> Fallout Equestria: To Question Fate
>  by Mychelle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The nature of clouds.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like to tell you that old cliché line of 'War never changes.', but as much as ponies seem to enjoy using it, I think its only telling you half the story. So let’s start with my opinion of the dawn of pony kind. I for one like to think that in the beginning there were sunshine and rainbows, and maybe that time lasted for far longer then we deserved. But, if I am allowed one good cliché line here, it would be that all good things have their end. Because that’s just how this damned world works.


When things did end, it wasn’t the end of the world. Ponies actually hadn’t destroyed their world like most still believe. It was simply reduced to a much darker version than the original. The whole ‘balance of the universe’ must continue, and our days in the sun had simply run dry.


For some, they survived in their Stable-Tec glorified prisons when fate raised its ugly head in clouds of pink and green fire. Some, either willingly or by force, met their demise by either of the two. And then there were the select few that ran for the heavens. But unlike their comrades that rose to follow their princesses or whatever deities they chose at that time, these ponies stole the heavens for their own safety against the apocalypse.


Let’s start there.




When I first heard that I had finally been assigned an actual unit to work in, I was pretty happy that finally I might be able to get out of this smelly bunker that I currently shared with about nine other pegasi my age. Sadly having to join the Enclave was pretty much my last option, and being slung along the low ranks for the last year hadn’t proved to be even remotely worthwhile, other than the promises of future benefits.

So when I was interrupted during one of the very few moments of actual peace where the others sharing living space with me had decided to go out for their off-time, I at first was annoyed...at first.

I had gotten used to the cloud bunkers, even though they weren’t the best. Well…their clouds. Kind of hard to get completely uncomfortable clouds, if you think about it. Grumbling to myself as I stretched into a standing position, I let the off-white feathers on my wings stretch to their full extent while my shoulder blades popped with the effort. Never the less, my name being shouted at the end of the hallway again caught my attention.

“CLOUD. I am not going to ask you again! Do you want out of here or not?!”

That got my attention. A quick trot down the hallway and a door pushed open via quick head-nudge without stopping brought me in front of a taller male pegasus right outside the door, nearly having ran smack into him. He took a quick step back with a loud snort of disapproval.

Navy blue fur, short cut neon pink mane…yeah, I had no clue who this was. Having the door behind me shut with a gust of air that blew my straw colored mane over my eyes wasn’t helping my situation any better.

“Sorry sir.” Having absolutely no idea who this stallion was made my logical side of my brain figure that maybe it would be best if I tried to keep my mouth shut, while trying to fix my mane with a hoof. A narrowing gaze was received when he lowered his head down to get a slightly better look at me, after finally getting my mane back into place. I guessed that my longer then regulated mane was just adding to his irritation.

“About damn time, I haven’t got all day you know. Anyways, you’re being assigned to a sky patrol unit, lucky you.”

With that said he turned around and began to make his way down the cloud-based sidewalk, but almost just as quickly growled back at me when he noticed I was currently still standing in slight shock. “Did I stutter? I said you’re being assigned today! We’re getting you geared up. MOVE IT.” Oh. Hooves. Right.

Trying my best not to stumble forwards at the sudden attempt at obeying the order, I quickly stepped in beside the larger stallion that was currently ruffling his feathers back into place against his back side while muttering darkly to himself. Only then did I notice his cutie mark, a burning cigar. Those being a delicacy up here in the clouds, I could only guess that’s why this guy was so grumpy. Who knows when he’d last had a good smoke? Straying thoughts made me wonder how a pony would have got that cutie mark in the first place…

We made our way into our armory hall. A larger normally locked building that I realized I’d never had a chance to go into before. Stepping in behind the stallion that still currently hadn’t told me his name, I found the inside to be rather spacious. A larger area was clear within the middle of the building with surrounding armor lockers along the walls. An upper area with the same design circled about the top with a simple cloud-rail along the edge, not that we really needed one.

Point being proven when a bright orange mare casually stepped through the rail while she slowly lowered herself to the middle ground floor. The rail quickly went back into place afterwards.

The orange mare had met up with five other ponies in the middle area, all of which looked to be in different stages of putting on Enclave armor. Her and the other two looked about my age, while two older ones were obviously helping the younger ponies with their armor. Suddenly I was pitched forwards towards the group with the navy blue pony’s voice in my ear, 

“Anddddd…here we are. Dust, Whirl, here is another for your little road trip.” The two older ponies, both stallions, looking up at the sounds of their names.  “Get him set up with the others and hurry up. I’d rather not have to explain why we couldn’t set up a simple little exploratory mission in less than 24 hours. Wing it faster.” The last part said while he whirled back around and made his exit. I was then left with these five other ponies I’d never met before.

The orange mare with the white mane raised a hoof in a wave with a quick smile, what looked to be like a white ray of light ending in a circle as her cutie mark. Behind her staring stood her two companions, a light gray mare with a black and white mane tied back, and a pastel blue stallion with a very short lime green cut to his mane. The older two stallions headed my direction, the dusty colored, brown maned one stepping up to me while his partner, lavender hued with darker purple mane, stayed slightly behind him watching. 

“I’m Trail Dust.” Suddenly a wider grin crossing his muzzle…”And my friend behind me is Whirli--“

“Just, Whirl. Thanks.” said his purple partner. Narrowing his equally dark purple eyes at his ‘friend’. “Anyways…” Said while he lightly shouldered his friend out of the way, lifting a wing and lightly wrapping it around my neck as he pulled me off to the side towards the rows of armor along the walls. 

“This is all pretty standard, but this is just a small ‘explore-only’ unit, but I am sure we can find you something…eh?” He stopped as we’d come up to a rack holding differently sizes pieces of that same metallic black armor. “Sorry. I don’t think any of us actually caught your name.” And my heart sunk a little…

“Cloud is just fine….Thanks.” I said, mimicking his own statement from earlier. Realization sinking into the older stallion as he simply gave a nod of his head while clearing his throat. He wasn’t the only one that would rather just not have his full name mentioned. 

“Ehem…Cloud. Common, but a good name. As I was saying…” He turned his back to me while hoofing through each piece and rambling to himself. “These look about your size…” Tossing a few of the pieces of equipment behind him.

Taking the moment to stray away I stepped over to the haphazardly tossed metal and quietly hoofed through them while he found the remaining tail pieces. As it was nice to finally be given a set of the famous Enclave armor, these pieces had obviously either seen better days, or were simply made to mimic the nicer set that real officers wore. All well…beggars’ couldn’t be choosers.

Using my wings I looped a few of the pieces where I could carry them via holding my wings out, and grabbed the helmet with my muzzle, taking them over to the other's piles. The pastel blue stallion having already got into his own, giving me a better look at what we were actually being dealt.

Not nearly as shiny as I would have liked, black and gray covered almost his entire form, including the now metal-incased scorpion tipped tail. The matching insectoid like eyes eventually coming to life with a soft electrical crackle, and a green electronic light flashing over their surfaces to indicate their responsiveness. The stallion giving a soft sigh as they did so,

“Whew, and I was worried these POS’s wouldn’t even turn on. At least we got EFS.” The gray mare with what I could now tell as a zipper cutie mark was rolling her eyes at him and thrusting her own helmet down over her head. 

“These things are still a work of art no matter what you say, so why don’t you just go back to being quiet.” The two seeming to be perfectly content with arguing with one another. It didn’t really do the mare any justice to be arguing with just her helmet on…

The orange mare waved me over and I was more than happy to get myself dressed near her rather than continue to listen to their argument escalate any further. She gave another one of those smiles to me while putting on her armor. 

“So I am Spot Light, and you’re Cloud?” she had good hearing. Nodding my head to her I started to mimic her actions with putting on my own suit. 

“Yep, just Cloud.” Please don’t ask any further, please don’t ask any further…

“Just, Cloud? Come on. No parent in their right mind names their kid just Cloud. I don’t know much more common then you could get with ‘just Cloud’” She said, mimicking my own voice with a smirk across her muzzle. “Okay then, ‘just Cloud’, so why do you think we get to be the lottery winners of the day, eh?” As she fitted her tail pieces into place, I was still working on getting my ignored flank covered. Today really must be my lucky day. 

“No clue. Here I was on free-time till tomorrow morning, and next I’m being assigned to this unit. Least it gets me out of the bunker, I’m thrilled with that.” Her helmet was being tossed on while I hoof-grabbed for my own. We both twisted our shoulders slightly to get our wings angled in just right, afterwards her turning her now bug-eyed head towards me. 

“I didn’t even get to eat lunch!” She said, I could almost see her pout through the metal. “But apparently a good eye is needed on one of these kinds of things. I guess it’s the only reason I get to go.” A shrug was given, the pout quickly forgotten.

The last statement had me wondering, exactly why did they need me on this mission? I’d barely been in for longer than a year and do the regulations even allow this sorta—

“Alright kids.” My thoughts interrupted by Dust as he stepped up to us. Without noticing it he had also donned his own suit of armor along with the other stallion behind him, whom I was guessing was Whirl standing quietly. 

“Just going to brief you very quickly, you lot are the lucky four that get to come with us to the surface.” Now that perked some ears up. Explore via the sky was one thing…the surface though…?

“We’ll be going in to take samples.” Whirl having twisted around and grabbed a small leather satchel that he now held in his mouth. Dust continued, “The Enclave needs these samples for tests. I won’t bore you with details because we don’t really have them. The Enclave needs these, so we’re to get them via showing you what you will be dealing with in your future careers in actual combat units. Yes, your tails do work. Just please watch where you’re swinging them.” 

I could practically hear Whirl’s eye roll beneath his helmet as he let out a huff of exasperation. Dust easily ignored his friend’s annoyance, “As far as battle saddles go though, you’ve all been trained in their uses, I shouldn’t really have to explain the cautionary matters of them.”

I was fighting not to fold my ears back while I listened quietly. I was slowly getting an uncomfortable feeling about this entire ordeal, but was also attempting to fight down that feeling by simply ignoring it. This was an opportunity that was providing me with below-cloud experience, something I was going to have to get used to at some given point anyways, might as well get it over with now with a simple little mission rather than running in guns-a-blaring in some battle or other.

“Now,” crap I’d lost track again... ,“Lets finish up here and get this over and done with so we can all be back for supper,” Dust having given a little stomp of his hoof on the cloud-floor below him to show his slight impatience now with us. With that being said I hoofed my helmet atop my head and thrust it down, squirming a bit at the sudden tight feeling enveloping my senses and darkness in front of my eyes. 

Lucky enough my eyesight flickered on shortly afterwards, giving my fellow ponies a slight green hue before the color corrected itself, along with their own yellow colored names atop their heads. Except for unnamed ponies number’s one and two, indicating our other two partners I’d neglected to get names from.

With a point of his wing, Dust had us bring our attention to the bay doors at the end of the building. Next to this wall hung matching battle saddles designed to fit with our current armor. We followed him over and all grabbed our own pair, which were then, with each other’s help, clicked-strapped, and locked into place correctly. 

Twisting my head about and raising my wings to look over the weapon did make me feel a lot more comfortable. There couldn’t be much in the wasteland that a good novasurge blast couldn’t take care of.

Dust and Whirl had already made their way outside the bay doors with their saddles intact on their armor, and we quickly followed them. Once outside I took a moment to look up at the sun through the electronic gaze of my helmet.

“And now to the fun part, the cloud layer here is extra thick, so once we get below let’s re-group in flying formation Anserini. Otherwise, please don’t knock each other out heading down,” said Dust with a quick flap of his wings before he suddenly fell through the cloud street below our hooves.

“Show off,” was Whirl’s only response before unfolding his wings from his back and lazily dropped through the clouds while angling his wings for a spiral descent from what I could tell before he disappeared.

Spot Light gave a happy little ‘squee’-ing sound before she simply jumped down through the clouds and out of sight. Zipper-butt and Unknown Blue Pony Number Two were far less dramatic as they stepped away from one another to make enough room to head down before floating under.

With a shrug of my shoulders I gave out a small sigh. Regardless of this entire situation a part of me still felt tired, even though I wished I could be sharing in Spot Light’s enthusiasm. But, at least we’d come to the one part I knew I was good at.

That last thought forcing a grin across my muzzle as I let myself fall forwards, relishing in the moment as my body simply became a part of natural gravity. It wasn’t until part way down through nothing but what looked like fog through my lensed over vision did I allow my wings to slide open and slow my descent slightly. The cooler air under my wings helped in preparing me physically and mentally for whatever might be below.

It had to be more entertaining than spending all day napping out of boredom.
> To infinity and beyond.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He used to tell me about the stars. When his inner poet would rise up amongst the rugged 'I could give a damn' attitude. He'd lose himself in a conversation with more words than he would have spoken in weeks to anyone else but me. It was a privilege that I allowed myself to soak in.

He said being closer to the sky allowed him to see nighttime in a totally different fashion. Rather than just little patches of black between the clouds. He'd throw a hoof up in a curve and explain that the sky looked like this black, or even dark navy blue blanket, with these little bright sparkly lights dotted all through it. 

He'd then look outside with an almost wishful expression. He would try to explain that sometimes he thought that you could keep flying up into that night sky and it would just go on forever.

"It's like, you could leave everything behind."





I had closed my eyes on my descent through the cloud barrier. Even with Spot Light's muffled giggling coming from somewhere to my left I was still able to take a chance to enjoy the feeling of free-fall. The dampness of the surrounding air cooling me off, right up until that very last few seconds.

It wasn't until those last few seconds when the air suddenly seemed to warm up did we burst through the bottom layer with strings of cloud following in our wake. With my wings fully open and a upwards twist of my primary feathers my body coursed into an upwards curve. Stopping with a few gentle flaps to allow me to hover while I looked around.

Under the cloud layer was like flying through a warm soup compared to above the clouds. Even as high as we were, and through the layers of metal armor, it still seemed uncomfortable.

The ground far below us looked like some sort of rolling planes that had seen far than better days. Buildings were few and far between from only the two I could see with my own eyes, though swirling dust and random debris did obscure a good deal of my vision.

Hundreds of years were not kind below the clouds. Just like we'd been told repeatedly during school. But the random history lessons were soon forgotten when Dust's voice raised above the sound of the wind.

"Alright fillies and colts. Anserini formation, and follow me," he said. Twisting my head around to see him hovering near Whirl, and our two other companions. Spot Light had been amusing herself with slow cartwheels through the air near by, much to Whirl's apparent continued annoyance. His head rolling along with what I was sure mimicked the movement of his eyes when she finally fluttered up to her position behind and to the right of him.

With the other two ponies taking their positions up to Dust's left, I realized I was odd pony out. Shrugging my shoulders and simply getting in line behind Spot Light, she twisted her head around and gave me a playful grin before looking back forwards.

Dust had gave a firm flap of his wings before angling them down and out, winging us on a forwards course that also slowly brought us closer to the ground as we moved. It was a gentle pace that allowed us plenty of time to continue looking about, which me and my younger companions did once we were further away from our starting point.

As we moved in formation, the landscape turned out to be not quite as barren as I originally inspected. Even though the buildings still appeared faintly, the landscape had its ups and downs. There was even what might have been an old railroad track that would have came through this area at some point. Though the only indications of that were broken strips of iron that roughly weaved through the dirt and random ruins.

Far to our right looked to be a small mountain range. Nothing too impressive, but noticeable all the same. I had no name to give them, but seeing as how we were only going to be down here for a limited amount of time I didn't feel the need to ask. I decided to turn my attention back forwards in hopes I could figure out our destination beforehand.

Eventually, a group of more clustered buildings were brought to our attention when Dust gave a firmer dip of his wings towards the location. While we curved around to come in for a landing I was able to spot a sign that was still mostly intact, which apparently became our landing point. 

Feathers were curved back and swept open as we all deadened our speed and finally with a few quick flutters our hooves touched real ground, landing right beside the sign I had seen before. Looking it over I could see that it was still mostly readable. 

"WELCOME to Poppy Fields! Dont forget to visit Neighagra Falls!" Spread across what might have been a field of little flowers. In the right corner stood a mountain with water coming off of it, though that half of the image had been ripped into by a portion of the sign having rusted completely away.

Tilting my head I looked beyond the sign at the few ruins of what may have been a small town. There were large open areas between most of the buildings, a torn in half bench here, a long dried up fountain there. Outside a once three-story, now two story building, was a little play area with missing swings and a seesaw that had seen-saw its last days.

I would have liked to think maybe I'd soaked up some random radiation on the way down for my brain to have come up with that dry humor. But alas, nothing on my forwards display was showing anything as of yet.

"Alright...now for that quick soil sample," I overheard Whirl grumble from beyond my distraction. Turning about to see him head down in the dirt while using his wing feathers to scoop some into the vial he held between his teeth. His helmet hanging from his side, while the same wing was used to pop the top back on.

"And the rest of you are going to get us some water," called Dust as he trotted to each of us in turn. Pulling out small stringed vials from his bag that he looped over a wing so we would not have to remove our helmets. Good thing we could use the appendages for more than just flying. 

Spot Light was twirling hers around a single primary feather looking bored while Dust continued.

"There should be plenty of different places in this ghost town you can grab some water from. Otherwise, take a look around. See if you find anything even remotely interesting. Just don't go taking off anywhere, and we will meet back up here in about an hour. That clear with everyone?" Even though I still had this uneasy feeling I gave my nod, along with the rest of my party. "Oh, and no cheating with bottled water!" he added.

The ponies that I had decided to call 'Zipper' and 'Baby Blue' turned together and headed down the middle of the road, already re-starting up some sort of argument between the two of them while Spot Light decided to give a small 'woop!' under her breath and take a few flaps up the nearest roof and out of sight.

"So you two will be staying here and waiting then?" I mentioned while turning my attention back to Dust and Whirl. Dust nodding his head while Whirl threw a hoof towards the town.

"This assignment is mainly for you ponies' experience," said Whirl. "So go on, nothing to worry about." I might not have been an entirely genius pony, but I was glad that my helmet was currently hiding my raised brow at that last sentence. But, who was I to say anything against a superior...

With a disgruntled sigh I turned down the same road Zipper and her companion had went down. They were a good deal further down the road looking from building to building like they couldn't make up their minds. Spot Light was nowhere that I could see, so that gave me technically first choice.

The very first building turned out to be a small souvenir shop. The front of the building had once been made of glass, for that was now all broken and it was more then easy enough to see the entirety of the shop from the outside. Long empty cabinets with entirely faded posters on the walls. 

Stepping inside caused broken glass to crinkle under my armored hooves as I stepped behind the still intact counter and looked into an open doorway that had "Emp  oy  es On  y" written over the front. 

More cabinets in the back room, though these still held little random objects. Little row of ashtrays, random tin cans, empty "Sparkle-Cola!" bottles according to the labels that hadn't peeled off yet, and....ah-ha!

I was in luck that the employee's room had a small sink towards the back. Though sadly once I'd trotted over to it and twisted the handle to on, nothing came out except a soft 'hiss' of empty pipe-air. Well it wasn't like the town was going to make this any easier. 

*Thump*

Blinking, I looked up at the ceiling at the sound of the noise. Feeling lucky that my helmet kept the falling dust from raining into my eyes. Something fairly heavy had fallen on the roof it sounded like. I hadn't really been paying attention to my EFS up to this point with being distracted in my surroundings, but I quickly noticed Whirl's yellow bar through the ceiling above me. I guess he had decided to patrol with us around the town after all.

Making my way out of the building I turned my gaze up and indeed saw Whirl standing on the edge of the building, turning his gaze instantly towards me as I stepped out into the middle of the road. I stopped for the moment to peer back, before turning my head towards the deeper part of the small town to see 'Zipper' and 'Baby Blue's' bars show up faintly in a large church-like structure down the street.

Across the street from them, looked like what might have been another yellow bar. Except this one was even fainter with no name above it. Guessing it was possibly Spot Light being too far enough for my helmet's EFS to read I turned away and ignored Whirl continuing to watch me from the shop's roof. The hotel was my next most promising place to explore.

The hotel had fared a little better then the souvenir shop. It might have been missing one of its double doors, with the other hanging off a single henge, but it was obvious at some point they'd been well made. Inside the lobby might have held carpet at some point, but by now it was nothing but a stone floor with fuzzy patches here and there. 

Once inside the soft crackle of electricity almost made me jump. In the corner was a Sparkle-Cola machine, that apparently still had some sort of power running to it. The front of the machine flickered even through the layers of dust that clung to it.

Deciding to ignore the fact that it seemed highly illogical that any machine would still be running on any sort of power source out here in the middle of Equestria-forsaken no where, I made my way towards the back. Around the stairs that headed up, past the front desk counter, and down a small hallway littered with random trash was the public bathrooms. Pushing the door open I was finally in luck to hear the soft dripping sound of my goal.

Thankfully enough, the water was also not dripping out of a 200-year old toilet. The very back sink had cracked in half at some point, the faucet though was still intact and just barely dripping a cloudy water onto the broken half of porcelain on the floor. Pulling the vial forwards with a wing I realized I had to pop off my helmet for a moment to actually unstop the vial.

Doing so was a slight relief, taking a few seconds to shake my mane out and take a nice deep breath of air that I instantly regretted as I started to cough. Which of course just caused even more dust to enter the air. 

Grumbling, I unstopped the vial with my teeth and trotted to the broken sink. As I slipped the vial under the droplets I noticed a faint clicking coming from the inside of my helmet, guessing the water was slightly radioactive.

"That should do us just fine."

Twisting quickly around at the sound, I saw Whirl standing in the now open doorway. I caught him looking at my helmet which I had also hung from my side while collecting the water sample. He had a very non-expressionless face as he turned and trotted back out to the main hallway as if he expected me to follow. 

Quickly putting the stopper back into the now full vial, and completely forgetting to re-helmet myself, I stepped out to find him standing and waiting for me in the main lobby.

"Why don't we take a peek upstairs while we are here?" Whirl said as he moved to the stairs and carefully hoofed himself upwards. I made my way behind him as he moved upwards without replying even though I didn't really feel any need as to why we should, but again that wasn't really my place to say.

Down one right hallway, and to left down another, brought us to the back of the building where there had been put an outdoor balcony that was still intact. The stone seemed to last far longer in these places, and was still pretty sturdy as we went outside past the broken glass doors. I stepped past Whirl to get a better look and stopped near the edge.

"Not a very pretty sight, I'd much rather be in the clouds." Whirl mentioned behind me and I simply nodded, listening to how quiet it seemed outside. All I could hear was the wind for the most part, and that thought was quickly turning me uneasy.

"I am going to have to apologize..." Whirl continued speaking behind me, slightly muffled, and that caught me off guard.

"What do you....ARGHH!" 

PAIN. Never in my life had I yet to feel that much sudden pain in a single spot. My lower neck was nothing but white agony and I instantly crumpled to my side. My limbs were refusing to work correctly as I twitched and was just barely able to see Whirl still standing where he had been. The muffled speaking had been from a long metal bar he held between his teeth, one end sparkled like a live wire.

"They told me this had been made to be painless, but you didn't put your helmet back on..." Whirl trailed off as he stepped closer to me. I would have reacted even with my body still attempting to regain control, but my brain was too startled to even put two and two together. "At least your the last one and this should be over with..." He raised his head, pointing the electrified end of the metal rod at me, speaking around the metal. "Don't worry. Its for a good cause."

I didn't want to see that thing stabbing me again. I tightly closed my eyes and simply waited, hearing him prepare to end whatever this was...

Only to hear his body thud and skid across the stone balcony with a metallic screech before falling off the edge onto the ground below. I opened my eyes just in time to see a cloud of dust rise up from below the balcony, followed with some groan-filled curses.

Next thing I knew I was being dragged by my tail back towards the building. My body had recovered enough from both literal and figurative shock to raise my head and look. I was being dragged by what looked like a cloth-rag wearing pony with a cloak of the same material, wearing a gas mask that had the lower half ripped away. 

The pony had a mouthful of a metal section of my tail-guard and was dragging me back inside the building where I was then dumped against the wall, rather roughly I might add.

At this point I tried standing, I was about half way up before I hissed loudly in continued pain. My shoulder blades felt like they were on fire and I couldn't even raise either one of my wings. It also didn't help that the ragged pony quickly placed their hoof against the side of my neck and pressed me back down against the floor. That creepy half-mask wearing head was brought inches from my face, and teeth were bared.

"Don't. Move. Again."

The voice was deep, but very obviously feminine at the same time. Through the scratched goggles I could see two brown eyes narrowing at me hatefully. It was also at that moment that I saw a long jagged blade attached to her side, slightly covered up by the rags she wore, so best not to argue. I was then quickly ignored as she moved to my side, and using her hooves I could feel her scrambling against the novasurge rifle.

She finally got it unhooked with a series of clicks. Suddenly standing to her back hooves as she held the rifle upright against the floor. It was a bit of a strange sight to see her 'standing', twisting the energy cartridge out and tossing it while also grabbing at her side to pull another cartridge from whatever bag she may have under those rags. It was clicked into place, with her falling back onto all four hooves, just as I heard the sound of wings back outside.

Instead of Whirl though, it was Dust. Helmet still on and tilting his head to the side as he stared at the two of us in the hallway. I am sure he would have looked surprised if I could have actually seen his face.

"What in the world happened..?" Dust said in what appeared to be genuine concern.

I was just about to answer, when suddenly from the edge of the balcony came Whirl, twisting in mid-air with a curve of his wings and bucking both hind legs into the side of Dust's head. He hadn't even had a chance to react.

Whirl stood over him, using both front hooves to hold him down once he'd fallen. He was gasping in quick rapid breaths as if the whole action had completely winded him.

"You weren't supposed to see this..." Whirl's face masked into a flicker of pain for a few seconds as he growled under his breath, though it quickly changed when he glared hatefully down at his late-friend afterwards.

"Whirligig...what? Why?" Dust drew his head up as he looked up at what had been his friend. He tried to fight his way back up, but the blow to his head had hurt, and Whirl was easily able to hold him down with his body weight.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT," Whirl screeched suddenly. "I hate my name! And you weren't supposed to see this! We were going to go home and we wouldn't have to worry about any of this anymore!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Was the last question Dust was able to get out before Whirl reared up and slammed both front hooves down. I could hear the metal nearly crack under the blow, but it was Whirl twisting his head to draw the metal bar from his side that I knew this was going to end badly.

The rag-wearing pony stepped a little closer to my side as she watched silently. She had not made any sort of move to stop them during the entire ordeal.

Whirl thrust his head down, aiming the sparking end of the rod to the base of Dust's helmet. He didn't even cry out, as a flicker of electricity swept over his metal in-cased head. His body twitched violently under Whirl's hooves, and then he suddenly lay still. The only sound was a frantic few last beeps coming from the inside of his helmet before those died away along with their suit's owner.

"He wasn't going to know, It was going to be an accident...a flaw in the old suits...it was going to be tragic..." Whirl seemed to be saying to himself as he dropped the still sparking rod, where it rolled off the side of the balcony. He then turned to us, lifting both his wings and pointing the barrels of his own rifles towards us. "I'm doing this for her...and for the rest of us..."

Whoever he was attempting to talk to, it wasn't us anymore. His mane stuck out in all directions from the fall, covered in dirt, and with a crazed look in both dark purple eyes. Suddenly the rag-covered mare in front of me drew back up to her hind legs again, holding the rifle in her front hooves. With one brilliant blast of neon-green she had aimed and fired.

Whirl would have been a pile of green goo, but at the very last second he was able to twist his body to the side and expertly twirl himself out of harm's way and back into the air with a single flap of his wings. He looked surprised for a few moments, but with another shot from the rifle from the unknown mare, he flipped himself to the side and took a shot of his own, which landed about a foot in front of us with a spray of rocks.

He might be very agile, as his prissy name implied. But the mare was still a far better shot.

Which she showed by aiming once more, this third shot he was just barely able to twist out of the way from. When the very end of his mane caught fire he hissed loudly.

"Screw this!" We heard Whirl growl under his breath. Using both hooves to try to put his mane out he also curved up and above the roof of the hotel out of our sight. The mare quickly darted out onto the balcony, drew herself up to her hind hooves again, aiming and firing off a few quick blasts into the air beyond my range of vision, as I was still laid up in the hallway.

She then let her body fall back forwards, landing while still holding the rifle with one hoof as she quietly looked off into the distance above the building. All this time I'd simply laid there in pain, but now I got a good look of Dust's armor-clad body laying silently near the edge of the balcony. The mare also took a moment to look over at him before stepping back inside with me.

"I have got to...UGH!" I tried to explain before she suddenly pushed me back onto the floor again. "Will somepony let me finish a fucking sentence for once?!" I yelled at her in a fog of further renewed discomfort.

"....Fine," she said after a moment of staring at me through that mask of hers.

"What the flying fuck just happened, and who the hell are you?" I snapped at her. Pain didn't put me in a polite mood.

And apparently that tone of voice wasn't appreciated as she turned and I got a quick buck to the side of my head with her right hind hoof. My head dropped to the floor just as sparkles started popping up, and my vision beginning to go blurry.

"Karma," The mare said quietly as I was just barely able to notice her stepping to my side. It sounded like she was un-doing some of that make-shift armor of hers, but by that point my vision had completely blacked out with the closing of my eyes against the oncoming lack of consciousness.

"...you might have noticed, I'm a bit of a bitch."
> Dawn of a new day.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He said he needed sleep, he had been on night shifts, and wasn't used to staying awake in the day-hours. I stayed awake to keep watch while feeling a little unsure of myself. After awhile I eventually moved to lay down near his side thinking he had fallen asleep, it couldn't really hurt after all. Amazingly enough he rolled over towards me, laid his head down against my chest and cuddled against me as if he had been waiting the entire time.

"That's better."

I feel that maybe I was far too lenient. I laid my head near his, wide awake while he quickly fell asleep against me. I really cant remember how long I stayed awake while watching the light fade outside the window near us. But I do remember thinking I could happily stay like this forever, if only time would let me.

In my current situation this was a small light in the darkness, and I vowed to brighten it no matter the cost.

All I ended up doing was blinding myself.




Everything hurt.

In the darkness behind my closed eyes I attempted to convince myself that I eventually needed to open them. Regardless that the rest of me was dreading to do so. Sighing under my breath I tried blinking a bit at first, only to end up wincing with a groan as even the smallest amount of light burned into my retinas. My head hurt, my back hurt, my wings...

Ugh, I still couldn't move my wings. Except this time they also felt tied down.

"Moving wouldn't be a wise choice."

Turning my blurry vision towards the sound of the voice I could make out the shape of the mare from before. It took another few slow blinks before my surroundings took more shape rather then just fuzzy blobs of dull color. We appeared to be in a small back room of sorts, and the mare was laying on her side near the doorway as if she had been keeping watch. I on the other hand was laid down atop a small bunk-like bed in the corner. One of my novasurge rifles was propped near my make-shift bed. The rest of the room had little else but a broken window, and a few cabinets.

Glancing back at the mare I noticed she'd removed whatever her armor was, giving me a far better look at her. My second rifle leaned up against the door frame within easy each of her hoof. Her coat color was a tanned beige, with her eyes matching the dark brown of her mane and tail. Both of these were tied back, appearing far longer then they really should have been. The only real bright color she had on her was the single steak of gold running through her mane, and down through her tail. Otherwise, she was extremely earthly colored.

To be perfectly honest...she was kind of a chunky looking earth pony.

Almost as if she could read my mind her eyes narrowed and she let out a snort of breath in my direction. Quickly looking back outside the doorway with a whip of her head that made her pony-tail smack the frame of the doorway. Not that she really noticed.

"Done staring, feather-head?"

I rolled my eyes, fine then. I turned my attention back to myself noticing that little bunk-bed I was laying on was covered up with ragged cloth. Well, that's where her make-shift armor had went. Lifting my head slowly I turned and looked at the rest of my body. My armor had been removed, and there were bandages that wrapped completely around my middle and over-top my folded wings. I didn't even really look like a pegasus like this...wait. My armor was removed?

"Don't look so startled. I took it off you to wrap your wings down. I think your muscles were damaged by that brahmin-prod looking thing," she said, when I had turned to address her about my missing armor. She had turned her head to look at me again, though now the annoyed expression showed one of honesty. "I needed to remove it to make sure you were alright, and you don't need to be wearing it down here in-front of anyone else. I got it bagged up."

"That's....okay. I think," I muttered back a reply. This was the mare who had caused me to black out in the first place. She had also saved me, sort of. I was having very mixed feelings about all of this. "Thank you for your concern," I finally added, politely.

That got an approved nod from her, as she crossed her front legs and laid her head down on them while she went back to looking out the open doorway. It was then I noticed with the movement that her right foreleg, right above her fetlock, had a pipbuck attached to it. I remembered having learned about those in school, which also made me remember something else.

"You could have actually hit him?" I pointed at the machinery with a hoof.

"Hm?" She looked back at me, looked at my hoof, and followed its point to her leg. "Oh. If you mean SATs, I tried. Stupid ballerina was a little too fast," She then shrugged and looked back out the door. "When his mane caught fire? I was actually aiming for his head."

That explained that at least, though I kind of wish she hadn't missed.

"I'm sorry about your friends, by the way," she said quietly, which brought my attention to the morbid change of subject. "I normally don't get involved with whatever happens between you kind of ponies, but..." Another shrug to end her comment. "I took you and left, I was worried more would show up."

"Better safe then sorry I guess." I did feel a slight pain of my fellow pegasi being gone, but at the same time I more tried to avoid pressing the subject of 'you kind of ponies'. "What did you say you were named again before my quite sudden introduction with your back hoof?" Well, maybe I did end up a little snarky. She rolled her eyes and looked directly at me again.

"Karma, and you, feather-head?"

"Cloud." I matter-of-factually replied.

I got a silent stare in reply before slowly one of her brows raised in scrutiny, rather then confusion. Her head slightly tilting to her left as I saw her eyes switch to my exposed flank. I guess she'd gotten an eye full before with having removed my armor.

"For such a insanely boring Pegasus name, your mark don't make a 'lotta sense." 

I really couldn't help a sigh, instinct fully attempting to turn my head though quickly turned that sigh into a soft hiss of pain. I did end up being able to look at my cutie mark just barely though. A plain metal sword sat atop a golden sun that made up the background. The sword wasn't even remotely interesting, just the blade and hilt. It wasn't horrible looking by any means, other ponies had worse marks, but...

"Asking me wont do any good, never did figure out what my special talent was."

"Join the club," She grinned slightly. Turning her head towards her own right flank to draw my attention. On her flank, was a gold beam scale. The gold matched her highlight within her mane and tail rather nicely, but the scales themselves were not balanced. The left scale was lower while the right one hovered above it. It was...skewed looking? But, at the same time I felt a bit of relief that my current company at least could understand to a degree the embarrassment of having an unknown talent, and a mark to taunt you.

"Ive always hated trying to explain why I don't know what my mark means, my parents thought it meant I was going to be a hoof-to-hoof combat pony but I had never even touched a sword before I got this," I just barely stopped myself from shrugging my shoulders. That would have hurt. "Never did made a lot sense.."

"I understand," Was all I got in a reply. Her grin had fell during my attempt at further conversation, and the stoic expression that followed made me get the sudden feeling that something was being avoided. "Anyway...sadly I do not have any potions to get your wings back in action. But I have a friend that should be meeting us sometime tomorrow. Until then Ive dragged you about as far as I think we needed to move to be safe," So that's how I got here.

"Thank you again," I answered her, and was quiet again for a few minutes while she turned her head back around to re-check outside. "So, where are we at currently?"

"An old crystal re-charging station for sky-chariots and carriages, its already been ripped clean, but gives us enough shelter for the night. I don't think anyone is going to be bothering us here," She waved a hoof towards the outside, even though from my position I could barely see anything besides dirt and trash in the dieing light. 

"Good enough place as any I suppose," Muttering under my breath before slowly laying my head down in front of me. We were quiet for a long while after that. Mainly because I was tired, even after being unconscious for the last few hours. Today had been rough, and I'd been expecting a semi-comfortable cloud-bunk to be lounging in. Hell, I'd expected I would have been there the entire day if all this madness hadn't raised its head.

I think I might have muttered again, something along the lines of 'sleepy' or even 'goodnight'. I did remember though, the earthy mare having glanced in my direction. Maybe the faint smile had been there. Maybe not.





That older colt was enjoying himself at my expense, again. I hated being small.

We walked in a straight line to our class, the teacher a hazy figure far enough ahead to be bothered by us.

His tail flung backwards, smacking across my muzzle again. I sighed. 

He snickered. His friends snickered in front of him.

"So do you really enjoy this?" I whispered. "Honestly?"

No response.

"I was talking to you." I tried again.

His ears drooped. Still nothing.

"You don't have to pretend."

"Yes...I do."





My eyes fluttered slightly. What was I dreaming about again? Maybe a few more minutes and I could...

"Wakey-Wakey, feather-head. We 'gotta be 'headin out." Poke. Ow. Poke.

Seriously, ow?

With a frustrated groan I raised my head up, causing me to quickly wince. Well that was an awful reminder. I licked my lips against the uncomfortable dryness, before blinking up and the figure of the mare shadowing herself over me. The light didnt look like it had changed outside, but she was up with large saddle bags already attached to her sides. Though I couldn't remember where she had got them. I saw my rifles under those saddle bags, where she'd somehow got them attached within her easy reach.

"Its a little past sunrise. If we leave now, the better. I hope your able to walk today. I really don't feel like carrying you around again," She poked my side once again, that got me to grumble something crude at her, though she pretended not to hear and walked outside to wait for me. "And grab my suit."

"Suit?" I looked around the room...and then remembered the rags I was laying on. "Uh...sure..."

Carefully I scooted myself to the side of bed and placed a gentle hoof on the floor before seeing if it would handle my weight. When it seemed just fine I climbed myself out of the bed. Luckily enough the rags I'd been sleeping on seemed to be mostly stitched together so I was able to hoof-grab and toss it over my back. It was a little uncomfortable as it flopped over my wings and shoulders, but the bandages seemed to have helped me heal some-what. Though the back of my neck still hurt whenever I moved my head too much or too quickly.

It took me a little while to nip and tuck the fabrics into place, specially without the use of my wings which again caused me to grumble. But finally I could move and turn without it falling off my back. When I walked outside I ended up having to put a hoof over my eyes as the light stung them for a few seconds. I never really was a morning pony.

The ground was bathed in hues of random greyed out orange, even through the clouds the sun somehow got color down here at sunrise. Though it was muted compared to what I was used to. Apparently the little shack we had spent the night in was actually all that was left of whatever this building used to be. The concrete under my hooves continued all the way out to the road. There might have been a front part of this building at some point, but the roof was gone, and all was left were some rusting rebar pointing at random angles along the sides where the walls must have been. Forgotten machines, or what was left of them, pushed out of the pony-made stone. Though most of these were either completely dismantled, or simply half-gone to really have been able to tell how they were to be used.

Karma, I realized I was getting used to thinking of her as her namesake and not just earth-colored-mare, was standing in the middle of what was left of the road. Tapping a hoof as she looked at me.

"If you want to be able to fly any time soon lets go. I also would like to get home at some point," She called over to me, before turning to head down the road regardless if I decided to follow or not. With a sigh I carefully trotted over to her regardless of my discomfort and stepped in slightly behind and to her right before matching our speed. Which apparently wasn't much, she kinda walked a little slow. After a few quiet minutes I would see her tilt her head to regard me with her right eye, as if she was checking up on me.

"I'm sorry, I don't really like the mornings either. But this way we can be more careful, and we can still meet my friend by nightfall."

I had to fight myself not to shrug again. First she is wanting me to hurry, next we're going to take a casual stroll through the wasteland by hoof. Today was turning out to be awesome so far.

And apparently I wasn't keeping a tight enough rein on my sarcastic thoughts because she suddenly snickered at me. I guess my expression had pretty much betrayed my thoughts. Though it was the snickering that hit a sore spot for some reason. I angled my gaze at her flank to my left, knowing she was still looking at me.

"So, do you think that cutie mark is because your..."

"If you try to explain I have scales on my ass because I am fat I will buck you in the head, again."

I couldn't help but laugh, and she couldn't help following suit shortly after.




A couple of hours later and I was bored out of my mind. Hoofing it was so slow compared to flying.

Most of the day went along pretty uneventful. Karma was pretty content after our mini-argument to simply keep quiet as we walked down the road. Every once in awhile she would attempt to lift her head and look further in the distance, where I figured she was keeping an eye out for this friend of hers. She'd shuffle her shoulders a little, where I'd guessed hauling around both my guns, my armor, and whatever else she owned was uncomfortable. I thought about offering to help, but with my bandaged back and neck still aching, I figured she wouldn't relent even if I had.

The surrounding area wasn't even remotely interesting either. Specially since I had seen most of it already mid-flight and even though I think we were headed north, according to whatever street signs remained, there wasn't much difference here either. About the most interesting things we crossed would be the few broken down carriages and carts along the sides of the road. Karma didn't bother stopping to look at these, they were either too far gone to be bothered with, or I figured she'd already been past this way before. There was a skeleton or two, that I tried my best to ignore, Karma didn't seem bothered by them.

Looking behind us let me notice the mountains I had seen in my flight before were slowly getting further away, while in front of us in the far distance I think I was able to notice some new ones. I let my ears droop slightly at the thought of having to walk all the way over there just to get my wings back in action so I could go home. I tried just barely attempting to ruffle some feathers under the bandages, but it seemed the muscles along my shoulders just didn't want to respond correctly. All I ended up was making my neck ache even further.

As color of the surrounding landscape had changed from bleak orange hues, to simply bleak day-light hues, the orange was slowly returning again. Karma was giving off soft huffs of breath and was lifting her shoulders more often. My hooves hurt, I wasn't used to walking for any long period of time. Specially on anything other then clouds.

Finally, she shifted to the left side of the road once we crossed another one of those broken down carriages, luckily with no skeletons attached. She put it between herself and the road and let out the same huff of breath as she sat down. Shrugging off the saddle bags and letting both them and my rifles fall into the dirt. I couldn't help but narrow my eyes at her for that, which she quickly caught the attention, letting out a soft sigh when she did.

"Only one of them even works right now....the energy cartridges were spent until I added the low one in," She said while taking the time to completely lay down and at least re-arrange the rifles to lay atop one of the saddle bags she'd been carrying. The sound of muffled clinking metal led me to realize which one had my armor then. I took a minute to reach behind me and push her 'suit' near her bags from off of my back.

"And how would you know that?" I asked, stepping around to the other side of her that faced her front. Laying down with a bit of a jerky motions as my muscles dared to stiffen at the difference in motion. I rubbed my front hooves together to keep them from tingling, when I noticed she didn't answer right away. I brought my attention back directly to her, she had stopped with her head down looking into her saddle bag. Ears flattened backwards with a slight narrowing of her eyes, she looked very thoughtful in that moment.

"Your other...colleagues. When I realized what was happening anyways... The two that were together, one had a chance to try to fire at that ballerina, but the weapon just fizzled,"  She shrugged at that point, her earlier expression quickly turning back to the aloof one as she pulled out her half-mask from her bag with her muzzle before diving back in again. "Again, I am sorry."

I really did not know what to say to that. There was no doubt in my mind that she may have been lying to me, but I had a feeling not to push the subject either. I'd try and take care of the mess when I got home.

I noticed her digging a hoof into the bag for a minute, before scooping out a pair of black glassy rocks. She then hauled herself back to her hooves and stepped around me to the fallen carriage. Stepping to the side door of the contraption she leaned inside out of my line of sight. A ripping sound was heard and next thing I knew, she was dropping a mess of ragged cloth and wood splinters on the ground near the rocks she'd pulled out, spitting afterwards with a 'blegh'.

"Ew?" I questioned as I followed my gaze as she stepped back to the carriage again. Bucking her back hooves against the front frame allowed what rotted wood there was to easily crack off. She then scoot-hoofed these larger pieces over to her rubbish pile.

"Yes, but I'd rather have some light tonight," With that being said she flopped down and slid one of the rocks near the edge of her pile near an edge where some of the cloth was poking out. Watching her (hold?) the second rock with a hoof and begin smacking the two of them together just hurt my head to watch. Not just her holding the rock with nothing but her hoof, but the sparks they produced as well. Something instinctual inside of me kept from asking questions.

Soon enough, one of the sparks caught the edge of the 200-hundred year old fabric into a tiny flame. She quickly darted her head down and began breathing it to life. The cloth quickly brought the flame to the wood and we had a small fire going within a few minutes. She hoof-pumped in personal victory.

"Who needs Unicorns, right?" And that same hoof was thrust in my direction while she grinned. I looked between it and her a few times before carefully lifting my own to lightly bump our hooves together. This easily pleased her as she went back to watching the fire grow. I hardly knew anything about this mare, but at the same time I really didn't feel threatened by her either. Even if she had caused me one heck of a headache the day before.

By this time it was nearly fully night, and the fire was casting orange flickers on our surroundings. It was almost comforting in a strange way, and it had me wondering if ponies in the far past had circled around fire anything like this to simply bask in warmth and presence of one another, slowly lowering my head to my hooves and watching both the fire and Karma.

Suddenly, her head twisted around towards the road in a drastic motion, as if she heard something. I didn't bother to lift my head at first as I simply looked over in the street's direction. But with the daylight having nearly completely faded I couldn't see much.

Karma thrust herself to her hooves and continued to stare in the encroaching dark. After a minute she lifted one of her hooves and stomped it onto the ground four times in a rhythm-like pattern. That made me raise a brow at her as I lifted my head back up, wondering what the issue was. But then just as I was thinking maybe she had a sudden case of madness, out of the dark the same four hoof-stomps came, echoing her rhythm perfectly. Couldn't she just have used SATs...?

A wide grin was given and Karma was suddenly off and into the dark, leaving me at the fire. I wasn't quite sure if I should be startled or not, but the soft laughter coming from the road lead me to believe I shouldn't worry. It was a few minutes before two ponies stepped off of the road and into our light of the fire. One was Karma, the other was a very large earth stallion.

He was an even darker earth-brown color then she was. His coat looked like if the earth had been freshly rained on. A ragged black wide-brimmed hat that had seen far better days sat atop a mane of almost matching glossy black. The fire made his eyes look equally as black, though they could have been a darker brown then Karma's, hers still looked like a warm brown even in the yellow-orange light. His mane was short-cut, but his tail remained long.

The fire also showed a single saddle bag back on his left, and what looked like a hilt just to the right of his head, within easy reach. Which he showed when he whipped his head around to grab the hilt within his teeth and pull one of the largest looking swords I'd ever seen from his back and allowed it to thrust into the ground part-way. With a stretch he laid down near it, rubbing his hooves together in the same manner I had awhile ago. I made a mental note to check out that weapon later.

Karma helped him remove his saddle bag, and she dropped it to her side when she laid herself down near the stallion. She smiled to him once, he silently replied with a nod of his head, and she then turned her attention back to me.

"Cloud, this is Stance Dance. Or just Stan for short," Tilting her head towards him in indication. He raised a hoof to his hat, and tilted it towards me respectfully. "Stan, this is Cloud. I found him in Poppy Fields," She stalled for a moment, right as I was thinking that 'found' wasn't a good choice of words. "...he's a pegasus."

Part of me was glad she hadn't lied for some reason, but Stan's reaction was slightly harsh. His mildly friendly outlook took a turn towards the hostile as he narrowed his eyes under his hat at me. He still didn't say anything, except letting out a snort of breath in my direction.

"Cool it, he's ignorant," Karma said while applying a hoof to Stan's shoulder in a mock form of comfort.

"Wait a second. Ignorant?" I would have been flaring my wings at her if they still weren't tied down. I had put up with all the feather-head remarks, and the 'you kind of ponies' statement earlier, but now she has the nerve to call me ignorant. "What do you mean by ignorant? You both are dust-dwellers. How would either of you know anything of pegasi?" Throwing one of my hooves in their direction with a accusing thrust.

I didn't get a reply straight away. The two earth ponies simply looked at me, though they didn't seem as annoyed with the racial slur I used in reply to their own racism. Karma simply rolled her eyes before leaning against Stan with a tired expression. Stan never moved his eyes from me, but their narrowed expression softened slightly.

"Lets just get some sleep and we'll talk about this in the morning, we'll even try to get your wings working again, alright?" Karma eventually responded, though she never even waited for a reply as she closed her eyes and simply relaxed. Stan took a moment to turn his head and look at Karma, before turning back to look at me. He still didn't say anything, but he raised a hoof to his hat and pulled it down over his eyes, while staring at me the entire time I might add, and laid his head down on the ground without having uttered a single word this entire time. For all I knew he was mute.

I let out an overly exasperated sigh and thumped my head onto the ground. Which only ended up irritating my neck even further. These two ponies had single hoovingly made me feel like colt, and now I was pretty much being ignored. My hooves hurt, my neck still hurt, and all I wanted to do at that very moment was to go home.

Daylight couldn't come fast enough.
> It's a secret to everybody.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the most fun I think I ever had. The little run-down hotel room hadn't been quite so messy when we decided to haul ourselves into the broken building, other then the normal decayed pre-apocalypse furniture, but soon our stuff was thrown everywhere and we had occupied ourselves with a play fight.

We had pulled a blanket out of our saddle bags at some point, and it became a focal point of our fight. He had started it by tugging it off me, and I replied in yanking it back and glaring at him. He smirked in that lovely devilish way, while he yanked the blankets back and out of my reach. He didn't have to say anything, his eyes had easily asked me 'What are you going to do about it?'

I had the advantage of being the heavier one, and he had the advantage of being far more agile. At some point when I thought I was losing the battle of the blanket, one of my hooves crossed over one of his back legs. He jerked violently at that, taking a sharp hiss of breath when he trembled, and panting shortly after like he had been winded.

It was my turn to smirk. The poor colt was ticklish.

Not even blocking me with his wings was enough to save him after that. We were lucky the building didn't fall to pieces with our tumbling. Him trying to get away from me through his tears of laughter, while I scolded him for having such a silly, yet wonderful, weakness.

Hours later we were still giggling. Blanket long forgotten.




"I bet your not even asleep."

I focused my frustration on the other stallion, my head down in the dirt as the fire crackled away, stuck in the middle of no-where. The ground was far from a comfortable sleeping area, and I was already missing my nice comfortable cloud bunk. With its fresher air, my cloud pillow....

My earlier conclusion turned out to be a correct one as Stan gave a sharp snort of breath in my direction, disrupting my poor-pitiful-me thoughts. I couldn't see his eyes, but I was willing to bet anything even if he did have them closed, he was rolling them in equal frustration.

"Don't huff at me, this whole day has been one big disappointment after the next," I replied to him, even though he hadn't actually said anything. Thumping one of my hooves on the ground when I raised my head. I hate to admit, but the little violent action did make me feel slightly better.

Slowly his head came up off the ground, the same hoof he had used before pulled the hat back away from his vision. His eyes twisting to the side to check on Karma, who apparently was sound asleep laying against his side. I knew she was asleep because I doubt any pony would willingly make that snoring sound if they'd been awake.

"You don't have to be so loud.." His voice suddenly rumbled quietly, causing me to startle. He had pulled his gaze back to me, watching as I tilted my ears forward at the sound of his voice. It was kind of surprising really, a deeper passive tone, quiet, and not used often enough around strangers.

"Oh, so your not mute. Well I guess that's a good thing," said more quietly then I had before.

He didn't reply to that, simply lay there looking at me as if I had stopped mid-sentence and he was waiting for me to finish. I felt an urge to try and shift my wings in a anxious action, but made sure to neglect doing so. Instead it was the hoof brought up to my face to brush back through my mane to make up for the earlier lost action.

"So...you two seem close," I wanted to smack myself in the back of the head for the truly great conversation starter. Though I tried to play off the lame attempt with a hoof casually swerved in the direction of the snoring mare at his side. Amazingly enough, he huffed at me again, though this time I could see it was an attempt to cover a laugh as his own hoof came up to hold across the end of his muzzle.

"'Nah, just friends," Said while giving a look back at Karma, who was I'm sure, happily oblivious to the conversation in her sleep. "You should sleep, I'll stay awake," and with that last part said, his head moved to lay back down again, though he kept his hat above his eyes this time and quietly watched our continued fire, having ended our communication.

I gritted my teeth together, I was right back to square one again. I itched to be able to fly again and I was hoping having conversation would allow me to learn more about the two ponies and keep my mind from dragging back down into the gutter of my loathing for this entire situation. I ended up just sighing and thumping my head back down into the dirt.

I don't know how long I watched the fire with Stan still awake, but I seemed far away from actual real company. 

I found with a slight surprise, wishing Karma would wake up.





"Why do you have to lie to yourself? I don't understand."

"Maybe I just want something better than this."

"So you'll lie to get where you want to be? How would you even know if that's what you want?"

"There has got to be something better than just...this."





I was being poked again. Enough with the Celestia-be-Damned poking!

I tossed my hooves at the poking offender. Which resulted in an 'oof!' and a larger body falling into the dirt next to me, followed up with some grumbling. I groaned and rubbed my front hooves over my eyes before looking at my sleep deprive'r that had fallen. Karma shook her head from her laid position before heaving herself back up to her hooves and stepping closer to me, regardless of the very annoyed expression I was attempting to sleepily throw her way. Our fire must have went out hours ago.

Stan was a little ways off, sitting on his rump and using his front hooves to scrape a stone across that weapon from last night that I hadn't got a good look at. From my position it looked like it might have been a street sign at one point, with the mix of green and silver. Now the metal had been folded, pounded, and welded into that massive sword. I kinda wish the one on my flank looked nearly as bad-ass, but hooves on my back interrupted the thought process.

Karma had also sat down next to my side, and was currently undoing the bandages wrapped around my middle. Next to her was Stan's saddle bag, and a small knife held between her teeth. When she noticed that my attention had changed back to her, she freed one of her hooves up to reach into the satchel and scoop out something that faintly resembled bread.

" 'rekrest ish 'sheverd," she said while tossing the maybe-bread at my muzzle, while the knife stayed between her clenched teeth. I snatched the bread out of the air, and began munching. If it was horrible tasting, I wouldn't have really noticed. Having lived off of air-borne food, I didn't really think much about the taste of anything. I was just glad to put something into my stomach.

Karma leaned down a few times to snatch at a few troubling stands of bandaging with her knife while continuing to dislodge my wings. I simply lay there and continued to eat my breakfast till it was gone, and at about the same time she had untied me completely. I tried to twist my head around to look, which caused my neck to feel a bit strained, but not nearly as painful as it had been before. A small lift to my wings caused the feathers to ruffle, but not much else. I must have frowned, because Karma suddenly reached into the bag once again, returning the knife, and out came a purple potion.

Healing potion, that should hopefully do the trick with whatever was wrong with wings. Karma rolled the potion in-front of me and motioned with a hoof for me to drink before turning back to look between my wings.

"I'm no healer, but I think that your muscles were damaged since there really isn't anything I can see wrong back here other then some burnt fur," Shrugging her shoulders and putting her hoof between my shoulder blades, right where my wing muscles began. It felt sore where she touched, like the muscles were drawn tight and uncomfortable. "Go ahead and drink."

Holding the potion between my front hooves I popped off the cork with my teeth, leaning down and grabbing the bottle gentle before lifting my head back up to pour the contents down my throat. Two hundred year old potion was tastier then what I thought it'd be.

And then my muscles suddenly felt like somepony under my skin was twisting them back around to their correct shape. It didn't hurt as bad as I thought it should have, but it did feel very uncomfortable to feel ones muscles move of their own accord. I held back a whimper from my companions as the crawling feeling forced my feathers to ruffle outwards, making me look rather puffed up for a few seconds before they settled. Slowly I rolled my shoulders back, and attempted to lift my wings.

With a flutter they lifted as they normally would have before yesterday, maybe feeling a little bit stiff, but the healing potion seemed to have maneuvered my muscles back into whatever proper position they had been in before I had been attacked. Karma scooted herself back and brought herself back to four hooves and stood near me while I gave an experimental flap to lift my body from the ground and join her in a standing position.

She lifted a hoof in a go-on gesture towards me. I couldn't help a grin as I tilted my wings back while giving a full effort flutter to lift fully into the air, letting my body slowly curve into a loop as I did backwards flip mid-air before righting myself and hovering near her. My grin was returned with a small smile from her in silent reply. I was basically back to pretty much normal.

Stan had stopped his sharpening by that point and was watching us from his sitting position. What came next felt more like an awkward silence as the three of us took turns looking from one another, back and forth. Karma scratching at the ground with a hoof, Stan tilting his head with a mildly curious expression, and finally I lifted a hoof and cleared my throat.

"Well, as much fun as it has been visiting the surface the last twenty four hours, I should head back to base and report what happened, I guess.." Letting my hooves touch-ground while folding my wings back to head over to the saddle bag that I knew had my armor in it. "Thank you two, though...um..." I was flustering a bit. Armor, guns, I think I had everything...

"I really don't think simply flying back up to your base would be a good idea." Karma interrupting my thoughts.

"Hm?" I stopped in the action of beginning to pull my armor out of the bag. At this point I noticed Stan having completely turned his attention to me with a hard-eyed expression under his hat. Karma turned to look at him for a moment before she stepped a bit closer to me. 

"Why isn't that a good idea? I need to tell them what happened, as soon as possible." I questioned her again.

"Well, as far as we've been able to tell, your fellow brethren seem to have a 'shoot first, forget questioning' policy in effect with anything that even remotely gets near their clouds." She said this while motioning to the cloud-cover above us.

I wanted to argue with her, that they wouldn't shoot me. Maybe it would have been a more sane reaction to my situation. Instead I simply looked at her, knowing somehow she was being honest with me. Didn't mean I had to like it though, which must have been apparent to her when my ears slowly folded back, and she sighed.

"Didn't you hear about the rocket incident awhile back?" She said more quietly at me.

I shook my head, I doubt I'd have been important enough to have been told anything.

"No? Bunch of crazy ghouls? Rocket-looking thing?"

"Not ringing any bells." I replied with a dead-pan look to translate my even further ignorance.

"Why am I not surprised.."  She said while flopping her rump down to sit, I noticed Stan had went back to sharpening his sword, but I had a feeling that he was listening regardless. "Anyways, long story short. Some sort of flying thing supposedly called a rocket. Bunch of crazy ghouls took it above the cloud layer," After this she lifted both her hooves, bringing them close together, before suddenly spreading them rapidly with a - "'Esplode! No more rocket, or ghouls for that matter."

"But...they were ghouls?" I inquired, I'd learned about ghouls, ghouls were a bad thing. "Wouldn't you have exploded a thing of ghouls if they were flying towards your home?"

"If they were the flying-zombie-pony-eating-brain kind then yeah." She said while rolling her eyes at me. Wait. Was there a different kind? "But do you think they even took the time to figure out if they were or not? I doubt the brain-eating kind would even know how to get a snack cake open, let alone a computer."

"Even more reason to shoot it?" I narrowed my eyes, the thought of intelligent-zombie-pony-eating-brain ghouls was...disturbing. Suddenly Stan leaned out from behind Karma with a wide-eyed expression that looked like fear, startling me. I never even saw him move.

"Some ghouls are perfectly pony-sane, feather head, but that's besides the point!" Raising her voice at me before stopping and blinking as she noticed me suddenly not paying her attention. She growled under her breath and turned her head to look over her shoulder to see Stan giving her that same very worried expression. "I don't have any cake, obviously!" She yelled even louder. She could get very loud.

Stan instantly relaxed, letting out a long-held breath before creeping back behind Karma to his sword where it had fallen in the dirt, looking relieved. I don't even...

"Anyways!" Karma snapped at me, bringing my attention darting back to her. "For all they know, you could be a Dashite trying to head back home."

"But I am not a Dashite...I'm an Enclave Soldier." Directing a hoof towards the large bag, still overly stuffed with my armor. Regardless of her even knowing about Dashites in the first place, I still felt strangely wrong questioning her.

"And I doubt they are going to wait for you to even get remotely near the clouds to figure out if your a Soldier, or a Dashite having stolen some Soldier armor," At this point she leaned in, lowering her tone. "For all you know, your little ballerina friend has already told them how you were the one who killed the rest of your group."

Ugh. She was right. Completely and frustratingly right.

"...so what do you think I should do." It wasn't a question, more of a statement really. By this point I wasn't in a mood anymore to argue with her, not that I felt entirely comfortable about arguing with her in the first place.

She brought her right hoof up to her chin and tapped it a few times while producing a 'hmmm'd sound to herself, before suddenly blinking as if she had completely forgotten about the pipbuck that was attached. Leaning back to balance herself she was able to use her other hoof and push a few buttons on the machine, it took a minute, but I didn't interrupt.

"Well, according to this...I believe there is a tower a bit north of where Cloudsdayle used to be...No clue on its condition, or if its even still there, but my map says it is. You may be able to use whatever technology that may be there to contact above the clouds to one of your ships...anything that would give you a chance to speak before getting shot at."

Even though I agreed with her on this information, it was the final straw in my curiosity. I leaned forwards, bringing my muzzle closer to hers and lowering my tone slightly. "You seem to know an awful lot more than a surface dweller should about pegasi affairs."

Karma blinked at this, a slightly shocked expression behind those wide eyes, before she suddenly growled under her breath and tossed her head away from me, suddenly finding a spot down the road that deserved to be looked at more so than me. "I don't have to help you, I don't even have a reason to help you. You can either take it, or go get blown up, see if I care." She thrust herself up to her hooves and away from me while turning her attention to Stan. "We're leaving!"

Stan looked up to her with his best 'I-totally-wasn't-eaves-dropping-on-your-conversation' expression.

"Hey, I..." I tried to reach a hoof out to Karma, her harsh reaction wasn't what I had been expecting. But she pulled herself even further away from me while making it out as if she was getting our bags together, throwing her suit in her bag. Afterwards she hoof-tossed my two rifles at me, which skidded and clanked into my armor bag at my side. I bit back a retort, but did my best to twist it into a sigh. 

Working the bag over one wing while attempting to tie my two practically useless rifles into looping over my other wing took long enough for both Karma to grab her now single bag, and Stan to grab his along with re-situating his sword across his back within easy reach of a twist of his head. They both stepped out onto the road and looked at me.

Sadly, being crowded down with two rifles and a bag of armor was going to make flying difficult, if not even more tiring. I made a mental note to attempt to be a little less straight forwards in my assumptions, less I end up as a pack-pony again, before working my way onto the road while again doing my best not to snap at either of the two of them giving me their questioning gazes.

"I'm fine, I'm fine..." I muttered under my breath when I stepped in slightly behind Karma, who in turn was behind Stan leading the front, and starting us out at a decent trot. Karma had watched me for a few seconds before following, I was able to keep up a fairly decent pace behind the two of them. As much as I hated walking, things could be far worse.

At this time, having a better (or not so better in someponies point of view), visual view of Stan's rump, I noticed his cutie mark. The exact same hat he wore, though looking like it was brand new, marked in silver designs.

After a few minutes of silent walking, and pondering what the hell kind of talent a hat would indicate, I remembered something else. I picked my pace up a little to get more even with Karma, who looked at me with scrutiny as I leaned a little closer to her, attempting to whisper.

"So, about the See-Aie-Kay-Eee thing earlier...what's his deal?" Maybe spelling it would be better.

Nope, not illiterate apparently. Stan stumbled, coughing and quickening his pace to a much faster trot, as if he was trying to fight the urge to bolt away from the two of us. Karma rolled her eyes and groaned before doing her best to catch up and motioning for me to follow. When I got re-caught back up she turned her head towards me in our half-run.

"He is terrified of the things. It's a secret to everypony."




Hours later we hadn't even stopped for a lunch break, but at least had settled down to a normal trot. Karma had at some point mentioned that we would get food and water soon as we reached the rest of their 'gang' in a bit, but that felt like ages ago. I was looking up at the cloud cover and wishing I could take a nap on a nice comfy cloud when Karma's voice interrupted my day dreaming.

"There we are!"

And we were back to running again. I hissed out a pained breath as I swiveled around Karma to look ahead, seeing what looked like two large wagons in the distance, and a few colorful spots that I were guessing were other ponies. There wasn't much else to see as we got closer, but eventually I was able to tell one of the taller figures having turned their head to finally notice us. This same figure got to their hooves and headed out to meet us in a similar run to ours.

Stan and Karma skidded to a stop, causing me to have skidded forwards even further in my delay to find myself in a small dust cloud in the middle of the road, having tried to have looked around them before. Shaking my head I heard some small coughing in front of me, with a few blinks through the dust I noticed a tall unicorn mare.

She drew her head back slightly and tilted it, giving me that questioning look through sky-blue eyes that I had gotten used to since yesterday. Her mane was cut short, colored in stripes of that same sky-blue color and white, while supporting a coat of misty looking gray. She was easily a couple of hooves taller than me, and might have even rivaled Stan in height, with a long spiraled horn. Her tail was kept long, switching back and forth behind her before she suddenly twisted around me and made her way to my traveling companions.

A view of her cutie mark as she moved around me showed what sort of looked like three light blue tear drops, or rain drops (I really couldn't tell the difference), in a triangle pattern. She first headed over to Stan and lowered her head to give a friendly nuzzle to his cheek, causing him to grin before Karma stepped forwards and lifted herself to her hind hooves to give the tall unicorn a hug, causing them both to smile.

The happy expressions on their faces almost made me feel a little lonely. Though Karma noticed me shortly after, letting go of her Unicorn friend and dropping back down to four hooves before motioning over towards me with a shake of her head.

"That's Cloud. Cloud, this here is Momma Rainy."

The Unicorn huffed at that, rolling her eyes at Karma and at Stan's quiet snicker before giving me a small smile and nodding her head downwards in a respectful action towards me.

"My name is Rainy Day."

Karma tilted herself to gently nudge into Rainy as she stepped forwards and looked behind me. Her altered gaze caused me to look over my own shoulder to notice three more colored pony-figures heading towards us, stallions. In the lead was a poofy sunshine yellow maned unicorn with a coat of vibrant pink. To each of his sides were a earth pony of strictly navy blue, and another unicorn with a dark purple coat. The neon green mane above him made him look a bit unnerving.

As they got closer to us I saw the dark purple pony looking a little excited, but then he narrowed his violet eyes at me, looking me over as they hoofed forwards before suddenly throwing his head back into the air with a disgusted look.

"Not a mare! Waste of my time!" He yelled and did an abrupt turn-around and headed back to the wagons. Okay...

Karma snickered, and I suddenly remembered the other ponies behind me. Stepping around slightly behind her as the other two stallions stopped in front of us. The navy blue fellow was looking behind him at the purple one, before turning to look at me. Mr. poofy-mane gave me a once-over with teal colored eyes before they stopped on my wings. At this he then looked at Karma, raising an eyebrow.

"This is Cloud, he's an okay feather head," She said and tossed a hoof over my already over burdened back and wings. I gave a grunt at the extra weight. "If not a little bit of a wimp." Gee, thanks.

The pink unicorn looked at us for a moment or two longer, before suddenly grinning and stepped in quite quickly to my other side facing towards the wagons. Another hoof was brought down onto my back, and I think I might have felt something give inside of me.

"Well I guess its okay, it is Friday after all!" He yelled happily.

I promptly fell into the dirt.

"Thanks Light, you already broke him." Karma said somewhere above me.

"You weren't kidding about the wimp part..."

Life was getting better all the time.
> We are all a little mad here.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't think I am a good pony." He told me one night.

I remember tilting my head so I could look at him, but still kept my head on his chest. Even though I had grown comfortable within his presence, this was entirely different. It wasn't just the honesty behind it, I had grown used to the difference between honesty and deceit. This was a different feeling, that I couldn't, and still cant, describe.

"Why do you think that?" I questioned him quietly.

"Ive hurt other ponies," He was watching the ceiling, as if he could see through it. "Ive hurt other ponies, and I didn't feel bad about it, I wasn't even concerned about them."

"We all make mistakes, no pony is perfect," I suddenly smiled at him, poking the side of his ribs with a hoof. "Except you, in my eyes." It had been a joke between us, and I had hoped it would cheer him up out of his dark mood.

"That's the whole point, I'm not perfect." He huffed and completely turned his head away from where I couldnt watch him.

I didn't reply right away. I let him have his moment, whatever it was. But eventually I raised my head and leaned further over him, our chests touching and my mane falling near his face. He blinked, noticing the movement and looked back up at me curiously.

"You don't need to be perfect. You just need to try to be better."

I softly nuzzled my muzzle next to his, and laid back down where I had been before. He never did reply.




"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

I stood near what was apparently a very angry purple pony. After being dragged to my hooves and equally dragged over to the two wagons, I now found myself in the 'thick of it'. When the unicorn that Karma had called 'Light' quite literally tossed me to the wolves in front of the rest of the other ponies to introduce me, the angry unicorn who seemed very disappointed I wasn't a mare had spoken up, loudly.

"Last I checked, you weren't the leader of this group, Psych." Karma said behind him, I hadn't even noticed her sneaking around him with my face full of angry pony, that and I still had my heavy luggage attached to me. I was sore, my back hurt, I suddenly and sadly had everyone's attention, and now I had been yelled at. I wasn't noticing much else right now.

I think I might have seen the angry pony called 'Psych''s left eye twitch slightly. He very slowly turned around towards Karma, who stood a few paces away from him. He threw on a grin that made me feel that much more uncomfortable.

"Oh, and you are? Its perfectly fine to bring in another when we are already over-burdened as it is, but bringing along a 'PEGASUS' THAT DOESN'T HAVE ANY CLUE, THAT WE HAVE TO FOALSIT OUT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE?!" By the time he got to the end of his rant he was yelling again and had crossed the distance between him and Karma, their heads nearly touching. Even though she stood her ground, her ears did fold back with a twitch. After a few minutes of silence where the rest of the ponies around us had all nearly stopped breathing, Karma gave him one of her own grins.

"We all know your just angry because you cant join the mile high club," She let out a huff of breath at him, losing the grin and thrusting her head and chest forwards knocking him back slightly, but their heads butting together. "Light says he can stay, then he's staying, get over yourself." Said in a much threatening matter than before.

I saw all the ponies slowly turn their heads to Psych. It was another one of those quiet moments where we all waited for the inevitable reaction. Instead, Psych nearly lunged forwards, causing him and Karma to stumble back a few feet while locking their lips together in a forceful kiss. Everypony's eyes grew wide at once, along with Karma's nearly bugging out of her own head.

Quickly afterwards Psych let out a small muffled screech and yanked his head back away from her, falling onto his rump as Karma sputtered and back peddled away from him while spitting in the dirt. Psych held one hoof over his lips while the other pointed at her dramatically.

"THE BITCH BIT ME!" His head darted back and forth between the ponies around us.

"Yeah and I don't know where your mouth has been!" Karma hissed at him in reply.

"FILLY FOOLING HUSSY!"

"STALLION STUFFING WHORE!"

"ENOUGH!" Came from Light as he hopped between the two of them, glaring back and forth. Instantly both Karma and Psych glared hatefully in his direction in one single motion, making him tense and lift a hoof nervously. "Behave..." he said more calmly after those few tense moments. Psych grumbled quietly under his breath, something about 'sausage-fest' while bringing up a hoof to push back his green mane. Afterwards he raised up and headed behind one of the wagons, though after a second he darted his head back around and stuck his tongue out at Karma.

Karma was rubbing a hoof over her mouth and had been attempting to ignore Psych's leave, but she did notice him darting back around the wagon, and she just as quickly stuck her own tongue out at him before stepping back over towards me. Muttering under her own breath in quiet retaliation, while attempting to pretend to be oblivious to the other ponies as she undid the straps holding my bag to my back.

"...What the hell just happened?" I turned my head towards Karma as she worked the bag off for me, and then moved to unclasp my weapons. She rolled her eyes and didn't answer me, but I am fairly sure I distinctly heard the snickering of other ponies within our vicinity. The other tall female unicorn named Rainy Day stepped to my side and swept out a hoof in the others general direction.

"Well, you've met Psych Ward." She said while attempting to hold back a smirk, behind the wagon I could clearly hear a "Its Psychadous!", which Rainy clearly ignored. This made Karma giggle, quickly coming out of her funk as she stepped around me once I was free of my luggage. Using the straps of the bag she was able to carry both the armor and the guns over to the opposite wagon, unclasping the guns to lean them up and then tossing the bag with her head into the wagon with a loud clank as it hit.

Instantly, out jumped a small metal looking creature. It landed with a roll into the dirt and came up with a robotic yipping noise, which it then began to run circles between Karma's legs happily. While me and Rainy watched, she smiled down at the thing, patting it on its head with a hoof which caused its eyes to flash green. She then pointed a hoof behind us which caused the little robot to circle around in a jump, wagging its tail with a clanking sound as it looked behind us where she had pointed.

Both me and Rainy turned our heads to see Stan sulking under his hat, giving an almost pitiful look to the robot creature. Hearing a serious of yipping caused him to shuffle to his hooves and take off in the opposite direction, the little robot darting around us as it took after him. A series of "No!, No!, Bad dog!" followed their chase, while Karma, Rainy, and a few other ponies that Stan had caught attention of laughed.

Things kept getting stranger and stranger, but as I sat around a bunch of laughing ponies I couldn't help finding it contagious. Letting off a quiet snicker as I turned my attention back around to Karma, who was suddenly attacked by a white unicorn foal jumping out of the wagon, a foal that was almost as tall as Karma was, landing on her back which caused Karma to nearly stumble, then hopping down. Shaking her bright red mane back and forth before looking at the older mare with a grin before noticing Rainy sitting next to me.

"MOMMA!" was let out at a high pitched squeal that caused Karma's body to twitch in pain with her closer proximity to what was obviously a filly, that took off at a run towards Rainy, who seemed immune to the squeal's pitch. The other ponies around us winced a bit even though they were no where near her, and I even had to rub a hoof over an ear.

Rainy stepped around me to scoop up the filly with a single hoof and hugged her tight with a smile, causing the filly to continue to grin ear-to-ear as she was placed back down. It was after this did she notice me, blinking bright pink eyes and darting around what was obviously her mother. Rainy chuckled quietly.

"'Appy, say hello to the nice colt," She spoke while looking behind her, the little filly looking at me from behind her mother. Rainy turned her attention back to me afterwards. "Cloud, this is Happy Day, my daughter."

At the mention of her name, the little filly seemed to brighten a bit at being introduced. I leaned to the side and peeked behind Rainy and gave the foal a smile in hopes that would bring her out further. Lucky enough she stepped out and picked up a hoof to wave it in my direction. I had to admit, even though her color combination resemble nothing of her mother, except maybe the height of her frame, the white, pink, and red was very cute. I noticed her eyes drift over my back, and they got even wider at seeing my wings.

I noticed Karma stepping to my side where she huffed and sat down, lifting her upper body so she could rub at her back, though she showed no ill will to the blank-flanked filly. She looked at me, rolling her eyes playfully, before drawing her attention to Happy.

"I think Stan might need some help, Appy..." Karma mentioned, drawing her sentence out as she lifted her muzzle to indicate behind her. All three of us looked in the direction to see Stan having given up the good fight, leaning against one of the wagons as the robot dog from before apparently had decided that one of Stan's back hooves was mating material.

This was the point I out-right laughed, seeing the robot dog hump Stan's hoof like there was no tomorrow was just too much to fight back being nervous any longer. Specially with the disgusted look Stan was throwing in the dog's direction. The adding flashing green of the robot's eyes as it went to town only added to the hilarity of the situation.

Karma's shoulder bumped into mine as her snickers followed up my laughter, even Rainy had raised a hoof to try to cover her giggles. Happy on the other had gave an over-dramatic roll of her eyes with an added sigh to add to the effect while turning around and heading over to Stan.

"Bad puppy, come'er Dominic!" She yelled over to them, not quite as harsh as her squeal from before. The robot 'puppy' stopped its fake love making at the sound of her voice, jumping off of Stan's leg and twisting around to make a be-line towards Happy. She lifted to her back hooves and caught her little friend as it jumped onto her, causing her to giggle and roll around with him. The little robot dog's eyes flashing and emitting ecstatic sounding yips all the while.

"Great, now Ive got to get her clean all over again," grumbled Rainy to my side.

"You know she's just going to find another way to get dirty later," Karma smirked over to Rainy.

At this point we noticed Stan shaking his back leg as if he had something else to dislodge from it, turning his head to glare at Karma as if the situation had been all her fault, which it had. Karma on the other hand gave him the most innocent expression she could, pointing at herself with a hoof and mouthing the words 'Who me?' at him. Stan lifted his own hoof in reply, pointing at his eyes, and then pointing at her with a glower. This only made Karma laugh harder then before.

"You know damn well that its all Tech's fault!" she yelled over at him with the same grin from before. Stan was rolling his eyes about the same time a pale green unicorn stepped nearer to Rainy's side and sat down, quirking up an eyebrow.

"What's my fault?" he questioned, looking at each of us in turn, with a tilt to his head. Rainy also re-sat down and gave a innocent shrug of her shoulders before looking past me at Karma, who also shrugged in the same innocent manner and nudged her head over at Stan. The green pony blinked, giving a offended expression once he had noticed. "I have told you guys time and time again if that stupid canine's wires had been properly color coded instead of all being green then that wouldn't have happened I mean really who puts all grounding wires into a robot in the first place not including the year and model of that thing is already two hundred years old I might add and its not like you guys let me keep any good parts I find because Celestia-be-damned if I'm ever allowed any new toys and..." Rainy nudged the green pony with her shoulder, cutting off his speech right as I was losing interest. He huffed, raising his upper body up and crossing his hooves over his chest with as much of a dignified hurt expression that he could muster.

"Just say hello, Tech Support." Karma said next to me. Causing the green pony to sling his head in her direction and narrow his eyes at her. She quickly brought her hooves up to her chest and dramatically allowed herself to flop over with a choked sound, as if Tech had actually thrown daggers in her direction. This caused both her and Rainy to snicker afterwards as she got back up, while I tried my best to bite back my own amusement to save the stallion from any more antics. Tech held out a hoof at me, and I gently bumped my own against his. He then stood up and gave me a small bow.

"Tech Support, at your service! Unlike some mares and stallions around here I can actually prove sane and informative." He turned, giving me a view of his flank where a computer screen sat, with a cracked screen.

"A broken computer is informative?" I couldn't help but ask. A broken computer actually seemed like the least informative thing a cutie mark could represent. Tech's face fell into a pout, much to the mares amusement as they snickered, again.

"Tech can hack any computer you sit him in front of," Rainy replied to my question, which quickly caused Tech's mood to brighten. "Without him, we'd be struggling to get into anywhere." And the last part made him openly beam while throwing his chest out and his head up at the praise.

"Yeah, and he also broke poor little Dominic." Karma leaned out from next to me and threw a Tech a playful smirk. He on the other hand just narrowed his eyes at her and stomped off in a huff towards what looked to be a fire pit that the other ponies were working on making. A large navy blue earth stallion was just throwing a random piece of salvaged lumber into the pile as he caught my glance into that direction. He stopped with a smile and waved a hoof at me.

"His name is Mist Blade," Karma said next to me while I waved a hoof back politely, with her and Rainy following suit. "Don't let his looks fool you, Ive seen him cut through a whole slew of raiders just by himself!" Raising her voice and slicing a hoof across her throat while sticking her tongue out afterwards in a dead expression.

The big blue pony was watching Karma, rolling his eyes with the same smile, though as he turned around he accidentally tripped over a section of brush that had been thrown into the pile from before, causing him to fall straight onto his face with a groan. Picking himself up he rubbed a hoof over his now dirt covered muzzle, blinking and looking back over at the three of us having watched his stunt. I didn't know a blush could be seen through dark fur, but he quickly made a exit to go get more wood, I saw a dagger hilt on his flank as he hurried off.

I noticed a even darker pony that was chopping up larger pieces of wood into smaller pieces as Mist stumbled off. I watched as two meat cleavers hung in mid-air by red-colored magic, the black coated male unicorn twisting his head back and forth in time with the cleavers smacking into the salvaged wood. As he caught me staring, he swung his head up which caused his white and dark red striped mane to sling back, blinking at me with bright red eyes.

I couldn't help but tilt back slightly, that was the scariest looking pony yet out of this colorful group. Apparently this amused him as he lowered his head and gave me a maniacal grin with wide eyes. Letting his magic twirl the cleavers in mid air as if he was going to throw them in my direction. As I visibly twitched, he only laughed to himself and went back to cutting.

"Don't let Cleave scare you, he likes to get a rise out of ponies," Rainy mentioned, raising to her hooves and motioning for me and Karma to follow to find a spot next to the wood pile. "Meat Cleaver is our cook, and a very good one at that."

"Oh please tell me we have some radigator left, please!" Karma bounced to her hooves next to me, following while licking her lips and grinning at me. "Its tasty, you've just got to try it."

"Um...sure." I replied, with an attempt at a smile to hide the fact I didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

On the other side of the pile from us, as the three of us settled to sitting down, was another pony. He peeked his head up and looked at us over the wood, teal eyes throwing us an innocent expression.

"Ugh..." Karma quietly groaned next to me and threw a hoof up to her face as the light blue pony with the teal eyes and mane jumped to his hooves and stepped around the pile, giving the three of us a small nervous grin. Rainy simply blinked and didn't say anything, looking to Karma who was narrowing her eyes at the other pony. As her expression refused to crack under his gaze he nervously pawed at the dirt with a hoof.

"Um...hey guys!" He tried with the friendly approach, looking between the three of us in turn. I was just about to open my mouth when...

"What do you want Static." Karma flatly said, refusing to take her eyes off the other pony as if she was waiting for him to give her a reason to strike at him.

"Well, its just um...you know," He stepped around us, tilting his head over to the wagon that Karma had slung my armor bag into, my two nova-rifles leaning against its side. "I sorta saw you come in with those and I was wondering if maybe I could..." As he moved I noticed the white jagged mark slung across both his flanks, it looked like a actual lightning bolt.

"You can play with them if you leave us alone." was Karma's continued flat reply.

The light blue earth pony perked up instantly, throwing a hoof up and giving Karma and over exaggerated salute and running off to the wagon with a gleeful bounce to his hooves. He laid down next to them and grabbed one to start tinkering with it, sticking his tongue out and closing one eye as his hooves moved over the weapon.

"His name is Static Shock, and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw a manticore." was muttered by Karma as she looked away from the scene with distaste. I tilted my head at her reaction, and I felt Rainy lean closer to me.

"Static is very good with energy weapons." Rainy said quietly before glancing over to Karma as the other mare gave a huff of annoyance.

"Yeah, and he's probably been eyeing those weapons as soon as he noticed you carrying them, not that he actually cared about anything else for a actual introduction." Karma nearly spit out the remark as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

"I guess your right..." I said quietly, while looking back over my shoulder at Static who was now holding what looked like a flash light between his teeth, and already one of my rifles looked like it was in a hundred pieces, scattered around him. I did my best not to let out a whimper in sympathy to the weapon's plight.

The sky was slowly getting darker now behind its veil of clouds, giving the earth beneath our hooves that orange color from before. Sitting between Rainy and Karma made me feel a bit less uncomfortable with being the stranger in the situation, though I had little idea of what the other ponies around us were planning. The pile of wood in front of us had been made far large than needed for a normal fire. Cleave appeared to have stopped chopping wood to digging through a box he had pulled from a wagon, tossing random things into a kettle that he had placed behind him. Light and Tech looked like they were talking over the remains of an old radio that looked like it had been surgically evolved into a computer. Psych had even came out of his hiding place and was rolling a medium sized barrel towards the fire while carrying another box filled with beakers filled with random liquids with his magic beside him.

I ruffled my feathers slightly, getting more comfortable when Rainy's filly came up behind the three of us. She was tugging on Rainy's tail when we three noticed her, with Dominic behind her wagging his curved pipe-made tail. She was covered in dirt from her rumble with her pet from before.

"Momma, can I stay up for Friday?" Happy blinked innocently at her mother with huge pink eyes as she just barely hinted at a whine in the request, making me and Karma cringe slightly. Rainy rolled her eyes and pushed herself to her hooves while shaking her head. "But Mommmmmm......!!", that last part was well than more enough for both me and Karma to thrust our hooves against our ears. That foal had quite the whine on her, and Rainy seemed all but immune to it, lucky for her. 

"You know your not old enough for Fridays yet, 'Appy. Back into the wagon, its almost bed time." The mare said matter-of-factually to her daughter, who at this point still refused to move as she bit her bottom lip and looked up at her mother pitifully. Rainy simply lowered her head and scooted the filly along, while Happy let herself be pushed towards the wagon, leaving a foal-size drag through the dirt as she and her mother made their way over to the wagons. Dominic let out a single bark before turning and walking off to stay with its foal master, eyes blinking every couple of steps.

"So why is Friday so special?" I finally got the chance to ask Karma, while turning my head towards her once we had been left alone. She had been watching Light and Tech continue their talk over the radio looking machine, which had apparently turned into a mini argument with Light having smacked the thing, and Tech looking like he had been the one struck instead.

"Well, I'm sure you can tell, things down here aren't so great with a lot of ponies. So, our group has made it a tradition that whenever we can, we try to have fun one night. Sing, dance, tell stories, drink, that sorta thing." She brought up a hoof and curved it around to indicate the others around us.

"So its a party in other words." I tilted my head at her, it seemed kind of odd for a group of ponies to just be having a party out in the middle of the wasteland.

"Pretty much. Normally, we are just a tiny caravan of scavengers. We go around, fill the wagons with stuff we intend to sell at the next settlement. Keep whatever we can for ourselves. Whenever we are doing decent enough we have one of these little get-together things. Its how I knew Stan was going to meet us, we don't like for anyone to miss it. Since we don't really know when we will be able to do this again."

"Well, it sounds efficient enough." I nodded to her explanation.

"It does a pony good not to worry about things once in awhile. Times are bad, but we weren't made to be like this. Having fun just reminds us to be ponies." Karma turned her head towards me, and I noticed then that it had got even darker in the span of the short conversation. It made it difficult to see her full expression, but she seemed rather serious about the last statement. "That, and there are strengths in numbers."

"Yeah, I understand that." Seemed simple when she put things like that, these ponies stayed together because not only was it smart, but they could do better for themselves as a whole rather than apart, despite their many conflicting differences.

With that being said to myself, We noticed Light heading over to stand near the pile of scrap wood with Mist and Psych at his sides. At the same time, Stan and another new pony came up from the opposite side. The unicorn standing next to Stan had a grin on his face as he looked to Light, even in this nearly faded light he stuck out like a sore thumb with his color combination. Neon blue coat with a equally neon red, maybe even orange, mane that stuck out in random spots.

"Alright everypony! I'm tired of waiting, so lets get the fire started shall we?!" Every pony turned their attention to Light as he raised his voice, most of them heading over to stand nearer. Rainy had finally got her daughter back to bed and I noticed her coming up behind us in my peripheral vision, though it looked like Static could care less as he was still using the flash light to tear apart one of my guns. "Let'er rip, Pyro!"

The unicorn next to Stan bounced forwards, Karma and the others raised their voices in supporting 'hollar as he dramatically bowed before turning away from us towards the wood, the turning motion gave me a good view of his cutie mark, a multicolored fireball was attached to his flank. Now I knew where both the name, and the source of our fuel was coming from.

The pony called Pyro lifted his head, orange magic covering his horn as above it burst into small flame. He slowly tilted and curved his head around in a circle, cracking his neck, as the flame slowly brightened into a bigger ball. Finally he lifted a hoof and casually dusted himself off as if the effort was nothing for him when the fireball took off from his horn. Suddenly the fire ball was much larger, and landed squarely into the middle of the wood. The fire acted almost like a liquid as it swirled over its food source and crackled into its life supporting being.

"Thank you, thank you everypony!" Pyro instantly turned to the small crowd of ponies with a grin, only to have a section of his tail swish through the fire, lighting the tip of it aflame. At our wide-eyed expressions, Pyro gave a confused blink before slowly turning his head around, where his tail decided to suddenly alight even further with a 'Fwoosh!' at the added attention it got.

"NOT AGAIN." Pyro squealed and zipped over to Stan who was already standing to assist in the stomping of the flame-tail. Pyro was sulking, but the laughter of the ponies around us, including my own, ended up with him being unable to keep the troubled look for long. Eventually he looked over towards me, Karma, and Rainy, shrugging his shoulders with the same grin on his face from before. "It'll grow back, it always does!"

"That would be the last of our crew, his name is Pyro Blast." mentioned Karma next to me as I had raised a hoof to wave to him. I noticed Mist leaving Light's side to head over to us and lay down on the other side of Rainy. Psych on the other hoof stepped near his barrel he had rolled over from before, his magic grabbing the top of it and started to attempt to yank it open. Cleave was dragging his kettle over to the fire with his red-coated magic and Light made his way back to the radio looking contraption where Tech waited, giving the green unicorn a nod that allowed Tech to use his bright yellow magic to turn a few knobs on the front of the machine. At first nothing but static came out, but with another thump of a hoof from Light (and Tech's exaggerated painful look), the machine burst into a electronic sounding music, with a rhythm that made you want to tap a hoof.

Light noticed my attention, I must have looked a little startled to see that these ponies had found a way to even make their own music out here. He just gave me a smirk, his horn glowing in soft blonde magic as a pair of well-worn head-phones pulled onto his neck. A magical turn of one of the knobs located on the headphones made the music alter into a lower pitch, and I could swear I could physically feel it through my coat.

"My name is Light Shield, and today is Friday!" He said while lifting to his hind hooves and throwing his upper ones out to his sides, causing his poofy mane to fall back. The other ponies including Rainy and Karma gave a 'Woop!' of approval at his introduction.

Maybe I should have been concerned I was out here at nighttime, no idea where I was, and with a bunch of random crazy surface dwellers I had just met. But, Karma had been right, it was just about having fun. Who cares about the consequences, right?

Or maybe it was just the madness of the situation rubbing off on me, I still couldn't tell you.
> Lately, I've been losing sleep.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was supposed to have been gone. But I never claimed to be an honest pony.

No one was going to actually see a dirt colored "dirt" pony like myself though. I had laid on the ground near the side of the building in shadow and quietly watched as he met up with his "friends". I doubt he would have forgiven me if I got myself caught, but I also remember that I didn't care. My logical brain was telling me I needed to see this, less I forget.

His armor was back on, hiding everything but his head since his helmet was off. His fellow soldiers in similar garb flew down shortly after from the tower, one of them patting their comrade on the back between his wings and seeming to praise him for some reason or another. I couldn't hear from that distance, It shouldn't have been any of my business anyways.

He had to go back, I told myself while I watched the three of them take flight, heading to the clouds. I lifted my head, thinking to myself, wondering when was going to be the next time we would have a chance to see one another. He was smart enough to have found a way to send messages to my PipBuck, but it just wasn't the same.

I was supposed to have been gone, I reminded myself. He did not want to be seen with me. Something about it not being good for either of us, it was for the best I left before anypony showed up. He promised me that it would be alright.

I couldn't help but make a mental note, that he never looked back. Not even once, just to check.




"A long, long time ago, before the bombs fell, and even longer before that..."

Most of us were laid out near the fire, which the group had let smolder down just enough to let us see Cleave. The black-coated pony stood in front of the fire, letting what light it was able to produce to give him a eerie orange outline to his frame.  We all had found our particular sitting or laying spots, each with coffee mugs that we were currently drinking some sort of tasty fruit mixture that Psych had produced from his chemicals and barrel. While it was crazy to think I had no idea exactly what had been used in the semi-clear green fluid, it tasted absolutely wonderful. Much better than anything we'd had above the clouds, I was already on my third cup.

Cleave stood above us, dramatically flaring out his mane with a shake of his head as he stood watching the group. Those red eyes just added to the effect he was trying to produce with the current atmosphere. Apparently, he liked ghost stories. Not too much of a surprise there. With a grin causing his teeth to look extra bright against his black coat, he continued.

"There used to be a pony family called the 'Bales'. Hay Bale had just moved his family from Appleloosa up to Baltimare where the soil was more fertile at the time. From there with what savings he had, he was able to buy some land, and over time increase that to more than just an acre or two."

At this point, Pyro raised a hoof into the air and began swinging it around.

"Ugh...What?" Cleave muttered with a sigh and turned his attention to Pyro.

"So what were they going to do with all that land?" Pyro asked after lowering his hoof, looking innocent.

Cleave glared at Pyro for a few quiet seconds before clearing his throat, to the amusement of Pyro who giggled shortly after while settling back down.

"Hay...they made Hay. Of course they made hay what else would they have made...rocks? ANYWAYS." That last part was said while Cleave again glared in Pyro's direction. "Mr. Bale, with his wife, had three children. One being a mare he named Little Bale. One day, Bale was expecting his grass fields when he saw a strange creature."

At this point Cleave rose to his hind hooves and reared menacingly, casting shadows over our group.

"In the middle of his field was a creature with the body of a dog, and the head of a rabbit. Bale had his gun on him, and he shot at the creature many times, but it just vanished. He didn't think much else of the incident and made his way back home to his family, but as they were finishing dinner they started to hear a beating noise outside the walls of their log home."

Cleave let his upper body fall to the ground with a much harder 'stomp' than normal. Lowering his head and smirking up at us from under his fallen mane while he used his tail to fan the smoldering wood behind him. Embers scattered upwards into the sky and died just as quickly as they raised. He was fairly good at putting on a show.

"Every night, the sounds would get worse. Bale and his sons tried each night to run out and catch the pony responsible, but each night they came up empty hoofed. Weeks followed, and the Bale colts and filly began hearing even stranger noises, rats gnawing at their bedposts..."

His back hoof lifted and pushed against a piece of timber that had fallen from the fire, causing it to scrape against both wood and ash in an awful crunching noise.

"...and then, the children would wake up with their blankets snatched from them in the middle of the night..."

Another wave of his tail, the embers brightened harshly against the gust before dieing down once more.

"...as time went on, as if it couldn't get any worse for the Bale family, they started hearing whispering noises."

A glance was given over to Tech's music machine, where he stood by waiting his turn. A quick few knobs were twisted into place with yellow magic and a soft static was emitted through the speakers. Cleave then continued.

"It was just whispers at first, sound like a poor, feeble, old mare's singing. Not long after, poor Little Bale woke up with welts, bites, scratches, and a number of other small wounds. Bale had swore to keep his family's 'problem' between themselves, but soon he decided he needed help, and called on his neighbor Jay Bird, a pegasus, to help."

He then sat down before us, getting into the more lengthy part of the story I guessed.

"Even with Jay Bird sleeping over, the noises continued, getting louder and louder until Jay couldn't stand it anymore. 'IN CELESTIA'S NAME, WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

He had raised his voice, throwing his hooves out to us in a desperate maneuver. It caused a few of us to lean back away from him, which he couldn't hide back a tiny grin at our reaction.

"Things did quiet down that night, but it was far from the end. As the nights followed the voice got stronger, and stronger...singing at the top of her old lungs, screeching, conversation with even more ponies that were not there...the poor family was tortured every night. And even we don't know what happened to that poor family, but the story is far from over there, but I'll have to tell you ponies that another time..."

By now we were all leaning forwards and listening intently to Cleave's ghost story. I never even noticed my flank seemed itchy, reaching around a hoof and brushing against my cutie mark's location. I turned my head around to see if I had anything on me to cause the irritation when suddenly raised above me was a massive figure in the darkness, clawed horns reaching down from the creature's head and claws thrusting out from its appendages, which just as suddenly caught fire at their tips.

Squealing I darted to my hooves and took a quick flap of my wings to shoot across the dieing fire to the other side, with the sound of laughing ponies following me. Blinking I realized the fire I had just flew over was being restored by magic, and there Pyro was, front hooves tied with sickly branches and a few tied into the top of his mane, the tips of the branches still barely alight as he looked at me with a smirk.

"Ooga-booga!" he half-snarled falsely at me before rolling into the dirt with a laugh as his magic pulled off the extra appendages and put our their ends. Stan having made his way over to his friend, where Pyro reached up for a high-hoof with the larger earth pony.

Cleave was also grinning at me, giving me a little mocking bow to the end of the 'performance'. 

As Pyro was getting to his hooves, horn aglow with his magic to sweep over the fire to brighten it back to its former glory, Karma stepped out of no where behind me, head tilted with my coffee cup between her teeth, and holding it out for me to take. Lifting a wing and looping a feather forwards allowed me to take the chipped ceramic and bring the now-full again cup to my lips, to gloomily sip the heavenly tasting liquid down to cool my nerves.

The others around us had all moved off in their individual groups afterwards, chatting away with their own drinks in hoof or magic. Karma simply stood next to me watching her friends while I drank, and then hiccuped, with her snickering quietly after.

"Psych calls it Kungaloosh, whatever that means. I'm guessing its delayed 'kick' is sneaking up on you."

"Kick? Wait, this has alcohol in it?" Only ever having a rare taste of Wild Pegasus, I hadn't noticed.

"Well duh," She rolled her eyes at me, afterwards piercing me with a You-must-be-an-idiot look. "Of course it has alcohol in it, what's the point otherwise?" With that said she lifted a hoof and shrugged a shoulder at the same time.

"But it tastes so good and doesn't burn going down or anything..." Peeking into my cup, which I now found empty. Odd, it had just been full a few seconds ago. I lifted it upside down with a feather twist and shook it a little. Definitely empty. That's a shame.

"Don't let Psych hear you," She nudged her shoulder into mine, leaning closer to lower the tone of her voice. "His head is big enough as it is."

"THAT'S THE WAY YOU LIKE IT." Was heard to our right, where Psych, Mist, and Light were hovered over what looked to be like playing cards spread across the ground. Psych smirked in our direction as the other two laughed.

Karma groaned and slid a hoof slowly down her face before turning to the three of them.

"BITE ME." She yelled over.

"WITH PLEASURE." Came Psych's reply.

Karma's head lowered and gave Psych her best 'death stare' while he simply smirked at her, eventually she rolled her eyes and turned away from the group, heading back around to the other side of the fire by herself. I was left standing there, looking between her and the card-playing group before eventually turning to follow her, not knowing what else to really do with myself since I hardly knew these other ponies.

I found Karma having laid down next to the fire, slightly turned to where it could warm her side. It seemed like a good idea so I lay down opposite of her so we could face one another. I lifted the wing that was closer to the fire so I could enjoy the warmth hitting the feathers underneath, the other wing sat my cup down before folding to my back afterwards. During this movement she had turned her head towards me with a slight tilt and a raised brow, but she seemed to have shrugged it off once I laid down, and she was back to looking at the fire again.

Around us I could hear the rest of her gang simply talking and enjoying themselves, Tech was behind their music machine, bobbing his head along with the music he had turned on down to a reasonable level while his magic played with random cords and wires he seemed to be trying to put together into some sort of pattern. Cleave had turned back to messing with the kettle he had originally dragged over, and was on the other side of the fire attempting to push it near the flames with his magic. The card-playing group had went back to their game, with Mist giving a hoof-pump in triumph when I glanced over, Light and Psych groaning as they pushed little silvery looking objects in the blue earth pony's direction as he grinned.

Nearer to the wagons where the firelight was darker stood Rainy, Stan, and Pyro. All three had drinks, Pyro holding his own with his orange hued magic, and the other two cups hovered in a soft white glow. With Rainy's horn shimmering in the same color it was obvious to tell she was holding the other two, one for herself, and the other for Stan, making it easier for the earth pony to lean over and take a sip out of his cup without having to use both front hooves to hold it.

"You are a very curious type." Karma said over my shoulder, which caused me to turn my head back around to re-notice her watching me once again. She was regarding me with a half-smile.

"Well, can you blame me? Ive really only learned about the surface through classes. I am finding most of this a lot to take in," I motioned around us with a hoof. "Specially in the short time period." 

"I suppose your right, is it everything you expected it to be?" She tilted her head at me.

"Well..." I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. "In some ways yes, obviously the atmosphere for one. You got to admit, it is a bit dusty down here." I tried giving her a smile at that mild joke.

"Quite." A smirk from her, either my humor or dimness caused.

"But, we were always told that surface dwellers were savage. Your group seems far from it." Taking on a more serious note.

She didn't reply straight away at that, simply looking at me for a few moments before she turned her head to look back into the fire to watch the flames continue their flickering, it made her normally dark eyes seem to glow in the shifting orange light.

"There are plenty of ponies that are savage down here. But I could ask you the same question you asked me before, can you really blame them? We have very few real societies, resources, or safety. Some ponies can continue to remain sane and make do with what we have, but others in either desperation or choice decide to survive in other ways."

I remained quiet to her small speech, though I continued to watch her intently, as she seemed to be suddenly talking to herself, and not just me. Then again, I was used to that.

"We have gangs, raiders, cannibals, ghouls, and Celestia-only-knows what else as far as savage ponies go. That isn't even including everything else in the wasteland that wants to kill us. Going savage seems like an eventual occurrence, sad as that is to think. But it doesn't mean we deserve it."

"I did not mean to imply..." I leaned a little closer trying to apologize, and she only shook a hoof at my attempt.

"No, no, I know what you meant. You do not have to apologize. You can't help but think the only way you've been told to think your entire life. I know how that can feel."

I gave her a sideways glance as I turned my head towards the fire, folding my lifted wing to my back to match the other as I ruffled both in a uncomfortable reaction to the situation. Again, I was left not knowing what to say given the current conversation. Not including the fact the somber discussion was really doing a number on the buzz I had acquired from Psych's drink before, maybe it was time to turn the tables around.

"So..." I leaned closer to her and playfully nudged my shoulder against hers. "Why, 'Karma'?"

"What?" The sudden twist of her head in my direction with the wide blinking eyes instantly giving her away.

"You call me feather-head, but I am not entirely stupid. Ive kept from telling people my full name for awhile now, I can easily tell when someone is covering up theirs as well," I lowered my head and grinned at her from under fallen bangs in a mischievous manner. "So, again, why 'Karma'?"

At first she narrowed her eyes at my playful attempt to lighten the mood, even though I'll admit I was curious. She looked me up and down with that hard distrustful expression, that slowly softened as I refused to relent to her protective reaction. Her ears slowly folded back against her skull and she let out a quiet sigh.

"It seemed appropriate, all things given. An old life into a new one, sort of thing." She seemed even sadder at this and I realized how miserably I failed at a decent change to our moody talk, but her ears perked back up again in thought. "What about you?"

I looked to my left and right at her question, all the others seemed to be continuing their own conversations or games. Peeking over the fire I noticed Cleave had thrown a cover over his kettle that was now on the fire and he had made his way over to the card game to watch, and Tech was still at his machine happily playing and changing the beat of the music as he saw fit. I could turn the conversation around now, even if it was embarrassing.

So I leaned over, and whispered my full name to her, even though she hadn't given me hers.

At first she blinked, giving her head that tilt she seemed to usually produce whenever she was curious or confused. She then turned even further to give my flank a glance, looking at my cutie mark.

"I don't get it."

"Yeah well, neither do I. Apparently it has nothing to do with my mark." I shrugged, she hadn't laughed yet.

"Ah, I see....well I don't, but whatever." She turned away from me once again to look back at the fire, and we stayed quiet for a few minutes, but then I suddenly heard her snicker...

"So does that mean your parents were just having a really good time when they conceived you?"

And here comes the sex jokes.

"Or maybe your talent is good sex, you do have a sword on your butt!" She laughed fully now and pointed at my flank.

"Yeah yeah, get it out of your system." I sighed and propped my head up with a hoof, looking at her unamused.

"Are you a virgin? Wait, of course your not, that's how you got your mark isn't it? HEY PSYCH!." She suddenly yelled as she waved her hoof in the air drastically to get his attention. The dark purple pony perked up from his card game where he was holding his cards with his neon green magic.

"Maybe you'll get to join the mile high club after all!" She squealed in laughter and hugged herself, rolling onto her side in a fit of continued giggles. Whatever the heck that was, it was insanely funny to her.

Psych simply looked at her confused-like, Light, Mist, and Cleave looking between the two of them before Psych lifted a hoof and slowly circled it around mid-air near the side of his head to indicate his opinion of her. His friends shrugged, and they went back to their game.  

I openly groaned at this, even though I was pleased to have gotten her out of her funk, now I had to put up with the immature jokes per usual. Thankfully though I noticed Rainy's group heading over to us, the three other colts behind her following as they made their way over. Karma noticed my misplaced attention during her laughter spell and sat back up mid-snicker to also notice the others heading our way with their cups gone.

She quickly stood up and opened her mouth to say something, and she just as quickly found my hoof thrust into her mouth to muffle whatever she decided to say. I had used my wings to draw myself up just as quickly and was hovering just barely off the ground while I used my other hoof to poke her hard.

"No. Don't you dare." And I removed my hoof from her mouth. She made a 'blegh' sound and stuck her tongue out at me.

"I don't even want to know where that hoof has been with a name like-"

"NO."

"Fiiinnneeee...You are no fun," She whined as the others stepped up to us, curious as to what was going on with a noticeable confused expression shared between the four of them. Karma gave them the best fake grin she possibly could and waved a hoof. "Hello!"

They continued to give us their confused looks before Rainy let out a small laugh and shook her head at the situation. She turned her head to look at the three colts behind her, and smiled towards them.

"Pyro, could you brighten the fire while Tech turns the music up. Stan, you promised us a dance last time."

Both blue and green stallion simultaneously lifted hooves and gave Rainy a salute before heading to their mentioned positions. Pyro stood next to the fire and lifted his magic covered horn to raise the fire up higher and brighter. Tech on the other hand pounced back behind his machine and quickly switched through a few 'settings' before reaching out and pulling out a hidden drawer.

"That DJ only wishes he had this!" He grinned while his magic yanked out a silvery looking circle.

"HEY. Careful with my music!" Light suddenly yelled over his floating cards as he hoof-pointed at Tech.

"Yeah, one of a kind, blah blah, I KNOW. Its my computer anyways!" Tech yelled back at him while his magic pulled the silvery circle behind the machine and out of my sight, though I heard him continuing to open and push random buttons. What I had originally figured was just a radio, was apparently a lot more than just that. Though I thought most computers had screens.

Meanwhile, Stan stood behind us, sitting down and using his left hoof to hold up his hat while the right was used to pull back through his mane. He peeked over at me for only a second, before turning and looking at Rainy and Karma. Both mares had shifted next to one another and were looking at Stan with a expectant expressions. This only served to make Stan blush under his already dark coat and glance away from the two of them.

"Pretty pleeaassee?" The mares whined together. Karma was able to look up at Stan with a wide-eyed pleading look due to her height, though Rainy being even taller than Stan was himself had to resort to a pout, letting her short cut bangs fall over her eyes pitifully, perfectly matched with just barely biting her lower lip.

Stan rolled his eyes even though the blush took on a more red-hue. Thrusting down his hat atop his head, giving us only a view of his muzzle as he grumbled to himself under the wide-brimmed hood.

"Alright."

Letting off happy squeals the two mares trotted in place on the tips of their hooves happily. Afterwards Karma suddenly lunged forwards and snatched a part of my mane in her teeth, catching me off-guard. All the while I had simply been watching the ordeal and the yank that sprawled me back to land on my rump next to Karma had come completely unexpected.

"Hey!" I narrowed my eyes at her as she let go, only to find her and Rainy had already brought their attention back to Stan who was standing nearer to the fire, off to the right at Tech's position behind his 'computer' as he called it, the earlier quiet music had switched off, and there was the distinct sound of him clicking something into place. Only then did he lift his head up from behind, and raise a hoof to push a red button on top of the machine.

I couldn't hear anything at first, well, except the soft static sound. But then, a stallion's voice emitted over the machine's speakers in a low soothing tone. It was strange to me, just the voice echoed softly as he spoke of dreaming and stars, and Stan was softly rocking his head to nothing but the tone of the long-dead voice.

I looked between Rainy and Karma, the two had leaned closer to one another and were smiling as they watched Stan, which brought my attention back to the stallion as he reached up with to the hat that had covered his face once again, having paused as the other unknown stallion's voice softly died through the air.

Suddenly, music blared out in a rising crescendo. I had heard music before, though sadly not as much as I would have liked and the instruments having been used were unknown to me, but there was the unmistakeable sound of hoof beats in the background, and the singer's voice raised above the sound with a boastful effort, quite different from the intro he'd produced before.

The words sang and about the time before, about love and flashing signs, and before I realized it Stan had brought himself closer to the two mares near me, causing me to back up slightly in the usual startled reaction I had been throwing around as of late. He had thrown himself onto his back hooves and stood, giving his larger body a twist around the two of them that curved his hips along with the music. His face still hidden behind his hat, and his tail flicking to draw under both Rainy and Karma's chins, the two mares produced equal squeals once more, and giggling.

Stan apparently had far better balance then I'd given the earth pony credit for, because he was still on his back hooves and had drawn away from the mares and back to the fire. Letting the light trace his form in gold as it followed along with his dance, he had raised his hat with a flick of his head in a upwards motion as he let his back hooves slide and stomp through the dirt, drawing up small dust clouds that hovered and faded around him.

I realized I was watching this pony's particular talent because when he suddenly touched a front hoof to a hip and swiveled around in a curve that drew his tail in front of him to swish and drag over a particular area I found my eyes drawn to, I felt my face going hot and knew I must be showing red through my off-white coat while my eyes darted back up. Swallowing even as the girls whistled appreciatively at the suggestive motion.

Grinning from ear to ear, he fell back forwards with a slight turn that caused all four hooves to slide across the dirt as he turned his body this way and that with both the music and the words the stallion still drew out across the speakers. The hoof beats continued stomping and clapping in the background, and I noticed both Rainy and Karma following along with beating their front hooves against the ground. Behind the fire, I could see Pyro having a grand time letting his magic manipulate the flames into dancing along with Stan.

I noticed the card-playing group having paused their game, watching both Stan and the girls while bobbing their heads along with the tune. I noticed Mist Blade was missing from the group, but upon turning my head I noticed the blue pony having snuck up behind Rainy and had innocently poked her in her flank. She startled, which caused Karma to jump as well. Mist only gave the two of them a grin and politely bowed in Rainy's direction, tilting his head and nudging it towards Stan in an invite to dance.

Rainy smiled, and turned her head towards Karma, who nodding her head and jumped up to step in front of Stan while he continued to dance. He slowed down just enough for Karma to join him and she laughed as she did her best to follow along. Next thing I knew Rainy twirled into view with Mist right behind her. All four of them moved together as the song continued, and all I could do was sit and watch, though it was hard to keep a small smile from forming.

I had been to my fair share of get-together and parties before, but none of them seemed nearly as laid back as these random ponies shifting and moving to the music in no real pattern what-so-ever. When suddenly Tech swirled into view dragging a rather scared looking Cleave along with him in some mock-up of a couple's dance I couldn't help but laugh.

Light had moved over to his machine while using his magic to turn up the volume once more, while Psych could be seen trying to sneak into the dancing fray towards the two mares. This only found him suddenly muzzle-to-muzzle with Mist, each stallion looking just as startled as the other. The girls laughed, drawing both of their attention, as Stan had pulled them to their back hooves and had a hoof around each of their waists, giving both Mist and Psych a rather smug smirk.

With both purple and blue stallion grumbling to one another at the side now, Stan suddenly 'tossed' Karma in my direction. She skittered to a stop with a heavy gasp of air and simply grinned at me after. With a lunge and a hoof thrown around my neck I was just as equally tossed into the dancing group with a laugh, where she then followed and pulled me to my back hooves with her.

I very nearly stumbled, not being used to standing in this manner, but her front hooves connected with mine and helped me to stay upright. She then motioned towards my wings with a nudge of her head before suddenly twisting the two of us to the side to dance along with Rainy and Stan.

Opening my wings I found with a few feather-flaps I could easily keep myself aloft with her as we moved. And as the one song switched to the next I found myself lost in the movement, sound, and light. Sometime along the way I remember both mares lifting their heads and singing along with the music, as we all moved in pattern with Stan's dancing. The night continued, there was much more drinking, singing, story telling, and dancing to be had once we all had drank far more than I thought was healthy. We even ate at some point, some soup-mixture that Cleave eventually got nice and hot from the fire. And the hours slowly slipped by without any of us noticing.






A disgruntled purple pony was making his way back to the wagon to grab his sleeping blanket. He was perfectly fine with letting the others continue their party, and it didn't look like he was getting lucky any time soon with either of the only two mares in the group, so he might as well call it early. At least someone could be awake in the morning with more than two percent of their brain cells left.

On his way he noticed Static working on something in the dark. It was on his way, so he stepped a little slower just enough where he could get a better look as he passed. In what little light Static's flash light produced between rapidly switching back and forth, he could tell they were energy weapons of course. But the make and model on the other hand...

With a 'hmm..' under his breath, he continued to their personal supply wagon. A curious thought starting to form.






The next thing I remember is a very loud clanking sound of metal upon metal banging into my already pounding head. I never remembered falling asleep from last night, but apparently I had at some point, and now found myself shuffling backwards away from the offending sound with a groan.

Blinking my blurry eyes open in an attempt to focus, I noticed my armor bag having been thrown in front of me. Blinking further caused the purple blur in front of me to focus into Psych's frame, glaring down at me.

To the side I noticed Stan and Karma laying near to one another, and Rainy poking her head out from one of the wagons, watching me with confused expressions. Well, except Karma. She had her ears flattened to the side of her head and was looking very worried. Pyro stepped out from behind the wagon and moved to stand behind Karma and Stan. With the rest of the pony gang all standing about near us and watching intently I had a feeling that whatever was going on, it couldn't be good.

"Apparently, a little tiny bit of information was left out about our feathered 'friend' here that maybe we should have been informed about, don't you think Karma?" Psych's voice came out nice and calm besides the scowl and the slight snear at the word 'friend'. At the end of his question he looked over at her.

"Just wait a minute, I was going..." Karma started.

But she was interrupted by Psych's magic gripping the entire bag and violently whipping it open to scatter pieces of my armor all around me. I'd thrown a hoof up to keep anything from hitting my head, but it only made me notice my helmet skidding to a stop directly in front of me.

"Enclave." Psych's voice had lowered into a hateful tone.

If it was quiet before, it was dead now. They all looked to me, and their expressions all changed to either distaste, worry, or further confusion. Light looked troubled, while Cleave and Mist both narrowed their eyes at me hatefully. Stan and Rainy had instead looked to Karma with worry-filled glances, while Tech and Static looked more confused than anything else. Pyro stared, distrustfully before turning his head away.

Karma started to stand up, opening her mouth as if to explain...

But I tossed out a wing in her direction, in a motion for her to stay quiet as I looked to her. She could only look back for a few quiet moments before slowly laying back down, trying to avoid any of the other ponies gazes in her direction.

As I pulled myself to my hooves, I realized why she had told me before that to be seen with the armor on would be a bad thing. Even though I didn't completely understand why these ponies seemed to completely change their attitudes at simply one word, I at least felt that I owed it to them to try and explain myself. Even if it was short, I had shared time, food, and drink with these ponies. None of them had wings, but did that even really make a difference?

I gave my body a shake to remove some of the dirt I had acquired through the night and cleared my throat...

"My name is Cloud Nine, and yes. I am from the Enclave."
> To each, their own.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have had awhile to think. 

And after that awhile, I came to the conclusion that in and of itself, is the worst part.

It is not like I can hardly function. I can still shoot when need be, and laugh when its required. I still can hit my target, and I still find things amusing. But it is because I function, that I am alright. With one hoof in front of the other I can continue with my regrets and sorrow, because that is the only time I am not left alone to my thoughts, and I forget.

Its those moments I have nothing to do, or when I am on watch, or even when I am attempting to go to sleep, that are the worst. When the colored pictures of my mind begin to fade out and decay amongst my morale judgement. When I begin to naturally question just about anything, those pictures instead turn into you.

Oh, its not like you actually talk back, then I think I actually would be crazy. Then again though, its not like you spoke a lot most of the time anyways, it wasn't like you really needed to. As much as I miss the sound of your voice, I miss the times you simply sat there and listened to my every word. It was then that I really learned to appreciate the attention. In my thoughts, I'll speak to you. I even find myself pausing as if you would respond somehow.

And with all of our silence, I can honestly only wish for three words, just one more time. 

They aren't even the three words I think most ponies would ask for.

'Everything is alright.'




A tumble of weeds drifted by, and somehow that seemed cliche to me.

Even as Psych stood in front of me with the confused expression, the others simply looked back and forth between one another as if figuratively drawing straws as to whom would end the awkward silence. I noticed Psych had backed his ears against his skull and had lifted a hoof to scratch at his chin, looking at the ground and letting his eyes wander back and forth as if he was attempting to read an invisible book. This whole situation was just becoming more uncomfortable for me.

"Wait a sec," Maybe it took a little longer than a few minutes before his ears darted up and his head twisted over to where Karma laid near Stan. Her eyes grew bigger as he pointed a hoof in her direction with a newly narrow-eyed view. "Is this what you were referring to yesterday?"

"Eh..." She had attempted to look serious, but quickly that was drowned out by a small shrug and a nervous snicker.

"Oh to hell with this," Psych threw his hoof up in a curve with an over-exaggerated sigh. "I am not that desperate!"

It was easily noticeable the sudden muffled giggle behind him, though I wasn't sure whom it came from.

"ALRIGHT WHO WAS THAT?!" He snarled as he twisted his body away from me to confront the group of ponies behind him. As a group they all individually pointed to somepony that wasn't them, they all randomly getting pointed out by some other. Soon after they all again, as a group, switched their hoof-pointing to point at Static.

"Hey, I did no such thing..." He whined with his ears drawn back pitifully.

Psych simply glared at the group as a whole, ignoring Static's defense. Letting his gaze wash over the lot before he turned back to me with a quick twist and gave me the same highly annoyed expression. Though I was partially saved by Light stepping around from behind Psych and moving to stand next to him, giving me a long look before turning his attention over towards Karma and Stan.

"And you knew about this, and didn't say anything?" He accused Stan with a troubled look. Stan simply looked back at his leader for a moment before lifting a hoof up to his hat and lowering it down over his eyes without bothering to answer, causing Light to sigh.

"Oh like you really expect him to tell us anything..." Muttered Psych as he sat down next to Light, continuing to grumble under his breath. But his half-rant was interrupted by Karma clearing her throat.

"Since you all have your tails in a twist, why not just ask him what happened if your so concerned." She drew her gaze back at the others who had stayed quiet at this point as if she was asking them rather then the two stallions in front of me.

One by one the other ponies looked between one another. Rainy, who still was peeking out from inside the wagon simply nodded her head to agree with her friend. Mist noticed her agreement and gave a short nod of his own, though his expression seemed more worried than anything else as if his actual opinion was far different. Tech and Cleave looked between one another, Cleave shrugging a shoulder in silent reply before Tech looked back over to Light and gave his own nod. Pyro on the other hoof, lowered his head and glared in my direction, though with suddenly noticing Stan watching him from where he lay next to Karma he finally gave a sigh and used a hoof to motion 'go ahead'. Static simply sat to the side, watching, and hadn't expressed any real opinion on his side in the matter.

"Alright then..." Muttered Light as he turned back to me, Psych having gone silent as he kept his eyes on me. "Exactly what are you doing here and why?"

And now I had all of their attention again, with all of the added stress that came with. Slowly I sat down and fluttered my wings against my back to get more comfortable, this may take a bit.

"My unit was just supposed to be taking samples..."





"So, what your saying is, this is your first time to the surface, you get attacked by one of your own members, and have absolutely no real idea whats going on?"

Light had since moved back to give Psych room to move back and forth. After I got to the point in my story of ending up here with them, Karma's idea on how for me to get back home, and explaining that as far as I knew the Enclave wanted nothing to do with them, Psych had started to pace while he questioned me.

"And, of all things, fat-ass over there (causing a "HEY!" from Karma in the background.) wants us to completely detour our own trip around the idea of escorting your feathered hide to the pegasi tower just so you can go home, which might not even work if that particular tower is broken. That's it?"

After watching him I gave a slow nod of my head, even though I didn't really enjoy the tone or words he used to describe my situation. But at the same time I figured that causing an argument with the irked stallion wasn't in my best interests.

"It really shouldn't be that much of a big deal," Karma piped up into our conversation as she stood up and stepped over towards the three of us. "We have to stop in town anyways for extra supplies before we hit the mountains. The tower isn't very far off from there, the rest of you can easily stay in town an extra night and I can take him to the tower, get rid of him, and then be on our way."

Psych glared at her, but she easily seemed to ignore the expression before she turned to the others behind them to regard their opinions. "Besides, I don't think anyone would really mind staying an extra night in a town would they?"

Smart mare, offer the ponies something they want. After having heard my story they all nodded at this offer, even Pyro and Static. She grinned, and looked back at Psych with a victorious smirk before turning her attention to Light, while Psych continued to glare at her as if he was mentally oblivious to the others.

Light had his ears backed down in thought, making them disappear in his fluffy yellow mane. Looking between Psych and Karma he let out a quiet sigh before shrugging his shoulders.

"One more night in town wouldn't hurt anypony I suppose." Light finally agreed, Psych tried to open his mouth, but Karma somehow beat him to it.

"Well, that's settled then. Why don't we clear up and clear out then, 'yah?" She twisted around to head back to the wagons, flicking her long tail and somehow making sure it slapped across Psych's face. Giving him a mouthful of tail-hair for a few seconds before she moved away, leaving him sputtering and rubbing a hoof across his mouth while Light did his best not to laugh by biting his lower lip.

I got a side-ways glance of Psych rolled his eyes at his pink friend with a muttered curse, before I paid more attention to making my way to where Karma had headed. Stan and her were attempting to lift Tech's music machine-thing with their front hooves while the green unicorn stood nearby with a hoof at his mouth, nibbling nervously. Horn aglow with that bright yellow he was attempting to hold the machine steady for the two earth ponies as they lifted. Slowly stepping around them I saw Rainy inside the wagon, her own white glow joining Tech's yellow as she helped move the thing inside, gently scooting it onto the floor and as far as I could tell, out of the way.

I turned my attention back to Tech as he let out a small huff of breath he had been holding. Tilting my head towards the tarped vehicle I pointed a hoof as well at it.

"So, you guys keep all your stuff in this to haul around? So whats the other for?" Turning my head to look at Tech as he equally turned to reply.

"Ponies got to eat. The other is the one we throw everything into when we are going in town to sell. That way we can just rip the cloth off and sell everything on it." He gave me a shrug to end his answer before turning to watch Karma and Stan tossing rolled sleeping cloths into the wagon, which Rainy would catch with her magic and toss behind her.

A muffled giggle with a soft electric bark later and Rainy's filly with her pet peeked from between her legs, directly under her chest. Giving me a wave as she noticed me still around. I lifted a wing and flared my feathers to mimic the waving action, which instantly brought a smile to her face before she darted back into the depths of the wagon with a hoof wrapped around Dominic's neck. Rainy gave me a smile after.

"Is everything in there? What about Cleave's kettle?" Karma mentioned up to the dove-hued unicorn. Just as Rainy was about to turn and look, another giggle, and the clanging of metal on metal, followed by a pair of small hooves, was heard. She lowered her ears before turning around and looking back down to the other mare.

"By the sound of 'Appy playing in it, I think we are fine." Rainy replied, only to be interrupted by her daughter shortly after.

"Momma! The inside of this thing smells funny." Echoed behind her from the filly. Dominic barked to end the sentence.

Rainy gave another one of those parenthood-sighs and turned to deal with her offspring. Leaving Stan and Karma standing there side by side before they turned so Karma could address Tech beside me.

"Mind attaching us since Momma-Rainy is busy?"

Inside the wagon a squeal of giggles was heard while Tech nodded his head and sunlight yellow wrapped around the front harnesses to pull them over the two earth ponies. Lifting padded collars out of the dirt and positioning them in front so both ponies could slip their heads through. A few more belt pulls and straps positioned and they seemed good. Karma nodded her head to Tech while Stan simply pawed at the dirt with a front hoof and shifted his shoulder muscles to adjust the collar around his neck.

"I'll go tell Light we're good back here, Mist and Static should already be hitched up, hopefully." With that said, Tech turned about and walked towards the front, stepping to the side of the first wagon and moving out of my sight behind it. Turning my attention back around I noticed both earth ponies regarding me.

"So...um...the ponies without horns get to pull? That doesn't seem very fair." I was pretty bad at trying to make small talk.

"If the horn-heads were pulling, we'd never get anywhere." Karma replied while Stan rolled his eyes at me, and turned his attention back forwards to simply stare at the back of the first wagon. The sound of ruffled cloth and a thump against the ground later allowed Rainy to walk up from behind, playfully narrowing her eyes at Karma.

"I heard that, hornless." Both mares giggled at the pretend insults towards one another, even Stan cracked a small smile.

"So...I guess I'll just stick back here with you three then." Tilting my head in thought as I caught their attention again. Karma and Rainy nodded as one.

"Your welcome to flutter around if you want, I just wouldn't fly very high. Having an extra pair of eyes higher up couldn't be a bad thing though." Karma answered my own silent question and my wings couldn't help but shift across my back. I was getting real tired of having to walk everywhere.

Just as I was looking to the sky above me after Karma's statement, Light's voice echoed from the front of the equally covered wagon in front of our group.

"Everyone ready to head out?!"

What followed next was a single stomp of a front hoof from all the other ponies present in acknowledgement.

"Alright, off we go!"

Both Karma and Stan leaned forwards to get their wagon rolling behind them, just the same with Mist and Static I supposed as it also inched forwards. With the momentum they were able to begin stepping forwards while lengthening their stride to allow the wagons to move slightly faster till they were at a comfortable movement pace.

With a burst of my wings I bought myself airborne and hovered above the last wagon that Karma and Stan carried. Looking ahead I could see the other Unicorns simply walking along as they followed. Light was leading the way in front with Psych slightly behind, Cleave was currently being harassed by Tech as he held a one-sided conversation with the other stallion out of my ear-reach. Pyro slowed till he was walking along beside Stan below, and Rainy took a place beside Karma.

A small white and red blur jumped from the wagon and used both Stan and Karma's backsides as stepping stones till she had hopped onto her mother's back. Tossing her hooves around Rainy's neck in a hug that made the mother-mare smile back at her daughter before looking forwards again. A soft electric whine from inside the wagon must have meant that Dominic was watching from inside as his friend hopped over.

We were still headed north from what I could tell, even if the pace seemed slow. Raising myself just slightly higher to allow my wings to fan out and glide back down before beating them again to raise back up. I wondered to myself how they seemed content at such a pace without wings, a team of pegasi could go twice as fast as these ponies could.

Before long I found myself drifting down to the top of the wagon, using the canvas as a make-shift hammock while laying down and looking at the sky. Listening to the group of ponies below me chatting softly between themselves, I gave a small yawn. I was still tired from the night before, and the rocking motion from the moving wagon was quickly making me drowsy. It wasn't quite as nice as a cloud, but I could live with it.

I must have drifted off at some point.






"You could be better than that." I told the older colt.

He looked back at me with a troubled gaze, and it was much like looking in a mirror.

"Better? Why for?"

"Because, don't you want to be a better pony?"

"Yeah...I suppose I do."






Something was tapping me again. I was getting real tired of waking up in this fashion.

Grumbling I pushed my hooves to my eyes and rubbed away the sleep, only to blink the blurry away to notice a plastic water-filled bottle hovering next to me while wrapped in white magic. Confusion kept me occupied enough till finally the bottle tilted back and forth in a 'come-on' motion before lowering onto my front hooves with the white glow going out with a silent poof.

Holding the bottle to my chest I leaned over the edge of the wagon to see Rainy looking up at me as she continued to walk beside Karma. Her horn remained alight and I noticed she was holding another one of the bottles for Karma to drink from while she continued to pull with Stan. Happy Day was gone from her mother's back at this point.

Needless to say I figured with the others drinking it, it would be fine, but I couldn't help but hear the voice of one of my teachers in my head preaching to never drink anything from the surface. Scooting the bottle up to my chest so I could hold it with one hoof, I used the other to unscrew the cap by pushing the side till it turned and fell off. Leaning over it I took a small sniff at the clear liquid inside and found that it actually smelled rather pleasant, like rainwater.

Grabbing the top of the bottle in my teeth and lifted the bottle, letting the liquid fall into my mouth where I began to guzzle it down. After having lived mostly off of purified rainwater, the water in this little surface bottle tasted divine, only thing I could have asked for was for it to be chilled. But warm or not, it was great, and I felt my mind begin to clear from my half-asleep state.

Sadly the bottle was empty long before I actually felt sated. Letting it drop to my hooves I tried my best to get the cap back on, twisting it just enough where it clung on. Afterwards I leaned back over the side once more and nudged the bottle to tip over, and just as I had thought, before it could hit the ground it was enveloped in that white glow again before being magically tossed back into the wagon's front entrance. I gave Rainy a small smile of gratitude as she looked back up at me again after.

"Thank you. It tasted wonderful. I didn't know surface-water could taste so good."

At my comment she laughed, shaking her head to cause her bangs to whip in front of her face.

"You don't want to go drinking any water you find around here randomly....the water I gave you was purified."

"But, Ive had purified water. That wasn't purified water." I raised a brow at her statement, curious.

"It wasn't purified by a machine, or even taken from a water talisman, I cleaned that water myself." A soft bump to her back hooves caused her back-half to bounce slightly, drawing my attention to that area to notice the three water drops on her flank, and then it became clear.

"Your talent. You can purify water." I barely replied in a whisper of awe. Having a talent like that in the wasteland must have been priceless for any pony to have.

I noticed Karma having turned her head to regard her friend with a slightly wary eye before she attempted to look back at me from its corner, but Rainy decided to continue the conversation anyways.

"It is not so amazing really, I can only do it in small doses here and there. A couple of bottles a day. The more contaminated, the harder it is for me to clean it."

Sadly, it made sense in my head and I gave her a nod. Still, it was an impressive talent to have in my opinion.

"By the way..." To change the subject, since it seemed Karma was looking a little uncomfortable. "...You have a very Pegasus-related name."

"My mother told me that my family line is originally from Los Pegasus, and has been a family tradition for weather-related names. My mother's name is Sunny Day. Something they've just given daughter to daughter, I suppose."

"Yeah, if the world hadn't went to hell, I bet Momma-Rainy here would have made quite the movie star." Snickered Karma, interrupting.

Rainy simply rolled her eyes in an over-exaggerated movement that allowed her head to roll along with the movement. Causing Karma to grin, and even getting a small muffled chuckle from Stan from under his hat, Pyro turned his head at the noise to look at the other three. Laying my head down on the edge I unfolded my wings to stretch them from side to side as I got comfortable again while staying where I could see them.

"How much further?" I decided to inquire.

"Don't make me turn this wagon around and go home." Karma instantly replied.

"Why would you do that?"

"Great, feather-head with no sense of humor either..."

"What is supposed to be so funny about that?"

Karma simply grumbled under her breath as she continued walking in time with Stan, though I could see both Rainy and Pyro grinning. After a few quiet moments I heard a faint movement under me from inside the wagon, and next thing I knew another water bottle was being thrown out the front over Stan and Karma's backs, only to be caught in Rainy's magic.

"Thank you, dear." Rainy responded to the filly that was out of my sight.

"Your welcome, momma!" Came her higher pitched and happy sounding reply.

Another bottle was then thrown out suddenly, only to hit Pyro in the back of the head. He yelped and scrambled his hooves up under him for a few seconds before catching his balance, and pulling the bottle from the ground with a fiery glow.

"Thank you 'Appy..." He mimicked Karma's earlier grumbling.

"Your welcome!" Came the same reply, just as pleased with herself as before.

Watching the bottle mid-air in Pyro's magic I noticed the plastic material begin to deform and melt. It only took a stream of the water suddenly falling on Pyro's head from the warped bottle for him to notice his mistake and quickly try to open his mouth and catch what he could while walking. He only got a small bit before flattening his ears back against his skull and tossing the now useless bottle to the side.

"Pony-feathers." He stated.

"Are we there yet?" I tried asking again, after.

"No." Both Karma and Stan replied in unison.

With a groan I rolled over onto my back to stare at the cloud filled sky. So bored...





After many hours, two breaks for the earth ponies, and another bottle filled with water later, Karma needed my assistance.

"Cloud, could you hover up and see how close we are?" She inquired while tilting her head up to attempt to look at me perched behind her atop the wagon. I gave her a small nod and opened my wings in a stretch before doing as she asked and swooping upwards into the air. Heeding her warning from before I only brought myself up enough to see what lay before us.

The mountains had got a lot closer than before, and it was obvious we were heading straight for them. Before that though, was obviously a town, or had been a town, of some sort before the war. A number of squished together buildings with frames overlapping was the only reason I guessed the buildings had remained stable enough for ponies to continue to dwell in. Beyond that, I couldn't see.

We were just coming up to another street sign that hadn't been tore down, but looked like it had been re-placed back up, despite having parts of the sign deteriorated. Squinting, I could just barely make out the readable portions.




------------------------------------------
Welcome to: Palisade Pr cip ce
--------- > Pebble Pi  Farm
< ------ Ov rcast Cont ol Tow r
------------------------------------------




"Almost there, to Palisade, according to the sign." I mentioned down to Karma while I held my position. Looking to my right I could barely make out a road heading to where I guess the 'Farm' had been located. To my left, where I was hoping to see a tower, was nothing, not even a road. But to think about it, I suppose my earlier pegasi brethren would have just flown back and forth from the location. The town ahead of us that was slowly inching itself closer seemed rather desolate.

"I don't see anypony." I told her before floating back down to my original perch, with her nodding her head at me after. Sitting on the edge of the top portion of the wagon I let my hooves grip me into place while I rocked back and forth with the motion of moving forwards. For some reason, those last few moments of actually reaching the town took far longer than the rest of the trip combined.

As we got closer, an odd feeling crept up my spine, causing both my ears to twitch and feathers to fluff up for the brief moment. I shook my head to chase it off before looking back forwards again, we were coming up to a small building right on the outskirts, and it appeared to be where we decided to stop. The front wagon slowly pulled from the road with Karma and Stan's following, we came to a creaky halt, and both earth ponies below me lifted hooves to stretch their legs.

While Rainy moved forwards and began using her magic to unhitch them, Light popped out from in front of the front wagon, curls bouncing slightly from the jerky movement as he looked us over, then waved a hoof.

"We better go make ourselves known so nopony gets the wrong idea of us." He mentioned, and we all nodded in agreement.

Light slipped out of my sight again to check on the rest of the group, and Rainy finally got Stan and Karma released from their wagon. Karma was reaching around to rub at her neck, and Stan simply rolled his head slowly in a circle to follow up with soft crackling pops. Karma then decided to turn and look up at me.

"Might be a good idea if you walk in with us. Some ponies tend to get a little uneasy otherwise..." She let the last comment slowly die out, and even though I wanted to reply back with something more along the lines of a smart-ass, I simply allowed my body to fall forwards, unfurling my wings just enough to lift into a curve before fluttering to the ground next to her. Karma raised a brow at me. "Show off."

Couldn't help the grin at her opinion, and she rolled her eyes while letting out a quiet laugh under her breath. Looking to Stan, with Rainy and Pyro standing together, she then stepped forwards and out from behind the back of the front wagon. Lifting her head into the air and taking a deep breath, though quickly afterwards giving herself a full-over shake.

Stan followed suit to stand next to her, looking towards the town intently, just as silent as always. While I stepped to Karma's other side I noticed her watching him, before nudging her shoulder against his.

"Something up?" She asked, trying to peek under his hat from her shorter height.

"Hm?" The questioning drawing him out of his thoughts as he looked to her, and then myself, followed up with Rainy and Pyro who were currently moving to meet up with the rest of the group nearer to the front. He watched them go, before he turned back to address the situation. "I was thinking, that we would see somepony by now..."

"I was a little curious as well." I slipped into the conversation, causing both other ponies to look at me carefully. Finally Karma nodded her head and looked towards the main group.

"Something don't feel right. Come on, their about to leave."

With that said, the three of us walked to the rest of the group. Light was currently in a conversation with Rainy, the mare nodding her head. Pyro sat near by and was simply waiting with Tech, Static, and Mist. Cleave on the other hand had taken a few paces towards the town and was staring into it. Psych was not far off, tapping a hoof, impatiently.

"We ready to go?" Karma raised her voice slightly to get Light's attention as she stopped near the group. Light darted his head in her direction and gave a nod before looking back to Rainy, who gave him a small smile and moved to her hooves to step nearer to our three-pony group.

"I'll be staying back as usual, got to make sure 'Appy and the cargo stay safe." She mentioned while looking to Karma.

"Yeah, take care okay? We shouldn't be long. Just gotta rouse the locals." Karma replied to her, giving the other mare a small hoof-bump. Rainy once again nodded and walked past us to go back to the last wagon, moving out of my sight.

Finally we were on the move, with Karma and Stan taking up the rear along with myself, Light and Psych took the front. The others simply wandered with us while we stepped onto the main road and made our way into the town itself.

Stepping around some of the larger cracks in the road we passed, the first building looking to be a hotel of sorts, which Tech and Cleave moved closer to and checked inside by peeking through the one door that had fallen off its hinges and made its escape years ago. Psych's attention was brought to a glassy-windowed joint near-by with a long-dead "Open" electric sign hanging askew inside, a bar more than likely, Pyro followed behind him. Mist was...well, not with us, no clue where he'd gone to. We each kept going forwards till something caught our eye, Light and Static stopping before a larger stone building with pillars holding up its roof, a town hall perhaps.

"Where the hell is everypony?" Light turned to look at us after, the three of us stopping and glancing around the empty area. Static lowered his head and was looking around nervously.

"I know there are ponies here. Ive been here before..." Karma quietly added, though Stan remained silent, except for a small hoof-stomp given to the road in possible silent frustration. The action caused Light to raise an eyebrow at the other stallion before looking back the way we had came. Turning my head I saw our other members heading back towards us.

"Find anypony? Anything?" Light questioned them, and Tech and Cleave as one shook their heads negatively.

"Its obvious they didn't leave in a hurry. There are still personal belongings in all the rooms, with food and water." Tech told his leader.

"And the bar is empty of everything except alcohol. Just left it there." Psych chimed in, with a disgusted tone. Pyro nodded in agreement.

"Something is wrong here." Stan suddenly said. Causing the entire group including myself to look at him. Which caused the earth pony to back up slightly at the sudden attention. But, after a moment he lifted his head and took another one of those deep breaths. "It smells..."

"Bad." Static ended his sentence, and we all re-turned our attention to the light blue pony, his head even lower to the ground with a pitiful expression. "It smells bad here."

"Smells bad? Wha--?" Karma was about to ask, before we all suddenly startled at the gasping sound of breath to the right of us. Turning to look, there was Mist, leaning against the side of the mostly stone building and had a hoof brought to his muzzle, gasping for breath and looking like he was trying not to be sick. We all quickly moved towards him, causing the stallion to shift back and away from us into the alley, looking at us with wide eyes.

"Its, bad...really bad." He said, swallowing after.

"What? Did you find somepony?" Psych narrowed in on him, leaning past the group as he crowded Mist.

Mist raised a hoof and pressed it against Psych's chest, lengthening the distance between himself and us at the same time. Catching his breath he raised himself up and looked down the alleyway behind him. Slowly he turned and stepped down it, motioning us to follow with a tail-flick.

I felt my ears back against my skull as we all looked between one another, even more worried than before. But we all made a single file line and followed the quiet pony in front of us. Mist had refused to say anything else, and he paused where the buildings ended, just a few seconds, before slipping fully behind the stone building to our left.

Now I could smell whatever it was, a sickly sweet smell that made you want to brush your teeth. It was disgusting, and now I had a bad idea of exactly what we were going to find.

I had purposely positioned myself behind Stan and Karma, taking up the rear, and just as I was about to turn with the group...

"Celestia be damned..." Karma cursed, while the others remained silent.





I wasn't entirely prepared for what happened to the ponies of Palisade, and with what we were suddenly shown, it took every part of my inner willpower not to be sick at the sight behind what I guessed was their town hall.

Stacked nearly three ponies high, was the residents of the town. One by one, they had been thrown into a group pile behind the building like somepony simply throwing out the trash. They had only been dead for about a day, and the smell behind here was just starting to get bad in the heat of the day. Here and there beyond most of what had started to rot was a hint of blue, pink, yellow, a cutie mark of a wagon wheel, a stone pony statue, a half-torn blue heart where some wasteland scavenger had removed its fellow-half. I couldn't bear to think about how many lie under the outside surface of the grizzly heap.

Most of us had took to breathing with a hoof pressed to our muzzles, all except Cleave, who was looking at the pile in anger. In his specific gaze I noticed exactly what he was angry about.

Dear Celestia, there were children in that pile as well. A filly's now white sunbleached eyes gazed up at the sky, bow still attached in her hair, her mouth fallen slack in a silent cry, I couldn't even tell if she ever had received her cutie mark. That was something that I couldn't take, and I found myself twisting around and looking away from the horrible scene.

Most of the group backed away towards the alley and simply looked in silent stunned expressions, though Psych's was mixed with anger along with Cleave's. Tech was trying hard not to be sick, and Static looked scared out of his mind with wide blown eyes darting back and forth across the pile. Pyro and Light simply stared, not knowing what to say. I couldn't blame them. I drew my wings forwards and rubbed the feathers across my face, trying hard not to breathe too deeply.

"This is..." Karma broke the silence, though her sentence died off as if she was too scared to finish, and Stan stepped closer to her.

"...raiders?" I tried, turning to look at her and her friend, but it was Cleave who snorted at my questioning finish.

"No. This is too...clean. If it had been raiders we've have known about it long before we came into town. With this many bodies this entire place would have been strung up like some sick colt's cute-ceañera. They weren't even tortured, just...outright killed." He stated in his monotone voice.

"Then what?" I brought my attention to him, but he remained silent after that. Looking around at the rest of the group I got similar non-responsiveness, except from Karma, who was staring at the pile still, with a even more troubled expression. She didn't seem to hear me, as she took a few steps forwards near the pile and began walking around it, looking to each long-dead soul mournfully.

We all watched silently as she moved to circle around it, though once she moved to the other side out of sight we heard her stop.

"Please no..." Came a quiet whisper.

Nopony made a move to go see, not even Stan. Light was looking at all of us in turn, till finally my curiosity drug itself through my disgust enough for me to move my hooves, and I attempted to follow Karma around the pile, doing my best not to let any part of my body touch anything.

On the other side, there she sat, staring up towards the top of the pile with a sorrow-filled expression. She wasn't crying, but seemed far more in pain now for whatever she'd found. Slowly I stepped to her side and sat down next to her, before I turned to try to see what it was she was looking at.

My eyes were once again drawn to the individual colors that could be made out, different rot-pocked marks, but it was what was near to the top of the pile that made all of my braincells decide to shut down, simultaneously.

There, near the top, was the body of a colt. It wasn't just any colt though, this particular colt who may have been colored a sun-yellow, now a dirty beige, had himself a pair of wings attached to his back. A pegasus colt.

His lifeless body had been tossed in such a manner that both his wings were strung out and upwards in some sick mimic of flight, giving me a clear view where his cutie mark should have been.

Instead of a cutie mark, or even a blank flank, there was a cloud, with a very distinctive bolt coming from it.

The poor colt had been branded a dashite.
> Do not go gentle into that good night.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am far from blessed, when it comes to an accurate memory.

Even with all the thoughts I am sure have slipped my mind, I often find myself tuning out the rest of the world to wander in them. As much as I would prefer not doing so, it has taken up far more time than I would like to admit.

When the door closed, I realized that the sound would more than likely remain with me the rest of my life. Even if I lose the finer details, its very hard to forget that. Why is it some of the worst things that can happen in your life are the ones that you refrain from losing? I can still hear that damn thing now, just thinking about it.

The sound of that whirring, flashing, yellow light that had not turned in centuries in it's chipped and nearly broken plastic hull came first, then that hissing sound as heat swept out of crooks and cranny's when the machine roared to life a second time. Metal screeched into metal while a half-dead alarm tried to announce 'last chance for your survival!' in its over-sized alarm-clock mimic.

The wheel turned.

I didn't need to look behind me. I didn't want, or need, to see her face again.

She can wallow alone in her guilt, I wont give her pity. Buck her, and buck that noise. ( Literally! )

I think it was the last sound that really drove it home for me. ( Very funny, brain. ) I have yet to figure out how one accurately describes the sound made with the closing of a life chapter and the opening of another, specifically those exact terms in my position. I'm sure that sound is different for everyone, and everyone must remember it slightly differently.

Mine just happened to be the sound of large lump of metal falling into place.

The alarm goes silent, and I am alone.





We had left the gruesome pile behind the building a few moments ago. Our random troupe had meagerly made our way back out to the center of the main road in the town, with most of the other ponies keeping a disturbing distance away from me. I should have been more worried about that, but I was far more concerned with what I had seen only moments before.

I knew that brand, I knew why it was given to certain pegasi that had decided to leave the clouds, what I didn't know was why it had been branded onto a colt of all things. A colt! How in Celestia's sunny polished plot did it even occur to someone to brand a colt?! What was he even doing down here in the first place?!

Shaking my head to clear away the exasperated thoughts I decided, first things first. Take stock of the situation at hoof. Currently I was standing by myself, Light was off to the side nearer the buildings speaking softly between Tech, Cleave, Mist, and Pyro. Psych stood near by them, though was not putting any input into the conversation, and Static was standing near Light, listening. It was then I noticed Karma slowly heading her way back towards the front part of town, hooves dragging slightly in the dirt. Right as I was about to take a step towards joining her to get some many questions answered, Stan came out of no where and blocked my path.

He didnt say anything, as usual, and didn't look too threatening overall, but the casual glance under the rim of his hat was more then enough for me to slowly back mentally down and give up on reaching out to Karma, for now. Guessing my decision, he simply nodded his head, and moved to walk in the same direction she was headed, though was making no effort to really catch up to her.

Well, so much for a brilliant plan of action.

The soft crunching of hooves in the dirt covered road brought my attention back around to the earlier group. Tech, and Cleave, had turned to make their way back as well, but Light and Psych had decided they did actually want to have words with me, with Static fumbling behind them as he darted his eyes around at the other buildings, while Pyro was making his way back around the main town hall structure. Mist was...somehow gone again. I fought down the urge to back my ears in a slight feeling of dread, and raised my head while squaring my stance when they approached.

"We are going to try to assume that you still have absolutely no idea what is going on." Light stated once he was able to stand fully in front of me. Psych on the other hoof stayed back and gave me that same narrow-eyed expression of distrust that I had been getting used to, not that it wasn't unwarranted I suppose, Static had decided to remain quiet, per-usual.

"You would assume correct, then. I am just as shocked as the rest of you. I really have no idea what is going on...but I can tell you I do intend to find out, soon as I can get to the tower." I tried to make my voice sound as confident as possible.

Light quirked a brow in thought, Psych rolled his eyes, and Static...remained pretty much 'static' to the response. I had a feeling I wasn't going to get much of an argument out of him anyways. After a moment, Light let out a small sigh and raised a hoof to brush back his fluffy mane.

"Alright then. We are just going to stay on schedule. We are staying here the night, you and Karma leave in the morning. Tech says there is more than enough room in that hotel they were having ponies living in."

"Um...what about...you know?" I nudged my head in the direction Pyro had headed.

"He is going to take care of their situation. We cant stick around for a proper burial for them all, but...Pyro can at least take care of their bodies. I doubt they did anything to deserve just to rot there." Light replied, with a slight grimace.

As if on que, a burning smell slowly folded into our standing area. Its sickening now to think about how the smell wasn't that bad when one may not have known exactly where it was coming from, and why. Turning my head, I could already see plumes of dark black smoke rising into the air.

"Aren't you worried someones going to see that?" I couldn't help myself from asking.

"Let them see it. I hope they come back so we can kick their flanks so hard, they'll wish their parents never bucked uglies." Psych decided to answer, with a soft growl under his breath. That pony was particularly good at making that noise.

"...fair enough." I quietly said to myself, while the three of them turned and headed in the same direction with the others. I found my attention pulled back to smoke filling sky, feeling a bit bad for Pyro having to deal with it, even if he was the best pony to get the job done in a timely manner.

Continuing to gaze, my mind wandered along with the tendrils of soot snaking and puffing into the air with gasps of undercurrent heat, a black mockery to the clouds I was used to. I could only hope those poor souls would find some sort of peace as their last testament to life was transformed to ash, merging with the sky they never had a chance to truly see or enjoy.

That poor colt, I wonder if he ever got to enjoy flight.





Soon after we found ourselves at the hotel looking building that we had passed by before. Our earth pony companions, hopefully Mist included, had all left to go get Rainy and Happy, so that they could also hitch themselves up to the wagons to bring them inside the town. In the mean time I had placed myself by a front bay window of what would have been a area where morning ponies would have enjoyed the scenery of the town outside. Instead, I simply got a view of the cracked and dirt filled street with rows of empty businesses and houses.

Behind me, Light was carrying on a conversation with Psych, while our other unicorns, minus Pyro, were slowly going through the different rooms up the stairs. Already they had brought down a number of different belongings, mostly canned food and bottled water, along with a few glass bottles of brightly colored liquid and a pile of those little metal disks I had seen them play cards with.

"Going to check to see if they have a medical place tomorrow." I heard Psych say to Light. Turning my head I saw the pink pony nod his head in agreement. Around the same time I saw Tech trot halfway down the stairs and peek around the wall at the two of them.

"Is Stan back yet?" He questioned them. Once he had a duo shake of heads he darted back upstairs in a bit of a rush. Tilting my head I was able to hear him shuffle something plastic-sounding before he came back down stairs with a small magically held pile of little cakes, all wrapped up and still looking in decent condition. "Lets eat these up before he gets back, then" He said with a small smirk.

His yellow magic easily tossed individual cakes in Psych's and Light's direction. Both Unicorns switching their magic over to catch the treats once Tech had released them from his own. He then tossed one over in my direction, which I swung out a wing to catch it against the back of my feathers before it fell onto the floor. Tech then, with the rest of his prizes walked back up the stairs, more than likely to make sure that Cleave got a share as well.

Watching Psych and Light open theirs with their magic and take bites out of the two hundred year old pastry made me look down at mine curiously. The top of the little cake had been smooshed in the plastic clear wrapper over the many years, but strangly didnt look very bad other than that. Tilting my wing about I let it slip to the floor, and with using a hoof and my teeth I ripped the plastic back. Giving it one last concerned look, I tilted it so the cake slipped forwards partially outside the wrapper and took myself a small bite.

Oh...sweet glorious goddesses.

After years and years of the most blandest food the cloud fields could provide, I found myself unable to resist the urge of instantly chomping my jaw down onto the rest of the cake. Finishing it off in the single bite as I chewed ecstatically. Despite the once silky covering of the pastry having turned slightly flaky, and the outside of the cake itself only being slightly stale, it was absolutely delicious. New flavors exploding into my muzzle when the inside of the cake burst in a gooey center. I had no idea what it was that I was tasting, but how in the world Stan could be terrified of something so wonderful was just something I couldn't mentally grasp.

After I licked the inside of my mouth once I had swallowed to chase the flavor, I brought my head back down and eagerly attempted to lick the inside of the wrapper, trying to get every last bit that I could of the snack. It was only a few moments before I realized the strangely quiet atmosphere around me that I looked up at my other two companions in the room.

Both ponies still held their own snacks mid-air, bites taken out of each, but they had stopped to look at me curiously. Light simply stared, but Psych quirked an eyebrow in scrutiny.

"Sweet tooth, much?" He asked me, pointing to my cake's wrapper with a hoof.

"Um...heh, yeah. I guess." I shrugged at him in equal reply as I did my best to salvage whatever dignity I had left in the current situation. Slowly pulling my head back up and pushing the wrapper away from me. It was a war not to lick my lips again with both ponies watching me. But I did make a mental note to snatch up as many of those delicious treats as my hooves could hold in the future.

With that thought in mind, I realized I had been thinking of a future based around even being near the surface enough to be able to obtain such treats again. The feeling of wanting to sigh was just as much sudden on coming to that conclusion. Turning to ignore the other stallions I went to looking back outside the window, just in time to see the two wagons being pulled in our direction from down the road.

"They're back." I mentioned to Light and Psych before heading to the one open doorway, stepping out onto the porch and waiting patiently while the wagons pulled directly up to the building. There was Mist Blade, despite not having seen him leave, hitched up with Static. Behind them were Karma and Stan, once again hitched to their own wagon. Rainy, with her daughter on her back again, had just finished releasing those two before moving to help the blue-toned ponies, when I walked along the side of the front wagon towards the back.

Stan stood quietly next to Karma, who raised her head to peer at me for a moment before breaking into a tired looking smile towards me in welcome.

"Sorry we're a little late." She mentioned, rubbing a hoof back through the fallen strands of her mane that has escaped her pony tail. Stan nodded in agreement to her statement, the three of us turning again to head to the front of the inn, where Rainy, Mist, Static, Light, and Psych all stood on the front porch. I saw Pyro making his way up from down the road, guessing that he had finished the work he had been left to.

"So, they explained?" Light was asking Rainy, whom nodded her head with a sorrowful look across her face. Her daughter was clinging to her neck and trying to look over her shoulder at Light, eyes wide as she listened. Though I hoped they had left her out of the explanation as to what we had found. "Well, were going to go ahead and stick to the plan...while Karma takes Cloud to the pegasus tower, we'll stay here and salvage whatever we can." Pyro had finally made it to the rest of the group.

All the ponies around, minus myself, nodded in agreement. I couldn't help but feel a little badly for the former ponies of the town, but I supposed that either the ponies currently here take it, or the next group to come through this way would. Either way, the townsfolk sure couldn't use anything here anymore.

Cleave, suddenly peeked out from behind the one closed door to look at our group, motioning for us to come inside.

"I am about to start dinner." He said, simply, before disappearing back inside while the others moved to follow their dark-toned companion at the mention of food.

I stood in place, letting the others move ahead of me, as I had meant to speak to Karma, but Stan stopped right as he walked past me. Blinking, he turned his head in a mimic movement of my own and I suddenly found his muzzle near inches from mine. He glared from under his hat for a few seconds, and I felt the skin under my fur turn hot in a uncomfortable blush. He only had to sniff once, before darting his head back like he had been stung and was startled enough to quickly trot inside to leave me behind. I could only stand there wondering what the issue was before Karma stepped to my side, and again I found myself with another nose pushed way too far into my personal space bubble.

"Looks like they found cake." She said, after having sniffed a few times and leaning her head back into normal its normal position.

"Yeah...I don't understand though, it was wonderful..." I replied back, wincing inwardly at the accidental emphasis on wonderful.

"He'll get over it. Just don't bring it up to him. He hasn't even told me why." She turned her head and looked into the building. I was about to open my mouth to start with my further questions about earlier, but she seemed to realize this and quickly interrupted my chain of thought. "Lets go inside and grab dinner before Static eats it all."

With that said she walked past me and inside, I stood for a few extra seconds as I quietly scolded myself, before following. Inside, the entire group was lounging around the common area. Rainy and Psych were going through the supplies that Cleave and Tech had brought down, while everyone else but Cleave was either sitting down watching, or quietly speaking to one another. Cleave himself was hovered over what looked to be a cooking pot he had just pulled out from the fireplace to taste the contents before placing it back inside with his magic. A metal spoon was lifted next from beside him, and it began stirring while following the metal rim.

Karma was sitting on the floor watching Cleave, with Stan laying down nearby, and Pyro was sitting by his other side. I made my way over and sat down on her other side and looked about the room once more, trying in vain again to bring up the subject of the pegasus colt, but I was doomed hence forth when Cleave took the pot from the fire again with another taste test, turning around after to address us.

"Sorry all, its beans, but I did add a can of green beans in the mix. Couldn't hurt." Everyone turned to watch as he emptied the contents of the pot with the spoon into a number of small bowls he had also found earlier. As each bowl was filled, it was magically lifted to separate ponies about the room.

"I am sure it tastes great, dear." Rainy told him as her magic enveloped the steaming bowl to replace Cleave's own magic, and then grabbing a second for her daughter. With that in tow she moved to sit near me and Karma, sipping from the rim. Happy slid down her back once she sat, to sit with her own bowl that Rainy had given her, only lifting her bowl just slightly off the floor with her wavering pink glow to eat.

Oddly enough, I wasn't the last pony to get their food. Four bowls had lifted in our direction to give Karma, Stan, Pyro and me our share, before Static got his. Which was grabbed with both front hooves as he balanced himself into leaning up from his own sitting position, happily licking the sticky food from inside.

Karma rolled her eyes as she moved to sit in a similar manner, quietly eating her own food as she held it in both hooves as well. Stan on the other hand leaned down to eat directly out of the bowl that had been placed on the floor in front of him, having not bothered his laying position in the slightest. Using my right wing I scooped up the bowl with my tougher primary feathers and began taking small licks of the brown substance.

It was equally sweet as the cake I had tasted earlier, with a earthy aftertaste under the syrup covering the beans. The added green beans gave a crisper taste among the other softer materials, and I quickly found myself ignoring my companions again to enjoy Cleave's cooking. Even the stuff from the two hundred year old cans these surface dwellers salvaged tasted better than the cloud food I was used to eating on a normal basis.

After we had all finished, and the bowls were haphazardly tossed into a far corner, the coals in the fireplace had burned down some. Pyro couldn't help a grin as his horn lit up orange and the flames burst through the black, startled back to life. Sadly, Cleave had been sitting a little too close and very nearly caught his own tail on fire. The heat was the only thing that saved him as he jumped back, and instantly glared in Pyro's direction. The fire-loving pony only grinned wider and shrugged in silent reply.

Looking out the window, I saw that it was already growing dark. That, and Mist giving a yawn followed by most of the other ponies catching the dangerously infectious disease I guessed we would be getting ready to go to sleep. Light stood up, giving himself an all-over shake that only caused his already poofy mane to stick out even further.

"Alright, I believe its...Pyro's turn for first watch, but..." He was remembering what Pyro had to do today I guessed, and he looked across the rest of the group.

"I'll take his place." Stan decided for him, lifting a hoof.

Light only gave a nod, this seemed to give the rest of the crew a silent que to start heading outside to their wagon. I stood in the doorway as they all were tossed their sleeping partials from the second wagon. Mostly rolls of blankets they had acquired from somewhere. Stepping back some as they headed back inside, Karma tossed me her own roll, which I just barely caught with my teeth.

"I don't normally get cold, so feel free." She mentioned before picking a spot out near the window, where Stan had moved after placing his own blanket roll beside him, to then begin watching outside the window. The rest of the ponies made their way upstairs, to try to pick sleeping spots inside the different hotel rooms. Pyro stopped to give Stan a quick hoof-wave.

"Thanks, bro. Just come get me in awhile to switch up." He said while Stan nodded and gave a small smile in reply. Pyro simply grinned once again in return and followed the rest up the stairs.

With the blanket roll still lodged between my teeth, I now looked around the empty room. I didn't feel quite comfortable sleeping off by myself, so I decided to make a spot to lay closer to where Karma and Stan had placed themselves. Sitting the cloth down and pulling at the string to undo the knot. After a few minutes I had made myself a nice nest, where I was able to both lay down on the rough cloth of the blanket, and using a wing, pull the rest of the blanket over my back.

Once comfortable, I looked back over to the window to see Karma having laid down in a similar position, except without a blanket. Hooves crossed in front, she lay her head down atop them, peering out the window. Stan had sat down, but made no other move to lay down, and continued to look out the window as quiet as ever.

I opened my mouth for the third time now, but after a moment decided against bothering Karma now. It was late, I had food in my stomach, and Stan was watching out for anything outside the building. Laying my head on my hooves I thought to myself, buck it, I'll just ask her later...I think I yawned...






"What is this? 'You the runt's flank-friend now?"

"Dont pick on him!"

"Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?"

"You...you just shouldn't be picking on him. It isn't right. He was just talking to me."

"I can take care of myself..."

"Your mommy tell you that, runt?"

"No, I told myself that."

"Whoa! Look at the runt's flank...!"

"Hah, maybe the runt is looking for something to romp."

"The romping runt, hahaha..."

"..."






I must have shaken my head in my sleep, because I suddenly was aware of the dark room feeling like it was swirling inside of my skull. It took a few moments, but eventually my surroundings came back into structures that weren't hovering beyond my blurriness of sleep. The room had gone dark, except for a light green glow that was coming from the direction of the window.

Karma had moved slightly, she now lay closer to the wall, where she could lift her head and place her chin on the window sill to keep her head propped up. She was currently looking at me from the corner of her left eye, lazily. The glow was apparently coming from her pipbuck, so she was easily noticeable compared to Stan, whom had laid down to sleep at some point. He was under his blanket, just barely snoring.

"Bad dream?" Karma asked me, bringing my attention back to her. She had barely turned her head so she could speak, though kept her head on the windowsill.

"Yeah, something like that...isn't Pyro supposed to be on watch?" I replied with a question of my own to side-track the subject.

"I wasn't sleeping very much anyways." She answered with a lift of her shoulders in a shrug. "Besides, I like the quiet, and Stan here could sleep through an earthquake."

"I cant blame you there, I guess." I let the thought drift on my own thoughts for a second while taking a chance to try to look out the window. But the green glow along with the darkness outside made that pretty much impossible. Reaching a hoof out of the blankets I ran it through my ruffled mane, before looking back to her. "About today..."

"Hm?" She interrupted, lifting her head and looking directly at me.

"Well...the colt. What was that about...? What was he even doing here?" I couldn't help but lean forwards, in my interest to figure out what she knew. I'm unsure why I thought she knew more than I about pegasus affairs, but it had been bothering me since the day before.

She didn't answer me at first. Instead, she looked down at her pipbuck thoughtfully. Lifting her other hoof and rubbing it across the top screen which made our green light source flicker slightly. I stayed quiet though, patiently, and eventually she did look back up to me.

"From what I was told, back before the war, all three ponies lived together perfectly fine. I'm sure you know that. Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasus ponies lived however they wanted. Coupled, however they wanted. My guess is, that colt was born here, to whichever parents he had. Even though its been hundreds of years, I'm sure nearly all of us if it were possible, could be traced back to a ancestor that wasn't originally our primary species."

"Okay, I can understand that. But..." I couldn't bring myself to ask, but she seemed to understand regardless. Those eyes of her's, almost black in the dark, narrowed.

"Think about it. Your kind do not like surface dwellers. We are inferior because we cant go above the clouds. They come here, looking for you, and instead not only do they not find you, they find a pegasus colt. A pegasus colt who's parents are not only not pegasi, but of the  'dirt pony' breed."

I winced at the term I had not only used myself once or twice, but had heard plenty throughout my life above the clouds. I had never heard it said with such contempt though, and only now with being around the others did I realize just how...wrong the word was. I didn't like it, at all. Karma must have noticed my internal conflict, for her expression softened slightly before continuing.

"So, they came here, and were going to end up empty hoove'd. It would have been frowned on, as I am sure you already know. They had to save face somehow..." She let the sentence drop off, to an even quieter tone.

"That...but, the entire town? And branding the colt? They couldn't have..." At this point, I think I was more talking to myself, then speaking to her.

"Couldn't have? Maybe they could have got away with never mentioning the colt, but they still didn't have you. Their superiors wouldn't have been pleased regardless. Not including what would have happened if they didn't tell anypony else about the colt and he was then found out. They might have even been branded themselves."

"No." I hoof stomped on the floor suddenly. Startling myself and quickly looking over to Stan, still fast asleep. I guess she had been right about that.

"No? How would you know? I mean heck, look at what has happened on your first mission down here." She stated, looking at me with a dead-pan expression.

"Just...No. We are not like that. Someday, we are going to save everypony." I said the line like I had heard it a million times, but...even I felt a little off, repeating it. Something wasn't right.

I was expecting a follow-up argument, but Karma simply smiled at me. Though, it was far from a warm one, it only made me feel colder as she regarded me, sadly.

"When we deserve to be saved, I'm sure." She turned her head back towards the window. "Don't let us trouble you, till then."

Well, what could I say to that? I didn't like hearing, let alone thinking, that my entire livelihood was nothing but a big ruse. We were a proud breed of pony, we had survived for over two hundred years above the clouds while the world died. We were told we would be the ones to save ponydom, when the world was able to be saved. When...that word, was what made this entire situation seem almost...commonplace. It was a dark thought.

With what little I had experienced in two days, could I really distrust what had kept my kind alive?

Regardless, if it all added up or not. Regardless, if all of this was coming from a Earth pony.

...an Earth pony that really shouldn't have known any better.

Just as I was about to confront her knowledge on the subject, she looked back over at me from the side as she had done earlier. Catching me slightly off guard.

"Go back to sleep, feather head. We got to walk to the tower tomorrow." And with that, she was back to looking out the window. Though I doubted she could see any better out there than I could.

I didn't reply, again. She had pretty much let me know that the conversation was over. Backing my ears against my skull, I crossed my front hooves and laid my head down. This entire situation was leaving a sour taste in my mouth, and with that, I thought back to the cakes from earlier. One of those really sounded good about now....





I was woke up, to a little ball of dry grasses being plopped onto my nose. Causing me to sneeze myself fully awake with a startle. I found Karma standing above me, her own small group of grasses held in her muzzle before she sat down and started to chew on it, watching me. She was wearing her outfit from before, the ragged pieces of cloth covering almost her entire body. The hood of the piece was pulled back so she could eat though, the goggle-portion laying across the back of her shoulders. It was light out, just barely.

I raised a brow at both her, and the grass I'd been given, after. Sniffing it and getting a closer look showed that it was different types of some sort of grass material bundled together, and then tied with more of the longer strands to keep it in place. An odd breakfast, but...I was hungry.

"Hurry up and eat, we're leaving. Your bags are outside." Karma said to catch my attention, she had finished her own breakfast and was looking down at me. After I gave her a nod, she shifted up to her hooves and walked out the door.

I took a chance to look around, and noticed only that Rainy Day, and Psych seemed awake. Rainy was currently drinking from a cup as she stood near the stairs, while Psych was going through the supplies from yesterday that they had found and brought downstairs. He refused to acknowledge me, but Rainy gave me a small smile.

Reaching my muzzle down I grabbed the grass bundle and began to chew on it thoughtfully, sadly this didn't have much taste to it, but with the three swallows to put it down I realized it was just filling enough to get me moving. Giving myself a shake under my blanket dislodged it quickly enough, and I stood to take a moment to attempt to fold it up.

Placing it next to the still sleeping Stan, I looked back over to Rainy and gave her a hoof-wave, which she replied to with one of her own. Psych, was still ignoring me though as he pulled bottles of purple and red liquid from the pile to push them into their own pile.

"Better go before 'Appy wakes up with hugs...good luck, Cloud." Rainy told me, quietly, and I gave her a nod of my head and a smile in thanks, before stepping to the main doorway and out into what was considered the morning light in the wasteland.

It wasn't much, if anything it just seemed to make things even more gray. But it didn't seem to bother Karma while she stood next to my bags, one of them I knew held my armor, the other was obviously holding both of my rifles just barely, with their ends sticking out the partially tied top.

Karma hoof-pointed at the one containing my armor, before leaning down to grab the bag with my rifles in her teeth, and tossing it haphazardly onto her back, while also looping the main strap around her head and down onto her neck. Looking back at it, she wiggled her flank to make sure it would stay in place without any other help, and the rifles rattled slightly.

"Good enough...your turn." She said, watching me. Not to disappoint I did my best to mimic her action, though with wings in the way it made the process of getting the full bag onto my back without squishing any important feathers in the process. But, after I did get it in place, along with the strap over my head, I was able to angle my wings slightly out for better 'grip' on the bag, to keep it from falling off.

With that finished, she turned to move into the street, and I followed. We made our way out of town, with her staying in front, from the way we had originally came into the settlement. Once we reached the last building though, she made a right turn to head what I think was west, towards the tower.

We didn't really talk much. Besides the "hole" comment from her every once in awhile so I wouldn't trip. Otherwise, we quietly walked to our destination while the light around us grew brighter. Looking upwards, I could see the mental image of the sun rising above the clouds. It was a shame no pony else here could see it.

I frowned at that thought...it really was a shame.
> No light.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The messages had been coming far more seldom than they used to, and to my annoyance I was still checking my pipbuck every chance I could get. Did it even still work? Was there no signal anymore? The stupid hunk of metal had been the latest model of its time, it better damn well still work. It wasn't like I was going to get a repair pony out here that would know how to fix it. Five years it had worked, why wasn't it working now?!

What messages I did receive were short, and unfeeling. Try as I might I was oblivious to what most ponies would figure to be common sense at this point. None of the messages I received really told me anything of merit. Regardless every night I would lay down, and hoof-pick at buttons to write out my own message that I had been sending for the last two years in his absence.

How and what I was doing, the ponies I had met, where I was, my opinions and theories...

How much I missed him, so very very much.

For an entire month I had been sending these messages without reply now. I could feel the desperation like an open wound, constant and painful, and still I refused to believe otherwise. All I wanted to do was have a little faith, was that really too much for a pony to ask for? It wasn't until one night, after sending another message that was far more pathetic sounding that I would have liked (everypony has their bad days) did I finally get my reply. It summed the ending up for me fairly quickly.

To simplify, I had asked over and over, in one way or another:

What did I do wrong? What do you want me to say? - BE.

...why? - BE.

The last message I received read as followed:

You're just not good enough for me, and I just don't care anymore. - RS.





We had been walking for little more than an hour I guessed, it wasn't like I was actually able to tell a definite amount of time out here. With the sun out of sight per the usual on the surface, all I could really tell was day, night, and twilight. Eventually the gray of the morning had turned brighter, so I was guessing it was nearing the afternoon.

Karma and I hadn't really been speaking that much, while I let her take the lead ahead of me. Most I had got were warnings of holes to step around or over, other than that she had stayed fairly silent. She still had the hood of her ragged outfit down, making it look like some poor excuse of a cloak that dragged slightly behind her. Shuffling her shoulders every once in awhile, my rifle bag would be adjusted to a more comfortable position on her back, the ends of the machines poking out next to her head.

Lifting my right wing I attempted the same shuffle, wondering if I should have just worn the armor instead. But I had the conclusion that judging Karma's decision before would not have been in my own best self interest. We would be parting ways soon, and the last thing I wanted to do was irritate the mare.

Our quiet journey was starting to leave me feeling unnerved though. I had known for so far that Karma was quiet from time to time, but with leaving soon, I felt the urge to try to have a last conversation with her.

"So, where will you and the group be headed to next?" I finally inquired while quickening my hooves just enough to come around to her side. My question seemed to slightly startle her out of her own thoughts as her head turned slightly in my direction to regard me with a wide eye before quickly catching herself.

"To the next salvage spot I suppose, and then to a place we can trade, the usual." She huffed out between steps. Afterwards she decided to look back forwards where we were headed. "Its just how we do things."

"Well, I am almost jealous...even if you do have to loot old world stuff, I bet you find lots of interesting things." I attempted to further the subject.

"Mmhmm..." Was all I got in response from her. Well, that was a failed attempt.

I was at a loss of words for awhile after that. She seemed more preoccupied with her own thoughts rather than speaking to me. Oddly enough, this bothered me a bit more than it should have I think. I was going home soon, why should anything else bother me? But the mare was very obviously keeping something from me. I was a very observant pony if nothing else in my personal opinion.

"Look there." Surprisingly she was the one to speak next, dragging me back to the moment as I looked in front of us in the distance. Far ahead, I saw what looked to be the remains of a tower, well, half of it. What was left of the tower didn't even touch the clouds.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" I muttered to myself more than to her, before realizing I had vocalized my question. Just as before, I didn't want to annoy her, but...damn if the place didn't look ragged even from this distance.

"I'm sure. Just because the top half of the tower is gone doesn't mean the lower half's controls aren't in place anymore. All you will be doing is putting out any sort of signal and they'll catch onto it quick. Its not like they aren't looking for you, remember." She answered my question with another while turning her head about to look at me fully.

"Yes I remember, they just don't know all the truth yet. I'll get this sorted out." Attempting to give her a confident tone, which she ended up rolling her eyes at before looking forwards again.

"Sometimes, the truth doesn't help no pony."

...well then.





The tower had grown closer the further we went, and just as I knew that eventually we would be parting ways, Karma stopped, which almost ended up with me bumping into her backside as I had re-taken my place behind her while we walked at some point. Furthering conversation after our last talk had seemed rather mi-nute.

She stood looking at the broken down tower for a bit longer before finally slowly turning around to face me. Looking between one another for a few silent seconds, the knife that could be used to cut it would have had to been very sharp.

"Well, I guess...Thanks, for everything, I mean." Stumbling across my words I rubbed a hoof over the back of my mane. I was so pro at goodbyes, sarcasm intended.

"No need for thanks. It is what ponies should do, helping one another. Despite their differences." Her reply strangely held a mild tone, as if she were doubting her own words. Something told me that wasn't quite the case though.

"Yeah, well...Maybe we'll see each other again sometime." I held out my hoof to her, trying to again give her that confident attitude with a smile.

She didn't reply at first, simply looking down at my hoof for a few seconds before looking back up at me. Her stoic expression slowly shifted with a small smile, lifting her own hoof and softly bumping it against my own. Afterwards she shifted her head and shoulders around to remove my rifle pack, helping me to place it on my free side so that I now had both my armor and weapons in tow.

"Good luck, Cloud Nine." She said quietly, before stepping fully behind me to make her way back to town.

I opened my mouth to say something, but...nothing else really came to me. So instead I gave her a sturdy nod and slowly stepped around her, looking up at the tower as I made my way forwards, trying to go over in my head exactly what in Equestria I was going to do to get a message up to my comrades. It wasn't like I had ever been in one of these things before, even though we had been taught plenty about them before...

Wait a sec.

"Hey! You never told me..." I had turned quick enough to catch her as she left, but instead I just found myself staring out at the wasteland behind me. She was no where I could see. Twisting my head left and right only left me with my current surroundings, and as far as I could tell, I was now alone.

"...your real name." Pony-feathers.





Eventually I came to the base of the tower. It had some point been surrounded by a fence, but half of that was long gone by now. Only thing left standing were partial metal rods sticking here and there out of the dirt, along with the poles that had been used to hold the obstruction up. Luckily, what had been left of the gate simply wasn't there anymore at all, and I was able to easily trot right into the main compound. I use the word compound now only because it was just then that I noticed the tower had been connected to a small warehouse looking building with most of its windows either missing, or completely blocked by dirt blown through the wind over a few centuries.

I felt the main warehouse doors should be ignored, so instead I went up to a small doorway that looked like it had at some point been sliding doors, with one of the doors only being slightly intact as it stuck out halfway from the wall while the other I guessed had made a forever home in the other side wall. It left the doorway easily passable with the open space, and so I stepped inside carefully, pausing just over the threshold.

Inside seemed simple enough. A desk in the middle of the floor circled around as the main welcome area, atop it held two computers, both with their screens broken out. Stepping forwards as if I was some long-ago visitor I leaned over in curiosity to see what else the desk held. Pencils, pen, paper and magazines I couldn't read any longer, and to my surprise a tiny snow globe, still amazingly intact.

Rearing up on my front hooves to lean over the counter I stretched a wing over to scoop up the little trinket, bringing it to the top of the welcome desk so I could use that same wing as a feather duster over the shaded by time plastic. Inside was a replica of the tower as it had been in its hay-day, complete with little magical-induced clouds inside it rather than snow. That's prime pegasus design right there.

Oddly, I looked to my left and right, as if there might be any pony actually watching me, before re-scooping up the globe with a grin and pulling my feathers about to shuffle it into a side pocket of my armor bag. What could it hurt?

Giving a small cough to bring myself back to the current situation at hoof, I slowly stepped around the desk to look at the double doorway behind it. With a hoof press it creakily opened up to a longer hallway surrounding by doors leading this way and that. I almost sighed before realizing that the doors were labeled, and thankfully enough the ravages of time had left them mostly intact enough to read. I really wasn't looking forwards to poking a hoof into every room here till I found something useful.

Soon enough, after having passed a lunch area, maintenance room, and restroom I found myself now what I guessed to be the middle portion of the tower. If the machines and the insanely high ceiling had anything to show for it. A circled row of machinery filled the center, while countless panels and screens lined the walls with added keyboards next to each, still waiting for their pegasus team to monitor the weather and give out orders to the different teams controlling the clouds that day long ago.

I frowned on seeing most of the screens dark, or broken, along the walls. But, it was just my luck one screen was just barely flickering with a green glow past the layers of dust that covered it, right in the center of the middle control unit in the room. Upon further inspection as I stepped closer I saw the solid plastic panel cover below where the keyboard should have been. With a hoof-click of the button I found next to it, the panel slid back to show a series of cloud shaped buttons and levers. With a smile I reached forwards and poked a random cloud-button, more because I was happy to see an element I was used to.

The screen in front of me flickered even faster, with a whirring sound that had me wondering if that last little push was enough to bring whatever was left of the system to a crashing halt, but instead soft lights lit up under the clouds to give more indication of what button was what. A colorful little light show that had to have been beautiful at some point, but with half of the lights refusing to cooperate, only left me with a few options. Unhooking my bags I let them sit on the floor next to me while I got to work.

Taking a deep breath, I went about to fooling with the cloud's buttons as I squinted at the flickery screen to attempt to see exactly what I was attempting to pull off. For awhile, I was getting pretty sick of seeing ComManD xX2x :: ERrOr flash across the screen before it would revert back to what I think was a home screen. But eventually, after what seemed like forever I got a different response of, x31XC.R. :: ExeCUte?

Sure? Why not.

With a satisfied smirk, I lowered a hoof to a side lever, and slid it down. That had to do something.

And sure enough, the screen blinked completely out. Bucking pony-feathers...

Neon purple invaded my eyes suddenly as set of what I thought were dead lights flashed, before slowly clicking on upwards in a rainbow line. Purple, blue, what might have been green but was now brown, yellow, orange, and finally red. I was startled by the colors at first, thinking I had broken it, but with red coming online the screen finally shifted to a new screen indicating TeAm x2ClouDERusH :: SigNal acTIVe!. With a complimentary little dish looking thing twirling around in a circle beyond the random flickers the screen refused to quit the entire time.

Above me, I heard a part of the machine groan as if it was attempting to shift something into place. Though all I could really see was a cloud of rust and dirt shift downwards in response. Quickly I backed up to avoid getting myself any more dirty than I already was and simply watched the machine for a few moments. Nothing else changed, but the little disk was still contently whirring around on the screen. Thinking to myself, I could only hope one of our cloud ships may pick up on a pegasus related signal.

Now what to do...Looking around the still mostly dead room I didn't really feel up to just sitting around and waiting. Right as I was deciding to head back outside the way I had come in, the sound of something metal and small being knocked over caught my attention, coming from a door to my right. Forgetting about my bags, I walked up to the door and very slowly pushed it open, to peek my head in just to see exactly what it was that had made the noise.

The door, is what had originally been access to the warehouse looking building from the main tower. Inside was mostly empty besides a few old-school cloud carriages that had been left behind, along with some random boxed up clutter between the layers of dust covering mostly everything, what really caught my attention though, was the armored figure standing next to one of the carriages, where a small piece of metal paneling had fallen off of it. I let out a sigh of relief on recognizing the mostly black enclave armor, they were already here the whole time!

Fluttering my wings to boost me into the room, I barely had enough time to raise a hoof and give a 'Hey!' before something smacked me across the back of my skull, causing me to fall face-first into the floor as the blow shifted my balance completely forwards and had me kissing the floor with my entire muzzle.

Everything had gone fuzzy and mostly black as I tried to scrape myself off the floor, only to get another smack. Groaning, the last thing I saw was the armor wearing pony having turned their helm in my direction to look, but had otherwise not made any effort to save me from whatever plight I had stupidly walked into.

Pony-feathers didn't even cover it...my last thought was bringing out the big curses.

I am so fucked.






"Because, don't you want to be a better pony?"

"Yeah...I suppose I do."






I awoke, Celestia only knows when, to feel myself laying across a smooth surface. It seemed like way too much of an effort to open my eyes just yet, and I was more interested in the fact I had fallen asleep laying on my stomach, with all four hooves splayed out and...I apparently couldn't move my wings, or my legs for that matter.

It was the last realization that had me quickly trying to blink my eyes open and into proper focus. That only lead to the headache that I now was only realizing was very similar to the one I had woken up with only a day or so ago. I tried not to make any noise, but I kept attempting to move, only finding myself stuck in the exact same position against my will.

Finally, things came into focus enough for me to notice that I was in the same warehouse as before. Same carriages, same boxes...though not the same table, the table I was currently laying on. My front hooves appeared to be tied down to the table with rubber boxing straps, metal hooks attached to the table kept them from coming loose, and I could only just barely lift either hoof before my strength would give out and they would snap back against the table, rather painfully I might add.

And was it hotter in here or was it just me?

Turning my head to check on my wings and back hooves, similarly attached, caught my attention to one of the carriages that had been in the warehouse. It was now on fire, which is why I guessed the room was far warmer than it should have been. Luckily, the smoke was being pulled out of the broken top windows of the large room, but unlucky for me, the armored pony was still here. Whomever it was stood next to the fire and was quietly watching the flames, and beside them was another pony looking directly at me. Oh great, friends.

"I can explain...really. If you don't mind letting me up, I'm not going to fly off, I need to talk to you." I tried explaining, "I didn't kill anypony, but I know who did." I had given up pulling at my bonds for the time being. My wings were also bound down with the same, but longer, straps pulled over the center of the table, but I refused to fight against them for the time being. I needed to show them I was sincere.

"You won't be flying anywhere, anytime soon, or ever, when we get back upstairs."

The sound came opposite of my current line of sight, so I had to pull my head back around to my right to look, to find myself being hovered over by a third armored pony, male, from what I could tell from the muffled sounding voice.

"You really do have it all wrong!" My patience and calm were slowly dimming. "Whirl killed those ponies, he's the one who needs to be dealt with. Why do you think I would be coming here to try to find someone to talk to in the first place?"

Armored wings lifted, white feathers poking out from behind, to lift while one of his shoulders rolled into a shrug.

"We have our orders."

"And just what are those orders detailing?!" Okay, now I was irritated, they weren't listening!

"To obtain and capture the rogue soldier, Cloud Nine, in any means or way possible." Was plainly stated by him in reply to my half-yelling. His wings had lowered back down, but other than that, he simply kept looking at me. I found myself wanting to growl under my breath.

"Well you have me, even though I did nothing to deserve this if you would just let me up and let us talk like fellow soldiers, the real pony you're after is Whirl, he killed my group. Not me."

"Irrelevant. We have our orders, like I said." He replied again as if he was mildly irritated at having to repeat himself. He stepped around the table, forcing me to twist my head again to my discomfort to try to follow him with only my gaze. Casually, he lifted a hoof up to work at undoing the clasps on the underside of his helmet.

"Ugh...and what now?" I noticed his two fellows that were now behind him had stepped away from the fire, and had walked over to the door I had used to come inside, both of them stepped through it and out of sight through the door, leaving me alone with my prosecutor.

"We are to brand you, and then bring you back to our superiors. That was the end of our orders."

"Wait, what now?! Brand me and then take me back?! What are you going to do, clip me in front of everyone?!" It wasn't as if the branding was already a horrible thought...but I had heard horror stories about criminals being clipped, and then thrown back off the clouds...

At this point he had got the clasps undone from his armor, and with lowering his head he was able to pull the helmet off with the same hoof to hold it from having it drop to the floor. Once he raised back up, I was able to get a first-hoof look at my captor.

And, it was almost like looking in a backwards mirror. We had very similar coloring, though where as my coat was an off-white color at best, his was a brighter pure white compared to my own. We both had blonde manes, and again we only slightly differed there as well. Mine was the lighter of the two, while his was only a shade or two darker, cropped shorter than mine into a more worthy military cut. My eyes were a plain blue, while his stared back at me with contempt in the color of sea-green.

Maybe it was the fact we looked similar in coloring, but I swore I had seen him somewhere before.

I guess he had by now got tired of answering my accusations, and after placing his helmet on the same table I was still strapped to, he headed over to the still-burning carriage, poking a hoof near the flames for a moment before kicking something out of the fire. Something metal, long, and thin.

Here I was, having no idea what my cutie mark represented to me personally, and I was about to lose it forever.

That last thought, was finally brought home when I saw him carefully reach down with his muzzle to the cooler end of the metal rod. The opposite end was still caked in the flame that it had been removed from, but I easily saw the cloud and lightning bolt outlined in bright orange underneath.  With a shake of his head, the flames were put out, but the end still glowed and smoked slightly when he stepped back over to me, holding the piece between his teeth and positioning himself near my left flank.

"Oh dear Celestia..." I heard myself mutter as I turned my head away and closed my eyes tight, I could feel the heat coming off the rod even as he stood next to me. This was it, I should have listened to her...

With the sound of the door swinging back open just as I started to feel my fur being singed back by the heat that I had guessed was just inches away from scarring me forever, I heard the voice of the very pony I had just been thinking about.

"Rocket, please don't do this..."





I'll admit, I was stunned for a few moments. Laying there tied down with my eyes scrunched up awaiting my horrible fate. I almost thought I had made the sound up in a last desperate attempt at hope that I would be saved. When the burning pain didnt come, I found myself just barely sneaking my left eye open to look over at the doorway, and sure enough there stood Karma. Wearing her signature outfit still, though her hood had been pulled up and the gas-mask goggles covered most of her face besides her muzzle.

Somehow, she had sneaked past the other two enclave soldiers. I'll try to remember not to make fun of that silly outfit ever again.

"Oh thank Celestia..." I muttered under my breath as I felt my muscles relax slightly at the thought that I was actually going to be able to get out of this situation. I'll admit I am not the fastest pony when it came to nearly having my cutie mark burned off, but it did take me a moment to realize exactly what the mare had said.

"Wait a bucking moment...Rocket? You two know one another?" I tried to inquire to them both. But, I was being ignored. Mare and Stallion hadn't moved from their positions and were looking at one another intently. Maybe, this wasn't exactly what I had planned as far as a rescue...

Finally, the armored pony whom I could only now guess was named 'Rocket', slowly backed a step away from my table and lowered the still hot iron rod from his muzzle on the floor in front of him. Giving a small shake to his mane before raising back up and turning completely to stare at my companion, squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes slightly.

"What are you doing here?" He didn't seem phased at all by having been called by his name, though his tone had lowered to a softer octave, as if he wasn't wishing for anyone else to hear the current conversation.

"I was making sure he got home, I know how your squads work after all..." Her head lowered slightly, just barely looking up at him from under her shaded face.

"Um..Y-yeah. She also can vouch for me. I didn't kill no pony. You can um...let me go now," I interrupted. Still strapped to the table here. Would love to be removed from current hostage situation. "...Please."

Rocket didn't even give me a second glance as he kept his eyes on Karma. She on the other hoof just barely turned her head to look at me, even through her half-mask I could see the sad expression clearly. What exactly was going on here?

"Cloud, that's just it," She muttered again before her voice slowly drifted off, her eyes closed while she took a hoof to raise up to her hood and slowly slide it back. Only when her head was free did she look back at my captor, and even though that sad look still reigned supreme, there was something else in that shiny-eyed gaze. Anger. "...he doesn't care."

It must have finally struck a chord with Rocket, because he ended up lifting a hoof and lowering it back down in a slight stomp before he caught his temper again, giving his muzzle a shake and drawing it back up into that concentrated control.

"You should leave." Was all that he told her, and Karma just laughed dishearteningly.

"I guess I really should, but I never really was much for following orders was I, Rocket?" She caught herself smiling at some sort of old memory with a shake of her head, before that just as quickly fell when she looked back to him again with the somber gaze. "But please. Don't do this. Let him go, You were better than this."

"I am better now, Bright." He quickly stated with a snort of hot breath in her direction.

Karma stood silent for a few moments, before that small spark of anger seemed to ignite again, and her form shook as the strength of the feeling swept through her body.

"You're better now? Really?! Is that what you think of yourself now?! Is it that what you were thinking when you decided that it was a good idea to burn off a colt's cutie mark!? Do you even remember if he had a cutie mark yet?!"

Rocket stood silent to her accusation, and I realized I'd completely forgotten about that...why in Celestia's blazes did I come here...

"Was it because they didn't tell you where your fugitive was?! Were you trying to make an example of a dirt-born pegasus?! You think you are so righteous in your actions that it didn't even occur to you he'd only been down here a day and they may have no idea what was going on?! But maybe it was just you not caring again. Anything to finish your stupid mission." The last words were spat out in a further show of contempt from the mare.

"You are going to leave." He stated a second time, though now a threat with him lowering his head to glare at Karma while his wings just barely lifted off of his back.

"I am not leaving without Cloud," She mimic-ed his stance with one of her own, head lowered while her hooves scooted slightly further apart, her shoulders lifting to make herself look stronger. "You want me to leave? Then try and make me."

Oh dear.

"Watch out!" I tried to warn her when I saw his wings sweep backwards with a gust that was used to propel himself forwards, using his speed in an attempt to catch her off guard, but it seemed I hadn't much faith in the flightless mare. Quickly she side-jumped the burst, twisting her body about in an attempt to throw out her back hooves at her attacker while using the added momentum to get away from his own hooves.

Sadly all she caught was a lifted front hoof that her own back hooves rattled across the armor in casing it, leaving him to only skid back slightly at the force she had put behind it. Only now did he give a full burst flap of his wings to throw himself into the air and into a loop to try again to attack in a similar manner, throwing out his back hooves to try to slam them down atop her.

Karma only barely managed to miss this attack again, sweeping her body about where he would only just barely miss her back, and she was able to throw her body against his to attempt to use his own speed against him and toss him into the brick wall. Instead, when his body was thrown off course he simply swiveled his wings about to pull his hooves against the oncoming wall, landing roughly sideways, and he was able to push off even faster than before as his wings buzzed with the strength of another attack.

This was getting way out of hoof, and I was desperately trying to struggle against the straps holding me down, my hooves and legs snapping back against the metal loudly each time I attempted to pull at them. Meanwhile Karma was dodging his attacks, and it was very clear she was outmatched. She was barely attacking, merely attempting to dodge anything he threw at her as he swooped back and forth mid-air at her.

It was also very obvious, she wasn't going to be able to keep this up forever. But it didn't stop her from taunting the stallion further.

"How many ponies could you have helped, Rocket Science?! How many lives have you had to ruin since?!" She'd yelp when a hoof came barreling down, just barely missing her as she jumped out of the way. "Are you truly a better pony?!"

Rocket Science. Now that was a name I did recognize. It caused me to stop my struggling as the name alone struck a clear memory. 


Mares and gentlecolts, we have finally smuggled out the last of the traitors among us! All from the help of this great stallion! We can all breathe a little easier today, praise the Enclave!


She was fighting Rocket Science. Not only had he single-hoofedly infiltrated the supposed traitor group that was among the clouds, but there was also the rumor that he was next in line to join our very own Wonderbolts. They had sent a Wonderbolt trainee to get me.

There was absolutely no way Karma was winning this fight.

Right at that thought, he indeed landed a blow to her side. Doing another loop after she had dodged him to come right back around to catch her other side. Front hooves plummeted into her side and threw her in a very similar manner as she had attempted before against the metal-side wall of the warehouse. Her body landed with a loud clang that not only dented the old metal, but caused shards of it to burst as portions of the sheet tore from their rust covered scars. She couldn't help a gasp when she was cut, landing on the floor and shaking herself that caused crimson droplets to scatter around her.

Panting harshly she pulled her head up in a verbal growl to look at Rocket, who oddly enough hovered calmly midair, looking down at her with a slight frown, not even out of breath.

"All the good you could have done..." She was just barely able to pant out, her hooves trembling slightly. "Even if it accounted for nothing you could have done more than any other pony did, you could have tried..." Slowly she took a deeper breath.

"You could have been better than this!"

"I don't have time for this." He stated calmly, and he shifted his wings forwards to align the front half of his body at her, and the tell-all soft sizzling sound indicated he had decided to finally use the two rifles attached to the sides of his armor. "It didn't have to be like this, Bright."

"Well that's at least a last thing we can still both agree on..." She quietly muttered in response, closed her eyes, and grimaced...

"NO."

I felt one of the straps finally give as I apparently struggled again. With a strength I had no idea I had the rubber cracked and burned across my hoof as it split in half and went ricocheting to either side. This was wrong. This wasn't right. She had saved me, she didn't deserve this! Everything about this was completely and utterly wrong!

But I was still too late, both side rifles of Rocket's armor brightened in a flash of neon green light and flew straight at my friend, just as I was able to get another strap to snap off one of my back hooves. I was still too late! Too damn late!

"KARMA!" I could do nothing but scream.
> That I get what I deserve.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Climbing out of the hole was quite the numbing experience. At first, I could do little else but slowly sit down as the world went into a form of silence I didn't quite understand. Here, there were no sounds of machinery, or air vents, the swishing of automatic doors opening and closing, or the near-constant chatter of ponies that I had grown accustom to over the years. After having lived in a larger community for so long, the silence outside the door was almost frightening as much as it was soothing.

The air here was stale, and the thought crossed my mind that maybe I was the only pony in the last two or three hundred years to breathe in this air. Was that a privilege or a curse?

I remember eventually shifting my bag on my back, and letting the glow of my pipbuck guide me upwards through the tunnel. The green glow casting shadows over the rough dirt and stone walls as the tunnel made a slow incline up. I was expecting a door at the end, but instead I was greeted with overhanging trap door in the ceiling, just as dark as anything else in that hole.

I was worried maybe I wasn't getting out, for all I knew I would open up that wooden escape hatch only to find I was blocked by a cave in. Thankfully though, when I reared up and pushed at the half-rotted wood, it stayed intact and lifted along with the rustling sound of thick dusty fabric being pulled along with it.

A small jump and clasp of my front legs over the edge, scuffled curse while I lifted my body out of the hole with more back-leg kicking than I would like to admit, I found that I luckily was not caved in, and I was in a still intact building.

Oh...now this was rich.

The building even in its century old rotted state was unmistakable, even though all the information I had been told was subject to textbooks. Pews lined the side-walls, open windows were long gone letting in rays of frail light, and here I was standing in the middle aisle among shards of faded rainbow glass.

The broken stone statue of an Alicorn had lost part of its horn, and one of the unfolded wings had been ripped clean off.

All I could do was laugh. Those faithless ponies below me had no idea what we lived under.





"KARMA!" I screamed, my friend...she was, she was...

I wanted to close my eyes, I didn't want to see her body enveloped by the green magical energy to be reduced to a pile of glowing soot and sludge. The beams had been at near point-blank range, she was too tired to move, too worn out to escape her fate.

The flash of green suddenly took on a brighter gold hue in a retaliation of shimmering light, and next thing I knew those death rays were smacked out of their original flight path to leave two smoldering holes in the metal coating that made up the far wall. They had landed no where near Karma, and I found myself shocked into starring at the two glittering holes where the outside light drew straight lined patterns in the dust-filled air.

I think my muzzle had dropped open at one point, and I'd completely forgotten about my half-victory over the straps holding my body down. Blinking away the flash that had momentarily blurred my vision I slowly brought my head around to try to figure out what had happened, was she still alive?

What I was left with, confused me that much more and my brain had trouble catching up. I didn't understand it at the time, so there is little I can do other than explain what I was left looking at, dumbfound.

Around the beige and brown mare glimmered gold, tendrils of light criss-crossing to shield her body where she had partially fallen onto her right front knee, head bowed and eyes closed.

Unicorn magic, where there was no unicorn.

Just then, her eyes slowly opened to look up at the still-hovering Rocket through the strands of her mane that had fallen forwards. Where there should have been pupils and iris, instead was that same gold glow that took up the entirety of both of her eyes, it was a wonder she could even still see. It was obvious though, all of her attention was brought back to her attacker.

Rocket stayed in the air, wings softly keeping him aloft as he looked down to her, with ears backed and eyes narrowed.

"Treat ponies as if they were what they ought to be, and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming." Karma suddenly proclaimed, as if she were reciting something she had read at some point. Raising to stand fully once more before the armored pegasus, those orbs of light narrowed at him.

"What gives you the right." Was clearly stated at him. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation.

Rocket stayed silent, but as I glanced up at him and just barely noticed his ears twitch. Doubt.

And then, of course, a new sort of hell broke loose.





The side door to the main building banged open as a armored body was thrown though it, the black armor coating the pony body screeched across the floor as the metal screamed in pain at the skid, though the body stayed still.

"Yeah, take that you metal bastard!" Came the sound of a known loud-mouthed pony through the door.

My full attention was brought back to the door where it banged open, and a suddenly very large, very obviously annoyed brown stallion huffed after having thrown the enclave soldier through. His hat was slightly askew, and Stan did not look very happy at all.

Peeking over the larger stallion's shoulder, the goggle-wearing Psych was pushing back his mane with a hoof and trying to look inside the warehouse with a squint under the scratched glass.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Karma stutter on her hooves, holding her right hoof to her ear and wincing as the light from before was blinking out in a very static-y way before it blinked out entirely and she fell onto her side.

"Hey!" I called over to the two of them, still on the table. The three of us caught each others gaze, and I carefully lifted my front free hoof in greeting. Which only caused Psych to roll his eyes as he lifted the goggles up and on top of his head.

"Not looking for you, winged asshole!" He'd respond before both stallions turned their attention to Karma's direction. She lay on her side with her head groggily drifting from side to side as if she was dizzy. Rocket had turned in mid-air to regard the two new ponies with another silent frown.

"Stupid mare..." Psych growled under his breath before bumping himself against Stan's side and pointing a hoof at the floating pegasus. "Pony up!"

Stan's ears twitched at that last statement as his head lowered, and I could have sworn I saw him grin slightly before he charged into the room in a single smooth movement for a pony his size. A slight twist of his head was the only warning given before that sword he carried across his back came swiveling forwards in an arch of silver and green, hilt clasped between his teeth he angled the over-sized weapon within its unfurled curve to swing back over his left shoulder and up, letting the hilt turn within his muzzle while he tried a forwards jump at Rocket.

Rocket was not about to let something as simply as a sword carrying earth pony get any chance at an actual blow, and with a gust of his wings he propelled himself backwards in mid-air and far out of Stan's range, raising an eyebrow at the other stallion's attempt of attack with the same casual air of disdain he had been keeping the entire time.

It was at this moment that my brain decided to kick in its common sense program and I realized I was still partially attached to the table. It was simple enough to use my free front hoof to unclasp its partner before reaching around me to fiddle with the larger strap that held my wings down. That particular strap warranted a bit more struggling before it finally snapped off to the side, and I slipped my back hoof out of the last one keeping me attached.

Using my wings I followed Rocket's example and allowed a firm flap to fling myself off the table and in Karma's direction. The mare was still laying on her side with only her head partially propped up as it swayed. Having no clue how to help I simply stood near her side protectively, giving her a single worried glance before I looked back to the fight at hoof.

Stan and Rocket were slowly circling one another after Stan's failed attack. Stan was keeping his front to the pegasus, while Rocket was simply observing the situation without wasting much effort on a followup attack.

"You want to play like that, fine..." I heard Psych mutter to my left, looking to the purple pony I saw him using his magic to dig through his saddle bag while grumbling. After a few seconds he ended up pulling two potion bottles out of his bag, one filled with a yellow mixture, and the other with a green, finding what he was looking for he grinned. The grin was scary enough on its own.

The green glow of his magic drew the two bottles apart in mid air and brought them around in front. Using a front hoof to dust his chest off smugly, he glanced back over to where Stan and Rocket stood their grounds.

"Lets make this more interesting." He told himself, before suddenly smashing the two bottles together within safe distance in front of him. With their common shatter, also came a woosh of heat as the two chemicals combined, and with his magic still firmly attached, the two chemicals ended up creating a glare of green fire. The insane pony had lit his own magic on fire, balefire even.

"Try and dodge this!" Psych yelled before pulling a piece of his magic apart from the sweltering ball of green death and launching it straight at Rocket.

The bright green color was hard to ignore, and Rocket let his body fall to the side as the death-magic just barely missed him. But instead of the fire simply going its normal straight course, once it had missed it did a loop and headed right back to Rocket like a homing missile.

Now that nearly caught him off guard, as he had fell to the side to avoid the first blast, Stan had taken the chance at another curved jump attack with his sword, forcing the in-flight soldier to flap backwards again and out of reach, but it left him open to Psych's fire.

He was just nearly not fast enough to avoid that second attack from the balefire as it blasted back at its intended target. With his wings already positioned to force him backwards, he only barely had enough time to react with another backwards flap that held a lot more strength than the first, a fair sign he hadn't been expecting to have to dodge it a second time.

And sure enough, the warehouse as large as it was, just wasn't big enough for this kind of aerial combat, and with avoiding the fire a second time he accidentally ended up hitting the metal wall of the warehouse in a similar manner that Karma had earlier.

The semi-solid surface startled him just barely, and he fell onto all four hooves to the floor. Giving Stan ample enough time to rush forwards while Psych was beginning to pull a second ball of flame out of his larger personal one to throw while his first hovered just behind Stan.

"Wait!...wait..." Karma suddenly erupted beside me as she had apparently been following the fight as best she could in her position, and she was attempting to struggle to her hooves. Stan stopped mid-inches from trying to lop the head of his opponent, and Psych was surprised enough that both smaller orbs of fire faltered and nearly fell to the floor before he re-caught them. Apparently spreading his magic about took a greater deal of concentration than I originally thought.

"Wait exactly for what?!" He snarled over to her, taking his eyes off of Rocket and onto Karma who was just barely able to get her front hooves to push herself up.

"D-don't...kill him. Don't kill him!" She struggled to reply.

"Karma, I don't think this is a good time to..." I attempted to mutter softly to the strange acting mare.

"I said do. not. kill. him." She spat out, looking first to me, then to Psych with both eyes narrowed hatefully.

"For the love of...you stupid, stupid mare!" Argued Psych before he turned back to look at Stan, pointing another hoof at Rocket, who was getting his bearings back quickly. "Finish this shit already!"

"NO!" Karma yelled as she tried scrambling forwards to stop her other stallion friend.

Stan stayed where he was, positioned with sword in muzzle to slash forwards at Rocket, but he was clearly conflicted and hadn't made a move to follow Psych's order...

Rocket took his chance, flaring his wings and forcing himself back into the air and nearer to the ceiling, glaring down at the two stallions. With a clasp of his teeth on the main firing section of his rifles, he prepared for a full-on fight.

"WHY DO I LIVE WITH IDIOTS?!" Psych bellowed before letting his anger get the better of him and drawing all three orbs of fire together with his magic, and launching the entire thing at Rocket.

"ROCKET!" Screeched Karma as she finally was able to stand and she tumbled forwards, and I threw a wing across her chest to keep her from falling, wincing at her yelling, feeling conflicted myself...

Suddenly, and without much warning, came the second shape of an armored pony that burst out from a half-broken window. What glass that had been left shattered as the blunt of the blow was forced along the armor section of its encased front hooves. With the propelled speed of its wings, and another small twist in mid-air that brought their back hooves around, Rocket suddenly found the left side of his face in full contact with the black metal.

Both pegasi tumbled from the air right as the balefire barreled past where they had been merely seconds ago, and hit across the length of the ceiling. Leaving a scorching line of black and green in a long scar till it fizzled out before reaching the far wall. Psych let forth a number of colorful curses at this point in such a speed I was in no way able to keep up with exactly what was said.

Stan sat there blinking through the entire second half of the ordeal, sword still clasped in his muzzle as he looked between Karma and I, Psych, and then finally to the two pegasi that had fallen back into that same wall from before, though it was easy to tell that Rocket was the one that hadn't fared nearly as well and was laying across the floor not moving, while the other armored one was getting to their hooves.

"You didn't take care of the other one?!" I accused Psych personally, turning to him as I felt my feathers ruffle in both irritation and further stress. 

"There was only the one, no one gave us the guest list to this fucking reunion!"  He yelled in a retort back to me. The fully armored pegasus had gotten to their feet and was waving around a front hoof as Stan threateningly pointed himself at them.

"Wait, wait. I'm not your enemy." Came the very female sounding voice under the helmet, afterwards she attempted to quickly undo the clasps under it, pushing her hoof against her neck.

"Oh, like that worked so well for me earlier..." I couldn't help but mutter darkly. But at least the female sounding voice had shut Psych up, and he was intently looking at the other enclave soldier with ears perked forwards. Karma had stayed silent for the time period, but I noticed she wasn't watching the new comer, but had her eyes locked onto the still form of Rocket, watching him to make sure he was still breathing.

Meanwhile, the female pegasus had finally undone the clasps to her helmet, and with a lean forward she removed the metal in casing her head. A bright flash of neon yellow shook itself from its entrapment while a ink streak of black blared out of the shocking color combination of her mane. Silvery fur made up her coat while she regarded us with a matching pair of the same vivid yellow eyes that matched her mane. After looking between the four of us, she finally turned her head and looked down at the still form of Rocket, and gave a breathy laugh.

"You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that."





"So, exactly how are you not our enemy when you are working with our enemy?" Psych asked the new pegasus mare holding her helmet as she looked at us. His tone was quieter than before, but still held some of his normal sarcastic sting. The mare shook her head at his question, closing her eyes for a quick moment with an exasperated expression, before lifting her head up and looking to the three of us with a more stern gleam to those neon eyes. Karma on the other hoof seemed to be ignoring us entirely for the time being.

"My name is Storm Cloud. I would not be working with the Enclave if I actually had another choice in the manner. I would love to be able to leave with my husband but...things are not entirely that simple."

"I can understand not leaving, with the risk of being caught and branded..." I quietly responded, giving the mare a sympathetic ear while the other two stallions in my company didn't seem quite as convinced.

"It isn't just that," She quickly stated while turning her head to look at me directly. "I would take the chance of getting caught if we even could actually take that chance. What the Enclave has been doing is...its just wrong. No pony should be more special because of their faults or their strengths." That last sentence of hers held far more passion that I think she wanted to imply.

"What is it your avoiding saying?" Psych asked in an even lower tone, slightly more dangerous. Stan remained silent, per the usual.

"Its just that..." Her sentence fell off, while she scuffed a front hoof against the floor, studying the motion so she could avoid our questioning gazes. "...I can't leave. Because he can't either."

"If you didn't notice the two feather-stuffed appendages on your backs, might be a good time to put them to use." Psych rolled his eyes, disbelieving.

"Fine, fine." She sighed, before suddenly looking back up at look at me. "My husband, Heat Sink, is Flightless."

I tried to hold back the startled cough that crawled up my throat. But the pained expression on Storm's face was clear.

"Explain." Psych demanded, turning to look at me, and with all of their attention minus the still silent and brooding Karma, I was reminded of the similar attention of all those new ponies from the day before, and I instantly became uncomfortable.

"Flightless...are pegasi that can not fly. They are perfectly intact, they even still retain their ability to manipulate clouds and walk on them but, for some genetic flaw, they are unable to fly, period. Its a rare condition, only one we have seen every few generations."

"So, that is why you can not leave." Stan stated, causing us to look at the normally quiet pony.

"Correct. But we want to, we desperately want to. Flightless pegasi are normally treated none too kindly," She stated with a soft sigh. "If it wasn't for his unusual talent with electronics, mostly old world computers, I'm sure he would have had some sort of accident by now." That last part was spitted out, with contempt.

"The Enclave would have him killed because he can not fly?" Psych piped up again, looking to the mare.

"Of course they would," The quiet tone had all of us turning to look at Karma who was now simply sitting by the unconscious Rocket's side, looking down at him. "The Enclave already has to do its best to keep their population in check. Why would they want a member that is severely handicapped? It isn't a fragile society by any means, but weakness isn't supported."

"That's uh...that's, correct." Storm stuttered slightly as she looked at the earth pony mare in a inquisitive manner.

"There are also strict laws when it comes to the Flightless," I brought up to them. "Flightless, are not allowed to reproduce."

And here, was when the storm colored enclave member lowered her ears against her head with a forlorn look.

"It isn't fair, he is the smartest and most caring stallion I've ever met...and all we want to do is have a family. But they won't let us, and so...we fight back however we can. With Spitfire's Schematics eradicated by that...that..." And the forlorn look was replaced with resentment when she looked behind her at Rocket. "We just do what we can to get by...and try and fix things when we can."

"The Schematics are still alive?" Karma suddenly asked, looking to Storm, and having finally brought her full attention away from Rocket, looking mildly surprised.

"Some of us minor followers...but the main members, were clipped, because of him." She pointed a hoof at Rocket's prone body.

"I am so very sorry," Karma quietly responded. "But why did you save him?"

"Because I heard how you yelled out his name. Anypony who would understand exactly how you yelled it, would have done the same," A slight toss of that yellow mane forced it back over her shoulder, before giving the beige mare a hard look. "I certainly know how you felt hearing it, I wouldn't wish that outcome on anypony, regardless how worthless he is."

Karma didn't reply to that, looking to the mare a few seconds longer before she returned her attention to Rocket.

"Anyways, I can give you a chance to get out of here. I'll take the chance that Rocket wont realize it was me who knocked him out, and you already knocked out my other team member. Just knock me out as well, and when the Enclave does finally bring somepony down here to figure out what happened, we can say we were taken by surprise and you got away." Storm looked back to our three stallion group.

"You mean I get to knock up a mare and not end up with a screaming brat in a few months? Well I am totally in." Psych smirked while sitting back on his back legs so he could rub his front hooves together.

Both Stan and I rolled our eyes in a single collective movement.

"Uh...I t-think you might have the wrong idea there. Married, like I sai-ARGH!" Storm stuttered again at first before she suddenly finding herself with a muzzle full of purple hoof as Psych had leaned towards her while throwing his weight behind a right-hoof punch. Storm fell in a metal clanking clump and was instantly dead to the world, out cold.

"Nope, I understood." Psych stated matter-of-factually while using his left hoof to rub his right after.

All three of us, Karma, Stan, and I instantly glared daggers in his direction.

"...What? Her idea, not mine." He gave us his best innocent look.

Stan continued to glare even as he stepped around both him and I and made his way to Karma's side, lifting a hoof and putting it to her shoulder softly with a nudge.

"We need to leave, your hurt."

"I-I...know. Just give me a minute. You guys head outside, I'm right behind you." Karma shook a hoof in our direction, pulling her face away from her friend as he tried to comfort her even in his quiet way.

Psych didn't need to be told twice, as he lifted to his hooves and goggles back to his eyes he made for the door. Stan stood quietly next to his friend before slightly shaking his head and simply moving to follow Psych out of the door we had come through originally, leaving behind Karma and I, along with the three other unconscious Enclave.

I stood, having turned my attention to Karma who quietly sat by Rocket's side. The stallion was still slowly breathing even in his inanimate state, and she seemed fully concentrated on that sole fact. Taking advice from the day before to thought, I slowly stepped up to the door and pushed it back open to follow the others outside.

As I was turning to head back down the hallway from before, the door swishing open and close behind me I did catch a last glimpse of Karma just barely.

The door swung back open as it attempted to go back to its normally closed state, I caught the picture of the beige toned mare having lowered her head, muzzle pushed into the side of Rocket's neck, eyes closed and nuzzling softly with a heart-piercingly pained expression.

I nearly tripped over my own hooves, and found myself attempting to quicken my pace to get outside. Only to go cantering back into the main computer room to grab up my saddle bags I had conveniently forgotten about. Such was the way of things.





I had been standing outside with the other males for a few minutes. Stan stood watching the horizon of the direction we would be heading back to town, Psych sitting on his back hooves and muttering miniscule curses about not wanting to travel at night and how it was all a certain mare's fault and why does he continue to do idiot things for obviously idiot ponies and....I sort of lost track.

The sound of hooves behind us brought out attention to the broken sliding door from where I had originally entered the building, and Karma was opening the hallway door to step through it and make her way outside. As she was about to step around the center desk she gave a slight shake of her head as if to rid herself of some pest, but ended up putting herself off balance and collided her right shoulder into the wooden frame. The old wood let out a groan of protest followed with a few cracks as she fell against it, and Stan was instantly cantering back into the building to stand next to her, lifting a hoof and sliding it under her chest to help pull her back into a standing position.

Karma hadn't even let out a curse or two at falling, though she did narrow her eyes at the desk itself as if it had been all its fault after she got done wincing. When Stan used his hoof to help haul her up, she also remained silent, though gave the larger stallion a nod of thanks before leaning her side against his so the two of them could step in time out the door.

Psych had stopped his grumbling and was looking at the pair of them with an eyebrow raised over one goggle. As they paused right outside the door Stan threw him a heated glance under his hat, causing Psych to lean back slightly as if the other stallion was intending on hitting him for some reason. Stan stomped a hoof, and Psych let out an exasperated sigh.

I stood by and watched the silent conversation, while Psych positioned his own single saddle bag over the opposite shoulder so he could take up position to Karma's right side in a similar manner to Stan. Karma would have jumped in shock when the purple pony pressed his side against hers in the silent help to keep her balance, and the stern straightforward expression he gave off was more than enough to keep Karma from questioning.

The three of them didn't even take another glance at me before they started walking off in the direction of the town. I found myself still stupidly standing there with my two bags and watching them before I took a last glance at the tower behind and above me. It was gloomier than when I had first went in, and I expected the sun was getting ready to set.

But, I was far more concerned with the thought that I wasn't going to be going home any time soon. Or ever, if I stopped fooling myself with the hopeful thoughts. What exactly was I going to do now?

A scuffle of dirt over the concrete under my hooves caused me to look back to the three other ponies. Karma had apparently stopped, and was looking over her shoulder at me. The two stallions had first looked to her for the pause, but then pulled their gazes also in my direction, and the three quietly waited. If it wasn't for his goggles I am sure Psych would be glaring, but it was Karma who tossed her head forwards and looked back at me again to see if I understood the hint.

I felt my feathers lift in slight surprise, even after today's experience, that mare and her companions were waiting for me to go with them. I suddenly realized, this entire time I had thought about going home, to where I obviously was no longer apart of. And yet, these surface dwellers still were going to share their company with me. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to go, right?

My chest felt slightly lighter when I stepped forwards to join them, circling around to trot at Stan's opposite side when they continued forwards. I couldn't go home, but just maybe I could stay here. One hoof in front of the other, when I was normally used to floating on wings. I remembered complaining about this walking thing before, but strangely enough it felt more right now than it did anytime before this.





We did have to stop eventually, before reaching the town. We apparently only had a few hours of daylight left, and as twilight came on, it came on quick. I knew that above the clouds it would still be bright enough, but below through the filtered light we were forced to stop.

Karma and Psych had sat down while Stan took the incentive to help get a fire started, which was simple enough with a few drops of another odd liquid from Psych's saddle bag. A dash of whatever it was on the fire, a few clicks of two green magic held rocks later, and the flame had swept over the mostly brush pile that Stan had put together. He had been able to find a little wood, but we had to deal with mostly torn bushes and the remains of long dead plant life.

I lay down near the fire, letting my left side point towards the warmth when the other stallions of my company laid down and got ready to deal with the dark. Karma had decided to sit down a few paces away from the group, and when I gave both a troubled and questioning glance in her direction, Stan was quick to throw me a threatening and protective look of his own. Damn that stallion could be scary when he wanted to be, and he had his own ideals on letting a pony keep their silence if they so wished it. Guess I couldn't blame him.

Pulling my bags from my sides I sat them near to me before stretching out my front hooves and placing my head down on top of them. With Psych pretty much curled up and looking as if he were asleep, though I am sure he wasn't, Stan kept his head up, looking over to Karma. He had silently decided to keep watch, even if the mare wasn't going to sleep any time soon, but nor was he going to tell her that she should. A part of me knew he wanted to.

Shifting a little to try to get comfortable on the ground had me looking over to Karma's figure, just barely outlined from the glow of our fire. The streak of gold in her mane and tail were easy enough to see, but the rest of her camouflaged near perfect to what I knew was a similarly colored backdrop of wasteland in the day. The green glow of her pipbuck illuminated the ground a few inches in front of her, and she was quietly looking down at the machine attached to her right hoof.

If I was going to stay here, I found myself thinking, I would need to know more about the ponies I was going to continue to be sharing company with. But, the others were a bit less noticeable to the knowledge that I did now have of the brown mare, who had let out knowledge of pegasi lifestyle I did not figure most surface dwellers were privy to. She knew that Wonderbolt trainee, and from what I had seen it had been far more than just an acquaintance of hers. If that last scene still burned into my mind had anything to to tell from it.

I couldn't dare ask her right now though, nor any time soon I feared.

But just maybe I could find a chance tomorrow...Maybe. Hopefully.





In the deeper dark, the earth pony mare looked down at her pipbuck thoughtfully. From their experience before she was still sporting a massive headache. Magical burnout the unicorns called it. But she wasn't a unicorn. She had no horn and thus, she was just another earth pony. Nothing special, nothing worthwhile really.

Nothing worth anypony staying for.

A quick glance was given to her friends, and she could see Stan still awake and looking at the fire. Psych and Cloud were asleep, and the only pegasus of their group was fitfully fluffing his feathered wings in his sleep, dreaming. The scene was almost too much for her, they were so much alike, but so very different at the same time. Good thing for him at least.

Looking above to where she knew the cloud layer still hovered miles on top of her, she wondered what it looked like up there right now. Of course she had seen the simulations, but that wasn't exactly the same thing was it?

A final glance down at her pipbuck, and she gave another sigh. Two years, nearly. Was she ever going to be given the grace to forget? Her life was fine here, friends and ponies she saw as family. It was a lot more than what most ponies had. Rainy had told her things would get easier, but they hadn't. Not really.

Her left hoof caressed the green glow while she looked down, thinking.

And she remembered how badly she wished she could stop thinking.

Finally she lay down by herself, even when Stan would look over to her to make sure she was still there, she'd pull her head around and curl up with her back to the group.
> When one door closes.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hadn't had much luck the last few days with scrounging up any old world material to trade, and so I now found myself standing in front of the town's notice board. Mostly filled with warnings or sales pitches done in scraggly hoof-writ writing or more easily read horn-writ. Please contact if found, Radroaches - the other-other-other white(?) meat, sale!, L.F. Good shot ranged pony, Contact Casting Couch for a good time <3 (P.S. 'Funny Stuff' is encouraged! She likes a good time too!)....

Pausing, I took a look back at the 'Good Shot' notice, signed under it was simply a blank shield which I figured symbolized the pony who had wrote the notice's cutie mark. Taking a look down at my pipbuck I figured it was a role I could fill, and I certainly didn't see my broke self contacting that Casting Couch to see if she had any openings for an 'extra'.

"But Light, we don't really need another pony to shoot stuff...I can shoot stuff just fine!" I heard a whine to my left that lead further into the little market place these ponies had set up. Off to the side two stallions, one pink and one light blue, were arguing among themselves. Well, guess I didn't have to go far...

As I trotted closer, I noticed the two standing near some wagons along with a few other ponies. Another stallion in a hat gave me a look over as I approached with a small nod in greeting, which I returned politely before clearing my throat with a hoof lifted to my muzzle. It easily caught the other two stallion's attention, the pink one raising a brow at me while the blue looked sulkily in my direction.

"Were you the one needing a pony that's a good shot?" Turning my right hoof towards them, I gave it a small shake to indicate the pipbuck attached to the appendage. Taking a glance at their flanks I saw the semi-transparent shield butt-tattoo attached to the pink stallion.

They stayed quiet for a few moments, before the bright pink one gave me a wide grin and stuck out his hoof, poofy yellow mane bouncing.

"Name's Light! And you are?"

I bumped my hoof to his, giving a small grin of my own.

"Karma."





I guess I had been too tired to sleep after all that had happened that day. All the same, it was some random scuffling that brought me out of my dreamless haze. Letting my eyes drift open just slightly I noticed that Stan was laying with his head down across his front hooves, hat pulled over his eyes, snoring softly. Psych on the other hoof, was digging around in his bag he had brought, and it was fairly easy to tell from that point where the sound had been coming from. I guess they had switched shifts on who was keeping watch during the night.

It was still fairly early, as the cloud cover above us was just barely brightening into a purple hue, but even with the fire out I could still watch Psych as he held his bag partially open with a hoof, and his horn was alight when he did finally find what he was looking for. Out of the bag he drew a rumpled piece of cloth, which unfolded to what I noticed as Karma's outfit. I never even realized she had lost it at some point, but I guess Psych had snatched it on our way out without any of us noticing.

A few quiet hoof-steps brought him over to Karma, the cloth still wrapped in his green glow, and without much expression he carefully laid it over her curled up form before turning away from her, only to end up with the two of us locking gaze. As my eyes went wide at being caught, his quickly narrowed, and he slowly brought himself back around to his sleeping spot from before.

"You saw nothing." He muttered under his breath before laying back down with his back turned to me, looking out at the wasteland.

Darting my eyes between him and the sleeping Karma, I lowered my ears slightly in thought. The longer I stayed around this particular group of ponies, the more confusing everything seemed to be. Looking above me at the clouds I wondered if maybe it was just because of how I had been raised in pegasus society. Everything up there was clean cut, you did this, you did that, there were things you did not do, couldn't do, and so on.

These ponies barely had known me for what...two days? three for Karma? I wasn't even quite sure anymore. On the thought of Karma I found myself drawing my attention from the clouds back to the sleeping mare, now covered up via her outfit. The things I had seen just simply did not add up. There was the fact she knew about pegasus society to at least some degree that really any surface dweller shouldn't have known about. She knew that Wonderbolt trainee by name, a bucking Wonderbolt in the making, and if that last scene I had witnessed had any merit to it, she knew him quite better than simply a name-basis.

With a shudder, I also remembered that in all rationality, she shouldn't even be alive right now. She had been fired on, nearly point blank, by a nova rifle. What in Tartarus kind of earth pony was able to deflect that? With magic none the less? Did it have something to do with that pipbuck she wore?

Questions. That's all I had at this point, and the only answers to anything I had were answers I really could have lived without. I wasn't welcome in my race's society at this point forward. I had been labeled as an enemy, and all I had for proof was simply my word, which didn't mean squat to any pony above me. I had no where to return to, and all I really had was this random group of strange ponies, and the one mare who had saved my life. And really, why had she?

With a soft sigh, I strayed my eyes down to my own hooves, which I still had my head laying upon, and the short coating of eggshell white fur coating them. Well, more dirt covered than anything else as of this moment, but I knew the color of my coat better than any pony. My coloration was very similar to that other pegasus. Maybe...she had only saved me because I looked like him. I caught myself feeling slightly depressed at that thought.

I closed my eyes, and willed myself to try to quit thinking. I had absolutely no clue that same particular thought had crossed another pony's mind not even a few hours before. 





It seemed like I had only a small chance to close my eyes for a mere few minutes before Psych was hoof-prodding us all awake. Though the clouds above seemed more orange than purple now in the later morning hours. Stan was currently scratching at the back-half of his mane with a hoof while Psych sat near by tapping impatiently at the ground. Karma, was giving her head a shake as she woke up with an audible yawn. Glancing behind her she noticed her ragged outfit laying over her and she gave it a curious sleepy expression before shrugging one shoulder and stiffly trying to get to her hooves.

Flaring my wings to either side in a stretch that caused my feathers to ruffle, I followed up with a short flap to help me to get to my hooves. After a similar yawn that I had contracted from Karma, I took a moment to strap on my bags via looping them over my head, and each wing, so that they covered my sides, but allowed my wings free movement. Karma had already made her way over to stand near Stan in her usual spot, while Psych had thrown his own bag about his head and shoulder and started to take the lead, Stan had followed suit and grabbed his sword to place strapped over his back.

Since Psych had given up his position to Karma's free side I decided to slip into the spot near them as we all headed our way quietly back to town. The pace was even slower than before, as Karma was stiffly trying to keep up. My guess whatever cuts she had under that cloak-like thing were not very happy about the movement. But the rest of the ponies seemed to allow her the slower pace, regardless of the time we were making. I uncomfortably looked behind us at the tower, just barely noticeable in the distance.

After going over some details from yesterday in my head, I did realize something I'd meant to ask out of curiosity.

"Um...Psych?" I called to our make-shift leader trotting ahead of us. He simply turned his head just barely to the right to regard me with a questioning raised brow. "I was curious, about the magic you did yesterday." Any topic of conversation was better than no topic of conversation at this point.

"What about it?" His normal aggravated tone softening at my interest.

"Well, shouldn't you, or us, be dieing of radiation right now? Or, at least showing symptoms or something? I didn't know any ponies could actually make balefire." Psych gave a huff of breath at my question before looking forwards as we walked again.

"The thing is, back in the day zebras and ponies created balefire to be deadly as possible against one another. You had the fire, and if you didn't die from that, you died from the radiation it emitted. Insanely effective at long range, but not so at short without getting yourself killed."

"When I was a colt, I had access to a laboratory and came to the conclusion that the two aspects that made balefire deadly could be possibly limited to either one or the other. It isn't like we don't already deal with radiation from the water, because even without the fire, that effect still lasted. So why couldn't I try creating the same thing, but minus the radiation poisoning?"

At this point, he looked back at his own cutie mark and motioned to it with a head tilt.

"So, with the right combination of chemicals, I was able to create with my own magic as a source, balefire, but without the radiation. Just as effective in its deadly properties of fire, but I was able to actually manipulate it without causing radiation poisoning to either myself or anypony around me."

"And that is how you earned your cutie mark." I ended the story for him with a nod of my own.

"Correct. But, as much as I saw the experiment as an achievement, the ponies I was currently residing with did not like it one bit. I was cast out shortly after as a harbinger of past destruction." At this he gave an eye-roll that I didn't have to actually be seeing his face to notice. "They simply could not appreciate genius." A flick of his head upwards to end his statement.

"That is a heck a lot more fascinating than how I got mine, How about you Stan?" I turned my head in his direction. Lets keep this conversation train a-rolling.

Stan glanced over at me from his position on the other-side of Karma, he would then look down at her in an almost careful expression and she simply nodded for him to continue. He then cleared his throat and softly rumbled a reply.

"My family found business with metal. There are not a lot of ways to make caps with the competition of others, but they found they could use old-world metal to make weapons, armor, even bullets, to sell at a decent price to keep us afloat. My father tried his best to make me follow suit, but I was bare-flanked for the longest time, and could not keep up with his level of work."

I nodded to this, I understood what it felt like to be useless for a time. That, and I wasn't about to interrupt the most I'd heard this stallion talk in days.

"One day, I was helping my father scavenge for metal in an old shop that I think used to be for...supplies and junk from out of our country. We didn't know what we would find, but figured it wouldn't hurt to look."

"Anyways, while my father was in a different part of the shop, I found this old hat in the back." He perked his head up slightly to look up at the faded black material that made up the wide brimmed article. "I also found, amazingly enough some of these old large black disks along with a machine of some sort that looked like was used with the black disks."

"Not finding anything else useful, I grabbed both objects and hoofed them into my bags, and threw the hat on my head. My father was very irritated that I hadn't found anything he thought 'useful', but I thought the least I could do is sell it to some junk-collector if I could get them to work." He paused and shrugged a shoulder mid-trot. 

"We went home, I found I could get the machine to work when I plugged it into a generator. When I added a black disk, I found it made music. It was the first time as a colt I'd ever got to hear music before, and I found it amazing. I felt the urge to dance, something else I had never done before, and before long I lost track of time. My father found me hours later, with this mark attached to my flank. He also wasn't very pleased with this."

"Did they kick you out too?" I questioned finally, resulting in a slightly narrowed glare from Psych in front of us.

"No. I left of my own accord. He wasn't happy, I wasn't happy, it was for the best. I met up with a friend and we decided to go adventuring. Pyro was not very well liked either, so we decided to head off on our own."

Ah, that made some sense, and I nodded again in thanks.

"And you?" I finally asked Karma, whom refused to look at me.

"I accidentally killed somepony." Was my answer in a rather unusual monotone voice for her.

And....back to everypony being quiet again. What was I supposed to say to an answer like that?!





After what felt like ages, though more than likely just an hour or two we had finally made it back to town. Though I did notice the closer we got, the slower we seemed to go. Psych was still looking forwards, though seemed a bit more subdued than before. Stan himself, was nervously looking around. Karma, well...she was still being the silent conversation killer.

We turned into town...only to find ourselves face to face, or in Psych's case muzzle to near muzzle, with a very angry looking mare. Rainy, to be more exact.

The mare stood with her hooves slightly splayed out, as it only took a bit of her height to make himself look more aggressive than before. She stood with her head leaned down and forwards, inches from Psych's muzzle, narrowed eyes and all. Were they red? Heck, I don't even remember.

"Just where have you all been?" We were questioned in what was obviously a very controlled, yet still angry, tone.

Nopony moved. Well, nopony except me anyways. I turned and looked between my traveling companions and saw that Stan had hunkered down to Karma's height and was trying to avoid the taller mare's gaze. Karma had her head turned slightly towards Stan and was continuing with her quietness even in this new sense of danger. Psych, the braver of the lot, was doing his best to hold his ground, ears perked and giving Rainy a violet glare of his own.

"I went to pick up the stragglers, now if you don't mind..." Psych attempted to step around the gray mare.

And instead met with a leg and hoof thrust out to stomp the ground in front of him. He paused.

"Let me understand this better..." She now seemed to mockingly state in a more normal tone. "...Stan, and you decided to leave, without telling anypony what you were up to. Leaving the rest of us here to wonder what in Tartarus was going on." 

"Where the hell else would we be?!" Psych attempted to defend himself.

"AND might I add, you return with one of you hurt. I CAN SMELL THE BLOOD ON HER FROM HERE."

Oh dear, Celestia.

"Its really not that bad Rainy, just a few cuts and..." But, Karma was cut off in her quiet intrusion by Rainy's glare switching from Psych to her. Karma could do little else but pause, and then swallow nervously. "Um...ahem. Carry on."

Switching back to Psych, Rainy slowly raised her head up in all of her sudden anger-filled glory.

"I do not want to see anymore of you hurt for stupid reasons. Have I made myself clear?"

Psych was not one to back down, and he challenged the mare in front of him with that same glared expression he had mostly been keeping up with for as long as I had been with the group. Just as I was about to really get worried about a true confrontation between these two ponies, very slowly Psych's ears lowered back against his skull in a more submissive tone.

"Yeah, I get it." Was his simple statement, in reply.

Rainy then turned her head to look at Stan, who was instantly nodding his affirmation with his hat bobbing on his head. Rather quickly I might add.

With that cleared up, both me and Karma were the only ones left unaddressed. I twitched just barely when she regarded us next, though I could see just a mere hint of her angered mood softening when she looked to Karma, whom was giving the other mare the most pitiful expression she could muster.

Hoping that maybe that act would work well for me, I also quickly decided to lower my head, and give my wings a slight twitter. What I had originally thought to be the more friendly of the lot, I was in the realization that this other mare could easily be ten times more scary. I was not going to get on the wrong side of her hoof.

"Ugh...I'll get you cleaned up." Rainy finally muttered to herself before looking to the two other males of our group. "You two on the other hoof, should go tell Light whatever happened. Now."

Psych couldn't help a rolling of the eyes at her last word with a huff, but he also wasn't going to argue either oddly enough. He made his way around her, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to get to his next location. Stan very carefully skirted himself around Rainy to walk behind Psych, keeping his head down and his gaze turned away the entire time.

"It really is alright, Rainy. I'm pretty much okay, nothing a half a potion won't fix." Karma mentioned while Rainy turned from the two of us and headed down the street to where they had moved the wagons inside the town. I took up my role behind her, deciding I might as well keep myself quiet in case I say anything to irritate either the two of them.

"And of course that stupid stallion was sure to bring his bag of tricks, but nothing for a wounded..." Rainy only grumbled further with a small shake of her head, followed up with a sigh. "Apologies, I dislike any of you getting hurt."

"Its okay, if I wasn't scared for my eternal soul there, I'd have actually been laughing." Karma replied and gave the mare a grin once we had come up behind the wagons, Rainy had stopped and turned her head to give a small smile of her own.

"Happy, dear. Could you please get Momma her medicine bag?" Rainy would question then as she looked up into the confines of the wagon itself.

Inside the wagon, I could easily hear the rustling of many objects being tossed about, including the cloth frame being whipped around with a sudden pink glow. Next thing I knew, Happy was producing wearisome grunts and a bag was being both pushed and partially levitated towards the back where we were currently situated. As it neared toppling over the side, Rainy's horn enveloped in her own white glow and it was wrapped about the bag, easily lifting it out and onto the ground. Happy then laid over the edge, huffing to attempt to catch her breath while her front hooves dangled cutely while her horn poofed out.

"Its too heavy, Momma!" She whined, making me wince slightly.

"We all know you live such a troublesome life...we are ever so sorry." Her mother simply grinned at the antics of her foal.

Happy pouted at her mother's mocking, giving more than enough reason for Rainy to reach over with a hoof and ruffle the top of her mane to cause the filly to squeak and retreat back into the wagon itself.

When Rainy began pulling the bag open with a hoof I took more notice of the bag itself. It might have started out as a pale yellow at the beginning of its life, but in these recent times it had both faded and took on a more light brown hue in random splotches. On the side facing us though, still in clear detail three pink hued butterflies had been lovingly stitched. For as old as the bag must have been, it had been taken well cared for. Well, as much as something centuries old could have been. 

Eventually, Rainy's horn glowed again in that white hue and out of the bag she levitated a bottle filled with the same purple liquid that I'd seen and drank myself before. She then passed this over to Karma while uncorking it for her so that the hornless mare simply had to reach forwards and carefully grab the bottle with her teeth.

"Might as well drink it all, we found enough replacements in town to last us awhile." Rainy mentioned, which Karma nodded to before tilting her head back and attempting to slowly swallow the potion down. Once the bottle was empty, she sat it down near the bag and gave herself and over-all shake, causing her patchwork outfit to shift dust around us.

"Thank you Rainy, that is much better. I was starting to itch." She mentioned to the taller mare.

Rainy simply rolled her eyes playfully before looking to me for a few seconds, causing me to startle just slightly. I'd been used to being ignored up to this point, and finding myself being gazed over suddenly was a bit unnerving, but thankfully she simply looked back to Karma without addressing me personally.

"So its safe to say, the little meetup didn't work out?" She asked.

"That's...one way to put it. I guess." Karma replied in a more somber tone than she had been using with her before. "Looks like we might be keeping this feather-head around for awhile. Well, if you want to anyways, Cloud." She then mentioned before looking back to me.

"Um...I don't really have anywhere else to be..." I scrapped a hoof against the dirt. "I mean, you look pretty crowded as is. I can understand if you do not need another mouth to feed." Karma then rolled her eyes at me.

"Really? That's all? We are all sort of rejects here. Except Rainy, she's chosen to be a reject." She smirked lightly to the dove mare.

"Excuse me if I thought you all needed my help more than staying with my family." Rainy huffed in a retort back. Karma leaned towards the mare and playfully nudged her side.

"We are glad you are here, Rainy. Even if you do scare the shit out of us from time to time." Another smirk. I was finding myself feeling better that the brooding mare that had followed us back to town was starting to liven back up once she was back with her friend.

"Damn well better be." Rainy smiled back to her before looking back to me again with a more serious expression. "But, as she says, I am sure we could let you tag along with us. Will just have to bring it up with the boys, but regardless, with the two of us on your side, would they really say no?"

I took a moment to think about that. After having seen Karma in action over the last few days, and the sudden anger her only other female friend could produce besides the sweet nature, it didn't take much else for me to believe them. I found a part of myself wanting to believe them, more than anything else.

And then I realized, both these mares were on my side, as Rainy had put it. That was...a nice, if surprising, feeling.





Later that night after a rather heated discussion among the entire group once we had head back to the inn, I found myself surrounded by the lot of them in the main room. Again, we were eating a soup mixture that Cleave had thrown together for us all to chow down on. After living mostly on cloud-raised food, I was quickly starting to get used to the warmth feeling these ponies produced in their food.

"We better get ready to leave tomorrow morning." Light was mentioning to us all. "From what Karma tells us, I for one do not want to stick around any longer then we need to in case anyone decides to come looking for Cloud."

At the mention of my name, the ponies of the group all turned to look at me, even Happy. I cleared my throat at the sudden attention and gave a small nod.

"Might be a good idea...and, thank you again for letting me stay."

Light shook his fluffy mane at my continued thanks. I had been present for the conversation that had eventually brought up that I really did not have anywhere else to go once it had been made clear that I was now listed under Pegasi most wanted. At first, the group seemed a little unnerved at the thought of taking on a rogue soldier of the very group of ponies that were well known for not enjoying dirt-dweller company. Karma and Rainy, though had quickly stood up for me just as they said, and shortly after it was agreed upon that I was welcome.

"I do have a small question though..." I decided to finally ask.

"Hm?" Light questioned.

"Well, exactly where are you ponies headed?" And...silence. Well then.

The group of ponies continued to look at me with merely a few blinks among the lot of them. Eventually Light shrugged both his shoulders, looking to Psych and Mist Blade as his side. Mist Blade nodded, but Psych answered with another shrug. Light quickly sighed at the undecided tension between the two of them.

"Tech, do you mind?" He peered over to the green stallion laying near Cleave who was currently sipping his soup with a yellow glow.

"It's in my bags." Karma raised a hoof and waved to the pointed out stallion, with a slight smirk.

"Why do I always get....ugh." He muttered as he put down his soup on the floor and drew himself on four hooves to walk out the main doorway. I looked over to Karma when I heard the mare snickering.

"Unicorns, got to be useful for something." She leaned against Stan with another one of those playful nudges she kept giving out, and Rainy could do little else but shake her head with a heavy sigh. Happy simply giggled.

About that time, Tech was re-entering our establishment. Held in the same yellow glow of his horn's light was a rectangular object, heavy by the looks, and by the large thumping sound it made once he had dropped in the middle of the room.

"Hey! That's mine I'll have you know." Karma glared at the offending pony.

"And you can go get it yourself next time." Tech stuck his tongue out at her and buzzed his lips in a raspberry.

"Why I never." Karma feigned hurt, holding a hoof to her chest and letting out a dignified sniffle that left most of us chuckling, me included. It at least seemed like the mare was feeling better, among others it appeared she was able brighten up.

Light smirked over at his companions while getting to his hooves and stepping closer to the object, letting his hoof lightly scoot it so that I could view it better. I was surprised to find out that the object was actually a book. A real book! Not just those burned out things that my school had shown us to show what happened to things on the surface. This thing actually looked to be in fairly good condition, given its age. Frankly, I was mesmerized for a second.

The book itself was large, and obviously heavy with the material it held. From the outside the slightly worn cover held a brown hue, and that was the last thing about the object that was dull in nature. Gold metal infused partially to the binder and corners to give it extra strength, along with the plates that were fixated to the bottom and tops of the cover. Unreadable runes of some sort were carefully carved into these plates in an more decorative manner than actual readable text. In the middle was the masterpiece of the cover, three slender crystals in pale blue and vibrant purple hovered among the gold that fused them to the book itself. Over-all, the crystals only looked partially scratched, and the gold had just the barest hint of tarnish.

Light gave me a minute to enjoy the outer layer of the object before lifting a hoof again to slowly fold back the front cover.

Inside, on the first page appeared to be a letter of some sort. Written in a fancy purple ink in what was very obviously unicorn-writ writing. I leaned in close, and squinted slightly as it had seemed like ages since I read anything as regal looking. 





Dear B.B.B.F.F,

I really hope this book reaches you in a timely manner. With everything going on with the war and my ministry, I've rarely been able to take the time out to truly enjoy past ventures. I have to admit, working on this side project in what free time I am allowed has been able to keep me more attached to happier memories. I really hope when this is all over, and I intend to end it soon, I can take a holiday to visit you and Cadence. I miss you, big brother.

So, I present you with a copy of The History and Chronicles of the Crystal Empire. Finished! I mended the torn out page, and I also added our encounter with its very own chapter towards the end of the book. I am sending you this copy, before I send another to Rarity's ministry so we can start giving out copies to the public libraries. I doubt we can get that done as the war continues, but I will at least be ready to allow ponies to truly learn the greatness of that wonderful city and its equally wonderful ponies as soon as everything with this horrible war is over.

I hope you can read this, and be reminded your little sister loves you.

Hope to see you soon.

Your L.S.B.F.F,
Twilight Sparkle





"This is..."

Karma had at some point, raised to her hooves and had stepped over to Light's side. Gently she placed a hoof near the edge of the first page and caressed it softly. I watched as she leaned down slightly to look at the pretty writing and towards the name of the pony that had signed it. 

"It never reached its destination...but my ponies found it centuries ago, and kept it safe for history's sake. When I left, I took it with me. I don't think they are very happy with me right now with this missing from the protected section of our library. But it was always my favorite book, and I was going to take a least a little happy memory with me."

Looking up to the beige mare I could only blink, I'd only heard stories about the so-called empire. Mostly colt and filly stories told by parents to give their foals good thoughts to dream by. I barely believed it myself. Karma simply gave me one of those smirks, that seemed to hold both a little sadness, and adventure within it.

"This is..." She quietly murmured, finishing my earlier sentence for me. 

"...The Crystal Empire. That, is where we are going."
> Come clean and start over.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He said that you were not good enough.

Fat, lazy, dirt dweller, earth pony. No wonder he doesn't want to be seen with you.

"Shut up."

Yeah, you tried. But honestly, what is the point of trying when it doesn't actually get you anywhere?

"....please, shut up."

It's best to not even bother. I don't need to be reminding you of that.

"Shut up! Shutupshutupshutupshutupshut...UP!"

At the last thought I found myself lifting my upper body to slam my front hooves against the ground at every futile command that I was verbally trying to give to my subconscious. I knew it wouldn't work, I wasn't even actually arguing with myself. Sometimes though, I couldn't help my thoughts taking a dark turn and I knew that if I allowed myself further contemplation into that direction that nothing 'good' could come from that road.

Instead, I could drown out the inner noise with stamping hooves and the sound of my own voice. Let the shock of the ground hitting my hooves make my thoughts switch to the mild pain caused by letting my body's full weight slam my hooves down each time, cracking the earth under me and ricocheting the feeling through my legs and shoulder muscles.

Stopping allowed me to take a deeper breath, quieting my rant as I simply let my head hang down with closed eyes. Quiet, that's what I wanted. Didn't want to think about it, or anything else really.

"I don't need anypony." I quietly muttered to myself.

Not quite a lie, technically you don't 'need' anypony, But, that isn't what you technically 'want' either.




If I thought the following days leading up to this moment weren't too much to handle by now, the realization I was currently rising with a group of ponies bent on some sort of magical quest to reach a land that either could or could not be real was a little enlightening in the 'what the buck have I got myself into' factor.

Old foal's tales told of a city made of crystal with actual crystal ponies running around. A place that evolved around love and acceptance with their own Alicorn goddess to foresee them through the years before the war. At least that is as a much as I could remember. I'm sure there were many other stories that came from such a place, but that was the basic gist of what the tales surrounded the idea of such a place. As far actual proof of its existence, I hadn't known any until now.

I guess I should have had a million questions to ask, anypony would have had. But with the presence of the book I had been given to browse through there really wasn't a lot I could bring myself to ask other than why, and that was a question that we didn't really have time for at the present. 

We were leaving in the morning soon as it was daylight enough for us all to get settled into traveling mode, which meant shortly after being shown the book Light let everyone know that we should all be getting some sleep to prepare for the next day to get out of this town and onto the road. Most of the ponies went upstairs to whatever sleeping spots they had chosen for themselves, leaving me almost alone with Karma and Stan staying downstairs to sleep.

No watches had been placed, I figured that with already having stayed here a night that the rest of the group decided that sleep as far more important if we were going to make any headway the next day. I had been given another raggedy blanket to sleep on the floor with, and I was currently laying down with my head on my front hooves trying to will myself to sleep. Stan and Karma were resting nearby in a similar fashion that I had seen them that first night. Stan was asleep laying down with his hat pressed down over his muzzle and snoring softly, Karma was laid down near his side with her eyes closed and was breathing slowly in sleep as well.

Peeking an eye open to look over at the two of them I had a funny feeling that Stan was actually the only pony asleep in the room. Karma looked asleep, but I also remembered that she normally snored as well. The only pony currently doing so was Stan, so I found myself quietly waiting to see if she'd move.

Sure enough, after an un-given amount of time had gone by she shifted. Closing my eye quickly I heard her lift her head and I could only guess at this point she was attempting to see if either of us were asleep. I gave a soft snuffling noise and ruffled my feathers under my blanket in an attempt to make myself look like I was actually asleep, and briefly thought about a fake snore. Did I actually snore too? Had no real way of knowing since no pony had actually told me if I did or not.

Eventually, after my act I heard her move her blanket to the side along with lifting herself to her hooves. She was still wearing that odd outfit of hers and it was easy enough to hear the pieces of extra cloth ruffle as she shifted herself to the front door of the inn and out to the street. After a few minutes I slowly lifted my own head and opened my eyes to look around the room, I was correct in seeing it now minus one pony, leaving me and Stan to be the only ones occupying the place.

Using a wing I lifted and pushed my blanket off so I could stand, and fought back the urge to give a full body shake. Instead, I tip-hoofed my way to the door and peeked around its frame into the night to see if I could see where she had moved off to.

I didn't have far to look, as the green glow of her pipbuck even under the rags she wore was easily seen in jagged frames of light from her right hoof. She was sitting on the edge of the inn's porch and simply appeared to be looking out at the dark. As I watched, she lifted her left hoof and pushed away some of the cloth so that the full glow could envelop the street in front of her and partially onto the buildings on the other side, making it easier for both of us to see.

I bit my lower lip, thinking. She had obviously come out to be alone, that was clear enough to see. At the same time though, when was I going to get another chance to talk to her that didn't involve the rest of the group being present in some way shape or form? Making my decision, I softly bumped a hoof against the frame of the door in a knocking fashion to catch her attention.

Instantly she twisted her head around and glared at the noise, the green glow giving her features a sadistic look that made me startle slightly, but on realizing who it was she very quickly calmed and simply looked at me peeking out from the door frame. The two of us watched one another for a minute before I cleared my throat quietly and stepped out onto the porch and made my way to sit down next to her, and thankfully enough she didn't seem too disturbed by my presence, other than looking away and back out towards the street.

"Um..." I tried to say something, I really did.

Instead, at my mumble she looked back over to me with a slight tilt of her head and a small smirk while regarding me with a raised brow. I could almost hear the mocking 'Really? That all you got?' inside my head at her expression.

"Pfft. Let's see you try better." I retorted to her silent accusation.

She lowered her head and closed her eyes, trying to muffle a giggle while her shoulders slightly shook from the attempt. I found myself grinning slightly from her sudden playful antic while she took a deep breath to quiet the snickering and gave me a returning smile before looking down at her right hoof and twisting the appendage around slightly to make the glow from the machine attached dance between the two of us.

"Yeah, yeah. I was just teasing. So go ahead, ask your questions. I ain't 'gonna promise you answers though."

Fair enough.

"Well, you are obviously not like the rest of..."

"...these dirt dwellers?" She finished for me.

"Hey, I wasn't going to say that." I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Eh, close enough. I get'cha." She nodded her head at me, not seeming too bothered. "I am not like them, because I am a stable pony. If the pipbuck wasn't a clear sign of that. No, I wont tell you which stable."

"Don't need specifics I guess, but yeah. I was coming to that conclusion, but I'll be honest that I don't know a lot about stable ponies."

"Not a lot to tell I figure." She mentioned, looking back out at the street and giving a slight shrug to her shoulder. "Stables are pretty much similar to one another. Bunch of ponies stuck in the ground in a big metal box so they don't have to put up with any of..." She stuck out a hoof and waved it in front of her, "This."

"Not sure I see the appeal." I replied, flatly.

"You wouldn't, being a Pegasus. Though I heard stories of a stable being built for strictly pegasi." 

I gave myself that all-over body shake I had been wanting before. Stuck in a box for the rest of my life? I'll pass.

"It really isn't as bad as it sounds. When it is the only thing you have known for your entire life, you really don't know anything better. Its just different, I guess."

"I guess." I copied her answer. Though I was far more interested in something else. "But if that is the case, why is a stable pony out here? Aren't you supposed to be, you know, actually in your stable?"

And that is when she got quiet. She looked back down to her hooves at my question without replying. I tilted myself forwards slightly and angled my head around to try to look at her hidden expression in the dark, and the glow from her pipbuck curved shadows up over her eyes once more at the lowered angle, giving her expression a far darker tone then I think it should have.

Right as I was about to try and change the subject without getting my answer, she hadn't promised me anything after all like she had stated, instead she raised her head back up with a more determined look, staring straight ahead into the dark.

"When I got my cutie mark, I had to leave. It was a special case, and I should explain the function of my stable or it won't make any sense." She turned her head to look at me again, with the same serious features. "If you did not know, stables were created to save ponies first and foremost. Their second function though, was to provide the future with exceptional ponies. The past did not want to be repeated, and so each stable was created differently."

"Yeah, I got that." We'd been told about stables above the clouds, though only the basic facts.

"If you haven't been briefed on the stable that Red Eye came from, I should go ahead and tell you my stable was similar in function to his."

"Um...we were told about Red Eye, a bit." In truth, we had been told plenty about Red Eye. Though if from anything I had learned about surface dwellers, I was getting the idea that the stories we had been told had mostly been in place to make us continue to dislike the surface as it was. Ponies using other ponies as slaves? No thank you.

"Red Eye came from a stable that was under a strict earth pony leadership. Mine, was similar in that case, except that was not the experiment originally in place for my stable."

"So both of your stables were strictly for earth ponies only?" So that is why she kept referring to other ponies as horn-heads and feather-heads...

"Yes, and no..." She stumbled here in her speech. Her eyes crossed slightly in a struggled attempt at an explanation. "Red Eye's stable was strictly earth pony, yes. Mine, when it was filled, had both earth ponies and unicorns. When I was shown the earlier records it even stated we were given a pegasi or two."

"I'm...I'm not following." I stuttered.

"My stable's experiment..." She paused to give a small sigh. "The experiment's function was based around acceptance of the other pony races as a whole through all three races. What would happen if you stuck a mostly earth pony society together with a select few unicorns and pegasi, and then threw in the idea that all forms of magic was something taboo..."

I blinked at that, I was starting to get a better idea of what she was trying to say.

"My stable's residents, including myself for a time, was raised under the belief that magic was the entire cause behind the apocalypse. We do not believe that the princesses were or are goddesses, and are frowned upon. Unicorns and pegasi were also frowned upon for similar reasons. Unicorn's because of their magic, and pegasi because of their ability to fly."

I had to look away from her for the moment as I let her words sink in. The whole idea just seemed...very, very wrong. Finally, I looked back at her.

"Why would they put a bunch of different races of pony in the same stable, and then put in that belief? It doesn't make sense. What was it supposed to achieve?" I tried my best to not sound accusing, but I really couldn't help it, I was feeling very unnerved.

"My guess is, we were supposed to look past our differences in the magical case and function as a proper society with all three races combined so that we could work for a future without fear of the past repeating itself by blowing each other up. Or in a more simple explanation, acceptance of each other." She replied, in a sad tone.

"And?"

"We failed, horribly."




For awhile, we were quiet. Karma had turned back to looking back down at her hooves in thought while I was left alone with mine. I was still trying to wrap my idea around what her stable's experiment was meant to achieve. I could understand the acceptance of different races part, though I was fairly sure that ponies before had been living together just fine before the fact, but to believe that anything at all magical was horrid? How was that even supposed to work?

"So, your stable failed..." I tried to bring the conversation back, quietly.

"Yes. We failed. Instead of learning to accept one another as we were....are, instead the unicorns and pegasi were seen as threats to our stable's existence as a whole if we were going to survive in the future without throwing magic at one another whenever we didn't all agree on something."

"So, what happened?"

"The records I was given access to before I left showed that along with our Overmare we had a council that was solely earth ponies. It was decreed that all magic was henceforth forbidden in our stable. In doing so, this included the few unicorns and pegasi. The unicorns we were given were forced not to use their magic, and pegasi were forced not to fly under this law. It seemed fine at first, but then came the complications..."

I decided to stay quiet at this point, asking questions would only interrupt them actually being answered.

"The complications first started with the pegasi. I am sure you could understand this better, think about never flying again. Having the ability to, but being told you couldn't. The few my stable actually had, cracked under the pressure, and then they force-ably had their wings clipped."

Dear Celestia...

"It was then a similar case with unicorns, except that while pegasi could simply live without being able to fly as far as a healthy body went, unicorns are different entirely. Not being able to use their magic at all, deteriorated their minds and body. Each case was slightly different in the levels of deterioration but...each led to the expiration of both the unicorn and even a few other ponies that just happened to be around during a 'break down' as the files put it."

During her lengthy explanation, Karma had eventually switched back to looking out at the street. I could tell though, that her vision kept attempting to move down towards her hooves, while catching herself doing so and she'd quickly look back up. Some sort of attempt to keep herself talking, all the while it mostly seemed to pain her for doing so.

I wasn't sure what to say honestly, but while watching her I eventually raised my right wing and laid it on her back in a normal pegasi comfort gesture, except she instantly startled at the touch, even if it was through her patchwork cloak. I winced at her reaction and quickly tried to remove my wing but...

"No! No. Its okay." She quickly replied at my own reaction to hers. She looked at me for a moment, and then at my wing that I had paused in removing from her back. She seemed to be studying the feathers closely while lowering her tone. "I...I really don't know why I am telling you all this. Its been a long time since I told any pony."

"Maybe you just answered your own question?" I gave her a tiny playful smile.

"Heh. Maybe." For a moment, I thought I could feel her leaning back against my feathers. "I'm sorry, the story is far more lengthy than I would like."

"Its okay, I'm listening." Giving her a nod to continue. She cleared her throat, and moved her head so she could look back out at the dark street once more.

"The files I was shown stated that eventually unicorns were unable to physically help from using their magic after a certain time, differing from each individual. If it didn't drive them completely mad first, it eventually caused a magical buildup that would surge out violently. This surge, seemed either fatal in its act, or would leave the unicorn in a state that the ponies of my stable found it to be more ponmane* to simply end their existence rather than keep them in pain."

I gave her another nod, just to make sure she knew I was at least trying to stay on track.

"Throughout what history I was given, All of the pegasi died out without actually putting any of their genes into our pool, and that is why I guess we never saw another pegasus actually born into the stable. There were a select few unicorns though, that did have children before they expired, despite the laws put in place that made my stable slowly fear them entirely. And so, we ended up eventually having unicorns still born to earth ponies, even if both parents were not unicorns themselves. With racism slowly building up over time with the fear of anything magical, this turned out to be a problem for my stable, and they took measures they believed to be...acceptable."

"They didn't kill the foals did they?!" I couldn't help my outburst, the idea was just horrid to even think about!

"No! No, they didn't kill anypony. That would be wrong, and the ponies in my stable weren't in-morale." She gave a hard shake of her head. "No. At least...they didn't mean to."

"Are you sure that is any better...?" I quietly asked this time.

"I...I guess not. But, I know they were only trying to do what they felt was right for any pony involved, and for our community as a whole. There were only a very select few unicorns born to the stable after the first group died out. My stable believed they could fix the problem though, give the new pony a better life, and a better life for everypony in the stable. They came up with a procedure, to...fix, the new foal."

"Fix?" I wasn't liking where this was going.

"Yes, fix...our scientists believed that if they removed the main magical aspect of a unicorn foal early, than they could be raised just like any other earth pony, and nopony else would be the wiser..." Karma was slowly letting her voice die out again.

I decided to stay quiet again, giving her the silent moment to finish her thoughts. Sure enough, she continued shortly after by taking a deep breath to try and keep her voice steady.

"It seemed to work for awhile, and it wasn't like they had to do it often. Their first attempts did leave some casualties, but I think the last pony that was born before...eh, um...the last unicorn that was born was well over sixty something years, before..." She coughed, giving a small shake of her head, trying again. "The last unicorn born, was born sixty years or more and that particular unicorn lived a perfectly normal stable life as a earth pony, once his horn had been removed at foalhood. They didn't even know they were any different from anypony else, and there were no complications that were recorded after."

"What are you trying to say, Karma?" I quietly implied that she was leaving out a major detail.

"I..." She paused, and didn't seem able to continue.

"Hey." Carefully, I ruffled my feathers of the wing that was still held over her back. "Don't worry. Everything is alright."

With that said, she suddenly turned to look directly at me as if she were surprised by something. Her eyes wider than before as she looked over the features of my face. I figured she was just trying to see if I was being honest or not, so I gave her a smile to show I was being sincere. Eventually, she calmed once more, even if it did cause her to sigh.

"Remember when you asked me how I got my cutie mark?"

I simply nodded.

"Well...I was being honest, I did accidentally kill somepony when I received my mark. The bastard deserved it though." She narrowed her eyes in thought as she was apparently letting the memory replay itself inside her head, I on the other hoof simply tilted my own, giving her a curious look.

"What does that have to do with what you were telling me?"

"I'm saying...that the last unicorn born to the stable wasn't technically the very last."

Shifting suddenly, she turned her body towards me. I couldn't help but lean back slightly as she did so, since I wasn't quite expecting it. We had been sitting here for so long it had seemed, and we hadn't moved an inch, so when she did I was not prepared for her movement.

Raising both her hooves, she used her left to slide up under the bangs that normally covered her face to reveal her brow. Her right hoof, she maneuvered so that her pipbuck's light shined more strongly over her face, and she leaned forwards towards me.

I watched her odd movements before very slowly leaning towards her in return to try to see whatever it was that she was trying to show me. Looking over her brow that was normally hidden, I couldn't really tell what it was that she was making me look for. At least, not at first.

It was hard to notice in the green glow, but eventually I saw it. Karma's coat color was a tanned beige, that I already knew. But, in the very middle of her forehead was the tiniest difference in color to the rest of the beige she was covered with. The short fur seemed to lighten just slightly, barely noticeable, dead center in the middle. It was almost as if the color of her coat had been just barely bleached into a lighter hue than the rest of her normal color. The difference in color, was a near-perfect circle.

I might have swallowed, gulped, I'm not sure. It didn't keep her from continuing though.

"I had a magical surge when I received my cutie mark, killing the only other pony that was in the room with me at the time. Shortly after, my Overmare told me everything I just told you. I was the only unicorn foal that had been born in the stable in over sixty years. My procedure was kept secret from both me, and my parents, and the rest of the stable, except for her and our council."





That....that explained a lot.

I went back into my own memories of the day before, Karma had had a nova rifle pointed directly at her. I had already known there was absolutely no way that the shot could have missed. Even a foal could have made that shot without blinking an eye. Instead she had somehow deflected it with that gold glow, which now I understood wasn't just some random piece of luck that fate had decided it wasn't her time to die, she had saved herself. She had saved herself with her own magic.

"So...so, you're not an earth pony."

"I am so an earth pony!" She raised her voice suddenly, narrowing her eyes at me. Quickly after she realized she had been maybe a little too loud and brought her right hoof back up to her muzzle and covered her mouth, darting a quick look through the broken window of the inn behind us to make sure nopony had heard her. After, she looked back at me and whisper-hissed. "Am so, an earth pony."

"But everything you just said..." I whispered back, lowering my ears against my skull in confusion, and worry that I had upset her.

"I know what I told you. But I was a unicorn for, what? Maybe the first hour of my life? The rest, Ive never been able to use magic, levitate things, or any of that mumbo-jumbo like any normal unicorn. This crap just, happens on its own." Her tone had kept the angry side to it for the first part, though as she continued it was slowly creeping back to the troubled softness. "It doesn't matter what I was born as, this is me now. Just a dumb old earth pony."

"Who said anything about dumb? I'm the dumb one here."

"Why is that?" She tilted her head at me now, the curious expression returning.

"Uh, hello." I fluffed both wings out dramatically, and raised a hoof to her in a mock-bump. "My name is Cloud, I'm a enclave pegasus."

"Smart ass." She gave me her second grin of the night, causing me to grin back while I lowered my left wing and returned the right one to wrap around her backside.

We sat like that for awhile after, the both of us seeming to take the quiet time to mentally go over what had been said. I wasn't quite sure about her, but I knew it was going to take awhile for me to fully accept everything I'd been told. Sure, she was still the mare that had saved my life a few days ago, but at the same time this was an entirely new situation to think that anypony had to have gone through.

Oh what the hell, I'm kidding myself...this entire bucking trip was new to me.

She hadn't even really finished her story, either now that I had taken the last few minutes to think about it. There was still questions I had. Like, how did she know Rocket? Did they kick her from the stable for killing somepony? Did she leave of her own accord? Could I actually agree with her that she was an earth pony after that information? She hadn't promised me all of the answers, I tried telling myself. But if I am anything, I'm a very curious pony. I have never liked not knowing the full truth.

"It's starting to get light out." She suddenly mentioned while I was lost in thought. Blinking, I looked up and sure enough, I was starting to be able to actually see the clouds turning a deep purple, instead of the black nothingness above us.

"Yeah, I guess so..." I quietly mentioned. I wasn't really sleepy...

"Come on, you're going to feel like shit tomorrow if you don't try to sleep a little. We got quite a trot tomorrow." Lifting herself to her hooves, I pulled my wing back to my side. She gave herself a body-shake that ruffled her cloak around her body before she stepped around behind me so that she could head back to the door.

"Um...Hey!" I called after her, right as she was about to head inside.

"Hm?" She paused, looking at me from over her left shoulder.

"Can I ask one more question?" Might as well dare ask, she had given me plenty to think over for the night, but I did at least have one more simple question that I had been wondering for quite awhile.

For a moment she watched me, her eyes just barely narrowing in thought before she lowered her head down in a single nod. She turned herself slowly back around to face me.

I also took the moment to stand up, settle my wings, and step closer to her. I lifted my right hoof in a similar manner I had before, wanting to bump hooves. This time though, it wasn't in a manner to mock her.

"My name is Cloud Nine, what's yours?"

She blinked at that, not understanding at first. Quickly after though she raised her muzzle in a laugh, closing her eyes in the mirth I provided her before giving a tiny shake of her head to clear the giggles. Eventually, she raised her own pipbucked hoof and placed it against mine, giving me a small smile.

"When I left my stable, I changed my name shortly after. My father gave me my real name though, my name is Bright Eyes."

Suddenly, the hoof that had bumped mine switched to bump against my chest. It was enough to knock me back a step, startling me into a half-flap that sent me to land on my rump.

"But lets keep it to Karma, 'kay?" I was given a smirk, and she was already heading inside and out of my sight.

Sitting there, I could only blink a few times before eventually getting onto my hooves and using my wings to dust myself off as best as possible. I found myself looking to my sides just to check to see if anyone had seen me, only to end up snickering. Of course nopony had seen me.

"Yeah, sure." I said to myself, and moved to follow the stable mare inside.
> Does not compute.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the things I was actually looking forwards to, was seeing the sky.

Sure, I'd seen the simulations. Our holo-room had plenty different versions of the sky, and as foals we all made sure we were there for that presentation. We all sat around in our lined groups as our teacher switched between the different phases, dawn, day, twilight, and nighttime. The sky seemed to hold multiple different shades of my favorite color. 

Blue was, and still is, my favorite. 

Back then, the idea of "outside" was treated as if it were a fantasy land. Our teachers made sure to tell us that more than likely the outside world no longer looked like anything they were picturing here, but that it was important that we, as the next generation, remembered. How can we ever forget something so...essential? When they added the whole concept of weather, that was both exhilarating and frightening.

I have to admit, regardless of the warnings, I had way too much expectation. When I did finally leave the building after my giggle-fit, the very first thing I did was look up.

Nothing but rolling clouds as far as the eye could see. Everything was so huge.

I remembered thinking, all well. None of us could have everything we wanted, could we?

I would be a rich pony if I had a cap for every time I'd be telling myself that phrase in the future.





Poke. Poke poke poke.

This crap was really getting old.

With a drawn out yawn I rolled myself over, trapping my wings under my body as I blinked up wearily at a pair of brown eyes peering down to me, in a very similar sleepy manner. At least Karma was looking equally as tired as I was. Maybe our little conversation shouldn't have stayed up as late as it had, if her own random blinking had anything to tell about it.

"Come on, feather-head. We're already saddled up and ready to move out. I let you sleep as long as I could." She mentioned, whilst turning away from me to step towards the front of the inn. Standing in the doorway, she twisted her head about to look at me. "All of our stuff is packed up, just grab your blanket and we'll be good to go." With that said, she stepped outside.

Blinking away the sleep I awkwardly made it onto my hooves with a tiny shake to try and force myself awake further, lifting my wings and letting each stretch out to their full span before letting them lay across my back once more with a small feather ruffle. While rolling up my blanket with a hoof I glanced outside one of the broken windows and noticed that it was rather orange looking in the surface's strange form of daylight. My guess was, it had just officially hit morning hours.

Hoof-steps towards the stairs made me stop to notice that Tech was making his way down. On noticing me, he gave a sudden smirk. Folding his pale green ears down he snickered under his breath with a devilish expression crossing over his muzzle.

"Want to see something hilarious?"

"Um....sure?" I muttered back at him, in my rather confused state.

"Okay, okay...wait here." Lifting a hoof he motioned for me to stand there with a few gentle taps against the air before turning back to the stairs to make his way back up. 

Tilting my head up, I attempted to draw my ears forwards in an attempt to hear what was going on. Other than Tech's quiet hoofsteps, there really wasn't anything else to notice, except for when they suddenly stopped.

All was quiet, for a matter of maybe a five seconds.

"CUDDLES!"

I nearly tripped over my own hooves at the yell, startling backwards.

"ARGGGGHHHHH!"

Barreling down the stairs, was a rather distraught black Unicorn. Cleave was bucking and jerking around even as he ran out the front door with Tech in tow, the pale green unicorn had both hooves wrapped about the other stallion's neck in a death-grip hug, cackling all the way through his trip out the door.

"The HELL?! Celestia-damn, Tech. Leave Cleave alone!" Came a muffled shout from outside that I believe came from Psych.

Light was currently laughing wildly in the background.

Tossing my blanket to my back with a shake of my head and soft snicker at the others antics, I allowed my wings to hold it in place as I followed the others outside. Both wagons had already been moved to point out of town, and the earth ponies of our group were saddled and hooked together. Karma was just getting the last line attached via Rainy when she looked over and gave a nod of her head in approval. Stan was standing with his eyes closed, getting a last snooze before we left.

Rainy turned to give me one of her usual smiles, her magic winking out as she gave a toss of her head upwards.

"Same place as before? Its nice having a better look-out."

At the same time, her magic switched back on to grab onto my blanket so that she could move it inside the wagon, causing me to startle slightly as the light weight was lifted from the top of my wings. I was still not very used to having magic used so close to my body. I did give her a nod though, and with just two quick flaps, I was finding my earlier spot atop the canvas with my front hooves dangling down.

Looking over the other wagon in front of us I could see the others already ready. Mist and Static were saddled, with Light and Psych standing near the front. Tech and Cleave made up the first wagon's side guards with Cleave obviously glaring down Tech whom was still smirking, and on looking down I saw that we had Rainy and Pyro as ours. It was not a bad formation to have, really.

Eventually, Light turned his head to look back at us, and I gave him a wave with a hoof as his teal eyes switched over to me atop the wagon. He gave me quick grin, and raised his head up further to yell back at us.

"Alright, my little ponies, time to move out!"

"Who in the hell is he calling 'little'?" Karma muttered below me, as she gave a small shove against Stan's shoulder to wake him up, just as the wagons started moving forwards with the audible sound of creaking and protesting wood.

"I think its just a phrase, dear." Rainy mentioned as she stepped further up to Karma's side.

"Well its a stupid one. Stan is far from little." This reply from Karma warranted a half-chuckle from Stan himself.

"If anything, you're the short one here." Came Pyro's voice from the other side of the wagon where he walked besides Stan.

"My ass begs to differ." Karma replied, with a slight laugh as she tossed her head with a tail flick, looking at the bright blue pony.

"Touche'" Pyro simply grinned at her before ducking back to the side of the wagon.

"You're not supposed to agree with me horn-head!" Karma snorted at his retreating.

Rainy gave out a soft sigh at their bickering, before looking up at me with weary looking smile, the bangs of her bi-colored mane sweeping across her forehead.

"Kids, can't live with them, can't live without them."

I gave her a return smile back as Karma muttered darkly to herself while Stan was doing his best not to laugh further by hiding his muzzle down against his chest. At that point Happy had decided to come to Karma's defense about childish antics with a high pitched whine inside the wagon itself.

Resting my head atop my hooves, I let them continue with their conversation and bickering. I was still rather tired from lack of sleep, and the sound of their voices slowly tuned into the background as I looked forwards, watching as we turned outside of the town at our leisurely pace. This really wasn't so bad, I thought. Things could always get----

Nope. Lets not go there.





I'll admit, I dozed for a decent sized portion of the morning atop the wagon. There was only so much wasteland a pony could look at before getting very bored. A dead shrub here, a tiny whirlwind of dust there. Fascinating stuff, really. At least you could look at clouds and pretend they made up different shapes when you were bored.

Eventually, the ponies below me had slowly quietened into simple pattering of hooves against the ground. Yawning I took a glance downwards to see my current quartet in similar positions as they had been a few hours ago. Rainy hadn't moved from Karma's side, and Pyro still trotted alongside Stan.

Raising my head, and looking up I grazed my vision alongside the mountains in front of us. Squinting, all I could really tell was that they looked like really large rocks. Which, is what I remembered having been told in cloud-school, at some point. Nothing very special, kinda pointy looking.

It was looking at these formations that completely missed the fact we were slowing down. Blinking, I looked to the front of our troop and noticed that we had been traveling alongside a broken down fence. At least, parts of it looked like it had been a fence at some point. In the distance, across a rather large span of broken down boulders sat a cabin looking fixture, with what may be a barn alongside it.

A hoof-wave from Light caught my attention, and he pointed at the structure as the first wagon came to a slow halt in front of what looked to be a sign.

"What does it say?" Karma mentioned below me. Looking down, I noticed her trying to look around the wagon in front of her now that they had been forced to stop along with it. 

"Don't know, I'll go check it out." I answered, happy to have a reason to actually do something on this trip. A flick of the wings and a gentle curved flap had my body slipping off the wagon and into a swerve around the front wagon. Hooves to ground, and I was trotting off the flight-fall as my wings slipped back into their space across my back. Slipping around to the front, I noticed Light looking at the nearly broken down sign, while Psych was narrowly glaring at the cabin-like structure towards the middle of the field.

The sign itself, as I stepped to Light's side to get a better look, was in slightly better condition than the earlier sign had been. I found that it's preservation was due to the fact this sign was made out of rock itself. It had been square cut at some point, but weather has broken down its edges and it looked more like an oddly shaped boulder at this point. But at least the front was still rather solid, and held a flat surface that was only mildly pocked with chips, small holes, and cracks. 

You didn't even need to squint to read the sign itself. The words still held a rather shockingly bright pink, in a rubbery looking thick paint that only seemed cracked in a few places. It was still very clearly readable.


Welcome to:
PEBBLE PIE FARM
Corporate group of the Pie Industry for quality Stone and Gems.
Pie Industry: Always a rocking good time!


Okay then...

Tilting my head towards Light, I watched him lift a hoof and light tap against the word "Gems" on the stone.

"That right there," Hoof-tap. "is a good enough reason to check this place out. Gems are valuable, and I think we can afford the quick stop. We should get the others unhooked."

"Already done." Came Karma's voice behind us. Light and I turned our heads about, which almost left me face-first in fluffy yellow mane, but it turned out that while we had studied the sign the rest of the group had already unhooked and was looking over to us. All except Psych, who stood near the fallen over gate that lead onto the property, and was still currently squinting over at the only two structures on the land itself.

"I am not so sure that is a great idea..." He muttered over at us, before pointing a hoof forwards.

The rest of us followed his hoof pointing towards a corner of the larger barn looking building, just about the time a small dust cloud darted out from the side. I squinted at first, but it was hardly necessary for what came next as the sound of grating metal filled our ears.

From the corner of the building, shambled around a vaguely pony-shaped construct. Even years of withering the elements still had the metal covering the machine in large blotches where it hadn't completely rusted away. In the spots that had, inside brick-red rings of rust were multicolored wires. They might have been neon at some point, if they hadn't been dust and dirt filled by being exposed.

The machine lifted it's head and looked directly over to us. A single red gem-filled eye socket all that was left beside the empty black hole of it's counter part. But, by the look of that gem still flickering, it could more or less still see. It could still see, us.

...and it was already headed in our direction down the little dirt path that led out to the road. At least it was dragging one of its back legs, making it even slower as it creeped forwards. It wasn't going to reach us any time soon. 

"I really don't like the look of that..." Static mumbled somewhere behind me. 

Well, neither did I, I silently thought to myself.

"If it was violent, it'd have already been trying to shoot us by now. I don't think it is an active duty robot." Tech mentioned, tilting his head as he regarded the machine. "Maybe some sort of farm hoof to help out? I figure a farm would need to have extra hoofs around during the war when everypony was so busy. At least, I know if I owned a farm I would totally have these things helping me out, I bet they looked totally badass back in the day and---"

"Karma," Psych suddenly spoke up, interrupting Tech thankfully. "Scan the area like you're supposed to, is there anything alive out there besides that?"

"I wouldn't technically call that thing alive..." Karma muttered in reply, before stepping out from behind the rest of our group to lightly trot to stand next to him. Lifting her left hoof, she lightly tapped against her pipbuck before squinting out at the land itself. 

Nothing really happened. No little green light show or anything, and I was kinda disappointed. I'd never seen her actually use her pipbuck any.

"Nothing red. Nothing green. The junk-bot there is showing up as yellow."

"Somepony want to go say hello before it decides to go all red on us? Or just put it out of its misery?" Pyro mentioned, from where he stood next to Stan. "I can put it out of its misery." 

"Hey! You live through two hundred years worth of crap in your front yard and see how well your looking after." Tech snorted in Pyro's direction, leaning over Cleave who flattened his ears against his skull with a half snorted sigh. "And what if we kill it only to find out it was linked to some sort of security system that may still be in place? If that thing is still kicking, I bet you anything else might be too."

During the mild squabble over whether just to shoot the thing and be done with it or not, the machine itself had already almost made it up to the gate where Karma and Psych now stood, and then it decided to stop. Lowering its head, it almost seemed to be peeking at Karma's right hoof.

"Um..." The mare mumbled as she looked at Psych, who only gave her a shrug. She glared at him for a moment, before turning to look in Light and mine's direction with an exasperated expression.

"It ain't shootin' us. Let it have a look see. Maybe you can get us a discount." Light smirked at her with a wink while the rest of us just looked on quietly, though I gently flicked a wing towards her and gave her my best 'I'm sorry' expression.

"For the love of...FINE." She grumbled at us before trotting to stand in front of the machine with a hoof-stomp of annoyance, making me cringe. Lets not tick off the half-dead machine pony, please. 

The robot-pony though, gave off a series of clicking sounds before lowering it'd head even further and giving a nudge at her pipbuck. Karma snorted, as she technically was being prodded at. Eventually, a soft whirring noise replaced the clicks, and a beam of green light erupted from the black socket of its ruined eye with lazer quality. Darting over the machine attached to her hoof, it eventually clicked off, raised its head, and it's one red gem eye blinked wildly. 

"'El-come back, 'ister Orange. 'ow-an I 'elp oo?" Suddenly sizzled from a hidden speaker inside the thing. 

Oh dear Celestia, it can speak. Sorta. That was creepy as hell. 

Slowly Karma slid her head back around over her shoulder and softly mouthed the word 'Mister Orange?' at us, with a confused look.

The rest of us slowly looked back and forth between us. Tech raised a hoof and waggled it in Karma's direction with a grin on his face, motioning for her to go on with a mouthed reply of 'Be Nice' from what I could read of the over exaggeration to the silent words. He then used both front hooves while leaning against Cleave still, whom still did not look very pleased, to motion across his face where he was grinning. 

'Really?' was mouthed at us, before Karma gritted her teeth into a silent snarl, and turned her head back to the robot.

"Um...Stock. I would like to see your current stock. Yes, that. Please." Karma nodded with a sudden deeper sound to her voice, and gave the robot a forced grin. 

Tech slapped a hoof onto his face and slowly ran it down with a soft groan.

"Eloquent." He hissed over at her after.

"I don't see any of you actually helping." Karma re-hissed in reply through her clenched teeth grin.

Old one-eye robot stood in place, blinking at the mare in front of it. Eventually, with a twisted grind to its front hooves it attempted to 'politely' motion for Karma to head on down the path. Losing a particles of rust in a movement it probably hadn't copied in a few hundred years.

"'is way 'ister Orange. 'orage is in 'ee barn 'era." It crackled, after. 

"Um. Yes. Thank you." Karma replied, and slowly stepped around the robot, only to pause and look back at us. "Well? Who's coming with me?"

Stan had already moved to make his way around the robot as well, though that left the rest of us, with a slightly worried looking Rainy having been standing behind him. Suddenly a leg was being thrown over the back of my neck and I was being pushed forwards by Light, stumbling across my own hooves as I came bare inches from colliding with the robot.

"You next, Tech." Light said, after I sulkily made my way to stand with Karma and Stan behind the robot.

"Sure thing, boss." Tech replied as he made his way to the front. Static, whom had been apparently been hiding behind Tech and Cleave quickly trotted to be nearer to Rainy, who gave the light blue stallion an accusing huff. Static only gave her a grin as he fluffed out his chest, attempting to hide the fact he'd been...well hiding. 

"Boss? Don't have to be an ass kisser." Psych mentioned as Tech moved past the purple stallion.

"Says the horse shoe calling the bit, black." Tech huffed back at him.

"That was one time." Psych stomped a hoof against the dirt. "One time!"

"That was one time too many." Karma snickered as Tech flung his tail back in a condescending flick and ignored the response.

"Come on you four, we rather not stick around here for too long." Mist suddenly mentioned. Walking out from behind Light, where he had...not actually been before, I don't think. 

"We are trying to make sure nothing catches up with us any time soon you know." Light agreed, nodding his head to his companion as if he hadn't just appeared out of no where.

"Yeah, yeah, says the colt who wanted to stop in the first place..." Karma muttered quietly before stepping out in front and making her way up the path, with Stan following along right behind her quietly.

"Guess that leaves you and me, Cloudy." Tech nudged his nose against the side of my flank to get me moving, which worked rather well as I half-jumped away from the odd touch. Causing him to snicker at my response.

Weird touchy-feely stallion, I thought to myself as I quickly trotted to catch up with Stan and Karma, leaving Tech behind me. At least I knew I wasn't going to get randomly attack-cuddled by either of them any time soon.





"So, Mr. Orange..." I mentioned over to the mare leading us up the path.

Karma folded her ears back against her head with a sigh, and gave me a side-ways glare at the mention of the odd name.

"More than likely," Tech suddenly piped up, trotting up from behind Stan to walk along Karma's other side. "it is the registration of her pipbuck. They are hoof-me-downs right? Or did they have ponies that knew how to build them?" He lowered his head as he walked and gave the computer attached to her hoof an expression that one might almost call loving. "I would totally kill to have a working one of those, to have an accessible computer around at all times must totally---"

"I'm still not letting you play with it, Tech, but yes." Karma interrupted before giving a small outward kick of her front left leg at the stallion, causing him to shuffle sideways as we walked. He bit his lower lip and pouted at her, after.

"From what we were told, there were different areas of the country that the original founders of my vault were from, though a good portion of them came from Manehatten. Since there was so many ponies living there at the time. But, who knows." Karma continued.

During this time, we had made it up to the barn, to stop at its entrance. The color of the wood had long been stripped down to the usual blacks and browns that I was getting very used to seeing. One of the doors appeared to still be barely attached on rusty hinges, while the other was just completely gone. Blown away years ago, maybe.

Karma looked back over her shoulder towards where we had walked from, and when I looked back as well, I noticed that the robot has stayed where it was. I was sort of glad it had not followed us.

To our right, was the cabin looking house. It had not fared nearly as well as the barn itself over the years, and major portions of the roof had collapsed inside of the half-upright structure. The front porch was only half intact, and the doorway to lead inside was completely blocked by rotted wood and rubble. No one was getting inside there anytime soon.

A small beeping sound had me turning to look back to Karma, whom had lifted her right hoof to position her pipbuck's screen towards the inside of the open doorway that no longer obtained a door, leaving the other to continue to hang. The green screen brightened, allowing the rest of us to circle around her and try to get a better look inside the dark.

If I had thought the other robot wasn't creepy enough, the inside of the barn was far worse.

Only small pinpoints of orange-faded light made it through the pinprick holes of whatever metal made up the roof portion of the room, leaving the rest to be outlined in Karma's neon green. Rotted stables lined the outer walls, each either filled or empty with a series of different sizes rocks, pebbles, and even boulders in one. Though it was the middle of the room that was semi-uncomfortable to look at.

Two large machines, connected by a conveyer belt of sorts took up most of the middle of the room. To either sides of both the machines and the belt were similar looking robots to the one we had met outside. These pony machines were in differentiating stages of wear and tear, while some looked like they could barely stand on their rusted metal hooves, if they even had hooves left. One of the machines that seemed posed into a lifting position near a machine had both front legs missing, while it stood on the only two back legs it still had. Most, were standing near the belt itself, where only a few pebbles lay scattered across the decaying rubbery looking substance that covered it.

At least all of these machines looked dead. For the ones that still had their ruby socketed eyes, they were dull, lifeless, and covered in a layer of dirt and dust.

Karma made a sound mixed between the words 'Yuck' and 'Ick'. Stan was silent as ever, and Tech was practically beaming as he looked over the larger stallion's shoulder into the room. 

"So many! I wonder what model numbers they have..." He gushed.

All three of us turned to look at him as a group.

"Really?" Karma asked.

"What?" Tech looked oblivious to our scrutiny.

"This isn't for sight seeing, we're after gems, not old machinery...."

"But..." Tech's eyes watered up. "They are so neat though..."

During their conversation, I had turned to look about the room once more, and ended up noticing a rather morbid aspect that I wish I hadnt.

"Um...Hey?" I lightly poked Karma's side with a wing-tip.

"What now?" She barked back at me, in frustration.

Without giving her a verbal answer, I twisted the poking wing about to point in front of us, towards the floor, closer towards the two machines and their silent rusted company. Karma pushed her hoof forwards attempting to give the spot better light.

Even through the green light, it was easy enough to tell that a section of the dirt floor held a lighter hue than the rest. One of the machines had partially leaned down over the section, and had a hoof stomped directly into the center of it. Surrounding that hoof, were particles of white stick-like material poking up from the dirt.

The hornless pony skull that was located nearby the discoloration was a clear sign as to what those white stick looking objects were. Inside of the skull's still clenched teeth was a stone that glittered when Karma moved her light.

"Well. There's a gem." I mentioned, halfheartedly.

Then it was my turn to get the 'really?' looks from the other three. Even Stan narrowed his eyes slightly from under his hat.

"Where there is one gem, there might be more..." Karma attempted to lift her hoof a little higher to see behind the machine towards the back, but it was too dark for the light to show any visible surfaces.

"Maybe they have some kind of different storage for them." Stan muttered softly in reply.

"Alright. Straight line in, straight line out." Karma said, before turning her head and giving Tech a quick glare. "And no touching anything!"

"Fine! Party poopers." Tech threw up his front hooves, before stomping them back into the dirt with a huff.

The sound of a rock shifting had all four of us startling at the sound from inside the barn. Maybe it was just a pebble falling from Tech's stomp, but it had caused all of my feathers to stick on end before I quickly forced them to lay flat once more. Karma let out a soft sigh after.

"I really, really don't like the feeling of this..." She muttered before slowly stepping inside, with Stan following.  I darted forwards into the third spot behind him, which had Tech making up our rear.

Inside was no better than looking in from outside. Except inside felt cooler, from out of the dredges of daylight the surface even acquired. Slowly we made our way around the two inner machines so that we could stay away from the robots as well, leaving us walking near the rock-filled stables. From what I could from the closer look, not only did each cell-like area hold a different size of rock, but different shapes. Some being more round, while others were actually square looking, oddly enough. At least, that's what I thought, since we were still moving by the light of Karma's pipbuck.

I almost paused as we made our way around the area that held the bones to our left. But the two ponies in front of me seemed perfectly fine with ignoring the spot. I had seen some fairly gruesome things since coming to the surface, but I was still rather uncomfortable with the sight of death. No longer how long it had been ago, or how bad.

A fleeting image of a pile of rotting corpses fluttered into my mind, and I had to shake my head to get it back out. Stan turned his head about and looked down to me, as I finished the motion.

"I'm alright." I quietly replied to his silent questioning. It was getting easier to read the stallion. He gave me a nod, and went back to looking forwards as he followed Karma.

Eventually, we made it to the back, after I did my best to avoid looking at anything else other than Stan's hat in front of me. Even Tech had kept his word and his hooves to himself. Karma paused, and pointed forwards with her light-emitting hoof.

The three of us tilted to the side to look, and found that behind the machine was a long hose like contraption, or what was left of it. Most of the material had rotted away, but it did leave a clear path to another machine in the back. This one held a large cylinder drum looking thing, and under that, another smaller conveyor belt that led off to a wheeled bin at the end.

"I am going to be very annoyed if that's all we came in here for..." Karma muttered darkly.

"Like you weren't already annoyed in the first place, bitchy-bridle." Tech answered back, matter-of-factually.

Stan on the other hoof, had moved around Karma to stand in front of the cylinder, lifting a hoof and gently tapping the sheet of metal covering it. A half-hollow thunk was heard from inside. 

"I think this is a polisher...which means there might be something left inside." He said quietly, while looking over the machine for a way to open it up. Lifting to his back hooves, he attempted to peer up over the top, but sadly was no where near reaching the rim of the drum. Eventually, he looked back at us, or more-so at me.

Getting the hint, I lifted both wings and and flapped into a hover. Stirring up dust around us, I was able to raise above the machine's drum and swished my front hooves through the dirt covering the top of it to see if I could find anything. After a moment, the tip of my hoof caught onto a small latch that had been covered, and with a few twists to that latch, I was able to pry open the top of the drum with a rather large creaking and groaning of metal.

Too bad it was way too dark to see anything inside it.

"Now what?" I mentioned back to the trio group still on the ground.

"Reach in and see what you find." Karma nodded at me.

I instantly backed my ears against my skull and glared at the mare. You have got to be kidding me. 

"You got a better idea that gets us outta' here quicker, feather-head?" She innocently replied to my look.

Mentally I had to reminded myself that in other circumstances, I normally liked this mare. Just, not at the moment. At all.

Groaning, I lowered my right hoof in and reached as far as I could go. Which wasn't a lot, pray tell. But I did feel smooth stone rubbing against the bottom of my hoof as I swiveled it back and forth. After a few grunts and further reaching, I finally felt something colder and glass-like under my hoof, and I snatched onto it. 

"Ah-ha!" I triumphantly yanked my hoof back out of the drum to look at my prize. Just a bit smaller than my actual hoof, a bright blue stone rested in my grasp, shiny and partially see-through. 

"Look!" I moved to thrust my hoof down and show it to the others.

The others were not paying attention to me though, they had turned around at some point and were looking towards where we had been at the larger machines in the middle of the room. Blinking, I looked up to see what had caught their attention.

The robots had not moved, or so I thought at first. They still seemed to be in the same positions, except...

All of their heads, had turned in our direction. Even the one that had been partially kneeling over the old bones.

The one closer to our group, had both ruby filled sockets slowly starting to flicker, and a soft whirring noise filled the air before it was replaced with a similar static fizz we all had heard earlier.

"Un...thorized...Unau...ized...Unauthor..."