Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage

by Kashin

Backtrack

        Rocksalt?!

        “Get the civilians out of here!”  Rock Salt barked, all subservience vanishing instantly.  “I’ll keep them off your tail!”

        “We can’t leave you here!”  I protested, charging a flare in my horn.  “We stand a better chance if we’re together!”

        “I stand a better chance if you get everypony out of here!”  The yellow stallion spun and bucked one of the creatures in the face.  “NOW!!”

        “Do as he says!”  Echo yelled, throwing her last two blades and crippling two more of the shaggy monsters.

        “Damn it all!”  I yelled.  “Fine, lets go!”  I ran to the other exit and motioned for the others to follow.  As soon as everypony else had gone I followed them down the earthen tunnel.

        “All right you feral fuckers,”  I picked up Rock Salt‘s voice at the edge of my hearing.  “The foal‘s shoes are off.”

        “But-but-but-”  I stammered, taking a set back from the yellow revenant.  “You’re dead.  The tunnels.  The demons.  I got you killed.”

        “Please,”  Dawn Star’s peppy voice chirped from behind me.  “It takes more than a few drooling mutants to kill a veteran Chevalier.”

        He was a Chevalier?  I looked back to the scarred buck.  From what I had seen, all the Chevaliers were unicorns; at least their armor was built with horned ponies in mind.  And even so, what was one doing as a slave for six years?

        “And you are, of course, the expert,”  Icy said snidely.  “As you’ve known what a Chevalier was for what?  Two days now?”

        I ignored the abrasive voice’s comment and slowly approached the yellow stallion.  The closer I got the clearer it became, it really was him.

        As soon as I got within leg’s reach I threw my forehooves around him.  “You’re really alive!”  I exclaimed, tears starting to well in my eye.  The flayed pony tensed when I lunged for him, but quickly relaxed.  “I didn’t fail you.  I didn’t get you killed.”  There was no way I would get such a redemption for Cave or Spruce, but one less death was hanging over my head.

        “No, I’m fine,”  Rocksalt assured me, dislodging himself from my sudden embrace.  “Thank you.  I was relieved to hear your group got out…”  He examined my eye patch and the scars that ringed my cutie marks, with a hint of sympathy on his otherwise dispassionate face.  “Mostly intact.”

        “You set all this up?”  Maple asked, cocking her ears and trotting up next to me.  “How?  For that matter, how did you even get out?”

        “It wasn’t too complex,”  the former slave replied, running his hoof over his facial scars.  “I may have gotten a little rusty during my years of captivity, but I managed to fight my way to an exit and up to the surface.  Then I looked for you, but I located a patrol first and made my way here to gather more help.  I hope that adequately explains the situation as we are on a tight schedule and the longer we delay the more likely we are to be caught.”  He made a sweeping gesture with his hoof causing all the soldier ponies to start gathering their gear and filing into the two tanks.  “We can continue our discussion later, but for the foreseeable future my attention will be needed elsewhere.”

        “Right, right.”  I nodded, blushing at my sudden show of affection.  “Anyway, we can talk on the way then?”

        “No,”  Rocksalt replied flatly, turning away and tapping a few controls on the side of the tank.  “You will be riding in the APC Rouncey.”  He nodded his head to the other tank.  On closer inspection that one had a notably smaller gun; though still unnervingly large.  “This one is a Tank Hunter Rouncey and only has room for my Chevaliers.”

        “Ah, got it,”  I said, feigning understanding; Tank Hunters were apparently smaller inside that APCs, whatever those were.  “I‘ll leave you be then.”

        I trotted over to the other vehicle as the dozen power armored unicorns and one noble joined the scarred buck.  Most of the other soldier’s had filed into our APC’s tail hatch and BARON was waiting for us by one of its massive, jewel encrusted pods.  The only ponies who had not yet taken their places were the red dyed mare, who was scrambling into a pink and yellow New Ministry of Peace robe and the bulky stallion who was putting his foal sized doll in a little army uniform… okay then.

        I climbed up the ramp and into the back of the tank.  The inside was claustrophobically cramped, with a bench running along each wall and another running down the middle.  Each of the side ones were packed with a dozen ponies, crammed haunch to chest; some had even adopted some odd, slouched back seating position to get a little more room.  Two more ponies in unarmored fatigues were visible through a hatch near the nose of the craft.

        “Granite!”  The blond mare with the ball called out, shouldering by me and poking her head out of the transport.  “You coming or not?!”

        “Yeah, yeah.  Hold your horses!”  the plushy laden buck replied gruffly as he trudged up the ramp.  “Just had to get Orchid here ready for battle.”  He had the stuffed toy strapped to his side with a foal harness opposite his rifle.  “She always needs to get ready last minute.”  He planted himself on the middle bench with a dull thud.

        “If that thing makes me miss a contract I’ll tear her stuffing out myself,”  the red mare sneered, settling down beside he tawny companion.  “As soon as I’m done with yours.”

        “I love you too sis,”  Granite chuckled, putting his chin on the mare’s head.  I had to assume these were some of Racket’s mercenaries, as they had none of the Frostborn’s almost mechanical discipline.

        Echo hovered up behind them, took one look at the cramped compartment and went rigid.  “I think I will opt out of the ride and follow from above,”  she stated, forcing herself to regain composure.

        I glanced back over my shoulder at the cramped partition.  Maple and BARON had settled on the middle seat as well, leaving little more than a nub at the end.  I had the distinct impression that we were cramming far more ponies into this thing than it was designed to hold; that or it was not designed with ponies as big as the King or Granite in mind.  There was no way she could ride without somepony touching her.

        “Hey honey!”  one of the soldier ponies, a mare who’s coat was unnervingly reminiscent of the green bile I had thrown up when I woke up in 114, called out to the Enclave pony with a condescending grin.  “I know you Enclave ponies think you’re all hot shit, but I can promise you our Rouncey is faster.”

        My airborne companion bristled, but hesitantly joined me at the top of the ramp, staring at the offending mare the whole time.

        “Excuse me,”  the robed mare apologized, nosing past me and nearly bumping into the umbral pegasus.  My heart froze in my chest for a moment as I was sure Echo would take the dyed mare’s head off.  Fortunately, my flying companion managed to show restraint and the New Ministry of Peace mare passed without incident, sitting down on the end of central bench gingerly; Echo and I would be standing apparently.

        The robed pony sighed, darting her eyes around the compartment and seeming to take great care not to touch anypony.  I had to wonder why she was coming along on this mission; she seemed to be unarmed and clearly was no combatant.

        The ramp hissed as it started to close, causing Echo to press herself against the ceiling to preserve what little space she had.  I cringed , when, for a brief moment, the compartment was plunged into darkness before the vehicle's own flickering, internal lights came online.  I couldn’t help but image myself back in the Stable 114 pod, thrashing against the clamps that were holding me down.

        Gulping, and shaking my head to clear my mind I trotted up to the cockpit.  The drivers were far better illuminated than the dreary crew compartment, with well lit displays and dials (what exactly they were supposed to mean was an utter mystery to me.) and the heavily filtered daylight coming in from the several reinforced windows that ran around the tank’s nose.  The entire area had a soft, pleasant glow.

        Intending to wander into the driver’s compartment, as there was obviously no place for Echo or I in the passenger area, I turned to see how my aerial friend was fairing.  Not well.  Her head was darting from side to side and while I couldn’t see her expression through her face plate her body language was unmistakably apprehensive.

        I glanced around to try and find anything that could help her  and spotted an alcove in the ceiling, roughly where the tank’s main gun was.  The Enclave mare followed my gaze and without warning turned into a teal streak, zipping into the crawl space.  She apparently found enough space to turn around as she wiggled back out head first and rested her chin on her folded, front legs.  If it weren’t for her carapace armor (yeah, that name fit) it would have probably been cute, but as it stood, it looked like a massive bug was glowering at everypony onboard.

        With a half smirk I totted into the warmly lit cockpit.  One of the two ponies, a puce, earth pony mare, glanced away from a ceiling mounted helmet like display and gave me a look over.  “We’re about to move out.  If you want to sit up here you can, but you need to strap yourself in.”  She pointed over her shoulder to a fold out seat by the hatch.

        ”We can’t have you bouncing around in here while we are trying to drive,”  the other operator, a nearly black-brown unicorn stallion with his horn covered by a clamp like the one from my Stable pod, continued without looking up from his displays.  Why would anypony want to put their horn in one of those horrid, magic sucking devices?

        I nodded and sat down on the seat.  I wasn’t entirely sure why they expected me to be ’bouncing around’.  I was hardly some little foal and I wasn‘t a childish pony… at least not as far as they knew.

        As soon as I had gotten myself magically strapped in (I couldn’t help but pity the earth ponies and pegasi who needed to manipulate the moderately complex straps with only their hooves and teeth.) the Rouncey rumbled to life with a deep hum.  A violet glow came from both sides of the machine that looked almost identical to a unicorn‘s magic field.  A massive door at he back of the hanger that I had previously mistaken for a wall, ground open, revealing the overcast sky and distant mountains.  We slowly began to slide towards the empty air.

        I pressed myself back into my chair to put as much distance between me and the ledge as was ponily possible, despite knowing full well how pointless it was.  Were they out of their pony minds?!  We were at least a hundred stories up and in a freaking tank!  Why in Equestria would they open a door to the sky?!

        “Express elevator to hell!”  the bile colored mare from earlier called out from behind me with almost sadistic glee.  “Going down!”

        I instinctively clutched my seat with my fetlocks as the machine jerked and lifted into the air a moment before we plummeted off the edge.  My pulse rocketed and my insides all surged into my head as we plummeted down towards the relatively crowded thoroughfare below.

        “UAHAHA!”  I squealed like a filly as the tank nosed up and leveled off just above the rooftops.  “Were flying!”  I cried in excitement, watching the bundled up ponies move between the various buildings, looking like swarms of fluffy, rainbow ants in a maze.  Flankorage its self looked like a series of concentric rings, split by eight main avenues radiating out from the sky port; each of the resulting wedges were sliced up in a more traditional grid pattern.  “We’re really flying!  Maple, you need to see this!”

        “Yes, I know!“  I heard Maple bellow from behind me, sounding slightly muffled.

        I pried my eye away from the breathtaking view to pear back into the other partition.  Echo just sat in her cubby space, motionless while most of the soldier ponies were just sitting there, looking stoic and obviously used to this sort of thing.  Granite had his face buried in a rather soggy looking paper bag while his sister just stared straight ahead, grinning madly, from ear to ear.

        The security mare had clamped herself around one of BARON’s forelegs, burying her face in his shaggy, blond mane  “Tell me when we stop!”  she yelled through gritted teeth and a face full of stallion.  The hooded, ministry mare poked her head up and silently nodded in agreement, apparently doing the same thing with the armored stallion’s other front leg.  The possessed buck’s expression was indiscernible through his helmet, all I could see were his eyes, slowly looking back and forth between the two terrified ponies that were affixed to him.

        I swiftly shifted my attention back to the windows as we soared over more of the city, making a wide, banking turn back to the south.  I knew I should have felt bad for the traumatized ponies in the back, but this was just too much fun.

        What unicorn foal hadn’t dreamt of flying through the air like a pegasus?  I was nearly inconsolable when I first found out my magical affinity was for light spells instead of growing wings like Mare Do Well.  It had taken Primrose throwing me off the roof so my mother could catch me and float me around with her magic to finally cheer me up again…  I was coming to save you Primrose.  I was coming to save everypony.  With with my new allies and this flying tank there was no conceivable way I could fail…  Oh, she would just flip out when she saw the freaking, flying tank.

        “Looks like we popped a few newbies today, Bore,”  the mare, who I assumed was the gunner, giggled and nodded to me.

        “Just make sure they don’t pop all over my nice, clean ship,”  the unicorn pilot replied, looking back to the passenger area; it was only for a moment, but the knowledge that nopony was controlling the flying block of metal made my heart to lodge its self in my throat.  “Okay, Sabot?”

        The purse pony unbuckled herself and stood up with a degree of stability I didn’t think possible and cantered over to me as if she were strolling across a room instead of a flying tank.  “You want a better look?”  she asked sweetly, planting herself down next to me.  I caught a flash of what looked like a bullet with a big grin emblazoned on her flank.  “You can use my seat if you like.”

        “Really?!”  I exclaimed, leaning forward and making the security straps dig into my chest.  I magically fumbled at the clasp until Sabot stopped me by gently pushing me back in my seat and pressing the release with her nose.  The moment I wiggled out of my restraints Bore made another wide turn and I slid out of my seat and landed on my haunches wit a dull thud.  “Ow.”

        “Come on,”  the militant mare said, wedging herself under one of my forelegs for support.  She lead me over and practically lifted me into her seat, buckling me in with practiced ease.  “Now I’ve put on the main gun’s safety so you can’t shoot anything, but feel free to play around with the turret cam.”  She lowered the half helmet onto my face, taking care to slip my horn into a slot in the top.

        As soon as the display was secured around my head everything around me fell away and was replaced with a sweeping view of the city.  It felt like I was actually sitting on the top of the tank.  No, scratch that, it felt like I was the tank.  Every movement of my head was mirrored by the vehicle’s gun.  I could hear the hum of the levitation pods and the low murmur of the thousands of ponies going about their daily lives below, I could even feel the cold wind whip against my face.  A small set of crosshairs were in the center of my vision and small indicators telling me how much ammunition was left, heat in the gun, the condition of the tank and a radial map like the one on my E.F.S. only far larger.

        The Rouncey dipped down, flying low down the southern thoroughfare and heading for the massive gate I had seen coming in.  Everypony in the street below paused what they were doing and looked up at us as we swooped overhead.  I giggled childishly and was dully aware of my real body shifting back and forth on the upholstered chair.  My only disappointment was that I seemed unable to turn more than thirty degrees in any direction and everything just out of my field of view just seemed so interesting.

        Rocksalt’s ‘tank hunter’ swooped down in front of us on pillows of white magic as we cleared the city proper and soared out across the open ground that encircled the decrepit metropolis.  A trio of armored cargo carriages sat idly on the main road.  The front two were pulled by a team of six ponies in heavy, metal armor and the third had a team of two hulking buffalo steers in heavy furs.

        I had never seen real buffalo before.  Well, technically I had never even seen an earth pony until a week ago, but anyway.  They were far larger than the little heifer I had been in the memory orb; I had to assume that she was the exception and most buffalo ladies were more… reasonably scaled.  I was rather curious as to why they would be up here as, from what little I knew about them, buffalo were from far warmer regions.  I would need to make a note to talk to them when I got the chance.

        Both of our airborne tanks flew down to float on either side of the small caravan, just above the ground.  As we passed them I could have sworn I could smell the two bison, sort of a mix of honey, sweat and curdled milk; distinctive to say the least.

        I dully picked up the gunner mare‘s voice with my real ears.  “Well, I have a job to do now.”  She pulled the helmet off my head, causing my consciousness to snap back into my own body.  “Hope you had fun.”

        “Uh huh, yeah,”  I replied, still a little disoriented from my glorious time as a flying block of metal.  I had to do that again.  “That was wonderful, like a dream, only real.”  I leaned up as the puce pony deftly unhooked my restraints.

        “Yeah,” she replied, untangling me from the belts and ushering me out of the seat.  “It can get really trippy the first time.”

        I spread my forelegs wide and looked at Sabot with a warm smile; taking care to keep my claws and fangs hidden.  “May I?”  The black maned gunner smirked, nodded and copied my pose.  “Wonderful.”  I wrapped my legs around her in as tight a hug as I could manage.  “Thank you, truly.”  I caught an appealing sent and snuffled, following the smell back to its source and closing my eye so I could focus in on it.  My nose found its way to the nape of the soldier mare’s neck.  It was sort of a meaty sweetness, not quite as nice as Scoop’s, but still quite intoxicating after my euphoric flight.

        “Okay, that’s enough,”  Bore instructed from my blind side with a tone that could have meant either amusement or a warning.  “My wife is a wonderful mare, but you’re getting a bit too familiar there, kid.”

        I snapped my eye open and disengaged myself from the generous gunner, shaking to clear my head.  I had always been a fan of the lady folk and fairly sensitive to smell, but this was getting unnerving. Oh geez, I mentally prostrated myself before the little Scoop in my head, begging for forgiveness.  I was dully aware of the rear hatch’s low hiss as it slid down and the clang of armored hooves marching down the ramp.

        I looked back up and saw that Sabot was nearly as flustered and embarrassed as I was, fixing her uniform where it had gotten rumpled against my chest and avoiding eye contact while wearing a blush up to her ears.  It was rather odd that she didn’t try to push away when I started sniffing at her mane.  I puffed up my chest a bit.  Maybe it was my soft, silky coat, my dashing eye patch or my own natural charm.

        “Or it might be the fact that you are the only pony here who has bathed in the past few days,”  Icy sneered, stomping down my ego.  “She might have just been wondering at the exotic smell of soap.”

        “Right, sorry about that,”  I apologized, nodding to the pilot.  “I got a little carried away after my flight.  It won’t happen again.”  I turned back to the puce mare.  “Thanks again.  So, will we be stopped long?  Maybe I should go take a walk.”

        My left eye itched.

        “Not a good idea,”  BARON said, walking into the cockpit with the dyed mare still clamped around his front left leg.  “You spit in the Unity’s face and got off with a fetlock slap.  They do not take such offenses lightly.  If you step outside now you may very well catch a bullet with your face.”

        I blanched and took a step backward, bumping my haunches into Sabot’s controls; fortunately, she was still self-conscious enough not to chastise me for it.  “Th-they would attack me inside the city?”

        “Inside the city is where you’re in the most danger,”  the robed mare spoke up from my harnessed companion’s leg.  “Lots of ponies with lots of guns and any one of them could be on the Unity’s payroll.  I’m Red Tape by the way.”  She extended her hoof to me, but immediately pulled it back as she began to slide down the huge stallion’s leg.  “I’ll be the one declaring your Stable in violation of basic pony rights and legalizing our little invasion here.”

        “Um, pleased to meet you,”  I replied, taping her preoccupied hoof with my own.  “So, you will be fighting with us then?”

        “Me?!”  she gasped, growing pale and nervous at the very mention of combat.  “No, I could never…  I just file reports.  I-I’ve never even touched a weapon.”  I found that hard to believe, given what I had seen of the wasteland so far, but she did seem genuinely upset at the prospect.

        I bent down a bit to look her in the eye.  “So you will just be sitting in the tank then?”

        “It’s an IFV,”  Bore interjected.

        I turned around and cocked my head.  “A what?”

        “Infantry fighting vehicle, it’s not a tank.”

        “Okay then.”  I looked back to the dyed mare and repeated my question with the appropriate nomenclature.

        “No.”  She shook her head.  “I’ll be with the troops when they go.”  Her voice was growing shaky.  “If I don’t, this won’t work and our cover won‘t be believable.  I-I-I just need to try not to get shot.”

        I was actually a bit taken aback at that.  That was a degree of courage that I hadn’t expected to see outside of comic books, to go into a life or death situation and just hope that you would be okay for the sake of others.

        “You can call it brave if you like,”  Icy said snidely.  “I call it stupidity at best, inexcusable weakness at worst.  To be unwilling to defend yourself when you know many others are relying on your survival is just offensive”

        I nickered.  While he had a point, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being.  Icy could be as cynical as he wanted to, I wasn’t about to ostracize a new ally.  “Thank you for your help then.”  I patted her on the back.  “You have probably found the safest spot around.”  I looked up at BARON, who seemed rather un-amused.  “I recall you saying something about being very hard to kill.”  Very un-amused.  “Though I think you can let go of him now.  I don’t think we will be doing anymore aerial acrobatics.”  I looked over my shoulder to Bore and Sabot.  “Right?”

        “Not unless we’re attacked, no,”  the puce gunner responded without meeting my eye.  “The cargo carriages can’t fly so we will be hovering for most of the trip.”

        “Thanks,“  I said before returning my attention to Red Tape.  “See?  Come-on, you can let go of the oversized stallion now.”

        “But, what if we-we crash?”

        I just stared at her flatly.  “We are only six hooves up and in an armored box, we might bang our fetlocks.  You‘ll be fine.”

        Tape looked up and gulped.  “O-okay, if you say so.”  She slid down BARON’s leg and plopped to the floor with a cringe.

        “See?”  I said reassuringly as the armored stallion gave a sight of relief.  “How long will we be traveling by the way?”  I asked, addressing the army ponies again.

        “Assuming we aren’t attacked,”  the dark brown gunner answered, tapping out some calculations in in the air.  “I’d say about six hours before we split off the main road and make for your Stable.”

        “And I take it I can’t go outside during that time?”

        “That wouldn’t be advisable,”  the harnessed, crimson buck interjected.  “No.  As long as we are on an established route there is a chance for detection.  To be honest, it would be best if everypony other than the Frostborn troopers stayed inside until we break away from our official path.”

        “Ugh,”  I sighed.  “What am I supposed to do for six hours in a cramped tank?  …er, I mean IFV,”  I amended myself due to a dirty look from Bore.

        “You could try that memory orb the tramp hit you with,”  my arctic delusion suggested, almost hopefully.

        “I would advise catching up on some reading,”  BARON said, sounding disappointed that he even had to bring it up.  “But your blue friend still has her snout buried in both the texts you have with you and has insisted that I help her go over some of the more complex concepts in equine medicine.”  I had noticed that Maple tended to be enthralled with the Canterlot Journal of Internal Medicine and that zebra book, ‘Supernaturals’, whenever she had a moment of free time.  I had to wonder if she had missed her true calling as a medical mare.

        “Or you could try the memory orb,”  Icy repeated insistently.

        “Some of the soldiers will probably start up a few dice games in the back,”  Sabot mentioned, glancing over her shoulder.  “I’m sure they would let you buy in if you like.”  That sounded fun… and possibly profitable.  Not quite as good as card games, reading somepony’s face was less helpful when nopony needed to bluff and I had no intention of cheating.

        The massive Flankorage gate rumbled open, revealing the farmland beyond.  I hadn’t noticed in the dying light when I had first entered the city, but there were small, golden brown shoots starting to grow up among the berry coated vines.  The three wagons slowly began rolling down the highway.  Both Rounceys  took up flanking positions with the caravan, drifting after it so smoothly that a barely noticed we had started moving; though Red Tape still barely managed not to latch back onto BARON’s leg.

        “I hear memory orbs are a nice pass time.”

        “You’re not going to drop this are you?”  I asked myself under my breath, earning a few uncomfortable looks from the ponies around me.

        “No.”

        I sighed.  “I think I’ll give a memory orb a try, see if that can kill a few hours.  Thanks for the offer anyway.”  I nodded to each pony it turn and went back to the passenger area to find a place to nestle down and go comatose for a little while.

        Most of the troops had left and the dozen who remained split off into a few groups; the largest of them was headed by the obnoxious, green mare.  The two mercenaries had joined one of the games in progress and it was looking like the red one with the ball was taking everypony else to the cleaners already.  Echo was lying in her nook, motionless; with her helmet on I was unsure if she was keeping watch or just asleep.

        Maple was indeed lost in her books, with both texts open next to a first aid manual form the ski lodge survival kit.  The pocket book was covered in sprawling notes in red ink and the security mare seemed to be cross checking every instruction with both of the other books.  BARON shouldered past me, sat down next to her with a resounding thump and began browsing through her notes.  Every once in a while he would stop her and point something out or make an observation about efficiency.  If I didn’t know better I may have mistaken the mass murdering parasite for an experienced teacher.

        After giving the entire room a thorough look over I settled on a section of bench near the cockpit door and curled up on it.  I was rather uneasy about going into another memory orb given my last few experiences with them, but I had no intention of giving in to paranoia.  I floated out the transparent sphere and nestled it between my hooves.  Taking a deep breath I reached into it with my magic.

        I was struck with a blast of muggy air, thick with the sickly-sweet sent of rotting vegetation.  My tiny hooves crushed through a thin layer of brittle leafs and sunk into fetlock deep muck.  My short coat was slicked down with perspiration and my light barding was unpleasantly soggy.  I recognized my distinct, bulky form, spindly legs and muscles like tightly coiled springs.  I was in the buffalo heifer, Little Strongheart.

        My host was slowly walking through a dense jungle with an oppressive canopy, blotting out most of the pale light from the full moon overhead and a nearly solid underbrush that came up to the little bison’s chest.  The calls of numerous, exotic beasts echoed through the trees, sounding eerily harmonious with the mournful songs of nocturnal birds.  Despite the low light I could see unnaturally well.  As my host had no headgear on other than a small earpiece and a headband, I had to assume magic was involved.

        I had to admit that being female still threw me off, as did my inability to control any aspect of my body. But despite everything, having two eyes again was nice; I definitely didn’t miss the itching.  And muggy, while unpleasant, and not something I had any desire to repeat, was a new experience for me.

        “Oh,”  Icy groaned followed a series of low pops.  His voice actually sounded like it was coming from just outside my field of vision; my inability to move my eyes was driving me nuts.  “It feels so good to finally stretch my legs.”  An ethereal, light blue unicorn with an off white, spiky mane, who otherwise looked unnervingly like me, cantered into my vision.  His horn was semitransparent and looked like an icicle jutting out of his forehead and a coating of hoarfrost hung off his coat in some sort of imitation of my own fluff.  A large, frozen gear slowly rotated on his flank and a thin cloud of cold mist billowed off his body and pooled at his hooves.

        My host seemed to completely ignore the unnatural stallion…  Icy?  Is that you?

        “Yeah,”  the frozen stallion replied, bowing down and stretching out his back with another series of cracks.  “Yeah, that feels sooo good.”  He was sounding almost obscene.

        Wha-why are you here?

        “You expected me not to be?”

        Well no…  I mean yes, but…  Why can I see you?

        “Oh, that.”  The arctic stallion turned to me and gazed holes through me with his metallic blue eyes.  “I don’t really know myself.  Ever since that tramp woke me up I’ve just been feeling so cramped; I had never realized how small your head was.”

        Thanks.

        “Anyway,”  my, somehow manifested, delusion continued.  “You know how you have no control while you are in a memory orb?“

        Yes, it was frustrating.

        “Exactly.  Well I feel like that all the time now.  So I had the idea that I might be able to get some air if you used an orb and it seemed to have worked…  Or it just made your head bigger.”  He stopped and shrugged.  “Either way is good.”

        “Captain Strongheart,”  a young mare’s voice came from my host’s ear bloom, causing Icy to stop talking despite the fact that his ‘physical’ form could not have heard it; he apparently still shared my senses.  “Target is approaching.  All troops in position.”

        “Acknowledged Archer,”  my host replied, sounding far more tired than the award ceremony, but still determined.  She pushed ahead, leaving deep trenches in the sludge.  “I’m almost there.”

        The little bison emerged from the underbrush onto a low cliff overlooking a muddy road.  A large, green and brown striped vehicle that resembled an train sized millipede was slowly crawling down the road on a swarm of tiny legs.  Four much smaller, pill bug like, jet black vehicles with swiveling turrets on each side.  I would have been surprised if they could even hold three ponies inside.  There were also several zebras in suits of red leather barding sifting through the trees ahead of the insectoid machines.

        My host hunkered down in the mire and watched the precession.  She slipped a firing bit between her teeth and pulling her front hoof up to examine a bulky computer that resembled a PipBuck, but nearly enveloped her entire leg.  A topographic map showed nearly two dozen red dots that corresponded to the locations of the zebras and their vehicles; save for two in a dense patch of trees.  There were also five smaller, cyan dots scattered around a moonlit clearing in the procession‘s path, but I couldn’t locate who they represented through the dense foliage.

        One of the zebras stopped in front of the bush with the unknown, red dots and said something to her shoulder.  Almost immediately one of the black vehicles rolled up and enveloped the trees in twin jets of flame.  Two monsters that resembled six legged panthers with two squid tentacles sprouting from each of their backs ran, howling from the blaze.  The beast’s flight was short lived as the flame spitting tank shifted and incinerated both of them.  The sent of burning flesh wafted up into my host’s nostrils and made her feel sick to her stomach, but she refused to move or look away.

        We just sat patiently until the entire caravan had entered the clearing.  “Now!”  Little Strongheart shouted as soon as the last zebra stepped out of the tree line and into Luna‘s ghostly light.

        A series of explosions shook the jungle, blasting a flaming ditch around the zebra convoy and scattering the remains of three of the zebras across their comrades.  Before any of the soldiers could react a trio of missiles and what looked like a short spear-sized arrow pierced each of the flame tanks, causing them to erupt into blooms of fire, viscera and shards of metal.

        My buffalo host leaped down into the panicked mass of zebras and quickly dying fires.  One of the surviving zebras ran towards her, his entire left side burnt and peppered with shrapnel.  Wielding a mouth griped spear, he charged the heifer.

        Strongheart ducked low and brought her short horns up, into his throat.  Twisting to the side, she tore huge gouges in the zebra’s neck and throwing him over her shoulder.  She spun on her toe to face a second zebra, a mare with an assault rifle saddle, and clamped down on her firing bit.

        *BANG!*

        The mare dropped to the mud, gripping at the bloody hole that blossomed open in her chest.

        Two more enemies cantered up, flanking my host with a pair of flamethrowers.  Before they could strike a second massive arrow knocked one off her hooves and pinned her to one of the flaming wrecks.  The other Zebra stared in shock for a moment before looking down and seeing a thin blade materialize out of the front of her chest.

        An earth pony stallion in a jet black, full body suit flickered into existence, standing on his hind legs behind the skewered zebra and holding a long, needle like sword in his fetlock.  He twisted his weapon and kicked the striped mare off his blade, staring at my host through his featureless, bronze visor.  ‘Lancer’ was embroidered in purple across his right breast next to a similarly colored cloud and lighting bolt.

        I caught a glimpse of my bison host’s reflection in Lancer’s helmet.  Her face was covered in dark camo paint nearly the same shade as the massive bags under her eyes.  She was wearing a stripped down version of the equestrian military barding that the Frostborn used, a tattered, red and gold cape and a headband with a fiery feather in it.  A silver rifle was mounted on her battle saddle, opposite a blocky antenna array that was hooked up to her ungainly PipBuck.

        My host looked back to her primitive PipBuck.  Save for the millipede train‘s oblong, red blob, all the hostile dots had vanished; the last one winking out as a pink twister speared into the ground on the other side of the vehicle, throwing up a brown and red plume of grime.  The cyan contacts were all converging on our location.

        One by one the other dots fell in in front of Little Strongheart.  The first one was a familiar light khaki pegasus mare with a poofy, pink mane wearing a black and gray outfit that was reminiscent of Echo’s Enclave uniform.  She swooped down and hovered just above the muddy, blood soaked ground…  Where had I seen her before?

        “She was in some of the photos from the shipping pony’s shelter,”  Icy said, walking up to the flyer and circling around her and cocking his eyebrow and smirking as he passed behind her.  “She came in second to Rainbow Dash in the Winter Iron Pony competition.”

        That was it!  She was Dizzy Twister.  I was still wearing her Boxxy Brown vest.  Sure enough, as she got closer I could make out her name in purple thread on her lapel across from the same, purple crest from Lancer‘s.  Curse these inferior, buffalo eyes; even without my implant I could have made that out as soon as she came into view in my own body.

        A moment later, a blue, earth pony mare came bounding out of the trees and landed on top of the zebra train.  Her darker blue mane was held back with a twisted leather headband.  She had a large compound bow with a long spike extending from the bottom slung across her back and a quiver of the javelin-like arrows painted in various colors.  Her barding looked lighter than the others, consisting only of a hide vest, combat boots on her hind legs and thin, leather socks that came just above her fetlocks.  Her golden bow and arrow cutie mark seemed to be the only spot on her body to not be covered in small scrapes and paper thin scars.

        A unicorn in a bulky suit of camouflaged power armor, that didn’t match any of the three models I had seen, sloughed through the mud and sat down beside Lancer, sinking down to his hips.  A very large gun was strapped onto the middle of his back, with four missile tubes (three of which were empty), two on each side of the cannon.  All in all he looked more like a tank with legs than a pony.  ‘Hot Potato’ was painted in bold, black letters across each of his clunky shoulder pads and the cloud and lightning bolt were on his flank pads.

        Finally, a hooded figure in lose fitting fatigues and lightly glowing, formal shoes who seemed to trot on top of the sludge as if it was solid ground.  A pony sized platform, laden with various bits of equipment from guns to tools, was floating after her on a pillow of deep purple magic.  She went up the my host, allowing me to make out ’Turtledove’ on her uniform, and pulled off her hood.

        She was a zebra!  …And was drop dead gorgeous; I was new to female specific sensations, but I had the distinct (and rather tingly) feeling that my host felt the same way.  Her nearly pitch-black stripes framed her face perfectly and ran across her ruby red eyes like natural eye shadow and a mask at the same time.  Her striated mane fell across the left side of her face and flowed down her shoulder.

        “All hostiles have been eliminated Captain Strongheart,”  the Equestrian zebra announced in a smooth, lyrical voice, giving my host a salute.  “No distress signals managed to get around the new, Black Apple jammers and we should be able to make this look like a dragon attack.”

        ‘Very good,”  my host replied almost mournfully, nodding to the breathtaking zebra and trudging to the armored tank.  “What about the transport crew?”

        “It appears to be a drone,”  the armored stallion rumbled, his artificial voice sounding a good deal like BARON’s.  “My E.F.S. is registering it as a single target and any crew it may have had would have tried to fight us off.”

        The blue mare who, through process of elimination, I had to assume was Archer (the bow and arrow also have influenced my conclusion a little bit) hoped off the train and into the mire.  “We will need to make sure that its memory logs are destroyed beyond all hope of recovery, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”  She waded over to her second arrow, but seeing both it and the zebra it had impaled were burning furiously she just shrugged and returned to her comrades.

        “Then let’s get this done,”  the commando heifer said, putting her hoof on the millipede-train’s armored side.  “Lancer, it‘s all yours.”

        The faceless stallion nodded, sheathed his sword and dropped back to all fours.  I still found a bit unnerving how some ponies seemed to be so natural on their hind legs; any time I reared up for any length of time was very strenuous on my legs and back.

        My manifested crazy walked straight through the stunning mare with a grin on his frozen face.  “Not all ponies have the muscle mass of cooked noodles.”

        I couldn’t really fault him there, he was right and I had just set myself up for that one.

        “See?”  he continued.  “I abuse because I care.”

        Yeah, about yourself.

        “And your point is?”

        A loud roar drew my attention away from the arctic phantom.  Lancer had pulled a large rig with a circular saw blade from Turtledove’s floating cart with his fetlocks and had started to slice into the transport’s siding, sending a shower of sparks and metal slivers in all directions .  He was ripping through the steel plates as easily as if they were wood and had sliced an eight hoof square in a matter of minutes.  He calmly set the rig back down and bucked his new entrance in.

        The interior was pitch black, even too dark for the bison’s magical night vision.  My host pulled her hoof out of the mud and wiped it off on her flank before reaching up and pulling the phoenix feather from her headband.  She closed her eyes and pressed the plume to her chest.  We were filled with pleasant warmth, completely dispelling the oppressive, jungle air.  We opened our eyes again and the feather was glowing like a torch, with its own inner fire.

        Little Strongheart slipped the flaming quill back into her headband and stepped into the transport with Philomena’s feather burning away the murk.  The entire compartment was filled with yellow crates, each emblazoned with three pink butterflies but my host completely ignored them in favor of six heavily secured obelisks in the middle.

        She slowly approached the pillars, her breath catching in her throat.  Each of the stones were made from seamless, pink marble inlayed with ruby runes; while most were illegible to me I did recognize a few that had to do with medical magic.  They all seemed to hum and glow as the phoenix feather’s fiery light washed over them

        “It’s a mega spell,”  Icy gasped, materializing beside me.

        A mega spell?!

        “Yes. One of the earlier, modular ones.  A  mass heal if I had to guess.”

        How do you know these things?  I’ve never looked into mega spells or anything to do with really powerful magic for that matter.

        “You must have seen something and I just put two and two and two together,”  he replied defensively, glairing at me.  “And to be frank, I am a lot smarter than you are.”

        “Hot Potato!”  my host bellowed, turning and galloping back out into the moonlit battlefield.  “Get me a line to Captain Stalwart Shield on the Appaloosa, now.”

        “Yes ma‘am!”  the armored stallion boomed, setting up what I assumed was communication equipment.  “But I will need to deactivate the jammer and we haven‘t managed to shut down the drone‘s distress call.”

        “It doesn’t matter,”  the bison replied quickly, looking around nervously.  “We need extraction immediately.  There is no time to be subtle anymore.  We have a traitor on our hooves.”  Little Strongheart’s voice quieted to a horse whisper as she nuzzled the tattered Crusader’s cape.  “And I pray it isn‘t who I think it is.”

        I stretched out on my little section of bench as I was shook awake from my nap as the Rounceys came to a halt.  The orb had only managed to burn about half an hour and, despite Icy’s prodding, I was not interested in dealing with the stifling jungle atmosphere again.  I played a few rounds of dice and shared a half shot of something from a gas can labeled ‘the good shit’ with Granite and his sister who I had learned was named Alabaster.  That had been a very bad idea; my head was still throbbing and I had the distinct impression that a full shot would have made me go blind.

        “Get yourself ready,”  Maple instructed softly, still shaking my shoulder.  “We’re at the ski lodge and you need to get ready to fight.”

        “Huh?  What?”  I asked groggily, scratching at my eye patch; damned thing itched again.  “What happened to just trotting up to the Stable door?”  All the soldier ponies were gone, leaving only Maple and I in the compartment.  My fur rustled in the icy wind that was blowing in from the open hatch, dusting the vehicle’s interior with snow.  I had nearly forgotten how cold real snow could be; even my new coat was having a hard time compensating for it.

        The security mare brought my armor plates over to me.  “Delayed.  The slaver scum set up camp here and…”  She adopted a dower demeanor and put on an imitation of Rocksalt’s voice.  “We can’t afford to have forces at our back when we go into battle.”

        I slipped the pads under my jumpsuit with a snicker.  “That was pretty good, but why are we fighting?  We have two tanks-”

        “IFVs!”  Sabot yelled from the cockpit.

        “IFV’s,”  I amended.  “Why do we need to fight?”

        “To preserve our ruse,”  the white maned pony continued in her Rocksalt voice.  “The Frostborn can not be linked to any hostilities before we approach the Stable proper.”  That was a good point, the soldier ponies had fairly distinctive equipment from what I had seen, the Chevaliers even more so and it would probably be hard to mistake whatever kind of craters the massive cannons on the Rounceys made.

        BARON trotted out of the cockpit with Red Tape latched to his leg again.  He was carrying my robotic eye in his tendril-like arms and my new gun in his mouth.  The armored stallion walked over and dumped them at my hooves.  “I took the liberty of making a few modifications.”

        “What sort of modifications?”  I asked, floating it to my face and magically screwing it into its base plate.

        “As your new weapon has an integrated scope, I set it up to link directly with your eye,”  the red buck replied, trying to gently pry the robed mare off his leg.  “So you will be able to use it to see around corners and aim without floating it in front of your face.”

        Huh.  As soon as I finished hooking up the armored cable to my PipBuck I found my field of vision split between BARON’s face and the gun’s view of my hooves; the split was more nauseating than the eye usually was.  “Thanks… but-um, can I turn it off?  It seems a bit distracting.”

        “A polite understatement,”  Icy hissed.

        “Yes,”  the big pony said, finally succeeding in dislodging the dyed mare and dumping her on her rump.  “Just think of winking the synthetic and it will toggle between its two modes.”

        I winked and my vision shifted to its regular, fuzzy imitation of pony sight.  “Thanks.  So, what are we up against?”

        Maple kicked a full drum into her shotgun.  “According to Rocksalt, they have a working tram to the top so the numbers may change.”  So that’s why they set up shop there; that tram would make the trips up and down the mountain far easier.  “But at the moment there are about twenty with five scrappers and a pair of griffins.  With the four of us and the two mercenaries Racket hired it shouldn’t be too hard.”

        I shifted in my snowy perch overlooking the ski lodge.  I looked through my beam RCW’s scope at the raiders who were slowly encircling Maple, BARON and the two mercenaries.  My telekinesis twitched nervously around my weapons trigger as I lined up my sights with one of the two griffins and waited for the signal.

        As everypony else only used close range weapons, it was decided that I was to provide cover fire while the others got close by pretending to be looking for work.  The whole thing made me uneasy.  For one thing: while surprisingly good at it, BARON was not as skilled a liar as I was.  Secondly: I didn’t recall getting completely surrounded as being part of the original plan.  I was half tempted to just open fire and hope for the best.

        Without warning, my harnessed companion leaped forward and slammed both his front hooves into either side of the lead scrapper’s head, caving in the metal and pulverizing the skull.

        All at once everypony sprung into action.  I opened fire on my griffin target, perforating her with dozens of tiny holes and igniting her coat.  As she fell in a flaming ball of feathers a black streak shot out of the sky and slammed into the second griffin who vanished in a poof of feathers and red mist.

        I shifted my aim to the raiders and started picking off ones who moved away from the group.  Maple and Granite enveloped the disorganized slavers in clouds of bullets from their battle saddles while Alabaster pelted them with grenades.  The remaining scrappers fell in twisted heaps as BARON bent them into unnatural shapes, shrugging off shots from their spike rifles.  We were taking them apart.

        I noticed a red bar on the edge on my E.F.S. compass (I was too far away from Echo to use its radial form) and rolled onto my back in time to see a purple, Unity stallion baring down on me with a large sword that had once been part of a wagon in his teeth.  I leveled my magical rifle with his head, but my shot went wide as the buck knocked my gun out of my magical grip with his blade‘s surprisingly long reach.

        I managed to set off a flare in his face before he could bring his weapon back around cleave me in half; fortunately, his reach came at the cost of recovery time.  I rolled to my hooves and scrambled to recover my weapon.  I almost had it…

        *Crunch*

        I shrieked as the slaver brought his sword down on my right, hind leg.  The blade carved clean through my hoof and splintered my bones as it bifurcated my leg nearly to my knee.  I could feel my blood rushing out of my body in head spinning gushes.

        I managed to maintain enough of my concentration to force a healing potion down my throat as the raider yanked his weapon from the ravaged remnants of my leg.  My flesh knitted closed and my mind to stop swimming, but my bones just felt twisted and wrong.  He hurt me…  He may have crippled me!  This monster was keeping me from my home and I had to make him PAY!

        The edges of vision blurred red and I could feel my jaw loosen as I staggered back to my intact hooves, practically seething.  My nostrils flared.  I could practically smell the blood rushing through his veins...  I had no intention of letting it stay there much longer.

        The violet stallion swung his sword back at me, trying to take off my head.  He was just so slow, like he was moving underwater.  I managed to duck under his blow and embed my horn in his chin, punching through all the way to his palate.  Not wasting a beat , I drove forward, forcing him onto his back and planting my clawed, front hooves on his chest.

        He tried to knock me off, but I just shifted my head forward, lengthening the gash under his chin and jamming his mouth held weapon against the back of his mouth so hard that several of his teeth cracked and went with it.  He tried to cry out, but he only managed to inhale the jagged remains of his teeth.  I bared my fangs and growled.

        I reared back, ripping my horn from his muzzle, and slammed back down, claws first.  The little talons sliced through his meager barding as if it wasn’t even there and passed into his hide.  I yanked my hooves up, flaying off ribbons of flesh, and slammed them back down again, and again, and again.  Eventually my knees got tired and I just started digging.  My hooves passed through the raider’s body as easily as if it was made of clay.

        I finally struck snow and crawled off the raider, leaving his barrel hollow and his insides scattered across the slope.  I was soaked up to my knees in blood, matting my fur down and slowly dripping into the snow.  The smell was nearly euphoric.

        I brought my fetlock up to my nose, pressed my muzzle into the soaked fur and inhaled deeply.  My mind went completely blank and I let out a stuttering moan.  One little taste wouldn’t hurt…

        “Don’t do this,”  Icy cautioned sternly.  “It’s wrong.”

        “No…”  I sighed, still quivering from the blood smeared across my snout.  “How could something this glorious be wrong?”

        “It’s cannibalism!  Don’t do it!”

        “No it isn’t.  He wasn’t a pony.”  I stared at his excavated corpse as a line of drool rolled down my chin.  “It isn’t cannibalism if I eat a monster.”  I opened my maw wider than I thought was physically possible.

        “STOP!”

        “Ocher!”  a mare’s voice called out from above me.  Startled, I spun towards the source of the sound, causing my tenuous hoofing to slip out from under me and burring my muzzle in the snow.

        I pulled myself up, coughing and sputtering from the rapidly melting snow and broken pine needles that had gotten stuck up my nose.  “Uugh,”  I groaned, slightly disoriented and absentmindedly rubbing my sore jaw.  “What the hell?”  I looked up and saw a black armored pegasus hovering over me.  My head was clearing rapidly.  What was going through my head?

        The Enclave pony pulled up her mask and looked at me with her ears drooped.  “The battle is over,”  she said with a nearly imperceptible note of sorrow in her voice.  This felt oddly similar to when I had found the soldier mare going ballistic in the timber yard’s larder.  “We need to regroup… but I can take circuitous route if you want to talk.”

        “No, no, thanks,”  I replied, shaking my head and trotting away from the raider I had painted the landscape with.  I was too close to home to afford anymore distractions.  I almost ate that thing, but this needed to be finished before I could give this problem the attention it deserved.  “I may take you up on that later though.”  I wiped the remaining blood stained snow from my snout.

        Echo and I walked into the central building of the ski resort, nodding politely as we passed BARON and Granite who were systematically checking the outlying buildings.  The interior of the ski lodge was much as I remembered it, the same fine wood work and rustic atmosphere; the Unity had surprisingly taken the time to clean the slimy remnants of the Shrikes off the walls.  Maple and Alabaster trotted out of the dining area, each with a sack of canned foods across their backs and chuckling at something.

        The security mare cantered up to me, digging something out of her bag.  She pulled out bag of chips and immediately dropped them on the floor when she caught sight of me.  “Hayayayay.  Goddesses, what happened to you?!”

        “The slavers had some scouts,”  I replied calmly, still limping on my damaged leg, despite the magical cast I had wrapped it in.  “One came across my hiding spot and things got a little hairy.  Echo got the others.”

        “You look like a mess,”  Alabaster commented, pulling out her ball and magically dribbling it.  “You sure you didn’t get run over by a dragon?”

        I shook my head.  “No, no.  Just a raider with a very big sword.  Anyway, is the building clear?”

        “Mostly,“  the blue, security pony replied, trotting around behind me and taking a close look at my recently bifurcated leg.  “We haven’t gotten to the top floor yet, but you need to get this leg set properly.”

        I looked over my shoulder.  “Can you do it here and now?”

        She sighed and shook her head in the negative.

        “Then it will need to wait until BARON can do it anyway,”  I said obstinately, hobbling over to the stairs.  “Might as well finish clearing this building and seeing if we can use that tram.”  I had too keep doing something.  I had to stay productive or I was liable to tell everypony what I had almost been driven to do…  What I had almost wanted to do.

        I forced my way up to the third floor, the three mares in tow.  I heard a familiar mare’s voice coming from up ahead.  “Fucking hell!  I fucking found the only sober fucking raiders in fucking Equestria!”  Where had I heard that voice before?

        I pulled out my rifle and walked onto the tram station.  A shaggy, blue, unicorn mare with a tangled blue green mane was magically tearing through the bags of a scrapper and his raiders; they looked like they had been sliced apart.  It was that drunk, Shrike mare from before; no wonder I had a hard time placing her voice, she wasn‘t slurring.  What was she still doing here?  And more importantly, why was she surrounded by eviscerated slavers?

        “Hay!”  the Shrike mare yelled, spotting me.  “I know you!  You didn’t shoot me that one time and killed the others!”  She rushed up to me, dropping to her haunches a good thirty hooves away and slid the rest of the way on her rump.  “Thanks.”

        I cocked my head.  “Huh?”  ‘Killed my allies and left me alone in a a puddle of my own slime’ equated to ‘thanks’?  The others came up behind me, but I stopped them with a raised hoof.

        “You have no idea how much liquor they had lying around,”  she continued, grinning from ear to ear.  “I got to sleep in the boss’ room, nopony complained about my singing; it was wonderful… until I ran dry.”  This mare was oddly talkative and open, it was kind of creeping me out.  “Anyway, these ‘Unity’,”  she bobbed her fetlocks in quotations,  “folk showed up a few days ago and threw me in a cage.”

        “Um… well,”  I replied uncomfortably.  “That’s nice, but what happened here?”

        The deep red mercenary mare trotted past us and over to the bodies.  “I’m not a doctor pony, but…”  She rubbed her chin and stared intently at the dead scrapper.  “He seems to have come down with a terminal case of dead.”

        “Thanks, that was very informative,”  I said flatly before turning my attention back to the blue Shrike.  “So you’re okay then?  No hard feelings?”

        The fuzzy unicorn waved her hoof dismissively.  “None whatsoever.”  She leaned in closer and narrowed her eyes and her voice became dead serious.  “But I do have one thing to ask you.”  This couldn’t be good.  “Do you have anything to drink?”

        “Um, yes,”  I replied, bemused.  “Would you like some?”  She nodded her head eagerly.  “Well let’s see.”  I dug through my bags and pulled out a few bottles.  “I have water, cocoa, Sunrise Sarsaparilla, Sparkle Cola, I brought a few fresh-”

        The azure unicorn stopped me by pressing her hoof to my mouth; the smell alone was nearly nauseating, never mind the taste.  “Let me tell you a few things about me.”  She pulled her filthy hoof away; thank the goddesses.  “One: if you hurt me you will end up in at least three pieces; that’s my lowest record cause I only had a spoon at the time.  Two: if you can keep me liquored up I will be your best friend forever.  And Three: my name‘s Rippertini, pleased to meet you.”

        “Ocher and likewise,”  I said hesitantly, fishing out another bottle from my bag.  A ’best friend forever’ who was a skilled fighter sounded quite valuable, no matter how bad she smelled.  Her being a credible threat with a spoon was probably an exaggeration, but, if the bodies at her hooves were any indication, she still seemed quite competent.  “I have some berry wine, rubbing alcohol…  Hay Alabaster!”  The red mercenary looked up from looting through the bodies.  “Do you have any of that stuff from the gas can on you?”

        She nodded and magically threw me a flask from her bag.

        As I unscrewed the container, also labeled ‘The Good Shit’, the fuzzy caster stared at me intently before almost reverently grabbing the liquor and taking a small sip.  Rippertini’s eyes went wide as dinner plates.  “Do you have more?”

        I looked to the red grander and jingled my cap pack.  She grinned and nodded.  “A lot more,”  I assured the practically drooling Shrike.

        She flopped on her back and spread out all her legs.  “Take me, I’m yours!”

        Oh geeze!  You have a wonderful pony in Flankorage.  You have a wonderful pony in Flankorage.  “Thanks for the offer, but…“  I said, politely opting to study the newly refurbished tram instead of the presenting mare.  Not only had the Unity apparently repaired the vehicle, but they also scrubbed it down (probably with snow) and gave it a nearly mirror-like shine.  I saw my own reflection and it scared me.  My claws were longer than I remembered, actually poking out of my fetlock fur and the entire front half of my body was plastered with gore, making my coat look crimson; I almost looked like…

        I broke into a wide, toothy grin and looked back at the splayed mare at my hooves.  She, understandably, curled up a bit and scootched away.  “But I have a better idea.”

        I scratched at my prosthesis with my boot covered claw as the tram came to a halt in the Unity controlled station.  I adjusted Dawn Star’s greatcoat, pulling it tighter around my shoulders to fight off the cold, and pulled the hood securely over my horn.  My skin tingled from the chill air under my freshly sheared, blood red coat.  My hind leg still ached from where BARON had re-shattered it and injected me with Hydra, but I could walk without a limp again.

        I got to my hooves and adopted the most self-important and superior demeanor I could muster, kicking Red Tape’s empty dye bottle under my seat.  I swaggered to the door with Maple, Rippertini and Alabaster in Unity raider armor with BARON and Granite following in suits of scrapper gear.  Echo had her own business to attend to; that and I couldn’t find any Unity uniforms for a pegasus.

        An armored griffin stopped us by flaring her bladed wings at roughly neck level and growling.  “Halt!  What do you want?!”

        “I am here to inspect my newest holding,”  I replied in the smuggest, most oily voice I could muster.  I glared at the Talon, tilting my head to make my mechanical eye more prominent.  “Now, take me to the Stable.”

        She sneered at me.  “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

        “Show the proper respect,”  BARON ordered sternly.  “This is our lord, Red Eye.”

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk:  -- Eclectic Memory -- You can glean more than most from out of body experiences.  Viewing some memory orbs may bestow the same permanent benefits as reading skill books.

This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria)

(Special thanks to A friendly Hobo, DiceArt, No One, Otherunicorn and tosxychor for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation)