//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Fallout Equestria: Grim Prospects // by RadiationRed //------------------------------// FALLOUT: EQUESTRIA GRIM PROSPECTS Chapter Two It's Just Business An MLP:FiM fanfic by Radiation Red “Money is a strange business. People who haven't got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.”         Crimson, almost bright-red blood dripped from the dinged and battered operating table, as a strange voice shouted gruffly, full of trepidation: “Tie her down!” At the same time, when the voice reached the mare's ears, her eyes shot open wide, and her entire body shook. Orange eyes fixated on the ceiling, and Euphoria took in a deep breath as familiar pain flared from the open gashes in her form. Desperately, Euphoria squirmed and panted as her bruised lungs tried to take in whatever stale air they could; the smell of alcohol and fresh punk hung in the air.         “She's awake! B-but... she can't be!” the same oddly gravely voice – with an echo-y undertone – called out, but the far in that voice was now all that more audible. Euphoria tried to steady herself, but her head was pounding away in throbbing pulses, and her vision was a wash of colours, some she didn't even know existed.         A spray of gory blood painted one of the gnarled walls around her, in ghastly red as she managed to tear one of her hooves free. “Sedate her!” the voice called again.         There it is again, Euphoria thought as she tried to focus her eyes on a shape in the room, but all she could make out amongst the blurry colours, was a black blob vaguely taking the outline of a pony. Then some-pony pulled at her, so she yelped hoarsely and tried pulling away, but she was roughly pulled back down onto the table.         “Keep... keep your hooves off of me!” Doing her best, despite her waning strength, Euphoria pulled her hoof back towards her chest as she gritted her teeth together.         “Keep her sedated, you idiots! She'll tear herself to shreds!” that same commanding voice that sounded even more raspy, as Euphoria managed to focus in on it, bellowed out to what she assumed was his other raider-scum. Only a few seconds after the order, a set of hooves tried pulling Euphoria back down onto the table. She thrashed against them desperately, but due to her weak state, the two ponies managed to secure her again.         “You... fuckers!” she screamed as high as she could, still wriggling against her bonds, but it only made the searing pain worse as she dug rug-burns into her already horrible wounds, and it didn't help her in any way. “I'll... I'll kill you...!” Euphoria grunted in discomfort as a pony slowly moved to her side, and she could see the faint glow around his thin horn as he levitated something into the air.         “Trust me, you won't,” the pony said in his thick, raspy voice. The more she listened to it, the more she wondered if the pony was actually a pony. Euphoria gritted her teeth as she felt a stinging in her shoulder, and she thrashed as her heartbeat ever so slowly calmed down, and her hoarse voice cried out in agony again as her vision began to clear. “Oh no... Get me everything we got! She's dying!”         “Fuck....” Euphoria's voice caught in her throat, as her vision finally cleared enough that she could take in the full glory of the surrounding walls and ponies. Badly faded white walls with severe scorch marks all over surrounded her, as she lay on a rusted metal-table which served as an operating table. Next to that, stood a smaller dinged metal-table that creaked each time the unicorn moved it with his magic – on top of it, lay several medical applications, some of which, Euphoria recognized, but she cringed and gasped as a flurry of sparkles filled her vision, and her head throbbed again.         She hiccuped as she arched her back violently, feeling the pain from the effects of the drug and whatever else that pony had put into her.         Painfully, Euphoria watched as the cuts on her body slowly closed and she felt the fire in her lungs die down, as she coughed up blood onto herself. “Damn....” she groaned and fell back against the table.         “You're lucky be alive, young one.” Euphoria turned her head and focused her eyes on the scrawny unicorn – his mane was a ratty mess of white tufts that clung to his skull; his coat was severely burnt, leaving open patches of flesh some-places, whilst singed hide clung to others; he wore a deeply stained white lab-coat that reeked of rot, shit, blood, and some things that Euphoria couldn't quite put her hoof on. If it weren't for his unnerving smile that showed a bit too much of his teeth, Euphoria would have screamed.         He seemed an awfully similar to the thing that had attacked her in the sewers. “My name is... well, it's Lucky as a matter of fact!” the friendly ghoul said joyfully and took a short bow, before his face straightened and his demeanour turned grim. “Why are you here, though? Ponies just don't wander into hell. Unless you're one of those things that think you're a pony, but you're really just a monster on hooves.” His eyes wandered over Euphoria's body, before he nodded briefly. “Nope.”         Euphoria groaned and slid off of the operating table, so she landed with a light thud on her sore hooves, wobbling from side to side, but she shook her head and looked back at the ghoul. “I'm looking for some-pony, but I can manage myself,” she spat back and stepped away from the table. Her surroundings spun, as she hobbled towards the door on the other side of the room.         “Your friend...” Lucky said in his raspy voice, as Euphoria felt a shiver go down her back, so she stopped but didn't turn. “...paid for everything, you're free to go, but when you have seen a bit of the town and what it has to offer, I'll be here and I'll have a job for you.” Smirking, Lucky ignited his magic and held the worn door open as Euphoria stepped through.         “Keep your job, I have a pony to kill,” muttered Euphoria through gritted teeth as she felt, flickering, golden light shimmer down onto her. Looking up, she focused in on the small, matted bulbs that hung from string of wire from the ceiling. Her ears perked at the humming that the bulbs gave off, and she smiled at the brief throb of heat that faded as quickly as she felt it against her coat.         “Working lights... ah...! That's good, I suppose.” Her ears flickered, and she turned her head to look into the grey eyes of a familiar striped individual. “Well... who are you exactly, and why should I care?” A sharp giggle left Euphoria, as the zebra grunted in response and dropped a pair of saddlebags onto the stained blue and white tiles that summed up the floor.         She looked from the saddlebags to the stallion and back again, raising an eyebrow in question. “I took the liberty of lightening your load,” the zebra said in a dark, booming voice that echoed against the walls and Euphoria felt slightly flushed. “I made up enough caps to pay for your treatment, and get you a better weapon with some more ammo.” He grinned as he kicked the twin battle-saddle with a hind-leg, and sent it skidding across the floor towards Euphoria.                 Within a minute, Euphoria had slid herself back into the saddlebag, and it did indeed feel lighter. She took a look at her pip-buck, and was greeted with an oddly satisfying low number, as well as a severely improved 32.Hunting Rifle. “I guess I owe you a thanks..?” The unnamed zebra simply lifted an equally questioning eyebrow. “Thank you!” Euphoria burst out, nodding briefly as she walked past the zebra.         “Why'd you do it?” Euphoria asked as she trotted past broken wooden doors, that barely held screams of anguish at bay. Through the cracks in other doors, the light chuckle of delight came, and Euphoria found it best not to investigate. “You could have just left me there, alone,” she stated as they rounded a corner.         “When some-pony does a favour for you, you pay them back equally.” Euphoria kept trotting as the whimpers slowly died down, and only the sound of their hooves echoed in the hallway. “You saved me, so it's only fair to repay you.” The zebra kept silent after that, and followed Euphoria through the last door as they stepped outside.         Cold wind brushed against Euphoria as she stared at the scraggly camp not so far from where she was standing. A fence made up from ragged pieces of wood, and rusty metal-sheeting that had been reinforced with spiky strips of barbed-wire surrounding the compound. Euphoria could see two guard-towers at each end of the fence, with the shadow of a pony within; the matted, flaking cream-coloured paint still clinging to a few spots on the towers.         In the middle of the fenced in area, a cluster of houses and tents stood. The puke-green tents were torn and shredded, but flapped faintly in the wind as a few ponies slept within. Most of the compound's houses had been badly burnt, and anything with a second store, had had its roof ripped off.         A few guards, dressed in similar cobbled-together uniforms to that of raiders, patrolled the one cracked concrete street that lead into the town and ended at the court-house.         Slowly as she stayed silent, Euphoria trotted down the gently hill, with the zebra following behind her closely. Nothing's red yet, she said to herself and stole a glance at her E.F.S., display and it showed a slew of yellow slits with enough green tossed in there for a fair amount of doubt to linger in her head as she descended.         The court-house was the cream of the town, and had been reinforced over decades most likely. Sheets of metal in all kinds of different shapes and sized had been strung to the faded, red brick-walls with rusted barbed wire and embedded spears. A large, yellowed staircase led up the centre of the building and ushered ponies into through a double-set door that had long since lost its varnish. Four large swirling columns donned the centre as well, and turned the single walkway into a set of five different paths.         On top of the building, a rearing statue of a pony with wings and a horn, along with a flowing mane stood. It had chipped in places, and the concrete that made up the pony was badly worn from years of hard weather.         “Whoo!” Euphoria stopped just before her hooves made contact with the black asphalt, and a pony came galloping past her with a chain strung to his saddle. Behind him, a mare got dragged roughly against the ground and got badly scraped up in the process. Euphoria just stared as the stallion dragging the mare, came to a stop in the middle of the road. “Got me a live one!” he cried out as his muzzle twisted into a sick grin.         No-pony seemed to mind him, as a few just gave grunts of approval, and others just looked away, retreating back into whatever hollowed out shells they called home.“We've got ourselves a hangin' today!” the stallion called out and chuckled as he sped back into a gallop, and the mare coughed hoarsely as she was dragged up the asphalt, towards the court-house.         Being at a loss for words, and heavily out-numbered, Euphoria watched as the stallion pulled up to the cracked staircase and dragged the mare up by the chain. He threw the chain around a single bar, that ran between the columns and fastened one end around his saddle again, and the other, he secured tightly around the mare's throat.         Chuckling, the stallion slowly pulled backwards as the chain tugged on the mare and tightened as she cried out. “S-stop! I-I didn't mean it!” Some of the guards were by this point, watching the entire thing from the street as the stallion turned and broke into a gallop. The chain tightened with a loud twang as the mare was pulled into the air.         She hung in the air limply as her eyes rolled back into her skull, when the air in her lungs were forced out and she slowly choked to death. “N-no...!” she tried to scream and pull at her chain, but her hooves simply scraped against the metal, and her voice had given out, as she died; the stallion just watched grimly and detached the chain, so the mare's body fell against the hard ground, and Euphoria twitched her ears at the sound of breaking bones.         “What the heck was that about?” Euphoria asked and turned to face the zebra stallion.         “A rogue Zephyr, no doubt,” the zebra shot back calmly. “Welcome to the township of Gravel: home to the Zephyr raider-gang.” As the stallion grinned at Euphoria, she tilted her head at him and shot her best 'What are you talking about,' look. “Where the heck have you been, filly?” the stallion snarled back.         “In a Stable...” Euphoria mumbled out and trotted forward, as she tried to keep to one side of the street as best she could. Scrawny ponies begging hoarsely for food and water, tugged at her hooves multiple times as she walked, but Euphoria just kicked out until they let go, and she could continue on her way. “You didn't tell me your name, so...”         “Yiltse,” the zebra said in his seemingly always calm voice as Euphoria mulled over the name. Y-eee-ltsé...? Can that be right? She frowned and focused her eyes on the street as the court-house drew near. “What's your plan then?”         “It's Euphoria, and don't you dare shorten it to E, bud!” Shouted Euphoria angrily as she snorted, and didn't even bother to face the stallion as she addressed him. “As for the plan, it's simple. I find the sorry ass who killed my friends, and I make him pay, then I run back to the Stable and I go back to a boring life.” She nodded briskly as a few guards had turned to watch her, and even the shadow in the guard tower half-hidden behind the right-side of the court-house stood frozen.         “Oh? And who might that be?”         Euphoria paused briefly before she answered with a sigh, “I don't know.”         “Dumb plan, isn't it?”         “Shut up!” *         The second Euphoria had stepped into the court-house, she had been greeted by a barrel to her head and a dark voice telling her to: 'Get the fuck down, or I decorate the wall with your brain.' Euphoria swallowed hard and did as she was told, and as a result both she and Yiltse, was dragged down the hallway by a cadre of foul-smelling stallions with violent manes and tails, dressed up in pitch-black armour.         Much like the outside, the inside of the building was left in equal gory display, but still managed to look pristine in its own right; as if some-pony had been fixing it meticulously over years and years, whilst never getting the image in their head right.         Bloodied spikes adorned the cracked stone-walls, as a jagged line cracked through the stone from spike to spike. Flayed bodies of stallions and mares hung from rusted chains, embedded in the roof – their gruesome expressions frozen in time for all to see. As Euphoria swallowed hard, and her heartbeat hastened, the two stallions chuckled and looked to each-other but said nothing as they kept every-pony moving.                 Every decrepit door the group passed, had been shut and locked, some rusty; others not. Soon enough, they arrived in a large room in the middle of a junction, where the corridor split into three directions. One lead off into a door, where Euphoria got a glimpse of a stained white staircase with large holes in it beyond the mess of wood; the second lead to another locked door, opposite of the other one. Lastly, was the large room directly ahead.         She got nudged forward roughly by a stallion, and Euphoria stepped through the door into the large room ahead with the rest of the group. She gulped again and as her eyes wandered across the top of the room, from each severed head to the next, she wanted to pull out her gun and kill every last pony there.         Her Eyes-Forward-Sparkle denoted she had enough bullets, and if she used S.A.T.S., she would have a better success-rate, but Euphoria filed it to the back of her head; she needed information, and that wasn't going to offer itself from dead ponies – good or bad.         Beneath the gory display, a large oval desk stood – matted with dried blood and the wood chipped badly in places. A large stack of papers and books stood on one side of the table, with a metal weight keeping most of them down, but Euphoria didn't see the point as most of the books' pages were blackened and burned away. Tilted against the side of the books, a rusted nameplate rested.                  'Strawberry Jam,' was scrawled on it, half of the name covered in dried blood. Euphoria felt the cool breeze of the outside touch against her, and her eyes travelled to the large blown-out window behind the desk and chair, that looked out across a dead garden of rotting vegetables.         Two guards stepped out from behind Euphoria and Yiltse, and stood next to the door our, as the two others stepped up and behind the table. One of the guards leaned in and spoke, as Euphoria twitched her ears to try and hear anything, but the stallion's voice was too low for her to pick up anything at all, and she just frowned.         “Who are you?” Euphoria steadied her vision towards the chair behind the comically over-sized table as it swivelled around to reveal a dark-red stallion in a green, bulky metal-plated armour. Round, heavily dented plates were tied around his knees, matching the rest of the armour in colour and texture. Around the stallion's neck, hung a black breathing mask meant to cover only his muzzle.         He looked sternly at Euphoria and his muzzle twisted into a grin, as Euphoria refused to answer. “You walk into my town, fresh like some kind of school-filly, and not only that!” His gaze drifted over to Yiltse, but the zebra only snorted and stared back. “You bring with you a guard! Has mayor Starstruck finally gotten her balls in shape?”         “Listen to me. I'm just looking for some-pony, so if you could just point me in the direction of a stallion...” Euphoria's voice trailed off as the guards laughed along with the head-guard and she trailed the room with her eyes.         “This is not charity, so why don't you go tell Starstruck that, before I come back there!” The head-guard broke out into another mean laugh, as a guard put the barrel of his gun to Euphoria's back and forced her up on her hooves. “Or maybe I should just tell this guard to shoot you and your friend here, and then I'll send your body back to your town. So, tell me why I shouldn't do that?” He grinned as he glared at the two.         “Because you don't want Starstruck to come back here,” Yiltse stated flatly as the guards looked at each-other, and the head-guard's face deflated immediately. “You don't have the ponies to defend this town. What will you use when your guards run out? Rented raiders? They'll rip your town apart once your guards are occupied with a full-scale war.” Yiltse spoke plainly and his face never gave off any other expression that the same flat one he had.         The stallion in the green armour slumped back and sighed as he waggled a hoof in the direction of the newcomers, and Euphoria tore her hoof free from one of the guards as they retreated to the back of the room, but they still kept their weapons trained on the two. “Fine, I'm a reasonable pony – what's your offer?”         “We do some jobs for you,” the zebra said as he glanced briefly at Euphoria and got a sneering frown in return, “and you tell my friend here, where the stallion she's after is.” Euphoria tore her eyes from the zebra and stared back at the head-guard, as she shifted uncomfortably in place, and the stallion's muzzle slowly twisted and his eyes narrowed.         “Agreed,” he said in a low tone, hinting at a malevolent laugh that never came. “I got some raiders that have been picking on my caravans, and that's where you two come in. Sort them out and I'll tell you where your guy went.” The stallion smirked and turned away from the two, as he gazed out across the scorched garden.         Euphoria growled, “I could just kill your people now, and torture you.”         “Even if you managed to do that, I wouldn't give you what you want. Now, take the deal or die, it's as simple as that.” *         As the two newcomers stepped outside again, and felt the cold wind against their faces, Euphoria turned and poked a hoof into the zebra's chest. “Who are you? Why do you know so much about this place? And why in all of Equestria, did you just make one giant group-decision for the both of us!” she screamed the questions, but the tenants of the town didn't even flinch.         The zebra stallion backed away and rubbed his chest, where she had touched him, with one of his own hooves. “Do not touch me, pony, unless I say so.” His usually placid façade had lifted, and his eyes had narrowed at Euphoria, and she stared back at him with an equally big frown on her face.         His eyes narrowed further as he spoke again, “You don't want to go digging into the past. All you need to know, is that I have to repay my debt to you and if that means setting you on your way, then that's the way it's going to be.” Yiltse's stern face lifted and he gave Euphoria a curt bow, before he looked back up at her. “Besides, I got you out of there alive, didn't I?”         Euphoria hesitated for a moment as she tilted her head at Yiltse, then nodded. “Granted, you did that, but we're not friends!” She shook her head defiantly as she stomped a hoof into the rough concrete they were standing on. “I don't have any friends any-more.” Yiltse just nodded briefly as Euphoria turned away and looked out on the skeletal remains of the main street of this town.         A lot less raiders wandered the streets, and a lot more normal ponies had come out as the skies darkened overhead. A group of foals played tag near a cracked stone-well; the bucked had been lazily tossed on the ground, but the foals themselves played happily, as they darted between the legs of their befuddled parents whom just watched the scene.         Innocence... Euphoria thought, and descended the small staircase. Was there even such a thing? She twitched and gazed over at the foals again, as they laughed gleefully and the few raiders that prowled the street didn't pay them any mind. Everything seemed business as usual, despite the sombre mood that loomed over the place.         Twitching, Euphoria pulled a hind-leg back as some-pony next to her reached forward and touched her. Next to Euphoria, a stallion with a murky mane and heavy-set, bloodshot eyes stared at her and held out a hoof. “Could you... please give me some water...” he pleaded in a raspy voice, but Yiltse stepped between her and the stallion and stared at him. “F-forgot I asked!” the begging stallion blurted out and scrambled away as quickly as he could.         “ Long-term radiation-poisoning. There's no cure and giving him any food or water wouldn't do him good.” Euphoria nodded, but felt as if something else was going on. No-pony, sick or not, runs away like that just from a stern look if they really want to live. “We better finish up our work here and head out before it turns dark.”         Euphoria just nodded and slowly the two ascended the hill towards the ghoul doctor's place. Since she was going out into the wilderness, Euphoria thought that she could at least grab one more mission. Two birds with one stone kind of thing. *         “So you decided to take me up on my offer?” The ghoul doctor asked as he looked back at Euphoria, and absent-mindedly put a couple of dirty syringes into a pocket on his lab-coat; Euphoria nodded. “Good. For what it's worth I thank you.”         “I'm not working for free,” Euphoria shot back and the doctor looked at her, not saying anything. “I want food and medical supplies,” she said and stomped a hoof onto the floor, as she shot a look back towards Yiltse as he leaned against a wall. “Or an equivalent payment.”         “Hmm...” the doctor mumbled something to himself as he floated over a pair of health potions and neatly stuck them into Euphoria's saddlebags. “You'll need those, so consider it an act of good faith on my part. Now, your mission is simple.” The ghoul started as he waved away a white earth-pony nurse with a sky-blue mane.         “A few days ago, I was supposed to get my usual shipment of medical supplies from the other towns, but it didn't arrive. You've been out there, so I assume you already know what kind of cretins live in this backwater town,” he spoke the words in disgusts as he rolled his eyes, before continuing. “I'll plot in the route they were planning to take on your Pip-Buck.” His horn lit up a faint gold, and Euphoria’s hoof-computer clicked away happily as she got another set of coordinates plotted into her map.         “I can only spare so much supplies, so despite what's out there, I can only give you that pair of potions.”         “Out there?” Euphoria asked and raised a questioning eyebrow at the ghoul, but got only back an expressionless face. “What's out there that's so bad?” This time, the ghoul frowned and nodded towards Yiltse. “Come on, tell me!”         “You'll find out,” the ghoul added as he nodded to the pair and headed for the door but stopped and looked towards Euphoria, who just stared back as she felt the urge to blurt out the question again but decided against it for the time being. “Just keep out of the water as much as possible.” He added a smirk and left the room with an equally unexplained golden teleport, as Euphoria was left staring at the blank space suddenly in front of her. *         Log 9, – Tuesdays are never easy.                 Another death, another mother without a foal. I feel partially responsible for this. It was my order that brought the foal in contact with dangerous equipment, and even though she was of age, she was certainly not prepared. On orientation day, I watched her in the fold amongst her class-mates, and she was shivering – shaking horribly. Today, I had to watch that same foal be carried away in a body-bag, bloody and torn up; the only relief I get from this, is that at least it has made my job so much easier. Another Tuesday has passed and my heart sinks, but another will take her place soon enough....         The sound-file slowed to a crawl and distorted as the stern voice of the over-mare died to the oncoming static. Euphoria snickered slightly, as the over-mare had been right in her suspicions – HE had even tapped into her personal logs, so who knows what else HE had tapped his electric tendrils into. It all inevitable came down into one irrevocable truth: Computers could not be trusted.         Despite the contents, Euphoria didn't feel the slightest bit better from the audio-log and left the other logs for a later time. Currently, she was preoccupied with the fact that she had been sent on two missions with little to no information, to a place she knew nothing of. Her map marked this location as 'Mistwater Cove,' but she got nothing else.         Under her hooves, the dirt-covered ground slowly faded into puddles of mud and murky moss, as she followed the route diligently. Every house that she had passed, was nothing more than a ruin of wood and stone, and rotting furniture and it didn't seem like common sense to deviate from the path for something that most likely wouldn't give her anything useful in return.         During the walk, Yiltse had said nothing, despite Euphoria's repeated questions, and as they went unanswered she had in the end, stopped asking them and just kept her eyes firmly planted on the ground, only looking back at the zebra occasionally. Those few times she did, she could see his ears twitching gently, as if he was listening for something, but she couldn't be sure.         Back to watching the ground she went.         In due time, the pair walked down a hill, and Euphoria stopped as what was left of a path crumbled away into murky water and small mounds of dark-green moss. Immediately, Euphoria scanned the horizon for a bridge, a gang-way, just about anything she could use to cross the... actually, she wasn't quite sure what it was that was in front of her, but it certainly couldn't be good.         As she sat down, feeling just a tiny bit defeated, Euphoria frowned and tossed a cracked rock into a nearby pool of water, and as some of it splashed against her, her Pip-Buck gladly remained her that it was of course – irradiated beyond belief. “Go figure, a 'lake' is what's stopping me from getting the answers I need!” she shouted and groaned, as Yiltse stepped up next to her and looked out across the hundreds of small mounds of green, and dark pools of water.         On either side the ground rose into rocky hills, covered in skeletal trees that cast long, looming shadows across the water, as moonlight reflected. Across the marshland, an abandoned village sat, but those houses were new, and was mostly intact except for a few that had burned to nothing but a pile of crisps. “We should go, now, before they hear us.” Euphoria turned to look at Yiltse with that same questioning look as before. He nodded his head towards the only building standing in the vicinity with a smile. “There's our target.”         Euphoria turned her head to look at a damaged windmill standing in the middle of the heavily waterlogged area. It was raised above the surrounding area, by standing on top of a chipped brick base that sagged to one side, with the flaking wooden door standing open. The four blades that were nothing more than rusty lattice-work of metal, drifted slowly in the calm breeze as the creaking noise travelled all the way back to the two ponies.         “Eerie,” Euphoria said and glanced at Yiltse, but he remained stoic as he slowly walked forwards, perking his ears every few feet he went, before he diverged onto another path. Quickly, she got up and followed the stallion as best she could, balancing on the mounds as they went along, but every-time she glanced at the water, something shimmered beneath the surface for a second, then vanished.         What's that...? She thought and stopped as she balanced on a mound, as she tried to get a better look. For several seconds, nothing happened, but finally, a red light flashed beneath the surface of the murky water as Euphoria perked her ears – hearing the faint whooshing noise of something very light hurtling through the air.         It sloshed into the water a few feet away from Euphoria as a low beep rang out, and the air exploded in red-hot fire. Euphoria fell over as the heat washed against her and shrapnel blew into the air, mixing with boiling water. She panted and wiped her forehead with a hoof as another low beep rang out, and she turned her head to see her own hoof pressed down on a round disc in the water.         She didn't even need the massive 'danger' warning on her display to know that she needed to move. Moving as quickly as she could, Euphoria scrambled to her hooves, just as another explosion buffeted against her back, raining murky water down across her, as she panted wildly and tried to focus on jumping from mound to mound.         Her hearth thumped hard as bullets hurtled through the air, and more explosions lit up the area briefly. Faintly, Euphoria cast her head about and watched as brief flashes of muzzle-fire erupted from near the windmill as a low cackling came, followed by harsh obscenities being shouted across the wetlands. “You fucking, foals! I'll rip your spleen out and eat it!”         Euphoria turned as she came to a stop and bit down, as she fired her gun. In the distance, she could hear the bullets bracket into the brittle wood and she cursed under her breath as she dove into some tall grass, landing in a pool of radiated water, but she had priorities. “Think you're clever, huh? I'll show you clever!” the angry stallion roared, as another set of bullets followed his words.         As explosions buffeted the area in white blinding light, Euphoria peeked through the tall grass and got a good look at where the stallion was. Standing on top of a small stage, lifted three-quarters up the windmill, a unicorn stallion with a slick mane and a hovering rifle with a scope on stood, angrily glaring outwards as saliva dripped from his mouth; despite looking, Euphoria couldn't see Yiltse and growled at the thought that he had just abandoned her when things got tough.         “Blood, glorious blood and fire!” the stallion cackled as he swivelled his head about and shot out another disc in the water. “Purify the fucking muties!” Another bullet shot out, and Euphoria held back a gasp as she heard a loud shriek. “Got you!” the stallion called out in sick satisfaction as a meaty thud echoed dully in Euphoria's ears.         Then came the low, non-pony sounding moan and hissing, as the raider suddenly fired off several badly aimed shots into the marsh, but no explosions came this time. “You can't get me!” he called out in a dying laugh as something hissed out in the darkness, and the raider shrieked. “No! G-get your tentacles off of me!” he screamed, but something muffled him as Euphoria clenched her eyes shut, and flopped her ears back – desperately trying to block out the crunching sound.         Damn it! Where is he? Euphoria wanted to shout it out, but to say that was a bad idea was an understatement. Some thing was still lurking in darkness out there, and seeing how well the stallion's plan of firing randomly into the pitch-black worked, she didn't want to do the same and end up as a midnight snack; thankfully though, she had one advantage.         Glancing at her E.F.S., Euphoria grinned as she watched a red line dart back and forth in an erratic manner. It moved about the radar in the manner of an animal on the hunt for food; erratic, yet calmly moving towards a goal. As she kept an eye at the red line, Euphoria crept out from behind the tall grass and slithered across a few mounds, using every bit of control she had to keep herself silent.                 In the distance, yet close enough for Euphoria to finally get a good look – the windmill stood. Cracked and splintered wood-boards peeling white flakes of paint made up the building, and a damaged stage of dark-red wood heaved above the gaping maw of the door. Sheets of yellowed cloth clung to one of the blades and fluttered briefly in the wind, as the moonlight ghosted the edge of the mill – casting long shadows that resembled a nightmarish ghoul onto the wet ground.         Perking her ears and biting her lower lip, Euphoria moved forwards as stealthy as possible. She hopped from grassy knoll to another grassy knoll, as the outlined ghost grew larger in her periphery. Euphoria kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ground as she concentrated on not dropping into the poisoned water, so much so that her saddlebags made a slight shaking noise each time she stopped.         With a burst of data-static, the red line vanished from Euphoria and she froze as she was about to jump from the mound. Keeping her ears perked, Euphoria scanned the area with her eyes. Nothing. Except the darkness and the rotting shells of two other windmills – one blasted to shreds, indicated by the giant crater in it, and the other having sagged so low into the ground that its blades touched the water – there was nothing.         Gulping, Euphoria moved ahead as her hoof found the ground again and she got back into her hopping manoeuvre, but the scream of the raider still echoed in her head; along with the sickening crunching noise.         After doing this for a few minutes, Euphoria finally reached the windmill and stepped down onto a soggy patch of ground, and she rolled her eyes as the clicking from her Pip-Buck chimed back in. “Really? Come on....” Euphoria whined and stepped closer, as she saw what remained of the stallion and almost lost what she hadn't eaten right then and there, if it hadn't been for the sucking sound coming from somewhere close by.         Shit.. it's back, whatever it is... Euphoria thought, and cursed under her breath just as the red line appeared again, and the brush of grass she had been hiding in before moved, and she blinked her eyes, thinking she saw a shape move, but when she opened them again, it was gone. “Fucking, shit-back!” Euphoria cursed and gritted her teeth, snarling at nothing but darkness and dead trees.         If you want me, just come at me, for Luna's sake!” Her voice carried with the wind, and Euphoria glanced at her Pip-Buck every few seconds and watched as the line kept darting around. “We're not playing, tag, all right?” She asked the cold wind and perked her ears, but still nothing. “Damn it, just come and get me!” Having finally lost her composure, as her hearth pounded in her throat, Euphoria screamed and moved to fire her gun, even though she didn't have a target.         “Don't do it...” Yiltse said softly, and Euphoria froze as she glanced to the left, spotting a pair of grey eyes in the brush. “Unless you want to end up as that guy,” he added with a touch of dramatic flare as he nodded slightly towards what remained of the raider. “Just.... follow me, all right?”         For a moment, as she heard the words, Euphoria wanted to just turn and fire at the zebra, just so she could watch him scream; a little payback, she thought. Half-snickering, she pushed the thought away as quickly as she could and nodded towards the brush. “All right,” Yiltse said calmly and took a deep breath as he rose, with the light sound of sloshing water following.         Only seconds later, their collective eyes were drawn to a creature hovering across the field in the dark. “What the fuck is that?” Euphoria asked and blinked her eyes, only to have the thing move closer as she coughed at the fumes slowly filling the air. “Seriously... What the f-fuck!” she coughed and walked backwards, as the sucking noise from before rose higher in pitch, and Euphoria put a hoof to her nose as the air began to reek of filth.         “Whatever you do, don't move. Just take a deep breath and keep your mouth shut – the fumes are toxic,” Yiltse said as he spared a moment to look at Euphoria, before he took a deep breath, as the creature floated in front of him and was now in full view of them both. Euphoria panted and gasped for air, feeling her throat burn as her head pounded, but she nodded and took in as much air as she could, and watched Yiltse and the creature with tears forming in her eyes.         Hovering a few inches above the soggy earth, and irradiated waters, a pale single tendril rose until it formed a semi-circle of dripping teeth and saliva that opened and closed periodically. The flesh beneath the single tentacle, pulsed in time with the mouth and each time they pushed out the noxious air beneath the vile mutant. Euphoria shook in place as two sets of tendrils peeked out from each side of the main body, as they reached forwards and touched Yiltse; yet the zebra stallion remained calm, not showing any change in his expression or behaviour; Browner bits of flesh clung to the pale mutant in spots, but for the most part it kept the same pale colour-pattern all over.         It loomed over Yiltse as its two tendrils continued to search over his body, but in the end, they gave up and the mutant turned and moved towards Euphoria, and seeing it approach, she moved back, until she felt a sharp cold in her hind-leg and the radiation warning popped back up. Euphoria exhaled and coughed for air, but quickly took a deep breath again and stood there, shaking. No, no, no, no, this is bad. So bad, so bad... shit!         Sweat dripped down Euphoria's forehead as she shook and stared into the hole of teeth in front of her. Oh, Celestia... please, please... I... don't want to die... She felt like whimpering, but kept her tongue, even as the cold water lanced up her hoof in slashes of pain. Euphoria clenched her eyes shut, as the tendrils snaked forward for her, and gooey strands of saliva landed on her front-legs – she shivered, but didn't move otherwise.         Euphoria jolted and her shivering stopped, as she felt the clammy head of a tendril hit her chest, parting her fur. It snaked across her chest, leaving behind a strand of thick fluid that soaked her fur and didn't stop until it landed over her chest, and Euphoria tightened her eyelids even harder and would have stopped her hearth if she could.         The burning in her throat had returned, but she had to keep her mouth closed and nostrils free from inhaling, even though she desperately wanted to breath air again, even if it would have killed her. Euphoria didn't open her eyes, as long as the tendril lingered over her heart, and its pace quickened and she screwed her mouth shut, feeling light-headed.         “I...” Euphoria burst out, stepping backwards as she gasped for air, and felt nauseous from the smell of acrid pony-droppings mixed with ammonia. “I can't do this!” she finished and bit down hard, as her hunting rifle fired, and blasted into the mutant as the muzzle fire lanced through the air like fire, showing the scene as if it had been done in pure sunlight.         Blood splashed into the darkness as the creature floated back, its tendrils shaking in response to the bullet-hit. “No... more!” Euphoria screamed as she tasted copper, not even noticing the blood dripping from her own mouth, as she fired another bullet.         This one tore straight through the main tendril, and filled the air with even more of the toxic fumes, before the creature simply darted into the darkness. “You idiot!” Yiltse shouted at Euphoria as she felt the brick-wall of the windmill press against her back. “Do you know what you have done? That's not the....” trailing off, Yiltse turned his head and swivelled his ears as Euphoria's E.F.S., lit up with around a dozen red lines, all around them.         “Look at me,” Yiltse said as he turned his attention back at Euphoria, but she just looked at the ground. “Look at me, you stupid cunt!” Euphoria shook her head and stared at Yiltse as he glared back at her. “We hide in that windmill now, or we're dead!” Euphoria heard Yiltse's grim voice through a haze of poison, as she nodded and the stallion dragged her through the open door, but closed it after they were inside.         Soft blue light lit up the floor, Euphoria, Yiltse and parts of the door, and adjacent walls as she hit a button on her Pip-Buck. In front of her, Yiltse lowered a wooden bar over the door as the door itself shook and thumped its metal-locks against the wood, but the board kept the door from simply being turned to shrapnel. “Stupid mare,” Yiltse said and shook his head as he walked away from the door, not even looking at Euphoria.         Only when seeing the green fumes pour through the cracks of the door, did Euphoria shuffle backwards, but she continued to watch the door. “I... hate tentacles....” As she spoke, she shivered and gagged. Furiously, Euphoria pawed at her chest with her hooves, panting as she tried to get the gunk from the mutant out, only to be thwarted by a glob of dark liquid hitting her with icy coldness.         “What the...?” Euphoria looked up, gasping as she saw the mutilated torso of a pony hanging above her. A young blue mare with a green and yellow-striped mane had been strung into the air, by having each of her hooves pierced with rusty hooks that still dripped blood onto the floor. She had been eviscerated from flank to mouth, as her organs hung free from her body, but were caked in dirt and cobwebs; Euphoria cringed as she saw a shape skitter across the mare's head and flee into one of her eye-sockets. “Blech...”                  Several other bodies decorated the ceiling as well, but most of them were out of view of Euphoria's light and she didn't bother to move, as nothing would be gained from seeing more tortured corpses. “You are one stupid mare.” Euphoria tore her eyes away from the mutilated mare and looked over to a corner of the room, seeing the outline of Yiltse. “You never fire at Floaters. I thought seeing a stallion being chewed and ripped apart from doing that would have discouraged you, but no, you had to do it again, didn't you?”         “Again?” Euphoria asked, and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?” Yiltse didn't answer, but she could hear a light snort coming from the usually stone-faced stallion. “I didn't meet you until a few days ago,” she stated matter-of-factly as her eyes narrowed to a glare.         “You....” Stepping out from the darkness,Yiltse stared at Euphoria as he stomped a hoof into the floor. “You ponies are all the same! After centuries of death, rape, and murder, you're all just the same – warmongering ponies bent on ruling the entire world, just because you are afraid!” His voice boomed in the small room, as he huffed and turned away, slipping back into the darkness. “When this is over, we are no longer travelling together!”         Frowning, the mare stepped away from under the grizzly corpses and found herself a corner, from which she could watch the door, yet not be covered in some-pony else' blood during the night. Using one of her hooves, she idly flicked through the menus on her Pip-Buck and grimaced once she saw the deplorable condition her weapon had dropped to; not to mention the beating she had taken from the radiation, but despite that, the needle stood firmly placed in the shallow zone of yellow.         With a sigh and a faint smile, Euphoria found the radio-menu and to her surprise, two new stations had cropped up. 'DJ-Pon3's Broadcast' and 'Coriolis Nine Broadcast.' Euphoria didn't wait one moment, as she turned on the first, and her smile melted away as her ears were filled with static. Oh, well, I have one left, thought Euphoria cheerfully as she pushed on the other one too.         Grunting and cursing, Euphoria pounded her head against the rotting wood that made up the floor, as the same static poured out of the little speaker. Fine, I'll just listen to the ravings of tentacle monsters that are trying to kill me while I sleep, how about that!? With an angry sigh, the mare shut off the radio as she focused her eyes on the door that still thundered against its metal-locks.         “It's going to be a very long night, isn't it?” Euphoria glanced over at Yiltse's back, but didn't get a reply. “Thought so.” *         Through the dozens of cracks adorning the walls, orange and purple light snaked into the room and covered Euphoria's snoring form in a criss-cross pattern of light-gashes. Around her, the windmill creaked as cold wind fluttered through the same cracks, and chilled Euphoria awake as she shot her eyes open, and immediately looked at the door.         She scrutinized the poor construction with her eyes, as she tried to find any signs of something going on behind it. Euphoria scratched the back of her neck and coughed hoarsely as she looked over the door, but found nothing. The bar was still firmly in place, but the door itself was no longer banging against itself, and neither was the room filled with foul poison.         In a stroke of sheer luck, the mutants had abandoned their hunt and left Euphoria and Yiltse alone. She felt like cheering, but as if sensing her questions, Yiltse spoke, “It's the light. Floaters hate light.” Euphoria swivelled her head and gave a curt nod towards the zebra, as he himself looked up at the ceiling. “Somehow, I think that they should have been killed by the floaters,” he added grimly.         Looking past Yiltse, Euphoria saw what remained of an old staircase made from rotting wood, and followed its swirling path up the windmill, towards an opening near the top, but too much of it was missing, and she didn't feel like making a trusting jump towards something that more than likely would give way to her weight. Most of the mill was occupied with the mechanism made to turn the blades outside, and grind the grain inside, but the giant metal rod that stood in the centre had long since rusted in place.         Atop a small stage, just out of reach, the grindstone stood, but it had no grain on it; old or new. Euphoria cursed, but turned to scan the rest of her surroundings. Apart from an overturned table, and scattered, torn bags that most surely had held grain once, the room was empty, and there was no technology beyond that to speak of.         “Come,” Yiltse said and stepped up to the door, removing the bar with his hooves, and it thundered heavily to the floor, breathing dust into the air as he turned towards Euphoria. “We better move.” Golden sunlight filled the room fully, as Yiltse stepped through the maw, and Euphoria followed swiftly, feeling the wind gust against her.         Under her hooves, the ground was still muddy and wet, with the faintest smell of last night still in the air. Euphoria headed for the pool of blood only a few feet from the door, and looked towards the chewed up satin-black rifle, covered in thick, gooey saliva. “Eh.... If nothing else, I can sell it,” said Euphoria confidently and used one hoof to tie it onto her saddlebags, as her face twisted in disgust, and as soon as she was done, she scraped her hoof against the ground, shivering for a second.         As she turned around, Yiltse was already well on his way, and Euphoria pranced across the marsh, but did it hastily. “So, I guess that's the first part down then?” she asked her zebra companion as she caught up to him, but he only gave her a glance and said nothing. “Come on, that has to be it right?”         “Unlikely,” Yiltse replied flatly as they walked between the one working windmill, and the other that had been reduced to cinders. Euphoria just frowned in response, and twitched her ears as the ruins of a town crept closer on the horizon. *         Red graffiti covered the sign in lewd drawings depicting graphic scenes. “Well... I guess Raiders lack imagination,” Euphoria commented at the sign and snickered as she turned to face Yiltse, but he only shook his head at her. “Sorry, then!” growled Euphoria quickly, and squinted her eyes at the sign as she tried to read.         “Lead...” Euphoria said the name and frowned. “Lead?” she repeated and raised her head, looking towards the zebra, but as usual she got only a shrug in return. “That's an odd name for a town.” Giving off a light disgruntled sigh, she stepped past the sign and trotted up the incline, until her hooves connected with a gravel path. “It could have been worse I guess.”         As she crested the hill, Euphoria held up her Pip-Buck and inspected the route on her map. She frowned at the way the path cut straight through the boxes on the map, that impersonated the town. In front of Euphoria, the road that lead in fact through the town in the easiest way had been blocked by debris. Wood, concrete, and remnants of a tub had all compiled to a nice little pile that blocked the road easily. “Figures.”         “All right, to the left it is then!” said Euphoria in the most cheerful tone she could manage, which ended up sounding more like sarcasm than anything else, but as usual, Yiltse said nothing and just filed in next to her, as they diverged to a path that hopefully would lead around the blockade.         Only the sound of their hooves and the wind resonated against the skeletal remains of the houses around them. Euphoria didn't bother to ask Yiltse anything, as he would only have given her a frown, then stayed enigmatically quiet. Instead, she used the opportunity to get a good look at what had once been a town, or that was at least what she thought.         Amongst the debris of the old world, Euphoria could see charred paintings, broken doors, old toys turned to the rusty remains of themselves. Most of the houses just barely stood on the ruined bricks that supported them, and fewer still had more than one wall standing; they were not worth looting.         The only things that some-pony would get out of these houses, would have had to held some kind of sentimental value rather than economical. Euphoria continued to scan the broken remains with her eyes, until she saw a misshapen lump on the road ahead, and galloped forward without thinking.         She skidded to a halt next to an animal with mottled brown skin, and leashons covering its hide. On the road itself, lay food-boxes – now empty, as they had probably been eaten and chucked away unceremoniously. Her eyes rolled over the animal, and the ground, as she grimaced at the puddles and streaks of blood adorning both it and the gray, gravel-covered road. “No bodies – not good,” Yiltse mumbled and walked away from the cow, not minding it any business.                  Euphoria herself frowned at Yiltse and took another look over the cow and sighed, as she rummaged through the torn open saddlebag at its side. “I can't believe it.... I'm robbing a cow.” She glanced towards its head and let out a light gasp. “A two-headed cow at that.” With a shake of her head, Euphoria continued to search through the saddlebag, and tossed out empty box after empty box of something; the boxes themselves had faded so much than all Euphoria could make out, was the smiling face of a yellow-filly with a red mane as she held up a cereal bowl.         “Nothing!” she burst out and angrily tore her hoof away from the cow, as she kicked with one of her hind-legs, a few stones. Several small, but high-pitched twangs rang out as the stones themselves impacted with rotting wood and rusty pipes. “Why can't I ever find some food? Come on!” grumbled Euphoria and tossed her head around as she tried to calm down, but her stomach just grumbled in response. “Oh, be quiet!”         “If you really want your supplies back, so you can at least get paid.” Upon hearing Yiltse speak, Euphoria turned and looked at him with a sly grin. The zebra stallion nodded his head slightly, and Euphoria turned her eyes to see between the broken remains of a house with only one wall left standing – a group of ponies sitting next to a cartload of supplies, chatting. “I bet, those are responsible for the robbery.” Euphoria glanced briefly at him, but quickly looked back and growled lightly as she saw it.         Next to the ponies, a few bodies lay atop beds, mutilated. Euphoria couldn't be sure if they were alive, but they weren't moving and that was all she needed. Plus: they had the supplies she needed, so it was a win-win for her. “Let's do it,” commented Euphoria and flashed a menacing smile towards Yiltse as she trotted gently ahead, making sure to count up her bullets.         Despite the slight bump in the road they had the day before, Euphoria counted that she had fifteen bullets to spend, before she was out, and even then, she could bash them with her gun. “Do you have a plan?” Yiltse asked curiously and followed Euphoria as she shook her head in response. “Will you kill them.” This time, Euphoria nodded and picked up her pace.         “Good plan,” Yiltse commented and just shrugged as he followed Euphoria. *         Hiding behind the remains of a bush, Euphoria watched the group of raiders. The mutilated bodies she had seen before, had been cut up viciously and she could even see one of the stallions joyfully eating a leg as he leaned against the cart with supplies. “Want another one, or are you full over there?” A grey mare covered in scars snapped at the stallion, and cackled maliciously; her left eye twitching as he snorted back.         “Fuck off!” he retorted in return around a mouthful of leg, and the mare only cackled as she stepped back and pulled out a small yellow box from the cart, which looked as if it would collapse at any moment, but despite the beating it had obviously taken, it was in good condition as it was good enough to stand without collapsing in on itself. The mare herself was satisfied and walked away from the cart, with the box held firmly in her muzzle. “Spare some Dash for me!” the stallion added, as a piece of flesh slipped from his mouth and impacted the ground.         All doubt that Euphoria ever had about these ponies, had been washed away and she found herself smiling, almost giggling. Grinning wide, she leapt from her cover and fired a set of bullets at the cannibal. In a flurry of gunfire, two bullets tore through the skull of the stallion and painted the cart with blood and brain-matter, as the other raiders scrambled for their weapons, which Euphoria hadn't noticed before, but they just amounted to Melee ones.         “Die!” Euphoria spat and clenched her mouth around the bit of her battle-saddle as she fired another set of bullets. One bullet blasted cleanly through the leg of one mare and caused her to trip over herself, and in turn flanged the sword from her mouth as she thrashed and screamed; her muzzle dripping from her own blood.         The rest lunged forwards as Euphoria jumped away, a baton barely missing her muzzle as she giggled in response and fired again. Another mare crashed against the ground in a bloody heap of guts, as one of her hooves had been blasted off in one horrendous act, and Euphoria gasped inwardly as she saw it.         “I'll enjoy fucking you!” a stallion said viciously as he grinned around the bat he held between his yellow teeth. “Too bad you're not pink, like that other one!” he snarled, but his growl got caught in his throat as Euphoria blasted a set of bullets through his throat, covering the last mare in the blood-spray as she bolted past and lunged at Euphoria.         Shrieking in agony, Euphoria pushed against the mare as the rusty jagged blade slipped from her hoof, and Euphoria could feel the blood rushing to her wound. Angrily, she rushed for the mare, but the other mare shoved back against Euphoria and sent the Stable-mare crashing into the cart, as she groaned and her head pounded. “Like the sight of your own blood, little mare? You're gonna love it!” the mare cackled and headed for Euphoria.         Another shriek ran through the air, but it was the other mare as she impacted the ground hard, as Yiltse loomed over her and kicked away the knife as he frowned at her, and stepped out of the way quickly and landed a kick to the stallion as he charged him. Coughing, the stallion crashed into the ground as he dropped his baton. Casually, Yiltse turned towards Euphoria. “Good plan, indeed.”         “It worked,” Euphoria said hoarsely and coughed as she tried to find her breath. “Fuck that hurts....” She grimaced and clenched her teeth tight as she got to her hooves and trotted over to Yiltse and the two raiders as they laid on the ground. “Tell me what you did with the others, the ones you let live.”         “Live?” the stallion snarled and spit out a glob of blood on the ground as Euphoria glanced in his direction. “We didn't let any-pony live, they're getting sold off into slavery!” He cackled furiously, until he choked on his own blood and spat out some more onto the ground. “Just like you will, once our friends get back here.”         Smirking, Euphoria leaned in close to the stallion. “If you don't tell me where, I just might cut you up...” With a light giggle, she turned to look at Yiltse. “I'll even be doing the world a service when I kill you, but you get to decide when,” she added grimly and whipped her head back to look at the stallion on the ground.         “You fucking bitch! You don't have the courage for that!” He cackled and writhed around on the ground, as Euphoria walked off a bit and picked up one of the blood-soaked swords, and quickly slashed it across one of the stallion's flailing hooves with a grin. “You... bitch!” he cursed and clutched his hoof. “I'll personally fuck you to death when my friends get back!”         Smiling and giggling, Euphoria brought the sword down hard and slashed it across his throat, and watched as the stallion convulsed in agony and scratched at his throat as blood foamed across his mouth. As he still twitched on the ground, Euphoria turned towards the mare and Yiltse.         “Burly Breath Saloon!” the mare called out with wide eyes as she shook in fear. “It's in Cale's Field, roughly a day from here.” Euphoria gave a curt nod towards Yiltse and stepped closer as she dropped the sword. “Please... I... I don't want to die...” the mare begged and looked at Euphoria with sorrowful eyes, and her eyes went wide and her mouth slack as the bullet blasted through her head cleanly; the mare dropping to the ground in a pool of dark-red blood.         “Let's go rescue some ponies, get a nice bonus, and find that fucking bastard!” growled Euphoria through clenched teeth, as she brought up her map and marked the town on her pip-buck as her next destination – somehow, it already knew where the town was, and Euphoria didn't question it. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: In a twist of fate, ponies die violently around you. From now on, you will always see the worst way a pony can die as they explode into a red, gut-ridden, eyeball-strewn paste. You also do 5% more damage with all weapons.