> Fallout Equestria The Onyx Note
>  by SilverHoof1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Infestation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


I sighed, looking on as the overmare made a “motivational” speech to the gloomy and dark stable. She tended to do this every morning, to keep everyone happy and productive in the stable and encourage them to do their jobs. It got boring fast, and it took every ounce of strength in me to keep from falling asleep. Damn, I shouldn’t have left behind my cup of coffee. Wait a celestia ridden second how the heck did I suddenly know exactly what was going on.

I looked frantically around the dim lighted room, trying to recall where the hell I was and how I had gotten there. The little pony in my head suddenly remembered I was in the overmare’s office, and that it was around 4 in the morning I wanted to scream at where the hell I was getting this info, but of course before I could the answer hit me. I was onyx, with all her memories of the past years in this stable.

I calmed down a bit, and took in some of the scattered posters, from before the war. I remembered hearing something about a great war happening, but thinking back I didn’t know exactly what the war was about. Something about Zebra’s and ponies fighting, but not much more. Heck I technically shouldn’t know anything about the war, so I was happy for just that much. Some of the posters showed metal clad ponies, covered from head to tail in battle armor, while some showed a yellow pegasus mare, with three butterflies on her flank.

“Onyx?” I snapped my gaze back onto the overmare, who I remembered being named Crystal, as her timid voice sounded in front of me. She had been the pony nobody really expected to be overseer. Shy, she had fur that looked like pink crystal, shinning barely in the light a light pink. Her mane was like blue crystal, and her eyes a brilliant shade of violet. I didn’t think anyone in the stable thought she wasn’t beautiful, and many had thought she would be a famous singer in the stable. Her GOAT test had surprisingly shown that she had possibility for a management job.

How the job system worked in this stable was a bit wonky. We did a test to see what they thought we would be good at, and give us an option. We also could get our cutiemark, which could also be our career. I remember getting my cutiemark, er Onyx’s, when she had been singing for fun at a party. While singing my flank had glowed for a few seconds, then my cutiemark appeared. I decided I would become a shift manager, because then I could help other ponies and still get to sing.

Crystal had decided too be overmare over her cutiemark, which was a magnifying glass over a piece of glass. She had a talent for making things proper, clean and with making things like glass. She had decided she would make the stable clean and try to keep the troublemakers from causing, well trouble. That hadn’t been going well, and from what she was saying moral was dropping slowly in the stable, as well as social standards. Most of the time all I could expect out of a pony was a grunt, nod, then they would walk away.

“Yes Crystal?” I asked, and she flinched a bit. “Overmare,” I corrected myself, and she smiled a tiny bit. “Could you go around and make sure everyone and everything is holding up? I’ve been getting a lot of complaints,” she explained, and I nodded. She was right, at least from what I had seen. It would be nice to see what was going on that was making everyone so cranky. Like seriously I asked the baker for a muffin and instead she waved a pistol at me. 

“Alright, I’ve been wondering why everyone has seemed so on edge lately,” I intoned, and she nodded. “If I ask anyone they clam up and keep walking, which is a first,” she agreed, and I could see a bit of hurt shimmering in her eyes. I felt bad for her, even though the actual me barely knew her Onyx knew her pretty well. We had grown up together, playing and laughing together, doing the GOAT together. Thinking back the actual me remembered that, Crystal had waved at me before I went up to give my test. In all the time I had known her though, she had never reacted well to people purposefully ignoring her, especially when she didn’t know why. In the past she could go in a corner and tell her problems to me, but now as the overmare she couldn’t deal with her problems like she used too/

True what she did hadn’t been exactly healthy, but this was even less so. Even the dumbest pony in the stable could tell she was majorly stressed out, and from how well I - Onyx, knew her she was close to snapping. The thing I didn’t know though is what would happen when she snapped. Whatever her reaction would be though, it wouldn’t be good.

I quickly checked over my mental list of people who I should check, and settled for first checking with the baker. Her name was Golden crumbs, her fur a golden brown and her mane the color of honey, to her parents it seemed they knew she would become a baker, and they had been right. Out of all the stable residents she always seemed to be cheery, so it was troubling she seemed to be so distraught. Now the only problem was could I get her to tell me what the celestia  was wrong.

Saying my goodbyes to Crystal, I left the overmare’s office and headed down the long hallway. My eyes wandered across the barren, gray walls as I went, taking it in. No wonder moral was down in this place, it looked like a metal coffin. The few posters that were in Crystal’s office must have been the only ones, because everywhere else was just the same placid gray, except for the streaks of yellow running across the walls. I heard a faint beeping coming from my hoof, and confused I looked down at it.

I stopped trotting immediately, the hoof I was looking at in the air as I took in the strange metal contraption plastered onto it. It seemed to be the same metal of the walls, but instead of it being the same gray as the walls it was painted. Onyx had painted it black, adding small blue streaks leading from the screen to a small dot of blue paint she had made on the back. The screen to the strange metal contraption, which I remembered, or onyx remembered, was called a pipbuck, was a turqoise blue which corresponded nicely with her charcoal coat. My charcoal coat. Oh whatever the fur color.

It was currently beeping at me, showing me the map of the stable. I stared at it for a couple seconds, taking it in, and trying to make a path the the bakery section in my mind. Alright, first left, two rights and another left then just straight.. simple enough. I went right instead of left, then immediately went the other way as my pipboy gave an angry beep. Okay maybe I should just keep an eye on the map. Yah probably a good idea. Damnit I could already feel the little pony in my head, who now looked like onyx, taunting me for missing the very first set of directions.

From then on I kept an eye on it, and within a few minutes I got to the baker section, Golden sitting in the corner. Okay now that was weird, she was constantly baking but for some reason she wasn’t getting anywhere close to the oven or counter. I walked behind the counter to great her when a radroach jumped at me, making a hissing noise. “Gah!” I yelped, and brought my hoof down on it, squishing it under my hoof with a sickening crunch. Oh celestia I just killed something. Despite that realization, I didn’t feel bad at all as some green goo began to come out of its crushed shell. Like seriously that was just gross, and threw away any appetite I had into the void.

I heard the click of a… i think it was a hammer action? I whipped my head towards Golden, who was pointing a gun towards me, a look of fear showing in her eyes. Oh bloody horns in my flank she was going to shoot me. Well, she would if I didn’t do something about it. “Calm down, i’m just here to ask why your so worked up,” I said gently, trying to defuse it. Her magic started to sputter a bit, the glow around the gun flickering. “Please calm down, everything is fine,” I said in a soothing sing song voice, surprised with how good I sounded. After a second, the magic went out and the gun clattered to the ground.

Wow, okay that had been tense. I had only been in this world for five minutes and somepony had already pointed a gun at me. I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard quiet sobbing coming from Golden, and I looked up to see her curled up, sobbing. I hesitated, not sure how to respond, before walking forwards and gently resting a hoof on her back, moving it in gentle and small circles. While doing this, my eyes landed on the gun, and the few magazines of ammo she was carrying.

With how messed up she was right now, she might accidentaly shoot a pony who just wants a cake to cheer up their family. That wouldn’t be good, so I should probably take these off her hoofs, for now at least. With that thought, I reached forward and gripped the gun in my mouth, my teeth sinking a bit into the soft leather around the handle. My tongue grazed the metal of the finger guard and I shivered, the cold touch of it surprising me. Looking to the saddlebags that had been strapped onto my flanks before I left, I slipped the gun inside as well as the magazines. 

Okay, so if I did my math correctly I should have around thirty bullets. If I was right and they were all six shot magazines that is. Golden stopped crying after a few more minutes, then proceeded to uncurl and stand up shakily, her eyes red and puffy. I stood up as well, having to catch myself as my legs remembered how to hold my weight again, before looking at golden. “Alright, now that everything is more calm what is wrong?” I questioned, and she gave a visible shudder. 

“A few days ago I saw a radroach crawling over my stove, and like you would any radroach I smushed it,” she said, and I nodded. I had the feeling I knew where this was going. “The next day I saw two of them, one of them had been reasonably large and the other about normal,” she continued, and I looked back at the giant monstrosity I had killed minutes ago. Was that a normal size? If so, what was a big one like? “There continued to be more and more, until the whole kitchen was filled with them,” she moaned, her legs buckling under her as she slumped back down into the corner.

I looked slowly around the whole kitchen, but everywhere I looked it seemed clean and perfect. “Um golden, I don’t see any radroaches,” I pointed out, and she made a sweeping gesture with her hoof.

“They like to hide under the equipment nowadays, like the one that jumped out at you,” she explained, sniffling a bit. I thought about it for a second, then looked down at my hoof, still creamed in green blood, before looking back up and saying, “I am willing to help out, but first.. where is a sink I can wash my hooves at?”

A few minutes later I walked back into the kitchen, clenching the magnum in my teeth. After I had seen the few ticks that had been added to my radiation meter, which I guessed was bad, I had decided smushing them and getting their radioactive blood all over my hoofs would be both gross and harmful. So instead I was planning to shoot them. The gun felt strange in my mouth, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it much. I slowly got down onto the ground till I felt the ground tickling my belly fur, then moved forwards, turning my head from side to side to check for radroaches.

Celestia in the middle of a bukkake she was right. There were practically a hundred radroaches, scampering and hissing under the utilities, seeming to be a family per utility. This was going to be messy.. And probably extremely gross. I took a deep breath, then aimed the barrel of the gun at the radroach, preparing for any recoil the gun might have. Wait a minute, what would happen if I shot a gun in the stable? Would everyone start panicking?

While trapped in my own thoughts, one of the radroaches had noticed me and let out a warning his, which of course I hadn’t heard. I wish I had listened a couple seconds later though, as it sprung at me, letting out a loud hiss of a battle cry as it flung itself towards my face. I shrieked, and using my tongue pulled the cold trigger, watching as the barrel spun and a bullet came out. I hadn’t it expected to be so fast, and in a split second the radroach was just green paste splattered against the bottom of the refrigerator and floor. Of course though, this shot alerted all the other radroaches to me.

I began to back away slowly as they all hissed at once, the sounds blending into a single high, threatening note. “.. Fuck,” I mumbled past the handle of the gun, before turning and galloping away, hearing what sounded like a parade behind me. Turning my head, I saw my earlier count of them had been way off. Their were only 10, but surprisingly those 10 were pretty fast. Although I was slowly crawling ahead of them, they were right on my tail, while I wanted to keep. Of course though I didn’t notice the turn in the wall, and my face crashed against the cold steel wall.

Pain blossomed across my face and I let out a “OOOWW,” as I felt my whole face begin to bruise. Moaning softly in pain, I put a hoof up and rubbed at my face, which didn’t really help but it just felt nice. Wait, why had I been running again? As I felt small hooked limbs close around my tail, I remembered just why. I whipped my head around, and immediately time slowed down to a crawl, leaving me to look as half of the radroaches propelled themselves at me. What the heck was going on?

I glanced at my pipbuck to see it had activated a program called S.A.T.S, or Stable Assisted Targeting Spell. Oh, well that would probably help. Looking back at the giant radroaches, I mentally checked the head of each one of the insects, and also a final check on the one on my tail. The pistol spurred to life along with my body, my teeth quickly clenching down on the hammer trigger to fire shot after shot at each of the radroaches. 

Luckily I had been fairly accurate, and the five radroaches that had been jumping for me landed in a bloody pile on the floor in front of me, heads now scattered across the hallway. Of course though I had only five shots, so when it came to the one on my tail the gun dry fired. Oh crap how was I going to get this thing off my tail!? Oh, wait I know.

The other five were standing back, now wary of me as I simply sat down, squishing the radroach under me. Ewwwww, I would have to shower after this and add a whole bottle of shampoo to my flank. Like seriously, I hope that wouldn’t stain my fur. My hoofs flew to my saddle bag and I quickly reloaded my magnum, S.A.T.S refreshed by then, and put the final five radroaches down with shots to their bodies. Looking around to make sure their were no other sneaky radroaches, I got up, flinching as I felt the goo on my tail and flank come up with me, then began the walk back to Golden Crumbs place. 

She had been fairly grateful to me for getting rid of the radroaches, and even gave me a cake to show. I seriously couldn’t wait to eat that later. I looked at the blood still on my tail and flank, and considered continuing on to the other stable residents.. ooor taking a shower first. The shower idea won, and I began to head back to my room, trying to avoid any other ponies. I didn’t want them to see me with radroach goo all over me, or for their eyes to look at my flank to see said radroach goo. 

I let out a happy sigh as I felt the water begin to cascade down onto my back, washing away the dirt and blood that had collected their. My face was still aching a bit, but I had somehow got out without a bloody nose or any broken facial bones, so I could deal with it. So, in one day I had seen my first radroach, shot my first gun ever, first got a gun pointed a- no wait, police ponies had done that before, but their aim was worse than pontroopers in space wars. I sat down in the small shower, closing my eyes as the water washed my mane, a small smile tickling the corners of my mouth.

A bottle of shampoo and drying later, I was laying down in the main room of my area, looking through a comic. I needed a quick break, and a comic seemed the best way to get that break. Plus it was pretty interesting, and actually gave me a bit more knowledge on firearms. I hoped most of them were real, because they looked really cool. Closing the comic, I sat up and looked around the room, seeing what else I could do. The room was pretty barren, the only thing remotely interesting in it was the tv in the corner, which I promptly turned on.

There was no connection. Of course there was no connection. I glared at the tv screen as all it showed was static, and swore in my mind I would find what was wrong and fix it so I could watch my damned TV. I remembered there actually was a connection area in the vault, and decided I would check their next. Suddenly tired, I decided I had had enough for today, and after a couple seconds I found myself blinking back into the real world, Riptide sleeping next to me. Wait.. I still had all of Onyx’s memories in my head. 

To my own surprise I was actually happy with this. I know had twice the experience as most ponies would, and plus I felt a bit like her, diplomatic, strong, and capable. Although I doubted I would be able to wake up the heaviest sleeper in equestria, who was snoring right next to me. Oh wait, I knew exactly how to do that~

Leaning down, I kissed him on the lips, which like always immediately woke him up as he kissed back. It was like putting a key into a door and turning it, it always worked. Plus it had benefits for both me and Riptide, so neither of us had a problem with it. “Hey sleepy head, what time is it?” I teased, laying down next to him as his hoofs wrapped around me. He chuckled, then replied, “It’s three in the morning, you have been in that game for more than 3 hours,”

“Really? It only felt like fifteen minutes,” I said, a bit shocked. Three hours? Sweet celestia how did I not notice?

I grumbled to myself as I realized most of that time had been from the break I had after the whole radroach thing. The shower had been nice too, and I might have gone a bit longer than usual because I didn’t have to worry about a water bill. At least I think I didn’t. Please don’t tell me there are in game taxes too. My thoughts slowly melted away as Riptide snuggled me against his chest, along with the rest of me. I did my best to return it, but because of the way I was facing I couldn’t get my hooves around him.

I settled for burying my face into his hoofs and curling against him, trying to get as much warmth as possible. Within a minute or two I could feel his chest rise and fall rhythmically as he fell into sleep, and from the yawn I let out I could tell I wasn’t far behind him. I cast a final look up at his calm face, before closing my eyes, letting sleep swamp my senses. This, had been a very interesting day.


> Stereo Pain-io
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


I slowly looked around, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the light. I was back in Onyx’s world, laying down in her bed as the TV blared at the end of the bed. Wait, hadn’t the TV not been working yesterday? Immediately awake, I sat up quickly, staring as the TV faded from static, to the usual shows that would be on this channel. Whenever it was not on static, it was playing… was that a distress signal? I sat a second longer, listening as it went back to the message for a few seconds.

“Please, if anyone hears this come down to the radio center, we need some help down here!”

“What the tartarus is going on?” I mumbled, checking my magnum and magazines. I had wasted about one magazine, and I stared, partly annoyed at the other two. I had quickly learned yesterday that the magazines did not actually go into the gun. Instead, I had to take the bullets out of the magazine and put them into the magazine by hoof, which had been difficult.

My stare turned into a glare, and I half wanted to smash the magazines like I had the radroaches. I knew, annoyingly that that would just decrease my ammo, but taking the ammo out to be loose in my bag was even worse than having them in a hard to use magazine. That had probably been why Golden had them in a magazine, for the exact same reason. I pulled the magnum onto my bed, and checked the loading mechanism. As I remembered there was a small button on the side of the gun, which when pushed pushed the gun-loady-place out to put bullets in.

I pushed the button and it indeed did this, exposing the empty barrel. Oh wait, its called a revolver, not a barrel. At Least I think it is. That or it is called a chamber. Oh whatever it was called, it came out the side on a hinge, exposing the empty thingy. I took a close look at it, removing the casing around the mechanisms to make it fire, and saw the hinge actually wasn’t attached at all to the hammer, trigger or springs inside that allowed the whole thing too work.

“So if i remove the hing and instead make the button release the thingy, I could make multiple thingys so I could just load it quickly!” I exclaimed, probably a bit too loud. Wait, I had no idea how to make a thingy. Okay I had to stop calling this thing a thingy. I quickly checked the book I had seen, and saw one of the characters call it a “chamber”. Okay, well even so I had no idea how to make a chamber. Atleast not on my own. But maybe there was something around I could use to help me with this?

Looking around slowly, I spotted a small bench leaning against the wall of my room. It had a strange symbol on the front and the sides had cloth running off it, looking like an ancient table that was used way back in the day. Smiling sadly, I remembered it had infact been made back in the day, during the war. I remember getting it as a birthday present from one of my friends as a filly. She had no idea what it did so she gave it to me, and I had put it there because it simply looked pretty.

Bringing my Magnum, I walked over and touched the symbol in the middle, which was a blue circle with seemingly alchemic symbols placed inside it. As soon as my hoof came in contact with it, it began to glow a dull, light blue. Well this wasn’t creepy at all. A few magical tendrils began to run up my hoof slowly, circling it in an almost serpent like fashion, trailing up my forehoof and leg. Oh Celestia please don’t let this be a tentacle th- my thought was cut off as it hit my breast, traveling across it to get to my other leg. 

It felt.. cool, as it began to travel down my other forehoof, and i realized it was going for the magnum. As if to prove my thought as soon as it touched the magnum the magnum began to glow, the same eerie light blue as the symbol, before floating out of my hoof to hover above the symbol. Wow, that was just plain awesome. The tendrils on my hoofs didn’t go away, and after a second I touched the chamber of the gun, slowly realizing how this weird magic bench might work.

As I expected the chamber glowed a brighter blue, and I did a drawing back motion with both my hoofs, which in turn dragged the chamber and hinge off the gun, letting out a faint metallic screeching sound as the metal was forced to come apart. I smiled, and did another motion of the hinge and chamber coming apart, and after a second it did so, a faint click emanating from it. After a couple seconds of trying to figure out how the button links to the hinge, I reformed the hinge so instead it just held the chamber in, and after a quick dry fire and eject I was happy with the results. Now then, I just had to find some metal to use to make more chambers.

Another couple seconds later I came back with scrap metal, and managed to forge it into more chambers. I sighed, wiping the sweat from my brow as I finally finished my adjustments, the last thing I needed to do was load each chamber. After a few second I made a little whooping noise, and held up my gun as if it were the best thing ever. Which in my personal opinion it was, besides Riptide and Cloud.

Oh right, I made this gun to go help the ponies at the radio area. Putting a chamber in, I began to head for it, wondering what the problem might be. I wonder if it would be another radroach problem. I suspected that was probably the case, considering what had happened the day before. But maybe it was just some mixed signals that needed sorting out, and I would have no need for this adjustment to my gun. I shrugged, picking up my pace a bit just incase it was the former.

The map on my pipboy said that to get the the radio place it was going to be too rights then straight, which seemed pretty simple. I had also found a new system I hadn’t noticed before, called eyes forward sparkle, or EFS. It highlighted all detected lifeforms in my vicinity, and if they were harmful or not. To be perfectly honest I wanted to bang my head against a wall for not finding it out sooner so I could have seen how many radroaches there had actually been.

Everyone was unhostile from what I could see, which is what I expected. Wait, did I take a left or a right just now? Checking my map, I groaned loudly, turned around, and went the right way. Why was my sense of direction so terrible!? I was worse at going the right way than Cloud, and he tended to go to the actual bathroom then the litterbox we had set up for him, which was still better then what I tended to do. I tended to wander into the garage instead of the actual bathroom.

A couple minutes later I found myself infront of the door that led into the radio room, which gave power and tv to everyone in the stable. The lights inside were green, and I didn’t see any red to indicate radroaches, thank Celestia. Wait, what if some creatures were naturally hidden from EFS? I hoped not, because that would just be unfair. I knocked on the door, and watched as one of the green lights moved towards me, coming for the door. After a second it opened, revealing the pony who had opened it. 

He was fairly simple looking, a brown buck with light sawdust colored hair and blue eyes, his cutiemark showing a radio antenna. He had a construction hat on, and he waved me in, his eyes shimmering with relief. “Hello miss Onyx, we were hoping you would be the one to show up,” a steel colored mare said from the middle of a room, her black mane neatly cut to fall just below her ears but no further. “Really?” I said surprised. Why would they be expecting me? Was it because I was the assistant of the overmare?

“Mhm, we have been recently having a bit of a radroach problem, plus the power has been fluctuating a bit,” the buck explained from behind me.

“We’ve had to spend more time killing the pests and keep the power going, so the radio has had to go down to do so,” the mare added, and I nodded. It seemed to make sense, considering my run in with some of them earlier I could understand how they would make work harder. “How have you been dealing with them?” I questioned.

“By killing them,” the buck said simply.

“I mean how are you killing them?” I added, and he levitated a gun out of its holster from his side, nodding his head towards it. I reached forward and my hoof brushed against the side, my eyes widening in surprise. It was one of those cool guns from the comic, if I was correct called a shotgun. It had a simple pump action at the bottom, and a nice black finish, barrel pointed at the ceiling for safety reasons. “Is it loaded?” I asked, and he nodded, opening a slider at the side to reveal 2 shots ready.

“Alright, so how do you want me to help?” I questioned, and they both looked at each other for a split second. It almost look like they communicated with just their eyes, before they looked back to me and said simultaneously “ Disinfectant and wonderglue, ”

“For what reasons?” I said, slightly bewildered. I could guess what the “wonderglue” was for, but why would they need disinfectant? I soon got my answer as the mare showed her back hoof to me and the buck stretched out his left forehoof. They both had bite marks on their hooves. The radroaches had actually managed to bite them. “They have been coming out of the walls, at one point they managed to jump us and get a bite off, the damn bugs,” the mare explained, a not of disgust leaking into her voice. I could understand why, and without another word I nodded and headed out the door.

It had been fairly easy to get the wonderglue. It seemed to be all over, and I began to suspect it was the duct tape of this world. I wondered why the radio ponies couldn’t just grab some, considering it was all over. A second later though I answered my own question, realizing that if one of them left to get some it would leave the other undefended as they worked on keeping power running all alone. With all the radroaches running around, I wasn’t surprised they wanted to stick together. 

The disinfectant was harder to come by though, located in the clinic. The person running the clinic seemed to consider a radroach bite little use to use disinfectant on. “The bite does have bacteria, but their teeth, or pinchers are so small it can’t actually penetrate flesh,” He had said, waving it off like it was nothing. I highly doubted that though, based on how well it had been able to latch onto my tail, or for that matter how there were actual bite marks on the two worker ponies.

Plus even if it only scratched it could still bleed, but he was the doc so I didn’t question him. What I did do though is take some disinfectant while he wasn’t looking. Sometimes knowing how to take things unnoticed actually benefits good. Just counts on who and what your taking. This, to my happiness, was actually a time I could use this skill for good. Yay for thiefy skills.

Soon I was heading back to the two ponies, hoping the supplies that were now in my saddlebags would help. It didn’t take long to get back to the door, it actually took less time now that I knew where I was heading for sure, and I knocked on the door just like before. This time though there was no Immediate answer, in fact I didn’t get answered at all. This of course concerned me, and trying to use pure strength I managed to push open the doors.

I revolted at the sudden smell of fresh blood that assaulted my nose, and I looked around wide eyed to find the mare’s body, lying in a puddle of her own blood. Her side was torn open from what seemed to be a widespread gunshot, and her face was stuck in a look of surprised horror. “I.. I think I got the radroach,” a slightly insane voice said from across the room, and I slowly turned my head to find the buck staring at her body, a small trail of smoke coming out of the gun. Shit, the radroach had made him go insane.

I slowly slid out my revolver, hiding it behind my back as I walked in, trying not to shake. “Hey, I have that disinfectant and wonderglue you need,” I said, only the slightest quiver evident in my voice. His head snapped towards me, his eyes wild and deranged and I took a step back, startled. “Oh good, I helped my her get a radroach off, they came out again,” he said, nodding his head towards the corpse that used to be his friend. “I had to make sure my colt would be alright after all,”

“O-oh.. I see,” I stuttered, horrified. Sweet celestia he had killed his marefriend in an attempt to save her from his own illusion. And in the process he had also… I had to blink back tears, knowing if he saw he wouldn’t understand. That or he would think they were radroach eggs coming out of my eyes or something.

His eyes widened as he looked at me, stretching into a look of horror and disgust. “Careful, there is a radroach crawling up your leg, let me help get that off,”

“U-uhm no i’m good,” I half screamed, moving my left forehoof from behind me and placing the magnum into my mouth. This wasn’t going to end well. He pointed the shotgun at me,  a deranged smile stretching across his face “No no I insist, allow me miss Onyx,”

“NO!” I tried to shout from behind the gun in my mouth, but I saw the trigger began to magically pull and dove behind a crate. With a loud bang, I heard a shell clatter to the ground and the sound of metal being hit by something, a loud ringing that filled the room. Suddenly I felt a searing pain in my flank, and yelled out in pain, the magnum dropping from my mouth. I looked down at my flank, feeling tears touch my eyes as I saw a small hole in my flank right above my cutiemark, dribbling blood down and partially covering it.

Damnit one of the shots had ricocheted off the ground and hit me. The entire left side of my flank felt like it was on fire, red, hot, searing fire. A fire I couldn’t blow out, and I knew was going to suck to deal with. If I survived to deal with it that is. No don’t think that, I was going to survive.

I peaked over the top of the crate too see what the buck was doing. He was looking around the room, his eyes wide as if staring at an entire army of radroaches. Damnit he wasn’t in his right mind, but maybe I could snap him out of it. “Oh thanks, y-you got the radroach off me!” I said, trying to sound cheery but failing a bit. Celestia that wound hurt. “Oh I did? Good,” the buck said, and I could see his eyes become a bit more normal.

I limped out from behind the crates, gun in mouth incase he snapped again, and groaned loudly. “Owwwww, I think it bit me,” I faked, the pain evident in my voice as I showed the bullet wound. “Oh really? I know what could really help fix that up!” he responded, a happy smile forming as he pointed the shotgun at me once again.

What the hell was with this guy and shooting things as helping!? I tried to leap for the same crate I had before, but as I sprung my flank burst with pain, making me scream and land short. Infact, not even my head was out of his firing range. He gave a concerned look, and I tried to grab the gun with my mouth as I stopped, seeing the trigger slowly being pulled back as his load of “help” got ready to be given. I sighed, looking up at him with pleading eyes  hoping the look would snap him out of it. It didn’t.

The trigger pulled all the way back and I scrunched my eyes together tight, expecting to feel the same fiery hot pain in my chest as I had in my flank. It never did though. I opened my eyes slowly, to see him reloading his gun. Thank Celestia he had only two shots in the gun when he showed me. I quickly aimed with my magnum, activated SATS, and shot. The red dot on my EFS blinked out. 

I slowly got to my hooves again, flinching at the still present pain in my flank, and hoped the bullet had bounced off the inside of my flesh like it had the ground. I slowly walked over to the buck’s body, and after a second too mourn, I took his shotgun and the 10 shells he had on him. Checking the inside of the gun, I also saw he had managed to put another three shells in before I had got him. I was going to have to report this too Crystal.

Wait a minute, what if Crystal was bitten? Or Golden? Or for that matter the rest of the stable? The entire stable would be a bloodbath. I knew if I stayed here, in this very stable stable 72, I would die.

Okay, so I had to get a code, a healing potion and bandages, then make a break for it. Luckily I already knew the code, the overmare had told me it incase of emergencies. CMC3BFF, which would open the vault door. I would also need healing supplies incase of emergencies though.

I sprinted, or trotted as fast as possible with my wound, to the clinic. The doctor shot a surprised look at me, and his eyes wandered down to the bullet hole in my flank, still slightly bleeding? In an instant he was by my side, shoving a healing potion at me. “What happened?” he asked briskly, checking the wound so he could double check my answer.

“Bullet wound, the radroach bite I told you about? It has something that makes ponies hallucinate,” I told him, and he cursed under his breath.

“I think we are dealing with hissing radroaches,” he suggested, and I nodded, remembering the distinct hissing they had made when I first met them. “Are you bitten?”

“No, and don’t say that it makes me think of those zombie apocalypse movies,” I replied, and he gave a solemn smile.

“Sadly it is probably going to be something like that outside, so your going to need a couple potions,” he quickly said, grabbing a couple healing potions and shoving them into my saddlebags. “Alright, how did you know I was going to go outside?”

“You have everything you need to do so, and you’re forgetting i’m your father, I know your way of thinking,” He said, and I blinked. Oh yah, he had been my, or I should say Onyx’s, father.

“Well thanks dad, are you coming with me?” I asked hopefully, but he shook his head. “I know this place won’t go long before breaking down, but i’m going to try and help it last,” he explained sadly, and I quickly hugged him. 

He hugged back, then I broke away, charging full speed to the vault door, my wound healed from the potion. It was the farthest part away from the vault, so it took a good couple minutes before I finally reached it. I came skidding to a stop, actually falling onto my side with how fast I was going and made a faint “oophf” before getting up. I walked to the terminal that opened and closed the door, looking down at it.

This was it, the think that would let me get out of here. The thing that would let me leave my home. My soon to be dead home. I shot a sad look back at the hallway which lead to the rest of the stable, wishing it didn’t go like this. Even this far away from the main area I could hear gunshots and screams of “Radroaches!”, although I didn’t know who actually saw real radroaches and how many saw illusions.

I looked back down at the terminal, and slowly put in the code, hearing the hiss as the pistons in the door released. I checked my pipbuck inventory sorter, and was surprised to see something called “???” in it. Opening my saddlebags I saw a small board, with the same symbol as the bench had. How did it - magic, okay it was magic. I knew this, but I still wondered what it was.

The giant stable door rolled to the side, revealing a small glimpse of the world outside. From what I could see it looked… dark, but hopefully not lonely. Shooting a final look back at the now screamed filled stable, before turning back. With my head low, I began to slowly walk into the outside world. Right into my new home.


Level up, new perk added. Smooth talker: you now have a higher chance too convince others to assist you in your needs.


> The First Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


I was only ten minutes out of the stable, and I was already getting shot at. How the hell was this fair? I had simply walked into a town, which my pipbuck had somehow new the name was “friendly neighborhood”, which sounded innocent. Turned out the pipbuck was luring me into a trap, and now I was running from ponies screaming things from how they would kill me to how they would use me after I was dead. One ew, and two half of what they said was anatomically incorrect. 

The threats were as misleading as the name of the town was though, do to their aim. The closest shot on me they had gotten was a grazing shot on my flank, which had hurt but I managed to keep from screaming. Although I will admit I wanted to yowl like a cat. My eyes latched onto the boulder I saw rapidly approaching ahead, and my mind came up with a plan as quickly as I neared the boulder. I ran past, then doubled back to hide behind the giant boulder.

I continued to hear the pounding of their hoofs, at least three of them, as they approached the boulder. I pulled out my shotgun, putting the handle into my mouth the same I did with the magnum, and watched as the red dots on my EFS continued to rapidly approached. I took aim, and waited for the moment they went running past.

Within seconds all three came charging past me, and I lined up my shotgun with their retreating backs. Then hesitated. These were still ponies, maybe even ones who could be saved. Should I really just shoot them because of a possible misunderstanding? Suddenly one of them turned his head and saw me, stopping in his tracks. He called something out to the other two, before aiming a pistol at me. The other two also spun around, supporting weapons of their own, and also took aim. “.. Shit, uhm guys is this just a misunderstanding?” I called out, hoping the answer was a nodd, but instead all I saw was them laugh.

They were laughing, not a pleasant happy kind of laugh, but the laugh of a mad pony. These weren’t even ponies anymore. They were animals with the instinct to kill, maim, and rape. My mouth turned into a grim line, or as grim a line as I could manage past the shotgun in my mouth, before I used my tongue to pull the trigger, aiming for the pony in the middle. This was not cold blood. This was a mercy killing for an animal infected with rabies. I pulled the trigger, and watched as the necks and faces of each of the… I’ll call them raiders for now, became peppered with buckshot and blood, as they all fell to the ground slumped together.

“OOOOOOWW!” I yelled, rubbing my mouth with a hoof. Damnit I hadn’t expected the knockback to be that bad. I was lucky I didn’t break a tooth! Okay, adjustments were going to have to be made for the shotgun. I quickly pumped the shotgun to rid of the current shot, and walked over to the three corpses. The one who had originally turned had a magnum, while the other two both had break action shotguns. Looking at their gear it was obvious they had indead been ready for close range, and if I had hesitated a second longer I would be even worse off than these three.

Annoyingly both of the shotguns were in bad repair, and so was the magnum. Luckily I didn’t really need any of these weapons, do to the fact I already had a better version of all of them. I drew out my gun bench, and got to work. It wasn’t hard, for the shotguns all I need was some of the metal on them and some of the gears, and as for the magnum I only needed the chamber. As soon as I was finished the glow went away form my hoofs, and the bench became portable again, easily slipping into my saddlebags.

If the rest of that town was raiders, then that must mean the whole fake name thing was planned. That or they decided to go to the place called “Friendly neighborhood” because it would give ponies the wrong idea, like it had me. Whatever the case, I suspected it would be an extremely bad idea to not clear out the town, or at least try to talk to them. I looked back at the bloody heap of corpses, and shuddered. It had to be done I knew, but that didn’t make it any less wrong or gross.

I quickly reloaded the shotgun with another shell, and looked approvingly at the new bar-trigger. Now that I had an easy access point, I could pull the trigger with just my hooves. I could be smart at times, and I hoped I was smart enough to choose a course of action to deal with friendly neighborhood. I hoped to be able to deal with them peacefully, but my heart knew the most probable outcome. My heart stung, knowing what would soon probably happen, as I began to head back to the gates, shotgun in hoof.

I stood infront of the gate, staring defiantly up at the two seemingly insane guard ponies, and yelled “Drop your guns, and nopony gets hurt,”

“Awww, but hurting ponies is fun~” one of the guards singsonged, and I saw just how truly insane these ponies are. Seriously, hurting ponies being fun? They were the wannabe poachers of ponies, so I was going to have to hunt the hunters. “Last chance,” I growled out from between clenched teeth, to see them both grab pistols with their mouthes and take aim. Suddenly getting an idea, I dropped the shotgun and turned around, my rump now too them and wiggled it, cooing “You would want to hurt this little beauty, would you~?” 

From the corner of my eye I saw both of them hesitate, and to hammer it in I teased the lip of my vault suit, smiling a smile that would have made Riptide jump onto the bed like his life depended on it. It seemed to have similar effects on the guards, as they jumped off the wall, which was about 5 feet tall, and both came sailing down towards me, lust showing in their eyes. What they didn’t expect however was for my back hoofs to meet them halfway, cracking their skulls with their own momentum and my strength.

I snickered, making sure my vault suit was tight around my body before saying “bucks are so stupid, and these idiots were so primal they take stupid too a whole new level,” before taking a look at the wall. Picking up my shotgun, I aimed it at the locked gate in the middle of the wall and tried out the new bar-trigger, pulling it back with my hoof. The knockback wasn’t as painful now, although it did send me to the dirt because I hadn’t expected it. I heard the shot impact against the gate and lock, and a second later the sound of the lock hitting the ground. If I needed any more proof that they were stupid, here it was.

Before going inside though, I checked the bodies of the two dead bucks, seeing if they had anything useful. The pistols they took weren’t magnums, infact I couldn’t tell what pistol it was off the top of my head but I took one and the ammo from the other. I was sick of taking bullets as well, and took of the pieces of ropped together scrap metal that counted as their armor. It wasn’t anywhere near good, but it was going to have to do. I could probably use the bench to add something to it later.

My EFS showed around 15 hostiles inside the gated off town, and I took a deep breath, preparing myself for tartarus itself. I could do this, I just had to kill all the hostiles. All the ponies… no, all the raiders inside. My eyes flashed back to my EFS as I noticed a single green light. A single non-hostile in the whole place.

My mind swam with possibilities of who could be in this sick place that wasn’t a raider. Was it maybe a hostage? Someone forced to join them? Whoever it was I had to help, if I didn’t what kind of pony would I be? Now more determined than ever, I bucked open the gate and put my magnum into my mouth, ready for a fight.

Five ponies now stood in front of me, each with some version of a shotgun pointed right at my breast. My frown changed into a grim line as I looked at each of the five ponies, before aiming both my pistol and shotgun. Celestia bless me with sudden accuracy! I watched as they all began to pull the triggers of their weapons, time seeming to slow. It seemed to slow because it had, and now I was ready to use SATS.

What felt like a second later three out of five of the ponies heads suddenly exploded, and three lights flicked out on my EFS. The two remaining ponies pulled the triggers of their shotguns, and I watched as the bullets came for me. The spread would cover my whole body if I stood still, so obviously I didn’t. Diving to the left, I attempted to get out of the way of the massive spray.

I managed to get most of my body out of the way, except for the very end of my back hooves. I let out a scream of pain as I felt the bullets rip the fur and flesh off the bottom of my hooves. Why did bullet wounds hurt so much!? I landed on the ground with a thump, the breath being knocked out of me as well. I heard the two raider’s shotguns reload, and I could almost feel the barrels pointed at me. 

Taking a deepbreath, I rolled onto my side, grabbing the shotgun during the roll and pulled the trigger of it. Nothing came out. I watched in horror as the two raiders smiled, a devilish, evil smile, and pulled the triggers of their weapons.     Both of their weapons dry fired as I reloaded, smiling a bit. So many ponies seemed to be forgetting ammo capacity lately.

I gave my own little sly smile, and thanked celestia for all the favors lately before pulling the trigger of my own gun, turning the two other raiders to red pulp. Of course this was the time that something had to go wrong and bring me down a couple pegs. Of course. Another five raiders came out, most of them carrying melee this time, but one having a machine gun… saddle? How the heck did he put a gun into a saddle!?

The machine gun blared to life, but to add another tier to luck he was an awful shot. He managed to shoot everywhere except me, riddling the wall that had been behind me as I dove for cover behind a house. I heard his gun continue to fire, and the rapid cracks as the bullets got logged into the house I was hiding behind. I quickly pumped the shotgun reloading it, pulling my magnum out as well. 

I watched as two of the ponies with melee weapons came around the sides of the building, obviously trying to sneak up on me. Sadly for them I had been expecting such a strategy, and soon they were both wounded with bullet wounds in their sides, howling in pain. I looked down at the two of them sadly, before quickly finishing off each of them with a shot to the brain. No pony deserved to suffer, even the worst pony in the world.

I heard the gunshots stop for a second and the wall of the other side of the house fall with a crash, surprising me. He had spent a whole… ammo holder just to bring down the house to try and get to me. I quickly sprung out while he was louding, activating SATS mid leap and taking him down, finishing with a roll. I climbed back up onto my feet triumphantly, almost wanting to gloat to somepony about what I had just did. Sadly the only pony there was the raider who hit the back of my head with a baseball bat, knocking me unconscious on the floor.

I groaned to a painful awakening, my head throbbing as if someone had put a miniature sun into my skull. I looked around, my pained head trying to remember what had just happened. Suddenly I remembered what had happened, and I jumped to my hooves, groaning again as my felt did a painful jolt. Wait a minute, what was that sticky stuff? Why was I naked?

I groaned for an entirely different reason than pain, and made myself promise to burn off my fur and regrow a new coat when this was done. Sick bastards, this did not improve my thoughts about them. Looking around, I saw my torn up vault suit in the corner, and slid it on, grimacing as the slimy stuff covering my body was forced against my fur by the tight suit, before also sliding on my armor. 

Although I wasn’t surprised, I wanted to scream at the fact they had taken my weapons. I knew they wouldn’t be able to use my custom magnum against me very well, but still that didn’t make me any happier. It was still gone, and I had no weapons to get back my weapon. I knew for a fact I wasn’t skilled enough to use my hoofs too kill anything besides radroaches.

My eyes locked onto something in the corner, something… shiny? Slowly trotting over to it, trying to stay quiet as well as not make my head spin, I got closer to the thing in the corner. It seemed to be… a bracelet, two in fact, each with three gems placed on them. At slightly closer inspection the gems were amethyst and sapphires, each sparkling like a tiny fire was lit inside. 

I would probably treat them better, so I might as well grab them right? I slipped both of them on, being careful not to damage the gems or thing holding them together, some kind of elastic fiber, and marveled at the look. I blinked in surprise as the gems began to glow softly, and I felt a small electric current travel up my leg. I felt a tugging, not on my physical body… but a tugging that felt like it was touching my soul, taking a small piece of it. Okay what the hell were these things?

As soon as it started the glowing stopped, and instead I watched in awe as a a few music notes formed along the elastic part of the bracelets, and a shimmering built up around my hoofs. Raising my front hoofs to my face, I heard a soft hum emanating from them, as if they were letting off sound. As my awe grew, it almost sounded like the hum grew a more cheery note to it, as if it were corresponding to my feelings. It probably was, considering that weird sensation I had felt.

Of course this is about when the perverted raiders came walking in, obviously expecting to see me on the floor, only to become wide eyed as they saw me, sitting down and now glaring at them with the intensity of 1,000 suns. They even had their.. Well, their things out. Instinctively I reached a hoof towards them, and as my anger built up the hum become more of a growl of sound, aimed right for them. “Those are for being hidden under clothing, not for giving mares a white shower,” I singsonged evilly, and suddenly a blast of sound came out of my hoof, much to my surprise.

The head of the pony I had been aiming at seemed to explode from the high amount of sound, and his friend tried to retreat to a baseball bat on the other side of the room. Oh, so this was the one who knocked me out and got me into this quite literal mess. I pointed my other hoof at him, and like before a blast of sound came off it, hitting him square in the chest and sending him against the ground.

I grabbed the baseball bat and, mumbling around the handle now firmly planted in my mouth, said “You want this so bad? Then have it,” before bring the baseball bat down on his head in a powerful swing. As my head seemed to split open from the sudden movement, his head actually did so. Okay, if I was right then that leaved another four raiders plus the non hostile to deal with.

Checking my EFS while downing a healing potion, sighing with relief as any of the bullet wounds I had taken healed up, although my head still hurt like a party was going on inside it. It seemed there were only five hostiles left, all protecting the one non hostile in the middle. I looked down at the faintly humming bracelets, wondering what they could do, before trying to make it act like a whip. Shimmering sound came out of the middle of my hoof, and just like a whip made a crackling sound in the air, which would probably do the same effect as a whip would I guessed.

Of course though this sound alerted the other five to my presence, and they began to spring towards my room. Crap, screw my curiosity. Rapidly looking around the mostly barren room, I tried to find something I could use to spring a trap. Although these bracelets were powerful, five raiders might be too much for them. Unless… ideeaaaaa~

As the raiders stepped through the door guns ready, the little banshee sound mines I placed went off, each letting out a deafening screech. Surprisingly the sound didn’t affect me, and while the raiders were clutching bleeding eardrums, I did the same whip thing I had before right in the middle of the group, the sudden addition of sound overloading their brains and killing them. This just felt way too easy.

I did a small happy dance as I found my magnum among the ponies who had tried charging, as well as my shotgun. I wasn’t surprised to see that he had refilled the chamber, which by now just meant more bullets for me. I was surprised this town had been so successful with their looting, but considering the trap I had fallen into I could see how. Also I hated these damn raiders, the suggestive thing I had done to the guards was a trap, not an invitation for them to do something like that later.

After a quick looting for ammo, I headed for the non hostile, still in the same position. As I headed down the hallway leading to the non hostile, my eyes wandered to the walls and floor, all painted a faint combination of pink and yellow. The two most non-threatening colors there was. Atleast non threatening without all the fricking graffiti. Why were raiders like this, it was just weird. What could possibly make a pony so insane it drove them to do all this?

As I went into the room with the non hostile, my eyes widened in shock at the sight before me. A bubblegum colored mare was on her knees, her hoofs taped too legs and a gag firmly planted in her mouth. Her eyes also had a black blindfold covering her eyes, but even that didn’t hide the tear makes streaked down her face. As I saw the white stains covering her body, I wanted to kill every single raider that was in this place all the fuck over again.

I rushed to her side, my footsteps obviously alerting her as she began to scream around her mouth gag, and I felt my heart shatter. She thought I was here to do the same that those disgusting raiders had. I undid the gag, and she immediately stopped, clenching her mouth shut. My heart broke a bit more, before I gently undid the blindfold, letting her see who I was.

Her eyes blinked wide as she stared at me, and I could already see fresh tears springing up at the edges of her beautiful green eyes, and I smiled. “Its okay, they are all gone,” I murmured into her ear, undoing the tap binding her hoofs. What I hadn’t expected though was the sudden hug she gave me. It was a tight, wet hug, and I hugged back, smiling a bit as I heard her cry softly into my shoulder. Except it wasn’t sad tears she was crying, but happy ones. Ones I could tell were full of hope. And I intended to make her hope become a reality.

“What’s your name?” I gently whispered, and within seconds she said “R-rosey Springs,”

“Pretty name,” I responded, and I heard her chuckle softly. I had the feeling we were going to get along, and I knew for a fact, not just a hope, but as a fact that I would get her out of this nightmare safe and sound. No matter what it took out of me.



Level up, new perk added, black widow: you have a 20% higher chance to convince men in dialogue, and also do an additional 20% dmg to all male entities




> Search For Safety
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rosey and I had been traveling across the wasteland for only about an hour, and I was already hating it. In the short time we had been walking I had seen glimpses of mutated bugs, lizards, snakes, even some kind of cow thing that had two heads. Rosey had said that was all natural, and had quickly questioned why I seemed to have no idea what was going on. She had quickly reached understanding though as I mentioned the vault I had come from, and the fate that had befallen it.

She had then explained that she was apparently a scribe for the steel rangers, a group that went back to before the war, under the ministry of wartime technology. “I had been assigned to check on friendly neighborhood to see if the ponies fit the name, and if not to come back to the main base to exterminate them,” she had explained, and to me it made sense. It was way to easy for a misleading name to drag a pony to their death, or for me and Rosey’s case to end up as a canvas. After just hearing that and knowing what fate had befallen her from their, I had attempted to hug her, which had just led to us falling into a pile while hugging.

As cute and nice as that was I did not think the ground was supposed to smell like someone had dumped 100 tons of garbage on it. She noticed the bracelets I was wearing, and her eyes widened in surprise, looking from me to them her mouth silently moving. Confused and slightly worried, I questioned “what?”

“I wish I could have been there to warn you not to put those on,” she sighed, and gave me a serious look before asking “Do you have any idea what those things are?”

“No, all I know is that they are weird and powerful,” I responded, earning a small chuckle from her.

“They are apart of some items that are said to take a piece of the soul of the user, and based off the soul turn them into powerful weapons,” she intoned, and I looked down at them, remembering the tugging I had felt on something deep within me. Something that had been apart of me my whole life. My soul. As dark as this all sounded, I had to speak up for these little bracelets, I mean they did save my life after all.

“Well I’m glad I found them, they are what saved my life,” I responded, and she nodded as if she had expected this. “Now that its already done I suggest you keep them, although I do wonder what they can do,” she conceded, and I smiled. If my thought about these was right, then I could..

A couple seconds later, the bracelets began to let out a faint, cheery tune as we trotted, and she looked at me surprised. I smiled, and focusing on the bracelets made the tune grow a bit louder, the music almost sounding like life itself, the tune fluctuating and changing to match the feeling of somepony in happy times. I even began to hum along to the tune, and a few moments after I started Rosey did too, humming and occasionally adding our own lyrics to the tune.

“When life brings you down, and you feel alone,” I singsonged, closely followed by rosey singed “Just look around, and hear the sound,”

“When you hear that sound, follow it close,”

“That sound is the music of your heart,”

“Your heart shows you, the real you,”

“And the real you, lets off a tune,”

“When you find that tune, youl finally find,”

“That you never were actually alone,” we said together, stopping in our tracts for a second.

“Your never actually alone in this world,”

“If you ever think you are,”

“Just find that tune again,”

“And then nothing will stop your heart!” we finished, panting softly and smiling at one another. I knew it wasn’t the best song, or even close too a good one. But it was song full of hope, hope and determination to keep moving on. I slowly put less focus into the bracelets, and the tune slowly faded away, leaving us to walk in a comfortable silence. Atleast comfortable until we heard shouting to our left.

My head whipped around to see a group of ponies heading right for us, drawing out weapons ranging from pistols to rifles. Oh celestia buck me with her hoofs what the heck. We literally had just gotten our hopes up, and now people with guns were charging at us. Seriously why was the wasteland this cruel!?

To my surprise Rosey took up a battle stance next to me, her horn pointed towards the oncoming ponies. Wait, she wasn’t planning to charge at ponies with guns, was she? “What are you doing!” I hissed through clenched teeth, slowly drawing out my lever shotgun. She shot me a confused look, then focused back onto the enemies, making me want to face hoof. Either I was being stupid, or she was about to be stupid.

“Friend or foe!?” the pony called out from ahead, catching me off guard. Looking to them, I saw most of the ponies, I now saw was there were four, had weapons out and were in battle stances. It was obvious they were prepared for a fight, but unlike the raiders they didn’t have that crazed look to them. They didn’t look like they wanted to hug it out and be best friends forever, but they also didn’t seem like they wanted to eat the meat off my ribs one by one in front of me.

“Friend!” I called back, and in an act I hoped wouldn’t get me killed I put my shotgun on the ground in front of me. If these really were non-hostile targets, then I would need to show trust. Although on that matter my EFS wasn’t helping at all, constantly flashing some of them from hostile to non-hostile then back again.

After a few seconds, there weapons lowered as well, and all of them except for a buck on the far left turned non-hostile on my EFS. I couldn’t make details out this far away, but from what I could tell he was wary, and I didn’t blame him. He hadn’t even seen my bracelets, which practically eminated “I don’t need weapons to fight”. I was glad though for the peaceful ending, and picking up my shotgun I began to trot over, Rosey helping with her magic to get the shotgun in my saddlebags. I shot her an appreciative glance, then looked back to the ponies in front of us, staying where they were and waiting patiently for us to arrive.

As soon as my bracelets came into view they all bristled, and I slowed down, getting a bit worried that just the sight would spook them to start shooting. After a few seconds though, they relaxed again as we walked up in front of them. “Hi, i’m mi - “ catching myself, I corrected “Onyx leaf,” before holding out my hoof. The pony in front set a confused look at the three others behind him, before reaching forward and shaking my hoof slowly. Jeez, this guy was like an anti-tsunami.

I laughed awkwardly, before he asked flatly, “what do you want? To trade?”

“Wha?” I responded, surprised. He pointed to the other three ponies behind him, and taking a closer look I saw each of them had a fairly large pack on their backs, probably full of stuff. I looked at Rosey, and she looked back shaking her head.

“No I think we are good, but I do have a question for you,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow. “Whats the nearest friendly settlement?”

“We were just going over to friendly neighborhood to trade, although there is also bucklemer back a mile or so,” He told us, nodding his head to about the north-east, but at that moment I didn’t care. “Wait, so you were knowingly going to trade with raiders?” I said, and their eyes widened in surprise. 

“What are you talking about? It's a new settlement that just popped up a few months ago, we’ve traded with them a few times and everyone was plenty nice so wh-”

“Well if their were nice ponies there they were overrun by raiders and all killed,” I growled, cutting him off. 

“O-oh..” he muttered, obviously stunned.

“Even if you were going to trade with raiders, they are dead now anyway,” I explained, my bracelets letting off a loud, angry humming. His eyes were drawn the the source of the sound, and he immediately took three steps away, a flash of fear showing in his eyes. “What the hell are those?” he asked in an accusing tone, and I smiled a bit. “The pickings from that raider place, I call them…” after a second of thought, I finished “I call them Pink melodies,”

“Pink melodies huh?” he asked, and I nodded. The name reminded me of the small burst of a song me and rosey had sung earlier, and I had the feeling for me not to be disgusted with these things for all the lives I knew I would probably have to talk with them, I would need at least one happy memory tied with them.

He stared at me for a couple seconds, before looking back at his, what I was guessing were guards, to keep moving, and before long we were waving to them as they headed in a different direction. I noted with satisfaction not towards friendly neighborhood, and we turned around to head our own direction. One or two miles huh? This was going to be a looooong walk.

Before long my hooves were aching and I wanted to just go to sleep. Somehow Rosey was still going at a brisk trot, and I wondered how she could continue walking so fast. Like seriously my hooves felt like jelly. Were we going to always walk everywhere like this? If so, I needed to redo hoof day.

I began to hum quietly, just loud enough for the both of us to hear, and she joined in. It wasn’t a very complex tune, just the one we had been singing earlier. A question suddenly formed in my mind, and stopping for a second I looked over at her, asking, “Hey Rosey, have you ever been too bucklemer?”

“I don’t think so, I remember passing by it to check on friendly neighborhood, but other than that I have never been inside,” she responded, her eyes squinting a bit as if she was searching her memories. “From what I remember it was a fairly small place, and it looked like anypony there was in good shape,”

“What do you mean by good shape?”

“Good enough shape to be able to fight off simple creatures without tripping into the ground and getting torn to shreds all because of a strained knee,” she elaborated, and I shuddered. I really hoped I never had to see something like that happen. For that matter I didn’t want to see something that could do that in the first place. Looking back over her, I saw she was gazing at me seriously, and I gulped. Dangit, I really didn’t want to know of the things she had seen by now.

“Earlier with those merchant ponies, what were you planning to do if they attacked?” I questioned, still confused on the earlier incident. She looked over at me, confusion showing in her eyes before a spark of understanding lit inside of them, and her mouth formed an “oh” shape. “I’m guessing you were never eyeing my flank to see it, or anything else, huh?” she said, and I blushed a small bit. Wait had she been thinking I was shooting looks at her flank!?

I stammered, trying to piece a simple sentence but failing. She giggled, and bumped me with her flank, only making me blush more and finally managing to explain,” n-no, even if I had you have clothes on, so I wouldn’t be able to see it anyway,”

“Ah, good point,” she conceded, but I still grew uncomfortable at the playful eyebrow that was raised. I really hadn’t looked at her flank! Okay maybe just a peak, but that had just been to see why the raiders had taken interest in her I swear. She pulled the small bit of armor she had to reveal her cutiemark, a blue rose with black thorns running down the sides of it, looking almost like a vine with a flower on top. “Its called poison joke, or more like killing joke, and shows my strength in illusion spells and alchemy,” she told me, and I nodded. I remember once walking into poison joke in the real world, and for a whole day before I found out the cure my hoofs had turned into mechanical balls. It had been so fricking hard to walk anywhere when you had to balance on those I swear.

I knew if Riptide had been there he probably would have had too lay down on the couch he would be laughing so hard. “Okay, but what kind of illusion were you planning?” I asked, and she immediately answered “A simple sudden cockroach, it would have focused their fire on the radroaches instead of us, so we could either run or pick them off,”

“Ah…” I said, thinking of stable 72. “Uhm.. if you ever do that don’t do radroaches, do something like rats or something,”

“Why?” she asked, sounding confused. I simply gave her a solemn look and she clammed up, seeming to sense there was some connection. After a second, I decided to explain with a sigh “Stable plus illusion inducing radroaches doesn’t last long, especially in one where guns are aloud..”

“Oh…” she whispered, seeming suddenly sad. Okay as sad as I was I was not going to let the pink colored pony, the color that practically screamed “I want you to hurt your eyes from looking at me,” be the one that was sad. So I hugged her, much to her surprise, but soon she hugged back. I could here the little pony in my head go “Yay, hugs,” which I agreed with. Even if I didn’t really know this mare much, a hug made everything better from what I had learned. 

The hug didn’t last long considering we still had places to be, but soon we were walking again, now resting in a comfortable silence. I still wished we had something to make this go faster, but this was good enough. Nice, comfortable as you could be in the wasteland, and non-lonely. Well, comfortable until I heard a faint hissing from up ahead. My eyes immediately darted the ground infront, and I saw green glowing eyes peeking out from below a couple rocks. A couple of rocks which rosey was heading for with no knowledge of the danger she was in.

“Rosey look out!” I yelped, and startled she jumped back towards me right when a large snake lashed out at her, its jaws snapping where Rosey’s left forehoof had been seconds before.

Slowly it began to slip out of the rocks and coil in front of us, and I gasped at the size. It was about twice the size of a boa constrictor, its flat head and body covered in black and red shimmering scales. Its fat pink tongue flicked out to taste the air, and it slowly began to slink towards us, its eyes locked with rosey. Wait a second why wasn’t Rosey moving. I looked over at her and stared as I saw her, lock jawed and rigid as her horror filled eyes stared into those of the snake. Those green, almost hypnotic - oh celestia make the sun crash down on this thing it was hypnotizing its prey.

As quickly as I could I drew out my magnum, aiming for the things had as it slunk closer to Rosey, its mouth slowly beginning to open, revealing massive sharp hooked fangs. As the image of those fangs latching onto Rosey’s neck flashed through my head, I let out a battle cry, rage filling my every bone as I bit down hard on the wooden handle of the magnum and pulled the trigger. To my utter despair though, the bullet simply bounced off the creatures tough scales. Not so lucky for me though, it turned its head towards me, and now I saw the green rings spiraling in its eyes.

Wow, they were very pretty actually. I could my body relax as I stared into the eyes of the creature, ignoring the pony in my head screaming bloody murder. This couldn’t be wrong, it was so nice. The rings went woop woop woo- wait no no no! Shaking my head rapidly, i closed my eyes shut and aimed the pistol to where I last remembered it being and shot randomly.

I heard most of the shots bounce off its thick scales, but I also heard a loud hissing shriek. Opening my eyes I saw I had gotten both its eyes somehow, only glancing blows. But even those small glances were enough to make white puss and green glowing liquid spill out of its eyes, disrupting the rings it was still trying to flash at me. Unlucky for it though it was close enough to be in range for my hoofs, and in turn my pink melody.

With a scream I slammed both of my hooves against its head, pushing back as its giant maw opened and reached for me. It was strong, my hoofs slowly losing purchase on its smooth head, but that’s what I wanted. As soon as my hooves slid over its ears, I cranked the pink melody’s sound up till it seemed to fill the whole sky, and after a second the radsnake fell to the ground. I let its head flop to the ground, a small smile as I watched some goo leak out of the sides, maintaining a slight pinkish nature. Good riddance.

Looking back to Rosey, I saw her blinking drowsily, as if she had been asleep, before looking down at the snake letting out a cute “Eeep!” and jumping back. I laughed, and after a few seconds she started laughing too, although at what I wasn’t sure. But it was a happy laugh, and it helped me loose the anger and fury that had been building up as soon as the snake thing had attacked. I walked over to her, and gently poked her teasing, “Caught by its eyes were you?”

“S-shut up,” she said, her laughing turning to stuttering as she blushed, embarrassed. I giggled, and we both began walking again, leaving the dead radsnake behind.

It wasn’t long before we saw bucklemer in the distance, and I almost wanted to sprint all the way there to escape the aching in my legs. I wished I could, but that would just make it worse, so we continued a steady trot. Why couldn’t this be the time a sudden chariot appeared to bring us to the town. That would be both more relaxing and faster. Damn you wasteland and your open hostility towards all thing friendly.

It was about another 30 minutes before we finally reached bucklemer, as Rosey had said a fairly small seeming place. I couldn’t say it was homey, but it was a place to live, and in this wasteland that seemed the most rare thing. Unless you wanted to sleep with the radsnake in its stomach of course. That would probably be comfy until the hypnosis ended. Then lets see how long you last.




Level up, new skill added

Iron hoof: do to your hoof to scale combat, you do 20% more damage when unarmed.

    


> Uneasy Welcoming
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


We slowly walked into Bucklemare, our heads turning from left to right as well looked for signs of pony life. We could see lights coming out of the small homes surrounding us, but there was no pony inside. Infact I couldn’t even see a single pony shadow inside the lit homes. Either this place was abandoned, or we were being shunned for some unknown reason. Either or I felt completely uneasy in this ghost town. Well, at least I considered it a ghost town until I felt a bottle hit the back of my head.

“Ouch,” I yelled, and looked around angrily for the source of the bottle. My eyes locked onto the sight of a hoof darting back into a cracked open door, incoherent yelling coming from inside the home. My anger quickly faded, being replaced by confusion and concern. These ponies didn’t seem like raiders, but they did seem hostile, or at least scared. Why the heck were they scared of just me and my steel ranger companion? 

Confused, I walked into the middle of the town where a decaying garden stood, and flopped onto one of the rotting wooden benches, the wood creaking under me. I didn’t care if I woke up with a drawn on “kick me” message on my flank as long as I got sleep. I was exhausted, and I planned to sleep for atleast an hour. “What are you doing?” Rosey asked, seeming to not understand the universal signs of “i’m tired” radiating from my body. “I need sleep,” I mumbled, putting my forehoofs out in front of me and laying my head down on them.

“Here? In a seemingly hostile town?”

“My EFS says only about half are hostile, i’m guessing most are afraid or curious for some reason, “ I answered, and her face seemed to become even more worried. Okay, her worry made me worry, and now I couldn’t close my damn eyes. After a minute of her staring at me awkwardly, I sighed, loud and long, before flopping off of the bench and onto the ground, standing back up on all four hoofs. “Does this place have a sheriff or something like that?” I asked her, holding back a yawn. She nodded, and began to head towards the closest structure too the garden.

It turned out that the sheriff’s home was the only one that did not have a pony in it. After 5 minutes of knocking and hollered hellos, not a single light had turned on in the dark building. This seemed to worry Rosey even more, but I was just confused. I couldn’t decide what this place was all about, if they were scared raiders, an actual town, or just refugees taking, well refuge, in some runes of an old city. Whatever it was, we needed answers, or there would be no chance of helping these ponies at all.

Finally some pony decided to step out of their home and approach us, well timidly approach us but it was better than not being approached at all. I opened my muzzle to let out a friendly hello, but before I could even utter a word Rosey stepped forward towards the pony and questioned, “Hello, where is your sheriff of this town?”

“Did you come all the way here just to ask us a question you already know the answer too you sick bastards,” he spat, taking both me and Rosey by surprise. Wait what? Did this whole bucking town have us mixed up? If so, what did they mean we already knew the answers? My turn to step forwards, I attempted to explain, “Sir I believe you have us mixed up, we are just travelling and heard of a safe town along our path, and had stopped by to request respite and shelter for a few nights,”

With those words I could see the light showing from the fire in his eyes dim, but not extinguish. He was still clearly not believing a single word I said, or at least not yet. Quickly thinking, I added “My name is Onyx Leaf, and this is my friend Rosey, we want to help but first we need some kind of explanation to what's going on,”

“And how do I know I, or the rest of this small town, can trust you?” he barked at us, and I flinched taking a step back. I could see he wanted to believe it, but he still couldn’t. Damnit how could I convince such a hard headed buck? “Because, if my thoughts are right we are the only hope you have of getting back your sheriff,” Rosey said cooly, and I saw the fire go out. I hesitated, looking at Rosey as she looked straight at the buck, her stance non-threatening.

“I promise we will help, but could you tell us what in the name of Celestia is going on?” I put in, and he seemed to relax, and Rosey shot me a small look of triumph. The buck hollered out to the rest of the town, and within moments ponies were coming out of the houses, all seeming cautious as would be expected, but willing. I wondered how many times ponies had come through to try and hurt these ponies. Maybe that's why they had been so scared. That or me and Rosey had bad breath. I assumed the former.

Suddenly all the townponies pressed in around us, all talking at once, the voices turning into a loud chatter that a single word couldn’t be taken out of. This wasn’t going to work, we needed just one pony with most of the info to say. But how could me or Rosey raise our voices over this many ponies talking at once. I grimaced internally as I imagined the time I had tried volunteering for the school a year back, and when I had to talk over a classroom of first graders. I had lost my voice for three days after that, and I expected loosing my voice in this environment would have a lot worse effects on our chance of survival.

As if my weapons could sense my discomfort with the situation, they began to whine a loud, high tune that was close to a sound only dogs could hear. Everypony suddenly stopped talking to instead clutch at their ears, including Rosey. Strangely though I seemed immune to the sound they were emitting, instead the whine sounding like a tune, my feelings put into musical notes. As my distress faded so did the whining, until it was at a normal soft hum. But it didn’t help my distress at all as the eyes of every pony suddenly focused on my forehoofs, and the sound inducing bracelets on them.

This didn’t feel right, the way they were staring. They stared as if they had suddenly realized I was their savior, the thing that would make everything okay. I tilted my head slightly at all of them, completely confused of why they seemed to now be looking at me like this. As if one of them sensed my confusion, they reached forward, and after a quick exchange of “may I,”s and “okay?”s he touched the last button on my pipbuck, the screen switching from a status report to a radio of some sorts. The pony then proceeded to make the radio go backwards in recording, and a voice suddenly started spouting out of both my pipbuck and the two bracelets secured to my hoofs.

“Goood evening children of the wasteland, DJ pony is here to tell you all about the recent news,” the voice said smoothly, sounding like a charismatic male. If i was honest with myself he sounded pretty enticing, but I had Riptide. Wait but Onyx technically had nopony with her… Snapping out of it I went back to listening too “DJ pony”s audiocast.

“Recently in equestria we have a lot of heros going around, and if you all remember not too long ago I told you all about the stable dweller, clearing out the raider town known as ponyville,” the voice said, and I found myself going wide eyed at the mention of some other pony also clearing out “raider towns”. “Now then towards the north of equestria we have heard word of a new heroine stepping up and helping clear the wasteland of raiders. Somepony I personally like to call the musician, who also recently came out of a stable like our stable dweller, found a town you all may know as friendly neighborhood. It turns out that the place was actually a raider town, luring ponies in with the friendly name only to be tortured and killed. This little mare though was able to take down the whole town single hoofedly, and even walked out with one of the raiders captives. From me too you, thank you Musician,” was I actually hearing this? How the heck did this pony know who the heck I was and what I did? For that matter how did he know I came from a stable?

As I tried to control the rampage of questions storming in my head, the same pony who had turned on the radio turned it off, and my pipbuck went back to showing my health. Looking towards the ponies clustered around, and the hope I could see glimmering in their eyes, I knew I would have to try and help. Somehow I would have too, even if it killed me. First though I needed sleep before I dropped asleep in the middle of a fight. That wouldn’t end well for anypony. As I said this, the pony who had originally confronted us, who said his name was red willow, showed us to his house to rest.

Conveniently there were already a couple beds on the ground scattered, which looked mildly comfy. Or atleast it would be more comfy than sleeping on the ground. Although laying on it I expected the bench outside would probably be softer… although a lot more open. Eh I couldn’t get picky, sleep now.

I woke up to feeling a poking in my side, and I groaned groggily, getting up and off of the… couch? “Little sun get up! You have work!” a slightly panicked male voice said. I opened my eyes all the way to see Riptide standing infront of me, poking my side with his hoof frantically. Oh wait thats right I had work today and the next day! I scrambled to get off the couch and out the door, on the way grabbing a wheat bagel in my muzzle. Needed some kind of food in my stomach for work after all!

Five hours later I trotted back into my house and flopped down on the couch, smiling a bit. It had been a fairly good day, most of the people who had come in had been friendly and in a good mood. I had even seen my friends there come by again, the nice buck and zebra. Thinking of them brought my memories back to the very first party I ever threw, with them atleast, and how fun at it in. Sighing, I knew that fun would soon probably be washed away with blood as I re-entered the strange world of the equestria of the future.

I woke up for the second time that day, blinking and slowly looking around, seeing my steel ranger friend sleeping next to me. Her mouth was slightly parted open in sleep and her limbs were twitching, as if she were having a dream about running. I silently prayed to celestia it wasn’t a nightmare about running away from the Radsnake. Looking at her, I felt the corners of my lips curl into a small smile. She was actually pretty cute while she slept, not that I would ever tell her that. Add that to the secret little section of my brain of “don’t think about often,” section. I had the feeling it wouldn’t stay there long. 

Reaching out a hoof and gently shook her side, hearing her grown and turn away from me, her tail now towards me. I rubbed her back and pressed gently, trying to wake her up sing songing “Come on Rosey, its time to get uuppp~”

“Nooo, I don’t want to go to training yet,” she grumbled groggily, and I blinked. Oh thats right, she probably had to do training for her illusion spells. Man, that didn’t sound like much fun, which probably meant she was starting to wake up. I smirked a bit as I thought of one time when I had been dreaming about having to do office reports in a dead end job. The smirk vanished and turned into a genuine smile though when her eyes finally opened, a bit blurry from sleep. “Hey sleepy head, I think we have enough sleep now,” I chided jokingly, and she rolled her eyes, seeming to take it more seriously.

“Your lucky we even got to sleep, out here in the wasteland you can go days on end with no sleep,” she snapped, and I flinched back, startled. Was she serious? How could there not be a chance somewhere in the wasteland for sleep? The answer came to me almost instantly though, and now I understood why what was a joke to me was so important to her. I was used to sleeping every night, but she was used to nights awake out of fear for being attacked.

“Wait a minute, you said you went to friendly neighborhood for trade, but your only a scribe,” I questioned, and she nodded seeming confused. “Why would they send a scribe all on her own to a camp? Didn’t you say the steel rangers had armor or something?”

“What i’m wearing is cloth armor,” she said defensively, before seeming to deflate a bit. “They sent to knights to guard me on the way, but half way on the trip -” she suddenly clammed up, shutting her mouth and darting her eyes back and forth across the room nervously. Now it was my turn to be confused. I looked around the whole room and even the windows, but nopony was there, so she couldn’t be afraid of someone listening in. “what happened halfway on the trip?” I intoned, and she shook her head clenching her eyes shut, almost as if she was refusing to take some medicine.

This was the first time she had ever done this. I looked at her for a couple more seconds before sighing, resigning to the loss of possible knowledge and saying, “Lets go help these town ponies, then after that i think we are going to have too move on tooo..,”

“Maybe we should head to tenpony tower? We are a bit far away but as soon as we are there we might actually be able to take a load off,”  Rosey put in, her body language changing drastically. Okay, she was definitely hiding something, but what? Knowing how it would go if I asked, I simply nodded, and we collected our gear to get ready for the soon coming battle.

As we left for the slaver town, the townponies gathered around, looking at us with hopefully expressions as we passed by. Damn, this was making me feel uncomfortable. It was as if each pair of eyes weighed a hundred pounds, threatening to squish me with their combined looks if I couldn’t pull this off. How the heck did Riptide handle this sometimes? This was just making me even more nervous for the fight ahead. I heard a voice from the crowd suddenly call out, “ Lotus get back here!”, as a filly suddenly ran out of the crowd coming right for at top speed. Before I could realize what the green blob running at us even was it tackled into me, my hoofs loosing balance and causing me to fall onto my back with an “oomph”

I looked up at the bright and hopeful face of a green filly, her eyes wide with a wide smile to match. “Miss, can I please come with you? Please please please  I want to get my daddy back!” she begged, and my mind seemed to stutter at the word “daddy”. This little filly was the sheriffs daughter? Like my brain my voice came out stuttering, saying, “u-uh no, sorry hun but y-you need to stay here where its safe,”

“But here is boorring, and I want to help!” she countered, and I stared into her bright and hopeful eyes, unsure of what to say. Knowing how fillys worked and how I had been at her age, she would most likely come charging after us even if I said no, which would be worse than her coming with. But if she came with us she would be in the middle of the conflict with the two of us…

“Maybe you can come.. But you have to promise that if they start shooting at you you will run back here okay” I reasoned, and she nodded fervently.

“I pinkie promise!”

“You pinkie what now?” asked Rosey, clearly confused. I was also confused, but not because I didn’t know what it was. I had heard of Pinkie’s special way of promising something, but how did this filly know about it? She was a unicorn I could see from the small horn on her head, but that wouldn’t make her able to know things from 200 years ago, right? Either way, I had to see if she actually knew it. Before I could though, the mother of Lotus came charging out of the crowd straight at us, and I knew I was about to be into a motherly talk down. Yah I knew how many of those I had to go through as a filly, this child was not about to get one for making her own decision.

“I’m going to take your daughter to the place her father and your husband has been taken, and she might be able to even help in rescuing him, so I’m going to need her. I will make sure to bring her back in one piece,” I quickly spouted, and the words that were about to tumble out of the mare's mouth seemed to suddenly dissapear. She seemed to be considering, but with a look to her filly’s now beaming face she sulked back into the crowd, and I turned back to Lotus, smiling a bit. “Now then, its time for this!”

“Cross my heart hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye,” we both chanted, even going through the motions. I nearly hit out my own eye, but Lotus did it perfectly, not even out of breath from the fast singing and actions. How did a filly in the wasteland know it even better then a full grown mare in the normal equestria? Staring at her, I knew I probably wasn’t going to get an answer to that.

As lotus gave some final goodbyes to her friends and mother, the three of us headed off, heading in the direction the one buck had said the slaver town was. I still wasn’t sure how a pony could be so messed up to get to slavery, but in this wasteland where so much was already messed up it wasn’t too hard to believe. I sent a quick prayer to celestia, hoping slavery would never actually start in pony kind. If it did I don’t think I would be able to live with it.

The pony said it was about an hour’s trot from their own town, and that felt like the longest hour in my life. Even with the sleep the night before I was already yawning after the halfway mark, my body not used to doing something so trivial for so long. My hoofs once again ached to a steady throb. The sad thing on my end was that even Lotus was going at a steady trot with seeming no problems, her hoofs almost prancing along the rocky ground. 

The plan was to clear the town and take all slaves back with us to find them shelter. The main problem was we had no easy transport, and Rosey had noted the fact many of them would be in bad condition. “Some of them may even be too wounded or too sick to move,” she warned.

“Well then we will just have to carry them on our backs!” Lotus squeaked, and a smile teased the edges of my mouth. If nothing else Lotus was much needed cuteness and comic relief, and as we continued to walk I became more and more glad for bringing her along.

We were beginning to near the last stretch, the slaver town outlined in the dim light as we slowly got closer and closer to it. I was honestly a bit scared of what would happen when we got to the gate. Would they try and communicate? Would they immediately start shooting? I grimaced as I knew the ladder was more likely. Damn the wasteland and its open hostility.

Slowly, we neared the entrance, each step feeling like we were going uphill. My breathing slowed down as we began to crawl towards it, staying low to the ground. Then everything went black as something hit the back of my head.


> Slaver Danger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I really needed to stop getting hit in the head with things. I woke up with a painful throbbing in my head, and I moaned softly. Damn that bucking hurt. I seriously needed to return the favor to whoever did that. Especially if I could do it with the same thing that bucking pony did it to me with. I opened my eyes to see Rosey laying down across from me, looking at me with worried eyes that brightened as she saw my own open to look into her own. “What happened?” I asked groggily, and slowly looked around at my surroundings.

“A slaver had snuck up on us and he managed to knock you out with this,” she informed me, waving her hoof at a metal bat lying near my head. “We managed to fight him off -” 

“We?” I asked alarmed, and a voice from behind me chirped, “Yup, me and Rosey!”

I sprung up, which I could tell was a bad idea from the sudden explosion of pain in my head, bringing me back down onto the floor. I groaned, and Rosey put a hoof on my back, stating firmly, “I don’t know much about being a doctor, but I know enough to know you shouldn’t be moving around like that,
“Yah yah doc,” I groaned again, rolling my eyes before turning my head slightly to look at the green filly sitting by my tail, looking happily at me. “You pinkie pie promised you would go as soon as you were shot at,” I said, taking on a motherly tone. 

“He didn’t have a gun so he never shot at me, so I didn’t break my promise,” she countered, and I was left fumbling for words as she followed up with saying, “Plus its not like Rosey could fight him on her own, she wouldn’t even touch him!”

“Wait, is that true Rosey?” I asked, looking back to the steel ranger scribe. She flushed, and opened her muzzle to say something, but all that came out was a wordless squeak. She had left a filly to fight a slaver all on her own? Finally seeming to find words, Rosey stuttered out, “I-I am only a scribe, I wasn’t taught in hoof to hoof co - “

“I’m pretty sure even a scribe would be taught basic combat,” I countered, and it seemed all the words she had been forming crumbled away, her mouth once again opening and closing like a fish. 

“She tried to do something with her horn, but the slaver guy tried to hit her and she dodged, then she tried to do the spell thing again while I got out your magnum from your bag all like “woosh!” and then I shot at the slaver all like “bang bang” and he went down while rosey was just continuing to back up before coming to me and going like “Oh Lotus you're my -” 

“I did not say that,” Rosey defended herself, and a slightly sheepish grin spread across Lotus’s face. 

“Okay maybe you didn’t but everything else is true! I even didn’t reload so you had proof!” she chirped, and I noticed the lack of two bullets in the magnum. The little filly really had killed a slaver. Now then back to questioning Rosey on her combat. “Rosey, why do you not bring a gun around with you?” I asked slowly, and she cast her eyes down at the ground below her hoofs, and kicked a small pebble.

“I don’t want to kill ponies, I mean I believe in the cause and all but to kill one -” I facehoofed. My head started hurting worse again, and I mentally groaned to myself and checked to never facehoof again. “Rosey these are slavers! They need to be taken down, and if Lotus hadn’t saved us we all would have ended up slaves!” I exclaimed, and Rosey flinched back like I had hit her. “Wait a minute, this is how the raiders captured you isn’t it?” I accused, and I saw guilt flash through her eyes. 

“I’m an illusionist not a killer!” she shouted, and I stared silently at her, before slowly rising to my hoofs and fishing out one of the other magnums I had aquired. I tossed it towards her, and her magic wrapped around it her eyes going wide as I looked into them, saying softly, “These are ponies that have to be killed for the good of equestria, if you have to take a life of a slaver it is their own fault for doing what they have,”

“B-but..”

“You need to learn how to defend yourself, otherwise you will get yourself killed,” I finished, and she seemed to absorb what I said quietly, looking at the gun and then me and then back. Now then, we were still outside the gate of the slaver town right after an argument. How had we not attracted attention?
I scratched that thought out as a slaver poked his head over the wall, and turned back to shout at the town. Why could these kinds of things never be easy? I looked towards Lotus, completely unarmed, and then back up at the slaver now aiming at her head with a shotgun. I quickly drew out my magnum and targeted a shot in SATS at his head, and before he could pull the trigger he found a new bullet friend lodged into his skull.

As the shotgun fell to the ground, a lime colored levitation field caught it, and I turned to stare at the now shotgun armed Lotus, smiling. I sighed, and waved my hoof for her to follow, gaining a squee from the small filly. I had the feeling i was going to regret this. I hoped she knew how to aim that thing, otherwise I would be finding some buckshot lodged in my back.

Okay, now then how to get past these ponies that suddenly came through the gate? Three slavers had come out of the gate of the town, each carrying a close range weapon ranging from a pipe too a… was that some kind of laser shotgun? I stared at the strange contraption, dumbfounded. It had the same base as my shotgun, but instead of a single hole for a shell too come out, multiple gems were scattered across the front, and a strange pack seemed to be pushed into the side of it. It almost reminded me of the front of a disco ball.

His magic pulled the trigger, and multicolored beams shot out of the crystals, nearly singing the top of my main with one of the bolts. Okay, enough admiring guns and back to taking down slavers. I re-activated SATS and targeted two headshots, not having enough for a third, and watched as the bullets went whizzing into their brains. The only one that was left was the one with the pipe, but he seemed to know better than to attack me. Instead he charged towards Rosey, his head already tilted to the side to give her a smack across the forehead.

Rosey’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, and the gun she was holding in her magic suddenly flared to life, a shot ringing out as it hit the pony in the side of his chest, knocking him to the ground and puncturing his lung. “Sorry!” she yelled, and I realized she had pulled the trigger as a fear instinct. Had she planned on letting him hit her!? I growled softly, and put a round into the head of the suffering and wheezing pony laying besides us, putting him to rest. To my surprise Rosey looked to me now with shock, and then slowly her gaze filled with anger. 

“What the buck! Your a stable dweller, yet you already seem to be completely fine with killing ponies!”

“These aren’t ponies these are monsters!” I protested, but her words stung deeper than she could have expected. I was even better than a stable dweller, I was a everyday equestrian citizen with strong morals, yet as soon as I came into this world those morals had left me. I remember thinking it was just a game my first seconds inside, but by now it seemed like so much more. Was this really a game, a game where you felt pain and everyone seemed so very real? Dangit now my head is spinning with “is life real?” questions.

“This depends on what you consider real,” a voice sounded from inside my head. Okay who the hell was that!? I heard a soft giggle, and with a blink I was suddenly a pony inside my head. With a quick look down to my hoofs I saw I was the real me, not Onyx. I’m guessing this was because Onyx was now standing in front of me, a small smile plastered to her face. “Again what the hell!” I shouted, and I looked at her wide eyed. What the bucking hell was happening?

“Calm down, i’m sure you have a lot of questions - “ She said trying to calm me, but i cut her off with a glare that practically screamed “oh you think?”

“Too cheesy?”

“Yah by a couple too many movies,”I agreed, and she frowned.

“Movies?”

“Oh right wasteland, uh projected images against something,” I explained, and her eyes brightened with understanding. Okay this was weird. How was I talking to Onyx? I thought that she was just me in this body! Although if I thought back..

I remember when I first became her, the flood of memories I had never had that had filled my head when I became her. The knowledge about things that were not real in my world, atleast not yet. The thoughts on the past that wasn’t our own. That was all Onyx’s, the only diference was I had hopped onto the ride. I thought this was just a game, but with what was happening right now I doubted it. Unless of course it was normal to be having a conversation with the very pony I was in the body of right now of course.

“Sorry I had to break the immersion, but we both have kind of gotten into a pickle,” Onyx intoned, interrupting my thoughts.

“What do you mean we?”

“You know the bracelets we found and how Rosey said that it was one of those items that took away a piece of your soul?” she asked, and I nodded. “If i’m right most people are fine because they don’t find items like that, but I think those bracelets took a piece of both our souls,”

“Wait how!? Also what do you mean our souls? Your not real!”

“Stop sticking to denial Sunrise, it doesn’t suit you,” she scolded, and I flushed a bit. Dangit what was she saying?!

“I think i’m in some different reality than you, I think, and because it took a piece of both our souls if I die you die as well,” she explained, and I groaned. Great, now I was pretty much in the game. I slapped myself, a bit on the gentle side, to get the idea that it was a game out of my head. This was going to have to get some getting used too. It seemed now I was involved this reality if I wanted to be or not

Onyx shot me an apolegetic look, as if it was her fault, and gave a quiet “sorry,” before I silenced her with a hug. I remembered once hearing something about parents knowing what to name their fillies and colts based on magic. I had the feeling i had done something similiar in the creation of Onyx, because I didn’t see her as just some character I had made, not anymore atleast. She was a pony just like me, and if that was the case the best thing to do for a sad pony was a hug.

After a second of being a startled pony, she hugged back, and time went back to normal, as if my talk with with her had all been in SATS. I looked up to see Rosey still staring at me like a murderer, but as my gaze fell apon her I knew it was different than before. In the back of my head I had always thought she was just a character in a game, but now I knew better. “These may be ponies, but they have forfeited there lives by taking the lives of other ponies,” I intoned, and straightened up to take my full height to look at her in the eyes. Dangit, it seemed Onyx was even smaller than me, and compared to Rosey I felt even smaller, especially when she was mad.

I saw doubt flicker across her face, and I gave the most sincere smile I could, saying, “We are here to save ponies and deal with the rodents of the wasteland, and I need help from a steel ranger scribe of the past to deal with them and help those who need it, will you help me Rosey?”

Her eyes looked to the ground for a long moment, emotions swimming across the surface of her green eyes. Even as the moment continued to stretch longer I held my smile, and prayed she would say yes. She looked up at me and gave a small nodd, and I hugged her. “That was good,” Onyx said from inside my head, and my own little self smiled at her, also inside my head. 

I pushed my hoofs together, and concentrated. Now it was time for some kind of move you would most likely see in one of those animoos. I tried imagining all my anger coursing through my blood, my viens, my soul, all slowly flowing towards the two bracelets wrapped around my hoofs. I felt them begin to heat around my hoofs, as if the gems were reacting to it. In my mind I imagined myself shoving a rock of anger down a cliff, and as the one rock fell others also fell. Soon an avalanche of anger, hate and despair flowed into my bracelets. As they seemed to heat to the point of molten metal around my hoofs.

A scream of hurt, rage and will burst from my lungs in a torrent, and I pointed my hoofs at the gates infront. The same hoofs that were now rippling with so much sound it could be seen, distorting the image of my hoofs underneath from the pressure before all that pressure came crashing towards the gate in a soundwave, sounding like a bolt of lightning and thunder all in a single wave. It smashed against the gate, and with a groan of metal and pressured wood the gate buckled and fell.

Ponies on the inside of the gated off city, all of which who had been laughing and chatting suddenly went silent. As the last booms of the sound wave faded off, all it was replaced with was a deaf silence. The only sound that broke the silence was my panting breath and the sizzling of the bracelets around my hoofs. The fur and skin that had been in contact with the bracelets was now burned and smelled of burnt hair.

When I caught my breath, I slowed looked up at the ponies inside the city, the terrified faces of all of them, and smiled. The smile wasn’t a nice one, but one filled with pain and defiance before I opened my mouth and called out to all that could hear, “If you do not wish to die, drop your weapons and leave, if you wish to fight for this unjust cause I swear in the name of Luna and Celestia I will end you,”

Damnit those burns hurt. I really hoped atleast half of them would lay their guns down and walk away, because with these burns I didn’t think I could fight them. And if they saw me pop a healing potion to fix them they would think I was bluffing or weak and strike. I looked back at Lotus and Rosey to see both of them staring at me, expressions of awe showing on both of their faces, although Rosey’s seemed to be mixed with concern at the burns around my hoofs.

Clank

My head whipped back towards the slaver town at the sound of metal hitting stone. Clank, clank clank. I watched in amazement as all the slavers closest to the crushed gate dropped their weapons in front of them, and with a kick sent them skittering towards me. The clanks echoed around the town, and my mind went blank for a second with a mix of relief and happiness. I knew that most of these slavers would still attack, even now some were starting to take aim, but that didn’t matter. If I didn’t have to take a couple more pony lives slaver or not I felt better.

A shield shimmered to being around me, and I looked back at Rosey, surprised to see her horn glowing a cherry red, the same color as the shield around me. I thought she had only illusion spells, but this was very welcome right now. “To all those who wish not to fight, walk out here and sit down, and I promise i will do my best to defend you as long as by the end of this you all vow to me that you will finds other more non-slavery ways to live,” I shouted, and all those who had dropped their weapons came out and took seats along the outer rim of the city. I really hoped none were going to scamper off to do this elsewhere. I found out though I had other things to worry about as a bullet whizzed past my ear, straight through the shield to dig itself right next to where I was sitting.

The shield, which I now realized had only been an illusion, popped and I stared out at all the red dots spotted across my EFS. I estimated around twenty five slavers inside based on what I could see. I took a deep breath and stood up, the burns on my hoofs letting out their own howl of pain but I shushed them. Eyes closed, I muttered to myself, “If DJ pony finds out about this I hope he atleast will find a better nickname,” and with that opened my eyes and prepared to charge into the slaver town.

I galloped into the city and took cover behind one of the nearest homes, pulling out my shotgun. Rosey followed after me, Lotus right behind her. Bullets began to ring out in the cold night air, and as the glowing red dots on my EFS started to close in I charged out into the open, entering SATS. My eyes darted around the dark houses, the cloudy light shining off the long barrel of a sniper, peaking out of a house to my right. It was far, but even so I toggled a shot towards it and watched in slow motion clarity as the bullets whizzed towards the window, and heard a clang as some of the buckshot hit armor.

I attempted to leave SATS with a roll, and with a loud bang I soon found a bullet lodged in my back hoof. I held back the scream trying to bubble up from my chest and ducked behind the next house, pulling a healing potion out and quickly chugging the vibrant red liquid. The bloody hole that had formed in my hoof closed, and I shuttered at the feeling of mending skin and flesh. I had the feeling I was never going to get used to that. 

With the new knowledge of a sniper pony, I pulled out my magnum and clenched the handle in my mouth before charging once again into the open. Entering SATS again, I saw now there was one pony charging at me with a machete as well as the sniper aiming right at my head. My heart dropped heavily to the bottom of my chest as I saw the slow moving bullet emerging from the barrel of the weapon, even the extremely slowed down time of SATS unable to completely stop its descent towards me.

With a quick prayer to Celestia, I toggled a shotgun shot at the charging buck and three shots with my magnum in the blackness where I thought his head was before ending SATS. I watched as the chest of the first pony exploded out in a gorey red splash of color, and the three shots from the magnum ring out towards the sniper pony. As I left SATS I clenched my eyes shut, expecting to feel the cold bite of a bullet plunging into my brain. Instead it sliced against my chin, the same place my head would be if I had decided to roll again. I heard the sniper rifle fall to the ground and a thump as the body of the sniper fell to the inside of the house. I guess prayers in this universe did work.

I charged towards the main building, where most of the red dots were and saw to the left of me as an angry red dot vanished from my EFS, followed by the sound of a pistol and a whoop from Lotus. The same little filly I had heard the whoop come from charged towards me, and sooned joined me in my gallop towards the main building. I looked at her, bewildered, but she simply giggled as another red dot flickered off my EFS, once again followed by the sound of a pistol. “She can handle herself don’t worry,” Lotus informed me, and with a sigh we went through the rotting oak wood door of the main building. 

It seemed to be something like a hotel, around three stories high. With a quick nod to Lotus and a wave of my hoof, we began to head to the left of the reception area we had walked into. Lotus shook her head fervently, and pointed towards the reception desk before running for it and opening it, finding a couple bottle caps and a screw driver. I watched, a bit amused, before heading on towards the dingy left hall.

As I walked on I heard the doors behind me creaking open, and I whipped my head back to see Lotus going into the room that she had just opened. What the heck was that little filly doing!? I snorted, and tried to deny the fact she had startled me by taking in the scenery. The floor of the hallway was covered in a molding patterned carpet, and the walls were once a lovely brown mahogany color, now a stained normal brown. I wouldn’t mind coming to a place like this with Riptide, in the past atleast. Although if we ever had it would probably be like 100 bottlecaps - er I mean bits, for just one night.

My thoughts were dragged away from the possible from the sound of hoofsteps on the stairs infront of me, and I aimed my magnum towards the stairs as the first slaver walked down. Blam, she went down, a new hole in her head leaking a crimson that stained the already red and dirty carpet an even uglier red. I flinched, and walked past her, slipping my shotgun back into my bag to make it easier to walk. Seriously it was difficult to walk with one hoof carrying a shotgun, like hobbling on three legs.

The next slaver came charging around the corner, a shotgun levitating in a green sheath of magic next to her before it fell to the ground, a shot to her neck downing her and ruining her concentration. She gasped for breath on the ground, her eyes wide as bloody bubbles came out of the whole in her neck, and I looked down at her, my own eyes widening. Her lips slowly moved to form words that could only mean one thing. “Finish me”

Instead I dug into my saddlebags and pulled out a healing potion before shoving it down her throat, forcing the healing liquid down her bloody throat. After a few bloody and choking swallows the wound in her throat healed, and she was left gasping for breath, her light turning green on my EFS. “Get out of here, and if either of my companions wave their guns at you to fire say I let you go,” I ordered, and she nodded, clearly stunned as I walked past her.

As soon as I was out of sight of her I shivered, unsettled by what I had just seen and done. These ponies didn’t deserve to live, yet here I was healing one that I hadn’t gotten a one shot kill on. What was wrong with me? “Nothing is wrong, your just not one to let others suffer,” Onyx countered in my mind, and I sighed to myself, knowing she was right. Looking back up, I saw another two slavers guarding the stairs to the next floor, looking bored yet alert.

I jumped out from the corner and in sats toggled a shot for each of them, and watched as the bullet came out with a blam, followed up with a small click. The bullet stuck into the first guard, and he fell the the ground, his red light blinking out as the other guard aimed his own pistol at me. I had bucking forgot to reload my magnum, and now that mistake was going to get me killed. Panicking, I ejected the the magnum’s chamber and threw it at the guard.

I watched in awe as the chamber was hit by the bullet, letting out a metallic clanging sound as it flew towards the back wall. The bullet on the other hand, now off track, buried itself in the wall, and with a quick reload in SATS the other guard fell with a shot to the temple. I silently thanked Celestia before heading up the stairs to the final floor of the hotel.

The last floor seemed to be a kitchen, and I walked into the equivalent of a wasteland fancy restaurant. My eyes were immediately drawn to the ponies in the corner, cowering and whimpering quietly. My heart ignited with a burst of anger, and I whipped my head to stare down the barrel of a shotgun. I stared defiantly down the top of the gun at the pony holding it, a piss colored buck with a golden tooth and a black mustache, his slicked back hair shining in the dim light. “I’m sorry miss, but you aren’t on the list,” he chided, and my I ground my teeth together. 

“So a rich bastard is the o - “ he cut me off by shoving the barrel of his shotgun into my mouth, taking advantage of my talking to get an even better possible kill shot. “Now now, don’t be saying harsh words in a fine place like this,” he intoned in that same chiding voice, and I wanted to kick him right between the back legs. Hard.

“I got rich from selling these peasants, and I have all my caps to thank to them,” he said, smiling wickedly while turning to look at the cowering slaves in the corner. My glare darkened, and as soon as he saw it he chuckled, he smile growing. “I bet you would catch quite the pretty price too, a pretty and strong mare who is untouched by taint and radiation,” he mused, and his smile grew even more at those words. The rich bucking bastard was enjoying toying with me! 

I growled in my throat, and using a foreleg quickly hit him right between the back legs. He gasped and closed his legs around my hoof hard, but that simple act had ruined the unicorn buck’s concentration, making the shotgun limp in my mouth. I spat it out, and pulled my hoof back from out of his legs and prepared to turn his head to jelly. Then I stopped mid act as a wooden groan sound from right below the two of us.

He looked up at me with an annoyed yet pained smile, and snarked “Low blow stable girl, too bad if you hit me the whole floor will blow up, plunging you into a little radio-active bath right below us,”

“Okay?” I questioned, and smashed the shotgun through the flimsy floorboards, plunging it into the water below. I watched as it slowly fell into a large bath below, looking big enough to hold twenty ponies. Jeeze, that was the biggest pool I had ever seen. The would groaned again threateningly, and I took a step away from the hole.. right onto a weak spot in the wood.

I let out a shriek as my hoof plunged through the floorboards and into empty space, the wood scratching my flesh and fur as my hoof wiggled trying to get it out. The rich bastard gave an evil smirk, and walked over to me before his voiced practically oozed out, “Oh and did I mention I added a radigator to the bath?”

“O-oh come on!,” I exclaimed, before my annoyed shout cut out, my entire being now transfixed on the slow crack forming from the shotgun hole to the hole my hoof was currently plunged through. I gave my own sinister little smile, and asked cooly, “Can you swim… whatever your name is?”

“What kind of question is that?” he shouted, seeming a bit flustered and enraged. My smile grew, and I nodded too the crack that had almost reached the hole my hoof was in. As his face turned paper white with fear, I gave him one of the sweetest smiles I could before saying, “Time to walk the plank, mister not very clever pony~”

With a sudden groan of stressed wood the floorboards below me and mister stupid let out, sending both me and him into the radioactive bath below. My body spun for the few seconds we were left floating in space, and I took a deep breath and clenched my eyes shut just before my head and body was submerged in water. And then with that suddenly all I could hear was the sound of water. That and the sound of a muffled scream as a pony was bitten into by a radigator.

I opened my eyes quickly, looking around the blurry water to try and see the surface, but the bottom of the pool almost looked like the ceiling. It also didn’t that a scaly green mass was charging towards me too my right, emerging from a bloody cloud in the water. Crap he hadn’t been kidding!

I tried to hold back the scream that wanted to burst from my chest, but despite my best efforts fear won out and I screamed. The vibrations in the water brought the giant green mass swimming right towards me, and now I was out of air. This wasn’t going to end well unless I could think of something, fast. It was either that or I was gator food.

I quickly spun around in the water again, and saw some of the blood pooling towards the top of the pool… the top where I could get more air. Thrashing my hooves I did the best job I could to swim towards the surface, all lessons I had gotten from Riptide fading out of my mind as fear and the creeping blackness took over my mind. I had to get to the surface, for Riptide, for Lotus, and for Rosey. With another sudden scream with air I didn’t know I had, I pushed with all my might in one giant burst of motion, sending myself rocketing towards the surface of the water, just before jaws closed around my back hoof.

I was yanked back with another scream, only inches from letting my muzzle break the surface. The blackness was slowing spreading from the edges of my eyes, and I continued to thrash, trying to escape the radigators maw before I drowned. As consciousness began to slip away, my eyes locked onto the shotgun on the lip of the pool, only a hoof away. 

With a final push of will and determination I shot my hoof out and grabbed the shotgun, holding it too my side and spinning towards the radigator all in one movement. Glowing yellow reptilian eyes meeted me as I turned to face it, and I almost froze at the sight. It crunched down, and with a final scream my tongue pulled the trigger of the shotgun, lodging a shot of buckshot between those glowing eyes of tartarus itself.

I gasped for air as my head burst the surface of the water, and quickly hoofed my way up onto the edge of the water. I began coughing and sputtering up water, and I didn’t feel good. When I finally finished spitting water out into the now red pool, I looked at my pipbuck to see that while in the water I had gotten radiation sickness. With a groan, I popped a healing potion for my leg and prepared for the upcoming sickness. These next few days were going to suck.

level up, new perk added:  combat experience, thanks to your fighting in the wasteland you are now 10% better with all physical weapons
quest perk added: radioactive mutation, do to a bit too much radiation you now grow gills in water and can breathe



> Sickness In The Wastes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


I looked down at my pipbuck, holding back bile that wanted to escape my stomach as I saw the radiation meter. Apparently while I had been tussling with the radigator my radiation exposure had gotten to the point I had radiation sickness. I would say it was pretty accurate considering the twisting and wrenching feeling going on in my gut, almost as if it was trying to tear itself out of my belly. I looked back at the pool behind me, colored a bloody crimson complete with radigator brains floating on the surface. Eww, throwing up now.

I shivered, and wiped the remaining bile from my lips as I heard hoofsteps sounding from behind me. I spun, my world spinning with me but unlike me not stopping, making me almost throw up my lunch in the other universe as well. As my eyes refocused I saw a worried looking pony standing infront of me, followed by a bouncing green filly. “What happened to you? And why in the name of celestia are you covered in crimson?” she questioned, eyes wide and concerned. I opened my mouth to speak, but instead I covered it with a hoof as my bile tried to storm its way up my throat and out my mouth. My stomach really did not like radioactive water.

I swayed on my hoofs a bit before planting them into the ground and shaking my head, trying to get ahold of my senses. “We need to get the slaves down from the top level,” I said weakly, and on hooves that felt like jelly began to work my way back towards the stairs leading to the third floor. Lotus bounced up next to me, and pressed her small body against mine, offering support. I took it, and together the three of us walked back up the third floor. 

Every step took all my strength, and I was gasping when we got to the top of the stairs. My entire being felt weak with exhaustion and sickness, but I had to keep going, for the slaves. If I couldn’t do that much what kind of pony was I? I took my weight of Lotus, and almost fell as my full weight settled back onto my hoofs. Slowly I hobbled into the room with the slaves, my eyes scanning the room when I walked in. 

There they were, right over to the left in the same huddled heap as before, but now there expressions weren’t those of fear. Much to my discomfort, many of them were expressions of awe mixed with hope and happiness. I gave a weak smile, and nodded my head towards the entrance I was standing in. “Come on, let's get all of you home,” I said, and slowly the lump of ponies separated and began to walk around the break in the floor towards me. As my legs fought to keep me upright, Onyx gave an approving nodd in my head. “Good job, now we just have to work on standing,” she teased, and I sighed out loud, watching as the ponies gathered infront of me. “Alright everypony, let's get moving,”

Two hours of torturous walking later, I laid down in the sheriff's bed, groaning softly. My body felt like it weighed one hundred pounds, and I was glad to finally let my hoofs take a rest. My forehead felt slick with sweat, and my breath came out loud and wet. From now on I was going to make sure not to throw any trash into the water back home. As I heard the door open to the sheriff’s home I sat up and looked towards the doorway to my room to see Rosey walk in. “Oh hey, how do I look?” I joked weakly, and she gave a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

She sat down next to me and looked down at me, emotions swimming across her eyes like fish in a lake, but the most obvious one I could see was worry. “Dangit Onyx, taking a bath with a radigator is never a good idea,” she teased softly, and I winced a bit.

“Yah not one of my best ideas, but atleast we got all the slaves back here,”

“You could have gotten yourself killed,” 

“If I hadn’t taken the chance all those slaves would have been killed,” I countered, and she sighed deeply, looking at me with sympathy. “Hey cheer up, sadness doesn’t look good on you,” I said weakly, and yawned softly. The days events were starting to take their toll. My mind felt like it was filled with murky water, and I couldn’t think straight. “By the way, how did you and lotus get all those other ponies?”

“W-we delt with them,” she stuttered, almost so quietly that I had to strain my ears to her. “When I was a steel ranger, they told me I would have to kill ponies for the good of the rest of the steel rangers, and I had said okay, not knowing what that actually really meant - “

“You say that as if you aren’t one anymore,”I cut in, and she gave me a sad smile before continueing, “but today was the first time I actually had to kill one, and it felt almost… satisfying, as if each slaver that went down was a step to something bigger,” she trailed off, but now I could see the earlier smile shimmering in her eyes, and that made me smile in turn. In my head I silently hoped that by the end of this that bigger thing she felt would actually become a reality. I also silently hoped that the itching on the sides of my neck would go away soon.

As she got out of earshot I let out a groan, and flopped back down onto the dirty matress. The itching on the sides of my neck was becoming a ripping pain, as if my skin was reforming on my body. Reaching up I grazed the area with a hoof, and froze. Pressing down, I felt a warm, sticky liquid coming out of my neck as well as three gashes. A touch to the other side showed it had the same three gashes and blood to go along. I moaned in pain, and rolled onto my back and clenched my eyes shut, trying to will the pain away. Instead of it going away, everything was swamped by an inky blackness as sleep finally overtook me.

When I woke up, I was a bit surprised to see Lotus sleeping next to me, her eyes closed and her hooves curled up close to her body. Her stomach and hoofs was pressed against my right side, and I watched the steady rise and fall of her chest as she slept soundly. I watched her for a bit more, then layed my own head back down and closed my eyes, instantly feeling the press of darkness on my senses. At least it was until the filly that was sleeping next to me woke up and rolled ontop of me, yawning and stretching.

“Off please,” I squeaked from under her, and she rolled back off of me giggling. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she said apologetically.

“Its fine I was already up,”

“Are you feeling better? The sheriff came in a while ago and gave you all that radaway to help?” she questioned, and I blinked. Now that I thought about it I did, I felt a lot better. Infact the only thing that felt weird was the gaps still in my neck. “Yah I do, a lot better actually,” I confessed, and the little Lotus smiled a smile that could blind a pony. “Although one question, is there something on my neck?”

“Yup!” she responded, and I raised an eyebrow. At that her smile weakened a bit and she shrugged, saying, “Sorry, I don’t know what they are,”

“Oh alright,”I sighed, and slowly rolled onto my stomach. I stepped off the bed, relieved to find my legs didn’t feel like they would snap under me like twigs, and slowly walked out of the room. On the other side of the doorway I found Rosey and the sheriff talking quietly, and they both went silent as I walked into the room, turning their gazes to me. “Hey Onyx, you feeling better?” Rosey asked, and I nodded. The sheriff got up slowly, then walked over to me, his hat and the small rusted gold star on it bouncing as he walked. As soon as we had reached the small town he had insisted on wearing his hat, saying it made him feel stronger.

He stopped in front of me, before giving me a slow look up and down my body. I stared back at him, confusion bubbling in my head. Then to my surprise he held a hoof out to me, and I took it, shaking. “Good to see yall up and moving around,” he greeted me, and I smiled a bit. “Its also good to see you aren’ lyin’, we get too many ponies fallin’ dead because they’re too proud to admit their not feelin good,” his voice was tinged with a western accent, almost like some of the cowponies at appleloosa I had met when I was a filly. “The town thanks ya for helpin them out, and you have my personal thanks as well,”

“It was nothing, I just couldn’t let ponies die at the hands of slavers,” I protested, and a small smile touched his lips. Looking over to Rosey, I asked, “Hey Rose, how long have I been out?”

“Around four hours,” she informed me, and I grimaced. “Alright second question, what the Celestia is on my neck?”

“Uhm… we aren’t sure, but it looks almost like fish gills,” she responded, and my world seemed to rock a bit. Fish gills? I had fish gills on my neck? Great, now I was part fish pony. I groaned, and slumped to the ground. “Hey its not that bad, it actually looks kind of good and also cool,” Rosey said, and a voice from the bedroom belonging too Lotus spouted out, “It’s really cool!”

Despite my current condition a smile touched my lips, and I quickly asked for a mirror to see myself. After a couple seconds we found a couple shards of mirror, and put enough of them together to be able to get a headshot. I looked at myself in the mirror, stunned at the me that stared. I had the same green mane and black coat, but now the pupils of my eyes were like that of a reptiles. The same exact eye that the radigator looked at me with. I took that thought and shoved it down a garbage disposal shoot, turned it on, and then poured cement over it to make sure that it stayed down.

My the green in my eyes seemed to be an almost toxic green now, and along my neck was three green marks on each side, looking a bit like claw marks. Below the “gills” a few streaks of dried blood ran from them, and I remembered before I had fallen asleep feeling the blood coming out. Well that explained the itching from earlier. I took a shaky breath, and Rosey lowered the shards to the metal desk before looking back to me. “I-i’m okay, just a bit startled,” I breathed out, and I closed my eyes for a second, getting a hold of the emotions running around in my head like a hurricane.

When I finally got a hold of myself, I looked over to the sheriff, asking, “Sir, do you know where we are?”

“You mean you don’t know? Wer’ over in the north part of equestria, in the “great” city whinnysberg, one of the biggest trading points during the great war that sent us all into this wasteland,” he told me, his eyes rolling at the word “great”. As Lotus walked into the room, he looked at the three of us before informing us, “If you are all looking for a possible good place to learn more I suggest the gallops walk, its a couple miles to the south and is full of prewar history about this place,”

“Thank you,”I said, before following up by asking, “ by the way, where were those slavers going to take you?”

“Not entirely sure, they were sayin something about bringing us to the boss, whoever the buck that is,” he grumbled, and again I thanked him. The boss? Well jeeze that wasn’t hiding anything at all. I would have atleast hoped for a better nickname. Maybe something like big daddy, or maybe Charlie Chopper.

Me and Rosey headed out of the sheriff’s house after a bit of trivial chatting, and I was surprised to see the same green filly who had joined us for the last day bounce on after us. “Lotus don’t you have to go back to your mother and father?” I asked sweetly, and nodded my head towards the house we had just emerged from. Lotus shook her head, and gave a beaming smile. “Nope! Daddy said I should join you, and that he would talk to mom!”

“Rose?” I questioned, looking over to my steel ranger companion. She seemed to regard the green filly for a second, before looking back to me. “I think she should come, she probably has more experience with weapons than either of us,”

“Alright, you can come with us if your promise not to make as many jokes along the way,”
“Awww, but I thought they were funny!”

“I don’t think the “aren’t you glad I didn’t say banana” joke gets old after the second time,” I informed her, remembering on the way to the town the joke rant she had gone on. Somehow a filly in the wasteland knew exactly how that joke worked and the whole history about it. I was a normal citizen plus a fallout pony and I didn’t even know that. Once again it made me curious of how she knew so much for someone her age, but I discarded the thought for the time being. We had more important things to worry about, such as getting their. 

I looked down on my pipbuck to see it had toggled the location of gallops walk, and was showing the fastest way to get their. I couldn’t wait till technology like this was in our world, because really it worked quite well. I only wondered how it always seemed to know before me. With a nod to Rosey we began to head off towards gallops walk, Lotus following right behind. How did she not get tired from bouncing so much, like seriously it was like the little filly had springs in her hooves.

As we walked the terrain stayed the same, sick looking trees and shrubbery dotting the usual rocky expanse of the wasteland. Despite my wishes it wasn’t long before Lotus began to try and entertain us with songs and jokes, much to our groans. “Knock knock?” she chirped at one point. I sighed, then responded, “who’s there?”

“A raider,” she answered, and I blinked a bit surprised. All her jokes so far had been light hearted with no mention of the wasteland or war. “A raider who?”

“A raider who wants to raid all the balloons in the equestrian wasteland and make all the others raiders fly away,” she responded, and gave an attempt at an evil laugh. I chuckled, and Rosey down right laughed. “How many balloons are there even in the wasteland,” Rosey said when she finally finished laughing. I looked over to her with wide eyes, so wide my reptilian pupils were small and crazy looking. “So many,” I emphasised, and Lotus followed up with, “So very many!”

“But that's not proper language,” she protested, and I smiled evilly. “So very many that all the balloons are scattered around the wastes like chickens running around in a chicken,” I said, and she groaned, stopping to sit down and put her head into her hooves. “You two are making no sense!”

“What is this sense you speak of?” Lotus woahed, and I gaped at Rosey like an idiot. “Is sense something you eat?”

“No!” she shouted, before sighing and settled for complaining, “my brain hurts now,”

“Sorry Rose,” I teased, before Lotus and I burst out laughing, soon joined in by Rosey’s chuckles. The laughter seemed to lighten the dark and dreary around us, and make everything a little better. That air of content stuck around for a bit as we got back on the move, continuing on to go to gallops walk. As we continued to walk, my eyes caught onto the sight of a strange building in the distance, covered in shadows making the stone look like black crystal. “Hey Rosey, lets take a quick detour,”I said, and changed course to head for the strange building. After a pause, I heard the sound of hoofsteps following, and before long the three of us were walking, or in Lotus’s case bouncing, towards the strange building outlined in the gloom.

As we neared, I felt a strange tingling feeling running up and down my back, my nerves feeling alive and active. As we got closer the building appeared too look something like an farm house, the walls made out of a dark colored wood that seemed to be barely staying together. In the space beside the barn where a fence might go, instead there were pieces of bone and wood scattered around. An involuntary shiver went down my body, and I focused on not being creeped out. The hanging pony from the tree was completely na- wait what?

My head whipped to the side as I noticed the Sea blue colored buck hanging from a nearby tree, a noose tied around his neck. Bits of him were missing from his corpse, seeming to have been taking from carrion eaters, but most of the body remained, including one eye, bloodied and wide with a look of surprise forever caught in his gaze. A beep on my EFS informed me we had reached an applewood barn, but other than that there was no other description. Lotus had stopped bouncing beside us, and was now walking with us, her eyes locked on the sight of the dangling corpse as well. 

“I-I think he was lynched,” rosey said quietly, and with another look at the horrified look on the ponies face I suspected so. I looked around slowly to see the other trees in the area also had hanging ponies to accompany them. My head snapped around towards the barn as a high pitched giggle sounded from inside, as well as the sound of crunching bone. I flinched at the sound, and Rosey seemed downright horrified at the sight of the hanging ponies. On the other hand Lotus’s face was a cool mask, the only thing betraying her fear was the shine of her eyes as she looked everything over. “This is raider work, if I’ve ever seen it this is it,” Lotus said softly. I looked over at her, and noticed the same shine in her eyes was becoming wetter. 

Okay, I drew the line at a crying filly. I growled, feeling the gills on the sides of my neck flare and the bracelets around my hooves whine. Rosey looked over at me, seeming a bit worried. I turned my head towards hers to meet her gaze, and gave a small predatory smile. “You two stay here, I need to have a little chat with these ponies,”

“Alright, just be careful,” Rosey warned, and I nodded. I gently nudged Lotus with my side, and she looked over to me, the wetness in her eyes threatening to come out. “I’m going to deal with them, don’t cry little filly,” I whispered softly, laying my head on hers for a second, making sure not to accidentally poke myself with her horn. “Alright, thank you Onyx,” she whispered back, her voice sounding older than her age would suggest, and I slowly turned my attention back to the barn looming in front of us, and slowly began to head in. This was not going to be something they would get away with. 

The door to the barn opened with a creak, and insane giggling sounded from inside, noting the existence of a raider down the hall. As I had with the magical surge, I imagined the anger boiling in my veins flowing down into the bracelets that were attached to my hooves. The same burning feeling began to happen, but unlike last time I imagined the energy flowing out directly, and watched as the gems each glowed and a whistling sound began to come from my hooves. Soon the air around my hooves was shimmering with compressed and condensed sound, and I slowly raised one of my hooves off the ground, imaging the invisible blob of energy forming into claws. As I watched, the shimmering blob around my hoofs slowly turned into three razor sharp claws of pure energy sound, and soon did the same to the other hoof.

The giggling only seemed to increase as I walked on, the sound of crunching bone slowly loudening as I got closer to the source. I turned around a corner to find a family of raiders, two fillies and their father all sitting around a table, another dead pony in the middle. As they turned their black pinpricks of pupils towards me, their bloody mouths stretching into smiles to reveal their teeth stained with red, both new and old, I smiled back. “Did some raider order delivery~”

The father launched himself at me, giggling as he rocket towards me on bloody hooves. My smile turned deadly as I slashed my hoof up to meet him. I watched as my hoof simply waved in front of his face. At least that's what it seemed to do, before he let out a last choking giggle, having jumped right into the sounded claws of energy reaching from my hoof, digging into his skull in neck. Crimson slowly flowed from the wounds, traveling down the condensed sound as if it was made of solid steel. What I hadn’t noticed is that while my attention had been on the father one of the fillies had launched themselves at me, taking a bite at my back leg. 

I let out a yell of pain, before switching my hooves, dragging the father under my hoof as the other flew back to claw at the head of the raider filly, sinking in with a wet crunch. I panted softly, catching my breath as the last filly prepared her own attack. It was just then that my concentration decided to slip, the noise claws that had been wedged into the two dead raiders disappearing along with my concentration, the filly falling onto her side  and the father’s wounds now bleeding freely without something blocking the exit for the blood. It just so happened that was also the time the last filly decided to attack, leaping for my face with her mouth wide.

Thinking fast I flopped onto my back, and the filly instead of smashing into my face with her teeth landed ontop of me, giggling hysterically. Her head snapped down towards me and she lunged forward again, her jaws opening wide to take a bit out of my face. Sadly for her though my hoofs stopped her an inch from my face, struggling against the strength of the insane filly. I began to try and concentrate, imagining the claws forming again as the filly continued to snap at my face, thin lines of crimson beginning to appear on her neck where my claws were starting to form. 

With a final cry I put all my strength into flipping me and the filly forwards, my body landing on top of hers just as my claws fully formed, plunging into the throat of the filly.  She struggled, continuing to giggle madly as blood leaked from her mouth as the life leaked out from her as well. “This is going to be gross,” I grumbled, then closed my eyes tight and pulled my hooves each in a different direction, hearing a wet ripping sound as the filly’s head was disconnected from her neck and spinal column. 

The claws vanished again, and slowly, pain emitting from the bite in my leg, headed towards the door, leaving the now dead raider family behind. I hoped that with the death of these sick and insane ponies that I had somehow avenged the deaths of the lynched ponies outside.


New skill unlocked: Sound claws, you can now channel the power of sound into lethal blades that are as effective as cold steel


> Gallops Walk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


My legs finally fell out from under me, and I went rolling down the small hill we had been going down, sharp rocks scratching through my coat as I rolled, leaving me a scratched up mess at the bottom. I groaned, and called out to the now worried looking Rosey and Lotus, “I think we should rest for a bit, my legs are killing me,”

“Your right, it almost seems like your legs are trying to kill you!” Lotus squeaked, and I rolled my eyes at the olive colored filly. I rolled onto my stomach and checked to make sure none of the scratches were bad. “You should probably down a healing potion, even a small cut could get infected,” Rosey told me. “Hm, well how many healing potions do you two have?” I asked, checking my own saddlebags. Three healing potions clinked inside with my guns, and I frowned slightly. With all the combat that had been happening I had quickly drained the stash of healing potions my father had given me.

When Rosey and Lotus checked their bags, we emptied all of our healing potions out in front of us to see. It turned out Rosey and Lotus had been about in as low supplies as I had been, and all together we only had about seven healing potions, and so far we hadn’t found any place that held more. Sometimes it almost felt like the wasteland was trying to make things as hard as possible, and I wondered if I had been stupid not the check the rest of that raider barn. For all I had known they could have possessed a potion or two, but by now it was too late.

I sighed, and looked over too my steel ranger companion, asking, “Does your small amount of doctor experience tell you if we have a healthy supply or not?”

“Well I can tell we are lucky to have more than two or three, so let’s count that as a yes,” she responded, and I turned to the little pony in my head, who had by now become Onyx. “You have any doctoring experience considering your father was, well, a doctor?” I questioned, and she rolled her eyes. “You realize we share memories by now right? Just look in the past and see for yourself,”

“Good point,” I conceded, and looked back into my, or Onyx’s, past. I remembered way back watching my father mess with the many medical cabinets that had been in his office. He had also once told me it was always healthy to bring around ten healing potions and one super restoration, so by stable standards we were low. For wasteland standards we were pretty good, or at least I thought we were.

As Lotus and Rosey worked on collecting scrap would for a fire, I layed down where we were going to put the fire, relaxing and giving my legs a rest. I watched through my reptilian eyes as Rosey and Lotus began to drag would over to the spot, before slowing looking around at our surroundings, my eyes able to pick out the shapes of dead trees scattered around the area in clear focus as well as the far away imprint of gallops walk, about another mile away. As they continued to head over, I decided to put on DJ pony and listen to his broadcast.

Instead of the same masculine voice I had heard before though, a strong female voice came out of the speaker of the pipbuck, singing a song about a broken heart. By the time Rosey and Lotus got to me my eyes were closed and my head was waving slowly with the music, my voice softly following the lines of her own voice perfectly. Lotus poked me in the side, waking me from my song induced coma and I began to help set up the fire, using a lighter I had been given on my ninth birthday to light the wood up. I sighed as the song came to an end, and looked back down to my pipbuck as the same male voice I had heard began to come out.

“Ah, nothing better than good old sapphire shores, singing broken heart,” the buck said with a sigh of his own, and I noted with amusement how accurate the song name was to what the whole song had been about. “It seems we have ponies working in all parts of equestria now to help make it a better place, with the lightbringer and another mare working in the hoof I like to call the Security mare to now another mare working in the north old minefield we all call whinnysberg, and this message is dedicated to her,” at that I felt my cheeks turn a bit Rosey, but to avoid the blush teasing from Lotus I put my hoofs around my muzzle, getting me both a better listen and a good blush cover.

“ Ah yes the mare of the north, now children you may have remembered me calling her the musician, but I believe she has earned herself a new title of sound shark, and I know many of you are probably going “But DJ pony, she is just a normal everyday pony like you and me right?” well ponies that is both true and false now, for she now has the gaze of a radigators and the gills of a shark, but even despite these disturbing features it hasn’t stopped her from helping the wasteland, helping a small town named bucklemare out and in the process also clearing a slaver town, managing to blow down the gate protecting those bastards with nothing but her own hooves and even managing to convince more than half of the slavers to take a hike and get a new path in life, and I have hope many of them will do just that,” how the heck did he always get this much info? I looked around the darkening wasteland, but all I could make out was the usual dead trees and a large, black spire peaking out of the trees to the west. My gaze lingered on it for a second, before my attention turned back to DJ pony.

“Also for all those ponies out there afraid of the ghost stories of the hanging trees don’t be, because the sound shark washed in and cleared out the family of raiders behind it. Sorry to rain on the parade of any pony believing there were vengeful spirits there hanging all that came through, but your theories are debunked,” The bucks voice finished, and I shot a surprised look towards Rosey who returned it. I hadn’t even known we had cleared out a place ghost story worthy, although with all the hanging ponies I could imagine how it could have become one. “So ponies, if you ever see green reptilian eyes staring at you from the darkness, call out friend instead of monster,” the bucks voice finished, and I sighed in relief. I had personally been afraid that I would get shot at because of the now slightly monstrous look I carried, but it seemed that DJ pony had me covered on that. Heck I almost wanted to kiss him just for that, and also for other reasons. Crap hide the blush now.

That time I was too late, and I groaned as both Lotus and Rosey did the “ooooooooh”. I expected that from Lotus, not Rosey as well. “S-shush!” I squeaked indignantly, and that only made them laugh. I humphed, then curled up turning the radio off and laying my head down on my hooves. “I guess i’ll take first watch,” Rosey murmured, and I opened my eyes to look at her. “Thanks, wake me up when you can’t keep your eyes open,” I said, before closing my eyes and slowly dozing off to sleep.

Instead of the pleasant dream I had been hoping for, in sleep a nightmare instead decided to greet me. I watched from the clouds as large lights began to rain from the sky, at least five of them, descending havoc upon equestria. My eyes widened in horror as I watched the lights hit the towns and cities of equestria, seeming to flicker out of existence. I let out a “no!” as the lights suddenly came back on, except this time they came back on in large booming explosions of magic and radiation.

I felt tears at the edges of my eyes as I watched the surface become clouded in a magical light, the world under hidden from sight as if it had vanished off the map. I felt a coldness beginning to numb my hooves, and I tore my gaze away from the sight of equestria’s falling to see the bracelets around my hooves glowing a bit, ice edging out from the bases of my hooves to stretch out onto the cloud I was laying on, and reaching out my mind to it crawled back towards the bracelets, being absorbed back into my hooves.

I heard a soft clicking, and looked with wet eyes to the pipbuck attached to my forehoof, the radiation meter ticking up slowly. A tear fell from my eye as I looked back to the now ruined equestria, the only city still standing being canterlot, a purple bubble of magic surrounding the city, protecting the ponies inside from the radiation. I watched more lights hit the wall of the shield, exploding in a magical burst on impact. The shield held, to my relief, and I watched for a bit longer, tears now free falling from my eyes as I watched the city defend itself from the zebra’s megaspells.

My heart skipped a beat as a pink cloud quickly began to fill the bubble of magic, and within minutes all I could see was a pink orb, the transparency of the magic gone, hidden under the pink cloud. I sniffed, and tried to wipe my leaking eyes with a hoof and clean away the tear marks that now lead from my eyes down my white fur. “And so the last city below the clouds falls,”I choked out, before flapping my wings, gaining air. Then I joined the other pegasi in putting down the cloud cover, unsure what to do. It seemed now all there was left was the pegasi, and maybe some of the ground ponies in vaults.

I awoke with a gasp, feeling the same wet streaks from my eyes as I had in my dream, and looked around wildly. I stopped at the surprised look on Rosey’s face, which quickly turned to one of concern. “Hey you alright? You were tossing and whimpering in sleep like you were having a heart attack, “ Rosey whispered, and with a shaky breath I nodded.

“Y-yah I’m fine, it was just a nightmare,” I replied, forcing a smile onto my lips. Damnit let her not see my body shaking. With a soft cue of understanding, she reached out a hoof and placed it on my shoulder, smiling. “In the morning just say if you want to talk about it, okay?”

I nodded, and she layed down, her eyes closing slowly. After a minute her breathing grew slower and her mouth opened slightly, the tell tale signs of sleep. With a couple shaky deep breaths I tried to steady my own breathing, my heart feeling like it was about to rip out of my chest. It took a couple seconds, but finally my breathing went back to normal. Most of my dreams left me as soon as I had them, especially the nightmares, but the nightmare stuck in my head like a memory, the scene of equestria being covered in destructive magic playing over and over in my mind.

With a jolt, I realized that in the nightmare I had not been myself, despite the same magical bracelets I had seen around my hooves. Thinking back I had been a pegasus buck, remembering the cool white fur on my hooves in the nightmare and the feeling of wings on my back as well as a weight between my - okay done thinking about that now.  I shook my head rapidly, and looked back out across the wasteland, Onyx helping by taking the previous thought and locking it in a steel cage. Then covering the cage with chains. Then throwing the cage into the void.

The night went on from their without troubles, and in the morning the three of us put out the fire before continuing to head on to gallops walk. The nightmare continued to play over and over in my head as we trotted on, as if it was a black tar plaguing my mind. Before long though the nightmare was put into the corner of my mind, leaving room for the new arrival that took all my focus. We had finally reached gallops walk, and to my surprise it was in fairly good shape, for a place out in the fallout anyway.

It was a large building made of steel, decorated in brilliant colors that had over time dulled and chipped off the metal, and along the ground leading to it laid a broken stone trail, rusted metal ponies standing on both sides of the path, seeming to be in mid trot. Despite the rust and chipping paint though some spots seemed more vibrant than others, and the metal ponies seemed to have a strange shine to them, as if they had been recently cleaned. A speaker crackled to life as we walked down the path, startling me and my two other companions. “Welcome to gallops walk, the only place you can find history on our glorious city whinneysberg!” 

“I highly doubt it’s the “only” place,”I grumbled to myself quietly. Rosey looked back at me with a look that silenced my grumbling, but not the eyeroll that soon came as the speaker called out, “ Gallop walk contains some quotes from the most recognized figures in all of equestria, including the ministry mares and celestia herself!”

“Celestia actually came to this place? It seems pretty small for a princesses presence,” Lotus questioned, and I chuckled. Knowing celestia from the visits she paid my own small town every once and a while, I knew that wouldn’t stop her from going. “Wait, who are the ministry mares?” I asked, and now it was Rosey’s turn to roll her eyes. 

“How do you not know who the ministry mares were? You were raised in a stable where they teach that kind of thing weren’t you?”

After a second of thought, I responded, “Actually when I was a filly all they taught us was how reproduction worked and how we had to keep the stable alive and healthy with new colts and fillies,”

This caught a surprised look from both Rosey and Lotus, and I turned my head questioningly. I myself was surprised at the things Onyx had been taught. Looking back at my own past I remembered learning about multiplication and division while she had been learning what goes where. “Well, after Luna had taken charge of the kingdom when celestia stepped down, she called upon the elements of harmony to help her lead her new kingdom,” Rosey began, and I sighed. Sitting down on my rump, I prepared myself for the upcoming history lecture. Lotus pulled up next to me, and two sets of eyes turned to Rosey as she continued on talking. “The elements of harmony each took a role in helping, and so the six ministries of equestria were born. I don’t recall the names of all six, but the three I know best is the ministry that formed the steel rangers in the first place,” at this her chest puffed out a bit, and a smile teased the corners of my mouth. “The ministry of wartime technology, made by ministry mare applejack, who led the research on weapons to help us defeat the zebra forces. Another was the ministry of arcane science, or MAS, lead by -” 

“Twilight sparkle,” I put in, and she gave an approving look. “She helped create many magically enhanced weapons and things many use today, including the pipbuck around your forehoof as well as stealth bucks,” at that I looked down at the metal contraption around my leg, and sure enough on the bottom saw the small sign, reading “MAS made,”

“The last one I can recall is the ministry of peace, who was lead by fluttershy. She worked on medicines and spells to help in healing and trying to end the war in peace,”

“Looks like that didn’t work out,” I mumbled sadly, and Rosey nodded solemnly. “You could say the time of the ministries was one of the most innovative times in pony history, and if you ask some of the sane ponies they will probably say that it was in fact too innovative,” she finished. Well, that certainly hadn’t been as boring as expected. But it had still taken time, and after a second we headed into the main center of gallops walk, the door squeaking behind us as we entered.

The inside was even bigger than the outside showed, the walls covered in small stalls, seeming to show moments in the history of whinnysberg. Like the outside though, the inside seemed strangely clean compared to most of the wasteland. I looked around uneasily before walking towards one of the first stalls, the portrayed image being a red buck with a large green apple in an army form, who I recognized as bigmac, jumping in front of princess celestia. I looked down to see a small pressure plate near the edge of the stall, and after a second pushed my hoof against it, once again getting startled as a speaker came to life to my left.

“After big mac bravely took a shot for celestia, Celestia had built the big mac memorial, planted near his hometown ponyville where he was buried. Shortly after that Celestia had made plans to build whinnysberg as a center for zebra magic study after one of her higher ranking officers was assassinated by a zebra using a stealth cloak and flesh bypass talisman. This Zebra was later identified as Yerzack. After a failed interrogation session Yerzack escaped to roam equestria,”

“So if this is a center for zebra magic study, why haven’t we seen any labs or anything?” I questioned.

“We are on the outskirts of the city, where there isn’t very much to see. Deeper in there is a lot more dangers, but also a lot more to discover,” Rosey informed me, and I gave a nodd. Walking down the stalls following that, I saw the scene it had talkin about, showing Yerzack, black and white stripes and all, escaping from one of those interrogation chairs you would see in a horror movie. With a small shudder, I moved onto the next pressure plate, this one in front of a picture of twilight sparkle holding a contraption that reminded me of a pipbuck. After a quick push of the plate, like before the speaker came back to life.

“Ministry mare twilight sparkle made the stealth buck in our great city, specifically in the arcane sciences lab, off of a zebra cloak taken from a zebra assassin. Later that year stealthbucks were made pipbuck compatible, and began selling equestria-wide,” with that the speaker cut out again, leaving is to the silence of the building once again. At least, it was silent until a primal scream tore through the building, the horrific sound echoing off the walls.

My head snapped towards the source of the sound, my gaze focusing on a cramped hallway leading away from the room we were currently in. The walls of the hallway had the usual wasteland look, the walls covered in blood and pornographic images, which had mostly likely been made by raiders. Out of it though, the thing that caught my attention the most was the red letters spelled in dried blood, thin trails leading from the two words that had been written before a pony died.

“They Lie”

The thing that disturbed me the most about this whole situation though, was there were no bones or bodies in the hall where the blood was. Infact, the entire area was picked clean of anything resembling a pony. “Help! Somepony Help me!”

“Just hold on a second were coming!” I called down the hallway, before heading down myself, all rational thoughts flying out of my head. I heard hoofsteps behind me as the three of us charged down the hallway, following the sound of the pony’s voice until we ended up in another large room, although this one was smaller than the previous. This place, unlike most of this place we had seen so far, was more than wasteland material. The walls were the same bright paint, but here you could see few places where the paint actually showed, instead of the new seeming red paint of dried blood, both fresh and old. Holes showed in the walls where it looked like long, jagged claws had punctured the soft and rotting wood. Pony carcasses were strewn across the place, their stomach cut open into jagged holes, exposing missing organs along with torn up intestines. The creepiest thing about all of this though was the fact every corpse in the room had no face, the bone exposed in a skeletal mask, all flesh and muscle there before gone. 

In the corner, the only living pony cowered, her head wrapped in her hooves wrapped around her head in a protective manner, her entire body shaking. “Are you alright?” I called out, slowly approaching the mare. Something didn’t quite feel right about this, and I continued my slow pace forwards, the hoofsteps behind me stopping at the entrance to the door. When I was about ten feet from her, the shaking of her limbs stopped, and she let out a low chuckle, a strange vibrative note entering her voice. I stopped walking forward, and instead began stumbling to get away as she revealed her face in a slow, dramatic matter. My eyes widened in horror as I saw her own eyes were nothing like mine. Instead, they were deep pools of blue, with a tiny green pupil in the center staring right at me. “You ponies are so easy too fool,” she drawled out, and I began to see the image of the mare begin to change.

Rosey screamed behind me, but I barely noticed the sound, my eyes locked on the shifting form of the thing in front of me. A dark, spiraling horn began to protrude from its head, the bone covered in small holes as if it wasn’t quite complete, and its face molded into that of bug like features, the snout shrinking back to be replaced by something resembling the snout that had just been replaced, except this one was more of two large mandibles, needle sharp black teeth shining like dark ebony in its mouth as it gave a too-sweet smile. Its hooves and legs began to mold into a black armored carapace, before it continued to stretch, the end slowly forming into a point sharp enough to go through a ponies skull like butter. I had the feeling that was exactly what this creature used it for aswell, as it rose onto the now eight legs protruding from its black twisted body, the entire thing covered in small holes. Its tail, no longer made of hair, turned into a long scorpion like tail, twisting over its head as a glimmer of green liquid shined at the tip, no doubt some deadly toxin waiting to kill me. Finally two wings protruded from its back, and I took in the full sight of the horror standing before me.

Without another thought I bolted, turning tail and sprinting towards the doorway that Lotus and Rosey had already abandoned, their hoofsteps echoing down the hallway as they ran for their lives. I on the other hoof didn’t have the head start they had, and before long I heard the sharp clicking of the horror’s legs hitting the ground getting closer and closer to my tail. My lungs began to burn from the extertion, and I silently cursed at myself that I should have worked out more.

A sharp pain suddenly rocketed up my left leg, and I felt something lodge itself into it, stopping me in my tracks while also making a blood curtling scream that I never knew I could produce come out. It fell it on me in an instant, each of its legs stabbing into the floor around me as my own blood pooled beneath my legs. I groaned, and tried to slowly drag myself forward, only to be stopped as one of the things legs stabbed down right next to my head. “You should have read the sign the other pony tried to make, although I guess all of you are too stupid to realize it when another is smart,”

With a dry chuckle, I jabbed back, “this how you treat all the boys you meet? No wonder your alone,”

“BE QUIET,” the thing hissed between clenched jaws, but if I was going to die why not go out comically.  “I used to be alone too - “ I looked up to see Rosey aiming at the thing, her eye looking down the scope and the gun firmly in her telekinetic grip and the trigger slowly pulling back. With a bold smile, I finished “Then I got laied for the first time and swore to never get single again and also to never get ‘shot’ up,” with that I rolled forwards, and with a bang the thing jerked its head up to look at Rosey. Atleast she did look, until one of her blue pools of eyes exploded as if in slow motion the bullet charged straight through it and into her brain. It gave a shudder and a long hiss, almost like a bomb, before falling to the ground, green icker coming out of the wound. Luck, had been the thing that saved me. And I could not be happier that luck had taken the form of Rosey today.


Level up, new perk added - closer look: your perception has increased and you can see weakpoints easier