotting over and helping me overturn the heavy cart.
"It was okay when we were little, but now, it makes me sound like a mare, not to mention a Filly." He said straining against the cart as I also began using magic to turn it over.
"Well good, its perfectly deceptive against anyone who wants us dead. As it turns out, the one who sounds like a filly is actually the strongest in our party."
He growled as the cart finally began to tip, "Yes, but its the same as naming a bodybuilder 'Tiny'." The cart flipped over with a mighty slam as the wheels met the special grooves in the tracks, causing Rusty to jump awake, crusting some of the blood off of himself in little flakes. He gasped and groaned, rolling his shoulder around in pain from recently having been explored by a ten inch blade.
"You alright Rusty?" I asked trotting over to him, looking at his shoulder.
He gently brushed by touch off of his shoulder and complained, "Hurts a lot. And the suit covered in blood doesn't help." He motioned down to his ragged jumpsuit, encrusted in blood and gore from his violent outburst.
I decided to take a long shot for his well being."Well, why don't you just take the suit off, its not like it offers much protection." His face turned slightly red, and my brother's jaw dropped at my request.
"Gears, are you crazy?" My brother asked looking at him, and then at me. Back in the Stable, we weren't supposed to ever remove our jumpsuits in public, purely for the reason of hiding out cutie marks. A cutie mark was a very private matter, and by our views, showing is was equal to bending over and presenting yourself. There's nothing sexual about the mark on a flank, but its a symbol of intimacy between two ponies. Wendy and I had only seen each others on rare occasions, and that was only because we had lived together, and it was unavoidable. But all of us had seen the ponies out here running about without anything covering their cutie marks. It must be the social norm around here, so there was nothing wrong with it.
Rusty looked left and right shyly but nods, squeaking out, "Good idea." As he began to slip out of his suit, dropping it aside and attempting to hide his medical cross with his wing and turning at a head on angle to hide his 'nudity'. I looked away, turning back to my brother who only stared at me in disapproval.
"Its not like it matters out here, Wendy." I said looking back at Rusty who flapped his wings a couple times to fan away the heat of his embarrassment. I looked down at my own jumpsuit and pulled the zipper back up to my neck, closing it up around me again, and quickly changing the subject. "Shouldn't we be heading somewhere?" I asked climbing up onto the cart. My brother nodded and did the same. We both looked at Rusty, who trotted up to the cart, shoving his embarrassment aside as he took his place beside me.
"Okay guys, since you're the strongest, you have to work the lever." I say pushing down on the see-saw shaped crank in the middle. I strained downward, and with an extra push from my magic, slowly pushed the lever downward, and the cart responded by jerking forward a couple yards. I sat up and looked at the two pegasi, who stretched out their legs, and stood up on their hind legs, leaning on the see-saw lever. They began to push in opposite directions, only showing about a quarter of the strain I did when I worked the lever, and their strain lessened as we began to to move forward along the tracks and gain momentum.
* * *
My brother and Rusty were pushed to their limit as we slowly climbed the steep mountain, hoping to reach the top sometime soon, which we did. As the slope became gradually flatter, they eased their strain, and when we came to a downhill slope, I engaged the brake, bringing us to a stop at a breathtaking view of the barren wastes below. In the very west, barley visible on the horizon, rested a grand city with a faint glow about it in the dark sky, which lit various other blemishes all over the perfectly flat equestrian Wasteland. I let my party rest and catch their breath as I soaked up the view of the destroyed lands below me. It reminded me of my dream that I had, that I still didn't want to tell my brother about. Yet.
"How are you guys?" I asked the two exhausted pegasi who slumped, back to back with their eyes closed, breathing steadily, letting themselves sleep. I smiled and decided that it was probably best to join them, and slumped down into their little huddle and rested my head on my brother's shoulder. No need for S.A.T.S. sleep, I was tired enough from the events of the past day.
In my subconscious mind, I began having the same dream of the previous night, the only differences being the clarity, and the fact that I could control my own actions. This dream was a much darker, fuzzier version, Sir Armor never arrived with the note. I simply wandered around inside the enormous palace, being built around me by my subconscious imagination, ponies milling about, carrying out their mundane daily tasks. As I reached the bottom of the tower, I walked outside, exploring around the town, watching the bakers make their bread, watching salesponies fell flowers from some stalls, and watching others set out various other stable related knick-knacks everything was still dark, only knowing what these things looked like from my small memories provided bu my books and personal experience. I looked around, in my dreams, hearing the sound of a train whistle blowing from a distance away. I smiled and trotted across town, to where I found the train station. I sat on a bench on the platform and looked down the tracks expectantly. I sat and continued watching along the tracks and listening to the whistle blow, but it didn't last long, before a shadowy filly fluttered up to me on unstable wings and began nudging me, and prodding me hard. I turn my head to her and tilt my head questioningly. The filly opens her mouth, and instead of a sweet little feminine voice, it was the voice of my brother, "Gears, Gears! Wake up! Wake Up! There's a Train coming." She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. I sat there confused, letting the filly shake me until the world around me began to fade away.
I opened my eyes to my brother, holding me upright shaking me by the shoulders, his eyes wide open in concern. "What is it Wendy? I was having the strangest dream." He opened his mouth but was interrupted by a train whistle in the distance. I sat bolt upright, That whistle didn't come from my dreams, it came from real life! I shook myself awake, shaking my brain into a state of awareness, I trotted over in the cart, scanning down the hill's winding downward passage for the oncoming train, it wasn't visible, which gave us time to come up with a plan. I looked all around, and then back to the guys who were at the see-saw lever ready to go. "If we go now, there's a chance we can come across another route to take. to get out of the train's way. They nodded as I disengaged the brake, and we began rolling down the slope, without any voluntary input.
We gained speed as we rolled down the mountain, the cart staying firmly planted on the tracks as we rocketed around the corners. We came to a straight stretch, and in sight was the oncoming train, a few hundred meters beyond a fork in the tracks ahead. There was a track switch lever in between the fork that looked actually functional. Wendy saw me looking at it and nodded, clambering up on top of the seesaw, which had long since broken due to the frighteningly high speeds. he spread his wings out wide, and after some hesitation, began gaining altitude unsteadily, his wings bending in ways I had never seen them before. He shifted his body to become more streamlined and he began to speed up, tearing ahead of us on unsteady wings, as he approached his destination, he was unsure of how to stop, from the cart, I saw him drop to no more than a few inches above the ground. As his disused wings bent under the force of the wind, they snapped shut to his sides and he slid along the rocky ground in a desperate attempt to stop. He caught the ground hard and tumbled violently, coming to a stop beside the lever bringing a cloud of dust along with him.
Rusty and I looked at the unmoving pegasi by the lever and both bit our lips and shrank down, beginning to fear for Wendy's life, and our very imminent demise. Suddenly, the pile of red and tan began to move, staggering to his hooves, and limping up to the lever which he strained against until it clicked to the opposite, shifting the track aside as we blew past him, I slammed on the brakes as we came to a screeching halt about a hundred feet down the tracks. Seconds later, the train came rushing by, and just in time, Wendy shifted the track back to its original position, only knocking the engine off of the tracks for a fraction of a second as it slammed back down onto the tracks, carrying three passenger cars behind it in a grey and red blur.
Down the tracks, I jumped out of the cart and began galloping down the tracks at full speed, stopping at the fork, kneeling by my brother who had just collapsed again, a bloody trail marking a skid to a stop from his rough landing. I turned him over onto his back and he was smiling. Maybe grimacing, I couldn't tell. Either way, he was letting the torn suit peel off of him, fully exposing the thorough sanding of his skin the wasteland ground had provided upon his rough landing. Rusty caught up, quickly peeling off the remains of his jumpsuit and opening his medical boxes, removing some gauze and a bottle of alcohol. He began washing Wendy's raw belly to his chest with the rubbing alcohol, before sitting him upright and bandaging his entire torso with the roll of gauze. My brother mostly kept level headed through the treatment, though at times, he would cry out in pain as the alcohol began to clean his wounds under the bandages. I looked at Rusty who nodded to Wendy. I nodded back and helped him up onto Rusty's back, and I used my magic to keep him steady on Rusty's back as we carried him back to the cart. I stared at my brothers matchstick cutie mark. At this point, I figured it wouldn't be long until I too was naked, but hopefully still alive.
Wendy groaned helplessly as we laid him on his back in the floor of the cart. I stayed beside him as Rusty ran further down the track to fix the lever that would lead us back onto the main track. I saw him strain against the lever before it gave and he galloped back to us The three of us hopped in the car as I disengaged the brakes and we slowly continued descending the mountain, none of us talking, all getting our nerves back after a near death experience with a 200 ton steel behemoth.
We barrled down the mountain, the slope eventually angling to an almost flat plain, we still had enough momentum to make it through to our destination however, because we were speeding towards it uncontrollably as It grew on the horizon. As we got closer to see buildings in the distance and another train depot, I yanked on the brake lever, having been weakened by the previous stop, the pin holding it in place gave and snapped as soon as the brakes made contact with the wheels.
"Rusty?" I asked looking over at him, who was crouched behind the edge of the cart. He turned to look at me waving the brake stick at him. "Now would be a good time to panic!" I chuck the stick out in front of the car with all of my might and it landed a few yards ahead, wedging deep into the railroad ties, as our cart neared the station, it suddenly jerked to a stop, catching on the heavy steel lever and sending all three of us hurtling through the air, landing roughly in a hard and painful tumble on the ground, sliding to a stop alongside the tracks. My Pip-buck flashed alerts of a crippled torso, head traume, and broken limbs as I lay on the ground, felling my free floating ribs shift around inside me with every move. I cried in pain and looked over at Rusty and my brother, both of which had much smoother landings, my brother laying on the ground as he did before, and Rusty staggering to his hooves and limping over to make sure I was still kicking. I looked up at him and groaned, keeping my movement to a minimum.
I shut my eyes for a moment and rested, and when I re-opened them, Rusty was replaced by a grey maned, one eyed pony with an off white coat. And did I mention he had a gun pressed to my head? "Hello there." I said looking up at him with a forced smile/grimace. "Um, is there anypony around named Scrap Metal?" It was all I could muster before I blacked out.
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Footnote: Level Up
Perk Added: Dangerous Situation - You have found that you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble. From trial and error, you have discovered what methods work depending on a certain personality. +5 Speech, and for when conflict is unavoidable, +5 to melee weapons.
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I'd like to thank KKat for writing the original Fo:E for writing an unbelievably great story, and Somber, for writing Project Horizons, the story that pushed me over the edge and forced me to try my hand in writing.