Chapter I - The Gates of Stable 37

“Know your place, know your skills, and know who you are.”

Dry. The air, like always was dry. So dry that breathing it in would make your tongue a piece of sandpaper and your lungs as if they were limestone. It was always like this with Stable 37’s main electrical generators. I knew they were climate controlled to keep the room from being humid but I always felt uncomfortable taking one breath after another in the room full of buzzing electrical instruments. Usually it was a job for a unicorn, but I was called on duty because of the fact that there were high wires that a pegasus could get to easier and not risk being electrocuted from touching them. Being a pegasus is useful for many things, but worthless for others. The ability to fly, is an upside. Not being able to use magic however, was a massive downside.

“Oi Quantum!” the head electrician Piston yelled over the electrical buzzing that slowly grew louder.

My large and pointed ears shifted in his attention. Still in mid-flight, I turned around to face him with a pair of red handled wire cutters in my mouth.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my name is Quantum. Don’t ask me how I got that name it was my parents idea. Since they were both unicorns they assumed that their next of kin was to be a unicorn as well. Much to my mother’s astoundment, Nova was her name, I was a pegasus. My father, Quasar was his name, was almost if not more shocked at the revelation. My unicorn sister Nebulae, who was only thirteen at the time, didn’t know much better. So since my family had a rather odd history of having single word names that related to either space, time, energy, and or matter, I was named Quantum. It means “a distinct amount of energy equal in magnitude to all things around it”. Still, to this day, I still have no idea why I was named that or what its true meaning is.

I landed in front of the ever impatient Piston and spat the pair of cutters out of my mouth. He was one to not keep waiting. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t push his buttons every so often and make him wait a few minutes and use the excuse of the equipment being too loud for me to hear him. The navy blue coated and silver haired unicorn shot me a glare of disapproval. Oh Celestia what did I do now?

“Yeah Piston. What is it?” I answered as I slid the pair of pliers into my purple maintenance suit.

“What the hell happened a week ago with the artificial lighting in Corridor C?” the blue unicorn growled in obvious anger.

“Corridor C? I don’t know. That was Klink-Klank’s job not mine,” I began, “What happened?

Piston pulled out a manila folder and angrily shoved it in my direction. I grabbed it with my left wing and opened it revealing a very, very thorough report showing how a section of lighting fell off of its support and it nearly crushed one of the Overmare’s associates. I already heard what happened across Stable 37’s PipBuck broadcast. I gave Piston the report back and he said coldly,

“Klink-Klank said that you would be taking the shift. Your lucky that nothing serious happened or else the Overmare and I would be holding you accountable for it.”

“WHAT!? He said that he would have the support columns before I even got there! What else did he say?” I demanded in shock.

“Nothing. He said that you would be wiring and that's it. I guess that he assumed that he would have reinforced the thing before he left.”

Klink-Klank, the orange coated chestnut haired earth pony, was the most recently hired electrician in all of Stable 37’s maintenance only being on the job for about six months and already had a strange and increasingly annoying reputation for leaving a wire or two hooked up in the wrong direction. Usually it was either me, Piston, or my unicorn assistant High Octane that dealt with the problem. Klink-Klank was still learning, but at the cost of currently one thousand bits worth of repair and two thousand five hundred and fifty bits worth of insurance bills. After I was done hearing about what else Piston had to say, I was guessing that I would be the one to go and deal with it.

“I’m sending you to go and deal with the problem and to fix Klink-Klank’s foul up. He’s going to wish that he was taken out with the wires he was working on by the time I was done with him,” Piston mumbled with a livid tone as he stormed out of the generator room with fire in his eyes.

I let out a sigh of annoyance and I too mumbled to myself, “Brilliant.”

***

The Overmare’s associate suffered no physical damage except a few shards of glass piercing her skin and drawing a few drops of blood that stained a few areas of the white tile floor a light pink. Most of the clean up crew was already here to remove most of the larger shards of debris from the surrounding area and cleared a path to allow other stable workers to pass through. I was one of the only other two maintenance workers there. One unicorn with a lime green coat was a structural support engineer, the other yellow earth pony was a bio-hazard removal specialist, and I was the electrician. The only one there without a big and fancy name and the only pegasus in Stable 37. Strange how things fell together sometimes.

The yellow pony then looked at me and gave a slight chuckle. I don’t know why, but he did. He was already almost done with his work and was packing up the few cleaning materials he needed and trotted off. The support engineer then trotted towards me and she asked flatly,

“When are you planning on fixing this?”

I gave her a smirk.

“It would take me about a few hours to fix the supports and few minutes to get the lights working again. All I need though is a few carbon-fiber support railings. That alone would take about a day or two of waiting before I got the delivery.” I answered also adopting the flat tone the green pony gave me.

She rolled her eyes and left after the bio-hazard pony leaving me behind to deal with the mess. The separation of the fixtures from the wiring was going to be a project all in its own. Stable 37 had a special lighting system that functioned off of the Overmare and her magical talents in order to create light and power our gardens where we grew most, if not all, of the food we need to survive. Meaning when a magical light system failed a unicorn would be called in to repair the cables that moved the Overmare’s magic throughout the stable with as minimal of energy required to maintain its use. Electricians were also called in to repair the emergency lighting that ran parallel with the magic lighting just in case either of them went down. Since Klink-Klank somehow took out both the magic wiring and the emergency lights, I had to be sent down to help with the problem.

I facehoofed. I honestly can't wait until that fool gets fired. This is the fourth screw up he accomplished in two months. I let out a groan and flew back to the main terminal near Stable 37’s generator room. The wall was covered in massive black breakers that maintained the flow of both magical and electrical power in Stable 37. Each one, except for the two or three that were always in “SHUTDOWN”, were switched into the “ENGAGED” position that allowed power flow. One switch however, was in the “STANDBY” position. Next to it, on a piece of masking tape written in fading black letters, read “Stable 37 - Corridor C - Electrical Lighting”. The breaker that was next to it, still in “ENGAGED”, read “Stable 37 - Corridor C - Arcane Magic Lighting”. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Good. The unicorns have one less job and I have one less headache,” I thought to myself.

After writing an unnecessarily long and detailed report to Piston and sending it to him via the access terminal in the generator room, I trotted back to the wall covered in breakers and began to shut many of the unnecessary ones down. With it, he forwarded the report to Arcane Maintenance and the small group of about four or five unicorns were pleased to hear that they did not need to make any repairs. Piston, my unicorn apprentice High Octane, and I however were not so relieved. I shut down the terminal and trotted back to the wall of breakers. I threw at least six of the other electrical systems that ran parallel with Corridor C’s Electrical Lights into “SHUTDOWN” in order to prevent a power surge. The little gauges that monitored electrical flow to and from the generator room gave a short lived but sporadic spike and then returned to normal levels. After grabbing a few extra tools from my slightly rusted grey locker in the work ponies quarters I left the generator room and in a few flaps of my wings I met up with High Octane who was already there examining the damage.

High Octane was a blueish-green coated unicorn mare with a dark grey mane and tail. Both of which had a small tip of white at each end like certain hound dog breeds. Her ears too had that strange coloration that proved to be very useful when finding her when the power was out and it was nearly pitch black in the room/maintenance shaft/ventilation ducts we found ourselves in a lot of the time. She, like myself, had a PipBuck on her right hoof was we were both left hoofed. Pistol, Klink-Klank, and about ninety-nine percent of all other residents of Stable 37 were right hoofed so it was always relieved to find out that someone had the same kind of hoof manipulation that I had despite her being a unicorn and me being a pegasus. Her cutie mark was of a voltmeter and she got it almost two years ago. Since then, when Piston hired her along with the fact that I was the only other electrician in this field, she had been my apprentice ever since. And, other than me, she was the best electrician in the field.

While pacing the room, waiting for me, she already took a damage claim. Every time she said that it made her sound like a damn tax collector and he knows it. That is probably why she continues to say in a non-emotional and an almost monotone voice,

“I’ve already filed a claim”.

This time was not different. I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh of disapproval. She let out a slight grin as she floated me a flashlight in a veil of her telekinetic purple magic aurora that small cylindrical thing was blanketed in. I grabbed it with my right wing; bottom three of the four feathers in each wing grasped the metal tube loosely and the feather on the top pressing a button on it and switching it on. The brilliant glow of the LED white light exploded from the glass plate in the flashlight and a beam of pure light sliced through one of the wiring pipes that was pried open with delicate manipulation. The pipe itself was fine but the wires in it were melted, fried, or both. Only one or two wires remained intact.

“Bloody hell,” I mumbled under my fogging breath in the climate controlled wire terminus that was Corridor C, otherwise known as Maintenance.

“Yeah,” High Octane agreed catching my comment, “It would be a miracle if we scraped off the melted insulation by the end of next week. All of the wires were… um… are dead. The surge essentially made them nothing more than scrap copper.”

Instead of a sigh, I let out a groan of disapproval.

“Please tell me that this is the only wire with any hint of a problem,” I said flatly as I knew that it was most likely that there was going to be at least more than five other pipes that their insides were already coated in a rubbery frosting of red, black, blue, yellow, and white.

“For once, this is the only one,” High Octane gladly answered with a grin that I could even hear forming on her face.

“Thank the goddesses,” I mumbled a bit louder than I probably needed to.

High Octane lifted her right hoof to check his interface on her PipBuck. It was a later model as she refused to get the thing upgraded and it usually took a minute to pull up the menu screen in order to even begin working with it. The only reason why she didn't want to get it upgraded was the fact that the color of the interface was quite rare color and an upgrade would possibly change from the light blue lettering and light purple background back into the default green and yellow color scheme that every mare and stallion who had a PipBuck was tuned to. She tapped one of the three thin orange buttons on the device and let out a satisfied beep. Her gaze not straying from the outrageously thick bracelet she said to me with a smirk on his face,

“As far as I could see, we only need to replace about twenty feet of duct. That would only cost…”

“83 bits,” I interrupted as I got back onto my hooves and brushed some fiberglass dust and burnt wire insulators off of my Stable 37 electrical barding before I could look up the cost of wiring duct.

“I still find it odd how you know that,” she answered with an eye roll.

“You just don't because you haven't been doing it as long as I have. You’ll get it soon enough,” I replied calmly.

“That's the scary part,” she added.

Using some light blue magic that encompassed her horn and the damaged wiring, High Octane carefully unbolted the metal pipe and removed it from its now damaged mounting. I then left her behind and walked back to the Resupply Dock in Corridor E near the PipBuck Technician’s office. That was the room where Stable 37 put its surplus of industrial grade steel and thick copper wires. Enough was in the room that the entire team of electricians (me, Piston, Klink-Klank, High Octane, and about six other unicorns) that we could rewire two thirds of the entire stable in about a week. Not that any of us wanted to, it's just that we have the materials that we could. The only thing that we rarely, if ever, had was the exact part that me or High Octane needed in order to fix the problem. It was normal, but it would never not be annoying. In order to actually get the part was to custom order the part and how much of the part we needed.

After interfacing the one and only terminal that was in the Generator Room I had waited about a week before the measly twenty feet of pipe that High Octane and I needed had finally arrived. Because of how uneventful the time spent waiting was, I decided to leave that out of the story. I imagine that you did not want to read about the mind numbing boredom that is waiting for a part that you needed to get your hooves a hold of in order to do your job properly. Though wandering a stable, especially one on the massive scale as Stable 37, might sound interesting I left it out anyways. Your welcome by the way.

After the long and dull week, the part finally arrived. Twenty feet of electrical duct that was needed to fix the problem. The only real reason why it would take so long was because the unicorns actually had to make the metal with their magic and thus further proving that unicorns are completely overpowered. They never think about the pegasus or the earth pony who has the misfortune of having to be the ones that handle their dirty work. Regardless of that, the earth ponies don't seem to mind much as they continue to do the work they were told in a diligence that only I wish that I had. I couldn't say much for the average pegasus though since pegasi were not so average in Stable 37. Despite being one myself it was the matter of the fact that I was the only pegasus in Stable 37. Another reason why the Overmare worries a bit too much about me at times which was only another thing that managed to get on my nerves very quickly.

Grabbing the detachable metal handle on the duct, I hauled it back to High Octane who, like usual, was waiting for me. She removed some of the remaining rubber stuff and had it all ready for the duct's new installation. Grabbing it in her field of telekinetic energy, she floated the now weightless pipe into place and began to float the eight bolts needed to properly secure the thing to the was and the other half of the non-damaged pipeline. All eight spun into place and I flew up to finish the job by using a socket wrench to tighten them and tapping the bolt heads on with a cast iron hammer further providing strength and support for the new electrical line. When the job was done, and it took about three hours to do might I add, High Octane and I went our separate ways and trotted back to our living quarters.

I pressed the small green key icon on my PipBuck and the door to my room slid open. I cantered in and set my saddlebags and my tool belt on the couch nearest the door. Stable living quarters were like apartment rooms in the sense that they were small and very close to other rooms making it highly recommended to keep the room clean in order to prevent a fire hazard. My neighbor didn't follow that rule most of the time as the stench of alcohol and burning cigarettes somehow penetrated the floor's ventilation systems and filtered second-hoof smoke into most, if not all, of the rooms on this floor and a few on the floor directly above him. I could only imagine the weird things that he does in there. Most of the time though, I tried to ignore it. The smell of my afternoon iced tea hung in the air helping to drown out the smell of burning ash and tobacco. I grabbed the plain white, with a few reddish-brown tea stains on the sides and the bottom, cup full of the dark red and slightly watered down cup of tea and took a few sips of it before I took off my electricians barding and flew to the shower with a few flaps of my feathery white wings.

I pressed the red colored button that allowed hot water to fill the shower room at a pace that I was not normally accustomed to. Within a course of six minutes, the shower was covered in a thick layer of steam.

"YES! They finally fixed the water pressure!" I internally said celebrating but also trying to not slip and crack the back of my skull open on the metal railing surrounding the shower door.

At least the water pressure would wash away all the blood that would be spilled from my celebration that would have certainly been my death if I did slip and fall. I chuckled to myself as I remembered that I was a pegasus and I could flap my wings a bit in order to save my life from an incredibly embarrassing demise. The unicorns and earth ponies did not have the luxury of having wings and having the ability to fly so I felt equal parts glad and annoyed that I, once again, remembered that I was the only pegasus in Stable 37. Brushing my black and blue hair out of my right eye, I finished my shower and trotted up to bed feeling better now that all of the oil and grime that was an occupational annoyance was washed off leaving me as clean as I will ever get and a little bit chill from the temperature difference in my bedroom. I tapped a red button on the side of my PipBuck turning on my built-in alarm clock. I pulled the many blankets over me, closed my eyes, and drifted to the dark tranquility of sleep.

***

I was stirred awake by a soft groan coming from somewhere in my room not even four hours before I was actually supposed to wake up. I looked around the slate grey room and found nothing that could have possibly made a noise as alien as this was. Then, feeling a bit stupid, I realized that it was my stomach. Figures. It seems as if the universe wanted to hate me. That and gravity. Gravity and I have a long standing hatred. He wants me on the ground and I want to be in the air and not on the ground. Its a back and forth thing. I was reminded how much I hated gravity when I tried to pull myself out of bed by my wings and I ungracefully fell to the floor with a hollow thud making the empty porcelain tea cup I have beside my lamp stand every night for when I wake up jerk an inch to one side making it want to hang perilously off of the end of the dresser for which is was situated upon. I got back onto my hooves and wrapped the cup in one of my wings as I waddled my way down the stairs of my "apartment" and into the kitchen where I started to brew a pot of tea in order to wake me up.

"Might as well get ready," I thought to myself with a yawn, " 'cause I aint gonna get anymore sleep now."

I then pulled my maintenance uniform off of the coat rack nearest the metal door leading to the rest of the stable and put it on. With a sniff, I realized that I didn't wash the thing last night and its already starting to smell ripe. I rolled my eyes. Of course it smelled bad. Why couldn't I have a day where I didn't need to wash the thing? I let out a slight groan and undressed myself out of the barding and threw it on the couch. The tea kettle was letting out a scream as the water in it was ready to be brewed into the reddish-brown drink. I galloped over to the burner, turned it off, and poured the now boiling water into my white tea cup where a small tea bag was waiting to greet it. The water then began to change into it's distinct reddish-brown color almost instantly.

While I waited for the tea to cool off a bit, I went back up to my room and put a clean uniform that hung in my closet on. Even if it was clean, it still held the slight smell of oil and grime that was impregnated into the fabric itself. Think of it as putting on another pair of skin except for the fact that the skin was dark purple and had a large "37" embroidered into the grey collar with bright yellow thread. I slipped on the yellow undershirt and then the purple barding making sure that a small portion of the shirt was showing as a safety precaution. Then, with a soft "click" the heavy duty belt that held most of my wire cutters and jumper cables locked into place around my waist and my back just below where my wings begin and my body ends.

My ear then twitched a bit as they tried honing in on a sound. It was dull crackling noise too faint for most ponies to hear, but it was there. They swiveled into the direction of origin and I soon found myself outside of my "apartment" as the large audio receptors on my head tried to pick up the sound. It was obvious that no one else heard it as the corridor was empty of everyone but myself. As if I was in a trance I followed the noise continued to gain volume further peeking my curiosity. I passed nearly half the main areas of the stable trying to find it.

The origin of the noise came from the large stable door. The solid steel monolith of a prewar time stood sentinel against the outside world and the inside of the stable. Its haunting authority was always there as the numbers "3" and "7", particularly in that order, that were painted on with yellow paint that only Celestia knows how old it is kept close. It was a large safe door, holding the unknown secrets from the outside to itself. I wanted those secrets.

Then a pop of static snapped me back into reality. I turned to face a seemingly inconspicuous plate of metal near the door override controls that seemed to be firing sparks from the small cracks in the metal. With the overwhelming urge to understand, I pulled out a flathead screwdriver and a hammer out of my tool belt and look for the weakest part of the metal. Satisfied that I found such an area of fatigue, I jammed the screwdriver into the crack in the plate and gave it a fierce strike with my hammer. The sound was overwhelming as it reverberated through the steel and concrete covered walls making it worse than nails on a chalkboard to my overdeveloped and outrageously large ears even though the sound lasted for less than a second or two.

Crack!

SNAP!

The metal finally gave up its resistance and tore away from the wall. I honestly had no idea what I would expect to find in the small indentation in the wall, but it certainly wasn't this. I large lever, much like the ones to operate the winch on a crane, was situated in the negative space in the wall. It was covered in dust over maybe centuries of it being forgotten behind a sheet of metal. I brushed some dust off the lowest point of the handle and it said in bright red letters,

"STABLE 37 EMERGENCY DOOR OVERRIDE MECHANISM"

I backpedaled. There was an emergency override to Stable 37? By the looks of it, no one else knew that the device existed either. The lever was now taunting me. It seemed to whisper,

"Pull me Quantum..."

Right. I'm officially losing it. I turned on a dime and began to trot away trying to dispose of the switch from my memory banks. I stopped and glanced back. It was there. A way out. Out of the stable and out into the real world. A world beyond the dreary concrete asylum. A world untouched by ponies after the zebras decimated it some two centuries ago. Would it be safe? Maybe it wouldn't hurt to just...

"No Quantum," I said to myself trying to keep the little pony in my head from seducing me into pulling the lever, "Not gonna happen."

Then I realized something. If there was an emergency "OUT" lever, then logically there must be an emergency "IN" lever on the outside that no one else knew about. Either that or my knowledge of electrical equipment was trying to paint a false picture of there being a possibility of getting back in when I knew there was no way in or out of Stable 37. Now there was a way out, so there had to be a way in right? I shook the image out of my head and was somehow once again muzzle to muzzle with the override lever with my hooves around the red rubber handle. Finally realizing it, I tore my hooves away from it and turned away and out of the hallway still having the thought of the damn thing in my head.

I was away from the lever for no more than thirty seconds before I galloped back into the room, threw my hooves around the switch, and pulled it towards me with all of my might. For a long few seconds, nothing happened. Then two little red lights on each side of the lever erupted into life finally being activated after however many years of dormancy. A loud siren, one I have never heard before, blasted to existence signaling the stable door to be opened. A large worm gear thing dropped out of the ceiling and the shaft slid into place. With a metallic protest, the stable door was pulled open and swung to its side revealing a black emptiness that seemed to stretch out for an eternity. Stunned, I fell to my haunches. Stable 37 was open. After the chaos of the door opening, there was a brief second where all was silent. Then the same speakers that the siren used broke the silence and said,

"ALERT! Stable 37 door opened. Begin emergency evacuation of Stable 37 Personnel!"

Aw crap. They were going to find me and, quite possibly, arrest me. Two options. One, fly back to my room and pretend that nothing ever happened and lie if they come to my "apartment" and ask why I was messing with the door controls. Or two, venture out into the unknown and avoid severe punishment because of the fact that I messed with the door controls without the permission of the Overmare or any one of her associates. There really was no other option. There was never an instance where someone had access to the door controls and it was very likely that no one even knew about the emergency override switch so it would be safe to assume that the punishment would be pretty severe. Probably involving something relating to not living anymore.

I turned to the open space and ran. Ran faster than I ever had before into the dark and humid unknown. I ignored the sound of something being crushed underneath my hooves as I galloped at top speed until there was no where else to gallop to or if I could find somewhere to hide. In the darkness, I noticed the ever familiar glow of a green PipBuck screen. It was faint, but it was there. I ran to it, switched it off, switched mine off, and hid from the guards that would be closing in on me. There were no guards however. There was only the metallic whine of a large door and the scream of ancient hydraulics as the door to my old life was closed behind me and I was unable to do anything about it. Finding the area around me semi-comfortable, I closed my eyes, reactivated my PipBuck alarm clock and went to sleep completely ignoring the dark and unknown around me. For some reason, one that I could not understand, I felt the dark very... comforting...

Chapter II - The Gates of Blood

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The gates of worlds came crashing open, a creak a groan a sigh...

Unknown. Many fear it as it is something no one can or will understand. Once we know what it is, it no longer is The Unknown. Its is now something. That "something" then makes you want to know more about this "something" and then you gain a better understanding of it. Once that happens, it is now just a "thing". You give the "thing" a name and now you think you know what the "thing" is now and what it does and why you think it does what it does. There was one thing that people do not understand about the "thing" they think they know now. You truly never know what something is fully. Every little bit of everything is unknown.

BEEP!

Click.

The alarm of my PipBuck broke the serenity of dreamland and I was forced awake by the loud echoing of the alarm system as the sound played ping-pong with the walls with the noise being the ball and the walls being the two paddles. I shut it off. There was a warm and disgusting mucus film covering my tongue and a ache in the base of my skull. The kind of weird film that you get when your either sick or you just had a terrible time sleeping. I was betting that it was the fact that sleeping in the dark where only Celestia knows where I am was the cause of it all. My eyes slowly opened as I still contemplated whether or not I should wake up or not. Then a horrid smell hit me like a speeding apple cart and my eyes burst open so fast that I was afraid that my eyeballs would fly out. It was still as dark as it was the night before and there didn't seem to be a way to make it any brighter.

I facehoofed. I had a PipBuck. The screen itself is brighter than most of the flashlights that us electricians where assigned with in Electrical Maintenance back in the stable. In fact, the light that it emits is brighter than most unicorn illumination spells. I staggered around, trying to get an idea of where my hooves were planted and tapped the glass screen on my PipBuck that brought it out of idle. Pressing the little gear symbol on it, which lead to the settings menu, I pressed a little green-yellow arrow and turned the brightness settings on my PipBuck screen to maximum brightness. It was at that moment, when the screen became illuminated with a near emerald green color, that I realized what I was sleeping in. A catacomb.

There were dozens upon dozens of skeletons scattered in piles all along the walls that was now glowing the sickly green color that ponies get when they come down with the flu or some other stomach virus. I stammered back in horror at the grotesque sight of concentrated death that lined the walls like three-dimensional wallpaper. I then remembered the soft green light of an old PipBuck that gave me an idea of where to sleep not even four and a half hours before. I turned, slowly, to the approximate location of the small screen and backpedaled in terror. The screen was attached to a pony. She, at least I thought it was a she, unlike the other bodies was not a complete skeleton. There was still some rotting flesh and dried blood covering most of her chest and over the area where her cutie mark would be. Several flies buzzed around the decaying corpse of a pale orange unicorn with some strands of dark burgundy hair. No... her hair was a light brown. The blood that came from a large hole in her forehead just above where the rest of her broken horn would be oozed into her mane and turned it into the brownish-red color that it is now.

Soon my body felt weary and my brain began to drown in an ocean of thoughts. Then I tasted bile. My stomach lurched and I threw up. I could taste the acidic but also strangely sweet taste of my stomach acids as it expelled the one thing I had the night before I walked out of that door, iced tea. A bit of my throw up landed on the screen of my PipBuck and I swiftly cleaned it off so the smell doesn't linger on it for the next week. The stench of bodily fluids and decaying pony mixed together in such a way that, if I didn't move to somewhere with better ventilation, then I would throw up again or pass out. I galloped away from the smell. I had no particular direction to go, I just had to go somewhere where the air was in better condition and did not have a bad smell to it rather than breathe the air that I was breathing in now. I then came upon a set of concrete stairs that seemed to go up. The only reason why I knew they were concrete was the fact that I tripped over them and fell face first into one of the ascending steps. I brushed myself off and run up them both in fear and in curiosity.

On top of the steps was a small wooden room. It was peppered in small holes where small rays of light poked through and broke the odd darkness of the cave that I ran from not even a minute ago. I threw all of my weight onto the door to the room that was wet and weakened with age. I was then struck with a surge of light. It was so swift and unexpected that I couldn't help but put my wings around my eyes as I tried in vain to shield them long enough to give them time to adjust to the light. After a minute of blindness, I closed my wings and finally got a first look of what Stable 37 was trying to hide from my for my entire life. It was finally time to learn the secrets of what was on the other side of the gate.

The world was immense. It was the biggest thing I have ever seen. There were no walls and a ceiling of grey that I instinctually recognized as the sky. Even if I was a pegasus that lived under the ground for twenty-three years I've seen enough pictures of the sky from story books back in Stable 37 in order for me to recognize what the real thing looked like. It, however, was not the brilliant light cyan blue that the pictures always depicted it as; moreover it was a solid slate grey colored blanket sheet that seemed to span off in all directions for what seemed to be infinity. I finally looked back down in front of me to observe the land that only my hooves touched and what my wings defied. It was a very expansive and very flat patch of grayish-white. Small patches yellowed grass sprouted from the white earth unevenly as the flat ground soon dipped up and down making hills and, very far off but still visible, mountains. Several small and nearly bare trees dotted the landscape and many more smaller ones did so as well. They were an unhealthy brown as a few sickly brown leaves still clung to the branches.

I cocked my head a bit to the odd sight. I have never seen a leaf that was not a green color. It was always a simulated "spring" in the apple orchards of Stable 37 and the leaves never changed color. They had no reason to change, there was no season change. Being outside for no less than two minutes already had me experience the sky, dead leaves, and the sound of silence. It was absolutely quiet. I could hear my heartbeat in my chest and the sound of my large pegasus lungs breathing in the fresh cool air from the outside world. It was never quiet in Stable 37 as there was always the low hum of the arcane lighting system or the electrical lighting system. Sometimes even both at the same time. The absence of those two sounds was very relaxing and very pleasant. My unnaturally large ears picked up no noises. My heart and soul felt as ease as I now understood the sound of absolute nothingness and enjoyed it for the next few minutes. Absolute nothingness was absolute bliss.

A soft clicking noise pulled my wandering mind back into reality. I looked down at my forehoof and checked the screen on my PipBuck. On it, a little gauge turned on and began to softly click away. I have never seen this attachment to my PipBuck and, if I have seen it before, never really gave it much attention as the only thing it was really used for was to listen to Stable 37's radio broadcast and to help me find the safest path to reroute electrical power so I don't electrocute myself while working on wiring. This dial cheerfully bounced from the little green part and very close to the yellow-orange part of the meter. It then became clear to me what the dial was meant to detect at my stomach once again gave a slightly painful lurch. It was a radiation detector, something that I did not even know that it had. I coughed a bit and flew a few feet into the air feeling the true freedom that is flight for the very first time.

In Stable 37, there was always a ceiling. There still is a ceiling on the outside, but so much higher than the ceilings in the stable. The highest roof that I have seen up to now was the one in the stable atrium and yet those were only about thirty feet high. The roof of the outside was so big and expansive that I could have sworn that the sky had its own gateway to another world above me. The cool air breezed through my blue and black hair and down my electrician's barding as it lowered the temperature of my entire body from terrifyingly hot to refreshingly cool in about a minute. Aside from the slight trace of radiation that lingered on the ground and sometimes in the air, I had no idea why nopony else in Stable 37 visited the outside world more often.

Finding a nice spot to land that didn't have a noticeable amount of radiation, I landed and folded my wings to my side as the now cool feathers that touched my sides gave me a slight shudder. I was still in the middle of nowhere, but now in a middle of nowhere that did not have a radiation problem. Looking around in all directions again, I found out now that there was only one logical direction to move in. Forward. I turned in circles for a second and trotted off into a seemingly random path to nothing. I did not have a heading, I just wanted to go somewhere and see something. There was something everywhere. I wanted a piece of that something.

***

It did not take more than what felt like an hour for me to realize why nopony else left the stable and went up here. There was a city that I came across. It was no longer a city, more like a graveyard marked with giant tombstones that towered into the sky and almost pierced the blanket of grey that separated whatever was up there from all thing things that were down here. Most of the buildings that were not a massive pile of rubble were charred black and crumbling with age. Most, if not all, the windows on said buildings were either shattered or destroyed in nearly identical fashion. The asphalt road was crumbling away around the edges as well and were eroded away until several patches of dirt were poking their way out of the several pony size pot holes. My little light of hope that somepony, or something for that matter, lived out here was dying rapidly. With a sigh, I took to the air and began to search for anything of either value or interest to my current situation.

Thirty minutes past and there were no signs of life except for the little RadRoaches that were constantly a problem for Stable 37's water purifier. The little scanner, another feature I recently discovered on my PipBuck, helped give me an idea of North from South and Left from Right. The device, now called an Eyes-Foreword Sparkle, also came with a few other trinkets that I never knew existed like the Stable-Tech Arcane Targeting Spell. I still had no idea what SATS does, but I have seen enough soccer from the teams that use it to get a basic understanding of the fact that it was some sort of targeting spell. I'm not a unicorn, all I know is that it had something to do with helping soccer players who don't know how to aim manage to get at least ten feet within the area of the goal net. To me, it was a just a devise for the trajectory impaired.

It was noon when I found a building to explore and get some sort of idea of where I should go or do next. It was what I assumed was a hotel that had no intact glass windows and the foundation was crumbling away reminding all who went near it that all big things will one day fall. The front double doors were boarded up and chained shut. The lock on it was slightly rusted, indicating that it was either made of stainless steel or that it was placed there recently. Either way, I wanted it off. The building, despite how worn away it was, looked like it was the only building with adequate shelter from other weird crawly things that were outside. Taking my flat head screwdriver, I jammed it into the lock itself in hopes that the lock would somehow open. I realized that it was a very dumb mistake as the end of the screwdriver snapped off and was now stuck in the lock further adding a layer of protection to the internal components that I was trying to trick into working. I leveled the screwdriver to my eyes and started to seethe with rage. Now there was no way in there. I threw the broken screwdriver onto the asphalt with enough force to leave a small chip in it and growled at it angrily,

"Fine. Lets try a different approach..."

I opened up one of the saddlebags attached to my Electricians' Barding and pulled out a small angle grinder. It ran on a rechargeable spark battery and was one of the few tools that showed little use in my field. I unbolted the bit on the end and put in a new abrasive saw blade. Gripping it tightly in my wings, I flipped the small switch and the powerful hunk of steel cutting material began to spin at hundreds of revolutions per minute. I took a deep breath and touched the blade to the lock piece. Sparks erupted in all directions as microscopic bits of metal debris were being flung in all directions bouncing off the boarded door and the ground like will-o-wisps. The metal on the lock soon fell away as the blade sliced through it without a problem. In a petty display of victory that I knew nopony else could see, I kicked the lock as hard as I could and began to undo the chains to the door. As it turns out, somepony did see it. And he was right behind me.

"Well aren't ye proud of yerself?" the raspy voice of the being next to me said coldly.

I turned around, very slowly, to see whoever spotted me. Instead of finding a pony, I was face to face with the end of a big and scary looking weapon held not even five inches from my head by a field of teal colored magic levitation. The origin of that field of magic was a menacing looking clover green unicorn with very spiky orange hair that ended in tips of scarlet red color. I hoped that the red pigment was not from his own blood like with the orange unicorn back in the tunnel connecting to Stable 37. There was a great red gash across the left side of his face near his mouth that oozed with fresh blood and was covered with dark red dirt that was stained with that same blood. His steel grey eyes held not emotions as far as I could see and they were staring at me as they pierced into my soul as if he was trying to dig up a secret that I didn't know that I even had. I gulped and gently put the angle grinder on the ground as to not damage it or the new cutting blade.

"Well... are ye?" He asked with the metal thing he was floating in his magic inching dangerously closer to my head.

"... uh, um, I-I guess," I choked as I was trying to throw together words and hoped that they would make a sentence good enough for his own sake.

"Aren't ya eh? Well...," the unicorn stallion cooed as he looked from my hooves to my wings, "I never imagined that I would meet a pegasus that wasn't dead. What are you doin' down here?"

One thing about him that managed to get on my nerves for no apparent reason was the fact that his accent was not the same as any of the ones in Stable 37, but I decided to put that on the back burner in my brain as I obviously had more urgent problems to deal with at the moment.

"I-I thought that we were all over the place. What do you mean 'a pegasus that wasn't dead'?" I asked trying to change the subject.

The unicorn blinked.

"Are ye' some kind of idiot?" I answered with a question.

I blinked.

"Um... no. I just want to know..."

"Hey Lucky Draw, who did ya' find now?" another unicorn asked as he interrupted my statement.

Another red unicorn with maroon hair that was not stained with blood trotted casually over to the green unicorn, now known as Lucky Draw, with two other earth ponies with strange machines on their backs with weapons just as deadly as Lucky Draw's that ended in long metal bits that extended up to their mouths. The two earth ponies were biting on the bits as if they expected me to do something stupid. The unicorn however had no, what I assumed now were, weapons drawn.

"Is this the damn fool whose making that noise?" he asked casually as his eyes wandered from Lucky Draw to me several times.

"I werd ershum," the golden yellow manned and purple coated pony with a helmet on her head on the red unicorn's right side mumbled through the strange mouthpiece.

Lucky Draw turned to face the three other ponies behind him, still pointing his weapon at my forehead. He cleared his throat and in a somehow more gravely voice than the one he was using to talk with me he said,

"Assume nothin'. The lock is sliced through. If he somehow was a unicorn a minute before I arrived, there was no way he was gettin' in that buildin'."

Thankfully I realized that they didn't notice the angle grinder at my hooves. As quietly as possible, I unfolded my wings and gave them an impression that I was just stretching them. Gaining that five seconds of opportunity that these ponies didn't realize slip by them, I grabbed the angle grinder in m wing and tucked it away in one of the saddle bags in my electricians barding. After I made sure that the thing wouldn't turn on while I was flying, I quietly fluttered my wings and began my quiet escape. Big mistake. I managed to only make it about ten feet in the air and I heard the purple earth pony mouth through his teeth,

"HEY!!"

The other three then turned towards me again and that little metal thing that Lucky Draw was holding to my head not even a minute ago was aimed at me again. This time at my wing. I gave it a confused look and that moment of delay gave him enough time to make the little metal thing on the back of the weapon swing forward and hit the device itself. Everything happened in an instant. A flash of yellow white light, an ear bursting sound of an explosion that was so terrible that I only can compare it to one other instance in my life, and the feeling of immense pain exploding in my right wing. I hovered in the air for a less than a second after that and soon spiraled out of control into the concrete ground below. The crash landing did not help the fact that the pain in my wing was almost blinding. I howled. I have never experienced pain like this before and I want it to stop.

I did not even have enough time to find a safe direction to go. The sky was now impossible until I had my wing fixed. I was grounded and I had to move before I ended up six feet in the ground in a box. I picked myself up and a new sensation of pain burst to life in my left shoulder. I probably broke it with my luck. There was a cut on the side of my face and warm crimson colored fluid began to flow out all over my face and into my right eye making the colors of the world gain a red hue. Fighting through tears, I ran as fast as I could from the four fully armed and very angry ponies now in hot pursuit of a defenseless and beyond terrified and grounded pegasus. The embarrassment alone would kill me.

I took a sharp turn around a decaying street lamp and bolted into a mostly intact skyscraper that towered into the sky. It was not as tall as most of the other ones but that did not matter. All I cared about was getting away from the very irate ponies that were still chasing me with murder in their eyes and the stench of the dead floating along with them like some sort of revolting invisible fog. Scampering around an already overturned desk, I planned to wait them out before leaving again and going for that door I recently opened. The only problem was that I did not know how long I would have to wait before they finally caught up with my method of escape. These ponies did not look, or smell for that matter, like they were very well educated as compared to me having a degree in engineering and twelve years of basic schooling. They did however had something that I did not have and it was called experience. They have been out here for what would possibly be years or possibly even decades while I only showed up after spending my life in isolation from the outside world. It was an unfair advantage but one I would have to learn how to get around in order to even have a chance to survive out in the Equestrian Wasteland. Low intelligence, high experience. It was never a good mix. I had intelligence on my side and I suddenly figured out how to get myself out of this mess without resulting in my own death.

I along the way thought that this is I was already dead. I had left the stable for less than six hours and I was already dead. Embarrassing. I left to find out what was up here and why we cant be up here. It took less than a day for me to figure out why nopony else was making annual trips up here but I was going to be damned if I wasn't going to learn about what else was up here. That, at least, was something I thought for only a few minutes before the gears that were locked together from years of routine roared to life and began to turn and I started to make plans. Looking around at my surroundings, the first thing that I knew needed to be fixed was my wing. I couldn't do anything with this in this state. There had to be a way to at least make a splint for something like it so it can stay in place while it heals. Thankfully the building I was in was a hardware store at one point or another and, despite it being looted for supplies only Celestia knows how many years ago, there were probably still a few bits and pieces of tools lying around that I could use. At least, that is what I hoped.

As quietly as my torn body would allow, I moved about the building in search of anything I could use either to fight back or to help heal myself. Most of the metal drawers, as I predicted, were empty except for the few bits of old exoskeleton that came from long dead RadRoaches that used to call the little space home. A few however, had some things that I was able to use to my advantage. A head from a rusty hatchet, a few feet of very old but surprisingly well preserved rope, a piece of rebar, and a very large bottle of Wonderglue. Unfortunately for me, the Wonderglue was empty. That didn't bother me as much as it would have on any other occasion as I didn't even need Wonderglue, or even a cup of tea to help me think, to help me figure out how to set my plan in motion. I opened my shot wing and examined the damage more closely. I winced a bit but the gunshot wound looked worse than it actually was. Using my other wing, my non-dominant wing I might add, I wrapped some of the rope around it and reinforced it with the rebar. It was a temporary fix. I would need a real medical pony to fix this before it got infected.

Still shaking the ear ringing noise from my head, I trotted up to the top window and poked my head out to get an idea of where my pursuers went. I only had my head out of the window for about seven seconds before the wood that made up the window frame above my head exploded, sending bits of wooden splinters in all directions. The shot did no real damage to me, but it sure gave me a scare. I pulled my head out of the window and brushed some of the shrapnel out of my mane. From not too far away, I herd the red unicorn's distinct voice cry out,

"I know your in there pegasus! Come out and we'll consider letting you live long enough to meet your new home in a cage!"

Is this unicorn stupid or something? I honestly was thinking that he either was stupid or is just playing games with me. I had no idea what he was getting at if he wasn't joking and I did not want to find out any time soon.

"Go and take a long walk off a short pier!" I yelled back.

I didn't see the unicorn's reaction or any of his fellow associates but I was guessing that it was pretty amusing. Even if I had time to look and see what they looked like, it would have probably resulted in me getting shot in the head and I was fairly certain that you couldn't wrap a piece of rebar around it and expect it to at least be semi-attached to my neck. I now realized that today was going to be the day that my big mouth was going to kill me.

No.

No it wasn't.

That day can wait.

Soon the ponies stormed into the building with murder in their war cry and the stench of death following them. I galloped to the staircase up to the room I was in and pulled the large filling cabinet that was full of nothing towards the edge. I knew it wasn't going to stop them, all I needed was a little bit more time. The ponies soon came into view and thundered up the stairs. They made it up halfway before I gave the filing cabinet a mighty buck and it fell down the stairs. With an earsplitting thud the metal boulder slammed into the ponies and pinned them to the floor. Not even a moment later, after hearing the cracking of old wood, the floor gave way beneath my pursuers and they plummeted down into an inky darkness as they bellowed out their screams of fear along the way before finally smashing into the floor that sounded like it was at least two floors down. After a meaty crash, everything fell silent.

Puzzled, I flew over to the hole and looked down into it. I couldn't see anything. The ever present stench of decaying death filled the air and was now more prominent than before. I coughed.

"The damn fool had it coming to him," said a voice that I only heard very briefly one time before.

Next me, the yellow coated unicorn with a purple mane and a helmet with the machine on her side quietly snuck up from out of the shadows. I stammered back in fear. This pony was willing to shot me like her other earth pony partner. I backed away from her and tried to find something that I could use to defend myself from what she would do to me.

"N-no! NO! Get away f-f-from me!" I screamed in terror with the throbbing pain in my wing and the sharp headache worked hand in hand to make a very uncomfortable sensation in my body that only got worse with the present situation.

The yellow unicorn held out her hoof and said gently,

"Its alright. I'm not going to hurt you. I didn't shot you. It never even crossed my mind. That was Cue Frame that took the shot at you through the window."

I relaxed a bit. Was this a trick? A trap that would lower my guard so she can pull a shot off at me while I had no chance of defending myself? I considered offering my hoof in return, but soon pulled it back.

"Why should I trust you?" I asked still shaken from the near-death experience that I just had.

She paused for a second. Pulling her hoof back, she opened her saddlebag and pulled out a bottle of purple liquid from it and tried to hand it to me. I resisted.

"Its a healing potion. There is nothing to be scared of."

I shuddered a bit from shock and slowly grabbed the potion in my one good wing. I lifted it to my muzzle and bit the cap off and spit it in some random direction. I took a little sip and I automatically felt a little bit better. Soon I was downing the whole potion and felt the new sensation of healing magic flow through my body. I could feel the wound on my head close and see the bruise around my left shoulder fade away. In stark realization, I unwrapped the makeshift cast around my wing and could already see the gaping hole begin to close. It was miraculous. Impossible even. So that is what magic felt like. For a split second, I felt cheated out of it by not being a unicorn. Then I remembered that unicorns couldn't fly and that changed my opinion on the subject in an instant.

"T-thank you," I said weakly.

The earth pony nodded.

"What is your name?" she asked still with the same sweetness that she used before.

"Quantum. M-my name is Quantum," I answered nervously.

"My name is Iron Melody. It is nice to meet you Quantum."

***

Iron Melody didn't stay with me for very long. Within that time however, she gave me a few tips that I would need in order to survive in the Equestrian Wastelands. Ways to get food, how to get non-radiated water from irradiated water, and what other kinds of ponies I would probably meet out here. She told me that the Equestrian Wasteland was separated into five main groups: Slavers, Raiders, Ghouls, Steel Rangers, and Survivors. Slavers were ponies like iron Melody's partners. They usually kept to themselves unless they were hired to bring in captured Survivors, Raiders, or even other Slavers to their boss and cash them in for ammunition, food, or supplies.

Raiders were simply disgusting murderers that did awful things to the ponies that they captured and sometimes their bodies after they had killed the pony that they captured. They leave behind many warning signs on buildings and walls with blood or other gross things. Iron Melody explained that she hates Raiders with a fiery passion that was hot enough that she insisted that her group took no Raiders alive. They never listened to her.

Ghouls were a strange group. They were normal ponies, like myself, at one point but they became mutated by magical radiation. This happened very often during the first few years of the Wasteland existing but soon they slowly stopped appearing. The threat of them around the area I was in was severely low, but it does not mean that they don't occasionally show up. They too were relatively easy to spot as they are literally walking pony corpses. They usually don't mean good company, but sometimes you'll get lucky.

Steel Rangers were also relatively easy to spot because of the "magical power armor" they wore on them that literally covered every part of their body including their tail. They were fierce, blood thirsty artifacts of a pre-war era that acted like Raiders but took older technologies from other ponies or old ruins that they think belongs to them. Iron Melody made it very clear that if you spot a Steel Ranger the best course of action is to run and hope that they didn't manage to get a clear shot of you while your trying to escape. They apparently had weapons that most Raiders and Slavers both feared so much that it was every pony for themselves when one starts firing, or they love the beautiful things so much that they have dream of doing "things" with the guns themselves. I soon got the image of a Slaver, like one in Iron Melody's group of long dead companions, having increasingly lewd dreams of them with the guns that made me both shudder in fear but also have me question the sanity of both Raiders and Slavers alike.

Then there were the Survivors. She explained that they were the Equestrian Wasteland's version of normal. They lived in homes that they constructed, traveled often to sell goods or get supplies, had one or two traveling companions with them, and sometimes lived in small towns that were scattered all around the Wasteland. Though these little settlements were filled with just as many residents as in an average stable (for some reason, I could not imagine a town up here in the Equestrian Wasteland having a town full of at least twenty-three hundred ponies like in my stable) they were incredibly rare to find and trying to find one usually results in ending finding a Raider/Slaver town instead.

"When that happens," I remembered Iron Melody explaining, "your chances of survival go from twenty percent all the way down to zero percent in ten seconds flat."

Revisiting that thought always gave me a shudder. At least she gave me a little bit more help with my injuries before she left me and went back to her boss. She told me that she did not know a bone reform spell, but she did give me two small Restoration Potions, a small I.V. bag looking thingy with orange liquid that was labeled "RadAway", and a few... bottle caps? She left me afterwards saying little more about the Wasteland that I should know about except for the fact that I need a weapon, preferably a long range one, and a set of armor to protect against all of the weird things that live out here. The last thing she said to me before she left to do whatever she did was,

"Oh and one more thing, try to avoid the bridges. They're homes to all sorts of weird stuff."

With a final nod and a good luck, she turned and left. I was alone and terrified again as I already missed Iron Melody's company. Funny, a Slaver who met me for about an hour was the closest thing to a friend that I ever had. I was rarely seen back in Stable 37 as us electricians were usually on the very low maintenance levels on the bottom of the stable and we very rarely came to the upper floors and we were only there just to replace one of the Overmare's light bulbs or just to manage the emergency breakers. Nothing too big of course. Out of sight, out of mind. We were essentially the ghosts of Stable 37. We were there, just scarcely seen. Therefore it was a shock to me that somepony like Iron Melody would be so welcoming so quickly.

I thought to myself a lot about Iron Melody as I trotted through the ruined streets and degrading homes with my wing now fully healed. Well, if you count the fact that it no longer had a hole that pierced all the way through it but it still felt very sore and very stiff. Despite all of that, I had enough strength and willpower that allowed me to still hover a foot or two off the ground trying to keep some pressure off of my shoulder blade that was shot and was probably broken with my luck. I then remembered the reason why I got into this much trouble in the first place and turned back towards the padlocked door that had the now sliced apart padlock.

Grinning a little I grabbed the padlock in my teeth and tore it off of the wooden door with ease. It pained me to think that I didn't even need the angle grinder to break it open as the wood tore away with the lock. A fuse broke in the back of my head as I realized that I could have saved myself two hours of daylight, some blood, and some spark battery charge if I just tried to pull on the lock as hard as I could and hoped that it would snap off. One thing bothered me about it though. I eyeballed the lock now lying on the ground closely and asked it,

"Why would you be one a door like that?"

Of course the lock did not respond. It was a problem that most of the other electricians managed to look over. The fact that I frequently talked to inanimate objects and expected them to answer back was nothing new or unusual to them as they were exposed to it for what amounted to six years of electrical work. Now with me being outside in a place where one wrong noise could bring hell down on you faster than you could even imagine, I guess I had to try to cut down on my one sided conversations with nonliving things for my own safety. Besides, the objects never answered my questions. Except for that one time when a section of ventilation fell on my head and I got a concussion but that was different.

I stepped over the lock and pushed open the door where it gave a creak of protest. I stepped in, turned on the lamp function on my PipBuck, and immediately the room was filled with the familiar green glow of the hoof micro computer. My eyes narrowed. The walls were not glowing green with the same light as my PipBuck. They were glowing red. The walls were covered in blood and gore that resembled stuff out of my worst nightmares. Half mutilated corpses hung from the ceiling bound in rusting chains that were near disintegration themselves. Like before with the Slavers, the stench of the room hit me like a concrete wall and made my stomach churn. My body soon could not keep the contents of my stomach in my stomach anymore and I heaved. Nothing came up. I already wasted it on the skeleton hallway and I soon realized that I was very hungry and he only thing that kept me from falling over dead now was Adrenaline. I staggered to myself a bit as I mouthed to myself,

"Oh sweet Celestia have mercy..."

After gathering up a bit of control over my internal organs I took a deep breath and slowly walked into the room. Obviously the ponies above me on another room did not notice the noise of gunshots and the sound of an angle grinder because I could hear them doing things that were loud enough to counteract the skirmish outside. For example, I could hear the obvious thumping of two living things as they were doing something that I did not even want to think about at the moment. Actually, scratch that... I did not want to think about it anymore as long as I lived. Then there were a few bangs of some small bullets. Nothing like the massive ones that penetrated through my wing and out the other end. Target practice maybe? I decided to think about that later. I have a building to explore and I'm not going to miss out on it because of seven or so ponies that were probably worse than the Slavers I met beforehoof.

After a few minutes of trying to get an idea of where a staircase was, I found one, went down it and was soon face-to-face with a unicorn mare with fresh blood on her horn and carried a a stick that was larger than Lucky Draw's gun but probably had the same concept in mind in a field of purple levitation energy. Her pinprick eyes with yellow sclera around a pair of red irises quickly scanned me from hoof to ear tips. She then let out a twisted grin and pointed the big stick at my face. I jumped out of the way just before the gun discharged and filled the area I was just in with the tormented sound of an explosion from an old cannon and giant holes that dotted the room like a sponge. Big, big gun. Big gun, louder sound. I threw myself behind a door frame and frantically scattered around for anything to use as a weapon or a shield. I facehoofed and let out an annoyed groan. I had a weapon before this. It was the piece of rebar that I used to tie up my wing. It was still probably still laying near the hole where the Slavers fell down in when I crushed them with a filing cabinet.

"You know Quantum, for an electrician, you can sometimes be incredibly stupid," I though to myself as I regretted not taking the solid piece of iron with me.

Thankfully, there was a baseball near a fresh corpse of a earth pony mare. I could just levitate it across the room and I would finally a weapon to use against...

Dammit Quantum, your not a unicorn. I suddenly felt a sense of envy towards the unicorn race as I was not gifted with a horn and magical abilities. Such things would help me out so much right now. The Raider was now growing impatient and I was feeling pitiful over the fact that I could not hold a weapon in midair? No. This bastard was not going to use a weakness like that against me. I was something better than a unicorn. A species so rare in a stable, and maybe even in the entire Equestrian Wasteland, that she probably did not expect to meet one in her time. I was a pegasus for Celestia's sake! I leaped into the air and soon came barreling down on the Raider successfully disarming her and pinning her to the ground underneath my hooves. I jumped backwards and kicked her in the jaw with as much force that I could pull together at that moment. The feeling of bones snapping shut and some teeth breaking apart in her mouth went through my hooves and I could hear, see, and feel the mouth being crushed into multiple pieces. That was honestly a cheep shot and I was probably not going to have that happen again.

I landed on my hooves and watched in both bewilderment and horror that the Raider mare got back up onto her hooves as well. She spit out a mixture of saliva, blood, and bone and gave me that same devilish grin with the remaining teeth covered in the dark red fresh blood. It was equal parts funny and terrifying to see that. She chuckled and growled,

"I've always wondered what pegasus tasted like. I hope the blood will make it that much better."

What the hell? Is she actually planning on eating me? What. The. HELL? Without sparing her a second glance or giving the subject a second thought, I turned and ran to the baseball bat and grabbed it in my wings while she went for her gun. She grabbed it in her levitation field and started firing wildly in all directions. A sharp pain exploded across my chest as I had most of the wind knocked out of me. That did not stop my charge at the mare as the baseball bat made a connection with her face and she dropped to the ground. Her magical aura imploded and the gun clattered to the ground with her. She didn't move. A pool of blood started to form from out of her mouth and added to he strange decor of the Raider encampment. She wasn't dead... right?

In stark realisation, I answered myself.

"I just... killed her," I mumbled to myself with tears in my eyes and a sickness in my stomach.

I have committed murder. No, she attacked me first. It was self-defense. It was a justifiable act in Stable 37. If somepony goes up to you with the intent of murder and you kill them, you were just defending yourself. The thought of self-defense, I realized, was a lot harder to do than to think about. A heavy iron lump hit me in the gut and I threw up in a corner of the room where the smell could not get any worse. I answered it with a Healing Potion and soon the little holes that punched through my electrician's barding were sealing shut as the magical energy coursed through my body. I needed to get out of here now. Screw figuring out what was in here; I prefer my life over curiosity.

I threw the bat aside and picked up the shotgun and eyed it curiosity. It was in semi-decent condition with the only thing wrong with it being the slide being a bit sticky and the trigger having a slight coating of rust on it. It thankfully, did not effect the performance of the gun in anyway. Unfortunately the Raider fired enough shells in the gun to only have two remaining in it and she only had three more shells strapped to the butt of the gun. I turned to face the unicorn. Maybe she had more? I hate to admit it but I might as well see if she had more. The Equestrian Wasteland was my home now and I have to take every advantage I could in order to increase my odds of survival. I opened her saddle bag, held back more vomit, and searched her bag. She had five extra shells, a box of hoof-gun rounds that was nearly full, a Healing Potion, and some bottle caps. If I hadn't met Iron Melody before killing this Raider, I would have left the bottle caps behind but because I knew she gave me them because they might actually do something out here I took them anyways.

After loading the last five shells into the shotgun, I held it in my wings and turned to run for the door and leave this damned place. I was about to start sprinting before a soft wimpier pierced the sound of silence and I turned to see what it was. It was a filly. A orange coated filly with a pink mane and tail who didn't even have a cutie mark. Her small teary green eyes looked up at me and she mumbled,

"Are you a Reaper?"

"A what now?" I answered as I obviously looked stupid to the kid but I guess she didn't notice.

There was a moment of silence between the two of us before she ran up to me and threw her hooves around the one hoof with the PipBuck around it. Getting a better look at her, I noticed that she had a missing ear. It was a recent injury too as fresh blood still seeped from it and coagulated in her mane. There was blood around her flanks. She was... no. They wouldn't have. They couldn't have. But they did. The Raiders raped the poor filly and she didn't even have her mark.

Suddenly a spark ignited in me and soon the spark turned to a fiery inferno of rage. It took ten seconds for me to realize one other thing about Raiders. Not only were they crazy, smelly, disgusting, and probably cannibals, but they were also rapists. That little fact alone added so much steam to the generator of anger that was building every second that I knew that any one of these bastards was still alive. They needed to pay. Apparently he filly saw the expression too and she smiled. I looked down at her and asked,

"Are there anymore of you here?"

She nodded.

"How many more?"

"Seven. There are seven more of us locked up," she began as she turned her head to face the hallway downstairs, "down there."

I looked in the direction that the filly looked and understood now where the Raider came from and why there was blood on her horn. The mere thought of such a vile thing, even for a Raider, made my blood boil. I put on a slight grin and said to the filly,

"Stay out of sight. I'm gonna' get you all out of here. You can bet on it."

She gave me a weak smile that suggested that she had heard that sentence all too often before and nodded with just as much weakness. I turned around and flew down the stairway in hopes that some more Raiders were down there. I wanted to give them a piece of my mind and a few more pieces of lead.

Chaper III - The Gates to the Soul

View Online

One way in, no way out...

Stairs. It seams like the Equestrian Wasteland was littered and held together by stairs. The way out of my stable had a staircase. The way up to the vantage point that I used to get rid of the three Slavers chasing after me was linked with stairs. Now, as I fly down the pathway that was given to me by a filly in need, it had stairs too. I'm starting to guess that at one point the previous civilization that lived up here had a weight problem and they installed stairs instead of elevators in order to try and counter that issue. I shrugged it off. It was a mystery for later. I had to deal with Raiders.

I also should note, once more, at how much I am blessed with wings. We pegasi, are given unique advantages over most other ponies that we at one point probably took them for granted. For example, we have lighter bones than Earth Ponies therefore making us be able to hold our own weight while in the air. We did not have a horn, but we had wings. These extra two appendages on our bodies give us the gift of flying that only the most inventive of Earth Ponies or the most skillful of Unicorns can ever strive to have. All the others... well... they are just stuck on the ground being gravity's bitch while I enjoy the comfort of a possible cloud or somewhere out of reach that nopony else can get me at.

I turned on my repeatedly neglected Eyes-Foreword Sparkle and stopped dead before I rounded the corner on the staircase and into the room where the filly emerged from a few minutes ago. There was a trio of red signals and an entire random splotch of yellow clustered up behind the three hostile signals. How the EFS knew who was hostile and who was not now turned into another question on the incredibly long "what the hell is up with this thing" list that was continuing to grow with every new thing I find. Unfortunately the program was severely limited on its use as it did not tell what the enemy was or how well armed they were. Using the magnificent magic of probability, I concluded that the three ponies down there were just now another small group of Raiders. I swung the shotgun around so that the barrel of the gun pointed around the door frame and used the other repeatedly neglected tool of the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell.

The unfamiliar sensation of time slowing down and a blue hue filling my vision hit me the instant my hoof left the button to use SATS on my PipBuck. I read in a book about PipBuck's once when I was back in Stable 37's library when I was off duty and I had nothing else better to do. It said that, popular to contrary belief, time does not actually slow down. However, the users perception is increased dramatically. Now that I am experiencing it on my own, I think I have to agree with the ponies who say that say that time slows down because this felt like a really strange method of time-travel. Still gripping my shotgun in my wings, I let out two shotgun bursts at the first Raider in my field of vision and released the spell. I then saw and heard the bright yellow cone of gas spew out of the muzzle of the gun and loaded the first Raider with a deadly and spectacular show of lead and fire. The first shot slammed into his chest and sent him stumbling backwards and the second turned his head into a bright red mess of blood as if I shot a red spray can. He stood up a second and fell over dead.

That was not, in any way, going to go unnoticed by the other two Raiders in the room as the one buck pulled a shotgun similar to mine but in poorer condition and the other mare pulled a piece of wood with several rusty nails driven into it. My eyes widened as the shot gunner galloped towards me with his weapon floating a foot from his face in his orange telekinetic grip and fired multiple times in my direction. Soon fire was being exchanged back and forth from me and him as we took cover behind any sort of cover that we could find. It took longer than I had liked for SATS to recharge enough for me to try a killing shot at the Raider's head. Unfortunately I only had one shell left as the lack of SATS made me burn through bullets like a wooden match as I fired like an inexperienced idiot at the Raider who was obviously outside out in the Wasteland long enough that he was shaped into the killing machine that he was now. My eyes searched the room in desperation for anything within my reach to use as a temporary weapon before I totally ran out of...

A small metal apple fell between me and the stack of crates that I was hiding behind and rolled to a stop. It was pretty clear that the Raider threw it at me and it was also pretty clear that I did not want that thing anywhere near me. Dropping the gun in less than a heartbeat, I grabbed the apple in my wing and hurled it back at the Raider with the intent to just get rid of it. There was a soft pause as the Raider, I would assume, grabbed the thing in his magic and tried to throw it back at me. He, much to my relief and horror, failed to get it far enough from him as he and the hallway around it exploded. Shards of wood and concrete flew in all directions as the noise made my left ear begin to bleed from the bombardment of the sound of gunfire and now this terrible explosion. My ears are going to me ringing for the next week if this keeps up. That implies that I survive for the next week though.

Wrapping the shotgun in my wings, I peaked over the crates and saw a small crater left in the floor and a thin coating of fresh blood and gore pooling on the bottom where the Raider was seconds ago. I let out a breath that I didn't know that I was holding and trotted back to the room full of captured children. The Raider mare took this opportunity and kept from behind another crate and pinned me to the floor before I could even react and defend myself. She brought her piece of wood over her head and swung it down at my hide where my cutie mark of a quasar was on. Pain exploded from the swing as the rusty nails drove home into my flesh and began to tear meat and bone apart in my body while I was still alive. It was as if she injected me with some sort of carnivorous bug that crawled around your body and slowly ate away the tissues from the inside out.

As I howled in pain and mercy, the Raider put on an evil grin that she apparently looked the part for it. She licked her sharpened teeth and bit into my waist just above where she hit me with her weapon. The pain suddenly stopped as the mystical powers of adrenaline kicked in and I threw her off of me with a sharp kick to her chest. She flew backwards as if she was a stuffed toy and she slammed into a stack of crates knocking a few over and burying her hooves underneath them. I could not imagine them lasting for long though. I grabbed the shotgun and pointed the barrel between the mare's eyes. At this point in the fight, SATS did fully recharge but I didn't need it as I pulled the trigger and the final shot tore her head apart into hundreds of pieces before my very eyes. Blood and brains flung in all directions, some getting tangled in my mane and on my face. I heaved a bit and brushed the pony bits off of me. That only rewarded me with a blood smear that ran from my hooves to my head and another dry heave. I shook my head and promised myself that if I ever had to do that again, I would be wearing a face mask before I pulled the trigger.

Of course there would be no way that the other Raiders didn't hear that. They may be oblivious to gunfire and screams. Hell, I would go out on a wing and say that it was a common occurrence in this particular building. But explosions? No, they were going to hear that. From behind me, I heard the shouting of blood thirsty Raiders as they began to charge down the staircase they were all occupied in.

Well, that was ok. They were all going to pay, one way or another. The Raider that I exploded with a metal apple was preserved well enough that he still had a some supplies I could scavenge. He had thirty bottle caps, four shotgun shells in his shotgun, an extra metal apple, and five more shells in his bag. He also owned a small healing potion bottle that was now empty due to the fight, but I pocketed it anyways. The mare did not yield much however as she had two bottle caps and a broken spark battery casing. I rolled my eyes and picked up the crude wooden weapon and added it to my arsenal. Quickly running to the help of the fillies and colts, I shut the door that lead to the staircase above us and pushed a desk with a still functioning terminal in front of it. The children looked it me with disbelief. They never expected somepony to come and rescue them, especially in this Celestia forsaken place.

I held one of my feathers to my lips and gave them a soft hush. They didn't need one as they were as quiet as the dead even before I galloped in to save them. One of the fillies, a unicorn with a greyish-blue coat and a green mane that covered her one eye asked in a painful whisper,

"Are you a Reaper?"

I shook my head no. I didn't know what a Reaper was and, by the sound of it, I probably didn't even want to know. All of the seven children all ran up and wrapped me in their hooves in thanks. At first I was stunned, then I gave them a hug in my tattered and still blood covered wings. A blue coated colt with orange hair and distinct orange fetlocks looked up at me with an expression that teetered on either elated joy or mortified terror as he croaked with a sound that was as if his lungs were lined with course sandpaper,

"Who are you?"

"I'm Quantum," I answered with an easy smile, "and your all getting out of here."

I could only imagine that, if circumstances were very different from now, that they would all be bouncing around me in glee. I took the looks of confusion and hope as an answer of acceptance. Another filly gave me a red shotgun shell that she snagged off of the shotgun pony. I carefully loaded it into mine and told her thanks. I searched the pony that I killed earlier. He was better armed than the other two as he had a revolver that fired massive bullets. Upon closer observation, the bullets that the revolver needed were the same ones that the Raider with the wooden plank had when I looted her stuff. The PipBuck said that it was a ".44 Whinnychester" and it had a price of one-hundred caps. How the hell did my PipBuck know that?

Ugh. Focus Quantum! Seven children, a bunch of Raiders, remember? Get your head out of the clouds and worry about the currency system of the Equestrian Wasteland later. You have bigger problems.

The dead Raider also gave me a box of .44 caliber rounds that were obviously for the revolver. I pocketed them and looked back at the door. I turned back to the children and asked,

"Do you know of anyway out of here other than the front?"

They looked at me with blatant expression of "your an idiot". The one colt then answered.

"There is a way out through the docks."

"Brilliant. We'll get out through there," I said as I tried to show as much confidence as possible.

***

The children then showed me the way to the docks and, with final warning about the Raiders, told me to be back for them. I shrugged at them and made sure that I would be back. There was an electronic lock that lead to the room that the foals were in and pulled out my rewire tool from my barding. I realized that it was a blessing that I still had it after this mayhem.

Back in Stable 37, if your were an electrician or you worked on the ventilation, you were assigned a special devise that would allow you to work on wires and other electrical devises safely. The RHT, also known as the Rerouting Hardware Tool, was a very useful and tricky device that only few in the stable could use and even fewer could master. It, like a PipBuck, had some hidden properties that I was still trying to figure out. For one thing, it acted like a storage devise for data files and information like a PipBuck and could translate many lines of code and execute a file in it remotely if necessary. It also reroutes electrical/magical power in terminals and other computer systems in order to suit the needs of the user. This devise was the reason why we had so few electricians and PipBuck maintenance ponies back in Stable 37. All you had to do was find somepony with a RHT and ask them to reboot your PipBuck or clear away some of the bugs in the mainframe. There were thirty RHTs assigned in Stable 37. Twenty-nine now because an insanely stupid and overly curious electrical pony left with one of the most important and most expensive pieces of equipment in the entire stable. I didn't care though. If there was one thing that was going to keep me alive, other than my PipBuck, it was going to be the RHT that I now carry.

I hooked the contacts to the electric lock and flipped the switch on the back. With a little electric pop, the wire terminals hooked onto the lock and forced the door to close with a promising click. The RHT beeped and I separated it from the terminal just in time to avoid a Raider that snuck up on me and swung a fire ax through the air in his cyan colored telekinetic hold. The ax smashed through the door where my head was and left a small dent in the plated steel that sent sparks showering onto the ground. He recoiled and brought the weapon back to bear as he stared at me with his piss colored eyes with pupils that were so constricted that they could be thinner than any wire I have ever worked with in my time of work.

"Rip and Tear!" The black Raider with a neon orange mane and a number eight ball on his flank yelled. "Rip and Tear until there is nothing..."

Just as he was going to finish his demonic chant, I brought my shotgun underneath his chin and pulled the trigger. His head erupted from the top like a miniature volcano with red rain and bits of grey matter falling from a few feet in the air. Once again, blood and brains coated my mane and coat. Somehow I managed to throw up some liquid from my stomach as some of the Raider bits landed on my lips and made all of my organs do a triple back flip in my body. If this was going to be a common occurrence, I really needed to either get a new mane cut or start wearing a helmet so I wouldn't lose my body contents every time I blew the head off of a Raider. I remembered Iron Melody wearing a helmet in tandem with poorly made Wasteland Gear. A crap helmet and a crap suit of armor would be better than nothing but electrician's barding that could barely take a bullet. Oh I wish Iron Melody left me more than a few healing potions and bottle caps. Oh well... beggars cant be choosers right?

Soon another pinkish Raider flung herself from a section of railing overhead and landed on the body of the black unicorn with a very important cluster of nerves missing with a resounding crack signifying that his rib cage and spine were probably nothing but a fine white powder. The Raider literally landed on him and she couldn't care less about him. I guess it was to be expected as she didn't care about raping poor and innocent fillies and colts either. She had an outrageously large socket wrench that was longer than either of our forehooves clenched tightly in her mouth. She didn't waste a second as she brandished her weapon wildly and the heavy metal tool made contact with my windpipe. I stumbled back, coughing and wheezing for air as she ran all around me acting like a very annoying two year old and taking cheap shots at me like with the female unicorn with the shotgun.

I unfolded my already exhausted wings and, with all the effort I could pull together at this particular moment, took off into the air. The Raider watched in aggravation as she shook her hoof in the air and mouthed through the wrench,

"Cheater!"

I'm the cheater? She swung a socket wrench into my damn windpipe!

I landed on the railing that the pink Raider was perched on and pulled a Healing Potion from my barding and greedily sucked down the healing liquid that was noticeably harder to choke down because of the fact that I could barely breathe. Soon the nice and warm feeling of healing magic flowed through my veins and helped to calm down the swelling in my throat and the blood seeping from my nose. I took some labored breaths and watched the pink Raider try as hard as she could to leap back onto the railing from atop a stack of wooden crates. I shucked in amusement as she continue to try in vain to hop onto the metal railing and grab a bar so she could attempt to pull herself up. I had my high ground and she wanted it. It was some sort of very disgusting and very deadly game of King of the Hill. I had the advantage of course.

I pulled the Whinnychester out of my barding to look at it a bit more. It was faded with the stainless steel plating turning into the oxidized blue color it gets after being in the elements and seeing action for a long time. Honestly, I could not imagine it not being put through mayhem and overuse and the multitude of scratches and dried blood stains around the revolver's cylinder gave me the impression that the gun was probably used for more than shooting. I opened the cylinder and loaded five more shots into the gun. With this taking longer than I would have liked, I once again cursed the universe at the fact that I wasn't born a unicorn. Wings made excellent hands but they were worthless when trying to manipulate small round things. That is why I did not take the "Mechanical Engineer" spot back in Stable 37. Not only would I have to deal with wrenches, screwdrivers, drills, and wielders every other day, I would be dealing with grease and that would make it nearly impossible to hold anything in my wings.

Finally closing the gun, I wrapped the gun in my right wing and held it down at the ground as I peered over the railing for the pink Raider. She wasn't there. Damn it I knew that I took too long to load the thing! I wish I had something that would speed up the reload process for the gun so I'm not scrambling to shove a bullet into a tiny gun just to fire it about five seconds later. Something that would help out immensely would be... oh I don't know... a fucking horn!

A slight groan of old metal hit my ears and turned towards it bringing the Whinnychester to bare. The earth pony was... floating? There was a field of golden telekinetic magic floating the mare onto the railing. I felt at least twenty brain cells die right then and there.

"Are you fucking serious?!" I screamed as I watched in both awe and anger as I watched the pony gracefully glide up higher and higher into the air.

The pink pony's pupils widened as I pointed the revolver at her. I activated SATS and time slowed down once more. I used enough charge to target two well placed shots into the Raider's head. The spell released itself and the precisely aimed shots tore through each of her eyes as they tore four bloody holes. Two holes in the front for the entry wound and two bigger ones in the back for the exit wounds. The gun was surprisingly quiet for its size and the force that sent the bullets into the Raider's head was something that even a fellow Raider would envy. The direct impact of the two shots nearly tore the mare's head off. So that was why the Security Forces, the police of Stable 37, liked to use them. They were quick to kill. They were so well trained with them that they could hit something with a gun of the same caliber and of the same type as the one I have that they would be able to hit something with a kill shot from three times the recommended firing distance. Thankfully, even if the gun was very tricky to aim because of recoil, I still managed to aim it well enough with SATS to make a kill shot.

After calming down a second, I checked my EFS for anymore hostiles. Sure enough there was another Raider just underneath the catwalk. I peeked over the metal guard rails and found a surprisingly healthy unicorn mare with a charcoal coat and orange hair nearly identical to the color scheme of Number Eight Ball Raider. The hair was even styled the same which probably indicated that they were either close relatives or twins. I've only seen one set of twins back in Stable 37 but I heard that it was not too incredibly rare to have a set of twins before the end of the world. I stared down at her in fascination a bit to long before she took out an automatic pistol and started taking sporadic shots in my general direction. Some of the bullets bounced off of the metal with a loud twang as clouds of dust and debris filled my vision and started to make my eyes sting.

I tried to wipe to wipe the smokescreen away from my eyes as I returned the Raider's gesture of kindness by returning fire with the Whinnychester. The final four rounds that were in the gun fired in all directions and I did manage to hit the Raider on her left ear successfully tearing it off leaving nothing but a bloody stump. She wailed in pain as she clenched the bleeding part of her head with one hoof and held the gun in the other. She stood up on her rear hooves and was now shooting more precise and carefully aimed bursts of bullets at me. I have to admit, she was a very good shot as she sent a few burning pieces of lead in my side. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes as I gritted my teeth and turned to find a good place to shoot from.

Quantum your an idiot! If she could float another pony with her field of magic, what is going to stop her from levitating up here and get a better aim? And, if she did decide to go with that plan, what would stop her from gunning me down with every single bullet she had until I was nothing but Cream of Quantum Soup on the floor? Maybe she enjoyed annoying me. I guess I should make sure that I returned the favor.

As my fears came true, the unicorn Raider wrapped herself in her own magic and began to lift herself from the concrete floor and up into the air. To my relief, it looked like making yourself go aloft with magic was far more difficult than levitating somepony else and it sapped every ounce of strength and concentration that she had in order to keep herself from being pulled back down by the all powerful hoof of gravity. I pulled the little apple out of my saddlebag and pulled the stem off of it. The little metal handle thingy then sprung off and I threw the bomb at the unicorn. Somehow she caught it with her telekinetic sheath and tried throwing it back at me. The grenade exploded midway between us and I was knocked to my haunches while she was flung out of the air and into the concrete below. For some reason, I found it very amusing to see a non-pegasus spiral out of the air while trying to fly. I let out a little chuckle.

"Leave the flying to the pegasi!" I yelled over the ever annoying ringing in my ear.

I guess that she was not to happy about that as she crawled back to her hooves and stared at me with those diseased orange eyes that pierced into my soul. My PipBuck beeped at me and the little red bar that identified the charcoal unicorn turned to yellow. She put on a slight smirk and closed her eyes. With a bright flash of pale orange light she vanished into thin air. Now I know little about unicorns and their magic, but I had a pretty good idea that whatever she did was probably not a good thing. I climbed over the railing and glided down to the spot where the unicorn disappeared. There was a spot on the floor marked with a yellow glow similar to her magic color and it was quickly followed by the soft clicking from my PipBuck's radiation detector telling me that it was obviously radioactive. The circle had a strange shape burned into the floor with multiple elegant lines and curves that created an abstract symbol of arcane nonsense that I did not understand. Unicorns. Not only do they have weird magic powers, but they also have their own writing style. It was just another reason my I hated unicorns because of their weird magic tricks and even weirder language.

I rolled my eyes. What was there for me to do? She was gone and probably warning other Raiders to come and get the pegasus that might be tasty in the docks. Finally after a minute of waiting for other Raiders, my PipBuck once again beeped and the Auto Map came up with a new entry. It read "Detrot Boat Launch". So the colt that told me that it was a good idea to go here wasn't lying after all. After getting a second look around I realized that somepony was going to start shipping something before the bombs fell but they never got the chance to. I was guessing that they were war materials like bullets and rations. A box labeled "Spritebots" Ship to M.O.M. Hub in Manehattan". The box appeared intact so I took the rusty hatchet head back from the building the Slavers chased me into and busted the lock apart. I was not about to make the same mistake with the Angle Grinder again.

After five long minutes both the lock and the hatchet shattered into tiny metal fragments and the wooden crate swung open. It was mostly empty but the few things that were in there were boxes full of fading pink cardboard and bright yellow lettering that announced "Spritebot" with a pink pony with hair that looked like it was made of a pink cloud that seemed like it was never combed appeared to want to bounce right off of the box and materialize right in front of me. I grabbed one of the boxes with my teeth and tore the old paper away. There was a purple metal ball sealed in plastic wrap with a large black screen on the front. The thing itself had an odd shape that resembled a hoof ball helmet mostly in part by the heavy metal muzzle guard plate thing on the front near the bottom of the little ball of metal. I looked at the box and groaned a bit when it stated in red lettering, "SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED".

"Well," I said to the little purple thing in the box, "two hundred years late is better than never right?"

Of course, the Spritebot didn't answer.

***

When the M.O.M., whatever that was, meant that there was some assembly required for the Spritebot to have it even begin to work they weren't lying. It took the better part of an hour just to piece together the circuit board of the arcane devise so that it's CPU can run a full diagnostic check on the two century old machine's parts. They fillies and colts that I managed to save earlier went on their way once they retrieved the guns and saddlebags that were all taken from them when they stumbling into this place. Before that though, we took care of the few Raiders that were still housed on a floor or two above me and the children. The fight was short as we had numbers and a pegasus on our side instead of them. Now the Raiders lye in a bloody and rooting heap in the water as the three or four of the unicorns of the group dragged them down the stairs and tossed them out of the building as if they were nothing but a carton of eggs. I offered to go with them until they were safe, but they politely declined my offer.

Again, before they were completely out of my line of vision, they told me to stay away from the bridges. I had no idea why they kept telling me that along with the ever obvious suggestions of "don't drink the tainted water" and "don't take a shower here".

"Is there anything I can do?" I remember asking the foals as they broke off into small groups and left.

"You could die. That's an option," the blue colt answered me with a flat emotionless voice.

I shook the thought out of my head as there was a little machine to fix. Maybe I could use it to help give me a warning before shit got bad? Company? I didn't really had a good reason why I decided to work on the robot, all I know is that I did in order for me to gather my thoughts and try to figure out what to do next. I also wanted to figure out if the RHT would work on something other than electric locks and wires. To my surprise, wiring a circuit board and making a computer that was centuries older than me was within its capabilities. After assembling the outer shell of the robot ball thing, I slid the power grid into the machine and it sparked to life. Its wings began beating at the air as, little by little, the Spritebot took off. As it ascended, it started to play some music. It was tinny at first but then it soon roared to a brilliant mix of saxophones, harmonicas, and accordions. The little screen on the Spritebot began to glow as two little purple "eyes" appeared and stared off into a random direction. The Spritebot began to bounce up and down in tune to the music and fly away towards what my PipBuck labeled as Lake Erie. I turned towards the exit before a slight crackle of static stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Hello," said a metallic voice from the Spritebot as its music died.

Slowly, I turned my head and looked at the little machine. It hovered in the air near the edge of the dock and stared it me with empty, soulless eyes. I cocked my head to the side as was rewarded with a sharp pop from one of the joints in my neck. There was an odd moment of silence before I answered weakly with the universal greeting of Stable 37,

"'Ello?"

"Thank your for building this. There is a slight decline in Spritebots in the area and any more would do me good," the metal ball said.

Despite having a monotone voice, the robot somehow seemed to still sound thankful that I built another Spritethingy. He must have mistaken my look as confused instead of processing and added,

"You can call me Watcher."

Again, I cocked my head and was again rewarded by the popping noise in my neck.

"Watcher eh? My name is Quantum. I'm a bit new here," I answered with uncertainty.

"It would seem so. Your from a stable too?" Watcher said hesitantly.

I nodded.

"I don't know why there is a sudden release of Stable Dwellers in the Equestrian Wasteland, but all I know is that your the first Dweller that is not a mare nor a unicorn. I didn't think that there were pegasi down here other than the occasional Enclave pegasus and your prominent Feral Ghoul."

"So there are more out there?" I said as I was shocked by the news.

The Spritebot bobbed up and down as if it was trying to nod.

"You need some advise?" Watcher asked.

If that robot had a face I could imagine it raising an eyebrow. I nodded. Any advise was better than none.

"My advise, get yourself a weapon and some armor. Some medical supplies are a good idea too but I guess that is implied with the armor thing. Next, you need guidance. There is a building near a large body of water from here. In it, you should find a book. Take it, you might need it. After that, make some friends. Friends are more important than any bullet or armor plate," Watcher explained as if he told somepony else the same information more than one time.

"Is the building your mentioning locked with a rusting padlock and chains and filled with Raiders?" I asked disfavoringly at the fact that he was telling me about a place that I am already at and already took care of the Raider issue.

The stunned silence that Watcher gave me made me chuckle a little bit inside. Watcher let out a heavy sigh and said slowly,

"Yes. That one. I guess the map didn't pick this place up on my monitor yet. I'm guessing you took care of the Raiders?"

"Yeah. I honestly did not think that they were ponies anymore. They seemed more like they were," I paused, "I don't know. They were just that bad. Up until now the only thing I had to deal with was the occasional RadRoach back in Stable 37. Nothing too big."

"Did you find a gun?" Watcher asked as if he knew that I wanted to change the subject or something.

I showed him the Whinnychester, the shotgun, and the crudely made piece of wood with nails driven in it. He was impressed. I told him that I didn't come with these weapons and got a little bit lucky. With my luck, Murphy's Law would kick in and twenty minutes later the board with nails would poke through my saddlebags on my electrician's barding, pierce my skin, give me a bad case of Lockjaw, and I would slowly starve to death. That was just my family's luck and how it played out. Most of my fellow associates called me "Folly" as I had worse luck than every other electrician that ever lived. But, unlike ponies like Klink-Klank, there was a difference between having bad luck and just being bad at your job. I knew that I was destined to have bad luck when the... the thing happened that one time. Long story short, both of my parents died at the same time, in the same place, by the same thing, from the same ponies who started it.

My brain pulled an imaginary Whinnychester and shot the idea dead before it got bigger and the little .44 bullets that controlled my emotions became worthless and I would start crying. I took a long sniff and asked Watcher,

"Do have any ideas of the making friends thing?"

Now I know that the Spritebot was an inanimate object but somehow I knew that if it was alive it would be smiling.

***

The book that Watcher told me about was not that hard to find. It was hidden in a locked room that I assumed was the bosses office because of all of the legal paperwork and stacks of books that was shoved in a corner with the skeleton of a unicorn with an old name tag still wrapped around her neck. I knew it was a she and not a he because the name read,

"Autumn Light"

The room itself yielded few treasures. It did contain an old box of two hundred year old carrot cake and an empty Sunrise Sarsaparilla bottle that depicted an image of a yellow pegasus with a long pink mane and butterflies for her cutie mark holding a bottle of the very same drink she was advertised on with glee. Inside one of the filling cabinets was a small pink orb that appeared to be made of either polished glass or a really strong plastic. I stuffed the orb into my saddlebags and my PipBuck labeled it as Strawberry Jam Memory Orb. At that point, I decided to stop questioning the weird things that the little devise can do and continued scavenging. There were also a few bottle caps left around the entire building that I took as well. Most of the Raiders did not have guns so the few bullets I managed to get from them did not fit any of the guns I had. One of the rounds had a solid aluminum bullet with a white tip that seemed to glow. My PipBuck's Radiation Detector clicked softly as I held the bullet closer for examination. It was of the same caliber that the Whinnychester took and sliding it into the gun was no different than loading a normal bullet. The PipBuck then labeled that as Spire Point Bullet. It did not have a price assigned to it so I guess that meant that it was either really expensive or just another bullet. All I know is that I can sing better than I could use a gun.

I suck at singing by the way.

All of that aside, I am just lucky enough to be able to tell the difference between the barrel and the butt of the weapon and how to pull a trigger. I thought back to Watcher's comment about the other Stable Dwellers and how they were both unicorns. The idea of the two being able to reload a gun with ease because of the magic of levitation gave me a slight chuckle. They probably never had to deal with dropping a bullet because of the fact that their wings are shaking so much that they just drop the bullet before you could load it in. They could just float the bullets in without a problem.

I took Watcher's advise to heart. Maybe a friend or two would help out here in the long run. I just hope that "making friends" as Watcher so vaguely explained did not mean getting married. That would be a massive issue on my own and I would rather be shot to hell and back before I got married to another mare. The fact that all of the mares I have meet out in the Equestrian Wasteland thus far have either been cannibalistic rapists or mysterious figures that teleport away from you before they give you any answers. Well, except for Iron Melody. She was a different story all in her own despite being a Slaver.

After fully looting the building for anything important or life saving and coming up with nothing but a few extra caps and another RadAway I set out again in no particular direction. It was darker outside than before so I assumed that it was either going to start raining or it was night time. Either way, I trotted up and down the ruined streets and past the scared monoliths of skyscrapers trying to find somewhere to camp out for the night. I probably should have hunkered down at the docks, but the rainbow colored water and the fact that was a Raider nest not too long ago gave me the shivers just thinking about it. All of the atrocities and horrors that they did to all of the innocent foals. How long were the Raiders there? How long were they doing what they did? Did anypony try to stop them? All of those thoughts just added to the goosebumps that were gradually climbing up my spine.

"Damn it," I mumbled though chattering teeth, "why the hell is it so cold?"

From the sky a strange white substance started to fall gracefully to the ground. I stared up at it like an idiot as I waited for it to get closer so I could get a better look at it. One of the bits of white stuff landed on my nose and it sent a deep chill that cut like a razor across my face. It was not rain. It was something else, but I couldn't think of what it was called. Whatever the case may be, I held my wings over my head as the little white crystals of cold energy continued to fall from the clouds above. Instead of turning my nose into cold metal, it began to send signals to my brain telling me that the powder stuff was even colder on my wings. Trying to ignore the sharp pain all over my body except for the parts covered in my electrician's barding I ran to a small staircase that went up into a stone building. Its windows were all broken or missing and the wind that eventually picked up slowed me down as I tried to warm myself back up.

The deluge of white powder kept getting worse and worse and soon I would run the risk of Hypothermia. That would be an embarrassing way to die out here. Probably more so than starving to death because you did not loot a Raider for a can of prewar food. Despite all of the cold, the adrenaline, the fear, and the disgusting things that I have seen out here I felt more alive than ever. It was weird, I was accustomed to being electrocuted one or twice a month back in Stable 37, but that was an occupational hazard. Being cold was never new. The heating talismans in the stable sucked ass and they only really worked in the showers and the stoves that made our food from the gardens that used the last bit of energy from the devises in order to make our food for the stoves to cook and for the ponies that maintained the showers and the water talismans to allow us to take a shower and stay clean. The adrenaline was always there when you were working with electrical equipment and it usually came hoof-in-hoof with the fear that you would get shocked so much that your heart would stop. As for the disgusting things... I have been down to Waste Management once or twice so I could replace a calculations unit in the Waste Processor. It was not a pleasant smell.

The main difference between Stable 37's fear factor and the Equestrian Wasteland's was probably the fact that all of the things I have mentioned before happen all at once. Not individually like back in the stable, all at once in the right way that was alien but welcoming in its own strange way.

I sat down in front of a decaying book case, its books long gone and the strange tinge of death filled the room despite having no visual bodies or dead things. I didn't care where it came from. As long if I wasn't surrounded by it, I didn't care. I just took my saddlebags off, pulled out the fire blanket we electricians use just in case something catches on fire, and slipped beneath the covers. The tilled floor only amplified the cold outside but I didn't care. I faced Raiders and Slavers. A cold floor was not going to stop me from sleeping tonight. Right now I could sleep through an explosion.

This is what I need. Sleep. I closed my eyes and let Luna take my tired and cold body in me as I pranced to dreamland with a grin. Night was my favorite part of the day.

Chapter IV - The Griffin's Key

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"I come from Detrot where it's cold, rough, and I aint a smooth talker."

Detrot. I read about it one time back in Stable 37 along with other cities like Canterlot, Hoofington, and Cloudsdale that played an important role in the Equestrian government before the bombs fell. Canterlot, obviously, was where the princesses lived and ruled over the Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi and was where all of the major democratic decisions were made. It was also a massive hub for many of the cultural aspects of pony life all throughout Equestria. Hoofington was basically an equipment stockade and weapons manufacturing center. That, along with it supposedly having a divine hatred for the zebras that transcended all other cities in Equestria combined, made them one of the most important cities in the country. Cloudsdale was without a doubt important because it was the main home of the pegasus. They lived, worked, played, and trained here before it was cleaned off of the chess board by a megaspell. After that, the pegasi bailed out of the fight and closed the sky up. It's been that way for the past two hundred years and the pegasi haven't showed up yet after their constant promise of their return. At least, that is what the book I got from the loading dock says.

So I guess it was fair that seeing a pegasus like me walking around the Wasteland was a bit strange but it was not something to be worried about too much in my honest opinion. Waking up from an uneventful sleep did not do much for my brain as it still ached from all of the events that transpired yesterday. The constant, low ring in my ears where the concussive force of multiple grenades took their toll on my eardrums did not help the situation either. Dried blood matted in thin streaks that ran from my ears to my neck signifying multiple eardrum ruptures that were fixed only by multiple Healing Potions and dumb luck that I seemed to have pulled together every now and then.

As I sit in front of the bookcase in what I assumed was a library, I skimmed through the copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide - Detrot Edition that was hidden back at the Raider nest. Honestly I had no idea why or how a book like this would end up there so I put that on the list of The Things I Will Not Question About the Wasteland and went back to the read. It was very organized and detailed with every fact and bits of knowledge I would need to know about this new land. It had many interesting articles and chapters talking about the ins and outs of Detrot and many places around it. While I was reading, a section with a bright red header read Bridges - It's a bad idea. I let out a sigh of relief. Now I could finally get a proper explanation of why everyone told me to avoid the bridges in Detrot. My dark sapphire blue eyes ran back and forth across the slightly yellowing paper in not only curiosity, but horror.

In Detrot you might have noticed the abundance of bridges. It is the same way with places like Hoofington and Phillydelphia, but these ones are especially deadly. Sure, everything in the Wasteland is deadly, but these things are really, really bad. Hiding under these bridges is a creature simply known as a Aerico. Now you may ask, 'What is an Aerico?' Well, to put it simply, an Aerico is a special ghoul that wanders the Wasteland near Detrot and spreads disease. They are exceptionally rare, but as dangerous as a Feral Ghoul. They usually hide in dark places when it is daytime as any light drives a Aerico away. They hide under bridges and wait for nightfall so they can find anypony within range and spread their disease to them. The disease, its origin, and its cure is unknown making them one of the most dangerous things in the Wasteland. If a Aerico touches you, don't expect a Healing Potion to fix it. The disease is so powerful that it kills you within an hour and turns you into an Aerico within two. There have been some conflicting reports of a cure being developed by the Eggheads back in Hoofington, but little progress has been made. Until they can brew up a cure, stay as far away from bridges as possible. If you cant get around them, make sure you have a lot of missiles because Aericos are not only dangerous, but nearly impossible to kill."

The rest was filled with other creepy and dangerous things around Detrot like RadScorpions, Hell Hounds, and Alicorns. Nothing about those hit me as bad as the Aericos though. I could not imagine a walking bio-hazard waste basket that if it so much as touches you your dead. That gave me the shivers just thinking about it. No... wait, that was the white stuff still falling outside. It wasn't bad as before though as it probably slowed down a bit last night.

"Well," I said to myself as I looked down at my EFS and found no signs of any immediate threats, "I'm not getting anything done here."

***

It was not as cold as last night when I walked out of the library with a bit more ammunition than when I entered it. A fine sheet of white stuff covered the ground and it made every step I took in it left behind a distinct hoof print in its wake. The Wasteland Survival guide said that it was called "snow" and I immediately was surprised about what it actually was. When I read about snow back in 37, it depicted a elegant show of finely crafted flakes that were made by the pegasi back in Cloudsdale before the bombs went off. These however were nothing like it. It was harsher. Is that even a word? If it is, that is what this snow is. It wasn't soft and fluffy where you could pack it together and make a snowball that you could throw at somepony else. This snow was hard and sharp like little knives falling from the sky in a sideways wind that felt like they were going to cut bloody lacerations across your bare coat and face. Maybe it was just me though. I never felt the sting of the cold quite like this so I am probably exaggerating a bit. Out of dumb curiosity, I picked up some of the snow in my wings and tried to pack it together to see if it could make something. What did I get out of it? A ball of glass shards that did not want to stick to itself in any shape or form.

The stuff that did want to stick though... was harder than a diamond. Once packed into itself, it solidified from the cold and made a solid chunk of ice that easily broke the one window in front of a Hardware Store that I came across. Sure I could have used the door, but that would have required me to move about a ton of rubble away from it and throwing a rock at something made me feel a little bit better about what I did back in the Raider's Alcove.

I killed three Slavers. In self defense of course. They shot me in the wing first so that automatically counts as defending myself right? They shot first.

Then I killed five Raiders. Oddly enough, I felt no shame in that fact. They raped young fillies and colts, were probably cannibalistic, and they probably wouldn't stop doing the things they were doing until they were dead. I had to take the resistors out of the circuit in order to make the current run smother.

Did I just make an electricians joke about Raiders? Oh sweet Celestia I need help right now. Right, the fuck, now.

***

Over the better part of a few hours I got a very crude idea of the layout of Detrot. The EFS and AutoMap helped out a lot but it was though lots of roaming and detail oriented searching of some of the major buildings both on the ground and in the air. I earned a fight with a small band of Raiders that resulted in bullet wound to my left fetlock just below my PipBuck and a broken knife jammed into my right leg just above my knee. Three healing potions later I was up and moving again as I tried to ignore the burning pain the two injuries. A dose of MedX helped a bit but the real pain relief came from a tablet of Buck from a bottle that one of the Raiders had. The tablet tasted like rotting death and it didn't smell any better. The reason for that, I concluded, was because they were in the Raider's pockets along with their guns and other disgusting trophies of their victories from other groups they came across. The Scientific Method comes to save the day again! As for bullets... they didn't have shit.

I came across one of the bridges while I was scouting around too. They were deserted and no Aericos hiding under it like a bridge troll in story books. Sure there were a few RadRoaches but that was the extent of what was living there. I guess that Aericos did not live under every bridge like I originally though and they only lived in a small hoof full of them instead. After crushing a RadRoach and a small green rat that made my PipBuck click in warning and finding nothing but bones and rotting cloths, I left the bridge and made a mental note to not go near it at night. Then I took that mental note, sprayed it in glow-in-the-dark paint, hammered it to a bright red wall, and spray painted a big blue circle around the note with a blue arrow pointed at it on the mental floor. Then, just in case, I placed a cup of tea on the line of paint on the floor as bait for my own brain.

I didn't have enough time to make sure that there was enough sugar in my mental tea cup before the streaks of magical bullets whizzed by me so close that I could feel the disruption of super-heated air and crackling energy on the tips of my ears and wings. A second later, the loud bang of a gunshot slammed into my eardrums as the sound threatened to break my concentration and send me tumbling to the ground. A slight updraft that came up from absolute nowhere caught the underside of my wings and sent me higher into the air and gave me a better idea of what exactly was shooting at me. A pegasus like thing with long arms and powerful legs was perched on top of a low-lying cloud with a high powered rifle aimed at me and finely adjusted the white scope and blue rifle to compensate every slight change in direction that I made. The grey creature fired bullet after magic bullet only stopping to reload after the sixth shot. After bullet number twelve that he shot at me, I realized that he was not going to stop until I was a red goop that was flowing from the two century year old asphalt into the old and probably rusted storm drains in the street below. I had better things to do than be turned to red goop.

Letting out a growl of annoyance at the fact that this was the second time I was shot at today, I pulled out one of the grenades that I was saving from the Docks and activated SATS after pulling the pin. Honestly, I did not expect the spell to work with a grenade. I just wanted to see if it could. Thankfully I was rewarded with an arch that was pointed at the cloud and the approximate fuse time of the bomb before it exploded. It required all of my Spell Charge, but I was going to put it all to good use with this one attack. The spell was released and time resumed as I saw with shocking clarity the grenade spinning and rolling though the air, bursting into hot fragments with a yellow and orange fireball midflight. The cloud that the pegasus thing was positioned on soon evaporated in a puff and little droplets of water trickled out of the sky leaving the confused creature plummeting to the ground as he fumbled over his rifle and trying to open his wings at the same time. If he did not figure out what went where in time, it was going to lead to him being everywhere.

Just as he was about to leave the land of the living in a bloody heap, my hooves and mouth grabbed at the light blue armor and the creature wrapped his rifle in desperation. Honestly, he valued his rifle over his own life? He looked up at me with a pair of emerald green eyes and a symbol around his eye in the same color that made me roll mine in response. I, literally, could not say anything on the subject. His... beak, let out a slight chuckle and an even slighter smile as he said in a raspy, torn voice,

"I never expected a member of the Enclave to be here, let alone one that would want to deal with a griffin."

"Ernclerve? Werts ern Ernclerve?" I groaned in confusion around the collar of the griffin's barding.

"Wait," the griffin said in comprehension and continued with, "Your not Enclave?"

With as much strength I could sacrifice in this particular moment, I shook my head. I could see the gears turning, and failing to work correctly, in the griffin's head. With another chuckle, he asked,

"Are you going to put me down anytime soon?"

***

Flying in of itself is relatively easy for a pegasus who was given the natural gift of flight. Same thing applies to griffins. Flying while carrying something in your mouth and hooves that is about twice your weight was a whole different story in of its own. According to the Wasteland Survival Guide, griffins were notoriously prominent around Detrot as they are attracted to shinny things of high value; a instinctual behavior that dated back long before the end of the world. The fact that Detrot was full of riches untouched by Radiation and many other ponies proved to be a nice ground for griffin scavenging. It was not until twenty or so years ago that the Steel Rangers managed to weave their way up here and began to take technology that they thought was theirs to begin with. After learning that from the griffin Phantom Wing, I concluded that Steel Rangers were another thing to add to the avoid list just under Aericos and other nasty things like it.

I set Phantom Wing down on top of a semi-intact building and landed on the other side of the building away from him, but still within earshot and view. My lungs gasped for air as the exhausted organs tried to suck in the stale oxygen from the area and tried to make the sharp, surging pain dull down in my wings and mouth. After taking a few gulps of air, I turned to look at Phantom Wing to see how he was doing. He just stood there like a living gargoyle and stared at me with uncertainty. His eyes looked from my combed down mane to the little yellow 37 on both sides of my collar sewn in both forward and reverse so everypony knew I was from Stable 37 when I was back in Stable 37. That and the fact that the specific style of embroidery used on the numbers signified that I was a maintenance pony who worked in areas all over the stable like the dreaded "Level 5 - Corridor C".

When his eyes pointed at my PipBuck though...

"No. Your not getting it so don't get any dumb ideas," I choked through gritted teeth.

The griffin stiffened a bit and pulled out the rifle pointing the octagonal barrel in my direction.

"I wasn't going to ask for it," Phantom Wing said coldly.

I turned to look back at him in genuine disgust. What the hell was this griffin's problem? I saved his life and how he turns on me with a rifle and asks for my PipBuck? There had to be something wrong here.

"You want my stuff?" I asked back as I took off my saddlebags and set them in front of the griffin, "Take it. I don't have much so I am ok with starting over again."

"I don't want that either!" the grey feathered griffin barked.

"Then what...?"

"I want you."

Um... what? This could either mean that he required my assistance or that he was going to find a way to get me in bed with him. I really, really hope that it was the first thought.

"For what? Want me for what?" I asked skeptically with only a slight rasp from my tired lungs.

"Your not Enclave and your not a ghoul. I have never seen a pegasus down here who wasn't a Dashite so you must have come from somewhere else and I want to know where you came from and who you are. Who knows, maybe you could fetch me a nice price and fill my contract in one go."

The green eyes the griffin had seemed to shine like polished mirrors at his demand for information. A few hairs on my mane stood on end. Faking a grin, I trotted up to the gun wielding griffin and he demanded me to stop before he shot me. My grin grew only colder as my dark blue eyes stared at his green ones. His claws were shaking a bit and I swore that he would drop the light blue rifle entirely. I got about two feet from him before the hammer on the gun swung down and struck the firing pin. A blue light flickered from the gun's muzzle and died just as quickly as it appeared.

"I told you not to do anything dumb," I told the griffin as he fumbled to open the gun's... revolving cylinder and grabbed a hoof full of glowing bullets, "While you were shooting I observed a pattern in your firing times. After every sixth shot, you would have to stop and reload. I did not throw that grenade when I did because I was lucky. I did it because I knew that you would not have the chance to shoot me again until you finished reloading. The only thing that was luck was when the grenade exploded exactly where I needed it to be at."

The griffin hissed and slung his rifle over his shoulder, pulling out a grey boxy thing with two spark batteries plugged into each side as if the gun itself had wings. Now, I knew even less about what that thing was, but the fact that it had two spark batteries, a high powered storage unit designed to hold a concentrated amount of magical energy, rather than standard bullets, I could only imagine that it would hurt in a completely different way. He was fast. I was fast. Just as he aimed the strange box-like gun at me, I drew my shotgun and dove into the time manipulation of SATS. I toggled two attacks. Not to him, but at the gun. I flipped my shotgun around, grabbed it in my forehooves, and swung the barrel at him like a baseball bat while simultaneously releasing the spell. The first attack sent the hard wood end of my gun into his right hand where I could hear small bones shatter and break and I hoped that strike was enough to loosen his grip a bit. The second attack swung the but of the gun at the center of the gun effectively disarming the griffin and sending the gun skittering across the roof like a big, grey RadRoach. I spun the gun around again and pointed the silver barrel at his beak beak making his eyes grow wide in surprise. The griffin then seemed to relax.

"Well, damn. I definitely did not plan for this," Phantom Wing murmured under his breath.

"Expect what?" I snarled through gritted teeth.

The griffin took a black and silver scarf from his bag and wrapped it around its neck. It was elegantly crafted with probably as much care as his guns and covered his entire neck from the base of his shoulders to just under his chin. He adjusted the blue coat he wore and said slowly,

"I yield. You can do with me as you please."

I felt a few wires fizzle and pop in my brain. Was it just me or did my mouth fall open without my consensus? Oh... wait, it did. Pulling the gun away from the griffin and holstering it, I gave a puzzled look and maybe a wandering eye. The griffin must have read the expression as confused and began to gave me an explanation.

"Are you stupid or something? I yield. You know, surrender. My contract is broken and now I am your slave as my ties with the Green Sign are now severed. What is it you want me to do?"

"Uh...," I stammered trying to fix my several triggered breakers in my head, "um... I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't want a slave, I just want answers."

The griffin let out a puff of air from his nose in utter annoyance.

"The Green Sign! You must know about that right?"

"Um... no. No I don't. I'm kind of new around here so can you give me a crash course on griffin behavior?"

He rolled his eyes as the annoyance level built up in him enough that I had to keep checking my PipBuck's EFS in order to make sure that the little yellow dot that Phantom Wing was did not suddenly turn to red. Thankfully, it was still yellow but I don't think that it would stay that way for long.

"Where are you from? Phillidelphia? Ponyville? Hoofington?" he asked sourly.

"Stable 37," I answered blandly.

Phantom Wing blinked twice.

"Your from a stable? You mean the one underneath the sewage systems?" he asked in curiosity.

I shook my head.

"The one at the foot of Ford's Hill?"

I shook my head again.

"What about the one near Toledo?"

How many stables were around Detrot?

"No. I'm from the one thats about seven miles that way," I answered as I pointed my hoof in the direction of where my stable was, "it was housed under a hill or something. The only way in or out was through a little wooden shack."

"There was a stable there?!" Phantom Wing said in surprise that was loud enough to make my left ear ring a bit.

"Correction," I groaned at I rubbed my throbbing ear, "there is a stable there. A very large one too. It has a population of about fifteen hundred give or take. And every one of them is smart enough to not come out here after me I guess."

"Why did you leave?"

"Curiosity I guess. That and the fact that I did now want to piss off the Overmare. She would likely have me hanged for it," I answered as I wrapped my front hooves around my neck as if I was actually hanging.

Phantom Wing laughed and I laughed too. I really did not know if he was trying to drop my guard or not but if he was then I would be playing right into his trap. My grip around the shotgun's trigger loosened and I slung it around my shoulder. I gave Phantom Wing back his guns and told him that he was free to go and do whatever kind of weird things griffins did. Instead, he said that he wanted to stay with me for a bit. Puzzled, I asked him why he would want to hang around what amounted to be a foal in the Wasteland and his only response was that he was bored. Nothing more about this "Green Sign" thing? Oh well, at least I had a possible companion to travel with now. Even if he may shot me in the back later, it was better than talking to inanimate objects and expecting an answer from them.

***

Oh how I'm thankful that Phantom Wing showed up when he did. Have you ever heard of a RadSkink? According to Phantom, they were small lizard things that liked to hang around water and fead off of small insects like locusts, mammals like mice, and some species of fish. They were completely harmless to ponies; in fact, some ponies kept skinks as pets. In fact, I would have wanted one too if I lived here before the war. Then the bombs fell and the land was soaked with magical radiation that funneled into the rivers around Detrot. The skinks that lived there absorbed all of the radiation like a sponge and soon mutated into other grotesque things. From the radiation, came the RadSkink, a big three headed carnivorous abomination of nature that had fangs that could cut through tough hide and venom that would paralyze you in a near instant. To make matters worse, they could swim and they were as silent as the wind. Coming across such a creature was not a very good idea unless you wanted a relatively good distraction but because Phantom and I did not want such a distraction, we decided the best way to solve the problem was to kill the problem with massive amounts of ammunition.

"Look at it this way," Phantom yelled as he flew over the massive maw of the creature as he reloaded his energy pistols for another attack, "this one is the smallest one I have seen in years."

"The smallest!?" I yelled back while hiding behind a rock and reloading the Whinnychester, "that thing has to be at least six feet tall!"

"Yeah it the smallest. These things usually don't come out of the water until they are fourteen feet tall."

What the... ugh! Damnit Quantum! No time for thinking right now. Shoot first, then ask questions later.

Phantom Wing landed next me and threw the two spark battery casings in his gun to the side. He was exhausted. I was exhausted. We have been at battle with this thing for about twenty minutes and nothing has changed but a shortage of bullets and the use of my last Healing Potion. We needed a plan before that thing ate us as a starter course. But of course, we didn't have one.

"Quantum, I hope you have any good ideas right about now, 'cause that thing wont be confused for long," Phantom said panting.

"I know, I know!" I snapped as I rubbed my hooves against my temples in hopes that Celestia would allow me to borrow some of her brain power and use it to get us out of this mess, "Skinks live in water right?"

"Yeah," Phantom answered.

"I have an idea."

I pulled Phantom back up to his feet and told him to run. Knowing that he was going to be somewhat safe for now, I turned towards the RadSkink and bellowed,

"Come and get me you big salamander!"

The creature must have taken the bait as it turned and charged at me at full force. I took to the air and raced across miles of asphalt and broken concrete into a large warehouse that my PipBuck so helpfully labeled it as Conner's Creek Power and ran inside. There building itself was about twelve stories high with large tanks that were probably empty now. All that mattered was that the structural supports were faulty and already on the verge of collapse. I saw this building a few hours ago when I was originally hunting down Phantom and I knew that it was not going to stand for long. I found it funny that I was originally responsible for fixing and repairing anything electrical in Stable 37 and now I was going to destroy a building that was two-hundred and something years old that produced power just to kill one thing.

The monster then bulldozed into the massive building and let out a terrible screech. Or at least, I think it did. I didn't hear anything. It grumbled in a low, deep grumble and soon two more RadSkinks came plowing through the walls to meet up with the first. The building groaned in protest as the already damaged frame tried desperately to hold itself up. Two more of those creatures skittered into the group as they were literally dripping with river water that made my PipBuck's radiation meter flicker to the yellow-orange part of the dial. Any more of this and I would be a glowing heap of pegasus. My left eye twitched a bit. The only thing I could do was hope that this would work and the universe would grant me the odds that were good enough for me to pull this off.

I let out a battle cry and the skinks did too. They charged at me all at once and I took to the air and landed on a metal railing above the ground. The building did not like what I was doing to it but fuck it. It was going to fall over soon anyways right. So lets make good use of it. I ran out the glass window of the plant and found the natural gas pipes that lead into the factory. They were rusted and worn, but still intact. The same could be said about the terminal that controlled the flow of gas to the generators. I pulled out my RHT and plugged it into the terminal's data interface and immediately the little computer did its work. The monitor screen danced with lights and numbers as the RHT completely ignored the need for a password and tore through the memory banks of the computer with extreme prejudice. The screen then flickered to life with a resounding start up song. I threw my hooves onto the keyboard and told the device to open the gas reserves. A squeal of strained metal later, a progress bar on the screen appeared.

NATURAL GAS PIPES OPENING...

WARNING: DO NOT FORCE THE PIPES TO OPEN. THIS MAY RESULT IN PREMATURE FIRING AND A HIGH PROBABILITY OF ACCIDENTAL DETONATION.

OPTIMUM PRESSURE FOR REIGNITION IN THIRTY SECONDS

Again my hooves raced on the keys as it told every pipe to open all at once.

WARNING: PRESSURE EXCEEDING RECOMMENDED SAFETY LEVELS.

ACTIVATING EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN ... ERROR

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE WITH PROCEDURE? Y_/N_

Furiously I tapped "Y" and turned away from the terminal. Just then, one of the significantly larger RadSkinks tackled me to the ground. It tore at my barding without hesitation and it tried bitting at me with those disgusting three heads. I kicked and squirmed trying to free myself but I could do nothing against the strength of that creature. This was it. I'm dead.

One loud gunshot later, I had a bit more hope about this plan. The RadSkink's head exploded in mildly radioactive blood that coated me from head to hoof making my radiation meter whine in alarm. I looked up to the sky and saw Phantom Wing was that stupid looking gun in his arms and that stupid looking expression on his face. He nodded and flew off away from the factory. I shoved the caracas of the killed RadSkink off of me and glided back down to the asphalt ground. I took one look at the group of RadSkinks in the building and pointed my Whinnychester at it firing my final round. It tore through the air and pinged off of a metal plate releasing a shower of sparks. Then, everything exploded in a plume of green fire and grey smoke.

Heh, so that was what a Balefire Bomb explosion looked like? Cool.

Suddenly something smacked me in the back of the head with enough force to send me into the ground. I looked up and saw Phantom Wing there with a disappointed look etched in his face. He looked back me and scowled,

"You did it all wrong!"

"What?" I asked back a little bit hurt at his statement, "What did I do wrong?"

He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me straight into the eyes and said slowly making sure that he dramatized each word,

"Cool guys, don't look at explosions."

Chapter V - The Gates of Iron

View Online

Silence is not just a sound, but a tool.

Phantoms. There was a story told at Stable 37 about one such thing. Oh sure, it was a story that foals told to each other to see which one of their friends would wet the bed first but the purpose of those stories now began to make more and more sense the longer I am out wandering the Wasteland. Phantoms, according to most of those stories, were malevolent creatures that were stuck between the realm of living and the realm of the dead. They were usually depicted as emaciated beings with missing eyes, a few strands of hair left on their rotting skin, and having a taste for pony flesh. I didn't know if the members of Stable 37 knew a thing about ghouls but I had a strong feeling that they were talking about those instead. Then I met Phantom Wing and everything changed. He was not the terrifying ghoul creature that I though phantoms were supposed to be. He was just a griffin that was trying to get through life like any other sane creature in the Wasteland. It must be ironic that the most sane thing that I have met out here, aside from Iron Melody of course, was something that tried to shot me. If that was how the Wasteland works, then I would take it and not complain about it.

"You know," Phantom Wing said as I followed him while still trying to learn as much as I could about Detrot from The Wasteland Survival Guide, "I still questioned why you decided to set the entire group of RadSkinks on fire instead of running."

"Simple," I began still panting from the adventure he and I had a half hour ago, "If I would have told you, you would have stopped me. If it didn't work, you would have been all like 'What the fuck Quantum?' and I would be all like 'Well, that didn't go as planned' and then we would be screwed."

"My main question is why you would think that would work in the first place?"

"Just a guess."

The adrenaline that came with blowing up an entire pre-war power plant that was up to its ears with RadSkinks did not seem to fade off of Phantom face one bit. He was talking on and on about how my idiot plan actually worked and that I almost died pulling it off. Somehow I got the impression that he first took me as such an idiot when I tried to take on one of the griffin members of the Green Sign all on my own without backup or an steady set of firearms. I tried to ask him why it was so important, but he glared at me in such a way that I shut up and dropped the subject entirely. When he asked about all the things that I did back in Stable 37, I gave him the same glare and he shut up.

About an hour in our useless wandering we came across a large building with many narrow archways that towered up to its roof. The arches themselves had windows that were only slightly cracked which was a perfect contrast to the old style look of the building. The building had soot built up on the outer walls that gave it a dirty look that sent a chill of unease through my spine and I swore that I could have felt it in my tail. By the sound of it, these ponies did not seem happy about something. I could hear it through the walls. Now, I know that in itself was spooky, but any advantage in the Wasteland I could get was one that I would later deprive of my enemies. Its not wrong. Its only strategy.

Phantom and I trotted up to the two main doors and he knocked on them five times in a specific manner. After a few seconds, a small section of the wood slid away and two magenta eyes pierced down at us with obvious hate and disgust. The pony, or griffin, looked at me for only a few seconds and glared at Phantom.

"What is it you want? Trade, food, chems?" The voice said in boredom.

"I want to talk with the boss, Keeper. I found a fresh flier from a stable and I want to see what he thinks of him," Phantom Wing answered back completely ignoring any sounds of suspicion from the door keeper.

Keeper's eyes then looked down at me again. Their eyes rolled.

"Out of all the griffins, you had to end up with her?" Keeper groaned.

"Wait...," I said as I turned to look back at Phantom Wing, "Your a her?"

"Yeah I'm a her Quantum," Phantom Wing answered proudly as she pounded her chest in pride, "I'm the baddest griffin that ever came out of Green Fields up north. Only the finest of us make it to be a part of the Green Sign and fewer make it down here to spread the word. I'm the first female griffin to go and see the world!"

"What word?" I asked still confused on how I did not figure out that Phantom Wing was a girl sooner.

"The bird is the word kid," Keeper said back at me.

I blinked.

"Seriously. That's your very important message? The bird is the word. What the hell does that even mean?" I huffed as more and more weird stuff was being shoved into my head every passing second.

"Hey don't ask me what it means. I didn't come up with it," Phantom Wing shrugged in sympathy.

The little slot on the door slid shut and with a resounding creak the doors opened. A maroon earth pony with peach hair who I assumed was Keeper looked at us with distaste. She wore a strange devise that had two rifles strapped to her sides and a silver mouth bit that curled up to just bellow her chin that connected to the rifles themselves. The devise was strapped around her with heavy cloth and thick black and blue security barding that it covered her cutie mark and most of her body up to her neck. The only parts that were exposed was the place the helmet was supposed to go and, by the look of it, she didn't have one for that specific point of vulnerability. Still, she was dressed as a Security Pony and that alone made me tense up a bit. Ever since Security back in Stable 37 revolted, I have tried to keep my distance from any one of them. I hope that Keeper would not be added to the list of Ponies to Avoid. She cocked a grin showing slightly yellowed teeth and said coldly,

"Your a stable pony huh?"

Not knowing how to respond to somepony like her, I merely nodded in response.

"Which one? Sixteen? Twenty-two? Nineteen?" she asked curiously.

"Thirty-Seven," I answered quickly and clearly.

It was now Keeper's turn to blink in confusion.

"Stable 37? I thought that one was situated near Appleoosa in the middle of the friggin' desert. Are you sure?"

"Look, if I knew where Appleoosa was in the first place, I would tell you. I walked out of a big metal door with the numbers three and seven in that particular order painted in bright yellow paint so don't go and ask me where I'm from like I'm some sort of filly," I snapped back at her.

Keeper chuckled a little bit.

"So I guess that DJ-Pon3 was telling the truth about you over the radio when she mentioned a new stable pony with a short fuse."

"DJ-Ponwho?" I asked tilting my head a bit and was rewarded by a release of pressure in my jaw bone that usually came with cracking it.

Phantom Wing put her fingers to her eyes and tried to pinch them closed from the amount of blatant stupidity that was nearly dripping off of me right now. Keeper just snickered. Her expression turned a touch warmer as she smiled and told me to go see the rest of the building while Phantom Wing got some fresh ammunition. I couldn't really call it a bad idea. I have been out here for three days and I have already faced Slavers, Raiders, deadly griffin assassins, and RadSkinks. That concludes it, I have made a terrible decision.

***

This place, according to my PipBuck, was called Fox Theatre. It was more massive and elegantly decorated the farther in you go and the best part was that there were ponies everywhere from all different places. They had separate booths set up for different goods ranging from pre-war food to magical gem devices that could be used as drills. I looked at one of the machines called an "Auto-Axe" and looked back at my angle grinder. So this is what my cutting tool would look like when it was all grown up? The unicorn mare with a pink coat, blue eyes, and bright red hair looked at me and I swore I saw little cap signs on her eyes. She grinned and asked,

"Are you in the mood for something, cu'z I could get it to you lickity split!"

"Nah. I'm just wandering around," I answered as I put the grinder back into my saddle bag.

"M'name's Cherry Bud," the pink mare grinned eagerly holding her hoof out, "And welcome to Tools of the Talented"

"Quantum," I answered holding out my hoof to shake hers back.

Cherry's eyes then fell upon my PipBuck and widened. She nearly flew out from behind her counter to look down at the little arcane device locked onto my leg and let out a long and high pitched whistle that made my ear ring a bit.

"Well damn! Ah haven't seen one a those around here on a livin' pony since ah first ahrived here at Fox. Sure it was broken, but still. Where are you from stranger?" she asked raising her eyebrow.

Why does everypony want to know where I came from? Is it that important to everyone?

"I'm from Stable 37," I answered preparing for another long whistle.

Cherry bit down on her lip for a bit and a light bulb must have turned on in her head as she said,

"Yer the one who got rid of all those Raiders near the Docks?!"

I nodded. Another long whistle came from Cherry that was somehow longer and louder than the first one.

"Well shit. Been waitin' for somepony to go and take care of that. Never imagined no stable pony to do that kinda work and bring back a few kids with 'im."

"I went in there just to see what was in there. Scavenging mostly. I never expected to find those fillies and colts there. I was just doing what any normal pony would do in that situation. That's just that," I answered as I tried to avoid any sort of sentence that would spur on another round of whistling.

"Well, its a damn good thing to know that there is at least one more of those heroes that DJ-Pon3 keeps talkin' about. At this point I expected another unicorn mare, but instead we got a pegasus buck who..."

"Wait, wait, wait... no," I interrupted stopping Cherry's thought entirely, "I am no hero alright. I'm just doing what's right that's all. Any normal pony would have done the same. That doesn't make me special."

Cherry just sighed a bit.

"And a humble one too."

I facehoofed. Damnit, why would she not understand? It was simple. I did the right thing, that's all. I shouldn't get a reward or recognition for it. I'm just a pony with a gun that in a dramatic chain of events not only got rid of some Raiders, killed seven RadSkinks by collapsing a power plant on them, and also saved the lives of some fillies and colts from a possibly gruesome end. I was getting praised for something I would have done anyways. This was not okay in my book. I was no hero.

"Somethin' the matter?" the pink unicorn asked in concern.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," I answered sheepishly.

"Well alright. If ya never need anythin', talk to me. I know the ins and outs of this place and I would not mind giving you a tour," Cherry added with a small, sympathetic smile.

I tapped my hoof to my chin for a moment in thought. Maybe she could help me with something.

"Um, Cherry," I murmured, "Do you know where the living quarters are?"

"Well Quantum, they're everywhere. Just pick a spot to lay your head and sleep. Not too much thinkin' involved. My advise is that you don't sleep on stage or in the middle of the hallways. That's just askin' for your shit to be stolen. Trust me, don't do it."

"I'll keep that in mind."

***

What's worse than sleeping on a wooden floor? No, its not sleeping on tile or marble. It's sleeping in a broom closet because of a little mental thing called paranoia. Sure it would prevent any chance of my stuff getting stolen from ponies with sticky hooves, but it was uncomfortable as hell. Now if my ears weren't so big I wouldn't have mind but, because Celestia herself had to give me that particular genetic mutation to me out of all ponies, it was just as bad as sleeping on top of an active steam generator. The flashing lights on my EFS did not help much either as yellow dot after yellow dot passed by me with every minute I tried to catch some sleep. It was about five minutes after I executed my genius plan that I realized that sleep was not going to be an option. Instead, I turned to my PipBuck and scrolled through the radio signals trying to find something good to hear. Most of the channels were static which made me want to break the speaker on the devise entirely. Others were warped messages on loop from ponies probably long dead, like one about a father asking for help into a stable after his son ate a poisoned apple from one of those "damned apple trees". Then a radio signal labeled "MOM HUB #10" appeared and I selected it.

It fizzled for a bit and then, as clear as day, music appeared. It was smooth and silky without mistakes or hesitation. The mare's voice let out every note with so much feeling and soul that I swore that the music itself was going to materialize in front of me and sing to me in this closet. It was strange, for a second, I felt the closet and Fox Theater fall away from me and I was now in some other places. Some better place.

... From the seas to the west and the seas to the east,

My heart will never skip a beat.

From the towns to the hills,

The factories and the mills,

I will always be there with open hooves.

The mare that was singing to me must have been a unicorn at one point and enchanted the song itself as it was trying to tear my heart out. All the images I put in that closet in the back of my head were coming back with a vengeance. The Slavers, the Raiders with their nest, the poor and innocent foals, ... Iron Melody. Just before I started crying though, the song cut off and a male voice called out and demanded my attention.

Alright! That is the kind of music I love listening to! That was Sweetie Belle with "West to East" for all of ya'! Gooood evening everypony this is DJ-Pon3 coming out for you all over the Wasteland! Now I know you have been hearing good things from out all over the south both I need not forget about all of you loyal listeners up north. I've got some special news for you all. Remember about that Stable Dweller who took out that Raiders nest and freed the author of The Wasteland Survival Guide and several other captured ponies? Well, if I'm reading this right, it turns out you have one of those Stable Dwellers too! Yes-ere a pony branding big yellow thirty-sevens on his collar went to the rescue and took out all of the Raiders that were hunkered up at the docks leading to the lakes farther north! Not only that, he's a pegasus! Yes, you heard me right, a pegasus. The Unmarked Dashite has come to help all you ponies up in Detrot ponies so give him a wave when you see him and tell him that DJ-Pon3 is rooting for ya! Now back to Sapphire Shores singing about the one horrible truth about the Wasteland...

I turned off the PipBuck radio so fast that my brain did not even have a chance to tell my hoof to shut it off. In the middle of my excursion with the Raiders I have somehow gotten myself a new name. The Unmarked Dashite? What the hell does that even mean? I'm still marked right? I looked down at my flank and was relieved to still see the big blue dot with a smaller black dot in the center with two jets of red and orange color shooting directly opposite from each side so that the symbol looked more like a compass needle than what it was supposed to be. The only reason why it would still be a pulsar was the two little slivers of blue light that were completely separate from the black and blue dot entirely. I was still marked, so why did the DJ say I was unmarked?

Ugh. Sometimes I hated being smart because it made me a bit oblivious to illogical situations like a name that makes no sense. Then as I began to mentally process what a Dashite was, I heard my stomach groan a bit. Oh yeah, it was two days since I ate, or drank, anything and constantly running and throwing up did not help the situation one bit. A minute of fumbling later I turned the door knob and followed the signs all hanging on the wall to the cafeteria. Okay, it was more of a semi-clean sub-basement that was converted into a kitchen. Most importantly though were the machines that made the food. They themselves took up about half the room itself and it let out a constant, low rumble. I stepped in line and was automatically greeted by mixed emotions of either hatred or praise. The line seemed to moved faster than I thought possible and soon I was up to take my food. It was handed to me by a big blue earth pony with a black mane and tail with a cog for a cutie mark. Somehow the metal tray of little green and yellowish chip things did not seem appetizing at all but, in the end, it was better than nothing right?

***

I would have rather starved. One bite from the green food made me gag and made my stomach begin to complain. Sure the food was free but when I went to ask the blue buck how the food was made and what it was made with he answered simply with,

"Don't think about it."

I swore my stomach wanted to crawl out of my body and beg for mercy after hearing that. Screw having anymore of whatever that food was. I value my life over food. When nopony was looking, I threw the food away and trotted back to where I was sitting and pulled out some pre-war cake. It was dusty and old, bit it was infinitely better than the food chips that the blue cog pony was passing out. Was he trying to poison everypony? It looked like even he ate the stuff. That fact also furthered my suspicion on his diabolical plans of murdering everyone in Foxes then taking all of their stuff and leaving them to rot. Before I could think deeper into his nefarious plans, Phantom Wing landed next to me with a metal tray with some strange red stuff on it. It was not like one of those chip things. It was more solid and it was sizzling.

"Foxes food not agreeing with ya'?" She asked taking a seat next to me.

"No. That blue pony with the cog on his flank must be planning to kill everypony stupid enough to eat his food and take their stuff in the middle of the night," I answered looking back at the blue pony with a sharp glare.

"You mean Worm Gear? Yeah, most ponies say that about his food. He uses recycling talismans instead of actually making food. Some ponies might agree with you, but no one has found any dirt on him about that yet."

Worm Gear? His name was Worm Gear? Now that name made my guts scream and my bowels want to shut down entirely.

"Oh sweet Celestia," I mumbled under my breath.

"Aw common Quantum," Phantom Wing teased as she punched me in the shoulder just below my left wing and taking a bite from her red colored food, "It ain't that bad if you ignore the fact that its probably another ponies' recycled clothing or something your eating."

All right. That's it. I got rid of all of the food that I ate in a chunky pile of vomit just below my hooves. Wiping the tears from my eyes and the acidic gunk from my mouth, I stared back at the grey feathered griffin with a look of imminent revenge. Not now, not today, and probably not tomorrow. It still was going to come around and bite her in the ass one day or another and I was going to make sure I was there to see it and laugh just as she did. With me probably being the pony with the most dignity in the room, and the fact that the janitors were two centuries dead, I bought a coal shovel from the Tools of the Talented stand for twenty caps and scooped up my expelled food and tossed it out the nearest window. Goddesses damn me to the deepest parts of hell if I dropped my position as electrician and become a janitor because I left my stable.

***

A little while later Phantom Wing, Keeper, and I were standing outside of a wooden door with a brass metal plate with "DIRECTOR" stamped in it with fading black letters. Keeper looked back at me and, every time she did so, gave me a smug grin when she saw me shaking like a bush. Phantom Wing was a bit more serious about the subject than I would have originally guessed. Me? I was preparing to meet another Overmare and, to be honest, I hated the Overmare back at Stable 37. She was a total basket case who mostly worried about how well the Security ponies were armed and if the maintenance levels were breaking. It was all fine and good for all of the maintenance ponies like myself, but was an absolute nightmare when we had to work in the upper levels. It was basically organized chaos. The worst organized chaos ever conceived. It was only a matter of time before the Security ponies snapped and started shooting. Unfortunately being in the crossfire did not do wonders for me as a bullet punched clean through both of my haunches and it only earned me a two week supply of MedX and multiple trips to medical to have it fixed. Right now, if she was worrying where one of her electrical ponies went and they needed a generator fixed it would just be icing on the pre-war cake... only it would taste better.

"Com'on!" Keeper yelled as she pounded on the door a third time, "I know your in there Nescolt! We have somepony you would like to meet!"

"Fuck off," a voice groaned through the wood.

"Nescolt stop being a sack of shit and get out here! We have the new flier!" Phantom Wing added.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the voice of Nescolt moaned.

There was a moment of silence before the door swung in and a pale brown earth pony with dark brown hair and a few streaks of white through it. He had dark chocolate eyes with darker blotches of brown underneath his eyelids. Maybe he needed some sleep but his mane looked particularly frizzled and in dire need of attention. His teeth were a piss yellow and seemed like they themselves were going to fall out of his mouth right in front of me.

"You both have a lot of nerve coming here right now. Coco Beans and I are having our own little problem so I say again. Fuck. OFF!"

The door swung shut in front of us with such a force that I was convinced that the little "DIRECTOR" plate was going to fall right off. Keeper let out an annoyed sigh.

"We should come back later Quantum. I forgot that those two lost their son to the Wasteland a few days ago," the brownish-red earth pony said.

"What happened? How did he die?" I asked in genuine curiosity and sympathy.

Wow, did I really just ask that? I have been out here for like... two days and I'm already asking how ponies have died. What the hell was going on in that cluster of nerves in my head called a brain?

"Beanie didn't die," Phantom Wing began, "He just up and vanished into thin air. Yeah he was a unicorn but none of us knew that he could teleport or something like that. He hasn't been anywhere but here and a few runs to fetch food and medical supplies but that was when it was only Nescolt and Coco Beans living here about nineteen years ago. Some ponies think that he was picked up by griffins but when I went to ask, we came up empty clawed."

"Why would he want to, you know, leave?" I added.

Keeper just shrugged.

"Some ponies say that he wanted to see the world," Phantom chuckled, "can you imagine? Who would want to leave their nice and comfortable home just to go and see what kind of hellscape Equestira in now?"

I glared at Phantom Wing in disgust. In response, she raised her claws in defense.

"Don't give me that look Quantum. I already knew that Equestria went to shit so I wanted to go and make a fortune. What about you? Why did you leave your stable?"

"To go and see the world," I answered flatly.

Before Phantom nor Keeper could go any further on the subject my hooves connected to the door and the wooden barrier swung inwards with a mighty crash that nearly broke it off of its hinges. It was at this point of time that I was astounded that neither one of them asked the simple question of why I did that. Good. I did not have time for questions at the moment. Plus, I really didn't know why I did that either.

"NESCOLT!" I yelled as I trotted into the office.

The two ponies, one being Nescolt and the other I believed to be Coco Beans, were sitting on an old threadbare couch that still had the fading remains of floral patterns on it one holding a framed picture in his hooves and the other crying into her husband's chest. Somehow I found it rather amusing to see the mare having the same basic color pattern as Nescolt but in near reverse and having a noticeably darker coat than her stallion counterpart. Nescolt took his eyes off of Coco Beans for only a minute before he gave me a glare of certain and guaranteed death before he hissed the two words "Fuck" and "Off" at me again in that particular order before returning to comforting his wife. Now I may know more about the male and female ends of an extension cord than about actual love and parenthood, but what I could gather from this I could see that they were really hoof deep in grief while still trying to hold onto the small bits of hope that they have left for their son.

The mare who I assumed was Coco Beans looked up at me with red and teary eyes and an expression that turned from sour to a little sweet like that one bag of pre-war candy that I found on the librarian's desk when I was first starting to read The Wasteland Survival Guide. She gave a snotty sniff and gave me just a hint of a warm smile before asking,

"Are you the new flier that Phantom Wing was talking about?"

"Yes ma'm," I answered immediately.

She then started looking at me funny. Really funny. Damn... how long did she have to look at me before she realized that I was a pegasus?

Oh sweet Celestia she was eyeballing me. Eyeballing me in that kind of way. I suddenly became very, very uncomfortable and it got worse with every second I made eye contact with her. Why was she staring at me like that? Why won't she stop? Oh please make her stop looking at me like that.

"Good, good," Coco Beans murmured as she picked herself out of Nescolt's embrace and trotted towards me and held out a hoof.

"My name is Quantum ma'am. What is this I heard about your son going missing?"

"Well," she began as she tried to gather her thoughts and emotions, "Beanie has always been a wanderer of sorts. He liked to get himself into trouble around Foxes so we tried to keep him from leaving until we knew he was old enough to go out on his own. I guess that wasn't enough though. One night when business was slow and most of the guards were asleep, he just left without a trace. He took his hooded jacket, his saddlebags, a few days worth of food, some medicine and about three hundred caps from the reserves. Nopony knows what happened to him after that."

Coco Beans then handed me the framed picture she had clutched in her hooves just before this whole conversation started and I took a good long look at it. The glass itself was smudged up and old with some obvious scratches and chips in it that indicated that the picture has been through just as much as the family who owns the photo had. The wood however was oddly very new and it was the least worn part of the picture. On the photo itself was of Coco Beans and Nescolt holding a small colt in the air in their hooves while the colt was holding a rusty lunchbox with all of the paint peeling off and the lock nearly rusted off. The unicorn pony had an orange coat with a shaggy lime green mane with a pair of red eyes. Unfortunately that was all the photo gave me. It didn't even give me a cutie mark to look for. Still, how many orange unicorns have I came across so far? Honestly, I think this might be my first unless one of the Slavers/Raiders was orange and I simply wasn't paying attention. Now that I think about it, it would have been impossible to pay attention to that kind of thing because of the fact that I had bigger things to worry about like other Slavers and Raiders and... and...

"Damnit!" I yelled as I beat my head against the wall.

"Quantum, are you alright?" Phantom Wing asked as she swooped in and stopped me before I left a watermelon size hole in the plaster wall.

"Is he alright?" Keeper asked as she chimed into the conversation.

No. No I wasn't alright Keeper. It felt as if I was trampled by a herd of buffalo. Thanks for asking though.

"Sorry," I said as I got all of my thoughts put back in my head, "There is about a thousand things that I was thinking about and my brain was shutting down."

"So there is such thing as thinking yourself to death," Phantom added with a smug little smile.

"Anyways," I continued as I turned to look at Coco Beans and the now alert Nescolt, "I will help find your son. He could not have gone far in the Wasteland if he only travels by hoof. I could do a few fly-byes of the city and see if he is hiding somewhere around there. If I find him, you'll be the first ones to know."

Coco Beans sniffed again and ran towards me and jumped into a hug. Stunned, I looked at Phantom Wing and Keeper for support putting on a look that translated to "What the fuck do I say?" that I so desperately hoped that they would understand. The two only gave me a sly smirk.

Oi vey... females...

***

Since when did Phantom Wing find a Gatling Gun? A Gatling gun with a half inch caliber ammunition feed no less. We only met for about, what, a few hours and most of that time was spent either trying to kill each other or being chased by RadSkinks. She told me that she found it just before we met but I don't buy it. If her satchel can fit a gun that big, then it must me a magic satchel or something because it would be impossible to fit something of that size in a bag that small. The more disturbing part of it was the fact that it could be hooked up to a battle saddle. What did that mean for me? It meant that I was going to be the one who holds it while Phantom Wing does the scouting and reconnaissance. Being a grounded pegasus sucks. There was only one good thing about being on the ground all of the time though that Phantom Wing must have forgotten about.

First dips on the looting!

I should be on the ground more often if this kind of dumb luck keeps up. Not only did I find a huge load of caps that I was planning on spending later for weapons from Tools of the Talented that I was really looking at when Cherry Bud wasn't paying much attention. The piece I was looking for was a matching .44 Whinnychester for the one I already had. Fortunately it was in just as good a shape as the one I already owned. Unfortunately it was four hundred caps. To put it into better perspective, the Auto-Axe I was looking at was about one hundred and fifty caps. And that was apparently the cheap price. It was a good thing that Phantom Wing was in the air I guess. I did not want her hoarding my caps before I got a chance to get that gun. I knew that it was a bit selfish of me to say that but I wanted that gun. It was simple logic. If I could hold one pistol in one wing with no problem, then I should be able to hold another one in my other wing with no problem.

Hooray, once again, for the Scientific Method.

"You see anything?" I yelled as I looked up to Phantom Wing who was perched on top of a church like a living gargoyle.

"Nah," She answered with a agitated tone in her voice, "Either he's hiding from us or were really bad at this."

"I think it might be a combination of both," I added raising an eyebrow and trying to hide a chuckle.

Phantom Wing's green eyes then looked directly at me and she gave me a stare that somehow gave me a cold shoulder. After a few long seconds she returned to looking.

"What are the odds that we find him in this mess?" Phantom asked not taking her eyes off of the landscape.

"How big is the city and how many buildings are left intact?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Lets say thirty or so miles then."

Thirty times the approximate number of still standing buildings plus the approximate number of ruined buildings minus the quantity of Raiders, Slavers, Ghouls, and Aericos. Oh wait, I forgot to add in the Detrot fog, the huge lake, the approximate size of Beanie, and how much time me and Phantom will actually put into trying to find him. That equals... fourish?

"We might have about a four-and-a-half percent chance of finding Beanie in these conditions," I answered simply.

"I thought you were an electrician, not a physicist," Phantom Wing groaned as she clenched her eyes together with her talons in exasperation.

"I thought you were a sniper, not a whiner. At least we have the four-and-a-half percent right?"

Phantom Wing rolled her eyes. I don't think she knew much in terms of odds and probability, but she probably figured out that four-and-a-half means nearly impossible.

"Hey would it comfort you a bit if I said that I rounded up to the nearest tenth?" I sneered.

Phantom Wing puffed out her chest feathers in petty annoyance. At least, that's what I think she was doing. It was really hard to tell if she was or not because of the sky blue hooded cloak with the small chainmail piece that covered her upper thighs. If I haven't already figured out that Phantom Wing was a female the metal skirt would have been a dead giveaway. With a flutter of her powerful wings she took off into the air, once more ignoring the fact that having a pegasus with a two hundred pound lift force who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds and is carrying a seventy pound gun with an extra forty pounds of reinforcements and twenty pounds of ammunition and other miscellaneous things is physically impossible for a creature with small wings. Oh well, more loot for me.

***

For a long few hours, nothing happened. Okay, a few Raiders happened and that was all. That and the fact that I learned how insane a Gatling Gun is when you don't plant your hooves in the ground well enough. About one hundred rounds later I was laying on the ground with a pool of Raider blood caking the soil, the gun, and myself. What did that mean for Phantom Wing who was so hell bent on taking the gun with her? She got to carry it for the rest of the trip. She also made a mental note to never let me use a gun as big as that ever again.

Ever.

Even if I had the weight of the gun off of my sides I still decided to stay on the ground and look for good stuff to loot. That means, more caps now and more caps later for stuff I will sell.

Then a bullet tore my right ear clean off. I must have lost consciousness for about two seconds when the ear ringing started up again and fell to the ground in a sprawled and shocked heap. I glanced to my left and saw the large white piece of hide, muscle, and cartilage across the street. Soon there was a storm of concussive blasts and flashing lights that would have done Sweetie Belle proud. Unable to hear, I yelled out to Phantom Wing to get me the hell out of here. My voice carried no sound though. At least, I think it carried no sound. Oh please let it still carry sound and I just couldn't hear it at the moment.

Phantom Wing landed to my side and the great metal behemoth strapped to his waist began to spin which lead way to a bright orange cone of fire that tore through everything in front of it. Whatever was in front of it at least. I really couldn't see what she was shooting at. All I really could see was what they were shooting at us with. Volley upon volley of metal apples were flung at us like they were quickly going out of style or something. For a barrage of targets that small, I was amazed to still see Phantom Wing take each one out with little problem or hesitation. Each apple exploded in the air sending hot metal bits of stuff everywhere and I swore that a few pieces gone into the gash that used to hold my ear to my head.

Phantom Wing picked me up in her one forelimbs and proceeded to carry my dazed body away while continuing to return fire. We got behind an overturned sky wagon and she gently set me down and ran to get my ear. If I had any sort of cognitive thought left that didn't get yanked out with my ear, I would have thrown up. Instead I sit there one eye open and the other abnormally lazy with a bridge of saliva dripping from my mouth. The ringing didn't help either. With one bullet... one bullet... I was reduced to a confused husk of a pegasus with pain being the only thing going through my head. Either that was the universe telling me to grow a set and deal with the fact that your in the Wasteland now or that it was the universe telling me that I was acting like a scared little bitch. Whatever the case may be, the universe won that battle for now. Now it was time to win the war.

I looked around for Phantom Wing to see if she was still alive or not. Thankfully she was but she was taking so much suppressive fire that it was impossible for her to get my ear back. Time to change the odds.

Another grenade then whizzed through the air in our direction. I grabbed for my shotgun and leaped right in front of the apple's arching trajectory and swung the gun like a bat and sent it flying in the reverse direction. With a dull thudding that I could only hear through my left ear the grenade went off and a cloud of grey and black smokescreen from out of nowhere and covered our position. I ran back to Phantom Wing half expecting to see her shot to hell but was immediately revealed to see her sucking down another healing potion as she watched her wounds heal. She must have taken at least three of those because some of those injuries did not want to close fully. Her arms took most of the damage though. That meant that I was the one left to the shooting. If I didn't have an EFS right now, we would have been one hundred different states of screwed.

She then handed me her blue rifle and a bag of ammo in shaking grip that indicated that she was on the verge of either death or unconsciousness. I gave her a determined nod and took the... revolver with a rifle length barrel? It was literally a revolver with a bigger barrel, a bigger butt and a bigger stalk. The gun itself was a light blue with some remnants of a once silver grey metal peering through the paint from some scratches that lined it from octagonal muzzle to... revolving chamber. It also boasted a high powered scope with a little black device just below the lens with a little blue button next to it. I've seen a few modified weapons out here but this was an entire different species of rifle entirely. No breach, no pump, no magazine, nor belt. Just an old fashioned revolver with a long ass barrel. The best thing about it was not the impressiveness of the design, but the fact that it took the same basic type of rifle rounds that came almost standard in the Wasteland. That made this gun even more convenient.

Peeling my eyes off of the craftsmanship of the rifle, I steadied if off of the piece of concrete that acted as cover and I was once again shocked at the guns ever unfolding surprises. Looking through the scope did not give me a photographic image like most rifle scopes. It instead gave me the distinct reds, yellows, and blues of a thermal signature of ten different targets. Not only does the gun look beautiful, it was probably the most dangerous weapon that I have ever seen because of its ability to still hit things in a smokescreen. This was a rifle for ninjas.

Cueing up SATS, I placed three shots at three of the enemies. I would have fired more, but the fact was that the gun required much more charge points than any other normal weapon that I used thus far. When time resumed to its normal pace, I saw the first magic bullet had already torn the head off of one of the targets. The second arched a strayed a bit to the left and missed my opponent's head but hit them in the shoulder. The third wrapped the third target in a blue glow that disintegrated him only a few seconds after impact. Then the pinging of dozens of low caliber bullets meeting metal rang out as a machine gun began to unload every projectile it had at us. They were large enough to make a very annoying ring in my one intact ear but still small enough to not puncture through the metal framework of the sky wagon and hit neither me or Phantom Wing. Good, I needed all the time I could get.

Glancing back at Phantom Wing made me see that she was at least back on her feet. She was covered in blood from multiple different sources and her one wing was missing a few of its grey feathers. All in all, she was alive. At that point, it was all I could have wished for.

"I'll get your ear Quantum. You give me cover," she mouthed makings sure that she exaggerated every word so I could read them correctly.

I nodded in response as I took the half-inch Gatling Gun off of her, strapped it to my back, and bit in the mouth trigger. My teeth clicked the safety pin for the gun and the motor gave a resounding beep and the little red indicator light on it turned to blue. I then placed my tongue on the firing plate and felt the motor start to spin the mechanized barrel in delight.

"LERTS REEERK!!!" I yelled over the mouth bit as I jumped out from behind cover and began to fire back with extreme prejudice.

SATS returned after what felt like an eternity and I cued it up. By now, most of the dust had settled and I could finally see what I was shooting at. The sight was one part confusing to two parts "What the fuck". The things shooting at me were made of solid metal with heavy glass visors. Next to the visors was a small floodlight that cut through most of the haze. They were completely encased in armor from head, to hoof. Even their manes and tails were covered in the same amount of metal that covered their entire body. They had machines mounted on their sides that were on par with the Gatling Gun mounted to my Battle Saddle. When they saw the gun, the shooting stopped. Like out of a book, there was fighting, then there was silence.

"Fall back," a voice of a mare said through the wind.

Immediately all of the iron clad warriors trotted back in like as their leader ordered. The pony who addressed them had a purple design on her armor that sharply contrasted her grayish green colored metal suit. On her one side was a grenade launcher that was nearly my length and half my size. On her other side where another gun should theoretically be, was an empty slot that would house a weapon about the same size as my Gatling Gun. She lifted her one hoof and tapped a little button behind her helmet. With a few puffs of air and the labored grinding of several gears the helmet unlocked itself enough that the mare lifted it off.

One second ago I was looking at a metal death machine that almost turned me, Phantom, and every other possible scavenger into red paint on the asphalt. Now I was looking at a charcoal black earth pony with a mane similar to my blue and black one and gunmetal blue eyes that looked back at me with no emotion. Despite having a metal that could stop about ten bullets before making a dent, her mane was still well maintained with only a few streaks of ageing grey. Somehow finding out that Steel Rangers were actual ponies underneath that suit of armor made them all the more intimidating. I don't know how or why that makes any sense, but it just does.

"You've got a lot of nerve carrying around a weapon stolen from the Steel Rangers Detrot Contingent," the black pony said without any sign of unease.

"Stolen?" I asked in confusion, "We didn't steal anything miss..."

"Senior Paladin Double Blade."

"Right... Miss Blade we did not steal any weapon. We scavenged it fair and square. I will happily trade it for something you may have but unless I say otherwise, its ours."

Double Blade looked at me flatly. She was obviously unimpressed and undeterred by my statement. Just before I could reinforce my statement, she said coolly,

"Yesterday at eighteen hundred hours a small raiding party infiltrated our stronghold and stole one of our coveted M134 Mark 5 Miniguns and nearly two thousand caps worth of half inch armor penetrating ammunition belts. Not to mention the spare motor used to run the gun and all of the maintenance tools needed to clean and repair the weapon. Elder Radio Waves and the rest of the Reconnaissance team concluded that a pony did not steal the weapon," Double Blade explained as she gave a hard look at Phantom Wing.

"You think Phantom Wing did it?" I asked as I too looked at her with disapproval.

"Have you seen any other M134s around? If you have and we just missed them, then we will leave you alone."

Suddenly I felt a cold piece of flesh be stuck on the side of my head. Phantom Wing, completely ignoring the Steel Ranger in front of her, placed my ear near the correct spot on my head and poured a Healing Potion on it. Despite it working near instantly with the fleshy extension fusing to my head, I still could not hear well out of it and all of the other injuries I had did not want to heal and the two of us ran out of Healing Potions at that point. I let out a sigh.

"Look Double Blade," I began carefully as I began to unhook the Gatling Gun off of my Battle Saddle, "If this gun is truly yours, I'll give it back free of charge."

"Quantum!" Phantom Wing growled through gritted teeth but Double Blade and I glared at her and she shut up.

"Sorry that it went missing from you. If I knew that it was yours before this, you still would have those three Rangers."

"Three Rangers? The three you shot were just other Raiders," Double Blade answered to my stark relief.

"Either way," I continued as I slid the gun onto the hooks and mechanisms on the Magical Power Armor's empty gun port, "Here you go. I ask for only one thing in return."

After finishing the rewiring of the gun to Double Blade's armor and making sure the feed belts were secured to the ammo holds in her flanks, she tested the motor and granted us a small smile when she learned that the gun was still functioning. I also managed to get Phantom Wing to give the spare motor and every tool in the maintenance kit to the ranger with two auto-cannons. Upon seeing every stolen part being returned and giving them some caps as compensation for the bullets we used, the auto-cannon ranger named Ripple Effect gave us a few Healing Potions, a few syringes of Med-X, a full bottle of Rad-X, a packet of RadAway, and two injectors full of a greyish-red sludge labeled "HYDRA".

"You know," Double Blade said before finally trotting off, "For an Enclave pegasus, you are one of the more caring and more outgoing pegasi I've seen in a while."

"I'm not Enclave," I replied as I waved the Steel Rangers off, "I'm just your friendly neighborhood pegasus."

And with that, the Steel Rangers left. The day was almost over and Phantom Wing was apparently so pissed off at me that she didn't talk to me until we finished lighting the fire that we used to ward off any of the irradiated things that threatened us while we slept.

"You know that we could have taken every one of those Steel Fuckers out with that Gatling Gun right Quantum?" Phantom Wing scoffed.

"Maybe so, but you stole that very same Gatling Gun from them," I answered with a slightly sharper tone than what I normally use.

"Its called 'Looting' Quantum; look it up."

"Its not 'Looting' if the ponies your looting from are still alive Phantom!" I snapped back.

How could she think that stealing was the answer? It was their gun and Phantom Wing stole it unfairly. It was the only sensible thing to do. Sure we gave a possible enemy more ordinance to kill us with, but there was also the possibility that we gave an ally some extra firepower if we ever need it and they are in the same area as us. More backup in the Wasteland looked like a good idea from all angles and if I could make a coalition with the Steel Rangers, then we would have one less enemy to loot our stuff and one more way to win than before. If that was the case, why was Phantom Wing so angry with me over the subject?

I curled up into a little ball and let out a yawn. My coat that I got from Tools of the Talented acted as my blanket for the night. I hope that Phantom Wing will come to her senses tomorrow. The last thing I need is a pissy and uncooperative griffin following me around telling me what I think is right and wrong. I have bigger problems then that. Tomorrow we will continue our search for Beanie and return him to Coco Beans and Nescolt back at Fox Theatre. Then were going to get paid for it and be on our way to find something else to do to make more caps.

Oh who was I kidding? Nothing in the Wasteland was ever that easy Quantum.

Nothing.

Chapter VI - The Gates of the Artifact

View Online

The gifts given to those who don't ask are worth more to them than the gifts given to those who do.

Towers. No matter how many times I tried to look away I saw them. Detrot seemed to be some sort of central hub of massive skyscrapers that poked up from the ground and nearly touched the now low fog cover. The snow did not help much in terms of visibility as it whipped and whisked all around us with a tenacity that made the snow as if it were alive and loved to target me. I did not mind the cold much. In all honesty, it was almost the same as Stable 37's generator systems and cooling talismans that kept our surplus food from spoiling. I should know how both of those feel from experience. According to my PipBuck's thermometer it was nearly ten degrees. At some point, my brain will catch up to my body and start telling me that its cold but until that time arrives I'm just going to ignore it like I do with most other things that I did not like. That was getting harder and harder to do as I constantly was looking up at the cloud cover above me it a touch of jealousy. Can we have some sun please?

No?

Okay fine. Go fuck yourself too clouds.

Soon that thought left my brain as some more snow cut across my left side. My Electrician's Barding wasn't doing a justice and the fifteen cap coat was not helping out much either. I need something more substantial.

"Phantom it's way too cold," I mumbled through chattering teeth, "Can we just take a day off?"

She rolled her eyes. She was not a big fan of taking a break for any sort of reason unless either one of us was hurting really badly. Even after the whole Steel Ranger thing she just described my ear injury as "Just a flesh wound". Now that we got a better idea of the situation that we are currently dealing with she gave up any sort of resistance she had before and took us to a small building. It was made of steel and concrete like most other buildings in Detrot but had some slight differences that I could spot even with the snow cutting our vision down to about half of what it should be. The first, and probably the most important thing that we noticed, was the fact that the building was pink. Not an ageing pink but a bright petal pink. Like my stable, it was over-engineered so that something as big as a megaspell could not take it down easily. Hell, some of the windows were still intact.

"This should be good," Phantom Wing said aloud.

"If its out of the snow, I'm fine with anything," I added as I tried the lock.

It was stuck.

"What is up with the locks in Detrot?!" I yelled in annoyance as the door was probably laughing at me.

"Everything is locked here Quantum. Detrot was not only the city of opportunity, it was the city of paranoia."

I stuck my tongue out Phantom Wing. The padlock was crude and simple but above all, it was effective. A shotgun probably would not break it and I did not want to use my Whinnychester, a shotgun slug or the Spire Point that I found back at the Docks. Even if I wanted to use it, I had no idea what gun it would go to it. Actually, it had a higher chance of it fitting one of Phantom Wing's guns than any of mine. The Whinnychester was a Forty-Four caliber gun and the Spire Point looked as if it was a rifle round because of its length, but because it was too big to fit even in Phantom's rifle, I would assume that the gun that fired a bullet like this either didn't exist or would be impossible to find. I pulled the bullet back out and examined it more closely. The recurring clicking of my PipBuck told me that I should not eat it even though I was so damn hungry at this point that I probably would have ate the collar on my barding.

Then I took out the Whinnychester from my leg holster and opened the cylinder. The skirmishes over the past few days have not done anything good with the gun. I had to use most of its ammo a fight after the Steel Rangers and it wasn't like Forty-Four caliber bullets were prominent around Detrot. The little markets back at Foxes who sold Forty-Fours charged a ridiculous ten caps per bullet. Tools of the Talented didn't have much of a lower price for them either. They told me that, unless I buy them here, I have to go and find them and they are the hardest type of bullet to find. Funny how I found a gun that takes Forty-Fours and a full case of it in the same place. Just my luck that the "City of Paranoia" didn't have bullets for the most paranoid pegasus on the ground.

The piece of wood that I took from the Raider was still in my saddlebag. I didn't know what to really do with it. A unicorn wielded it and I wasn't one. Well, if worse comes to worse, it would make a nice impromptu bear trap or paper weight.

That left my shotgun. The Raider who owned it prior to me did not know what maintenance repair is because most of the parts were sticking and the firing pin only worked seventy-five percent of the time. Normally I would ignore that fact, but with Steel Rangers, Aericos, Raiders, and things of that nature floating around Detrot, I wanted to make every shell count. That would go a longer way if the damn gun wouldn't keep sticking to itself.

Then I heard a soft click. I looked up from the clouds of my thoughts at Phantom Wing who was holding a plucked feather and a screwdriver in her talons. She shrugged a bit at my confused look.

"What?" she said throwing the feather aside and giving me a smug look, "Have you ever seen someone pick a lock before?"

"Yeah. One time. When I tried it I broke my screwdriver," I answered hanging my head.

"Did you have a bobby-pin or something like it? Hell, you could even do it with a light bulb filament if you were really desperate for something."

"No. I didn't know you needed one in the first place. I thought it just took a screwdriver and some luck. The last time I tried to pick a lock I had to resort to," I explained as I looked at my saddle bag, "more ridiculous measures."

"What did you use?"

I put on probably the most sheepish and embarrassed look that anypony has ever put on in the history of ponykind. Taking a deep breath I gave her the two words,

"Angle Grinder."

Phantom Wing's jaw went to the ground in both astounding shock and horror. Her eyes just screamed "Why does Quantum have an angle grinder?", "Where did he get the angle grinder?" and "What is he going to do with an angle grinder?" all at the same time. Putting on an easy smile, I answered all three of her implied questions with,

"It comes standard issue with all Stable 37 Electricians."

"Oh..."

After that, the subject seemed to drop like a wet blanket. She did not want to know about the ins and outs of an electrician and I did not want to deal with playing a game of twenty questions with a griffin who probably would never understand the ins and outs of being an electrician. Instead, she opened the door to the little pink building and scanned the area with her beam pistol to see if it was clear. Thankfully, it was. Neither of us needed to deal with anything right at the moment. Even my EFS told me that it was clear. Trust the EFS right? No one ever gotten killed because an EFS being wrong right?

Phantom quickly stormed into the building and put her back just to the left of the door frame while I took to the right with my shotgun. Sure there was probably an invisible Raider or some big insect that I would have to deal with later but hey, we need a place to get out of the cold. While Phantom Wing closed the door behind us I turned on my PipBuck lamp and filled the room with the distinct green glow of light that came with using a PipBuck. The wall became illuminated just enough for me to make out its distinct features. It was what I assumed was a waiting room with many old, velvet lined chairs lining the walls that all pointed forward at a long counter with two still intact windows. Behind those window were the skeletons of two-hundred year old ponies that still held some radiation as per indication from the steady clicking of my PipBuck. Each of the earth ponies were slouched over a stack of very important looking business papers that were colored the same pink as the wall of the building outside. Obviously somepony either forgot to mention that the world was ending outside or that the papers that they were still guarding must have, at one point, been incredibly valuable.

Oh well, time to find out what we just walked into I guess. I could only assume that this building was some sort of prewar pharmacy or something. In all honesty I was hoping that it was going to be somewhere that actually had a bed that I could take a nap in for a while. If either of us got lucky and this was some sort of gun storage I would probably set up shop here. Who knows, if this place wasn't a prewar pharmacy and it was actually a bullet making factory, I could start making my own Forty-Fours and not have to pay for them.

There was only one thing that crushed my hoped on a gun factory though. Why would a gun factory have pink wallpaper and have pictures of parties from two-hundred or so years ago hanging on the pink colored wall?

For once Wasteland. For once can you give me a break?

After Phantom Wing picked the look to the next room I pulled my brain from my clouded thoughts and back to the Wasteland. With a soft creak the door swung open and we crept silently into the room with Phantom Wing on alert and me taking a breather. I don't understand why she has her feathers in a bunch, the EFS says its empty so it must be empty. At least, that it what I hope.

***

True to what the EFS said, the building was unnaturally empty. The only real threat that either of us came across were the few RadRoaches that skittered across the ground and died with a simple hoof stomp. Nothing much in terms of loot and bullets though. If only we could see better but the lights were not traditionally wired to a light switch. They were a magical lighting system that had to be programmed from a central terminal and all of its power must be provided from a central point of origin. With that being as it is, there must be a main breaker switch or a circuit terminal that connected all of the power to a single command. I could tell from the humming systems in the ceiling above us.

"Can you give me a minute to look around Phantom?" I asked the grey feathered griffin as she continued to work open a wall safe with nothing but an empty can of Cram that she ate while she was working it.

"No problem," Phantom Wing answered not taking her eyes off of the lock, "Just don't get lost."

"As long as I have my PipBuck, I won't get lost easily," I reassured with an honest smile.

At that moment I was really glad that I had something else to do other than watch Phantom work because, as soon as I left the room, I heard the sound of the lock on the safe wanting to jam and Phantom Wing letting out a whole dictionary's worth of words that would make even the Overmare cringe. Then there were two gun shots. Not from me or anyone that showed up on the EFS other than Phantom Wing. I guess she just got tired of the whole stealth thing and started trying to shot the safe open.

"If she wastes all of her bullets on a safe then I am not going to look for more," I thought to myself as I trotted down the old hallways and into any room that would possibly hold a terminal I could hack.

***

The more rooms I walked past, the more bodies I found. Mostly unicorns but there was more than one or two earth ponies and even a pegasus. The most disturbing part of it was that they seemed to still be working. Even some of the mummified corpses with skin harder and any callas still looked as nimble and ready to work as the day the world had ended. Forty. At this point I must've seen about forty dead ponies if my math was correct. Forty souls that did not truly see all of the horrors that were outside. Forty ponies who might have had friends or family that might have survived the war in a stable just after Stable-Tech closed them off to the surface above. Forty that never had peace.

The final room on the top level of the building was an open office with a large circular table like the Overmare's with eight other chairs surrounding it. This room in particular was empty of all bodies living or dead. The walls were lined with still functional monitor screens and wires snaking out from a central terminal on the head of the table. That was probably where the power from the magic lights went to. I wanted to be a little happy that I found the source of the magical energy but at the same time I had to wonder; why is it all going here? What is so important about this terminal that it had to have every single ounce of energy this structure could sacrifice in order to...

... stay locked?

"What the hell?" I murmured to myself as I circled the terminal over and over again so I could remember where everything went just in case something bad happened with the lights and I had to switch off the power.

Knowing that I had the mental blueprint, I slowly removed the biggest power cable out of the terminal that made its screen go blank and shut down. After a second I put the plug back in and the terminal turned back on. The lock screen was gone and now I could hack into it. The odds of finding anything worth my time in the terminal was not worth my time but hey, it was something to do.

Getting back onto my hooves I pulled out my RHT and plugged it into the side of the terminal screen and the little devise began to work its magic. Not even a minute later, the RHT let out a resounding beep and the terminal went to all of its main screens. There were three commands,

REROUTE POWER

Y_/N_

ACCESS EVIDENCE LOCKER #283

Y_/N_

PLAYBACK MESSAGES

Y_/N_

The first option was a little tempting at first because I was sick of the dark insides of the building. On the other hoof Evidence Locker #283 might have something worth my while after all. I selected the little Y on the Evidence Locker option and my ears immediately picked up the victorious yelling of Phantom as she said from that little room a story below me,

"That's right you son-of-a-bitch!! You need to try harder next time if you want to keep something from me!"

I sighed and put on a small smile. I was not going to deprive this from her. She had been at it for about fifteen minutes and if I told her that I was the one who actually unlock it...

Best to leave some mysteries alone.

Weaving my way back to Phantom, I heard a faint buzzing sound from the floorboards bel... no. Not floorboards. Tiles. Some rumbled a bit, some cracked, but most others began to slide away from each other with much resistance that the screaming the metal resonated with began the fun cycle of getting a migraine. If that wasn't enough though, through the hissing and the cries of the metal, a generator started to charge up. It was a small one though, not one big enough to provide adequate power to the building but big enough to power something that might kill us. It was probably an Electrical Node Model 9.5. Wait... the only thing those are good for are...

"Shit," I growled at myself as my EFS started to give me little red bars all over the place.

"Quantum!" Phantom Wing cried as she ran out of the room with a black case tucked between one of her talons and her beam pistol firing in the other, "What the fuck did you just do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" I yelled back as I pulled out the Whinnychester and started to look from anything that would look or sound like something that would need a EN-9.5.

Just then a pair of red mechanical eyes cut through the darkness of the room that the PipBuck didn't light up. Two pairs. Three. Four pairs. EN model generators were used for only one thing other than to be a backup generator. They were military grade equipment back before the war that powered some of Equestria's massive war machines. Despite me never actually seeing one in real, working condition and only learning about it from simulations back at Stable 37 the sound of the thing was unmistakable.

"HALT INTRUDERS!" a metallic voice crackled through the darkness.

"SURRENDER AND PREPARE TO BE VAPORIZED!"another chimed in with a more authoritative voice.

"Aw fuck me," Phantom Wing groaned, "Robroncos."

"Ro-what?" I asked as we stood back to back with each other sidearms raised.

The metal clop of hooves punched through the still darkness and an entire body of a robot's body came into my line of vision. It was a tall menacing looking creature with bright red eyes with little yellow cross hairs that I could see in each eye. A targeting laser beamed out of each eye at us with a little metal panel on the top of its head where a unicorn's horn would most likely be slid away and a bright emerald green bolt discharged from it. It struck me first in the chest as the familiar tingling sensation of small electrical components in my barding absorbed most of the blast and sent it out of my body and into the ground. Stable 37's Electricians Uniform was designed with a wire weaving underneath the main clothing in order for it to withstand up to twenty amperes of electrical force or two-hundred volts. That's enough electricity to run two-hundred 100 Watt light bulbs. The Overmare back at Stable 37 didn't think that I needed such heavy duty equipment because I was a pegasus and the only reason why I am wearing it now was the fact that Piston was too stubborn to do anything about it and just let me have the uniform. Who knew that one day the fool would save me from being electrocuted to death from a killer robot?

"How the hell did you do that?" Phantom Wing asked in equal parts shock and terror as she began to fire back at the tenacious machines with her beam gun.

"Is this really the time to start discussing how an electricity-proof suit works Phantom?" I asked back as my shotgun roared with every shell.

The robots were slow and predictable, thank Celestia. Unfortunately the beam gun and the buckshot did little to damage the robots outer casing. They were functioning as if they were straight out of the factory they were made in. There was no bullet, slug, nor energy blast that could stop one let alone four. Then I had an idea.

Without thinking I snatched the beam pistol out of Phantom Wing's talon and pointed it at the floor. At first she gave me a scold but then I pressed and held down the little red trigger button. A red line of energy erupted from the end as it sliced through the tiled floor in a great big circle. With a bone chilling groan the floor gave way and plunged us into the darkness below. As we fell I looked up to see the four robots looking down at us. All I could think of was one dumb song that played over the radio back at Stable 37 that I heard sometimes.

"I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...," I sang as I completely ignored the plummet.

Then the backside of Phantom Wing's talon swung at me from the shadows and hit me in the back of the head. I saw her distasteful look and the embarrassed shake of her head.

"Shut the fuck up Quantum."

***

"Get the hell off of me Quantum," Phantom Wing groaned as I tried to pull myself back to my hooves and off of her.

The fall was about several flights down. Not far enough to disrupt the sounds of the Robrancos wheeling around the hole we fell through but far enough to sent the Radiation Meter on my PipBuck into a ticking fit. When I looked at it, I realized that I wasn't keeping track of it and the little needle was bouncing in the yellow-orange part of the gauge and it was slowly climbing. How I didn't think about it before I had no idea, but all I knew is that if we stayed down here for too long we were going to die of Radiation Poisoning.

"Sorry," I answered groggily, "I did not expect to fall this far."

"What exactly does this accomplish Quantum?" Phantom Wing asked as she picked herself off of the floor and began to look for her dropped beam pistol.

"We can fly. They can't. If we could lure them down here and somehow keep them stationary for only a minute we would be able to fly back up that hole we just made and back outside."

Simple plans bring simple results.

"What was in that safe anyway?" I asked looking at the black case still now lying a foot away from where I landed.

"I don't know and honestly I don't care. If it was something that important two-hundred years ago that someone put it in knockdown and had guards it probably isn't worth much now. Let's just leave it and get out of here," she answered as she plucked a few bloody feathers off of her wings and forearms.

That just made me want to know more about this mysterious little box that she found. I held the PipBuck just over the top of the case and on it was a big pink sticker of a grumpy pink pony with her hooves crossed as if she were merely a foal that did not get what she wanted for her birthday party. Next to the pony, in big blue bubble letters was,

OBJECT CONFISCATED BY THE MINISTRY OF MORAL: LEVEL 9: DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

It said 'Do not open'? Now I REALLY wanted to know what was in the box. I picked it up and, with a soft click, it opened right up for me. It was as if the universe wanted me to know what was in the box. This was better than Hearth's Warming back in Stable 37 where the only thing you got was some more tools that you will eventually need to use to do your job that you were assigned to. Phantom Wing looked at me with a petrified expression of 'How the fuck did you do that' while she continued to take her sidearm apart and repair some internal circuits. I shrugged as I began to lift the lid of the box open. There was a horrid stench of rot and radiation that burst from the case as a pressurized puff of air sprayed over the two of us. My PipBuck had a fit as the little needle jumped from the yellow into the very edge of the red and would have probably gone higher if my PipBuck could've registered it. The dizzy spell that came after it was like being hit with a falling ventilation duct and I staggered so much that Phantom Wing had to catch me before I fell on something and broke something else. She handed me the last of our RadAways and I slugged it down with greed. The little needle was now hovering in the middle of the red but I wasn't going to die right there. That was not my worry though. My real worry was how much radiation she picked up that neither of us could see via PipBuck. She, at this point, had as much as I did but it seemed that she was taking the effects much easier that I would have imagined.

"Well," Phantom Wing coughed, "That was new."

"Yeah," I answered as I got back up to my hooves and took a tablet of RadX.

After the sensation of lethal radiation poisoning had passed, I opened the box the rest of the way to find a crown. A golden crown with two bright yellow-green gemstones inlaid atop themselves inside the gold itself. The box around it rotted away with time and some small RadRoach exoskeletons were bored into the remainder of the wood. If I didn't know any better, then I would have thought that this was Princess Celestia's crown due to its shape. Why would a crown like this be in a rotting box in a pink building and guarded by several sentry robots that began shooting as soon as Phantom Wing took the box out of its safe? If this thing wasn't valuable like Phantom Wing told me before, then this is one big piece of junk that apparently stood up to the test of time.

I wrapped my one hoof around the top of the crown and looked at it more closely. The solid yellow gemstones had an unnatural glow to them that was not like any of the gem talismans back at Stable 37. Most of said talismans were powered with a ruby or an emerald although you will occasionally need a sapphire to run an electrical conductor or generator. These ones looked like they could have been made of the same type of gem but the yellow color was strange. From behind me Phantom Wing said,

"Don't put that on Quantum."

I didn't hear her as every other sound seemed to be drowned out by the Robranco Sentries began firing at us again all at once. They somehow made it down to these lower levels faster than I anticipated and soon had the higher ground. The high ground was for the pegasi not for some metal abominations. Without a second thought I put the crown on and swung the rifle out from the strap around my neck and activated SATS.

Then my brain felt like it was melting out of my own ears. I screamed in pain as I frantically pulled the trigger not even knowing that I was doing it. SATS automatically shut off and I fell to the ground howling in agony. I saw my gun fall away from me and the world started to spin faster than any motor I have ever worked with. Focusing was the most difficult thing to do at this moment as the pain from my head had allied with my Radiation Sickness to further my torment. A few seconds later everything stopped but the pain still surged through my nerves like rivers of fire. My coat and feathers were all glowing a faint yellow that matched the color of the gemstone on the crown and the gold around it. I couched and damnit even my spit was colored yellow! I rolled to my back and gazed up at the flashing green bolts of lightning falling from the sky at me. Good thing that episode didn't ruin my barding.

"Get up damnit!" Phantom Wing yelled as she grabbed me by my collar and hauled me back up completely ignoring my change in hue.

With one glancing touch I fell back to the floor in stabbing misery. I started glowing even more and soon I was as bright as a big, yellow, light bulb. In my vision my PipBuck gave me some new alerts that meant nothing to me at this specific moment in time.

>WARNING: UNKNOWN MAGICAL ENERGY DETECTED

>DNA SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE

>CEREBRAL CONNECTION FOUND

>PIPBUCK CONNECTION FOUND

>EFS DISENGAGED

>SATS DISENGAGED

>CONNECTION WITH EQUESTRIANET SOFTWARE LOST

BEGIN MANUAL RESTART?

Y_/N_

The lightning. The bullets. The noise. The robots. Phantom Wing...

NO!

This was not the time to start shutting down Quantum! Your a pegasus for Celestia's sake! Get back up onto your fucking hooves and get your job done!

I spat a glob of glowing orange blood and gathered all of my strength. With a little effort I stood back up and put on the most tense grin that anypony ever wore in the history of the Wasteland. I yelled up to the robots in some language I have never heard before and the magic yellow glow around my body dimmed down for a second and then exploded with furry. Each of the robots then proceeded to melt into yellow goop leaving only a few sparking components behind. The glow around me seemed to stop and my coat returned to my white color with only a few blotches of glowing blood still left behind. My Rad Detector was now bouncing back in the green but was trying to climb back to the yellow in futility. The sickening feeling from the Radiation Exposure still hit me like a brick wall and I knew of only one thing to try to fix it.

Then I threw up. Yep. That's what I needed. I needed to throw up the glowing dusty brown contents from my stomach. Oh, and a nap. I totally needed a nap. Good thing my brain still functioned well enough to give me that as I staggered to the ground, folded my hooves under my chest, wrapped myself in my warm wings and dozed off. Who knew that not even five days into the Wasteland I would have became a bomb? Who knew...

***

I woke up just the same way as I fell asleep in the first place, in a coughing and vomiting heap of a pegasus. Phantom Wing must've taken the time to pull me back out of the deathtrap below and lay me back down on a hardwood floor. It was not from Foxes Theatre; it looked like some other building. Looking up from my daze and clearing the tears from my eyes I discovered that we were, in fact, in a different building as the effects of Thermomagical Warfare were blatantly obvious with all of the doors covered with some old boards and some duct tape in a last ditch effort to keep the cold out. I spat another slightly glowing glob of yellow phlegm from my mouth and sneezed firing a spray of glowing green mucus from my muzzle.

"Eww...," I croaked feeling my throat as it was somehow more dry than any amount of time that I have ever spent in Stable 37's Generator Room.

"Morning Prince Dumbass," Phantom Wing said sharply next to me.

I turned my head to look at her. She was pissed. A grade A level pissed. The kind of pissed that you see when you really screwed up in such a way that no amount cursing and swearing could express the level of pissedoffness that you are. Giving her a weary smile I coughed,

"That was awesome."

"Oh for Luna's sake," Phantom Wing groaned as she facetaloned, "You almost died Quantum!"

"Yep. I feel sick, almost died, puked my guts out, and became a yellow colored particle explosive. All in all, it was a good day."

"You must seriously be the king of idiots. I told you not to put that thing on. NOW I can't get it the fuck off."

I blinked. She can't get it off?

"Yeah right."

I slowly twisted around and sat up on my haunches to free up my front hooves. My PipBuck was now clicking on the boarder of yellow and green indicating that we were still not out of the woods in terms of radiation. She must've noticed my look and took a tablet of RadX. I chewed one down too. Then I put my hooves around my ears and found that two golden attachments on the crown were cuffed around the base of my ears just above my skull. Then, wrapping my hooves around the crystal part of the crown, I tried to pull up and off.

Nothing.

I pulled up again.

Still nothing.

"Come on," I growled through gritted teeth.

Oh wait. I think its... nope. Still stuck. Damnit. What the hell was wrong was this thing? Get off of my damn head!

"What the hell?" I asked looking up in the air as if it would allow me to see the crown on my head.

"See. Your an idiot," Phantom Wing answered coldly.

"Up yours too," I added glaring at her.

I looked around the room a bit trying to find my saddlebags and get something to eat. I was starving for something. Something sweet. I tried reaching for it but the ten feet of distance between me and my destination was the longest distance I would probably have to travel at this point. Unicorns have it so damn easy.

"Come on saddlebag," I said looking at the brown nylon bag, "Can you do me a favor and move?"

Then it tipped over onto its side spilling a few red shotgun rounds on the floor. Did I just defy Newton's First and Second Laws of Motion? Blinking, I asked the bag to move again and it did without a moment's hesitation. Phantom Wing was now looking at the bag too with awe.

"Move!" I ordered to the bag.

Then the bag went flying over to the nearest wall with such force that it nearly punched a hole into it. Okay to be fair the wall was already mostly broken but it was still impressive. I could move things by command! This was the best thing to happen to me since... well... EVER!

"Now, do me another favor and move over towards me."

The bag then became shrouded in a purple glow and floated through the air towards me into my open hooves. I didn't even think about celebrating the fact that I could now somehow manipulate the fabric of the universe as I opened the bag and dug in it frantically until I found another yellow bag full of sweet and sour candy. Using the same purple magic to tear it open I shook the contents of the bag into my mouth all at once and felt the sharp bite of the sour powder that coated the food on my tastebuds. Within an instant, I felt better than before the trip into the building. I just needed to eat something.

"Quantum," Phantom Wing said slowly in dumbfoundment, "you saw that right?"

I turned to look back at her still chewing on the now sticky multicolored candy in my mouth turning sweet all at once. Nodding at her, I proceeded to find another bag of candy and ate that one just as fast as the one before it.

"You're not worried. Right?"

"Nuh," I answered through a mouthful of food.

"You sure? You're a pegasus with the ability to move things with your mind. I'm worried about what else that thing could do to you if your not careful."

"Shuh Urp. Erm erfectlee fern," I added back trying to send the candy down my throat all at once and finding out that it was more of a difficult task than I originally anticipated, "Jers lert mmeh et."

In one loud gulp all of the food went from my mouth and into my stomach. If it could express emotion, it would probably be happy with me right now. It had just the same feeling as me drinking an entire pitcher of tea within the course of an hour. Great, now I wanted something to drink. Tea would be the most preferred but I could take anything else if it had a high sugar content that made my stomach feel good. Hell, I would drink molasses if I had too. Mmm... molasses... That was an idea I could get behind.

"Have you always had a sweet tooth Quantum or is this something new?"

"Yeah I've had one like this when I was a foal but not to this kind of an extent."

"You're gonna get yourself sick if you keep eating like this you realize that. The Wasteland is no place for sick ponies. It'll kill you right in the middle of your crazy sugar high and you won't know what happened."

I looked at her crossly for a second. I knew how to eat, what to eat, when to eat, and why I had to eat. I did not need my mother following me through the Wasteland telling me to eat healthier or else I'll get a tummyache. Still, I should save some candy for later and maybe go back to Foxes for some more. Either that or I go scavenging for more. Either option works for me in the end.

I levitated the saddlebags back on me and my eyes finally took in the purple color. It was my favorite color, plum. It was my favorite color ever since I learned what color was. Seeing that this magic crown gave me purple magic I grew more and more lenient on the dangers of a two hundred year old crown that can't be removed. If anypony would ask me why I had a magical crown, I would answer with 'Purple Magic' and leave it at that. The shotgun then floated over to me and...

It was broken. During the fight, I guess that it somehow made contact with me when I exploded and it was strong enough to make the barrel melt and the ammo feed fuse shut. Fused shut with three shells in it no less. Doesn't Tools of the Talented have a shotgun for sale?

Oh yeah. It does. A semi-used double barrel shotgun for one hundred fifty caps. It wasn't a pump action, but two shells is better than none. Time to make a purchase I guess.

***

"One hundred twenty-seven. One hundred twenty-eight. One hundred twenty-nine," I said as I counted each individual cap that I needed to make the purchase.

"Ya' know, I could just give it to ya'," Cherry Bud interrupted.

"No. I think you need it."

Tools of the Talented's gun was in a glass box behind the pink pony's counter. While I was doing this Phantom was out looking for some more food and chems that we were eventually going to need later. She proved to be a better haggler than she made herself out to be as she got twice as much stuff for half of the price. With her all of our caps would be going to good use.

"One hundred forty-nine. One hundred fifty. There," I said to the pink pony as I slid the mound of caps in her direction.

Then she smiled at me. That smile seemed to promise good things for me. Good things in terms of pleasure that I did not want to get myself evolved with. She was pretty and her flanks were very cute, but she was not the mare for me. I did not see anything about being a merchant that I would want to take part in. The thought of charging a pony caps for something that they may need to survive did not sit well in my stomach.

"So...," she cooed as she curled a little bit of hair around her hoof, "are ya' free later?"

My brain broke a fuse.

"Oh... um... well um...," I studded as I could already feel sweat leaking from my forehead.

"Oh you are?" she added fluttering her eyelashes at me.

Oh sweet Celestia don't make me need to do this.

"But she is so pretty," Some part of my brain said back to me.

"Shut the fuck up man!" Another voice in my brain ordered as he proceeded to beat the shit out of the entity who made that suggestion with a mental tea kettle until it was nothing more than a splatter of mental goop.

"Uh... you see Cherry. I-I'm not that kind of pony. If I'm going to do something I have to see it through."

"Oh..." she answered with a little sigh of disappointment and hanging her head.

"We can still be friends though. Right?"

She looked back up at me and a smaller smile back on. Then she took out a small key turned to the glass box and began to undo all of the looks that kept it safe from thieves and bandits. While she was doing that, she made sure that I got a nice look at her plot. Sweet mother of Celestia she had a gorgeous plot. This playing with me shit is not fair. Not fair at all. Trying to seduce stallions into bed should be illegal. Same thing applies with the other way around. This was cheating. But I was the pony who just Friend Zoned her so I guess its fair.

Cherry turned back around with the shotgun, a Battle Saddle bit, a full box of Twelve Gauge Shells, a rag for cleaning it, an Allen Wrench for taking the gun apart, and a folded piece of paper. Then she opened a drawer from below the counter and pulled out a bottle of Sparkle Cola RAD. I looked at her, puzzled.

"I only paid for the shotgun though. Why am I getting this stuff?" I asked observing all of the extra stuff that I apparently was getting for free.

"Its on the house," she replied, "for saving those ponies back at the Docks."

Now normally I would deny this offer but the fact that I just basically told her that I did not want to be in bed with her along with my normal attitude would probably ban me from the store. I nodded and put all of the stuff in my saddlebag and popped the cap off of my Sparkle Cola RAD and gave it to her. Then I trotted away wondering why she didn't question me about the crown on my head. Did she just not care or did she not notice? Whatever. I took a sip from the bottle and I felt as if my brain got a jump start from sweet and bubbly lightning. Looking down at the bottle, I noticed the big letters of red text declaring,

IT'S LIKE A BUCK TO THE FACE! WITH RADISHES!!

The crown on my head then sucked the minute amount of radiation from that sip out of me. How it does that I will probably never know and at this point I really don't care. I just went on enjoying my drink and thankful that nothing was shooting at me, exploding near me, or electrocuting me. If this was the way I would live out in the Wasteland, then I would eventually be fine with it. Who knows where I will end up? Who knows where I will go? Who knows who I will meet? At this point, I guess only the goddesses.

***

The double barrel shotgun that I purchased seemed to be more of a formidable weapon that I would have ever thought. It was somehow more accurate than my previous one, more powerful than my previous one, and had a noise that would not hurt my ears a little every time I fired. This however was all at the cost of only firing two shots before reloading. Phantom Wing fixed that problem as she found a belt that I could wear that would hold twenty-four rounds on each side so they would be accessible to me when I would eventually need them. So what if I had to get more "close and personal" with my target? I had a gun that could tear a limb off of a Raider in one shot with a fantastic show of glistening red that I looked a bit forward too.

Only if the thing I was shooting was a Raider of course.

That turned out to be a good thing too as Phantom Wing took up something called a "Contract" while I was talking to Cherry. She said that certain ponies posted requests on a specific wall back at Foxes and anypony who took up the offer would be paid in caps when they completed the job. The things was that it was limited to one contract per pony(or griffin) per day and there were no exceptions to this rule. This rule also applied with groups so that a group of seven wouldn't take the entire wall of good contracts and leave everypony else with nothing but the contracts that nopony wanted. There was no limit on how many contracts somepony could post, but there was a limit to how many times you could post a contract for the same repeating problem. The idea was that it would keep fresh contracts flowing without ponies banking on old contracts that will forever repeat themselves because the Wasteland, terrible as it is, can be predictable at some points.

Our first contract was to clear out a large group of Raiders from a place called Ironshod Firearms R&D on an intersection of Big Mac Street and Oreins Street. I had no idea if we were supposed to be hopeful for this job as it was a mindless killing spree with no regrets that would eventually make us four hundred caps richer and all of the salvage we would find would be ours by Scavenging Rights and we would be getting more caps for it. That made me think about this job for a second while we walked through the streets as I get ever the more familiar with the shotgun with a tight spread.

"If we're getting paid so well for this contract, then why hasn't anypony else have taken it before us? How old is this contract of yours Phantom?" I asked as I fired the second round in my two barrel gun at a fairly emaciated Raider with an old wooden stick

"Its a two month old contract," Phantom Wing answered as she took another shot at a small bug called a "Bloatsprite" with her magical beam pistol and chuckled when it vaporized into blue ashes, "no one has taken it because of the basic fact that ponies are scared shitless of Raiders and anything like them."

"How long does a contract last before it expires?"

"About two months."

I paused and I swore my eyelid twitched.

"They last for only two months... and the contract is two months old? Does that indicate something for you Phantom?"

"It just means that no one has the balls to go and do the problem so the ones who do get easy money."

I glared at her for one long, seemingly unending moment. She grinned.

"Don't make me have to call 'No Balls' on you Quantum. I heard about you Friend Zoning Cherry Bud earlier today and I have to say that I'm a bit impressed at that. I never imagined that you were a dream crusher along with being the only Non-Enclave on the ground. She was a pretty mare and you know it."

"Damnit Phantom! I did not want to toss myself to the Timberwolves like that only two days out. I've had a marefriend back at Stable 37 once and she ditched me when I presented for her for another buck with a bigger set than me. I'm literally paranoid about everything, even mares!" I snapped back at her feeling very hurt and insulted not thinking about any of the words that deluged forth from me.

Phantom Wing rounded on me and looked at me with a hurt frown. Oh great. I hope that I actually didn't just lose a companion just because of my mental disorder. For a second she was a statue that was locked in thought and fighting herself to find what to say that would not end badly.

"You had a marefriend?" Phantom Wing asked looking me in the eyes but still somehow being able to take the head off a Raider trying to position herself in a window looking down at us. How in the hell did she do that?

"Yes I had one and it wasn't a fun experience okay? That is why I have decided to reserve myself until I find the right mare for that wont ditch me because the size of my penis."

That was a total bullshit lie but I did not want to get into THAT conversation. There was a completely different reason for why I dumped my marefriend and it was all political stuff that I, as an engineer, keep myself away from for various reasons; especially if it ended up being the Overmare's idea.

It was now Phantom Wing's turn to pause. While she did I used the crown's purple magic to open up my saddlebags and pull out a box of prewar peppermint chocolates from in my bag. I popped one of the candies into my mouth and chewed happily putting the rest back into my bags for later.

"That's low ball man. Ditching someone just because of the size of their dick? That is really low," Phantom Wing added shaking her head.

"Your telling me. I had to be the one who had it happen to them."

After a few moments of silence we finally made it to Ironshod Firearms at the intersection like the contract had said. Like most of the buildings in Detrot it was an over-engineered monolith of grey concrete and steel siding with a flat roof that probably did nothing be caught rain water now. The few windows that were on the sides of the four story building were so small that you could only fit the end a rife through it but not have enough field of view to see where your seeing. With that being the case it would seem very likely that the workers who were there two hundred years ago trying to fend off the zebra invasion had a PipBuck all of their own and the targeting spell would do the work of aiming for them while they were hiding. Nice idea I had to admit, but really bad execution. With how little the windows were you would have to run about twice as much lights to keep the building lit and that probably was not good for the energy crisis.

While most of the top floors seemed to be untouched, the bottom floor was the polar opposite. The outside walls were textured with hundreds upon hundreds of bullets that bounced and ricocheted off the concrete with some bullets still buried in the stonework. On the same walls were messages written in black paint were epitaphs of a life that's now all gone. Things like 'Faggots', 'Zebra Fuckers', and 'Ironshod, Homes of the Cowards' were all scratched on in big block letters with some being bigger than me and some so big that they almost reached the second story.

The only thing that pulled my eyeballs from the words was the promise of caps and free stuff that we could trade for caps. Breaking open my shotgun and sliding two red shells into the breach I looked at Phantom Wing and asked,

"Are we going for a stealth approach or are we going to storm in like we have a search warrant?"

"Stealth first, then we take them out," Phantom Wing answered as she took one of the spark batteries off of her gun and loaded a new one in.

With a quick flick of my wing the shotgun swung back closed and locked together with a resounding click. Quietly we flew through a missing wall upon the fourth floor and scanned the area for Raiders and things of the like. It was visually and auditorily empty. Nothing showed up on my EFS either so the Raiders were probably on one of the lower floors. If that was the case, then my EFS should still pick it up unless something was jamming it which was already very unlikely. Still, no time to worry about that. There was looting to be done.

***

Alright... this is attempt number twelve of hacking a terminal without my cheat tool. Annnd...

INCORRECT PASSWORD

"Mother fucker!" I yelled at the terminal as I flipped a switch behind it so it wouldn't lock me out before I could get all of its secrets.

"Your still at it Quantum?" Phantom Wing asked as she carried an old bag she found a floor below us full of junk.

"There's a safe here Phantom. Where there's a safe and a terminal there is important data. That and the fact that I could open the safe with the terminal and I'm a partially greedy pegasus that wants to know WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BOX!" I snapped back at her as this was literally the fifth time she had asked the very same question.

"If you don't get it by fifteen, cheat," the griffin added as she walked away to get more loot.

"Come on terminal," I growled grinning at the devise, "DANCE!"

Click.

INCORRECT PASSWORD

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK TERMINAL!?!?" I screamed at the very top of my lungs as I furiously beat my head on the keyboard multiple times with every single word said before a little ding noise heralded the little message of,

ACCESS GRANTED

My eye was twitching. It was twitching so badly that I thought my eye was going to fall out of my head all together. I did not know what to say, mostly because I think I said everything already. Instead I took a deep breath and dumped the memory of the thirteen previous attempts out of my brain all together before I went and killed something out of rage.

"Well," I said taking another deep, shaking breath, "At least I didn't have to cheat my way into it."

There were only a few files in the terminal and most of them were already so damaged that I could not read most of it and the damage was so bad that the RHT could not fix enough of it that was worth my time. The most interesting one was the oldest file that was still not corrupted,

EQUESTRIAN SEARCH UNIT #5

STABLE 37

STATUS: GO FUCK YOURSELF STABLE-TEC

Were done here. There is literally nothing left except the bodies. We left Stable Thirty-Seven as per the Overmare's and Stable-Tec's orders in order to search for any pieces of equipment in order to help fix one of the talismans that shut down not even a week ago and we haven't found shit. Sweet Celestia why didn't they tell us about the Radiation?! Is there something wrong with the RadDetectors on the stable or is it some sort of oversight? At this point, I don't very much care. The team has about a day left of water and food but I fear that they have already been eaten. The Radiation Suits are holding up though. That's about the extent of our luck though. It had been two days since we left and were dead in the water. If anypony is reading this, especially if its anypony from a stable, get back in that damned hole and don't end up like us.

-Terminal Frequency

What?! Stable 37 was already sending ponies outside? Now that I have looked back at the other entry titles they had the exact same title style with it beginning with "EQUESTRIAN SEARCH UNIT #" something-or-other and a message of their status. One of the most recent files like it was ten years ago and each entry goes back to about the same time interval.

My left ear twitched. That made so much sense. In Stable 37 members were elected to be the Overmare's council every ten years. All but the Overmare left office at that time because of the fact that she was the Overmare and that was a job you got for life due to birth rights. Every year eight or so members of the council would leave and never be heard from again. The Overmare would always tell us that they served with dignity and honor and that was that. I would have never imagined that she would send ponies out into the Wasteland like some sort of living probe. In fact, the new positions for the council was almost a month away from now. Maybe Phantom and I would have more members of our group in the Wasteland. That or we would all be dead already.

Time to not think of that now though. After closing the message and transferring it to my PipBuck via the RHT, I tapped a few keys and the safe that the terminal was connected to opened with no resistance. In it was an old revolver that was so rusted it was less than worthless, it's ammo, and a large black coat. I pulled the coat out of the safe and eyed it curiously. It was neatly folded and was tailored with so much precision and care that it would be the envy of anypony back in the stable, including the Overmare. It was crafted with the sturdiest and lightest fabric I have ever seen and the black color somehow went along really well with the dark purple color of my Electrician's Barding.

Slipping it on, I found that it had a few more secrets for me. For instance, there were pockets lining the interior like rows of circuit adapters. In one of those pockets was a glowing ball of glass that I picked up with my purple magic. It was nothing that looked special other than a very elaborate paper weight. Why would something like this be anything that I would need to...

oooOOOooo

Okay, this was new. Some strange thing that I could not rationalize with? It was a nice change. The thing that wasn't much of a nice change was the fact that I was now sucked away from the desk and that goddesses forsaken terminal and into another room with nice, bright pink wallpaper with the same basic format of the room I was in only seconds ago. My mouth wasn't mine, my breathing wasn't mine, and my horn... wait... horn? Where the fuck did my wings go?! I don't like this anymore! I want my wings back!

After a moment I realized something. I was stuck for the ride. Oh well, lets see what happens them.

"You hear about the ideas that Luna has been throwing at us?" A blue coated unicorn dressed in golden armor said next to me as if he was a machine.

I wanted to scream for my wings, a cup of tea, and answers but instead my lips began moving,

"Yeah. She had been throwing projects at us left and right but when we get them done she shut them right back down," A mare's voice answered for me.

I WAS A MARE TOO?!

"Sometimes I wonder if Luna is keeping the Ministries busy or if she's really trying to distract us from something."

"That's treasonous talk Forerunner and you know it," my... guide... snapped back at him.

"It's the truth Ultima," Forerunner hissed through his teeth.

"I know its the truth but I don't want to be the one having to be court marshaled about this. Keep quiet until later and even then stay quiet."

The door that Forerunner and Ultima was guarding then swung open and a pink earth pony with some grey in her mane followed by several other unicorns funneled in. The pink pony sat down and pulled a very long list of something from her desk and handed it to the first unicorn in the group. The unicorn looked at it for a second and crumpled it up into a little paper ball and threw it across the room and coming to rest at the hooves of Ultima.

"Your seriously considering this? You know its dangerous already right?" Another unicorn mare asked the pink pony.

"Yeseree do!" The pink pony said bouncing in the air several inches and taking the chair with her, "Somepony knows something that I want to know and they are held up with some zebras. Those big bad zebras have one of our super good ponies ponynapped and I want them to come back home to us with all of his smarty-smarts for us."

"You understand that Luna is not going to allow this," the second unicorn mumbled.

"Luna doesn't need to hear about this," the earth pony began as she leaned in really close to that pony and said something in her ear that my guide couldn't hear.

"I thought this project was sealed by Luna a month ago, "a unicorn buck piped up, "Didn't she say it was too 'impractical for field use'?"

"That's exactly what she said!" the first unicorn snapped, "You do realize that Project Purge is too big to start, let alone keep it under wraps from the other ministries! If The MWA or the MAS found out about this..."

"They have already given their approval!" the pink pony said with glee as she handed the unicorn two envelopes.

"That doesn't mean that they know what were doing!"

The pink pony sighed and pointed a hoof into the air. Apparently that was a signal for something as Forerunner took the unicorn in his strong telekinetic grip and began hauling it out of the room the resistant unicorn kicking and frantically trying to break herself free.

"Make sure she gets the full treatment!" The pink pony smiled as she waved Forerunner and the frantic mare off.

oooOOOooo

My mind then snapped back into my real body and I immediately felt more sick than I have ever been before. Not sick physically, but mentally sick. I had just seen something that was top secret at one point and was in a safe for the last two hundred years waiting for somepony to see it. Fifteen minutes had passed since my mind was sent to another dimension. If there was one thing that the orb had taught me, there was something very wrong going on in Detrot before the bombs fell and not long after too.

One thing was for certain. I was not in the city of the paranoid. I was in the city of the insane.

Chapter VII - The Computerized Key

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Watch in awe!

"FINE?!" Phantom Wing yelled as she looked at me with the little pink orb in my wing as I explained what just happened.

She had every right to be pissed. I had jumped into a thing that the PipBuck called Project Purge Proposal Memory Orb and left her to deal with the mob of Raiders on the floors below without backup. The only reason why she really didn't give me an earful was the fact that she found me staring off into nothingness with my eyes glowing a bright blueish-white. She tried to move me but my body was as if it was stone and I felt nothing in terms of pain or other stimuli. When I returned back, I felt as if my brain was working five times as hard and was three sizes too big for my head. Despite all of those factors, she still decided to give me a little piece of her mind.

"Bullshit your fine! I found you and your as dead as a door nail. Then a minute later, you were on the verge of being sick and your telling me your fine?! What the fuck happened?!"

"This thing happened!" I yelled back as I held the Memory Orb in front of her in my wing.

"What the hell is that?"

"The hell if I know! If I did, then I probably wouldn't have gone into it in the first place!"

Phantom Wing took a long, slow breath. I could see the anger and adrenaline she had accumulated start to melt away and she looked at me with a sorry little smile.

"Sorry about that."

"No problem Phantom. It was an accident going into that thing in the first place," I answered as I slipped the orb into my saddlebags.

"I think I still left one or two Raiders for you Quantum. You might want to get more used to your gun before we go out and really start doing stupid shit," the griffin suggested as she pointed her bloody energy pistol over to a staircase.

"Good idea," I answered as I buttoned up the first two buttons on my black coat and floated the shotgun in my purple magical field in front of me.

Phantom was right about one thing. No more going into Memory Orbs for me for a while.

***

KABANG!

The Raider who was charging at me only a moment ago fell and came to a rest at my hooves. The first shot somehow missed despite the tight spread and the assistance of SATS but the second one tore his chest open revealing the near liquefied organs that were used to power this pony less than ten seconds ago. If my mind wasn't already occupied on finding the other Raider, I would have probably thrown up another mess of glowing vomit. Just like my glowing red blood that seamed to coat the exposed bits of my hide from the Raiders' gunshots.

The shotgun broke open and two smoking shells popped out clattering to the floor. I followed up by shoving two more shells into the breach. Another Raider who flanked my right without me knowing or hearing him started to fire a shotgun of his own. Hot lead pellets punched through my already shredded copper threaded barding and overcoat, through my wing, and only coming to a stop in my chest. With all of the strength I could muster up I swung my shotgun to him and pulled both of the two triggers and the barrels ignited sending return fire at him with a dazzling show of fire and smoke. He fell only later as he resembled something like a sponge with all of the little pellets leaving great bloody holes in his chest and forehooves.

"Stupid sonsofbitches," I chuckled as I chugged down another one of the Healing Potions that Phantom and I got from the Steel Rangers.

As good as a Healing Potion was right now, I could really use a tailor. I remember seeing one back at Foxes but he charged an insane amount of caps for a simple patch-up and full barding repair was out of the question in terms of pricing. Maybe I should learn how to sew? It's not that different from wiring right? You take your thread (the wires) and you weave it through the fabric (your mainframe) until it makes a strong seal (your complete circuit) and the fabric is able to be worn again. Dealing with real wires was bad enough but dealing with copper woven fabric was probably a different story entirely.

Oi Vey. Maybe I should just leave the work to the professionals.

Some of the things on the Raiders were very useful in repairing my shotgun and Whinnychester. For instance, the shotgun Raider had a rubber recoil pad on the back of his gun that I gladly took and wonderglued onto the but end of the gun. Sure I could just float it in front of me in my artificial telekinetic field or mount it to a Battle Saddle but if I needed to hold the gun in my wings I wanted to be prepared to do just that. The charging Raider had a box of three small metal rings that were cut in a way that made no sense to me. They were mostly round but had six indentations that must have made them a strange gear of a throwing weapon like a Throwing Star. My PipBuck beeped and confirmed, more or less, of my suspicions of what it is buy naming it a Moon Clip.

"Moon what?" I mumbled swirling the flat metal disks in my magic, "These look nothing like moons."

But they costed fifty caps each?! Other than the basic Bottle Cap, this "Moon Clip" was the most expensive single piece of stamped metal that I have ever seen. I wonder why.

Putting that mystery on the back-burner for later I continued my search of relatively worthwhile looking stuff. Like... another Memory Orb that was inside an office desk along with a few caps and a single .44 Hollow Point. Other than that, the third and second floors were pretty boring for an Research and Development Center.

Then I made it to the first floor... and all hell broke loose.

The large spider bot hovered up beside me when my guard was down and started to spew hot white and yellow flames from a devise on one of its several metal appendages. I only heard the faint sound of the Levitation Talisman a few seconds too late as the fire sprayed from its nozzle and lighting my tail on fire. Not knowing whether to take the robot out or to ignore it for now, I ran across the catwalk not realizing that something like it would probably not hold...

Then the catwalk crumpled like tin foil below my hooves and I was sent falling. I landed on top of a metal skeleton of a machine, groaning as I stood back up. At least Celestia was kind enough to put the fire out while I was falling. My PipBuck alerted me that a certain white pegasus had a significant chest injury, a few broken wing bones, and a fractured pelvic bone. I tried to stand back up but the pain that exploded in my body was enough to send my stumbling back to the floor.

"Bloody hell," I mouthed as I pulled the HYDRA syringe from my saddle bags and jammed it into my foreleg just above my PipBuck and injected the medicine in me.

Instantly I felt a few popping sensations in my back and several warm points in other places all over my body where the injuries were the most prominent. The odd sensation of bone fusion and muscle reformation spread from ears to hooves as the chems did whatever it did. When the little pony diagram on my PipBuck was not as torn apart as before, I got back up onto my hooves and sneezed some rainbow colored sludge from out of my noose and mouth and leaving a slightly burning feeling in my throat. The crown on my head seemed to glow a little more.

"Ow...," I moaned as I wiped the salty blue tears from my eyes.

Sweet Celestia do all of my body fluids glow? First my phlegm, then my blood, soon after my vomit, and now my tears glow a faint blue. At this rate I'll turn into a an artist's paint pallet.

I am thankful to mention that the little spider robot was not following me or did not have the protocols active that would make it want to follow me. The floor below the catwalk was drowned in a fog-like layer of dust that accumulated with every step and breath I took. There were many boxes of miscellaneous stuff that I probably wouldn't know the first thing about. I'm an electrician not a gunsmith damnit!

The few things that I found that could have been useful at this exact moment were a few locked ammo boxes. I fought to keep my wings from going into my bag and pulling the Angle Grinder out as that would probably do nothing but attract more robots so I instead plucked out a feather from my wing and grabbed the little key hole with my magic and floated the feather inside. Phantom Wing told me that the trick to lock picking is being patient and listening very closely. I could do both. The feather moved from side to side as I could hear the little mechanisms move and wiggle into place with each stroke the feather made. Then I used a bit of magic to turn the lock.

Slowly...

Click!

The locked box was now an unlocked box! Putting the feather in between the metal of the crown, I threw the box open to find...

An entire box of .44 Hollow Points! And... another Moon Ring with a belt that looked like it could hold the rings in place. On the underside of the lid was a small piece of folded paper. Levitating it to eye level, I read the bold black letters of:

IRONSHOD FIREARMS

How do you like them apples?

I think I got the joke...

Ignoring that for now I open up the little note and it was full of warranty information and subscription signups that wouldn't do me or anypony else any good. The paper stapled to the back was all the more interesting.

Thank you for purchasing at Ironshod Firearms!

Our goal here is to make your family safer and the war easier to win! Your purchase of four(4) Moon Ring(s) and one(1) Moon Belt greatly supports not only our troops, but our cause! Our customized Moon Rings are made to make reloading your guns easier for anypony that cant use magic. Don't be outgunned when your trying to reload and you used a Moon Clip already! Our custom Moon Belts are made to hold up to eight(8) Moon Rings so that you always have enough ammo to get the job done! From the Battlefront to the Homefront, we at Ironshod Firearms will always be there!

The rest of the letter was smudged from age and running ink. I levitated one of the Moon Rings and slid a .44 bullet into one of the groves. Amazingly enough, the bullet stayed in the metal ring as it held by its groves. Soon I found myself taking the other rings out and filling them with bullets and then hanging them on the new black and grey belt lined with shotgun shells that Phantom WIng got me. Along with that, the belt came with two side holsters and one of them had an exact copy of my other Whinnychester still hanging on the belt. I reloaded both guns and clipped the holsters on my belt. I probably just saved myself about seven hundred caps in the process. That, in my opinion, was a good deal.

Finally returning to the real problem, I looked around the lower floor to find a flight of stairs or an elevator. I was not going to risk flying again until I knew for a guaranteed fact that the spider robot thing was dead or whatever robots consider as death. My EFS indicated for me that there were very few hostile targets but one is more than zero in the end. The unopened boxes was going to be a later project, what I had to worry about now is more two hundred year old robots and death traps.

Oi vey... this is going to suck.

***

It did, in fact, suck. The robot from before was hot on my tail as I fired the two Whinnychesters in unison at the robots many long arms only to have the bullets spark off and make nothing more than a pretty light show. Even with the assistance of SATS, the robot continued to charge yelling things in its raspy and tinny voice like,

"BETTER WIPED THAN STRIPED!"

Like I said, it sucked. SATS went up and down so frequently that I burned through all of my charge faster than I could have ever imagined possible. Thank the goddesses that I found the Moon Rings when I did or else I would be a sitting duck when I tried to reload while running. Even reloading with magic is difficult under pressure. I had no idea how Slavers and Raiders did it!

The plan then hit me. If I couldn't take it down with pistol or shotgun, then maybe it could be taken down with the very same thing that powers it. Taking a sharp turn while making sure that the robot was still after me, I pulled up SATS and used the last few action points I had left to fire two shots from the guns at the ceiling. When the spell was released the the bluish hue of slowed time faded, the bullets spun upwards into the air and into a large, thick black cable. The hollow points mushroomed on impact and the electric cable was separated from its mountings. It swung down like a pendulum in a grandfather clock and, with an extra rearing buck, was sent flying into the spider bot and short circuiting its mainframe entirely. The robot jerked spasmodically for a moment before it clattered to the ground in a metal heap.

With a slight tingling in my legs and wings, I walked up to the robot and unloaded every last bullet I had in my Whinnychesters into the metal carcass. While I reloaded the guns and the Moon Clips I spat a glob of slightly glowing yellow phlegm at the robot and trotted away. Nopony was going to salvage any parts from that thing as long as I was around.

"Well," I said to myself still panting from exhaustion, "now that that moment of heart pounding terror is over, I guess I should look at the staircase I found while I was running for my life."

With only a few flaps of my wings I flew over to the staircase that eventually lead down into another storage room. Thankfully, the EFS was empty except for Phantom Wing doing whatever griffins do a few floors above me. The storage room was smaller than I would have originally thought with many wooden boxes and palates stacked to the ceiling. Most of the ammo boxes were empty and many of the good weapons were missing but salvaging the few good parts from all of the weapons and repairing mine was not beyond my ability. I could take apart a Model 8 Iota Series Electrical Regulator in seven minutes; a few rifles and pistols wasn't even a challenge.

Trotting around the room for a minute after resulted in me slipping on an aluminium rod and falling flat on my face. Pulling myself back up and fanning the dust off with my wings I realized that the metal rod was not a lonely metal rod. It was a part of a trail of parts. My magic held all of the pieces in the air as I followed the trail up to the overturned wooden box with fading blue and grey paint. The parts of a Mister Handy series unit. The best part, all of the parts seemed to be there.

"Thank you Wasteland!" I cheered as I jumped into the project without any second of hesitation.

***

After ten minutes, according to my PipBuck's clock, the Mister Handy was complete. It came with four arms instead of three and four eyes instead of three. It must've been a new model or upgrade that Ironshod was trying to get out before the war ended. At least, that was my best guess. Either way the more arms the robot had the better. Sure it was probably very hypocritical of me to make myself a robot when I just destroyed one but fuck it. Its a Mister Handy! I've wanted one since I was a little colt and my ears were too big for my head. Oh... right, my ears are still too big for my head.

Oh whatever. I had a Mister Handy! Now the question is, what do I call it? After putting on the last screw to the head plate a little option box appeared in my vision. It asked if I wanted to name my robot anything I wanted. I selected yes but my mind stopped right there. Over the years of being in Stable 37 I had come up with many names for one of these machines when I finally made one but I couldn't think of any of them to save my life. Then I looked at the robot's appendages. One was a grabby claw thingy (I didn't know what the real name was for it okay. I'm an electrician not a mechanic), another had a serrated saw blade, the third had a flame gun, and the fourth had another small weapon that I could not identify. Grabby thingy, saw, flame gun, other gun. Grabby thingy, saw... Saw... saws...

Then I looked back at the options box and typed "Sawbones" into it. After that, the robot whirred to life. Its orange eyes flickered on and the levitation talisman activated making the ball of aluminum float before me.

"Systems Check," it said moving all of its arms and tools in sequence, "Complete. Mister Handy, always ready to serve you."

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" I squealed like a filly prancing in place in front of my robot.

"Beginning identification analysis...," Sawbones said as he produced a thin orange line that swung back and forth across me, "Identification analysis complete. Quantum; Twenty-three years of age; Male; Pegasus; Place of origin unknown; Birth records unavailable."

If I had all of my brains together and was not fangasming over the fact that I had a Mister Handy, I probably would have asked how it could have possibly known any of that. The fact that it didn't know where I was from despite the fact that I had two yellow Thirty-Sevens on my collar made even less sense when I thought about it. Either way, I had a Mister Handy! Sawbones paused for a long second before he suddenly became more... frantic?

"Where are we?" he asked with a puzzled tone in his tinny and simulated voice.

"Ironshod R&D Center in Detrot," I answered flatly.

"What happened here?"

"The war happened."

"Who won?"

I wonder if you could break a robot's heart.

"Nopony did. Everyone has been dead for two hundred years."

Sawbones' four mechanical eyes dropped before he let out a sigh of defeat that was barely audible over his Levitation Talisman. From what I could deduce from his behavior I could only guess that he was some sort of special order for somepony with a fair amount of money nearing the end. When his eyes refocused on mine he said flatly,

"I was to be shipped out over to Hoofington's Ironshod R&D. I was put into production for a one Prince Goldenblood of the Canterlot Aristocracy. I guess that never happened."

"Sorry to hear that," I said as I walked out of the storage room with the robot floating at my side.

"There is no need for that. Due to the Canterlot Salvage Right Acts you are my new owner and I will be happy to be of your assistance."

Cool. Salvage Rights was now something that I put on my short list of Things That Were Awesome Before the End of the World.

***

"Quantum, where'd you get that?" Phantom Wing asked as I walked up the steps to the forth floor with Sawbones.

"I found him," I answered as I already began to put up my mental walls just in case another torment of Phantom's 'Quantum is an idiot' was going to happen.

Instead, the griffin grinned and I swore there were little red caps in her pupils as he looked up and down at Sawbones.

"And no you are not selling him for caps," I added before she got any dumb ideas.

"Why not?" she whined, "He would go for at least a thousand caps."

"The answer is no Phantom," I replied sharply.

I did not want to deal with this shit right now. She snorted and slung the bag over her shoulders and making sure that he wings weren't going to end up getting stuck underneath it. Glaring one more time at Sawbones, Phantom Wing looked back at me and said coolly,

"If your going to keep the robot as a pet, then he better be able to handle himself in a fight 'cause I am not wasting bullets to save a floating ball of scrap."

"You seemed all too keen to waste bullets trying to get the safe open back at the pink building," I answered grinning and enjoying seeing her face turn from grey to red in anger.

"Damn pegasus," she hissed to herself as she took off through the missing wall with her revolving-rifle thing drawn and scanning for any immediate threats.

"Don't worry Sawbones," I said looking over to the robot, "she'll warm up to you soon enough."

"I hope so," he answered so softly that I almost didn't hear him.

***

The walk back to Foxes was always easier than leaving it for some reason. When somepony leaves there is an abundance of Raiders. When somepony comes back however the streets seem to be empty except for the occasional RadRoach or Bloatsprite. The walk gave me time to think about Sawbones and his story. He had told me that he was a custom order for somepony named Prince Goldenblood all the way in Hoofington. Now I did not know where exactly where Hoofington was relative to Detrot but I could deduce from DJ-Pon3 and his broadcasts is that Hoofington was down in the south-eastern part of the Wasteland. They, like the Stable Dweller in the west near a place called Tenpony Tower, had a stable pony of their own that goes by the name "Security". Some of her accomplishments were very fascinating as she managed to anger somepony named "Deus" so much that she now has a ten-thousand cap bounty on her head for the retrieval of her PipBuck and her head and that he would double that if he got her alive. I had to admit, with the kind of money like that, it would be possible that he could have ordered a Sawbones for himself.

Hearing about the ten-thousand cap bounty from my PipBuck, Phantom Wing almost orgasmed at the idea of going to Hoofington, getting Security, giving her to Deus, and getting the caps for herself. All it took was a cross look and a reminder about Beanie and she dumped the plan entirely and reserved herself from conversation. Especially conversation between me and her. What was her deal? We're not that desperate for caps right?

Sawbones seemed to be very adept at giving us directions around Detrot. Was it some sort of internal mapping program or was it something else? Either way, he was very good at navigating through the Detrot ruins to places where he thought were full of good salvage for caps. This fact made Phantom Wing warm up to the robot companion a little more as she greedily shoved spare parts and good junk into her bag. Me? I was fine with finding food (especially the ones of the sweet variety) and ammunition while extracting any bits of information from terminals and electronically locked safes. And, with the help of the wondrously wise PipBuck, all three of us had enough food to last us through winter and enough caps to repair everything we had and then some.

I was getting bored of Phantom Wing's vow of silence after looting the last building closest to Foxes. Time to see what her deal was.

"So... Phantom...," I said slowly trying to avoid a minefield.

"Hm?" She answered as she turned to me and raised an eyebrow.

"I was um... wondering why you are staying with me. I mean, you have no real ties to me or binding contract right?"

She sighed and pointed a claw at her silver and black scarf.

"I am bound to you. It is the Code of the Green Sign. If you cant defend yourself from anyone, griffin or otherwise, and you lose in a one on one duel then you are now property of the victor," she explained.

"I never challenged you to a duel," I answered tilting my head in comprehension.

"When we meet, was there someone to break the fight and intervene?"

I shook my head.

"Did you disarm all of my weapons that I had at the time and held me at gunpoint with yours?"

I nodded.

"Then you won the duel."

"But that wasn't a duel. That was self defense."

"Call it what you want Quantum. It is what it is."

Great. Now I felt like one of those Slaver Ponies Iron Melody told me about. The idea that Phantom Wing was here only because she was apparently my "property" twisted my stomach. I looked over at Sawbones who was watching us patiently and looked back at Phantom Wing.

"You don't need to be with me if you don't want to Phantom. You can leave at any time. Do you want to go?"

She looked away from me and I could imagine that there was conflicting emotions brewing in her head. Some of anger, some of joy, but most of incomprehension.

"Do you?" I repeated.

She gave the ghost of a nod. I trotted over to her and gave her a firm hug. I didn't know if that would help the situation for Phantom Wing but hugs always helped me in situations like this. Releasing her, I walked away with Sawbones leaving the griffin alone to think and possibly go back to her kind. A tear welled up in my one eye and Sawbones cut in and asked softly,

"Did you mean all of that?"

"If you care about someone that much, let them go," I answered and looked back at the spot where the griffin was sitting.

She was airborne now. She was going home to Griffinstone.

Chapter VIII - The Barricaded Gate

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You can't be from the future! That's not scientifically possible! YOUR not scientifically possible!

Hope. Something that the Wasteland tries to steal from everypony. We hope that somepony will do something to fix all of this. We hope that we are not alone in this fight. And we hope that someday, we can look at what was above the cloud cover set by the pegasi. From what Sawbones had informed me about the clouds, it was to act as a protective barrier between radiation and other threats to the pegasus people. That excuse would have only worked for about ten years after the end of the world I'd give them that. But after two centuries? I think that they just forgot about us ponies down here. With how the pegasi live their lives in isolation it is a surprise that they still might be alive if they don't get food from the surface. In fact, who would? All of the vegetables are mutated and dangerous and the only thing that seems remotely safe to eat is two-hundred year old food. I had no problem with that. If there were sweet foods in the Wasteland, they were all mine!

I wish I had my own bed though. Sleeping in an actual bedroom in Foxes should have appealed to me more than it actually did. Mostly due to the fact that there were shop vendors every five feet and they seemed to not have a problem with taking other ponies goods when their backs are turned. This problem was solved with me shoving a few balls of cotton and wax into my ears and sleeping in the broom closet with Sawbones keeping watch outside. If anypony started doing something stupid like singing, I wouldn't hear them. Hell, I could probably sleep through a close proximity grenade detonation. I wish I could've had something to dream about...

***

I woke up with my face to the floor and my muzzle coated in slightly glowing saliva. Hauling myself up to my hooves, I took out another piece of minty chocolate and began chewing half expecting to wake up and half expecting to fall right back to sleep. Thankfully, the chocolate woke me up enough for me to notice that my one wing was wrapped around a metal bucket. How that got in here I might never know. Oh wait... this was a broom closet. Yep, that made more sense.

Getting back to my hooves and walking out of my room, I saw Sawbones still floating not too far away. His glassy telescopic eyes seemed foggier than when I went to bed. Now that I was awake and able to make rational thoughts about my surroundings, I could see that the hallways of Foxes were covered in a thick fog.

"Sawbones," I whispered.

The robot didn't say a word. He didn't even move.

"Sawbones," I said again with more urgency.

He still did not move or speak.

"Damn," I grunted through gritted teeth as I dug around the broom closet to get my gear.

It was all gone! Every cap, every bullet, every gun, and every bit of armor was gone! All there was left was the almost finished mint chocolate bar on the floor. Frantically I tried to turn on my EFS but that was dead. My PipBuck was dead too! Every function was lost to the fact that the PipBuck itself was a mess of melted metal and glass with some remains of plastic buttons and knobs.

"What the actual fuck?" I asked aloud hoping to get an answer from somepony.

Anypony.

Hell, I would speak to Worm Gear if it came down to it. But I had to be the one with the broken PipBuck and broken Mister Handy.

Then the door behind me was pulled off of its hinges and a great beast appeared in the door frame. It was tall and emaciated with skin so wet and slimy that I was already thinking that it was going to drip right off. Its jaw was an elongated mass of razors that all curved inwards leading to a tongue that had a hook like tooth of its very own. The creatures' orange eyes looked down at me with the intent of burning holes through my skull just with a glance. It had no mane, no tail, no cutie mark. It was something that is only still going by the force of shier rage. I stood in front of it, paralyzed in terror.

Then it's mouth dislocated itself and the monstrosity let out a scream that nopony would ever dare to make by themselves without losing the use of their own vocal chords. I could feel the blood trickle down my ears as the sounds were becoming more faint and as if they were underwater. Then the creature galloped full force at me with a reckless, suicidal charge. I let out one final scream that I couldn't even hear.

***

I snapped back into reality covered in cold sweat and feeling as if I was going to throw up. I was still wearing my Stable 37 Electrician's Barding with the two yellow Thirty-Sevens embroidered into each side of the collar. My stuff was still where I left them a few hours ago according to the PipBuck's Chronometer and one yellow dot displayed by my EFS told me that nopony even thought about trying to steal Sawbones without some significant planning and luck. I know I would never be that lucky so why should they?

Searching through my bag, I picked out another one of the pieces of mint chocolate and chewed on it. At this rate I would need to buy some more off of the pony who runs the candy stand near Nescolt's office. I sure hope that I had the caps for it because chocolate isn't cheap in the Wasteland; especially around cold places like Detrot where chocolate doesn't grow. Sugar Cinnamon, the owner of the shop, explained that she traded with a zebra frequently to get the chocolate in exchange for gems or bullets once every year. The year was almost over and the zebra was going to arrive in less than a month. Maybe I could get some for myself? Go into the candy business? No... that wouldn't work. I would eventually eat all the chocolate before I sold it all.

The door to the broom closet swung open as Sawbones appeared with his mechanical claw holding a Sparkle Cola in front of me. I gave a slight nod and thankfully took it from him. The carrot flavored fluid felt good in my stomach. Whatever the original ponies made this drink with did a hell of a good job.

"Thanks Sawbones," I said taking slow drinks from the bottle.

The robot's one orange eye then produced the thin line again that swept back and forth across me before it faded and he asked,

"Quantum, how do you feel?"

"Like I was thrown into a rock crusher," I answered sneezing on the robot before I had the chance to change course.

"Quantum do you even know what a rock crusher looks like?" he added as he used the end of his clawed hand to wipe some of the glowing green mucus from his aluminum shell.

"No, but I have the basic idea. Its a big machine that crushes rocks," I said giving him a slight grin.

The robot was silent for a long second before he continued with,

"You currently have a case of acute viral nasopharyngitis."

I gave him a blank look that should have indicated that big words are not good for Quantum.

"A cold Quantum. You have a cold."

"Oh. Why didn't you just say so?" I asked getting up onto my shaking hooves.

"I did. My recommendation, don't do anything stupid for a while. Take a break."

"A break?" I balked.

Turning to look at Sawbones I noticed that he was serious. Well, as serious as a robot like him could display. He didn't do emotions very well. I knew that he could fake that kind of emotion through voice but not actual expression. I coughed and rasped,

"Three days into the Wasteland and I need to take a break? Sorry Sawbones, but no. I have to find Beanie and...,"

"And then what?" he interrupted.

I hadn't thought of that. The typical mindset for a Stable 37 worker was to take priority of time as well as their own work. PipBuck Technicians were always working to make sure that every pony who had a PipBuck had their software up to date. Stable 37 had at least ten or so PipBuck Technicians with how many times a PipBuck from one of the several thousand ponies failed and needed to be fixed. They had to worry about the next week.

Stable 37 Teachers had to worry about the past so that, when we eventually went up to the surface, we would know what went wrong and what to do so that we would prevent something like that from ever happening again. They did a decent enough job with that even if I never actually took part in those classes because I went to tech school and graduated to be a maintenance pony.

The Maintenance Ponies of Stable 37 had one priority; Now. That was the traditional mindset. We didn't think about what would happen later, we cared about what would happen now if we didn't get our job done. The Electricians and the Waste Management ponies knew that all too well. Oh, I forgot to throw in Atmospheric Processing. Those were the main three jobs that needed that idea hammered into our heads because, if we didn't, our job wouldn't get done or it would be a poor job. Klink-Klank did a shit job of taking priority of now and, as a result, the lighting system failed. Again. Then, when I had to go and see what that noise was, I ended up pulling open a large metal door and my life changed within seconds. All because I was too worried about the repair and not the consequence.

The wise can sometimes be the fool too right?

"You want my advise?" Sawbones said as he floated himself in front of me, "Go over to that one medical booth near the emergency exit. The one with the zebra running it. He might have something that might help with your cold."

"Don't you know that I'm already paranoid about things that I don't make unless I see how its made?" I sneered back at the robot.

"What about that chocolate you keep eating?"\

"Sugar Cinnamon makes it so that everypony could see," I retorted.

"Quantum, trust me on this one. While you were asleep I took a survey of the building and analyzed the potions the zebra made. They're clean."

I rolled my eyes. Fine. I'll throw Sawbones a bone and do it. If it comes back to bite me in the tail, I'm blaming him first.

"Alright Sawbones. Lead the way."

And so he did. We weaved through Foxes and saw many different ponies that weren't hear before. They seemed to be newcomers per say but they had probably been out in the Wasteland their entire lives. Well, except for the one or two Steel Rangers. They always looked the same with their heavy metal suits on. There were also a dozen or so ponies with large cowboy hats and old leather jackets that wandered Foxes as they looked for food, bullets, or things of the like. They obviously weren't from Detrot. They were shivering so much that I thought that they would shake themselves into little pieces. Everypony else who was a Detrot native was walking around with minimal armor and not even paying the cold much attention. I guess that this was Detrot's way of getting rid of the weak. It was sort of like Hoofington with this stuff that DJ-Pon3 calls Enervation that supposedly degraded your healing potions if you didn't use them fast enough.

Yeah right. Like something like that would ever exist. Even if it did, why would anypony want to live there?

Most of the Detrot natives gave the robot mixed looks. Whether they wanted to steal Sawbones or they were just intimidated by the fact that a pony fresh out of a stable could manipulate the internal components of a machine in such a way that he could get it working for himself like a little companion was beyond me. All I know is that Sawbones could probably handle himself in a fight as long as the enemy didn't have any weapon relating to electricity. Like... a Stable 37 Standard Issue Electron Gun that was used primarily by Stable Security, all of the Overmare's associates, the Overmare herself, and the occasional paranoid pony who could afford one.

And no, I did not have one. If I did, I would have remembered to take it with me before I left and most of my injuries would have never happened. I wish I had one though. That would make my life SO much easier right now.

***

A few minutes later we arrived at the potions stand. The zebra who ran it wasn't there though.

"Oh well, we tried," I shrugged as I turned around to leave.

"Not happening Quantum," Sawbones replied as he grabbed the collar of my barding with his claw thingy and forced me to a stop.

I rolled my eyes. A damn robot was telling me what to do? What was he, my doctor? Apparently he was. I'll make sure to work that out of his programming so that it wont bother me later.

The door to the outside behind the stand swung open and the black and white form of a zebra stepped in with a mouthful of seemingly normal looking plants and mushrooms in his mouth. How the hell could mushrooms grow in Detrot? It is way too cold for that right?

The zebra looked at me with a dissatisfied look and spat the cluster of miscellaneous things onto the table in front of me. I cringed a bit as I tried not to question the reason behind a few mushrooms and dead leaves. Logically, a mushroom shouldn't even be able to grow up here. That must mean that he grew it himself or that somepony here was selling mushrooms. Giving me a cross expression, the zebra asked in his strange but slightly fascinating accent,

"Who is this that comes to my store?"

"This is Quantum," Sawbones said as he flopped my hoof around like a rag-doll much to my disagreeing stare, "And I'm Sawbones. We are here to purchase some potions off of you to help his cold."

"A cold?" he asked.

"Yeah," I rasped trying to keep myself from going into a coughing fit.

The zebra raised an eyebrow and gave me a slight smile. For what he was smiling about I hadn't the foggiest.

"How much would a treatment like that cost?" Sawbones asked.

"Hm..." the zebra chucked as he looked at me as he brushed the hair away from his brow.

He then looked at me with his one scarlet eye and his other blue eye that was an identical copy of the ones I have. Wasn't this what the members of Medical back in Stable 37 called "Chimerism"? I could only imagine what this zebra had to deal with growing up in the Wasteland with two different colored eyes. Weird.

"How much are you willing to pay?" the zebra asked as he looked deeper into my blue eyes with his red one.

"Uh...," I droned on as I was totally stunned by what he was doing.

I couldn't move or think. His one eye seemed to look down into me and read me like an open book. He was searching for something I could feel it. But I couldn't think past that point as the zebra continued to stare at me with that one red eye and that unnerving smile.

"Quantum, are you alright?" Sawbones asked as he lifted me up higher in his claw and looked at me better.

"Oh I can assure you, he's fine," the zebra added with a grin. "I'm just seeing what is truly wrong with him."

"Zikar, that's enough!" another voice yelled from outside in that same zebra dialect.

The zebra blinked and I automatically felt like I was going to throw up. A spell of dizziness washed over me and the world spun for a brief moment. Sawbones promptly shook me back into reality. Through the door, another slightly older zebra mare stepped in with a large collection of bags tied to her belt. Zikar stepped back outside to leave me, Sawbones, and the new zebra be.

Yeah you better step out or I'll get Sawbones to tear a hole in your chest with his saw before you even get the chance to do that again.

"Don't mind my son Zikar," the zebra said scowling in the direction Zikar went, "He is not used to the Detrot natives yet and I'm afraid that his red eye is making ponies suspicious."

"Or hypnotizing ponies in Quantum's case," Sawbones added in a fake electronic chuckle.

"Do you want your Hard Drive removed Sawbones?" I growled looking back at him with a stare that would do any Raider proud.

"Please Quantum, even if you could, I have you by the hoof. How could you possibly..." he laughed before he was interrupted by me unscrewing his outer service port and removing a processing unit that controlled his arm movements.

I dropped to the floor and watched Sawbones's arms droop down and then lock up. He glared at me and I glared back.

"Don't do that again Sawbones," I coughed.

"Fine," he sighed as I put the processing unit back into him and his arms worked themselves back to life.

"You have a talent with machines?" the zebra asked curiously.

"Something like that," I answered as I straightened my collar and sleeves.

The zebra looked up and down at me with curiosity. She then said with a warm smile,

"My name is Xerona. What can I do for you Mister Quantum?"

"Its just Quantum."

"Well then... Quantum... what brings you to my shop on this day?"

"Quantum is looking for a treatment for his cold," Sawbones interrupted as his arms reprogrammed themselves.

"A cold you say?" Xerona asked.

"Yeah. Apparently my robot companion is now my mother," I said coldly shooting Sawbones a glare in the process, "That aside, do you have anything for..."

There was a small glass flask of swirling blue and green gunk sitting on the table in front of me. The smell of it was the second thing that hit me and, when it did, I would have honestly preferred fighting the cold naturally and it wasn't even open. If this was a topical solution, then I'm going to change my mind about this whole thing. I don't care if zebras turned out to be an honor code or something, my nose was almost as developed as my ears and they are telling my brain 'No'.

"This should help with your cold feathered one," Xerona smiled as she pushed the flask to me.

"Um... thanks Xerona," I said sheepishly, "but I think I'll pass on it."

"Don't be afraid of what you don't know young pegasus," she answered cryptically, "be afraid of what happens if you don't try."

"I'm Twenty-Three for your information," I replied quickly.

"Quantum you know the saying," Sawbones joined in, "Nothing ventured..."

"Nothing gained, yeah I know."

Then I decided that Sawbones was right and I popped the cork off of the top and tried to ignore the wave of sulfuric stench that flooded out of the bottle. It took all of my strength to keep myself from throwing up and I still had to drink it. With one final look at Sawbones that I hoped would signify total destruction of a specific robot, I took a swig of the bottle.

Screw the strength of all the princesses and all the saints in heaven! If I could think of anything that tasted worse than this I would have forgotten it in an instant and know nothing but the absolutely horrid taste of this potion! I couldn't help myself; I threw up a great deluge of glowing blue-green vomit with specks of glowing red and yellow all in it. My eyes started to water as the combination of both the smell of the vomit and the smell of the potion mixed together and put me on the road on vomiting again.

A road that I, in fact, took.

"Wow," I heard the voice of Zikar say, "I have never seen a pony with a worse gag reflex than yours."

"Zikar, get a mop and clean that up when he's done please?" Xerona asked quietly.

"Holy sweet Celestia and all of the heat of her sun that was foul!" I yelled trying to keep myself from doubling over again.

Sawbones then floated down closer to the floor and his little orange scanning light beamed onto the still half full bottle of potion in my hoof. Something in it must have spooked the robot as he snapped back up to the zebras in a tone of urgency,

"Why are there traces of Nightshade plants in here?! Are you trying to kill him!?"

"Absolutely not," Xerona answered in shock and disgust.

"Our family recipe has always included plants from the Nightshade family in it. It hasn't killed a pony yet. All it does is make it more palatable," Zikar added.

"More palatable my ass!" I shouted back spitting a glob of red into my pile of sickness, "That shit was the worst fucking thing I have ever tasted!"

Oh Celestia and Luna almighty please grant my stomach mercy.

"Were leaving," Sawbones proclaimed in a tone of finality as he once again grabbed me by the collar and dragged me off.

"Have a good day!" Zikar laughed.

"Luna rape you with her horn!" I yelled back shaking my hoof at him in frustration.

I'll get him back for this. Only him. Xerona probably didn't mean to make the potion taste like the worst thing ever but I had an assumption that Zikar was the one that must've poisoned the brew. Even if its the last thing I'll get done before I die, I'll make sure its of me making Zikar lose his lunch and dinner all at once. Then I'll watch and laugh like he did.

"Luna rape you with her horn? That's a new one," Sawbones chuckled as he continued to drag me off to the broom closet, "I might have to use that sometime."

"Don't Sawbones. Your too smart for that."

"And apparently you aren't?"

"Fuck you too."

***

Despite the taste of the zebra potion, it did work after about an hour of sickness that was worse than before I took the potion. Regardless, I put a few of my differences aside about Xerona and paid her the full thirty cap price. The same could not be said about Zikar though. He was a lose cannon that apparently had magical eye powers that I didn't want to deal with at the moment. So I fixed the problem by staying as far away from him as possible while completing my purchase with Xerona. She also gave me a few other non-Nightshade potions as compensation. I took them and promptly made sure that Sawbones got a good look at them before I drank any more zebra made crap. He confirmed that the rest were safe to drink... in moderation.

"Sawbones do you by chance have a special locator that finds specific ponies?" I asked the robot as I sat in front of the broom closet and drank down another one of the zebra potions so they wouldn't get stale with age like Xerona said.

"Why?" the robot answered with a question.

"Well, before I found you, Phantom Wing and I were out looking for a pony by the name of Beanie for his parents. Neither of us had any luck with it."

"Does he have a PipBuck?"

"Probably not."

"Then I can't help you there. I have a PipBuck Tag Identification System but I cant do anything about ponies who didn't have one. Goldenblood, my original owner, had a PipBuck during the last few months of the war and wanted something that was PipBuck compatible. At least, that was what I was put into production with the specific parameters for."

Now I didn't know much about PipBucks, mostly cause I never took one apart and rewired it, but I knew that something like a Tag Finder existed. My one friend in Security named Baton Pass told me that the PipBuck Tagging System was mostly used to find other ponies that you didn't know the exact location of another pony if you had their tag name. In fact, the very same Security Pony who explained this to me had used the very same system to find me after the incident with my parents.

It was a very hard day. Nova and Quasar had a double shift with the stable air talismans and electronic synthesizers all down in the very lowest levels of the stable. Someplace where even the EFS would start to fail and the Tag Identification System would follow with it. This was actually not that uncommon for my family since Nova and Quasar both heads of Maintenance Staff B, the largest staff out of Staffs A through H and something was always going wrong. The night proceeded like any other with only the occasional call from mom to tell me to stay out of the apple storage and from father to tell me to make sure the heating talisman for the showers were working correctly. I never did figure it out, much to his efforts. That thing was probably the only electrical conduit that I never did figure out.

Usually Piled High, my neighbor in Storage Level G, would show up and essentially acted as my babysitter until my real parents came back and then she would return to organizing the extra stuff the stable had lying around. I liked Piled High, she was a nice unicorn with the best apple pancakes anypony could've made. That night she was running a few hours late, which was odd for her. Then, when I was about to go to bed, the door to my "apartment" slid open and a pony walked in with a frayed dark blue coat with a hood over their head. I trotted out half expecting to find Piled High but stopped in my tracks to find that it was another unicorn with a pair of hard, charcoal eyes. Keep in mind that it was simulated night already and the only thing that was easy to tell about the pony was the whites of their eyes.

Unknown to me at the time, that very same pony came to kill me and my family for some reason. Something about "bloodlines and revenge" and other things that I still don't understand. A few hours before, he had sharpened a metal pipe into a spear and stabbed my parents to death with it only a half hour beforehoof. After looking at him blankly for a minute, he grinned and said so coldly and softly that any other normal pony wouldn't hear but me. He said so slowly and so sure of himself,

"The gates will be your undoing."

My only saving grace at that moment in time were my ears being able to pick up the slight movement of the pipe behind his coat. I ran from his attack just as he lashed out with the pipe and ran back into my room to look for anything I could've used to help defend myself. There was nothing. So I did what any sane pegasus would've done and flew up to the ceiling, pulled the grate of the ventilation duct off its framework, and escaped into the vent. Thank Celestia for small favors as the pony with a pipe did not know know to use a Tag Finder himself. What was four or five hours to find me in the vents after the fiasco felt like an eternity for me. After they found me curled up in a ball in a vent and pulled me out, Piled High, Baton Pass, and several other Security Ponies told me that the pony who did this was caught and now in custody. Legally, I became Piled High's colt after that incident.

And I will never forget that one ponies smile...

"Quantum," Sawbones said as he tapped my shoulder with his grabby claw.

"Wha-wut?" I stammered as I tried to pull myself back into reality.

"You were staring off into space for the past ten minutes. Are you alright?"

"Yeah Sawbones. I-I'm fine," I stuttered getting back up to my hooves.

If Sawbones had an actual face rather than a metal casing and four eyes, he would have looked cross. I could just tell.

"What's the plan now?" he asked.

"Plan?" I repeated before it clicked into my mind, "Oh! Plan! Right, right... Um..."

"Do you even have one?"

"Of course I do! Why wouldn't I?" I asked sheepishly.

Probably because I had about two thousand thoughts running through my head at the same time.

"So... lets hear it then," Sawbones chuckled as he crossed two of his four metal forelimbs in front of the one eye that remained focused on me.

Come on universe! Do me a favor for once and give me something to do!

Then my ears twitched to the familiar sound of gunfire. A whole lot of gunfire. Faint and distant there was the heralding cry of an army of guns that seemed to storm up out of nowhere. That meant one of two possible things. The first being that somepony was having fun throwing away good bullets that were worth good caps for no distinct reason and the second being an assault or surprise attack.

All of my caps were on the second option.

"Sawbones. Does your programming include a 'Flight or Fight' response in it?" I asked as I slowly turned my head to the robot.

"No," he answered without thinking, "Why?"

"Because this would be the time that I would remove it from your programming," I answered as I pulled my Double-Barrel Shotgun from my saddlebag and telekinetically loaded two red colored shells into the breach.

"This is the plan? Fight?"

"What else is there to do at this point? I'm open for ideas," I replied as I took to the air and darted towards the symphony of guns.

***

A volley of bullets greeted my arrival to the main door of Foxes Theatre. That and most of the pony vendors who had shops and businesses all of their own. Most held rifles, others held pistols, while most wielded any random objects as a melee weapon. All of them however, were acting as a wall that separated the Wasteland from the semi-civil population in here.

"HOLD UP! FRIENDLY FIRE!" I shouted as I ducked low to the ground and covered my ears with the soft feathers of my wings.

"Seize fire!" Keeper yelled and the gunfire died down for only a second.

I got up and Keeper trotted up towards me with a look mixed with rage and disgust. I tried putting on my most sympathetic smile that I could, but it did nothing to change her expression. She then took her one heavy pistol and hit me so hard on the temple with it that I swore that there were little Phantom Wings flapping around my head silently laughing their victory.

"You bastard!"

"Oi! What did I do now?" I asked while giving myself a vigorous shake in order to try to lose the oncoming headache.

"I knew that there was something up with you! I just knew it! Stable 37 IS in the middle of Appleoosa! Not only that, its full of Steel Rangers!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your some sort of spy sent by the Rangers and you have been fueling them with information needed to take us all out," another plum purple mare with a white mane with little light blue symbols on the ends of her locks added.

"I'm a spy!? What the hell would the Steel Rangers want with a pegasus in the first place? As far as I'm concerned, Steel Rangers are always Earth Ponies!" I retaliated.

"The hell if I know!" Keeper screamed with murderous rage.

The doors to the outside caved in for a second then bounced back into place due to the shier weight of the ponies that were holding it shut. Whatever was trying to get into the door was using some very, very heavy ordinance that scared me more than anything else the Steel Rangers could possibly carry. Then, I thought for a second.

"Are any of the Rangers out there painted with a purple design or the color grey?"

"They're all green damnit!" another pony with an ironically grey coat and a black cowboy hat answered as she fired six shots in rapid sucession from her revolver that she held in her hooves.

"No they're brown, Lever Action!" another mare with a faded yellow coat and a red and blue mane argued as she shoved a long rifle through a crack in the door made specifically for shooting.

"Your colorblind Florana!" Lever Action countered as she reloaded her gun, "You should know this by now!"

"They're green Florana," the plum mare added.

"Green Rangers?" I asked tilting my head and making sure the rifle had enough bullets.

"Elder Whistler's Toledo Contingent," Keeper answered levelly as she went back up to the doors and poked another rifle barrel through, "Though, I don't understand why he would want to deal with Detrot. We don't have any MWT tech for them!"

I facehoofed.

I HAD AN EFS FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE AND WHY WAS I NOT USING IT?!

It is at these moments in my life that I actually scare myself with how much of an idiot I am. The only reason why I would turn it off was to go to sleep because I didn't want to hear it anymore. Now that I was awake, I should turn it back on right? Compensating with the deactivated advantage giver, I turned the EFS back on and immediately the outer edges of the EFS exploded with red and the ring closest to the center exploded with yellow with only a few scattered targets of both colors in between. Those few targets that went in between did not stay lit for very long.

At this point I should have asked what the MWT was, but it was probably a better idea to figure out what they want and how to get rid of these Rangers before they turn Foxes into a pile of rubble. I leaped into the air and put myself into a hover.

"On my mark, open the door," I ordered getting into a position that would allow me to take off in air.

"Are you fucking mad!?" Lever Action yelled back as she tried pulling a sliver of concrete shrapnel from out of her one hoof and reloading her gun at the same time.

"You heard him!" Keeper hollered in authority.

With a low rumble from all of the other ponies holding the doors in place, they too positioned themselves in such a way that one door would swing open for only a few seconds. I grit my teeth. Was I really going to take on a mess of Steel Rangers just to prove that I wasn't a spy? Everything about this was a bad idea. Maybe there was another way. Maybe there was something else I missed.

When I glanced down at the ground there was the frightened and tearful face of Cherry Bud as she held a sharpened piece of rebar in her mouth and a rusted pistol in her magic. That gun should've been my Whinnychester, not some poor excuse for weaponry! Her big blue eyes looked up at me and I could read the acceptation of defeat in her face. The acceptation of failure.

The acceptation that a certain white pegasus once had as he held a broken piece of sharpened pipe in his mouth and asked why somepony would kill his parents... with those same blue eyes...

"NOW!"

The door swung open and, along with the typical rush of snow and cold air, a series of bright yellow and orange flashes accompanied by the steady percussion of firing guns and bigger pieces of artillery burst through. The smell of cooked flesh and sulfur hit me like a speeding pegasus. Now, however, was not the time to recognize that fact.

Today, I was not an Electrician.

Today, I was a Security Pony.

And, like a Security Pony back at my stable once said,

"Security Saves Ponies."

Today, that was exactly what I was going to do. Save Foxes. And with a cry of war, I shot through the door and straight up into the sky.

Chapter IX - The Horseman of War

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Then the red pony went out and was then granted to take peace away from Equestria.

Dance. Flying is normally an elegant dance where your partner is the wind. The wind is typically a calm breeze that is easy to manipulate with a few flaps of the wings and even easier to navigate even in something that amounts to a storm. Stable 37 never had storms though and the only real chance I got at flying in harsh conditions was when I was allowed to check the internal components of a air purification talisman and even so the wind was only a fraction of a real thunderstorm's. When I stepped out into the vast, open environment of Detrot, the air seemed to be very much the same, if not a bit colder and littered with more things that want to shot me. There was still the feeling of freedom that came with that type of flying that only few ponies can truly understand as well as the average pegasus (if there were still any around to enjoy it with). With that being said, it would be rather easy to assume that I have never been in a storm of any kind before.

Especially if its a storm of bullets.

That was an issue I ignored. There was more rage welled up in me that all rational parts of my brain were cast aside and only one thing remained.

Kill the Steel Bastards.

At least half of them looked up to see the bright white figure of tormenting anger that soared into the sky at a pace that astounded them.

"They have a pegasus?" they all seemed to think as they looked up. "Where did they find one of them?"

The other half then took notice and pointed their guns up into the air.

"He's an enemy damnit!" the others seemed to think. "Kill him!"

I brought the rifle to bare and activated SATS. In that moment of desecrated time, I realized that I did not know which one was the leader. You would think that they would be the most decorated or the most heavily armed out of the rest but they were all in the same color armor with the same set of weapons.

Then there he was.

A massive Steel Ranger with bright, cherry red armor and two massive weapons loaded onto each side. There was an energy weapon on the top of his helmet and on the very beginning of his tail, both pointing in opposite directions. The lenses on his helmet where his eyes would theoretically be were glowing a bright orange with a large black pupil in the center of each. He had claws on his hooves that gleamed a darker red than his armor and an armored tail that had a large spike on the end of it. This was either the leader, or some other division of Steel Ranger. Either way, he had to die like the other greener rangers that he fought with.

Then I toggled as many shots to his chest as possible and released the spell. The blue illusion of slowed time faded away and time crawled back to normal pace as I watched the four bullets spin out of the gun and at the Red Armored Demon. The first bullet curved in the air so much that pinged off of his left ear and didn't make him even flinch. The second bullet skewed off course and missed entirely. The third bullet hit him square in the leg were an imaginary PipBuck would go.

But the fourth bullet stopped right in front of him, frozen in time. Then, it disintegrated into a fine orange dust as the ranger shot it with the energy weapon on his helmet. Slowly he looked up at me and fired a barrage of multicolored death lasers. Of course, being the pegasus that I am, I was able to dodge them with the closest beam grazing my shoulder and burning off of piece of my barding and singing a few of my white feathers.

Lesson learned, energy cannons can shot through Electrician's Barding.

With SATS still being on recharge, I resorted to nothing but luck shots as I tried to distract the ranger until I came up with some sort of plan. Each bullet that I fired didn't help my brainstorming as they all stopped just in front of him and clattered to the ground as if it was child's play to the machine. When SATS finally recharged, I landed and pulled out the double barrel shotgun and getting up close and personal with the ranger. Lets see if he could stop a shower of pellets just as good as bullets. I popped SATS and fired the two shells I had at the ranger and watching in horror that he, in fact, can stop pellets as good as bullets.

"What's the matter Tribal Fuck? Can't hit me?" The Ranger chuckled through great speakers built into his armor as he unleashed a deluge of fire from his side guns at me.

"What the hell!?" I yelped as I jumped back before the fires caught on my barding and turned me into a crisp.

Of course the biggest, most bad ass Steel Ranger had to have flamethrowers. Because nothing says destruction and death better than flamethrowers. His range of fire was bad but whatever field he could cover was too dangerous to traverse without a set of Steel Ranger armor. While the other Toledo Rangers were fighting, I had somehow called down a one-on-one match with a ranger who seemed to not belong with the others.

Taking shelter behind a piece of snowy concrete, I reloaded the shotgun and loaded a few bullets into the rifle. I'd doubt that the Whinnychesters would do a damn justice at this point. At this point, my best guess would to be to get the element of surprise back again and try something else. I do remember seeing a few exposed wired and weakened metal plating on his side. If I could get myself into a position where I would be able to plug my RHT into a port on the Steel Ranger then maybe I could hack him and shut the armor off entirely. That however, would imply that I had the element of surprise back. Finding a pegasus in the sky, especially if he has a white coat, purple barding, blue and black hair, and a pair of dark blue eyes, would not be hard for the Steel Ranger and I am not easily forgotten.

Damn. I was in knee deep in this one.

Then some bits of the concrete exploded. My guess that it was stray cannon fire. Either way,

"FUCK!" I howled as at least a two inch splinter of stone slammed into my left wing and other small bits of shrapnel raked across the other as it successfully raked a whole clump of feathers off.

I staggered to the ground in pain as my body began to recognize that I was in a war zone. A small pool of blood started to form around my wings and back legs. They didn't escape the beating either. Instinctually, I pulled the splinter out and chugged down a Healing Potion. The gash didn't close but some of the bleeding stopped for a moment. I followed up with another one and was now considering a Hydra when that Healing Potion did less than what the first one did to the wound.

"Well, there goes my element," I hissed through gritted teeth.

Then a pair of hooves wrapped around my throat, choking me for a brief second. The great metal hooves of the ranger drug me up into the air and put me at eye level with him. His orange eyes flared with the fury of the sun but with a surprising amount of control that I couldn't even imagine. He looked at me with a long and angry stare.

Then he balked and dropped me from his grip.

"You are... not like the others," he said slowly.

"Thanks for noticing. If your going to kill me, please don't drag it out," I coughed trying to get some essence of oxygen back into my lungs.

He blinked and turned his flamethrowers upwards and away from me as he adopted another, more gentle, tone.

"I am known as War."

War? What the hell kind of name is "War"?

"Famine has told me about you. The white pegasus with blue eyes and a purple coat. I can see now what she means," War said as he looked back down at me.

"Oh yeah," I challenged, "Is it a good thing that Famine knows me or not?"

"That all depends on who your asking."

From only a few feet in front of me, I could hear the energy weapon on War's helmet start to hum as it charged itself.

"Well I'm asking you War. So is it a good thing that Famine knows me when I haven't even seen her?" I questioned trying desperately to get back to my hooves before War did anything creative.

War mulled the question over for a second before he said in a low, sure voice,

"You are the one Famine and Pestilence both fear. You never go hungry and you never get sick. Evading the effects of one is normal, but evading them both at the same time is another thing entirely. If you were only a problem for Famine, then I wouldn't worry so much about you and possibly let you live," War paused for a second as he knelled down beside me and whispered, "Pestilence is the one that wants you dead, not me."

"Funny. I'm making enemies with ponies I haven't even meet yet. That's a first," I replied sarcastically.

"I however, respect you and that is something that you should keep to yourself and yourself only."

War then turned his head and showed me a flat metal plate jammed under his right ear and between the targeting piece of the laser weapon on his head. It was a simple metal piece with a series of black curves and lines all arranged in an elegant, geometric pattern. At first glance I took it as a piece of shrapnel that slammed into his helmet one day and got charred with age and... well... war, but another look at it showed that the black lines that covered the metal all started moving and twisting around forming other shapes and other patterns. War lifted his hooves, took the metal off of his helmet and set it down in front of me.

"I respect you enough to know that underestimating you is a very bad idea that would probably result in my own death. I treasure my own life and I do so hope that you do too Stable Dweller. But I must warn you. Whether you like it or not, you will meet the other two Horsemen and they will not be as forgiving and understanding as me. And the Horseman of Death will try everything in her power to kill you beforehoof."

"Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. Anything else War?"

"Stay out sight of the orange eyes."

War then took a step back and vanished into thin air as if he was nothing but a sick daydream. His metal plate though, did not vanish with him.

That didn't matter. I was tired and aching from blood loss and the constant explosions did not help much either.

"Alright War," I said to myself as I looked at the metal with resentment and curiosity, "What did you give me now?"

Slowly I inched my way to the metal piece. It was only a few feet away, but it felt like miles rather than feet. I did eventually grab it. The metal was lightweight, but thick with a sense of delicate precision being put into its creation. The plate itself was not smooth. More rather it was grooved around the edges like one of the old bits we used for trade back in Stable 37.

"What the fuck is this thing?"

Upon the ending of the word "thing", the metal piece suddenly turned red with heat. I dropped it and it fell to the ground making the old stonework and concrete smoke from mere contact with the metal. The metal then floated into the air, shining brighter than any light bulb I've ever worked with. It was blinding, so much so that the fighting all around stopped for a second to see what was going on. All of the Steel Rangers and all of the ponies from Foxes Theatre all paused to watch something they have never seen before happen to a pony they only know by a few good acts and many other strange rumors.

Then, when the metal plate cooled down and turned to a midnight black with a thick grey edge around it in the shape of a flat rectangle with a circular top, it floated over to my one shoulder with the missing bit of barding and placed itself on it. The metal curved in place with my leg and a thick, black strap wrapped around from each side and neatly met back up with itself making a firm bond all around. The strap tightened a bit and a surge of exhaustion washed over me like a great flood. I couldn't get up, even if I wanted to.

Then several of the Steel Rangers trotted up and surrounded me in a circle with a few of the Fox Ponies dispersed between them. They watched for a long second that seemed to last forever. Keeper then walked up to me and lifted me off the ground in her telekinetic hold. I couldn't hear what she said to the Steel Rangers as my hearing failed me again. One of the Steel Rangers nodded and departed with the others as if nothing ever happened.

They never even bothered to clear up the dead.

The other ponies however, did just so.

The world fell away in a vision of black.

***

I awoke to the sensation of something being pulled from out of my right hoof. I lay in a bed only lightly stained with blood in a room that smelled of blood and vomit. The smell was pungent enough that I was worried if I was to vomit myself in response. Every muscle in my body ached and every bone felt like it was broken along with them. My teeth even felt broken. What was I even thinking? Running into battle against heavily armed fighters and massive numbers without a plan and without any backup. Who does that?!

Well... maybe the bad ass Stable Dweller who could probably make Steel Rangers piss themselves just by looking at them. Or Security who can just tell them whose boss and become the leader of a group of Steel Rangers in ten seconds flat.

Not me of course. I was just an Electrician who was in over his head. Damn I can be stupid sometimes.

The door opened and two earth ponies in whitish lab coats walked in.

"Are you alright Quantum?" The one female earth pony with a blue-green coat, purple mane, and silvery eyes asked softly.

"I feel like every bone is my body is broken, my guts are made of jelly, my ears feel a hundred times heavier than usual, and I'm thirsty," I chuckled back trying to hide the pain and make it less obvious.

"That's normal for being thrown into a symphony of explosions and playing around with the most dangerous group of ponies ever to be created."

Keeper then tapped her hoof on the already open door and asked with a slight bit of attempted humor,

"Is the white pegasus awake?"

"Present," I coughed.

Keeper walked in and signaled the two ponies in lab coats to wait outside and close the door behind them. They did without question and soon I was alone with the pony whose job was to protect Foxes from any threats possible. She thought I was a spy. I couldn't blame her. I came out of the ground out of random and found a griffin who apparently thought of me as her master when I defeated her therefore giving me easy access into Foxes. Too easy of access for for any other pony who wasn't looking for trouble. And I was just such a pony who would look like they would be looking for trouble. Apparently due to the fact that I had wings and this Enclave thing.

Great. I found myself, once again, being the idiot and not asking about what the Enclave was (or is by the sound of it) earlier. I was, in fact, going to ask that question but Keeper stopped me thinking that I was going to say something else and answered with,

"No. You don't need to say it. You didn't lead the Steel Rangers here. It was selfish thinking on my part."

I paused, contemplating and formulating my next few words very carefully in order to keep me our of Keeper's radar.

"Its alright Keeper. At least I took care of War for you."

"War?" Keeper asked quizzically with a cock of her head, "Who's War?"

"You know, the big red Steel Ranger with the flamethrowers that can stop bullets before they hit him," I explained half expecting War to have just slipped Keeper's mind for a second, "Did you see the fires?"

"Quantum, that was a Steel Ranger Flamer Unit. The Toledo Rangers always send at least three of those our way. We managed to rid them of only one and none of them identified themselves as 'War' when we checked their tags on your PipBuck."

My mind snapped.

"You used my PipBuck while I was out?!"

"We had to check your scanner thingy to make sure no other ponies were coming our way. We had to make sure all of the Steel Rangers got the idea that you were the one in their way if they try something stupid like that again. By now, I could imagine Elder Whistler shitting himself when he got the news of you."

Brilliant. Not only did DJ-Pon3 project me over the radio as some sort of super pony, but now I have made enemies with ponies I haven't even met yet. At this point, other than Phantom Wing, Sawbones, and a few ponies from Foxes, I have made good ties with Iron Melody and maybe War. If War even existed.

"What about the bullet stopping thing? You must've seen that right?"

"Steel Rangers can't be unicorns. It's just not..."

"But he wasn't a unicorn!" I snapped in irritation completely interrupting Keeper, "He was a big, red Steel Ranger with blades all over him! How could you not see him?!"

Keeper looked like she wanted to either plant a bullet into my head or shudder off into a corner and hide like a scared foal. My gaze softened and all of the anger that I didn't get out seemed to have melted away. Taking a breath I said softly,

"Sorry Keeper. I forgot that this a big deal."

Keeper gathered as much of her composure as possible and nodded in acceptance. She walked over to the foot of the bed and the maroon pony reached into her saddlebag and pulled something out of it. It was wrapped with what appeared to be old newspapers and other random scraps of junk. There was also a letter tied to the tip of it. She set the package on the bed and turned to leave. I watched the battle scarred pony with light armor trot out. Then, only a few seconds later a familiar griffin and a familiar robot floated into the room both hovering in the air on their versions of flying equipment. I sat back up onto my haunches in response to the visit.

I could tell that Sawbones kept himself busy while the fight was going. Keeper probably had him guarding the entrance or something like that. It could very well be possible that he was also helping deliver medical aid and field medicine too while I wasn't paying attention and dealing with War. He had a few new scratches and dents as evidence and I could tell that he used his flamegun more than once.

Phantom Wing looked more shaken than anything. I don't know where this "Griffinstone" is or how the griffins there think, but I guess she didn't like it there anymore or something. She had a few patches of grey feathers missing from her arms and wings showing that she saw some action very recently too. A deep cut ran across her face and just under her left eye, almost taking her eye out. I couldn't even imagine a griffin with a missing eye like that would even look like.

Probably pretty awesome now that I thought about it.

The griffin sat down on the bed next to me and let out a breath. It sounded labored, like she had been flying for an extended period of time.

"What's the reason?" I asked breaking the silence that annoyed me too much.

Phantom Wing turned her head and a small tear ran down her eye. She wiped if off with a talon.

"I just couldn't abandon my friend," she answered so quietly that only my supersonic hearing made it at all possible for me to hear her, "When I heard that the Toledo Rangers were attacking Foxes, I knew that you were going to be on the front lines trying to fight them off."

She shook her head.

"Dumbass."

"I missed you too Phantom," I added as I wrapped my hooves around her in a hug.

She tensed for a second. Probably due to the nature of how I was expressing my emotions to her. That and that she was probably still thinking about the "silver scarf means slave" rule that she explained to me yesterday. Realizing that the hug was making her uncomfortable, I let go my face blushing and turning to a slightly warmer temperature all the while.

"Sorry Phantom," I said wearily, "I forgot about the whole..."

She stopped me by giving a hard slap to the back that send me off of the bed and onto the floor. I got up, brushed some of the dust off, and looked back at the mischievous griffin. She crossed her arms and said,

"Sorry. Had to do that out of principal."

First it stared out as a slight chuckle for me. Then from her. Then somehow Sawbones joined in with a chuckle of his own. Then it gradually turned to laughter. We laughed through the pain and the experiences (Sawbones probably did it because we were). We laughed through the events of the past and the things we have seen. We laughed as friends.

A dysfunctional group of friends.

"So," Sawbones said inquisitively finally taking a part of the conversation, "Did you open up Keeper's gift yet?"

"No. No not yet," I answered as I floated the little present with the purple telekinetic sheath of my magic.

I examined the gift for a second. It wasn't very tall or wide and seemed to have evidence of some sort of obscure shape that did not match any basic geometric shape that I could think of.

A cylinder? No.

A cone? No, not a cone.

Maybe a hemisphere? No... its too tall to be one without a wider base.

Wanting to know more about the little thing that Keeper got me, I plucked the note off and opened it.

To Quantum,

Thank you for stopping the Steel Rangers. I owe you one. If you need a favor just ask. Same goes for Cherry Bud, who is equally grateful. Best of luck always.

- Keeper

I set the note aside. Grabbing some of the paper with my wings, I tore the wrapping away with anticipation. It wasn't any sort of can or other object that was common around Foxes.

It was a small statue.

A statue of a purple pony with darker purple hair and a magenta stripe running through it greeted me. She was standing in mid-trot with a small smile that made me put one on in response. Her cutie mark was of a magenta star with several smaller white stars surrounding each of the star's vertices. The figure stood on a dark brown wood base that hasn't yet become the victim of old age. There were no obvious scrapes and dents. The figure was in prime condition.

Using my magic to brush a little of the dust away and found some golden colored engraving in the wood. It proclaimed boldly,

"Be Smart!"

It was after reading the engraving that I felt the cobwebs of my brain being brushed away making room for more, clearer, thoughts. The things that I studied back in my stable seemed mere foal's play now. I could calculate and process dozens upon dozens of results with what felt like a comforting ease. Whatever this statue did, it made me even smarter than I could have thought before. Hell, at this point, I would even think I was as smart as the Overmare!

"Be Smart huh?" Phantom Wing said grabbing the statue out of my magic field, "You definitely need that."

"At this point, I think that it would be wise to agree," Sawbones added as he too got a look at the statue before I grabbed it and set it in my saddlebag.

"At this point I have to agree," I uttered mockingly as I stuck my tongue out at the robot and griffin.

No respect. I saved Foxes from a tirade of Steel Rangers and I get no respect.

I probably deserved it though.

***

The wind and snow whipped across the barren streets at what seemed like an unstoppable rate. According to my PipBuck, it wasn't even winter in the Wasteland. Ever since I left the stable I thought that it emerged in the middle of the snow season but after a week I found out that it in fact should be summer... Or whatever summer was in the Wasteland. Finding this very odd, I looked in the "Why is the Weather so Bad" section in Detrot's Wasteland Survival Guide.

Apparently due west of here was another city called "Manehattan", one of the main targets of the zebra's Balefire Warheads. The bomb was a two stage weapon; The first charge was to be detonated on the ground and the second was to be detonated in midair. The second charge wasn't as powerful as the main charge but, as far as I could see from the Guide, radiation spreads farther and faster in air, covering more of an area quicker than your typical single charge megaspell. Upon secondary detonation the radioactive cloud was picked up by atmospheric winds and spread all over Equestria.

More specifically, all over Detrot.

Another deadly thing about atmospheric radiation was that it takes more than double the time to decay than normal, ground radiation. This therefore makes that particular section of clouds inhospitable to anything with wings and thus pegasi. The group known and refereed to as the Grand Pegasus Enclave have abandoned any sort of attempts of settling in areas above Detrot as the radiation is strong enough to get them killed within a matter of hours. As of now the cloud cover above is more sporadic than most other places in the Wasteland, being described as "One of the coldest places in all the Wasteland. In fact, it could very well be the coldest place in the Wasteland.".

I had no idea what was wrong though. The snow was sweeping across my face and for some reason I wasn't cold. Taking off my black overcoat and saddlebag, I found that it was still as warm as it was when I wore it. Then, off came the outer layer of my electricity proof suit and the belts and straps that went with it. Still warm. Then I shrugged the final, bright yellow undershirt and it was still a rather tolerable temperature. At this point, I should be a Quantumsicle.

Then I remembered the about the crown. Of course the crown was keeping me warm. It could soak up radiation, make me shoot rainbow colored sludge out of my nose when I take a Hydra, turn all of my body fluids into what amounts to the stuff in glow sticks, and now it can keep me warm in the cold climate of Detrot. Oh well... advantages, unexpected or not, are better than nothing. Especially out in the Wasteland.

A little alert came up on my EFS as a yellow bar appeared in front of me. I put the barding and belts back on as quick as I could and flew over to where the bar originated from. Over the cry of the wind and snow, I could hear a pony yell,

"Mamma! Mamma where are you?"

Oh please don't let it be a foal. If there was any bit of mercy in the Wasteland left, let that not be a foal.

Picking up speed, I took to the air and looked around at where the bar should be. The visibility was shit in the air and the only reason why I still had a relative idea of where the pony is was because of the EFS. There was a small mote of white light that shined through the furious snowstorm. I banked towards it and found that it was, indeed, a filly. Snapping my wings shut, I landed next to her and held her close to me with a wing. She was shivering; a few minutes longer out here and she would have probably froze to death. She looked up to me with a pair of teary teal eyes and forced a small smile on her face before sobbing into my chest.

"Monsters!" she said through a combination of coughs and labored sobs, "Monsters everywhere!"

She finally took notice of my wings and blinked with drops of sorrow streaming down her face and mixing with the snow.

"A-are you real?" she asked softly.

"I'm real," I answered holding her closer, "I'm as real as you."

***

The filly sat outside with me after she calmed down a bit. I gave her my coat for her to curl up in and she gave me an old silver bit for my troubles. The filly didn't seem to have anything else on her but the surprisingly shinny bit. I guess that bit was all she had. When I told her that it was okay for her to keep it, she shook her head and gave it to me anyways. At that point I didn't want to argue. She made up her mind.

More than once she looked through my saddlebag to find anything to eat, but I told her that I had nothing of actual value. I did giver her a RadAway and a RadX for good measure. I had no idea how much radiation the snow carried with it and it wasn't like I would need radiation purging medicine anymore anyways now that I had a crown that was apparently powered by the stuff. The filly drank it eagerly.

"So...," I said looking at the pony from the snow, "What's your name?"

The dusty blond coated, scarlet maned, teal eyed filly unicorn looked away from her orange medicine and at me with wide, sad eyes. After a soft hiccup, she responded with,

"Seam Stitch."

"I'm Quantum," I said softly as I pulled her closer with a wing.

"Quantum? That's an odd name," she added with a tiny chuckle.

Seam Stitch sniffed and then asked,

"Have you seen my mama? Her name is Landfall. She's green and white and black. About your size but...," Seam Stitch paused.

"But what?" I asked with a little smile.

"Not as big as you."

Great. Now a filly was calling me fat?! I swear that if I ever had kids and they called me fat that I would beat the living shit out of them.

"I'm not fat!" I answered brushing my hoof through my exposed feathers, "I'm just... insulated that's all."

The filly poked my open wing and then back at my waist. She thought for a second and then laughed.

"Oi! I'm not fat! I'm fluffy! One big white fluffy pegasus!"

That seemed to make her burst out into even more laughter as she rolled on the snow covered ground and turning my overcoat she wore from a midnight black to a greyish white.

"So you want to play that game huh?" I asked raising an eyebrow and putting on as mischievous of a smile as possible.

Seam's eyes went wide. Then, faster than she could've thought possible, I sprung up from my seat and tackled the filly to the ground. She tried to resist my strength but there has not been a skill strong enough to withstand the powers of feathery wings on a ticklish pony. She twitched and jerked on the ground as she laughed so hard that the filly was very near the point of crying. Seam Stitch then gathered as much focus as possible and lifted me off the ground with her telekinesis for just a second. That was enough time for her to recover and get back to her hooves. When her magic faded and I dropped to the ground, she responded by running around trying to escape from the wrath of left wing and right wing.

"Oi! Don't think for a second that I'm through with you!" I laughed as I too took off after her.

"AH! The white and blue chicken is after me!"

"Oh now you've done it!"

Spinning on my hooves I found where the little yellow bar on my EFS was pointed and galloped. She was fast, damned fast. But it is a known fact that pegasi are faster than unicorns in terms of running and, of course, flying. Seam Stitch wasn't going to get very far very quickly if I kept up my pace and followed the all powerful navigational perfection of the EFS.

The yellow bar directly in front of me then stopped. Now was the perfect time to charge. I lowered my center of gravity and went into a full frontal, full force charge. My heart thundered in my ears and my great pegasus lungs sucked in breaths of cold, Detrot air as I powered towards the yellow bar. Within seconds, I slammed into the target and went rolling only coming to a stop at the foot of a curb.

"That'll teach you to tempt..." I said triumphantly before stopping myself cold.

It was not the filly. It wasn't even of the same age bracket. The mare... no... stallion looked up at me with a single red eye through his mess of green mane. He wore an old, grey hoodie with a tear that allowed his horn to protrude through and several bits of repairs in the form of patchwork. The pony had many obvious scars on his orange coat that made an interesting combination of both old and new injuries.

"My... patience...?" I mumbled weakly as I looked around for where the filly had gone, but she was nowhere to be found.

As I stood above him I felt him shake and quiver. Not from the cold, by now I could tell the difference. It was from fear. The pony pined below me was frozen in a state of absolute terror. I knew that felling of fear all too well because he was acting nearly the exact same way that I was when a Steel Ranger took my ear off with a bullet and was when I was being fired upon by all sides. It was only when Phantom pulled me out of the parallel universe of fear that I was in before I could tell what was going on and how to solve the problem. Right now, this pony was no different.

"Please...," the pony rasped, "d-don't kill me."

"Why would I..." I began before I stopped myself short and remembering that I was the one that came out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground for no apparent reason.

I got up off of him, helped him back up to his hooves, and brushed a bit of the snow off of his coat. Taking the time to glance around, I noticed that the filly named Seam Stitch was still not there and the EFS wasn't picking anypony else up.

"Sorry to ask this, but did you see a filly run out into the snow with a black coat on? About half your size and has a red mane?" I asked as I once again checked my EFS for good measure.

"N-no. I don't think so," he answered still obviously unsure about the white and blue pegasus with purple barding that just tackled him to the ground and is now asking for directions.

"Sorry about that mate," I said holding a hoof out to him, "M'name's Quantum. What's yours?"

The orange pony broke eye contact with me for a second and mumbled something so quietly that I almost didn't pick it up despite my cartoonishly large ears. He looked back at me and then said softly,

"Beanie."

A few indicator lights went off in my head. This was the pony that Phantom Wing and I have been looking all around Detrot for! It was almost four days into our search and I was the one who found him after all of this nonsense with War and the Steel Rangers.

Phantom Wing was going to owe me SO many caps when I bring this pony in.

"Beanie... right," I began as I tried to hold myself together and save my victory dance for when the griffin was forking over the caps we bet, "Well... your parents are looking for you back at Foxes."

"Your from Foxes too?" the pony asked.

"Um... well... no. No I'm not. But I was hired to bring you back to them though."

"You do realize that we are several miles from Foxes in the middle of a Detrot snowstorm right?" Beanie asked as he gave me a hard and scolding look.

My ears folded back. I knew that Seam Stitch was fast, but how did she manage to move several miles in such little time? On a related note, how fast was I going when I went after her?

"Oh... damn," I mumbled to myself.

"Is this type of behavior normal for you Enclave?" Beanie moaned in disgust.

Then, a rage that kept on building deep inside of me suddenly burst like an weakened dam. With every ounce of energy I could summon in such short of a time, I screamed at the top of my lungs,

"I'M NOT ENCLAVE!!"

Chapter X - The Gates of Identity

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"One moment I'm here, the next I'm gone. Is it really magic, or is it an illusion?"

Enclave. For the past few days I have been hearing nothing but strange little bits of information about the group of ponies that go by the same name. Sure I know that they are all pegasi and that they don't give a RadRoaches ass about the ponies down below, but I still don't truly know who and what they are. If they were presumably pegasi, then it would make sense that a random white feathered pegasus that started strutting around Detrot would most likely be Enclave. I mean, it would only make sense if that was the case.

But there was one catch.

"I'm not Enclave Beanie!" I told the orange pony for probably the twenty-third time.

"Then, where are you from? It makes no logical sense that a pegasus like you would be trotting around Detrot like you do?" Beanie answered as he continued along beside me as we weaved through the Detrot ruins.

"I'm from Stable 37!"

"You do realize that Stable 37 is not anywhere near here right? It's located around Old Appleoosa and is currently the home to a bunch of Steel Rangers. Everypony knows that."

"Damnit! I'm not a Steel Ranger, I'm not Enclave, and I'm not lying!"

Apparently, according to Beanie, there are several other stables located around the Detrot area. For instance, there was Stable 22 where a pony by the name of Chancer who showed up many years ago before the Detrot weather got as bad as it is now. He, accompanied by another pony named Sandy Hooves, went outside on a dare that they could not survive outside for a month. Beanie did not know all the details of why or for what reason they did that; all he knew was that they, in fact, did not survive the Wasteland after about a week. Not much is known about them after they left. Essentially they disappeared into thin air.

Another strange thing about Detrot that I recently learned from Beanie was that the city itself had a long history of emerging Stable Dwellers. The theory was that it was some sort of massive project put out by Stable-Tec. The idea was that one or two ponies were to leave a stable for a specific amount of time, return, and then record all of what they learned from the outside. That would then allow the Overmares to come up with a better plan on how to adapt to the outside for the eventual release of all the ponies back into the world. By the looks of it though, it never looked like it actually happened. It's a shame really. If more ponies were out here that had the same ideals, then things would be solved quicker and a solution would be found easier.

But, of course, that was never meant to be.

"Really? Well what are you then if not any of them?" Beanie asked looking back at me and raising his one visible eyebrow.

"A. FUCKING. STABLE PONY!" I yelled back in outrage.

Beanie rolled his eyes and it was all I could do to keep myself from tackling him and knocking some sense into him. Preferably by means of a heavy metal shovel.

"Yeah a Stable Pony with a wide variety of weapons, language, and owns a set of armor that would make anypony with a shit ton of caps want to fork them over to you without thinking twice."

A shit ton of caps for a set of Electrician's Barding? I looked down at the purple colored fabric with the wire weaving that surrounded my chest and most of my neck with the yellow undershirt and raised an eyebrow at Beanie myself. Honestly I didn't see the big deal about the suit. Sure it was useful, but the thing about it was that it didn't do much good against bullets and flames. As far as I could tell, the only things it really worked on was your simple flow of electricity and nothing else. The one plate on my shoulder that was given to me from War was there mostly for decoration and the fact that it put itself there by magic. I didn't know if it really did anything.

"What are you talking about? This is just your Standard Issue Electrician's Barding given to every electrical worker in Stable 37. Other than your average Electron Gun or Taser, it's pretty useless."

"And that is why your also part idiot," Beanie said with a slight chuckle.

"Oi! What that hell does that even mean?" I answered in disgust.

"That barding of yours is not made of your standard metals. You know that wiring in it?"

"Yeah."

"It's made out of some of the rarest metal to ever exist. Sure there is only a small amount of it but, under the right conditions, it can be the most powerful substance any idiot like you will ever lay their eyes on."

"So, mister wise-guy, what is this all powerful metal shit that you keep talking about?" I asked giving him the most distasteful, most annoyed look that a pony like me could possibly conceive.

The orange pony rolled his one eye and whispered,

"Do you think I know what its called?"

"HAH! YOU DON'T, DON'T YOU?!"

Then, quicker than any unicorn should be able to move, Beanie put his hoof over my mouth and shushed me. My eyes narrowed at his contact with my face and I was almost tempted to pull a revolver out and give him a good warning shot right next to his one ear. Okay... maybe not his ear, but really, really close to something that would get him off of me.

"Shut the fuck up," he hissed through his teeth as he glanced around, twisting his head around so much that I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with a case of whiplash.

"Roody Herl," I groaned as I tried to say something to him but was rewarded with him pressing his hoof tighter around my mouth.

"Do you know when to shut up?" Beanie growled silently, "Unless those big ass ears of yours are useless, you should be able to hear them."

"Hem oo?"

"The ghouls you moron."

Silence. There was nothing but silence, much to Beanie's fears. Nothing but the sounds of the howling snow and wind mixed with the occasional gunshot or yell from a distance. There was nothing.

Then I heard it. My ears twitched and swiveled around until it honed in on the faint noise of hoofsteps in the snow. It wasn't from a pony. No, the steps it made were to quiet for a pony of even below average weight and height. The fact that the snow wasn't making its distinct crush also told me that it wasn't even a filly. It was some sort of creature rather than a pony. A creature that a pony like Beanie knew about all too well.

In acknowledgement of Beanie's warning, I pushed his hoof off of my mouth with my wing and pulled the shotgun out and made sure that it was loaded. With a flap of my wings I lifted off a few inches from the ground and flew to where the noise came from. Out of all the times that the EFS would have been the most useful, it decided to not register anything and thus left me blind in a whiteout. My heart was thudding in my chest like a drum and my breathing was slowed down to an unnatural pace. Funny, I thought that my breathing was supposed to speed up and at least attempt to keep up with my heart rate.

Then, there it was. The very sight of its raw and grotesque complexion made all the organs in my body turn to cast iron. Its slime coated hide was covered in little flakes of snow that refused to melt on its cold skin made the creature a set of perfect Detrot camouflage. Its muzzle was a foot longer than it should be with curved, hook-like teeth stained yellow with age sticking out of its maw. No mane, no tail, no cutie mark.

Oh. Shit.

"NOPE!" I yelled as I hopped into SATS and cued up to shots at the creature not even waiting for the distinct blue hue of the spell to fully fade in.

Two shots to the head with a shotgun should do it. Even if the attack would cost me all but ten of my Spell Charge I was planning on making the attack worth every bit of charge I needed. When the spell released, I watched the two barrels of the gun light up with orange fire at the same time and two cones of lead pellets spraying out the ends with mesmerizing clarity. But, with all the bits of buckshot fired at the creature at once, when they make contact with its head, all it did was peal skin from its skull to reveal blackened bone.

It was the creature's turn to attack now, and it was pissed. He let out a shrill scream of battle that made me curl to my knees and hold my ears. Blood began dripping onto the snow and the creature's voice began to fade out into pure silence. Well, time to do something a bit more intelligent.

Using the magic in my magic-crown-thingy I picked up the ghoul and drove its head into the deep snow and ran. That didn't stop it for long as, when I glanced back, it had already gotten back up and continued its reckless, suicidal charge. I slung the shotgun back and grabbed grabbed Beanie while injecting another one of the HYDRA potions that the Detrot Steel Rangers gave me. Gradually, I could feel my eardrums form back and soon sound returned to its full horror as the creature still screamed as it charged us. I was too scared to look back and fire.

Beanie on the other hoof, had no such problem. He had a strange assault weapon with a metal drum attached to it and the gun was cackling and banging with the furry of a dragon. Its heavy caliber bullets tore great bloody chunks from the ghoul and sent it staggering to the side. Even with that, it still wasn't enough as soon more ghouls were after us as they pursued their prize of living pony flesh.

"What in Celestia's name are these things?!" I yelled through the madness as I took random shots with the Whinnychesters.

"You haven't seen an Aerico?" Beanie answered with a question as he reloaded his gun with a fresh drum.

"That's an Aerico?!"

"Yeah. Nasty bastards and nearly infuckingpossible to kill."

Then, out of the white, an Aerico leaped from the snow and began to close its distance with Beanie. It was only reflexes and pure adrenaline that allowed me to grab him with my wing and pull him to the side just before the ghoul made a nice snack out of him. When we tried to pick up speed again, another Aerico (or possibly the same one I couldn't really tell) bit me in the tail and ground me to a halt. Beanie didn't notice as he kept on running. Good for him I guess.

The Aerico lunged its mouth onto my shoulder trying to take a bite out of it. He wasn't very successful however as he was stopped War's Metal Plate. The sudden contact with the metal did stop the Aerico and reel back for a second. Which gave me enough time to reach for one of my Whinnychesters and point it just below the creature's mouth. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as if I was in SATS as I pulled the trigger. The hammer of the gun swung forward and struck the firing pin...

And nothing happened! I had forgotten to reload just after I spent every single bullet I had trying to shake the thing off of our tail! A scream wanted to be made, but none could be. I was paralyzed with the sudden realization that I was to die and become one of these things after this one was finished with me. I could see the Aerico's eyes widen in maddened glee as he now knew that his snack couldn't do anything to save itself. It tilted his head back, opened its mouth to reveal those unnatural curved fangs of his, and went to take a bite.

"NO!" I yelled as I gathered all of my strength in my body in order to do anything with this golden weight on my head that would make this thing go away.

Then I felt it again. The feeling of absolute and all consuming pain and torment. It was just the same as what it felt like when I first put the crown on but somehow it felt more controlled rather than a full outburst of magic. My coat flashed from its normal white to its brilliant golden yellow, blinding the Aerico for a very precious second in order for me to get my thoughts back in place. Still though, one second is not enough in the grand scale of the Wasteland and the Aerico recovered once more. With all the strength that I could muster, I pulled together all of the magic I had in order to make a telekinetic spell strong enough to throw the thing off of me.

But that did not happen. Instead, with another powerful burst of yellow magic, the Aerico vaporized right in front of me. Without thinking on what did happen though I got back up and ran to catch back up to Beanie. Even with that one down it didn't take long for another one to show its disgusting self. Before the Aerico got any closer, with a passing glance and a single thought, a bright yellow beam of flight fired from atop my head and struck the Aerico square in the chest. It vaporized just like the one before him. In my vision, a message flashed.

WARNING: NEURO-MAGICAL EXTERNAL PROCESSING UNIT #6 OVERHEATED

>COOL-DOWN ADVISED

If its a cool-down it wants, then now would actually be a good opportunity for the crown. Why? Because all of the Aerico's stopped advancing. With one last glance back I saw a small group of at least seven of those ghouls gathered behind one in the front. Now, I wasn't sure if it was the snow, the sweat, or the tears of pain that was throwing it off, but I swore the ghoul in front had glowing orange eyes that I've seen before.

Eyes very similar to a particular Steel Ranger's...

***

Eventually I did meet back up with Beanie. He was hiding in a building that my PipBuck labeled as "Bell Isle Conservancy" across the Detrot River. At that time, I was more amazed that an entire river like that would be frozen so thick that it was as if you were walking on dirt, but I guess that years of the cold would eventually do that to anything liquid if it stayed in the same place for long enough. However the fact that these Aerico's that were following us did not look like they came from underneath bridges. Not that I would know what an average Aerico would look like anyways, but still. You would likely assume that that they would be more filthy and rotted. The ones that chased us, as much as I hate to admit it, looked young. As if they were recently turned. That thought gave me chills. If by just touching one of these bastards kill you, then why wasn't I turned when the one bit me in the tail and drug me down to the ground?

I have a feeling that War might have something to do with this...

"So," Beanie said as he broke the silence between the two of us, "How did you manage to get away from it?"

It was the first thing he said when we met back up in the Conservancy. It was a stark, empty place with only a metal skeleton remaining as a reminder of a civilization now long dead. I really didn't know what a conservancy was per say but I guessed that it was some sort of a greenhouse type thing like the ones in Stable 37, but slightly bigger. The building had a massive dome that rose up from the ground over-top a flat space where still exposed patches of dirt lay frozen in time unable to bring forth more life to this barren landscape. Some wooden boxes lye in heaps and stacks all across the walls and doors. The strangest thing was that the entire building was free of the dead or the attempting to survive. No Raiders, no Slavers, no Aericos, nothing.

"Lets just say it was magic. Special stable, pegasus pony magic," I answered as I took another small bit of ridiculously overpriced chocolate and bit into it.

SNAP!

"Gaw Uck!" I yelled as I spat something white from my mouth along with a cloud of glowing orange blood.

"Yeah, we'll go with magic," the unicorn retorted.

The chocolate broke a motherfucking tooth! Candy broke my damn tooth! That isn't fair!

"Rut teh uck up!" I yelled in one part anger and one part pain as my white coat around my hoof turned red as I tried to stop the bleeding and praying that somehow the tooth would grow back.

Then, thinking that it was a good idea, I scooped up a bit of snow and packed it into my mouth. That made the pain about a hundred times worse and I immediately spat it out too. Using what little concentration I had, I used a weak telekinetic field to levitate the tooth out of the snow and pack into my mouth. Beanie was kind enough to give me a healing potion which I put drank greedily. Within a few seconds, I could feel the magic heal stuff work its magic and the gums in my mouth closed over the white enamel Incisor. Despite its uses, the potion did not help with the pain. One MedX reduced the pain from a sharp, stabbing sensation to a dull thudding like a percussion line.

"Son of a bitch...," I moaned in pain.

"You know, for the Stable Pony you claim to be, you seem to have a very open dictionary of curses for things. Care to explain?"

"Oi! You try being an electrician for Celestia only knows how many years and not have a colorful book of insults ready to go. Its almost required for anypony in Stable 37 maintenance."

Beanie closed his one viable eye and shook his head. In response, I rolled mine.

"Can you do me a favor and keep watch? I'm going to go scavenge," I asked walking away into a room that lead underground.

"Oh I get to do all the work while you have fun looking for shit? Yeah, no problem Quantum," Beanie snarked back.

Great. Not only am I stuck in a Detrot blizzard with no way of getting through it back to Foxes, but I'm stuck with one of the most stingy ponies in the entire Wasteland. I need this time to think before my shovel says hello to his face.

***

The structure underground the conservancy was much like a stable. Sure some things are missing though. For instance, it wasn't as big, it wasn't as open, it wasn't as technologically advanced, and the lighting was atrocious. Still, it was better than nothing at all. By the looks of how the ducts on the sides of the wall moved and were built, this structure seemed to only be made up of one single floor that stretched out in all directions. So being able to pinpoint where each little RadRoach was on the EFS was much, much easier. Even with the structure's simplicity, it seemed like nothing much would be here.

The hallways of concrete and metal were all crumbling and rusting away. If it wasn't for the snow keeping all of the water frozen, I really couldn't imagine this sub-level to be anything more than a knee deep pool by now. That would imply that the walls wouldn't have disintegrated into nothing by that time. Most of the rooms that were down here were more of living spaces than anything. Ponies with their hides perfectly preserved by the cold became a common sight down here. It made my stomach churn. If this is how the ponies two hundred years ago met their end then I wouldn't...

Wait.

I trotted up to one of the bodies and examined it more closely. The dead mare had soft grey hair and a near teal coat with slightly yellowing teeth. Her clothing was still mostly intact and still looked like it held possible supplies and tools. She was a unicorn, no doubt about that, with a ring pierced into her horn. A horn piercing from where I came from meant that you were a recently married unicorn or somepony who had committed a crime and they just happened to be a unicorn. Those rings were separated by color. Silver was marriage; Bronze was a crime conviction and sentenced punishment. This unicorn had a bronze piercing.

Bronze piercings in Stable 37 were very rare. They were mostly reserved for more of the murder/treason crimes as the government in the stable required full support from everypony in order to stay strong. Treason consisted of illegal seizing of heavy weapons from Security and the intent on using said weapon and deliberate sabotage of vital stable equipment. When a bronze piercing is given, all ponies receive either a letter or some other form of message informing of the name of the pony with the new bronze piercing and the discontinuation of that pony's position in the workforce or government. The only punishment after that would be Death.

The Death Penalty was the most rare of all. There were only two ways to become qualified for death. It was to plot the murder of the Overmare and any one of her government officials, or to try to open the stable door for any reason. Simple as that.

The thing was about this pony I see here now was the fact that she had a piercing. Ponies were never kicked out of the stable because of piercing as they were still useful to society as they could still work in Waste Management. The fact that this pony was out here in the cold made me question the Overmare's authority over Stable 37 just a bit more.

"Ah well," I sighed, "Sorry whoever you are, but I need your stuff a bit more than you do."

I began to pull open the pony's coat and saddlebags to see if there was anything good. Nothing major. Just a few bits of scrap metal, a single bottle cap, and two rifle rounds. Repeating the same thing with the other corpses, I found that they too had some sort of branding indicating punishment in the typical Stable 37 style whether it was a unicorn or not. Same basic loot came from them too with only the occasional extra cap. One of them did have a pair of stainless-steel scissors which I took. By now, I probably needed to get my mane cut shorter. It was on my calendar for tomorrow at home so I'm still following schedule. Technically. All I needed was a mirror.

And, like most bathrooms that were designed by ponies with more common sense than me, there was one in the Stallion's Bathroom. Up until now, this was the first time I could really get a good look at myself as all the other mirrors in Foxes were either broken or missing. This mirror in particular almost reached up to the ceiling and had a large boarder around it with ornate crystals and gems that still somehow shined with life and energy. With one glance at the wall mirror, I found that it was not only intact, but also the sharpest and most clear mirror I have ever seen. Cleaner than any mirror in Stable 37. With it I could see...

"Holy hell," I groaned to myself.

I was a complete mess! My coat around my ears and neck were matted in still glowing blood, my ears themselves are torn at the very tips, whole tufts of feathers were missing from my wings, the Electrician's Barding I wore was all full of holes, and my mane was a completely tangled mess. I looked way worse than I previously imagined. Everything I wore was a shredded ghost of what it was before I entered the Wasteland. All except The Crown of course. Damn crown. Of all the magical things it could do, why couldn't it fix my clothes and ears?

Well, it could at least help with how long my hair was.

Taking the scissors from my bag, I lined up the correct cut that I wanted to make with them on my mane and...

CRACK!

Startled, I dropped the scissors to the ground and pulled a Whinnychester from my belt and was prepared to leap right into SATS. The only reason why I stopped was the fact that I saw the scissors broken into several different pieces on the floor. Holstering the small gun, I lowered my head to the small metal fragments in two parts shock, one part amazement, and several more parts annoyance.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I growled, "I cant even get a haircut with this damn thing on my head?!"

The crown grew a bit brighter as if it wanted to respond. I rolled my eyes at my own reflection.

"Okay so, I cant cut my hair, but I need it out of the way. Any suggestions oh all powerful magical thingy?" I asked up to the artifact as if it was going to give me an answer that I was going to be okay with.

And, like all other inanimate objects that I talked too with the exception of Sawbones, the crown did not give me an answer in the slightest. One day it might give me an answer. At least, that's what I hope.

Then I figured out a way to solve this. Using some of The Crown's telekinetic grip I curled the bangs of my mane up and back into a curve that ended into a sharp point over ears. The light blue stands of hair were all focused in the very front while the jet black hairs were all sectioned behind giving my mane a blade-like appearance. When my hair got to the point where it could stay on its own I looked back at the mirror to find that I looked no longer like the Stable Pony that I was before. I looked like a hardened badass with a short fuse and a strong feedback current.

Okay. Maybe the "badass" part was a little much. I still looked like I could kick some flank Detrot Style. Whatever that style was of course.

UGH! Focus Quantum! Don't develop an ego! Egos are bad for ponies. That's how the world ended. That's what they taught you in school!

"Have no ego, have no problems," I said to myself repeating the age old Stable 37 motto.

I looked back to the mirror and grinned. Maybe I can't have an ego, but I can be proud. After using a duller part of the broken scissors to scrape off some of the blood and other grime off of me, I found that I did still look like a Stable Pony; just one with more experience that's all.

Then, at the peak of all the different emotions flowing through me at once, I sneezed on the mirror spraying an entire glob of glowing mucus all over the finely polished glass. A reflection better than anything anypony has ever seen in the last two hundred years, ruined in less than a decisecond. Well, better clean it up then.

Ripping a small piece of clothing from one of the dead ponies, I closer to the mirror and began to wipe off all of the snot. The process was a lot harder than one would think as the bodily fluids already started freezing to the reflective material and the fact that the cloth itself was pretty dirty to begin with. But, after about a minute, most of the grime was cleaned off and I could once again say that the mirror was the cleanest thing in the Wasteland.

Relatively speaking.

The gems of the mirror's frame then became the new subject of my inherent curiosity. The pristine jewels shown like a constellation of stars like the ones I've seen in old texts and scrolls. All except one though. The small, greenish stone on the very top of the frame stood dark among the rest of its glowing companions. With a light beat of my wings in the frigid air I lifted up to it and touched it with as much care as a mother with their foal.

That is the moment when three things happened all in sequence. First, the inactive gem burst to life and bathed the room in a radiant yellow-green light. Second, an eerie chill ran up my spine. Not a chill you would get from the Detrot winds and snow. No, it was something more unnatural. Alien even. As such, the contact and the change in body temperature zapped my brain back into the reality of "This is the Wasteland and not a dream Quantum," and made me fall from midair and onto my face while effectively making my wings snap closed. The entire room then became covered in a strange and otherworldly cold. It was so cold in fact that I could literally see frost forming on some of the wall fixtures within a matter of seconds. All of that however, did not come anywhere close to the third thing that happened.

I looked in the mirror and saw me. No, not the me that I knew mind you. But rather a more emaciated and battle torn Quantum. I got back up to my hooves and moved cautiously to the reflection. The Quantum in the mirror had a menacing appearance. He still had the Electrician's Barding and the bright yellow undershirt, but he also had not one. Not two. But three metal plates strapped to him in varying places around his front hooves with varying sizes. Automatically, I could recognize War's plate on my left shoulder, but I had no idea who the other ones belonged to.

The other Quantum's hair was the same, if not slightly bloody and very much longer to the degree that it covered his right eye. Same thing applied with the tail cut. As if the mirror Quantum could see me and my utter confusion, he unfolded his wings to reveal that...

They were made of metal! Metal wings! That fact alone make me real back in shock. Why was this Quantum missing his wings?

The mirror Quantum then turned to his side slightly to reveal that, not only did he have metal wings, but he also had the lower part of his back hooves were the knees begin and the hoof ends were prosthetic. And this was the case for BOTH of the back legs too! Two missing wings, two missing legs what next?

Then, with the slowest and most pained movement anypony could make and the saddest look in his eye, the mirror Quantum fixed his hair and displayed a bright, blue robot eye. It was very similar in model and make to Sawbones' camera lenses, but two-and-a-half times bigger and one hundred times more blue. There was no pupil nor iris. There was only a cross hair with a small circle in the middle that gave the illusion of some sort of pupil. That eye looked at me and I could only interperite one thing...

This Quantum wanted me to run. He wanted me to go home and face the possible punishment that I would receive. It would be more merciful than what the future had in store for me out here in the Equestrian Wasteland. This place was going to bring me nothing but pain and suffering in every way shape and form possible.

But then, the mirror Quantum shed a single tear and put on the smallest smile ever worn on a pony. What did it mean? Did it mean that I would face happiness through the horrors? Will I become psychopath? What?

"QUANTUM!" I heard Beanie yell from the building floor above.

"WHAT?!" I yelled back, turning away from the haunting mirror.

"GET THE FUCK UP HERE! WE'VE GOT COMPANY!"

Without a second thought, I loaded in fresh bullets in all of my guns and sprinted out of the door. With one last glance at the mirror, the mirror Quantum was gone and replaced by emptiness.

Like he never even existed...

***

With the forces of both desperation and worry working hoof-in-hoof, I flew through the hallways of the Conservancy's' underground an back up to the snowy grounds outside. Beanie was preoccupied with a group of ponies dressed in ragged, sniped armor and manes coated in nothing but blood. Their demonic grins and their chorus of insane laughter gave rise to one conclusion.

Raiders.

And, unlike the time before that I had faced them, I was ready. More ready than I ever dreamed of being. With a grin of my own curling on my face I levitated the two Whinnychesters in front of me and gave a loud and booming, "Oi" that managed to grab every single Raiders' attention. They turned from their now helpless Beanie and focused all of their priorities on the now more interesting looking pegasus in purple and yellow clothing. The first two Raiders came charging at me just in time for the blue hue of SATS to finish loading up. Two shots to the chest, one to the head for each.

The spell released and the symphonic harmony of exploding gunpowder returned to life. The first Raider went down with a single lucky shot to the head the pierced through skin, skull, and brains through skull and skin again making his head have a perfectly circular hole that I could see through. The Raider slumped down and fell forward like a domino as the second gun continued to fire.

The second Raider took the shots to the his chest rather well considering that they were all Hollow Point .44's. The shot to his head that would normally put anypony down missed him completely and I was soon face to face with the bastard as he tackled me to the ground and down the steps that I was standing above. Apparently, falling down stairs feels like a lot longer of a distance rather that just walking down it normally. And having the luck that I had, the Raider fell right on top of me and proceeded to flail and kick with furry and determination.

"Note to self," I groaned as I strained to keep the maddened pony away from me, "Never fight at the top of a staircase."

The unicorn Raider on top of me bit at my hair and pulled at it making my eyes close and water in pain. What is it with Detrot Raiders and their forms of dirty fighting? With all I knew, he was reading another attack or possibly grabbing one of my own weapons to use against me.

Fine. If he wants a piece of me, then he'll get one. A nice sharp piece of me. With as much force I could gather, I tilted my head forward despite the pain of the Raider pulling at my hair and quickly swung it back. Though I could not see what actually happened, I could tell that when a pony makes a gargling sound, its either crippling or lethal. When the Raider's jaw relaxed and released my hair from its grip. I opened my eyes and looked up at the Raider's skull with a fairly large golden piercing through the bottom of his jaw and into his brain. A few seconds of telekinesis later, the corpse was off my crown and I charged back up to the top of the staircase. When I made it there, Beanie was gone.

"DAMNIT!" I screamed as I threw my guns to the ground.

Why the hell cant I save one pony? ONE! I would think that the Security Mare all the way in the Hoofington Ruins didn't have this very same problem. She was a unicorn according to Watcher when I last saw him. Hell, she could probably use all of her magic to slow down time like she was in SATS and grab all of the ponies with her magic and save them before anything bad happened to them AND stop the bad guys all at once. She sounded like that kind of a badass if she could clear out an entire group of Raiders that were stopping a caravan in one day. Heck, if she was in Detrot right now, she could probably trot around without any armor on and still not get cold or get shot at...

Okay Quantum... dropping that thought out of my brain. You don't even know what she looks like in the first place.

Finding Beanie again will take the skills of a different type of pony. Skills that I do not posses. This job requires the skill of a tracker. A hunter who is experienced in all of the methods of movement, stealth, and concealment.

I need the help of a griffin.

Fallout: Equestria - The Gates to Hell

by Lord Quantus Mechanicus

Read this before the book

Prolauge

Chapter I - The Gates of Stable 37

Chapter II - The Gates of Blood

Chaper III - The Gates to the Soul

Chapter IV - The Griffin's Key

Chapter V - The Gates of Iron

Chapter VI - The Gates of the Artifact

Chapter VII - The Computerized Key

Chapter VIII - The Barricaded Gate

Chapter IX - The Horseman of War

Chapter X - The Gates of Identity