2 - Introductory

Chapter Two: Introductory

“Each journey begins with a single step.”

Brown.

I don’t really know why it still bothers me so much. The sky had been nothing but the same dreary brown clouds ever since the day I was born, the pegasi upstairs not overly keen on sharing the Goddess’ sun. It was no different on that admittedly dull morning in New Appleoosa, with very little sunlight breaking through to brighten up the small town made up largely of various train pieces.

If only someone could create a large, colourful mural to brighten the sky up. Or just kick out the stick-up-their-own-asses Enclave and clear things up a little.

But wish as I might, I didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

With those depressing thoughts over, I lit up my horn and let my pale white aura bring over a checklist from the wagon I was hauling behind me. I was in this shithole of a town for one very specific purpose, and those were caps. There was a mare, a ghoul of all things, who was always interested in buying whatever random pieces of junk a scavenger like me might bring in.

I let go of my magic and held the checklist in my brown coated hoof.

Just my fucking luck I got a coat as brown as the sky and a mane a slight shade darker. At least my green eyes gave some variety, not like anypony gave a damn. I was just another scavenger coming to see Ditzy Doo, the wagon and cutie mark depicting a pile of scrap was a ‘small’ giveaway.

My parents, who were long since raider bait, even had the decency to give their little colt a name like Scrap Heap. I really was cursed from birth, wasn’t I?

Ignoring that, I looked at the name of the shop I was heading towards. Absolutely Everything was its name, suitable since that’s pretty much exactly what the owner sold. You wanted something in New Appleoosa, you went to Ditzy Doo.

I had met Ditzy a few times previously since she was always the one to buy my wares whenever I frequented the town. The ghoul was pleasant enough, and always eager to part with her caps for whatever piece of junk you may present her. Saying that, though, she had her… eccentricities.

Seriously, how can anypony in the wasteland be that damned bubbly?

You’d think living two hundred years in a decaying world would turn you feral, like most other ghouls. But not Ditzy. Somehow that mare just keeps on trucking along, come what may. I suppose I have to respect that, despite her clumsiness, it has to take a serious force of will to stay sane for so long.

Or maybe she’s just that oblivious, but what do I know about these things?

I trotted slowly past the various ponies of the town, each one shooting me the odd wary glance. I suppose they had a right to their wariness, trust isn’t a common or necessarily wise thing in the wastes of Equestria. And some scavengers can be as mean as any raider given half the chance, especially if you encroach upon ‘their salvage’.

Fuck that shit. Who would shoot a pony for a piece of scrap metal?

Nevertheless, they all moved on after sneaking their looks. They all had somewhere to be, whether that be helping keep the town afloat or simply heading towards the bottle and a future headache. Whatever those ponies wished to do, I just pulled up outside Absolutely Everything and brought the wagon to a stop. I wrapped my magic around the harness and unhitched myself from the wagon, casting them aside and turning to take inventory. I had a good idea from previous experience how much Ditzy would pay for each separate piece and certain ways to haggle the price up. Too bad I was out of muffins. Not that I’d ever had one in the first place, but if I ever did I knew exactly where I’d take them.

Content with my haul, and the caps soon to line my pockets, I turned from the wagon and walked briskly into the building behind me. Like everything else, it was cobbled together. But having accommodation at all was a gift nowadays.

Wish I had a house. Maybe someday…

The inside of the shop was a disaster area. Pieces of, well… absolutely everything was scattered all over the place. Pieces of old robots, random scrap, and even some guns and armour. Anything you could imagine, sans suits of T-45 power armour. The last thing the town needed was for the Steel Rangers to come knocking down the door.

I must admit, I was tempted to spend some of my earnings on the selection of weapons and armour she had. I had a simple set of leather barding strapped to my hide, protective but limited against anything substantial. And then there was the 9mm pistol strapped into its holster, a pea shooter by many standards. Though both were well maintained, my ability to keep things in peak condition is something I do pride myself on.

And there, at the counter rising out of the junk, was the chirpy ghoul I was looking for. Ditzy was busy at work on a terminal, mismatched eyes narrowed as she tapped away with rotted hooves. Her skeletal wings seemed to twitch in irritation, and the pegasus had yet to notice me.

I coughed loudly into a hoof, the mare giving a small and rather cute sound of surprise. She stood bolt upright, blinking a few times as she looked towards me. And then she gave me that bright goofy smile.

Picking up a chalkboard beside her, she wrote: “Scrapper! Got stuff for me?”

Scrapper. That was a name very few called me, an alternative to Scrap Heap I was ultimately indifferent to. I was scrap, one way or the other. Though if she got to use nicknames, so did I.

“Full wagon load, Derpy,” I stated to the ghoul, shooting her my best smirk. “Bunch of parts from old skywagons, a few busted weaponry and other stuff only you’d find useful.”

Ditzy rubbed out the writing on the board, replacing it with: “Anything can be helpful. Show?”

I gave her a nod, walking back out as she removed herself from behind the counter and fell into step behind me. As we exited Absolutely Everything, I motioned towards the wagon as she gave a happy squeal at the haul. She batted her wings as she floated around the wagon, peering inside and giving every single piece a good looking over. Finally, she landed back on her hooves and trotted back over with her chalkboard held in her mouth.

The text stated: “Lots of stuff! I’ll get caps.”

“I would hope so,” I replied with a small chuckle. “I’ll get my money and be right back to it. Still plenty of scrap to dig up.”

She nodded, beginning to trot back towards the shop.

And then she paused, looking back at me with a small tilt to her head. I stopped too, wondering what had caught the mare’s attention. But even as I looked, there was nothing of particular note that might have caught her interest. It was only as my confusion began to grow that I realised she was looking specifically at me, rather than something around my general area.

“Uh… something the matter?” I asked, suddenly having an unexplained feeling of nervousness.

She stared a little more, before writing: “Will get caps. But have other thing.”

‘Other thing’? Just what was she talking about? She’d never gotten this… weird in my previous visits to her business. Seriously, having those undead milky eyes stare directly into yours is some creepy shit. And yet, with nothing but my general paranoia to ward me off, I followed her back inside as she went behind the counter to fetch the caps. All the while, I just watched the ghoul nervously as I wracked my brain to figure out the sudden change in attitude.

Maybe it was whatever she was working on before I came in?

“So… what were you doing on that terminal?” I asked as casually as possible. “Something interesting? Dangerous? What’s the story?”

She looked up at me, considering me for a moment before answering on her board: “Going Ponyville way tomorrow. Stuff I need to do.”

“Oh. And… what is this ‘stuff’?”

She didn’t answer right away, instead counting up the last of my caps and depositing them in a bag. She took hold of a rope and tied the bag shut before throwing it towards me. I caught it with my magic, putting my payment into my saddlebags.

When I looked back, Ditzy had written: “Not related. I need you for a thing.”

“Alright. A job then?” I asked, getting a nod in return. “I assume there’s scavenging involved?”

The tilted head I got conveyed the answer as being a maybe. Still, having an actual paying job was always better than scrounging around and hoping to break big with the next load. Seriously, what kind of trouble could this little ghoul get me in?

“Alright. I’m listening.”

She gave me a happy smile, one that I couldn’t help but get infected by the sheer cheeriness of it. Seriously, is there any way you could possibly not get a warm feeling in your stomach every time she gave you that bright smile? Impossible, I say. Impossible!

As I smiled to myself like an idiot, she began to dig through the piles of junk around the shop as if searching for something very specific. She gave a few garbled hums as she went through it all, picking up pieces and discarding them to one side when they turned out not to be what she was looking for. This went on for a while and, eventually, I just sat to one corner while waiting as patiently as I could for her to find whatever this ‘thing’ was.

Finally, however, she gave a squeal of victory as she lifted something up in her hoof. Something that, when she presented it before me, I was forced to do a small double take.

It was a small device held together with a simple latch, one large enough to be attached to a pony’s hoof and adjusted for comfort. It had a few little dials to the right of a green screen that dominated most of the device. It had a few dark, dead looking lights dotted around and a detachable utility cable plugged into the back.

She allowed me to lift it up in my magic and, for the first time in my life, I held a PipBuck.

“Where in Equestria did you get this?” I asked, dumbfounded. “These are worth a fortune in caps! Does… does it even work?”

Ditzy nodded, writing: “Yeah! Powered, just off.”

I whistled, giving the PipBuck a look over. “Wow. So, uh… what do you want me to do with it?”

She considered for a moment, before erasing her previous comment and getting to work writing a new one. It took a few moments, and when she turned the board around I had to squint to see all the small writing. She had written a lot in such a small space.

“Put it on, silly! It’s a model 3000 Mark IV, you don’t need special tools to get it on and off. Picked it up from a trader who thought it busted, I got it working. And it’s got something pretty interesting on it! It has a stable!”

I blinked. “The PipBuck… has a stable?”

She nodded happily, once again erasing what was on the board and replacing it with: “Yes! Stable 84 location, far north. Hidden. Untouched. Great scavenge, if abandoned.”

“Unless it’s got dwellers in it,” I noted, getting another nod in return.

I sighed. A stable, an un-scavenged one, could be the biggest haul I’d ever make in my life! The caps could set me up in Tenpony Tower if I so wished! But there could be ponies still living in it, which would make it a complete waste of time. It was very much a matter of dwelling on the risks and rewards, but then there was that sweet PipBuck to consider too! Not every day you get the chance to wear one of these little computers, now is it?

Finally, I made up my mind. “Alright, sounds like something worth checking out.”

Ditzy clopped her hooves together in excitement and, at her beckoning, I undid the latch and the PipBuck and placed it onto my right hoof. The latch reattached as easily as it came undone, and I adjusted it so that it sat snugly against my hide without slipping off. Once it was firmly in place I sat back on my haunches and brought my right hoof up so that I could see the screen. With a bit of searching, I found the button that seemed to turn on the power. Sure enough, the moment I pressed it the whole screen lit up and began to display rolling green text as the OS booted up. This went on for a moment or two before the text vanished and a small colt in a stable jumpsuit flashed on the screen, giving me a cheeky little wink.

Finally, the Stable Colt vanished. Once it was gone, the screen flashed to a representation of a pony with various bars attached to each limb. There were several other tabs to explore including a map, inventory and radio. I felt things shift around in my saddlebags and, on examination, I realised that some kind of sorting spell from the device had arranged my bags in an orderly fashion.

“Huh, neat,” I commented, shifting back to the status screen. When I did, I took note that an unfamiliar name was written out below the image of a pony.

Before I could ask, Ditzy answered: “You can change the name, it’s probably the original owner.”

“Ah, thanks,” I replied, quickly going into the settings and doing just that.

I gave a huff of satisfaction as my name replaced the original on the main screen before I then tried moving to one of the tabs I had yet to visit. That being the objectives tab, curious as to what was logged inside the device.

Locate Stable 84.

I jumped back in surprise as an arrow appeared in my vision, pointing out of the store and into the Magical Land of Equestria beyond. It was then I also noticed other elements in my vision, namely a compass with a single green bar pointing towards where Ditzy Doo was standing.

And then, when I had jumped back in surprise, somehow I had made time stop!

I was frozen in place, eyes wide as Ditzy seemed to glow a bright green. Percentage chances seemed to point towards all of her limbs.

What was this!? I didn’t want crazy percentages or weird targeting spells! Get out! Out!

Time restarted as I dropped to the floor, Ditzy just stared oddly at me as I dropped. And then she started to laugh, or at least a mutilated attempt at laughter that came with being without a tongue.

Calming herself, she picked the board back up and conveyed to me: “E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. I think. Red bad, green good.”

Flushing with embarrassment, I tried to ignore the demeaning incident of landing on my backside and instead searched the PipBuck for a better explanation. Apparently, the Eyes Forward Sparkle would detect hostile intent around me as a cautionary measure. The Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell was something that pretty much just stopped time and gave the user time to think. Freaky.

Stable-Tec had certainly come up with some advanced stuff. Probably right up there with the old ministries themselves. I’d certainly heard a few horror stories from around the wasteland, things from both before and after the world went boom. Believe me, I’d never go anywhere near that stuff for as long as I lived.

Collecting myself, I arose back to my hooves and tore my eyes away from my Pipbuck.

“Well, it’s been great, Derpy,” I stated, beginning to make my way towards the door. “If there’s stuff to be had, I’ll drag it all back here for a heap of caps!”

But my bravado was stopped by a squishy hoof on my shoulder and, with a small huff of irritation, I turned to once again face the ghoul and bear whatever catch she was about to lay on me.

Her board read: “Stable needs code. PipBuck’s code data is corrupted.”

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my muzzle with my hooves. “Of course it is. Alright, how do I get the code?”

She grabbed my foreleg, bringing the PipBuck up and shifting to the map screen despite my protests about personal space. She scrolled the map from the blip of New Appleoosa (how did a two-hundred-year-old PipBuck even know the town?) and settled the cursor on an apparently ‘undiscovered’ blip of Manehatten.

I looked towards her curiously. “Manehatten? I have to go to the city? Why?”

And so the chalk was scraping along the board again: “Nosed around. Guy in Tenpony contacted. Claims to have code. Check it out. Look for Cobalt.”

Right. So now I was on a quest to find a lost mythical stable and, in the meantime, I had to go elsewhere to find a guy who may or may not have the code to said stable.

Seemed legit.

“Okie dokie lokie…” I muttered freeing my foreleg and returning the PipBuck to its main screen. “So head to Manehatten first. I can do that.”

A new objective appeared in my vision. It displayed the words ‘Find Cobalt in Tenpony Tower’ quite clearly.

“I think I have everything I need then,” I said, quite ready to get underway and find either my salvation or doom in this pre-war shelter of Ditzy’s. “Unless there’s something else?”

Ditzy shook her head, signalling me that I was free to go. But before I could leave I was stopped once again, only this time by a really squishy hug of thanks from the overly enthusiastic pegasus. And with me feeling thoroughly uncomfortable by the exchange, she made sure to write one last thing to me on the chalkboard.

“Return with stable stuff, and I got caps and muffins for you!”

“Caps will do fine, Derpy,” I replied, finally making it out of the door. “See you when I see you!”

I gave a long sigh as I exited Absolutely Everything, glancing at the PipBuck on my leg. The E.F.S. was picking up the movement of everypony in the town, something that would certainly come in handy in raider territory. Particularly since I would have to pass through the area around Ponyville on the way, I would rather avoid such bloodthirsty psychopaths if I could help it.

After ensuring my delivered scrap was offloaded and added to the piles within, I hitched myself back up to the cart and pulled away from the shop towards the town’s entrance. I had a long trip to Manehatten, and Stable 84 itself seemed to be located north of Canterlot in the expanse between the ruined capital and the Frozen North. I just hoped the stable was ripe for the picking.

But as I made that first step out of New Appleoosa, I made the mistake of thinking. Namely, I couldn’t help but think about the Pipbuck and where it had come from. Who was that person? And how does this ‘Cobalt’ have the code for an old stable? It made my head hurt just thinking about it, I never was a fan of mysteries.

And yet, think about it I did.

Who was this ‘Chrysalis’ that owned the PipBuck before me?

Footnote: Level 1, Scavenger

3 - Raiders

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Chapter Three: Raiders

“Nothing personal, just you and me.”

The town of New Appleoosa was now barely larger than a small clump of buildings behind me, the dirt beneath my hooves having being replaced by the cracked and aged concrete of the old highway. I had to give the wagon a good tug to get it up onto the concrete, two hundred years of neglect and the occasional grenade hadn’t made it the smoothest of surfaces to traverse. But still, it was the most direct route to travel and usually a safe one.

Usually.

Before continuing further, I made sure to double check that my gun was still in its holster, loaded and ready to go at the first sign of trouble. Of course, it was. I’d like to think I wasn’t dumb enough or so absent-minded enough as to leave it in Ditzy’s shop. But it never hurt to check, radiation never was good for brain cells.

Glancing back at the town, I could see the sentries still eying me from all that distance away, the glint of light on glass showing at least one sniper position. I got the message, they didn’t want me hanging around pointlessly as raider bait. And I really couldn’t have agreed more.

Turning away from the pile of wrecked train cars calling itself a town, I began to trot forwards on the asphalt while being sure that the wagon didn’t get caught in the many potholes running the length of the road. I’d honestly have preferred travelling without the cumbersome thing, but what else was I to use for carrying all that scrap?

The marker in my vision was pointing me in the general direction of Manehatten, though the road itself had other ideas. Just a scant ten-minute walk after I lost sight of New Appleoosa, I came across an intersection in the road. The trail snaked off in two separate directions ahead of me, neither of them a direct route to the big city. A sorry looking road sign sat just off the road, bent and in danger of vanishing into the dirt completely. I just latched onto it with my magic and bent it up enough to make out the barely legible letters.

Appleoosa. Dodge City. Ponyville.

Appleoosa, the original, was back the way I came. Nothing but a den of asshole slavers working for Red Eye up Fillydelphia way. Dodge City was largely abandoned, just a few squatters trying to fend off the odd bloatsprite or feral ghoul looking for a light snack. At least until the slavers came to pick up the poor sods and put them to work. It was not somewhere I was in the habit of wandering.

The final direction, steadily heading north in conjuncture with a nearby railway line, would bring me straight into Ponyville. Raider activity was common in the area, and yet it was the way I had to go if I wanted to reach the highway to Manehatten.

I’d probably have to avoid the town as much as possible unless I suddenly had the life goal of becoming a grotesque wall decoration.

I dropped the rusted sign, letting it sag back down onto the dirt, and selected the road to Ponyville. The road was long, but not one I hadn’t travelled before. Most merchants and scavengers had to, it being the most direct route between settlements.

And so I walked. The vast cloud cover above me being ever present, the only sound being the howling of the wind, the clopping of my hooves and the creaks and groans of my wagon. The sight of old burnt out trees began to dot the sides of the roads, lands where green had once been the dominant colour. Now it was as brown as everything else. Or black, where the balefire bombs had left but shadows in their wake.

Goddesses I hated this journey.

And yet it was one I had made many times. Never able to stay in one town for too long, always more scrap to dig up and caps to make. Though I will admit I was half tempted to stop off in The Republic, spend the night in a warm only slightly rotten bed.

Wouldn’t that have been nice?

But then again, I was making good time. No, it was better just to move on and find somewhere safe to camp out for the night. Preferably somewhere well past raider territory.

The burnt oaks were soon joined by the hulking skeletons of old buildings, nothing left but the beams that once supported them. One still had several vehicles in the parking lot, their owners having been left clawing at the doors even two hundred years later. A few skeletons were inside one of the larger wagons, scores of ponies laying dead and forgotten in their seats.

I spared them but a small glance as I walked on by, leaving the damned souls to their rest.

There was a crashed skywagon laying on its side in the middle of the road ahead, probably having been blown from the sky when Cloudsdale got bombed a little south of here. The pegasus who had guided it lay broken in the harness, though the lack of further bodies may have indicated that some of the passengers had crawled away from the crash.

I couldn’t see them as having gotten far.

The skywagon too had been picked over long before I was even a concept. I had checked it during a journey long past, probably my second or third? It really doesn’t matter, it was now just something to guide my wagon around.

The number of buildings thinned out, though the dead trees remained a constant throughout.

Up ahead I could see a bridge spanning over the lengthy Ghastly Gorge. And right on the edge of the giant scar in the ground was a small building with a few rusted skywagons parked forever beside it.

Huh.

I just realised that I’d never actually had a look inside that place before, always crossing the bridge over without much of a glance towards the structure. I stopped for a moment, looking between it and the bridge crossing the gorge that was probably filled with enough monsters to melt my face it wasn’t even funny.

“Ah, what the hay.”

I adjusted course, trotting straight up to the building as my E.F.S. pinged in response.

Red Rocket Wagon Stop.

I unstrapped myself from the wagon’s harness and left it on the side of the road. The skywagons that I’d spotted earlier were hooked up to long-dead machinery, probably meant to recharge the spark batteries inside the hulking pieces of junk.

I had a quick look inside the wagons, much to my disappointment finding them empty of skeletons or anything lootable. Clearly, somepony had already gone through these, not surprising really. Places like this, or anywhere else really, where I might have found something to scavenge were slowly dying out. The only place that seemed to have a never-ending supply of salvage was Hoofington, and I’d really have to be at rock bottom before I set a single hoof in that death trap!

I’d known a few fellow scavengers who’d gone up to the Hoof seeking their fortunes. I’d never seen any of them again.

Well, maybe they’d just never had a reason to come back. But given that this was the Equestrian Wasteland, I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.

Still, these skywagons still had internal components that I could retrieve and sell at a future date, so I made a mental note to myself to come back later and do just that.

Oh, and was that a Sparkle-Cola machine I just saw?

Indeed it was, sitting all alone just next to the door leading into the building itself. And I mean, who would say no to free Sparkle-Cola?

Forget the skywagons, I really needed one of those!

I eagerly trotted up to the still flickering machine and gave it a good looking over. It still had power, somehow, after these last two hundred years. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen one unpowered without having been battered with a lot of bullets beforehoof. They really built these things to last.

And I didn’t have any bits.

I grumbled to myself, only caps lining my pockets. And the machine certainly wouldn’t accept those, no matter how much I tried.

Well, only one thing for it!

The machine gave a resounding ‘CLANK’ as I reared up on my forehooves and bucked it as hard as I could.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Okay, NOT my brightest idea ever. And now I had an aching fetlock or two. Great.

I turned to face the machine, a little miffed that I may not get its goods. I suppose I could have tried shooting it, but why waste the bullets on something so… well, stupid? But unless I could find a crowbar and the strength to use it in the next five or so minutes, I was probably going to have to give up on tasting the carroty goodness.

Of course, then I spotted a couple of bits hanging out with a pile of trash a short distance away.

Yeah, that was good too.

I inserted the gold coins, watching as the machine deposited its last few colas into my waiting hooves. I popped one open immediately, sticking the cap with the rest while depositing the other drinks into my bags to be sorted by my Pipbuck.

Sipping on the delightful Sparkle-Cola, I trotted over the to doors and made my way inside the Red Rocket. The windows had all been blown out long ago, and the few remaining items within had been mostly knocked off the shelves and onto the floor. There were a couple of preserved boxes of ‘Dandy Colt Apples’ that I scooped into my saddlebags, one or two snack cakes and a breached container with some mush inside that was probably once some kind of fruit. That last one I simply tossed to the side and promptly forgot about.

The cash register was empty. Figures. And the only other objects inside the room were some bent old cans and burnt magazines. Nothing of use.

Oh, and there was that little red bar I had just noticed in my vision.

Followed my E.F.S. led me to the door leading into what appeared to be a storeroom, the red bar sitting idly with only the occasional twitch of movement. I brought out my little 9mm pistol and readied it in my magic. For a few tense moments, I just stood at the door, my breaths as quiet as I could make them as I slowly brought my hoof up to the handle.

And then I threw it open, weapon moving to train on the offending hostile!

The radroach flinched back at the sudden light entering the storeroom, making some aggressive clicks in my general direction.

Seriously, did I just get so worked up over a stupid roach? This E.F.S. really needed some better identification than ‘red bar, green bar’.

I walked up to the radroach, bringing up my right forehoof and stomping down into the creature. It gave a final screech as it was crushed beneath me, the red bar blinking out.

Now I just had to do the same to the other red bars that had suddenly appeared in its place.

Wait, what?

Pain coursed through my shoulder as it was nicked by a speeding bullet, the firing of the gun accompanied by my startled and pained shout.

I dropped to the floor and span as another bullet flew over my head, my eyes locking onto a manic looking blue unicorn mare covered head to hoof in gore. She wore scraps of whatever she could as armour, her eyes bloodshot and twitching as she looked at me in what I really hoped was actually hunger!

“There you are!” she shouted in an almost sing-song voice.

Time froze as she brought her gun to face me, percentages appearing all over her body.

I hadn’t actually meant to do that, but fuck it! I’ve had word worse accidents.

I targeted her barely armoured chest, and once I released the spell I brought the gun around almost on autopilot as I started to fire. Bullets dug deep into the mare’s hide as she crumpled into a pile, twitching as the last life ebbed away from her body.

“Uh oh! We got ourselves a fighter!” a male voice laughed as bullets peppered the outside of the Red Rocket.

And then a glass bottle with a flaming rag stuffed in it got pelted through the window and into the storeroom.

Oh boy.

Immense heat licked off my back as the Molotov exploded further in the storeroom. The flames quickly began to consume everything it could, and I could definitely feel it singeing my tail! I scrambled out of the storeroom in a made rush, jumping down below the bullets and up against the wall under the window.

Fire behind me, raiders in front of me. Welcome to Equestria.

I took a moment to look at my E.F.S. and all the bars now swarming around it. There were at least seven raiders outside, and each one was looking to make me their latest victim. Now, if I had a couple friends with me this might have been no problem. Or maybe if I was a Steel Ranger.

But I was alone, and I most certainly was not a Steel Ranger.

Well, crap.

A stream of bullets above me ceased as the raiders firing them reloaded their weapon, and I took the opportunity to take a quick look. The other seven looked just as deranged and full of dash as the first, three carrying barely functional machine guns while the rest all pelted me with 10mm pistols.

Dammit, they must have come from the other side of the bridge while I was looking around! A raiding party from Ponyville perhaps. Or-

A bullet striking a metre from my face made me decide that I really didn’t care where they came from, and I levitated my own pistol up to the window and fired blindly in the general direction of one of the raiders I had seen.

I emptied the clip and was rewarded with a strained scream from one of the mares. A quick glance over showed my last bullet had been fortunate enough to strike the mare in the throat, throwing her to the floor where she began to bleed out. They apparently were out of healing potions, so that was lucky for me.

“Okay! Now you’re getting it!” one of the stallions shouted as he charged for my window.

Okay, maybe ‘lucky’ was too strong a word.

My magic fumbled to retrieve a clip for my pistol, barely getting it into the slot before the raider jumped through the window and down on top of me. I let off a single shot that went wide and was rewarded with a hoof to the face and my weapon falling from my grasp somewhere amongst the shelves.

The raider gave a blood-curdling laugh, and I immediately entered S.A.T.S. as he levelled his 10mm at my head.

So, this was going really well! Next time I saw Ditzy I would be sure to give the bubbly ghoul a massive thank you kiss for the PipBuck, this spell was really giving me time to think about my impending doom!

The raider had me pinned beneath him, and I doubted I could shove him off before he gave my brain some air holes. Same would happen if I tried to reach for my weapon, which I could see in my peripheral vision was discarded to my right. I had zero in the way of combat spells, and I’d probably die before I could stick my horn in his eyes. Or just die doing it, but at least I’d leave him something to remember me by!

Oh goddesses, I didn’t want to die here.

I hated the wasteland. I hated scavenging old ruins in the hopes of making enough to eat that week. I even hated my own name! But one thing I loved? Breathing.

Oh, hello there.

S.A.T.S. really does give you time to think things through, doesn’t it? I could in no way act against this psychopath before he blew my head off, but do you know the one thing I could do?

Switch the safety on.

My spell collapsed, the stallion above pulling the trigger to an extremely satisfying ‘click’, my magic still sparkling over the pistol’s safety.

The raider’s momentary confusion allowed me to kick him off of my body before jumping for my own gun. The raider, not yet done with me, dropped his gun cluelessly and brought out a really big knife from his barding.

A really big knife that was now heading in my direction.

I rolled to one side as the stallion lunged for me, his knife scrapping my barding as I quickly got up to my hooves.

Oh yeah, there were five others outside still shooting at me.

A bullet hit me in the left shoulder, and oh Celestia the pain was unbearable! My barding had just morphed around the bullet, stopping it from going clean through by certainly creating a sizable diver in my shoulder.

My face met the floor as I fell, my immediate problem getting to his own hooves with the knife held in his mouth. My PipBuck was flashing with warnings regarding my left foreleg, though through the pain I spotted my 9mm still laying behind the stallion.

My horn lit up, and my gun swivelled around as the raider made to finish me off.

Only to howl as a bullet lodged in his posterior. Something I followed up with a second to make him drop to the floor before I painted the shelves with his grey matter.

Three down, five to go. I brought out a healing potion from my saddlebags, gulping the thing down and watching as my shoulder stitched itself back together. The dented barding popped back into place with my shoulder, the bullet falling out and clattering to the floor.

Okay, I could do this! Just keep my head down and shoot. Easy!

“Fuck it, charge him!” one of the raiders shouted from outside. “I get his head for my room!”

Oh well, there goes that idea.

I got back to my hooves, gun at the ready and prepared to jump into S.A.T.S. in a desperate bid to hit as many as I could before they reached the building.

Only for two of the five to go down in a hail of bullets, bullets that came from the sky!

The other three jolted around to face the incoming pegasus as he dived away in order to make another pass. One of them raised their rifle towards the flying pony, and I fired several bullets in their direction. One made contact with the raider’s leg, and she fell to her knees with a hiss of pain.

“Stupid little unicorn!” the injured raider shouted out, grabbing a bottle from her bag.

Oh, so that’s where the Molotov had come from.

Before she could burn me out, however, a bullet pierced right through her heart and sent the makeshift bomb flying backwards in the opposite direction, exploding away from anypony.

One of the raiders turned to face their assailant as the pegasus came to a landing, the other screaming in terror as he decided it was a good idea to run to the Red Rocket for cover. It only took a single bullet from me to bring him down.

This left on a single raider facing off against the pegasus, though several shots from the latter’s battle saddle quickly made several new holes in the former as the raider went down like a wet gore bag.

And this left just me and the pegasus. The bar on the E.F.S. was green, though I didn’t need that to know that this guy was a friend.

“Ugh, these varmints don’t even have good loot to get,” Calamity groaned as he examined one of the dropped machine guns, chucking the now useless thing to one side. “Not a single item on em’ is worth a thing. Shame.”

The brown pegasus wearing the battle saddle and black Stetson was Calamity. He had a branded image on his flank that signalled him as a Dashite, somepony who had abandoned the Enclave in favour of actually doing something with their lives. He was a regular sight of anypony travelling in the area around New Appleoosa, where he spent his days guarding travelling ponies and otherwise against raiders, slavers and anything else that might want to start a fight.

And he was now looking directly at me as I stepped out of the Red Rocket.

“Ya’ll alright over there?” he shouted over to me. “They had you pinned good.”

“Fine. I’m fine,” I called back, trotting up to the stallion. “Calamity, right? Thanks for the help back there.”

He adjusted his hat. “Ain’t nothing to it. It’s my policy to stamp out ponies like those. You from a stable?”

I noted he was eying my Pipbuck, but I just shook my head. “Nope. Got it from Ditzy back in town.”

“Ah, I see,” he replied, turning to look out towards the bridge. “You heading in that direction?”

“Yeah. Scavenger, there’s a job I need to do over there.”

“Scav, huh?” he said almost sheepishly, looking over my shoulder at something. “Well, uh, sorry about your wagon then.”

“What?” I turned around.

Oh, Celestia dammit all the way to Luna’s moon and back again!

My wagon was in flames, and with a loud pop some of the wood gave way and one of the wheels began to roll by itself down the road before clattering down onto its side.

“My bad,” Calamity apologised, having been the one to kill the mare with the Molotov.

“Yeah…” I replied with gritted teeth.

Calamity coughed into a hoof. “Anyhow, I’d advise against heading Ponyville way. Raiders are really agitated as of late, as you can see.”

I just sighed. “Wagon or no, I’ve got to get to Manehatten. And that means continuing on that way.”

“Well, if ya’ll say so. Just be careful, me and my battle saddle may not be around next time,” he warned.

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I’ll be fine.”

“Well, alright then. Take care now,” he ended off with, unfurling his wings and taking to the skies once again.

I watched him go, the pegasus likely going to guard some caravan or another, before turning my eyes back to my poor old wagon. In less than a day I’d been shot, used a couple of clips worth of ammo, a healing potion and lost my wagon. And I had gained nothing in return.

Well, at least I got to keep breathing after all.

Turning from the increasingly on fire Red Rocket, I began to trot towards the bridge spanning the Ghastly Gorge.

Seriously, Stable 84 had better be worth it.

Footnote: Level 2

New Perk: Rapid Reload - All of your weapon reloads are 25% faster than normal.

4 - Dangers of the Road

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Chapter Four: Dangers of the Road

“The Wasteland proved a cruel, inhospitable place…”

I could see them. All of the raping and murdering bastards of Ponyville, I could see them scurry about as they did… whatever raiders did at first light.

Probably the raping and murdering part.

When I had arrived in the Ponyville area the day was already in its waning hours, and I really didn’t want it to go dark while I was strolling ever so casually right through their territory. It was better to wait until the morning, so I found a little far away corner next to the forest and yet with a decent enough view of the old pre-war town. I hadn’t dared build a fire, lest they saw it and decided to finish what their buddies back at the Red Rocket could not.

It was a seriously miserable night. Cold, though thankfully not wet, and all too long. I had barely slept a wink, and every time I did I would instinctively wake to every small sound in case it was a raider looking for some easy prey.

They never found me. I don’t think any of them ever strayed particularly far from the dilapidated town. And when the morning came, I was able to drag my weary body up from the mud and continue on my way.

I’d gone instinctively to hitch myself to my wagon, before remembering that it’d gone up in a whole lot of flames.

Maybe it was for the best, even if I was still pissed about it. Empty, it was just dead weight. At least now I could creep along the very edges of the Everfree Forest while keeping low enough to avoid detection by anypony watching.

Goddesses, I could just feel some unseen sniper zeroing in on me every second I was near the town.

But still, no shouts had arisen, nor had any bullets bit into my skull. The only eyes I ever had look towards me were those from within the forest. Most were benign enough, birds and the occasional other forest critter that didn’t even realise the world had ended.

But I would occasionally see dual green glows from within, trailing me as I crept on past with my magic gently gripping by 9mm pistol.

Whatever those… creepy eyes were, they never bothered me.

Small favours, right?

My little sneak took me past an old battered cottage, probably a nice little home back in its day. Something to spend your days living in peace, something I could see myself spending my elderly years in if it were a little newer.

Well, almost. Nowadays I’d make it two days tops before some horror trampled it down.

Dear Luna, I really need to stop thinking about things I’ll never get. Most scavengers scrounge whatever they can trying to strike it rich before finally meeting their end through a whole variety of circumstances, old age being the rarest of them.

It’s not like I stopped hating my existence during the night, I’d so happily accept a house in New Appleoosa or, Luna forbid, Tenpony.

Maybe if Stable 84 was everything I’d hoped…

In truth, I think that’s the only reason I took this job. My PipBuck showed me that the stable was further north than I had ever travelled, way out of my comfort zone.

But a fully stocked stable…

I’d always wanted a house. To stop the necessity of tearing up every little shred of scrap metal in the Wasteland. Something that I never thought I’d actually get, and really the dream was just a depressing reminder of that.

But now…

Should I dare to get my hopes up?

Oh look, I was inside the cottage now.

I’m really not sure when that happened. Really, daydreaming in the middle of raider territory was the stupidest thing I could have done. But… I guess this little place just brought my dreams to the surface.

Still, stupid.

And the inside was a nightmare. Bags of bloody giblets decorated the once peaceful home, profanity was scribbled in not red paint across many of the walls. Raiders definitely used this place as much as the rest of Ponyville, not somewhere I wanted to stay for long.

My hoof crunched something on the ground.

Moving to the side, I glanced at the face down rotten wooden frame that sat on the floor. I really couldn’t tell whether it’d fallen off amidst the end of the old world, or some raider knocked it off the cabinet out of spite.

Either was quite likely.

Really, it was junk. Nothing of note.

And yet I still found myself picking it up with my magic and turning it over. It was worthless, but still… This little place had once belonged to somepony luckier than I. It really didn’t matter, but I had to wonder who that pony was…

Oh.

The picture was heavily faded and stained, but the image was still barely visible on the old piece of paper. A buttery yellow mare with a pink mane and a shy little smile on her face, a rather evil looking bunny struggling in her grasp as if unwilling to partake in the photograph.

And to my surprise, it was a mare I had seen all over the place. Old posters on many old ruins, all marketing some aspect of the Ministry of Peace.

Ministry Mare Fluttershy.

I… never knew she’d lived in such a small town in an even smaller home. I guess I always imaged the Ministry Mares to have lived in huge lavish mansions in Canterlot, or perhaps Hoofington as the war reached its final days.

Shows how much I know.

I placed the frame carefully back on the old cabinet where it had once sat, releasing my hold on Fluttershy and letting her kind gaze brighten up the raider den as much as it could.

It’d be gone again soon. But I would be lying if it didn’t cheer me up that little bit. Though just a little.

I exited the cottage in a hurry, I really had hung around for too long.

After leaving Fluttershy’s old home, I had continued to stick to the edges of the forest until I was clear of Ponyville entirely. With the town and its compliment of raiders left behind, I was able to breathe a momentary sigh of relief.

No traveller was ever truly safe from raiders, but at least now I wasn’t on their exact doorstep. And with them left behind, I just had to reorientate myself and locate the nearest pre-war road heading in the direction of Manehatten. This was considerably easier than it normally was with the PipBuck’s map function. I brought up the device, clicking over to the map and scrolling up past the map markers of New Appleoosa, Red Rocket, Ponyville and the Everfree Forest until I was centred on my own blip. From there, I could see the diagram of a road.

According to the map, the road split a little ways up in a few directions. One headed off in the direction of the Hoof, another towards the glowing pink city of Canterlot sitting atop the distant mountain, and the third seemed to head back in Manehatten’s general direction.

With my PipBuck’s help, it didn’t take long for my hooves to meet asphalt and for me to trot along the highway towards the intersection I’d spotted. On the way there was another Red Rocket, though this one was a burnt-out husk, and a few other buildings dotting the route here and there. It also split off into a few smaller roads every now and then, but I ignored them all in favour of getting to where I needed to go. By the time I reached the intersection, the afternoon was coming around as the world began to slowly get that little bit darker again.

I still had several hours before I would even consider making camp, however, so I pressed onwards.

I split off down the correct branch in the road, which suddenly seemed to be matching the arrow on my E.F.S. quite nicely. It wasn’t a smooth trip, I don’t think things like that exist in the Equestrian Wasteland, but the occasional radroach, bloatsprite or radhog was hardly much of a challenge.

Although, the increasing lack of bullets was… distressing. I really needed to stock up while at Tenpony, and hope that no big monster soaked up the rest of it in the meantime.

Things cleared out a bit when the road took me up onto a relatively intact overpass. I did have to watch my step to make sure I didn’t fall through the multitude of holes to death via gravity below, akin to one half-rotted pony I spotted beneath one such gap.

Several vehicles lined the overpass, one wagon dangling precariously over the edge where the overpass had collapsed cleanly in two. Fortunately, somepony had set out a sturdy looking wooden bridge to allow themselves and others to cross.

After some more walking and with zero things coming to try and kill me, I came to an area where the overpass made a small dip as a second overpass passed overhead.

“Better wiped than striped!”

Yup, that bar was red.

I ducked behind one hulking and twisted pile of metal that was once a wagon and pulled up my pistol with the safety turned off. I took a few deep breaths as I prepared myself for a fight, taking the moment to better examine the situation.

The red bar was joined by four green ones. Gunfire was easily audible from just behind my cover, a robotic voice continuing to shoot insults and patriotic nonsense every available moment.

“What a glorious day in the Equestrian army!”

I peaked around my cover in time to see several flashes of green spellfire and a group of four scraggly looking ponies dive for cover. A mare was cowering behind another wagon while cradling a small little filly, while a stallion and another who seemed barely older than a colt traded fire with what my E.F.S. identified as a ‘Mr Gutsy’.

All four of the robot's would-be victims were earth ponies, the elder stallion wielding a hunting rifle while the younger blasted at the robot with a damaged combat shotgun. The robot itself was a freakish thing, a hovering ball with three lamp-like things for eyes and three tentacle-like appendages sporting a claw, flamethrower and green magical energy weapon respectively.

I’d seen similar robots, all scrapped, during my scavenging career. But I’d never seen a Mr Handy functioning before, and this one was definitely no robotic butler…

“Die zebra scum!” the Mr Gutsy shouted as a shotgun shell skimmed off its armour, turning its energy weapon towards the younger stallion and firing a volley of three green bolts at him.

Two went wide, but the third struck him where his heart would be, bypassing the scraps of leather far more degraded than my own he’d been using for armour. The young pony gave a grunt as he dropped, his shotgun clattering to the ground as his bar on my E.F.S. blinked out.

“Lucky!” the mare called out the fallen stallion’s name in immense distress, sobbing hysterically has her grip around the filly tightened.

“Apparently not…” I muttered to myself, staying hidden behind my cover as I watched these events unfold.

The stallion was falling back to the two who were hiding, the Mr Gutsy following him and staying focused on his opponent entirely. My eyes drifted to the space behind the Mr Gutsy, and the wreckage down the road that could be used for further cover.

I could make it.

The robot was distracted by the three remaining ponies it fought, all I had to do was rush on past while the robot was distracted, and I would be in the clear. Whoever won their little duel wouldn’t matter; I’d be long gone and continuing towards Manehatten.

Alright, good plan.

I moved a little out of cover, steadying myself on my four hooves as I prepared for a quick sprint behind the robot and to safety. I was fortunate that these ponies had come across this robot first, it saved me from a fight. I needed to save ammo after all, and I didn’t like the look of that thing’s combat capabilities.

“On three…” I muttered, confident and ready to go.

The remaining stallion gave a shout of pain as a swash of flames was blown in his direction, the guy diving to the side even as his hide began to smoke from the sheer heat of the attack. The small little filly gave a cry of fear as the robot proclaimed its victory over the ‘zebras’ and began to hover up over the cover that all three now crouched behind.

They weren’t going to make it.

Shit.

I entered S.A.T.S., targeted something that looked important on the robot’s back and lined up three shots.

This was stupid! This wasn’t my fight, it would be far easier just to go with my original plan and bypass the conflict altogether. I didn’t know these ponies, what did I care what happened to them?

Calamity hadn’t known a thing about me. And he’d come to my aid when everything seemed at its worst.

Dammit, Calamity.

The spell went to work, my gun shooting upwards and firing three precise shots all into the important thing on the robot’s behind. There was a small explosion as the Mr Gutsy reeled back with static erupting from its speaking. All its appendage began to twist and turn towards me, the old war robot sparking from the damage.

“Warning: combat inhibitor offline,” the Mr Gutsy announced. “Die you stripes!”

Uh oh.

I jumped back behind my cover as several bolts of green energy whipped right on past. But the Mr Gutsy seemed to be in a frenzy, and it wasted no time in rushing recklessly around the corner towards me!

I brought up my gun and unloaded several bullets into the robot’s chassis, but the nine-millimetre rounds did little against its armour. The robot’s claw shot out and grabbed me roughly by the horn, and oh Celestia did it hurt as those cold metal pincers began to squeeze and twist…

My magic shorted out, the gun clattering to the floor as the Mr Gutsy dragged me forwards and out of cover.

“Let me go you fucking tin can!” I raged as this my hooves struggled for purchase. It really felt like my horn was about to be torn form my skull! I hadn’t expected this thing to be that strong, oh why had I decided to play hero!?

I bashed against its arm with my hooves as it dragged me into the clearing, though it only slammed me into the floor in response.

Oh look, little wagons flying around my head…

Oh, and yet another thing! A… green thing was being lifted into my vision. It was kinda hard to make out… but as I began to regain focus the pieces came together.

NO! Nononononononononono!

I twisted my body, despite the increased pressure it gave my battered horn, and desperately kicked out with a hindleg in the general direction of the energy weapon. I think I managed to knock it a little, but the claw was quick to subdue me again as the green entered my vision once more.

Oh, sweet relief as that blasted robot dropped me to the ground! But there was no time for that, why had the Gutsy dropped me?

A second gunshot, I think I’d missed the first one, answered that question. The stallion from before had emerged from his cover and fired at the robot with his hunting rifle. The second bullet hit the Mr Gutsy directly in one of its eyes, tearing the lamp clean off of its head.

The robot growled. “Zebra ambush! Diabolical!”

It returned fire towards the stallion, who ducked back down again to avoid the fate of Lucky. But more importantly, it was ignoring me again!

My hoof touched the base of my horn, and when I pulled away I saw blood covering it. My breaths became shaky as I couldn’t help but shiver where I lay. I was becoming aware of the almighty headache I was feeling, and my PipBuck was complaining about me getting hurt again. I couldn’t even levitate out a healing potion, and I didn’t fancy digging through my bags manually while a crazy old robot was wanting to rip me in two!

My eyes scanned the ground, and I was so trying to ignore the blood now dripping into my vision from my battered horn. Lucky’s corpse lay but a few metres away… as did his shotgun.

I began to crawl, going as fast as I could as I reached out with my hooves towards the weapon. I managed to grip it, dragging it towards me just as I felt a claw latch onto my right hindleg. I was suddenly dragged backwards, flipped onto my back and subjected to the gaze of the Mr Gutsy’s two remaining eye-lamp-things.

“Where are you going, you villainous zebra!?”

I put my mouth onto the shotgun’s grip and pulled the trigger.

At such a close range, the shotgun was far more effective than my pistol. The robot’s armour peeled away and exposed its circuits beneath, and even those were torn by the shotgun round and shrapnel from its own damaged parts.

The military machine shuddered from the blow, and again as another hunting rifle round bit into it. That shot hit something, and the arm containing the flamethrower went dead. The Mr Gutsy turned to fire a few bolts of magic at the stallion before turned back to me and shooting its claw arm at my neck.

This time it only met my PipBuck, and I thrust it to the side as I entered S.A.T.S. once more. I lined up a single shot to its exposed inner workings and watched as the spell guided blast tore into its power core and blew the whole thing apart.

And just as well, because I was feeling a bit faint.

I rolled onto my stomach, dropping the shotgun and quickly reaching into my bags. I brought out one of my few remaining healing potions, something else to replenish, and downed the whole thing in one gulp. The headache subsided as the dots in my vision began to blink out, and I was able to steady my breathing as I wiped away the blood covering my forehead.

Once I was in the clear, I glanced back at the destroyed Mr Gutsy. It was a charred wreck, though its scrap would still be worth something at Tenpony.

But aside from the smouldering wreckage, it was hard to ignore the intense sobbing.

I turned my head towards the pony family, the mare and filly crying over Lucky’s body while the stallion looked at me suspiciously.

I really hoped he didn’t try anything stupid…

“Who are you?” he asked.

I huffed, getting up to my hooves. “You first, given that I just saved your life. You’re welcome.”

His glare only hardened.

I resisted the urge to groan. “Scrap Heap. My name is Scrap Heap.”

His glared persisted for a moment or two longer, but then he finally saw fit to talk to me.

“I’m Stone Mane,” he introduced himself, I did then notice that the otherwise brown stallion’s mane did have a stone-like colouration to it. “You caught us at a bad time.”

“Obviously,” I replied, looking over towards the others. “Your family?”

He nodded, pointing at the cream coloured mare with the golden mane as well as the filly with the slightly paler version of her mother’s colours. “My wife, Daisy Dream. My little filly, Charm.”

“And the boy?”

He stallion looked away, trying to contain his grief. “…My son, Lucky. Named that way because he should have died at birth. Dammit, the world just couldn’t stand being cheated…”

I nodded, relaxing my own posture as I looked upon the grieving family. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you help us?” Daisy blubbered, looking up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks. “We’re not friends, so why…?"

I looked at her in pity, mulling over my answer. Could I tell her that I had actually planned on abandoning them to their fates? Looking at them now, especially the filly, my gut couldn’t help but twist in contempt for myself for ever even considering it.

But why had I helped? I had a job to do, one that could set me up more than any other. Any previous time I would have bypassed the incident without hesitation, every instinct honed by a life in this place had screamed at me to do just that.

And my quest for an answer led me right back to that southern accented pegasus. I’d be a raider’s trophy if not for him. He hadn’t known me, had no reason to intervene. But he did, as was his self-professed ‘policy’.

“I guess I just wanted to do better,” I replied to the mare, conflict still raging inside me. “As somepony recently did for me.”

“Where are you heading?” Stone asked me.

“Tenpony.”

“Scav?”

“Yup. You?”

“Same thing,” he confirmed. “We were heading to Friendship City to do some trading. And… we could use an extra gun until we reach Manehatten.”

An invitation? Well, having somepony to back me up did sound appealing… At least for a while.

“Alright,” I said as I recovered my discarded pistol as well as the shotgun, receiving a wince but no protest from the family. “Alright, I’m in. Until Manehatten.”

“Then it’s a deal,” Stone Mane agreed, before turning towards his deceased son solemnly. “But first… Please, help us bury him...”

Well, I guess it was the least I could do.

Footnote: Level 3

New Perk: Swift Learner - +10% XP whenever XP is earned.

5 - Manehatten

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Chapter Five: Manehatten

“Let me tell you, the only good Stripe is a dead Stripe.”

There she was. A festering pile of death and destructions that was the city of Manehatten, and I was walking right into it.

Then again, that’s pretty much the Wasteland in general.

Shattered skyscrapers still dominated the landscape, though so many had collapsed completely or were leaning up against their direct neighbours. And that was just the edges of the city; the centre was completely devoid of anything but radiation and ferals. Two hundred years ago Equestria’s enemies managed to, somehow, sneak a balefire bomb right into the middle of the immense metropolis. Don’t ask me how. I’m just reiterating what I’ve heard.

Still, nopony sane goes to the city centre anyhow. There’s no worthwhile scrap there anyway, just a crater left behind by the blast.

The entire city was a wreck, what was left after the bomb had fallen into anarchy in the following days. I know all too well how badly ponies can react when their entire lives have just been reduced to ashes, it’s the same damned thing everywhere. I bet it was hard to find a single pony in the early Wasteland who hadn’t lost somebody. A brother, or a son…

If you couldn’t guess, I’m drawing comparisons to my current entourage.

We’d found a way down from the overpass and back onto the firm ground, where we had found a slightly less scorched spot to bury Lucky. We had ended up making camp in that general area for the night, they hadn’t been in much of a mood for travel. Personally, I would have preferred to move on right away, and yet I couldn’t convince them to do so.

It was another night of little sleep. I may have saved them, and we may have agreed to travel together, but I didn’t trust some ponies I’d just met. Stone Mane was much the same, smart stallion, and also seemed to be keeping an eye on me while his wife and daughter slept.

When the morning came, we trudged back up onto the overpass and went on our way. There were, fortunately, no more nasty robotic surprises during the trip, and I still have zero idea where the bastard had come from. Maybe he’d been wandering around aimlessly after taking some previous damage? He certainly seemed… confused.

But while we didn’t find another Mr Gutsy along the way, there were still plenty of other mutated critters to deal with. Still, Stone Mane knew his way around a hunting rifle. Even Daisy seemed relatively proficient with her own little pistol.

I did suggest that they teach Charm to shoot, and soon. Stone Mane said he’d take it under advisement. I hope he meant that and wasn’t just brushing me off.

I myself was sticking to my own pistol for now, trying to conserve my remaining ammo while saving all of the shotgun shells that Lucky had been carrying.

A couple more days of straight travel passed us by. We hadn’t talked that much, at least not beyond simple communication when a hungry radhog tried to make us its meal. Still, they did seem genuinely grateful to have the extra gun and having other ponies around while travelling was… novel, to say the least. A scavenger’s life can be a lonely one, and yet Stone Mane had somehow found time to fall in love and have TWO children. Even if one of them was no longer around.

Then again, I suppose getting those things didn’t cost caps. Unless you were in Dise; I’m pretty sure you could buy anything there if you had the money.

Still, I couldn’t for the life of me imagine finding such things in this place. Give me that house first, then we’ll talk.

But we knew our journey together was drawing to a close when the clusters of buildings began to get more common. Old burnt out cottages at first, then slightly higher tech and industrial looking places. Nowhere did we have a poke around, we were all eager to get past this place and get to the main city before we ran into something a bit too nasty.

And now those skyscrapers were starting to creep up all around us, and we truly knew we were in Manehatten.

A city of ghosts.

“I think this is where we part ways,” Stone Mane announced, indicating towards a sign that pointed in two directions.

Right, Statue of Friendship. Left, Ministry of Arcane Sciences Manehatten Hub.

“Are you sure you don’t want to head to Tenpony first?” I offered the stallion. “Could get in some good trading.”

“We’re sure,” Stone Mane responded. “I think we’re going to stick around Friendship City for a while. There’s a place there that I’ve got my eye on, we don’t want to raise Charm in this damned place.”

“Seems we share a dream then,” I remarked, though I had figured something of the likes. “How close are you?”

He averted his eyes. “Too close for my son to die on our last foray.”

I grimaced, though couldn’t stop a small pang of jealousy. “I’m sorry…” Lucky bastard.

Well, not so lucky I suppose. But despite losing their un-aptly named son, they had things I still couldn’t even glimpse.

Alright, enough feeling sorry for myself. I couldn’t stand around here all day.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for in that oversized statue,” I replied with a small grin. “Have a nice cold glass of water on me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stone Mane replied. “It’s not often you find ponies willing to help others like you did us. Anypony else would have kept on walking.”

Now it was I who couldn’t meet his gaze. Dammit, why was I suddenly feeling so guilty about almost doing something any sane person would have done!?

“Are you alright, mister?” the filly, Charm, asked cautiously.

I looked down at the filly, before sighing. “Yeah, I’m good. But to be honest, I’m as surprised as you are.”

“I don’t think we would have risked it for you,” Daisy muttered honestly, and I really couldn’t blame her.

As I said, sane people.

And then she surprised me by following up with: “Though I think we would now, to anypony.”

Uh, okay? What was with the sudden tone shift? I asked her such.

“It’s like you said, Scrap Heap,” the large stallion with the hunting rifle remarked, patting me on the shoulder. “Do better, as others did for you. You gave us the chance for that future we’ve worked so damned hard for, and if we could do the same for someone else…”

Oh, dear Luna, it’s spreading!

Seriously, was random acts of heroics some kind of contracted disease? It’s beyond dumb, all those heroes you hear about from DJ Pon-3 always end up impaled on some stick somewhere!

So why was I smiling?

“I’m just glad we’re still here to have this conversation,” I remarked, the never changing war ongoing inside me. “Just try not to get yourselves killed, yeah?”

“Same goes for you,” Stone Mane replied, beginning to move off with his family down the opposing cracked and warped street. “May Celestia guide you.”

“Bye Mr Heap!” the filly shouted back at me, standing on her mother’s back and waving happily.

Thanks for making me sound old, kid.

I watched the family go, only allowing my gaze to turn elsewhere when they were out of sight and no raiders had jumped them in the meantime. I brought up my PipBuck, the map having confirmed my arrival in Manehatten and added the lit-up marker to my map. My objectives tab was still telling me to both find Cobalt and then Stable 84. My E.F.S. confirmed that I was heading in the right directions to do the former, and it was clear of red bars indicating hostiles. Only a few green bars dominated my vision, and a quick look around showed them to be a couple of wandering crows.

Still, there was plenty of danger around the old city. I kept my guns at the ready. I had two clips of ammo remaining for my pistol, and about twelve shotgun shells. Add that to my three remaining healing potions, and I realised I didn’t really want to get into too many more fights between here and the old MAS hub.

Still, only one way to go.

I took off down the street, sticking to the very edges rather than direct centre for any and all raider snipers to pick off. There were many blown out and long picked over storefronts down this way, settled in between various decaying billboard advertisements.

Red Racer!

Mr Handy!

Stable-Tec!

Those and many more were shoved into my face with big bulging lettering and pony faces with forced smiles. Just more depressing reminders of the world that was, now infested with mutants and psychopaths who want nothing more than to fuck and murder you.

Speaking of…

I had been walking for a little while when I saw the red bars appearing in my vision. In that time I had found the original street blocked off by a collapsed skyscraper, and had to take a route through some back streets and alleys before I was able to get around it. Now I was approaching a half torn up roundabout, and as I took cover behind some old collapsing stone benches I could see a group of three raiders hanging out under an old bronze statue dedicated to the six ministry mares.

Fortunately, none of them spotted me as I ducked down. They were too busy chattering amongst themselves while foolishly not paying too much attention to their surroundings. One was swallowing some Buck while another had decided to urinate on Rainbow Dash. The third just watched in amusement as her fellows got drugged up and vandalised a historical figure. She seemed to wait for them to finish, making some remark about the urinating stallion’s ‘size’ and brushing off his subsequent hostility.

“Ah, calm down before I slit your throat,” the lead raider dismissed. “You remember Shorty? You know I could fuck you up, so bring it!”

The raider stallion considered for a minute, before snorting dismissively. “Nah, fuck that. Let’s just go kill those Stripes.”

Wait, Stripes? Zebra?

“What? Afraid she might cut your dick off?” the drugged-up raider said, striking her own chest. “I could take her!”

“Not even on Buck,” the lead raider taunted.

“FUCKING BRING IT!”

The addict charged, but before she could make it half the distance the leader had whipped out a storied combat knife and ploughed it into her throat. The leader held onto the druggy as she began to cough and spit up blood, something her killer only seemed to delight in.

“Shame, you’re going to miss all the fun we’re going to have with the Stripes!” the leader taunted, retracting the knife and tossing the corpse to one side. “So much fun! So, are you coming?”

The stallion grunted. “Yeah, just let me take a piss.”

“You just went!”

“Well, I gotta go again.”

The lead raider rolled her eyes. “Whatever, you can catch up. Bring the body when you’re done, I’m sure we can find something to do with the bitch.”

Dear Celestia, I hated raiders.

The leader began to move off, and I watched her go. She proceeded down the exact street I needed to go for Tenpony, lucky me. But what I was more curious about was the zebra they mentioned. You didn’t often encounter them, given the past history between our species. Those you did were usually squatters or slaves, nothing really major.

I’d never met one around Manehatten, though.

I turned back around, only to find myself face-to-face with the raider stallion I hadn’t been watching for the past minute.

Oh hell.

“Fun time!” the raider announced quickly drawing his gun and taking aim.

S.A.T.S. it is!

Time crawled to a near halt, and I had my thinking time. My guns were still holstered, a mistake in hindsight. And by the time I drew them, I’d probably have a new hole. What I really needed was a moment to prepare, and I knew just the thing.

I queued up a single attack and, on the spell’s release, I struck my hoof forward as hard as I could!

A resounding ‘SMACK’ rewarded my efforts, and the stallion went limp and fell to the ground. I latched onto my pistol with my magic and brought it to bear, but I didn’t need it. The red bar had blinked out.

I rounded the bench, cautiously looking down at the stallion and giving him an experimental nudge. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth, his eyes bloodshot and wide.

I’d actually killed him! Even my E.F.S. was congratulating me for my ‘critical hit’!

Why thank you, weird targeting spell.

I checked over both his body and the body of the other murdered raider. Their weapons were in poor condition, though they had some ammo for my pistol that I took. I left the Buck, I didn’t need that stuff in my life. Aside from that, there wasn’t much else of interest on the corpses, so I left them to the crows.

I looked down the street their leader had traversed, my mind once again heading back to the zebra that’d been mentioned.

My E.F.S. lit up with a new objective.

Investigate zebra presence.

Great, new stuff to check out. Well, at least this was in the direction I was already heading. Still, I would be walking very carefully from here on out. None of this was giving me a good feeling.

As I walked down the street, I couldn’t immediately see where the remaining raider had gone. She had gone much further ahead while I was dealing with her friend back there, and she had probably already joined back up with the rest of their gang. But still, there was only one direction to go in. All that was around was the usual ruins, long scattered bones and burnt out buildings. Nothing particularly noteworthy or useful to me, so I pressed onwards as quickly and quietly as I could.

I passed by a crossing, spotting a box containing a single filled bottle of Sparkle-Cola. Since it was right there, I grabbed onto the bottle with my magic without stopping and pocketed the cap. I continued as I took my first sip of the wonderful beverage, though I made sure to down it quickly in case I ran into that gang.

I had just emptied the bottle and thrown it aside when I heard the gunshots.

They sounded like they were coming from just up ahead. The pitters and patters of small arms fire as well as what seemed to be some heavier machine guns. Putting two and two together, I had to guess that it was the gang and the zebra they were hunting.

It was still a little ways ahead of me, even if the sound was clear as day. They could probably hear the fighting all the way in Tenpony Tower itself, though I’m sure it’s not an uncommon sound for them to hear. Still, I crept down that little bit more as I pushed on ahead. I would have to pass by this group one way or another; and hey, you save one family you might as well save them all, right?

OK, it was definitely an infection.

Moving past the rubble and bent, charred piles of metal it didn’t take long for the gunfire to increase in volume as I got closer to its source. The sound finally reached its peak as I turned a corner and reached a rounded courtyard-like area facing a large office building. The courtyard split the road in two more different directions from where I was standing. Directly ahead the road was blocked by masses of rubble and the remains of what looked like a rusted hulk of a vertibuck. The road to my right, directly opposite the central office building, was the continuing road to Tenpony.

Problem was, that road seemed to be filled with about a dozen zebra in fancy legionnaire armour. A couple had hooded cloaks that concealed their faces, but each one was equipped with assault rifles all aimed at my side of the courtyard.

A side filled with the raider gang I’d encountered.

I took cover as one of the raiders threw a Molotov in the direction of the zebras, though they pulled off some ridiculous acrobatics and span out of its path. The raider leader from before was laughing like a psycho, dishing out insults and taunts that mostly seemed to use the world ‘Stripe’ in them. She and the other raiders were taking cover behind some overturned wagons, though their poorly maintained weapons were heavily outmatched by the rifles of the zebra.

Problem for me was that every single bar on my E.F.S. was red, including those very same zebra ahead of me. Zebra it entitled as ‘Remnant’.

The air seemed to shift next to the raider leader, and one of the cloaked zebras shimmered into existence. The leader turned with her knife quickly drawn, though her first and only strike was swiftly dodged before the zebra span and kicked the mare’s head clean from her shoulders!

Another raider tried to take on the badass ninja zebra, though a seemingly benign tap between his shoulder blades left him immobile before his head got stomped into jelly. Still, the act had gotten all of the raiders’ attention, and they all turned their guns towards the solitary zebra.

She shimmered out of existence, after avoiding the first few shots, vanishing from view as the raiders all gave shouts of surprise.

The trick was rendered moot, however, as the volcanic crack of a sniper rifle echoed off the dilapidated buildings and sprayed the invisible zebra mare’s brains all over the concrete.

So, also a sniper. Good to know!

Another crack, and this time it was a raider who got splattered.

Okay, a sniper not with the raiders nor with the zebra. And I couldn’t see their tag anywhere on the E.F.S. either. That was certainly a… scary thought. But hey, happy thoughts! I mean, they could be friendly! Right?

And here I was, caught between raiders and hostile zebra with a load of firepower, with an unknown sniper picking off both sides. All while the raiders hurled their usual vulgarity and the Remnant shouted something about a traitor whenever the sniper rifle sounded.

Sorry Tenpony, I’m going to be late.

Footnote: Level 4

New Perk: Iron Hoof - +5 points of Unarmed Damage.

6 - Stripe

View Online

Chapter Six: Stripe

“That reminds me of a funny story…”

Very! Very late!

The group of zebras were definitely angry about something, and they weren’t about to be intimidated by Equestria’s worst or the sniper I had yet to locate. Best I could tell, they were bunkered up somewhere inside the office building central to the plaza. And here I was, still ducked down behind some random rubble with a whole group of raiders between me and the attacking zebra.

Still, I’d been able to count all the bars on my E.F.S. and get the occasional peek over at the two sides. There seemed to be around thirteen zebras who had spread out all over the large open area, and at least three of them had more of those weirds invisibility cloaks.

But while the zebra had claimed much of the courtyard, the raiders had barely moved from the road leading inwards. There were around ten raiders remaining in all, all of them covering behind a large grouping of rusted wagons left from when the city went boom. And now that their ringleader’s head had been kicked clean off by some freaky zebra strength, what was left of the raiders spent as much time arguing amongst themselves as they did shooting at the zebra.

CRACK.

Make that nine raiders.

The ponies were clearly outmatched and outgunned; they weren’t going to last for very long against the other two sides. Not that they particularly seemed to realise, or maybe care, as they continued to fire their random assortment of weapons anyway.

I don’t think I could ever understand the mind of a raider. Not that I’d want to, that’s one clusterfuck of nightmare fuel I’d rather not live with.

CRACK.

Twelve zebras.

One of the Remnant shouted out what I can only assume was the zebra equivalent of ‘fuck’, before jumping from their cover and, I’m not kidding, practically DANCED through the incoming fire before shimmering from existence and presumably jumping into the office building.

Or at least it looked like dancing to me. But who am I to judge how zebras liked to kill you?

“Hah! Fire in the flank hole!” one of the raiders cackled, the sound of a fiery explosion coming from another thrown Molotov.

One of the younger zebras among the group, who hadn’t noticed the incoming bottle until it was too late, was now screaming at the top of his lungs as they were burnt to ashes with the rest of his body. Only the screaming seemed to go on and on, before finally being silenced by a bullet from another zebra.

The mare who had thrown it laughed in delight, lifting her gun and firing a volley of bullets into the zebra lines while screaming a whole bunch of… creative insults. But the raider got cocky, and the moment she revealed herself every single zebra rifle was trained onto her.

Her red bar on my E.F.S. blinked out in a hail of gunfire.

OK, yeah, sitting this one out. Or at least for as long as I could, none of them had realised my presence as of yet. From what I could tell, the zebra would finish off the raiders and then whoever was taking pot shots out of the office building. While they were cleaning up, I could plausibly move on past unnoticed.

I mean, this wasn’t like before. Any reason I had to help these people went away with my E.F.S. telling me that they were no friends of mine.

Another Molotov was hit mid-air, a brilliant explosion blasting heat all the way to my own lovely pile of old bricks and rebar.

Part of me wanted to slink away and come back after, but I didn’t really want to risk being spotted in the attempt. Besides, here I could at least keep an eye on things as they happened. So I shifted slightly, trying to get a little more comfortable on this pile of rubble I was laying on.

Only when the raiders looked in my direction did I realise that had been a mistake.

As I had moved, a piece of the rubble had dislodged and come free, clattering along the street like a dinner bell. And at least some of the raiders had either heard or seen it happen, which meant that any intention I had to stay out of the fight had just gone up like a damned balefire bomb.

Well done me.

“Hold up! Looks like we have a sneaky pony!” one of the raiders jeered, readying another Molotov holding my immediate future.

I was so sick of fire!

I shot up from my cover, entering S.A.T.S. immediately and targeting that bottle while it was still held in the raider’s mouth. From that distance, with only my pistol to bear, the spell calculated some admittedly dismal odds for hitting it. Still, I only had my life to lose, right?

I set up as many shots as the spell would allow, draining the whole thing as I activated it. The first two missed by a wide margin, harmlessly striking the concrete around the raider’s hooves. The third, however, was practically a bullseye!

The Molotov exploded in the raider’s mouth, blowing half their head off and spilling fire amongst the rest of their ranks. The closest raider was doused in flames and ran screaming out into the plaza beyond their cover, and the zebras made short work of the hapless pony. The remaining six raiders split their fire between the zebras and myself, forcing me to quickly duck down back down into my cover.

I had my pistol at the ready, but I also pulled out my shotgun to have on hoof. At range, it was entirely useless, but I could make use of it in case any of the raiders decided to gut me with a knife.

I levitated my pistol up and fired two shots into the crowd of raiders, hitting none of them but forcing them to duck for more cover. The major problem was that I could now see the remnant moving quickly on my E.F.S. across the courtyard.

To be honest, the idea of facing a zebra that could kick my face off was not high on my list of things to do before I die.

I could have tried to make a run for it, but the same problem applied as before. At least behind this rubble I was relatively safe, but the moment I was out in the open…

Odd, had one of the Remnant been killed without me noticing? I could have sworn there were ten in the courtyard a moment before.

Well, I couldn’t worry about that for the moment. A couple of the raiders were still directing fire towards me, the remaining zebra were closing in fast and I still had this mysterious sniper to contend with. And while I was at it-

I found the missing zebra!

The air had shimmered from atop the pile of rubble, and then out of nowhere one of cloaked zebra had appeared brandishing a massive spear! The moment I tried turning my guns around they had both been batted aside and the zebra jumped down towards me. I had to very quickly roll out of cover and into the line of fire of the raiders.

Luckily for me, the appearance of the zebra had given the two raiders looking towards me some pause. Not keen on them to start again, I jumped up to my hooves and latched onto my weapons. Bringing the shotgun round, I let off two shots into the pair of raiders that left large gaping wounds in their chests.

The remaining four stopped their firing and turned towards me, though any actions they may have taken was stopped when the zebra chose that moment to overrun the raiders entirely. Two zebras leapt clear over the wagons, with one immediately bringing their hooves onto one’s back and breaking their spine. The second gunned two of the raiders down with their rifle before being tackled by the singular remaining raider.

I entered S.A.T.S. at that point, the spell having somewhat recharged.

A quick look around myself showed that the zebra who’d tried to impale me was running at me again with his spear pointing right at my poor flank. Ahead of me, the beefy raider stallion seemed to have torn out the zebra’s throat with his teeth and was preparing to lunge at the second zebra.

I’d leave him to his fun, I think ol’ Spear over there was my immediate concern. Readying a shot to his face, I activated the spell and swung my shotgun around quickly.

But the zebra was quicker.

The spear batted my shotgun aside yet again, the shot going wide and instead hitting another unfortunate zebra who had been rushing around to help his allies. But this time I still had my pistol, and I brought it around before he could strike again.

Still, that zebra had some serious speed!

The guy was on me before I could get more than a single shot off, though the bullet bit into his hide and forced him to drop the spear in pain. But dear Celestia it didn’t help me much when the zebra ploughed right into me and kicked me aside.

Pain erupted up my side, a crunch coming from my ribs. It was like a thousand mini explosions were raging throughout my body, and the flashing torso on my PipBuck seemed to agree. My entire vision blurred from pained tears, and my mind fogged from the sheer pain of my crippled torso. And throughout it all, I could hear some kind of struggle going on around me. But it didn’t matter, all I was doing was desperately reaching for one of my three remaining healing potions and downing it as quickly as I could.

When the fog began to clear, and the pain receded, I was met with a bloody sight. One of the other zebras had been torn apart by the raider, who was now trying to take out Spear.

CRACK.

Well, at least they haven’t gone anywhere.

More zebras were rushing around the wagons now, and I couldn’t stay here. With little other choice, I grabbed my weapons in a levitations spell and bolted across the plaza. Bullets peppered after me as I ran, but I kept running despite all that. I made it all the way to the middle of the plaza, where in a small clearing in the intersection an old burnt oak stood as a marker of the dead.

One of the zebras made a jump at me, though I blew them away with my shotgun before ducking behind the tree. All of the five remaining Zebra Remnant were now swarming around the group of old decrepit wagons, the remaining raider’s marker having blinked out, and they were now turning back towards me.

CRACK.

The other cloaked zebra popped, leaving four.

Much to my dismay, I saw Spear shimmer out of existence as the other three made a break for the office building itself.

CRACK.

Make that two making a break for the office building itself.

I entered S.A.T.S. and targeted the two zebras. The first two shots were both on target, and the lead zebra fell as his indicator on my E.F.S. blinked out. The second avoided both bullets with expert precision and entered the office building. Having failed to get both of them was a little aggravating, though that pretty much described this whole situation I found myself in. But by now all that was left was the zebra who’d just ran inside, the sniper, and Spear…

I didn’t know where he’d gone, so I ducked down just a little and squinted my eyes to try and pick out any sign of the invisible zebra.

Turns out that small movement had saved my life, as the moment I moved a spear flashed into existence and imbedded itself into the tree an inch above my head.

“Oh fuck me!” I shouted out, kicking out with my hooves and taking out Spear’s legs from under him.

He yelled something in Zebra, his cloak’s magic fizzling out as the brooch holding it to him split in two. But once again, he was real fucking fast! He returned the gesture to me and I landed on my back, weapon still in my grasp but not aiming at anything in particular. And while I was on the floor questioning my life choices, he was extracting his spear from the tree. Fortunately, the pointy end snapped off. Unfortunately, it still hurt when he used his new staff to whack me over the head at the base of my horn.

My magic abruptly stopped from the blow, and as I was reeling I felt him bring the staff along the front of my neck and pull back violently.

He was going to strangle me to death! Everything was happening so fast, and my horn was refusing to even give a spark of magic! I could tug, I could pull, but moment by moment it felt like he was going to squeeze my head from my shoulders.

I was helpless.

I was going to die.

CRACK.

I wheezed in a deep gulp of air, all too aware of the warm blood pooling down on top of my head. I shouted, throwing the zebra off of me and letting the staff clatter uselessly to the side. Looking down towards Spear, his lack of a head was obvious immediately. Bloody chunks and the odd stray eyeball lay all around me.

This was the second time some stranger had saved my life. And this time I didn’t even have a name to assign them.

And maybe I was stupid for sitting there, catching my breath. I really didn’t know if this person was actually friendly or not! But I hadn’t been shot yet, so that was a good sign. And really, I needed this moment.

Just… FUCK! Raiders. Stray military robots. And now this!? The past few days had been filled with more strife and danger than I’d normally encounter in a week of scavenging, and this was the Equestrian Wasteland!

And that back there? Too close. WAY too close! There was a limit, a point in which to back out…

…And yet I was pretty much at Tenpony already. And I had to resupply as it was.

“I swear if this Cobalt doesn’t have what I need…”

If he didn’t, or he wanted me to go on some grand quest to the depths of Tartarus to find this code, then I was done. No stable was worth all this.

Bad enough that I had this new-found desire to help ponies I’d never even met…

I sighed, taking a look at the carnage around me. The depravity of our world on full display, senseless death and murder for… for what?

I knew who I could ask.

I began to trot towards the building, and I could almost feel the sniper’s sights on me at all times. I grabbed my weapons as I went, my horn recovering from the blow enough to levitate things again. I holstered my pistol and yet kept my shotgun at the ready. I only had a few shells left, but it was enough for whatever waited inside this office building.

I slowly trotted in, keeping an eye on my E.F.S. for the sniper. Up ahead I could immediately see a red bar, though I don’t think that was the sniper…

“I can see you, and I don’t want to deal with you right now.”

I fired at the dark corner where the zebra who I’d missed earlier had been waiting in ambush, painting the walls around him in red.

Clearly, he hadn’t known about the capabilities of a PipBuck.

I quickly located the staircase after that, starting my ascent upwards while watching for a green or red bar like a hawk. I moved up three floors before I saw it, and indeed it was green.

Relieving, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t change…

I kept my shotgun ready, departing the staircase and slowly creeping further in. I passed through rotting corridors containing charred skeletons and long abandoned office equipment, largely useless and long picked over. The bar was coming from a room at the very end of the corridor, undoubtedly their sniping position.

I moved on silently, passing the corpse of the zebra who had entered early on in the fight. It seemed that he’d fought with the sniper, explaining why they’d been absent for a while. Unfortunately for the zebra, this sniper was apparently quite the fighter.

I arrived at the door, trying to breathe as silently as possible. I thought about calling out to them, but I didn’t want to risk them turning hostile and knowing I was here. No, I’d bust through the door and get the drop on them! Then I could question them and feel slightly safer with a shotgun at the ready in case things weren’t quite so civil.

I took in a breath in, shotgun raised and a hoof moving closer towards the door.

Three. Two. One…

Go!

I burst into the doorway with a shout, the whole thing slamming open and revealing a room beyond that-

“AH! I’m blind!”

My vision had turned a pure white, my head throbbing terribly as my magic once again fizzled out completely.

And then I felt something hit my head, and the white turned into a deep darkness.

Manehatten was as it always was, ponies of all backgrounds moving about the streets doing all sorts of activities. Some were shopping. Others were working. Some were simply seeing the sights and having a brilliant time doing so.

I was one of the working group, sitting in my office while staring out the window. The day was bright and sunny, Celestia’s sun wonderous and warm. The sky was perfectly blue, and wagons down below moved through the plaza at a near constant rate. A bright, green leaved oak tree sat in the middle of the plaza with a bird nest sitting on one of the branches. Truly, I couldn’t ask for a better day. Though I could ask for a better place to spend it I suppose.

The door to my office opened, and my boss trotted in with a friendly smile on his face.

“Scrap Heap, how’s the work coming along?” he asked.

“Fine, sir,” I replied, shuffling some papers in my magic and presenting them to the stallion who looked oddly like a cheerier version of my father, largely sharing my brown colouration. “All catalogued and ready for shipping to the MoP.”

“I’m sure Ministry Mare Fluttershy appreciates your hard work cataloguing those new medical supplies for our troops,” he complimented. “In fact, on her behalf, take a day off. You’ve earned it.”

“Sir?”

“Unless you don’t want it…”

“Uh, no!” I quickly amended, though I was quite baffled as to what I actually did to earn this reward. “Thank you, Boss!”

He gave a brisk nod, before exiting my office and gently closing the door behind him.

I sat back in my desk, whistling wistfully to myself. Who was I to look a gift pony in the mouth? Ugh, who had even come up with that saying…

Still, that was irrelevant, and I began packing up to head home. Home… You know, the very concept that I had a place of my own suddenly felt very… wonderous. I lived by myself, sure, but it was a nice enough place. I had a stable job, friends, and I was far away from the bloodshed of the front lines. Truly, the Equestrian life in Manehatten was grand…

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find a special somepony to share that home with?

I sighed happily, glancing out the window again.

There was a green flash, and all the sounds of normal life ceased. A mushroom cloud began to rise up into the sky, and my blood ran cold as I processed what I was seeing. Right before my eyes, the oak tree withered and died. Bodies, zebra and pony, littered the courtyard while the entire city seemed to undergo centuries of decay in but a moment.

I… I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t possible! What just happened to the world!?

I heard a sound ahead of me, and I turned to find a shadowy figure holding the barrel of a sniper rifle right up to my muzzle.

“That world is not for you, scav.”

There was a loud bang, and I knew no more…

I awoke with a start, and I immediately realised two things.

One, dreaming sucked just as much as being awake.

Two, I was tied up with a very tight rope.

I looked around my surroundings, and I realised a third thing. I had moved at some point when I was unconscious, and I was now in an old burnt out apartment’s living room. I had no idea how I’d gotten there, who had carried me, or where about in Manehatten I even was anymore. Worse still, my weapons were nowhere to be found. My PipBuck was thankfully still on my hoof, and my horn seemed to be working.

However, when I tested the latter I seemed to have gotten somepony’s attention.

No, not somepony at all…

“So, the little pony wakes,” the zebra mare noted, sitting by the window with a sniper rifle held between her hooves.

The zebra seemed relatively young, probably also in her twenties like myself. She had a short white and black mane, blue eyes and a glyph on her flank displaying some kind of circle with four swirls emerging from it. She also didn’t appear to be wearing any barding at all, with the exception to some saddlebags sat to her side.

My weapons were still nowhere to be seen.

“Who are you?” I asked, thinking I may as well get to the point of this… incident.

“Asking for my name? Hm, I would expect threats before civility from one such as yourself,” the zebra coolly responded. “Are you not concerned as to the situation you have found yourself in?”

“Of course I am!” I snapped back. “But what would threatening you get me aside from a bullet?”

The zebra hummed. “Then you are wiser than most other ponies I have encountered.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call me ‘wise’.”

“Wisdom can come in many forms, Scrap Heap.”

My eyes bulged. “How do you know my name?”

The zebra chuckled. “Your computer has it on clear display. Also, you speak in your sleep.”

I couldn’t hide my blush. Do I really talk when sleeping?

“Yes, you are most curious. Not like the ponies my people fought in the plaza. You remained concealed until forced into battle and attacked, and I was curious about you. I also did not know your intent, so I set up a flashbang grenade to go off when one would open the door to my perch.”

“Ah, that explains the headache,” I replied sourly. “So… your name?”

“Stripe,” she replied. “You may call me Stripe.”

I snorted. “Oh come on, you can’t tell me that’s your real name.”

“And who would you be to judge, hm?” she replied, shutting me up. “But yes, in this instance you are correct. But Stripe is what ponies see fit to refer to me as, so it is what you shall also refer to me as.”

“And the other zebra?”

“Ah, them,” Stripe muttered in contained anger. “The Remnant, foolishly fighting a war long over. Their Legate expects all zebra to heed his call to battle, or else. They operate almost entirely in Hoofington, obsessed with the city as they are. All because of the stars… Foolish to the last, believing in old stories so strictly.”

“If they stick to Hoofington, why were they here?”

“Me,” she replied with a small smile. “My family descends from those who were sealed in Stable 3 during the great calamity. When my ancestors emerged, those who did not stay with the group wandered into the world looking for a purpose. My family were one such group, and they have found purpose with the Legate.”

I titled my head. “But not you?”

Stripe shook her head almost sadly. “My family have joined the foolish, so taken with their talk of the stars and their evil. I was not, why should we fear simple lights in the sky so far away? But they do not take rejection well, so those zebra we killed were sent to make me forever silent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was their decision, as foolish as it was,” Stripe responded, staring me directly in the eyes.

I must admit, the intensity of her stare was… uncomfortable.

“So, little pony, I have revealed to you my story,” she said in an almost predatory manner that really didn’t help my comfort levels in any way. “What of you? Just who is the unicorn known as Scrap Heap?”

“Nopony in particular,” I responded dryly. “I’m a scavenger. Parents were scavengers. We didn’t get along all that well, hell they practically doomed me to a life of pointless wandering through junk. Dad drank, my mother was always busy. Both got themselves killed by raiders when I was thirteen. Didn’t cry all that much, to them I was an extra pair of hooves for work.”

“Seems our families have both been of the foolish,” Stripe said sympathetically.

“You could say that.”

“But that doesn’t explain why a scavenger would involve themselves in such a hostile encounter.”

“It wasn’t my intention,” I replied, looking away from her gaze. “I didn’t mean to get caught up in your problem.”

“Then what was your intention?”

“I was heading in that direction, to Tenpony Tower,” I replied, before reluctantly adding: “And I heard some raiders talking about an attack on some zebra. I… needed to check that out.”

Stripe raised and eyebrow. “Ah, you thought they might be innocents in need of help?”

I didn’t answer.

“You seem reluctant to admit it, but that is it.”

“Recently, anyway.”

“Then what is it that has happened recently?”

“A pony saved my life. And then a zebra. Tell me, how could you continue to not give a damn when someone shows you that very courtesy?”

“A great many could,” Stripe mused. “This change you describe, you are a far cry from those raiders and other such evils in this place.”

“I’m just a scavenger.”

“A pony who was just that wouldn’t have let the actions of others change their hearts for the better,” Stripe rebuffed. “No, you are different. And certainly not a fool.”

On that comment, I could help but laugh. “Not a fool? That’s news to me.”

“You cannot see, but you will,” Stripe replied, and she got up from her place by the window and approached me.

Much to my relief, she took hold of the rope and undid the knots holding me in place. The rope fell away, and sweet relief as I was finally able to stretch out my limbs again! Stripe only watched in amusement as I enjoyed the moment, before vanishing into another room and coming back again with my saddlebags and weapons.

“Everything you own is here,” she assured. “I am confident that you no threat to me.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I remarked, getting up onto my stiff legs and collecting my things.

I made sure to check that everything was as she said, but there didn’t seem to be anything out of order. Then again, she could have taken a cap or two and I wouldn’t have noticed, but she didn’t strike me as the type…

“What are you doing, Stripe?”

“Hm?”

“Here, I mean. What is your goal?”

“I do as I always have, Scrap Heap. I search for my purpose in this shattered world. And I will not fall to the temptations of evil as my family have, simply to have a place at all. If I find my place, I want it to be for the better.”

“Better for who?”

“For all.”

For all, huh? And I mean, she was one hell of a sniper…

“I’m searching for something…” And I mean, what’s the harm in telling her? “A pony called Cobalt in Tenpony Tower has a way into an untouched stable. Stable 84. If it’s uninhabited, the caps could set ponies… or a zebra, up for life.”

“I have little desire in your caps.”

“Listen, I’ll be frank. In the past few days, I’ve had raiders, demented robots and crazy remnants of a long-gone war trying to kill me. I’ve survived by the skin of my teeth. And you don’t seem to have much going on aside from wandering, so why can’t you search for your place while making sure the hapless scavenger doesn’t wander into a hellhound den?”

Stripe didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she took a step back and gave me a thorough examination as she thought it over. Finally, she picked up her sniper and saddlebags, hoisting both onto her back and trotting up to me with a smile of affirmation.

“Very well, Scrap Heap,” she finally said, much to my intense relief. “I see no issue in assisting in your journey, and the experience may prove an interesting one.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“I suppose you are,” she replied. “And I am interested to see how your story develops. You are a curious pony, who wishes to help others over one’s self. Recent or not, it is an admirable trait.”

“Well, shall we be off?” I asked, eager to get under way and stop Stripe’s weird psyche evaluation. “From wherever here is…”

“We are not far from the plaza,” Stripe assured. “And I know the location of your tower from here. They are not so receptive of my kind, but if we must go there then we shall.”

“I can find it,” I remarked with small smugness, holding up my PipBuck. “This thing has a navigation tool.”

“Helpful,” she admitted, moving off through the door out of the apartment. “Then let us depart, little pony.”

She exited through the doorway, and I was left alone for the moment. I must admit, this whole thing had been a weird experience from start to finish. Heh, this is what I get for listening to the adorable little ghoul…

“Oh, and Scrap Heap,” Stripe addressed me, poking her head through the doorway with a little smirk I didn’t like very much. “If you ever prove me wrong about you, and make me do something unjust, I will introduce you to my rifle more… intimately.”

With that threat delivered, she disappeared through the doorway again.

This could only go well.

Footnote: Level 5

New Perk: Zebra Sight - Your companion has given you +5% accuracy while in S.A.T.S.

7 - Society

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Chapter Seven: Society

“What’s up Wasteland? Who’s ready for some news?”

“This is DJ Pon-3, and that was Sweetie Belle, singing about that one great truth of the Wasteland: every pony has done something they regret. And now, my little ponies, it’s time for the news!”

That was DJ Pon-3, the mysterious DJ of Tenpony Tower. He was always on the radio talking about the good fight, and when not doing that he was giving news about the goings on of the Wasteland. Today was no different, and my PipBuck had an inbuilt radio that allowed me to tune in at any time.

He always seemed to have a soft spot for would-be heroes. And somepony had caught his attention…

“Now you ponies remember when I told you ‘bout those two ponies who crawled themselves out of Stable 2? Well, I’ve been gettin’ reports that one of those little ponies took out the raider nest in the heart of Ponyville and saved several pony captives -- including the beloved author of The Wasteland Survival Guide, Ditzy Doo!”

Derpy?

“Hey kid, thanks! From all of us! And now the weather: cloudy everywhere, with a chance of rain, gunfire and bloody dismemberment. Oh, and clouds. Always the clouds with our Enclave overlords sitting high and pretty. How about some sun once in a while, what do ya say? Oh, and one last thing, the other Stable Dweller was last seen out near Appleloosa. My prayers go out t’ that one. And that’s the truth of the matter. Now back to the music. Here’s Sapphire Shores singing how the sun can’t hide forever. From your lips to Celestia’s ears, Sapphire!”

Music began to play from my PipBuck, and I shut the radio down. Ditzy had mentioned something about going to the Ponyville area soon after I left New Appleoosa, but I had no idea she’d since been captured by those raiders. Still, at least the news was that she’d been rescued.

I suppose this ‘Stable Dweller’ couldn’t be all that bad.

“We live in an interesting time, do we not?” Stripe spoke up, the odd zebra trotting alongside me as we continued down one heat blasted street after the next. “A few more ponies, zebra or even griffons like his Stable Dweller and the world would be a brighter place.”

“Maybe. But do you think it’s the first hero the DJ has had his eye on?” I asked the mare, who seemed to wait for me to answer rather than respond herself. “Plenty. I owe her a Sparkle-Cola for saving Ditzy, but she’ll probably fade from view soon enough. Or die. Or crack; Stable ponies don’t know what they’re getting into.”

“For one who dabbles in heroics themselves, you are quite the pessimist.”

“You grew up in the Wasteland, same as me. Neither of us had the cushy life inside a stable or Tenpony Tower. Your family abandoned you for some genocidal cult, mine never gave a shit,” I replied sourly, furrowing my brow at her. “How can you not be?”

“How indeed…” Stripe mused, giving me a knowing smile. “Maybe it’s because for every raider group or foolish zebra living in the past, there is a sour and pessimistic scavenger that, despite their outlook, seeks to save people he does not know for a horrible fate with no reward in sight.”

Couldn’t this zebra understand that I just wanted to find this damned stable and collect my caps? It’s not like I set out to save the whole stupid Wasteland or anything. Sure, I stopped to help those other scavengers, and I already told her about Calamity and how it- Nope, I’m not getting back into that mess! This entire trip had already messed with my brain enough, and the last thing I needed was Stripe going on and on about heroes and fools!

“Your point?”

“You may fight yourself, but your heart shows true.”

“Are you going to talk about this the entire trip?”

Stripe sighed. “If you do not wish it, I will cease discussion on the matter. But, little pony, the matter will not cease within yourself.”

“Stripe,” I growled warningly.

“Very well. Though you should try smiling a little more, it better suits ponies than combat and war,” Stripe noted. “Leave that to the Achu and Roamani.”

“I have no idea who they are, but whatever,” I deadpanned, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “We should be close to Tenpony, just up another street or two.”

“Indeed, I have seen this place before,” Stripe confirmed, examining her surroundings cautiously. “My family travelled here once when I was a small child, seeking shelter at your tower. They turned us away for the crime of being zebra.”

Well, is it me or did the air just become a little awkward?

“Your family travelled around here lots?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

“We travelled far and wide around Equestria, as many of my ancestors have since the opening of our stable,” Stripe explained. “Our last journey took us near Hoofington. You know how that ended for us.”

“I avoid that place,” I responded.

“A wise choice, it consumes all who enter it.”

“So if your family came from a stable, does that mean they were on Equestria’s side during the war?”

“I do not believe my family were on anyone’s side, they just wished to be left in peace,” Stripe responded, her tone darkening just a smidge. “But it matters little now. Someone pressed a button and ended the old world, but who that person was I could not say. Some zebra would blame the evil of the stars, but it was the folly of mere mortals who brought our destruction.”

“Poetic,” I deadpanned. “But they were Equestrians? Your family, I mean.”

“Indeed. But as I said, it matters little now,” Stripe stated. “What we should discuss is what happens when we reach the tower.”

“They won’t let you in,” I noted, really hoping I didn’t strike a nerve in the zebra with the scarily good aim. “You might need to, uh… wait outside.”

“Yes, that seems likely,” Stripe replied, and much to my relief showing no annoyance. “But try not to delay for long, I wouldn’t wish to remain by the gates indefinitely.”

“I just need to speak to Cobalt and then get out, that’s it.”

“And who is this ‘Cobalt’? You never said.”

Now there was the million bit question. And to be honest, it wasn’t like I knew a damned thing about Cobalt either. It all seemed a little shady, and only Ditzy’s encouragement gave me any hope that this guy was legitimate. Then again, Ditzy had given no indication that she had ever even met the guy, just that he had been in contact about the stable.

And even more worrying, even if he was legitimate, what did he want in return?

Well, there was only one thing I could tell her…

“Not a fucking clue,” I answered honestly, and I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot at her double take.

“You… don’t even know the pony that supposedly has the one thing you need to enter this stable?” she questioned incredulously. “Not even a little?”

“Nope!” I answered with a light chuckle. “So there are good chances this all goes wrong before it even starts, so be on guard would you?”

She gave me a deadpan look. “I take it back, you are a fool.”

“You wanted to come along.”

“You talked me into it,” Stripe shot back, before huffing. “No matter. If I hear the screaming, I’ll know it was a trap.”

“Good to know you have my back,” I joked, patting the zebra on the shoulder. And really, what was the worst that could happen?

Don’t answer that.

Gunfire echoed all around us, the sound ricocheting off of the buildings but definitely originating from around the next corner.

How typical.

Stripe had already bolted on ahead as I mulled over the universe’s dramatic timing, and she slid into position at the corner of a building while withdrawing her rifle. I quickly ran to join her, and there my E.F.S. immediately lit up with bars both friendly and decidedly not friendly. Meanwhile, Stripe was already peering around the corner with one eye pressed up against her rifle’s scope.

“It appears a group of seven raiders have decided to strike out at the gate,” Stripe reported, though for the time being I didn’t peek around myself and instead just trusted her word. “The tower’s guards are returning fire. I fail to see what the fools hope to achieve in this attack.”

“Fun,” I answered for them. “They’re raiders, what do you expect?”

CRACK.

I snorted. “I suppose that’s six raiders now.”

“I don’t aim to miss,” Stripe replied, just as a bullet hit the concrete inches from her head.

Stripe pulled back, swearing quite loudly as she did. Had the raider been the sharpshooter she was, the zebra would have had a stump where her head used to be. And by the bullets flying past us as we sat behind the safety of the wall, I could guess that the raiders knew we were here now.

“Are you alright!?” I asked her urgently, giving the zebra a once over.

“Fine, just closer than I’d like,” she replied. “This is not the best position for this, I’ll need some cover fire if I am to continue.”

Oh great, why did that sound like I had just volunteered myself?

I sighed, slipping my pistol free from its holster. “Between those guards and myself, I think we can give you a clear shot or two.”

Stripe nodded, glancing back at the corner. A few bullets were still flying on by, though the raiders seemed to have mostly returned to trading fire with the Tenpony Tower security force. Still, I bet my useless cutie mark that they were still keeping half an eye out for a zebra sniper poking her head around. But looking across the street, I could see a tipped over wagon that would provide some prime cover. It was on the other side, and close to the fighting, but it could work.

“Alright,” I announced to stripe, ensuring I was loaded and ready. “I’ll make a run for it and see if I can pop a few of them on the way, and while they’re trying to dust me you can do your thing.”

“Understood. I will await the perfect moment.”

“Yeah, well try not to wait too long. I only have two healing potions left.”

“A good thing we are within reach of new supplies,” she said in response, and it was a point I was extremely grateful for. “Once they are gone, head straight inside. I will await your return.”

“Right. Celestia save me.”

I take in a deep breath, planting myself on all fours with my gun levitating nearby. I silently counted down in my head and then, during a lull in the gunfire, I raced on forwards!

First thing to note, the other six raiders were all still up and about while taking cover behind whatever they could near the old Four Stars tramline.

Second, the gates of Tenpony Tower were shut up tight while the security team took pot shots at the raiders from behind a gate the latter couldn’t hope to breach with the firepower they had.

Third, all of the above immediately saw me as I made the dash, and now six guns were all aiming towards me.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!” I yelled as I lifted my gun and fired blindly at the raiders while I dared not slow down for even a moment, I mean if I had I probably would have looked like a ponified wheel of cheese or something!

But as I fired I made sure to keep running directly ahead while keeping my head down, and none of the raiders had Stripe’s accuracy.

CRACK.

Speaking of the zebra.

I slid down behind the wagon, a few new nicks in my barding but nothing had actually penetrated it, thank Luna for that. And now they were being shot at from three separate positions the raiders were rethinking their plans. A couple of shots forced Stripe to return into cover, though after depositing a new clip into my pistol I leaned around the wagon and fired up the S.A.T.S. ability.

I targeted one of the raiders who was firing at Stripe and let loose on him. I was too far away to make the killing blow, though a bullet in the leg did make them easy pickings for the security forces to finish off.

Emboldened by this turn of events, the security force pressed the attack more readily as the raiders started to become panicked. They continued to fire back at all of us, but what had started off as a bit of target practice had quickly turned into all but certain death for them.

One of the raiders shouted something to their buddies, and the remaining four stopped their firing and retreated back into the Four Stars out of sight. Their bars disappeared from the E.F.S. and the security ponies gave the all clear.

How refreshing, raiders with a modicum of sense.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked back at Stripe as she peaked back around the corner and scanned the area with her rifle. Once she was content that the coast was clear, she gave me a nod before eerily slinking back into the shadows and away from view.

A little creepy, but I at least she was on my side.

I popped out from behind the wagon, walking down the streets towards the gate while making sure to holster my gun. The guards all looked towards me warily from behind it, seemingly looking around to see where my friend had gone. Only after they were sure that I was alone did the gate open with an ear-destroying screech.

The guards all pointed their weapons at me as they moved to completely encircle me, and from the cluster of ponies a particularly mean looking guard approached and gave me a rather shooty glare.

“Who the hell are you?” the stallion asked in a gruff tone. “And where’s your sniper buddy?”

“She’s not coming in, I won’t be here long,” I replied, trying my best not to start a fight with the tower. Honest! “I just need to resupply. That, and I’m looking for somepony. A pony called Cobalt?”

The stallion seemed to study me, and one of the other guards spoke up. “Chief Grim Star, weren’t we told to expect a visitor asking for that pony?”

“Yes, we were,” Grim Star, giving me a dismissive snort. “Take his ammo, standard procedure. Then close the fucking gate up, I don’t want raiders or some zombie walking in because you didn’t do your jobs.”

The Chief gave me one last glare, before turning his back on me and walking back into the tower. The security force moved in and confiscated all the ammo for my shotgun and pistol, promising to return them when I left, though leaving the guns themselves in my bags. I can’t say they were particularly gentle, though I had to count my blessings considering that the Chief seemed like he would have rather shot me and been done with it.

What an unpleasant pony.

“He’s clean,” one of the guards reported, sticking my ammo into the box and carrying them away to whatever safety deposit box they kept ponies’ ammunition in.

I was then all but forced inside, the gate being shut up behind me as the guards proceeded to return to whatever duties they had. Still, a ding from my PipBuck confirmed my arrival at Tenpony Tower and the objective marker was pointing directly at the front entrance. With little else to do, I trotted on forwards and pushed my way through the aged but still ornate looking doors of the pre-war hotel and ministry hub.

I had been here before, of course, but the sight of the tower’s entrance hall never ceased to amaze me.

Calming music was playing throughout the foyer, everything well lit and decorated with all sorts of fancy looking crap. Doors running along either side led to restaurants and shops selling all sorts of things from ammo to cheese. Well dressed ponies and decidedly less well-dressed visitors to the towers walked all around the interior, moving in and out of the various establishments with what was almost an ignorance as to the state of the outside world.

This was as far from the Wasteland as you could get nowadays, everything I wanted in a peaceful life. No shooting, no scrounging through the dirt. Just day by day living.

Too bad I wasn’t here to stay.

There was a reception desk at the far end sitting in front of the elevators and stairways that would take you up to the rest of the tower and the actual ministry hub itself. DJ Pon-3 was also up there somewhere, gushing over heroes and the good fight.

But I wasn’t here for any of that.

As I trotted up to the desk I saw that Chief Grim Star was lounging behind it, looking at a few pieces of paper with a bored expression on his face.

“Uh, Chief Grim Star?” I called out sheepishly, not having too much of a desire to further converse with the nasty Security Chief.

The Chief gave me that glare again. “You again? What is it?”

“Cobalt. Where can I find him?”

“We were just told to let you in, scav,” he replied. “He’ll find you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have actual important things to do.”

“Yeah, right.”

I left him alone after that, looking around for anypony that might be trying to get my attention. Though nopony stood out, others only giving me the occasional glance before dismissing me as nothing of interest.

So, with nothing to do but wait, I decided that I may as well have a look around. The food was just as criminally priced as I remembered it being, so I skipped out on lunch. Instead, I made sure to check in on the local doctor and resupply on healing potions. I also had my ammo problem to take care off, purchasing a good selection of shotgun shells and 9mm rounds for my two respective guns. I couldn't take it, of course, but they added it to the ammo I'd get back on leaving the tower. I skipped the expensive speciality ammo for the time being, though I did barter off some of the random junk I had picked up as of late.

With my saddlebags full of goodies, I returned to the foyer where once again nopony was waiting for me. I was starting to get a little annoyed at the waiting, and increasingly suspicious of this Cobalt guy. The guards had been told to let me in, so this pony was definitely around and seemed to have some sway in the tower. And yet he had left me alone, not approaching me one as of yet.

With yet more time on my hooves, I just found myself a quiet back room where I was able to take off my barding and work out some of the damage the raiders had inflicted. The room was not as well lit as the rest of the tower, and a workbench was sitting in one corner while various tools were strewn all over the place. Not an often-traversed part of the tower, but perfect for my needs.

I set my PipBuck aside as I worked, the radio playing music to pass the time. I was experienced at such repairs, and the damage wasn’t all that serious, so it didn’t take too much time to work out the kinks. It was weird not to have my E.F.S. though, I had become accustomed to having those elements constantly in my vision. Still, when I was satisfied with my repair work I slipped my leather barding back on and latched the PipBuck back onto my right hoof. The E.F.S. rebooted itself and reappeared in my vision, almost instantly picking up the single green bar standing behind me.

I must admit, that made me freeze up for a moment.

I slowly turned myself around to face the pony I hadn’t heard come in, finding a deep blue stallion with a green mane, teal eyes and a cutie mark depicting some kind of arcane symbol.

“Bang, you’re dead,” he dryly deadpanned, studying me critically.

“I was a little distracted,” I admitted. “It’s not a problem out there, though.”

“You shouldn’t get distracted anywhere, even in here,” he cautioned. “It may seem like the old world out in the foyer, but the Wasteland isn’t as distant as you might think.”

“Right. And you are?”

“Cobalt,” he introduced, though I had suspected as much. “And you would be Scrap Heap. The scavenger looking for his fortune in a long-lost stable. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes, checking my E.F.S. constantly for any appearing red bars.

“I am here representing the Twilight Society,” he continued, not seeming at all as on edge as I was. “We run this tower. And likewise, we monitor the goings-on around it. When we heard that the famed Ditzy Doo had discovered the location of Stable 84 we got in contact and arranged this little… transaction.”

“The password?”

He nodded. “We’ve had it in the hub’s databanks for the past two hundred years, but never the location.”

“And why does the Twilight Society have an interest in this stable?”

“It’s Ministry of Arcane Sciences business. That is all you need to know.”

“All I need to know?” Was this guy serious? This had bad news written all over it… “You know what’s in there, don’t you? Tell me, what else was in the database of yours?”

“That’s our business, but you will be rewarded significantly should you assist us in this matter,” he said, before pointing at my right foreleg. “That PipBuck belonged to somebody of great importance to the MAS, and it’s something that should have been inside the stable when it closed. How it’s here is beyond us, but we want to know the answers.”

“And whatever ministry stuff went on inside?”

“Of course. The rest of it’s yours assuming its available to take. But anything related to the MAS is ours, that’s the deal.”

Great, so this also had weird ministry secrets involved. Something so great that the Twilight Society were wetting themselves in anticipation, and I had to wonder exactly what it was Cobalt knew that I didn’t. But still, I had come this far…

“Fine,” I replied begrudgingly. “Hoof over the password and I’ll find your damned stable.”

“No, the password remains in here,” he replied, tapping his head. “And I’ll be coming with you.”

Fuck.

“What?”

“I’ll be coming with you,” he repeated. “The Twilight Society is sending me to represent our interests in this matter. Don’t worry, I won’t be a burden. I am fully trained in the basics of combat magic and shield spells.”

“Good for you,” I dryly snarked back, not much convinced that I wanted this guy looking over my shoulder. “And if I say no?”

“Then the password stays here,” he replied simply. “And you get nothing.”

“You won’t take the PipBuck by force?”

“We’re not barbarians, Mr Heap,” Cobalt replied, seemingly appalled. “We’d be willing to barter for it if you so wish, though the gains would be far less than that of a functioning stable. Or we could simply wait for the Equestrian Wasteland to spit you out so that we can claim the PipBuck from your bleached bones. Your choice.”

Damn, I suppose I didn’t have much of a choice if I wanted to continue this job, did I?

“Fine. If your Twilight Society is so eager, then feel free! Just try to keep your head down.”

“I’m sure I will manage,” he said in turn. “I will meet you by the front gates in ten. Be there.”

Without further comment, he just left me there, not at all thrilled at my latest travelling companion. Still, at least everything seemed to be legitimate thus far. Though the MAS connection was… worrying, and I didn’t like going into this blind while Cobalt held all the information.

Perhaps Stripe and I could grill him about it on the way there?

But I was done with this tower and its supreme overlords for a while, so I immediately exited the room and walked back out of the front door. The guards opened the gate and let me go, returning my ammunition as promised. With the ammo for my pistol and shotgun back in their rightful places, I trotted out towards the entrance of Four Stars and waited there.

My E.F.S. showed that the raiders were long gone, though a green bar did facilitate the arrival of my slightly more trustworthy travelling companion.

“All is well?” Stripe asked as she sat down beside me. “You seem… tense.”

“Well, Cobalt does have the password,” I informed her. “But he and the leaders of the tower want him to come along, and this stable has some weird ministry business attached to it they’re refusing to divulge.”

“And you’re sure they know what it is themselves?”

“Oh, they know alright. And they want whatever the Ministry of Arcane Sciences were doing in there.”

Stripe frowned, clearly as troubled as I was about it. “The ministries were Equestria’s centre during the war, and almost every innovation came from them. I can only imagine the kind of power that Twilight Sparkle poked and prodded in her labs. Anything related to the ministries must be held with caution.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Stripe replied with a shake of her head. “But this is the organisation that created some of the very weapons that ended the old world. I would fear the foolish ponies who had access to that kind of power in today’s one.”

“So… what do we do?”

“You tell me. You did accept their offer, did you not?”

“Well, yeah. But I have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.”

“We know little, so we should simply watch for the time being,” she advised, though worry was clear on her face. “Whoever runs that tower, I do not trust them.”

OK, this was giving me a headache. I just wanted my caps, and now it was feeling like I was being dragged into some kind of Equus shattering conspiracy.

“We’ll be careful,” I assured her, watching as a certain blue stallion exited the tower with full saddlebags and distressingly little barding covering his hide.

Cobalt approached us, looking warily at the zebra to my side. He stopped wordlessly in front of us, looking between us in confusion.

“What did I miss in the last ten minutes?”

I couldn’t help but sigh. “Cobalt, Stripe. Stripe, Cobalt. She’s helping us find the stable.”

“I’m sure she is…” Cobalt was eyeing her in the same way we were eyeing him.

“I will ensure this little journey ends best for everyone in this land,” Stripe professed. “I hope you can say the same, little pony.”

“If the Twilight Society benefits, Equestria benefits,” Cobalt replied. “Are we ready to get underway?”

My PipBuck beeped, and my objective marker updated itself. The objective to find and speak to Cobalt was greyed out, leaving just the marker for Stable 84 itself.

“My PipBuck thinks so,” I noted, looking towards the marker only I could see. “Let’s go.”

I started off down the street, Cobalt falling into step beside me while Stripe elected to lag behind just a little, likely to ensure that our new ‘friend’ didn’t shoot us in the back.

But I now had everything I needed, and next up was Stable 84 itself.

I brought up my PipBuck as we went, switching over to the radio and turning on DJ Pon-3. Bright and cheerful music sung by Sapphire Shores filled the tomb around us, and I listened to the tunes echo off the broken husks as we continued to walk.

“That was Sweetie Belle with ‘Let it go’. Just giving us all a reminder that sometimes, when things are at their worst, it’s best to just forgive and forget. This is DJ Pon-3 with a shout-out to all my listeners back east around the Hoof. I know some of you feel like you don’t get as many headlines out there, but it’s a great big old Wasteland. So this news is just for you, Hoofington. Turns out the road between Manehattan and the Hoof is just a little safer now thanks to a pair of ponies fresh from a stable. You’re gonna love this… looks like the Hoof has just a little more Security than a few days ago. That’s right, she’s got it displayed loud and proud. She’s already carved up the raiders from Withers all the way to Megamart, and she doesn’t look like she’s going to be stopping any time soon. So here’s a big thank you from DJ Pon-3 to the Security Mare. Looking forward to seeing what law and order you bring down next.”

One hero after the next, it seemed. I had to wonder what such a hero as the Stable Dweller or Security would do right now, walking in the night through the ruins of an ancient city while chasing the ghosts of the past.

But I wasn’t the Stable Dweller. I wasn’t the Security Mare. And everything to come…

That was all on me.

Footnote: Level 6

New Perk: For Science! - Your companion has given you an extra point to your intelligence.

8 - On The Road Again

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Chapter Eight: On The Road Again

“Maybe next time you will take a second look, and not judge the cover of the book.”

We had ended up sleeping in the backroom of some old megamart that night. The PipBuck’s marker was leading us out of Manehatten a separate way to where I had initially entered, though the destroyed streets and roaming bands of raiders meant we had to take a few detours every now and then. Our formation was unchanging the entire way, Stripe unwilling to allow Cobalt to walk behind her for even a second. Cobalt made no comment on this, though I’m pretty sure he had noticed it by then.

There had been little conversation between us in the meantime, our only constant sound being the music coming from my PipBuck and the occasional news update from DJ Pon-3. We continued to move even after the initial fall of darkness, getting all the way to the outer edges of the city before we finally decided to call it a night.

The megamart was mostly abandoned, food stocks long pilfered and the only modern residents being a moderate infestation of radroaches. But really, radroaches were pathetic enough as they were, and what were they now after I had fought crazed zebra and rogue robots?

But there were a lot of them, red bars scurrying around my E.F.S. at a constant rate. And we didn’t want to waste ammo on them or waste our remaining energy stomping the buggers with our hooves. So we quickly slid down along the edges of the interior until we found a door marked ‘employees only’, opening it up to find a hallway with several more doorways running down either side. A couple of the doors led to staff bathroom, another to a basic meeting room filled with charred skeletons in the tattered remains of megamart employee uniforms. The meeting room made my PipBuck’s Geiger Counter click slowly from some remaining radiation left from what had killed the employees, so we left it well alone. Around the bend, there was a final door that led into an old small storage room of some kind. Once again, the shelves had long been stripped of anything useful.

We chose that storeroom to bunker down in for the night, shutting the door and moving one of the metal cabinets to block it. At this point, the light of my PipBuck was the only source of brightness in the otherwise pitch-black room, though it was bright enough that we didn’t need to use any of our magic to create more.

After that, we had a couple of bites from whatever food we had in our packs, before laying down to get some shut eye. Though I’m not exactly sure how much sleep Stripe got that night; I swear that, in a couple instances where I roused for a couple moments, I could see her keeping watch in the corner with her sniper rifle firmly in her hooves.

When we finally awoke to an alarm we set on my PipBuck, however, Stripe had been woken with the rest of us. Before that, she seemed like she’d been curled up so soundly that it was actually a little adorable, not that I’d say that to her face of course…

Zebra scared me, at least a little bit.

Luckily, nothing had tried to disturb us during the night. And after moving the cabinet aside and opening the door, we made our swift exit from the abandoned megamart back out into the morning sunlight.

Or as much as we could get with the cloud cover.

There was a small pack of dogs, three in number, tearing at the corpse of an unfortunate brahmin outside between the various wrecked vehicles. It was a grisly sight, but hardly uncommon in the Equestrian Wasteland. It really was best for us just to move around it, and we tried to do just that, though one of the mutated mongrels spotted us out. How? Who the hell knows. Corner of its eye? Scent? It doesn’t really matter though, the point being that the pack almost instantly forgot their meal and turned to growl at us.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a bone to throw at them,” Cobalt dryly commented.

“We could throw them you,” I replied with ultimate grace and wit. But then again, we did need him. Whether we liked it or not.

And throwing a pony to the dogs would have been bad. That too.

It was around then that the dogs had finished sizing us up and made a quick sprint in our general direction. Each chose one of us to target and gave a bounding leap upon their prey.

But I don’t think any of us were really in the mood.

Stripe just brought up a hoof and clotheslined her attacker with it, before turning that hoof around and stomping its skull into paste. Cobalt caught him in a levitation spell, slamming it back into one of the rusted hulks where it slumped down with a whimper and didn’t get up again.

I think mine was the only one to reach its target. Go me.

I fell back with a grunt as it clawed at me, landing my ass sorely down into the concrete before bucking the dog to the side. However much my backside ached from the landing, his probably hurt more as he slammed into a pothole. Still, the dump pooch didn’t seem to get the memo, and I pulled my gun on the animal as it charged me again.

Only to then be covered in a fountain of gore!

I mean, I’d only fired a single bullet from my dinky little pistol! And yet, somehow, that had been enough to tear through the dog’s entire body and splatter every single meaty chunk inside him all over the parking lot!

I mean…

“What. The. FUCK!?”

I mean, I was caked in dead dog! How did that even happen!? I just… don’t understand!

And when I jumped back to my hooves and tried to kick off all the disgusting goop, it was clear that my companions didn’t seem to either. Or maybe the weird looks were due to the fact that I looked like I’d been in some kind of sick and twisted blood orgy.

Now there’s a lovely thought…

“Are you sure you’re not using an explosive round in that thing?” Cobalt asked incredulously, backing up a few steps.

“Just standard rounds, believe me,” I replied, thankful when Stripe passed me over some rags to help clean the crap off of me. “Don’t ask me what just happened! Just… give me a minute!”

Stripe just chuckled, though wrinkled her snout at the putrid smell. “I believe that is what a wise zebra would call ‘a lucky shot’, no?”

“Lucky… Right,” I grumbled to myself, using the rage to completely clear my face and as much of the rest of me as I could before it became useless.

I then tossed the rag away, wishing never to lay eyes on it ever again.

“Well that’s all well and good, but can we return to the job you were hired for?” Cobalt asked in a non-too-pleased tone. “We don’t even know if it was just those three, there may be far more of those mutts out here.”

“Then we should continue on,” Stripe seconded. “That is, if you are not about to lose your lunch, Scrap Heap.”

“I’ll be fine,” I dismissed, thankfully mostly clean of the gore now, aside from a few persistent bits here and there. “Let’s just go.”

We swiftly left the megamart behind, moving back into the city’s streets. The massive ruined skyscrapers had already been left far behind us, only the smaller buildings and businesses surrounded us now. It wouldn’t be long before we were on the road out of the city, back into Equestria’s burnt countryside heading north. The route would take us close to a mountainous region just south of Rainbow Falls, bordering the Frozen North.

We would have to go around the mountains, taking us near to Hollow Shades and past Neighagra Falls before we got to the general area of Stable 84.

Oh, it was definitely going to get a little cold.

And speaking of Stable 84…

“My lineage can be traced back to a stable,” Stripe casually stated as we walked past a burnt-out café. “Where my ancestors sought refuge from the fire and ash.”

“Then you must be talking about Stable 3,” Cobalt idly noted. “No other stable accepted zebra residents. Then again, the tower hardly has a complete record of all Stable-Tec facilities.”

“But you do know of Stable 3?” she enquired.

“I know of a few,” he confirmed. “Stable 1. Stable 3. A couple others. None of interest, shelters for the citizens of Equestria. Scraps of information on them, varying in detail. Stable-Tec did some work with the various ministries back during the war.”

“My stable died a long time ago, the pink poison of Canterlot seeped in and turned a haven into a hell,” Stripe continued. “My people left. Some are still around there as far as I am aware, others chose to wander.”

“This is a very roundabout way to grill me about Stable 84,” Cobalt rebuffed.

“I only wish to know my travelling companion,” Stripe coolly replied. “Are all little ponies so suspicious of others?”

“It’s natural to fear the unknown,” Cobalt argued. “I don’t know you, and you’re not my friend.”

“I am curious though,” I butted in, looking at Cobalt. “You haven’t said a word about yourself. She told you her background, least you could do is tell us a little about yourself.”

Cobalt snorted. “Like what?”

“You’re an intelligent stallion. I’m sure you could find something to talk about.”

Cobalt rolled his eyes, but he seemed to relent. “Fine. My parents were in the Society, so I am too. I grew up in the tower. Actually, this is the furthest I’ve ever been from it.”

“Then why didn’t the Twilight Society send somepony with more experience?”

“None of the Twilight Society, or at least nearly none of them, have ever left the tower,” Cobalt retorted. “The ones who have, they’re unlikely to budge or are needed elsewhere. But I know magic, it’s my special talent.”

“Just because you have it, does not mean you will be able to use it during the real thing,” Stripe noted with a frown.

“You need a shield spell? Got it covered. Teleport? Got that too,” he returned with a small bit of pride leaking from his mannerisms. “I’ve studied all of Twilight Sparkle’s techniques and all the writings she’s left behind in our possession.”

Now I shared Stripe’s frown. “What? You think you’re the second coming of Twilight or something?”

He grimaced. “Hardly. I know the spells, I can use them. Doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near as proficient as she was. She could teleport across Equestria during the war. I could make it from here to the top of one of these buildings.”

Stripe hummed. “I sense a deep admiration in your voice towards the Ministry Mare.”

“We’re the Twilight Society,” he pointed out. “The last remnants of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, continuing her legacy. She had no children after all. No remaining descendants.”

“As far as you know,” I joked.

“If she does, I want to meet them,” Cobalt replied. “But no, no children. It’s just us.”

“And I imagine you believe all she left behind is yours by right?” Stripe questioned.

“We’re her ministry, her legacy,” he repeated. “Recovering what would be otherwise lost, it could be described as a sacred duty.”

And now he was sounding like a Steel Ranger.

But Stripe wasn’t finished. “And what do you do with this knowledge?”

“What we think is best.”

“And what would that be, little pony?”

Cobalt didn’t answer right away, instead keeping his eyes locked forwards on the road ahead. We moved down the street and made a turn, passing by even more old buildings and some signs indicating our proximity to the city limits. Finally, however, he did find his tongue again.

“We preserve it,” he replied as resolutely as he could. “Until the time is right.”

Definitely Steel Rangers, and I couldn’t help but snort at the reply. “In other words, you sit on your flanks and do nothing at all.”

“Tenpony Tower is safe,” Cobalt retorted quickly. “And we keep it that way! Whole generations, living in peace away from the raiders and mutants!”

“And it was you that said the Wasteland still existed in the tower,” I pointed out, and his flinch was quite telling. “And even so, what of the rest of us? I’ve never had a place to call my own, I know that much. And yeah, I’m not the only one.”

Cobalt couldn’t meet our stares. “…Equestria’s time will come.”

“Bullshit,” I spat. I hadn’t known all that much of the ponies running Tenpony Tower before the last couple of days, and all of a sudden the thought of living there was losing its appeal. New Appleoosa was sounding more appealing, and they trade with Red Eye! “From what you’ve told me about the Twilight Society, they’ll sit quietly and let the status quo stay the status quo! Just like the Steel Rangers. Just like the pegasi! So long as ponies keep being apathetic and self-serving about everything, nothing will change! Just the same grinding existence and barely getting by we’ve always known, until there’s nothing left to save.”

Cobalt stopped in the middle of the road, closing his eyes and giving a soft sigh. “There are those of us who wish we could be more active out here. Who wish we could help the rest of Equestria. But this is the way things are. Red Eye and his slavers in Fillydelphia. The Enclave up above. Steel Rangers who would love to get their hooves on what we’ve got. And whatever the hell is up with Hoofington these days. The Twilight Society believes things are still too dangerous.”

“And so they shall remain,” Stripe stated, shaking her head. “I can understand why your DJ Pon-3 loves ponies like the Stable Dweller and the Security Mare. They are the few who try.”

“Pon-3 is an idealist,” Cobalt remarked, huffing. “And an infectious one. But whatever the case, when I have what I need from Stable 84 the Twilight Society will decide on how best to manage the situation.”

Ah! Stable 84! I was feeling rather hopeful that he was about to let slip his intentions… “What situation?”

Cobalt opened his mouth, about to tell all! And… then paused. Oh, and that glare he was shooting us was looking rather peeved.

So much for letting slip…

“Nice try,” he deadpanned, turning his back on us and continuing down the street.

Stripe and I watched him go, a little disappointed in the outcome of our little heart-to-heart. But still, we began to follow slowly along. And it all took only a few steps before Stripe began whispering over to me.

“We may know nothing more about our destination, but it was still quite telling, yes?” she said over to me, and I gave her a perplexed glance. “His hesitation, his flinch. I believe he may be among those who wishes for better, but he himself has grown so accustomed to not getting better that he’s become acceptant of the lesser.”

“So he just does whatever his bosses tell him to do.”

“Exactly,” she confirmed, before giving me a smirk. “You were correct about apathy, Scrap Heap. And so your heart shows through, as I said it would.”

What was she-

Ah, damn it!

Silence reigned for much of the rest of that day, Cobalt was in no hurry to talk to us again. But eventually, we did finally leave the city of Manehatten behind, following the main road out of the dead metropolis and towards the mountains in the north-west. It was a long and arduous trip, and we still had the occasional critter skittering around us. But if there were any raiders or worse out here, we didn’t run into any of them as the day dwindled and the night drew once again.

We spent that night under an overpass, taking turns keeping watch as we slept around a cosy campfire. A brave radhog tried to take a midnight snack, though we only discovered this after the sound of Stripe’s sniper rifle woke me and Cobalt as the zebra mare took care of the problem.

I was the one keeping watch as dawn broke, sitting idly against one of the support beams as the dull light began to illuminate the wastes around us. And with that, I woke Stripe and Cobalt up, and it was back onto the road for us.

And as we continued to walk in that new day, eventually the mountains came into view. And as we drew closer to their slopes, the main road once again split into two separate directions for us to follow. Looking at my PipBuck map, the direction to the right just led to a couple of old warehouses that I didn’t particularly fancy taking a peek in. It, and the marker on my E.F.S., both agreed that it was left we had to go.

“We take a left here,” I informed the others, showing them the map on my PipBuck’s screen.

“It’ll take a while to go around the mountains,” Cobalt said, speaking up for the first time in ages. “Too long.”

“Well, it’s the only way to go,” I rebutted, preparing to head off down the road in question. “So come on if you want your oh so secret MAS whatever.”

“There’s another way,” he announced, and I didn’t really like the way he grabbed my PipBuck hoof like that! Still, he was pointing to a smaller pathway leading off of the road to our right. “That path right there should lead through the mountains. We can cut right on through, and when we come out we skim the very edges of the Frozen North until we’re but a couple miles north of Stable 84. And then it’s just a straight line to the old bunker.”

Cobalt let my hoof go, only for Stripe to grab it next, albeit less forcefully, and examine the map for herself.

“Yes, that would be a quicker route overall,” Stripe admitted, thankfully dropping my hoof. “But the map is vague about that area.”

“Aside from some mining operations, I do not believe Equestria did much with the mountains between here and Rainbow Falls,” Cobalt explained. “We might find a rogue Yao Gui or two perhaps. But I’m sure you can handle that.”

“Great,” I deadpanned. “Well since you two are so enthusiastic about this shortcut, I suppose I’m outnumbered. Fine, we’ll go your way.”

Footnote: Level 7

New Perk: Bloody Mess - +5% overall damage, more violent death animations.

9 - The Village

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Chapter Nine: The Village

“Welcome! I'm so pleased to have you here...”

Some shortcut this was.

I mean, at least the main road was… well, a road! I’m pretty sure the path we were following up the side of the mountain ended a couple of hours back, and we were now traversing unstable terrain with no clear route to get to where we were going. I had lost track of how many times we had to sneak across narrow ledges with some less than friendly looking spikey rocks below, stumbling every other step as we went.

Did I mention that I hated this shortcut?

“I hate this shortcut!”

“We know!” Cobalt shouted back from up ahead, and I could see him jumping over a gap leading down to more of the wonder and joy below us. “Just don’t fall!”

Right, because that was my true plan all along.

“I think the terrain levels out ahead,” Cobalt shouted back, disappearing over a lip as Stripe prepared to make the jump.

Just watching it was gut-wrenching, but she made it across safely enough. The zebra gave a huff as she looked back at the gap, and then glanced up at me inching my way closer to it.

“Try not to fret, it isn’t as far as it looks,” Stripe tried assuring me. “Just make sure it’s a good jump.”

“Ugh, why can’t that damned unicorn just levitate us over? I’d levitate myself, but I doubt I could manage it.”

“I’ll catch you if you fuck it up,” Cobalt snidely assured me as he returned. “It definitely levels out, by the way. The valley below ends in a steep incline upwards and, beyond it, there is as much stable ground as you could want.”

“Wonderful…” I replied, not trying to mask my own deadpan. “The quicker we’re off this ledge, the better.”

I bent my knees, taking in what I was painfully aware could have been my last breath if Cobalt decided it was better to let me fall for whatever maniacal reasons he might have had.

I really was overthinking it, so I just jumped.

And… I landed it! There I was, both hooves firmly planted and very much not bloody pulps! Of course, I did try to ignore the few rocks I dislodged falling the entire way down to the valley below.

If either Stripe or Cobalt had any comment, they kept it to themselves. In truth, I don’t think any of us were this mountain’s biggest fans. Cobalt continued to lead the way, taking us to where he claimed the terrain levelled out. And sweet merciful Celestia it did; the ledge widening out before connecting up with a sharp cliff edge leading down to the valley just like Cobalt had described to us. Leading away from the cliff edge was a new bumpy but mostly flat valley sprawled out between the faces of the mountains either side of us. It seemed to go on a way before thinning up head, moving to then incline back downwards.

“It shouldn’t be too much longer before we’re in the centre of this place,” Cobalt informed us, sitting down on his rump for a momentary rest. And it wasn’t a bad idea that, so me and Stripe followed suit. “If you look at the map, this whole range is like a massive bowl. Mountains along the outer edges, with a rocky but largely empty space in the middle.”

“I recall,” Stripe confirmed. “Though I am unconvinced the miners of old used this path to access their minerals.”

I brought up the PipBuck map, seeing if there were any other paths. There were, but unfortunately not anywhere near our location.

“Well if we followed the coastline from Manehatten there’s a nice flat field leading right into your ‘bowl’,” I remarked, showing them the screen. “There’s also something of the path leading out where we want to go. If two hundred years of all this hasn’t ruined it, anyway.”

“Maybe we should have followed the coastline if this was to be our route,” Stripe mused.

Cobalt coughed sheepishly into a hoof. “Well… I just remembered the shortcut back at the intersection.”

“Great job, oh genius one,” I said, and to be honest I was more than a little put out the unicorn. “Well, at least getting out is easier than getting in.”

“And it is still faster than going around,” Cobalt defended. “That would have taken us days. We can be out of here by tomorrow. And at least here we’re not running into every other raider band.”

“And we should decide when to camp,” Stripe added in, looking up at the darkening sky barely visible through the Enclave’s cloud cover. “Somewhere less treacherous, I hope.”

“I say we get down to the centre and move up to this pathway out. We could camp at the mouth of it, and head straight on first light.”

“That… isn’t the worst plan,” I admitted, begrudgingly anyway. “Alright, we get to this path and camp out for the night. The moment it’s day, we get out of this place and beeline for the stable.”

We all started getting back onto our hooves, taking a few sips from our canteens before storing them back in our saddlebags. As perilous as it was, I guess I couldn’t complain with the time we’d apparently be saving. And it was just a short distance to go, the death ledge getting further behind us as we continued to walk.

This whole area clearly didn’t see many visitors… and I wonder why… However, we did find a few bones curled up against a couple of large rocks. None of us could tell whether they were pony or otherwise, there wasn’t all that much left. So we just kept walking, watching as the path got steadily narrower as the flat surface began its steady incline down. And looking on up ahead I could see a vast landscape of hard rock flanked by countless mountains big and small. Our view of it was hindered by the walls either side of us, though I could see large oddly shaped rock formation dotting the landscape alongside intermittent blackened trees.

Occasionally, my PipBuck would begin to slowly click to indicate the presence of radiation. It would only be brief each time, though it was there. I suppose nowhere had been spared the fallout, even places so far removed you probably wouldn’t have seen a single mushroom cloud. Not over these mountains, anyway.

I wonder how long other countries survived after everything happened? Countries not involved in the war. Had they lasted days… weeks… years before the radiation caused their collapse? It’s not something I had really thought about before… But hey, a lot of this was new to me anyway.

And then all our ears twitched at the growl ahead of us.

Oh yeah, that’s a Yao Gui.

The giant mutated bear was standing in our path directly ahead, staring right at us while sniffing the air. And what did we do? Well… we froze. I mean, that fucker was big…

“So… we don’t move? What?” I hissed over at Cobalt, hoping the smart pony had ideas on how to handle this.

“I don’t know!” he hissed back. “Maybe he’s not hungry?”

“Do not act aggressive,” Stripe cautioned. “It may yet pass us by.”

And then it charged at us.

“Or maybe not!” Stripe shouted, quickly reaching for her sniper as I also grabbed for my shotgun, my horn bursting to life with magic.

It jumped for Cobalt just as we got our weapons free, and the unicorn made a mad dash backwards as his spell was cast.

A blue bubble formed around Cobalt, his eyes scrunched in concentration as the bear leaned against it. And by Luna, that roar it gave was ear deafening! That and the fact that it was beginning to pound against the shield definitely gave us ample reason to start firing!

As if sensing the danger, the creature ducked down behind Cobalt’s own shield as me and Stripe opened fire, nicking it in the hide but doing little more than making it really, really mad.

“Cobalt, you’re in the way!” I shouted over to him, the Yao Gui growling at us from the other side of the translucent barrier. “Move!”

“The moment I drop it, it’s going to eat me!” he objected, opening his eyes just a crack to look at the bear in question. “I don’t think it likes me!”

“It can join the club! Can’t you teleport away?”

“Hang on… Be ready!” he shouted back at us.

His horn seemed to glow a little brighter and we both took aim, and just as his shield collapsed the creature wasted no time in jumping forwards and taking a bite.

Only for there to be a flash behind us as Cobalt emerged with a stumble, and I immediately entered S.A.T.S. when the animal made for another charge. I lined one shot up for its head, and one up for its right leg in an attempt to stumble it. When I engaged the spell, my first shell only took off its ear while the second pounded its leg hard. Stripe also let off a round from her rifle, the bullet gouging into the bear’s eye.

And did that stop it? Don’t be stupid!

Oh dear.

By the time we had let off those three shots, the creature had crossed the distance and, despite its injuries, made another jump at us!

Despite the lack of space, Cobalt and Stripe dived to our left while I ended up going the other way for whatever reason was going through my head at the time. I was under a lot of stress, okay!? But while Stripe and Cobalt dusted themselves off and got ready, I was alone as the bear turned its remaining eye towards me with a very, very angry look.

In those situations, I just wished S.A.T.S. would recharge more quickly…

The bear lunged as I tried to bring up my shotgun in time, only for it to faceplant into a half-formed blue wall that, judging by the blood splatter, broke something in its muzzle. There was the crack of a sniper as another bullet bit into its hide, and it just roared at the barrier in a rage at its inability to reach me.

Then he barrier fell, and my shotgun was right in its face.

Well, its former face.

The point-blank shot tore its skull asunder, and the Yao Gui went rigid before falling and not getting back up again.

And I just stared at the body for a good minute, panting in an attempt to regain my breath. Seriously, that was probably one of the most terrifying moments of my life. Forget raiders, those teeth made it so much worse!

“Thanks, Cobalt,” I said as I got to my hooves, seeing the unicorn slumped and panting even harder than I was. “That shield probably saved me from being lunch.”

“Yeah… don’t mention it…” he wheezed. “Two battered shields and a teleport in under a minute… give me a week please.”

“You have a couple of minutes at least,” I laughed back at him, and he just rolled his eyes before rolling onto his back in exhaustion.

“Are you alright?” Stripe asked generally to the both of us.

“I’m good,” I replied, holstering my weapon. “Dazed, but good.”

“I’ll be fine soon,” Cobalt assured. “I’ve never used those spells in a situation like that before. Practice never truly prepares you for the real thing, huh?”

“Tell me about it,” I replied with a chuckle, looking over to the dead Yao Gui. “We almost got eaten by a bear!”

“Well we don’t have as much as a scratch, so I would surmise we did well,” Stripe noted with a grin. “But perhaps-”

“Hello there!”

With those two words, we were all immediately back on our hooves with two guns and a lit, if flickering, horn all pointed towards a dark grey pony adorned in some kind of makeshift armour made from assorted scrap metal. He had a hunting rifle slung around his back, though he wasn’t attempting to reach for it. A crash helmet was on his head, which he slowly took off in a gesture of good will. When it was gone, we could see his short and uniform mane as the stallion gave us an admittedly creepy smile.

“Uh… hi?” I called back over to him, sharing a confused glance with my companions. “Sorry, wasn’t aware that there was anypony down this way…”

The stallion gave a hearty chuckle. “Oh? Then we must be doing something right. Uh, could you put the guns down? I mean no harm!”

“Who are you?”

“I was hunting that Yao Gui you killed,” he explained. “I come from a village not far from here. We grow what we can for food, but there is so little usable soil. So we also hunt the animals that live in the area for food, like the Yao Gui.”

“Oh,” I replied simply, looking between him and the dead bear. “Well, have it. We have our own food.”

“Thank you kindly!” he thanked cheerfully, never losing that weird smile. “Now, I got some people behind me who can handle getting it back home. But they ain’t coming out until they know you’re not going to start firing.”

We looked between each other, and then lowered out weapons. The stallion gave a nod and, with a whistle, a whole host of similarly armoured ponies emerged from the rocks ahead and moved towards the Yao Gui. While they were working, the first stallion came up to us and bowed his head.

“I’m Sentry, we don’t get many visitors around here,” he greeted. “Who are you?”

“I’m Scrap Heap. This is Stripe.” I motioned to my zebra friend, and then to Cobalt. “And this is Cobalt. We were just passing through.”

Cobalt frowned. “I wasn’t aware of a settlement out this way.”

“We don’t like to advertise,” Sentry stated. “But if you’re here, you’re here. If you need a place to stay for the night, I’d be happy to show you to our home and introduce you to the one who leads us in this terrible era.”

I thought for a second, before turning to convene with the others. “Well, it would beat sleeping on rock tonight. And we could still be on our timetable, as well as do a bit of trading.”

“I agree, but we should remain alert until we know they are who they claim to be,” Stripe responded. “Let him take us to this village while the others are preparing the meat for transport.”

“The Twilight Society would want to know if there’s a potential faction out here,” Cobalt concurred. “Or they might just be another little collection of shanties… but I’d like to see this place.”

Our conference finished, we turned back around to the smiling stallion as I tried to replicate it… failing, because trying to smile that wide actually hurt my face.

“If you could lead us while your ponies are getting things ready here, we’d be glad to tag along.”

“Splendid!” Sentry cheered, sticking his helmet back on his head and motioning us to follow. “Come with me, you won’t be disappointed!”

And so follow on we did, leaving the corpse and the ponies hacking it up far behind. We stayed behind Sentry as he moved briskly forwards, not entirely trusting of a weird stallion we’d run into in the middle of nowhere.

Still, might as well pass the time while walking along to this mysterious destination. I brought up my PipBuck and switched over to the radio, sticking on DJ Pon-3. A rather miserable sounding melody was just finishing its final verse, the final notes filling the air before dying away completely.

“Howdy Equestria! It’s me… DJ Pon-3! And how would you like some n-n-news? All seems quiet in the Wasteland today, aside from the usual bandits and raiders that you so love to hear about. But I do have a bit of news coming out from the Manehatten area today, so listen up children!”

Sentry glanced back at us, shaking his head before continuing to move. I ignored him, focusing on the guy on the radio for the time being.

“So we have a quest, people! Word is a small group of ponies are looking for one of those stables people hid in when the world went into the big kaboom. The guy running the show, who I only know as the Scavenger, also ended up saving a family from one nasty pre-war robot while pursuing his fortune. Hey kid, thanks. Hope you find what you’re looking for.”

He was talking about us?

“Thanks for listening, children! This has been DJ Pon-3, coming to you live to help you thrive! And now… some music.”

I shut off the radio, giving my companions a bewildered look.

Cobalt just shrugged. “It was bound to happen, the DJ knew I was going with you and was probably just waiting until we were gone from the area before drawing attention. And the DJ does love to report on heroics.”

“Wonderful,” I deadpanned. “Well, let’s hope his follow-up report is on our new riches rather than our deaths.”

We emerged from the pathway between the mountains, the full span of the landscape now fully open to us. We took in the sights, the ring of mountains stretching around us far into the distance. And it was here Sentry came to a halt, pointing at a something that was definitely not a rock.

A wall of rusted scrap metal ran in a box shape around a small village. Two rows of pre-war houses ran parallel to each other, a single house sitting centrally at the very end opposite the main gates. Even from here I could see the ponies going about their lives, even if they were dots from this distance.

“There it is,” Sentry proclaimed proudly. “Our Town.”

The main gates to the settlement were directly ahead, made up of the same rusted scrap metal as the rest of the defences. Two guard posts flanked each side, a guard in each armed respectively with a hunting rifle and a small machine gun. It seemed quite safe and secure by the standards of the Equestrian Wasteland, but I just had one nagging question on my mind…

“Why ‘Our Town’?” I questioned Sentry as we reached the gates, the stallion sharing a few words with the guards before returning to answer my question.

“What do you mean, friend?”

“Well, it just seems… unimaginative.”

“It is our home,” he simply replied. “We share it equally. As now do you.”

“It’s not like we’re staying,” Cobalt said with a snort. “Your home can remain yours, don’t worry.”

Sentry just smiled, before banging on the gate and watching as the vast doorway screeched open, the metal grinding against the rock below it. Sentry motioned for us to follow, and we cautiously did so. The guards at the gates gave us the same shit-eating grins that Sentry had… as did just about every other pony exiting their homes to come and stare at the newcomers.

Creeeeepy.

“Somepony go request the presence of The Prophet!” Sentry shouted to a group of guards, before turning to stop us as the gates screeched closed once more. “Wait here a moment, she will be here soon.”

“Who?” Stripe asked.

“The Prophet,” he replied as if it were obvious. “She leads us. It is she who ensures we do not stray. She who hoofs out our tasks each day. Yesterday I was a farmer. Today I hunted. Each day rotates, and we all give equal effort.”

“So you don’t have dedicated guards…?” Cobalt questioned. “Couldn’t ponies become more skilled if they focused on a single profession and worked at it?”

Sentry seemed shocked by the idea. “More skilled? Why would we want to become more skilled in one thing? That would destroy the equality we hold!”

We all gave him blank looks. “…Huh?”

“We all learn the basics in every task, but we don’t need to go beyond that,” Sentry stated. “You will understand… soon.”

I looked around at the gathered ponies, feeling more than a little unsettled. What was with all this equality talk? And how did being slightly better in one aspect than another person make you overall unequal? And there was something else niggling in the back of my mind… Something obvious…

“She’s here…” Sentry whispered, standing aside as a cloaked equine form began to approach us.

Judging by the few facial features I could see, it was a mare… and she was a ghoul. She was dressed in a black cloak that concealed most of her body, a cyan aura holding some kind of staff to her side. Her muzzle was rotten and dried, but with a small amount of light purple fur still hanging on by a thread. I could feel her undead eyes scan over us as she came to a stop and, after a few moments, gave us a small smile.

“Welcome!” a gravelly voice typical of ghouls called out. “So glad to have you here! It’s been so long since we’ve had visitors!”

“The Prophet, I presume?” I asked the ghoul mare.

“Yes, that is how I am known nowadays,” The Prophet confirmed. “I welcome you to Our Town. I’m sure you will see just how lovely it is a place to live!”

“I’m sure…” I replied, coughing awkwardly into a hoof. As we were talking, the sun was making its final descent into the horizon. Darkness began to overtake the village, though the ponies remained unphased. “Uh… would it be alright if we could stay the night? Perhaps do some trading before we leave in the morning?”

“But of course, the inn has been long devoid of occupants,” The Prophet agreed, turning to Sentry. “Please, show them to a room. And do inform them of our treasured history and philosophy, I’m certain it will be a great eye-opener!”

“Of course,” Sentry confirmed, once again beckoning to us. “Follow me, the inn is this way.”

We followed, everypony watching every single step we took with that same smile. Except for The Prophet, who just held that same small smile as she watched us go from within her hood. And for some reason, that smile unnerved me more than the grins…

“Sleep well,” she called over to us. “For you have a better tomorrow.”

And, with a deep pit in my stomach, it was then I realised the obvious.

The adults watching us. Equals signs. The foals? Equals signs. Everywhere I looked… Hell, the home of The Prophet aside even the damned layout was an equals sign.

Everypony had the exact same cutie mark.

Footnote: Level 8

New Perk: Commando - +25% accuracy in S.A.T.S. with rifles and shotguns.

10 - Starlight's Legacy

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Chapter Ten: Starlight’s Legacy

“Join in our utopia, come out of the dark, banded by equality, by our cutie mark!”

I was left feeling uneasy as Sentry began to lead us away from the crowd, The Prophet vanishing among the ponies all bearing the same cutie mark.

The same cutie mark…

What. The. Hell.

I mean, is that even possible? Well, clearly since these ponies are here. But how? Why? What is this village? I mean, I know the Wasteland has some crazy shit in it, but this village is just plain weird, right? And those smiles really don’t help!

“Come right this way,” Sentry beckoned as the crowd subsided. “You will find your accommodation to be homely and, well… accommodating. I do hope you get a good amount of rest before tomorrow.”

“You are quite welcoming,” Cobalt noted clinically. “Surprising, if you haven’t had any visitors for as long as you claim.”

“Well, we are far apart from anypony else,” he noted, before shooting a look at Stripe. “Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“And you are to tell us your tale, are you not?” Stripe asked him. “I am most curious to hear it.”

We stopped by a bland and unassuming building at the end of the street, to the right of The Prophet’s house. A small disused sign simply read ‘Inn’, and a few signs of activity could just be made out through the grimy windows.

“Of course, of course,” he responded with that same damned grin. “But first, here we are. It is a simple residence usually, but spare rooms are available. And by The Prophet’s grace, you are to have one free of charge.”

“How kind,” Stripe stated, but seemed eager to get back on topic. “Now… your story?”

“Ah, right. Well, I suppose I could just up and tell you now,” Sentry began, sitting on his rump as his creepy smile became almost nostalgic. “Our home has existed as it is now, maybe sans the defences, for over two hundred years, and you would find that our origin predates the war that caused this decay.”

“Before the war?” Cobalt question. “How far before?”

“A few years perhaps. I couldn’t say for certain,” the pony replied. “But we were brought together by one Starlight Glimmer… A mare of great understanding and vision, she installed in us the virtue by which we live out our lives.”

“Virtue?”

“Equality,” Sentry explained, waving a hoof at the village around us. “I have told you about the rotation of tasks. It is something we are all expected to contribute to from the moment we can speak.”

“I still don’t entirely understand the rotation,” Cobalt noted. “I could see it as a way to distribute tasks if you were only a few ponies, but you’re an entire village. If you had dedicated farmers, they could learn new ways of improving their crops. Dedicated guards could become more observant and better shots.”

“But if we did that, we would no longer be equal, and harmony would be destroyed,” Sentry rebutted. “By moving around day to day, we stay on our assigned task to the letter with no deviation of innovation. This way one pony will never outclass the other in any conceivable way, and so harmony can be maintained. If Equestria were like this before the war, the end never would have come.”

“By doing the barest minimum,” Cobalt refuted with a small frown.

“It may not be our place to judge,” Stripe pointed out. “If these little ponies wish to survive this way, that is their decision.”

“Well, she’s not wrong,” I had to admit… even if I did agree with Cobalt on its plain strangeness.

“It’s stagnant,” Cobalt remarked. “Monotonous. Everypony is meant to be exactly the same to the letter. The same cycle day in and out with no deviation. No offence, but it seems almost robotic.”

Looking around, it did in a way. Those were not happy smiles…

“And… what if any of your ponies did decide they wanted to do something else?” I had to ask, there was no way every colt and filly just went along with the same old routine with no end in sight. “You know, take a hobby. Decide they want to grow crops over hunt Yao Gui. Or want to leave?”

“Why that’s unthinkable,” Sentry replied as if I was stupid. “Nopony wants to leave.”

“But if they did?”

Was it me, or did that smile take on a darker edge?

“Nopony wants to leave,” Sentry simply repeated. “And our ideals are clear. From birth to death you follow the path laid out for you. There is no deviating from it.”

Well, as if the creep factor couldn’t rise any further…

“Besides,” the pony continued. “Our symbol ensures no deviation is possible.”

“Symbol?” Cobalt questioned.

“The mark of equality,” Sentry explained, pointing towards his own covered flank. “We all have it, given by The Prophet the day of our births. It prevents the taint of marks like yours from destroying our equality. And it ensures that any attempts to deviate are futile.”

“How do you mean…?” I asked, sharing a small look of increasing alarm with my companions.

“It shows our way, and ensures we stay on the path. It was all laid out by Starlight Glimmer.”

“And what happened to Starlight Glimmer?”

“She guided us through the horrors of war,” Sentry stated. “When the alicorns wished to fight over simple things, our isolation kept us safe. The mines in these mountains were long tapped, so nopony came back. And as the war escalated, we remained unscathed. When the end destroyed all impure civilisations, we endured.”

“And that’s when you built the wall?” Cobalt asked.

“To ensure the strays of the Wasteland do not interfere,” Sentry confirmed. “And so our history stretched for two hundred years of prosperity and equality, passed down to us by The Prophet.”

Stripe hummed. “And this ghoul has been here the whole time?”

“Through the Staff of Sameness, she gives the mark,” Sentry said, before finally placing a hoof on the inn’s doorway. “And that is our tale, as The Prophet wished for you to hear. Our way has ensured our survival among the destruction. I hope you understand.”

“I’m not sure I do,” I told him.

“Oh? Worry not, friend. You will.”

And then he opened the door and led us inside.

Us three really needed to talk, alone. But we would have to wait until we were in the comfort of our own room for that.

The inn was as dull on the inside as it was on the outside, and Sentry quickly led us to an old wooden stairway leading up onto the second floor. There was little decoration of any kind inside, anything to make the home feel lived in by a pony. It was the barest minimum you’d expect a house to be, admittedly cosy but… not really giving the feel of a home.

Actually, it kinda felt like how I expect a prison to feel.

At the top of the stairs was a landing, several doors lining the corridor. Sentry led us to one of the closest doorways, opening it wide and revealing a relatively cramped room with two bunk beds inside.

“Here you are,” Sentry announced. “I do hope it’s to your liking.”

“It beats the dirt,” I admitted. “Thanks.”

He gave us a nod. “Of course. Now rest, tomorrow will surely be a long day for you.”

After we had all bundled into the room, he closed the door gently behind us with a click. Taking a closer look at the room, there was a small set of drawers against the wall between the bunk beds, and at the other of the room there existed a single window with some basic blinds drawn up. The cloud covered night’s sky was visible beyond, though I wasted no time in closing the blinds shut.

“Right. We need to talk.”

“We do,” Stripe agreed. “This place… Should ponies wish to live a simple life such as this, I cannot fault them. And yet something about their existence seems… uneasy.”

“They're fucking crazy!” Cobalt suddenly blurted out. “I mean, did you hear what he was saying outside?”

“Equality. Equality. Equality,” I deadpanned in reply.

“Equality Celestia’s left hoof,” Cobalt dismissed. “Equality means treating others fairly, and giving them the same opportunities as every other person. These ponies have zero opportunity as far as I could see. And it’s that mark…”

I blinked, wondering what the smart pony meant. “Their cutie marks?”

“He said it prevents attempts of deviation. Marks like that aren’t natural, and he mentioned a so-called Staff of Sameness too,” he explained, pacing back and forth in thought. “So the marks aren’t natural, but magically administered. And if they prevent deviation, then they must be some kind of shackle. If you have the mark and try to do something they don’t want you to do, something bad happens.”

Yeah, this wasn’t sounding any better. “Like what?”

“A shock? Death?” he suggested. “Or maybe it doesn’t do anything but alter your brain chemistry. Brainwashing, or some kind of ‘suggestion’ to keep you on track.”

“So you’re saying these ponies don’t have any choice in how they live?” This was crazy, even for Equestria. “That they’re brainwashed from birth into some kind of… almost robotic slave?”

“If I’m right,” Cobalt confirmed, before adding: “Or we’re massively overthinking this and Sentry is just a weird stallion who’s bad at explaining things.”

“The implications are… disturbing,” Stripe stated, deep in thought. “They have been nothing but hospitable to us, however. Should they remain so, it might be best to simply leave?”

“Is it a good idea to leave them like this?” I was totally up for leaving, but still…

Stripe shook her head. “Maybe not. But maybe so. I cannot say, as this is the only life they have ever known. Should we, for instance, destroy this staff… What would the consequences be? The ponies may panic, and have their village destroyed in the process. Nothing may change at all… for this generation at least.”

“So we try to help ponies who may not even want our help, or just leave them to some brainwashed fate forced onto them by some crazy mare named Starlight Glimmer,” I summed up, and I really wasn’t feeling all that enthused either way. “Ugh… why the big moral dilemmas? I just wanted a few caps…”

“That’s if they remain friendly,” Cobalt pointed out. “But maybe we should just sleep on it and decide in the morning. That is, if we do the usual guard duty in the meantime.”

“I shall take the first watch,” Stripe volunteered, seemingly resisting the urge to bite her lip. “I… need to dwell on this.”

“Are you okay?” I asked in concern, she didn’t seem like she was doing too hot…

“I am fine, Scrap Heap,” Stripe assured me with a small smile. “It’s just… I wish only to make things better for everyone. But here, I do not know which is better. Either could doom them.”

“Tell me about it,” I groaned, running a hoof down my face. “But we’ll figure it out…” I hope.

Stripe sighed, sitting down in the corner with her head leant against the wall. “We shall see, Scrap Heap. We shall see.”

This was clearly bothering her a great deal. Hell, it was bothering me! And I really wanted to think of something more I could say to boost her confidence and spirits… But I couldn’t. To be honest, all I could think to do was lay down on the bottom bunk of one of the beds and close my eyes…

And hope to Celestia the morning would be better.

As somepony began to hastily shake my shoulder, the first thing I immediately noticed was the red swarm in my face. A great many bars lined my E.F.S. from all directions, and very few were green.

“Wake up!” Stripe insisted as she increased the severity of her shaking. “Little pony, now is not the time for continued dreams!”

“Wah…?” I said intelligently as that pretty striped face blurred into my vision. “Stripe…? What’s happening? What time is it?”

“Early sunrise,” she answered, and as everything else came into focus I could see that Cobalt was already up and peering out of the blinds. “I was about to wake you when all this happened.”

“Sunrise? What happened to changing shifts throughout the night?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, and you needed it more,” she answered. “But that’s not the issue here!”

I’d disagree, but those red bars were pretty convincing.

“I’m seeing a lot of movement…” I said as I got up into my hooves. “What’s going on?”

“I was about to wake you when I heard someone bar the door from the outside,” Stripe explained, giving the door a nudge to prove her point. “It will not move, and I’ve learnt that the window cannot open normally either. And now the ponies of this town gather around like beasts encircling their prey.”

Well… shit, this was one way to end the first week of my little quest. So much for their hospitality.

“We’ve got to leave,” I state the obvious. “Cobalt, what’s happening out there?”

“It’s hard to see, but they’re all just… standing there,” Cobalt informed me. “No idea how long they’ll stay like that, though.”

“Can you teleport us out?”

“I’ve never teleported more ponies than just myself,” Cobalt replied. “I’d be able to make it to the outside easily. But bringing two others with me might not be a good idea, if I could even manage it.”

“Well, do we have any other options?”

“Breaking the window would just lead to the crowd,” Stripe noted. “Breaking the door down would be difficult, and if we are surrounded the results would be the same no matter.”

The blue stallion groaned, pinching the bridge of his muzzle between his hooves. But if he was going to do something, he really needed to do it soon!

“Cobalt!”

“Yeah, I’ll try it!” he responded quickly. “If it’s the only way that doesn’t involve fighting a mob, I’ll try it!”

And then somepony knocked on the door.

We all froze, looking towards the same doorway with the exact same expression of confusion. I mean, we’re surrounded by a creepy mob of brainwashed cultists… and there’s a knock on the door. Go figure.

“Well… I guess it’s not barred anymore?” I said with a sheepish grin.

“How many bars are outside?” Stripe asked, looking at my PipBuck.

Ah, that was a good question. And the answer was a little relieving…

“One,” I informed her. “I think it’s just one, though it’s hard to tell with so many around the building.”

“Well, do we answer?” Cobalt asked.

Well, we couldn’t be any less fucked anyway. “Come in!”

The door opened, and the hooded figure of The Prophet calmly trotted in with the staff held at her side.

Oh, a staff. Staff of Sameness. Got it.

“Good morning!” the ghoul greeted cheerfully. “Oh my, why do you look so tense? I’m sure there aren’t any ghosts haunting this room.”

Okay… the friendly routine. I had to wonder where this was going…

“We’re just wondering why there are a whole bunch of ponies outside,” I explained as calmly and lightly as my nerves would allow. “Is there some kind of event or…?”

“Event? Oh, I guess you could say that,” The Prophet replied with a chuckle. “In truth, they are here to see you fine people. It is a cause of celebration, after all!”

“And what is the meaning of such a celebration?” Stripe questioned.

“All will be explained soon,” The Prophet promised. “If you could kindly follow me, I have something important that you just have to see.”

“Follow? Right…” I deadpanned, before holding up my PipBuck. “Do you know what this is?”

The Prophet examined the PipBuck, giving a small hum. “I’m… afraid not. Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the rest of Equestria…”

“It’s a PipBuck,” I stated. “It’s a useful thing. Radio. Maps… And it can detect movement, and tell whether that movement is hostile or not.”

It was hard to tell with the cloak and all, but The Prophet seemed to tense up.

“Oh really? That is… interesting.”

“What is going here, Starlight?” I asked, and the mare actually gasped! Though the moment would have been better if I had a clear view of her face. “That is your name, right? Sentry said that this place was started by Starlight Glimmer, who had a staff. You’re a ghoul and you clearly lead them, and you have a staff. Even I can put two and two together.”

The Prophet was silent, and not even breathing could be heard coming from the undead mare. But finally she gave a soft chuckle that would send chills down a Hellhound’s spinal cord, and a single hoof moved the hood down to reveal the rest of her features.

The rest of her head was just as tarnished as her muzzle, very little of her light purple coat remained between the baked and twisted skin. Her eyes were glazed over and lifeless, the remnants of her mane a dark purple with cyan highlights. And through it all, Starlight Glimmer just smirked at us with a mix of malice and amusement.

“How very clever, top marks for you,” Starlight scoffed, twirling the staff in her cyan magical aura. “Alright, here’s the deal. I’ve worked very hard to make this village perfect, and I won’t have some bumbling outsiders ruin it all!”

“Perfect!?” Cobalt blurted out incredulously. “Enslaving ponies with fake cutie marks? You expect us to believe that you actually care for these-”

“QUIET!” Starlight screamed, stopping Cobalt mid-sentence and having his mouth gape like a fish. “Cutie marks have only brought misery to ponies, their lives are so much better in the existence I have gifted them!”

“You’re crazy! You brainwashed them!”

“A necessary evil,” she dismissed. “You will understand soon. Join us, live in perfect harmony. Or I can let the mob have you. Either way, you’re not leaving Our Town.”

It was then both myself and Stripe drew out weapons, but before I could even enter S.A.T.S. a ridiculously strong magical wave struck us into the back wall! But while I was left in a daze, Stripe wasted no time in bringing up her rifle and firing a shot at Starlight… Only for the bullet to meet a shield that made Cobalt’s look like the work of a beginner.

“Now that I cannot allow,” she almost purred, levitating the staff in front of the shield and pointing it at me.

I could see magic running down the shaft, coalescing at the forked end of the Staff of Sameness.

Fuck. That.

I entered S.A.T.S. successfully this time, though the shield made all statistics for hitting Starlight herself nil. Her staff, however…

I targeted all available shots on that damned thing and let load!

Okay, now there was the look on her face I was looking for! She couldn’t believe it when I brought up my pistol faster than she could launch the spell, and several bullets went flying directly at the staff. One of them missed and shattered against the shield, but the rest of them all made their mark. The staff was knocked wide, the spell going off and harmlessly smashing through the window.

And then the staff shattered, its remnants clattering to the floor as the shock made Starlight stumble and lose her shield.

At which point she found Stripe’s buck meeting her face.

Starlight Glimmer yelped as she was knocked off of her hooves and into the hallway and, at the sound of her pain, you could also here a sudden rush of ponies coming up the stairs.

Time to go!

“COBALT!”

The blue stallion said nothing as he dragged both myself and Stripe towards him with his magic and then closed his eyes in some seriously deep concentration. His horn glowed with magic, which was then joined by a second layer as the mob burst into the room.

And then we were falling.

We hit the ground hard, all of us groaning in no small amounts of pain as we sat ourselves up. Judging by the hard dirt beneath us, we were definitely outside. The first rays of the sun were breaking through the clouds, the air cool…

And a massive group of ponies all stared at us in shock, their bars on the E.F.S. having seemingly reverted to their green state.

…We’d only teleported behind the mob, rather than outside the town.

“Cobalt…?” I asked quietly, looking towards the stallion to see his nose bleeding and his horn blackened.

“Horn’s burnt out,” he muttered. “Couldn’t get us further.”

“Oh… right…”

Of course, the crowd wasn’t going to remain in its stupor…

“RUN!”

The bars returned to red at my shout, and there was suddenly a whole lot of guns and other assorted weaponry pointed in our direction.

Gunfire riddled around us as we rushed for the gate, one pony getting close to us running with a pitchfork. I retrieved my shotgun and unleashed a shell into the pitchfork pony, who fell lifelessly to the ground instantly.

And then gunfire was coming from ahead of us too, and it seemed all the heavily armed and armoured ponies for the day had been placed by the gates, Sentry among them front and centre.

They really didn’t want us to leave.

Stripe bit into my barding and pulled me to the side just as a hail of machine gun fire decimated the area, she and Cobalt leading me towards a gap between two houses as they continued to fire at us. As we ducked into the gap, somepony made a go at throwing a Molotov cocktail in our general direction.

Too bad all they achieved was torching the house.

As the building began to go up in flames, we made it out back and into one of their small gardens of crops. We ducked behind some random machinery I didn’t want to guess the function of and used it for cover, the crazed cultists rushing around the buildings to reach us. But whatever it was, it was large and tucked away in the corner, giving us ample cover and protection against our attackers.

The burning house, meanwhile, had gone up extremely quickly, smoke and flames already pouring out of every single gap it could find. A small burst of flames rushed out of one of the windows, catching some of the pursuing ponies as they passed by.

I also saw a small figure emerge from the flaming house, screaming as the flames seared its tiny form and crying for its mama before collapsing into an eternal silence.

I really wish I hadn’t seen that.

Damn…

More gunfire was striking all around us now, and I had to duck my head down in order to keep it. And when I looked towards my companions, I saw they weren’t doing so hot. Not only was Cobalt’s horn fried, but Stripe was cradling a heavily bleeding foreleg.

“Shit, you were shot?”

“It happened as we were ducking between the buildings,” she explained through gritted teeth. “It went through, I need a healing potion.”

“Ah, right!” I stated as I quickly rummaged through my bags. As I did so, Stripe did her best to return fire towards out attackers, though her aim wasn’t its usual precision.

I finally retrieved one for her, and she downed it the moment I gave it to her. The wound began to close, and some relief crossed her features.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” I replied, levitating out my pistol and firing at our attackers. I couldn’t be sure it I was hitting anything, but at least it was keeping them at bay.

Stripe chuckled. “I believe the pony saying is: ‘That’s what friends are for’, no?”

“Friends, huh?”

“Would you not describe us as friends, Scrap Heap?” she asked sincerely.

I didn’t answer for a moment, shooting one of the equality ponies in the rear. But once I had a moment to take a breath, I did.

“Yeah, friends. I’d say so.”

She gave me an honest smile, before returning her focus to the cultists.

CRACK.

I have learned to love that sound.

I fired off a few more rounds, before reloading the pistol and hoofing it over to Cobalt. He gave me a questioning look, but he got the point when I pointed at his ruined horn. As he began to fire at them with my pistol, I brought my shotgun back out and examined our options.

The shotgun wasn’t good at range, but it would be good if any got too close. Cobalt wasn’t so good with the firearm, but fortunately neither were the cultists. Well, he had warned them about their lack of dedicated guards…

CRACK.

And Stripe was keeping them at bay quite effectively. But there were still a lot of them, and three of us. How long before they stopped fearing our bullets and just rushed us? We could take a lot of them with us, but there was no way we’d survive it ourselves. Cobalt couldn’t teleport us the rest of the way in his state, and I didn’t know the spell. The only way out was the front gate, and that was the other side of the mob.

And to think we’d considered trying to save these ponies a few hours earlier…

But then again… they were brainwashed. All by that Starlight Glimmer…

That mare. Who knew how long she’d be out of commission from Stripe’s buck? Is that powerful unicorn got in on the fight, it might have been all over for us.

And as it was, we didn’t have many options.

One pony made a rush at us, and as they got close I pointed the shotgun and let a blast loose. The pony fell, but the apple shaped object they’d been levitating clattered onwards towards us.

“Grenade!” Cobalt shouted in alarm as the small bomb rolled right up next to me!

With a shout I kicked the grenade with my hoof, kicking it further behind us and towards the scrap wall.

The force of the explosion was like being rammed by a magical force even greater than the one Starlight threw at us, and I could feel several of my ribs shatter from the proximity. The scorching pain coursed through my body as I dropped, instantly reaching for the healing potions in my bags. The whole world was a pained blur, my ears ringing as I downed the sweet liquid and felt my body knit itself back together.

When the world returned to its usual dismal self, I saw Cobalt and Stripe doing much the same. And what was more, the grenade had torn up everything that had been in its immediate proximity.

Which included making a small hole in the scrap metal wall.

And then a pony grabbed me! I felt his teeth bite into my neck as he yanked me from the cover and out into the open, the face of Sentry snarling down at me with a pistol clenched in his jaws.

He didn’t say anything, but the rage in his eyes meant he didn’t need to. They screamed of murder and death, namely my murder and death. This is the stallion who had led us here knowing full well that we’d either be brainwashed by ‘The Prophet’ or killed trying to resist. Instead, his home was burning and his fellow villagers lay dead all around him.

He wanted my blood, and he wanted it bad.

So I headbutted him, cringing at the squelching noise that his eye made when my horn dug right into it, blood pouring down it onto my face. He gave a shout of pain as he dropped the gun and fell to the side, whimpering as he clutched his destroyed eye.

A bullet or two bit into my barding though didn’t go through. The adrenaline pumping through every vein in my body lessened the pain and I immediately retrieved my own gun to fire back, scattering several of the charging and inexperienced ponies. Ponies further away continued to lay down fire, and I slipped back behind the machinery we were using for cover.

“Go!” I shouted to Stripe and Cobalt, and I retrieved my pistol before firing more shots into the crowd.

As Cobalt and then Stripe made it through the gap, I took note of Our Town. The fire had spread between buildings, and many of the residents were dead or dying around us. We were hardly soldiers, but these ponies had been even less so, clueless beyond simple mob mentality. And now their home was burning around them, and Starlight Glimmer’s perfect society was clearly doomed.

I hadn't wanted it to be this way. Damn them, they didn't need to attack us like that! We hadn't wanted to destroy their home, we'd only wished for a place to stay for the night. But these ponies, generations of enslavement to the point of knowing nothing else, just didn't care...

Stripe had just made it through the gap when Sentry jumped me again, almost feral as he tried to pummel me with his hooves.

We struggled on the ground, him punching me in the horn when I tried to take the second eye, and me trying to keep him from tearing my throat out with his teeth. Worse still, with nopony laying down fire the cultists were beginning to get brave again and made a run around the sides of the machinery. With Sentry still on top of me, a group of three cultists in scrap armour ran up to us and pointed their hunting rifles at my struggling self.

So I rolled.

Three bangs echoed, and Sentry gave a shout of pain as each went through his makeshift armour and bit into his back. He went still as I levitated his saddlebags away along with my guns, standing quickly back up onto my hooves as the three ponies stood in shock at Sentry’s death. But I couldn’t dwell on that, all the remaining cultists would be swarming around me any second, and there would be nothing I could do to save myself.

I rushed through the gap as fast as my legs would carry me!

I slipped through, leaving the burning hulk of the dead village behind me as the remaining cultists scrambled amongst themselves. And I only barely registered the slight ‘tink’ of metal hitting the ground after me, and the panicked look on the faces of Stripe and Cobalt, before a loud bang assaulted my senses.

And then everything went dark.

Footnote: Level 9

New Perk: Toughness - +10% damage resistance permanently.

11 - Memories

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Chapter Eleven: Memories

“What a lovely village you have chosen to stage your little resistance. It looks absolutely delicious!"

…Owch.

Really. Just… ouch. Every bone in my body felt like it had been broken and put back together with wonderglue. And for all I know, that is exactly what happened; all I really remembered before regaining consciousness was a loud explosion before everything just went… dark. I had no idea how long I was out, and it had been a dreamless sleep. Or at least I didn’t remember dreaming, but that’s hardly anything unique or special.

I gave a small groan as I felt the dirt beneath my battered body… and I noticed several other things too. For one, I could feel that dirt mixing in with my coat, so somepony had clearly taken my barding from me. But even if I was laying in the dirt, my head had at least been propped up against one of my saddlebags; the bag admittedly wasn’t the comfiest pillow, but at least it was better than a rock. I opened my eyes a crack, flinching them shut again as they were assaulted by the light of a nearby campfire.

But was I really going to let a little bit of light stop me? Buck up, Scrap Heap, and open your damned eyes…

I began to force them slowly open, diverting my gaze away from the fire and up into the dark and cloudy sky. Still, it wasn’t completely pitch black out here, and from looking around I figured it was still early morning. So, maybe I’d only been out a short time? It sure didn’t feel like it though, with the way my muscles were screaming at me to just lay there and do nothing. But to hell with that, I had hopefully just escaped a village of brainwashed and crazy cultists! I had to know what happened since then!

And my PipBuck was gone…

I rubbed my bare forehoof gently, gritting my teeth as my pained limbs began to wake up with the rest of me. A dwindling campfire sat to my left, and together we were sitting in the middle of a barren landscape between two sets of mountain ranges either side. There was a noticeable nip in the air, and it probably would have been a whole lot colder had the fire not been there. On the other side of the fire was Cobalt, dozing soundly to himself while Stripe was looking off into the distance with her rifle between her hooves.

I guess it was her turn for watch, then.

But where exactly were we? I mean, we were running from Our Town last I checked. And there didn’t seem to be any other ponies in sight.

Turning my head with a creak of my neck, I saw my PipBuck sat next to the bag my head was rested against. My horn lit up as I brought the device over, latching it back onto my hoof where it belonged and booting it up. The screen flashed to life, and Stripe glanced over to me as the Stable Colt winked at me. My E.F.S. returned to my vision, only two green bars being displayed on it.

“You are awake,” Stripe noted, her voice sounding relieved. “How do you feel?”

How did I feel? Well, I had plenty of colourful words to describe just that. But honestly, what was the point…?

“Crap,” I answered honestly. “Ugh, what happened?”

“You blew up,” Stripe replied rather bluntly.

“Right…” I deadpanned, bringing up my PipBuck’s map and checking our position. We were directly west of Our Town, dead centre of the passage leading out of the mountainous region and back into the northern plains of Equestria.

“You have been unconscious for almost a full day,” Stripe continued to explain, and oh boy that was longer than I thought. I guess I must have been hit pretty bad, huh? “As we slipped away from the pony village one of the fools slipped a grenade through alongside you.”

“Oh, so that was the bang…” Yeah, I can see why I hurt so much. “How bad was it?”

“Your barding was torn apart, though I have endeavoured to repair it as much as I could,” Stripe stated as she gestured towards a pile of what could have been my leather armour but seemed… like it had seen better days. “I must apologise, I am not sure I did a good job.”

I suppressed a groan. “It’s fine, I’m more experienced with repairing my own gear.”

Stripe flushed, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. “Yes, well… The shrapnel dug deep into your hide, and your bones had suffered many breaks. Removing the pieces of metal was… difficult, and it took several healing potions to save you from the everafter.”

“How many potions?”

“We have only a single bottle left,” Stripe replied.

Oh, great.

“From our own supply,” Stripe amended quickly. “We gained two more from the saddlebag you took from Sentry. But we should endeavour to resupply soon.”

“Well, I don’t know of many towns up this way,” I pointed out. “Maybe we could scavenge a few. There’s got to be some old abandoned buildings between here and the stable.”

I tried to sit up, only for a huge fucking jolt of pain to shoot through my body! I could do little more than let out a shout before Stripe was suddenly next to me and setting me back down onto the ground.

“I would not move for a few more hours,” Stripe warned, her tone severe. “You did not see your wounds. All the blood… The healing potions have done much, but you must rest.”

“Yeah, I got it. Staying still…”

Stripe sighed. “You are very lucky, Scrap Heap. Cobalt was able to extract the shrapnel with his magic. Had it just been me… I don’t know what I would have done. I am no doctor, nor am I trained in the herbal remedies others of my kind prefer.”

Despite everything, I couldn’t help but give a small chuckle. “You’re not very much like other zebra, are you?”

“Have you met other zebra to make such a comparison?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “But you are not entirely incorrect.”

“What gives with that, Stripe?”

Stripe didn’t answer for a moment, diverting her gaze and glaring directly into the fire. She remained like this for a good minute or two, as if contemplating whether or not I should be told anything. But she finally turned her gaze back to me and sat down on her haunches tiredly.

“I have not known many other zebra, in fact aside from the Remnant the only other zebra I have met are my own family,” Stripe began, and I gave her my full attention. “My parents… and my elder brother. According to them before our family were Equestrian we descended from the Zencori Tribe. Nomads and storytellers, entertainers and historians both.

“So you’re, uh, Zencori then?”

She looked down on me with a small smile. “I am Equestrian. My family settled down alongside ponies generations ago, forgoing their nomadic ways long before the war. Maybe they continued their stories, but we would become more pony as time passed us by. But we are still zebra, and the stories my family told had been passed down since ancient times.”

“Well, you told me your family were pretty nomadic after the stable went bust.”

She laughed. “Yes, funny how the world comes full circle.”

“So why are you so different?”

“The others were always fascinated by their own stories, tales of zebra kind,” Stripe said with a soft hum. “Tales of evil stars, the cursed Starkatteri and the monstrous nature of Princess Luna, known to them as Nightmare Moon.”

“Stars? You mentioned something about that when we first met. Something about foolish people.”

“Yes. I always had my doubts about the stories I was told as a child; if ‘Nightmare Moon’ was so evil and powerful then how did she perish so easily with everything else? Why are the Starkatteri condemned for the actions of their ancestors? So many questions, so few answers to any of them. Perhaps Princess Luna was to be a tyrant, but she was but a pony. Perhaps the Starkatteri continued to be at odds with zebra kind, but how could they not when facing such persecution?”

“And I’m guessing your parents and brother didn’t agree with you?”

“They believed in the stories so completely,” Stripe confirmed with a hint of sadness in her voice. “We knew not the martial arts of the old Empire. Nor did my mother know many of old brews many other zebras knew, and neither did I learn them myself, though perhaps that was a mistake on my part. But when the Legate promised them all of that and more, the destruction of an allegedly cursed star city, they fell into line like good little soldiers.”

“And joined the Remnant,” I concluded, remembering what she had told me previously about her family. “I can see why you’d not be a big fan of your own kind.”

“Zebra kind I have no quarrel with,” Stripe corrected me. “Just those who cannot let go of the past to the extent that they become monsters who’d destroy the future.”

Well, and I thought my family had drama.

“Sounds rough.”

“Indeed.” Stripe gave a long sigh. “Though sometimes I do wish I knew more of my kind, that I could learn more about zebra culture. It can’t be all fearing ancient star demons. There have to be stories beyond that, stories I could tell and not groan at and question every second. If such stories exist, then maybe I could act like the Zencori my family used to be.”

“Or maybe you should just make your own stories,” I suggested with a painful shrug. “But as a fellow Equestrian, you gonna tell me your real name yet?”

She gave me an unamused look. “You are a friend, Scrap Heap. But there are limits to that.”

“Just as there are limits to how much sleep a pony can get while listening to crap about stars and family drama,” Cobalt muttered from the other side of the campfire, groaning as he sat up with an annoyed expression. “Well, who needs sleep anyway?”

“Hey, you can get in on this chat if you want,” I jabbed over at him. “Any family drama you wish to share?”

“None whatsoever,” Cobalt refuted. “My parents were upstanding members of the Twilight Society, thank you very much.”

“Aw, there go my dreams of being a group of pure angst,” I joked with as much of a laugh I dared let off without hurting myself. “Not even a little bit of drama?”

“None,” Cobalt repeated between gritted teeth. “And you’re chatty for somepony who blew up.”

“I got better,” I remarked back. “Hurts like fuck though.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk so much,” Cobalt snidely stated. “You need rest. We might need to move quickly when the sun is up fully.”

“Why?”

“Well, we messed up that entire village pretty good,” Cobalt pointed out. “When we were dragging you away from the scene, half the place had succumbed to the flames. Who knows how many died, and the further we got the more ponies we could see just bolting from the place.”

“Though it remains to be seen how well they can operate in Equestria with their marks holding their inner selves prisoner,” Stripe noted. “Perhaps some will find others who can free them.”

“Or they become a band of equality spewing raiders,” Cobalt added. “They’ve been brainwashed for two hundred years, something like that doesn’t lead to a healthy mental state.”

That was… a worrying though. “What about Starlight Glimmer?”

Cobalt shook his head. “No idea. Though Stripe only knocked her out, and she was away from the initial flames. It wouldn’t surprise me if that crazy ghoul survived yesterday intact. And with her magic, well, I don’t want to have her catch up to us. We only stayed here yesterday because you were dying.”

“Yeah, speaking of dying…” Now that I thought about it, I think it was time for some actual answers from our lords and masters at the Twilight Society. He didn’t want to? Tough. “Stable 84. What. Is. Inside?”

Cobalt stared at me for a moment, before diverting his gaze. “We’ve been over this, it needs to-”

“Bullshit!” I spat, and I really was sick of his evasiveness. “I almost died for this job! And I don’t even know why you people are so desperate to get inside the stable! What are you hiding from us, Cobalt?”

“I… uh…” Cobalt looked to Stripe as if for some help, but dear Celestia wasn’t he barking up the wrong tree…

“Your shortcut did take us to a village of murderous cultists, little pony,” Stripe pointed out. “Starlight Glimmer could have easily enslaved us with that mark and turned us into one them.”

“It’s not like I meant for any of that!” Cobalt protested.

“Perhaps,” Stripe continued. “But I too want to know why it is we’re out here. I am assisting a friend and helping those who need it. Scrap Heap is looking for salvage. And you… Why are you here?”

Cobalt looked between the both of us helplessly, conflict clear in his face. But neither of us were going to show any signs of budging. He still could have said no, staying silent about the whole thing. But I think he was having second thoughts himself after the whole Our Town thing, we just had to apply the pressure…

“Fine,” he finally said, slumping as he relented. “Fine, damn you. I guess I do owe you an explanation after all we’ve been through the last four days since Tenpony.”

Finally! Whatever the Twilight Society was hiding, he was about to spill the beans! This was… actually quite exciting as it was nerve-wracking. Would it be a secret megaspell from the war? A secret contingency that could propel the Twilight Society to dominance?

Wait, why was excited about this!? I’ve had enough terror over the past week, thank you!

Stupid adorable ghouls with their stupid PipBucks and jobs…

“We don’t actually know,” he stated.

…

Wait, what?

“Are you for real?” I deadpanned, and I think my eye was twitching a little.

“Well, we kind of know…” he amended, rubbing the back of his neck. “We know that Stable 84 was involved in some top-secret experiments overseen by Twilight Sparkle and the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. My job is to get in there and recover any data from the stable’s mainframe we can use to track down the facility where the actual experiments took place.”

“Well, I’d kind of figured there was something MAS-related you wanted, that’s nothing new…” I said with failing patience. “I mean, is that really all you know?”

“You cannot truly be so blind as to your own goals,” Stripe said with a frown.

“Of course not!” Cobalt refuted. “We don’t know what the goals of these experiments actually were. But we can speculate given what, or rather who, they were running these experiments in conjuncture with. And who is actually inside that stable.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “And who is that then? And why are they so important?”

“Because they’re changelings,” Cobalt announced, receiving blank looks from both of us. “Really? Stripe, didn’t you say your tribe are storytellers?”

“My parents only ever talked about demon stars,” she deadpanned in response.

“Right… Well, changelings are… shapeshifters,” he explained hesitantly. “Insect-like equines who can change their appearance to a pony, zebra or anything else. Before the war, they were enemies of Equestria. But for some reason, they clearly decided to let bygones be bygones.”

“You don’t know why?” Stripe questioned.

“It wasn’t in our data,” he replied. “It was all pretty hush-hush. But these changelings had incredibly unique magical properties and were working on something with the MAS. Whatever it is, it’s got to be pretty experimental and equally as powerful.”

Well… I wasn’t expecting that. Shapeshifters? I’d never heard of a species like that… Well, I guess that was the point of being a ‘changeling’. But this stable was supposed to be full of the things, and they were working on some wartime project with Twilight Sparkle that’s been hidden and buried for two hundred years. Ancient conspiracies, anypony?

Ugh, there went any chance of the rest of the job going smoothly.

“Well… that’s certainly something,” I deadpanned. “How does a pony go from collecting scrap to chasing after a hidden shapeshifting race in the space of a week?”

“Ask the Wasteland,” Cobalt replied as he started to dig through his saddlebags, rooting around inside it looking for something specific. “It has a habit for throwing you a curveball.”

“Curveball? This is something for would-be heroes like Security and the Stable Dweller!” And I wasn’t a hero. I came into this for the caps, no matter what Stripe said. “What happens if these changelings are still hanging around?”

“You always knew the dwellers might still be in the stable,” Cobalt rebuffed. “That was the risk. It’s no different now.”

No different he says. Ponies don’t shapeshift!

“…So what’s the plan? Knock on the door and see if any changeling is home?” I asked with only a small amount of sarcasm. “If they aren’t, we strip the place of salvage and you get your data? If they are, we run like fuck?”

“I’m getting that data, one way or another,” Cobalt responded, before finding what he was looking for and taking it from the bag. “If you want to know exactly what it is we may run into, you should take a look at this.”

In his hooves, he held out a small fragile looking orb, and if I wasn’t mistaken it looked like there was some kind of swirling energy inside the thing. He got up to his hooves and rounded the fire, coming up to me and placing the orb down into the dirt.

“And… what is that, exactly?”

“It’s called a memory orb,” Cobalt explained, sitting back down again. “A person’s memory can be placed into the orb and visited by any unicorn at a later date.”

“…I can see another pony’s memories?”

“In a nutshell. Though not exactly a pony, in this case,” he responded, gesturing towards the orb. “Go on, reach out to it with your magic. It’s not like you’re going anywhere for a few hours anyway.”

I looked towards the orb on the ground, studying it before giving Stripe and inquisitive look. But she just gave me a shrug and decided to take that moment to return to her watch.

Changelings. Memory orbs. Cutie mark cults. This week was just getting weirder and weirder…

Fuck it.

I activated my magic and picked the orb up, bringing it up to my face and giving it a closer look. I had no idea how to activate the thing; did I just look into it really closely?

Maybe if I-

…What the hell am I feeling right now?

Everything was really weird, something a mix between a dream and reality. I could clearly feel my body, every breath I was taking… but I wasn’t doing it, and it wasn’t my body. What’s more…

Oh dear Celestia I knew something was missing. I’m in the body of a mare!

And the mare was moving, taking long regal strides down a dark corridor covered in weird organic-looking growths. Was that chitin? Whatever it was, it was mixed in with the stone walls, floor and ceiling. And now that I studied the feeling of the body even more… This was not a pony. There was a mane and tail, but no fur. This body felt… colder than what I was used to, and I could feel two weird appendages fluttering on my back. Wings?

And then a creature, something a few heads smaller than the body I inhabited, appeared in the corridor ahead of me.

Oh, so that’s a changeling? Freaky.

“My Queen,” the changeling greeted with a bow of his head. “The pony representatives are by the stable entrance, and they wish to speak with you.”

“I am aware,” the body I was in said, her voice almost like an echo with a definite queenly quality to it. “Take me to them.”

The changeling bowed again, before turning around and cantering off further down the corridor. My current body followed after him, and she quickly emerged from the corridor into a large cavernous room made up of the same material as the corridor.

Except for one metal wall that held a control panel for the large cogged door sitting in its centre, the number ‘84’ displayed proudly for all to see.

This was Stable 84.

And there were two ponies standing by the closed entrance, deep in discussion. One was an orange pegasus with a purple mane in a black business suit. The other was a lavender-coated unicorn with a blue mane with a pink highlight striking through it, her lavender eyes turning towards my host as she walked into the chamber. She wore a dull grey suit with a golden six-pointed star brooch on her collar.

“Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle,” my host purred in an almost predatory manner, and there was no friendliness in her voice. If I still had my own spine, I’m pretty sure it’d have chills running down it. “And… Miss Scootaloo of Stable-Tec, am I correct?”

“Yeah, you are,” Scootaloo replied, not hiding her own disdain. “We’ve met once, actually. I was one of Cadance’s flower fillies back at the wedding, remember that?”

“Which is not the topic of today’s discussion,” Twilight Sparkle swiftly interrupted before anything could escalate. “Queen Chrysalis, Stable 84 is almost complete and ready for your personal inspection.”

“So I see,” Chrysalis mused as she examined the large door to the fallout shelter. “And this pony contraption will provide us with a safe location should your Princess Luna fail in her duties to protect Equestria?”

“More like when…” Scootaloo muttered, causing Twilight to bite her lip and pretend like she didn’t hear the comment.

The unicorn nodded. “Stable 84 is fully capable of blocking out all of the radiation the hive would not. The MAS has even upgraded a few systems in cooperation with Stable-Tec. It’s theoretically fully functional right now, we just need to add a few amenities here and there.”

“The MAS pushed to have this stable fast-tracked, we had to delay the development of Stable 90 for this. And that one’s advanced systems have been giving us a headache as it is,” Scootaloo told Chrysalis. “Well, at least we have another stable for more than just ponies.”

Queen Chrysalis hummed. “Very well. Show me this stable, and hope I am impressed with your work.”

“You will be,” Twilight said confidently. “But first, there’s something else.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

Twilight looked towards Scootaloo expectantly, who just stared back for a minute before giving a huff. The pegasus then reached into a bag and extracted from it a PipBuck. And an eerily familiar Pipbuck 3000 Mk IV at that…

“This is a PipBuck,” Scootaloo explained. “It has health updates. Maps. Objectives. Friend and foe trackers. It’s a really useful and really expensive piece of kit, so don’t smash it or anything. Not that it’d be easy to, these things are designed to take a beating.”

I felt magic channel into the Changeling Queen’s horn, and she took the PipBuck from Scootaloo and gave it a cursory look over. Then she undid the latch and slipped the device onto her hoof. The moment it was secured the booting sequence began, and soon enough the device shifted to the status screen.

“We’ve already prepped it just for you,” Scootaloo stated.

Sure enough, right there on the status screen, the name ‘Chrysalis’ was displayed on the bottom.

This was my PipBuck. Or rather, the PipBuck that Ditzy Doo had provided me when she’d given me this job. It had belonged of the Queen of the Changelings!?

“Hm, it will do,” Chrysalis replied simply, before taking her eyes off the device and looking back towards the door. “Now, I wish to see the stable.”

Twilight nodded, and without another word, she headed straight for the control panel and pulled the switch down. Clearly, the password had yet to be added.

Alarms began to blare around the chamber, echoing far up into the hive. Red lights blinked as machinery behind the door began to whir, and then with a deafening metallic screech, the door was pulled back into the entrance before it rolled off to the side.

“Right this way,” Scootaloo deadpanned, trotting into the open entrance.

But while she did so, and Chrysalis attempted to follow, Twilight stopped the Queen with a hoof.

“We have given you a stable for your subjects, as promised,” Twilight said in hushed tones, looking Chrysalis dead in the eyes with a cold and determined expression. “Your drones are wasted working just infiltration. Will you reconsider working with the Ministry of Arcane Sciences?”

“Ah, yes. I have glanced over your proposed project,” Chrysalis replied, tilting her head as she studied the unicorn. “I assume you have already had work on the facility undertaken?”

“Your magic could do wonders for the war effort,” Twilight stressed. “It could save lives.”

“Pony lives,” Chrysalis sneered. “But you have done as I demanded. If everything is as I like it, then I shall consider your proposal.”

“You two coming or what?” Scootaloo shouted back at the pair.

Twilight glanced at the pegasus, before looking back up at Chrysalis. “We will talk more of this after the tour.”

Twilight Sparkle turned and entered the stable, Chrysalis remaining still for a moment as she watched the unicorn walk away.

And then she moved to follow.

I emerged from the orb with a sharp gasp, feeling sweet relief as I felt my own pony and very much male body return.

That just felt so wrong…

And there was Cobalt, looking at me expectantly. Stripe was still sitting diligently with her rifle, though did shoot a single glance of concern my way.

“So?” Cobalt asked. “How was it?”

I took in several deep breaths, thinking over what I had seen. It had been so real… The Ministry Mare had been right there. As had the stable. How was I meant to even process and experience like that? Feeling everything that Chrysalis had felt, and yet not knowing any of her thoughts? A stranger and intruder in another’s body…

Weird.

“So that’s a changeling, huh?” I said to the other unicorn. “I see what you mean about insect ponies.”

“And as you can see, Queen Chrysalis and Twilight Sparkle were talking about a project that could save pony lives. And according to records at Tenpony Tower, we know that Chrysalis accepted the deal and had been working on something with the Ministry Mare.”

“Which is why the Twilight Society wants it.”

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “And I need to know what it is.”

“And the Twilight Society would just lock it away to be poked and prodded every now and then?”

“Maybe. I hope not. Though for me I guess it depends on what we find. But we can only know for sure when we reach Stable 84. And when we do then this little misadventure can be over, and you can get your caps and go back to wherever it is you call home.”

Well, I had come this far…

“If I need to take it easy for the next few hours, pass me my barding,” I asked of the stallion, who looked mildly concerned. “I may as well get it a little more patched up before we head out.”

“So, you’re not backing out?”

I sighed. “Look, I took this job because it was my ticket to a comfy home and life away from the Wasteland. I’ve come this far, and I need to see it through. Besides, we’re almost at the stable as it is, and then it’s done. What’s a few more days?”

Cobalt paused a moment, but he then nodded before going to retrieve my barding.

He could keep his data. Once we were at Stable 84, it would no longer be my concern…

Footnote: Level 10

New Perk: Educated - You gain two more skill points every time you advance in level.

12 - Ice

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Chapter Twelve: Ice

“Without the Heart, the Crystal Empire's about to be buried under a mountain of ice and snow!"

And I thought the mountains had been cold…

A good layer of frost caked the bare, cracked ground around us. And it just looked whiter and whiter the further north one went. Fortunately, we weren’t going that way. In the past two days since we left Our Town far behind we had continued to skirt the very edges of the frozen north, following the boundary until we were directly south of the stable, which wasn’t going to be too much longer.

Not even my patched up barding fully protected against the nip in the air.

You see, an advantage to freezing our coats off was that nopony else really had the desire to be up here. It was too close to the Frozen North and, in those past two days of travel, we hadn’t seen anything else for miles around. Just us, the clouds above, and the frost on the ground.

Yeah, I guess a bit of cold was better than fighting every raider gang between us and the changeling hive. Right?

“How much further?” Cobalt asked from a little way ahead of me. “Surely it can’t be too much longer!”

I grunted in response, bringing up my PipBuck and switching over to the map screen. A marker showed my position along to border of the Frozen North, my main objective marker wanting me to travel a little south-west while my custom marker was bidding me to go straight on forwards. The latter led to the only pre-war town I could see directly on the border, and one that was directly north of the hive itself.

“Just a little bit more,” I shouted back up at Cobalt. “This thing will ding when we get there.”

“We should look through the ruins while we’re there, I do not like the dwindling food supply,” Stripe suggested.

“And maybe a blanket or two,” Cobalt dryly added in.

“Seconded,” I agreed, letting off a shaky breath that I could see in the cold air. “Who knows, maybe one of the buildings could have central heating.”

“Or perhaps something you repair to make it so,” Stripe remarked. “If not, a fire should suffice.”

“We probably shouldn’t linger at the town for too long though,” Cobalt stated. “We can make some good time. Another day to the hive if we’re fast. Maybe two, if not.”

I huffed, conceding his point. “Never thought I’d miss the normal Wasteland weather. I can’t believe anypony lived up here before the war.”

“Well, they did,” Cobalt responded back. “Though I’d prefer the old Crystal Empire over some random town on the edge.”

The Crystal Empire, huh? Looking at my PipBuck, there did seem to be something deep into the Frozen North, a clear spot in the otherwise desolate landscape. I did recall some city being up there in the snow. Though I really knew as much about it as I did the tribes of the zebra and how they all worked.

Though, speaking of the tribes…

“Stripe,” I spoke up, glancing at my zebra companion with a question in my eyes. “Your family was Zencoria, right? Storytellers?”

“Zencori. And my parents and brother considered themselves as such, yes,” she confirmed. “Why do you bring this up?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you had any good stories about the frozen hellhole up north. We need to do something to pass the time.”

Stripe frowned, entering a moment of thought. “I could tell you a story of a Starkatteri who tried to use spirits of wind to control the Frozen North, only to end up freezing himself. But truly? I would rather not repeat the stories that drove them to a dark path.”

“Well, I’m sure other zebra would consider you just as Equestrian as you want to be,” Cobalt deadpanned.

“Thank you.”

I wasn’t sure that was necessarily a compliment…

“But what of you, Cobalt?” Stripe asked in turn. “You seemed to be knowledgeable.”

“I know whatever Tenpony had in its database,” Cobalt responded. “The Crystal Empire is as old as Equestria… kind of.”

“Kind if?” How can something be ‘kind of as old’?

“Well, it was founded around the time Equestria was. Though a dark mage made it vanish from time for a thousand years,” Cobalt explained. “When it returned, the Ministry Mares ended up saving the Empire and killing the mage. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza then wound up taking rulership and the Empire joined Equestria.”

“Princess who?” Since when were there more princesses than the two goddesses? “I’ve never heard of her.”

“She was Princess Celestia’s adoptive niece. An alicorn, just like them; and not one of the abominations you see running around Splendid Valley.”

“Then why isn’t she as well known as Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?”

“Well, when the war started the Crystal Empire protested it,” Cobalt stated with a shrug. “They ended up splitting off and becoming a separate city-state again, under Cadenza’s rulership.”

I looked out towards the Frozen North, the winds howling along the eternally white graveyard. I’d never realised that the city had an alicorn ruling it. I mean, I’d heard it was a city of ponies, but still…

“Of course, I assume they did not escape the end,” Stripe noted, also taking in the dead echoes of the Frozen North.

“Well, considering we haven’t heard from them... unless they’re as secluded as the pegasi,” Cobalt remarked. “I don’t think they were hit by any of the bombs, though the radiation could have killed them like every other country in the world.”

Given how cold it is up there, the survivors probably didn’t stand a chance once everything collapsed. “Guess not many ponies would have made it out of there, huh?”

“Maybe,” Cobalt replied with a hum. “There are rumours that the Princess’ descendants still live somewhere out in the Wasteland, but it’s just hearsay. She and her husband, Shining Armor, did have a couple of daughters though. Also alicorns.”

“Well, the only alicorns I’ve ever heard of in the Wasteland are described as boogiemen. I tend to stay far away from Splendid Valley.”

“Good choice,” Cobalt stated. “If descendants did exist, I’m sure the Twilight Society would have found them. Shining Armor was Twilight Sparkle’s brother, after all.”

Well, I guess the Ministry Mare had plenty of connections.

“Still, it does explain why the hive was up here too,” Cobalt added in.

“Huh? Why?”

“Changelings are meant to feed off of love, as in the actual emotion. Probably not for actual food, or a stable would have been a bad idea, so probably just for magical strength or something of the likes. One could drain a pony to death if so inclined,” the stallion explained, and I noticed a shiver that was decidedly not from the cold. “Cadenza was the Princess of Love. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together on how that worked.”

“I thought they weren’t a part of Equestria anymore?”

“Doesn’t mean they didn’t have trade deals.”

Love sucking bugs. You know, a good part of me was really hoping the stable was long empty…

Aside from the lack of a profit if it wasn’t, anyway.

Cobalt sighed. “Not much out here now, though. All the towns are long ruined. There aren’t really even any settlements up here between what used to be Our Town and Vanhoover. Well, except for raiders and gangs.”

“A Wasteland truer than most,” Stripe mused.

My PipBuck dinged, and it was at that moment that I realised I could now spot a few outlying buildings up ahead.

And according to my E.F.S., the town was known as Haven. Or had been, a very long time ago.

“We’re here,” I announced to the group. “Haven. The hive should be due south of here.”

“Finally,” Cobalt said, turning to face us. “We should make this quick.”

I nodded, and I couldn’t say I was keen to stay in this ghost town for too long. Nothing was appearing on my E.F.S. at that moment, but the frozen town was already giving me the creeps…

“We should check for a shop.” Any town ought to have one, right? “Don’t bother with the houses, we don’t have the time. Just any building that might have food or any supplies. A clinic too would be helpful.”

We picked up our pace as we cantered towards the town, passing around one partially collapsed building and stepping from the dirt and onto ancient concrete. The concrete covered space was sat out in a large rectangular shape, rotten benches lining the edges and several vehicles parked up nearby. A road led away from said vehicles and into the town proper, though the purpose of the space was made clear by the arched structure sitting right in the centre.

“Looks like an entrance to the local metro,” Cobalt noted as we slowed to a halt a few metres from the entrance. “It’s probably just filled with derailed trains and rat shit. Ignore.”

“Wait,” I said to stop him, freezing myself as I spied a single red bar suddenly pop up on my E.F.S., a bar pointing right at the metro’s entrance. “Shit, there’s movement coming from inside. It’s not friendly.”

Stripe immediately had her sniper drawn as she turned to glare at the entrance to the station, all while Cobalt just took on an expression of mild concern.

“It could be a radroach. Or a giant rat,” he pointed out. “Places like those a full of them.”

“We should investigate nevertheless,” Stripe contended. “If there are people here, we should not go into the town unaware.”

She certainly had a point… “I’ll go have a look. Just, uh, keep an eye out for me.” Dammit.

Stripe nodded. “I won’t let any foolish ponies get the drop on you.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Welp, there I went. Trotting slowly towards that red bar, gun already drawn into my magic and S.A.T.S. at the ready. I mean, it was probably just a radroach. And even a big ol’ mama radroach wasn’t really much of a threat. Stamp. Squish. Job done.

Yeah, just a radroach.

I reached the structure, moving around the outer wall until I rounded towards the open staircase leading down towards the underground station. At the bottom of the staircase was a rusted chain-link gateway with a couple red warning signs hanging precariously to the entrance. A large stylised ‘M’ was displayed just above the doorway, though faded heavily through time.

And the red bar was coming from inside.

Peering down towards the gate, I could see that it was pushed a little bit open. What was more is that, just inside the gateway sitting on the edge of the inner darkness, was an equine shaped figure.

So… not a radroach then.

I looked back over at Cobalt and Stripe, giving them a look of warning before I took two steps downwards, my pistol trained on the figure inside. Maybe I should have already fired, red is dead right? But still, if this was a raider or a bandit or something then we could at least get some information out of them. How many more are there? Are there any good supplies in this place? At least, that’s how I rationalised it as I held my fire and opened my mouth…

“Hey, you!”

The figure stirred, looking lamely around at me. I couldn’t get a good look, and I didn’t move a step closer.

“Don’t reach for any weapons,” I warned. “Back out of there, slowly. We don’t want any trouble.”

The figure didn’t respond, and I could almost feel them staring at me from within the shadows.

And then it screamed.

It wasn’t a scream any normal pony would make, I knew that for sure. No, this was a shrill shriek that would make anypony’s blood run cold, and it was a scream heralding all that came next.

The figure burst straight through the gateway and unbelievable speeds, sprinting so fast up the stairs that I barely had time to engage S.A.T.S.! And when the spell did engage, I was able to fully realise what exactly it was mere inches from my fucking face!

Feral ghoul!

The creature that was once a pony had no fur covering its body, its skin torn and blistered from head to hoof. Barely a strand of its mane and tail remained, any cutie mark was no longer visible on its flank. Its teeth were broken and sharp, old dried blood permanently engrained into them, eyes milky and dead, no life or soul visible within them.

Just hunger never-ending.

“FUUUUUUUUUCK!” I screamed as I pumped every single shot I had into the bastard! I just fired with S.A.T.S. assisted accuracy as it landed on my body, completely limp and bleeding gunk that could barely even be called blood.

The red bar winked out.

And I just laid there, heart pumping like mad with the bloody thing still draped over me. I mean, dear Celestia why me!? Robots. Raiders. Cultists. Mutated creatures. Explosions. And now zombies! Was this job doing its absolute best to make me soil myself?

Because it was doing a really good job!

“Scrap Heap! Are you alright?” Stripe called out in alarm as she and Cobalt ran up to my side. The latter used his magic to push the corpse off of me while the zebra helped up sit up. “You crazy fool! Why did you shout out to it?”

“I thought it was a pony…” I muttered lamely.

“Well, you were half right,” Cobalt noted as he knelt down to examine the body. “Looking at the frost layer covering the ghoul, it’s been here a while.”

After ensuring I was alright, Stripe descended the staircase and looked at one of the walls by the gateway. There was a small board I hadn’t noticed the first time with a slightly shrivelled map inside a class covering. She squinted her eyes as she examined it, following the various routes the underground trains would take.

“These tunnels lead off in two directions,” she noted. “Another town, ‘Prosperity’. And the other tunnel leads to the Crystal Empire.”

“A tunnel leading to the Empire?” Cobalt questioned, moving up to examine the map himself. “Huh, I wasn’t aware such a route existed.”

“Could this thing have been one of the ponies from the city?” I asked, finally getting up to my hooves and giving the shrivelled creature a very wide berth. Could they get up again after death?

“Maybe,” Cobalt replied. “Ponies trying to flee the Empire when the radiation caused a collapse, perhaps. Or maybe ponies who’d tried to get there on hoof.”

“Or both,” Stripe added. “If radiation flooded those tunnels after the bombs ravaged Equestria, then it would have been an impossible journey for the average pony.”

“It is a long way from here to the Empire,” Cobalt agreed. “Those tunnels are probably filled with ice now with nopony to maintain them.”

“Well, that explains Frosty over there,” I dryly remarked. “Can we go now? I’d rather get back to scavenging, I’m good at that. Feral ice ghouls? Pass.”

Cobalt laughed. “Yeah, can’t say I’m eager to go exploring down there. I’m a data analyst, not an archaeologist.”

Of course, in true fashion, it was just as he said those words that another red bar appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. And another. And another. Oh, it was basically becoming a sea of red.

Oh crap.

“Uh, guys…”

I gave them a slightly strained smile and decided it was best to point a hoof at the countless milky eyes now staring at us from inside the metro station.

“Run.”

Stripe wasted no time and, in a flash, her rifle was brought up as a single shot blew the head off of the first feral ghoul in the herd. We began to scramble back up the steps as the ghouls all gave ear deafening shrieks, and I grabbed onto my shotgun and fired three shells into the crowd, tearing into several of the ghouls and rending huge bloody chunks into them.

And I think we only made them mad.

Like an unstoppable force of nature, the ice-covered ghouls burst from the entrance of the metro tunnel and rushed up the stairs just as we made it to the top ourselves. With S.A.T.S. still recharging I just fired on the first couple to reach us, Stripe firing two more rounds into the ghouls as Cobalt unleashed a bolt of his magic into another. But even as those first few fell, the other ghouls just kept on coming. We could probably deal with a decently big group, but according to my E.F.S., there had to be dozens inside that tunnel!

We had really disturbed the hornet’s nest.

“Move!” Stripe shouted towards us, and neither myself or Cobalt could really argue as we all bolted away from the tunnel and moved towards the town.

And the ghouls didn’t seem eager to give up, because of course they didn’t! In a congealed mess, they swept out of the metro and began their pursuit, chasing after us in a raving horde that threatened to swallow us whole.

I glanced behind me, swapping back to my pistol and firing a few shots at our pursuers. I think I spotted one go limp and fall to the ground, but I couldn’t be sure.

Following the road got us into the town, and we shot between a few buildings to help shake off the ghouls. The town was as frost covered as everything else, many of the homes having long collapsed with only a few buildings still remaining intact.

“This way!” I shouted, leading Stripe and Cobalt between two more collapsed homes and out onto a cracked street.

To the left of us was a line either side of the road filled with nothing but dilapidated old homes, the road turning off at the end of the street. The right was much the same, only the road split off in two directions towards more buildings. However, a little way off down to the right and across the road was a far more intact building than those around it. It was an oval shaped structure, its windows long blown out and the front door hanging open, a collapsed statue of a doughnut laid on the roof while the words ‘Donut Joe’s’ being displayed across the front of the building.

There was another shriek from somewhere behind us, echoing throughout the empty town.

“Some of them are still looking for us,” Stripe stated in some alarm. “We need to wait for the herd to disperse, or at least until they are in small enough groups to fight.”

“Head towards that place,” I said, pointing at the Donut Joe’s restaurant. “We can take shelter. And there might even be something to scavenge inside.”

I led the way into the establishment, the three of us quickly piling in through the door and shutting it tightly behind us. We moved past the torn booths and behind the counter, the door to the back rooms being thankfully unlocked.

Just as we made it through, I caught a glimpse of some ghouls running past the building at full sprint, unaware as to where we were hiding.

We found ourselves in a kitchen, rusted pots and pans hung above the long-dead appliances. A group of fridges laid in the corner, though the foul smell coming from them suggested that we didn’t want to eat anything inside.

“That was… close,” Cobalt stated as he breathed a sigh of relief. “Those ghouls have probably just been wandering the station for the last two hundred years. We’ll have to wait for them to disperse into something more manageable.”

“That might take a little while,” I replied, leaning up against one of the counters as I holstered my weapons. “There might be something in the back rooms. More preserved foods, maybe a medical box in the bathroom.”

“Then we should also use the opportunity to rest,” Stripe added.

And we had been making such good time too. Oh well, when a horde of feral ghouls was concerned Stable 84 could wait a little longer…

Too bad that, at the time, we didn’t know we had just stumbled into a place far more dangerous than we could have imagined.

Footnote: Level 11

New Perk: Stonewall - +5 DT against melee and unarmed attacks.

13 - The Hidden

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Chapter Thirteen: The Hidden

“We broke up into bands of talons and just kept doing what we’d done during the war: fighting for whoever paid us. That’s all we are. I’m pretty sure it’s all we’ll ever be.”

“You see anything?” Cobalt asked as I took a moment to peer out of the kitchen and into the main dining area.

Everything was silent, and my E.F.S. showed up clear. Nothing but the ghosts inhabited the rest of this place.

“Nope, nothing,” I replied back to him. “They probably aren’t far though.”

“As long as that horde doesn’t come in here, I’m fine,” Cobalt stated. “There’s another door back here. Might lead to some supplies.”

I pulled my head from the doorway and shut it behind me. Looking around the rest of the kitchen I could see Stripe searching through various containers for anything of use with seemingly little success. Cobalt, meanwhile, was examining the lock on the door leading further back into the building.

The unicorn tried to the handle, only for it to wiggle slightly in defiance.

“Locked,” he confirmed.

“There’s nothing of use in here,” Stripe spoke up, shoving a rusted old pan to one side. “Just ancient kitchen utensils. And I dare not investigate the foul stench coming from those fridges.”

“They would have kept their fresher ingredients in there,” Cobalt pointed out, before pointing at the door. “All the stuff pre-war companies pumped full of preservatives will be back there. “Dandy Colt Apples. Potato Chips. Things like that.”

“Let me have a look,” I said as I directed Cobalt to move aside.

I knelt down by the lock, biting my tongue a little as I studied it. I doubted it’d be too hard, given this was only a restaurant. Hell, half the safes I’d cracked during my scavenging days were probably ten times harder than this. Maybe. There was only one way to find out.

I lit my horn up and grabbed a couple of small items from the bottom of my saddlebags. A screwdriver and a couple of bobby pins floated out and positioned themselves by the lock. I took a few moments to experimentally probe the lock, seeing where I found the most resistance when I tried to turn it. On my fourth turn, I managed to turn the lock almost the entire way, but it suddenly locked up and snapped the pin in two.

Good thing I’d brought spares.

I retrieved a second pin and placed it into the lock where I’d almost opened it. I then gave it a little wiggle, adjusting its positioning ever so slightly as I peered in concentration. Small turns, seeing it begins to open… YES! The lock gave a satisfying click as it turned fully, and a pull on the handle allowed the door to swing open into the hallway beyond.

The hallway was dark, so I switched on my PipBuck’s lamp and let it shine into the passage. There was a door at the other end marked as ‘exit’, and it seemed to have a bar blocking it from our end. At least we now had another exit in case the main entrance gained somewhat of a ghoul infestation. The other two doors were on the left side of the hallway, one of them unmarked while the other seemed to lead into the bathroom.

“Storage, you think?” I asked Cobalt as he went to check the bathroom.

“Hopefully,” he responded as he opened the door and wandered inside. I shone the light in after him, illuminating a dilapidated room with a cracked ceramic toilet and sink. A box sat on the wall with a cross that had three pink butterflies in its centre. Cobalt opened it up and retrieved two healing potions as well as a single syringe of Med-X.

“Not bad,” I said as he levitated the items over and put them into my bags. “Let’s check the last room.”

We gathered by the doorway, my E.F.S. showing it was all clear inside. On trying to door I found it to be thankfully unlocked, and I let it swing open as I shined my lamp inside. The green glow illuminated over two rows of metal shelves propped up against both walls, all filled to the brim with rotten cardboard boxes. The far wall was bare, with the exception of a motivational poster with the picture of a smiling brown unicorn stallion I assumed was Donut Joe.

“Cobalt, check the left side. I’ll take the right, Stripe can keep watch.”

They both gave me a nod with no argument, Stripe taking position by the door as Cobalt began to rummage through the boxes.

I cantered over to the shelves alongside the right wall, setting my sights on the first box. When I tried it lift it with my magic, however, it began to fall apart and crumple into dust. I guess the last two hundred years hadn’t been kind to them, though, hopefully, the contents had fared a little better. It was easy enough just to push the disintegrating cardboard to one side, exposing said contents.

Well, it was a start.

I dumped the singular box of preserved canned food into my bag before moving onto the next box. A lot of the boxes seemed to be empty, though several did contain a fair amount of food that we weren’t in a position to say no to.

The last shelf was separate from the others. Instead of cardboard boxes, it contained a couple of metal ones with a couple of wonderglues and turpentines inside. I collected them as well; the wonderglue, in particular, would be helpful in repairing our stuff.

And that was that. I had cleared everything from those shelves and even checked underneath them just to be sure. Everything seemed to be cleared out, and I’d come away with a little more food than I’d come in with. Small fortunes, but in my line of work, every find was a gift from the goddesses. Even if I probably wouldn’t be bartering that stuff, but rather using it for myself and the others. Still, it was a help.

Just a little further, and then I could get out of the scavenging lifestyle. I hoped, at least.

“You good?” I called back to Cobalt, seeing him checking over the last shelf on his side. “I got some food and wonderglue.”

“Same this side,” he responded, turning to show a bottle of the stuff. “I’d say we have enough to the trip to the stable. If it’s empty, we might be able to get extra from that places own storage too.”

“If it’s empty,” I muttered. Would changelings share? Still wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

“Stop,” Stripe suddenly stated from behind us. “Remain still.”

I didn’t move, though I did turn my head to get a look at the zebra. A quick check of my E.F.S. showed no red bars anywhere in the area… and she seemed to be staring at the floor like it had insulted her stripes.

Okay…

She seemed to see the question in my eyes. “The floor, doesn’t something seem strange to you?”

I looked at the floor, which was old and tiled. Beyond that, I didn’t see anything of note.

“Uh, no?” I replied slowly. “Are you alright?”

She gave me a flat stare, before kneeling down and pointing at a specific point. “Can you not see the line. A tiny gap that separates one part of the flooring from the rest.”

Now that is squinted, I could see a small gap. But… so? “So it’s a crack. What about it?”

Stripe shook her head. “Follow the line, it’s perfectly straight up until a point.” She traced along it with her hoof on demonstration. “And then it turns at a perfect right angle.”

She continued to trace her hoof around the perimeter of the room, following the crack in the floor until she returned to exactly where she had begun… Wait. It went cleanly around the entire room?

“A complete rectangle around the room, with but a small gap to walk around next to the shelves,” Stripe observed. “This is by design, not decay.”

“She’s right,” Cobalt confirmed, examining the floor for himself. “Looks like something might be underneath us. This might be a doorway.”

“What the hay would a place like this be doing with secret passages?” I deadpanned. I mean, I could imagine a ministry building having all kind of weird stuff in it. For all I knew, Tenpony Tower had that kind of stuff used by the Twilight Society. But this place? Seriously?

Well, maybe it was an extra storeroom or something? A basement filled with more food? If that was the case, I wasn’t going to argue.

“There has to be a button somewhere…” Cobalt muttered to himself. “But I don’t see one…”

I looked towards the poster of Donut Joe. I had to wonder…

I pulled at the edges of the poster with my magic, pulling it from the wall and letting it crumble to the ground. And I’ll be damned, behind it was a small alcove with a yellow pox attached to the wall. The yellow box had a red and green light on it, the former being lit up, and a lever screwed onto the box’s side.

“And my weirdness scale is rising again.”

“Hey, at least you found it,” Cobalt commented, trotting up to the lever. “Don’t stand on the passage.”

We all made sure we were skirting the edges of the room before pulling the lever down. And when we did, the green light on the box blinked on as the red ceased, a whirring sound reaching our ears before the floor dipped inwards and then slid out of sight.

We all peered inside, seeing a metallic staircase leading down into a barely lit corridor. Flickering light along the staircase and the ceiling seemed to be on the verge of failure, but two hundred years later they still continued to shine the way for any pony that would pass through. At the end of the corridor seemed to be a metal, industrial-looking door leading off to Celestia knows where.

“Okay, I’m starting to think this is not related to selling sugary snacks,” I commented. “Cobalt, what’re you thinking?”

“I could make a few guesses, but nothing for certain,” he responded. “Access to the subway tunnels. A listening post for the Ministry of Morale. Who knows?”

“But the question is, do we traverse it?” Stripe questioned. “Or do we leave it be?”

Now that was the question, wasn’t it? Then again, my E.F.S. was still clear and we were wanting to wait a while anyway on account of the ghouls…

“We could take a peek,” I decided. “There might be something inside we could use. But we should stick together, and if we see a Sentry Bot we get the fuck out and never touch it again.”

“Prudent,” Stripe agreed.

“Yeah, well. I’ve never met one of those death machines, and I’d like to keep it that way,” I said dryly, hopping onto the staircase as the others made to follow. This was not what I expected when taking shelter in the old restaurant, but again I hadn’t expected any of what had happened the past week and a bit. What was a little more?

Should I have been worried that I was getting used to all the bullshit?

The doorway at the end was also unlocked, and it slid open with a violent shriek and a hiss. I kept an eye on my E.F.S. at all times as we slowly trotted our way inside, examining our new surroundings. The room has all metal, the floor was grated and the walls were thick enough to survive some serious damage. I couldn’t tell you if it was stable level of protective, but it was still some heavy-duty stuff.

Something else that was strange? The two turrets hanging from the ceiling… or at least what was left of them. They were trashed, surrounded by bullet holes from whatever had annihilated them. A few bullet holes lined the doorway we emerged from as well, likely from where the turrets had tried to return fire.

“So… what happened to them?” I asked towards nopony in particular. “Was some other group here before us or…?”

“It might be pre-war damage,” Cobalt noted. “Nothing was taken upstairs. Maybe some zebra infiltrators if this is a ministry or military bunker.”

“Why build a bunker under a place like ‘Donut Joe’s’?”

“You did not suspect a thing, did you not?” Stripe pointed out. “Hiding in plain sight. An old tactic, and always an effective one.”

“She’s right,” Cobalt supported. “How many ponies do you think came and went with no idea as to what lay under their hooves.”

“Right…” What had we just walked into?

The room was almost entirely empty, the only exception being a second door at the other end of the room with a terminal flickering on the wall next to it. There were also a couple of metal crates stacked in a corner by the door.

I hit the crates first, most of which were empty. Though there was this one at the very back…

“Ah ha!”

“What did you find?” Cobalt asked as he turned towards me from the other doorway he’d been examining.

“Sparkle-Cola!” I announced victoriously, popping the cap and downing the carroty goodness.

He gave me an unamused look. “Really?”

I finished the drink quickly, feeling warm as it made its way into my stomach. Really, Cobalt should just learn to enjoy the little things in life…

At this point he seemed to be doing his best to ignore me, examining some symbol on the door intently. “If you are finishing messing around, this is important.”

“Why? What is that?”

He pointed at the symbol, and for a moment I swear his eyes lit up like a foal. And now that I looked, the symbol was that six-pointed star backed by the wings and horn and an alicorn.

“This is the symbol of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences!” he announced excitedly, rubbing his hooves together like a child on a pre-war Hearth’s Warming. Seriously, I had no idea he could even get excited before now. “This is a ministry facility, our ministry! There could be all kinds of great marvels of magic inside this bunker!”

“Or dangers,” Stripe interrupted in an attempt to temper the unicorn’s glee a moment. “We know nothing about this facility.”

“Well, I can change that…” Cobalt muttered as he activated the terminal. I saw dozens of lines of text appear on the screen as it booted, before logging into a screen asking for a password.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “I don’t suppose you actually have the password, do you?”

“Don’t need it,” he smugly responded, pressing a few keys on the keyboard and watching the screen shifted over to another menu. More lines of text began to flicker on, random nonsense mixed in with the occasional word. “Just need to find the real password from the dump of falsities. Four tries… If I get this thing open, I should be able to open the door. It might even have some information about this place.”

“Well, have fun.”

I left him to it, Stripe watching him curiously as he got to work sifting through the many fake passwords to find the single real one. Meanwhile, I returned to the box I had found the lovely Sparkle-Cola in, where a single other item sat in the corner of the box. It was a small rag of cloth, though it seemed to have something inside it. I picked up the rag, ripping it away until I lot the inside contents fall into my hooves.

Luna… was that what I thought it was? There was no mistaking the smooth rounded surface or the magical aura that made my horn tingle. The memory orb shimmered gently, unveiled to the world for the first time in who knows how long.

“Hey, uh… look what I found.”

Cobalt glanced towards me, and then down to the memory orb I was holding. His eyes went wide. “Be careful with that! Stick it in your bags for now, gently! We can have a look inside after we’re done here.”

I complied, making sure it was safe and sound. What memory did it contain? My curiosity was flaring… until I noticed a light above the doorway change.

We hadn’t noticed it until that point, but there was a lit-up section above the doorway with an arrow on it. Or at least there was now, before it had just been an empty glowing spot. But now an arrow had appeared, and it was pointing upwards.

There was a ding from the terminal and a shout of victory from Cobalt. I could see over his shoulder as a new menu appeared, the title of ‘Ministry of Arcane Sciences Haven Research Facility’ at the top of the screen. Beyond that there was only a single option, ‘call elevator’.

The door was actually an elevator. And it was coming up.

“Guys!” I shouted in alarm, drawing my shotgun as I took a step back. “Something is already coming up the elevator!”

“What!?” Cobalt stepped away from the terminal, finally spotting the arrow for himself. His horn lit up as Stripe drew her rifle, and we began to move back towards the exit.

And then the five red bars appeared, heralding the screech of the elevator coming to a halt the hiss of the door as it opened.

Revealing the power armour.

The metal clad creature took a single step out, and I was already in S.A.T.S. as time slowed to a near halt. Next to me, I could see Stripe’s rifle already amidst a flash as she fired a bullet, Cobalt’s horn flickering as he prepared some spell. I then glanced towards those coming from the elevator, taking the moment to examine them.

Griffons. They were griffons.

There were at least five according to my Eyes Forward Sparkle, though I could see the two immediately behind the first power armoured one. The power armour was completely black, as was the combat armour of the griffons behind him. Each had a small symbol on the front of their armour, showing a red eye staring directly at me.

Red Eye’s Talons.

I queued up three shots, one for the power armoured griffon’s head and one for each of the griffons I could see behind him. I had no idea what Red Eye was doing all the way out here, far from Fillydelphia or any settlements they could plunder for slaves. But what I did know was that they were pointing their weapons in our direction, and they didn’t seem to be interested in sending us to work at the steel mills!

The spell activated and, in quick succession, I fired three shells from the shotgun. The first shot was absorbed by the helmet without barely causing him to even stumble, as did Stripe’s bullet ricochet uselessly off the armour. My second shot hit the power armoured griffon’s shoulder, once again barely causing a scratch. The third streaked just past the talon, hitting the griffon I had been aiming for.

The mercenary gave a pained squawk as he fell backwards, not dead but most definitely injured.

And then the power armoured talon opened fire.

Red beams of pure death shot from his battle saddle, striking directly towards us as we could only watch. And it would have hit us too, if it hadn’t been for the shield erecting in its way.

We didn’t need any more prompting as we backed away through the doorway as quickly as we could! And as we did I saw the three other griffon mercenaries all file through the door and point their weapons in our direction, leaving their injured comrade be.

Cobalt released his shield as we turned and bolted back up the stairs, not having time to even close the passage up again as we made a left turn and barged our way out of the back exit!

We didn’t stop, passing through the gaps between houses as I swore I saw flashes of red out of the corner of my eye. But the five bars all blinked out as we exited their range… leaving only two persistent bars remaining.

“Two are following us!” I shouted at the others.

“Take cover here!” Stripe shouted as we burst from the alleyway into a small foal’s playpark, dragging us quickly behind one of the climbing frames.

Two of the mercenaries were right on our tail, flying over the buildings and easily spotting us among the rusted playground. Each one had a battle saddle and a pistol in each claw, equalling four rifles and four pistols all laying down fire on our position!

“You never should have stuck your noses into shit that don’t belong to you!” one of the talons laughed as he began to strafe in the air to get around our cover.

CRACK.

He screeched as one of Stripe’s bullets went right through his wing, and he tumbled from the sky into a hard landing below.

“Fuck!” the other shouted, dropping down to a lower position to avoid Stripe’s next shot.

And then he grabbed something stuck to his armour, flinging it in our direction.

“Jump!” I shouted as the grenade pinged into the climbing frame, and we dived to the side just as the rusted pile of metal was torn to shreds by the explosion.

Crap, we were now separated! And the griffon Stripe had injured was not out of the fight yet.

I found that out when he pounced on me.

“Stupid pony!” he growled he dug his talons into my neck, trying really very hard to crush it!

Any help from the others was cut off as the other griffon continued to focus fire on those two, leaving his friend to deal with me.

How wonderful!

I lit up my horn to try and grab my discarded shotgun, but just as I was raising it he gave a shout of rage and punched the base of my horn, not stopping there as he effortlessly picked me up and hurled me into a nearby swing set! Still, I coughed for breath as my airways cleared, though the gashes in my neck were gushing a bit too heavily for my liking.

A third red bar appeared, and another as I saw the rest of the able griffons enter the park.

My attacker saw his power armoured buddy walk onto the scene, laughing as he did. While he was busy, I tried to rise to my hooves and rush away. Towards my gun or towards the others, I wasn’t really sure. Just… away.

He wasn’t having any of it, though I was able to raise my PipBuck up in time to block his claw as he went for my throat again. I ended up in a grapple with the griffon, though there was no denying he was far stronger than I was. Though I didn’t have time to wish I went to the gym more often as he forced me back.

And then there was an undead scream.

The griffon gave a shout of panic as a blur of dried and slightly frozen flesh headbutted into him, tackling the griffon to the ground amidst the wild snapping of feral teeth.

When had so many red bars appeared?

I quickly grabbed my discarded shotgun, spinning around to see countless feral ghouls spilling into the playground. The griffon who had grappled with me through off the ghoul he was fighting with and fired three rounds into its head, the red bar blinking out. He got back up, several new bite marks bleeding heavily from every part of his body without armour.

I finished him with a shotgun round to the face, his head exploding into gore as his severed beak bounced off one of the rusting metal structures before being lost amidst the approaching hooves of the undead horde.

This just left the power armoured mercenary and two of his companions, all three being surrounded by the feral ghouls. Three of them all pounced on the armoured talon at once, and he began flailing wildly to shake them off. Another was holding his own pretty well while the third found himself quickly overwhelmed and torn apart by the horde.

“Scrap Heap!” Stripe called out as she and Cobalt quickly rushed up to me, the former unleashing a bolt of magic into a ghoul who thought it’d try its luck. “The horde descends, but they are focused on the talons. We must leave!”

“No arguments from me!” I shouted back, quickly falling into step with them as we fled the scene.

They were both slightly burnt where the weapons of the armoured griffon had barely missed them and were otherwise cut up from the scuffle. But we’d deal with our wounds later as we elected to get as far from the fighting as possible, killing any ghoul who decided to go for us rather than the griffons the rest of the ferals were focused on.

And we kept moving until the town was left far behind us. No ghouls. No griffons. Just the sound of us and our breathing, with more than one extra mystery added to the pile.

Footnote: Level 12

New Perk: Life Giver - +30 Hit Points.

14 - Friendships

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Chapter Fourteen: Friendships

“Yeah, yeah! Friendship and flowers and ponies and bleh!”

I’m getting tired of constantly running for my life.

I mean, the exercise is good… I guess. But I’m not so sure it’s so healthy to accompany it with torrents of bullets each and every single time.

At least we’re running in the right direction.

I had no idea what had happened to that power armoured griffon and his marginally less armoured buddy, but I was okay with that. The guy in combat armour probably became a ghoul’s lunch like the other griffons, though I could see the power armoured guy getting out of there. I certainly don’t envy whoever would have to scrub the blood and gore off that exoskeleton.

Or maybe the ghouls found a way to pry that can open and have a turkey dinner. But who could say? I’m was just glad that my E.F.S. was showing an absolute zero on any nearby red bars.

But we didn’t stop the moment it was clear, we didn’t want to be found by any search party that the talon company might send after us. So we kept on moving, and every now and then I would check my PipBuck map just to confirm that we were getting further and further away from the border of the Frozen North.

The lessening frost was also a good indication.

Finally, we slowed to a canter as we spotted a nearby collection of rocks. One of the rocks had a small little section cut out of it that looked like it would provide us some moderate shelter, so we headed there. It was a short walk over, and when we got under the alcove we all slung off our saddlebags and collapsed into three exhausted gasping piles.

Yeah, I was starting to feel the burn alright…

“Ow…” The others seemed oddly nonplussed about my verbal complaints. “It hurts. Everything hurts. Am I the only one?”

“No, no you’re not,” Cobalt grumbled back, shifting from his back up onto his haunches again. Oh boy, he did not look happy… “Bastards. What do they think they’re doing in a Ministry of Arcane Sciences facility!”

“You’re asking us?” I deadpanned, shifting myself back into a sitting position also. I made sure to levitate out some water, taking an incredibly relieving gulp before passing it on to the others. The bottle wasn’t radioactive, but to be honest I would have taken dirty water at that point.

But despite my discomfort, and I was still aching like a bitch by the way, I did also have to wonder…

“Why would slavers want that bunker, anyway?” And just how many of them were there out here? “That was a lot of firepower. Those mercs aren’t screwing around.”

“It is curious,” Stripe responded. “And worrisome. But we are away, and we can not know why unless we find out what is in that bunker. I do not recommend we return, however.”

“Ya think?”

Cobalt groaned, taking the bottle and having another swig. “Ugh, the others won’t like this. Not only are they taking ministry property, but the last thing we need is that maniac getting those kind of resources.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“Weapons, experimental technology, who knows?” Cobalt shrugged. “Or they could simply be scrapping it to build up more of their steel mills in Fillydelphia. Either way, whatever those griffons bring back to Red Eye means a bad day for more wastelanders out there, and a headache for everypony.”

“Well, unless you have a suit of T-45 laying around there’s not much we can do about it right now,” I pointed out. Sure I didn’t like it any more than Cobalt, but dealing with that crap wasn’t our job. “That power armour almost killed us then and there. Besides, we still need to get to Stable 84.”

“Indeed,” Stripe concurred. “Hm, though we did not come away from the town empty-hooved. Our new supplies should serve us well.”

Well, she did have a point there. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Stripe. It wasn’t a complete bust. We should be good for a little while.”

“Then we can get to the hive and do what we came here to do,” Cobalt concurred. “The moment we get back to Tenpony, I’m going to have a word with the others about Red Eye.”

“Think they’ll actually do anything?” I asked, somewhat sceptical they would lift a hoof for something so far out of the way.

“If it was a Ministry of Wartime Technology bunker, I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Cobalt admitted. “But it’s MAS, that’ll get them to at least hire a couple of guns to go and take a look.”

Hooray for the Twilight Society…

“You are quick to admit your Society’s shortcomings,” Stripe noted, and I saw Cobalt avert his gaze. “It took much probing to get you to admit anything of the sort previously. And even then, you still adamantly defended the Twilight Society.”

“Stripe, it’s my home.”

“You did also tell us about the changelings,” I added in. “You weren’t meant to do that.”

He gave me a rather unamused glare. “Your point?”

“Come on, admit it. You like us!”

Oh look, his eye twitched! “…Excuse me?”

“You heard me! Come on now… I mean, you practically blackmailed me when we first met. I think we’ve done some bonding since then.”

“Bonding? Really?”

“Don’t deny it!” I was enjoying this. “Feel the love!”

Now even Stripe gave me a deadpan look. Too far?

Cobalt glared at me for a moment more and then snorted. “Dumb scavs.”

Oh yeah, he likes us.

“Strange ramblings aside…” Oi! Stripe, I’m not strange! “You have opened up towards us, I realise.”

“Yeah, well… It’s not every day you get into as many life-threatening situations as I have with you two,” Cobalt muttered. “You know, I knew it was bad out here. But I never expected… ‘this’ kind of bad.”

Right. He’d lived in that tower all his life, hadn’t he? “I guess you weren’t prepared, huh?”

He sighed. “I guess not. I’ve got to admit it, when I first met you I thought you’d be little more than a necessary liability. And Stripe, I didn’t think you had any place coming with us; just some random zebra.”

I kinda expected Stripe to at least frown at that, though her features remained neutral.

“But I know if I hadn’t had the both of you with me, I’d be dead by now,” he concluded, looking the both of us dead in the eyes. “Huh,” he half snorted, “I guess I was the necessary liability after all.”

“Do not sell yourself short, Cobalt,” Stripe gently scolded.

“Why? I can’t even shoot a gun straight. I probably alerted those talons to our presence by hacking that terminal. I led us to Our Town!”

“And we probably would have died each of those times if it wasn’t for your spells,” I pointed out, tapping the unicorn on the horn. “You teleported us out of the inn, and away from the mob. Your shield spell stopped us from being vaporised back at that bunker. And yes, I do need that password in your head or I’m not getting paid.”

“We all would have died, if we didn’t have each other to rely on for the past week,” Stripe concurred. “Do friends not look out for each other?”

“…Friends, huh?” he mused to himself. “Huh, just a few days ago I would have snorted at the notion.”

Hopefully not now. I asked him as such.

“Now? Well, we are having this conversation. I never really had any friends back at Tenpony. Colleagues and family, sure. But not friends.”

“Join the club,” I stated. “After my parents went, I was always a bit of a lone wolf. And I’m sure Stripe never interacted with others outside her family.”

“Until they did what they did,” Stripe confirmed.

“Exactly. This is the strangest job I’ve ever done. Top three.”

“I dread to think what made two and three,” Cobalt deadpanned.

"Well, my first solo scavenge after my parents' deaths wasn't the... smoothest. Suffice to say there was an issue with a pack of dogs, a drugged-up raider and a fridge."

"A fridge?"

"We don't speak of the fridge."

“Ugh, what are we doing…?” Cobalt groaned into his hooves. “We were running for our lives a few moments ago. Now we’re doing… whatever this is.”

“Welcome to having friends, buddy,” I remarked as I tapped Cobalt on the shoulder. “Warning: may be whiplash.”

“Well, enough of that,” he interrupted. “Didn’t you get that orb from the bunker?”

Oh! I’d completely forgotten about that! That probably should have been the first thing on my mind, but better late than never.

I wordlessly grabbed my bags and used my PipBuck’s sorting spell to bring the orb right out to me. I gently held it in my hooves, being careful not to drop it into the rocky ground. I had a feeling these things were fragile.

Cobalt nodded. “I thought so. Well, we wanted to know what the talons were up to, I see no better lead.”

“And you have ample time to see, I have a feeling we still need rest after our escape,” Stripe noted.

“Plenty of time for you to take a look,” Cobalt agreed. “I might even take a dive in after you’re finished. But for now, I’m just going to make sure we didn’t drop anything while we were sprinting over half the Equestrian Wasteland.”

I suppose an inventory check couldn’t hurt, though my PipBuck had already confirmed that I had all my things. And I was eager to know what that swirling ball of magic had to show me, just so long as it wasn’t something so terrible as to kill the cheery mood we’d just created…

Well, only one way to find out.

“Oh, and Cobalt?” I said without breaking my gaze from the orb. “I told you that you like us.”

“Get in that orb before I teleport you off a cliff.”

And with that, the connection was made as the world faded from view.

Well, this body felt familiar. It just wasn’t the one I was expecting.

Why was one of Queen Chrysalis’ memories in that bunker?

That was the very first thing I realised as the world began to gain focus. The decidedly female body, along with the lack of pony fur combined with the tall stature. This was definitely Chrysalis I had found myself in, there was no forgetting it.

Though, something felt different. When I was in Chrysalis before, there was a power to her. A strength unlike anything I knew in my normal body. This Chrysalis, however, felt… weak. Well, maybe not weak. Just… diminished, like she wasn’t at her best. I couldn’t really explain it, but that power I had felt before simply didn’t seem to be there.

I also felt hungry for some reason.

Once I had stopped noticing all the nuanced sensations of this alien body, I began to take note of my, or rather her, surroundings.

I never realised such a wasteland existed while the goddesses still lived…

Wherever this hive was, it wasn’t Equestria. Chrysalis seemed to be standing on a high up balcony, simply gazing out at the dusty brown landscape spanning for miles in all directions. From what I could glean from the corner of her eyes, the hive seemed to rise high into the sky like black spires piercing the heavens. And it was just as jagged and full of holes as the changelings themselves.

When was this? I couldn’t feel a PipBuck on Chrysalis’ leg, so it had to be before Stable 84. In fact, since this clearly wasn’t the Equestrian Hive…

Oh.

I felt Chrysalis’ heart clench, her head slowly following a group of changelings as they flew around the hive and into one of its many entrances. I wish I could have known what exactly it was she was thinking at that moment, but her despair gave me a good idea.

“My Queen,” a voice said from behind the Changeling Queen, and she gave a small glance back at a changeling drone in archaic dark blue armour. “Is everything alright?”

Chrysalis’ lips curled into a small snarl. “Alright? Drone, does the hive look alright to you?”

Now that I gave it another glance, it did look… well, almost sickly. The hive seemed to be made of far more organic… stuff than the hive I saw from the other orb.

“T-the latest group of love collectors should be back soon, your highness,” the drone tried to assure her, though his tone betrayed his own uncertainty. “But a few hours.”

“If they return,” Chrysalis stated. “And even if they do, with how much? This accursed war of the ponies and zebras has rendered adequate love collection an almost impossible task.”

“We will adapt, we always do.”

“We have been trying to adapt for a decade,” Chrysalis retorted. “And we did get by, just barely. And yet as the years progressed, the more aware and alert they became. Damn zebras and their infiltrations, and their getting caught. It’s only taught the ponies how better to defend against such attempts, by zebras or otherwise!”

Chrysalis began to pace back and forth, and I could feel her anger rising while the drone dared not move an inch.

“But we still got by, because we are changelings! We always adapt! Their war was pathetic anyway! True battles so far apart, both sides so timid and unwilling to kill. That was our saving grace, they were so slow at warfare it was more a spat between two grubs!”

“M-my Queen…” the drone tried to interrupt, but Chrysalis’ rant would not be stopped.

“And then Littlehorn,” Chrysalis growled, kicking a piece of the balcony so hard it came away and tumbled down to the ground far below. “Those striped fools had to decimate the Moon Princess’ beloved students and escalate things! Now soft, kind Celestia had been fully replaced by her far more ruthless sibling. Ministries are propelling Equestrian technology, tactics and safeguards to new heights! And their guard has been replaced by a tried and true army.”

I was beginning to understand how close the drone to wetting himself as Chrysalis pounded her hooves into the ground, her horn sparking with wild green energies fuelled entirely by her rage.

“And now our changelings seldom come back at all! Our technology cannot compete with theirs! And our powers are dwindling as a result!” Chrysalis proclaimed, turning on the drone and standing menacingly over him. “So no, my little changeling. I am not alright.”

The drone gulped, sinking down slightly. “I-I know, my Queen. We’re doing the best we can.”

For a moment I thought Chrysalis would bite the drone’s head off, but then I felt her anger die away and be replaced with… sadness. She gave a sigh, turning away from the drone and looking out over the landscape again.

“I know…” she muttered. “But we are too unfamiliar with their new tactics and technologies. And due to that fact, we can’t even get close enough to begin understanding it. I fear the Badland’s Hive is all but doomed.”

“Your Highness, surely there is some hope?”

“For the hive, none,” Chrysalis replied. “But for the changelings. Maybe…”

Chrysalis turned, and this time she moved past the drone while motioning for him to follow. What followed was a silent trip through the halls of the hive, and was it just me or were the walls constantly moving?

Even if it was, Chrysalis knew exactly where she was going. And as the changeling drone followed on dutifully, my host eventually brought us out into a vast chamber with some kind of large jagged rock in the centre that looked vaguely like a throne. The rock that was Chrysalis’ throne was definitely something different than the rest of the hive was made out of, though I’m not sure what…

“Is there no saving it?” the drone asked, looking directly at the throne.

“The magic in the rock is dying, soon others will be able to use their magic here, and we shall be vulnerable,” Chrysalis solemnly confirmed, though I wasn’t exactly following what she meant. “Which further highlights the necessity of what we must do to survive.”

“My Queen?” the drone asked questioningly. “What is it? What do you mean?”

“If we could understand the new technology preventing us from thriving, their security and tactics, we could finally adapt our own methods to get around them more effectively,” Chrysalis mused. “But stealing anything worthwhile has been an uphill battle. We need a pony to take us through it, one who understands them.”

“We’ve tried taking ponies who hold such knowledge,” the drone pointed out. “The last group we sent was publicly executed.”

“I know,” Chrysalis replied, her wings buzzing as she hopped up on her throne and looked down upon her subject. “I wasn’t speaking of taking such a pony by force. No, we have tried and failed. If we want a guaranteed future, we must ally with Equestria.”

The drone froze, his eyes going wide as he gaped at m- Chrysalis like she had grown a second head. “My Queen! Ally with Equestria!? They would never accept such a thing!”

“Oh, I think they will,” Chrysalis said with a small purr in her voice. “As I said, all we need is an understanding of their tactics and technologies, and perhaps use of the latter. And when our infiltrators are trained to counteract what we currently cannot, they will be most effective. The ponies could use that. I think the Ministry of Awesome would be most interested.”

“The MOA?” the drone muttered with a frown. “But they don’t do anything…”

“And I can be a lowly pony walking through Manehatten, completely unnoticed,” Chrysalis said with a knowing chuckle. “They may fool their own populace, but they can’t fool me.”

The drone didn’t seem sure, but he didn’t voice any opinion of his own. Instead, he simply listened as the Changeling Queen continued.

“Yes, they could use us,” Chrysalis said with certainty. “And as much as I hold no love for those love hoarding rats, we sadly need them. In return for our allying with them again the zebras we demand a steady supply of love energy, and perhaps even a hive befitting our new station. Hm, and I’m sure they won’t mind if we use… excessive love collection techniques on their enemies.”

“If you believe it best…” the drone stated. “But, my Queen… How do we approach them? We have been enemies ever since the wedding. Who would listen?”

I felt Chrysalis lean back in her throne, gazing upwards almost wistfully. “I think I know one who couldn’t resist all we have to offer…”

But Chrysalis didn’t clarify any further, and instead she looked back towards the drone again. It was then, to my surprise, I felt her heart clench once more. She closed her eyes, and I could feel… Wait, were those tears?

“I must do this…” Chrysalis muttered. “For Insidiis’ sake.”

I gave a sharp intake of breath as I was ejected from the memory. I scrambled up to my hooves, quickly checking the area to make sure everything was where I had left it.

Stripe and Cobalt jumped at my awakening, though I couldn’t see anything else around. They seemed to have been talking to one another, though now they fixed me with looks of concern.

“Scrap Heap, are you alright?” Stripe asked worriedly, getting to her hooves and approaching me. “You were in there for some time.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good,” I assured them, regaining my bearings and calming myself. “Just… didn’t expect that particular memory.”

It’d been the beginning. The start of the changelings’ journey to Stable 84, and their own part in the end of the world. They’d been starving, desperate. They sought an alliance out of necessity above all else, not because they truly wished it.

And for the sake of ‘Insidiis’, whoever the hay that was.

Footnote: Level 13

New Perk: Ferocious Loyalty - When you drop below 50% HP, companions gain +50% DR.

15 - Poison

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Chapter Fifteen: Poison

“My village was a sanctuary of equality, where nopony's cutie mark allowed them to feel superior! It was a special place, and you and your friends took it away!”

The hive remained on my mind for the next couple of days.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about them, you know? How desperate they had been, how they had to ally with a hated enemy simply to survive. And how the alliance had led to them being buried deep underground in a fallout shelter for two centuries.

Look, from what Cobalt has told me about them I know they were once meant to be a big evil who just wanted to use us as love batteries… in a non-feel good way. But I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them; it seemed that life had given them shit cards even before the apocalypse. I don’t know, maybe it’d been their own fault, but… Ugh, I just don’t know.

Would we find them there? An empty stable? Bones?

I wasn’t even sure why I was beginning to care so much. I was in it for the caps, after all! Just had to get what I needed, that was all… Heh…

Dammit.

Well, at least we were almost there if my PipBuck’s map was accurate. And it hadn’t given me a reason to doubt it yet. Actually, just another couple minutes’ walk. There wasn’t anything around us for miles, and we hadn’t seen a single road in a whole day. No buildings. No signs of pre-war civilisation anywhere. Just rocks and dirt for as far as the eye could see.

It was enough to make me appreciate just how empty it was up here. I mean, go south a little more and you couldn’t take a dump without running into either a trade caravan or a nosy raider. We hadn’t even seen a single one of the latter these past couple of days. I guess it was a symptom of the lack of settlements. Huh, I guess ponies really are put off by the cold further up, there wasn’t a lack of population to the west, east, south or central Equestria.

Not that there was literally nothing out here, Red Eye’s forces had proven that. And damn I bet they were surprised to see us, though. Things just seemed to be… scarcer north of Canterlot.

“What’s the deal with this place, Cobalt?”

The unicorn looked back towards me, not breaking his stride. “Wah?”

“This place, all of this,” I said, gesturing to the everything, or lack thereof, around me. “This place. The other day you said that there aren’t really any settlements up here between what used to be Our Town and Vanhoover. Why is that?”

“Aside from the cold?”

“It’s no colder in this place than many other places,” Stripe noted. “Just near Haven is where you can feel the drop in temperature.”

“True,” he conceded. “Well, I guess just because it was one of the less populated areas of Equestria, at least for the civilian population. I mean, from here we have Vanhoover directly west, what used to be Our Town to the east, the Empire to the north and Canterlot due south. And in between it all we have three major pre-war towns and not much else.”

“Haven and Prosperity,” Stripe noted. “But what is the third?”

“Buckingham,” Cobalt answered. “According to our files at Tenpony, it was the biggest pre-war town in the area. Had big factories churning out guns and supplies for the war effort.”

“It must have made an inviting target for the Zebra Empire,” Stripe stated.

“A few battles were fought around here, though not nearly as many as near Hoofington,” Cobalt explained. “Aside from the military presence, you would have seen a few mining operations too. Of course, all that was abandoned after the last day. Any survivor settlements made since up here fell to ruin, leaving only gangs.”

“We haven’t seen those either in a while,” I pointed out.

“I was almost expecting to see a group up in Haven, though I guess between the griffons and the ghouls…” Cobalt trailed off. “Still, probably a few holed up in the other town, and maybe the odd building off the beaten path. Here, though, nothing.”

“But Stable 84,” I concluded.

Makes sense it was here, I doubt Chrysalis would like her hive under a major population centre were simple roadworks could cause some major headaches. I guess if I was her, I would’ve also set up in one of the least populated areas in Equestria.

Speaking of…

Ding.

We had just come to a small dip in the terrain when my PipBuck’s HUD had made that dinging sound it always made when I found something important. And this time, the name the scrolled out in my visions was something very specific…

Stable 84.

We were here. We were actually here! Somewhere were… I couldn’t actually see just yet.

“It’s here somewhere,” I informed the others. “We’re right on top of it.”

I led the way as we made our way down the hill, entering what was essentially a big misshapen bowl in the ground with an outcropping of rock resting up against the most vertical surface of the bowl. As we got closer to the outcropping, a dark shadow across it was revealed not to be a shadow at all. Rather, it was a pitch-black entrance to some kind of cave.

“That looks promising,” Cobalt commented as we slowly trotted out way over the mouth of the cave. “Anything underground screams ‘stable’ to me.”

“Well, there is also a hive,” I reminded him.

“I haven’t forgotten, all the more… promising…”

We froze, stopping mere feet from the dark expanse that was probably the entrance to the Equestrian Hive.

Now, why would we stop so suddenly? I mean, we were so close! Here it was, the very thing we had been looking for! I mean, what could possibly prevent us from immediately jumping into a big, dark and scary looking cave?

Try a group of mangled Steel Ranger corpses.

“Holy shit.”

The bodies were largely concealed by the darkness inside, but now we were close we could clearly make out their shapes and features. There were five of them, their power armour busted open in several places with scraps of it strewn all over the cave’s entranceway.

I took a step forward, trying to hold onto my rapidly fleeing nerves as I picked up a stray helmet and-

Not stray! There’s a skull inside that thing!

“Gah!” I threw that fucking thing back into the cave! Judging by the smashed visor, it was trashed beyond repair anyway.

I just wished the impact hadn’t caused the skull to come rolling out…

“Oh Scrap Heap, you take us to the most lovely of locations,” Stripe said with far more amusement than I was comfortable with right now!

“Stripe, they’re Steel Rangers! Something that could take them out like that, I don’t want to meet it.”

Cobalt hummed, kneeling beside some of the skeletons and picking up a few pieces of broken armour. “Whatever it was, it tore their armour to shreds. They’ve been here a while, and I don’t think their weapons are in working condition anymore.”

Yeah, I had to agree. Their battle saddles were mangled with the rest of their armour, the only one that seemed even remotely fixable was…

Wait, was that what I thought it was…?

Oh dear Celestia… It was!

“Hey guys, look at-”

And then I was flying.

Why was I flying!?

All my breath was forced from my body as I smashed into one of the rocky surfaces of the cave entrance and- Yes, PipBuck, I felt those ribs being snapped too…

CRACK.

I heard the sound of Stripe’s rifle while, well… the world was swimming, and everything really hurt. Really, this wasn’t fun. At all.

Ouch.

Turning was painful, but I reached out to my saddlebags and fumbled for a healing potion. The moment I found one, I was able to down it quickly as my ribs began to pop themselves back together.

Oh yeah, that still hurt.

My PipBuck wasn’t showing any warnings at least, but every single part of my torso was still in ridiculous amounts of pain! How many ribs did I bust just then? Well, Med-X it is…

I had just finished giving myself a partial dose from the syringe when I looked back out of the cave, where there were two green bars on my E.F.S. and a single red one…

A red one belonging to a familiar ghoul who had my friends pinned telekinetically to the ground.

“Starlight!” I shouted, and I immediately pulled out my shotgun before approaching the ghoul – though not too close. “Let them go!”

That mare was here… I could hardly believe it. Had she been looking for us ever since Our Town? She must have been. Tenacious…

And insane.

My friends were both struggling against their confines, though they could barely move beneath her magic. Stripe’s rifle lay at Starlight’s hooves, and as I studied the ghoul herself…

She’d ditched the cloak, and I could see more of her light purple coat clinging to her dried skin. Her main and tail were both in battered tufts, her milky eyes glaring dagger at me. And then there was…

That bitch.

“Lose the equals sign?” I could barely see it among what was left of her coat, but it was there. Her cutie mark.

Starlight, on her part, just growled.

Actually, that almost sounded feral…

“You… I’ve got you…” the ghoul said through gritted teeth. “You ruined everything! My village is gone! Everypony ran away! You… monsters!”

“Says one who enslaved ponies over generations, preaching a philosophy she did not practice,” Stripe taunted despite her restraints.

“Fool, I needed my mark to take theirs away!” Starlight Glimmer retorted. “It wouldn’t have worked otherwise!”

Wait, what?

“But… the staff…”

“Was a stick I found in a desert!” Oh shit… “I never needed it! But I couldn’t let them know I had my mark, they would have… I couldn’t have! But I never needed it! So now I’ll take your marks, my little ponies!”

S.A.T.S. engaged!

I targeted her horn, which was brightening as she prepared her spell. Not today, Glimmy!

I engaged the spell, and… click?

Starlight just smirked at me, wait… Had she engaged my safety?

Plan B!

Starlight yelped as I threw my shotgun in her face, drawing my pistol as she clutched her newly bleeding muzzle.

Likewise, as she stumbled her grip on my friends also faltered. It was enough that they were able to break free, each rolling away from the insane mare as Stripe made sure to grab her rifle as she did so.

I wasted no more time in lifting my pistol and firing.

Starlight gave an enraged shriek as a shield formed around herself, absorbing gunfire from myself and Stripe and a few magic bolts from Cobalt. How strong could her shield be? If we just kept up out fire long enough…

Then we had to reload.

The moment the gunfire stopped, Starlight released her shield and shot towards us! Cobalt was first, and he tried to raise a magical barrier to intercept her. She, however, just charged her horn with some kind of spell that allowed her to barge straight through the barrier like it was a paper bag!

I reloaded my gun as Stripe did, only for me to be knocked to the ground as I was hit by a tactical Cobalt!

Stripe was next, and just as she raised her gun to fire she was hit by a magic bolt that sent her weapon again from her grasp. Stripe gave a shout of frustration as she moved to hit Starlight, only to be picked up like a doll and casually thrown clean out of the bowl!

“How powerful is this psychopath!?”

With Cobalt still recovering, Starlight charged directly at me as I got up to my hooves. I didn’t even have time to ready my pistol as she knocked it aside and telekinetically slammed me back onto the ground.

Oh, I was going to need more Med-X…

She smirked as she stood over me, preparing that spell! Distraction time!

“So, you tricked an entire town into being your slaves, preaching equality while you were always secretly superior?” I asked, getting the desired response as she went wide-eyed, her horn faltering. “Explains why your house wasn’t in the two rows the rest were. Unequal to the last!”

“QUIET!” she bellowed, slamming me down again. Ouch. “I had to! It was for the best!”

“For them, or for you!?” Cobalt demanded to know as he let off a magic bolt into the side of Starlight’s head. It wasn’t lethal, but it was enough to create a severe burn as Starlight fell with a screech of pain.

This was our chance!

I snatched up my pistol and opened fire, Starlight was only able to create a half-shield to block them after the first bullet bit into her hide. Her eyes were burning with fury, the ghoul opening her mouth to either scream or say something, I would never find out due to the zebra that bucked her to the ground.

Yeah, how does it feel to have broken ribs!

My elation was short-lived, however, as Starlight gave a shout as her horn lit up again. While still sprawled out on the ground, bleeding heavily, she unleashed one hell of a magical beam trailing across the landscape!

We were all forced to dive to the ground, as we struggled to avoid being sliced in two by her wild beam, the attack leaving a scorched trailed wherever it went.

“YOU WON’T TAKE MY HOME FROM ME!” Starlight screamed, releasing her beam and unsteadily rising back to her hooves. “I WILL REMAKE IT, AND YOU WILL BE MY FIRST SUBJECTS!”

“Subjects? She fancies herself a princess then,” Stripe said mockingly, she and the rest of us getting back up. “Foolish pony, I thought all were meant to be equal.”

Starlight’s eye twitched, and we took that moment to open fire.

Starlight placed up her shield again, but it clearly wasn’t as strong as before. She was severely burnt, was shot, had broken ribs and had a horn probably about to burn out after that uncontrolled beam she let loose. Oh, and I found my shotgun! Stripe and Cobalt continued to take shots at the shield, while I began alternating between my pistol and shotgun whenever I had to reload, she wouldn’t get us the same way twice!

And from the first volley of gunfire, the difference to before was immediate. She was clearly struggling to maintain the shield, slowly taking steps back in a feeble attempt to flee, moving backwards all the way to the mouth of the cave. Her shield was flickering, and she was clearly in considerable pain. Any second…

“ENOUGH!”

Before I could even register what was happening, her shield was propelled outwards and knocked me back onto my ass! And then I felt a familiar sensation come over me as I was lifted into the air and slammed back to the ground again. I couldn’t move, my limbs were locked up! No matter how much I struggled, there was nothing I could do. And a quick glance around showed that my friends were in the same predicament as I was.

And there stood Starlight Glimmer, panting heavily as her horn glowed brighter than any horn I’d ever seen!

“Idiot! You’re past burnout! You’ll kill yourself!” Cobalt shouted.

“Just. Stay. Still!”

And then I felt it, it was strange, kinda like- GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

This was… BEYOND PAINFUL. It was like… like her magic was tearing at my soul! I could feel her magic scooping into me, beginning to peel my cutie mark away!

And she was making it slow.

“S-stop!”

“We shall rebuild our home, together,” Starlight said with a crazed, feral smile. “You won’t leave me. Your cutie marks won’t take you away, you shall always be devoted to me. Cutie marks shall not interfere, not like they did with Sunburst.”

Who the fuck was Sunburst!?

Another red bar appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

My cutie mark was nearly gone now, and I could feel something… sickly being poured inside me. Get it out! Get it out!

A shadow raised above Starlight, but she was too entranced by our suffering to notice.

“I will keep you safe, and you will love me…” Starlight said almost dreamily. “Love me like he never could…”

There was surprisingly little blood as the stinger erupted through her eye socket.

Sweet relief as the magic subsided, my cutie mark returning to its rightful place on my ass! Scrap metal, I’ll never take you for granted again!

My friends were also released, both looking relieved to have their respective cutie mark and zebra glyph intact. We all got to our hooves, retrieving our weapons as we examined our saviour.

Starlight Glimmer still stood on her hooves, lifeless, her bar having long blinked out. And… oh dear Celestia, I just saw what that stinger belonged to. Following from the barb impaled through the ghoul’s skull, I could see it led up to a very large tale that ended in, well, only the largest fucking radscorpion I’ve ever seen.

“Ah,” Stripe mused. “That would be what killed the Rangers, no?”

The monster whipped its tail, and Starlight’s corpse was flung unceremoniously out of sight. Then, it turned to look at us.

Uh oh.

“Scatter!”

I barely dodged away as a massive pincer sought to claim my head! I ran a good few metres before turning and opening fire on the massive behemoth of a scorpion! My bullets seemed to just ping off the creature’s natural armour as it casually struck its tail at me. I entered S.A.T.S. for a moment, just to gain my bearings. When I cancelled the spell I ducked to the side, flinching as the stinger embedded in the dirt and sprayed mud all over me.

This was not how I thought this day was going to go!

“Its armour is to thick!” Stripe shouted as she fired a shot to gain its attention. “Go for the eyes!”

Eyes. Easier said than done, especially when it turns its back to you!

It swung its tail around, and while Cobalt’s shield took most of the impact it didn’t stop him from being bounced across the ground like a really misshapen bouncy ball.

CRACK.

Stripe followed that shot with another as the creature began to bear down on her, and I’d be damned if I was going to sit here like an idiot! I holstered my pistol and brought my shotgun to bear, running up behind the monster and ducking down beneath its massive body. I moved between its many creepy legs and rolled out in from of the creature’s butt ugly face!

Into S.A.T.S. I went, and there went some of its eyes!

Oh, it has a lot of those too…

The radscorpion gave an enraged roar as puss and blood seeped from the eyes I’d ruptured with my shotgun blast. I had to move fast to avoid its flurry of strikes, but I couldn’t avoid being slapped to the floor by a radscorpion equivalent to a backhoof slap!

You know, as I laid there on the floor, I was beginning to realise that it and I had become too acquainted as of late…

I heard an animalistic growl above me as I rolled onto my back, looking up at a stinger readying to strike.

CRACK.

Another one of the monster’s eyes went, and it retracted with a screech. I turned as it did, seeing Stripe with her sniper rifle held firmly in her hooves.

“Leave him be, monster!”

CRACK.

Another eye.

I got back to my hooves, bringing my shotgun to bear as we each began to pepper the monster with bullets. It still had enough eyes to see, though we were doing our best to put an end to that!

This thing really needs to just die!

But its armour was still too thick, and it was wising up about its eyes, protecting them with its claws whenever we got a clear shot! Smart bastard.

This thing had torn apart a group of power armoured Steel Rangers, how were we ever-

Steel Rangers.

Oh yeah!

I avoided another jab from the creature and rolled underneath it, running directly for the cave entrance and Stripe kept it busy! Oh, and I passed a groggy Cobalt on the way.

“Ow…” he moaned, clutching his head.

“Moan later!” I told him as I shoved my shotgun into his bewildered hooves. “Go help Stripe, I got this!”

“Celestia help us all…” he muttered, reluctantly taking my gun and moving to keep the thing occupied.

With the radscorpion busy, I got to work. It was exactly where I had left it, in the middle of the dead rangers in a sorry state.

The balefire egg launcher.

It still had a single balefire egg loaded in, and I was a little nervous at its stability. Clearly, they’d tried to use it against the scorpion, but died before they could. The launcher itself was not in any kind of working condition, but I was quite good and fixing stuff!

I recovered as many parts as I had on me from my saddlebags, also scrounging anything I could from the armour and weapons of the dead rangers. Small parts, large parts, all came together as I carefully unloaded the balefire egg and held up its launcher in my magic. It was a rugged looking thing, about the length of a rocket launcher while being little more than an overcomplicated slingshot really. Its launch mechanism was broken, so I replaced that first to the ambience of gunfire and giant monster roars. Once that was working, I replaced the trigger and ensured that all the inner working were functioning correctly. I didn’t want this thing to detonate over me!

“SCRAP HEAP!”

Yes! I know! You can’t rush these things!

Still, it looked like it would function… once. Honestly, the weapon was rusted to all heck. I was seventy percent confident that my repairs would allow it to fire, but I was betting it would crumple from the force of it.

Well, here goes.

From the corner of my eye came a shotgun blast, before Cobalt was knocked back to the ground. The creature chose to ignore him and go for Stripe, and I lifted the launcher up in my magic, resting it on my shoulder as I took aim and-

The monster pounced towards Stripe, she was too close to it! Worse, it had her backed up and cornered, the zebra lifting her rifle to strike at its eyes again. Only this time, the creature used a claw to batter the weapon aside before it struck out with its tail and drove its stinger into her torso.

NO!

That fucking monster then retracted its stinger and let her slump to the ground. But I could still see her bar, she was alive! But I couldn’t fire while she was there… Dammit!

Then I saw a blue blur role beneath the mutated monstrosity and unleash a shotgun blast to its face! Cobalt telekinetically grabbed the discarded sniper and then jumped onto Stripe, a single loud POP later and they had both teleported next to me.

I engaged S.A.T.S. immediately, targeted the monster wherever had the highest percentage with a single shot, and then fired.

The balefire egg was propelled forwards, and as I predicted the weapons crumbled to pieces a moment later. But it had done its job, and on contact with the creature, the balefire egg unleashed a magnificent explosion of green that sent me back to the dear old ground during the shockwave. The mushroom cloud encompassed the bowl, before clearing away as my PipBuck clicked away from the presence of radiation.

And the radscorpion was nowhere to be seen.

“Nice thinking,” Cobalt muttered as he dragged a healing potion from the bag and poured it down Stripe’s throat. The massive hole in her barrel began to close up, though she only groaned in pain as she began to sweat buckets.

“She’s poisoned, right?” I asked. Celestia dammit! I wasn’t letting her die!

Cobalt nodded, his eyes full of worry. “Yes, I’d say so. And we don’t have any antidotes.”

“M-maybe another healing potion…”

“It won’t help, those things don’t cure poisons,” Cobalt shot me down so cruelly… “Scrap Heap, if she doesn’t get an antidote for the poison soon she’s going to die. And the closest clinic is days away…”

She was going to… die? No. NO! I refuse! FUCK YOU, WASTELAND! I. Refuse. YOU!

There had to be a way. Taking a look at our surroundings, I couldn’t see much we could use. The Steel Rangers came up empty, and the radiation was still present from the blast, eating away at us. We had all our weapons, though ammo was getting low again. Three healing potions… I had Cobalt give Stripe the last of the Med-X. Damn it…

I looked into the cave, deep into the hive that held Stable 84.

Stable 84…

The stable will have a clinic, right?

I grunted as I lifted Stripe onto my back and stood up, Cobalt looking at me in bewilderment.

“What are you doing?”

“That stable is her only chance!” And if we didn’t make it in time… “If there are changelings, we’ll make them help us! If not, we’ll do it ourselves. Got it!”

Cobalt stood there for a moment, just looking at me as if I had grown a second head. I had no time for hesitation, and I hoped my glare made that perfectly clear!

He seemed to get the message, giving me a nod.

“Good, let’s go.”

I kept my pistol holstered as I began to move into the hive, keeping my shotgun at the ready for anything that may be inside. Cobalt followed my lead as we entered the abyss, moving through the monster’s lair and into the hive beyond.

I was going to save my friend. Celestia help anyone who tried to stop me.

Footnote: Level 14

New Perk: Cutie Mark Appreciation – Your near loss of your cutie mark has left you with a newfound appreciation for it. Scrap metal is now worth 20% more during barter, and you will find 10% more scrap metal in containers.

16 - The Equestrian Hive

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Chapter Sixteen: The Equestrian Hive

“As Queen of the Changelings, it is up to me to find food for my subjects. Equestria has more love than any place I've ever encountered. My fellow changelings will be able to devour so much of it that we will gain more power than we have ever dreamed of!”

It didn’t take long, traversing through the dark cave with only the light of our horns and my PipBuck to light the way, before we came across the door.

It was a very big door.

It was easily the size of five ponies lengthways, made out of a black stone with intricate green detailing that almost looked like vines spread all over it. It just cut off the dark, jagged surfaces of the cave. The border where it ended and the hive truly began.

And it was open.

“So… has somepony been here or did a changeling forget to close up shop when the world went to shit?” I asked towards nopony in particular.

“Probably the latter,” Cobalt muttered as he approached the door, studying the vine-like detailing. “No denying this is the place though.”

A pained groan came from Stripe, still unconscious as she laid on my back. I could feel her fever from the contact, and I couldn’t stop that pit in my stomach from sinking further. If I didn’t get her to the stable in time…

No, I couldn’t think of that. I just had to do it. I had to!

“The stable is at the bottom of this place, right?” I asked, approaching the door.

“You saw the memory orb,” Cobalt confirmed.

I nodded, creeping towards the open gap and slowly peeking through. I couldn’t see anything on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, but it was also quite dark inside. I’ve got to admit, my basic light spell didn’t even give as much light as Cobalt’s or even the PipBuck lamp. But come on, it was the only other spell I knew beyond my levitation, and I wasn’t an avid magic user like Cobalt.

But my horn wasn’t casting much light into the entrance of the hive, so I stuck my foreleg in.

Fuck my life! What’s with all the desiccated remains today!?

There were about a dozen skeletons inside, though from my position in the doorway I couldn’t see if they were ponies or not…

“Bodies,” I warned Cobalt. “A lot of em’.”

He silently acknowledged me as I crept my way in. I shone my PipBuck over the remains as I approached, and on closer inspection, I could see they definitely weren’t ponies.

No ponies had blade-like horns like these skulls had.

“Changelings…” Cobalt saw fit to mutter the obvious. Thanks, buddy. “What happened to them?”

“You’re asking me…?” I muttered in response, shining my PipBuck map around the rest of the room.

The entrance hall was large but empty. Three separate passages spanned off around us, the structure being made out of the same dark brick and chitin-like substance I saw in Chrysalis’ memory orb.

Somehow, in this maze, we had to find our way down. Stripe’s life depended on it.

“Which way…” I muttered as I looked towards my E.F.S., seeing the blinking objective marker pointing down the passage directly ahead.

“It’s down here. Come on,” I informed Cobalt, not even letting him respond before I was moving at a fast trot down the corridor.

The entire hive was dark, silent as the grave. The only sounds were our hooves echoing off the walls, and Stripe’s haggard breathing.

Damn it, she was only here because of me. I’d asked her to come along, nagged her until she did. Now she was going to die down here, painfully, and in the dark deep… Fuck that. Damn it! Those caps, that scrap, that house wasn’t worth her life! She was too good to die here, and I wouldn’t allow it!

She was here because of me, and she would be leaving here with me.

If willpower could keep a person alive, then I was doing my damned best to give her all the willpower I had.

“Scrap Heap…?” Cobalt said questioningly, though I kept my teeth gritted and my eyes directly ahead.

Just had to keep moving… No stopping, no curiosity. Just get to Stable 84, save Stripe, and then everything would be great. Wonderful even. Just save her.

“Scrap,” Cobalt said far more firmly. Was he trying to piss me off!?

“What?!” I hissed back at him, keeping my eyes firmly ahead.

“That wasn’t your fault, you know,” Cobalt said as if he knew what the fuck he was on about. Stupid Twilight Society prick.

“What? Should I blame you instead?” I asked him, getting silence in return. “Didn’t think so. I convinced her to come, even when she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It’s my fault.”

“I led us to Our Town, and I blamed myself for that,” Cobalt retorted. “And yet you went and talked me out of that. You couldn’t have known about a crazy giant radscoprion which had moved into the cave in the last two hundred years.”

My PipBuck’s clicking increased a bit, and I could just feel Cobalt’s eyes turn towards it.

“And with all the radiation, little wonder it grew so big,” Cobalt pointed out. “But you saved us with that balefire egg. We’d all be dead if you hadn’t thought to repair that launcher.”

“And she still might die anyway.”

“People die in the wasteland,” Cobalt said. As I said; a prick. “It’s horrible, I know. But you’ve lived out here your whole life, while I’ve only been out here since we met, and yet I know that. You must have had this kind of thing happen.”

“Nope. Never.”

“Seriously? You’ve never once lost a friend out here?”

“You have to have friends to lose them.”

I glanced back at Cobalt, his mouth open as if to give a reply… before he shut it again, the stallion blinking at me.

“What, Cobalt? You think you’re the only one?”

“Well… with how you and Stripe seemed to be all chummy when we first met…”

“We weren’t friends then,” I rebuffed. “We’d just met, earlier that day in fact! And then Our Town happened. But before that, I was just a couple of working hooves to my folks, and when they died I was all about number one. I didn’t have any friends… until Stripe.”

I scrunched my eyes up, blinking away some forming tears.

“But even before then, she was always going on about my heart. About how I was better than I made myself out to be. I was already struggling with that, ever since that Calamity guy saved my life for no reason other than I was in trouble…” Goddesses, why did friendship have to hurt… “I’d never really thought about it before then. Heroics were stupid, just look out for yourself and don’t bother! And yet she believes there’s something beneath the stupid useless scavenger going about his stupid useless existence with no point being in the world!”

I didn’t like that look Cobalt was giving me. It almost looked like pity. Maybe sympathy. Maybe both. I couldn’t tell; but screw it, I just didn’t like that look.

“Nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. Hell, I didn’t even want to hear it. But she believed anyway…” I gave a humourless laugh. “And I’ve led her to her death. Shows how much she knows!”

I kept expecting Cobalt to butt in at any second, to make some remark that would annoy me or something. But he just remained silent, and we were back to listening to our hooves echoing and our own breathing. Gah, this was maddening! This place… it couldn’t be too large, right? Or it had to at least have a signpost or two. Something!

Or else…

“Fuck. She was the one who was out here wanting to help people. Not me…” I muttered. “She’s the good one. Goddesses, I can’t let her die.”

Silence, and then…

“We won’t,” Cobalt finally said. “And she’s right, you know. You are a better person than you give yourself credit for.”

“Yeah, and how do you figure that?”

“You wanted to help the ponies of Our Town. Before they tried to kill us, anyway,” Cobalt said. “Most ponies would have left without a single thought of helping out. You were concerned about what the Twilight Society would do, and if it was dangerous. You called me a friend, even though I was a complete dick when we first met. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt sympathy for these changelings.”

I guess he’s got me there…

“But most of all, you want to help your friend,” Cobalt stated. “You care. And that’s a good thing. But, Scrap Heap, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to be the person Stripe sees in you or a scavenger after a simple bag of caps.”

I stopped, turning to stare at Cobalt. Scavenger or hero. To spend my days looking for that next payday, or to go around helping people like the Stable Dweller or Security Mare. This job was always about the caps… But, could I say I was the same stallion who’d gotten that PipBuck in New Appleoosa?

I just didn’t know anymore…

I sighed. “Let’s just keep moving. But, thanks for the talk.”

“It’s as you warned me; whiplash,” he remarked as we continued trotting forwards. “And if it’s any consolation, I think she likes you too.”

Well, we’d already decided we were friends. Wait, what was that smile he was giving me?

And why did I like it even less than the pity look…?

We didn’t talk anymore after that, heading deeper and deeper into the hive while following my objective marker all the way. I didn’t know how long we had been walking for, but we didn’t stray from the path. There were plenty of other corridors, rooms and bones around us, but we didn’t deviate to investigate. Stable 84 was my priority, nothing else.

At least until that red bar appeared…

And that thing jumped at me from the darkness!

I didn’t even think as I let off a shotgun blast, spraying the walls around us with gore as the thing that had rushed me got shredded.

We stood ramrod as the body skidded to a halt, lying limp on the ground. It was a changeling…

Or, at least, it had been a changeling.

Its eyes, instead of the bright blue I’d seen in the memory orbs I’d used, were milky and dead. Its chitin seemed to have turned a greyer colour than the dark black other changelings had, it was missing both its wings and had chitin missing in various places while exposing the rotting and twisted flesh beneath.

“Changeling feral ghouls?” I questioned, kicking the dead creature lightly.

“That counter hasn’t stopped since we got here,” Cobalt said, gesturing at my clicking PipBuck. “And with all these skeletons… Maybe these changelings were away from the hive when the bombs fell and made it back home only to die of radiation before reaching the stable.”

“Or turning into ferals,” I finished, bringing my PipBuck up to look at the radiation counter. “My rad count has moved from the green to yellow.”

“Right, take this,” he said as he retrieved a RadAway from his saddlebags and hoofed it over to me. “Into that room, just for a moment, in case more come.”

We slipped into a nearby doorway, stepping inside before I gently laid Stripe down onto the floor. I then drank the vaguely orange tasting putrid liquid down, doing my best not to gag. Cobalt had retrieved a second one he’d fed to Stripe, who stirred slightly at the terrible tasting stuff, before taking one himself.

My rads dropped to a more acceptable level.

“We’d best be quick, we don’t have many of those,” Cobalt noted, before looking around the room. “Is this a bedroom?”

Now that I looked at it, this room was indeed a large bedroom. A king-sized bed lay at the very end, the sheets long rotted and full of holes. On the walls were various shelves full of Knick-knacks, mostly archaic looking weapons and armour pieces of changeling design. I presumed, anyway. There were also a few cabinets as well as a bedside table with a drawer.

“Let’s have a quick look, see if there’s anything usable,” I suggested. “Who knows, we might get lucky and find some RadAway.”

But as we looked through the cabinets, there was no RadAway. We did find a healing potion, so that was a win! A couple of bottle caps too, not sure what they were doing in there though…

Aside from that, however, there was nothing of use. And in the end there was only one more place to look, that being in the drawer of the bedside table. I approached the piece of furniture, giving the bed a cursory glance as I went. Any comfort that thing had was definitely long gone… But still, it was no matter. I opened the drawer and had a look inside, finding only a single object inside. An object I was developing a knack for finding, apparently…

“Another memory orb,” I informed Cobalt with a frown.

Oh, but this one had a tag!

“For her majesty, Queen Chrysalis,” I began to read. Wait, so does that mean that this was Chrysalis’ room? “Legate Wrede, assassination.”

“Sounds almost like a mission report for the Queen,” Cobalt noted. “Stick it in your bag, we can look later.”

“I wasn’t exactly about to go memory diving with my friend dying on the floor,” I muttered dryly, sticking the memory orb into my saddlebag.

I returned to Stripe, who was still unconscious. I lifted her gently and placed her onto my back again, moving towards the door.

The moment I opened the door and found myself face-to-face with a changeling ghoul I realised I should have checked my E.F.S. before stepping outside.

Whoops.

BLAM.

I blew the ghoul away in a second, its body crumpling down to the floor.

Which only caused the rest to hiss at me, and oh, they had big fangs. They seemed so much bigger outside the memory orb, too…

I engaged S.A.T.S. before they could get any closer, counting five immediately outside the doorway. I targeted three, and once I engaged the spell I quickly took all of them out. The final two gave a shriek as they ran forwards towards me, only for them to be hit by two bolts of magic from Cobalt. The first had half its skull blown off by the magic bullet, the second stumbled to the floor where another shotgun blast finished it off.

“Nicely done,” Cobalt complimented, before gesturing down the hall. “But we’ve woken the hive!”

Two more were running down the corridor towards us… from the direction we needed to go.

Well, I did say nothing would stop me…

I took a shotgun shell into one of the ghouls as Cobalt used a magic bullet to take down the other.

And then we started to run.

We ran forwards, keeping to the map marker as I tried to keep Stripe firmly on my back despite the speed increase. There were who knows how many ghouls in this place, we had to get to that stable now!

Speaking of ghouls…

Right! I let of another shotgun blast that took off the front legs of a ghoul, and it couldn’t crawl fast enough to follow us.

Left! Cobalt took that one. Those magic bullets did have their uses…

Three more gave their undead screams as they began to pursue us, but with a doorway ahead we just kept on running until we barged through them! We then turned, and I entered S.A.T.S. to target all three. We both fired into the group, rendering them into bloody pieces as my shotgun shells and his magic bullets tore into them.

And then we turned to see where the marker had taken us…

Wow.

It was a huge cavernous space, a multistore structure spanning far beneath us, with us being on the very top floor. Unlike the rest of the hive, also, this place seemed to be getting some power. Electronic lights, and some other weirder light sources, lit up the place so brightly I imagined this was what the sun was like. Huge chitinous pillar spread down from the roof, floor to floor, as if they were all that was keeping the thing from caving in. This definitely felt like a hive… and the local residents weren’t happy with us.

Just looking down into the dizzying abyss, I could see the bones of those who’d failed to make it to the stable, some further down than others, depending on which of them succumbed to the radiation first.

Same went for the ferals.

“There were more changelings outside the hive than I would have thought…” I muttered.

“Clearly they were in high demand,” Cobalt joked.

The hive structure was clearly designed for creatures with wings, though we did locate a set of stairs. Probably put there for pony visitors, though they probably never had us in mind.

We very quickly began to rush down the stairs, Cobalt using his magic to help keep Stripe steady. Oh Celestia, I swear she was emitting more and more heat, that fever was not getting better…

Several of the floors we passed did have a few ghouls milling about amongst the bones of their dead friends. They’d probably all been infiltrators, working with Equestria against the zebras. Now they were mindless zombies. None of them seemed to notice us rush by, either, too busy staring off into space like a foal being taught maths. We didn’t stop, couldn’t, not if the fever was worsening. We kept moving onwards, floor after floor, deeper and deeper into the hive beneath the ground. And then, at long last, the staircase came to an end. The bottom was a smooth, flat surface with only a single doorway leading anywhere.

And the map marker was pointing to that doorway.

I drew my pistol and shot the nearest feral in the head, content to conserve what little was left of my shotgun shells. Cobalt helped me take out the last few, quick and clean before we moved towards that doorway.

See? Small groups of ghouls are manageable, unlike that ridiculous horde back in Haven.

We proceeded through the doorway, moving out into a long and yet familiar corridor. Well, I mean, the corridor appeared almost the same as every other corridor I’d seen in the hive, but…

We emerged from the corridor into a familiar, cavernous chamber.

So I was right, this was the same place from that first memory orb…

And there, right before us, sat the large cogwheel entrance of Stable 84.

There it was... Wow, we’d made it. After all of that, we’d finally made it. The door certainly looked a fair bit grimier than I’d seen in the memory orb, but in that the door had been brand new. It’s been two hundred years ago, but this was the here and now. The large room was free of skeletons or ghouls, the large cog silent and foreboding. The last thing between us and medical help for Stripe.

Cobalt approached the door slowly, an almost disbelieving expression on his face. He looked up at the faded ‘84’ displayed proudly in the centre of the stable door, before he moved over the control panel.

“Get us inside,” I asked of him. “You remember the password, right?”

“Of course,” he said as he turned the console’s display on, the screen flickering to life. “Hm, the last opening was the day the bombs fell…”

I guess that means none of the changelings who returned afterwards survived the radiation…

“Right, here we are…” he muttered as he worked the console, muttering the password as he imputed it. “For… the… hive…”

There was a sudden click, and then the warning light above the door began to flare as the alarm began to sound.

An alarm that probably was echoing throughout the entire damned hive…

“Damn it, that’s going to bring every damned ghoul down onto our heads!” Cobalt shouted in alarm as he shot back from the console, the doors mechanism working from within.

“Get inside! Quick!” I shouted back as I got close to the door.

An eardrum bursting metallic screech assaulted our ears, the door suddenly being pulled back into the stable before rolling to the side, revealing the entrance within. We wasted no time in slipping into the great fallout shelter, rushing up the first few stairs and up onto the platform with the other control panel for the door. Cobalt hit it immediately, the alarm beginning to blare again as the giant mechanical arm above our heads moved into position. I just saw the first few ghouls rushing into the chamber as the massive stable door rolled back into place, before being pushed fully closed by the arm alongside another deafening screech of metal scraping against metal.

And then the stable was sealed once more.

My E.F.S. dinged, and the words ‘Locate Stable 84’ appeared with a little tick next to it. Then it faded, and upon checking my E.F.S. I realised I had no more objective markers.

“What? Does saving my friend not count as one?” I hissed at the PipBuck.

‘Save Stripe’ appeared in my vision.

Huh…

That aside, I examined the stable entrance. It was a simple armoured box-shaped room, there was a single door leading out of it, a platform containing the control panel with some railings around it stopping people stepping off into the door’s mechanism, and steps leading down to the stable door itself.

Well, there was only one way to go now, and nothing on my E.F.S. as of yet…

“Shall we?” I said to Cobalt, making sure Stripe was secured on my back as I walked towards the interior door. It was a sliding door, grey metal with a yellow stripe containing the Stable-Tec logo and the stable number on it. “We get Stripe to the infirmary, changelings or no changelings, and then get your data.”

“And your haul?” he asked.

“We’ll figure that out later,” I said as I pressed a button, the door sliding open with a hiss.

There was a hallway beyond, quite a short one with another door a couple metres in front. The hallway was otherwise pretty plain aside from an air vet to the right, which was directly above a large window into some kind of office. There was a poster on the other wall with a winking Stable Colt, the words ‘A better future, underground’ written beneath him.

Yeah, better future. Right…

We stepped into the corridor, and I had a quick peek into the office behind the window. I couldn’t see much inside, just a few machines with blinking lights on the far wall and… yes, I think some kind of console below the window on the office’s side.

“Looks like a security station,” Cobalt noted. “Probably hasn’t seen usage in two hundred years, though.”

“I doubt they get much traffic through here,” I remarked, ready to move on. I didn’t know how long Stripe had, so it’d be a straight run to medical from here on out…

Wait, a green bar had just popped up on my E.F.S., out of the blue…

“Scrap…” Cobalt muttered with a small amount of alarm as a figure stepped into the security station.

A changeling. Not a ghoul, not like the ones outside. No, this was a fully alive and well changeling. He was wearing a blue uniform with some kind of security barding covering it, a bored expression on his face as the changeling’s blue eyes glanced over the console before he sat at the station and looked up through the window.

The moment he saw us, his jaw dropped with his blue orbs going completely wide, staring at us in complete shock and disbelief.

And then his bar turned red.

Before I could even shout in alarm, the changeling had slammed his hoof down onto some button or another with a look of pure panic, the door we’d come through shutting tightly behind us. Cobalt ran back to the door, pressing the button to open it to no avail. Likewise, I ran to the door directly ahead and tried that one. Damn, we were locked in!

“Give me a minute, I can probably force it open!” he shouted at me, running over to my door and using his magic to pry open the panel the button was on.

Then an alarm sounded, and I smelt something.

“Ngh, they’re pumping something in!” I warned Cobalt, looking up to see the vent pumping some kind of gas into the chamber. It was- woah… I was starting to spin… or was that the world…?

Ugh, dammit! I had to stay awake, I had to…

Cobalt grunted beside me, hard at work on the console. But then I started to see his eyes droop and his limbs go limp, before he then collapsed completely.

“C-Cobalt…” I gasped as the world began to sway some more.

I had to stay up, had… to…

My legs gave way, my PipBuck giving some kind of warning as I hit the ground. Stripe became dislodged from my back, rolling off and in front of me.

Everything was going dark, and all feeling was leaving my body…

Was this… dying…?

I reached out my hoof towards Stripe, trying so hard to reach her. She was so close, and yet so far away. I was trying, I really was trying…

And then everything went black.

Footnote: Level 15

New Perk: Stable Explorer! – You have discovered Stable 84, congrats! For this momentous occasion, have one more point to your SPECIAL. Because believe me, Scavenger, you’ll need it…

17 - Detainment

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Chapter 17: Detainment

“Welcome to the hive…”

Ugh, why is the sky made of metal…?

I mean, it’s all grey and… boring. But at least it’s not brown, so there is a plus side to the change in colouration. It’s still a bit boring though. I had expected a bright blue, like in those old pre-war posters and such. Maybe there is no such thing as outer space, and the world is in one big metal box…

Or maybe I’m just in a metal room, that works too.

And really, I was waking up with the most pounding of headaches. And I thought getting hit by a grenade was bad, what was in that-

Gas. We were gassed.

And like that, I was sat bolt upright and more attentive than I had ever been in my entire life.

We were in Stable 84. We’d made it! But there was a changeling! And he was in stable security barding or something and he looked all ‘Oh shit!’ and then…

He’d gassed us, locked us in and gassed us. I’d… thought that had been it, the end. But now…

My friends!

I gave a frantic look over of the room I was in. Or should I say prison cell, because that’s exactly what it was. It was an unfurnished completely square room with zero comforts or bedding to speak of. The floor, three of the walls and the roof were the same grey metal that the rest of the stable was made from. The fourth wall, well, it wasn’t a wall as much as it was a door. A large door with a pane of probably bullet-proof glass revealing the next room over.

But I left the examination of that until after I addressed the pissed off looking unicorn in the room.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” Cobalt dryly greeted me. “Again.”

He was alive! Like me! And that would mean…

Wait. Where was Stripe?

“Where’s Stripe!?” I suddenly shouted, getting up off of my ass and trying to enter a battle-ready pose.

Too bad I was still reeling from my impromptu gassing, and immediately fell back down.

“Hay, take it easy Action Colt,” Cobalt deadpanned, though with the barest tinge of concern in his voice. How nice of him. “As for Stripe, I don’t know. I woke up a short while ago.”

“Yeah…” I muttered, grasping my head with my hooves. “You feeling this too?”

“It’ll wear off,” he promised. “But I haven’t seen a hair of Stripe since regaining consciousness. Or any changelings, for that matter. They’ve just left us in here.”

Well, at least they didn’t kill us. But they had taken Stripe! What were they doing to her!?

By Celestia, if they hurt her…

“We need to leave,” I announced, taking a stock of my equipment.

I still had my barding and my PipBuck, so that was good. My saddlebags were also in the room, so I grabbed them and made a quick parse through my PipBuck’s inventory screen. Food, some of our remaining medical supplies…

No weapons.

“I’ve checked, they’ve left us everything but our guns,” Cobalt stated. “Probably just took them and haphazardly shoved us in here while they decide what to do with us.”

“You would think that they’d take everything…”

“Clearly they don’t do this very often.”

Deep underground in a hive full of ghouls… no wonder. “So, about leaving? You can teleport out, right?”

“Riiiight, because I’d never have thought of that without you,” he said with a small amount of sarcasm directed right at me. “Tried it when I saw the lack of guards. Got magical feedback as a result. Don’t light your horn in here, there are magic suppression talismans buried in these walls.”

Duly noted.

“There must be a way…” I muttered, walking up to the door and pressing up against the glass.

The room outside seemed to be some sort of security office. There was a desk with a flickering terminal in one corner of the room, and the far wall was lined with lockers. The exit sat on the opposite wall from, as did a window that probably overlooked the stable hallway beyond. However, the window was obscured by the shut blinds.

Trying to peer to the left, I think there were also a couple more cells next to ours, with us being in the far right one.

Or would it be far left, if you were facing us…?

Whatever.

“Maybe Stripe’s in one of the other cells?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” he replied. “But we can’t know for sure. It wouldn’t surprise me if these cells are soundproofed too.”

“Well, there must be a way!” I shouted as I gave the glass an experimental buck.

…Fuck. That… really hurt. I know I’ve never been the strongest stallions but… Ouch.

And just to rub it in, the little bars next to my hind legs on my PipBuck’s status screen seemed to decrease quite significantly.

Oh, and don’t you give me that flat look, Cobalt!

“I’ve looked around for access points,” Cobalt explained. “Anything I might be able to hack and exploit. But there’s no panels or anything in here, Stable-Tec clearly thought it through. No locks for you to pick either.”

“Well… horseapples.” This really was not our day, or the next day if the date on my PipBuck was any indication. And Stripe… was she even alive? Or had the poison taken her by now?

No, she’s alive. She had to be…

“I think we just have to wait until the changelings come for us,” Cobalt said, albeit reluctantly. “Maybe we can talk to them then. But at least it may be easier to make a run for it once they’ve opened the cell.”

“Well… how do we pass the time then?” There didn’t seem to be much for us to do in here...

Ah! The radio!

I brought up my PipBuck and switched to the radio tab. But as I tried to switch to DJ Pon-3, nothing but static greeted me…

“No signal down here,” Cobalt explained with a shake of his head. “We’re too deep. Either that, or it’s the cell. Or both.”

“You’re the egghead, you tell me.”

“Unless I take a look at the stable’s internal systems, this is all educated guessing,” he rebutted. “But there’s always the memory orb you snagged from Chrysalis’ room.

Ah, I had forgotten about that.

I retrieved the orb, giving the shiny magical object a good looking over. Well, it was better than nothing.

“Try and wake me if the changelings come back.”

“I’m not sure if I can.”

Well, what else was I to do?

I made the connection, and then I watched as Cobalt and the prison cell melted away.

Okay, this was new…

I was thankfully a stallion this time, judging by the presence of certain parts. But I also noted the chitin and broad purple eyes staring back at me from the mirror, which was odd from what I had briefly seen of other changeling drones and their bright blue eyes. But still, I was definitely a changeling drone nonetheless.

Oh, right…

‘Legate Wrede, assassination’. The orb had been tagged.

I was about to watch this changeling kill someone.

But for now, the changeling was just staring and his own reflection in this mirror. He appeared to be in some fancy looking bathroom, with shiny polished wood panelling lining the walls. He closed his eyes for a moment, and everything went dark. I could hear him taking in some deep breaths, before opening them again and glancing at his hooves.

There was a dead zebra there.

The zebra was in a red legionnaire’s uniform, his dead eyes wide open and staring lifelessly into space. The changeling stripped him of a small sidearm and clothes before dragging his body into one of the cubicles, stuffing it inside before closing the door and using his magic to lock it.

And what came next felt… tingly. Not unlike being held in somepony’s magic aura, I guess. But my vision went perfectly green, and when everything became normal again the changeling-

Er, zebra looked into a mirror?

I guess they really do shapeshift.

He’d taken the form of the zebra he’d killed. Next, he slipped the uniform onto himself and holstered the dead soldier’s pistol for good measure.

Taking a moment to give himself a look of satisfaction in the mirror, the changeling then left the bathroom and stepped into the hallway beyond.

It was just as expensive looking as the bathroom. A lush red carpet coated the floor, and the structure was made up of wood. At least on the surface, who knew what was behind those panels. Several zebras were also patrolling the halls, several of them wielding battle saddles far deadlier than the little pea shooter strapped to the infiltrator’s leg.

But the changeling just walked down the hallway with no hesitation, and with no indication that he didn’t belong. A few of the other soldiers even seemed to give him respectful nods as he passed them by.

Or at least, they nodded the person they thought he was. I guess he’d killed someone who’d been pretty well respected around there…

The infiltrator turned a corner and peered directly at a doorway midway down the next corridor. There was a rather large and ornate set of double doors guarded by two huge zebra stallions in full armour and miniguns strapped to their sides. Really, would those guys even need Equestrian power armour?

But the guards didn’t seem to bother the infiltrator at all. Instead, he was looking at the two talismans flanking either side of the door, just behind the two guards.

He then turned away from the corridor and approached another doorway, and upon opening it I saw that the space beyond was far less decorated. The walls were just bare concrete, and a flickering light hung from the ceiling, illuminating the metal staircase leading downwards. The changeling just slipped on in and followed the stairs down until the sound of rumbling generators became audible.

He emerged into an industrial looking space, large generators filling up most of it with a few zebras in technicians’ outfits examining the equipment while a single guard watching them work. Several booths sat around the room, unfamiliar robots sitting idly within.

The guard saw me, or rather the changeling, and spoke to them in an unfamiliar language. Unfamiliar, and yet one I was somehow able to comprehend.

Was that because of the memory orb?

“Sir, what are you doing down here?” the zebra asked as he stood to attention, looking surprised. “This is no place for-”

“I will decide what place is and isn’t for me, and I simply wish to examine the work of our local Propoli,” the changeling responded back in fluent zebra.

“Y-yes, of course,” the soldier corrected quickly, stepping aside. “As you wish!”

The changeling looked towards the engineers. “Propoli, I trust all is well?”

“Yes, perfectly!” one of the engineers, perhaps the most senior, responded. “Nothing but the best for the Legate!”

“Good,” the changeling responded. “I also understand you received replacement parts for damaged equipment.”

The Propoli engineers looked between each other nervously. “Y-yes. Everything checked out, though I’m not sure why the parts were ordered. Everything is fine here.”

The infiltrator hummed in feigned suspicion. “Hm, I wish to examine them. Soldier, assist me!”

The soldier gave his confirmation, and then led the disguised changeling over to a small pile of crates sat nearby to a wall terminal of similar design to its Equestrian counterparts.

What was this bug up to?

The infiltrator looked between the crates and idly glanced back at the engineers as they gathered to watch, clearly hoping they don’t earn the faux zebra’s ire.

The changeling then turned back to the crates, choosing one of them and bringing it forth. With the soldier’s help, he opened it up and began to inspect the contents. It all seemed to be pretty standard looking piles of scrap to me, Celestia knows I’ve seen enough of it in my lifetime.

But then the infiltrator spied something in the bottom, and with a hoof… opened a secret panel?

“Hm, look at this…” he said to the soldier.

A solider who never even had a chance to shout as the changeling brought out a silenced 10mm pistol and blew his brains out.

The engineers gave a start. A couple of them froze in fear, one tried to run while the fourth attempted to reach for a large red button on the wall. Was he going to activate the robots? Sound an alarm? Both?

I never found out. He gunned them all down within seconds, the only thing reaching that button being a few drops of a blood splatter.

I… I could understand the soldier but… Those others, they hadn’t been fighters. They were just doing a job, working the machines…

And he’d murdered them without a second thought.

Indifferent to his crime, the infiltrator moved back to the crate and recovered a small talisman from the compartment. He then moved over to the terminal and hooked the small device to it, causing the screen to flicker and distort momentarily before bypassing the password screen without needing to even hack the device.

With access gained, the changeling began to scroll through the options. I couldn’t read them, though. It seemed the orb’s translations didn’t extend to text.

He selected something, and he grinned.

“I guess ponies can be useful,” he muttered as he took the talisman from the terminal and crushed it under hoof. “No more magic detection for them.”

The changeling took a look at his silenced pistol, and then just discarded it casually. He departed from the room, heading back upstairs and into the hallway again, the zebras beyond unaware of what had just transpired.

Confidently, the changeling headed down the previous hallway and up to the guarded door. The guards studied him for a minute, but they didn’t otherwise move a muscle. He walked on through the massive doorway, barely even glancing at the now inert talismans.

Beyond the doorway was a large dining hall. A dining table spanned the room with a single occupant, carvings of various zebra figures I didn’t recognise decorated the room while a large window that would usually look out of the building was obscured by red velvet curtains. The zebra within was a well-built stallion in decorated armour that clearly identified him as Legate Wrede, and he even smiled as he saw the changeling enter.

“Ah, son,” he greeted. “Come, come. I was waiting for you.”

“Is there anything new with the ponies?” the changeling asked in false interest, moving towards the Legate.

The Legate hummed, looking down at a large map sprawled across the table. “An Atori fleet was attacked by the ponies, led by the HMS Celestia. Only one ship returned, and the survivors suggest an imminent strike at one of our ports. The question the Caesar wants me to find out is: which one?”

The changeling stood next to the zebra now. “And, Father? Do you know where we must go?”

“I’m close,” he responded, gesturing to a few spots on the map. “If we can intercept the fleet before it arrives, we can both save the port and I won’t have to pull any of our troops from Equestria’s borders to defend it.”

“And what does the shaman think?”

The Legate sighed. “The shaman speaks in riddles. Though she seems to believe the spirits around us are growing restless. That is… troubling.”

“Indeed, for they are smarter than you,” the changeling replied as a green flash surrounded his body and ripped away the veneer and the uniform he was wearing.

The Legate didn’t even have time to react as the changeling pounced on him, and I felt a warm sensation fill his body and accumulate in his mouth. Magical energies began to radiate from the zebra, who could only weakly groan as he… Oh Luna, he was just shrivelling up! As I watched, it was like his body aged decades at a time until it all but mummified, and little of the Legate remained.

He was dead.

The changeling gave a sadistic little chuckle, licking his lips as… Wow, OK. This body was suddenly feeling really strong all of a sudden.

“I get a belly full of love, and the ponies get to blow up a port and draw zebras away from Equestria,” he mused to himself, another flash enveloping him, and he next spoke with the Legate’s voice. “I love this arrangement.”

He then took the Legate’s clothes as well as his face, before walking out of the room as if nothing had happened.

When I emerged from the orb I couldn’t help but feel a little… disturbed by what I had seen. So far, from the memories I’d collected, I’d seen an indifferent and cold queen that was Chrysalis; and yet I’d also seen that same queen show both anger and fear for her people long before the former event ever occurred. I’d seen first hoof the fear in that security guard’s eyes as he put us to sleep, but the drone I’d just seen…

He’d been different. He had enjoyed himself as he killed those zebras. Stealing the love energy from the Legate and bleeding him dry. Was what I’d seen… the mindset of the individual, or was this what I could expect from all the changelings?

But whichever one it was, I think I could see why Chrysalis thought the ministries would be interested in allying with the hive. The infiltrator’s brutality aside, the mix of changeling shapeshifting and Equestrian tech and planning had been… devastating for the zebras. I could only imagine the loss of Wrede had caused havoc for their forces.

But… I couldn’t get his attitude out of my head. It was a mindset far too many ponies had out in the Equestrian Wasteland. Were all the infiltrators really like that? Were-

Only now did I realise that I was not in the prison cell anymore.

Crap.

Examining my new surroundings, I realised I was now sat in a chair and had been slumped against a cold metal table. The room was larger than the cell, though still largely enclosed and bland. A large mirror sat on one wall, and I could see a single green bar on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

And Cobalt was not here.

In one shadowy corner of the room, almost completely concealed aside from her green eyes, was a changeling. The changeling was tall, her irises almost cat-like as those slits stared over at me curiously. As I peered into the darkness, I could just make out a large jagged horn that looked like it could cut me to ribbons with ease.

It was her.

“So, you waken,” the regal voice noted. “I must apologise for your… greeting. My changelings have not seen a situation like this for two hundred years. And our… state did not help the guards’ nerves or rash actions.”

“State?” I questioned, not taking my eyes off of the figure, wondering if I could make a break for it if I needed to.

“Yes, I’m afraid the lack of love energies has made us quite weak over the past two centuries since the stable door was shut tight,” she explained. “The reserve we have left was only for when the door opened, which it now has thanks to you.”

So… they’d been trapped in here? But the door had opened just fine for us!

“But now, for the first time in generations, my changelings feast on love and are becoming strong again,” the changeling announced with no small amount of happiness in her voice. “But the reserve reservoir will only last for so long, which is why I feel that we must talk, little pony.”

“My name is Scrap Heap,” I corrected her, before shooting the shadow a smile that was far more confident than I was actually feeling. “Chrysalis.”

The figure blinked, and she then gave a small wry chuckle. “Chrysalis? I can see why you would think so, but I’m afraid not.”

Huh? But…

The figure emerged from the shadows, and I finally got a good look at the Changeling Queen. She had a long teal and partially transparent mane that seemed decently well groomed and largely covered her right eye, though it was still partially visible due to its transparent nature.

“Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am the Overmare of Stable 84, Insidiis,” she greeted cordially. “Daughter of Queen Chrysalis, and Princess of the Equestrian Hive.”

Footnote: Halfway to Level…

18 - Insidiis

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Chapter Eighteen: Insidiis

“You are born in the stable, you die in the stable.”

Now hang on! Back up one minute! This was Insidiis!? And not Chrysalis!? I mean, I guess this explains why Chrysalis was freaking out so badly about the Insidiis I heard about in that memory, Insidiis being her kid and all… But still, I had expected to see the Queen emerge all dramatically out of the shadowy corner, not the freaking Princess! But… why is the Princess the Overmare? Why not the Queen…?

Unless…

“OK, hold up a moment,” I interrupted the changeling before she could ask any of her own. “Before anything… No offence, but I’ve been hearing a lot about Queen Chrysalis lately and… I was kinda expecting her to be the Overmare…?”

The Princess flinched, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Oh boy…

“It is I who shall be asking the questions, pony,” Insidiis rebuffed severely. “And what I have to ask is very important for the future of my changelings.”

“Look, I’ve been through a lot to get here,” I shot back at the changeling. “So throw me a bone here! Question for a question?”

The Princess seemed to consider me for a moment. “You mean we take it in turns?”

I nodded, hoping she would go for it. I was in no mood to wait for answers any longer.

And she did.

“Very well,” Insidiis decided, sitting herself down at the opposite end of the table to me. “But I shall start first, is that agreeable?”

“Fine. Shoot.”

Insidiis nodded, and then she wasted no more time. “First and foremost, how did you find this place? And how did you unlock the door to even get inside at all?”

Ah, right. Well… glancing at the PipBuck on my hoof, I realised that her question actually fed directly back into my own. It also made me realise how immensely awkward things were potentially about to get. I mean, I guess I could just say it’s a random PipBuck that just happened to have the coordinates of the stable, or some other lie. But, then again…

“The PipBuck,” I answered, showing her the device. “It had the location of this place on the map, and nothing else. We knew the password from some old MAS files at the Manehatten hub.”

Insidiis narrowed her eyes. “The PipBuck…? And why would that device even have the location the hive saved on it?”

“Yeah, about that…” Well, here goes. “When I first got it, there was a different name to my own on the mains screen. And actually, that name was Chrysalis.”

The Princess’ eyes shot open wide. “What!?”

I didn’t even have time to protest as my hoof was yanked forward in her magic, and I was haphazardly deposited on top of the table as she went to examine the PipBuck. I mean, a little warning would have been nice! Or you know, if she had asked first!

“My mother’s…” she whispered to herself before she dropped my hoof and glared daggers at me. “Where did you get this PipBuck!?”

“Hey, I didn’t take it from a skeleton or anything!” I quickly assured the Princess as I retreated back to my nice and safe end of the table. “I got it from a trader in New Appleoosa. And she came across it in a similar way, I think. I don’t know where it was first found!”

The changeling didn’t seem to like that answer, but she did her best to calm herself down. She closed her eyes as she processed the information, letting out a long sigh. She then opened her eyes again, the glare slightly less… shooty.

“I see…” she muttered. “Then I suppose this leads us back to your initial question.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” I confirmed. “So, where is your Queen?”

Insidiis gritted her teeth, and I suddenly wondered whether I was pushing this super powerful creature a little too far. But nevertheless, she answered the question.

“I don’t know,” Insidiis responded. “When Stable-Tec issued the call for all stables to seal, my mother was away from the hive on business. I do not know if she ever returned to the hive, as the door has not been opened in two hundred years.”

“You… sealed the stable with your mother outside…?” Wow. I guess that explains how the PipBuck could have ended up in Ditzy’s hooves two centuries later. “You didn’t, you know… wait?”

Wrong question, Scrap Heap!

Insidiis slammed her hooves into the table, and I couldn’t help but wilt under her renewed glare that was full of pure anger and… sadness? Regret? I honestly couldn’t tell what she was feeling, probably because I was suddenly terrified for my life.

“Of course I waited, you fool!” Insidiis bellowed. “Even as radiation flooded into the upper levels of the hive, and we could hear the distant crashes of balefire explosions! But the spread of the radiation would not stop, and it was at lethal levels. There came a point where had I waited to close the door any longer, the whole stable would have been lost!”

“Okay! I’m sorry!” I quickly apologised, hoping that would appease the Princess at least a little. “I get it, I do. You had to save who you could.”

My response seemed to work, and she seemed to calm down again.

“My apologies,” Insidiis said with a sigh. “I must admit, my mother’s fate is a sore spot for me. And I suppose, in the end, I did inherit at least a fraction of her temper.”

“Well, I know she at least cared for you,” I noted honestly.

“And how could you make such a claim?”

“I… found a memory orb,” I explained. “At some MAS facility, we couldn’t get far in before being shot at. It showed the day your mother decided to make an alliance with Equestria and… well, she did it for you.”

“She… did?” Insidiis questioned, and this was clearly new information to her. “Could I see this orb after we conclude…?”

“Uh, sure.” I didn’t see any harm in it. And if it built some good will, why the fuck not? “I, uh, also think it’s your turn to ask something.”

“Of course, we should get back on topic,” Insidiis agreed, fully composing herself. “So, you clearly went through a lot of effort to reach here. Why?”

“Caps,” I answered.

Insidiis seemed confused. “Caps? What do you mean?”

Ah, right. “Uh, well… Most ponies don’t use bits anymore up top. We use bottlecaps for currency now. Not exactly many bits around to use, anyway…”

Insidiis furrowed her brow in thought. “Things are still in a bad way topside, aren’t they?”

“I think it’s my turn,” I interrupted. She seemed annoyed by that, but nevertheless sat ready and waiting. “Why haven’t you left the stable until now? Especially if you’re low on love…”

“We couldn’t leave,” Insidiis answered. “We attempted to open twenty or so years after the bombs dropped but found the mechanism to open the door was stuck. Nothing we did could get it to budge, so we were trapped down here. Fortunately, it seems you opening it from the outside has reset the system and fixed whatever malfunction caused the issues.”

“So… you can now leave?”

Insidiis gave a small but genuine smile. “Yes. After two centuries, the changeling race can finally see the sun again.”

“Uh… about that…”

Insidiis’ smile was replaced with a frown.

Well, I guess it’s time I returned to her question, and told her just how fucked the world had become while they’d been down here. I told her everything I knew, starting with how the pegasi had closed up the skies and left all surface dwellers to rot. I told them about how the Equestrian Wasteland was just a band of various survivor settlements trying to make the best of it, and how we had to contend with everything from raiders to weird mutant alicorns from Splendid Valley.

The latter really seemed to disturb her. Or maybe it was the entire explanation that did that, I couldn’t really tell.

“That… is deeply concerning,” Insidiis mused to herself. “I knew that the ponies may be in difficult times, but I had hoped Princess Luna had at least survived to keep some semblance of order.”

“If she had, do you think you’d still be down here?”

“I suppose you have a point there,” Insidiis admitted. “And it’s like this everywhere? All over the world?”

“Well, I think so…?” Not that I had ever left Equestria… “We hear stories about other wastelands. As far as anypony knows, the radiation killed off any and all civilisations that survived the bombs dropping.”

“Even those who had nothing to do with the war…?” Insidiis shuddered. “To think the world is now a lawless land, where life is a battle for survival. It… almost seems impossible. The world I knew had fallen on troubled times to be sure, but for most ponies life was at least generally safe.”

“Safe isn’t a concept in the wasteland,” I replied grimly. She probably pictured a normal pony life as going to school, getting a job and then aging until you could only shit in a bag. Now… well, you’d be lucky to live to half of such an age with all the gunfire and gnashing teeth. “I’m a scavenger by trade. I recover scrap from pre-war ruins in hope of making enough caps to survive until the next day.”

“Which is why you came here…?” Insidiis surmised. “To see what our stable had to offer you in terms of salvage, no doubt.”

“Kinda, yeah.” For me at least. Though it hadn’t exactly turned out that way. “I only learned that you people even existed on the way here, which brings me to my most pressing question…”

Insidiis raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what is that, then?”

“My friends…” I said, trying to put as much caution in my tone as possible. “Where are they? The unicorn and the zebra. Where?”

“The two you arrived with, I thought you might ask about them,” Insidiis began, and I hoped they hadn’t harmed them... “They are fine. Though your zebra companion was suffering terribly from some kind of poison. While you and that other stallion were thrown in the cells, the zebra was taken to the infirmary to be treated. We’re not monsters, Scrap Heap.”

Stripe had been taken to the infirmary? Does that mean… she was going to be okay?

“But now for my most pressing question,” Insidiis cautioned. “What are your intentions now, pony?”

“I…” What was I going to do? After everything that had happened… And with these changelings, I obviously wouldn’t be getting any salvage from Stable 84.

I just…

“I don’t know.”

“Do you intend hostilities against us?”

“What? No, not the last time I checked.”

And then Insidiis smiled. “I see. In that case, I have a proposition for you.”

“…Wha…?” Was she about to offer me a job? What?

“Come, your friends should both already be in the infirmary,” Insidiis said as she got up and approached the door out of the room. “We can discuss the details as we walk.”

Well, what else was I to do but follow?

The hallways of the stable were filled with changelings. Almost all of them were wearing blue stable jumpsuits, and even had PipBucks on their hooves, though they seemed to be of a slightly different model to mine. When I had asked about them, Insidiis had described them to be Alpha Series PipBuck 3000s. They had all the same functions as the PipBuck 3000 MK IV, but was both sturdier (borderline indestructible, according to her) and could not be removed from the user’s hoof without special tools.

I think I prefer being able to take mine off whenever I want to.

They also seemed to give me a wide berth, apparently not knowing what to make of the armoured pony. Though the presence of their Princess/Overmare and the two security guards flanking us did seem to assure them at least a little.

It was also really bright down here. Seriously, could they not dim those lights even slightly?

The hallways themselves were all made in the same uniform metal that the entirety of the stable was made from. We often passed by closed doors with the stable number written proudly onto them, and various signs pointed in the directions of important areas such as the Overmare’s office and the cafeteria.

And the entire time, the Princess had only ever spoken to describe to me certain areas of the stable, and some interesting titbits about what had occurred there over the previous two centuries. Though I had enquired about the changeling infiltrator I had seen in the memory orb, who she’d then described as an… unsettling individual who had apparently lost a brother during the Invasion of Canterlot long before the war, after which he had never been the same. She hadn’t really elaborated much on that, claiming that the drone had always made her uncomfortable to be around during her younger years. Though Insidiis did add that he only gotten worse because of the war itself.

While that explained a little about what I had seen, the rest of her chatter was largely meaningless small talk. And though I nodded along with her, I was more interested in whatever job she wished of me and was waiting for her to get to that bit.

And then we emerged into the stable’s atrium.

The room was huge, doors lining the outside of the ground level with balconies higher up making up the second level. A circular window up top had a view of the entire chamber, and I could only assume that was the Overmare’s office. But more of note, the room seemed to have a large gathering of… children inside? Wait, were they having a birthday party?

They were!

I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t expecting the changelings to have something as… ‘normal’ as a child’s birthday party. I don’t know why, but… Well, it was nice to see, seeing as I’d certainly never had one. They even had a birthday cake set up on a table, with a Mr Handy seemingly getting ready to cut it into slices.

Though, I hope that sawblade doesn’t only end up making a mess of it…

But all of the children, and their parents, turned to stare at me with wide eyes the moment we had walked in. We stopped a moment, and the Princess said a few quick words to them, even wishing one filly a happy birthday, before then leading me off down another corridor with a sign for the infirmary.

At least I knew we were on the right track.

But I was done waiting in silence.

“So, what is this about?” I asked the Princess, who glanced toward me without slowing her pace. “This thing you want me to do? What is it?”

“Ah, I suppose an explanation is due.”

Ya think?

“Well…” Insidiis sighed, and her mood seemed to drop. “To put it bluntly, we need your help.”

“My help?” What could these changelings possibly need me for? “I don’t think-”

“Hear me out,” the Princess asked, and I shut up. I guess I should just let her explain… “It is fortunate you unsealed the door when you did, because my stable has something of a crisis developing, and I was increasingly at a loss for what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s our water talisman,” Insidiis suddenly stated, her tone grave. “Our stable was never meant to remain closed for as long as it has, and we were not given replacement talismans. And now ours is failing, and we have barely been making do by jury-rigging and repairing what we can. But pretty soon our water will start becoming irradiated, and we shall begin to die.”

Well… shit. That sucks.

“Bottom line is… we need a new one,” Insidiis continued. “We have the location of another nearby stable, Stable 77, which may have spares we could use. But we need someone to make the trip to retrieve the device for us.”

“But why can’t you just go and claim it yourselves?”

“Because we need time to acclimatise to the world above,” Insidiis responded, and I guess she had a point. “We have equipment we can use to begin cleaning the hive of radiation now it is a more manageable level, as was always the intent.”

“You would need to clear out the ghouls as well,” I added. “Some of your changelings two hundred years ago made it back to the hive after you closed, but have mutated into… well, zombies.”

“I… see,” she muttered, frowning. “Our security teams can deal with that as we clear the hive. Though I’m assuming you have already begun that process.”

“Well, I had to help Stripe…”

“Indeed. But beyond reclaiming our home, we shall need to focus on scouting the area around us and locating a source to begin collecting love energy. Passively, I assure you.”

“Yeah, I’d hope so…” The last thing we needed was changeling raids on Tenpony… “Though if you meet ponies using corpses as decorations, screaming like lunatics all the while, feel free to fuck them up. The fewer raiders, the better.”

“We shall keep that in mind,” she confirmed, though seemed to frown a little more at my language. Seriously? “But these tasks are also as pressing and leave us short of hooves to collect the talisman. Which is why I ask it of you.”

Huh. Well, I guess I might make a profit from this after-

“Though I’m afraid I cannot pay you for it.”

…Huh?

“We don’t exactly horde the caps you use for currency,” Insidiis pointed out, stopping and turning to face me directly. “Which makes us, in pony terms, completely broke. I ask this of you as the Princess of a people who are only just emerging into the harsh world above. Please, will you help us?”

Help…? Just… help? I’ve been through a lot to get here, and I have no caps to show for it. And now she wants me to venture out on some quest where I stand to gain nothing in return…?

But then again… These people need help, don’t they? I can already see these stable dwellers are going to struggle to take their first steps into the Equestrian Wasteland. The radiation, mutated monstrosities, raiders… They’re entering a fight for the very right to exist. And those children back at that party, could I just leave them to a fate where, in a few months, they could all be dying from an irradiated water supply?

UGH, why was this even a question!? I’m a scavenger. That’s what I am, and always will be! I don’t do hero stuff! Do I…?

“You care. And that’s a good thing. But, Scrap Heap, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to be the person Stripe sees in you or a scavenger after a simple bag of caps.”

…Fuck.

I really wasn’t the same pony that had left New Appleoosa, was I? Ever since Calamity had saved my life, everything had changed. Somepony had saved me without wanting a damned thing in return, and ever since then I just couldn’t look the other way. First, it was that family I’d saved from that malfunctioning Mr Gutsy.

And then it was Stripe, back when I’d helped her fight those other zebras and raiders.

I had friends for the first time in my life, and they saw something in me that… well, I didn’t really want to see for the longest time. They saw more than a scavenger, doomed to scrounge through junk for the rest of his life. They saw a pony that was worth a damn, and one who had a right to have friends at all.

Just like those ponies on the radio.

I could say no and just walk away. Go back to my junk piles, turn back the clock. Or I could prove Stripe right, and I could help these changelings for the pure sake of ensuring that these people survive in the wasteland. To be kind.

It was time to make that choice.

And I had chosen.

“Welp!” I announced to the Princess as I clapped my hooves together, and then began to walk down the corridor while the Princess just watched me curiously. If I was actually doing this, what was the point of sitting on our asses any longer? “Guess I’m a hero now.”

When we finally arrived at the infirmary, ready to commit to my complete stupidity that was playing hero, I was immediately met by the sight of Cobalt in discussion with a changeling in some kind of lab coat. There were a couple others, doctors I guess, around the room alongside a few security guards watching Cobalt like a hawk.

There was one other changeling in the room that seemed to be doing her best to make herself as small as possible as if hoping not to be noticed. Unlike the others, she wasn’t wearing any clothes beyond two yellow medical boxes strapped to her sides with the image of three pink butterflies on them. Neither was she wearing a PipBuck, now that I looked…

Huh…

But the odd changeling aside, Cobalt turned to face me the moment I stepped in.

“Scrap Heap!” Cobalt said with no small amount of relief. “So, you met the Overmare?”

“Yeah, you could say that…” I replied, glancing at the large Changeling Queen. I then focused on the zebra on the bed and quickly moved to her side. “How’s Stripe?”

“She’ll be fine,” one of the doctors assured me. “We gave her sufficient antidote for the poison. She should be good to go in the morning.”

“I wish it felt like it…” My eyes widened as the zebra mare spoke, and saw her eyes open a crack to weakly look up at me. “Not how I imagined crossing the finish line.”

“I don’t understand how you could casually explain going up against a scorpion of that size…” the doctor muttered scornfully as she walked away, having clearly been given the details by Cobalt. “Crazy surface dwellers.”

I ignored the drone, placing my hoof on Stripe’s. “So… are you alright?”

“I will be,” she replied with a pained chuckle. She finished her half-hearted laugh with a cough, before settling down again. Wait, why was she suddenly blushing? “I… heard you carried me all the way down here?”

“Oh yeah? What did Cobalt say exactly?” I asked, glancing back at the other unicorn.

“That you freaked out, shot your way through a horde of ghouls and got gassed in order to save her life,” Cobalt replied with a shake of his head. “I wish I was exaggerating, but I don’t need to tell you that I’m not.”

Stripe looked at me curiously. “You… truly went through that just for me?”

“Well, yeah…” What else could I say? “I… think you were right about me, Stripe. I don’t want to be that useless, apathetic scavenger anymore. I want to help people. Just like you.”

“Scrap…”

“More than that…” I continued without hesitation. “You’re my first friend. And maybe my closest. I… couldn’t bear to see you hurt. When I saw what that creature did to you, I had to save you. Nothing else mattered at that point.”

I sighed, letting a mountain of stress and worry melt away. “I’m just glad you’re going to be alright. If I hadn’t got here in time…”

Stripe’s eyes met mine, and I could just see the flurry of emotions inside them. And honestly, they kinda spread to me the longer I looked. I could see the relief, the thankfulness, and something else… I really couldn’t place it. But who cares? Stripe was okay, she was here. I was content just to sit at her bedside, locked in that one moment…

…Why was everyone in the room giving us both the exact same knowing look?

Princess Insidiis, in particular, seemed to be looking between us with an infuriatingly smug smile. “Hm, it’s certainly been a while since I have seen such embers growing in a pony’s heart. How delicious.”

What!?

I immediately backed away from the table, coughing into a hoof. I mean, why were they looking at us like that? Was there a problem with showing a little concern? Because that’s all it was! Really!

Stripe seemed to share my sentiments, forcing herself into a sitting position and glaring at the others. “Yes, I am grateful that my life has been spared. Now would you please stop staring at the zebra, you foolish changelings!”

Yeah, how rude of them! Hah, and they were getting the message! That’s right, divert your gazes! I shot a victorious grin at Stripe, who only seemed to falter and look away with a blush. Ugh, why was I now feeling bloatsprites in my stomach?

A-anyway…

“The Princess has asked us to go hunting for a water talisman, since theirs is shot,” I announced to my two friends. “Apparently they know of another stable where we can look. And I say we help them, they’re going to need it.”

“You are new to the wasteland,” Stripe said while looking at Insidiis, the Princess giving a nod of affirmation. “Then I agree. Water is key to a thriving settlement. Without it, the changeling hive will not last.”

“And in return?” Cobalt asked.

“Nothing,” I answered. “They have nothing to give. Which is fair enough, they don’t exactly use caps.”

Stripe was practically beaming at me. “To assist a species away from the edges of extinction. Could there be a worthier purpose?”

Cobalt hummed. “Well, I guess I’m being dragged along for the ride. But first…” He turned to the Princess. “If you could give us access to your mainframe, we could search up information about this other stable. But I’d also like to look into some MAS project Queen Chrysalis was involved in during the war. Whatever it is, well… maybe it could be put to use helping the wasteland.”

Insidiis raised an eyebrow, but she seemed to consider his words. “I’m aware that my mother had ties with Twilight Sparkle, though I never did find out in what way. If there is something to be found, feel free to read up on it.”

Cobalt’s mood significantly lightened. “Thank you, Princess! That’s all I wanted to hear.”

“Very well, your weapons will be returned when you leave in the morning,” Insidiis announced. “My teams will begin the clean-up of the hive in the meantime. I shall have some extra supplies readied for you, as I will also have your rooms prepared, for both now and when you return.”

I thanked the Princess, and I was quite eager to get some real sleep of the non-knocked out variety. And what I was feeling… was strange. The future was more uncertain than ever. Where once I had the whole plan of getting enough caps to get a house of my own, none of that really mattered anymore. Tomorrow I would do everything in my power to help these changelings, and anyone else who needed it.

Me, and my two friends.

“Oh, and one last thing,” Insidiis halted as she made to leave the infirmary, glancing back at us. “Do any of you have any significant medical training?”

…Huh. No, I didn’t believe we did.

“No,” Cobalt answered for me. “We’ve been largely relying on healing potions. The last time one of us got seriously hurt, it was a rather… tense time.”

Oh yeah, when I’d exploded.

Insidiis seemed to give the matter some thought, before turning to look at the changeling I’d spotted earlier.

“Altrix?”

The drone seemed to yelp at the sudden attention, before trying to compose herself. “Y-yes, your highness?”

“Could you please accompany our guests to Stable 77? See to their medical needs as best you can,” the Princess requested. It wasn’t an order, I realised. She was letting the changeling, Altrix, choose for herself.

Altrix gulped, looking at us nervously. She seemed like a… timid mare. Definitely not a fighter, we’d have to be sure to keep her back if we ever, or rather when we ever encountered hostiles. And honestly, I was sure she was going to say no…

“OK,” she suddenly decided, surprising the heck outta me… “If they would be hurt without me, then I will go. Even if it’s scary…”

“Are you sure?” I asked Altrix. “It’s dangerous up there.”

“But… I don’t want anyone to be hurt because I wasn’t brave,” Altrix replied honestly. Huh, I guess she was stronger than I was giving her credit. “You know... if you want me there…”

Me, Cobalt and Stripe looked between each other. Sure, we’d have to be sure to protect her. But still, could we say no to a trained medical practitioner coming along with us?

“OK, Altrix,” I said, holding my hoof out to her. “If that’s what you want, then welcome aboard.”

Altrix seemed to look at my hoof nervously, and then slowly reached out with her own before shaking mine rather feebly. She then retracted the appendage, flushing in small embarrassment.

“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” Altrix stated. “I’m Altrix. But you know that. Though, I don’t think I quite caught your names…”

We all introduced ourselves to the changeling, and Insidiis used this moment to slide out of the infirmary with a quick warning to me to bring Altrix back in one piece, and also telling one of the guards to show us to our rooms when we were finished.

“Well, we had better turn in,” Cobalt suggested. “And I need to browse the stable database. Hopefully, I find something good for my peers back home.”

“Right…” I muttered in reply before I turned back to Altrix. “Well, Altrix, I look forward to getting to know you better. Will you be taking anything in particular on the trip, just so long as you don’t pack too heavily?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” Altrix assured. “I have everything I need in my medical boxes. I’m not even going to bring a PipBuck since they’re so itchy to wear…”

Well, that answered that unspoken question.

Still, I felt a little better with a medic in our group. And really, in the new territory I was throwing my life blindly into, who could say no to more friends?

After all, I had a feeling I was going to need them in the coming days…

Footnote: Level 16

New Perk: Changeling Medicine – Your companion has given you a new insight into the world of medicine. Healing potions and RadAway now heal 25% more, and Rad-X gives an extra +1 to rad resistance.

19 - Who Watches The Watcher?

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Chapter Nineteen: Who Watches the Watcher?

“Oh, time’s almost up. Look, there are a few things you’re going to need if you want to survive out here. A weapon, or at least a lot more ammo for the one you have, armoured barding, a bit of guidance... and most importantly, you need to make some friends.”

“I can’t believe there was nothing in their database!” Cobalt moaned for the one hundredth and fifty-second time in the past hour or so. Seriously, get over it! “Not a thing on the Ministry’s research! Zilch! Nothing!”

We had all gotten a good amount of rest, and I for one had been all too happy to sleep on an actual bed that wasn’t ridden with lice. When I had woken up the next morning, however, Cobalt’s bad mood became quickly apparent. According to him, he’d spent much of the night combing the stable’s mainframe for any nugget of information about Twilight Sparkle’s research revolving around the changelings. But he’d come up empty-hooved. Apparently, they hadn’t stored any of that information within the stable, or if they’d ever actually intended and the bombs had dropped first.

So now we were as clueless as to the Ministry’s projects as we were when we set out, meaning Cobalt had nothing to take back to the Twilight Society. Honestly, I think only Cobalt was particularly bothered by that.

“Goddesses damn it!”

See? He really hasn’t taken the revelation well.

While he’d deprived himself of any meaningful sleep in his pursuit of ‘science’, me, Stripe and Altrix were all rested up and ready to go by the morning. It also seemed that, during the night, Princess Insidiis had wasted no time in sending out her security teams to deal with the ghouls. I just hope they’d taken a bunch of Rad-X before venturing out into the hive as we had.

It seemed to have gone well though, seeing as we passed a lot of living changelings and more than a few ghoul cadavers. Though more than a few looked a little queasy from the whole affair. And given that this was the first real action any of them had seen, I wasn’t too surprised. Still, it probably wouldn’t be long until they started whatever clean-up of the place they had planned. Who knows? Maybe when we’d return the changelings would have made something of the old ruin.

Altrix had stuck close to us as we’d walked through the hive’s hallways. She seemed even more disturbed by the ghouls and darkness than the security teams. She also hadn’t said all that much since we’d left, so I’d hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know our new travelling companion better. But there’d be plenty of time for that later.

As for where Cobalt was making his one hundredth and fifty-fourth complaint, we were just passing through the hive’s main entrance and stepping over the old bones scattered around in there.

“Complaining to us will not change what is,” Stripe chided the other unicorn.

“Stripe’s right,” I supported. “It’s kinda giving me a headache.”

Cobalt sighed. “Right, sorry. It’s just really irritating to come all this way for nothing.”

“We could always stumble across another really convenient memory orb, our track record for that is pretty decent so far,” I joked, thumping the unicorn lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. We have a new job to do, anyway.”

“Yeah. I don’t know much about this Stable 77…” Cobalt mused, stopping as we walked into the cave outside the main entrance. “There wasn’t much about it beyond the location, built into the Galloping Gorge.”

“There wasn’t anything about it at Tenpony?”

“Not this one, no,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I don’t know the population numbers, and if it requires an access code…”

“The Galloping Gorge…” Stripe mused. “That is remote. Who would have taken shelter within?”

“Probably ponies from Prosperity, that’s on the way if I’m remembering that metro map correctly,” Cobalt suggested. “Maybe some from Vanhoover too if they couldn’t get into a more local one.”

I could only imagine the rush to get into that place when the world went to shit. Well, we’d either find it filled with dwellers or a dead tomb, but we wouldn’t know either way by just standing around in a cave. So we started walking again and kept moving until daylight could be seen ahead. We stepped over the Steel Ranger corpses and emerged into the usual dull wasteland day.

Altrix stopped dead, her jaw hitting the ground.

“Altrix?” I asked, and we all turned to look at her with some concern. “What’s up?”

“Up…” Altrix just parroted, staring at the sky.

Up? Yeah, that’s what I just- Oh!

“Where’s the ceiling!?” Altrix squeaked. “It’s so… big and empty! I feel like I’m going to fall upwards!”

Right… She’d lived her whole life in the stable. The surface was new to her, she’d never even seen clouds outside of whatever books they have stashed away down there. Maybe a holotape or two, even.

Oh boy, we should have thought about this before shoving her out…

“It’s fine,” I tried assuring the changelings. “The only way you’ll go up there is by your own wings. You won’t fall.”

“R-really?”

“He is correct. We have lived beneath the clouds and sky as long as you have lived beneath a metal ceiling,” Stripe added helpfully. “It is safe, do not fret.”

“S-sorry,” she apologised, composing herself and taking a few experimental steps into the daylight. “I’ve just never see so much space. What do you ponies do with it all?”

That was it, I couldn’t help but burst out into laughter. I mean, I kinda felt bad at laughing, but come on! Her reaction to the outside was priceless!”

Altrix drooped, scuffing the ground with a hoof.

Okay, now I felt really bad. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” It was still funny though. “But yeah, you’ll be fine. Since you have wings, the clouds would probably be solid to you anyway.”

Altrix tilted her head. “Solid? Clouds?”

“They are to pegasi,” Cobalt explained. “I can’t say if changelings work the same, but griffons do. Though I wouldn’t fly up too high, there are ponies up there who don’t take too kindly to… intruders.”

“Oh… OK,” Altrix quietly replied, the changeling mare having a good look around the area we were in. “So, um, which way?”

I took a glance at my PipBuck’s map, also taking a glance at the latest marker on my Eye Forward Sparkle. They both conclusively pointed west.

“This way,” I said to the others, leading the way out of the crater while avoiding the eviscerated remains of the radscorpion.

The moment we got up the slope, Altrix was nearly floored again since she could now almost see from horizon to horizon. Still, we were ready to go. I gave one final check to my equipment, ensuring my shotgun and pistol were secured and all my supplies were safely stored inside my saddlebags. Insidiis had supplied us with food, Med-X, RadAway, Rad-X, healing potions… Anything we needed, really. I had never felt this well stocked, and that wasn’t including the extra medical supplies in Altrix’s medical boxes. I think she even had two Hydra in there.

Everything was there, and we were ready to go find this other stable.

…And I’d barely taken a single step when I heard the music.

Okay, what the fuck was it now?

We all gave each other confused glances, having a look around the landscape to see if we could spot the source of the music. Whatever it was, it wasn’t immediately obvious. The music, wherever it was coming from, was irritatingly cheerful. Seriously, give me Sweetie Belle any day over this crap.

“Is this normal for the surface?” Altrix asked, her wings buzzing nervously.

Before I could answer, I saw something emerge from a nearby cluster of blackened trees and rock. It was a small, metallic ball with antennas sticking out behind it. It hovered idly towards us, playing its terrible music, the ball’s bar on my E.F.S. being green to mark it as friendly.

“A Spritebot?” Cobalt questioned, stepping towards the small robot.

“A what?” Now that it got closer I could see a small weapon attached to the front. I made sure to be ready to snatch up my shotgun at a moment’s notice.

“You’re telling me you’ve never scrapped one of these for parts?”

Now that he mentioned it, the bot did have a familiar design. Though not as familiar as the larger Mr Handy was to me. I guess it hadn’t been a particularly memorable bit of salvage. Still, never seen one out and about before.

Well, I suppose it could be added to the list of recent firsts...

“You can sometimes see them around the wasteland, playing random musical pieces,” Cobalt continued, and the robot came to a halt in front of us. Cobalt circled it, giving it a look over. “Some old pre-war broadcasts. Nothing special.”

The music was suddenly cut off in a flurry of static, and we all took a united step back as the robot shuddered before a voice suddenly came from it!

“That’s rather harsh, I find them particularly useful,” a tinny voice remarked from the machine, well… what the hell just happened?

“Wha- huh?”

“What? Never seen a Spritebot talk before?”

“Um… no?”

“Not surprising. I don’t know many others who can hack into their network and take manual control,” the Spritebot said rather… that was smugness in the robotic chatter, right? “Name’s Watcher. I’ve been waiting for you to come out.”

“And why have you done so, Watcher?” Stripe asked cautiously.

“Well, I heard about ‘The Scavenger’s’ quest to find Stable 84 from DJ Pon-3,” Watcher explained. “So I decided to have this little guy keep an eye on you, see what happened.”

“Why? What’s your interest in Stable 84?” I asked. “And who the hell are you?”

“I’m Watcher.” Yeah, I got that bit! “As for why… How are the changelings doing?”

Huh?

“Judging by your faces, you’re surprised I know about them,” Watcher noted. “Well, I know a lot of things. I watch. It’s why I’m-”

“The Watcher, I get it,” I interrupted him, already feeling a headache coming on. “So what do you want with them, exactly?”

“Want with them? Me? Oh, nothing,” he explained, and I was more than a little dubious. “What I want to know is… What do YOU want with them?”

“What do you mean? You’re the one that’s been stalking us!”

“I haven’t been stalking you, the Spritebot has!” And there was a difference!? “And I mean, you went through a great deal of trouble to get here. There has to be a reason…”

Watcher then turned to Altrix, who was standing behind us. In a flash, he had floated around us and stopped near the changeling, who shrunk back a little at the Spritebot’s sudden presence.

“And it seems like you came out with a changeling as well,” Watcher noted. “I haven’t seen a drone in, well… a long time. You’re not under duress, are you?”

“Um… no, Mr Watcher sir.”

Stripe stepped between Altrix and the Spritebot, giving Watcher a warning glare.

“Huh…” Watcher hummed. “Interesting…”

“We didn’t kill them all, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said to the annoying robot. “And we’re not telling you shit about the stable. We don’t know you, or why you’re here.”

“Fair enough,” Watcher replied. “But given your protectiveness of them, I’m guessing you’re helping the hive in some way?”

“How observant,” Cobalt deadpanned.

“Ah, so it’s true? Is that why you came out here?”

“Not exactly,” I answered. “But that’s just how things turned out.”

“They must be giving you something valuable, perhaps what you came out here for?”

I didn’t answer. Whoever was on the other end of the Spritebot, they were asking a lot of questions. What were the chances this was some technically gifted raider looking for a juicy target?

“Look…” Watcher began. “I’m no threat to you or the changelings. What I watch for is threats to the innocent people still living in this wasteland. I merely want to know if these changelings mean any harm to Equestria, as they have done in the past, or if they do not and they’re the ones who are under threat.”

“So you watch for dangers?” Stripe questioned. “That’s all?”

“Well… there is one other thing, but we’ll get to that in a moment,” Watcher answered. “So please tell me, why are you helping the changelings? I’m guessing they’re not a threat, or the pony who saved an innocent family on that highway probably wouldn’t be doing this. I just want to know what The Scavenger and his friends are getting in return for whatever job they’ve been given.”

“Nothing,” I responded. “I came for caps, didn’t get any. But there are people down there who need help, badly. So we’re helping, that’s it.”

“Just helping for the sake of helping, huh?” he questioned. “I had a feeling it was something like that, I’ve been keeping an eye on your journey for some time.”

“So why did you think we’d hold Altrix under duress?”

“I didn’t, but I had to be sure,” he responded. “In fact…”

Watcher was silent for a few moments, and I had to wonder what was going on in that tin can’s head… Or at least, in the head of whoever it was hacking into the machine.

“There’s a town about a day’s trot from here, Prosperity,” Watcher finally stated. “Pre-war, no major settlement is there now.”

“Yeah, we know it,” Cobalt said, frowning. “It’s on the way to… where we’re heading. Why are you interested in it?”

“There’s something I’d like you to see at the local Megamart,” Watcher stated. “It’s… rather urgent. You’ll understand once you get there.”

Well, that’s not cryptic at all. “Mind telling us what exactly we’re looking for?”

Watcher was silent a moment. “I advise you four keep each other close. Friendship, well… it’s valuable. Magic, even. Don’t lose it.”

A burst of static, and then the Spritebot started to play music again. We just watched as it began to move away, floating off to Celestia knows where.

“Um, who exactly was that?” Altrix asked in confusion.

“I have absolutely no idea…” I answered. Because really, that was one of the most random exchanges I’ve ever had.

And I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of a disembodied voice watching our every move. But one way or another, my PipBuck seemed to like the idea…

Investigate Prosperity’s Megamart.

As Watcher had predicted, it took us a day to reach Prosperity, the town just now coming into view.

After our meeting with the strange voice, we hadn’t encountered anything that could really top it. Just more dead trees and scorched rocks, before we found an old road leading in the direction we wanted. The town itself looked much like Haven, broken and abandoned. The complete antithesis of its name, really.

We didn’t enter right away. Instead, we skirted around the town while keeping an eye out for the Megamart that Watcher had told us about. Really, we still were a bit cautious as to whether we should be trusting our mysterious acquaintance. But, well, he’d seemed sincere enough when we’d talked to him previously.

I just hoped we were right about that.

“It shouldn’t be too far,” I said to the others. “I mean, it should look like the one we slept in back in Manehatten, right?”

“More or less,” Cobalt confirmed. “It should have a big sign out front if nothing else.”

“Um, I’ve been meaning to ask…” Altrix spoke up. “What is a Megamart, exactly?”

“Where ponies went to buy produce before the Day of Doom,” Stripe explained to the changelings. “Food wasn’t so hard fought for back then.”

“We just get our food from our hydroponics lab,” Altrix said. “There we grow apples, carrots. That kind of stuff.”

“Most ponies out here have to make do with whatever they can find,” I informed her. “Normally two-hundred-year-old canned food.”

“Ew,” Altrix aptly responded. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s not that bad. They preserve pretty well,” I responded. Also, eating it for your whole life gets you used to the taste. “Still, it must be nice to have fresh food.”

“Well, I guess so…” Altrix replied. “I-”

“What the fuck is that!?” a new voice shouted. “Do we stamp it?”

Altrix gave a ‘yeep’ as we all turned to see the rude bastard who shouted. From off to the side, there were three ponies in scrap armour pointing various crappy looking guns our way.

“You idiot, now they know we’re here!” another shouted. “Ah shit, just kill em’ all!”

“Altrix, back!” I shouted as I grabbed the mare with my magic and shoved her away from the first volley of gunfire.

Once she was out of the way behind us, I quickly extracted my pistol and turned to face the raiders coming at us. But they weren’t going to wait on us, and they had already closed the gap between our groups.

I entered S.A.T.S. immediately.

I set up three shots. One for the head, and in failing that one for each foreleg. Without hesitation, I engaged the spell.

BLAM.

My first shot hit its target, and I watched as the side of the raider’s head was stripped away in fragments of brain and skull.

As he fell, his body skidding across the ground, one of his buddies jumped over the corpse and sprayed with his automatic rifle. I moved to the side, but Cobalt gave a hiss of pain as a bullet struck his left foreleg. While this was going on, the third raider made the mistake of contending with Stripe. He may have gotten too close for the sniper to be of any use… at least as a gun, though it worked just as well as a club around the raider’s head.

Cobalt yanked the second raider’s gun away with his magic, following Stripe’s example and whacking him around the head. I aimed and fired at the raider, his bar blinking out, while Stripe bucked away her adversary far enough that she could bring up her rifle in all its glory.

CRACK.

And just like that, it was done.

“W-what… why…?” Altrix whimpered, laid exactly where I’d pushed her. “They’re dead… You killed those ponies! Why would they attack us like they…?

Stripe moved over and knelt beside Altrix, helping the changeling up.

“Some ponies are foolish as such,” she explained. “Raiders are a sad reality of the surface, Altrix. One of the many dangers up here.”

“I… Oh…”

I sighed, turning to check on Cobalt. He was holding his hoof, and it was bleeding badly.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Altrix’s demeanour completely change from a shell-shocked stable dweller to some kind of action mare!

“You’re hurt!” she shouted in alarm, rushing over to Cobalt and looking over his wound. “Oh, you poor dear!”

“It’s fine,” Cobalt dismissed. “I just need a healing potion.”

“Hm, it went through. Hang on…” Altrix opened one of her medical boxes, bringing out of the potions in question. “Drink this.”

Cobalt did as he was told, taking a swing from the potion and grimacing as the wound on his leg began to heal. Once it had, Altrix was quick to clean the blood away and then check the hoof over for any more issues. Only once she had done a full examination did she give Cobalt a clean bill of health, close her box and…

She gave him a gold star.

She gave him a gold fucking star!

Cobalt glared at me. “Don’t say anything. Not a word.”

Hey! I wasn’t! Laughing doesn’t count as saying stuff, right?

“If the hoof shows any irritation, come straight back to me,” Altrix said to her new patient.

“That was one amazing transformation there, Altrix,” I complimented the changeling, who just blinked at me in confusion.

Then she flushed, shrinking back down again. “Oh, um… I just don’t like seeing others hurt when I can help, that’s all…”

I’ll say…

While Altrix had been proving her dedication to medicine, Stripe had gone around the raider corpses for anything of use. They didn’t seem to have much, with their junk armour and cobbled together pipe weaponry. But Stripe did emerge with something held in her grasp.

“I found this,” she announced, hoofing over some kind of note to me.

“Scout the area. Kill anypony not one of us,” I read out the simple instruction scrawled messily in what I hoped was red ink. “I guess there are more nearby.”

“This might be one of the bigger gangs out here,” Cobalt cautioned. “Let’s move carefully.”

We left the three corpses behind, keeping an eye out for any more raider patrols. We didn’t see any, though that didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be any. Still, the town seemed as quiet as ever, deceptively so.

Skirting the perimeter of the town further, it wasn’t long before we finally set eyes on the local Megamart. The building seemed sunken and decrepit, half of the sign having collapsed into the concrete. Several rusted vehicles were strewn about outside, probably containing their fair share of skeletons. Everything seemed quiet at first glance, though we were a small distance away with a limited view. Neither were we quite willing to just walk on in at that moment, what with our raider encounter and Watcher’s dubious motivations.

What we needed was some idea of what we might find in there. Fortunately for us, we had a good way of doing just that.

We set up on a nearby hill, and we all laid down beneath a burnt tree as Stripe took her rifle and began to scope out the area. We remained low for a couple minutes, Stripe just examining the area as the rest of us remained quiet so not to disrupt her concentration.

“Oh, so that’s what’s going on here…” Stripe finally noted with a frown.

“Stripe?” I questioned and, in response, she hoofed over her rifle. “Huh?”

“Look towards the front,” she suggested.

I did as she said, laying down and placing my eye on the scope. I scanned the area, and I saw a few raiders who had either just emerged from the Megamart or had just arrived there.

Or both…

Yes, two had just walked out of the building, while another three walked up to it with another pony being carried by one of them, bound and gagged. The bound pony was a pegasus of all things. She was dark grey with a rather punk looking stylised purple mane, a leather jacket covering the front of her while her cutie mark was clearly visible, being that of a blood red moon.

The pegasus was dumped in front of the two emergent raiders, one of whom knelt down and removed the gag. They seemed to converse for a few moments before the bound pony tried to bite his face off! I’m not kidding, she went all in!

But it seemed like the raider was expecting it, and he quickly moved back while the others laughed at the attempt. They then replaced the gag and dragged her inside kicking and screaming.

With dawning horror, I now understood just why Watcher had decided to send us here. Not only was this the hideout of an entire gang of raiders…

They were also keeping prisoners.

Footnote: Level 17

New Perk: Better Criticals - +50% damage with critical hits.

20 - Heroes

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Chapter Twenty: Heroes

“That, my friends, is fighting the good fight.”

I could already see plenty of red bars on my Eyes Forwards Sparkle, but who knew how many were actually inside the Megamart itself?

Unfortunately, I was already thinking that we were soon going to find out…

“I don’t fancy the chances that their prisoners are in a good shape,” Cobalt commented as we ducked behind a wall on the edge of the front parking lot. “Raiders aren’t known for their hospitality, if any of them are even still alive.”

“If they weren’t, Watcher would not have seen fit to send us here,” Stripe noted.

“If he didn’t just send us into a trap.”

“If he did, it was a shit trap,” I pointed out. If he’d been watching us, he’d have known three raiders blindly charging in wouldn’t have stopped us. “I don’t think he sent us here to die. He wants us to free the ponies in there.”

“Um, what exactly would the raiders be doing to them?” Altrix asked nervously.

I gave her a grim look. “Nothing good. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

“Let us handle them, you focus on providing medical assistance to those who need it,” Stripe said gently to the changeling, who gave her a slow nod in return.

Now we just had to figure out our approach.

I was guessing that they would have the front locked down tight. Probably with scrap fortifications along the entrance, and guards all aiming their guns at the door. A frontal assault would be, er… messy. The red bars I was seeing from that general direction did little to disprove my point. That wasn’t taking into consideration any fragmentation mines they might have scattered about, trip wires, or whatever other kinds of traps this group may have come up with.

Glancing down along the side of the building, I could see at least one door that was boarded up. It wouldn’t be too hard to remove the board, but it could be blocked from the other side as well. Plus, the noise might attract unwanted attention to ourselves.

But that was just one door, there might well be others…

“We should skirt around, see what’s behind the Megamart,” I suggested. “I’m not sure I want to charge in like a raging feral.”

“Yes, I’d rather you didn’t get us shot two seconds in,” Cobalt concurred. “A place like this must have a loading dock. Somewhere where they’d get deliveries and such.”

“Unless they have that secured as well,” Stripe mused.

“Only one way to find out.” What was the harm in checking? “Come on.”

We moved along the wall while staying low to the ground, reaching a gap in the old structure and slipping in and up to the outer wall of the Megamart itself. Now I was closer, more bars were making themselves known on my E.F.S., and a few of them were even green.

The prisoners, no doubt.

We still kept low, continuing up the sides. We stopped briefly by the boarded-up door and confirmed that the boards were decayed and loose. If anything, I suppose it’s a plan B. Though it would be our luck to break in on a couple of raiders rutting, so it was probably best to review all our options first.

Also along the side was a second door without the boards, through when we tried to open it there seemed to be chains on the other side. That’s… pretty much what I expected to happen. There was also a set of small metal stairs that seemed to lead up to the roof, though they had collapsed part way up, so that was useless.

There was nothing else along the way but discarded junk and broken-down ventilation units, nothing that could help us. Finally, however, we reached the end of the outer wall that curved around to the rear of the large building. We stopped at the edge, and I peered around the corner while keeping an eye of the E.F.S. for any trigger-happy raiders.

There was nothing.

Since the coast was clear, we stopped crouching and walked out into the open. Sure enough, there were a couple of large but closed metal doors with various long abandoned equipment scattered around the place. Definitely the loading dock we were after, but now to see if it would open…

Cobalt and I approached one of the doors while Stripe kept watch, Altrix remaining close to the zebra. While that was happening, we looked around for whatever controls would cause the door to slid open. To the left was a rusted panel with two large buttons, though pressing either one failed to do anything.

I suppose that figured. This place wasn’t exactly getting any power.

Another glance also showed a basic padlock was chaining the door to the ground. I retrieved my screwdriver and a bobby pin, getting to work on opening the lock. It was even easier than the one back at Haven, and with the ‘click’ the lock fell away along with the metal chains.

There was still the matter of the busted controls…

“We’ll need to lift it,” I said towards Cobalt. “Slow and steady, just enough for us to roll in if everything is clear.”

Cobalt nodded, lighting up his horn in readiness. I did the same, and our two auras intermingled as they latched onto the large metal door and began to lift. We moved as slowly and steadily as we could, only getting the lightest screech from the ancient mechanisms as it raised upwards. Once a small gap led inside, Stripe trotted over and crouched down to peer into the darkness within. She nodded after a moment and quickly rolled inside.

Altrix followed after taking a moment to collect herself and, last but not least, Cobalt and I slowly made our way in before gently lowering the door back down to the ground. Only when it was back in place did we let our horns die out, breathing a sigh of relief.

Well, we were in. Now came the fun part.

The loading dock was dark and empty, the only sign of raider activity being a couple of graffiti pieces sprawled along the walls depicting the rape and murder of the Ministry Mares and Princesses of Equestria. You know, the usual raider art.

But aside from that everything seemed to be quiet. I guess the raiders hadn’t considered that a unicorn might just lift the door. Dumbasses.

“Well, we’re in,” Cobalt commented. “Now what do we do?”

“They’re likely to keep the prisoners in the main shopping hall,” Stripe noted, never taking her eyes way from the entrances into the room. “Alongside most of the raiders, no doubt.”

“We need a better idea of what we’re facing in here,” I said. Bursting in now would be no better than a frontal assault. “Their numbers. Traps. Everything, really.”

“Then let us be swift,” Stripe stated, trotting towards one of the nearby doorways and slowly creaking it open.

After the corridor was confirmed to be clear of raiders, we began to quietly make our way down it. There was more graffiti inside, along with a few empty ammo boxes and some long-dried stains I didn’t even want to guess at. The corridor made a turn to the right, and we stopped just nearby to peer around.

Yup, that explained the red bar.

A single raider stood in the corridor with a cigarette in his mouth, facing away from us as he leaned up against a wall. There was a door next to him with a sign indicating that it was a bathroom. I could see a staircase at the end of the hallway leading upwards, and shortly before that were two more closed doorways leading to Luna knows where.

But that raider was between us and them.

Stripe didn’t say a word as she slipped past us and around the corner, moving quieter than I’d though possible. Seriously, did she set her hooves on silent or something?

Well, one way or another the raider was too engrossed in his smoke to notice the zebra creeping up on him. Something he quickly came to regret when she latched one hoof onto his muzzle and another around his neck. He gave out muffled cried as Stripe dragged him to the ground, squeezing tight until the stallion’s movements weakened before ceasing altogether.

His bar blinked out as the rest of us stood from our hiding place and approached, Stripe discarding the raider in disgust.

“You are scary sometimes, you know that?” I said teasingly towards the mare.

“So you like scary, hm?”

“Do that later,” Cobalt interrupted crossly. Do what later!?

“I think it’s cute,” Altrix quietly added. “Uh… not the body though. That’s really not.”

I was about to retort to my friends’ comments, but I was stopped when the sound of voices rapidly approached the nearest doorway past the bathroom. We barely had second to jump inside said bathroom when it opened up, revealing three more raiders laughing to themselves about something or other. I made sure to grab the corpse with my magic as a sudden afterthought, dragging it into the bathroom with us hopefully before they saw it.

They didn’t. But they heard it.

“What was that?” one of the raiders rasped, and their chatter stopped instantly. “Oi, who’s fucking about in here?”

We remained as silent as possible, not even daring to breathe. We could handle three raiders, but if just one of them shouted in alarm then the whole place would come down on us…

“Come on out…” a mare sang sadistically, giggling to herself. “Though I might be in the mood for games. Loser is the plaything!”

The three raiders laughed to themselves as their hoofsteps got closer and closer. We shied away from the doorway as much as we could, Stipe readying her weapons while Altrix cowered behind her while shaking fiercely in fear. Any second and they would look in here, there wasn’t enough room in the three stalls to hide!

And then Altrix gave a small whimper before stepping towards the door. Before any of us could even register her action and stop her, we were stopped by a small flash of green flame just before the changeling revealed herself to the raiders in the hallway.

“Face Pizza! What are you doing in there?” Wait, his name was fucking Face Pizza!?

Ugh, never mind that. More important to the current situation, Altrix had just… changed. Just like that purple eyed infiltrator from the memory orb, in a flash of green light our meek changeling companion had morphed into the raider that Stripe had strangled a minute ago. And now she… he? Well, ‘Face Pizza’ stood in front of the three raiders while looking more than a little flustered.

Something tells me Altrix isn’t a good actress…

“Yeah, why’re looking all shifty back there?” one of them asked. “You’re not overdoing the Buck, are ya?”

“Oh, uh…” Great start… “I just, um… Nature’s call, you know? Needed a… wee, and stuff.”

I sure hope they didn’t hear the sound of Cobalt’s facehoof.

There were several moments of silence, and I was certain I was about to see the poor changeling get shot in the face…

“Pfft, never mind Buck, he’s on all the shit,” the mare proclaimed as she cackled to herself. “Look at him! He’s out of it!”

“Oh, yeah… Like, totally…” Altrix agreed half-heartedly.

“Well, save us some. Or I’ll skin ya!” the raider cautioned before I heard their steps continue back in the opposite direction to us.

I let go of the breath I was holding before I died of asphyxiation…

Once we all breathed a sigh of relief, we finally exited the bathroom and joined Altrix in the hallway where the mare was standing ramrod without even blinking. That was… concerning, so I slowly reached out a hoof and tapped the disguised changeling on the shoulder.

She gave out a small noise of distress, before flopping over onto her back like a sack of partially mutated potatoes. There she laid, her left forehoof twitching ever so often.

I looked helplessly over at Stripe, who just gave a sigh before. Altrix, well… she clearly hadn’t been ready for what we were going to be facing out here. But, unfortunately, there was little to be done about it now but for Stripe to whisper comforting words to the young mare. While that was happening, I slowly trotted over to the door the raiders had come from and opened it a crack.

Beyond it was the main shopping hall. Though I could only see a little through the crack, the massive amount of red bars was most telling.

“Come over here and say that, you gigantic fuck stick!” a course voice shouted from somewhere in the hall. And if I had to make a guess, it was the pegasus who had gone for that raider’s face earlier. “See how much of a stallion you are without your-”

I shut the door as the rant continued, leaving her to it. The voice had been coming from the single group of green bars in the building, so it was definitely the captive mare we’d seen. But quiet returned one the door was firmly closed, and I took a moment to take some needed breaths as I leaned against it.

I saw a green flash as Altrix returned to her normal self, shakily being helped to her hooves by Stripe. I gave the changeling a look of concern, and she flushed with embarrassment.

“You okay?” I asked over to her.

“Um, yeah. Kinda,” she responded, releasing a deep sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not much of an infiltrator, nobody ever needed to change in the stable…”

“You got them to leave, you helped,” Stripe assured the changeling, she gave a shaky smile in return. “And we shall work on your performance. Later.”

At least it would give her something to do other than think on the situation she walked into.

“I’m thinking up the stairs,” I said to the group, gesturing to the said staircase. “Maybe we can get a vantage on all of them?”

I received no argument, and we proceeded once again. We passed the other doorway, which led down another corridor the three raiders we’d met had gone down. We avoided it entirely, quickly making our way up the staircase. It led up to a staff door, and when we opened it we found ourselves in a jungle of metal racks filled with torn rags that were probably once really nice clothes ponies wore on special occasions. Or as nice as you could get in a Megamart, at least.

Still, the rags gave us ample cover to move further in undetected. I could see a few raiders through the rags hanging out at the top of an old escalator down towards the ground floor, where the rest of their buddies were located.

And there were lots of them.

They had built bridges across most of the aisles, across all the shelving units and long dead fridges. At the front of the store, where the cashiers once stood, there was extensive barricading constructed guarding the entrances. I slipped into S.A.T.S. to get a better idea of what was around there, and the spell did target a few mines that witless ponies could stumble upon. The barricades had several raiders leaned against them, looking almost bored and craving an attack to occur, while a scavenged military turret beeped idly as it scanned for targets.

And if the turret was the worst thing, well… we’d have been lucky.

Noooo, that was the raider decked out in some weird cobbled together power armour. Most of it looked like it was made from scrap, but I could see at least a few pieces that had come from actual power armour the likes to Steel Ranger would use. A couple models of it, in fact.

Their leader, I imagined. And he would not be fun to deal with.

“I shall remain here, this will be a good vantage,” Stripe noted after I had exited from the spell, casting a glance at the raiders on the upper floor. “Make a noise and they will come running, leaving me free to do as I wish.”

“That gives us sniper support,” I noted. I would always feel better with her watching my back through a scope. “Though that turret is an issue. Cobalt, can you do anything with it?”

Cobalt didn’t respond immediately, gazing at the turret a moment before his eyes began to trail along something. Following his gaze, I noticed a wire leading from the turret towards a terminal set up on an old fish counter.

“If I can get there, I can probably change its targeting parameters,” he explained. “Maybe get it to target the guy in power armour.”

Okay, I was liking this plan so far.

“So I’m thinking we have Cobalt sneak over to the terminal and do his thing,” I began. “I’ll be standing by to start shooting either if Cobalt needs a distraction or when the turret opens up. After that, we all clear the raiders in the crossfire while Altrix avoids the fighting and sees what she can do for the captives.”

“I can do that,” Altrix said, her determination to help those in medical need returning once more. “If they’re hurt, I’ll make them better. I promise.”

Alright, this was looking better for us. If we could just pull this off, then…

Well, we had to pull it off. If we didn’t, we were dead. Or worse. Being captured by raiders after you’ve shot up the place if definitely worse.

“Okay, it’s a plan. Let’s do it.”

We left Stripe up there among the rags, where she set herself up in a nice little sniper’s nest. The raiders were none the wiser as we slipped back out and down the stairs, not wasting a moment as we proceeded down the corridor and quietly out the door. We found ourselves behind a customer service counter, a couple of boxes piles up on the surface while a charred skeleton sat in a chair.

The skeleton had a party hat on, courtesy of the raiders I’d imagine.

Just beyond the counter were several rows of aisles, and I could see raiders patrolling along the bridges they’d constructed. There were also a couple idly milling about in the aisles themselves, either chatting amongst themselves or drinking and/or doing a multitude of drugs to pass the time. There was also the usual décor of their prior victims used either as warnings to others or to make the place seem more like whatever a raider considered home.

The same fate the captives had in store if we didn’t do something, I’d bet.

We waited for a raider to pass, and then we followed on until we reached another counter to hide behind. This one also seemed to be staff related, and by the extra scrap and tech lying around it seemed to be robotics based.

What was also a giveaway, well… that was the Protectapony sitting idly in its booth, undisturbed for the last two hundred years. The robot was a rusted yellow, holding the general shape of a pony while having much of its head covered with a glass dome that contained a blinking red talisman.

Cobalt’s eyes lit up like an excited foal. “Bingo!”

He slinked over to a terminal as me and Altrix watched curiously. He accessed it and immediately began hacking into the terminal. Judging from the dents in the frame I guess that the raiders had tried, but they had lacked the necessary skill to get into the computer.

Cobalt wasn’t a dumb raider.

He quickly gained access, seeming to glance through whatever menu had come up. He typed out a few commands, humming as he worked. He then gave himself a happy smile, before logging off and returning over to us.

“The password is ‘Metallurgy’,” he informed us. “When I get that turret going, Scrap Heap, you activate that robot and get shooting!”

“Won’t it attack us as well?” I asked with a small amount of concern.

“I set the targeting parameters to armed ponies only, so Altrix and Stripe are fine,” he explained. “I also set it to ignore PipBuck signatures. And I programmed it, so I’ll be fine.”

I kinda wanted to press on exactly how he programmed all that just now, but I didn’t want a headache either. So I just nodded and smiled, hoping he got it right and I wasn’t going to be disintegrated the moment I turned that thing on.

“Fair enough,” I said, before turning towards Altrix. “Go back to that raider form. Don’t speak to anypony, just try to walk and act like a drugged-up raider.”

“Um, alright…” Altrix said uncertainly. “But, um… what do I do while waiting for things to go, you know… boom.”

“Try to get close to the prisoners. When all the raiders are distracted, get to helping them.”

She nodded, just before flames washed over her again and returned the raider Stripe had killed. She looked beyond terrified, but as I had come to expect from her she did her best to ignore it so long as there were people who needed her help.

Dear Celestia, let her make it out of this alright. I was really coming to like Altrix, and she was too damned innocent for this wasteland…

Altrix left the safety of the counter behind, and I prayed the goddesses would watch over her. Cobalt also took this as a sign to get moving towards the terminal, and at the next best opportunity he slipped out and was lost among the aisles.

And now I just had to wait.

It was now just me behind the counter, sitting with only my own breaths for company. By myself.

The last time I had been in a conflict with raiders without support, I had to be saved. Still, I wasn’t exactly alone this time, even if I couldn’t see them right now. But it still felt strange, I had become quite accustomed to my friends always being at my side over the past couple weeks. One of the many changes I’d experienced as of late, I guess.

Moments passed. And then minutes. Five. Six.

Each one was more nerve-wracking than the last. Ugh, come on Cobalt!

I guess he was having trouble reaching the terminal. Or maybe the raiders had somehow gotten an encryption that’d stumped him. I didn’t know, but only the lack of gunshots stopped me from entering a full panic. Right now there were so many things that could go wrong, so many ways my friends could get hurt if my plan failed.

I bet the Stable Dweller never felt this nervous during one of her plans…

Alright, I had to do something to pass the time. I extracted my guns, checking them over for damage that could cause it to jam. The frames looked a little dinged up, but they were otherwise in good condition. Nice to see I hadn’t lost my touch when it comes to maintenance and repair.

Well, that distraction went by fast. Maybe I should just access that terminal ready for Cobalt’s signal.

“What the-!?”

That declaration was followed by the sound of a machine gun turret revving up and unloading into the raiders.

Nice timing.

Activate!

“Warning: Law enforcement subroutines activated,” the robot announced in a robotic monotone as its pod slid open, the machine clanking out amid the first echoes of gunfire. “Hostiles detected, all citizens evacuate in case of injury or death.”

“What the hell is that junk pile doing out!?” a raider shouted as he skidded to a halt, observing the scene of me crouched by the terminal while the robot turned towards the raider.

“Firing.”

A red beam struck the raider in the face, and he was reduced to ash.

Go Cobalt!

I pulled out my shotgun as the Protectapony plodded off on its own grand adventures. I jumped onto the counter and leapt up onto the nearest of the raider’s fortifications, scrambling up and onto the top of the aisles.

CRACK.

Stripe is getting to work I see.

In moments the entire Megamart had been thrown into chaos. The turret seemed to have caught all the entrance’s defenders by surprise and gunned them down, now having turned its sights on the heavily cursing power armoured raider. The rest of the raiders were scrambling, the ones from upstairs having ran down only to be the first of Stripe’s victims while I spied a couple bolts of magic shooting into the crowd of dumbfounded ponies.

They’d never seen us coming.

“Get him!” a shout came near to me, and three raiders hopped onto one of the nearby bridges with very angry glares aimed right at me. “Beat him with his own legs!”

No thanks!

I engaged S.A.T.S. and targeted the three raiders, one shot per pony. When the spell went into effect each one got their fair share of leads before falling from the tops of the aisles and down to the ground below. At least one of them was moaning in pain after impact, but their bar quickly blinked from view.

Another raider got pegged in the side of the head by a bolt of magic, their friend giving a shout of rage as they turned their rifle towards where Cobalt was taking cover.

They only got a single shot off before their head was reduced to paste by a sniper round.

There was a crash as the three raiders from earlier burst in from the back areas of the Megamart, taking cover behind customer service and opening fire in my direction. A bullet pinged off my barding as I fell back off the aisle and to the ground, removing myself from their line of sight.

I hope Altrix was doing okay in all of this.

“FUCK!” the voice inside the power armour bellowed, the turret still struggling to break through his armour despite its cobbled-together nature.

Finally deciding he’d had enough, the raider boss turned on his former defence and fired something from his battle saddle. There was a moment, and then the turret vanished as the grenade detonated directly under it.

There was a shout behind me as a raider attempted a tackle, but I was not getting in another hoof to hoof fight! I just jumped to the side, quickly drawing my pistol and firing blindly towards where I’d heard the shout. After I landed I wasted no time in scrambling back to my hooves to face my attacker, only to find him groaning on the ground full of holes while his weapon of choice, a crowbar, had fallen from his mouth.

I ended it with a bullet to the head.

I holstered my pistol and retrieved my shotgun, only to hear a loud bang from elsewhere in the Megamart. I scrambled up back onto the aisles to see what their boss had hit, and as I saw the scene a bullet pinged off of his power helmet from Stipe’s sniper fire.

He looked up at where she was perched and oriented his grenade launcher.

Nonononono!

The blast from my shotgun was both too late to stop him and too far to do any serious damage, the grenade flew high and detonated on the upper floor.

S-Stripe…?

CRACK. Another bullet pinged off of the armour.

Oh thank Celestia.

As the boss gave a shout of rage, I spied from my position a few of the raiders beginning to make their way up the escalator. I gave Stripe a shout of warning, and she seemed to get the message as I saw her retreat from her position.

Too bad I had unwittingly drawn attention to myself.

An explosion threw me from my hooves and back down to the ground. Pain ricocheted throughout my body as my PipBuck flashed with warnings to most of my limbs. Everything hurt really, really bad. I found I could barely move my hooves, so it fell to my magic to fumble for a potion and down it as quickly as possible.

Sweet relief as I popped back together, fortunately with nothing seeming to remain out of place.

My PipBuck calmed down, though the little Stable Colt avatar still held a frown on his face. I guess I was still a little banged up even after the potion, but that could wait a moment seeing as I could still hear plenty of gunfire!

I rounded the aisles from below, blasting a raider who had been taking cover from Stripe’s gaze. I spotted a ramp with a couple more raiders crouched down, taking pot shots in Cobalt’s direction. I opened fire in their direction, hitting one in the leg as the other turned his rifle towards me and opened fire.

I ducked behind a shelf, gritting my teeth as more bullets pinged way too close to my head.

I heard a faint ‘zap’, and the set of gunfire that had followed me ceased.

Turning the corner again, I saw the raider who’d fired had collapsed into a heap, I suppose I had Cobalt’s magic to thank for that. The injured raider was attempting to down a healing potion, and I just grabbed the bottle in my magic and snatched it away.

“Aw shit…”

Those were his apt final words as my shotgun blew him away.

I ran up the ramp, moving back up top to see the raider boss. He’d turned towards where Cobalt was situated, and once again I couldn’t stop him firing a grenade in my friend’s direction. Fortunately, I saw a blue shield erect around his position which the grenade bounced off of.

Less fortunately, when the grenade detonated the shield shattered into thousands of fragments in a fantastic flash of light, and I heard Cobalt give a shout of pain from behind all of the carnage.

“Oi!” I shouted at the raider, distracting him from my stricken and vulnerable friend. “How’s that armour rated against shotgun rain!”

Emphasising my point, I let off two shots in his direction.

Both just pinged off, albeit taking a few scraps of the armour with them, as the raider pointed the launcher at me.

Oh crap.

Really not wanting a repeat of last time, I shot forwards and leapt towards the next aisle as the one I had just been on exploded. I stumbled as I barely made the landing, planting all four of my hooves firmly as I engaged S.A.T.S. once more.

I was a little closer to him after the jump so, hopefully, these next shots could peel away some more of the scrap on his power armour.

I lined up to shots and engaged.

Both shots went off, and both made their mark. A little more of the armour on his chest was sheared away, revealing the inner workings. If I could just hit those, I could get the entire thing to crash and lock up!

The raider had stumbled from the force of my shots, so I aimed quickly down the sights towards the exposed sections of the armour. Just one good shot and I could get the spell matrix to crash. To one good shot…

‘Click’.

Ah, I need to reload.

The raider seemed to hesitate a moment, but then I heard laughter from within the suit as he realised I was out.

I swapped the shotgun for the pistol and unloaded! Issue was, 9mm wasn’t as effective in this situation. I think a bullet hit the exposed section, for all the good that did, which was none at all. They were just too weak by comparison.

It didn’t help that the raider raised an armoured hoof to block the other shots, and pretty soon the clip ran dry…

I really wish I still had that Balefire Egg Launcher. Because my current weapons were not made to deal with power armour in the slightest. And now I was exposed; gunfire from up top showed that Stripe was busy, and Cobalt was out of action. And that grenade launcher really looked like it wanted my blood…

Whatever was to happen next, whether I would drop back down in time or would explode into gory chunks, would never occur. And this was, quite simply, singularly possible by the fact that a very angry purple maned pegasus had jumped onto his back and was presently swiping at the oxygen tubes on the helmet with a combat knife.

“BAH! Traitor! Whore!” the raider raged, bucking and kicking in an attempt to dislodge it.

Welp, I guess Altrix had reached the captives. Whatever the case, this was the time I needed to reload!

“Sit… still…!” the pegasus’ muffled shout came from behind her clenched teeth, continuing to swipe.

I got my combat shotgun reloaded, and I aimed it back at the duo. Ah, damn, shooting now would mean hitting her too! With him bucking and kicking, and her gripping onto his helmet tightly, I couldn’t make a safe shot! Dammit, your combat knife won’t do much against that armour! Move!

And then she jammed the knife into a gap beneath the helmet, prying with all her might as she tore it from the stallion’s head.

“Fuck yea-WHOOOAH!” Her victory was silenced as she was finally dislodged, being knocked down between the aisles.

Though she took the helmet with her.

But whoever she was, I felt like I could kiss her at that moment. I would never doubt a combat knife again!

After all, while the stallion was free and immediately attempted to bring his grenade launcher back towards me, I had already closed the gap between us as the two had struggled. I’d been ready, and he’d have to have been seriously jacked up on Dash to have been fast enough to avoid what came next.

I pulled the trigger, and the Megamart was painted with the raider boss’ brains.

The body stayed standing for a moment, the blood gushing from the neck stump. Then the power armour swayed and fell from the fortification down to the floor below.

His death almost perfectly marked the end of the fight. A few final gunshots were shared up top, but I saw the remaining red bars quickly blink out as Stripe won her fight as well. After that, silence claimed the Megamart.

That was… the most intense fight I had ever been a part of. Dear Celestia, I could feel adrenaline pumping like crazy. One thing was for certain, I did not ever want to fight a Steel Ranger if that was what fighting a scrap suit of power armour was like.

And I needed a breather, that was also certain.

I stood there, taking in deep breaths as I let the adrenaline drain away… Ouch, by the way, I could see why my PipBuck was frowning. But as I did, I saw the pegasus mare clamber back up from where she fell. She calmly walked over to the spot where the suit of power armour had collapsed with its deceased occupant still inside, and I saw her glare down at it with contempt.

“Asshole…” she muttered, and I only just caught the curse from under her breath. She then turned to look at me, and her look showed nothing bus suspicion. “And who the hell are you?”

“Uh… I’m Scrap Heap,” I introduced between breaths, steadily getting myself back under control. “Nice one, with the helmet I mean.”

“No wastelander just walks into a raider den. Much less succeed in killing the lot of em’,” she continued without missing a beat. “Why?”

“Well, uh… We saw you being dragged in earlier. Thought there might be some ponies in here needing help,” I explained honestly, though I wasn’t sure she entirely believed me. “I take it a raider called Face Pizza freed you? Or, even, a weird insect pony?”

Judging from the way she bit her lip, I’m guessing Altrix had shown the prisoners her true form while freeing them. “Yeah… It’s back by the cages.”

“Thanks. You should have her take a look at you, she’s a doctor,” I told her, before trotting past the mare. I only made it a few steps before I turned back towards her, curious. “I don’t think I caught your name…?”

She didn’t reply, only staring at me with that odd look.

Alright then…

“Scrap Heap!”

The call made me turn away from the strange mare, the voice being Cobalt’s. I hopped off from the top of the aisle and down between them again. I rushed through the small maze, running over to where the green bars were on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

And it was a very sorry sight that had greeted me.

Cobalt was standing with a healing potion in his mouth, blood leaking from the base of his horn. Near to him was Altrix, seeing to the alarmed, but cooperative, prisoners.

And they were not in a good way.

There was a dozen or so of them, including one young filly. All of them had bruises covering much of their bodies, alongside a multitude of other wounds. Many were starved, and Altrix was presently setting the bone in a mare’s broken leg. They were all dirty, huddled together and looking at us in absolute terror.

Though the looks at Altrix, I noted, seemed more confused. Not surprising, since a strange bug creature who can change faces was now giving them medical attention.

“You’re alright,” Cobalt said in relief as he finished his potion. “Was that all of them?”

“Stripe finished the last of them upstairs. I’m sure she’ll be along in a minute,” I responded. And I couldn’t express how glad I was we’d all made it out in one piece.

Still, though, that could wait…

“Are they going to be alright?” I asked, gesturing towards the freed prisoners.

Cobalt grimaced. “Well, you can see that Altrix is seeing to them. But they haven’t said two words to me…”

“They hurt them…” Altrix muttered as she reassured the crying mare whose leg she’d just reset, moving to give her a healing potion to repair the damage.

“Altrix, what have they said to you…?”

Altrix bit back a sob. She was trying so hard to stay composed for them… “T-they said they beat them for fun. That they… ‘played’ the mares…” She glanced at the filly, who was shaking in the tender grasp of who I assumed was her mother. “All the mares.”

I went to reply, to comfort her in some way but… How could one respond to that? I had known this was probably going to be the case where raiders were involved, but…

Well, I guess seeing it is another story altogether.

“What about the pegasus?” I finally asked. “Did they say much about her?”

“She was one of them,” a nearby mare explained. “I saw her with them, guarding. But…”

The mare paused a minute, and I just waited patiently for her to continue. Pressing these ponies, in their state, wasn’t a good idea…

“S-she never joined in when… the ‘fun’ began,” she continued. “And recently we’d heard her arguing with the Boss a lot. And then she… she…”

“She tried to spring us,” a stallion concluded. “Almost got away with it. But she got caught at the last minute and had to run. Then, shortly before you came in here and blew the bastards to hell, she got tossed back in here with us.”

“So she, a raider, tried to save you…? That’s-” As I looked towards where I’d seen the pegasus, I saw that she had vanished.

And even as we saw to their needs, and Stripe finally met up with us, we didn’t see the mare again after that.

We’d stayed for a few more hours; Altrix had given them all the medical attention that she could, but eventually the prisoners were as well as they were going to be for travel. We’d gone through the raiders’ things, patched together as much non-raider looking barding as possible as well as weapons for them to use. Food and medicine was also a priority; we wanted to make sure these ponies had everything they were going to need.

In the end, we managed to get most of them armoured up, and every adult had a gun with a decent amount of ammo in their possession. I’d say they were a well-armed group of settlers when we were through, not a prime target for the average raider or critter.

Once all was said and done, they had thanked us for the rescue, though they had nothing to give us in return. But that was fine; it’s not like we were expecting anything. Besides, we got a fair share of supplies from the raider hideout as well, so we didn’t exactly go away empty-hooved.

But while we were going to leave, use the remaining hours of daylight to travel to Stable 77, they were going to stay the night to rest up a bit from the trauma with a roof over their heads. Then in the morning, they would depart for one of the settlements down south.

Though I was feeling a little guilty leaving them only hours after freeing them, I was sure they’d be fine. They had the guns, food, water, medicine and numbers to make a good go at it.

It also helped the Cobalt had reprogrammed the Protectapony to accompany and guard over them, which they had been rather keen on.

So we left through the front entrance of the Megamart, deactivating the mines as we went, and stepped back out into the cloudy wasteland day.

“They will be fine, right?” Altrix asked quietly. “I never knew someone could go through so much…”

“What does not kill you, will make you stronger,” Cobalt quoted.

“Indeed,” Stripe agreed. “They have been through unimaginable suffering, they will not allow themselves to return to it so easily.”

“Not with the guns we gave them,” I added in. “They’ll probably make their way down to New Appleoosa maybe. Or Friendship City. I’m sure either would be glad for a Protectapony.”

“Are they nice places?” the changeling enquired.

“Nice enough. Better than anywhere not inside walls, anyway,” I answered, looking around the area.

“Okay. I’m glad, I think they deserve a bit of happiness.”

“After this, who could disagree?” a familiar robotic voice stated, and sure enough down floated Watcher in all his hovering glory. “So… everything went well?”

“No thanks to you, yes,” I deadpanned back at the little annoyance. It wouldn’t have killed him to give us a heads up, would it?

“Ah, yeah…” he replied sheepishly. “Sorry about that. I just wanted to see what you would do when faced with the choice of saving them or saving yourselves.”

“You already know we are out here to assist the changelings,” Stripe challenged. “Why did you need to see this without telling us beforehoof?”

“It’s a test of morality for those with… potential,” Watcher explained. “I’m sorry I was evasive. But I put both Littlepip and Blackjack through the same thing.”

I frowned. “Who?”

Watcher chuckled. “You aren’t the only ones who want to help ponies, in fact I think there’s a record number as of late. Even this little filly over at Route 52, Puppysmiles. She is… an interesting case, though.”

I think everything about this could be described as ‘interesting’.

“So, what happens now?” Cobalt asked the Spritebot. “We passed your little test. So… what?”

“Well…” Watcher hesitated. “I don’t know if you’re the people I’m looking for. Candidates, perhaps. But you’re not the only ones.”

Candidates for what?

“But be that as it may, you should keep up the good work.”

I gave him a puzzled look. “Good work?”

“You saved those ponies. As a team, and as friends,” Watcher explained. “As for the changelings… They were once a massive threat to everything Equestria had, a love-hungry swarm that wanted to consume everything and everypony.”

I heard Watcher’s sigh through the radio, and he took a moment before continuing.

“But, after two hundred years, I think even they deserve a second chance,” he decided. “Help the changelings survive in this wasteland, to accept friendship as the way to rebuild this world. Don’t let them fall back to who they once were, monsters to fear.”

So, this is what Watcher truly wanted. Second chances. And for friendship to replace the brutality that is the Equestrian Wasteland. They were… lofty goals. But if there was a way to start rebuilding the world… Why could it not be this?

“You can count us… Weird floating ball thing,” I said to Watcher, giving him a smirk. “So… we ever going to meet the voice behind the bot?”

“Nope,” he responded with a chuckle. “As DJ Pon-3 would say, keep up the good fight. I’ll be watching.”

A burst of static, and Watcher was gone.

We watched the Spritebot go, sputtering its little tune as it went.

“Do you think we can really make a difference?” Altrix asked curiously.

Could we? Two ponies, a zebra and a changeling?

Then I thought back to that pegasus, a raider who tried to do the right thing in the end. Who had probably saved my life. Maybe we couldn’t change the wasteland overnight, but I guess all small things do add up eventually…

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I think saving your hive… Well, that’s a start. And it’s worth a shot.”

Footnote: Level 18

New Perk: Concentrated Fire - +5% accuracy in S.A.T.S. with every attack queued.

21 - The Galloping Gorge

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Chapter Twenty-One: The Galloping Gorge

“What eel?”

“Stupid… come on…”

Who knew a random lock on a random safe sitting in a random hole in the fucking random middle of nowhere would be so hard to pick!?

It had been three more days since we had left the Megamart and the freed captives behind, taking to the wasteland again and heading towards Stable 77. We hadn’t seen any more raiders in that time, so my guess was that the local area had been run by the group we wiped out. Nor had Watcher shown his face, or… radio, again. He seemed content to leave us to our business, though I had the feeling that he was still checking in on us from afar.

Still was kinda creepy, but whatever.

Not that the wasteland hadn’t thrown its usual assortment of creeps and freaks at us, though it was nothing we couldn’t handle. And stacking up on radhog meat was always a plus.

Actually, Altrix seemed abashedly keen on it. I guess changelings are more meat eaters than ponies are, which makes sense given those fangs of hers. The rest of us, though… Well, we’re leaving it as a last resort. Why suffer potential indigestion when I have some perfectly good mutated fruits and vegetables still in my pack.

There also seemed to be more and more ruins dotted along the roadside the further west we travelled. It appeared that we were exiting the large empty fields of the north back into the more heavily populated areas of Equestria. Makes sense, Vanhoover was some miles the other side of the Galloping Gorge. I also recall some Wastelander settlements in the area, and even a stable or two. Though this area was not one I was most knowledgeable on, it was too close to Hoofington for my tastes.

Most of the buildings were crumbled heaps of nothing anyway, long picked over by other scavengers for anything of worth. Old businesses mostly, while other structures were decayed well past any sort of identification or recognition. We passed a couple of small hamlets of houses, now home only to bloatsprites and radroaches.

And then there was this damned safe…

It was located in a play park, of all things. The site was a short distance away from one of those hamlets, where their foals once ran and played in Celestia’s sun. Now it was filled with overgrown and diseased weeds, rusting playground equipment and the bones of those families unlucky enough to get caught out here when the bombs fell.

And here, right in the middle of it all, was a small hole in the ground filled with water so radioactive I was filled with Rad-X and had Altrix fussing over me worriedly. In the water was an old metal safe just… sitting there. Still sealed, hiding whatever contents within.

And the lock wouldn’t budge!

“Come on…!”

“You’ve been at it for a while there, Scrap Heap,” Cobalt said with waning patience. “It might be time to give it a rest.”

“A-and your PipBuck is clicking a lot!” Altrix squeaked in agreement. “I don’t even want to think about all the rads you’re absorbing right now!”

“I have the some Rad-X, but I’ve almost… got it…” I twisted the lock in my magic, working the pin and screwdriver with long practised proficiency.

No lock had ever defeated me in my long scavenging career. Now would not be the day one did, dammit!

Snap.

“Mother-”

“Scrap…” Stripe interrupted. “I am in agreement with the others. There is a time to know defeat.”

I grumbled. Just one more try…

Out another bobby pin came. Okay, if I wanted in it was clear I would have to try a more aggressive approach. Force the lock open. You shall not hide from me, treasure!

Crack.

The lock jammed.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted, flinging my hooves into the air as I discarded the pins and screwdriver. What did this thing want from me!?

Cobalt gave me a deadpan look. “Can we go now?”

“If this was one of your terminal hacks, you’d stay until it was done!”

“You know the difference between that and now?” Do I really want to? “I’d actually get in.”

“Twat,” I spat at him, picking up the screwdriver and a pin in my magic and returning to the lock. “Just you wait…”

“Um… the lock’s broken…” Altrix pointed out.

I didn’t answer, instead jamming the screwdriver and bobby pin back in. It was a struggle alright; this thing was battling me for all it was worth. Certainly, it was a true master lock!

But I was brought into this world for one damned thing, and that was scavenging. You know what is a big part of scavenging? Picking locks! None will defeat me! I will reign eternal!

The lock gave way, the door swinging over.

“Ha! In your face!” I shot back at Cobalt, who just gave me a dismissive wave of his hoof and wandered off to do… whatever, I guess.

But I won! The lock lost! Nopony could take that from me!

And my prize…?

“Is… is that it…?” Altrix questioned with a tilt of her head. “Not that I’m… Yeah, it’s cool! I think…”

“You went through all of that for a single bottle of Sparkle-Cola?” Stripe deadpanned.

“Not just any Sparkle-Cola…” I said with a shit eating grin. “It’s a Sparkle-Cola RAD! Do you know how rare these little gems are?”

“Why is it all glowy?” Altrix asked.

“It’s radioactive,” Cobalt called over from where he was leaning against an old slide. “Yes, they made a drink before the war that could give you radiation poisoning. Don’t ask me why, but they did.”

“You’d have to drink a LOT of it for that,” I dismissed.

“So… what?” Altrix continued. “Is that, um… for sale? Since, you know, I assume you sell everything you scavenge.”

Sale!? I held the glowing blue bottle close to me, protecting my little Sparkle. “I’m not selling this beautiful thing! What I am going to do is savour it for every drop it’s worth!”

“I always preferred Sunrise Sarsaparilla,” Cobalt commented.

It was like he was trying to become my mortal enemy or something.

“Before we begin a rather strange war of the soft drinks, I think you should climb out of the radioactive hole, hm?” Stripe said to me with a smirk. “Or you could stand there with your prize, and I will have to find something to tie you up and drag you out. How does that sound?”

Honestly… Uh… Why did the thought of her ‘tying me up’ make me blush like a schoolfilly?

“Oh for Celestia’s sake,” Cobalt groaned as his horn lit up and… hey! Put me down!

He complied with my unspoken request, dumping me outside the hole and into the dirt.

“There, done,” he said. “Now… Did we have a job or are we just going to piss about with sodas all day?”

Fine.

I gathered my belongings and slid the Sparkle-Cola RAD into my saddlebag, before bringing up my PipBuck and examining the map. We were close to the Galloping Gorge now. The road we were following led right to it, and we’ll supposedly find there a bridge over the large scar in the ground. Of course, the real question was whether or not there was a safe way down. The stable seemed to be in the gorge itself.

And if anything lived inside it. But I suppose we’d find out soon enough.

“Alright, we should get there before dark,” I said to the others. “Let’s get back to walking.”

“No arguments here,” Cobalt commented, cantering up alongside me as we began to leave the old playground behind and venture out into the wasteland.

And as we walked, I had a bag of RadAway shoved into my chest commandingly within a green magic aura.

“You should drink, just to be safe. That water was incredibly radioactive,” Altrix advised. “Please?”

I sighed, taking the bag from her magic into my own. I downed it as quickly as possible, which seemed to please my PipBuck as the avatar looked just a little less ill.

“Thanks,” I said to her, discarding the now empty bag. “Hey, Altrix. I’ve been meaning to ask you… What made you want to become a doctor?”

She blinked. “What?”

“You seem really dedicated to it,” I responded. “I mean, you came out here with us despite the danger. You rushed to help those captives, you even posed as a raider because you thought we would be in danger otherwise. I guess I’m just curious where all that drive came from.”

“Oh, um…” She blushed brightly under the praise. “Well, I guess I always wanted to be a doctor. My mother was actually stable security. My father, well… He used to work in reactor maintenance, but when I was five he…”

She paused, the memory seeming to be a painful one.

“Well, there was an accident,” she continued. “He needed round the clock care after that, so I spent a lot of my time doing that when my mother was at work. He… died about a year ago.”

“We are sorry to hear that,” Stripe said to the changeling sympathetically. “What of your mother?”

“She, um…” She winced. “She was actually one of the officers who threw you guys into the cell.”

Ah. Well, remind me not to tangle with her.

“So what happened to your father was why you became a doctor?” I asked, trying not to push too hard on the subject of her dad.

“I… guess so. I suppose I just didn’t want anyone else to suffer like he did, or at least to have someone there for them if they do.”

Stripe gave her a tender smile. “That is a very kind thing to do.”

“I’d say she wears those symbols well,” Cobalt added, nodding to the pink butterflies on her medical boxes.

She blushed again, and I could imagine her wishing she had a mane to hide behind.

Still… I couldn’t say I disagreed with Cobalt. And looking at Altrix now, I had to think about that yellow pegasus I saw in the picture frame back in Ponyville. She would have been the perfect fit to work under Fluttershy in the Ministry of Peace back in the day.

I was just glad she had friends accompanying her. She would never survive in this wasteland alone.

Seeking to remove myself from that dour thought, and maybe to distract Altrix from her embarrassment, I decided to bring up my PipBuck and switch to the radio.

I hadn’t tuned into DJ Pon-3 in a little while. Perhaps there was more news on the Stable Dweller? Something to listen to as we walked this long decrepit road. My PipBuck’s broadcaster crackled as I switched to the correct signal, letting it tune in as some music began to play from the device.

It was a Sweetie Belle song.

“How did this happen? What have I done?”

“I was only trying to help, but I caused so much pain.”

“I wish I could hide. Wish I could run.”

“I wish I could find a way to do it again...”

I let the song play, filling the morose emptiness of the wasteland. The song was… sad. It didn’t do much for the general mood but… Well, there was no denying the voice. Sweetie Belle, even two hundred years later, was one of Equestria’s biggest sweethearts.

But any song was only so long, and eventually, the final lyrics played out and the instrumental brought the song to a close. Then, after a moment of silent, the easily recognisable voice of DJ Pon-3 spoke out.

“That was Regret, by Sweetie Belle,” the DJ stated. “How prophetic could one song have been?”

I wonder just how easy it was to see the end coming in the final days of the war?

“Now children, it is time for the news!” he announced, playing a little fanfare to accompany the announcement. “Now I’m always speaking of those ponies, and others, who have the guts to fight the good fight. Some might call em’ heroes. But here we have a rather obscure story I mentioned some… what? Two weeks back? Woo, time flies don’t it? But we finally have an update on the Scavenger.”

Wow… Guess I tuned in right on time. I wonder if this is Watcher’s doing? Or does the DJ have his own method of, well… watching?

Let’s just listen to what Pon-3 has heard.

“The quest is complete, people! The kid found the very stable he was looking for, or so my sources claim,” the DJ reported. “Got into a whole heap of trouble as well, just wait until you get a load of this…”

I could see the others listening in, glancing towards my PipBuck from the corners of their eyes.

“First… Cultists! Yeah, I know. ‘Hey Pon-3, what’s so significant about another group of wasteland whack jobs’. Well… there isn’t really anything too special, aside from some crazy cutie mark malarkey going on. But point is, Scavenger and his friends walked right into them, and almost got pressganged. Didn’t end well for them, and what’s left have reportedly fled into the wasteland. Be wary of these folks, children. They may not be friendly to those of us who haven’t ‘seen the light’.”

Was there anyone left in the wasteland who didn’t know the ins and outs of our journey by this point?

“There was also reportedly a run-in with Red Eye’s assholes up that way, so any travellers better beware,” DJ Pon-3 warned. “But now… the good part.”

“Say, children… have any of you ever heard of a changeling?” the DJ enquired. “No? Don’t blame you, neither had I. But apparently, they are a species of shapeshifting equines from before the war, and they had all taken shelter in a Stable-Tec stable. Yes, that’s right, the very stable that our hapless Scavenger and company were after.”

“Oh… I hope this Pon-3 person hasn’t heard bad things…” Altrix mumbled to herself.

“Turns out they’re friendly too. So far at least. And our Scavenger has been kind enough to give these stable dwellers a helping hoof to acclimatise to this wasteland we call home. Moreover, shortly afterwards an entire den of raiders was wiped out and a group of innocent settlers were saved from their clutches, able to move on with their lives.”

DJ Pon-3 gave a wistful whistle. “Hasn’t this been a nice few days. The Stable Dweller isn’t as dead as we’d thought, and now we have this little cherry to go on top. Nice going, kid. I’m sure the changelings are in good hooves, just… make sure they keep playing nice, okay?”

“Thanks for listening, children! This has been DJ Pon-3, bringing you the truth… no matter how bad it hurts.”

A few hours later, and we were approaching the gorge.

And given the large Stable-Tec billboard standing tall and proud right by the giant ravine, there was definitely a stable somewhere to be found around here. We just had to find out where it was, maybe get a good vantage point and look inside. Still, as we walked along the road and approached the gorge itself a potential problem was quick to present itself.

“Great,” I commented as we walked up. “The bridge is out.”

The road ended suddenly and violently. To our right was a small building that looked to be a security checkpoint of some kind; there was even a few military marked wagons and a single long rusted and broken tank guarding a partially collapsed barricade we’d just passed.

The bridge itself was missing, the edge where it used to be being jagged with pieces of concrete and rebar hanging uselessly down. I could see a small bit of the bridge on the other side, though it only extended part way before it too had collapsed, a large chunk hanging off by a thread while the rest of it was in a large debris pile at the bottom of the gorge.

I could also see more wagons and military vehicles down there, twisted among the debris.

“I guess it wasn’t tested against the shockwave of a balefire bomb,” Cobalt quipped, the stallion looking towards the security station. “We should have a look around. There might be a way down on our side.”

“Let us hope so, or it’s a long walk around,” Stripe noted.

The security station was open and surprisingly hadn’t been entirely looted over the past two centuries. The first room was small, box-shaped with large windows surveying what once had been a large bridge. There was a desk rounding most of it with a couple of busted terminals and rotten chairs containing skeletons in tattered uniforms. There was some ammo we helped ourselves to, as well as some healing potions in a first aid box that Altrix gleefully swiped.

There were two doors out, one of them being locked. Despite that, I didn’t even need to bust the screwdriver and bobby pins back out since the keys were still on the belt of one of the dead soldiers. Before checking that out, though, we had a look inside the second decidedly not locked door.

That one led out into a large room lined with cells. None of them had any skeletons inside, and all of them were open. I guess they hadn’t detained anypony the day the bombs fell. At the end of the room was a doorway that led into an interrogation chamber not dissimilar to the one I’d been shoved in back at Stable 84, just a lot less clean. The place was also empty of anything useful, so we back out again.

Which brought us to the locked doorway.

I put in the key and turned it, revealing an extremely small room with no discerning features beyond a second door.

A door with the Stable-Tec logo on it.

“Ah-ha,” I said aloud. “We’re definitely on the right side.”

The next doorway unlocked and led back outside. Moreover, it led out onto a catwalk hanging over the edge of the gorge itself. The catwalk was incredibly thin, only a single pony wide. It also seemed to descend down into the gorge itself.

“Single file, huh?” Cobalt stated. “It’s going to be tight, not much room to manoeuvre if we get in trouble.”

“I do not believe there is another way down, lest we discover climbing equipment,” Stripe pointed out. “And that is unlikely.”

“I don’t see any other movement on my E.F.S.,” I informed the others. “It seems safe at the moment.”

“Well, I have wings,” Altrix pointed out. “I could follow on in the air if it helps.”

“Let’s just get through this quick. I’m not even sure this thing will hold us after two hundred years,” Cobalt pointed out. And he had a point, the thing didn’t look in the best of shape.

“Altrix can fly,” I said. “The rest of us, we need to spread out. Go carefully.”

I got no argument, and so I made that first experimental step out onto the catwalk. It seemed stable, so I walked out entirely. Altrix followed me out under the power of her wings, buzzing off to the side as Stripe and Cobalt also exited.

We took it one step at a time, wary of any creaks and groans the structure made. The metal stairs descended quick and deep into the chasm, and we kept going down until we were about halfway into the gorge. Everything remained calm the entire time, though there was a nip in the air down here. The sides of the gorge were also full of large holes that seemed to dig into the rock. Odd.

Altrix stopped, coming to a hover as she looked back up at the security station.

I looked up at the changeling. “What is it?”

“I… uh… I thought I saw something,” Altrix said nervously, flying up a bit in an attempt to get a better look. “Are we being followed…?”

Followed? I didn’t see anything on my Eye Forward Sparkle. But I guess if they were all the way up there…

“What was it?” Stripe asked, readying her sniper and taking a look through the scope. Though I doubt she’d see anything from our position.

“I… don’t know,” Altrix admitted. “Though I think it was a p-”

“Red bars!” I shouted in alarm, watching one… two… three… “Three of them! They’re coming from… the walls?”

Then the rumbling began, and those of us on the catwalk clung to the railing to avoid slipping. The bars were moving, though I couldn’t see how they could be inside solid rock! What was... was…

From one of the holes in the gorge erupted something very red and very large, casting its shadow down upon us. It had a long serpentine body that extended back into the walls of the chasm. Its eyes, of which there seemed to be extra forming upon several bulbous cancerous growths, all swivelled to look down at us. A mouth opened up with a lot of sharp teeth inside, saliva dripping…

“Oh, that’s a big eel…”

It gave us a hiss and then reared back.

CRACK.

Stripe hit it on one of the mutant eel’s growth, causing it to shriek in pain and recoil.

Nobody even had to shout the word ‘run’.

We bolted down the remaining few steps quickly, and we all just made it to the catwalk spanning to the other side of the gorge when the eel slammed its body down onto the stairs and ripped them from the wall! In a screech of pained metal, the entire structure collapsed and fell down to the depths of the Galloping Gorge. With a whole bunch of the support beams taken out, the catwalk we were now on started to buckle!

We kept running, though it was a long way to the other side. A lot of the platform behind us collapsed, losing enough dead weight to stabilise as we moved fast enough to avoid plunging with it. Altrix sped ahead, skipping the run and moving directly to where the catwalk eventually ended further along the other side of the chasm.

We’d almost reached the other side, where the catwalk made a left turn and continued on against that side of the gorge, when two more eels burst out from that wall! One loomed above while a second came in from below, and that one was wasting no time at all. It shot up, biting into the catwalk with its sharp fangs and twist.

The entire section came away, and the entire length of the platform behind us tumbled down with it. Cobalt, who was in the back, stumbled as the metal beneath him shifted and then fell away. I was about to call out in panic, but a blue flash just ahead of us signalled a haggard-looking Cobalt teleporting down onto the catwalk.

I noted a bar moving in my vision, the eel above turning to make its move.

I dragged out my shotgun and fired two shells at the eel, Stripe moving to assist me by firing off a few rounds from her sniper. The creature gave a screech of pain as we tore away at the flesh on its face, and it began to retract back into its hole.

We didn’t wait for the second to make another move, and we bolted.

Altrix was waiting for us at the end, standing by a small mined out segment within the chasm wall. We all stepped into the alcove, dropping to the ground with nothing but our exhausted pants accompanying us. We laid there, catching our breaths. Outside the alcove, we could hear the screeches of the eels as they returned to wherever the hell they’d come from, and the smashing of some metal falling away from the ruined catwalk.

We were not exiting the same way we entered, and there was now the very real possibility that us non-fliers were trapped. The only way we could go was directly onwards, which right now was an old wooden wall and doorway within the alcove we were taking cover in.

And inside there was undoubtedly the large gear shaped door of Stable 77.

Footnote: Level 19

New Perk: Infiltrator - Can make one more attempt to pick a broken lock.

22 - Puppet Show

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Chapter Twenty-Two: Puppet Show

“Hey! What about all the other fucking people!?”

I was actually surprised when the door opened without a hitch, as the wood around it looked all rotten and decrepit. From there, we were all too happy to retreat away from the Galloping Gorge into the safety of the cave.

Presumed safety, anyway. Who could say otherwise in the Equestrian Wasteland?

We all piled in quickly, shutting the rickety old door behind us. It wouldn’t stop any of those eels looking for a quick snack, but we were rather hoping that they were dumb enough not to know the difference between a wall and a door.

Speaking of doors…

“Well, do you think we found the right place?” Cobalt quipped, pointing at the large gear shaped stable door directly ahead of us.

The door was all but identical to Stable 84’s, right down to the weathered finish; the only real difference was the number slapped onto it. The entranceway was also predictably sealed up tight, the control panel sitting idly nearby.

I wordlessly took a few steps forwards, eyes on the control panel as the others moved to follow. I prayed to the Goddesses that the door didn’t require a specific password, or we were pretty much screwed. Well, there was only one way to-

Crunch.

I stopped dead at the sound, and it took me a good few moments to realise that it had come from under my own hoof. And now that I thought about it, I was standing on something unusually hard… and with a jagged edge or two. Lifting my hoof to the side, I peered down to see what I’d inadvertently trodden on.

“What in the…”

I levitated up the object, twisting it left to right in front of me as I looked it over. After what we went through six days ago, there was no way I’d ever mistake this thing for anything else.

“It’s a bit of a carapace,” I informed the others.

“D-do you think other changelings have been here…?” Altrix asked, though her voice betrayed how unsure she was in that assertion.

“I wouldn’t think so,” Cobalt stated. “You’re the first changeling to leave that stable in two hundred years.”

“…Right. I guess so.”

Stripe walked up next to me, giving it an examination of her own.

“It looks to be from a radscorpion,” Stripe noted. “Long dead, one would both presume and hope.”

“Think another big one made this place its home,” I asked her.

She looked away from the shard, giving the cave itself a look over. “Possibly. It must have been long ago, any tunnels it dug in and out are long gone.”

“Well, that’s hope it left no descendants,” I said, throwing the shard to one side. “Come on.”

I trotted on up to the control panel, giving it a look over. It had a keypad and a screen blinking idly, awaiting input. I ignored both for the time being, igniting my horn and pulling down on the lever to activate the stable door’s mechanism.

The panel gave a beep, and text rolled out on the display.

Stable door manual lockdown. Stable-Tec PipBuck verification required.

Not a password…? Huh, I wonder…

I yanked out my PipBuck’s utility cable, locating the correct socket on the panel and plugging it in. My PipBuck’s screen flickered briefly before going black. Then, after a moment of waiting, rolling green text began to scroll through faster than I could read any of it. I only spotted bits and pieces, but it all seemed to be technical crap that would mean nothing to any of us barring Cobalt.

The text stopped, and another moment passed us by.

Then the alarm began to sound, the door’s opening sequence activated.

I disconnected by PipBuck from the control panel and stood back, flattening my ears to protect against the deafening noise echoing throughout the cave. The mechanisms inside the stable entrance shrieked and grinded, the agonising sound mixing in with the constant alarm.

And then, with one final screech, Stable 77’s door was dragged into the entrance and rolled aside, the alarm ceasing but a moment later.

What was within was definitely not a stable full of dwellers.

As we gingerly stepped into the ancient fallout shelter, we observed the rust covered walls all around us. Old refuse covered the floor, many of the lights were broken and old Stable-Tec motivational posters were either torn or had decayed into illegibility. Not only did it look trashed, but it reeked of mould as well. From the moment we walked through that massive door, we knew there would be no life here.

Altrix shrunk down, looking the most disturbed out of all of us.

Stripe trotted over to the changeling as we stood in the entrance, placing a comforting and yet questioning hoof on her shoulder.

“Sorry…” Altrix sniffed. “It’s just… this looks like home. Home… if something really bad happened.”

“The residents may have left a decade or two after the bombs fell,” Cobalt noted, examining a busted box of electronics on the wall. “Some stables only remained closed for twenty years or so before returning to populate Equestria.”

“They would have been better off staying put,” I mused, walking up to a window to the right of the room. Peering through, I could see an equally decrepit security checkpoint inside.

“They may not have had an orchard,” Cobalt pointed out. “And only enough food to last so long.”

“A stable without an orchard…?” Altrix muttered in disbelief. “Why would they make one like that?”

“As I said, some stables seemed to have intended early attempts of repopulation,” Cobalt reiterated. “Some seemed more inclined for the long haul. I bet your Queen chose the latter on purpose.”

I know which one I’d have wanted to be in. But more to the point…

“You think their water talisman still works after all this time?” I asked.

Cobalt frowned. “Hard to say… But easy enough to discover.”

After a quick examination of the room, Cobalt walked up to a lone water fountain sitting in the corner of the room by an overturned table. His horn ignited, and he pulled the lever on the fountain.

Water began to flow, being flawlessly drained away down the plughole as Cobalt observed with a hum.

I didn’t even need asking. I moved over next to him, lifting my PipBuck up to the stream of water. There wasn’t a sound from it, not even when I experimentally put my hoof into the flow of water.

“No rads,” Cobalt noted. “I’d say it’s working.”

Well, that was a good sign if any were to be had. Unless the water was just, by random chance, really clean here despite it all. But I went with the talisman explanation because the other one would be really unfortunate for both us and the Equestrian Hive.

There was also still the issue of the collapsed catwalk behind us. But that just meant there was only one way for us to go…

The door into the rest of the stable struggled a moment before sliding open. The place had power still, clearly, but the lack of maintenance was making me a little nervous.

The hallways of the stable were in just as much a sorry state as the entrance. Rust covered every visible sheet of metal, wires hung from exposed conduits, many of the lights were busted… The list of issues was through the roof. And something else that was off about this place?

This was a really long corridor leading in just one direction. Sure, there were twists and turns, but the only other door we’d seen since leaving the entrance was a random closet with busted cleaning equipment inside. It wasn’t like it was stretching for miles and miles mind you, but I counted two right turns and three lefts without a single branching corridor. After the first left turn there’d also been a set of stairs leading downwards, but that just eventually led to the second right turn, which then left to the second left. It was only after traversing that final corridor, passing by busted old ventilation unites hanging from the ceiling, did we actually come across another door at the end of the hall.

‘Atrium’ was marked above the door, and it slid open easier than the last door we’d passed through.

The room was as huge as the atrium I’d seen in Stable 84, though didn’t seem to have an upper floor. As we wandered in, we could see a door to our right that was marked as the cafeteria, though the window was obscured by blinds. To our immediate left sat another entranceway marked as the living quarters that had a window blocked off in the exact same way as the other one, while at the far end of the room sat a second door on both the left and right hoof sides of the room. One was marked as ‘reactor’, while the other led to the Overmare’s office of which I could see the circular window directly opposite of where we walked in, just one floor up.

As for the atrium itself, it was almost entirely empty. Empty… except for a single central table on which sat an old metal crate and some dusty holotapes.

“So, um… this is a little creepy,” Altrix muttered. “This stable feels… wrong.”

“I feel it too,” Stripe concurred. “The design is strange. The unusually long walk to here from the entrance, no branching paths and what appears to be a single bedroom. This place is far too small for a stable.”

They had a point. And if the only other room beyond here were the Overmare’s office and the reactor…

Something wasn’t right.

“Stripe, Altrix, check the living quarters,” I told them, and they gave a quick nod before moving towards the door in question. I then turned to Cobalt. “Check the cafeteria as well.”

“The talisman will probably be down by the reactor,” Cobalt noted.

“Yeah, but this place is bothering me too. I want to make sure we’re safe to go exploring further,” I rebuked. “Stripe’s right, it’s too small.”

“Yeah… no way this place could hold a viable population if this is all there is to it,” Cobalt mused. “There’s not even an infirmary…”

“Tell me about it…” I was doing my best to ignore the weird itch in my mane and the chill running down my spine. “So check the cafeteria. I’ll see if those tapes over there can shed some light.”

“Alright. Scream like a filly if the ghosts attack you,” Cobalt said, and he is so fucking unfunny. Screw you!

With him off to probably think up more of his famous remarks, jerk, I trotted towards the table and the holotapes.

First though, I was immensely curious about the crate.

The lid was already half off, so it was easy to brush it aside and take a peek inside.

…Um, why would a fallout shelter need puppets? I mean, I’m sure the foals would enjoy them, but… seriously? There were three inside. A dog, not even a diamond dog, just a standard dog. The second was an old mare, she really didn’t need the years of neglect to look aged. And the final one was… well, it was the strangest. But not because of its looks.

The final one was a puppet of Princess Celestia. And the weird part? It looked like it had been slashed with a knife several times over, and the puppet was in tattered pieces. The main body was full of gashes, while the head laid on the entire other end of the box.

Somepony apparently didn’t like the Goddesses all that much. Or maybe it was just Celestia? A Luna fan, perhaps?

It still seemed weird, and more than a little sadistic. If a child did this, they were probably future raider material.

Perhaps the audio logs would provide some answers. There was quite a few, though some seemed damaged. I popped the first one into my PipBuck and listened intently, keeping an eye on my E.F.S. just to be safe.

“Where are all the other fucking ponies!?” a male voice cried out, sounding like they were in the midst of an emotional meltdown. “Oh dear Celestia… It all happened so fast. The sirens, and then green mushroom clouds coming from… I think they hit Manehatten. I could see it all the way from here! And it wasn’t alone…”

The panicked stallion took a deep breath, before then continuing on.

“When I got to the gorge, the bridge had been locked down. Ponies were trying to get to the stable, but they were only letting admitted residents through. I was let right on in, given a stable jumpsuit and then shoved onto the catwalk. I chose to fly down, it was easier than walking on that rickety thing.”

He was a pegasus then? Goddesses, did the military back then really stop all those ponies from getting in? Damn, I could imagine many of them went with the bridge when it collapsed.

“But when I got in, the door just shut behind me! And there’s NOPONY ELSE HERE! It’s just me, and I don’t think there was ever meant to be anypony else. Stable-Tec… you are fucking monsters! If you’re listening, ROT IN HELL YOU BASTARDS. Gah… there’s… there’s also this box in the atrium. The only thing in here. I have yet to open it…”

The log ended, and I was left with my jaw on the floor. Only one resident… on purpose? Why… why the hell would anypony want to do that? What was the point?

I slipped in the second log, and I let it play.

“There were hoof puppets in the crate…” the stallion announced. “Four of them. Celestia, an old mare, some random dog and the Stable Colt. Why would they…? Ugh, forget about those things. I’ve been in here for days, and I’ve heard nothing from the outside world. The door won’t open, and the door controls say that it’ll only open in five years or so. What am I meant to do for that long?”

The log ended.

I had so many questions building up. Who was this guy? What happened to him? Why did Stable-Tec build a one pony stable? Where was the fourth puppet?

That chill grew colder, though my E.F.S. remained clear of all but my friends in the other rooms. The next few tapes were busted, so I just shoved them to one side and put in the next usable one.

“The five-year mark arrived yesterday,” the pegasus said in a depressed voice. “By Luna that was the biggest scorpion I’d ever seen. It’d just been sitting there, right by the stable door in the cave. I’m trapped with no weapons to speak of, just when I thought I was free…”

There was silence on the tape for a full minute, and for a moment I thought he’d just wandered off and let the tape run. But I was sadly proven wrong by an unhinged giggle that sent my stomach plummeting.

“Oh, Reverend Hound, even you couldn’t take on that thing,” the pegasus said as he giggled to himself. “No, we need you here to protect Granny. What’s that Princess? Oh, don’t mind Stable Colt, you know what he’s like. Yes, Princess, I’m sure Reverend Hound will keep an eye on him. He is mischievous, isn’t he? Oh well… Me and my friends will just have to see if the bug thing moves on…”

Once again, the log came to an end. Just… what. What the actual hell happened in this place?

Looking at the other holotapes, all of them were busted except for two. I shoved all the broken tapes in the box with the puppets, leaving me with the three I’d listened to and the two remaining others. Taking a breath to calm my nerves, I hesitantly slotted the second-to-last tape in my PipBuck.

“Oh Celestia… Why did we do that? Stable Colt and I… we killed Princess Celestia. Took a knife and cut her to pieces. Oh, when Reverend Hound finds out…” The pegasus took several deep breaths, nearly hyperventilating. I could relate at the moment… “We need to leave. That scorpion thing is still there… But we killed once, we can do it again.”

The log ended, and I didn’t even take in a breath as I switched it out for the final tape.

“We’re back,” a far raspier voice said, taking a moment to cough sickly before continuing. “World’s gone to shit, hasn’t it Stable Colt? Oh… we met some bad ponies, but Stable Colt and I killed them. We did, didn’t we? Ripped them apart with our hooves. Rip. Rip. Hehe.”

Oh, fuck me…

“Think I spent too long out there, though,” the pony said amidst a wheeze. “My skin and hair has been falling away. But it’s fine, Stable Colt says it suits me. Heh, we’ve locked the others in the crate. They won’t bother us now. Stable 77 is ours. Our little slice of the apocalypse. Ours… OURS!”

…That was it. The final tape.

“What the hell was that?”

BLOODY HELL!

Gah, I hadn’t heard Cobalt return from the cafeteria. He’d nearly given me a heart attack!

I glared at the stallion, my heart racing fifty miles a second. On his part, he just gave me a dumb deadpan look.

“I wasn’t serious about the ghosts, you know.”

“Piss off!” I spat, quickly trying to collect myself. It’s fine… he probably died of radiation poisoning not long after that last tape. His bones were probably in the living quarters.

“So… Mind explaining?” Cobalt asked.

“Right, right… hold on…” I took a final breath, feeling my nerves calm a little. “Basically Stable-Tec had this one guy live in here by himself. He went nuts, talked to puppets like they were people. That’s all.”

“That’s horrible!” Altrix said in horror as she and Stripe returned to the atrium. “W-why…? I thought stables were meant to protect people!”

“On paper, they were…” Cobalt muttered.

Stripe frowned at the unicorn. “Cobalt, do you know something we don’t…?”

Cobalt winced, and then sighed. “Not for sure… Or at least, I hadn’t. But there’s long been rumours that most of the stables held… experiments. Social experiments that were thought up by the company back before the bombs fell. It’s why so many stables failed to save their occupants.”

I had been unaware that ‘so many’ had failed, as he’d put it. That was… rather disturbing.

“Like zebras and ponies in a stable split in half…” Stripe muttered bitterly. “Of course… Though I doubt the pink cloud was part of their intent.”

“Stable 3 was probably testing to see if ponies and zebras could live in peace after we’d blown each other up,” Cobalt noted. “Rumour has it that Stable 101, where Red Eye hails from, was designed for earth pony supremacists only. There are more rumours and tales like that, and I fear that many of them are true.”

“B-but… but…” Altrix whimpered. “The… My stable’s door malfunction...”

Cobalt bit his lip. “It had crossed my mind that it might not have been a malfunction at all, yes.”

“And you never thought to mention this before?” Stripe growled.

“It was a rumour! I didn’t want to mention something that could have been an old pony’s tale!”

“So somepony in Stable-Tec tried to seal the hive away forever,” I interrupted them before the argument could escalate. “But we saved them, and we are still saving them so let’s get the talisman and get out of this house of horrors!”

I did recall Scootaloo not being overly fond of Queen Chrysalis…

Cobalt shook his head, and then just headed off in the direction of the Overmare’s office. “Hold that thought, I need to check this out.”

“Check what out!?”

“If I’m going to find out anything of these experiments, it’ll be on the Overmare’s terminal.”

Great. I wasn’t really in the mood for side quests…

But he seemed pretty adamant, so I just groaned in exasperation and followed on. It was a good groan too, so I think he got the message.

Not that it even slowed him down at all.

The door led to a staircase heading upwards, and it was only a single flight to get to the office. The door was already open when we arrived, and boy did the room look ransacked. I guess the dweller decided to get back at Stable-Tec by trashing their room.

The lockers had all been dented by multiple bucks and knocked over. The computer monitors at the back of the room were all smashed to bits, the officer chair had been thrown at the window and the desk seemed to have been… um… used as a toilet at some point long ago. The terminal, however, seemed to be mostly intact.

A good thing it was one of those near indestructible models.

Cobalt planted himself by the computer, moving to the log in screen.

“Huh…” he murmured. “Seems the dweller here never got access.”

“I guess not everypony is a… What was it you called yourself that one time?” I asked.

“A data analyst,” Cobalt answered. “It’s my job back at Tenpony.”

“Right. That.”

Cobalt rolled his eyes, tapping away as he began his hacking attempt.

“Enjoying yourself?”

We all froze at the raspy voice coming in through the intercom.

“Um…” I responded smartly.

“See this, Stable Colt?” A shrill giggle assaulted our ears. “They think they can walk into our home unnoticed… Bad ponies. And a filthy stripe too, how about that?”

What did he call her!?

Stripe seemed unphased by the comment, I guess since it was her alias and all, but the way he used that word just made my blood boil!

“I have no idea what the bug is, doesn’t look like a nasty scorpion or a nice ant. But all the same, hehe, you need to die.”

All out heads turned in unison as the doorway shut tight. I ran over to the control panel, pressing the button to open it up again. But even when I pressed it a second and third time, the door didn’t budge.

“Sleepy time, my little Bonnie Kins…”

A foul smell attacked my nostrils, and then it became decidedly more difficult to breathe.

“GAS!” Cobalt shouted, his horn alight as he placed a shield over the ventilation unit in the room. “Bastard’s trying to gas us!”

Too bad there were two ventilation units…

“Well, that buys us some time!” I stated appreciatively. “But we need to get out of here, now!”

Stripe pulled out her rifle and took aim at the circular window.

CRACK.

The bullet hit the glass… But it failed to shatter.

“Bullet proof!” she shouted in alarm.

Crap!

Even with just one ventilation unit, the gas was already burning away at my throat and lungs. It was like somepony was feeding me hot coals, but there was nowhere for me to get fresh air! My friends too were feeling the strain, coughing violently as the gas threatened to overwhelm us.

“Cobalt, teleport us!” I shouted.

“I could barely teleport with you two, let alone adding Altrix!” Cobalt rebuked. “And I’d have to drop my hold on this other vent, we’d suffocate quicker!”

He was worried about this now!? I mean, it’s not like there was any other-

What was that?

I trotted over to the window and looked out into the atrium. And there… Was this stuff making me lost my shit, or was that the raider pegasus from the Megamart?

The pegasus was walking into the atrium like she owned the place, giving the place a casual look over.

Fine, Plan B!

I began knocking on the window as hard as I could, and it seemed to do the trick. The mare looked up at me and tilted her head in question. I made a throat-slitting gesture and then hastily pointed towards the door, repeating the process hoping that it would sink into the head of the random visitor.

She looked off to the side and then wandered out of view.

“What are you doing?” Stripe asked as she caught Altrix, the changeling seemingly a second or two from passing out from the gas.

“I either just asked for help or made a death threat.” Goddesses I hoped I hadn’t made a death threat. “Cobalt, if that didn’t work we need you to try that teleport!”

He gritted his teeth. “Alright, give me a moment. When I release this vent we’re not going to have long before we all lose consciousness.”

“Whatever! Just do it!”

Cobalt didn’t answer, instead closing his eyes in concentration. I moved in close to Stripe and the barely conscious Altrix, praying that Cobalt could find the mana to pull the mass teleport off. Come on, it’s just one more than in Our Town. He could do it!

He had to!

Then I heard a hiss as the door slid open.

“You idiots coming or what?”

None of us argued with the new voice, and Stripe hauled Altrix up onto her back as we all made a bolt for the doorway. We threw ourselves out into the corridor, and then the pegasus hit the button to make the door close again.

Sweet stale, but breathable, air began to fill my lungs again. I just sat on the floor, taking in deep wonderful breaths even as my lungs still burned from then poison that’d nearly killed us right then and there. The others had collapsed next to me, all taking in breaths of their own. Cobalt was coughing violently, while Stripe continued to protectively hold onto a stricken Altrix.

My body was screaming for rest, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to oblige. But there was still the matter of that crazed ghoul, and the pegasus looking down at us. And upon looking up at our impromptu saviour, I had more than a few new questions come to mind. But first on that list…

…Why was there a knife stuck in the control panel?

“So, you wander into freaky abandoned places often?” the pegasus asked, leaning up against the wall as she extracted her knife from the panel. “Name’s Moon Blossom by the way. But Moon is fine. Didn’t get time to introduce myself after you blew the Boss’ head off.”

“Scrap Heap…” I responded, looking at the pegasus in bewilderment. I shook my head, rising to my hooves as that sweet air continued to fill my lungs. “This is Cobalt, Stripe and Altrix…”

My friends were all recovering at their own paces. Altrix still seemed the worst off, though Stripe was steadily helping her back around.

“Huh, well, you’re a crazy bunch,” Moon Blossom commented, brushing her purple mane to one side as she gave us an amused smirk. “Guess we’re even now, though. Like my hacking of the door?”

“Huh?”

“Door wouldn’t open when I got up here, so I hacked it,” she explained with a shrug.

“That was not hacking!” Cobalt protested.

She frowned. “Uh… yeah, it was. I got my knife out and hacked away until I hit something important. Then it opened. Easy!”

I saw Cobalt’s eye twitch in the corner of my own.

Any further deliberation on what constituted as ‘hacking’ was cut off when the turret emerged from the ceiling.

Oh, come on!

We jumped for it! The turret had just rounded on where we’d been sitting and opened up when we slipped away. As it went to reorient itself, I instinctively pulled out my combat shotgun and blasted it at point blank range.

Alright then. I had had enough of this!

“Stripe, Cobalt, stay with Altrix while she recovers!” I ordered, gesturing to the still recovering changeling. “You, Moon Blossom, want to help me kill a ghoul?”

She gave me a wide grin. “Good to see we’re on the same page, horn head!”

I’ll let that comment slide…

I stepped over the sickly Altrix, hoping she would regain lucidity soon, and started off down the stairs with Moon Blossom right behind me.

We bolted across the atrium, opening the door to the reactor and heading inside. It was the only place he could be, there had to be controls in there he was using to mess with us!

As if to confirm my suspicions, turrets descended all along the hallway leading towards the reactor room.

I entered S.A.T.S. in a heartbeat, targeted the first two turrets with my shotgun and unloaded into them.

As they detonated, the others opened fire with fortunately low calibre bullets peppering my barding and forcing me back out into the atrium for cover. Damn, that was going to bruise!

But while they were all still focused on me, Moon Blossom leapt into action with a gleeful laugh. Unfurling her wings, I spied her kick off into the air towards the closest turret. There was a pause in the gunfire, and I used the moment to pull out my pistol and return to the hallway.

Moon Blossom was jamming her knife into one of the turrets, pulling out the poor machine’s wiring like they were a pony’s entrails.

I targeted the remaining two turrets, opening fire before they had a chance to zero back in on either me or Moon Blossom.

They all exploded in a shower of sparks.

I ran forward without stopping, trusting that the manic pegasus would be right on my tail. I slammed my hoof into the controls for the next door to open it.

The two turrets inside zeroed in on me.

I didn’t even think as I rolled behind some machinery, blindly firing my pistol at them but without hitting anything. I was reading exactly three red bars on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, the third had to be the dweller!

Moon Blossom wasn’t as lucky as I had been when she entered the reactor room, and her leather jacket wasn’t as protective as my barding. A bullet immediately nicked her in the shoulder, the pegasus giving a squawk as she fell to the side behind machinery of her own while unleashing every vulgarity in the dictionary.

I levitated out a healing potion and rolled it out towards her, which she took and downed in a second.

With that done, I peeked over from my cover and gave the room a look over. The large reactor was sitting in the centre of a large room, and it seemed to be sparking rather dangerously. All kinds of other equipment and consoles lined the room, and in front of the central reactor was the main console with the words ‘power and water talisman control’ inscribed on it.

Eureka!

It was also then I noted an advantage to Moon Blossom’s big entrance. All the turrets were focused on her now, so I half emerged from my hiding spot and took aim on the first one.

It exploded in a flash of flame.

I ducked down again as the second turret realigned towards me, though Moon Blossom used this opportunity to fly for her revenge.

I didn’t envy that turret.

“OURS!” Was all I heard when I got slugged in the side of the head. Where the hell had he come from!?

Oh, above me. He was a pegasus too…

“This stable is ours!”

The ghoul had lost almost his entire coat, though a couple of green tufts could still be seen mixing in with his tattered brown mane. His eyes were a milky white, and upon his hoof was a Stable Colt puppet.

He came at me, punching with the puppet! I ducked to the side, his hoof hitting the metal instead, though if that hurt in any way he showed no signs of it!

“You won’t take this place! No, he won’t. Will he, Stable Colt? No, he won’t…” he said, using his free hoof to stroke his puppet affectionately.

“You know that’s just a puppet, right?” Moon Blossom remarked as she lunged at the ghoul, punting him with her front hooves before stabbing her combat knife into his side.

“LIES! FALSEHOODS!” he accused, taking the wound in stride as he hit Moon Blossom in the face, sending her sprawling. “We’ll kill you!”

I scrambled to pick up my pistol again, though I was seen. The moment I had it, it was knocked aside as the pegasus grabbed onto me and took to the air.

I didn’t know if he was planning on throwing me into the reactor or not, but I wasn’t keen to find out!

I grabbed onto his bony wing with my telekinesis, yanking it in a random direction and diverting our course. We slammed down into a large metal crate, and I rolled off and away from the crazed pegasus.

“No! No! IT’S OURS!”

“Come on, this is nuts!” I shouted at the ghoul, grabbing for my shotgun. “That thing on your hoof isn’t a real pony! You don’t even have to stay here anymore!”

The ghoul just gave a feral scream and charged towards me with gnashing teeth.

I pulled the trigger.

He fell, his momentum carrying him past me and to a rough stop. And there he laid, his eyes looking feebly around as his movement became sluggish. I’d blown a huge chunk out of him, he was done for…

Moon Blossom trotted up next to me, hissing at a new bruise on her muzzle. “Ugh… you get him?”

“Yeah…” I responded sadly. “I think I did.”

The dweller’s wing twitched, and he weakly brought his puppet up to eye level. He just laid there for some moments, fading away, humming some comforting song to what had been his sole companion for the past two centuries.

“We… Time to sleep, my little Stable Colt…” he merrily whispered to himself. “Time to… sleep…”

I just watched as his body went limp, the puppet sliding free from his hoof in his very final moment. And then he was gone, leaving behind nothing but a withered vessel that had done nought but suffer since the moment that door had closed two hundred years ago.

You know something? I really hate Stable-Tec.

Footnote: Level 20 – Max Level

New Perk: Raider Repentance – Your companion has given you an extra +5% damage resistance.

23 - Demands

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Chapter Twenty-Three: Demands

“We can do this the easy way… or the hard way.”

“The system is decayed to shit, but I think I can get it out,” Cobalt informed the rest of us, concentrating as he prepared to steadily remove the water talisman from the stable’s systems.

“Want some help?” Moon Blossom asked, flicking her combat knife from its sheath and displaying it in her jaw with a manic grin.

“How about we leave the delicate technical stuff to the smart ponies, yes?” Cobalt shot back, not even looking at the pegasus as he continued to work.

Moon Blossom dropped, putting her knife away with a pout. “Jackass.”

After we’d put the Stable 77 Dweller out of his misery, the others had soon followed us in to regroup. Altrix was still shaking in the corner from our experience in the Overmare’s office, Stripe continuing to see to the shell-shocked changeling. From there, Moon Blossom gave the place a once over for any valuables while Cobalt got to examining the water talisman. It was in good shape, but the machinery around it was less so.

So now he was extracting it as carefully as he could, while Moon Blossom became disappointed that there was little to no loot to be found.

Speaking of the female pegasus…

“So… That was you that Altrix saw, huh?” I asked her, and she gave me a blank look in return. “Back out on the catwalk, Altrix swore she saw something following us. Was that you?”

“Oh, that,” Moon Blossom began to reply. “Yeah, that was me. Had to dive through those pricks outside to follow you in here. Yeah, uh… I hope buggy and me ain’t going to have to carry you back up.”

That was a question for later, and I had a few others first…

“Why?” I asked simply. “You barely said two words to me back at the Megamart. Why were you following us?”

Moon Blossom shrugged. “Could I just say that I was bored?”

My flat look was enough for her to figure out my stance on the matter.

“Okay, fine,” she said with a huff. “You guys blasted my old pals up good, and then you busted us out without asking a thing in return. I’ve never seen that before, so… I guess I was just curious what was up with you guys.”

“You are also a raider,” Stripe noted dangerously.

“Is it that obvious?” Moon Blossom shot back sarcastically. “And you’re a zebra. Wow! Fancy that!”

“The prisoners told us about you, you know,” Stripe continued without missing a beat. “How despite what you are, you tried to save them. Maybe we should be the ones curious about you?”

The pegasus gritted her teeth. “And what do you care?”

“Perhaps we do, perhaps we don’t. But you seem to care enough to follow us into a forsaken stable.”

“Look, I’ve ran with that crew since the day I was born. Gutted my first pony when I was barely old enough to tell you all to go fuck yourselves,” she growled at us, and I spied Stripe moving herself slightly more in between the pegasus and Altrix. “Parents were raiders. Probably long dead, not sure which ones they were. Happy?”

“You still haven’t explained why you didn’t go down fighting with the rest of them,” Cobalt said, still not turning to look back as he worked.

“Why does it matter!?”

I bit my lip. “Alright, then why are you here? Now that you’ve found us. Still curious?”

“Well… kinda?” she said with distinct uncertainty. “I… was hoping I’d tag along. You know, break some shit you need breaking. That stuff.”

“Then how do we know you won’t rob us as we sleep?” Stripe countered.

“I helped against my old crew, didn’t I?” she retorted with a scowl.

“Which brings us back to the ‘why’ once more.”

“Something was always wrong, alright!?” Moon Blossom suddenly shouted, her wings flaring and sending us all into silence from the sheer intensity of emotion in her voice. “Fuck… Something was always up with what we did. But I went along with it, that’s just how things were… Then I got the dumb idea that it didn’t have to be, and I nearly got raped and murdered by the others as a result. Then you assholes saved me, and now I’m here to see if I was right or a dumbass. Happy now?!”

We were silent, only the sound of Cobalt’s tinkering filled our ears alongside Moon Blossom’s heavy panting. Steadily, she calmed herself down as Stripe’s gaze lost some of its hostility.

“So… You have a crisis of faith in your raider upbringing,” the zebra noted.

“Yeah, call it whatever you want!” she snapped back. “But for some reason, every time I saw somepony like Buzz Saw or Face Pizza get their ‘pickings’ of the prisoners, it made me sick to my stomach. So yeah, I want to see if there is anything better in this shithole of a world. And you’re my best bet. It’s that or die in a ditch, and I have yet to find a comfortable one.”

We were silent again. I, for one, didn’t see any lie in the former raider’s words. And she had helped us out back there. But still…

“So? Am I into your little club or not?”

“I think we should take her,” Altrix finally, if quietly, spoke up as she poked her head out from behind Stripe. “I mean… if she wants to be a better pony, we could help her! Right…?”

Stripe looked back at Altrix’s pleading and hopeful eyes, before looking back towards me with a sigh. “She may not be wrong. And a redeemed pony is better than just another dead one.”

Well, that’s two votes… “Cobalt?”

“You do whatever, Scrap Heap,” he responded, seemingly close to getting the talisman. “We’re already the biggest group of oddballs this side of Equestria. So as long as she keeps her knives away from my work, and doesn’t try to kill us, I’m good.”

Well… alright then. I guess she’s in. Heh, next we’ll be picking up a balefire phoenix or something…

“Fine, you can come,” I told her. “Just no backstabbing.”

“Hah! Awesome!” she proclaimed with an enthusiastic punch to the air. “You need stuff stabbed, stomped or otherwise pulverised, I’m your mare!”

I could already see our increased body count in the coming days…

“Annnd got it!” Cobalt said victoriously, grabbing the freed water talisman in his magic and holding it up for us all to see. “Anypony order salvation for one changeling hive?”

The console he’d been working on gave several beeps as warning lights began to blink, then a low droning noise sounded throughout the stable as several large pieces of machinery began to shut down one by one.

“I wouldn’t try to drink the water anymore, mind you,” Cobalt quickly added after the water filtration system finished crashing.

I think it was time to leave.

“Well, I think we’re going to have to try the flying trick,” I said to the group, Cobalt placing the water talisman delicately into his saddlebag. “Now we have Moon Blossom, it might be both possible and timely.”

“It might be straining,” Altrix noted. “I’m, uh… not a very practised flier. I mean, I can carry myself just fine, but there wasn’t much flying in the hive.”

“I could carry one of you, no sweat,” Moon Blossom bragged. “Though three in a row might be, uh… Can any of you survive a really long fall?”

“We’ll figure that out in a moment, but I want to do something else first,” Cobalt interrupted, standing between us all. “Now we don’t have to worry about a crazed ghoul gassing us, I want to check out the Overmare’s private terminal again. It might have information we could use.”

Well, I guess there was no harm in that…

Cobalt led the way as we all filed from the reactor room and returned to the office up top. As we entered, I could still smell a pungent aroma from the gas, though anything lethal had long since thinned out. Cobalt moved towards the terminal as we had a better look over of the office, though there really wasn’t all that much to see.

Once Cobalt had access, he wasted no time in browsing the options appearing on the screen.

“Now what do we have here…?” he muttered just within earshot, and I walked over to peer over his shoulder. “Looks like a manifest of construction crews who built this place, orders from Stable-Tec and… an emergency access elevator.”

“I like the sound of that last one,” I said, though I was still curious about the middle option. “What did Stable-Tec have to say, Cobalt?”

“Let’s find out,” he replied, and then clicked on the option.

Dear Overmare,

In the event of a proximity alert and call for stable closure, you are NOT to enter the stable under any circumstances unless directly commanded to do so by a high-ranking representative. You will instead evacuate to Stable 0 at Stable-Tec HQ with all other accepted members of staff and their families (Note: Stable 0 still under construction as of this date).

Before evacuating, you are to ensure that ‘Subject A’ successfully enters Stable 77 and is sealed inside, NO other ponies or otherwise are to be submitted. Doing otherwise will cause your access to Stable 0 and that of your family to be revoked. Only after all parameters are met can you evacuate to your designated fallout shelter for your own safety. Before such a time, you are to follow all Stable-Tec stable promotional regulations and ensure that the public remains unaware as to the nature of this social experiment, as well as to ensure the stable remains in perfect condition up until the potential coming holocaust.

We understand any moral concerns you may have and encourage you to voice such concerns to either Ms Scootaloo, Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle. We are not responsible if your complaints result in employment termination and/or a memory wipe.

Sincerely,
Stable-Tec Administrative Department.

Well… that cleared that up nicely.

“T-the Princess really needs to know!” Altrix whimpered. “T-they tried to seal us away forever!”

“Somepony did, though I doubt it was an ‘official’ experiment of theirs,” Cobalt noted, sighing as all our worst fears about the stable were confirmed without a doubt. “Still, how many of these stables became tombs because of this...?”

“What would they even accomplish with these experiments?” Stripe asked in anger.

“A single occupant here. Stable 3 was the ‘get along’ stable. Seeing what living conditions worked best, perhaps? No idea who thought this place was even remotely a good idea,” Cobalt responded sadly. “Maybe somepony working on the experiments was after a good laugh.”

“Well haha, I’m laughing,” Moon Blossom said dismissively. “Are we done looking at words now?”

“Right, let me get the elevator,” Cobalt agreed, turning the scroll wheel on the keyboard and highlighting the option.

There was a beep, and a wall panel slid away to reveal a new doorway.

“Huh, neat,” the pegasus muttered as she approached the door and opened it, seeing that it led into an old and heavily rusted elevator. “We’re going for a ride!”

If this thing didn’t lead to the surface, and instead led to another horrible murder dungeon, I was going to hit somepony.

The good news was that the elevator had indeed led to the surface.

Bad news was that it was on the wrong side of the Galloping Gorge, so we had to walk around the entire thing to get back to the military checkpoint we’d started at. From there we ventured back out into the Equestrian Wasteland, leaving the wreck of Stable 77 far behind us.

Three days of travel later, and the abandoned town of Prosperity was once again just about in sight.

“Didn’t think I’d be coming back here so soon…” Moon Blossom muttered as we passed by her first home. “Kinda creepy, actually.”

“Settlers will be long gone by now,” I noted. “Nothing left here but the roaches.”

“That’s something I can crush,” she replied. “Can’t crush the ghosts, though.”

Who knew a raider could have a flair for the poetic?

“So, where’s this bug hive of yours anyway?” she then asked, if only to get her mind off her old home. “I don’t remember us killing and looting any of them before.”

“About another day’s travel,” I informed her. “Hopefully they’ve cleared all the ferals by now. And the radiation.”

“Ferals and radiation? Sounds like a party!”

“Yeah, I’ll bring the cake,” Cobalt dryly commented.

We passed into the centre of town, buildings surrounding us now, My E.F.S. was quiet though, and I couldn’t physically see anything that might be out of its range. I could see Stripe also watching the buildings for movement, but I guess she hadn’t seen anything either.

There was an old fountain in the middle of the town square we’d found ourselves in, and I didn’t recall us coming down this route through town the first time we were here. The town hall was directly ahead of us, a faded banner that probably said something patriotic loosely hung from the large building even two hundred years after-the-fact. The rest of the square was filled with burnt out buildings, shattered benches and long-dead skeletons of those who’d been caught out by the bombs. A road led out through the buildings, a sign showing the Megamart was in that direction.

“Anything in that place worth scavenging?” I asked Moon Blossom, pointing at the town hall.

She shrugged. “Nah, place is empty. Only thing we ever used it for was a quiet place to go and rut.”

“Right…”

Well, there was no point sticking around if that was the case. We’d already been over the Megamart, I was willing to bet everywhere else in town was either burned to a crisp or long picked clean by a few generations of raiders operating out of here.

My map marker blinked idly on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, leading us faithfully in the direction of the hive. There was nothing left to do but follow it, nothing else of interest existed in this damned place beyond that new red bar that had appeared in my vision.

…Wait.

“Get down!” I shouted the moment I heard the spooling of the minigun!

And we all moved behind the fountain just as a hail of 5mm rounds cascaded into our position, shredding the already decayed décor that was barely providing us cover from the onslaught. And worse, I realised, was that it wouldn’t be of any use as protection against a second volley.

The minigun cut out just as the last of our cover all but disintegrated, whatever was left of the radioactive water inside splashing out over us. But that wasn’t a concern right then and there; that gunfire had definitely been coming from the front balcony of the town hall!

“Alright then! Something to rip apart!” Moon Blossom shouted in far too much enthusiasm, leaping from cover with her wings flared and her knife drawn.

Simultaneously, Stripe instinctively popped out her sniper and took a shot at our attacker.

CRACK.

PING.

…Ping?

I looked up from our cover as well, my eyes gazing up towards the target that Stripe had just hit.

No wonder her bullet had just bounced off, I would recognise that power armoured griffon anywhere!

“…So, uh… think my ‘pop off the helmet’ trick will work twice?” Moon Blossom asked with a grin.

Judging from the increasing red bars on my E.F.S. I wasn’t sure that she’d get the chance.

“We’re in the open, get to cover!” I shouted to the others, leading the way down to road towards the Megamart as the minigun fire started to trail after us again.

As we ran, I saw another two red bars appear. Stealing a glance behind us, I saw… Yes, that was another griffon in power armour. Wait, that was the one we’d seen before judging by the magic weapons shooting red beams at us. Or maybe it was just another…

Oh dear Celestia, how many of these guys were there!?

Followed by gunfire and the sparks of energy weaponry, at least one of the latter singeing my leather barding, we scrambled into the Megamart’s parking lot and all took cover behind whatever vehicles were closest. I was with Moon Blossom while the other three were behind another wreck just across from us. I pulled out my pistol for the range, but I couldn’t say I was sure what I was going to do against power armour with it.

“I like your friends!” Moon Blossom shouted over the incoming gunfire, sneaking a peek over her cover and narrowly avoiding a shot to the head. “Very energetic!”

“Um... friends…?” Altrix squeaked as a beam of red flew over her head.

“We met them a while back,” I shouted over to the changeling, all while risking a peek over at our attackers.

I could see both of the griffons in power armour, though a bullet that pinged off the metal inches from my head betrayed the location of a griffon in combat armour utilising a hunting rifle from a nearby building.

S.A.T.S. quickly showed that my chances of hitting him were low, so I quit the spell and elected to fire a couple of bullets at him the normal way. Neither hit, though I did see him flinch back before I ducked back down.

More red bars were also beginning to appear again, Red Eye’s slavers were converging all around us.

“Why did they follow us out here?” Cobalt asked towards nopony in particular.

“Maybe we pissed them off with our trespass,” I suggested with a humourless chuckle. “We could try asking.”

“If they’re even here for us at all. Because of course, our luck would be that bad,” Cobalt said as he casually picked up a thrown grenade in his magic and returned it to sender.

It detonated, though all the red bars remained intact.

Stripe lifted her rifle and looked around her cover, peering off at the griffon who’d I taken a shot at.

One crack of her rifle later and his bar blinked out.

“That’s one,” I commented, looking over to see the new arrivals.

Three more were flanking the two in power armour, but I couldn’t see the final four bars…

Oh shit, I’d just remembered they could fly!

A quick glance up saved my head from being snatched in the talons of an angry griffon, who gave one last squawk of pain when I unloaded several extremely startled bullets into his beak.

That left the three that were still descending down onto us.

Moon Blossom gave a delighted laugh as she hopped up onto the vehicle she’d been taking cover behind and leapt into the air herself, completely ignoring a bullet that bit into her hide as she tackled the griffon mid-air.

I was distracted from that amazing sight when the third did a strafing run and riddled our position with bullets, causing us all to have to roll to avoid his spray.

And then the fourth cawed as she grabbed down onto Stripe’s rifle and yanked it aside. I’d only just caught that action when that bitch came at Stripe again and dug her claws into the foreleg she’d thrown up to protect herself!

What a mistake that griffon had made.

Stripe headbutted the griffon, causing her to falter as Cobalt gripped on with his magic and pulled her fully away.

And then I finished it with several bullets from my 9mm, before I swapped over to my shotgun and tracked the other griffon as he came in for another run.

I pulled the trigger and, in a spray of blood and feathers, one of the bastard’s wings became mulch as he hit the ground between the vehicles we were hiding behind. Sure, the impact had failed to kill him. But I’m pretty certain the bolt of magic he took to the head from Cobalt finished the job.

Then there was a whoosh, and I suddenly found myself face first on the ground with the taste of copper in my mouth.

Oh, that was blood…

It was only as I laid with my head rested against the concrete that I registered the fireball casting its heat all over my body. Had I missed that explosion? I was pretty sure I’d have noticed an explosion.

Oh look, those black hooves picking me up were filled with holes! Why did that-

I spluttered as a healing potion was shoved into my gullet, and the world began to come back into full focus. All of a sudden, the roaring fire that was once my cover began to be much clearer to my ears, as was the excruciating pain coursing through my entire body!

And dear Luna did I have a headache!

“Ugh…” was all I was able to moan as I stumbled, barely catching myself as I turned to survey the battlefield.

More talons were arriving, and I’d failed to notice in the commotion the arrival of a third griffon in full power armour. And the rocket launcher strapped to his battle saddle explained the everything that just happened.

“Come on, get up!” Altrix urged as she helped me to my hooves again, getting help from Stripe as Cobalt covered us with a quick shield against the gunfire.

“I’m good! I’m good!” I lied as I shook them off, standing unsteadily back on my hooves.

I didn’t need my E.F.S. to know we were outnumbered, and they were all closing in fast. We couldn’t stay out here, we were sitting ducks!

“Get into the Megamart!” I ordered the others as I immediately began to move myself over to the entrance. Every step still hurt, but Med-X would have to do for now! “We need shelter!”

“Altrix, make sure he gets inside,” Stripe asked, getting a nod as the zebra quickly retrieved her rifle as we all started to make our way back towards the supermarket.

Even though Altrix was supposed to be the one helping me, I pushed her a little ahead and stood between the changeling and the incoming gunfire, raising my own gun again and firing into the crowd of red bars as we ran.

Cobalt’s shield collapsed amidst a hail of minigun and magic laser fire, the unicorn grunting in pain as one laser struck him in the shoulder.

Just a bit more, we were just mere metres from the door!

“Giddy-up!” Moon Blossom cackled as she rode a bloodied griffon straight into the wall next to the front entrance, cracking his beak open against it before they landed, and she finished it with a knife to the brain. “We should do that again sometime!”

“Inside! Now!” I shouted at the pegasus as we busted the doors open, and I all but yanked her in with my magic to make sure she’d follow.

“Hey! Alright! No need to get pull my tail out!”

Once I was sure she wasn’t going to charge out, I made sure everyone was in before I gave one last look out of the front entrance. The parking lot was all but overrun with griffons at this point, and I even spotted one or two ponies now among their ranks.

And then one final bar appeared, and a griffon unlike I had ever seen landed directly in the middle of all the chaos without an ounce of trepidation or fear.

He wasn’t wearing power armour, though he might as well have been. Cybernetics snaked through his body, intersecting through both his black talon combat armour and his deep dark brown feathers and fur. Two heavily modified and angrily glowing red energy weapons hung from his sides on a battle saddle, and a cybernetic left eye that was both as red and angry as his guns pierced into my own. Even his normal blue eye carried an intensity that just screamed for my immediate immolation.

I slammed the door shut and pushed the nearest discarded display in front of it as a makeshift barricade. I doubted that it would hold, but it made me feel safer than I really was, so that was a plus…

As I slumped down by the door, hearing bullets continue to ricochet outside, I saw Altrix frantically attending to everyone else in our group. Moon Blossom was insisting her bullet wound was fine, despite the gushing blood and her sudden difficulty standing now the adrenaline had worn off. The changeling helped apply some kind of salve to Cobalt’s burn, and Stripe chose not to waste a healing potion on her claw marks, instead opting to simply bandage her leg for the time being.

“You all need to take it easy,” Altrix stressed, worry radiating from her in droves. “Your bodies can only take so much!”

“Hey, we killed several of their guys. They killed none of ours. So… we win!” Moon Blossom remarked.

“That encounter nearly did kill us, and they’re still out there,” Stripe pointed out in disapproval.

“We can try the back, once we’re able to get moving,” I suggested, as eager to stay with the talons as the next person. “Before they try to get in that-”

I paused as I realised the gunfire had stopped, silence reigning over the Megamart. Several moments passed us by, and yet not a sound could be heard from outside.

“…Silence is a bad thing in this case, right?” I muttered.

“Everyone, behind the barricade,” Stripe urged, shifting Altrix behind the scrap fortifications as she continued to try and treat our wounds.

The rest of us followed, all taking positions behind the raiders’ old defences and getting a good view of the door.

“Altrix, we good to move?” I asked the changeling doctor.

“I-If you can withstand the pain, you all should hold together,” Altrix said with a nervous laugh, before whimpering and placing her head in her hooves. “Oh… I want to go home.”

“We’ll be there soon…” I promised the changeling.

There was no way we could fight that many griffons and ponies, not with their gear and… whatever that cyborg thing was. We just had to get out through the loading dock before they realised.

“EQUINES IN THE MEGAMART, LISTEN UP,” a voice bounced off every surface deafeningly, and we all flattened our ears with grimaces at the loud declaration. Whatever it was, it was coming from outside. “YOU FACE THE ARMIES OF RED EYE! AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU FACE HIS ENFORCER, ME, KRONOS!”

So, he was loud AND full of himself. Message received loud and clear!

“I HAVE ORDERED MY TALONS TO STAND DOWN… PROVIDED YOU GIVE US WHAT YOU HAVE OF OURS.”

“You guys stole from Red Eye?” Moon Blossom said with what I think was an impressed tone.

“Not that I know of,” I rebutted. “What, do they mean that memory orb we picked up?”

“WE KNOW YOU HAVE THE CHANGELING.”

What?

“WE KNOW SHE IS IN THERE. SHE AND HER RACE ARE OF INTEREST TO LORD RED EYE AND THE GODDESS, RETURN HER TO US AND YOU MAY YET BE REWARDED.”

“The Goddess!?” Cobalt whispered incredulously. “Why are the alicorns interested in this!?”

Forget that! Why do they want Altrix at all!?

I glanced at the changeling, who was suddenly looking more terrified than I’d ever seen her. She began to hyperventilate as the realisation that she was the reason we’d been ambushed seemed to settle down, and I suspect the sheer horror that the slavers were interested in her at all.

No. No way. We wouldn’t give her up. We couldn’t!

“MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE, SCRAP HEAP.”

He… he knew me?

“GIVE UP THE BUG, AND LORD RED EYE WILL SHOW MERCY,” he claimed, and I could just hear the smirk on his beak. “OR FIGHT. AND WE WILL MAKE YOU WATCH HER BE TAKEN AS YOU DIE.”

Footnote: Max Level

24 - Red Eye's Sight

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Chapter Twenty-Four: Red Eye’s Sight

“Ever since the city was scourged, we've done what everyone does: whatever's necessary to survive. I know my city seems barbaric to you, but it's the only way we can carve out a home in this hellhole, and it's kept these people alive.”

Kronos was still waiting for our answer.

There was no way we’d give Altrix up. That’d sure be taking a huge dump on everything we’d been trying to achieve since leaving Stable 84. But still, I had so many questions running through my head. Why were the alicorns involved? Why was Red Eye interested in my friend and her hive? Simply put: what the fuck was going!?

And the person who could answer those question was on the other side of the Megamart’s front door.

That freaky cyborg… cat bird… thing.

“So… are we telling them to go screw themselves or what?” Moon Blossom asked casually.

“Wait a moment, we need to find out why these guys want Altrix.”

“And why do we need to do that? They’re crazy and evil, mystery solved! Can we go now?”

“I agree with Scrap, there has to be a practical reason. Red Eye doesn’t do things on random whims,” Cobalt concurred. “Best case, he just wants the hive for more slave labour…”

We have very different definitions of ‘best case’ scenarios…

“…Worst case,” he continued. “Is that it’s something very bad for the wasteland.”

“YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES,” Kronos’ projected voice warned us.

“You know it’d be crazy to go out there, right?” Moon Blossom stated. “I’m all for crazy, but are you?”

“We may not need to,” Cobalt mused, looking around the Megamart. “The PA system might still work. We could talk to him that way.”

“And if it doesn’t?” I asked. I mean, why wouldn’t two-hundred-year-old tech NOT work?

“Then we run,” he replied simply. “Just go to one of the counters and pick up a phone. I’ll see if I can get power in a minute and a half.”

Well, it was a plan. Not a good one, but what the hay.

With the others remaining behind the barricade, Cobalt bolted out back to the staff areas while I ran over to the nearest intact counter and searched for whatever pre-war cashiers would use to make announcements. There was a phone next to the cash register, and I tried instantly to pick it up.

Nothing…

“ONE MINUTE!”

Oh hell…

I was starting to have second thoughts about this idea. I mean, how was Cobalt going to restore the announcement thing in the next minute? Who knew how much damage had been done to the electronics in this place? Any second now those slavers would be busting the door in, and then we’d be back to fighting for our lives.

Stripe checked her sniper rifle as she aimed it at the door, staying close to the terrified Altrix. Moon, meanwhile, was just flipping her knife in anticipation. She was scary with that thing, but I was willing to bet that Kronos guy was worse.

“THIRTY SECONDS.”

Dammit, we were out of time. If we had a few more minutes maybe, but this wasn’t going to work.

I opened my mouth to tell the others to make a break for the loading dock… when a large ‘clang’ filled the Megamart as some of the lights switched on all at once.

Well, I’ll be damned.

I picked up the phone again, and a loud chime echoed throughout the supermarket. Here’s hoping the megaphones outside aren’t busted up.

“Public service announcement to the assholes outside,” I began, my quip making Moon Blossom snort loudly in amusement. “You want Altrix, but why in Equestria should we believe you’d let the rest of us go?”

There was silence for several moments, though I took the lack of gunfire as being a good thing. I was pretty sure those final thirty seconds had passed when Cobalt returned, the stallion saying something about pulling a breaker out back. Still, for every second without a response, I had a sinking feeling growing in my stomach.

And then Kronos did reply.

“LORD RED EYE HAS DECREED IT,” he announced. “YOUR ACTIONS HAVE NOT GONE UNNOTICED, NOR HAS YOUR GROUP’S ABILITY. THERE MAY BE A PLACE FOR YOU IN OUR ARMY IF YOU ARE WISE ENOUGH TO ACCEPT.”

Was he offering us a job?

“Please tell me we’re not considering this,” Stripe growled, though her animosity was directed solely at the voice outside. “An alliance with slavers? I’d rather be the slave.”

I’d honestly prefer neither.

“And why do you want Altrix?” I asked the griffon slaver through the PA system. “Haven’t you got enough slaves already?”

It was almost creepy how his laugh was projected as well. “SLAVES? WE DO NOT REQUIRE SLAVES OF THEM, THAT WOULD BE A WASTE.”

“What do you mean?”

“AND YOU TRULY EXPECT TO BE TOLD?” Well, I was hoping so… “WE CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER DO-GOODER DISRUPTING OUR OPERATIONS, WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR KIND AS OF LATE. YOU HAVE YOUR OFFER. NOW I DEMAND YOUR RESPONSE.”

Damn. I guess this was fruitless after all.

“Issue is… I kinda like Altrix.” I spotted the changeling looked towards me as I said those words. “Timid, but kind. I saw her fight through every fear she had for us, she is too good for this place. And far too good to be given to some abomination that’s no longer even a griffon.”

Altrix beamed at me, and for a moment I think my words managed to melt away the cloak of fear that had blanketed her. And despite the severity of our situation, I couldn’t help but smile back.

Then the front doors exploded.

I think I hit a nerve.

I ducked down behind the counter just as bullets and beams of red magic started flying through the opened entranceway! I heard the crack of Stripe’s rifle as she returned fire, and I slipped out my pistol to fire a few bullets back out through the door as well.

“So, loading dock?” I asked everyone over the terrible noise.

I received no argument, Stripe helping Altrix up as they and Moon Blossom began to back up between the aisles of the Megamart. Cobalt, however, motioned for me to run over to the increasingly battered barricade.

“Help me push this!”

I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I wasn’t about to argue with the smart pony!

I hopped over the counter and ran next to Cobalt, ducking down behind the small barrier. One overly eager pony ran in through the entrance, guns blazing. I didn’t even look up from the barricade as I extracted my shotgun and fired in the general vicinity of the slaver, and a red bar blinked out.

Cobalt then wordlessly lit up his horn, the aura spreading over the entire barricade. I did the same, and then with a quick countdown, we pushed on it with all our magical strength.

The scrap and wood all came loose and was pressed up against the width of the entrance with a mighty crash.

“That’ll buy us a moment,” Cobalt said. “Now let’s run!”

It was a fighting retreat, and I fired more rounds out the doorway to dissuade any initial attempts to follow us.

But I could already see one of the power armour griffons charging forwards. When he said the barricade wold buy us a moment, it really was a singular moment.

And as we retreated between the aisles, I could just hear it shattering behind us.

We ducked around one aisle, jumping over rotting raider corpses, and moving around the barricades they’d set up along the main shopping floor. We’d long lost sight of the others, though I had high hopes that they’d already made it into the staff area out back by now.

I came to a sudden stop with a gasp of breath as, amidst a beat of wings, a griffon talon landed right ahead of us with some mean looking assault rifles strapped to his battle saddle.

Without missing a beat, I bit down onto Cobalt neck fur and dragged him into another aisle as the griffon opened fire.

“Ouch, Scrap Heap!” Cobalt complained as he rubbed his neck, but I ignored him as I gave a quick glance to my E.F.S. before looking up.

Several griffons flew by overhead, circling above us as they readied to gun us down.

“Split up, give them multiple targets!” I shouted, all but pushing Cobalt down another aisle as I jumped up onto a ramp before he could protest.

The ramp led back up on top of the shelves and refrigerators, out of cover and into the fire.

All the griffons turned to me, the dumb pony out in the open, in a single second.

Good.

The platform I’d been standing on was eviscerated amidst gunfire and explosions, but I had no intention of standing still! I jumped from one shelving unit to the next, making a break for the door leading back to the staff area.

A dull thud hit my side, and then I fell from the unit and flat onto my face.

I’d had enough of faceplanting the ground for one day.

I groaned, rolling onto my back as one griffon made to land right on my head. I shot him in his stupid beak, but I could see his buddies all coming in to have a go as well.

The counter where I’d activated that robot back when was metres away from me, and I crawled behind it to take a breather. The customer service station that led out back was just a little to the left, but I could see the griffons swarming in. I had to be thankful that the normal ones didn’t have Eyes Forward Sparkles to locate me with, but that’d change when the armoured ones got close.

Still, I had a moment or two before they found me. Enough time to look at what hit me.

So, with my pistol back in its holster and my trusty combat shotgun placed to my side, I shifted over to examine the burning sensation along my barrel.

My barding seemed a little beaten up. Apparently, I’d been hit more than once when I’d been jumping from shelf to shelf. Maybe a few magic laser blasts too, judging by the warm black marks pocketing it.

Still, none of them had penetrated the reinforced leather. Except one, anyway. A bullet had dug deep into the barding, and even though it was caught in said barding I could definitively say that it had breached my skin from the blood seeping through the hole. I guess I was just lucky it hadn’t dug in any deeper, or I’d have needed an Altrix very soon.

Still, for now, I would just have to pony up and bear it. Lighting my horn, I took hold of the bullet and- FAAA-!

Right, it’s out. Great. Didn’t hurt a bit.

I pulled out a healing potion and another dose of Med-X next. I was going to run low on those again at this rate. At least Altrix had a decent supply. We’d need a resupply back at the hive, though… I just had to hope Insidiis wouldn’t mind.

Still, the healing potion did its job and closed the wound neatly. Though I was probably developing a nice collection of bruises and scars over recent times. The Med-X was even better, taking much of the pain away from my battered body. Dear Celestia, I could kiss whoever invented it. Hopefully a Fluttershy, she seemed like a cute mare. Especially if Altrix was anything to go by.

I wonder if Stripe-

The slam of metal claws on the counter above me made me realise that I really should have been keeping a closer eye on my E.F.S. than I was!

Looking up, I stared into the eyes… or eye, of Kronos.

“Uh… hi.”

I was barely even able to grunt as he grabbed onto my head and immediately pulled me over the counter and threw me into a nearby shelf! Pain cascaded down my spine, and our of the corner of my eye I could see my PipBuck blinking a panicked red. Celestia knows how much worse it’d feel if I wasn’t drugged up on Med-X as it was already.

But I didn’t have time to think about my injuries, not with a crazy cyborg about to stomp my head in!

My shotgun had been nudged away when I’d been dragged, and I spotted it behind Kronos. With the griffon approaching, I levitated the shotgun up and twisted it in his direction.

Apparently, he was smarter than a raider since he saw the glow of my horn and instantly ducked to the side as I fired.

He then grabbed onto the shotgun with his claws and twisted the weapon until it was pulled into two separate parts, those two parts being dropped with a clatter onto the ground.

I’d rather liked that shotgun…

Before I could even consider going for my other gun, all breath left my body as Kronos shot towards me and drove a fist into my stomach. It was like I lost all my energy right then and there, probably had a fractured rib on top of all that.

And then I felt his claw around my neck, his talons squeezing as he dragged me out and slammed me onto the ground.

Did he know I’d already been winded, or was he just enjoying himself?

The cyborg kept me pinned down, one claw on my neck and another on my chest. He actually let up a bit, allowing me to get some breaths. How nice of him.

He didn’t take his eye off my horn, though, and I imagined at any moment those angry weapons strapped to his sides would disintegrate what was left of me.

In short, crap.

“It appears it’s better to be an abomination than a frail pony,” he sneered, his cybernetic eye staring right into my soul. “You cannot imagine how useful my upgrades have been. For instance, I do not need a pitiful PipBuck for an Eyes Forward Sparkle.”

“I figured,” I choked out. “Joke’s on you, though. Altrix and my friends are probably long gone. Shouldn’t have focused on the obvious bait unicorn, huh?”

Kronos’ beak curled into a snarl, and I swear that probing of that red eye got deeper. Glancing to the sides, I could see more of his slaver lackies ganging up around me. Griffons, ponies, and two of the power armour guys. The laser one and the rocket launcher one. Some stood atop the shelves, peering down and laughing at my misfortune. Others stood around Kronos, awaiting his word.

“If you believe your friends will make it far, you are mistaken,” Kronos spat. I had to disagree with that. Mostly because the opposite was… No, not thinking about it. “But we have you. I was planning on asking your little changeling pet about this, but while we’re here…”

I gasped in pain as his claws tighten, and the individual talons began to dig in. Even the one on my chest was digging into the barding, probably something to do with stupid cyborg powers.

Gark!

He’d slammed me into the ground again, blood beginning to seep from the new wounds in my chest and neck. I guess he’d seen my smirk about his cyborg powers…

“What were those bugs after!?” he demanded to know. “Why would they send some wastelander like you out with one of their own? Answer me!”

“Y-you didn’t answer my questions yet, you know,” I rasped. Talking was getting harder… “Why is Red Eye interested in changelings…? Answer for an answer?”

Kronos seemed to study me for a minute. And for all I know, that eye of his was giving me a full fucking medical examination or x-ray or something. But then he snorted as if amused by what he found.

“The offer still stands, you know,” he said. “Here you are, about to die. And yet you refuse to answer even though it might save your skin. Are your ‘friends’ truly worth it?”

Were they worth it? Had you asked me at the start of all this, I’d have given him a big old ‘hell no’ and taken the offer. Hell, Red Eye might have even given me that house I’d always wanted. I doubt I’d ever have taken part in the slaving, even back then. But would I have protested about it? Would I have kicked up a fuss? Tried to free or protect those ponies he kicked into the dirt and worked to their untimely deaths?

Probably not.

I’d have sat in a bubble. Taken the deal, gotten a home with a bed and a kitchen somewhere in the pits of Fillydelphia, and never come out. Apathetic to the end.

Now?

“Hell yeah,” I told him. “Every bit.”

He hummed, but then the griffon loosened his grip.

That was following by him nodding to two of his fellow talon mercenaries, and two other griffons snatching me up by a foreleg each, hauling me to a standing position between them. One took my pistol from its holster and placed it in one of his own, giving me a smirk that was less ‘thank you for the gun’ and more ‘you are so fucked now’.

“We will see if that can change,” Kronos said, standing in front of me mere inches away. “What will it be? Torture? The slave pits? Maybe one after the other. If you don’t talk, fine. But you will die, one way or another. Might as well be building Lord Red Eye’s Equestria.”

I so wanted to spit in his face, but my mouth was so dry I doubted I could build enough saliva.

Kronos then turned away from me, looking to address his slavers. Each one gave him his undivided attention, with the exception of the two holding me. I could try to escape, maybe levitate out one of their guns…

But they’d see it, and I’d be gunned down in a second.

“Find his friends. Bring the changeling alive, the others too if possible. But they are expendable,” he commanded, and I gritted my teeth. I just hope they’d gotten far from this place while they’d been busy with ‘The Scavenger’. “Do no-”

His command was interrupted by a small ‘tink’, and then something clattering from the floor above next to Kronos.

“Shit!” he swore as the grenade detonated!

CRACK.

The head of one of the pony slavers detonated, followed by a gleeful cheer as a pegasus pony landed on the talon to my right and stomped his head in.

“Sup, Scrap?” Moon Blossom asked with a massive shit-eating grin, gore and brains covering her. “Hey, is that your shotgun in two halves there?”

I didn’t have time to respond as I headbutted the other talon, latching onto my pistol and quickly using it to pump the griffon full of holes. Before he even hit the ground I also tore his assault rifle from the mercenary’s battle saddle, putting it away in the place of my old shotgun. Only then did he drop.

And then we ran.

Every step was pained, but the Med-X was still doing its job. Out of the corner of my eye, through the smoke and corpses of those caught in the grenade blast, I briefly saw Kronos’ cybernetic eye look directly at me.

Oh, of course, that would barely even scratch him!

But I wasn’t up for a round two with the cyborg, and both Moon Blossom and I retreated back through the door by customer service and slammed it shut behind us.

“Oh my gosh, are you alright!?” Altrix asked in worry as she and Cobalt met us there. “You look so bad!”

“Yeah, I feel it. And that’s with painkillers,” I grumbled back. “Fix me up later, we don’t have time!”

Altrix seemed distressed by that, but she had to concede. Though I fully expected all the mothering in the world once this was done.

Stripe ran at us from down the hallway, having just ran back down the stairs that led to the upper floor. She said nothing, though seemed to glare at me. That was… worrying, but for later as we all booked it through the corridor towards the loading dock.

Cobalt levitated out two mines and activated them, dropping them both behind us as we ran. The door we’d come through being blown open as we rushed around a corner.

“Where’d you get those?” I asked the unicorn.

“One of the talons who came snooping,” Cobalt explained. “That was all of it. Useful, though.”

You’re telling me…

We rushed into the loading dock, closing the door with Cobalt shifting objects to barricade it as much as possible. Then, without missing a beat, he and I proceeded to the exit and lifted the massive door up enough for us all to roll underneath it just as we’d done before.

The cloudy, dull day of the wasteland hit me like a ton of bricks. The light assaulted my eyes, not really helping my condition.

Still, I was glad to be out of there.

“There’s a metro system that leads up to Haven,” Cobalt noted. “We should duck down there, traversing the surface may be too dangerous.”

“Right… take the metro to where we first met Kronos and his goons,” I deadpanned, and I could see Altrix shifting on her hooves as the light better revealed by battered and bruised form. “What could go wrong?”

“We’d have to be careful getting from there to the hive, but it’s better than staying out here.”

He had a point there. Even if returning to Haven was far from being on my bucket list…

And then I hit the floor again.

Really sick of doing that.

I rubbed my cheek, look up at the furious zebra above me. She had her hoof raised, her eyes glaring as she panted heavily in her anger.

Stripe had just punched me in the face.

“You foolish pony!” she shouted, quickly going from punching me to helping me up. Though she didn’t relent from a moment in making me feel like a naughty foal. “Cobalt told us what you did. Why would run out like that!? Make yourself bait!?”

“I was hoping I’d reach the door before they got me,” I responded sheepishly. Was now really the time to be doing this…?

“Well, you failed!” she pointed out, fuming. “You could have been killed! Or enslaved! Or worse! They had you, Scrap Heap! Why in Equus did you go off by yourself!?”

“If they were focused on me, they weren’t going after you! Alright!?” I shouted back at her. Why was she getting on my case like this!? Couldn’t she see why I did what I did!?

She definitely seemed to stop dead at my own shout, her eyes going wide. But I wasn’t done!

“And you got away! They didn’t get Altrix, or any of you! As long as they were after me, you were safe, Stripe! And you know what? Good! If that was the case, the f-”

My shouting was cut off when she kissed me…

She kissed me.

Stripe was kissing me.

I think something blew in my brain because, uh… What were we doing here again? Something about slavers… And being angry and…

Holy Luna, Stipe was kissing me!

She pulled away from the kiss gingerly, and my face burned in a bright blush. My mouth and… everything failed to work. I just gaped like a fish while she averted her gaze from my own.

“Foolish pony. Don’t do that again,” she whispered. “Please.”

She… I mean…

I had to process this. There’d be something there, sure. Those brief awkward exchanges, all the way since the hive. Maybe even before that a little ways, I don’t know. But this… This was beyond what I’d expected. I had to say something, to comfort her in some way…

But any thought of that evaporated when I saw the odd shadow being cast from above us.

“Watch it!” I shouted, tackling Stripe to the ground as a loud crash sounded from where we’d just been standing.

When I looked back, there was the one thing that had been missing from the little gathering in the Megamart.

The third power armoured griffon, miniguns gleaming in the few rays breaking through the clouds.

“There you are,” was all he said, and then the miniguns began to spin.

I pulled my shotg- assault rifle out and opened fire. The gun had a completely different feel, and it lacked the punch of my lost weapon. But it certainly made up for that in rate of fire!

Too bad those rounds just pinged off the armour.

And definitely too bad I’d forgotten to collect more ammo.

The moment my clip ran dry, the griffon’s minigun rang out and bullets cascaded out towards me and Stripe!

But, just in time, a blue half-shield covered us and intercepted the bullets. Cobalt, however, was still drained from his previous magic defences. The shield collapsed after the first few hits, but its sudden appearance had been enough to get the griffon to momentarily let off the trigger.

We’ll take it.

I swapped out my guns as Moon Blossom charged with a vicious shout, pulling her knife and going for the helmet. The griffon caught her with his claws, pushing her away just as Stripe and I opened fire on him. The griffon briefly lifted an arm to protect himself, but then lowered it and spooled the miniguns again.

Then there was a large gulp and a squelch as a shot of strange green… stuff shot out at the griffon and hit the minigun. I glanced to the side just in time to see Altrix spit a second gulp of green mucus at the other minigun. The griffon paused a moment, and he then went to fire them.

Only for both weapons to fail to spool even slightly, glued in place by the spit.

“No more hurting my friends!” Altrix shouted, stamping a hoof.

I never knew changelings could do that!

The griffon, his weapons disabled, went to flee. However, Moon Blossom had recovered by then and leapt back onto the griffon, and instead of going for the helmet she grabbed onto his outstretched wing and started to twist.

The talon gave a cry of pain as something snapped, stumbling as we continued to shoot and peel away at his armour.

Moon Blossom jammed her knife into a joint where the wing met the griffon’s body, prying and tearing the whole thing away in a spray of blood! The mercenary then took a swipe at Moon Blossom with a claw, though she used his own severed wing to shield herself. But with a wing missing, we had a weak spot to aim for!

Cobalt lit up his horn and grabbed onto another wing, simultaneously running in and clamping onto the metal with his teeth and pulling. This tanked the griffon away from Moon Blossom with a pained squawk, and we repositioned ourselves to have a perfect line to the hole in his armour. Our bullets hit true, digging into the talon’s torso through his armour and peeling more of the damaged section away as he struggled.

And then his struggling ceased, and he keeled over towards where Cobalt was dragging him, no longer able to resist.

Cobalt dropped the limp griffon, who was well and truly dead.

And that left us, panting heavily from the exertion of fighting a walking tank. But we’d done it. Together, we’d been able to overpower him.

Yeah, I’d take my friends over Kronos’ stupid offer any day.

“Nice one, Altrix,” I said to the changeling, who gave me a rather flushed smile in turn. “We shouldn’t stay here; the others will come running any second.

“He’s right,” Stripe agreed, and we couldn’t quite meet each other’s gaze… “The metro entrance is close by.”

Back underground it was then. But before that, I gave the dead griffon a passing look. I knew I couldn’t look long, I could already see some red bars popping up in search for us. This guy figured out where we’d gone, and so would his fellow slavers. But still…

I took the first few things I saw in his bags and then ran with the others with them still in my aura. I barely gave them a glance as we skirted the edge and back into town, moving until was found the metro entrance. There were always red bars but a short way behind us every second we were out there, the slavers not giving up their search.

Only when we slipped into the dusty old metro did the bars blink away from the distance, the only thing showing being a radroach that Moon Blossom quickly stepped on.

Only then did we allow ourselves a breath. We took shelter in a small storeroom near the gate, though were aware that we couldn’t stay long in case they decided to check the metro entrance. But I did finally allow Altrix to treat my wounds, all the while trying to ignore the way the others seemed to constantly glance between me and Stripe.

While Altrix worked, I was also able to finally see what I’d swiped from the dead griffon. I was fortunate to see a few clips for my new rifle, but I think it was the other object in my possession that caused us all to do a small double take.

It was another memory orb.

Footnote: Max Level

25 - Alicorns and Queens

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Chapter Twenty-Five: Alicorns and Queens

“So what shall it be? Do you join the Unity, or do you die here? Join! Die! Join! Die!”

The subway was damp, cold and full of mould. The tracks we followed were filled with constant caved in sections and the twisted hulks that were once trains. Morbidly, each of those hulks was occupied by the skeletons of those who were down here when the world went to hell, right alongside their buddies who didn’t have the good graces to die alongside them.

We fixed that with each ghoul encountered.

Good news was, we hadn’t seen any more of Red Eye’s goons since coming down here. If they were following us, they were probably back at the last junction. But the thought that they might even be there at all was enough to keep us moving. We had yet to stop even to rest, not wanting to risk it. If we hauled ass we could be back at Haven in a day, and back at the hive in another if we skipped on some sleep.

We’d rest when there were secure stable walls around us.

We began passing by another wrecked train, this one quite heavily scorched from a long-doused fire. As we reached the front of the wreck, I spotted the charred remains of the driver hanging out the front window, a hat that was probably part of his uniform still sitting on top of the skull.

And then the tunnel opened up into a far larger space. Two platforms sat either side of the track, illuminated by lights that were barely still running after two hundred years. Both platforms had a bunch of equipment strewn about the place, small and large. The platform to our left had a stairway leading upwards, while the platform to the right had a doorway in the wall next to a smashed window. The track also seemed to split at the other end of the platforms, and on the alternate path sat a single train car, the most intact one we’d seen so far, parked and waiting for a driver who would never come.

“I didn’t think there was another metro station until we reached Haven…?” I asked Cobalt.

“I don’t think this is a commercial station,” he replied as he hopped up onto the left platform, trotting over to the staircase as the rest of us watched. “Hm, it’s caved in further up. But it probably led to a small staff building on the side of the road.”

“And?”

“It was probably a service station,” he clarified. “Look at the equipment. Refuelling and repair, an extra car parked and waiting. This was probably used for maintenance between stops.”

That made sense. I guess if a train car needed a bit of work done, they’d drop it off here and be on their way.

It also looked undisturbed, so my scavenger senses were tingling!

I hopped up onto the right platform. “Let’s take a look around. Might be some goodies for us to use.”

The others all followed me up, while Cobalt elected to rifle through the discarded equipment on his side of the station.

On first glance, there didn’t appear to be all that much. Plenty of scrap metal, if I was still striving to collect that. I could tell some of the electrical components would probably have made a few caps back at Absolutely Everything, it was a shame I didn’t have the room or time to collect some of it for later.

I miss my wagon.

Still, one thing that was immediately of note was the red bar, make that two red bars, coming from the other side of the door.

I could already guess what they were.

Instead of barging in, I motioned to the others to convey the danger, before drawing my pistol and creeping steadily towards the smashed window. Stripe, meanwhile, took up position by the door with Moon Blossom drawing her knife and Altrix hiding behind some empty fuel barrels. At least I hope they’re empty, or that’d be some terrible cover.

With everyone ready, I levitated up my pistol and peered in through the window.

FU- Oh come on! What is it with ferals and jumpscares!?

Fortunately, when the ghoul had seen my face emerge and instantly jumped to tear it off, the zombie pony had also driven itself into the sizable glass shards lining the frame and skewered itself. But even though it was trapped for the moment, the feral ghoul was thrashing to break the glass and continue its lunge towards me, completely ignoring any injuries it was taking in the process.

I lifted my gun and fired a round point-blank into the ghoul’s head, the blood emerging from the other end spraying the opposing wall.

Stripe kicked in the door, and after a single crack of her sniper, the second red bar blinked away.

With Altrix remaining outside, the three of us all piled in and examined the room. The other ghoul lay dead by an overturned chair next to a console filled with all kinds of knobs and buttons. There were a few other such consoles in the room, alongside some filing cabinets and two more doorways leading elsewhere. Beneath the window, where the first ghoul now lifelessly laid, was a desk with a tipped over coffee mug reading ‘Best Dad in Equestria’.

“Aw come on, that was it?” Moon Blossom complained. “I didn’t even get a go!”

“Your thirst for another’s blood is disturbing,” Stripe scolded.

“Hey! If it’s a bad guy’s blood, who cares?” the pegasus retorted. “And is anypony gonna complain about fewer zombies in the world?”

“It’d be better if blood needn’t be shed at all.”

“Well, it does, it’s the wasteland. Good thing you have me around, huh?”

“Check the other doors,” I interrupted their debate before it got heated, checking a drawer in the desk and finding some caps and bobby pins. “Might be some stuff back there.”

As they went to do that, I continued to go through the remaining drawers, finding nothing of particular use. There didn’t seem to be much more than old junk around the room, aside from the few bits that were actually useful I’d already pilfered, so I went over to the door Moon Blossom was trying to force open while Stripe had long entered the other.

“Locked?”

“I’m going to break the fucking thing…” she muttered in annoyance.

“Let me,” I said, pulling out the same bobby pin I’d just taken as well as my screwdriver.

It was a simple lock, and in a few moments, the door clicked open.

“Heh, not bad,” she commented, pushing the door and entering the room. “Ohh, bathroom.”

It was quite small but sizable enough that it accommodated a toilet and a sink. There was also a medical box on the wall. I moved to open it, finding the usual assortment and dumping them in my saddlebags. But just as I did, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Moon Blossom.

“So…” she said with a coy smirk. “That smooch with Stripe…”

Oh, fuck my life…

“Can we not, at least not right now?” I asked her with a sigh. “It’s awkward enough as it is.”

“Oh come on, dude. You clearly wanna bone her!”

I felt my eye twitch. “D-don’t just… Stop. Now.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fiiiine, but now I’m bored and curious, so…”

She pushed me up against the wall. Why did she push me up against the wall?

“Really, this trek down the tracks is really boring. So while we’re here…”

Um.

“Wanna have some fun?” Um… Huh? “Come on, you know you- Huh?”

Moon Blossom landed on her face as Stripe bit down on her tail and yanked it, a grumpy look on her face as she began to drag the pegasus out of the bathroom. Moon Blossom herself, however, just started to laugh her ass off.

“Totally worth it!”

What just happened?

Stripe then returned to the bathroom, looking thoroughly unamused as she spat out a few purple hairs.

“So… I guess she was just joking, just trying to get a rise out of me…” I muttered. “At least, I think…?”

“The other door led out into an access tunnel, though it caves in part way down,” she said, ignoring what I said. “Nothing of use. Any luck in here?”

“Uh…” Right, mind rebooting. Back to business… “Y-yeah, a medical box with some potions and Med-X. I think that’s about it though.”

“Um…” Altrix mumbled as she poked her head in through the door. “Do you mind if we rest here for a while longer? My hooves are killing me… If that’s alright with you, I mean.”

Stripe looked back at the changeling. “We need to keep moving, Altrix. Those slavers may be close behind.”

“Five minutes can’t hurt,” Cobalt commented as he joined us. “Oh, and what happened back here? Moon Blossom looks like she’s heard the funniest joke on Equus.”

“Nothing,” Stripe and I said simultaneously. Oh crap, now I’m blushing again…

“Right…” he replied with a raised eyebrow. “But if we stop for a five-to-ten minute rest, it’ll give Scrap Heap time to check that memory orb we recovered from that griffon.”

“Don’t you want to check it?” I asked the unicorn.

“I’ll check it out later, depending on what you find,” he stated. “Besides, this is your little quest. You can do the honours.”

Right…

Well, if it’d escape the air of awkwardness that had been doubled thanks to that fucking former raider of ours, I was all in.

The others all piled in and around the room, Moon Blossom responded to Stripe’s irritated glare with a faux smile of innocence.

Definitely heading into that orb now…

I laid down, levitating the glowing magical object and holding it out before me. As I had done before, I closed my eyes and concentrated my magic onto it. It took a few moments to make the connection, as always, but when I-

Well, here we go.

Everything began to shift and blur into focus, the feeling of the body I now inhabited all also starting up… And I was increasingly familiar with what it was like to be Queen Chrysalis. She was strolling along a long metal corridor with a drone flanking each of her sides. And… No, this definitely wasn’t a stable corridor. It just didn’t have the same overly clean feeling to it, the colours were far darker and more subdued.

At the end of the corridor, where Chrysalis was walking towards, sat an industrial metal door, further cementing that this wasn’t anywhere near the hive.

Where am I? Or rather, where is she?

When Chrysalis reached the end of the corridor, she lit up her horn and watched as the door slid open with a whine of metal scraping against metal. And when the changelings stepped into the next room, I had to take a moment to process exactly what in all of Equestria it was I was seeing!

The room was just big, it was gigantic! A vast chamber that had workstations up above connected to the outer walls, and I could just make out the ponies inside through the windows, looking down at the Changeling Queen as she entered. These stations were connected via catwalks above my- above Chrysalis’ head, though I couldn’t see any visible way up for non-fliers around her. The ground floor, meanwhile, was a different matter altogether.

And it started off with the giant column in the middle, rising up to the ceiling and then back down into a deep pit that dominated the centre of the room, said column blinking with all kinds of machine parts I had no idea about. Around the column was a circular bit of catwalk that then had four other catwalks leading away from it in a plus shape. The outside of the room was a much more stable metal floor that had the pit separated with railings, and several consoles running around the entire exterior with ponies in full body hazmat suits working them. In each corner of the room was also a giant tank of… something, with pipes coming out of them and leading into the pit.

And what I spied in there gave me the biggest question mark.

In the pit, running right underneath all the catwalks, were four large open vats of… I wasn't really sure what. Some kind of magical pulsating liquid that cast the chamber in an eerie glow.

And there, right in the middle of it all, was Twilight Sparkle.

“Adjust the thaumatic monitor by point zero-three,” the Ministry Mare said to one of the scientists undoubtedly under her specific employ, hoofing them a checklist to act out. “Rerun the trials, I want that report.”

“Yes, Ministry Mare,” the pony answered, trotting off to carry out her demand.

“An efficient workforce. You might have made a mediocre Changeling Queen, in another world,” Chrysalis said to Twilight, the barb in her voice obvious.

“More efficient than you,” Twilight shot back, causing Chrysalis to snarl. “So, how’s the hive? I hope the stable hasn’t given you any issues.”

“It is surprisingly durable, for a pony design,” the Queen replied, leaving her drones by the door and walking towards Twilight by the centre column. “And now Insidiis is becoming infuriatingly enamoured with you Equestrians.”

“I bit of potential friendship in the world. That makes a change,” the Ministry Mare said sadly, looking almost nostalgic for a moment. “Now, I take it you’re ready to hear the update?”

“I did agree to this little project of yours, I would be amiss to let you use our magic without supervision,” Chrysalis answered. “And I must say, you have upgraded this facility since my last visit.”

“Yes, this entire chamber is modelled after our site at Maripony,” Twilight nodded, turning to a terminal on the column and beginning to type. “Fewer vats, but everything here is only a testbed for the real deal. But first off, the StealthBuck MK II-B…”

“Don’t tell me that’s its final name.”

“We’re thinking of the ‘ChangeBuck’ when it’s in full service,” she explained. “But for now, that’s the project title. Here, why don’t you have a look?”

Twilight turned from the terminal, and instead levitated something over to Chrysalis. It was a small device, and I wasn’t certain about what it was exactly…

Chrysalis took hold of it, studying the device cautiously. “And how does it work, exactly?”

“Just plug it into your PipBuck, like a normal StealthBuck.”

Chrysalis studied it for a moment longer, before inserting the device into the holotape slot. The PipBuck gave a beep before rolling text appeared that was quickly replaced by a menu.

“You will be able to scan targets using the S.A.T.S. uplink eventually, but for now we have some pre-sets,” Twilight stated. “Try one.”

Chrysalis looked through the list, selecting a simple earth pony mare that seemed to hold a similar colour scheme to her own. Intentional on the unicorn’s part, if Chrysalis were to surmise.

The moment the option was selected, and the confirmed, the Changeling Queen was surrounded by green flames originating from the PipBuck. It was over in a moment, and I visibly saw Chrysalis shrink down to the Ministry Mare’s eye level through the Queen’s very own eyes.

“Hm, an adequate recreation,” the ‘pony’ mused. “Though the PipBuck being visible may be of concern.”

“Unfortunately, it has to be if you want to cancel the spell,” Twilight replied. “Though we may add an option to hide it from view if the user wishes, at which point they’ll have to wait out the full hour. We’re still working out the kinks.”

“And how long until it is ready for production?”

“I can’t really say right now. Hopefully, by the time my alicorn potion rolls out. Or maybe a little after, we’ll have to wait for Robronco to sign the contract for the PipBuck compatibility and get them into military use.”

Alicorn potion?

“And I take it your ‘sort of’ alicorns will be ready soon?” Chrysalis enquired.

“Now that I have a direct supply of flux, we’ve been making incredible progress,” the Ministry Mare said, though seemed visibly uneasy at the mention of the substance. “And now that we’re on the subject…”

Twilight pressed a key on the terminal and directed Chrysalis to take a look.

“This chamber was created to double our output and research for the alicorn potion, but it was built in this specific facility for another reason…”

Chrysalis regarded the unicorn with a cool glare. “And what reason might that be?”

“Our projections for the transformation process show that our chances of success are increasing, but the process for any pony would be… lethally painful.”

I felt a small smirk cross the Queen’s features. “So, in other words, your key to ending the war would die of agony during birth. Quite the design flew.”

“As I’m aware…” Twilight replied with an irritated tone. “But as I just demonstrated with the new StealthBuck MK II-B, the process of changing for a pony is seamless. Just as much as any changelings’ would be.”

“And?”

“And I think that changeling magic could be the key to solving that issue,” Twilight Sparkle concluded. “One final ingredient. If we add changeling magic into the mix, specifically the part that facilitates your change of appearance, then we could make the transformation all but painless. Or at least not lethally so, if nothing else.”

“So our magic is required to make your little taint solution work? Hm, that was not part of our agreement.”

“But this could end the war!” Twilight stressed, a panicked look crossing her features. “A whole generation has practically grown up in a world where millions of ponies are dying! Every day this farce has gone on, it’s just gotten worse! I… I can’t let it continue! Equestria isn’t even recognisable anymore, I don’t want to see how much further we’ll stray in another decade of this.”

“Then you will have to trade something in turn, Twilight Sparkle,” Chrysalis said, releasing the pony guise and beginning to circle Twilight in an almost predatory manner. “If it is as desperate as you say, surely that won’t be an issue?”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “What do you want?”

“If changeling magic is going to be a component in your little potion, then I’ve got a thought,” she began. “Could your potion not be modified to, instead of reacting to a pony, react to a changeling?”

The Ministry Mare gasped. “You... you want to create Changeling Queens…?”

“Would it not be possible?”

“I mean… maybe? With time and research, making the changeling magic more prevalent, changing some of the parameters the flux is acting under…”

“Then we have a deal?”

“Goldenblood would never allow it.”

“Goldenblood’s days as director of the Office of Interministry Affairs are over, and you know it,” Chrysalis spat. “And I’ve done some digging on this ‘Mr Horse’ that’s taking over, a small ‘donation’ his way would be sufficient to convince him.”

“Why…?” Twilight whispered. “Why do you even want this?”

“My race, much to my knowledge, has long been reduced to but one hive. My hive,” Chrysalis replied. “Insidiis will be a queen one day, but reproduction is too slow. My people are few, but if some of my most trusted subjects were to ascend, then we would soon be many.”

“So you can conquer?”

“So we can thrive,” Chrysalis shot back. “When you fools started this war you nearly killed us by consequence. I saw my people starve and die. I’m saving us.”

Twilight silent for a moment, seemingly having an internal conflict inside her own head.

And that was nice because it gave me a moment to process everything as well. I mean, what the hay!? I was clearly seeing some of the origins of Splendid Valley’s alicorn infestation, but this… This is what Cobalt was after. The MAS project, what they were working on. And not just this StealthBuck, but…

And Kronos knows about it.

“Could this not assist an Equestrian victory as well?” Chrysalis asked, breaking the silence. “What is one more compromise?”

“I’ve been asking that for years…” Twilight muttered. “I don’t like the answer I’ve gotten time and again.”

Another moment of silence, but then the Ministry Mare sighed.

“Fine, damn it. Fine!” she decided. “Hmph, it’s a good thing we had this place built even more now. This is going to take a lot of recalculation. Our alicorns are still the priority though, don’t misunderstand me.”

“Clearly,” the Queen replied. “But I nevertheless look forward to seeing the result.”

Twilight, however, looked far less enthusiastic. A grim look on her face, she turned from Chrysalis and towards the glowing vats, leaning up against the railing and staring down into the magical liquid below.

“Just one most step, Twilight…” Chrysalis heard her mutter. “It’ll all be over soon…”

I emerged from the memory orb exactly where I’d entered it, my friends all relaxing as much as they could in the room beyond the bathroom.

And my mind was racing.

Twilight Sparkle created the alicorns? She also tried to make Changeling Queens? Did she succeed? Well, obviously not or there would have been more than just Insidiis back at Stable 84, that memory must have been weeks or so before the bombs fell. At most, I’d think. I don’t know… Still, they must have at least started during that time if they finished up the so-called ‘alicorn potion’. Maybe that research still existed somewhere? Like… if Red Eye were to somehow find that facility Twilight Sparkle built. And then…

Oh shit.

The Goddess.

Fuck!

I bolted from the bathroom, all but sliding into my friends as I hoped the ‘oh shit’ expression on my face was enough to convey just how ‘oh shit’ of a situation this was!

“Scrap Heap? What is it? What was on that orb?” Cobalt asked, the first to rise on seeing me awake.

“Right, so… I know what Kronos is after! Why they want changelings!” I announced to them. “They, uh… well, Goddess wants them for Unity!”

They all glanced between one another.

“Um, as far as anyone knows only ponies can be turned into alicorns, Scrap,” Cobalt refuted.

“Who said anything about alicorns…?” I said, holding out the memory orb to the curious unicorn.

Suffice to say, when he too emerged from the memory he was as frazzled as I was.

I mean, this was huge! Like, really huge! The Goddess and her alicorns had been terrorising the wasteland since the bombs dropped, doubly so when she made an alliance with Red Eye. And yet her numbers were always limited, and it’d be obvious whenever they were getting close to a settlement. But if she were to get changelings into their ranks, shapeshifting changelings… A whole hive of them…

I didn’t even want to think about how fucked we’d all be.

Our saving grace, in our minds, was that there was no way they could actually do it yet. As Cobalt saw fit to point out, if Twilight Sparkle never finished it then they wouldn’t be able to convert any of them.

But if they somehow managed to finish it…

After that, we didn’t stop moving through the metro system until we were out of there. We had to warn Insidiis about what we had found, she had to see the memory. Were it ghouls or radroaches, we stopped for nothing until we reached that metro tunnel and found ourselves back where we’d encountered the ice ghouls.

The entire station was pretty frozen over, even more so down the tunnel to the Crystal Empire. But the ghouls were gone, probably wiped out by the slavers by now. That served in our favour, though, meaning getting out and back into the town was a breeze. From there, we just had to move carefully to get passed the slavers. Where once the town had been quiet, now there seemed to be regular patrols around the old pre-war settlement.

Still, we managed to get around them. We had to, and we had no time for another fight. And when we were out of there, we began to make our way straight for the hive as fast as we could. Even faster than the last time we walked this trail, there was no time to waste on this. No dawdling, no random side quests.

Because if what we’d come across was what we thought it was, then it was more than just Stable 84 at risk.

The entire Equestrian Wasteland was in danger.

Footnote: Max Level

26 - The Name

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Chapter Twenty-Six: The Name

“But Stripe is what ponies see fit to refer to me as, so it is what you shall also refer to me as.”

The areas around us were familiar, and we were so close to Stable 84 now. Our arrival couldn’t come soon enough. We were exhausted, almost to the point of collapse even. Altrix had suggested we take a break, sleep and finish the journey the next day.

But we couldn’t. I couldn’t. Not after what we had learnt. How what I was facing, what we were facing…

How it was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Goddesses, what have I dragged us into?

The morning sun was barely reaching us through the clouds, and there was no denying how tired we all felt from the last two all-nighters we pulled. First through the metro to get to Haven and now back to here. We really should have been getting back early morning tomorrow, but given how much we’d pushed ourselves…

Well, I had to keep telling myself that every moment counted. Besides, soft beds were waiting after we warned the Princess.

Still, the exhaustion meant that nobody had said a word in hours. It was like autopilot, really. I honestly felt like Stripe was about ready to put Altrix onto her back and let the changeling sleep if she weren’t so ready to fall herself.

I wonder if the hive has any coffee?

Hell, I’d take a Sparkle-Cola. The energy given would do nicely.

Ugh, now I was drooling at the thought. I needed a distraction. We all did. Well, at times like these there’s only one radio station for the job.

Good morning, Wastelanders!” DJ Pon-3 cried our of the PipBuck’s radio, sounding as upbeat and enthusiastic as ever. “How is everypony doing? This is your pal, DJ Pon-3 and, well, it’s that time again… that’s right, time for some news!”

Please be something good. I think we need a little cheer after what ever the fuck we’ve just been through.

“I hear rumour that Monterey Jack, cheese shop owner up in that oh-so-hoity-toity Tenpony Tower, has been arrested for deciding that being a thieving jackass is the appropriate response to an act of kindness. Remember what I keep telling you, my little ponies: treat each other with kindness and respect. Or don’t and watch it come back to bite you in the tail.”

“In other news, somepony’s finally arrived to fix my toaster. Hallelujah! It’s breakfast time! Here’s a little Sapphire Shores to get you through the morning.”

Right. Toaster fixing and thieves. Must be a slow news day.

Still, he wasn’t wrong about the morning Sapphire Shores. The song was relatively cheerful, so that was nice. It helped a little with the general mood. Though just a little.

But hey, he could have put on a more depressing song. Sweetie Belle did enough of those…

“Ugh, turn that shit off,” Moon Blossom moaned.

I guess some others weren’t sharing my opinion.

Still, the last thing I needed was a peeved Moon Blossom, so I obliged and turned off the PipBuck’s broadcaster. Silence refilled the space around us, which seemed to give the pegasus a small amount of satisfaction.

“Much better,” she said. “Damn, this stable place better have some nice beds. I’m going to sleep for weeks.”

“Never done an all-nighter before?” Cobalt jabbed.

“Not two in a row, jackass,” she shot back. “Who knew that sticking with the good guys would be such a fucking workout…”

“We’re almost there,” I told her. “Just a couple minutes more, then we’ll be at the cave entrance leading to the hive.”

“So, do try to behave,” Stripe cautioned the former raider.

“Hey, I’m the face of innocence,” Moon Blossom claimed. “And as long as they give me the bed I mentioned, I’ll be good. Actually, tell me which one I need to screw if it’d get me there faster! Mare or stallion, I don’t give a damn.”

Too much information…

“What is with you?” Stripe asked the pegasus through gritted teeth. “Is violence and sex all that courses through your mind?”

Both mares stopped and turned towards one another, forcing the rest of us to slow to a halt and look on a little helplessly. Uh oh…

“Is ‘raider’ not good enough of an answer?”

“You chose to abandon that life. And yet here you are.”

“Look, is this about what happened back in the metro?” Moon Blossom replied, taking on an uncharacteristically serious expression. A little like how she got back in Stable 77, actually. “Because I didn’t mean anything by that, you know. I was just messing with Scrap Heap. But I need to make my fun in this fucked up world somehow.”

I’m not sure I like being caught in the middle of this…

“So, you don’t really enjoy the fighting, is that it?” Stripe asked, looking sceptical.

“Oh, hell no. I love it!” she corrected, before gritting her teeth and massaging her temples with her wing tips. “But… Argh, I’m trying here, alright!? I meant every word back in that stupid bunker, but don’t expect that to make me into some mild-mannered mare. I am who I am, Stripe. And I’m a former raider who kicks ass and talks shit. But I also want to help, isn’t that enough?”

Stripe was quiet for a moment, almost studying her. “And you are sincere about that?”

“I’m here with you guys, aren’t I?”

“I guess you are.” Huh, believe it or not Stripe actually gave Moon Blossom a small smile. “I can’t say I approve of your… sense of humour, but I do believe your sincerity. I apologise for snapping.”

“Yeah well…” Moon Blossom scuffed the ground awkwardly. “I’m not exactly a people person, so… Yeah, I guess I’m sorry for hitting on your boyfriend.”

I blushed. “I mean, we’re still not-”

“I think we’re all just tired, exhaustion can fray your nerves,” Altrix interrupted me. Altrix! Of all people! “We should have rested last night.”

“You know we’re in a hurry, Altrix,” Cobalt pointed out.

“Just don’t expect me to tone it down anytime soon, I have my charms to uphold,” Moon Blossom said to Stripe.

“Then I will attempt to be more accommodating, as long as your heart stays true,” she relented, before giving the mare an amused but dangerous look. “But if you pull another stunt like you did in those metro tunnels…”

“Yeah yeah, I get it…” she replied, raising her hooves in defence. “Come on though, he is adorable when he blushes…”

Stripe laughed. “He is, isn’t he?”

I think I preferred it when they were fighting…

“RIGHT THEN!” I announced to the group. “It looks like we’ve stopped, let’s get back to it. Yes? Yes. OK.”

Before I lost what was left of my pride.

Still, Stripe and Moon Blossom finding some kind of common ground was progress I could get behind. The zebra had always been cautious of the crude pegasus ever since we’d joined up in Stable 77, I was a little afraid they’d always be at odds.

I guess the wasteland is good at making the unlikeliest of friends.

That might actually be its one redeeming feature.

Still, our silence and tiredness quickly returned as we made the final leg of the trip. Even if our spirits had been lifted a little by the prior interaction, we still had to make it in and explain everything to Princess Insidiis. And who knew how long that was going to take?

And who knew how she would react?

The wastes quickly passed us by, and up ahead I could see a dip in the dirt that was the crater in which the hive’s entrance was built. And as we came up to the edge and looked inside, the immediate thing I noticed was the lack of radscorpion bits littering the large bowl. I guess the changelings had been busy cleaning up.

Looking towards the entrance, neither could I see any sign of the Steel Ranger bodies. I guess those had been taken in as well. Maybe the bodies were buried, and the old weapons and armour scrapped for parts. I couldn’t really say, though it’s what I’d do.

We started to make our way down towards the cave entrance, my E.F.S. being clear of anything friendly or hostile. Everything was just… silent. Quiet as the grave. And it remained that way as we crossed the crater and entered the cave, for which I turned my PipBuck’s lamp on to help was see the path ahead.

One of the first noticeable things that was different compared to our last visit was the lack of clicking from my PipBuck, indicating the absence of radiation. The changelings had been busy over the last ten days, I wonder if the whole hive was clear by now. Or most of it, if not the whole thing?

Well, given the green bars I’d just spotted on the E.F.S. I was guessing we were about to find out.

Though I was not expecting the bullet to ricochet near my hooves!

“Stop right there!” a female voice demanded, and three changelings in stable security barding approached from around the corner with 10mm pistols aimed our way. “Who are you? Our PipBucks picked you up coming in, how did you-”

The mare at their head paused mid-sentence, lowering her gun as her large blue eyes went wide.

“Altrix…?”

“Mum!” Altrix shouted, running forwards and glomping the security guard.

…Well, that’s one way to be introduced to your friend’s parent. Honestly, I’d forgotten until this very moment that Altrix’s mother was a guard. Wish I’d remembered that beforehoof.

“Oh, I was so worried!” the guard said gently to Altrix, allowing herself to be a mother over a security officer for that moment. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, Mum. I’m fine,” Altrix assured, pulling reluctantly away from the embrace. “My friends helped me.”

Oh boy, now she was looking at us!

“Friends? Yes, these must be the ones the Princess mentioned. Though, I only thought there were three of them?”

“Yeah, I’m the new intern,” Moon Blossom quipped with a wide grin.

“I… see,” the changeling replied. “And the rest of your friends, dear?”

“Scrap Heap, Stripe and Cobalt,” Altrix introduced us one by one. “We got the talisman!”

“You did? That’s wonderful news!” The mare then turned to regard us again. “My name is Matercula. I work as a guard for the stable under Princess Insidiis. A pleasure.”

“Yeah. Likewise,” I stated. “So, uh… You’re Altrix’s mother, huh?”

“I am. And I’m curious what’s been told about me.”

“Nothing negative, that much is true,” Stripe replied. “We knew of your station, and… other details.”

She seemed to get what these ‘other details’ were. “I see. Altrix must trust you a great deal to share so much. She’s a shy little thing at times.”

“Mum!” Altrix squeaked in protest.

“She’s actually braver than you might think,” Stripe said. “You should be proud.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” Matercula replied warmly, and I saw her daughter go a little red at that. “But if you have the talisman you should go talk to Princess Insidiis. Her Majesty will want to know about what you found.”

“We, um… also need to tell her about some other things…” Altrix informed her.

Matercula frowned. “What other things? Altrix, what’s happened?”

“We met some… well, bad people out there. The hive may be in danger,” I explained.

“Bad people? We’ve met some of those.” They have? “But if it’s that urgent, I’m sure the Princess can explain more. We’ve cleared out those ‘ghouls’ that inhabited the hive, those poor souls. Some of our drones have been hard at work clearing the radiation away. The tech left to us did the job, though it took a while. We’ve got all but some of the lower levels cleaned.”

“What was wrong with the lower levels?” Cobalt asked.

“Some cave-ins, we’re having to clear the rubble and make it safe before we can clear the rads. Still, we’re beginning to move much of the populace into the hive, and it’s a lot roomier up here.”

“What’ll happen to the stable?”

“We’re not sure right now. Though there are talks of turning it into extra workshops and food production, as well as an emergency shelter in case of an attack by raiders or monsters. The hive’s a work in progress, and we’ve got love collectors trying to solve our supply issue.”

“You have no idea how nice it is not to be starving all the time,” one of the other changelings muttered.

Yeah, that’d probably suck.

“I’ll go speak with Insidiis about our… issues,” I volunteered. “The rest of you can go rest. We haven’t slept in two days.”

“Two days?” Matercula looked down at her daughter in concern. “Altrix, you should know better!”

“I know…”

“We were in a hurry,” I explained. “Still, we could all use the rest.”

“I’ll stay with Mum if that’s okay with you,” Altrix said. “I… want to talk.”

I nodded. “Alright, the rest of you get some rest.”

“I’m coming with you,” Cobalt decided. “Before you argue, I’m the one carrying the talisman. And I also want to talk to Insidiis about Kronos, so I’m coming.”

“Fair enough. Stripe? Moon Blossom?”

“Passing out,” Moon Blossom answered.

“I will catch up,” Stripe stated. “I wish to speak with Matercula a while longer.”

“If you wish,” Matercula agreed. “The rest of you can find Insidiis down in the stable’s Overmare’s Office.”

“Thanks,” I said to the changeling. “It was nice to meet you.”

The guard gave me a nod, and then she turned back to Altrix and Stripe, ready to continue their discussion. The other two guards, meanwhile, saw fit to escort the rest of us back to the hive.

The entranceway wasn’t pitch black like the last time, but instead was lit up with green flames running along the walls, the bones having all been cleared up. There were also more security guards in here, having set up some barricades just outside the entrance and forming a decently formidable checkpoint. A happy go lucky raider would probably get gunned down in a second.

A missile launcher sporting griffon slaver, however…

We all proceeded further down into the hive, and it was almost amazing to see the transformation it had gone through. Deeper in there were changelings walking the halls, some alone and others in groups of friends, peers or family. Some still wore the standard Stable 84 jumpsuit and PipBuck, while others seemed to have cast off the attire now they were out of the stable.

And when we got into the atrium…

Wow.

The largest section of the hive was the most alive we’d seen yet. Countless changelings were buzzing back and forth between the various levels of the structure, all intermingling and going to Celestia knows where…

It also showcased exactly why there were no railings, since they were all flying from level to level rather than using the stairs.

Oh, and Moon Blossom just had to give me that smirk as she took off to fly down herself! My stupid parents being stupid unicorns…

Still, we descended down the hive using the normal way (for non-pegasus ponies, at least) and eventually arrived back at the bottom. It was much more leisurely without a horde on our tails, it was like a whole different world.

I could almost imagine this was how things were for the hive before…

Moon Blossom was waiting for us, since she didn’t know where the stable door actually was, and we pressed on. Moving down the corridor, all life seemed to bleed away and even the lights dimmed a bit. I guess with most changelings being upstairs now there wouldn’t be many hanging around the stable.

I wonder how many are still in the fallout shelter. Actually, how many changelings are even in the hive? A couple hundred? Couple thousand? Somewhere in between? Maybe somewhere towards the former, given the fear Chrysalis held for her people’s future. Maybe less, depending on how badly their love shortage affected them…

I was broken from my musings when we emerged form the passage and arrived at the stable entrance, which was already open. There were a few security guards there, though thankfully none of them were primed to gas us this time around.

We exited the hive and entered the stable, making sure to get one of the guards to show Moon Blossom to a room where she could crash for as long as the former raider wished.

And that just left Cobalt and I, and we were heading straight for Insidiis before anything else.

I vaguely remembered the way from my previous time spent in Stable 84, though the signs on the walls were still a great help. We did also spot a few remaining stable dwellers as we went, walking and working within the halls of the great underground shelter. Nowhere near as many as we saw in the rest of the hive, though.

We passed by one scruffy-looking drone, a maintenance worker I would guess, as we entered the stable’s own atrium. There was no birthday party ongoing this time, and the overly clean metal space was empty of life. Looking up, I could see the silhouette of Insidiis in the circular window of the Overmare’s Office. We headed towards the door marked as leading towards the said office and made out way up the stairs.

Now this staircase and subsequent corridor were a dead ringer for Stable 77, just less rusted. And I couldn’t suppress a small shiver down my spine at the similarities as we opened up the door and entered the office.

Once again, the office was identical in every way. But it was clean, and everything looked almost knew. The lockers and computer equipment were all stacked neatly around the room, the desk was polished and shining…

And there was Princess Insidiis, looking out of the window and into the atrium.

“So, you return,” was the first thing she said on hearing the door slide open. “I am glad. There was some worry that you would perish in this ‘Equestrian Wasteland’ of yours.”

“Overmare,” I greeted in turn. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

The royal changeling glanced at us. “My drones have done good work… And that in itself is beyond amazing.”

“Oh?” Cobalt questioned.

“You cannot comprehend how terrible Stable 84 was for our people, even if it did save us in the long run,” Insidiis growled. “My changelings, living their lives while barely functioning for generations. Hungry from birth until death. Basic magic being a struggle, and how we had to persevere. Had you been hostile entering the hive, and we’d not been able to gas you into unconsciousness so we had time to access the reservoir, any fight would have been a losing one for us.”

“And now?”

“Now… it’s like a step into the past. Our magic is returning to its old strength, my people are full and happy, a sensation they’ve never felt. And now they have so much of the hive back their living space has practically doubled. It hasn’t been without its own challenges, mind you…”

I remembered what Altrix’s mother said, and I had to wonder… “Who did you encounter outside the stable?”

“So, you heard?” Insidiis asked, finally turning to look at us. “Yes, I’ve had scouts outside the stable finding love sources. One group encountered some ‘raiders’ you’d told us about. I lost some people before they were able to overcome the ponies and… acquire what we were seeking.”

She turned to look out the window again. “Our inexperience led to the casualties we took. Something we are also seeking to rectify. But enough about that, how was your own task?”

“Oh! Right, Cobalt,” I said to the unicorn. “Mind delivering to the Princess our package?”

Cobalt nodded, lighting his horn up and levitating the water talisman from the saddlebag, causing Insidiis’ eye to brighten when she saw it. “One water talisman in prime condition. This should solve your problems.”

Insidiis gingerly took the device from him, holding the mix between technology and the arcane before her. “Thank you. Both of you. This means a great deal to us; our ailing water supply would have killed the hive before we even got started.”

“And… there’s something else you should know…” Now was a good a time as any. I wasn’t really looking forward to telling her, but it had to be done. “There’s this guy…”

And so, we explained. We told her everything, every part of our journey from Stable 84 to Stable 77 and then back again. But we particularly focused on the return trip. Our encounter with Kronos, the forces he worked for and finally the memory orb we’d recovered from one of his soldiers. During the explanation, Insidiis moved from the window and sat down behind the desk. She was silent the whole time, just listening without asking any questions.

And I discovered just how pale changelings could go through their chitin.

“Mother…” Insidiis whispered when we were finished. “What did you do…?”

We were silent as the changeling placed a hoof on her forehead, looking distressed about… well, everything we had just told her. And I mean… what more could we say? I really didn’t know, I was at a bit of a loss. I guess I just had to wait for Insidiis to take in the information, and then address us again.

“I knew nothing of mother’s deal with Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess finally stated. “I never questioned it, still wouldn’t if it was just this ‘ChangeBuck’ device you spoke of. But to develop artificial Changeling Queens…”

The Princess shook her head in disgust.

“She was playing with fire, even if she thought it best. Oh, she always did go to extremes…”

“The modified potions were never finished,” Cobalt pointed out. “But if Kronos and his people were to figure it out…”

“Then this ‘Goddess’ and her alicorns could enslave my people, and use us as a weapon,” Insidiis concluded. “By the hives…”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, I’m still just trying to process what you’ve told me,” Insidiis responded. “Equally distressing are these stable experiments. The mere thought that Scootaloo sealed us inside on purpose is… I was aware of her grudge against us, but to condemn a species? That orange turkey better hope she’s already dead, because if she lives to this day…”

“You can save the vengeance until later,” I interrupted the Princess, we really didn’t have time for is and I was too tired for bullshit. I wonder if that was a mistake, judging by the glare I received, but I stood by it. “Red Eye and the Goddess want your hive, and if they get it then everyone is screwed. The stakes here are… just ridiculous! So, what do we do?”

Insidiis frowned, but then seemed to tilt her head in through. “What do you do indeed…”

“Come again?”

“My changelings are still adjusting. We’re in no shape to fight a war against this slaver army you mentioned. But if this facility you saw were to be rendered useless…”

“You mean you want us to find the MAS facility and destroy all the research and tech used in creating Changeling Queens,” Cobalt smartly deduced. “Am I right?”

“You have proved proficient. Quite the team, and what’s more…” the Princess chucked. “I’ve heard the broadcasts, ‘Scavenger’. You have a small reputation above ground, it would seem.

Well… I guess…

The Princess adopted a stern expression, and I resisted the urge to shrink under the scrutiny of those blade-like eyes. “You could find this facility and do what you must. Or if nothing else, provide such a nuisance to Kronos that you give us time to become fully established in this new world we’ve found ourselves in.”

“And how are you going to ‘establish’ yourself exactly?”

“A permanent supply of love for one,” she answered. “New weapons and armours. We are beginning to develop plans for automated defences, and other such upgrades to the hive. But it may take months yet. Maybe longer.”

Months? Oh boy… “I don’t think we have that long.”

“If not, then I pray you can find this facility and destroy it,” Insidiis said. “Or that you’re wrong. For all our sakes.”

I couldn’t resist a sigh. This wasn’t exactly what I thought would happen when I’d agreed to get a water talisman… But fuck, I did decide on the life of a hero, right? I bet the Stable Dweller and Security go through much the same or worse… I could do this. I had to.

Alright, here we go.

“Where do we start looking?”

Princess Insidiis hummed. “I mentioned earlier how one of my scouting groups received casualties… Well, another didn’t return at all.”

Well, that sounded ominous. “What happened to them?”

“I do not know. But they vanished around the pre-war town of Buckingham.” Great, the one town in the local area we had yet to visit. Might as well fill out the map. “It’s around a day’s travel south of here, and from what I understand it was a huge manufacturer of arms for the military during the war.”

“Red Eye does so love his factories…” Cobalt muttered.

I wonder how many slavers would be stationed there? “You’re sure it’s Kronos’ people responsible for their disappearance?”

“No. But it’s the only lead I can give you,” she stated. “And if there are slavers there, perhaps you can ‘retrieve’ the location of this facility from them.”

I guess we had little choice. I knew I’d have to talk it over with the others first, but I really didn’t see many other options that would lead to a good outcome. For changelings or ponies.

Is it bad a part of me was starting the miss the monotony of scavenging?

“Well, we’ll do it. After we’ve had some downtime. We’ve been through a lot lately.”

Insidiis nodded in understanding. “Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to push yourself to the brink. Take a couple of days before you depart, ensure you are well rested and fit enough for the trials ahead. You may use the same rooms as before, take the time you need.”

“Yeah, we’ll do that. Thanks.”

“It is I who should thank you, Scrap Heap,” Insidiis replied, her gaze softening into a small and thankful smile. “And there is one last thing.”

“And that is…?”

Insidiis got up from the desk, moving towards one of the nearby lockers and opening it. From it, she retrieved a small object that looking a little like a memory orb but seemed to have a different aura about it.

“This orb can be used to directly communicate with its twin,” Insidiis explained, giving me the orb. “A bit like a telephone, but without the useless connection issues. I can use it to contact you, and likewise.”

“I guess my PipBuck’s broadcaster wasn’t your first choice,” I joked, taking the orb and looking it over.

“We’re underground, the signal wouldn’t be great. If it exists at all,” she responded. “This way I know I can get through to you if need be, and you can give me updates.”

“We’ll keep that in mind.” I placed the orb into my bags. I must admit to feeling a little safer with it, rather than going around not knowing what was happening back at home base. “Well, if that’s everything I really need some shut-eye.”

“Of course, go ahead. In the meantime, I need to… process some more.” Insidiis seemed to sag a little, and she seemed almost… tired.

“Are… you okay?”

“Oh? Oh, right. No… I don’t think so.” The Princess sighed, returning to her place by the window. “For two centuries I’ve been waiting for news about my mother’s fate. And now I discover she kept more secrets from me than I ever imagined, and I’m no closer to knowing whether she lives, or…”

Oh…

Cobalt and I glanced towards each other, and then we slowly began to make our exit. The Princess clearly needed her space at that moment, some time to come to terms.

But I couldn’t help but feel her troubles were just beginning.

I flopped down onto the comfy bed, letting out a sigh of relief as I sank down into the mattress with my limbs splayed out wherever they damn well pleased.

My armour and weapons were discarded haphazardly on the floor. Damn, it’d been over a week since I took the damn things off. It felt good just to be in my natural coat again.

Ignoring the new bruises and scars, anyway.

I was tempted to go and have a shower before I hit the hay. The last time I was here was the first time I’d ever had one, and by Celestia was it heavenly. I never knew you could lose all that dirt and grime in such quick fashion.

Yeah, that was tempting. But so was the soft mattress on my back…

All that would have to wait, however, when I heard somepony chime my door.

“Uh, come in?”

The door slid open at my call, and I stood corrected. It was someone, and that stunning zebra mare walked into the room and closed the door behind her. Once we had some privacy, she turned to look at me and… did a double take.

“You alright?” I asked with a frown.

“Oh? Yes! I... I’ve never seen you out of barding before,” she answered. “It’s strange.”

My frown deepened. “Yeah, you have.”

She gave me a deadpan glare. “Alright, I haven’t seen you out of barding when you aren’t dying from a grenade explosion.”

“…Point taken.”

Stripe sighed, dumping her saddlebags and sniper rifle by the door and coming over to the bed. I sat up as she reached me, hopping up and sitting down to my left. She seemed… distracted and couldn’t quite meet my gaze.

“Stripe, is something bothering you?” I asked carefully. “Has something else happened?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing. Altrix is with her mother, and I believe Moon Blossom is long in the realm of dreams. Whatever former raiders dream of.”

I laughed. “Who knows? Maybe kittens for all we know.”

“Death, murder kittens.”

“Probably.”

We both shared a small laugh at that, before silence reasserted itself. It was like an eternity was passing us by, and a strange feeling of bloatsprites flying around entered my stomach. I found that I couldn’t quite meet her gaze either…

“About before,” she finally said, breaking the silence. “At the Megamart…”

Oh.

“Perhaps it wasn’t the best time to show you how…” She paused, grimacing. “But when you almost died, I… I was angry, and I was scared. I’m… not sure how else to describe how…”

“Stripe,” I interrupted, slowly placing a hoof onto her shoulder. “I… I get it. I mean, I’m not so sure I could describe it either but… yeah, I get it. I…”

Silence returned again, and it was even more deafening than the last time. Those bloatsprites were nowt doing barrel rolls left, right and centre! And-

And…

Ah, fuck it.

“I love you.”

Her head immediately whipped around to face me, and she stared at me with wide eyes. “W-what did you say?”

I resisted the urge to run. I said it once, do it again, you stupid unicorn!

“I said, I love you,” I told her honestly. It was now or never. “You were the first person to see something more in me than some apathetic moron, even when I didn’t even think much of myself. You were the one who just wanted to help people, while I… Well, you’re amazing. What more can I say?”

Stripe was silent, regarding me with those adorably wide bright eyes and a jaw that had hit the mattress. And yes, those bloatsprites were gone. And, after all that had happened between us, I already knew the answer she was going to give me.

“Xena.” Uh, what? “My name is Xena.”

Oh…

OH!

“Xena, huh?” Was I smiling like a colt right now? I think I was smiling like a dumb colt right now. “Well, hi there.”

“Tell no one,” she warned. “It’s just between us.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can keep the secret. It’s too nice a name to share.”

Xena chuckled, though her smile took on a small, sad quality. “The truth is, I love you too. You, a pony. Hm, my family would despise you.”

“Your family abandoned you for a cult of crazies and murderers, obsessed with an old war,” I said seriously, giving her a stern look. “They don’t deserve you, and I don’t give a molerat’s ass what they would think of me.”

“Well… good. Because you all have felt more the family to me than they have, for all our respective flaws,” she said, her smile brightening again. “You foolish people.”

“More the fool are you, for liking us so much,” I retorted playfully.

“Ah, so I am. I wonder just how far that foolishness runs…”

We both leaned in, and I felt her soft lips meet mine. And it was like everything just… stopped. And nothing else mattered in that moment. I had no idea a pony, or a zebra, could feel this way.

And it felt right.

We fell back against the mattress, our kiss only breaking for a moment before we started again. Xena and I, locked in our embrace.

Rest could wait a little while longer.

Footnote: Max Level

New Perk: A Zebra’s Embrace - Nice going, Romeo! Your companion perk has been upgraded and now gives you +10% accuracy while in S.A.T.S.

27 - Journey

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Chapter Twenty-Seven: Journey

“On the road again…”

I made sure my barding was all strapped on properly, each buckle and strap secured nice and snug. Last thing I needed was a bit of it slipping off while some mutant was trying to eat my face.

The last two days had been… nice. Such a wild contrast to how we’d been the two days prior to it, as battered and exhausted as we’d been. Showers and warm comfy beds… Even now that seemed an almost alien concept, but not an unwelcome one.

We were also restocked on everything we’d need. Healing potions, ammo… As I said, the lot. And now our wounds had been given time to heal, and we were running on a decent amount of sleep, we were all pretty ready to get back out into the Equestrian Wasteland. Despite the stable’s safety and comfort, I had to admit the one point it lost was the sheer claustrophobia. I’m not sure I could live down here permanently, but maybe it’s just something you get used to. But hey, I’m a pony, not a changeling. Fields were my jam over great underground hive structures.

Food for thought. But thought for later, right now I had a team to lead and slavers to go shoot.

There weren’t any fields left anyway.

I slipped a magazine into my assault rifle, making sure the rest of my 5.56mm rounds were all safely stashed away in the saddlebags that sat on the bed. Next up was my 10mm pistol, which I extracted from my holster and held out in front of me. I pulled the slide back, looking the pistol over to make sure all the parts were working as they were meant to.

I’d already spent a good chunk of these past two days working on my guns and barding. My pistol had still been in pretty good condition, though my barding had taken a fair beating. Better it than my body, I guess. The rifle was also in quite a state, and I spent a good amount of time taking it apart and cleaning up all the individual parts. Now it’s practically good as new.

I released the slide, content that my weapon was good to go and wouldn’t jam on me. I replaced it back into its holster, pocketing its own ammo while I was at it.

“It’s all good here,” I said over to Xena, looking up at the only other person in the bedroom.

She too had her own saddlebags sat on the bed, packing her supplies into them. Her sniper rifle was next to them, sitting comfortably as it waited to be slung back onto its owner’s back.

“I have food, healing potions, Med-X…” Xena mused half to herself and half to me. “Let’s trust the others have all received their own resupply. I do not wish to leave without Altrix’s bags full of bandages and RadAway.”

“You know she takes that stuff seriously,” I replied to her. “And Insidiis would be on top of this stuff anyway. I mean, we’re only carrying the fate of her whole hive on our shoulders.”

She hummed. “True enough.”

She closed her bags up and bit down onto them, slinging them onto her back before doing the same with her sniper rifle. Following her lead, I pulled on my own saddlebags and conducted one final mental check that I had everything. And I did, the room was now just as it had been when it had been given to us.

Until next time, you comfortable metal cage.

I trotted over to the door and hit the button to slide it open, letting Xena move into the corridor first before exiting right behind her. I made sure to hit the panel again on my way out, letting the door seal up again behind me with a hiss.

Moon Blossom and Cobalt were already in the corridor, standing outside their respective rooms. The pegasus was just leaned up against the wall with a bored expression on her face while the unicorn was stuffing something or other into his pack.

“Oh look, the love ponies are up!” Moon Blossom commented.

Yeah, our sharing a room hadn’t exactly gone unnoticed these past couple days either…

“Pony and zebra,” Cobalt casually corrected.

“Who gives a fuck? I’d just have thought these stables would have had better soundproofing, that’s all.”

Fucking… Ugh. “You all set to go?” I asked, my smile false and embarrassed.

“I am now,” Cobalt answered, picking up his finally packed bags. “So, are we getting our latest mission of suicide on the road?”

“Hey, it’s only suicide for the idiots who get in the way,” Moon Blossom retorted. “Oh, ‘Suicide by Moon Blossom’. I like it!”

“But of course you do...”

Should I be terrified of or for our enemies? I really wasn’t sure.

Still, before we could find out the answer to that question there was one more thing we seemed to be missing. And I wasn’t leaving without it.

“Where’s Altrix at?”

“With her old mare, last I checked,” Moon Blossom answered. “Said they’d meet us by the stable entrance.”

Well, to the stable entrance then!

It was a quick walk through the increasingly familiar hallways of Stable 84. Some changelings still liked to give us a wide berth, but that was probably more because we were armed to the teeth than it was because we weren’t changelings ourselves. Still, the Princess now trusted us enough to let us carry our weapons inside both the hive and stable, so we’d clearly done something right.

Or maybe they were still getting used to the idea of outsiders in the hive after two hundred years of isolation. That probably also played something of a factor.

When we reached the giant gear shaped door, we found Altrix already waiting there while in deep conversation with her mother. Matercula was dressed in her usual security barding and was probably on duty. I’m not sure whether she was just seeing Altrix off or Insidiis had wanted her to meet us here. Maybe the answer was just ‘yes’.

“Your friend has the orb, so you know you can get in contact if anything happens. Or vice versa,” I heard Matercula say to Altrix in a quiet tone. “Are you sure you must go out again?”

Altrix nodded. “I’m sure. I mean, I’ve already been out once. I know what I’m doing, I think I do anyway… But the others get hurt a lot, they need me.”

Matercula smiled. “I know they do. Forgive an old changeling for worrying.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Altrix responded. “I… worry about you too.”

“I’m in the stable, and you know how dull security is inside here. I’ll be right here for when you get back, and I’ll even try not to scare your friend with a bullet this time.”

“That would be nice,” I spoke up, getting their attention. “Altrix, we’re all set. Are… you ready?”

She looked between me and her mother for a second, before trotting over to our group and nodding. “I’m ready. If you are… which you already said. So yes, I think so.”

“Worry not,” Xena said to Matercula. “We shall return when we discover from where Kronos operates. It should be but a few days.”

“Then I trust you to return my daughter safely, Ms Stripe,” she replied with a stern look. “All of you. And with that, the only other thing I can do is wish you luck.”

“Are you escorting us up?” I asked her.

“I’m afraid not. I’m assigned down here for the time being. Besides, I would be a fool to believe you require the protection of our security.”

Matercula paused, glancing outside the stable doors and out into the lower recesses of the hive.

“You have no idea the amount of trust Princess Insidiis is placing in you,” she muttered. “Outsiders, unknown to us until a scant two weeks ago. And in that time alone how your presence has changed every single aspect of our lives. It’s both incredible and terrifying in equal measures. You freed us from a tomb, but you also opened us up to the terrors of the wasteland.”

She turned back towards us, her glowing orbs slowly studying each of us individually. I tried not to wince as she remained locked on me for several moments more than the others, before letting her gaze fall more softly back onto Altrix.

“So, don’t give up,” she said, and then started moving away from the entrance and back into the stable. “Go get the bastards.”

I stared at the doorway she’d gone through, now out of our sight. I glanced towards Altrix, who gave me a slightly sheepish smile in return. I then looked to Xena, who just shrugged while Moon Blossom looked to be on the edge of laughter while Cobalt was just ready to leave.

I shook my head, lighting my horn and bringing the very orb Matercula had mentioned out in front of me. I focused, allowing it to glow briefly before some familiar predatory eyes appeared on the other side.

“We’re all set and ready,” I told Insidiis. “Anything else?”

“Now that we know the orb works, no,” she answered. “Is your PipBuck set with the location of Buckingham?”

“You know as well as I do that it’s automatic,” I replied, and indeed the objective marker was blinking on my E.F.S. just as it had been for the past couple of days. “South of the hive, a day’s travel. I know.”

“I wish I could tell you more about what to expect. But all I can say is that they have a presence.”

“We’ve seen the kind of arms they can muster,” Cobalt said from behind me. “So, I’m guessing a lot.”

“We’ll handle it,” I assured the Princess, probably a little more confidently than I actually felt. “Somehow.”

“Then don’t let me keep you,” Insidiis stated. “Find them, and good luck.”

Insidiis’ visage was obscured by the magical auras inside the orb, the connection severed.

And with those final few words to the Princess and Overmare of both the hive and stable, we exited into the hive and made our way up top, returning to the wasteland far above.

I let the gunshot rip out, tearing into the bloatsprite and eviscerating the mutated pest into brown and green goop mixed in with fleshy chunks.

The barrel of my pistol let off some smoke, but it faded quickly, and I lowered the weapon. My Eyes Forward Sparkle was still picking up a few more red bars within the old decrepit building, but none of them seemed to be moving in my direction.

I heard the shout of a gleefully violent pegasus one room over, and one of the bars blinked away.

I huffed, trudging up some rubble that led to the second floor of the building, directly over my head was a hole where the ceiling had caved in and brought part of the second floor with it, creating the convenient ramp up. Through the ceiling I could just make out the rolling cloud cover through the coming dark, all the stars beyond, as always, being completely obscured.

The room I had found myself in was some kind of old office. Most of it had been wrecked when the roof and floor had collapsed, filing cabinets and shelves making up part of the rubble ramp, but a lone desk did sit in the corner hanging precariously on the edge of the hole. A terminal sat on top of it, busted beyond any ability to run, the symbol of the Ministry of Morale on the side in faded paint.

Who knew the old ministry would have a presence in an old Sugarcube Corner?

There was also a broken window overlooking the front of the old restaurant, outside being the main road leading in the direction of Buckingham. There was also a burnt-out Red Rocket opposite Sugarcube Corner with some old hulks of sky carriages and a couple cars. Next to that was a shop that sold old vehicle parts, though it was equally as burnt out as the Red Rocket.

It was just these three buildings we’d found in the middle of the road as we’d been walking to Buckingham, a service stop for travellers that was probably staffed by ponies from the nearby town. Since the Sugarcube Corner was mostly intact, we’d decided it might be a good place to spend the night before getting to Buckingham tomorrow.

First, we had to deal with the local infestation.

I proceeded out of the shattered room and into the hallway, seeing a short corridor leading into another couple of offices. The one opposite the room I’d emerged from was empty short of an old pony skeleton clutching a picture frame. I left that one alone.

The next office along had the door facing a corridor that led to the toilets and the stairway down, where the actual restaurant sat. I tugged on the handle with my magic and slowly swung the door open. Inside I heard a rustle, and a quick go in S.A.T.S. helped to locate the radroach under the desk.

I didn’t even waste the bullet, electing to stomp the bug instead.

With that dealt with, I took a moment to look around the office. It was dark, small and cramped, though lacked the remains of its former occupant. There was a desk sat against the wall to my left, a more intact and functioning terminal on top of it. There were also several filing cabinets around the room, along with a wall clock stopped at the exact moment the bombs fell and a poster of a creepy looking Pinkie Pie lording over the words ‘Pinkie Pie is ALWAYS watching!’.

For all the good that did them.

My scavenger senses kicking in, I began rifling through the filing cabinets for any hidden goodies. They were devoid of anything useful, just decayed files marked with the names of various ponies. I turned to the desk next, finding the drawers empty save for a few bottlecaps that were sadly lacking the cola they were once connected to. Still, a few extra caps never hurt.

I next turned my attention to the terminal, tapping my hoof onto a key and bringing up the menu. Much to my surprise, the thing was already logged on. I suppose whoever worked here had been using it two centuries ago and left in a hurry. There was even a page already open on the screen, and I took a seat to read it.

Slick,

We tagged a couple of interest that passed through yesterday. Go see J. for the file, then send a message up to our hub in Vanhoover for a follow-up. They’ll be able to track where they went and see if these guys are traitors or just skittish ponies with Wartime Stress Disorder. Either way, I think they’ll be due for a visit from the boys, maybe even a wipe depending on the situation.

We can’t take any risks on this, not with that business with Four Stars happening up in Manehatten today. All our listening posts are on high alert, it’s like megaspells could start pelting down at any second. Take no chances, tag anyone that rolls through that even sneezes in the wrong way.

Remember, Pinkie Pie is always watching,
Supervisor Party Trick.

“Most of these places were MoM listening posts.” FUCKING HELL COBALT, again with the sneaking up!? “All of them, probably. Pinkie Pie funded the chain out of her own pocket. Apparently, she knew the company owners quite well.”

I shot the unicorn a look, shaking my head and trying to ignore the jump scare he just gave me for the second time. “And how would you know that? I thought you were all about Twilight’s ministry?”

“The Ministry Mare had an extensive number of notes on the other ministries and notable organisations of the time back at the tower,” Cobalt explained. “For example, while the Ministry of Image was supposed to censor all reading material, Ministry Mare Rarity secretly sent Twilight Sparkle original copies of all such literature in order to preserve them for after the war.”

“Does the Twilight Society know every deep dark secret of the ministries?”

He snorted. “Hardly, just what was at the tower, and all those books I mentioned are now in DJ Pon-3’s possession up in the studio.”

“Right…” I returned to the main menu on the terminal, only for all the other options to appear as garbled characters that made no sense. “Huh…”

“It’s corrupted,” Cobalt noted. “Come on, the others should be done clearing out the wildlife by now.”

Seeing as there wasn’t much left to see on the old computer, I followed him out of the office and left the remnants of Pinkie’s secret police behind.

Moving downstairs, we passed by the kitchens and the storeroom where the ramp of rubble I used to get up was located. We trotted out into the old dining area, appearing behind the counter of long eaten away treats and snacks and moving around to join the others. Altrix was levitating some of the old chairs and tables aside while Moon Blossom smashed other into pieces. She passed the wooden parts to Xena, who got to work gathering them into a makeshift campfire.

“All clear?” I asked them.

“Radroach meat, anyone?” Moon Blossom asked as she kicked a stool into atoms.

Altrix shuddered. “Ew, no thank you.”

“Don’t you have fangs and stuff?”

“I mean, yes…” she shyly admitted. “But they look so… slimy.”

“They don’t exactly make good eating anyway,” I pointed out, sitting down next to the unlit fire. “And yes, very slimey.”

“More for me then!” the pegasus proclaimed.

“You’re free to it,” Cobalt deadpanned, beginning to shift through his own pack, probably for some canned apples or something. “Don’t come complaining to us about the indigestion. We’re still meant to be herbivores by nature.”

“Oh, don’t give me that science crap, I can eat meat just fine.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re meant to,” he shot back. “Or that it’s in any conceivable way good for you.”

Moon Blossom went to respond, but then stopped and seemed to just study the unicorn, before looking towards a nearby radroach she had probably been thinking of cooking. Then, a frown crossing her features, she gingerly started to nudge it away with a hoof.

I guess he’d put her off meat for a while.

Once all the nearby furniture, which we didn’t want to catch a stray ember and thus causing the fire to spread, had been put safely away, Xena finished gathering the campfire together and Cobalt let a small bolt of mana from his horn set it alight.

Just in time to, the last vestiges of daylight were bleeding away and the cold of the night was reaching in to grab at us. The growing fire kept it at bay, however, and with some adjustment from our horns, it kept at a nice size and warmth. We all laid down beside it, Xena and I sitting closest to one another.

“There we go,” I said triumphantly. “That should get us through another night.”

“I’m missing the bugs’ beds already,” Moon Blossom quipped. “But eh, this’ll do.”

“I shall take the first watch tonight,” Xena volunteered.

“I call second, I’ll wake you all first light,” Cobalt also spoke up. “I need to think some things through anyway.”

“Like what?” I asked him.

“Like how we’re going to survive tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on. You cleared my old gang out no issue. What’s the difference?” Moon Blossom asked.

“Difference is that they’re trained, have decent equipment, basic discipline and have power armour support,” Cobalt retorted.

“We had power armour.”

“Junk armour. Not the best that the Griffon Empire had to offer back during the war.”

“Empire? Pfft, how many empires did the old world have?”

“Two in name. Griffons and Zebras,” he smartly replied. “Though the latter had at least three common names. The Zebra Empire, Zebrica, Zebranica…”

“Yeah yeah, enough with the smart,” I interrupted them. “You were saying…?”

“Yes, well… Red Eye’s army isn’t to be trifled with. We have no idea what they’ve got there.”

“We’ll work something out.” Something… “We’ll check the place out before deciding on anything.”

“Yes, the drones that vanished probably walked into town none the wiser, not until they’d been snatched up,” Cobalt mused. “Stripe can probably get a good look through her scope. At least see what they have in the streets.”

“I can,” she confirmed. “But Buckingham was meant to be industrial, no? Could they have gotten the factory there up and running?”

“They could be using the Robronco machinery to produce things for their forces,” he agreed. “Weapons. Ammo…”

“Another reason to blow it up,” Moon Blossom remarked.

“After we have what we need,” I pointed out. “We may need to do a stealth mission for that.”

“Um, I could help…” Altrix said. “I mean, I can change…”

“She can do that,” Cobalt stated. “We saw how useful that is before. As long as she doesn’t talk to anyone and raise suspicion, at least.”

“I guess we’ll put that under the ‘maybe’ pile.” It’s not like we really knew how we were going to go about this yet anyway. “They’ll definitely have griffons, ponies too. Mercenaries, conscripts. Whoever.”

“Kronos?” Altrix asked nervously.

“Nah,” Moon Blossom dismissed. “Dude will be in his castle of doom, plotting just how he’s going to kill the lot of us.”

Great, now I was imagining him in a hellish fortress sitting on a bone throne, laughing maniacally while twirling some conjured-up moustache. Actually, wasn’t that in an issue of Action Comics? Daring Do and the Bone Moustache Twirler of Doom?

Ah, to be a teenager again…

Weird nostalgia aside, she did have a point. I also had to doubt that our cyborg friend would be hanging around Buckingham. Hopefully, anyway. But I had to imagine he was either actively hunting us or had gone back to this facility we were after.

“We’ll work it all out,” I said to them. “First thing when we arrive. Scout the area out, see what we’re dealing with, and then come up with some kind of plan.”

“We should get off the road as well,” Cobalt stated. “Or we’ll probably run into a patrol.”

Yeah, that would probably be for the best. The last thing we needed was to bump into some more trigger-happy sons of bitches before we reached their camp. That would make our jobs a whole lot harder than it needed to be…

“And who are we grabbing while we’re there?” Moon Blossom asked. “To find this place with all the weird science stuff, I mean.”

“No idea,” I admitted. “Probably whoever is calling the shots there? Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just have a terminal with ‘secret base is here, come say hi for milk and cookies’.”

“As you said, we’ll work it out,” Cobalt said, giving a small yawn as he tiredly rubbed his eye. “Ugh, but if I’m going for second watch I’m going to grab some shut-eye.”

“I will wake you in a few hours,” Xena said to him as he laid down his head, closing his eyes and grabbing some rest while he could. “The rest of you should also rest. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

Altrix nodded. “Alright. Goodnight, Stripe.”

Altrix then also laid her head down, curling up into a small little ball for some added warmth. Moon Blossom followed not long after, grabbing a few final bites from a can she’d been eating from before rolling over onto her back while putting a saddlebag behind her head like a pillow.

That just left me and Stripe with our eyes open.

“Are you going to be alright?” I asked her.

“We all have taken watches before, it’s no issue.”

“You sure? I could stay up too if you’d like? Really, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Really, you can sleep,” she rebuked with an amused smile. “Just because we are now together, that doesn’t make me a fragile flower to be cared for.”

“That’s not what I-” A sharp yawn cut me off, and I drooped a little. “Fine, point taken. Give us a shout if scary cyborg griffons come knocking. Or just shoot him, your sniper is loud enough to wake the dead.”

And make the dead.

I rested my head down onto the ground, staring off into the flickering flame of the campfire. Then my eyes slowly began to close, and I let sleep claim me.

Footnote: Max Level

28 - Infiltration

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Chapter Twenty-Eight: Infiltration

“I don't know. I'm making this up as I go.”

The charred sign for Buckingham could be seen by the road even from our position on a nearby hill, the sign being quite vast with large lettering that just screamed ‘this is our home and we are proud of it’.

Or at least they would have been when everypony was still alive.

Still, the presence of the sign showed us just how close we now were to the town, and some smoke on the horizon supported that fact. On the downside, however, that smoke did confirm one important fact to us.

Kronos had gotten the factory up and running.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said to the others, before glancing at Xena. “It’s got to be close by now, let’s get to a nearby hill and have Stripe look at it through her scope.”

There were quite a few hills around the local area, intermittent with old farmland that had probably existed there since before the original war broke out. Still, now it was just the same old cracked wasteland dirt and old rusting tractors that sat around us. Nothing of use to anypony these days.

We made our way past the hulk of a large industrial vehicle, a harvester of some kind, and made our way up the next hill. There were a few crumbled brick walls on top, maybe the remains of some kind of building once upon a time, but whatever it had been was now unrecognisable. Next to the building was a single burnt up tree trunk, and on reaching the top we all dispersed and hid either behind it or the remnants of the bricks walls.

In the far-off distance, I could once again see Mount Canterhorn and the pink haze that was once Canterlot sitting both ominously and silently against it. Here we were pretty much out of the desolate north of Equestria and back into the more populated part of the Equestrian Wasteland, and I imagined Buckingham was where Red Eye sent supplies, equipment and slavers before they shipped further up.

Speaking of Buckingham…

There the town was, just on the other side of the hill down the road a ways. An array of ancient buildings and roads weaving in and out through the settlement, and in the centre of it all was a large factory with two gigantic smokestacks billowing out a blackened mess into our already fucked up sky.

On the bright side, I’m sure it was making an Enclave pegasus or two choke on it.

“What do you see?” I asked Xena.

The zebra brought out her sniper rifle and laid down low against the hillside. She put her eye to the scope and peered off into the town. She visibly began to scan over the entire thing, pausing a few moments to study particular areas before moving on. The rest of us just waited patiently and out of sight as she did her work, barely even daring to breathe.

“If there were any doubts as to the slaver presence, worry not,” she said, not looking away from her scope. “I can see a multitude of slavers in and around the town. Ponies for the most part, but more than a few griffons. Though I have yet to see any in power armour.”

“No power armour is good,” Moon Blossom said. “Kronos must be keeping the big guns around himself.”

“Or there are some here, and they’re in the factory,” Cobalt noted. “Stripe, what else do you see?”

Stripe hummed, focusing on something. “The streets around the factory are barricaded at all entrances, at least as far as I can see. Each barricade has a gate that is guarded by four pony slavers and a griffon talon. It… yes, it appears that other pony slavers are passing in and out without much scrutiny from their fellows.”

“In and out, huh…?” I hummed, an idea forming inside my head. A terrible idea, probably. But it was still an idea! “We could use that.”

“Ohhh, I think I know where this is going,” Moon Blossom said with a grin.

“Stealth mission,” Cobalt remarked.

“Bingo!” I confirmed. “Altrix, you can change into a slaver using your changeling magic. Stripe can’t really go in at all, so she can provide overwatch. The rest of us need to go steal some outfits from the bastards and blend right in.”

“Assuming they don’t know what we look like,” Cobalt pointed out.

“The higher-ups maybe, but I doubt every small guy knows our faces,” I replied. Or at least, I hoped that was the case or this would go wrong very quickly. “If nothing else, we can try and hide our faces from view, yeah?”

Cobalt hummed. “Alright, that could work. And then we get in and find something or someone who can tell us where Kronos is based at.”

“Exactly.” Yeah, this could work. Though, we still had to actually get the outfits…

“I can see a group of around five ponies at a building on the edge of the town,” Xena noticed helpfully. “Near the road, it looks like an old shop of some kind.”

I followed her gaze, squinting in some vague attempt to make up for my lack of a scope as I tried to see what she was talking about. And there, around where she described, I could just about make out some slavers dicking around doing something or other. Not much discipline among slavers, no surprise there.

“Alright, let’s go pay them a visit. We take them out and get their uniforms, try not to get too much blood on them though. We don’t want to raise suspicions.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Moon Blossom asked eagerly. “Let’s go break some necks!”

“Are you prepared, Altrix?” Xena asked, looking back at the changeling.

She bit her lip nervously, looking between us. She then swallowed, giving us a slow nod before being consumed by green flames. When it was done, the spitting image of your run-of-the-mill nameless slaver jackass appeared. An unassuming brown mare with a dirtied blonde mane and sharp brown eyes.

“Alright, that’ll work,” I complimented the changeling, who gave me a sheepish smile in turn. “Now let’s get down there before-”

“Oh,” Xena suddenly said, looking up from her scope with a look of deep concern. “That may be a problem, I fear.”

“What is? What is it?”

She just nodded in the direction of the factory’s smokestacks, and I went back to squinting as it tried to-

Oh.

Well… that’s a thing.

There, circling the smokestacks and seemingly glaring down warningly at all the slavers below, was an alicorn.

The Goddess was here.

“Just remember that Unity, the hive mind of the alicorns, means that when something happens to one of them then the others will all know about it as well,” Cobalt reiterated as we ducked between buildings towards the slavers we needed the uniforms from. “And they learn really fast. Anything we do to one the others will be able to see coming.”

“If there is more than one,” Moon Blossom pointed out.

“Let’s hope not,” the unicorn muttered. “But even one alicorn is a tough cookie. Our intel suggests that each colouration has a differing talent. The blues can go invisible, greens specialise in shield spells while the purples can teleport vast distances in a second. Remember what I said about Twilight Sparkle teleporting across Equestria?”

“I guess they must also be Twilight fans,” I quipped my friend.

“Hmm,” Cobalt just grumbled in turn. “Well, more than that… They likely won’t respond to negotiation or intimidation. We don’t really know what’s left of the ponies they used to be, but the Goddess dominates their will completely.”

“Maybe we should just avoid her…” Altrix muttered.

That would probably be for the best. I couldn’t even see what colour we’d be dealing with from our position on the hill, and really didn’t feel like finding out up close.

“What will these guys have in the factory anyway?” Moon Blossom then asked. “In case things go as they usually do.”

“Robronco had a lot of contracts with the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and Ministry Mare Applejack often focused on weapons for their armies,” Cobalt explained. “So probably new guns that they’ve made for themselves. And plenty of ammo.”

“You say words, but all I hear is ‘loot’.”

Cobalt rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored the pegasus’ remark as we passed through an alleyway and to the other end, making it to the back of the shop where the group of ponies were hopefully still having their prolonged smoke break.

The alleyway split off in four directions between four separate buildings, each leading out into one of the old streets by the edge of town. One of the alleys had an old dumpster sitting idly by, looking like it had something nesting in it at some time or another. But right now, everything was quiet and, more importantly, there was a back door into the building we needed.

“Moon Blossom, head up top and see if there’s a way in through the roof,” I told the pegasus, and she gave a nod before zooming off upwards.

I then turned my attention to the door and, surprisingly, found that it wasn’t even locked. Gently, I used my magic to quietly inch the door open into an old backroom storage area. Walking in and closing it behind us, I saw that the shelves were all long picked over. Only empty boxes of both metal and wood remained, along with the occasional empty tin can. It was also quite dark back here, but there was a bit of light spilling in through the cracks in another doorway heading inwards.

I could also hear several laughing voices coming from that direction.

Moving quietly forwards, I inched the next door open to get a look into the main room. Behind the old counter, I could see two of the slavers engaged into a hoof-wrestling competition while two more of them were watching and cheering them on. The fifth and final pony, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“Come on, kick his ass!” one of the spectators jeered. “Come on, don’t be such a weakling!”

“Shut. Up,” one of the wrestlers growled as he made small progress and equally had a few setbacks against his opponent.

Then there was a loud thud from upstairs, and all four of the ponies paused in their tracks to look upwards.

“Oi, he hasn’t fallen on his face up there, has he?” one of them asked. “How long does it take to have a leak?”

“One of you go and check on him, yeah?” the second wrestler demanded, returning to glare at their opponent. “I’m not moving until I’ve taught this prick a lesson.”

“Yeah? You’re on!” the other retorted, and both returned to their match.

One of the slavers turned away from the match and began to head towards a nearby staircase, and I slowly pulled my rifle in case things went wrong. What we really needed to do here was lure one of them into the back and silently take them out. After that…

Or Moon Blossom could just make the slaver who’d been ascending the staircase shriek in surprise as she lunged onto them and slammed them back down to the ground floor again.

“Death from above!”

Sigh…

I bust the door open with my magic as the other slavers all turned towards Moon Blossom while drawing their weapons. I entered S.A.T.S. and target each of the remaining three’s heads, before releasing the spell.

One.

Two.

The third ducked just in time to avoid my fire, even while the other two had their brains turned to paste.

The slaver did a roll, raising their own assault rifle to unleash hell before it was gripped in an alien blue aura, much to the pony’s surprise. The rifle was then torn away, and the butt of the weapon delivered into the slavers’ face, crumpling them before Cobalt finished it by turning the weapon and firing a single bullet.

And that was that. The whole fight had only lasted a few seconds, but all five slavers were dead. Or at least I assumed they were…

“What happened to the one upstairs?” I asked Moon Blossom.

“He came down with an acute case of ‘knife to the brain’,” she explained. “Whew, I hope nopony heard all the fun.”

“We’re at the edge of town, so hopefully it went unheard,” Cobalt noted, though quickly adopted a small frown. “Hopefully.”

I looked at the slavers, they all wore similar sets of black combat armour that all bore the symbol of Red Eye on them. They seemed like they would fit, we just had to take what we could and make it convincing.

“The one upstairs had a black cloak on,” Moon Blossom said as she gave me a light thump on the shoulder. “Just in case you don’t fancy taking all that gear off, it’ll cover pretty much everything.

Well, that saved some time.

“Alright, I’ll go grab that,” I confirmed, it would also mean I could keep my PipBuck, which was a win. “You three need to gear up with their armour and take their weapons too.”

Altrix shifted uncomfortably at that, eyeing one of the dropped rifles apprehensively.

I sighed, giving the mare a sympathetic look. “I know you don’t like guns, but you don’t have to use it. Just think of it as a prop.”

“Um, okay…” she said hesitantly. “A prop. I can do that… I think.”

She would, I trusted that she would. And while they all began to get changed, Moon Blossom looking like she was just putting the armour over her leather jacket over taking it off, I made my way over to the broken body at the bottom of the stairs and trotted up them.

One of the doors was open at the top, and inside was the body of a stallion with a gushing wound in his skull. Sure enough, he was wearing a cloak around his neck, and I untied it from the corpse and levitated it in front of me. A couple drops of blood had leaked onto the thing, though turning it inside out seemed to hide the majority of it. From there I tied it around my own neck and made sure it covered my body.

I trotted into the next room, which looked to be an old bathroom. The mirror in there was cracked in one corner and covered in grime, but I could just about make out my reflection in it. My coat and mane were already both full of muck, and the cloak covered up anything that would give away that I wasn’t one of them.

Just for good measure, I practised a mean-looking scowl in the mirror.

Hey, anything to help us get past the checkpoint would help. And I certainly looked the part, so it was so far so good.

I left the bathroom behind and made my way back down to the others. They were all slipping the armour on, trying to clean it up as best as they could. Moon Blossom had even tucked her wings beneath her own armour, making herself look like an earth pony.

Smart, I guess not many pegasi would be in Red Eye’s ranks. And we didn’t want to stand out.

“Ugh, this sucks,” Moon Blossom complained, shifting uncomfortably on the spot. “I never realised how much space my wings really needed until now.”

“Well, try not to fidget too much. You’re an earth pony now, remember that,” Cobalt told her, fitting a few final parts of his own barding onto his body. “Not that I can say it’s particularly comfortable myself.”

“Oh no, you’re wearing armour for once. What are you going to do?” I deadpanned. Seriously, he should consider keeping it after this is all done. After repainting it, of course.

He just snorted. “I’ll leave that to the bruisers. This just gets in the way.”

“It might also stop a bullet.”

“I’ve made do with shield spells so far,” he retorted. “Big heavy armour just isn’t my style.”

I’d noticed.

Still, all of us seemed to be set up in our disguises. With luck, the slavers around town will think we’re just another group roaming the area. Now we just had to make it through town and then into the factory itself. Okay, easier said than done but we’ll make do. And if something went wrong?

Well… I’m sure I could come up with a Plan B.

We stepped out of the building’s front entrance and into the street. I spared a glance up towards the hill where Xena was almost certainly watching us. I couldn’t see the zebra, though knowing that she could very much see us I gave a wave in her direction, letting her know that everything was fine.

“I’m glad she didn’t mistake us for actual slavers,” Cobalt muttered, seeing my wave.

“Nah, she’s got a good eye,” I responded. “If something goes wrong, I feel safer knowing she’s around to give some cover fire.”

“Not when we’re in the factory.”

I could always trust Cobalt to find a flaw, couldn’t I?

Bah, it’ll work out. We’d already done the first step, now we just had to get what we came for and get out before they realised that their friends back in the shop weren’t coming back.

“Stick close together. And try to look mean.”

We left the front of the shop behind and trotted down the road. We kept in a tight formation, with me leading in the front while the others all take up spots around me. The looking mean part came natural or Moon Blossom, who had a vicious and bloodthirsty smirk on her face. Cobalt just looked typically grumpy. Altrix… well, she was trying.

We just had to hope ‘trying’ would be good enough to fool them.

We reached the end of the street quickly enough, where the road split into three directions. Directly ahead were more buildings lining the edge of town either side, though mostly to our right. The left led back where we came, while the right was the main road leading directly into Buckingham.

Naturally, right was the way to go.

We stepped out onto the main road, beginning to steadily walk down its length. Many of the buildings were boarded up or otherwise crumbling into dust, though as we progressed I noticed a few intact structures that had… modifications to them. And as we passed by one of them, I saw a wooden guard post hanging from the side with a griffon sitting in a garden chair with a large rifle by his side. He watched us with a piercing glare as we passed by, but otherwise didn’t seem to react to our presence. Before long, we had left the griffon behind and, glancing over my shoulder, I saw that he had stopped staring at us and was looking back towards the road.

I took that as a good sign.

I just hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

Footnote: Max Level

29 - The Goddess

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Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Goddess

“Everypony always says they'll give you a second chance, but deep down, they never forget.”

No turning back. That was a pretty simple fact. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if we changed our minds and tried to get out that some of these guys would get tipped off as to who we are.

And then there would be shooting. Lots and lots of shooting.

So, we had to be careful as we moved through Buckingham’s streets in our attempt to reach the factory. We had yet to reach one of those checkpoints surrounding the factory, and we were at least a few streets away before we got to those. But still, there wasn’t exactly a shortage of slavers around the rest of the town.

We’d seen at least a couple more of those guard tower structures haphazardly bolted to the sides of old buildings, each one manned by a griffon who watched all traffic in and out of their individual streets. Beyond that, I would occasionally glance small groups of ponies in one building or another doing much the same as the group we’d taken our disguises from, killing their boredom in whatever manner they decided on. A few more wandered the streets in small groups much like our own, barely giving us a sidelong look as they passed us by. But never a lone individual, I guess nobody trusted the others enough to be by themselves at any one point.

Can’t say I blame them there. I doubt there’s much comradery and friendship among the ranks of slave traders, murderers and rapists.

Still, for now my Eyes Forward Sparkle was showing them all as being green. For the most part, anyway; there was the occasional red in the otherwise ‘safe’ crowd. That fact just lent credence to the reason why everypony travelled in groups of three or more.

Buckingham was clearly not a nice place to be…

“I don’t like the way some of these sentries are looking at us…” Cobalt muttered to me. “Someone may notice we weren’t here this morning.”

“As long as these guys don’t give two fucks about one another, nobody will notice some new faces,” Moon Blossom quietly pointed out. “Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. We fit right in with these tools.”

Altrix gave out a small, nervous laugh as we passed by the sentry Cobalt had mentioned. The disguised changeling then gave the griffon a sheepish wave, who just gave her a look of pure confusion in turn.

“…Most of us, anyway,” the pegasus amended.

I just had to resist the urge to groan, and keep eyes on the prize…

Still, Moon Blossom was right. We just had to keep moving, our stolen gear had been doing the trick up until that point. Just a little further, and then we could do what we came here to do and then get out again. Simple. Easy. Professional.

Dear Celestia, who the hay am I kidding? Nothing about this was going to be easy…

Speaking of not being easy, on turning a final corner we reached a street containing one of the checkpoints around the factory. The smokestack loomed beyond the barricade, hanging high over the rooftops as the smoke it produced filtered out what little sun made it through the cloud cover as it was. It was like we’d suddenly stepped into the night, though the fumes were giving the air a slight orange haze.

That just gave me another reason to get this over with quickly, I had enough to worry about other than contracting lung cancer.

The barricade was made largely from scavenged scrap metal welded together to form a wall, several wooden beams were stuck up and held a makeshift roof to protect the slavers stationed there from the elements. In the middle was an old chain-link gate, while the walls either side had huge cut out windows that would allow the occupants to see and shoot out of the barricade. I could see ponies looking out from each of those windows, studying us with bored expressions as we approached. Another pony stood behind the gate and walked up to it when he saw us. I couldn’t see the fourth pony, nor the griffon that was supposed to be here as well. Though I had to guess they were probably inside, just out of sight.

The earth pony behind the gate gave us a look over as we reached it and, for a few moments, we held our breaths as we just hoped he didn’t spot anything he didn’t like and shout an alarm.

Fortunately, he seemed to just shrug before going to open the gate for us.

“I don’t suppose you four are here to give us a break, yeah?” he asked as he swung the gate open to let us through.

“You wouldn’t be that lucky,” Cobalt shot back as we walked through the gate and into the fortification.

The slaver snorted. “Yeah, fuck you too. Prick.”

With those friendly words, he let us by without too much of a fuss. He closed the gate again behind us, and we passed through the barricade and back out onto the street beyond it with no issue.

And we were in. The factory was just ahead, surrounded by even more slavers. We were almost there…

“Why the hell are we working this place, anyway?” I overheard one slaver complain to another as we approached the large industrial complex. “That’s what we collect the slaves for, right?”

“You know Red Eye wants all the slaves for Fillydelphia,” the other pointed out. “We want the gear this place gives us, we need to make it ourselves.”

“I’m hired muscle, not a worker.”

“Hey, at least we get paid for this shit. None of the slaves can say that.”

The rest of their conversation faded away as we left them behind. And now we were up close, I truly came to realise just how massive the factory was. It certainly looked like the largest building in town from our vantage one the hillside but being up close felt like you were staring down the gaping maw of a dragon.

And Fillydelphia was meant to be full of these? I hated to think at just how much stuff Red Eye was making for his army…

“Alright, we need a way in…” I said to the others, stopping in the middle of an old parking lot. The ruins of rusted cars, sky carriages and trucks all laid around us, almost providing us a makeshift wall of scrap that gave us a small amount of privacy.

“We could just walk in the front door,” Moon Blossom pointed out. “We’ve made it this far past those idiots.”

“She’s not wrong,” Cobalt concurred. “It might look more suspicious for us to snoop around for a side entrance when we’d be expected just to walk in with everypony else.

I looked off towards a group of ponies walking towards the factory. They moved to a large open entranceway that looked like a giant loading dock, probably where the factory’s produce would have been loaded into some of these old trucks.

I hummed, turning to the changeling of our group. “Altrix, your thoughts?”

She looked between the loading dock, and then back to me. “Well… I mean, we shouldn’t do what they wouldn’t expect us to do. We should, you know… blend in.”

Well, seems we have a unanimous vote.

“The front door it is then.”

We moved out from behind the mess of ruined vehicles and joined the small flow in and out of the factory. As we closed in on the giant open doorway, I could see a fiery glow from inside along with the grinding of metal and buzzing of a whole bunch of saws. I wonder if industry was this obnoxiously loud back before the world ended?

Getting close, I was able to get a peek inside to see the source of all that racket. The dock itself was full of giant crates, a few even strapped to the back of another abandoned truck parked just inside. But a little further inwards were these gigantic metal furnaces that looked hot enough to melt a pony just by looking at it. I could just spy more of the slavers inside working away, doing Celestia knows what with metallic ingots and massive buzz saws.

None of them looked particularly happy to be doing it either.

Standing just outside, I could also see a table with a couple of shiny new assault rifles stacked atop of one another. Happy or not, these slavers were making themselves one hell of an arsenal. I suppose I should just be happy this place doesn’t produce tanks.

…Right? Well, if it does I guess they haven’t been able to reproduce those, I don’t recall ever hearing about Red Eye using them. Small blessings, I guess.

Well, inwards we go.

I was the first to step into the factory, the sheer heat hitting my face all at once. For a moment I thought my coat would actually catch fire because it was so hot! Still, aside from a burning sensation in the back of my throat and having to wipe the water from my eyes, that didn’t happen.

Cobalt followed me in, followed by Moon Blossom and Altrix, all looking around and having similar reactions that I did.

But it didn’t stop us from noticing some bright lights blinking erratically as Altrix passed through the entranceway.

“Warning: Changeling infiltration detected. Security teams advised to apprehend infiltrator for Ministry of Morale interrogation, alert sent to local hub.”

The robotic announcer was followed by a scream from Altrix as two beams of magic struck from talismans flanking the doorway we’d missed when coming in! I felt panic enter my system, and we all turned to watch the changeling mare hit the ground as her disguise was forcibly removed amidst green flames.

I guess this is what made changeling infiltration so hard during the war!

Cobalt’s horn lit up as the first shots were fired, though I didn’t see where from. But in seconds there was a torrent of gunfire lighting us up as all the previously green bars turned to red!

I lit my own horn up and gritted my teeth as I dragged all my friends with me and behind some of the large crates I’d seen, taking cover just as Cobalt’s shield collapsed from the pressure of all the lead being thrown at it!

So much for a stealth mission!

The gunfire followed us, ricocheting off of the large metal boxes as we all ducked down as low as we could. In that one moment, every slaver in range had turned their guns on us with little to no hesitation, and dear Luna we were outnumbered.

“Ideas?” Cobalt called out amidst the bangs and pings, rubbing his throbbing horn. “Because mine went with my mana.”

I can’t say that any were coming to mind…

An explosion went off from just beyond our impromptu cover, showering us with a small amount of kicked up rubble and grime. I took that moment to finally ditch the cloak and retrieve my assault rifle, and in a quick move I through my cloak out as a distraction. It seemed to work, the gunfire shifting to fire on the thrown object, giving me a short window to poke my head out and head into S.A.T.S. to survey the situation.

Time froze, and the scene was captured perfectly.

All the slavers who’d been working in the factory had ditched their tools and retrieved their weapons, and that was alongside all the slavers who’d happened to be here and those piling in to check out the sudden eruption of gunfire.

There was a lot of them. Far too many for us to take on, if the crate hadn’t been there for cover we wouldn’t have lasted for more than five seconds after Cobalt’s shield collapsed. More would be coming too, this much gunfire would travel quickly enough. Hopefully Xena would give them something else to worry about, though.

Still, I took my time in S.A.T.S. to give the room another look over. Over to the far right I could spy an open metal doorway that led into the recesses of the factory. Okay, so that’s where we wanna go. Out of the open, things are more manageable in enclosed spaces.

But how to get there without becoming the latest addition to that cheese shop in Tenpony Tower…

…Hm. I hadn’t spotted those before.

Opposite the furnaces were several large cylindrical tanks with pipes leading out and into the ceiling and walls of the vast chamber. Better yet, they seemed to be marked as being volatile. What’s in those, I wonder…

Well, seeing as there’s a fair few slavers standing next to those tanks, why don’t we find out?

I lined up a few shots on some slavers running in to help kill us first off, though I couldn’t target the tank, so that I’d have to do manually…

Engage.

The first barrage of bullets bit into a few slavers rushing into the building, cutting their sprint short and dropping them to the ground. I knew I had only a moment after that before they returned a favour, so without much of a thought I turned my sight to the nearest tank and opened fire.

Turns out that ‘volatile’ was an understatement.

The first couple of bullets pinged against the metal shell, but the final burst broke through to spectacular results. In a moment, the tank erupted into a flash of flame that burst out and consumed all the nearest slavers in a catastrophic symphony of their screams. I had to duck back behind the crate as a wave of hot air blasted my face and burned at my eyes, and I heard more explosions go off as the other tanks ignited as well. It was like an earthquake had just hit Buckingham, all of us hitting the deck as the whole building shook from the sheer force being produced.

And then the shaking stopped, the heat dying down alongside the gunfire.

“Go!” I shouted at the others, wasting no time in jumping around our cover with my rifle raised.

Seeing a good enough depiction of hell.

The entire loading dock had been all but levelled, the side of our crate facing the explosions being blackened alongside the new corpses before it. The outer wall where the tanks had sat had been completely blown out, casting rubble and flames out into the town and even setting some of the nearby buildings alight. The number of red bars on my Eyes Forward Sparkle had been significantly reduced, and none of them were coming from where the workers had been. The explosion had killed everything in its path, but even now I could see slaver reinforcements coming in from the outside.

We didn’t stop, moving into the doorway I’d seen and making sure to snag the button that shut the door behind us. We ran into a metallic corridor that ended in a T-junction. We paused for a moment at the end, studying the signs for each branching path.

“So, security or the control room?” Moon Blossom asked aloud.

“Security might be a good stop,” Cobalt opined. “It’s where I’d keep anything important.”

“Security it is then,” I said, before hearing the whine and screech of a metal door sliding open behind us. “Watch out!”

We ducked behind the walls of the T-junction before the slavers could open fire, bullets littering the sign we’d just been reading when they finally did. A whole new slew of red bars had appeared in my vision, anypony who’d not heard the gunshots definitely had seen the explosion.

“So, uh… This is fun and all, but how’re we expecting to get out of town?” Moon Blossom asked. “I think we pissed them off by blowing up their toy-making machine.”

“One problem at a time!” I hissed back at her, firing a flew blind shot around the corner to force the slavers into some cover.

“There you are!” a gravelly voice shouted, a pony sliding into view from a doorway down the security marked corridor.

Moon Blossom acted in a second, jumping over us and landing on top of the slaver as his first shot went wide and hit a wall.

He didn’t get another.

“M-maybe we should go…” Altrix pointed out.

Good idea.

I fired a few final shots down the corridor, before retreating with the others towards security. We followed the signs and didn’t stop moving, every step we took was followed by the red bars on my E.F.S. moving a little and probably getting closer in their pursuit. We ran into the odd slaver on the way, a group of two at most, though Moon Blossom and I usually dealt with them before they could do much but gawk at our surprise appearance.

We passed a lot of other doors and corridors as we ran, all marked with different signs for different areas of the facility. Other factory floors, a cafeteria, kitchen. Anything you could think of, really. But we didn’t give them much of a glance, and the occasional cluster of red bars down some of these paths made it clear that we didn’t want to either.

We rounded another corridor and finally found a far larger door that seemed to be the security room we were looking for, and just as we reached it the doorway opened up without much prompting on our part.

The reason for that was the griffon talon on the other side, a minigun strapped to his battle saddle.

Fuck.

It was already revving up as the door opened, and a torrent of bullets erupted on us like a force of nature. I felt pain erupt in my chest as it felt like a thousand bees were stinging me, thunderous impacts across my armour forcing me to the ground. My vision blurred as I smacked into the cold ground, but I saw from the corner of my distorted vision Cobalt also drop while Altrix slipped just to the side of the torrent.

I reached out with a hoof, attempting to rise as I caught a glimpse of PipBuck’s status screen. The avatar didn’t look happy, and I had warnings of multiple gunshot wounds that had managed to pierce my armour…

And then, through the pain and steadily pooling blood, I saw Moon Blossom locked in a death grip with the griffon. She had her knife jammed into the minigun to stop its movement, struggling against the griffon as both seemed to bite at each other with almost equal gusto.

I kinda wished that I could rise to help, but that was a lot of blood leaking from my body…

I felt an unsteady magic aura take hold of me and gently slide me into the room, Cobalt seemingly having fared better than I in his combat armour. I heard the whine of the security door closing, and my view met the ceiling as I got turned onto my back.

In the corner of my vision, I then saw Moon Blossom be thrown from the griffon as her head hit the metal wall behind her. Hard.

Damn it, I couldn’t just lay here. I didn’t have time to bleed! Through the pain, I tried turning despite the distant protests of Altrix as she came to my side. I lit my horn and fumbled for one of my guns as I saw Cobalt rise to meet the griffon as he attempted to remove Moon Blossom’s knife from his minigun.

He succeeded, and I still couldn’t do much as my 10mm slipped from my magic and clattered to the ground. And because of that, Cobalt’s own struggle against the slaver was cut short when he extracted the combat knife and embedded it into a gap in the unicorn’s armour, before shoving him aside.

I tried to raise my pistol again but found it kicked aside as the griffon reached me and backhanded Altrix in the face, knocking the changeling down.

“Thought you could come into our town and fuck with the talons, did ya?” the griffon’s voice sneered, still seeming distant as his face blurred in my increasingly spotty vision. “Heh, see ya.”

His minigun began to rev up, pointed directly at my head. And there was nothing I could do, I just didn’t have the strength left. I… guess that was that. And it had all been going well, at least for a while. Being a hero, meeting Xena… I hope that she’d be alright without be. But with a few 5mm rounds in my body, and my friends out for the count… Don’t blame yourself, Xena…

She wouldn’t have to, seeing as the griffon’s brains were blown right out of his skull.

As the slaver dropped, I weakly turned by head to see who fired the shot. I was expecting that Cobalt had gotten up and retrieved my gun, or maybe Moon Blossom was getting her own back for the slam into the wall.

What I was not expecting was to see a wide-eyed Altrix with my smoking 10mm held shakily in her magic.

Oh…

She dropped the pistol with a squeak, before turning her attention back to me.

“Altrix…” I managed to mutter, only then realising just how dry my throat had become. Just saying that one word hurt like hell…

“Hang on, Scrap Heap,” she whimpered, her horn lighting and- Ugh…

My vision finally distorted into one unrecognisable blob, before going dark.

The clouds were gone. The sun shone down on the wasteland, finally free to spread its light for the first time in two hundred years. A chance for life to grow anew, a chance to rebuild and prosper…

A chance squandered.

The wasteland burned, as did the pegasi cities that once stood atop those clouds. And through the fire and ash stood legions upon legions of tall imposing figures who all sang in one distorted and heavily demented tone, a unity of a single voice to impose its will.

Alicorns and Changeling Queens spread to every corner of Equestria. Tenpony Tower, New Appleoosa… It had all burnt.

The end had come with no warning. Ponies that were known and even respected had just been consumed by green flames and replaced with the unity-controlled Changeling Queens in one united movement. Chaos and confusion erupted in every settlement as the changelings destroyed them from within, before the alicorns came to destroy them from without.

It took a day. One day. And during that time almost all non-ponies had been purged, and all Equestrians carted off for induction into unity.

Even Red Eye hadn’t escaped the carnage. The Goddess, seeing no more use in him, had turned on the slaver lord and usurped his empire. Now only those of unity inhabited the Equestrian Wasteland, and soon enough they would spread.

Individuality was dead, as was all imagination and creation. A world for alicorns and changelings alone, a sandbox for one intelligence to do as she pleased.

The world burned all over again, and this time there was no chance for redemption.

I gave a gasp, and I was ejected from the image of the burned Equestria. The Equestria that would exist if Kronos was allowed to succeed. That had almost existed when we’d nearly failed right then and there.

My head pounded, and my visions started to return. But I… was alive. Everything I had seen, it hadn’t been-

Agh, my head...

Forget the nightmare, what was happening now?

Everything had been a bit of a blur after Altrix had come to my aid, but when I regained my faculties I had somehow ended up propped against a wall feeling like I’d been hit by a sky carriage. And I… I… What the hay just happened? My whole body hurt like hell, specifically in my chest area but… I was alive.

I studied the room; Moon Blossom had an ice pack pressed against her head that I have no idea where she got that from. Did Altrix have that in her bag? How the hay didn’t it melt?

Ugh, that’s beside the point though.

Cobalt was also up and about, tapping away at the large security station at the end of the room, a whole bunch of red bars were coming from behind the security door, but the current lack of gunfire was a good sign.

And then there was Altrix, sitting quietly by herself in the corner, looking more miserable than I’d ever seen her.

“Ugh… what did I miss…?” I asked sluggishly.

She brightened ever so slightly when she saw me. “You’re awake! Well, you were only unconscious for a few minutes. But your wounds were quite bad…”

“What did you do to me…?”

“I managed to get the bullets out and provide healing potions to seal the wounds. Go easy, though. If we were somewhere safe I would have liked to do a more in-depth procedure, maybe give you some blood to replace what you lost. But…”

“Right, not a good time…” I croaked out, wobbling a little when I got up to my hooves. Yeah, I could feel the loss of all that lovely red stuff… “Everyone else…?”

“Fucking headache,” Moon Blossom complained.

“Stab wound,” Cobalt said from his position at the console. “The rounds from the minigun didn’t penetrate my armour, though. It’ll probably bruise underneath, but you got it worst.”

“Four bullets breached your barding,” Altrix supplemented. “A fifth grazed your neck. The rest didn’t penetrate, luckily. But just a few centimetres over and…”

“I would either be dead or undergoing surgery in a really bad location,” I finished for her, seeing her nod weakly before looking away in what I think was shame. “Altrix, about the griffon…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Altrix-”

“Not talking about it!” she snapped with an uncharacteristic hiss, bearing her fangs in an almost predatory manner that made me take an instinctive step backwards.

Altrix kept the almost feral pose for a few moments more, before drooping again with a loud sniff. She lit her horn up and pressed something into me, a something that when I took hold of it myself I realised was my pistol.

“Keep those things away from me, please…” she whispered, before returning to her corner and turning away from the rest of us.

I… guess I had to do as she asked. Dear Celestia, she wasn’t taking the act of taking a life well…

“What’s going on with the slavers?” I asked Cobalt, changing the subject. “Why aren’t we up to our necks?”

“I locked the door,” he answered simply. “They also suck at decryption. It will take them a while to gain entry.”

“Okay… so we’re trapped.”

“Maybe. But I think there could be a way out for us.”

“And how did you figure that?”

“I’ve looking through the security systems, it seems bird brain over there never cracked into the more intensive stuff,” he explained. “I’m seeing turret control. Robot guardians. The lot, all untapped and offline.”

Turrets and robots? Now we’re talking!

“I’m working on getting them up and running. And there is some serious stuff here,” he continued. “Protectaponies, Sentry Bots, a Mr Gutsy or two… There are even a couple turrets inactive outside the door, that’ll clear the way for us I think.”

“Sounds good. How long?”

“A few minutes, or a couple more… I’ll get there,” he replied, never once breaking from his work hacking into the factory’s systems. “There are also a couple other bits here you might find interesting.”

“Everything we could possibly need.” Oh, for once I liked the smirk on his face. “I’ve got a couple of logs here. One text and one audio. Which one you wanna hear first?”

Well, I suppose I can take this moment to sit down. Still feeling a little light headed… “Hit me with the text one first.”

“Well, it was mostly a bunch of logistics and supply movement, but it did tell us where those supplies where headed.” I’m liking this so far… “The facility we’re looking for, well… remember that door in Haven?”

What do- Oh! Of course! Big metal door beneath a Donut Joe’s with a fuck ton of griffons in it. Well, of course that would be the MAS facility we want. I guess we should have figured that out earlier…

“I’ll take the bulging eyes to be a ‘yes’. But anyway, that’s the place we need. It doesn’t really go into specifics, but there is one thing you should know. My hacking attempt the last time we were there triggered a silent alarm, if we want to get into that place without a repeat of last time we’ll need an access code.”

“An access code, right…” That might be a problem. “Any idea where we can get one?”

“Not at the moment. I’ll tell you if that changes.”

“Okay… What about the other log? The audio one?”

“No idea, I haven’t listened to it yet,” Cobalt stated, finally pausing in his work to extract a holotape and pass it over to me. He was about to say something else, but he stopped with a frown as there was a beep on the console. Oh… red blinking lights are never good, are they? “Damn, seems they got someone with a modicum of skill on the door. Now I have to keep searching and keep it closed, this may take a while.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He gave me a grateful nod and returned his attention to the console.

Hopefully, he could keep them out a while longer. I wasn’t sure I’d really last another fight after what just happened…

Still, I slipped the holotape into my PipBuck and watched the audio log load up on my display. The moment it loaded in I hit the play button and listened in as the voice of the griffon Altrix shot came out of the device.

“Seems the bugs have finally come out of their hole. Caught a trio snooping around the edges of town, they tried to get the fuck outta here when they were spotted, but the guys picked them off before they could go anywhere. Idiots, we’re under orders to take any changelings alive. Kronos was pissed when he found out, made an example out of the guy who fired the first shot. The rest are lucky with the beating they got.”

There was a pause, the griffon sighing a little before he continued. “This is the shit I’ve got to deal with. Still, the Boss had me arrange for the bodies to be taken up to Haven in the next supply shipment. Guess they’ll want to do whatever tests those alicorns are into on the carcasses. I don’t really care, just so they’re out of here before the smell of rot mixes with the smog.”

The log ended, and only the tapping of Cobalt working the console filled my ears. So, now we know for sure what happened to Insidiis’ scouting party.

I saw a bit of movement in the corner of my eye, and I turned to see that Altrix was now looking towards me with a renewed look of horror on her face. I met her eyes with my own, but she only flinched and retreated back to her corner. Gah, I really wanted to say something to her. But… what could I say?

“What’s this…?” Cobalt muttered to himself, humming curiously.

“I don’t know, I’m not psychic,” Moon Blossom called out to the unicorn, still holding her probably throbbing head. “I wish I was. Imagine all the dirty thoughts I could spy on…”

Yes. What a shame.

“It’s that alicorn,” he explained, and we all froze in one singular moment. I kinda forgot about her… Crap. “I’ve spotted her on one of the cameras. Take a look.”

An image appeared on the giant security monitor, and sure enough that was the alicorn. The alicorn was standing next to another griffon talon, but completely dwarfed him in size. She had a green coat and a darker green mane, her horn long and sharp while her wings remained tightly furled up on her sides. She was taking slow, meaningful steps around the griffon, as if circling prey.

They were also standing in the middle of a catwalk intersection that led out in four separate directions. Equipment was sat out around them almost like a command post or something, and the entire structure was hung above a factory floor that looked to be disused.

“Where is that?” Moon Blossom asked.

“Slap bang in the middle of the factory, I think it used to be the main production facility in this place,” he noted. “Looks like their using it as the centre of their operations here now, though.”

Command post. Called it.

“This thing have audio?” I asked him, curious as to what the mutant was saying.

“Yeah, one second…”

There was an ear-splitting crackle of white noise, but then a little speaker symbol appeared in the right hoof corner of the screen as audio began to be channelled into the security room.

“-all under control,” the griffon finished assuring the alicorn.

"The Goddess gets impatient from Kronos' lack of progress catching these outsiders," the green alicorn warned. “These interlopers work for the changeling people, they cannot be allowed to interfere.”

"If it's the same group attacking us now, then we'll put them in the ground," the griffon rebuked. "AND get your changeling. So, you tell her that."

"We need not tell the Goddess anything. The Goddess knows all that we do."

“And you are creepy motherfuckers, did I ever tell you that?”

“We care not for your opinion on our Unity. We are wishing to see results. And Red Eye is seeing a great many… disappointments as of late.”

“Relax. We have them all trapped in the security centre. Once my slavers got the door open, they’ll be gunned down in a second. Then we’ll find that sniper who has been taking pot shots outside of town and put a bullet in them as well.”

“And yet they have already damaged this factory’s ability to manufacture weapons,” the alicorn coldly pointed out. “If they disrupt Kronos’ operations any further, we would be most displeased.”

“We’ll get it done!” the griffon snapped. “It’s my neck on the line. If it’s not one of your freaks, Kronos would snap my neck for fucking this up. So trust me, I know.”

“Seems we’re making that guy's life hell,” Moon Blossom interrupted, and I zoned out the end of their conversation to look towards the pegasus. “Big whoops, right?”

“I guess we’ll have to disappoint the Goddess some more,” I remarked. “Cobalt, how goes those robots and stuff?”

“Funny you should mention that…” he said, peering down at the scrolling green text on his smaller terminal screen. “Should… be… riiiight… now!”

There was another loud beep, before I could just about hear the sound of whirring machinery that was quickly followed up by a lot of gunfire and suppressed shouts muffled by the metal door between us and the slavers.

“I’ve programmed everyone inside the security room as friendly targets, and everything else as hostile!” he announced victoriously. “The old world is waking up, and these assholes are about to get one hell of a blast from the past!”

Despite my lack of blood, I couldn’t stop a pained laugh. “Nice work! We have what we came for, we should get out while they’re scrambling.”

“Wait,” Moon Blossom interrupted. “Don’t you see? We have a robot army on our side now, we can totally take this place out!”

“She’s not wrong, it’d cut off Kronos from easily getting supplies to Haven,” Cobalt supported. “And I still need to find a lead on this access code.”

Huh. I mean, they’re not without a point. It would be a huge blow to Red Eye and Kronos. They would also lose their supply of new weaponry and equipment this place makes…

“We should do it,” Altrix said, surprising the heck out of me as she walked over and joined Cobalt and Moon Blossom. “They’re… experimenting on us! I… we can’t let them! It’s wrong! Just fucking wrong!”

I resisted a grimace at the intensity of Altrix’s anger. So far removed from the usually timid and kindly changeling I’d come to call a friend…

But that doesn’t mean she was wrong by any stretch of the imagination.

Just please, Altrix. Don’t let the wasteland corrupt you too.

“Okay, the robots can do the heavy lifting,” I decided. “We need to take that command post and kill that alicorn if we can. We do that, the slavers here would probably crumble.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Moon Blossom asked, walking over to the dead griffon in the room and all but ripping the battle saddle from his back. “Who calls dibs?”

Oh, I think I could use a little payback…

They helped load me up with the battle saddle, and holy crap was it heavy. Altrix more or less seemed to morph back into her usual self, that is filled with maternal concern for my health, seeing as I lost a lot of blood just a short time before. And true, I was feeling that… But I could do this, just one final stretch.

I appreciated her concerns, but this was how it would be. So, I soon had the battle saddle loaded onto my back, using my magic to help keep it secured, and we opened the security doors.

Carnage awaited outside.

Bodies littered the hallway, slavers who had been surprised and gunned down in a moment by the defence turrets. Looking up, one of the said turrets had been taken out by a lucky hit while the other was still very much active.

It didn’t even react to us.

From here I could hear a lot of gunfire and shouting echoing through the entire factory. My E.F.S. was mixed with so many bars that were both green and red, a huge battle raging through the building.

“Let’s go.”

We left the security station behind, moving through the corridors and passing more corpses and the occasional scrapped robot. The signs were helpful in leading us in the direction of the factory floor, we just had to keep following them and they’d lead us right to the alicorn.

Goddesses guide us.

We took a shortcut through an old break room, where two slavers were busy kicking the shit out of a now barely functioning Protectapony. A broken pool cue was lodged into the dome on its head, mangling the weapon inside as they pummelled the struggling bot with their hooves.

I stayed back here as Cobalt and Moon Blossom moved in. The latter charged the first slaver with a burst from her wings and slammed him into the opposing wall with a surprised shout, while Cobalt placed a magic bolt into the head of the second and downed them before they knew what was happening. Moon Blossom made quick work of the winded slaver she’d hit, driving her knife into his neck and letting him fall.

The Protectapony was static a moment, before getting up to its metal hooves and looking around.

“Damage is critical. Returning to repair bay.”

It then plonked off, leaving the scene behind.

“You’re welcome!” Moon Blossom shouted after it.

“Forget it, we need to keep going,” I said, taking a glance at the new arrow on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. I guess we didn’t even need the wall signs any more. “It’s this way.”

We left through the second door and moved through yet another corridor. An intersection came up ahead of us, a turret hanging in the middle firing down the corridor where we needed to be.

Peering around the corner, I saw a griffon and three ponies taking pot shots through another doorway. They seemed to be in a storeroom full of more of those metal crates, if a little smaller than the ones in the loading dock. The griffon had a magical laser rifle in her claws and gave a shout as she jumped into the hallway and unleashed a barrage of red beams.

The turret above was hit, sparking a moment before detonating.

I took that moment to turn the corner and rev up my minigun, and griffon at the other end having her eyes bulge in surprise just before I lit up the hallway in a cascade of 5mm rounds.

The bullets bit into her combat barding, but they didn’t immediately make a dent. It didn’t matter much, however, as the force made her stumble and place her unprotected head right into the incoming steam. Too many bullets ripped through the flesh, stripping it away in bloody chunks, one of her eyes and her beak coming away as the griffon became a corpse before even hitting the ground.

One of the ponies who’d been with her swore as he and the others lit up the corridor, and I took cover before any of them could hit me.

“Wait until they reload,” I said to the others. “And then-”

“Hostiles. Firing.”

The deep robotic voice had come from behind the slavers, and I peeked back around to see them jump around in fear as a massive robot on three treads with more armaments than anypony should really know what to do with came rolling in. The Sentry Bot took some quick fire, but it only scratched the already decayed paint as it unleashed a barrage of rockets into the three of them.

One of the ponies jumped away in time, thought the other two were completely annihilated by the detonations. Still, the third was crippled by a flail of shrapnel before too falling before the robot’s own minigun.

Moon Blossom whistled in appreciation. “Okay Cobalt, I admit it. You’re the better hacker.”

I felt like Cobalt wanted to retort once again to her definition of hacking, but he simply chose to take the compliment with a nod.

We continued into the storeroom, moving past the Sentry Bot as it continued back the way we’d come from. I almost felt sorry for any slavers caught in its path.

But the robot had done one last thing for us, seeing as it had cleared all resistance between us and the alicorn. We made our way up a flight of stairs and through a corridor even narrower than the rest, before coming up on a closed metal door to our right.

I opened it up and then led the way as we stepped out onto the catwalk over the factory floor.

It was the same set of catwalks we’d seen on the security camera, four walkways leading to one central platform where the alicorn was exactly where we’d left her. Only now the green mutant pony had placed a magical shield around the entire centre, the griffon we’d seen standing by her side as he looked nervously around at the turrets around the room that where all pointed in their direction.

He saw us first. “It’s them! Damn you all! How did you…?”

“Silence,” the alicorn shushed him in a moment, and I saw her impartial eyes turned to glare at us through the shield. “We must admit, we are impressed by your performance. Scrap Heap and Cobalt, you and your skills would make excellent additions to our Unity.”

“No thanks. I prefer what I currently have between my legs,” I shot back. “And really, those wings must be a pain to keep neat.”

“You have no idea…” Moon Blossom supported.

“A pity. Perhaps we might yet incapacitate you and deliver your salvation by force. But your friends must be eliminated, all but the changeling. We have plans for you.”

“My people aren’t yours to experiment on!” Altrix shouted at the alicorn. “We don’t want your Unity!”

“You are a fool to believe so. But Unity can cure your ignorance.”

“What’s your name?” Cobalt asked, and the alicorn actually looked surprised. “What was your name, anyway?”

“We need not have a name. We are Unity.”

“Right, because the Goddess stripped everything out of you that made you a pony. Do you even say anything yourself anymore? Or is it all an echo of her voice.”

“THE GREAT AND POWERFUL GODDESS’ VOICE IS ALL THERE NEEDS TO BE!” the alicorn suddenly bellowed. “TRY AND INSTALL DOUBTS ON OUR ALICORNS ALL YOU WANT. IT IS A SIMPLE FIX.”

“Goddess, I presume?” So, this was her… “What did you do, strip away what we just said?”

“BUT OF COURSE. UNITY HAS NO ROOM FOR PETTY DOUBTS OR INDIVIDUAL OPINION. WE WORK FOR ALL PONY KIND!”

“And eliminate everything pony in the process.”

“YOU ARE FOOL NOT TO UNDERSTAND. UNITY IS THE PINNACLE OF OUR EVOLUTION. THE CHANGELINGS WILL HAVE THE HONOUR OF SHARING THIS PINNACLE, DESPITE WHAT THAT FOOL RED EYE WOULD HAVE PLANNED FOR THEM. THEY WILL JOIN US IN SALVATION, WHILE THE REST REGRETFULLY PERISH ALONG WITH THE REMNANTS OF THE OLD WORLD!”

“Wait, what?” the griffon said as he suddenly baulked. “You’re meant to be in an alliance with us!”

“You are not and never will be compatible with Unity, only ponies and changelings have that ‘privilege’,” Cobalt noted with a despising edge to his voice. “And only even unicorns right now, isn’t that right? I’m sure the rest of the pony race would follow if they have their way, and the changelings too. But griffons have no place in their ‘utopia’.”

“B-but…” the griffon stuttered, looking up to the alicorn in horror. “Red Eye will know of this!”

“YOU BELIEVE HE DOES NOT?” the Goddess sneered. “FOOL. THIS ALLIANCE IS ONE OF CONVENIENCE. AND YOU ARE NO LONGER CONVENIENT.”

The shield began to shrink rapidly, and the griffon barely had time to react to what was going on as the bubble passed him by and started to exclude him. He tried to bring up his weapon, but before he could he was outside of the protective shell as every turret in the room zeroed in on him. A cascade of bullet slammed into the griffon, and his lifeless body was thrown from the catwalk to the ground below.

“Brutal,” Moon Blossom remarked.

“Why would Red Eye, or Kronos, help you if they know you plan on stabbing them in the back?” I asked the Goddess.

“WE PLAY OUR GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE. KRONOS FULFILS RED EYE’S WILL, AND HE HAS HIS OWN INTENTIONS FOR THE CHANGELING QUEENS WE SHALL PRODUCE. BUT THAT HARDLY MATTERS, HE WILL FAIL.”

What will Kronos do to the changelings that is different to the Goddess? Really, the thought of what else could be done was even more terrifying. I don’t think it’s in any of our interests to let either side win here.

“BUT OUR CONFLICT OF INTEREST IS NO MATTER, NOT TO YOU. IF THERE IS ONE THING THE GODDESS AND RED EYE CAN AGREE ON, IS THAT PONIES LIKE YOU ARE A NUISANCE TO BE ELIMINATED. WE WILL NOT ALLOW MORE OF YOU!”

More of who? “Your drone seems a little stuck right now. I’m not sure what you’re going to do.”

“FOAL! UNITY IS BEYOND YOUR TRICKS! NO TRAIN CARS THIS TIME!” What? “DEAL WITH THEM!”

There was an odd twitch of the alicorn’s head. “We cannot allow you to continue!”

Her horn pulsed, in a moment the world went upside down. It took me a few moments, and the slow motion of an instinctively activated S.A.T.S., to realise that we were falling.

The faux alicorn had released her shield in a giant wave of magic, all the turrets in the room shorting out from the blast and the catwalks all crumbling from the impact. Releasing S.A.T.S. led to my immediate impact on the ground, winding by already weakened body. My PipBuck was screaming in all sorts of protest, but I wasn’t down yet.

Gathering myself and looking up, I could see the alicorn hovering high in the air with her wings flapping. In a way, I felt sorry for her. Or him. Whoever the pony had been once. Stripped of everything, every doubt and individual thought taken until only the Goddess remained.

Would she be free in death? Or would Unity suck her mind back in until a new body came along? Or would she be lost among the voices forever, or at least so long as the Goddess exists?

I hope to Celestia it’s the first option. For her sake.

But one way or another, for our sakes, she had to die.

I brought my minigun around and let the barrels spool, before unleashing a torrent of bullets towards the alicorn. So too did Cobalt unleash his magic, Moon Blossom likewise taking to the air towards the alicorn as Altrix thoughtfully injected me with a dose of Med-X before standing ready to administer future aid.

Really, what chance the Goddess stand?

The alicorn brought up a shield to intercept out initial attacks, glaring down at us with that emotionless gaze. Moon Blossom bounced off the shield harmlessly but immediately went to work punching, kicking and stabbing at it with everything she had.

How strong was this shield!?

Strong enough to wait it out, and I had a sense of horror creep over me when the bullets stopped flowing and the minigun’s scorching barrels ran dry.

The shield popped like a bubble, and the alicorn swiftly rounded and bucked Moon Blossom to the side. I could only watch as she swirled gracefully in the air to avoid Cobalt’s magic bolts before coming in for an attack run!

We all scattered away as a solid beam of green magic trailed across the ground, slagging all machinery and rubble in its way.

I lost track of her after that, landing on the floor in a heap. My minigun was useless without ammo, so I cast off the battle saddle and went to collect myself. I pulled my assault rifle free and looked up to find the alicorn.

She was now engaged in something of a dogfight with Moon Blossom. Though it was more akin to the pegasus blindly charging at the alicorn while the latter easily dodged each one.

I raised my rifle after one failed charge put Moon Blossom a good distance from the alicorn, and I opened fire. But once again the mutated pony simply avoided the incoming bullets before unleashing a quickly cast wave of magic at Moon Blossom. I paused in my fire as I saw my friends lose all control and crash back first into an old table filled with rusted tools and other industrial equipment. It all went flying on the impact, Blossom upending the table and sprawling to the floor.

“We are above your ability to kill,” the alicorn calmly claimed, once again hovering high above us.

I gave Cobalt a glance, before his horn glowed and I once again raised my rifle at the alicorn. Likewise, she let magic trail into her own horn to retaliate. Shield or attack? What would she do?

A glob of green mucus hit the mutant’s wing and fused it into a solid, inflexible mass. The alicorn gave a shout, her shield going up even as she found herself unable to fly and dropped to the ground like a stone.

She had been so focused on us, and actually, we were so focused on her that none of us had noticed when Altrix had taken to the air and flown up behind the alicorn for her strike.

“Gah… We cannot…!”

“Fly?” Altrix called down to the shielded alicorn, now hovering where the large pony had been.

“You go girl!” Moon Blossom cackled as she recovered from behind the overturn table, leaping over it and approaching the shield. “Now what?”

“We do not need flight. Unity’s superiority is undeniable!”

The shield came down as a green aura wrapped around a bunch of equipment before it was all hurled towards us! Fortunately, the alicorn was not the only one with shield spells. Cobalt reacted one around the two of us, while Moon Blossom scampered away from debris with a few new cuts and bruises.

I made another shot at the alicorn just as a bolt of magic hit Cobalt in the chest! I didn’t have time to panic as the blast made me stumble, a waft of smoke obscuring my vision as I blindly ran in any direction to avoid whatever the alicorn would hurl at me next.

A good decision, as after I’d ran across the room and jumped onto an old conveyer belt I saw the remnant of a magical streak where I had just been standing.

It was high time I entered S.A.T.S. this battle, and everything slowed to a halt. The percentages around the alicorn were worryingly low, but I lined up a few rounds for her chest and released the carnage!

The alicorn reacted fast, back peddling away from the bullets before raising another shield to stop them.

I saw her glance down, a dribble of blood seeping from a graze along her barrel. She looked back up at me with… was that fear? Well, whatever it was only lasted a nanosecond before the neutral look returned, the Goddess undoubtedly dumping the fear of her potential death wherever she dumps all her thralls’ emotions. But I’d seen it, just a small glimpse of the pony buried beneath.

“I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure she even heard me, or even if she did it reached the actual pony I was talking to. But I had to say it.

Altrix came into a landing beside Cobalt, and I was relieved to see her help him up. Though, there was a huge burn in the combat armour.

He huffed. “Alright, I see your point. I’m keeping the armour.”

“How do we crack that egg!?” Moon Blossom asked as she also returned to us, referring to the shield still in place around the alicorn. “I can’t do much if I cannot reach the squishy bits!”

“We cannot be defeated. You delay only your deaths in your rebellion!” the alicorn announced through her shield. “You will-”

“Hostiles detected. Firing.”

Well then! Through one of the doors of the factory rolled the Sentry Bot from earlier! At least I think it was the same one…? Who cares? Sentry Bot!

The robot took one look at the alicorn before raising its missile launcher and firing a barrage of rockets. I backed away from the impending booms, Cobalt doing the same while Moon Blossom and Altrix hopped back into the air and found a perch each to watch the show on.

The rockets whooshed forth and hit the shield with everything they had! But… Come on! What will it take to lower that thing! Still, I saw her teeth grit as the artillery hit her barrier. But the rocket barrage could only last so long before needing to reload, and it was at that moment the alicorn struck.

And at that moment Moon Blossom did just the same.

I saw the pegasus jump down towards the alicorn as her shield collapsed and the magic was instead channelled into a colossal beam of magic that was sent towards the Sentry Bot. It hit the robot dead on, melting through it’s chassis as the machine made a final unintelligible statement before being destroyed.

And Moon Blossom hit the alicorn’s back, the mutant’s good wing flexing out and smacking the pegasus. She dropped the knife from her mouth, but the former raider wasn’t to be deterred. It had all happened in a moment it seemed, but Moon Blossom had propped herself onto the large pony’s head and bit down on her horn!

I raised my rifle and fired.

With her magic unable to fully form a shield due to the teeth clamping down on her horn, the alicorn was helpless as a full mag was emptied into her barrel. Holes pocketed her green fur, red staining around each as the former unicorn dropped to the ground with a thump.

Moon Blossom was dislodged by the fall, rolling a couple metres from the alicorn before rolling back onto her hooves. The alicorn herself, though, didn’t get up; and yet I still saw the subtle rising and falling of her chest as she breathed.

We all gathered around the mortally wounded pony, stepping over rubble and twisted metal fragments. I kept my rifle pointed at her, Cobalt with his horn charged and Moon Blossom recovering her knife. There were no chances taken as far as the Goddess was concerned.

But no tricks were to be had. She didn’t move, barely a muscle twitching as she laid there, yet her eyes twisted to look at us.

I glanced at the others and saw Altrix’s eyes lose the burning intensity they had held previously. Now she looked torn, watching what had once been a normal pony suffer and die in pain.

“We… Unity will…” the alicorn rasped, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. “I…”

The red bar blinked out on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

Footnote: Max Level

30 - Introductions

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Chapter Thirty: Introductions

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The alicorn was dead.

The giant green pony’s body was still lying there, silent among the rubble of the factory around us. There were no more red bars on my E.F.S. to be found; what had been left pretty much bled away after the death of the Goddess’ envoy. We’d even done a sweep through the factory, going through each available room for any remaining slavers that would be all too happy to get revenge for all the ponies and griffons we’d killed that day. But there was only ever bodies and, with them, the robots or defence turrets that had killed them.

There were more than a few charred robotic remains as well, but mostly that of Protectaponies and the odd Mr Gutsy. The Sentry Bots had fared far better, and along with the smaller ones had made quick work of the unprepared slavers.

Even when we had looked outside, some of the robots had spread into the courtyards around the factory and attacked any stragglers outside. It didn’t look like they were leaving the confines of the parking lot though, so I could imagine a remaining slaver presence in the rest of Buckingham.

Still, even if they tried to retake the factory, with the numbers they had left I couldn’t see them succeeding without reinforcements from Kronos. And honestly, I was willing to bet a good portion of them were already getting as far away from the town as possible. To regroup or just to flee, I didn’t much care either way. So long as they didn’t bother us for a good while.

I’m sure Xena was still giving them the incentive, probably still nestled on her hill. I could swear I could just about hear the occasional crack of her sniper rifle in the distance, but maybe that was just me.

Once we were sure that any remaining slavers in Buckingham would not be bothering the factory, we completed the circuit and found ourselves back in the destroyed factory floor with the alicorn’s corpse.

We’d taken out the factory, despite the odds against us. We’d found out where the Ministry of Arcane Sciences’ secret base was. But now…

We still needed a way into that base, or we were pretty much dead the moment we tried to go in.

“I don’t suppose the place will have more robots for us to use,” Moon Blossom suggested, picking up a severed Mr Gutsy arm that seemed to be under a bit of rubble she’d shifted aside. “It worked well enough here.”

“That would imply us getting inside to hack their security systems,” Cobalt huffed, kicking a small pebble aside. “As it is right now, we’ve experienced what happens when we try to hack the elevator. Even if we killed the welcome party-”

“Which we totally could.”

“-we’d still have to fight our way through a base of slavers, some in power armour, that know we’re there. It would be worse than this place and we’d be alone, we’d never have the chance to even get the bots up and running. And that’s assuming Kronos doesn’t have them active and shooting at us.”

Moon Blossom grumbled something under her breath, clearly not happy with the news.

“Then we just need to find that access code,” I said to the others. If it was out only safe way in, then we’d just have to find it. “Even if it wasn’t at the security station, there might be another terminal somewhere in this place that at least has a clue for us.”

“Wish we’d looked while sweeping for baddies,” Moon Blossom muttered. “So… are we splitting up? Cover more ground and all that?”

“Think you can handle a terminal?” Cobalt deadpanned.

She shrugged. “As long as its on. Otherwise, I guess I’ll call you.”

“Wise choice.”

“Ah, shuddup,” she retorted. “So, are we doing this or what?”

“What if those bad ponies come back?” Altrix asked, sitting to one side as she started despondently at her own hooves. “And we’re alone…?”

Damn, I hated seeing her like this. “No, they won’t come back. Not with the robots still here, not now anyway.”

“Oh, okay.”

I gritted my teeth, hesitating as I made to take a step towards the changelings. But fuck, she needed a hug or something.

I sat down beside her, trying to think of something to say. “Do you, uh… want to talk about it?”

She sat silent for several moments, though… I guess that was an improvement on the last time I asked. Gah, why isn’t there a manual on friendship and how to deal with shit like this? Maybe that should be in the next edition of the Wasteland Survival Guide.

“…No, I don’t,” she finally answered. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of how those three words made my heart ache… “I’m sorry, Scrap Heap.”

“For what?”

“Getting angry,” she said with a hic, using a hoof to wipe away some emergence tears. “That was mean. I… I shouldn’t have, I-”

“Hey, it’s alright,” I assured her, and instinctively my hoof found its way to her shoulder. “You have every right to be upset. But… I’m so sorry that what happened did happen, but you did save me. And… I guess the Equestrian Wasteland just forces these things to happen.”

“But it shouldn’t,” she said in a monotone as she stood up, my hoof falling from her shoulder. “This world is a disease. And for the first time in my life… I can’t do anything to cure it.”

And with that, she walked off.

“Altrix…” Cobalt slowly said as she walked by, but the changelings didn’t stop. She just kept going until she’d exited through the closest door and vanished down the corridor.

Crap. Crap crap CRAP.

“We never should have taken her from the stable…” This was our fault. My fault. If we hadn’t pried her from her home, thrown her into something she never should have had to deal with…

“And then what?” Cobalt stated sternly. “Then what would have happened?”

“What do you mean?” What DOES he mean? We fucked up her life, how can he see any bright side to that!?

“How many times would we have been killed if she didn’t come along?”

“We did fine before we took her.”

“We didn’t take anything, she wanted to come!” Cobalt protested and- OW! Why’d he grab me like that!? “Get a hold of yourself for Celestia’s sake! She saved us from getting spotted before we were ready back at the Megamart AND freed the prisoners. She’s giving us medical attention time and again with far more proficiency than I could manage, and you would have been dead today if not for her. It’s a good thing she came.”

“So, I should just brush over the fact that we fucked her over!?”

“I’m not saying we ignore it,” Cobalt retorted, pinching the bridge of his nose between his hooves. “I’m at a loss how to help her too, but if we start second-guessing ourselves then how are we supposed to even begin?”

Fuck, he’s right. Why does the smart pony always have to be right?

“Guys, can we save this for later?” Moon Blossom asked, and she actually looked physically uncomfortable. “I- I don’t even know where to begin with this shit so… Can we just find what we’re looking for and get the hay out of this place?”

I guess she was even more at a loss at how to process Altrix’s pain than we were.

“Alright, you and Cobalt can head off. I’ll search through the rubble here, see if there was anything important on that little command platform of theirs before the alicorn wrecked it all.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds good,” she replied as she hurriedly turned to leave. But then she stopped. “Just… be careful, yeah?”

Then she was gone, Cobalt and I staring out after her.

And then Cobalt snorted. “I guess there might be hope for that raider yet.”

He too quickly left thereafter.

I sighed, turning to look around at the rubble around us. You know, I’m not anything remotely described as anything even near ‘poetic’, but at that moment I found this trashed place to be a pretty good analogy to my friends and how we were all feeling right now.

Why can’t things ever just be simple? Go in, beat the bad guys, go home and have a Sparkle-Cola. All this angst was just… getting the better of me, I guess.

Dammit.

I started to shift the rubble aside, mostly focusing my magic around where the central platform had been. At least here I excelled, scavenging being my special talent as such. Shifting through broken rubble, bypassing a battered corpse of a pony long denied her or his own life among the ruins of the old world.

Okay, yeah. This was no less depressing.

I moved some collapsed concrete and steel to the side, watching as a totalled terminal came tumbling to the pile and onto the floor. Useless to me.

Still, I could just make out a metal box among some twisted railings and even a bit of rebar. I lit my horn and latched onto the remains with my pale aura and tried to lift it but hissed through my teeth as a sudden shot of sharp pain struck my chest. I dropped the wreckage and myself to the floor as I held a hoof tightly against the pain.

It was right where I’d taken those hits earlier. It struck me how lucky I was to even be alive, by all rights that minigun should have just shredded me. Still, even through Altrix’s care and attention, the pain had returned as I’d exerted myself. I guess it was a small reminder that I wasn’t back at one hundred percent yet.

I had a syringe of Mex-X still on me, though. So, I recovered the medicine and quickly injected it into the pain directly. The painkiller did its work quickly, and the pain faded into a small numbing sensation.

Alright, rubble, round two.

I lit up my horn again, and with a bit of strain that made the numbing become a little more pronounced, I was able to lift the twisted wreckage from the box and shove it to one side. I took a breath as the battered and dented metal crate was freed, trotting over to it and giving the container a look over. It seemed intact enough, though I hope whatever was inside survived the fall.

I lifted the lid and pulled it free, exposing the contents with. The top layer seemed to be some random shreds of barding, nothing too interesting. A combat shoulder piece, a belt… Oh, what’s this?

I pulled out a small depiction of a familiar purple pony. It was a statuette of Twilight Sparkle, looking to be in her prime and brimming with intelligence. I saw something written on the stand, and I turned it over to get a good look.

“…Book Horse.”

Okay, for one… Horse? Pretty sure she was a pony. Two, now that I looked at it, it actually seemed to be made of pretty cheap plastic. I wonder if this thing was a knock-off of an actual product from the war. How did it even get in here? Bet there was a funny story there. Still, I… actually kinda liked it. It was cute. So, with that in mind, I bagged the fake statuette and got back to looking through the box.

The last thing inside was far more interesting…

“Scrap?” My heart soared at that voice, and I turned from the box to see the wonderful zebra mare walking into the room with concern in her eyes. “Ah, there you are.”

I smiled, and I chose to forget about the box for a moment as I quickly crossed the expanse of the room and held onto the mare I loved with all the strength my battered body had. She returned it, burying her muzzle into my neck as the world seemed to dissolve around us. I was just content to stand there, Xena in my hooves forever.

But as always, it couldn’t last.

“What happened…?” she asked, gently pulling away from my grasp. “Where are the others?”

“Searching for a code,” I explained. “It’s, uh… A story and a half.”

I sat her down on a less rubble-strewn part of the floor and told her everything. Everything from the moment we’d left her on the hill to the very story I was telling her then and there. And she just listened, sitting silently with but the occasional nod to go along with my tale. Maybe it was the Zencori in her, maybe it was because she was just the best. Maybe both. But I told her, and her face went grim as the tale reached its conclusion.

“I will try to speak with Altrix,” she said, sighing. “I should have come, maybe then…”

“They would have spotted a zebra and opened fire,” I pointed out. “Cobalt was right about one thing, we shouldn’t second guess ourselves. Even if this just… sucks.”

“None of this was ideal,” she agreed, leaning into me. “I just hope we can heal her wounded heart. That changeling does not deserve such burdens, I wanted to protect her from it.”

“So did I…” I muttered. “Still, what happened on that hill?”

“I took the explosion as a signal to do what I could,” she answered. “Any slaver that entered my sights did not get up again. After the factory went silent, I witnessed a great many begin an exodus from the town.”

“I figured. Fleeing or regrouping?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” I guess that means they’ll be back. Probably with power armour and a plan to deal with the robots. We do not want to be here when they get back. I suppose that also means we should make sure they can’t use the factory anymore before we go.

But first…

I got up, and Xena gave me a questioning look as I made my way back to the box.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Well, I found a cute little Twily,” I replied, and smirked as her muzzle scrunched in confusion. “But I also found this.”

Carefully, using my hoof and not my magic, I brought out the memory orb from the box and presented it before her.

“Another orb?” she questioned. “One would assume about the changelings, as with the others.”

“Could be useful, could be changeling mating season.” Would they even…? Nope. Not thinking about it. “Keep an eye out while I check it out, alright?”

“Always.”

I gave my marefriend a smile, but then frowned as I looked at the orb. Secrets… let’s unlock them!

I lit my horn, making the connection as I waited for the inevitable-

-perception shift. Ah, there it is.

I was female, I think I was getting used to that sensation. Not sure that was a good thing, but eh. Oddly enough, unlike all the other orbs I’d used, for the first time I found myself in a pony rather than a changeling. And I didn’t even see another changeling anyway… what was happening?

Taking note of my… I mean, the pony I was in’s surroundings, I saw a lavishly decorated and very tall hallway that was decorated with motifs of the moon. Armed guards lined the hallway, all decorated in dark blue ornate armour that clashed with the modern weaponry on their battle saddles. All of them stood ramrod straight, barely even blinking as they watched my host slowly walk down the hall. Some of the armoured ponies even seemed to have bat wings…

I also became aware of the fact that my host was not alone, and there was distinctive scarred pegasus walking along ‘me’ who was wearing a dark flight suit.

“What is this about, Rainbow Dash?” my host, Twilight Sparkle, asked the battle-hardened cyan pegasus with the rainbow mane. “Princess Luna’s message sounded urgent.”

“It kinda is, yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Ministry business, you know.”

“Ministry business,” Twilight deadpanned. “Isn’t your building still used for storage?”

“Shush,” Rainbow retorted. “I didn’t exactly want to handle this, but… Well, I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

“Thanks for filling me with confidence.”

The two mares walked along in silence for a little while after that, making a right turn and heading further into the castle.

“…So, how is the ministry going anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Busy,” Twilight answered. “So many bright ponies with so many ideas… I just wish their brains weren’t being picked for weapons of war.”

“You know why we have to, Twilight.”

“I know,” she replied with a sigh. “I guess the hope is, now that the ministries are spread as wide as they are, we can bring the war to a quick close. One decade of war is enough, Littlehorn is still fresh on everypony’s minds…”

“Spoken to the Princess?”

I felt Twilight’s face morph into a grimace, and she couldn’t meet Rainbow’s eyes.

“…That bad, huh?”

“Celestia still won’t talk to me. Even after the time she’s had to grieve, she still blames herself for what happened to Luna’s school.”

“Nopony to blame but the stripes,” Rainbow growled. “They forfeited any sympathy when they murdered children!”

Twilight didn’t answer, not right away. But when she did, it was to change the subject. “Anyway, Applejack’s factories are being set up everywhere. Fillydelphia in particular. Fluttershy is doing wonders for Equestria’s medical care… Pinkie and Rarity I’m a little worried about.”

“What? Why?”

“Rarity hates her new job. Propaganda. I mean… she’s good but… Well, the idea of some of the content the Ministry of Image is being pushed to produce makes the hairs on the back of my beck stand on edge. There’s a real worry some ponies might start to demonise Equestrian zebras.”

Rainbow Dash but her lip. “…Ponies know better, it won’t come to that.”

Wow, this was early days. Littlehorn had happened, Celestia was off the throne and the ministries had been formed… But was this after Chrysalis reached out to the Ministry of Awesome, or before?

“And Pinkie?” the pegasus asked.

“I’m just worried she’s going to run herself ragged being the ‘Head of Morale’ for all of Equestria. She’s unmatched at parties, but she’s barely slept since getting the position.”

“Pinkie’s Pinkie, she’ll do fine,” Rainbow dismissed. “You know she’ll do whatever it takes to keep the ponies of Equestria happy.”

“That’s what worries me…”

The memory of the Ministry of Morale listening post came to my mind. An obsessed Pinkie Pie spying on ponies and making ‘party poopers disappear’. From party planner to secret police. And here I was, seeing the start of the end of the world. Well, maybe not the start if the war had been going a decade or so. But certainly, its building blocks.

Great, now my mood was dropping again.

“And then there’s you,” Twilight said, looking at the pegasus as the duo stopped outside a large set of double doors.

“Me?”

“Look at you, Rainbow. Scars everywhere I look.”

“No zebra can catch me, I’ll be fine. Scrapes excluded,” Rainbow tried to assure her unicorn friend. “Come on, Twilight. It’s us! You know we’ll always be okay if we stick together.”

Twilight Sparkle sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s just so much to take in, and in so short a time.”

Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head. “Well… brace yourself for one more thing.”

With that, Rainbow pushed open the door and the two were allowed entry by the flanking guards.

If my breath could be taken in this memory, then it would have at the sight of the vast chamber the two ponies had just walked into. It was a long stretch that was marked out by a long red velvet carpet that led all the way up to a raised dais at the end. More banners of the moon decorated the expanse of Canterlot Castle’s throne room, and upon the dais was a red and gold throne and which sat an alicorn that made the one we’d fought look like a filly. For the pony before the Ministry Mares was a true alicorn, and not a chemically made abomination.

Princess Luna. The Ruler of Equestria.

The Princess had seemingly been waiting for them and had been in discussion with another relatively young-looking bat pony in more of that archaic armour. Another pony stood by the throne, this was a pure black with a green mane, her cutie mark that of a spider.

“You may go, Lionheart,” Luna dismissed, though I barely noticed him go as I stared into that astral mane flowing in an empty breeze. How does that even work?

Both Ministry Mares bowed, though Luna’s seemed to gesture for them to stand.

“Twilight. Rainbow. I trust you are both well?”

“Yes, Princess,” Twilight replied. “You called me here?”

“Straight onto business then, but I know you are increasingly busy with the development of new spells,” Luna noted. “Very well. Rainbow Dash, perhaps you would like to do the honours?”

“Uh… sure,” Rainbow said uncertainly, before clearing her throat and pointing at the unknown mare. “Long story short, through one way or another this… mare approached me for an audience with the Princess. Personally, I wanted to punt her to the moon and back. But the Princess wanted to listen, so here we are.”

“What a blunt and almost barbaric description,” the mare chided, smirking at the pegasus. “But perhaps I can introduce myself.”

Luna sighed. “Very well. Twilight, do not be alarmed.

I couldn’t feel Twilight’s emotions, but the way her body tensed showed me that she failed in that last directive.

And then the mare was surrounded by green flames, and Twilight yelped in surprise and horror as Chrysalis melted into view.

“You!” Twilight shouted. “Why is she here!? What is this!?”

“Tell me about it,” Rainbow Dash grumbled glumly.

“Queen Chrysalis is here on my invitation, but that as of yet is not to become public knowledge. Understood?” Luna said warningly. “I command you to hear her out. You might find her offer… enlightening.”

“Offer? Enlightening?” I could feel an incoming migraine from inside Twilight’s head. “Ugh, okay, okay… Just… speak.”

“Glad to have your cooperation,” Chrysalis sneered. “What I am offering is quite simple in its design, our infiltrators at Equestria’s disposal in the war against the Zebra Empire. To steal from them or to counter their own infiltrators… The details shall be left to your discretion.”

“Your infiltrators. You want to give us your infiltrators,” Twilight said doubtfully. “Okay, a couple issues. First, why in Equestria would you want to do that, we’ve been enemies ever since you invaded Canterlot at my brother’s wedding. Two, I’ve seen the reports. I know you’ve tried infiltrating Equestria since the war began and failed.”

Chrysalis growled. “Your technology, Sparkle. That is the key. Your technology has boomed ever since this began, and it has advanced further than we’ve been able to keep up, I must admit. But you still lack any technology to replicate the abilities of my kind. If my infiltrators are allowed the chance to understand your technology, and that of the zebras, and even be able to utilise some you would ever so graciously ‘donate’ to us… Well, I’d think you’d find that your enemy would suffer the consequences.”

Twilight paused, just remaining still and staring at the Queen for a good few moments. I couldn’t see into her thoughts, but given how history went, I could make a guess or two. She was probably hesitant, even spiteful at the notion. But since they were fighting a war, she was probably also seeing Chrysalis’ point.

Too bad none of this would matter in the end.

“Our infiltrators have historically seen a lack of success compared to the zebras’ own. We’ve never been able to reverse engineer the enchantments in their stealth cloaks,” Twilight mused. I guess StealthBucks had yet to be invented.

“The Shadowbolts do pretty well,” Rainbow Dash injected proudly.

“You do not infiltrate. You fight behind enemy lines, there is a distinction,” Chrysalis said with mock sweetness. “Your advancements in our hooves would eliminate the crushing disadvantage we’ve had and return us to prosperity. And in doing so, you too benefit.”

“So that’s what you’re getting from this?” Twilight questioned, still hesitant it seemed. “Prosperity?”

“A bit more well defined than such a base concept,” Princess Luna interrupted. “In return for their work disrupting our enemy from the inside, beyond certain elements of our technology they will also receive a new hive within Equestria’s border.”

“WHAT!?” both the Ministry Mares shouted.

“You never told me about this!” Rainbow Dash added.

Chrysalis flashed Rainbow Dash a fang-filled smirk. “You were my link to the Princess, pegasus. You did not need to know the finer details of our negotiations.”

“But… Princess, it’s-” Rainbow Dash stopped, giving an almost guilty look towards Twilight that the unicorn raised an eyebrow at. “You know what the arrangement is.”

“What arrangement?” Twilight asked.

“It is of no matter,” Luna dismissed, before frowning at Rainbow Dash. “We will discuss it later if you so wish, Rainbow Dash. But now is not the time.”

Twilight gave a deep frown but seemed to choose not to pursue the matter. I too was confused for a moment, since the Ministry of Awesome was meant to be pretty much defunct since its conception. But then…

And when our infiltrators are trained to counteract what we currently cannot, they will be most effective. The ponies could use that. I think the Ministry of Awesome would be most interested.”

“The MOA?” the drone muttered with a frown. “But they don’t do anything…”

“And I can be a lowly pony walking through Manehatten, completely unnoticed,” Chrysalis said with a knowing chuckle. “They may fool their own populace, but they can’t fool me.”

Right, Chrysalis had said that… Maybe the MOA hadn’t been so defunct after all.

“The ‘Equestrian Hive’ would likely be placed in the northern regions of Equestria, since it is the least developed. It would be built away from the public eye, the Office of Interministry Affairs would see that the correct resources are allocated.”

“And… how do we know you won’t use our own technology to infiltrate us,” Twilight asked the Queen directly.

“You are helping build my new hive. In short, you know where we live,” Chrysalis pointed out. “As much as I have little love for your fuzzy little civilisation. My people are starving, and we are dying, Twilight Sparkle. To save my hive I will do anything, kill anyone, and even bargain with my enemies.”

“You really are desperate, aren’t you?”

Chrysalis’ teeth clenched, and she took on a predatory pose, but anything else that might have happened was stopped when Luna arose from her throne and planted herself between Chrysalis and Twilight.

“Enough!” the Princess decreed. “This WILL be happening, and I expect the full support of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences in the matter. I too have an issue of trust with the changelings, but this agreement is ultimately more beneficial going forwards for both our peoples than not.”

Luna then turned to Chrysalis, giving her a dangerous look. “And then, when the war is over and the Caeser lies in defeat, we shall see how things progress.”

“That we shall,” Chrysalis replied, unflinching under the alicorn’s scrutiny.

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash shared a look of worry, before everything started to fade to white.

I gave a sharp breath as I emerged from the memory orb. The events I’d seen replayed through my head over and over, the start of an arguably unholy alliance that probably only made things worse in the long run.

And I was also once again faced with how different Insidiis was compared to Chrysalis. Insidiis had never shown herself to be anything but a kindly, if sometimes temperamental, ruler of her people. The fact that we were ponies was nothing of an issue to the Princess, she had no bitterness towards us or any foreseeable desire to control.

Her mother though… Every inch of her always seemed to promise pain and destruction to her enemies. She cared for her daughter, true. But the rest of the world…?

What would have happened if Chrysalis had gotten her way in the end?

“Hello, Scrap Heap.”

GAH.

I’d suddenly found myself laying on my back, looking up with my muzzle an inch from the front radio of a Spritebot. The small robot had a small chuckle come out of it, before it then hovered backwards and gave me room to get up.

…What the hay?

I got to my hooves and found Xena sitting to one side with her sniper held at ease between her hooves.

“We had a visitor,” she simply said.

“There were plenty of units to choose from, after you activated the security robots,” Watcher stated. “Really, it lit up the system like a Hearth’s Warming tree.”

“When, uh… did you get here?” I asked him, collecting myself. “It’s been a while.”

“Thirteen days,” Watcher replied factually. “And you’ve been busy. You all have.”

All? Was he referring to the rest of my friends, or somepony else?

“As for when I arrived, shortly after you entered the orb. I’ve been waiting for you to waken.”

“So, you’ve been watching me sleep?” Not creepy at all, Watcher.

“She has!” Watcher protested, looking at Xena.

I blushed. “Well, that’s… different.”

Watcher paused, looking between Xena and myself as I could almost see the literal cogs turning inside that robot.

“…Oh! Well… congratulations!” he remarked. “Anyway, what was the orb about? Anything interesting?”

“I too am curious,” Xena said.

“Oh, well… Nothing that can help us really,” I informed them. “I saw the day that Rainbow Dash and Princess Luna got Twilight Sparkle to help with the whole changeling alliance thing.”

“Twilight…?” Watcher said quietly, and I gave him an odd look. “I recall… She came home particularly irate that day. I can’t blame her, none of us could trust Chrysalis. She may have made an alliance with us to save her people, but her ambition for control and power would always win out in the end.”

I gave Xena a glance, before frowning at Watcher. “You say that like you knew her.”

“I- I-” Watcher stopped talking for a moment. “I know a lot of things, Scrap Heap. Let’s leave it at that.”

There was more to this ‘Watcher’ guy, wasn’t there?

“Stripe?” Cobalt’s voice called out as he entered the room, Moon Blossom and Altrix with him as they all caught sight of the Spritebot. “…Watcher?”

“Ah, yes. You’re all here! Perfect!”

Watcher buzzed up into the air, circling us from above before looking down on the lot of us. He studied us for a moment, before speaking again.

“Now, from what I’ve witnessed I’ve gathered that Red Eye has some kind of plan for the changelings. And you know what that plan is,” he stated. “Tell me everything.”

Footnote: Max Level

31 - A Plan

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Chapter Thirty-One: A Plan

“Always have a plan A, B, C…”

Watcher was silent as he listened to the recap of what we’d seen in that memory orb we’d captured from the slavers, as well as filling in any gaps in his knowledge as to what we’ve been doing since we last spoke. To be fair, he knew a good bit about it, seeing as he watches he can things as a rule of thumb. But he was missing a couple of details, mostly what happened inside Stable 77 and the metro tunnels.

I still had no idea who was sitting on the other side of that Spritebot, except that I suspect they might have known the Ministry Mares two hundred years ago (Which would make them really old. How was that even possible?), though I could just imagine his frown as we got into detail about the hypothetical Changeling Queen potion.

I could imagine it even more when he finally spoke after he was brought completely up to speed.

“A modification to the alicorn potion…?” he muttered in that usual robotic tone. “The alicorn potion itself was meant to end the war, Twilight gave everything to complete it. She just wanted to bring the fighting to a close, but… I never knew there was a spin-off project on the books.”

“How did the potion go so wrong in the first place, since you seem to know so much about the Ministry Mare,” Cobalt asked. “The Twilight Society has never been able to figure that out. She was the most brilliant mind of the era, how did her final project end with a Goddess and half-baked mutants?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I have no idea what happened on that last day, or what happened to Twilight. I can only imagine it relates to the megaspells that hit Maripony and the rest of Splendid Valley. And I know the place got hit hard.”

“What’s Maripony?” I asked, looking between the Spritebot and Cobalt in confusion. “I heard that name in the memory orb we took from that griffon, the facility in Haven was modelled after it.”

“It’s a facility reportedly inside Splendid Valley. The alicorns use it as something of a home,” Cobalt explained.

“Nothing ‘reportedly’ about it,” Watcher dismissed. “It was the primary facility for production and research on the alicorn potion. The Haven facility was ‘Site B’ if you will. Their purpose, beyond working on the ChangeBuck, was meant to provide supplementary research for Maripony. Especially because of the changeling magic element, seeing as it was so close to the hive. But apparently more went on there than I’ve ever realised. That’s a fun revelation.”

Wait. “You knew that place under Haven was the MAS facility this whole time?”

“Uh… Yes?”

Fucking…

“Wish you turned up earlier,” Moon Blossom remarked with a cackle. “Would have saved us an alicorn to kill.”

“I would have, had I known you were searching for it before now,” he said in a tone that sounded even more robotically deadpan than usual.

“Seeing as you are deeply aware of many activities conducted by the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, then perhaps you too know the access code for the facility itself?” Xena inquired hopefully.

“We weren’t able to find any trace of an access code in this place,” Cobalt noted, which I didn’t know until now, and it was very annoying that we still don’t have that. “If we can’t get it, we won’t be able to get inside without dying in the process.”

Watcher was silent, even as we looked up at the robot expectantly. You know that feeling of increasing disappointment? Feeling that right about now.

“…No.”

What?

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Moon Blossom scoffed. “I thought you were meant to be our helpful little floaty guardian angel?”

“I’m sorry, but I believe this is the first time we’ve met face-to-face,” Watcher retorted.

“You haven’t even shown your actual face!”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Back on track,” I interrupted the two. “Why not, Watcher?”

“Because I don’t know it,” he answered simply. And… that was even more disappointing. “Yes, I know an extraordinary amount about the MAS, probably more than anyone else on Equus nowadays I’d think.”

Cobalt seemed to sulk a little at that, but Watcher didn’t notice or care.

“But that doesn’t mean I know everything. I could list each project that the ministry ever undertook; or most, as it appears even I had some elements hidden from me, but I hardly know the password to every computer. It’s not like I ever worked there.”

“So where did you work?” Cobalt asked him, and Watcher went silent again. “Because back to an earlier point, you DID know Twilight Sparkle, didn’t you?”

That radio on the front turned to face Cobalt directly. “That’s a big assumption to make.”

“It’s not just that you know a lot of things, if you’re smart enough and have the resources you could probably find it all out one way or another,” he continued, the rest of us just watching their confrontation. “I’ve learnt everything I could about her, she’s kinda my role model. Her spell, her life, every data file on the MAS in Tenpony Tower. I know she personally designed the magic capacitor in most mainline energy cells. I also know she initially opposed the idea of turning that research into weaponry, but later recanted and helped make it happen.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that I know a great deal more about the Ministry Mare than most ponies, even if it’s admittedly not to your level. But that’s not the red flag; it’s the way you talk about her. Scrap Heap was right about you sounding like you knew her. Saying about how she came home as if you bore witness to it as it happened, the sheer offence you radiated at not knowing about the Changeling Queen potion that was hypothesised by her and Chrysalis-”

“ALRIGHT!” Watcher suddenly shouted, and I think we all took a step back at the anger in that robotic tone. “Yes, I knew her. I knew her better than anypony. And she died while I was away. I was always away! I only knew any of the later MAS stuff from our occasional meetups or contact, and I watched as she destroyed herself for Equestria!”

…Holy shit.

“Who are you…?” I asked, trying to be as careful in my words and tone of voice as I could.

“That… I still can’t tell you.” Oh, come on! “I’m sorry, but I’ve already exposed my secret before, recently, and that’s such a risk in itself. Perhaps one day, but I just can’t.”

“Okay, fair enough…” Goddesses, this is one secret that was going to scratch at my brain. “So, you knew her, I’m guessing you were part of the MAS in some way or another. If you know a lot about the Ministry, but not the code for that specific place, then maybe you know where we can find it?”

“…Yes, I think I do,” he admitted. “Twilight told me more than she probably should have about the work she did as it is, that’s a certainty. Though I only had personal access to the things I personally needed to, like the machinery I use to hack into these Spritebots for example. But I also know each MAS facility was connected to the closest hub.”

“Like Tenpony Tower,” Cobalt said with a hum. “I think I know where you’re going with this…”

“The closest ministry hub for the MAS is in Vanhoover,” Watcher continued. “They never had a direct part in the research surrounding the changeling hive, but they would have done most of the clerical work for it. Twilight also had an office in every hub, a place for her to personally access all the files related to the attached projects in relative comfort. If there’s any place to find the code, that’s where you will need to go.”

Right… So, we now needed to make our way to a ruined city to break into the office of Twilight Sparkle and take her personal access code. Remember when surviving was simple?

“Road trip!” Moon Blossom proclaimed. “Looong way to Vanhoover, though.”

“Maybe not,” Xena mused. “In my scope I have seen a few skywagons dotted around town.”

“You mean those hulks outside?” Cobalt asked. “Stripe, those would need a complete refit to make work.”

“Not those,” she denied. “I saw some more intact variants near one of the barricades around the factory.”

“It might be something the slavers used for transport,” Watcher suggested. “You have two fliers, you could probably get it working. Cut a week or more into a single day’s journey.”

“Could you help us, Altrix?” Xena asked, turning to the silent changeling mare. I felt a twinge of nervousness as the question was asked, Altrix hadn’t said a word since coming back from the search… “You do not have to, but two fliers would be better than one.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Moon Blossom muttered, stretching out one of her wings.

Altrix diverted her gaze, biting her lip. But she then looked back up at us, giving a small nod. “I- I’ll try. Maybe it will help me think of something else, I don’t want to be near this place anymore…”

Maybe just getting her away from Buckingham would be a good start to helping her. But then again, what would we find in that city? Dear Luna, a big part of me just wanted to take her home. But in all honesty, even as damaged as she’d become after today, would she go?

“I don’t suppose I need to say how important it is that Twilight’s research is never completed, not in the way that either the Goddess or Kronos would want,” Watcher stated.

“Even if we do stop them, wouldn’t Red Eye simply send more slavers to continue the work? Or, in failing that, simply seek vengeance?” Cobalt asked. “We might need a plan for after this is over.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Watcher said with a robotic chuckle. “The Stable Dweller has Red Eye in her sights, and if things go to plan you may not have to worry about him for much longer.

Oh? Well, that’s news to me. “You really think she could do something like that? I mean, taking down a slaver empire by herself…”

“She’s not alone, much like you,” Watcher replied. “But I’ve met Littlepip, and could she do it? I think she has a good chance, so long as she keeps her friends close. I can say the same of you, support each other to whatever end may come, and you will see it through.”

“Did Twilight Sparkle teach you that?”

“It’s something she forgot, as did the others; they forgot what made them the Elements of Harmony,” Watcher replied sadly, and a small synthetic sigh came through the speaker. “Do not repeat her mistakes. Don’t let it end as it did before.”

And with that final piece of advice, a burst of static came from the robot and severed the connection with Watcher.

This left us in silence, alone in a crumbling ruin amidst the scattered rubble, twisted metal and the corpses. I just processed everything to be taken from our conversation, everything from Watcher’s enigmatic bond with Twilight Sparkle to his parting advice on our friendship.

I think someone else also deserved an update, the fate of her people did hang in the balance after all.

I lifted the orb out of my saddlebags, settling it before me in a levitation spell as I concentrated. The others all looked towards me as I worked with the magical artefact, watching the swirling magical mists inside until they began to part into the definable features of a Changeling Queen.

“Scrap Heap, it is gratifying to hear from you and your associates,” Princess Insidiis said in relief. “You caught me during a quiet moment I am glad to say, but the important question is: where are you?”

“We’re in Buckingham, you were on the mark about the slavers here,” I informed the Princess. “They won’t be a problem, we managed to turn the place’s defences against them.”

“Ingenious,” she complimented. “And what of my scouting party?”

“Ah…” Of course, she’d want to know that bit first. I caught Altrix’s head droop from the corner of my eye. “They’re dead. I’m sorry.”

“I see, it is as I feared. Did you at least recover their bodies?”

“No… They were sent off to Kronos, we discovered where the facility is. But they wanted their bodies for some kind of experimentation.”

“Experimentation!?” the Princess seethed, and I couldn’t suppress a wince. “My people are not to be experimented on! How… how dare they!”

“We know, your highness,” Xena said, stepping up next to me and into the orb’s view. “The plans of the slavers and alicorns alike are terrible, but we will soon have a way to prevent further tragedy.”

“…Yes, thank you,” Insidiis muttered, visibly trying to calm herself. “How soon can you leave to this facility? I may even be able to send some of my best security teams to assist you. I know Matercula would be glad to assist her daughter.”

“You might want to hold off on that,” I said, it was probably a good idea to stop that line of thought before the Princess got ahead of herself. “It’s not that simple, we still can’t get into the place.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“We need an access code, a way in without alerting all the slavers to us. We think we can find one in Vanhoover, and we have a quick way to get there… probably. We’re still kinda figuring it out.”

“But if it works, Kronos will never see us coming before it is too late,” Xena concluded.

Insidiis hummed, looking contemplative. “Very well, if that is what’s required then I can wait. Though time is of the essence, my changelings are living with the knowledge that the slavers could come for us at any moment.”

“Well, when we get the code you’ll be the first to know.”

“And then we can bust Kronos’ beak open!” Moon Blossom shouted from behind me, and I saw Insidiis chuckle at the comment from the background.

“I look forward to it,” she stated. “You continue to impress, I trust that my subjects’ lives are in good hooves. Come back safe and ensure that their reign of terror on this blighted world comes to its end.”

The mist obscured the Princess once again, and I carefully replaced the orb back into my saddlebags.

We had all gathered outside, letting the crumbling building lie as we followed Xena to where she’d spotted the sky wagons outside.

The signs of battle continued to dominate the streets.

There were several more deceased ponies and griffons out here, along with a Protectapony or two that were now patrolling the exterior of the factory. They remained cordial to us, though, and ignored us beyond the occasional command to move along. The barricade that Xena was leading us towards down a different street to the one we’d arrived in was also marked with several scorch marks from energy weaponry, at least one of its guards having been reduced to a pile of ashes from one such blast.

The gates of the barricade were open, the street further down being completely deserted. There were no bodies at least, but the slavers we would have previously seen walking through it had long retreated to the wastes.

“They appeared to be kept just outside the gates,” Xena explained, leading us through the gateway and into the street beyond it.

And lo and behold, a large metal sky carriage sat there waiting. It was rusted, the paint chipping away from two hundred years of fallout and neglect. The windows were smashed and peering into them showed the interior rows of seats were equally decayed. But there was a small hum from the interior magic workings of the vehicle, newer-looking straps sitting at the front ready to admit a flier and, despite the decay, the words ‘Sky Bandit’ were still barely but proudly visible along the sides.

“There had been three,” Xena mused.

“Cowards must have used the others in their escape,” Moon Blossom remarked, taking the moment to remove the stolen slaver barding in favour of her leather jacket. “Kind of them to leave us one, though!”

I circled around the Sky Bandit, admiring how an old thing like that could possibly be working. I’d seen more than a few of these, well… everywhere. It was Equestria’s common bus for shipping ponies from place to place, as far as I understood. Generally, far more Sky Bandit hulks could be seen than any of their ground restricted counterparts, I guess because pegasi drawn vehicles were faster? Far from me to say the exact reasons though, I’m hardly an expert on ancient public transport.

Though, I believe I’d read that flying was the safest way to travel in a burnt magazine once. I guess we’d soon find out.

“Talismans look good,” Cobalt noted, and I turned to see him crouched down by some of the glowing exterior odds and ends. I didn’t have much of a clue as to how those talismans worked together, but Cobalt looked to be in his element. “The laylines are all intact, all the levitation spells seem to be holding… Yeah, I’d say this thing is flight worthy.”

“Good to know, because don’t expect me to be able to hold up a dead weight like that,” Moon Blossom said. “Even with Altrix, that things looks a tiny bit heavy.”

“So… the talismans will help us carry it?” Altrix asked, looking at the thing doubtfully. “I… can’t really imagine pulling something like that.”

“That’s why there’s two of us,” Moon Blossom remarked, bumping her flank into Altrix’s and getting a small squeak from the mare. “You can do it, don’t worry.”

“I… alright…” she replied, though I saw a bit of self-doubt remain on her face.

She was still pushing on, even if she was feeling… that way. Watcher’s words rang in my mind, about us being able to get through it all by being together. I mean, look at Moon Blossom. As I watched, the former and always boisterous raider was leading Altrix towards the straps and helping her into them, offering her support as she did so. I even saw Xena shoot Moon Blossom an appreciative smile, and those two had come to blows in what seems like forever ago now but had actually been just days.

But I guess that guy would know about these things. I mean, he is two hundred years old.

With Moon Blossom and Altrix getting ready up front, I trotted up to the door and climbed up into the cabin. The seats were mostly rotten and probably filled with lice, but it would do. Not like modern transport, for all its rarity, is known for its comfy chairs.

My scavenger senses were also tingling, especially seeing the overhead compartments above the seats. And since the slavers had evacuated in a hurry, maybe they left some things behind for us to use.

Xena and Cobalt also boarded the sky carriage as I took a look through all the seats row by row to start off with. There didn’t seem to be anything between them at first glance, but you never knew.

“Looking for something?” Cobalt asked.

“Just doing what my cutie mark is telling me,” I replied jokingly. Well, half-jokingly. I wasn’t exactly wrong, was I? “Do me a favour a search through some of those overhead compartments while I take the seats.”

I cleared some of the remaining rows, finding nothing of note but a single bottlecap nestled in one of the cracks between the seats. I pocketed it, of course. Maybe Vanhoover would have a trader out and about we could do business with.

Thinking about it, I wasn’t really sure what communities, if any, existed in Vanhoover. I know there’s a Steel Ranger chapter there, but they’re in every city.

Wow, when was the last time I’d used any of the caps I’d collected over the past few weeks? Was it Tenpony Tower?

It’s been a while.

I made it to the back of the Sky Bandit, and I think I finally found something a little more worth my time. The back of the old bus had a larger space where it looked like ponies had the option to stand, I guess if there were no seats available they’d bunch up here. Bet it could get crowded some days.

Eh, forget that. The slaver seemed to have stored a couple of bags and a single medical box back here. Supplies for any trips they might have made? Well, the only way to find out was to crack them open.

The first bag I had a look inside contained a few magazines of ammunition for my assault rifle, so that was something I could definitely use. There were also a couple of preserved cans of food here, something to add to our own reserved. We still had a decent load from the stable, but it never hurt to top up.

I left that one behind for the moment and looked into the second bag. This one was almost empty, a few empty cans of already eaten preserved pineapples were scattered around the bottom. Still, I did spot one still good can, and three bottles of purified water to top it off. Not a bad result, in all.

That just left the medical box.

I cracked the square box open, and as soon as I did several healing potions almost tumbled out. Looked like enough to more or less replace the ones we’d used to today fighting Kronos’ thugs, I’d make sure to give them to Altrix after we’d landed in Vanhoover.

But there was one more object that caught my eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Xena and Cobalt come up behind me, probably checking out the contents of the bags for themselves. Still, I ignored them for the moments as I levitated out a small rectangular box-shaped object from underneath the healing potions. It had several buttons on one end, and the text along the side left little to the imagination.

“A StealthBuck,” Cobalt noted. “Good catch. And definitely a keeper.”

I glanced between my PipBuck and the StealthBuck. There seemed to be a port where I could plug the new device into the PipBuck, ready to turn me almost invisible.

Yup, bagging this thing.

I closed up the medical box after pocketing the StealthBuck, before standing back up to face my friends.

“Find anything above?” I asked.

“Only a couple of empty bottles and some cans of paint,” Cobalt remarked. “Fortunately, the paint is as preserved as those food cans. If nothing else, I can use it to paint over the talon marks on this barding.”

“Good idea.” We wouldn’t want anypony friendly in Vanhoover getting the wrong idea. That… could get messy.

Still, that seemed to be everything for us to find in this thing. Cobalt could think about his painting project later, Altrix and Moon Blossom still had to get this thing into the air before we could think about anything else.

I stored my own saddlebags in an overhead compartment and found myself a seat near the front. Xena and Cobalt followed shortly thereafter, Cobalt sitting across from me while Xena hopped up next to me and nestled up.

There were certainly worse ways to travel.

Eventually, Moon Blossom gave the word that she and Altrix were set and ready to go. I gave a quick shout back that we were sat as comfortable as we could make it and proceeded to watch through that front window the pegasus said a few words to the smaller changeling beside her before they both took on a stance of readiness.

And then they began to trot.

They pulled the Sky Bandit away from the curb and off down the street. We held on as we crossed over bumps and holes in the aged concrete but didn’t have to endure it long before Moon Blossom shouted something to Altrix and both their wings shot open.

The two fliers then jumped from the ground, their wings flapping and buzzing into action as the Sky Bandit gave a stomach-curdling lurch.

And then we were flying.

I felt a tiny bit giddy as that realisation descended down onto me, and I looked out of the window to see the rooftops of Buckingham passing us by. We were flying!

Oh yeah, I could see why this had been more popular than a bus with wheels!

Moon Blossom and Altrix banked left, moving us more or less in line with the brand-new objective marker that had appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. And from there I watched the landscape pass by, the ruined town being left far behind.

Xena had been right, we would be at Vanhoover in no time.

Footnote: Max Level

32 - War of the Past

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Chapter Thirty-Two: War of the Past

“Welcome to the city.”

The early morning sun, as ever, barely made it through the cloud cover we were gliding a short distance under. It had crossed my mind more than once that all Altrix and Moon Blossom had to do was ascend a little further and we could break through those clouds and actually see the sun. Be bathed in its light and experience the day as it was intended.

But we couldn’t do that. If we tried, we might risk being hunted down by a group of angry pegasi in power armour and with a fuck ton of energy weaponry. The last thing we needed was trouble with the Enclave, so we stayed just a little ways under the lowest clouds as we’d travelled across Equestria.

We’d flown for several hours after leaving Buckingham behind, and I had just watched as the landscape passed by below us at an astonishing rate. We were making very good time and had already crossed a little over half the distance to Vanhoover when the night finally rolled in.

We hadn’t been overly keen on travelling during the night, seeing as visibility would have been so low. That, and we were all tired from our earlier fight with the slavers and that alicorn. And that was just us passengers, never mind how Moon Blossom and Altrix were feelings after carrying the Sky Bandit for several hours. So, with that in mind, we had settled down in the middle of an old farm and bunkered down for the night. The Sky Bandit made for good shelter, especially since mere minutes after we’d landed the cloud cover decided to open up and unleash a torrent of rain down on top of us.

Still, seeing as the Sky Bandit had power we were able to stay warm. Hay, it had a working heating unit! That thing alone would have made me a whole heap of caps at Absolutely Everything. Derpy would probably get it to somewhere that needed it for half the price too, she was good like that.

But thanks to it we managed to get a decent night’s sleep. We’d bunkered down in some of the less shredded seats, closed the doors to the old skycarriage and selected first watch. When the morning had eventually come, the rain had died down and we were able to get back on the move in short order.

And now we were here. Or nearly, at least. Vanhoover was approaching fast, the smashed and battered metropolis really being something of a dead ringer for Manehatten. I could spy several tilting skyscrapers only held up by their neighbours, threatening to come crashing all the way down at any moment. Even the still standing buildings looked dangerously unstable, almost all the windows being smashed in and their interiors almost certainly having been picked over time and again by other scavengers.

But which one of those buildings was the one we needed?

“We just flying in?” Moon Blossom shouted back at us, and both she and Altrix slowed our flight a little. “That’s a lot of shit to navigate around!”

“Would you prefer we go in on hoof?” I shouted back to her. “One of the skyscrapers has to be the MAS hub. We could land on the roof if it’s still standing.”

“Tenpony Tower is tall, but nothing like those buildings,” Cobalt pointed out, joining me up front. “Big and obnoxious was more Pinkie Pie’s style, you haven’t even seen her hub in Manehatten. The MAS building here might be smaller, somewhere in the middle of the city centre.

“Then we just look for the signs.” It wasn’t like the hubs were secret locations. “Something will tell us where it is.”

“Look for a building that says: ‘MAS Hub, land here!’ Got it!” Moon blossom announced.

“What dangers await us in this city?” Xena asked cautiously. “Anything unique in the area?”

Cobalt hummed, thinking to himself for a couple of moments. “Well, there’s a stable of unicorn supremacists somewhere south of here, they’re operating somewhere between raiders and an old-world crime family. I’m not sure if they operate as far as the city, but I don’t believe so. Even if they do, it shouldn’t be more of an issue than a standard raider.”

More Stable-Tec experiments I assume. Yay. “Anything else?”

“Nothing notable as far as the Twilight Society is aware,” he answered. “A chapter of Steel Rangers, but that’s to be expected. Raiders, ghouls, a couple of trader settlements. I don’t know much about the latter, but they could be a good place to stop if we need to.”

“I still think we should just fly in and get out. I don’t think we should hang around this place for long,” I voiced my opinion. We were kinda on the clock after all. Besides, who knew what could happen if we just wandered the streets?

Last time I did that I met my marefriend, admittedly. But I still found myself in the middle of a zebra-raider battle. That’s not a distraction we particularly needed.

“We do still need to know where it is we’re flying in and out of,” Xena pointed out. Gah, trust her to find a flaw. “Perhaps, if nothing else, we could do a flying loop around the city and scout out what awaits us? Perhaps locate this hub, and see what might stand in our way?”

“I suppose an aerial view couldn’t hurt,” Cobalt conceded. “But no landing anywhere for now, yeah?”

“Make your minds up!” Moon Blossom shouted at us indignantly. “Ugh, whatever. You ready, Altrix?”

“I… guess?”

“Good enough! Let’s take her in, mind those buildings!”

Our speed picked up again, and I looked downwards as the first few buildings of Vanhoover passed beneath us. We were definitely within the city limits now, and the buildings only got more clustered the further in we were going to go.

I couldn’t really see any signs of life so far. At least not recent, an old Red Rocket I spotted looked like it had been more to and decorated by raiders at some point in time. Not anymore, though. The building was blasted up and completely trashed, probably by the Steel Rangers if I were to judge the damage. Or maybe they just cooked up a bad batch of moonshine, who knows?

“Do you see anything?” Xena asked, and I glanced back to find her cosied up next to me by the window. Cobalt, meanwhile, had returned to his seat on the other side of the ancient bus.

“Not yet,” I answered her, returning to look out the window. “Still one hell of a view though, right?”

“If only it were of more than ruins and corpses,” she mused. “Do… you think that, maybe when all is said and done, the changelings will let us stay?”

“You want to?” I asked her.

“The last time we were there, they had rebuilt so much of their hive to its former glory in such a short space of time. Seeing a community living as things once were was… nice,” she admitted, resting her head on my shoulder and making my heart beat just that little bit faster. “And they may need more help after Kronos is defeated.”

I guess they would. Their troubles wouldn’t end with the slavers, who knows what will happen after we’ve kicked his ass?

“I mean… I’ve always wanted a house,” I admitted to her, and I saw her glance at me curiously. “It was what drove me before… well, all of this. And I guess… What does it matter if it’s above ground or below it.”

She smiled. “It would be comfortable at least. And maybe- Wait.”

I saw it too. There, out the window, a small fiery flash in an old overgrown park between several old buildings. I started to feel some small measure of alarm as I tried to get a good look, seeing what looked to be several people down there. What was…?

“FUCK!” Moon Blossom shout as the whole carriage suddenly shook and I found myself hitting the deck!

I heard pings and pangs as Celestia knows how many bullets hit against the side of the Sky Bandit! Everything shifted dramatically as Moon Blossom and Altrix pulled us into a deep dive away from the incoming fire, conducting a very sharp turn away from whatever was happening down there and back the way we came.

I stayed down, noting that we were still in a severe descent towards the ground. I looked over to Xena, and she was on the ground right next to me. We remained still as our winged friends finally started to level out the sky carriage and winced when a noticeable bump signalled that we had landed.

And then everything went silent. Though, training my ears in, I could still hear some distant pops and bangs from an ongoing battle.

“So much for a quick in and out,” Cobalt snarked me from his seat.

“Shut it!” I retorted, getting back up to my hooves alongside Xena and taking a gander outside the window.

There appeared to be a fresh bullet hole in it, and on looking past the glass I could see Moon Blossom and Altrix hurriedly unhitching themselves from the Sky bandit. They had landed us in between a couple of crumbling buildings in some old driveway. Ahead of us was a cluster of old rusted vehicles that blocked much of the way, and behind us was the street where we’d made the initial landing before they’d presumably pulled us in here. Out of sight, for the most part. Good thinking on their part.

I latched onto the doors with my magic and opened them up, hopping out of the Sky Bandit and quickly trotting over to our flyers.

“What the hell was shooting at us?” I asked Moon Blossom.

“We were a bit busy trying to keep us in the air to notice,” she shot back. “Some assholes. What else is new?”

“There were a lot of them,” Altrix noted worriedly, finishing getting herself free from the reigns.

“We should head back, carefully,” Xena opted. “Someone may yet need our assistance.”

As I said, distraction.

“Alright, gather our stuff and get ready to move,” I said to the others. “Think our ride will be safe here?”

“Obscured, yes,” Xena responded. “Safe, I would imagine not.”

“Really wishing I had some trip mines around now,” Moon Blossom moaned with a pout. “Hey, is the engine and stuff all good? We took a few hits.”

“It looks okay,” Cobalt reported, and looking towards him it looked like that was the first thing he checked out on disembarking. “So long as it doesn’t get found while we’re gone it’ll get us back to the hive no problem.”

I do like some good news.

Stepping out into the street, my eyes and E.F.S. failed to spot anything particularly dangerous in our way. I could still hear the distant fighting, though.

“Follow me, it’s this way.”

We reluctantly left the Sky Bandit behind, being sure to leave nothing of particular value inside that we couldn’t afford to lose. From there, we headed towards the sound of the fighting while avoiding the streets as much as possible. We moved through the back alleys, trying to get to the park we’d seen from the air. I half expected my PipBuck to create a map marker for it, but the only marker that was on my E.F.S. remained for Vanhoover city centre in general.

Still, we hardly needed it. The gunfire got increasingly louder as we got closer to the site of whatever it was that was happening. I also spotted a sign reading for the ‘Spitfire Memorial Park’ in the direction we were heading. Eventually, we even got close enough to this park that a few red bars were beginning to appear in my vision. Standing in that particular alley, the next street along seemed to hold a gate for the park. It was a black barred fence, the actual gate being a large arch that held the name of the location in what were probably once sparking golden letters. Not so sparkling now, though.

“Let’s stop here,” Xena suggested. “Any further and we will be dragged into this fight without knowing why.”

I hummed, looking away from the gateway and around the alley. Just behind us, there was a metal stairway leading up the side of a three-story building that bordered the park, and it looked to go all the way up to the roof…

“Up there,” I told the others, causing us to double back a little to the bottom of those stairs and begin the climb.

It was a quick hop up. Moon Blossom and Altrix didn’t even bother with the stairs, they just flew their way up to the roof. Show-offs.

Still, the roof was mostly flat and had a hatch that would allow access to the top floor right next to an old ventilation unit. We ignored them both, slowly making our way to the edge of the roof that overlooking the park and looking inwards.

Shit. What the hell have we just walked into?

There were zebra here. A lot of zebra. And facing them was an almost equal amount of heavily armed uniformed ponies. Several of them were sporting combat armour with the symbol of two wings bisected with a sword, all of that wrapping around an apple containing three cogs, and each of those cogs had a small familiar starburst inside of them.

The symbol of the Steel Rangers.

The infantry wasn’t alone either, they were supported by several ponies in full T-45 power armour, each one having a missile launcher or a minigun strapped to the sides.

Every single bar inside that park was red. Steel Rangers and zebras alike.

“The Remnant…” Xena whispered in horror, looking transfixed by the other striped equines. “No… Here of all places…?”

“The what?” Moon Blossom deadpanned. “What’s with the skirts?”

“Those are traditional legionnaire armour barding,” she retorted. “And these zebras are not our friends.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that when they shot at us. Thanks for the tip, though.”

“They have some mad idea of continuing the great war,” I finished answering for Xena, who to my concern was… Well, she wasn’t looking particularly great right at this moment. “Stripe and I met by killing a whole bunch of them. They were chasing her because she refused to sign up.”

“And perhaps they never relented,” she muttered, drawing out her sniper rifle. “Let me see them.”

She rested the weapon onto the roof, surveying the ongoing battle through the magnification of her scope. The rest of us still had a pretty good view from this rooftop, though. And the two sides weren’t exactly subtle about their carnage.

The Zebra Remnant were taking shelter in one corner of the park, ducking behind old playground equipment, rocks, trees, benches… Anything they could, really. The Steel Rangers weren’t being so cautious, their power armour units just approaching slowly across the park as living cover for the less armoured knights that followed in their wake. Most of the latter were equipped with magic laser rifles, firing red beams of magic from their battle saddles as the zebras returned fire with more traditional projectile weaponry.

There were two loud ‘thwoosh’ sounds as a Steel Ranger in power armour unleashed two rockets from his battle saddle, both projectiles streaked past our rooftop and spiralled down behind a cluster of trees where two zebra stallions had been taking cover. The entire cluster was consumed in a large explosion, and both their red bars blinked out.

“Who do you think attacked who?” Cobalt mused. “The Remnant because the other side are ponies, or the Steel Rangers because the Remnant have stripes on their hide?”

Honestly, I could see either. But then again, did it really even matter? It was like watching a snippet of the war two hundred years ago, and it was probably just as pointlessly destructive.

“They’re not there, good…” Xena muttered, looking up from her rifle. “But the Remnant appear outmatched. I imagine they will pull back soon.”

There was a shimmer behind the Steel Ranger lines, and two zebras that were previously obscured by stealth cloaks made themselves known and quickly pounced on two of the lesser armoured infantry. The large knight and paladins up front were surprisingly quick to react, however, and quickly turned to fire on the two. One was quick enough to do an impressive backflip to safety before retreating beneath the cloak, but the other was gunned down in a hail of 5mm bullets.

The distraction was a good time for the Remnant to jump from cover, however. One shot from what sounded like a hunting rifle hit one of the power armoured Steel Rangers, hitting a weak point in the neck that sent their corpse crashing to the ground. Another zebra pulled out a small sparking apple shaped object and threw it towards another cluster of rangers. There was a shout of alarm, and several managed to sprint away with a surprising amount of agility before there was a loud crackle of energy. The EMP grenade hit two of the rangers, and their armour sparked as it shorted out entirely, trapping the ponies inside.

But despite that, the Remnant were still heavily outgunned. But they hadn’t been planning on winning with that move, but rather they had used the momentary chaos to jump from their cover and conduct a fighting retreat towards the gate. Several were cut down in the effort, but more than a few made it out of the park and made their way down the street with several of the heavily armed and armoured rangers in pursuit, the lesser armoured ones remaining behind to see to their trapped brothers and/or sisters.

It was definitely a good thing we hadn’t tried to go through there.

“We should go,” Cobalt stated. “Those helmets have Eyes Forward Sparkles. They might spot a couple extra tags on a certain rooftop.”

Point taken.

We moved back from the edge of the rooftop and back towards the staircase. Moving quickly back down them, we started to retrace our steps through the back alleys and away from the park. A short way in, however, we altered course to move more towards the inner sections of the city. We still had a MAS hub to get to, and since it was in the opposite direction those combatants had gone…

It was a while before we stopped moving, and several larger buildings started to crop up the further in we got. Eventually, however, we emerged from one of the alleyways and onto the road connecting to a roundabout that led off in four directions. Past the roundabout directly ahead of us, the collapsing skyscrapers of the city centre loomed over us, and it was in that direction we needed to be heading. But looking around at the others I could see that we were all slightly winded from our run through the city, so glancing across the road I located an old bar of sorts that looked like a good place to rest.

I gave them a nod, crossing the street while keeping an eye on my tracker for any marks for hostiles. Only one appeared as we hopped through one of the long-smashed windows of the bar, but the radroach that it belonged to made the wise decision to crawl back into its hole and disappear.

We all breathed a sigh of relief, taking a good look around the place as we collected ourselves and got our bearings.

The bar was well and truly trashed. The tables and chairs were all splintered and strewn about the place, most of the stock behind the bar looked like it had been long trashed. Even the Sparkle-Cola machine, much to my dismay.

“Welp, fuck that noise,” Moon Blossom announced with a huff. “If you need me, I need a drink. There’s got to be something left behind the bar, so if you’ll excuse me…”

I rolled my eyes at the pegasus as she hopped behind the bar and begun her search, though my brief jubilation fell as I saw Altrix retreat off to one corner to just… sit. By herself.

She was still having a tough time, then. Our close encounter back there definitely did little to help with that.

“I’ll see what I can find in the back. Give me a shout when we’re moving,” Cobalt said, glancing at Altrix and sighing. “Good luck.”

I bit my lip as he trotted away. With the others all doing… something or other, that just left Xena and I standing by the window we’d entered through. And as much as I wanted to try and help Altrix again, well… Xena wasn’t looking too hot either.

Fuck, it left a sour taste in my mouth, but… Well, I had to see to my marefriend first.

“Hey,” I said to her, and she only slightly glanced at me. Yeah, something was really bothering her. Three guesses what… “About the Remnant back there…”

“Still my past hounds me,” she muttered, sighing before sat down with her back pressed against a wall. “I had thought it done after Manehatten. Now… Well, it appears I’ve brought death to the ponies of this city.”

“Don’t be daft,” I gently scolded her, sitting down by her side. “It’s not your fault those jackasses came here.”

“Oh, but it is. Do you recall what I told you when we first met?”

“Aside from that you’d shove that sniper up my ass if I did something bad?” I joked, and there! I even got a small smile out of her! Progress!

But it fell away all too quickly, and she looked towards me with a look of complete seriousness in her eyes. “The Remnant operate almost exclusively in the Hoofington region. They don’t go elsewhere without an express reason to tear them away from their ‘holy war’.”

“And… you really think they hate you that much that they’d send a second group after you?”

“If they have gotten word that I had been sighted in the north of Equestria, then it is probable. The Legate has many eyes and ears,” she explained regretfully. “And perhaps more this time. My first insult was refusing to join, the second was successfully killing the first group sent after me. Now I’m not just a heretic, I’m a threat.”

“They sound obsessive.”

“They’re the kinds of zebra that continue a war that ended two centuries ago.”

“Point.”

She hummed, bringing up a hoof to tiredly run against one of her eyes. “That must be it, I see no other reason for their presence in this city.”

“Maybe we will find another reason?”

“That would be relieving, if not concerning in its own right,” she mused. “But if they are hunting me, they clearly do not know my exact location, seeing as they were in Vanhoover before us. But they will continue the search, they are nothing if not persistent.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to make sure they don’t find you. However hard they search, I doubt they know where the hive is, and there’s no way that Kronos or any changeling will be willing to share. They can just roam around, pick fights with the Steel Rangers and turn up no particularly gorgeous zebra mare until they all get shot or go back to Hoofington with their tails between their legs.”

That actually got a full-fledged chuckle out of her, and that heartbeat of mine shot up again when I found her hoof gently taking hold of mine.

“HAHA!” an obnoxious raider decided to break up the moment as she emerged from behind the bar and dumped a crate full of brown bottles onto the counter. “Who wants beer?”

She stopped, blinking as she stared at the two of us as we glared back.

“So… did I interrupt smoochy times?”

Neither of us could suppress a groan.

Footnote: Max Level

33 - Settlement

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Chapter Thirty-Three: Settlement

“Another settlement needs your help.”

Crumbling buildings laid all around us, silent graves for untold thousands. We’d long since left the old bar we’d used for a temporary safe haven, pushing onwards deeper into Vanhoover as the buildings around us got increasingly larger as well as more densely packed together. Much like in Manehatten, many streets were blocked off with the rubble of collapsed buildings and ruined vehicles. More than once we had to make slight detours in order to get around then worst of it, but we were making slow progress through the shattered city.

And so far, not since we’d left our friends in the park behind, we had yet to encounter anything major that wanted to see us dead. My E.F.S. would pick up the usual vermin and mongrel dogs picking through the remains of Vanhoover for food, but most seemed eager to avoid us. Those desperate enough to make a go at the heavily armed group of five, well… Their desperation did little to help save them from bullets or Moon Blossom’s combat knife.

The pegasus had stopped to collect some meat from one such dog. Aside from her, none of us were particularly keen on trying that stuff. Not while we still had some food that was friendlier to our herbivore-inclined stomachs. Still, a bit of meat wouldn’t do Altrix any harm at least.

I was just glad I still had some canned apples to munch on.

By the time midday came and went, we were getting close to the city centre. There were a multitude of still legible signs pointing us towards it, and even a few for the local Ministry of Arcane Sciences hub as well.

But seeing as this city had been blown to hell, of course yet another collapse would mar the way.

“Yeah, we’re not getting through that,” Moon Blossom remarked as she looked at the remains of the top of a collapsed skyscraper. The rest of it was still standing, but it was like the top was knocked right off in one of the balefire blasts. “I mean, I could. But you lot are kinda screwed.”

“As you always love to point out,” Xena deadpanned, looking up to another still standing skyscraper to our left. “Look up there. That building has a walkway connecting it to another skyscraper beyond the wreckage. That is out way through.”

“It beats backtracking several blocks,” Cobalt concurred. “Hmm, looks like an old apartment building. I’d guess the one its connected to is as well, certainly owned by the same pre-war company.”

“Well, I think they have plenty of vacancies,” I remarked, heading up towards the door while drawing my pistol just in case it wasn’t as empty as we thought. “It’s… what? Five floors up?”

“Seems about right,” Cobalt confirmed. “Should be a stairwell upwards.”

We trotted a couple steps up to the main entrance, stepping through a shattered glass door and into the reception area. The first room was a complete mess, despite looking like it’d be ornately decorated. Several decorative pillars had collapsed in on themselves, several parts of the ceiling had caved in and revealed frayed wiring inside and old pots that once contained plants were now empty jars of dirt.

I walked over to the reception desk, which was covered in dust and grime from two hundred years of neglect. A skeletal pony sat in a chair on the other side, slumped over a desk and a picture frame. I dared not look at it, I’d rather not know which family members the poor pony had been wishing they were with when they died.

Rounding the desk and moving behind the deceased receptionist, I had a quick glance over for anything useful. There wasn’t too much to be seen, however; the terminal was busted, and the only other thing of note was a couple of old pens and a shattered vase.

I let it all be, leaving the desk behind and heading with the others towards the closest stairwell. Heading inside and walking up the first flight of stairs showed it all to be in slightly better condition than the reception area, but it was still covered in the usual grime that covered pretty much all pre-war structures in the apocalypse. Still, it was safe enough for us to climb up five floors without any issues. There weren’t even any pings on my Eyes Forward Sparkle to worry about.

We emerged from the staircase into a long corridor that was lined with numbered apartments all the way through. The corridor’s oak panelling was all cracked and crumbling, and the carpet that used to line the floors was mostly chewed up by whatever bugs had crawled through here in the past two centuries. We took a small turn a short ways from the stairway and delved deeper into the building, trying to find out way past all the old pre-war homes and to that bridge we’d seen to the building across the way.

Most of the apartments were shut up tight and probably hadn’t been picked over that much. I could imagine a lot of salvage still existed in this place, but we hardly had the time to go shopping for parts. Some of the doors were open, however, though I wasn’t sure which ones had simply been left open when their occupants had tried to flee the end of the world or by ponies passing through the looting what was left.

Another turn, and a step over some old empty suitcases, brought us to the edge of the building. The very outer corridor was lined with windows that overlooked the shattered street below, and otherwise only seemed to hold some doors facing inwards for some supply closets or other such places.

But slap bang in the middle of it all was the access to the bridge we needed.

We trotted over and wasted no time in beginning our crossing. Stepping into the bridge proved it to be mostly intact, the floor and roof seemed sturdy enough. Though most of the windows either side had been smashed long ago. Looking out to our right revealed the huge rubble pile that had blocked our way, though when I glanced out left, I saw a relatively clear street that held nothing but a couple of rusted car frames and overturned mailboxes.

There was also a camping stool set up by one of the smashed windows looking out over the clear street, an ammo box sitting idly next to it with a sniper rifle resting against the wall between two smashed window panes.

Xena took interest in the sniper rifle, trotting over to it and looking the weapon over.

“Hmm, rusted. I doubt it would fire,” she noted, tossing the inoperable weapon aside before turning to the ammo box. “But I won’t say no to the ammo.”

“Guess somepony made this their little sniper nest,” Moon Blossom noted. “It probably didn’t end well.”

I didn’t see a skeleton, but it was odd they’d leave all of this here.

Though that red bar that was suddenly on my E.F.S. was a lot more interesting!

I instinctively ducked at the whooshing sound and hit the deck as something flew right over my head and exploded behind us.

“Lucky basted!” a male voice cackled, and I looked up to see a very raider-ish looking pony reload the missile launcher they had on their battle saddle.

“Dibs!” Moon Blossom shouted as she struck forward with a boost from her wings with her knife aimed at his neck.

We all bolted after her, and the raider gave a strangled gurgle as Moon Blossom hit her mark. And yet my heart nearly stopped as another missile was let loose and again barely missed us! It did, however, hit the dead centre of the bridge, and in a fiery explosion and the crumbling sound of a concrete cascade did the entire thing collapsed behind us!

“I guess we’re not going back that way!” I shouted, watching as more bars appeared all around us. “There’s a lot more where he came from!”

“We need to get out of here,” Cobalt stated.

“Find the closest stairwell, go!”

We hurried down the next corridor as the raiders quickly rushed over towards the commotion if my HUD was anything to go by. When we reached the closest set of stairs the door burst open just before we arrived as a raider came on through, but he didn’t get much chance to do anything as I fired two shots from my pistol and dropped the pony. We all galloped down the steps as quickly as we could, though had to back up a little as gunfire came up from the bottom floor.

Sparks pinged off the final stairs ahead as well as the wall as the raiders fired up in some attempt to hit us. Judging from the rate of the gunfire, there had to be three of four of them waiting for us.

“We’re pinned, alright…” I looked towards Cobalt. “Think you can give us a shield long enough to charge through them?”

“I can get us close,” he confirmed.

“Then we kick them to death!” Moon Blossom enthusiastically remarked. “Let’s go, Boss!”

“Altrix, you can help,” Cobalt said to the changeling. “I make the construct, but you can stream some of your magic into it. It’ll help me maintain the shield under the gunfire.”

“A-alright. I can do that,” she agreed, lighting her horn with a green aura.

“Want my help?” I asked him, gesturing towards my own horn.

“Just focus on the raiders. We’ll handle this part.”

“We’re right behind you,” Xena said to them with a nod.

Well, it’s a good a plan as any. “Alright, let’s go!”

Cobalt lit his horn and constructed a shield ahead of us. When Altrix’s horn brightened further, the shield took on a weird pulsating mix of blue and green as their magics intermingled. When the shield was sufficiently charged, he gave us a nod and immediately began to move back down the stairs. We followed behind him, and I swapped my pistol out for my larger assault rifle as we turned the corner and bullets began to pepper the barrier. The gunfire caused both Cobalt and Altrix to flinch, but it held as we ran down the final few steps and charged right into the group!

Our impromptu battering ram worked, and we crashed right through the group and into the hallway beyond.

Of course, there were several more raiders out there that all turned towards us as soon as we arrived in our suitably dramatic fashion. They all brought up their cobbled together pipe weaponry and unleased into the shield, the constant onslaught visibly causing more strain on our two casters as the shield’s strength weakened.

Too bad they’d all made the mistake of unloading each of their clips into it at once.

The moment there was a lull in the gunfire, Cobalt took the opportunity to let the shield drop and let us do our work. I turned to face the raiders down the left of the corridor, hopping quickly into S.A.T.S. and targeting a burst into as many as I could. I engaged the spell, and my rifle came up and let loose into each raider in quick succession.

One unicorn raider was left standing and uninjured and, while I’d been busy, he’d finished reloading a small revolver and quickly raised it and fired a panicked shot.

I heard a shout from behind me, and I instantly aimed towards the raider and finished the rest of my clip off. With the last raider on my end finished off, I turned back to the others to see what the hell was going on. The raiders at the other side of the corridor were retreating back down that way, firing the odd shot as Cobalt raised smaller barriers to stop their passage. Several of their buddies were scatted dead along the floor, probably killed by Xena’s sniper rifle. The raiders we’d stumbled over in our charge had been finished off by Moon Blossom, but now she…

Oh fuck.

Moon Blossom was on the ground, Altrix at her side with a look of panic on her face as she cradled a limp but lightly groaning Moon Blossom. Where her left ear used to be was now a large gash across her head where the raider’s bullet had made its mark.

“Keep an eye out!” I shouted at Cobalt and Xena as I rushed over to the others and crouched down beside my hurt friend. Fuck, that was a lot of blood pouring down the side of her face!

And that was an even bigger hole. Was… was that her skull!?

“This is bad!” Altrix whimpered, taking hold of one of her medical boxes and flinging it open. “Her ear is severed, and the bullet took away a lot of flesh and even grazed her skull. A healing potion won’t heal this level of trauma.”

“What do you mean? It’d heal her flesh!”

“And leave a dent in her head where the bullet trailed along, that risks brain damage,” Altrix said, levitating out a strange bottle with several tubes sticking out of it. “Not to mention her ear. I was hoping not to use this, given the inherent risk and our limited supply. But I have no choice.”

Altrix took one of the tubes and injected it into Moon Blossom. The contents began to funnel from the bottle and into the pegasus, and… What. Just… what. I could hardly contain my disbelief as right there, before my eyes, Moon Blossom’s skull and flesh began to form back into place before an entirely new ear began to grow from the side of her head! It was like Altrix had just reversed time or something!

“Ugh…” Moon Blossom groaned as she began to regain consciousness. “Shit. No fair…”

“How…?” I looked at Altrix for some kind of explanation. Did we have this stuff the whole time?

“Hyrda,” she explained. “We had a small stock in the stable, that was one of two bottles I have. It was rare before the end of the war, I doubt we’ll find more anytime soon.”

“But… what is it?”

“Pretty much a hyper healing potion,” Cobalt spoke up. “Very few exist nowadays, though it’s not impossible to produce if you happen to have a hydra on hoof.”

A hydra… It’s made from something from an actual hydra…?

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the process of that.

“But it also comes with certain risks,” Altrix added. “Moon Blossom?”

“Uh, yeah…?” she replied as she slowly sat up, experimentally twitching her new ear. Which was pretty weird, seeing as her old one was still on the floor.

“I want you to come with me if you feel any major discomfort around the injected area. And especially if you feel any unusual lumps, hydra use comes with a risk of tumour growth due to accelerated cell reproduction rates.”

“Oh, great…” she murmured. “But, uh… Thanks, Doc. That was a bit close.”

She blushed. “I… had to help. But please be careful, I only have one more of those.”

“I’m still seeing some red bars,” I told the others, breathing a sigh of relief as to Moon Blossom’s practically miracle recovery and standing up. “Let’s go before the few who got away return with more bloodthirsty psychopaths waiting to defile our corpses.”

“No arguments from me,” Cobalt said, looking quite exhausted. “I’m not doing another shield like that for a while.”

We helped Moon Blossom get back to her hooves, though she was quickly insisting that she was fine and ready to kick the ass of whatever raider next crossed our path. And she… actually looked it. Aside from some drying blood clinging to her mane, she looked as if she never been wounded at all.

We moved back through the corridor, and I made sure to warily watch my E.F.S. the whole time. There were still plenty more around, but even if we could probably take out yet another group of poorly equipped raiders, I was not keen on doing so after the near miss we’d just had.

We moved past the corridor and into some kind of lounge area filled with tables and chairs. The room had several windows to the outside, but for once all of them seemed to be relatively intact.

Time to change that.

I levitated up the nearest chair and propelled it into one of the windows. It smashed outwards instantly, and with the new hole we were able to hop out of the room and into the street beyond.

“Well, we’re on the other side,” Cobalt stated, glancing towards the rubble pile that had been blocking our way. “No more shortcuts, please.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Tell that to the city, Cobalt.”

“You know what? Fuck this city.”

“We have barely begun,” Xena pointed out. “Come, we are close to the centre.”

After leaving the apartment building, we had proceeded down another few blocks towards the centre. We had no more trouble from the raiders we’d encountered, or any other trouble of any kind thankfully. It wasn’t a complete straight shot, as to Cobalt’s indignation we ended up facing yet another blockage shortly after the last. This time it was a collapsed overpassed that stopped us in our tracks.

Fortunately, a side street through a couple of buildings put as back on track and allowed us to continue.

It also led us to something else…

“Crossroads ahead,” I read aloud the makeshift wooden sign that had been placed in the middle of the street. “What the hell is that?”

“It might be a local town,” Cobalt suggested. “Look, there’s another sign just up ahead.”

We moved past the first sign and trotted up to the second. It was set up much like the first, though this time had an arrow pointing us down another side street.

“Traders welcome. Raiders fuck off,” I recited. “Well, seems that way to me. We wanting to stop there?”

“I think a bed to sleep on tonight would not go amiss,” Xena said. “And some trade will not hurt.”

I guess it wouldn’t. It’d also be a good time to do up our barding and weaponry, they’d been through the mill since the last time they’d been patched up.

“What would we buy? We’re good for ammunition, healing supplies and food,” Cobalt stated. “And it would mean staying in this city.”

“They could have more hydra?” Moon Blossom suggested.

“I doubt they’d part with it if they do.”

“Come on, Cobalt. A top off could never hurt, they might even have some goodies you’d find interesting,” I said to the stallion. “And your combat armour still has a few dents in it.”

“I see your point,” he responded, glancing down at the damage from that griffon’s minigun back at Buckingham. “Yes, I suppose it could use a bit of repair work. Alright, fine.”

“Any more objections to going to this place?” I asked around, and I got none. “Alright, to Crossroads it is.”

We diverted form our original course and headed off down the side street the arrow pointed to. The road led us out onto another large street that, on looking down it, seemed to lead to a large four-way intersection. A large tramline sat idly over our heads, and there were signs for the local station just up ahead and past the intersection.

But there on the intersection, nestled protectively between several buildings, looked to be some kind of community surrounded by a scrap wall. Another sign for Crossroads lay a little ways in front of it, an arrow pointing directly to the settlement. Ahead of us was also a large gate in the wall in front of which sat a wooden guard post with a pony standing at it. Glancing up at the buildings either side, I also saw wooden platforms built out of blown out windows into makeshift sniper towers. Several automated turrets were also dotted around, probably cobbled together from scavenged security systems in and around the city.

Fortunately, all their bars on my E.F.S. remained green for the time being.

“Well, I think we found it,” I idly remarked as all the guards around the place saw us arrive. They all turned, weapons raised but their bars still green.

I couldn’t really blame them for being cautious.

“Weapons holstered,” I told the others. “Let’s head up, nice and slow.”

We started to move up towards the gate, trying to act as nonthreatening as we could. The snipers seemed to relax a little when they saw we weren’t here to start a fight, at least as far as they were aware. But the gate guard seemed to remain on alert as we walked all the way up to his post.

“Hold it there,” he said, and we did as we were told. He was a unicorn, a hunting rifle held in his aura with his hide being protected by leather barding that looked a little lighter than my own. “What’s your business in Crossroads? You don’t seem to have a brahmin caravan with ya.”

“Just passing through,” I said to the guard. “And maybe hoping for a bed for the night. You do have an inn, right?”

“Aye, ol’ Rosie will see you if that’s what you require,” he remarked, looking over us one by one. “Whew, you all look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

“We ran into some raiders back a ways. Decent sized group.”

“In some old apartment buildings?” Oh, so he was aware of them. “You take them out?”

“A good few,” Cobalt answered.

He lowered his gun. “Well, that’s good to hear. A dent in their numbers means less of our traders get hit in and out of the city. Bad folk, those raiders.”

He hummed, his eyes resting on Xena. That got me to narrow my eyes a little, I was all too aware of certain prejudices around Equestria.

“The zebra with you?” he asked, and I felt my coat bristle as my teeth gritted. Xena didn’t seem overly bothered though, but I was!

“Yes. She’s ‘with’ me,” I said warningly back to the pony.

“Now now, no need to get all riled. Just a group of zebra moved into Vanhoover recently and been tangling with the Steel Rangers,” he explained. “So long as ya’ll cause no trouble you’ll see none from me.”

"I'm surprised you're not bothered about the changeling," Moon Blossom joked, ignoring the glare from Xena as a result.

"Changeling, huh? Well, that’s not my concern," the guard dismissed with only a quick glance at Altrix. "Besides, she ain't the only weird unicorn thing in town. You should talk to the sheriff."

I frowned. "What's with the sheriff?"

"He's a kirin, that's what."

A what?

“Kirin?” Cobalt reacted in surprise. “I… didn’t know they still existed.”

Trust Cobalt to know about the elusive race the rest of us appeared to be drawing blanks on.

“I heard about them, I think,” Moon Blossom said, and I guess I stand corrected. “We hit a… uh, what I mean to say is that we met some nice caravan ponies a while back who spoke about kirin like they were mythical beasts that would deliver them salvation. Half-dragon and half pony or something.”

“Yes, to the latter at least. A big no to the former,” Cobalt replied. “I don’t know much, just that they were a species from before the war. No idea what was with them beyond that, aside from the fact that they’re not around anymore.”

I suppose some ponies just like to worship what they can’t see. Like those nuts who worship radiation you occasionally run into.

“Well, this one is,” the guard pointed out. “I never asked him about any of that business, but that’s where you go if you wanna ask questions. Just don’t blame me if you manage to piss him off.”

“Pissing off the sheriff, because that’s what we want to do…” I deadpanned. “So, we can go in?”

“Just keep your weapons holstered and your manners friendly. Then yeah, knock yourselves out.”

I gave the guard a nod, then shared a glance with my friends before we walked around the guard post and headed on inside the gate. The first thing I noted when inside was that the whole intersection was actually a roundabout, and right in the centre was a statue of three soldiers in various poses. The entire town circled around that statue, and the circular patch of dead grass it was bordered by held several stands that had ponies behind them. The local shops I would imagine. The buildings all lined the outer wall, circling around the roundabout all with their front entrances facing it. The cracked road between the scrap metal buildings and the central market was littered with ponies going about their days, intermingling among metal bins containing warming fires.

To the right of the gate was a building with a sign that marked it as the inn, the ‘Three Soldiers Inn’ to be precise. To the left was a hollow structure that had a couple of brahmin feeding and idling about. I wasn’t sure what the rest of the buildings were, but several of them were probably used as simple housing for the residents. At the other end of town, however, I could see a building flanked by a few more turrets that was marked as the sheriffs office. I guess this kirin guy would be found in there.

Actually, on thinking about it… Yeah, if anyone was going to know the ins and outs of the local area it would probably be the sheriff. Perhaps we would be paying him a visit after all…

But if I was going to be completely honest, at that moment it was just nice to be back in a friendly town again. It may be far from civilised, but at least these parts of Equestria had more than slavers and raiders in it.

“So, game plan?” Moon Blossom asked.

Hm, there was a couple things to do… “Moon Blossom, take Altrix and give the place a scout. Check prices at the inn, what’s for sale, all that stuff. The rest of us will pay the sheriff a visit, and we'll all meet at the inn’s entrance when we're done.”

“And then we can frequent the bar inside!” Moon Blossom declared, before nodding for Altrix to follow her. “Come on, let’s check out the beds first.”

As they diverted towards the inn, the rest of us started to walk through town towards the sheriff’s office. As we passed by the various ponies of the town, I made sure to get a glancing look at the stalls around the statue. I noticed one mare selling food and drink, another seemed to be selling purely bats and balls for some reason… And one stallion had a stand filled with several guns, and a griffon stood at it testing out the grip on a 10mm pistol. I guess it’d been modified by the shopkeeper to be more suited for griffon talons than the mouth of a pony.

Still, we bypassed all of that. I heard the subtle clanking of the insides of the turrets as we approached the sheriff’s office. Stepping inside, we were in a large room that held three cells in one corner, a rack of locked up weapons in another and the third being home to an old office desk behind which sat the craziest looking unicorn I’d ever seen!

The pony was leaning back in his chair and wearing a duster that looked like it had leather barding beneath it, though it was hard to tell beneath the long garments on top. His coat was a deep blue, and he had a pale brown mane that wrapped around his head almost akin to a manticore’s. And from his head sprouted a long red and interestingly branched horn that honestly made me feel a little self-conscious about my own.

And yes, judging from the scales on the top of his snout leading up to his horn, he was indeed part dragon.

That’s more than a little terrifying.

The kirin glanced up on our entrance, and his blue eyes pieced directly into my own.

“So, uh…” I began dumbly. Thanks, brain. “You’re the sheriff, right?”

He remained silent, his head tilting almost questioningly.

“Uh…” Was this getting awkward, or was it just me? “I’m Scrap Heap. This is Stripe and Cobalt. Hi…”

Silence.

“…Is this a bad time? I mean, we can just go.”

He just stared at us, and I was ready to back of the door. But then…

“…Three heavily armed strangers walk in through my door, I gotta get a feel for them. I take it you’re not here to start any trouble in my town?” he asked in a low, warning voice. “It’d be a right shame to have to fuckin’ end ya’ll.”

“We are not here to cause trouble, that I can promise,” Xena piped in. “We are simply resupplying and resting, and then we shall depart further into the city.”

“Is that so…?” he asked, glancing us over once again. “Well, in that case…”

In that case what? What was he- Annnnd now he’s suddenly not in his chair but fucking muzzle to muzzle with me! What the hay!?

“It’s a pleasure to meet with ya’ll, it’s always so great to have new ponies to speak to!” he said, taking hold of my hoof and shaking it like there was an earthquake! He then continued to introduce himself as we moved onto the others. “I’m Spring Haze, Sheriff of Crossroads. Howdy!”

“Uh, a pleasure…” Cobalt replied with a small frown.

“Now, what can I do you for?” he asked finally releasing from his frantic hoofshakes and returning to his desk. “You don’t look like folks who are here for bounty work, and the cells are thankfully empty right now. You here to chat? Sing? Do poetry? Whatever you need, I’m happy to comply!”

“Ah, so you enjoy social activity,” Xena noted.

“Enjoy? Why, what’s the point of anything if you don’t have other ponies to do it with?”

He’s a… bubbly one. Not what I expected. At all.

“We actually came in to ask you a few questions about Vanhoover itself,” Cobalt asked. “And… a few other things I personally might be interested in knowing, if not my friends here.”

“Well, ask away,” the Sheriff urged, leaning back in his chair again. “I’m an open book. Or a page of lyrics! Feel free to make this as longwinded as you like, singing included!”

“Yeah. No,” he deadpanned back.

“We just wanted to ask about the local MAS hub, and what we might expect,” I informed him.

He frowned, sitting forwards in his chair again. “The hub? Now, why do you want to go there?”

“We need an access code from Twilight Sparkle’s office to get inside a slaver hideout and prevent them from taking some friends of ours,” Xena replied honestly before any of us could even utter a word.

“Oh, I see,” he muttered with a blink. “Well then… Getting in isn’t exactly gonna be easy for ya’ll.”

“Why not?” I asked, wondering why I as even surprised that this guy accepted the explanation so readily.

“Try a small militia of military robots killing anything that steps in close.” Oh, yeah. That’ll be an issue. “Steel Rangers have been trying to get in as of late, but they’ve been having a hell of a time doing it.”

“Right, thanks for the information…” I muttered, suddenly a lot more concerned than I had been. Maybe it was a good thing we hadn’t landed the Sky Bandit on the building after all.

“My pleasure. Anything else?”

“Just a small issue…” Cobalt said as he stepped forward. “No offence, but how do you exist?”

“Well, isn’t that a philosophical question. Why do we exist? Is it a cosmic coincidence, are we trailing across the cosmos like a leaf on the wi-”

“I mean you,” Cobalt interrupted with a facehoof. “Kirin. Word is that your kind are extinct.”

“Oh…” He chuckled sheepishly. “To be honest, I don’t rightfully know myself.”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

“You are mighty curious about kirin, ain’t ya?”

“It’s his job,” I supplemented. “He’s into information and such.”

“Ah, I see… Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know any other kirin besides myself, and I’ve got more than a little pony blood in me. My mother was kirin, my father was an earth pony. Been like that for generations.”

I guess kirin features were just a dominant gene or something…

“Still, Ma did tell stories,” he continued. She said that all kirin above ground died when the bombs hit, the rest of us survived in Stable 76. She said the shelter was placed in our old home forest bordering the Applossian Desert.”

“Stable 76… that one isn’t in Tenpony’s database,” Cobalt mused.

“Well, I can tell you a bit. It opened twenty-five years after the bombs, all the kirin and ponies inside were released and wandered off into the forest, Equestria or to other countries. I come from ones who made it to Vanhoover.”

“And you haven't had contact with your people since?” Xena enquired, seemingly interested by his tale.

“Well, word goes that all kirin around our original home and Appleoosa died out since back then. No idea if others are still kicking, maybe a couple wander the wastes. I mean, I hope we have something going elsewhere in the world. But I can’t tell you any of that, I’m all there is here.”

“Interesting…” Cobalt muttered. “Well, this is something to add to our historical records when we get back. I’ll have to see about getting an entry for this ‘Stable 76’.”

“You’re from Tenpony then?” he asked Cobalt, getting a nod. “Well, if ya’ll ever meet another kirin out there, feel free to give me a call.”

“Sheriff Spring Haze!” a pony suddenly shouted as he barged into the building. “Another sighting, Sheriff.”

“Of all the…” Spring Haze muttered beneath his breath, before hopping up from his chair and walking past us to the pony. “Sorry to cut this short, ever since the Rangers and these zebra starting fighting, we’ve had a couple of skirmishes getting awfully close to town. I gotta make sure they know this area is not for their little wargame.”

“Need any help?” I asked without really even thinking.

“Thank you kindly for the offer, but I can handle it for the time being,” he replied, his horn lighting with a cyan aura and drawing a .44 magnum pistol from beneath his trench coat. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, you seem like good folks. See you around!”

And with that, Sheriff Spring Haze and the town guard galloped out of the building and from our view.

“Well,” I started. “He was… interesting.”

“And informative,” Cobalt added. “If there’s one good thing about all of this business, I have a lot of data to fill in when I eventually return to Tenpony Tower.”

“Well, we should-”

“WAIT!” Spring Haze shouted as he suddenly popped back through the door. What was with this pony!? “Are you the Scavenger? The one from the radio?”

Uh… So, he heard those, huh? “I mean… yes?”

“Oh! Nice job with those raiders and such. Anyway, I gotta go!”

And then he was gone again.

Brilliant.

Footnote: Max Level

34 - Your Troubles Shall Follow

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Chapter Thirty-Four: Your Troubles Shall Follow

“You can run, but you can’t hide.”

The sun was starting to go down beyond the cloud cover, and already darkness had all but crept in and overtaken Vanhoover. I was sitting outside of the Three Soldiers Inn, the proprietor of which was a female griffon by the name of Ruby. I’d bought from her an old bottle of Sweet Apple Acres branded cider and was now gently sipping from it every now and then. The others were all with me… with the exception of Altrix. The changeling had already retreated up to our rented beds, declining any and all invitation to join us.

The place had a couple of rooms upstairs for rent. There were two rentable private rooms, as well as a third one that was exclusively for Ruby’s use. There was also a larger room that was packed with salvaged bunk beds that were cheaper to purchase than a room all for yourself. Mostly because you were buying the bed specifically and would be sleeping with any other patrons.

Moon Blossom had made sure to book us all one of latter since there were far too many of us for a single room. We’d all chipped in to pay for it when we’d regrouped, and it wasn’t so bad once we all had donated our own share of caps. As I said, the bunks were far cheaper than the rooms.

Besides, it was only for one night. In the morning we would be heading out again towards the hub, and from there the plan was that we’d either make straight for the Sky Bandit or resupply back here again. Depending on how rough getting past the hub’s security was going to be, and it was going to be rough if Spring Haze’s description was anything to go by.

But right now, sitting calmly outside of the inn as the sun set, there was a far different concern on our minds.

“She’s still in a bad way. You all know that, right?” Moon Blossom said in reference to the changeling upstairs. “No way she’d have taken an early nap if she wasn’t.”

Part of me wanted to argue that she was just tired, but… Well, Moon Blossom was right. Altrix was still heavily shaken from Buckingham. She might not be shouting about how useless she is anymore, but she just seemed… depressed.

“I agree,” Xena stated. “Every step she takes betrays her sadness. Before it was hope and kindness, and now…”

Ugh, way to make me feel even guiltier, guys…

“I don’t think her mother would be happy with us if she came back like that,” Moon Blossom said. “And I do not wanna see if she’s any good with that gun of hers. I mean, I can’t exactly squash my friends parent.”

“Perhaps you will have to accept the bullet,” Cobalt sarcastically remarked.

“Eh, let’s not let it come to that, yeah? I like my lack of holes.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked them all, taking a larger swig of my cider. Oh, that helps calm the nerves… “Last couple times I tried to talk to her she first got angry with me and then started beating herself up about being unable to ‘cure the Equestrian Wasteland’.”

“I don’t think anyone can do that. Not by themselves,” Cobalt mused, taking a long look into the liquid within his own bottle.

Hm, not by themselves…

I took one last almighty swing from the bottle before throwing it to one side. And… woah, that cider was surprisingly strong stuff. Still, I was fine for the moment and, more importantly, I had a plan.

“You’re right, she can’t do shit about this place by herself.”

Cobalt raised an eyebrow. “And how is admitting it meant to make her feel better?”

“Because she’s not alone,” I shot back. “Come on, Cobalt. I thought you were meant to be the smart pony in our group!”

“I guess friendship still confuses me somewhat.” He sighed, finishing his own bottle and standing up. “But I’ll bite. What’s the plan here?”

“I too would like to know,” Xena added in. “It had better be good. It would not be wise to take Altrix to the hub in her current state of mind.”

“As I said, whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she rejected the help,” I began, hoping to Celestia, Luna and whatever other deity was out there that this would work. “That failed. But maybe we should all try at once, together. You know, show her that we’ve all got her back?”

“You might end up crowding and overwhelming her,” Cobalt rebuked.

“It could,” Xena agreed. “But it equally may not. It’s a good a plan as any… if we are careful in our words.”

“Heck, I’m in,” Moon Blossom said with a shrug. “I was hoping teaching her to fly that Sky Bandit would help her a bit. But since that’s a bust, I’ll go for this instead.”

I saw Xena shoot Moon Blossom a smirk. “Yes, I had noticed your increased tenderness towards her. The raider has truly found her heart.”

“Ah, shaddup.”

Pfft. You know, I’d never imagined Moon Blossom looking downright adorable, but… The puffed-up cheeks and heavy blush were certainly doing it!

I think she caught my grin. “Keep smiling that that, buddy, and I’ll carve it permanently into your face.”

Annnnd the moment is gone.

“Alright,” I said to the others. “Finish your drinks, let’s get up there.”

They were all but done anyway and, in quick succession, we turned back to the inn and trotted our way through the front entrance. There were several ponies dotted around the tables sitting in front of the main bar where Ruby was cleaning a glass with a rag, all of the patrons looking like they’d been consuming more than one or two drinks. The stairs leading upwards were behind the bar so that only patrons who’d paid for the beds could be allowed upstairs by the griffon guarding the way.

Given the double-barrelled shotgun displayed above the bar, and the fact that Ruby was a very… tough-looking griffon, I didn’t want to imagine what happened to anypony looking for a free nap to sleep off their drunkenness. The scars covering her grey body told a story in of themselves.

“You heading up?” Ruby asked us as we approached, setting down the glass the tossing the rag onto another nearby counter. “Or you ordering another drink.”

“I think you’ve already got your claws full,” I said to her, gesturing to the rest of her patrons.

She shrugged. “Just a usual night, I’m sure I’ll be slinging half this lot out onto their faces by closing time. So, what’ll it be?”

“Heading up.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you. Just don’t disturb the others, I can’t be fucked to deal with any complaints.”

I gave her a nod, slipping behind the bar and heading up the stairs with my friends following close behind. Up top was a very simple corridor lit by a couple of wall-mounted candles, three doors lining the right that led into the private rooms while a single door was on the left that led into the shared bunks.

Heading inside, only two other occupants were presently within the bunk room. To the far left of the back wall was a random blue stallion who looked dead to the world on his mattress, while laying on a bottom bunk in the middle of the room was Altrix.

She was just lying on her back, her eyes wide open and staring at the bottom of the top bunk above her.

We all quietly approached the bed, though the movement was enough to get her to blink and look in our direction.

“Hey, Altrix,” I started off. “Can’t sleep?”

She looked back up. “I’m fine.”

Xena sighed, moving forwards and sitting on the edge of the bed. “No, you are not. You haven’t been fine ever since the incident in Buckingham.”

She turned away from us. “I just want to sleep. You should too, rest is important for your health after all.”

“Always with the health advise, hm?” Cobalt noted.

“At least I can do that right.”

“Hey, come on, kid,” Moon Blossom stated. “Leave that brooding shit to ponies who deserve it. And I’ve done a lot of stuff that’s worth brooding over.”

“But you’re better than that,” Altrix muttered. “You’re all so strong, do you realise that? You are all so determined to save us, even though you should probably just let us be. I was supposed to help, but I can’t. I can’t do anything for this dumb place, I can’t do what you do. I just… can’t.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” I dismissed, getting her to roll over and give me a wide-eyed look.

“W-what?”

“That’s garbage and you know it,” I said sternly to the changeling. Time to get serious on this. “I don’t know what we would have done without you, Altrix. You’ve saved our bacon more than once.”

“How? I can’t shoot people, I just… I killed him! That griffon… I can’t get his face out of my head!”

“You don’t have to kill to help us, Altrix,” Xena said softly. “And there is no shame in feeling guilty. Quite the opposite, it shows how good a person you are.”

“B-but…”

“You replaced that raider and stopped the others from finding us,” I listed off.

“You saved me when my old ‘buddies’ had me tied up,” Moon Blossom supplemented.

“You treated me when that poison almost ended my life,” Xena added.

“You gave me a gold star,” Cobalt said with a shrug.

Seriously? Well, at least it got a chuckle from Altrix.

“You were a very brave pony, Cobalt,” she giggled.

“Very brave,” I deadpanned. But I digress… “The fact is, you saved my life with what you did. We’ve all saved each other at some point or another. Because, Altrix, you’re right. You can’t cure the Equestrian Wasteland. But maybe we can. Or at least make it better than it was. Maybe for changelings alone. Maybe for ponies too. But we can and will stop Kronos, together. And fact is…”

I sighed, hoping that the simple truth would work.

“…we can’t do it without you.”

Altrix was silent, looking around at us all one by one with her giant blue orbs holding an untold number of emotions. But then, right in the corners of both, I saw small glistening tears begin to fall.

She sniffed. “I… I love you guys!”

Her horn lit up, and the next thing I knew we’d all be dragged forward and pushed right into an impromptu group hug.

And for once, not a single one of us protested.

But it could only last so long, and eventually, the changeling saw fit to release us amidst a few final tears and a small hiccup that resulted from them.

“I… don’t think I can ever forget what happened,” she admitted. “But… I’m not going anywhere. I never was. I want to help you, you’re my friends. And… and everyone back home is counting on me too. Oh, I’d hate to let them down.”

“We won’t,” Xena assured. “Only a few final steps, and then we can return to them.”

I lay awake on my bunk. I was in the one opposite of Altrix’s, Moon Blossom having taken the top bunk above the changeling. Cobalt was above me, and to my right was Xena, all of whom were sound asleep.

All but me.

I was pretty sure it was morning by now, and a check of my PipBuck’s clock confirmed that. Almost two in the morning.

I think I might have snagged an hour or two earlier, but now I was restless. I guess I just had a lot on my mind, not surprising given everything that had happened.

Altrix was mostly fine now, though I doubted she’d ever be quite as innocent as she’d been when we met. More than that, I felt closer to my friends than ever. In little more than a month, I’d accumulated a small group of ponies, and a changeling, who meant more to me than any cap in the world.

So why did I feel so uneasy?

Was it the continuing threat of Kronos and the larger figures behind the crazy griffon? Red Eye? Goddess? What about the Remnant, the zebras still following us. Following Xena.

Maybe it was a mix of all. The continuing pressure of having Equestria’s fate in my hooves, not to mention the fates of my friends.

Ugh, now I was psychoanalysing myself.

I lit my horn, reaching for the saddlebags tucked under my bed. I knew what I was looking for, and in short order I had it floating out from the bag and up towards me. I settled it down gently, taking it between my hooves as I let my magic aura die out.

Twilight Sparkle. The small statuette I’d found back at the factory.

Was the pressure I felt the same kind she went through? She and her friends, the Elements of Harmony. Was protecting them why she did… any of it? Dealing with Chrysalis? Working on alicorns and Changeling Queens?

What would I do to save them?

“Scrap…?” I heard Xena’s voice, and glancing to my right showed that my marefriend was awake and giving me a look of concern. “What is wrong?”

I sighed, diverting my gaze back to Twilight. “Just… thinking.”

I saw her slip from her own bed and quietly walk up next to mine, leaning against it and giving the statuette an inquisitive look.

“Does the Ministry Mare have much to say?”

“So much and all too little,” I muttered. “But… I guess it reminds me what I am fighting for.”

“And that is?”

“You,” I answered. “Our friends. Keeping us safe and together. And making damn well sure that Kronos can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Good answer,” she said, and I smiled a little as I felt her give me a light nuzzle on the cheek. “It is a good reminder. I would keep that little pony close.”

I hummed, looking into Twilight’s studious eyes. She looked… happy. A far cry from the pony I’d seen in that memory orb. Better times.

I knew, looking at that mare, that I’d die for my friends. Just like she had.

“What time is it?” Xena asked. “It must be early still.”

“It is,” I said, showing her my PipBuck’s status screen.

“We should try for at least a few more hours of rest,” she noted. “It would-”

Her ear twitched, as did mine, at a nearby ‘pop’. And then there was another. And another.

Then I saw the red bar on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

And all hell broke loose.

A loud explosion shook the entire building, knocking dust into the air as I jumped from my bed right as everyone else was jolted awake by the commotion! I grabbed my bags and guns, gathering everything I needed as Xena instinctively did the same. I saw the others looking around in confusion, and yet more and more red bars continued to appear all around us.

“The town is under attack!”

My shout kicked the others into gear, and they all dropped down to grab their things. The other stallion in the room even awoke and started scrambling for his own weapons. Altrix grabbed her medical supplies and Moon Blossom her knife. Cobalt, being the battle mage that he is, was already ready to go.

We bolted from the room, making our way downstairs and back out into the now empty bar. Down here the sounds of fighting were louder, the thundering sound of firing turrets moving on with shouts and screams from those outside.

We burst through the door in time to see a Molotov fly over the wall and burst on the ground, barely missing several of Spring Haze’s guards as they stormed towards the main gate.

“Hey, what’s going on out there?” Cobalt shouted at one of the ponies as they passed.

“No clue!” they shouted back before vanishing through the gate.

“We following them?” Moon Blossom shouted out in question.

“No shit!” I aptly responded, drawing my pistol as I galloped straight for the main gate and emerged outside the walls.

The first thing I saw was Spring Haze taking cover behind the guard post, reloading his magnum before poking over his head over and continuing to fire. Several other armoured ponies were giving supporting fire around him, the turrets firing off down the streets while the snipers set up along the buildings attempted to pick off whoever was attacking Crossroads.

And I couldn’t quite see who it was, only the occasional flash of a gun down the other end of the pitch-black street.

“What’s happening?” I asked the Sheriff as I ducked down with him, the others hanging back by the gate as I saw Stripe raise her rifle and begin scanning the area down her scope.

“Sorry to wake you!” the kirin remarked. “But these zebra bastards decided to ignore the little warning I gave them earlier today... Or yesterday. It is morning, right?”

“ZEBRA!?” I think that exclamation from Xena and myself was in perfect sync there.

A bullet hit one of the town guards, and instantly flames burst forth and consumed his whole body as he dropped and rolled with screams of pain.

“Damn, they have those zebra fire rifle things,” Spring Haze cursed as some ponies ran to help put the injured and heavily burnt guard out and get him some medical attention, Altrix included. “But we have them pinned, there’s no way they’re getting up that street in one piece.”

As if the universe was just enticed by his confidence, and humungous CRASH caught our attention from inside the town. Turning to look through the gates, we saw the western side of the wall completely cave in as members of the Zebra Remnant began to pour through, simultaneous with the shimmers of stealth cloaks disengaging!

“What the!?” the Sheriff exclaimed in shock.

“They must have brought some explosives, maybe C4!” Cobalt shouted, lighting his horn in readiness.

But already the Remnant were firing on anypony who had emerged from their homes to see what the commotion was about, several giving shouts of shock as either they or their loved ones were gunned down before they could retreat back into the buildings they’d emerged from.

“Those…” I saw Spring Haze’s eye twitch, and… was that a flicker of purple fire along his mane? “Everypony, you defend this gate. Scavenger, you and your friends are with me! It’s time to see if DJ Pon-3 was on the mark about you!”

“Uh, right! We’re with you!”

“Scrapper and Company, at your service!” Moon Blossom remarked.

Fuck, when was the last time I got called ‘Scrapper’?

Ugh, forget that! Saving the town, right!

With Spring Haze’s ponies keeping the gate secured, and Altrix seemingly staying to tend to the mortally wounded pony, the rest of us accompanied the Sheriff quickly back into town as I swapped my pistol our for my assault rifle and engaged into S.A.T.S.!

About six stealth zebra had appeared, another dozen or so were pouring in through the gap they’d made in the wall. One was bringing a rifle up towards a couple of foals who’d been caught out when the fighting inside had started, I targeted that one first. I then selected two of the closest zebra and released the pain!

In quick succession, I pumped lead into the targeted three before running forwards and rolling behind one of the stands around the statue for cover. I spotted the foals make it into a nearby home as Spring Haze jumped to stand between them and any other zebra, a couple of bullets biting into his barding but otherwise not making the kirin flinch in the slightest.

The rest of the zebra weren’t about to stand out in the open, however, and all took positions from which they could receive some cover and continue to fire. One made the mistake of getting too close to the Sheriff’s Office and earning the wrath of the automated turrets protecting it, but the other Remnant weren’t so stupid.

My friends all ran to get into some cover of their own, Cobalt erecting a small shield around the Sheriff to help him out of the line of fire after the foals had made it to safety, all while ignoring a bullet hitting into the shoulder of his combat armour. But just as Xena jumped down next to me, I heard one of the zebras give a victorious shout.

“She’s here! The traitor is here, just like Xaro said!”

I saw Xena freeze, her eyes widening and her coat hairs standing on end. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but something gave me pause as her teeth clenched and she scrunched her eyes shut.

“They knew I was here. That’s why they’re attacking,” she said in a low growl. “Their spies must have tracked us through the city. Out of sight, unknown to us… And now he has come to kill me.”

“Who?” I asked carefully.”

“Xaro,” she answered. “That is my brother’s name.”

I didn’t even have time to process that my would-be brother in law was the one who sent these guys to kill us when the tell-tale clink of a grenade landing nearby reached my ears.

Almost out of pure instinct, memories of our escape from Our Town burning through my mind, I pushed out with my magic and sent the grenade hurtling safely away before it detonated. I then grabbed my rifle again and raised it over the stand, spotting a couple of Remnants firing in from the gap in the wall and proceeding to return the favour!

Xena wasn’t going to be one to waiting around either, and she moved up and onto her hind legs with an angry shout and her sniper rifle raised. Then, with that beautiful CRACK of her sniper, one of the red bars blinked out.

“Brothers! Show no fear in the face of the witch!” one of the closer zebras shouted. “No mercy, burn the traitor and all who would shelter her!”

“Burn!?” I heard Spring Haze shout before, for some really suicidal reason that was lost on me, he stepped out from behind one of the stalls he’d been using for cover! Man, that previously bubbly kirin looked pissed. “You don’t know the meaning of the word!”

You know, I don’t think I should be surprised at this stuff anymore. But I was anyway when Spring Haze gave an infuriated shout that heralded his eyes turning a bright white light and purple flames igniting all over his body… and yet somehow leaving his trench coat intact!

“I warned you!” he declared in a rather demonic voice before charging at the startled Remnant like a mad pony!

But the fact that the various zebra had been startled meant that there was a sudden lull in the gunfire, so who were we not to take advantage of that?

I opened fire again, seeing Moon Blossom give a completely delighted laugh and follow the Sheriff in charging their way into the zebra position. Cobalt fired a couple of mana bolts at the suddenly scattering zebra before doing his best to keep Moon Blossom and Spring Haze protected from the gunfire.

And I bet the zebra wished they had someone to protect them from Moon Blossom and Spring Haze.

The first of the remaining thirteen went when Spring Haze blew his brains out with a round from his revolver, before leaping onto a second and consuming him in the purple flames that were swirling angrily around his body!

CRACK.

The third met their end from Xena’s rifle, a fourth scrambling back to avoid my gunfire only to run right into a Moon Blossom and her combat knife.

Nine bars remained.

All concept of cover shattered, the Remnant all ran forward and spread out throughout the town. I lost sight of Moon Blossom and Spring Haze as one rounded by us and raised his rifle, making me grab Xena by the mane and drag her out of the way as several bullets bit into the stand and set it on fire!

I do not want to get hit by that thing!

I wildly sprayed back at the zebra thankfully biting into the legionnaire and dropping him to the ground, but not quite killing him as I had to note.

It didn’t matter for the moment, we had to move back as the other zebra all tried to swarm us!

We moved back to the inn, jumping over and ducking behind a scrap fence that bordered the porch. Taking a glance over, I saw a couple of Spring Haze’s guards turn to take a look back in the town as a zebra rolled in near them.

One of the guards took a bullet to the head, the second quickly firing back and finishing the zebra before ducking back outside.

Taking stock of my E.F.S., I saw another three bars nearby to Spring Haze and Moon Blossom had gone out, and a peak revealed two of them to be charred and unrecognisable.

Only five left.

Before I could choose my next target, I caught a shimmer in the air next to me with my heart sinking as I turned to see one of the stealth zebras reappear and stick the barrel to his rifle right to my head.

BANG.

The zebra went flying from the front of the inn, and I could only blink as I saw a deadpan griffon standing at the doorway with a smoking double-barrelled shotgun in her claws.

“No hounding my customers, assholes!” she spat.

Another bar blinked out, and a look over showed Cobalt’s horn sparking out as he jumped over another Remnant soldier he’d just killed with his combat magic. Of the remaining three, one seemed close to wetting himself due to the fact that he was standing in the middle of town with only a wooden stand for cover, while the other two sprinted towards the hole in the wall in full retreat.

I raised my rifle and fired after the latter two, but at this range my bullets just ricocheted around them as they fled, firing a couple of shots back as they went. Spring Haze fired after them to similar effect, while Xena got back onto her hind legs and took aim.

CRACK.

The bullet went through the leg of one of them, but in one fluid movement the second picked his ally up and onto his back, before vanishing into the darkness of the night.

That just left the continuing gunfire at the gate and the one remaining bar inside…

I hopped over the scrap fencing and started towards the zebra with my gun raised, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the burning Sheriff move to do the same. The remaining Remnant yelped as he saw us coming and, to my surprise, his bar turned green on my E.F.S. as he threw his own rifle aside.

“Surrender! I surrender!” she shouted in desperation. “I am beaten, I surrender!”

I stopped in my tracks, but Spring Haze continued forwards as the flames around him extinguished and he rounded the stall the zebra was hiding behind.

Then the zebra gave a shout of alarm as he was thrown over it.

He landed by my hooves, whimpering as he decided he’d better remain on the ground where he’d landed. It was the same stallion I’d shot earlier but failed to kill, it looked like his barding had saved his life. He also looked… young. Late teens I’d guess.

My friends all gathered together, seeming unhurt for the most part. Cobalt’s barding was dented where a couple of bullets had hit their mark, but nothing looked to have gone through. Spring Haze was also bleeding from a gash just to the side of his horn, but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. Even Ruby joined us as we circled around the cowering zebra, the griffon breaking open the shotgun and replacing the spent shells.

“So, we ending this fucker or what?” Ruby asked.

“Hang on a moment,” the Sheriff denied, bringing around his tail and blowing out a lingering flame on its tip. “I think this fella has a couple of questions to answer for us.”

Xena stepped forwards, meeting the zebra’s eyes as she glared down at him angrily. “Indeed. Such as where my brother is, and what he intends to do next.”

“I-I…. I don’t know…” the stallion lied rather badly.

Spring Haze rolled his eyes, trotting towards the zebra before yanking him up by the collar. “Listen here, buddy. I consider myself a sociable fella, but you’ve attacked my town and killed innocent ponies. Now that’s not something I can forgive, so you’d better start talking, or things are going to get a mighty bit worse for you.”

The zebra whined in fear.

“Platinum Plaza…” Spring Haze muttered as we all took a moment to breathe in the Sheriff’s Office. Altrix was back with us, the ponies of the town busy picking up the pieces and burying the dead. “That’s a mighty big trek through the ruins. These zebra must love to walk.”

The zebra in question was passed out in the jail cell with a few new bruises around his muzzle. The Remnant assaulting the gate had fallen back without taking any casualties, though had succeeded in killing one of the defending snipers as well as the pony I’d seen get his brains blown out. The injured stallion Altrix had been tending to was apparently going to live, though it’d taken our single remaining hydra bottle to save his life.

So no more get out of jail free cards for us, it was back to normal healing potions from here on out.

“Platinum Plaza…” Cobalt muttered. “Named after Equestria’s first ruler?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he replied. “But it’s an open space surrounded by a whole lotta buildings, not unlike Crossroads. Probably even more so, since it’s not on an intersection. A lot of cover, not a bad place for a camp if they’ve got the surrounding high-rises secured.”

“They have to be hurting after his,” Cobalt noted. “Between their battles with the Steel Rangers and today, I can’t imagine they’re in too good of a shape.”

“They are tenacious. Even if they are low on numbers, they will not rest. Such is the way of the fanatic,” Xena growled.

“She might be right,” Spring Haze agreed. “If they’re after ya’ll, they’ll try again.”

“And what about him?” Moon Blossom asked, nodding towards the zebra in the cell. “What are you going to do to that prick?”

“Hm…” the Sheriff hummed, regarding the zebra carefully. “Might put him to work fixing up the town, see if there’s any reformation for him. I must admit I did consider putting him down, but… he’s young. And given what you’ve told me about these Remnant folks, perhaps he didn’t really have a choice but to serve. I think I’ll try to give him that choice before heading down execution alley.”

“That’s merciful,” Xena noted.

“I try to be when I can. But… we haven’t had to face something like this in a while. Not even raiders usually get this brave.”

“Then we cannot let them continue to torment innocent ponies,” Xena announced. “I cannot. My brother leads this group, I am responsible for all the innocent ponies who died today. I must make it right.”

“What are you saying?” Altrix asked worriedly.

“I will confront him. Alone.”

She will WHAT!?

“Yeah, no,” Moon Blossom deadpanned. “If there’s a bunch of zebra to squash, let me squash them! Don’t be a glory hog.”

“This is no time for jokes!” she snapped back. “This is personal. I cannot, and will not, allow you to accompany me this time.”

“But we’re your friends!” Altrix protested.

“And Xaro is family.”

“And what am I?” I demanded to know, getting Xena’s eyes to widen. “I understand. This is personal to you, this fucking hurts. But what’s personal to you is damn well personal to me, and I am not letting you go on this thing alone.”

Xena closed her eyes. “Scrap…”

“I love you, Stripe,” I said, taking her hoof. “Please, don’t block me out here. I’m family too.”

She sighed, but she didn’t pull away. I could just see the conflict in her as she opened her eyes and stared into mine, my heart aching as they visibly glazed over with barely held back tears.

“Alright…” she said quietly. “You are right, of course. We will go, but the others will remain. I can’t have them taking this risk. Not for me.”

I nodded, feeling a burning sensation in my own eyes. “Alright. Done.”

“What do you expect us to do while you go on this family reunion?” Cobalt asked. “We still have a job to do, and I don’t want to tackle the hub without the both of you with us.”

“You can stay with me!” Spring Haze suddenly chirped up, back to his lively self like a switch had been flicked. “I have spare sleeping bags! Oh, I’ve never had a sleepover before! So exciting!”

“Or you could just have Ruby give us free beds until these two return with Xaro’s head,” Moon Blossom deadpanned.

Spring Haze’s ears wilted. “But… fine. I guess…”

“I’ll stay over,” Altrix stated, but then scuffed the ground sheepishly at our odd looks. “Um… I’ve never had a sleepover before either.”

“I’ll take it!” Spring Haze shouted. “This going to be awesome!”

This was the stallion who recently turned into a fire demon, everypony…

But even as Spring Haze starting exclaiming to Altrix all the things they’d do together, mostly talking by the sounds of it, Xena slowly and quietly turned from the group and made her way out of the Sheriff’s Office.

Not willing to leave her alone after all of this, I followed her out and into the soft drizzle that was now falling from the clouds. She stopped, just looking up into the shattered buildings around us as I saw a small tear slide down her cheek. With a joyless and numb feeling, I walked up beside my marefriend and gently rested my head against her own.

She leant into the gesture, just letting her silent tears fall with the rain.

Footnote: Max Level

Cobalt, Altrix and Moon Blossom have left the party and gone to Crossroads.

35 - Date with Destiny

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Chapter Thirty-Five: Date with Destiny

“These are demons I have to face alone.”

I glanced up at the front entrance of Crossroads. Repair efforts were already underway, and the dead had been buried by their friends and loved ones. The zebra prisoner was remaining in his cell for the time being, the rest of us preparing for Xena’s and my departure.

Our friends had insisted on seeing us off. As had the Sheriff.

“And you’re really sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Moon Blossom asked. “Again, that’s a lot of bad guys for just the two of you.”

“We’ve gotten better at it,” I pointed out, checking over my assault rifle for any damage or malfunction. “We’ll figure something out. Play it smart and safe.”

“Just don’t get killed. I don’t want to be stuck in this place.”

“What’s wrong with ‘this place’?” Spring Haze asked with a frown.

“Nothing. Just didn’t plan on retiring a couple weeks into this ‘search for redemption’ bullshit I’ve got going on.”

“We shall be fine,” Xena assured our friends. “I know Xaro, and I know the Remnant. They are as arrogant as they are fanatic, outsmarting them may not be hard.”

Just don’t jinx us there, dear.

My rifle was good, and I hope the rest of my equipment gathered. Altrix had made sure we had a plenitude of healing potions, Med-X and whatever other medical supplies we’d need for the road ahead. I was glad for that, taking down this camp with only two of us was going to be rough. We needed everything we could get…

“Worst comes to worst, you could always lead the Steel Rangers to them, let them sort it out,” Cobalt stated. “I know Stripe wants this done all personal and whatnot. But it’s something to think about, no point getting yourselves killed over this.”

“As I said, we’ll figure something out,” I responded, slinging my saddlebags onto my back and securing my assault rifle. “Besides, after this morning they’re going to be hurting. What better time to hit them?”

“Just be careful…” Altrix asked quietly.

“We will,” Xena assured the changeling, offering her a small smile. “But I’m sure the town could use the help you will bring. The scars will be seen for some time.”

“You’re not wrong, we lost some good people today,” Spring Haze agreed. “Hell, I’d be coming with you to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But I don’t think they can spare me. Besides, Altrix and I have plans!”

“That sounds… lovely,” the changeling muttered uncertainly.

Here’s hoping changelings can’t be talked to death.

“But we’ll all be here when you get back,” the Sheriff continued. “Don’t worry about a thing, just look after yourselves out there.”

“We will,” I said to the kirin. “Stripe, you good?”

“I have all I need,” she confirmed, glancing down the street and closing her eyes a moment as she let out a slow sigh. “Let’s go. Before I… decide against it.”

She clearly wasn’t looking forward to facing her brother. I’d never exactly been close to my family, and being an only child… Well, I was having a hard time imagining just what she must be feeling. But it wasn’t a good feeling, that’s all I needed to know.

I placed a hoof on her shoulder, giving her cheek a small nuzzle before turning back to the rest of our friends one final time.

“Try not to start anything without us. We’ll be back in a day or two.”

“Just get moving,” Cobalt said. “And be fast. We have a hub to look through.”

“We wouldn’t miss it.”

And with that, we started to walk. And as we did, my E.F.S. gave out a small ‘ping’ that only I heard as a new map marker appeared alongside a few words in my vision.

Find Xaro and the Zebra Remnant.

Xena kicked open the fire escape, the doorway leading us out onto a metal balcony with a rickety staircase leading down to the street below. We were making good progress towards Platinum Plaza, even though I had almost gotten turned around once or twice due to there being two markers on my Eyes Forward Sparkle now. Good thing I spotted an option on my PipBuck to turn the one for the MAS hub off for a little while. At least until we dealt with Xena’s brother.

I mean… would he be my brother in law? I know we’re not married, but given how few marriages even occur in the modern world does that really…?

You know what? Not thinking about it. At all.

We descended down the staircase and back out onto the street, circumventing one of the many rubble barricades turning the city into some kind of elaborate maze. Is it even worse here than in Manehatten, or is it just me?

Whatever the case, we had to press on. The day was passing by fast, and while I’m sure getting through Vanhoover would have been a quick breeze back in the day, in the present it was a long and tedious trek through all kinds of filth and decay.

We both knew that radroach infestations were the least of our concerns in this place.

“A sign for the plaza,” Xena noted, pointing up at an old and bent street sign that was still just legible. “We are getting close.”

“Then the Remnant will probably be around here too,” I mused. “I don’t like being out in the streets. They could spot us out here, no problem.”

She hummed, stopping at an intersection and glancing down both directions. One road led on directly ahead while another branched right, while the map marker was leading diagonally between both directions. Either could be the way to go, or even both for all I knew.

Then I glanced up. A nearby rooftop seemed to have some kind of makeshift fortification connecting it to another building in the direction we needed go.

“There’s a bridge between those buildings, it looks like it’s made of scrap,” I pointed out to my marefriend. “Old raider fortifications maybe?”

“It might be a way to traverse the distance without being seen,” Xena concurred. “We should have a look.”

Then it was a plan.

We found that the entrance we chose led into a small shop, the place looking long picked over and probably the location of a shootout or two. Several skeletons littered the floor between the aisles, and there were even a few spent bullet casings still scattered about. No weapons or armour to speak of, though. That probably got looted a long time ago.

We bypassed the remains, heading behind the counter and trying an old wooden door. It swung open when I pushed it, and another glance showed that the lock had been busted.

Lucky for us, I guess.

The doorway led to a flight of stairs leading upwards. It led to what was probably the home of whoever used to own the shop downstairs, but it was just as trashed and long picked over. Still, whatever fighting had gone on here was once again in our favour. The living room and kitchen were dead ends, but when we entered the bedroom, we saw that something had busted down a wall and made an entrance into the room beyond it. Stepping through the hole revealed some kind of storeroom, though most of the shelves and cabinets were bent and twisted out of shape by whatever had crashed through the wall.

Still, it provided us with a way to continue upwards.

From there we quickly located a double backed staircase leading to further floors. The place looked like old offices for all kinds of businesses way back when, all long abandoned and the home to some creature or another at some point in time. We ignored most of it, just heading up as far as the staircase would take us.

When we stepped out onto the top floor, the first door we saw was hanging on a single hinge, blackened and burnt nearly into charcoal. Inside was an old meeting room, a long wooden table spanning most of the room with several tattered chairs strewn around. All the windows were blown out and a whiteboard was toppled over in the corner. One end of the table was completely flattered where the roof had caved in, providing a convenient ramp for rooftop access the raiders who used to call this place home probably used to get in and out.

“Well, that’s how we get up there,” I said, watching Xena as she walked to the row of what used to be window panes and looking out on the street below. “Hopefully that gets us a little closer.”

“Hopefully,” she responded, not turning to look at me.

I sighed, scratching the back of my head as I thought about what to say next. The reason for that? Well… I had a couple questions about the Remnant. And Xaro. Mostly Xaro.

Now, just how was I going to approach the subject…?

“So…” I started, trotting over to Xena and standing alongside her as she continued to look out the shattered window. “Listen, I know it might be a sore subject, but… Xaro. What is he like?”

“Do you wish to know what he is like now? Because it seems self-explanatory,” she deadpanned, and I felt my ears wilt a little at her tone. “Or do you wish to know about the brother I knew before the Legate destroyed all I had?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I… just want to know what we’re going into here. He’s your brother, Xena. Just that fact alone makes me… Well, I’m worried about you. A lot.”

She looked towards me, and slowly a small smile appeared on her face. “I know. And you are likely the only pony I would ever tell of this.”

“I promise I won’t snitch,” I joked half-heartedly.

“I shall hold you to that,” she responded with a chuckle, turning from the window and trotting towards the old meeting table as her smile and humour quickly melted away again. “Things between Xaro and I before the Remnant were… complicated.”

I turned to look at her, slowly returning to her side. “How so?”

“I’ve told you before how my brother always believed so strongly in all the tales of our heritage,” she recalled. “Nightmare Moon. The Starkatteri. All of it. While I was always more… sceptical.”

“I remember,” I said, sitting down onto the cold floor. “That’s why the others joined the Remnant. Us ponies are destined to be crushed, right?”

“Or so he believes,” she replied humourlessly. “It wasn’t always quite so bad, however. While he always believed, his hatred wasn’t always quite so strong.”

I stayed silent, letting her take a moment to collect her thoughts before continuing.

“When we were little, things were better for us. When we travelled the land, and though we had hardships, we made the best of it. We were children after all, we would help our parents collect old cans of food during the day and chase one another for fun at night before sleep. Him being the older of us, I recall Xaro becoming rather protective over me one time when we ran into a particularly large radroach.”

“A radroach? That’s not much of a threat to us, but to a kid…”

“It was fortunate that our father was nearby with his rifle,” she stated. “But even if he always believed, Xaro at the time was far too young to take it so seriously and fanatically. But as our teenage years approached…”

“Things changed,” I noted.

“Yes. He became increasingly eager for stories about the old empire. I believed he desired to be one of the heroes in those tales, carving a path through the enemies of our people. And, perhaps, the prejudices we faced during our childhood helped forge his hatred of ponies.”

“It didn’t for you, though. You call yourself ‘Stripe’ for ponies sake.”

“Hatred comes from all corners, Xaro proves that much. There was no need to perpetuate that cycle further.” She sighed, finally sitting down herself and leaning against the wooden table. “No, I hated it. We’re all survivors in this fucked up world, the past war no longer matters.”

“How did that affect things before Hoofington?”

“Many sibling squabbles,” she answered. “He would argue that it was us versus you, I would argue how pointless it was to even try it. Our parents would have to step in to stop it, they… were always more on the fence. At first.”

She leant back, gazing up at the roof though staring into a thousand miles away.

“But we still loved one another, even as our views began to differ. His symbolism against my practicality, I suppose. Still, despite his increasing aggression, I could temper it and keep him from doing anything too brash in pursuit of ancient tales. Until the Legate.”

“The Zebra Remnant.”

“Yes, but I mean their leader specifically,” she explained, turned from the ceiling and looking me dead in the eyes. “We met him. The Legate himself. A monstrous zebra with a skull atop his head and enough wives to repopulate a village.”

Well… he clearly has an ego.

“It started a normal day, you see. We were heading towards a hub of trade in the region, a town built inside an old shopping centre. Megamart, as unoriginally named as it is, was said to be a prime location for resupply,” she said, and I saw her eyes narrow a little as she recalled the details of that day. “But on the way there we found them. It was a large group of zebra, migrating across the wasteland to a new staging ground. Before we knew what was happening, they had pursued and surrounded us. Father directed us to take cover in a nearby ruin, he was ready to defend us from a force we’d heard was little better than raiders. But then…”

She closed her eyes, blinking back tears.

“He emerged, surrounded by zebras in black barding and with… soulless eyes. How he talked about the old empire, how it was our duty to continue what they left behind. My brother was so easily swayed by his charisma, and it was there that his bitterness towards ponies was formed into a murderous obsession by the Legate.”

“So why did your mother and father join up? You said they were more on the fence on how to feel about my kind, what changed them?”

“Xaro did,” she replied simply. “With the Legate’s support, he professed how it was ponies alone who doomed the world and kept us in this apocalypse. I argued, trying to make them see how blame should be cast all around us. After all, the Equestria Wasteland was created by zebra megaspells. He didn’t listen, compounded by the Legate’s talk about Hoofington being ‘unholy’ and that it and all those within should be purged. Eventually, they were swayed.”

“He also offered you things, right? Knowledge about… what was it you said a little while back?”

“Old martial arts, herbal remedies, and of course even more stories of the Zencori,” she recited.

“And you weren’t even swayed? Not even a little?” I questioned, hoping to Celestia I didn’t offend her with the idea.

“Perhaps a small part of me was,” she admitted, and honestly that surprised me a little. I couldn’t imagine my Xena being tempted the promises of a maniac. “If only to remain with my family. But… the price was too terrible. The Legate preached genocide, no knowledge was worth that.”

She sighed again, gritting her teeth.

“If only my brother had seen that simple truth. But no, his hatred was so true that the Legate’s words soon had him becoming a loyal soldier of his insane cause.”

“How did you even get away?”

“Not by fighting my way out,” she stated. “We were still surrounded after all. And they have tanks.”

They have what?

“I had to feign compliance,” she explained. “We went with them; my brother was so pleased that I was finally ‘seeing sense’ about the evil of Equestrians. Never mind the fact that our family were citizens of this country before entering Stable 3. But once the Remnant chose a location to camp for the night… I left. I took nothing but my rifle and a bag of supplies before fleeing Hoofington as fast as I could.”

“And you made it all the way to Manehatten before they caught up with you.”

“I did. I travelled for months before that happened, practically doing a circuit of Equestria, too afraid to stay in one place but equally looking for that elusive purpose I have now found with you. I believed they would not have searched for one zebra for so long, but I was proven wrong on the day we met.”

“Because they’re people who cannot let go of the past to the extent that they become monsters who’d destroy the future,” I stated, recalling that those were the exact words she’d used to describe the Zebra Remnant after Our Town. “They must really hate you.”

“I’m sure they do,” she said in a low growl. “The feeling is mutual.”

“I bet,” I responded, gingerly raised a hoof and placing it tenderly down onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry if it hurt to tell me, but…”

“I’m glad I did,” she said, smiling and turning to look at me. “It was time you knew the whole story, rather than the fragment I had told you thus far. But there you have it, my life in its completion.”

“Thank you. For trusting me,” I said honestly. “You couldn’t save them from themselves, Xena. There’s no helping the foolish, right?”

“And this world is full of fools,” she agreed, head tilting affectionally down onto my hoof. “Some more than others.”

We remained like that for several moments more, just enjoying each other’s company as I rolled around the new information inside my head. The full story of the mare known as Stripe, all the blanks filled in.

A story we still had to bring to an end.

“It’s close,” I said to her. “We’ll deal with him. Who knows? Maybe we could talk some sense into Xaro?”

“I would not count on it,” she said sadly, pulling away from me and standing up. “As much as I would wish it.”

I also got back up onto my hooves, looking up the makeshift ramp leading up to the roof. Then, wordlessly, I hopped up onto the table and made my way up the steep incline.

When I emerged onto the roof, I saw a whole host of old scrap structures all around us. This place must have been home to some serious raider activity once upon a time. But like the battle-torn buildings below us, everything up here was battered and abandoned.

“I wonder if the Steel Rangers were responsible for clearing this place?” Xena mused as she also made it up on to the roof. “But there is the bridge. Come, Platinum Plaza is just beyond these buildings.”

We made our way past all the old scrapped fortifications and the skeletons of their former owners. When we reached the edge of the rooftop, I placed an experimental hoof on the scrap bridge the raiders had made to see if it would hold. Despite some worrisome creaking, it seemed to do its job well enough.

“Watch my back,” I asked of her, slowly beginning to cross to the bridge until I had made it to the other side.

Once I was safely down on the opposite rooftop, I took a turn keeping an eye on our surroundings as Xena followed me across. Once we were both on the other side, we left the bridge behind the began to traverse past the last of the raider fortifications and go along the rest of the conjoined rooftops ahead of us. My Eyes Forward Sparkle remained clear for the time being, but I was aware of how that could change at any moment as we approached Platinum Plaza.

We followed the rooftops around until we were more in line with where the map marker was wanting us to go. Eventually, we reached a small drop from the roof we were currently on to get to the next one over, and when we did a notification on my E.F.S. popped up to indicate that we had arrived at our destination.

We couldn’t see it yet, as it was just beyond the lip of the building. But we left that for the moment, instead moving towards a jagged hole in the building’s roof that seemed to offer a way down into one of the rooms.

Looking inside, it looked like yet another meeting room. Though it was a tad smaller than the last one and had been far more destroyed when the roof had caved in. There was no ramp up this time, so once we dropped down there was no getting back up again.

We took the plunge.

It was an uncomfortable landing on top of the rubble pile, but we made it. The door leading out into the hall was ajar, and we silently moved through it.

Which was when the first red bar appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

I stopped, holding a hoof out to indicate to Xena that something was wrong. I shared a glance with her, and wordlessly she seemed to understand what I was suddenly worried about. She drew her weapon as we slowly moved out into the hall and looked around a corner.

The hall led out into a small open lounge area. Two sofas were backed against the wall facing a cracked television mounted opposite. A dead plant sat in the corner, and the final two objects in the room were a small table in front of the sofas and a toppled water fountain. But there, lazily glancing out of an intact window overlooking the plaza below, was a zebra.

This guy must be a sentry, keeping an eye out for any trouble. Judging by the sniper rifle, a model similar to Xena’s, he would be an issue for anypony trying to make a frontal assault.

We would have to deal with them before making our move, starting with this guy.

I guess his post wasn’t exactly an exciting one, given how bored he looked and the way he was idly staring out of that window. But that was his downfall as Xena crept up behind up and cracked him over the head with the butt of her rifle.

“Ouch,” I commented. “If he was going to wake up, that would hurt in the morning.”

“If he was going to waken,” she agreed before finishing the zebra off. “There will be more of them stationed around in the other buildings.”

“We’ll need to circle around, clear them all out one by one without alerting them. If we get spotted, well… this probably won’t go very well.”

“Then let’s not be seen,” she said as if it was the simplest matter in the world. “But on the topic of seeing…”

She glanced out of the window the zebra had been looking out of, and I trotted over to join her.

This… was going to be hard.

The plaza was a large square area surrounded entirely by buildings. It had no roads or open paths lead to it; the only access was through the ground floors of the buildings around us. Overgrown hedges littered the area, and in the middle was a marble gazebo containing the statue of a beautiful unicorn mare adorned in royal regalia.

Tents had also been set up across the plaza. Many seemed to serve specific functions, I could already see one that looked like an armoury, a bulky zebra stallion working on one of their weapons there.

They also had guards across all entrances to the plaza. And besides them, every single zebra inside the camp was already armed. In all, in the plaza itself, I would guess there had to be around fifty legionnaires.

“Not to say this was a bad idea, but how are we going to take all of them on without the rest of our friends?” I asked her a little incredulously. “Taking out the snipers will be a start, sure. But then what?”

“I would imagine they came here with a hundred in number. We should be thankful to the Steel Rangers for killing so many,” she said, always looking on the bright side as she drew her sniper and peered through the scope.

I sighed, taking a seat on one of the sofas as I attempted to bleed out my rising frustration. “At least tell me you see something good.”

She hummed scanning the area through her scope. “They appear to have plastic explosives down there, stacked near the armoury. The kind they would have used to make a hole in Crossroad’s wall.”

“Explosives. Great.”

“We could use those?”

I groaned, closing my eyes as I tried to formulate a plan. I mean, if I could somehow steal their explosives and plant them all around the camp. But how would I even…?

Ah!

I shot up and whipped open one of my bags! Rummaging through it with the help of my PipBuck’s inventory spell, I quickly located and extracted the StealthBuck I had recovered in Buckingham!

“See? We may yet have a chance,” Xena said a little smugly, before turning back to her scope. But the way her smile then fell… I didn’t like that one bit. “Oh.”

“Oh?” I asked as I trotted back over to the window. “What did you see?”

“Him.”

I frowned, looking out of the window and down into the camp. And then I saw him, or at least I believe that had to be him. It was a zebra in ornate armour heading into the largest tent. Having the largest tent must be like how a sea captain in those old books would always have the largest hat. That zebra had to be their leader.

It had to be Xaro.

“It’s okay,” I said tenderly to her as she lowered her rifle in resignation. “We’ll deal with him.”

She was silent, eyes downcast before she released a slow sigh. “We should wait until nightfall, and spend the time waiting by taking out the other sentries. Then we strike.”

“You can do this,” I encouraged her, hoping that my words would at least give her some degree of strength for what we were about to do. “I’m with you.”

Despite it all, she found the will for another smile. “I’m glad you came, Scrap Heap.”

“Yeah, well… I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out he has a pony brother-in-law.”

“He will definitely try to kill you.”

“He can get in line.”

The smile brightened a little, though I could still see the pain in her eyes. But we were here, and Xaro was down there. Tonight, one way or another, Xena’s past troubles would finally be brought to their end.

And I would be right beside her as it happened.

Footnote: Max Level

36 - Family

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Chapter Thirty-Six: Family

“I love you, BBBFF…”

Well, this had to be the most dangerous thing we’ve done in, well… the last few hours, at least.

Night had fallen, and as planned we had spent the intermittent hours slowly and silently going through each building surrounding Platinum Plaza and taking out the snipers who, otherwise, probably would have made our lives a living hell. A very short one at that.

From there we just had to hope that they wouldn’t be expecting a replacement to swap them out before we’d gone in. Otherwise, things were going to get complicated very fast.

Still, so far so good. Nopony, or zebra for that matter, had given a shout of alarm as we’d waited the remaining time away. And once the cityscape had darkened, we began to make out way down from the building we were cooped up in and back into the streets below.

Step one? Walking up to the front door and knocking.

Or, at least, Xena was.

Oh, I did not like this. But it was a plan, better than none at all…

We were currently crouched around the corner from where the road ended and where the entrance to the plaza began. Passing through the interior space between us and it would have us run right into one of their barricades. Now we just had to hope Xena still knew her brother as well as she hoped she did.

“Last chance to back out,” I said to her, retrieving the StealthBuck and getting ready to slot it into my PipBuck. “I’d understand.”

“But I wouldn’t,” she refuted. “And what of you?”

“As I said, I go where you do. So, how do you plan on getting them to not shoot on sight again?”

“Hopefully, my identity and claims of surrender will be enough,” she said uncertainly. “I imagine he has a few things he would like to say to me if possible. I assure you that I do.”

“Well… I’ll be right behind you. Just keep them busy while I do my thing.”

“And you must try not to get caught. All of this… it would not be worth a second if I lost you tonight.”

“Hey, we’ve made it this far,” I pointed out. “Ever since I met you, I’ve done all kinds of crazy shit.”

“True. Now, let us go before one of them finds us.”

I glanced down at the StealthBuck, hoping to Celestia that I had set it up right. But then, with nothing else to do but get on with it, I plugged the device in and watched as my PipBuck’s screen momentarily switched to a whole bunch of text as it booted it up.

And then the weirdest experience of my life happened, which is quite a feat after everything else the past month had thrown at me. That being… my hoof just vanished. ‘Poof’, just like that. Well, kinda. There was a strange distortion in the air if I focused enough…

Let’s hope the Remnant don’t notice that too, huh?

Xena stared at where I was, or at least had been… Let’s not think on the technicalities, the point being that she looked right at me for a moment before looking around the corner at the building directly ahead.

And then she started to walk.

I followed on, keeping a healthy distance behind the mare I love as she nervously made her way to the end of the street and through the large doorway leading into the structure.

The interior was little more than a tunnel into the plaza. A couple of vending machines and benches sat along the walls, along with a small desk which read ‘tourist information’. A couple of doors led back into the rest of the structure where’d we’d been hiding out up until now, but we ignored all of that. Rather, we just continued on out of the next set of doors and into Platinum Plaza itself.

And, as expected, we ran right into a fortification upon which stood a couple of Zebra Remnant soldiers.

“I am Xena, sister of Xaro,” she announced as the guards started to reach for their weapons, and much to my relief they stopped in their tracks. “I believe your commander has been looking for me?”

The two zebras glanced towards each other, and then one reached for a radio while the other trained his rifle squarely onto Xena, cautiously eying the sniper rifle slung across her back.

For the moment, I hung back by the doorway. I couldn’t hear what the zebra was saying over the radio, but I hoped it was good for us, whatever it was…

Eventually, the zebra looked up from the radio and gave Xena a suspicious glare.

“You have been causing our legion quite a great amount of trouble,” the guard stated. “Where are those ponies of whom you dishonour yourself travelling with?”

“My friends are safely far from here,” she responded, ‘technically’ not lying. “They need not be harmed for trials that are mine alone. I give myself freely to you, for I wish to speak with my brother.”

“A traitor to the Remnant should be executed on the spot,” the second guard spat.

“But that would displease Xaro, would it not?” Xena questioned with a raised eyebrow. “I am in a position where he could deal with me himself, which I believe he would relish to opportunity to do so. Do you believe me so foolish to believe you would ignore the wishes of the one who holds your life in his hooves?”

The guard in question flinched, but he didn’t say another word.

“You are correct,” the first confirmed, trotting down from the fortification while his buddy didn’t lower his weapon for a moment. “He has long spoken of this as a… desired outcome, rather than you dying to a bullet far from his presence.”

“But that does beg the question…” Xena started, standing perfectly still as the zebra stallion ripped away her rifle and searched her for further weapons. “Why was he not with those who have pursued me before?”

“His duty overrules his personal feelings, as is only right for those serving the glory of the Legate and the memory of the Caesar,” he said, finishing his search and sliding Xena’s rifle onto his back. Oh, I was so getting that back later. “You are to die, of course. And yet, here you are surrendering to us. So please, do play nice. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Xaro by giving us a reason to kill you now, would we?”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” she replied bluntly. “Now, take me to him.”

“In due time.” My blood started to boil as he roughly grabbed onto her mane and started to drag her further into the camp.

But I couldn’t do anything… not yet. I just had to bear it and follow on, moving slowly and trying to avoid the Remnant as much as possible.

He ‘led’ her past the fortification and into the camp itself, passing by many zebras of all builds and stripe configuration. All of them wore the same legionnaire uniform, and all of them regarded Xena with an infuriating amount of disdain.

Finally, we arrived at the centre of the camp where the guard violently threw her to the dirt with a satisfied smirk. From around the camp and out of each tent many more of them started to emerge, all gathering around to see what was with the commotion.

And then, out from the largest tent of them all, he finally emerged. Xaro stood before his fallen sister, each having their eyes bore into that of the other. All went silent, only the crackle of a nearby fire commentating on the reunion between the two siblings.

There was an open pit in my stomach, a feeling of utter dread at seeing my marefriend so helpless against these fuckers. So much of me wanted to act now, to bring out my assault rifle and just spray into the crowd.

But I had a job to do, and suicide wasn’t part of it.

I moved away while they were occupied, keeping my ears trained in and half an eye on what was happening as I carefully made my way to the tent they were using as an armoury and started to stock up on their own plastic explosives.

And then the silence was broken.

“Xaro,” Xena spoke first, attempting to rise only to be kicked back to the dirt by one of the soldiers. “Ugh, is this necessary? We are still siblings, after all.”

“As my sibling, I already provide more courtesy than a traitor should receive,” he responded in a growl. “Any other zebra I would leave for my legionnaires to do with as they pleased, they are starved for relaxation in this unholy city of ponies.”

“You have truly fallen that far?” she asked incredulously. “Has simple sense left you?”

“I have all the sense I need, and if you had any you would not have abandoned us as you did,” he retorted. “You have killed all those I sent to eliminate you with the help of those ponies. But perhaps it was for the best, as it has led you to me.”

I finished collecting the explosives, and with one placed under a table of ammunition, I started to make my way around the camp to do the same with the rest. My PipBuck’s sorting spell made that easy enough, it even seemed to arm them for me, and they were rigged to be detonated all at once from the device. Apparently, the PipBuck screen would somehow materialise whenever I wanted to use it, part of the spell I’d guess. More than a little risky, seeing as that created a noticeable green glow that bypassed the camouflage. But they all seemed sufficiently occupied…

“Keep her here until I have finished my business. It will take but a moment,” Xaro said to another one of his zebra. “Then, dear sister, we will talk one final time.”

He turned, returning into the tent as Xena cautiously looked around at the mob around her. If they tried anything, I was going to detonate these fucking things right now and start the party. But, luckily, they seemed to respect their commander enough to follow his wishes.

I continued my work, getting a little concerned as the charge on the StealthBuck started to get a little low. Still, I had enough time to go around a few more of the tents and the barricades at each entrance, getting each one ready for the big boom.

It came down to the point where I had but one plastic explosive left in my inventory, one destined for Xaro’s tent maybe…

But before I got the chance to do so, the stallion in question emerged from the tent once more.

“Legionnaire!” he shouted at a young mare, holding out a bound scroll for her. “Put that Roamani stamina to use and run this message to the Legate. Take an escort if you wish but return to Hoofington post-haste.”

“At once,” the mare confirmed, taking the scroll dutifully and moving to prepare herself.

“Why not deliver it to him yourself?” Xena scoffed.

“I am not done with this city. I do not leave my work unfinished.” He must be talking about Crossroads… and our friends. “Bring her. I will deal with this filth, and then we prepare for battle.”

Xena was hauled up to her hooves before being roughly shoved into the large tent after her brother. I made sure to slip in as this was happening, bypassing two large zebra stallions who then proceeded to stand outside to guard the entrance.

The interior of the tent was… lavish, to say the least. There was a desk set up in the far left former, the right end being home to a bed that had what looked like a Yao Gui pelt for covers. There was also a small dining table, one devoid of any kind of meal for the moment. There was a pre-war bottle of wine, however.

“It appears you have been greatly rewarded for your loyalty,” Xena mused, also examining the tent. “Loyalty to an insane individual with a craving for blood.”

“The benefits of falling into line,” Xaro said, retrieving a couple of chipped mugs and pouring some of the wine into them. “You could have shared in such prospers, but instead you threw your future away for the sake of demons.”

“Ponies are not demons. No more than we are ourselves to them,” Xena retorted before she then gave a humourless chuckle. “How many times have we had this argument, brother? Only I remember a time where it wasn’t quite so… heated.”

“As do I,” he confirmed, holding out one of the mugs to his sister. “It’s an Atori-made beverage, but quite decent.”

“You have changed your tune,” she deadpanned.

“Hardly,” he responded, placing the mug on the table for her to consume should she want it, taking a sip from his own while sitting down in one of the chairs. “I have to kill you for what you did, there is no changing that. But you are still family, there is no reason we can’t be civil one last time. In private, at least.”

“Away from the ears of the Legate,” she dryly noted, sighing. “I would imagine there is no convincing you away from this terrible path you’ve chosen.”

“I would ask the same, but it wouldn’t matter even if you did,” he stated. “You are cursed, Xena. Or is it ‘Stripe’ now?”

“Not to you,” Xena rebuked. “And cursed, brother? How have I done such a thing to myself, exactly?”

“Abandoning a cause as righteous as burning the city of Nightmare Moon herself was a start,” he remarked. “Avoiding retribution was another. But not only befriending and travelling with ponies but fucking one of them. I never took you for a whore, sister.”

My nostrils flared, and I once again had that intense desire to reveal myself. But not yet, I still had a bit of charge left in the StealthBuck. Besides, I’m sure Xena still had a few things to say.

“How do you know so much?” Xena asked, her eyes narrowing.

“The Frumentarii have pursued you since Manehatten. Unseen as we prepared our next step, and they have seen how you look at him. That scavenger the pony DJ speaks of. Tell me, was he comforting? Was it ‘good’ selling out your own body to a creature like him?”

“I love him, you fool!” she shouted, slamming her hooves into the desk and spilling the wine. “He has bettered himself and done so much to simply help people. Just helping, as we always should have done. Saving those who would only want to live in peace and fighting monsters like the Goddess. Like the slavers. Like you.”

“Ponies are beasts to be culled,” he growled back, rising from his seat. “They would sooner offer themselves before the stars than help anything!”

“And here we go, fearing little motes of light many lightyears away,” she mocked, backing away incredulously. “There is great evil in this world, it is true. But it isn’t a species only trying to survive as we are. It isn’t a long-dead princess. It certainly isn’t a damned light in the sky! It’s people who give in to fear and superstition to the point of murder. Brother, just let the past die! It’s the now that matters, who will save now.”

“As naïve as always,” Xaro dismissed. “The world shall only be saved from this existence when ponies are but a memory. That is something you fail to grasp, and now have cursed yourself into forever being forfeit from our destiny. A curse you spread to our mother and father!”

Xena froze. “What did just say?”

Xaro grit his teeth, standing up and slowly reaching for his rifle. I prepared to jump in at a moment’s notice. “After you left, they had second thoughts. They started to think you were right, that the Legate was mad. Blasphemy. I tried to talk to them, but after we cleansed that pony caravan… They too tried to leave, and I had to stop them.”

“What did you do…?” Xena whispered in horror, her eyes going wide. “What. Did. You. DO!?”

“My duty,” he replied simply. “I executed them before the Legate himself, and he awarded me with this command, charging me with all future attempts on your life. I am rewarded by staying true in our fight against the darkness of the moon and stars, and I shall bring judgement on all beings created in their light! That means the ponies. And that means you, little sister.”

Xena seethed, tears rolling down her cheeks. I couldn’t even imagine what she had to be feeling at the news of how her parents had died… “You are such a disappointment, brother.”

Welp, that’s my cue!

I disengaged the already pretty much drained StealthBuck and offered that bastard a smug grin as he did a surprised doubletake.

I then hit the option in my PipBuck, taking no small amount of satisfaction at the subsequent sound of explosions and panicked shouts around the camp.

“Wha…?” Xaro said, dumbfounded.

My pistol pulled free, I opened up on Xaro who was suddenly knocked from his stupor by a bullet or two to his barding. He fell back over the table, though I wasn’t sure if they’d broken through his armour as the two guards outside came barging in.

I entered S.A.T.S., targeting a few shots at the one aiming his zebra rifle at me while the final shot was reserved for the second. Releasing the spell, I pumped the first zebra full of holes and let him drop before I turned to the second. My bullet flew, hitting him painfully in the shoulder before Xena barged into him. I realised it was the same zebra who’d ‘escorted’ her inside when she pulled her sniper rifle free from his back and cracked him over the head with it.

“Let us finish this!” she shouted, and I gave no argument as we burst from the tent and into the chaos outside.

And chaos it was.

Much of the camp was on fire, any zebra not caught in the initial blasts were either trying to stop the flames from further spreading or attempting to recover the ones who were. And from the looks of it, a very sizable chunk of them had been. Bodies, and parts thereof, were strewn all around the area. Those who had not been killed were severely wounded and not in any shape for a fight.

The number of red bars on my Eyes Forward Sparkle suddenly seemed a lot more manageable.

One of the Remnant saw us, and they brought up their weapon with a shout of alarm. Xena was fast, downing the zebra with her sniper even as more turned to face us. Even if the plan had worked, there were still a number of soldiers up against us, and we were vulnerable just standing out in the open as we were. So, firing a couple of stray shots to cover our movements, we moved back by the flames of what was probably the ammo pile I’d blown up.

The flames were scorching, I could just feel the ends of my fur being singed from proximity. We definitely didn’t want to get any closer!

It did provide a buffer between us and them, though.

We moved around, the red bars in my vision scurrying around in their panic. We moved from the flames and towards the relatively intact stone gazebo containing the Queen Platinum statue, though there was a piece of charred metal lodged into one of the mare’s eyes. Still, we hopped up as more gunfire followed us, using the Queen for cover as the Remnant did their utmost to kill us.

There was another explosion. More ammunition? Well, whatever it was, it had just wiped out several more red bars.

I looked around, swapping out for my assault rifle and firing at a couple of Remnant out in the open. One of them was hit and injured, the second retreated backwards and returning fire, forcing me to duck back as a bullet chipped away at the stone not far from my head!

“I believe all of their guard posts have been dismantled,” Xena noted, glancing around us quickly. “How many remain?”

“A couple dozen, if that. Less, actually,” I informed her. “Those blasts did a number, they’re not doing much else in this city.”

“Xaro would have survived your bullets, I am certain,” she said, looking around our cover and letting off a shot that failed to kill anyone. “He will return if he can. He won’t let me go.”

“What’s your plan now?”

“Give me cover, I wish to better position myself.”

Cover. Right. Covering!

I jumped out from behind and wildly sprayed at any and all zebras I happened to see! Well, the not-Xena zebras anyway! Not sure if I hit any, but I’m pretty sure I gave her the time she needed to- Shit!

I dropped down to the ground with thankfully metaphorical fire burning across my face! Crawling behind the statue again, I let my PipBuck grab a healing potion before I took hold and gulped it down rapidly. The bloody streak along my face quickly sealed up, and I was left feeling a little thankful it hadn’t been an inch to the left. Even with the wound closed up, blood still matted my face from where the bullet had grazed me.

“Fucking… Gah!”

A Moon Blossom would be really useful about now!

I heard that classic CRACK from somewhere to my right, a red bar blinking out. Since Xena seemed to have found her spot, I decided that I should also probably move. Ol’ Platinum wasn’t looking so hot…

I moved out, using S.A.T.S. to target the between them, a couple of bullets biting into each of their skulls and turning the insides to mulch. From there, I kept moving away from the centre of all the commotion, using some of the old pre-war benches dotted around the plaza for cover. Not the most useful barrier in the world, but it was something!

The Remnant moved to follow as I finally settled on using an old hay burger stand for hiding purposes, the metal doing far better against their fire than the wood of any old bench.

CRACK.

Two more soldiers fell, the rest scrambling to try and get cover. I couldn’t be sure how many had actually survived the booms, how many were alive but wounded or if any had decided to cut their losses and get out. One thing I was certain of, however, was that only seven zebras were still actively trying to kill us.

Beats fifty!

I fired at the Remnant, only getting a couple of shots off before I was forced to duck again from their counter-attack. Another shot from Xena rang out, but none of the Remnant seemed to fall as they kept trying to stay ahead of their unseen assailant. One made the mistake and fanning out too far, and I was able to get a good shot on the stallion before he could react.

Six.

Six… and a very familiar feral screech!

There was a shout from one of the Remnant that was followed by horrific gurgling as the feral ghouls bit out his throat, another running over to join in the feast. Another group of about three followed in after that, probably attracted by all the noise!

Something I hadn’t considered: All of Vanhoover probably heard those explosions! The smoke was certainly going to be carrying for miles, and the fire was still spreading!

Two more zebras were pounced upon and mauled by the ghouls, the remaining three catching the charging zombie ponies going for them in time to gun them down. They then went to deal with other ferals, and I emerged from behind the stand to finish them in turn.

I heard a window smashing, and a thump as Xena was thrown from one floor up and into some dead bushes.

Dammit!

I left cover and ran to her side, relieved to see her stirring, if a little groggy.

“You okay!?” I shouted, extracting a healing potion and moving to her lips.

All breath left me, along with most other feeling actually, when I felt something punt me in the barrel and send me to the dirt. The world swam, little funny lights danced at the edges of my vision. Thinking was… kinda a struggle… But I think I was-

Something picked me up, and I was turned to face the enraged eyes of Xaro.

Oh.

He raised a hoof, but I felt myself get dropped as another arriving feral pounced on top of the stallion. I felt feeling starting to return to my body, and fuck did my ribs hurt. Yeah, he definitely fractured a couple of them.

Unsteadily getting to my hooves, I watched Xaro throw the feral off and kick the rotting creature’s head straight from his body!

Well, fuck everything!

More and more ferals were arriving, and I would be surprised if other mutants hadn’t been attracted by the smell of freshly cooked corpses. We had to leave, but Xaro was between us and any escape.

I cut into S.A.T.S., finding two zebra targets right by me. Aside from Xaro, the spell was quick to inform me of another zebra charging in from the side! Bite marks pocketed his body, and it seemed like the others hadn’t fared so well against the ghouls, but his rifle was nevertheless primed aimed right at me.

I targeted him first and Xaro second, the probabilities for the latter oddly in the lower percentages, but I engaged the spell in an instant!

My rifle whipped around and unloaded into the already wounded soldier, the zebra dropped and grinding to a dead halt in the dirt.

Xaro was next!

I automatically turned and fired several rounds, but to my ultimate amazement, that zebra fuck just fucking did a summersault towards me and avoided the lot of them! I tried to fire manually, but he just kicked out with a hind leg and sent my gun flying from my magical grip!

I really hate hoof-to-hoof fighting.

Still, with him right in my face to the point of even reaching for my pistol would be too slow, I had no other choice but to try and go for a punch to the face!

My hoof met thin air.

I attempted to buck where I saw him dodge to, but the bastard just ducked beneath the strike and moved back in front of me! I tried to intercept him again with a left hook, but my heart sank when not only did he sidestep but he also took hold of my limb!

There was a crack, and I could only shout in so much pain as my front leg was snapped in two!

“The gifts of the Legate,” he hissed into my ear. “I may be a novice in comparison to many other practitioners of Fallen Caesar, but it’s more than enough to kill the pathetic pony who took my sister’s dignity.”

CRACK.

I dropped again, even more pain tunnelling throughout my leg and into the rest of my body as I landed with the limb at a very wrong angle.

It was worse for Xaro, though, given the large seeping hole that had appeared through his chest. The round had ripped straight through his barding, and he slowly turned to face his sister in shock, an empty healing potion bottle by her hooves.

She moved forward, and so did he despite his lethal wound. Far slower and sluggish than he had been, in obvious mortal pain, he got up onto his hind legs as he got close and attempted a kick akin to what he’d done with the ghouls.

It was sloppy, and easily avoided as he quickly lost balance and fell back onto all fours.

Xena pressed the front of her sniper against his chest, and she pulled the trigger.

Xaro dropped to the ground.

I managed to get myself up into a sitting position, cradling my broken leg as I looked towards the sight. Xaro still appeared to be breathing, and Xena was crouched down beside him while she cupped his cheek.

I caught movement in the corner of my eyes, drawing my pistol quickly I opened up on the two ghouls rushing towards us. The first one I dropped with a bullet to the head, the second took several and dropped to the ground a little too close to me.

“Xena…” I said over to her gently, trying to point out the other ghouls still flooding into the area from Luna knew where. There must have been a den of them nearby, maybe in one of the buildings…?

But Xena didn’t respond, looking into her barely alive brother’s still open eyes.

“Despite it all, what we became…” I heard her whisper. “I still love you, brother.”

He could only gurgle blood in response, though he did try to move his hoof up to Xena almost as if to mirror her own action. But then the hoof fell limp, and that last red bar belonging to a zebra blinked out.

I let her have a moment, even if my instincts were screaming for us to get out right this moment. I kept an eye out, reaching out with my magic for my discarded assault rifle and holding it up with my pistol. Most of the ghouls seemed to be distracted by the fire and corpses for the moment, but sooner or later they’d decide we were a good meal.

I looked back at my marefriend, seeing her slowly rise up from her brother’s corpse with tears dotting her beautiful blue eyes.

And yet, as if finally seeing my screwed up leg, her eyes widened as she rushed to my side.

“Scrap Heap, your leg…” she muttered, examining it. “I-I’m no Altrix, but if we set it and have you drink a healing potion…”

“We can sort that out later,” I said to her. “We need to go, there are ferals everywhere. Attracted by the fighting.”

I glanced past her at Xaro’s corpse, softening my gaze despite the extreme physical pain I was in.

“Xena, I’m sorry about… how it all turned out.”

Her eyes turned downcast. “I know he loved me too, in his own demented way. And our parents. But love never stayed his hoof from monstrosities. I… I wish…”

“I know…” I whispered, accepting her help in getting to my hooves. I held my broken leg up to my chest, wincing at the pain even micromovements sent through the limb. “Let’s get out of here.”

With Xena’s help, moving on my three remaining legs, we left the fire and death behind us. Leaving it, and Xaro’s madness, to the decay of the wasteland and the teeth of the ferals.

Footnote: Max Level

37 - Resupply

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Chapter 38: Resupply

“What’s done is done…”

Gaaah that hurts!

I don’t get why healing potions aren’t designed to set bones back into place themselves!? Would it really be that difficult to design!? We have fucking magic for Celestia’s sake! DO SOME MAGIC SHIT!

ARRGH, make it stop!

“Please, do sit still.”

Sit still. Right. I love Xena, but she’s not the one with a fucking broken leg!

We had found ourselves in an old charred building a short distance from Platinum Plaza. We’d gotten what we thought to be a safe distance from the continuing influx of feral ghouls before finding some shelter where she could attempt to remedy my whole ‘leg situation’. I haven’t a clue what the building used to be, it was burnt to a crisp a very long time ago. But it’s shell gave us enough cover for the time being, but oh goddesses why didn’t we bring Altrix!?

“If I misplace the bone, we shall have to break it again!” Xena stressed. What does she mean break it again!? “Altrix would be a better choice for this, I know. But it is for that reason I cannot do this if you are struggling, so please, Scrap Heap, behave!”

Right… right… Behaving. With a broken leg. And so much pain. Oh Luna, right… okay… yes. I can do that.

Be a stallion, Scrap Heap. Be a-

FUUUUUUUCK!

My leg was on fire! I bet it was about to literally catch fire as well! Oh goddesses, why does this wasteland suck so much!

I felt something be forced into my gullet, and in full knowledge of what it was, I held no qualms in downing the red liquid that flowed from the bottle!

DAMMIT!

That was a huge crack from my leg I’d just felt, it felt like the bones were moving by their own accord. Probably because they were, and it sucked so much!

But then, sweet relief as the pain suddenly came to a halt. Or, well… at least became somewhat bearable as the potion completed its work.

“Alright, there,” Xena said with a large sigh. “Can you move it? How do you feel?”

“Like I wish I didn’t have that leg anymore,” I admitted as I experimentally moved my joints. I couldn’t suppress a wince as I felt another stab of pain from the movement, but it was moving… “I think that did it. Thanks.”

“Here,” she said, stabbing me with a needle filled with wonderful Med-X. “For the pain.”

The pain lessened even more, and I actually felt somewhat like a normal pony again.

“Thanks,” I repeated, sitting up a little more again the blackened wall. “That was… not good. Fractured ribs and a broken leg… that hurt. I’m sorry, but your brother was an asshole.”

“Trained to kill by the Remnant. He was not as skilled a killer when I last saw him,” she replied sadly. “I must admit, when he ambushed me and sent me through the window in a single kick… It was a surprise to be sure. I would have been dead if you hadn’t been there.”

“Good thing neither of us was alone then,” I stated. “We need to thank Altrix for ensuring we were properly stocked with medical supplies.”

“Yes…” she said a little sheepishly. “In the hindsight, we should have come together. I acted out of emotion and anger… And if she were here, her expertise and magic could have made resetting that leg a simple and far less painful procedure.”

“Well, you did a pretty good job. I didn’t need amputation, so that’s a win.”

“Still…” she said dejectedly. “If I hadn’t been such a fool, it may not have been needed at all. Look at what we accomplished with just the two of us. If we were all there…”

“We got it done,” I interrupted before she went down the self-hate hole. “I get it, it was personal. They did too. And I mean… yeah…”

“It was still foolish,” she refuted, looking away from me and staring out of a hole and into the blackness of the night. “You were hurt because of my idiocy. Xaro could have easily killed you, and he was but a moment from doing so. And now…”

“Now we get to go back to Crossroads and get on with our lives. We got out of there, Xena. No point dwelling on what we could have done better,” I said, slowly getting up and experimentally putting weight into my leg. Seeing it wasn’t about to snap again, I walked over to Xena’s side and stood beside her. “Maybe some lessons learnt for the future, but everything worked out in the end.”

She didn’t respond, and it didn’t take a Twilight Sparkle level genius to work out that us going in without our friends wasn’t the only thing bothering her. The stallion she’d killed, as much of a prick as he had been, had still been her brother…

I sighed. “Listen… I know it’s probably sore, and you may not even want to think about it, even if you can’t help yourself, but I’m here to talk. If you ever need to clear your chest about Xaro, I can do that.”

“It had to be done…” she replied regretfully, bringing a hoof up and wiping some emergent tears from her eyes. “He was a monster. A killer. A murderer. But… he was my brother.”

“He was your brother,” I agreed, staring out into space alongside her. “Families are… complicated.”

“Something I suppose neither of us has had much luck with,” she noted with a humourless chuckle.

“Maybe we can change that for each other?” I asked hopefully, giving her shoulder a small nudge with my own.

“I hope so,” she said. “But… I cannot get what was out of my head. My family before we made the mistake of traversing the Hoof. How I might have done things better, how I could have saved them. So many mistakes, so many places where everything could have been different…”

“Like I said, there’s not much we can do about it now. I guess all any of us can really hope to do is do better now,” I muttered to myself as much as I was to her. “You dragged me out of a pit of regret, remember? I don’t like the pony I used to be, not caring about anything but himself.”

“You pulled yourself from there, as I knew you should,” she rebuked. “And I have hope that, with our task at hoof, we are doing better. That if we succeed, everything might all have been worth it. And if by some chance there is some truth to the great spirits of zebra myth, that they have some kind of plan for us to follow.”

I snorted. “I can’t see some spirit giving a fuck what we’re doing. But we’re helping people, that’s going to have to be enough.”

“And maybe we can then be forgiven for our mistakes of the past, should we secure the future of others. I do not know how the changelings will fare in this ruined world should we succeed, but I have to hope they will contribute to its recovery in some way. Even if its just a small part for us to play.”

“The recovery of the world, now there’s a lofty goal,” I joked. “Taking the ‘do better’ stuff to heart?”

“I always have,” she responded. “Now, I believe that is enough feeling sorry for ourselves. It is still early morning and there is no sun in sight, perhaps we should attempt a few hours of rest before we return to the others?”

“Not a bad idea,” I agreed, looking around the building. “We can probably make a go of it here for a little while. At least until we can see the hoof in front of our face outside.”

We moved to find a nice little corner to bunk down and try to get some shuteye for a couple hours, though neither of us succeeded much in that regard. I think both of us had a lot on our minds, even after that little talk.

The Remnant were gone, I doubted we’d see any more leaving Hoofington in search of Xena anytime soon. But we still had the fate of the entire Equestrian Wasteland on our shoulders…

The sun was now breaching through the cloud cover, giving us enough light to make our way back to Crossroads. Things this morning almost seemed… quiet. I had to wonder whether the Equestrian Wasteland was giving us a break for once, or if everything that wanted to shoot and/or eat us had flocked towards Platinum Plaza in the wake of all the destruction.

Either way, the lack of things trying to kill us was a nice change of pace.

We’d retraced our steps through the ruins, making swift progress back the way we came. We hadn’t managed to get that much sleep in the end, but what we had was better than nothing at all. Still, one more night in Crossroads would probably do us some good anyhow. I think some beds would certainly be welcome at this point, and hopefully, Sheriff Spring Haze’s offer and free beds would still pass for at least one more night.

Assuming Ruby didn’t object, that is.

We hopped over a large pile of rubble, utilising my magic to clear away some of the more dangerous and stabby-looking pieces. I didn’t want to go through all of this only to be impaled by a stray piece of rebar amidst the rubble now did I?

“We are almost there,” Xena noted.

“Yeah. Hopefully, the town has seen some repairs since we were last there,” I stated. “And they stopped any would-be happy-go-lucky raiders who might have thought a hole in the wall meant an easy target. Or any mutants looking for a snack, at that.”

“Some bloodwings, or particularly desperate balefire phoenixes, might very well take such an opportunity,” Xena mused. “But I would not worry. The Sherrif’s… unusual display during the battle has shown us that the town is well defended I think.”

I almost felt sorry for anything that fell into the grasp of the fiery demon pony.

Or Moon Blossom. I’m not sure which would be worse…

As we walked down the shattered street, the familiar sight of a sign directing coming traders to the town emerged. We dutifully followed its direction, moving around the corner to-

CRACK.

Son of a butt monkey!

Ignoring wherever that curse had come from inside my brain, Xena and I quickly ducked behind an old vehicle chassis after that sniper round had hit right by our hooves! There was one red bar on my E.F.S., causing me to draw my rifle as I also noted the excess number of green ones nearby…

“Hold your fire, dipshit!” I heard a shout from the end of the street, specifically from the open gate of the town. “That’s them!”

The red bar turned green, and Xena and I shared a rather unamused frown as we looked over from our cover…

Two ponies were running out from the town, each looking quite cross. One of them was an earth pony guard, and the other was a familiar kirin.

“Did you hear me? Stop!” the guard shouted as they came to a slow halt halfway down the street, both looking up at one of the sniper nests hanging from a building. “Are you nuts!?”

“I saw a zebra!” the guard shouted back down in defence. “I thought those bastards from before had come back!”

“That’s no way to treat a friend!” Sheriff Spring Haze protested. “If you hit Stripe, I would have been very cross!”

“Sorry...”

“Get your ass down here!” the other guard shouted. “We’ll get Quick Flash to take your shift.”

“But-”

“I agree!” Spring Haze seconded. “Get yourself to the office! I’m taking you through basic trigger discipline, since you clearly need a refresher course!”

I saw the sniper mumble some curse word or another that was lost to the wind and distance, before he retreated into the building to make his way down from the post.

Spring Haze then said a quick word to the earth pony, before said pony started to trot back to the town while the Sheriff turned to face us.

“You’re back!” he stated brightly, galloping over to where we remained by the chassis. “And you’re okay! You are, aren’t you? DO you need medical attention? Ammo? Food? Water? A back rub? A complimentary-”

“We’re fine,” Xena said, stopping the kirin’s tirade quickly. “But I would appreciate not being shot at for my stripes.”

Spring Haze gave a sheepish chuckle. “Yeah, sorry about that. Our residents are still on edge after what happened before you left. Your friends were also quite worried for you, but we made sure they were looked after. Though, I hear they didn’t get much rest last night… You guys are really close friends!”

I guess ‘fire forged’ just about described it.

“And the town?” I asked. “Did we miss much?”

“Well, we spent all yesterday patching up the wall, work has been continuing this morning,” he answered. “We scared off anything that started sniffing around the area, things are coming along. It’s… not going to be easy, seeing that we lost some good ponies. But things will get back on track soon enough, especially once the next caravan arrives for trade.”

He then coughed, looking from left to right before glancing back at us with a question in his eyes.

“So… did you do it? Will we be having any more trouble from these Remnant guys?”

“I wouldn’t expect so,” Xena responded. “What few may remain have scattered to the wind.”

“Assuming they escaped the ghouls,” I added.

“Ghouls, huh?” he questioned. “Well, I’m not going to ask how you pulled it off. That’s your business. But you’re welcome to stay in town another night on the house, I’d say you’ve earned it. Anything else you need, just say so.”

I was glad to hear that.

We followed the Sheriff back towards the town, the earth pony guard at the barricade offering us an apologetic smile as we passed him by. When we moved in through the gate, I was able to see that the town was still in a bit of a state. Several of the stands around the central statue were still in piles of bullet-ridden scrap. Though, as Spring Haze had said, the wall seemed to have been mostly patched up, several residents still hammering away to reinforce what was there. There was also a rather sombre mood that permeated the air, but everyone was otherwise just about getting on with their day.

“Next time, pay your tab!” I heard Ruby the Bartender shout as she threw some hapless unicorn out of the inn and into the dirt. “Come back when you actually have caps, jackass!”

She seemed to spot us as she went to return into the inn, the griffon giving us a small nod as she returned inside with the ejected patron dusting himself off and shuffling away in embarrassment.

And past all that, sitting outside the inn, three familiar figures all also spotted us.

“I’ll leave you and your friends to it,” Spring Haze said, tapping me on the shoulder. “You did us a great service. Ya’ll are welcome in Crossroads anytime, ya hear?”

“Thanks, Spring Haze,” I said back to the stallion. “I don’t suppose you’ll be needing anything else from us?”

“Not as far as I know,” he confirmed. “Get on with whatever it is the Scavenger does for a quest, and good luck. We’ll be keeping an ear on the radio, we’re rooting for ya’ll.”

And then, with a final friendly smile, Spring Haze turned from us and trotted back towards his office. Probably to give that trigger-happy guard a lesson or two in gun safety. I did not envy him for the coming lecture.

After a moment of watching our newfound friend leave, I turned my gaze towards our friends as they trotted away from the inn and towards us.

“You’re back!” Altrix was the first to exclaim, her voice both excited and worried. “Are you all okay? Please don’t tell me you’re injured!”

“We’re fine… now,” I said, rubbing my recently mended leg. “Nothing wrong here I suppose?”

“Boredom mostly,” Moon Blossom stated. “We’ve been stuck here while you went off to fight the bad guys! Really, that’s just unfair.”

“If it’s any consolation, Moon Blossom, we would take you should we be afforded a way to repeat yesterday’s events,” Xena said evenly. “It was… quite an experience.”

“And your brother?” Cobalt asked carefully.

“Gone,” she answered instantly. “We did what we had to. The Zebra Remnant shall plague us no longer.”

He nodded. “Well, that’s good to hear.”

“I’m so sorry, Stripe,” Altrix said sympathetically, gingerly reaching forward and giving the zebra a hug. One which Xena accepted, if a little slowly.

“So, what happens now?” Cobalt asked. “Are we to continue on to the hub?”

“Yeah, I think we should blow this joint,” Moon Blossom supported. “Not that a bed isn’t nice and all, but I don’t like all this sitting around.”

“You’ll have to suffer it one more night I’m afraid,” I said to the pegasus, whose wings instantly drooped. “We’re a little exhausted. It… wasn’t an easy fight.”

Cobalt frowned. “What happened?”

I looked towards Xena who, after disengaging from Altrix, gave me a silent indication to explain everything.

So, I told them. I told them about our trudge through the Vanhoover ruins, and how we’d found ourselves a little vantage point above Platinum Plaza. I explained to them the plan we’d come up with, with us going around and taking out their snipers one at a time before moving onto the camp itself. I mentioned how I’d gone under the cover of my StealthBuck, setting charges around the camp while Xena kept them busy. I left out the details of her conversation with her brother, skipping right to the climax of the encounter with the ensuing gunfight and Xaro’s ultimate death at the hooves of his sister.

Altrix looked physically sick when I mentioned my injuries, but she otherwise stayed silent about it. Still, I could almost feel her eyes scanning my body for any sign of retained trauma.

“Blowing up an entire courtyard and that many of those striped cunts?” Moon Blossom said with a cackle. “You guys got busy!”

“Still, it was risky,” Cobalt surmised. “The ghouls were an unaccounted-for variable.”

“It explains the smoke we saw in the distance when the sun came up this morning,” Moon Blossom added. “I thought that might’ve been you guys.”

“Well, we’re down some healing potions, Med-X and some ammo,” I counted. “Not to mention a StealthBuck, though I doubt we’ll find a new one here.”

“We can restock up on everything else, though. Especially if the Sheriff is feeling as thankful as it seems,” Cobalt then noted. “Hm, we can make the day of it. Gather what we need, inventory everything… What’s left of the day can be spent resting or otherwise killing time helping with the reconstruction effort. Come tomorrow, we should be rested up again and ready to move.”

“Right where we should have been had Xaro not made his move,” Xena mused.

“Well, we got there,” I said. “Alright, let’s get it done.”

Tomorrow was going to be a busy day, the MAS hub now in sight…

And from there, maybe we could finally put an end to Kronos.

Footnote: Max Level

38 - Working with Steel

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Chapter Thirty-Eight: Working with Steel

“Ad Victoriam!”

Crossroads had been left far behind us by this point, the five of us making our way into the core of Vanhoover. It was almost a shame to leave the friendly town behind, Celestia knows that there are precious few of those nowadays. But it had to be done, and we had departed after a few final farewells when the day’s first light had arrived.

Now we just had to make it through the ruined streets and reach the local Ministry of Arcane Sciences hub before anything else decided to try and distract us. We’d probably had enough of a detour as it was, I don’t think Kronos and his band of assholes were going to wait for us to go on epic side quests or have any kind of rest and relaxation.

Shame.

Fortunately, the hub wasn’t too far away for us to travel. We’d be there long before the sun even reached its height. From there… well, Spring Haze’s stories of death robots weren’t exactly reassuring. I could imagine a ministry hub had quite the arsenal to defend it. And we weren’t exactly just popping in and out either. No, we had to make it all the way to the Ministry Mare’s own office, which I could easily imagine as being one of the most guarded rooms in the entire building.

At least Moon Blossom will enjoy the carnage. Assuming she doesn’t lose her face again.

Now that was a weird sentence to think…

All that aside, the street we were on was long and covered in the tattered remains of a whole two hundred years’ worth of victims. It was also jam-packed with rusted vehicles, making it look like there had been something of a blockage the day to bombs fell. It may be that it was ponies trying to flee either in the immediate aftermath or in the knowledge that they were soon to be next. Both, probably. I could barely imagine the sheer chaos that day must have brought, all those people trying so hard to survive only to either die in the blast, the carnage or to the radiation.

At least ponies in the countryside had places to go while waiting to die. But these cities… they were gravestones even before the bombs dropped.

Ugh, there I go depressing myself again.

Still, I could hardly help it when I saw sets of bones big and small in every other car.

“Grim,” Moon Blossom commented, seeing me gazing at one such car. “And that’s coming from me. You’d have thought all those pre-war ponies would’ve thought of a better way for ponies to run the fuck away before they got blasted.”

“To most ponies, they never thought the end would actually come,” Cobalt stated. “And when it did, those without a stable entry pass were left to fend for themselves. Back past where Crossroad is now ponies might have been able to slip away, but right here in the busiest part of Vanhoover… Nopony had a chance in hell.”

“This city was not directly hit, and still the devastation was clear to see,” Xena muttered.

“The bomb hit close enough,” Cobalt responded. “We head around the edges I’m sure we’ll find where the shockwave flattened a whole district. Past that, the crater is probably filled with all kinds of lovely mutants.”

“Let’s not go there,” I deadpanned. “Ever.”

“We’re after a code, not copious amounts of radiation poisoning,” he shot back. “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”

I looked up ahead. Past all the rot and ruin, right at the end of the street, was an extremely large building that seemed to clash with the architecture of the rest of Vanhoover. It was a large skyscraper that seemed highly stylised in its design, seeming like an almost chaotic mismatch of windows and balconies. Decaying pink highlights ran up the length of the structure and on the forward-facing slope was a giant sign containing three party balloons and the words ‘Ministry of Morale Vanhoover Hub’.

“And I thought Manehatten’s was garish,” Cobalt dryly remarked. “No parties in there anymore.”

I find it creepy that ponies would party in the same building that all kinds of morally ambiguous black ops shit was inevitably happening. Pinkie Pie was probably a bit of a twigged pony in life, wasn’t she?

“At least we know we are close,” Xena stated, stopping a moment to study a clearing in the surrounding buildings as we came to it. “And we may not be the only ones.”

The clearing was just large enough to hold a raised structure that connected up to some of the overhead monorails. Or what was left of them, all but one of the tracks had collapsed down onto the highway. But what had caught Xena’s eye was an old military barricade set up by the escalator leading up to the station, each barricade holding the symbol of the Steel Rangers.

I hummed curiously, trotting off the beaten path and over to the barricade. There was nothing on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, the station seemingly being abandoned. Looking behind the barricades, there were several empty ammo boxes strewn all over the place alongside some rusted gun parts. A single skeleton in a tattered army uniform was sat up against one of the barricades, an ancient combat knife not far from his bleached hooves.

“Yeah, nopony has used this place for decades,” I informed the others. “Maybe there was a time when the Rangers had tried to get the monorail system working again.”

“Looks like that ended really well for ‘em,” Moon Blossom commented, gesturing to all the devastation around us.

“I bet they were really pretty to look at when they ran,” Altrix wondered wistfully. “Before everything became terrible.”

“I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess at how long it would take to get even one line working in Manehatten,” Cobalt mused. “Whole thing is about as much of a wreck as here. They weren’t exactly designed to withstand the forces of a balefire detonation, and Manehatten had one go off inside it.”

“Still, there could still be some Steel Rangers around,” I said, bringing us back on subject. “They’re supposed to be interested in the MAS hub as well, remember?”

“I would suggest we trot lightly,” Xena suggested. “They are not known for their friendly approach.”

As if I wasn’t already aware of that.

We continued onwards, moving down the highway until we found ourselves at the base of the Ministry of Morale building. There was a small plaza in front of it, an old fountain having long been blown to hell by someone with a rocket or grenade to spare.

The road split in two directions from there. Looking down the right leading road heralded signs for the hubs belonging to the Ministry of Image and the Ministry of Awesome. Left was were my map marker seemed to want us to go and had signs for the Ministry of Arcane Sciences hub along with Wartime Technology and Peace.

With little else to do, we followed that route.

The remnants of all the traffic on the last day was just as bad around here as it had been on the highway, though some spots were clearer than others. There were several roads branching outwards, all of them together making up a large grid that was the city centre. Down a couple of these branches, we could just make out the hubs for the Ministry of Wartime Technology and the Ministry of Peace. The former just looked like a large office building while the latter looked to be a decently sized hospital more than a hub. Altrix had eyed up that building in particular, probably imagining all the medical equipment that might still be inside.

Still, we didn’t take any detours. Instead, we kept following the road round as it looped to the right. If we kept following the road indefinitely, it would probably loop around to the other hubs and eventually back to the MoM building. But we needn’t have to, seeing as our destination was slowly coming into view overhead.

The building wasn’t quite the marvel of a skyscraper that Morale’s had been, but it would have still been a sight to behold in its day. It was situated right at the northern-most point of the city centre, whereas the MoM hub had been south, the two buildings almost directly in line with one another. Whereas Tenpony Tower was designed to look luxurious due to its dual purpose as a hotel, the Vanhoover hub stood in great contrast with a coldly scientific design. The building was largely black in colour with some lavender highlighting scarcely dotted around. There were rows of perfectly symmetrical window placement that seemed to almost contest the chaotic design of the other hub, another plaza sitting out the front where I could spot several revolving doors that would amidst entrance. A large golden plaque sat in the plaza, an engraving of a starburst cutie mark carved into it with some text confirming to the uninitiated that this was indeed the Vanhoover MAS hub.

There were also several red and green bars around it surrounded by erratic beams of magical death that were flying all over the place.

Quite the welcome.

We ducked down behind an old truck, whoever and whatever was fighting seemingly having yet to spot us seeing as none of those beams flew in our general direction. Still, someone was really trying going at it outside the entrance of the hub!

Peering around and entering S.A.T.S. for good measure, I saw who exactly it was getting pummeled out there. Several robots were charging out of the ministry, at least five Mr Gutsy units and a couple of Protectaponies by my initial count. Facing off against them, taking cover behind some vehicles of their own, was a group of five Steel Rangers along with another unicorn mare who was wearing some kind of red robe.

All of the Steel Rangers aside from that one mare were decked out in power armour, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t getting something of an ass-kicking. Several of the Mr Gutsy robots were firing small blue crackles of energy one of their three limbs that looked more electrical than magical, though I would hardly say I’m an expert. Still, whatever it was, the Steel Rangers seemed particularly wary of it. I could already spot one of the Rangers seemed to have had his armour lock up on him, the unarmoured mare working to get him moving while the others fired at the robots.

“So… we let them kill each other or what?” Moon Blossom asked.

“Their bars aren’t red,” I noted. “They might actually be friendly.”

“Friendly? Really?”

“Not every Steel Ranger acts like an overpowered raider,” Cobalt pointed out. “These might be some of the nice ones.”

There was a bang as one of the robots was hit with a red beam and turned to ash, Moon Blossom looking at the sight with an unconvinced look. “How much you willing to bet on that?”

“If they choose not to shoot us on sight, they may also take issue with the computer on your foreleg,” Xena then pointed out, gesturing towards my PipBuck.

“True,” Cobalt conceded. “They have a directive to collect valuable technology. Even if they’re less fanatical than some of them, they still have their orders.”

“We won’t know unless we ask,” Altrix stated. “And they’re in trouble! We help people, right?”

Well, my PipBuck hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

I pulled out my assault rifle, giving it a quick checking over before looking over at the others. “If they decide to be dicks, we’ll handle it. But if they are some of the nice ones, they might help us get inside. And you know what? I’d feel a hell of a lot better having some ponies in power armour stomping those robots between us and that code.”

“Well, there we go,” Cobalt commented as he lit his horn.

“Fine. But I reserve the right to say, ‘I told you so’ if they turn us into ash,” Moon Blossom likewise declared.

I’m sure she will.

Still, this would either turn out to be a stroke of luck or a mistake. I had to hope these weren’t the kind of Steel Rangers to see wastelanders as insignificant pieces of shit in their way and were more of the kind who generally wanted to help ponies. The ones we’d seen back at that park had been red on my E.F.S. from the get-go, but these guys were not…

Welp, time to gamble!

I popped back into S.A.T.S. as I whipped around the corner and targeted the first Mr Gutsy. I lined up to shots on its body and one on the front eyestalk, engaging the shot before they even knew I was there!

Three bursts slammed into the surprised robot, the first to shots peeling off a bit of plating while the third entirely severed the eyestalk. It swerved around in confusion at the sudden blind spot in its vision, during which a second shot from Xena sent the robot down to the ground in a smoking heap.

The remaining robots recoiled and moved to divide their attention. Meanwhile, the Steel Rangers looked up towards us, their bars thankfully remaining green. I faintly heard one of them bark something at the others before they continued their attack on the machines.

“I’m going to see if I can help get that one Ranger’s suit back online,” Cobalt called out. “Those robots have pulse weapons!”

We darted off, creating a momentary shield around himself to stave off some fire before sliding down behind cover with the armoured ponies.

“Hey, don’t forget about me!” Moon Blossom shouted as she hopped up onto the top of the truck. “Come say hi to Momma Moony!”

And then she raised her wings and darted off at the robots before any of us could even warn her not to!

“Oh dear,” Altrix muttered.

Like she would have heeded any warnings anyway.

Xena and I hopped back out of cover and started firing at the machines, trying to cover Moon Blossom as she planted all four of her hooves into one of the Protectaponies at speed before kicking off of it and tackling a Mr Gutsy with her knife, going straight for a gap in its armour! The Mr Gutsy recoiled and started batting at the unwanted passenger while the Protectapony was knocked to the ground in a heap, though not yet inactive.

As Xena and I fired, I noticed Altrix buzz her wings and dark off to join Cobalt, probably to see if there were any injuries. I let her worry about that, focusing my own attention on the fallen Protectapony as it tried to stand itself back up. A couple of rounds to the machine’s torso hit something vital, the robot sparking and shuddering for a moment before several panels violently blew off and it fell still.

I turned my sights to the next Protectapony, but I stopped short of pulling the trigger when I saw the Mr Gutsy throw Moon Blossom to the side and turn to fire on her. With Xena putting a round in the robot I was about to shoot, I instead brought the rifle up and aimed at the floating mother fucker who thought it could hurt my friend. I fired a burst from my rifle which certainly caught its attention, and-

GAH!

My shoulder burned from the red beam of magic that had just hit it! I think my barding absorbed the worst of the spell, but fuuuuck!

Several more beams came my way, forcing me to take a step backwards. Xena finished with the second Protectapony and turned on the Mr Gutsy that’d shot me, putting a round into its circuits before it was again tackled and ripped apart by an incensed Moon Blossom!

I slipped back to a nearby hulk, ready to get back behind it when I saw one of the remaining Mr Gutsy robots rush forward, firing a few red beams at the Rangers before pointing its blue pulse weapon at me. I fired some quick shots, clipping the robot but not enough to dissuade it from shooting me!

The blue wave hit me like a ton of bricks. I was thrown backwards, the world swirling as it felt like something was messing with my insides. I hit the car, seeing little Xenas floating around my head as I tried to get my bearings. A glance at my PipBuck showed that the pulse had done little actual harm to my body, though the screen was blinking and showing a bit of static from the blast. Still, the way it had resonated throughout my body had left me feeling sick to my stomach.

“Don’t let the civilians do all the work! Brothers, attack!”

That voice heralded the stomping of metal hooves as the Steel Rangers, including the one who’d previously been immobile, jumped over their cover and charged directly at the remaining robots. Xena ducked down and made a slide over to me, moving to help me to my hooves as I made sure to take a healing potion for good measure. The burning and sickly sensation I was feeling melted away thanks to the red liquid, allowing me to focus on the battle ahead.

The leading Ranger slammed head first into the Mr Gutsy that had hit me with the pulse, rearing up and slamming the machine into the concrete. The other four rushed the final robots, one firing another blue pulse that struck one of the ponies and caused his power armour to crackle and pop before he went rigid, the armour locking up.

The final three Rangers fired their weapons at the two floating robots, and before long both had burst into flames from the onslaught and fallen to the ground.

And with that, at least for the time being, all the red bars had been extinguished.

Xena and I glanced at one another, before then slowly making our way to re-join the others and greet the Steel Rangers we’d just assisted. They all turned to look at us, sans the immobile one, as we approached. Likewise, Cobalt and Altrix ran to us while Moon Blossom seemed to hang back with her knife still clenched title between her teeth.

“Oh gosh, are you alright?” Altrix asked me. “Why are you always getting shot!?”

“Guess I’m a good target,” I joked back at her. “But I’m good. They only singed my shoulder, and I think those pulse things are only meant for machines.”

“You’re not wrong,” the mare in the red robe stated as she also approached us. “It will crash any power armour’s spell matrix and lock it up easily, but it takes a bit longer for it to do any meaningful damage to organic material.”

“Which is what’s happening to the Knight over there,” the lead Steel Ranger said, stomping over to us and peering down right at me through that black visor of his. I’d never actually been up close to somepony in power armour before and… yeah, I could see why you’d find it a tad intimidating. “Roll In, see that he’s freed.”

“Right, Star Paladin,” the mare, ‘Roll In’ I would assume, confirmed before trotting off to work on the locked-up suit. “There’s always one who doesn’t understand the concept of ‘dodging’.”

“It’s not like I was the first, Scribe,” a voice was just heard from within the disabled power armour, sounding more than a little pissed off.

“I… should probably help with that,” Cobalt said, moving to follow her.

He didn’t get any argument, he’d clearly been of help the first time. But with them working on that, the Star Paladin turned back to me and my other friends. He scanned us while his Knights made sure to hang back, and even though I could see his eyes I just knew that they were frowning somehow.

“A zebra, but I would say you’re not with those remnants from Hoofintgon,” he began, before looking directly at the still tense Moon Blossom. “You scream raider, pegasus.”

“Former,” she muttered defensively past her knife’s handle.

“Right…” he muttered doubtfully, before looking at Altrix. “That one I’ve never seen. You’re not a mutant, are you?”

“Um…”

“She is a changeling,” Xena informed him curtly. “They are as natural a species as you or I.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said, before finally looking at me. “You… you strike me as the leader of the group. Nice PipBuck, where did you get it?”

“It was a gift from a friend,” I responded evenly. “You’re not planning on taking it, are you?”

“We should,” one of the Knights growled. “Rare technology like that in the hooves of-”

“Can it, Knight,” the Star Paladin scolded the other Steel Ranger. “These civilians just risked life and limb to assist us. So, unless I say otherwise, keep that talk to yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned back to us, humming behind his helmet. “You are a strange group to behold, that is to be sure. But you do have our thanks for the assist, not many civilians would do such a thing.”

“How’d you end up hiding behind a car?” I asked curiously.

“We were running a routine patrol of the hub there, checking out the entrance for any would-be scavengers trying their luck and not knowing what they were in for. The robotic defences don’t usually come outside, but this time they started firing the moment we approached. They zapped two of us with pulse weapons immediately, we had to carry them to safety while Scribe Roll In rebooted their armours. That’s when you showed up.”

“Do all of their machines hold such weapons?” Xena asked.

“It’s what has made scouring the place for technology so difficult,” the Star Paladin confirmed. “Our chapter started trying to gain entry rather recently, it was one of the most high-profile areas of the city we had yet to attempt to reclaim. The Elder thought it was time to change that, but this place was built to counter any eventuality. Including power armour.”

“But when we sent our usual muscle in, they got zapped instantly,” the Scribe said back over to us from where she worked to free her buddy. “Hard to fight in broken power armour.”

Moon Blossom spat out her knife, finally deciding to put it away for the time being. “Guess you walking mountains ain’t so tough after all. Why not just send in normal ponies for a change? We know you have ‘em.”

“We sent in additional teams without power armour support,” the Star Paladin explained. “These excursions were more successful than the first and allowed some recoveries. But casualties were high, the further in we got the more defences we were faced with. Combat armour does little to help when faced with a Sentry Bot.”

So, we were in for a fun time in there. Wonderful.

“There you go,” I heard Cobalt declare as there was a brief sparking sound before the immobile soldier became mobile again. “Rebooted and ready to go.”

“Not bad,” Roll In complimented him. “It’s not often that we meet a civilian with some skill when it comes to computers.”

“I’m not exactly a civilian as you’d define it,” he shot back, trotting back over to us alongside the Scribe. “Still, it’s a good thing we didn’t need to borrow Scrap’s PipBuck.”

Actually, now that I looked at her, I saw something held in the mare’s magic. It was a small boxy device that, while more primitive-looking, certainly held similarities to the device on my hoof…

“Did you think you’re the only pony in Equestria with a PipBuck,” the Scribe deadpanned as she put the device back into a saddlebag. “My PipBuck 2000 may be more rudimentary, and isn’t wearable, but it gets the job done.”

“Hey, I wasn’t judging,” I defended, holding my hooves up in an attempt to placate the irritate mare.

“Uh-huh…” she muttered in response, turning towards the Star Paladin. “McRoar, don’t you think it’s time we bugged out? This is one scouting run that’s been more trouble than its worth.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Maybe we can help each other? We need to get into that building, as do you. See where I’m going with this?”

The Star Paladin tilted his head. “Help each other? Kid, didn’t you hear us? Their pulse weapons makes our power armour a liability in there. And even without them, there are far too many of those machines for us to safely handle.”

“Come on, beating the odds is sorta our thing,” Moon Blossom dismissed. “We’ve killed dudes in power armour before, what’s a couple of tin cans?”

“Those ‘dudes in power armour’ were among the toughest we’ve had to fight,” Xena reminded her. “And we were only ever up against one of them at a time. At least when we killed them, the other times we were forced to flee.”

“Which is why I’d feel better with some friendly ones for a change,” I declared. “Look, if you’re so afraid of the pulse stuff, let us take the heat when facing the ones who can disable you. You can shoot in from the back. We just want one thing from that place, you can have the rest.”

McRoar shook his head. “Even so, this course of action isn’t-”

“Sir,” Roll In interrupted. “Our last expedition inside located the mainframe which controls the robotic defences. Now, the Elder has been reluctant to authorise us to go in and disable it but, with their help, we just might reach it.”

“You can’t be serious, Scribe.”

“I can disable the machine if we reach it. The other unicorn-”

“Cobalt.”

“-has proven his aptitude for technology. The rest are clearly good in a firefight. I believe, if we move carefully, we could succeed this time. Who knows when the Elder will try again, and I don’t like the thought of that technology sitting there waiting for somepony else to come along and take it before us.”

“We are going in one way or another,” I told them. “What would happen if we succeeded without you?”

“I don’t like your tone, civilian,” Star Paladin McRoar warned, but then he sighed. “But if Roll In thinks it’s worth a shot, she’s never steered me wrong before. Alright, you will have your shot. And if we do somehow succeed here, then you can have a share of the spoils.”

“Sir?” one of the Knights questioned.

“It’s only fair, Knight,” he retorted. “But if we get overwhelmed, we are bugging out with or without you and your friends. Understood?”

I nodded. “I figured. So, are we going in?”

The Star Paladin paused a moment, looking over the other Steel Rangers before speaking again.

“Very well. Rangers, form up on me. The civilians can take point.”

I looked up towards the MAS hub looming over us, the code we needed to confront Kronos and end his madness somewhere within. All we had to do was fight our way through an army of killer robots and hope that Star Paladin McRoar was a stallion of his word.

Moon Blossom smiled like a loon. “Great! I love suicide missions early in the morning!”

Footnote: Max Level

39 - Into the Arcane

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Chapter Thirty-Nine: Into the Arcane

“This needs to be studied!”

The reception area seemed to be clear, thankfully. Still, saying that, we’d already wrecked the robots that were probably guarding it before the Steel Rangers came along. Still, no one was keen on rushing this place. We slowly moved into the building, me at the front with the others close behind, keeping an eye out for any surprises that might come our way.

And so too did the Steel Rangers themselves follow in after that, one giant hoofstep at a time. They were huddled around the Scribe protectively, ensuring that at least one of the ponies who could shut this place down didn’t get shot.

There were several more destroyed robots already in here, along with several points along the roof that had stray wires and charred metal hanging from it. The remnants of the last time the Rangers had rolled through, I’d guess. Aside from that, the room looked quite bare-boned. Or maybe ‘efficient’ was the word. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of decoration, even before the bombs fell. It was just a plain room with a single reception desk dominating the centre of the room. The desk was circular with several busted terminals sitting on it, though not much else.

“We’ve already taken anything of value in this section,” Scribe Roll In explained. “From those terminals mostly, there wasn’t much else to see. It seems the Ministry Mare preferred function over form and wasn’t one to flaunt herself.”

“That sounds about right,” Cobalt muttered. “Leave all of the flash to the Ministry of Morale and Image. All Twilight Sparkle cared for was efficiency.”

“Tenpony Tower would beg to differ,” I noted.

“That was different, given its dual nature. You haven’t seen the actual hub up top, where we in the Twilight Society usually spend our time.”

“Anything interesting?”

“None of the fancy things you’d see in the lobby or around the rooms. Metallic, efficient. Everything you’d expect from a mare of science.”

“Cut the chatter,” McRoar annoyingly demanded. “Take the door to the right. Move down the corridor. Slowly.”

“Sir yes sir,” Moon Blossom sarcastically said with a gag.

If that pissed the Steel Ranger off, he thankfully didn’t comment. Instead, I just nodded at the others to follow as we moved past the reception and further into the hub. I had my assault rifle pulled and pointed ahead of me, and I must admit to feeling very military right now. That’s definitely because of the Steel Rangers.

Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll devolve into the usual chaos the first time we spot a fucking Sentry Bot.

The corridor we next stepped into was also rather plain, another few destroyed turret emplacements hanging from the ceiling. There were some signs up ahead; most were signs to some offices and the toilets, but a couple of them read for a science lab and an atrium.

“We’re going to want to head in through the atrium,” Roll In stated. “We cleared the science lab and the offices in this section on the last expedition. Nothing of note, the former seemed to be where they’d test out new interns. Those offices are where we found the reference to the mainframe.”

“So, once we get into the atrium we are in unfamiliar territory?” Xena asked.

“Be ready,” McRoar commanded.

We turned a corner, bunching up by a large set of doors that were already open. And inside was a very large room.

It was even bigger than a stable atrium, and it also had a completely different aesthetic. The door in front of us led to the bottom floor, though peering into the large space I could see that it went up at least three more stories. At the very top of the atrium was a shattered glass dome that let in what little sunlight could reach the surface, lighting up the desolate place. It actually looked a little nicer than the other areas we’d seen, the odd wood panelling mixing in with the cold metals. The centre of the room also seemed to hold various tables and chairs alongside vending machines for both Sunrise Sarsaparilla and Sparkle-Cola.

I definitely had to hit up those before we left.

Still, it was blatantly something of a communal break area for the staff. Probably why it had an ever so slightly friendlier look to it. Or it would have done two hundred years ago, anyway. Now, it was filled with broken glass from the skylight and rubble from where bits of the walls had given way to time. One of the vending machines was also broken (Take that Sunrise Sarsaparilla!), and many of the tables and chairs were in general disarray.

Oh, and of course there were skeletons. There was always a skeleton or two.

Still, I couldn’t see any robots yet. My E.F.S. was also clear, though a few more wrecks were dotted around the area. The last we’d see pre-broken for a while if the Steel Rangers never got further in than this before.

“So, what happened the last time you got here?” Cobalt asked the Star Paladin.

“Our unit pushed into the atrium while scribes finished cataloguing everything we’d cleared,” McRoar explained. “Our knights pushed into the atrium and cleared the bottom floor. But when they attempted to access the next floor, they were caught in a crossfire when the machines got reinforcements from further in. Our forces had to pull back and defend the scribes, and they were then evacuated when their work was complete. We haven’t been back since.”

“Then let’s not waste any time.” Scribe Roll In stated. “The civies are leading the way, let’s get to where we’re going and fast.”

“Just watch your corners. Don’t make the mistake that we did and get yourselves ambushed.”

“Noted,” I dryly said back, taking my first step into the atrium and looking upwards to the other floors.

There didn’t seem to be anything waiting for us this time. But I knew that could and would change on the flip of a cap.

Things stayed quiet as we moved past the scattered tables and chairs, taking a moment to search around the room as the Steel Rangers kept watch. There were staircases either side of the room leading up to the next floor, small piles of ash still being scattered along the steps. The last ponies who tried to get up them I’d imagine.

Grim.

I ignored those for the time being. Instead, I started moving towards the back of the room while hitting up the intact vending machines along the way. With delicious Sparkle-Cola now in my saddlebags, I made sure to check the two elevators along the back wall. Predictably, nothing happened when I pressed the button.

There was a clang from behind me, and I turned to see that Moon Blossom had idly kicked a destroyed Mr Gutsy that was between two overturned tables. A couple of Steel Rangers looked her way, probably glaring at her from behind their helmets, but she remained oblivious.

“Well, this is all a bunch of junk,” she commented. “Where’s the excitement at?”

“According to the map, we should be on track for the mainframe one floor up and through the far door,” the Scribe noted, examining her own PipBuck. I guess she was following her own map marker, though mine looked like it was only leading towards the office.

Which, might I add, looked like it was right at the far end of the building on the top floor.

“Move on up the stairs,” Star Paladin McRoar said. “We’re waiting.”

“Alright, just give us a moment,” I snapped back at the impatient tin can, giving the floor one last look over before moving towards the leftmost staircase. Cobalt and Xena started to follow me up, Moon Blossom and Altrix opening their wings and simply flying up to the next floor.

And that’s when the first red bar appeared.

“Never mind!” I heard Moon Blossom shout as I spied her grab Altrix’s head fin between her teeth and yank the startled changeling back over the railing and to a rough landing on one of the tables below. Worse still were the red beams that followed their fall. “Those things are angry!”

Two. Three. Four. Seven red bars appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle in quick succession!

“Weapons free!” McRoar bellowed as he started to fire up at the first Mr Gutsy to poke its eyestalk up.

Another appeared at the top of the stairs, a red beam of magic sparking inches above our heads! Not exactly keen on getting more than those few singed hairs, I brought my rifle around and started laying into that machine! Simultaneously, Xena fired a round at the Mr Gutsy along with a bolt of magic from Cobalt. All our attacks laid waste to the robot, shredding through its armour and causing it to burst into flames.

More red bars were appearing, looking like they were coming from the upper floors!

“Unless we want to share the last expedition’s fate, we need to get upstairs!” Roll In urged.

“Move your asses then!” I shouted back at them, rushing forwards to try and find some cover.

I couldn’t see what the others were doing as I made a dive behind a pillar, which seemed to be one of the few actual things that could be used as cover up here! There was little up on this floor, just another set of stairs either side leading further up and a whole bunch of doors leading elsewhere.

And, of course, the one door we needed to go through was the one that had robots defending it.

Taking a moment to get my bearings, I saw a fuck ton of magical weapons fire being hurled down at us from the upper floors, my friends scampering up for cover while the Steel Rangers took the brunt of the damage while doing their best to avoid any pulses sent their way.

Still, there was a ceiling turret and six more Mr Gutsy robots between us and the door. Unless we could get through it, it was only a matter of time before those robots all came down the stairs and absolutely fucked us up!

Fortunately, the robots were grouped up.

I used my PipBuck’s inventory spell to quickly collect a fragmentation grenade from my saddlebags, pulling the pin and letting it cook for a moment. Looking around the pillar, Cobalt and Roll In were struggling to maintain a shield around the Steel Rangers they’d just placed to negate the pulses that were coming their way, momentarily stopping their armour from being shorted out. The moment that happened, we were toast.

Let’s hope this works!

I let the grenade fly, the small apple-like device bouncing between the robots and detonating in a cloud of fragmentation! One had its legs and thruster ripped off, the body being thrown over the edge. Two more were critically damaged and shredded while the other three all scattered to safety.

The Steel Rangers were not going to waste the opening.

The shield dropped and, in a stampede, they all charged forwards and into the defenders. The three intact machines were pounced upon and stamped into dust before they could try to disable them, the two damaged ones who’d lost their own pulse weapons trying to move back and fire their normal weapon at the incoming ponies in power armour. The red beams did little as they fired back, faring much worse and quickly being destroyed.

Xena emerged from her own cover and took aim at the turret as it tried to shoot a Steel Ranger, the machine exploding in a shower of sparks and debris after a single round was shot into it.

“Die you invading zebra scum!” I heard a Mr Gutsy shout as more began to pile in from the upper floors!

“Get through!” McRoar shouted, he and his knights turning to unleash suppressing fire at the robotic reinforcements. “Now!”

We didn’t argue, moving back and through the doorway alongside Scribe Roll In. The Steel Rangers waited for us to be into the next corridor before they also started to back themselves inside, the last one ensuring the close up the door behind us.

I was starting to see why the last few times they attempted this didn’t go so well.

“Well, we’ve set a new record,” Roll In dryly commented.

“We’re lucky not so many piled in onto the first floor this time,” McRoar chided. “Still, we’re here. Keep moving, they’ll keep on our tails until we succeed or die.”

We moved down the corridor, back to the bland metallic faceless efficiency. Roll In stuck with us now while the other Steel Rangers took the rear, the mare following the direction given to her by her PipBuck.

We were only a short way in when two more turrets descended from the ceiling. Moon Blossom acted instantly, dashing forward and latching onto one of them, jamming her knife in and using it to all but pry the weapon from the frame! The second turret fired down at us, a beam hitting and thankfully failing to breach Cobalt’s armour before it itself was absorbed in a flurry gunfire as we and the Rangers all opened up on it.

It was gone after the first few shots.

Moon Blossom discarded the electronics she’d torn out, re-joining us as we moved on.

There were a few branches in the corridor that we ignored, Roll In keeping us moving directly ahead. As we reached one branch, a red bar to my left appeared as we passed. Taking in a deep breath, I launched myself into S.A.T.S. before whatever it was had a chance to kill any of us.

It was a Protectapony, the robot in the middle of turning around to face us as I lined up three shots on its torso before letting it rip! In three burst, my bullets managed to breach the armour and hit something vital, the robots swaying and sparking as all sense seemed to leave it.

“Must eliminate. Must eliminate. Must- Must- Must elimmmm-”

There was one more spark, and robot collapsed into a heap.

From there, we quickly approached the end of the long corridor, and up ahead I could see two more broken elevators and two more branches. What I didn’t see, however, was any kind of indication that we were heading towards this mainframe.

“Where to next, Scribe?” McRoar asked.

“We move right until we reach the second branch left,” she reported. “From there we move again to the end of the corridor where there should another small passage to the left which ends in a staircase. According to these diagrams, that’s where the building’s own generators and computer control systems are located.”

“And that includes the mainframe for the robotic defences?” Cobalt asked.

“It should. All we need to do is find the right mainframe,” Roll In confirmed. “I’m sure you can handle that?”

“We’ll manage,” I retorted.

Reaching the end of the corridor, I glanced at the elevator to our left. Unlike the other, this one was open and, inside, was the skeleton of a pony in a yellow hard hat, a toolbox held in his hooves.

And then the building threw all it had at us.

“They’ve got the door open!” a Knight shouted, red bars bursting onto my E.F.S. in droves as all the robots from the atrium started to pour in.

And then, all the worse, the wall between the two elevators started to shift. The panel slid away, and from a hidden alcove rolled out the largest robot I’d ever had the displeasure of seeing up close. I could feel a pit opening in my stomach as I observed the three large treaded legs, thick armour plating and two enormous and bulky arms ending in a minigun and rocket launcher respectively.

Yeah, that’s a Sentry Bot.

“Fuck!” was all I could say as it rolled forwards, right into me since I was at the front of the group.

Even I heard the red magical laser beams start to fly, all I could do was try to brace myself as the robot lifted one of its arms and brought it down towards me! I tried to use my rifle as some kind of shield, but it felt like being hit by our own Sky Bandit as it smashed into me.

I felt myself fly for just a moment before pain erupted throughout my body as I smashed into the back wall of the open elevator. I could see my PipBuck urgently flashing red out of the corner of my eye, even as my vision shifted and swam almost hypnotically.

I was just about able to regain my bearings, enough so to see Star Paladin McRoar and Moon Blossom both brazenly charge into the sentry bot, grappling with the giant war machine as the others tried to hold off the incoming swarm, Roll In and Cobalt again attempting to deflect incoming pulses.

And then the elevator shuddered.

And then I was falling.

I came to… well, I’m not sure how much time later. All I knew was that my body ached something fierce and that the last thing I remembered was the brief sensation of falling to my death.

But given how shit I felt, I guess I hadn’t actually died.

A small groan escaped my lips as I turned myself over and off of my face. The world started to blur into focus, and I found a world that had seen the apocalypse all over again.

The elevator was now at an angle, sparks and flashes going off all around me. I was covered in a thick layer of dust, little pieces of twisted rubble lying all around me. My PipBuck was still flashing red, the Stable Colt diagram looking quite distressed. I know the feeling, buddy.

I slowly brought my hoof forward, as agonising as the action was, so I could get a better look at the device’s diagnosis. The torso region was flashing the most, the status bar holding only a sliver left in it. All my other limbs seemed to have taken a beating too, and I imagined I had fractures all over my body.

Ugh…

“Altrix…?” I called out to the changeling, noting my voice was little more than a croak. “Anybody…?”

No answer.

Seeing that I was alone, I slowly reached out for a Med-X from my bag. The moment I got the morphine into my system, some of the pain started to die away. Not all of it, but enough for me to sit up.

I was sure my spine had been damaged from when I hit the elevator. Hell, who knew what other damage my bones had suffered. I was really wishing Altrix was here, then she could easily have better examined the damage and done smart things with it. But as it was, I was probably dying, and she wasn’t here.

Healing potion it was. Though I was unfortunately aware that if any bones were misaligned that this was going to be very bad for me.

I just had to hope that they weren’t.

I took a sip from the healing potion, even more of the pain dying away. My body was allowed to slacken a little, relief flooding my senses. It didn’t seem like I’d just inadvertently paralysed myself, so I had to take that as a good sign.

With the Stable Colt looking a little happier, I forced myself forward and dragged myself out of the elevator. I had to use my magic to open the door a little further than they’d been knocked by the impact, but they offered little resistance. Once I was free, I find myself in another faceless corridor somewhere in the bowels of the facility.

Not ideal, but eh.

I gently stretched out my limbs, seeing no activity on my Eye Forward Sparkle for the moment. Still, that could change again quickly. If I was going to get back to my friends, I needed to-

Wait, where’s my gun?

Whipping around, I all quickly hopped back into the elevator to retrieve my assault rifle. However…

Oh… shit.

The rifle was well and truly bent in two. Looking it over, a lot of the insides had probably been crushed when the Sentry Bot had hit me. Yeah, this thing was never going to fire another bullet.

That’s two guns I’d lost recently. Why does the world hate me!?

Well, I guess my 9mm will have to do for the time being.

Stepping back out of the elevator again, I looked left and right down the corridor. Like upstairs, there was a second elevator along the wall. However, beyond that was just a dead end. The only way to go seemed to be right of my elevator, where there was a corner leading around to… wherever this all led.

I started to move off, slinking up to and peering around the next corner. There seemed to be a few inactive turret emplacements along the roof down the next corridor, but my pistol could probably deal with those after a few shots each. So long as nothing bigger came along.

And then, making me wish I’d never thought anything, I heard a familiar sound of a panel sliding away.

The red bar appeared right as I turned to spot the emerging Sentry Bot behind me.

“Hostiles detected,” the deep robotic voice declared. “Firing.”

I fired first, aiming for the head as my pistol’s bullets just uselessly pinged off the armour as its minigun started to spool up.

Alright, forget fighting. Running!

I ducked behind the corridor as an onslaught of bullets cascaded into the empty wall! I didn’t stop as the barrage ended, I could hear the tracks started to roll!

I bolted down the corridor, making sure to enter S.A.T.S. as the first turrets came online. After lining up my shots, the first two guns went down before they could let off anything. The third, however, opened up as I passed. I felt the heat of the shots landing around my galloping hooves and the excruciating burns of the few beams that hit my barding! Fortunately, as it did outside, most of the energy was absorbed while the turret failed to hit my exposed head.

I just fired blindingly up at it as I rushed past, a shower of sparks and a cease in the laser fire indicating I’d hit my mark.

And then, just as I turned the next corner leading rightwards, that was a pop and a whoosh as something was fired behind me. Rushing down the next corridor, I felt the tremor as the missile exploded where I had just been.

Yeah, still running.

The current corridor split off to the left about halfway and likewise continued to a closed door at the very end. I ignored the turn, running right towards the door and hitting the button.

“Access denied.”

“What do you mean access denied!?”

I could still hear it getting closer.

FUCK IT ALL!

I backtracked, slipping into the turn-off and trying one of the doors along it. It didn’t open, nor did the next, or the one after that!

And that just left me at a dead end.

This place just isn’t playing fair!

I pulled another grenade from my bag and prepped it. This little thing was going to be my last hope, and I was painfully aware of it. The moments immediately after were painful in of themselves, hearing the approach of the automated tank as it prepared to send me to the everafter a bit too early.

The moment I saw one of its legs roll into view, I threw the grenade.

It bounced down towards its target, detonating directly underneath the bastard as it turned the corner!

The explosion dented the armour, but it did little more than that.

You’ve got to be kidding me!

I shouted. I was angry. Damned angry. This stupid thing was going to put all that we’d worked for to an end like this!? Come one! Fuck. You!

I aimed my pistol and started to fire. Not stopping for a moment, even as it rolled closer towards me and raised its minigun. My bullets continued to ping off of the armour, doing little more than create more scuffs along the metal. I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. All I had was this little thing.

Dammit.

I saw the minigun start to spin, my thoughts turning towards Xena and my friends. They’d be fine. They’d reach the mainframe. They would.

My latest clip ran dry.

And then… then…

The robot didn’t shoot.

“Have a nice day.”

What?

The robot lowered its weapon, turning around and heading back the way it had come. A moment after, all of the doors around me started to open.

“Attention,” a voice sounded all around me. “Robotic defences have been set to standby. Direct your queries to Security Chief Hoofcuffs for more information.”

Fuuuuck me. Impeccable timing, guys.

Well, at least this meant that the others had done their thing. I guess they’d pushed their way to the mainframe, the Steel Rangers would be happy. Still, I hoped they had all made it alright.

But holy Celestia and Luna, that was… Gah! I hate robots!

Right, ignoring the fact that I’d almost died for the millionth time this past month… Yes, one of the doorways had opened up to a staircase. I think I’ll be taking that one.

I started the climb, moving up one floor to try and get back to the others. Unfortunately, when I got there, there didn’t seem to be a door. Seeing as I had no idea how this place was laid out, I guess I was just going to be wandering around until something stuck. At least I didn’t have to worry about the death machines following me anymore.

One more floor up, the door was jammed. I gave it a look over, tried unjamming it with my magic… Nothing. It was well and truly stick.

So, to the top of the building I go.

The door up top opened up just fine, thankfully. Stepping through, I was admitted into another corridor, albeit this one had windows lining the wall to my left. Looking inside, I could see quite a large office space. Following the corridor along, I was met with another turn off hallway which broke up the two separate blocks of office cubicles. An unlit sign was hanging from the roof, the indication on it being that I had just found myself in the administrative offices.

And my map marker was leading directly ahead.

I took the turn, heading off between the two offices. I reached the door at the very end, opening it to reveal a rather snug little room with three doors leading off of it. There were two alcoves with deactivated Protectaponies, and the roof was lined with ceiling turrets. And honestly, I had no doubt that some of these walls could retract to admit more Sentry Bots.

A chokepoint. I was very glad all of it was turned off.

The doors to the left and right looked like they led into the offices of the ponies whose names were etched onto a plaque next to them. Nopony I recognised, just the people who ran this place two hundred years ago, I guess.

The door directly ahead, however.

‘Twilight Sparkle: Ministry Mare’.

I was here.

I cautiously approached the door, more than a little worried as to what other security measures Twilight might have included back in the day. But, to my surprise, it just opened up as normally as any other door.

The office inside was… modest, to say the least. There were no windows or any particularly homely decoration beyond the several bookshelves lining the walls. The floor was covered in a green carpet, and the office had woken walls compared to the bland metals of the rest of the building. It almost felt like a school teacher’s office more than that of one of the most powerful ponies in a pre-war Equestria.

I wonder if all her offices in the hubs were like this. Or maybe they differed from location to location…?

I walked around the wooden desk at the end, examining everything on its surface. There was a terminal that was sitting idly on the desk. There was a lamp, a pair of dusty reading glasses and an ancient picture frame with the image of Twilight and her friends. They looked… young.

I sat down on the chair, turning my attention to the terminal. Which… was on a log-in screen. Dammit, why wasn’t Cobalt here to hack into it?

Maybe there was a password around here somewhere?

I opened up one of the drawers at random, being met with a whole load of files. I gave them all a quick glance over, just looking at the titles.

‘OIA Vanhoover ministry hubs monthly report: October’.

‘Supply request: Maripony’.

‘Classified: Goldenblood Activity’.

‘Security note from Security Chief Hoofcuffs.’.

Huh, maybe that last one has something…?

Ministry Mare Twilight,

Respectfully, ma’am, after all the effort we’ve gone through to make sure this hub is secure from zebra infiltrators, why is ‘books’ your terminal password? And yes, I know it. I had one of our guys try to break in as a test, and he got it on the first try. You’re surrounded by books, it’s not even remotely subtle!

Please, change your password. Make it the date you first kissed a stallion or something. Or a mare. Whatever. Just please make it secure.

Respectfully,

Security Chief Hoofcuffs.

Result! Assuming she hadn’t changed it. But let’s try it!

I closed up the drawer, returning my attention to the terminal and trying my hoof at entering the password. And then, to my equal relief and small amusement, it dinged to indicate a successful login.

For all the secret projects and authority, Twilight had been such a dork.

Looking at the menu, I could see several options that seemed to be mostly meeting schedules and research notes. Nothing I particularly needed, but there was an option at the very bottom that read ‘Site B’.

I clicked on it, and three more options came up.

The first one was exactly what we needed, and just what Watcher promised that we would find!

I made sure to plug in my PipBuck and copy the access code file over. It just seemed to be a randomly generated string of letter and numbers, night and day to how crappy Twilight’s own personal password had been. Still, the file was safely stored onto my PipBuck and ready for use!

And just like that, there was a ding as that objective was marked as complete. A new one was automatically added to replace it.

‘Access Site B’.

Glad to see it was still keeping track of it all.

Still, my attention was then caught by the remaining two options. First off, there looked like there was an audio recording on the terminal. Curiosity striking me, I clicked on the log and let it play.

“So, I just got back from Site B,” I heard Twilight Sparkle say. “It’s a disaster. Another one. That’s all we seem to get now, isn’t it? One screw up after the next. It’s like… a loop I can’t escape from. But in order to end this war and save everypony, I need the alicorn potion. And now, to make the alicorn potion, I may also be required to make one that will turn changelings into Changeling Queens.”

I heard her depressed sigh, the mare silent for several moments before continuing.

“I can’t trust Chrysalis. More than I trust somepony like Goldenblood, sadly enough, but not by much. Who knows what Chrysalis will do when she has that power? Will I just be ending one war in order to kick off the next? I don’t know. All of us, everything we do, we only seem to make things worse. Where did we go so wrong? How did it all come to this?”

Another sigh, and a small thump that suggested that she’d either hit her desk or slammed her face into it.

“I miss Spike. He’d always have some words of advice in a time like this. But he’s sleeping, and probably wouldn’t want to see me anyway. Not after the argument we had the last time we saw each other. Celestia, I’m such an idiot. That dragon has been here since before all of this, and now I’ve driven him away. I hope he knows I still love him. Maybe I can tell him that when he next wakes up, I just hope the war will be over by then. Oh, I don’t even know why I’m recording this. I guess… I only have machines to talk to about my problems now.”

I bit my lip, listening as the Ministry Mare choked back a sob. Her breathing became heavy, and she was clearly doing her best not to break down crying.

“Damn it.”

And then the log ended.

Dear Luna… She had been heavily depressed by the end of the war, that was for sure. I wasn’t certain who this ‘Spike’ was. And he was a dragon? I’m not sure. But whoever he was, I doubt she ever saw him again. Given all that I know, Twilight probably returned to Splendid Valley not long after this recording. She obviously completed the alicorn potion, sort of, and then the world ended.

Just another ghost of the old world.

I moved onto the third option, removing the log from my mind for the moment. It was entitled ‘Venomous’.

This is a prototype magical energy rifle modified from a standard issue Shadowbolt rifle. Now, their rifles shoot bolts of highly concentrated magic rather than the long beams of destruction magic most energy weapons do. The bolt is generally far less accurate, but far deadlier. I have my… reservations about Diamond Flash and Flash Industries as a whole, but they know how to make their weapons.

Still, as much as I don’t like the necessity of these weapons, I have an idea for a new variation.

Our studies at ‘Site B’ on changeling magic for our new StealthBuck model have been insightful. But the exact properties of their magic are particularly fascinating! Their magical bolts actually display an almost corrosive property. Ordinarily, it’s a small difference, just a minor increase in the burn produced by a directed bolt of mana. But amplified, changeling magic almost burns like some of the most severe forms of acid.

As such, I’ve tinkered with a Shadowbolt rifle provided to me by Rainbow Dash and replaced the spell matrix with changeling magic rather than that of a pony. From there, I’ve cranked up the capacitors and made some other modifications in order to bring out the spell’s most acidic properties. The resulting weapon, dubbed as ‘Venomous’ by the others at Site B, deals around the same amount of damage to a target as the standard rifle, but the corrosive effect is enough to melt through power armour.

This could be useful on the front lines against enemy armour and zebra robots. However, there is a danger that, should one be captured, that the weapon could be reverse engineered by the zebras and turned against our Steel Rangers. Applejack would have my head if she found out.

I think I had better sit on this one prototype for a while. I have this new alicorn potion idea I wish to pursue anyway. Let’s just see where it goes.

There was one more option revealed beneath the text.

‘Open safe’.

Clicking it, there was a whirring from behind me as a wall panel parted. A second panel emerged, a small rack appearing on which a pristine rifle sat. The weapon looked rather steampunk, the body being a mix of dull grey metal and painted yellow, several wires jutting out from the side along with little vials with green magic floating around inside. The very front of the weapon was a clear reinforced glass casing with more of that green magic focused within.

I carefully took Venomous off of the rack, along with the energy cells that were also secured to it.

The weapon was a far cry in design to the box-like laser weaponry I’d seen around. This was far more like the two guns I’d seen strapped to Kronos’ side, only with green magic rather than red. And if this was the kind of gun used by the Shadowbolts before the war, I was willing to bet the pegasi up above favoured this kind of design.

Still, none of them had one like this. Strong enough to melt through power armour? Changeling magic?

After everything that had happened, with what I was trying to do, taking it almost seemed oddly poetic.

With the new rifle slung across my back, for which I was feeling a bit more confident with than just my little pistol, I turned from the office and exited out the door. I still had to find my friends, and then we could finally leave this city behind.

Footnote: Max Level

40 - Technology

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Chapter Forty: Technology

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting this ‘local’ walk out with anything!”

So, how the hell do I reach the mainframe from here?

Ugh, why can’t my map marker show that one!?

…

You know, I had been kinda hoping that just the act of thinking about it would cause the thing to do something like give me a marker. You know, in the normal way it magically seems to do that. But no, this time it didn’t. I will try not to take that personally, PipBuck. The map function still wasn’t exactly helpful either. The map of Equestria not exactly showing anything closer to the ground, and the local map looking more like a confusing jumbled mess over a convenient guide. That was one element not very well designed for this model, I will say.

Still, I at least know the general area in this place it’s supposed to be. Now I just had to reach there, starting off by finding a way two floors down from my current position.

At least I wouldn’t have another Sentry Bot pop out to say hi.

Moving back out and past the two large office spaces, I returned to the corridor that would lead back to the staircase where I’d found my way up. Unfortunately, I doubted the other doors on said staircase had unblocked themselves in the last few minutes, so I moved to try the other door instead. It opened up to reveal a second staircase leading downwards, the way looking to be clear of any blockages or debris.

I moved down to the next floor, the doorway already partially open with the skeleton of a pony in a lab coat preventing it from fully shutting. Peering through the doorway, I could see a dark corridor beyond that seemed to branch off in yet more directions, along with a few other doors that seemed to be marked as laboratories.

I left that alone for the moment.

Moving down to the next floor, I found the next door to be sealed up tight, not unlike its counterpart on the other staircase. And then, just by peering over the railings towards the floor below, I could see a faint glow coming from the bottom floor. A further look revealed a tipped over cart that had been transporting several decayed barrels, each of them having had their glowing rainbow contents spilt out all over the floor. Another skeleton was half-submerged in the mix, though it seemed… warped and malformed.

Just being near the stuff was already making my PipBuck’s Geiger Counter click away dangerously, so it was probably best I didn’t try to walk through it. Instead, I backed the fuck off and headed back up one floor to the partially open door.

Opening it up all the way, and gently moving the corpse to one side, I started to make my way back through the corridor in an attempt to find another way down. Or a way into the mainframe from here at least; Roll In had said we were to take another set of stairs up from the previous floor, right?

I guess I’ll figure it out one way or another.

I ignored the passages leading left, figuring that would just lead me back out onto the atrium. At least for the moment, it might be a good place to retrace my steps if I needed to.

Moving further in, I started looking from lab to lab in an attempt to find a way to the computer core. There had to be a passage somewhere around here…

A red bar appeared from one of the rooms.

Cautiously, I glanced towards the lab where my E.F.S. was picking up the entity. The windows were covered from the inside with blinds, so I couldn’t see whatever it was poking around inside.

I could just leave it, but…

Not wanting to leave something potentially dangerous to us roaming around the building, I drew my pistol and made my way towards the door. Hitting the button to open it, it slid open to reveal what looked to be a ransacked science lab that held a distinctly green glow.

The feral ghoul grunted, looking up at me.

I shot a single bullet through its brain.

The ghoul dropped, the red bar blinking with no others appearing to take its place. Strange how the robots had left it be for all this time, but maybe they’d never realised it was there. Or maybe they didn’t realise it was a ghoul rather than a scientist, seeing as it was wearing a tattered lab coat like the other bodies I’d seen.

Still, I didn’t need to be a scientist myself to figure out what turned him. The lab contained another overturned barrel, this one spilling out green balefire waste that made my PipBuck click again, though to a lesser degree than the rainbow gunk on the staircase.

Whatever experiments they’d been running in here, it hadn’t ended well for them.

Moving back out into the corridor, I could see the end branching off again in two differing directions. They were marked as to leading to yet more science labs, with no indication that following them would get me to the mainframe.

I guess the atrium was my best bet after all.

Moving back through the building, I went from corridor to corridor while trying to keep on track towards the exit. I had a vague sense of where it should be, I just had to make sure I didn’t absentmindedly make a wrong turn somewhere. Moon Blossom would take the piss out of me for hours if I did.

But then, just as I came across a central corridor leading towards a singular door, with two familiar inactive elevators at my back, green bars suddenly appeared in my vision.

And so too did muffled voices.

I opened the door, stepping out onto one of the upper floors of the atrium as a Mr Gutsy idly passed by without giving me so much as a second thought. Looking over the balcony to the scattered tables of the break area below, I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of my friends. They… also seemed to be in a bit of an argument with the Steel Rangers, particularly Moon Blossom and Xena.

“You cannot be serious,” Xena chided. “The least you could do is spare a single Ranger!”

“I’m sorry,” McRoar apologised. “But after what happened and seeing that we haven’t heard from him since the incident, your friend is most likely deceased. Now, we need to get in contact with our chapter and focus on securing this site. As I said, you’re free to take what you’re owed, but then you have to leave.”

“Oh, come the fuck on, you bucket heads!” Moon Blossom protested, getting right up into an unflinching McRoar’s face even as the others aimed their weapon in warning at her. “Grow some balls, you canned cunts! Or do you fucking cut them off as part of your weird technology cult? Do you? Because that would actually be hilarious!”

“Maybe we should just calm down, this isn’t getting us anywhere,” Roll In deadpanned. “Your arguing is just wasting all of our time.”

“Because Scrap Heap may be alive and hurt!” Xena stressed.

“I walked it off,” I joked as I finished descending down the stairs towards them, all eyes turning towards me. “I got the code, by the way.”

And then I was knocked on my ass by zebra hugs.

“Where have you been!?” Xena shouted as she very tightly glomped me! “Fool! Don’t do that! Ever!”

“Breathing…” I gasped out, I had no idea where she was suddenly finding this Yao Gui strength!

“Ah,” she said, lessening her grip before we both got up to our hooves. She gave an awkward cough. “But of course, we grew concerned.”

“Did you now?” I asked in amusement, smirking her way as she blushed. I think Xena had been worrying enough for the lot of them, somehow. “I’m fine, don’t worry. The stupid robot clobbered me into the elevator shaft and broke it. I don’t know how long I was out, exactly, but a healing potion fixed me right up.”

“A healing potion?” Altrix asked worriedly, stepping forward towards me. “Are you sure you didn’t break anything from the fall?”

“Uh… I was sure.” I mean, I hadn’t been. But I won’t mention the gamble, I don’t need to give the good doctor an aneurysm.

Altrix eyed me suspiciously. “Well, okay. But when we get back to the hive, I’m giving you all full health check-ups.”

Oh. Wonderful.

“So, what did I miss?” I asked the group.

“Things grew hectic after we got separated,” Cobalt explained. “Moon Blossom managed to damage the Sentry Bot’s optics in her… usual ways. The Steel Rangers finished the job, but we all had to move back quick as the other robots tried rushing us.”

“We were very nearly overwhelmed in that corridor,” Roll In supplemented. “Fortunately, most of them were concentrated behind us, leaving the run ahead clear.”

“Aside from the odd Protectapony, but the Steel Rangers stepped on them,” Cobalt added.

I guess it was easier, considering those ones didn’t have pulse weapons.

“What then?”

“We reached the objective and formed a defensive line as Scribe Roll In worked with your friend to disable the security net. It was thankfully textbook, and they achieved it without casualties.”

“Though they had to spend even more time freeing up another jackass who failed to duck,” Moon Blossom saw fit to comment, throwing a taunting look at one of the knights.

“From there we regrouped here, we need to get in contact with the other Steel Rangers to report,” the Scribe concluded. “And your friends were… adamant about us delaying that so we could look for you.”

“And they refused,” Xena said with a glare.

“And yet it appears to be unnecessary now,” Roll In replied unapologetically. “But I must credit you, the competence you all displayed, even the pegasus, was refreshing.”

“You said you found the code?” Cobalt then asked, bringing us back to the whole reason we came to this death trap.”

“Right.” I tapped my PipBuck. “It’s all there, I got it from the office just like we were told. I also found a log from Twilight herself you might be interested in, Cobalt.”

Predictably, that got his interest. “Go on.”

“Mostly her lamenting about Chrysalis and the war. She was missing somebody named ‘Spike’. It all sounded… rather tragic, actually. I’ll let you listen in later.”

He frowned. “Spike? He was Twilight’s draconic assistant before and during the war. Our records lose track of him towards the end of the conflict.”

Well, he was supposedly asleep. I guess dragons must sleep for a really long time or something.

“So, you have everything we agreed upon,” McRoar noted, before tilting his head a little. “Though, what is that on your back?”

Oh, right. I drew Venomous, showing it to the group.

“A magical energy rifle?” Roll In questioned, trotting forwards and examining the weapon. “Hm, looks like a model the Enclave would favour. Bolts overs beams, definitely pegasus inclined. Though it appears to have been modified.”

“It uses changeling magic,” I noted, getting Altrix’s attention. “Altrix’s people. I’m taking it as part of the whole ‘our share of the technology’ bargain. The rest of this place is yours.”

“I see,” the Scribe said with a hum. “Shame, I would have liked to study it.”

“A deal is a deal, Roll In,” the Star Paladin stated. “They have their spoils, now it’s time for them to leave.”

“Sir,” one of the Knights protested. “Again, I’m not comfortable letting savages leave with such valuable technology.”

Savages?

“You have your orders, Knight!” McRoar barked. “You’re out of line.”

“No, sir. You’re out of line!”

“Excuse me, soldier!?”

Uh oh.

Xena and I took a step back towards the rest of our friends, regrouping as the Steel Rangers suddenly found themselves confronting one another. The air had suddenly because a lot tenser, though their bars remained green for the time being…

“You would let these savages leave here with that weapon, along with computer data, that is rightfully ours,” the Knight growled, getting grumbles of agreement from a couple of the others. “Our order is meant to take all technology away from them, we are the only ones fit to wield it!”

“Actually, our order was created to fight for Equestria during the war, and then repurposed to gather technology to use in protecting the survivors of that war,” Scribe Roll In recited factually. “We may be all that’s left of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, but our overall mission never actually changed.”

“There are plenty who would disagree with you, Scribe,” the Knight dismissed. “This isn’t old Equestria, who cares about it anymore? What matters is our brothers and sisters in the Steel Rangers, nothing else.”

“Stand down, Knight,” the Star Paladin said warningly. “You’re sounding close to an Enclave pegasus.”

“Maybe they have the right idea,” he contested. “If the Elders were smart, they’d have us ransack every so-called settlement in the Equestrian Wasteland and confiscate everything of value.”

“Now he’s just sounding like a raider,” Roll In noted in a deadpan.

“Yes, he is,” the Star Paladin agreed. “Knight, you’re relieved.”

“No sir, I’m afraid you are.”

“Hold on,” another Steel Ranger said, the mare taking her helmet off to reveal a cream coat and short light brown mane. She looked young. “I get that we’re having a slight conflict of ideologies here, but we’re all Steel Rangers. We shouldn’t be fighting amongst ourselves like this.”

“A reckoning is coming, Knight,” the mutineer declared. “One day, ponies like McRoar and Steelhooves aren’t going to be around no more. They’re an old breed, unable to do what needs to be done to ensure our survival and supremacy. I suggest you pick a side.”

She scoffed. “This is ridiculous.”

“I’d listen to her, Knight,” McRoar said in a dangerous tone. “One last chance, stand down.”

The renegade was silent a moment before he then glanced at the mare. “So, you’re still supporting the Star Paladin?”

“He’s our commanding officer,” the Steel Ranger confirmed. “We can sort this all out back at base. Just calm down.”

“Oh, I’m perfectly calm, Knight.”

Then he shot her.

A single red beam flew through the mare’s uncovered head as a bloody hole was burned directly through her skull, the Steel Ranger not even having a chance to look surprised before she dropped and three of their bars turned red!

“Traitor!” McRoar bellowed as chaos erupted, the Star Paladin firing at the three mutineers as they all moved back to take cover!

I raised my new rifle as Roll In pulled a small box-like pistol from within her robes and starting firing. Xena started drawing her rifle with Cobalt lighting his horn, Altrix staying back in shock as Moon Blossom gave an enraged growl before taking to the air with her knife drawn.

I aimed my rifle at the instigator, firing a single green bolt of changeling magic at the power armoured figure. The magic splashed against his armour, stumbling the pony as it scorched the front plating.

Simultaneous, Xena let off a shot that pinged off against another Rangers’ power armour, Cobalt placing a temporary shield over Roll In and McRoar as they tipped another table to use as some kind of cover.

Moon Blossom rushed the third Steel Ranger from overhead, bearing down on him as her knife glared. And yet, my heart skipped a beat as he brought his rifles to bear, firing two red beams that hit the pegasus directly and sent her careening to the ground.

“No!” Altrix screamed, her wings buzzing as she shot forwards and dragged Moon Blossom safety while I fired two more green bolts at that Ranger to cover them.

And then I looked back at the first.

He was still standing, but I could hear faint gurgling between the gunfire from behind his helmet, a hissing sound permeating the air as the green magic continued to burn through the power armour all the way to his chest.

Then his red bar blinked out, the magical acid having burned all the way into his heart.

I love this gun!

Suddenly feeling a million times more confident against power armour, noting how much this would help against Kronos and his lackies, I ducked behind another table as the beams continued to fly. Even if the original mutineer was down, they weren’t giving up without a fight!

“Can you provide us with a shield?” McRoar asked Cobalt.

He shook his head. “After everything, I’m pretty spent.”

“I’m not sure mine will hold for as long as you’d like without assistance,” Roll In concurred, levitating her pistol over the table and firing blindly at the two Steel Rangers.

McRoar growled, popping up and firing a volley of red beams at one of them. “Outcasts! The both of you!”

He received fire in kind, ducking back down after taking several hits to his now smoking armour.

“Gah, we need to push at once. I imagine that I can probably take one of them, but extended fire from both will burn through my T-45’s plating.”

“How’s Moon Blossom?” I asked over at the nearby Altrix.

“I’m checking to see if they burned a hole,” she said as she opened up her leather jacket. “She’s unconscious but breathing!”

Hopefully, it was nothing serious and a healing potion would fix her right up. But if it was, I knew Altrix had it handled.

A piece of the table as blown away, our cover increasingly damaged under the unending barrage. I took a quick peek and firing at one of the Steel Rangers, but the bolts went wide and ate into the wall. Like the note had said, it wasn’t quite as accurate as beam weapons!

“Alright, McRoar can handle the one on the left,” I stated as I ducked back into cover. “We can take the one on the right. I just need a good shot and this thing will burn clean through.”

“Agreed,” the Star Paladin declared. “Roll In, cover them. Ad Victoriam!”

And with that, he charged over our makeshift barricade and stampeded right into one of the renegades.

Well, no time like the present!

Cobalt snatched up one of the rifles from a deceased Ranger, likely saving on his depleted magic, and started to return fire at the second Ranger before he could start to assist his fellow traitor. Roll In and Xena followed suit, magic and bullets alike pinging off of his armour and causing the pony to duck for cover.

With both occupied, now was my chance!

I rushed from our cover, running forward towards where the Steel Ranger was hunkered down and leaping over the barricade! I landed behind him, the Ranger insidiously whipping around to try and shoot me.

If he was using his own version of S.A.T.S., I beat him to it.

I let my spell-guided bolts fly, striking the Steel Ranger multiple times as the magical acid started to eat into his armour. I heard a strangled scream from inside as he fell to the ground, writhing in pain for several moments. Then, we went still.

I turned towards McRoar, where the Star Paladin had lifted a panicked pony into the air and chucked him against a nearby wall. He approached the other Steel Ranger, his armour smoking and dotted with burns, using his armour hooves to smash down onto his former teammate again and again until something gave way.

Then, with the Steel Ranger barely moving, he opened up with his rifle at the caved point of his armour. The red bar blinked out not a moment later.

“So much for insurrection,” Roll In dryly stated, moving out into the open and staring down at the initial mutineer’s corpse. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell the Elder, Star Paladin.”

“I think the truth would suffice,” Xena muttered, putting away her sniper rifle.

“No, it won’t,” McRoar admitted. “Sadly, our Elder is among those who may very well share the Knight’s extremist views. He was right about one thing, there is a reckoning coming. Tensions have been rising for a while between those who believe in Applejack’s original vision and those who think we should isolate ourselves further. One day, it’s going to burst like it did here, but on a bigger scale.”

“So, what will you do?” Cobalt asked him.

“Well, I suppose these soldiers were casualties in a costly operation to take the facility. The Elder will accept that, all he’ll care about is the fact that we got it.”

“We’ll be fine,” Roll In agreed. “And ready.”

“Moon Blossom?” I asked aloud, heading back to where she and Altrix were holed up.

Thankfully, when I got there she was already up and awake, though looking rather peeved at, well… everything.

“I hate being shot,” she was muttering to Altrix. “I keep being shot. A lot. Why can’t they just let me crush them in peace?”

“It’s over now, we’re all okay,” Altrix cooed.

“Ugggggh.”

“Everything alright over here?” I asked the two of them.

“The magic didn’t breach her jacket, she simply hit her head when she reached the floor,” Altrix explained in relief. “No concussion as far as I can tell, just a cute little bump.”

“Nothing about me is cute,” Moon Blossom denied with a pout.

“If you say so,” Altrix said with a giggle and a pat onto the former raider’s mane.

You always have to love the Doc’s enthusiasm. So infectious.

“Welp, I’m just about ready to go,” the pegasus then declared, hopping up to her hooves and refusing Altrix’s help when she wobbled unsteadily. “This place sucks. Let’s scram.”

We moved back towards the others, Scribe Roll In taking hold of the murdered mare’s dog tags with her magic and pulling them away.

“I’ll make sure that the Knight gets a posthumous commendation and promotion to Paladin,” the Scribe decided.

“For bravery and loyalty to the cause in the face of extreme adversity, giving her life so that others might live,” McRoar agreed, before looking towards the other bodies with what I would imagine to be disgust. “While the others failed to comply with orders and suffered the result.”

Well, not ‘technically’ a lie. But the half-truth was probably safer than the full truth, if the Steel Rangers really are that divided.

“I’ll prepare the transmission,” Roll In said, extracting her PipBuck before looking towards us. “You should follow Moon Blossom’s advice and get moving. We cannot guarantee your safety when our reinforcements arrive to secure the building.”

“Just be sure to use the technology for the benefit of the innocent rather than for one’s self,” Xena advised, looking between the two Steel Rangers critically. “Don’t let the fools dictate your actions. It is up to you to do good where you can.”

“I am aware of my responsibilities, civilian,” McRoar shot back. “But yes, we will do our best. And if this reckoning comes, rest assured that the true Steel Rangers will do their duty and honour our oaths to Ministry Mare Applejack, just as we have always done.”

You know what? I believed him. And not just because of what I’d seen him do today, but the way he spoke of Applejack… Well, it reminded me of the way Cobalt spoke of Twilight Sparkle.

She was his idol.

“Come on guys, let’s get out of here,” I said to the others, leading the way out of the atrium and through the building, leaving Scribe Roll In and Star Paladin McRoar behind.

Once we stepped back out into the light of day, we could finally breathe out a sigh of relief.

“Well, that was an adventure,” Moon Blossom commented. “And while we’re here… I told you so, Scrap.”

“Yes, you told me so,” I deadpanned back. “Though not all of them turned on us, so you weren’t completely on the mark.”

“Eh, details,” she dismissed with the wave of a hoof. “What now, Boss?”

“We need to get back to the hive, I think.” It would be a good few hours ride from here to Stable 84 in the Sky Bandit. And looking up, it wouldn’t be so long until it was dark again here. Going back to the hive first was our safest bet, we needed to be sure we were ready for Kronos. “We can probably make it past Crossroads and through much of the city before dark, and then bunker down somewhere for the night.”

“Can’t we just stay in the town again?” Altrix asked.

Tempting, but… “We need to make good time. We can manage without it.”

She looked disappointed, but the changeling didn’t contest my point.

Still, we were doing pretty good in terms of supplies. Food. Water. Ammo. Healing supplies. There wasn’t anything we were desperately low on at the moment, so making it back to the skywagon wasn’t going to be too much of an issue. We could top off on everything back at Stable 84 and Altrix could do those medical exams she was itching to do. As much as I was dreading the inevitable prodding and poking, it probably wasn’t a bad idea to see if any of us had a bit of lead lodged inside our fleshy bits somewhere…

That, and I’m sure Insidiis will be eager to send her changelings to help deal with the threat to her hive now that we can get into the place. Maybe the Changeling Queen will even tag along herself. Who wouldn’t want the changeling equivalent of a true Celestia-level alicorn tagging along?

I must admit, I felt a strange hole in my stomach as I looked off down the shattered Vanhoover street and thought of the facility beneath Haven. Our last stop. It almost felt like it was all coming to an end, everything that has started thirty-three days ago when Derpy had given me Chrysalis’ lost PipBuck. How much things had changed in just over a month…

One of those changes trotted up beside me, Xena giving me a concerned look. I gave her a quick affectionate nuzzle on the cheek just to let her know that I was okay.

Then we started to walk.

Straight for the finish line.

Footnote: Max Level

41 - Stranger

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Chapter Forty-One: Stranger

“He was just here! You saw him, right?”

We were now far away from the centre of Vanhoover, and thankfully far from the MAS hub and the Steel Rangers that were undoubtedly setting up shop. We’d moved back through the city one step at a time, navigating our way past the old skyscrapers and businesses of the pre-war world. The built-up remnants of the panicked traffic had long since vanished, leaving mostly clear streets aside from the odd vehicle hulk or collapsed building. Around us, the mass urban area was starting to thin out a little as we headed further away and towards the outer sections of the city, though we were still some time away from the Sky Bandit.

Actually… I wasn’t even sure exactly where the Sky Bandit was. Somewhere in our trek back we’d taken a different turn, and now we found ourselves in unfamiliar streets. It would probably take us some time to get back to wherever it was we parked, and now it was also getting late.

Maybe we should have stayed another night in Crossroads after all…

“It’s getting late,” Cobalt said, almost as if he was mirroring my own thoughts. “We should probably pick a building to rest our heads in for the night.”

Too bad I was picking up a fair few red bars from a lot of them. Probably vermin, but some of them could be raiders for all we knew.

“I don’t think this is a safe place for us to stop just yet,” I said back to him. “Too much bad stuff around every corner. I’d like my E.F.S. to be clear before we bunker down.”

“How about a medical clinic?” Altrix suddenly chirped, buzzing forward and pointing up at a road sign. “It’s only up ahead. Maybe we could find some goodies in there as well!”

“I believe our healing potion and Med-X supply are sufficient for the return,” Xena noted.

“Eh, too much ‘fix everything’ juice can’t really hurt,” Moon Blossom pointed out with a shrug. “Maybe they’ll have some more of that hydra stuff as well. We ran out back at the town, remember?”

Makes sense that she’d be keen to find more of the stuff after it saved her face.

“I agree. They may have certain medications I lack in my medical boxes,” Altrix agreed. “Hydra, buck…”

“Buck?” I questioned with a curious glance at the changeling. Not what I expected to hear a doctor say… “Aren’t you meant to be the one telling us to, you know, stay away from drugs?”

She gave me a deadpan look. “If you were taking it for recreation or otherwise regularly, yes I would. However, its original design was for combat medics during the war. When handled specially by a trained professional, it can be quite beneficial.”

“So… no free hits?” Moon Blossom probed.

“No.”

“Aw.”

“I still fail to see how it could help,” I muttered. “I’ve seen raiders strung out on the stuff, it never ends well.”

“Isosteroprophenhol is an anabolic steroid.” What did she just call it? “It’s meant to help the critically wounded stay alive and… well, it was meant to keep them fighting too. But if I was ever forced to administer it, I would expect you to stay out of a gunfight… please.”

I’ll bear that in mind.

“Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to check it out.”

We moved further down the block, leaving the red bars and their crumbling hidey-holes behind. As we got further down, I spotted the building in question sitting on a street corner. Or at least the entrance was, a closer inspection made it seem like the clinic actually extended all the way down the street, also being two stories in height. The great medical expenses of the Ministry of Peace at work, I guess.

As an added bonus, I was no longer seeing any activity on my-

Wait.

A single green bar just blipped into existence on my E.F.S., not coming from the medical centre, but rather… It looked like it was coming from the building opposite the road.

I stopped, looking up at the unmarked building I was getting the motion from. And right there, in a window on one of the upper floors, I swear I could just make out the shape of a pony. The darkness made it difficult to make out any features beyond the silhouette, but they were definitely there.

Then they just moved back into the building, the bar disappearing as quickly as it came.

“There’s someone up there,” I told the other, pointing at the window in question. “Friendly, apparently. But I couldn’t get a good look.”

The others all took on an aura of concern at the news, but probably not as much as it would have been had the indicator been less friendly. Still, it wasn’t something we could just brush off…

“Let us investigate the medical centre,” Xena stated. “But remain alert. If there is a stalker in these shadows, I do not want to be caught unaware.”

Agreed.

Moving back towards the medical centre, uninterrupted this time, we quickly came up to the firmly closed front entrance and stopped in front of it. There was a plaque by the door with the faded engraving of a trio of butterflies, just like on Altrix’s medical boxes, though the name of the building had been obscured by time.

I lit my horn, gently taking hold of the door and pushing it open. It did so without any kind of resistance, revealing a darkened reception area inside. There were several rows of chairs filling the large room, several desks sitting against the back wall with what was probably bulletproof glass separating it from everything else. Several long hallways branched off from the reception area, leading further into the clinic.

There were also a lot of bodies.

Young and old, skeletons were riddled on and between the rows of seats, a few beds on wheels also sitting here and there, some of them empty while others also held the skeletal remains of their former patients.

“Oh dear,” Altrix whimpered. “They must have thought they’d be safe here…”

“Safer than most other places, maybe less so than in the Ministry of Peace’s hub back at the city centre,” Cobalt noted. “But none of them would have been able to keep up with the casualties and lack of support for long. Not to mention the staff getting sick from all of the radiation…”

I wonder how many days they managed to hold out before abandoning this place?

Well, let’s hope that when they did, they didn’t have time to pack.

Moving past all of the corpses and into one of the adjacent corridors, we could see a few more scattered beds and what even appeared to be… barricades? Yeah, a couple of the doors looked like they had been barricaded at some point but had then been broken open.

“Maybe raiders used this place for a while, and got chased out by a rival gang?” Moon Blossom suggested as we walked past the defunct fortifications, the doors leading into various supply closets and examination rooms. “It happens all the time, we scuffled with one group that migrated into Prosperity this one time. Nasty bunch of asshats, they actually ate other ponies. Even for us, that was a fucked up.”

“Maybe…” I muttered, though there was a distinct lack of graffiti or other distinct markers for raider territory.

Either way, there didn’t seem to be anything around now. It was entirely silent and empty, just a few gently floating bits of dust kicked up as we walked through the building.

We headed up through a door marked as ‘staff only’, moving up to the next floor and ending up in another corridor lined with doors. Several more appeared to be more closets, though they were just as empty on first glance as the ones downstairs. There was also a break room, a meeting room, another corridor marked as leading to a surgery and, finally, a single office at the end.

“I think this belonged to one of the doctors,” Altrix noted on examining the door. “the Head of Medical in the stable has an office kind of like this one. You… didn’t want to end up there, it meant you’d messed up.”

“Almost sounds like the office of a school teacher,” Cobalt noted with a hint of amusement.

“Not really,” Altrix gingerly denied. “If you messed up in school, the nymph would get detention. If you messed up as a doctor, since we were all so weak from love starvation and really quite fragile, it could mean losing a member of the hive. You would be reassigned to another job…”

“Ah…”

Well, I’m guessing Altrix never ended up in there then. Thankfully.

But while I couldn’t exactly compare it to the stable’s Head of Medical, on making my way into the office I found it to be quite sparse and professional. There were several filing cabinets around the room, a single window looking out on the street outside, a desk with a busted terminal on it…

Oh, and another skeleton. Because there wasn’t enough of those in this place already.

“Okay…” Moon Blossom muttered with some uncertainty. “What the hay happened to that pony?”

Now that she mentioned it…

Uh oh.

Yeah, the skeleton, a mare by the looks of it, was strewn over the desk with red splotches all over the wooden frame. My gut twisted a little as my mind came to the conclusion of ‘blood’. Ancient dried blood, forever marking the wood.

Thing is, the mare’s right hind leg was on the floor… in the far corner. On top of that, her rib cage looked like it had been smashed up.

“Okay, now I’m freaked out,” I said, failing to resist the cold shiver down my spine. “What. The. Fuck.”

Despite her own unease, Altrix slowly made her way over to the remains and started to study the bones. She picked up a stray rib in her magic, turning it over several times as she examined it.

“Oh my.”

“Altrix?”

“It, um…” She swallowed nervously. “It looks like the bones were removed by some kind of instrument. A saw, perhaps.”

“Hey, maybe they ran out of beds and were using the table for surgery or some crap?” Moon Blossom suggested.

“It looks more like the scene of a crime,” Xena mused.

“I… I don’t think this could be surgery, not really…” Altrix said quietly, looking now at the discarded leg. “The bones look fine, I don’t see why amputation was necessary. And the way the ribs were removed… it’s not very well executed, I don’t think any patient could survive whatever the procedure might have been.”

“Welp, thanks for making this even more creepy!” Moon Blossom proclaimed with a fake smile. “I might have just developed a fear of doctors!”

“But… I’m a doctor…” Altrix muttered sadly.

“…Pony doctors?” she amended. Though, it seemed to do little to brighten the changeling mare’s mood.

Moving around the desk, I found the chair strewn aside as if it was shoved. There was also a stray holotape on the floor, maybe ejected from the terminal when it was destroyed?

It also, unlike the terminal, looked to be in good shape.

“Maybe this can tell us what happened here,” I stated, picking up the holotape and inserting it into my PipBuck.

And then, upon loading, a log began to play.

“Alright, my journal for the day. Great. Ugh, why did the shrink say I have to record these? I haven’t got Wartime Stress Disorder, dammit! I’m just under a lot of stress, there seems to be more and more patients every day!”

There was a thump on the recording. “Ugh, whatever. Well, here we are. Today I’m going to be dealing with multiple general health check-ups as well as one patient who has a history of chronic headaches and seizure. I might refer him up to the hub, see what the guys up there think. Speaking of the hub, I have to pen a report to- Wait.”

There was a pause in the recording, which was then followed by the subdued sound of shouting in the background.

“What the hay…? Well, the log can wait. Something is happening outside.”

The log abruptly ended then. But, before any of us could so much as comment on what we’d heard, another recording began.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the mare began. “The noise I heard was my staff reacting to the balefire bomb detonation in Manehatten. The stripes actually did it, they let off the first megaspell. And then Cloudsdale… Celestia, there wasn’t anything left. Some of us were terrified, others were raving about how we’d get them back… And then we were hit. Not as bad as the other two, but… Fuck.”

There was a heavy sigh, followed by several moments of silence.

“The flash was so sudden, we hear more than a few city blocks were caught in the blast. We were fortunate, but it’s chaos here. Ponies are going insane, either rushing to flee the city or take shelter where they can. Our staff are doing our best to care for everypony walking through those doors, but we can only do so much until we either get Ministry of Peace relief efforts in or the military restores some kind of order to the streets. We can’t rely on the hub either, news out of the city centre is… bad.”

“Doc! We got a family in; their foal was buried under some rubble!” a stallion suddenly shouted.

“Fuck. Alright, gotta go. Duty calls.”

The second log ended, but it didn’t seem like it was quite done. If I was reading the screen right, there was one more log yet to play…

“I don’t know how much longer we can hold out,” the mare rasped, sounding tired and about fifty years older. “It’s been days since the bombs hit, and we’ve stopped getting news from the rest of Equestria and… even the city. Refugees still arrive every hour or so, but there’s less of them. It’s also getting a little cold outside…”

There was a pained fit of coughing on the other end of the recording, the mare giving several gut-wrenching breaths as she tried to bring her breathing back to normal.

“Haven’t seen a hair of the Steel Rangers since this started. We got a few standard soldiers here to keep the peace, but even they can’t get anything on the radio. What’s happening in Canterlot? The Princess? The Ministry Mares? What happens to us now?”

“Doctor?” the same stallion from before interrupted. “Ms Caramel would like to have a word with you.”

“Ah, and we’ve been losing people too,” the mare added into the log. “Between the injuries, dwindling resources and radiation… Remember that foal we took in, folks? Seemed stable after the surgery, before he started coughing his guts up. Literally.”

“Doc, this isn’t the time,” the stallion stressed. “Come on, we can still save a few. The Miss Nannies can’t do all the work.”

“Alright, yes. Give me a moment.”

Several moments of silence, and then the sound of hooves departing before there was another long sigh.

“I hope some ponies made it to the stables. Had a cousin in Stable 9, at least one of us will hopefully outlast this mess. The whole world might very well be ending, and yet we keep chugging on. The robots are being put into overtime, some of our resident mechanics think we need to run a full maintenance cycle after observing some glitches. But we can’t afford it, not now. We need-”

“Doctor?” a female voice with a very posh-sounding foreign accent called out. It sounded… tinny. “Mr Blackberry has had another fit, he requires urgent attention.”

“Thank you, I’ll be right-” her sentence was interrupted by another coughing fit, spluttering audible along with a severe gagging sound. “Oh… that’s blood. Guess the radiation might very well claim me too.”

“You are sick, do you require medical attention?” the robot asked.

“No thank you, I will manage.”

“As you wi- wi wiiiii- Unknown error.”

“Heh, maybe you’re the one who requires attention.”

“You are sick,” the robot repeated. “Immediate surgery required. Please remain calm.”

“What? I have radiation poisoning, there’s not much you can do right now. Give me a RadAway if you must but leave me be!”

“You are sick. Please remain calm.”

“What are you-”

There was a crash, followed by a terrified scream. All we could do was listen with our ears fully upright as the sound of a violent struggle occurred long in the past. And even as the doctor struggled with the robot, renewed screams could start to be heard in the distance.

There was a thump as something hit the table.

“No! No! Stop!” the mare screamed as the sound of a spinning sawblade started to be heard. “NO! PLEASE!”

The sound of further flailing as the saw assumedly got closer, before there was a loud bang that marked the end of the tape.

The moment the terminal was destroyed.

The moment the doctor was brutally murdered by her own robot.

“Fuck,” Moon Blossom aptly summed it all up.

“She did mention some glitches,” Cobalt noted sadly. “She should have listened to the mechanics and placed them into a maintenance cycle. Still, at least we know what happened to these people.”

“It explains the barricades,” Xena mused. “They must have tried defending themselves, only to be defeated and slain.”

Altrix sniffed. “How horrible…”

As if there wasn’t enough for those ponies to worry about between the balefire bombs and the entire end of the fucking world, they also had their own medical equipment turning on them. They’d held out here, not knowing that help would never come, only to reach a gruesome end.

I was suddenly feeling rather uneasy about staying here for the night.

“You are sick. Please remain calm.”

“Uh…” Moon Blossom started, and I realised that I should really have been keeping an eye on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. “Did you restart the recording or something?”

No… I bloody well didn’t.

All our eyes turned to door in what must have been a simultaneous movement. And you know what? I can’t even be surprised anymore. And yet, despite that, I still felt my heart sink at the sight of the all-white Mr Handy robot, the Miss Nanny I would guess, floating idly in the doorway.

“You are sick. Surgery required. Please remain calm.”

NOPE.

Out came Venomous and three shots to that tin can’s face! Or eye stalk, it doesn’t really have a face… Whatever! And truthfully, three shots may well have been overkill, as one was enough to eat through its non-combat-oriented shell and scrambled the inner circuits. The Miss Nanny fell to the ground with a loud ‘thunk’, going silent.

And rattling the honey beast hive.

Red bars started to appear all over my E.F.S., the entire system had to have been waking up! And you can bet every single one of them was wanting to ‘help’ us!

“We’ve got more coming our way!”

“As it stands to reason,” Xena remarked, drawing her sniper and standing up onto her hind legs in readiness. “We shall need to clear them!”

“There can’t be too many,” Cobalt noted. “This isn’t like the MAS hub, and these aren’t military robots. Just don’t get in range of those sawblades.”

“Wasn’t planning on it!” What did he take me for!?

I was the first to exit out of the office, and the first to see a Miss Nanny emerge from the top of the staircase.

“Implementing medical procedures.”

Still not happening.

I fired another bolt at the robot, letting it melt as we moved away from the staircase and retreated down the corridor leading to the surgery.

Wait, that’ll be home to even more of them. Gah, was there even a place we wouldn’t find them?

Cobalt took hold of several stray beds with his magic and tipped them over, moving them all behind us to momentarily block the way.

“It’s times like this I wish Robronco had made all their machines with full AI!” the stallion commented as he quickly followed on after us, several robots encountering his makeshift blockade. “Then we wouldn’t have this issue!”

“Can we talk about robotic rights later!?”

There was a smash as the barricade was broken, right as two more appeared out in front of us from one of the rooms! I fired a shot at one of the robots while Moon Blossom wasted no time in tacking the other, despite the whirring saw that tried to steal her intestines!

With one melting and the other being torn to shreds, Xena raised her rifle and fired a shot at one of the robots behind us, giving the others pause when the round ripped right through their thin plating, and Cobalt fired two bolts of magic at the other. One hit a Miss Nanny directly and disabled it, the second taking a chunk out of another but leaving it floating.

But more were on the way, there had to have been a room full of them somewhere in the back, and Altrix attempted to slow them again by using her own magic to rearrange our barricade.

I contemplated us making a stand in the surgery the two ahead of us had come from, but another side door opened, inside of which I could just spot another row of beds and mutilated skeletons, and another three emerged!

At least the Ministry of Arcane Sciences had more space to fight in!

I fired again at two of the robots as they charged, downing another while blowing off the sawblade appendage of another. As Moon Blossom got to work on the third, the one I’d damage lunged at me with its pincer arm! I tried to bat it away with the butt of Venomous, but the machine just grabbed the weapon and threw it aside! At that moment, the pincer wrapped around my neck as it brought up its third limp, a very nasty-looking needle being at the end of the appendage!

Then both a sniper round and a bolt of magic slammed into the machine, Cobalt and Xena each offering me a quick glance before returning to the other machines.

I drew my pistol while attempting to retrieve my rifle, only for a Miss Nanny to violently batt one of the beds aside and have it land on top of Venomous. Another robot made a strike at Altrix, but her wings brought her into the air where she flipped and stuck to the roof, standing upside down. That robot was then shot by Xena as Moon Blossom charged into yet another robot, getting to work in dismantling the machine.

I aimed my pistol and fired at another one, the bullets chewing into the armour as Cobalt backed my shots up with a burst of his magic. Two more came streaming around the corner, Altrix lighting her horn and propelling a bed into the two robots, pinning them against a wall as Xena finished the struggling things off.

And then another one rushed in straight at me, blowing past the others as they dealt with their own malfunctioning medical bots.

“You are sick! Please remain calm!”

With its sawblade gleaming at me, I engaged S.A.T.S. and got to work targeting the machine. Engaging the spell, I let my bullets fly and hit the machine!

Only for it to keep coming despite the damage, the saw coming down towards my skull!

BANG.

The saw jerked and went wide, clattering to the ground next to me alongside the smoking robot.

I looked up at the new green bar that had just saved me from a haircut and mothering session from Altrix, the others making quick work in finishing the final Miss Nannies as my eyes rested firmly on the unknown pony.

He was a stallion, his features hidden behind a large hat and a tattered trench coat. A smoking .44 magnum was held in his mouth, the bullet of which had just finished off that robot.

We seemed to just regard one another for several moments, things falling silent as the last of the Miss Nannies fell and the others all started to take notice of the mysterious stranger.

And then he turned. And he ran.

“Hey!” I called out after him, keeping my pistol firmly in my grasp as I galloped forward in pursuit of the pony.

I rounded the corner, catching a brief glimpse of his coat vanishing through the door leading into the staircase, and I bounded towards the door myself and flung it open. Seeing no sign of the pony, I all but jumped my down the stairs and back into the hallway below.

And yet, he was gone. Both any sign of the pony in question and the green bar on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

“Dammit…” The fucker was fast. He must have slipped away and ran back out into the night.

He’d also just helped us out.

“You got him?” Cobalt asked as the others all emerged from the door behind me. “…I take it you haven’t got him.”

“He slipped away,” I told him, grunting. “He was fast.”

“Maybe you need to work out a bit more,” Moon Blossom quipped.

Has she noticed what we do for a living?

“Here,” Altrix said, Venomous levitating over to me in her magic. I took it into my own, holstering up both of my weapons. “I knew you wouldn’t want to lose it.”

“Thanks, Altrix.” I offered the changeling a smile, getting one in return.

Well, I guess that was that. The stallion was gone, Celestia knew if he’d show up again. The Miss Nannies wouldn’t be hurting anypony ever again at least, another one of the Equestrian Wasteland’s many problems solved.

But after all of that…

“Screw this place,” I said to the others, who all seemed to be of the same mind. Things had been weird enough for one night. “Let’s find somewhere else to sleep.”

Footnote: Max Level

New Perk: Mysterious Stranger - Gives you your own personal guardian angel... armed with a fully loaded .44 Magnum.

42 - Silence

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Chapter Forty-Two: Silence

“…”

As it turned out, sleeping in a relatively intact house with only slightly lice-filled beds was a whole lot better than a creepy hospital-turned-murder house filled with psychotic Miss Nanny robots wanting to ‘heal’ you.

Who knew?

Still, it was an itchy awakening when my PipBuck’s alarm finally went off. I had been rather generous when setting the time to wake us, given that it had been a such a tiring day previously. Not to mention how late it had been when we’d finally settled in for the night, or early by the technicality of being past midnight.

Now the sun would be high in the sky, and every moment spent in the house was probably just a waste of that daylight. We still had to get back to our Sky Bandit and make our journey back to the Equestrian Hive. It would probably be late when we finally got back there, or else really early in the morning tomorrow. We could probably get some sleep either on the way there, at least those of in the back.

Ugh, here I am thinking about sleep when I’ve only just woken up.

Maybe that’s a testament to how sore my everything was feeling.

Still, I’ve had worse mornings than waking up in the master bedroom of a pre-war home with Xena at my side. Much worse.

The mattress was bare and without covers, those having probably long rotted away. The rest of the room was a bit of a wreck, either from other visitors or its previous owners leaving in a hurry. But it was enough for the night, so there wasn’t too much to complain about.

Cobalt and Altrix had taken the guest room, which had contained two single beds. Moon Blossom had called ‘dibs’ on the sofa downstairs and had pretty much gone out like a light the moment she flopped down onto the chair.

Not that the rest of us were awake for long after we’d also laid down on our respective beds.

Groaning as some of my joints popped and clicked, I dragged myself up from the mattress and onto my hooves. Xena was already doing the same, swiftly securing her saddlebags and rifle as she did. I took a moment to myself, just trying to get my body to wake up with my brain by stretching myself out.

“Are you well?” my marefriend asked.

“Sore and itchy. I wonder if Altrix has anything for lice?”

She chuckled. “I’m sure she has. Though I am not certain chitin itches the way our fur and skin does.”

“What are you, a changeling expert?” I quipped, shooting her a smirk which she returned with a deadpan glare. “Well, we’ll have to wake her first. If they’re not up already, anyway.”

“We should be swift. I do not like the thought of us delaying further.”

I hummed in response as I picked up my own gear, starting with my barding. It had felt nice to be without it for a while, I think the last time I’d taken it off was back in Stable 84. Back when I’d finally learned Xena’s name, and we had taken that next step and made love for the first time.

Goddesses, it already felt like decades ago.

With my barding back on, along with my saddlebags and my two favoured guns, I turned to give Xena a smile while nodding towards the door.

“Well, let’s go see if the kids are awake.”

Xena just rolled her eyes as she made her way out of the bedroom.

I followed her out, taking a peek into the guest room as we passed. I spotted Cobalt inside, seemingly doing checks on his combat armour and rifling through his saddlebags. I couldn’t see Altrix, however, so she had to already be downstairs.

Moving down the staircase and into the home’s living room, I saw Altrix munching quietly on some Dandy Colt Apples while Moon Blossom snored heavily away to herself on the sofa, one hind leg in the air and twitching ever so often with the rest of her limbs splayed in whatever direction.

“Morning,” Altrix greeted quietly. “Um, I was wondering if I should wake Moon Blossom, but I didn’t want to be rude.”

Fortunately, Xena had no such stipulations.

“Wake up,” Xena commanded as she prodded the pegasus in the side, eliciting a loud snort as she was yanked back into the world of the living. “Lest you bring the wasteland upon us with that snoring.”

“Awwww,” our friend complained as she remained laid out in the seat, her eyes glued to the ceiling. “I was comfy!”

“We can get comfy when we get back to the hive,” Cobalt remarked as he trotted down the stairs, his saddlebags held up in the air with his magic while it simultaneously latched all of his armour’s pieces into place. “I don’t understand how you can be so comfortable on that thing anyway.”

“Beds are for pussies.”

I frowned. “You seemed to enjoy the ones in the stable.”

“And in Crossroads,” Altrix added sheepishly.

Moon Blossom went to retort, but something caught her tongue as she bit her lip. She seemed to think on what to say for a good long moment, before finally making up her mind.

“Shut up.”

I snorted as the pegasus forced herself off of the sofa and into a standing position, brushing herself quickly down and ruffling her wings. She gladly took an apple when Altrix offered one to her, proceeding to bite into the ridiculously preserved snack. I just grabbed the Sparkle-Cola I’d snagged from the MAS hub for the perfect little pick-me-up, who needs food when you’ve got this little mix of carroty perfection?

Everyone else, judging by the bemused glances I got. But who cares, Sparkle-Cola!

Okay, I may have also had a snack cake just to be safe, but eh.

Once we were all equally fed and hydrated, we made our way out of the house and back out into the Vanhoover streets. Now that it was light outside, I could get a better look at the area we had found ourselves in last night. It seemed like a mostly residential street, two rows of houses akin to the one we’d spent the night in flanked each side of the street. Looking to the left, down at the end of the road, there looked to be a corner shop with a recently deceased animal carcass being pecked on by some crows.

We definitely weren’t where we were meant to be, however.

“So, did we take a wrong turn in the night or what?” Moon Blossom asked.

“Clearly,” I dryly said as I trotted over to some street signs by the shop I’d spotted, the crows fleeing quickly as I got close. “Well, there’s nothing said about that park. Just directions for some other streets and the closest highway.”

“Perhaps Altrix and Moon Blossom can get a better view?” Xena suggested.

“Oh, that might be a good idea,” Altrix happily agreed.

“Got it. Let’s just try not to get too high, I doubt Stripe is the only fucker with a sniper rifle in this city,” Moon Blossom pointed out in warning, flapping her wings and kicking off the ground. “So, we’re looking for a park, right?”

“Yes, we stored the Sky Bandit a street away from it if you remember,” Cobalt confirmed.

The pegasus nodded, being joined by Altrix as they made their way into the air and just over the buildings around us. We waited patiently, and with slightly bated breath, as they did a quick aerial scout of the local area. The lack of gunshots was a good sign, however, and soon enough the two of them descended back down towards us and landed nearby on the pavement.

“So?” I asked them.

“Yeah, we saw it,” Moon Blossom confirmed. “Quite a few blocks away, but I could just about make out a fuck ton of dead plants.”

“Well, at least it’s not too far,” Cobalt said in relief.

“Um, not exactly…” Altrix muttered.

“Huh? What?”

“Got a raider camp a short ways away for one. Looks like they’ve just moved in,” Moon Blossom reported. “That, and there’s also more than a few more collapses blocking some of the streets. It would help if you all could fly like us, but since you can’t, we’ll have to go back the way we came and around it all.”

Damn. I’m slightly wishing we had gone back the right way to begin with. Stupid blown up cities and their confusing layouts…

“That will take some hours,” Xena mused. “But more so to try and go through the debris and raiders. I agree, we should definitely go around.”

“And it would be more dangerous,” Altrix pointed out.

“Well, that’s that then,” I stated begrudgingly. “At least it’s easier during the day. We’ll be back in no time, and then we can finally ditch this place.”

I was done with cities for a while. The countryside just seemed less… cluttered.

“Then let us go,” Xena said as we started to move off down the street. “Before we become trapped here for yet another night.”

Celestia forbid.

Moving back the way we came was easy enough, passing by the defunct clinic and all its now thankfully demolished robotic staff. There wasn’t any sign of our friend from last night, though. I hadn’t really expected there to be, but it was still a little frustrating.

The way was also clear, unlike the more direct route that Moon Blossom had seen. Compared to a lot of the city that we had seen, the buildings around here were in relatively good shape. I couldn’t really say if any were getting close to collapse, but for the moment they were all standing with only a few dents and scrapes in their walls. Anything that could and would threaten us had already been dealt with previously, so that also gave us some time to breathe as we walked back through.

Eventually, we moved far enough away from the demolished area between us and the Sky Bandit that we were able to make a turn and start to move back in the right direction. Another quick scout by our resident fliers seemed to confirm it, and soon enough I think I started to recognise some of the buildings and streets we were passing through.

So, confident that we were finally back on track, we pressed forward towards our destination.

With the architecture becoming more and more familiar to my mind as we went, it was only a matter of time before we were finally able to find a sign for the park in question. Despite the relatively lengthy detour it took, we were finally making progress!

And then, at the end of the street, we found it. It wasn’t the same gate we’d seen before when we had first arrived, this one sitting at the opposite end of the park, though it had pretty much the same design. We slowed up a bit as we got closer to the black arch, considering the last time we were here we had to bypass it altogether due to the fighting between the Zebra Remnant and the Steel Rangers. I kept an eye out for any red bars coming from either the park itself or the buildings around it. I wasn’t expecting any zebras to be inside, not after what we had done to them, though I could see a couple of Steel Rangers still milling about.

Or raiders, since Moon Blossom had already seen one group who’d recently moved into the general area.

Still, there was nothing.

We moved through the gate and into the park, most of the plant life long since dead while others had mutated in various strange ways from two centuries of radiation exposure. It had also been blackened by the remains of many battles, ones numbering far beyond the skirmish we’d seen in this place days ago.

“I bet this was a pretty place once,” Altrix murmured sadly as we passed on through.

“You could say that about a lot of places,” Cobalt replied.

Equestria in general, for one.

We didn’t stop, moving down the tattered path until we reached the other gate from which we’d seen the Remnant retreat out of. I spared a glance for the rooftop where we’d been spying on the whole affair.

From there, we moved around the building and cut through the back alleyway until we reached the street beyond. Some random junk blew past my hooves in the breeze as I stopped just before the road, looking down at another alley nearby where we had stored the Sky Bandit.

“Finally,” Moon Blossom commented. “Let’s bail, yeah?”

“Your wings up to it?” I asked her as I crossed the road and trotted back down the street with my friends.

“Pfft, easy,” she claimed. “It’s easier than it would be to try and lug your fat asses around.”

“It wouldn’t be if the skywagon wasn’t enchanted,” Cobalt retorted.

“Details details…”

“And Altrix?” Xena added.

She nodded. “I just want to get home. I’ll be fine.”

“That is good to hear.”

We reached the alley, turning the corner to find the Sky Bandit exactly where we had left it. That in itself was an immense relief, I think we’d all been slightly fearful that it had been either stolen or scrapped in our absence. But on first glance, it seemed to be intact.

The red bars did give me momentary pause, though. However, the tell-tale sound of a radroach calmed my alarm somewhat.

“Look like we have guests,” I noted as I drew my pistol. “I’ll quickly clear them out. Cobalt, think you can check that the thing still actually works?”

“On it,” he confirmed, trotting up to the Sky Bandit and flicking open a panel to show some of the inside talismans.

With the others patiently standing aside, I made my way to the slightly ajar door and opened it fully. I could still hear the roaches inside, though couldn’t immediately see them. I figured that they were hiding out among the seats somewhere, so I started to move between the rows towards the red bars.

One of them moved, and out came a roach from behind one of the back seats. Its antennae twitched, and it turned to look right at me.

I Pulled the trigger, blowing the mutated bug apart.

Four more bars started to shift, another one diving right at me from beneath the seats. The little bugger tried to nibble on my leg, but my heavy leather barding was easily stronger than its bite. I brought up my hoof and stamped into the creature, seeing the third climbing the walls and onto one of the cracked windows.

My bullet blew it out of said window. Though I should probably have waited until it was on something sturdier before I put a bullet through it. Oh well.

I levitated up the two dead bugs and shoved them out of the window after their buddy, moving through the seat to the last bug and putting the mutant out of its misery. I then discarded the last carcass before moving back out of the bus and towards my friends.

“Welp, no more roaches,” I announced to the group. “It’s safe to board, assuming we’re ready to fly.”

“Everything seems to check out,” Cobalt reported, closing up the hatch with a satisfied whinny. “The talismans are how I left them, it doesn’t seem like anypony came across this thing while we were gone. Lucky.”

I will take that luck wholeheartedly.

“Alright then, I see no reason to stick around. Moon Blossom, Altrix, hitch yourselves up and-”

“Scrap Heap! Ponies! Altrix! Do you hear me!?” Insidiis’ voice suddenly and wholly unexpectedly blared out of my saddlebag. “Answer me at once!”

There was a single moment of every single one of us just standing there, doing nothing. I have to admit to being blindsided by both the Changeling Queen’s sudden entrance and the sheer desperation I could hear in her voice.

The latter part kicked me into gear and saw me levitating out the orb as quickly as I could.

“Right! Right! Here!”

“Princess, what’s wrong?” Altrix whimpered fearfully.

“We are under attack!” A chill ran through our entire group, and I’m sure all of our blood felt like ice. “I cannot dally, there is fierce fighting in the hive, and I must join them. We are pulling my changelings back into the stable while security holds them in the upper levels, and then we’re sealing ourselves in!”

“Mother…” I heard Altrix mutter under her breath.

If they were retreating back to the stable, then it had to be bad.

“Who is it?” I asked the Princess, though I could hazard a guess or two. “What’s happening down there?”

“It’s-” Something interrupted the Princess, and I saw her look away from her own orb with a look of both question and alarm on her face.

“Gas…?” she said to herself.

And then she dropped the orb, the changeling vanishing from view as I heard her hooves rapidly moving away.

And then the connection was cut.

And we knew that we were too late.

I had such a terrible twist in my gut, it was like being struck with a .50 caliber round. How could this had happened now of all times!? Was there any sign? Something we could have done? It was like some cruel joke, going through all of this only to find out that we were too late to do anything at the last moment. I had no idea if the changelings could actually hold against their attackers, but a terrible part of me didn't like the odds.

Dammit!

“We need to go back!” Altrix screeched, the changeling shaking heavily where we stood. “Right. Now! We need to go! Please!”

“We are,” Xena assured her. “Kronos has many changelings to subdue. And a Changeling Queen. We may yet reinforce them.”

“They could have brought alicorns to pursue that problem,” Cobalt pointed out.

“Would they even know about her?” I questioned.

He grimaced. “They knew about changelings. They definitely knew about Chrysalis given the recording we got from one of Red Eye’s Talons. I would say they knew the possibility of encountering a Changeling Queen was high.”

Damn. I could definitely see them bringing in some of their mutant alicorns then. How many would Insidiis be able to take on?

“Am I the only one concerned about the whole ‘gas’ thing we heard?” Moon Blossom enquired, holding up her hoof.

“One thing at a time,” I responded. “Get your asses onto that Sky Bandit. We are leaving, now!”

There was no more talk about the matter. Not right now. Moon Blossom and Altrix rushed to the front as the changeling, in particular, was clearly trying very hard to keep herself together. But she could do it, I knew she could.

With them getting ready, the rest of us quickly boarded the Sky Bandit and took our seats. It felt like an eternity but, eventually, the two out front were hitched up to the skywagon and pulling it free from the alleyway. The changeling and pegasus dragged us down the street, gaining some speed before they opened their respective pairs of wings and brought us back into the air.

The rooftops passed us, the Sky Bandit making a slight bank before it started to speed away from the street and Vanhoover in its entirety.

I watched it pass by. Looking out the window, towards the city centre, I could just imagine what was going on in there. Spring Haze and Ruby keeping everyone’s spirits up in Crossroads as they finished patching up the town and putting the Remnant far behind them. Star Paladin McRoar and Scribe Roll In establishing an outpost in the MAS hub, secretly preparing for the day that the tensions within the Steel Rangers finally boiled over. A plaza full of ghouls and corpses, Xena’s past finally left in the dust with the death of her brother.

And so, the city of Vanhoover was left behind, the open Equestrian Wasteland spanning out before us, the large and greatly empty countryside of Equestria’s north.

And somewhere in that mass, the people we had promised to save were currently suffering and dying because we hadn’t been fast enough.

Xena placed her hoof on mine as if she could sense what I was thinking. But I could see it in her eyes, the guilt and worry was affecting her too. I only had to hope that she was right and that we would arrive in time to help repel Kronos’ attempt against the hive.

I pulled the orb back out, holding it in my magic as I attempted to form a connection. I just had to hear or see something. Anything.

But there was nothing.

Only silence.

Footnote: Max Level

43 - Empty

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Chapter Forty-Three: Empty

“We were too late…”

And it was further silence greeting us at the hive.

It was dark by the time we had made the journey from Vanhoover all the way back to the Equestrian Hive, and according to my PipBuck’s clock, it was in fact extremely early the next morning. Not that any of us had slept a wink during the trip, the tensions so thick you could cut it with a knife. Goddesses know how Altrix was feeling out front, I hadn’t heard her utter a word since we’d taken off. But she wasn’t delaying, clearly desperate to get back home as quickly as possible. Moon Blossom was abiding by her, pumping her wings almost as fast as Altrix’s could buzz.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. We all knew it, and the reality of the situation continued to dawn on us as the hours had passed us by.

What would we find at the hive?

What were any of us expecting to find?

What was I expecting to find?

I hadn’t been able to get into contact with Insidiis since she was last cut off, and Celestia knows I had tried over and over again. Perhaps she was simply too busy to answer the orb, or maybe…

That doesn’t need considering.

I guess the best I could hope for with all that we knew is that Insidiis and the changeling had successfully evacuated into the stable and sealed it shut, with Kronos and his goons locked outside in the hive.

But what if Site B had also contained the access code for the stable? I mean, I would hope that the changelings had thought to change their password after we’d managed to break in. But what if they hadn’t?

Ugh, this musing wasn’t doing much for that tension around us.

“I believe the hive is coming up below us,” Xena noted as she peered out of the window, squinting in the darkness. “I do not see any sign of activity.”

“Moon Blossom, anything?” I shouted up towards our fliers.

“Fuck all,” she replied. “Not a shout, gunshot or slaver cunt in sight.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Cobalt pointed out. “If the siege is ongoing, they are liable to all be inside the hive by now.”

“If it’s still ongoing,” Xena parroted.

“For Altrix’s sake, I actually hope it is,” I muttered, staring out at our changeling friend as her glowing blue eyes scanned the ground below us.

“Any sign that anypony was here at all?” Cobalt further enquired.

“It’s a bit dark out here,” Moon Blossom said in turn. “Want us to bring this thing down to the ground.”

“W-we need to get in there…” Altrix finally spoke. “Please.”

I nodded. “You heard her. Bring us down a distance away from the crater, just to be safe. Maybe pull the Sky Bandit into one of those outcroppings, I don’t want to be seen if there are Talons still knocking about.”

Moon Blossom nodded, giving her wings a mighty flap to change direction. “Got is, Boss!”

The two of them pulled us away from the hive’s entrance and started to bring us back down towards the ground. Steadily, they brought the Sky Bandit to a landing onto the cracked wasteland dirt, further dragging the skycarriage towards a small nearby hill and nestling us between a cluster of rocks.

And then, having been brought to a complete halt, we began to gather our things and disembark from the Sky Bandit.

We were all tired and probably ready to hit the hay, Moon Blossom and Altrix especially, but I don’t think any of us were willing to wait any more hours for this. Not here and not now.

In the hindsight of things, we should have taken the opportunity during the flight. But it was what it was, and so we started to hoof it towards the hive’s entrance.

It was only a short trip from the Sky Bandit to the hive, my eyes focused on my Eyes Forward Sparkle the entire time for any sign of movement. I wasn’t really sure if I was searching for green or red bars or both, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed when nothing came up from my search. As far as my PipBuck’s spell matrix could tell, we were alone here.

A shiver flew down my spine, the implications increasingly worrying.

We arrived at the edge of the crater containing the cave and the entrance to the hive, my PipBuck’s lamp helping illuminate the area alongside both my horn and Cobalt’s. Now that we were close to the ground, certain elements started to become apparent to us. Spots where dirt had been kicked up, specks of blood, bullet casings…

A fight had definitely gone down here extremely recently.

And yet someone had removed the bodies, guns and anything else that might have been left behind.

Making my way down into the crater, I made sure to get a good look at the entire area before we made our way into the cave itself. There were no corpses at all. Not slaver. Not changeling. Whatever had happened here, someone had taken care to remove what had been left in the aftermath.

Kronos, I had to guess. Not to hide what had happened, what would be the point? And it wasn’t like he’d taken all evidence of the battle. Just the bodies and weapons.

The weapons were obvious as to why. Why waste a good gun? The bodies, though… He’d have no use for slaver corpses, they were dead and gone. But changeling bodies?

That shiver returned when I recalled why he wanted the changelings in the first place, and why it was he’d take the dead as well as the living.

I chose not to share those thoughts, seeing as Altrix was right there.

“Let’s head inside, we might actually find something,” I said to the others, making my way towards the cave entrance as they followed closely behind.

Walking through the cave almost gave me a flashback of the first time we’d found this place. The silence, albeit for the idle dripping of water. There were more spent shell casing and blood splatters, however, leading all the way through the cave towards the doors to the hive themselves…

They had been blown clean off of their hinges.

“N-no…” Altrix muttered, taking a step forward before freezing in place, staring off in disbelief.

I wanted to say something comforting. Maybe tell a joke to relieve some of the tension? But… I couldn’t. There was nothing I could say that would be of any help.

I really hated feeling this helpless.

And then, moving past the broken doors, we found our first corpse.

It was a pony, dressed in barding that clearly signified him as one of the slavers in Red Eye’s employ. He’d been shot several times in the head, more shell casings and quickly constructed barricades sitting around the entrance hall. It looked like the changeling had tried to hold them there but, judging by the state of the place, it hadn’t held up very long.

I had to wonder how many weapons the drones even had which weren’t simple 10mm pistols. It couldn’t have been that many, especially compared to Kronos’ forces.

And yet, pushing past the entrance hall into the depths of the hive, more pony and griffon bodies started to make themselves known. They weren’t exactly piles of them, but there were definitely more and more the further in we got. Shot, stabbed, burnt from magic… a few even had bite marks. Those fangs Altrix had certainly weren’t for show.

I heard Moon Blossom hum, trotting over to a wall that had one griffon strewn up in green mucus with a bullet hole in his jugular. She gave the corpse a good look over, looking oddly like she was examining a pre-war piece of fine art.

“Welp, changelings put up a fight.”

“Of course they did. This is their home,” Xena pointed out.

“They certainly had the home-field advantage,” Cobalt further noted. “And I doubt any of these goons had ever fought a changeling before.”

“But what changeling had ever fought a slaver before?” Moon proceeded to say.

And she wasn’t without a point…

Still, I could get what the others were saying. The changeling had had the time to get to know the layout of the hive. I could also see stable security shapeshifting into slavers to sow chaos in their ranks. We could only imagine how violent things had gotten in these halls just a few hours ago…

“Still no changeling bodies, though,” Moon Blossom mused.

“M-maybe they got away?” Altrix said hopefully. “Or they were all taken alive?”

“Maybe…” Kronos did want them for their experiments, so I guess it was possible. But… I couldn’t see a lot of these slavers showing that much restraint on the defenders. Not when there was a perfectly good hive of non-combatants they could take anyway. “Let’s just keep searching, yeah?”

I got no argument, so we just pressed onwards.

We bypassed the bodies and remnants of the battle, retracing our steps towards the hive’s atrium and the stable we’d find in the deepest area of the place. Eerily, we still had yet to come across any sign of life. Whether that life be changeling or otherwise, nothing moved in these halls. It was increasingly like the entire population had just vanished.

We had to reach the stable. If there were answers to be found, of course it would be there.

Pressing on, we soon reached the end of the long passageways of the hive and arrived at the entrance to the core of the structure. Like many others, the doors to the atrium were already open with smashed fortifications strewn all over the place. Moving through them, we found the gigantic space to be in complete disarray.

I could scarcely believe the devastation, and I had to blink several times just to be sure that I wasn’t seeing things. Whole floors had collapsed with their rubbles piling up at the bottom of the deep pit. It looked like the place had been ravaged by a series of explosions, collapsing much of it and leaving what was left looking extremely unstable.

“So… how are we getting down?” Moon Blossom asked. “Looks like the stairs are out.”

“Changelings don’t need stairs,” Altrix reminded us.

“Yeah, but if more than the turkeys got down there, there must be a way.”

“A long way round, perhaps back the way we came?” Xena suggested.

“I’d rather not waste the time,” I decided. “Moon, Altrix, you guys can get yourselves down. Cobalt, think you can teleport us?”

“I mean… it would take up my strength. It’s a distance, and there are three of us.”

“We could take one of you?” Altrix suggested.

Moon Blossom shrugged. “Sure. Between the two of us, it’d be a piece of cake. We’re only going down anyway.”

“I will go,” Xena volunteered.

Cobalt nodded. “Alright. Scrap, you ready?”

After all that had happened, being magically displaced would be easy to take.

Pop.

Ugh, never mind. That was still really weird and now my head was spinning around in a full three-sixty…

Shaking off the nausea, I looked up to see Altrix and Moon Blossom descending with Xena supported between their hooves. They gently set her down onto the ground, landing themselves a moment after.

Now we were down here, we could really appreciate the size of the rubble pile that had fallen. At least half of the atrium must have been caught up in whatever brought those sections down, but whatever did it certainly left a mark on the invaders. Slaver corpses were strewn in and around the rubble, a lot of them missing body parts or only being singular body parts. A foreleg here, half a head there…

I turned my head towards a smaller pile of rubble nearby, and my heart sank.

There, amidst piles of stone, was a black shape I’d at first through to be part of the organic chitin that was part of the hive’s general structure. But when I looked closer, I realised what it actually was.

A changeling leg, just about jutting out from beneath the pile.

“I found a body,” I informed the others, Altrix gasping in horror as we gathered around it.

“A lot of changelings must have been caught up in whatever brought this place down,” Cobalt noted sadly.

If the slavers had taken the bodies, then they must have missed this one due to the rubble. How many more were here, just hidden by the scattered stone and chitin?

“Can we free them?” Altrix asked pleadingly. “T-they shouldn’t be trapped like that.”

I… guess we could. Between me and Cobalt, lifting the body out wouldn’t be hard. And honestly, as much as I wondered if there was a point to this, I didn’t have the heart to deny my friend.

I lit my horn, taking hold of the rubble. Cobalt followed my lead, and together we started to lift. As more of the rubble vanished, more of the changelings became visible. Pieces of a stable jumpsuit, the security vest, and finally…

Altrix screamed.

Oh Celestia, no…

The last of the rubble cast aside, the body amazingly intact, we brought Matercula gently out of the pile and onto the ground as Altrix rushed towards her still mother and collapsed at her side in a heap of desperate sobs. We all just stared at the sight, Altrix’s heartbreak echoing around the chamber as we all stood helplessly by them.

Having never been close to my own parents, I couldn’t really relate to how she was feeling. But Matercula had seemed like a good mare in the brief time I’d known her, and my failure really started to hit home. Because I hadn’t been fast enough, my friend had just lost her mother…

Xena sat down next to Altrix, gently taking the distraught changeling into her hooves and hugged her. My marefriend rocked her gently, whispering into her ear sympathetically. I suppose Xena could understand more than any of us.

I sighed, moving up to the body and briefly regarding the pair. Altrix had buried her face in Xena’s neck, her sobs now subdued in her fur as her entire body shook horribly. I shook too, barely able to separate the guilt and anger I was feeling. Those fuckers had hurt my friend. Killed innocent changelings. Where does this shit end!?

Fuck them. Fuck Kronos. Fuck Red Eye, the Goddess, and the WHOLE LOT OF THEM!

“Fuck!” My shout echoed louder than the crying, everyone but Altrix turning their eyes up at me. But I didn’t care, I was too tired to care. Tired of slavers and quests and… everything, really.

Dammit.

I looked down at Matercula’s body, finally spying something attached to her still secured security helmet. Gently, I unstrapped the helmet and lifted it from Matercula’s head, laying her gently back onto the ground as I examined it.

There, slotted into a boxy compartment on the side of the helmet, was a holotape recorder.

“What is it?” Cobalt grimly asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, taking the holotape from the helmet and holding it in my magic.

I dropped the helmet, giving one last glance at Altrix before I pulled up my PipBuck and plugged the recording in.

“Altrix.”

At the sound of Matercula’s voice calling her name, Altrix’s tear-filled eyes slowly looked up at me and my PipBuck.

“Things are bad, sweetie. I’m glad you’re not here, I’m sure your friends are keeping your sa-” Matercula grunted as a spattering of gunfire emerged nearby, the mare swearing loudly before galloping hooves indicated her moving. That was followed by a few moments of silence before she could speak again.

“Those bad people you warned us about, they arrived. It’s not your fault, and we’re holding them off as best we can. You’d be proud of your mother, I would hope. We’re making the bastards pay for it. I’d almost say we’d have a chance, if it wasn’t for those monsters with the wings and horns.”

“Alicorns,” Cobalt noted. “They brought alicorns.”

It really was the worst-case scenario for the changelings.

“I hope the Princess has contacted you or, at least, will soon. We’re pulling everyone back to the stable, but we’re going to be the last ones in. If they get past us…”

“Matercula, the charges are set!” another changeling shouted.

“Good! Get clear and then detonate!” she responded. “We, uh, stole some of their explosives and have rigged them to blow. It will hopefully delay their advance through the atrium. At least for the grounded ones. We-”

She was interrupted again by some sudden shouting and a spray of gunfire. We could hear changeling shouting in pain amidst the clear spray of an assault rifle, Matercula apparently returning before giving a shout of pain, before a clatter indicated her fall to the ground.

I was quickly regretting playing the recording of what was clearly Matercula’s death. But Altrix was focused entirely on it, and I dared not turn it off.

“Well well,” a scratchy voice said with a cackle. “Seems we have another prisoner. Bag it up like the rest, only patch that gunshot if it looks like it’ll die before getting back to base.”

“Altrix… I love you.”

“Eh? What you say?”

Matercula growled. “I’m not your fucking test subject, beast!”

“Hey, what are you- Stop her!”

The recording ended with the sound of a deafening explosion, before cutting out entirely.

Altrix just stared at my PipBuck blankly. Her tears had stopped, but I felt nothing but dread and the sheer emptiness in those usually bright orbs.

“She was very brave,” Xena whispered gently to her.

“…I know.”

“How much longer do we have to stay in this dump, anyway?”

Wait, none of us said that!

We all shot around, looking towards the entrance to the passage leading to the stable. Five red bars had popped up onto my E.F.S. while I’d been distracted, and I’d completely missed it!

“Until we get the rest of what Kronos wants us to get,” another voice said as the door opened and three ponies alongside two griffons walked in. “You just gotta- What the!?”

I entered S.A.T.S. without a moment of hesitation.

One bolt of changeling magic from Venomous fittingly took first blood as it ripped through one griffon and sent him screaming to the floor as the acid burnt away at his flesh, exposing muscle and bone within seconds. My pistol also came out, held alongside Venomous in my magical grasp, with two bullets fired at a second slaver. Both made their targets, one being absorbed by the pony’s barding while another hit a weakness in the armour and bit into his hide. He didn’t fall, but his shout of pain made certain that I’d done some damage.

CRACK.

A third had half his skull peeled away by a .308 round, the other three scrambling for cover as they wildly fired panicked shots at us. They were wide and barely came close before they had a Moon Blossom to worry about.

The pegasus swooped down at them, picking up the slaver I’d injured and taking him for a ride somewhere up in the atrium. I doubted I’d see him again.

“Fall back!” the remaining griffon shouted, levelling a hunting rifle at Cobalt as he grabbed Altrix and pulled the reluctant changeling away from her mother and towards cover.

The bullet, fortunately, pinged off of Cobalt’s shoulder plate.

But they were not going to even try to hurt any more of my friends!

I let my rage come to the surface in the form and the biggest shout I could muster, rushing the griffon with both my weapons firing without a fuck given towards their ammo. I’ll just take theirs!

The griffon didn’t stand a chance as both magic and bullet-riddled his body, bypassing his combat armour and reducing him to rapidly disintegrating paste. My PipBuck clicked as I stood above the remaining goo pile, my gaze turning towards the single remaining pony. I couldn’t see my own face, but that was probably for the best. Something about me caused the slaver to whimper in fear.

Good.

His gun was levelled at me, shaking in his aura and not firing. Whether he would have built up the courage to try, I would never know. Another crack from Xena’s sniper rifle dropped the slaver to the ground, the red bars blinking out.

With the silence returned, Altrix emerged from her hiding place and returned to her mother’s side. Once again she sat by her mother’s side, leaning into her chest and sobbing her heart out.

That decides it. I don’t give a fuck if I failed the changelings here. I won’t do so again.

If they were alive, I would save them.

If they were dead, Kronos was going to join them.

“Moon Blossom!” I called out for the pegasus.

There was a thump as something fleshy impacted behind one of the large rubble piles, a red bar having ever so briefly reappeared before blinking out for good.

“Well, I guess earth ponies really can’t fly,” the pegasus in question said as she reappeared above us. “I wouldn’t go back there, it’s a bit… sticky.”

“Moon, could you stay with Altrix? Keep an eye out for her?”

She looked over towards the changeling, her satisfied smirk falling away to a sombre frown. She then looked back at me, simply giving me a nod before dropping to the ground and trotting over to a spot nearby to her. She then sat down, her posture bolt upright and guardingly over Altrix.

Now, we had to press on.

“Come on guys. Let’s check Stable 84.”

We passed by the slavers’ corpses, moving through the tunnel towards the stable door. Yet more battle signs lay around the area that likely led up to the entrance itself.

“It looked like that group was the clean-up team,” Cobalt noted as we went. “After whatever valuables were left behind.”

“If so, then I don’t expect to find much left here,” Xena agreed regretfully.

I let out a low sigh. “I know.”

Sure enough, stepping out before the great cog door of the stable, it was wide open. Oddly enough, here the signs of battle seemed to stop entirely. That, and there was a pungent smell dominated the area. The entrance of the stable, as we stepped inside, was seen to be entirely free of battle. No blood, bullet casings or anything else were to be found.

It was the same elsewhere in the stable, too. Moving quickly through the corridors, everything appeared to be pretty much intact. A few makeshift barricades had been constructed and then moved aside, but even that seemed to have been done almost… casually.

And that smell remained wherever we went.

Moving into the stable’s atrium, my gaze moved up to the oval window that was the Overmare’s office. That was where Insidiis had been when she’d contacted us via the communication orb. What would we find there now, though?

There was only one way to find out.

We moved through he atrium and into the door leading up to the office. Moving through it and up the corresponding staircase, we swiftly trotted up them and into the room.

Empty. Like everywhere else.

Except…

My eyes were drawn to the small little orb left abandoned on the office’s floor. Picking it up carefully, I brought out its twin from my saddlebag and held them out comparatively. Gritting my teeth, I placed them gently down onto a nearby shelf and moved over to the horseshoe-shaped desk.

There was an entry open on the terminal.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Cobalt asked. “Play it. Insidiis might have left us something.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice.

“Alright, here we go…” Insidiis’ voice emerged from the computer. “In case you hear this, Scrap Heap, Altrix… I am recording these events in the case that I fail to protect my charges. Hopefully, any information gleamed can be of help to you. But, for now…”

There was a cough, and then I heard the Princess’ horn light up as she took hold of something.

“Scrap Heap! Ponies! Altrix! Do you hear me!?” Insidiis’ voice suddenly bellowed, and I knew for certain just when this was recorded. “Answer me at once!”

“Right! Right! Here!” I heard my own echo quickly respond after a moment’s hesitation.

“Princess, what’s wrong?” Altrix whimpered fearfully.

“We are under attack! I cannot dally, there is fierce fighting in the hive, and I must join them. We are pulling my changelings back into the stable while security holds them in the upper levels, and then we’re sealing ourselves in!”

“Mother…”

Oh, Altrix…

“Who is it? What’s happening down there?”

“It’s- “Gas…?”

There was a clatter on the recording, likely the moment she dropped the orb.

“Guard! What is happening! What is…” The Princess suddenly and violently coughed. “What is that foul substance!?”

“Princess, it’s… They’re pumping some kind of gas into the stable!”

“No… We need to… Need to…”

Another thump of something hitting the ground, and then silence…

I looked at the recording’s timeline. Everything was silent, the recording running for many more hours before coming to its own end. All but for one section, a short while after the Princess had fallen silent. Fast forwarding to that section, the first thing I heard was the sound of movement.

And then his voice.

“Very nicely done,” Kronos complimented someone. “It has made fulfilling my master’s will so much simpler.”

“BUT OF COURSE. THE GODDESS AND OUR UNITY CONTAINS DETAILED MEMORIES OF THIS STABLE’S CONSTRUCTION. ESPECIALLY IT’S FILTRATION SYSTEM.”

The Goddess. Wonderful.

“Be sure to thank Twilight Sparkle for me.”

Wait, WHAT!?

The Goddess’ tone almost changed into one of spite. “YOU SHOULD THANK THE GREAT AND POWERFUL GODDESS! TWILIGHT SPARKLE IS BUT AN INSIGINIFACT PART OF THE WHOLE!”

“Oh, did I hit a nerve?”

“YOU WILL CEASE TO MENTION THAT REBELLIOUS ANNOYANCE!”

“And yet her memories showed us the location of both this place and Site B. Willing or not, I would say the Ministry Mare has been a great assistance.”

“DO NOT DEFY US, YOU INFERIOR MORTAL!”

Kronos chuckled without any sign of being intimidated. “Save the threats, Goddess. Are your purples moving into position?”

“YES. THE CHANGELINGS SHALL ALL BE MOVED TO THE WAREHOUSE LIVING OR DEAD. WE HOPE YOUR SECURITY IS SUFFICIENT.”

“They will be packed in like animals, surrounded by shields and unarmed, scared and without a royal to guide them. Speaking of, I assume you’ll have that one sent straight to the lab?”

“HER DNA IS KEY TO COMPLETING THE PROJECT WHERE THE MOTHER IS NO LONGER OF USE.”

Mother…?

“Good. Teleport away.”

“DO NOT PRESUME TO COMMAND US. BUT YES, WE SHALL. NOW, THE GODDESS HAS BUSINESS ELSEWHERE. OUR DRONE SHALL FACILITATE COMMUNICATION.”

“If you wish it.”

“WE DO.”

There was silence for a moment, then a new female voice started to talk.

“We are commencing teleportation of the subjects. You maybe begin to pull your minions back.”

“Very well. I will leave a small team behind to pick up anything else of use within these halls.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?” the alicorn asked. “What if the nuisance returns? Your slavers are ill-equipped to deal with the Scavenger.”

“I don’t recall the last alicorn to get in their way doing any better,” he taunted in retort.

“One body is insignificant. We are Unity.”

“Hardly insignificant that you supposedly powerful alicorns let them decimate one of Red Eye’s outposts and escape to Vanhoover in a Sky Bandit. But no matter, I will deal with the stallion when the time is right. One way or another.”

“All changelings but the ones in this room have been relocated for processing,” the alicorn the reported. “We shall return us to Site B.”

“Do so. I am eager to report this victory to Lord Red Eye.”

There was a moment of quiet, and then there was the loud pop of a teleportation spell.

And that was all there was to hear.

But it was enough, and it left me with a certainty of two.

Twilight Sparkle lived, albeit a prisoner of the Goddess. Celestia knows what suffering the former Ministry Mare was suffering inside of Unity. Moreover, all the changelings had been moved back to the facility under Haven for… I didn’t even want to speculate what they’d do. The very thought made my skin crawl. And if they were left to their business.

Red Eye and the Goddess would have their infiltration army.

“What do we do?” Cobalt asked in a quiet monotone. “What… How do we get out of this? The changelings are gone. And Twilight, my idol…”

“It would appear we have encountered our darkest hour,” Xena mused with deep concern. “Countless innocents lie in their grasp. And should they succeed...”

“It’s actually kinda simple,” I declared, turning to face my two friends. “I made a promise that I intend to keep.”

Xena blinked, and then gave me a small smile. “Oh?”

There was only one thing to do. With all these lives at stake, the entire wasteland… I wasn’t the Stable Dweller. I wasn’t Security. I never would be. But I was here, and I could do something. The scavenger that was could go rot in Tartarus, this I had to do.

“We’re going to Haven, to Site B, and we’re going to shut Kronos down for good.”

Footnote: Max Level

44 - Before the Storm

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Chapter Forty-Four: Before the Storm

“All was quiet…”

It suddenly struck me.

I had never really considered it before; I never had a reason to. It was such a small and inconsequential thing. A something that rarely happened in our modern world. Maybe because few ponies had enough around them who gave a shit. Maybe because most saw it as a waste of time. A figment of the old world, a tradition that died with everything else that used to be, before the megaspells put an end to it all. And yet, here I was. And now that I was here, helping Altrix pay her respects and final farewells, I had to ask: Why?

Why had I never seen a funeral before?

We had brought Matercula outside at Altrix’s insistence. I think she wanted her mother to be buried under the sky the changelings had long thought they’d never see. Using both our magic and some recovered tools, we’d dug a deep hole just outside of the hive’s entrance that would serve as a sufficient resting place. We had all been quiet throughout, Altrix didn’t even have it in her to cry anymore. I could feel my own unease be shared by the others, all directed at Altrix’s soul-crushing despair. But we were there for her, what else were we to do?

I had never buried my own parents. Thinking back on it now, after seeing this display, I can’t help but feel some shame towards that fact. I mean, yeah, we didn’t exactly get along. I never heard the words ‘I love you’ or ‘we’re proud of you’. I was a piece of equipment, after all, an extra horn to add to their next expedition. I had a reason for coming into existence, and paternal affection wasn’t anywhere amongst that reason.

But, at the end of the day, they were my parents. I’d left their bloodied bodies out in the Equestrian Wasteland after the raider attack claimed them, liable to then be picked on by birds and other wild animals. It was the same tired old story probably told by most scavengers out there today, my existence before my friends likely would have also ended somewhere in the same vein. I never would have gotten that home I’d always dreamed of, but rather been cursed to the same daily routine again and again until something finally put an end to me.

Would I have brought a child to the world just to facilitate that unreachable goal? Would I have left them as embittered about their memory as I had been about my own mother and father? What could have been different? And, in the end, did they really deserve being left to the elements?

But funerals scarcely existed anymore.

I was glad Matercula got the exception.

I stood close to Xena as we watched Altrix crouch down by her mother, whispering things unheard to us before the changeling mare’s still features were finally fully covered by the blanket that she’d been wrapped up in.

Altrix’s horn lit up, the green glow taking around the obscured body and shakily started to lift her. She didn’t go far, Altrix visibly starting to shake again as her breaths started to deepen.

I lit my horn, letting my pale aura join her own. Cobalt was a short distance behind, our three magics intertwining as we helped her lift Matercula through the air and lower her gently down into the grave. From there, we all helped as we started to refill the grave with the dirt that we had previously removed from it, keeping the work up until Matercula’s body was fully concealed and the grave was filled.

The last task left was the headstone. It was a basic smoothed out rock that Cobalt had spent the last few hours before now working on with his magic, also ensuring to etch Matercula’s name and dates into it.

And then, with the stone put into place, Matercula had been placed at rest.

Altrix sniffed. “She… would like being out here. The first changeling to be buried in a long time, we… we had to cremate Dad, like the others…”

The curse of being in a fallout shelter for two centuries.

“She appreciates the sentiment, I know it to be true,” Xena comforted the mare with a side hug. “You have done her justice, and more than earned her pride.

“I hope so…”

“We’ll get the rest of them back,” I then assured my friend. “You know I’m not going to let Kronos get away with this.”

“We just need a plan as to how we’re getting in,” Cobalt pointed out.

“You’re the smart one, I’m hoping you’ll have a couple of ideas,” I said back at him. “I’m all for killing every one of those bastards in sight, but I’m hoping for one a little more survivable.”

“Aw…” Moon Blossom complained.

“I have a couple of brainstorms,” Cobalt confirmed. “We can talk about it later, I’m going to go and rattle around some plans in the meantime. Come join me in the Overmare’s office when you want to figure this out.”

With that, Cobalt turned and started to make his way back into the hive.

“Do you really think we have a chance of getting in without the hive’s help?” Altrix asked.

“We’ve made it this far,” I said encouragingly. “A solid plan and making sure we stick together, that’s all we need.”

“And Insidiis will probably kick that bird’s kneecaps in when we spring her,” Moon Blossom said with a laugh.

“I am more concerned with what was mentioned about the ‘mother’,” Xena said in reference to the conversation between the Goddess and Kronos. “From what we understand about Stable 84’s history, it would suggest-”

“I know,” I tersely replied. “We’ll come to that if it’s what we’re thinking it might mean. But until we know for sure, the changelings are our priority.”

“Well, then I’d say let’s just get on with figuring out how we’re going to do all that,” Moon Blossom suggested. “As smart as Cobalt claims he is, I’d like to be there when he makes these plans. You know, to make sure it doesn’t go to shit.”

“And I’m sure your insight will be most valuable,” Xena said only half-sarcastically.

“You know it!” she said, oblivious to Xena’s tone. But, out of the blue, the pegasus’ cocky smile seemed to collapse into one of uncertainty. “But seriously… If we do this, it’ll make it all worth it, right? I mean…”

I nodded. “It will. Or, at least, I hope it will.”

“Whether we fail or not, it is ultimately the right thing to do,” Xena stated.

Moon Blossom nodded back, remaining silent for a moment as she bit her lip. She looked away from us, looking up at the sky with a distant expression. A little bout of concerned started to bubble in me at her sudden change in demeanour, but it was eventually broken by her sigh.

“It’s all I’ve wanted to do, you know? Do good. I... actually am starting to feel like it’s more than pretending, too.”

I frowned. “You felt like you were pretending?”

“I was a raider, Scrapper. Born that way. I guess a part of me believed there was no way I could ever leave that life. But now… I know I talk a lot of shit, do a lot of shit. But… I just want to be a good pony.”

“You’re not pretending,” Altrix said, walking up to and standing alongside her. “I know how much you’ve been wanting to change. We all do. And… I think you’re a good pony…”

Moon Blossom gave her a smile. “That means a lot, Kiddo. Eh, come on. Let’s see what the Egghead is up to.”

The duo turned, following Cobalt’s hoofsteps back into the cave.

This left only me and Xena.

“I used to hate her,” Xena said, somewhat to my bemusement. “Do you recall that stunt she pulled?”

“When she tried to get me into a bed?” I deadpanned. “Kinda hard to forget. It was what? Two weeks ago?”

“Thirteen days.”

Close enough.

“And yet, despite her grating attitude, she’s grown on me. As have they all…” she said, her face falling. “I do not wish to lose any of them.”

“What makes you think we will?”

“It is a miracle we have not,” she retorted. “And for what we have already been through, tomorrow is a new mystery. And Haven may be the most dangerous place of all we have traversed.”

“Slaver central…” I quietly agreed. “Remember how we met?”

“I do believe I rendered you unconscious.”

I blushed. “Uh, yes. That. Still, seems forever ago, right?”

She hummed. “That it does. And yet, it also feels like we’re approaching an ending.”

I knew what she meant. Everything we had been through seemed to have been shepherding us towards this point, and now…

“We’ll get out of this,” I decided. “I don’t want this to be our last night alive.”

“And what if it is destined to be?”

“You believe in destiny?”

“It is something many zebras would confirm. Myself? Usually, no. But sometimes… I do fear, Scrap.”

I sighed, my gut tightening as I saw flashes of all the many ways that I could get my friends killed in the next day or so. But I also knew all the things we had to live for. Cobalt going back to Tenpony and making the mistakes of his organisation right. Altrix helping her people lead their new lives. Moon Blossom proving to the Equestrian Wasteland just how far from a simple raider she had evolved.

And then there was Xena and I…

“I want to come back,” I finally said to her. “All of us. Me and you, in this hive. A future… maybe a foal someday?”

She laughed. “You speak of far off things… But one day, perhaps.”

I smiled between my once again red cheeks. “Well… it’s a thought. But, if this is it…”

She leant her head into mine. And there we stayed, locked together, just us. My heartbeat seemed to steady, and my nerves evaporating, if for the moment. Here, now, this is what I wanted. This is what I had to come back to. It just felt… right.

And if this was going to be our last night, then we may as well make it one to cherish.

Xena shared my small, happy smile as we made our way up to the Overmare’s office sometime later. The others had probably been working the whole time, and we could hardly slink off forever. No matter how much we had wanted to stay by each other’s side, nuzzling up to one another peacefully after having our fun.

It had honestly been even better the second time, less awkward and with more certainty perhaps. I don’t know, but it had been the best I’d felt in a while.

But, with a quick shower and a change back into our gear, we knew our friends needed us.

Stepping up and into the office, we found the Cobalt busy typing away on Insidiis’ terminal with a rather determined look on his face. Altrix was nearby, distracting herself from whatever she was feeling by writing down notes and sharing the occasional word with the unicorn. Moon Blossom, meanwhile, seemed to be sitting in her corner rather idly. She looked to be lost in her own thoughts, absentmindedly sharpening her knife as her eyes looked to be elsewhere.

“Anything good?” I asked aloud, catching all of their attention.

“Nice of you two to join us,” Cobalt remarked. “To answer your question, ‘good’ might be a stretch, but our ideas are at least serviceable on paper.”

“I’ll take it. I don’t suppose just walking in is on the agenda?”

“Not unless you want to be picked off and have Site B sealed up before we can get inside.”

“We have infiltrated their ranks before,” Xena pointed out.

“It had occurred to me,” Cobalt responded. “But after last time, Kronos will probably have taken steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Altrix would obviously have the best chance, but I guarantee the rest of us will be recognised far more easily now.”

“Alright…” I started. “I’ll bite, what’s the alternative?”

“Well, we were thinking…” Altrix began to answer for him. “Do you guys remember the subway?”

Ah, right.

“We used it to get back to Haven before, to escape Kronos the first time,” I recalled. “You think we could use it again?”

“I’m not saying it won’t be guarded, but it’s a safer bet than trying to go in on hoof or, Celestia forbid, the air.”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right. The Sky Bandit will probably get ripped to shreds if it gets too close,” Moon Blossom supported. “We had a close shave when the Steel Rangers and stripes took pot shots at us. It’ll be that times a million.”

“But we can probably take it to Prosperity, under the assumption that it’s less guarded,” Cobalt concluded.

I didn’t see the slavers having much of an interest in that place, but still… “We should probably park a little ways away from the town, just to be safe.”

Cobalt nodded. “I agree. But from Prosperity, we can take the next day moving through the metro system back up to Haven. We’d have to carefully clear any patrols that might be hypothetically in there before they raise the alarm, but it’s plausible.”

“From there I would assume sneaking into the facility will be required?” Xena inquired.

“Pretty much. Insanely risky, I know. But without any support to back us up in a fight, it’s the best we’ve got.

“But we can free my hive when we’re in. I think they can help us as well…”

A swarm of pissed off changelings? I bet.

“Kronos mentioned packing them into a warehouse. Probably shielded to keep them in, I doubt any slaver even enters,” Cobalt observed. “They probably use those purple alicorns to teleport food in and teleport any changeling out.”

“But if we can open it up, the hive can swarm out into Site B,” I noted.

“That is the idea, it will be sufficiently hard for any slaver or Talon to contain. I’m not saying there won’t be casualties, but most of the hive could probably rush them and get out before they really knew what was going on. Especially with Insidiis there.”

“But then we need to make Kronos go boom,” Moon Blossom saw fit to add in, having seemingly returned to her usual upbeat and confident attitude. “So, I suggested ‘what about those big exploding things that everypony back when thought it was such a good idea to use for power’?”

“In more eloquent terms, highly classified research facilities with such dangerous materials, such as taint, will likely have held a kill switch. A self-destruct system designed to prevent the substances from getting out. We flick that, the balefire reactor overloads and Haven goes up in a megaspell detonation.”

“Taking out any hope for the modified potion and all but annihilating Red Eye’s operations in this region,” I mused. It seemed fitting to finish those fuckers off with balefire. “I like it.”

“It’ll give that DJ something to talk about,” Moon Blossom eagerly agreed.

“But taking another page from Buckingham, maybe we could step it up,” I added in. “Assuming the big ‘IF’ of getting inside without getting shot at… Cobalt, think you could work your magic and get some of their security bots on our side?”

He shrugged. “I mean, assuming we can find the appropriate security station. And given the nature of the facility, I could do even more than that theoretically. Camera systems, for example. Doors. The options will be more substantial than in a simple factory.”

“Then, if we get that far, you can be our eyes and ears,” I decided. “If whatever place we find doesn’t have the ability to spring the changelings, we’ll also need someone to do that while the rest of us work on blowing the place up.”

“I-I can do that. I think it’ll be best, they’re my people, and some of them might be hurt…” Altrix spoke up.

I nodded. “Alright, then that’s your job if need be. Which leaves me, Stripe and Moon Blossom to go and make sure those bastards don’t do this to any other creature ever again.”

“It’s still heavily liable to not go quite as we intend,” Cobalt cautioned. “We know nothing about Site B’s overall layout, what kind of defences we can expect…”

“I know. I think we all know the risks. These are more than mere raiders, we don’t have Steel Ranger support, and the last time we faced Kronos in person…”

“Not to mention the giant evil mutant alicorn things,” Moon Blossom supplemented.

“Yeah. Those,” I deadpanned. “But we do have a plan. We found each other through random chance and circumstance, but I wouldn’t trade you as my friends for Equus itself. Fuck the odds. I know we can do this. I know we can win. If Kronos wants a rematch with me, then I’m damned happy to give him one.”

As I finished, blood pumping fast through my brains with my heart poundings in anticipation for what we were about to do with Xena already standing resolutely at my side, my other friends all glanced between one another at my declaration.

But, for which I would eternally be thankful towards them, I couldn’t spot any hesitation.

“Well, my mission from the Twilight Society was to find and recover Site B and its contents from Stable 84…” Cobalt began. “I’ll settle for making sure that Red Eye and the Goddess cannot have it. It’s what Twilight would, and I’m sure does, want me to do. If she’s still fighting them against all odds from the inside, then I’m not about to fail when I can do something from here.”

“Won’t they be mad?” Moon Blossom asked with a chuckle.

“Oh yeah. But I know more than a few who’ll support my decision. Homage, Life Bloom… I’ll be fine. What the rest think doesn’t matter.”

“Good to know! Then I won’t feel bad for wrecking their toys!” the pegasus said with a giant grin. “Let’s go save us some changelings!”

I gave them both a nod and a smile, my look finally falling upon Altrix. For once, I couldn’t see any pain in them, nor could I see her innate shyness. More than ever, I knew she was determined to come with us.

“Mum would want to help in any way she could…” the changeling stated. “I can too. The Princess trusted me to help you, and you’ve all been so nice to me. Even when it was too much, you guys were there. I am glad you are the first surface dwellers I met, it gives me hope that, one day, things might be alright again…”

Here they were. My friends. My reason for being, and the reason that Kronos didn’t stand a fucking chance.

I didn’t know how this would end. I didn’t know if I would die doing what we were about to do. I had to hope not, that as always we would escape by the skin of our teeth. That, at the end of all of this, we would stand together in a wasteland that, for all that it was worth, was slightly less broken than it had been before.

Yeah, I was scared to death.

But we would do this anyway. Because, after everything, that’s who we had become.

Not heroes. Just people doing the right thing.

To the very end.

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45 - Into the Depths

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Chapter Forty-Five: Into the Depths

“And boldly they rode…”

I wonder if I’ll ever see Stable 84 again.

It’s an odd thought, actually. I mean, it’s not like I’m super attached to that place specifically. Yeah, I’m invested in the lives of the changelings who live in it, sure. But the stable itself? I’d never really thought about it. It’s not my own home, not like for Altrix. But… well, Xena and I had hoped it might be one day. Just maybe.

Did that make it home already? In some way? It WAS the place Xena and I had… started. And the whole reason I came out here in the first place, even if it was for a ridiculously different and far more selfish reason back then.

Maybe I was already more attached to that place than I’d thought.

Emotions are weird.

But we still had to leave.

The moment that the day had started to break, we were up and out of our comfy clean beds and gathering all of the equipment and supplies we would need. We inventoried as quickly as possible, packing a little lighter than usual in terms of food and other amenities. This wouldn’t be the longest trip we’d taken and, hopefully, it’d be an in and out if all went well.

If not… Well, I guess it won’t matter either way.

When we were done, we all gathered together in the atrium and started retreating back through the hallways, making it all the way to the entrance and stepping out into the depths of the hive. Upon exiting, for no other reason than to ensure its safety in the absence of the changelings, I ensured to hit the door controls on the way out.

The alarm started to blare, the great door of Stable 84 being rolled back into place before sliding forward with its signature screech. The fallout shelter was sealed, and I doubted anything would be getting inside in the meantime.

And then, after all that, there was nothing left to do but leave the hive entirely.

It was all far behind us now, we had made for the Sky Bandit, still where we had left it between the rocky outcropping, Altrix and Moon Blossom hitching themselves back up to the ancient bus as the rest of us secured our gear and once again took our seats.

Now the grey dead sky surrounded us, the Equestrian Wasteland passing harmlessly by below. The journey to Prosperity would be a relatively short one, especially compared to how it was to walk there. But the flight still gave me ample time to think and thus my inner crisis about homes and stables and all that lovely shit.

Ugh, when exactly did my life get to this heap of confusion and righteous questing?

Derpy, I blame you.

“We shall be fine, I am certain,” Xena tried to reassure me, placing a hoof on my shoulder as I continued to stare out of the cracked window. “It is but a short way away now, but we will do as we must.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said with a sigh, looking towards my marefriend and leaning back with a sigh. “Let’s just hope the metro isn’t too crowded.”

“Honestly, a sentry down there would probably be more for looking out for any approaching ghouls from the Crystal Empire than for us,” Cobalt mused from the next aisle over. “Not that they won’t have been told about us. But I doubt they’ll be expecting us to go in right now. They don’t know we have the code.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” I said back to him. “Kronos doesn’t strike me as being a normal dumb slaver. And then there’s the Goddess to deal with…”

“But Cobalt is not without his point,” Xena supported. “Our acquisition of the entrance code should not be known to him, lest Watcher were to prove untrustworthy.”

“I doubt he’d tell them.” I just couldn’t see it, not after he helped us find it in the first place. “Unless a changeling had ‘told’ them we we are after it.”

“Let’s just hope none of them has been forced into that position. It’s all we can do,” Xena said sadly.

Insidiis would never tell Kronos what we were up to. The griffon probably didn’t know that a copy of the code even existed in Vanhoover. The Goddess on the other hoof…

If they had caught on to what we’d been after, then we were in trouble.

Oh Celestia, now I’m imagining us running up to the door and they’ve changed the code!

Okay… they probably don’t know yet. And we can sneak right on in and everything will be fiiiine.

Ah, we’re so screwed.

…

Well, now that that moment of self-doubt is out of the way…

“Everything all right up there?” I called out towards our resident fliers. “Any trouble?”

“Just fucking dandy!” Moon Blossom called out in an unsurprisingly snarky tone. “We’re playing I Spy! I’m looking at an R!”

“Is it that radroach?” I just about heard Altrix ask.

“…How in all of Equestria did you manage to see that?”

“Um… we have good eyesight.”

“Ah. Alright, you go!”

At least they were having fun.

They kept at it, though the rest of us remained in relative silence for the rest of the way. My thoughts remained on what we were about to do, the crushing weight of having so many lives depending on us. On me.

Everything we had been through. All we had bled for. The end of the line wasn’t a distant dream, this was it. And it really was dawning on me.

It was bothering Xena as well, I could just tell. She’d lost more than I had. She’d lost family. So had Altrix. All I had really lost was a paycheck and a way of life. Not even close to the same level as them. This hadn’t been easy on any of us, but they…

I had no idea how they could do it. If I got out but my friends didn’t… If Xena didn’t…

I had no idea if I could be that strong. I prayed to Celestia, Luna and whatever else might be listening, even zebra spirits for all I cared, that I wouldn’t have to find out.

By this point, my hoof had found its way to Xena’s. We held each other, enjoying this one final moment of peace before it all could be snatched away forever.

And it lasted for all it was worth, because Prosperity eventually came into sight.

“We’re here, guys!” Moon Blossom shouted back at us, the buildings of the small town rising up to meet us. “Not been shot yet!”

Clearly.

My E.F.S. was clear for the moment, so I took that with some comfort. We did a fly over the town, the Megamart where we’d first met Moon Blossom catching my eye. I frowned at the sight, the place looked… burnt. A large portion of the roof had collapsed, and what was left was blackened and scorched by fire.

“Looks like the slavers took our escape out on the building,” Cobalt noted dryly. “Nothing much left now.”

“Good riddance,” Moon Blossom spat.

“Where are we landing?” Altrix asked. “The Megamart doesn’t look safe…”

“Let’s move her towards those buildings. Like Vanhoover, set her down in an alleyway somewhere.”

“Alright, how about that one there?”

“Good spot. Let’s put this bucket down!”

The skycarriage banked, smoothly descending down to the street beyond the Megamart and setting down onto the cracked road. The duo pulled us into the gap that Altrix had seen, bringing us to a quick halt nestled between two rundown buildings.

The pegasus turned to give us a pleased grin. “Ta-da!”

We had arrived.

We all got up, gathering our things and ensuring we had all we needed for the trip through the metro tunnels. We emptied the vehicle of everything valuable, double checking to make sure we didn’t leave something under the seats or whatever. Once we were content that everything was accounted for, Cobalt and Xena piled off of the Sky Bandit as started to follow behind them.

Then… I got a strange feeling.

I turned to look back at the two rows of seats, my eyes trailing around the skycarriage. We may have only had it a short time, but this thing had been a sent by the goddesses themselves. No way we would have made it from one place to the next in any feasible amount of time without it. We’d probably still be in Vanhoover right now, unable to do shit about the changelings and without the code for Site B.

Maybe I should thank the slavers for leaving it behind?

I chuckled, giving the vehicle a thankful tap before jumping out of it and using my horn to close the door up behind me. It would be relatively safe here, we’d collect it when all was said and done.

“We all set?” Cobalt asked.

“I do believe we are,” Xena answered him. “Shall we proceed to the station? I would not wish to delay.”

“Neither would it…” Altrix agreed.

“Everything still clear on that Eyes Forward Sparkle of yours?” Cobalt asked me.

I nodded.

“I guess the slavers ran away, huh?” Moon Blossom said with a cackle.

“More like there was no value in leaving a garrison,” Cobalt pointed out. “This town is dead. There’s nothing here to protect.”

One of two settlements we’d destroyed since all this began. True, one was a raider camp and the other was a crazy cutie mark cult, but it was still somewhat eerie to hear the silence. I wonder what’s become of the ruins of Our Town?

Goddesses, how does our encounter with Starlight Glimmer feel like decades ago?

“Come on,” I said to the others. “Leave this place to the ghosts.”

We moved out of the alley, heading around the burnt remains of the Megamart and back towards the metro station we’d retreated through the last time we’d been here. It was only a short trot, and the station quickly came into view. I led the way as we came to the top of the stairway leading down into those tunnels, a little cautious due to the fact that the last people here were Kronos and his goons.

Everything seemed clear, but…

We headed down the stairs, my eyes peeled as my magic took hold of the large gate at the bottom.

“Wait!” Cobalt shouted, and I stopped instantly in place. “Hang on…”

The stallion moved forward, a small bit of light coming from his horn as he looked at the gate. And as he did so, I saw what I had very nearly missed.

A wire hooked up to the gate, set to break when it was opened.

“Nice spot,” Moon Blossom complimented him as he carefully disarmed the trap with his magic and let me swing the gate open. A combat shotgun was hooked up to the wire just beyond the gate, set to go off had we walked on through.

“Mines,” Xena also noted, gesturing towards the small disks across the floor of the station.

“I guess they didn’t want us coming back through here,” I said.

“They can be disarmed by that button on top.”

That had always struck me as a major design flaw in those things. Stepping on them literally stopped them from blowing up. They were still dangerous to those caught unaware, though.

And…

“Cobalt, Altrix, we can just use our horns to clear them aside,” I pointed out.

“Good point. Push them into the station and into the opposite tunnel to where we’re heading.”

Some creature down here was going to have a bad day coming through there.

We stayed back as our three auras vary carefully took hold of the bombs and moved them out of our path. Once a swath of them had been moved safely away, we started to move into the station and onto the platform.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a beep around the corner as we stepped onto the said platform!

BEEP BEEP BE- TING.

I turned to look, staring at the mine we’d missed with a striped hoof pressed down onto the large button on top of the disk-shaped object. I felt a little queasy as my eyes trailed up to my silent marefriend, who also appeared to be letting out a slow breath after the close call. She then lifted her hoof off of the deactivated explosive, giving me a reassuring smile before trotting onwards.

I really love her.

I let out a relieved breath as we finished moving the rest of the many mines the slavers had laid out for us a good distance away before we all set them down in a cluster.

“That was close,” Altrix stated. “Are there any more?”

“I don’t spy any,” Cobalt noted cautiously. “Hopefully it was just the station they trapped. But keep an eye out.”

I nodded, dropping down onto the track at the opening of the tunnel. The other followed me down, all with the exception of Moon Blossom.

I looked up at the pegasus. “You coming?”

She then just gave me a cocky smile that screamed ‘I have a bad idea’, before my stomach dropped as she picked up the mine, flipped it and then proceeded to buck the fucking thing! Amazingly, it didn’t blow as it flew through the air and landed right in the middle of the cluster we moved aside.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

There was an amazing explosion down the tunnel as every single mine detonated at once! We were far enough away from the chorus of detonations not to be hit by any shrapnel, but the entire tunnel gave a shudder from the event.

We all gave Moon Blossom a bewildered look.

“What?” she said with an innocent shrug, giving a flap of her wings and hopping through the air towards us. “Problem solved! Not like we wanted any other dipshit to walk into them, right?”

…Sure. Point taken.

I turned, looking down the tunnel ahead of us. There was a full day’s walk ahead of us, but we were ready.

It was time.

“Nothing yet…” I informed the others as we steadily moved through the tunnel, keeping an eye on my E.F.S. as we approached the station leading into Haven.

We were all feeling the strain of no sleep. But we’d all come prepared with little pick-me-ups to keep our energy levels topped off. Altrix, for example, was sipping on a flask of coffee she’d brought along. I wasn’t so different, getting a sugary boost from a Sparkle-Cola I’d swiped- Er, ‘borrowed’ from the stable’s cafeteria.

I didn’t need anything else to keep me going. It really is a wondrous drink…

“Just make sure you’re keeping an eye out and not imagining doing a sex with your drink,” Moon Blossom taunted.

“Fuck you. That is all.”

“If you want.”

Xena gave Moon Blossom a bemused glance, the pegasus giving her an innocent smile in turn. My marefriend rolled her eyes, probably planning revenge somehow on the mare and her promiscuous remark.

I made sure to neck the rest of the Sparkle-Cola and toss the bottle aside, just to be safe.

We were getting close to Haven, very close. The station would be coming up at the end of the tunnel, and I was keeping a very close eye out for any red bars that might show up at any moment. I was fully expecting some kind of slaver presence down here, though I couldn’t tell you exactly how much of one. Probably only a few, but who could say?

There was a wrecked train just ahead, the last obstacle between us and the station. As it had been the last time, it was derailed and sitting at an angle. The tunnel was almost entirely blocked by it and debris caused by its crash, but the back door was torn from its hinges and one of the side doors had been opened up by us the last time we had to move through it.

I went first, looking into the rusting train and through the skeletons for any traps. There didn’t appear to be any, so I jumped up inside the hulk and started sneaking towards the next door.

Then two red bars finally appeared.

“So, we ran into this ice ghoul the other day,” a gravelly voice spoke, and I gestured to the others to stop. “Completely frozen over, honestly kept her fresher looking than most ghouls.”

I looked through one of the train’s shattered windows, spotting a sandbag barricade that had been absent the last time. A griffon and an earth pony were sitting behind it, honestly looking more invested in their conversation than keeping watch.

“I go to kill it like the others, last thing we need is more undead crystal ponies walking in on us, right?” the griffon continued. “Then the guy I was with, ex-raider as will become apparent, started going on about me leaving it alone.”

“Alone? A feral?”

“I know right? But get this, dude decided the mare was in good enough condition to have some ‘fun’ with.”

Uh…

“Wait, seriously? A feral? What the fuck?”

“That what I said! Some settler mare is one thing, plenty of slaves to pick from in Fillydelphia. But those ponies are too beat up to do anything about it and, ideally, aren’t undead monsters.”

“What happened?”

“Guy is trying to convince me to join in, I say I should put a bullet in his head for being so stupid. Didn’t have to, the ghoul got tired of waiting and sunk her teeth into his face.”

“Ha! What did he expect?”

“Yeah, well, I watched the show for a bit until his screaming stopped. Then I put a bullet in both of them just to be safe.”

“This is what Red Eye gets for letting raiders join.”

“A merc is more reliable any day of the week.”

Well, I wasn’t sure I needed to hear any of that.

“I have left, Moon Blossom can take right,” Xena deadpanned, clearly as nonplussed at their little tale as I was.” “Quick and quiet.”

“On it!” Moon Blossom whispered back enthusiastically.

Xena popped her head up, getting the first slaver in her sights.

CRACK.

They went down instantly, their brains splattered onto the track.

“FUCK!” the other shouted, just as Moon Blossom shot out of the train towards him with her knife drawn.

He turned, trying to lunge for a radio set out on a barrel behind them.

Moon Blossom landed on his back, probably fracturing his spine even before she plunged her knife into his brain.

Red Eye clearly can’t get the help these days…

“Hopefully, it will be a while before somepony comes down here to relieve them,” Cobalt said as we all followed Moon Blossom into the station. “We should move quickly, just in case.”

“You’re probably right,” I replied. “We should try to avoid any of the power armoured griffons. They will have Eyes Forward Sparkles too, no hiding from that.”

We started to move up and out of the station, red bars somewhere above us starting to appear quite frequently. Fortunately, the station seemed to be otherwise empty beyond the guard post we’d taken out.

Moving up towards the exit, I motioned for the others to stop as I waited for a couple of red bars to pass by and vanish. After I was certain the area was clear, my ears primed for the sound of hooves, I started to move up and out of the metro station.

I emerged back into Haven, the very place where we’d first encountered Kronos’ slavers weeks ago.

I was also immediately aware of how out in the open we were here.

“Get to those buildings!” I whispered towards the others urgently, heading towards two empty homes and ducking the space between two of them.

We’d arrived right in time, three bars appearing as three griffons marched right on past us and around the metro station’s entranceway.

Too close.

“We should keep to the buildings as much as possible. The streets leave us a sitting target,” Cobalt noted. “This place is crawling with them now.”

He wasn’t wrong, yet more bars appearing and then vanishing from my vision.

We really were in the manticore’s den…

We slowly started to follow Cobalt’s suggestion and move through any small gap between homes and other such buildings as possible. We would hop fences, moving into the back gardens of abandoned houses, quite often filled with their long-dead residents. Staying out of sight was the only way we’d reach the Donut Joe’s hiding Site B.

After moving through the first cluster of buildings, we came across a street we’d have to cross. There was another cluster of buildings beyond that, and somewhere past the mass was our destination.

The exact route was a little foggy in my memory, but a quick check of my PipBuck’s map was enough to fill in the blanks. If we could just make a path through the alleyways and gardens between us and it, we could hopefully avoid patrols.

Alongside some good timing and luck, anyway.

“See anything?” Altrix asked as Xena peaked out into the street.

She immediately pulled back.

“One in power armour. If they get closer…”

We’d be spotted for sure.

Gotta admit, wasn’t enjoying the thought of being on the receiving end of an E.F.S for once.

Or S.A.T.S. for that matter.

I gave a peak around myself, seeing a griffon down the end of the next street flanked by two slaver ponies. They were just about out of range of my Eyes Forward Sparkle apparently, but it couldn’t be by much.

If they came this way…

I watched the griffon with bated breath, silently urging them to turn and go in the opposite direction.

And then, much to our collective relief, he turned and stomped away down the street with his guards keeping close behind.

We moved, rushing across the street and into the next cluster of buildings. We moved as swiftly and quietly as we could, weaving through them and staying still and silent whenever any slavers started moving nearby. If we made a sound that got them suspicious, we would be in about as much trouble as if an E.F.S. got wind of us.

But, fortunately, we managed to get through without raising any alarms. And upon getting past the final back alley, there was the restaurant we were looking for.

Unfortunately, getting across the street this time wasn’t going to be as simple.

“Sniper on the rooftop,” Xena noted as we hid from their view. “Moving from here will undoubtedly attract their attention.”

“I’m guessing that shooting him is out of the question?” I asked sarcastically.

“Unless you want to draw every slaver in the wasteland to us, no.”

“Could we fly?” Altrix suggested.

“It worked for that other dude back there,” Moon Blossom supported.

“A shout up here is all it will take,” Cobalt disagreed. “But… maybe I could teleport one of us up there behind them.”

“Count me in!” Moon Blossom instantly volunteered, readying her knife.

I bit my lip, glancing carefully around the corner and up at the sniper. They were studying the streets around the diner, rifle at their side with a few crates and a lawn chair set up behind them. I then looked back at my two friends, giving them a nod. What other choice did I have?

“Ready?” Cobalt asked Moon Blossom.

“You bet!”

He was silent, closing his eyes in concentration as his horn lit up and surrounded Moon Blossom in a blue aura.

There was a pop.

I heard a noise from the roof of the Donut Joe’s, and I looked back around to see Moon Blossom’s hoof literally in the stallion’s mouth to stop him from screaming as she forced the combat knife into his neck. He looked like he was biting into Moon’s leg, but she only flinched as he drew blood before the pony went limp and was dropped to the ground.

Moon Blossom hopped down, and we quickly crossed the street and piled into the restaurant, heading straight into the kitchen and closing the door quietly behind us.

“Fucker…” Moon Blossom swore as she held her bleeding leg.

“Oh, let me see…” Altrix cooed gently as she immediately starting to tend to Moon Blossom.

I moved towards the door I’d picked way back when, gently taking a hold of it and finding that it was still very much unlocked. I moved into it, looking to the left and into the open storeroom hiding the hatch going into Site B. It was shut up tight, but I knew how to open it.

The others came in to join me, a new bandage around Moon Blossom’s leg as she complained about the sting of disinfectant. I guess it wasn’t serious enough for one of our healing potions.

I looked towards the nearby alcove containing the lever, lighting my horn and pulling it down. As before, the floor shifted as the secret hatch retracted, revealing the metallic staircase. I ensured to pull out my pistol as we started to descend, Altrix looking around with a nervous expression as she beheld the elongated corridor at the bottom.

“I can’t believe you just stumbled into this…” Altrix mumbled.

“And here I thought all the crazy stuff happened after I joined you guys,” Moon Blossom remarked in agreement.

I hummed, pulling the twin lever down here to shut up the hatch behind us. I then looked towards the closed door at the end of the corridor, obscuring the room containing the elevator down into the facility. I took a few steps forward, and two red bars quickly made themselves known.

“Trouble ahead,” I whispered to the others, noting how we’d have to file through the door one at a time. “Alright, Altrix, you spit in the face of the one to the left while I take out the other one. We can then deal with the second as he struggles.”

Altrix gave a small nod, and I moved ahead towards the door, ready to hit the panel.

I waited a moment, listening out to see if they knew we were here. I didn’t see the bars move, so I had to assume they were not equipped with power armour.

With that in mind, I hit the door controls and stepped through as it slid open with an unfortunately loud screech.

“What the-!?”

Before the door had even finished opening, the slavers had already raised the guns as I engaged S.A.T.S. and took aim. A cold shiver went down my as I noticed that both earth ponies already seemed to be pulling the trigger on their battle saddles.

Shit.

I lined up two shots on the first one, lining a third on the second for good measure.

The moment I engaged the attack, one hunting rifle round pinged the doorframe while another bit into my barding as if I’d just taken a buck to the chest. Despite the sudden stroke and surge of pain, I barely stumbled as I quickly took all three shots as the spell directed.

The first slaver crumpled, the second was saved by my bullet pinging off his own rifle.

Only for a glob of green goo to fly through the air and strike him in the face.

The stallions started to thrash as I levelled my pistol, muffled shouts coming from behind the goo as he started to try and pry it off with his hooves.

My bullet went straight through the spit and out the other side.

“Well, now that the sentries are taken care of…” Cobalt started to say as he walked into the room and glanced towards the terminal.

He didn’t need to say more, I understood.

I approached the terminal, opening it up to the login screen that Cobalt had tried to hack before. Inwardly praying that the code was still good, I brought up my PipBuck and browsed for the password I’d retrieved from Twilight Sparkle office.

Bingo.

One at a time, I started to input the random letters and numbers into the terminal. I made extra sure I was typing each and every single one correctly, and I think the tension had reached breaking point when I finally finished and attempted to enter the code.

Ding.

We were in.

“Thank Celestia,” Cobalt muttered as he took my place at the terminal, giving it a look over. “Alright, opening up the elevator now. We should be good for the moment, though I can’t say how long we’ll go unnoticed once we’re inside.”

“We’ll come to that…” I replied, taking a moment to breathe as I looked into the now open elevator.

The door leading into the depth of Site B. The end of the road.

I looked towards the others, looking between every single one of my friends. I nodded at them to start piling in, which they did so without argument as I stood rooted for a couple moments more. For some reason, I felt the need to glance at my PipBuck and into my collected inventory. Using its own sorting spell, I quickly located and brought out the item on my mind, holding it out before me.

Twilight Sparkle, the eyes of the fake statuette looking into mine.

“Bring us some good luck, yeah?” I said to her, receiving no reply.

Even if the real Twilight Sparkle was a prisoner in Unity, I part of me was comforted by the thought that she might be looking out for us as best as she could. Rebelling against the Goddess with all she had.

I knew she would want us to succeed, to destroy a project she so clearly despised creating. And it was a wish of hers I was all too happy to oblige.

I stepped into the elevator, returning the statuette to my saddlebag as the door closed behind us and we started to descend.

No going back now.

Footnote: Max Level

46 - Unity

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Chapter Forty-Six: Unity

“So, what shall it be? Do you join the Unity, or do you die here?”

You know… It strikes me, I’ve never actually been in an elevator before. I hadn’t really thought about it until now, with us descending down into Site B packed into this small little box. I mean, I fell down a shaft back in Vanhoover, but I doubt that really counts. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I had at least one conclusion to draw.

Elevator music sucks.

Honestly, listening to that idle tune play as we watched the little dial above the door move closer to our destination floor honestly made standing in here almost… awkward. How did pre-war ponies do this every day? Honestly, stick some Sweetie Belle on or something. Maybe some Sapphire Shores. Not whatever the fuck this was.

“Hm, the music is nice. It feels relaxing,” Altrix noted.

Maybe I’ll keep my opinion to myself.

Ding.

The elevator bumped to a halt, and we all raised our weapons as the doors opened, half expecting an ambush on the other side.

Nothing.

The room before us almost reminded me of a hospital waiting room. The walls and floor were the same dull rusted metals that we’d seen up top, but scuffed red seating lined the righthoof wall while the left corner was host to an enclosed reception desk. An empty pot sat by the seating, probably once the home of some plant or another, alongside a small table containing a few ancient magazines and other reading material. There were three doors out of here, one behind the reception desk, one directly ahead of us and one just to the side of the seating.

In all, not entirely what I expected.

“Gun turrets up above,” Cobalt noted as we stepped inside, drawing my gazes to a couple of closed hatches along the ceiling. “Security camera too, but inactive. Maybe they haven’t got all of the security systems up and running.”

“Not unlike Buckingham, then,” I mused, taking a moment to look through our surroundings before hopping over the reception desk and examining the terminal. The screen was on, though a lot of it was garbled and illegible.

Cobalt joined me, putting his tech skills to use and examining the machine.

“Looks like a lot of the data is corrupted, let me see here…”

He typed away as Moon Blossom and Xena kept an eye on the various entrances into the room. Altrix nervously watched us work, before shifting herself over to the magazines and sifting through them. Probably to calm her nerves.

“Ah, somepony fucked up here and lost a lot of information,” Cobalt grumbles. “I do have a map recovered, though.”

I hummed, taking a look at my PipBuck and switching to the map. Sure enough, it was there.

“I’ve picked up on it,” I informed my friends. “Looks like if we go through the door dead ahead and hang a right, it should lead us to some kind of large warehouse.”

“My people might be in there!” Altrix suddenly stated.

“Hopefully. We should hit that place first, then find Kronos.”

“And shove that metal eye right up his asshole!” Moon Blossom declared. “I call dibs!”

Get in line.

“Is there anything else of use?” Xena asked Cobalt.

“Nothing helpful, a couple of notes from the receptionist about meetings. Not much good to anypony now.”

“Alright,” I said, checking my E.F.S. to see that it was still clear of red bars. There was one, but it was coming from the door by the seating, fortunately away from where we were heading. “Moon, hit the door. Let’s get a move on.”

I hopped back over the desk, Moon Blossom doing as I asked as she practically kicked the control panel and allowed the door ahead of us to open with its signature screech and scraping of metal. It revealed a long metallic hallway with several offshoots spreading out in many directions. Without that map, I realised just how lost we would have become in this labyrinth of rust and metal. A mess of labs, staff quarters and who knew what else was down here. Everything a group of MAS scientists would need to create weapons of war.

We couldn’t let Red Eye, nor the Goddess, keep this place. We just couldn’t.

We reached the end of the corridor, I was keeping an eye on my PipBuck all the while to make sure we had the right directions. I zoomed out to get a better view of the place, taking note of the large space that had to be the central chamber I’d seen in that memory orb.

Now, if the big bad cyborg was going to be anywhere…

“We head right, it’s pretty much a straight shot to the warehouse and a bunch of random storage spaces,” I told the others. “Then we hit back this way and head to the centre of this mess. See if we can’t do something about it.”

“Hey, we’re just following you,” Moon Blossom remarked. “Just tell us where to go, Boss.”

“Hey-! What the!?”

I really should have spotted those two red bars.

I pulled my pistol and fired at the two slavers who’d just wandered up the corridor, hitting one in his barding and causing him to fall back as Moon Blossom instantly shot forward and slammed into the second.

No, you’re not warning anyone!

I sprinted, rushing past Moon Blossom and catching up with the retreating slaver. I fired another shot, missing by a centimetre as I grunted with increased magical concentration. I reached out, grabbing his tail with my aura and yanking backwards! He stumbled, but he kicked out as I caught up and my whole vision blurred as my face felt like it imploded from that buck!

CRACK.

I entered S.A.T.S. at that moment, the moment freezing as the slaver recoiled in pain from the sniper round passing through his leg. I could feel a trickle of blood pouring from my muzzle, the left side of my face stinging really fucking badly from where he’d struck out.

Bastard!

I lined up two shots and opened up, both 9mm round turning his brains into jelly as the red bar was extinguished.

Seeing as the other one was also absent, I didn’t need to look back to know that Moon Blossom had probably cut the other one to shreds.

“Are you alright?” Xena asked worriedly.

“No time, move it!” I shouted at the others. Those bodies wouldn’t stay undiscovered forever!

We ran for it, galloping full speed down the corridor towards the warehouse where we hoped the changelings were being kept. We passed by several other doors and thankfully inert cameras but ignored all of it until we reached the very end of the hallway and our target.

I pressed the door controls with telekinesis before we reached it, barging straight on in without a moment to lose.

S.A.T.S. was a given, and it gave me plenty of time to admire the startled faces of the three griffons inside.

I lined three shots for the rightmost slaver and fired, the fucker falling as I quickly extracted Venomous and held it duel with my pistol, firing a single shot at a second slaver and letting his screams ring out as his entire skull started to melt, his eyes boiling and his beak falling free from his face and to the ground.

Two red bars vanished, a third following suit as Cobalt lifted him up with his magic and slammed him into a wall, Xena following this up with a single shot to the winded bird’s head.

“Well, that was awesome,” Moon Blossom remarked, but I didn’t answer as I took stock of our situation.

Before us was a giant metal door that seemed sealed tight. The room around was rectangular and completely open aside from a small little booth to one side. I made straight for it, finding a single console station inside alongside a silent monitor.

“Cobalt?” I called out to our resident smart pony.

“On it.”

He started on the console, all while I turned my attention onto the monitor above it. It looked to be off, but there was a single button on its frame. I pressed it in, watching as the screen flickered to life to show the other side of the giant door blocking us off.

It was our warehouse alright. Giant crates littered the large underground space, the giant cranes and blocked off conveyers I could see made me think that there had to be some other way beyond the normal elevator that the MAS got them down here way back when. I couldn’t tell what was inside of them, all of them giant blank metal boxes stacked around to make something of a maze.

But I wasn’t so interested in that, but rather the changelings absolutely packed inside of it. Granted, the warehouse was absolutely gigantic, making the stable atrium look like a broom closet by comparison. But with the sheer number of changelings shoved inside, they were all practically shoulder-to-shoulder with one another. All still wore their Stable 84 jumpsuits, their PipBuck’s strapped to their legs. Without the tools and time, the slavers hadn’t removed them.

Not that it mattered. They were squashed together like rats, adults and nymphs alike. I could see them shivering, afraid and dying in this goddess forsaken place.

Seriously, fuck Kronos is every conceivable way. They didn’t deserve this.

“No…” Altrix muttered in horror upon seeing the live image. “W-we need to get them out!”

“Working on it,” Cobalt replied.

“Yeah, not to be a downer, but that’s gonna be chaos trying to get that many changelings out,” Moon Blossom pointed out. “Ever heard of a crab bucket?”

“They will help each other, we live for the hive,” Altrix shot back. “We won’t climb over each other to get out, they’ll funnel out as organised as they can. We WILL make it.”

“I don’t see the Princess,” Xena noted.

She was right, Insidiis wasn’t in there. Not that I could see…

That was bad.

“Sent straight to the lab, if you recall,” Cobalt mentioned. “They’ll have the purples pluck the rest out when needed, teleportation removes the risk of an escape when the door opens. It also means they can just shove in food and water as needed without the same risk. Terrible, but not a bad plan in practice. Kronos is clearly nothing if not ruthlessly efficient.”

“He needs to die,” Xena spat.

“Agreed.”

Cobalt worked for a few moments more, before he gave a dissatisfied huff and stepped away from the console.

“Security lockdown, I’ll need to access a station capable of unlocking it,” he informed us. “One of us should stay here and wait for the signal. They can then organise the stable dwellers and get them out of here.”

I frowned. Leaving one of us behind? No, fuck that. I didn’t like the idea one bit.

“He is right.” Xena!? “For the best chance of this succeeding, it is a necessity.”

Uggggh.

“So, Boss? Who gets the job?” Moon Blossom asked.

I have to choose? Oh, come on! How was I meant to make a choice like that? Leaving one of my friends alone in the heart of slaver power in the north!? Who would even want that? Nopony!

…No pony.

I could already feel Altrix’s pleading eyes on me. I knew she wanted to help her people, but…

Fuck.

“Alright, Altrix,” I said, seeing her brighten up. “You need to stay here and wait until we clear the security problem. Then you get your hive and get out of here.”

“Thank you, I need to be here,” she said gratefully. “I want to be with you guys if I could, but they need me. If I don’t…”

Xena gave her a smile. “We understand. In the end, it has to be you. They are your people, you can assist them better than any of us. Someone else might get it wrong.”

I looked between them. Dammit, I knew they were right. They would easily be quicker to listen to and follower a changeling opening that door over any of us. They could mistake us for a slaver, or otherwise be confused or panicked. Altrix knew what to say, what to do. She was what they needed.

But I couldn’t leave her entirely alone and undefended.

I slung Venomous over my back, pressing my trusty 9mm forward and presenting it before Altrix. I knew she wouldn’t like it even before I saw her eyes widen in horror and pain, but this was my condition.

“Take it.”

“W-what? No! I-I can’t…”

“Altrix,” I addressed softly yet sternly. “If they come for you, I need to know you can fight back. I know killing sucks, it always sucks. But you saved me before, and now you need to save your people.”

“I…”

“Please,” I stressed, releasing my hold on the gun as her green aura hesitantly took hold. “I always loved how good you are. How much you want to heal rather than hurt. This won’t change that, protecting something you love against people like those slavers… You’re not a bad person, and we want you to be safe.”

Altrix sniffed, shaking and yet keeping a hold on the pistol.

“Alright…” she whispered. “I don’t want to, b-but… I will. I have to. Only if I have to…”

“That is all we ask,” Xena cooed, giving the changeling an affectionate hug. “We will see one another again soon, and this nightmare shall be at an end.”

“Yeah…”

“Come on,” I said to the others. “Let’s find a security station so Cobalt can do his thing.”

“Let’s,” the unicorn in question agreed, looking back at Altrix. “Be safe, Altrix.”

“You got this, kid,” Moon Blossom added, ruffling her head fin and actually getting a small giggle out of the changeling.

As the others left, I gave her one final smile and a nod. I hated leaving her, but I believed in her. She would save them, I knew it.

Until next time, Altrix.

I turned away and headed back out with the others, checking my PipBuck’s local map for directions. We had to head back the way we had come from and start moving towards the central chamber. It would be a trek, but there looked to be some rooms along the way that might be security stations. We wouldn’t know until we tried.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

We left the warehouse and Altrix behind, moving back through the hallways and past the thankfully still undiscovered bodies. Moving past the entrance and down the opposing corridor, we soon found ourselves presented with a multitude of different passages to choose from, and the distinct and frustrating lack of labelling on the PipBuck’s map was proving to make finding this place a little bit of a challenge.

Fortunately, the corridors themselves had signs, and we found a junction with a few different markings. One corridor seemed to leave to a ‘Cryostasis lab’, another thing they were messing with here? Another led to some generic laboratories they probably used for researching the ChangeBuck and things like Venomous. A fourth direction was marked as leading to the ‘Flux Storage’ and ‘Central Vats’. That was of obvious interest, but unfortunately, it seemed our most pressing concern would be leading away from there with a final opposing corridor being marked with ‘Security Station Bravo’.

Guess we were going that way.

We started down the corridor, tentatively waiting for the inevitability of running into the next patrol. It had yet to happen, and I had to wonder where they were all hiding. Maybe they were just hanging out in the barracks, not expecting anypony to have made it this far. Maybe there were more towards the vats…

I’m sure we were going to find out soon enough.

Keeping an eye on my PipBuck map, I saw that there was a small room coming up to our right. Past that, the corridor looked like it would loop around and join back up with some of the previous passageways. Still, the room turned out to be just what we needed as a sign just beyond the door indicated it to be the security station.

“Alright, this looks to be the place. Let’s hurry and-”

I spotted the red bar too late as Cobalt got ahead of himself and opened the door, the ear-grating screech easily getting the attention of the pony within.

But even as I reached for Venomous, Cobalt’s horn let out a quick flash that didn’t even give the slaver time to shout before he crumpled to the ground.

“As I was saying,” he continued without missing a beat. “Let’s hurry up and get this done so Altrix can do her part.”

Good to see him putting that Twilight Society training to good use.

We stepped inside and over the still twitching corpse, moving inside and examining the security station. Like the station back in Buckingham’s Ministry of Wartime Technology factory, there was a large station with a fast array of screens and controls dominating much of the room. Beyond that, there was a set of lockers spanning the walls and some dormant turrets hanging out of their holes in the ceiling.

Please stay that way.

Looking up at the array of screens as Cobalt wasted no time in getting to work, I saw that they were all pretty much inactive. None of the cameras throughout Site B were actually in working order.

“Honestly…” I hard Cobalt muttered. “Can’t Red Eye get any recruits with a decent grasp on computers…?”

He says that like it’s a bad thing.

I let him work, nodding at Xena and Moon Blossom to watch the door. As they did that, I turned my attention to the lockers and started to rifle through them. Most seemed to be empty on initial observation, though there were a couple of ammunition clips that weren’t much use. The few that Xena could use I passed towards her, and I even found a singular cell for my own weapon.

And then, there was the box.

It was a small metal box that, to my annoyance, appeared to be locked. Still, that was nothing a good old bobby pin couldn’t fix.

I pulled the box out and sat down to concentrate on getting the thing open. As I did so, I heard Cobalt give a shout of victory as all the screens blinked to life.

“That was fast,” Moon Blossom commented.

“Anything to show up Red Eye,” he snarked, and I looked up to see the various camera feeds. “They’re only active for this station and any station I see fit. I’m currently working on trying to route controls so that they work only for this console.”

“Any robots?” I asked him.

“One thing at a time,” I replied, before then giving a hum. “Though on a glance, the encryption looks a little tougher than the last time I did this, and the facility’s defences are split into sections. Getting one online won’t mean necessarily getting the rest on side.”

“Right… Any more good news?”

He paused, flicking through some menu or another. “I can see the security lockout Altrix is facing. I’ll focus on that before anything else. Also… It looks like I have immediate access to some of the doors around this place. Not all of them, but I can open and shut a few at will.”

“Useful for preventing or allowing passage,” Xena noted.

“Exactly. I suggest I stay here while the rest of you move in on Kronos.”

Oh, not this shit again!

“Cobalt…”

“I know what you’re going to say, Scrap,” he cut me off. “Splitting up has its risks, but doing so again will continue to benefit us. I have cameras, doors… And if I can get some robotic defences, you know from experience that it could mean the difference between life and death.

True. We never would have gotten out of Buckingham if not for having a couple of Sentry Bots at our back.

Still…

There was a click as I succeeded in getting the box open. I pocket the pin, letting the issue slide for the moment as I opened it up to see what loot I could get.

…Well then.

Two items existed inside the box. One looked just like the StealthBuck I had used against the Zebra Remnant, but the markings on the side told me that this one was a little different.

StealthBuck MK II-B.

A ChangeBuck prototype.

I couldn’t help but let a goofy shit-eating grin form onto my face. A device to let me do what changelings did? Gimme!

Pocketing that little technological wonder, and to be honest I’d probably end up using it sooner rather than later given where we were, I turned my attention to the second object. Now, as great as the ChangeBuck was, this one was… Well, ‘interesting’ was an understatement.

It was one final memory orb, after all.

“Oh great, another brain ball,” Moon Blossom remarked. “You’re not really gonna use that now, are you?”

“They usually contain some good information,” I pointed out. “We might find something of use.”

“And with the collection we’ve gathered, the Twilight Society is going to have a field day studying and cataloguing them all once this is done,” Cobalt added in.

“Because we all give a shit about what the Twilight Society does for a hobby,” she deadpanned. “Whatever, you guys do your weird horn head thing. We’ll wait here for something to splat.”

Charming as ever.

I stared deep into the misty contents of the sphere. With Cobalt working on the terminal, we had the time. It would also delay me having to decide whether or not to leave yet another friend alone in this place.

What have you got for me…?

Chrysalis.

My… ‘her’ surroundings were extremely familiar, and it was oddly even more surreal than usual to be watching the memory of someone in the exact same room I was currently in outside the memory. I took note of her feelings, she was… tired. Her body was weak and battered, and she felt sick to her stomach. Radiation poisoning?

Wait… if she had rads, when was this…?

“Well…” Chrysalis gave a humourless chuckle. “Here we are. In this pony facility. I should never have relied on Twilight Sparkle for any kind of solution, ponies are ever a blight on Equus.”

Queen Chrysalis gave a hiss of pain as she stumbled up against a wall, using her left foreleg to support herself against it.

A foreleg that was missing a certain PipBuck.

Chrysalis chuckled again. “I do not know why I even wish to plant these events into those accursed orbs… I do not know why I did so previously either. I know some still lay within this facility, another is back at the hive… Perhaps I simply wish to recount events for Insidiis, should she ever find these. The truth about… everything. She is too young to understand, and far too infatuated with the Equestrians. I hope isolation in the stable will change that, but I fear for the love shortages to come.”

She pushed herself off the wall, walking towards the security terminal. On the desk sat the very same memory orb I now watched, sitting next to the metal box which already contained the ChangeBuck.

“But she will be safe alongside the hive within that shelter, perhaps the one good thing to come from this alliance. And when it is safe, the stable will open. But I cannot join them, not now. The road between here and the hive, Insidiis, is far too dangerous. Naught but fire and radiation exists beyond this facility now, and yet all the ponies inside this ‘Site B’ have fled to be with their families. They shall all perish, as I hope Sparkle has within Maripony.”

Chrysalis sighed, my vision going dark as she closed her eyes for a few moments before opening them again.

“And yet, before they left, they sealed much of the facility’s systems. I do not know how to reactivate them, and I lost my PipBuck during Haven’s burning. I do not know whether the radiation is to leak within these walls, but that aside, the water is most certainly contaminated with the purifier being offline.”

So that’s how the PipBuck ended up in Ditzy’s shop. It must have been left in the ruins of Haven until some scavenger, somepony not unlike who I used to be, picked it up. From there, it must have traded hooves until, finally, it found me.

“Without a pony to assist me in working to restore this facility, I cannot survive here for long. Fortunately, I know of another of their projects still up and running. Cryogenic freezing.”

What?

“Should you find this, Insidiis. Head to the appropriate lab, you shall find me. Wake me, and we shall lead our changelings into domination over whatever is left of this pathetic land!”

The Changeling Queen snarled, slamming a hoof into the desk as she cast her gaze downwards, her breathing heavy and laboured through a mixture of rage and exhaustion. Then, steadily, her breathing levelled out as she looked back up at the silent monitors. I could just about make out the Queen’s face reflecting back at her, her anger slipping away in favour of a… defeated sadness.

“Be safe, my daughter… Lead our hive how I could not, be the Queen I failed to be.”

The world began to distort, and then Chrysalis was no more.

I gasped as I was cast out of the memory, emerging into the real world once again. The eyes of my friends turned to stare at me almost expectantly, but I wasn’t sure what to tell them.

Chrysalis WAS here… Maybe still is. Kronos found her first, so when he and the Goddess were talking about the ‘mother’…

I was rather terrified to find out what they had done with the Queen of the Equestrian Hive.

“Anything we can use?” Cobalt asked.

“…No, not really. Just… something to look out for,” I answered, frowning as I got up and planted the orb into Cobalt’s saddlebags.

For all that might have happened, I wonder if Chrysalis would and maybe even is proud of the ruler Insidiis became? I’m just glad that, for all her generally serious and sometimes intimidating demeanour, that her more peaceful outlook hadn’t changed as Chrysalis hoped. The hive that existed today just wasn’t the dominating type.

“How about you, any progress?” I asked the other unicorn.

“You weren’t in there that long,” he retorted. “Though, something interesting has popped up on one of the security feeds you might want to see.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Look,” he responded, pointing up at the monitor right in the centre of all the rest.

Oh.

Cobalt engaged the audio, and right away I heard Kronos’ voice come in over the speakers as he stood in the centre of the central chamber. The cybernetic griffon was leaning up against a railing and looking menacingly down into one of the vats of taint, the distinct profile of a purple alicorn standing behind him.

And there, chained to the central column with a ring over her horn, was none other than Princess Insidiis.

“-are going to be key once the testing begins, changeling.”

“Princess to you, cretin,” Insidiis spat. “Release me and test how you’d fare in a real battle, not that cowardly tactic you used back in the hive!”

“Oh, I think not,” he calmly replied, turning around and facing the royal changeling. “I consider myself a griffon of my word, but in combat, honour becomes such a fickle thing. Letting you run amok would not be in the interests of my lord.”

“RED EYE’S INTEREST ARE NO MATTER, WE DECREE YOU SHALL REMAIN CHAINED,” the Goddess bellowed through her alicorn slave’s mouth. “OUR LAST SUBJECT IS TOO CORRUPTED TO BE A VIABLE SOURCE. WE MUST HAVE YOU TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT AND TRANSFORM YOUR SUBJECTS INTO MINE.”

“Last subject? What do you mean?” Insidiis growled. “What have you done!?”

“Oh, you shall discover soon enough,” Kronos dismissed. “When the time comes, if you live. Not that it shall matter I am afraid, like the rest of your race you will serve Lord Red Eye.”

“NAY! THEY SHALL SERVE UNITY!”

Kronos rolled his eyes, even the cybernetic one. “They shall be far more controllable with simple brain implants. It is as Red Eye decrees.”

“FOAL! THE GODDESS SHALL HAVE THEM IN UNITY! ONLY THEN SHALL THEIR FULL POTENTIAL BE FULFILLED!”

“I hope we get a vote,” Insidiis snidely remarked. “Because I say you both should jump into those vats and save me the trouble of killing you.”

“This is neither the time nor place for this debate. It shall be… ‘resolved’ at a later date. I do believe we have bothered the good Princess long enough.”

“VERY WELL, WE SHALL PREPARE FOR THE TESTING TO BEGIN.”

“There won’t be any testing!” Insidiis spat.

“I wouldn’t resist, my dear. We have more than enough strength to handle an immobile, magicless changeling. Even without the rest of the purples, since the Goddess here decided you apparently aren’t worth more than one.”

“OUR ATTENTION IS REQUIRED ELSEWHERE, NUISANCES HAVE ARISEN!”

“No matter…” Kronos said, turning his gaze to another nearby slaver. “Gather a guard detail, prepare for the first batch to be taken. I do not believe they shall go quietly.”

The first batch…? If they were about to start live testing, I think we had arrived right in the nick of time.

The Goddess seemed to frown, the alicorn looking away from the chained changeling to…

Oh shit, why was she looking right into the camera!?

“KRONOS! YOU DID NOT INFORM ME THAT THE SECURITY SYSTEM HAD BEEN RENDERED OPERABLE!”

Kronos frowned. “It hasn’t…”

“INDEED! I DO BELIEVE SOME SUCH NUISANCES HAVE ELUDED YOU ONCE AGAIN!” The alicorn turned to Kronos, and then she gave a twitch as her demeanour and voice changed. “Prepare your tests, we have been tasked to deal with them ourselves.”

Ohhhh crap.

“Time to go, guys!” I announced to the others, painfully aware that every slaver in this entire facility was about to know we were here. “Cobalt, have you gotten that security lockdown released yet?”

“Nope!” he urgently replied. “Scrap, I need to stay here. You three go on ahead, cause some trouble. I’ll seal the door behind you and try to assist where I can.”

“Are you certain about this?” Moon asked him. “A lot of dickheads are about to be knocking on that door.”

“I am. I’ll contact you over intercoms when I need to, just get going!” Cobalt stressed, storming towards us and all but forcing us out.

I put out a hoof and stopped his efforts, looking him dead in the eyes.

“Be careful, Cobalt. You hear me?”

“I didn’t let you drag me through all of this just to get killed now,” he shot back.

“Hey, technically, you hired me!”

“Details! Now get! I have a system to hack!” he remarked with a small smile. “I’ll be fine, just do your thing.”

I gave him a small nod, hating the fact that we were now leaving two of our friends to fend for themselves.

But he was right, this had to happen.

Even if I hated that fact.

We stepped out of the security station as Cobalt locked the door behind us. Already, a few new red bars were starting to show up somewhere in the corridors nearby to us. The whole place was starting to wake up, and we were about to be in the thick of it. An army of slavers, and even an alicorn.

Alright then.

One final effort.

Footnote: Max Level

47 - Escalation and Fates

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Chapter Forty-Seven: Escalation and Fates

“The example of the parent…”

Oh, they were angry now!

Bullets followed us as we retreated backwards, a quick hop into S.A.T.S. allowing Venomous to make short work of one slaver while the others took a momentary step back before continuing their very persistent attempts to kill us.

We’d run straight into these guys almost immediately after leaving Cobalt in the security room. I have no idea how many ponies and griffons they’d left behind to try and get to him, but they definitely were giving it their all after us!

There was a stack of small crates halfway down the corridor we retreated down, I made sure to grab onto them with my magic as we passed and pull them into a heap between us and the slavers. Their own unicorns instantly started to shove them aside, but it gave us a couple of seconds at least!

Something hit my side, and suddenly a massive amount of pain shot through my barrel as I kicked out at whatever fucker had just gotten the drop on me!

I heard a grunt as I wobbled around to face them, seeing a unicorn slaver mare holding a blood-covered machete in her purple aura.

My blood.

“Fuckin’ die!” she screamed as she charged me again.

I brought around Venomous and fired, hitting the mare in the chest as she screamed, the acidic magic quickly starting to eat away at her heart.

“There are more coming down the hallway ahead!” Cobalt’s voice came in over a nearby wall-mounted speaker. “Duck into the door to your left, go around!”

My vision was swimming in red bars, the slavers behind us already having broken through my impromptu barricade while at least five other slavers ahead of us charged forwards.

Alright, Cobalt had a point.

I fired a couple of shots at the encroaching slavers as I hit the nearby button to open up the door Cobalt had pointed out, a crack of Xena’s rifle causing another bar to blink out while we all piled in.

Shutting the door quickly behind me, I noted that we had ended up in some kind of breakroom. There were several tables and vending machines around us. As much as my heart yearned for the Sparkle-Cola vender in particular, I decided to yank all I could towards the door to delay our pursuers as we bolted through the room and out of an opposing door.

Getting out of there as the slaver tried to break through the mess that I’d gifted them, we found ourselves back in another corridor disconnected from the first.

“Keep going!” Cobalt’s disembodied voice commanded.

So, we moved, briskly moving up the corridor before a gigantic screech caught our attention. Right behind us, a huge slap of metal slammed down and proceeded to block off the entire hallway behind us, including the door to the breakroom.

The red bars were still present, but suddenly everything went quiet.

“One of the security doors I got control of, it will take them a while to force it open,” Cobalt explained from yet another intercom, which I wandered over to in order to reply. “You all doing okay?”

“Never better,” I snarked him. “What about you? And Altrix?”

“They’re banging on my door, but it’s holding for the moment,” he answered worriedly. “I’m looking at Altrix on the cameras now. They haven’t found her yet, so that’s good.”

I nodded, assuming he could see it from whatever camera he was watching right then. I turned to look at my friends, Moon Blossom sporting a few new scratches and bruises from where she’d scuffled with a griffon while Xena was already tending to a few grazes she’d taken from stray bullets.

And it was then my adrenaline lowered enough for me to remember the great damned gash in my side. My PipBuck was complaining quite heavily as I winced at the trickle of blood hitting the floor. The machete had cut its way right through a piece of my barding that had already taken the strain of a couple small calibre bullets, finally giving up the ghost and coming loose. I retrieved a healing potion and quickly got the bloody thing to heal up, but I was still left with some significant bruising.

I’m not sure my armour was going to last all that long under pressure. It was thus far keeping most of their smaller bullets from ripping my organs to shreds, but what happens when they bring out something a little bigger?

Unfortunately, stopping for some suit maintenance wasn’t really an option right now.

“We need to keep moving,” Xena said as she finished tending to her own minor wounds. “It will not be long before another group finds us.”

“Yeah, and you’re looking a bit fucked up there,” Moon Blossom remarked. “We don’t have Altrix around to patch up the really bad things, remember?”

Don’t remind me.

“There’s another security station a little bit ahead of you,” Cobalt reported. “It might be a good place to look for extra supplies. But don’t stick around too long, that alicorn is roaming around taking out any camera she comes across. Tracking her is becoming… difficult.”

Wonderful.

We kept moving forward, my eyes peeled for any movement on my Eyes Forward Sparkle that could be close. It was hard to tell, but as we got further away from the sealed hallway several of them started to drop off and vanish. I would take that as a good sign, they’d have to find another way around to us while Cobalt continued to dick with them in any way he could.

We came up to a junction that led off in four directions. The way to our right had already been blocked off by another security door. The left corridor was signed as to leading to some medical labs, but as much as extra healing potions couldn’t hurt, we were pressed for time.

That left us with the option to forge on directly ahead.

There were a few more rooms dotted around us as we progressed down the corridor. They mostly appeared to be locker rooms and some showers; everything a security division might need for their health and hygiene. We had to be getting close to the next security room that Cobalt had mentioned, and I also knew that we were getting closer and closer to the central chamber that this whole place was based around.

I remember hearing an old pre-war phrase, what was it…? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Well, there was never a frying pan. We’re in the fire now, but for some reason, we’re heading deeper and deeper inside until we reach the molten core.

A bit melodramatic? Well, I’m in that sort of mood.

A couple of new red bars appeared as the corridor curved, and ahead of us an open door came into view marked as ‘Security Station Alpha’. Two griffons immediately saw us.

Panicked shots pinged around us as I improvised, ripping up some of the floor grating and holding it ahead of me as something of a shield. Yes, being grating it was filled with holes, but it was better than nothing!

There was a loud bang, and the corner of the grating was peeled away.

Okay, less so when one of them has a shotgun.

“Lock them out, we have them pinned!” one of the griffons shouted, making the mistake of diverting his attention just long enough for Moon Blossom to shoot forwards and towards the duo.

Even as the shotgun-wielding slaver turned back with wide eyes at the incoming pegasus-shaped projectile, the second griffon was bringing up his own gun at my friend.

I let Venomous free at the same time that Xena poked her head around the corner and took aim.

My shot hit his gun, Xena’s .308 round had pierced through his torso.

He’d fired before either occurred.

A small spray of bullets went wide and straight through Moon’s wing, my stomach tightening as the mare shouted and fell forwards with her momentum.

She still hit her target.

She cussed and yelled as she dragged the unfortunate slaver out of the doorway, Xena and I running forwards as our friend started to angrily wail on the griffon. We passed them by, bursting into the room as I engaged into S.A.T.S. once more.

The disarmed griffon limping towards a pistol on a nearby table, a pony working the security console in the midst of turning around with a battle saddle primed and ready with dual assault rifles. Xena was already bringing her rifle towards the latter, so I targeted the griffon before he could retrieve his weapon.

Time continued, and everything happened within the span of a second. Xena’s rifle echoed loudly around the room as I fired two bolts of magic from my own rifle. Both of my shots hit the griffon right in the back, and he barely made a sound as he lifelessly fell forwards with the changeling magic eating away at his spine through the metal barding, both his wings quickly melting free from his back.

I turned to see several of the security monitors splattered with the other earth pony’s blood, the slaver’s corpse having slumped back over the console.

Moon Blossom trudged in, muttering under her breath as she dragged her damaged wing behind her.

“You alright?” I asked, retrieving and offering a healing potion.

“Fantastic,” she deadpanned, but nevertheless accepted the potion with a thankful nod.

“Let us not stay long. We are using up our supplies quickly,” Xena noted with worry.

“How much further until we find this guy?” Moon Blossom asked, grimacing as her wing started to pop and twist as it repaired itself. It was quickly back to being flight worthy, but there was a noticeable patch of missing feathers. “I’m starting to hate this place.”

You and me both, Moon. “Not far, I hope. Come on, let’s see what this place has.”

We had to be quick. Who knew how many more slavers were already making a beeline for us? I was thankful they wouldn’t know exactly where we were since Cobalt was the one with the security cameras. But still…

I moved towards the console as the others started hurriedly rifling through the lockers. I glanced at the slaver, pulling his body away from the console and to the floor. There didn’t seem to be anything of particular interest nestled around the various buttons and terminal screens. A pack of cigarettes I could maybe sell once all this was done. An empty coffee mug… Yeah, that was about it.

Then the screen above all started to light up.

“Guys, I’m remotely accessing your station and patching in the camera feeds,” Cobalt’s voice informed us. “There’s something you need to see. Now!”

“Cobalt?” I asked, a question in my voice.

“I’m now finishing up with the security lockout, but I think they’re on to us!” Cobalt reported. “I’m seeing a lot of movement heading towards Altrix!”

At that moment, my heart stopped and I felt my entire soul begin to sink.

She was alone. We had left her alone…

“I’m patching you in… now!”

The screen in the centre blinked and switched to a scene of the warehouse entranceway. I saw Altrix standing nervously by the booth, unaware as to what was coming.

“Altrix!” I shouted, hoping a microphone attached to the console was picking me up.

I saw her looked around in confusion.

“Uh… Scrap?”

It worked!

Xena and Moon trotted over towards me, also looking up at the screen. Altrix retreated inside the booth, standing by the control console.

“Altrix, listen to me,” Cobalt began. “I’m finishing up the lockdown release. By the looks of it, that should open both the large security door ahead of you and several other ways in and out inside the warehouse. There are large cargo elevators hidden on the surface that you can lead your hive to if you follow the conveyers. It’s hard to miss.”

She bit her lip. “O-okay. Got it. Tell me when.”

“Altrix, you have slavers coming for you. You must be ready,” Xena warned urgently.

Her eyes widened. “What!? Guys, I can’t…”

“Forget that, I’m releasing the lockdown… Now!” Cobalt announced victoriously. “Open that damned thing and get the fuck out of here!”

I saw her nod, the changeling quickly hitting the appropriate controls. An alarm started to sound no dissimilar from that of a stable door. It sounded, and it continued to sound…

Oh, fuck.

Fuck.

“Why isn’t it opening!?” Moon Blossom suddenly blurted out, sharing in our sudden panic. “Did you hit the right button?”

“Yes I… I did!” Altrix confirmed. “Guys…?”

“Dammit! The door is held in place with several separate magnetic locks. The system is disabling them one at a time, it’s- Altrix!”

I could only watch as the smaller door leading into the entranceway opened up and the first few slavers charged in. Bullets instantly started flying, and I heard Altrix yelp as she ducked down.

“Altrix, you need to defend yourself,” I tried to tell her, hoping my fear wasn’t coming through in my voice. “Altrix, the pistol I gave you…”

“I…”

“You can do this,” Xena encouraged. “You are very close. We know you can achieve this.”

“Kick their assess, kid!” Moon Blossom added. “Come on, girl! You can-”

We all jumped at a sudden burst of static, our eyes widening at our view on the camera.

They… they’d shot the speaker out.

Now we could only watch.

Altrix remained ducked down behind the small metal wall beneath one of the booth’s windows as one of the three present slavers rushed forward, the griffon shouting angrily as he charged straight at the door.

He burst in, standing over Altrix.

There was a gunshot.

The slaver collapsed into a lifeless heap.

My little 9mm pistol was smoking within Altrix’s green magical grip, her eyes wide even as the other two slavers cursed and also started to push.

Altrix looked up and over the wall, straight through the already shattered window as she lifted my pistol and fired. The nearest slaver was hit twice, falling to the floor and shouting in pain from his injuries. He was not dead, but he laid there, unable to act as blood started to pour from one of the bullets that had seemingly bypassed his armour and embedded itself into his armpit.

The door started to open, the great metal thing beginning to rise upwards to unleash the hive within.

And then more slavers arrived.

Altrix saw them, ducking back to avoid another influx of gunfire after launching a glob of green spit at them. It hit another slaver, a unicorn, sealing her horn and rendering her magic useless. Even as the changeling ducked, my pistol remained in place and fired several more rounds at the group of now five slavers if you were to include the injured griffon.

But even as more bullets hit their mark, most were absorbed by their barding while others went wide due to not being aimed. Only one actually made it into flesh, biting into the shoulder of yet another pony.

Altrix lifted herself up, looking to make a more precise attack.

And then we all saw the griffon that emerged through the door, leading yet another group of arriving slavers. The numbers alone were already terrifyingly overwhelming, jumping from three capable fighters to eight.

But, with the door barely even an inch off the ground and the centuries-old gears started to work, I realised with a breaking heart that this griffon was in full power armour.

They had her cornered. Outnumbered, outgunned, saved only by a single piece of cover between her and them.

The griffon looked straight at Altrix as she saw him.

A red beam was fired, streaking through the air.

Altrix was hit.

My gun was knocked from her grasp, falling out of the window and to the floor. And then, as if for added insult, a second red energy beam was shot straight into my oldest companion and shattered the gun’s frames into multiple fragments.

What could we do? There was everything we wanted to do. Even in the corner’s of my eyes, I could see the sheer horror and terror on the faces of my friends.

On my own face.

We had left her there. And now we could only watch as she struggled on the ground, a large burn on top of her partially melted chitin. Altrix, our friend, cried out in pain as the slavers continued their approach. Unopposed and out of danger.

Altrix looked up at the camera as the first few slavers prepared to step into the booth, weapons raised and ready to finish the helpless changeling. And with her gone, nothing could stop them from simply lowering the door again.

And then, as my eyes burned with water and regret, she smiled.

Altrix smiled.

There was a flash of green, and suddenly the booth all but exploded as a manticore swiped away some of the slavers with its scorpion tail, turning towards the others with one last defiant roar.

They opened fire.

Bullets bit straight into Altrix’s newfound hide, and I could only watch dumbstruck as she whipped her tail around impaled one of the scattered slavers, leaping forwards and crushing a second beneath her claws.

Out in the open and confronted with a changeling inheriting the power of such a powerful beast, the slavers started to circle and keep firing for dear life.

She was covered in holes and lesions, and yet, through sheer force of will, Altrix pounced once again.

Right into the power armour-clad griffon.

Her claws ripped into the armour, the griffon struggling to break free even as their helmet and part of their chest plate was ripped free.

Altrix’s tail struck forwards, the stinger finding its target.

One. Two. Three times.

The door’s mechanisms finally seemed to kick into gear, starting to rise at a rapid pace as hundreds of blue eyes all started to appear beyond the entranceway. Countless changelings all came into view, standing there in their stable jumpsuits with shocked expressions at the sight that awaited them.

The slavers stopped firing, determination becoming fear as they see the horde before them.

Altrix turned, regarding her people for a wonderful, victorious moment. They were free. They would soon be safe.

And then, with what little strength she had left failing, she collapsed. Green flames rippled around the manticore and reformed the young changeling doctor I had the privilege of getting to know. She laid there, a pool of blood starting to form around her from her many wounds. Her eyes were still open, those wonderful, bright glowing orbs still looking at the hive she loved so much.

But they were still.

I couldn’t comprehend it. Couldn’t accept it inside any form of reality. This wasn’t meant to… This couldn’t happen! It was… She couldn’t…

But despite everything I wanted to believe instead, despite all I inwardly screamed and pleaded for inside the depths of my heart… My tear-filled eyes could not deny the truth in front of me, no matter how bad it hurt.

Altrix was dead.

And with that universal recognition, all hell was about to break loose. Those hundreds of eyes all turned towards the slavers who’d so mercilessly cut my friend down. A member of their hive, giving her life for the hive. Their wings buzzed and, with them, their horns all started to light.

Fuck. Them. Up.

The hive sprang into action, an uncountable number of changelings all charging forwards and one single undefeatable swarm. Even as the slavers opened fire and murdered several, a dozen more would replace the one as they enveloped the slavers within seconds.

Their screams were only momentary.

“I… will attempt to guide them out from here…” Cobalt’s tired voice came in over the intercom. “Just get to Kronos. Give him a bullet from me.”

My own legs finally gave out, and I fell back onto my rump as my whole body violently shook. I wiped a hoof across my face, trying to clear my eyes as I looked between my friends. Xena looked much like how I imagined I did, tears streaming down her face as she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Moon Blossom, meanwhile, only had a couple of small stray tears as she stared at the monitor with the most rage-filled expression I had ever seen in my life.

Her hoof struck forwards, smashing one of the screens before she let off a shout. Even with glass sticking out of her purple hoof, she rounded and stormed away.

I looked back up at the camera feed, seeing the changelings thinning out while a couple started picking up their dead. Three were looking down at Altrix, a stable security guard whispering something to one of the dwellers before he knelt down and got help in depositing her body onto his back. He then picked up a stray gun with his magic and vanished from view.

No changeling left behind.

“Come…” Xena whispered gently into my ear, helping me stand back up. “There is still one more to save.”

Insidiis.

Altrix would want us to finish this fight, to save the Princess above all else.

And I’m sure she’ll be willing to help us tear Kronos a new one.

We left the room, the monitors blinking out as we did so. We remained silent, though it almost felt like we understood each other anyway. We knew what we had to do, there would be time to mourn later.

We were coming for you, Kronos.

“The changelings are beginning to evacuate,” Cobalt informed us as we continued on down the corridor. “I’m also starting to focus on getting some of the robotic defences online. I don’t think I’ll get many, but I’ll send what I can to help them.”

He paused, the silence deafening my ears as we continued down the corridor with a presently clear Eyes Forward Sparkle.

“Some of the security dwellers, and some other volunteers, are splitting themselves between defending retreating civilians and causing general havoc for the slavers. They have a base-wide revolution on their hooves, I think you can expect less resistance as they try to stop them.”

Good to know…

“Anyway… There looks to be a large flux storage chamber nearby. It’s filled with spare vats of the stuff, watch where you step. The main chamber is only a short ways past it, so… Good luck. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Cobalt’s voice ceased, and the doorway leading to the chamber he mentioned appeared directly ahead.

My mind was filled with everything we had gone through for… what? Five weeks almost? Was that it? Fuck… So much had happened in just over a month. Barely even that. Thirty-six days ago, I was in New Appleoosa not giving a shit about any of this. And now we were here, Altrix was dead, and I was about to face the son of a bitch responsible.

Whatever Red Eye and the Goddess intended to do with their Changeling Queen army, it wasn’t happening. They had already lost, and they wouldn’t get a second shot.

We reached the door, and Moon Blossom hit the button to slide it open.

My PipBuck practically screamed.

Goddesses, that’s a lot of taint.

Right out of the door we were presented with a grated staircase leading up onto a long catwalk that spanned a room of comparable size to the warehouse in which the changelings had been kept captive. From there, the catwalk had several branches that all ran in a grid pattern alongside many large vats filled with a bubbling rainbow liquid that just seemed… wrong. Where the vats in the central chamber had been a solid green colour, here we were looking at flux in its purest form. Not only was my Geiger Counter having a fit, but just staring down into the stuff made me feel like I was going to turn inside out.

Goddesses, where did Twilight get this stuff?

“How do we get outta here, Boss?” Moon Blossom asked uneasily. “This place is giving me the creeps.”

“There is nothing natural about what lies within those vats,” Xena noted darkly. “It is dark, wrong, almost…”

“Chaotic?” an emotionless female voice asked as a new red bar appeared amidst a ‘pop’.

Crap.

We all shot around, and sure enough, a large and imposing equine figure approached us slowly and predatorily, her eyes narrowed in on us as the remnants of her teleport faded into nothingness.

And then the alicorn stopped, looking completely calm even as we readied our weapons against the mutant. One by one, the large pony looked between us before glancing into a nearby vat. Her gaze remaining cool, her eyes finally came to a rest looking directly into mine.

“The blood of an enemy, one drained in amounts disproportionate to his body mass. An impossibility, but that creature is one who existed within such chaos,” the alicorn mused, though I wasn’t entirely sure who this ‘enemy’ was. “Yet even chaos has its elegance when perfected and shaped by Unity.”

Before I could even ask what exactly she was talking about, Moon Blossom angrily cut in.

“Oh, shut the fuck up you mindless prick,” she spat. “What’s wrong? Your boss too scared to talk to us herself?”

“THE GODDESS FEARS NOPONY!”

Welp, she’s here now.

“Lies do not befit a goddess,” Xena taunted. “Your fear of Twilight Sparkle was most noticeable.”

“WE DO NOT FEAR THAT PATHETIC UNICORN!”

“Yeah, we saw your little domestic with Kronos. He sure thinks you do,” Moon Blossom further added with a delightfully vicious smirk.

The alicorn’s eye twitched. “YOU… YOUR ATTEMPTS TO FUEL HER REBELLION SHALL BE CONSUMED BY OUR UNITY! WE ARE GREAT AND POWERFUL, HER CAGE IS WELL CRAFTED, HER MIND OURS TO SUPPRESS!”

“I don’t know…” I felt like I had to have in on this. Not every day you get to scare the shit out of a ‘goddess’. “She seems pretty smart. Smarter than you, I’m sure she’ll catch you off guard someday. Help somepony take you down.”

“IT SHALL NEVER BE!” she bellowed as she reared up and her horn charged.

That certainly got her attention!

We all scattered into offshoots of the catwalk as a lavender beam of magic struck the walkways and sent a section of it clattering to the ground below.

Shit, if we get knocked into one of the vats…

I brought up Venomous and fired at the alicorn, the mutant lighting her horn and teleporting with a pop. A second flash came from right above our heads, and we all looked up to see her staring right back!

I engaged S.A.T.S. and took aim again, firing three bolts at the alicorn as Xena followed suit and Moon Blossom opened her wings and charged the large pony.

The Goddess, seemingly still in control judging by that scowl, weaved through the air before spinning to deliver a kick to Moon Blossom’s face. The pegasus was sent hurtling through the air, a small moment of panic filling me as she sped towards a vat, but just about managed to regain her balance and hover in its open mouth.

“INSOLENT FOALS!”

Her horn charged, and another beam of magic trailed straight at us!

Xena immediately jumped to another section of the catwalk, but I almost lost my balance as the platform started to give way! The beam almost on top of me, I saw a gap where I could fall between the vats and took it! I leapt straight over the railing, bracing myself as I fell straight into the cold concrete floor below.

There was a loud clang as the catwalk fell behind me, very nearly crushing me.

“YOUR REVERENCE FOR TWILIGHT SPARKLE IS MISPLACED! THE ASCENSION OF PONIES AND CHANGELINGS INTO UNITY WAS HER PLAN, UNDER THE GODDESS’ GRACIOUS GUIDANCE!”

I’m not sure there’s anything ‘gracious’ about stealing a pony’s mind and turning them into mindless servants!

There were more lavender flashes overhead as I got up and started weave between the vats, at least two more shots coming from Xena’s sniper rifle as I also heard Moon’s rage-filled shout. I was ideally looking for some stairs to get back up, or at least for that alicorn puppet to come into my line of fire!

There was another bang as, somewhere, more of the catwalk came crumbling down.

“THE FORM OF OUR PURPLE ALICORNS CAME FROM HER, YOU KNOW. SO MUCH KNOWLEDGE SHE HAD TO SHARE WITH US, AND WE HAVE GROWN MUCH FROM HER CALCULATIONS.”

I moved through another pair of vats but was forced to stop dead as a blur swooped down in front of me and the alicorn cracked the ground as she came to stand inches from my face.

I hit out with the butt of my gun, smacking the alicorn across the face. She gave a growl of frustration as I ducked away, an explosion following me as one of the vats started to flood the ground behind me with its inner taint.

“GREEN FROM THE TWINS. BLUE FROM OUR OWN PAST PERFECTION!” Another explosion came from somewhere behind me. “BUT EVEN OUR OLD NAME HAS BEEN SURRENDERED FOR THE GOOD OF UNITY, WHERE WE MUST SERVE AS OUR GODDESS!”

I barely ducked as she rounded the corner, a sword of magic forming out of thin air and embedding itself into a vat near to where my head had just been. I fired at the alicorn, the alicorn teleporting to safety as Venomous ate into the vat behind where’d she’d just been and started to let loose even more flux.

“YET, NUISANCES SUCH AS YOURSELF AND HER OWN BLOOD STILL HAVE HER CLING TO HER OWN SELFISH INDIVIDUALITY! THERE IS ONLY THE UNITY, AND SO WE MUST REMIND HER,” the Goddess bellowed. “TIME AND AGAIN WE MUST RENEW THE CAGE UPON HER MIND, LEAVING ONLY THAT WHICH IS USEFUL. SHE IS A NECESSARY ANNOYANCE WITHIN OUR UNITY, BUT ONE FAR MORE MANAGEABLE WITH YOUR DEATHS! IF OUR ALICORNS CANNOT DEFEAT YOU, THEN WE SURELY WILL!”

I ducked behind another vat after escaping the flow of flux, sliding to the ground and taking a moment to catch my breath. Whoever the Goddess had been before creating Unity, she’d clearly been obsessed with Twilight. A co-worker? A rival? Who knows?

All those minds she had to have enslaved inside Unity, and yet Twilight’s was the only one she seemed to be absolutely petrified about losing control over. So much so that she would possess her own alicorns and personally fight ponies who might remind her about who she used to be.

And it was working. Goddess was vicious. Whereas alicorns were coldly efficient, seeing as their own individuality had been stripped away from them, the Goddess herself was anything but. The one back in Buckingham had been calm the entire time, even those small slips of emotion had been dashed by this bitch before they could really manifest.

She, however, was really foaming at the mouth at the thought of killing us.

And without Cobalt and Altrix to help, how were we going to pull this off?

Then it hit me.

I reached into my Saddlebag, pulling out the small ChangeBuck that I had picked up earlier. If I could just…

Celestia, please let this work.

I slipped the device into my PipBuck as the sounds of fighting continue around me, the Goddess continuing to rant about Unity’s perfection and Twilight Sparkle’s insolence. The screen flashed, and a menu screen appeared before my eyes.

How do I…?

I wasn’t sure how to select any particular option, so I just thought really hard and hoped for the best.

There was a flash of green the moment I hit ‘activate’. A strange sensation fell over my body I felt new appendages on my back, my front hooves turning into claws as I felt an unsettling mix between organic and metal parts around my form.

And yet… not.

I can’t really describe it. It was like I knew and felt my actual self but was also experiencing this new form the ChangeBuck had given me at the same time.

It was rather trippy, actually. Is this how changelings feel by default?

Well, time to give my new limbs a spin.

Not wanting to even attempt to fly on wings I didn’t know whether they would actually work or not, I got back on and started to make my way back towards the stairs. Despite being a griffon, I could still somehow use my magic, a small glow appeared where my horn should have been as I levitated Venomous around myself.

I holstered the gun for now. Just until the right moment…

I soon found that staircase I had been looking for, rapidly ascending and moving back out onto the catwalk. And there, flying high above it, was the Goddess. She seemed pristine, yet to have taken a single direct hit even as I saw Xena try to take a shot at her from beneath the catwalk where I’d just been, Moon Blossom likewise flying around the alicorn in an attempt to get a good hit in.

The sniper round missed as she teleported again, moving up close to Moon Blossom as my friends made a swing with her knife.

Goddess’ borrowed horn glowed, Moon being caught in a magic aura that trapped her mid-air, helpless.

I stepped out.

“Goddess,” I spoke, my voice far gruffer than I was used to.

She turned to face me, frowning.

“KRONOS…!” It worked! Yes! “YOUR PRESENCE IS NOT REQUIRED. RETURN TO YOUR PLAYTHINGS, WE HAVE THE NUISANCES IN OUR GRASP.”

“It appears that they are giving you trouble,” I tried to say in a manner Kronos might, all the while moving a little closer to try and get the best shot. “Perhaps I should take things from here.”

“THE GODDESS DOES NOT-”

She was cut off when she inadvertently brought Moon Blossom too close, the pegasus managing to wrest back enough control to kick out and smack the alicorn in the face. The Goddess shouted in rage as she turned to face my friends.

I pulled Venomous free, entering into S.A.T.S. and targeting the Goddess with what I hoped was a single well-placed shot.

I fired.

The Goddess dropped Moon Blossom in shock as she heard the bolt fire, and while I’d been aiming for her stomach from down below, her turning to face the source of the gunfire inadvertently changed the target.

The bolt hit her in the base of her right wing, a scream of pain definitely belonging to the possessed alicorn rather than the Goddess ringing out as she started to thrash wildly.

Her wing came free from the rest of her body, the alicorn plummeting down onto the catwalk.

“Our wing is expendable, we shall-” the alicorn started to calmly say in her own voice, before her head then twitched as the Goddess returned. “YOU SHALL PAY FOR SUCH INSULTS! DIE! DIE!”

She flicked her head and sent a wave of magic hurtling at myself and Moon Blossom, the blast smacking us like a ton of bricks and sending us skidding backwards. We were both instantly floored, but each managed to take hold of the railings before we slid into one of the vats.

CRACK.

A bullet travelled straight through the alicorn with a spray of blood, Xena coming up behind the Goddess with her rifle raise high and proud.

Moon Blossom recovered quickly, flapping her wings with a vengeance shooting forward. She slammed both of her forehooves into the side of the staggered and wounded alicorn, sending her off of her hooves and over the railing!

It was like neither the alicorn drone nor her overlord were able to fully comprehend the turn of events and teleport to safety before they slammed straight into the taint. Her whole body was submerged in an instant before she burst up onto the surface of the liquid and started to squirm.

What happened next was beyond grotesque.

Her skin started to bubble as her fur rapidly falling away, what was left starting to shift between purple, blue and green. Large gashes started to open up along her neck as her eyes boiled and burst, their juices flowing down along her struggling, dying body and forming dozens of new eyes all along her form. Multiple separate horns started to grow from her original, each one a different size, shape and colour. From those gashes in her neck started to grow separate deformed heads, each one barely muscle and bone that screamed in silent agony.

A new leg hit out vaguely up at us, pointing as if accusingly before the skin started to strip away. This was followed by the muscle, and then even the bone liquified as the rest of the alicorn started to melt into some kind of pony soup. The eyes were the last to go, staring up at us with the alicorn drone’s individual terror even the Goddess could not hide.

Then, she was gone.

“Welp,” Moon Blossom was the first to speak. “I’m having nightmares for… ever. Thanks.”

“Hey, you pushed her,” I pointed out, causing her to shrug in a conceding way.

I looked back at the now seemingly empty pool of taint, a green glow signifying the fall of my Kronos disguise.

Somehow, I had a feeling that the Goddess was ranting and raving inside Unity. I hope that Twilight Sparkle got to feel a few moments of satisfaction at the monster’s defeat before she tore out that glimmer of individuality and rendered the Ministry Mare a docile aspect of the mind again.

One day, you psychotic bitch, somepony will free all your victims. When that day comes, I hope Twilight lives long enough to piss on your grave.

Either way, I had a feeling we wouldn’t be seeing the Goddess or her slaves again anytime soon.

“Your deception was timely,” Xena complimented. “This ChangeBuck is a most useful device.”

“Hey, you two could use it for kinky sex shit!” Moon Blossom remarked, a blush making its way onto my face as Xena just glared daggers at the pegasus.

Uh, moving on…

“It’s burnt out,” I explained, removing it from my PipBuck and holding it out. “Unless we find another, we’re out of luck.”

“Shame, I had such ideas…” Moon Blossom said cheekily, before her expression then darkened. “But how about we find that bastard she thought you were, eh? He has to answer to Altrix!”

Yes, he does.

I turned towards the next door leading out of here. And beyond that…

The central chamber.

Only Kronos remained.

Footnote: Max Level

Altrix has died, the Changeling Medicine perk is no longer in effect.

48 - War Does Change

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Chapter Forty-Eight: War Does Change

“And so it was…”

We walked through the recesses of Site B, feeling the air of tension as we started our approach to the centre of this facility. The vats filled with the incomplete potion, Kronos, Insidiis… It was all directly ahead of us. I had no idea what was going on with the rest of the facility, how the changelings were faring, whether Cobalt was still safely locked up in that security room…

I was trying to put it from my mind. Kronos had to be our focus, all of this led back to him…

Easier said than done. I’d already lost one friend; another death might just mean my own…

There were several more labs dotted around us behind closed doors, each one labelled for their specific role in the experiments that went on here. I could only imagine this place in its prime, just how many scientists would have worked here all at once? It must have felt like a stable down here, so many ponies all working towards the same goal.

Too bad their that goal led to all of this. Even before the end of the world, Twilight had seen that the Changeling Queen potion could lead to all sorts of trouble.

I doubt she could have guessed, though, just how right her instincts were.

We stopped as we reached a junction. Or at least, a point that should have been a junction. The corridors to the left and right of us were blocked behind some of those massive security doors. Unless Cobalt was about to hop in, I doubted they were opening any time soon.

“Anything we’re missing?” Moon Blossom asked, lightly kicking one of the security doors. It decidedly didn’t budge.

I checked my PipBuck’s map. The chamber where we’d fought the Goddess was now far behind us, and I followed the base’s diagram along to our current location.

“Looks like it just leads to more labs and some storage for the other potion ingredients maybe?” I suggested. “Left and right both loop around the central chamber. I think there’s also a couple of observation rooms I saw in the memory orb around there.”

“So, nothing of use,” Xena mused, looking at the open corridor directly ahead of us.

I joined her, our eyes settling on a metal staircase at its end. There were no other doors along the way, just a single solitary opening in the floor that beckoned us to descends further downwards.

“I assume the chamber is ahead of us?” she asked.

“Directly. Down those stairs and through the next door.”

“Well? We waiting for Hearth’s Warming?” Moon Blossom remarked. “We have a bird to kill!”

“I wish we could go around, those observation posts would be good for a sniping position,” Xena mused regretfully. “Going through the front doors seems unwise.”

“We have much of a choice?” Moon asked.

No, we did not.

I started moving forward, heading straight for the staircase as I kept an eye on my E.F.S. for any nasty surprises. Maybe Kronos thought the Goddess actually dealt with us?

Yeah, I doubt it too.

We reached the staircase, heading directly down them and emerging into another straight metal tunnel leading to a familiar industrial door at the very end. The back of my mind buzzed as I thought back on Chrysalis’ own walk down here, this exact same corridor from her memory. If there was any doubt that this was the right place, they were now extinct.

The red bars were also a dead giveaway!

Two barricades had been erected at the end of the corridor, each with a griffon standing guard alongside a third in power armour! They opened up the moment they saw us, and I winced back as several bolts of energy singed my barding before we all scrambled back into a space behind the staircase, using it for some semblance of cover!

“I guess he held some of his goons back,” Moon Blossom shouted, taking shot to her shoulder before she ducked in behind me. “Fuck! Ah, they’re all firing laser shit!”

“Are you both alright?” Xena asked, having deftly avoided the incoming fire.

“Fine, this jacket is a literal lifesaver,” the pegasus answered, patting out a small burning hole in her leather jacket. “Not sure it’ll take many hits, though. That stuff is hot!”

“Maybe you should reinforce it. Works for me,” I said, getting a thoughtful hum back from her. “But luckily for us, I have this!”

This being, of course, the power armour-melting Venomous.

I went to peak around, though pulled back as a red beam struck right where my head was about to be. As good as leather was at protecting against the heat of energy projectiles, I didn’t fancy testing it under constant barrage. My chest was still smouldering from those first few shots.

“Xena, see if you can take out one of that asshole’s guns,” I said to my marefriend. “When that happens, Moon, you go for those guys at the back. I’ll finish the big fucker off.”

I got a nod from both, Moon exclaiming: “Aye, Captain!”

We’re not getting stopped by these bastards now.

Xena was the first to pop her head out during a lull in the gunfire, the crack of her sniper eliciting a surprised grunt from the power armoured griffon.

Perfect.

I turned around, entering into S.A.T.S. and preparing my shot. The griffon in question was actually a lot closer than I’d thought, apparently having been on a steady approach towards us. Feeling glad that we got this chance before he rounded the corner and mowed us down, I lined up one shot on his second still functioning rifle and the other two on his torso.

I pulled the trigger as Moon Blossom shot forwards, three balls of green energy striking the griffon and causing him to shriek in pain. They did their job, immediately starting to eat away at his armour as his buddies in the back panicked at the streaking ball of Moon Blossom aiming for their throats.

CRACK.

One of the slavers went down after a .308 round travelled through his skull, the other’s shots at Moon Blossom going wide as the pegasus landed on top of him and made quick work of the griffon.

The remaining griffon’s claws latched on to his melting chest armour, ripping it from his suit and letting it clatter to the ground. A few drops had reached his chest, but his quick actions meant that most of the acid hadn’t!

He charged forward with an enraged shouting, propelling himself towards me with an enraged caw. His weapons destroyed, he was now falling back on his claws!

I ducked back behind the staircase as he came careening past! I attempted to raise Venomous, but he rounded on me and knocked the weapon aside before I could! I kept moving backwards, the griffon taking a swipe and barely missing. With him strengthened by that armour, I did not want to get hit!

Another crack from Xena’s sniper sounded, a bullet pinging off the armour on the griffon’s wing. He turned to look, finding Moon Blossom also charging right at him. But unlike the other slavers, he kept his cool and simply sidestepped while raising his wing. Moon Blossom was instantly clotheslined, a spurt of blood coming from her muzzle as she hit the ground in a pained heap.

Moon’s knife came clattering from her maw as she landed, right at my hooves.

I reach out and picked it up, running after the griffon as he went for Xena! He used his wing to block another of her shots as he approached, but I lit my horn to grab onto his tail and slow him down.

He saw me, kicking out with a hind leg. My breath left me as his armoured paw met my chest, blowing all of the air from my lungs and sending me back to the ground. The knife again clattered away, my horn barely remaining lit without an active spell as he turned back to finish me off.

That’s right, just give me a shot you bastard.

I redirected my magic towards the knife, lunging it forwards over my shoulder and directly at the griffon! As planned, the knife brushed past me and embedded itself right into the slaver’s exposed skin, taking advantage of the hole Venomous had made. The griffon gave a muffled gasp of pain, stumbling back as my magic yanked the knife back and out of what I hoped had been his heart.

And, since the griffon keeled over by a moment after, I think I hit my mark.

“Ugh, ow…” Moon Blossom moaned as she trotted up beside me, holding her nose with a wing. “You know that, since it was my knife, it’s ‘technically’ my kill, right?”

I rolled my eyes, hoofing hack her weapon. Xena trotted around the body and glared at it in disgust while I made sure to double back and retrieve Venomous. I definitely didn’t want to go up against whatever Kronos had in store without the changeling rifle. Without it, any ass in power armour could be the end of us.

“So… think that was all?” Moon then asked, glancing at the next door. “He’s in there, right?”

“He will have something in store. I cannot say what, those we just faced were likely the first of his defence,” Xena said worriedly. “And with one way in…”

“Just stick together, we’ll make it,” I encouraged my friends. “We toast the guy and get out. If we free Insidiis, then that’s a Changeling Queen in our field.”

“Yeah, we should do that, like, first,” Moon Blossom agreed. “Then we can go home and you two can go have all the foals.”

“I wasn’t aware you were invested in such things,” Xena deadpanned, looking a bit annoyed. I just blushed… again. Goddesses, Moon was too good at teasing.

“Come on, I’ll be great as an aunt!” Uh… Never thought of it that way. Never thought of kids that much, it’s a little… Why were we talking about this again? “You know they’ll be some kickass zonies!”

“You intend to stick around that long?” Xena asked, eyebrow raised.

Moon took on a more serious expression. “Well… I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you all do after this… I still wanna do some things, show ponies that I’m not that dumb as rocks raider anymore. But… I like you guys, wouldn’t want to be away for long.”

“Maybe we should save the future talk until after the fight?” I suggested. “If we want to stick around in the hive, we have to rescue the changelings to ask first.”

“Scrapper has a point,” she conceded. “We can talk about this after we nab the bastard.”

“We shall see…” Xena muttered before her expression then softened. “But should that day come, I think you would make a good aunt as well.”

Moon Blossom blinked in surprise as the declaration, and then she turned away as her cheeks burned with a blush of her own. “T-thanks…”

I looked between the two, deciding the best course of action was to just smirk and shake my head.

“Come on you two,” I said to them, stepping past them towards the door. “You girls ready for this?”

“I am forever at your side, love,” Xena assured me.

“What she said, sans the romantic bit,” Moon agreed, regaining her composure. “Let’s get him!”

A warm rush flowed through me, almost like I was sharing in their strength. The strength of Cobalt. The strength of Altrix…

If Celestia and Luna truly had become goddesses as many ponies believed, then I knew she was with them and watching us. Even if they hadn’t, and it was all superstition…

Altrix was here. And she always would be.

The door opened, swinging wide and revealing to us the chamber I’d previously seen through Chrysalis’ eyes. It hadn’t changed much, beyond the usual rust and decay the rest of the facility suffered after two-hundred years. But the vats of green liquid continued to bubble away, the computer monitors around the roomed blinked and beeped with processes I couldn’t even begin to guess. I was no Cobalt, after all.

But there was one very big difference.

No Twilight Sparkle sat by the central column to greet us. Instead, chained to it, a shocked Insidiis watched us enter alongside her jailor. And he… he just stood there, in front of her, his expression completely neutral. I had already raised Venomous, my friends joining me as the griffon before us seemed completely unphased.

Kronos.

He had been waiting for us.

“You fools, take my hive and leave!” Insidiis commanded. “My life is unimportant!”

“Ah, but that is false,” Kronos declared, not even looking back at the Princess. “You are the hive’s centre and the changelings still require you. So, they come, and we meet face-to-face once more.”

I glanced around the room for any other slavers, neither my eyes nor my Eyes Forward Sparkle finding any. It was just him, adorned in his combat armour and with his cybernetic implants. He stood between us and the Princess. Smart, we couldn’t shoot while he stood there. We might hit Insidiis…

“A lot has happened since you kicked my ass the last time around,” I snarled at the slaver. “I got a melty gun!”

“Yes, I have heard reports come in about the capabilities of your weapon,” Kronos said. Should I be worried that he’s not worried? “Impressive design, one I’m sure we could make great use of.”

“If you insist on staying, just shoot him!” Insidiis urged. “Do it!”

“But they risk hitting you. All I have to do is step aside,” Kronos taunted the changeling. “They won’t do that.”

I glanced past him and at Insidiis. If I could hit those chains…

“But perhaps this needs not end with further violence,” Kronos said coolly. “I know somepony who is quite interested in making your acquaintance, Scavenger.”

I barely held in a scoff. Who might that be? Some more of his goons called in from another room? Another alicorn we didn’t know about? Something else he had in store? I had prepared myself for whatever he wanted to throw at me.

I wasn’t expecting all the screens in the chamber to crackle and shift, all starting to view the same stallion. His coat was red, his mane jet black. He had a blue cape slung over his shoulder with the faint numbers ‘101’ on his collar. A piercing red eye, not unlike Kronos’ stared down at us with divine judgement.

Red Eye.

“I expect you know who I am,” Red Eye spoke as I gaped like a fish, his voice containing a refined regality I hadn’t really expected. “But indeed, I am Lord Red Eye. Guardian of Fillydelphia, future ruler of Equestria itself.”

Red Eye. Kronos’ boss, sitting high and mighty in Fillydelphia while his slaves toiled and died beneath his hooves. This was the fucker Kronos did everything for, the one responsible for all the shit we’d been going through.

“And what do you want? To talk us to death?” Moon Blossom remarked dismissively.

“You will be silent when Lord Red Eye addresses you!” Kronos snapped, his natural eye narrowing dangerously.

“Please, Kronos, be silent,” Red Eye gently scolded as if to a child, Kronos immediately doing as told like fucking puppy. “Now, Scavenger… Or do you prefer Scrap Heap?”

“I really couldn’t care what you call me.”

“Indeed. I suppose being headstrong is natural for all would-be heroes,” he replied calmly. “I will be blunt. You have been making a mess of our work in the north, and it must come to an end.”

“You expect pity from us!?” Xena shouted, clearly insulted.

“No, I expect understanding,” he retorted. “My work, our work, has Equestria’s clear interests in mind. We are building factories, schools, homes. What I do will restore this country to its former glory. I am ending the apocalypse.”

“On the backs of slaves!”

“A necessary and unfortunate evil,” Red Eye claimed. “But it is truly for the greater good. Our servants work for something greater than themselves. All those who serve our cause do.”

“How does mind controlling an entire species and giving them to the Goddess do any great ‘good’!?” This guy was either delusional and believed what he was saying, or just buying for time. “All of this, for what!?”

“We understand that the Goddess cannot be allowed to have the changelings, she would cause unnecessary harm to all. Our alliance is all but at an end, beyond mere formalities. Under our guidance, the changelings would have been used to quell those who threaten Equestria’s stability. Peace would reign.”

“You mean you would destroy all who oppose you and enslave them too,” Xena mused. “I don’t see much difference between that abomination and you. You both seek to control, dominate and kill.”

“We shall not be your tools!” Insidiis shouted in anger. “Your filth is all but doomed to failure!”

“The Goddess seeks genocide, I do not,” Red Eye argued, ignoring the Princess’ rage. “Under me, Equestria will soon heal and such evils will become unneeded.”

“You believe that?” I asked him. “You believe that an Equestria built on the dead bodies of thousands will be anything else? That it can miraculously become some kind of utopia?”

“They won’t have a choice.”

“Like the changelings didn’t. Like the alicorns don’t. And that’s the problem, you’d rather take the easy way out and strip away our free will rather than working with other ponies and build friendship and restore Equestria to the one Twilight Sparkle and her friends knew before the war.”

“Friendship was a failed experiment. Twilight Sparkle could not save anypony in the end.”

“Equestria forgot friendship. All they knew was war by the end,” Xena noted sadly. “A mistake that killed many of our peoples.”

“We kicked your asses, didn’t we?” Moon Blossom bragged. “And we were just five people! Guess having friends who give a shit is better than faceless asshole number five, huh?”

I took a step forward, glaring at Red Eye with all the conviction I could muster. “The changelings have a chance to make peace with ponykind, to help us grow again. Your Equestria would just go right back to the old mistakes the old world made. The other way might just allow us to remember how things were when Princess Celestia ruled. It might just show ponies, in time, that we can all do so much if we just do better.”

Just like I did.

“Foolish nativity,” Red Eye dismissed without even hesitating. “Friendship is sadly a fantasy, it is our nature to fight and die by the sword. Only a god watching over all can ensure peace.”

I sighed. A life like the alicorns, no freedom to choose for yourself? What kind of a life was that? One without friends. Without someone to love.

I honestly felt sorry for Red Eye. He was a pony who would never know what it was like to have people you could trust with everything you are by your side. To find someone who just captured your heart in all the right ways, making every pain across every day seem worth it. I had been like that once, but not anymore. I had friends. I had love.

And I would die protecting them.

“I can see in your eyes that you will not be swayed,” Red Eye mused in disappointment. “There is still time to turn. All of you may yet hold ranks within my army.”

“We both know we can’t do that,” I responded to him.

“I see. Very well, if that is the case then I have more urgent matters to attend to,” Red Eye declared, looking directly at Kronos. “You know what you must do.”

“As you wish,” Kronos confirmed as the screens blinked out, the griffon keeping his eyes on us. “You should have taken his offer. His generosity has its limits.”

If that’s generosity, then it’s extremely corrupted generosity.

“But this is where it must end,” he announced, shifting in place. We all knew what was about to happen, and I prepared to make a very specific shot. "With these changelings, well... they shall change the landscape of war forever! War DOES change!"

"No," I denied, looking on at the deluded slave in disgust. "Whatever you do, it won't change shit. War never changes."

I fired.

As expected, Kronos dodged to the side as a single green bolt of changeling magic shot by. He flapped his wings, propelling himself through the air and only another catwalk.

“That was unwise,” he taunted. “You might have hit the Princess.”

“That was the idea.”

He baulked. “What?”

There was a loud shattering sound as the chains around Insidiis burst open, the acid from the magic bolt having eaten away at them as quickly as I’d hoped. The moment they did, Insidiis surged forward and violently pulled them away, likewise ripping the ring off of her horn and letting it light up a bright green.

“Ah…” Kronos muttered.

I smirked as Insidiis rounded on Kronos, her horn alight and ready to reign death upon the slaver.

“Fiend! You shall pay for your deeds!” the changeling declared.

An aura gathered around Kronos, picking him up and slamming him into a nearby wall. Insidiis snarled as the magic began to constrict, threatening to crush the helpless griffon.

And yet, he smiled.

There was another loud smash that startled me away from the sight, all our eyes shot upwards. Something came crashing out of one of the observation chamber above, falling down and onto the ground between Kronos and Insidiis.

Insidiis cut her magic as she saw the figure, and I think my head also came close to stopping. I had wondered. I had… thought that maybe something had happened. But what sat before us?

Fucking hell…

The figure was covered from head to hoof in black chitin, though it was cracked and bulging along numerous large growths throughout her body, making her seem far larger than she should have been. Her wings had been enlarged, now joined by a second set. Her maw was now filled with an increased number of fangs, her green dragon-like eyes bloodshot and devoid of any true intelligence or recognition.

Not even for Chrysalis’ own daughter.

“Mother…” Insidiis whimpered, taking a step back. “W-wha…?”

“Our initial subject helped gain valuable data, but the results were far from desirable,” Kronos explained, recomposing himself beside the mutated Queen Chrysalis. “You see why we needed a replacement Changeling Queen to continue our research in evolving your drones. The last one is no longer of any real use in that regard.”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?”

“Our procedures to extract the appropriate samples and test certain elements had adverse effects. Unpredictable, barely controllable,” he explained. “Your mother’s mind was destroyed, though she did put up a valiant struggle when we first discovered her. Killed a lot of my Talons, and now that feral ferocity is all that remains. Ours to control, showing the effectiveness of the chips we wished for all your kind.”

I looked at Chrysalis with barely restrained horror. Just what kind of things had they done to her to turn her into this… beast? THIS is what they were going to do to Insidiis? All to figure out how to finish the potion?

“Mother… Please…” Insdiis begged the other changeling, looking almost like a lost filly.

“Princess…” Xena warned sympathetically as Insidiis had taken a step towards Chrysalis.

Insidiis looked lost, staring in both untold terror and longingly at her mother.

“Fight,” Kronos ordered.

Chrysalis struck.

A beam of green magic hit Insidiis head on, knocking her back into the central column and then to the ground! I instantly entered into S.A.T.S. with two shots aimed at Chrysalis while the third was sent hurtling at Kronos! Both shots hit the former, and yet, somehow, the acid barely seemed to phase her as she somehow took to the air and glared right at us!

As we all stepped backwards, I saw Kronos avoid the shot meant for him and start to fire back at us!

“Scatter!” I shouted.

We all moved very fast! And it was just as well, a beam of green magic erupting behind us as we started to move throughout the chamber! I heard Xena’s rifle go off as I rounded on Queen Chrysalis, raising my rifle to fire again. I pulled the trigger two time, both looking to hit the Queen dead on before a shield formed around her and tanked both shots!

Then she came for me.

I jumped aside as Chrysalis landed right where I had been, probably having been seeking to shatter my bones. And with how bulked up and mutated her legs were, she probably would have flattened me!

Her animalistic eyes met mine, a snarl escaping her lips as she charged me again.

Only for another green beam of magic to hit Chrysalis in the side, sending her off of her hooves. She crashed against a far wall, crushing a computer console as she quickly started to recover from the hit. Insidiis landed nearby, her rage actually somehow surpassing the look on Moon Blossom’s face after Altrix was killed.

“Assist your friends,” Insidiis told me as her mother rose up and turned to face her. “I shall grant her the peace she deserves.”

I also got back up, giving her sad smile. “I’m sorry.”

“We all are,” she replied, before striking forwards to meet her mother in combat.

I turned as green flashes and the sound of clashing magic sounded behind me, I just ran as I rounded the chamber back to where my friends were locked against Kronos. Xena was ducking behind a console to avoid a red bolt of magic as Moon Blossom jumped onto Kronos’ back, slashing at the griffon with her combat knife. Moon Blossom had apparently lost her saddlebags, while Xena’s were smouldering from where they’d saved her from a bolt previously.

I could only watch as the two tussled, unable to get a clear shot while Moon Blossom did her thing.

Kronos took to the air, flying backwards and straight into a wall! Moon Blossom was winded from the impact, falling from Kronos’ back with her knife stained with his blood. And yet Kronos seemed almost unhurt, probably at least partially protected by whatever augments Red Eye had given him.

He then shot forwards, spotting me and flaring his blade-tipped wings! My shot went wide, and I tried to move aside as he came down at me stupidly fast! I wasn’t fast enough, a streak of pain crossing my chest as the blades sliced right through my barding like it was nothing! A gash opened up along my barrel, blood instantly beginning to pour as I collapsed onto the hard metal floor.

Everything blurred from the excruciating pain. I don’t know what those blades were made of, but fuck!

I reached out with my magic, grabbing my saddlebag and looking for a healing potion.

BZZT.

I found nothing, Kronos having shot the bag from my grip and away from me. The bag started to disintegrate, liquid from shattered healing potions beginning to leak as my statuette came free and rolled away.

CRACK.

A bullet hit Kronos in the side, managing to hit a weak spot and drawing blood!

It didn’t even slow him down.

Kronos darted towards Xena as she fired another shot, this one absorbed by his armour as he closed the distance!

A grey blur barged into him, both he and Moon Blossom sprawling away as I slowly tried to stand. My legs almost gave way, and without a healing potion…

Ah, no! I’m not letting a cut stop me. My friends needed me now more than ever, and I wasn’t going to just lie down and die!

I joined up with Xena, our eyes wordlessly meeting before we turned towards a recovering Kronos and both opened up. Moon Blossom kept her distance as several sniper rounds struck the griffon; he avoided another of my shots but was unable to scramble away from the second. The green bolt struck his wing, Kronos giving a shout of rage as the metal and flesh instantly started to melt away.

I didn’t get to fire a third, a large crash announcing Chrysalis as she landed in a heap between us and the griffon. The mutated changeling was bruised and bloodied, but no more so than the Changeling Queen who followed us down.

“I do this for you, Mother!” Insidiis shouted, a huge attack gathering in her horn as being fired down at Chrysalis as she equally prepared and fired another one back.

And ensuing clash was unlike anything I had ever seen. The entire room was illuminated in a blinding green glow, sparks and fire-spitting everywhere as both beams of magic fought for dominance between the two changelings. It was like watching the goddesses themselves fight, the clash quickly becoming a stalemate between mother and daughter.

I raised Venomous and fired at Chrysalis, striking her in the side before I had to break off to load in another cell. Xena also fired, and yet our strikes again didn’t do as much as they should have. Her wounds did widen, but with the amount of resistance her mutations had given her, Insidiis really had to be giving it her all to harm her!

But our attack did have the effect of knocking the mutant’s concentration, her magic failing and allowing Insidiis’ to close in and sending Chrysalis hurtling into the wall behind her. And yet, as Insidiis immediately tried to close in and finish the job, a sword of magic swept out from the kicked-up dust and rubble!

Insidiis swerved to avoid the blade, but nevertheless received a cut along her cheek. This was instantly followed up by a bolt of magic that knocked the Princess backwards.

Chrysalis took off after her, not slowing down despite her mounting injuries.

With the way clear of the two changelings, we were greeted by the sight of Kronos firing his weapons after a swerving and dodging Moon Blossom, the pegasus continuing to hound the griffon in any way she could.

“How do you like that!?” she shouted as she dived down and bucked at Kronos.

As she moved away, my breath caught in my throat as a red beam hit her in her unarmoured side.

“Moon!” I rushed forwards, despite the fact that I was still losing blood, and raised my rifle to fire at Kronos as Moon crashed to the ground.

My shots missed, Kronos ducking beneath them as he charged me. I tried to dodge, but a torrent of pain from my barrel stopped my effort. A balled-up fist hit my face, knocking me to the ground. Everything became muted as I suffered the impact, though I faintly heard the sound of Xena’s rifle firing before my marefriend gave a shout of pain.

That got my attention.

I looked back up, seeing Xena collide with a console after being smacked aside by Kronos’ remaining wing. He stood over her prone form, his weapons charging.

FUCK. NO.

I grabbed Venomous, firing a shot at Kronos and relishing in his shout as he was knocked aside with both of his shots going wide.

He skidded around, facing me with rage in both his normal and metal eye as one of his guns melted from its mounting. But I kept shooting. I had to. With both my friends seemingly out, it was just me and him.

I would not go down!

I wouldn’t!

He fired back, my barding thankfully absorbing the impact. I fired three, the first going wide while he failed to dodge the other two of my shots, too busy rushing towards me. The first hit his second weapon, also rendering it useless. Better yet, the second just about skimmed his robotic eye as he tried to duck beneath it! It was just enough that the acid instantly started to eat into the prosthetic!

But he didn’t stop.

I fired another bolt, but it went wide as Kronos reached me and grabbed me by the throat. I couldn’t help it, but the force of his grip forced me to drop Venomous as he started to drag me across the nearest catwalk. Panic was rising throughout my stomach as I struggled and kicked out! I flailed with a hoof and smacked his face, but it didn’t loosen his tough-ass grip in the least.

Then, out of the blue, I lost focus on everything. Everything swam as something hit my back, my entire sense of direction knocked from me. I couldn’t make out much, but even when everything did return, I couldn’t do much but watch as Kronos stood over me. His red eye had melted and died, leaving him with only his natural one.

I think that pissed him off.

I couldn’t muster any kind of strength, sitting against the central column he’d smashed me against, as he grabbed onto the front of my barding with a metallic claw and ripped it effortlessly away.

“I have worked too hard to build all that surrounds us. You shall not succeed, pony!”

And then I screamed, the claw returning and embedding its talons into my chest. Goddess, I could feel the metal inside me! They scratched and clawed, my body and PipBuck both screaming along with me as he started digging for my heart!

“GET OFF OF MY FRIEND!” I just heard Moon Blossom shouted as she embedded her knife into Kronos’ back, getting him off of me as she again started to grapple.

They fought, Moon hitting out at the slaver with all she had while I could only sit. I tried so hard, gathering as much strength as I could. But even as I attempted to rise, the pain and gushing blood stopped me as I fell right back again. A glance at my PipBuck revealed just how bad my injuries were, the little Stable Colt’s eye each being a dead X.

But then something far worse than my own condition occurred.

Moon Blossom punched Kronos right across the face, the strike coinciding with another flash of green from across the room. Kronos just responded with a claw across her face, getting a shout from my friend as she stumbled backwards.

And then, in one unthinkable moment, he pulled the knife from his back and plunged it into her neck.

All time stopped. I couldn’t feel any pain, nothing else even mattered as I looked right into Moon Blossom’s wide eyes. Everything was just blank as we stared at each other, almost like it was all just one big nightmare.

It was not.

Kronos stepped back, leaving the knife in her neck as she stumbled. Her eyes kept staring into mine with horror and regret. And, then, all of that faded away for sadness alone.

"Was I... a good... pony?"

Moon Blossom collapsed, giving one last gurgle as her bar blinked out.

“NO!”

CRACK.

The bullet struck Kronos in what was left of his cybernetic eye, tearing it out and leaving a hole in the side of his head. He instantly turned to face Xena, my friend standing at the other end of the catwalk with a look of sheer heartbreak in her eyes.

I lit my horn, reaching outwards. I couldn’t stand, but I could still use my magic.

Kronos charged, Xena firing another bullet that he just shrugged off. He moved towards her, intent on ending the life of a third friend.

No.

I refuse.

I entered into S.A.T.S. one last time, Venomous retrieved and aimed straight at the bastard. I lined up every possible shot, every percentage being extremely high to hit. And then, ready to end that son of a bitch for good, I engaged the spell.

Venomous fired, and I gave absolutely all I had at Kronos.

And, because of it, he never reached Xena.

Green bolts of changeling magic cascaded against the surprised Kronos, several in the back and one in the leg, causing him to fall as his back paw dislocated from the rest of his body. His flesh, armour and cybernetics all started to sizzle as the acid did its work. Kronos, before our eyes, started to melt.

And yet he rose once more, turning to face me with a look of sheer defeat as his own body collapsed around him.

“I… did my… duty…”

Xena approached the griffon, placed the barrel of her rifle to his head, and pulled the trigger.

There was a spray of blood and metal, the griffon jerking as his head was eviscerated from the rest of his body. And then, what was left of him quickly turning into a green goop, he fell. The red bar blinked out, a strange silence falling around us.

Kronos was no more.

It was finished.

“Scrap!” Xena shouted in pain as she rushed towards me. I tried to give her my best smile, but I wasn’t sure how good it was amidst the blood.

“Hey…” I said to her as she dropped by my side, immediately seeing to my wounds.

“You will be okay!” she promised me but, from the state of her saddlebag, I was guessing her healing potions were about as good as mine. She paused, her eyes turning towards our friend. “Oh, Moon Blossom is… she’s…”

“I know…”

Moon Blossom was dead. I had failed to save another friend.

“Why did this happen…?” Xena whimpered, resting her head against mine. I tried to nuzzle her comfortingly, fighting my own inner pits of despair. “She was going to be an aunt someday…”

I looked at her body. All she had hoped to do after today, everything she’d wanted to be… All gone. All because of him. All because I couldn’t do more. I had lost two friends, and there was nothing I could do to change that. It was the most soul-crushing experience imaginable, the dread filling my body… indescribable.

But she didn’t even need to ask me that question. She was a good pony. Forever.

I glanced to the side at a nearby thud, Chrysalis landing in a heap. The mutated Changeling Queen gasped, trying to stand before falling back down again. Insidiis landed atop of her, bloodied and bruised, but alive.

“Rest peacefully until our reunion, Mother. For all our differences, I love you.”

A magical sword formed above Chrysalis, plunging into her brain and silencing that last red bar. Insidiis, clearly pained, let the sword dissolve as she placed a tender hoof on her mother’s corpse. Another remnant of the old world was gone forever.

“Queen Insidiis,” Xena gently called out, the changeling looking a bit taken aback by the title, but then resigned. “Please…”

The Queen of the Changelings approached, crouching down beside me as her horn lit up. I felt her magic wash over me, almost like it was probing every part of it.

And then she sighed.

“I am sorry, I am not familiar with the level of healing magic required for this. Perhaps an oversight on my part,” she replied regretfully, and at that moment, I felt my own wave of resignation fall onto me. “Without a healing potion, he won’t make it out of here alive.”

“N-no! I refuse to accept that!” Xena shouted defiantly, and all I could do was give her a sad smile. “We will take him! He WILL live!”

“Xena…” I said softly.

“Shut up!” she snapped. “You will be fine! You- You will…”

And then she broke down, everything becoming too much for the mare I love. He buried her head into my neck, letting out her sorrows. I let my tears join her’s, even Insidiis not immune to the effect as she watched on.

I placed a hoof around Xena, holding her close. The mare who had brought out the best in me. The mare I had wanted to spend my life with.

The mare who had to live.

“Take her?” I asked of the Queen.

She nodded. “Of course.”

“N-no!” Xena protested, looking back up. “We go together!”

I kissed her.

Our lips met, hers trembling horribly. It was a beautiful moment, and one I wanted to hold close as I laid dying. My horn lit up, reaching out for two discarded objects.

When I pulled away, I presented her with Venomous and the Twilight Sparkle statuette.

“Take them,” I told her. “Not much use to me now.”

“Please… Scrap…”

I gently pushed them forwards, Xena taking hold of both.

“I so wanted that family, I think,” I told her. “To spend my life with you. To see if we made a difference. But… Goddesses, Xena, I’m so sorry.”

She shook, letting out a tired breath. “I love you, Scrap.”

“I love you too…” I returned, looking down at my PipBuck. One last thing…

I unclasped the device, and for the first time since all this started my vision became clear of any kind of HUD. No map markers. No vital signs. No Eyes Forward Sparkle. No S.A.T.S. of any kind.

And then I took her hoof and placed it on, Xena only staring in shock as I locked it into place.

“It’s really quite useful,” I told her with a pained laugh. “And, uh… A memento, I guess.”

“I do not need this to remember you…” she replied, staring at her new PipBuck. “But… thank you. I… I don’t…”

“Live, Xena.” Please live… “For all we never got to do. Find Cobalt and get out of here. Both of you need to live. For all of us who didn’t make it.”

Her trembling increased, but she nodded nevertheless.

Good…

“Are you seeking a way to destroy this place?” Insidiis then asked, and I glanced to see her on the terminal attached to the central column. “It’s unlocked. Fools have the self-destruct just sitting there.”

Right, overloading the balefire reactors. Just like Cobalt said.

I grunted as I started to drag myself along to the terminal, Xena reluctantly helping me along. She helped sit me down right by the terminal, ready to use it.

I hadn’t imagined THIS is how I’d die. But… Damn, it was certainly in a blaze of glory.

Fuck, though. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to get up and leave with them. Live a full life, see what that kickass zony could have been. So much to do and see, a story left unfinished. And yet… I was oddly okay with it too. Xena lives. Cobalt lives.

The changelings would live.

Xena sniffed, holding my hoof in her own. “I will tell your story… Like a Zencori should. I will tell it to all who will hear it.”

“And to those who don’t?”

She gave a small laugh. “They shall be forced to hear it anyway.”

That got a smile out of me. And then I just started looking up into the face of my love… Just one last time.

“We should leave…” Insidiis said softly. “There is much to be done.”

“But…”

“Xena,” I said softly. “Go.”

She stood still, looking down at me. Then, she leant in and kissed me on the cheek. She stood back up without breaking eye contact, clearly trying very hard not to break down again.

“Goodbye, Scrap Heap.”

Xena then looked up at Insidiis, giving her a nod before turning away. Both of them started to walk, retreating back out through the entrance and out of sight.

“…Goodbye.”

Well, this is me. Here in this place. Some random scavenger, about to go up in a balefire blast of my own making. It was almost a weird joke, one I half wanted to laugh and half wanted to cry at. And I gotta say…

I’m scared.

And yet I found myself turning towards the terminal anyway. I activated the console, bringing up the menu and scrolling through it until I found the option. Taking in a breath, fighting off the incoming darkness, I opened it up and set the countdown.

All around me, the moment I confirmed the action, alarms started to blare as a voice started warning of the incoming destruction. Haven would be wiped off the map, I just hoped they were all far away when it happened. They’ll probably use the subway tunnels. But they’d get out, I knew they would.

I turned back around, slumping up against the pillar once again. You know, I felt oddly naked without my PipBuck. It was just me in my battered barding, slowly bleeding out. I didn’t even know how much time was passing, how close Site B was to destruction. Even the regular voice warnings had blurred incoherently. Very quickly I stopped making sense of… everything. That really gives a pony time to think.

Do you know how your life is meant to flash before your eyes when you die? Well, it's true. But it started not from my birth, but from the day my life had truly begun...

Brown.

Footnote: Game Over

49 - What We Leave Behind

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Chapter Forty-Nine: What You Leave Behind

“Victory, at a cost.”

Stripe.

Xena.

Zebra.

Equestrian.

So many names and titles, I could continue on what the encounters of my life have granted me. The people I’ve met, the situations in which I have found myself. So many names, so much time spent in search of a purpose. To find my own way away from the foolishness of the Remnant, a way to contribute to the survival of all in this hellish world.

I found it.

I found him.

I still have my purpose, and yet the stallion I came to love is dead.

Scrap Heap… is dead.

I have known loss. My family, even Xaro… But this? This is… Altrix and Moon Blossom only add to the despair filling my spirit. It is something nobody, not pony, zebra or anything else, should have to endure.

And now I am left wondering…

What now?

“You should not remain out here,” Insidiis said from behind me. I wasn’t surprised, her green bar having appeared on my E.F.S. a good five minutes before she chose to speak. “It is only going to get colder. Surely the warmth of the hive would be preferable?”

I didn’t answer, just staring at those four graves in front of me. One of them was Matercula’s, we’d buried the others right beside her. Altrix would have wanted to be here, and I’m certain Scrap Heap and Moon Blossom would have liked to remain near our young changeling friend.

But they couldn’t be. Their bodies were still back there, buried beneath a collapsed town and all the ghosts we left behind. Only Altrix came home with us, for which I was thankful she at least came home.

But two of those graves are empty. And always will be.

I heard Insidiis sigh. “As you wish. I will leave you to your thoughts, but you should not remain for too long.”

“I will not. Just a few moments more…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Queen nod before turning and starting her walk back towards the cave entrance. She stopped, turning to look at me.

“Remember, you still have a place here. If you wish it.”

Then she entered the hive, moving from my sight.

A place…

I had wanted that. With him. But now… Do I stay? Do I go? Return to wandering, alone? Certainty has become uncertainty; I no longer know where I belong. If this remains my purpose. And if it is, and I destined to do it alone?

One friend still lives. But his is a destiny that lies elsewhere.

“Stripe.”

Speaking of…

I turned, finding the stallion in question standing there. Cobalt was looking past me, his eyes lingering on those same graves. Perhaps he was better at hiding it than I, but I could see the pain in those eyes. He too had lost something he had come to greatly value, and I doubt either of us would ever be quite the same. I will not compare our losses, our pain is one to be shared. We loved each of them as much as they loved the two of us, and it is something we cannot regain.

I gave a sigh, giving Scrap’s grave marker one last glance before leaving it behind. It would not be going anywhere, and Cobalt looked like he needed to talk.

I gave the pony a look over. He had patched up his combat armour, his saddlebags looking full of supplies. Was he…?

I only now noticed the small group of changelings behind him. Each was in barding more suited for the wasteland, battle saddles at the ready.

He was leaving.

Cobalt gave me a sad smile. “You noticed, huh?”

“So soon?” I asked him. Do I go with him? Or do I stay… “It has only been five days, there is much to do around the hive.”

“Not for me,” he softly retorted. “The changelings have things in hoof. I’ve done what I can to upgrade their security protocols, but when it comes to physically setting up ceiling turrets and wiring them, I’m not so much use. I think I can help them better back home.”

“To Tenpony Tower?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been away too long. I know I could be cold at times, especially when we first met. But… Seeing Equestria personally, going through all of this… I think the Society needs to change, become more open.”

“Do you think you can convince them of that?”

“I can become more active in trying,” he answered. “Homage will like that, especially since I’m bringing visitors.”

“We’re to safeguard Cobalt on his journey home,” one of the changelings spoke up. “And negotiate a trade or two if we can.”

“Stable materials for more consistent love transfers,” Cobalt explained. “It’ll be a weird pitch, but I have a little while to think about how I’m going to approach them with it. Plus, I still owe Scrap a heap load of caps.”

“You… owe?”

“I know I can’t exactly give it to him now, but I’m sure the changelings won’t mind receiving his payment. They’re not exactly rolling in caps themselves, it’s a start.”

“I guess it is…” I turned, looking out into the wilderness of Equestria. “Do you wish me to attend?”

He paused, looking conflicted. But then…

“No.” I felt a pang of surprise; he didn’t want me to come with him? “I would like you to, but… I think you should stay here.”

“Why…?”

“The changelings are still new, they need someone with experience to help advise Insidiis on how to do things,” he answered, and he wasn’t without a point. “Besides… You both fought hard for this place, at least one of you should get to see it flourish.”

…Perhaps.

“You will be careful, won’t you?” I asked him. “If I hear you get yourself injured, it is I you will need to run for your life from!”

He chuckled. “I’ll bear that in mind. We’ll get to Manehatten just fine, back into the safety of the tower. So, will you…?”

“For now,” I answered him. “Beyond that? We shall see.”

“Well, alright. Just… be careful, alright? I’ve lost enough friends.”

I gave the unicorn a nod, a small smile gracing my lips. “For them, I will always hang on. Farewell, Cobalt.”

“Goodbye, Stripe,” he said, turning to begin his departure. Only for him to pause, turning towards me with a slight smirk. “You were okay, for a zebra…”

I scoffed. Foolish ponies…

But there he went, my last pony friend. He started out into the wastes, his changeling escort shapeshifting into ponies for the trip ahead. I had to wonder if I would see him again, or if this parting was the end of it all.

No, I doubt that. He is tied to Stable 84 from now until death, just as I am. He will be back, someday.

And then, as Cobalt vanished into the Equestrian Wasteland and I prepared to return into the changeling hive, a new sound made my ear twitch. It sounded like… singing. Sweetie Belle.

“My love is gone, and they can’t come home.”

“My heart is shot; my life is rough.”

“But I know I cannot die.”

“I cannot simply go and lie.”

“No, I shall not die…”

BZZT.

“Hello, Stripe.”

“Watcher…”

The floating Spritebot bobbed idly a short distance away, looking at me almost… sadly. Could a featureless robot even look such a way? A question I do not wish to ponder, but one made easier by the knowledge of the person behind the machine.

“You know what happened?” I asked him.

He was silent a moment. “I do… I am sorry about your friends. Scrap Heap made all the right choices in the end, but the wasteland doesn’t care who it takes.”

“I know…”

“But he did make a difference,” Watcher assured me. “You all did. Chrysalis made the world fear the changelings, but maybe now things can be different. If they can become a force truly for good, then why can’t the rest of the world start to change for the better?”

“Idealistic, as he would be,” I said, trotting towards the robot and settling down before him. “And yet the world is far from redemption. We defeated Kronos, but his master still roams this world. We killed the Goddess, but she has many more bodies to choose from. And my people, the Remnant… Their crusade will not wait on the account of my brother’s demise.”

“All true,” Watcher admitted. “But I wouldn’t worry about them too much. Scrap Heap is hardly the only pony in recent weeks to rise up to fight for other ponies.”

“I have heard of them,” I confirmed. “But I do not know them.”

“You’d like them. Well, probably…” Watcher gave a sheepish chuckle. “They’re not perfect, but who is?”

“And what makes you believe they can finish the job?”

“Blackjack is… complicated. I hope she can face what Hoofington throws at the Security Mare,” he began. “And Littlepip, she has her own troubles, but it has been a while since I’ve met a mare who is that determined. I do believe that Red Eye and the Goddess should be afraid. Very afraid.”

I sighed. “Then I hope your confidence is well founded, Watcher.”

“I do too, Xena.”

Wha?

He must have seen my eyes go wide and my jaw hit the ground, the little Spritebot giving a tinny chuckle. But all that was very quickly becoming indignation, how in all of Equus did this little foolish tin can know my real identity!? It was for Scrap Heap alone!

“Sorry, I watch things. I learn a lot about many people,” he explained. I was rather hoping my glare showed just how displeased I am about this little revelation. “But, uh… name for a name?”

Watcher’s name?

“I would say you’ve earned it, but I trust you won’t spread it around?”

“You know my own, I say we can trade our silence.”

“Fair enough!” he stated, seemingly going on to examine the area to make sure we were alone. “Well… Name’s Spike. Nice to meet you!”

Spike? That’s a-

Wait.

Spike…

As in…

“Anyway, I should leave you to it,” he declared.

Wait! No you don’t! If he is that Spike, then… What!?

“See you around. Probably.”

A burst of static, and the music returned.

…I am surrounded by fools!

Ugh, fine. I suppose that is a mystery for another time, another place. Watcher, Spike, got what he wanted out of us. We stopped Kronos and saved the changelings, I’m sure he has more pressing matters to attend to than my own curiosity.

But if I see him again, he will give answers!

I sighed, glancing around at the now empty and silent wasteland. It was just me and the four silent graves, forever watching over the hive’s entrance. Perhaps the Queen was right, it was time to return down to the stable. I couldn’t deny the chill in the air; the coming night would be an unpleasant one. I just hope Cobalt and his escort are prepared to see it through.

Just one more minute…

I sighed, returning to the side of Scrap Heap’s grave. I gently laid myself down next to it, staying as close as I could to the site. I could almost imagine him next to me, his coat brushing up against mine. Our heads resting together, our warmth shared, the peace it brought…

Almost.

I lifted off my saddlebags, swiftly searching through them for the little statuette he had gifted me in his final moments. And there, held in my hoof, the serene features of Twilight Sparkle stared back at me. I think Scrap Heap had admired her, just a little. What she had been, what she had faced and what the war had tried turning her into. She was a pony who fought so hard and yet lost it all.

And still, she kept trying. Somewhere, inside Unity, she kept trying despite its futility.

A little pony who had made many mistakes and held her share of the blame, and yet one whose heart would forever strive for redemption. Twilight Sparkle’s heart was one that belonged to the friendships she had developed, just as mine had become.

If she couldn’t give up, then I couldn’t either.

He wouldn’t.

A shaky breath made its way from my muzzle, a small drop welling and falling from my eye and down along my cheek. This was my pain to bear. It always would be.

But I would bear it.

I gently placed Twilight Sparkle down, glancing towards Scrap Heap’s other gift. The PipBuck blinked idly on my hoof, ready to serve me as it had him for all that time.

It was time for me to return, but perhaps some music would provide solace. Or, maybe, I would hear more of Watcher’s heroes and their own adventures. I hope they keep their own friends close.

And yet, as I switched to the radio and found DJ Pon-3’s signal, a strange something caught my eye. A little detail on the main status screen, right next to the image of a pony showing your vitals and overall condition. The Stable Colt has turned into the Stable Filly unexpectedly, a content look on her face as the condition bar by the torso image now had an exclamation point contained within a triangle by its side.

And why…

Why was there a smaller Stable Colt with its own set of vital signs next to it?

“Howdy Wasteland, this is DJ Pon-3! Ready for some news?”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mixed bag today, children. The changelings are saved! Better yet, sources claim that they are committed to being friendly. And don’t you think about going after the ‘squishy’ stable dwellers, you raider bastards, because they are anything but. I hear a Changeling Queen is like a pre-war alicorn, even stronger than those fakes wandering around as of late.”

“But here comes the bad news…”

“The Scavenger didn’t make it.”

“Apparently, he and some of his friends gave their lives to blow up a contingent of Red Eye’s slavers who tried capturing the whole stable. Blew them straight to Tartarus, took out some of those fakes I mentioned too. Whew, that’s a way to go. Now, I have seen many heroes go out in a blaze of glory, and it always breaks a piece of me on the inside. But they fought the good fight until the bitter end. And for that, we owe him and his friends, especially the few who lived to tell his story, a great debt of gratitude.”

“This is the Age of Heroes, children. The Scavenger is only a small part of the bigger picture. The Stable Dweller continues to go around fixing all the little ponies’ toasters. Security cuts a swath through every slaving moron in the Hoof. Even the mysterious Ghost has made a dent in the dangers of the Long 52.”

“I don’t know if it’ll matter. I don’t know if we can drag ourselves from the pit we dug our own sorry asses into.”

“But these ponies, and non-ponies, are sure damn well trying. People, let this Age of Heroes continue. Let us all be our own heroes. Follow their examples, keep your friends close, let us show the likes of Red Eye that Equestria won’t tolerate his shit anymore.”

“Keep fighting that good fight, people. Little by little, we might just make things better.”

“This has been Dj Pon-3. Bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.”

Footnote: Save File Loaded, Xena, Max Level

New Perk: In Memoriam – The loss of your friends has hardened you. You now gain a +10% damage boost when travelling without companions.