Fallout Equestria: Operation Star Drop

by Meep the Changeling

17 - Any%

Of all the things I had expected might interrupt my travels with Wander, an NCR patrol asking to see our IDs had not been on the list. Like, at all.

So of course that had happened. Thank goodness Wander was able to explain away my lack of ID via my reputation as ‘The Machine’...

“Everything seems in order,” the NCR trooper said as he handed Wander back a crumpled bundle of identification papers and her NCR passport. “Stay safe.”

“We’ll be fine,” Wander commented before tucking the papers away and simply starting off down the road.

I trotted after her quickly. It seemed so odd to run into an actual road patrol. With how seemingly ordinary Wander had treated it, I knew that such things had to be common here. Still, back home you’d only show your ID entering a town.

Maybe it was because of the whole “The Tainted are a massive army and attacking us now” thing?

”No maybe about it.”

Imaginary dad was right. That had to be it.

Wander and I crested the hill we’d been walking towards. The massive tower was so close now. In fact, once we walked down the hill we would pass right by its base. Odd for such a thing to be this close to the highway’s ed—

I gasped as I saw the ground around the tower’s base was littered with debris. Crashed airships. Filing cabinets. Power armor skeletons. All kinds of debris. As if an entire military base had fallen from the clouds.

The guards we’d run into must have been here because the ground for easily a kilometer in any given direction was practically carpeted with unexploded ordnance, and based on the plating left on that power armor, even after all these years there was still stuff left to scavenge!

Wander’s ears swiveled as I gasped. She turned her head and frowned at me. I was glad she’d started wrapping her scarf lower around her neck instead of hiding her face. It made it easier to tell how pretty she was. More importantly, I could tell she was actually confused.

“What,” Wander said slowly. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a battlefield before.”

“It looks more like a pegasus city crashed,” I said as I took a few careful steps forward while still staring at the debris.

Wander chuckled, “Well yes, but actually no.”

One of the suit of power armor caught my eye. Or, more accurately, its helmet. Its bug-eye, insect-like helmet.

“That’s Enclave armor!” I gasped out loud.

Wander frowned slightly, then shook her head. “Yeah it is. I suppose you’d know about them. Their armor was developed up north, right?”

I nodded. That was true enough, but… I’d never seen it before some of their troopers came to Lith. I wanted to tell Wander about that, but Her Majesty was quite insistent on me not mentioning the Enclave’s visit to anyone. I trusted Wander, but I had my orders.

“Yes,” I said to confirm my nod was an answer to her question and quickly pointing up at the tower. “Did they have a town or base up there?”

Wander sighed. “Yeah. We’re standing in the remains of Neighvarro. One of the few Enclave ruins not fully looted. It’s… Very political. A lot of good stuff is just rotting here because idiots think the tools of the enemy are evil. It’s not like this stuff runs on dark magic! They’re just tools evil ponies used. We could put it all to better use if they’d just stop whining...”

I nodded and opened my mouth to agree with her, but was interrupted as Wander pointed up to the top of the smooth ivory tower, right to the needle-like tip. No, not the tip. To the little bump just below it.

“Also, Pip’s up in there, and some ponies think salvaging this stuff would bother her with all the noise,” Wander added in a tone that indicated she thought that reason was even stupider.

I frowned. “Oh… So uh, then this isn’t exactly what you’d call a private and safe location?”

Wander blinked twice, then blushed. “Uh, Gears? It’s been like, five hours.”

I felt my own cheeks flush. “It was so good though! And you said that was short for you.”

Wander coughed. “Be that as it may, with that mare being omniscient via a birds eye view, I am so not going to do anything without a roof!”

My ears drooped flat against my head. “W— What about cuddles?”

“Sure, that’s okay,” Wander said as her cheeks burned even more. “Look, I know you’ve had a two hundred year dry spell… So have I! I get it, but we can’t just make up for lost time all in one go!”

“Why not?” I asked, my tail lashing anxiously. “We’re both immortal, and Her Majesty didn’t give me a date these packages had to be delivered by! I’m sure she’d understand psychologically necessary delays!”

Wander snickered and bit her lip to prevent herself from laughing. “Immortal, yes. Organic, also yes. I have about a week of Aqua Cura left, Gears. I’ll need to pick some more up before then.”

I shook my head. “Not necessary! We could open up my barrel plates and remove a piece of my core’s shielding. That would let you keep going for as long as I do!”

Wander paused for a moment, nodded a little while giving me a thoughtful look, then suddenly frowned. “Wouldn’t that hurt you?”

“Well, yes. A little bit, but only for the removal process,” I replied with a hopeful smile. “I’ve got my blueprints right here! We can—”

Wander suddenly shook her head. “No! No… Even with that problem solved it doesn't address the other issues,” she said flatly before turning white as a sheet. “I uh, I mean—”

I tilted my head. “What other issues?”

Wander bit her lip harder, then her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay, so… That half a day thing? That was like, slow and loving, with lot of breaks. Mostly cuddling. You literally just kept going like a machine!” she flashed me a grin. “Awesome as that was, I’m pretty worn out.”

I blinked. “But, you just walked about ten kilometers. You have plenty of energy!”

Wander facehooved and groaned. “Not that kind of worn out!”

I frowned, doing my best to understand. A thousand different possibilities flashed through my mind before I settled on the most likely one. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to injure you. How long does your regeneration require to perform the repairs?”

Wander grinned and shook her head. “Gears… I— I lo—” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I enjoy your company. But, you’ve got a lot to learn about adult relationships. I meant emotionally worn out. Ask again tomorrow, okay?”

“Ohhhh! There’s a cooldown period!” I exclaimed, grinning ear to ear as I filed that critical bit of information away.

I’d have to work out what exactly that time was so I could ask at reasonable intervals. My grin slowly became a frown. “What about cuddles? Is there a cooldown on cuddles?”

Wander giggled and shook her head. “No. We shouldn’t delay through here, though. I don’t want to bother Pip and we’re basically in her yard.”

I nodded understandingly and trotted forwards to give her a loving hug. “Sorry… I’ll do my best to follow all the rules, okay?”

Wander returned the hug and silently nuzzled into my neck.

“Awww!” sompony cooed from behind me.

I yelped and spun around. Wander’s head popped up. Bad Trip came free from her holster. A small sprite-bot floating a few meters away from us laughed. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you. You’re just so cute together! You have a twiggy yin, voluptuous yang thing going on.”

It took me a second to place the voice thanks to the tinny speaker hidden behind the spritebot’s grill.

Pip!

I narrowed my eyes and pointed a hoof at the robot as threateningly as I could. “You!” I shouted, making sure my ears remained flat. “I was nice to you! Homage is cute and I like her but we didn’t do anything!”

The bot bobbed in the air, but remained motionless. “You really didn’t have to turn her down. I don’t mind. She needs love just like everypony else.”

I lowered my hoof as my face flushed with embarrassment. “I didn't turn her down… I... I forgot to ask...”

Wander snickered. “I still can’t believe you forgot that of all things… But seriously, you shouldn’t be mad at the weather-not-goddess. That’s not a good idea.”

I turned to look at Wander and waved a hoof at the bot, my anger returning. “She tried to drown me with a flash flood!”

I turned back to the bot and glared. “Joke’s on you, I don’t breathe! I just simulate it so ponies don't wonder why my chest and barrel don’t move!”

The sprite-bot moved backwards slightly and dipped in the air. “I didn’t do that,” Pip said with what sounded like sincerity. “I mean, not intentionally.”

I frowned and lowered my hoof for a second time. “You didn’t?”

The bot swiveled like a pony shaking their head. “Nope! When and where was this?”

“Just outside of Suggervale,” I answered. “About three days ago.”

“I wasn’t doing anything there,” Pip said. “Uh, that said… Weather is super-complicated! It’s like trying to reboot a PipBuck’s matrix with another’s that’s half broken. I was making sure it rained enough for the farms that day. I might have accidentally caused that flood… But I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you just because my wife thinks your cute.”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Yeah that’s not her at all. If she was really that mad at you over it she’d probably hit you with lightning.”

I winced. Pip coughed. Not a sick cough, but a ‘please don’t bring that up cough’.

“I don’t kill ponies anymore,” Pip said adamantly.

Wander frowned. “Didn’t you smite that one slaver?”

“Not on purpose,” Pip replied immediately. “I was trying to scare him away form the town… I— I’m not going to talk about—”

Pip’s voice cracked as she fell into a fit of violent coughing. Violent, wet coughing.

I trotted forwards and hugged the sprite-bot she was talking through before realizing that wasn’t actually her and letting it go with an awkward frown and tail swish.

“Thanks,” Pip said quietly, much to my surprise. “It’s nice to be held… Uh, well, you know. Kind of. Still, nice...”

I cleared my throat. “Well, um, sorry for accusing you, then. It’s just, everypony says you can see everything in the Wasteland, and you do kind of control the weather.” I said to try and steer the conversation away from things that might make her too emotional.

Pretty sure whatever way her body reacted to her emotions about having killed ponies before triggered that coughing fit. After all, there were some things Mom couldn’t talk about without having minor system failures due to the stress.

Wander’s ears perked up. “Yeah! About that, how much do you see? Cuz, um, no offense but I’m kind of glad I don't have to go to the bathroom anymore.”

Pip laughed and her sprite-bot shook in the air. Then, after a few wet coughs, Pip floated closer to Wander. “I can’t look at everything at once. I can look out from maybe four cameras at once, and one of them is always P-not-P, that’s my wife’s sprite-bot. The other three are for keeping an eye on big picture things. Usually places where I’m working on the weather. I very rarely look at, like, pony-scale things.”

“Oh! Good,” Wander said with a sigh of relief.

“So uh… Weather’s hard to control, huh?” I asked, wanting to see if she wouldn’t mind telling me about how in the world she was even able to do that from up there.

The science-mare in me needed to know!

Pip chuckled nervously and floated her bot over towards me. “Uh, yeah… about that! Weather is really, really, REALLY complicated! Rainbow Dash had a cool idea, but in practice the SPP is pretty hard to use. At least, for a unicorn. I imagine back in her day that there were plenty of pegasi with actual degrees in meteorology to work this thing… I uh… Well, I’m a PipBuck technician. I can just barely not make everything one huge thunderstorm.”

I was pretty sure the way Pip said that last sentence made it a joke.

Wander frowned for a moment. “Wait, didn’t you do that once?”

“That was an accident!” Pip insisted firmly. “A spider got in here and crawled up my leg.”

Wander giggled. “Ha! Okay, so you told Spike not to barbecue any more spiders, right?”

“Yep,” Pip answered flatly. “I… I probably shouldn’t have included how to get in here in my story, huh?”

Wander shrugged. “Hey, well, the door is a dragon, so even though ponies know, it’s still pretty secure. Even if you had mentioned where his cave is. Which… I don't’ think you did?”

I sighed and wished I could participate in this conversation. It sucked not knowing something so basic as its recent history about the nation I was in!

My ears pierced up as I thought of something I could do involving Pip, though!

I cleared my throat and looked into her robot’s grill. “Sorry to interrupt but, I’m a mailmare. I remember Homage mentioning you wanted the Pipites to stop praying to you. I could deliver a letter to them, if you’d like and think that might help.”

Pip groaned and the bot sank almost all the way to the ground. “It won’t,” she said with a long, terrible, flemmy sigh.

I winced. Because of the sigh. “S— Sorry. I just wanted to help.”

“So, big-picture view of the west right now? I can see a big group of them out near Twin Oaks writing a long prayer into the ground with… I don’t know, something flammable,” Pip rambled. “I can’t not see it, because each letter is like, ten meters tall! They want me to smite a raider gang. Smite! Like I’m a goddess! You can’t reason with ponies like that.”

Given that suicide bomber, making huge flaming messages to commune with the goddess seemed… Underwhelmingly on note.

Wait… If flamer fuel was rare, what were they burning? Flamer fuel is any liquid that goes fwoosh, really.

Wander nodded in agreement and flicked her tail side to side. “Pretty sure if we got one of them into her room they’d still insist that only she could use the stupid thing.”

“Oh…” I frowned and sighed, shaking my head slowly. “So, they’re zealots?”

“Yeah,” Pip sighed. “Just— Let them do their thing and ignore them. If you tell them to stop, they will do things even harder. If you encourage them, they do things even harder! You can’t win. Just leave them alone… In fact, don’t deliver a radio to them. They’ll just use it to bother your queen with demands to integrate them as your state religion. Like the Herd did.”

Oh, Celestia… They were a state religion?! That bomber committed an act of war, then. Great!

I reached out and hugged her robot again. “I’m sorry… I wish I could help.”

“You are!” Pip insisted so firmly I let go of her robot in surprise.

“I— I am?” I asked with a confused frown and re-hugged the bot.

“Yes!” Pip said firmly, making her bot squirm free from my grip so it could float at a point where it could look into my eyes. “Long story short, the Wasteland still mostly sucks. A lot of ponies were inspired by me, and that’s good. But they need some more good role models. You may just be a mailmare, but what you did for Sire’s Hollow, and saving that squad of Talon—”

Another violent coughing fit interrupted Pip’s sentence. Fortunately, I understood what she was getting at. I’d done a few things to give ponies hope. Even though they were mostly accidents. And little things.

Still, if they were helping, that was good!

Wander cleared her throat. “Hey so, you sound like you’re super sick. You don’t have to talk to us if it hurts to talk.”

Pip stopped coughing and spit something out that wasn’t entirely liquid. Wander and I grimaced in unison at the loud, dull, wet splat sound as whatever it was hit the floor.

“Ew…” Pip whispered. “Okay um… Maybe I should stop talking. I need to get back to making sure Shattered Hoof won't have a fatal heatwave tomorrow, anyways.

I nodded in agreement. In fact, I had never agreed with anything so completely in my life. “You really should… And maybe see if there’s any way for you to get to see a doctor?”

Pip snorted. “If Velvet couldn’t help me when I could still walk, nopony can…”

Wander turned and waved her hoof at me while mouthing, ‘No! Stop! Abort!’

Realizing what I’d just made the poor dying mare in a tube think about, I took a step back and cleared my throat. “Uh, I’m sorry I accused you of hitting me with a flood on purpose.”

“It’s okay. I know how it must have looked,” Pip said, sounding like it really was okay. Good.

Her bot swiveled to face Wander. “Before I go… You sound really familiar. Do I know you?”

I swore I heard the fur on the back of Wander’s neck stand up before she rapidly shook her head. “No! I mean, nopony knows me. I am a bard though. You probably saw me perform once. And I keep yelling at you.”

“Oh, okay. I was wondering about—” Pip once again fell into a truly gut churning bad wet coughing fit.

Wander and I silently and extremely uncomfortable waited it out.

“I need to go,” Pip said quietly a few moments after her coughing subsided. “Goodbye! Don’t worry! The road to Canterlot is currently safe. No monsters, no bad ponies.”

“Thanks, Pip,” Wander said with a nod as the sprite bot started to floats away.

It moved without any apparent direction, just going. Weaving through the debris of Neighvarro like a lost soul.

“Bye!” I said as I waved up to the top of the tower, hoping she could still see from there since she was definitely no longer remote controlling the sprite bot.

I sighed and looked down at the road for a long moment before turning to Wander. “I feel bad for thinking ill of her,” I admitted. “She seems so nice!”

“Yeah,” Wander said quietly as she turned to start walking back down the road. “Shame she had such a hard time realizing she’s a good pony… And still thinks she’s a monster for everything she did.”

I bit my lip to do my best to avoid pointing out that Wander was one coat recolor from the pot calling the kettle black there.

”Too bad there’s no way we’re going to get access to the S.P.P. hub,” dad remarked in the back of my mind. ”If the memory orb you made helped snap your marefriend out of her funk, it might work on the not-goddess too.”

That’s a good point! I’ll hold onto it. It might be useful if Her Majesty and Homage can work out a plan to keep her alive.

I jogged for a moment to catch up to Wander and resume our walk. With the tower behind us, the next biggest landmark on the forest covered horizon was a huge mountain which soared upwards until its peak disappeared into the clouds.

It stood on its own, or at least, it appeared to. I knew it was actually part of a pair of mountains which rested on the opposite banks of the Celestial River. Everypony knew that.

Even in Lith, there wasn’t a pony who didn’t know what Mount Canterlot looked like.

I turned around and looked at the tower, which was apparently called the ‘SPP’... Whatever that meant.

Wait. How had I known that for dad to mention?

…

Someone must have mentioned it a while back.

I frowned and turned my head back around to look at Wander. I was tired of not knowing things. It was time I learned everything.

“You know, you still haven’t told me the full story. And nopony else has, and we have another day of walking at least,” I said adamantly.

Wander groaned and gave me the most distressed look I’d seen her make, shy of when I asked her about her past when we first met.

“Do I have to?” Wander asked, pleading at me with her beautiful eyes.

I was about to nod and say yes, when I realized it might be better to make a bargain with her.

”Good girl! You will marriage well one day,” Dad praised, confirming I’d made the right decision.

“If you do, I’ll brew a potion for you,” I promised. “I can give you a path into the Spirit Realm so you may undertake the Vision Quest you wanted to undertake. You know. The kind you apparently thought recreational drugs could provide. Like a silly filly!”

I may have been terrabad at shamanism, but anypony could make a potion if they knew how. In this case, I knew how. It might have to wait ‘til we returned to Lith… But I could!

Wander’s eyes lit up with more excitement than I had ever seen in them before. She grinned and nodded, loudly shouting, “Deal!”

I smiled. She stopped walking and took a deep breath. “If, you also give me a kiss,” she insisted.

I smiled, trotted over to her, and gave her a kiss on the nose.

Wander’s ears drooped. “Nose? Really?”

I frowned and tilted my head. “I’m sorry… Was that wrong?”

“Lips are like, the romantic place. That’s a mom place,” Wander said with an awkward smile.

I blushed and kissed her on the lips. “S— sorry…”

“It’s fine,” Wander said as she returned my kiss.

Wander took another deep breath, cleared her throat, and then focused on a spell. Her horn glowed brightly for several long seconds, then she exhaled, and began to speak, her voice now matching Pip’s perfectly.

“If I’m going to tell you about the adventure of my life — explain how I got to this place with these people, and why I did what I’m going to do next — I should probably start by explaining a little bit about PipBucks.

“What is a PipBuck? A PipBuck is a device, worn on a foreleg just above the hoof, issued to every pony in a Stable when they become old enough to start work. A blending of unicorn pony magic and science, your PipBuck will keep a constant measure of your health and even help administer healing poultices and other medicine, track and organize everything in your saddlebags, assist in repairs, and keep all manner of notes and maps available at a hoof tap. Plus, it allows you to listen to the Stable broadcast whenever you would like as it can tune into and decrypt just about any radio frequency. And that’s not all.”

Wander started to trot off while spewing the unfiltered, exact thought trains of Pip, who had apparently been extremely talkative once upon a non-fluid-filled-respiratory-system.

Oh.

Sweet.

Celestia!

This is why you don’t like telling the story. I’m so sorry! This is going to be pure torture, isn’t it?

Wander continued talking, and in spite of my fears, ten minutes into the story, I was hooked!

☢★★◯★★☢

Mount Canterlot had been much further away than it had appeared from the base of the SPP tower. I thought we would have made it to the mountain in a day.

Nope. Probably two more at this rate.

Fortunately, Pip’s story was awesome and Wander was still telling it! She hadn’t stopped since yesterday.

“...On the opposite wall was another copy of the recruitment poster. (“You too can be a Steel Ranger!”) I realized where I must be. Lifting my PipBuck, I checked the automap. SteelHooves Shack. I collapsed back onto the bed, feeling unbearably exhausted, physically and mentally.

“And, even worse, I felt horny. Which was not a sensation that mixed well with illness. Maybe it was having Velvet Remedy so close, her head pressing against my flank as she slept partially on my bed. My stomach twisted in warning. I didn’t care.

“I was too hot, too sick. But still, as I lay back, I tried to summon up daydreams that would relieve at least one of my symptoms, my hooves beneath my blankets. I turned to face away from Velvet Remedy in shame.”

Wander stopped talking. The sudden silence made me spin around and check our flanks for signs of danger. While I turned and looked around Wander tapped my shoulder.

I turned, and she cast another spell to change her voice back to normal. “Throat hurts. Stopping for now.”

I frowned and gave her a hug. “Sorry… How much more is there?”

“Two days,” Wander answered bluntly.

I blinked and stared at her in shock. “Uh, beg pardon?”

Wander looked into my eyes emotionlessly. “Story long. Sixty five hours. No talk. Regen throat. Hurts.”

I nodded and gave her a quick hug. “Sorry… But, it is important I know.”

I looked off into the distance for a moment before returning my eyes to hers. “You could just summarize the rest for me.”

Wander shook her head. “No. Whole thing. Never do again. Quiet now, please.”

I nodded and we walked together in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The road sloped up and down, moving through the rolling hills which seemed to define the Heartlands in their entirety. Nothing but the clip-clop of eight hooves on asphalt.

After a whole day of talking, the silence was maddening.

I bit my lip, took a deep breath, turned to Wander and asked, “Could you maybe turn on your radio?”

Wander nodded, stopped for a moment to roll up her sleeve and flipped the radio on. Some rather nice classical music filled the silence between us. I closed my eyes and walked for a while, losing myself in the expertly played violins as they danced with a flute.

A flute which suddenly fell silent as the radio crackled and Homage’s DJ Pon3 voice came from Wander’s PipBuck.

“Sorry to interrupt the song, ladies and gentle ponies, but we have some breaking news of critical importance to anypony in the Canterlot area.”

”Oh hey, it’s Plot Exposition News again,” Dad remarked with a snort. ”I thought only Pinkie Pie herself could do that.”

Huh… Yeah it is a bit weird how we keep tuning in right on time for the news. I wonder how frequently she interrupts the music?

”Next time you speak to her, please ask. If this is coincidental, it’s gonna drive me nuts!”

Wander stopped walking, frowned, and looked at her PipBuck, her tail swishing with worry.

“Everypony remember the situation with Stable 88? Yeah. Me neither. It’s pretty hard to keep the smaller news in mind when something big happens. Like, say, the Tainted are actually an army and just attacked Fillydelphia en masse,” Homage continued with a weary sigh. “This bit of news is interesting, but especially critical for anypony traveling through the Canterlot area. Stable 88 opened its doors, and Overmare Platinum was nice enough to radio little old me with an apology.”

I frowned, trying to figure out why that would be critical information for us to know.

“Remember last week when she threatened to let their soldier out to make our diplomats leave if they wouldn’t go on their own? Well, the diplomats and their guards didn’t go on their own. Of course they didn’t. Why would they? That was just an empty threat, right? Wrong. Horribly wrong,” Homage said with a bitter twinge to her voice. “I’m going to play the Overmare’s recording for you. Before I do, if you are in the Canterlot area, either bunker down or check your ammo and make sure your gun’s ready for a quick draw. You see, 88 let its soldier out, but not back in.”

Homage really didn’t need to say anymore than that.

I drew my pistol, and flipped the switch for it to charge, then put it back into my holster. It wasn’t good for the crystals to keep them charged all the time, but if Homage felt the need to tell everypony in this region to get ready for battle…

The radio clicked and hissed as the Overmare’s recording began to play. “This is Overmare Platinum Vein, and I am sorry. We’ve let a monster loose in your home. We cannot let her back in. Not after what she did. Not after what happened while she did it. We are a peaceful Stable. We swore off the violence our ancestors embraced. All except for her. We don’t have anypony who could stop her if she wanted to kill us all.”

The Overmare’s voice was sullen, hollow, and clearly tinged with panic. Wander and I shared a worried glance before she started to look around the horizon, scanning the shadows for any sign of an ambush.

Nopony spoke like that unless something was horribly wrong.

“You need to know what happened, and the best way is for me to share our security recordings with you,” The Overmare said slowly.

The radio clicked, and perhaps it was because I had been hearing a vividly told story for the last day, but the simple security recording swept me away, and my imagination decided to put me in the same Stable entrance the microphone had sat in.

A stallion sighed. His voice held a mixture of anger and annoyance. “Overmare, we’ve been here for weeks. You have to make a deal. The only other choice is to remain stuck in your Stable forever. We both know that Stables were not meant to sustain a community indefinitely.”

A mare’s voice, Overmare Platnum's, sighed. It sounded crackly, clearly coming through an intercom. “And I have told you that Thestrals are different. Our ancestors lived underground for their entire lives. We have quarried great halls within the stone beneath your hooves. Our Stable was once small, now it is a city to rival Ponyville, as it stood before the war. We do not need to rejoin the world above. We are safe, we are comfortable, we have no need of you.”

A hoof scraped against the stone. “Your ancestors swore an oath to serve Equestria,” The stallion pressed. “We need your help now!”

“You are not Equestria,” the Overmare laughed. “You are a bunch of ponies playing nation-state in her rubble. You read the story of Pip to us. Princess Celestia herself is alive. Well, sort of. We would honor our oath if she asked it of us, because she is Equestria. All of it that is left. We are not beholden to you.”

“Perhaps not, but you are sitting in your hole and letting ponies starve! You said you have an abundance of food. We can trade medicine for food!” The stallion practically yelled. “Why are you so stubborn?! We can help each other and both live better lives than on our own.”

“Honeyed words opened this door once before, and death came inside. There is nothing you can say that will make it open for you to enter,” the Overmare said as if it were something she had said millions of times. “Besides, I doubt you’d even recognize our food as food.”

The stallion made an odd sound. He was surprised. This was the first time he had heard that.

“Oh? What do you eat? Fruit? We’ve done what research we can on your tribe, we know your diet.”

“Be honest, you’ve never seen a single piece of fruit before, have you?”

“Well, no. Not a fresh one at least.”

“A third of our ponies can only eat fruit,” the Overmare said casually. “The majority of us subsist on nectar… The rest, well… The rest of us are throwbacks. Holdovers from a time before Celestia, if you can believe that.”

The stallion sighed. “We eat meat up here too. Ponies are omnivores. We’ll happily buy meat.”

“Not meat,” The overmare remarked. “You’re thinking like a pony. Understandable, since you're talking to ponies… But we are not pegasi. Perhaps we shared a common ancestor in ages long past, but they chose the path of light. They bask in the sun. We took the path of darkness and take comfort in the dark of the night. We have never eaten flesh. You need to think like a bat.”

“Then... What?” The stallion asked heastently.

“A week ago I asked you to leave,” the Overmare said slowly and firmly as she seemingly changed the subject. “I warned you there would be consequences.”

A drop of water fell from a stalactite and splashed across the cave floor, as if to punctuate the moment.

The stallion remained silent.

“I will open the door now, trooper. But not to let you in.”

A metallic thud echoed through the cave. A dozen ponies began to speak in hushed murmurs. Several guns clicked as their owners chambered rounds.

“Steady, colts!” the stallion shouted. “Do not fire! This is progress.”

“Sir, with all due respect—”

The new stallion’s voice was cut off as what must have been a hundred tons of steel screeched as it was pulled along a steel floor.

“Do not fire unless they do!” The stallion ordered.

“Yes, sir!” several voices chimed back.

Metal rattled. Stone creaked. The Stable door began to inch open.

Then, almost lost in the noise of the door opening, something small, tiny, and metallic clinked against stone.

The sound of the door opening was lost in a single calamitous bang. Ponies screamed. The microphone rang with the echoes of the blast. A loud gun fired twice. There was less screaming.

“Rip and Tear!” a mare’s voice screeched.

A weapon clicked twice. Two more gunshots peaked the microphone. Click-click, boom-boom. The dull metallic sound of a simple shotgun. The Stable door hissed, groaned, and began to creep shut.

Amid the gunfire, a dozen hooves could be heard rushing and running. Running from the sound of gunfire. From the drumming of buckshot blasting apart flesh, bone, and stone.

A new gun joined the fray. Its report was sharp, concussive. A rifle. One shot. Two. Three.

Click-click, boom-boom.

The rifle went silent. The screams continued, moving ever further away. As did the gunfire.

Faintly, as if from a great distance, something wet snapped and a pony screamed in agony. The scream was followed by the sound of terrified sobbing, and the stallion’s voice as he begged. “Please! No!”

“Sorry, but you’re threatening my friends and home. Also, I’m hungry,” the mare said in the same tone of voice a pony might use to inform you the sky was blue.

Click-click, boom-boom.

There was no more screaming. Now there was happy humming, the sound of something wet and heavy being drug across stone, and an occasional slurping, sucking, gut-churning sound only a surgeon could identify by ear alone.

The sounds got louder, and louder, approaching the microphone…

The mare gasped. “WOAH! I— It happened! HAHAHA! EEEEEE!”

Hooves thundered against stone as the mare rushed back to the door. “Mom! Mom! Did you see?! I got my cutiemark!”

The intercom was silent.

“Wait, do I have to press the button down?”

A hoof scraped against metal. Something clicked. “MOM! I did it! They’re gone, and I got my cutiemark!”

“I saw,” The Overmare said in a hollow voice.

It had to be hollow. Too much terror filled her words for anything else to fit in them.

“I always wondered why I didn’t get it in there! I knew fighting had to be my talent, nothing else lets me feel alive… Except maybe music? But I don't like to play it and I don't think you can have a talent for just listening to music, but who cares! Dream Pods don't count, obviously! First real fight and boom! Cutiemark! Isn’t it awesome? That is the prettiest IGA 20 12 gauge ever! I don’t even own one of those! I should get one… OH! And the barrel smoke? Bucking sweeeeet!”

It was impossible to not hear the joy and excitement in the mare’s voice. Of course she was happy. It’s not everyday you find out what you were meant to do…

“Why did you drink his blood?” The Overmare asked, her voice quavering.

“I was hungry and thought I wouldn’t let it go to waste?” the mare said with a confused little quaver of her own. “Are you worried about like, diseases? He smelled clean… Sorry, it’s just there’s blood coating like, EVERYTHING! You know that one time you walked into the neighbor’s room and he was grilling mangos? I finally get why you just started drooling. I’m still feeling hungry… Can I come in before I eat too much and start to put on weight?”

“No,” the Overmare said firmly.

“Sooo I can come in after I clean it all up?” her daughter asked, sounding extremely confused.

“No. You’re not coming back in. Not after what you just did!”

“B— But you told me to kill them!”

“I said you could if you had too!”

“If they wouldn’t leave because you asked them to they sure as hay wouldn’t go because I asked them to, and tactically speaking it’s much harder to clear a room after you’ve opened the door instead of during the breach.”

“Do you feel anything?!”

“Confused? Kinda hungry still?” she said, her every breath oozing genuine perplexity. Like a newborn foal trying to understand where an object went after it left their sight. “I did what you wanted. Why are you mad at me?”

“Do you— Do you feel anything at all for having murdered them all?”

“Oh! Yes. Happy! They threatened my friends, they were therefore bad ponies, and they are dead now. They won't hurt you. This is good! Why are you mad?! You said I could!”

“You crushed that pony’s head flat underhoof!”

“Well, yeah! I was reloading. What would you have done? Let him get a shot off?”

“Speed Run, you’re banished. Leave now and never come back.”

The mare was silent for several long moments. “I— But—”

“Leave!”

“C— Can I get my stuff?” the mare asked, her voice trembling as she held back tears.

“You’re wearing everything you value, monster! Leave!”

“N— no I’m not!” The mare stammered, all of the bravado gone, replaced by the quivering terror of a foal in the dark. “I’ve just got my kit and— I— I don’t have all of my music, and blankets, and everything else!”

There was no replay from the Overmare.

“Why? What did I do wrong?”

Silence.

Flesh hit stone as the mare presumably fell over, or perhaps dropped to her knees. Full-scale nose-running, eye-watering bawling echoed through the cave for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, quietly, she spoke. “C— Can you please tell me what I did wrong? I’ll not do it again. I promise!”

Again, there was no reply.

A pained sob echoed through the cave. “F— Fine! I— I’ll go. B— but my things! Can you put them in a box and leave them outside? Please?”

Silence.

“O— Okay… Then I’ll go in and get them. You think I can’t, but somewhere up there is Stable-Tec’s Headquarters,” the mare said, her voice sounded dead as she spoke. “There’s always a master key. I will be back for my things. It would be nice of you to put them in a box and leave them outside while I am gone.”

Leather rustled. Plastic clicked against a hoof. Something metallic scraped and shushed. The plastic rattled again, and a few clicks later a song began to play over a tinny PipBuck speaker. It slowly faded into the distance along with the mare’s hoofsteps.

“I moved out to Canterlot recently
with a plain and simple dream;
Wanna infiltrate some Zeeb-ruled state,
and topple their regime.

Those mares in black with their matching suitcases;
where everything's on a need-to-know basis...
Agents got that swagger;
everypony so cloak and dagger!

I'm feelin' nervous but I'm really kinda wishing
for an undercover mission...

That's when the red alert came on the radio,
and I put my earpiece on!
Got my dark sunglasses on!
And I had my weapon drawn!

So I get my hoofcuffs,
my cyanide pills,
my classified dossier!

Tappin' the phones like yeah.
Shreddin' the files like yeah.
I memorized all the enemy spies I've gotta neutralize today.
Yeeeaaahhh, it's a party in the MoA!

I stared at Wander’s PipBuck in terror. The shotgun blasts and reloads had to have been from a double barreled shotgun, nothing else sounded like that. Except, the gun had been firing so fast I swore it had to have had a magazine!

Wander nodded to me and drew Bad Trip, keeping it held ready to fire at her side.

The radio clicked as Homage’s voice came back with a long sigh. “So… If you’ve gotten the jist, 88’s resident soldier is a psychopathic vampire-bat whose special talent is killing, is currently extremely emotionally distressed, and her reaction to being banished from home is to vow to return for her belongings with a thinly veiled threat, then walk away while listening to a Cheese Sandwich song. Probably unironically.

“There were two dozen NCR troopers in that cave. None of them survived, and as far as we can tell, not a one of them even winged her. If you’re in the Canterlot area… Get out.”

The radio hissed again as the music resumed. Wander glared over her shoulder in Manehatten’s general direction. “Oh! You know Cheese Sandwich by ear, but you don’t know me?! Horseapples!”

I raised an eyebrow as I took in Wander’s glare of pure rage she was sending Homage’s way.

Were all mares this confusing?

”Yes,” imaginary dad said, his tone suggesting he intended that statement to be helpful.

It was not.

I sighed and trotted over to Wander. “Hon, first, I thought you didn’t want to be known. Second, your voice sounds fine… If you wanted to take a break you could have just said so!”

Wander looked at me sheepishly. “I don’t… Just, professional pride! I did original work but she knows the parody artist and not me. That hurts!”

“Like your throat?” I said with a suspiciously raised eyebrow.

Wander shook her head. “It only took a few minutes to heal,” she admitted sheepishly. “Then I did want a break. I’d continue now, but… We should be quiet and keep an eye out.”

Wander switched off her PipBuck’s radio. I nodded in agreement.

“Yeah… you check the right flank, I’ll check the left.”

We resumed our journey. Silent. Eyes peeled.

Every bush, every rock, every tree, every burnt out wagon could be hiding a monster.

It was not a good feeling.

☢★★◯★★☢

The sun plunged down behind Mount Canterlot. Twilight had arrived. I gulped nervously. Spending an entire day looking around for a possible ambush was stressful enough. I really, really really didn’t want to have to do that all night, too.

Wander suddenly stopped walking and took a deep breath.

I immediately looked up and drew my pistol.

“No. Not that,” Wander said with a quiet hiss.

“What is it?” I asked with a worried wince.

“I… I need to rest. My joints have been scraping for the last hour. I know you don’t need to sleep or rest ever, and I know you forget that I do need a little rest from time to time, and I know this is a bad time for it, but... I can’t go further. Not without being unable to fight if we have too.”

I bit my lip and took a deep breath. Bad timing, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Okay… Let’s find a safe place to camp,” I said as I looked out across the horizon.

A small grove of willow trees caught my eye. I pointed it out to Wander, and she nodded approvingly. It didn’t provide much cover, but it did break line of sight. A few minutes later and I’d set up a few tripwires and can traps while Wander set up her bedroll and lay down.

I was a little jealous of a spell she had. It was this neat little pulse of magic which flowed down her body from her horn and just pushed all of the little pebbles and twigs away from where she’d been standing. It had made a nice flat spot for her to lay down.

Sometimes I couldn't help but be jealous of unicorns.

Feeling the need to do something cool too, after Wander had been laying down for a while I asked, “Hey… Do you want to eat something?”

Wander paused pursed her lips then nodded. “Yeah. That would be relaxing. Unfortunately, all I have is a few cans of soup. A fire would be a bad idea.”

I nodded in agreement. “A fire, yes. But what about a hot rock?” I asked as I picked up a small flat-ish piece of granite which had been laying by the roots of one of the willows.

Wander’s ears perked. “Now that is a good idea. How will you heat it though?”

I set the rock down, smiled, charged my eye laser and fired it into the rock. A small plume of smoke wafted up form the flat surface. “I can keep shooting it as needed. Put your soup on the rock. Just leave me a firing line.”

Wander raised an eyebrow. “You mean line of sight?” she asked slowly.

I was about to facehoof and agree with her when somepony said, “Actually, your zebra friend’s correct!”

Wander rolled over, Bad Trip whipping around to fire. I stood up and got ready to aim Feature at what was hopefully not the psycho-soldier.

Unfortunately, I could see the mare’s outline in the moonlight. Short, but muscular. Floofy tufted ears. Wings made from dragon-like flaps of skin and bone rather than plumage.

Yay! Nini-flap-flap!

Wait, no! That’s a bad thing this time. BUCK!

Wut do?!

Something feeling deep deep deep down demanded I cuddle the batpone. I ignored the suicidal impulse and tried to think of something actually helpful.

“We don't want any trouble,” Wander said as calmly as she could manage.

Did she think we couldn’t take her? Actually, we probably couldn’t. She’d taken down two dozen ponies in a few seconds.

I nervously shifted my stance. I had to calculate the point of aim just right. We wouldn’t get a second shot.

“Uh, okay?” the mare said, trotting forwards enough for me to see her fanged maw was frowning while her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry, is just like, shooting ponies on sight a surfacer thing?”

“It used to be,” Wander said carefully.

Locking on target…

For a super-deadly psychopath, she was kinda pretty. Griffon blue fur, a silky gray mane that was actually cut and styled. By Celestia, that mane! It flowed and billowed even in the almost non-existent breeze.

I want one like that! Stupid mohawk won't take any real styling...

Ack! No! Focus on not being killed by her, you idiot!

Target: Equine hind-leg.
Range: 2.51472 meters.

ERROR! Gun within blast radius.

“Shit!” I swore under my breath.

The mare looked up at me and frowned. “I uh… I thought we were friends? I mean, you sounded like friends.”

Oh. Right. Bat ears. She could probably tell I was aiming my gun at her.

Hold on, did she say friends?

I frowned and lowered my weapon. “So uh… There was kind of a radio broadcast about you… You’re not going to just, kill us all in some kind of anger-murder-party, are you?”

She shook her head and frowned sharply, genuinely perplexed. “No? Why would I? You’re not bad-ponies.”

Wander blinked once and lowered her gun too. The way the mare had said that made her sound like a simpleton. You can't fake that kind of matter of fact bluntness. Or at least, it’s really hard to.

“Also, if I wanted to kill you, why would I give you a chance to fight back?” she added helpfully with a little confused tip of her head.

Wander holstered her pistol. “That’s a good point… So Uh… What’s your name?”

I sat down slowly. I wasn’t quite as sure as Wander that this was a good idea… I hoped it was, but now that she was out of the shadows and in the moonlight properly I could see that she was wearing armor. Bloodstained armor.

She hadn’t bothered to clean off the silver breastplate she had on over her Stable suit. I couldn’t read the emblem or rank marking on her pauldrons through the gore… The only clean part of her clothes was her beret. The dark green hat was in pristine condition, and the special forces badge pinned to it had been polished.

That meant she’d realized she was dirty, and decided specifically to only clean her hat…

Not even her face. Just her hat.

“Oh! I’m Speed Run,” she said as she sat down across the clearing from us, apparently understanding that neither of us was exactly comfortable around her. “What are your names?”

“Whirling Gears,” I said slowly, not wanting to break eye contact with Speed at all.

Speed sighed and frowned. She reached back with one of her wings, used the little claws in the middle to open her double barreled shotgun without drawing it, and removed the shells. “Is that better?”

Actually, yes. That was better. I nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

She cleared her throat and smiled timidly. “Soooo, I’m Speed Run.”

“Whirling Gears,” I introduced… again. “Most ponies call me Gears since Whirling is a colt name.”

“Ponies call me Wander,” Wander said as she turned to face Speed without standing up.

The fact she wasn’t standing up in this situation meant she was definitely actually exhausted. If this went wrong, it would be down to just me… If I charged my shield I could handle the grenade burst, and Wander would regenerate…

No! She’s being nice. Maybe we shouldn’t judge a book by its bloodstained cover.

Except that saying is dumb and the entire point of a book’s cover is to help you judge the contents of the book to determine if it’s something you’d like to read…

Speed squinted at Wander and frowned. “I’m sorry but, are you sick or something? I have a few trauma kits in my saddlebags and qualified as a field medic! I can help.”

I triple blinked. Okay, nevermind, she was actually nice, apparently!

Wander laughed. “Unless you got a drug in there that un-ghoulifies a pony, no thank you.”

Speed frowned sharpy. “Wait, you’re a ghoul? I thought you were supposed to look... deadder?”

“Wander’s a special case,” I informed.

“Also not be people,” Speed added hastily.

“Most of us aren't anymore,” Wander sighed and moved just enough for her hood to be pushed up slightly.

Speed’s eyes widened as she got a good look at Wander’s face. “Wait!” she exclaimed, jumping up fast enough to make me panic. “If you’re a ghoul, then you’re from before the war, right? I knew you looked familiar!”

Wander’s ears stood up straight as she squeaked. “Oh, Luna, no!”

Speed tilted her head to one side, clearly confused. “Huh? But… Nopony’s detonated megaspells after the war, right? When else could you be from?”

Wander squeaked and shuffled backwards. That was the last piece I needed to understand what was happening fell into place.

“Speed, she’s from when you think, and she’s probably who you think she is, but she’s got major psychological issues and cannot handle ponies knowing who she used to be. So, you have no idea, right?” I said doing my best to keep my voice even and unthreatening.

That was hard to do. A pony was terrifying my marefriend!

Also me. But that was much less important.

Speed sat down, her ears drooping backward in sympathy. “Oh. Sorry… I… I have problems too.”

Wander squeaked something as she shrank further back from Speed.

Speed squirmed a little and tapped her hooves together. “C— Can I still like, listen and sing your stuff? I really like it.”

Wander made another terrified little squeak. I hopped up, rushed to her side and hugged her as tightly as I could.

“It’s okay! She won’t tell anypony,” I said as I turned to give Speed my best glare. “Right?”

To my surprise, she nodded, teared up, and began to babble as if I had a gun to her head “Of course not! I don't like hurting my friends… I’m sorry I know! I can’t just forget things. I mean, not unless I used like, all of the drugs, but I don't have any LSD so I can't use all of them. I won't say anything to anypony! I promise.”

The way she babbled shook Wander out of her terror-panic enough for her to laugh bitterly. “Oh. Good. She’s as bucked up as I am…”

Speed started to actually cry as she hung her head in what looked and felt like real distress. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to know!”

Wander and I shared a quick look. This was the mare who just killed a bunch of soldiers like it was nothing?!

Wander gulped and looked over at Speed, doing her best to not flinch and look away. “J— Just don’t tell anypony. Please.”

“O— Okay!” Speed stammered. “I’m sorry! C— Can I still… you know?”

Wander closed her eyes tightly and inhaled. “Yeah. You can play them. Just… don’t tell anypony I wrote them. Please.”

“I won't!” Speed exclaimed instantly. “I promise!”

Wander sighed in relief and slumped down on her bedroll. “So… this is probably the most emotionally distressing thing I’ve gone through this century. Let’s just rip the band-aid off in one go and never bring it up again. What do you want signed, and hit me with all the questions.”

Speed frowned. “But… But talking about that hurts you? I don’t like hurting my friends. I can feel things for them, so, you know, it isn’t fun.”

I raised an eyebrow at that and subtly moved to make it easier to draw my pistol. “Sooo, about this friends thing. We just met.”

Speed nodded twice. “Uh huh! Sorry. I um… I’m used to ponies already knowing,” she cleared her throat. “Sooo, I have this thing that my brain does. Either I like a pony right away when I see them, or I never-ever will. I call ponies I can feel emotions for friends. Because there's not many to choose from, so I choose them all.”

“Wait,” Wander said quietly. “When you say feel nothing, what do you mean?”

“Oh! Uh... It’s like they aren't ponies,” Speed explained, scratching the back of her head awkwardly with a wing. “I’m not sure I can explain to others? I’ve tried a lot but um… Most ponies are just objects to me. I don’t care about them any more than I do a coffee cup. Which doesn't mean I can’t care, I really really like one of my coffee cups. But... I mean, if I broke it, oh well! I’ll get a new one. No big deal. Nothing to cry about, right?”

Speed tapped her hooves together and squirmed a little. “I know that makes me sound scary to normal ponies…”

“Extremely,” Wander said quietly.

Speed’s eyes widened in alarm. Her wings flared. “You’re safe!” she yelped. “I heard you making camp and when I found you, you looked cold, and I felt that and wanted to help you stay warm, and Gears, you looked annoyed that you had to stop to rest and I felt like telling you it would be okay because I understood you were annoyed but this forest isn’t so bad. I feel things for you guys. I can’t do anything bad to you! You’re not coffee cups, you’re ponies. You know?”

“Actually, I’m a zebra,” I said stupidly, cringing halfway through my sentence.

Speed giggled and smiled at me. “Nah, you’re a stripy-pone!” she giggled, flashing me a fanged smile. “Of course I know you’re a zebra. It’s just stupid to not think of zebras as ponies. This one time that kind of ended the world, so let’s not?”

“Huh,” I said with a little smile.

It was nice to know somepony thought that. Even if they were a dangerous psychopath with a history of violence. Actually, no. That made it better. Like it was so obvious somepony who liked to kill could tell you what was a dumb reason to kill others.

Wander looked Speed in the eyes, an odd, serious yet intrigued look came over her face. Before I could figure out if Wander was about to shoot Speed or not, she asked. “Can you hold a hoof over your head, please?”

Speed Immediately raised her left hoof over her head. “Yes. Why?”

Wander nodded. “Hold it out in front of you.”

Speed complied instantly, then frowned even more. “Is this a test? You know I’d do anything for you…”

“Can I see your shotgun?” Wander asked casually.

Speed drew the shotgun from its back-holster with her wing-claws, and held it out to Wander. “Sure. I’ve got three more, would you like one?”

“No, I just want to have a look,” Wander said as she took the weapon via her magic and turned it over, pretending to look it over but not really since I could tell her eyes remained on Speed.

Who seemed totally comfortable handing her weapon over, even though she only had the one in a holster. If she really did have other guns, they were in her two saddlebags… Or the field pack she had on her back. They weren't readily accessible…

Oh! I got it. Wander was seeing if she’d be comfortable completely unarmed around us. If she was, that meant she wasn't planning on hurting us at all. That was brilliant!

Wander smiled, picked the shells up from the ground, loaded the shotgun and passed it back to Speed. “Cool,” she said with an eerie calm. “Shoot me.”

Speed’s eyes shrank in horror. My jaw dropped.

“W— What?! Why?!” We demanded in unison.

Oh, Celestia! This was because of her stupid mental issues, wasn’t it? Wander knew that Speed knew who she was and needed pain because of it. I’d been too focused on the possible danger to think about Wander's own needs.

I had to do something!

Wander shook the shotgun at Speed. “Shoot me, please. Don't hit my scarf. If you do I will be very upset.”

Speed’s eyes widened “B— But you're my friend! I can’t—”

I frowned and did my best to step between them but Wander pushed me to the side. “Gears, this is important. Back off! Speed, shoot me. Please. I want you to.”

I grit my teeth angrily. “Don’t be stupid, you past-obsessed idiot! You don't need to be hurt because somepony knows who you are!”

“It’s not about that!” Wander snapped as she glared at me. “Speed, shoot me. Now!”

Speed choked back a sob, and fired. Buckshot ripped thigh Wander’s chest, throwing her backwards across the ground where she lay in a heap.

I took a deep breath and growled angrily at Wander. “You, absolute, thick headed, idiot!”

I hoped she could hear me. She deserved that!

Speed’s choked back sob returned, this time escaping her throat as she dropped the gun and grabbed me. I yelped, fearing she’d snap my neck. Instead she pulled herself against my barrel to cry into my shoulder.

“WHY?! WHY DID SHE MAKE ME DO THAT?!” Speed demanded between sobs.

I honestly didn’t have an answer. Fortunately, I didn’t need to give her one.

Wander gasped and sat back up with a sound of a re-inflating lung. “Ow…” she groaned, rubbing the new hole in her jumpsuit.

Before I could say anything, Speed let go of me and began to frantically dig through her saddlebag. “Oh, thank, Luna! I’ve got a trauma-kit, hold on, don’t bleed out, I swore I put the shot through your heart. Do you have that thing where your organs are backwards? I need to know so I can fix it. I’m so sorry! Why did you make me do that? Please don't do that again! Come on, where’s the stupid trauma pack?!”

I marched over to Wander and glared at her. “What the buck where you trying to prove?!”

“That she’ll do anything I ask her to,” Wander said as she stood up all the way and flexed her shoulder to test it.

“That she’ll do anything you’ll…” My jaw dropped as I tried to comprehend literally any of Wander’s logic. “What kind of test was that then?! She likes to kill things!”

“Not my friends! That is the opposite of fun!” Speed shouted as she continued to dig through her bag, tossing bits of kit this way and that.

Wander trotted over to her and gently set a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey? Kid? It’s okay. I regenerate, like a comic book character. Ever read Z-Mares?”

Speed looked up, immediately grabbed Wander and inspected the hole in her jumpsuit before taking a deep breath, then letting it out. “Please don't make me do that again… I— I don’t like hurting ponies I can like…”

Wander nodded and gave her a little hug. “I won't. Speed, stay right there for a little bit, okay? We’ll be back. I need to talk to Gears privately.”

Speed nodded. “Okay!”

I looked up at Wander with a worried frown but stood up too. Was she planning on making a break for it? Even if that was her plan her stupid shoot me test had been beyond cruel!

Wander trotted off into the willow grove, nodding for me to follow. We walked for a few minutes until Wander sighed and flicked her tail. “This should be out of her hearing range.”

I blinked. “We’re easily two hundred meters away… We left hearing range a minute ago!”

“Not for a batpony,” Wander commented as she turned around and gave me a distressed but serious look. “Gears, we need to be nice to her.”

I nodded immediately. “Um, duh! She’s a killing machine!” I said before narrowing my eyes. “Also, if that’s what you think, that test was even stupider than I thought a minute ago!”

Wander shook her head violently. “No! That was important and also fast. Look, my dad ran a mental hospital. Speed is clearly not a normal mare. I needed to confirm my suspicions and work out exactly what her deal was. I don’t exactly have a copy of the DSM-5 and three months to do psychoanalysis! Or a degree in that field.”

I felt my ears twitch curiously. Wander so rarely talked about her past that even under these circumstances I was eager to learn anything about her I could! Also, the fact that Wander could use a mental hospital now made her dad’s former occupation almost hilariously ironic.

“Wait, your dad ran a mental hospital, and you think that makes you qualified to diagnose a pony with something?”

Wander took a deep breath and lashed her tail. “No. I’m not qualified to diagnose. I do have experience with lots of different disorders, and I recognize this one… My dad ran the Hollow Shades Care Home and two ponies with a condition that Speed almost definitely has lived there. I helped dad run the place all through high school.”

I bit my lip then sighed. “Okay. But there’s a big difference in recognizing some symptoms and—”

Wander raised a hoof to cut me off. “Look, we’re not in a good situation here. Not because she’s dangerous to us, far from it. We’ve got a major ethics problem. See, based on what she said, how she reacted in that recording, and the fact she actually shot me when I asked her to in spite of all that distress over it... There’s no mistaking Cinnamon's Syndrome.”

I frowned as I wracked my brain for any thing I may have read about that particular disorder. Nothing came to mind, other than the fact that mom’s library’s mental care section was surprisingly lacking.

“What’s that?” I tilted my head. “I mean, obviously, it’s a form of psychopathy, but—”

Wander shook her head. “No. Psychopathy isn’t a thing. Not really. It’s an umbrella term for lots of different personality disorders which create antisocial individuals who are sometimes dangerous or violent. That said, it’s really the only commonly used term for ponies like that. So, just, file it away in your brain that Psychopathy cannot be equated with extreme violence or serial killing. In fact, “psychopaths” do not even usually appear different from other ponies, nor are they unilaterally dangerous. Usually, they’re just self absorbed assholes.”

I felt my frown steepen as I tried and failed to understand what she meant. “Then what’s Cinnamon's Syndrome?”

“A neurological disorder which prevents her brain from forming emotional bonds with others in a very weird way,” Wander elaborated. “If I am right, she’s not crazy, she’s... missing hardware. To use a metaphor a robopony might understand.”

“Oh…” I said with a sincere frown and a glance back at the camp. “Poor mare.”

“That’s a massive understatement,” Wander said as she scuffed the ground with a hoof. “If Speed has it she can still form real emotional attachments to others… Buuuut not consciously, intentionally, or in what you or I would see as a logical way. She just does, and if she doesn't do it immediately on meeting a new pony, she never will.”

I took a moment to think about that. Speed did say that herself… But, she came from a Stable. Maybe she had seen an actual psychologist?

“Something about us made her subconsciously like us enough to have empathy for us right away,” Wander continued. “Probably because I am me and you’re obviously with me… Uh, long story short, if we ditch her, she’ll be crushed. As far as she can feel about it, we’ve been lifelong friends, the BEST of friends, almost family, maybe even lovers. Ponies with Cinnamon’s Syndrome either feel absolutely nothing for you, or they feel everything!”

Wander trotted over to me and rested a hoof on my shoulder. “Gears, a standard psychopath couldn’t fake those tears. They are good at manipulating, but actually tearing up on command? Nah, she’d have been pissed at me for being tricked, not crying because she was scared she lost me.”

I wasn’t any stranger to mental conditions. Nopony who helped care for mom could be. The only thing I felt uncertain about was Wander’s diagnosis.

“I see…” I groaned. “If we ditch her she’ll be depressed, angry, and since she can’t care if most ponies get hurt, and has killed already—”

“Lets not forget that someone she loved already did that to her today. If we did, she’d probably kill the next pony she meets since she likes fighting and would be emotionally destroyed... That murder would be our fault! There’s no telling how long she’d continue before finding another ‘friend’,” Wander said with her eyes closed. “If I’m right, we’re completely safe…”

“But why us?” I asked. I knew she’d already given me an answer to that, but… it was just such a weird disorder!

“As I said,” Wander said, her voice twinged with annoyance. “We know that she already “knew” me. You’re probably the first zebra she’s ever seen, and are stupidly-sexy. That may be enough if she thinks you’re pretty or exotic. But notice how she didn’t comment on it? Like it had always been that way, totally normal?”

Now that Wander mentioned it, Mare Do Well had blurted out she thought I was pretty. If that’s what my upgrades had done for me, then wouldn’t Speed also have done that? Unless she really did feel like she’d always known me.

“Yeah, now what you mention it,” I agreed with a nod.

“She feels like we’ve been together forever,” Wander repeated as she glanced back at camp. “You saw how distressed she got over my panic-attack. You saw how she actually shot me when I asked. That’s not how a pony who just met you reacts.”

“No, it’s not. But how sure are you she has it?” I asked carefully.

Wander laughed. “I used to help my dad out at the care home and a pony like her decided she was my friend. She would talk about us doing things together when she was little, replacing ponies she really knew with me in her memories. Trust me, I know the condition.”

“Wait, you’ve been friends with a pony like her before?” I asked.

That meant Wander probably really knew what she was talking about here.

Wander nodded and flicked her tail. “Yeah, I know that must seem like a hell of a coincidence. Especially seeing as how the syndrome is rare. That said, I am almost three hundred years old and it’s much more common in thestrils than any other tribe. Statistically speaking, this isn’t too unlikely.”

Wander closed her eyes tightly for a moment, and from how her whole body slumped, I understood I needed to be quiet.

“Gears… That mare I was friends with?” Wander asked after a few seconds of silence. “When I left for college, she jumped out a window.”

My tail raised in alarm as I realized the severity of the situation clearly for the first time.

“Oh… Oh, Celestia! If we ditch her, she’ll take it like family disowning her,” I exclaimed, looking over my shoulder back towards camp again.

The poor thing!

Wander nodded. “Now you get it…” She sighed bitterly and looked over towards camp herself. “It’s not a good situation, but we have to take her with us. There's no cure, no treatment, no therapy. Nothing works for them. They never grew part of the brain, and pre-war doctors never even figured out which part. The good news is that Speed won’t do anything that would upset us. At least, not if she thinks we’ll find out.”

“Still,” I said with a wince. “Even if most “psychopaths” are not actually violent, she is. You heard the recording! She was happy while murdering those ponies. She even got her cutiemark during that!”

Wander nodded again, this time while giving me a half-smile. “Yep! She sure did. Thing is, she’s emotionally bonded with us. She’s completely loyal, to us. Or at least, to me. Though she said she liked you too. I saw your memory orb, Gears. Don’t you think that having a genuine murder machine totally loyal to us is a good idea? Especially since the Tainted have a murder machine that’s totally hostile to us?”

That… That was a pretty good point.

I nodded in agreement and sighed. “Okay. I trust you… Is there anything special I need to keep in mind?”

“Yes! Be very very very careful with your word choice with her. She’ll interpret things you say very literally and we both know she’s happy to commit murder if asked.”

I looked back at camp. Given everything, I couldn’t see her as a monster anymore. Just an abused mare in need of hugs… And a punching bag or something.

“Come on, let’s head back to camp,” Wander said as she turned and began to walk back.

I followed along wordlessly, doing my best to process everything and come up with the best way I could make sure that everypony here would be comfortable and safe. I should probably call Homage later and let her know that 88’s Soldier was not as dangerous as first expected.

At least, I hoped not. Wander’s firm belief in her diagnosis was something, but—

Speed’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. We were close enough to camp to not only hear her, but see her. The tiny bat-pony had clamped her hooves over her ears and was singing loudly, presumably to not overhear us.

”It was a futuristic prehistoric throw down,
But it was quiet because in space there is no sound.
Did we mention that this took place in space?
It did, so shut your face!
Also, there were robots and sharks.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's a goddamn dinosaur laser fight!
In space, with sharks, it's a balls-out dinosaur laser fight!

It's bucking science!
Just ask Nightmare Moon, she invented space...”

I nearly walked face first into Wander’s plot as she stopped dead in her tracks. Nearly... Sadface!

“Oh, goddesses, no!” Wander yelped while staring wide-eyed at Speed.

I groaned inwardly and moaned into my left frog. “Wander, we already know she likes your mu—”

Wander spun around and grabbed me by my shoulders as she looked me dead in the eyes. “No! You don’t get it! She likes the stuff I made in Highschool with Rainbow! I thought she liked my stuff I made as a grown mare as DJ Pon3!”

I frowned. “So?”

“The cringe!” Wander whimpered, pleading at me with her eyes. “We need to run!”

I gave her a dirty look. “Go be nice to her like you said we should, or I will smack you!”

Wander sighed, closed her eyes, turned around and trotted back into the camp at the speed of a pony desperate to not relive her youth. Before I could get so much as another verse of the song, Wander shook Speed’s shoulder and she stopped singing.

“Oh! Uh… Sorry,” Speed said with a slight hanging of her head. “I could still hear you so, I had to drown things out because that conversation about my mental health was meant to be private and I guess I left my headphones in my room?”

“It’s okay,” Wander promised, then tilted her head “For future reference, how far can you hear things?”

“On a quiet night like this?” Speed asked, then giggled and gave Wander a mischievous look. “In your lyrics, ‘Thaaaat, shit’s faaaar!’.”

I walked back into the clearing and sat down as Wonder groaned and held her head in her hooves. “Why do you have to like my early stuff?”

Speed frowned. “I’m sorry… Do you not like it anymore?”

Wander sat down next to her and shrugged. “It’s just… I was sort of writing to get through pent up teenage hormones and deal with lesbian problems like ‘no daughter of mine is going to be into mares!’ and ‘I don't know if my best friend is straight or not and this is really bothering me because I am crushing super-hard.’ You know?”

Speed shook her head. “No? Sorry.”

I started to take the radio out of my bag to report the situation to Homage. That way, if any NCR troopers were being called out to hunt her down, we could put a stop to that. Speed started to dig into her bag as well.

“Oh, hey, so I overheard you talking about your joints hurting. I have something for that,” she remarked.

Wander snorted. “Meh, keep it. You’re the only pony here who will need to rest for a long time. You might need it later.”

“Nah, I got like, twelve kilos,” Speed remarked before looking up at me and frowning. “Wait, are you a pretty-ghoul too?”

“No,” I answered, then after a moment’s hesitation decided to tell the truth. “I’m a cyborg.”

Speed’s eyes lit up like a colt in a candy store. Or in her case, a gunshop. “That’s awesome!”

“Robopony,” Wander corrected, rising a hoof. “Mare was right. Your pelt is necromanticly preserved. That doesn't count as living tissue.”

“Equally awesome!” Speed squeaked.

I flinched. Her squee was really high pitched!

I flashed Wander my best pouty-sad-face. “B— But cyborgs are cooler!”

“Roboponies are cuter,” Wander countered immediately.

I blushed. There was no counter to that…

“Ah ha! Here it is!” Speed said as she removed a large bag from her saddlebag, along with a small metal pipe with what looked like an auto-igniter attached to the bowl.

Wander looked over to the bag, then back up to me to bat her eyes flirtatiously, only to then snap her attention back to the bag. “Woah! Is that—”

“Yep!” Speed said with a grin as she took a small bunch of sticky greenish leaves out from the bag. “Want some?”

I sniffed the air, then blinked as I placed the scent. “Is that hemp?”

Wander shook her head. “No! When it’s meant for smoking it’s called marijuana. Anyways, yes I want some! I haven't had a bowl in two-hundred-bucking-years! Wait a minute, you have twelve kilos?! How and why?”

I frowned and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Didn’t Stable-Tec prohibit recreational drugs?”

Speed nodded twice. “Mhm! But one of my ancestors didn’t give a buck. The first megaspells dropped and we realized that, you know, everything was bucked. So we stopped our crazy drug experiments and then somepony who smuggled in some plants was like ‘Screw it, wanna just grow a whole bunch of this?’ The Overmare thought it would help morale, and like… You know. Flavor text!”

Wander and I shared a look, trying to figure out if she’d actually just said flavor text to explain something. She… had, it seemed.

”Yup, she totally just did that.”

Speed looked up at me and smiled. “Do you want some? I can roll some in paper for you so could be awesome and light it with your laser eye!”

I shook my head. “No thanks, I don’t smoke.”

Wander, who had at some point I’d not noticed taken the pipe offered to her and started to smoke, blew a smoke ring and asked, “Can you even?”

I frowned sheepishly. “No,” I cleared my throat. “Mom didn’t really think I’d need to simulate smoking, so I can’t… Sooo, Speed? You didn’t really explain why you had what based on Wander’s reaction, is like a ton of that drug. Or even what it does.”

Wander laughed. “It’s a relaxant. Like booze, but even milder. Also makes you kinda hungry.”

“Oh,” I said with a satisfied nod.

I had no problems with her using something like that.

Speed nodded in agreement and took out a second pipe, this one without an auto-igniter, and packed a bowl for herself. “Yeah. I sort of got excited and took a year’s supply of everything my rank allowed me to take for the mission. Including drugs. You know, the mission I got kicked out of home for doing even though I did what they asked me to…”

I nodded slowly and gave Speed an uneasy glance. Even with her seemingly just a big kid with a mental problem… That recording was still bucking terrifying! “Yeah… About that, uh, you’re sort of the only pony here who needs to eat. Can you eat anything other than—”

“Blood? Yes. I’ll get sick if I eat other things, though. Don’t worry! There’s plenty of bad ponies up here, right?”

Wander laughed. “This is true… You’re kind of lucky you ran into us first.”

Speed giggled. “I didn’t run into you first.”

Wander and I sat up, ears perking in alarm. “Who—” I began to ask.

Speed waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Some bad-ponies in green flak vests who thought it was okay to try and mug a crying mare,” she said as she took a canteen from her bag and opened it.

The canteen was definitely full of blood. There was no mistaking that smell.

“I made them dinner,” Speed finished.

Wander mmmhummed reeeeally slowly, then looked over to me. I looked into her eyes, and knew she understood my concerns. Wander nodded and went back to Watching Speed smoke. “Sooo… Your mom had a name related to mining. Why is yours related to videogames?”

Speed blushed. “Oh um, in my Stable your name is changed when you grow up to reflect something important you did for the Stable or notable about you. Mom found a vein of platinum in the mines. I’m really really good at speedrunning military simulations. Hundred-percent glitchless, obviously. Other categories are horseapples!”

“It seems a little odd for a mare from a Stable full of pacifists to like fighting as much as you seem to,” I said carefully as I gestured to her armor and jumpsuit. “Do… you need something to clean that up with?”

To my surprise, Speed nodded. “Uh huh! Turns out a years supply of wet-wipes is enough to clean your hat, and the hat comes first or Drill Sergeants yell at you.”

Wander lay down on her back to look up at the stars as the sky finally began to darken properly. “Sooo… Mind telling us about what you did this morning? You know, your ‘mission’?”

Speed’s ears drooped as a confused little frown overtook her face. “Oh… You weren't there when I left? Ugh! I hate when my brain makes me remember ponies being places they weren't!” she growled as she stamped a hoof into the grass.

“We only met a few minutes ago, Speed,” I clarified for her.

“Thanks,” She said with an irritated sigh. “Okay, so… For the last few months, a bunch of ponies from some gang called the NCR have been camped out in front of our door, demanding we trade with them, right? Mom kept telling them to go away, but they wouldn’t. A week ago, she tried to threaten them with me, which made sense since I can fight really, really, really well. It was an empty threat though.”

Speed lay back to watch the stars herself. I continued setting up the radio base station.

“I spent the week trying to tell mom she should let me take care of them,” Speed continued. “I overheard one of them suggest they hack the lock and force their way in. I get that they wanted to make contact before any other gang did—”

“The NCR is a nation, actually,” Wander corrected. “It’s big enough. It has towns, a couple cities…”

“Oh…” Speed said with a little frown. “Well, anyways, they wouldn’t leave us alone and were threatening to force the door open. That’s not okay. I was a filly last time the door was opened and I remember how those ponies just like, killed everypony they saw, took everything they wanted, and only left because they were afraid the Stable might like, explode… Or something dumb like that.”

I frowned. “Explode?”

Wander laughed bitterly. “Remember Pip’s story?”

“Yes… Please don’t tell me every Stable ever had something horrible happen to it!”

“Nah, not all of them, just... most,” Wander said with a sad sigh.

Speed cleared her throat. “So this morning my friend Lilac came to my room and told me that mom had changed her mind and wanted me to make them leave. I was super excited because I spent the whole time since that raid training so I could stop the next one and make sure my friends were okay.”

“Also, you know, combat sims are just so much more fun than Dream Pod games… Except maybe Omen! Omen is awesome!” Speed said her orange eyes practically sparkling as she mentioned the game. “Uh, anyways, I went to mom and asked her how she wanted me to make them leave, and she said that I was to ask them to leave, and if that didn’t work, I could use force. I asked if that meant I could kill them, and she said yes.”

Speed squirmed to get a little more comfortable. “My Stable was for Princess Luna’s Marines. They used it as a barracks before the war to help justify the cost. So I went to the armory to get all of the equipment I’d gotten access to from the training sims I’d passed. Our Stable didn’t have everything I should have gotten, cuz like, some stuff was used up over the centuries for other stuff. Sort of like how we turned the experimental drug horticulture wing into a pot farm… But like, I swapped out my normal PipBuck for my military one, cuz mom wouldn’t let me wear this one around even though I bucking earned it! Then, I got my shotgun, armor, field supplies, everything I could! I know I didn’t actually need all of it but I wanted to decorate my room with it and have a supply available at hoof in case next time I had to fight the vending machines were not working.”

I took a moment to take a look at Speed’s PipBuck. I hadn’t actually noticed it was different from the ones I had seen before. It was.

Your typical PipBuck is a model 3000 Mark 1-A. Stable-Tec made thousands if not millions of them before the war. Super popular, super durable, also cheap. The 3000 series had a few other models and each model had a few different variations. Typical things like some with an automapper and others without.

Speed’s PipBuck, on the other hoof, was not a model I had ever seen before. It was painted black and used thicker metal, hinting that it was hardened and armored. Instead of three buttons below the screen, it used a series of knobs which looked like they were meant to be used with the little claws on a batpony’s wing joint. The screen was also larger, and rectangular instead of square.

I wasn’t sure about the internals, but it was probably more robust in general, as well as more feature rich. Especially since it had a slight bulge on the back where I knew the spell chips in a 3000 series PipBuck were located. If they were in the same place, that would mean it had more spell chips than the civilian models.

That just made sense. What with it being the military model and all

I nodded, deciding to talk so she’d know I was paying attention. I read in a book that ponies normally did that. I also forgot it a lot. “How did you take care of the NCR troopers?”

“Oh, that was easy,” Speed said with a wistful sigh. “I threw a flashbang out then charged. Caught them by surprise and gave them all a good dose of buckshot or hoof to hoof combat. They like, sucked. Real bad! Not a one of them even tried to use the cave’s terrain and parkour to escape or get to cover, and like, their DPS was just the worst!.”

Speed sighed wistfully as she smiled up at the sky. “Even so… I got to actually protect everypony! Best day of my life. Took everything I felt and got to put into actions for them to see… I— I just…” Speed looked down, balled up and shook as she tried not to cry. “I just… don't understand what I did wrong…”

I stood up, trotted over to Speed and gave her a hug. “You did nothing wrong. They did something wrong. You’re a good pony.”

Wander sat up and nodded in agreement. “My marefriend’s right. You just scared them really bad.”

“I did?” Speed asked with a frown then groaned and leaned her face into her hooves. “Oh… I did didn’t I? I was just… so happy I could finally do something for them! They don’t let me do anything other then train because… Because they’ve always been afraid I’d hurt somepony…”

Speed’s ears drooped as she came to that realization. “Oh…”

Wander trotted over and joined me in Speed hugs.

“I promise you, I’ll super appreciate it if you keep Gears safe. Even if you’re very scary when doing it,” Wander said firmly.

I nodded in agreement. “Same for me, except for keeping her safe.”

Speed smiled faintly. “Uh, so, about that… How much damage can you take before dying?”

Wander sat down and frowned. “Good question. Canterlot Ghouls die if we’re decapitated, but I’ve regenerated form a bullet to the head once or twice… It might only be if our head is cut off? I’m not sure and don’t want to test it. Point is, Gears is much less durable and when we inevitably get attacked in the future, I'd appreciate it if you looked out for her.”

Speed snapped a hoof up into a salute. “Yes, Vi—” Her eyes went wide with panic. “I uh, I mean Yes, Ma’am!”

I smiled, shook my head, and returned my attention to the radio. Speed was definitely harmless. At least, to us.

Within a few short moments, I had the radio ready to transmit. Homage had to know we’d taken care of the possible roving murder-hobo problem.

“Homage? Gears to Homage, are you there, over?” I asked.

To my surprise, she answered immediately. “Hey! I’m here. I was just about to deliver some news. Can this wait?”

“Well, this is news actually. Wander and I are in the Canterlot area and—”

“Oh-my-gosh! Gears, you need to be careful! There’s—”

“A pretty much harmless mare who, while scary in combat, only attacks ‘bad ponies’ which in her own words are…” I held the radio out to Speed and nodded, hoping she’d understand I wanted her to talk into the hoofset.

“Oh!” Speed said and cleared her throat. “Bad-ponies are anyone my friends say are bad-ponies, or who try to hurt me or other ponies.”

“Huh…” Homage remarked quietly. “Are you sure she’s telling the truth?”

“Completely. Wander’s identified her mental disorder. Speed Run has a condition called—”

“Cinnamon's Syndrome,” Speed interrupted. “I could have told you that. I didn’t think surface ponies would know what it meant… Sorry for being elevationist!”

“Yeah,” I continued, shaking my head at the concept of racism, only based on how far above or below sea level a pony lived. “That. So. here’s the full story…”

Author's Note:

Speed Run has joined the party.

Party Statistics

Whirling Gears
Level 8
Cyberpony - You're more Machine now, than mare. Fortunately, twisted and evil is entirely optional. NOTE: There are more drawbacks then perks...
Artic Nomad - You're adapted for long journeys outside in the cold. Too bad Equestria is in a temperate zone.
Good Natured - You're a kind soul, a hard worker, and assume the best of everypony. How the hay are you alive in the wasteland?
Spiritually Awakened - You can see and interact with the spirit realm. Hopefully a Shaman taught you what not to do.
Arctic Mail Mare - If it's on a map, you can get to it. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, and monsters be damned! NOTE: remaining alive for long after arriving is not likely.
Dire Luck - Most ponies panic when facing something bigger and meaner than they are. You do too, but you're just a bit luckier than the average Wastelander. +10% Crit Chance vs enemies of a higher level.
Celestial Aid - Looks like some higher power has taken a liking to you! Once per session, you have the option of re-rolling a failed roll, but you must accept the results of the re-roll.
Iron Within - You’ve been burned. You’ve been bled. You’ve been beaten. You’ve been broken. That’s all behind you now. Any time there would be a penalty caused by pain or damage, the penalty is halved.
Cyberpony Mk II - Harder, better, faster, stronger! You’ve been improved across the board! But not by much. All of your SPECIALs are raised by 1. Additionally, you have gained several new systems

Wander
Level 12
Canterlot Ghoul - You have quite a lot in common with the Highlander. Unfortunately, you don't have the accent or badflank sword.
Wasteland Guru - You know everything there is to know about surviving in the Wasteland. Shame others rarely listen to you.
Wild Wasteland - If it's crazy, strange, or bizarre, you've seen it, done it, or had it happen to you.
Sniperpony - Penalties for called ranged shots are halved.
Future Soldier - Pew pew pew! Gotcha... All Energy Weapons are much more effective in your hooves.
Permanent Psychosis - Nopony can know your name. Not a single one. Not ever. You must prevent them from finding out at all costs! If they learn who you are they'll like you. You don't deserve friends!You don't deserve fame!You abandoned us to die! Monster! You're a monster...

Speed Run
Level 💀
Drug-Free Super Soldier- You’ve literally done nothing but train to fight for your entire life. It’s quite possible nopony ever has been as well trained as you. +20% to all combat related skills.
Batpon-eeee - You don’t just hear things, you see them. With your ears. You treat your hearing as it it were not merely radar, but 360 degree vision. It’s almost like living via a third person camera.
Doom Marine - You have the weirdest knack for finding weapons and ammo just laying around. Once per day, you may declare you’ve found a weapon or a cache of ammo. If you declare you have found a weapon, the GM will award you a single weapon, rolled randomly form a list of weapons you do not yet have. If you declare you have found a cache of ammo, the GM will instead award you a randomly rolled amount of ammo for a weapon you already have.
Terror to Behold - Sweet Celestia, your fighting is beyond merely terrifying! Everypony who watches you fight must make a hard Endurance check or incur Dire sanity loss.
Parkour! - You know how to move through even the harshest forms of terrain along exactly the route you want to move, even at full speed. You are unaffected by difficult terrain, and all other forms of movement impairment, so long as you are not wounded.
Foal at Heart - You’re just a big kid, really. You gain +10 to Negotiation when dealing with a child, adult children included. The disposition of children is one higher for you.
Tarantino's Disciple - Battle is wonderful in your mind. You are at home in the mud, blood, and spent shell casings. For every enemy you can see, you deal an additional ½ die of damage.
Shotgun Diplomacy - A shotgun to the face is the perfect cure for being an asshole! +3% Crit Chance with any shotgun, and +15 to Negotiation checks when holding a loaded shotgun.
Permanent Psychosis - You are unable to naturally form emotional bonds. Thank goodness your party members are hot and just, so, loveable!
Lead Rain - The AP cost of attacking with firearms is reduced by 5 to a minimum of 1. Stacks with drug induced effects.
Ninja - The Ninja perk grants you the power of the fabled shadow warriors of Neighpone. When sneaking, you gain a +15% Critical Chance on all Melee and Unarmed attacks. Additionally, Sneak attack criticals do 25% more damage than normal.
Reaper Pony’s Gallop - If you kill a target, you gain a free attack with the last weapon you used (can be spent later in the turn).
Basic Power Armor Training - You can now use Power Armor.
Advanced Power Armor Training - Gain +1 PER. AGl penalty is reduced by 1 (when wearing PA). Armor accounts 100% for its wg.
Woo’s Blessing! - You suffer no penalties for holding multiple weapons at once, gain +20 to Explosives and 15 temp HP per level if there are doves nearby, and anything that could flow in the wind you happen to be wearing does (even if it’s not windy, or should be too windy).
Expert Power Armor Training - Gain +2 PER when wearing PA.
Sweet Celestia, why?! - Whenever you finish an opponent off with a melee strike, the part of the body you hit explodes into a gore pile.
Power Armor Mastery - +3 PER and AGl penalty reduced by 1 when wearing Power Armor, +5% DR; you have learned how to get the utmost out of your armor’s systems.
Action Filly - You know your targeting spell like the back of your hoof, making you about 20% cooler in combat. For each level of this perk, you gain +30 max AP in S.A.T.S. These points cannot be used for movement.
What’s a Friendship? - You really only know how the military works. Social situations might as well be alien civilization rituals to you. At least you can do basic chit-chat and barracks room banter…
Party Mare! - You are immune to addiction, and drug’s effects last twice as long for you.
Rip and Tear - Your Unarmed and Melee attacks against armored opponents ignore their DT if the armor is not fully enclosed. You find that gap.
Until It Is Done - Gain 10 AP for every enemy alive at the beginning of your turn.
Wachowskis’ Talents - +2 AGI when using Dash, but you can't write good dialogue to save your life until the drug wears off.
Codex Noncompliant - Who cares if the Codex Astartes doesn’t support this action? It supports your coffee table just fine, and Guilliman is an asshole anyways. Equipment you “find” is considered fully repaired. FOR THE PRINCESS!

Comments

[DiscoPanda84]

Batpon-eeee - You don’t just hear things, you see them. With your ears. You treat your hearing as it it were not merely radar, but 360 degree vision. It’s almost like living via a third person camera.

Tarantino's Disciple - Battle is wonderful in your mind. You are at home in the mud, blood, and spent shell casings. For every enemy you can see, you deal an additional ½ die of damage.

Hmm, do the effects of that first one count towards the second one? Just sort of curious about that...

[Bloody_Tofu]

O.o alright then. One bad ass military night pone has joined .

Man a shot gun with the right perks is just OP in fallout.

[Life Beat]

holy luna's teats she's a walkin deus ex battle warrior also holy shit stables are fricken messed up, seriously ive seen some stuff and read some stuff (from both the games and various stories) wtf is worng with falllout shelter making people/pone's! Also i haz the sads for little pip, i hope she gets saved, i really do also heh i find it immensly funny that the canterlot ghoul (undeath pony) couldnt keep up with the "cyberpony" giggles

[Life Beat]

ah darnit i just realized a nother chapter finished, haz the sads, but i wait patiently for more awesome, great job Meep!

[Booster Spice]

Cinnamons Syndrome?

60 thousand plus hours intense single minded ultrafocused training in the first decade?

Oh, Fluglehorns.

If she has gone through All of Princess Lunas Marines training sims, that includes Special Forces? Did se even get access to the Special Bat Service files? She hasnt had to use her doppler shifted beat frequency ultrasound subsonic embolism tricks yet? Or even straight ultrasonic cavitation death pulse?

Would those multi rotating barrels be able to heat up enough in firing to weaken and split the metal parcel tape or razor wire tangling them up?

[fractalman]

Of all the things I had expected might interrupt my travels with Wander, an NCR patrol asking to see our IDs had not been on the list. Like, at all.

I...somehow read that as "Ski Patrol". As such I went and got a few more minutes of zzzzz.

The guards we’d run into must have been here because the ground for easily a kilometer in any given direction was practically carpeted with unexploded ordnance, and based on the plating left on that power armor, even after all these years there was still stuff left to scavenge!

That's one big loot pile.

Wander chuckled, “Well yes, but actually no.”

I c what u did there.

Wander sighed. “Yeah. We’re standing in the remains of Neighvarro. One of the few Enclave ruins not fully looted. It’s… Very political. A lot of good stuff is just rotting here because idiots think the tools of the enemy are evil. It’s not like this stuff runs on dark magic! They’re just tools evil ponies used. We could put it all to better use if they’d just stop whining...”

Heh.

I felt my own cheeks flush. “It was so good though! And you said that was short for you.”

Wander coughed. “Be that as it may, with that mare being omniscient via a birds eye view, I am so not going to do anything without a roof!”

My ears drooped flat against my head. “W— What about cuddles?”

Gears wants more of THAT type of action and I don't blame her.

“Ohhhh! There’s a cooldown period!” I exclaimed, grinning ear to ear as I filed that critical bit of information away.

Yeaaah, you've got a LOT to learn.

-The next section, starting

I’d have to work out what exactly that time was so I could ask at reasonable intervals. My grin slowly became a frown. “What about cuddles? Is there a cooldown on cuddles?”
*snip*
I lowered my hoof as my face flushed with embarrassment. “I didn't turn her down… I... I forgot to ask...”

Is just...continuous amazing.

“I wasn’t doing anything there,” Pip said. “Uh, that said… Weather is super-complicated! It’s like trying to reboot a PipBuck’s matrix with another’s that’s half broken. I was making sure it rained enough for the farms that day. I might have accidentally caused that flood… But I wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you just because my wife thinks your cute.”

Wander nodded in agreement. “Yeah that’s not her at all. If she was really that mad at you over it she’d probably hit you with lightning.”

I winced. Pip coughed. Not a sick cough, but a ‘please don’t bring that up cough’.

“I don’t kill ponies anymore,” Pip said adamantly.

Wander frowned. “Didn’t you smite that one slaver?”

“Not on purpose,” Pip replied immediately. “I was trying to scare him away form the town… I— I’m not going to talk about—”

Pip’s voice cracked as she fell into a fit of violent coughing. Violent, wet coughing.

-Hahaa! Oh. Ohh, yeah. poor pip.

“That was an accident !” Pip insisted firmly. “A spider got in here and crawled up my leg.”

RELEVANT:

Sure, I think spiders are cute but I don't want them ON me.

“Yes!” Pip said firmly, making her bot squirm free from my grip so it could float at a point where it could look into my eyes. “Long story short, the Wasteland still mostly sucks. A lot of ponies were inspired by me, and that’s good. But they need some more good role models. You may just be a mailmare, but what you did for Sire’s Hollow, and saving that squad of Talon—”

Another violent coughing fit interrupted Pip’s sentence. Fortunately, I understood what she was getting at. I’d done a few things to give ponies hope. Even though they were mostly accidents. And little things.

Poor, poor pip...

“Yeah,” Wander said quietly as she turned to start walking back down the road. “Shame she had such a hard time realizing she’s a good pony… And still thinks she’s a monster for everything she did.”

I bit my lip to do my best to avoid pointing out that Wander was one coat recolor from the pot calling the kettle black there.

Heh, ya think?

I smiled. She stopped walking and took a deep breath. “If, you also give me a kiss,” she insisted.

I smiled, trotted over to her, and gave her a kiss on the nose.

Wander’s ears drooped. “Nose? Really?”

I frowned and tilted my head. “I’m sorry… Was that wrong?”

“Lips are like, the romantic place. That’s a mom place,” Wander said with an awkward smile.

I blushed and kissed her on the lips. “S— sorry…”

“It’s fine,” Wander said as she returned my kiss.

Geeaaaars!

So adorable.

Wander started to trot off while spewing the unfiltered, exact thought trains of Pip, who had apparently been extremely talkative once upon a non-fluid-filled-respiratory-system.

Oh.

Sweet.

Celestia!

This is why you don’t like telling the story. I’m so sorry! This is going to be pure torture, isn’t it?

Wander continued talking, and in spite of my fears, ten minutes into the story, I was hooked!

I STILL need to read the original...

”Oh hey, it’s Plot Exposition News again,” Dad remarked with a snort. ”I thought only Pinkie Pie herself could do that.”

Plooooootttt. Booty booty booty booty booty rockin everywhere. :P

“Not meat,” The overmare remarked. “You’re thinking like a pony. Understandable, since you're talking to ponies… But we are not pegasi. Perhaps we shared a common ancestor in ages long past, but they chose the path of light. They bask in the sun. We took the path of darkness and take comfort in the dark of the night. We have never eaten flesh. You need to think like a bat.”

Bugs. It's totally bugs. It's a changeling's worst nightmare in there, because bugs are eaten.

“Rip and Tear!” a mare’s voice screeched.

Well THAT'S not a good sign...

stuff

“Speed Run, you’re banished. Leave now and never come back.”

speed run

...
...
...

For a super-deadly psychopath, she was kinda pretty. Griffon blue fur, a silky gray mane that was actually cut and styled. By Celestia, that mane! It flowed and billowed even in the almost non-existent breeze.

She's ALSO, if I'm reading the clues right, a very, VERY confused child who might actually be teachable.

“Also, if I wanted to kill you, why would I give you a chance to fight back?” she added helpfully with a little confused tip of her head.

Yep. Confused child.

Speed nodded twice. “Uh huh! Sorry. I um… I’m used to ponies already knowing,” she cleared her throat. “Sooo, I have this thing that my brain does. Either I like a pony right away when I see them, or I never-ever will. I call ponies I can feel emotions for friends. Because there's not many to choose from, so I choose them all.”

Well...that explains a lot.

Wander raised a hoof to cut me off. “Look, we’re not in a good situation here. Not because she’s dangerous to us, far from it. We’ve got a major ethics problem. See, based on what she said, how she reacted in that recording, and the fact she actually shot me when I asked her to in spite of all that distress over it... There’s no mistaking Cinnamon's Syndrome.”

And you were still mean for demanding she shoot you.

“Roboponies are cuter,” Wander countered immediately.

Heh.

Speed blushed. “Oh um, in my Stable your name is changed when you grow up to reflect something important you did for the Stable or notable about you. Mom found a vein of platinum in the mines. I’m really really good at speedrunning military simulations. Hundred-percent glitchless, obviously. Other categories are horseapples!”

Both types are fun to watch tho!

(stuff)

Every time I think I want to comment the next line draws me in with more amazing...

Speed Run has joined the party.

Speed runners are OP'd, she'd be even MORE OP'd if she were willing to use glitches like Pinkie Pie.

[Silentwoodfire]

9587398
1.

2.

“Not meat,” The overmare remarked. “You’re thinking like a pony. Understandable, since you're talking to ponies… But we are not pegasi. Perhaps we shared a common ancestor in ages long past, but they chose the path of light. They bask in the sun. We took the path of darkness and take comfort in the dark of the night. We have never eaten flesh. You need to think like a bat.”

Bugs. It's totally bugs. It's a changeling's worst nightmare in there, because bugs are eaten.

Wait...but...Meep is a..... oh.... that can't be good....

[Neece]

Silly Zeeb, the weather goddess didn't try to kill you. That kind of thing happens when you're not the one for the job, unfortunately.
I hope they can help Pip though, poor mare needs help urgently.

That's... One messed up, sick filly. Let's hope they can reign her in, for the NCR is not going to take this well, even if it's someone mentally ill. She did kill quite some of them, after all

That must've been a weird radio conversation.
Also damn, that's a LOT of perks

[Meep the Changeling]

9587183 BY RPG logic, yes. That would stack. If hearing counts as vision, then anything detected via hearing would necessarily count for any vision specific requirements for other abilities that didn't rely on color or other shape-distance-motion related things you could detect via sonar. Any GM who ruled otherwise would be guilty of nerfing your build (but that might be a good thing, depending on the others in your group and the specifics of your game).

Howeaver, the point of the feats and stats is just to be a fun and silly way to give you an idea of characters abilities. Speed is fast as hell, and draws joy from combat, which means being outnumbered actually sharpens her will and motivates her to keep going because there's more fighting to be done. That's what these two feats are suposed to tell you :3 Well, that and batpone hearing is stupid-good. It's her primary sence, actualy. Sight is a secondary for her... ANd everyotehr thestril.

---

9587224 Wild Wasteland is a great perk to turn these situations beneficial. Gears is lucky Wander's back and has a bit of that Discord's luck going >.>
As for OP, dont' worry about that. Gale's got 3 friends who haven't shown up yet. Zeeb's got a cannon, but she needs moar halps too.

---

9587228 She's less OP than you think. Promise. After all, unlike the big bad's pet monster, this pet monster dies just like a normal pony would.

---

9587293

Cinnamons Syndrome?

IRL I had a pony named Cinnamon. He just died last week :c (Dont be too sad, he was like 120 in horse years. It was time.) Wanted to do something with the memory.

60 thousand plus hours intense single minded ultrafocused training in the first decade?

It's worse than that. Remember Roll? How she said that Dream Pods do time dilation? Yeah.

If she has gone through All of Princess Lunas Marines training sims, that includes Special Forces?

Yes. Did you miss the fact that her beret was green?

---

9587398

Yeaaah, you've got a LOT to learn.

"I learned plenty! That must be why Homage told me about multiple partners. Now I jsut need to learn what the cooldowns lengths are for each given individual and work out a 24 hour rotation of partners! Yay, science!"

Sure, I think spiders are cute but I don't want them ON me.

XD that was great!

Poor, poor pip...

If only she thought to find another auto-doc before basically entombing herself in a dreadnaught's sarcophagus. >.>

I STILL need to read the original...

It's realy actualy very good once the dry ramble is out of the way XD
Sorry kkat :c I really do love your story but that PipBuck prologue is dry as heck! Totally in character, given Pip's telling the story, tho XD

Bugs. It's totally bugs. It's a changeling's worst nightmare in there, because bugs are eaten.

Why does everypony forget that vampire bats are a real thing IRL?

She's ALSO, if I'm reading the clues right, a very, VERY confused child who might actually be teachable.

"Oh, geeze... I'm 28! Do I act that stupid? Bucking hell..."

Every time I think I want to comment the next line draws me in with more amazing...

Then I have done my job correctly :3

---

9587431 The fact that somone got Tarra Strong to record that for us is freaking AWESOME!
Also, becuase apparently everyone forgets vampire bats are a thing ><

---

9587468

Silly Zeeb, the weather goddess didn't try to kill you.

"Right. I jsut wanted to soak her a bit... Nopony blueballs my mare and gets away with it!" (JK, not cannon!)

I hope they can help Pip though, poor mare needs help urgently.

"Paging Doctor Gray Horse..."

That's... One messed up, sick filly. Let's hope they can reign her in, for the NCR is not going to take this well, even if it's someone mentally ill. She did kill quite some of them, after all

Well yeah. Her mom asked her nicely to go break some coffee cups. Bit weird of a thing to ask, but, like, sure!

[DiscoPanda84]

9587697
Yeah, I figured the feats were more for fun, but like I said, was mostly just curious. Seemed like the sort of thing where you could make a strong argument for it stacking, while at the same time being the sort of thing that a lot of DMs would most likely tell me "No, no, and hell no, you do not get to stack those on your character."

[djthomp]

“Why not?” I asked, my tail lashing anxiously. “We’re both immortal, and Her Majesty didn’t give me a date these packages had to be delivered by! I’m sure she’d understand psychologically necessary delays!”

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Nice to see the flood thing cleared up.

That's an awful lot of continuous talking.

“Remember last week when she threatened to let their soldier out to make our diplomats leave if they wouldn’t go on their own? Well, the diplomats and their guards didn’t go on their own. Of course they didn’t. Why would they? That was just an empty threat, right? Wrong. Horribly wrong,” Homage said with a bitter twinge to her voice. “I’m going to play the Overmare’s recording for you. Before I do, if you are in the Canterlot area, either bunker down or check your ammo and make sure your gun’s ready for a quick draw. You see, 88 let its soldier out, but not back in.”

Uh oh.

A mare’s voice, Overmare Platnum's, sighed. It sounded crackly, clearly coming through an intercom. “And I have told you that Thestrals are different. Our ancestors lived underground for their entire lives. We have quarried great halls within the stone beneath your hooves. Our Stable was once small, now it is a city to rival Ponyville, as it stood before the war. We do not need to rejoin the world above. We are safe, we are comfortable, we have no need of you.”

Oooo, neat.

Good job stable 88. Brilliant work all around.

Something feeling deep deep deep down demanded I cuddle the batpone. I ignored the suicidal impulse and tried to think of something actually helpful.

That might go badly, but on the other hand maybe not.

“Speed, she’s from when you think, and she’s probably who you think she is, but she’s got major psychological issues and cannot handle ponies knowing who she used to be. So, you have no idea, right?” I said doing my best to keep my voice even and unthreatening.

Good summary of the situation.

Let's work this friends angle.

Man, Speed is nuts.

“That she’ll do anything I ask her to,” Wander said as she stood up all the way and flexed her shoulder to test it.

Geeze, Wander. Traumatic experiences for everyone.

Great, so Speed Run is more or less broken, and Gears and Wander are now saddled with adult-sitting her. This should complicate things.

Wander nodded again, this time while giving me a half-smile. “Yep! She sure did. Thing is, she’s emotionally bonded with us. She’s completely loyal, to us. Or at least, to me. Though she said she liked you too. I saw your memory orb, Gears. Don’t you think that having a genuine murder machine totally loyal to us is a good idea? Especially since the Tainted have a murder machine that’s totally hostile to us?”

Hmn, fair.

“The cringe !” Wander whimpered, pleading at me with her eyes. “We need to run!”

Lol

Wander shook her head. “No! When it’s meant for smoking it’s called marijuana. Anyways, yes I want some! I haven't had a bowl in two-hundred-bucking-years! Wait a minute, you have twelve kilos ?! How and why?”

LOL

“I made them dinner,” Speed finished.

Yikes.

[DesiArcy]

Stable 88 sounds like they had a similar mindset to that one planet in Star Trek TNG which created highly aggressive supersoldiers, then threw them all in prison afterwards because they were "too dangerous to society". Although without the extra-hypocritical twist that the aggression was an intentional product of the supersoldier treatment and could have been reversed at any time, they just refused to do it because they wanted to keep the soldiers as a deterrent.

[Timuri]

9588205
From the perspective of the DM, I have no problem when players pull up a perk or feat or ability combo like that. The problem I run into a lot of the time is that the players I've had had no problem using overpowered combos and abilities, but they got really sore about it when similar combos were used against them.
So some DMs get to the point where they just don't want to let anyone have the nice toys because of players getting upset when they follow suit. Other DMs are not experienced enough to handle players trying combos like that and so just strike it instead. And sometimes you just have a bad DM.

[Midknight Defender]

I raised an eyebrow as I took in Wander’s glare of pure rage she was sending Homage’s way.

Gears, I'd probably be just as pissed if I were a once-famous entertainer, and Cheese Sandwich was considered more artistically recognizable than me.

That's the kiss of death for artistic pride.

And it ain't a kiss on the lips, neither.

“Yeah… you check the right flank, I’ll check the left.”

Oh, is the cooldown period over?

It’s just stupid to not think of zebras as ponies. This one time that kind of ended the world, so let’s not?

Wisdom can come from the most surprising places. It's still wisdom.

“Shoot me.”

Speed’s eyes shrank in horror. My jaw dropped.

“W— What?! Why?!” We demanded in unison.

Oh, come on, Gears. She did this to you, too. It's her test! Is psychobatty the trustworthy kind of psycho, or no?

That she’ll do anything I ask her to,

Okay, slightly different grading scale than last time. But still! Insert "I'm shot for teacher" joke here!

“No! You don’t get it! She likes the stuff I made in Highschool with Rainbow! I thought she liked my stuff I made as a grown mare as DJ Pon3!”

What?! She finally acknowledges her real secret identity, which Gears still didn't know, and Gears doesn't react to the reveal at all? She knows what DJ Pon3 means to the Wasteland! She should be spluttering right now!

...at least, I don't think she'd revealed it to Gears yet?

Am I remembering wrong?

Or is this going to be one of those things where it hits her in a few minutes and she has to stop walking and shout, "Wait... What?! You're WHO???"

[Meep the Changeling]

9591499

That's the kiss of death for artistic pride.

It kind of is XD

What?! She finally acknowledges her real secret identity, which Gears still didn't know, and Gears doesn't react to the reveal at all? She knows what DJ Pon3 means to the Wasteland! She should be spluttering right now!

CRAP! I didn't think of this. We'll have to just say she didn't quite process that due to the imeadiate situation tkaing pressidence... No worries! Putting it in th enotes for a scene for next chapter!

[Amusementist]

9591547
Speed is just a massive fusion of a ton of video game characters. And holy shit, that is a ton perks. I’m assuming her biggest downside is her mental stability?

[ClockworkMage]

9593907
I'd argue that it's her reliance on drinking the blood of her enemies, and lack of chainsaw.

[Meep the Changeling]

9593907 Mental stability, and not realy being able to "level up" again. As for the perks, they are mostly for fun to give you an idea of the scope of a character's abilities.

[Asolem2]

Wander facehooved and groaned. “Not that kind of worn out!”

I am 'Imaginary' dad in this scene (as in I am laughing like crazy in the background)

”Good girl! You will marriage well one day,” Dad praised, confirming I’d made the right decision.

Speaking from experience I take it

Wander continued talking, and in spite of my fears, ten minutes into the story, I was hooked!

A lot of people were (and still occasionally are)

Wander trotted over to her and gently set a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey? Kid? It’s okay. I regenerate, like a comic book character. Ever read Z-Mares?”

That one has a near indestructible metal coating her/his skeleton, so don't use that as an example... not to mention they regenerate faster than you

I gave her a dirty look. “Go be nice to her like you said we should, or I will smack you!”

I am Gears in this scene, and proud of it

I flashed Wander my best pouty-sad-face. “B— But cyborgs are cooler!”

True

“Roboponies are cuter,” Wander countered immediately.

Also true
But I also feel like you're being biased

Speed waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Some bad-ponies in green flak vests who thought it was okay to try and mug a crying mare,” she said as she took a canteen from her bag and opened it.

Well no problems then

“Cinnamon's Syndrome,” Speed interrupted. “I could have told you that. I didn’t think surface ponies would know what it meant… Sorry for being elevationist!”

Well considering that your entire stable seems to have something of a "Holier than thou" attitude that's understandable

And so the previously unknown adopted daughter of the DOOM SLAYER joins the party... neat

I would recommend finding the place where the SWAT fillies are being trained and having Speed run through those training simulations, they might teach her to recognize and handle some situations where a non-lethal approach would be preferable.

[Meep the Changeling]

9619126

A lot of people were (and still occasionally are)

Yeah! You got to make it to about chapter 2, but then it's a nice long good ride :3

That one has a near indestructible metal coating her/his skeleton, so don't use that as an example... not to mention they regenerate faster than you

"Right!? I can't imagine actually healing that fast. IN real life he'd have so many bits of bullets stuck in his body since he'd heal around them instead of pushing them out. He'd be only long ongoing case of lead poisoning, eternally stupid, unable to die, and just dying at all... Wait, that would explain almost his whole personality!"

I would recommend finding the place where the SWAT fillies are being trained and having Speed run through those training simulations, they might teach her to recognize and handle some situations where a non-lethal approach would be preferable.

That... Is actually a very good idea and will be going in my outline!

[Midknight Defender]

9619339

9619126

That will be amusing to see, especially given who the instructor in those things is.

[LostArchivist]

”Oh hey, it’s Plot Exposition News again,” Dad remarked with a snort. ”I thought only Pinkie Pie herself could do that.”

Huh… Yeah it is a bit weird how we keep tuning in right on time for the news. I wonder how frequently she interrupts the music?

”Next time you speak to her, please ask. If this is coincidental, it’s gonna drive me nuts!”

Someone's been leaning on the fourth wall again. I wonder if Gears counts as a beneficiary of Chaos, especially since I imagine she's heard a LOT of that music by now...

So… If you’ve gotten the jist, 88’s resident soldier is a psychopathic vampire-bat whose special talent is killing, is currently extremely emotionally distressed, and her reaction to being banished from home is to vow to return for her belongings with a thinly veiled threat, then walk away while listening to a Cheese Sandwich song. Probably unironically.

And that's perfect because he was actually voiced by Weird Al. Of course that would be a song here. I love it.
...I know what you just said about offering redemption, but can we keep her? Please?
...Huh, I guess that's a yes. Good? I wasn't originally thinking she had actual psychological issues, just that she was somewhat immature and overly effective resulting in the Overseer locking her out. (So sue me if I don't think that going Five Nights At Freddy's is abnormal in that case)

Wander spun around and grabbed me by my shoulders as she looked me dead in the eyes. “No! You don’t get it! She likes the stuff I made in Highschool with Rainbow! I thought she liked my stuff I made as a grown mare as DJ Pon3!”

Why did this not surprise Gears? It might be that my memory was faulty, but when did she figure this out? Shouldn't there have been some sort of reaction otherwise? Or is she doing a really good job at not treating her differently now that she knows?

Wait a minute, you have twelve kilos?! How and why?”

I frowned and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Didn’t Stable-Tec prohibit recreational drugs?”

Speed nodded twice. “Mhm! But one of my ancestors didn’t give a buck. The first megaspells dropped and we realized that, you know, everything was bucked. So we stopped our crazy drug experiments and then somepony who smuggled in some plants was like ‘Screw it, wanna just grow a whole bunch of this?’ The Overmare thought it would help morale, and like… You know. Flavor text!”

This explains so much.

The canteen was definitely full of blood. There was no mistaking that smell.

“I made them dinner,” Speed finished.

Snerk. That stat sheet. Now that's awesome. I guess we know who the munchkin is. I seriously hope those stack. In theory, she can gain a weapon per day in perfect condition, and is extremely dangerous as long as she can even hear an enemy. The bit about the SAN damage cuts both ways, though, and I can't say I envy her the psychosis and interpersonal skill debuffs.
I can't really read the tiny font it trails off to at the end, though.

---

“Just outside of Suggervale,” I answered. “About three days ago.”

I'm still not sure on this one. I saw it spelled Sugarvale (correct, I think) a few times, but it's been consistently spelled this way many other times. I can't tell if this is supposed to be an intentional misspelling, or if it's just a persistent typo.

Your pelt is necromanticly preserved.

necromantically (probably -- Chromium claims that this is ALSO a typo, but it makes more sense when spelled this way)

A mare’s voice, Overmare Platnum's, sighed.

Platinum's

I forget if you spell Thestral as "Thestril" intentionally or not (sorry). Just letting you know that you did, if it wasn't.

I’ve regenerated form a bullet to the head once or twice

from a

[Meep the Changeling]

9648638

Someone's been leaning on the fourth wall again. I wonder if Gears counts as a beneficiary of Chaos, especially since I imagine she's heard a LOT of that music by now...

Seeing a how she's a wild wasteland encounter... No, not somepony with the wild wasteland trait, she's something they would encounter... Yes

...I know what you just said about offering redemption, but can we keep her? Please?

AH here's the thing. Speed's nowhere near the moral event horizon. Redemption is fine... Untill a point. THe point is pretty obvious, and usually requires causing mass suffering for lolz. Even if she was immature, she'd be fine. Her gov told her to do a thing, so she did. Nothing wrong with that.

I can't really read the tiny font it trails off to at the end, though.

Your wish is my command!

Speed Run
Level 💀
Drug-Free Super Soldier- You’ve literally done nothing but train to fight for your entire life. It’s quite possible nopony ever has been as well trained as you. +20% to all combat related skills.
Batpon-eeee - You don’t just hear things, you see them. With your ears. You treat your hearing as it it were not merely radar, but 360 degree vision. It’s almost like living via a third person camera.
Doom Marine - You have the weirdest knack for finding weapons and ammo just laying around. Once per day, you may declare you’ve found a weapon or a cache of ammo. If you declare you have found a weapon, the GM will award you a single weapon, rolled randomly form a list of weapons you do not yet have. If you declare you have found a cache of ammo, the GM will instead award you a randomly rolled amount of ammo for a weapon you already have.
Terror to Behold - Sweet Celestia, your fighting is beyond merely terrifying! Everypony who watches you fight must make a hard Endurance check or incur Dire sanity loss.
Parkour! - You know how to move through even the harshest forms of terrain along exactly the route you want to move, even at full speed. You are unaffected by difficult terrain, and all other forms of movement impairment, so long as you are not wounded.
Foal at Heart - You’re just a big kid, really. You gain +10 to Negotiation when dealing with a child, adult children included. The disposition of children is one higher for you.
Tarantino's Disciple - Battle is wonderful in your mind. You are at home in the mud, blood, and spent shell casings. For every enemy you can see, you deal an additional ½ die of damage.
Shotgun Diplomacy - A shotgun to the face is the perfect cure for being an asshole! +3% Crit Chance with any shotgun, and +15 to Negotiation checks when holding a loaded shotgun.
Permanent Psychosis - You are unable to naturally form emotional bonds. Thank goodness your party members are hot and just, so, loveable!
Lead Rain - The AP cost of attacking with firearms is reduced by 5 to a minimum of 1. Stacks with drug induced effects.
Ninja - The Ninja perk grants you the power of the fabled shadow warriors of Neighpone. When sneaking, you gain a +15% Critical Chance on all Melee and Unarmed attacks. Additionally, Sneak attack criticals do 25% more damage than normal.
Reaper Pony’s Gallop - If you kill a target, you gain a free attack with the last weapon you used (can be spent later in the turn).
Basic Power Armor Training - You can now use Power Armor.
Advanced Power Armor Training - Gain +1 PER. AGl penalty is reduced by 1 (when wearing PA). Armor accounts 100% for its wg.
Woo’s Blessing! - You suffer no penalties for holding multiple weapons at once, gain +20 to Explosives and 15 temp HP per level if there are doves nearby, and anything that could flow in the wind you happen to be wearing does (even if it’s not windy, or should be too windy).
Expert Power Armor Training - Gain +2 PER when wearing PA.
Sweet Celestia, why?! - Whenever you finish an opponent off with a melee strike, the part of the body you hit explodes into a gore pile.
Power Armor Mastery - +3 PER and AGl penalty reduced by 1 when wearing Power Armor, +5% DR; you have learned how to get the utmost out of your armor’s systems.
Action Filly - You know your targeting spell like the back of your hoof, making you about 20% cooler in combat. For each level of this perk, you gain +30 max AP in S.A.T.S. These points cannot be used for movement.
What’s a Friendship? - You really only know how the military works. Social situations might as well be alien civilization rituals to you. At least you can do basic chit-chat and barracks room banter…
Party Mare! - You are immune to addiction, and drug’s effects last twice as long for you.
Rip and Tear - Your Unarmed and Melee attacks against armored opponents ignore their DT if the armor is not fully enclosed. You find that gap.
Until It Is Done - Gain 10 AP for every enemy alive at the beginning of your turn.
Wachowskis’ Talents - +2 AGI when using Dash, but you can't write good dialogue to save your life until the drug wears off.
Codex Noncompliant - Who cares if the Codex Astartes doesn’t support this action? It supports your coffee table just fine, and Guilliman is an asshole anyways. Equipment you “find” is considered fully repaired. FOR THE PRINCESS!

[ChaosDX1]

Well Speed Run is terrifying for a number of reasons. His gaming skill for one, at least from the perspective of a past-their-prime gamer that has learned to hate PvP. His "Cinnamon's Syndrome" because as an introvert the thought of someone being emotionally dependent on me is ALL the terrifying. Did you make this syndrome up? Kinda hoping you did. And finally, his actual combat ability. Dear Goddess, is that every combat perk in the game!? (Also what game and where can I find a copy?)

[Meep the Changeling]

9724313

Did you make this syndrome up? Kinda hoping you did.

I did, but it's based on a combination of real conditions.

And finally, his actual combat ability. Dear Goddess, is that every combat perk in the game!?

No, but it is a good chunk of them!

(Also what game and where can I find a copy?)

Here ya go.

[Doomande]

Nah don't worry Gears, it is not that long a tale. Only 600K words or so, it will be over in no time flat!

“I made them dinner,"

How thoughtful! I so like this char. Flavor text.

Nitpicks
"”Yes,” imaginary dad said," Linebreak mistake
"

[Replica Knight]

Sweet mother mercy! With stats like that that person is a your greatest ally and possible worst enemy

[Perpetually Confused]

9587697
So... Speed Run is a Munchkin?

[ClockworkMage]

Wander chuckled, “Well yes, but actually no.”

This is such a great line.

[Pensive]

“What is a PipBuck? A PipBuck is a device, worn on a foreleg just above the hoof, issued to every pony in a Stable when they become old enough to start work. A blending of unicorn pony magic and science, your PipBuck will keep a constant measure of your health and even help administer healing poultices and other medicine, track and organize everything in your saddlebags, assist in repairs, and keep all manner of notes and maps available at a hoof tap. Plus, it allows you to listen to the Stable broadcast whenever you would like as it can tune into and decrypt just about any radio frequency. And that’s not all.”

half a million words later

[Meep the Changeling]

11007444

half a million words later

"-- and that's how I totally spaced I could have hooked Celestia into the radio so she could actually be able to interact with others and help ponies out before I got in this pod! Wait a minute..."

[Warren Peace]

Loving some of Speed's perks, lol. References galore!