Fallout Equestria: Influx

by Lex the Pikachu

Chapter 15: Broken Steel

Fallout Equestria: Influx

Chapter 15: Broken Steel

Dark storm clouds swirled high above the desolate cityscape of downtown Manehattan. Thunder crackled and lightning lit up the heavens, casting the ruins in bright light. Rain came down in a heavy downpour that left the city in a thick haze. The storm left a Steel Ranger and a Field Scribe grumbling in annoyance, as they stood at the top of the destroyed suspension bridge-support tower that made up their base of operations: Bucklyn Cross.

“Why does it always rain when I’m on sentry duty?” The Power Armoured Ranger complained as he was pelted by rain.

A unicorn stallion in Field Scribe attire turned his head to the bulky armoured stallion standing beside him. “What the fuck are you complaining about? You are inside a tin can, and all I got is this shit ass umbrella?” The scribe yelled over the storm at his companion, all the while desperately clinging to a large umbrella that threatened to collapse at any moment from the wind.

The scribe heard the Ranger take a breath to make a retort, when suddenly there was a bright flash from the northern sector of the city, which was then swiftly followed by a mushroom cloud.

The scribe snatched up his binoculars with his magic and focused on the growing cloud in the distance.

“What do you see?” The Ranger asked, now at attention.

The scribe zoomed in as close as he could to the now dissipating mushroom cloud. “Looks like... a Spark Battery or a… um a Mana-Core explosion, so that would make it a class five detonation.”

“We better call this in.”

“Agreed.”

The Ranger lifted a bulky metal hoof to his helmeted ear and pressed his hoof against his helmet. “Star Paladin Cross, we’ve seen what we believe to be a class five detonation in the northern area of the ruins,” The Ranger declared before he nodded from a reply and then lowered his hoof and grumbled. “Uh… he said thank you for the information and to keep up the good work.”

“Great. If I catch a cold, I’m giving it to all of you tin cans,” The scribe moaned.

XXXXX

“A class five detonation has been seen up north by our lookouts on the suspension tower,” Star Paladin Cross announced, his decorated Mark 3 Steel Ranger armour shifting as he turned to a pair of scribes working at a bank of monitoring stations. “Did you detect such a detonation?”

One of the scribes turned to her commanding officer. “We did sir. It certainly was a class five and we were able to identify that the explosion did to belong to a Mana-Core. Specifically, a Stroke C Mana-Core.”

“A Stroke C. That is the same type that powers our armour, is it not?” Cross asked as he eyed the scribe.

“That is right Sir,” The scribe confirmed.

“Jaffa Cake!” Cross called out as he approached a situation map, a pre-war holographic map table set in the middle of the command room.

“Aye sir!” A stallion on the opposite side of the room answered.

“Do we have any patrols in the northern sectors?” Cross asked as he peered at the illuminated map on the table.

“Negative sir. All current patrols are within the southern and eastern regions of the city,” Knight Jaffa Cake called back from his station.

“Hmm, then who was up there?” The Star Paladin asked himself as he stared at the map.

“Sir, I might have something here,” Another scribe called from her terminal.

“What you got Harley?”

“I was replaying the detonation to pinpoint the exact location but while doing that, I discovered something,” The scribe paused as she double checked her data. “A Steel Ranger EFS tag appeared for a split second before the explosion?”

“What, who was out there?” Demanded the Star Paladin.

“I don’t know sir. I didn’t recognise the tag,” Scribe Harley paused while she looked at her screen to check the tag again. “Um, the tag was ‘SR-357’.”

The decorated Paladin’s eyes widened in surprise. “357. I’ll be damned, that’s Star Paladin Starhorn’s tag!”

“Pardon sir?”

“Star Paladin Starhorn. She and her recon squad went missing over five years ago within the Manehattan Ruins. We found the bodies and destroyed armour of her squad, but we never found her or her armour, and we could never pick up her tag either,” Cross looked down at the situation map. “Where did you locate the point of detonation Scribe Harley?”

Scribe Harley got up from her terminal and approached the table. She looked over the full city map before using the table’s console to change the map. Cross watched as the map flickered and zoomed in with each change of the settings. His eye’s widened when the large red zone that indicated the Impact Crater filled the screen of the map.

“The point of detonation originated from here sir.” She reached over the table and tapped a spot on the map directly above a building in the north-eastern area of the red zone. “Paradigm Cybernetics.”

“That is all the way inside the Impact Crater! What on Equus was she doing in there, if at all it was her?” He asked himself. “We don’t normally go into those areas because they pose too much of a risk and are not worth the trouble, but this needs to be investigated.” Cross leaned back from the map and pressed his hoof to his ear, activating a small black ear piece. “Paladin Shortbread, I want you and four of your best Knights to report to the Command Room immediately.”

Within a few minutes, a bulkhead door slammed open at the back of the room. The impact of the door against the concrete wall made Scribe Harley jump and whirl around just in time to see five power-armoured ponies squeeze through the door and enter the room. The first armoured pony to enter wore a suit of Mark 2 Steel Ranger armour that was painted with Paladin markings, while the other four wore Mark 2 armour of plain colour.

The Paladin approached the table and stood to attention. “Paladin Shortbread reporting for duty sir!”

“Very good. I have a mission for you Paladin,” The Paladin nodded and stepped forward. “Moments ago, there was an explosion in the north of the city and thanks to Scribe Harley here,” Scribe Harley gave a nervous smile, a little intimidated with five Steel Rangers surrounding her. “We have been able to identify the explosion coordinates and discover that Star Paladin Starhorn’s armour tag appeared at the point of the detonation. Your mission is to enter the Impact Crater, locate the source of the explosion at Paradigm Cybernetics, and discover what happened… hmm. If possible, recover anything important.”

“Understood sir.”

“Very good Paladin Shortbread, dismissed.”

The Paladin nodded and stepped away before he addressed his Knights.

“Alright ponies. We are heading into some pretty dangerous territory. Report to the armoury and select heavy weapon battlesaddles,” Shortbread commanded.

“Sir yes sir!” The four Knights chanted together before they turned around and then left the command room, soon followed by their Paladin.

Soon all five of the Rangers were kitted out with heavy weapon gear. Their gear ranged from minigun battlesadles, to missile launcher saddles, grenade launcher saddles or a combination of the different heavy weapons. Shortbread double checked his minigun and grenade launcher saddle before he turned to his armed Knights.

“Is everypony geared up?”

“Affirmative sir,” One of his Knights confirmed. The rest nodded in agreement.

“Excellent. Move out!”

The five power-armoured ponies left the Barracks portion of their base, located on the deck of what remained of the Bucklyn Bridge’s Manehattan tower, and marched up to the edge of the road deck where a lift waited for them. Piling onto the lift, two at a time, the Rangers descended to the ground to begin their mission.

XXXXX

Night was quickly falling upon the city, and it felt even darker in the radiation-heavy environment of the Impact Crater. However, the dark environment was constantly being lit up by flashes of light and bangs from a group of armoured ponies trudging through the ruins, deeper into the chaos.

K’boom!

K’boom!

“No wonder we don’t go into these Red Zones,” One of the Knights complained after they blew away a mutated creature with a pair of missiles. “It’s crawling with abominations.”

“Easy Knight Sour Cream,” Paladin Shortbread sighed before he turned to the Knight beside him. “Knight Caramel, how much further to our target?”

Knight Caramel lifted her armoured left foreleg. The armour had a built-in PipBuck that allowed her to view a map without it using his helmet’s EFS, which would have otherwise blocked his view. She peered at the PipBuck for a moment before looking up at the building shrouded in the sickly green haze of the Impact Crater that was in front of them.

“Directly ahead of us sir,” Knight Caramel indicated as she pointed his bright headlamp at the ruined exterior of the south wall of Paradigm Cybernetics.

“Alright Rangers, let’s move out,” Shortbread called as he began to lead his Rangers towards the half-destroyed building.

The five Rangers began to skirt around the walls with large mounds of debris built up against them. As they rounded the corner to the west wall, they froze when they saw the giant hole in the side of the building. The hole nearly stretched from the south wall to the north wall, and the hole in the roof extended almost halfway back to the middle of the building.

“So the same type of Mana-Core we have in our backs did this?” One Knight cried out in disbelief.

“They are like Spark Batteries, liable to exploding just like that if they get destabilised,” Paladin Shortbread informed as he stared up at the massive hole in the roof. Even some of its steel support beams had been bent upward due to the force of the blast.

A couple of the Knights looked back behind them to see the release wheel where their Mana-Core was plugged into their suit, with a new feeling of nervous apprehension for the portable bomb-like power unit.

“Alright, you two,” Shortbread pointed at the two Knights that were looking back at their power units. “Guard the entrance here. Don’t let anything get passed you.”

The two Knights snapped to attention. “Sir yes sir!”

“The rest of you,” He said as he turned to address the other two Knights. “Fan out and search the area.”

After giving their acknowledgement to his orders, the remaining Knights split up and began to walk into the destroyed lobby of Paradigm Cybernetics. Paladin Shortbread approached the crater in the middle of the ruined lobby while the other two Knights began to explore the perimeter of the room. The Paladin stood at the rim of the crater and peered inside. As he looked for any signs of a struggle, any traces of Star Paladin Starhorn, he noticed some disturbed earth and drag marks in the dirt near the centre of the crater.

“Paladin, I’m seeing small pieces that could belong to power armour scattered around here,” Knight Sour Cream said over his comm link. “But the shards are too small and broken to positively identify.”

“Keep searching. We need something definitive,” Paladin Shortbread replied as he directed his headlamp down to the tracks and began to follow them.

“Sir, there is a door back here that leads down into a basement,” Knight, Caramel informed through her comms. She had left the ruined lobby and walked down a corridor until she found the open door.

“Proceed with caution,” The Paladin replied as he followed the tracks to a corner where there was a rather large mound of dirt that looked like it was freshly disturbed. The area around the mound also looked to have lots of hoof prints too, like somepony had treaded the ground recently.

Paladin Shortbread looked up when he heard the heavy thuds of armoured hooves approach him from behind. He turned his head to see one of the two Knights he tasked with searching the area approach him while walking on three legs. Held in a raised hoof was a portion of a helmet.

“Sir, I found this. It is clearly part of a Mark 1 Helmet,” Knight Sour Cream said as he held up the broken portion of the helmet. “There is an indentation on the cheek area of what is left of it that is bent inwards, which suggests that Star Paladin Starhorn had been hit pretty hard in the head out here. A physical blow strong enough to dent the armour would have shattered the visor and allowed the radiation of this red zone into her suit.”

Shortbread scowled as he looked at the portion of the helmet, disappointed and saddened that they were unable to recover the Star Paladin; which he suspected, considering she had been missing for five years. “Good work, but what would have made her, if it was her in the armour, initiate the self-destruct function?”

“SIR!” Knight Caramel screamed down in her comm link which made all three Knights and the Paladin cringe. “YOU BETTER COME SEE THIS!”

“Celestia almighty, don’t scream down your comm link, you nearly burst my eardrum!” He scolded.

“I’m sorry,” She quickly apologised.

“I’ll be right down,” He then turned to Sour Cream. “Continue exploring the area, see if you can dig up anything else.”

“Yes sir!” He saluted and continued his search.

Shortbread gave the mound of dirt one last look before he hurried off to Knight Caramel’s location. He found her inside the basement workshop and was surprised by the robotic elements that were still in it, but what truly caught his attention was what Knight Caramel was standing next to.

“What is that?” He asked as his bright headlamp illuminated the incomplete robot.

“I don’t know. It’s clearly some kind of robot. We have to bring this back for our scribes to examine.”

“Agreed,” Paladin Shortbread nodded as he began to heave the incomplete robot onto his back. Thankfully his power armour could take its weight.

“I’m going to do a quick sweep of the area. Maybe there is some documentation in the desk there,” Caramel said as she approached the desk.

“Paladin Shortbread, we need leave soon. There is a lot of movement out here,” One of the Knights assigned to guarding the entrance informed through their comms.

“Roger that, we won’t be long.”

“Whoever was working here didn’t want anypony knowing about what they were working on. The terminal says that all data has been transferred to some place in the Marejave, and all the drawers were empty,” Caramel complained.

“Right well, let’s just get out of here. It seems the mutated abominations of this red zone aren’t taking kindly to our presence here.”

The two power-armoured ponies left the basement workshop and returned the destroyed lobby, just in time to find Knight Sour Cream digging up the mound of dirt Paladin Shortbread found earlier.

“What the fuck is this?” He exclaimed as he unearthed a destroyed skeletal robot not so dissimilar to the one on the Paladin’s back.

“Another one. We gotta take that back too. That looked like it was complete considering its complete chest piece and head,” Caramel said as she looked at the robot in the dirt.

“Yeah? But it looks like it got blown to hell,” Knight Sour Cream pointed out.

“Take it and let’s go.”

“Yes sir,” Sour Cream said before grumbling in his helmet about having to pick up heavy useless junk.

Suddenly both Knights guarding the entrance opened fire with their miniguns. They fired a hail of bullets out into the night, their continuous muzzle flashes lighting up the area as they shot at a number of twisted mutations.

“Everypony engage,” Paladin Shortbread ordered as he stood in the middle between the two firing Knights and began to fire grenades from his grenade launcher.

Upon the detonation of the grenades, whatever the two minigun-armed Knights were firing at jumped away with a shriek from the bright flash of the blast.

“What in Celestia’s cake stash was that?” One of the Knights shrieked upon seeing one of the strange creatures jump away.

The Paladin transferred the robot that was recovered from the basement to Knight Caramel’s back so it wouldn’t hamper his performance.

“I have no idea. I didn’t get a good enough look,” Paladin Shortbread said feeling slightly nervous now. “Alright ponies. Form up,” He commanded. The four Knights gathered around their Paladin. “Alright, we need to get the packages back to base as soon as possible,” He then pointed his hoof to the two Knights that acted as guards. “You two and I need to protect them at all cost. I’ll take point.”

There was a chorus of “Yes sirs” as the Paladin and Knights got ready to leave.

“Alright, headlamps on full bright, and we’ll move at a brisk pace to try and to avoid any of the predators. Now let’s move out!”

After another chorus of “Yes sirs”, the group of Rangers began to quickly trot away from the ruins of Paradigm Cybernetics. As the group entered the ruined streets, there was a heavy thud high above the retreating group.

“The fuck was that?” Sour Cream asked as he looked up to the building the thud came from. Despite the bright headlamp light, it didn’t reveal anything.

“Stay alert and keep moving!” Paladin Shortbread called out at the front of the group.

High above the group, a pony-sized creature crept to edge of the ruined building it had leapt onto and peered down at the group, growling with irritation. It swished its thick tail, rubbing a spot where a bullet had managed to strike against its softer inner thigh. Suddenly, another of the same type of creature leapt onto the roof of the opposite building and growled lowly, to which the creature replied with its own growl before it peered back down at the moving group. It planted its large hind feet on the edge of the building and jumped.

“We’re being followed,” One of the Knights flanking called out.

“I can hear them, but I can’t see them,” Paladin Shortbread said, looking up at the buildings every time there was a thud on the top of the buildings, or the breaking of masonry.

“We can’t shoot what we can’t see,” Knight Sour Cream complained.

“There is a clearing up ahead before the crater wall,” Knight Caramel said with a pant.

“Keep your weapons at the ready everypony,” The Paladin ordered as they broke out from the ruined buildings, and began to trudge across the empty space before the crater wall.

“INCOMING!” A Knight screamed.

“What?” Shortbread gasped as he looked back, just in time to see a large creature with its legs spread in a pounce, heading right for him. “Oh shit!” Paladin Shortbread jumped to the right in the nick of time as a creature that would almost match a regular pony in size crashed into the ground with a heavy thud. The group of Rangers stopped immediately and were surprised that the creature had landed on its feet, considering its impressive jump.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Sour Cream gaped.

“I don’t know, but it kinda looks like some sort of mutated frog or toad,” Caramel squeaked.

“Whatever it is, it’s ugly as fuck,” Paladin Shortbread remarked quietly.

The creature growled as it turned around to face its adversaries. It stood on four legs, its front legs short and stumpy, making its front half low to the ground; but its hind legs, long, thick with muscle and having large feet which were perfect for jumping. The creature’s hide was covered in thick scales from its head, all along its back and up its thick tail, which it raised high above itself where it fanned out at the end with six bony quills that were webbed in between. The creature’s head was relatively small but it had a mouth that contained rows of sharp teeth, and when it roared it sounded more like a deep sounding screech, revealing multiple tongues and a split jaw.

Upon seeing all its tongues Caramel shrieked in terror at the sight of the monster. “Oh sweet Celestia!”

“Open fire!” The Paladin ordered but as soon as the miniguns spun to speed ready to fire, the creature jumped away directly over them.

“Holy shit that thing can jump!”

“Alright, it’s obvious we are being stalked by whatever that is,” Paladin Shortbread then turned to Sour Cream and Caramel. “You two, I want you two to make a break for the crater’s debris wall and return to base. We will cover your retreat.”

“But sir-” Sour Cream began to protest but Shortbread cut him off.

“I gave you an order Knight, now get moving!”

Knight Sour Cream snapped to attention. “Sir, yes sir!” He yelled.

Suddenly, the creature landed hard in the middle of the group making them all back up to give the creature some space. “Fuck!” One of the Knights yelped in surprise.

“GO… NOW!” Paladin Shortbread screamed as he turned his attention to the creature.

One of the Knights with a minigun and missile launcher battlesaddle was too slow to react to the creature and therefore unprepared for its tail. The monster had closed its quills together to form a singular point and with a flick of its muscular tail, it slashed the throat of the unprepared Knight. Despite the Knight’s efforts, he could not avoid the strike and the quills tore through his neck armour and scratched his neck. The Knight was now unfortunately exposed to the highly irradiated atmosphere of the Impact Crater.

“Shit,” Shortbread cursed as he saw one of his Knights suffer a crippling blow. The other minigun wielding Knight began to open fire. The small 5mm rounds thudded and bounced off the thick armoured hide, but the creature did flinch back and kept its head down and itself low. Eventually, the creature jumped away and landed on an elevated platform, leaving itself open for both Shortbread and the Knight to fire their explosive weapons at it.

“Alright you jumping abomination, time to…” He was then cut off when another, slightly larger of the same creature landed on the compromised Knight. “Shit there are two of them!”

When the Rangers turned to try and help their downed comrade, sharp spines slammed into the ground in front of them, halting their progress and drawing their attention back to the first monster. Its tail was fanned out again and glowed a luminescent yellowy green (like it was radioactive) and then it swung its tail forward, sending more spines in their direction.

“What the fuck is this, it can launch its quills at us?”

There was a scream from the downed Knight with the other creature on top of him. The monster had its multiple tongues wrapped around the head and neck of the Knight’s armour and its jaws were clamped on the helmet. With a show of amazing strength, the creature tore the crippled armoured helmet from the rest of the armour, severing the head inside.

“No!” Shortbread yelled as he shot a grenade as the creature jumped away.

More quills came flying down from the other monster, preventing them from tracking the one that just killed their teammate.

“This is gonna be bad,” Paladin Shortbread sighed as he tried to avoid the incoming spines.

*Minutes later back at Bucklyn Cross*

Knights Caramel and Sour Cream panted heavily as they stepped off the lift and onto the deck of their suspension bridge base, and began to gallop toward the door. They were exhausted from their journey as well as carrying the dead weight of the robots on their backs. As they burst through the doors, they both nearly crashed into Star Paladin Cross who had been waiting for them.

“Just a few moments ago I lost the EFS tags of your Paladin and two other Knights. What the hell happened out there, Knights?” He demanded angrily.

“We got *wheeze* ambushed sir,” Knight Sour Cream reported.

“By what?”

“Monsters,” Caramel replied with a terrified gulp.

Sour Cream then went on to describe the thick-hided monster that jumped around on thick muscular legs, and that they had a hard time trying to get a lead on it with how well it maneuvered.

“Alright. First, drop off what you brought back off at the research labs, and then report back to me in the Command Room,” The Star Paladin ordered.

After a quick salute, the two Rangers hurried off to drop off their salvaged goods, and then proceeded to make their way back to the Command Room where they found the Star Paladin standing by the situation map with Scribe Harley.

“Ok, describe that monster again.”

Once Sour Cream finished describing the monster again, Scribe Harley tilted her head slightly. “That thing does sound rather familiar,” She then looked down at the holographic map. “Give me a few moments while I check some records.” And with that, she began to sift through some Steel Ranger recorded data in her search for something on the creature.

It took the scribe a good five minutes of flicking through documents to find what she was looking for. A single report submitted by a Ranger in the Mane Contingent up on the northern coast of Equestria, where there were a lot of marshlands. “Description is remarkably similar,” Harley said while she read the report until a photo appeared at the bottom of the document and revealed a half-submerged dark-skinned creature.

“That’s what attacked us,” Knight Caramel whimpered.

“They have been dubbed as Pulmonis for their jumping capability. According to this file, they are the result of two hundred years of radiation mutation and evolution of what was something called a frog,”

“THAT THING USED TO BE A FROG?!” Caramel shrieked.

“The radiation and time changed them to something better suited for its new lethal climate.”

“No shit,” Sour Cream grumbled.

“Ok, that’s the history lesson out of the way. What happened to your Paladin and the other Knights?” Star Paladin Cross repeated.

“Paladin Shortbread sent us on ahead because we were carrying those robots. He and the other Knights stayed behind to cover our retreat,” Knight Caramel explained.

Cross sighed deeply. “Then that could explain why their EFS tags have disappeared. They are most likely dead now because of the Pulmonis.”

A buzz rung in the Star Paladin’s ear and he lifted his hoof to his ear. “Yes?”

“Sorry to disturb you Star Paladin, but you should come and look at these,” A female voice said over his comms.

“Alright Head Scribe Scarlet Cake. I’ll be right down,” Cross said before he turned to the two Knights. “You two, report to the infirmary and begin with your report.”

The two Knights nodded as he left the Command Room and headed down to the research labs. When he entered, he found the two robot husks on tables surrounded by scribes as they examined them.

“Ah, Star Paladin. Glad you could join us so quickly,” Scarlet greeted as she noticed the Star Paladin enter.

“It sounded urgent Scarlet. What have you found?” Cross said as he followed her to the table that held the incomplete robot body that was recovered from the basement workshop.

“This one is incomplete. It clearly wasn’t finished,” She began while pointing at various sections of the robotic body. “From what we can see of it so far, this one looks like it was meant to contain organic organs. The space within the cranium and the chest cavity are mostly smooth and don’t look like they were meant for any electronic equipment.”

“Like a robobrain?” Cross asked.

“Similar, but the fact that they are designed to look like equine skeletons as well as having powerful motors and joints suggest something else,” She then gestured to the other one which had a power cord plugged into its chest. “This one is different, but only slightly.”

The Star Paladin moved closer to the table. Lower class scribes moved out of his way so he could get an unrestricted look at the blown-up robot.

“This one, as clearly seen by its condition, must have been caught in the explosion of the Stroke C Mana-Core. We could determine that this one is entirely made of a lightweight titanium alloy, and that its head and chest are full of mechanical parts. The number on its left eyebrow is different too. The incomplete one is I-01 while this one is I-02. We haven’t uncovered everything yet, but considering how alike they are, I am willing to bet the number means something like a model or version. Oh, and over here Sir,” Scarlet then directed the Paladin to a terminal. A cable ran from the terminal and to the robot’s head. “We attempted to see if we could gleam any data from its CPU but sadly, the loss of all its power has resulted in a complete memory wipe and anything useful. However, there was just one thing.”

On the screen was a single line of text that read. “Infiltrator Mark 2 Unit 1, System Error!”

“Infiltrator?” Cross said as he looked back down at the dead robot. “This was meant to be some sort of spy robot?”

“We are still looking into what they are but a spy is what an Infiltrator is sir.”

Star Paladin Cross’s eyes widened in worry. “I need to have another chat with Knight’s Sour Cream and Caramel about what happened at Paradigm Cybernetics, and then I think I should contact the other contingents. They would likely want to know about these advanced spy robots.”

“That would be a wise move sir. The blast residue and the damage on I-02 is hours old, meaning this robot was once intact and operating at the time of the explosion. Celestia knows if there are more out there.”

With a nod, the Star Paladin thanked the Head Scribe for a job well done and left the labs to question the two knights further. With that finished, he acted on letting the rest of the Steel Ranger Contingents around the wasteland know about the possibility of robot spies.

XXXXX

We shared a rather sombre breakfast with Silver Disk the following morning. Fruity and I gave a more in-depth account of our adventure into the Impact Crater and what happened when we arrived at Paradigm Cybernetics. I felt responsible for the death of Quartermane, despite what both Fruity and Silver say. His death happened because those machines were after me. Silver said he wouldn’t include the two robots in his broadcast so that he wouldn’t endanger me by alerting any more of them. After our breakfast we gathered our things, thanked Silver for being a wonderful host, apologised for Quartermane once more, and we all left to continue our journey. As we were about to leave, Silver warned us that Pondale was Steel Ranger territory and that we should be careful.

We decided to go to Quatermane’s safehouse, like he wanted us to, to resupply. Xian was happy to finally get to travel with us again. The poor filly clung to me tightly as we flew through the streets all the way there, and when we landed she wouldn’t be more than a few steps away from me. It felt eerie to be here knowing that the old explorer was now dead.

We found some food to take with us, a pair of saddlebags that Fruity decided he’d wear, some bottles of purified water and finally, a room full of salvaged weapons. I had to leave the room because the influx of information my electronic brain was feeding me regarding the collection of weapons that was in there gave me a headache. Fruity saw some plasma rifles that he wanted to fix up along with a rifle harness. When he was done, he came out with a fully working plasma battlesaddle. On one side was a standard rifle, and on the other, a rifle he had modified to have a scattershot barrel with three emitters. I decided to have a look at what I could do for my current weapons. Thankfully, I found some mods that Quartermane had ready, maybe from previous guns he had modded or from what he found over the years. With the mods available to me, I modified my lever-action shotgun with a long tube for better ammo capacity, and upgraded its receiver for increased damage and firing rate. Lucky 13 was already upgraded fairly well, but there was a mod that I used that upgraded its receiver.

By the time we had finished, our weapon modifications and resupplied, it was after noon and the clouds had become very dark, like it was going to rain again. Before we left, we turned and faced the building and spoke a prayer to the goddesses to look after Quartermane. Then we turned south and began on our way to our next destination in Pondale.

It took us another couple of hours of navigating the streets of Manehattan to reach a road that headed south towards Pondale, and by then it was lashing it down with rain. Xian walked close to my side, whimpering because of the rain. I used a wing to shield her and keep her dry the best I could. Fruity and I were getting soaked, but our stetsons helped to keep the rain out of our eyes as we walked down the road.

“This is horrible,” I complained.

“Heh, you’ll get used to it. It’s like this nearly every day out here,” Fruity said with a chuckle at my dismay.

“It barely ever rained back in Las Pegasus.”

“Tell me about it. It was hot over there. I felt like I was being cooked,” Fruity complained before he flapped his wings to rid himself of excess water.

“You’ll get used to it,” I said with a smirk.

“Touche,” He said with another chuckle.

I giggled before I looked down to my side to see a miserable filly, shivering from the cold of the rain and wind. “Are you ok Xian?”

The poor filly put on a brave smile and nodded softly while she shivered.

“We need to find some shelter.”

“Agreed, this storm is getting worse, I can feel it,” Fruity said as he looked up.

“Ever since we left the city the buildings along this road have really thinned out,” I said while I looked up and down the road. “And with this storm in full swing it is difficult to see far ahead of us, what with all this haze.”

“Hmm, you’re right. This haze will also make seeing threats difficult,” Fruity said while he scanned the horizon.

We continued down the road a little longer and searched for suitable shelter. Eventually, we found a large warehouse that was still largely intact.

“Finally, we found something,” Fruity said as we came up to the crumpled chain-link fence that surrounded the industrial estate.

“I used to work for this company,” I said absentmindedly when I saw a large sign on the wall as we entered the warehouse grounds.

“Come again?” Fruity asked.

I pointed to the rusted-through sign on the wall of the warehouse. It barely had any colour left but the raised lettering was legible. “Equestrian Rehab Supplies,” I clarified.

We were in luck, for a side door inside a wagon loading bay was open and gave us access to the warehouse, providing shelter from the storm. As we pushed through the door, we got out of the rain and stepped into a dark, wide-open space. It seemed that the power to this place was out.

“I’m cold and wet,” Xian whimpered in her native language as she shivered with water dripping from her.

“So am I sweetie,” I said while I slowly looked around.

To our left, I could see where the processing and packing tables for the products were. In front of us, stretching out to our right, was the racking where all the stock was supposed to be stored. The warehouse appeared to be largely intact, but we could hear running water, likely coming from holes in the roof, which allowed the rain to pour through and flood the warehouse in various places.

“I’ll see if I can find us some towels,” Fruity said as he noticed a door to the right of the one we came in that led to a staffroom.

I nodded in confirmation while I stayed with Xian. The filly then shook herself like a dog, spraying water all over and onto me, the sudden spray making me yelp. The poor filly gasped and dropped into a sitting position looking very apologetic, which I found very cute.

I smiled warmly to put the filly at ease. “It’s ok sweetie, really,” I assured her.

She smiled and leaned against my foreleg. I draped a wing around her comfortingly. While I sat with her waiting for Fruity to return, I looked around again. Being back inside an ERS warehouse brought back memories of my first job as a warehouse operative. ERS sold medical and rehabilitation products to private, commercial or medical establishments across Equestria to help better the lives of those of the old, disabled or suffering mental health problems. From my time in ERS, I remembered picking and packing products ranging from fetlock pads to zimmer frames of various sizes, among other things.

“I found a towel,” Fruity suddenly chirped up, scaring me out of my nostalgia.

“Gah! Don’t do that!” I shrieked.

“Haha, s-sorry.” He gave me the towel before he headed back to the staffroom to try and find another one.

I couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corner of my lips as he walked away. He had a knack for scaring me like that but coupled with good-natured charm, I can’t help but like him for it. I took the towel he had brought into my hooves and dumped it over Xian, who eeped after being covered.

“Hold still please,” I said gently as I began to gently rub the towel up and down on both sides of the filly.

It took a good few minutes, but I eventually dried her the best I could with the towel. I had to hold back a giggle as her fur was matted in every which way. I then gently began to gently stroke her fur straight again with a hoof.

Once Xian was dry, I took off my armour pieces and then hung up my coat on the wrapping machine, which used to be used to wrap pallets in clingfilm, in front of the processing table so it could drip. Thankfully, my boots and socks were dry because of the long back of my coat. My back and torso were wet, however, as the rain soaked through the fabric. Once my hat was hung up, I used my wings to pull the towel over my head to get it dry first, before moving it along to dry my neck, torso and forelegs. It’s times like this I wish we still had manedryers.

After a few minutes of drying myself, Fruity re-joined us, who was also dry. It was at that moment when a loud metallic groan reverberated throughout the warehouse. Xian squeaked in fright and hugged tightly to my foreleg while Fruity and I looked out to the main warehouse.

“What was that?” I asked with my ears stood up in alert.

“Sounds like the roof is suffering from the years of wear and tear,” Fruity said while he stared up at the roof, the rain still hammering at the corrugated metal.

“I still need to get used to all the new sounds that I’ll be hearing out here,” I whined.

“You’ll be hearing a lot of stressed metal noises out here… among other things,” Fruity agreed.

I gently stroked Xian with a reassuring wing. “It’s ok Xian, it’s just sound. It won’t hurt you.”

The filly seemed to relax at this, but she still stayed close to me.

“We should have a quick look around until the storm passes. Maybe we can find something useful,” Fruity suggested.

I nodded in agreement and we began to walk up and down the aisles of the racking. As we walked, Fruity walked on the other side of me so that Xian was in the middle, which helped to make her feel safe and walk in between us and not under my hooves.

We found numerous things but nothing useful and nothing worth selling, as their purpose was no longer appropriate in the wasteland. After five one-hundred-foot aisles of nothing, Fruity suddenly stopped when we entered the next aisle.

“The hell is this?” He asked as he held up a small green box. It was rotted around the top so it lost its identity, but the picture of what it was, was still there. The box showed a rope ladder and on the back, a short rope ladder that was laid out on a bed and tied to the feet of the bed.

“Oh, I remember these. That’s a Bed Rope Ladder. It’s meant for those that have trouble getting into bed and need a little help,” I explained.

Fruity raised a brow as he looked at the diagram on the back. “You sure? Looks like a bondage device to me.”

I burst out into a fit of giggles, for that was exactly what I thought when I first found this product when I worked for this company. “Hehe, that’s my thoughts exactly.”

He laughed with me and chucked the bed rope ladder away as we continued. Sadly, there wasn’t anything that could have been useful or valuable on the shelves nor higher in the racking. If there was, a lot of the stock had been corroded because of the holes in the roof, and the large puddles of water on the floor that had spread to many of the pallets of stock.

Eventually, the rain began to ebb away as we made it to the centre of the warehouse. When we did, we found a huge surprise.

“Um Fruity, what’s this?” I asked in shock, staring up at the large egg-shaped metal object with stabilizing thins on the smaller end. It was tangled up in broken and twisted sheet metal, sitting on the broken racking it landed on and the electrical wires that once ran through ducts in the ceiling were dangling all around it.

“That… would be a Balefire Bomb,” He answered like it was an everyday occurrence.

“Wait what!” I almost screamed at him as I scooped up Xian with a wing and backpedalled several feet away.

“It’s most likely a dud,” He then looked back to the bomb and the nest of metal it made upon its landing. “If it crashed through a steel roof, through the metal racking and then smashed into the floor here WITHOUT exploding, I would say it wouldn’t blow up at all.”

“I don’t give a shit!” I shrieked. “I wouldn’t trust that thing to hang my hat on.” I then set Xian back down on her hooves. “We got a kid to think about here Fruity.”

Fruity looked back to the bomb, then at us. More importantly at the shivering zebra filly with wide scared eyes beside me. His facial expression dropped and became more sombre as he understood the serious nature of situation.

“I guess you’re right,” He turned around and his flank bumped the metal racking, which made it groan loudly with stress.

My ears wilted at the horrible sound of the stressed metal. “Let’s leave before something happens.”

“Yeah, ok. It sounds like the rain is easing off,” Fruity said as he joined us. We began to walk back towards the front of the warehouse.

Before we exited the aisle, I stopped when I noticed another product that I remembered from my warehousing days. “Oh, a Wheelchair Poncho! If we can cut this down, it could make a good cloak for Xian,” I said as I pulled a poncho out from the box. It was still inside its plastic bag, so it wasn’t rotten.

“Why would that make a good cloak for her?” Fruity asked as we walked out of the aisle away from the bomb and towards the packing table.

I opened the packet and pulled out the folded-up poncho, designed to cover an adult pony in a wheelchair. “It is made from resistant materials. If it rains again before we make it to Pondale, this will make a good coat for Xian if we cut it down to size.”

Fruity nodded as he began to look for something to cut it with. Eventually, we found an old safety knife. Although it was slightly rusty, its blade was still sharp enough to cut the fabric of the poncho. After a quick session of cutting and having Xian try it on (with some more cutting to get it just right), we had a small cloak made for the young filly.

“There you go Xian. This should help keep you dry,” I offered as I held out the newly made cloak out for her.

She eyed it for a moment, then poked her head through the hole in the middle and let the cloak drape down over her back to cover her sides and flanks. She looked herself over and smiled. “Tha… thank you,” She said. She still needed work with her Equestrian as she had to start that again, but she was progressing well. I couldn’t be happier with how far she’s come in such a short time.

“Alright, let’s get out of here. I will actually feel safer outside and away from that bomb,” I said.

Fruity nodded as he led the way out.

Once we got back out of the warehouse and onto the road, we continued onto Pondale. The rain was still present but it had devolved into a fine rain that wasn’t so bad. However, as the hours passed and the sky began to darken, we realised that we were still a fair distance away from our destination, and shelter for the night wasn’t looking to be close by. There was no chance we were turning back to spend the night in a place that could explode and kill us all. Since leaving the warehouse, we encountered fewer buildings until we were just walking down a long road with nothing around but open land. That was another thing. We hadn’t seen any dangerous creatures or ponies since Manehattan either. We could just be lucky or we’d eventually run into something nasty that’d explain the stillness of the area.

“It’s gonna get dark real soon,” I commented as I looked up at the near black clouds. “We need to find shelter. Preferably something with a roof.”

“If you are worried about Bloodwings, don’t worry too much,” Fruity said while he scanned the area. “Open land like this with no cover even for them, they will keep together in small clusters for protection. That will make them an easy target.”

“I suppose so, but for Xian’s sake I’d rather avoid them.”

“I get ya, don’t worry. I’m still looking for something we can use for shelter,” The pegasus assured.

“We should have stopped at that Spark Battery Recharging Station ten minutes ago,” I whined.

“And have you screaming because of rats? No thank you.”

After another hour, it was on the verge of total darkness outside. Without the open sky, stars or moon, the clouds made the surface incredibly dark and the sun was about to set. Luckily for us, we stumbled upon an articulated lorry that had belonged to Starlight Industries, if the massive Starlight Industries banner on the side of the trailer was any indication.

When we walked around to the back, we found that the door was wide open, with a makeshift ramp that led up into the trailer. We hurried up into the trailer to get out of the open and found a mattress inside, along with a lunchbox and several metal boxes of miscellaneous junk inside them related to the company. There was also a portable cooking stove next to the bed and a Mare-do-Well Comic laying on said bed. One the boxes had an assortment of gemstones, and I sorely needed some more if I was to keep my power level topped up on the move. I gave the comic to Xian because it might help her equestrian reading and give her something fun to look at instead of this abysmal landscape.

“This looks cosy,” I commented as I looked at the contents of the trailer. It looked like it was arranged to be somepony’s living accommodations.

“Looks like somepony lived here once,” Fruity pointed out as he set his bags and battlesaddle down, stretching out his back and wings.

“Think we’ll be safe here for the night?” I asked with a hint of worry.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” He said with his goofy smile. I couldn’t help but smile back and feel slightly relieved at his confident optimism. He almost always had a positive outlook on things. I hoped with what he was helping me achieve and what was chasing us that it didn’t hurt that quality of his. It would break my heart if he lost that positive light.

“Bollocks. No shutter,” He said quietly to himself while he examined the doorframe.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I unloaded my stuff beside the bed, and removed my armour and coat so I could lay on the mattress in my fur.

“There is no door. It’s gonna be open all night,” He replied as he turned to his plasma rifle battlesaddle and pulled it closer to the door, and then began to rummage through the many boxes around us.

I lay down on the mattress, which was big enough for all of us, and helped Xian out of her new cloak. “What are you doing now?” I asked once I pulled the small makeshift cloak off the young filly, folded it up neatly and put it with my things.

“Aha!” Fruity chirped happily when he found some wire.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m setting up a tripwire trap so that if anything tries to get in here, it’s gonna get both barrels of my plasma saddle.”

I smiled warmly at his thoughtfulness, then smiled a little brighter when Xian cuddled up against my side.

“There. That should do it,” Fruity said after he finished setting up his trap across the floor at the entrance to the truck. He then removed his duster and just dumped it on the floor by the bed before settling down beside me and draping a comforting wing across my withers. I shivered with delight at his touch and leaned against him.

“Hmm. Is this the first time we have actually slept together?” I asked as I rested my head into the crook of his neck while I draped my wing over Xian.

“What about that time before I found out what you are?” He asked while he gently used his chin to stroke the top of my head.

“I wasn’t myself then. I kinda used you because of my emotional state, so it didn’t count,” I said sadly.

“I guess you’re right. It’s ok though. I forgave you after you explained yourself so we started again remember?” He leaned his head down to gently pecked my cheek. “Things have been so much better between us after that, despite the obvious things.”

I leaned my head back so I could look at him and smiled appreciatively at him. “You are so nice to me.”

I could see Xian watching us with her big green eyes from the corner of my eye as Fruity leaned his head closer to me.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” He asked with his goofy smile before tilted his head slightly to one side and pressed his lips up against mine in a kiss. I let out a surprised moan, but then closed my eyes, melted into the kiss and pushed back, reciprocating the action with as much vigour.

XXXXX

The rain had stopped a couple of hours ago. The night had fully set in, bathing the world of the Equestrian Wasteland in darkness. The darkness acted as the perfect cover for plenty of the wasteland’s many creatures; for as once the sun goes down, the predators began their hunt, making the land more dangerous for those not wary. But this night, the darkness helped to conceal something else as it stood on the roof of the ruined Spark Battery Recharging Station, staring down the road south.

The robotic pony in scorched combat armour had his gaze locked on a lorry a few miles down the road. Despite the old truck being almost invisible in the dark of the night, he could still track her power signature over the distance between them. He was close enough to feel her Mana-Core.

Nexus remained rooted to the roof, watching the lorry. He may no longer felt compelled to follow his original programming, but he still felt obligated to ensure her safety (like his secondary objective had stated). After killing a Hellhound that surely would have killed them all, and distracting the two Mark 2 units that ambushed them in Paradigm Cybernetics, Nexus felt he needed to approach them; but after what happened at the entrance to Stable 16 that led to his new-found personality, he wasn’t sure how he could do it without them attacking him upon sight.

While the machine pondered on how he could peacefully approach I-01 and the pegasus without getting his head blown off (more likely now with the foal around), his audio receptors began to pick up an unusual sound in the night. Having been wandering the wastelands, following his target, he had absorbed quite a lot information from the world and the ponies he had hidden himself from. As the sound grew louder and clearer, he recognised it as music and the track was the familiar tune played by the numerous Sprite-Bots, often seen flying around the wastes. He turned his head back in the direction of the city and sure enough, there was a Sprite-Bot bobbing along up the road towards the truck while pumping out the “March of the Parasprite” tune.

“What is one of those doing all the way out here at this time of night?” Nexus asked himself, feeling a little suspicious about the little droid.

When the small droid got within a few feet of the lorry, its music suddenly cut out and its lazy bobbing flight pattern suddenly became rigid and more controlled. This immediately flew up red flags for Nexus. He quickly picked up the Pipe Sniper Rifle from his back and took aim. Looking down through the scope, he could clearly see that the Sprite-Bot had turned to face the trailer and was hovering along the side, heading towards the rear.

“It must have sensed them as well,” He said to himself as he tightened the nano-fibre hairs around the stock and trigger of his rifle. “Can’t let it get inside.”

He followed its movement until he was satisfied with his aim and fired. The bang from his weapon was just a quiet pop over by the truck and wouldn’t have raised any alarm if heard. However, the Sprite-Bot felt something smash into its light-alloy spherical body, and then tear right through and into its core mechanics. With a .308 bullet tearing through its core, the small bot lost its ability to remain airborne, and with a sputter and pop, it fell to the ground like a lead weight.

Nexus sighed in relief as a response to preventing any more harm to come to I-01 again. He felt a sense of accomplishment for protecting them.

Meanwhile, in a cave hidden within a mountain somewhere far away, a large purple dragon with green spines let out a surprised cry as the Sprite-Bot he was controlling suddenly went dark in a loud burst of static.

XXXXX

The next morning, we awoke to some strong winds, but luckily no rain. The wind wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t get too strong, and unlike the west it was too wet to create dust storms.

We didn’t waste any time getting our stuff together, and we left the truck to continue onwards towards Pondale in the early morning light. It did worry us when we found the dead Sprite-Bot beside the trailer with a bullet hole through it, but since we were still alive we decided that it might have been shot by someone that just passed by at a distance. Either way, we had not been discovered by it or who shot it.

The next couple of miles were pretty boring, except for when we witnessed a monster attack at a riverbank off from the road. We were crossing a bridge that crossed a river that was more of a trickle now, but still very muddy around what used to be the riverbed. We noticed a pony, whether the pony was a wastelander, raider or somepony else we couldn’t tell from the distance, but he was trying to reach for something in the mud. At first, we thought there was a small group of rocks near the pony, but we couldn’t be more wrong. For when the pony reached for what he was going for, the rock formation exploded from the mud and it turned out to be some giant four-legged creature. The creature had short stumpy forelegs but long, muscular hindlegs, a thick tail, a thick looking grey scaly hide and a split jawed head. It grabbed the pony with its jaws and multiple tongues, and pulled him down into the mud. Fruity and I didn’t stick around to see what happened next as we didn’t want to attract the monster’s attention. When we had got far enough away, I asked the inevitable question about the creature and even Fruity didn’t know what that thing was, so we just left it that and hoped to never see it again.

By the time it reached noon, we had passed a road sign that said that Pondale was about ten miles away, meaning we’d make it pretty soon. When we stopped to take a break, Fruity decided he would fly up a bit so he could see what lay ahead at our destination. When he landed, he told me he saw a large military base off to the side of the old town, and that we should try ditching the main road so that we could enter the town away from the military base, and therefore the likelihood of Steel Ranger detection.

Shortly after our break, we continued forward. We came to a T-junction where the road would branch off, either going straight into the town via the main road where it was likely being watched, or through this B road that would probably pass by some places on the way outside of the town before entering the town someplace else.

“We should certainly take this side road,” Fruity suggested. “It probably won’t be guarded or watched like the main road. If it is, it won’t be anywhere near as heavy.”

I nodded and then laid down. “Climb on up Xian. We’ll likely want to move fast or fly at a moment’s notice,” I told the little filly.

Xian nodded with her wide fearful eyes, looking around at the twisted scenery as she climbed onto my back and hugged her forelegs around my neck. As we got closer to the town, the number of dead trees grew exponentially; and to a young filly that was used to the almost barren desert region of the Marejave, it probably did look terrifying for her. With the young filly secure on my back, I nodded to Fruity and we began to trot at a brisk pace down the road away from the main road in the hope of avoiding a possible major Steel Ranger presence.

After a couple of hours longer, we finally entered Pondale from its industrial side. The road we were following took us between several collapsed cotton and steel mills. One of the mills was still standing along with its chimney, and I assumed that was only because the reinforcing rings around the chimney and the brickwork having metal ties along the wall were holding the old building together. These old mills even pre-dated the start of the war, and several had work done to them to reinforce them so that they wouldn’t collapse due to age. I was surprised this one hadn’t collapsed like the others, but I didn’t want to disturb it in case it pushed its integrity over the edge.

Once we cleared the mills, we could see the town. It was an old rustic town where most of the buildings and houses were built from stone and had slate roofs. Behind the town was a small mountain that even from here, we could see had a large hole cut into it. I remembered some Stable-Tec newsletters saying that some stables would be built into the faces of mountains or under them, so I supposed a Stable may lie inside this mountain. While gazing out over the town, we noticed how most of the buildings were small. Mostly residential, apart from the town hall that was the biggest building in the middle of the town and had distinct Romane columns holding up the roof over its front door. The really big buildings, those used for commercial, were located on the outskirts like these mills.

“Well, I can already see a problem,” Fruity said as he gazed out over the town.

“What do you see?” I asked as I stood beside him and followed where he was looking.

“The town looks to be divided. On one side, we got the walking toasters along with that base of theirs, and on the other side we got everypony’s favourite knobs, as well as some sort of no-pony’s-land in the middle of the town,” Fruity said while pointing out what he could see. I nodded as I followed where he pointed. The town on the west side appeared to be occupied by the Steel Rangers and looked relatively normal. But on the east side, the town appeared to be occupied by Raiders and it was clear to see their territory. The Raiders had built makeshift defences, fences and even walkways across roofs all throughout the east side. Another big giveaway was how nearly every square inch of Raider territory was tagged with some sort of graffiti.

“What do you suggest?” I asked, not liking what we could see.

“I think our best bet would be to take the middle ground between the two factions, but keep towards the Steel Ranger side. I think the Raiders would be more inclined to cause a ruckus and draw attention than the Rangers would.”

I nodded in agreement. “I also think we should try for the town hall. If we are to find the Colonel’s home, we’ll need a map so that we aren’t searching aimlessly in either group’s territory.”

“Good idea,” Fruity nodded with a smile of approval. “Ok, we’ll need to be very careful because the town hall is on the Ranger’s side.”

I nodded and then turned my head around to check on Xian. “How are you holding up Xian? Are you ok?” I asked her softly.

“I-it’s kinda, um, c-creepy here,” She whimpered while gently tightening her grip around my neck.

I gave her my best reassuring smile. “Don’t worry honey. Both Fruity and I are here to look out for you,” I told her.

“Yeah, don’t worry kid,” Fruity assured while flashing her a cocky smile.

We gave the town another once over before we followed the road from the industrial area down into the town proper. We moved cautiously between the buildings to minimise our exposure. The walls of the buildings in this supposedly no-pony’s-land were riddled with bullet holes, and the old road had been peppered with small craters from explosions caused by mines or the Steel Rangers’ heavy weaponry.

I used my tail to gently pick up Xian and put her back down on the broken pavement in between us. “Sorry Xian. I just don’t want you to be an easy target on my back,” I said to her softly. “Stay between us.”

“She’s right Xi,” Fruity agreed before he took his battlesaddle’s firing bit into his mouth in preparation.

I was constantly looking at the buildings we were approaching and their roofs. Even when my EFS was showing no targets, I still scanned the area because I didn’t know how far its range was. However, after a good ten minutes of nothing, my synthetic hearing began to pick up a sound up ahead.

“Fruity, can you hear something?” I asked while my ears perked up and strained to ear better.

“Now that you mention it, I can just about here something but I can’t tell what.”

I nodded, glad to know I wasn’t going nuts. As we grew closer to the sound, it got clearer and clearer, until I could identify the sound and it made my blood run cold.

“That’s a foal crying!” I gaped with a horrified look on my face and quickened my pace to find the source.

“Whoa, hey Crystal, hold up!” Fruity urged.

I couldn’t slow down. I felt compelled to help this innocent foal in need. What decent pony would ignore the pleas of a foal? Finally, after rounding a corner of a ruined corner shop, a foal carriage came into sight and my synthetic vision highlighted the pram as the source of the foal cry.

“Fruity, keep an eye on Xian while I check on this foal,” I told him before I quickly made my way over to the foal carriage that was on the curb nearest the Raider territory.

“Crystal wait… something feels off about this,” Fruity called over to me.

I came up to the pram on its left side and peered inside. “It’s ok little one I’m…” I cut myself off at what I saw inside the pram. It wasn’t a foal. There was hiss and a clunk once I got close, like I triggered something.

“Wait… Oh shit, Crystal! Get away, NOW, it’s a BOMB!” Fruity screamed to me, but it was too late. I realised too late myself when my threat warning flashed. The eyes of the doll’s head that sat upon a couple of frag mines inside the pram glowed red as it primed to blow. I began to turn, to try and jump away, but just as I got my body parallel with the foal carriage it exploded in a violent shower of shrapnel and fire.

The blast consumed most of my face and shoulder. I felt a great burning pain across my skin, and over most of the right side of my face. I also felt numb around my eye and cheek. I cried out in pain as the force of the blast threw me across the road and back over to my coltfriend and little Xian. I could smell burnt flesh and clothing, and my vision had become wonky with half being in colour and the other being in electric blue.

“Oh shit, are you ok?” Fruity cried out in concern as he rushed over to my side and wrapped his forelegs around me to help pull me back up, despite my weight difference.

I groaned as my head was spinning and my ears were ringing from the explosion, but I was able to pull myself together enough to focus onto Fruity.

“Ugh, I feel – ohhhh… Like I’ve been hit by – ugh - by a sledgehammer,” I grunted in pain. The force of the explosion really rattled my endoskeleton. When I talked I got a weird sense of breeze blowing right through my mouth, and my voice had a slight electronic twinge to it.

“I’m so sorry Crystal. I should have known that was a trap,” Fruity growled to himself. “It wasn’t until you were too close to it that I remembered that those fucktards often leave traps like that lying around.”

I groaned as I pulled myself up into a sitting position. “Ugh… It’s not your fault, I shouldn’t have just… ran off like I did.”

“Wait, you’re no zebra. What the fuck are you?” A young feminine voice yelled out from behind Fruity.

We all turned in surprise to find that somepony had stumbled upon us, and was standing in a ginnel between two houses: A Steel Ranger. She wasn’t decked out in power armour, but she was wearing a black jumpsuit with a complete set of copper-coloured combat armour attached to her legs, shoulders and chest. She wore no helmet and her mane flopped down nearly over one eye, and was cut so it wouldn’t be any longer than hanging down to be level with her cheek. Her mane was white, although half of it was red from having been dyed at one point. The surprising thing about her was that she was entirely white from nose to tail, but her eyes were red. To top it off, she was a unicorn too. The other surprising element about this young Steel Ranger unicorn was that she also wore a Pip-Buck on her left foreleg, which was unexpected. She stared at us, primarily me, with her big bright red eyes. Meanwhile, her horn glowed with a colourless magic, levitating a scoped, black repeater rifle that was aimed at us.

“Whoa there. Easy, we don’t wanna cause any trouble,” Fruity said calmly as he stepped forward.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Enclave Reject!” She snapped harshly.

I stood up and wobbled slightly since I was still recovering from the explosion. “Please don’t shoot. We just need to find someplace and then we’ll leave,” I said with a shake of my head.

The young mare stepped closer, fully exposing herself and to our surprise, she had to be in her teens with how young she looked as well as her stature, but she carried a strong but hateful glare as she pointed her rifle at me. “I didn’t ask that Stripe! I asked what the fuck you are. You are certainly not equine?”

“Oh shit, you’re exposed,” Fruity whispered.

I reached up to my cheek, which still felt numb, and froze with wide eyes when I felt my hoof touch not only my teeth, but a control rod that helped to open and close my mouth as well. That explained the odd breeze feeling going inside my mouth. As I trailed my hoof up, I then realised my right eye was also exposed, which also explained why half of what I saw was in an electric blue hue.

“I…I…” I was at a loss for words now that I was exposed to somepony that was part of a group that liked to take pre-war tech for themselves as if it belonged to them. Considering I’m some sort of robot, they would certainly see me as such a thing or something to destroy, and I didn’t know how to respond.

“I asked you a question Stripe!” The young mare growled more forcefully.

Suddenly Xian jumped out in front of me, tears streaming down her cheeks as she looked up at the young Steel Ranger with a gun pointed at me.

“Please don’t hurt mummy!” She cried out as loud as she could in the best equestrian she could possibly speak.

The hateful glare evaporated the moment she laid eyes on Xian. Her face dropped into that of one of sadness and remembrance. As she stared as Xian, her gun lowered and Fruity seized this as his opportunity to dash forward. The sudden movement seemed to snap the teenage mare out of her thoughts, but it wasn’t fast enough as before she could raise her gun back up, Fruity quickly raised his hoof and smacked her on the horn hard. With a cry of utter agony, she dropped to her haunches and clutched at her forehead with her forehooves, crying in pain. The smack to her horn also instantaneously cut off her magic, and her repeater rifle fell to the ground beside her, which Fruity was quick to kick over to me.

I picked up her rifle with my tail while I stepped forward, then sat behind Xian and gently pulled her into a comforting hug as the poor filly had begun to cry. “There, there,” I cooed softly to her.

“Don’t want you calling your tin can friends now do we?” Fruity said as he used his wing to pluck out a small black earpiece from the mare’s ear. He then threw it on the ground and stomped on it.

“Argh fuck! Don’t you have any idea how much that fucking hurt?” She growled with tears in her eyes.

“Probably as much as somepony pulling out our feathers,” Fruity shot back.

“Look, um, we don’t want any trouble. We just want to find a house and then we’ll leave, that’s it,” I told the young mare.

The white mare looked at me while she still held her head.

“Look kid, maybe we can make an arrangement,” Fruity said as he sat down beside me.

“My name is Appletart and not a kid. I’m sixteen,” She grumbled irritably. Wow she was quickly angered.

“Ok, ok, simmer down Appletart,” Fruity said softly. “Maybe you can help us get to where we need to go quickly and help us avoid Steel Ranger patrols. In return, we’ll give you back your gun.”

I nodded as it sounded like a good plan from Fruity. “In fact,” I began. “If you agree to help us, I’ll give your gun back now,” I said while holding the rifle up for her to see.

“What makes you think I won’t just shoot you when you give me my gun back anyway?” Appletart asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because I don’t think even you are that stupid,” Fruity replied while gesturing to his plasma battlesaddle.

There was a whimper from between my forelegs as Xian hugged close for comfort. Again, the young mare’s attitude changed, becoming more sombre and calmer when she looked at how scared Xian was.

With a heavy sigh, the teenage mare spoke again. “Alright, fine. Where do you need to go?”

“7 Crescent Road in the Steeple District,” I told her and then gave her back her rifle with my tail. She holstered her rifle once I let go.

“That is oddly specific,” She pointed out.

“Like I said, we need to find a house.”

“Well, it is in our territory and close to the base of the mountain,” Appletart said with a hint of sadness upon mentioning the mountain.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way, Snowy,” Fruity chirped.

“Call me that again, and I’ll be sure to clip your wings,” The young Steel Ranger threatened. “And it won’t be that easy either. We have recently been put on high alert so our patrols have been increased.”

“Why is that?” I asked curiously.

“Because of you,” She pointed out.

“Me!?”

“Yeah. Something to do with the Manehattan Contingent discovering the remains of what they called Spy Robots. We have all been put on high alert in case there are more. You certainly fit the bill for a spy robot, what with you having skin on top your robot body,” Appletart explained.

“Shit… when Quartermane sacrificed himself and killed those two robots that were chasing us, the Steel Rangers must have stumbled upon their remains,” Fruity theorised quietly to me.

“Well, we better get moving if we want to avoid as many patrols as possible,” Appletart grumbled.

“Oh, and don’t think about trying to lure us to your base. I’ve seen it so I’ll know if you’re trying to trick us.”

“As much as I don’t want to help a robot and her Enclave Reject pet, I don’t want to see that filly get hurt or become motherless…” She said with a sigh. “Though I don’t understand how that little kid has grown attached to a robot,” She added under her breath.

“Celestia almighty, calm down,” Fruity sighed.

“Ugh, just come on,” Appletart said as she got up and began to trot towards the buildings on the Steel Rangers side. “One rule: follow my directions when I say.”

“Ok,” I agreed as I picked up Xian and placed her on my back again. “Hold on tight again Xian. You’ll be just fine,” I said softly to her.

We followed close behind the young Ranger but kept vigilant, just in case we ran into trouble or Appletart went against her word and led us right into a patrol. Thankfully, as we followed the young mare we could tell she was leading us towards the mountain, and every so often she would stop us a short distance away from a street while a patrol passed by. She had to stop us a few times, which did reflect on their high alert status with how much they were patrolling.

While we were following Appletart, I decided to break the ice to try and lighten the mood.

“Um, my name is Crystal Éclair,” I began nervously. “This is my coltfriend Fruity, and the filly on my back is Xian.”

The young mare looked around a corner of a stone building before she continued up the street. “It is nice to see that you feel for each other,” She said while giving us a sidelong glance. “But a bit odd with her being a machine, since it would mean she isn’t real.”

“She is indeed real kid. She’s more of a real pony than you realise,” Fruity defended with his wings extended.

“Oh?”

I sighed. “It is why we are here. Where we are going might have the exact location to where I need to go to get the answers I need. You see, inside this robotic head, is my organic brain,” I explained and paused for a moment to let it sink in. “I used to be a full flesh and blood Crystal Pony before somepony by the name of Colonel Ironside got his hooves on me. When I woke up after what he had done to me, I found myself here in this hell and like this.”

Appletart turned to look at me fully. “You’re a victim, just like so many others,” She said sadly. “That is something we have in common. I am just as much of a victim and thrusted into this world as you are,” She said glumly.

“What happened to you?” I asked cautiously. “Um, if… if you don’t mind me asking?”

Appletart sighed deeply and pointed up to the mountain with the hole. “There, inside the mountain is Stable 88 and that was my home for eight years,” She began. I suppose that explains where the Pip-Buck came from. “Everything was fine until one day a group of Raiders attacked, heavily armed and used a technologically advanced cutting torch to cut through the door. They slaughtered everypony once they got inside. I was only one spared because my mother put me inside a panic room. That day I lost everypony I knew, including my mother. My home was rendered unliveable so I was forced to leave. I was picked up by a Steel Ranger patrol that came to investigate the unusual Raider activity, and since then I’ve been living and training under them. I’ve been an Initiate ever seen.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, feeling horrible for her having to have relived such a painful memory.

“Its fine,” She said with a sigh.

“Eight years and you are still an Initiate. Surely you would have been promoted by now,” Fruity said.

“I’m only sixteen. I won’t be granted those higher ranks until I’m eighteen and pass my final exam. I’m lucky they let me patrol.”

“Well I hate to break it to ya kid, but the Steel Rangers aren’t all they are cracked up to be,” Fruity grumbled.

“What do you know...?”

“Don’t call me “Enclave Reject” again, for the love of Celestia,” Fruity interrupted with a sigh.

“Alright… Feathers,” She smirked.

“Ugh, let’s just keep going,” Fruity groaned while I giggled.

We stopped at a street corner. Fruity and I with Xian on my back hung back while Appletart checked around the corner to be sure it was clear. The white unicorn crouched down low to make herself as low as possible, hid as much of her body as she could, and levitated her scoped repeater rifle, peering down the scope. She stayed like that, slowly sweeping her rifle back and forth, for a little while before she pulled back and sighed with relief.

“Ok. Patrol route is clear, but we’ll need to be quick to avoid another patrol. There is a small park at the end of the street that we can pass through to cut some time off to bring us much closer to Crescent Road sooner,” She explained.

“Ok, lead the way. We’ll be close behind you,” I said before I gave a rundown on what was about to happen to Xian. The little filly nodded, gently hugged herself to the back of my neck and got herself ready.

With a nod, the young Steel Ranger holstered her rifle and began to trot down the street at a brisk pace. This area of the town looked pretty good for its age, despite the boarded-up doors and some windows. The stone houses and buildings lining the street looked to be in good condition. As we approached the park, we came across an area of the street that looked as if a small battle had taken place. There were bullet holes in the windows and in the stone walls, as well as a large crater in the middle of the road that was full of rain water.

Suddenly, my threat warning flashed and the sound of grinding caught my attention from above. I quickly looked up just in time to see a cascade of roof slate tiles slide off the roof of the boarded-up hotel beside us and start tumbling down like lethal razor blades. With the way the slates were coming down in a wide spread, they would land on us all.

“Fruity, tiles!” I warned while I pointed one of my large feathery wings up.

“Whoa!” He exclaimed as he beat his wings and high jumped to the opposite side of the street to avoid the falling blade-like slates.

The young teen mare that was in front of us didn’t know where the danger was, and was looking around frantically on ground level. I quickly guessed the young mare wouldn’t see the tiles until it was too late, so I jumped forward to be beside her. I quickly scanned the area around me, my synthetic eyes helping me identify anywhere close by that we could use for shelter. Just next to us was a bus stop, so I quickly shoved Appletart under the bus shelter. Then, as quickly as I could, I plucked Xian off my back and sat her down in the corner and braced myself on top of her, to shield her from any shards that might bounce in at us when the tiles hit the floor and shatter. The second we had before the tiles finally struck ground was agonisingly slow, but when the slates began to hit the metal roof of the shelter or the street in front of us, it sounded like the world was falling apart. During the rain of slates, I felt small fragments pepper my rear and legs until something sharp bit into my left thigh.

“Eeyow!” I yelped in pain from the stabbing feeling in my leg. I turned my head to get a look. A large splinter of slate had stuck into my thigh just below my glyphmark.

“You used yourself to shield your foal and…” The young unicorn looked surprised and a little conflicted, as she dispelled a small shield spell she had used to encapsulate herself with during the hail of slates. “You can feel pain?”

“Yes - ow, ugh - the pony that made me… designed me so I could still feel things like I could have when I still full flesh and blood,” I explained with a wince. “Would you be a dear and – ow - pull this out please?” I then held out my leg with the big slate splinter sticking out of it.

“Um, sure,” She said as her horn lit up with its clear magical light, and with a swift yank, she pulled the large splinter from my thigh.

I bit my lip to prevent me from screaming out due to the pain. I could feel my thigh throb after the slate was removed, and grow a little damp and sticky as blood slowly oozed from the small wound and into the elastic of the top of the sock I wore. “T-thank you.”

The young mare nodded. She gave me a sidelong glance before she stepped out of the bus shelter to continue down the road.

Fruity rejoined us and didn’t look very happy. “You could have used your little shield spell to protect them too, you know,” He grumbled.

“Fruity!” I chided quietly.

“I would not have been able to. I am still learning to master my shield spell control. I can manifest a shield large enough for myself and strong enough to protect from most melee weapons and thrown weapons, but it isn’t strong enough to deflect bullets. I would need greater control of my spell work before I can move on to bigger shields,” She explained.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just being protective,” I said softly and then nuzzled Fruity to silence a protest. “Anyway, what happened here to leave the street looking like a warzone?”

“Raiders…” Appletart said with a hint of anger.

I nodded, but then stopped and looked back to where the tiles now littered the floor in sharp shards, and then looked up to the roof of the hotel where there was now a large portion of the slate roof missing. I narrowed my eyes at the structure to try and get a better view.

“Hey, you ok?” Fruity asked as he gently nudged me to get my attention.

“Huh? Oh yea, um, just wondered what made all those tiles come crashing down,” I told him while still staring up at the roof.

“This town is very old. I wouldn’t be surprised if anything just fell apart due to age,” Appletart said as she looked back to see if we were following.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” Fruity asked with worry since I was still staring at the roof.

“Yeah, I think… it’s just that, I dunno how to explain it, but it’s like I can feel a presence or something and… its coming from up there,” I said while pointing at the roof.

Fruity opened his mouth to say something but Appletart beat him to it. “Hey! We gotta move before another patrol comes through here, so let’s move! Double time ponies!” She ordered.

XXXXX

Nexus leaned back against the intact portion of the roof, and had lowered himself so the rim of the building would hide him from view down by street level.

“Stupid. I should have known the roof wouldn’t have been able to hold my weight,” The scorched armoured robot chided himself. “It is not the right time to show myself yet.”

He waited for a few moments, listening to the ponies in the street and waiting for them to continue. When he was sure they had moved on, he edged to the rim of the wall and looked down into the street. He saw I-01 and the ponies accompanying her turn off and enter a dead park. Now that it was safe to do so he stood up, but a hint of movement caught his attention further up the road.

“Steel Ranger patrol, just like what the young unicorn had warned about,” The machine reached onto his back with his nano-fibre tail and plucked the crude pipe sniper rifle off his back, holding it ready to fire. There was now a large black drum on the end of the gun barrel that was full of small holes. He had crafted a suppressor to give his makeshift sniper quieter shots. “Let’s give them a distraction,” He said to himself as he aimed through the scope at a window close to the approaching patrol.

XXXXX

The park was full of brown, lifeless grass and wilted, leafless trees. It was a very disturbing sight for me because I remembered what parks used to look like: lush and green (from what I remembered from my visits in the Crystal Empire), places of relaxation and recreation with friends and family. This park was lifeless and brought with it a feeling of dread and despair, with bones lying around on the numerous benches or in the ruined foals’ playground.

“Oh, be careful. There are Mole-rats here,” Appletart warned.

“M-mole-rats?” I repeated as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Those asshole Raiders brought a bunch with them for some reason, but a few escaped and have been breeding like crazy. So now we got a rodent problem here in town,” The young mare explained. “The little buggers like to pop up just about anywhere, especially if there are large portions of open soil like this.”

I began to sweat with anxiety and looked everywhere I could as we followed Appletart. Mole-rats, like mice and rats, were things that terrified me because of my phobia. If these Mole-rats were anything like the Giant Rats I’ve seen back over in the Marejave, then I’m not going to have a good day.

Suddenly, there was an explosion of dirt in front of us and when the dust settled, there was a large pink skinned creature that had small eyes but huge teeth snarling at us. I felt my limbs lock up and my eyes widen in terror at the sight of the medium dog-sized Mole-rat.

“Ahh shit!” Appletart cursed before she quickly used her magic to grab the rat in her telekinetic force and snapped its neck with a quick, if somewhat violent jerk. “I hope it didn’t bring its friends,” She grumbled as she tossed the limp body of the rodent aside.

Unfortunately, we weren’t that lucky as almost instantaneously after she killed the first one, half a dozen more burst up from holes all around us. One of them happened to burst up right in front of me. I screamed in terror, stomped it to death before it could react to me and ran for the park exit up ahead. I cried as I ran, cursing how ugly the rats were and how much I hated them for how much they terrified me.

“Crystal… Crystal, stop, please. I can’t hold on,” Xian whimpered tearily in a small scared voice as I galloped in fright for the park exit. Behind me I could hear shouts and gun fire, energy discharges from plasma weapons, and the cries of pain from the mutated rodents as Fruity and Appletart took care of them. “Mummy please!” Xian begged.

Hearing the teary whimper of the young filly calling me “Mummy” again made me stop in my tracks. I looked back to see the young filly desperately trying to stay on my back, despite my medical box and shotgun acting like an uncomfortable seat. Now that I had stopped, she was able to sit herself back comfortably between my wings and hugged against herself to my neck again. “I… I’m so sorry Xian. Rodents, they… scare me, more than anything.”

Xian blinked a couple of times while she processed this before she hugged the back of my neck and gently rubbed her cheek into my mane. “It’s… it’s ok mummy, we all get, um,” She paused while she mumbled the world in zebrican a few times before saying it in equestrian. “Scared.”

“Why the hell did you run away like that?!” Appletart yelled at me as she and Fruity rejoined us. She wasn’t happy at all, and looked to have some scratches on her cheek and on her armour. “We could have seriously used your help back there!”

“I…” I began only to falter under her scrutiny.

“Hey, calm the fuck down!” Fruity told her. “She has a phobia of rodents, anything like them freak her out!” He flared his wings and stood in front of me protectively. “How would you feel if your greatest fear just suddenly showed up huh?”

“Whatever,” She grunted and pushed passed us, giving Fruity a shove with her shoulder as she pushed passed him. “C’mon. We’re nearly there.”

“Thank you,” I smiled warmly up to Fruity.

He gently nuzzled me. “Anytime Crys,” He said with a smile before he began to follow our angry unicorn companion. I quickly hurried along with Xian clinging to my neck.

We followed Appletart, cutting through alleyways when we could and walking up some streets until we came to a road that led to a street that curled around in the shape of a crescent. Behind the street was the looming mountain, which by this point in the day, casted the whole region of the town in shadow. On the street corner was a small sign bolted to bent post that read “Crescent Road”.

“We’re here,” I smiled. “Thank you.”

The young mare just grunted, which made my ears wilt. I looked down and away from her because I felt like I had really upset her when I ran scared by the Mole-rats.

“Oh, come on, lighten up,” Fruity groaned at her. “Why do you get so pissed off all the time?”

She just sneered at him and began to continue onwards onto Crescent Road.

I began to replay all the interactions we had with the young mare. Sure, not all of them had been pleasant, but she seemed to get really angry at the mention of Raiders. She had been thrust into this world as a little foal from a similar world that I grew up in. The anger brought up when Raiders were mentioned I could easily assume were her feelings towards them for what they did to her, her stable, her mother and everypony she ever knew. I’m no expert, but if she was this easy to anger and her anger could easily be triggered by Raiders in any form, then I assumed that she never dealt with her grief and had let her pain and anger fester into something bad.

“Appletart, you… you gotta let go of this hate you feel for Raiders,” I said, taking a gamble on my hunch.

She stopped and spun around, her face twisted into an angry sneer.

“What the fuck do you know huh?” She demanded. “What does a fucking robot know about my pain?”

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down,” Fruity said trying to defuse the situation.

“I think I understand you better than you know…” I then went on to tell her how I woke up in this world. How I found out I hadn’t been asleep for five years but a hundred and ninety-five. How like her, I’ve lost everypony I’ve ever known. To top it all off, I was completely clueless as to why this was done to me. I could understand the feeling of pain and anger as I’ve felt it myself, but I did not let it fester.

She looked at me with wide thoughtful eyes, like she was seeing me again for the first time.

“Believe us Appletart. Blind anger will you get nowhere in the wasteland,” Fruity said softly.

I nodded in agreement. “You have to let that anger go before it’ll lead you into a hole that you’ll never get out of.”

She looked a little conflicted before all our attention was captured by a large explosion somewhere deep in the town. A large plume of smoke rose into the air and began to flow across the town, carried by the winds.

“That was Check Point 5!” Appletart gaped.

“*bzzt* Initiate Appletart, do you read, over?”

The young white mare’s eyes lit up and a happy smile, a genuine smile, appeared on her lips as she raised her PipBuck to her mouth to use the broadcaster. “I read you, Paladin Nightingale.”

“*bzzt* Oh thank the maker. I’ve been trying to contact you all afternoon. Where the fuck have you been?” The electronic female voice demanded, although it sounded relieved to know she was ok.

“I…” She stopped as she looked at me, Fruity and Xian on my back. It made me wonder if she was going to tell her superior about us, then she continued. “I triggered a Foal Stroller Bomb and lost my ear communicator,” she explained.

“*bzzt*Damn it Appletart, do you know rare those things are? … you know what, nevermind. I’ll grill your ass later. Get your albino flank to Check Point 5. We have a Raider incursion, ASAP!”

“Yes mother,” She said quietly to herself. “Um, alright. Ugh, I need to go, like now!”

“It’s ok. You got us to the street we needed to find. We’ll find our way out once we’ve found what we’re looking for,” I told her. “And thank you, not just for leading us here, but for not exposing us. You had the opportunity.”

She sighed. “Like I said earlier, I couldn’t hurt the filly,” I smiled warmly at that. “Ok, stand back,” She told us.

We took a step back as she began to channel magic into her horn. She closed her eyes while she concentrated and soon a ball of concentrated magic began to form at the tip of her horn. The ball of shimmering white magic grew and grew until it was the size of a golf ball. It wavered and flickered, showing it was unstable.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I gotta look like a bomb hit me,” She told us. “This is just a little trick somepony showed me,” She then sent a small spark into the ball of magic, causing it to explode. The small blast left her face covered in soot and her mane blown back and slightly singed. “Ow! Forgot to move it away from me.”

Fruity chuckled. “Heh, now you do look like a bomb hit you.”

“Ok good. Well, sorry for getting mad at you but I really need to jet. See ya.” And with that, the young unicorn Ranger galloped off as fast as she could to where she was needed.

“Well, she was certainly something,” Fruity commented as we watched her disappear into the town.

“Yeah. I hope she’ll be ok,” I said, feeling for the young mare.

“Well she is a Steel Ranger. I think she’ll be fine, but we aren’t getting owt done just standing here. Where are we supposed to go again?” Fruity asked.

“Err… Oh right,” I lifted a wing so I could get to a pocket, leaned down and plucked Dr Pear’s journal from my pocket. Then I took the book with my wing and opened it to the marked page with the address. “Ah here we go. Err, 7 Crescent Road.”

“Well that house there is number one,” Fruity said as he pointed to a house that was just a shell. Its roof had fallen inside, collapsing all its internal structure.

“That’s not promising,” I sighed. “Well, number seven will be on the same side. How it usually worked was there were houses with even numbers on one side of the street and on the other were the odd numbers.”

Fruity nodded as he began to follow the street. We walked past number three, then five, until we stopped at number seven and turned to face it. We were surprised as the house was a modest two stories, stone brick house that actually looked very normal, considering Colonel Ironside was the head of the Espionage Department of the M.o.A. There were however two worrying signs. One, the roof was partially collapsed, and through the windows of the upstairs it looked like the ceiling had all collapsed due to the roof beginning to fall through. Two, the front door was wide open, not because it had been opened and left open, but because it was broken and it looked like somepony had booted it down.

“It looks like somepony has been here already,” I pointed out with the door and the hoof scratch marks on the floor as we approached the front door.

“Considering who lived here, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Steel Rangers checked this place out.”

I sighed as we entered the old run-down house. “I hope this wasn’t a wasted journey.”

The front door gave us access to a hall that held the stairs. The upstairs was unfortunately blocked off by debris, leaving us with three other doors. One was open and led into the kitchen, which from the hallway looked to be full of dirt and severely rusted appliances. The second door we could see was closed and against the wall with the stairs, and had “WC” on the door. The last door was open too, and that led into a rather spacious living room with a couple of large settees that could be seen.

“I’ll check the kitchen and the basement,” Fruity said as he nodded to the kitchen. “If we split up and search the house together, we should find something sooner rather than later, and it’ll be better if we find something sooner before some tin cans show up.”

I nodded. “Alright. I guess Xian and I will take the living room and back room,” I said and turned for the door to the downstairs toilet. “But first I need to check the damage I’ve received.”

He nodded before leaning over and gently kissing my cheek, which made me blush bright red and giggle like a schoolfilly. “Good luck Crys,” He said with a smile before he headed off into the kitchen.

I rubbed my cheek for a moment before I noticed that Xian was staring at me from my back. When she realised I had noticed, she smiled and giggled. “He likes you.”

“Oh hush.” I smiled warmly and then giggled along with her as we approached the small bathroom and opened the door. The room was small, only big enough for a toilet and a sink with a mirror above it, nothing more. I entered the small room and turned the face the mirror, which was still intact but covered in decades of grime. With a quick glance around the room, I found a washcloth hung on a metal ring next to the sink and toilet. With my wing, I plucked the dirty rag up and used it to clear the grime from the middle of the mirror to the point it became reflective once more. I gulped with nervousness as I slowly turned my head from the left so I could reveal the damage. What I saw made me gasp.

“Oh, sweet Luna!” I squeaked, the electronic buzz even more noticeable inside this small room.

A large portion of the right side of my face had been blown/ripped away, slightly burned around the edges. How my stetson hat managed to stay on my head I have no idea. Even my Coco Pommel Noir Coat’s collar on the right side had been burnt and torn. I stared with a wide eye as I took in the details of the scratched and burned flesh around the large wound, and the blooded metal of my endoskeleton’s cranium. The metal was either a dull grey or a deep grey in colour. My nose and mouth were largely unaffected, thankfully, but I could see the connection between my jaw and my skull. There was even a control rod that helped to open and close my mouth alongside my equine teeth. Above the hole in my cheek was my eye socket. The metal there was the deep grey colour, and the socket took up most of the damaged area. It was deep, like any eye socket should be since it would need to hold your eye, but what sat inside staring right back at me was a mechanical eye with an electric blue glow. I remembered when I used to have red eyes. Were these blue ones the result of the upgrade? My body shuddered at the mere thought of the traumatic experience that upgrade was associated with.

“I hope this heals quick. I don’t want ponies to see me like this,” I whimpered. As if it heard me, I noticed a faint pink glow appear around the damaged tissue, and a warmth grow in my chest. I gently pressed a hoof to my chest and I could feel the magic of the regeneration talisman pulsate. I supposed the talisman didn’t activate until now because we were in the presence of an unknown party. Sure, we got to know Appletart but if it wasn’t for Xian being with us, she would have attacked or tried to bring in her power-armoured comrades.

Satisfied that the talisman had begun to reconstruct my face, we left the small bathroom and entered the living room, where the first thing we saw was the skeleton slumped over on one of the couches. It was wearing a tattered (by age) sun dress, which told me it was once a mare. With the way it was slumped over to one side, and that the couch was next to an end table with a lamp and phone on it, I suspected the mare was waiting for a call when she died. My eyes then widened in realisation when it clicked that this was a skeleton of a mare inside the home of Colonel Ironside. Was this a wife or an older daughter?

I picked Xian off my back and gently laid a wing over her eyes, to hopefully shield her young innocent eyes from the death in the room. As I leaned in close to see if I could find something to clue me into the skeleton’s identity, I noticed that there was a strange lumpy mass in the stomach region of the sun dress. Curious, I grasped the skirt with a hoof and gently began to lift. I made sure to keep my wing over Xian’s eyes to prevent her from seeing anything bad, and thank the goddesses I did. Because when I lifted the dress, I let out a shriek and dropped the fabric. Under the dress, there was a tiny skeleton curled up. This mare was pregnant when she died. I couldn’t believe this. She was heavy with foal, waiting to hear from Ironside presumably, when she died from the bombs, slumped near the phone. How could the heartless bastard not have seen to his own family’s safety, especially when there was a Stable just in the mountain side above them?

I asked Xian to wait by the door and sit looking out into the hall, so that she didn’t have to look at the skeleton. I didn’t want her to see it now, especially after what I found. I was still in shock over the revelation. Happy that Xian was sat by the door, I looked around the room. I checked the drawers in the coffee table, the sideboard, the corner unit where the broken television sat, even in the bookshelves that lined the back all. Sadly, I didn’t find anything that would point me in the direction of Irionside.

“Why is it so hard to find something you’re looking for?” I whined.

I heard a sneeze from the door and turned my head to check on Xian. The young filly sat gently rubbing at her nose, but from my position in the back corner, I could see the end table from a different angle while I looked at Xian. I noticed a hint of pink under the hoof of the skeleton. I gulped as I approached the table and gently reached out with a wing.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to the skeleton as I used my wing to gently nudge the bony leg off the pink object, which turned out to be a holotape with the word “Sorry” written on it.

With nothing else check in this room, I opened my PipBuck’s holotape player, slipped in the new holotape and pressed play. The voice of a mare that sounded upset began to pour out of my PipBuck’s speakers.

“To my hard-working husband. I’m terribly sorry. I know you work hard for Equestria, and have to travel all over for your work with the M.o.A. I didn’t mean to fight with you when you told me that you had to oversee the M.o.A setting up a secret observation post underneath Meadowlark Hill all the way in the Marejave. I was just so looking forward to spending some time with beloved husband.

I hope you can forgive me and that you’ll be home in time for our foal’s birth.

I love you.”

The tape ended with the mare sounding like she was about to cry, which was very upsetting. It sounded like they had an argument, and that he left the house and didn’t come back, leaving her heartbroken. Poor mare. But, more importantly, I think we just got our location.

“FRUITY!” I yelled as loudly as I could to get my coltfriend’s attention.

There was a crash from below, but after a few thuds and some curse words, my duster-wearing purple pegasus friend was in the living room. “What is it, what’s wrong?” He gasped out while taking in large gulps of air as he tried to calm down from his mad dash to get to me.

I had to bite my lip to not snicker. Once I was sure I wouldn’t crack, I told him of my find.

“You really think that’s the place?” He asked with a raised brow.

“I do. Meadowlark Hill was a place my parents used to take me for vacation when we weren’t going to the Crystal Empire. It was ideal camp grounds and it was out of the way, plus it was close to the MASA HQ, which would explain how I-02 IS found us so quickly,” I explained. “He had tracked us to the MASA first, if you remember those security doors, and then there was my feeling of being watched when we made it to the suburbs of Las Pegasus.”

He nodded as he had a look of remembrance. “That makes sense,” He agreed.

“Ok, well. I guess we’re off to the Marejave again.”

“Oh joy,” He said sarcastically.

“I’m sure we can find you some Factor 50 Suncream somewhere for you,” I joked.

He smiled with a light chuckle. “Alright then, let’s get out of here.”

I nodded and picked up Xian again. Once I made sure she was safely on my back, we left the house and quickly began to retrace our steps through the route we took.

We stopped at each corner we came to so that we could peer around it and make sure it was safe to proceed. We did this for what felt like hours until we eventually made it to the large six story town hall, which made us stop because when we followed Appletart we never came close to the old building.

“Bollocks. I think we took a wrong turn somewhere,” Fruity exclaimed.

“Oh no. We better figure out where we are and fast,” I urged.

“Won’t it be easier if we find that chimney of the mill we passed when we entered the town?”

“It would act as a waypoint,” I agreed.

“Ok. Let’s move before we get spotted by any of those soup cans,” Fruity grumbled.

Unfortunately, when I looked up I caught sight of three power armoured Steel Rangers in a window reflection as they approached from behind.

“*Gulp* Too late,” I said nervously when the heavy thuds of the Rangers began to shake the ground.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” One of the Rangers asked as he saw us.

“Looks like a pair of flying rats,” Another mocked.

Fruity turned around with a glare. “Don’t you cunts ever have any respect?”

They all looked at each other and then laughed. “To ponies like you, no!” The third one laughed.

Fruity growled, his wings extending and revealing his plasma battlesaddle.

“Fruity, don’t aggravate them,” I whimpered while I still had my back to them.

“HEY!” The Ranger in the middle, presumably the leader, of the three called to me. “Turn around.”

I gulped but didn’t move.

I heard a click and a hum of a motor. In the reflection, I saw the minigun on his battlesaddle begin to spin.

I whimpered and turned around, but kept my head turned so the right side of my damaged face was facing away from them.

“She’s a Luna damned Stripe!” One of the Rangers called out with a scoff.

“I’ve never seen a winged Stripe before,” Another Ranger said in confusion before he scoffed as well. “It doesn’t matter. A Stripe’s a Stripe.”

I quickly picked Xian off my back with my tail and put her down in the floor behind us in an attempt to shield her, but I didn’t think it’d be of much use. Each Steel Ranger was equipped with miniguns or rocket launchers, and they were all aimed at us.

“F-Fruity,” I whimpered, terrified that this was the end for us.

Fruity stepped close to me and wrapped his wing around me in a hug while he stared at the Rangers defiantly.

“You’re all a bunch of twats,” Fruity sneered angrily at them.

“Any last words rodents?” The lead Ranger asked as the miniguns spun to firing speed.

Despite my threat warning flashing away like crazy in my vision, my ear twitched when the sound of breaking roof tiles tickled my hearing. The sound had come from directly above us, and before either Fruity and I or the Rangers could react, something large and heavy crashed down on the lead Ranger and crushed him. I heard his armour collapse and give way to the velocity of the object’s impact, along with multiple bones. The sudden shock had stopped the other two from using their weapons as they stared at the dust cloud where their leader had once stood. We all stared and waited for the dust to settle, but I could see through the dust better than most, and my heartrate began to accelerate with dread at what rose up and stood on top of the crushed Ranger.

“What the fuck just happened?” One of the other two Rangers shouted in demand.

Suddenly, a strong breeze blew through the area and carried the dust away with it. The two remaining Rangers gasped in surprise as a skeletal robot now stood on their dead comrade.

“Oh shit, it’s one of those spy robots!” A Ranger shouted.

Before any of the two Rangers could react, the scorched armoured robot that we all recognised turned to face one of the Rangers, while at the same time grabbing the other around his neck with his nano-fibre tail. I-02 IS then swiftly punched the Ranger with the point of his hoof in the neck, crumpling the armour plates and collapsing his windpipe, sending the Ranger gasping for breath as he began to choke to death. With one Ranger dealt with, the robot then pulled with his tail, making the other horrified Ranger stumble forward, only to receive a precision hind hoof strike to his neck doing the same thing. It was horrible to see the two armoured ponies fall over, gasping for breath before slowly going still as they died from oxygen deprivation.

“There is no way! We destroyed you!” Fruity gaped as I-02 IS turned to face us, his red glowing eyes landing on us.

“Are you two alright?” He asked softly, which through us both for a loop as we were not expecting the first thing for him to ask would be about our safety.

“Wait, what?” I squeaked.

“Are you alright?” He repeated as he approached.

“Whoa there buddy, back up!” Fruity warned as he primed his battlesaddle.

Again, to our surprise, he stopped.

“I’m not going to let you try and take me away like last time I-02 IS!” I said while I flared my wings, grabbed my modified Lucky 13 from its holster with my tail, and pointed it at him.

“My name is Nexus and you misunderstand. I am not here to capture you, but to help you,” He declared.

“Come again?” Fruity asked in surprise.

“I would be happy to explain, but it would be best if we make our leave,” Nexus suggested. “The Steel Rangers will send a task force to investigate the sudden disappearance of three of their own.”

“Do you know a way back to the mill?” Fruity asked to which the machine nodded. “Can you lead us back out that way?”

“Of course.” He got up and moved around us to begin leading us. “Please follow closely,” He said as he began to move at a brisk pace.

As the machine began to take the lead, Fruity leaned over and whispered in my ear. “What do you think? Can we trust it?”

“I don’t know, but we need to get out of this town. That is our priority right now, but once we are at a safe distance away we can interrogate him,” I whispered back. “Xian honey. Stay close to me while we follow Nexus out of town, ok?” I said the young filly. Xian nodded and she fell in step with me, walking very close to my side as we all followed behind the robot.

The machine was very quick, but moved at a speed we could keep up with. While being behind him, I could see his head flicking slightly from side to side as we came to corners and intersections. He was scanning for threats ahead of us. After another half an hour of dodging Steel Ranger patrols, which were largely due to his sensory system, we managed to leave the town by the mill we entered by, and hurriedly continued down the road towards the truck that we used as shelter the previous night.

By the time we made it back to the old Starlight Industries truck, the sun had begun its descent and the world around us had started to darken.

“Today was quite eventful, wasn’t it?” Fruity said as he sat down inside the trailer. I nodded in agreement as Xian laid down on one of the sleeping bags with a yawn.

“Now that we’re safe…” I turned to Nexus with Lucky 13 pointed right at him. “How the fuck did you survive that Micro-Mana detonation, and how do we know you are not just luring me into a false sense of security?” I demanded.

The machine eyed my revolver for a moment, then turned to Fruity as he stood up and primed his dual plasma battlesaddle. He couldn’t show it without any skin but I could feel his nervousness as he gazed at the glowing green energized weapons.

“I survived because my system performed an emergency shutdown before the extreme energy surge could cause damage to my CPU core. When I rebooted, I found my core system had been altered slightly. I originally followed my programming, but then I began to observe ponies from a distance, learn about emotion, and finally observe you after finding you again close to Bonbon Springs. The more I observed you, the more I began to wonder and question my directive, and in turn, what the end result meant for you. In the end, I decided that I didn’t want to kill you because I learned that killing innocents is wrong, and I do not wish to do wrong. Henceforth, I decided to at least act on my secondary objective, which was to ensure your safety. You may recall the Hellhound that was killed in front of you, as well as Units 1 and 2 getting distracted by breaking windows in the Manehattan Impact Crater,” He explained.

I gaped as I took in all he said. “That was you that saved us?” I squeaked.

He nodded his head and pulled out a crude, wood and metal rifle that looked like it was put together by somepony who had a bunch of junk lying around. “Despite its crude appearance, it is a very effective weapon. In all honesty, it is the very weapon that shot you down back in Manehattan. I am deeply sorry I didn’t get to him in time, but I did prevent his exit so that the Tenpony Tower guard could snipe him.”

Fruity then got up and approached the robot, his battlesaddle getting dangerously close to him. “How do we know you won’t just tell your maker where we are when we least expect it?” He demanded.

“When it became clear to him that I was no longer following his commands and was acting on my own accord, he disconnected me from the network. I am no longer tied to the Production Facility. I cannot interact with its systems if I wanted to,” Nexus replied, almost in a sad tone.

“Well, it’s a start… but I don’t think we can trust you just yet. Not entirely,” Fruity said. I nodded in agreement because I too felt that it was a little difficult to trust the machine that attempted to kill Fruity and capture me outside the door of Stable 16.

“I understand,” He said with a nod. “I would be happy to earn your trust, to prove I am not that same robot you remember.”

I had to admit to myself, Nexus certainly didn’t feel like I-02 IS. He didn’t act nor talk in the same manner as he once did. Maybe he did have a change of heart, so to speak, and had become his own pony.

“Well Nexus, thank you for offering to help us,” I said with a genuine smile to him. “And welcome to our little group.”

XXXXX

“Upgrade complete!” The electronic voice of Upgrade Station Alpha said as the door to the only functional chamber opened. Unit 3 exited with an antenna like horn, with a multi-coloured gem embedded at the tip, upon its forehead.

The machine turned and approached a metal table. It had the body of a young bright pink unicorn mare, with a dishevelled silvery mane and tail, strapped down to it. When the machine got near, the young mare opened her dull-almost lifeless eyes and began to struggle very weakly, causing the gold mind reader mesh to slip from atop her head.

“P-please. Let me go,” The young mare begged.

The machine looked down at the mare. It took notice that her cutiemark, a magic wand set atop a pair of stage curtains, was gone and had now appeared on the metal of the top of its robotic thighs.

“Hmm. This will not do,” The machine said in a perfect copy of her own voice. “It is good that you knew illusion magic, Miss Lulamoon,” The machine said as the robotic horn began to glow in bright cyan magic, and to the mare’s horror, the skeletal machine disappeared inside an illusion of herself. “There, much better. Now if you’ll excuse me Miss Lulamoon, I have some important business to attend to.” There was then a flick of telekinetic magic from the machine’s horn as it undid the straps that held the drained unicorn. “You are free to go.”

The young mare whimpered in exhaustion as she watched the machine hidden in an illusion of herself leave the facility. Leave with her magic and a copy of her mind, memories and experience. She tiredly looked down to her blank flanks and began to cry, seeing nothing but nothing. She was as good as dead now in the world of the Equestrian Wasteland, with no means of protecting herself from a hungry predator.

Author's Note:

Well, it has been a long time coming, they finally met each other. :p

I intended the meeting of Crystal and Appletart to be where Appletart's doubt in her faith with the Steel Rangers originated. I also used this opportunity to rewrite Appletart's origin a little, when she told her story to them. Instead of her killing two Raiders with headshots right away which now i see as just a little dumb she was just taken in and trained up. I also used this as an opportunity to show a little diversity in the usage of magic too.

Well i hope you all liked this chapter. Please comment and let me know which parts you liked or what parts could have been done differently.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

[Cosmic_Flash]

Great Chapter, I'll be sure to keep reading this story as it progresses in the future.

[mikebroniepony]

hello appletart good to see a blast from the past or the future in this case

[RDDash]

Ms Lulamoon? It's not who I think It is? She can't be there

[mikebroniepony]

ps i posted that comment as soon as i saw the pic

[Lex the Pikachu]

8281520
who do you think it is?

[RDDash]

8284816
1. a forced time travel (pre war Trixie)
2. distant relative (some other mare named Trixie Lulamoon)

[Lex the Pikachu]

8284845
Neither, because this Ms Lulamoon, first name was never given and she doesn't have the same coat colour as Trixie and cutie mark is different

[Lex the Pikachu]

8285251
I'm afraid not, this was from remembering how the 44. Magnum worked in Fallout 3 and New Vegas but google is a good search engine that could help you.

[Goggles5150]

Awesome chapter

[Lex the Pikachu]

8311240
she is still a little kid, been on her own since she was five, all she knew was that small area around Bon Bon Springs which was relatively safe if she didn't go too far from the cave she hid in for the three years she was there until she was rescued. She didn't know of the things out west, didn't know about Raiders, doesn't know about anything of the wasteland in general.

[Theta52775]

8346349
Me too.

[RuinQueenofOblivion]

And here's my review for chapter 3:

Review

[Wildfiretiremile]

And here I thought spike was a big bad dragon :3

[Wildfiretiremile]

Appletart albino good with a riffle came from a stable...joined steel ranger's SOUNDS LIKE A STORY I KNOW

[erictheblue]

"march of the parasprites"...this tune?

[Asolem2]

The two power-armoured ponies left the basement workshop and returned the destroyed lobby, just in time to find Knight Sour Cream digging up the mound of dirt Paladin Shortbread found earlier.

Wow, digging up graves now Sour Cream, what a noble knight

“Ahh shit!” Appletart cursed before she quickly used her magic to grab the rat in her telekinetic force and snapped its neck with a quick, if somewhat violent jerk. “I hope it didn’t bring its friends,” She grumbled as she tossed the limp body of the rodent aside.

Where there is one mole rate, there is at least half a dozen more

[Lex the Pikachu]

11517141
Hehe yea, Mole Rats in Fallout 4 and 76 are a pain because you end up spinning around trying to anticipate where the others will pop up