Chapter 3: Rediscovery
Chapter 3: Rediscovery
"If I shake her head will her brain start working again?"
"Eyaaa!" Saffron Fields suddenly exclaimed, actually jumping with surprise. "Anne, I really wish you would not do that!"
"Hehe," I responded, smiling. "I see I am improving!" I'd just crept up on him for the third time that morning.
"How the heck can you be that quiet?" Saffron asked, "especially with that bung leg?"
"Practice, practice," I responded. "I was trained as a sniper and assassin back in that hell hole. Admittedly I haven't used the skills much over the years, except for sneaking past nasty ponies without being detected, though that came to an end a while back when some bastard blew my hoof off. It's very hard to sneak while hopping."
"And the prosthetic makes that much difference?" Saffron asked, glancing down at my encased forelegs - encased in what had formerly been the front boots of his own power armor.
"Of course it does!" I responded, "though I do wish I could get the fetlock joint to move." Despite my efforts, I and been unable to synchronize that joint of the armor to my cybernetic systems. Something was preventing the signal from even making it down my shortened leg. I suspected there was more damage to the systems of my leg than just the missing fetlock and hoof. I had compensated for this by forming the sole of that armored boot into a curve, removing the need for any flexibility at the fetlock. Of course that reduced the contact area that leg had with the ground, meaning it was more prone to slipping than its counterpart. A fault like that with my leg should have been well within Lee's abilities to trace and fix with her magic, but with her mind currently on vacation, and this alien in residence, getting her to do anything remotely useful was proving difficult. I hadn't met any other pony with the fine control and understanding needed to do this sort of work either. While I was also highly skilled in repairs, it was not with anything so small and delicate. I was great with power cables, guns, armor and so on. I could manage to effect repairs to the mechanical parts of our cyborg frames too. If things were really desperate, I could even manage to fuse blood vessels that had been severed, though the effort required to do that was phenomenal.
"Well, kid, I'm amazed at what you've done, even with the locked joint." Saffron assured me.
I scowled back. "Kid? I'm older than you, boy-o." Sure, I was trapped in an unaging fifteen year old body, and I still travelled with my mother, even if she had currently vacated her head, but I was thirty-four, damn it, and that was a good eleven years on Saffron Fields.
"Sorry, sorry," he replied with a smile, letting me know the slip-up had been anything but accidental.
"Bah! Revenge is sweet, gotcha, or whatever. You got me," I admitted, conceding defeat. I guess he had some right to stir me a little, after all, I'd had him jumping out of his skin all morning.
Saffron had taken to wearing armor without a helmet since he had recovered. Part of the reason was that with only one eye, he found the helmet restricted his vision too much. The other was to do with attitude. As far as he was concerned, he was on sabbatical, while he worked out where he stood in relation to the Steel Rangers and their mandate. Saffron was the lucky one. His partner in crime had been killed in the same encounter that had taken Saffron's eye. And, yes, I mean "partner in crime" in the literal sense. Robbing ponies of their technology in order to preserve it was just as much a crime as any other robbery. My scathing comments to him as he lay dying apparently had an effect, and now that he had somehow recovered due to timely intervention by a skilled doctor, Saffron seemed determined to do better. Nonetheless, the wasteland had a way of destroying a pony's resolutions, so time alone would tell what path he eventually chose.
We were preparing for the trek to the stable in which I had been born, Stable L04, or Stable Lab 04. I had been told that for some reason or another, the powers that were did not want it as part of the regular stable series, so I had no idea if it was also referred to as Stable 4. That it was staffed entirely with unicorns preselected for their technical expertise may have had something to do with what I had been told. That it contained items that I'm guessing were classified Stable-Tec secrets definitely had something to do with it. The stable had never been revealed to the public, and thus no general members of the public ever gained entry. I did not know when its later, and somewhat ugly mandate had come into play. Perhaps it was one of the original plans for the stable. Perhaps it was the only plan - make an army of cyborg assassins. Create a pool of operatives for the ministries to use when taking back control after the war. If that was indeed the case, I doubted they could have seen that it would take the better part of two centuries for the research to reach the level of technology needed. The first generations of cybernetics had been closer to crude prosthetics than true cybernetics. Most of those converted with the older generation prosthetics had died long before I was born, though I had seen some of them in old family recordings, and stable created entertainment videos. A pony with more up to date prosthetics was a common enough sight in the stable. And those of us who lived there simply thought it was because there were a lot of accident prone ponies living in an aging and dangerous environment.
I pushed another box of ammo for my pistol into the storage compartment of my battle saddle. They had come from Ditzy's shop. I had also purchased a few "special" bullets, special in that they were not common, and my favorite gun, my beloved sniper rifle, used them. Now that we were going to be facing more danger than usual, I wasn't traveling without it in operating condition. I'd have to break down the weapon and give it a good clean and service too, as it had not been used in some years. As for the cyber-carbine, I'd stocked up on salvaged ball-bearings. Crane, the maintenance pony over in the train yard, was only to happy to swap defunct ball-bearings for caps. According to him, his magic was powerful enough to repair them "just by focusin’ at ‘em", but I guess with all the box cars that had been used to construct the town wall, there were a lot of bearings to spare! My own magic was not unlike his, though it was more suited to the location and repairing of power systems. Over the years, many a pony had paid me to crawl around in the network of tunnels that laced Equestria, locating and repairing damaged wiring, disconnecting defunct systems to lighten the load on the distant generators and to free up the limited power for other uses.
I slipped a couple of healing potions into another pocket on my saddle. Whether those stories of Doctor Whooves were true or just fanciful thinking, I didn't know. Had he been real, one would have thought he would have done his all to stop the blasted war, which clearly he hadn't. However, there was one thing which probably could be contributed to him, be he fact or fantasy - the container that was bigger on the inside than it was outside, like his fabled traveling blue box. Perhaps his technology was borrowed. Perhaps the idea merely inspired those who were good with arcane sciences. Whatever the case, throughout Equestria, there were many containers that could contain more than their physical dimensions would permit. Take my sniper rifle, for example - she was longer than I was tall, yet I was able to keep her tucked into a convenient pouch on my saddle, and she didn't stick out either end - she simply went inside. I knew she was in there somewhere, though, because I could still feel her weight.
"I hope you have a better weapon than that pop-gun," Lee commented looking at my pistol. "You'd be lucky to scare a bug with that."
"Huh?" I asked. My pacifist mother was suggesting a bigger gun? No, the strange personality occupying her head was. "Since when do you like guns, Lee?" I asked. "Besides, this gun is very reliable." I added. 10mm guns were common enough for me to be able scavenge enough to keep this one in near perfect condition. Ammo wasn't too hard to find either, which was just as well, because it usually took a few bullets to take down anything much larger than a bug.
"Guns are a girl's best friend," Lee assured me, "though I am somewhat disappointed to find I no longer have my gun collection."
"Your what?" I prompted. My mother had never had a significant collection of guns, so again Lee was discussing something from her fantasies. "Your what?" I repeated.
"My collection of guns. I had a few energy weapons such as laser rifles, plasma pistols, and so on, as well as a few good old fashion slug throwers." She explained.
"Not in this life you didn't," I pointed out.
"I also had this lovely army of robot drones that were armed to the teeth, figuratively speaking," she continued.
"Well, Loopy, this may come as a shock to you, but these days, it's just you and me, my pop-gun, your combat shotgun and our Cybercorn carbines, though in your case, that point is moot as you seem completely incapable of using them." I was starting to feel exasperated. This version of Lee seemed totally incapable of using her magic even for the simplest levitation. She may as well have been an earth pony for all the use her horn was. "Oh, and I have Victory too."
"Victory?" Lee asked tilting her head a little.
"My pet sniper rifle," I explained. "Since you've forgotten her, I'll introduce you later."
That was when I had a thought - not an Equestria shattering thought - just a little idea that may at least make Lee semi useful in combat. My pistol could easily be fired using its muzzle grip and tongue trigger. It wasn't a unicorn specific weapon. Lee could use that until I could get some sort of trigger arranged for her saddle mounted combat shotgun. That of course would require parts, which I either had to purchase, or salvage, neither which were options at the present moment.
It was not long before I had Lee's combat shotgun dismounted from her saddle, and mounted on mine instead. Now with four legs, I could balance with the added weight. Actually, it made the loading on my saddle more even. Hmm - perhaps I could modify the magic of my saddle storage compartment to automatically balance the whole saddle, rather than just its contents. That was something I'd try later. A bit of pondering while we were en route was to order. I showed Lee how to use my automatic pistol. While it wasn't a particularly powerful weapon at 10mm, it was well maintained and reliable, and was certainly better than having no gun at all. Lee wasn't overly impressed with the whole hold-your-gun-in-your-mouth routine. Fortunately the pistol didn't have much kick, and the shock dampening grip dealt with most of that, so she stopped complaining. Being a cyborg, she should have been able to withstand the kick of a quite substantial gun.
After that I stripped down Victory for a much needed service. Even when I'd finished, she wasn't in perfect condition, but until I could find a couple of parts, she would do. I would run out of ammo long before it became a problem. I slid Victory back into my saddle, fully loaded, and put her spare clip into the autoloader.
Finally, everyone seemed to be packed. "Ready?" I asked.
"Yup," Saffron replied.
"No," replied Lee. "My arsenal and drone army are still missing."
"Pfft," I said. "Let's get going before it's so damn late we find a reason to stay the night.
I led the group out through the New Appleloosa gates and into the barrenness of the wasteland beyond. Glancing at the map on my Pipgirl's virtual display, I oriented myself. "Right, we go that way, more or less," I indicated with a wave of my head. The first part of the trip would be comparatively easy, because it was territory through which we had recently traveled, so the dangers were fresh in my mind. Beyond that, there were areas I had not crossed in some time, if ever. And of course there was the area around Stable Lab 04 which my mother and I had deliberately avoided for years.
Easy was a relative term. Sure, it was easier to go somewhere you have been before, if only because you have a better idea of what rocks you can hide behind when you run into the inevitable raider. With three of us against the three raiders my Pipgirl was indicating were ahead, it was a pretty even fight, if you ignored the fact that one of us was a walking heavy weapons platform. Neither Lee's or my barding was particularly heavy, but they would stand up to the sort of weapons raiders usually managed to find, assuming the bastards didn't aim for our heads, as was my habit. Of course, with raiders, recognizing them as hostiles from a distance was easy enough. They advertised it with the butchered remains of their previous victims strung up on chains about their camp. A few crude wooden walls served them as shielding. It probably wouldn't stop a bullet, but it sure as hell made it hard to aim at them. Because of that, we'd spent the last few minutes sneaking up on their position, so we could get a clear shot.
"So how do we tackle this?" Saffron quietly asked.
"It's up to you," I replied. "Either you launch a grenade in their direction, and I start taking pot shots at them with my guns, or you don't, and I still take pot shots at them. Just decide before they notice us."
"Okay. On the count of three." Saffron smiled. "Ready? One..." With that he stood, sacrificing his cover, and launched a single grenade into the midst of the cluster of raiders. "Two, three." It was nice of him to allow for the delay of the grenade.
One of the raiders just had time to shout "Incoming!" before the grenade detonated, blasting them with shrapnel. One of the red marks vanished from my Eyes Forward Sparkle. I stood, targeting the nearest of the remaining raiders, and put two ball bearings, courtesy of my Cybercorn carbine, into his head. I didn't bother with S.A.T.S. My aim was excellent, especially when the target was standing there, still stunned from the grenade. As he fell, a bullet whizzed past my head from a poorly aimed, low caliber round from the last raider's badly maintained pistol. I sent my next two ball bearings at that raider, aiming for her blood covered foreleg, taking advantage of the damage to her armor caused by Saffron's grenade. A head shot would not have been as effective as she was wearing a helmet that looked like it had been fashioned from a sprite bot. With a scream, she toppled as the ball bearings shattered her leg bone and severed her artery. I put one more ball bearing into her to put her out of her misery, then glanced around for our third foe, the first to vanish from my E.F.S. Eventually my mind was able to piece together the puzzle of pony parts before me. Saffron's grenade had done its job all too well.
"Bugger," Lee complained, her word somewhat muffled by the gun grip in her mouth.
I glanced around at her hoping she hadn't been hit again. Fortunately it appeared she hadn't been. "Problems?" I asked.
She turned back to her battle saddle, and re holstered the pistol before tying to speak again. "Yes, I didn't get to shoot. By the time I got my gun out it was all over. Not fair."
"What?" I spluttered, considering my mother's usual pacifist ways, then remembered that this pony didn't share my mother's views, despite sharing her body. "Well, don't worry, Lee, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to shoot raiders. Anyway, next time, pull it out before we get to them!"
"I wanted to be able to speak, so I left drawing it to the last moment," she explained. "Next time I'll time it better."
"Well, let's see what these assholes have." Saffron commented. "With any luck, we'll be able to scavenge enough to pay for our ammo."
"I guess that's one way of looking at it," I agreed, trotting out from behind the rock we had been using as cover to follow Saffron. Lee tagged along.
"Pee-ew, I forgot how bad raider camps stink," Saffron muttered.
"That is one advantage being a cyborg - nasal filters," I responded.
"And one of wearing my helmet, which also has nasal filters," he replied, "though, I'll just put up with it for the moment."
Obviously the first things we searched for were ammo, food and medical supplies. For ponies that make a living from stealing, these raiders were not particularly skilled, judging from their collection of trash. Then again, it was unlikely they would be able to take down anyone with valuable weapons in the first place. We found a .32 pistol that was so worn as to be useless, apart from as something to feed Saffron's power armor as a token scrap metal offering. The other weapons were not a great deal better: three spears, a meat cleaver, two combat knifes, half a dozen sticks of dynamite and three frag grenades. Their ammunition was limited to three boxes of rounds for the .32, and half a dozen shotgun rounds. At least they were useful. We didn't find a shotgun though. Food was limited to some hay cakes. What else they had been preparing to eat was going into a hole in the ground, along with the rest of the pony it had been cut from.
Fortunately, making graves proved an easy task - the raiders had given us the tools. Saffron used the dynamite to blow a pit in a loose patch of sand a short distance from their camp. One at time, I levitated their bodies, and those of their four victims into the hole, then used my pushing magic to move all of the loose sand over the bodies. After about ten minutes, I had created a quite respectable mound. The three spears were broken, and re bound as a simple crosses to mark the grave, though that was more for the victims than the raiders.
"You know," Saffron commented, "I don't feel any remorse at all for having just taken part in killing three ponies, and that in itself is sad."
I shrugged. "It is sadder that ponies degenerate into something that needs to be killed to keep others safe." I replied. "We arrived today, and had to bury four of their victims. If we came tomorrow, we may have had to bury eight."
"I see your point." Saffron agreed.
"You know, I thought you would have been past even thinking about things like this. Haven't you killed before?" I asked.
"Of course I have, and each time it gets easier. You have already accused me of behaving like a raider, and that was just for stealing." Saffron reminded me. "What about you? How often have you killed?"
"Fifteen years I've been out here, wandering the wastes. I've probably killed hundreds of times, though mostly hostile critters. Ponies, less so. Lee hated killing ponies so we usually went out of our way to avoid it. It doesn't mean we always succeeded though." I paused, turning to Lee, who was standing there quietly, watching our conversation. "What about now, Lee? What's your view on how we should deal with raiders?"
"Plug 'em and plant 'em," Lee responded.
I shook my head. Clearly this entity was not the Lee I knew, not my mother. I also noticed that over the last few days I was calling her "mother" less often. I wondered if I would ever get my mother back. I also wondered if I would find out what became of my father, and in the event he was still alive, what I would do about it. Putting a bullet in his skull so he matched mother came to mind.
Something I had spotted earlier, while preparing the grave for the raiders and their victims, was a concrete stairwell in the ground that led down to a blue service tunnel door. Now that the more pressing matters had be dealt with, I climbed down the stairs, discovering in the process that climbing stairs was one area where my new prosthetic was not that effective. Nonetheless, it was still easier than doing it on three legs. I tried the door handle, finding the door to be locked. That was a good start. Locked doors usually meant less had been damaged inside.
Seeing me vanish into the ground, Saffron came over to find out what I was doing. Looking down at me and asked, "What are you doing down there?"
"Come along and find out," I replied, levitating out my keys. I quickly selected the correct one and unlocked the door, opening it into the darkness beyond. Darkness - hmm - that could be both good and bad.
"Okay. Coming, Lee?" he asked, trotting down the stairs (show off!) and following me into the darkness.
I activated the light function of my Pipgirl, and a gentle, white light partially illuminated the area. A concrete tunnel ran both to our left and right, and immediately across from us was another door, this time of a folding metal design. My Pipgirl showed no signs of any life, and the air smelled dry, and perhaps a little dusty, which meant the door seals had more or less survived. Excellent. I opened the second door and walked into the room beyond. Racks of equipment covered the walls, all dark. There was no doubt about it - this place was completely dead - devoid of all power, and had been for some time.
"What is this place?" Saffron asked, "and why do you have a key to it?"
"It looks like some sort of power distribution and monitoring station," Lee observed.
That surprised me a little. My mother would have known that immediately, after all we had fixed numerous stations like this over the years. I just hadn't expected the new Lee to know anything about them. "You recognize this, Lee?" I asked.
"Recognize, no, but it is similar enough to equipment I have worked with before," she explained.
"It is practically identical to equipment we have worked on," I pointed out.
"You may have, but not me. I've already told you. I'm human. I don't know what the hell I am doing in a pony body, and I'm certainly not from around here," Lee stated emphatically.
"So you saw something like this in your previous life, if I can put it that way?" I asked.
"Of course. My ship was full of stuff like this. So was the station where I grew up. I was always playing around with technology."
"Ship? The one from your dreams?" I asked, again having trouble separating one Lee from the other in my mind.
"I've told you about my space ship before?" she asked.
"Space what?" Saffron asked. I ignored him. He could learn by listening.
"The Lee I know told me about it. It was in her dreams. I guess that was some of you breaking through into her mind. Maybe it's been happening for years. Come to think of it, here we are still calling you 'Lee.' Do you have a name?" I asked.
"Yup. It's Lee. Lee Hammond," she said, nodding.
"Okaaaaay," I responded. Round and round in circles we go... This was too weird to be a coincidence.
My mother had changed her name to Lee back when she had been converted to a cyborg. Perhaps that was part of this second personality breaking though, even back then. Did this personality live in that implant in my mother's brain? Was it really a separate identity to her? The "Hammond" bit was new to me. It didn't explain why there was another Anne in this Lee's life, and why my mother had picked the bizarre name for me in the first place, years before she had been shot.... unless my memories were also corrupted when I was brainwashed. That wasn't impossible. A unicorn had ripped the memories of my father's betrayal and my subsequent shooting from my mind, replacing them with a false memory of me volunteering to join the cyborg army. A false desire to serve and obey had also been forced upon me at the time. Fortunately, the unicorn in question was not brilliant at the process, and my mother had been able to guide me through the tangled mess in my mind to rediscover the lost memories. The recovered memory of my betrayal, even though it had been subject to meddling, I could be sure was accurate. I had managed to find the memory orb into which the memory the unicorn had taken from me had been dumped. The two memories - my own recovered one, and the recorded one - matched.
"And Saffron, I have the key to this place and hundreds like it because I make a living fixing them," I answered his earlier question.
"You'll get paid for doing this today?" he asked, a little puzzled.
"Not specifically, but it is in my own interests to do so, because it will probably make my job easier in the future," I explained. Of course, I didn't know if it was possible to repair this particular junction yet.
I levitated my battle saddle from my back, as it would make moving around the cramped area difficult. It was unlikely I would find anything to shoot down here. My Pipgirl had already confirmed the lack of anything alive, or moving. I moved to main console, using my magic to blow the light layer of dust from it. The identification number engraved into it let me know it was part of the secondary network feeding the power grid that now included the town New Appleloosa, so I knew that restoring this particular node would be unlikely to allow me to bring power to places that were currently without it, but I could sell them improved reliability, with some luck. Locating the main feed to the node, I pressed my horn to the wire, shutting my eyes, ignoring all else that was going on around me, ignoring Saffron's questions about what I was doing. Willing my magic along the wire I felt its condition, where it went, and what was close to it. I could feel a few echoes from the surrounding wires, as if my magic was accessing them too. That I associated with a short circuit somewhere. After several miles, my magic hit the end of the wire I was following, and doubled back into another. Bingo. This was where the cables had been cut, probably by a collapse triggered by a megaspell during the war as was all too often the case.
Feeling around, I was able to piece together an image in my mind of what the damage was. Reaching further, I was able to find the other part of the cable from which this one had been severed, and even better, it felt as if it was live. Bringing up my splicing spell, I drew the two parts of the cable together, disconnecting them from anything to which they had been short circuited, and connecting them to each other. I felt as the metal merged, welding itself, allowing the electricity to flow, and as the insulation returned, creating a seamless joint. Opening my eyes, I glanced at the panel, finding I had been rewarded with a single dimly glowing lamp. One wire down, three to go. The next three wires were a lot quicker to repair because I had already mentally mapped the area of the break. That rewarded me with three lamps operating at the correct brightness, and voltages registering on the meters. Awesome!
Returning to the wire rack, I touched my horn to each of the remaining wires, which were used for communication and control between the consoles and repaired them as well. This time when my consciousness returned to the immediate, I found I was alone in the darkened room, though I could hear voices outside. Nothing sounded amiss though, so I returned to my work.
"Best out of seventy three!" I heard Saffron call. Well, maybe Saffron's naughts and crosses skill was amiss, I guessed.
I powered the console. The service tunnel lights flickered to life. That was a good sign. Looking around, I could see that my earlier assessments were accurate. This node was in pretty good shape for equipment that was over two hundred years old. Returning my attention to the task at hoof, I read through the connection status list. Two feeds showed no load, so I guessed they went to more damaged tunnels. I really needed access to the control consoles at the nodes they led to if I was to repair them as I had this one, and as the connections were severed, I simply shut down the feeds. Those two would have to be fixed another day, if I came across the service tunnels at their other end. More often than not, the service tunnels didn't go far, the wiring vanishing into conduits which would have been much less expensive to build, and thus had been used for most of the length of the wires. Obviously I was physically unable to follow the wires to their destination.
The status list showed a third feed had tripped because of an overload condition and disconnected itself, so I used the monitors to determine which wires were responsible, and walked back to the wiring racks to see what could be done. Again I pressed my horn to the wiring, and willed my magic to feel along the wires. It did not take me long to find the damage, so again I used my magic to repair the wires and insulation. Magically following the wires to their end, I found a distribution point indicative of a small town, settlement, or similar. Returning to the control panel, I reinitiated the connection and was rewarded with a reasonable load, indicating some power was flowing. After a few fluctuations, it stabilized. The load was too small to be anything particularly dangerous. I'd probably just enabled a few light bulbs, and maybe a Sparkle~Cola machine. Someone was going to be surprised at how cold their Sparkle~Cola was next time they cracked open that machine.
The fourth and final feed did indeed go to New Appleloosa. I left it set to standby. It would kick in automatically if their main feed completely failed, but would otherwise not give them any extra power. Later I'd try negotiating with the pony in charge of that town, trying to sell them an improved feed. If they agreed, I'd switch the feed to full time.
No doubt Lee and Saffron would be getting bored by now. After putting my battle saddle back on, I switched off the lights, so as not to waste any of the precious resource, and left the tunnels, locking the door behind me. I climbed the stairs back to the surface, finding myself fixed in the gaze of two restless ponies.
"So much for today," Saffron commented, referring to the failing day light.
"Such is life," I agreed. We hadn't traveled far today at all. New Appleloosa was just a bit too far away to consider returning to for the night. "Either we can walk for an hour or two, if you don't mind walking in the dark, or we can all go straight back down that stairwell, and sleep in a nice secure tunnel for the night."
"Let's walk," voiced Lee, "I've been sitting around for too long. I'm starting to go stir-crazy."
"My legs need stretching," Saffron stated. "We walk."
I shrugged, and started in the direction in which we had originally been traveling. With any luck we would not have any more incidents today. I could recall a couple of places up ahead that would prove suitable places to sleep. I levitated a grass cake out of my saddle bags, and began munching on that. Of course, the "grass" was nothing like that lush green plant I had seen in text books, but rather the tough and not so pleasant tasting stuff that had the tenacity to survive in this sun deprived world.
"Hmm. Pinkie Pies. Finger food for the discerning cannibal," Lee stated, more to herself than anyone, which was just as well because what she said made no sense to me at all. She was staring at a rather tatty and faded example of the Ministry of Moral poster that featured Pinkie Pie. It was hanging on what remained of the walls of the little ruin we were planning to spend the night in, or more accurately, on. This was the upper story, though the roof and ceiling were long gone, as was any wall above the top of the window frames.
I settled myself on the fallen remains of a wooden door, knowing it would be a lot warmer than the concrete floor below it. Saffron was already asleep, still dressed in his armor. I felt it would take some getting used to, as I was having trouble getting comfortable with just my forelegs enclosed. Possibly a fully functional power armor would be a lot more comfortable. In the end, I gave up trying to get comfortable, and removed the armor from my sweaty legs, reveling in the feeling of the air on them. The stump of my shortened leg felt a little tender, but considering how much walking I had just done on it, it was holding up remarkably well.
Lee was on first watch. Despite being completely nuts, she seemed quite capable of doing that. She had mentioned something about having spent a long time on the run while she was human, or more precisely, while her body was that of a human, because even as a pony, she was insisting she was a human. I wondered what that device in her head was. How could it affect her so much as to replace her entire personality? I wanted my Lee, my mother back. Finally, these strange thoughts distorted into illogic, and I fell asleep.
Footnote: Maximum Level. Rediscovered skills and perks: Sneak, Silent Running, Light Step.
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46725
I've been following your fic on DA; this is a changed/improved version of it?
53957
Yes, I rewrote the entire first chapter so it fit in with what else I had written. I also expanded it somewhat. The second and third chapters are slightly updated, but that is mostly in the areas of grammar and spelling, with the occasional change made for continuity, and the occasional description improved.
And those they encountered probably learned to stay away from them
...and the other two are combat cyborgs... one of which just lost its obstinate pacifism.
At least your front legs are a bit longer now, so that should help a bit when going down stairs
Heehee. Solving the mystery of why the Wasteland still has electricity 200 years after the end of civilization
I'm guessing it eventually all links up to some fully automated hydraulic dams or something.
Ooooh! This is the junction they use as backup later! Magnificent
I can just imagine if anyone happened to be at wandering around at that place, miles away, when the cables magically lift themselves out of the rubbish and repair themselves
Haha, you really get everything you can out of this "I got a human here" situation
3133111
Finally someone notices the comment!!!