> Fallout Equestria: The Long Road Home
>  by Vermilion and Sage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Forward
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	For every great story I can remember, as long ago as I started reading -- for books were the means by which I learned of the great tales of adventure and danger, one common thread united all of them.  Some told of the horrors and heroism of war, others of the toils and trials of everyday life, some of love, and some of heartbreak.  Stories of friendship, valor, glory, and honor, each with a shining moral and purpose -- and each of them was about people who did what they thought was right.  Every saga, each epic of a lifetime’s work told of people who thought themselves not great, but rather simply taking what was the upright and correct path.  Even if they knew they served a greater purpose, they would ply their minds with humility and gird their bodies with grit to give more of themselves.  I guess that is why my story isn’t nearly so noble.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder...no.  I know that there really wasn’t much of a choice.  We did what we had to, what we needed to in order to make it.  The intent to kill is far more deadly than the end of any gun, and when something so simple as a bottle of water hangs in the balance, it would be plausible just to move on and forget it...so it would seem.  If the life of one you held dear was on the other side of that scale, all of the sudden that bottle becomes very important.  Important enough to kill for.  I wish I could say I hadn’t done that.  There are many things I wish I hadn’t done.  Given the choice though, I’d take myself and my friends being alive over my own conscience if I had to do it again.  It would be easy.

Some could argue that we did the right thing.  That what we destroyed, those who we hurt and who we killed were justified.  Self defense and survival argued with the fact that no one had any better reasons than us.  Hell, it’s what I told myself so that I could get to sleep each night and do it again the next day, at first.  When you become so used to it, so numb to doing what would have caused you to vomit and cry weeks before that you don’t even flinch, that is when you know that you have changed.  But when you only have your memories to compare yourself to, and those around you are changing just like you, the full extent of that change isn’t apparent until you get back home.

Home...such a simple thing, and yet the concept and reality are never quite the same.  It is so much more than just a place to live.  If you can call wherever you lay your head ‘home’, then I envy you.  If you know a safe place without fear, and you can call that ‘home’, then I am more jealous of you than can be understood.  We never meant to kill, much less become involved in a war, but everything has a price.  What we wanted most was to go home, and in the end, we got what we wanted.  My fear now is that while I recognize my home, it doesn’t recognize me.  I’m not the same person who left it, and I doubt I ever will be.  Still, should I ever come to terms with all that I’ve done, maybe I could forgive myself and let it all go.  Failing that, at least I might understand.  Perhaps you can help me?

Come, and I will tell you our story.  Please sit down, because it will take a while, and take care, for it is not for the faint of heart. 
> Book One: Welcome to the Wastes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe hated those mountains.  Actually, it was just one mountain in particular.  Every day for the last three months he’d woken up far before the sunrise, and returned home long after it had set.  Some people liked to tout the view as an upside to this particular assignment, but he wasn’t one of them.  Nothing to see in the dark anyways.  Just another thing to hate about this place.

The steering wheel spun in his grasp, and Joe swore. He could practically feel the morning turning sour, and it hadn’t even started yet.  Unfortunately,  the sudden action’s rush of blood to his head brought the memories of last night’s binge right back.  That black ice was all over the road, making the drive treacherous and reminding him of just how cold it was.  Before he’d joined the US Air Force right out of high school, Joe had lived in Lubbock, Texas.  The winters were hot, and the summers were scorching.  Right now however,  the dashboard read 4:52 AM and 8F outside.  Typical Colorado wintertime weather, and it felt more like it was single digits inside the cab too.

Of course there was a line at the gate.  There was always a line at the gate.  One guard stood outside checking ID cards while the other two played on their phones inside the booth.  Joe grimaced and pulled his hands out of their gloves to hold in front of the heater vents.  It brought back a little feeling and gave him something to do as he tried not to grind his teeth at the wait.  That’s when the hangover came back to the front of his thoughts.  The cold helped to intensify the throbbing in his brain, and made his water hurt to drink.  He watched impatiently as five AM came and went while he waited, and Joe began to count down the twelve hours until he could leave.  It was that same thought that kept him going each day: one hour closer to when he could transfer to Kirtland.  These days were of a complicated relationship. While being late was just something you didn’t do in the military, it was the best excuse to spend less time around the jerks at work.

After a full ten minutes in line, there were only two cars left in front.  Tick.  Tock.  Grumbling, Joe dug around in his cargo pocket for his wallet and pulled out his ID.  It proclaimed him to be ‘SSgt Joe Harrison,’ but the man in the picture looked a decade younger.  He was smiling in the photo too, but that was beside the point.

“Fucking cops.”  Either the guard didn’t hear him as the window rolled down, or just didn’t care and wanted to get out of the cold.  It was exactly six minutes across the complex to park and wait for the next entry at the main door, and another four more minutes until entry.  As soon as the clock turned over to 0530, he turned the key and pushed his way out into the biting air.  One more ID check at the massive first door and he was out of the wind.  He’d have just long enough to think of a good excuse for being half an hour behind schedule by the time the it closed and the second gate opened.

You’re late,” growled Master Sergeant Lundt.  David Lundt.  Everyone else just called him ‘Dave,’ but Joe didn’t merit that luxury.  At least it worked both ways.

“Guard at the gate had a whole line, cut me some slack.”  Joe tried to push past, but the older sergeant stopped him.

“You say that every morning, Harrison.  You also know that it never was an excuse.”  Ever since they’d met four years ago, with Joe a new Airman First Class, they managed to keep it down to only one good fight a month.  Today wasn’t that day, but rather just another work day as Lundt let Joe go without any further accosting.  Good thing too.  We both know this argument by heart, and the colonel is probably waiting.

As if sensing Joe’s attitude on the subject, Lundt led the way down a maze of halls and elevators to ‘The Door.’  It earned its name from being no more than a solid steel hatch, thirty feet square and about four thick.  The official story that the curious folks got fed was that it was to keep the backup communications equipment safe from the never-gonna-happen Thirld World War’s nukes.  That would have been a pleasant alternate reality.

The Door had exactly two jobs: keep secrets safe, and keep stuff inside.

In this case that ‘stuff’ was research, but it did a pretty damn good job of keeping those aiding the research there, which was exactly why he drank on weeknights -- because his weekends and evenings were always taken.  Swing-shift had already changed out, and day shift had moved in.  Fifty men and women in camo fatigues were already sitting at various computer stations with two or three more hovering over a central observation bay.  Joe looked back and forth, and noticed two desks were empty.  The clang and hiss of The Door sealing up reminded Joe that it was only eleven hours and twenty minutes til the shift was done. 

“Where’s the L-T?”

“Everson?  He took leave for the next few days.”  Although technically the new lieutenant outranked the master sergeant, he still had to go through Lundt to get his leave signed.  It was proof the military still had some mechanisms for respect in place.

“Fucker’s been here, what, three months, and he’s already taking vacation?”

“Guess so, said something about seeing friends from out of state or something like that.”

Picking his way around stations, Joe made his way over to the first empty desk.  It seemed he’d been wrong about the nightshift already heading out.  The new airman was standing beside the chair, his eyes wandering aimlessly over the room as he waited for relief.  What was his name?  Johnson...Jefferson?  Oh well.

“It took a year and a half for you to finally give me leave, and then Everson walks up, sits there twiddling his thumbs for three months and you let him go?  On a testing day of all days?  This is the one day we could use a desk pilot.”

“Look at it this way, he isn’t here to piss you off, so sit down and enjoy your hangover.  Why were you drinking on a Tuesday night, anyways?”  Lundt turned to nod at the airman, who was too tired to smile at getting off-shift.  “Go home, Jackson, and get some sleep.”

“Thank you, master sergeant!  Good morning, staff-sergeant Harrison!”

Joe ignored him and checked the coffee thermos on the desk.  It was empty.  He had just started to leave and fill it when the PA system came to life.

“Alright, now that you’ve all decided to grace us with your presence, staff meeting starts in the conference room right now.”  Several of the folks nearby chuckled at Joe, but he knew it was ridicule that would pass.  No one would remember by the end of the meeting, let alone the day.  

By the time the meeting was over, Joe found himself back at his station ready for prodding MEADOWLARK.  Why anyone would call name a project something so boring almost made sense after a half-hour briefing on how to properly push buttons.  Using very proper form, he brought the temperature sensors for the core online, and noted that all the values were in the green.

“Today we’re gonna try something just a little different.”  The colonel boomed over the PA, his voice made rusty by the fifty year old wiring.  “We’ll be adding a new compound, so keep sharp.  Remember, standard procedure applies.  If something looks wrong, try calling a supervisor over before you kill the whole process.”

“Ass-hat.  Shut the fuck up and let’s just get this over with.”  Harrison muttered into his coffee, glad Everson wasn’t there to cheer the old man on.  The commander was the worst kind of officer -- the type that loved the military more than his own dick.

“Major Johnson, introduce the sample.”

Joe sipped, then swore and set the mug down as it burned his tongue.  Hangover cure would have to wait until after the first test was done.  At least all the levels still read as fine.

The room went quiet.

Not just the conversation, because that always went away as soon as everyone focused on their work, but even the clanking of machines in the distance and hum of the lights overhead was gone.

Sweeping his gaze across the console, Joe couldn’t find anything that had changed at all.  Core temperature was holding steady at a thousand Kelvin, and the energy output was still shifting slightly in between the twelve and fifteen marks in magnitude of joules.  Whatever the problem was, it belonged to someone else.  Joe reached for his coffee again.

“Well, sorry folks, but it looks like this was a waste of our time.  Major, did you put the right set in?”

Go figure, he said that over the PA.  Joe leaned back in his chair, trying to focus on the taste of light roast.

“What in the name…?”  Joe sat back up to find Lundt staring down his monitor.  The older man sounded like he’d seen a ghost.  “Look at your screens.  You getting this too?”

The temperature gauge was dropping swiftly, far below the point at which the core should have been able to remain active.  Still, the light from the observation bay was shining bright white, and the energy output was increasing -- fast.

“Yep, ten to the twenty-five, and still climbing.”  His own words seemed to be coming from far away, and faded abruptly.  That didn’t matter though, as the gauge slipped under one hundred, and then fifty Kelvin.

“How can this be?”  Lundt stared at his screen, trying to burn a hole into the impossible.

“I don’t know, but it’s still climbing.”  I didn’t know the readout went over ten to the fifty.

“Shut it down!” That was the colonel’s voice alright, but it was thin and far away.

“You heard him, shut the fucker off!”  Lundt was yelling and tearing at the controls.  Joe hit the kill button, and waited for the heartbeat it took to see that the temperature readout had stopped dropping -- not because of the fail-safe, but because it had no further to go.

“Ten to the fifty-five joules at zero kelvin...what the fuck.”

Those were the words he would have heard aloud, but they only sounded inside his head.  Joe looked over to David and saw his mouth moving in a frantic yell, but no sound was coming out.  Adrenaline seeped into his chest, and Joe turned back to the controls, searching desperately for anything else he could do.  The shielding had been built to withstand a temperature spike up to twenty thousand kelvin, but not a temperature drop to 0.

The controls went dark, and Joe shook at them.  Nope, it’s dead, and I should be able to hear myself.  He stood up and shuffled over to join the crowd at the observation window.  Cold seeped through his bones, radiating from the reactor floor.  There was no sound as the core buckled inwards.  It should have been louder than a plane crashing into the ground, but there was nothing… just…nothing.  Another crack spread through the metal, and then another.  The containment was getting smaller and smaller.

His jaw hung slack as it collapsed inward on itself.  All that remained was a tiny sliver of light the size of a grain of rice, glowing brighter by the second.  It hovered there -- the magnetic containment field still holding it in place.  The light intensified until it was too bright to look at, then spread out through the window into the silence.
> Chapter 1: A Single Step
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Single Step



I walk in circles upon circles and try to open my eyes…but they never stop until I wake...


???
Day 1, 7:17 AM


There is something about the open road that I’ve always loved.  Ever since I was old enough to remember, I’d stare out into the vast open spaces of plains and mountains on family car trips.  The empty scenes slowly washed by with only me, their lone observer to know their greatness.  When I became old enough to drive, I always liked the highway more than the constant bustle and rush of the city streets.  That tendency only grew stronger with time, to the point that sometimes when I needed some time to clear my head, I’d just grab the keys and go for an hour or two.  Whether I thought long and hard or just thought little and stared at the scenery, I always would come back ready for anything else...as if the journey made me ready for the destination.  It never really mattered where I went, so long as I could go fast and see for a long way ahead.

Right then, I didn’t have a lot of ‘fast’, but the road was long and the view was wonderful.  To the left, the high plains of central Colorado stretched as far as the eye could see, a dull brown in the mid winter sunlight.  That sun was just rising, the light bringing the illusion of warmth to the mountain desert.  To my right lay the foothills and mountains of the Front Range, mostly white, save for the green of the pines on the hills and lower slopes.  Farther away, green took over from white when I could no longer see the ground beneath the forest.  Immediately behind those hills the bulk of Cheyenne Mountain stood tall, which I’d come to know as my office.

I’d been away from the Rocky Mountains for a long time, and everything about them looked like home, and they would probably be...for the next six months, maybe two years?  It all would depend on how long my superiors wanted me on-post.  Kind of funny how I spent most of my childhood in Colorado Springs, and even after spending six years away for school and training, I’d come right back.  Don’t get me wrong, I was all kinds of happy about it.  I’d missed the mountains, my parents, my girl, my brother, and a whole host of other things.  

I guess that made the drive sound pretty peaceful, huh?  Well it wasn’t.  Five of those ‘other things’ were in the car with me, and we had the music up exceedingly loud.  I didn’t know exactly what was playing, but it had some heavy guitar, so I could enjoy it.  Marcus and Sawyer had been fighting over the damned ipod for the last twenty miles, and if they hadn’t been picking good stuff every switch, I might have had reason to take it away and replace it with my own.  Sawyer had shotgun, and there was no way anyone else would get it.  He is my brother, after all.

Sawyer was tall…six foot something? I stopped counting after he got taller than me.  A good buzzcut and the clean shave marked him as an Air Force cadet, now in his third year of school to become a chemist.  He had spent the entire drive talking about medical schools, at least when he wasn’t arguing over the music.  I really don’t know how Marcus managed to put up with him going on and on, but I didn’t have to acknowledge their constant exchanges, so I didn’t complain.  

Marcus, by contrast, was stout and curious and built heavier than either Sawyer or I. For some reason he would also always demand the bitch seat.  It made shifting the truck difficult, but he always had the courtesy to move out of the way so I wouldn’t rack him with the shifter.  I’m pretty sure he had been the best worst influence of my life.  Hell, he’s the reason I became a brony, but that’s a story for another time.

The back seat was quiet, at least compared to the front.  How they had managed to coax Terrance into sitting in the middle, I have no idea.  Terr was a crew chief who worked on C-130s.  He’d been everywhere in the last year, from the bottom of the world to the Middle East, but it hadn’t changed him one bit.  There was no doubt in my mind that he could find a job as Grumpy Cat should the economy turn bad. 

Seth, who was almost the opposite personality, sat in the back passenger seat.  Seth was social and outgoing, and even played the guitar in public.  I think that if world could see physics students like him, it would come one step closer to letting go of stereotypes.

And then there was Amelia.

I shifted in my seat to get just a little better of a view of her in the rearview mirror.  It didn’t seem fair that someone who was so beautiful could also be so irritating.  Judging by Terr’s glare as she poked him in the arm, he couldn’t agree more, or at least with the second half.  She was wearing her usual fare: blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt which hugged her slender form.  

There on her left ring finger sat the diamond I’d put there months ago.  It was still hard to believe that she was going to be mine forever.  Brown shoulder-length hair ran down her neck, framing a pale face.  Her eyes were brown in the middle and faded to green on the outside, curious and inquisitive.

“Dominic, you ok there kiddo?”  Dangit, I’d done it again.  I snapped my eyes back to the road to find that we were still on course and in the center of the lane, but that wasn’t the point. I had been doing this all morning, and Marcus had made a point of keeping the group alive by keeping me on the road when my mind wandered too far.  Amelia noticed my lack of attention on the road and proceeded to lean over the seat and wrap her arms around me just below my neck. She whispered into my ear playfully,  “You know, if you crash us before we get there, I won’t be skiing with you, silly.”  

“Well, you wouldn’t be anyways!” I shouted.

“Snowboarding counts!”  She stuck her tongue out at me, continuing, “And we both know that you’d never catch me if I skied.”

“Alright, you win,“ I conceded.  She stuck her tongue out again and then reached out to take my hand.  Since I didn’t need my right hand for shifting I could reply in kind.  Chills ran down my arms as I took her soft hand in mine, and I marveled at the feeling, even if some of it was because her hands were cold.  

Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself.  I’m Dominic.  Dominic Everson, but just call me Dom.  If you can picture Sawyer, you can see me too, except a little shorter, and I’d like to think I’m a little better toned.  I’ve forgotten how many thousands of times we’d been mistaken for twins.  Fortunately, that confusion never happens in uniform though; it’s hard to mix up a cadet and a lieutenant.

When my tech school drew to a close, I figured I’d have to deal with the evils of graduating middle of my class and either pick an interesting job far from Amelia or a very humdrum one close by.  As it so happened, when my turn to pick a job came around, the spot for ‘NORAD HQ Network and Project Security’ was still available.  So, all it took was one move from the south back to my home state and here I was, going on a ski trip with the most unlikely of people.  Marcus was back from his job in Texas and Terr didn’t have his military drill scheduled; it beats me how we all managed to come together.

Right there behind the wheel on the open road, I couldn’t have been happier.  I could have lived in that moment for hours, but then my phone rang and shattered all of that. It ruined the bridge on the song too.

Slightly miffed, I asked, “Hey Marcus!  Can you get that for me?”

“Sure thing, Dom!”  Marcus grabbed my phone, and in the best imitation of my voice he could manage, answered  “Hello?”

I fancied I could hear the other end of the line over the music, but I was probably fooling myself.  Marcus never bothered to turn it down and seemed to be doing just fine.  After giving a few ‘uh-huhs’ and ‘yeps’, he put the phone back in the cup holder and poked me in the side, causing me to jump.  Being ticklish is a curse.

Marcus gestured into the rearview mirror, shrugging, “So yeah, Taylor figured out it was me pretty quick.  No fun in that.  He says you drive fast.”

“Huh?” I replied, still thinking about other things.

“He’s right behind us,” Marcus grinned, “It looks like he’s gaining…floor it!”

Ignoring Marcus’ request and righting the mirror, I looked back to see a silver sedan driving closer than I would have liked, and a grinning figure rapidly waving at me.  Sweeping my arm in one broad motion, I returned the wave, then my eyes went back to the road -- always back to the road.  

Later on, that road would wind around the sides of mountains and along the banks of rivers, but even if those were far away, it was always the same road.  That blacktop was turned a dull gray by the forces of time and weather, sunlight and tires, and it was always there for me.  I was in that place where I always felt so right, which was why it was so easy to notice that something was wrong.

Looking back, I’m not really sure exactly what I noticed first, if it was the adrenaline, the shaking, or just a cold dread creeping up my spine.  It was one of those times where my body knew something was wrong, even before my mind did.  I’ve had those moments before, where something was horribly out of place, but I couldn’t find where.  It was like a time when my body knew that the pattern of something was off before my brain could process what was causing the distress.  This reminded me of a time when I was getting up for a drink of water at two in the morning, and I freaked out because a light that I always left on was off.  I wound up grabbing my pistol and clearing my house afterwards, but if that was bad, then this was a thousand times worse.

For the first split-second, I felt the urge to cry out in warning, but something internal checked that.  What I would be warning them of?  And what would they do?  By the time I figured out the first question, everyone else had too.  The ground shook and the road swayed under the tires, oscillating perpendicular to us fast enough that I thought I now understood whiplash.  While I was still fighting with the wheel, trying to keep the truck on a steady course, a brilliant light flashed through the windows.  Instinct caused me to snap my head up to see where it was coming from as yells and cries of alarm filled the cabin.  

The hills beyond us were swallowed in a mass of white light as swelling bubble of plasma came to meet us.  The blast was not quite like a plutonium bomb, but it was the closest I’d ever had the rare privilege of seeing in person. There was no time for further thought or desperate action as the wave hit.  A brief moment of blinding light and intense cold ensued, and I was slammed into the door.  Weightlessness was the last thing I felt before a profound blackness overcame me, and I had only one thought:

Well shit.  At least it will be quick.



------------------------------------------


“Dom.  Dom.  Dom.  Dom!  Dominic!  Wake up you asshole!” I could only barely make out Sawyer’s voice through the thick permeating fog of my unwaking body.

Every word was punctuated with a shake.  Ow.  Ow.  Owww.  Sawyer kept pounding and screaming.  Whatever he wanted so urgently could wait; I needed sleep.  Despite my best efforts, with each jolt, I became more aware of my surroundings.  Finally, the world came into being with a sound of emerging from deep underwater, but I refused to open my eyes because of a sharp pain running from them to the back of my skull.  Each pulse slid slowly, as if a shard of twisted metal was gouging through my brain matter.  Each shake was momentary, but the pain seemed to take far too long to dissipate.  Flowery descriptions aside, I was dying to punch him by the third time.

“Stop!  Sawyer!  Stop it, I’m up!”  I screamed for all I was worth.  Thankfully, the shaking stopped, but the grip on my shoulders didn’t go away.  It didn’t quite feel right, like my shoulders were too narrow, but judging from the headache, I’d either been drinking too hard or had come down with the flu.  And why was I lying on rocks?  “Augh...what is so damned important that you have to do that?  My head...argh…” It was taking all of my stamina right now not to puke, let alone solve Sawyer’s burning issues.

“Fuck!  Dom, this is serious!”

“Dangit, don’t yell, that hurts!”  I tried to open my eyes just a little, but the light streaming in quickly burned at the sticky darkness that filled them.  Talk with closed eyes it would be.

“Do you think I give a shit?  Get up!” Sawyer sounded like he was getting angrier quickly.

“I’m working on it!  Geez...I hurt all over.  How much did I drink last night?” I tried to buy time to make the spinning in my head go away before I had to open my eyes again.

“You weren’t drinking.  Now open your eyes!”  Sawyer sounded...desperate?  That was something that I wasn’t used to.  Ever since I was little, Sawyer always had an answer, a plan, something that he could use when things got dicey.  Whatever he was looking at was serious.

Was I dying?  Naw, probably not.

“Fine.  Let go of me already.”  I felt the pressure subside on my…neck?  Shoulders?  It didn’t feel right, but I was in no condition to judge.  First things first would be to roll over so I didn’t have to look up into the sky.  Rocks dug into my back as I turned, making me wonder where my shirt had gone off to.  That shirt would have to wait, though, as rolling over turned into a struggle of its own.  My legs didn’t want to stretch out right, and the rocks were getting in the way.  I shouldn’t be able to feel rocks on my legs, let alone on my--

“Fuck!  Sawyer!  Where the hell are my clothes?!” I muttered as I fumbled to find purchase on the rough ground. 

“Well, why don’t you have a look.  We have bigger problems than your underwear.”  The desperate note in Sawyer’s voice was dissipating, putting me more at ease, but the slight waver  was still unnerving.

I was trying to ignore the dirt and rocks rubbing into me where they shouldn’t, and getting into my...is that hair sliding down my neck?  When did I lose the buzzcut?  Forcing my eyes open, the first thing I noticed was that my field of view was not quite the same as usual.  It didn’t seem like my eyes had been dilated, but rather that I was somehow seeing a little further out to the sides than usual.  And my nose!  It seemed bigger and really far away...and it was...gray?  

I blinked once, then twice.  “Uh…” was the only noise I could manage.  For all the thousand words that could be used to express what I was thinking, none came out, because I had no idea what to think.  I was looking down a muzzle.  My muzzle.  Fine medium-gray hair ran down its length, which was blocking more of my view than I was used to.  Looking up, I saw my legs, lying in the dirt and rocks.  

Curious, I shrugged my shoulders and the legs retracted.  Where the undersides of my arms should have been, I felt legs resting against the ground.  Curling them up, I could see the darker gray of hooves underneath, the slightly shaggy hair from the bottom of the forelegs having initially covered them up.  If those were really my forelegs, then there were several things that should follow.  Whipping my head back, I was rewarded with the sight of my own backside and blank flank.  Sitting on my back were a pair of wings, and beyond that, a tail of mixed dark and light green.  All this before my mane fell over my eyes and covered my world in shades of green.

Again my temples throbbed and pain shook my skull.  Damn.  Couldn’t make this up.   No dream I’d ever experienced had ever come close to this level of lucidity.  They always came up as washed-out in some way. Whether gray in color, quiet in sound, or muted in emotion, they all in some way seemed unreal.  

This time the pain I was feeling was real, and I figured so was everything else...even the dirt rubbing against parts of me that I normally kept clothed.  A surge of thoughts and feelings welled up in me all at once, too quickly for me to understand, so I didn’t even try.  

Two deep breaths settled the anxiety and nervousness, and I was ready to take a stab at the problem life had decided to lob at me.  The logical conclusion was there, and I guess there was nothing else for it, which left only one question.  As calmly as I could manage, I asked, “Why?”

“You tell me!”  Sawyer blurted. “You’re the one constantly obsessed with your stupid fucking pony shit!”  The clippity-clop noise of a hooved animal walking came closer.  It rounded my right shoulder.  Was it even still called a shoulder?  It revealed itself to be a unicorn: violet, with a short yellow mane and tail.  His eyes were bloodshot, the now pink whites surrounding red irises.  His flank didn’t have a cutie mark either, but right now I really didn’t care about finding out what color his ass tattoo would be.  

He stomped a hoof down, scattering the dirt into the air and onto my face.  “Maybe you can tell me why I’m purple, or better yet, why the hell I’m a fucking pony!?”  It was more than a little bit unnerving to hear Sawyer’s voice perfectly replicated by this especially colorful unicorn. 

“I wish I could.” I replied. “When I figure out why I’m gray and have a tail, I’ll let you know.”  After shaking the dirt off my face, a cursory glance revealed four walls of flaking sheetrock holding up a worn and battered roof, through which I could see an overcast sky.  This must be some kind of farmhouse, but it’s definitely seen some better days.  There was no guessing at the time, other than that it was still daylight and didn’t quite look ready to storm.  

The air was cool, but not cold, and the breeze whispered through the rafters.  All around me the floor was almost all dirt with an interspacing of rocks, and a few chunks that suggested that it had been tiled at one point long ago.  Save for ourselves, the room was empty.  One door on the nearest wall seemed to be the only exit.  “Any idea where we are?” I asked plainly.

“No!  Why am I a pony goddamnit motherfucker!”  The Sawyer pony was trembling and starting to foam at the mouth.  The last time he’d been that angry and actually shown it, he’d broken everything in the room.  I needed to calm him down, and fast.  Keeping my own cool would be hard enough without him helping.

I figured a direct approach would be best.  “Sawyer, shut up.  You’re making my head hurt.  I have no idea, but standing there screaming in my face and kicking dirt in it isn’t helping me figure it out.  As soon as I know, you’ll be the first to know.  Can you help me get up?”

“As if.  I can barely stand right now, and it took me two whole minutes to get to my...to get up.  And the first thing I did is slip and kick you.” Sawyer was still fuming, but seeing me struggle seemed to keep him occupied for now.

“Gee, thanks.” I shrugged as I replied, but instead my body just twitched a little, causing the rocks to prod me in the side another time.

Sawyer didn’t wait for me to get up to continue venting. “Glad you’re grateful.  If you didn’t whimper like a little bitch, I’d have no idea it was you, or be able to tell you apart from the other animals in this shithole.” 

“Others?” I asked, although I felt as though I was missing something.

“Well, Terrance, Seth, Amelia, and Marcus were with us, remember?  I figure that’s them in the next room.  As for the other car’s group, I have no fucking clue where they went.  The blast probably scattered them into a million little pieces.”

“Oh.”  It all came back, my head pounding hard with the vivid influx of memory.  Driving, shaking, flash of light, floating in the black…it was all too much.  The fact that I was here, as was Sawyer and everyone else, meant that something had happened.  What exactly had happened, and why, would have to wait at least until I’d gotten up off the ground.  “Are they ok?”

“Them?”  He gave me a grin that would have made a demon shudder.  “Hell if I know.  They’re not bleeding and still breathing.  Good enough?”

Scrabbling to get up caused me to slip and plant my muzzle in the dirt, shocking my skull again and filling my mouth with the gritty taste of the earth.  This elicited a bark of laughter from Sawyer, and forced me to spit until my mouth was clear.  I did try to wipe my mouth out, but lacking hands, all I did was prod my face and lips.  Did I mention hitting my head made it hurt more?  Anyways, once my mouth was clear, I decided that standing up would be a methodical process.  First things first would be to sit up.  As best as I could guess, that meant putting my butt…rump on the ground.   Check.  Then arching my back and neck up.  Okay.  With my back half anchored on the ground for balance, pulling myself up was trivial.

The first thing I noticed upon sitting all the way up was that for the first time in four years, I was looking down on Sawyer.  Yes!  Big brother once and forever!  The mind changes gears quickly; I couldn’t believe that I noticed that when my brother was a unicorn.  Right now probably wasn’t a good time to voice that thought though, and I still needed to finish standing up.  My choices were either to walk forward on my forelegs and pull my rump and hind legs off the ground, or to stand up first and then spread out.  

Gravity would not be my ally either way; it only wanted to pull the rest of me back to the ground, and muscle memory didn’t seem to apply to new muscles.  Picturing both, the latter method seemed more plausible in my head, so I pushed up and immediately got the urge to walk forward.  Following it left me standing up, and feeling really solid.  Getting up had been unusual, but now I felt like I could take a good punch or two and stay perfectly on balance.  Testing that theory, I flexed my muscles up and down my back until I found the one that controlled wing motion.  Boy it felt weird having another limb coming off just below my shoulder, and weirder still as the pull increased with each inch of extension.  Each feather was beautiful, and I kept staring at my wings until the extra weight, as small as it was, caused my balance to shift, causing me to splay out on the ground once again.  Ok, not as good as I thought I was.

Sawyer had already gone on ahead, stumbling and swearing as he made his way through the hole in the wall to the next room.  I really wanted to beat him there, and while it was mostly driven by a desire to see if the others were ok, I’m not sure if I wanted to show him up or to stop him from hurting somebody else more.  Desire aside, I was no less clumsy than he was, and I still had to get back up.  

Raising slowly and proceeding, I only avoided falling again by slowing down.  It was a bizarre rhythm, trying to walk with four legs.  On the first pace, I tried to move both forelegs first.  This left me stretched out and ready to collapse until I moved one leg backwards, and moved the opposite hindleg forward.  Ok...like a parallelogram.  Gotta keep perimeter under a certain limit.  That was totally overthinking it, but I’d live with whatever helped me keep walking to the door without planting my face back in the dirt.

The next room looked almost identical to the first, save for a rickety door, apparently to the outdoors, on the far wall which was slowly opening and closing with the passing wind.  While a way out was important, more important still were the unconscious forms scattered about the room.  Ponies!  It made sense, given what Sawyer had said, but it was still a little exciting.  Focus, damnit!  There were four of them, which coincided with everyone else that had been in the truck, but I had no way of telling who was who.  

A black and white striped unicorn and a beige pegasus were lying the in the far corner, and a gray bat pony was passed out along the near wall.  Sawyer was starting toward him with a vengeance, still muttering obscenities under his breath.  The left a light gray unicorn curled up in the middle of the room; mane mostly obsidian, with a fiery orange streak in the middle.  Something about that pony was different, and it took me a second before I realized it wasn’t just any muzzle, it was her muzzle. 

“Amelia!”  I yelled her name as I stumbled over to her.  She was not moving save for a subtle rise and fall of her body.  Pushing her with my forelegs, I rolled her back a little ways in the dirt.  “Amelia, come on sweetie, wake up!”

As I waited hopefully for her to stir, Sawyer finally got to the bat pony.  It seemed he wanted the leather-winged creature to wake up very badly, and it was clear he didn’t intend to be very friendly about it.  Still spitting curses through clenched teeth, he kicked once, then twice, before the bat pony moaned and rolled away from his attacker.  The victim made it until he got back on his stomach, at which point he stopped and shook his head.

“Whoa...wait.”  That voice was Terrance’s.  “What the fuck? ”

“You.  Tell.  Me!”  Sawyer said through gritted teeth as he caught up to Terr and kicked him again.  Terr’s eyes shot open, showing them to be narrow-slitted and orange-hued for a split second before he shut them again with a wince.  Swiftly, he wrapped one foreleg around Sawyer’s foreleg and tugged.  Saywer’s front half thumped against the floor hard, and Terr gave him a swift kick to the face.

“Ow!  What the hell?”  Sawyer whined and tried to back up, but Terr cuffed his neck and pulled him closer.

“Who wakes someone up by kicking them?” Terr argued, breathing heavily from the fight,  “Holy shit. I  expected better from an officer-to-be, kicking me when I’m down.”

“Thanks man,” I said pointedly, giving Terr a quick nod which he ignored and then continued bickering with Sawyer.  They’d probably be at it for a while, and I needed to make sure Amelia was ok.  Gently at first, but soon more forcefully, I tried to wake her up.  Not that I figured she’d enjoy being shaken any more than I had, but I needed to know that she was alright.  Moments later, I was rewarded for my efforts by a pale gray leg lazily shoving me away.

“Come on, Amelia, wake up.”

“Noooo…go away…” She replied sleepily.

“I know you’re tired sweetie, but you need to get up.  It’s important.”

“Do I have to?” She opened her eyes ever so slightly, then closed them just as fast.

For anything less important, I would have been cowed into letting her rest.  But this time I would have to actually make her get up.  “Would you do it for me?” I pleaded, as much as I hated to admit it.

“Oh fine.”  Uncurling slowly, she turned to embrace me with her forelegs.  Halfway through the hug she paused then plainly declared, “You’re fuzzy wrong.”  

“That’s why you need to open your eyes now.”  I figured that one look would be worth thousands of words. 

Grudgingly, she did, leaving me looking into orbs of solid brown, rather than the brown eyes edged with green that I was so familiar with.  It was bizarre but comforting to see them open again.  She just stared at me for a moment, then two, then ten.  It was comforting (and warm) but wasn’t helping towards getting everyone else up.

“Amy?  You all there?”

“You… made a pony costume?  When’d you even have time?”

“Uhm…well…”

“It’s really pretty good.”  She stepped back to look at me, but tripped and fell backwards instead.  She stared at her hooves for a minute and then looked down the length of her body.  “...Dominic?” Her voice spoke equal parts panic and fear.

“It’s ok...I think,” I said as  I pulled her up and into a hug.  “Stay calm now.”

“Ok?  What part of this is ok?”  She fumbled as she looked into each of my eyes in turn, searching for answers.  “You’re…we’re…ponies?…The fuck?”

“Yeah,” I said, “my thoughts exactly, but your eyes sure are pretty.” There was only so much comfort that words could give now.

“Oh?” She studied mine a minute. “Not as much as yours.” She pushed her face into mine gently before pulling away and giving her head a hard shake. “That fuzz!” she cooed with her eyes crossed.

I’m glad I’ve never blushed easily, and this time any blush would have been hidden behind a mat of gray hair, but it didn’t spare me the embarrassment.  Secretly, I enjoy it a lot when she compliments my eyes, but the man code says I can’t ever show it.  Normally I don’t do ‘cute’, ‘pretty’, or anything else down that alley.  Thankfully, Sawyer and Terr were still bickering, so I leaned down close and whispered back to her.

“Yours too.  But as beautiful as you are, compliments are going to have to wait until we get all this figured out.  Ready to get up?” I’d say anything to keep her thoughts off the most obvious for the moment.

“Fine,” she conceded, cutely offering her hoof to me.  Helping her up was the courteous thing to do, but it came with its own set of difficulties.  Her attempts to stand up were met with even less success than mine, so on her third try, I stuck one foreleg under her midsection and pushed her up.  Amelia shoved herself on-balance, using me as a crutch to get all four legs straight.  It would have been cute watching her struggle, but I was lost in another sensation entirely.  Her underside was soft!  A small chuckle escaped my lips at the thought.

“What?!”  Her annoyed question went unanswered as I swiftly drew my leg back, and it continued to go unanswered as I kept laughing.  “What is it?” she stared hard at me, “It’s because I’m a pony, aren’t I?”  She looked up and crossed her eyes.  “No...I’m a unicorn...oh why…?”

I dragged her into a hug before she could freak out, trying to impart every possible bit of comfort I could while secretly enjoying the softness and still trying to balance on just three legs.  “It’s ok, Amy.  Everything is going to be just fine.  We’ll get everyone else up, and then figure out what’s going on, alright?”

“Oh alright…where is everyone?”

I stuck out a leg and pointed where Terr still had Sawyer headlocked on the ground, then towards where the other two were by the wall.  “Sawyer decided not to behave, so Terr put him in time out.  As for Seth and Marcus…well that’s them over there.”  I bluntly pointed toward the patterned unicorn and the pegasus.  Neither of them had stirred.

“Great.  Who do you want to wake first?” Ash asked.

“Uhm...well your choice is as good as mine, so let's go find out,” I replied.  Still as a statue save for the telltale rise and fall of his chest, the tan pegasus was out cold.  I was beginning to wonder if it just an effect of…however we’d gotten here.  I’d never had such a hard time getting up...although I couldn’t speak for anyone else other than Sawyer.  Perhaps this guy would be easier to get up.  I’d have to get there first, though.  

Walking had not gotten any easier with the added practice of trotting from one room into the next, so I could only imagine it would take a while to get used to.  The same would probably be true for Amelia, who nearly tripped twice as we made our way over to our sleeping friend.  When we finally reached the pegasus, I knelt down and nudged him a few times.  

“Hey, Seth?  Is that you?  Marcus, dude?  Wake up!”  The tan pony grumbled in a deep register and rolled over, falling right back asleep.  “Come on man, get yourself up.”  Reaching around his torso, I rolled him back over to face me.  It was a heavy process; he was certainly bulkier than I was.  He shifted again, and I grinned at my success, just in time to take a hoof to the face.

“Augh!”  Stars flashed in front of my eyes as the developing bruise in my muzzle got struck for the second time that day, and I fell back on my rump with Amelia cackling at me.  When my vision cleared, I rubbed my muzzle slowly, wincing at the tenderness.  Whoever it was that I was trying to wake up didn’t seem to have been roused at all, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take another shot at it.

“Sucker!” Amelia said as she stuck her tongue out at me.

“Agh…he hit me!”  The sight of that beige pony lying flat on his back, eyes closed, legs splayed out, and a huge grin on his face was too much to bear.  There was no reason to be gentle, not after getting hit like that.  Positioning myself just right took a few moments, just enough time for me to consider if I was behaving too much like Sawyer.  Nah.  With enough room to keep my balance afterwards, I went to kick the sleeping pegasus.

The strike flew true, and hit him right in the side of the ribs.  It hardly did anything against his thick wrapping of muscle, other than throw my balance off.  As I teetered, a set of legs reached out and swept my legs out from underneath me, and I plummeted down into the dirt.  Before I could struggle any further, I was wrapped up in a tight bear hug.  My attacker let out a low, contented breath before lying still again.  That noise was quickly lost under the sound off Amelia laughing, and the following thud as she fell back into the dirt.

“Yeah.  Laugh it up.”  I growled as I realized I was losing a fight to a sleeping person.

“I-I will!  You-you...just you!”  She continued to laugh, which sounded disconcertingly like nickering.  For that matter, I sounded like I was snorting.  Made sense, but it didn’t make me happy.  I knew one thing that would help with the humiliation, and began slamming my leg against the pegasus again and again with what little room I could get to wind it up.

“Wake.  Up.  Dammit!”  My voice rose as my pride was rapidly falling.

This elicited a slight groan from him, and that’s when I knew it was Seth.  His voice washed over my ears, expressing both eloquently and resolutely his intention to honor my request.

“No.”

“Get up!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a pony.  Good enough reason?”

“Uhh-huh, sure...” The sarcasm was dripping from Seth’s inflection.  Oh, this will be good when he opens his eyes...

“Then can you at least stop crushing me?” I could only picture what a gray pegasus turning blue would look like in my head. 

“Uhhhhh, fine, leave me alone then.”

The grip loosened and I slumped to fall in the dirt for the umpteenth time today.  Amelia was still laughing, and for the life of me I just didn’t get why.  Ok, I suppose I understood why she was laughing, but I didn’t understand why Seth was being so obstinate.  Sure he was the kind of guy who set a dozen alarms over the course of an hour to get up, but whenever I’d had to tell him to get up, he did so quickly and without complaint.

“Seth.  This isn’t a joke.  You need to get up right now.”

“Eh, fine, I’m up.”

This time one eye opened, and then two.  He stared at me for a while, then tilted his head to look at Amelia.  Looking at himself, he let out a low whistle.  “Well, that’s a thing.”

“Yeah, it’s a thing.  Look, I’m gonna go wake up Marcus, and then we’re all gonna have a long talk about this.  Just wait here and work on standing up, and then I’ll come get you when everyone is ready, ok?”

Instead of giving me an answer, Seth hopped up.  It really was a hop, all one quick, smooth motion that left him standing with a grin.  My jaw dropped.  Amelia glared and sat in a huff.

“Wow, that was way easier than I expected!” Seth said exuberantly.  Craning his head about to examine his new form he shouted.  “Fuck yeah, and I’m a pegasus!”  He trotted over to a more open area and started to test out his wings.

I continued to look on as he pranced one way and then the next as jealousy blossomed in my throat.  When he started to hum as well, I turned away with a growl and stumbled my way over to where Marcus lay.  It seemed somewhat funny to see him with stripes and a horn, but it was just as funny to see everyone else as they were.  Or should that be ‘everypony else?’  Ah well.  I could swear he almost looks like a zebra, though.  Would be if those looked a little more like stripes than bands.

“Hey, Marcus, time to get up, man.”

The reply came back right away, still a little muted from his drowsiness.  “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s happy ‘you’re-a-pony-day’ and I think you should get up and help me figure out why the hell it’s on the calendar.”

“Wait, really!?”  Before I could answer, Marcus’s eyes shot open.  He looked up at me, then at Amelia, then squirmed around in the dirt until he could see his own legs.  The grin on his face looked like it couldn’t get any wider.  “There’s only one other thing that could make this better…”  He trailed off as he reached up to plunk a hoof on the end of his horn.  “WOO!  Yes!”

As I looked on, his horn lit up with a dark forest green glow, and so did a pebble by his hooves.  Slowly, as if a young child were trying to drag it off the ground, the pebble lit up and wobbled back and forth in the dirt.  Marcus took a deep breath, and the pebble rose several inches off the ground, and then several feet.  About the time he was whirling it in circles around his head, the sound of my insistent coughing got louder than his zoned-out focus would allow and he set it down to listen.

“So, think you can put off magic-ing for just long enough to help us figure out what’s going on?” After a few wobbly attempts, he managed to fidget into a sitting position, and raise into a standing one.

He frowned, but nodded.  “Only because that would be the annoyingly logical thing to do.  Let’s get to it.”  I watched curiously as Marcus attempted to get up.  It seemed like each person had a dramatically different time with that part. 

Marcus first sat on his hindlegs and locked both front legs to sit up straight. “Whoah,” he stated, sounding overwhelmed.  “This is REALLY different.  Like, take all of your limbs and flip them around weird.”  He wobbled slightly as he moved to all-fours in one motion. “Hey! That wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought!” Page declared.  He then immediately began to try to stand on fewer than four legs before walking.  He lifted one leg, pointing towards a wall, then repeated with each of the other three.  Those proved simple enough, but as soon as he tried two legs, he lasted a few seconds before flailing wildly and falling down hard, getting the wind knocked out of him.  “Oof,” he wheezed, “Maybe next time.” 

I turned away as he began getting up again.  Gathering everyone together proved to be a lot less difficult than waking them all up.  At the very least, I got hit in the face exactly zero times during the process.  The end result was all of us more or less standing up in a circle in the middle of the room.  Sawyer was still grumbling, Terrance was squinting, and Marcus was playing with his pebble, but it was probably about as much coherency as we were going to get.  I was really hoping, perhaps praying, that somebody had a better idea of what was going on than I did.  Still, it looked like no one else was about to say anything, so I had to kick it off.

“So...I think you’ve all realized our predicament.  I’d like to know how we got here, and why.  Now, if anyone has any ideas, solutions, or anything else useful, speak up.”  The only noise audible was the wind in the rafters as five sets of eyes stared back at me.  I had another chance to notice the change in color of each person’s eyes.  Just like Amelia, everyone else had shifted eye colors, some drastically.  Terrance was squinting, so I couldn’t see his.   Well shoot.  Guess that was too much to hope for.  “Ok, well if that’s all we’ve got, let’s move on to the next thing.  Anyone remember what happened before we got here?”

Seth was the first to answer, somehow rubbing his forehead with a hoof while he spoke.  "To put it simply, Dom, I think we fucking exploded." 

Latching onto Seth’s thoughts, Terrance spoke up.  “I remember being in your truck, the ground started to shake, big ball of light, then black, some voices--”

“EEEP!”

Heat toasted my eyebrows as Marcus was completely engulfed in flames.  Instinct left me diving to the floor, and I glanced up to see a cloud of smoke rising from where he had been standing.  I blinked several times and wiped the crusty feeling away from my face; the side of my leg covered most of the area in one sweep.  As the smoke cleared, the first thing I saw was that same smile.  Marcus, while somewhat covered in soot, was grinning from ear to ear and quite unharmed.  “Yes!  It really works! Also, don’t sneeze when you’re magicking.”

There are moments when glares can be a palpable thing.  Focusing five of them at the same time is outright intimidating.

“Marcus?  What exactly is it that works?” He was trying my patience and he knew it.  And did I really just hear a squee?  This just keeps getting stranger.

“Oh, fire spells,” he replied, stifling his grin.

“Fire spells are great, but lets focus on something that could help us get back home?” I barked.  I really didn’t want to sound too angry, and I’m pretty sure that it was my headache talking.  That, and watching a dear friend of mine go up in flames was shocking, even if he turned out to be just fine.

“Yeah, sure.  Sorry about that.  On that note, I was thinking--”

Several loud raps sounded against the door, and muted voices sounded from the other side.  Ten thousand thoughts exploded into my mind all at once.  Perhaps they can help us.  But who would it be?  If it’s locals, and they’re ponies, they’ll think we’re crazy.  I guess we could open it, or just talk to them? 

“I’ll get it!”  Seth said as he completely broke my train of thought and bounded to the door.  How he could do so with so little effort was beyond me.  Moreover, what was he going to say to whoever was on the other side?  Before I could call out to him to wait, he opened it.

There are times that you can recognize something without instantly knowing what it is.  When I saw that short green unicorn mare smeared with dirt, her mane caked into spikes with what looked to be dried blood, and a weathered cut-down shotgun with a strange handgrip, that was one of those times.  Oh shit!

She clocked Seth on the side of the head and grabbed him as he slumped to the ground.

“Oooh!  You’re mine, pretty colt!” A drop of drool slid from the side of her mouth as she handled his body.

“Seth!”  The bellow left my throat as the crazed mare dragged him out the door and slammed it shut behind her.  Howling and cheering filled the room, muffled slightly by the thin walls.  Adrenaline filled my chest, and it took every ounce of self-control I had to walk slowly enough to not fall over.  I knew there was no way that they were doing anything nice to him on the other side.  I realized that these thoughts were shared, as everyone else followed me until I walked headlong into the door.  The dull clunk of the side of my face meeting the weathered wood was drowned out by the far too familiar noise of someone trying to start a gas power tool.  One...two...three times the revving noise sounded, then one voice rose above the rest in a yell.

“Hold him down, Grimmel!”

Panic overrode the adrenaline as I grasped for the doorknob.  It was not shaped like any knob I knew, but rather as if a hoof were meant to fit over it.  The thoughtful design would have been great for a pony who wasn’t trying to use a foreleg with the muscle memory of an arm.  Once, then twice, I tried to meet the handle.  Both times I slipped off. Then, whoever was revving the engine succeeded, and the all too familiar roar became continuous.  A scream cut through the engine noise, raw and agonized.

“No!”  My voice was barely audible above the din, and I was completely unable to hear the nimbus of magic shimmering around the doorknob, but I knew that Marcus had turned it for me.  With a furious yell, I kicked it out.  It could have been something out of a game, except that the shake of the aged and rotting door giving way resonated through my whole body, and the roar of what I thought to be a saw engine got a lot louder as the obstruction fell aside.  

Seth lay shaking and yelling, pinned to the ground on a mess of dead grass. Next to him stood an earth pony covered in rusty spiked armor.  Seth’s severed left wing lay lifeless next to him, while blood ran freely onto his coat and splashed onto the ground below.  As the gruesome sight took hold, I saw a dirty orange unicorn holding a chainsaw who was halfway through cutting off his other wing.

There was no time for thought, no room for higher mental functions, only the drive to sprint forward.  Hatred for the beasts that were killing my friend, fear that I would be next, and rage at such cruelty became one single intent -- stop him.  Leaning down on my forelegs, pushing off with my hind legs, and closing the gap, I jumped.  Slamming into him headlong, I tackled the raider wielding the chainsaw like a sack of bricks.

He went down beneath me, and as the shock from hitting the ground reverberated through my bones, and so did the constant vibrations from the saw.  The raider screamed beneath me as his own weapon split open his underside from neck to tail, splashing the ends of my legs and the tip of my tail with droplets of his blood.  

Horror seeped into my adrenaline like hot wax running down the inside of my throat, and I leapt off him.  As soon my belly had left his back, the noise stopped.  My own weight had kept his body on the throttle.  I saw the blood in stunned silence.  The other raiders saw it too. A vague whisper of thought passed through my mind.  He’s...dead?  But there was no more time, as the unicorn turned and I was staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

I hit the dirt, as my neck, cheek, and most of my front landed with a squelch in the raider’s blood.  A scream of fury and a crack rent the air as the mare fired where my head had just been, and my heart thudded a mile a minute.  Was that one shot or two?  I had no way of knowing, but either way, she would be coming around to shoot again.  I needed to get up and move now.

Upon standing up, I got perhaps a half second of relative stillness and silence to take everything in.  The raider at my hooves was still twitching and moaning in pain.  Seth was unmoving, his eyes half-lidded.  The blood wasn’t gushing from the stumps where his wings had been, but instead just trickling.  His jaw worked slowly open and shut, but no noise came from it.  The raider with the spiked armor was bent over, retrieving a shovel on the ground, while on Seth’s other side, the mare with the shotgun stared at me, vehemence burning in her eyes as she pushed two more shells into her gun.  But that moment of respite ended all too soon, as something hurtled past me with a yell.

Terrance wasn’t armed, but he had to be nearly twice the size of the raider mare.  As he slammed headlong into her, the shotgun went flying, and her shells fell out of the barrels as both forms collided with the broad side of the faded barn.  Something crunched as his weight crushed her, and I couldn’t tell if it was either the ancient wood or one of her ribs.  Despite the impact, she rolled out to bite and kick him.  I started towards them, only to run into the armored earth pony holding his rusty shovel between his teeth, poised to swing.  Before I could respond, the flat of the spade connected with the side of my head, and I connected with the ground.

Half of my face ached as waves of pain accompanied the impacts, but clarity rushed through the stars in my vision.  I had to roll over, had to do something, or I wouldn’t be getting back up.  That thought was forced from my mind like the air was forced from my lungs as he kicked me right in the gut.  The recoil from the strike left me looking directly at him and the end of his shovel.  The edge of the spade was the one part not completely coated in rust.  It had been filed to a sharp point.

Getting up would have been impossible. There just wasn’t enough time.  Rolling wasn’t an option, I was already winded and lying on my side.  So I did the only thing that came to mind, and swung one foreleg up to meet the shovel and bat it aside as it came down.  Only the raider’s eyes were visible through his helmet, gray irises gleaming with hatred as he brought the shovel down upon my throat.  I swung, and my foreleg met it.  Pain erupted along the end of my leg, as it slammed to the ground, taking the shovel with it.  The force of the strike had left it buried in the ground, and he would need time to pull it out.  Time that the still very much alive me could use to get up, or would have used to get up if he didn’t kick me again.  And again.  I curled into a ball, trying to get the the barrage to stop, when suddenly it did on its own accord.  Another yell sounded, and the raider left kicking me to grab his shovel again.  This time I rolled over quickly, my body protesting at the movement.  Now sitting up, I saw the raider wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, but instead to Marcus.

Marcus was standing a few feet away with a look of grim determination across his face.  “I won’t die here!  Not to you!  Not now!”  Marcus shouted, his voice quivering with fear and determination.  Slowly, a dark green glow spread over his horn, then over his irises.  It was a terrifying sight from but a few feet away.  He raised his right forehoof and it took on the same baleful glow.  

Once again, the raider hefted his shovel and raced forward.  As the raider brought his shovel down, Marcus leaned back to strike with his leg.  The two masses met with a crack and a flash of green light, and a pressure wave passed that I could feel on my skin.  In the moment after the light faded, the raider was flung back all the way over to the barn wall, and smacked into it with a dull, lifeless thud.  Marcus immediately slumped to the ground where he stood, and I feared the worst as I hurried over to him.  Each of my steps were pained, and I had to wonder if I’d broken ribs.  That would have to wait until I knew he was ok.

“Marcus!”  No answer came from the unicorn, and I stumbled to a halt over his form.  It took a few seconds, but soon the faint, but definitely present, rise and fall of his chest became evident.  Still alive.  Whipping my head back around, I could see Terrance was climbing off the motionless raider mare.  He was bleeding from several nicks and bites in his coat, but was otherwise ok.  The same couldn’t be said for Seth.  Amelia was lying by his side, frantically pressing at one of his wing stumps, and screaming at Sawyer to do the same on the other side.  Seth lay still, his eyes closed, the blood forming a thin trickle through Amelia’s hooves.  If he wasn’t dead yet, he was certainly dying, and needed something.  Anything.  But we don’t have anything.  The farmhouse was empty!  The only other building here is...the barn!  “Terrance, help me search the barn!  They might have something to save Seth!”

“Right.” He said with a nod.

Together we walked as quickly as we could around toward the open side, which was still agonizingly slow now that they mindless adrenaline had worn off.  It seemed now that I could think again, and all of the sudden I was thinking about walking, which made it just that much harder.  Every last stride had to be mentally lifted, measured, and planted, and it took all four to make one pace.  It didn’t look like Terrance was faring much better.

Inside, the barn was almost the same as the farmhouse: bare floor, stark, and empty, save for the pile of misshapen junk in the near right corner.  Centered around a low but still-burning fire were two mattresses, one worn with some old sheets on it, and the other covered in blood and...other things.  The stench made me gag, and I was somehow certain that I was smelling with more clarity than I ever had before in my life.  How do they sleep next to that?  Stench or not, there had to be something in here to save Seth.

Two saddlebags made of worn cloth sat behind the beds, which we immediately fell to turning inside out.  A small mess of shotgun shells, three bottles of water, some flint, and a long knife fell out, as well as an odd piece of rock about the side of my hoof.  It was dark gray with flecks of bright gold in it.  Pyrite, probably.  To my left, Terrance had found several more bottles of water, a small pile of bottlecaps, and a few skewers with roasted rats on them.  Last of all came two cubic plastic devices half the size the rock, each sporting a pair of metal terminals.  They were apparently a lot heavier than they looked, judging by how he handled them.

“Spark batteries?”  I mused aloud.  When I looked over, Terrance was wearing a pair of very old and dusty sunglasses with a large crack running down the left lens.  Well at least he can see now.

“Probably.”

“Well shoot.  I don’t see anything medical in here.  I could use this knife to cauterize him, but he’s already pretty far gone.  Guess we just bind him up with the sheets?”

“It’s all we’ve got.”

Together we shoved the sheets one way and then the next until they were balled up enough to carry.  For lack of hands, I slowly spread both of my wings out evenly until there was enough room on top of me to set them on.  To get them up there, I had to lay down in the dirt for Terrance to shove them in place.  That done, we rushed back outside to find that little had changed.  Marcus was still passed out, and Amelia and Sawyer were holding pressure on Seth, their hooves covered in his blood.  It took far longer than I would have liked to get the sheets off my back and strung out between us.

“Amy, you’re gonna have to cut the sheets up.  You’ve got magic, and we have no idea how long Marcus will be out!”

“But I don’t know how!”  She sat still next to Seth, still pressing on his wounds.

“I don’t know either, Amy, but we’ve gotta save him.”  I tried to stay calm, but every moment that we waited was another moment Seth got closer to death.  And I was not about to let a friend die!  “Try and picture the knife doing what you want.  Failing that, take my place and I’ll cut it with my teeth.”  Taking my end of the sheet in my teeth, I bit down, pulling it taut between Terrance and me.  The taste was akin to slurry of mustard and coke left out in the sun for a week.  Amelia closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed.  I could only imagine what it was like using magic, fate having decided not to give me a horn, but I hoped she would succeed.  

Slowly, her horn and the knife handle were matched with a bright red glow, and the knife shuddered as it lifted into the air and began to cut a long swath out of the sheet.  It wasn’t neat or pretty, but it was a lot faster than Terrance or I could have done.  As the first cut ended, both of us moved over to tension the next one.  Halfway through, Amelia was shaking, and the glow gradually faded.  Just before the second cut was finished, it faded altogether, leaving her gasping for breath and the knife on the ground.  	

She looked up at me sorrowfully, before a deep indigo lit up her features with surprise.  Sawyer was staring at the knife with supreme malice, his horn covered in purple-blue light.  He finished the cut, then sliced off two more strips, and floated them all over to where he and Seth lay.  Soon, Seth was also enveloped in that light, which lifted him off the ground just long enough for all four bandages to be wrapped tight, and the last one tied off.  

“Damn Sawyer, I didn’t know you had that in you.” Despite his temper, I had to be proud of him.

“You can thank me by getting me home.”  His words came out slowly as he leaned his head forward to rest it against Seth’s side, and he let out a long exhale.

I’ll get you home, little brother.  Or at least I’ll do everything I can.  Home was a nice sentiment.  If I knew how to get there, we’d have been going by now.  As it stood, I had no idea how to get back home, much less where it was.  Standing there, seeing the blood gradually soak into the makeshift bandages we’d wrapped around Seth, reality was slowly starting to hit home.  This wasn’t happy pony land.  But if there were raiders, it would make sense that there were other ponies in this wasteland too, ones who could help him.  Those with medical expertise, or at the very least, ponies who could walk without falling.  

We needed to get him to them, and home could wait until he wasn’t dying.  But where?  A few dozen yards beyond the trees at the end of the barn, a slight ridge ran in a half circle towards where we stood.  I did my best to book it over to the top, with Terrance not far behind.

The vista looked familiar, though I felt pretty safe in assuming I’d never seen it before.  Hills and ridges, ravines and gullies stretched out before me in every direction.  Interspaced with random sections of flatland, the hills and valleys were covered in a sea of pale dead yellow-brown grass.  That ocean went on for miles away to horizon, where the dark outline of peaks reached up towards the sky, encircling the edges of the horizon in every direction.  White at the top, they met the endless gray of the overcast skies.  Like the mountaintops I was so used to, they met with the mist at the top, reaching through it with fingers of stone.  All of the heights were still, save for one wisp of a darker gray rising up from the hills to join the larger mass in the sky.

“Hey, you see that?”  I nudged Terrance and pointed toward the smoke.

“So that’s where we’re going?” He seemed ambivalent.

“Unless you’ve got a better idea.  We can probably find help there.”

“Shouldn’t we fly up and take a look?” Terr asked the most obvious...and brilliant questions sometimes. 

After how easily I fell over just by putting out one wing earlier, and how hard it was for all of the unicorns to use their magic, I had the funny feeling that flying wouldn’t be something I’d pick up on intuitively either.  Still, Terrance was right.  If there was any way we could get in the air, it would help.  An aerial view of where we were going, what it was like, the safest route there, any other possible destinations would all help.  Savoring the idea, I spread out my stance.  “Sure, lets do it.”

Together, we spread out wings wide.  This time,  I made sure they were both at the same level to begin.  Giving them a test flap, I was surprised that I immediately lifted half a foot off the ground.  Either I was a lot lighter than I thought I was, or my wing muscles were much stronger than I would have guessed.  Either way, it seemed that flight was something that was very much possible.  After that first push, I kept going, and after a few more seconds of hovering a few inches off the ground, I realized that I couldn’t just upstroke and downstroke in the same fashion. Rather, I had to rotate my wings just a bit on the way up to generate some altitude.  

As I began to gain some height, it was easy to forget how I got there. “Oh my gosh!”  I made one small mistake in a stroke, and the ground quickly swept away from underneath me.  The sudden change in orientation caused me to flail, my legs jerking away what precious little balance I had.  Some instinct told me to snap my wings taut, and I glided forward to ram into the dirt.  It was better than falling from fifteen feet up, but it hurt nonetheless.  At least nothing was broken, but it seemed that flight was something that was going to take time to learn, and time wasn’t something we had right now.

With a loud thump, Terrance crash landed next to me, narrowly missing breaking his new glasses.  At least I wasn’t the only one.  He looked at me, a grimace on his face.

“So,” Terr conceded, “to the smoke then?”

“Yeah.  Let’s go get the others.”





???: Level Two
I can’t...won’t let him die.  Not here, not now.

Perk: Pegasus Pony
You are now a pony...with wings!  Flight is now an option for travel anywhere, though the reduction in weight needed to accomplish this feat is taken out on your bones and muscles.
+1 to END, -1 to STR.


???: Level Two
Well shit...

Perk: Night Pony
You are now one of the famed ‘batponies.’  Your sight is now set permanently to night vision, you can hear more frequencies, and your appearance is permanently changed. This perk also opens up new dialogue options with characters, although most reactions will not be friendly.
PER +2 in dark or dim environments, PER -3 in bright environments.


???: Level Two
I couldn’t…save him...

Perk: Unicorn Pony
That thing in the way when you cross your eyes lets you perform magic (provided you have mental discipline and focus)!  Careful not to run into anything...you might get stuck.
-1 STR, +1 INT


???: Level Two
I see this, and the only reason I can believe it is because my hands...hooves are covered in blood.

Perk: Pretty Unicorn Pony
The one comfort in your new four legged and far-too-colorful form is that you can now use magic to blast those who piss you off.  Oh, and you can use your horn to gore other ponies too…
-1 STR, +1 INT


???: Level Two
...

Perk: Unicorn Zony
Your new powers are just begging to be tested and grow!  You might be struggling to lift rocks right now, but soon fire and ice, darkness and light, will be within your reach.
+1 INT


???: Level Two
...

Perk: Chainsaw Mini-Massacre
You got wings!  And now they’re gone.  The grit required to survive such an event has made you tougher, and focus on your remaining limbs will allow them to strengthen beyond what a normal pegasus could do, assuming you live long enough for it to happen.
+1 STR, +1 END, -1 AGL
> Chapter 2: Crawl Before You Walk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Crawl Before You Walk




Attitude really is ninety percent of getting things done, you’d better believe it.  That being said, if your legs are sawn off and you’re bleeding out, a positive attitude won’t do shit.


???
Day 1, Early Afternoon


Part of finding one’s way down any road is knowing which paths to take and which trails to go on.  If I’d never been to a place before, even if it was just a few miles down the road, and no one gave me directions, I’d always make sure to look it up.  Sure, that was probably breaking the man-code, but it always saved a lot of time.  I’d show up quickly wherever I went, and eventually I’d accumulate a large stash of index cards with directions hastily scrawled in shorthand for all the places I’d only ever been to once in the car’s console.  

Especially on the really long trips, I’d want turns, street names, and distances.  A thousand miles away from home, it didn’t pay to take a wrong turn, because sometimes even the maps could make a mistake.  What always surprised me was when my ability to know when I had erred.  You wouldn’t think it was possible to know when you’d gone off your course in the middle of a far-away city and the road to the highway was really two streets over, but it happened.  And right now, I really felt like life had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

I’d often been described as the ‘honest kid’.  My mother had always told me she’d imagined me becoming a judge, at least until I joined the military.  When I asked why, she told me about a contest I’d once had with my brother when I was six years old.  It was a simple boys’ game.  My four year old brother and I tried to see how far we could jump.  When I landed, I’d measure from the back of my heel.  When my brother jumped, he sprawled on his stomach and measured from as far out as he could reach.  My mother always watched me and laughed when I couldn’t understand why I was losing.  

I suppose that attitude was what always made people think I was a lot more innocent than I actually was.  Time and time again in my life, I’d found there was a disparity between the expectations of myself as opposed to those of the world.  What I found to be evil in my own eyes, the world so often saw as innocent and even benign.  At my darkest hours, some of my friends would laugh and tell me to shake it off, and that my qualms didn’t seem like a big deal on a grand scale of human evils.  I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have done the same for murder.

I’m also pretty sure murder has happened millions of times, regardless of how you define it.  And while that pony most certainly wasn’t human, it was a living, breathing, thinking creature.  For that matter, being a pony only caused it to hit a little bit closer to home.  Sawyer looked more or less like him, and it most certainly would have been murder if I killed my own brother, regardless of what shape his body was.  There was no kidding myself on the necessity of my actions; we would have been hurt, raped, infected, and killed had I not done what I did. 

However, all the rationalizations in the world were not going to make the unsettling feelings or the memories go away.  Falling forward through the air, feeling the raider’s body shake underneath mine, and hearing the roar of his chainsaw clearly reminded me that they were all there to stay.  When the saw’s vibrations shook me through him, I knew he was gone.  I took a moment to look at his remains before we left the old farm.  

I shouldn’t have.

So simple a thought, so short a memory, and I felt dirtier than I ever had before in my life.  The feeling permeated through me like the stickiness of the hottest humid day under a winter coat.  It was undeniably present and clinging.  But it was more than that; it was a profound and inescapable sinking feeling of unease on my soul.  Unfortunately, there was also plenty of filth dripping down my coat too.  Sweat, mud, and blood were all drying and caking onto me and creating one reeking mess -- inside and out.  I doubted the others minded much though, as they were all covered in the same soul-staining gore.  This was true for all except Seth, who was very much unconscious and motionless.  Any worries over bodily filth and moral reek would wait until later.

In basic training, I’d had the mandatory self-aid buddy-care training that everybody got, which, at its pinnacle, told you how to recognize that somebody was hurt (limb loss and massive bleeding were good indicators), and how to do basic care, like bind the wound and apply pressure, until someone with actual medical training showed up to save the day.  Even so, I could barely take care of someone who was human, much less a pony.  Sawyer had been EMT trained, but from what I gathered, that was simply the next level higher up from ‘keep them alive until you can get them to a real doctor.’  Despite this, Sawyer would not be much use anyway; he was still cursing, spitting, and snorting, which was followed by yet more cursing and spitting when he realized he was making animal noises.  For all of Sawyer’s angst, Seth was certainly in a worse way.

He wasn’t bleeding, but that was like saying that an empty glass wasn’t leaking water anymore.  Slight changes in the rise and fall of his chest let me know that he was still alive, but if his body could replace all that blood, I wasn’t certain.  All the supplies we had were a few rat skewers that the raiders left behind, and Seth wasn’t even able to consume them.  The sheets we wrapped his wounds in were dirty and aging.  I was certainly no doctor, but I had the nagging feeling that Infection was bound to set in and spread to his blood.  He was existing on borrowed time, and we could only hope for reaching aid soon.  

Hope came like a godsend from the smoke we saw in the distance. It did not matter whether its source was a town, a raider camp, or raiders burning down a town.  There was still the hope that the fabled destination had someone who could save Seth.  Hope that we could find a way to pay for treatment that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars at a hospital.  I had the sinking feeling that the few dozen caps the raiders had wouldn’t be covering surgery and blood transfusions.  All this I could only ponder as we trudged ahead.

“Hey, Dom, you need a break?”  Marcus’s voice came from somewhere behind me, but I couldn’t exactly turn around to look.  He wasn’t looking so hot either, now that I had a chance to think.  Whatever he’d done back there had taken a huge toll on his health.  I was weighed down by one end of a long branch we’d used to build a stretcher, which only added to the difficulty of barely being able to walk straight.  Trying to get four of us to stand evenly under the ends of the stretcher and walk evenly at the same pace had been frustrating, and we’d wound up dropping it entirely twice just trying to raise the platform.  

Despite his best intentions, I wasn’t going to let Marcus anywhere near Seth.  After he woke up, his steps were staggered and tenuous at best, and he looked as though he might ask which of the two Seths to pick up.  I was not going to risk dropping Seth more than he already had been if I didn’t have to.  

“No, I’m alright,” I quickly replied, “I don’t want you carrying anything heavy after knocking yourself out like that, but make sure to be keeping an eye out, alright?”

“Yeah, sure thing.”  He strode into my field of view, the cut-off shotgun slung around his neck and a bulging pair of saddlebags around his midsection.  Given that he was playing scout for this little hike, it was quickly agreed he needed the weapon, and had to carry everything else that wasn’t Seth.

Getting Sawyer to help carry was a matter of screaming at him to get over himself until nobody was in danger of dying.  Once that had been settled, though, we’d just kept going.   Initially, I’d been worried about getting worn out; Amelia would likely get tired and we’d have to swap.  There is a reason humanity had used four legged animals as beasts of burden for millenia, and I quickly realized that this was no coincidence.

“Everyone else doing fine?” I asked.

A chorus of grunted and muttered acknowledgements hit my ears, and we continued across the plain.  The smoke had looked to be no more than a few hours away, but that would have been a fast walk for somebody who knew how to use their body and was not carrying an injured pony.  We’d be traveling for well over an hour, and Marcus had guessed we were not even a third of the way there at the top of the last ridge.  The constant hills, ridges, ravines, and gullies had slowed us even further.  After so many years running on tracks and trails, picking my way around bushes, boulders, and sharp dips in the landscape made for for a great deal of frustration.  Still, each slip up and near-failure led to another iota of understanding on how to walk in this new form.

As the hours rolled by and the habit of walking slowly lurched towards subconscious, my mind began to wander.  The sky above was covered in clouds all the way to the horizon, casting the land in tones of gray.  The colors below us had changed slowly from yellows to browns to greens and back to brown, but by and large most of the grass we stomped over was dead.  Here and there bushes and thistles grew, shivering in the wind that seemed to be constantly blowing.  It was almost cold on me, but not quite.  

Being completely covered in hair was a wonderful way to stay warm, so long as I kept my wings folded to my sides.  Not that I was trying with those again; this was no time to fall over and drop the branches braced over my back.  There wasn’t any snow on the ground, but it felt just about cold enough for it to start.  The occasional green spots had me convinced that it wasn’t yet winter, whatever season it was now.

Shaking my head, I tried to refocus.  Even if I couldn’t be checking for danger in more places than I could see to the front-left of the stretcher, I should have been paying attention.  The whole reason I was carrying a stretcher was because of surprise danger that we’d failed to anticipate.  Moreover, I had until we got to a place where we could stop to think, to figure out something to explain all of this to everyone else.  
Pfft.  

That would be easier if I had some idea of what the hell was going on.  ‘Hey guys, the military invented a pony-ray!’  Yeah, they’d totally go for that.  But in all seriousness, I still had a mission to do.  I needed to get back somehow and carry on with it.  Duty didn’t go away just because an experimental reactor went off and weird stuff followed, but at this point I very well could be incapable of doing anything.

Replaying the few seconds before I blacked out in my mind was chaotic and painful.  Laced with adrenaline, I couldn’t remember anything actually hurting, but trying to drag up so much at once over and over again looking for some kind of detail I missed was a grim reminder of where I was at the moment.  Going over the observations in my mind, I laid out what I knew.  The entire ground had been shaking back and forth, not just any random direction.  Those chunks of the mountainside were flying out radially without any location of indent.  It hadn’t been nuked; something had blown up inside.  And I had a pretty good idea of exactly what that was.  Between the technical details, the number of compartmentalization caveats, and sheer improbability, what exactly could I tell everyone?  

They were going to demand of me to know what went down at some point or another, and my ability to lie would only hold up as long as Sawyer was still too angry to care.  I needed something, anything, to take up our time until I could figure out what exactly to say.  We weren’t at a loss for a cause, because assuming we got Seth patched up, we still needed a place to live and food to eat.  For that matter, we needed a way to interact with the locals.  

Idea!

“Hey guys, I just thought of something.  We might have a bit of trouble when we go into town.”

Terrance was the first to speak up.  “Gee, you think?  Like the notion that we’re going to pay for medical attention with the bottlecap equivalent of a twenty?  Or perhaps the fact that we can barely walk and look like a bunch of bumbling idiots?  What about the fact that we can’t even say where we are from?!  ‘Hello, I am Terrance, that’s Dom, we’re humans from another dimension, that’s why we’re blank-flanks, can you spend your rather precious medical supplies on our dying friend?  Oh yeah, we have about no real money, or marketable skills in this dying hellhole.’”

“Damn…”  I muttered, deflated.  That certainly was the realistic way of looking at it.  I wanted to scream at him to cooperate, but that would probably just make him blow up.  So I kept prodding instead.  “Yeah, that’s about right.  But I think it would be easier if we had some names.  What should we call ourselves?”

“...This is going to be fun.”  Terrance’s sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“And one more thing,” I continued, “from what little the raiders said, it would also seem that they don’t speak quite the same dialect we do.  If we want to have better chances of getting received well, we should both pick names for ourselves, and adopt their style of speaking.”

“Like what?” Page stopped to turn and face the group. “You mean you all could understand what those raiders were slurring?”

“Well, yeah?” Terr replied, shrugging. “I mean, it won’t be anything big, but it’s not going to be overly hard for some of us.  Picking up the changes in small words, like ‘everyone’ to ‘everypony’ could be a trick at first.”

“Sure, I figure that will come in time.  I know they still use the word ‘everyone’ now and again, so we can’t be burned too bad there, I hope.  But if nothing else, you can’t call me Dom when we get into town.  Terrance doesn’t sound like a pony name either.  If we’re going to be the bumbling idiots who try to pay for major surgery with spare change and can barely walk straight, I’d at least like to have names that sound real, and a half-assed story of where we came from.  I know the latter is gonna have to wait until we find out where we are, but did you honestly never give any thought to the former?  I mean, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t call myself ‘Sky Sage’ over ‘Dominic Everson.’”

“Wow, seriously?” Terrance smirked, “Wise lord of the sky who can’t even fly.”

Holding back a chuckle wasn’t really hard when I also wanted to growl.  “And you’re gonna do so much better because you are gonna be…?”

“Dizzy,” replied Terrance curtly.  “It’s what you’ve called me for the last three years, and it even sounds like a pony name.  I don’t see any reason for you to stop calling me that now.”

That was probably true.  From the first day I met Terrance, or more accurately, got in a fight with him in a conference call, he’d gone by the moniker of ‘Dizzy.’  It never really made much sense to me, as he was one of the most levelheaded folks I’d ever met.  Apparently it was some old nickname from his childhood days that really stuck.  Almost made me feel bad for him, but hey, if he liked it, that was his choice to keep it.  He used it so much that I started using it half the time to refer to him.  Best of all, it did really sound like a pony name, even if it was about as flattering as calling someone ‘Derpy.’  Here’s to hoping the rest of the crew will go along this easily.

“Amelia, sweetie?  Did you have something in mind?  I know you--”

“Yeah,” she deadpanned from over on my right.  “Just call me Ash.”

“Ash?”

“Yep.  For Ashen Shield.”

I would have rather called her ‘cuddle-fluffle-cutesy-snuggly’, but suggesting that probably would have earned me a vicious bout of tickling if we weren’t carrying Seth on our backs, or stuck in a desolate wasteland.  I couldn’t help but vividly remember trying to help her up while waking her up.  She had been so soft.  Not that she was now, every bit as covered in sweat and grime as myself, but it was still a memory I knew that I was going to hold onto fondly for a long time.  If nothing else, it was one more name down without bickering and arguing, and a step toward getting everyone to cooperate.

“And what about you, Marcus?” I asked.  Five seconds ticked by, then fifteen.  This was really starting to try my patience.  “Marcus, you there, dude?”

A rock whistled by my head to strike a stump.  “Ow!” Page exclaimed through gritted teeth, “I have an unbelievable headache right now.  Also, yes!  I got it!”

“Your magic?”

“Mhmm!” He replied, nodding proudly. Seeing him like this made me think that he was either in extreme denial, or had literally no idea about what was going on around him. Before I could think further, he continued.  “I was all burnt out when I woke up, but it’s back now.  Isn’t it great? It seems like I can still cast, but it just hurts like hell.”  Man, that magic stuff must fry your brain or something. I just don’t get it, but I’m really glad I have wings and not a horn so far.

I let out a sigh.  Had I tried a little harder, it might have sounded cheerful, but I guess it just came out as tired.  I didn’t like the idea of our lookout running around throwing rocks as a space cadet when we’d already nearly lost someone to a nasty surprise.

“So, any thoughts on your name?” I asked, “As in your pony name.”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that.  Call me Page.”  He paused to gesture at himself with a hoof.  “I’ll think of a last name later if I need it.  But what are we calling Seth?” 

I was ready for that one.  “Well, actually we talked about that yesterday while you all were taking your sweet time getting the skis loaded into the truck.  I paused to think -- the reality of the situation sinking in heavier by the second. Just yesterday, we were all going hurriedly trying to get down the road and to the lift lines, blissfully unaware about what was to befall us.  But how could you even plan for something like this?  I shook myself slightly, breaking out of the daze.  We’re calling him ‘Wingnut,’ though I’m not sure how well it fits.”

“It doesn’t,” muttered Terr.  “He’s a theoretical physicist, not a mechanic.”

“Well, if you can fix him enough to wake up him up safely to ask him about it, you can try to convince him to change it.  Otherwise, it stays, because we don’t have another nickname for him.”  Terr grunted something unintelligible, but I was going to take that as agreement.  “But now we get to the hard part,” I was almost looking forward to this, ”Sawyer?”

“What?!” he spat. 

“You need a name too.”

“You just said it.  Discussion closed.” He began walking faster, as if to somehow distance himself from the group.  The litter made sure that he couldn’t.

“Oh no it’s not.” I said edgily as I trudged along, intentionally breaking whatever invisible barrier he was trying to construct.  “I know you heard everything we just talked about.  And we’re getting this done one way or another.  We’ll help you if you’re willing to work with us, but if you can’t at least try, I’m going to call you ‘Dopey’ the whole time.”

“Or we could just call you ‘Fluffy.’”  Terrance, no, Dizzy gave a bitter retort.  I hoped it was enough to get Sawyer to focus.  This is really going to have to become thought habit before it becomes speaking habit.

“Well,” Sawyer said crossly, “how do I just pick a new name?”

“Hmm.”  I thought about that for a moment.  For all the names I had made and bestowed, I had yet to think about the actual rationale and guidelines behind it.  “Well, unless you have a name-name in mind, like Dizzy did, it’s gotta be a…sort of statement.  Something that you are, something that you do, something that you want to be.  Like there was a pony named Soarin’ who was a fast flier, or--”

“Yes, there was Fluttershy.” Sawyer interjected, suddenly raising my optimism for a meaningful discussion.  “Or Fuckershy for that stupid pink and yellow pansy one right?”  My expectations dropped like a rock.  “So what I want to be, eh?”  Sawyer looked over and grinned at me, “Well, I’m going to be God-King-Emperor.”

“Flufflepuff it is then!” Dizzy exclaimed oddly cheerfully.

I let out a slow sigh.  “It’s a start, but that’s like constantly introducing yourself by all your titles in real life.  If you constantly told everyone you were ‘Cadet Everson,’ no one would ever take you seriously.  How about something you’re good at?  I know you play chess.  Perhaps there is a chess opening out there that might make a good name.”

“Ok?  Call me ‘Najdorf Dragon’ then,” Sawyer replied, sounding settled.

I coughed, sputtered, caught my balance, and then asked, “Nie-dorf what?”

“Well, that’s two chess openings.  One is the Najdorf, and the other is the Sicilian Dragon.”

“The smallest of all of us wants to be called ‘Dragon.’  I’ll just let that sink in a bit.”  Dizzy said from somewhere in the back.

“Uh, yeah?” Sawyer replied, sounding contentious.  “You asked me to pick a name, and I did.  And I’m proud that it isn’t nearly as stupid as yours.  It actually sounds kind of cool.”

“Well, it is cool,” I chose my next words carefully, “but you’ve got to pick something appropriate.  You’re not a famous chessmaster yet, and you don’t look very dragonlike.” It was difficult trying to impress upon the importance of not being finicky and choosing something reasonable.  “I’m sure you saw this isn’t happy-pony-land.  If you go around toting a name like that, you’re bound to get beat up or worse, and if you can’t pick something reasonable, I won’t help you.  Why not go through other chess concepts?”

“Can I punch Fluffy?” Dizzy pleaded.

I sighed and glanced over at Dizzy, who was grinning at the thought.  “Not yet.”

The next few hours of travel afforded us some time to think and bounce every word we knew about chess back and forth with Sawyer.  He or someone (somepony?) would suggest anything to do with chess and see if it stuck.  Quite popular was any ‘name’ self-referencing or ridiculously grandiose that seemed likely to cause too much unnecessary attention.  I could only imagine how this world would greet ‘Emperor God King Najdorf Dragon’ if he ever reached a town. 

As we walked, I had time to notice that the landscape seemed to clear of the large bushes and boulders that marked our path from the house.  With the added openness, the group seemed to visibly relax; I hoped that our momentary peace would remain.

It wasn’t every day you wound up carrying a dying friend on your back and the stress and horror of the situation on your mind.  Topping that off with something so petty as convincing an unwilling horse to change his nickname was inane to say the least.  If they’re ‘enjoying’ Sawyer’s petulance as much as I am, they must be ready to smack him.  At least it’s a momentary distraction.

“No, no, no -- no.  ‘Checkmate’ suggests that you always have a plan and are looking ahead,” Terrance interjected as Sawyer suggested another self-flattering monicker.  Sawyer was nothing if not consistent.  I let out an involuntary groan at it all.

“But what if I am and do?” Sawyer gestured to himself proudly.

“You already proved you don’t and can’t,” Dizzy growled.  ”Wingnut here is case and point.”

“I think Dizzy’s right on that one,” I reasoned.  “Gah!  This is getting nowhere!  Perhaps...you could go by something really frustrating like…Stalemate?”

Sawyer paused to think for a while, and the only noise that collected in the air was the whisper of slow plodding through the grass.

“I guess.”  He looked over and frowned.  “If there is nothing else that will do.  But I’d still rather you to call me Naj.  And you’re still getting me out of here as fast as you can, deal?”

“Done deal, Stalemate.”  You and me both.


----------------------------------------


For everything that had changed with a new body, some things remained horribly constant.  Despite the ever-present cloud cover overhead and the relatively low ambient temperatures, as well as having the weight of the litter spread among four of us, I was still thirsty.  It had been at least two, if not three hours since we’d set out, and I was not the only one.  I wasn’t sure if they were trying to be strong and avoid complaining, or had just been shocked into silence, but they were surely just as parched.  And that was why we had all turned the second we heard that familiar gurgling noise.

At half a foot deep and two feet wide, the creek was probably running down from the mountains in the distance.  Green life flowered alongside the edge of the water, but didn’t extend far.  The gentle trickling noises tortured my ears and throat as we stood there.

“Think it’s radioactive?”  Dizzy raised the most practical and yet infuriating question right away.  I wanted water, and there was a cold mountain stream sitting right in front of me.  I’m not sure how much of what I said was convincing him and how much was convincing myself.

“Maybe?” I gulped, gradually realizing that I was trying to convince myself as much as the others. “I’m not seeing anything hideous growing alongside it, and it’s not glowing. So, if there is any radiation, it’s not much.  And I haven’t seen any giant craters since we’ve been walking.  It looks like we ended up in a pretty remote and empty location.  My guess is that whoever wrecked this world didn’t waste any balefire bombs on it here, meaning that this should be clean to drink.”

“‘Should’ is a reeeeealy big assumption,” Page made a wide sweeping motion with his hoof for emphasis.  “Well, I’m thirsty and my bottle of water is probably in another dimension.  Bottoms up!  Er...heads down?  Whatever,” he mumbled as he wandered to the streambed to stick his face into the flow.

“Well, die by thirst today, or potentially by radiation in a few weeks, months, or years?” I shrugged.  What choice do I have?  “The latter gives us time to address it, but if we don’t get some water, we’re not gonna get Wingnut to safety.”

“Well, it looks like we don’t exactly have much choice...” Ash conceded flatly, settling the issue.

No one else seemed ready to complain about the prospect of water, and we stepped up to the creek.  Getting Wingnut down was a matter of pure cooperation.  The four carriers knelt down at the same time and more or less rolled out from under the branches we’d used to build the frame.  Guided by what little telekinesis Page had regained in the last few hours, we got the assembly down on the ground in once piece...ish.  It wasn’t exactly tied together well to begin with.  Getting it back on would be harder, but no worse than picking him up in the first place had been.

I found myself standing over the creek edge, and for the first time in my life, short on hands to cup it and bring it to my face.  It seemed so animalistic, so brutal, so -- awww fuckit.  The long neck on a pony’s body allowed me to lean right down and stick my face in the water, and then recoil from its icy embrace.  After a second or two, my thirst overpowered any other objections, and I drank.

Each swallow was a spray of ice down my throat, but it was the sweetest water I could remember ever having.  By the fourth gulp, the frozen feeling in my skull became too great to bear, and I stood up, clenching my teeth.  On my left, Page was already back to pacing around and digging through the grass, and Dizzy was patiently waiting to take another drink.  On my other side, Stalemate still had his face in the water, and Ash was making the same face I was.  Then it was back down to drink again.  Then wait again, then drink again, over and over until I felt bloated and freezing.  

When that dryness finally left my throat, hunger reached up from my belly to claw at my thoughts and focus.  There were exactly two ways of which I could think of to fix this: rats on a stick, questionably days old; or the grass at my hooves, dry and unappealing.  Fortunately, hunger isn’t picky.

“Guys, I think it’s time we ate, too.”  It seemed plain wrong to be using their new names, but if I didn’t practice them now, I wouldn’t use them later.  “Page, I want you to make sure you have one of those skewers before you start trying the grass.”  He at least looked up when I spoke his name.  “You’ve gotta get yourself all back together from knocking yourself out.”  He absently saluted while I continued.  That hundred-yard stare was really starting to worry me.  

Page immediately took off his saddlebags and began rummaging while Dizzy stuck his face in the grass and started chewing.  Ash didn’t respond, instead staring at Wingnut’s motionless form.  Slightly refocused, I redirected my attention towards the others.  “Ash and Stalemate, that goes for you too.  We might need your magic at any moment.”  She continued to stare, so I tried one more time to appeal to her.  “Ash?  Sweetie, you need to eat something.”

“We need to go…” Her eyes never deviated from Wingnut as she spoke, and her movements seemed restrained, as if any twitch now would disturb his immobile sleep.

“Yes, but you need to get some food in you before we keep going.  It’s gonna be a long road ahead.”  She stood a moment, eyes glazed, still fixed upon Wingnut, and shifted her weight.

“We’re not going anywhere until I eat, are we?” She glanced at me then back to Wingnut cautiously.

“You and me both,” I added flatly.

Page and Sawyer were already each tearing into their rats.  Getting a closer look, they didn’t exactly look appetizing.  Bits of fur were still clumped on, and their tails stuck out, clutched in rigor mortis.  Thankfully, the raiders had at least cut off the heads first.  Page was levitating the last skewer in the air alongside Ash’s head.  She hesitated, and glanced once more at Wingnut.  She closed her eyes, opened them, and bit into the rat.  I looked on until she finished the bite, swallowed, and softly told me I should take care of myself.

“Stop staring...go eat.”

I really didn’t need telling twice.  So long as she was eating, that was good enough for me.  I was too hungry to argue.  That left me with the grass.  I couldn’t really imagine it was tasty, if the few hazy memories of trying to eat random plants as a kid were anything to go by.  Nor could I remember hearing of any characters, story or show, eating grass.  But if I had a pony body, it should work.  After all, that’s what ‘real’ ponies ate, and normally nothing more unless their owners were nice enough to buy them grain or oats.  Again, thanks to the obscenely long neck, I didn’t have to sit down to stick my face into the grass.

Once there, I really didn’t have any idea how to eat it.  Lacking any better idea, I opened my mouth and shifted around til I had a mouthful of grass, bit, and pulled.  The grass resisted at first, until I ground sideways with the far-too-many molars I had.  The taste wasn’t overpowering and was honestly rather boring, as if I were eating plain millet.  It certainly wasn’t as pungent as I remembered.  Perhaps it’s because of the different set of taste buds.  Or maybe I’m just that hungry.  Probably both.  Either way, I went for a second bite, then a third, and then more still until that hollowness in my stomach was gone.  After just a little more water, I felt somewhat alive again.  The headache, hunger, and thirst were gone, and I felt much more alert than before.  

Dizzy too had eaten his fill, and Ash was still chewing, staring at Wingnut with a small frown on her face.  Seeing everyone getting food and feeling a full stomach made everything seem momentarily right, until I saw her gaze and remembered why we were pressing on into the unknown.  While we were full and whole, Wingnut was still lying comatose on the mattress, edging closer and closer towards the other side of the void.  As ironic as it was, our best choice was to carry the chainsaw next to him on the makeshift gurney.  Selling it might bring in a few more caps for his recovery.

This time, aided by magic from all three unicorns, getting the litter back up on our backs was just a little bit more workable.  Each step was a little easier than it had been before, and precious seconds faster.  Wingnut needed us, and I felt as if his life was setting with the sun, invisible behind the wall of clouds above.


------------------------------------------


There were no long shadows, the heralds of the approaching night, in this land covered by clouds.  In their absence, the gray of the sky just slowly grew darker and darker.  I didn’t want to be caught out in the open when night fell.  If raiders were out during the day, what roamed these lonely lands when darkness held sway?  It wasn’t a question I really wanted answered, not until I had a big gun to stand behind.  For now I’d settle with getting to town, or at least knowing how far away it was.

“Page, we getting close?” I asked, trying my best to avoid allowing a tinge of desperation seep into my voice.

Silhouetted against the fading sky, Page stood atop the next ridge.  In that dying light it was clear that he was bulkier than the average unicorn pony.  Looking back down, he called out to us.  “Yeah!  It’s not more than a quarter mile.  And it’s a town for sure.  I see lights and a bridge, and a bunch of houses.”

Spurred on by his yell, everyone pushed a little harder to get up the slope.  At the top and breathing hard, I could see he was right.  The town was laid out in a half circle up against the bank of a river, bordered by a high wall of wood outfitted with logs sharped into large spikes arrayed outward.  Lights were strung up in front of several larger buildings that I could only guess were stores or something similar.  It looked to be large enough for at least a hundred residents, and one of them had to know how to help Wingnut.  There was no way I’d be letting myself think otherwise.  Nearest to us was the bridge Page had mentioned, leading across the rushing mess of river into the town.  Upriver a little ways was a large waterwheel attached to what I figured was some kind of mill.

As we got closer, I could see that there were guards occupying one of two small watchtowers on the far side.  Their rifles waited ominously in the cloudy, fading light, and I silently prayed that we looked friendly.  Up close, I could see that the bridge was only wide enough for one of us to cross at a time, so the gurney would have to go.  The wood deck was old and faded, and I had to wonder just how sturdy it would be.  If it was worth posting two guards at, I was convinced it had to be strong enough to hold up two ponies at once.

“Guys, get him on my back.  I’ll carry him the rest of the way.”  As much as I didn’t want to carry anything any further, there was no way I was just about to tell anyone else there to shoulder the burden.  It wasn’t as if we had very far to go anyways. 

Page slowed as the group rearranged and began to draw small circles in the dirt with his front hoof.  Something was obviously bothering him, but the last thing we needed right now was another problem.  Breaking my chain of thought, he confessed.  “Not to add to the problem here, but I definitely look different than you all. I don’t even know if ‘my kind’ are really trusted or anything here, let alone what ‘my kind’ even is.”  

I stared blankly for a few seconds until Dizzy decided to think for me.

“Hello, earth to Sage?  He’s a half-breed, hated by everyone.  You know that’s just a target, for everyone, ponies and zebra alike.”

Page nodded, “I mean, if I had a cloak or something, then I’m sure that we could get close enough to talk.  As it stands, I just really don’t want to get shot, and we really don’t need two invalids.”

“Well, you’re already wearing one pair of saddlebags, so go ahead and take the other,” I suggested.  “Wear both, and walk across last.”  It sounded like a good thought, but it brought up a point that I’d been silently dodging in my mind the whole day.  I’ll figure it out later.  Think about it when everyone is safe.  “Just try to stay near the back of the group, and hopefully between the dark and some tired guards we won’t get immediately shot.”  

Page nodded, and waited for me to be free of the litter to get at my saddlebags.  Ever so gently, we sat the litter back down, and I lay flat on my stomach to let everypony else push Wingnut until he was lying on top of me.  From there, his stomach was on my back and his legs dangled over each of mine.  He was heavier than I’d thought he’d be, making it rather difficult to stand back up.  Testing one foreleg and then the other, the bridge creaked and groaned but didn’t shift or give.  One step after another, I plodded my way slowly across it, making sure to keep my balance firm.  About halfway across, a shout rang out from one of the towers over the noise of the river.

“Stop!  Who are you and what is your business here?” I couldn’t look up easily and tell which guard was yelling with Wingnut on my back.

I stopped and shifted my vision up just enough to see two rifles pointed down at me.  That was definitely not what I wanted, but their town, their rules.  “I’m Sky Sage, and we’re here to seek medical attention for my friend, and a place to stay for the night!”

“Why the hell would a pegasus want refuge with us?  Go back to your Enclave buddies, you asshole.”  Now that I had become a target, it was worth the risk to move my neck enough look up.  One small jerk would send Wingnut tumbling off the bridge into the murky water below.  Slow and smooth. You can do this!  Cautiously, I managed to crane my neck enough to peer at the defender.  He was a red earth pony with a short cropped yellow mane, staring down the sights lined up right on my chest.

Oh shit.  Think fast…  “Look, we’re not with the Enclave!  I’ve been a surfacer all my life, and so has my friend Wingnut here.  We got attacked by raiders earlier today, and they cut off his wings.  Have you got some kind of doctor in town?  He needs help, badly!”

The second guard, a green unicorn, nudged her companion.  Her voice was barely audible over the rushing of the water.  “Oh shit...just look him, Rusty.  They’ve got one shotgun between the six of them and they’re all banged up.  Neither of their fliers have Enclave gear, and since when did those winged bastards work with any surface ponies?  That idiot’s telling the truth.”

“But the Rainfall said--”

“I know what he said, but do those guys really look like raiders to you?  Raiders don’t care for their wounded, they eat them.”  She looked back down at us, but between the dusk and the distance I couldn’t quite make out her expression.

“Oh ok, fine.”  The first guard started yelling again.  “Ok, you all can come in.  Don’t start anything, or we’ll throw you in the river.”

“You got it.”  I strode as evenly as I could down the rest of the bridge.  As I got close to the tower, I chanced one more question.  “Could you tell me where I could find a doctor or a hospital?”

The mare put down her rifle.  “You’ll want Radiant Heart.  Her clinic is the third large building on the right after you get into town -- has one of those old barber poles on the outside.  Used be one of those places, but she never bothered taking it off.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“Hurry up and get him in here before I change my mind,” she finished, turning back towards her watchpost.  

Judging by the decaying sign on the other side of the bridge, ‘Alpine’ had been the town’s name since before the war.  It didn’t exactly look like much, but then again, to have a town actually illuminated out here in the middle of nowhere was something.  For lack of any other guesses, I figured the watermill was providing the power.  

The lamps were cracked and dust-caked, and flickering in and out atop wooden posts as the moments crawled by.  Their variance was unsettling -- there was nothing stable about the power flowing into them.  I was tempted to stop and take a closer look until the weight on my back dragged me back to reality.  Everyone else had finished crossing, and I started off toward the building with the the barber pole.  That pole was out of place: a spot of blue and red color through the dirty, faded glass, up against the dull brown wood of the clinic.  While not quite looking hundreds of years old, the building certainly wasn’t new.  And why the hell did a town this small need a barber, anyways?

The door was shut but not locked, and this time I didn’t slip up while opening it.  Creaking announced our entry into a waiting room lit by an oil lamp on a long counter.  Two rickety benches sat along the front wall facing an open doorway, which led to the back of the shop beneath a staircase leading to the second floor.  I was just about to call out for help when the help called to me.

“I’ll be right there!” yelled a feminine voice from up the stairs.  Rapid thunking of hooves on wood sounded as a light pink unicorn mare bounded down the stairs.  Each step sent her purple mane half-tied back into a ponytail bouncing from one side to the next.  The frayed and loose ends suggested we’d caught her in the middle of working on it.  She skidded to a stop right in front of me, looking over Wingnut for just a moment before pointing her left foreleg at the back room.  That gave me a wonderful view of the hardware covering the front third of her leg.  I could only guess that was a pip-buck.  “Well don’t just stand there, get him in here!”

Far larger than the waiting area up front, the back room was stuffed full of cabinets and tables.  Several counters lined the walls, swabbed and bare.  A large operating table dominated the center of the room, but the doctor, whom the guards had called Radiant Heart was standing next to a wide open metal capsule in the corner.  The canopy and base were all made out of the same silvery gray metal, but the insides glowed with a dim azure light.

“Get him over here now!” She barked.

As fast as my tired legs would carry me, I stumbled across the patchwork concrete and wooden floor over to the pod.  Before I could bend down and get everypony else to help me safely remove Wingnut from my back, the hum of telekinesis filled my ears and he floated off my back to rest gently in the pod.  Moving with surprising swiftness for such a large piece of metal, the canopy sealed over his form with a quiet snick.  Instantly the lights grew brighter, the hum louder, and I heard the doctor breath a sigh of relief.  She turned toward us, and in a much more calm and collected tone, greeted us.

“Looks like he’s still alive.  The pod wouldn’t run like that if he were dead.  That’s a stasis pod; it’ll hold him steady until we figure out what to do with him.  I’m Radiant Heart, but just call me Radheart.  You’re new in town.  When did you get here?”

“Sky Sage.”  I felt like I should offer a handshake, until I remembered that I didn’t have hands, and trying for a hoofshake when I had no idea how they worked would probably be a bad idea.  Mental note to practice that later with Dizzy.  “And yes, we are.  Our friend Wingnut got hurt, and we saw Alpine from a ways off and headed over here.”

“What happened to him?”  Radiant Heart looked up and down our number with varying degrees of suspicion, stopping as her teal eyes came to rest on Dizzy.  Her gaze softened.  “I don’t often see pegasi in here, much less with their wings shorn clean off.”

“Raiders.  They took a chainsaw to him before we could do anything.”

“So, anything else I need to know?”  She wrinkled her nose, and I couldn’t blame her.  After all that had transpired that day, we were filthy, and she was sparkling clean.  I thought back and tried to recall anything that had somehow slipped my mind, but I wasn’t coming up with much that would have been of any use.  Other than that we’d somehow gotten Page past the guards, and Radheart either hadn’t noticed him in the glow of the lantern, or didn’t care.

“Just that he’s lost a lot of blood too.  We had to bind him up in some dirty sheets, and we didn’t have any disinfectant.  It’s been about half a day.”  Oh, and I’m really hoping you know your shit.

“Looks like you really had no choice.  Good work though, most wastelanders would have been dead after wounds like this.  So why are you different?  Especially your friend over there, wearing sunglasses, inside, at night?  Sounds like the lyrics to a bad pre-war Nickelbuck song.”

“Uhhh...Dizzy?”  I looked over to see him standing uneasily still, with all legs firmly locked, as she drew nearer to him.

“...Yeah?”  He was turning visibly red, and I was not sure how that was even possible all the way through his coat.

“So what exactly are you hiding behind those shades, hmm?”  The nurse used her magic to lift off Dizzy’s sunglasses and he winced a bit before adjusting to the somewhat dimmer light.  “Oh...I’ve never seen anypony like you before.”

“I can...um...imagine I am sort of a rare breed?”  He was leaning back, hindlegs locked firm, almost ready to tip backwards.

“That’s one way to say it.  You know, you look rather hurt, the raiders no doubt.  I would love a chance to...examine you later.”  She winked at him quickly.

Ok, we’re putting the brakes on this right now.  I’d seen what happened when women hit on Dizzy before.  He never saw it coming until I pointed it out to him afterwards.  The fact that he very clearly understood what was going on right now was somewhat alarming, and Radheart needed to cut it out.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted.  “I think everyone might need some medical attention, but Wingnut here is the priority.  About how much would it cost to get him fixed up?”

“About five hundred caps.”  Her gaze never left Dizzy, and she even started to trot around him, eyes scanning up and down.  Dizzy on the other hand could have been mistaken for a very red statue.

“Well, we have thirty-six caps, two spark batteries, a neat rock, and this chainsaw.  Still fueled up too.  Wingnut over there is proof that it works just fine.”

Page hefted the saw, the blade still covered in dried blood.  Radheart looked over at it, and shook her head.  “No, no.  While those aren’t exactly common, the actual chemical fuel is hard to come by.  I’m sure you can trade it to Copper over at the general store tomorrow for...a hundred caps?  Maybe a hundred and fifty?  Five hundred is a lot, because I need to cover the surgery to cut away diseased and dead tissue, bind his wounds, give blood transfusions, and provide power to run the stasis pod.  Hmmm…”  She paused and rubbed her chin for a moment, and her voice brightened.  “Why don’t you all go down and make yourselves at home in the basement, while this…wonderful stallion and I talk about finding a way to pay for the work?”

I could literally feel the hair on my back starting to bristle as she spoke.  That she would dare to...no, I really didn’t want to think of that.  There had to be some other way, something else we could sell and come up with that kind of money.  Clearing my throat, I stepped between them.

“I’m sure we can come to some other arrangement,” I hoped I didn’t sound too desperate.  “We can assist you, or help clean up the hospital or whatever else you need at this time,” mentally grasping at straws.  “You could use those spark batteries to power the stasis pod, I figure.”

“I doubt it.  And I can’t keep that stasis pod on forever; it runs on the local grid.  The watermill is barely functioning as it is and they charge a premium to keep things like that running.”

“Sage, let me talk to her.”  The voice came from behind me, and I turned to see Dizzy, still blushing, but now frowning.  “We have no choice, we can’t let him die.”

“This is wrong.  Are you sure you’re going to be ok?”  The venom in my words surprised me.  There wasn’t any room left for tact after everything else today.

“Of course not, but like I said, we have no choice.”  He nodded slowly, sorrow filling his eyes like dye in water.

Radheart piped up, still sounding all too cheerful.  “There are some spare cots downstairs, and I’ll even let you all use the tub there.  The town isn’t exactly hurting for water, and I can splurge on the caps to let you heat it.  It will be easier to examine the rest of you once you’re clean.  The outhouse is out back.”

“Fine.”  Splurge on the caps?  Bull.  I turned to everyone: Page, Stalemate, and Ash, who were staring at me with a mix of shock, concern, and exhaustion.  “Let’s go.” The group gave a collective nod towards Dizzy and Radheart, then proceeded downstairs.

The basement floor of the barbershop hospital was walled and floored in concrete, which was chipping in the corners and along several cracks in the floor.  True to Radheart’s word, there were a half-dozen small cots on steel frames in a row along one wall.  Turning over the hole-ridden and dirty blanket on top of the nearest one revealed sheets in similar condition.  It wasn’t great, but it sure beat the hell out of paying for a room and having half of our sorry little gang sleeping on the floor.  Behind a thin wooden door along the other wall was a large metal bathtub.

“Well…” I started, then stopped.  There should have been something inspiring or kind to say to everyone, but I was just as tired as they were and couldn’t quite figure it out.  “Who wants to bathe first?”

Page threw his saddlebags at the ground beside the last cot on the row, and slowly set the chainsaw down beside them.

“Sage, I’ll just wash in the morning.  I’m not very dirty; I’m just tired.”  He climbed under the sheets and rolled over.  Without a word, Stalemate did the same in the next cot over, and although it took him a few tries, he nudged the sheets back with a foreleg until he could climb in.  That just left Amel--No, it’s Ash now--staring at the floor.

“Sweetie, do you want the first bath?”

She looked up, and I saw the hollow pain in her eyes.  I knew she was thinking of the conversation taking place upstairs.  “No...you can go ahead.”

I wanted to say something, but right now she just needed a little time, and after Wingnut, I had more dried mud and blood on my coat than anyone else.  Almost all of my underbelly and the insides of my legs were matted with it.  Nodding, I pulled her into a hug, which she nuzzled into quietly.  After a few moments of sitting there, I let her go and returned to the tub, turning on the light and pushing the door shut behind me.  Each of the taps were too small to work with hooves, so I bit down on the nearest one and turned it on, trying to ignore the pieces of metal shoving into my gums and palate.

Brown water gushed from the spout, slowly turning from a rusty brown to clear.  I stuck one hoof under it and shivered as the icy liquid gushed over my fetlock.  As the moments passed it gradually warmed, and when it became hot I chased the plug around the bottom until I managed to get one hoof on top and push it into the drain.

As the tub filled, I paused to think.  It seemed that it was the first time I wasn’t doing something, and now had no excuse to avoid thinking any longer.  Everything had gone just as well as I had hoped.  We’d found a town, a place to stay, and a doctor who apparently had all the tools of the trade.  Wingnut wasn’t dead, and would probably be all taken care of by tomorrow, even if he never would have his wings back.  He’d be ok, and that was the important part.  If he lived, we could get him back home.  And we’re still no closer to getting there, or finding out how we’re getting there.  Being alive is a good first step, I suppose, but what then?

The water neared two-thirds the way up, and I shut it off.  No reason to make it overflow when I got in.  That provoked the question as to how I was to get in.  Standing on the edge would probably tip it over, and trying to fly in might end badly.  Between the two options, trying to flap my way up and over the edge seemed better than spilling it all.

        Just like out on the ridge earlier, I stretched out the strange muscles on my back and beat my wings slowly at first.  With each flex, I made sure to rotate them before taking the upstroke, and I was in the air!  Just as quickly, I kicked off the wall, and dropped into the tub with a loud splash.  Hot water soaked up into my coat on every surface, and I was instantly soggy and heavy.  The sudden landing caused my wings to slip into the water as well, and the feathers clumped together in one waterlogged mass.  Still, it was warm water, and that was a luxury after a long trek, let alone in the wasteland.  I wanted to just lay there and enjoy it, but Ash was still cold and dirty, and might worry less if she had a warm bath, so I started scrubbing.

Mud and blood came off in chunks and flakes, quickly staining the water a dirty brown.  Scrubbing down my legs, then my underside, I kept going until the persistent grime was removed.  Nodding to myself I turned to where the plug was, and realized with a start that there was no way I’d be pulling its chain with my hooves.  Yuck.  Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I stuck my face down into the murk, and nosed around until I felt the chain.  Biting down on it, I jerked it loose, and quickly pulled my head back out of the water.  I spat out the drain plug, and more than enough of the spent bathwater with it.  It tasted exactly as nice as I thought it would, but a quick rinse would fix that.  I still needed to wash off anyways.

The running water was nice, and I hoped it would clean off my back too.  There really wasn’t any way for me to reach it.  Once I was satisfied that I was about as clean as I was going to get, I shut the water off, and tried to flap out of the tub.  That was a rather pointless gesture with my wings in a soaking mess, and I caught just enough air to trip on the lip of the tub and crash into the ground.  That hurt, but nothing broke other than a few more fracture in the pride bone.  

There wasn’t any kind of towel in the room, so I wound up using the sheets off of one of the cots.  It wasn’t as if there was anyone else using them, and I didn’t want to try to go to bed still dripping.  Ash helped me with my back, and soon I was only damp, though I wouldn’t be getting all the way dry without some time to air-dry.  There was also the whole taboo issue of walking out of a bath with no clothes on, but everyone was too tired to point out the obvious.

“Your turn, sweetie.  Don’t worry, it’s nice and warm.”  There was honest effort in those words to sound caring and not just tired, but the exhaustion was like lead weighing down my legs, eyes, and mind.

“You were being mopey.  Now go clean up.  I’ll be back down after I figure out what the hell is going on upstairs.” 

She nodded and headed over to the tub, and I made my way back up to the middle floor.  Dizzy was sitting in the middle of the floor, with Radheart laying one foreleg over his back and hanging onto him, whispering into his ear.  His head was bowed, and the blush on his face had only grown stronger.  Important as it might have been, I really didn’t want to see her playing my friend like this.

“Ok, break it up.  What did you two decide?”  The authority voice was enough to get anyone’s attention.  Stern, short, quick, and mildly annoyed.  Checks for all.

Radheart didn’t let go and spoke up just a little, still talking to Dizzy.  “You can head on upstairs dear, the bathroom is on the right.  Go run yourself a nice warm bath and I’ll be up there soon.”

Dizzy nodded and plodded up the stairs like a man walking to the gallows.  We watched him go, and as soon as I heard the water running I looked over at Radheart and tried to bite back my anger into something polite.  I hoped it was intimidating; I was taller than her and looking down into her bright eyes.  In them, I saw neither fear nor flexibility.

“And what exactly are you going to do with him?  Give it to me straight.”

“Well, I’m going to follow him upstairs, bathe him, and then rut him until he can’t walk.  Straight enough for you to understand?”

“Quite.  Now, I want you to understand me.  Dizzy makes his choices for himself, but you will still respect him.  If you break him, I’ll break you.”

She gave me a grin.  It would have been cute, but all I saw was malice.  “Oh, I think he’ll enjoy it a lot.  Sleep well now.  I know I will.”
        
As her form disappeared along the steps to the next floor, I bit down on my anger.  He had made the choice of his own will, and did so to save Wingnut from the grave.  I could remember the day he told me that he’d treat sex as the most sacred part of himself he could give, and at that memory, all the lingering scraps of anger were drowned by sorrow.  My friend was giving up so much of himself for another, and all I could do was stand by and watch.  I wouldn’t want to take his place, and nor could I, but that didn’t stop me from wishing that there was a better way.  Radheart, I hope you burn for this.

Back downstairs, I hung the wet sheets I’d used to dry off over the bed frame lengthwise.  While I waited for Ash, I unmade the next cot so she could have something to dry off with.  The exhaustion of the day’s events was weighing on me, but the least I could do before I passed out was help Ash dry off and make sure she was alright.  Stalemate and Page were both asleep, and Stalemate was snoring quietly.  Even if life had gone to hell for Wingnut and Dizzy, my brother was still ok, and I planned on keeping it that way.  When Ash walked out of the bathroom, I couldn’t help but stare.  Wet mane thing and all that.  Still, I helped her dry herself off and hung up those sheets next to mine.

“He agreed, didn’t he?” she asked cautiously.

I sighed.  “He did.  And you know he wouldn’t have if there was any other way.”

“...yes...but that still doesn’t make it right or good, and it doesn’t mean I should be happy about it.”

“Me neither, and you can bet if Radbitch doesn’t do a good job on fixing up Wingnut, I’ll be the one to throw her in the river.”

“Can I help?”

“Sure.  And we can even let Stalemate rip her a new one while we do.”

She smiled just a little at that, and I gave her another hug.  It was damp and squishy, but it made me feel better too.  Time passed, and she still didn’t want to let go, but I knew we’d both need sleep to deal with whatever tomorrow would bring.  One more nuzzle, then I stood up to lead her over to one of the two unoccupied cots.

I’d always enjoyed tucking her in, and now I hoped it would lend her just a little more peace of mind.  Mine would come from the void of thought that was sleep.  I flicked the light off, which was just one dim and unshrouded bulb, and climbed into the cot next to hers.  She reached out one foreleg, and the beds were close enough that I could return the gesture.

“Sage?”

“Mmm?”

“We’re going to make it through this, right?”

"Yeah.  We’re gonna make it through this.  Get some sleep now.  It will be better tomorrow.”
        





Sky Sage: Level Two (50% to next level)
Well...at least we’re all alive, but I can’t believe I’m letting Dizzy do this.


Dizzy: Level Two (50% to next level)
I can’t believe I’m doing this… 

        
Ashen Shield: Level Two (50% to next level)
Better him than me, but that is just wrong.


Stalemate: Level Two (50% to next level)
Lord above, get me the fuck out of here!  And why couldn’t Radheart have picked me?


Page: Level Two (50% to next level)
All of this is far too much to comprehend at once. But all aside, we’re still alive, and at least I have magic now... I just hope I get the chance to learn how to use it…


Wingnut: Level Two
...
> Chapter 3: Caps and Isms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Caps and Isms



I get called ‘smart’ a lot, more times than I can count.  That’s usually also by people who have no idea that there is a difference between book-smart and street-smart.



Sky Sage
Day Two, Early Morning


One of the most simultaneously abused and yet necessary evils of the driving world is construction.  Anytime I saw orange up ahead on the road was was one more time for me to groan and shift the car into neutral.  Then I’d wish that somehow I could slow down ten, twenty, or even thirty miles an hour to match the speed that was demanded on the friendly little sign without losing the thrill of motion.  Somewhere nearby I would see some kind of sign telling me that my tax dollars were putting people to ‘work’ and implying that there would always be a police officer or two or three hidden nearby.  If the sign was honest, there would be actual construction work going on and the officer would have the lights on while reading a newspaper or playing on their phone.  If it was like some of the places I’ve been through, there would be five or six one-mile-long construction zones, one after another, with a speed reduction and nothing more than cones on the side of the road sheltering nothing.  In each zone, there would be an officer hidden in the shadow of an underpass off to the side waiting to stick me with that doubled fine.

All of that really bothered me.  Heck, I’m pretty sure most of it was just being unreasonably angry at having to slow down.  Those roads didn’t last forever on their own, and work had to be done at some point or another.  Still, I’d yet to find any roadwork that seemed to be finished in a short enough time that I approved of it.  The worst was when I had to stop though.  And right now, we were stopped all right.  Dead end in a one-horse town.  More like a five hundred horse town.  Too many damn horses.

And not just that, either.  I opened my eyes to stare up at the gray of the concrete ceiling, lit up faintly by the light coming down the stairs.  I wanted to burn a hole through it just by the force of my glare.  Vaporize that concrete, the wood above that, then the floor above that, and somehow immolate Radheart.  Becoming a pony didn’t come with fire vision though, so I rolled over onto my side to look at Ash.  That’s when I found out that it did come with a lot of wing stiffness, which really made sitting up a lot more awkward.  It was like waking up sore and stiff after a long day on the dojo, or doing a few good pull-up sets, except that it was making it hard to fold my wings back in all the way.  They were dragging the blanket with me as I moved, still caught up together.  As I pushed with my forehooves, wincing at each and every shrug, I didn’t notice where I was going until gravity took me and I crashed over the edge in a giant pile of pony, blanket, and feathers.

“Ugh…”

It wasn’t as if the blanket muted my fall much, it was too thin for that, but everyone else was still sound asleep.  They stayed that way while I worked myself out of the blanket, losing a number of down feathers in the process.  At least all the primaries stayed in, one thing to be grateful for, but looking at them reminded me that they would need to be preened.  And I had no idea in hell how that was going to happen.  Landing hard had reminded me of one other thing -- that I desperately needed to pee.

Upstairs, the house was just as still and quiet, and the first rays of sunlight were peeking through the windows.  No noise came from the top floor, and that was just fine with me for a small plethora of reasons.  The front door was locked, but the key was hanging on the inside right beside it.  I brightened, then stopped dead in my tracks.  Oh not again.  Ever so delicately, I bit down on the back end of the key, lifted it off the peg, and tilted my neck until it lined up with the keyhole.  As each tooth went in, the recoil shook my neck slightly and made the pain in my back even worse.  The lock opened easily as if it had been well oiled.  Is it just me, or does everything around here seem especially nice for Falloutville?  Blankets, electricity, hot water, oiled parts...I’m not sure I want to know where this all ends.  Hope it doesn’t.

The outhouse was exactly that: a wooden shack that smelled like shit.  On one end, there was a hole in the ground, and I planted my rump firmly on top of it and went.  It felt stupidly awkward, but it was what excretion was going to be like for the foreseeable future, so getting used to it wouldn’t be an option.  The disconcerting part was the lack of toilet paper.  I didn’t feel like I really needed it, but it was odd to not be using a hygiene item that I remembered using for as far back as I could remember.  Using it with hooves would have been clumsy and painful though, and forget using my mouth.  No way, no how.

Back outside, the air was clean but cold.  Even with the hair covering my body, my skin still demanded I go back inside where it was warm.  Still, I took a moment to look around.  Alpine was quiet, and the lights were still on, holding sway against the dark cover of the clouds.  Nopony was out yet, save for two guards in the watchtower hunched under their blankets.  An urge beckoned me onward to go explore the town, but I didn’t really want to leave everyone else behind and have to go do it all over again.  Nor did it appear as if any of the shopkeepers were up -- their lights didn’t extend to the inside of the circle of shops that lined the center of town.  I hope Radheart isn’t planning on sleeping in.

Once back inside, I noticed my feathers were still bent out of place and ruffled from my failure to get up like a normal equine.  As flexible as my neck was, I couldn’t reach all the feathers without tilting the wings forward.  Starting with the innermost feathers on the left side, I took them in my mouth one at a time, and slid them gently back to their original positions.  Each one took another fifteen or twenty nibbles to smooth out the softer parts.  Their consistency surprised me just a little.  They were very similar to the pigeon feathers I’d found on the ground as a kid: soft, but very stiff.  One more thought struck me: that whatever idiot had dreamed up the idea that pegasus feathers were an erogenous zone was full of bullshit.  This was like clipping my nails, with my teeth, and I had a lot more of it to look forward to.

Preening was the perfect mindless task.  Being new at it, each feather required constant, undivided focus, and my mind didn’t wander off to sulk while I waited for everyone else to wake up.  Ten minutes passed...then twenty before I finished the left wing.  While it was a slow start, by the end of the wing, I’d kind of gotten an idea of what I was supposed to be doing.  Not that I’d know for sure until I figured out how to fly.  The second wing was easier, save for the kink in my neck that ached every time I leaned back to get the feather-tips.

“Well isn’t that something.  You’re licking yourself like cat.”

I snapped my head up at the sudden noise, wincing in pain at the sudden movement, and completely tearing out the feather between my teeth.  Ow.  Radheart was standing at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

“You’ve never seen a bird preen itself before?”

“Birds yes.  Ponies?  No.”  She raised one eyebrow.  “Though perhaps I could figure out just how close you are to a bird with a little closer examination.”

“Oh, fuck no!”

“Relax, colt.  I don’t know what your problem is, but you had better get over it.  I’m the only mare within at least a hundred miles of this place who can save your dying friend.  I made an exception to take special payment, even though my last shipment of supplies got stolen and I’m running desperately short.  I’m not some evil witch; I’m up this early to get started on making Dizzy some breakfast and to work on stopping your buddy from taking his early trip to the other side.  And all of this is to save a pegasus, on the request of a pegasus, in a town that really would rather see you both burn.  I think you should be thanking me.”

“...just fix him up.  And I want to talk with Dizzy.”

“After breakfast.  If you want it, I’m sure that Copper over at the general store or Morningside at the inn will sell some food to you.”  She trotted off to the kitchen, leaving me to long for incendiary magic for the second time that morning.  The part that burned the most was that I couldn’t find anything she said that was reasonable to be angry at.  I wanted to hate her so badly, but it seemed that her words were true.  Between the two evils, Wingnut deserved to live. Though I wasn’t looking forward to talking to Dizzy when all was said and done.  He’d probably be locked up tight and pissed off like a--

My stomach growled, and hunger re-asserted its dominance over my thoughts.  Time to get everyone up.  The long hike from the plains had left my legs sore and shaky, making each step down the stairs a trial.  It really didn’t help either that walking down the stairs put my entire body angled butt-up towards the door.  The awkwardness left room for self-consciousness, which in turn distracted me from walking carefully.  Only two steps away from the bottom, my left forehoof caught on a loose nail, sending me face-first into the floor.  Concrete certainly hurt more than dirt.  It also made more noise.

“Agh!”

The problem with yelling and smashing my face into the concrete was that despite all the racket, it still wasn’t enough to wake up Sawyer, Amelia, and Marcus.  Correction: that’s Stalemate, Ash, and Page now.  They’d always been heavy sleepers, all of them, but this gave me a chance to wake up Ash a little bit more nicely than with loud noises.  In this case it took a kiss, and then a gentle nudge on the shoulder.

“Amelia, sweetie, wake up?”

She grumbled then rolled over, and then groaned.  “I’m still fuzzy.”

“I’m sorry, dear.  It’s probably not going away anytime soon.”

Her muffled groan was the sound of the worst possible Monday morning conveyed through the most wonderful translating device of a pillow.  It somehow managed to say ‘I don’t want to get up,’ ‘why the hell am I still a unicorn,’ and ‘why didn’t you bring me breakfast’ all in one fell swoop.  I couldn’t answer such a tough question, so I turned to wake the other two.  

Page woke after a few prods, and once he was coherent enough to see what was going on, he slid right out of bed with a smile on his face.  “Good morning all!”  Page chirped in a bubbly tone as he quickly jumped onto his hooves.  He must’ve slept well.  Unfortunately, as he hopped, his horn banged against a low ceiling beam, leaving a small nick. 

“Ow!  What the hell was that?!”  Page moaned sarcastically as he fell and curled into a ball on the floor.  I think I could just make out a tear in the corner of his eye from where I was standing.

I paced over closer to his quivering form, and I could easily see his eyes watering from the impact. “Are you...crying?” I asked in the most incredulous tone I could muster.

“No...” Page muttered, sniffling.  “They’re tears of manly poniness. I’m obviously practicing at horn carving!  How’d I do?”

I craned my neck and regarded the small gash in the joist. “Needs work. Try cursive next time?”  He chuckled and got to his hooves.

Sawyer took just a little bit more work to wake.  After several pokes he shifted, muttered something about Saturday, and then rolled over.  As I jabbed him again, I felt a force suddenly press all along my side and shove me away.  The purple-blue glow faded away right as I turned back to face him.

Oh you’re not getting out of it that easy.  “Sawyer, get up.”

“Make me.”

“Fine.”

On any other day, that would have been my cue to flip the bed wholesale.  Right now though, I lacked the coordination to either stand up and flip it with forelegs or the aim to buck it.  That left pushing him right off the bed as my only option.  Resting each foreleg on the bed, I leaned forward and shoved.  Sawyer was going to wake up just as pleasantly as I did.  Meeting the floor with a yelp of despair, Stalemate was definitely awake now.  The pillows suddenly lifted in telekinesis and whipped one way and then the other, but I stepped back just before I could get swatted.

“Goddammit, Dom!  What the hell did you do that for?”

“Because it’s time to find food, and you weren’t getting up.”

“You could have asked!”

“I did.”


----------------------------------------


After much struggling and a few near-slips on the stairs, our group managed to make it outside without getting more hurt.  Give thanks for small blessings, I suppose.  It didn’t take too much wandering to find our destination.  A small wooden sign swayed from the eave of the crumbling building in the wind.  Despite its flaking paint, the sign still bore the crest of ’The Golden Pitchfork’ in a regal shade of gold, contrasted against a darker forest of green in the background.   From the looks of it, unlike how the hospital had once been a barber shop and the general store used to be some kind of plow shed, the inn had always been an inn.  

I could see a faint wisp of smoke snaking its way up into the gray sky from the inn’s chimney.  The cool of the morning still bit at my hide, and I knew I wasn’t the only one who could smell the promise of a hot meal in the breeze.  

The group paced briskly to the door, and I rushed ahead to open it.  Sometimes your stomach thinks for you I guess.  At the slightest push of one hoof, the weathered door creaked open, echoing loudly into the smoky foyer of the inn beyond.  There was a large firepit in the middle, burned down to coals, and the only electric light was hanging over an old, beat-up bar counter.  The bar had seen many a drink slide across it, and from the looks of it, many fights too. There were dents from hoof-strikes, gouges torn by knives, and what looked like a bite mark on the right end. About two dozen tables stood in no apparent order, each made from old sawn pine planks, bleached to a mild gray by time and spilled ethanol.  Standing behind the counter was a green earth mare, black mane held back by a bandanna.  As soon as our eyes met, she frowned.

“Well don’t just stand there, get on inside and close that door!”

Spurred on by her yell, we all piled into the common room and somepony slammed the door in the back.  After making room for everyone behind me, I had almost approached the counter and was face to face with the proprietor.  There was very little right now that made me feel like smiling, but I tried to put on my best for her.

“Hello, I’m Sky Sage!  You must be Morningside!”

“That’s right, and what can I do for ya’?”  She didn’t stop running a cloth over a large mug, but looked over me, and then everyone else one by one.  She wasn’t the only one, as the few locals seated at her tables had ceased all conversation to stare.  “I don’t mind what you look like, so long as you’ve got the caps to pay.”

Most of her golden coat was buried under a large apron, the few pieces that poked out were a dull goldenrod.  Her mane was graying, and judging by the faint few streaks of purple in her mane, it was due to age.

Behind Morningside, a row of pots and pans hung from a rack over a wood-stove.  One pot, full of what looked to be a stew, and another, a frying pan with cuts of meat, sat idly above the cozy fire, bathed in its smoke.  Next to the stove, a large stone fireplace roared and several loaves of bread were browning on a protruding shelf.  Split firewood was piled almost as high as my head on the other side of the fireplace.  I inhaled deeply, and the overpowering mix of pine wood, baking bread, and frying meat all wafted into my nostrils.  Rumbling started in my stomach, shaking my belly.  As I opened my mouth to answer, a glob of saliva ran out of my mouth and splashed onto the floor.  Everypony stared.  Of all the most embarrassing, stupid, and self-deprecating things I could do while meeting somepony new, that ranked up near the top.  They all kept staring -- at the floor, at me, at the thin line of drool still hanging off my jaw, and my face burned.   Morningside decided to break the ice for me.

“Well, I’m sure I can guess why you’re here, but normally most folk just ask for ‘food.’  Now have you got money or not?”  Her tone spoke equal volumes of amusement and bemusement as she started at the dark spot between my forehooves.

“Ah, yes!”  I shouted, half out of surprise, half desperately trying to change the topic and save face.  “How much for a meal for each of us?”

“Four caps a head for eggs and toast, and six if you want some brahmin sausage with it.  Dunno if you folks eat meat, but I’ve got it.”

Looking back, everyone had the same looks smeared onto their faces.  It was hard looking into their eyes, each one trying to stay strong but pleading at the same time.  We didn’t have much money, yet we needed food.  Each of them in turn looked at me.  Page was holding himself together.  Stalemate looked more or less as angry as he had been for the last day.  But Ash...I’d seen those eyes before, when she’d been too hungry to care about anything else, and too tired to say anything about it.  Those eyes begged ‘please feed me!’  I wanted to see her smile again...and I was hungry too.  I didn’t want to let that show, but I also figured that my mouth had already said too much.  They’re going to get fed.  That means me too.

We had thirty-four bottlecaps.  I’d counted them last night.  Enough for food, and a cheerful hello.  “Yeah, we’ll take four of those breakfasts with the sausage.”

“Wait, you all are ok with getting meat?”

The sudden chorus of ‘yes’s’, ‘uh-huh’s’ and nodding heads left Morningside furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, but she quickly perked back up as I fished the small bag of caps out of my saddlebags and leaned over to set it on the counter.  I’d let her count them.  She wasn’t the one who could barely stand up high enough to set a bag of bottlecaps on the counter, so she could nimbly take twenty-four of the thirty-four caps we had.  If for some reason we didn’t get ten back, I’d complain later.  

She took the bag, poured them out on the counter, a mix of bent metal caps in blues and greens and reds on gray, covering them with a discerning gaze.  Hard to believe that the tiny bits of twisted aluminum that it was had somehow become the measure of value for hundreds of miles around.  There was plenty of philosophical crap to that, but right now all that mattered was the remaining ten caps she put back in the bag and hoofed over to me.  That wasn’t enough money to buy much anything with, and the next time we’d want food was only hours away.

That, I decided, was a problem for after breakfast.  When Morningside put a steaming plate in front of me, all other thought was cleanly erased.  After eating grass and drinking from the stream the day before, there wasn’t any problem with just burying my muzzle in it and chewing, but there was one thing holding me back from starting the meal.  It was a real effort to not clock myself in the forehead, and to reach both of my shoulders, but it wasn’t a habit I planned on giving up anytime soon.  

Bless me O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which I am about to receive, through Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, amen.  Crossing myself a second time was a lot easier, and without any further thought, I stuck my face in the plate.

My father always told me ‘Dominic, hunger is the best spice.’  Every time I tested that theory, his words proved to be true.  I’d eat just about anything when hungry, but right now I felt that I was eating like a king.  In that little world of bliss, I wasn’t really paying attention to much else other than making sure that I didn’t choke.  

Forcing myself to look back up while chewing, I could see that Page and Stalemate were already done, and Ash face down in her plate, chomping on whatever she could reach.  Page and Stalemate both stared at me, Page in some degree of amusement, Stalemate looking as if he wanted to know if I was going to share.  My answer was to put my face back down and chew until everything was gone.

Once the plate was empty, I still wasn’t quite full and licked at the egg yolk a few more times as if it would somehow fill me up.  That wouldn’t be the case, but I at least got the benefit of being able to mentally bicker with myself that I’d absorbed a few more milligrams of high-protein food, and as a result I’d be able to go on further and be a little less hungry later.  If I could keep arguing that, I’d get distracted enough to forget that I was hungry.


------------------------------------------


Leaving the inn was far less awkward than arriving.  Everyone seemed to relax as soon as the first of us passed through the door.  Most infuriating was the sudden increase in conversation that resumed as soon as the door closed behind us.

While the population had exactly zero pegasi aside from myself and Wingut, I still couldn’t fathom what their problem was with me.  Walking had made us all into dunces and we all had no clue how to avoid showing human mannerisms.  Basically we were children.  Foals? However, that was immaterial.  What about wings made me so evil?  Scratch that, from what I’d read, I at least had some idea how bad it was.  But really, just how accurate were those ‘stories’ to this world anyway?  Could I really trust our lives to what I’d read in some odd story?  

Still, that bias hadn’t stopped Morningside from selling to us.  The way she’d brightened when I held up the bag of caps was the best reception we’d gotten from anyone here, and I hoped that trend would continue.  We still needed to sell the crap we’d taken off the raiders.

The last thing I wanted to do when trying to trade for a few more caps was show up with my muzzle covered in egg yolk.  Professionalism and such.  Sadly, I lacked the ability to wash my own face.  That was quickly remedied by Ash, who had decided my face needed licking clean, much to everyone else’s amusement.  A quick trip over to the river allowed me to purge off the mix of eggs and saliva, and leave me smelling somewhat less like a mix of breakfast and pony breath.  Not that sticking my face in the icy water was much fun, but it left me awake enough to conduct business.  I was only hoping that it wasn’t radioactive.  

Apparently my thoughts were shared by Ash, Page, and Stalemate, who each hesitantly washed off in the shallow waters.  A bit sandier and a lot less sticky afterward, I plodded away from the muddy shore and waited for the rest of the group to finish.  Time to not be a nice guy to every last idiot who doesn’t deserve it.  “Sawyer?  I mean, Stalemate?”

At the mention of his name, Stalemate snapped his head up, and then frowned at the second.  “What?”

“You’ve gotta be my reality check here.  You know better than I do when someone is trying to rip me off.  Let me do the talking, but if anything starts smelling funny to you, go ahead and call the merchant out on it.”

“Fine.”

Ever since we were little, Stalemate had been there to provide the bad cop to whatever I did.  Granted, we were always merchants, warriors, or whatever else in the random games of discussion we had while spending hours in the front yard bouncing on the trampoline.  I suppose the police were just too mundane.  Still, that pattern followed us as we got older.  Whenever we’d play games together, he’d always be the first one to point out when something wasn’t going our way with others.  Perhaps it was my concern for the other guy, perhaps it was just an eagerness to get the deal done and move on, or maybe it was just my own stupidity. I don’t know.

Regardless, he was also the quickest to find ways to separate fools from their money, or as he so called it: ‘high-quality lessons on who not to trust.’  As I pushed open the shop’s door, I was really hoping my brother didn’t have any foul play planned, but there still was the simple matter of having no idea what a chainsaw was worth in bottlecaps.  A thousand thoughts came to mind.  What would the dollar equivalent be?  Does that really even help?  The production of the economy is probably very different here, and varies by region.  I could be really fucked if they have no use for a chainsaw. 

I cleared my throat and looked into the shop, which appeared to be empty of ponies.  Shelves ran along the walls, mostly holding assortments of farming tools and burlap sacks labeled as various grains.  Behind the counter were several locked glass cabinets, holding all sorts of goodies.  Dusty bottles with corks, pistols with rusted triggers, and what I could only guess were explosives of the homemade variety.  While it lacked the second floor that the hospital and inn had, there was some kind of back room, which I hoped was inhabited.  Breaking in (if it could be called that when the door wasn’t secure) on our second day here probably wouldn’t go over well.  “Hello?”

A stallion answered from the back, gruff and annoyed.  “Hang on, I’ll be right up.”

I could smell the whiskey on the store owner before he even got around the empty doorframe.  There was no way that could be a good sign on any level.  Glancing into Ash’s eyes, she clearly shared the same sentiment.  If he noticed, Page didn’t even flick an ear, and was preoccupied with slowly glancing over all of the various products that the shop boasted. That was all the time I had before a large reddish-brown earth stallion lurched around the corner.  His mane was dirty and graying, and smelled worse than the whiskey.  Despite initial impressions, he wasn’t having trouble standing up, his eyes were focused, and he wore a grimace that suggested more of a hangover than would be good for any kind of haggling.  When he spoke, his words were clear, deep, and husky.

“Name’s Copper Runner.  Just call me Copper, though.  What can I get for you?”

“Good morning, Copper,” I said, trying to sound equally gruff and down to earth.  I needed to make a good first impression and not put him on to how ‘new’ we were to being here.  “My name is Sky Sage, and we’re here to trade.”

As slow and erratic as a practiced drunkard, Copper lurched around the counter and held out one hoof for a shake, swaying where he stood.  

Shit...oh shit.

Hesitantly, I spread out my legs and lifted my front right into the air.  Tiny tremors racked my frame as soon as the keratin appendage left the floorboard.  Higher and higher it stretched, until my leg was almost parallel to the ground.  Copper for his part didn’t seem to notice how much time I was taking, and waited patiently until my hoof smack right into his.  Yes!

By some mysterious force, the two seemed to bond together, and he shook me hard.  Halfway through the first undulation I was already swept off my hoof, wings splaying in shock as the ground abandoned me.  The thud of my legs, head, and ribcage all impacting the floor at the same time echoed through my flesh, leaving me stunned and gasping as everyone laughed.  Then Copper fell over too, landing inches from my muzzle.

Dizzy stared down with at me like I had just stomped on a foal.  He was the only one who seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation.  Everyone else was laughing, even Copper, who hadn’t bothered to get up.  I’m not sure if he was trying or not, but I barely got up faster than he did.

“Oh you little fucker pegasus...ha!  Can’t even give a real hoofshake!”  He paused and coughed roughly, the low and deep sound giving me good reason to roll away.  “Fucking birds can’t even stand up without all four hooves on the ground.”

Something grabbed my torso and sat me up.  A blurry smear of red and indigo light clang to my underside, and I turned to see both Stalemate and Ash casting with strained looks on their faces.  As soon as they let the magic go, Ash slumped a little on the spot, but Stalemate just glared.  I wanted to go back and help Ash, but the message was clear: get the trading done first.

Copper had finally slunk back behind his counter.  “Alright then,” he said with a slight shrug. “Let me see what you’ve got.”

I dumped the contents of my saddlebags onto the counter.  We’d taken the time after breakfast to sort the things that we needed into Dizzy’s bags, and so Copper went down the line, pointing his hoof at each one and muttering to himself.

“Ok, I’ll give you eight caps each for the spark batteries.  That barding looks like it belonged to raiders, and smells like shit, so I’ll give you ten.  This though,” he turned over the stone in his hooves, “I don’t know what to make of.  It could probably be set into a necklace of some kind, but otherwise it’s just another rock.  Three caps for it.”

In the meantime, Page stepped forward from examining a shelf in the back, and immediately interjected.  ”But that’s an opal!  And a big one at that.  I don’t know who the raiders had to kill to get it, but is three caps really the best you can offer for it?”

“Do ya’ want the caps, or the rock?  There are a lot of rocks out there.”

“I’ll take the rock.  Thank you.” Page quickly scooped the stone back into his saddlebags without any further ado.

Why Page needed a rock, I had no idea, but I didn’t want to bicker about it with him in front of the shop owner.  I nodded to Copper, who swept the rest of goods off the counter.  He fiddled for a few moments with something that I couldn’t see, and then dumped a small pile of caps on the counter.  I gave them to Page to count.

“Is that all you came in here for?” growled Copper.  I had to wonder if he started drinking this early, or just had been since last night.

“No, one more thing.  Page?”  I nodded as Page hefted the chainsaw on top of the counter.  The lift was a little bit shaky, but he still landed it all on the counter without denting the top.  Unlike yesterday, he wasn’t wincing, but rather smiling as he slung the heavy tool around without once touching it.  Another pang of jealousy flared in my throat at how swiftly he was mastering being a pony zebra thing.  

I never prided myself on being good at reading body language, and that was on humans. Yet, I still saw Copper’s eyes bulge just a little at the sight of the tool.  Seeing my opportunity, I made my move. “The fuel tank on that is just shy of full.  It’s a little...dirty on the bar, but that’s just proof it works.” 

Copper slowly looked up and down the chainsaw, apparently undeterred by the rust-colored dried blood on the chain links.  “Hmm-mmm.  Looks pretty beat up, I’ll give you fifty caps for it.”

I really didn’t have any idea how the wasteland economy worked, but I had to wonder.  The chainsaw really was pretty beat up, but the fact that it was filled with what I was mostly sure was gasoline said something.  Even if crappy chainsaws were a common thing after the apocalypse, logic told me refined fuels wouldn’t be.  If humanity had endless uses for octane, it stood to reason the ponies would too.  “Look, Copper, how much would I get for the gas in the tank if I took it over to Morningside?”

“Thirty caps, tops.”

Any other day, anywhere else, with anything less important on the line, I’d have nodded and agreed to his offer.  Right now, though, I needed that money.  The future was too unknown, hell, even the next meal for everyone I cared about was up in the air right now.  That just wasn’t going to do.  “Well, I think I’ll take it around town and see what everypony else can offer me for it.”

“If you do that, I won’t be wanting your trade anymore,” spat Copper.  He put a hoof up on the chainsaw.  “I’m offering you a lot of caps for your shit, and I doubt it even works.”

“Doubt it works?”  Stalemate hissed through his teeth.  Suddenly, the whole device lit up with indigo light and was dragged violently off the counter.  The roar of the engine filled the room, and Stalemate held it up, the bar vibrating in a blur of motion.

“Stalemate, shut that off!”  I bellowed as loud as I could, but my voice barely cut over the din.  Stalemate let the motor die, and without waiting for the teeth to hold still, set it back down on the counter.  Copper threw himself back with a startled cry.

Stalemate grinned at Copper.  “Now go on, make us a real offer.”  

“What he means to say is that we’re quite sure that it works.  You admitted it yourself.  Why else are you so freaked about us selling to somepony else?”  I didn’t let him answer the rhetorical question.  “I know we’re new here, but you’re trying undercut us.”

For the first time since we walked in, Copper looked me square in the eyes.  Reading the expression on a pony’s face wasn’t my strong suit, but it was pretty safe to say he was seethingly angry.  Good.  I could work with that.  Better to be disliked and treated as an equal than to be liked and assumed to be an idiot.

“One hundred and twenty caps.  No more.  And if you ever heft a blade or a loaded weapon in my store again, I will shoot you where you stand.  Do you understand?”

“Clearly.”  I slid the caps he gave me into Page’s saddlebags, and I had to wonder just how far the money would go.  It would be enough to take care of us for a day or two, but we needed something for the long term.  Find a way to pay for lunch, check.  Find a way home?  Still pending.  Find a way to find a way home...also pending.  As the last of the caps rattled in the base of the bag, I wished I had a hat to tip.  “Thanks for the business, Copper.  I’m looking forward to trading with you in the future.”

“Fuck off, feather-brain.”  Copper turned and started to reorganize a very pristine shelf. 

“Have a nice day.”  I figured antagonizing him further wasn’t going to help.  His insults were an obvious shot at species vernacular, but it wasn’t like I had been a pegasus for very long.  ‘Feather-brain’ seemed almost like an appropriate term.  Everyone filed out the door, and I tried not to kick it shut too hard.

Outside, it was still cold, gray, and dreary.  The clouds were one solid mass of darkness looming overhead.  Gray had always been my favorite color, and I’d never really thought to stop and think about why.  I suppose it was because it was different from every other color.  It wasn’t pure, but rather a conglomerate meld of everything else, and it was a color that I only saw in two places.  One was the sky, and the other was metal.  Other than those places, people always seemed to avoid gray.  Right now though, I was beginning to wonder if it was time to give that fondness up.  That gray above symbolized everything that was a problem right now.  I was cold, soon to be hungry, and lost in the middle of a land I’d never experienced before.  Somewhere, up in those clouds, were the pegasi that had somehow scarred this little town enough to make everyone wince at the sight of me.  Worst of all, I was gray too.  Not the ‘dark of the thunderstorm gray,’ but a medium slate hue that said ‘meh’ to the entire world.  It was almost like I belonged with those clouds, but I wanted out.  Soon enough.  Focus on getting back to Dizzy.

The dampness from outside clung to me as I entered inside Radheart's lair.  All mental musing aside, this world was cold, wet, dangerous, and utterly foreign.  I didn’t think that fact had really settled in yet.  Everyone was still carefree.  Scratch that thought, they were anything but ‘carefree,’ but all of us were simply not ready.  Ready for what exactly?  We didn’t even know.  Ash was still staring at the ground, Stalemate was still giving a metaphorical middle finger to the heavens, and Page was still fiercely preoccupied examining everything that wasn’t a clod of dirt.  Still, that wasn’t what we needed.  Every last one of us had to be constantly looking for some help, some way out, any information, or whatever kind of advantage we could get.  Something had dumped us on our heads so hard that we needed every last bit of advantage we could get to claw back up the giant pile of shit we were under.

Dizzy wasn’t waiting for us in the entryway, the kitchen, or in the basement.  I didn’t exactly want to go upstairs either.  It wasn’t my room, and I doubted there was anything I really wanted to see up there.  He wouldn’t likely want to sit in on the operation, but I had nowhere else to look, unless they had up and gone shopping.  As I neared the operating room door, I could hear two voices coming from behind it.  The door creaked loudly as I pushed it, and both Radheart and Dizzy stared at me from around a stainless steel table beyond the threshold.  Radheart was in a full body bio-suit, and Dizzy held a tray in his mouth that provided a selection of scalpels, a heavy gauge needle, some thread, and a smaller tray filled with a clear liquid.  Behind both of them, Wingnut lay still on his stomach, far too still for my comfort.  His eyes were closed, and his breaths were shallow.

“What are you doing in here!?”  Radheart’s voice came out somewhat muffled from behind her mask.

I grunted.  “Wanted to see where Dizzy was.”

“Well you found him, and now you’re distracting me in the middle of an operation.  Get out.”

Everyone is just so friendly around here.  “Fine.  Dizzy, I want to talk to you when you get a minute.”

He turned toward Radheart and half-mumbled something around the tray in his teeth.  It sounded utterly unintelligible, but she must have known what it meant.  “Alright.  Put the tray down and go with Sage.  Don’t let anyone back in.”

Page piped up from right behind me, ”Want me to switch out for Ter-Dizzy?  Tag me in!”  I jumped involuntarily.  How did I not hear him follow me up the stairs? Was I that preoccupied? At least Radheart didn’t seem to notice his slip with the name.

“You’re not clean,” Radheart hissed.  “What did you do, bathe in a river?  This is an operating room.  Do you want your friend to die of infection!?”  

Despite his best intentions, this was definitely not the time for his antics.  I turned to face Page, consciously avoiding the line-of-sight between Radheart and him.  “Uuh, Page?” I paused for a second to think.  “I really don’t think now is the best time.”  He nodded, returning to the spot behind me.

I turned back towards the door, wincing at the sight of the cold steel table and not envying Wingnut one little bit.  Without giving so much as a glance to either one of us, Radheart took the biggest knife off the tray, and started digging into the bandages over Wingnut’s back.  I looked away, holding open the door for Dizzy to leave.  There wasn’t much room for him to enter the hall; everyone else had heard our conversation and made their way upstairs to lean over my shoulder to get a look into the operating room.  Utterly ignoring all of them, Dizzy pushed his way through and I followed amidst a throng of delighted hellos and questions.

“So, how was it last night?” chuckled Stalemate through a grin.

Ash glowered.  “Shut up, little shit.”

“A lot better than yours,” seethed Dizzy.

“Ooooh.”  Page snickered as he followed us into the foyer.

“Come on, all of you.  Go on down to the basement.”  I struggled with my saddlebags for a few moments until I finally managed to find the clip and prod it with the edge of a hoof.  I held them up for Page.  “Take these, and take inventory of what we have.  Dizzy and I will be down in a minute.”  

“Pleeease?” Page returned in a very high pitched dramatic voice, as if he were a small child pouting for candy.  He held the word for several uncomfortable seconds until I couldn’t bear it anymore and talked over him.

“Just take the damn bags!” I said, throwing them into the air. With a smirk, Page caught them and levitated them onto his back.  “Aw well,” he sighed, “I’ll be over medium load so most of my dex bonuses are gone, but that’s okay I suppose.”

Page shifted them more securely on his back, and proceeded down the stairs.  As I watched, Ash turned away and hurried over to the basement steps.  Again I cursed the sheer number of things stopping me from taking care of her. Stalemate looked like he wanted to stay and argue, but soon followed them.  For a few moments the only sound was the rhythmic noisy clicking of hooves against the concrete steps until I heard a slightly different hoof-fall, followed by a sound that could only be described as three ponies falling down stairs.  Loud swearing followed from the bottom, and for the first time since we’d arrived I attempted the equivalent of a facepalm -- carefully.  At least I wasn’t the only one tripping and falling down the stairs.  Dizzy, on the other hand, didn’t look even the slightest bit amused.

“Ok, there’s no easy way to ask this, but are you all ok?”  I tried my best to find a happy medium between a frown, and a creepy grin.  Hopefully it looked like a sincere and caring smile.

“I’ll live.”  He tried to look anywhere but at me, sounding annoyed and angry.

For all the time I normally let my imagination run loose and wild, right now I was running after it with an assault shotgun and a whole pile of nets.  “Ok, she didn’t misuse you or...holy shit that sounds so bad.  I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, did what I had to, nothing more.”

“Well, so long as you’re all ok up here.”  I tapped my head for emphasis.  “That’s what matters.  Was breakfast good?”

“It was food, and I think we have more important shit to worry about than how I’m doing.”

“I can’t think of anything more important than making sure that we’re all taken care of until we can find a way back.  And as of right now, Wingnut is in the operating room with Radheart, so we have time to kill.”

“Look, what happened can’t be changed, the sooner we can get out of here, the better.  The only thing worse than talking about this shit is sitting there being bored.”

“Well, ‘sitting there bored’ is the only thing I’ve got planned for us until Wingnut gets out from under the knife.  We already sold the crap that we found and got food.  Now all that there is to do is kill time and hope that Wingnut comes out from this alright.  Do you want to go talk to Stalemate for me while I nap?”

“Why the fuck would I want to talk to your brother?  All he is going to do is pester me until I remove a few of his teeth with the nearest blunt object.”

“I might not stop you.  Anyways, I’ll be in the basement if you need me.”  I turned and slowly made my way down the stairs, making absolutely sure that I didn’t trip over anything.  Dizzy soon followed behind, but I wasn’t paying too much attention.  When I got to the bottom, I looked around until I saw Ash on her cot, gazing miserably at the floor.  Everything else seemed to fade away as I walked toward her.  Stalemate was calling out something at Dizzy, and Page was trying to smooth everything over, but they all sounded far, far away as if I were underwater.  I hopped up onto the cot next to her, and tried to wrap my legs around her.  It was awkward, but it was the best I could do to make up for letting her go back at the general store.

“It’s all going to be ok,” I whispered in her ear.

“Is it?” she asked, her words short and biting.

I squeezed her just a little tighter and tried to think of an answer.  I couldn’t.  I didn’t fall asleep for a long time, but lay there staring at the ceiling.  Eventually, Ash fell asleep next to me, or was pretending well enough that I couldn’t tell.  Still, I lay awake and wondered.  Worry wasn’t something I usually let myself do.  When I was a little bit younger and more foolish, Stalemate had told me that worrying was pointless.  

Despite that advice, I never really took it to heart until the day I could find no use in worrying at all.  It didn’t find a way out of my problems, it didn’t make me more prepared to solve them, but it could remind me to make sure I had exhausted all of my options.  As best as I could tell, they were gone.  So I continued to ponder.  I was running out of things to do before facing the big question, and still had no way to answer it.  Sooner or later I’d have to ask for help, and if couldn’t get any, what then?  One more thing to not worry about.  We’re running out of options, time to make some more.






Sky Sage: Level Two (50% to next level)

I’ll deal with everything when I wake up.


Dizzy: Level Two (50% to next level)

I only did what I had to...


Ashen Shield: Level Two (50% to next level)

Just leave me alone.


Stalemate: Level Two (50% to next level)

There is no fun in this place.  None at all.


Page Gemwright: Level Two (50% to next level)

We’re in this deeper than we can ever imagine. The only way we’re going to live... is to keep moving forward at any cost.


Wingnut: Level Two

...
> Chapter 4: Voluntold
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Voluntold



Every time you go and achieve the landmark of ‘idiot-proof,’ they go and build a better idiot.



Sky Sage
Day Two, Noon


While I can’t remember a lot from my early childhood, there are a few things that will stick with me forever.  Those snapshots, like an old, distorted video tape will always be there as a reminder of who I was.  In those days, I utterly detested any time on the road.  I didn’t get any say in where we were going, and it rarely was anywhere interesting.  The worst were the long road trips.  During those, I’d sit for hours upon hours, expected to sit still, be quiet, and somehow enjoy myself with nothing to do at all.  If I had the misfortune of being in an older vehicle, there wouldn’t even be air conditioning, so I would have the unique joy of sticking to the seat.  That happened a lot in the newer ones anyways, when my parents somehow forgot to set the AC to the whole vehicle, leaving it in the front.  Those would be long hours of sitting half in the sun, half out, and never getting sunburnt behind the glass windows.  As the day would wear on, the back half of my shirt and pants would gradually get sweaty and stick to the seat, leaving me uncomfortable but stuck in one spot.

I had that exact same feeling right now.  The front of my shirt and pants and socks and everything else was soaked in sweat, and still warm.  Yet for some reason it still felt comfortable, and as my mind swam slowly toward consciousness, I realized that I wasn’t sitting somewhere, but rather lying down on my side.  I was holding something...no, someone, because it was breathing.  My right arm was asleep, and as I went to shift it, that’s when something clicked.  That isn’t an arm.  Damnit.

Getting one leg out from under Ash, I squeezed her tightly with the other.  That didn’t wake her, but the motion woke me up enough to hear what had disturbed my rest.  Radheart was talking to Dizzy, probably at the top of the stairs.  I couldn’t quite tell with my eyes still closed, but these pony ears sure had a range of hearing on them.  The conversation had been going on just a little while by the sound of it.  Radheart was giving some instructions to Dizzy.

“...he’ll be ready to go in a few minutes, so get everyone up.  I’ll be waiting for you upstairs.”

I couldn’t make out any further voices, and the two sets of hooves sounded to get further away.  One went back upstairs, and the other was coming towards me.  Rather than let Dizzy wake me, I sat up and opened my eyes suddenly, and found myself looking right at him.  If that startled him, he didn’t show it.

“You hear?”  Dizzy asked plainly.

I nodded.

“Well, let’s get everyone up.  Wingnut is about done and Radheart wants to talk.”

That didn’t make any sense to me, but I wasn’t about to argue with a chance to move forward.  “What time is it?”

“Lunch time.”

Again, something I really couldn’t argue with.  While Dizzy woke up Page and Stalemate, I prodded Ash a few times in the side.  She groaned and shifted around, forcing herself even closer to me.  It’s hard to describe how much I really wanted to go back to sleep, but we had work to do.  I tapped her again.

“Ash, we gotta get up.”

“Why?”

“Food.”

The sudden burst of energy caught me by surprise, as Ash half fell and half leaped out of bed, immediately awake and interested. However, such moves were for those who could move on more than two legs. What would have been an artful leap quickly turned into a haphazard sprawl towards the ground as Ash kicked me in the face as she struggled to get off the cot. 

“Ow!”  Always in the face!  What the hell?

“Oh, come on, it’s not as bad as last time,” Ash prodded.  I quickly leaned back and rubbed my muzzle, both for comfort and so she couldn’t bump my aching face again.  My wakeup fare two days in a row had been to succumb to face-smashing.  I really hoped this was going to stop soon.  Sure, my face was bigger than before, and had a nose/mouth combination that stuck out much further than it had any good reason to, but this was just ridiculous.

“You kicked me in the face!  Horse-kicked!  No, it’s not funny, it hurt!”

Getting out of bed was something that I planned on taking carefully.  I doubted it was going to be any easier than the last time, but at least I was on my guard for the fall and not entangled in sheets.  When my hooves hit the floor, I swayed back and forth several times until a pair of hooves gently pushed at my side to stabilize me.  It was Page, who had somehow gotten up and walked over to us by the time I managed to hit the floor.

“Thanks.”

“No problem!”  His horn was glowing, and I turned to see that he was also holding Ash up by her barrel.  A flash of jealousy hit me as I stood up all the way.  How was he adjusting so quickly to this?  All I had managed so far was walking, half-succeeding at opening a few doors, and flapping my way into a bathtub. Despite all of  my grander thoughts, all I could manage was an old quote from a friend.  Big plays, Sage.  There were raiders and worse waiting for us outside Alpine, and I was still struggling to get out of bed.  That wouldn’t do.  It was a damn long ways between here and becoming a wastelander.

As Page put Ash down harder than I would have liked, he nonchalantly declared, ”Wow, that worked way better than the first time.  I’m just glad you aren’t as breakable as the other stuff I tried earlier.  And nothing caught fire this time!”

Despite being used as a test subject, Ash remained entirely focused on the prospect of breakfast.  Well, if she and Page were both ok, Stalemate hadn’t killed anything, and I found a miracle headache cure, we’d all be ok.  Well, all of us except for Wingnut.

As long as I could remember spending time with Wingnut, he’d never been slowed down by injury or sickness.  Whenever he was sick, he still stuck to his workout schedule.  When he got injured, he just changed his lifting and parkour regimes to accommodate.  Every time life hit him, he hit back harder.  With each step closer to the operating table I got a little bit more worried that this would be the time that he’d taken a hit from which he could not recover.

Radheart was pacing in the waiting room.  Her troubled expression made me wince.  “How is he?”

“He’s awake, but take it gentle with him.  Don’t surprise him. Also, he seems to have some trouble remembering his name.  While you visit I’ll stay with you, and if I ask you to leave, just leave.  I don’t want to have to try and get him out of shock.  One more thing: one person visits at a time --  just you for now.”  She pointed one foreleg at me.  “If all of you rush in there at once it might shake him up.”

I had hoped to talk to him without Radheart there to fuck it up, but wasn’t looking like I had a choice.  “Alright, can I go in now?”

“Mhmm.”  She pushed the door open, and I followed her inside.  The operating table had been pushed up against the wall, and Wingnut was laying on a cot underneath several layers of blankets.  His eyes were glazed until we got closer, and which point he blinked and looked at each of us in turn.  He slowly smiled at me, and a cold chill ran through my body.  He didn’t know a single bit of our cover story.  What had he told Radheart?  What was he about to do?  This was about to become an act of pure damage control.

“Hey, Wingnut!”  I forced myself to ever so slightly emphasize his name, praying that he’d pick up on it.  “You really had us worried there.”

Every word he spoke was a little slower and lower pitched than usual.  “Huh? Oh hey man, what’s going on?”

I winced at the word ‘man,’ and hoped that Radheart would chalk it up to his druggy state.  “How are you feeling?”

Wingnut chuckled a bit. “Oh you know, the drugs are taking away most of the pain, but my back really hurts.” He turned his head over his shoulder to check where his wings used to be. “Dammit, I just got them too.”

Radheart raised her eyebrows at that remark.  Crap!  Bad move.  “Just got them?”

I cut in before Wingnut could answer.  “I’m so sorry Wingnut, we did everything we could.  We killed the fucker who cut off your wings.  Page slammed him into a barn so hard that he just broke.  I know it’s going to be different without them, but we’ll take care of you, ok?”  I winked at him.

“Thanks, Dominic. It’s still odd to hear your voice coming from there.”

Shit.

“Dominic?”  In the space of a few seconds, Radheart had gone from the cooly professional doctor to a caring mother.  “Who is he?”

“Dom?  He’s my--”

I cut off Wingnut before he could cause any more damage.  “He’s an old buddy from when we were younger.”

Radheart turned to me with her face hidden from Wingnut and mouthed several words.  I’d never been able to do that trick with people, let alone ponies.  Needless to say I had no idea what she was saying, but I guessed she want me to cut the cover act.  After a few moments, Wingnut interrupted her.

“Okay, what is going on here guys!  I missed something important.  One minute I’m a person, next minute I’m a pegasus, and now I’m a de-facto earth pony.  Somebody care to fill me in?”

I hung my head and sighed.  “Well, I was trying to avoid us looking like a bunch of weirdos in front of the locals, but I think that’s fist-fucked now.”

Radheart grinned outright and giggled just a little bit.  I wanted to knock to the floor.  As it was, I was just happy enough to see Wingnut alive and kicking.  Sparing a shove, I ran around Radheart and stood next to him.  How was I supposed to show the affection of a good friend?  Normally I’d slug him in the arm, but between the change in limbs and his recovering state, I settled for laying one foreleg gently on top of him.  Even then, my balance was precarious.  Wingnut looked up, confused, but there was also gratitude in his gaze.  It lasted until Radheart managed to recover from her excitement.

“Ok, I knew it!  Your little group was strange, and I knew your story didn’t quite add up, so tell me, what in the fires of Tartarus is going on here?  You two are certainly not from the enclave, and what kind of name is Dominic?”

Silence hung over the room, and my brain couldn’t come up with any more excuses.  Wingnut put both of his forelegs over me in a crude hug, causing me to feel a mix of sorrow and anger inside that threatened to drown out all other thoughts.  I had no good answer for this that wouldn’t come off as insanity or the worst lie she’d ever heard.  “Would you mind waiting for me to explain to you later?  It’s...a long, and very bizarre story.”

“I’ve heard some pretty strange ones in my time here, but yes, you can explain it to me over lunch.”

My ears pricked at that.  “You buying?”

“Only for Dizzy.”


----------------------------------------


Lunch, as it so turned out, was again at Morningside’s inn.  The food had changed to include potatoes and vegetables, and the place was alive with ponies milling to and fro. That was just outright problematic.  I had to wonder if Radheart had any discretion at all.  It didn’t help that everypony around had glanced at Page at least once since walking in and taking his hood off, and some were still staring.  Hiding under a cloak was a great idea until it was daylight, and fifty ponies were all milling about nearby.  For each time that Page had been given a curious look, I’d been given an angry glare.

Despite the sudden attention, Page returned each with an uneasy grin.  Until someone bothered us though, I wouldn’t bother them.  No sense in making enemies before we needed to.  Still, it seemed like several tables worth of ponies had pointed over in our direction, and while I couldn’t hear their words, they sounded incensed.

At least everypony else seemed to be mainly interested in their food.  They were all coming and going, getting their lunches, and eating them quickly.  Those that actually stopped to talk were busy talking to each other and were paying very little heed to the large rectangular table in the corner where we sat.  Radheart had taken the seat opposite mine, and to her left and right sat Wingnut and Dizzy, respectively.  At my sides sat Ash and Stalemate, both already engrossed in their food.  I winced again at the number thirty bouncing around in my head.  At this rate, we’d only have a day and a half of food left.  

“Alright, you can start explaining whenever you’re ready.”  Radheart stared at me expectantly as she levitated the first bite into her mouth.  My stomach grumbled.

I’d been thinking the whole walk over how to go about starting this conversation and I had come up with nothing clever.  Time to use that conversation sledgehammer that Ash always told me I carried.  As I opened my mouth to tell her as bluntly as possible everything that had come to mind, Page beat me to it.

“Have you ever read a story where the hero travels so far away that he can never come back?” Page seemed to be waiting expectantly for an answer.

I wanted to facehoof, but Page was breaking it to her gently.  There was no doubt that we needed someone who believed that we weren’t just crazy to help us, and preventing Radheart from getting up and walking away would be a good start.  To that end, I stuck my face in my plate and listened as the two talked.

“Where are you going with that?” asked Radheart.

“Well,” continued Page, “if you couldn’t tell...we’re not exactly from around... ‘here.’”  He furrowed his brow and swept his legs across the room in a broad arc, balance wavering as he did.  At this, Radheart took another look at us and saw that Wingnut had scattered crumbs all over the table, the floor, and his face.  Stalemate was and had been whining about horse problems ever since he sat down, and Ash was still struggling with her telekinesis. 

Page continued, “It’s obvious that we don’t fit in here.  You’ve had time to speak with us and know that we’re intelligent and relatively sane, but do we seem ‘normal’ to you?  Can you think of any rational way that this kind of naivety could happen?  Even if we came out from under a rock, we’d at least be able to walk down stairs properly.  You know as well as I do that if you threw us outside Alpine, we wouldn’t last a week.”

Radheart finished chewing and swallowed.  “I admittedly was wondering how I got half a dozen adults without cutiemarks showing up at my clinic.  Not to mention that there are two pegasi traveling with you… and whatever you and Dizzy are.  You don’t talk in the same diction or accent as anyone I’ve ever met, and you stumble when you walk around like cripples or foals.”

Page was smiling and nodding, but I was starting to feel a twist in my stomach.  Just what kind of conclusion was she going to get to?  I wanted to nudge her closer to the right one.  “Well, there is a logical explanation.  But it’s going to be the strangest thing you’ve ever heard.  For that matter, do we have to discuss it here, rather than somewhere quiet and more private?”

“If I’m taking care of you any longer, I need to know who, or what my patient and his guests are.”

Dizzy started to answer like I had before, only to be cut off by Page again.

Page lifted his spoon with telekinesis and bobbed it in front of Radheart. “Simply put, if you had asked me three days ago if this was possible, I would have probably said no.  Wingnut, what do you think?”

A slurping noise announced that Wingnut had pulled his face out of the mush that remained of his potatoes. He curtly said,  “Nope, not possible, but it is pretty awesome!”  and went right back to polishing the plate clean.  Finally, Dizzy dropped the line I’d been wanting to hear.

“I’ll not sugarcoat it.  We’re from a different dimension, universe, reality, or something along those lines.  We have no idea what we’re doing, except for chucklefuck over there.”  He stuck a leg out to point at Page who promptly grinned and set his spoon back down.  “Otherwise, we don’t know magic, can’t fly, and can barely even walk.  None of us have any idea how to even use our own bodies, or even fight.  We were attacked by raiders, three of them all sick and half dead as it stood, and we barely made it out of that alive.”

Radheart frowned, closed her mouth once, then opened it again to slowly ask her next question.  “So what exactly is Dominic?”

I sighed.  “That’s my name.  Or was my name.  I’m not quite sure how that works at this point.  That’s what everyone called me before we got here, but I figured that would go over poorly with the locals.  Hence ‘Sky Sage.’”  I pointed in turn to Wingnut, Ash, Stalemate, Page, and Dizzy.  “That’s Seth, Amelia, Sawyer, Marcus, and Terrance.”

While Radheart was trying to absorb all the new names, Page continued.  “We’d heard of places like this before we got here, and so as strange as it might sound, we decided to take on nicknames instead of our real names.  Still, it looks like they’re our real names now.”

“Your world is an imaginary place: a fiction or a fantasy in our world,” added Dizzy.  “We all have seen games or stories depicting your world, with the exception of Fluffy over there.”  He jerked a hoof at Stalemate and frowned.  Stalemate simply started another round of cursing at Dizzy, who just smiled.  I leaned a little forward so Radheart could hear me.

“Don’t mind him. He isn’t taking all of this very well, and  I can’t really say any of us are.  We just want to get home, and the first step is making sure that none of us die.  So for whatever it’s worth, thank you.”

For a few moments Radheart just looked back and forth between Stalemate, Dizzy, and myself.  I could feel the seriousness breaking down as Stalemate started to yell louder, and something told me I had to salvage the conversation.

“They are telling the truth.  We are telling the truth.  It’s crazy, but it’s all we’ve got.  If I were any less desperate, I’d have spent the time to come up with something that didn’t sound so outlandish.”

Page poked me with his spoon, and I yelped.  Fuck!  Still ticklish as a pony.  At that sound, everypony but Sawyer stopped and turned to laugh at me.  Page jabbed at me a few more times, forcing me to try to block with my forelegs while he gave a much less serious version of my plea.

“Well, aside from being hopelessly stuck in an insanely dangerous wasteland with no social competence, wealth, or status, I'm actually quite content with having magic.  Guess you take the good with the bad, eh?  But it would be swell if you could help us out.”

Just before Radheart could answer, Wingnut got sick of listening to Stalemate complain and shoved him off his seat.  Stalemate fell to the floor, snorting and swearing as he tried, and failed to get back up.  At the sound of Wingnut encouraging Stalemate, who was still spitting and ranting, Radheart broke out laughing.

“Well,” she said as she stopped laughing with a sigh, “it’s stupid and asinine, but I can’t think of anything else that would make more sense.  That being said, regardless of where you all came from, you’re going to need to eat.  And if you want food, then you’re going to have to work.  I don’t care that you’re not master spellcasters or elite fliers, but you’ll have to lend a hoof.”

“We’d be grateful to,” I supplied.  It was a start.  At least she hadn’t gotten up and walked away from the table or run away screaming.  Then the lights flickered and went out, and most of the ponies started to run screaming in every direction.  Morningside sprinted to the door, a large shotgun braced over her back.  She peeked outside, then bellowed over the din.

“It’s not an attack, now cut it out!”

Everypony stopped right where they were and started to return to their meals.  Some were hiding under tables, others behind the counter, and four or five were packed under the stairs.  The whole scene was almost comical, until I realized I was watching the local equivalent of preparing for an incoming bomb or mortar attack.  Radheart hadn’t ducked under the table, but she certainly was a little more tense than before.

“What was that all about?” asked Dizzy.

“Well,” answered Radheart shakily, “the last time the enclave hit, they turned off the power first.  They botched the job, and now the generator is damaged.  We’re not really sure what to do with it, because it’s been running since before the war.”

That gave me an idea.  It wasn’t a great one, but it was always better to act right away than to wait for opportunities to pass.  They had the wonderful habit of always accomplishing something, even if only to teach me what I should and shouldn’t do.  Learned decisions were for after I’d learned more.

“If told you that Page and I are engineers, and that Dizzy is a mechanic, would you think that it was too far-fetched?  How about if I also told you Wingnut is a scientist, our other two are apprentices?”

“After everything else you just said?  Come on.  You might just be able to earn your bread after all.”  Radheart’s expression visibly relaxed as pushed her plate back and motioned for us to follow her to the door.


----------------------------------------


The building next to the watermill was ringed by a whole mess of ponies clamoring and brandishing farm tools angrily into the air.  Classic angry mob.  Radheart put out a hoof and stopped us next to a tool shack and silently urged us to wait for several minutes until the crowd began to disperse.  A light-blue unicorn buck walked amongst them with several armed figures that I guessed were town guards.  He was mingling with the mass, and although the exact words he spoke were lost to me, he radiated an aura of command which told far more than the escorts ever could.  As he walked by, the ponies around him rapidly calmed down and lowered their makeshift weapons until the entire crowd dissipated.

It really didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out exactly how or why pegasus were hated in this town.  Still, it was kind of frustrating that I couldn’t just walk over to the mill and look at what was going on -- double-bonus points for the wait being because the bunch of angry citizens would prod me with pitchforks if I walked in too soon.  After five far too long minutes of sitting uncomfortably behind Radheart and with everyone else right behind me as if we were stacked up to attack the mill, we came out from from behind the rotting timber.

About twenty meters of open ground separated us from where the unicorn and the guards were standing at the mill, and we made it about two steps before we got their attention.  In the blink of an eye, I was looking down the barrel of a half-dozen rifles, and the guards were slowly fanning out into a half circle in front of the unicorn.  Oh that was not the kind of friendly hello I’d hoped to receive.  What else was I expecting?  Aside from possibly birdshot for the bird-pony.

“Radheart!  Hang on!”  The unicorn, who was very clearly in charge was snarling, and pointed at me.  “You!  Get away from her!  Get away from all of them.  Right now.”

“Spare us the theatrics, Rainfall.  You know as well as I do that if this feather-duster was bothering me I’d off him.”

At Radheart’s rebuttal, most of the guards lowered their weapons, and some put them away entirely.  Rainfall merely frowned, then stood stock-still for a few moments as he looked us up and down.  If what he had done with the crowd was anything to go by, then he was equally capable of talking us down and shooting us up.  Considering he had the guns to back it up, I couldn’t do more than stand and wait on edge, adrenaline mixing with nervousness to pollute my blood with a cocktail of unease.

“Just why did you bring them here then?  A friend of a pegasus is just as bad.”  His voice was like oil on top of a bucket of water -- smooth, but there was a lot more depth to it.

Radheart stepped forward, putting herself firmly between Rainfall and myself.  “They claim they can help with the generator problems we’ve been having, and I have half a mind to believe they’re telling the truth.”

Turning tail to us, Rainfall walked authoritatively back toward the generator building.  He was almost strutting, but left room to talk over his shoulder.  The display was obnoxious for sure, but no one had shot yet, for which I was grateful.  All of the guards had relaxed their weapons, and my heart wasn’t pounding quite as hard now that there weren’t twenty lines of fire going through my skull.  I was more than relieved to try the talking avenue over the shooting one.

“Really now? The Enclave have seldom been kind to us.  I would question their motives of sending us a mechanic just now, and I see no reasonable motivation they could possibly have for helping the townsfolk.”

“I’m not a mechanic, that’s my friend here.  Nor are we part of the Enclave.”  I gestured to Dizzy.  “Though I think I might be able to fix up your local power grid.”

Rainfall’s eyes followed my hoof to find Dizzy, and then widened as he took a step back.  “J-just what the f...what are you?” His hoof struck the threshold of the door and he stumbled backwards.  I was grateful he hadn’t noticed Page yet.

Dizzy just stood there and blankly replied.  “I’m a mechanic.”  Page just stood at the back of the group with his head partially concealed under the cloak. He wasn’t going to draw more attention than necessary, especially after all of the looks he got over breakfast.

“What?!”  Rainfall stood up straight again, now atop the concrete walkway to the mill door.  His eyes shone with barely contained anger, then glossed over as he smiled yet again.  “Oh, I see.  Well, allow me to explain, we don’t just let anypony work on our generator.  He’d have to have unique skills and unquestionable honest intent.”

Radheart stepped in front of Dizzy, shaking her head.  “He’s a friend of mine, and I trust him.” She flicked her tail across his nose, and Dizzy turned bright red, but didn’t move.  “That is all you need to know, now get out of the way so they can fix your shit for you.”

Rainfall deliberately stepped forward until he was right in front of Radheart.  “Just another fuck-buddy then, Radheart?  You’re as predictable as your mother was.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”  Radheart pushed her face against Rainfall’s, each trying to start the other on fire with glares alone.  Yay for small town family rivalry.  The mayor and the doctor hate each other, and they’re important enough that nopony else bothers to get in the way.  Time to break it up.

“Look, you two can sit here all day as your generator runs down and fails completely, or you can let us do something about it.”  Shocked out of their rivalry, they both shifted their gazes to me.  Rainfall still looked pissed, while Radheart had a slight smile about her lips that belied her knowledge of victory.  “Rainfall, right?”

“What do you want?!”

“You notice how I am a pegasus, walking around down here, sans armor, no guns, and asking nicely if I can help you?  You know?  So all those foals get the heating that you want them to have so dearly... and those lights that you want so desperately stay on?  If I were with the Enclave, why would we come down here and plead with Radheart for help if we had access to the doctors up there?  What does that sound like to you?”

In that time, Rainfall had marched over to me and stepped up close.  Really close.  Typical bully stuff, and I was not in the mood for it.  Save for his horn, he was shorter than me, forcing him to talk up at me while trying to be threatening.  Cute.

“It sounds like a treacherous enclave plot!  You’re here to get inside and destroy what little we have left!”

I laughed.  It was a fake chuckle to throw him off at first, but the more I thought about it, I started to convulse.  When at long last I could control my breathing again, I put my forehooves back down and explained.  As the words fell from my mouth with greater and greater conviction, his presence shrank.

“That’s rich, Rain.  From what I gather, the enclave could bomb this place whenever they feel like you’re having too good of a day, right?  And yet somehow they sent two of their own to live on the surface, get dismembered, and integrate to the point of camaraderie with the surface ponies just to get inside and destroy what was already nearly broken?  Please.  We’ve offered you help, and in return you’re spewing accusations into the air that you know are pointless.  Why?”

“Why?  I’ve got a better question.  How do I know I can trust you?  Reason all you will, but I’m not hanging the welfare of four hundred souls to your words.”

“Because I can vouch for him.”  Radheart really didn’t look like she enjoyed being left out of the argument.  “Sky Sage and his little gang here stumbled into my clinic last night, starving, freezing, and in the case of Wingnut, dying.  They aren’t elite spies or warriors, and I know because they’ve all fallen down my stairs at least once.”

“Guilty,” chirped Page.

Two dozen pairs of eyes focused on anypony else would have enforced some cringing, but Page merely shrugged and grinned sheepishly.  As the silence lingered on, the sheer weight of his word sank in to everyone present, and Rainfall dropped his facade.

“You weren’t kidding, these guys are grade-A idiots.  I’ve seen enclave stupid, and this ain’t it.  Tell you what.”  One of the guards jumped a little as Rainfall levitated a carbine out of her saddle-holder.  “I’ll give ya’ a shot at fixing it.  If you fuck up, I give you another shot.  One for each of you that decided to break our stuff.  Come on in, ya’ freaks.”

We followed Rainfall on inside, ducking a little as we passed under the low-slung front door.  The inside was dim and musty and noisy and downright stifling.  Age old mildew mixed with the churning of water, sloshing back and forth against the planks of the station’s walls, worn gray from age and moisture.  Each step creaked, and every breath stank: a cloying inhale of dying, rotting wood.

The floorboards under my hooves vibrated with a pronounced hum, shaking my bones and chattering my teeth.  At the end of the short hall we arrived in the generator room.  The ceiling was two stories above my head and the floor sloped down until it was right next to the portion of the river running through the room.  Neither of those were my focus though, but rather the rusting behemoth that sat before me.  Through a thin veil of smoke and a mountain of tangled wires I could make out a small shaft spinning in place, wobbling side-to-side: the cause of that horrible clunking noise.

“What the fuck…” Dizzy breathed next me, his mouth hung open.

“Look, I’m no master mechanic; I made it work.”

That was perhaps the first truly honest statement I’d heard out of Rainfall.

“You made it fucking worse, it’s going to take days to fix this.  Just to clear off all this useless shit!”  Dizzy poked the generator with a hoof, which caused an electrical arc to run over the tangled winding and fade away.  I could smell burnt wires... and burnt bat-pony.  “How much amperage do you have running through these wires?  Far too much...is that speaker wire?”

Rainfall gave a short nod.  “It keeps smoking whenever the rotor spins too fast.  I made it work.” 

“What voltage are you running this all at?”  I perused over the outgoing lines, listening to the humming coming off of them.

“Hell if I know.  You can touch it and find out, right?  You feather-brains are supposed to be shock-proof.”

“Well, until you can give me a voltage, a frequency, and a power level you are running all this at, no! I don’t feel like sticking my tongue into that circuit.  I’d need to sit down and map where it’s all going first, how much power is going to where, and make sure you don’t have any shorts in the system.  This is a few week’s worth of work on just electrical side alone, though it doesn’t look like the mechanical parts are faring much better.”

“From what I’m seeing, you’re cycling all of this with far too much stress.  Have you even thought about straightening this shaft?”  Page earned a glare from Rainfall for his interjection, but both ponies’ comments were cut short by a loud banging noise from behind the generator. As fast as it began, the banging ceased and the generator slowly started to spin down, crackling.  

“Found the clutch to the water wheel.  It was a little stuck.”

“What the fuck is a clutch?”  Rainfall spun around as Dizzy glowered at him, and I turned to start tracing some of the wiring.  I didn’t suspect I’d had much time before Dizzy got belligerent, Rainfall got pissed, and we’d all get thrown out, beaten, and possibly shot.  That wiring was too much of a mess to do anything with other than pretend to be useful while I nervously waited for them to come to terms.

Dizzy popped his head over the generator as the room slowly went dark.  “I’m not even mad!”  He then took off his sunglasses and took off a back panel. “Just dammit!  Where are your tools?”

“Seriously, what are you?”

“My mother used hydra when she was pregnant. You should see my sister.”

“Fine then, what do you need?” Rainfall walked over to an old rusted toolbox under the window.

“Screwdriver, flat head.  First step is to see if the brushes are even still there.”

“Has anypony got an electrical diagram of this?  Or failing that a piece of paper and a pencil?”  Somepony pressed a piece of paper and a charcoal stick at my hooves, and I started on putting together a rough outline of where everything was going.  The charcoal tasted like the bastard child of industrial fires and cheap scotch.  A few minutes passed and I heard the screwdriver hit the ground multiple times, as well as Dizzy’s low cursing.  Eventually he stopped, and spat it out.

“Look, I’m not even too far into this, and I can tell you that the brushes are wafer thin, they have worn a groove in the rotor, and just by looking at it I can tell you that the coils are probably all nearly melted.  The wobble in the rotor is from shot bearings, the leads going out are corroded, and one broke off from me basically just touching it. I’m actually rather floored that this coil of AC wires laid on top didn’t start on fire.  It really looks like no one has done any work on it since the bombs fell.  Frankly, this is beyond repair.”

“Brushes...as in...paint brushes?” asked Rainfall. I cringed, and Dizzy just stared at him.  “So we can’t get new parts?”

Page perched himself on a crate overlooking the generator and was scrutinizing the main fasteners for the machine.  At the request he replied, “I might be able to reforge some of these parts… or at least reweld the more serious fractures.  Each fix would take a good deal of time to make, and I’ve seen at least ten already.  From what it sounds like however, time is not a luxury we have anymore.  Also, ironically, I would need power in order to weld anything.”

Dizzy was still staring, and answered Rainfall cooly.  “At this point all the new parts I would need would amount to a new generator.”

“Well that’s just fucking peachy!” screamed Rainfall, waving his carbine about.  I spent months of my life putting this all together, and saving the well-being of the town, just for you to come in here, poke it, and break it!  It’s a two-century old relic that I’m keeping up and running, not something you can just whack with a wrench!  Is there anything else that is possibly wrong with it while we’re destroying it?”

I sighed, not really wanting to pour more gasoline on the fire, but also feeling the need to give an honest assessment for their time.  “Well, since you asked, you have several shorts in your system, and a lot of extra wiring that I don’t think you need.  It’s built for a three-phase system, and it looks like you’re only generating one phase with the equipment.  The fact that the humming is loud enough to hear over the clunking says that you’re wasting a ton of the power, and that could be errors or just old wiring.  I’d like to be able to check more, but I don’t have the equipment to do it, unless you have a multimeter or two somewhere.”

“In short,” added Page, “it’s pretty trashed!  Thankfully, in addition to being elite mercenaries, secret agents, and enclave spies, we’re also experienced contractors.  It would take almost a miracle to get this monster up-and-running again, but if you’re willing to keep us around, we can totally fix what shouldn’t have ever been this broken!”

“Oh shut up!”  Rainfall bellowed over Page.  

“There has to be a nearby junkyard, or something.”  Dizzy muttered as he stepped into the group again.  He was covered from mane to tail in dirt and grease.  He’d gone from a freakish looking nightmare to a black freakish-looking-nightmare, and the guards stepped away as he walked up.  I wasn’t quite sure if it was from the appearance or the desire to avoid being covered in old grease.

Rainfall ground his hooves into the floorboards as he spoke.  “Well that’s just fucking perfect.  The only one nearby is a full-on raider base.  Been sending out raiding parties for about a year now, hitting our caravans, shooting at our farmers, and generally being worse than the enclave.”

“They stole pretty much everything we were expecting to get this month, including my medical supplies.”  Radheart was eyeing Dizzy up with a smile, and I could already sense the future.  Something about him being generously ‘bathed.’  

One by one we all left the little generator room, and there was a small mob of ponies waiting for us out front.  Here was to hoping Rainfall didn’t plan on making good on his threats.

“Rain, when is the generator going to come back?  We need power!”

Similar cries echoed through the group, striking me like lashes.  I glanced at them, back at our group, then at Rainfall.  If he got pissed off or petty, then he’d name us responsible and I seriously doubted anyone would question his words.

Rainfall looked at the ground for a second, then perked up, a wicked smile on his face.  “These good ponies here have offered to overhaul the generator, giving us more power than ever!  And on top of this, they have just volunteered to go to the junkyard, clear out the raiders, and bring back a whole new system for us to have.  Isn’t that right, Sky Sage?”

I gulped, then coughed, then tried to sound as confident as I possibly could.  “That’s right!  Though we don’t have any weapons, or know the way.  I don’t suppose you kind ponies would be willing to help us with those things?”  Read: Thank you for not lynching us or shooting us!  Now give us guns!

A big brown earth pony out in front bellowed loud enough to drown out the rest of the ruckus.  “Wait, if there are raiders out in the hills, we all need to go clear them out, not just use the ponies we can’t trust!”  Cries of affirmation and agreement ran throughout the crowd.  From somewhere deeper in the bunch, another pony yelled over the rest.  “Tomorrow morning, let’s leave and kill all those sons of zebras!”

Page mumbled “...heeey” under his breath.  The mob grew louder and louder, and I looked over and winked at Rainfall, who was fuming at me.  “Look, this way you get all your parts back instead of us just disappearing and becoming corpses.  I’d say we’re both winning here.”

“Whatever you say, featherfuck, whatever you say.”

“We still need guns.”

“So go buy them.”

“We don’t have caps for that, and Copper likes us just as much as everyone else in town.  Mind helping us help you?”

“Looks like I didn’t leave myself a choice.  Don’t fucking screw it up.”







Sky Sage: Level Two (50% to next level)

Uh, yay?


Adonicus: Level Two (50% to next level)

Oh boy, another fun night...


Ashen Shield: Level Two (50% to next level)

We seriously need to reevaluate our paradigm for labelling ‘friendlies,’ and maybe a major discussion about tact...


Stalemate: Level Two (50% to next level)

Dom keeps dragging us into more and more shit.


Page Gemwright: Level Two (50% to next level)

Still alive and un-shot! Woo that’s a 2x day streak! How long can I keep this going?


Wingnut: Level Two

Fuck Yeah! Food! I was starving!
> Chapter 5: The Calm Before
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Calm Before



The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  It only stands to reason that the road to heaven is paved with pain and suffering.



Sky Sage
Day Two, Afternoon



Stalemate pranced ahead and pushed open the door to Copper’s store.  “Hey, Copper!  We’re back!”

“Go away!  We’re closed.  Come back when I’m not hungover.  Actually, don’t come back ever!”

“Copper, this is important,” Rainfall called out as he strode through the doorway.  “And I told you to keep your drinking to reasonable hours.”

“If I’m awake, then it’s a reasonable time to be drinking.  What does it matter to you anyways?”

Rainfall sighed and pressed a hoof against his temple.  “Just get the lockers open.”  

“Why the fuck do you need to get into my lockers?”  I heard something hit the floor with a hard and painfully familiar thump.  Copper had just rolled out bed...literally.

“Because these nice ponies are going to go out, murder some raiders and get your shit back for you.  Either that or die trying.”

Copper finally lumbered out of his makeshift bedroom, reeking of whiskey and worse.  He just leaned against his doorway, staring at the group. On his face was a slight smirk for all of us but Rainfall, and I hoped it wasn’t because Rainfall was possibly sending us to our dooms.  Meanwhile, Radheart had left to go prepare a field medical kit for the townsfolk.

“Well, if we find any goodies,” Page stopped to smell the air, “like whiskey, he paused for dramatic effect, we’ll bring you a bottle.  I bet you they took one!”

Copper’s eyes immediately lit up upon hearing ‘whiskey.’  “Fine, just let me get back to my date.”  I took a chance to steal a look into his quarters.  The back room of the store was large enough to take up most of the rest of the building.  Stairs at the back of the room ascended to somewhere that was most definitely not Copper’s bedroom.  His bed was smack-dab in the middle of the room, and consisted of no more than a pile of straw wrapped up in some sheets.  However, bottles of all shapes and sizes lay empty next to it, each one placed with the artful distinction that only a practiced drunkard could manage, creating a derelict cathedral of shining glass.  On the walls, shelves held up all kinds of farm tools and supplies, but my attention was fixed firmly on the row of lockers on the right side.  Copper was slouching against the lockers, rivulets of drool dripping off the edge of the keyring in his jaw.

As he unlatched the third locker, a small rain of guns pushed the door aside and clattered to the floor.  Picking up a hoof-full of weapons, and swearing under his breath, Copper trudged over to us. “What do you all want?”  Copper more spat than spoke.

“Yeah!  Give me a gun!” cheered Stalemate.  “I want a big one!”

“Oh, I got a big gun for you, little colt.”  Copper sifted through the pile until he pulled out something that looked like a rifle, but gave me pause.  The barrel was narrow, thinner than even the old .22 rifle I used as a kid.  It had a handle-pump designed to stick a hoof into, and I could hear the clattering of a hundred little metal parts as Copper hefted it in the air.

“What the hell is that?”  Stalemate looked up and down the rifle, and then looked longingly back down at everything else in the pile.

Copper chortled, coughed, and cleared his throat.  “A BB gun!”

“Pfft.  That thing couldn’t kill a bird!”  Stalemate huffed and then snorted, and for the first time in two days didn’t immediately break into swearing at the noises he was making.  “I bet it doesn’t even work.”

“Doesn’t work?  You think it doesn’t work!?” growled Copper.  He stuck his tongue inside the trigger guard and hefted the rifle at Stalemate, who ducked as the gun spat a loud hiss.  A pellet whipped through the air and tore a hole a quarter the size of my hoof in the wall behind him.  He then spat the rifle in front of Stalemate, and nudged the rest of the guns toward us with a hoof.  “Pick over the rest of these yourselves, since your friend doesn’t understand that beggars can’t be choosers.  Fucking purple bitch with a tiny horn.”

While Stalemate sat back, muttering under his breath about having an average-sized horn, the rest of us fell to the pile.  Copper sure was right about us being beggars.  None of those guns were anything I would have felt happy to take to the range, let alone a fight.  Anything metal was at least somewhat eaten by rust, and the wooden parts were either worn or in some cases, rotted.  Dizzy had already started a pile for the older ones that were clearly useless.  Once the sorting was at an end, we were left with a two slide-action pistols, a revolver, a pump-action shotgun, a break-action shotgun, a large-game hunting rifle, and traveler’s carbine.  Seven guns, five ponies.

“Anyone want to call dibs now?”  I looked back and forth between us.

Ash took the larger of the two pistols quietly and slid the action back to find that it was empty.  As if he’d been waiting for that to happen, Page levitated a shotgun over to his hooves and pumped it a few times to get a feel for the action.  That left two choices, because the revolver was entirely out of the question.  Not that I really wanted to put that on Dizzy or Wingnut, but there were few things I’d found that were more annoying than the slow spin on an old revolver cylinder.  If it got stuck in a fight, I didn’t want to be behind it.  Nor did I have the coordination to really work a bolt action rifle, so I bit down on the end of the carbine, and pulled it my way.  As I rested my teeth around the grip, Dizzy kicked at the lever of the hunting rifle.  On the third kick the bolt finally slammed open.  He picked it up and regarded it cautiously. “Needs lube, they all do probably.”  Oh shut up, brain.

I nodded.  The carbine I was holding in my mouth looked like what might have been a modern Equestrian design, but now rust had spiderwebbed over the barrel and body.  If I were to make an M4 rifle mouth-holdable and bury in in a locker for two centuries, this just might be what came out.  Joy.  Wingnut reached for the revolver, and I looked back down at the second pistol.  I’d make a note to come back and pick it up when I had more mouth room.

Wingnut took the revolver in his mouth, trying to get a feel for how firearm sat and actually tried aiming with his head.  He sighed lightly and promptly set it back down on the countertop. “Should work alright for me,” he mentioned in a neutral tone.

“I got yer lube over here, and some bullets too.  Rainfall said you actually should have some.  Bring ‘em on over to the table.”

While we’d been digging and choosing, Copper had set a couple of bottles and brushes out on his table, as well as few old boxes filled with rounds.  I got in line after Dizzy, who was more than eager to help Copper clean up his rifle.

“Is that motor oil?  You honestly expect us to put motor oil in our firearms?” Dizzy set his rifle on the table, scowling at the bottle.

“That’s all I’ve got in the way of lubricants, you freak.  You want something nicer, you go find it.  I promise you no one else in this down has oil this clean.  Now do you want it or not?”

In response, Dizzy shoved a rag in front of Copper, who dumped some on it and moved to wet a few more.  As soon as he moved on to Ash, I started to look for some way to take the carbine apart, and everyone else was working on the same.  Only Dizzy found success, and helped the rest of us take ours apart as well.  Having a gun nut around was really handy.

“Ammo is in the boxes...” muttered Copper has he stumbled back over to his bed.  “Rainfall said he’d cover your tab, so take what you can fit--”

His last instruction was slurred as Copper slumped over his bed.  I wondered briefly if he’d remember anything when he got up and decide that he’d been robbed, but realized I still had a job to do and worry could wait for later.  Rainfall apparently trusted us, or more likely Copper did -- enough to leave us alone with a bunch of firearms.  Everyone else had moved over to peruse over the ammo while I was still working the action, save for Wingnut, who was frowning over his revolver.

“It keeps getting stuck.”  He was rubbing at his cheek where the grip had pushed into it, frowning.  He’d been shoving the cylinder round and round and it was getting stuck every chamber slot or two.

“Just keep spinning it, and hopefully it will loosen up a little, or you’ll grind off whatever the obstruction is.  Once you get it off, check it every few hours, and make sure it doesn’t get stuck again.  Make doubly sure to check before we go into the fight, ok?”

Page wandered over after hearing the hammer clicking repeatedly, “Hey, Wingnut, you want mine?  You’ve already drawn the short straw since we’ve gotten here.  Want the easy gun? It’d be fine for me to mess with it with magic.  Hell, I might even be able to do that Buck Norris hoof thing again if it doesn’t work.”	

“As long as you feel comfortable with it, absolutely!”  Wingnut deftly flipped the revolver out of his mouth into the air, leaving it for Page to catch in his magic grip.  Damn he’s figuring this out quick.  He only just woke up and has a better feel for this than I do.  In response, Page levitated the shotgun to Wingnut and held it momentarily in front of him so to grab.

“I gotta know; think it will be awkward to hold a rifle with your mouth?” Page asked.  

“Yeah, very, brt yu’r gert ur’sed tr et,” the second half of whatever Wingnut wanted to say was hilariously muted from grabbing the weapon.  Wingnut immediately began practicing the action on the shotgun, and despite confirming the awkward, he looked far more comfortable this way.  Page, meanwhile, began spinning and pulling parts on the revolver with his magic, first forward, then backward.  It looked like he was practicing dexterity more than learning the weapon.  So long as he got that all out of his system right then instead of during the fight, I was more than happy with it.  That was a thought for another time though, as there was ammo to be had.  I didn’t even have to work the press for it!  Before I could ask what kind my carbine would take, Dizzy pushed one of the boxes toward me.

“I’m guessing this is for your rifle, check to make sure though.  We don’t want to get all the way out there just to find out you have the wrong ammo.”

“Check?”  I muttered aloud.  I could check if it loaded in the old magazine, but I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to try shooting it.  The locals had freaked out when the lights started flickering, let alone at gunfire.  Nor did I particularly want to wake Copper up.  With a shrug I hoofed the button beside the magazine well and let the old piece of metal clatter to the table.  Much more gently, I set the carbine down next to it and tried to scoop some of the brass out of the box.  Trying to lift a bunch of small rounds with a hoof was like trying to scoop pasta with a pool noodle.  I sighed as they clattered back down into the bin like rain.  What else was I expecting?  Each time I balanced a bunch of them on my leg, I was never able to lift them out without most falling up.  Soon, I resorted to pushing a bunch into the corner and shoving them up.  That worked a little better, and it wasn’t long before I had a small pile in front of me.

Now came trying to shove rounds into a magazine...I did not fancy putting any soft parts of my face close to an old, rusty, and probably razor-sharp magazine.  It looks like tetanus waiting to happen, and testing which immunizations I still had wasn’t high on my priority list.  In what seemed like a slightly smarter way to do things, I bit the magazine gently between my teeth.  With a great deal of concentration, I balanced the first round between both hooves and then slowly pushed it down and back into the magazine until the rear end of the round was flush with the back of the magazine.  One down, a bunch to go.  How many did these hold anyway?

It turned out the answer was not twenty, not thirty, but twenty-five of all numbers.  Because this totally makes sense, right?  Who in their right mind builds a double-stack magazine with an odd number of rounds?  Ah well, I’ll need every last shot I can get.  Speaking of which…

Guns, ammo, and lube.  Sounded like a great set of things to have at the check-out counter.  Did I find everything alright?  No, I was hoping to find a few empty magazines on the shelf that I could load up.  Nope, we don’t carry those, sorry.

As if by command, Page dropped a burlap sack in front of me, and I saw that Wingnut was holding four more in his mouth, each somewhat filled.  Dizzy motioned toward the box.

“Well, he said we could take what we wanted, so fill up.  We’ve got thirty-aught-six, three-fifty-seven, thirty-two, twelve gauge, and it looks like all we need is a bunch of five-five-six to make this a party.”

“Cheers.”  Filling the bag without fingers was going to be akin to making a sandwich with my elbows.  Some voice in my mind reminded me that handling a number of fine objects and thin materials with blocky limbs was going to be the norm for a while.  Now that I was thinking outside the corral, though, it seemed possible.  After I’d wrapped the sack’s top around the box, one good push tipped it over on its side and sent a few hundred rounds into the bag.  That was a lot more than I had intended, if nothing else because it would be damned heavy, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The old strap on the carbine was frayed and wearing dangerously thin in several places, but for lack of a better way to carry everything, I slotted the magazine in and slung it over my back.  That left my mouth free to carry the bag.  Good.  I bit down on it and gleefully lifted it off the table.  Pain lanced through my jaw as I jerked the cloth, and all the joy from my assumed cleverness evaporated.

“Frk!”  I cursed, then immediately regretted it as the bag dropped further, forcing me to set it down on the ground.  That ammo was heavy.  I was probably going to need it sooner or later, so I bit back down and tried not to think despite my teeth feeling like they were trying to escape from their sockets.  How Wingnut was getting by astounded me.  With a start I realized that I needed to make sure that everyone, not just Wingnut, was getting their weapons in order.  They all needed to be ready for tomorrow.

Metal grated on metal as Dizzy helped slide the action on Ash’s pistol back into place.  In the time that I had managed to load one magazine and fill a sack, he’d helped everyone else clean their weapons and re-assemble them.  Wingnut and Page were pointing their guns at each other in mock battle, until Dizzy sternly told them to knock it off.  What I would do without him, I didn’t know.  What I did know was that their guns were safe in his hooves.  They all now had some kind of weapon which was loaded, lubed, and ready to go, in the time that I’d accomplished the same for just one pony.

Page reached into one of the ammo bins and scooped up a whole bunch of brass, then started levitating a whole bunch into the air and spun them around.  He grinned wide and started spinning them around his head into a metal halo, earning oos and as from everypony present.  It was certainly unique, until he winced suddenly and all the rounds fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Oh... that’s the fastest way to get a migraine I’ve found yet!” Page slumped as he spoke, looking visibly disoriented.  He kept his eyes tightly shut and vigorously rubbed his temples with his hooves.  “I’ll need to practice a lot before I do that one again,” he shook his head then body back and forth in a way that reminded me of a wet dog, and he almost lost his balance in the process.

“That’s badass, Page, but you probably should save it to mash bad guys with instead of whatever it is you’re doing now.”  I had to stifle a chuckle, half out of trying to save Page’s pride, and half because there wasn’t much funny about our ‘mage’ burning himself out.  Apparently we all had a long ways to go before we became truly dangerous.  While I sat in thought on the prospect, everypony turned to head out of the room.

Getting back to the door around all the empty and broken bottles was a feasible prospect on the way in, but now felt like a minefield on the way out.  If I slipped, I’d be bleeding from everywhere, and I really didn’t want to ask for more medical help from Radheart.  One step at a time, I negotiated the mess, slowly making my way toward everyone else on the other side.  Gosh, and I thought I drank a lot back home.  This guy makes me look like a Mormon.  I wonder what the Equestrian equivalent to that would be?

On the other side of the glass, I spat the bag to the floor and winced.  Every tooth ached in its socket, which was entirely different from all those years in braces.  It wasn’t a small section of pain, but instead everything in my skull seemed to throb.  Almost all my teeth were molars now, and my jaw felt like it had moved from a ‘small’ to an XXL.  Each and every one of them had been tugged, strained, yanked, and jarred against their roots; I was not used to this kind of regular usage.  My entire mouth and skull protested the torture.  Firing a gun was assuredly going to be worse.

“Got enough ammo there?” asked Wingnut.

“Too much ammo never hurt the good guys, bro.”  I stared at the bag, contemplating a way to get it into my saddlebags without spilling the brass everywhere.

“Until the good guys need to run away, and you have four tons on your back,” chided Dizzy.

“How does that even work?  I remember watching Pinkie doing this like it was nothing. We’re all standing here, not able to pick up anything, and Pinkie could pick up stuff and move it better than any of us could with hands on the best of days.  Is it some weird magic?  It looked like she was able to pick things up with the blunt ends of these awkward things.”  Page waved his hoof in small circles for emphasis. “Think we’re missing something really, really obvious?”

“Maybe it was under ‘E’ in the encyclopedia of how to be a pony?” pondered Wingnut.

I considered that for a moment, then shrugged.  “Dunno, I figure it’s some kind of learning curve issue.  One day I’ll be able to manipulate things well, but two days isn’t enough to replicate a lifetime’s experience.  Anyways, Dizzy, I won’t be running into a hail of bullets with this bag on my back, then.  But loaded ammo is probably pretty scarce around here.  I don’t want to run dry tomorrow.”  If we live, then we can discuss how much it will cost.  “Ash, think you can tie the bag for me?”  I motioned to the bag, then sat down and took off my saddlebags.

Ash nodded, then furrowed her brow.  The ends of the sack folded inward just a little, and toward each other.  They pulled apart, and then around each other, but not quite into a knot.  She scrunched her face harder and started the growl through her teeth, but it still stayed in place.  Green light joined the red, and soon the burlap was in a fine knot, ready to settle into a saddlebag pocket.  Digging through the right side, I started to move our odds and ends over, then stopped short.

“Page, do you have our bottlecaps?”

“No, why?”

Panic seized my chest, or whatever the area below my throat was, and I rifled through the bags again.  A charcoal stick, two old pieces of paper, the odd opal thing and that was it.  The plastic bag that held the caps was gone.

Everyone erupted into astonished discussion around me, but my mind didn’t have space to listen to what they were saying.  I could worry about emotional implications after I’d ruled out all possibilities of losing them, not before.  The first thought to strike once the surprise wore off was to question my own accounting of past events.  Sadly, flipping the saddlebags upside down and shaking everything out failed to yield the caps.  Immediately after came the obligatory recollection of the day’s events.  The last place I had them was at lunch, and I’d put them right back in the bags afterwards.  We’d gone to the generator, worked on it, and waltzed over to Copper’s, but at no point during that time had I unlatched my bags or let anypony touch them.

There was no way I could have known.  Either they had fallen out, or someone had stolen them so silently that no one had noticed.  Regardless, I wasn’t counting on getting them back.  With that firmly in mind, the rest of the world rushed back with a whirl of color and sound as my vision finally lifted off the odd water damaged spot in the floorboards it had been locked to the whole time while I’d been lost in memory. The first voice I picked up on was Page, who was recollecting the day out-loud. 

“I don’t remember having them since this morning when I had all the bags. We didn’t take them out since breakfast, and I didn’t seem them fall out when we were at the power plant… I’ve got nothing.”

“Where did you set the bag down?” Wingnut queried.

Ash interrupted the heated discussion.  “Hey, where’s Stalemate?”

A hush fell over everyone as we froze -- then slowly turned around in recognition, only to find that Stalemate wasn’t anywhere in sight.  Dizzy didn’t wait for any more discussion, and instead bolted out the door.  Hard on Dizzy’s heels (hooves?) we bounded into the front room of the general store.  It was empty as well.  There were several more possibilities, but right now, Stalemate was gone and so were our caps.  Why he’d do something so childish was beyond my comprehension, but I knew that there was only one other place he could reasonably spend them in town.  Short of skipping out of town, he’d be at the inn.

Standing in the lobby and slightly short of breath, the party broke into little conversations of abrupt ideas of where to go. It seemed everyone had reached the same conclusion, or got there pretty quickly as soon as somepony yelled ‘the inn!’ and then a chorus of agreement before we bolted towards the door and the square. 

The first one out the door was Dizzy, and he must’ve been thinking about pounding Stalemate’s face in more than running, because his back hoof got caught on the threshold of the door, causing him to sprawl out and fall on the entryway.  Not expecting the obstruction, I tripped over Dizzy, which tripped Page, then Wingnut. Only Ash was standing in the lobby, but not for long, as she fell over laughing from watching all us tip over like fuzzy dominoes. 

I could barely hear a wheezy groan from Dizzy, as the remaining air in his lungs was pushed out from the force of the ponypile. One by one we got up, and there were more than a few yelps as legs and ribs were bruised from hooves trying to find solid ground again.  This will be an absolute miracle if we make it more than a week.  Friggin MTI’s would have loved to have seen us breach that doorway.  Quickly but with a greater respect for single-file running, we departed Copper’s for the Inn.

Morningside was was so thrilled to see us barge through the door that there was a shotgun up in our faces before I managed to get a word out.  I wasn’t sure how she was managing to talk around the gun in her teeth, but I was sure glad she managed without pulling the trigger.

“You had better think real hard about charging right into my establishment while armed to the teeth.  You start any trouble and I will end you.  I’ll make the survivors mop the place afterwords, got it?”

She stared me down and made it clear that the shotgun wasn’t leaving that annoying spot between my eyes until I gave a satisfactory answer.  “Yeah, I got it, boss.”

As she slipped the shotgun onto her back, I sat down and let out a whooshing breath and rubbed my forehead roughly.  Ash was probably gonna hate Morningside for a while, but I was just glad that no shells or slugs went through my skull.  Seeing as I was not despised enough to be shot, I figured a question wouldn’t be out of the question.

“Hey, Morningside, have you seen a purple unicorn buck in here?”

“Funny you should ask.  He’s in the next room.”

Morningside pointed toward the room past the the stairs, and we thundered along.  It’s kind of amazing just how much noise the hooves of five ponies makes on hard floors.  There weren’t many patrons inside, but those who were present barely even looked up.  Of course they were used to the noise, but for me it was grating.

I was expecting Stalemate to pop up and react to us charging into the room.  Perhaps he’d jump up and try to run before we piled on him, or he would be expecting us and be ready to run, or perhaps he would have some sort of good reason that we needed to hear.  He did none of those.  For that matter, he paid no attention to us whatsoever as we charged in and skidded to a stop.

The room was almost empty, with only a small table about the size of something I’d like to see on the end of a sofa near the window.  On one side of the table sat Stalemate, his rump against the floor as he poured over the chessboard.  I knew this face all too well: it was like running into him while he was still in a chess tournament.  His expression was utterly blank, his breathing was all-too-calm, and even his body was still.  Across the table sat another unicorn, boasting a white coat so smeared with dirt that I thought it was beige until I saw the few clean spots.  Atop his head was a mass of black mane held in place by a worn stetson hat, or whatever it was called in this place, and on his flank was a tin can with a cap resting on it.

He was frowning, which was the usual expression anyone had while playing Stalemate at chess.  That certainly was chess, no doubt about it -- an eight-by-eight black and white grid board with pieces carved from wood.  The white side had Celestia as the king with guards as her pawns, and a myriad of other pieces I didn’t recognize as the bishops, rooks, and knights.  Luna ruled over the black pieces, again with her guards making up the bulk of the pieces, and more pieces that probably meant a lot more to somepony a few hundred years back.  Two more things were readily apparent: Stalemate had almost exactly the same number of pieces on the board than the stranger did, and our bag of caps was on the floor next to the table beside several more bags that were spilling caps on the floor.

“What the fuck are you--”

I cut off Dizzy with a foreleg.  There was no doubt that Stalemate needed quiet and focus for the time being, and we could reprimand him for being an idiot later.  If he won, and really was betting everything it looked like, we’d be doing a lot better.  This would be shooting fish in a barrel.  Dead fish, with a bazooka.  Two minutes passed with Page and Wingnut making small talk before the stranger moved, prompting an immediate move by Stalemate who slouched back wearing a triumphant grin.  As his telekinesis faded out, he spoke one word.

“Checkmate.”





The other unicorn stared for a few moments, frown turning into a gaping jaw.  “No!  That can’t be!  You cheated!”

“No,” countered Stalemate, “you lost.  And you’re trying to cover it up with protests.  That won’t work, now hand over the caps.”

“Hand over?” asked the unicorn with some confusion.

“Hoof over!” yelled Stalemate, holding out his foreleg.

“No, you’re trying to rob me!”  The other unicorn stood, and seized two of the bags on the ground in his magic.  Curiously, he left one of them on the floor next to our bag, which Stalemate scooped up.  Before I could process the thought, the stranger charged right at us, running headlong with the caps in tow.

“Oh no you don’t!” hollered Dizzy as he threw himself toward the unicorn.  Page, Ash, Wingnut and I all spread to fill the doorway.  Whoever this prick was, he wasn’t about to get away.

The unicorn ran headlong into Dizzy who simply collapsed on the smaller pony.  They fell to the floor in a heap of flailing legs and wings, and Stalemate ran in to kick his dishonorable opponent while gently explaining his fury.

“You cheating piece of shit!  I am going to take back the caps you owe me and then beat you until you’re more purple than me!”

One more good kick landed on the stranger’s ribs and I winced a little.  They were taking this payback thing just a little too far.  I opened my mouth to tell them to cut it out and just take their caps back, but I was silenced by a bright flash of magic.  When the light faded, Stalemate and Dizzy were in a pile together, minus their victim.  In that moment, light flashed somewhere behind me with a whooshing noise as the air displaced.

“Ha!” cried the unicorn as he sprinted out of the common room.

“Tin Tack you scoundrel, get back here!” hollered Morningside to no avail.  The door hung open, still swinging from the force Tack imparted to it as he ran through.  There was no way I’d be catching him unless I figured out how to fly in the next five seconds.  Instead, I turned to see Dizzy and Stalemate getting to their hooves, and Stalemate dourly picking up the two bags of caps that he had.

“Well, at least I kept some of them.  So I guess you guys are probably wondering why I grabbed your caps and ran?”  I nodded.  That was an understatement, but it would do for now.  “Well, I saw this guy earlier at lunch, and picked him out for who he was, and knew you’d never let me clean him out if I asked, so I took matters upon myself.  And see?  Now I have about two hundred caps, like double what we used to have.”

“That’s great, Stalemate, but what did you do?”

“Well, after I got the gun, I lifted your caps, then went over to the inn to find Tin Trash still here.  He went into a predictable pattern of losing a few caps to me over board games to try and lure me into a false sense of confidence, and I let him.  Then, after we have even amounts, he went ahead and bet everything, and I took him apart for real.  That’s when you bounded in, and he cheated.”

Morningside sighed as she walked into the room.  “Yes, I’m sorry you had to meet Tin Tack.  I’m not quite sure how he hasn’t been thrown out of town yet, but I keep booting him out the door every time he sets hoof in my inn.  He begs for what caps he can, and cons what he can’t off travelers and the less intelligent locals.  It’s safe to say you’re not going to be finding him, and I can’t get you your caps back.”

“I can’t really complain.  After all, we did double them off his ungrateful hide.”  I tried to sound cheerful, but Stalemate wasn’t having it.

“No, that fucker cheated!”

I wound up a hoof, and lightly punched Stalemate in the side.  “Well, that’s just how it goes, I’m afraid.  If we run into him again, I promise I’ll let you do the talking.”

“Stalemate, you got your cutiemark!”  Ash pointed at his rump, and smiled before clicking her hooves together in glee.  There stood was a white knight clashing against a black king, both firmly etched into the purple of his flank.

His brows furrowed for a moment, then a little more as his face shifted from confusion to anger.  “I got my what?”

“Look at your ass.”  Dizzy pointed at Stalemate’s flank, and Stalemate turned to look it some curious mix of bewilderment and horror.  “It means that, by some of Celestia’s grace, you don’t suck at something.”

“Wait, this means I have like some kind of knack for this, right?”  Stalemate turned around several time, looking at both sides and finding it to his liking.  With each look back and forth, his grin grew wider.

“Yes, chess is apparently your special talent.  Or maybe games, we already knew you were good at chess though.  Too bad it couldn’t have been something a little more useful, like a rifle, or a grenade, or maybe a swooning mare.”

“But I got mine first out of all of you!  That means I’m better!  Or smarter, or something awesome!  You should all call me Checkmate now.  And I got us caps!”  He held up the second plastic bag, just as full of caps as ours.  “I won that off him the first few games when he was trying to play me up, and he didn’t manage to grab it when he ran.”

“I dunno,” sniggered Dizzy.  “Perhaps I’ll just call you ‘Purple Smart.’”

That earned a round of laughter from all present, and I suspected that despite Stalemate’s protests, his new nickname would stick.  It was still better than ‘Fluffy’ in my opinion.  

“Come to think of it, my glyph mark is built in!”  Page interjected as the excitement was still dying down.  “But since we’re on the topic, I don’t really know what it means yet.  I bet you… Actually, I don’t bet you anything, but I think I’m supposed to figure out what it means or something!  What do you all think?”  He turned to show off his flank, which sported a swirl of sorts, with a trio of single-barbed arrows curling around the outer edge.

I honestly had no idea what to make of it.  Zebras had some other governance that was not explained as far as I knew, and guessing at it wasn’t likely to come up with the right answer.  “I dunno, Page.  Maybe if we run into some other Zebra, we can ask later.”

Stalemate would flaunt that cutiemark, despite it being a representation of everything that he hated in life.  I couldn’t blame him.  He needed something to hold onto, anything to keep his wits together in the wasteland.  We all did, and he had found it.  For him especially, this world is exceptionally foreign.

I wasn’t going to begrudge him it, though it got me thinking as to what my solace might be.  The answer came to mind relatively quickly, in the form of a gray unicorn still trading banter against Stalemate with a smile on her face.  I could stare and stare and stare, and pass away days and nights with her in my eyes.  Yet life seemed bent on throwing me something else to get in the way every last time we got close together.  Ironically, the wastes had been the most time we’d been able to spend within a hundred miles of each other for the better part of a year.  Not much use in dwelling on that, but at least there was one way to be optimistic.

It was in the aftermath of the chaos of having guns shoved in our faces and panic over lost money that we found ourselves waiting the rest of the afternoon at Radheart’s clinic.  With time to kill, Dizzy and I had decided to try to figure out the aberration that was the flying horse.  By clambering up onto the sagging and low-slung rear section of the clinic’s roof, we could slowly make our way up and over the arch and glide off the top of the building.  ‘Glide’ was a relative term, and each of us had planted our faces in the dirt a dozen times that afternoon.  If anyone dared to use the term ‘like riding a bike’ I was going to chuck them off the roof.

Eventually we gave up on flying practice after our legs, muzzles, wings...hell, everything got scraped up and ached in one fashion or another.  There wasn’t much more to be said for falling ten or fifteen feet out of the air.  Once I’d made it as far as the middle of the square and flapped hard enough to shake myself completely upside down before slamming to the ground.

Being in the air, even for moments, was a chance to get a different view on what everyone else was doing while we were busy.  As far as I could tell, Page, Stalemate, and Ash were off practicing magic by the inn, lifting objects and manipulating them in creative ways.  Every now and again a flare of bright light would erupt and I would wince a little at the sight.  I just hoped they’d ready to fight later.  Page had already burned himself out once or twice practicing, and judging by the random shouts, it didn’t feel nice either. I didn’t have much of a choice but to trust their judgement.  Wingnut, by comparison, was shifting between watching Dizzy and I crash, and being entranced by the pretty magic colors of the other three.

At some point enough was enough, and we all cut our losses to go back inside and pack our saddlebags for the trip ahead.


----------------------------------------


Ash found her way to my cot at some point during the night.  It was a dark hour that I would have normally reached for my watch out of a compulsive need to know the time when I woke, but I had no timepiece.  I don’t know why losing something as trivial as my watch was bothering me so much, but it was just another something to reinforce the reality that we were hopelessly far from home.  Put it at the bottom of an endless list of such things.  Uneasy, I took Ash in my forelegs.  There wasn’t anything in her touch that wanted more than just to be held and looked after.  I was fine with that, but wasn’t long for the waking world either.  So I held her as the night continued its weary walk over the wastes and slowly drifted back to the sweet void of sleep.

There were dreams in that void, to be sure, but they were not whole.  Flakey, piecemeal little things that the subconscious dragged out of the rain and into my house to throw onto the rug for my approval.  Some things were missing all their color, others their sound, and still others were devoid of sight entirely.  Definitively, all of them lacked every form of emotion, as if I were a computer watching the event unfold.  A raider fell onto a chainsaw under me.  I pulled him up.  I wiped the blood off.  Wingnut screamed as his wings were shorn off his back.  Oops.  Stalemate ran off with our money.  Come back here, you scrawny miscreant.  I chased after him and found myself in a car. I was driving with hooves.  We watched as a crackling ball of plasma overtook it, and shook me awake.

I must have shuddered or moved, because Ash woke too.  She groaned, then shifted around a little, then pulled one of my forelegs over her tighter.  I resisted the urge to grumble as she dozed off again.  Dreams never really made any sense after I awoke.


----------------------------------------


Morning came too soon, as it always did.  Being a morning person, or pony, wasn’t about enjoying getting up when the alarm rang.  It was more of a state of functioning, a body that behaved a lot more like a battery than a person.  Right after charging it, you’d get the highest voltage off the rails.  Just like charging that battery, sleep was like plugging me in, and so for the few hours after getting up I’d be the most energetic and observant.  Again, that didn’t mean I liked getting up.

“Wake up down there!” hollered Radheart from the top of the stairs.  “You’re lucky that I’m feeding you idiots today!”

At the word ‘feeding,’ Ash was gone.  That was not fair!  Ponies should not be able to move that quickly.  I clutched at the empty space where she’d been, missing her warmth and comfort, then sighed and slid out of bed.  A heartbeat passed before my hooves slammed into the floor.  This time, no one came to my aid to steady me, but I didn’t need help.  Yes!  Three days, and I can get out of bed!

All that joy was short lived as Wingnut and Page ran right past me and Stalemate staggered along growling at all that was good in life.  For once I agreed with him.

“Don’t you wish they would just trip and fall every now and again?”

“Dom, I just want out.  I don’t really care what’s going on, who hurts, or what we’re doing.  I can’t take this nightmare any longer.  I want to be home, I’ve got to have hands, I need to go back to my life.  Niceties like food, a warm bed, and chess don’t make this place anything better than the worst few days of my life.  No dream could go on this long, so I’ve had to accept that we’re actually here,” Stalemate began to quiver.  “And that we’re gonna go get into a gunfight in just a few hours!  How the hell did you get us into that?  I’m a chemist, not a soldier!”

“Sawyer, I’m not enjoying this any more than you are.  It’s not some sort of fantasy I’d enjoy.  In my perfect version of this, there’s more food, less trudging through cold hills, and far less getting shot at.  Oh, and you wouldn’t be here.”

“That sounds a lot nicer.”

We started up the stairs, taking them slowly to avoid a repeat of the last few days.  

“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m just trying to get us back.  There isn’t exactly a manual on how to do it, you know.”

“Whatever.”

That was probably all I’d be getting out of him for a while, as everyone else was just one room over in the kitchen.  Page and Wingnut were eating heartily, but Dizzy wasn’t touching anything.  Radheart hung onto him with a grin, trying to feed him with spoon.  He wasn’t having any of it, but that sure didn’t stop her from trying.  Ash was looking longingly at what was probably going to be my bowl.

Radheart had prepared some kind of porridge for us, and two ceramic bowls of it were left out on the table, still frothy and steaming.  The table was low to the ground, just the right height for everypony to sit on the floor and reach their food.  It seemed so much more ergonomic than chairs.  Conversely, sticking my face into the bowl seemed outright barbaric.  Rather than stare at the light-brown goop with its enticing steam rising into my nostrils, hinting at grainy goodness below...awww fuckit.

Covering my snout with gruel was not how I wanted to start my day or present myself to the town, so I opted for trying to lick it up.  Eating like a cat simply wasn’t meant for other creatures, and with each lap I got just enough to taste the salty, wheaty mush.  It was good!  And I was ever so hungry.  The bowl beckoned, telling me to just go for it and devour.

“If you don’t eat it, I’m giving your portion to somepony else,” threatened Radheart.

The bowl lit up with a cherry-red glow, and slowly started to slide along the table with a scraping noise.  It got almost a quarter of the way over to Ash before I growled, grabbed the edges, and dragged it back.  

Time to cave.  The bowl filled most of my vision as my muzzle went several inches deep into the porridge.  As soon as my face entered the mush, Ash sighed and let go.  Eating became as simple as sucking up the food and making sure it didn’t go down the wrong pipe.  In seconds I had finished the entire bowl and sat back up, trying to lick the mess off my face.  Across the table, Stalemate looked at me with some amusement as he levitated another glob up to his face.

“Having fun now, horn-head?” I demanded.

He daintily chewed, then swallowed, and answered with a ghost of a smile.  “A little, yes.”

The remainder of breakfast went by quickly, and all too soon we were strapping on saddlebags, checking weapons, and heading out the door.  The morning air was cold and refreshing, complimenting the early sunrise.  Alpine was not just waking, but ready to move.  Farmers left their homes, sporting rifles in their mouths and on saddles, everypony bidding husbands or wives goodbye at the door and walking away steel-faced.  The echoes of the tears of children and loved ones staying behind could be heard, and I cried with them on the inside.  I couldn’t promise that all of them were coming back, and they knew it too.  Radheart must have seen me shudder, because she stopped me as everyone else went forward into the square.

“You know Rainfall has been looking for a good reason to clear those raiders out for a long time, and so have the townsfolk.  It’s them or us, and you can’t afford to worry about any more than your own.”

“Right.”  I’d have my hooves full taking care of my friends, assuming that I could even control that.  Radheart was correct, of course, but that didn’t change the enormity of what was taking place.  Up ahead, Rainfall was standing in the center of the gathered villagers giving some kind of motivational speech.  I didn’t care about a word of it.  I was only looking at the five ponies gathered on the edge of the crowed.

Stalemate stood twirling his BB gun out of boredom.  He was looking over several of the local mares, and right now I wasn’t about to stop him.  Page was paying rapt attention to Rainfall, as if drawing some kind of inspiration from the mechanic turned mayor.  Wingnut shifted about uncomfortably next to Page, shooting covert glances at the villagers. There was Dizzy, checking over his rifle once more, making sure that if everything else went to hell that he’d still have something to shoot with.  His dark, leathery wings were more than enough to cause the locals to steer clear of him.  Ash stood next to him, staying close for warmth.  That was where I needed to be.  Without further mind, I trotted up next to her and nuzzled up against her other side, earning a warm hum from her.

“...and when we return, Alpine will be safe for all!  Let us march out and meet them, kill them, and prove that honest living is what ponies will fight and die for!”

Rainfall finished his speech amid cheers and thunderous stomping of hooves.  After a few moments, the revel died down and he led the crowd out toward the town wall and the gate at the far end.  I shivered and hunched my saddlebags firmly over my bag, savoring the spot underneath them that was free from the chill breeze blowing down from the mountains.  We fell into the back of the mob, following Radheart away from the one safe place we’d come to know.


----------------------------------------


Three hours later, the mountains seemed closer, but still deceptively out of reach.  Mid-morning had not yet left the land, and the eternal gray above held the light at near-dusk and obscured any sense of time.  Heavy fog covered the range’s expanse, so thick that it may as well have just been clouds that descended from the heights and coalesced to obscure the road ahead.  The fog just sat there, waiting, wisps breaking off the edges like snow in a river.   Far out into the low-lying white sea, the snowy caps of their taller rocky brethren poked through the mists.  Somewhere in that swath lay an entire camp of raiders, bored and waiting for us to show up.  Yet on we went.

The trail had been a constant change between the ravines and the ridges, for when the path along one could go no further, we had to change our route.  It was a never ending game of pushing towards a goal that we could never approach straight, but following the guide at the front of our group was the best we could do.  Small comfort came in noting that none of us were tripping consistently.  Even though Stalemate, Ash, Dizzy, and myself had all tripped once at some point along the way, it was a good deal less than two days before.  Still, there was no avoiding the stares of the townsponies.  Somewhere along the way I’d heard all the usual drivel about ‘strangers’ and ‘raiders’ in reference to one or more of us, but even more amusing was hearing the pegasus racial slurs.  Or species slurs.  Whatever they were, it made me laugh.  I had no deep pegapride burning in me that being called a feather-duster, a buzzard, or feather-fuck could hurt.

I’d tried talking with a few of them, but apparently the mistrust ran deep enough that they’d held their silence until I’d given up and left.  Behind me, Ash, Stalemate, and Dizzy were all trudging along in silence, and years experience told me that they didn’t want another soul interrupting their thoughts.  Up ahead, Page and Wingnut were trading banter and jabs at each other, but there was not enough room on the path next to them.  I was getting bored and restless, and honestly just wanted someone to dump the churning contents of my brain onto before they burned a hole through the bottom of my skull and leaked into my throat.  I was walking toward a firefight in a body I’d reached child-levels of mastery with, toting a rifle very likely eight times as old as myself, and planning to fight with my back up against ponies who hated me.  All of that was whirling around my head and needed a place to get dropped off.  Since my friends were out, and the villagers were out, that just left one other pony.

Radheart was a dozen paces ahead of Page and Wingnut, whom I dashed around as soon as they hit a point in the trail just barely wider than two ponies.  Rocks crunched and soil spread under my hooves as I thundered forward and tried to skid to a stop next to the doctor.  Tried.  Instead I slid, lost my balance, and sprawled into the dirt.

“Smooth.”  Radheart giggled and helped lift me up.

I growled, shaking off the pain.  “Just practicing my moves for the upcoming fight.”

“Sure, sure.  So what’s going on?”

“Well, needed to ask somepony a few questions, and you didn’t look busy, or like you want to push me off the next ridge.”

“Oh I wouldn’t dream of doing that.  Somepony has to stand and take bullets for me, and I need my Dizzy in one piece.”

I bit my lip and pushed forward, making sure not to trip over a protruding root.  “So, after all we gave you about ourselves yesterday, I was hoping I could hear a bit about how you became the town doctor?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked!  You see, I was born an ignorant filly in stable forty-two, and my whole life I was utterly convinced I would live and die there.  When our overmare had a bad estrus day, she threw several pretty filles out of the stable who were banging the stallions she fancied.  Once out of the stable, we were forced into a desperate existence of fighting for every scrap of food we had and learning to fight with weapons we never had to touch before.  Only through my medical training did we hold together for long enough to realize that there was a greater meaning to our existence, and that we had to use our new skills and friendships to help the wasteland.  It was also in that time that I found that every last friend I had was gay.”  She shrugged.  “It helped keep the loneliness at bay on the long walks across the northern tundras, and really helped to have somepony warm to hold onto when it was cold.  They died one by one as we pitted ourselves against greater and greater foes in order to bring peace and prosperity to all, and when none were left save for myself, I settled down in Alpine to use my medical knowledge and help others as best as I could.”

At some point along her narrative, my mind had decided to listen solely to her, rather than focusing on my hoof placement, and I stumbled again.  “Wait, really?”

“No.  I was born in Alpine, and got apprenticed to Hock, the old doctor.  When he died, he passed the clinic on to me, and I’ve been working there since.  The end.”

I couldn’t help it, and let out a chuckle as she petulantly pointed out how quickly her story sailed over my head.  Perhaps if I could just look past the part where she was prostituting my best friend, I might warm up to her a little.  It just might work.

“And Rainfall?”

“A childhood rival, and the town mechanic.  He’s held the generator together with tape and pine tar long enough to keep us going, and he negotiated with neighboring towns to get the parts we needed to fix it.  Hence why he’s also the mayor.”

“Not exactly what I was asking for.  What’s your deal with him?”

“His family and mine have some old dispute over farm property.  If I remember it right, his dad and my dad lost track over who borrowed a shovel from whom at one point, and it turned into an unfriendly, unforgiving game of ‘steal it back.’  Since then, there haven't really been any smiles between us.  It seems pointless, but I can’t make up for it.”

“And now?”

“Now I help the town as the doctor, like I always have.  And I’m here because odds are we’ll need one.”

“Yeah...about that.  Raiders don’t really seem to like to go quietly.  And you’re somehow convinced that it’s a good idea for us to be here?”

“Aside from Rainfall forcing you into this and the townsfolk demanding it?  Not really.  Especially with Wingnut being just off the operating table.  But while you’re here, you may as well try your best.  It might help you come back in one piece.  Now, you told me how you got here, but since you have more than enough of my life story, what do I get of yours?”

I grumbled at the dirt.  “Can that wait until after we get done being shot at?  For all my life I dreamed about it, but it doesn’t sound quite as much fun now that I’m walking toward it.”

“You’ve never had to do anything like this before?”

“No, I had to go through some training where I ran through a fake town and shot at paper cutouts with fake guns.  That was four years ago, and then I learned to be a computer guy.  I’m not a deft hand--hoof, excuse me, with a gun, but rather just familiar.  And no, I’ve never been in a gunfight.  So I’m not exactly relishing the thought of it.  I’ve seen what raiders do, and there is nothing nice or friendly about it.”

“No, there’s not.  But that’s why what you’re about to do is the right thing.  It’s not nice or glorious, and it could really hurt, but it’s going to help a lot of good ponies.  And it might even help you a lot too.  Take comfort in that.”

“Trust me, I have seen firsthand what raiders can do, getting them out of the wasteland is a good thing for everyone.”  Radheart’s eyebrows lifted at the reference to human appendages and I made yet another mental note to use proper local terminology.

“Can I ask you a question about Dizzy?” Radheart’s voice dropped, losing its usual cheer, as her eyes found the ground.

“Sure?”

“When I first spent the night with him he seemed rather quiet, I attributed that towards almost losing a friend, but he still seems so…distant.  Is that just who he is?”

I looked towards the sky, thinking.  I shifted my weight to sling the rifle a little more evenly on my back, somehow managing not to trip.  After a while I found words.  “We are all in a weird place, in different bodies, and one of us almost died.  But most of all, he killed a pony, not with a gun, but with his bare hooves.  And yes, he can be downright cold if he’s in the mood for it.  It’s more often than not just how he is.”

“I’m not sure...I’ve never seen a buck that unhappy to get rutted.”

I sighed.  “Radheart, you’re not going to like the answer.”

“Try me.”

“Very well.  I know he wouldn’t bed a mare short of the most honorable intentions.  The sole reason you talked him into your room is because he had to choose between that and being the reason one of his friends wouldn’t live to see the next day.”

Silence held us as Radheart looked away.  Only the sounds of the hoof-falls of dozens of ponies echoed over the landscape now as we marched forward into the mist.







Sky Sage: Level Two (50% to next level)

Here’s to hoping for the best.


Adonicus: Level Two (50% to next level)

I’m going to have to kill again...


Ashen Shield: Level Two (50% to next level)

This is only one step down from a suicide mission.  That’s hardly comforting.


Stalemate: Level Three

I will teach Tin Tack manners one day.  One day.

Perk: Ass-tattoo...Butt-Brand...err...cutiemark.  Whatever.
Your butt has a picture on both sides.  Yippee.  This clearly means you’re better than everyone else.  Also, you now feel like you have an edge whenever you need to outmaneuver an opponent.
+1 INT and +1 LUCK when dealing with board games or tactics


Page Gemwright: Level Two (50% to next level)

I can’t die now, there’s far too much to lose. Do anything to keep moving ahead.

Perk: Glyphmark
You’ve realized that you have a pair of strange marks on your sides. They seem so intrinsically familiar that you’re ashamed to admit not knowing what they mean...

Wingnut: Level Two

Life is like a boxing match, you won’t last long if you can’t roll with the punches.
> Chapter 6: The Front
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Front



If you can’t bedazzle them with badassery, bamboozle them with bullshit.


Sky Sage
Day Three, Noon


The last thing that I would ever want to do far away from home was get into a fight.  There were just too many unknowns.  What was I up against?  Who would come to help?  What could I fall back on, and where would I go?  Where was the hospital?  What if the locals had a different code of honor than I did?  What if I lost?  Would I be treated with mercy?  Or would I be beaten, robbed, or murdered?  How would I get home?  Would I even survive?

That last question was the only one that really held any sway in my mind at the moment, even over why the fuck am I curled up next to a raider carcass?  The answer to that question was one I could have sworn I’d answered all too recently.  Was that one barrel or two?  Leaning with my back against a large wooden crate, I shivered at the sound of the raider buck cackling.

“C’mere, birdy...birdy-birdy-birdy…” His voice broke and squeaked like a bucket of nails dumped into a half broken piano.  At least it was just one raider talking.  The other still grinned at me, bleeding and dead.  How I’d missed the one in the bathroom was now a moment of mental face-hoofing.  Always clear before moving forward!

Having the trigger mechanism for the carbine in my mouth was strong incentive to not banter back at him.  The warrior said nothing, for his mouth was full.  There had to be ten or twelve rounds left in my magazine.  I’d had at least that many when I charged up the stairs.  I’d fired just one more, but couldn’t remember how much I had left in total.  Why the hell did I run up here?!

The rush of blood in my ears was interrupted as I heard the snick of a weapon action moving.  That was all the cue I needed.

The raider buck was freakishly underweight, teal, and sported a disgusting blood-spiked-mane. His head was tilting to one side as he pointed the shotgun right at me with his teeth.  The open action I’d heard belonged to a pistol he was levitating in the air as he tried to load another magazine.  It clattered to the ground as he took aim.

I was far too slow to get my gun up before I was staring down twin barrels.  They both faded into a blur as the post centered in my sight.

The trigger depressed easily, and I felt the kick as the carbine pushed back into my cheek, mouth, and shoulder.  Then the second kick happened.  There was no way so many little lines of white-hot pain could run over my legs and lower barrel this easily and be the kick from my own gun.  That pain was crippling and fatiguing; my vision blurred as I howled from around the grip of my carbine.  Red quickly followed the blur, and black followed the red, licking the edges of my sight as I felt my legs let go and drop me to the ground.  No!


----------------------------------------


Day Three, Mid-Morning

The mist from the morning twilight had made our trek through the mountains a special kind of exhausting.  The air had been cool and damp the whole way, soaking my coat and those around me within minutes of our departure.  As long as our pace had been kept to a forced march, we’d avoided the worst of the cold.  Heck, it was almost warm on some of the uphill stretches, but that was a brutal pace to be holding for more than a few hours.  Even if there was no credence to the old legends of Windigos, I could almost imagine that one was following us now, keeping just far enough behind to hide its braying underneath the ever-present moaning of the wind.

Eventually, the old and the young among us had slowed down.  The cold had finally caught up to us.  It started by clinging onto my limbs and sinking through the meagre protection of my coat and gradually numbing everything underneath.  At times I’d shake it off just far enough to regain the aching feeling in my legs.  Then, there was something in the middle: a dull and throbbing in my bones -- underneath the skin just a little bit too deep to care.

Judging by how long we’d been walking, I reckoned it was about noon. Despite my constant searching, the sky yielded no answers.  Everything had been shrouded in a veil of mist from the moment we’d entered the mountains.  Actually, veil was probably the wrong word.  Something more like overcoat would be more fitting.  Everything was a cool gray, and I could only see a dozen paces in any direction.

The group’s travel had been reduced to following the tail of the pony directly ahead, and then the rump in front of that, until all the way up front somewhere there was a trapper who spent most of her days in the mountains.  Supposedly she knew the way; at least Radheart assured me of that much.  I hoped she’d make it through the fight -- we would have a heck of a time returning without a guide.  Everypony wanted to be returning home afterwards, and we were certainly no exception.

At first, I’d tried to memorize the path we took in high hopes of remembering the way back to Alpine, but I gave up after the second hour of the trek.  Without any landmarks in view save for the slippery grass, wet rocks, and damp hillside underneath my hooves, I had no idea where I was going at all, much less where I had been.

Inside the fog, all conversation was muted.  I’m sure that occasional phrases passed among the villagers, but everything became unnervingly quiet and nondescript in the gray cloud that was our world.  My friends talked with each other from time to time, but for the most part everyone marched silently, each with hopes of fighting for what little warmth they could.  As the hours passed, everything began to remind me of the chill.  From my matted coat and mane to the chafing straps on my saddle and carbine, everything was rubbing me like frosty sandpaper.  The weight of the weapon over my back was a constant anchor to reality, reminding me that I would be using it sometime in the next few hours.

For that matter, just how far away was the raider base anyway?  It’d been a long time since breakfast, and climbing up and down the hills and rocks had left me hungry.  If I was hungry, then Ash was probably ready to eat another pony.  A novel concept, really.  Weren’t the raiders the first one to come up with that idea?

As much as I didn’t want to go into a fight on an empty stomach, it was probably better not to have a whole bunch of stuff to chuck up once the adrenaline started pumping.  Nor did I want all the blood that needed to be in my limbs busy digesting my food.  In that manner, half of me hoped for food before we fought and the other half didn’t want anything.

This internal battle raged on for so long that I immersed myself into it -- placing myself as the judge to decide among which random internal factions would be heard. Each side shouted and pleaded, and worse, both sides made sense!  Gah!  You’d think I’d have schizophrenia with all of the voices.  Ultimately, the judge decided that ‘no food’ was best for the whole.  Half of my voices cheered, while the others sulked away in defeat, but in this moment of internal realization, I walked headlong into the rump of the farmer in front of me, slipped on the grass, and fell as one whole hungry heap of pony.

“Ok, everyone, we’re about fifteen minutes away.”  Rainfall’s voice was muffled by the cloud, so I only caught bits and pieces of whatever else he said.  Something about loading guns and getting ready.  I figured that was probably the right thing to do.  After more than a little struggle with getting the carbine off my back -- stupid fucking wet fur -- I managed to get it up in front of me.

A mouth-wieldable firearm was something that made me twist my head in confusion.  How the heck would a weapon that was held so close to your face fire without jaw-bruising recoil, massive aim corrections, or getting spent brass and hot gas in your face?  The recoil issue was apparent enough, as the carbine itself had a stock that braced against my ‘shoulder.’  The stock alone could be considered a small work of art, as it was horribly lopsided like the ‘L’ piece in tetris, with the odd block that stuck out placed use for support.  The mouth grip was on the opposite side of the L-block, and padded so thickly that I worried if it all was necessary.  I assumed that by bracing both together, I could keep the whole contraption somewhat steady.  It will be a miracle if I can fire this and live, I silently mused to myself.

Gingerly, I bit down on the century-old grip, taking the tired, aged piece and lining it up with my teeth.  There were several spots designed for molars which seemed to line up roughly with mine.  Nothing was a perfect match, but it would have to do.  Fitting this whole arrangement into the singular space of my mouth was awkward to say the least. I bit my tongue once or twice as I shifted the contraption roughly with my shoulder, and the whole apparatus jutted awkwardly against my right cheek.

On top of it all, there was this thick piece of hard rubber that I was supposed to stick my tongue under and lift in order to shoot. Equestria definitely had a unique version of a fingerless trigger.  I could already imagine how tiring it would be to depress a lever with my tongue five hundred times.  I don’t even want to know what five hundred rounds’ worth of recoil would feel like in my jaw.  The sights were a typical peep and post setup, except the sights sat squarely in the middle of my vision.  I shook slightly back and forth, trying to move the weapon slightly to the right against my shoulder without losing the mouthgrip that I had worked so hard to arrange.  Success!  Over the span of a solid two minutes, I finally was holding my gun correctly.  There was no real telling if it sighted in or not, and if so, how far off it would be.  Perhaps this was the technical definition of crapshoot.

I took a moment to look back at the rest of our party, and silently hoped that they were faring better than I was.  Page was levitating the pistol rather than holding it in his mouth and was waving it back and forth silently with his magic.  He nodded when I looked back, and sighted the glowing revolver it in front of his face on a rock at the edge of the fog.  I just hope he can hang onto it once he fires…  

Dizzy was working the action of his rifle back and forth without really looking down at it, and I figured he was just trying to get very familiar with that motion.  He gave a little scowl every time he wrenched the bolt open.  Wingnut bounced around on his hooves a bit, occasionally bucking slightly onto his rear legs. The shotgun he wielded in his jaw was aimed out into the distance aiming at nothing but the heavy fog.

Ash was very pointedly sitting on the opposite side of me from Radheart.  Defusing that battle seemed like something that would have to wait for after the gunfight, if ever.  The only member of our ragged crew not nearby was Stalemate.  He sat next to some farm-mare, doing his darndest to chat her up.  I wasn’t exactly studied in pony psychology, but I was pretty sure the tail waving was more than friendly.  The longer I looked, the more sure I was going to break it up after the fight.  We didn’t need to be dealing with the Alpine equivalent of child support.

“Sage, where the fuck are you?” called out Rainfall from somewhere in the front.

Here, but it’s fucking hard to yell back with a gun in my mouth!  I managed to stop making noises before I embarrassed myself, lost the grip on the gun, or shot somepony’s face off.  It’s hard to see around this thing too.  Now armed literally to the teeth and my saddlebags firmly back over me, I stood up and looked around for Rainfall.  He was there alright, one hoof above his eyes in a pointless gesture to see in the low light of the fog.  He spotted me the moment I stood, and beckoned furiously for me to get over to where he was standing.  

The herd watched as I walked through their midst.  Here was the pony who had indirectly dragged them all the way out here.  A feathered fuck who couldn’t figure out how to hold his gun and was slipping on the grass of a mountain meadow.  At least I figured it was a meadow, hard to tell under all the mist.  Rainfall no longer wore the annoyed grin I’d seen him sporting in Alpine.  Now, it was a small worried frown, one that didn’t leave me feeling very confident either.

“Alright, Sage.  Guess who’s going in first.”

“Oh, that sure took a lot of guessing.  Mind filling me in on where we’re going and what your plan is?”

“Sure, are they coming with?”

I turned to see Dizzy, Page, and Stalemate.  I didn’t have to walk up to the unknown alone.

Rainfall, along with the trapper, a yellow earth mare named Spring, led us up the next ridge.  As they got closer to the top, both of them slowed their gait, and chose their steps carefully as to stand on patches of dirt rather than rocks, keeping the clacking of their hooves from sounding.  Following in their steps was hard when I hard to turn my entire head, plus gun, to see where to plant my hooves.  It was a long and difficult set of switchbacks...wait, switchbacks?  Why were we on a trail?

There wasn’t any fooling myself on that part.  We were clearly on a path, thin and barely worn into the weeds on the side of the hill, but it was there.  As if that weren’t enough to keep me alert, the mist began to rise, or rather, we rose above it.  The ridge we were traversing was the first mountain feature in many miles to rise above the mist, but it wasn’t the last.  Up ahead, Rainfall and Spring were crouched, crawling along the ground as they neared the top of the ridge.  I followed their example, and heard the scuffing noises as everyone else did the same.  After enough time of dragging my coat through the almost-mud, I poked my head over the top of the ridge.

“Look there,” whispered Spring.  “North Watchtower.”

Across a small ocean of mist, perhaps three or four hundred yards away lay an old pre-war stone building.  It lay in a cleft between two ridges of grayish-white stone, with a third behind it.  It was as if the top part of a small mountain had been hollowed out on one side, and a fort had been placed in the gap.  The building itself was two stories tall, built out of the same light-gray stone as the mountain it resided on.  There was a light on in the second story, though from the distance I couldn’t tell what kind.

In front of the crumbling fort was an equally dilapidated wall, filled in with rusted metal in several places where the rock had crumbled away.  Two large gaps dominated the wall near the ends, with larger chunks hanging off to the side.  After a few more moments of staring, I realized those were gates that the raiders had just left open.  What was the point of having a fortress if you didn’t shut the door?

A rusted crane rose into the air on the western side of the compound, at least a story taller than the building.  The control deck on the hulking machine was almost level with the roof of the building, and I could see a pony either asleep, or for some reason slumped over the edge of that platform.  It was too hard to tell at this distance.  One thing that did catch my eye was the switchback cut into the rock at the back of the compound.  It climbed all the way up to the peak of the mountain, and at the top stood the silhouette of a pony.  I couldn’t tell if he was looking at us or away, if he was armed, or if he had spotted our scouting party.  Spring pointed to that figure as she whispered to us.

“That’s their lookout post.  They know if any caravans are coming that way.  Not many come from the north and west, but anything that does...they see it.  And if they see it…”

Well, we all knew what happened then.  I glanced over at Wingnut, who was frowning, but no more visibly angry than that.  Nothing more to be gained, we crawled back down below the ridgeline.  As soon as we were clear of the lookout’s line of sight, Rainfall turned to stare at me.

“So, what’s your plan?”

The fuck?  I coughed and tried to buy time to think.  “My plan?”

“Yeah, your plan.  Did you forget about the part where you guys are going in first?”

“I uh…had a few ideas, but--”

“Oh come on, can’t you fly over there nice and quiet and knock off the guards and then tell us when it’s ok to go?”  Rainfall sucked in a sharp breath right as I let out a terse sigh.

“No, Dizzy and I have no idea how to fly.  Did you miss the part where we kept falling off Radheart’s roof?”

“No, I was busy making sure an entire village had food and guns for this trip!  Well that’s just great!  The only reason I even thought this would work in the first place was because we had you featherfucks to help.  Now we have nothing.”

“We have a large group of very angry ponies, that are at least moderately well armed. strength in numbers, we move as a group, hit them hard, and if we’re lucky surprise will be all we need.”  Dizzy was peeking out from behind a rock, looking at the complex.

Rainfall bit right back.  “Now listen here, you fool, what happens if there are more in there than you think?”

“Some leader you are.  See all those ponies back there?  They’re watching you.  They will follow you to hell and back if you have the courage.”

Rainfall and Dizzy started to raise their voices at each other before Spring shushed them both.  Realizing the gravity of the situation, they continued their argument quietly, but just as harshly.  In that quiet, I tried to think.  What else could we do?  Dizzy was right, everyone would charge if Rainfall did, but was that really the only option we had on our plate?  Somebody whose name escaped me once said that if you were running out of options, then you weren’t considering everything.  There had to be other choices, and I just didn’t know enough to make them happen.  One or two ponies here did, though.

“I’d say he’s technically a leatherfuck,” sniggered Stalemate as he pointed at Dizzy and shattered the argument in process to pieces.

Four voices demanded an answer all at once.

“Well, you called Sage a featherfuck.  So it would stand to reason that Dizzy’s a leatherfuck.  Also, he gets more fuck than you do, if you get my drift.”

“Why did I ever think bringing you idiots along could possibly be a good idea?!”

“It’s not,” I answered Rainfall.  “But now is our chance to make it a workable idea if we stop to think.  I’d like to help, but I need to know what you can do and what we’re up against before we charge in screaming.”

“What more is there to possibly consider?”

“Well, first of all, what exactly lies between us and that fortress?  All I see is a bank of mist.  For all I know, we’re pole-vaulting across a chasm.”

A spark lit up in Spring’s eyes.  “Well, not exactly.  The lower end of this valley does move across a land bridge of sorts to the fortress, but it gets narrow.  We might be able to do five across, and that’s if everyone squeezes in.  I wouldn’t recommend it with the mist, because there’s a steep drop on each side.”

“Well, that’s not exactly good news, but it helps.”  I rubbed a hoof under my chin.  It wasn’t exactly as comfortable or thought provoking as rubbing stubble.  “What exactly is the terrain covered in down there?  Is it grass, dirt, or all rock?”

“A little bit of each.  The bridge though is all rock, I’m afraid.”

Well, perhaps if we all walked slowly, we could sneak by.  One loose step though and the lookout would probably catch it.  And that loud hoof-fall would probably be from me.  “What about the unicorns?  Does anypony know any odd spells?”

“Not unless you count that Scythe does all the sharpening on our tools with magic.”

Something sparked in my head right then.  “How far can he cast it from?”

“About as far as he can reach, why?”

I put my head in my hooves.  “Well, that rules out my brilliant plan to have him slice that raider hanging over the edge of the crane in two from a safe distance.  Yes, let’s just go ahead and use the ‘charge screaming and hollering plan.’  Preferably with no screaming and minimal hollering until they actually notice us.”

Dizzy grinned, with absolutely no trace of a smile in his eyes.  “I’ve always wanted to run, screaming into a hail of gunfire.”

“And for that, you freak, you’ve just volunteered to go to the top of the mountain and deal with their lookout.  Take Spring with you, but you’re going in front.”

“Fine, let’s get this done with already.”

The trip back down the ridge was somehow even quieter than the one on the way up.  I imagined everyone was busy with their thoughts of what was coming next.  Apparently lunch wasn’t the next item of business.  Everypony from Alpine had shrugged their bags to the ground and had availed themselves of whatever arms they had.  A fair number of rifles, pistols, and shotguns were scattered throughout the group, but many were not so fortunate.  Shovels and knives were rampant, and I even saw one unicorn with a grim expression hefting a scythe.  The fact that I could see so many of the villagers meant that the mist was rising and we needed to move soon.  Rainfall saw it too.

“Alright everypony, we’re moving now!  Follow Sky Sage, and be quiet!”  He wasn’t yelling, but speaking loud enough for his voice to carry through the valley.  It certainly got every eye looking at me.  There wasn’t more left to think or feel on the matter, just instead what needed to be done.  I wished I could have taken more time to give my farewell to Ash, but we’d already made peace with the matter on the hike.  Well, ‘peace’ was the nicest way to put it, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.  I had to focus now more than ever before in my life.

I took a few strides toward the ridge until Spring and Dizzy caught up with me.  Spring took the lead, and we followed her around the bottom the ridge.  After a few hundred yards of traveling across the almost constant damp foliage, the ridge to our right faded into a misty chasm, and the dirt to hard stone.  To our left, that same chasm was slowly growing closer, leaving us on what was quite literally a bridge over stone over goodness-knew-how-deep of a drop.  The fall wasn’t the part that had me worried, but rather stepping onto the rock proper.

All my life, if I’d wanted to move silently, the key was either a dainty step on the toes, or to roll my step as it landed starting at the heel.  Now, I didn’t have any heels or toes to work with.  I’d just have to make do with trying.  There, two inches in front of my forehoof was rock, slivers of black running through the white stone, making it appear to be gray further out into the mist.  That mist was keeping the rock damp too.

Fuck!

I took a deep breath in, then set my right forehoof down as gently as I could.  It made the tiniest clicking noise against the uneven stone.  Ever so gingerly, I made my way out onto the rock proper, following Spring.  She was already several paces out onto the bridge and moving along steadily.  Dizzy seemed to be moving much the same as I was; together we stepped out onto the bridge.  Every pace was slow going, and it was perhaps as far as two hundred yards to the other side.  We wouldn’t be there soon, and as every step fell another faint echo glanced off the rocks.  If the guard heard us, we’d be finished.  If we went slow enough that the mist finished rising, the lookout would spot us, and we’d be finished.

All around the mist rose, fading thin into the air.  It wasn’t because the air was any semblance of warm in the mountain chasm.  No, it was freezing.  A chill wind blew perpendicular to the bridge, icing my coat, numbing my legs, and sweeping our cover away.  Through a gap in the fog, I could make out the top of the crane at the peak above.  Spring saw it too, and started to move faster.  

To catch up with her, I’d have to step up onto a small terrace, about an inch or two high.  Easy slice.  I can do this.  That step was just like trying to hike across a mountain ridge, except that there was nothing to hold onto and the ground was slick.  Just as I lifted my foreleg to step up, the wind gusted harder and knocked me into the air.  Adrenaline coursed as my wings were torn open by the blast of air.  In desperation, I angled them right into the wind, losing all effects as an airfoil, and slammed into the ground hard.  All four hooves connected with a resounding clack that echoed freely against the mountain beyond.  To prove that life really hated me, the ground was just slick enough to cause me to slide, scraping my underbelly against the cold rock and almost bending the barrel of my carbine.

Perhaps the pegasus frame was light enough for that to happen.  Maybe I’d just been unlucky and caught the brunt of the gust.  Whatever the reason, I’d just let off enough noise for anypony halfway conscious to realize that something was amiss.  Spring stuck a hoof in my face, offering to help me up.  I took it, bringing me level with her scowl.

“You fucking idiot.”

She was right.

Behind us, the villagers waited, stretched out four or five abreast, watching like a herd of sheep.  Someone had just rang the bell for their slaughter.

Still, there wasn’t any use in waiting, and looking at them was just going to unnerve me further.  Turning around was probably what saved my life.

I’d shot thousands of rounds in my life. Forty-five, nine-mil, twelve-gauge, sixteen-gauge, twenty-gauge, five-five-six, and perhaps as much as ten times all the above combined in twenty-two.  I knew intimately what it was like to be behind a gun, to feel the kick when it fired and taste the cordite in the air.  I enjoyed seeing the holes appear in the target, or aluminum can, or rabbit I was shooting at.  This was the first time I’d truly been on the receiving end.

Next to my left hindleg, the rock seem to explode, sending chips of metal and rock into the air.  Flecks of shrapnel scraped across my rump, and I clenched my teeth and winced.  The mentality to avoid crying out was still holding firm, preventing me from yelling even though I knew what had happened.  A high pitched metallic whine faded out into the open mist as the round bounced off the bridge.  We’d been spotted alright, and the booming report of a rifle echoed through the air a moment later.

“Run!” screamed Spring at the top of her lungs, and then she was gone.  She was running, flat-out sprinting toward the far end of the bridge.  A scream rang out from somewhere behind me, and then everyone was moving.  Nopony wanted to be stuck standing out with no cover and nowhere to run to.  There was nothing but death on either side, but a chance at survival through the fight in front.

For Dizzy and I, staying ahead of the crowd was the sole focus of our existence.  After three days of practice at walking on level dirt, we were faced with sprinting over slick stone while being shot at.  I glanced over at him as we tore down the narrow span of rock.  He didn’t look back, too intensely focused on his hoof placement.  There were three ways this could end.  We could be shot, run too slow and get run over or hurled off, or make it to the other side.  I redoubled my focus on not sliding out with each step, and tried so desperately hard to not think about the actual steps.  Each hoof landed differently, sliding a little and bringing adrenaline, or stopping short of where I thought it should fall and sending jarring pain up the limb.

Another shot echoed over the valley, but if there was a scream it was drowned within the sheer noise of hooves against stone.  I could see the far end, though with each step I could feel the thunder and shake of hundreds of ponies running across that one stretch of land.  Thoughts rushed unbidden to my mind of the resonance of hundreds of strikes shaking the rock to pieces and all of us dropping thousands of feet to whatever lay below.  Shots rang out from behind me too, villagers shooting back at the raiders, trying to preserve their own on the passage across the bridge.

Something shuffled from the edge of my vision.  Dizzy cried out as he planted one hoof too hard and sprawled through the air, landing hard and sliding forward, his rifle sliding in front of him.  Everything in me screamed to get him up, but there was no way I could stop quickly from such a speed without sliding and falling myself.  The thunder of the herd running behind us told me that there was no way I would be able get him up, even if I was able to stop.  Something broke in me as I saw him slip -- I’d sworn I’d never leave him behind.  Now, it might very well kill us both, even if it were possible.

Fuck fuck fuck!  I wanted to scream out to him, except that I still had a gun in my mouth, face, neck, and shoulder.  Truly, deep down, I knew there was nothing better I could do at that moment than to run headlong forward and shoot every last raider I could find.  It was a truth, and the only thing I clung onto, pushing the grief into sprinting even harder to the end of the bridge.  My hooves clattered the loudest of all.  They were the closest to me, so it only made sense, but that clacking was the sound of me leaving my friend out to be trampled and shot.

The far side of the bridge climbed up into the mountain-sized alcove of cliffs much the same way the last valley had descended to it, and shortly my hooves reached gravel, dirt, and grass again.  Spring was waiting for me, pressed against the wall in between the two gates.  She was motioning to me with one hoof as she lifted a large pistol to her teeth with the other.  I thought I understood: everyone was going to run toward the nearest gate, and that’s where all the raiders would go too.  If we broke off toward the gate further from the bridge, some of the group would follow us and avoid getting bottlenecked at the first gate.  Moreover, we might be able to flank them.  I returned her nod as my gallop carried me past her and toward the second gate.

Now with solid ground below my hooves, it was a relatively simple matter to stop and poke my head around the edge of the wall.  Well, my head and half a gun.  Inside the compound was an utter mess up close.  The rusting hulks of what I could only guess was full-scale construction equipment lay next to the mountain walls, interspersed with broken carts and piles of trash.  Patches of snow creeped out from under some of the deeper mounds.  Only the very top of the crane was visible from my position, the rest of it was concealed by the fort itself.

Fort was a very generous word for the dilapidated structure in front of me.  It had been built out of the same stone as the mountain around it and that was exactly where the likeness ended.  Blocks had been wrenched out of place by time’s inexorable grasp, some of which were scattered around the yard.  Of the three upstairs windows, only one still had a window in it.  That last window too fell prey to destruction as somepony kicked out that window and shoved a very large gun barrel through it.  From behind, the thundering grew louder again as more and more of the townsfolk spilled out onto the other side of the bridge.

“Go!” hollered Spring.

The inside of the compound wasn’t any warmer or colder than the rest of the mountain trek up to this point, but something felt darker.  Here I was, running headlong into the home of a gang of raiders -- ponies who who would delight in my torture, murder, and consumption.  As if waiting to confirm my fears, the stench of carrion wafted out of the open door.  Door was hardly the right word: it looked more like a an entrance for a car than a pony.  Running headlong, however, was exactly the right term.  Sadly, running into the side of a building is best done as slow as possible.  I had just enough time to turn my face away and avoid slamming my carbine into the wall.  My neck, left barrel, left wing, and left legs all clung to the coarse embrace of weathered stone.

“Rrrrggggghhhhhhh!”

An unfamiliar ache screamed up my wing as I bounced slightly off the wall, then forced myself to hug it again.  At least whoever it was two floors up with the machine gun would be hard pressed to shoot at me here.  Spring lurched to a stop behind me, two more ponies with pitchforks in their mouths right behind her.  The blue buck behind them never made it.  Two floors up, the raider opened up.

Four rounds in succession went clean through farmer’s hide, taking sprays of bloody liquid with them into the dirt.  The shotgun fell from his mouth and he collapsed screaming as the raider fed a steady stream of bullets into the buck’s back.  From the other side of the outpost, gunfire started to increase in fury, like popcorn under heat.

“Hahck-harhar!  You’ll be tasty, you’ll all die for me!” screeched a mare from up above, probably the same one with the machine gun.

That threat sure kept everypony at the gate back.  One frightened mare peeked around the edge only to duck back as the raider above peppered the area with another burst of fire.  We had to go in there and take them out, or this would get drawn out into a pyrrhic falling on the spears of the raiders.  Spring gave me an encouraging push, spurring me forward and around the door.

It smells like shit!  Somepony behind me gagged.  I couldn’t afford that luxury.

Inside was like the culmination of every slasher movie arranged by the most criminally insane interior decorator to ever live.  Congealed and dried blood pooled into deep red sludge at low points on the once-wooden floor.  On the ground floor to the left was a kitchen, the larder piled high with organs and limbs slowly rotting.  A congealing mass of intestines near the bottom still oozed blood into a large pile near the base.  Every burner on the stove was seated with a pan, each piled high with remains.  They were all still raw.

The front half of a pony skeleton hung just above my head, its ribs tied to the balcony over my head.  ‘Welcome!’ it seemed to scream in an insane cackle that promised I’d never leave this place, even after I died.  No, they’re gonna die.  Not me.  The morbid thoughts flew from my mind like banished shades, though the cackling lived on, echoing from every part of the room.

In the center of the ground floor was a large cart, one that I presumed was part of the shipment we’d come to retrieve.  A tall and lanky raider stallion stood in the middle of it, dried blood coating all his legs.  He was probably smiling, but it was damned hard to tell from the other side of the rusty rifle he was holding in his teeth.  Instead of shooting, or saying anything, he let out an incoherent scream.  There wasn’t anything to hide behind, so I turned my gun toward him out of instinct.  Saliva flew in flecks from the corners of his mouth and the gun shook -- only to spray fire out the rear end of the ancient mechanism.

Smoke and embers covered his face like an octopus suddenly enveloping prey.  He dropped the gun, howling, and gave me the last second I needed to line up the sights over his thrashing body.  What used to be such a practiced motion now became the torture of every muscle in my neck as I first pointed the gun at his barrel, then leveled the rear sights on him.  Those too blurred out as the post came into focus, now centered in the peephole.  The raider was out of focus, and that was ok, because I knew where the bullet was going.  Gently but firmly, I depressed the trigger mechanism.  Yuck.

Raw force pressed into my jaw and teeth, threatening to push them all back into my throat and tear the gun completely away from my sides.  Hot air washed over the right half of my face, following the spent brass through the air.  It smashed into the ground, just like the raider in the cart.  This time, there wasn’t any shock or horror.

Spring bounded into the room, followed by twin orange unicorn bucks, both of whom looked like they were barely old enough to be working the farm, let alone handed a gun and told to fight.  Each of them clasped a pitchfork, one barely holding it between his teeth, the other in a flickering nimbus of amber magic.  Together we advanced toward the cart where the raider still twitched in his own blood.  Everything was stained red in here.  

“Come here!” screeched something far higher pitched than any mare’s voice should go.  “I just want a little taste of you!”

At her declaration, several grenades flew over the cart and landed with a clink next to my hindlegs.  What did life want me to do, throw them back?  I wasn’t a fucking unicorn!  Shitshitshit!

The only nearby cover was the cart itself, so with a running leap I dove around the side, silently wishing Spring and the colts had done the same.  Out of all the sensations, the pressure wave was the worst, physically pushing the air past me.  Fire and shrapnel screamed past at a volume loud enough to leave my ears ringing.  They weren’t dead enough to miss the sound of somepony clacking down the stairs behind me.

She clenched a drool-covered knife in her teeth, and that was about all I got before the carbine was up and firing.  No time for precise aiming this time.  If it was pointed at her, it was good to go.  Three, five, eight rounds, and she was knocked back onto her rump, screaming and laughing at me.  Once I stopped reeling at the agony in my jaw, I got a second look at her.  Glazed yellow eyes stared right back at me as if I were a medium-rare veal cutlet.  She wore a cuirass of spiked leather armor, of which all my rounds had either impacted, or missed her cleanly.  Now, lying back against the stairs and trying to recover, she couldn’t get away while I took just enough time to aim between her eyes.  Her brain matter mucked up the stairs almost to the top, where a closed closet or bathroom door waited.

With the stair-guardian dead, it was a straight shot to the second floor.  Well, as straight as it could be trying to climb a ripped-up and crumbling wooden staircase that was now covered in splotches of raider brain, in addition to dried splotches of blood from places I didn’t want to imagine.  There wasn’t time for me to worry about what I was stepping in.  If the raider upstairs didn’t get Spring, the other two behind the cart would while she was pinned down.  I lifted up my foreleg and looked for a good place to put it, only to have the carbine barrel bump into the stairs.  Climb by touch was how it was apparently going to be.  

The second time I slipped and slammed the carbine, and by extension my face, into the floor I could hear Spring yelling something around her gun.  It wasn’t exactly comprehensible, but the odds of it being something other than ‘hurry up’ were rather low.  Her voice shouldn’t have been audible over the spray of gunfire, and with a start I realized the machine gunner must have been out or loading.  With a vengeance I scrambled up the remainder of the stairs, then almost went back on my vow not to throw up when I reached the top.

Every inch of the loft had seen gore dried onto the floor, leaving a solid red tile that cracked at my touch.  The crunch as my hoof fell startled the raider, who was halfway into attaching a new drum onto the base of her weapon.  Up close, it looked more like an old light machine gun: something pony-portable, but still capable of spraying like a bullet hose.  The bitch herself was wearing no armor, just matted in too much blood to be any kind of innocent.  I lined her up just in time to watch her dive behind a small pile of boxes filled with climbing rope.  Next to her was a ladder that led up to the roof, judging by the gray light streaming down from the hole in the ceiling.

Trying not to think about what, or who I might be treading over, I tore across the space separating us.  On the far side of the boxes sat the raider, still tugging at the ammo drum.  Staring up into the barrel of my carbine, she laughed at me.  Each chortled syllable tore at my heart like a curse.  I stared back down at her yellow eyes, slowly tightening my jaw.

“Birdie come to play!  I eat bird, I ha--”

Brains splattered the wall and her head snapped back to accommodate the force of the round passing through her skull.  This wasn’t murder.  It wasn’t even war.  It was putting down animals.  For the briefest of moments, the acrid smell of cordite was stronger than the reeking rot of blood.

Somewhere below, Spring yelled again, followed by another volley of fire.  This time though, we had the upper hoof.  I smiled faintly at the thought, insofar as was possible around the grip.  Looking over the balcony, I could see that neither of the sides had scored a fatal hit on the other.  Spring and her companions were huddled on one side of the cart, and two or three raiders were against the other, judging by the weapons poking out above it.  The bucks sat on either side, prodding the raiders off when they got close, but it seemed to be a stalemate for the time being.  I couldn’t get a clear shot from here, but if I walked back over toward the bathroom...I could have sworn the bathroom door was closed.

Another raider buck, this one an earth pony with one eye swollen shut and oozing pus, popped out from behind the bathroom door and leveled a shotgun at me.  I backpedaled, then tried to jump backwards behind the same boxes the other raider had just hid behind.  Buckshot cleaved the air into a dozen screaming voids in front of my muzzle as I slid across the floor, matting my coat with blood.  Somewhere on the other side of my meagre cover, the raider buck cackled.


----------------------------------------


No!

PaiNn

FallLLInnnng


reDdd


Blurrrrrrrrr

Hate.

Rage shone through the haze of pain like a lighthouse through the fog of my agony, pointing me toward the one thing that had caused it.  That raider buck was laughing, hacking up blood with each exhale.  Still more gushed through the hole in the base of his neck, but it was still flowing.  He was still alive.

“Yeah you fucking laugh!”

He was close now, close enough to reach.  He was already folding like tissue paper, so I kicked him over, and stomped on his face too for good measure.  Wouldn’t be shooting me again without any teeth and a broken jaw, now would he?  Just a few more crushing blows and he quit his squirming.

“Sage!  What happened to your gun?”

Huh?

Spring had poked her head up over the top of the steps to look around.  I could only surmise that she’d managed to finish off the raiders downstairs.  As for my carbine...I clenched my jaw down, only for my teeth to meet each other in the middle.  Frowning a little, Spring pointed behind me.  I turned, and there it was, on the ground where I’d been shot, covered in droplets of my blood.  My blood!  I was still bleeding.  Great.

“You don’t look bad,” offered Spring.  “There’s more raider blood on you than your own by a long shot.”  

She was right about that too.  Not really something I wanted to think about at the moment either.  The raiders were dead.

“You got the raiders downstairs, right?”

Spring nodded, and I trotted back to the site where my carbine fell.  That poor weapon just couldn’t catch a break.

“And the two colts with you?”

She didn’t answer.

Damnit.

The carbine grip tasted like iron.  Not the metallic taste of steel, but the slimy, cold taste of blood.  At least it was all mine.

Searching the house for supplies sounded about as appealing as moving in.  Even though the sound of gunshots had mostly gone away outside, I figured at least somepony could use a hoof, and what better vantage point than the roof?  A nod of my head served to convey my intentions to Spring, who followed behind as I hook my forelegs through the rungs.  How the fuck am I supposed to climb this?

The answer as it turned out was ‘carefully and slowly.’  Vertical was about as comfortable of a feeling for an equine as upside down is for a human.  Still, the view from the roof was worth it.  Nothing says knowledge on a fight quite like the view from the highest point on the battlefield.

Bodies of friend and foe lay scattered between the house and the first gate.  The fight had been rather one-sided, judging by the dozens of villagers still standing, and the lack of raiders standing.  Still, bodies of both lay of the field, accompanied by the cries of their loved ones.  Nopony was tending to the fallen yet, rather hiding behind bushes, folds in the mountainside, the wall, and the house.  There was probably a good reason for that I which hadn’t figured out yet.

For the second time that day the zing of a near-miss round from on high pinged off the edge of the roof and went screaming out into the mists.  This time, the culprit was clear: the lookout on top of the peak.  He or she was still a tiny figure at the top of a massive spire of rock.  But I saw one thing he didn’t.  Dizzy and Wingnut were hauling ass up the final switchback below the summit.  He made it!  Throwing my legs in the air at random intervals, I ran back and forth from one side of the roof to the other.  Not that I was any less likely to get hit, but perhaps the raider up at the top wouldn’t notice them coming for a few seconds longer.

Gauging distance over a quarter mile away is a tough feat at best.  Trying to do it days after having my eye sockets moved, depth perception changed, and distance vision altered was a guess at peril.  Ten second went by, and then twenty catching odd glances of Dizzy and Wingnut edging closer every time I turned my head that way.  No second shot had rang out.  Perhaps he was out of ammo, maybe he’d spotted Dizzy, and guessing wasn’t going to help.  After dizziness had set in, and the churning in my gut promised to make good on my desire to puke, Spring yelled out.

“Look!”

Dizzy had caught up to the raider.  They were fighting hoof to hoof, teetering closer and closer to the edge.  Then Wingnut dove on the pile, and the fight shifted.  Together they pulled the rifle away from the raider, and pushed him closer to the edge.

His scream echoed across the entire mountainscape, back and forth from one wall to the next the whole way as he fell.  Everypony stared, unable to look away from what they knew was about to happen.  I was unable to do more, unwilling to help if I could, grateful that he would have a short end, and praying I’d be able to forget how his howls slowly faded away after he impacted the rocks below.

Silence reigned for a moment before the mourning cries of the folk below claimed their rightful place, and I wept with them.





Sky Sage: Level Three (50% to next level)
This had really better be worth it.  If Rainfall ever gives us shit again, I’m pushing him off a cliff.

Perk: When All Else Fails (I)
You’ve trained most of your life to take hits and fight through the pain, and now you actually have something worth fighting for.  This perk may be taken multiple times; the effects stack.
When your HP drops to below 10, gain 3 DT and a 20% chance to gain 20 HP.

Quest Perk: Raider Sickness (I)
Somehow you’ve been infected.  Sucks to be you.  Pray it doesn’t get worse (it will).
If an enemy within 10 feet of you does at least 25 damage to you enter a blood-rage until everything hostile within your perception range is dead.  While raging you may only use melee weapons or unarmed combat, and you lose 1% HP per second.  For each enemy you kill while raging you gain a 15% speed and 10% damage boost.

Adonicus: Level Three (50% to next level)
They are all dead, a few less raiders in the wasteland.

Perk:The Grassy Knoll
While in stealth mode, you gain an additional +25% sneak critical hit damage, but only with scoped weapons, all other weapons lose all their sneak critical hit damage.


Ashen Shield: Level Three (50% to next level)
Sage’s a bloody mess!  This whole thing was a freaking mess!

Perk: Survivalist
Whether it is making it through an incredibly stupid and suicidal frontal assault on a raider base, or getting by on Radheart’s cooking, you will make it out of this alive.
+10 to Survival skill.


Stalemate: Level Three (50% to next level)
And now I’m gonna have my fucking hooves full with the wounded.  Time to work.


Page Gemwright: Level Three (50% to next level)
‘F’ is for Fire, burns down the whole base!

Perk: Elemental Familiarity (I)
Your basic studies have exposed you to the elements of magic!  This is by no means mastery, but you are exposed to their presence, as well as their basic manipulations.
Basic elemental spells now are one tier easier to cast.


Wingnut: Level Three
Looks like they can’t fly either!

Perk: Fast Learner
You pick up on everything sickeningly fast.  Everyone may jealous at how quickly you learned to walk right now, but the real prize of knowledge is still on the way.
+2 skill points per level.
> Chapter 7: Storm
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Storm



A little Death never hurt anyone.  But Pain?  Pain’s hurt a lot of people.



Adonicus
Day Three, Just After Noon


It all seemed to go so fast.  Sage slammed into the ground, gunfire blossoming like specks of light in the fog amidst echoes off the mountain walls.  I just started to run towards the wall on the far end of the bridge as the roar of hooves from behind grew deafening.  That thunder would kill me if I dared stop.  I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, I was on my stomach sprawled out as the crowd hurtled past me.  A mare stopped to help me up.  There wasn’t even time to look at her before something struck her and she fell.  I blinked.  I was at the wall with three rounds left in my rifle.

“Sage, take a group and go right, we’ll try to outflank them!”  Rainfall shouted over the commotion.  Sage was already well out of hearing range, and Rainfall couldn’t shout loud enough.

Time slowed like cheap grease on a cold winter’s day.  Rainfall drifted behind me as my hooves pounded the dirt.  I bit, the rifle screamed, and another raider fell to the ground hollering.  A twitch of my wings worked the action as I tore on.  A raider buck gripping a knife in his rotten teeth hopped off a rock to land in from of me.  Yellow ichor dripped from his eyes like tears as his hooves met the ground.  More still fell as the muzzle of my gun jammed into his throat.  His knife flew into the air, but his scream couldn’t, not through a collapsed windpipe.  I closed my eyes as the rifle kicked in my chest again, showering me with a mist of warm droplets.  

“That was fucking brutal, freak!”  Rainfall slammed into the scrapped skywagon I was standing behind.  “Give me some cover, I’m going to try to get at that building!”

I nodded as he took off through the no-man’s land.  Just as he was about to enter the building, his hoof exploded and he fell the rest of the way into cover.

“Sniper!  Page, take a group of people and get to Rainfall, make sure he doesn’t die!”  Who was that yelling...was it me?  “Wingnut, with me, we need to move fast!”  Wingnut nodded and I broke cover, sprinting to the path up the mountain.  The last handful of raiders near us were either too shocked, or too drugged out to care.

I scanned the entire path up.  It had to be at least a quarter-mile long.  Boulders, sharp cliffs, and one raider lay ahead of us.  Another bite in my chest and she fell, clutching hers.  A round screamed into ground in front of me, spraying us with bits of rock.  I kept running, each breath tearing at my throat as the incline took its toll.  There was a glint at the top, and I dove hearing a crack louder than the gunfire below behind me.  The last switchback left me gasping, finally in sight of the sniper’s shack.  The sniper himself was in the process of a reload.

I stood there, bit down, click.  Immediately I dropped my rifle and charged, pushing him closer to the little wall to the canyon below.  For being a small buck he sure was strong...no.  He was much too small, a teenager at best.  He pulled a knife from out of nowhere, and I charged.

I slammed into him and his knife found my wing; we both slammed into the wall.  The old plywood shattered and he fell from my grasp out into the open space, leaving his rifle at my hooves.  His screams faded as he did, and I watched him fall.  

That was beautiful.  I reached down to pick up his rifle as Wingnut stared, eyes wide.

“What are you smiling about?”  I just turned around, and looked down at the cirque the fortress sat in.  Far below, the fight was ending with the last few screaming raiders being put out of their misery.

“Just thinking on how well this all went, considering.”

“Considering what?  That we almost got killed?  That you were almost pushed off this cliff?”

“We survived, cleared out some bad in the wastes, and now we look like a bunch of big damn heroes.”

“Well, I’m glad that you have your thoughts so figured out,” he stated flatly while swiveling his head.  “I’m sitting here, wanting to go home, and suddenly get forced into killing.  Albeit killing shitty scum of the planet, killing nonetheless.  But, gotta do what needs to get done.”  He hopped to his hooves and started back down the path.  “Looks like they cleaned up down there. I’m heading back down to help, lets go.”

I nodded before looking back out over the little compound, paying special attention to the small corpse at the base of the cliff.  Screams of pain, both physical and emotional resonated up the rock walls to me, sending a cold shiver snaking down my back.

“This was our fault,” I breathed to myself, slumping down around the rifle.

“Yes, it was.  So what have you learned?”  I leapt up, turned around and met the eyes of a white mare with green eyes, sitting there just staring at me.

“I, who, when did you get here?”  I more sputtered than spoke, trying to make sense of this blonde maned mare staring at me with a borderline malicious intent.

She just sort of smiled at me.  “I have been here for longer than you think, I am here to sort of, well, guide you on your journey.”  She stood up, and turned to leave the shack, “Follow me, there is something you need to see.”

Acting more on instinct than free will, I followed, she was a few yards away from the shack looking north over the mountain range.

“That is quite a view.”  My eyes were stuck on the vistas in front of me, the snow covered peaks, the valleys stretching down past a layer of fog that could have been the clouds themselves.  A few miles out there was a thick storm wall blocking my view of anything further north, and to the west I could barely make out Alpine.

“The Crystal Empire is that way.  Well what is left of the Crystal Empire.  Sooner or later you and your friends are going to have to travel there.  It is going to be dangerous, and cold, but I think you’ll be able to make it.”

Catching myself staring at her (what? She was pretty…) I threw my gaze out into the mountain range again.

Although I could see for a few miles, all I could see was mountains.  Gray, large and imposing.  Most covered in layers of ice and snow, giving them a blotchy white and black coating.  I could see the wind whip snow off of them to be thrown down the mountainsides.

“Take a good look, there is a lot of danger in those mountains, and you’ll have to cross them.”

“Just who are you any-” I turned towards where she was standing to see nothing.  “What the fuck…”  Looking down there was a spent brass casing where she was standing.  I stared at it for a second before picking it up, 7.62X51 was inscribed on the back of the case.  I carefully scrutinized at the case, trying to figure out what, and why it was here, just to give up and throw in in my saddle bags.  I’ll ask the others sometime.

“Dizzy!  You coming or what?” came Wingnut’s voice from a little ways down the trail. 

“I’ll meet you down soon enough, I just need a minute.”  

Returning to the clifftop shack I grabbed the buck’s sniper rifle.  A simple thing, relatively low power scope, a twenty or so inch long heavy barrel, and a ten round magazine.  From just glancing at it, I gathered it was not made for battle saddle use, more to be set up in a way to be fired prone.  I used a wing to drop the magazine, and work the bolt handle.  A single green cartridge fell out.  Steel case, still covered in its protective lacquer coating, the copper of the actual bullet was dull, but intact and practically scratch free.  Really a great rifle for a raider, must have been taken with that caravan that they captured.

I strapped the rifle to my back, between my wings and again stared out over the compound.  I inspected the wound the buck had given my wing to find it little more than a scratch, barely breaking the skin.  “Well, what the hell, why not.”  I ran as fast as I could towards the open wall, spread my wings as straight as I could, closed my eyes, and leapt out.

My wings caught air.  I didn’t feel myself falling.  The cold wind hitting my face felt like running into a headwind in December.  I managed to open my eyes: I was a few hundred feet above the building and many ponies stopped below to stare up at me.  I kept gliding down, losing altitude fast.  I saw Radheart among a group of bleeding ponies.  She smiled at me.

With an instinctual movement, my wings turned downwards, forcing me to go faster, but giving me almost enough lift to stay aloft, almost.

Then my entire field of view went into a glow of dark green, and I slowly drifted to the ground.

“Not quite up to flying yet?”  Page smiled beside me, his coat having more black splotches than stripes.  He let go of his magic, letting me fall the final few feet to the rocky ground.  I landed with all the grace of a tank driving off a building.

“Guess not,” I replied, “what happened to you?  You look like you just finished a shift in a coal mine.”

Page gave a smug and icy grin, “Oh, don’t worry, I got a little carried away with the fire…and stuff...on a few of those raiders.  Glad I made the will saves back there though; I’m covered in pony.”  Page continued to stare at me with the façade of a madman.  “Looks like you found a new toy there,” he said, gesturing to the rifle on my back.

“Yeah, they had a sniper up on the ridge, I figured he didn’t have much use for it anymore.”

I returned a little smile, then turned to head back to the building, when a light pink blob assaulted me, throwing me to the ground.  The blob started to laugh while crushing the wind out of me.  “You actually flew!  Finally, you have no idea how much this means to me!”  Of course it was Radheart.

“What do you mean ‘means to you’?”  She released me, and I clambered to my hooves, flapping my wings to try and dissipate the the pain throbbing from being thrown to the rocky ground.

“Morningside and I had a bet, to see which one of you would learn to fly first, you or Sage.  I am now twenty caps richer!”  Radheart could hardly contain herself; apparently she really liked money.

“I don’t know that I’d call that flying, Rads,” Rainfall limped up with a group of ponies in tow, his leg was bandaged, but red was clearly overtaking the white wrappings.  “I need your plaything for a while, he needs to get his parts for our generator.  You can have him back for ‘celebrating’ later.”

Radheart gave me a look, and smiled (probably at how red my face was at figuring out why she was so happy) before shooing me off to go get what I needed.


********************************************


Ashen Shield
Day Three, Just After Noon


A horde of ponies pushed past.  Their bodies were not cheerful colours in this light.  Sweat of fear and mist matted the coats and dragged their wearers down.  It was like watching a bad painting run past with the colours all dripping down the canvas all clumpy, old and dried.  The animation was badly blurred, and it stuttered and hiccupped like bad stop-motion.

I didn’t remember being left, just suddenly found myself standing there alone on the hill.  The need for hush was palpable.  I watched them still, from above, not really focusing on individuals.  Not that from this distance it would be reasonable.

I should be doing something...I should go...

I guess...

But only the air changed as it bit me cold.  As if the wetness in it had not tormented me sufficiently.  And even still I did not move.  Glued, I could only watch the sea of colour that would soon funnel into red.  The ponies became steadily more visible until with one final gust of wind, I sat, and hugged myself closer together, shivering, teeth and hooves clacking.

My head snapped up.  If I could hear them from here, something was wrong.  The one at the front...Sage? had fallen somehow.  He lay splayed out, backwards, facing the horde.  A shot sounded from somewhere...the world held its breath.  Then with a cry everything was motion again.

They stacked up at both entrances.  A machine gunner struck down ponies from above...And so we sink.  Charging into our own blood.  Into their own blood.

I shuffled my hooves and stared at my weapon as it sat on the ground.  I glanced up, but could not watch.  My stomach sank.  Deserter.  Useless.  Coward.  Legs still lead.  Moisture sprang unwanted in my eyes.  The dirt here wasn’t as grey as the dirt there.  Fine powdery dirt.  More brown here...


----------------------------------------


I don’t know how long I sat there.  It was impossible to figure without much sun around.  I only know that I did, barely moving, barely breathing.  Heart like a rock, stomach empty.  Good.  Be hungry, bitch.  Whiny, whiny bitch.

Everyone heard.  It was impossible not to.  Fuckin’...watch the ponies perched on the edge as down fell the screaming raider.  Like a movie scene with the wrong side at the top of the hill.  Definitely was a good place for the Wilhelm to make an appearance.  Missed opportunity right there, director.  You done goofed.  His was not as good.  5/10 at best.

It was the first time I’d looked up -- really looked up since they prepared to enter the structure.  I took an assessment.  The ponies at the top I thought might be Wingnut and Dizzy...and atop the structure stood...Spring and Sage?  Holy shit...if that’s...really him...so much blood.  Nose to tail.  Yet he stood.  He moved fine...my brow furrowed.  I hurriedly studied him again, but nothing more could be discerned from this distance.  I started forward, forgetting my surroundings. The sound of a squeaky toy graced my ears (me?), followed by the cloud of dirt in my nose and the muddy mouth as I slid several feet down the hill.  Brilliant.

“Hey, you!” I slowly coughed the dust and mud out, trying to right myself.

“Hey! I’m talking to you.  Make yourself useful and carry some supplies down at least, will ya?” A brown colt, too young to be there materialized behind the dust.

“Shouldn’t you be back home?”

“You’re one to talk.  Dirtiest you got all day was falling on yer face.” I opened my mouth, then slowly closed it.  Kneading my cheek between my teeth I watched his face.

“Well...what do you need?” The colt handed me a stack of things medical in nature.  Hoofed me?

“Stop staring, you lout.  Move your hooves.  Radheart’s down there.  Find her.”  I hurried with greater care down the hill.

Blood.  Only blood.  The colour.  The smell.  Underhoof the slick feel.  Slick and sticky both.  I picked my way around the dead the dying and the wounded.  I stepped awkwardly out of the way of busy ponies.  I kept my head down and my supplies up...ok mostly up...ok nowhere to set them, so I’d better find her soon…there!

She wheeled on me.  I jumped about a foot up and several steps back.  She said nothing, equally startled by a pony being so close, the pony being me, and the supplies I wielded.  Her eyes narrowed.  Remaining mute, but unflinching in her gaze, I brought them closer.  I wasn’t there before.  I was here now though.  She took them hastily by some process I couldn’t fathom.  I hadn’t collapsed...not that I felt particularly capable of much else at the moment.

Looked like I wasn’t the only one who’d found her either.  Stalemate hovered over a patient, his magic doing...something.  I craned my neck, but was forced to focus on the thing blocking my view.  I followed its contours until it became recognizable.  She looked at me expectantly.  My eyes widened.  Aw shit...

“Say again, ma’am?” If the colt thought I could be of use then ok.  My breath caught as I realized my weapon wasn’t within any kind of reach...arm...hoof, mouth, magic...no time.  Focus.

“You’re in the way. Since you obviously don’t know what you’re doing at least move.”  I moved...but came with.

She stood with the next patient, calculating.  Her face never changed expression as she walked from the pony, not dead, but apparently not to be saved today.  I looked at him again.

“Hey!”  She did not turn.  “Hey he could make it!  Just a couple sutures and maybe a transfusion--” I looked back up.  Her face was stone.

“You find some supplies, you just give me a shout. I have work to do.”

I stared into his face, and sat with him.  He was too far gone to know, but I lay there, in the gore, curled next to his grey, blood-speckled back until his chest stopped its halting rise and fall, blood still trickling out.  Briefly I rested my chin on his cheek.  I did not cry.

I stood, peering around.  Stalemate was there.

“There was nothing for him.”  He was fighting it, convincing himself.

“I know...she told me.”

“Gotta move on.”  I stared at the corpse.

“Take this.”

“What?”

“Take this.”  My magic touched his.  The sensation was like two hands atop one another when one clasped an object and the other clasped both.  It was eerily detached from the rest of me.  I didn’t stop to look at what I had taken from him.  

“Follow me.”

I did.  I did not see.  I did not smell.  I did not think.  I did not feel.  I did only what Stalemate instructed.

But slowly I began to listen, to understand.  If they bled here or there what to do.  Where and how to bandage.  What we had supplies for.  What we could do if we had other supplies. Bits of his excited babble made it through.  Just hearing him talk like he did about his classes or chess or EMT school or girls or anything else he found interesting.  It was a comforting bit of home.  I focused on the things he told me more because he found them interesting than because I did.  He found them interesting, and that was enough.

It felt like forever in a sea of words and patients.  And then I noticed Radheart again.  Her countenance was soft now, not the stony face of grim necessity.  It nearly glowed.  Her hair pulled back was lovely, really.

“You ok, too? I honestly didn’t see you down in the fight.”

“I...” I shuffled my hooves.  She waited a minute, undoubtedly ascertaining my guilt.

“Sage is ok.”  I inhaled sharply, meeting her gaze.

“Thanks...for that.”  I dropped the tension from my shoulders, unsure when it had gotten there.

“Thought you’d want to know.”  A smile...What did she want?  Manipulative bitch.  But I searched, and could find nothing but...genuine compassion?  I shook my head hard.

“What’s next?”  A flat demand for purpose.

“Home, of course.”  My stomach growled.

“Not...food?”  Her laugh was like...bells.  Oddly appealing.  I narrowed my eyes.  She dug in her supplies for something and set it in front of me.  Berries?  I sniffed.  Did horses even eat berries?  I put one on my tongue, watching her face . She laughed again.  I pulled back.  She sighed and took one from the small group, and ate it.  I stared down at the rest, considering.  My stomach growled again.  I kneaded my cheek between teeth, then ate the rest quickly.

“What do you need?”  The job wasn’t done until we were home.

“That’s all you can do, really.  I have to find some strong folk to help get the ones home that can’t walk, and we have to transport the goods as we need too.”  Before I could protest, she had gone; Stalemate had left before ‘really’ had finished leaving her mouth.  Tails to chase, if they were alive.

I had Sage to find...and more importantly my weapon...it should be over here...


********************************************


Sky Sage
Day Three, Early Afternoon


For all the thousands of daydreams, games, and discussions of what it would be like to take the life of another, none of it could have prepared me for the aftermath.  Taking a life?  That was the easy part.  Facing down the bore of a rifle, realizing that you have to pull the trigger to avoid death, and giving in to the primal urge to survive.  After all, only two types of people come out of such a trial: the killers and the dead.

Then there was the second time.  It had been every bit as necessary, just as coerced, and probably saved more lives.  Whooptie-fucking-doo.   Now that it was all done, raider blood was drying into my coat again, reeking of carrion.  Casting my gaze from the mountaintop to the ongoing triage inside the old fort caused flakes to lightly crack and fall from my coat.  

I’d somehow wandered up to the path that I’d seen Dizzy and Wingnut run from afar.  Here the air tasted a little less like blood and a little more like the clean zephyrs of the mountain.  A little more mist on my lips, a little less death in my nostrils.  For a fleeting moment that peak called out, a height of unfathomable nostalgia before me.  Yet what would be up there?  Just the site of another soul pushed from the brink of life into death, and a pretty view.  The living were here, crying out, screaming for mercy.  I’d had enough time for myself.


----------------------------------------


Carts were the most useful pony invention after fire, I had decided.  Magic made a great substitute for precision measurement tools, electricity, and medicine, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the wheel and its derivatives.  With the power of four of them and a panel of wood, one pony could haul several times his weight for hours upon end.  Or, in the case of a hundred-some-odd villagers, haul their dead and wounded companions and whatever scraps of salvage the raiders used to own.

Across the bridge and for the first three miles of the trek back to town, the crimson earth pony buck in the cart latched to my midsection had gasped and whimpered at every rock and bump we hit.  I couldn’t blame him.  He was missing one eye, probably lost at the same time he got the gash running diagonally across his face.  One patch of cloth taped over opposite sides of his midsection made a solid case for a sucking barrel wound.

He’d fallen unconscious somewhere around the time I’d lost all track of where we were.  The mountains were darker without a creeping coat of mist hanging off every surface.  Without the clouds to scatter the ambient light, the woods on either side reached out like starving souls begging for help.  Images of being stuck out here at night flashed through my mind and I shook them off, favoring the waking world instead.

Page was covered in soot again.  Judging by the smile that had somehow stuck for the last hour, the fire magic had come in handy.  At least he was in one piece.  Stalemate on the other hand was drenched in drying blood to the end of each of his forelegs and around the corners of his mouth.  He looked utterly blank, eyes still forward with their typical faded conviction, each stride measured, as if nothing of note had occurred today and he was just taking a walk. Wingnut had tried to talk to me for a while, but I just couldn’t seem to entertain the conversation.  He needed to get his mind off the fight just as much as I did, but I just couldn’t do it.  Small talk was too obvious.

Like half the able-bodied stallions in the crowd, Dizzy was towing a cart filled with all manner of old appliances and motor parts.  Odd ends of scrap metal had been slipping off the edges as we trekked along.  At first I’d wondered if it was Dizzy who’d commandeered so much scrap, but judging by his tired gait and gasping breath, I was beginning to suspect Rainfall had been calling the shots.

Radheart had been more or less hanging onto Dizzy the entire trip back, talking his ear off.  For Ash’s part, she’d done the same to me, save for the talking part.  She strode just close enough that our coats would touch some of the time, a soft thrill against the menial reality that was the second march in a day.

I wanted to just stop, leave the cart, leave everything and let them go on past.  Ash would help me out of the harness, and I’d hold her there amongst the trees and peaks.  But life didn’t afford such luxuries, and no one else would get my dying cargo back home.  Instead, we’d be trekking on tired legs and arguing with our own tired minds.  Unbidden, my father’s words sprung to my mind.

Dominic, we’re gonna walk ‘til our feet our feet are bloody stumps!

Shut up, dad.

You’re supposed to say ‘Aww dad, we only did that once!’

Yeah, fuck that.


********************************************


Adonicus
Day Four, Late Afternoon

With a rather rough grinding noise and a strong whir the generator started to spin up.  The clutch I had to improvise into the machine was crude, and wouldn’t last long if it was beat on…mental note, tell Rainfall not to fuck with this too much.  The grinding noise started to wean off as the rotor matched the speed of the input shaft.  I looked around the generator one last time, inspecting the bearings, the fan, and the brushes to check for anything out of place, or where a bit of extra grease could be needed.  Placing a few globs of the old axle grease on a few offending squeaks I gave a smile to my work and headed for the door.

Outside I gave a nod to Sage, who threw a switch.  All the lights in the town instantly flashed on, blinding me through my sunglasses.  The resulting cheer from the townsponies then knocked out a second sense.  Once they were done I could hear Rainfall congratulating us.

“You fuckers actually did it!” I managed to open my eyes a bit as they adjusted to the intense light.  “The lights in the town haven’t been this bright in years!”  I thought I could actually see a legitimate smile on his face.

“Well, can we call our debt paid in full then?”  Sage wandered in closer to talk to Rainfall over the still rather loud crowd.

“We will have to talk about that later, for now though, we have to celebrate by burying the rest of the dead.”

At that the crowd lost ceased its clamor, and started to walk, well mostly limp back to their homes.  Rainfall in turn motioned for us to follow him before trotting back to the clinic where we’d left Wingnut, Ash, and Stalemate to help with the wounded.

The clinic had ponies running around constantly but still felt like death itself was inside.  Some were running back and forth carrying assorted bandages, gauze, and buckets full of deep red water.  Some others were standing over their loved ones as they either waited to get patched up, or waited to die.  The screams of agony made the clinic feel smaller, and darker, especially as one moan softened, before stopping completely.  Rainfall led us through the room, I tried to avoid stepping in pools of blood on the ground, but it really was impossible.  Once I got to the staircase in the back I stopped to stare out over the room.

The floor was covered with ponies, and blood.  Some were covered in sheets, some were just left to stare at the ceiling until one of the ponies running about found them.  The doors to the surgery room flung open as a gurney with a pony shaped, red stained sheet rolled out.  Radheart was standing there, as I caught her glance.  She looked exhausted, but still bore a face of determined fury.  I nearly jumped and fell down the stairs when I felt a hoof prod my side.

“You’re kind of in the way.”  Ash was looking up at me,  “Are you going to be alright?”

I looked back down at her, trying to hide what I was thinking.  Judging the look on her face, I wasn’t doing well at all.  “I’ll be fine, just really can’t stand the smell of blood like this.”

The bedroom of the clinic was familiar to me for all the wrong reasons, just being in here made my stomach twist as if I had just downed a bottle of ipecac.  I found myself staring at that bed.   Sheets still flung about, with a pillow laying on the floor next to it, one that I had slept on the night before.  And the night before that.  Rainfall’s voice broke me out of my stupor.

“We need to talk about your future here.”  He sounded lot more like a employer trying to gently bring out the next round of layoffs instead of a victorious leader.

“We’re seen as heroes and are going to get a house of our own to live in while continuing to help this community?”  The sheer level of optimism in Page’s voice made me roll my eyes.

“No, a few of the influential voices around want you gone.  You wandered in here, shut down our power supply, and got us into a fight with raiders that no one was really ready for.  You have caused more trouble than you have fixed.  We will be burying our friends long after you leave.  However, that being said, I have a friend over in Denspur that could use your expertise since you two are now both, and I use this term lightly, professionals.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”  Sage sounded as puzzled as he looked.

“You and the freak have your cutiemarks now.”  I flung my head back to look at my own ass.  Sure enough I saw an image of a gray box end wrench and a flat-head screwdriver, with a black handle crossed in an ‘X’ pattern.

Sage said what I thought, “How the hell did that happen?!”

Rainfall gave a little chuckle, “When you hit that switch and the lights came back on I saw them appear, you two weren’t lying when you said you knew what you were doing.”

“Guess not,”  I said more systematically than anything.  I looked over to Sage to see a bolt of electricity surrounded by ones and zeros on his flank.  “The hell does that even mean?”

“I think it’s an arc flash with binary around it.”  Sage was lost to the world, staring at his own butt.

“If we could get back on topic for a second,” Rainfall interrupted.  “I am grateful for what you kids did here, and I am not the only one.  You still need to leave.  You don’t have a home here.  A place to visit every now and then might even be pushing it.  A lot of this town will see their friend’s deaths on your shoulders.”

“And you see this as an excuse to just kick them right out, and send them on a journey across the lower tundra all the way to Denspur?  That is one hell of a thing to do.”  Radheart was standing in the doorway leading to the downstairs with Stalemate taking advantage of his position behind her to take a long glance at her tail.  When he saw me take notice I swear he took half a step back; I couldn’t figure out why.

“So what?  They have proven they are capable fighters, they will be fine.  Denspur is no more than two days’ walk from here.”

Radheart threw her stained apron to the floor, shouting.  “Two days out there!?  Even if they knew the area, even if they had supplies!  What about the storm?!  There is no way they’d be able to make it.”

“What would you have me do?  Let them stay here to get lynched in the middle of the night as the town falls apart around our hooves!”

Radheart sighed, her ears drooping as she slipped to sitting on the floor.  “I know you’re right Rainy, but I can’t just let them go out there alone.”  She looked up at me, “I am going with them.”

“What?!”

“Oh hell no.”

“The fuck?!”

Rainfall nearly fell to the floor himself, “You’re our doctor; you know we can’t survive without you.”

“Look, I haven’t done much more than patch up a few cuts and bruises since I took over.  There are a whole group of ponies down there who are more than capable of handling anything you might see; you really don’t need me.  If nothing else, Spring can take over this place until we get back.”

I stared at the floor, “Can I get a word in?”  A few different eyes locked on me, “I really don’t think you should be coming along with us.”  Radheart’s face seemed to break even more.  She looked one step away from crying.  “They need you more here than we do.  We’re not complete fools, we can handle ourselves out there.”

“I…you and I need to talk.”  Radheart kept her face glued to the floor,  “Can everyone give us a little privacy please?”  She looked around from person to person as they slowly left the room.  As Ash passed by me her eyes seemed to linger.  She knew that this was going to hurt.  It still needed to be done, for my own sake as well as Radheart’s.  Soon enough it was just Sage, Radheart, and myself in the dark bedroom.

“Whatever you tell him, you can tell me.”  Sage stood tall, spoke deeply, and fire burned in his eyes.  It looked like he was more giving an order than anything else.

“Sage, please.”  I looked at him, “I can handle this.”

He took a second to just stare at me, comprehending the bucket of water I had just thrown on his inner fire, before walking slowly out.  At the click of the door’s latch Radheart spoke.  “I was talking to your friends recently.  Was that really your first time?  With me?”

I couldn’t stand to look her in the eye.  “It was,” I felt my face turning red.

“And does it really mean something more to you than just sex?”  She was trying to hold something back.  Probably hope.

“It really does.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I wanted my first time to be with someone I truly loved.  But Wingnut needed help, and I had the option to do something.”

“We could have figured something out.”

I just stared at the floor.  “We really couldn’t, you can’t just help every random wounded who walks into your clinic for free.”

Radheart stood up and walked over to me, sitting down right in front of me.  “I thought you enjoyed it, I thought you wanted to be with me.”

“I…once again this is going to sound silly, but I have not even had a marefriend before.  I was just happy to finally have someone to hold.  I guess I did sort of like it, if just for that.”

There was a small pause, neither of us knowing what to say.  Radheart finally broke it, “If you don’t want me to come along, I’ll stay back here.  I don’t have to go.  You can forget about me.  You know, I thought we might of had something for a while.  If in just for those little talks we had before falling asleep together.  I thought you might have...might have actually loved me.”

In a romance movie this would be when the guy in my place would look up, embrace the woman, and tell her that he did, in fact, love her.  I am not big on romance movies.  “I got caught up in the moment, you used me.  No one wants to feel used.”

“I…I guess that settles it then.” She let her head point to the floor, her shoulders sagging as a drop of something hit the floor between her forehooves.

You have to care about someone to be hurt by them.  “Those stories you told me, why did you?”

“In my life I’ve had only had three stallions that I loved.  You are the third.  I saw you, and yes I thought I could get away with just using you for a night then forget.  I guess after those nights, of you holding me, and telling me of who you are, I got sloppy.  I never intended to fall for you, I just did.  I must have a thing for lost souls.”

“I really don’t know what to say.”  I looked up at Radheart…. no, Radiant Heart.  Her name finally made sense to me, she isn’t so much a doctor as she is a lover.  Going out into the wasteland to find hopeless souls and show them something better, give them hope.

I still have no idea what possessed me to do this, but as I looked at her, I reached out and kissed her.

We had done a lot of kissing in the past few nights, so I had some idea of what I was supposed to do.  However I had never kissed her, it always the other way around.  I all but smashed my face against hers, but she didn’t recoil.  If anything she pushed back at me.  After about a second she broke the kiss, giving a small smile.  I tried to match it, but really couldn’t.  I saw a tear roll down her cheek.

“So, you’ll let me come?”  She wiped the tear away, eagerness slowly shoving the sorrow out of her complexion.

“I can’t tell you what to do.  I just want this to work.  I want something between you and I.”

“It’s only equine to want to be close to another.”  She buried her face in my chest, “Does this mean you don’t want to have sex anymore?”

As with most of the stuff she did, this caught me off guard.  I tried, really tried to say something.  Nothing came out other than a few half-cough-half-word stutters.  Heat swarmed my cheeks, further hampering my efforts to think of some halfway decent response.  Radiant just giggled and wrapped her hooves around me.

“We should get downstairs, gather our things for tomorrow.  It’s going to be a long walk.”

With that Radiant walked to the stairs, giving a little sashay with her tail.  The little hamster in my head was still trying to find its wheel again making me just sit there for a while before following her down.



********************************************


Sky Sage
Day Four, Early Evening

Page had finished sorting the half-dozen saddlebags full of random loot he’d scrounged off the raiders by the time I got down to the basement.  What used to be a massive pile in the middle of the floor had now been organized from shortest to tallest, with nine-mil rounds on one end and a pile of rusty rebar rods on the other.  The middle of the pile had room for several other kinds of brass, tattered boxes and rusty cans of aging food, and an odd mix of drug inhalers and syringes.  Those last few had me worried.

“We didn’t get many caps, and the townsfolk took the best of the food.  But hey, kids, wanna buy some candy?!”  Page smiled and cast a hoof out, displaying the entire array to us.  The concrete basement and grimy light bulb gave his presentation all the charm of a suburban drug deal.  “Now who wants what?”

I still had an almost full sack of ammo that Copper had missed in his victory-induced drunken stupor, but no one else had a weapon that took five-five-six, so I slid the thirty-some-odd rounds into the bag to clink along with the rest.  By the time I worked my way down to the food end of the pile, Ash and Wingnut had pilfered almost everything, leaving me with two tins of baked beans.  Joy.  The one thing that hadn’t been touched once everyone stood back were the chems.

“No takers?” quipped Page, looking at each of us in turn.  “Oh well, I’ll keep these then.”

Glass clattered as he swept them into his bags.  So that was it then, we were all packed to leave.  I was cross that Rainfall was giving us the boot, but it was understandable.  And we even got to bring Radheart with.  Everypony wins.

Stalemate interrupted by trotting into the middle of the group with his head held high, proudly displaying the bandolier of purple phials around his midsection.  There had to be at least three dozen of them, about two ounces each if I had to guess.  Healing potions?!

“Sawyer?  Where did you get those?”  Wingnut was looking Stalemate up and down side to side, mouthing his count of vials.

Stalemate grinned.  “Well, turns out if you smash up gems and mix ‘em with whiskey, and then zap them with magic, they turn purple and don’t get you drunk anymore.”

“And how do you know that?”  The fact that he wasted a half-dozen healing potions was appalling.  I hadn’t seen a gem yet since we got to this forsaken place and he’d just tried them for kicks?

“Well, I had a whole bunch so I chugged a few.”  He shrugged, and I started swallowing a dozen sighs and protests.

Wingnut finished counting.  “Thirty-five!  Like how the hell did you figure out how to make healing potions?!”

“Uh, Radheart mentioned it while we were fixing people?  So I did it?  I thought they might come in handy later.  Also, I got to get into the whiskey.  Why does it taste like apples here?”

Idea!	

“Funny you should ask, leme tell you a story…”


----------------------------------------


Morning person syndrome was in full effect well before the night became day.  I’d never had trouble sleeping in noisy environments, but trying to catch shuteye a floor beneath the emergency ward was new.  Every time I thought I’d managed to slip far enough into unconsciousness, a new moan would shudder down the stairs and hang in the air.  Each cry and whimper was preternaturally loud to my large, shaggy ears.

The smell was worse.

Fresh blood ran on the floorboards above us, buried under the biting odor of the grain alcohol Radheart had used when she ran out of sterilizing ointment.  That blood was barely olfactible and there was not a trace of laughter, but every bit of it dragged me back.  Running headlong past the bullets, the rising reek of decay, blood on my hide, it was all too close.

I squeezed Ash for what had to be the fortieth time that night.  She hummed faintly and squeezed me back.  Moments passed, and her grip loosened as she slipped back into sleep.  Feelings of weight settled into place against the back of my eyes and neck as sleep descended on me once again and dreams reached up to claim my consciousness.  Surrendering to that darkness, I sighed into Ash’s mane and closed my eyes.

The maelstrom of dreams was no more vivid than usual, and it ebbed and flowed until hooves clunked on the basement stairs.

“Time to get up, gang.”  Radheart didn’t sound like a morning person at all.  Either that or she didn’t wanna let go of Dizzy...bad brain.  No.

To be fair, I didn’t want to let go of Ash very much, and when I tried to slide out of bed, she didn’t let go of me.  Hugging problems and trouble getting out of bed aside, we all found ourselves back around Radheart’s table once again, shoveling breakfast into our faces in anticipation of a long trip ahead.

Words rose unbidden to my mind again, except this time they belonged to Ash.  You can tell that food has been served because it gets very quiet.  Hunger sure made the food go down, but the silence hung heavier than seven hungry souls eating oatmeal.

What was there to say?  We were walking out on a town with many wounded and taking their doctor with us because she wanted tail from my best friend.  Only the unknown awaited us, and it probably wasn’t going to be as kind as Alpine had been.  Chasing the thoughts in circles wouldn’t make their causes go anywhere.

Soon Page left to make sure all our gear was in order, as did Wingnut.  I didn’t really feel the need.  We’d packed everything the night before, and hadn’t unpacked it since.  Stalemate and Ash left with grim expressions, going to check on the patients one last time.  Soon I was alone at the table, as Radheart and Dizzy cleaned off the dishes.

With the care of a mother going wiping the brow of her child, Radheart dried each plate and set it out to dry.  The stack was slowly growing, and with bowl in the pile her vigour faded a little.  That towel dried slower and slower until she was barely going over each plate before setting it on the pile.  I thought I understood her sentiment.  At least got to choose to leave her home behind.

For his part, Dizzy didn’t seem to be a great deal of help.  Without magic he was reduced to taking the dirty plates and moving them into the sink.  Nothing was tense about his frame, and the few times his wingtips brushed against Radheart he continued on in silence.  More than anything his head drooped slightly in the grip of a body clock still refusing to acknowledge consciousness.

Mine was still catching up, so it was a little surprised fifteen minutes later when it found us passing through the north gate of the town, weighed down by saddlebags and wrapped in winter saddle blankets.  They were a little too warm, but they were a quick sell when Radheart told us that it was only early autumn.  Dizzy had rigged a loop around my carbine so it could hang from the saddlebags just within mouth’s reach, in case I needed it quickly.  The horse things never seemed to end.

Light was slowly coming to the world, a dark gray ambiance slowly emerging from the black to reveal the land but impart no warmth.  In the wan illumination, the ground appeared less brown from the dead grass underhoof and more gray from the clouds above.  

‘Gate’ was a kind word for the pine planks lashed together with twine between towers made of the same.  Did anypony consider what might happen if a raider shot a fire spell at the whole mess?  The whole damn town was made of the stuff.

The guards were even more bundled up than we were.  A night out in that weather couldn’t have been fun for them.  Vaguely, I felt sorry for those souls that had to sit out for an entire frosty night, staring at the dark void of the hills under no star or moon, praying nothing stirred to make their night less boring.

“Hey peg-ass-sus!  Gonna go report back to your enclave buddies now?”

Ok, less sympathetic now.

“They saved every caravan coming into this town for years to come.  Merit a thank you?”  Radheart was clearly not a morning pony.

“And they got my sister badly wounded.  Save her, will ya?  Oh wait, you’re taking off with them.”  The buck shook his rifle in the air while his companion climbed down and started to open the gate.  “Go on now, take our ‘saviors’ and get!”

Ash paused, staring at the ground with glassy eyes before closing them tight again.  I felt my anger flare, but there really wasn’t any use in shouting back.  Trying to bring logic to an emotional argument was like bringing a toothpick to a dogfight.  Right or not, that guard would blindly carry on his side, drawn by grief.  It wasn’t my choice!  I wanted to scream.  Your mayor pushed us and all of you into it!  Don’t you idiots think?

Taking a deep breath of the cool, dry air, I once again gazed into the rugged and scarred plains that covered the expanse before us.  The first dozen yards in every direction had long since been stamped flat and devoid of vegetation.  Several worn paths led off into the grass on the edges of the gate, the faintest one leading dead forward to the north.  Radheart started toward it, and we followed one by one.

Every bit of ground was the same coarse, rough, dying grass that we’d plodded over in the last week, but this time each step was sure.  This time, Wingnut was walking alongside us instead of lying comatose on our backs.  Stalemate wasn’t swearing at everything in life and the afterlife, and Page wasn’t randomly blasting and throwings rocks.

Counting blessings continued as I trailed behind Dizzy.  We had guns, ammo, food, and nice warm blankets, and a new medic.  She led us on up the side of a ridge, still following that same hoof-trail.  Radheart was our guide to the wastes, our doctor, and the one pony Stalemate seemed to respect.  Even though we were due to travel to another unknown place, I knew I could take heart in the knowledge that we weren’t so helpless or clueless.  I pushed my stride to reach the top of the ridge, enthusiasm greeting each step, only to almost run over Dizzy at the top.  He’d stopped to stare into the cold wind gusting over the ridge.

A gray so deep it almost yielded to black covered the entire north edge of the sky, slowly expanding toward us.  Flickers of lightning danced between the clouds, too far away to hear.  The massive storm glided through the heavens, eating up the calm gray of the morning cloud cover like a cancer spreading across a victim.  Chill wind blew my mane and tail into a winding mess behind me, and reached icy fingers under my saddlebags and blankets to steal away what warmth I already had.  

“Can’t we wait it out?”  I begged some kind sanity from Radheart.  She stared off into the darkness, slowly shaking her head.

“Perhaps if we had a hundred years.  That’s not a natural storm, nor is created by the pegasi.  It belongs to the windigos of the northern wastes, and has not ceased for as long as living memory serves.  It might move a little yes, but go away?  Never.”

We all stared for a few moments before she started down the ridge with a backward cry of “Come on!”

Dizzy spoke for all of us.  “Well fuck.”



********************************************


Adonicus
Day Five, Afternoon

The sleet we had been walking through for the past hour or so was finally turning into full-on snow.  So there’s that.  The trail was incredibly slippery, the rain slowly turning into a slushy, icy mess that turned the path into a thick brown sludge.  Did I mention that the wind was directly in our faces and we really didn’t have the gear to protect ourselves against this sort of onslaught?

“Raiders, sure.  Twice even.  Snow, well fuck.”  I mumbled under my breath, trying to not let anyone around me hear.  Bitching is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but you don’t really get anywhere with it.

That and I really didn’t think anyone else could hear me over the screaming of the wind.  Wait, wind doesn’t scream…not like that.

“Everyone stop!”  I looked up, searching around for anything out of place.  It was my turn leading the group, plowing through the knee deep snow, so the others had to stop or risk running into me.  I got a lot of odd stares from the group, as Sage slogged up to me.

“What is it?  Do you see something?”  His words were slow and slightly slurred, proving that his lips were every bit as numb as mine.

“No, I hear something.  Not sure what.  Just let me listen for a second.”

I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the wind.  Through the intense howl I could make out the sound of a…something. 

“I hear something, it doesn’t sound good.  Like some animal screaming in pain.  It also sounds rather far off, I think if we keep moving we should be able to avoid it.”  The wind sort of carried my voice but I could still tell that Ash and Stalemate at the back couldn’t hear me.  Sage did, and moved up alongside Radheart heading toward where I stood.

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll take the lead for now, about time we switched over anyway.”

I gave a short nod to Sage as he shoved aside enough snow to stand in front of the group.  In that breath of time, he was now pushing through the deep snow, breaking apart the hard-frozen top and making just enough of a route for the rest of us to follow.  I fell in line as a fresh gust of freezing sleet hit my face.  I heard that scream again.  “Windigoes.”

“What?” I could barely make out Radiant’s voice from behind me.

“The windigoes, they’re kind of close.  It has to be them.”  A short burst of wind reminded me of how I couldn’t feel either of my ears.  It really wouldn’t have been that bad if the wind would just fucking stop for a few seconds.  My legs would have probably been hurting if the snow packed against them wasn't removing any semblance of feeling.  The only reason I could lift my head at all was because of my sunglasses protecting my eyes from the onslaught of flying snow.  Didn’t protect the rest of my face from being practically sandblasted though.

“We need to keep moving, if we stay here we are going to freeze to death.”  Sage was yelling over his shoulder, trying to let everyone in the group know.

That boy was going to get at least half of us killed by the time we got to where we were going.  Calling it right here.

There really wasn’t anything more to say.  The windigoes were there, far enough away to not really be a problem right now.  We had more pressing matters to attend to.  Problems like not freezing to death in this fucking storm.  All we could do was put our heads down, and keep putting one hoof in front of the other -- with the winter storm continually reminding me of how much it hated me.


********************************************


Sky Sage
Day Five, Night

Evening came in its own time, only heralded by the darkness dropping further around us like a snuffer slowly lowered over a candle.  I was numb.  From brow to wingtip to tail to hoof, I felt nothing at all.  The winter blankets carried no warmth once soaked as thick as my coat.  Whatever food the others had packed in boxes was sure to be ruined.  That canned food seemed pretty good now, but only because I was starving.

I’m not sure anyone had gotten used to the insane braying.  At least I think it was braying.  Damned hard to tell against the wind and the snow.  The howling gusts served to unnerve me only until I got too cold to care anymore.  Then I didn’t stop to care.  Shoving snow aside was a chore, one that we rotated off and on for five minutes at a time.  One slice of time every half hour of clearing snow that sometimes got as deep as chest high so everyone else could walk through was enough to exhaust everyone.

So long as everyone kept moving, we’d make it to the other side, and figure out what to do then.  There was nowhere out here to take shelter, no wood dry enough for a fire, and no way we’d ever keep it going if by some miracle it would light.  Page had tried to warm us all with magical fire once the snow started to get really deep, and it had worked, but it was only a brief respite before we all grew cold again.  Then it was back to the slog, step after stride after step keeping us alive and carrying us to the edge of the storm.

The hour was late when the snow curtain pulled away from the air, and we’d long since been relying on Radheart’s pipbuck.  The map it showed allowed her to lead us straight toward Denspur regardless of the weather, and the lamp in the front stopped us on several occasions from falling off ridges and into ravines.  When the flakes faded away from that light, the snow was hard packed and frozen on the ground, the winds settling to a whisper under the starlight.

Wait, starlight?

“Radheart,” I staggered forward through the snow, running along the path that Wingnut was cutting.  My voice was husky and raspy from inhaling so much cold air and leaking so much snot out my nostrils.  “Why are there stars up there?  Where did the clouds go?”

“Well,” she gasped around her words.  She’d been walking second behind whoever was cutting through the snow to provide direction, constantly calling out the leader whenever he or she would get off track.  “That’s because the pegasi don’t rule here.  This is far outside their stomping grounds and past mystical beasts of winter.”

The hardened plain of snow gleamed like an endless field of diamond under the open sky, kicking up what seemed to a radiant land to my eyes after traveling a day in darkness.  No one part sparkled, but miles around glowed with a pale blue-white light.  In the far distance, the moon perched among the peaks of a tall mountain range, looking down on the remains of a city.  Skyscrapers stood faintly, some with flecks of light burning in their windows.  Too little of it was clad in enough light to make out any fine details, but the important click in my mind was the knowledge it was there, within our grasp.  So this is Denspur.

“Down there!” rasped Wingut.  He was holding out a foreleg toward a small farmhouse perhaps a quarter-mile distant.  It looked to have one floor, but was large enough to have several rooms.  The walls were still somehow intact, promising a night free from the ravages of the wind.  “We can warm up there and go into the town tomorrow!”

A cheer went up from our mottley crew, and Dizzy picked up his pace enough to start helping Wingnut push toward the structure.  They left in a hurry, but the rest of us were not quite so keen to catch up.  Sixteen hours of forced march through winds, rain, sleet, and a blizzard was apt to do that to even the most hardened soldier.  And here we were, the soft city folk on the other side, somehow still standing.  Pride stirred in my chest over my friends, my brother, and my love.  Here they were, walking the last mile.

Ash shuddered along, lifting and letting each leg down slowly.  She’d stopped speaking to everyone halfway through the trek, as if even spending words on everyone else was taxing.  I missed her voice, and was looking forward to holding her until she would whisper soothingly to me once again.  That would take food and a dry coat, but those could both be arranged.

Page had made a game with himself to walk twenty paces quickly, then rest until he had counted until twenty.  He hadn’t fallen behind either, so I didn’t knock it.  Stalemate was bringing up the rear, taking each step with the weary determination of a sleepwalker.  He wasn’t far off, and I slunk through the snow toward the end of our journey, vague thoughts stirring in my mind about getting a fire going for them.  They were solely eager to reach the end and receive the gifts of warmth and rest, and I agreed.

With the snow no longer falling into my eyes, only the frosty air hung barren between them and the broken down building.  The farmhouse looked like something out of an old western with too much winter.  An old porch gave welcome to the empty tundra, leading up to a thick wooden front door, now pushed aside to reveal the darkness of an empty house.  The windows had been covered with plywood, forcibly shut against the unearthly winter outside.

Time had bleached the few sections of the outer walls not covered in snow white, and worn away at the wood.  Only a few shingles were missing from the roof, and the places they failed to cover were shod in a dark resin.  Either magic, or some really impressive construction and materials had kept this place together for the time it had weathered the storm.

A loud crack shook the snow from the corners where the planks ran together.  It wasn’t until a scream and yelling rent the air that I realized the noise belonged to a gunshot.

Yelling through the mass of mucus in my throat, I charged forward, hooves pounding the ancient wooden floor.  Somewhere in the middle of that stride the mouth-grip of my carbine found my teeth, and I found the sights in front of my eyes.  The dark living room of the farmhouse had nothing but a stone fireplace, and two halls branching off of it; light was streaming out of the one to my right.  Halfway down that hall, something rounded the corner faster than my eyes could follow, and kicked me out of the way on its path to the front door.

“Demon!”

Pain shot like lightning down my underbelly.  I didn’t so much fall as impact the wall, and proceeded to slide down the rotting wood, filling my coat, bags, and blanket with splinters.  At a slightly slower pace, a second creature darted around the corner, following the second.  Black and white legs were just visible under a thick black winter coat.  He disappeared into the living room as I finally came to rest on the floor.

Inhaling to call out hurt too much, and my legs didn’t want to uncurl.  Ash!

Two ponies were choking and gasping in pain in the other room, and Dizzy was yelling.  At the top of his lungs he was belting out something that didn’t quite register in my brain.  I was too busy focusing every thought into trying to force air against the fire where my lungs should have been.  Breathefuckingdamnme!

Somepony was scooping me up, and yelling my name in my ear.  Why couldn’t I do this myself?  There were two ponies ahead that needed help, and three behind that were probably fighting for their lives right now.  I blinked the tears out of my eyes, drawing a ragged breath and coughing as Wingnut held me up and let my legs stretch out again.

“Sage, what happened to you?!”

I hacked and a stream of phlegm and blood dripped past my teeth onto the floor. Fire ran up my belly and ribs, but I could breath now.

“Ash…”

“They’re ok and in the living room’ two zebras just ran right past them out the door!”

He let me go, and the pain coursed again, causing a new coughing fit, stealing precious seconds with each drop of blood that ran past my teeth to splash on the floorboards.  When that had also passed, I staggered forward, Wingnut still ready to catch me if I fell again.

Around the corner lay the remains of the kitchen.  There was still one zebra there, clad in the same garb as his companions save for the hole running through the middle of the cloak.  Red oozed out of him onto the floor while he stared blankly into a small cookfire burning atop a slab of stone.  An iron cookpot boiled with the smell of soup above the flames.  Beside the fire lay a stack of firewood about as long as my foreleg and half as deep.

Dizzy sat on the floor next to Radheart, desperately pressing his blankets against her bullet wound and sobbing.  He’d torn his pack off to get them, and his rifle lay discarded on the floor.  Her pink coat had been stained a deep crimson all across her underside, but the last vestiges of light flickered in her eyes.  She had one hoof around his neck, and was whispering into his ear.  Those words didn’t seem to be doing much to soothe him.

“Stalemate get in here now!”  What should have been a thunderous demand was barely a yell, and my lungs ached for the effort of trying.

Radheart looked up at me, a sad smile on her face.  “Those don’t fix heart wounds.”  She turned back to Dizzy, her head dropping onto his shoulder.  

She lay still, and Dizzy broke down, letting go of the towel to take her in his stained forelegs.  Nuzzling against her head, he wept into her coat as her blood stained the gray of his face and neck.  Stalemate stumbled into the room, followed by Page and Ash.  Everything froze, save for my friend holding his dead mare and the crackling of the flames.

It took us the better part of an hour to get Dizzy to let go of Radheart.  He never said anything, just held her and cried.  I couldn’t remember him ever crying in the years we’d known each other.  Once we got him to let go I had Ash take him to somewhere not here.  We took all of the gear off her now cold body, trying our best to wash the blood off.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out how she died.  The zebras who had ambushed us only had two hatchets and a spade, and Dizzy was alone in the room with Radheart.  Maybe one day I’d ask him about it, but tonight was not the time.  Not now of all times.  Now it was my turn.  I closed my eyes and tried my best not to show anything to Dizzy that he didn’t need to think about.

“All of you, leave this room, close the door.”  

“Why?” asked Page, content by the cookfire.

“You know well, and none of you should have to do this.  Take the rest of the wood, and the soup, go start a fire in the living room fireplace and eat.  I’ll be out soon.”

Wingnut, Stalemate, and Page all look up, brows furrowed.  They knew what I was about to do, and why I needed to do it.  Didn’t help them accept it at all.  Once they were out of the room, and I heard the door lock shut, I dug through Radheart’s pack to find a knife.  There was most a of a field surgical kit in there.  I didn’t know most of the tools in it, but she did have a bonesaw in addition to a few knives of various sizes.  Fucking perfect.

There was no way I was going to like doing any of this.

She lay on the floor next to the fire, her coat all pink again, but darker in some places.  Purple mane splayed around her neck, still soaked from the walk through the storm.  Memories came flooding back of arguments we’d had, of her taking care of my friends, of her defending us, the strangers, from harm.  She was my friend’s ‘lover’ in some form.  Somepony had thankfully closed her eyes.

The pipbuck casing the lower part of her left foreleg appeared to be nothing more than a gray metal tube with some buttons and a screen, now blank.  Memories of the day told me it was far more than just a hunk of metal.  On the lower side it didn’t quite come down to her hoof.  After a few moments of contemplating the deed, I stuck a foreleg under her, and rolled her onto her stomach, propping that leg out so it lay almost flat onto the floorboards.

I bit down on the grip of the bonesaw.

Resting atop her leg beside the hoof-side of her pipbuck, I held down her leg with mine.  Every instinct screamed to close my eyes, but I’d need to see what I was doing.  Blinking tightly, scrunching my lids closed over my eyes just once was all the respite I gave myself before pushing down and forward.

The flesh gave, quickly.  It was cool now, but not yet dried or hard, and the saw quickly cut down to the leg bones underneath.  Thin driblets of blood oozed from the capillaries under her skin, but no great volume gushed to the floor.  It was already there.  The smell was no different than the rest of the blood in room, confusing the part of me that expected something evil, some stench to remind me beyond my already assured state that she was indeed dead.

Drawing the saw back caused every last tooth to bounce over the bone and forcing me to tighten my grip on the handle.  The next slide forward came with far more resistance and a slight grinding noise as the steel wore through the bone.  The next one fell into the groove, and after that I could just shove the saw back and forth, trying to pretend I was cutting down a tree, complete with the tang of pine to wash away the cold metallic taste of blood.

At some point while I was off in that imaginary world Radheart’s leg bone gave way, and the saw slipped through the flesh on the otherside.  My face slipped forward with it, rubbing my cheek into her pipbuck.  The end of her leg fell clean off, and I moved the saw up to the other side.

When it too came free, I was left with a singular section of bone wrapped in flesh and skin encased in the pipbuck.  Spitting out the bonesaw, I reached for the largest knife.

After twenty minutes of poking, slicing, scooping, and crying I was done.  Radheart’s pipbuck was in my hooves, and my bloody spittle was all over the grip of her bonesaw and knives.  How poetic.  Now who do we give it to?  I threw that thought out of my head as soon as I could.  Not something to be taken lightly.  I carefully wrapped her body up in the blankets she had worn, placing the bits of her leg beside her.

I remembered being hungry when I first ran into the farmhouse.  Ravenous, ready to eat anything, even grass if I could find it.  Now, I wanted nothing more than to sleep.  Every muscle in my legs told me to lay down, and every point on my neck implored me to bow it.  There was one more thing I had to do before I rested.  I didn’t deserve to sleep until she did.

“Seth and Sawyer, I need you two.”  At my call they started down the hallway.  “We need to bury her.”  They both just sort of looked at me as a way of saying they understood.  We carried her out to a tree a few dozen yards from the farmhouse, and began to clear away the snow.  In the distance the storm raged on as if nothing had happened that night.

“Should we get Dizzy for this?”  Wingnut looked nervously back over his shoulder, as if he wanted to get our friend now.

I answered slowly, too spent to retort.  “No, he wouldn’t want to see this, we can show him after we are done.”

It must have been close to sunrise by the time we had the grave completed.  Digging out the snow had been a chore, and parting the hard ground had been almost impossible.  If it hadn’t been for the spade the zebras left, we would have never been able to bury her.

When Ash brought Dizzy to Radheart’s grave, he looked practically dead.  His eyes were hollow and bloodshot, probably from getting about as much sleep as I had on top of the tears.  With each step his head drooped lower, until his nose dragged in the snow along with his wingtips.  Radheart’s blood had dried to his coat, cracking in places as he shambled forward.  When Ash stopped, so too did he by her side.  

At the graveside he simply fell onto his rump, staring with his hollow eyes at the pile of loose dirt.  Ash tried to hug him, but he just sat there, as if he and that grave were the only things in the entire world.

“Can you just leave me here alone for a bit?”  His voice was hoarse, and broken.  His eyes were still locked on the pile of dirt.

If I didn’t say something, we would all collapse.  This was a time I had to be strong for all of them.  I couldn’t say anything other than yes, but it had to come with direction.  “We will be down in the farmhouse if you need us.  We’ll stay here a night, and catch up on sleep.”

I looked around and headed back down the little hill, Ash, Wingnut, Page, and Stalemate all followed suit.  I wanted to stay and comfort him, but I was tired and frozen.  It had been a whole day awake, most of it fighting through the storm.  Right when warmth had become an option, I was right back outside, digging a grave for a corpse I’d desecrated.  I needed food, I needed warmth, and I needed a hug.  For lack of anything else, I wanted to curl up and let Ash hold me while I cried.

Once back inside, by the warmth of the fire I could see all of our gear.  Somepony had left out a tin of something, which I didn’t stop to identify before tipping it up and shoving it in my mouth.  As I chewed, Wingut stared at his pack as if it were completely foreign.

“My pistol is missing.”  He was rifling through the contents, dumping them out on the floor one by one.

“Are you sure it’s not just at the bottom of your pa-”

A crack rang through the house for a second time.





END OF BOOK ONE






Sky Sage: Level Four
NO!  NOT NOW!  G-- damnit!  FUCK!

Perk: Command Presence
You’re the stallion, the big guy, head honcho, and the boss...or at least everyone around you sees you that way.
+10 to speech, unique dialogue options with specific NPC’s.

Quest Perk: Electrical Equine Engineer
It’s dangerous to stick your tongue into a live circuit, but you’ve gotta do what it takes to make things work.  You have gained intuition on how electronics on all scales work in this new world -- and your ass tattoo.
+5 to Science, +5 to Energy Weapons


Adonicus: Level Four
A fitting end, this is how it should be.

Perk: Heart Broken
You lost the pony that you loved, welcome to the wasteland.  Until you get over it you suffer -2 to all SPECIAL stats

Quest Perk: Jury Rigging
You can fix just about anything, with just about anything else. Fix a battle saddle with guts from a robot, fix a laser rifle with a pistol, keep that vertibuck flying with nothing but a roll of duct tape and some spare change. How does it work? Nopony knows, nopony except for you.
Repair any item with any similar item.


Ashen Shield: Level Three (50% to next level)
I guess it’s his time to be broken...


Stalemate: Level Four 
Guess that makes me the doctor now.

Perk: Spell Learned: Healing Potion
Well as much as it’s a waste of whiskey, hopefully these things will be useful to heal somebody at some point on down the line.
Can make healing potions given the raw ingredients

Page Gemwright: Level Three (50% to next level)
Well, at least there’s fire and food.  Ooooh.  Fire.

Wingnut: Level Three
Roadtrips are a lot easier with friends along for the ride...
> Book Two: A Path Chosen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


TOP SECRET//NOFORN


TO: MR. DAVID ALHWHITE

DATE: 7 DECEMBER 2014

TIME: 0937 EST

SUBJECT: CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN FACILITY DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

Dave,

I don’t think you grasp the gravity of the situation, nor should I have to explain it to you.  I’m certainly going to grant your request to study the anomalous behavior around the blast radius, but I can’t give you extra troops to escort your team.  Those men are busy digging for survivors, salvageable tech, and keeping the media hounds out.  

When I get done making sure our wounds are licked and the dead mourned, then we can deal ‘why’.  The ‘what’ is that there is a frozen hole in the ground where there used to be a mountain, six hundred billion dollars worth of equipment, and fifteen thousand good men and women.

This would have been so much simpler if I wasn’t in DC at the time.  Now they’re gonna keep me here to explain what I don’t know.  You know the drill.  The boss is gone, now I’m in charge, and they want answers.

Meet up with Jennings when you get there; he’s taking care of things for me on the ground.  Good luck, but just tag your report and send it up the chain.  These fucking paper-pushers are going to bury me here.


-Fred

LIEUTENANT GENERAL ALFRED M. HANSON
ACTING COMMANDER
NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND



ATTACHMENTS
(1) (TS//TK//NF) Battle Damage Assessment: Cheyenne Mountain Military Complex 12.7.14



TOP SECRET//NOFORN

> Chapter 8: Spur of the Moment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Spur of The Moment



If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.	


Dizzy
Day 6, Dawn

There has been many a day when I would be feeling down on myself and would go out for a ride on my motorcycle to clear my mind.  I would always pick the backroads; the meandering curves, the gentle hills, the lack of other people on the road -- they always managed to allow me to think clearly.  Well, as clearly as I could anyways.  Riding a motorcycle through those roads and taking turns faster and tighter than you ever could in a car always managed to give me a rush that I couldn’t get anywhere else.  

Riding always just felt right -- you had to move your entire body to do anything. Leaning to turn, grabbing the clutch with your left hand, letting your right hand off the throttle, and hitting the gear shift with your left foot, every movement was like a note of an orchestra.  It required all of your dexterity; it mandated that you know where everything around you was. 

It made you feel alive. 

Once you get good, the bike itself disappears; it’s just you and the road. Riding became a part of who I was -- who I am. Once winter came to bear and I had to put the bike away, I would always feel this sense of longing.  I felt as though I had lost a part of my freedom.  The same roads were always there, and yet they just never felt the same.  I’d still drive the same routes, but I no longer felt like I was really living the roads, just using them.  It felt like I was just waiting to live again, biding time until warm days would come and I could take my bike back out, at last becoming one with the road.

The wasteland is like the roads.  You don’t just ride along them, you become a part of them.  Being thrown into the wasteland was one of the roughest parts of my life, but at the same time I learned to adapt, to become one with the wasteland, open to what it had to say.

That place taught me many things, the wasteland.  It taught me how to kill, it taught me how to survive, it taught me what true loss felt like.  It broke me many a time.  My friends were...are the only reason I am still here to tell my side of this story.  You see, The wasteland is like a mess of different roads, each one belonging to a different person, each one with its own ending.  The wasteland showed me that I knew nothing about what life really was...and made sure that I’d learn quickly or die trying.






***


I could have just laid there.  I should have known that trying to aim a pistol under my chin with these damn hooves would be hard.  My wings had probably hurt my aim more than they steadied it.

I heard hooves coming towards me, running.  Sage, maybe Ash.  I knew they would have heard that shot; I just never wanted them to find a living body.  There was something warm running down my face.

At least you didn’t completely fail.

My mind always knew how to make it hurt worse.  I could feel no real pain from it all; that was probably the adrenaline. Someone was shouting at me as they slowed their pace.  I could hear the shouting, but the only words I could make out came from the voice in my head.

You put her in danger...

You couldn’t save her…

You can’t save your friends…

You can’t save yourself…

You can’t even kill yourself…

Through my watering eyes I could make out Sage’s colors.  He was looking down at me, saying something.  All I could hear were those thoughts ringing out again, and again.  Sage started picking me up.  Once I was leaning on his shoulder I could see the little pool of my blood.  Sage looked worried.  He shouldn’t be. Not like I could do it, I just tried.

“Dizzy?  Come on, say something!”  He sounded frantic, and really, really scared.  I tried to say something, but I’m sure nothing intelligible came from my mouth.

You can’t even talk…

“Come on.”  Sage sounded sad -- sad and angry.  Just another person I managed to fail.  All I could do was stare up at him as he helped me to my hooves.

He started walking back to the farmhouse.  I just followed as the rain started anew. As much as I didn’t want to go back in there I really had no choice.  There would be no way for me to be left alone for probably a few weeks.  I took one last look out towards that dead tree hanging over the mound of dirt and rocks at its base before the house blocked my view of it.  My legs took me inside not by free will but by instinct, trying to get me out of the cold rain and closer to the fire inside.

It was a small house, only three rooms.  Ash was just laying next to the hearth staring at the flames, probably still in shock from hearing the shot and knowing exactly what that meant, no doubt blaming herself for not seeing me grabbing Wingnut’s pistol as we collected the gear.  The whole time I could hear what Sage was doing.  I knew he couldn’t leave something so valuable to rust in the dirt, but that didn’t change anything.

The camp was already set up to a degree, bedrolls spread out next to the fireplace.  Ash slowly turned her head around to see us, and came slowly trotting to me, the others just remained sitting around the fire, staring at me.

I managed to look Ash in the eye.  She looked like a mirror that I had just thrown a hammer at.  She was trying her hardest to not accept what was right in front of her.  When it finally clicked home though, her expression changed.

“What did you do?”  Her voice shook, uneven with emotion.

I couldn’t speak, so Sage answered for me, “I found him by Radheart’s grave.”

“You….you tried to kill yourself.”

“...I…” there was nothing I could really say.

“You are pathetic.  NOTHING BUT A DAMN COWARD!”

“Ash?”  Sage took a step back, but I couldn’t move...

“NO, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US?  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!  I SHOULD FUCKING KILL YOU MYSELF!”

“Go right ahead...you know that is what I want,”  I could barely hear my own voice, but Ash’s face suddenly changed.

“YOU AREN’T WORTH MY TIME!  NOTHING BUT A USELESS COWARD WHO CAN’T EVEN STAND UP IN THE REAL WORLD!”  I cringed as she poured salt on my wounds.  “SHE’S DEAD.  NEVER COMING BACK.  WE ARE ALL STILL ALIVE.  SHE’S GONE!  WHAT NEWS!”

I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, stinging on that wound.  I thought I was out of tears at this point.

“SHE SAW SO MUCH IN YOU,” Ash seemed to calm, if only a bit. “Then you pull this stunt.  Now you don’t live up to what she thought you were.”

Ash stormed off out the front door, then Sage put a hoof on my back and tried to walk me to my bedroll, but I could only stumble and fall down repeatedly.

As my head hit the bedroll I saw Wingnut tuck his pistol back into the makeshift holster.  He looked up at me with a disappointed look on his face, mouthing something about not touching his stuff before laying down between his gear and myself.

You failed your friends, and hurt one of them more than you will ever know…

Sage didn’t say anything as he went to his saddlebags, reaching around them to grab Radiant’s stuff for a bandage.  He slowly trotted over, fighting with the bandage’s wrapper before Page helped him with his magic.  I flinched at the burning feeling as he stuck it to my face.  As I scanned around the room, my eyes fell on her PipBuck.  Sage had managed to wash most of the blood off, but not all.  Laying next to it was a book, and although it was hard to see, I could make out the glowing heart that was Radiant’s cutie mark.

“We are going to talk in the morning Dizzy, not an option.” Sage’s voice broke the momentary silence like shattering glass.  He was wheezing, trying to take in air like it was the most difficult thing he’d done in his life.  Good for him.

I looked up at him, and as I met his gaze, his eyes seemed to droop. Tremors ran over his face, almost as if what he was seeing pained him more than burying Radiant. He swallowed, shook his head, then gave me a firm pat on the back and stood up.  I saw him trot down across the hillside as he tried to find the now crying Ash.


***


Gray, the entire world around me was devoid of color, and yet everything seemed so much more clear.  A dense, swirling fog gripped everything.  In some directions I could see a few hundred yards, in others I could touch the wall of mist.  The ground was littered with tombstones, some broken, adding to the ash-gray ground.  Every tombstone had a different face on it.  Every time my vision moved to a different tombstone the faces would shift.  Turning from human, to equine, and back again.  

With no idea of anything else to do, I started walking.  Some of the faces looked at me, some stared off into space.  Still, there was no end to them.  After some time I realized that the fog was seemingly guiding me, pushing me towards something.  Deep in the pit of my stomach I felt something bad.  I didn’t belong here, I had to get away.  I started to sprint, trying to dart off to maybe hide in the fog.

I fell onto my back, the fog wall as solid as brick.  I pushed myself up to my two legs.  Running again I finally noticed my hands.

Behind me!

I spun on my heels, reaching for a gun that wasn’t there.  There was nothing, only the wall of fog chasing me, not ten feet behind.  A chill ran up my spine as I turned around once again.  

This time I looked down to my hooves.  The feeling came back.  Something was behind me, something wanted me.  I tried to fly, but just couldn’t catch any air.

I closed my eyes, straining to flap my wings harder.

I kept running -- It was getting closer. I couldn’t outrun it!

My hoof found a hole in the ground and I fell headfirst into a tombstone.

Looking up I saw her face.  Gently staring at me, a sad smile adorning her lips and eyes.  I reached out and ran my fingers down the cold slab.

“She really was quite a mare if you ask me.”  The voice seemed to ooze out of the mist all around me.

I leapt to my hooves, spinning around.  It had said that.  It was standing next to a tombstone of some raider.  It was completely black, even sucking the light in from around it.  It looked rather equine, but my eyes refused to focus on it at all.

“You scared us with your little stunt yesterday, Terrance.”  Its voice took on a tone of a disappointed father.

“Who are you, what do you mean ‘us?’” I screamed at the void, nearly falling over.

It laughed at me, like I was a child trying to understand calculus.

“How do you know my name?”  I tried for a more aggressive stance, but it only laughed a little harder.

“Which name?  Terrance?  Dizzy?”  It started to circle around me.  “Which one of those names even applies anymore, I wonder?  You aren’t human anymore, you are an Equestrian.  However, it is not what you are that matters -- just where.  And you’re here to stay, until your bones lie next to those of everyone else on this filthy planet.”

It stopped moving; the fog in the distance began to clear.  The very top of a building jutted out above the fog.  Its gray was far deeper than the rest of this place, but still had no other color.

“That is where you need to go.  Don’t worry though, we will guide you.  Hold your hand if necessary.”  It stared directly at me, I couldn’t see its eyes, but I knew.  “We can even pull you along if you refuse.”  It chuckled, and vanished as the mist swirled tighter around me.


***


The pitter-patter of light rain hitting the decayed roof above greeted me as that short sleep, filled with whatever that was, was put into memory.  The day before could have felt like part of the nightmare had it not been for the line of throbbing pain running up my face. I could feel my heartbeat in the wound. It was a constant reminder of reality. I wished more than anything to be able to reach out and hold her.  I laid there for a few seconds just trying to remember the way her mane smelled, and the warmth of her coat on those cold mornings. Images of her passed slowly through my vision, and each pulse erased them as soon as they were drawn.

I looked around, trying to find what was chasing me, but there was nothing.  Nothing at all.  I clambered to my hooves, trying to calm my pounding heart. The others were already up, a fire going in the house’s fireplace with a steaming pot of something probably barely edible hanging over it.

I couldn’t help but notice that Ash was looking everywhere except at me.

“Let me take a look at your bandages.”  Sage held Radiant’s medkit under a wing, walking towards me.  All I could do was nod, sitting down.  I flinched when that scab was torn slightly as he pulled off the old bandage.

It’s only a matter of time before your screw-ups get one of them killed.

“It doesn’t look infected, but you might need stitches,” Sage’s voice seemed a bit lighter.  Something seemed a little lighter in his eyes when he was focused on his work.

“Too bad we don’t have a doctor to do that,” Stalemate muttered, looking down at his bowl.

I snapped my gaze up. “What did you just fucking say?”  They all looked up at me, with almost matching expressions of curiosity and worry.  Sage even recoiled a bit.  But Stalemate knew I had heard him, and he shivered in fear.

“What do you…”

“I should rip out your fucking throat, you little piece of shit!”  Sage put a hoof on my shoulder, trying to hold me back.  I flared my wings, knocking off his restraint.  My hooves pounded into a puddle, splashing dirty water onto my coat.  Staring at that little bitch, fangs bared, I could feel fresh blood running down my face.  Wingnut stopped me not two feet short, forcing me to be content imagining ripping out his fucking throat.  I couldn’t get to him, so scaring the piss out of him would have to do.

“Terrance!  What the fuck? Calm down or I’ll give you more stitches to worry about!”  Wingnut shouted at me as Stalemate started backpedaling, his eyes darting around the room, begging for help from anyone else.  He tripped on a loose floorboard, landing in another dirty puddle.

“I can hear everything you say,” I was crouched down, teeth bared, my eyes narrowed as I tried to get closer.  “Every.  Last.  Word.  If it was just you and me, I would rip you open and watch you bleed.” 

Stalemate was pressed against the far wall, fear crossing his face.  Wingnut gave me an extra shove pushing me back and giving me a second to calm down.  I pulled my wings back to my sides, stood up, gave him the most passive look I could, turned and walked away.

“We are going for a walk, now!”  Sage grabbed my wing, but I couldn’t care at that point.

I picked a direction and started walking, having no idea exactly where I was leading us, down a lone asphalt road leading from the farm toward the city.  I waited until I thought we were out of hearing range of the rest of the group.  The road was broken and cracked where little weeds and blades of grass had worked their way through.  I wanted to hide from the cold rain in the ruined barn, but as my hooves started crunching glass I thought it would be decent cover for certain things later on.  “You didn’t hear what he said.”  I tried to sound bored.

“Well, what did he say?”  Sage sounded pissed, couldn’t blame him considering I had nearly killed his brother.

“’Too bad we don’t have a medic.’ I don’t think he knew I could hear him.”  I looked at my hooves and found a piece of glass that looked oddly like Stalemate, and proceeded to grind it into dust.

Sage sighed and rubbed a hoof over his forehead.  “I know he needs a lesson in manners, but he’s probably taking it almost as hard as you are.  It doesn’t make it right to--”

“Bullshit, he didn’t know Radiant like I did, I know he wanted to, but he didn’t.  If Wingnut had not stopped me, it wouldn’t have been a threat.”  I gave Sage the most stern look I could.

“Look, he was a total prick right there, I’ll give you that, but we’re not helping anyone by hurting him.  Right now, we need to work past all of that.  I know that sounds pretty rough coming from me right now of all times, but it’s what you need to hear.”

“Suddenly you know how to deal with this?”

“I know you took it hard.  I...really couldn’t understand how close you two were, but just let it out.  I can’t promise I’ll know the right thing to say to make it better, but this will help.  We’re not going back until you tell me the whole story.”

I sighed, it was one of those horrible moments.  Wanting to lay down and just say everything I could, yet wanting to push everyone away and try to make it through on my own.  

“When we first got here, that first raider attack; I killed one of them.  Not quickly either, I heard her scream, felt her bones break, I kept going long after she was dead…I never thought I would ever have to do that.  I thought the worst of this world after that, thought all my fears were coming true.  But then we met Radiant Heart, she gave me hope, showed me that there still was kindness in this world, still love.  That it wasn’t just raiders, slavers, bandits, and murderers, I felt like we were going down the path to become just another outlaw gang, killing to get what we want.  Then in one fell swoop she was gone.  Above that I was the one to finally...”

“That was not your fault.”  Sage grabbed my shoulder suddenly.

“Doesn’t stop me from thinking that way.  That was only part of it though, albeit a very large part.  These past few days we’ve done a lot of good, and through that we started a huge fight that Alpine may never recover from.  Ponies died because I wasn’t fast enough, not good enough, or simply couldn’t do anything to help.”

“No, you’ve always been there when we needed you.”

“I’ve always been there for you, but I wasn’t there for her.”  I turned back to stare at him, the rain on my cheeks feeling far too warm. “You guys are the only friends I have in this world, and I have failed you and nearly gotten you killed.”

“No.  You haven’t.  I don’t think you understand just how much you have saved us, just by being there, if nothing else you are one more target to shoot at.”  He stopped dead-still, and put a hoof to his forehead and failed not to laugh.  “Oh shit that sounded bad.”

I forced a laugh. “All this just seems so petty.”

“Sometimes it can be, but getting you thinking straight is never a petty manner.  You gonna be ok?”

“Of course not, but I think I can manage.”

“Good, so long as you don’t murder anything that doesn’t need it.  Now, let’s head back and finish breakfast.”  Sage gave me a grimace that almost became a smile that I couldn’t meet as we walked back to camp.


----------------------------------------


As we ate, Stalemate kept his eyes on me, always looking away if I ever tried to meet his gaze.  Yet for the most part I concentrated on the bowl of some two hundred year old...bean mush?  Maybe?  I don’t really know what we were eating, but it was edible.

Good, let him fear you.

It took us the better part of an hour to get everything packed up and on our backs.  We didn’t wait for the rain to let up, I didn’t think we could have stayed in that house for much longer anyway.  Built up emotions of loss, anger, and a worry of the future ahead threatened to topple that rotten building.

Sage and Ash were up front, I followed them giving about five or so feet, behind me was Page, with Wingnut almost hovering over Stalemate, perhaps trying to protect him.  It didn’t matter, if I was going to kill him, it wouldn’t be in the group.  

We passed through the burnt farmlands as the mountains in the distance slowly got closer to us.  Even from how far away we were I could still make out the zephyrs whipping snow off the mountainside and down into the city below.  While we were outside of the storm wall, sleet and rain traded off the privilege of landing on my blankets to soak me through and make the wind cut even deeper.  The rain finally broke as we marched past the broken down houses of the suburbs.  Each house seemed ruined in a different way, many were rotten from water damage, but the majority were burned to at least some degree by a long dead fire.  After a few hours of walking the houses stopped, and the buildings or the inner city began, with the rain returning as a more fine mist, threatening us every so often to start unleashing torrents on us.

The buildings we passed were not as shitty as I had expected for their age, although the city was obviously lacking decent maintenance.  There was practically no glass left in any of the buildings, bullet holes and small craters from mines and grenades were everywhere around us.  Apparently since Denspur was not a very big city during the war, combined with being right next to the border with its sister city of Caspur, the fighting during the war stayed to a minimum.  Until the bombs fell, then both cities became fair game.  Well, at least that was the story Radiant told me on the walk over, though she freely admitted that she didn’t know too much about it.

The wasteland was doing to these cities what it did to everything it touched.  Years of fighting, and hatred would eventually wear these cities down to rubble.  People were even worse off.  The wasteland found things that you loved, things that you wanted to hold dear and did its one and only job of tearing you apart from them.  You would either lose what you held dear, or would die, casting that loss onto another, or perhaps an entire group.

For their sake then, I have to fight, have to survive.  So they don’t feel what I do.

It was a small mental gesture, but something to give me hope, something to give me a purpose.  Anything to keep me going, moreover to keep the others safe and sane.


***


The spent brass pinged off the ground as my ears were still ringing from the shot.  Two bodies lay on the ground, still entangled, a pool of blood reaching out.  My legs carried me forward as I tried to refuse what I was seeing.  Radiant’s eyes locked on mine, pleading for me.  I sprinted to her, dropping the rifle, immediately grabbing something to try and stop the bleeding.

Sage appeared next to me as everything started to blur.

“Those don’t fix heart wounds.”  She looked back at me pulling me into a hug, before going limp.

I could only sit there, hold her, and cry.  After some time Sage had managed to pry me away, sending me into the next room with Ash.	


***


Thwack! Bang!  “The fuck?!”  A gunshot broke my chain of thought, and I walked into a shimmering red wall in the air, bonking my head with a dull clunk.  My ears were ringing fiercely, and I looked around wildly.  The wall was really only a circle a few feet in diameter, in-between myself and a decayed corpse, now writhing on the ground.  As my hearing returned, the shield faded away, and the glow around Ash’s horn dimmed and went out.

“You almost walked right into a ghoul, what were you doing?” Ash looked at me as if I were wounded, with Sage standing next to her, picking up his spent brass.

“Thinking, apparently rather dangerous here in the wasteland.”  I tried to fake a smile, but the lack of decent sleep, combined with all the stress of the past few days made it feel more like a grimace.

“You think it’s worth it to loot a ghoul?”  Sage was trying to distract my woes with some forward thinking.  It wouldn’t work...fully.

“Perhaps, ghouls usually have at least a couple caps on them, if you want to search through that bloody, rotten mess.”

Sage looked at the ghoul’s body.  Long since insane and rabid, the thing was covered in marks and holes, apparently getting lucky in more than one fight.  A black ichor that was once blood tried to ooze out of the corpse, globing down where it could to be lost within the burnt and broken asphalt of the road we were on.

I decided to actually look around for once, having been lost in thought far deeper than I had thought.  We were now somewhere in the depths of the city, no longer in the suburbs.  Buildings tried to stretch up all around us, some cut down by age, or war, or simply bad engineering.  At the end of the street, practically framed by buildings, and shops was a large three story brick building.  A sign in front of this building named it “Denspur Visitor’s Center.”

“You think that would be a good place to find a map of the city?”  I asked the entire group, still looking down the oddly wide street.

“Sounds like a good place to start,”  Wingnut had crept up beside me, still not quite looking in my direction.

Walking down the street was almost terrifying.  My imagination was getting the better of me, I wanted to fire at any twitching shadow, and would spin all too quickly at any little noise.  For some reason I was leading the group along. The others apparently saw my tense stance and aggressive demeanor, and refrained from talk.  I glanced behind me every so often, they all seemed to be copying my actions, heads on the swivel, some with better weapon control than others. 

Something cracked faintly inside the center, faint enough that I knew I was the only one to hear. I turned my head forward as quickly as I could, the building was only about fifty yards away now, and something was inside of it.

“You hear something?”  Sage was trying to whisper, but seemed far too loud.  Each word seemed to echo into the breeze, which was howling over the faint scraping noises coming from the visitor’s center.

“Yeah, there is something moving in there, possibly more than one something.”  I kept trying to gauge how many there were, but that wasn’t happening.  Again, the scraping slithered over my ears, punctuated by a raggedy inhale.  There was something in there alright.

“Any ideas as to what?”  He hefted his carbine, mirroring everyone else.  Wingnut gripped his pistol in his teeth and Ash levitated hers close.  Page was trying to decide between the pump-action he had brought from Alpine and the farmer’s shotgun he’d lifted from the raiders.  Out of everyone, only Stalemate seemed unconcerned, idly twirling his BB gun.

“Ghouls travel in packs.”  I turned around to face the group, they all wore varying faces of fear, anxiety, and determination.

“One was dangerous enough as it stood,”  Sage stood in the center of a little circle we had made, “We can’t take chances anymore, you think an ambush will work against these things?  If we can get them to charge out the front doors, that would work as a decent funnel.”

“Ghouls hate light, and it’s damn near noon, we might get them out if we use bait, but that is really risky.”  I looked down in thought, but failed to come up with any ideas that weren’t suicide.

“We could just go in there, clear the building room by room.”  Wingnut was just tossing ideas out there, but right now that just seemed like a waste of breath.

“Too dangerous, we could easily get ambushed by a horde in there.”  I was getting impatient with their voices.  At some point, whatever was in there would hear us, and then our discussion time would be up.

“Can ghouls fly?  Send in a flier as bait, lure them out, and cut them down.”  Ash threw her idea on the table.

“Too much risk, we need to get them on our terms.”  Any day now!

“We have a sniper, pick a couple off until they get angry and charge?”  Stalemate pointed at me.

“That might actually work, provided Dizzy can actually see anything in there.”  Sage and I exchanged a glance.  He looked as thrilled as I felt.

“I can take off the glasses, should help a lot.”

“Alright, we need to get ready for them,”  Sage looked at his hooves. “We don’t know how many of them there may be, so we need to be ready.”

I noticed Ash’s expression, she was worried, didn’t like this plan at all.  To be honest I don’t think any of us did.  Combat was still something unnatural to us all, and yet the wasteland demanded blood be a currency of great value.  We needed that map, if we got lost in this city we would be as good as dead.

Stalemate carefully crept up inside a building just outside the welcome center, probably laying an ambush.  The rain began again as I found a burnt out sky carriage to use as cover, Wingnut stood next to me.  Ash and Page were behind a dumpster about five yards away.  Sage laid his gear down next to Ash, making sure his rifle was loaded.

I layed down on the broken street, kicking a chunk of rock out from under my stomach.  The scope swam up to almost kiss my eye, staring into the open front door.  I couldn’t make out any specific ghouls at first through the dark passage until I saw a glowing one pass through that door and stop. It stood in the doorway for a second, long enough for me to realize that I had no idea if the thin black lines were even aligned to zero or not...fuck.

One, place the crosshairs on the target.

Two, hold my breath.

Three, place hoof on trigger.

The shot stung my ears, and sent glowing chunks of ghoul to splatter against the walls, giving the foyer a sort of gory glow. There was an odd silence, I couldn’t hear anything inside the building, only the rain hitting the carriage.  I looked through my scope, nothing.

I never really understood why feral ghouls traveled in packs, aside from the whole safety in numbers part.  Trust me though, when you hear the cries of about fifty-plus ghouls all demanding flesh, things like that don’t matter anymore. I looked over at Sage, he couldn’t see anything either.  Looking back at the building I saw a ghoul emerge and took off its head.  A second came out, hit in the chest by Sage, it wasn’t outright killed, but probably a mortal wound.  Five launched from the doors, then ten.  I felt my stomach drop as an entire horde of twisting, rotten flesh came barreling towards us.

I kept shooting, four, five, seven, I lost count as I kept firing, my bolt hung open.

“Reload!”  I shouted.  Ducking behind my cover I heard a Sage’s rifle open up, and bullets ripping flesh.

“I’m out!”  Sage cried, I heard the familiar sound of Page’s pyromancy and saw the glow as I threw my bolt closed.

“Fuck!”  Wingnut leapt over me to tackle a ghoul, crushing it against the pavement with a sound of someone crushing a rotten watermelon.

I looked up.  The ghouls were too close!

“RUN!”  I screamed, taking to the air.  OH FUCK!  I flew backwards to keep shooting, trying to thin the undead herd.

Sage flew as well, still shooting, not even stopping to realize that being chased by a pack of hungry zombies had allowed us to do something that we couldn’t before.  This time, though he opted for semi-automatic.  The others ran under us, not stopping to fight back.  They ran, we kept shooting.  I caught a glimpse of Stalemate at the back of the crowd, somehow invisible to the ghouls.

We must have covered nearly two miles before my rifle hung empty on my last mag.

“Fuck!”  I landed and dug frantically into my pack.  With my second mag empty I had no choice but to single load.

An explosion rocked the earth, forcing me to dive to the ground to avoid the scrapnel.  When I stopped to looked up again, there was only one ghoul left charging until a BB made an incision in its temple, felling it.  That was not one of ours.

“Well, you lot poked a hornet’s nest.  Good thing y’all ran here, would have been ghoul dinner for sure.” I couldn’t see the stallion beyond his outline.  He was standing on some sort of dirt mound about seven feet above the ground.  The bright sky made him, and his grenade launcher nothing more than a silhouette.

“Well we appreciate the help,” Sage was of course overly chipper to the point of annoying. I noticed Stalemate walk up behind the group, his mane covered in dirt, soot, and ghoul.  I couldn’t hold back a small smile.

“You better, had I not come along y’all’d be stuck between a wall and a ghoul horde.  And look at that, didn’t even hit yer friend there.”  Stalemate in turn shook some of the dirt from his mane.  “Now, way I see it, you owe me.  These grenades ain’t cheap.”  The stallion hopped off the mound to meet us on our level.  “I hope you are prepared to give me some payment.”

Something seemed off about him.  As he got closer I could smell that the only thing he had ever cleaned himself with was some homemade moonshine.  He nearly stumbled towards Sage, wobbling gently from hoof to hoof. “We can pay, or maybe when can get some work.”

“Work?  You lot?  You have trouble with a small pack of ghouls, and you expect to make it in this city?  Fuck, might as well just give over your mare for a night and call it even.”

Sage’s entire body shuddered, probably trying his hardest to explode this stallion’s head by pure hatred alone.  He looked down, took a deep breath, and slowly let go of his carbine. “The only reason we were in trouble there is because we ran out of ammo.  They started chasing us all the way back at the visitor’s center.”

The stallion half balked, “The visitor center, you got to be lyin’.”

“You hear that gunfire earlier?” Wingnut strode forward, looming over the stallion, “That’s how we got ‘em out and killed ‘em.”

The stallion looked from one of us to the next. After he finally picked his jaw off the ground he stared at Sage.  “You ain’t lyin’, all the way from the damn visitor’s center.  We been tryin’ to clear that place for weeks, how many of them were chasing you?”

“At least thirty, from the start,” I spoke up.  “Killed at least twenty before we had to run.”

“Well,” He looked right at me, “What in the name of Celestia’s teats are you?”

“What he is doesn’t matter,” nice, Sage, steal my chance for a retort.  “We have already paid you off, clearing out the visitor’s center for you.  Bullets aint much cheaper than grenades, and we’ve saved you a lot of trouble.”

“Now, now.  Don’t you get too excited colt.  You killed a good few ghouls there, but nothing says you got them all.  If you want to call us good, you better go there and make sure that place is empty.”

“I’ll consider it if you load our guns again.  For now, a thank-you would suffice.”  Sage was eye to eye with the newcomer, staring piss and venom into his eyes.

“Whoa, whoa!”  Page strolled between the two, earning a growl from Sage.  “What he means to say is that we need to buy some ammo before we do that, and we don’t know where we can.  Would you be kind enough to show us?”

The stallion gestured behind him, “Off that-a-way, my wonderful little home, called Spur.”

With that we all started to collect ourselves to start moving on.  All of us but Ash.  She was near a crater standing above one of the pony ghouls, just staring down at the remains.  Both Sage and I started walking towards her, trying our best to avoid all blood and parts from the ghouls, but that was rather impossible at this point.  Once we got closer I could see the thing was still alive, and that Ash was softly crying, trying very hard to keep her tears back.  I glanced over at Sage, he motioned to the ghoul before trotting towards Ash.  He wrapped his forelegs around her, but in something I had never seen before, she pushed him away to run off into a nearby building.

“Little miss acts like she ain’t killed a ghoul before!”  The stallion behind us laughed.

Sage stopped and took several deep breaths, heaving the air in and out of his body.  Carefully letting his saddlebags fall to the ground, he took up his rifle.  He wasn’t even paying attention to the still-crawling ghoul as it screamed and heaved itself pitifully out of the crater.  Instead, he looked toward the door as if he were about to go after Ash, then turned around to look up at the stallion on top of the heap.  

“The guy’s right.” I turned to look at Sage, his face contorted, debating in his mind of whether or not it was a good idea to shoot our rescuer. “We’ve been at this for a while now, and if she isn’t ready to do what she has to do to survive out here, then she might get another one of us killed.  We fight, we kill, or we die.”  I started moving towards him, “You know that the wasteland demands a toll of blood, and we get to decide who it comes from.  Better them than us.”

“Then I’ll kill any bastard that tries to touch her.  That includes jackasses who say ‘thank you’ by demanding my mare.”  Sage growled then climbed up the heap.  At the top, he pulled a dozen caps from his bag, and dropped them on the ground at the drunk stallion’s hooves.  The next thing to hit the ground was his spit.  Then he turned and started towards the building Ash had disappeared into, no longer caring about missing the hunks of ghoul littered around him, squishing one into the asphalt as he marched along.

I stared at the building until Wingnut walked up beside me.  “How long are we going to wait for them?”

I thought for a moment, “You wait here, the rest of us will head to this town and start getting our shit together.”

“So you want me to stand here, alone, and wait for Sage to find his lover back in a potentially ghoul ridden city? How long should I wait? What if they get hurt or ambushed by more ghouls?  What part of any of that sounds like a good idea Dizzy?”

“Boy, you’re actin’ as if this entire city is out to get you after you went and pissed off part of it.  Spur is just over this hill, and down the street, not even the stupid ghouls come this close to a town.  Just you and the rain right now.”  The stallion turned and walked down the backside of the hill.

“Doesn’t matter,” I stood up, grabbed Sage’s bags and trotted off, Page falling in behind me with Stalemate staying with Wingnut.  “If you hear gunshots, you know they are in trouble, if you need an adult, then by all means grow the fuck up.”  I looked back at the stallion in front of me, “I never did get your name.” 


****************************************


Stalemate
Day Seven, Noon


The single most amusing part of the whole squabble between Dominic and the local was that the super secret location of his village was all of about two blocks away.  Despite all his talk, he was probably just trying to avoid getting eaten once we were out of the way.  What a pussy.

Turned out his named was Dinkle Dolly, and wanted us to call him ‘Dinks.’  He claimed it was because he carried a lot of things, but seemed to object when I called him ‘Dolly.’

“I’m not a filly’s plaything!” he’d protested vehemently to my friendly jabs.

“Oh, what a pity.  Must suck to not be getting any!”  My retort had left him spitting in the dirt like only an idiot could.  He was wrong and didn’t want to admit that his name sucked.

Still, he had a point that we shouldn’t have stuck our noses into trouble.  It probably wasn’t the brightest idea I’d seen all morning to stir up a wasp nest full of zombies, but hey, we still seemed to be kicking.  It really wasn’t all that bad when they stopped chasing me in favor of Dom.  Seems that keeping myself from having open wounds for them to smell was an advantage.  That, and not shooting at them.  But no, Dom and Terr started shooting like the good little soldiers they were, and everyone else followed their lead.

Due to an endemic lack of creativity, the shithole that Dolly was leading us to had been named Spur.  It wasn’t any different from the rest of the city save for that the ground floors of the shops and apartments had been boarded up and housed dirty and scared horses.  Not bad for the bastion of civilization for the nearest fifty miles!

Dom wasn’t sucking up to the newest asshole we’d met, strangely enough.  Maybe I needed to convince every idiot we ran into to hit on Amelia.  That might just ‘spur’ a little progress.  Instead, Page was following Dolly along at the head of our group, asking about supplies and services.  Pfft service.  I’d like a coffee, a beer, and one of your barmaids, please and thank you!

But seriously, there was nothing here.  Denspur looked like Flint or Detroit after a good artillery shelling and a few dozen decades of disrepair.  The asphalt was cratered and worn, and concrete chips were scattered everywhere from every third building collapsing into chunks of the stuff and rusting rebar.  Charming, but it didn’t seem likely to hold the answers to escaping from this nightmare.

Ever since waking to find my hands gone, I’d striven as hard as I possibly could to find a way home, and failing that, make the best of the situation.  I knew I was the smartest of the group save for Seth, who didn’t seem particularly occupied with figuring out what had happened.  There wasn’t really much to go on, save for an explosion.  We needed a big fucking explosion.  Dom knew what kind, probably.  When I’d asked him, he just said he didn’t know enough of the details to matter.  When I told him that if I knew them I could figure it out, he told me that it was classified above my grade and told me to shove off.

Now I might not be the smartest person in the world, but I’m better than most, and the disconnect between ‘I’m gonna get you home, baby brother’ and ‘I can’t tell you how in case we do get home’ was a bit disconcerting.  And everyone blamed me for trying to have fun here why?  Terrance had even gotten laid!  I didn’t see Sage scolding him for getting tail.

Radheart was pretty hot, and she had taught me how to conduct basic trauma surgery, horse-triage, and make healing potions.  That was neat, I guess.  Still, she should have picked me.  I wouldn’t have cried over it; I would have just asked asked if she wanted top or bottom.  Does that even work for horses?  Guess I’ll find out sooner or later.

Terr sure took it hard over breakfast, and I’d been trying to be nice.  She did just drag us through sixteen hours of forced march through a blizzard.  Now I’d done half that time through a desert while sick and carrying weights, but this was something else.  For a guy who usually had his head on straight, Terr sure lit up when I’d insulted his ‘abuser.’

Speaking of the softie, he was leading us all into some kind of shop.  That was great, but I didn’t get to carry our money after the first time I’d tried to help go get more.  On the upside, Dolly was wondering off to go do something else.  I plastered on a standard friendly grin and tried to sound amiable.

“Hey there, Dolly.  You know, if you need advice to pick up the ladies, I can totally help you!”

“Fuck off, you purple menace,” growled Dolly as he lumbered off.  I made a point to remember him, then ventured into the shop after everyone else.

Everyone was inside admiring the pieces of scrap metal and concrete that somehow had made their way onto the shelves.  It was just like somebody had gone outside and scooped up everything in a twenty square meter area and put it up for sale.  Here and there something useful appeared, like a stack of moss that could have been totally appealing to someone in the end stages of starvation, or a piece of rebar cut and sharpened into a crude knife.  Then again, every pony in this town seemed to be thin enough to show ribs, so moss might not be that bad of a thing.

Page and Sage were already haggling with the shopkeep, a scrawny looking...male?  The voice was deep enough alright, but he didn’t look the part.  He was a canary-yellow horse-thing that looked thin enough to be floating away in the constant chilly breeze.  The item of discussion was a few cans of something that probably was rotted, poisoned, or otherwise dangerous for our health, and pee-stain here was trying to make sure we paid out the nose for them.  Nuh-uh.

I skulked past where everyone was standing in a gaggle trying to get nothing done, appearing just like I was looking around because I actually was just looking around.  Then, I found something, and ceased to look around in every way save for appearance.  Well, I was looking at the ‘prices’ that were half buried under an old box of food.  Guess it wasn’t worth showing to the customers.

A few dozen rusty and faded bottlecaps labeled as ‘Sparkle-Cola’ lay in a heap on the counter.  Does everything have to have a faggoty name here?  Seriously.  Images flashed before my mind of those caps silently floating over into my bags, and just like that, they were enveloped in a indigo glow and zoomed to rest in my pack.  Settling gently, they made no noise, and no one was the wiser.  How could the pony trying to fleece Dom be stupid or trusting enough to leave strangers with his money?  I mentally patted myself on the back: more lessons on trust and watchfulness had been delivered for a fair price.

Dom seemed almost as happy I was, and intent to try to spread that happiness all over us.  A half-dozen tin cans each of something really wasn’t what I’d call cheerful, but it was food.  I just didn’t want to buy the ‘yay we should be happy because of crappy food’ mantra Dom was blathering on about.  Marcus and Seth were totally eating it up.  Hehe...eating it up!

“Well, that takes care of food, now we just gotta get ammo and figure out where our job is.”  Dom didn’t seem so thrilled at counting the remaining two dozen caps he had.  Most of them had belonged to Radheart anyways.  Terrance was hiding in the corner looking at the shelves like they were the only thing in the world.  Weak.  Everyone here was just too weak, and something had to give.  Meandering around wouldn’t cut it anymore.

I waited until we left the shop to make my move.

“Hey, Dom, how much did you wind up spending on those cans anyways?”

He paused, taken aback and ready to be defensive.  I could hear it in his voice.  “Five caps each.  Why?”

“So you spent a hundred and eighty of our two hundred caps on food?  Not very smart.”

“Why?  Could you have done better?”

“Of course I could have.”  I paused for a moment to weigh my words.  “First of all, we’re going into another city in which we could scavenge, so I don’t think we need quite that much.  Second, he had price markers up which had the canned food at five caps.  Granted, it was behind the register, but he was still marking you up.  Lastly, I did go ahead and make sure we got fair price...and then some, to make up for his scamming.”

I showed him the small box of caps I’d liberated from the shopkeep, causing him to brighten, then frown.

“Stalemate...you stole those?”

Oh dear god please not this again.  “He was ripping you off.  If he’s scummy enough to rip us off, and stupid enough to leave his money out, he doesn’t deserve to have his money.  Now, I have enough to actually buy us canteens, because not having those for the last two days really sucked.  And if you give me some of that extra ammo you keep lugging around, I can trade it for ammo for the rest of us.”

“Are you sure?”  He was reluctant.  I looked to the others for approval.  It was there, but buried under too many layers of cold, wet, tired, hungry, and depressed.

“Well, you can either let me do the talking, or I’ll let you keep borking it up and I’ll make sure we get fair prices anyways.”

Dom let out what had to have been a bonus sigh before handing me the rest of the caps.  “Fine, but--”

“Yes, I know.  Only the things we need.”  Sheesh.


--------------------------------------------


Sky Sage
Day Seven, 12:27 PM


The most comforting thing about having a pip-buck on hoof was I could watch the actual minutes progress during the day.  It appeared to run on the same time for a second, minute, and hour as I knew, but there was no telling the time durations were identical.  The same went for the length of a day.  For all I knew, Equestria had a twenty-five hour rotation.  

Only the clock winked at me from the depths of the saddlebags, and I could only assume that the rest of the functions would turn on after somebody put it on.  Not that I’d tried that yet.  I wanted to slide that metal leg-band still flaked with dried blood on about as much as I wanted to hold a nice friendly group chat session to decide who got the incredibly dubious honor of wearing it.

Dizzy won’t want it, and neither will Ash.  I don’t trust Stalemate to understand how important it is, so he’s out.  That leaves Wingnut and Page...and me.  Who can use a map the best?  And who needs the targeting software the most?  For that matter, shouldn’t I put it on long enough to check how my ribs are doing?

Ever since that zebra had kicked me into the wall, breathing had hurt, and taking off hadn’t done me any favors.  So long as I kept taking shallow breaths it didn’t hurt too bad, but holy sweet goodness it did when I’d hit the ground after diving to avoid the explosion.  Flight was crazy enough without bullets and grenades flying, and what I really hoped weren’t broken ribs.

Those thoughts continued to knock around in my skull as Stalemate argued over a pile of caps and several plastic bins partially filled with cartridges.  It was really good to know that I could let him take care of the shopping, though Stalemate seemed to think it was a good idea to kibitz and mock every shop owner we ran into.  Everyone else had more or less just followed.  We didn’t have the caps to spare for luxuries and nowhere better to be.

As the haggling had worn on, I sorted again through my saddlebags, now filled almost to the brim with Radheart’s belongings.  I’d given the surgical kit to Stalemate, half to avoid carrying the weight and half because he was the only one with a chance to use it.  And maybe a third half because I like keeping that bonesaw far away.  Ick.  

A simple count yielded three small, capped, plastic syringes each labeled with an ‘X’, a half-dozen healing potions, a box of clean bandages, a small bottle of something alcoholic, and dozen light-brown tablets sealed in plastic.  Radheart had assured me she was carrying medex and water purification tablets, but the bottle wasn't anything I wanted to make assumptions on.  Better to assume it was not ethanol and strictly for medicinal purposes.  One more thing to keep away from Stalemate.  

There was no telling if the bandages were magical, at least not until Dizzy took off the one I’d put on his face last night.  He didn’t seem in a good way, but what kind of expectation would that be?  He was stable, and seemed to think his rifle was better pointed at the bad guys instead of his own head, and so that would have to be good enough for now.

Even after having sold her saddle blanket and bags to the next pony who’d take them, the remaining gear was causing my saddlebags to bulge.  At least that was enough room to hide the the little book I’d found amongst her things.

I’d never been the prying type, but she wasn’t about to stop me from reading her diary.  From the short minute I’d spent flipping through the pages, there wasn’t much in there that really mattered, either.  Still, I didn’t want to give it to Dizzy just yet.  Not until I knew he was stable.  More difficult though was the slip of paper I’d found on the dead zebra.  It was written in some swirly language that didn’t match anything I’d seen before.  My odds on figuring out what it meant were probably about as good as translating my life story into sanskrit, so I’d settle for giving out the PipBuck for now.

“Hey guys?”  I spoke just loud enough to get everyone’s attention, save for Stalemate who was arguing in a raised voice with the poor shopkeep.  Hesitantly, I’d say he was bullying the guy, but after the last store, I was just fine with that.  “This is probably gonna suck, but we need to figure out who’s gonna wear the PipBuck.”  Lifting the device from my bags, I sat it on the floor for everyone to see.

“Not me,” stated Ash simply before looking back out the hole in the wall that constituted a window.

Dizzy stood up and walked out the door.

“Well, I think that speaks for him,” I muttered, and turned to look at Wingnut and Page looking at me with some interest.  Between us I couldn’t really say who would get it.  Of course I wanted it.  Who would be dumb enough to turn down a targeting computer, a map, a rad-meter, an inventory sorter, a situational awareness tool, a microcomputer, radio receiver, medical readout, and bulletproof leg cast all in one go?  And memories of prying Radheart’s flesh out every time you remember that you’re wearing it.  I shivered a little.

Page stared at the device somewhat intently, curled his lips in mock disgust.  It still had a rusty stain on the inside, where I hadn’t been able to wash off the last of the blood.  “Ick!  Sage, you know there might be germs on that!”

“I think that it’ll be fine, Marcus,” Wingnut said dismissively. “It’s useless unless someone actually is wearing it. If nobody else has any objections, I’ll take it.” 

“Well…” I paused to think for a moment, trying to make up my mind along with making up my words.  “I’d like to be able to see where we’re going.  It would make directing the...group a lot easier than it has been.  Navigating off the mountains and sun and word of mouth has been fine so far, but a computer powered map would be something I’d really like to have.”

Humming a little, Page looked over the PipBuck from one side to the other.  He furrowed his brows, humming higher and higher until I wanted to cover my ears.  “Well, it would admittedly be pretty neat, but I don’t have too much more of a use for it than as a shiny toy?  I seem to land bits of fire where I want to, and I’m fine to go wherever.  It is shiny, though.”

“That’s all well and good, but I assure you that I need it. My aim is shit, and I can probably make better use of the utilities it has better than you, Sage.”

I winced, both at the name and the implication.  “If this is a lieutenant joke, Wingnut--”

“It’s not just with maps,” Wingnut said assuringly. “I know the effects of radiation better than the rest of you, and how to better protect from it. I need the targeting system, and I’m quicker than you, I can make way better use of the EFS system.”

“Sure you know radiation better than I do, no questions there.  And I’m pleased that you think I’m a decent shot, but I do have tactics training, you know?  A lot of it.  That means room clearing, squad movements, the such.  And you think you can use the EFS better?” 

“Yeah, I can run recon and make sure we avoid the danger in the first place.”

“Well, I can fly.  You really think you can recon an area and get out faster than me?  Besides, what is your desire to be the bullet sponge?”  I shook my head at him.

“Well, inside a building flying won’t do you shit.”  Wingnut grinned.  “And I saw how you flew out there -- like a scared chicken flapping about.

Like an amused child, Page turned his head back and forth as we bickered, keeping score for us.  “Oooh!  Points to Wingnut.  You know, Sage, you don’t really want it.”

“What?!”

“Like I said, you’re just sore that someone else would get the map.  You don’t need the rest of it, and I can see it in your eyes when you look at the thing -- you don’t even like touching it.  Forget putting it on.”

I hung my head and sighed, forlorn that Page had made up my mind faster than it could decide for itself.  “Fine.  Any chance I can get dibs on the next one?  Provided we obtain it in a family friendly-ish way?”

“I assure you that if we run into another one, you’ll get no argument from me,” Wingnut smiled.

Nodding, I gestured toward the PipBuck, and Wingnut trotted over to it.  He sat and cradled the device in his forelegs, looking for some way to put it on.  After a few moments of examination, he slipped it up and over his right foreleg, where it slid up to just above his hoof.

Wait a second, Radheart’s leg was smaller than that.

As soon as it came to a stop, the PipBuck let out a slight mechanical hiss, then shrank to lock over Wingnut’s leg.  He stared in fascination, then squeezed his eyes shut, winced, and let out a terse cry.

“Ow, dammit!”

“Wingnut!”  I ran over to him, only to be warded off by his other leg.

“It’s ok, Red, I think it just needed to fit tight.”

True to his word, the screen lit up in dull green, bathing Wingnut’s now very excited face in its glow.  I relaxed, and watched with interest as he began to manipulate the buttons and dial to locate all of the features.

“Hey, Sage, why do you keep using my pony name all the time?”  Wingnut didn’t look up from fiddling with the buttons, but the almost-hurt in his voice told me he was more than just mildly curious.

“Well...I want this to become second nature.  If I can convince myself that Wingnut is your name, and always has been, then I won’t slip up when it counts and I don’t have time to think about it.”  And it will keep me from being homesick if I convince myself that this is my world until it’s time to leave.  If there is a way to leave.  No...that’s a poor way to think.

Such thoughts chased themselves like dogs and tails in my mind until Stalemate finished his bartering.  Somehow, he’d come up with a half-dozen pre-war canteens, full of clean water.  The canteens were actually the more expensive half; clean water wasn’t too hard to come by in a land hundreds of miles from anywhere the bombs fell -- at least so the merchant had assured us.  Just as importantly, everyone had enough ammunition to fill their magazines and Page got a box of shells.  That left just one item on my list.

“So does anyone have any idea what to do with this?” I asked as I held up the zebra note.

Page turned his head a little at the sight, and everyone else went quiet.  The shopkeep pointed a foreleg toward his front door, and his voice washed over our ears, speaking with more than a little disdain.

“Tellemei’s shop is right across the street, and take your half-breed with you.”

We had everything we needed, and while I figured we’d easily win against one malnourished unicorn buck, I didn’t really want a fight either.  Wordlessly I turned and ducked under the sunken second story floor, making my way out onto the street.  Ash hurried out next to me, and for the briefest of moments we were side by side, our coats brushing as we picked our way around a large pothole in the street.  She wasn’t so soft anymore, nor was I very sleek, but her touch still brought me a smile.  I looked over, and she looked at me too, at least until I almost walked into the wall.

She broke out laughing, and I laughed to in spite of myself.  Her voice was like a cheerful bell, bringing light and joy into the wet and gray land we were in.  More barely suppressed laughter started filling the air as Wingnut and Stalemate joined her.

“Ya’ know that isn’t the door,” offered Page.

I bowed my head in acknowledgement, and stepped a little to the right before slinking under a roof even lower than the one we’d just left.  The sudden change in atmosphere from the cool, thin air of the outside to the pungent, thick aromas inside this ‘shop’ left me coughing.  Blankets had been put up all around the remains of the walls, holding in the warmth of a small fire in the middle of the floor surrounded by yet more rugs.  Smoke, mixed with a dozen spices I couldn’t name, caused my eyes to water.

“Welcome, and what can I do for you?”  I’d expected some kind of exotic accent out of the zebra looking us up and down, and I was disappointed.  He sounded just like every other pony we’d run into in this town.  No piercings, tattoos, or other odd paraphernalia adorned his body, though the walls had many bunches of plants and herbs.  “Well, come on now, don’t stare.  Surely you have business?”

“We do!” cheered Page, “We need a translation, and I want a story.”  Wingnut huffed, and sat down in the corner to play with his PipBuck some more.

Tellemei chuckled.  “Well, that depends on the story, and as far as a translation goes, I might be able to help you for a few caps.”

I looked to Stalemate, who gave me a questioning glare until I nodded.  He brought the plastic bag we’d been keeping out caps in out and floated it over to Tellemei.  The slip of paper was also levitated out from between my teeth, hovering in the air before the Zebra.  For a few moments, his eye slipped back and forth, then widened quite a bit.

“Well, you guys certainly are the ‘accursed star-spawn’ and ‘fetid half-breed’ it mentions.”  He smirked as he read, nodding to Dizzy and Page in turn.  “Judging by the fact that you’re handing me the hunter’s note, you didn’t get bagged.  Congratulations.”  Tellemei stood up on his hind legs, to the applause of Page, and lifted five of the remaining caps out of the bag, tossing them into a pouch hanging off a table covered with open books and scrolls.  “That wasn’t all.  Apparently they were supposed to prevent you from getting to a mine on the far side of the city, or drag your corpses there after they killed you.  It mentions the ‘City of Stars’ too, which I haven’t heard of in quite some time.”

That’s an awful lot to get out of three lines of runes.  

Page sat up a little straighter, somehow.  “I know what I want a story about, now!”

“That won’t cost you extra.”  Taking a long breath in through his nostrils, Tellemei sat on a rug and began to narrate.  “Before I begin, I should let you know I hold no stock in these old tales.  They caused fools to chase their own tails and doom themselves to destruction.  But, the northern tribes still hold to the old ways, and they are apparently quite serious about hunting you down and seeing you ended.

“I have heard a few stories about those mines, from both my kin, and yours.  As it goes, long ago, a star fell from the sky hitting a mountain and creating a vast crater.”  The shopkeeper pantomimed the event, throwing his hoof down onto a bag of something on the table.  “Ponies and zebras built a city there, and covered the ceiling over to create a hidden sanctuary.”  He leaned over the bag, casting a shadow down on it, until he swept the bag off the table.  “Then they all disappeared, seemingly overnight.

“The thing is, this city was a legend for centuries.  Both ponies and zebras forgot it even existed outside of their stories.  Fast forward to the war between our kinds, and the ponies started to mine out the local mountain range for things that don’t really matter anymore.  They found that city.  As the pony legends go, anyone who enters into those mines never comes back out.  Ponies brave enough to even go near the cave entrance even go missing from time to time, was a rite of passage for a local group of foals to stay a night out there and try to make it till morning.  The sheriff quickly put an end to that.

“I don’t think I need to tell you how dangerous that place is.  You should at least buy some supplies before you go.”  He gestured with a flourish toward a basket filled with syringes and vials.  Figures.

“You’re tell us how dangerous this place is, then encourage us to go?” growled Dizzy.

Tellemei stepped back down to the floor, to be honest I didn’t even realize he was standing on his hind legs, “You are young, full of stupid, there is no way I could convince you to leave that place be.”  He sounded like that was his millionth time saying those words.

“Wow...you’re good with the ha--hoof gestures!” murmured Page.

“The what?  Oh, the storytelling?  Yeah, folks eat that up.  Anyways, want to buy some chems?”

“I got it!” yelled Wingnut, holding his Pip-Buck-leg up triumphantly.  On the screen was a map of the local area, of which I could see no more before he brought his leg back down.  “There’s Denspur...there’s Caspur...why is there a coal mine marked on here?”

“Oh, and one other thing you might need to know,” added Tellemei with a smile.  “The quickest way there is through Caspur, and there is a break in the wall not too far from here!  I’m sure you’d make it across the wall, and through the city before sundown.”


***


Diary of Radiant Heart
Entry 41, 49th of Autumn

It’s been quite a while since the caravan was due back, at least three days. Raiders probably got to them on the way back. The folks are getting kinda worried, and I’m starting to run low on supplies. Just the other day, Copper dropped in with huge gash in his leg and drunk off his ass. He wasn’t coherent enough to say what happened, but the wound was full of colored glass. Anyway, damn near used up the last of the antiseptic I had.

I don’t know what Rainfall is gonna do about this, but we know the lights are going out in the town, and I’m not the only one hurting for things that don’t grow all the way out here.  Here’s to a little more hoping.





Sky Sage: Level Five
This whole place is starving.  The sins of the father do run deep.

Perk: Flight (Beginner)
Pure instinct awakened in you just in time to save your sorry hide.  Don’t get a big head and try out for the Wonderbolts.
You can now fly, albeit rather clumsily.


Dizzy: Level Five
Only way left is up...

Perk: Entrenched Defender
You have learned that value of cover, and why the defender always has the advantage!
While not moving and crouched or prone you gain a 2.5% damage boost, and a 10% reduction in reload times.


Ashen Shield: Level Four (50% to next level)
He wants that hurt...despite all the help.  I can’t shield him from it all.

Perk: New Spell: Shield (I)
You can use raw telekinetic energy to stop one thing from getting to or hurting another.

Stalemate: Level Five
See, why doesn’t everyone understand it’s easier this way?  I can make things fly, I can explain to the locals why they need our money to not starve to death, and that they should be grateful for our business.

Perk: Purple Scoundrel
Making trouble and making money!  Alright!
+5 to Barter and +5 to Sneak


Page: Level Four (50% to next level)
ZEBRA LORE!  YES!  The stories of my...fathers?  Sure, we’ll go with that.

Perk: Magical Tinkerer (I)
You are always fiddling with what your horn is capable of doing. You have a greatly increased chance of discovering new spells or random arcane relationships. In addition, you receive a +2 to perception when dealing with situations where magic is involved


Wingnut: Level Four
Six days in,  I’m conscious, and I got a cool new toy. Relatively speaking I’m pretty happy.

Perk: PipBuck Proficient
You’ve never touched one before today, but with enough screwing around you figured out how to use it well.  That’ll probably serve you handy in a firefight.
> Chapter 9: Green Eggs and Spam
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Green Eggs and Spam



That there looks like someone seriously exceeded the recommended stupidity levels.




Wingnut
Day 7, 14:22

It was a damp morning. I’d woken up just as the sun had poked its way out from behind the dark western clouds and through a stray blanket of wispy fog that covered some of Caspur. I craned my neck; all the little rivulets of light poking through the cracks and chips of the building reflected off the dust in the air, creating a sepia-toned haze that permeated the room. The wind outside howled and whistled and stormed about like it owned the entire wasteland. 

I glanced over my shoulder into the other room to see Sage and Dizzy carefully stuffing supplies into their saddlebags. Stalemate was sitting back, looking for something to entertain himself with and eventually settled with drawing little circles in the dust with his hooves. Page was being Page: standing outside the front door with large scorch marks everywhere and a focused look on his face. I didn't see Ash anywhere in the building; I figured she was outside.

Spotting my dingy pistol lying on the table next to my saddlebag, I stumbled over towards it. I almost skinned my front knees more than once as my front leg now had the added weight and girth of Radheart’s pipbuck. Each time I stepped, I had to be mindful about where my heavier leg was placed. One small misstep and I’d be flailing to stay upright. I finally managed to make it over towards the table, and slinging the saddlebag onto my back, I took note of how light it was. Everything I owned was in this bag, and so far that included the pistol, a healing potion or two, some useless scrap bits of oxidized metal, and a lot of air. I tripped as I took a step forward. Oh yeah, and the PipBuck, too.

I started towards the front door and Sage turned his eyes to meet mine as I entered the room. Almost immediately, he returned to his packing.

“We'll be heading out here in a few minutes, you all set?” His voice was just loud enough to compete with the roaring wind outside. 

“Yeah, not like I have that much to carry,” I said with a smile. I shook my rump in an attempt to make the contents of my bag jingle. I had to imagine that I looked like lame horse shaking off water

“Good. Now remember, you have the maps, rad-meter, EFS, SATS, and all that good stuff, so you're going to be on point for this trek, so use it well and stay alert,” Sage said with a sure, serious calmness. I nodded to him and continued out the door towards Page.

The wind outside was like a riptide when not blocked by buildings, hurling trash and small flecks of concrete through the air. One thing that I could appreciate was the added protection of having a short layer of hair all over the body against wind and temperature. I approached Page from behind and saw a faint glow from his horn that quickly vanished, followed by a soft murmur from Page.

“Burning yourself out already, Page? We gotta hike across this shit today!” He turned to me and smiled widely.

“Hah! Good sir, I’ve not yet begun to fight!”  Before I could object, he squinted hard and his face was bathed in a green glow once again as the ambient temperature began to rise.

Despite what Page said, I could see that whatever he was doing was taking some kind of toll on his head. He kept squinting hard whenever his light would reflect back in his eyes, and it seemed like any loud noise would cause the glow on his horn to flicker.

“You know,” Page stated, sounding surprisingly winded, “I thought being a lightbulb would be easier than this. I can’t even make some kind of clever pun about a brilliant idea or anything.” I tried to listen further, but whatever he was saying was muted by the whistling in my ears.

Planning a route was my next priority. I plopped down on my rump and raised my right leg to eye level. Using my left hoof, I carefully tapped and prodded the buttons. The bulbous appendages threatened to press all the buttons at once on every rap the device. Eventually, my face was bathed in glow of the PipBuck’s low resolution map. StableTec built some badass equipment if it has functional PipBucks and GPS satellites that work 200 plus years post construction. Well, either that or magic. Probably magic. 

More random hoof taps later, I figured out how to scroll across the map. ‘CASPUR’ labeled the area just north of us, separated by a thicker line that cut cleanly through the city like a knife. That’s our target, just wish that it pointed to the crack in the wall. 

I lowered my leg to see Ash walking towards me from around the side of the building.

“Hey, Ash!” I said cheerily. “Where have you been?”

“Oh you know...the bathroom,” she replied.

“Oh, uh, well, are ya ready to head out?”

“Soon as I grab my bag, yeah,” she said flatly.

A chorus of staccato hoof taps sounded from the building. Sage, Dizzy, and Stalemate strode from the building. A screech rang out as Stalemate kicked the rusted metal door shut.

“Lead on,” Sage stated confidently.

“Alright. The locals said that the hole lies east of here. I don’t want to miss it, so I think it would be best to just hug the wall the entire way.” I took another glance at the PipBuck to get my bearings. Zooming in on the Caspur side of the wall showed a large, jagged, circular area roughly tangent with the wall. Judging by the scale, that wouldn’t take more than a few hours to reach.

The wall was clearly visible despite the clouds slowing encroaching on the sun’s territory. The walls imposing visage seemed to dare us cross, welcoming challengers. I gulped hard. 

“Ready guys?”

Those words were stolen by the wind and swept out to howl between the empty streets.

“Great, let's go.” I said with forced finality, about faced, and started trotting.


--------***--------


About an hour of relatively silent trotting later, we arrived at the face of the wall and could get a truly good look at it.

The wall was a behemoth of concrete worn down to show the rocks beneath the mortar. It towered menacingly above any of the neighboring buildings on our side and claimed territory clear to the ends of town without question. Lame turrets stood atop the wall; they watched us menacingly as we approached. The wall’s face was eroded with chips, cracks, and large chucks biting a few feet into it were completely missing. The parts that were still clean were marred with scorch marks and graffiti. Much of the graffiti was weather-washed to the point of illegibility, but the parts that were still visible were base, racist slurs or obscene portraits depicting zebras getting killed or zebras harassing a pony family. One I found morbidly humorous was a zebra clan getting crushed by a falling star that a pony made a wish upon. I had to try hard not to chuckle at that.

My eyes were assaulted by cold, dust filled wind as I looked eastward. Between the windy onslaught and the random debris littering the base of the wall, our normal pace was slowed to a crawl as we tried desperately to keep our balance. 

Some idle chatter formed in the group as we traveled along the tortured divide between the cities. Sparse clicks emanated from the PipBuck, indicating a minor increase in the levels of background radiation. Wind is probably carrying contaminated debris. 

The cloud-blocked sun started creeping below the mountains and little ice particles began to form in the wind. Checking the skies to the east, the clouds were getting dark and the cold began to penetrate us. The only real cover was the wall itself, which would be gone by the time we crossed over into the northern part of the two cities.

The sound of screaming banshees accompanied erratic clicks from my PipBuck, worming their ghostly fingers between the cracks in the wall.

“There!” Sage yelled from behind. In the fading visibility, a dark area in the wall made itself known. “That’s the fissure in the wall,” he said, accompanied by a marked increase in pace. 

Marcus raced ahead to greet the hole.

“Marcus! Wait up don’t go through just ye-”

“Shhhhhh! Keep it down,” Marcus said in a panic. Putting a hoof up to his mouth, he continued in a hushed tone. “It’s an alicorn.  Big purple one.”

“What!?” everyone except Terrance exclaimed in almost perfect unison.

“So?” Terrance queried.

“Are you sure? Why the hell would there be any here?” Marcus’s stern look gave the answer.

“I have no idea, but I’m positive. It’s sitting on the other side of the crater. I don’t think that it saw me. I think it was too focused on the giant crater where it was staring.”

“So there is an alicorn and a crater on the other side of the wall?” Sage asked.

“Why don’t we just go ‘round and avoid the alicorn entirely?” Dizzy responded.

“There is a blizzard kicking up that will reach us in the next few hours. We go around and we’re trapped in Denspur with an incredibly dangerous monster wandering about. That, and we’re dangerously exposed. Not good for us.” I answered with a hint of condescent in my voice. 

“Alright, so how are we getting through?” Dizzy asked snarkily.

Checking the PipBuck map I left on the screen, I noticed a group of buildings close to the hole on the Caspur side. 

“We climb through, dart for cover, hope to not be spotted, and get the fuck away from the crater. The snow should give us some cover.” That plan sounded bad even to me, but it was that or trek back to Spur and hope they’d house us. 

“That’s a terrible plan you lunatic!” Dizzy’s incredulous look stretched his face comically as he chided me. “We’re as good as glue if we get caught!”

“And as good as popsicles if we stand here ‘till it leaves.” Page completed Dizzy’s line with his own thoughts. 

“If you two don’t hush up, we’ll be dead all the quicker.” Sage spoke with calm seriousness. Dizzy receded with a peeved look on his face. “The visibility is dropping fast. If we don’t fuck this up, we will all be just fine.” This elicited nods from the group.

Page turned to head towards the fissure in the wall once again, closely followed by the rest of the group. He stepped through the fissure to get a better look at the situation. I glanced through a crack in the decayed wall. There was still enough visibility to see clear to the other side of the crater, as well as the alicorn on the other side.

Without warning, Page made break down the slope towards Caspur. My heart jumped in my chest as I watched my best friend make a run right across the sightline of easily one of the most deadly creatures in the wastelands. The sound of gravel rubbing against itself followed Page’s every step, each one one making making my nerves jump a bit. 

My attention darted to the alicorn across the crater. It seemed to be looking off towards the wastes. My heart slowed down as I realized that the alicorn hadn’t actually noticed us. My neck twitched for a moment as I glanced at the hoofprints Page had made. It’s not looking; this is my best chance. A small hop reoriented my rear hooves into a sprinting stance. With a deep inhale, I ran. The gap was only about a football field in size, but it seemed to get farther with every step. A few seconds later, I jumped behind the building right alongside Page. 

I peeked around the side of the building to check if the alicorn had noticed my sprint. She was pacing curiously in a circle, lifting her head occasionally as if looking for something. Turning to Page I whispered softly, “Either she’s deaf, or she knows and doesn’t care.” Page responded with an affirming nod.

The sound of pebbles rolling down a hill erupted behind me. I turned around to be greeted the rest of the party only hoofsteps away. 

“Let’s scram before we give that thing a chance to follow us, “ Sage said in a hushed tone. I started trotting in a quick manner; I didn’t need my PipBuck to figure out which direction was away from the alicorn. 


***


We had ran far enough away from the crater to feel safe enough to take a breather.  I had expected to cross over into a land of absolute ruin, blood and guts everywhere, essentially the land described by the mural on the other side. 

It wasn’t.

Every aspect of the landscape seemed mirrored, or at least very similar. The buildings, streets, everything was the same architecturally.  Roads made of chipped and scarred concrete still lay in a neat grid around large city blocks.  Very likely the city had been built all at once.  Perhaps by both sides, even.  I’d yet to see any other city in this universe, so I really had no way to tell.  

The Caspur side of the wall depicted role reversed images from the other side. But the writing was not. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at, but my best guess was some type of zebra glyphic writings.   In one, a large creature was throwing ponies one by one into its giant maw.  Another depicted a line of zebras with shields standing in front of smaller zebras as ponies shot at them both.  One last one showed a zebra raping a mare.  I shivered and looked back toward the city.

Remains of apartments, stores, and shopping areas stood as hollow skeletons, glass long broken and walls collapsing.  Decades undisturbed by nothing more than the elements had been unkind to the empty metropolis, cracking and wearing away but failing to entirely erase the society that had once been.  Now and again a sign would stick up on a rusted pole, the zebric runes a reminder that ponies did not live here all those years ago.

Every hoof clack was stolen by the wind, muted in comparison to the howling demons tearing between the buildings.  Small chips of concrete mixed with the dust to compose the dying breaths of the decaying city.  Every little scrape and nick caused was bared to the gale, stinging and crying out against the wind.

That wind whipped around the bones of the buildings, through the empty windows, above and in the wide potholes and cracks, rushing to embrace us for a few moments before screaming off.  Something stale was in that air.  A little moisture, a little decay, a little emptiness, and a little something else that wasn’t quite there.  But save for the wind, we were alone.  Nothing had stirred in Caspur save for the alicorn.

As we plodded on through the concrete maze toward the mountains, the wind grew colder, dumping flecks and flakes of snow upon us.  Within moments the snow was thick and blinding, stinging far worse than the wind had been alone.

“This is bad, we need to get inside and hunker down for now!” Sage called from behind me.

“I agree! Let’s see if we can get into one of these up ahead!” I shouted and pointed straight ahead towards a cluster of large matte brown buildings clustered into a large square pattern, claiming two or so city blocks.

Trotting up to the building, we saw that there was a slightly ajar loading bay door. I used some erratic hoof motions to indicate which way to go to the party; anything I said would have would have been masked by the wind. The space was just large enough for us to fit through if we crawled on our bellies.

Stalemate dove through first, followed by Ash, Page, Dizzy, and Sage. I crawled through last. 

“Everyone okay?” asked Sage. I nodded along with everyone else, meeting a few tired mumbles of affirmation.

“Glad that I can finally hear.” My voice was raspy and raw from yelling over the wind all day.

“But seeing is another story,” commented Ash in her best humor. Aside from the little ray of cold gray light let in through the crack in the dock door, it was impossible to see.

“Well, let’s see, I think the PipBuck has a lant-” 

“I’m on it!” Page said exuberantly. 

Page grunted slightly as green light began to pour slowly from from his horn. His face slowly became visible; it was hilariously contorted.  The radius of visibility grew to about 30 feet when he visibly relaxed.

“There we go!” Page chirped happily. The light made Page difficult to look at without being blinded, but the surrounding area revealed itself quite handsomely. As an afterthought, I clicked the Pipbuck lamp on.  We’d need it if Page got tired like before.

The place seemed pretty standard for a loading bay. We all stood on the main loading platform. Tall concrete pillars were spread throughout the massive warehouse. Everything was covered in dust and dirt from the outside. There was absolutely no sign of life having been here, at least not since the bombs dropped some number of years ago.

There was a terminal off on the back wall. It was completely powered down, but looked undamaged. Hopefully it would have some sort of useful data on what was stored here and if we could use it or not. I nudged Sage and pointed at it. He was by far the most computer savvy of everyone in the group, and figured that we could probably get the darn thing working. Sage walked over and blew a long breath over the keys, coughing and fluttering his wings as the dust covered his face.

A small blanket of snow started to cover the outside world, and the reality was that we were gonna be stuck there for a while. Everyone else was starting to settle in. Stalemate started wandering around, looking for a place to sit down and sleep presumably. Dizzy sat down where we had dropped out gear off. He started for his gun, and began disassembling and repairing it as best as he could with our limited supplies. 

I dropped to my rump and lifted my PipBuck leg. I clumsily scrolled over to activate the radio and turned the volume down to just low enough for myself to hear. Static. I was half expecting that, we were in effectively a huge Faraday Cage of a building after all.

The grating sound of metal on metal rang crisply through the bay. Jumping to my legs and whipping my head around towards the noise I caught Page and Ash across the room next to an enormous hatch in the floor, smiling widely. 

“What are you guys doing!” yelled Sage from the terminal. 

“Just exploring the place,” Page retorted.

“Fine, take a weapon and a buddy. And be careful!”

“We will!” Ash said idly as she followed Page down the hatch.

Well I wasn’t doing much productive at the moment. So, I ran over to Dizzy, grabbed my cruddy little pistol, and ran into the hatch after them.

By the time I had descended the metal stairs to the basement, Page and Ash had already rummaged through half the room, just throwing anything 	that they found in the center the room. By my best guess this was an office at one point, nothing special, just a place to throw the number-crunching grunts to keep tabs on the inventory.

“Here to join the fun?” Page asked. Looking down at their small stash, they had already gathered a bunch of scrap wires, some old containers, something reminiscent of a battery, a key, and another old dingy pistol like mine, probably broken though.

“Uh, yeah. What haven’t y’all gone through yet?”

Ash pointed a hoof in the direction of a humongous filing cabinet. As I walked over to the cabinet, I heard some idle swearing from upstairs, probably Sage or Dizzy. The cabinet seemed to be locked, but a bit of brute force showed that it was just rusted shut. Unsurprisingly, dense stacks of papers filled each drawer to the brim. There was no readable script on the entire page, it was all glyphic junk. I scanned through some of the pages quickly, but nothing useful. 

Why would they write out everything instead of print it?  Maybe I’ll have time to figure it out later.

“Looks like that’s everything useful down here.” Page commented. The pile of reclaimed goods hadn’t grown much save for a small box of ammunition. My best guess wager was that the ammunition belonged to the old pistol Page and Ash had found earlier, but Dizzy would probably figure that out.

Throwing the junk in a saddlebag, we all returned upstairs to see Sage still planted at the terminal, the side panel off and a thick cloud of dust hanging in the air.

“Any luck, Sage?”

“Sort of. Everything appears intact and fully functional, but the main issue is there is no power. I sent Stalemate to find a generator unit or some sort or power source. Find anything on your end?”

At that comment, we dumped the junk onto the cement to figure out what we collected. Dizzy eyed the pistol judgingly and grabbed it. Sage grabbed the dusty old cylinders for closer inspection. The junk wires were encased in a green aura and hovered away towards Page. I grabbed the rusty key.

“Found something!” called Stalemate’s voice. The echos shrouded his actual position.

“Where are you!?” Sage retorted, having retreated back underneath the terminal.

“By the door!”  

“Which one!”

“The one marked ‘MAINTAINANCE’!”

“Directions, dammit!”

“Far left wall!”

“Be right there!”

Red struggled to his legs and started to trot over towards the wall. I jumped up and checked out the rectilinear solid he left behind. I fumbled with the object using my unskilled hooves until I noticed a yellow zigzag pattern on it.

“Okay, so this must be a spark battery,” I said to nobody in particular.

I placed the spark battery on the ground to attempt to pick it up in my mouth clumsily. Success followed multiple failed attempts. I turned in the direction Sage had gone and followed; the spark battery would probably be useful if Stalemate managed to find a generator of sorts. One door hung on rusted hinges, the remains of a few bobby pins on the ground next to it.  I idly wondered when Stalemate had gotten them, and why he never told me that he could pick a lock.

Half of the cramped room housed a myriad of switches, intercoms and fuse boxes plastered on the walls, the other half was taken up by a small device labeled in large glyphic symbols. Underneath that read  ‘EMERGENCY GENERATOR’ in English. A painted arrow pointed towards a small hole and a push button labeled ‘IGNITION’. Two aged contacts laid in the recess, clearly designed to give a spark to start the generator.

“No way that we’re getting a spark from those! Way too much oxidation,” I contested, dropping the spark battery to the ground the second I opened my mouth. 

“Getting a spark won’t be a problem we just have to yank the contacts out far enough to see fresh wire, then,” Sage gestured to the spark battery I toted along with me, “that will handle the rest...I hope.  Can’t promise their generators work like ours.”

Sage gripped the contacts awkwardly in his jaw and braced for a strong pull. He jerked hard and fell back to his butt and ripped the contacts clean off. There were now two clean stubs of metal left where the useless bits had been. 

“And now for the battery. Seth, go hold the ignition button.”

I leaned up onto the generator and rapped my hoof on the dusty button, but it didn’t move at all. Jerking back, I thrust down on the button with the whole weight of my body. It stuck, then slipped forward. I turned and noded to Sage affirming that the button was properly depressed Stalemate visibly backed up apprehensively as Sage brought the battery close to the terminal. A spark flashed dimly, and nothing else happened. He did it again, still nothing. A few more times and several more grunts later, we heard the generator engine finally turn over and stir to life in a dramatic roar. 

“Fuck yeah!” I yelled cheerily over the monstrously loud generator. Sage’s minor smile melted into a frown, glancing out the door.  He muttered something about monsters outside noticing before tucking the battery into his saddlebags.

The dim emergency lights groaned to life after a few seconds to affirm everything was going according to plan.

The low hum of fans whirring to life greeted the generator. A gust of warmth brushed my almost numb ankles. My eyes widened, searching for the source of warmth, quickly finding the vent responsible for the deed. Dropping to my rump, I scooted right up next to the vent, basking in it’s warmth like a cat by a fireplace.

“Hot damn! This is great!” I exclaimed happily.

Sage’s look of concern faded bit as Stalemate huddled closer to the vent.

“Well, this should last us for at least the night. Let’s head back to the others, ” Sage said as he motioned to the door.


---***---


Bits and pieces of scrap encased in a green aura orbited about Page rather gracefully. Ash was engulfed in the display and laughing loudly at Page’s face whose eyes were crossed from the effort. I chuckled a bit at that as well. Sage beelined straight for the terminal which now glowed a soft green and had unintelligible startup text scrolling down it. I don’t care how fast he typed before, he isn’t going anywhere fast with that thing.

“Hope there is a backspace key on that keyboard Sage, you’ll need it!”

Sage growled without turning to look over his shoulder, causing everyone else to laugh hard. When that subsided, I glanced over to Dizzy. The thought of going over to talk with him passed my mind, but I chose to leave him be. He dealt with things better himself, and I wouldn’t be much help anyway. Most people I consoled generally didn’t appreciate my comments. 

I plopped down on the now warmer cement. I checked the date on the PipBuck; we had been here more than a week now. My next semester is starting right about now, probably anyway. My mind wandered back to all the school material I had learned over the past year. How embarrassing would it be if I forget all this by the time we get back home? My thoughts wandered through a maze of questions about home for what seemed like hours.

“Got it!” Sage’s voice reverberated throughout the building.  “This must have been a whole different world.  Whoever designed the system left the passwords unhashed in cleartext accessible without a login.  Idiots.”

I was yanked out of my own head and put back in concrete structure in a frozen hell. I walked towards Sage while carefully avoiding the exhausted bodies of Page and Ash to get there. How Sage had managed to type on the tiny thing made no sense to me, but at least he’d gotten it unlocked.  The terminal displayed the same green glow and a few options: Unlock Main Storage, and Inventory Logs.

“Looks promising,” I said enthusiastically

“Yeah, I already executed the Unlock Main Storage option successfully. But this isn’t as promising.” He executed the Inventory Logs option. “Half of this data is damaged.”

The screen began to generate bits and pieces of words mixed in with random ASCII keys one after another in a total mess.  To the right, a second column displayed half in zebra glyphs and half in random strings of characters.  Corrupted for sure.

“Looks like we are off to find the storage room then.” Page perked up at the concept of more exploration

“Alright, lets go!” 

The storage room wasn’t hard to find, it was painted bright red with ‘STORAGE’ emblazoned across it, as well as a zebra glyphic translation below it. A large metal block where a doorknob would normally be had a green light shining on it. Page wasted no time plowing through the door which swung open at his touch. Stale, old air assaulted us immediately, accompanied by a spike in the PipBuck’s rad-meter. The radiation levels were elevated, but not bad; it would take a month of constant exposure to feel even minorly ill. 

The radiation was probably coming from whatever was in the chipped concrete silos lining the edges of the room. Time had worn the supports holding the silos up, causing them to fall into the cheap, mass-produced shelves holding large shoddy crates. The entire area was large enough to be a football field, and the ceiling was just barely above our heads.  Every step mushed through little chips of concrete.

“Keep clear of those,” I pointed to the crashed concrete containers, “that is probably where the radiation is coming from.” With a group of affirmative nods, everyone fanned out to search.

I followed Page over to a solitary corner desk. The desk creaked loudly with every touch.

“Who the fuck made their workplace in the same room that they store radioactive materials!?!?”

“Zebras apparently,” Page said flat eyeing a sheet of paper covered in glyphs. 

“Obviously,” Sage replied, “but I figured them to be smarter than that. This is just flat out moronic,” he complained vigorously.

The group spread out around the room to investigate further, and Page’s light flickered as his head turned to look at the many objects strewn about. The constantly shifting shadows seemed to hide objects, and many times the shelves around the room would cast glints as though a set of eyes were looking back. Still, I couldn’t hear anything…I just really wouldn’t want to spend the night in a place like this back room. 

Breaking up the relative silence, Page cooed, “Guys, check out what I just found!” He was pointing at something with his hooves, having pillaged a desk.

I glanced down at the drawer Page had rummaged through. A shiny black orb was nested in a small army of disorganized and crumbled papers, as though it had been hastily thrown inside the drawer before it was slammed shut.

“Didn’t expect to find a memory orb here. Just promise not to check it out till we are back in the loading area.” Page acts crazy, but he probably wouldn’t do something so stupid as check a memory orb in an unsafe place.

“Well,” I said matter-of-factly, “Page, just throw it over to me and I’ll pop it into my saddlebags for when we’re in a safer place.”

“Sure thing, Wingnut, let me just bring it on over…” As soon as he muttered the words, his horn lit with a faint green glow separate from the harsh green glimmer of his light spell, and before I could warn him in protest, all of us were plunged into sudden and absolute darkness.


<-=======ooO Ooo=======->


Page
Day 7, 18:45?

Magic. Who’d have thought it could really exist? Things that I would have considered impossible less than a week ago now were a part of my regular routine. Telekinesis, fire, light, and who knows what else, these were all suddenly within reach, and each was an adventure within itself. Now, despite never knowing that I was missing something,  I couldn’t imagine a world without casting. Each kind of magic has a weird feeling; it’s kind of like standing next to a speaker at a concert. There’s a weird vibration that you need to feel in order to foresee the spell and make it real. You have to let that feeling wash over you, and become one with it. 

Whatever spell this black orb did to me was nothing like that. Out of all the spells I’d found, each was pure and clean, almost like listening to a crisp and high note of the flute. Each reverberation pierces with intensity, and it is undeniably moving and powerful in an almost ethereal way. I thought magic was like each note being a separate experience from the others, but also somehow connected like a vast network that I’d just begun to tap. From the moment I’d placed a little of myself into the pearlescent obsidian-like orb, I knew that I’d made a mistake.

If magic as I’d known it felt like music, this felt like my body being pulled underwater by a riptide. All of a sudden, no matter what I did, I was being violently dragged towards the depths by a force greater than my own. I could hear my friends distantly shouting in alarm, and their voices were growing diminished by the second. The moment my head fell beneath the waves, I could no longer hear anything, no longer feel anything, except whatever waited for me below.

I wanted to scream -- to warn all of my friends of a danger that I couldn’t yet see nor comprehend, but I was stuck. I tried to look down, but that only made my insides lurch and my descent towards the abyss quicken. I was powerless: utterly and completely stuck with the horrid and stalking sensation that I and I alone had the information that could make things better, but was unable to act.

All at once, my sensation of magic disappeared. Each note that I had known and grown to love, however pristine or muddied, faded away as fast as the world and my friends as I fell deeper and deeper. The impulses of my old body’s sensations faded out like lights in a deep evening, they were gradually replaced with those of something, or someone, completely foreign.

And somehow in all of this, I was… walking? 

I opened my mind’s eye to the motion, focusing on anything that seemed real, and all at once a new reality surged into focus. Sights, sounds, feelings, smells, all from another place came into my awareness. The first thing I noticed was that I was very cold, but I hadn’t been outside long, because it hadn’t seeped into my bones yet. (I?) was walking between tall and imposing glass buildings and I was staring at the cold, dark, snow-covered asphalt below. My breath drew clouds in my vision against the black specked walkway, and my hurried pace was causing me to breathe heavily in the thin air. 

I looked up, not under my own volition, and suddenly another surge of dizziness overcame me. Apparently, whoever I was inside had control, not me. I mentally shook myself clear of the feeling, trying to at least enjoy the ‘ride’ as best as I could. My host looked up, and the distant ridges of the same mountains that our group had passed not a few days earlier became clear. However, their peaks were not haunted by those demon-spawn of the ice worlds, these peaks were snow-covered, and shone in the afternoon sunlight like brilliant gleaming teeth poised against the light blue skies of the heavens. If my host wasn’t so intent on getting somewhere, I’d have loved to stare more, however, he found no such beauty in them at the moment, and promptly shifted his stare back towards the pavement. 

I could barely make out the conversations of the passerby on the street. It seemed like at the edges of my host’s focus, the world seemed to blur away into a gray oblivion. Only those things that he was noticing were transmitted to me. From what things I could gather, the denizens of this city were speaking any language unlike one I’d ever heard. It sounded exotic, almost as though each sentence was measured with a carefully weighted balance of prose and poetry. Before I could get used to the street life, however, my host stepped into a revolving door and a great rush of air muted out all of the conversations from outside. 

I could see my own reflection in the mirrored surface of the door’s glass, but the face that greeted me was not my own. I shook off another wave of dizziness, and instead tried to memorize every feature I could on my new body. I had no horn, but I still had stripes, so at least I was still a zebra. My eyes were a deep brown, and I was wearing some kind of labcoat and glasses that looked tailor-made for my figure. There were pockets on my flanks that I could easily access with my teeth, and I could see that there was a badge with a picture and a name I couldn’t read pinned to the front lapel of the coat. As quickly as the image came, it was reflected away as I continued to push the door and entered into a large space of the main atrium in a building that looked, and felt, surprisingly familiar. 

Almost instantly, the chill that had built up against my meagre coat was dissipated refreshingly, and my hooves were wiped clear of any slush by the carpets in the entryway. The building’s air had a sterile taste to it, as if whatever business was conducted here was actively seeking out and removing any sense of personality that the building may have otherwise had. The clean-and-polished stone on the walls and floor reflected my image, and I could hear my own foot… er... hoofsteps reverberate loudly as I walked towards the turnstiles and security guards by the rear of the atrium. 

As I neared the guards, they heralded my arrival with terse nods, and I was able to pass around the regular security measures without being searched. I passed through the turnstiles, and I could feel some kind of shard in my pocket that felt uncomfortably sharp against my rump as it brushed against the cold steel barricades. 

I returned the guard’s formalities wordlessly and paced stiffly towards some elevators in a connected hallway. I could still hear the clicking of my hooves; it reminded me of how empty this place felt even when it was populated. One hoof raised to prod the elevator button, and as I waited, I could feel an immense displeasure growing inside. I impatiently raised my right foreleg and shifted my weight to reveal a tiny and delicately crafted watch. Its face had three dials other than those for the main time, and each moved seemingly independently from each other. To my host, this was normal, but to me, the watch was truly a masterwork of jewelry. Whoever I was ‘riding’ must have an immense appreciation for precision, and a deep pocketbook. 

All of the excessive accuracy of the watch, however, just served to bolster my impatience as I could hear the elevator squeak down the shaft slowly from above. I pushed the button again impatiently, shuffling my sleeve back over my fetlock, and I could feel a tiny bead of sweat roll down my temple. For whatever reason, my host was incredibly nervous for what lay beyond this atrium. 

After what seemed like a small eternity, a small ding echoed throughout the corridor, signalling the elevator’s arrival. The doors opened with a click, and I hurriedly stepped inside, taking a deep breath when no one followed me before the doors closed. I reached down and scanned my ID against a blank spot on the back wall in the elevator, which registered the action with only a brief blink of light emanating from a nearby faux-stone panel. A wave of apprehension washed out of me as I heard a locking mechanism click in the elevator doors. Whoever I was, I was really, really glad to be alone. 

My hooves felt lighter as I descended the shaft; apparently there was an underground network to this building that was inaccessible to the public. The doors slid open after a long descent, and as they did, a small cloud of condensation was left in their wake. The air in this new chamber was cold; it caused my lungs to hesitate at their first breath. But as I breathed in deeply, wherever I was looked a bit like the area where my friends and I were, minus hundreds of years of neglect. The room smelled damp, like wet concrete, but was filled with dry recycled air that’d been purged of anything alive. 

Sharp fluorescent lights assaulted my vision as I focused on the room ahead. It was filled with all sorts of machinery from from old tape-based servers that were ticking as they recorded obscure data to devices that looked like crosses between dentist drills and death lasers. I briefly thought to myself how unusual a machine that used magic and technology would look; apparently this was the answer. Another glance around the room confirmed my belief. What I’d originally mistaken for computers were actually input devices modified for the… equestrian anatomy. There were also odd combinations of what looked like voodoo masks wired to blinking screens with curling yellow wires, and printers spitting out long rolls of paper with lines on them that made me think that those masks had heartbeats of their own.

Apparently this was science, but it was nothing like I’d ever seen before in my life. “This” was completely foreign. A wave of unease washed over me, but my host seemed to take in the alien environment like it was his own personal study. He glanced at one of the workers who was reading over a long folded pile of papers intently, and the zebra immediately stood at attention and referred to us with words I could not discern. From his stature, I could easily assume that I was some kind of leader, maybe even the head researcher?

I stepped out of the elevator and was forced duck under some cables that looked like thick electrical conduits of some sort. I could hear them buzz with occult energy, and as my ears brushed their undersides, I could hear a pulse that sounded disturbingly like the heartbeat I’d hoped I was only imagining. 

Workers milled to and fro while I made my way towards a blank steel door past the server-looking boxes. Each of them paused momentarily to stand and welcome me as I passed. Maybe I was a military advisor of some sort? Somehow that didn’t feel quite right; maybe zebras were just more formal in their mannerisms.

I opened the back door with a heavy push; it seemed needlessly heavy to separate basic laboratory areas. Before I could venture another guess at who my host was, he looked up into the new room and my mind went blank. There were rows upon rows of phoenixes behind a thick plexiglass wall. Each were laying eggs like a giant farming process, but as their eggs rolled down a slide to my left, they were racked in giant shelves and ferried to an adjacent chamber on my right. While seeing arrays of mythical creatures was stunning in itself, what happened next left me speechless.

I was wrong about the death ray.  In fact, a death ray would have been easier to swallow than this monstrosity of arcane technology. The eggs were rolling, one-by-one, through a chamber that would irradiate them with an unimaginable amount of magic and energy. Even through the eyes of another zebra, I could feel my chest sink as each of the unborn phoenixes were being irradiated beyond comprehension. Each zap filled the room with a dark green glow, and I could hear that same awful pulsing that I’d mistaken as a heartbeat reverberating again and again against the thickly shielded glass. The air tasted bitter on my tongue; now I knew why they distilled it. 

Whatever was created from this process I didn’t want to see, but I had the sinking suspicion that I’d soon find out. My host looked down at his watch again, seemingly impatient at the progress of the experiment. As appalled as I was about my host’s disregard for life, I was drawn to the glinting clockwork at his fetlock. At each heartbeat, two of the tiny dials would spike in tandem, as if they were recording the arcane pulses that were contained beyond the glass. 

My host nodded in apparent satisfaction at the readings, but still shifted uncomfortably in his labcoat. He quickly glanced back and forth to two other zebras manning the phoenix room, but they were both too intent upon their work to return a gesture like the others. My host paced quickly past the desecration chambers, and I tried my best to close my inner eye. Unfortunately, it was all I could to to watch as my host turned to the right and examined a few specimens being processed by the evil ray. 

I’d been so appalled by the process that I’d failed to notice the eggs exiting the right chamber by rolling down a set of parallel bars below the death ray. My host followed the eggs as they rolled down the track; they were dripping a bright green liquid that left tiny wisps of smoke as they landed on the glossy white tile of the chamber’s floor. 

Each egg made its way onto the next station and was dried by a powerful gust of air that sounded muted from behind the glass. Even after cooling off from the beam, there was an ambient green glow emanating from this station that possessed a pulse separate from the beam in the previous chamber. Could… those eggs still somehow be alive? I shivered mentally at the thought. 

The finished eggs were picked up by a mechanical arm and placed cautiously into a padded and reinforced crate. The crate was closed by a heavy lid with no less than eight latches, and as each one was locked into place by a separate arm, the baleful green glow pouring from the gap between the crate and lid faded away to nothing. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief, somehow losing sight of the cursed objects put my mind at ease. I still knew that they were being produced by the dozen no more than a few feet away, but at least my host had stopped forcing me to watch.

I could still feel him shifting uneasily in his coat; whatever was in his back pocket seemed to be causing him great discomfort. After viewing what he saw, I really didn’t want see what made him uneasy. He glanced down at his watch again, and while the main dial still recorded time, the two dials that had been pulsing together before were now staggered, and one of them was significantly more excited than the other. Apparently there was some other form of energy nearby, and it was big enough to set off his dial from behind thick concrete walls in a bunker-like lab. 

Seemingly satisfied, my host paused to take a deep breath and roll his front shoulders once before approaching the next door of this complex. He reached into his labcoat and scanned it against a keypad set securely to the left of the door, and I could distinctly hear no less than four sets of bars sliding from various corners of the doorframe. Without turning around, my host pushed the door open with a stiff right leg. The door made a hollow sound as air rushed by. It sounded like the next room was large. As we passed the threshold, I could feel a small tingling sensation like static electricity building up on the tips of his ears. 

Crates. Hundreds of them. Dim industrial lighting revealed the room to be a cavernous space extending for hundreds of yards into the distance. My host’s breath left icy clouds in his wake as we walked down a central corridor surrounded by identical crates. The walls were bare and the chamber made a hollow echo with each of his hoofsteps. A low mechanized hum resonated distantly from the air purifiers in ducts on the ceiling, and the smell of concrete and insulation competed for dominance against the distilled air. Despite the sterile feel, I couldn’t help but feel like we were being watched by more than the cameras installed on the ceiling. The way was painted carefully with markings and letters I couldn’t read, and it seemed like the runes laid out specific locations for each of the crates, as well as outlining where was ‘safe’ to pass. 

Very quickly I was realizing that the building that my host had entered was only a single station in a large underground network underneath the city. I could only imagine what other supernatural and maybe malicious artefacts resided underneath the unsuspecting world above.  With each doorway we passed, I was more and more glad that I was not the guide.

After a minute or so of walking, my host stopped in front of a metal wall that looked like the biggest, meanest Swiss bank vault in the Alps. My mind glossed over for a second, my attention lapsing... Wow…  and I thought the Alps were far away before... However similar it may have looked, there were definitely added measures designed for this world that offered more… diverse forms of protection. Runes, painted in bright yellow and red, were drawn in neat, straight lines radiating outward from the vault’s hatch. Every few seconds, each of the characters would glow bright for a moment in a wave-like pattern away from the door. The runes’ patterns were almost hypnotic, but it was obvious they were meant for more than show.

My host licked his lips nervously as he stepped onto the blinking floor and up to the glossy metal door’s surface. In it, I could see my host’s face, but also faint outlines of the many crates behind us. Despite this, my host made sure to glance quickly behind him before pulling out a separate ID from a secure inner pocket of his coat and pressing it to a runed panel on the vault’s frame. For a brief moment, all of the runes stopped, and with them, my heart. 

The runes pulsed once in place, then reversed direction towards the door. The vault clicked open with a  hiss of warm air, just wide enough to fit him, and my host jumped through quickly as it immediately began to close. 

My host looked down; we seemed to be in a silo. Below, I could barely make out a steel floor covered with an extremely intricate alchemist’s circle. The lines were beautifully symmetrical from above, and although I couldn’t discern the details, the lines almost seemed to pulse and shift as if they were alive. My host quickly glanced up, a faint whistling sound like a mineshaft emanated from below. A wave of vertigo overcame me -- there were rings of lights beaming down from floors above, and all sense of perspective was lost into the seemingly infinite shaft above. Just how far down are we…? 

My host didn’t seem to mind. His hooves clinked rapidly down an iron-grated spiral staircase descending further into the abyss.  With each floor, I could make out more of the space below. Fantastic geometric ring-like carvings were etched into the ironwork and inlayed with fiery white opal. The floor’s inset was so perfect that each rune looked as if it were filled by liquid opal. Ring by ring, line by line, each layer of etches were bounded meticulously with the most ornate calligraphy of runes I’d ever seen. Adjacent recesses between runes were so thinly spaced that from a standing distance, the writing could easily be mistaken as another purely white line. With each ring inward came additional circles and triangles bounding the ring and constraining the geometry with beautifully crafted tangents. One could not trace a single line easily around the whole base without losing track and becoming lost in the weave of math, art, and undeniable magic.

In the middle of the centermost ring stood a simple stand made from a twisted and braided branch of ebony-dark wood. At its top grew three branches that formed a natural claw, waiting to grasp some long-coveted artefact. At its base was another braided hollow, this time surrounding one of the exposed eggs from before. The egg glowed faintly green from a distance still, and together the two items gave the whole area far more of an occult voodoo feeling than I was comfortable with. I’d half a mind to believe that the branch would move if I’d stop staring at it, but soon enough my host’s vision changed as we neared the bottom.

As my host clicked down the last set of stairs, I could see that the bottom floor of the silo was completely surrounded by a control room. Thin, slat-like windows were recessed into the smooth gray chamber’s concrete outer wall. More runed carvings extended onto the upper wall, although the opal inlay did not travel past the floor. I squinted to try to make out more of the carvings, but without the contrast given by the white of the opals, it was like trying to read a newspaper written in scratches from five meters away.

I hadn’t noticed, but by now my host’s brow was covered in a cold sweat. Whatever occurred here I’d guess would be at the core of this whole facility. He jerked his head quickly upward to check for any others above, but there was no reply save the faint whistle of air. He jerked back to view the security windows; I could barely make out some blinking lights in the control room beyond and some movement which I guessed was a signal from one of this room’s ‘operators.” 

Given what I’d seen in the past rooms, I really really didn’t like where this was going, and I was quickly realizing that we were positioned at ‘ground zero’ for anything that would occur. Nope. Nope. Don’t like this one bit. My mind fancied other zebras in labcoats behind the reinforced glass waiting for us to put some cursed gem into the claw’s grasp… wait for the evil spirit to appear, push a big red button, and instantly incinerate us both. 

I must be the test subject. Great. That’s why I’m stuck in this zebra’s head. Maybe this whole pony thing was all in my head and this is the real world trying to reach me through the veil to break me out of a coma after a car accident. At least I have a colorful imagination… Having thoroughly satisfied my own delusions and walked further down the path of insanity, I decided to take a deep breath and enjoy the ride.

My host licked his lips with anticipation and reached into the pocket that he’d been shifty about since I’d gotten trapped in his head. Ooh! This is it. This must be the super secret power source! The kryptonite! The… the… oblong silver paperweight. 

Really?

That’s what this whole thing revolves around? A silly meteorite? I mean, given, it could hold some alien monster or have some crazy zebra voodoo curse on it, but really? I was expecting something this important to look the part. I wanted green. Bright, glowing, powerful green, like gives-you-nightmares kind of stuff, but this was none of that. As soon as my host released the object into the claw, he backed away as quickly as he could without tripping. By now, the cold sweat was blocking his vision, and my host’s heart rate was through the roof. Faster than I’d thought possible, we turned tail and ran to a concrete panel on the sidewall which, after a moment, opened inward to reveal an entryway to the control space. 

My host was gasping for air like he’d just ran a marathon as the panel reset behind us. Whatever he’d just held, there were few things more terrifying to a zebra than that. If holding it caused this much fear, then the mention of… meteorites? must cause superstition like the Salem witch trials. After a few deep, calming breaths, my host gathered himself and looked up to see two other zebras smiling at him from their control stations. 

If I’d have to guess, this room looked mightily similar to a nuclear silo. I had a bad sinking feeling about this, and the presence of two control stations with two keys under lids wasn’t helping. My host was barely settled after his encounter, and before acknowledging the two operators, he glanced down at his watch. Nothing. The watch simply read the time. The other dials hung lifelessly at their stations, as if drained by the same unseen force as my host. 

My host shook his head abruptly back and forth to clear his thoughts, then greeted the two operators in the same poetic tone as from above. They spoke back and forth for a few minutes; it seemed like being behind a huge wall was doing wonders for my host’s health. The operators’ body languages were muted, and their jaws were stiff as they spoke. Did I say I really didn’t like where this was going? 

All three zebras seemed to reach some kind of conclusion, as my host glanced up at a digital display for time and referenced his watch actively. He nodded to himself in approval, then walked over to a table with darkened glasses on it. He gently placed them on his forehead and walked over to take his place by a slatted window. He checked the time again on his watch, placed the glasses over his eyes, and raised his leg as if to signal the finish of a countdown. As the seconds ticked by to the nearest minute, I could feel my own imaginary heart rate speeding up. I think I could hear him reciting the numbers aloud, but my mind was too busy to listen. What is even happening here? Is all of this in my own head? Where will I be when I wake up? Will I even wake up? 

My thoughts were muted as a brilliant flash flooded the room. My host was blinded despite looking at the claw through the shielded goggles, and I began to feel an unconscious pressure in my head like I was being pulled out of a pool. As one world faded to white, another grew from darkness. 


<-=======ooO Ooo=======->


I could almost make out the sounds of my friends yelling at me from the other side of the water. I tried to yell back, tried to reach out, but my voice was drowned and motions halted by the water between us. I gasped for air, and after an eternity it came in wonderful, choking gasps. My eyes flared open, more as a reflex than a command, and I was graced with the vision of Sage and Wingnut standing over my motionless pony form yelling into my face to wake up. Well, at least it wasn’t a coma...

Welcome back. 

My eyes felt like they were going to explode. That orb had played with my head like a volleyball, and I could feel a dried trickle of blood coming out my nose. The three copies of Sage seemed really concerned about something, but I couldn’t tell which one started asking me difficult questions first. The pressure in my head was dropping, and the emptiness that the watery void had occupied was filled with shards of brilliant, gleaming glass. If burning out was a migraine, then this was something entirely different… and I had a nagging feeling like the glass wasn’t going away anytime soon. 

Ash hurriedly ran over to my side with a canteen, and although I’m sure it would have done me good, my stomach turned at the sight of the water. She quickly pulled out a rag from her pack and wiped the blood off my muzzle and… ears? Wow, that orb did a number on me. Between her and Stalemate, and one really painful flashlight shining in my eyes, the two agreed that the orb had traumatized the... My eyes glazed over their explanation, and although I was staring intently, not a word was heard. 

My brain was done. Full for the day. All I wanted was to go back to sleep. I closed my eyes briefly, but rather than black, I saw the world faded in gray in a moment of blissful silence -- long enough to escape the pain in my head and think back on what I’d seen. Dots, somewhere in the back of my mind were being connected, and with each point, a small and painful spark reminded me that this was reality. Despite my best efforts for rest, a thought was forming in my head, subtle yet unstoppable, drawing my attention inexorably towards it. I opened my eyes and gritted my teeth at the light; there were no longer three sages waiting to greet me. I interrupted Stalemate and Ash’s annoying long explanation.

“Guys? I’ve got a plan.”



***


Diary of Radiant Heart
Entry 42, 50th of Autumn, Morning

Rainfall ordered the guard at each gate entrance doubled today.  Not that having twice the number of folks standing around doing nothing is going to help us, but the cries for him to do something weren’t going to quiet themselves either.  It seems we need a mayor, not just a mechanic.

Some idiot thought it’d be a good idea to start a brawl, and got himself and two others scraped up.  Ran me clean out of the last of the antiseptic and I had to use the old bottle of spirits gran’ left.  At least we still have enough cloth for bandages.





Sky Sage: Level Five
It feels like even death gave up and wandered away from this empty place.  One step closer to something useful, right?

Dizzy: Level Five
Just keep moving, don’t let them die, don’t let them see how bad I am.


Ashen Shield: Level Four (50% to next level)
Why does everyone have to hurt themselves so much?!


Stalemate: Level Five
Just like walking through Detroit after the apocalypse.  Actually, forget the apocalypse part.


Page: Level Five 
So many things to learn. Who was that scientist? Well, what doesn’t kill me... makes me never want to see another orb again.

Perk?: Magical Burnout
You have not enough minerals. Wait, wrong game. You have tried to use too much magic, and are no longer able use telekinesis to pick up even the lightest of objects, or any other magic at all. 


Wingnut: Level Four
PipBucks are great. I wish there was a better way to use them other than slamming my hoof into it though...