Saving
“Sure Twilight, anything for a friend.”
I woke up that morning to the feeling of the soft wind brushing along my coat, lightly ruffling my feathers. With a yawn, I began to open my eyes and take a look at my surroundings. Once again, I was reminded that I was stuck in the cold Wasteland a with little warmth to be found from anypony. Well, that was not a complete lie, as a snort from the sleeping stallion across from the campfire can attest. Looking at him sleeping there brought a small smile to my face as I got up. While he was a little grumpy, I did like the idea that I wasn’t traveling alone anymore.
Giving my mane a good shake, I began to go through my usual stretch exercises. First my forelegs and then my hind legs, arching my back as I finished. Each stretch gave a very satisfying pop of air bubbles and snap in my muscles. Feeling stretched out, my head turned to look at my cloak and sword. Enveloping both in the violet aura of magic, I took the two items from their waiting position and walked away. With a soft click, my cloak came and covered my wings. As I walked a few yards away from our campfire, I pulled out Dusk and took a good look at it.
I had to admit, for a sword that had to have been a few years old, it held up quite well. It has been able to cut down a few robots and incapacitate ponies with ease. Turning the blade around in my magic, my eyes looked over the shine and the curve of the sword. There was a certain beauty in looking at such a weapon in the way that the mirror reflected the dim light of the sun through the clouds. Closing my eyes, I thrusted the blade out forward. With a soft breath, I began to thrust my blade forth again and again.
With those katas done, I lifted my blade above my head and slashed downward. Holding my blade up i did it again and again, only stopping when I heard a sudden clang of metal on metal. Looking to what blocked my blade, I was surprised to see Swift Blade stopping my sword with his wing blades. My eyebrow arched in confusion at this and I swung again, only for him to repeat the block. Annoyed, I tried swinging again and again, only for my sword to be blocked each time. Swift then slashed at me with his wingblade, leaving me with room to only back away from the attack. He then thrusted with the wings and slashed at me, with each shot being deflected by my own attack. When our swords met again with a loud clang, I saw a small smile on his face.
He was trying to spar with me!
Grinning like a mad mare, I thrusted rapidly at my friend, watching him block and dodge each thrust of my blade. He moved almost as if he was dancing to the rhythm of my blade, with all the grace of a leaf on a breeze. On one of my thrusts, he ducked to swipe his blades at my forelegs causing me to rear back to dodge the blades. In return, i thrusted my forelegs in a one-two punch. Both of which he blocked with his own forelegs, and then he jumped up using his legs for an additional lift. As he levitated, he swiped his right blade at my head, giving me only a second to dodge and losing a few bits of hair in the process. Seeing him flying above me caused me to growl, and I could feel my wings twitch in anticipation. I wished i wasn’t trying to hide the fact I had wings, because I just wanted to fly up and continue the fight in the sky.
Instead, I ran underneath him and began to slice at his underbelly. The shocked look he gave me as I attacked was very satisfying, but then he turned it around by dive bombing me with his wings crossed in front of his face. Holding up my sword, I blocked the crossed attack and engaged in a tug of war with him as our blades locked. I began to push back with my magic, struggling to push him off. Just the same, he pushed back with equal force, trying to shove me away. Our blades sparked in between us as they locked in the air.After a few short moments of locking our blades in a duel, he broke away from the struggle and jumped back with a trio of slashes. Moving with some speedy parrys, the wing blades were brushed aside, and then I thrusted my blade at him. As he moved his wing blade to block the hit, I feinted the attack and went upwards, nicking his stable suit.
He looked down at the cut in his suit, and then back at me like I had insulted his honor by getting a hit in. Cockily, i shrugged my shoulders and smirked at him.
This, was a big mistake, as he came at me with rapid thrusts and slashes of his blades, making me back up and quickly slash at him in an attempt to parry his attacks. At one point, I managed to block one of his thrusts and struck back with two slashes of my own. He dodged those two strikes and made a lunge for my throat. Blocking the shot, I swiped at him with several slashes. Taking a jump back, he thrusted his wing blade at me, and in response I thrusted my sword at him, both of our blades missing our heads and resting on the other’s shoulders.
We stood there for several moments, our blades resting on our shoulders as we looked into each other’s eyes. I panted, feeling the sweat roll down my snout. As I looked back at him, I noticed that he was also panting, sweat beading down his face as he stared back at me. I could almost feel a sense of happiness coming from him, like he had found a partner in me. Just the same, O could feel a deep connection coming from him. A connection of love and compassion. I realized what this was: Friendship. So we stood there, panting and letting our breathing return to normal slowly. While we stood, our eyes never left one another, as if we waited for the other to be the first to break this silence.
There was a soft breeze that flew through the air as Swift was the first to disengage. Turning away from me, Swift began to walk to the remains of the campfire and our bags, “You are quite skilled, for a mare that has studied in a monastery and with monks.”
I blushed a little and chuckled, “Well, um, I read a lot of books on royal guard sword fighting styles.”
“That explains a lot about your fighting style,” Swift said, throwing me a can of Apple Bombs.
Using my magic as a can opener, I opened the can and asked, “Is there a problem with my sword fighting?”
“You fight like an old royal guard. You wait for your opponent to attack, you analyze their movements, and then you strike back,” Swift said, eating his own meal.
“And is that a problem?” I ask.
“Not if you are fighting against one opponent at a time, when you are ready to fight. However, we are not always so lucky,” Swift said. “What's more, you held back in your fights, like you are afraid that if you let go, you will hurt or kill your opponent.”
I pulled back a little, How the buck was our sparring match holding back? I was matching you blow for blow. “How could you know?”
“When our swords touched, I felt something, a weakness in your swing,” the blue pegasus said. “You are not going to get that lucky again. Every battle that I have seen you in with multiple opponents have been won with a surprise attack or you using an advantage against them. You won’t always have that type of advantage.”
“So, Swift-sensei,” I said in a mocking tone, “What do you suggest?”
“I won’t be able to help you with your mental blocks; however, I can help you with handling multiple opponents and speed,” he said, putting away his can. Taking flight to the the sky, he grabbed a large cloud. He then took the cloud and put it just above the ground. With a slight kick, he made the cloud drip water rapidly to the ground. Smiling he then began to swipe his wing and hoof through the dripping water. He then held out his wing and hoof, asking me to, “Touch my wing and hoof. Tell me what you feel.”
Gently, I traced my hoof along the hoof and felt his wing, “They’re dry.” I gasped.
“A good swordspony can wave his hoof past dripping water without ever getting in contact with water,” Swift said, looking at the dripping cloud. “In order to hone your speed, we are going to start you off with this exercise. I want you swipe your hoof through this dripping water without getting wet.”
I smirked, my confidence showing; after all, I am an alicorn and thus have more strength than he does, this should be easy. With a smile, I swiped my hoof under the dripping cloud and pulled it away, noticing the wet spot on my coat. My eyes widened in surprise at the sight of water on my coat and I tried again, with little success. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Swift looking on curiously, as if he was expecting me to say something about my failure. Not giving him the satisfaction of an outburst, I swiped my hoof again and again at the dripping water in the vain hope of not getting wet.
It must have been two whole hours that I was training at that cloud before it finally ran out of water. That or it took pity on me and decided to quit. My hoof had started to prune up from all of the water that had been collecting on it. From my side, I could hear Swift let out a chuckle as he walked to my side and offered a small drink from his canteen, “It is not so easy, is it? We will do this at the start of every day from now on until you manage to do that exercise perfectly, and then-”
“And then?” I asked, sighing a little bit at the idea of failing the test.
Swift turned away as he went to pick up his saddlebag, “Then, we begin the harder training.”
This made me gulp in return as I could only begin to imagine the horrors he had waiting for me. Sighing, I levitated my bags and put them over my cloak.
Traveling with Swift, though one of the more quieter journeys I have ever taken, was kind of refreshing in its own way. Having a pony next to me as I walked made the world a little brighter, in spite of the grey cloud cover adding a gloomy feel to the walk. Taking a deep breath to appreciate the area around me and the feel of the crunchy ground beneath my hooves, I turned to look at my silent companion. The sullen look in his eyes reminded me that traveling with a companion like this was nothing new to him. Who knew how many others he had been traveling side by side with. Deciding to get a little more info out of my friend, I asked, “Swift, why did you decide to start doing what you do?”
Swift sighed as he looked ahead, “A friend of mine, he... kind of inspired me to protect others. He reminded me that these talents in swordsponyship mean nothing if I do not have a cause to fight for.”
“Wow, some friend,” i said, smiling, “What did he do to impress you so much?”
“He,” Swift’s ears began to twitch at a scream, “Hold on. Did you hear that?”
I nodded and ran to a rocky outcropping not too far from us, kicking up dust as we ran. What I saw there made my blood boil, and my eyes narrow in rage. Ten raiders were standing over a mare as she screamed and shouted, “Get off! H-Help me, Pleaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!”
“Listen to the bitch squirm, i swear she won’t quit,” the raider in the middle said, laughing as he raped the mare.
“Heh, maybe we should cut her other leg off, that’ll take the fight out of her,” chuckled another raider.
“Other leg?” I asked myself as I moved to get a better view of the Raiders, only to feel something squishy and warm hit my leg. I let out a gasp as I saw the dismembered limb at my side, and then growled at the group. Levitating out Dusk, I whispered to Swift, “Ok, here’s the plan. I go in from the side while you-” I had to pause as I caught the sight of a blue blur at my side. My eyes followed it as it raced to the center of the small raider group.
The stallion in the center threw back his head in joy, laughing at his actions. His laughter quickly stopped when a thin line appeared on his neck, followed by small trails of blood running down his chest. I could hear the raiders let out various gasps of shock as they watched their companion’s head roll off his torso and to the ground with a thump, followed by the rest of his body. Swift then landed in the center of the group, staring daggers at them, “Kill the bastard, defeather him!!!” shouted one of the raiders as two of them chased after swift when he took to the air. The one who shouted turned to his victim, ready to attack. However, I hit him with a low level lightning bolt spell before he could do anything to her.
“Well, look at this,” said one of the raiders, reaching back to pull out a knife. “It’s a unicorn.”
Another raider chuckled as he walked to my side, “Nice. I can’t wait to rip that horn off to add it to my necklace.”
I did not dignify any of their threats with a comeback. Instead, I took a look at the group in front of me and took in what I was facing against. Two of them had AK-47s aimed at me, while three of them had some revolvers at the ready. The last one had a serrated knife and brandished it at me. I narrowed my eyes at the two in front of me and rolled to the side as they fired their guns. My body winced in pain as I felt the bullets hit my breastplate, while others whizzed by my head. Racing forward in a pounce, I slashed at the jaw at one of the raiders. The cut was deep enough that it caused him to drop his gun while blood trailed down his chin. As he screamed in pain, I sent Dusk flying to the raider at my side and sliced into his chest before he could fire his weapon.
The three that had revolvers growled as they fired at me, causing me to roll out of the way of the fire. Wincing, I looked to my side as I watched my blood trickled down my leg from one of the shots that managed to get through my armor. Shaking off the pain, I charged at one of the stallions and slashed across his chest. Before the other two could attack, I plunged Dusk into the leg of the one on my left and delivered a buck into the chest of his companion, giving off a satisfying crunch of bone as my hooves connected. With only one pony left, I began to look back and forth for the last one, and quickly moving to block the hit with my sword when she came at me with a knife. One strike from my lightning spell and she fell down unconscious.
Carefully, I began to pile up the bodies of the beaten raiders in a row and began to tend to their wounds. I carefully made sure that none of my attacks were kill strikes, and I was happy to see that my old guard training had came into use. I had just finished wiht the last one when I heard two meaty thumps behind me, “You are too kind to them. They don’t deserve your mercy,” Swift said.
I sighed, “I know, but I will give it to them anyway.”
“Do you know what they are going to do now? They will hate you, heal up, and attack again,” Swift said.
“If that happens, then I will stop them,” I said, getting to my hooves. “But, I like to think differently. They now know that there is a pony out there who is stronger and faster than they are. They will now fear the idea that their next victim might be as powerful as me and maybe even change their ways.”
“Alternatively, their raider friends will kill them for their weakness, or they will ignore this entirely,” Swift said as I walked to the fallen mare.
I lowered my head and sighed, “I know that, but I would like to believe in my theory.” under my breath I muttered, “I have to.”
As we walked to the mare, i had to turn my head a little at the sight. She was laying in a pool of blood and other fluids, moaning in pain, “P-please, help. I-I-I couldn’t.”
“No, say no more,” Swift said, kneeling down to the mare and holding her hoof.
“L-listen, please. My sons and I,” she breathed slowly, “We came from a caravan not too far from here. My youngest, he-he’s a Sparkle Cola bottle collector and got excited when he found out that the factory was near here. I took him and his little brother to there, what did it hurt. That is when I saw the raiders. I had them run inside while I dist-distracted the raiders. M-My sons, they are still in there. Please, save them.”
Swift could only nod as he heard the mare breathe her last, closing her eyes. As he stood up, I used my magic to move the dirt aside and made a grave for her. As I levitated her body into the grave, I heard Swift ask, “So, what do we do now? We could follow her request, but that is out of our way.”
I turned my head and looked to the large factory in the distance, knowing my decision.
The Sparkle Cola plant wasn’t what one was what I would call... inviting. Maybe it had something to do with it being out of use for so long, or the fact that it was so quiet; whatever it was, the echoing of our hooves as they hit the metal beneath us did little to make walking in these dark halls any easier. A light fluttering of wings next to me reminded me that Swift was not too far away, “Sparkle Cola Rad, cola with a little bit of magical radiation. The creator must have been insane.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I knew the owner and creator of Sparkle Cola and yes, he was nuts. As a matter of fact, he was a client of mine that me and Babs had to protect once. It was during our guarding of him in Las Pegasus that me and Babs had our first... Uh, well, let's just say that a good time was had by all. For the record, I am not gay, i am bi. I like both actually. I then stopped in my tracks when I heard some footsteps up ahead. Hiding in the doorway, I looked and asked Swift, “How many?”
“My Pipbuck reads ten red blips. Two are on the cat-walk above us and the others are on the floor,” Swift said, as I held out my hoof.
“Wait a second,” I said, levitating my sword out slowly and sliding it up a little. Looking at the reflection in the sword, I growled, “Buck! They have a rocket launcher up there.”
“We’ll need to be careful-”
“Wait,” I said,smirking. “I have an idea.” then i begin to concentrate my magic into my horn and made it glow a bright red. While I don’t like to use fire magic, I do know how to use convection to my advantage. Especially if the target was on something that conducts heat very easily. As my horn glowed a bright red from the heat of my magic, so did the metal catwalk glow bright red. I only stopped when I heard the scream of the stallion above us. The scream was followed by the sound of metal on metal as he dropped his weapon. And then I nodded to the upper catwalk, giving Swift the signal. Nodding the blue pegasus flew upward onto the catwalk while the other raiders looked into my direction.
Moving quickly, I ran to some cover as the bullets began to fly in my direction. With some swift movements, I ran to the side and slashed at two of them and took them out of the fight. Driving my blade into one raider, I dodged the slash of one behind me and then I uppercutted his jaw hard with a left hook. Leaping up and above two others, I slashed at their backs before zapping one more. I let out a grunt as I felt a bullet hit my right shoulder, cutting into it. I growled as I looked up at the sniper, ready to attack him, only to be stopped when Swift did the job for me. Turning around quickly, I took care of the remaining raiders with relative ease.
As I sheathed my blade, and turned to look at Swift, I notice a look of concern in his eyes. He walked to me and began to put a bandage on my foreleg where the bullet cut me, “Can’t have you walking around here with a wound like this.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes at this, “I’m fine. We-”
“If you walk around with that wound then the blood from it might slip you up. Worse, you might get infected, this will help you until we get a healing potion,” Sad Swift as he began to walk away from me.
I raised a hoof to tell him about why I didn't need the help, but I looked back down to my bandage and smiled at it. While I could’ve healed my wound with a healing spell, it was nice to get some attention. Raising my head to look back at him, I whispered thank you and followed along with his. There was a warm feeling that filled my chest, liking the fact that it seemed that he actually had a nice guy side to him. Sighing contently, we continued to travel down the echoing corridors of the factory.
With our hooves echoing across the metal floor as we walked, I couldn’t help but observe at how the broken down factory began to resemble a cave more than a factory. With the walkways twisting into forms of stagatices and tuning into into little mazes on their own. The dripping bits of water and soda added to the cavernous feel of the dark place. My head continued to twist back and forth, looking for the two colts, but my head stopped when I heard a noise to my left. Turning to the creaking noise, I let out a gasp as I saw what looked like to be a b bi-pedal crab walking from a pool of sparkle-cola. As it prepared to lunge at me, Swift flew over my head and cut into its body, “Damn,” he cursed under his breath, “Mirelurks.”
“What are mirelurks?” I asked, hearing a few more footsteps behind me.
“Mutated crabs that came after the bombs fell,” He said, before turning to look at me. “What is with that smile?”
“Nothing,” I said, thinking about a joke Sweetie Bell told me about her and Rarity on the beach. I quickly forgot about the joke as I quickly moved to dodged out of the way of the incoming mirelurk’s claw strike. Before he could strike again, I impaled it on my sword. Turning around, I used an ice spear to kill the other mirelurk.
Swift walked to one of the bodies, carving away a piece of the meat and putting it into his bag, “You know that you have just killed these things.”
“My vow to never kill only applies to ponies,” I said, turning around to look for the stairs. As I began to walk down a nearby flight, I could hear Swift say something behind me.
“Good, I am glad to hear that,” chuckled Swift as he caught up with me. “I feared that you would allow the rest of the wasteland walk over you.”
There was a part of me that wanted to hit him for that snide remark, but I stopped when I realized that he actually cracked a joke. I stood in shock for a few moments and shook my head to get my focus back on the mission.
As we continued our walk to the second floor, we had a few more encounters with mirelurks, each one falling by the wayside of our attacks. All the while, we kept our ears open for the sounds of colts, and our eyes open for what we hoped wouldn’t be a collection of corpses. Our hooves would clack against the ground in an even beat, only interrupted by the occasional kill of a mirelurk. As we neared the end of one catwalk, Swift stopped me by raising his hoof and looked down at his Pipbuck, seeing the blue dots on the screen. Opening my eyes, I turned to look at a pile of rubble where I heard a faint moan, “H-help us!!!!”
I gasped and ran to the rubble, “Are there two of you in there? What happened?”
“Yes,” the faint colt voice said, “Me and my brother were running from the monsters. We tried hiding out in this room, but when we closed the door, we heard a lot of chattering. Help us, it's getting harder to breath.”
“There isn’t something we can use to lift this rubble out of the way” Swift said, “I’ll try to find a plank or something to life this stuff away.”
As Swift walked away from me, I looked back to the boulder and that was in front of the door and smiled. Getting close to the large rock, I wrapped my hooves around the boulder and began to lift. See, since I am alicorn, I have the strengths of all three races: Magic, speed, and of course, strength. And at that point, I was grateful for the power of the earth pony race as I began to lift the boulder with all of the strength I had. With a grunt, I began to slowly lift the boulder off from the ground, feeling the sweat rolling down my brow. Like I said, earth pony strength, which means lifting this boulder was hard, but not impossible. After all, I’ve seen Pinkie’s sister lift less. With a final grunt, I pulled the boulder away and threw it to the side.
One of the colts opened the door and looked up to me in amazement, “Wow, lady! How did you do that?”
I blushed and told one of the more obvious lies that I had ever told in my life, “Unicorn magic.I used it to increase my strength a hundred fold.” To empathise I showed off a bicep.
Before the kid could respond to that with another question, Swift landed behind me and said, “Impressive, I guess you didn't need this plank then. Though I must as-ARgH!”
My eyes opened in shock as I saw a very large claw slash iselt across Swift’s side and forge, sending him to the floor. Moving quickly, I lifted up the pegasus in my magic and brought him to the door, Taking out some bandages, I put them to his wounds, “Hide in here, I’ll take care of the mirelurk.”
“By yourself? No!” Swift argued before I closed the door on both him and the colts.
Turning to face the large Mirelurk behind me, I took off my cape and smiled, “You must be the Queen. Hello, Beastie.” I smirked. as the beast slammed its large claw at me. Before it could make contact with me, I leapt up into her air and allowed my wings to keep me aloft. I noticed the creature’s eyes stare at me in anger as I said, “Yeah, it's like that.” Then I landed on top of the outstretched claw and began to slice repetitively along the arm of the claw, making deep cuts into it. As t roared in pain, it tried to swipe at me with its other claw. This one too, flew over it with ease.
There are times when my wings annoy me. How they make me look more like Nightmare Moon, how they can get in the way sometimes and how I can't fly with them when I try to keep hidden. But at the moment, I loved the fact that I was born an alicorn. I began to bob and weave out of the way of the monster’s strikes, making her miss me with each move.
However, my luck didn’t last forever as one of its claws managed to get a good hit on me and slam me into the wall. With a low moan I slowly pulled my body out of the crater, flying away before it could hit me with another strike. Flying straight at it, I swooped up as he tried to bash me with its next attqa and hoved above its claw that I slashed at earlier. Making my horn glow with a white light, I sent out an icy spear at the claw, cracking it with an large ice spike. With another roar the creature swiped her limb at me and slammed me into another wall, creating another creator.
I winced in pain as I slid down from the wall, praying to the stars that I didn’t break a rib. Before I had a chance to catch my breath, the large crustacean thrusted his claw with a ice spike at me, intending to cut my head off. In a flash, I wrapped my hooves around the creature's claw and began to pull on it, causing it to crack. As if it realized what I was doing to it, the Mirelurk Queen began to try and pull away from me, its eyes full of panic and fear. I just smirked as I pulled on it and then ripped it off, breaking it away from the ice spike.
As the creature reeled back from losing its limb, I took flight and threw two ice spikes into the creature's last claw, causing it to crack. Narrowing my eyes, I flew down with Dusk pointed out and stabbed through the crack in the creature's shell and through the last claw. The monster began to back away in fear as I charged my horn with lighting and let loose a mighty thunderbolt that fired at the creature.
Satisfied with my defeat of the monster, I walked to where I had stashed my cloak and put it on. Making sure that my wings were properly hidden, I opened the door and walked to Swift. Kneeling down, I moved the bandages and looked at the damage, “I’ll be fine,” Swift tried to argue.
I shook my head, “It's a pretty deep cut, one that could be serious if I don’t heal it.” I said, concentrating and began to call up my healing magic.
“Where did you learn healing magic?” asked Swift.
I didn’t answer him, just focused instead on the memory on where I picked up the spell.
“Nyx, are you ok?” A pink alicorn asked me as she looked at my cut knee.
I nodded a little, “Yeah, but it hurts.”
“Give me a second,” Cadence smiled and she made her horn glow a steady pink, healing my cut knee back to normal.
“Wow, how did you do that?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
Cadence smiled, “It’s a little something that I learned as an alicorn of love. You can do it too. Just close your eyes, and think of your happiest memories, ones that keep you warm at night,” Cadence said with a smile.
Nodding, I did that, thinking of my friends, my mom, and a good book. When I opened my eyes,I saw my horn glowing a dull pink, “Wow!” I said.
“Now,this won’t heal everything, but it will heal shallow wounds.”
I smiled softly as I pulled away from the memory and looked down at the healed side and leg, “There, that should do it.”
Swift smiled back at me as he stood up, “Thanks.” I smiled back as the two colts ran ahead of us.
“Mister, ma’am...where’s my mom?” one of the colts asked.
It never gets easier, standing with a family member as they grieve over their loved ones. I should know, I have done it one too many times. Many times, I find myself standing with the family of friends that I grew up with. Colts and fillies who I had watched grow up into mares and stallions find themselves buried six feet under, just because of a stupid war. The sinking feeling in my chest seemed to have gotten worse in this hell hole of a wasteland. As I look at the tombstone, all I can think of is if I was only ten minutes faster then I could’ve saved her.
A look over my shoulder at the lowered head of Swift and I can tell he is thinking of the same thing. There is just something in his eyes that tell me he wants time to turn back and protect this mare. Sighing, I looked back at the two colts as they sit in front of the grave, holding each other as they whimpered and cry. Softly, I stepped forward and placed my hoof onto the eldest shoulder, “Come, we need to go.”
The clt sniffled and looked down at his little brother, “B-but, what do we do now? How can we go on without-”
“First, we take you home, then you can decide how you live your lives,” Swift said plainly.
I offered more of a kinder word “It may seem impossible right now, but the thing you have to do is find a way to live. It’s going to be up to you now to honor your mom’s memory by living the rest of your lives. Maybe become hunters, or protect your town, but you must find something to latch onto and fight to keep it,” as the words bled from my mouth, I had to wonder if I even believed those words. Even I knew how hard it was to find something to live for. A look over my shoulder at Swift and I had to raise an eyebrow at him smiling. Did I actually impress him with my words?
Swift looked ahead a small group of ponies in the distance, “I assume that your caravan is that away. If we go now, we should arrive shortly.”
The two colts nodded, and with trembling hooves managed to stand up and follow us away from the grave. I nodded solemnly at the grave behind me, making a solemn prayer that she would find peace and would be happy that her children were safe.
In less than an hour, we had arrived at the caravan. There was much crying and reunions as the two were welcome back into their home. There was also a moment of mourning for the lost mare. From a few steps away from the main caravan, I heard Swift talking to what I assumed was the leader, “Why were you traveling this far away from the usual paths?”
“We were escaping Sol,” the leader said with a hushed tone, as if the mention of that name would bring it out.
“Sol?! That old mare’s tale?” asked Swift, a look of disbelief on his face.
The green stallion stepped closer to Swift, “For a mare’s tale, she was very real to my town. It was just as in the legends said about her. She came in, and incinerated our home, burned it to the ground.”
Swift shook his head, “You are imagining things.”
“Tell that to the ponies who were burned alive by that monster. Some of the were even blinded by looking into the bright light of her flames!” the stallion said. I had taken note that part of his mane seemed to be burned off.
Swift gave a scoff, “Many unicorns can learn a fire spell, whoever destroyed your town used the legend of Sol to scare and ransack it.”
“Mane of fire, ruby dragon-like eyes, and a sword of blue flame. That matches Sol to a T,” the stallion argued.
“So the legend of Sol says, but I am not convinced,” Swift said.
“Listen yo-”
“Whoa! Hold it,” I said, stepping in and holding the two stallions back. Turning to look at the red maned stallion, I asked, “Sir,”
“Crack Cutter,” the stallion said.
“Crack, who is Sol?” I asked, trying to find the truth in this wasteland legend.
Swift snorted and relplies, “A foal’s tale, nothing more.
“Sol, is a legend of the wastes,” Crack said, with a sigh. “One that started ten years ago. It is said that she is a mare that is encased in a roaring flame. That she goes from town to town and burns it to the ground, wiping out all who live there, but leaving enough alive to spread her name. She has been said to have a mane of flame atop of her head. That she wields a sword of blue flame, and that her speed and strength are almost god-like. She speaks with a calm fury, like a fire that is ready to be unleashed at any given moment. Not much else is known about her, some see her as an unicorn, others a pegasus or an earth pony. But, the legend remains the same, when she is there... your life is over.”
Swift, had a slight frown on his face as he spoke, “This is why I don’t believe in the legend. I have traveled this wasteland for over a decade now and I have not met such a being. If such a monster ever existed, I would’ve killed it by now.”
“I don’t think so,” Crack said with a shake of his head. “I have seen this monster cut through bullets. I have seen her move through walls and jump over buildings. She isn’t an opponent you can take down.”
Swift was about to offer another argument when I stepped in, “So, where are you going now?”
“There is an abandoned town nearby, at least according to some of the pip bucks we scavenged,” Crack said, looking away. “It’s a day’s journey, and we hoped to stay there for now.”
“We’ll go with you,” I said. “You need protection, and me and my friend can offer it.”
I watched the stallion’s eyes open wide with amazement and relief, “You... you will? Oh, thank you. I’m afraid we can’t offer you much. It's hard enough-”
“We have our own food, don’t worry,” Swift said, walking away from me to join the rest of the caravan.
I sighed as he walked and smiled at the stallion, “It would be our honor to help.”
Our journey took us through most of the night, and through it all I had a smile on my face as I watched the caravan ponies talk with one another. It was calming in its own way to see life carrying on in face of the hardships they faced. The way that the families lived almost made me think of what my life was like back in past, before I had lost it all. I giggled when I saw two fillies playing at knights with one another.
The only one that was silent through our little journey was Swift. The way he would fly above our heads, and the movement of his head gave off an air of something hiding deep down inside. I wondered quietly to myself what was on his mind.
It was when we had camped out for the night, just a half day’s journey away from our destination, that I had decided to talk to my companion. Finding him at a fire sitting outside of the caravan, i sat down across from him and asked, “Ok, spill. You have been gloomy since this trip started. More than usual actually, why?”
“I just found out, what it is exactly that this little town did before it was burned to the ground,” Swift said.
“What?” I asked.
Swift looked to the fire and narrowed his eyes, “They were making and dealing out drugs to ponies. They are drug dealers, Nyx.”
My eyes opened wide at the revelation and then I turned to look back at some of the foals as they slept next to their families, “And for that, what do you want me to do, kill the lot of them? Make those kids orphans and leave them to the horrors of the wastes?”
“Of course not... it’s just that,” he sighed and looked to the cloudy sky, “All my life, I have lived by a creed, swift death to evil. That means to kill anypony I see committing a crime, and here are a bunch of criminals in my sights.”
“And that gives us the right to kill the lot of them?” I asked, looking back at my friend in his deep blue eyes, “This could be a chance for them to lead a new life or to put those skills they made towards something other than drug running. Can we really take away that chance?”
“Can you depend on them actually taking it? For all you know, they will continue their operation, “ Swift said.
“They will, I trust in them,” I said, yawning and lying down.
As my eyes closed, I could hear Swift mutter, “Such naivety.”
“Check this out, Nyx,” the cream colored pegasus said, pulling out the black revolver out from the cabinet. “This is one of those new gun things that you heard about. I thought you might like to see it.”
“Wow, Featherweight, it’s impressive,” I said, taking the gun in my magic and looking it over. “The grip is made so the tongue can pull the trigger for earth ponies.” my magic continued to look over the firearm, my curiosity piqued. Carefully, my magic began to try and take it apart.
“Yeah, I saw my dad firing a few rou-
BANG
“Featherweight? Oh, stars... I’m so sorry,” I said seeing my friend fallback from the shot.
“And again, we see that the monster should’ve stayed dead,” a voice that sounded like the fires of hell spoke, reaching out with a red hand for me.
Gasping, I baked away, “No, Tirek, stay away!!!”
“Nyx, wake up,” Swift Blade said, shaking my shoulder with a worried look in his eye. “You were moaning and screaming in your sleep. Are you ok?”
I nodded quickly, “I’m fine, really.” Slowly, I brought my hooves up to my face and remembered that day. I had almost lost a friend because of my carelessness, and almost made Twist hate me for the rest of my life. I can still remember the angry look in her eyes when I told her I almost killed her boyfriend. It had hurt me more than any wound I have ever taken, and it's one of the main reasons why I utterly despise using a gun. It was also how I began to respect equine life in all of it’s forms. I just can’t stand thinking of how fragile the world around me is, and how precious our lives are.
Taking a quick look ahead, I noticed how the caravan had already begun its walk towards the town, and I began to follow. A part of me wished to just remove my cape and fly ahead of them, just forget that I am hiding who I am. I shook my head, reminding myself that I was an alicorn and probably would end up scaring them with the sight of my feathered appendages. Instead, I chose to occupy my time with the foals and telling them stories about one of my favorite subjects, my mother, “And then she stared down the nightmare, glazing her purple eyes and said, “Because friendship, is magic.”
The reactions of the children was priceless, and seeing them look in on awe like that made me smile. Swift, was not impressed, “If you are done with telling your stories, Crack says we’re here and wants to talk to us.”
Nodding, I got up from the cart and waved farewell to the foals. There was a part of me that wanted to stay behind and tell them more stories, but i had a mission. Making my way to the place where Swift was talking to Crack, I heard the stallion mention, “Well, we scoped out the town, and it's good for us to stay. However,”
“However?” I asked.
“There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of water supplies around here. A scout mentioned that she saw what looks like a stable nearby. So perhaps-”
“We’ll go,” I said, stepping forward.
Crack shook his head, “No, we couldn’t.”
“We are going to do it, consider it a special service,” I said, winking at him. I was also doing it because I wanted a chance to see a stable the was not filled to the brim with dead ponies. I could hear a sigh coming from behind me as Swift followed close behind.
It didn’t take us long to get through the town and to the small cave entrance that the scout said might have held a stable. Lighting up my horn, me and Swift walked down the cavern path. After a little while, we had reached the large stable doors with a large number 24 emblazoned on it. I could feel a little flutter in my heart as I began to type in the code to open it.Sure, my first stable that I went to in the Wastes was one of the more horrifying experiences in my life, but I had felt confident that this was going to be different. Almost as if he was reading my mind, I could feel Swift’s look upon me with a frown. Taking a quick look to my side, I saw how he looked down and was shaking his head, “Problem?”
“We are about to head into a stable, and for a girl as naive as you are, it won’t be pleasant,” he said.
I chuckled, “Look, I’ve been to one stable already so it probably won’t be too bad.”
“Well, it doesn’t look broken into, so maybe the ponies-”
I interrupted him, “Wait, ponies break into stables now? Why?”
“Steel Rangers,” Swift said as the doors opened. “They like to break into Stables and take whatever technology that they can from them.”
“And the ponies?” I asked, trembling.
“Dead,” Swift said calmly as he walked into the Stable.
I shuddered at the thought that something Applejack created would do something so horrible in the future. I had hoped, deep down inside, that these were just a renegade faction of Rangers and not the entire team.
When I trotted into the stable, I was taken aback by what I had saw. A skeleton of a pony that looked like it had died trying to claw its own eyeballs out. The bright fluorescent lighting overhead did little to make the sight of the dead mare any less gruesome. Holding back my shudders and revulsions, I continued on, stopping once in awhile to see another dead pony or a broken window. Everywhere I looked I saw ponies dead in various horrifying manners, each seeming to be by their own hooves. Sometimes i could even find some ponies looking like they had killed each other in rage. My mind began to run through a hundred scenarios as to why there was all of this death in a stable, when I heard Swift say, “Mushrooms?”
“Shrooms?” I asked, walking into one room and looking over his shoulder, and seeing the fungus on the ground. It was bright red and with a large bite taken out of it.
Swift stabbed the fungus with his wing blade and brought it to his nose, giving it a good wiff, “Doesn’t smell odd, but I be wary of trying to eat it.”
I nodded and looked down one hallway, “I think i see the Overmare’s office that way. i’ll go and investigate it, see what I can find. How about you head down to the basement and find that talisman.” Swift nodded in agreement and left my side.
With a quick gallop, I made my way into the overmare’s office and opened it, finding yet another slumped skeleton. This one seemed to have a gun pointed to her head and a bottle of rum in the other. With a depressed sigh, I gently moved the skeleton away from the terminal and began to type along its keyboard for some information. The first log I had found was the introduction.
Hey there, I’m Scootaloo.
As the raspy voice came from the monitor, I had almost jumped out of my seat in joy at hearing her, “Scoots!!!!” for a moment, I had almost forgotten she wasn’t alive anymore. The ears began to fill my eyes as I slowly ran my hoof over the screen, trying to reach back 200 years and touc my friend again. Blinking away my tears, I tried to regain my focus and listen to the rest of the message.
...If you are listening to this, then the worst has happened. Damn it, why couldn’t they try a little harder... Sorry, this is the tenth time I have had to to record this message and it isn’t getting any easier. Our goal here at Stabletech is to make sure that the ponies of the old world move onto the next generation and hopefully live on in a better world. That is why we have started these experiments.
“Experiments? What experiments, what are you talking about? You said this was meant to protect ponies,” I argued.
We need to find out where we went wrong in the past and how to fix our mistakes. Each Stable has been provided with a social experiment to find out how to fix a problem in our society. Someponies have found some unusual species of mushrooms in the Boarder-lands and found that they have unique properties on ponies emotions. Some can make you mad, envious, or depressed. We have put some of these mushrooms into the Stable for you to distribute to various ponies as a way of trying to suppress or bring out emotions.
“B-but, you can’t do that to ponies. That’s forcing them to feel and think in only the way that you want them to,” I said, shaking. Almost every emotion you could name started to build up in me. A part of me just wanted to punch the screen at what I was hearing, “Scootaloo, please, stop this!” I yelled, forgetting that this already happened years ago.
Some of the ponies will be given mushrooms to hold back rage, others to have rage all of the time and others-”
“Stop it!” I yelled, punching my hoof against the screen, causing it to crack a little.
“Nyx, are you alright?” I could faintly hear Swift ask me. I could barely register anything else that he said to me as we walked out of the Stable and to the leader of the caravan. The rest of that trip and anything else just passed me by like a faint and barely audible blur. I just ignored the caravan and the ponies around me as I headed off into the wastes by myself.
Nearing a rock with a long outcropping, I sat underneath its shade and leaned against the wall. This time, i just let the tears flow from my eyes and down my cheeks, “Scootaloo, how could you do this. You told me you were going to protect ponies. That you were going to save lives, not make them part of some crazed experiments. Why? How could you... How could you lie to me!” I yelled, punching the wall with my hoof and causing it to crack.
Scootaloo looked up at me with a smile, “Just watch Nyx, what you are doing today will help out ponies everywhere.”
“We’ll be keeping them all safe,” Applebloom agreed.
Sweetie Belle kicked the ground and lightly nodded.
“Did all three of them know about this? Why couldn’t they tell me about their plans? Why?!” I cried, punching the wall harder. Letting out a small whimper, I began to realize, “You knew...you knew what I would do if you told me the truth! I would’ve done everything I could to stop your insane plan! You couldn’t bear to tell me because you didn’t want to fi-”
I was brought out of my rant by the feeling of a hoof on my shoulder, “What’s wrong? You did not stay with the Caravan or say your goodbyes.”
Slowly, I turned to look at my friend, the tears still leaking from my eyes. A part of me wanted to say that it's because I was just betrayed by my best friends, that they lied to me and I was so angry with them, but I remembered myself and held back. Instead, I sniffled and tried to stop myself from crying, “I-I-I just found out about the experiments of Stable tech. For the longest time, I believed that there were good ponies before the war, that the things they tried to do were just misused by ponies who were corrupt. I believed in the ideals of old Equestria and now to see this. I just-”
I was interrupted by a tight hug from Swift, as he wrapped his forelegs around me and held me close,” This is why I called you naive. You have not lived long enough in the Wasteland to truly understand what it will put you through.”
“I know, now,” I whimpered, blushing a little at this closeness.
“There will be days when you are going to be forced to find and fight ponies who will challenge everything you have ever believed in. They will make you face down your ideals and wonder if you should stay with them. How you face those challenges will determine the type of pony you are,” he pulled away and wiped some of the tears from my eyes, brushing his hoof past my mane. “The question will be, are you going to be a weak stick, or a strong blade in the wind.”
I smiled softly and nodded, “T-thank you. Thanks for, being there.”
“As I said, you needed a partner to keep you safe,” Swift said, breaking the embrace.
“No, what I needed... was a friend,” I said, walking away and smiling at him.
“Oh, do you consider me a friend by now?” Swift asked, flying by my side.
I winked at him and giggled, “Maybe. You certainly are not an acquaintance anymore. But, I think we still need to work on the friend part of our relationship.”
“I look forward to that struggle,” Swift smiled as he flew along my side.
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I think Sol is a hallucination and the damage is from meth labs blowing up.
Seeing the Fallout 4 stuff appearing.
Hmm, I wonder how long it will take to Nyx to accept the fact that a slap on the wrist will not stop the raiders from acting like degenerated bloodthirsty beasts.
I like the story so far! Only things that bother me so far are the insane amounts of typos and grammatical errors, as well as the existance of Mirelurks in the factory, as well as within the Equestrian Wastelands. In Fallout 4, Mirelurks usually lived by wet areas, yet from what I've read in the factory segment of this chapter, you mentioned nothing about there being any large sorces of water. Another thing, I feel like Nyx's emotional show in Vault 24 was a little too brief and didn't have much impact on her character.
Other than that, I like the story so far! Keep it up.