• Published 11th Jul 2012
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Fallout Equestria — S.A.T. - Faindragon



"The only thing I can remember is waking up in a clinic, sealed inside a room..."

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Free

Green Valley was a beautiful city, even in its ruined state. Trees grew along the street, clad in as much ivy as the otherwise grey and dull ruins of the pre-war city were. The street was mostly clear. Few, if any, of the parts that had come loose from the ruins had fallen over the road, and only a couple of wagons stood where they had been abandoned on the pavement. Not even the bones, which otherwise had been a common part of the wasteland I had seen, was represented in any larger scale.

The only thing interrupting the silence in the slumbering city was the echo of our hooves against the stone pavement, especially my own heavy, metal-clad steps.

“You pea-brained idiot!” Bolt screamed as we ran through the streets. “We could have just avoided those ghouls, but no! You had to take a closer look!”

The sound of the ghouls screaming behind us as they came closer echoed with our hoofsteps. It felt as if my heart wanted to jump up in my throat or punch through my chest as I threw a look back at the ghouls following us. They were gaining on us, the first of the rotten pony bodies not more than fifteen steps behind us.

“I told you, they wouldn’t have seen me if it wasn’t for that small pebble falling down!” I quickly looked forward again, my legs pumping a little faster.

“I’m telling you, those things are not scientifically possible!” Spitfire said, clearly shocked.

“That small pebble,” Bolt growled as she made a sharp turn, starting down a new alley. “Caused a landslide! Next time you want to do something like that, make sure the ghouls come under the rocks. And make sure the rocks don’t end up making a ramp for them to get to us!”

“I mean, their bodies… They have rotted! How long must they have been dead for that to happen? They shouldn’t be able to move, much less be alive! This is not scientifically possible! They aren’t scientifically possible!”

I don’t care if they’re impossible, I care that they’re chasing us! “I’m sorry, okay?” I screamed to Bolt. “I didn’t see the pebble!” My sides heaved under the strain of breathing as I ran.

“Saying you’re sorry doesn’t do much for us now!” Bolt yelled as she made another turn. “In here!”

I quickly followed her, and she slammed the door shut after me. As soon as I had entered the room, I slumped against the closest wall and tried to catch my breath. I could hear tthe ghouls scratching at the door, trying to get in, but for the moment it withstood the assault.

The room we had run into (well, it was more of a hallway, really) wasn’t very big. Three doors lead into other parts of the house. In one of the rooms, I could see stairs leading to a floor above me. A few pieces of furniture, mainly two bureaus, an old armchair that had clearly seen better days, a hatrack and a bookcase were the only things that had adorned the small room. Three of the walls seemed to be in a good state, at least if you compared them to the other buildings I had seen. The fourth wall seemed to have fallen out partially, bringing some of the ceiling down with it.

“Get… up,” Bolt hissed between her teeth, her sides heaving as much as mine. “They’re going to break through that door any second now, and I don’t want to be here when they do!”

“And they shouldn’t be able to breathe! I mean, didn’t you see the throat of one of them? Completely ripped out, and the area around it looked as if someone had chewed on it!”

“Get up!” she said as she tugged at my biological leg. “Or I will leave you here!”

I slowly rose up, my throat burning for each ragged breath. “Now what?!”

“Help me with this,” Bolt said as she hurried over to the bookcase and started to move it. “It’s heavy.”

“Are you sure it will be enough to keep them out?” I asked as I helped her push it over to the door. My cybernetic legs moved as easily now as they had before we started running, but my real leg felt heavier and could barely keep my weight up. “And what about that?” I asked, pointing towards the gap in the wall.

“It should keep them out, but I don’t know for how long,” Bolt said as she took a hurried look over the room. “And they can’t jump that high. At least I hope so. You stay here and take a breather. I’m going to go and look for another way out.”

“Y-You didn’t know if there would be another way out from here?!”

“How would I be able to know that? I barely know where we are. Now, make yourself useful and lean against the bookcase while I look around. Yell if they start to come through. or jump over the wall.” She threw a quick look back at me. “And I really need to find something for your hooves.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re noisy. You know, metal against stone? We were lucky there weren’t more ghouls that heard you,” she stated as she hurried through one of the other doors in the room. “I’ll be right back. Be ready to run!”

“Run from… what?” I finished the sentence in a lower voice, certain she wouldn’t hear me. I did as I was told and leaned against the bookcase. I could clearly hear the sound of the ghouls screaming and trying to get through the door through the obstacles, but it seemed to hold them off for now.

“There must be a logical explanation behind all this,” Spitfire said. “Maybe magic is keeping them together and going? No, wait. That’s ridiculous!”

I tried to shut her voice out of my head, with no success. Sighing, I allowed my eyes to wander the room as my breathing started to return to normal, leaving my throat yearn for water, as she continued to talk about how scientifically—

“They are completely, one hundred percent, scientifically impossible! I don’t get it! How can they work, live, and breathe? Are they sentient? They haven’t shown any sign of it yet, but what if they are? What kind of life form are they?”

The books and smaller decorations that had been placed in the bookcase now lay scattered over the dusty floor where they had landed when we moved their former home. A cleared path in the dust showed exactly where we had moved the bookcase.

Debris lay where it had fallen from the floor above, and I could see small grains of dust falling from the ceiling, probably from where Bolt walked on the floor above. I silently prayed that the wood above me would hold. I shifted slightly to not be close to any part of the ceiling that leaned down into the room. I could hear the soft sound of Bolt’s hooves against the floor above, but I could no longer hear any sound from the ghouls outside.

“It seems like they gave up!” I yelled in the direction Bolt had disappeared. Barely had the words left my mouth when a thump and a crack came from the other side of the door. I swiftly moved myself from the bookcase. “You know what, scrap that,” I yelled as I moved towards the location I hoped Bolt was in. “They are kicking in the door!”

“They’re what?” Bolt asked wide-eyed as she ran down the stairs and towards me. Three cloth bundles floated after her. “Quickly, put these on. I found a way out, but there’s something in the way and I can’t get it to move.”

She floated over the bundles of cloth to me, and I quickly stepped into them, using my teeth to fasten them. They started to glow softly as Bolt jerked them in place, and suddenly I was very happy for my cybernetics. Had they been real legs, my blood circulation would most likely have been cut off by the clothing.

“Hurry up!” she hissed. “We don’t have a lot of time! This way!”

Her words were followed by the sound of something heavy, most likely the bookcase, hitting the floor.

“Hurry up!” she yelled again as she ran into another room. “There’s a backdoor in the kitchen!”

I hurried after her as I tried to listen for the ghouls. I couldn’t hear their screaming, so it seemed that the door withstood their assault. Hopefully it would be able to hold for a few more minutes.

The kitchen was a bit bigger than the other rooms, with debris from the hole in the ceiling blocking parts of the way. I quickly saw the door that Bolt had talked about. Luckily, not much of the rubble had blocked the way, but there was a stout wooden table blocking the way out.

“Help me move it. Quickly!” Bolt said as she started to throw away the debris on the ground.

I hurried over to the opposite side and drove my hoof into the wood, heaving my entire bodyweight against the poor leg. It creaked loudly in protest as the table started to slide over the floor, causing a screeching sound. I heard something hit the floor in the other room, followed by hoofsteps and the ghouls’ screams. I grunted and redoubled my effort, and was rewarded with the table moving enough for us to be able to open the door.

“Run!” Bolt screamed as she bolted out the door.

I threw a look over my shoulder as I followed her, only to see that the ghouls were close behind us, nearly close enough to lunge for my legs. Pumping my legs and ignoring the pain that slowly started to creep up from my biological one, I ran after her out in the garden behind the house. Luckily, the small door in the fence was unlocked and opened easily out to a back alley. Turning right, we soon found ourselves on the road again.

“Now what?!” The ghouls were closer to us now than they were before. If anything, we had closed the distance between us and them with our detour through the house.

“I don’t know, okay?!” Bolt yelled as she looked wildly around herself. “I’m not even certain that I know where we are anymore!”

“They don’t even slow down, and they don’t seem to be affected by muscle tiredness or any lactic acid build up!”

“Our best shot is to outrun them or lose them! In here!” Bolt said as she made a sharp turn. “I think we’re close to the western parts of the city. The workshop should be only a couple of blocks away.”

I followed her, nearly falling over as my leg threatened to fold beneath me. The only thing saving me from falling over was that my cybernetics quickly shifted to follow the real leg in the motion and give it a split second to recover.

“Be careful, Cogwheel! You can’t keep this running up for much longer!” Spitfire said. “I was lucky to be able to catch you this time!”

She was right. My breathing came in short, ragged bursts, and my throat burned with each breath. I made another turn, the scream from the ghouls following me close behind. They sounded even closer now. “How far away? I don’t think I can keep this running up for much longer!”

I quickly looked around me as my question went unanswered. “Bolt?” I couldn’t see her. She had disappeared from my side. “Bolt!”

The only things answering me were the ghouls coming closer and my own scream echoing from the ruins. I turned around another corner, trying to get back to the road I had diverged from. The lighter green suddenly showing up in my view, breaking the otherwise dark green on the ruins, made me slide to a halt.

“What are you doing?” Spitfire screamed. “Run!”

I looked frantically from side to side, trying to find some other way out than the glade. Unable to find one, and hearing the ghouls screams closing in, I started to run towards the glade. This is madness!

“Rather the glade than those… impossible things!” Spitfire said. “Just try to run along it, don’t enter it!”

My legs drummed against the stone pavement as I ran, the sound of them nearly drenched out by the ghouls behind me. As soon as I arrived to the line of green that ended the road and started the glade, I turned left and started running along it. I saw from the corner of my eyes that the ghouls were starting to run alongside me. Not trying to get any closer, but still keeping up with me.

“Are they afraid of the glade?” Spitfire asked.

I’m not taking any risks, I thought as I continued to run.

The edge of the glade came to a sudden stop as a building had fallen over and blocked the way. I eyed it up and down, but there was no way I could jump over it. I couldn’t cut through the glade to try and pass it either. To my left, the collapsed building was strewn about all the way to the base of the building. The ghouls had stopped with me. Each one of them faced me, but none of them made any move towards me.

“Just look at them! So—“

I don’t care if they are scientifically impossible, okay?! They are here, and they are chasing me! I thought as I turned around and started to run in the other direction, back to where I had just been. The ghouls followed me, their screaming starting as soon as they took their first step. I started to wonder if it was their hooves that made the screaming.

“I was going to say something else!”

Like what?! My sides heaved as I ran, and my throat burned with each breath.

“Okay, nothing. But just look at them! They shouldn’t be able to exist!”

Able or not, they are here!

“I can see that. But they shouldn’t. Parts of the muscles are clearly exposed under the rotten skin and flesh, and it work as yours. But what keeps it together? They don’t need to breathe, like the one with a torn out throat shows, so what is keeping them going?”

Maybe just a will to kill me? I don’t know! And I’m not going to go and ask them!

I followed the outline, at times running a little bit closer to the ghouls as I avoided a branch or something else shooting out from the trees and blocking my way. Each time I did, the ghouls screamed higher, some of them even trying to jump at me, only to hesitate in the last moment and instead continue running. Whatever was inside the glade was something the ghouls seemed to fear.

What happened to Bolt? I asked myself as I ran. Did she get away? Did the ghouls only follow me?

“Bolt is most likely fine. I think she can take care of herself.”

What if she is hurt? Or dead?

“Or maybe all the ghouls followed your shiny backside and completely ignored her?”

I grunted. Radio is going to kill me.

“She is fine, Cogwheel. I believe that she can take care of herself.”

I guess.

This path ended as abruptly as the other one had. Without a warning I found myself in front of the remnants from one of the ruined buildings. I stopped in my tracks, my sides heaving as I slumbered down to catch my breath, my vision going double for a second or two. The building that was before me wasn’t the same as before. That I was certain of. It wasn’t as high as the other had been, neither was it completely covered in green ivy. Yet, it was too high for me to jump over, especially in my breathless state. I looked between the ghouls on my right side, and the glade to the left. A small path had been opened alongside the stone from the building, inviting me to step into the glade. I could practically see the center of the glade, as well as the other side of it, as I looked along the path.

The glade or the ghouls. Not much else I can do.

“Promise me that you will only go along the building and then out again?”

I heard what Radio said as well as you, I thought as I rose up again and turned my back to the ghouls. I don’t want to take any risks.

The ghoul screamed in rage behind me as I took the first step into the glade. But after I had taken only a few steps, the sound disappeared. It was replaced with the sounds of my hooves against dry leaves or the occasional cracking of a twig under my hoof. Looking back, I couldn’t see the ghouls anymore. I took a deep breath, and my nostrils were filled up with the smell of thousand and one flowers, each and every scent working out with the rest. The burning in my throat lightened with each breath, until it had completely disappeared.

{/-\}

My heart slowed down with each step I took until its beat came in a slow, steady, and nearly hypnotizing rhythm. The sound of running water reached my ears, drenching out nearly every other sound I could hear. As I reached the end of the path, the sound of running water and my own heartbeat were the only things I could hear. I lazily looked around the glade.

The trees around the glade swayed gently in the eerie wind that played with the dark green grass under my hooves. Sunlight shone down from a clear sky above me, the rays warming my body and the bright light forcing me to squint slightly. A few logs, partly overgrown with moss, lay placed around a stone circle in the middle of the glade. I couldn’t find the source of the water, and neither could I find an opening out from here as I looked around. It felt as if it should bother me, but instead the fact ran of me as if it had been water, and I had soon forgotten about it.

Something in the back of my mind tried to get my attention, but it came to me as nothing but white noise -- a noise that played along the eerie wind, the running water and my own heartbeat to create a harmony I had never felt before. Yet, it felt as if I had forgotten something. There was something important about this place. Or was it something important about someone else? I couldn’t remember. As soon I tried to remember, my mind started to wander to other subjects.

I slowly shook my head from side to side, trying to clear it of any thoughts as I stepped toward the center of the glade. My right foreleg moved without problem, but the other three refused to move at all. Surprised, I looked down at them, then up again at the center of the glade.

It enticed me, called out for me to come closer. But I couldn’t; my leg refused to move. The white noise in the back of my mind grew stronger, until it nearly drowned out every other sound. For a split second, I thought I could hear someone call my name. Someone I should remember. But then it disappeared again, the sounds of the glade subduing the white noise in my head.

Once again, I tried to walk towards the glade, and this time I managed to lift my legs to take a step. I slowly walked forward. My legs tried to refuse -- they tried to keep me in place, tried to stay still -- but the call from the glade was stronger, and in the end, my legs had to give up and allow me to continue.

I lied down in the soft grass as I reached the center of the glade. The sun-warmed grass tickled my hide. Shifting slightly in the sun, I tried to find a comfortable position. It wasn’t hard to find one, and as soon as I did, I put down my head on my forelegs, sighing happily. All the tension in my shoulders and haunches disappeared nearly instantly as I lay there. My eyelids started to get droop down...

I blinked, and suddenly the world around me was hidden behind a blue filter. The noise was back in my head, stronger than before. A light blue pony head appeared in front of me. “Resist, Cogwheel! Don’t fall asleep! Get out of here!” it urged me, its voice full of panic.

But I didn’t try to fight the sleep. Instead, I allowed it to take over me as the voice turned back to noise, before disappearing completely. The last thing I remember before I fell asleep was someone shouting my name, but I barely grunted in response as I fell asleep.

{z.z}

“How are you holding up?”

I sighed. The smile on my lips slipped, but only just. I had known that the question would come sooner or later. But that didn’t help, my heart still ached as she asked the question. Pain from memories of her -- memories of a mare I would never speak to again. I would never again see her smile. I would never again slip into bed next to her after a day of work.

It was nearly a year since she died, and it pained me to even begin thinking of her again. But I tried not to show anything of that as I turned to the mare sitting next to me.

“I’m not, Pod,” I said. “Not an hour passes without me thinking about her, not a night goes by when I don’t have trouble sleeping, without her there to calm me to sleep. During the days I try to be strong, both for my customers and my son, but when I get home? When I have tucked him to bed?” I sighed as I looked to the young colt who played around in the grass, who was chasing a butterfly and flapping his wings to get speed.

He had a slightly lighter brown coat than I had, and his mane was redder than mine. It made him look as if someone had put one of the logs lying in the glade aflame. “He still asks for her. Some evenings he stays up and looks out from the window, and he tells me that ‘mommy promised to get back tonight’. It’s as if he doesn’t understand when I’m trying to tell him that his mother won’t come home again. And it pains me.”

Honey Pod looked up at me, a hint of tears in her eyes.

“The only thing I have left of her is the shop. Every day it reminds me about her. Of all the work we put into it. How much she helped me with it, both when she was pregnant and the few months after the birth. We have started to expand, and it’s a lot of work to keep up with.” I sighed again and rested my head against my forelegs, smiling as I looked at the colt finally catching the butterfly, only to release it again and begin anew. “It feels good to get away from it for a while. I can’t remember the last time I took a couple of days off.”

I could sense Honey smiling at me as she followed my gaze. “I’m happy you could come. I haven’t seen you since I moved here.”

“I’m happy you invited us. I think we both need a change of environment, if only for a couple of days.”

“You’re free to stay for as long as you wish.”

“We aren’t interrupting your studies, then?”

The mare laughed softly. “No, no, not at all. I think I can afford to fall behind a few days without it affecting my end grades in any way.”

“Don’t go away too far now, son.” I raised my voice slightly as the small pegasus chased the butterfly towards the end of the glade. “Stay where I can see you.”

“Yes daddy,” he said as he looked back at us. He tripped on something on the ground, but managed to keep himself afloat with the help of his tiny wings. “Look daddy, I’m flying!” he screamed with joy as he flapped his wings, moments before he crashed into the ground again. A memory from another time, in a not so different place, came unbidden to my mind. Another pegasus taking a few flaps with her wings, kept aloft not much longer than my son had now. I could feel my heart arch at the memory.

“More falling with grace,” Honey Pod snickered next to me.

I smiled at her remark. “You are doing great, Son.” The aching in my chest was replaced by pride. “He is the first of the pegasi in his school to be able to keep himself aloft, and the teacher even offered to teach him to fly on her free time. Seeing his… situation.” I finished the sentence with another sigh.

“How sweet of her.”

I only nodded in response.

A brownish streak came zipping towards me, and I quickly rose to catch him in a hug. He returned the hug, before he wriggled free and lay down a blue flower in front of Honey. “For you,” he chirped before he zipped away again, leaving both me and the unicorn smiling.

{^v^}

I slowly blinked the sand out of my eyes as I stretched out my hooves, yawning widely. The sun was pleasantly warm against my coat, and the grass I lied on tickled me. Slowly, I rose up to a sitting position and looked around. The trees swayed lazily in the wind, a wind that brought with it the scent of flowers to my nose.

The sound of the water was still there, as was the noise in the back of my head, although the last one was barely audible. Calm spread through my body, hiding away worries I didn’t even know I had. I sighed happily as I rose to my legs and started to idly stroll in the glade.

Even thought I felt calm, there was something about the glade that made me uneasy. It felt as if something observed me, but as soon as I spun around, there was nothing but a soft green glow among the thick trees. As soon as I blinked, it was gone, making me wonder if it was my mind playing tricks on me. No matter how thoroughly I searched, I couldn’t find a way out of the glade.. It’s not that I wanted to leave, but a question came to mind.

“How did I get in here?” I asked the air around me.

“You walked in, I conjecture.”

I whirled around at the sudden sound.

“That’s what most poor souls did to get here.”

An older earth pony sat on one of the logs in the middle of the glade. His coat resembled the bark on an old oak tree and his mane its leaves. Weaves of silver, like spider webs, were spread through his mane. The voice reaching me reminded me of the wind blowing through the leaves in the trees around me. His eyes were hidden beneath a piece of cloth tied around his head. Before him, close to eye level, two small logs of wood floated in a jade green light.

Surprised, I took a step back. “Where did you come from?”

“I have been here all along, Cogwheel,” the earth pony smiled. “But I didn’t want to awake you. You looked so… Peaceful when you were asleep.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot of things. They say that knowledge comes with age, and I have lived longer than most,” the earth pony laughed, a hollow laugh, like wind blowing through a hollowed out log. “And, before you ask, I’m not going to give you my name.” He smirked at me. “No, like you I will hide my real name behind a façade. Until you have remembered your real name again, and can give it to me in exchange, you won’t know mine. For now, you can call me Free.”

“A façade? What do you mean?”

“Your name. It’s nothing but a placeholder, a name without a meaning. You wear it as a façade, to hide your true nature. But you aren’t here for asking questions about names. No, something else brought you here. Fate? Luck?”

I tried to think about what had happened. I could remember waking up, I could remember falling asleep, and I could remember entering the glade. Everything beyond that was hidden beneath a fog. “I-I don’t remember,” I said. “I… I think I was chased by something. Someone screamed for me to continue. I found the glade, and whatever followed me stopped as soon as I stepped in.”

“Fate, then.” Free smiled at me. “And now?”

“Cogwheel! We have to get out of here!” The noise in the back of my head formed into a voice again, but was quickly subdued by the sound of running water. But it had awoken something inside of me: memories. Avoid the glades. Get out of there as quick as you can. Something waited in there, killing anything that entered.

I started shaking. Sweat started to form on my brow. “I want to get out. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“You wish to leave? A wise choice.”

I spun around, my heart beating faster. There was no way out. I couldn’t see any breaks in the tree line. I started to walk along the line, frantically looking for a way out. The earth pony stayed silent, and from the corner of my eye I could see small chunks of wood disappear from the logs that floated in front of him, as if an invisible knife carved them. I could feel his eyes on me as I circled the glade. Even when he wasn’t facing me, I could feel them.

“You won’t find a way out like that,” Free said as I finished the third lap around the glade.

My breath came more quickly as I spun around. My sides heaved as if I had been running for miles. “Then how do I get out?!”

“Through me.”

I took a step back. “What?” I could feel the old earth pony’s eyes on me as he tilted his head slightly.

“This glade... It likes me. It gives me what I want, be it food or water, or even...” He turned his head to me as he spoke, his neck nearly doing a full turn. “You.”

I blinked in surprise and jumped backwards, my heart racing, but as my hooves hit the ground again his head was back to looking straight forward, and I wondered if I had only imagined it.

“A pony that the glades saved from ghouls.”

I tried to get my heart to slow down, but with no success.

“Of course, it also lets me leave whenever I wish.” The trees seemed to move at the other side of the glade, clearing a path at his words. I started to run towards it, my heart threatening to beat through my chest. Moments before I reached it, branches shot forward and blocked the path again. “And it lets me keep others here by my will.”

“I want to go,” I whimpered, trying to push through the branches. “I don’t want to be here.” The branches wouldn’t budge under my strength. Instead, they seemed to push me back towards the middle of the glade.

“I can give you that freedom.” Free was suddenly next to me, whispering sweetly in my ear. “I can let you leave. All you have to do is give me... A promise.”

I jumped and shrank away from the pony. “I-I just want to leave. Please, let me leave.”

“All I need is a promise,” he said as he raised my chin with a hoof, smiling down gently at me. Although I couldn’t see his eyes under the cloth, it felt as if they stared into my soul. “And you are free to leave. A small promise, that is all.”

“What do you want me to do?” I tried to shrink away from the eyes I could not see, but his hoof held me firmly in place.

“Oh, it’s easy. Not far from here is a workshop. In the basement, there is an entrance to a… Shelter. Inside that shelter, in the maintenance area, there something that belongs to me. An… Ornament, if you will. Promise me that you will receive that item and bring it back here, and I will open the way out here.”

“If I refuse?” I asked, trying to steel my words.

Free raised an eyebrow. “If you refuse?” He chuckled lightly as he moved his mouth to my ear. “Then you will stay here, and in the end it will get you.”

“I-it?” I shied away from him as his hoof released my chin. It felt as if the trees had crept closer to us to listen to us talk.

It -- the protector of the glade. A predator, lurking in the shadows. It is asleep now, but for how long? Minutes? Hours? Days?” Free took a step backwards. “The only way for you to escape it, is to leave this glade before it wakes up.”

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I whimpered and looked around me. “I’ll do what you want.”

“What was that?” He smiled down at me.

“I promise to get your ornament back. Please, just… just let me out.”

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

I looked up, and found myself facing the tree line. The tree branches slowly moved away, clearing a path for me to leave. With my heart still thumping in my chest, I ran for it. I hadn’t gone far on the path before Free’s voice reached me.

“And Cogwheel, don’t try to fool me. Its claws reach far. I will wait for you.” His hollow laugh followed me as I ran.

{q.p}

“Where did you come from?”

I blinked in surprise, disoriented. My body trembled, but it wasn’t from the sudden loss of warmth from the sun, that now once again was hidden behind a cloud cover. I was lying on a patch of grass, which lacked the warmth from the glade. The sounds of the glade had disappeared as well, replaced with the sounds of hoofsteps walking over the dead grass towards me. Looking up, I could see Bolt walk towards me. She stopped as I looked at her.

“What happened to you?” Her voice seemed distant.

“Are you okay?” Spitfire’s voice rolled in my head, thick with worry. “I-I’m sorry. I couldn’t do anything. I don’t know what blocked me out, but I couldn’t speak with you. I-I—“

I buried my head in my hooves, pain flashing through my head. “I-I don’t know. One second I was being chased by ghouls, the other… The other, I ran into the glade.”

“You were in the glade? How was it?” Bolt practically jumped at the spot, before she suddenly eyed me suspiciously. “How did you get here? I’ve been running laps around this glade, but there’s no way in!”

“It was warm… and I felt secure there. At least, at first I did. I-I fell asleep, and when I woke up.” I felt a lump start to form in my throat. “I-I don’t want to be here anymore,” I whimpered.

“Nothing will hurt you out here,” Spitfire soothed. “It can’t reach you here.”

I felt my heart slow down slightly at her words, but my body still trembled. “Can we please go? Please?” I looked pleadingly at Bolt.

She looked between me and the glade, before she sighed. “You know, for being so big and tough looking, you really are nothing but a cryborg.” She took a step closer to the glade, a wistful look in her eyes and her hoof stretched out. After a moment, she put her hoof down again and turned towards me. “Okay, come on then. I’m not going to carry you if that’s what you think.”

I hurried up on my hooves, my leg shaking slightly as I took the first step. Bolt threw a last look at the glade, before she started to walk as well.

“W-what happened to you?” I asked, trying to take my mind away from the glade.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “After you ran off for Celestia-knows-why? Most of the ghouls followed you, only two of them thought of me as easier prey. I surprised them after a turn and killed them, staying there a couple of minutes to regain my breath. As soon as I could breathe easily again, I started to look for you... And the workshop.” She smirked slightly. “Was happy when I found the thing I wanted, but I was getting bored, waiting for you. I saw the glade sticking out above the ruins and decided to check it out.” She turned around a corner. “Went two laps around it, and then I found you.”

I stopped in the middle of a step, but the unicorn didn’t seem to notice as she continued walking. “Two laps?” I asked. “As in, two full laps around the glade, without anything in the way?”

Bolt didn’t even stop in her steps. “Yes, two laps. As I said. Why?”

“That… that isn’t possible!” Spitfire said. “You walked into two ruined buildings, forcing you to turn around! It’s impossible for her to have made two laps!”

“N-No reason,” I said as I moved faster to catch up with her. It’s impossible for a glade to close and open paths like that one did, isn’t it? I shivered slightly at the memory.

She looked at me, the eyebrow still arched questioningly. My mind raced. I really didn’t want to talk about the glades right now. “Why did you wait for me outside the workshop?” I blurted out just as she opened her mouth to say something. “I mean, it’s kind of you to wait, but—“

I was cut short by the rough sound of her laughing. “I didn’t wait because of you. I simply couldn’t get in. Think I broke th… The locks on the doors were broken.”

“Then why did you wait for me?”

“You really are slow, aren’t you?” Bolt snickered as she looked me over. “Muscles, but no brain. I figured that you might be able to buck those doors in if you had survived the ghouls. Thought that I would give you until the evening to get here, otherwise I would return home and hire someone to buck them in.”

As she spoke she stopped before a two-story building that seemed mostly intact, despite the look of the buildings around it. Letters had once adorned the wall above the double doors, but they had since long fallen away, the only one left was a “w” hanging awry close to the middle. Four big windows had planks barred over them.

“Should be an easy job for you,” the unicorn said as she waved a hoof towards the double doors. “Just bash them in, but try to keep it down. I don’t want every ghoul in the city to know we’re here.”

I walked up to the doors. They were made of wood, and it didn’t seem as if they were very sturdy. On the pavement in front of them, an area had been cleared. A few small and bended metal pieces lay scattered in the cleared area, and I could see that another metal piece had stuck inside the lock. Lightly tapping my hoof against the door proved me right that the door wasn’t sturdy.

“Just bash it in already,” Bolt groaned behind me. “I’d like to get in there today, you know.”

“Yea, sorry,” I said as I turned around with my back legs against the door.

With a loud slam my hooves connected with the doors. I could practically feel the area I had hit crumble as the doors were torn off their hinges. A second slam followed from inside the room when the door landed.

“Oops… Maybe a little too hard.”

“A little? You kicked the door off its hinges! We’re lucky if not every ghoul, or even one of Exo’s thugs, heard that!” She took a deep breath and seemed to relax slightly. “You must be the biggest idiot…“ With a groan she walked through the doorpost, not even bothering to finish the sentence.

I carefully followed her. The workshop’s entry room was surprisingly tidy. The cause of that might have been that it was so empty. Besides the half-moon shaped counter that stood against the wall, and now had the wooden door lying on it, only a few cushions in a corner took up the generous space. Numerous frames hung on the wall behind the counter, and most of them seemed to still be intact. The room had two doors beside the ones behind us, one placed behind the counter and one at the far back of the right wall.

Bolt walked over to the cushions and sat down on one of them, her eyes towards the door.

“Let’s eat some before we continue. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to eat in peace.” Bolt floated off her saddlebags and opened them. “You have food with you, right?” She raised an eyebrow at me as she floated out a small package.

I shook my own saddlebags off my back and picked up one of the small bags Radio had given me.

“Good, was afraid I would have to feed you,” she smirked as she started to eat.

Without a word I dug into my own food. “What is this place?” I asked between bites. “I mean, I know it’s a workshop, but what did they do here?”

Bolt rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed. “Didn’t I say I wanted to eat in peace?” She paused, sighing and shaking her head, before she continued. “Basically, they repaired different pre-war things, like your cybernetics.” She continued eating.

It didn’t take long before I had finished my food, but Bolt was taking her time eating. Bored, I rose from my cushion and, with the unicorn’s eyes on my back, walked over to the frames hanging on the wall by the counter. The frames, or at least the ones still readable, were certificates and nominations from different companies. Amongst them were Stable-Tec, Red Racer, Ironclad Industries and Clip-Clop’s Clipboards, the last one with the slogan Like maintenance should ever be needed. But one of the frames quickly drew my eyes to it.

Over the picture of a cogwheel surrounded by a bluish aura were the words Certificated SAT Repair and Maintenance Station. Under the cogwheel was a slogan, reading ‘SAT: For all your magical technology needs’. I just stood there and stared on the logo.

“We found something about SAT.”

Yes, we did, I thought as I smiled. Not the destination, but maybe a place that can point us in the right direction.

“Told you that this place had something to do with SAT,” Bolt said as she trotted up to me. “I guess this isn’t the place you really wanted to find, but there might be something around here that points to a factory or headquarters.”

“Maybe there is a terminal with the different factories’ locations?”

“But, for now,” Bolt said with a smirk as she floated my saddlebags onto my back. “We scavenge. I took the… liberty to do a quicksort of your saddlebags, so you should be able to take something with you for me.”

“For you?” I asked as I turned to face her.

“Yes, for me.” She looked sternly at me. “I don’t think that you would find any use to most of the things in here on your quest to find a pre-war company to restore your memories. Do you? Think of it like a favor for bringing you here in the first place.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“Hey, I might even throw in some caps for you.”

She looked at me for a second, but when I didn’t say anything she rolled her eyes and trotted over to the closest door, mumbling something that sounded dangerously close to ‘ungrateful, pea-brained idiot’ to herself.

“A currency is always good to have. You can’t expect the kindness you have encountered here everywhere.”

I sighed. I guess you’re right. “Thank you,” I said as I followed her.

She looked up from the door, a hoof still resting on it. “For bringing you here or offering you caps?”

“Both.”

“Don’t mention it. I wanted to get here anyway, and I guess you deserve some payment if you help me out with carrying whatever we might find.”

“It’s still nice of you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now, if you’re finished, shall we get started? The faster we’re done scavenging, the faster we-- you can find something about SAT and w-- you can be on your way to find your memories.” She snorted as she pushed the door open. “That’s still a ridiculous story, like a pre-war company—“

She froze in the middle of motion, her jaws hanging slack. “T-this… It’s,” she stuttered as I quickly looked past her into the room beyond.

The first thing I noticed was the hole in the opposite wall, through which the ruins could be seen. Light from outside shined through the hole, as well as the windows that were placed in a long line at the top of the walls, basically creating one long line from the left wall to the right wall through the middle wall. Some storage racks had fallen over, the various objects that had once rested them now scattered over the floor. Most of them stood amongst the many workbenches also scattered over the floor. A few metal ponies lay spread out over the floor on pools of blood around a pony that I guessed was one of Exo’s thugs. He had the cybernetic leg to match the name. A metal ramp went from the door and down to the workshop area.

“How?” Bolt’s eyes scanned the area. She slid down on her haunches, her eyes going from side to side of the workshop. “I can’t believe it,” she yelled, bringing her hoof down in the ground. “This isn’t happening!”

Surprised, I took a step to the side. “What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” Bolt glared up at me. “You want to know what’s the matter?

I nodded affirmatively.

“You’re a blind, pea-brained…” she growled, bringing down her hoof into the floor again instead of finishing the sentence. “Look!” She motioned with her hoof to floor below us. “The problem is that someone’s already been here! Odds are, they were Exo’s thugs, if the cybernetic on that dead pony is anything to go by.” She pointed out the pony in question, before she sighed and allowed the hoof to fall to her side. “And, as long as they weren’t just here for a picnic, they’ve probably taken everything valuable already!”

“Are you sure?”

She raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “You really don’t know anything about the wasteland, do you? If you pass something that’s valuable, you take it. It doesn’t matter if it’s something you can use or not. If you can’t, you just sell it to someone who can.” She rose again. “There’s no way they left anything here. ... They didn’t even have the decency to use the door! They had to bash a wall in!”

“Well, we bashed the door in,” I reminded her.

“Not we, you. But at least we used the door.” She sighed as she took the first step into the workshop. “I guess if we came all the way for this, we might as well see if there’s something left.”

“Hey, I’m sure there is something left!” I said as I stepped after her down the ramp. “I mean, it’s impossible that they could carry away everything in here, right?”

“I guess we might find something, but I’m not getting my hopes up,” she said as she started to look around.

I wasn’t sure what we were looking for, so I let Bolt pick and choose what she wanted me to carry. Besides, she was a much more experienced scavenger than I was. I was sure it would be better to let her decide what was of value and what was junk. Instead, I walked over to the corpse and the metal ponies lying around it.

My body trembled slightly as I walked closer, my eyes on the ponies completely made of metal. What happened here? I thought as I walked closer to the metal ponies that lay scattered around the cyborg. “What are they?” I softly nudged one of them with my hoof. They were made of a blackened metal, and all of them had holes spread over their bodies.

“Protectrons, low tier defense and working units,” Bolt said without looking away from the rack she was sorting through a couple of steps away. “Often armed with a laser, but rarely anything else. Just leave them alone, I can check them for anything of use later. You know, this place seems to be untouched! That or there was something really valuable here that made them not care about all of this.”

I looked away from the robot, and accidentally looked at the thug lying in the middle of them. The pegasus lay in a pool of his own blood, his limbs bent in unnatural angles. His coat was scorched and at some places the coat was completely gone, leaving nothing but burnt flesh. It looked like parts of his cybernetic leg had melted and then hardened again. Besides him lay a weapon I hadn’t seen before, its barrel nearly as big as my leg. The weapon was destroyed, its muzzle split in two and half of it black from soot. He seemed to have landed on one of his wings, as it was bent even more than his others limbs and many of the feathers had come loose. His other wing was burnt, as if he had tried to protect himself with it. The feathers lay scattered around the scene, some of them moving in the light breeze that found its way through the hole in the wall.

The sight of the pegasus was enough to make my stomach turn, but the thing really tipping me over was the smell of blood that reached my nostrils. It reminded me all too much about the clinic. Running up to one of the workbenches, the sound of my hooves loud against the stone floor, I emptied my stomach in a bucket that luckily enough stood there.

“Seriously? Can’t even see a corpse without throwing up?” Bolt sneered from behind me. “Okay, that one was uncalled for.” She sighed. “You know what? There are stairs just behind you, to the right of where we entered. They should lead to an office or something like that. Go there and see if you can find anything about SAT while I scavenge here. It’s not like you’re helping me.”

I brought up my cybernetic hoof and carefully wiped my lips clean as I turned towards the stairs, careful not to look at the body again. “Thank you,” I said weakly.

“Don’t mention it. Get going, I’ll yell for you when I need your saddlebags.”

“Can’t I just leave them here?”

“What if you find something up there? You’re just going to roll it down the stairs? No, you bring them with you.”

I sighed and started to walk towards the stairs, my eyes locked on the door that stood open at the top of them. My stomach had yet to settle. At each step, it felt as if I should throw up again. The thoughts whirling in my mind didn’t do anything to settle it. How can Bolt be so calm about things like that?

“I assume that death is common out here in the wasteland. Who knows what she might have seen out here?”

But still, being that calm? Is it normal?

“I… can’t say that it is. Or at least was when I was created. Now, my feelings are artificial, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have them. I felt sorrow and pain for each of the fifteen ponies I killed to keep you alive, even if it was the logical thing to do to keep any of you alive,” her voice was heavy. “But now? I don't know how the wasteland has been evolving, but for what we have seen and heard we can take for granted that death is common out here. I believe that, after a while, you stop caring about the deaths of those who don’t mean anything to you.”

I grunted as I started to climb the stairs. So that is a sight I should be accustomed to?

“No,” she quickly answered. “You shouldn’t. Grieve the dead, no matter who they are, because that is a life lost. If you can save a life rather than take it, then do that. Just as you did with Frost Mane.”

I felt my stomach turn even more as she mentioned Frost Mane, memories of the nightmare I tried to suppress now coming up again. I could once again smell the stench that had been there. Pausing in the middle of the stairs, I leaned against the rail. Yes, and that is something I regret after that nightmare.

“You can’t trust a nightmare, Cogwheel. Are you seriously thinking about judging him over it?”

I am. It was too real for me to think anything else! I thought as I walked up the last part of the stairs and peeked in through the open door. Besides, what else should I believe after what Radio said?

“You should judge him from his actions, not from your dreams. That nightmare was most likely a spawn after the shock that Radio’s words caused you and nothing else. A play by your subconscious.”

I didn’t answer her as I pushed the door completely open, revealing the spacious office on the inside. Three bookcases, filled to the brim with ring-binders, stood along one of the walls and a line of paintings decorated the other, nearly untouched by time. The paintings all showed the same scenery, a small house by a river lying in the shadow of a giant tree, but at the different times of the year. It started with the scenery being completely covered in snow, and slowly it changed over the course of the paintings to spring, summer, fall and back to winter. A wooden desk stood in the middle of the room, a big comfortable armchair standing behind it. A terminal sat upon the desk. The terminal spread its green light over the wall and the armchair.

I slowly walked past the paintings, looking over each and one of them. They were beautifully made, each of them showing a reality long gone. Each flower, every snowflake, each path of green grass -- it was all done with care and love for the painting, in harmony with everything else in the painting. This feels so… right. As if it was supposed to be like this. I felt a lump in my throat. Like it was in the memory I had in the clinic.

Sighing, I walked around the desk to the terminal. Will this place ever go back to that?

“I don’t know. I hope it will, but who knows how the end of the war might have poisoned the land? Besides, there’s nothing you can do about it, Cogwheel.”

I know. And although I don’t remember anything about my life, it still feels as if all this is wrong.

“But there it is at least one thing we can do, and that is getting your memory back. Let’s see what we can find out about SAT, Cogwheel!” Spitfire said with a cheerful voice.

It helped slightly. A smile played on my lips as I looked down at the monitor and the connect option showed up. You sound certain that I will get my memories back. Quickly I plugged in the small wire to the terminal. The world was obscured by a layer of blue as the eye connected to the terminal.

“This is strange,” Spitfire said as the words scrolled past my eyes. “The terminal is full of shipping addresses to what I believe are companies or customers, but I can’t find anything about SAT.”

Nothing at all?

“I… not that I can see. But it seems strange. There are dates that are completely missing. Let me…”

I stood completely still as the words started to slow down, before suddenly coming to a complete halt. Before my eyes a map started to spread out.

“This map was tucked into something that seemed to be a digital journal kept by the terminal owner. Most of the journal is corrupt, it had been deleted and I could only restore small parts of it, but I can make out a few notes. One of the notes is an address, Manufacturing Lane 16 Biomechatronic, and the other is that SAT was involved in something down in the basement.” As she spoke the address came up beside the map, and the map zoomed in on a point. “Right here, just to the right if we go back down the stairs again, is an entrance to the basement hidden in the floor. I can’t open it from here, but there should be a way to open it once we get down there.”

My eyes were locked on the address. Manufacturing Lane 16, Biomechatronic. Sixteen. The same number as the stasis pod I slept in.

“Now that you say it, yes. I’m afraid that I don’t know where this Biomechatronic is, but maybe Bolt or Radio has a map you can look at?”

I slowly shook my head. Yes, maybe. But first I want to go down to that basement.

“Why?”

I want to know what SAT was doing here.

“And you are afraid of Free. You want to find that ornament so you can give it to him.”

I hung my head slightly as a cold shiver ran down my back at the thought. Yes, that too.

“I understand.” Spitfire sighed. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t talk to you back there. Something was blocking me. Not that I think that it would be any different if I had been able to.”

You couldn’t control it, I thought as I terminated the link and removed the wire. The world once again returned to normal, the vision of the map lingering for a second more before disappearing. Don’t think about it.

“I’ll try not to. Thanks.”

I smiled slightly as I started walking towards the stairs. “Bolt!” I yelled as I walked down the stairs. “We found a basement.”

Bolt shone up. “You found it? I mean… What basement?” She hurried over to meet me at the base of the stairs, without a care in the world of the objects she pushed over on her way. “Where is it?”

“Are you okay?” I asked as she slid to a halt next to me.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she said as she brushed away the hair that fell in front of her eyes. “Where is it? Where is the entrance?”

I lifted my hoof and pointed to the area around the stairs. “It should be here, hidden beneath the floor.”

Bolt quickly looked around. “Hidden beneath the floor? Well, then we just have to find a way to move the floor!”

“Move the floor?” I looked at her in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

Bolt eyed the wall under the stairs, and seemingly quickly found what she was looking for. “Like this,” she exclaimed as she slammed her hooves against a button I hadn’t seen before.

With a screeching sound, like metal against stone, the floor I stood on started to slide apart. I yelped in surprise and hurriedly took a couple of steps back, watching in awe as the floor revealed a staircase going down into darkness. Before my eyes, lamps started lighting up above the stairs.

“It seems like you are good for something!” Bolt laughed as she started to walk down the stairs. “Come on!”

It took a moment for me to realize what just had happened. “You knew?” I asked as I started to walk after her.

“Of course I did,” Bolt said from halfway down the stairs.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Why would I? From all I’ve found, SAT didn’t have anything to do with this place.” She took a sharp turn at the end of the stairs and disappeared from sight.

“What is this place anyway? I thought it would just be a basement.”

“A basement?” I could hear the unicorn’s laugh as I reached the end of the stairs myself. “Yea, that would be one hell of a basement, wouldn’t it? This isn’t a basement,” she said as I rounded the corner.

I stopped in the middle of a step as soon as I saw what was before me. A giant cogwheel was carved out in the wall, with the number “31” written in giant text across it. At the side a terminal stood and flickered with a green light.

“This is a stable,” she exclaimed with a smile.

I could barely hear her. Suddenly I felt dizzy and fell down on a knee, my head spinning around and my vision blackening. The last thing I could hear before passing out was Spitfire yelling my name.

{O-O}

Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk: Rapidash: Like a streak of fire, you whizz past everything in your way. Your running speed is raised by 10% while you are chased by hostiles.

First, a really big thank you to Masquerade313, not only for proofreading and editing, but for giving the story a hell of a lot more life than it had from the beginning. I can’t thank him enough for all the time he devoted helping me with this! (Seriously, I soon have to move him to Co-Author for all his editing work with dialogues) (I suck at dialogues)

Secondly, thanks to Rising_Chaos for proofreading and listening to my never ending babbling.

Lastly, thanks to James Tonto, not only for catching a lot of awkward phrasings as well as telling me when I use bad words or something I should think about, but also for keeping me company in the docs.