//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I? // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Memories // by TheBobulator //------------------------------// Chapter 15: I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I? “Now stop right there! Let's not let things descend into petty insults.” “Would you believe she’s with the Thieves’ Guild?” Tangerine called out while making herself as small of a target as possible against a rock. “What?” I hissed at her. “The buck kind of excuse is that?” Tangerine floated a laser pistol out of one of her saddlebags. “I read it in a book once.” With practiced ease, she checked its charge and kept it ready. “You never know?” she said shyly. A moment later, we were answered by: “Do you have documentation?” No. There was no way they were this stupid. “This can be much less inconvenient for the both of us if we can just discuss it,” they continued. Tangerine grinned at me triumphantly, but before she could say something smart I interrupted her. “Don’t get cocky just yet. This has to be a trap,” I growled, cycling the bolt on my rifle. “We don’t have a Thieves’ Guild, much less any semblance of organized crime.” Come on, brain! Think of a plan! Rape! As much as I would like to, I think we need a better plan. “You have two minutes to consider our offer,” the Enclave pegasus outside droned. Crap. Crap. Think! Anything! Riverbed pumped her shotgun. “Maybe you should counter their trap with another trap, guy,” she suggested. Hmm. A devious thought flashed through my mind. If I could get a little lucky, then everything would go together just fine. She caught my look. “I assume you thought of something.” I resisted having a diabolical laugh moment. “Not really, but it’ll have to do. They sound restless out there.” I searched for the key components to my plan inside my saddlebag. “And now time for a cleverly placed jump-cut.” To punctuate that, I pumped my claw-shotgun and evilly grinned. “What?” both of them blurted. I exhaled violently through my clenched teeth. “These are extremely unlikely circumstances that are causing me Luna knows how much stress and mental anguish. I think I’m allowed to pretend my life is a movie at this point.” “Whatever boats your float, guy,” Riverbed huffed impatiently. “So, director. Like, what’s the plan?” ~~~~~ “Don’t shoot. I’m coming out!” I yelled as I slowly flew outside to confront the Enclave pegasi. There were seven of them standing around in a loose semi circle formation surrounding the mouth of our cave. In the center, a more fancily armored pegasus with the tell-tale golden oak leaves of the major’s rank was flanked by three soldiers on either side. I didn’t know whether to be honored or insulted that the Council sent a bucking major after me. A cursory examination of the other pegasi revealed nothing of interest. A staff sergeant, bunch of non-NCOs. Standard squad composition. “Airpony Frosty Winds, we have been ordered to bring you back. We have been authorized to use deadly force,” Major continued to drone. I noted standard issue laser rifles, an entire multi-laser, and plasma rifles for Major’s squad. “And why do I need to go with you, exactly?” I tensed up and prepared for anything. “What if I have a different opinion about your orders?” “You don’t have a choice, traitor!” Staff Sergeant yelled. “You’re damn lucky one of the higher-ups is really bucking interested in you, otherwise I’d shoot you myself.” I snorted. “Well, thanks.” If I wasn’t dead yet, my plan was going well. “I’m flattered.” “Stow the chatter!” Major ordered. “And you—” He pointed at me. “Would you kindly disarm and stand down?” There was something I wasn’t expecting. “Would you kindly buck off?” I snapped back. “Shit, maybe it’s the other one,” he muttered to himself, then he cleared his throat and tried again. “Subject, executive command Lockdown Tango.” My body decided to snap to attention against my own will, a disturbingly familiar sensation. Seriously, what was this? “Yes sir! Awaiting orders,” I yelled against my own volition. Even if I tried to make myself move my body wouldn’t respond. Damn you, weak mortal body! Why must you fail me so? “Excellent.” Major raised his right hoof and spoke into it. He probably had some kind of audio recorder built into his gauntlet, most likely. “The subject responds well to subliminal commands. She does not appear to be aware of them, judging by her reaction.” Thanks a lot, brain. He turned his attention back to me. “Subject, sitrep.” “Ready to fly,” I obediently responded. What the hell? I didn’t want to say that! And, of course, he then asked the most obvious question possible. “Subject, what happened to your leg?” “Needed a new one, sir. Misplaced my standard issue one.” Yay for my shining personality. At least I wouldn’t have to spend four hundred twenty years working off the cost of my missing standard issue leg. “Subject, debrief,” Major continued. At least the squad behind him wasn’t as disciplined as I feared. They had stopped paying attention to the events unfolding in front of them, which would hopefully get them killed if anything else went to plan. “Primary objective complete. Secondary objectives unresolved.” What? Huh? Major blinked at me. “Subject, advise on objectives.” “Primary objective: Operation White Noise. Secondary objectives are out of your pay grade, sir,” I answered. I didn’t even know what my objectives were! Major made a note to himself on his audio log thing. “Find out what the subject’s objectives are.” Note to self, same thing. “Subject, you were given a direct order by a major in the Grand Enclave. Need I remind you that I outrank you and your commanding officer? I will repeat myself—what are your objectives?” “My orders are out your pay grade, sir. Any further attempts to obtain intel on my confidential orders will make you subject to court-martial.” Also note to self: figure out what part of me actually remembers this crap. Major cursed under his breath. “More questions. Great. I hate politics.” He turned his attention back to me once again. “Were you aware that your primary objective was not complete?” “Negative,” I duly responded. “We had to send another team to finish the job, and even they failed.” He sighed. “What do you grunts find so hard about pushing a damn button?” Wait. I’d gotten killed for nothing? My friends had died for nothing? Apparently the docile, rule-obeying me had the same question. “Sir, I was not aware of the objective status. My previous interpretation led me to believe that the objective had been completed.” “You’re a complete failure, subject. Hooves out.” Major advanced toward me with a set of hoofcuffs. “Prepare for transport.” A wicked grin spread across my muzzle. Excellent. “What’s so funny, traitor?” Staff Sergeant yelled, catching sight of my evil glee. “Can’t wait for the slammer?” Major did his best to lock one side of the hoofcuffs around my claw. “You just activated my trap card,” Raider Frosty sniggered with glee. My vision blurred with her angry crimson tint. “What the—” were the last words Major managed to utter before Raider Frosty forcibly replaced part of his brain with buckshot. She pumped my claw to eject the spent shell and pointed it at her next target, Staff Sergeant. Unfortunately for him, his reaction time wasn’t as quick as his mouth. Raider used S.A.T.S. and queued up several attacks into him. The spell wasn’t smart enough to realize that my ballistic claw was no longer loaded with shells. However, she did get several good punches and slashes into the weak points of his armor instead. “Squad! Open fire!” Staff Sergeant choked out, wildly swinging back at me. Thanks to the undisciplined nature of his squad, they hesitated. That whole second of pause gave me enough time to grab Staff Sergeant in a stranglehold. At this moment I realized I hadn’t been using my anti-machine rifle, which would probably be the better choice for killing armored enemies. “I don’t want to kill any of you!” I managed to yelp through Raider Frosty’s control. “Leave me alone!” I was roughly shoved out of the control of my own body yet again. Today was just not my day, was it? “Any of you moves, and your sergeant dies,” Raider menacingly growled, jabbing one of my talons through the thin seal between the base of Staff Sergeant’s helmet and the rest of his armor. The rest of his squad exchanged what would probably be confused looks at each other. Really, I wouldn’t blame them. “You heard Sarge! Kill her!” one of them yelled. Their energy weapons slowly powered up as they attempted to target me behind their leader. “Wrong move.” Raider Frosty pulled back Staff Sergeant’s head as far as the armor would allow and sliced his throat wide open. Judging by the copious amount of blood liberally spraying out of the big hole that used to be part of his neck and the little strangled noises he was making, he probably wouldn’t be long for this world. More gruesomely, she was using the spraying blood to obscure the other pegasi’s visors. Raider called upon S.A.T.S. once again. She was employing some tactics that could be considered, uh, uncouth. Her combat logic proceeded as follows: throw the body, grab idiot number two (left to right, of course) and break his neck, jump number one as a distraction, then attack number four. If it was any consolation to the late sergeant, his body flew quite far and crashed into number six, knocking him to the ground. Our wings beat powerfully and Raider launched us at unfortunate number two. I got a good look into his terrified eyes behind his visor before Raider clutched his visor in my claw, pirouetted in midair, and showed him exactly what was behind him accompanied by the sound of a sickening crack. Raider then jumped us behind number one and slashed the wires on his plasma rifles, rendering them unusable. The rest of the surviving squad kept tracking my movement and unloaded their combined plasma and energy fire into unfortunate number one. “Nice shot, idiots!” she taunted. We cast aside the charred, slightly melted corpse of number one and bolted right at number four. He backed up faster than Raider could charge at him, to my dismay. Raider still swiped at him in a hopeful attempt of landing a hit. Out of nowhere, a slow guitar strum echoed through the battle and Ice Storm materialized, emptying his powerfully tiny revolver into number four. He was dead before he hit the ground. I heard armored hoofsteps approaching behind me. Hey! Pay attention! On our six! But Raider was having too much fun. “Shut up.” Boom! Gore spattered the back of our head. We spun around to the sight of one of the remaining pegasi fall over without the back of his head, right where his mane used to poke out of the back of his helmet. Yay for weak points! “Looks like you’re doin’ just fine on yer own, guy,” Riverbed joked around the shotgun she was pumping in her muzzle. A magical energy beam streaked between us and melted number six’s gauss rifle, to my great relief, since it was pointed at my head. “Great save, Tangie!” she called out to the little hood that had an energy pistol barely poking out of it inside the cave. Six charged brazenly at Riverbed, who irritably swatted him out of the way with the butt of her rifle. “Two little annoying birdies left.” Raider stalked toward number five, who was frozen in shock at the grisly demise of his entire squad. “Puh-puh-pluh—” Okay, correction. Her entire squad. “Eeeep,” she squeaked. Silence reigned on our skirmish grounds. None of us moved. I breathed heavily, completely spent by the fight. My armored duster was sticking to my sweaty coat, and saliva dripped from my mouth. Raider was getting worked up by all the blood and gore over the area. Number six put himself between us and five. “If you’re going to hurt her, you’re going to have to go through me.” Raider Frosty and Riverbed exchanged nefarious looks. Okay, that’s enough. Hello? Raider Frosty didn’t let me have control back. Uh oh. I knew exactly what she was about to do, and I was powerless to stop her. Riverbed smirked and simply responded, “I think I can live with that, guy.” She raised her shotgun and blasted six in the face at point blank range. His head exploded like a well-bucked meat cloud, scattering gore everywhere. Five let out an anguished wail and broke down crying. Okay, that’s far enough. Stop. Now. Raider Frosty didn’t care at all. Stop. She calmly stepped over six’s body, all while thinking very violent thoughts. I managed wrest control of my right hoof and punched myself hard. “Stop!” I managed to choke out. “No! They need to die! They need to be taught a lesson!” Raider hissed. “Rip them apart. Gouge their eyes. Drain their blood!” I think I deserved another facepunch, which I dealt accordingly. “They were… just… following… orders.” Fighting through Raider Frosty’s control was mentally draining, to say the least. When did she get so strong? I could barely get myself back in control! “They need to suffer for their interference!” We collapsed to the ground, clutching my head. Riverbed was probably getting really creeped out, but I didn’t have time for that. I needed my mind back before this got out of control. “Get. Out!” I gave myself another punch to the jaw. “This… is my! Mind! I’m in control!” Raider Frosty roared with laughter. “Really? That’s funny.” I looked up to Riverbed, who had the greatest look of confusion plastered on her face. “Hey… would it… would it be weird if I told you to punch me?” I croaked. She answered me with a blank stare. After giving it a whole two seconds of thought, she shrugged and said again, “I can live with that, guy.” Somehow she decided that the word “punch” meant “hit Frosty in the face with the side of the shotgun”. “Ow, shit!” The force of the impact threw me to the ground. The right side of my head felt like a giant bruise was already forming. With its addition, I felt much worse but at least it felt like I was back in control. I silently whimpered to myself while rocking back and forth on the ground. Riverbed looked like she was legitimately worried. “Did I, like, hit you too hard?” “I bit my tongue,” I joked. “It hurths.” Obviously not my greatest worry, but for some silly reason it stood out more than it should have. “The buck was that?” Riverbed hauled me back onto my hooves. “Long story.” Silence. Gravel crunched somewhere, probably Tangerine joining us with the carnage. “Wanna talk about it? We’ve got time.” I considered it for a moment. “Nah.” I’d told this story too many times anyway, and I really didn’t want to tell it again. Especially because it wasn’t a particularly cool story, either. Maybe later, I’d write a book about it. If I survived that long, that is. “It’s actually so confusing that I have no idea either.” Tangerine trotted up to us, skirting the larger puddles of blood and flinging the bigger bits of flesh and gore away from her using her magic. “I’m just going to address the Enclave pegasus in the room.” All of us regarded the hysterical wreck of a pegasus crying in the dirt. “At least I now have more nightmare fodder about you in case I actually get a good night’s sleep.” “So… like, you want me to shoot her, guy?” Riverbed ventured. “Uh.” I paused. Weeks ago, that could have been me. Heck, as far as I knew this exact scenario could have happened to me. Empathy kicked in. “I think we should let her go.” They looked appalled. “What? What if she gives away our position?” Riverbed objected. “Or even better, what if she grabs reinforcements, guy?” I’d make sure that didn’t happen. I confidently strode up to number five and yanked her visor open. “What’s your name?” She stayed silent, regarding me with angry, teary eyes. I didn’t blame her. Three insane maniacs had just destroyed her squad and their commanding officer in under three minutes. Months of psychiatric help wouldn’t even dent what she’d witnessed today. “Alright, fine. I get it. But I’ve got my own plans, and you just happened to be in completely the wrong place at completely the wrong time.” I sighed. “I don’t expect an apology, but I do expect this: tell the Council what happened here today. Take your commanding officer’s recorder or whatever as proof.” Tangerine levitated Major’s gauntlet to the pegasus. “The data should still be intact.” Number five snatched the gauntlet from Tangerine and shoved it into a pocket somewhere on her armor. “Now leave, and tell ‘em Frosty’s not going down without a fight,” Raider Frosty gloated out of nowhere. ...What? Hold on, what? ~~~~~ After the pegasus had departed, I looted all the bodies. I was repressing the feelings of horror and shame by drowning it out with happy collections of weapons, gear, and random tidbits. To my eternal annoyance, I never got proper training for Enclave power armor so I didn’t really know how to work it. At least it conveniently folded up into a small pile of superarmored plates, somehow. Whatever, buck logic. “So, what’s the plan now?” Riverbed idly pawed through one of the Enclave pegasi’s armor compartments that I hadn't looted yet. “Nothing changes. We keep going, and hopefully we find Blackwing along the way. Otherwise you get to hang around until you get bored.” I sighed, then glumly added, “I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I?” Tangerine deposited something into my saddlebag from a distance using her magic. “Um… it was bound to happen?” “At this point it’s go big or go home,” I grunted neutrally as I gathered up all of the weapons from the fight. Most of them had gotten really banged-up from being tossed around, something that I found incredibly annoying about magical energy weapons, so I had to take them apart later on to find the gems that were still intact… or basically whatever wasn’t broken. “I didn’t have to kill them,” I said quietly. “We could have done something else.” Riverbed was examining a plasma rifle still attached to the same suit of armor she had been looting earlier. “You know what? I need a battle saddle. My face hurts from firing this thing, even with this anti-recoil enchantment.” She rubbed her jaw. Right on cue, Tangerine navigated her way around the bodies, using her magic to pick out medical supplies from them. A small cloud of bandages, healing potions, combat drugs, and RadAway hovered after her, surrounded by her orange-tinted magic. She grinned as she walked by, flaunting her magical powers. Again, I tried to push out unpleasant thoughts out of my mind while I salvaged parts from the assorted weapons left. The gauss rifles were trashed beyond belief. Even if the outer shell was only a bit scuffed, an entire set of armor falling on it trashed the important internals just enough that I couldn’t perform field repairs on it. At least I managed to salvage enough of a laser rifle to make it usable. I tied the reassembled laser rifle to the side of my saddlebag. Somepony cautiously poked me. “You okay? We’re ready to keep going.” I looked back to catch Tangerine’s very concerned stare. “Hey… are you… crying?” At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about until I rubbed my eyes. My hoof came back wet with moisture. Huh. “I… I guess I am.” I wiped away another tear. “Um…” Tangerine searched for something inside her cloak. “Okay, I can’t find it. But today’s been hard, and nopony should have to do what you did today.” She patted me on the back. “Bottle it up and move along. I feel your pain, I really do, but suck it up. The Wasteland is a cruel, cruel place and we simply don’t have time for it.” I nodded and absentmindedly collected the rest of my things. And since I felt like it, I gathered up the magic crystals from the disassembled gauss rifle. More importantly, I pocketed Major’s insignia pins and patches. Just in case, or just as a petty act of vengeful kleptomania. While I’d been feeling sorry about myself, Riverbed had pilfered a plasma rifle from one of the Enclave pegasi and jury-rigged it to her saddlebags as a crude battle saddle. A single glance at my tattered duster made me realize I needed better protection. It was speckled with holes, shrapnel, blood, and grime, not to mention the fact that many of the protective armored plates lining the interior were dented beyond belief. Against my better judgement, I pulled out one of the less-mangled suits of Enclave armor. “Can one of you help me put this on?” Naturally, Tangerine stepped up and started unfolding the armor with somewhat practiced ease. “You know, this isn’t all that different from Ranger armor. It’s much lighter, in fact,” Tangerine remarked, fitting the wing plates onto my back. The unarmored underside of my wings always seemed to be a weak point to me, but I didn’t have a choice at the moment. Due to the nature of the helmet itself, I steadfastly refused to wear it. Tangerine also had to leave the hoof gauntlet off the left leg in order to leave my claw operational. “And if its design is anything like Steel Ranger armor, then it should be secured. Feeling awesome yet?” She sat back contentedly. The thing I noticed first was the tail blade thing attached to the end of the armor that my tail was encased in. It curled around like a manticore’s tail, and it was so weird to have a weapon attached to my tail. Although the greatest change was the extraordinary amount of speed and strength that I suddenly gained. “Woah. This is cool.” To demonstrate my new power, I took a step, intending to perform a spin-buck, but I hadn’t anticipated nearly this much power. I stepped forward and face planted into the ground. “Just in case I forgot what the ground tasted like,” I groaned. “Slow steps. Just let us handle the fighting, if there is any,” Tangerine kindly advised me. “You’ll get used to it.” I nearly punched myself in the face multiple times while trying to get up and rub my nose. As Riverbed and Tangerine went back to their own devices, I figured out how to move without killing myself. “And now you know why I never completed power armor training,” I muttered to nopony in particular. After a few more careful steps and tentative movements, I slowly managed to figure out how to move without dismembering myself. “Hey guy, does this plasma rifle make my butt look big?” Riverbed casually joked, shaking her plot at us. What did she take me for? A depraved, sex-starved bisexual? There were probably enough of those in the Wasteland. “C’mon, crazybrains, let’s roll before your friend brings back reinforcements.” She immediately started walking in what I hoped was the direction we were supposed to go in. I didn’t check. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan…” I plodded along after Riverbed, who was building up to a fast trot. I picked up my pace in order to catch up, depression momentarily forgotten. Tangerine chased after us, her hood flying back from the wind. Since I was up to a nice brisk pace, I spread my wings and skimmed along the ground. Somepony poked at the back of my mind that I shouldn’t have been able to adapt to the power armor this easily, but I had more distressing matters occupying my attention at the time. “Hey!” Tangerine puffed from behind us. “Not so fast!” We slowed down our pace to let her catch up to us. “My short wimpy legs can’t move as fast as yours!” Riverbed impatiently snorted. “Never had a brisk morning jog before? Or a morning marathon, in my case? Catching up to griffons in flight is hard.” She kept moving, albeit at a much slower speed so that those of us that were less physically motivated could keep pace. I watched the ground slip by under my hooves. What would I do? Where would I go? There was no way I would be able to get away with killing a ranking officer and his security detail by any stretch of the imagination. The second I returned to Enclave-controlled airspace, they would probably execute me right on the spot. Return was no longer an option. I’d just gotten myself burned, and I was stupid enough to make sure of it. No survivors, remember? The hell happened to that? That was me being stupid. Dammit, Raider. Why’d you make me go and do that? That was all you, sport. Was it? Your ego got the best of you, and you just had to go and rub it into the faces of the Council. Damn. Good work, me. I bumped into Riverbed’s decidedly ample posterior when she abruptly stopped. “Yo, guy. Asked you a question.” “Huh?” I looked back up. Riverbed pointed at the large, derelict building looming ahead of us. “Wanna look for lunch?” According to what was left of the sign, it was called “per Ma”. Little was left of the remaining facade, let alone the fortifications that had been hastily erected around the entrance. Dried blood was spattered all over the pavement, the walls, the barbed wire had been twisted and mangled into uselessness, and there were holes blasted through various walls. “Sure. I’m hungry,” Tangerine piped up. She followed Riverbed toward the building, but hesitantly turned around. “You coming?” My keen observational skills pointed out movement inside the building. The shelves inside had been re-arranged into almost a inverted trench formation, which didn’t make me feel safe at all. I debated for a second, but my stomach made up my mind first with an angry growl. “Sure, I’m in. Keep your guard up, though. I don’t like the movement back there.” Submachine gun, check. Ammunition, check. I froze in mid-step. “Well, whatcha waiting for, guy?” Riverbed taunted. Unbeknownst to her, a pale red dot danced across her chest. “Sharpshooter!” Good thing Tangerine decided to shove Riverbed out of the way as I alerted everypony in the area by pointing out the obvious. I fumbled for the laser rifle strapped to my saddlebag, cursing my skill in tying things up. All hell broke loose. If tiny little lights could be menacing, this was it. Dozens upon dozens of red dots spontaneously appeared all over each of us. Maybe the Wasteland was being cruel to me, maybe somepony before the war just had too much time on their hooves. Heck, maybe somepony was just really accuracy impaired. But the brightest, most obnoxious laser in the entire Wasteland came to rest on my forehead. I could even visually follow the laser all the way back to the roof right above the “M” on the building. What. An. Asshole. A voice from inside of the building, amplified by loudspeakers, boomed in our general direction “Hold it right there. State your intentions, or get painted across the pavement.” Many of the lasers refocused onto our faces. Riverbed looked over her shoulder at me expectantly, arching an eyebrow. “What? I’m not negotiating. You know exactly how well that went last time!” I hissed. There was another, Raider-Frosty-related reason I was successfully repressing why I didn’t want to negotiate. “You talk to them, guy!” Riverbed rolled her eyes. Shit, she was rubbing off on me. Bad Frosty! Tangerine piped up in a quiet voice. “If you want, I can talk to them.” Somehow, that seemed like a better idea. Rather than the self-serving merc or the completely insane pegasus potentially negotiating for their lives, they might take more kindly to the soft-spoken Steel Ranger scribe. “We’re just passing through. Do you have anything you would like to trade, out of sheer curiosity?” she called out. A few of the dots detracted from their dancing. I was hoping they were conferring among each other about letting us in, and not which one to shoot first. “The Steel Rangers have been kind to us, so I’m willing to make an exception. You, scribe. Approach slowly and don’t make any sudden moves. The rest of you stay outside—if any one of you two so much as sneezes, my snipers will kill you.” I was forced to shut my right eye as the bright obnoxious targeting laser bounced across my vision. Again, what an asshole. Tangerine decided that since she was the only one going in, we’d have to give her all of the things we needed to sell. I hoofed over all of the random bits and bobs that I had accumulated over the course of my adventure, minus the one or two trinkets that I found interesting. “What about the other suits of armor?” I asked when Tangerine added them to the ‘to sell’ pile. “Don’t you guys want that stuff?” Without pausing for a second to reply, Tangerine responed, “It’s nearly useless to us. Not only are our Rangers not properly equipped to efficiently use your Enclave power armor, but we already have blueprints for it in our records.” That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. “Spare parts?” “Most of the Enclave power armor is incompatible with Steel Ranger power armor. The parts that are shared are both easily replaced.” Tangerine opened my saddlebag again and peered inside. “So there’s no real point in keeping them except for repairing the one you’re wearing. Anything else you got?” I reluctantly agreed to sell four of the six sets of armor and most of the helmets that I was lugging around. I kept one helmet , just in case I needed the built-in targeting systems for the battle saddle on my armor. Including the armor that I was wearing, I held onto two so I had parts to swap with. Riverbed ended up piling Tangerine up with dozens of guns, miscellaneous pieces of junk, and a missile. Where’d she get that from? “I don’t really need anything, so, like, bring back caps.” “Got it. Frosty? You uh, want anything?” Tangerine asked, visibly straining by the weight of the items she was holding up with her magic. The very, very few unicorns I’d known in the Enclave never seemed to have a problem with moving things. I guess you learned something new every day. Was there anything I really needed? “Anti-machine rifle ammunition, some bottled water, a few grenades—if there are any—and… cherry snack cakes. Lots of cherry snack cakes.” I listed off the top of my head. “Healing potions!” Riverbed added at the last second. Tangerine hefted the huge pile of stuff and mentally recounted the giant list of things to acquire. “Got it. See you in a bit.” She trotted into the building under our watchful gaze. As frustrating as it was, we couldn’t follow her in. “Shout if you need help!” I yelled after her. “Okay!” We watched her tail disappear around a corner, followed by what was probably thousands of caps’ worth of our loot. Much to our disappointment, the laser and the dots didn’t leave with her. “So…” I awkwardly started, giving Riverbed a sidelong glance. “So.” “So….” Talk about an awkward moment. The threat of our potential sudden and-slash-or impending doom wasn’t really conducive to conversational topics. “How’s things?” Riverbed scoffed. “I could ask the same about you, guy.” “The hell does that mean?” I bristled. “I’m fine. Could be better.” No need to reveal any details of my personal woes to her. “Don’t tell me that you’re fine. I think I know what ‘fine’ looks like for you, and this—” Riverbed motioned at all of me, ignoring the fact that we weren’t supposed to be moving. “—isn’t it. You’re lethargic, quiet, and mopey, guy. Spit it out.” “I’m going to keep this quick and concise. I just fought my former comrades whom believe in a government that I no longer work for. A government, need I remind you, that has tried to kill me. What do you think?” I spat, my tone absolutely dripping with acid. And of course that caused even more awkwardness. Riverbed no longer wanted to talk to me, most likely because she’d irritated me enough already. She suddenly became very transfixed to a scorch mark on her shoulder pad. With all this free time, I took an opportunity to study our surroundings. For some incredibly stupid reason, we had decided to approach the building from the front where the large expanse of pavement we were standing on connected to the broken road we had come down from earlier. Along one wall, somepony had plastered several monochrome posters of a smiling unicorn, under which read “READ”. There were a few broken chariots and remains of others scattered around either side of us. I was forced to cover my eyes as the pony with the laser attempted to blind me with it. “That guy is an asshole,” I said with a groan. “That bucking laser.” Riverbed giggled. “Maybe it just wants you to know it’s a sniper rifle.” “I mean, what kind of idiot puts such a strong laser on a gun? It totally defeats the purpose of being hidden, let alone it being on a sniper rifle.” “For our convenience, maybe?” “Asshole.” I kept my eyes shut, lest I get blinded when I opened them. What I did instead was give him a rude gesture with my claw that I’d noticed from the Talon mercs. While I waited, I had nothing else to do but stare at the insides of my eyelids. Like a ghostly apparition, a memory floated to the surface of my mind. <~~~> “You get to seek this time! Now count to fifty. No peeking!” Summer squealed. My eyes were still closed, and I could feel my hooves pressed over my face. I still missed the feeling of my left hoof. More accurately, I missed receiving sensations from my left hoof. “One. Two. Four. Wait, three.” Something soft and plush bounced off the back of my head. “No cheating! Start over!” I sighed adorably and started again, correctly this time. “One. Two. Three…” <~~~> “Yo. Wasteland to guy. Hello?” Riverbed waved a hoof in my face. I shook my head trying to push the memory off to the side. What just happened? Why did I see that particular memory? “Don’t flip out on me right now.” What was the question? Right. “I’m good. Kinda zoned out there for a little.” Once I started paying attention again, I realized that the red dots and the laser were gone. In fact, Tangerine was waiting at the entrance of the building, urgently waving us in. “What happened?” “I dunno yet. So, like, we’re just standing there, right? Then all of a sudden all the lasers go away, including the sniper. And then Tangie says we can go in.” Riverbed galloped to the building, me barely coordinated enough to follow at that speed. “Time to find out.” Tangerine waved at us, grinning widely. “Good news, everypony! They’ve agreed to not shoot you on sight.” Well, that was nice of them. “On one condition.” Uh oh. That was never good. “I’m so sorry, Frosty. But it was the only way.” She winced apologetically. Well, if it was the only way… “Fine, what do they want?” An old, wizened unicorn wearing a battered, graying outback hat that looked just as old as he was appeared behind Tangerine. His eyes were shockingly blue, which was the first thing I noticed when he scrutinized my ill-gained armor in disgust. Somehow, I got the strange feeling that I’d disappointed him. I didn’t even know him! Underneath his very well-used light armor, his pale red coat showed the signs of age and extended combat. His tail had been cropped as short as possible, and what wasn’t gray was a faded brown streaked with more gray. As far as I could tell, he was either very bald or he had a very short crewcut under that hat. He took offense to my question. “They want you to take care of a little problem.” I caught minute movements on top of the shelves. “If you haven’t noticed already, security is a tiny bit tight around here,” he drawled. There was a hint of some kind of accent to his voice that I couldn’t identify. “Welcome to Perma.” “What’s your name, guy?” Riverbed asked. His eyes darkened. “You will call me Boss. Got it, whelp?” Riverbed gulped, shying away from him slightly. “Got it, boss.” Sheesh, talk about commanding respect. This old stallion really knew how to get anypony’s undivided attention. “Yessir,” I saluted, hoping to snag a few bonus points from Boss. “Orders?” Boss roared with laughter. Once he’d caught his breath, he finally said, “You know what, filly? I like you.” He abruptly switched to a much more serious tone. “Long story short, shit hit the fan. We had an agreement with a local gang that decided that we needed some security.” This old trick. “Either you got greedy or they did, I assume?” Riverbed asked, looking around the interior. She cocked her head at a small alcove occupied by an auto-turret. “I’m just going to assume they did?” “Indeed they did. Those greedy swine tried to double their rates!” Boss yelled. “I gave ‘em a piece of my mind. And a good hunk of my lead.” I heard a ruffling sound above our heads. Being a pegasus, I could recognize the sound of flapping wings from anywhere. A pegasus landed on the floor with a barely audible scattering of dust. He was armored up from nose to tail in pre-war military-issue ghillie camouflage. One little problem: the camouflage he was wearing was patterned in a way to be used in a snowy environment. Ergo, the dusty whites and grays he was wearing made him stand out in the Wasteland like a beacon. His head was covered with a black balaclava and his eyes were obscured by a pair of massive goggles. Strips of white-gray cloth from the ghillie suit’s hood dangled over them. The underside of his armor had been spray-painted black along with the rear legs, leaving the top half and the forelegs white. The suit draped over his form, giving him the look of a walking cloud. “Y’all are lucky ah didn’t splatter yer brains all over the pavement.” Another pegasus? And why did his accent remind me of somepony? But a more pressing question popped out. “Now, I’m not one for fashion, but isn’t your outfit a bit…” I struggled to think of another word. “Out of season?” I finished, a silly grin on my face. “An’ why don’t y’all go eat a bag dicks,” he retorted. Boss cleared his throat. “Sergeant Airhead, stand down. And introduce yourself, for Celestia’s sake. ” “Whatever ya say, Boss.” Airhead held out his hoof to me. “Former Second Lieutenant Airhead, Special Operations. You?” Spec Ops? Wow. I shook his hoof. I opened my mouth to introduce myself, then I realized that calling myself a Steel Ranger might cause problems. “Ex-Scout Frosty Winds. Recon Force Blizzard. So, what brings you to the Wasteland?” I was somewhat prepared for some sort of sob story about betrayal or something along those lines. Airhead pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. Turns out his natural coat color was blue, and his eyes were a dull brown. “Bucking politics an’ those big damn bigwigs doin’ all their fancy dandy shit. How long ya been down here?” I needed to think about that. A month? A few weeks? “Maybe a bit less than a month. I think.” But how long had I really been in the Wasteland? Airhead seemed relieved. “Good. I don’t have to explain nearly everything. So, you should remember the Cloudbright assassination, right?” I had to think really hard about that one. Why did it sound so familiar? Wait. My jaw dropped. No. Way. No. There was no way. “You seem surprised, guy. That name actually mean something to you?” Riverbed asked, leaning over to close my mouth for me. “Dude, I think she zoned out again,” she told everypony else in the room. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. But I did manage to put two and two together, then everything spilled out all at once. “Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh!” I squealed. “You’re the Cumulus Hotel sniper?” Tangerine got my attention with a nudge. “What’s the Cloudbite assassination?” she whispered, obviously very confused. “The Cloudbright assassination,” I corrected her, “was the greatest political assassination ever. Basically, Councilpony Cloudbright was riling up a whole lot of bad publicity on how we should be the ones helping and putting the Wasteland back together.” Airhead nodded. “Eyup. Rest’a the Council didn’t think the same way.” “So during a speech, somepony snipes Cloudbright and his entire five-pony bodyguard in less than eight seconds.” I continued to gush in full blown fanfilly mode. “Mysteriously, half of the footage disappears and the shooter was never caught.” But that was where Airhead came in. He’d be able to fill in the gaps. I stared at him expectantly while trying to keep all my hooves on the ground. All eyes were on Airhead. He sighed, sliding his goggles back down. “Yes, ah did shoot him. Somepony picked me ta do it in exchange for my career, and ah did it without askin’.” Hmm. Why did that sound so very familiar? “Took ‘im out and then ah got branded behind the scenes. Shoulda seen that comin’.” Lightbulb. “Wait… let me guess. Harbinger?” I suspected. The impassive silence in the room confirmed my suspicions. “Seems like we have something in common.” Boss slapped both of us. “Storytime’s over. You going to help us or not?” I checked with the others first. After confirming that we were going to help, I replied, “Yeah. But we’re already trying to do something first. Is it alright if we come back later?” Judging by another one of his disappointed looks, the outcome might not be favorable. “All on your own time. We’ve got ammo for years, and enough firepower to keep them away.” Boss casually dismissed. “But if you can’t help us, we can’t help you. Sorry filly, but you’re on your own till then.” As unfortunate as it was for us, he was right. We wouldn’t be able to use Perma as a rest stop, not until we cleaned out that gang. “Seems fair,” I decided. “But can we load up on some supplies first in order to guarantee our survival so that we can live long enough to get back?” Boss thought about it for a moment. “Your little unicorn already swindled most of our caps, but if you think there’s anything else you need go right ahead. Follow the shelves down to the end.” He then pulled Airhead off to the side. “Sonny, we need to talk.” Tangerine led us down the zigzagging rows of shelves. She levitated a small pouch of caps, along with a few healing potions and a hefty-looking can full of shotgun shells to Riverbed, who took them gratefully. On the other hoof, I was passed a very large bag of caps and five boxes of cherry snack cakes. Yay! After I deposited a portion of the bag of caps into my saddlebag, the other half into the compartment on my claw, I checked my PipBuck to see exactly how much I’d just received. The answer was not as much as I was hoping for. “The buck? Only nineteen hundred?” I shouted in complete dismay. “That’s it?” “It was as much as I could get for them.” Tangerine hid herself in her hood. “I’m sorry, but I also had to use most of it to cover supplies.” Control yourself, Frosty. “Ugh. Sorry.” I faceclawed momentarily. “I was just hoping to get more for something that would normally cost me my wages for four hundred years, give or take a decade.” Riverbed laughed behind me. “Like, your Enclave bits aren’t worth anything here. That’s probably why.” Damn this skewed economy and its silly exchange rate. “Heck, even pre-war bits are barely worth anything anymore. I make, like, shotgun shells out of ‘em.” Which brought me to a better point. “Wouldn’t bits be better? Before the war, they were a perfectly acceptable and stable currency. What’s the problem with continuing to use bits?” I asked, legitimately confused. Why would bottle caps be a good substitute? “Easy. After the war, bits became worth their weight in caps. The metal itself was more useful being used for other things, and bottle caps were produced to a certain point where they were scarce enough yet plentiful at the same time. Therefore, somepony decided that the bottle caps were useless for crafting, yet good enough to be used as currency,” Tangerine rattled off. “At least, that’s how I think it happened.” “Or it’s like water, caps, backing, somethin’, something, here we are. I stopped asking a long time ago, guy.” Once I thought about it, it sort of made sense, to a very limited degree. “I still think it’s stupid,” I replied. “I mean, why does it need to be bottle caps? Why not something like… those posters outside? There are plenty of them, and I wouldn’t need this giant bag to carry around bottle caps.” “Paper degrades. Ergo, stupid,” Tangerine calmly replied. Once we finally reached the end of the shelf trenching, we emerged in what used to be the bakery section. Behind the short display cases, a heavily armed and armored stallion stood imposingly by his wares. “Well, knock yourself out. They don’t have much in stock, but go right ahead if you see anything you would like.” She tugged a small book out of the depths of her robe and opened it up to an arbitrary page. I caught a glimpse of the cover and decided not to ask about why two strangely-drawn stallions were comically making out. Shopping time! Two griffons and a pony wearing vault security armor were arguing among themselves at a table with caps and ammunition scattered across it. Both griffons were playing some strange card game involving six stacks of cards and probably some rules that I wouldn’t be able to understand. Riverbed cocked her head at the group at the table. “I’m going to, like, get caught up with the Talons. Be right back, guy.” I nodded, then approached Perma’s resident merchant. “Buy somethin’, will ya? I’ve got anything you need,” the merchant rumbled. “We’ve got a special sale on small plastic dinosaur toys.” Was it wrong that I actually considered buying a dinosaur toy? As much as I did, I still managed to maintain focus. As for ammunition, he didn’t stock anything anti-machine, but at least I managed to buy another full magazine for my submachine gun. I also secured myself a decent bedroll that was only slightly stained with blood for the decent price of twenty two caps, and a personal hygiene kit for six caps. The bedroll wasn’t a cloud, but it would have to do. Better than using my lumpy bag as a pillow. Other than that, he didn’t really have anything else of interest to me for sale. “It’s dangerous to go alone, jerkwad. Take one of these.” The merchant dropped a grenade onto my bedroll before I could shove it into my bag. It took all of my self-control to not throw everything across the room. Very carefully, I asked, “Why did you just give me a grenade?” And on closer observation, I noticed “Minus the pin?” The smarter part of me was nearly literally yelling at me to drop it and run. Like the idiot I was, I didn’t listen to me. For some reason, the opposite face of the grenade had, well, a face. Somepony, presumably the merchant, had scrawled a crude happy face onto it. “It’s a buddy system. Heck, it might save your life one day. And yeah, it’s inert.” Out of sheer curiosity, I asked, “Uh… how much?” Riverbed mouthed something at me from behind one of the griffins, most likely along the lines of “Are you insane?” To which the answer was yes. “Three caps.” Eh, sure. I bought it, just because. “Somepony bought that? Holy crap! Enjoy your shit.” the merchant exclaimed. Somehow, I felt like I’d been duped. But I didn’t care! I had a grenade with a smiley face on it now! I rejoined Riverbed, who was still in the middle of conversation with the other group. “…and how do you expect to tell them that?” the bluish griffon idly asked, dropping a seven of hearts on top of one of the piles. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.” I gently tapped Riverbed’s shoulder to get her attention. She nodded, still listening to the griffons talk. The other griffon slapped a king of spades down on top of the seven. “Take that, Straybeak! How you like these kings?” Straybeak groaned, throwing down his cards. “But he’s got a point. Neither of us really want to report back to the boss right now.” “Damn it, Skyward! Why does your deck have sixteen kings in it?” Straybeak put down his cards and started taking cards back from the piles. “Why do I even play this game with you?” he moaned. “Because I’m the only girl that’ll play against your deck of nine jacks and four jokers,” Skyward haughtily replied, collecting the rest of her cards from the scattered piles. As she was pocketing her small pile of cards, she noticed me standing there. “Hey! Another pegasus. So many of you are popping up these days; it’s like you’re going out of style.” I wasn’t sure how to answer to that. Instead, I asked Riverbed, “So, trying to get the message across?” “Yeah. But these two birdbrains are being chicken,” Riverbed taunted. Both griffons faceclawed along with me. “That one almost broke my brain,” I groaned. Oh, the puns. “Care to get any more of them out of your system?” “Oh, don’t egg me on,” Riverbed continued, grin on her face. Okay, that was enough. I grabbed her muzzle with my claw to stem the incoming tide of bad puns. “Mmm mmmphmh?” Both griffons agreed with my decision. “Thank the goddesses for that. Last thing I need is for Skyward to lose her last three brain cells.” Whap. “Ow! Sky, the heck?” Whap. Whap. “Ow!” Straybeak covered his head under Skyward’s playful swipes. Both griffons stopped immediately when Riverbed decided to mention, “One Talon to another, are you going to tell Blackwing or not?” They didn’t seem pleased by that. “What the hell gives you the right to be a Talon? You aren’t even a griffon,” Skyward roared. “And even if you think you are, you could have just painted that logo onto your armor. That isn’t going to fool us.” Riverbed sighed in exasperation. “I hate having to explain this every single time.” She pointed at the Talon Mercenary logo on her armor. “Listen, guy. I’m one of Firewing’s mercs. He drafted me, and that’s all you need to know.” Skyward and Straybeak looked at each other. “Problem number one: Firewing’s Talons fell off the map. We stopped receiving transmissions and mission updates months ago. Number two: ponies don’t get drafted into the Talons,” she quickly summed up. Something told me that Riverbed hated to talk about this particular subject. Perhaps it was just her constant annoyed look, or maybe the way her ears flicked back for no reason. “Would it help if I filled in the gaps? For instance, he likes his whores with a side of apple bourbon at night,” she spat. “No respect for anypony whatsoever, but at least he tips well.” “Well…” Straybeak mumbled. “That does sound about right.” More venom laced Riverbed’s tone. “One day, he met his untimely demise after one of these sessions. Let’s just say he had a particularly violent accident. In the middle of the night, he accidentally stabbed himself in the back several times with a bowie knife while falling down some stairs. On fire.” “Accidentally.” “Yep.” Straybeak wasn’t nearly as fazed as Skyward was. He followed up with, “Wait, if Firewing’s dead then who’s in charge?” “Thundercane, his second in command.” Skyward tapped her chin. “You know, that might explain a lot. Isn’t Thundercane the one that wanted the Talons to join up with that Red Eye character? After taking over, she might have just cut off comms altogether.” Straybeak agreed. “Yeah. I guess. But I never really took Firewing as the one to let a pony into the Talons. I guess it was a good thing that somepony finally took him out.” “It’s not like I had a choice in any part of it…” Riverbed grumbled under her breath. “Anyway, will you deliver the message?” The answer was a resounding “Nope” from both griffons. “Why not?” Riverbed cried, stress causing her voice to crack slightly. “We’re already in trouble, and you want us to deliver unverified intel from a rogue agent?” Once Skyward put it that way, I didn’t really want to deliver this message either. “And here’s the best part: there’s no way for us to know for certain if you’re one of Firewing’s or not.” Straybeak spoke up. “Wait, didn’t Butcher say he was going to Horseshoe Tower? You think Blackwing already knows?” Riverbed groaned. “You’ve gotta be kidding. Blackwing already knows? Well, this entire trip was a waste for me.” “Your intel is stale. There’s no way we’re going to piss off Blackwing any more. You’re on your own.” And with that, both griffons started ushering the pony they were with down the aisles. “Let’s get out of here and get paid already. C’mon, Bargain Bucket.” “Bargain Bin Laden!” the other bedraggled pony complained. “My name is Bargain Bin Laden! Why do I get the feeling you do that on purpose?” Skyward laughed. “Sorry, Bargain Basket.” I could hear him grinding his teeth in rage as they circled around the shelves on their way out. What a strange little group. Says the crazy robot chicken tromping about with her stupid robot-hugger friends and a stupid bird-merc who isn’t a bird. ...Thanks for the observation, Raider. I noticed that Riverbed was staring at the ceiling dejectedly. “Hey. So what are you going to do now?” If I remembered correctly, the only reason she was still here was because Thundercane needed to make sure that I delivered the message. “Buck this shit. I’m leaving.” Riverbed stood up and shook out her mane. “My job’s done. Unless you want to buy my services, I guess I’m going back to base. Thundercane owes me a lot of answers.” Having a mercenary follow me around for personal defense seemed like a good idea. As much as I would have liked to, I knew getting answers was more important than anything else. Heck, I was one to know. “Some other time,” I answered, giving Riverbed my best sincere smile. Whether Riverbed was grateful or not was anyone’s guess. All she did was give me a little nod. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me. See ya later, guy.” And with that, she turned tail and gave me a dismissive wave over her shoulder. It didn’t seem like she was going to head back just yet, so I probably had time to hire her back if I changed my mind. I liked her. It was just something about her casual nature that put me at ease. Maybe one day, if I survived that long, I might hire her back just to enjoy her company. That brought my motley little crew down to just Tangerine. “Well then, let’s get out of here,” I told her. “There’s nothing else we can do here. I guess it’s time to go.” “Finally,” Tangerine grumbled. She shoved her book back into her robes. “The faster we find our missing Rangers, the faster I can get back to reading—er, researching two hundred year old, uh, literature.” “Literature?” Something about the way she said it made me feel like pressing the issue further. “What kind of literature?” Tangerine’s hood seemed to obscure her face more. “You know… literature.” The cover of her book came to mind. “You mean the kind of literature where a stallion loves another stallion very much and, uh…” Where was I even going with this? “I didn’t really think this one through first.” Either way, Tangerine steadily turned more scarlet. Right. Research. We exited Perma posthaste right after a quick snack of snack cakes and water. For the sake of time, I picked up Tangerine against her will and flung her onto my back. I ignored her protesting cries and took off at high speed with only a few faltering flaps because of my lack of training for the power armor. I was also flying in the wrong direction, as I quickly discovered once I consulted my PipBuck. One course correction later, we were on our way once again to the coordinates. Hopefully too much time hadn’t been wasted and Rumcake was still doing fine. It was still about afternoonish, which left plenty of time to cover lots of ground. Too bad I didn’t have time to stop at every single building that I saw to empty them. Flying at such high speed assisted by the power armor I was wearing was something I really needed to get accustomed to. Most annoyingly, my right ear flapped slightly more in the wind than the left due to the missing bit halfway down where an earring used to be. My left ear was still being screamed into by the diminutive unicorn on my back. Thanks to the power armor, I didn’t feel Tangerine hammering away at my sides or choking me with her panicked grip. “Can you slow down?” Tangerine continued to wail. “I’m gonna hurl!” Due to the urgency of my mission, I was going to risk dirtying my armor in exchange for increased speed. The entire time, she wouldn’t cease in her efforts to make me slow down. However, I did notice that my wings didn’t feel nearly as strained from long-distance flying as before I had the power armor. At this rate, I wouldn’t even need any more formal training on how to use this Enclave power armor. “Directions, navigator?” I shouted to Tangerine over the sound of wind whipping through my mane. Looking at my PipBuck was difficult while flying, especially at this velocity. The last thing I needed was to collide with a suddenly appearing wall. Hooves thumped against the collar of the power armor I was wearing. “Slow down and I can check the map because you’re too stupid to use yours!” she shouted back. I gave in, flaring my wings out in order to decrease our speed. Now that my wings were reinforced by some kind of metal that I didn’t pay attention about, sudden stops like these no longer hurt at all. Once we’d slowed down enough, Tangerine unfolded the map in front of my face using her super awesome magical powers. “We’re here.” She tapped a spot only a few inches from our destination. “If you continue this way”—her other hoof extended out in front of me and slightly to the right—“we should be there in no time.” “Excellent.” I took off as fast as I could in the correct direction the second Tangerine floated the map out of my face. “Onward!” My wings beat powerfully in the wind as I did my best to fly quickly and keep the wildly swearing unicorn on my back at the same time. ~~~~~ Tangerine pointed out a specific street for me to land on in the middle of the ruined city. “We’re close to the last known coordinates. From what our intel—” “Your painfully outdated intel?” I interrupted. Even if I was right, Tangerine wasn’t going to let me have that satisfaction. “We need to proceed with caution. This place is infested with raiders and scavengers and they might be smart enough to look up once in a while.” I made sure that my rifle was loaded and at my side before proceeding down the cracked pavement. Ruined buildings towered above us, which made me increasingly nervous about not having a height advantage. Ambushes usually came from above, and all the open windows and rooftops gave them ample opportunity. I comforted myself with the fact that my anti-material rifle could definitely penetrate all of the buildings here. “Hmm.” Tangerine looked around. “Do you see a ‘Purple Line Station’ around here? That’s basically where we’re going.” Unless the station looked a lot like a raider-built barricade, we probably weren’t there yet. With all the graffiti and bodies all over it, it was actually a little bit difficult to tell what was behind it. Casting caution aside, I launched into a low hover to try to get a better vantage point in case there were a few raiders waiting to pounce. Thankfully, nothing. Just a lot of trash, gore, and all the things that raiders liked to play around in. Weirdly enough, it looked more like nopony had been around for a while. “See anything up there?” I rotated in place while maintaining my hover, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Being between buildings didn’t really—ah. “Uh… hold on, there’s a junction up there. Gimme two.” Without waiting for Tangerine to reply, I darted to the center of the intersection and performed another scan. Again, no movement. Maybe all the scavengers had gone home? I also didn’t see anything that looked like a train station, but at least the area was clear. I zoomed on back to Tangerine to relay the news. “Looks clear. Besides the barricade, streets are empty. I don’t see anything that looks like a station, though.” “That’s weird.” Tangerine consulted her map again. “Says it’s right on that intersection right over there.” “Well, it’s not there anymore. Maybe it’s under that barricade?” Tangerine packed up her map and glared at me. “Well, if somepony knew how to use their own map that automatically marks out landmarks, then we wouldn’t be having this problem.” Nevertheless, she trotted on and pointedly ignored the raspberry I blew at her. I hovered along behind Tangerine, rifle at the ready. The second she set foot in the intersection, she immediately set her sights on some covered stairway going down. She glared at me, then back at the stairs. Apparently, I’d missed something painfully obvious again. “What?” “No station?” She pointed at the polished sign hanging above the stairs and I facehoofed. “So what’s this, then?” “Right. Purple Line Station, I get it,” I groaned. “You’re an idiot.” I sighed. “I’m an idiot.” “Come on, let’s head on in.” So we did, while I tried not to look at Tangerine in case she had something else to add to it. While I was avoiding eye contact, I couldn’t help but feel like something seemed a little off about the whole place, but I couldn’t really put my hoof on it. Maybe it was my nerves, or maybe it was because I was still annoyed that somepony had built a train station underground. Going down the stairs increased my unease, but I was starting to notice why. This place was clean. Well, it would be if there weren’t dead bodies littered along the sides of the stairway. “Whoever came through here knew what they were doing.” I paused to dig through the pockets of somepony that must have been some kind of caravan guard. “They’ve been looted, and whoever came through here was even thoughtful enough to scoot them to the side.” I moved on to the body next to it, somepony that used to be a slaver. “Nothing again, except for this ear.” Tangerine scanned the multitude of bodies all the way down the stairs. “Hey, notice anything else about these ponies?” “You mean besides they’re all dead?” They’d also been dead for less than two days, but I assumed that she already knew that. I heard a groan from the unicorn as I regarded a small animal’s foot on a keychain. “Yes, besides they’re all dead. It’s just… come on down farther. It gets really weird.” After pocketing the bunny appendage, I trotted down to the bottom of the stairs and followed the bend left. “Can it though?” I asked, then immediately stopped. “Huh.” “Yeah…” The immediate entry of what I assumed was the lobby was utterly destroyed. Barricades had been set up at one point, but a well-placed demolition charge had made a large enough hole for a force to charge in. I picked up slightly burnt perforated tube from the ground. “Flashbang. Huh.” A spent shotgun shell bounced off my head, courtesy of Tangerine. “Yeah, but check out these guys.” Tangerine was standing next to a bizarre pile of bodies by the bathrooms. It looked like they hadn’t been moved, but it still didn’t make sense. Two raiders, a sort of Wastelander doctor, and a Ranger scribe were all piled up in the corner, riddled with bullet holes. The door opposite of the corner was smeared with a large quantity of blood, but no body. “Looks like they got cornered.” Tangerine sighed. “It is weird, though.” What drew me in was the scattering of bloody tawny feathers on the ground. I picked one up and examined it. After regarding it for a moment, I determined that it wasn’t a pegasus feather. “This came from a griffin,” I smartly deduced. “Are you sure?” On a whim, I licked it. Tangerine cringed. Tastes like chicken! I groaned and facehoofed. “Yeah, Raider’s definitely sure. It’s griffin.” “Uh… what’s going on here, anyway?” I looked around the remains of the lobby. “I don’t even know. Why would these ponies even work together?” Things just weren’t adding up. “Maybe this is just a lot more trouble than it’s worth investigating.” “Griffins mean Talons,” Tangerine hopefully suggested. “And Talons means somepony needed somepony dead,” I added, then looked at the bodies again. “Well, in this case, that is.” My E.F.S. wasn’t picking up anypony else but Tangerine, so I decided, “You know what? Let’s split up and search the area. From what we’ve noticed, there won’t be anything left to take. If you get in some deep trouble, try to make as much noise as you can when you die so I can avenge you.” To my surprise, Tangerine narrowed her eyes at me and growled. “Don’t give me that. C’mon, can you come up with anything better?” I sighed. Tangerine rolled her eyes. “No. Fine.” “Regroup here in like, ten minutes?” “Um… okay.” As expected, all the bodies were equally cryptic. Not only did they appear to be from every possible faction in the Wasteland, but it seemed like they had been working together, as opposed to fighting each other. As for loot, we didn’t find anything of value besides mildly interesting odds and ends that I felt like keeping. Griffin feathers kept showing up here and there, but we still hadn’t seen any of their bodies. There was also a downstairs portion with the actual train platforms that Tangerine had discovered, but I was more distracted by the micro-mall that I’d found. First stop, the record shop. If I remembered properly, Sparkle had a thing for music and stuff, so it seemed like a nice thing to do if I brought a few back for her while I was here. “Hey, do you know exactly what kind of music Sparkle likes?” I asked, in the midst of pawing through broken records and damaged cases. Tangerine shrugged. “I’m really not too sure. Half of it’s just noise and static, so good luck finding any of that here. I do remember something about rock and roll, and maybe something about trancing or something?” I stopped what I was doing and began to poke through what was left on the shelves. “Do you think it’s trance?” “Maybe? I organize useful things, not music.” The farthest my musical knowledge went was classy jazz music and whatever my dad had listened to. One of the records on the shelf looked more intact than the others, so I slid it out from under the damaged ones and examined it. “Well, do you think she’ll like this one? I think it’s fine, but I can’t really make out what the cover is.” I squinted at it and even turned it sideways, but the muddled blur of garish colors and lines still didn’t make sense. Perhaps it was some sort of art that I couldn’t properly understand. Eh. “Screw it, I’ll pack this one up. Remind me to give this to her.” I gingerly nudged the record itself out and examined it one last time, then tucked it away in its protective case and then into my saddlebag. Tangerine was more interested in the other junk scattered on the store’s ruined carpet. “Hey, I think Paladin Commander Rumcake is still a few steps ahead of us. Check this out.” I trotted over to her and peered at the things she was showing me. It was a tuft of neon-purple hair, a broken gear, and something that looked like a really tiny funny-shaped knife. “Uh, what am I looking at, exactly?” I asked, cocking my head. Sometimes, I just felt really stupid. “In order, we have what looks suspiciously like Sparkle’s split ends, yet another broken K-2p cycling gear, and Sparkle’s crafting knife.” Tangerine sighed. “Long story short, we’re on the right track.” I completely ignored the problem at hoof and replied, “I’m more curious what the crafting knife is for.” Mentioning that made Tangerine grimace. “Uh, well… it’s weird.” “I’m weird,” I flatly replied. “Whatever it’s for can’t be weirder than me.” Begrudgingly, Tangerine launched into an explanation. “Sparkle makes little figurines of ponies she knows. They fit in your hoof and they’re stupidly detailed.” I opened my mouth. “Yes, she made one of you.” I closed my mouth and politely continued to listen. “It’s her little hobby when she’s not making noise. Oh, that also explains why there’s a little corner on your tail that’s a lot shorter than the rest.” I resisted the urge to spin around and check, only because I couldn’t actually see it anyway. “What.” Tangerine nodded. “Same goes with the weird short bit on the back of your mane. She tends to make her figures as, uh, authentic as possible.” Ignoring the new spots in my mane and tail that would bother me to the end of time, I summarized with, “I’m going to point out that she’s a grown-ass mare that plays with dolls. Makes dolls. Plays and makes dolls. Whatever.” “There’s nothing wrong with playing with dolls. A busy mind breeds no chaos, as the saying goes. I think.” Tangerine scratched her head. “I just read that a few days ago, too.” “No, I’m just more annoyed that mini-me might be being used for other, more nefarious things,” I muttered. “I’m sure it’s fine.” I glared at Tangerine. “Think about it. There’s one of me, one of Rumcake, probably one of you, too and who knows who else. Sparkle could be shipping us right now and we wouldn’t even know.” I mimed holding a pair of figures and bumping them together. Just like that, Tangerine shifted from pale to extremely rosy. “And, uh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” “No.” Footnote: Level up! New Perk: Intimidation – Boo! Word about you has spread, and your mere presence inspires fear and terror against your foes. There is a slight chance that enemies will run away instead of taking their chances against your rage. Current Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +8 to Unarmed. Status: Unfamiliar Ease – You never did pass that training course, did you? Enclave Power Armor still grants you +40 to Damage Threshold and +45 Damage Resistance, but you receive no stat bonuses from wearing the armor.