//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Cactus Flowers and Judgement Calls // Story: Fallout: Equestria: A Cut Above // by Wirepony //------------------------------// Author's Note: Many thanks to my pre-readers, $Roomate_1 and Arcane_Scroll, and to coffee! Fallout: Equestria: A Cut Above. Chapter 2: Cactus Flowers and Judgement Calls. I woke in the middle of the night, darkness complete and heavy, cloudcover barely visible, blotting out everything but the faintest of glows from the full moon. I stared blearily into the near total black of night, before rolling onto my side and stretching my neck around to work the clasps and buckles of my armor. I had fallen asleep fully dressed, and I was certain to wake up chafed and sore if I didn't get this armor off. Disturbed by my shifting, the warm weight tucked in behind my forelegs grunted and snuffled closer to me, tucking up against my chest. I immediately leapt to my hooves and started screaming. The heavy weight clung to my chest, managing to hold on to the straps of my armor, and I flailed at it, panicking and screaming. The whatever it was on my chest screamed along with me, and I flailed my way out of the cave, knocking the cold ashes of my campfire asunder, and fell into the water hole. I stiffened in shock as I fell into the water, and by the time I had regained control of my muscles and stood up, my armor was without passenger. Barrel heaving as I gasped for breath, cold water streaming off my hide, I stared across the scattered wreckage at the indistinct blob crouched in the mouth of the cave, making squeaking noises and quivering. I lunged into my saddlebag, frantically shuffling through my belongings, and gasped in relief as my lips closed on a familiar knobbly cylinder. I pulled the flare out of my saddlebag and crunched through the cap before throwing it off to the side. The flare ignited with a hiss, casting its red-orange light across the clearing, revealing my assailant to be a tiny molerat. For it's part, the tiny molerat squinted shut its beady eye and hid from the flare's light, squeaking pitifully. I made my way out of the watering hole, pausing to shake off as best I could. The molerat watched me as I made my way slowly up the bank. I sidled over to where I had leaned my weapon earlier that evening, and snatched it into my grip. Confidence restored by my Stickbird, I levelled the point at the molerat and eased myself towards it, slowly, slowly. The molerat swung its head from side to side, keeping me in the focus of one of its beady black eyes at all times. I closed the distance between me and the diminutive critter, and it backed away slowly, still nervously keeping an eye on me at all times. When it ran up against the wall of the cave, it whirled around, and I hesitated, my weapon lifted to strike. Seeing the cave wall behind it, it tried to dig into the smooth rock, but failed, its juvenile claws skittering across the hard surface. I paused as it tried to escape, uttering small whistles of fear as it dug at the unyielding stone. Shortly, it gave up, and turned back to me. The sharpened point of Stickbird was right before it, motionless in my grip. The sputtering light of the flare gave a reddish cast to the hairless rodent, making it look like was already bloody and wounded. My unease at this sight fueled my hesitation, and I remained motionless as the creature considered the tip of my weapon. Moments stretched before the molerat collapsed with a sigh, ignoring me and my weapon and just staring at the far wall, lit with the ruddy light of the flare. Its mother had tried to turn me into a meal earlier that day, but there didn't appear to be any harm in her cub. I poked it in the nose with the tip of Stickbird, and it grunted, but made no motion to flee or attack. I drew back my weapon for a powerful strike, and couldn't follow through. With a grunt of my own, I tossed my weapon back into its sheathe, and knelt down to face the small limp figure of the molerat. I stretched out a hoof and poked the critter in its shoulder. There was no reaction, and I pulled my hoof back to my side, and considered the actual events of the evening. I had passed out in front of the fire, fully barded, without checking the security of my campsite, I hadn't even looked thoroughly into the cave to check for other critters. I had gotten so wrapped up, first in the field dressing of the adult molerat, then in my own introspection. I had fallen asleep in front of the fire, my night vision ruined by its light, my nose filled with fragrant mesquite smoke. When I had woken up, the molerat pup had been cuddled up against me, the warmest thing in the cave. It hadn't been attacking in any way. I heaved a sigh, and got back to my feet. I kept an eye on the molerat pup as I checked the cave, finding nothing but the den that had likely held the pup. I shed my armor, hanging the wet leather on bushes to dry. I rebuilt the fire, and managed it back to life with the stub of the flare. My saddlebags had survived my impromptu bath without soaking the contents, and I pulled a bundle of grasses I had stashed earlier that day out before I lay back down in the firelight. Reaching to the still-motionless molerat, I dropped a twisted grass stalk in front of it, and waited. Shortly, the little critter blinked and sniffed at the grass, before inhaling it, crunching vigorously on the slender strand. The molerat eyed me again when it had finished the grass, and I pushed another twist to it, which it devoured immediately. The third twist I didn't push as far, and the pup had to come away from the wall slightly to get it. I repeated the maneuver with the rest of the grasses, and I still had a small amount left when I finally convinced the molerat pup to cuddle up in the hollow of my foreleg again. I munched idly, staring into the flames. "It looks like I've got to keep you, little guy." I mused aloud. The molerat did not reply, grunting and wiggling a little closer. "Well, you've got to have a name, then. Without a name, you're just.. vermin." I pondered on that while I ate the rest of my grass. There was one easy name, suggested by the critter's normal behavior, and it sounded good to me. I just needed to get his opinion. "Hey." I said, nudging the critter with a hoof. It grunted and looked up at me, blinking. "Your name is Blinky now. You like that?" Blinky appeared to consider this for a moment, before grunting and tucking his snout back into the warmth of my foreleg. I laughed at him, and drifted off to sleep again, dry, warm, and not alone. The next morning was excellent. I had slept peacefully until the bright sunlight had filled the shallow cave, heating my coat and dragging me out of my slumber. I stretched the night's stiffness out of my hips and shoulders, almost a stylized dance of lunges and poses that got my blood flowing and shook loose any stiffness I had acquired during the night. The streaming sunlight helped a lot, and as I drank my fill from the water hole, I felt great, muscles loose, warm and happy. I made a circuit of the water hole, pulling my armor off of the bushes and dressing. While the leather had held up well this time, I needed to oil and clean it before too much longer. Salt from sweat or blood would cause the leather to dry out and crack, rapidly making it useless. Water would stain, and worse, strip the oils out that kept the leather supple and waterproof... ish. Today was OK, though, and I worked my way into the protective barding. Blinky, as wide awake as he ever got, was watching me intently, making soft little wuffing sounds. It wasn't until I was stretched down, trying to get the very important 'sheathe plate' that protected my nethers settled, that I figured it out. The little varmint was laughing at me! Blinky fell over, wuffling, and I snatched the belly strap for the sheathe plate in my jaws, pulling it taut and clipping it off before levelling a glare at the rodent. "As soon as I get some spare time and supplies, Blinky, I'm making you a set of armor, and we'll see how you like it!" I stuck my tongue out at the laughing molerat pup, and blew him a vigorous raspberry before tightening my barrel strap. Once the straps and clips and clasps were right, I stretched again, feeling the pull of leather against my hide. A couple straps needed tightening, a couple loosening, but a few minutes of work had my armor as comfortable as a second skin. Blinky had recovered from his bout of hilarity, and was snuffling his way around the walls of the cave. I tossed my saddlebags on, gave them a quick adjustment, and returned to the water hole to fill my canteens. I cast about the water hole and the cave, looking for anything I had forgotten, and kicking water over the ashes of the campfire. I've never had to outrun a grass fire, but I had been told... Blinky met me at the mouth of the cave, and I grabbed him by a loose fold of hide at the back of his neck, and slung him up onto my back, forward enough that he could curl up in the hollow of my shoulders, which he did. I made my way through the bushy hedge surrounding the water hole, and pointed my nose as straight south as I could. Overhead, the sun was high, and the Wasteland stretched out before me as far as I could see, an unchanging rolling carpet of brush and scrub. One last quick shake to settle my saddlebags, and I started out. Boring boring bored boredom boring. Bored bored bored. Boars. Boring bores bore boreholes in boring books of boredom. The sun had sunken a noticeable distance towards the horizon, my hooves were starting to feel sore, and the molerat pup tucked up on my shoulders was starting to infuriate me just by being comfortable and asleep. I had mostly held to a loose loping trot through the course of the day, covering lots of boring, nearly identical ground. Bored by the ground. Boring into the ground. Bores of ground miles. The raider attack was actually a nice change of pace at that point. The subtle, rolling contours of the Wasteland had pinched in slightly, the hills more abrupt and the valleys between them more defined. This bare minimum of cover was apparently enough to justify an ambush position, which I discovered by the reliable tactic of running right into it. My first warning was a sharpened blade stabbing at the bottom of my barrel, wielded by a quivering wreck of a pony, crouched in a depression I had had trotted right past. I squealed and dodged, managing to keep the sharpened spade of the shovel out of my hide. My dodge, luckily, also took me out of the way of the bullets fired by a second pony, hidden behind the first. My luck didn't hold, and behind me, the third pony, behind me, laid what felt like a thousand pounds of stone across the back of my head. I dropped like a rock. By the time I hit the ground, I had my wits back about me, and I was able to get my legs under me and roll, hard, in the direction of the hitty pony. Things began to happen very quickly, then. I rolled under Hitty Pony's front legs, and ended up on my back under his barrel, as his front hooves came stomping down to smash out my life. I arched my back and curled my hips in to make power, and struck upwards, smashing Hitty's stallionhood squarely with one hoof, and driving the other into his breadbasket, just ahead of his sheathe. Hitty Pony fell over with a squeal, bucking and thrashing. I managed to stay out from under him as he fell, and was awkwardly scrabbling away from him on my back, legs thrashing. Shovel Pony sprang over the body of his fallen buddy, waving his shovel threateningly, bouncing on his forelegs as he swung his head back and forth. Blinky surged off the ground and bit him on the sheathe, and hung, swinging, from his nethers. The screams were amazing. I got my feet back under me and backed away further. Blinky swung wildly as the shovel pony flailed, trying to knock the miniature molerat off of his stallionhood. The shovel clenched in his jaws kept digging into his already-scarred flanks, though, not effecting his target in the least. The gunpony jumped over the still-crumpled form of Hitty Pony, and charged past Shovel Pony, screaming around the grip of the gun clenched in his teeth. I managed to kick Stickbird out of its holster, finally. I rode the initial surge of kicking the weapon free into a lunge, and thrust Stickbird over the barrel of the gun clenched in the oncoming pony's mouth. My thrust hit true, and our combined weight forced the tip home, crunching through eye and bone and beyond. The gunpony dropped like a sack of crap, taking my weapon and my head with it. I dropped the handle of Stickbird as the dead pony flopped, and regained my stance to see the former shovel wielder on hindlegs up in front of me, striking with his forehooves and missing his shovel as Blinky swung from his crotch, both of them squealing. I managed to roll enough with the first strike that it didn't knock me senseless, and dodge the second all together. I reared and lunged, managing to get my forelegs outside of shovelpony's, and my teeth on one of his ears. I instantly regretted that part, his filthy ear making my taste buds scream in agony as I pushed. Shovelpony was scrawny and disgusting up close, his stench almost worse than his attacks. I pushed at his scrawny torso and pulled on his disgusting ear, and like a tree giving up the ghost, Shovelpony fell back. Back and over. Neither of us had noticed Hitty Pony getting back to his feet, and our bipedal stance put our centers high enough that we toppled completely over the bulkier stallion and went tumbling down into the depression Shovel had originally been hiding in. I managed to get a knee past the tenacious Blinky and into the pit of Shovel's belly, and when we hit, I was on top. Shovel landed very wrong, and went completely still with a crunch. I spit the hideous ear out and rolled off of Shovel in a hurry, certain that Hitty Pony was going to shortly be stomping me into a paste. I whirled to face him, stance wide and legs sprung loose, ready to dodge one of his powerful blows. The bulky form of Hitty Pony was laying on its side, facing away from me. I skirted his quiescent form and made for gun pony, who was just beyond Hitty, Stickbird jutting from his eye like a flagpole. I snatched the handle of my weapon and jumped over the corpse of gun pony, pulling hard as I did. Stickbird came out of the dead pony's head with another crunch, and I cautiously approached Hitty Pony, who lay still. Very still, in fact. The only motion there was the trickling of blood from his nose and mouth. I kicked him in the gooblies, hard, and nothing happened. Shovel Pony was dead, like I thought. On closer examination, his cutie mark was a shovel, too, with red dripping off of it. Gunpony only had half a face left, and the wreckage sent me stumbling away from the dead three to puke. I returned to the corpses, empty and wobbly, and rifled through their saddlebags. Lumps of loose flesh, rotten and worthless, mixed with bullets in Gunpony's bags. Shovel's bags hung slack, except for a few smallish rocks, and some hunks of grass. Hitty Pony was a different story. His pouches were practically bulging with empty Dash inhalers. A couple full ones were rattling around among the empties, and I stashed those in my own saddlebags. The shovel was almost broken, worn out rickety wood and a blade almost rusted through. Hitty pony didn't have any gear to speak of, aside from his saddlebags. None of the raiders were wearing armor. Blinky was still clinging to Shovel Pony's crotch, and had actually fallen asleep. I left the vicious little critter dangling from Shovel's summer sausage and checked over my armor and saddlebags, all thankfully undamaged from the fight. I cleaned off Stickbird on the hide of Shooty Pony, and re holstered it. I nudged Blinky awake, and with grumpy grumbling, the molerat let go and dropped to the dusty dirt. I hoisted him up onto my back, grunting at the pain moving was starting to cause, and set out, alert and paying attention now. It was a fair piece of time since the fight. I had gotten well clear of the combat scene, eyes and ears alert for other raiders. No other ponies were nearby that I could see, and the throbbing in my head was getting worse. I stopped in a tiny gully, smaller than the one I had been ambushed in. Bowing my head, I was able to get to the back of my skull with a foreleg, gingerly probing at where Hitty had smashed me. The wound was tender, painful to the touch, but there was no softness, no crunching or movement. I heaved a sigh of relief, and just stood with my head drooped, staring at the ground. I had just killed three ponies. I had fought animals before, and killed a few feral ghouls underneath the town, but this was the first time I had met a living, breathing, feeling pony... and ended his life. I kept trying to compare that to the sewer ghouls, or to the bloodwing nest, or even to Blinky's mom, who I'd just executed. The stench from her corpse had bothered me more than the fact that I killed her, but now, now these were ponies. Were they? All three of them had been unhealthy. Shovel and Gun Pony had both had sores. Hitty Pony had looked.. bizarre. Thinking back on it, he had almost been transparent, dark shapes of veins snaking around his huge malformed muscles clearly visible under his hide. The sores on Shooty and Shovel ponies were actually a pretty big deal, they were a visible symptom of sickness, most likely. Unless something's wrong, our hides protect us fairly well. I blinked fuzzily, standing there with my legs locked and my head danling. I poked and prodded at my heart, my emotional center, and all I could honestly feel was aggravation, irritated anger that these three raiders had endangered my life and well being. This was a big worry all by itself, I had just killed three ponies, and I was more worked up about possibly getting my head cracked than taking three lives. It didn't make sense. These were ponies, sure, but they were raiders. They had, whether by conscious decision or failure to resist the infection, stopped being the kind of ponies I would, or needed, to feel bad about killing. Vermin extermination, not murder. We had encountered raiders before, as a tribe. I was young, but I remembered one raider, one of a group of five. Our scouting party had spotted a group of raiders and pulled back without making contact. The scouts rejoined our marching order behind the warriors, so it was eight heavily armed and armored warriors that confronted the five raiders huddled around a burning barrel fire, instead of three unarmored scouts. The odds didn't faze the raiders, though. Four of them had immediately opened fire or lunged to attack. Our warriors weren't Reapers, but they weren't pushovers, and had destroyed the raiders in short order. The four that attacked had died immediately, but the fifth... The fifth 'raider' had assumed a surrender pose, stretched out on his back with his belly and throat exposed, and remained motionless while his fellows were slaughtered. The warriors had held him at bay, silent and trembling, while the rest of our tribe had caught up. I was 8 or 9 years old, and I didn't understand the significance of what happened, but Big Bear had examined the raider closely, still held at spearpoint in his supine posture. The raider was shaking, and had wet himself at some point, but was quiet and motionless, aside from the trembling, as Big Bear poked and prodded at him, and my father asked him questions. The questions went well, apparently, as one of the warriors helped the scrawny buck to his feet, and led him into the midst of the vanguard. I smiled as I went over the memory. I hadn't realized it then, but it made sense now. That scrawny buck had been under guard, even if we had tentatively accepted him. The armed and armored warriors surrounding him were as much a threat of what could happen to him, as a promise of what he could become. And he had proven out. By the time the tribe entered the mountains, that turned out to be our last trial before Our Tacksworn, he had grown into a trusted member of the scouts, and we had mourned him as one of the beloved fallen, when we finally had time for a memorial. That wasn't the case, here. These raiders had never had the chance or inclination to reject the mad, bestial state that was the end result of the 'full' infection with raider sickness. They weren't ponies. They were just... pony-shaped. The tears that had been falling dried, and I wiped the last of them off with a foreleg. It made sense, then. I didn't feel bad about killing ponies, because I hadn't. The distinction wasn't... completely solid... in my mind, but it was stable enough that I was able to wipe off my tears and shake myself back together. Back together was relative, of course. I had checked out my own head as best I could, and checked all my gear and bags, which were intact. That left only one thing, and I craned my neck around to grab it. Blinky snuffled and grumped as I swung him around in front of me, and when I dropped him, he turned around and stretched up at me, patting my muzzle with his blunt claws. I poked him with my muzzle a few times, checking his movements and reactions. Blinky was game, forelegs and hind legs moving well, no injuries on his wrinkly hide. I gave the ugly little thing an affectionate nuzzle, and set him back on my shoulders. All present and accounted for. The sun rolled high in the sky, not too terribly far after noon, and time was wasting. I rinsed my mouth and spat, clearing the last of Shovel Pony's foul taste, and took a small drink before stowing my canteen, and moving out into the Wasteland. An easy canter served to warm me up, and once everything was flowing and loose, I shifted back into my original loping trot and started to lay some miles. I stayed alert, this time, which of course meant that nothing happened. There was still some sun left in the sky when I stumbled on a low, empty cave. The cave was little more than a hollow in a hillside, but it was protected from the wind and weather, and reduced the amount of area I'd have to keep watch on. A few twists of mesquite and some sparks from my flint and steel served to make a tiny fire. Blinky, pulled off his comfy perch on my shoulders, immediately curled up in the back of the cave. I roasted up some of my molerat steak on the small fire, chowing down on greens from home, sizzling happiness, and a preserved pre-war snack cake for desert. Blinky roused himself from his doze long enough to steal half my snack cake, before returning to his nap. I tucked in next to the ball of molerat, watching the flames of my small fire flicker in the angled light of the evening. My forehoof caught on the stretchy band around my off hoof as I knelt down, bringing my father's weird gift to my attention. I settled down in front of the fire and considered the device. The band was curved blocks of some hard material. It felt slick and hard like the plastics I had worked with repairing my mane driers, and was a soft black. There looked like wires in the stretchy parts, joining the blocks to each other, and to the main unit. Bear had called it a mapping assistant, said it was related to the vault-issue pip-buck. Looking closer, the device only had three buttons, two big ones on either side of the screen, and a smaller one tucked away in a recess. I poked at the two larger buttons, and got no reaction. The screen itself wiggled when I poked at it. Having ruled out the obvious, I poked the recessed button with a hooftip, and was rewarded with a flash of light and bright green scrolling words across the screen. The text faded, swiftly replaced with a green linework image of a staring eye. I blinked at the eye, and it blinked at me, before it pulled away from the screen, inside the device. Pulling away it revealed another eye, and a little lineart nose, and then a whole pony face, drawn in simple green lines. Text popped up below the little face, welcoming me to the 'Stable-Tek mapping assistant', and I settled myself in for a long evening of learning. The device was cunningly built, and let me see the trace of where I had been, and a lot of cities that looked to be days and days of travel away. There were lines, roads according to the mapper, far to the west, over the same mountain range we had come to find Our Tacksworn. While I wouldn't mind a road, so far the cross-country travel had been working out just fine. South-East was a transition and the symbol indicating 'Lake', which sounded like a good enough target for me. Water meant survival, after all, and the chance of finding a decent-sized settlement was better near water. I poked around in the mapper for the rest of the evening, learning what the neat little device was capable of. Nightfall snuck up on me, and as my fire guttered and flickered in the gathering dark, I made myself comfortable, and drifted off to sleep. Morning came with grunts and a cold, wet nose, snuffling and nuzzling in my ear. All four of my legs jerked straight out in a spasm of shock, and I knocked Blinky tumbling as I surged to my feet. The wuffling of molerat laughter accompanied my panicky surge to my hooves, and I glared at the laughing pup. Blinky was unrepentant, so I blew the varmint a raspberry and went about my morning. Blinky had rudely awakened me in the gloomy false dawn, just before sunrise. I hustled to get my armor and saddlebags on and settled before the sun made its first real appearance. True sunrise found me and Blinky ready to travel. The mapping assistant, active now, nudged me towards South-East – towards the water labeled on the map as the Inland Sea. The sun crept above the horizon, and I reared to welcome it, dancing in the first rays of the sun. Blinky chittered angrily as I fell back to all four hooves, and I laughed at him as I set out, bound for the water I should reach by the end of the day. The rolling plains slowly flattened as we made time, Blinky passed out on my shoulders, me fighting to stay alert. The shorter hills stretched my visibility out, and the horizon seemed to be running away from me as fast as I was trotting towards it. High noon saw me and Blinky curled at the base of the tallest of the scrubby mesquite trees we had seen in hours. Tree was, perhaps, too grandiose a term for the spindly, short wood, but it served to break the direct glare of the sun. Lunch was simple, pre-war snack cakes and twists of sweetgrass from home. We napped through the worst of the day's heat, then, with Blinky tucked between my forelegs. Napping was one of the best ways to pass through the worst heat of the day. It was still hot when I woke, but it wasn't nearly as oppressive as it had been. As it was, my canteens were running low, and I was hoping I found a good water source by nightfall. The Wasteland stretched before me, empty as far as I could see. Distances were still confusing, but they were starting to make sense. I marked a cactus with what looked like an upturned hoof, as it showed on the horizon, and it was just about a half hour before I passed it. It didn't look like an upturned hoof as I reached it, but I was able to process enough watery juice out of the cactus to quench my thirst, and half-fill a canteen besides. I spent a few minutes at the cactus, chewing the pulpy flesh into a slime, collecting it in a shallow bowl. Poking and sniffing at it, it seemed promising. I processed one of my remaining cactus paddles, mashing it up into a goopy mess as best I could, and mixed it in with the pipe cactus. The resultant goop was pleasant smelling, if a bit strong. Blinky sniffed at the bowl and sneezed, before grumbling his way to the shadow provided by my haunches and curling up. I worked the cactus matter into a thinnish paste, light green and fragrant. The resultant goo smelled good, clean and sharp, and folded good around a hooftip. VERY promising. An empty syringe provided a place to store the sample, and with a shrug, I licked the bowl clean, and stashed it in a saddlebag. Back on the road – South-East and trotting, making tracks up and down the endless small hills. Cresting another of the proud little hummocks, a glint of silver caught my eye, off to the right, and ahead. With a mental shrug, I adjusted my course and slowed my approach. The deviation put me off the direct course to the water feature on my mapper, but that wasn't a terribly big deal, all things considered. The shiny disappeared as I dropped into the next valley, and showed itself again as I mounted the next hill. Closer in, the glint now resolved itself into a roof, standing slightly proud of a hill. The next hill revealed it to be corrugated, and I slowed even further, getting into a walk while I was still two hills away. I approached closer and closer, my senses at full alert. The corrugated roof ended up being a simple sheet of tin, nailed up on tired old grey boards, partially sunken into the hillside. The lean-to couldn't even support the title of 'shack', with no walls but the hillside, and that scraped back into a shallow cave. A filthy mattress, caked in old dirt and stains, lay inside the area defined by the roof supports. Makeshift shelving held a trio of old-style ammo cans, dark green and unremarkable, and the pink and yellow square of a first-aid kit. Sprawled across the mattress was the remains of a pony, long since turned to jerky and rags by the heat and dryness of this desert area. His skeletonized, outstretched hoof lay on top of a ragged book. Scraps of cloth and a worn hat were all that remained of his clothing. After my initial examination of the lean-to, I made a quick circuit of the hill it was set into the side of, alert for any interlopers or attackers. Paranoia didn't pay off today, there was no one coming, or even visible. I returned to the dead pony, kneeling slowly next to his book and his body. I gently pulled the book out from under the dead weight of his forehoof, and flipped it open. Dear Diary. Day one of my assignment to the Inland Sea. Here, for the glory of Equestria and the war effort, I'll be working with a picked crew to improve the efficiency of the desalinization plant. Fresh, drinkable water is precious, since the war is on. Normal civilian usage has skyrocketed, factories and production lines spinning away into the night. I keep telling myself that this is an important position, that I'm really helping, but it still feels like an exile, here across the mountains and far away from anything I've known. I'll try and keep this up. Mom says that I should track my thoughts and feelings, since I'm going to be so far away from home. We'll see. So far, I just feel exiled. Day Two of my exile sucks – there's no way to put it easily. The desalinization plant is junk. Robronco gear doesn't want to interface with the Stable-Tec infrastructure, and the massive freaking turbines don't even have manufacturers marks on them, and they don't want to interface with anything. Step one is going to be rebuilding every sensor run in the entire Celestia-scorched facility. Buck my life. Day ten. This has been the single busiest week of my life. This is the first time I've been able to stand still long enough to write. Mom has no bucking clue how bad we are fucked. We've re-built every sensor run in this place, every control lead, and finally got the damn turbines spinning. AND THE BUCKING THINGS ARENT PLUMBED INTO ANYTHING. The main inputs and outputs terminate three sub-levels down, in locked, shielded, barred, ARMORED BUCKING EMPTY ROOMS. Celestia fuck me with a pure horn of fire, What were these shit-sucking son- What's that noise? Day Fuck. Colossal explosions over the mountains. Lots of them. Mom's dead. Mom lived in Canterlot. Canterlot's got to be gone. Zebras. What.. what now? The only thing left to do is survive. The rest of the staff and techs are headed inland, going to cross back over the mountains and try and get to mainland Equestria. I'm... I'm staying here. Everypony's dead. There's no way anyone could have survived it. I don't even know what 'it' was. Zebras, probably. We were at war, after all. Water's receding. I'm running for high ground, bringing some gear and some supplies. And some weapons. Day Fuck +1. Nopony is safe now. Not with huge bombs, not with crazy ponies with guns roaming around. The water did come back, like I'd thought, but not as a tsunami, just as a corrupted tidal wave of death. The few techs who had stayed behind didn't make it. I heard their screams as they burned. Day Fuck +7, me, you, and a dog named Sue. Everything is blue in this world. So much blood, for such a tiny little hole. He thought he was a big stallion, going to take my stuff. Thought wrong. Took his gun. Took his life. One easy shot. I'm going to bury him by the facility. Then I think I'm going to lay down and die. The diary ended there. Not very many pages filled, and difficult to read in the early evening sun. But enough was left to follow along. It looked like this poor buck had seen the End, the genesis of the Wasteland we all suffered in. He hadn't dealt well. 200 years later, we were better prepared mentally, but physically, we still lived a risky existence. The lowering sun spurred me back into action. I shucked Blinky off and tucked him into the hollow that made up the back wall of the shack, then carefully drug the desiccated corpse of the poor technician out, and buried it as best I could. The sandy soil made digging easy enough, and it was only a short time until I got the body underground. Nothing was handy for a memorial, and after 200 years, I didn't have a clue what to put on one. The mattress was stained, and dirty, but it was old and better than dirt. Dinner was cold, greens, field salad, and one of the cactus flower, which had a crisp, almost minty taste, even after days in a saddlebag. A breeze, salt-smelling and cool, blew up from the lake. Blinky, relocated from his earthen couch, tucked in behind my forelegs like a lump of sleep, warm and sweet smelling. I fell asleep as the sun pulled itself below the horizon, pondering on the difference 200 years had made in ponies, and in the world. Footnote: Level Up! Skill upgrade – Melee +10 (43), Survival +5 (34) Companion Perk: Sneak Attack. Molerats are the lowest form of wildlife in the Wasteland, and most ponies will ignore them as no threat. Blinky can prove them wrong, often in extremely uncomfortable ways. Provides one free bite attack per combat. Level Perk: Animal Friend. Animals will not attack you, unless the animal is threatened or attacked first. Insects such as Mutant Ants and Radroaches are not affected by this perk, nor are rabid or crazed animals. Trivia: Trivia: The character 'Egg Forbreakfast', our protagonist's father, was directly inspired by the libertarian comedy stylings of 'Burgers Allday', a frequent commenter on theagitator.com