Fallout: Equestria - Across the Divide

by Rainium

Chapter Four: Depths of the Sound

Chapter Four: Depths of the Sound

"Please enjoy our little corner of Equestria. We're all quite fond of it. No doubt you will be as well."

After her rather close encounter with the winged sky-beast known as the Roc, Eden made sure to stop by the general store to purchase some RadAway with her leftover caps, as Bolt Action had suggested. She had enough money to buy two of the citrus-flavored packets, and she drank one of them right away before saving the other one for later. She had picked up a lot of rads on the journey to Tall Tale, and she wanted to start off her quest fully healthy and ready to go.

Following Bolt's directions, Eden trotted back to the south gate of the settlement, the door to her left with the town opening up behind her. Just as he had said, there was a service ramp sloping down to the lower level of the farmers' market to the right, leading to a few more abandoned shops underneath the main street, as well as another gate blocking the path to the left, the way she needed to go. The gate was protected by a single bored-looking guardpony; apparently, the lower levels didn't receive as much hostile attention as the main street.

"Where do you think you're going, outsider?" The stallion asked with suspicion as he straightened up to look presentable as she approached, looking almost happy to have someone to yell at.

"To the waterfront," Eden answered as she stopped in front of him. "Bolt Action's orders."

The guard chuckled. "Bolt Action? Giving an outsider jobs? Never thought I'd see the day."

"I'm as surprised as you are,” Eden replied. “You gonna let me through?"

He stepped up to the gate and peered through a crack in the steel, and apparently liked what he saw, as he gave a small nod. "Alleyway looks clear for now… Don't know how long it'll stay that way though. Not safe out there in the city, outsider, especially at night. I hope you know what you're doing."

"I don't..." Eden admitted with a shrug of her shoulders before stepping up to the gate as well. "But I'll figure it out."

"Hm. That's what they all say..." the guard grumbled as he undid the latches and locks keeping the gate secure before pushing open the door, revealing a single Mist Condenser talisman standing between them and an alleyway filled with fog. "Knock three times when you come back, so I know it's you. Wouldn't want to mistake you for a trapper, now would I?"

Eden bit back a retort and simply nodded. "Three knocks, got it. Just do your job and let me in when I come back, okay? You're not gonna fall asleep and keep me locked outside, are you?"

"Not a chance,” the guard growled. “Though you keep that smart mouth up, I might just consider it."

That's considered smart-mouthing here? Is sarcasm a thing in Tall Tale? She's suddenly relieved she didn't blurt out her original reply.

Eden nodded again before slowly stepping past him into the alleyway, double checking her revolver before pushing deeper into the mist. Almost immediately, her PipBuck began to clickity-clack once again, alerting her to the balefire radiation that clung to the air around her. In her brief time inside the walls of Oasis, she had almost gotten used to the feeling of breathing in clear, uncontaminated oxygen. But now, every breath was filled with water vapor and the harmful rads clinging to it, filling her throat and lungs with a slight burning sensation that accompanied the clicking of her PipBuck.

The silence of the alleyway was interrupted by a clang and a rattle from behind her, causing Eden to jump in surprise. She looked back to see that the guard had closed the gate behind her; the click of the padlock let her know there was no turning back. Not that she wanted to, of course. She needed the supplies and the caps they would net her if she wanted to make any progress in completing this impromptu quest of hers... or even make it out of the city alive.

Now that her hackles were starting to lower after being startled, she took a second to look around at her surroundings. Covering the walls of the alleyway around her was... dried gum. Wads upon wads upon wads, covering every inch of the brick as high up as hooves could reach, and even higher, with the help of wings and magic. Both sides of the alleyway were completely covered in the multicolored gunk, all of it rock hard now from 200 years of passing time. She was just surprised that they hadn't all molded away; pre-war preservatives were one impressive invention.

This had to have been a tourist attraction, for there to be so much of the stuff. Who traveled across the country to place gum on a wall? Pre-war ponies were very strange. If there wasn't already enough evidence pointing to that fact, she could add one more to the list.

Eden silently stalked down the narrow passageway, the gum collage slowly starting to fade away on the walls on either side as she moved away from the epicenter near the gate. Then, as Bolt Action had promised, the line of houses on her right ended, and the alleyway opened up to a road heading westward toward the waterfront two blocks away.

Now that she was no longer in the enclosed safety of the alley and into the open danger of city streets, Eden ignited her horn and floated her revolver out of her tool belt before continuing forward, eyes scanning the buildings around her for any movement on the rooftops or inside their shattered windows. The citizens of Oasis had talked about Trappers, the crazed ponies driven mad by the mist... she had already run into them once, out in the Smokey Mountains. And the lack of megaspell destruction meant there were a multitude of intact buildings to conduct surprise attacks from. The mist had stolen a lot of their mental capabilities, but Eden felt that ambush plans were still something they were capable of.

Her horn had recovered somewhat from the overload it had suffered from the Mirelurk Queen attack, meaning that she could use her levitation spell without much pain, but if she tried to float her gun out too far, she felt the spell start to waver. She kept the revolver close as she walked along, her hoofsteps echoing off the cracked pavement underneath her.

A footbridge to her left had a stairwell leading up to the upper part of the farmers market, providing a way for ponies to make it up to the main part of Oasis without going through the gum-alley first. Eden made a note of this for the return journey; maybe it would be useful if the guard at the lower gate actually did fall asleep.

Though the low-hanging mist hampered her visibility, Eden could see the Ferris Wheel directly in front of her at the waterfront, its decaying white carcass in stark contrast to the dark waters below it, waves lapping at the docks as wrecked boats and bits of wood bobbed and shifted with the tide. With no moonlight to illuminate it, the bay appeared to be an inky black color, the mist hanging over it like a heavy curtain, preventing her from seeing very far out into the ocean. She had a sudden flashback to her vision, of the endless dark water surrounded by thick fog, and shuddered underneath her Stable barding.

Eden crossed the street to reach the steps down to the waterfront area, skipping down the rotting wood staircase to the boardwalk level, just one more street to cross before she reached the bay. However, her E.F.S. suddenly started to light up with red dots as soon as she did as the spell was finally able to penetrate through the thick mist. She hissed and crouched down behind the nearest inert carriage, her revolver floating by her side as she peeked out around the end to look for any sign of the hostile targets.

With the help of the Eyes-Forward Sparkle, Eden was able to make out a few shapes stumbling in the mist, aimless and janky with their movements. They were pony-shaped, but she couldn't make out any weapons in their grasp or on their bodies. Their rotting, shriveled bodies, burnt black in several places, bits of torn clothes and fishing nets still clinging to them. Their eye socks were large and sunken into their skull, barely any mane still left on their scalps, black soot smeared across their muzzle like war paint.

Ghouls. And by the looks of them, they didn't seem to be the kind with their minds still intact.

There weren't too many of them, only a hoof-full or so, but there didn't seem to be an easy way for her to slip past them, even with the thickness of the mist obscuring their vision. Now seemed like as good a time as ever to try out her new weapon; she just hoped that the sound wouldn't attract more of them.

Eden slipped into S.A.T.S., the spell slowing the stumbling gait of the creatures down to a crawl. It auto-focused on the nearest pony-figure and confirmed her suspicions with a name overtop the target: Feral Ghoul. She wasn't sure how accurate her new revolver was, or just how much damage it would do, so she kept it simple: three shots, all to the center mass.

The gun fired with a bang, the recoil rocking it back in her magical grip as the bullet struck its target, punching a hole in the ghoul's rotting body and sending out a plume of mist that made the air around it even thicker. It stumbled back and shrieked in surprise at the force of the impact, causing Eden's second shot to whiz past it and strike the wooden boardwalk behind it. It recovered and turned to snarl at her, just as her third shot echoed through the mist, slamming straight into the ghoul's chest. More fog hissed out of the hole in its abdomen as it crumbled down to the ground... only to slowly climb back to its hooves, making its way towards her once again in an injured lurch.

"What the...?" Eden muttered in shock, quickly aiming down her sights as the ghoul got closer.

Either this gun wasn't very powerful at all, or these creatures could absorb way more damage than normal ghouls. And after seeing all that radioactive mist burst out of it, she wasn't in the mood to let it get any closer. With her S.A.T.S. recharging, Eden took manual aim and fired once again at the chest of the zombie-pony, the bullet slamming into it with enough force to punch through the other side of its body. But again, the ghoul only stumbled briefly before continuing at its slow, staggered gait, its body starting to shrivel up as the mist continued to leak out of its breached organs.

By this point, the rest of the ghouls had reacted to the gunshots and were plodding through the maze of decaying carriages at a slow, drunken-like pace; at least they weren't as fast as regular feral ghouls. Eden hissed in frustration and took a couple steps back to avoid the oncoming ghoul, her aim shifting up to fire at its head this time. The round struck between its glowing eyes, skull shattering from the impact, finally causing it to collapse and fall to the cracked pavement for good.

Eden flipped open the cylinder of her revolver and ejected the five empty bullet casings, floating five new rounds out of her pocket as her eyes watched the crowd of mist ghouls approach her slowly. She didn't want to waste her precious ammo on such spongy targets, and they were a lot slower than she had anticipated. Maybe she could make her way through them, even if the buildup of carriages would make it difficult. Once she made it onto the boardwalk proper, she would have lots of space to avoid them as she looked for a suitable boat to take her out into the bay.

She fired one more time into the nearest ghoul to knock it off balance before making her move, quickly galloping across the street and picking her way through the rusted carcasses of the pre-war carriages, the group of creatures slow to react as she weaved through the traffic. Eden ducked under flailing forelegs and slipped through small gaps in the gridlock, her small frame coming in handy. She reached the final row of carriages and jumped on top of the hood of one to make it through... only for a pair of hooves to latch onto her hind leg!

Eden yelped in surprise as she was yanked back, her head turning to see a ghoul holding her in place, trying to pull her off the carriage down to the street below. Its muzzle opened, revealing a few rotting teeth still left in its mouth, as it snarled up at her while she tried to pull her leg free with no avail. Eden tried once more to yank herself free before floating her revolver back around, pressing the barrel to the ghoul's forehead and pulling the trigger, the bullet blowing open the creature's head and sending a plume of radioactive mist straight into her face.

She shrieked and stumbled back as her nose and mouth were filled with the toxic mist, her PipBuck starting to click in a frantic staccato as her hooves flailed in front of her face to clear the air. Eden stumbled backwards until her hind hooves slipped off the edge of the carriage, and she fell back onto the boardwalk with a THUD that knocked the wind out of her, resulting in her gulping in even more of the poisonous air around her.

"...S-Sweet Faust alive..." Eden wheezed, rolling onto her side as a few coughs racked through her body, finally getting enough air back to climb onto her hooves once again.

By now, the remaining ghouls had found a way through the mess of carriages and were stumbling towards her once again, the odd gurgling noise or hiss of fog the only noises coming from the group. Eden limped away towards the docks, her injured pace enough to keep a safe distance between them as she scanned for a boat.

The boardwalk waters were a maze of docked or sunk ships, most of them having drifted off of their anchor spot due to the passing of time. Almost all of them were no longer in seaworthy condition, with holes punched in the hull, or parts ripped out for scrap by eagle-eyed scavengers. Eden kept looking, stumbling across the shoreline towards the large docking area where most of the boats still lay dormant, very aware of the crowd of ghouls still on her tail.

The docks gave her as little success as the boardwalk area itself. However, she finally spotted something that the careful eyes of the scavvers overlooked; in the dark, partially submerged hole in a large yacht's side, a black rubber dinghy was floating in the water almost out of sight, the magical motor attached to the back appearing to be intact. Now recovered from her hard fall, Eden leapt up onto the dock of the ship and made her way across to where the hole was located.

Eden slipped underneath the rail and slowly lowered herself down to drop into the dinghy without much impact. The boat wobbled and swayed under her hooves at the newfound weight, but it otherwise remained afloat. Perfect. She quickly turned to the motor attached to the end, floating the lid off the top in an attempt to get it started. Eden wasn’t a mechanical talent, but she had spent enough time tinkering with broken pre-war junk that she knew her way around an engine. This particular engine didn’t need much work anyway, just a surge of magic from her horn to recharge the dead magic-energy generator inside, giving it the spark it needed to start humming yet again.

The rust-and-barnacle-covered propellers took a second to break free of its natural shackles before beginning to spin, and Eden flipped the gear into reverse so the dinghy could slowly back out of the hole in the hull, turning the dark water white with foam. However, just before she could get clear of the sunken yacht and into the safety of open waters, a large weight dropped from above, slamming into the nose of the rubber boat and bouncing inside!

Eden yelped as the dinghy lurched underneath her, barely able to keep her balance, her forehooves grabbing on to the side to stop her from falling onto her face. In front of her was one of the mist ghouls, trying unsuccessfully to stand in the unstable boat after tumbling into it. When she looked up, she saw that the crowd of ghouls had climbed up onto the deck of the yacht after her, and they were starting to stumble off the edge of the boat itself in an attempt to come after her. As she watched, another ghoul fell through the gap in the railing, but the boat had drifted far enough away so that it hit the nose of the dinghy and fell back into the water instead, the resulting splash spraying Eden with radioactive water droplets.

By now, the ghoul in her dinghy had found its footing and was lurching forward through the small space between them, so close that Eden could see the black bits of its decaying teeth as it snarled at her, fog-filled saliva dripping from its fangs. Eden just calmly flipped her revolver around in her magic and swung it, slamming the butt end of the gun into the ghoul’s jaw. Bits of tooth and flesh flew out of its mouth from the force as it stumbled back, landing half over the rounded edge of the dinghy with its hindquarters still in the boat. Then, she floated the bloody gun over to press it against its head and pulled the trigger. Mist flew from the bullet wound once again, but it was harmlessly up into the air this time, and the momentum of the bullet lurched the ghoul’s body off the edge of the dinghy and into the water below.

Eden sighed in relief and holstered the revolver, letting the boat slowly back up as she watched the rest of the ghoul pack stumble one by one off the yacht and into the harbor, where they didn’t resurface. Thank goodness those things weren’t very bright, or very fast. They were tough enough to kill already! Once she was far enough away from the dock, Eden flipped the motor into forward gear, and the dinghy slowly made its way through the graveyard of wrecked ships and into the ocean beyond.

---

Most of her attention was focused on slowly navigating her way through the maze of boats and debris along the waterfront as she made her way deeper into the Ponget Sound, but she took the time to look behind her at the city every once and a while. From here, she had the best view of the skyline yet, the buildings still shrouded by mist but more visible now than from her viewpoint atop the Smokey Mountains.

Eden could see lights from the shoreline area where Oasis would be located; it was one of the few illuminated places in the entire city, with everywhere else stuck in powerless darkness. There were a couple buildings with lights shining through their windows, as well as on the large spire that Emerald had only referred to as the Tower. If she squinted hard enough, she swore she could see shapes moving around on the observation deck at the top, but it was hard to tell. It was a curious sight, the Tower still standing tall with a toppled S.P.P. spire leaning against it; she would have to get the full story on how that had happened later.

She also caught a glimpse of the Roc as well, back out and soaring high above the city buildings, still looking for food after its failed attempt to snag her earlier. As she watched, the large bird suddenly swooped down towards the ground, rising back up seconds later with something large snagged in its claws; luckily, it didn't seem to be a pony. The Roc took a wide swoop and flew off back towards the mountains, presumably where its lair was located. How could a creature that big support itself? And why did it choose to stay here, when it could easily make its way anywhere in Equestria in search of food? Maybe it was drawn to this place for some reason.

The further she got from shore, the less dense the flotsam and carnage became, and sailing became a lot easier. The motor hummed behind her as she guided the dinghy out into open waters, propellers churning the otherwise calm water. Eden still took it slow, however; the thing was 200 years old, after all, she didn’t want to push it too hard and end up sinking it halfway out into the bay. She could even start to see the upper half of the capsized cargo freighter she was heading towards through the mist, poking out of the water like a rock formation.

But as she traveled further out into the water, she started to realize that she wasn’t alone in the seemingly serene calmness of the Sound. Through the mist, she could see waves and ripples that weren’t caused by her boat’s movement, and she almost spotted a tail or a dorsal fin poke out of the surface, but she could never get a close enough look to tell for sure. Eden floated her revolver out of her tool belt’s holster just in case. Who knew what kind of creatures inhabited the irradiated oceans around Equestria?

The closer she got to her destination, the more frequent her creature sightings became, and soon her E.F.S. started flashing with red dots around her, though they only lasted a second before disappearing. A dorsal fin continued to circle her boat as it purred and churned the otherwise quiet waters, its color black with white splotches visible by the base, scars and nicks taken out of its flesh. Eden raised her revolver in response, taking aim at the fin in case it came any closer, turning in place on the dinghy to watch it circle.

But as she kept her attention on the fin in front of her, she heard something suddenly burst out of the water behind her, lurching the dinghy forward underneath her hooves! Eden yelped and grabbed at the edge of her boat as it almost flips underneath her, almost losing the magical grip on her revolver in the process. The dinghy tilted precariously before lurching back in the other direction, slapping back down on the dark ocean's surface and adding more ripples to the choppy waters. And when Eden regained her balance and looked back, she saw the body of a large whale sink back down underneath the depths, too quick for her to get a good look.

That thing had breached the water and tried to flip her out of the boat! There was no doubt that these creatures were hostile now. Eden rose back up with a scowl, floating her revolver back up and glancing around for another sign of life from underneath the waves. When she saw another scarred fin poke out of the water to her left, she spun her weapon and fired, taking a nick out of the flesh and making the creature sink back down to safety. And as she looked around for it to reemerge... the water erupted from underneath her.

While the first impact had been a glancing blow, this next one was a direct impact, sending Eden and the dinghy several hooflengths up in the air. She flew through the air for a few seconds, and had just enough time to recover, reorient, and quickly hold her breath before she splashed down into the icy depths of the Ponget Sound.

Eden had to fight the urge to close her eyes as bubbles swam up all around her, allowing her to look around the watery environment she now found herself suspended in. The Sound was just as dark and murky as it appeared from the surface, but streams of moonlight filtered through the waves and illuminated the area around her as she sank below the surface. This area was deep, but not so deep that she couldn't see the bottom; if she glanced down, she could see the carcasses of several sunken ships, along with discarded wooden barrels and other seafaring junk littering the sandy floor. Up above, her dinghy finally landed back down on the surface with a splash as well, but upside down, the propellers still spinning uselessly while sticking up in the air.

Her revolver had been knocked out of her magical grasp, and when she spun to look for it, she could see it sinking down towards the bottom of the ocean; she reached out with her magic to prevent this and pulled the gun back into her toolbelt's holster. The water filling her ears muffled any noise around her, but she could faintly hear the clicking of her PipBuck's rad detector against her arm, letting her know that this water was somehow more poisonous than the misty air she had just been knocked down out of.

Thanks to the streams of light, Eden could finally catch glimpses of what was stalking her now; three large shapes circled her in open expanse of murky water, the circumference of their circle shrinking with every pass. Based on the (admittedly very few) marine life books Eden had read, these creatures looked more like whales than sharks, with longer top fins and horizontal tail fins instead of vertical. They were about three times her length, and they were pitch black in color, with white splotches around the eyes and bellies. And based on the way they were creeping closer and closer to her submerged body, they were hungry.

Her mind suddenly clicked with a recent memory: the wildlife book that she had stashed in her breast pocket. These creatures looked like one of the cartoonish drawings inside its pages, namely the Orca. Killer whale, they had also called it. Didn't it say something about them not attacking ponies? Apparently, that wasn't the case anymore.

Eden's first instinct was to swim her way back up to the surface, towards the air she was soon to run thin on. But with her dinghy flipped over, there was no safe place to go, and she would be left a sitting duck with no way to keep track of her attackers; the fact that she was in this situation proved that the dinghy was ineffective anyway. Down here, at least she could see her attackers and try to dissuade them, even with her revolver unusable underwater. But that still didn't solve her lack-of-air problem...

Her brain suddenly lit up with a plan, and her horn began to glow. Up above the surface, a circular shield began to form, then curved, forming a sphere of concentrated magic that trapped the air inside it. Then, it dipped down into the water below, making its way towards Eden until her head could slip inside, magic repelling the water clinging to her and leaving her dry inside and gasping for air. She still had to be careful; this small bubble would run out of oxygen quickly, but it was still better than holding her breath and trying to fight at the same time.

And right on cue, one of the whales came surging forward once she had her back turned. But instead of attacking with its teeth, it brushed by her at top speed, creating a water vortex that sent her spinning at a disorienting speed. Then, just as it made it past her, its tail slapped into her, sending her flying through the water with a jolt that stunned her. Eden gasped as the impact almost dislodged the air bubble from around her head, and her body spun head over hooves until she was finally able to orient herself, head and vision spinning as she panted for air.

A second killer whale moved in while she was disoriented, an attack that Eden was barely able to detect with her eyes still fuzzy and out-of-focus. Her already-glowing horn flashed with extra exertion, desperately throwing up a shield as the orca opened its mouth, three-inch-long teeth on display as it looked to sink them into her. However, its nose bumped right into her translucent shield, deflecting it off to the side and causing it to swim away in confusion.

Her makeshift defense had worked... for now, at least. It wouldn't deter them for long, and Eden's horn was already starting to ache from overexertion, compounded by the dizziness she was still feeling from the orca tail's impact. She needed a new plan, something to scare them away for good, or at least long enough for her to flip her dinghy and make it to the cargo ship. But that left the return journey as well... Eden pushed the doubts to the back of her mind. She would worry about that when she got there. For now, she needed to deal with the threat of being eaten NOW.

As the first orca swam away to line itself back up for another charge, a second killer whale swam forward from a new angle, forcing Eden to spin to face it. When its mouth opened to bite down on her, she pulled the same trick as before, a new shield stopping the large animal in its tracks and sending a spark through her horn as her magic struggled to maintain the spell. However, this time, she floated out her revolver as fast as she could and created another air bubble shield, this one just big enough for the weapon. With her gun now surrounded by air and usable, she floated it up to the side of the orca before it could swim away, pressed the muzzle against its blubber, and pulled the trigger.

With no water in between the gun and the body of the killer whale, the bullet struck true, punching through its blubbery fat and imbedding itself inside. The orca let out a high-pitched squeal and darted away, blood starting to leak out and turning the water around it into a cloudy red color. Nothing fatal—her revolver wasn't nearly powerful enough for that—but it definitely gave it something to think about.

That left two more that she could see: the one she had originally blocked that was lining up for a second attack; and the third one, who still lingered barely within eyesight. The first one made another circular pass to line itself up before charging forward, with Eden ready to conjure up another shield. However, right as it got close, the orca feinted a bite and instead slipped past her new shield, its tail slapping her again as it went past.

This time, the impact was hard enough to knock the air bubble off Eden's head, which quickly dispersed along with the rest of her magic as her horn shut off from the sudden impact, leaving her helpless and reeling in stunned disorientation. The impact knocked the air out of her lungs as well, and her resulting gasps for oxygen were instead filled with salty water entering her muzzle, making her gag and choke desperately. Her horn finally flickered on dimly, bringing a poorly-shaped bubble of air down to head into, sticking her head right inside to promptly hack up the water she had inhaled. And through her blurry, disoriented eyes, she could see the third killer whale surging forward now; with her revolver knocked out of her grasp somewhere she couldn't see, she could only throw up another weak shield and pray for the best...

However, right before the orca could reach her, it was suddenly brought to a halt, for reasons that Eden's blurry eyes couldn't make out. The dark silhouette in front of her was yanked away from her with an ultrasonic cry for help, and when her eyes finally refocused themselves, she could see that it was actually being yanked away by what looked to be a large tentacle wrapped around its tail. The tentacle was easily as thick as the killer whale it was pulling down into the depths, and Eden's wide eyes followed the appendage allllllll the way down to the seafloor to its origin point.

On the ocean floor, from inside one of the sunken shipwreck carcasses, emerged the largest creature Eden had ever seen. First came its tentacles, eight in total, one of them dragging its ensnared prey down towards it while the others worked to pull its body from amongst the wreckage it had hidden itself inside. The tentacles were connected to a large, bulbous head, with two eyes bulging out of it slightly, the slitted shape of its pupils giving it a completely unnatural appearance. Its tentacles were covered in what looked like suction-cups that allowed it to keep its grip on the orca, its remaining limbs helping to bring it in once it got closer. Then, it pulled the killer whale underneath its body, where a large, pincer-like beak began to nibble away at its prey, slowly eating it alive.

Eden's eyes widened as she took in the full horror of the revealed creature, its terrifying size only becoming more apparent as her eyes refocused. An... octopus? Or a kraken, as her wildlife book had called it. Apparently, the apocalypse had a way of bringing myths to life. The orca's blood leaking into the water from its gunshot wound must have drawn it from its hiding place. And by doing so, it had inadvertently saved her from the killer whales; she just needed to get out of there before it made her its next target.

She hastily grabbed her lost revolver before she turned and swam up towards the surface above, horn already glowing in an attempt to flip her overturned dinghy over... but before she could make it, Eden felt something wrap around one of her hindlegs, suckers digging into her flesh and dragging her back down into the depths. She yelped and clawed at the water to prevent her descent to no avail, before finally turning to look down at the creature that had ensnared her.

The...Kraken... was still working away at the squirming orca in its tentacles, blood and bits of flesh filling the water around it as it devoured its prey. But even as it did, its eyes turned their attention to the pony caught in the grasp of just one of its ginormous limbs. And as she got closer, Eden was able to see that within its alien depths, the kraken was merely... studying her. Within those eyes, she could feel intelligence. This wasn't any ordinary radiation-affected animal; this one had thoughts, emotions, curiosity... She could feel all of it the longer she stared back into its large pupils, almost hypnotizing in its horrific beauty.

However, was it studying her as a scientist would examine a newfound species? Or as a predator sizing up whether she was worth the effort to eat? Eden didn't want to stick around to find out. The kraken's tentacle wrapped around her leg was so thick that a revolver's bullet would probably do nothing except make it mad, so she was left with little options. There was one thing she could try... if her overexerted horn could handle the strain.

The air bubble around her head dissipated as she focused on a new spell, horn flashing and surging with magical effort. Then, several balls of light shot out of the tip of Eden's horn, filling the murky water with strobing light, flashing and swirling around to make the effect even more potent. The orbs shot towards the hypnotizing eyes of the kraken with blinding effect, circling around the creature's head at random so it couldn't look away to escape. The large octopus made no sound, but its body language changed drastically at this newly-posed threat, its tentacle releasing both Eden and the half-devoured corpse of the orca in order to pull itself out of the shipwreck and push itself away from the strobe-light spell, swimming deeper into the Sound as fast as its tentacles could propel it.

The underwater current caused by the propulsion of its limbs lurched Eden back, spinning her through the water and knocking whatever air she still had left in her lungs out. She flailed her limbs until she reoriented herself in the murky depths, and when she was finally able to look around once again, the large creature was nowhere to be seen... gone into the dark, cloudy depths of the Sound. All that was left was her, the drifting body of the killer whale, and the overturned dinghy churning above.

Eden's burning lungs soon reminded her of the fact that she had been underwater for several minutes now, and she desperately swam her way up to the surface, breaking it with a huge gasp for air. Despite the ever-present, irradiated mist surrounding her, it felt like the purest air she'd ever tasted. She drank it in greedily as she treaded water as best she could, relaxing her aching body as oxygen started to pump through her arteries once more. Her soaking-wet mane was plastered against her skull and fell over her eyes, forcing her to brush it out of the way with an equally-wet hoof as she looked around for her dinghy.

The rubberized boat was nearby, bobbing up and down with the small waves, a whirring noise filling the air as the magic-powered propellers still spun even though they were no longer submerged. The strobe-light spell had, unfortunately, taken the last of her magic reserves, and her horn only flickered weakly before sending out a few pitiful sparks when she tried to focus her telekinesis on the dinghy. Eden instead crawled up on top of the underside, flicking off the engine to shut down the propellers before collapsing back with a pained groan, finally back on something resembling solid ground.

She had somehow survived an encounter with several killer whales, and the biggest animal she had ever seen. Unfortunately, this journey was starting to be filled with a lot of somehows; it was not a trend that Eden wanted to continue. However, she had a gut feeling that she was going to be hit with everything that Tall Tale had to offer... like the whole city was out to prevent her from doing what she had been sent here to do. She just hoped she would be ready for it.

Eden sighed and closed her eyes. She was sure a couple minutes of rest wouldn't hurt…

---

After resting on top of the dinghy for what felt like hours, Eden finally regained enough strength to sit up on top of the overturned boat. Her horn was still too overworked to cast any spells, so she fetched a long bit of wooden flotsam to use as an oar instead, rowing her way to her destination: the large cargo ship half-submerged in the Sound, so long that the other end had stuck itself in the ocean floor below, allowing the upper half to remain above the water. As she got closer, Eden could see a large rupture in the ship's hull, just below the surface; Bolt Action had mentioned that the ship had been sabotaged by zebra sympathizers, and the passing of time had not been able to disguise their handiwork.

On a regular cargo ship, the containers would've been loaded onto the open-air foredeck, and at the angle the ship was currently suspended, all the crates would've slid right off into the Sound. However, this one seemed to be a different, newer model, with the cargo portion completely covered as well to protect from the elements. Hopefully, that meant the cargo was still intact.

Eden directed the dinghy up alongside the cargo ship, to where the water met the deck, allowing her to jump off the rubber onto the wood and steel of her target. With actual solid ground to stand on now, she was able to get enough leverage to flip her dinghy back over using her hooves. The bed was partly filled with water, but it would be easy enough to bail out, and now she had somewhere to put the supplies that Bolt had told her about. Now she just needed to find them.

The cargo ship's precarious tilt up into the air made walking across the deck feel like hiking up a mountain, and Eden's wet, slippery hooves didn't make the task any easier. Slowly, she made her way up to the top end of the boat, where the cockpit would be located. At the front, there was a storm-hatch covered in rust and barnacles that Eden was able to pry open with a bit of effort, revealing the cockpit down below. Perfect.

She took a grip on the edge of the opening and slowly lowered herself down as far as she could before dropping, catching herself on the sloped floor with a thud; her wet hooves threatened to slip out underneath her, but she found enough grip on the diamond plate flooring to keep herself in place. She had landed in the space in between the captain and co-captain's seats, and as she looked around, she was greeted with the sight of two skeletons seated in them, empty eye sockets staring blankly out the front window. Eden grimaced and kept looking for anything useful.

The front console had been overgrown with the same aquatic growth and rust that had infected the rest of the ship, covering most of the gauges and controls. However, when she ducked down to look underneath, she was treated to the sight of a hidden safe, still locked tight after all these years. She gave the door a tug, but it held firm; even if she was a lockpicking master—which she wasn't—she didn't have any lockpicks or bobby pins on her. Maybe one of the crew had the key on them.

The skeleton to her left miraculously still had his uniform intact, and it wasn't a captain's suit. It had the olive-green coloring of Equestrian Army personnel, and the nametag above the left breast pocket read "Inspector Belfair". Gently rummaging through the pockets, Eden eventually struck gold, as one of them yielded a gold key dangling from a key ring. However, as she pulled it out, the metal clinked against something else inside the pocket; reaching in, she found an audiotape as well, unlabeled and nondescript. A quick look confirmed that the tape would interface with her PipBuck, and she did just that, slipping it into the cassette slot on her wrist-mounted device. Pre-war recordings usually didn't amount to much, but Eden always had a strange fascination with hearing them... it was like she was honoring them by reliving their memories.

"Inspection log number-... ah, it doesn't fucking matter at this point...

"Equestria is gone. I watched the explosions with my own eyes. Zebra bastards finally did it... Cloudsdale's gone for sure, looked like Manehattan too... Canterlot's surrounded by a pink haze... who knows if anyone's still alive out there. Saw the megaspell hit in Tall Tale too, but no explosion; didn't stop the Sound from boiling from the heat, completely frying our transport out here... and any unfortunate souls out for a swim. Dear Goddesses...

"We just came out here to assess the damage of this sunken ship, but now we're stuck out here... and even if there was a way back, why would we want to go? Whole world's gone up like a tinderbox, there's nothing left to go back to. Might as well go out on my own terms.

"This will be my last report. As a primary eyewitness, I've secured my perspective of the... incident, for lack of a better word... in the ship's safe. Don't know if anyone will be around to see it... but if you manage to watch it, maybe it'll help keep you from making the same mistakes we did.

"Celestia forgive us."

As the log ended, Eden reverently disconnected the tape and placed it back where she had found it inside his pocket. He held a revolver in his skeletal hoof, and she gently flipped the cylinder open to see that it still had 5 intact bullets for its 6 slots; she floated them out and added them to her own collection in her Stable suit pocket. She needed them more than he did now.

His recording did provide Eden with some useful information though. He mentioned seeing the megaspell impact somewhere in Tall Tale, but not activate and explode; that would explain the lack of explosion damage in the town. It was unusual to hear of a megaspell malfunctioning like that, so Eden was a bit surprised to hear it, but it did make sense that there would be at least one misfire among all the weapons fired at Equestria on the Last Day. Still, it didn't explain the ever-present radiation, or the mist that it loved to cling to...

Now armed with the key, Eden ducked underneath the front console once again to slip it into the keyhole, the handle turning and opening with a satisfying click. The door slowly swung open as the hinges creaked from rust and age, eventually revealing the contents to her; a sight that made her gasp in frightened shock.

There, sitting on top of a stack of papers, was a memory orb. The crystal ball swirled with dark blue energy like a cloud of smoke was trapped inside it, alive with the magic that kept the memory intact. A sight that was uncomfortably familiar... that recalled horrifying memories of her own.

Eden recoiled with almost animalistic instinct, scooting back on her rump until her back hit the captain's chair, jostling the skeleton perched atop it. She tried to force herself to look away, but her body refused to cooperate, her eyes staring right into the entrancing depths of the orb... a reflection visible in the crystal exterior.

In the reflection, she saw another mare. A mare with the same blue mane as her own, same blue eyes, same horn... but without a scar across it. The whites of her eyes were tinged yellow, and they twitched with manic, restless energy, pupils shrunk to mere pinpricks. Her neck and forelegs were covered in the scars of needles, and her whole body trembled and twitched unnaturally in horrifying ways. Those eyes... they stared, but they stared unseeing, like they were looking at something that wasn't there. Like she was trapped in her own mind, reliving memories over and over.

She was looking at... herself. A version of herself she desperately wanted to forget, but one she could never escape from.

With a cry of effort, Eden forced herself to break eye contact with the orb. She gasped for air to recover as she lay crumpled on the ground, desperately looking at anything but the memory orb that triggered so many of her suppressed fears. She blindly reached back and shut the locker door with a hind hoof, only daring to look once she heard the click of the latch locking it back into place. Only then did she allow herself to relax.

A memory orb... She was expecting to see a hoofwritten note detailing the experience or something similar, but the inspector had apparently gone above and beyond when it came to reporting the world's ending. A report that had no relevance to her now, and was nowhere near worth viewing, especially considering her... history. Reading notes and listening to audio tapes was one thing; seeing someone's memories through their own eyes, feeling their emotions, thoughts, desires... that was a whole different beast entirely.

With a deep, calming breath to ease her rushing heart, Eden pushed herself back up to her hooves, leaving the contents of the safe behind. The papers underneath the orb weren't worth the risk; she was here to find the weapons this ship was transporting, not 200-year-old manifests and legal documents.

---

The door separating the cockpit from the sheltered cargo space was easy enough to open, despite the overgrowth of barnacles trying to lock the hinges shut. With a push of her hooves, the sliding door opened with a shudder and a creak of old steel grinding together, revealing the covered area beyond. Eden blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the space, the minimal amount of light streaming in from the cockpit illuminating the first few rows of cargo: large, marked black crates, stacked three high and secured with straps to each other and the cargo deck. The space was full of the things, but only the first few rows were salvageable; beyond that was submerged underwater, no doubt destroying the contents of whatever was inside.

Stepping up to the first row of crates, Eden examined the white markings scrawled across the side: “PROPERTY OF EQUESTRIAN ARMY, 002-B”. Using the knife still strapped to her thigh, she cut through the straps securing the crate to the deck, allowing her to gently push the top crate down to the ground while her limited magic applied just enough telekinesis to stop it from thudding against the deck too hard; picking it up magically was out of the question for now.

She quickly undid the latches and pushed the lid open to see what was inside, whistling softly at the sight; inside was a full soldier’s loadout, containing everything they’d need on the front lines as far as weapons were concerned. The main attraction was a standard-issue combat rifle with standard iron sights, along with an unusual looking pistol nestled in the corner. The sidearm was big and bulky, and when Eden picked it up and ejected the magazine, she saw that it was full of 10mm rounds. Not as powerful as a revolver, but a lot easier to use and reload for non-unicorns. The crate also had several magazines of ammo for each gun, a couple metal apple grenades, and an unfamiliar type of grenade that Eden hadn’t seen before. No doubt the rest of the crates on this ship would have similar contents.

If Bolt Action had valued a revolver and a couple boxes of rounds at a hundred caps… she would get a very big return on all these things.

Eden grinned and closed the crate back up, using a combination of her hooves and her magic to lift it onto her back, knees wobbling slightly under the weight. It would take a while to ferry all these crates from the storage room to her dinghy, then from her dinghy up to Oasis, but it would be worth it to actually have some spending power again. Besides, it’s not like she had anywhere else to be.

---

Thud!

The black crate slid off Eden’s back onto Oasis’s cobblestone street, drawing the attention of anypony not already staring at the newcomer’s return. The most shocked pony of all was Bolt Action himself, who nearly dropped the rifle he was cleaning at the sudden noise before his pupils shrunk at the sight of the soaked unicorn mare before him.

“I’m back!” Eden exclaimed as she leaned against the crate to catch her breath. “Hope you didn’t miss me too much.”

Bolt’s shocked expression faded away as quickly as it had arrived, replaced by his usual scowl. “Not really, no. In fact, I was wondering what was taking you so long.”

“Well, y’know, the giant octopus really put a wrench in my plans for a second there, but other than that, I thought it went swimmingly,” Eden replied with a giggle at her own joke. “But now that I’m here, let’s discuss that fair deal you promised me for these things.”

The mention of the Kraken sent a murmur through the eavesdroppers that had inconspicuously gathered around, but Bolt didn’t flinch. Odd…

“Is that the only one you could find?” he asked, unperturbed. “Not much of a haul.”

“Nope! I’ve got eight more down at the shore, waiting to be brought up. And it’s all Equestrian Army surplus. High quality. That stuff doesn’t come cheap, y’know,” Eden teased with a smirk.

“Now hold on,” Bolt Action interrupted, “That’s not how this works. I pay you the scavenger’s rate for finding it based on my tip, you don’t get to try to sell them to me individually.”

Eden shook her head. “Nuh uh uh~... You’re the one who declined to negotiate the rate before I left, remember? Now I’m the one with all the weapons and no obligation to give them to you, so I’m the one with the leverage.”

Bolt flinched, but he didn’t back down. “Oh yeah? What exactly are you planning on doing with nine crates of weapons and nowhere to store them? That’s not gonna net you the caps you need.”

“Hmm…” Eden teasingly pretended to ponder that, a hoof rubbing underneath her chin. “I could set up shop across the street from you if Captain Emerald lets me. High quality pre-war weapons for cheaper than you can offer? It’s tough to compete with that. Especially considering the amount of fighting you ponies seem to do around here; guns must be in pretty high demand!”

Finally, Eden could see some cracks starting to form in Bolt Action’s defense. She leaned forward and placed her hooves on his counter, a wicked smirk on her face.

“Come on. Let’s barter~”

---

If Bolt Action didn’t hate her before, he definitely hated her now.

But then again, he had hated her from the second he laid eyes on her. So, no harm, no foul then, right?

Part of her wanted to feel bad about using him like that—she did want to make a good impression with these ponies after all—but something about their conversation had rubbed her the wrong way. More specifically, the part about the Kraken.

When Eden had brought up the giant octopus, all the ponies around her had broken out into hushed murmurs, like the very mention of the myth’s existence had sent a shockwave through the whole crowd. The only pony who hadn’t reacted to that news? Bolt Action. Almost like he knew that it would be there.

Why would Bolt have a sudden change of heart about sending her on a supply run after adamantly refusing several times? Maybe because he thought that it would be a way to get rid of her. The momentary shock on his face when she returned added some credence to her theory. She had no way of proving it, of course, but just the fact that it was possible took away the guilt she felt at fleecing him for everything she could at the bartering table.

Eden had left the negotiations with quite a bit of caps in her pocket, but she also had one unique request: she would be able to keep one of the crates for herself. And the first thing she did with her newfound money was to go to the General Store and buy herself a new pair of saddle bags to store all her new equipment in.

Eden popped open the black supply crate and floated out the combat rifle, looking it over for any of the rust or marine overgrowth that had infected the ship that had been carrying it, but the weapon was clean. So was the weirdly shaped pistol, but she just floated it to the bottom of her bag along with its ammo; her revolver would be more useful to her for now. Also into her bags went the explosive metal apples, and the tubular-shaped grenades that she was unfamiliar with, before finally adding the contents of her Stable suit’s pockets, her PipBuck organizing all of it with its sorting matrix.

As she stood back up on her hooves, she floated her saddlebags onto her back and her rifle over her shoulder, eyes looking around the main street of Oasis. She finally had equipment and caps… What now? She still had no idea where to go or where to start looking. She could start asking around Oasis to see if anyone had any ideas, but none of the ponies besides Emerald had been any help so far. At least they weren’t staring at her like she was a zebra anymore; maybe surviving a Kraken encounter and bringing in a fresh supply of weapons was enough to make them look at her with a little more respect.

However, as Eden pondered her next course of action, the ringing of the alarm bell snapped her out of her thoughts.

“We have movement in the mist!” one of the guards cried out. “Everyone, to the wall!”

The town immediately sprang to life around her, with ponies streaming out of shops and buildings like an oncoming flood that flowed around Eden like she was a lone rock in the stream. She turned and watched them take up posts atop the large wall surrounding the settlement, guns raised and watching the mist for any movement.

Finally, she spotted a familiar face—Emerald—and grabbed her shoulder as she tried to move past. “What’s going on?”

“A watchpony spotted something outside the gates,” Captain Emerald replied simply as she pulled a pistol out from underneath her medic outfit. “Usually nothing good. We could use the help if you know how to use that thing, Eden.”

“Just lead the way,” Eden responded as she unholstered her new rifle.

The two mares trotted up the ramp to the section of the catwalk overtop the main gate to join the rest of the townsponies. Eden found herself standing between Emerald and another unicorn mare, and she rested the barrel of her combat rifle on the edge of the metal wall in front of her, allowing her to keep her aim steady as she scanned the mist.

“Sapphira! What’s going on out there?” Emerald asked, directed to the unicorn mare on the other side of Eden.

Sapphira. Emerald had mentioned her during her tour of Oasis. She was the pony that had created the Mist Condenser talismans, stopping the town from being swallowed up by it. “The most important mare in this town”, Emerald had called her; that was quite the title.

“Not sure yet, Cap’,” Sapphira responded. “Guards said they heard some shots in the distance a few minutes ago, now they’re seeing movement coming from that end of the street. Just dark shapes, can’t make out what it is.”

Eden glanced down the street in the direction Sapphira indicated, shifting her rifle as she did. Once out of the Mist Condensers' range, the mist became so thick that the road appeared to disappear into it, obscuring the buildings on either side and blocking them from seeing much of anything. However, as she looked, she began to notice something; a spot in the mist lighter than the rest, as if it was illuminated by something deeper inside. It slowly grew brighter and more pronounced as it grew closer to the walls, and the mist started to bend and swirl in unnatural ways as something in it started to move.

“There,” Eden called out, drawing the other two mares’ attention. “A light in the mist, at the end of the street. Something’s coming.”

“Contact! To the south!” Emerald confirmed, calling it out to the rest of the ponies on guard. “Stay ready, but do not fire unless it’s a confirmed hostile.”

Eden flicked on her E.F.S. as the ponies around her readied their weapons, but it showed nothing; the mist must really be interfering with the spell. However, as she waited, targets finally started to appear: yellow dots, blinking into existence one after the other.

“They’re not hostile… Well, not yet at least,” Eden told the ponies around her. “Nine life forms in total.”

As the whole town watched, the figures started to emerge from the mist. Pony shapes, one after the other… hobbled, injured, unarmed. Not trappers, not mist creatures, but victims. They moved as fast as their injured bodies could take them, dripping blood on the road behind as they did from deep gouges and bullet wounds.

One of them was being carried on a makeshift stretcher made of tattered cloth and flotsam, and it was being carried in the magic aura of a type of pony Eden had never seen before. Her glowing horn was curved and branched, like it was a tree growing out of her forehead. Her back and upper snout were covered in light pink scales that grew overtop her white fur, and her hooves were cloven. Her purple and blue mane was curled and puffy like a lion’s mane, and it grew underneath her chin and down her chest as well.

Eden had seen many strange creatures during her time in Klugetown, but nothing like that. What in Faust’s name…?

A disturbed murmur rumbled through the townsponies atop the wall.

“That’s Morning… Crimson… Halcyon…” Emerald mumbled to herself as the ponies came into view. “That’s the fishing expedition. What the hell happened to them?”

“And where’d the rest of them go?” Sapphira asked in a worried tone.

“Help! Please help!” the frontmost stallion called out to the guards, waving a foreleg to attract their attention. “Open the gates!”

“Crimson! What happened?” Emerald responded.

“W-We got ambushed us at the shore, and they’re picking us off one by one! Please, you have to let us in-”

Crimson’s pleas were interrupted by a loud snarl, and a red dot popped up on Eden’s E.F.S. just in time for a yellow-and-green blur to leap out of the mist, sinking its claws into the rearmost fisherpony and dragging him back into the mist. The stallion’s desperate cries were abruptly cut off a second later.

The remaining ponies scurried backwards in shock, including the scaled-pony, who accidentally dropped the stretcher she was carrying in her haste. A second blur appeared as quickly as the first, sinking its teeth into the injured pony atop it and pulling them away, leaving a smear of blood across the cobblestone.

“Fuck!” Emerald swore. “Radamounts, in the mist! Guns ready!”

“Please! Open up! They’re gonna kill us all!” Crimson pleaded as he pounded on the wooden doors with bloody hooves.

“Captain, they’re going to die if you don’t open the gates,” Sapphira said.

“But we’ll all die if I do,” Emerald replied solemnly. “I’m not going to allow those creatures to flood into the town. We hold the line here.”

Right on cue, one of the radamounts leapt out of the mist, fangs bared as it snarled at its cornered prey. However, before it could pounce, a chorus of shots rang out from along the wall, bullets bouncing off its reinforced hide but causing it to stumble back with a yelp.

Eden sank into S.A.T.S., and the radamount’s lightning-fast movement slowed to a crawl. She had killed one of these things on Shattered Hoof Ridge, but that was with the help of her plasma rifle; she didn’t have nearly enough firepower to punch through its hardened skin now. However, as she cycled through its body parts, she came across an unusual target: one of the glowing, pulsing mutation growths sticking out of the feline’s side.

The combat rifle barked once, and a bullet slammed into the sickly green sack, punching a hole through it and causing pus to leak out of it. The radamount stumbled back with a shocked yelp, but it wasn’t fast enough, as Eden’s second shot struck true as well. This time, the growth completely popped, exploding with force that ripped through the mutated cat and left a hole in its side down its ribs.

With its hide broken and its insides exposed, the rest of the townsponies’ shots ripped through the radamount’s innards, causing it to drop down to the ground with a pitiful mewl before going limp.

“Damn good shot, Eden!” Emerald called out over the gunfire.

“I’ll focus on the growths as best I can, your ponies can deal the finishing blows. Do whatever you can to keep them away from the ponies out there!” Eden responded.

Two more radamounts charged into view without stopping, weaving back and forth to avoid the barrage of rounds fired at them. With S.A.T.S. recharging, there was little hope of landing a shot on the weak parts of their hide when they were moving so fast, so Eden merely took potshots in an attempt to dissuade their advance. The lead cat leapt at the injured fishers with outstretched claws, causing them to press against the gates with several frightened shrieks… but before it could reach them, a blue translucent barrier appeared between them and the radamount, and the creature bounced off it with a yelp. Eden winced at the impact, her weakened horn flashing as she maintained the shield.

While the first radamount lay stunned on the ground, the second leapt forward, landing on top of the glowing shield. But instead of bouncing off it, it used the barrier as a springboard, jumping off again to reach the top of the gate’s wall. Several ponies stumbled back, but one wasn’t fast enough; the radamount’s jaws closed down around the stallion’s head and dragged him off the wall down to the ground below, its claws tearing his body into bloody chunks.

How?! Eden gasped in shock and her horn sputtered, causing the shield to fall and exposing the fisherponies once again. Protecting the injured ponies was important, but if the radamounts knew how to use her shield as a stepping stool, she was putting the entire town at risk by doing so.

By now, her S.A.T.S. had recharged, so she fell into the heightened perception of the spell once again. With the two radamounts mostly motionless down below, it was easy for her to target each of their weak spots and fire. First was the stunned radamount trying to stumble back to its paws, then the second as it tore into the guardpony; her combat rifle’s bullets ripped through the pulsating sacs of radioactive pus, rupturing them with a release of pressure that exploded through their hides and splattered their blood over the cowering fisherponies. The remaining guards were quickly able to take advantage, and the two radamounts were left dead on the road in front of the gates.

With the threat dealt with, Eden shut off the spell and turned her attention back to the mist with her E.F.S. up, just in time for a new blur to appear and zoom down the street. However, this wasn’t the yellow-and-green, zig-zagging movements of a radamount; this pink blur zoomed forward like a ball, and stuck to the outskirts of the road to stay out of effective firing range before popping back onto all fours with a loud, ear-piercing screech. It had a mouth full of large pointy teeth like a shark, beady eyes, and its back and tail were covered in sharp quills like a porcupine, which it bared threateningly as it crouched down into a combat stance. Meanwhile, its loud screech had summoned more of the creatures to roll up beside it, all gnashing their fangs while their quills quivered.

“Pukwudgies! Take cover!” Emerald cried out.

Eden barely had time to blink before the air around her was filled with the brightly colored quills, thunking into the wood and scrap metal wall in front of her and whizzing past her ears. They were shooting them at her! She yelped and ducked down next to Emerald and Sapphira to avoid the barrage, but some of the other ponies weren’t as lucky. Eden watched as a mare on the wall was struck in the forehead and dropped without a sound, the large quill sticking out of her head like a makeshift horn; down below, she heard one of the fisherponies cry out as a projectile pierced his shoulder, pinning him to the wooden gate behind him without killing him. An errant quill managed to hit one of the mist condenser talismans outside the gate, shattering the gem inside and causing the mist to start to swarm into the vacated area, but the remaining talismans stopped the fog from reaching the ponies on the wall.

Eden tried to sneak a peek over the edge of the wall, but the thunk of a quill embedding itself in the wooden plank protecting her head quickly made her withdraw. The projectile was launched with enough force to pierce through the thick wood a few inches, dangerously close to her eye. These things were great shots, and their quills packed some serious punch. She opened up her saddlebags and floated out one of her newly-acquired metal apples.

“Anything sensitive out there I can’t destroy?” Eden asked Emerald as she took a small peek at where the pukwudgies were clustered in the street.

Emerald glanced down at the grenade in Eden’s magic before shaking her head. “Just the talismans, but the pukwudgies are far enough away that they shouldn’t be in the blast radius. Give ‘em everything you’ve got.”

Eden nodded and pulled the pin, counted to two, then hurled the metal apple with her magic. It arced through the mist-filled air and bounced once on the cobblestone before erupting in the midst of the group. The pukwudgies closest to the grenade were turned to nothing more than bloody chunks by the shockwave, while the outer creatures were peppered with shrapnel and knocked off their paws to the ground, stopping the rain of quills for a brief moment.

She took advantage of the interruption to raise her rifle once again, dumping several rounds into the stunned pukwudgies before they could regain their footing. When the creatures started to fire on her once again, she cast a small shield around herself with the barrel of her rifle poking through the other side, protecting herself while allowing her to pick off the pukwudgies one by one; thankfully, they were a lot less bullet resistant than the radamounts. And as Eden drew much of the pukwudgies’ attention, the rest of the townsponies were able to raise their weapons and fire on the ground as well, dropping the porcupine-like creatures and spilling their blood across the rain-soaked ground.

Soon, there was no movement on the street or in the mist, and Eden quickly reloaded her combat rifle as her eyes scanned for any more attackers. She quickly brought up her E.F.S.; no dots were visible.

“Clear!” the watchpony called out, confirming Eden’s suspicions.

The whole town let out a collective sigh and lowered their weapons, but Emerald quickly sprang to action. “Open the gates! Let them in before the creatures decide to launch a second wave. Get the wounded to my shop as quickly as you can!”

The momentary lull of relief quickly turned into a rush of action once again, leaving Eden behind in the commotion. She holstered her rifle and fought through the crowd to make it down the steps onto the main street of Oasis, watching as the gates began to swing open once again. The injured, but alive fisherponies immediately stumbled into the safety of the walls once the doors were open wide enough to enter; however, the one stallion wasn’t so lucky, as he remained pinned to the gate by a pukwudgie’s dart that caused blood to gush from his pierced shoulder.

While one pony rushed forward with a saw to cut the stallion down, the rest of the ponies turned on the strange, scale-covered fisherpony that Eden had noticed earlier.

“This is all Halcyon’s fault! Again!” one stallion snarled in frustration, poking a hoof right into the scaled-pony’s chest. “Her magic drew that pack of radamounts right to us. We lost everything. The catch, the gear… half the team…”

“And she left Iris behind to be torn apart by those monsters. After carrying her all the way here!” another one called out, and a murmur of anger swelled through the gathered townsponies.

“I-I-...” the scaled-pony squeaked and stammered, but her words didn’t come to her; she just stared at her blood-soaked cloven hooves as the crowd hurled insults at her.

“I don’t know why we still keep you Kirin around,” a pony yelled before spitting on the ground. “Time after time, you show us you’re nothing but trouble!”

A Kirin. That’s what the scaled-pony was. Halcyon was what they had called her. The name gave Eden no clues as to the species’ origin… could she be the result of post-war balefire mutation? Taint? Crossbreeding with a dragon? She couldn’t tell for certain.

“That’s enough, all of you!” Emerald finally interjected by pushing her way into the crowd, standing between the angry fishers and Halcyon. “I know you’re frustrated, and we lost a lot of good ponies tonight, but no one’s to blame. You know how the fog is: it loves to throw everything it can at us, especially when we’re least expecting it. Nothing we could’ve done would have prevented this, so that means it’s pointless to point hooves. If anyone has any problems with anyone, you bring it to me, not to the pony’s face. Got it?”

The captain’s yellow eyes scanned the crowd, but no one objected or talked back. The respect that Emerald commanded was so palpable that Eden swore she could feel it in the air around her, like she could reach out with a hoof and touch it.

Emerald nodded. “That’s better. If you’re injured, come see me now, please. Everyone else, get back to it. I’m sure everyone has something better to do than just standing around.”

Reluctantly, the crowd dispersed as ordered, trudging off to their homes or guard positions while the injured fisherponies followed Emerald back to the general store. However, Eden stayed in place and watched the strange Kirin the whole way; Halcyon felt her stare and looked up as well, and the two made eye contact for several seconds before Halcyon looked back down shyly, disappearing into the shop and leaving Eden alone in the street.

As she stood there, weariness suddenly hit her like the Mirelurk Queen’s claw. She hadn’t slept in nearly 24 hours… not counting her impromptu nap on the shores of the river. A whole day’s worth of fighting and exploring caught up to her as the adrenaline wore off, and she nearly collapsed onto the street before catching herself.

It had been a productive 24 hours though. She had been ambushed and almost killed, yes, but she had found her way to Oasis, found some new equipment… and tomorrow she could start looking for the mysterious pony that had brought her here. But for now, she needed sleep. Badly. Luckily, there was an inn here that could help her get some.

Comments

[Madmadmad123]

New update awesome